bloody spectres are here—here in this very hall. They must be removed in order that we may do our work."
One after another member of the Duma, themselves recent sufferers from arbitrary imprisonment, told harassing tales of what they had witnessed.
"I, myself," said Father Krassoun from the rostrum, "was kept in a prison, packed with 400 people who were receiving a daily allowance of 6 kopeks (1½d.), barely enough to escape starvation—not enough to escape perpetual hunger. I asked them, 'Why were you beaten with nagaikas? Why were you thrown into prison?' And the reply was always, 'The police arrested us because we refused to bribe them!'"
"You have heard here of the ghastly spectres which soar above our land," said the Deputy Miklasheffsky; "I will remind you of two victims personally known to me—the student, Grigoriev, and the barrister, Tararykin. Grigoriev was shot because another man, to save his own life, declared that Grigoriev had spoken at a certain meeting; and this declaration was enough to condemn the boy. Tararykin, the barrister, tried in vain to convince the officer, who ordered the soldiers to shoot him, that he was acting illegally. He was nevertheless shot without trial or investigation."
General Kouzmin-Karavaeff—himself a military procureur and a Deputy sitting on the Right of the Constitutional Democrats—appealed in the Duma against the horrors of official bloodshed.
"Over six hundred men," he said, "were, during the last four months, hanged or shot, or otherwise deprived of life by most horrible methods, without trial or after mock trials. This figure is appalling, and it shows us once more that the chief motive of capital punishment here, in Russia, is sanguinary vengeance."[1]
Sitting after sitting of the Duma's first session was devoted to appeals to the Tsar and the Government for amnesty. This subject also had the first place in the Duma's answer to the Crown Speech. It was an appeal to deaf ears. After a hopeless struggle, which lasted over a fortnight, the Duma gave way and began its legislative work. But complaints and petitions poured in upon the Deputies from every constituency, depriving them of the necessary calmness. Then the continuous interpellations to the Government began.
- ↑ Every quotation and every figure in this and in the following pages is taken from the official shorthand reports of the sittings of the Duma.
