Part 1, Chapter 3 :
Executions
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19091909
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Author : Peter Kropotkin
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Photo by Keijo Knutas,CC BY-NC License It may be remembered that the
Russian Prime Minister, M. Stolypin, interviewed last year by Mr. W. T.
Stead, and asked about the executions, which were going on then at that
time in very great numbers, said that he had no exact figures, but he
thought that 15 a month would be a near approach to truth (the Times,
August 3, 1908). I contested these figures in the Times of August 14, 1908,
and maintained that the number of executions during the first six months of
1908 had been from 4 to 15 every day--there being, however, no executions
on Sundays and other holidays--and that it reached the figure of 60 to 90
every month.
We have now the official figures of the executions for the last four years.
The Law Committee of the Duma having asked the exact figures from the
Ministry of Interior, the Police Department of that Ministry communicated
them to the Duma on February 6, 1909. But as they are still
incomplete--they apply only to civilians, as the Department of Police
mentions in his communication to the Duma--I also place by their side our
own figures. These figures have been obtained as follows : Several leading
St. Petersburg and Moscow papers till lately gave telegrams every day from
the provincial towns, stating how many persons have been condemned on that
day and giving their names, what were the crimes imputed to them, and how
many, and who, had been executed. The daily figures were added up, and the
monthly and yearly items were published by several papers, including the
well-known Law Review, Pravo, together with all other statistics of
prosecutions. These were the figures communicated by the Russian refugees
to the London Press, and given in the above-mentioned letter of mine to the
Times. Besides, I have now before me a carefully-prepared memorial, in
which, besides matter concerning the exiles, all the executions mentioned
in the leading Russian newspapers since 1905 till November 1, 1908, have
been carefully tabulated, according to the age, the social standing, and
the supposed crime of the executed persons. The cases of ill-treatment in
prisons and administrative executions, mentioned in these papers, up to the
same date (November 1, 1908), are also enumerated in special chapters.1
Here are both sets of figures, of which the official figures apply only to
civilians:--
Courts Martial--
1905................ 1906................
1907................ 1908................ Field Courts Martial,
acting from August 19, 1906, to April 20, 1907...........
Total......... OFFICIAL FIGURES. OUR FIGURES. Death
Sentences. Executions. Death
Sentences. Executions.
72
450
1,056
1,741
--
10+
144+
456*
825+
683
96
773
1,432
1,835
--
32
280
508
802**
676
-- 2,118 -- 2,298*** * To this figure of 456 executions, 84 soldiers must
be added, out of whom 19 were hanged and 65 shot, thus raising the yearly
total to 540.
** First 10 months only.
*** Two months, November and December, 1908, missing.
+ How many military must be added to these figures remains unknown.
No official figures for the year 1909 have yet been published, but the
figures compiled from the daily papers produced before the Duma in a recent
discussion are:--
1909 Death Sentences. Executions. January................... 121
107 February.................. 132 76
March..................... 143 52 -- -- Total (3
months)...... 396 235 The discrepancies between the two tables as
regards the death sentences are easily explained. Our figures give the
death sentences that were pronounced, and telegraphed the same day to the
papers, while the official figures probably give the death sentences
confirmed later on by the Governors-General of the respective districts.
As regards the difference between our figures of executions in 1907 and the
official figures (508 and 456 respectively), it arises from the fact that
the official figures do not include the executions of the military. There
having been, according to an official statement, 84 executions of soldiers
in the course of the year 1907, the official figure for that year becomes
540, and is consequently higher than our figure (by 32 cases). That our
figures would be possibly below the real ones was foreseen, as some
executions may not find their way to the Press. The same remark very
probably applies to the years 1906 and 1908, for which years we have no
official figures of executions among the military.
