CHAPTER 16
The Killing of Rasputin
BETWEEN THE FIERY Kadet speeches of early November 1916 and the February Revolution came the killing of Rasputin in the night of December 16–17. Surprisingly, Maklakov had a hand in the assassination—a relatively remote hand, but close enough, as he acknowledged, to have entailed criminal responsibility as an accessory or abettor. In 1932 he published a detailed account of his role in an illustrated weekly that was popular with Russian émigrés in France,1 from which the next few pages are largely drawn. Before turning to his account, we should glance at the Rasputin story, a context that his readers knew well and of which many Americans have a general idea.
First, of course, is the louche figure of Rasputin himself. A kind of religious faith healer unattached to any congregation, he appeared able, perhaps by hypnotism, to relieve Alexei, heir to the throne, of the agonies of hemophilia. This service wins him the devotion of the tsarina, which enables him to hobnob with the mighty and exercise his hypnotic powers over elite ladies of the capital. Many Americans may know that he also played a kingmaker’s role, or at least seemed to do so, advancing and retarding careers at the apex of Russian political power through his influence over the tsarina and hers over the tsar, in effect overseeing the “ministerial leapfrog.” In due course eminent figures close to the throne come to believe that his influence and his conduct cry out for remedy, and that the best remedy would be assassination. They embark on the project. If the conspirators’ poison were as genuine as they thought, its administration to Rasputin proves him to be almost supernaturally tough, and a hail of bullets is needed to finish him off. The conspirators then dump his body into the freezing Neva River. Without weights attached, the body resurfaces, and Russia’s educated elite soon know the general outline of the entire story. At least in part because the conspirators include the tsar’s relatives (Prince Felix Yusupov, married to the tsar’s only niece and thus his nephew-in-law, and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, the tsar’s cousin), none of them is ever prosecuted. The regime continues to lurch along until it is swept aside in the February Revolution.
This biography of Maklakov doesn’t directly modify that account. But it does add a surprising figure to the list of conspirators—an eminent lawyer, legislator, and sincere avatar of the rule of law. The relatively well-known conspirators, Yusupov and Purishkevich (whom we encountered before as coiner of the phrase “ministerial leapfrog”), published accounts that contained a role for Maklakov, but some of the conduct imputed to him—above all, supplying a possible but unlikely murder weapon—seems so bizarre as to strain credulity. Nonetheless, Maklakov’s 1932 account in broad outline confirms their stories. Maklakov is at pains to correct some of their details, and argues that his recollection is likely to be better because his link consisted solely of his conversations with them, whereas they were involved in all aspects of the plot. His argument seems persuasive. Rather than specify their disagreements and justify my crediting of him, I simply draw on his account and refer interested readers to theirs.2
Maklakov fixes the time of his first meeting with Yusupov by its relation to memorable political news. Around November 6 or 7, 1916, he learned of the imminent dismissal of Prime Minister Stürmer; the rumor also held that Protopopov, depicted as a villain in Miliukov’s “stupidity or treason” speech, would soon get the axe. These removals seemed to Maklakov not only a great Duma victory but also a “pledge” of further successes. They put Duma members in an optimistic mood. At about the same time, a Yusupov employee asked Maklakov when he could see the prince, with whom he had no prior acquaintance. He named that same evening.
They met, and Yusupov presented his ideas. He argued that Rasputin was the cause of Russia’s political chaos, not just a symptom of the tsar’s ineffectiveness, as Maklakov believed. Yusupov said he had read Maklakov’s Duma speeches and those of his friends, but he was disappointed in what he viewed as Maklakov’s serious misunderstanding of Rasputin’s role. Based on his knowledge of the tsar’s court, he regarded Rasputin as all-powerful. “While Rasputin lives, you’ll get nowhere.” He gave examples that he thought showed Rasputin’s power over the tsar, but Maklakov thought them exaggerated. Maklakov maintained that Yusupov underestimated the Duma’s influence, citing in support of his contention the departure of Stürmer and the imminent departure of Protopopov as evidence. Yusupov explained that Stürmer was dismissed because he’d kept the empress waiting for four hours, and he assured Maklakov—correctly, as it proved—that Protopopov would stay. (Protopopov lasted right up to the February Revolution.)
