The Murderers Meet
After that encounter, Felix began, he says, to seek out comrades-in-arms for the murder. He afterwards recalled in Paris, ‘Going over in my mind the friends whom I could trust with my secret, I stopped on two of them. They were Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich and Lieutenant Sukhotin… I was certain the grand duke would support me and agree to take part in executing my plan … I knew how much he hated the elder and suffered on the sovereign’s and Russia’s behalf.’ And Felix requested a meeting with Dmitry. ‘Finding him alone in his study, I quickly got to the point. The grand duke agreed at once and said that eliminating Rasputin would be the last and most effective attempt to save Russia.’
I think Felix is laying out a legend for us here — that Rasputin’s murder was conceived by him alone, and that the grand duke had merely joined in.
Most likely, it was otherwise. The last unsuccessful warning — Nikolai Mikhailovich’s visit to Headquarters — took place in November, after which the ‘era of assassination’ began. It was then that the Grand Duke Dmitry and Felix — those two very close friends — together decided to do what had received so much ineffectual discussion in the family — kill Rasputin. And the decision to kill him most likely originated with Dmitry, that gallant guardsman, who, as Felix correctly noted, ‘hated the elder’. With the soldier Dmitry and not with the civilian Felix, about whom Ella, who knew him well, would write, ‘Felix, who wouldn’t hurt a fly…who didn’t want to go into the military because he didn’t want to shed anyone else’s blood.’ But Felix’s hand was in the treachery of the plan. The ancient blood of the ruthless Tartar khans.
Dmitry and Felix were not, apparently, the only ones in the Romanov family who knew about their decision. It was no accident that Felix wrote of a ‘conspiracy’, or that the tsar would later write to the grand dukes: ‘I know that the consciences of many are not clear, since Dmitry Pavlovich is not the only one involved in this.’
In any case, there is a strange coincidence: ten days before the murder, Grand Duchess Ella would abruptly leave Petrograd. And she would not only leave it. She would go off to pray in a monastery. And not merely a monastery. But the Sarov Monastery, the site of the relics of Saint Serafim, who was considered the royal family’s patron saint. As if she knew that something important and terrifying for the family was about to happen. And she was going to pray to God and to Saint Serafim. She would subsequently write to the tsar, ‘I went to Sarov and Diveev … for ten days to pray for you — for your army, the country, the ministers, for the weak of body and spirit, including that unfortunate one, that God might enlighten him.’
Ella prayed at the monastery for God to enlighten the ‘unfortunate’ Rasputin. In order to avoid the inevitable which was being readied and about which she was aware. She was also praying for those who had decided to spill blood. For they were her own protegés — Dmitry had lived with her family before her husband was killed, and Felix, whom she called ‘my Felix’, was someone in whose upbringing she had played a large part.
The Long-Suffering Job
But discussion of the murder plan was suspended for a short while. The grand duke had to return to Headquarters. But they knew that Dmitry
would not be there long. For in Tsarskoe Selo ‘he was not liked and his influence was feared.’ And they proved to be right — as Alix’s letters show.
The grand duke, Felix writes, told him that ‘he had noticed something wasn’t right with the sovereign. With each passing day he was becoming more and more indifferent to what was going on around him …in his opinion, it was all the result of a malicious plan: the sovereign was being given something that dulled his intellectual capacities.’ There was a legend abroad at the time that Rasputin and the tsarina had done something to the Tsar’s will with the aid of Tibetan drugs provided by Dr Badmaev.
Thus did the two of them egg each other on, assuring themselves of the need to carry out their mission quickly.
There was, incidentally, a real basis for the legend about the Tsar’s growing apathy. On the eve of the Duma session, the right had proposed to the tsar its own way out of the situation, which was becoming ever more dangerous. Prince Rimsky-Korsakov, a member of the Council of State at whose home a small group of rightist aristocrats was accustomed to gathering, gave Stürmer a Memorandum for the tsar.