Now, it must be borne in mind that the above figures do not include those
who were shot in the streets (in the Gapon manifestation, during the
rejoicings after the promulgation of the Constitution of October 30,1905,
or during uprisings in the Baltic provinces, in the Caucasus, and in the
Russian villages), nor do they include those who have been executed during
their transfers from one prison to another (attempts at escape, true or
alleged), nor those who have been executed by simple administrative orders
of the military commanders--these last cases being not uncommon--as it
appeared from several discussions which took place in the First Department
of the Senate (see Chapter V.), when the Senate recognized (by a small
majority) that executions without even a trial before a Field Court Martial
were not illegal under the State of Siege law, such as it was promulgated
by the Emperor. For these executions, the Senate decided, the military
authorities are directly responsible to the Emperor, whose orders they
execute.
There being no official figures concerning the different categories of
executions without any trial, all we can do is to give the figures which
have been compiled for us in the above-mentioned inquiry with the same
desire of arriving at the truth as the above row of figures. They run as
follows : Shot without sentence--376 in 1905, 864 in 1906, 59 in 1907, and
32 in 1908 (first 10 months).
In trying to excuse the large number of executions which take place in
Russia, in consequence of verdicts of Courts Martial now active in more
that two-thirds of the Russian Empire, the present ministry usually point
to the considerable number of murders and attempts to murder which stand in
the official statistics. These figures run as follows :--
Murdered. Wounded. 1905 (2 1/2 months)............ 222
217 1906 ............................. 1,126 1,506
1907.............................. 3,001 1,076
1908.............................. 1,820 2,083 These are the figures
which were communicated to Duma Commission on the abolition of capital
punishment when it came together on June 3, 1909. And in communicating
them, the Department of Police added : "In these included all crimes
committed in all the localities placed under the law of siege
(extraordinary and increased Okhrana").
However, in order to get any correct idea, these figures must be compared
with the numbers of murders and persons wounded in ordinary times; and when
this is done, it appears that in the numbers that are mentioned in the
above figures there is absolutely no extraordinary increase which might in
any way excuse the suspension of ordinary justice, and the surrender of
Russia to the laws that Prevail in times of war and to the summary justice
of the Military Courts.
Here are the figures for ordinary times:--
NUMBERS OF MURDERS IN EUROPEAN RUSSIA ALONE.
During these periods
the Population
gradually increased
from 65 to 70 Millions. Average Yearly
number of
Prosecutions
for Murder
Begun. EXECUTIONS. By Ordinary Courts. By Courts Martial.
1874-1878
1879-1883
1884-1888
1889-1893
1894
3,599
4,161
5,170
5,137
4,991
none
none
none
none
none
Common
211
(from 185
102
(from 189
Political
70
6 to 1890
24
1 to1900)
Taking the number of acts of violence immediately before the revolution,
we find that, in 1904, there were, in a population of 142,700,000, no less
than 2,800 persons condemned for murder, and 3,778 for wounding (Official
Report of the Ministry of justice for 1904). It thus appears that in 1907
there was indeed a sudden increase of acts of violence--provoked by the
countless executions, without any form of trial, during punitive
expeditions, especially in Siberia, the Caucasus, and the Baltic provinces,
and the terrible brutalities of the police officers in the villages. But
there was no increase whatever in the year 1908. Therefore the maintenance
of the state of siege in two-thirds of the Empire cannot be defended on
this ground This has been also forcibly demonstrated during the debates in
the Duma on the law of siege, on February 11th to 14th (O.S.).
Under the military law which is now in action in most of the Russian
territory, the smallest agrarian disorders, and even the setting fire to a
landlord's barn or stack are treated as implying the death penalty. The
Military Courts themselves most reluctantly pronounce the death sentence in
such cases, their members loudly condemning afterwards in private the
obligation under which they are to apply military law, and the orders of
the Emperor who wishes them to apply that law in in all its severity.
Thus, at Ufa, the Court Martial sitting on March 3rd last, pronounced the
following sentences on five local peasants who had robbed another peasant
of 1 ruble 40 kopecks (3 sh.): Pavel Abramoff, death ; Petr Abramoff and
Stepan Antonoff, 10 years' hard labor ; Mihail Bagunoff, 8 years'
imprisonment; and Kuzma Antonoff, 2 months' imprisonment.
The Court pronounced that ferocious verdict because such is the law in time
of war; but it immediately had the courage to ask the Governor-General not
to confirm their sentence, but to mitigate it. Most Courts, however, have
not that courage, and men are hanged for what, under ordinary conditions,
would imply a few months, or even a few weeks of imprisonment.
