Praskovia
Ivanovskaia,
the daughter of a priest, was born in Tula, Russia, in 1853. After
the death of her mother she was educated at the local boarding school
Praskovia's
older brother, Vasilii Ivanovskaia, was a medical student who became
a follower of Sergi
Nechayev.
He provided Praskovia with radical literature and she distributed
at school. This resulted in her being arrested but she was released
without charge.
After leaving
school Ivanovskia moved to Odessa where she immediately made contact
with other radicals living in the city. She distributed socialist
propaganda to factory workers during the day and provided literacy
lessons in the evenings.
In the
summer of 1876 Ivanovskaia found work as a farm labourer in the Ukraine.
The main objective was to spread information about the Land
and Liberty movement. However, she was so exhausted at the end
of the day's work that she had little energy for propaganda work.
In October,
1879, the Land and Liberty group split into
two. One faction, Black Repartition, rejected terrorism and supported
a socialist propaganda campaign among workers and peasants. However,
Ivanovskia became a member of People's Will,
the faction who favoured a policy of terrorism.
Ivanovskaia
was briefly imprisoned by the authorities and after her release she
lived in an émigré colony of Russian radicals in Rumania.
In 1880
Ivanovskaia returned to Russia where she worked in an underground
printing plant producing propaganda material for People's
Will. One of her jobs was the printing of the leaflet that explained
why the group had assassinated Alexander
II.
Following
the death of the Tsar several members of the People's
Will were arrested. On 3rd April, 1881, Sophia
Perovskaya, Andrei Zhelyabov, Nikolai
Kibalchich, Nikolai Rysakov and Timofei
Mikhailov were hanged for the crime.
Ivanovskaia
and sixteen other members of People's Will
were also arrested and charged with being involved in the assassination
of Alexander II. Ivanovskaia was sentenced
to death but this was later commuted to hard labour for life.
After serving
fifteen years in prison Ivanovskaia was released and sent to Siberia.
In 1903 Ivanovskaia escaped and went into hiding. She joined the Socialist
Revolutionary Party
and became involved in the activities of the SR
Combat Organization. In
1904 she took part in the assassination of the Minister of the Interior,
Vyacheslav
Plehve.
Betrayed
by Evno Azef, Ivanovskaia was arrested and
imprisoned. However, as a result of the 1905
Revolution, Nicholas II granted an amnesty
to a large number of political prisoners and Ivanovskaia was released.
Praskovia
Ivanovskaia
published her autobiography in 1925.
(1)
In 1875 Praskovia Ivanovskaia moved to Odessa where she attempted
to convert factory workers to socialism.
All the women workers were illiterate. They would
have been eager to learn, but when was there time to teach them? After
a brief dinner, they caught up on the hours of sleep they'd missed
in the morning by curling up on the filthy ropes. By the time we went
home, the sun was the thinnest of crescents, sinking into the sea.
On holidays, the women couldn't study in their quarters even if they
wanted to. How, then, could I conduct propaganda among these women,
who were so cut off from everyone and everything? Perhaps if I'd remained
at the factory longer than two or three months, I might have been
able to get something going: a few girls were becoming interested
in reading and had begun to drop in at my apartment, and in time I
might have been able to propagandize and organize them. But I found
conditions at the factory too difficult and depressing to continue
working there.
(2)
In the summer of 1876 Praskovia Ivanovskaia and her friend Galina
Cheriavskaia went to work as farm labourers in the Ukraine.
On our first day, we joined the other women workers
in some pretty filthy work: shearing sheep. We performed this monotonous
task in a large covered shed, saturated with the smell of sheep. Some
of us sheared, while others picked burrs and all sorts of trash that
had gotten caught in the wool.
We were
soon transferred from the foul shed to a distant work site in the
broad steppe, the realm of green fields. We were assigned to hay mowing.
At four
in the morning, as the sun's rays were just beginning to spill over
the steppe, the overseer would wake us, kicking the legs of those
who wouldn't get up immediately. At the camp, the steward assigned
us to the various sectors. In the morning, we froze from the bitterly
cold dew, which drenched our clothing up to the waist. Staggering
along, still half asleep, we worked as automatically as robots, gradually
warming up a bit.
At ten,
we returned to camp for breakfast, which lasted around half an hour.
Despite the camp hubbub, some people preferred to nap instead of eating.
Our food was of rather poor quality - very plain and unappetizing.
In the morning, they cooked us a watery gruel made from wheat and
water with a dose of salt, or buckwheat dumplings as big as cobblestones
- one or two of these would satisfy the hunger of even the greatest
glutton. The meal was poured into a wooden trough, from which you'd
pull the dumplings with long, pointed splinters. We got the same modest
fare for lunch and dinner.
