The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1922-02-01
What Russia Has Suffered
Her Atrccious Ills Are Close to Us We Feel ThOm.
With All Races in the Past It Has Been the Same.

n HERE are published letters BY. Tolstoy hitherto un
known s3gss
In one letter Tolstoy tells how he talked with a
old man, aged ninetyfve, and heard from him Of Til
days when all soldiers in the army were logged regularly
Upon this narrative he based his story sNicholas thu
Flogger," and he says:
II began to run over in my mind the cases Of
human brutality which had read of in Russian
history-the cruelty of which the Russian, though
Christian and good and gentle msn--has been
guilty. Happily unhappily for me- could recall
only too many such incidents.
"Ivan the Terrible burned, drowned, decapitated
men like savage beast. It was atrociousi But the
cruelties Of Ivan the Terrible are for me but dis
tant visions, legends. did not see those acts with
my eyes.
"It is the same with what happened during the
interregnum between the reign of Michael and
Alexius. 1t is not until reach the time Of Peter
the Great that these things begin to be real and
living for me.
Gin reading of the atrocious acts of that mad
beast-uncaged and blood drunk feel as though
his acts affected me personally imposed some duty
upon myself.
"My first impulse is one of hatred, then of con-
tempt, desire to humiliate the criminal But that
is not what the demands. Ny feelings summon
me to do something similar to what i ought to do
If being dear to me maltreated and tortured in
my presence-or even perhaps being not dear to
me, any man whatever.
"But I could not at first discover, could not
understand what this sentiment demanded of me and
why such incidents had powerful an attraction for
me.
My feeling of revolt and disgust increased every
time read Of the cruelties of Peter or of Catherine
the Great; and still more when read the tale of
crimes committed by Anna Ivanovna and the Tsarins
Elizabeth Petrovna
''But my indignation reached a climax when
studied the life of that immoral beast Catherine H.
and when 1 realized the baseness aud villainy Of
those who composed her court, baseness and
viainy which characterized all her successors Then
came Paul do not know why he never aroused
the same sentiment of anger in my heart-followed
by the parricide Alexander the First, and his
favorite. Arakchef, the flogger-fogging every
\ where, on all occasions.
Giving men, beaten and bludgeoned by other
living men, Christians betrayed by their own leaders,
dubbed to death. Then came Nicholas the flogger
whose atrocities numerous that my memory
refuses to retain them"
Thus Tolstoy, carrying in his mind and memory inc
dents of Russian history, looked back over the tale
horror
That tale should be borne in mind by those that crit
CHE the PRESENT government of Russia. Today's gov
eminent undoubtedly is bad enough But nothing coul
be bad the horrors through which the Russian pee
pie passed under the Cars recognized by us and til
whole civil world ruling Russia properly and b
Divine right
We know that Peter the Great, "mad beast lineage
and blood-drunk" as Tostoy calls him. laid the POUNDS
ton Of Russia's power and greatness. And Cathern
H. that immoral beast" Tolstoy very properly call
her, carried on ably the work of Peter ~
We realize that in brutal ages among brutal peopl
brutality inevitable.
What all the hideous rulers Of Russia have done in
cent times to the helpless people Of Russia other ruler
farther back have done everywhere
When the people rebel and when, in the Of tn
French Revolution this recent revolution, ho1
rible incidents occur blood is shed and brutality
the top the world crtcizes bitterly, forgetting what ha
passed and to what the rebeous people have been sui
mitted.
What Tolstoy said gives you vivid idea of what wa
the minds and memories Of the Russians when the pee
pie in turn became master and had in their hands tn
Glars and mobiles that formerly logged tortured an
bludgeoned them.