Catherine the Great

by Robert K. Massie

  In Pugachev’s headquarters in Berda, his lieutenants and camp followers were ready to flee, but all knew that only those with horses would be able to escape. “Leave the peasants to their fate,” became the rationale. “The common people are not fighters; they are just sheep.” On March 23, Pugachev left his headquarters in Berda, taking with him two thousand men and abandoning the rest of his army. Bibikov’s advance guard entered Berda the same day. The scale was balanced, however, when Bibikov, the architect of victory, suddenly developed fever and died. Catherine, saddened, assumed that his subordinate officers would complete his mission. Pugachev disappeared into the Urals.

  Before he died Bibikov had assured Catherine that “the suspicion of foreigners is completely unfounded.” The empress then wrote to Voltaire attributing “this freakish event” to the fact that the Orenburg region “is inhabited by all the good-for-nothings of whom Russia has thought fit to rid herself over the past forty years, rather in the same spirit that the American colonies have been populated.” She defended her policy of leniency in the treatment of rebel prisoners by writing her friend Frau Bielcke of Hamburg, who had complained that the measures taken had not been sufficiently severe: “Since you like hangings so much, I can tell you that four or five unfortunates have already been hanged. And the rarity of such punishments has a thousand times more effect on us here than on those where hangings happen every day.”

  Catherine believed that the rebellion was over. For the next three months she turned her attention away from Pugachev and back to the Russian offensive on the Danube. She continued to follow the investigation into the causes of the upheaval. A commission report issued on May 21, 1774, restated Bibikov’s earlier assessment, discounting the possibility of domestic conspiracy or foreign meddling. The revolt was blamed on Pugachev’s exploitation of discontent among the Yaik Cossacks, the tribal peoples, and the serfs assigned to the Urals metalworks. Pugachev was depicted as crude and uneducated, but the investigators cautioned that he was also crafty, resourceful, and persuasive—a dangerous man who should not be ignored or forgotten until he was dead or delivered in chains into the hands of imperial officers.

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  The Last Days of the “Marquis de Pugachev”

  BY THE TIME Catherine read the Secret Commission report, at the end of May 1774, she considered it a kind of postmortem on the Pugachev revolt. Then, to her astonishment, on July 11, Pugachev appeared before the town of Kazan on the Volga at the head of an army of twenty thousand men. The following day he stormed, captured, and burned the almost defenseless town. His next objective, he announced, was Moscow. Already he had promised, “If God gives me power over the state, and when I have captured Moscow, I will order everyone to follow the Old Belief and to wear Russian clothes. I will forbid the shaving of the beard, and will have hair cut in Cossack fashion.”

  Kazan, with its ethnically diverse population of eleven thousand, had fascinated Catherine during her visit in July 1768. Now, Pugachev’s attack had quickly overwhelmed the town’s outnumbered defenders, and his men reduced the city, built mostly of wood, to ruins by fire. A maelstrom of killing, raping, and looting accompanied the flames. Unbearded men in European dress were instantly killed; women in foreign dress were dragged away to Pugachev’s camp. Two-thirds of Kazan’s twenty-nine hundred buildings were destroyed. Nobles and their families who could get away fled to Moscow.

  The old capital began to prepare its defenses, but Pugachev did not come. A Russian army, already hurrying to Kazan, arrived too late to save the town, but on July 15, it struck and defeated Pugachev. The following day, the false tsar reappeared with fifteen thousand men. In a four-hour battle, the rebel army was routed; two thousand died, and five thousand were taken prisoner. After the battle, ten thousand men and women held captive in Pugachev’s camp were freed. The pretender with the remnants of his army fled to the south, down the Volga.

  The taking and burning of Kazan was the high-water mark of Pugachev’s revolt. Had he not been defeated there, he might have marched on Moscow, carrying the revolt into the heart of serf-owning Russia. Immediately afterward, the impostor learned about the Russian-Turkish peace treaty and realized that regular troops would now be available to the government, By August, a veteran Russian army under General Vasily Suvorov, released from the Danube campaign, was advancing in his direction. Pugachev’s men, demoralized by defeat and retreat, began to worry about the consequences of their rebellion. In increasing numbers, they began to desert.

