Alexander II

by Edvard Radzinsky

  The empress met him with tear-filled eyes. She reminded him that she had begged him not to go to Paris. They chatted. It was only as he was leaving that she said, “I ask you to respect the woman in me, even if you will not be able to respect the empress.”

  He could no longer live without Katya. He wrote her passionate love letters in a mix of Russian and French.

  His letters of 1866 (in the private collection of S. Baturin) are filled with rapture:

  August 14: “When I saw you at a distance in the allée, my heart beat so hard that I trembled all over and my knees grew weak, and I kept wanting to simply squeal with joy.”

  November 12: “Don’t forget that you are my whole life, angel of my soul, and its only goal is to see you happy, as happy as one can only be in this world.”

  He underlined those words.

  The court had aligned itself against Katya, secretly of course. Alexander’s great-grandmother Catherine had been right—the heartfelt hatred for one another was the main trait of the Russian court. Now they all pitied “our saint,” the empress, because they hated and envied Katya.

  Shuvalov was particularly worried. As chief of the Third Department, he had to think of the future, and it was problematic. Instead of the revolving door of endless ladies-in-waiting, there was the strange young woman with whom the tsar was clearly besotted. He saw her every day. And when he wasn’t with her, he wrote her letters. What if she had a child by him? The empress was failing visibly. The tsar might marry her. And then, instead of the dull-witted heir, who had enjoyed listening to the late Muravyev the Hangman and to Shuvalov’s ideas of reviving his grandfather’s autocracy, there could be another heir.

  Shuvalov hurried into battle. Trying to poison the large Romanov family against the new favorite, he dared to say, “It turns out we went to Paris because of her! We risked the sovereign’s precious life over her!”

  The tsar was informed. But the chief of the Third Department handled his duties in an exemplary manner, so the tsar put up with him. For the time being.

  PART III

  Underground Russia

  CHAPTER 9

  The Birth of Terror

  Fair is foul, and foul is fair.

  —MACBETH, ACT I SCENE 1

  It seemed to him that the entire world was doomed to be sacrificed to some terrible, unknown and unseen…pestilent ulcer. Now there were these trichnines, microscopic creatures that moved into people’s bodies…people who hosted them immediately became possessed and mad, but never had anyone felt as smart and unshakeable in the truth as did the diseased. People were killing one another in the grip of some meaningless anger.

  —FEDOR DOSTOEVSKY, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

  After the assassination attempt in 1866, many young people involved in the student riots had been expelled and went abroad to study. Most of them were not poor and could afford it.

  On the platform seeing them off had been heartbroken parents and servants. They sighed for the times when people traveled by coach to Paris with none of these terrible crashes that were in the newspapers nowadays. The engine came into view. Shining black steel, menacingly large wheels, loud whistling and wheezing, steam belching from its tall chimney, the steam engine pulled into the station. A gendarme in a long coat walked along the platform. The second bell rang, followed by the alarming ringing of the station bell and the conductor’s piercing whistle. The train smoothly pulled out of the station. The parents stood still, wiping away their tears, while the servants ran along the platform, bowing their farewells.

  It had become easy to move around Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. The railroads were a great help to people with police problems, and they would do much (as did all technical advances) to aid insurgents all over the world.

  Before settling down in the university of their choice, the young Russians, intoxicated by freedom, traveled around Europe. They did not rush to sinful Paris like their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers did. Paris remained a city of conspirators, poets, pamphleteers, courtesans, salons, and secret societies—“the nerve center of European history, regularly sending dangerous impulses to Europe.” Napoleon III was wrong in thinking that he had brought order to the city.

  But to discover the disorder one needed to get deep into the secret life of Paris, which was inaccessible to the Russian students. Another capital was much more attractive for the young nihilists, because the men who held sway over the minds of progressive youth lived there.

