Alexander II

by Edvard Radzinsky

  Count Mikhail Tarielovich Loris-Melikov, age fifty-six, came from the Armenian aristocracy; that is, he did not belong in any way to the St. Petersburg elite. He was an outsider. He had served thirty years in the Caucasus, fighting in 180 battles with the mountain tribes and Turks. He was courageous and cunning. He handled his soldiers gently and cruelly, as needed, earning the nickname “the Fox Tail and the Wolf Jaw.” But Loris-Melikov’s outstanding trait, which distinguished him from other generals, was a gift for administration. He managed not only his army but the civilian population.

  The tsar remembered how during the war Loris-Melikov not only took the impregnable forts of Ardagan and Kars but also managed the impossible. During military action he persuaded the local populace to accept Russian chits instead of gold rubles. He used them for the war, saving a lot of gold. Once peace was established, he was made a count and continued his dangerous exploits. He dealt successfully with an outbreak of plague in Astrakhan Province, and even more amazingly, returned unspent funds to the treasury—a totally unexpected gesture in Russia.

  During the war on terror, Loris-Melikov had been appointed governor general of Kharkov. He ruled the province harshly but without excess. He used repression, but he also made concessions to public opinion. As a result, he was the only military governor general to have ended terrorism in his province.

  PART IV

  TheReturn of theTsarLiberator

  CHAPTER 15

  FoxTail andWolfJaw

  The two-faced Janus was now looking only forward. Tsar Alexander II was great once again, he was his former self, just as in the days when he emancipated the serfs. But this time there was much more maneuvering: He had to soothe his heir and deceive the opposition rallied around the tsarevich and the court.

  The tsar would be behind all the actions of Loris-Melikov. At first Loris-Melikov wagged his fox tail. In those sweet days, the heir, who hated the liberal bureaucracy of St. Petersburg, was delighted by the provincial war general who seemed prepared to follow his (or rather Pobedonostsev’s) every instruction.

  The general did not tire of assuring him: “From the first day of my appointment as head of the Supreme Administrative Commission,” he wrote flatteringly to the tsarevich, “I vowed to act only in the same direction with High Highness, finding that the success of the work entrusted to me and the calming of the homeland depend on it.”

  The young nihilists also believed in Loris-Melikov’s total subordination. One of them decided to act, soon after his appointment. It was February 20, the very day that Dostoevsky had his conversation with Suvorin, after 2:00 P.M. Two gendarmes were at the entrance to the count’s house and a policeman was patrolling nearby. Nevertheless, and despite the recent acts of terrorism, none of the guards paid attention to the suspicious “bedraggled and dirty young man” (as Novoye Vremya described him) hanging around the building. Loris-Melikov’s carriage pulled up, with Cossacks on horseback. The count got out, and the young man rushed toward him. He pulled out a pistol from his coat and shot.

  The bullet grazed the count’s overcoat, tearing the coat and his uniform. Expecting a second shot, the count fell to the ground and just as quickly jumped up. Before the eyes of the stunned guards, he attacked the shooter and knocked him down. The Cossacks helped, and the bold count handed over his attacker.

  St. Petersburg applauded a representative of the regime for the first time in quite a while. The public liked his bravery. But the general did note the strange blindness of the guards who had not noticed the lurking terrorist. “They were saluting instead of grabbing the villain and noticing others in the vicinity,” wrote Novoye Vremya on February 22. The shooter was Ippolit Mlodetsky, a petty bourgeois Jew from the town of Slutsk in Minsk Province. It was later determined that Mlodetsky acted on his own, without sanction from the People’s Will. But at the time, naturally, everyone assumed the mighty EC was involved. The foreign newspapers wrote about the imminent fall of the dynasty.

  Loris-Melikov ordered Mlodetsky hanged immediately, without a trial, the way it is done in war. But the emperor commanded him to follow the law. New military legislation required everything completed within twenty-four hours. The investigation was completed that evening, the trial was in the morning, and Mlodetsky was taken to the gibbet later that morning.