  Pugachev was now entering an area populated by small landowners possessing few serfs. Attempting to raise a new army, he called on these serfs to rise against their masters, promising liberty to “be forever Cossacks, free from taxes, levies, recruiting, evil landowners, and corrupt judges.” Some serfs slipped away from their owners, but their number was dropping; the revolt was faltering, losing energy and purpose. In turning south, Pugachev was returning to his childhood home, the land of the Don Cossacks. But few impostors can be successful among people with whom they have been raised. “Why does he call himself Tsar Peter?” the Don Cossacks asked. “He is Emelyan Pugachev, the farmer, who deserted his wife Sophia and his children.”

  After Pugachev’s sudden reappearance before Kazan, Catherine knew that the government had relaxed too soon. At a council session on July 14, she had declared that Rumyantsev’s victories on the Danube had brought Russia close to peace. And then, on July 21, news of the destruction of Kazan had reached St. Petersburg, two days before Rumyantsev’s son arrived with news of peace with the Turks. That morning as Catherine convened her council, she did not know either about Pugachev’s defeat after his sacking of Kazan or that a peace had been reached with Turkey. “Extremely shaken” by the news from Kazan, she interrupted the council’s discussion and announced that she intended to leave for Moscow immediately to restore confidence. Her councillors were silent until Nikita Panin spoke up, saying that her unexpected arrival might alarm rather than calm the people. It was decided that Panin’s younger brother, General Peter Panin, the most experienced general available, then in retirement near Moscow, would be appointed to assume command against Pugachev.

  Catherine approved this choice reluctantly. She recognized Peter Panin’s military abilities, but she disliked him personally. He had often declared that Russia should be ruled by a man; his preference was Grand Duke Paul. Catherine also worried about his reputation as a military martinet and about his unconventional personal behavior: he sometimes appeared in his headquarters wearing a gray satin nightgown and a large French nightcap with pink ribbons. She had been annoyed by the histrionic nature of his abrupt retirement, taken because he felt inadequately rewarded for his successes in the Turkish war. By the fall of 1773, she had authorized surveillance of “the insolent windbag.” Now, facing the need to appoint Peter Panin, she confessed to her new admirer Gregory Potemkin: “Before the whole world, frightened of Pugachev, I commend and elevate above all mortals in the empire a prime big-mouth who insults me personally.” Nevertheless, Catherine the empress took precedence over Catherine the affronted woman, and on July 22, Peter Panin was appointed general in chief. The following day, July 23, news of the peace treaty with Turkey reached St. Petersburg. Catherine was doubly pleased: the territorial gains of the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardzhi were substantial, and her army would now be free to confront Pugachev.

  Peter Panin demanded authority over all military forces assigned to deal with the revolt and over all officials and people in the affected areas. To Potemkin, Catherine continued, “You see, my friend, that Count [Nikita] Panin wants to make his brother the ruler with unlimited powers in the best part of the empire. If I sign this, not only will Prince Volkonsky [the governor-general of Moscow] be offended and made to look silly, but I myself will be seen publicly to be praising a man who is a first class liar and who has personally offended me.”

  Catherine did not completely surrender to Peter Panin. Buoyed by her sweeping victory over the Turks and by Pugachev’s de
feat at Kazan, she restricted his authority to the regions directly affected and declared that the Investigating Commission would remain under her direct personal supervision. Panin was further circumscribed by being given Suvorov as his second in command. Panin, like Bibikov, was encouraged to enlist the nobility in the rebellious provinces. As their reward, all privileges of the aristocracy, including absolute power over their serfs, were guaranteed by the crown. This approach produced results: the noblemen mustered men, money, and supplies of food.

  In the field, Panin’s methods of retribution were only marginally less cruel than those of Pugachev. Earlier, under Bibikov, the army had dealt leniently with captured rebels. After the relief of Orenburg, the vast majority of Pugachev’s followers taken prisoner had been released with a safe conduct pass and told to go home. Most of the prisoners captured in the battles outside Kazan were released with fifteen kopecks travel money. Now, as the revolt entered the final phase with Pugachev’s destructive move down the Volga, Panin imposed fierce reprisals. On August 24, he issued a proclamation threatening all who had taken part in the revolt with death by quartering. Panin knew that he was exceeding the authority granted him by Catherine, but she was far away and he ignored her.

