Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/460

444 with the waiters in traktírs [public tea-houses]........  The procureur then passed on to the question of the real object of Russian socialism, showed how that object was made evident by the actions of the party, and cited a surprising number of attempts on the part of socialists to appropriate the goods of others. He referred to a long list of such cases brought to light in connection with previous political trials, beginning with that of Ishútin, and called the attention of the court to the fact that the victims of the crimes of the socialists included even their own comrades. From all that he had previously said the procureur then drew the follow- ing conclusions: 1. That "the welfare of the people" was not, by any means, the real aim of the socialistic party. 2. That the destruction of religion, the family, and the state, was only a means of removing obstacles in the way of their real aim. 3. That their real aim was selfish, personal gain. The procureur admitted that, in contravention of these conclusions, it might be argued: first, that not all socialists were so poor as to be in need of other people's property; secondly, that some of them committed their crimes in the face of great and inevitable peril; and thirdly, that in the court- room and on the scaffold they had shown great bravery. In re- joinder he said that while he believed selfish interest to be the chief aim of the party, he did not assert that it was common to all of its members without exception, but only to a majority of them. He would divide the members of the party, so far as their aims were concerned, into three categories, viz: 1. Fanatics, who, how- ever, were so few in number that among the forty-nine politicals brought before the Kiev court-martial there was not one. 2. Per- sons carried away by the desire to play a conspicuous part any- where, who wanted to declaim at meetings, to go on pilgrimages to the mound of Sténka Razín, and that sort of thing. 3. Com- mon robbers, who constituted a majority of the party. So far as the second objection was concerned, the procureur was of opinion that, of all the persons brought to justice up to that time, only Solivióf, and the Jew who tried to assassinate Count Lóris-Mélikof ran any great personal risk. All the rest had an opportunity to escape punishment. As for the bravado of the prisoners in the 1 Sténka Razín was a noted Russian insurgent who raised a large force on the Volga River in 1667 and virtually ruled southeastern Russia for several years. He was ultimately captured, brought in chains to Moscow, and there beheaded. He is the hero of the Russian revolutionists' song "On the Volga there is a Cliff." [Author's note.]