  The writer Vsevolod Garshin, who had fought as a volunteer in the Balkan War, came to see Loris-Melikov right after the attempt. To the general’s surprise, Garshin begged him to forgive Mlodetsky, saying that his forgiveness would “save everything.” The general could not understand that reasoning.

  Mlodetsky was executed on Semenovsky Square. It was a wet, sleety February. Fedor Dostoevsky came to watch the execution. The writer was planning a novel about a young terrorist who dies in the noose and he could not miss this. Looking at Mlodetsky as he awaited his death, he thought of another young man who faced death on that very square. He had loved life so much, and he had consoled another of the condemned men with the words, “We will be together with Christ.”

  Kostya’s second son, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich (who published poetry under the pseudonym K.R.) later spoke with Dostoevsky and recorded their conversation in his diary: “Dostoevsky went to Mlodetsky’s execution. Perhaps he wanted to relive his own impressions…Mlodetsky looked around and seemed indifferent. Dostoevsky explained that at such a moment a person tries to chase away thoughts of death and he recalls mostly happy pictures, and he is transported to a garden of life, filled with springtime and sunshine. But the closer it gets to the end, the more persistent and tormenting is the idea of inexorable death. The coming pain and suffering are not frightening: what is terrifying is the transition to another, unknown form.”

  The young Dostoevsky had gotten a reprieve. This time, there was no pardon: The drumming began, Mlodetsky was dressed for the execution, and the executioner, with a friendly arm around his shoulders, led him to the noose dangling in the wind.

  The emperor made this notation: “Mlodetsky was executed. Everything is in order.”

  As the anniversary of the emancipation of the serfs, February 19, approached, crazy rumors spread like wildfire, and people fled the city. It passed peacefully. Yet, something strange did happen. Loris-Melikov appealed to the residents of the capital. The government had decided to trade polemics with the revolutionaries. “Preaching freedom, they are trying by threats and anonymous letters to oppress the freedom of those who are performing their duty. Fighting for the principles of their personal inviolability, they stoop to murder by ambush.” The government called “for help from all strata of the Russian people for a united front in the effort to uproot evil.”

  The regime was turning for the first time to support from the public, which the autocrats had never considered. The count explained tirelessly: The Supreme Commission is a dictatorship, but it was a dictator ship of good, of reason and law. The skeptics referred to the count’s ideas ironically as the “dictatorship of the heart.”

  During the first two months of the work of the Supreme Administrative Commission, Loris-Melikov met several times a week with the heir. They had very amiable relations and corresponded continually. On February 21, 1880, the heir wrote. “Gracious Count, if you are not too busy and if it is possible, I ask you to drop by to see me at 8:30 this evening—I would like to speak with you.”

  Their meeting was very successful. That same night, on the 21st, the heir noted in his diary that he and Loris-Melikov “talked over an hour about the current situation and what to do.”

  The Loris-Melikov archive has many notes from the heir with the same invitation, to drop by. Their number increased as Loris-Melikov started visiting less frequently, and the heir had to send more reminders. On February 27 the heir wrote, “I haven’t seen or talked with you in a long time. If you are busy and don’t have time, please, don’t be shy, I can set another day.” He wanted to see the count because Loris-Melikov was preparing a report to the tsar with a proposed program of action. In April 1880
the report—“the plan of government actions that should put an end to the turmoil and promote bringing order in the Russian state”—was ready.

  To the heir’s joy, Loris-Melikov called “untimely” and “harmful” the “proposals to create national representation in forms borrowed from the West” (that is, a constitution). The heir wrote to Loris-Melikov on April 12, 1880: “Now we can go forward boldly and calmly…implement your program for the fortune of our beloved homeland and the misfortune of the Messrs. ministers, who will probably be very upset by the program…the hell with them!”

  But the program upset not only the ministers. To the heir’s great surprise, Pobedonostsev did not like it, either. Pobedonostsev sadly noted numerous points that Loris-Melikov made in his report. For instance, the count proposed liquidating the Third Department, which was loyal to the heir and of which one of the main administrators, Cherevin, was fanatically loyal to the tsarevich. (The files of the Third Department were transferred to the Ministry of the Interior, to form a special Police Department.)