‘Since there is now no doubt that the Duma has embarked on a clearly revolutionary course…the Duma must be prorogued at once without indicating when it will be reconvened. The military forces on hand in Petrograd are fully adequate to putting down any potential revolt.’ But Stürmer was unwilling to risk giving the Memorandum to the Tsar. He too had noticed that strange aloofness in the sovereign. And so he merely informed the tsar of the current mood of the throne’s defenders. The tsar heard him out in indifference. And ordered the Duma session to begin.
The tsar was indeed becoming more and more inactive, but it was because he had grasped the hopelessness of the situation. He had read the reports of the secret police and knew all about the growing general conspiracy. And he was tired of the endless struggle. He had decided to cede authority to them. He would withdraw into private life, so that his wife — who was going insane from her furious activity and terrible premonitions — would be left alone. And that peasant would also be left alone to help them survive by healing both her and their son. And for that reason he himself welcomed the inevitable, although for the time being he listlessly attempted to calm the seething Duma.
How many times had he hopelessly reshuffled the government. On 10 November he appointed Trepov prime minister in place of Stürmer, whom the Duma hated. Trepov was from a distinguished family of right-wing public servants. His father, Fyodor Trepov, had been a Petersburg mayor of notorious strictness. And his brother, Dmitry, had once headed the powerful ministry of internal affairs. But it was only with the greatest difficulty that poor Alexei succeeded in making his initial programmatic speech to the Duma. He was greeted by noisy heckling. The Duma no longer wanted sops from the authorities. It demanded ministers who would be responsible to the Duma. It was then that Nicholas decided to make his last concession — to hand over Protopopov. Rodzyanko had been able to tell him a great deal about the half-mad minister.
On 10 November the tsar wrote to Alix:
You will have heard … about the changes wh. are absolutely necessary now. I am sorry about Prot. [opopov], a good honest man, but he jumped fr. One idea to another and could not stick to his opinion … People said he was not normal some years ago fr. a certain illness. It is risky leaving the ministry of Int.[ernal affairs] in such hands at such times! … Only please don’t mix in our Friend. It is I who carry the responsibility [and] I want to be free to choose accordingly.
Thus did he plead with Alix not to invoke the peasant’s words.
But she understood everything: he had decided to put an end to the ‘Tsarskoe Selo cabinet’ that was meant to save them. He had decided to turn once more to the odious people who dreamed of limiting the tsar’s power. They would deceive him yet again! To ‘be free to make his own choice’ was not something she could allow. And the ‘wise counsels of Our Friend’ were at once brought to bear on the matter.
10 Nov…. Once more, remember that for your reign, Baby & us you need the strength prayers & advice of our Friend … Protopopov venerates our Friend & will be blessed — Stürmer got frightened & for months did not see him — so wrong & he lost his footing. Ah, Lovy, I pray so hard to God to make you feel & realise, that He is our caring, were He not here, I don’t know what might not have happened. He saves us by His prayers & wise counsels…For me don’t make any changes till I have come.
She came to Headquarters, and Nicky let Protopopov remain. Once again he yielded.
And once again he grasped the hopelessness of the situation. He was very tired.
Meanwhile, the new prime minister, Trepov, was starting out exactly like the recently fallen Khvostov. He had decided to calm the seething Duma by sending Rasputin
away from Petrograd. Knowing about Rasputin from rumours, Trepov made the same mistake Khvostov had made. He thought he could buy Rasputin off. At his behest, Trepov’s relative General Mosolov went to see Rasputin. The general thought he knew how to talk to peasants. And he therefore brought some wine with him. Rasputin drank the wine. After which Mosolov suggested to Rasputin on Trepov’s behalf that he renounce all interference in the business of government and the appointment of ministers. And he offered him in the name of the generous prime minister 30,000 roubles a year. Or so Beletsky recounted in his testimony about the episode from Rasputin’s own words. Beletsky also told how it ended: Rasputin rejected the offer and immediately ‘informed the empress and the tsar of Trepov’s offer to buy Rasputin’s silence on everything that Rasputin considered not in the tsars’ interest’.
