4 April 1917. The New York Times

The New York Times

Fifty thousand sledges, carrying victims of the old regime back to freedom in the new Russia from the mines and convict settlements of Siberia, are speeding in endless chain across the snows of Northern Asia toward the nearest points on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Their passenger range from members of the old Terrorist societies to exiles who were banished by administrative decree without trial, or even known offense.

In order to witness this unprecedented migration, a correspondent of The Associated Press came here in company with a member of the Duma, M. Rosenoff, and two members of the former Counce of the Empire. The three officials were sent by the Provisional Government to explain to the natives in these remote Russian outposts the nature of the great change which had come to the country.

The liberation of Siberia’s prisoners has barely began. West of the Urals The Associated Press correspondent encountered only a handful of exiles who, when the revolution began, were at or near the railroad. The first large party was met when the Siberian express reached Ekaterinburg, in the Urals. It consisted of 15 political convicts and administrative exiles, including twenty members of the Jewish revolutionary “Bund,” mostly from the Verkholensk district west of Lake Baikal. The exiles were traveling in special cars, and had been on the road continuously from March 24, five days after they first heard of the revolution.

The cars were met by a vast crowd at the railroad station, which cheered them tumultuously. The exiles returned the cheers, but they were in a deplorable physical condition, shaggy, uncouth, unwashed, and extremely emaciated. Many were crippled with rheumatism, two had lost hands and feet from frost bites, and one, who attempted flight a week before the revolution, had been shot in the leg when he was captured. He was lying in a prison hospital when he learned that he was a free man.

The President of the Exile Reception Committee in Ekaterinburg gave the correspondent a general picture of the present conditions and prospects of the exiles. He said that there were probably altogether 100,000 persons in Siberia who had been released under the amnesty me a measure of the Provisional Government. This number comprises political offenders including terrorists going to eat that after trial person is suspected of furthering revolutionary propaganda and exiled without child by order of the secret police, gendarmerie, or the minister of the interior finally some tens of thousands of thousands exiled without trial by decrees of the village communal councils. Many of the latter will remain in Siberia voluntarily where conditions of life and work are excellent under the reform government.

At Tyumen the correspondent math a second train load of exiles from your coats reason and the Pinot settlements of Tobolsk and Tomsk. The crowds at the station cheered at famous terrorist Nikolai Anuikhin who shot and killed the chief of the Petrograd-Warsaw railway in 1906. He's victim general Fuchloff, was about to kidnap for 400 railway strikers and send them to Siberia. Anuikhin, who introduced himself to the correspondent as “a released jailbird.” is a gigantic, broad-shouldered, elderly man with a gray imperial and an excited manner of speech. He said:

“After one year in European convict prisons I spent ten years in the Alexandrovsk Prison, fifty miles from Irkutsk. This is the biggest convict jail in Russia and contained 12,000 ordinary criminals and about 500 political prisoners, mostly sentenced to life ‘Katorga,’ the severest form of Russian punishment short of death. I spent the first five years in the so-called probation class, with hands and feet manacled and chained to a wheelbarrow, which aI had to take everywhere. In addition, I was repeatedly flogged by order of the Governor. The Assistant Governor, during the absence of his chief, ordered daily flogging for his own satisfaction.”

The badly overcrowded prison was divided into dormitories, each of which was intended for thirty prisoners, but usually contained from sixty to eighty, half of whom had consumption or rheumatism. We convicts had a secret organization which we called “The Collective”. The occupants of the different dormitories communicated by means of tapping and other systems of signaling. Although we also had means of communication with the outside world, we knew nothing of the revolution until the morning of our release. At that time two Terrorists and half a dozen criminal convicts were being flogged without apparent cause. The provincial State attorney suddenly appeared and announced to our amazement: ‘‘Russia is a republic, and you are free.’’

“After our release we learned that the Assistant Governor, on getting news of the revolution, declared that he would give a farewell flogging, ‘‘in order to prepare my jailbirds for sweet liberty.’’

Among the political prisoners from Tobolsk is Alexander Popoff, who was sentenced to death for an alleged log against the Emperor, a charge which he declared was a fabrication by the police. Popoff, who is a highly intelligent artisan, was chained by the wrists and ankles for four years. In describing his release he said:

“A most remarkable feature of amnesty day in Tobolsk was the sudden demand for blacksmiths. The prison blacksmiths, fearing the vengeance of the convicts, fled and private blacksmiths, in the general orgy of revolutionary triumph, could not be found. In the meantime sixty chained men waited for their liberation. The newly formed Committee of Public Safety, unable to find blacksmiths, drive the still chained convicts to the dismissed Governor’s palace, where a banquet had been prepared and we had our first free meal. Above the din of speeches and cheers for the Russian Republic could be heard the jangling of our shackles.

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Nicholas II

During the night there was a storm and a lot of snow fell. The day became sunny and quiet. Olga and Tatiana went out into the air for the first time and sat around the balcony while I walked. After breakfast I worked for a long time. The youngest slept a little more and felt better. We passed all the time together.

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Leon Trotsky

Amherst concentration camp, Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada

British officers, accompanied by bluejackets, came aboard the Chrisliani- afiord and demanded, in the name of the local admiral, that I, my family, and five other passengers leave the boat. We were assured that the whole incident would be cleared up in Halifax. See more

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Georgy Lvov

Welcomes the delegation of Equal Rights for Women League

Petrograd, Russian Empire

If we’re going to have universal suffrage, what’s the rationale for preventing women who wish to participate in elections from doing so? Our electoral law is being developed. In its final form, it is contingent on the total composition of the provisional government. But I’m for the participation of women.

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Tamara Karsavina

Petrograd, Russian Empire

Like microbes on the body of a sick man, the rumours grew more numerous with every passing day; newspapers born overnight disseminated panicky information and concocted slander. How the big posters hanging in the main street escaped my attention, I don't know. In the evening the telephone rang, and an old friend anxiously asked, “Are you safe?” I couldn’t believe my ears when he told me that today’s posters featured my full name, with the words “German spy” inscribed underneath.

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Winston Churchill

London, United Kingdom

There are only two ways of winning the war, and they both begin with A. One is aeroplanes and the other is America.… Everything else is swept away.

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Maurice Paleologue

10, Kutuzova embankment, Petrograd, Russian Empire

The Minister of justice, Kerensky, yesterday paid a visit to Tsarkoïe-Selo to see for himself the arrangements made for guarding the ex-sovereigns. He found everything in order. See more

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The New York Times

The wife of the former Russian Premier Boris V. Sturmer has attempted to commit suicide, according to Reuter dispatch from Petrograd. After receiving a letter, the contents of which are not known, she cut her throat. She was taken to a hospital, where she was said to be in a dangerous condition. Madam Sturmer is 60 years old.

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3 April

The soldiers flee and hide. Things will be even worse in the future.

The émigré communists consider whether to accept the Germans’ offer

How the arrested emperor spends his time