Yusupov went on to argue that the only solutions were either to buy Rasputin off or to kill him. Maklakov said he thought that buying him would involve the buyer with unreliable intermediaries, and that there was a much richer buyer in the market for Rasputin’s allegiance—he was alluding to rumors that Rasputin was in league with the Germans. Yusupov insisted that apart from buying or killing him, there was no way out. Maklakov argued that even if Yusupov were correct about Rasputin’s influence, the fault lay with the regime; if they killed Rasputin, others would appear to replace him. Yusupov responded, “You talk this way because you have no idea of his supernatural magnetism. I’m very familiar with this, and I assure you one meets such strength only once in a hundred years. . . . If he’s killed today, within two weeks the empress will have to go to a place for the mentally ill. Her mental balance depends entirely on Rasputin. As soon as he’s not there, she’ll fall apart. And when the tsar is freed of Rasputin, everything will change; he’ll become a good constitutional monarch.”
Judging Yusupov to have made up his mind, Maklakov asked if he’d considered the dangers for himself personally. “You have a lot to lose.” (This comment may have been partly an allusion to Yusupov’s being one of the richest men in Russia—indeed, in the world.) Yusupov explained that he was planning to have it done by others. Who was he counting on? Yusupov answered as if it were obvious: revolutionaries. Maklakov was shocked by the naiveté, since in his view the revolutionaries viewed Rasputin as their best friend; no one else’s existence and activities so undercut the monarchy’s prestige. (Maklakov speculated that Yusupov had come to him as an entrée to revolutionaries, thinking that revolutionaries and the liberal opposition were all pretty much the same. This inability of Russia’s contending forces to see vital distinctions among their adversaries was of course a longtime Maklakovian theme.) Yusupov then proposed an alternative—to hire killers. “I’m ready to give all that’s needed.” This suggestion irritated Maklakov in a different way. “I asked him rather sharply, ‘Why have you turned to me? Do you think I run an office for assassins?’
“The conversation became unpleasant for me. Yusupov sensed it, and we started to say goodbye. I was troubled by his inexperience. I imagined the danger he would run with his proposed plan. As we said goodbye, I said: ‘Now that you’ve turned to me and placed confidence in me, let me respond with some good advice. If you find someone who agrees to kill for money, run away from him. Only rascals will kill for money, and any one of them will figure out that it’s easier to blackmail you than to kill Rasputin. But if you stand by your decision and want to do it yourself, feel free to come to me and I can perhaps warn you away from unnecessary errors.’” Then they parted.
Maklakov’s account pauses to note the political events of the moment. Protopopov did not resign; Prince Yusupov was right. A wave of bitterness replaced the Duma’s optimism. Then, on November 19, in a full assembly of the Duma, with a new cabinet on hand headed by Alexander Trepov (he lasted only a few weeks; the leapfrog pace was accelerating), Purishkevich gave a speech denouncing Rasputin. About a week later he met Maklakov in the Duma’s Catherine Hall, and Purishkevich asked him if he had seen Yusupov. Maklakov answered that he had seen him once. Purishkevich, in the midst of a throng of public figures: “So you know, now it’s been decided to kill Rasputin.” Maklakov feigned not to understand. Purishkevich pressed on, “I know all, how Yusupov talke
d with you and what he told you.” Maklakov drew him aside, and they sat on a bench under a bust of Alexander II. Although they remained in everyone’s sight, at least they could not be heard. Maklakov’s Russian readers would have recognized in Purishkevich’s conduct one of his signature traits, complete lack of discretion; even for them it may have seemed extreme. As it proved, an outburst by Purishkevich directly after the assassination first alerted the police—though the scheme was so loosely strung together that they would have discovered it before long anyway.
