Читать книгу The Red Reign. The True Story of an Adventurous Year in Russia онлайн

8 страница из 93

There are many available books in English, French, and German which present the conditions of Russia on the eve of revolution. The task which I assume is to present a picture of Russia in revolution. The year 1906 may be accepted as a typical revolutionary year. Between January and December of that year I traveled through every section of European Russia, Poland and the Caucasus, and a part of western Siberia. Of the spectacular and dramatic events which characterized the year, I witnessed not a few, but the really significant features of the year are the not less intense phases of the social and economic disturbances, and these I aim to make clear to the average reader.

In thus attempting to present, as it were, a cross section of the revolution, I undertake not so much a difficult task, as one which demands peculiar opportunities and advantages. To forestall natural queries, therefore, I may be permitted to state that my own point of view has been uniquely varied. Shortly after my arrival in St. Petersburg influential friends, affiliated with the court, made it possible for me to join a group of fourteen Cossack officers who were about to journey through the Caucasus. Most, if not all, of these men had formerly been officers of guard regiments and had been temporarily assigned to a Cossack regiment for the war, in order that they might have opportunity to distinguish themselves, thus paving the way for speedy promotion. The commander of the regiment, who was the chief of our party, was an aide-de-camp to the Czar. My particular host was a Georgian prince who has since rejoined his regiment, which is attached to the person of the Empress. To be an officer or even by birth a member of the court party does not naturally preclude liberal or even revolutionary sympathies, but it so happened that all of the officers who made up this little company were staunch supporters of the Czar and of autocracy. All that I witnessed of race clashes; of the pacification of insubordinate villages; the devastation of districts which should have been fertile and prosperous; of pillage, and loot, and the violation of the laws and customs adopted by civilized nations for international warfare, I witnessed, as it were, from the inside. Protected by the officer’s uniform which I wore, I rode with the Cossacks, entered their barracks freely under circumstances where any ordinary traveler would not have been permitted to have passed the lines. I was even accorded the privilege of using my camera at will. Through Great Russia and the provinces I passed as an ordinary traveler, provided with the usual letters of sanction, and permits from central and local authorities, but without special introductions.