  It was London, of course. Herzen lived there, a cult figure, considered so dangerous that corresponding with him was punishable by hard labor in Russia. He was a living symbol. Back in the eighteenth century, travelers in Europe felt bound to pay their respects to Voltaire. A hundred years later, a freethinking Russian abroad wanted to see the dangerous exile in secret.

  Young Leo Tolstoy went abroad, and naturally met with Herzen. Tolstoy described how he approached the two-story building at the back of a small courtyard. Behind the house were trees with thin spring foliage. He heard rapid steps on the stone paving, overgrown with grass. Herzen was a small, fat man, full of energy and with quick movements.

  Tolstoy saw Herzen every day he was in London. Later, the writer quoted Herzen’s bitter words, with which he agreed completely. “If people wanted to save themselves instead of saving the world and to free themselves instead of freeing humanity, they would do so much for saving the world and freeing humanity.”

  But unlike Tolstoy, the young people coming from Russia did intend to save the world and free humanity. They found like-minded people in London. These were the young émigrés who left Russia after the fires of 1862 and the routing of Land and Freedom. The new arrivals were surprised to learn that Herzen was not highly regarded in these circles. He was not tough enough, and it was unfashionable to meet with the old man. Radical Europe had other idols. For instance, one of the fathers of European communism, the latest fad, often came to London. The illegitimate son of a laundress, Wilhelm Weitling was a former tailor. He gave up his trade and rushed by train from country to country, to share with the working classes his recipe for creating heaven on earth—communism. Raising a well-tailored trouser leg, he would show the marks of prison shackles, his payment for discovering that recipe.

  According to Weitling, the construction of communism would begin in a very bloody manner. An army of criminals would have to lay the path to the coming paradise, by destroying the existing order. “Criminals are merely the product of the present social order, and under communism they will cease being criminals.”

  After a general uprising, the united workers and criminals would start building a radiant future without private property. Society, the commune, would be the only capitalist in the communist state. “People freed from the shackles of property will be as free as birds in the sky.” All relationships would change. Since marriage was an exclusive form of private property, “women will leave marriage and become common property.” A new era of peace and joy would begin.

  A much more serious proponent of communism also lived in London. He was the new star of European radicals, exiled from Prussia and many other European countries, the German genius Karl Marx. He had already warned, “A Specter is haunting Europe, the specter of communism.” Marx naturally scoffed at the “vulgar communist,” the tailor Weitling. But he was kind to him, seeing in his speeches a childish “manifestation of the proletariat’s attraction to communism.” Weitling was a welcome guest in Marx’s house. Not for serious conversation, but for cards. Marx loved playing at night and the miserable “vulgar communist,” dying for sleep, had to hold up until morning playing with the indefatigable philosopher.

  In Russia the nihilists knew that Marx had founded the mysterious Communist International, which was to bring a new messiah, the proletariat, to power. “Workers of the world, unite!” The world proletariat would create a happy classless society. But first there would be great bloodshed, the ruthless dictatorship of the proletariat. “Vio
lence is the midwife of History,” Marx taught.

  The new arrivals from Russia liked Marx’s grim thoughts. Marx was very popular among Russian émigrés, and a Russian section was formed in his International.

  We can only imagine how, after long negotiations and consultation with other Russian émigrés (for he was suspicious), Marx agreed to receive the expelled students. They arrived at 9, Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, an expensive town house in the center of London.

  He came out to greet them. He was short, stocky, and covered with thickets of hair—blue-black with a handsome streak of gray—a mane of hair on a leonine head, proudly held, with his chin hidden under an enormous beard (you can’t have a prophet without a beard). Even his stubby fingers were covered in black hairs. He held himself monumentally in an elegant jacket, buttoned wrong.

  The group was invited into his legendary study, the place where the downfall of capitalism was to be directed and where the future happiness of humanity was being forged. It was a very cozy room, and despite the noon hour, a lamp with a green shade was lit, for the usual London fog had turned day into night.

  The anticipated conversation began. It can’t be called a conversation, because Marx turned it into a monologue. He lisped, but that was quickly forgotten because his masterful tone was hypnotic—his absolute faith in his predestined role as master of men’s minds was clear.