Once the two sat down, according to Maklakov, “Purishkevich as usual didn’t give me a chance to open my mouth.” He said, “I know everything you’ve talked about with Yusupov.” Maklakov countered, “If you know all, you know how I answered him.” Purishkevich answered that Yusupov agreed with him, and they weren’t going to hire an assassin; only “intelligent people” would participate. Maklakov especially remembered (and marveled at) Purishkevich’s contrast between hired people and intelligent people. As Maklakov earned his living by his wits, he doubtless saw no conflict. Purishkevich named the other participants and told him the assassination was to take place on the night of December 16–17. As we know from chapter 12, Maklakov was committed to give a talk to the Moscow Juridical Society on peasant rights that same evening. He told Purishkevich of his prior commitment and asked why he was telling him all this. Purishkevich answered that he was acting at the request of Yusupov, who wanted to know whether, now that Maklakov knew who was going to join, he would help. Maklakov writes, “I was already bound by my proposal to Yusupov”—presumably the agreement to give advance advice—“and gave my agreement.” This was November 28.
There follows a passage in which Maklakov corrects various parts of Purishkevich’s account of the conversation, particularly his saying that Maklakov offered to help with legal advice and act as their defense counsel. In reality, Maklakov notes, it should have been clear that his sole goal was to make sure, through advance advice, that any such trial would be unnecessary and, indeed, impossible.
A second visit from Yusupov followed, occurring just as Yusupov recounted in his memoirs. Maklakov reproached him for inviting Purishkevich into the plot, saying he was completely unsuitable. Yusupov defended his decision, saying he turned to Purishkevich after his speech in the Duma attacking Rasputin, and had found a kindred spirit, ready to act. He trusted in his patriotism; in that, writes Maklakov, he was not mistaken. He met with Yusupov several more times.
Maklakov then seeks to explain his conduct. As before, he writes, he didn’t expect the assassination to bring about Russia’s salvation. But he realized the plot wasn’t idle chatter, as he had thought at first. Yusupov revealed persistence and decisiveness and, finally, was not alone. No matter what Maklakov’s relation to the assassination, it would take place. “I couldn’t prevent the assassination, and I did not want to assist it. . . . But I wanted to warn them off steps that might deprive the action even of the purpose that Yusupov saw in it.” His view of the assassination was like that of Macbeth before the murder of Duncan, with a slight edit: “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done well.”
But was Maklakov correct in his understanding that he could not prevent the assassination? Nothing counters his assessment that he couldn’t dissuade Yusupov. Still, he could have brought the plot to the attention of the police. Why not do so? He never discusses it, but one can see potential problems. First, they might not believe him: his word against that of the tsar’s nephew-in-law? Or they might believe him and prefer not to act. Second, if the police did take action, revelation of a plot within the Russian elite would likely generate a prolonged public wrangle. It would expose and aggravate fault lines within the elite (the empress against much of society) and within the country as a whole (the anti-Rasputin elite against millions of ordinary people), perhaps precipitating a struggle to seize control—a struggle that could drive Russia over the cliff with the mad chauffeur still clinging to the wheel. An assassination in which the actors remained anonymous might pose less of a threat to stability. It seems likely that Maklakov harbored such concerns. Later in the account he explains why he wholeheartedly shared Yusupov’s hope that the assassins would not be revealed: a trial, especially in time of war, would stir up passions so much that assassination might prove a prologue to revolution. It was critical that the assassins not be found. But could the assassination be so well choreographed as to fulfill Maklakov’s hopes that they would remain unknown? The belief that it could strikes me as naïve; there, it seems to me, is where Maklakov’s reasoning is most vulnerable—even if we put aside the ethics of participating in a murder.
In one of his consultations with Maklakov, Yusupov said that the idea was for Purishkevich to take Rasputin’s body to the front when he himself went there by train, and somehow hide it there. Maklakov threw cold water on that idea, saying that having the indisputable body of Rasputin was essential to the empress’s believing in his death. Also, without the body, people would arise claiming to act in his name. Though the conspirators obviously abandoned the plan of taking the body to the front, the decision to drop it into the Neva seems at odds with Maklakov’s advice.
A few days before the assassination, Purishkevich blabbed again. A journalist at the Duma named Baker (probably George Barr Baker, later associated with Herbert Hoover in American relief activities) told Maklakov of how Purishkevich had come into a room full of journalists and said that Rasputin would soon be assassinated. Maklakov asked Baker when this had happened. Baker said only that Purishkevich entered and began to talk of the war and such, and that when someone expressed doubt that it could be won under Rasputin (Maklakov quotes Baker as using the Russian preposition pri, meaning “under” in a political context, as in “pri Alexander I” or “pri Stalin”), he told them not to worry: Rasputin would soon be killed. The journalists laughed and didn’t believe him. Purishkevich began to get angry and finally blurted out, “It’s not just idle talk. I’m in the plot myself, with Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. The killing will be December 17.” Maklakov told Baker, “He was kidding you. If it were true, obviously he wouldn’t have started to talk about it.”
