Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/26

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10
THE SHADOW OF THE GLOOMY EAST

political police; they became the willing tools to spread demoralisation and disorder in the revolutionary ranks, and they served thus the purpose o the parasites.

The revolution of 1905, that uprising of the Russian intelligentsia, was choked in blood in the Court Square in Petrograd, and in the so-called "express courts" in the provinces, through the paid agents of the Minister Durnovo, Generals Kurlov and Trepov, who had been drawn from the ranks of the revolutionaries.

The priest Gapon, worshipped by the workmen, led to death in front of the Imperial Palace masses of his comrades, and then hid behind the walls of the political police till he received the money for a journey abroad.

The agent-provocator Ivanov first incited the Siberian social-democrats to armed risings of protest against General Rennenkampf, then denounced the more prominent leaders and took a leading part in hunting them down and dragging them to execution.

Through the revelations of the publicist Burtsev, and the ex-director of the III Department of the Ministry of the Interior, Lopuchin, the responsible leaders of the social-democratic and revolutionary parties were one after the other proved to be paid agents of the Government and at the same time in touch with the most secret revolutionary councils.

These are but a few instances which illustrate the very peculiar methods of aristocratic and official Russia.