After our
brief breakfast, we returned to work. As the day wore on, the heat
became so intense that you wanted to take shelter in any available
patch of shade. The sun was so strong that the backs of most of the
newly arrived vagabonds were practically covered with swollen blisters;
later, as their skin toughened up, the burns went away. We women were
often so exhausted from the heat that we lost much of our modesty:
when we reaped and bound the hay, we wore only our shirts, since that
made it a lot easier to work.
During
the busy season, there were no set limits to the work day: if the
steward wished, it could last for sixteen hours or more, with only
an hour off for lunch. Actually, the work itself was lively and gay,
although Galina and I found it difficult and alien.
In the
evening, after the sun had set, we returned to camp. The fire would
be going and dinner waiting. Some people filled their stomachs with
the plain, unsatisfying food and fell asleep on the spot, scattered
around camp. Everyone slept under the open sky, harassed by mosquitoes
and subject to the bites of other enemies as well: the black spiders,
whose venom could make your whole body swell up.
At first,
people found it rather strange to hear ordinary girls - manual labourers
like themselves - speak of many things they'd never heard or even
thought about. They became most interested when the conversation touched
upon the land: this immensely important topic was dear to every heart.
Everyone was united on this issue; they all felt the need for land
most acutely, and this provided us a way to reach even the simplest
peasant.
However,
we didn't actually conduct socialist propaganda; it was clear that
we were still an alien, incomprehensible element in a world we scarcely
knew.
Of course,
our difficulties were compounded by the repressive political system
of Russia and the peasants' own fear. They reacted to all radical
talk with caution, distrust, and sometimes the most natural incomprehension.
Frequently our evening talks ended with the peasants saying: "That's
our fate - so it's been written", or, "We're born - we'll
die."
In fact,
we were rarely able to talk at all: after the day's work, our limbs
shrieked with weariness, our exhausted bodies demanded rest and peace.
(3)
Praskovia Ivanovskaia
joined the People's Will and often visited the home of Sophia
Perovskaya and Andrei Zhelyabov.
In the intervals between printing jobs, we visited
Sofhia Perovskaya's apartment. She shared the place with Andrei Zhelyabov,
and when we stayed late, we saw him, too. To us, the visits to Perovskaia
were like a refreshing shower. Sophia always gave us a warm, friendly
welcome; she acted as if we were the ones with stimulating ideas and
news to share, rather than the reverse. In her easy and natural way,
she painstakingly helped us to make sense of the complicated muddle
of everyday life and the vacillations of public opinion. She told
us about the party's activities among workers, about various circles
and organizations, and about the expansion of the revolutionary movement
among previously untouched social groups. Perovskaia spoke calmly,
without a trace of sentimentality, but there was no hiding the joy
that lit up her face and shone in her crinkled, smiling eyes - it
was as if she were taking about a child of hers who had recovered
from an illness.
(4)
Praskovia Ivanovskaia
spent fifteen years in prison. During this time she smuggled out
a letter to a friend about the problems of being in prison in Siberia.
The Kara prison most resembles a tumbledown stable.
The dampness and cold are ferocious; there's no heat at all in the
cells, on;y two stoves in the corridor. The cell doors are kept open
day and night - otherwise we would freeze to death. In winter, a thick
layer of ice forms on the walls of the corner cells and at night,
the undersides of the straw mattresses get covered with hoarfrost.
Everyone
congregates in the corridor in winter, because it's closer to the
stoves and you get a warm draft. Since the cells farthest from the
stove are completely uninhabitable, the people who live in them carry
their beds into the corridor.
I've been
one of the temporary residents of the corridor, and I can say that
the accommodations weren't particularly comfortable or quiet. Cooking,
bread baking, and all sorts of washing were done there: at the table,
someone would be reading periodicals, while right next to her, there
would be someone making chopped meat for the sick people or sloshing
underwear around in a trough.
Last winter,
however, we drew up a constitution for ourselves. Since the cold made
it impossible to do any studying in the cells, and since the bustle
in the corridor would be used exclusively for reading. Anyone who
wanted to strike up a conversation had to move off into one of the
distant cells and speak softly, since the partitions were thin and
loud talk could be heard everywhere.
(5)
In 1903 Praskovia Ivanovskaia
joined the Socialist Revolutionaries
and took part in the assassination of Vyacheslav
Plehve.
The conclusion of this affair gave me some satisfaction
- finally the man who had taken so many victims had been brought to
his inevitable end, so universally desired.
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