p. 378 | The Missionary by J. W. Scoles

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 24, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 24.

The Missionary.

By J. W. Scoles

THE LAND OF THE CZARS. NO. 6.

As has been previously shown in these articles, the power of the Government in Russia is absolute, and when the privilege of using a certain portion of that power is bestowed without limit upon any single individual, as is the case in the Ministry of the Interior, it necessarily follows that arbitrary and unjust enactments are apt to be enforced upon the people, who in a case like this are incapable of making resistance unless they do so through revolution.

The career of Count Demetrius Tolstoi, who died in Russia a few weeks since, and who had been Minister of the Interior since 1882, is a fair illustration of this. His career was marked by the most cruel injustice imaginable. Several of the leading papers in the empire were time and again suppressed for periods varying from two weeks to several months, and in some instances the publishers were forbidden to ever engage in the business of publishing again. All independent political thought was entirely crushed as far as possible, and it was owing to Tolstoi's efforts that the movement for legal self-government ended as it did in complete failure. He was the opponent of every reform, and was particularly active in exiling "suspected" persons to Siberia; so much so that probably no man in Russia was more cordially hated at the time of his death. This, however, not only shows the desire which existed upon his part to use the power commissioned to him, but also shows the abuses which are possible under such a system of government as Russia possesses.

The "administrative process" previously spoken of, obtains its effectiveness from this source, and the almost utter inability to obtain justice is readily comprehended when it is remembered that the charges against many of the so-called criminals are never examined by the Minister of the Interior at all, but are delegated to inferior officers, who are often actuated by personal feelings of avarice, pride, or revenge to bring in accusations against those who are entirely innocent. Here, again, we see an opportunity for the abuse of power, and, according to all authentic sources, this opportunity is frequently made use of to an unjust and shameful extent.

Probably in no other civilized country in all the world are such travesties on justice perpetrated. The most puerile and absurd excuses are given for the detention of individuals who are suspected of criminality. Persons who had no thought of disloyalty to the Government have been compelled to submit to the searching of their houses and premises by officers of the law, and upon several occasions the mere possession of such works as "Mill's Political Economy," and "Spencer's Moral Essays," has been sufficient cause for the unlucky possessor to be banished to Siberia.

A total indifference to the rights of those who are accused appears to pervade the entire department of justice, and is, apparently, so natural that it seems but just to conclude that it is the legitimate outgrowth of such a system as is in force in that country. This

was noticeable in the case of our own Brother Conradi, during the many weary days he laid in the prison of Perekop, in the Crimea, waiting for justice to be done him; and his was only one out of thousands of similar cases. In the article to which reference was made last week, Mr. Kennan continues:—

"In 1874 a young student named Egor Lazaref was arrested in one of the southeastern provinces of European Russia upon the charge of carrying on a secret revolutionary propaganda. He was taken to St. Petersburg and kept in solitary confinement in the house of Preliminary Detention and the fortress for about four years. He was then tried with 'the 193' and acquitted. One would suppose that to be arrested without cause, to be held four years in solitary confinement, to be finally declared innocent, and then to have no means whatever of redress, would make a revolutionist, if not a terrorist, out of the most peaceable citizen; but Mr. Lazaref, as soon as he had been released, quietly completed his education in the university, studied law, and began the practice of his profession in the city of Saratof on the Volga. He had no more trouble with the Government until the summer of 1884, when a police officer suddenly appeared to him one morning and said that the governor of the province would like to see him. Mr. Lazaref, who was on pleasant personal terms with the governor, went at once to the latter's konsilaria, or office, where he was coolly informed that he was to be exiled by administrative process to Eastern Siberia for three years. Mr. Lazaref stood aghast.

"May I ask your high excellency for what reason?' he finally inquired.

'I do not know,' replied the governor. 'I have received orders to that effect from the Minister of the Interior, and that is all I know about it.'