  A marble bust of Zeus, whom the host called Prometheus in conversation, looked down at the young men from the mantelpiece. Prometheus was a favorite image. His words in the ancient Greek drama, “In truth, I hate all gods,” formed the credo of Marx’s philosophy, directed against all gods, heavenly and earthly. Thus the severe question at the end of monologue directed at his guests: “Do you believe in God?”

  The quick-witted young men denied God. They were praised and told that “communism makes all existing religions unnecessary and replaces them.”

  Next to Prometheus on the mantle was a portrait of Chernyshevsky, which delighted the Russian guests. Marx explained that it had been a gift from a “Russian steppe landowner,” who had promised to give funds for the International but had not sent anything yet. Marx gave the young people a searching look, but they were silent. Their families did not give them extra money. Marx, who had heard they were wealthy, lost interest in them. Instead of giving money, the young people asked about the Communist International.

  Marx readily told them the basics: Before him, philosophers merely explained the world, while his philosophy would change the world. That was the goal of the International, to overthrow the bourgeoisie, assure the victory of the proletariat, and found a society without classes or private property. “It is too soon to do it in Russia,” Marx warned them, “because there is no proletariat there yet.”

  The young people sighed sadly, and they were instantly forgotten, because a conversation among great men had begun.

  The great men had arrived while Marx was entertaining his Russian guests. One sat on the couch. His name was Friedrich Engels. The other stood by the window—Mikhail Bakunin, the father of Russian anarchism. He was an old giant with thick, unkempt hair and a child’s eyes. He had sent the young people to see Marx.

  The scion of a wealthy aristocratic family, Bakunin graduated from the brilliant Mikhailovsky military school. Since the very thought of serving in the guards “brought on melancholy,” Bakunin quit his military career and left for Europe without telling his father. There, “like a savage thirsty for culture, he threw himself into the study of philosophy.” Young Bakunin quickly came to prefer the pistol to the pen. The admirer of great philosophers turned into a fearless revolutionary. Unlike Marx, who performed his exploits at his desk, Bakunin fought on all the barricades of European revolutions and spent time in the most horrible prisons.

  In Prussia the Russian rebel was sentenced to death, but then the Prussians turned him over to the Austrians, who also condemned him to death. He tried to escape, so he was chained to the wall. He spent several months in chains. Then the Austrians turned him over to Nicholas I. The tsar personally interrogated him. Praising him for his courage on the revolutionary barricades, Nicholas sent him to the stone sack, solitary confinement in the Alexeyevsky ravelin in the Fortress of Peter and Paul. His influential relatives persuaded the tsar to commute the sentence to exile in Siberia. The giant escaped and soon after took part in the Polish uprising against Nicholas I.

  After the Poles were quelled, Bakunin moved to Geneva. From there, this aficionado of Chopin’s music and of philosophy, tender and loving in person, called on Russia to start a bloody revolution. Naturally he was a member of every secret society and naturally he joined the International. But every visit to Marx turned into a verbal battle.

  Tin mugs of porter and long clay pipes were laid out on the table. The old giant, quaffing mug after mug, smoked continually and talked continually. “The state of the proletariat is nonsense, for the state itself is an evil that must be destroyed. A communist state would be no better than a capitalist one, and leadership would still be concentrated in the hands of a few. And even if the country is led by workers, they would soon become just as corrupt and despotic as the tyrants they overthrew. Only anarchy can save the world, with power so diffused that no one could abuse it. That will be done in Russia. Everything will be determined by the Russian peasant revolution and the uprising of the Russian criminal world.”

  Bakunin pinned his hopes for revolution in Russia on the national character, and on the hatred peasants felt for the nobility.

  “The Russian people have an either childish or demonic love of fire…no wonder we burned down our capital during Napoleon’s invasion. It is easy to convince peasants that setting fire to the estate and their masters with all their riches is a just and God-pleasing act.”