Maklakov reported the conversation to Yusupov, who seemed overcome by his confederates’ hopeless inadequacy. He asked Maklakov, for the first time, if he could be in St. Petersburg on the scheduled night: “Things may take a turn such that I’ll need good advice. You alone could give it to me. . . . I don’t ask you to participate, just be near enough so that I could talk with you if necessary.” Yusupov specifically asked Maklakov to be present in Yusupov’s house on the night.
Again Maklakov felt he was being dragged steadily into a project in which he had no confidence and of which he didn’t approve. But, he reports, he felt that to refuse Yusupov now, when he had already taken part so much, would seem to show fear for his own personal responsibility. And he did think that conspirators like these might well commit an irreparable mistake at the most decisive moment. But he reminded Yusupov of his commitment to speak at the Moscow Juridical Society and consented to be on hand only if it agreed to postpone the meeting.
Maklakov then turns to the subject of a curious rubber truncheon that he had given to Yusupov. By the latter’s account, Maklakov had handed it to him on his own initiative, saying, “Just in case.” Maklakov makes a subtle correction to that account, fitting it into his persistent effort to persuade Yusupov that Rasputin should be killed (if at all) without noise and leaving as little evidence against the assassins as possible. With that in mind, he suggested killing him with a sharp blow. It would then be possible to carry the corpse off to a park by car, and to make the death appear to be some sort of accident. Talking with Yusupov of this on one occasion, he pointed as an example to an object lying on his desk, a kind of truncheon or bludgeon with an encased lead sphere at either end. (The 1932 article contains a picture of an item said to be like this object.) He had bought it abroad, and it always lay on his desk, p
artly for use as a paperweight and partly for self-defense if need be.
As Yusupov was leaving, he asked for the truncheon. Maklakov said no. His resistance, he claims, was not out of concern over criminal responsibility. Regardless of the truncheon, he was in the plot deeply enough to be guilty as an accomplice or abettor. But that sort of truncheon could not be found in Russia, and he wanted to keep it. Yusupov insisted, however, and Maklakov yielded. He explains why he bothered to correct Yusupov’s version: that version, he thought, made him sound like a silent provoker. Yusupov, in his own account of the murder, gives the truncheon a surprising role. He describes using it to beat the body of Rasputin, lying on a stairway landing in the Yusupov mansion, apparently already dead or at least dying from bullet wounds.3
Following up on the “silent provoker” theme, Maklakov mentions that Purishkevich went even further, asserting that Ma klakov had given Yusupov potassium cyanide. In his introduction to Purishkevich’s account, Maklakov had fairly handily dispatched it, at least as to Purishkevich’s dealings with him, noting that although Purishkevich’s text was presented as a “diary,” its dates were jumbled. Regarding his supplying Yusupov with poison, he had written, “It was not I who gave Yusupov potassium cyanide, or more precisely, what to Yusupov passed for potassium cyanide—had it been genuine, no amount of hardiness on Rasputin’s part would have saved him.”4 Maklakov’s skepticism about the supposed poison seems justified. An autopsy performed soon after the slaying reported no trace of poison. Apparently by coincidence, the autopsy was prepared by Professor Dmitri Kosorotov, who had testified for the prosecution in the Beilis trial. There he claimed that the victim’s wounds manifested the killers’ intent to extract the maximum amount of blood (thus supporting the “blood ritual” theory), a notion persuasively countered by the defense experts. In exchange for his Beilis trial testimony, Kosorotov received 4,000 rubles, arranged through then–Minister of Internal Affairs Nikolai Maklakov and paid out of 10 million rubles at the disposition of the tsar for off-the-books expenses.5 Despite Kosorotov’s shabby behavior in the Beilis trial, his autopsy on Rasputin seems to have held up.
The Reformer Page 31