Beat – But Not to Death!
On 23 January, in Nizhni Novgorod the Special Presence of the Moscow Court Chamber with the participation of estate representatives considered the case of the murder of the peasant Timofey Vasilievich Vozdukhov, who was sent to a sobering-up station and was beaten there by four police officers: Shelemetev, Shulpin, Shibaev and Olkhovin and the acting the police officer Panov, to such an extent that Vozdukhov died the very next day in the hospital.
Such is the simple tale of this case, which throws a glaring light upon what usually and always goes on in our police-stations.
As far as can be gathered from the extremely brief newspaper reports, what appears to have happened is the following:
On April 20, Vozdukhov drove up to the Governor’s house in a cab. The caretaker of the governor's house who came out, testified at the trial that Vozdukhov was without a hat, he had been drinking, but not drunk. He [Vozdukhov] complained about some steamboat wharf that did not issue a ticket for passage (?)1 The caretaker ordered Shelemetyev, the policeman on post duty, to take him to the station. Vozdukhov was so little drunk that he calmly talked to Shelemetev and on arrival clearly explained his name and rank to the warden Panov.
On arriving at the police-station, he, quite distinctly, told Sergeant Panov his name and his occupation. In spite of this, Shelemetev - evidently with the knowledge of Panov, who had just questioned Vozdukhov - "pushed" the latter not into the prisoners' room, where there were some drunkards, but into the "soldiers' room," which was situated near the prisoners' room.
As Shelemetyev pushed Vozdukhov, his sword got caught on the latch of the door and it cut his hand slightly. Imagining that Vozdukhov was holding the sword, he rushed at him to strike him, shouting that his hand bad been cut. He struck Vozdukhov with all his might in the face, in the chest, in the side; he struck him so hard that Vozdukhov fell, striking his forehead on the floor and begging for mercy. “Why are you hitting me?” he implored.
According to the statement of a witness, Semakhin, who was in the neighbouring cell at the time, [Vozdukhov said],“It was not my fault. Forgive me, for Christ’s sake!” According to the evidence of this witness, it was not Vozdukhov who was drunk, but Shelemetyev.
Shelemetyev’s colleagues, Shulpin and Shibayev had been continuously drinking in the police-station since the first day of Easter week (April 20 was Tuesday, the third day of Easter week). They learned that Shelemetyev was “teaching” (the expression used in the indictment) Vozdukhov a lesson. They went into the soldiers’ lock-up accompanied by Olkhovin, who was on a visit from another station, and attacked Vozdukhov with their fists and feet. Police Sergeant Panov came on the scene and struck Vozdukhov on the head with a book, and then with his fists.
“Oh! they beat and beat him so hard that my belly ached for pity,” said a woman witness, who was under arrest there at the time. When the “lesson” was over, the sergeant very coolly ordered Shibayev to wipe the blood from the victim’s face—it would not look so bad then; the chief might see it—and then to flung him into the common cell. “Brothers!” cried Vozdukhov to the other detainees, “see how the police have beaten me. Be my witnesses, I’ll lodge a complaint.” But he never lived to lodge the complaint. The following morning, he was found in a state of unconsciousness and sent to the hospital where he died within eight hours without coming to himself again. A post-mortem revealed ten broken ribs, bruises all over his body, and haemorrhage of the brain.
The court sentenced Shelemetyev, Shulpin, and Shibayev to four years’ penal servitude, and Olkhovin and Panov to one month’s detention, finding them guilty only of “insulting behaviour.”...
With this sentence we shall commence our examination of the case.
Those sentenced to penal servitude were charged according to Articles 346 and 1490, Part II, of the Penal Code. [Article 346] provides that an official inflicting wounds or injuries in the exercise of his duties is liable to the maximum penalty reserved “for the perpetration of such a crime.” Article 1490, Part II, provides for a penalty of eight to ten years’ penal servitude for inflicting torture resulting in death.