  Catherine spent August at Tsarskoe Selo anxiously following Pugachev’s rampage down the Volga. By the end of the month she told Voltaire that she was expecting “something decisive,” because for ten days she had not heard from Panin, and since “bad news travels faster than good, I am hoping for something good.” As Suvorov’s veterans advanced, Pugachev’s army began melting away. Yet even near the end he inspired fear. On July 26, in Saransk, he dined in the house of the governor’s widow and then hanged her outside her window. Nobles were hanged upside down in groups with their heads, hands, and feet cut off. On August 1, horsemen announced in the marketplace of Penza that “Peter III” was coming and that if he were not welcomed with the traditional bread and salt, everyone in the town, including babies, would be slaughtered. He came, was welcomed, two hundred men were forcibly recruited, and the governor’s house was burned down with the governor and twenty of the gentry locked inside. In another town, a resident astronomer was hanged so that he might be “nearer the stars.”

  Pugachev’s attempts to recruit among his fellow Don Cossacks were mostly ignored. Everyone knew that a reward of twenty thousand rubles had been posted for his capture and that veteran government troops were approaching. Many also knew that Pugachev was not Peter III. When he appeared on August 21 before Tsaritsyn (later Stalingrad, now Volgograd), riding forward to talk to a group of Don Cossack leaders, he was publicly recognized and denounced as an impostor. Two days later, on August 24, he suffered final defeat at Sarepta, south of Tsaritsyn. The defeat became a rout. Pugachev escaped by swimming the Volga with thirty followers. But defeat, fear, and hunger were sapping the loyalty of everyone around him.

  On September 15, 1774, almost exactly a year after he had launched his revolt, Pugachev was back where he had begun: at Yaitsk on the Yaik River. There, a group of frightened lieutenants, hoping to save themselves by betrayal, fell on their sleeping chief. “How dare you raise your hands against your emperor?” he shouted. “You will achieve nothing.” Unmoved, they delivered him in chains to Peter Panin.

  On September 30, Panin wrote to Catherine that he had seen the “infernal monster.” Pugachev had made no attempt to sustain his imposture. He fell on his knees, declared that he was Emelyan Pugachev, and admitted that, in parading himself as Peter III, he had sinned before God and Her Imperial Majesty. He was placed inside an iron cage not large enough to allow him to stand, and the cage was bolted onto a two-wheeled cart. In this manner, he was trundled for hundreds of miles to Moscow, through towns and villages where he had been hailed as a liberating hero.

  On November 4, 1774, Pugachev and his rolling cage arrived in Moscow. Six weeks of interrogation began. The empress was resolved to satisfy her doubts about the rebellion; she still could not believe that an illiterate Cossack had instigated the revolt on his own. Voltaire lightheartedly proposed that Pugachev be asked, “Sir, are you master or servant? I do not ask who employs you but simply whether you are employed.” Catherine wanted more: if there were employers, she wished to know their identities. Catherine carefully monitored the proceedings, but despite the intensity of her curiosity, she refused to allow the use of the rack. Before the investigation began, she had written to Prince Volkonsky, governor-general of Moscow, “For God’s sake, refrain from all questioning under torture which always obscures the truth.” Behind this command was not only her opposition to barbarism but also political calculation. The rebellion appeared to have spent itself, but that had also seemed the case before the surprise assault on Kazan. Perhaps, even now, there might be another leader waiting to revive the rebellion. Torture of the man whom many peasants had believed was a tsar could provide another spark. Although she was intrigued by the impostor’s character and motives, she had no desire to see him. She was already planning a lengthy visit to Moscow to celebrate the peace with Turkey, and she wished the whole Pugachev business to be finished before she arrived. As for foreign influence, even before the interrogators were finished Catherine concluded that there was none. To Voltaire she wrote, “The Marquis de Pugachev has lived like a scoundrel and will die like a coward. He cannot read or write, but he is a bold and determined man. So far there is not a shred of evidence that he was the instrument of any foreign power. It is to be supposed that Monsieur Pugachev is a master brigand and no man’s servant. No one since Tamerlane has done more harm than he.”