  Pobedonostsev knew that the Third Department was more than an institution, it was a symbol of the era of Nicholas I, the era of true autocracy and national fear. The simple-minded heir, intoxicated by the count’s flattery, did not understand. The fox tail was doing its work.

  There were many points in the program that made Pobedonostsev wary. For instance, it spoke of a “new management of the periodic press, which has an influence here that is not comparable to Western Europe, where the press is merely the expression of public opinion, whereas in Russia the press forms it.” Other proposals included giving rights to sects, a review of the passport system, an easing of peasant migration, and so on. Pobedonostsev felt this was a very dangerous beginning.

  The policies implemented by Loris-Melikov bore fruit right away. February ended in peace; so did March. April came, and there were still no attacks from the People’s Will. Even more important, the liberal intelligentsia was changing its attitude toward both the terrorists and the regime. Success!

  But the more successful Loris-Melikov was, the more he forgot his original intentions, which had pleased the tsarevich so much. Before shutting down the Third Department, Loris-Melikov did a review of the institution hated by liberals. As a result many victims of the secret police were freed from surveillance, returned from exile, and even from abroad.

  The tsar was behind all of Loris-Melikov’s actions. The emperor did not forget about nods in the direction of the retrogrades. He commanded Loris-Melikov to appoint Pobedonostsev chief procurator of the Holy Synod.

  The tsar had felt a tangible drop in the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church. The recent trip of the Protestant Evangelical missionary Granville Waldegrave (Lord Radstock) was proof of that. The tall middle-aged Englishman, with large forehead, tufts of blond hair around his mostly bald head, and short red side-whiskers, dressed in a dull gray suit, had created a furor in the Orthodox capital. He inspired faith. After his sermons, rich men gave away their fortunes and donated thousands to charity. He was invited to every fashionable salon. Four dozen of the most aristocratic homes opened their doors to him. Count Alexei Bobrinsky, minister of transport, a man from the tsar’s inner circle, and Prince Vassily Pashkov, a well-known millionaire, became Protestant.

  “I found the Lord!” Bobrinsky told the tsar. Alexander thought this a dangerous symptom. The tsar believed that Orthodoxy was the main bastion of Russia’s tsars, and he decided to strengthen the Church with Pobedonostsev, a wise and conservative man. He also hoped that the problems of the Church would distract Pobedonostsev from fighting reforms.

  It was time to fight, because the tsar had landed a palpable blow. In late April, Loris-Melikov forced into retirement a living symbol of the retrograde movement, an active member of the Anichkov Palace party, Minister of Education Count Dmitri Tolstoy. He exemplified the official as slave. Hating the tsar’s reforms, he still kissed his hand, the only minister to do so. A fervent opponent of emancipating the serfs, who whipped his serfs personally and forced serf girls into marriage and sometimes into his bed, Dmitri Tolstoy espoused the most liberal ideals in the presence of the tsar. Appointed head of education after the first attempt on Alexander’s life, he invented a system that would lead young people away from dangerous modern ideas. It called for a predominantly classical education, with high school students focusing on dead languages (Latin and Ancient Greek) and memorizing long ancient works.

  At long last, the round little man on stubby legs, greedy and cruel, fell. The liberals were thrilled. They called it the third emancipation: First the tsar freed the peasants from their masters, then the Bulgarians from the Turks, and now education from Tolstoy. Even an underground leaflet of the People’s Will spoke favorably of Tolstoy’s firing.

  Loris-Melikov worked well with the press, and he set up a special commission to explore the repeal of censorship. But the press continued its favorite activity—berating the regime. Loris-Melikov was accused of breaking promises and making empty promises, of hypocrisy. When he could not stand the attacks anymore he acted in accordance with a discerning understanding of the Russian character. He did not shut down the papers, he did not fine them, the way his predecessors had. Instead, he called in the editors of the top newspapers, and waving his fox tail, he made a speech about the significance and might of the Russian press, the opinion-maker, and how he wanted to work in conjunction with it. After which he asked them not to rush the regime and not to rile the already aggravated public. He told them his long-range plans and listened to their opinions.