Those pathetic fools were proposing that Rasputin trade the place of adviser to the ‘tsars’ for sums he would have regarded as insignificant! Sums he had squandered and flung to the winds! Trepov thus immediately forfeited the tsarina’s confidence. And his fate was sealed. As Rasputin put it, ‘The Trepovs should not be kept on; their last name [suggesting ‘blather’] is unlucky.’
Meanwhile, an incredible thing had happened in the Duma. The monarchist Purishkevich, who was well known for his right-wing views — his bald head and pointed moustache were familiar throughout Russia from newspaper portraits — had given a speech that became famous at once.
‘… Who Has Remained A German On The Russian Throne’
From the rostrum of the Duma, Purishkevich, large, heavily breathing, a fanatical monarchist notorious for his endless baiting of the opposition, on 19 November came down with a thundering voice upon the Empress of All Russia and the peasant behind the throne.
At two o’clock the next morning an infuriated Protopopov conveyed to Headquarters by telegraph the most dangerous excerpts from the speech. I found his telegram in the archives. These excerpts would be struck from the newspaper version by the censor. But the next day it was precisely those excerpts that were being repeated by all Petrograd. For numerous copies of the speech were already making their way around the city.
Evil comes from those dark forces and influences that…have forced the accession to high posts of people unable to occupy them … From the influences that are headed by Grishka Rasputin (noise, voices, ‘True!’ ‘A disgrace!’) … I have not been able to sleep the last few nights — I give you my word…I have been lying with my eyes wide open imagining the series of telegrams, notes, and reports that the illiterate peasant has written first to one minister and then to another… There have been instances where the non-fulfilment of his demands has resulted in those gentlemen, although strong and powerful, being removed from office … Over the two and a half years of the war I have assumed … that our domestic quarrels should be forgotten …Now I have violated that prohibition in order to place at the feet of the throne the thoughts of the Russian masses and the bitter taste of resentment of the Russian front that have been produced by the tsar’s ministers who have been turned into marionettes, marionettes whose threads have been taken firmly in hand by Rasputin and the Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna — the evil genius of Russia and the tsar…who has remained a German on the Russian throne and alien to the country and its people.
There wasn’t any further he could go!
One can imagine how the tsar read that speech. Now he definitely knew. They had left him just one choice: Alix or the throne. And he made his choice: her and private life. And he waited for the inevitable.
When Purishkevich’s speech was read to Rasputin, he reacted just as Alix had expected him to; in Gospel fashion, he forgave. But he also understood that the ‘tsars’ ‘ spirits needed to be kept up, and he sent a telegram to Headquarters. ‘19 November 1916. Purishkevich cursed impertinently but not painfully. My calm remains, it is not destroyed.’ And in order to preserve their calm as well, he predicted that authority would remain with the ‘tsars’. ‘God will strengthen you. Yours is the victory and yours is the ship. No one else has the authority to board it.’ Thus, he promised them a radiant future — a couple of months before the revolution. He reiterated the same thing to ‘Mama’, who at the time was with her hospital train. ‘22 November … Believe and do not be afraid of fear, give all that is yours to the Wee One [the tsarevich] intact. As the father has received it, so shall his son.’
In an unusually coherent note to Voiekov (the palace castellan), Rasputin wrote, ‘If you aren’t used to it, even kasha is bitter, let alone Purishkevich and his abusive mouth. Such wasps have multiplied now in the millions. We friends have to stand as one. Although a small circle, yet one of like-minded people. In them is malice, and in us the truth. Grigory Novy.’ But Rasputin confirmed here the most terrible thing that Purishkevich had talked about: ‘such wasps have multiplied in the millions.’
Felix Yusupov, who was in the gallery during Purishkevich’s speech, had listened to it with the greatest interest.
The next day Purishkevich woke up even more famous. As he would describe in his — diary, ‘The phone rang all day on 20 November with congratulations… Among the callers, one identifying himself as Prince Yusupov particularly interested me. He asked if he might visit me to clarify some matters relating to Rasputin’s role that he preferred not to discuss over the phone. I asked him to come by at 9 a.m.’