"Through the influence of friends in St. Petersburg, Mr. Lazaref obtained a respite of two weeks in which to settle up his affairs, and he was then sent as a prisoner to Moscow. He reached that city after the last party of political exiles had been dispatched for the season, and had to live in the Moscow forwarding prison until the next spring. While there he wrote a respectful letter to the Department of Imperial Police, asking, as a favor, that he might be informed for what reason he was to be exiled to Eastern Siberia. The reply that he received was comprised in two lines, and was as follows: 'You are to be put under police surveillance in Eastern Siberia because you have not abandoned your previous criminal activity.' In other words, he was to be banished to the Trans-Baikal because he had not 'abandoned' the 'previous criminal activity' of which a court of justice had found him not guilty."

"Theoretically, the Minister of the Interior, aided by a council composed of three of his own subordinates and two officers from the Ministry of Justice, reviews and re-examines the cases of all political offenders who are dealt with by administrative process; but practically he does nothing of the kind, and it is impossible that he should do anything of the kind, for the very simple reason that he has not the time. According to the Russian newspaper Strana, in the year 1881 there came before the Department of Imperial Police 1,500 political cases. A very large proportion of these cases were dealt with by administrative process, and if the Minister of the Interior had given to each one of them a half, or one-quarter, of the study which was absolutely essential to a clear comprehension of it, he would have had no time to attend to anything else. As a matter of fact, he did not give the cases such study, but, as a rule, simply signed the papers that came up to him from below. . . . He accepted the statements passed up to him by a long line of subordinate officials, and signed his name merely as a formality, and as a matter of course. How easy it is in Russia to get a high official's signature to any sort of a document may be illustrated by an anecdote that I have every reason to believe is absolutely true. A stola-nachalnik, or head of a bureau, in the provincial administration of Tobolsk, while boasting one day about his power to shape and direct governmental action, made a wager with another chinovnik that he could get the governor of the province—the late Governor Lissogorski—to sign a manuscript copy of the Lord's prayer. He wrote the prayer out in the form of an official document on a sheet of stamped paper, numbered it, attached the proper seal to it, and handed it to the governor with a pile of other papers which required signature. He won his wager. The governor duly signed the Lord's prayer, and it was probably as harmless an official document as ever came out of his office."

"Another exile of my acquaintance, Mr. Y., was banished merely because he was a friend of Mr. Z., who was awaiting trial on the charge of political conspiracy. When Mr. Z.'s case came to a judicial investigation he was found to be innocent and was acquitted; but in the meantime, Mr. Y., merely for being a friend of this innocent man, had gone to Siberia by administrative process.

"In another case a young student, called Vladimir Sidorski (I use a fictitious name), was arrested by mistake instead of another and a different Sidorski named Victor, whose presence in Moscow was regarded by somebody as 'prejudicial to social order.' Vladimir protested that he was not Victor, that he did not know Victor, and that his arrest in the place of Victor was the result of a stupid blunder; but his protestations were of no avail. The police were too much occupied in unearthing 'conspiracies' and looking after 'untrustworthy' people to devote any time to troublesome verification of an insignificant student's identity. There must have been something wrong about him, they argued, or he would not have been arrested, and the safest thing to do with him was to send him to Siberia, whoever he might be—and to Siberia he was sent. When the convoy officer called the roll of the outgoing exile party, Vladimir Sidorski failed to answer to Victor Sidorski's name, and the officer, with a curse, cried, 'Victor Sidorski, why don't you answer to your name?'

'It is not my name,' replied Vladimir, 'and I won't answer to it; it's another Sidorski who ought to be going to Siberia.'

'What is your name, then?'

"Vladimir told him. The officer coolly erased the name 'Victor' in the roll of the party, inserted the name 'Vladimir,' and remarked cynically, 'It doesn't make a bit of difference.'"

It is estimated that 95 per cent. of the political and religious exiles are absolutely innocent, and nine-tenths of them are among the most noble and cultured people of the empire; and when we stop to consider that more than 50 per cent. die in filthy prisons, or from exposure in making the trip, it seems almost sufficient to call down the wrath of Heaven upon those who perpetrate such outrages in the name of justice.

Yet the message of present truth must go to this part of the world also; yes, even to Siberia; for there are doubtless hundreds and thousands of these same exiles who would appreciate the knowledge of this precious truth which we possess. Dear brethren, let us be faithful in sowing the seed, leaving the rest unto Him who will both water it with the dews of divine grace, and give us sheaves for the heavenly garner in the glad reaping day a little way in the future.

J. W. SCOLES.