  For once, the regime was taking advice from the press instead of persecuting it. The omnipotent minister of the autocrat asked for help and was extremely frank. He told them the most bitter truth: At present Russia could not have anything like a European parliament. Nevertheless, the editors liked him, because he did what Russians value most: He showed respect. The tone of the liberal press changed, the newspapers became moderate, and the opposition relaxed, because there would be no constitution.

  The Anichkov Palace finally became upset when Loris-Melikov started flirting with the most volatile part of society, its youth. The students saw all their demands met: the right to organize mutual aid associations, to form literary and scholarly clubs, to have reading rooms and meetings. Of course, the students still wanted to rebel; they had gotten used to the thrill.

  When the executor of these reforms, the new minister of education Andrei Saburov, showed up at the auditorium of St. Petersburg University, he heard a passionate antigovernment speech that called him “lying and vile.” Leaflets fell from the balcony onto his head. During the confusion, a student rushed up to the poor minister and slapped him.

  The next day the students had come to their senses and repented. At a noisy meeting where they were selecting guests for their university ball, they chose Minister Saburov and Count Loris-Melikov to head the list. Other names on the list included the terrorist Vera Zasulich, and People’s Will member Gartman and the Pole Berezovski, who both had tried to kill the tsar.

  No one persecuted them for that. The terrorist Rusakov wrote in a letter found by the police: “Count Loris-Melikov gives us all forms of freedom; this is not life, but heaven.”

  Alexander and Loris-Melikov had tamed Russia. The murderous attacks ceased. It was quiet.

  Expressing the sentiments of the opposition, Pobedonostsev wrote to Ekaterina Tyutcheva in Moscow. “Things have quieted down thanks to him, but we’ll see for how long…. He raises up and releases forces that will be difficult to handle. His recipe is simple…the students are rebelling, let’s give them freedom and self-regulation. The press is going mad—free it!” He predicted: “These tricks will cost Russia dearly. O, woe!” And he warned: “The time will come when the champions of the healthy forces of truth and national life find themselves in opposition to the government. I fear that soon I will find myself in that situation. I expect great ordeals for myself from that. I cannot be silent.”

&nbs
p; Pobedonostsev could not be silent, and so he cursed. But would he stop at that? Had the time come for him to act?

  The tsar’s second family life was still a secret. An open secret, naturally. But this secret de Polichinelle continued romantically. Wherever he was, Katya and children moved nearby.

  For instance, when he moved to one of his residences outside the city, Peterhof or Tsarskoye Selo, he would go out for a drive in a carriage with his children, his daughter and sons. The carriage would stop in the park and he would get out for a walk. At an agreed-upon meeting place in the park, his adjutant waited with a horse. “And the emperor rides in the direction known well to the public…. The second half of the walk ends in the society of his secret friend. That maneuver was repeated daily,” wrote lady-in-waiting Tolstaya.

  It was a very risky maneuver in view of the many attempts on his life, but love was stronger than fear. More often, a procession would appear on the palace grounds—a lady with children, accompanied by a male servant. They were brought through a hidden door into the palace. He could not exist without her and the children.

  The prayer of one of the empress’s ladies-in-waiting was understandable: “Lord, protect our empress, because as soon as her eyes are closed, the tsar will marry the odalisque!”

  The prayer was refused. “Translucent, ethereal—there seemed nothing earthly left to her. No one could look at her without tears,” remembered lady-in-waiting Alexandra Tolstaya. It hurt him to see her “all-forgiving” (accusing) eyes. “For God’s sake, don’t mention the empress to me, it hurts,” he asked his brother Kostya.

  She did not get out of bed or leave her apartment. In bed, the empress brought her affairs into order and dictated her last letters and her will to her ladies-in-waiting. Not long before her death, she thought of a poor Englishwoman she had been aiding for many years and “sent her money in an envelope, with difficulty addressing it herself with trembling hand: ‘For Miss Lundy from a patient,’” Tolstaya wrote.