  On December 5, the work of the interrogating commission was completed. Pugachev had confessed and expressed hope for mercy, but a death sentence was inevitable. Nevertheless, Catherine wrote to Voltaire, “If it were only me he had harmed, his hopes could be justified and I should pardon him, but this trial involves the empire and its laws.” To dissociate herself publicly from the trial and execution, she privately sent Procurator General Vyazemsky to Moscow with instructions to end the affair quickly. She followed by writing to the Moscow governor, Prince Volkonsky: “Please help to inspire everyone with moderation both in the number and in the punishment of the criminals. The opposite will be regrettable to my love for humanity. We do not have to be clever to deal with barbarians.”

  Vyazemsky did his best to obey. To avoid public pressure in the vengeful atmosphere of Moscow, he established a special court made up of high officials and members of the Holy Synod. The trial was conducted secretly in the Kremlin on December 30 and 31. Pugachev was brought before the court on the second day. He fell on his knees, admitted again that he was Emelyan Pugachev, acknowledged his crimes, and declared that he repented before God and the all-merciful empress. When he was led away, the judges decided that he should be quartered alive and then beheaded. But when the same sentence was awarded to one of his lieutenants, several judges protested that the sentence on Pugachev should be more severe and painful than that on others. “So they wanted to break Pugachev on the wheel,” Vyazemsky wrote to Catherine, “in order to distinguish him from the rest.” Eventually, the procurator general persuaded the court to leave Pugachev’s sentence as it was. Knowing that the empress would never accept the public spectacle of Pugachev being quartered alive, Vyazemsky secretly arranged with Moscow’s chief of police to have the executioner “accidentally” behead Pugachev first and afterward chop off his hands and feet. The execution took place before an immense crowd in a Moscow square on January 10, 1775. Pugachev crossed himself and laid his head on the block. Then, to the indignant rage of spectators who included noblemen come to savor their revenge, the executioner seemed to bungle his job by immediately decapitating Pugachev; many were convinced that either the executioner was incompetent or that he had been bribed by someone. Four of Pugachev’s lieutenants were quartered first, then beheaded. The lieutenants who had betrayed and handed over their chief were pardoned.

  A few days after Pugachev’s death, Catherine departe
d for Moscow to celebrate Russia’s victory over Turkey. While there, she also began obliterating all traces of the internal revolt. Pugachev’s two wives and three children were incarcerated in the fort of Kexholm in Russian Finland. Pugachev’s house on the Don was razed. It was forbidden to speak his name, and his brother, who had not participated in the revolt, was ordered to stop using the family name. The Yaik Cossacks were renamed the Ural Cossacks, and Yaitsk, their capital, and the river flowing past it were renamed Uralsk and Ural, respectively. On March 17, 1775, the empress issued a general amnesty to all involved “in the internal mutiny, uprising, unrest, and disarray of the years 1773 and 1774,” consigning “all that has passed to eternal oblivion and profound silence.” All sentences of death were commuted to hard labor; lesser sentences were reduced to exile in Siberia; deserters from the army and fugitive state peasants were pardoned. Peter Panin was thanked, and allowed to withdraw and sulk in Moscow for the rest of his life.

  In the countryside, few among the nobility shared Catherine’s belief in restraint. In reprisal for the massacre of their families and friends, the landowners were determined to exact revenge. Once order was reestablished by the army, the landowners were pitiless. Serfs thought to be guilty were condemned to death without trial. With few exceptions, property owners gave no thought to ameliorating the conditions which had driven the peasantry to its fearful rampage.

  The Pugachevshchina (time of Pugachev) was the greatest of all violent internal Russian upheavals. One hundred and thirty-four years later, the 1905 Revolution produced nationwide strikes, urban violence, Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg, the arrival of the mutinous battleship Potemkin in Odessa harbor, the storming of barricades in Moscow—and eventually the granting of a parliamentary Duma, which had the right to speak but not to act. The Russian Revolution of 1917, measured in terms of violence, was no more than a peaceful coup d’état, removing from power the Duma ministers who had replaced the abdicated Tsar Nicholas II.