‘You Too Must Take Part In It ’
The day that he went to see Purishkevich, Felix sent Irina a letter at their estate in the Crimea. Felix was then living in Petrograd, where he was receiving military training at the Corps des Pages. ‘The young people’s half’ of the Yusupov palace on the Moika Canal was being remodelled, and Felix was staying at the palace of his father-in-law, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich.
Warm rains were falling in the Crimea. The grand-ducal estates were deserted. Of all the brilliant society that had earlier sought refuge there from the dank Petrograd autumn, only Zinaida Yusupova and Irina had stayed on in the empty palace.
All that time the ‘young people’ — Irina and Felix — had been exchanging letters with constant assurances of love quite similar to those in the letters of Alix and Nicky. And even though their love did not at all resemble that of the ‘tsars’ (if only because of a few special old attachments of Felix’s), it was the accepted style for letters of that kind. And they followed the style. Illnesses and melancholia, judging by their letters, did not abandon Irina, that delicate beauty. But Felix’s most recent letter forced her to forget all about her ailments.
In that letter, instead of the customary words of love, Felix told her about the murder being planned. A murder that he had decided to take a passionate part in. (He had sent the letter with someone he trusted.)
‘I’m terribly busy working on a plan to eliminate Rasputin. That is simply essential now, since otherwise everything will be finished. For that, I often see M[unya] Gol[ovina] and him [Rasputin]. They’ve grown quite fond of me and are forthcoming about everything with me.’ And then he wrote the most surprising thing for her: ‘You too must take part in it. Dm[itry] Pavl[ovich] knows all about it and is helping. It will all take place in the middle of December, when Dm. comes back…How much I want to see you before that. But it will be better if you do not come earlier, since the rooms won’t be ready until 15 December, and not even all of them… and you won’t have anywhere to stay … Not a word to anyone about what I’ve written.’
And in conclusion he said, ‘Tell my mother to read my letter.’
For Zinaida Yusupova was very likely in on the conspiracy.
By 20 November, before Felix’s meeting Purishkevich, the plan worked out by Felix and Dmitry to assassinate Rasputin had been prepared and already put into play.
Carnal Passion?
After Rasputin’s death, his maid Katya Pechyorkina testified during her interrogation that the first time that Felix came to Rasputin’s apartment was on ‘20 November, the day of the Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed V
irgin’. Since it was a church holiday, she remembered the date exactly. And Felix had not come by himself but with Maria Golovina.
As Golovina testifies in the File, ‘Felix … was complaining about chest pains … I advised him to go and see Rasputin at his apartment … The prince and I went together twice at the end of November and the beginning of December. And he remained with [Rasputin] less than an hour.’
That is, Felix visited Rasputin’s apartment the very same day that he called Purishkevich. And that visit must have helped Felix carry out the most important part of his plan — gaining Rasputin’s complete confidence.
Felix very briefly described to the investigator in charge of the inquiry concerning Rasputin’s murder the mysterious process of treatment itself: ‘At the end of November I went to Rasputin’s apartment along with Golovina. Rasputin made some hypnotic passes over me and it did seem to me that there was a certain relief.’
He gave a much more detailed account after his emigration to Paris.
After tea Rasputin admitted me to his study, a little room with a leather sofa, several chairs, and a large desk. The elder ordered me to lie down on the sofa and gently moved his hands over my chest, neck, and head…and then he got down on his knees and after placing his hands on my head, started mumbling a prayer. His face was so close to mine that I saw only his eyes. He remained in that position for a little while. Then he stood up in an abrupt movement and began to make passes over me with his hands. Rasputin’s hypnotic power was enormous. I felt a strength enter me in a warm flow and take hold of my entire being, my body grew numb, and I tried to speak but my tongue would not obey me. Only Rasputin’s eyes shone before me — two phosphorescent beams. And then I felt awaken in me the will to resist the hypnosis. I realized I had not let him subordinate my will completely.
The Rasputin File Page 58