Many similar cases could be quoted: At Moscow, a Court Martial sentenced a
peasant from one of the districts of the government of Moscow to death, for
having set fire to a stack of hay on the property of a member of the
State's Council, Herr Schlippe.
At Novocherkask, the Court Martial condemned within a few days twenty men
to the death penalty--one of them for having spoken to another prisoner
about making an attempt to kill a policeman.2 In the government of Tambov,
eighteen persons were condemned last March to be hanged, and out of them
three prostitutes for having given shelter to some robber, and one peasant
for having set fire to an empty barn.3
The executions in Novockerkask were carried on by volunteer convicts in
such a terrible way that the agony of some of the executed lasted from a
quarter of an hour to half an hour, the executioner strangling the men with
his own hands. As the executions took place in a remote suburb of that
city, in the midst of winter, the condemned men were brought to the place
of execution half frozen.4
Owing to the haste with which all the affairs are conducted before the
Courts Martial, judicial errors are much frequent than is usually the case.
Thus it appeared that out of the prisoners who were hanged at Odessa on
February 1st last, the men Orenbach, Greyerman, and two brothers Truger
were condemned by mistake. They not only took no part in the defense of a
house in which some anarchists had locked themselves, receiving the police
and military with shots, they ran away from this house, together with other
people, and had absolutely no knowledge of the men who had locked
themselves in the house.
After the death sentence has been pronounced it continually happens that
the condemned men wait for the execution for whole months, and the scenes
which take place at the executions are such as might be expected only in
Persia or Turkey.5
Men executed without any form of trial.--The worst is that the question
about the right of the Governors-General to execute people even without
sending them before a Court Martial, by simple administrative orders,
having been contested by several members of the Senate, this High Court of
Russia has again decided a few weeks ago that such right of summary
execution results from the Imperial Decree by which the rules of the state
of siege were determined, and that therefore the Governors-General, in
inflicting the death penalty by simple administrative order, are
responsible exclusively to the Emperor in person.6
If all this be taken into account, one can easily see how it happens that,
the action of the regular laws being suspended, military justice, designed
exclusively for time of war, has taken the place of the civil
administration and is covering Russia with gallows.
The demoralizing effect of such a substitution upon the habits and life of
the country needs no commentary.
It is also needless to say that this large number of executions is
provoking general discontent among the educated classes. Thus, in December
last, at a general meeting of the lawyers of the St. Petersburg judicial
district it was unanimously resolved to express sympathy with the
interpellation in the Duma against the steadily increasing number of
condemnations to death and executions which have been taking place lately.
Besides, a society was formed lately among influential persons, to work for
the abolition of capital punishment in Russia. But the authorities have
refused the registration of this society under the pretext that capital
punishment being recognized by law, any agitation against it would be
unlawful.
As to the degrading influence of these wholesale executions upon the
population, it is simply terrible, and many facts, simply awful, relating
what is happening at night, during the executions, in what is now called by
the cabmen "The Slaughter Yard" at Moscow, could be added in support of the
ideas so forcibly developed by Leo Tolstoy in his pamphlet, "I Cannot be
Silent."
Footnotes
1 According to a decision of the Ministry, the papers were forbidden a few
months ago to publish in full the crimes for which the death sentences were
pronounced, and a short time ago the Moscow Courts Martial stopped
communicating even the numbers of the executions which took place. The
executions are carried out in great secrecy at night, and in May last it
was learned that fifteen executions had taken place at Moscow, of which no
information had been supplied to the papers.
2Ryech, April, 1909.
3Russkiya Védomosti, March 22, 1909.
4Ryech, April, 1909.
5See with reference to this subject the interpellation made in the Duma on
April 8 and 21, 1909.
6See page 50.
(Source: Kropotkin, Peter. The Terror in Russia. London: Methuen & Co.,
1909. 4th Ed.)
From : Anarchy Archives
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Part 1, Chapter 3 -- Publication : November 30, 1908
Part 1, Chapter 3 -- Added : January 22, 2017
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