  Bakunin, himself a landowner and descendant of landowners, gleefully recalled the rebellions of Stepan Razin and of Pugachev, when landowners were hanged and estates burned. “The time is drawing nigh for the rebellions of Stenka Razin and Pugachev. We will prepare for the festivities,” Bakunin declared. Bandits were the main resource for the future Russian revolution, according to Bakunin. “Bandits are respected in Russia.”

  Bakunin went on revealing the joyful horizons of the coming apocalypse. “Engulfing Russia, the fire will spread to the whole world. Everything will be destroyed that is deemed holy from the heights of modern European civilization, because it is the source of inequality, the source of all of man’s misery. Bringing into motion a destructive force is the only goal worthy of a rational man.”

  His monologue was interrupted by Marx, first with sarcastic remarks, then with furious ones. Bakunin’s monologue was followed by another uninterrupted monologue by Marx. As he spoke, Marx paced back and forth in his small study.

  Marx’s usual pacing while he waxed political was described by his friend, the great poet Heine:

  He gallops, he jumps, he bounces,

  As if to catch and pull down to earth

  The enormous cover of the sky.

  He shakes his monstrous fists, and screams

  As if thousands of devils pull at his hair.

  The big hair, small body, and the badly buttoned jacket rushed back and forth before the frightened young Russians standing by the fireplace. They heard the words, rather, the furious cries of Marx: “A peasant revolution in Russia is adventurism! Any child knows that! The bourgeois revolution must conquer first! Only the bourgeoisie will give birth to its gravedigger, the working class! And only the working class can solve all the problems of humanity. This is as simple as the alphabet…. While you and those like you waste time on projects of world revolution, day by day and night after night fooling yourselves with the motto: ‘It will begin tomorrow!’ we are spending our time in the British Museum, trying to gain knowledge and prepare weapons and material for the coming battle of the proletariat!”

  Then the Russian students learned that their country was the greatest evil of Europe. “I began one of my
articles with this story: Two Persian wise men argued over whether bears give birth to live cubs or lay eggs. One of them, apparently more educated, said, ‘That animal is capable of anything.’ That is the point, the Russian bear is capable of anything except revolution. The Eastern world in the image of Russia has not simply left the historical stage, but in some way is stuck in place and is keeping the rest of the world from moving forward!” shouted Marx.

  Now he was not running around the room alone. His alter ego, Friedrich Engels, jumped up from the couch to join him. They made a ridiculous-looking couple. Marx was a small, dark-haired Jew with an enormous head, and Engels was a tall fair-haired Aryan with a very small head. But they had one thing in common. Both Engels and Marx were besotted by Marx.

  The wealthy capitalist Engels supported the genius Marx in his fight against capitalism. A successful entrepreneur and fashion plate, member of elite clubs, who filled his cellars with expensive champagne and hunted during the annual Cheshire races, Engels supplied Marx with economic data for his books, which were going to destroy capitalism. He regularly sent Marx money secretly taken from the bank accounts of his company. He handled it so exquisitely that neither his father nor his partner ever noticed the losses. His money paid the rent on the London house.

  Now all three men were shouting simultaneously—Marx, Engels, and Bakunin—gradually disappearing in the swirls of tobacco smoke, for they could not open a window: The strident argument would attract crowds outside.

  Their faces disappeared, and words flew from the smoke. Gradually the words became unclear, too, as the trinity switched to their famous macaronic language. This was their great polyglots’ conspiracy language, a mix of Latin, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and English.

  The hungry students sadly watched the last meat pie enter Bakunin’s mouth. Tobacco smoke covered everything. The appearance of the “family dictator,” Helen Demuth, the small, neat servant, stopped the argument. Helen Demuth had lived in the Marx household for many years. She had an illegitimate son, fifteen-year-old Freddy, who bore a frightening resemblance to the great teacher of the world proletariat. (In 1962, Engels’s account was published explaining the reason for the resemblance: The father of revolution was, of course, Freddy’s father.)