In other words, it sets the maximum reduction allowed by law in case of extenuating circumstances and also sets the lowest penalty in this lowest degree. In short, the court did everything it could to mitigate the fate of the defendants, and even more than it could, since the "capital punishment" law was circumvented. We do not mean, of course, to say that "ultimate justice" required exactly ten years of hard labor rather than four; what is important is that the murderers were found murderers and sentenced to hard labor. But we cannot fail to note the characteristic tendency of the courts of crown judges and class representatives: when they judge police officials, they are ready to lend them every kind of leniency; when they judge for offenses against the police, they are known to be adamantly harsh2.
To the warden ... well, how could he not be lenient! He met Vozdukhov, who was brought in; he obviously ordered him not to be sent to the prison, but first - for training - to the soldiers' room; he took part in the beating with his fists and a book (which must be a law book). He ordered the destruction of traces of the crime (to wash off the blood); he reported to the returning bailiff of this unit, Mukhanov, on the night of April 20 that "everything was going well in the unit under his command" (literally! ) - but he had nothing to do with the murderers; he was guilty only of insult by action, only of simple offence by action, punishable by arrest. It is only natural that this gentleman, Mr. Panov, who is innocent of the murder, should serve at present as a police detachment officer. Mr. Panov has only transferred his useful administrative activity of "educating" the common people from the city to the countryside. Tell me in good conscience, reader, can Uryadnik Panov otherwise understand the sentence of the chamber as advice: "Go ahead and hide the traces of the crime better, 'educate' so that there are no traces. You ordered to wash the blood off the face of the dying man - that is very good, but you let Vozdukhov die - that, brother, is inconsiderate; go ahead be more careful and take the first and last commandment of the Russian Derzhimorda3 firmly in your nose: "beat, but not to death!"
From the human point of view, the Chamber's verdict on Panov is a direct mockery of justice; it shows a purely servile desire to shift all the blame onto the lower police officers and to shield their immediate superior, with whose knowledge, approval, and participation in the brutal torture took place. From the legal point of view, however, this verdict is an example of the kind of casuistry of which the judge-officials, themselves not very far removed from the magistrate, are capable. Language was given to man in order to hide his thoughts, diplomats say. The law was made to distort the notion of guilt and responsibility, our lawyers may say. What, indeed, is the finest judicial art required to frame participation in torture as a mere offense by an act! The handyman, who on the morning of April 20 knocked maybe a hat off Vozdukhov, turns out to be guilty of the same offense - and even weaker: not an offense, but a "violation" - as Panov was. Even mere participation in a fight (rather than beating a helpless person), if someone's death is caused, is subject to a harsher punishment than that to which the policeman was subjected. The judges took advantage of the fact that the law prescribes several penalties for torture in the exercise of office, giving the judge, depending on the circumstances of the case, the choice between prison from two months and exile to Siberia to live. This is, of course, a very reasonable rule, and for this reason our professors of criminal law have more than once praised the Russian law and emphasized its liberalism. They neglected to mention the little detail that the application of sound legal rules requires judges who are not reduced to the position of mere officials; that it requires the participation of representatives of society in the court and of public opinion in the discussion of the case. Secondly, the assistant public prosecutor came to the court's aid by refusing to accuse Panov (and Olkhovin) of torture and cruelty and by asking to punish them only for causing offense. He referred in turn to expert reports which denied that the beatings by Panov were particularly severe and lasted for an extended period of time. The legal sophism, as you see, is not too complicated: since Panov beat less than the others, we can say that his beatings were not especially painful; and if they were not especially painful, we can conclude that they did not amount to "torment and cruelty," and if they did not amount to torment and cruelty, then it was a simple insult by action. Everything is settled to everyone's satisfaction, and Mr. Panov remains in the ranks of the guardians of order and well-being...
We have now touched upon the question of the participation of representatives of society in the trial and the role of public opinion. This question is perfectly illustrated by this case. First of all: why was the case tried not by a jury, but by the court of crown judges with class representatives? Because the government of Alexander III, undergoing a merciless struggle against every aspiration of society for freedom and independence, very soon recognized that the trial by jury was dangerous. The reactionary press pronounced the trial on trial "a trial on the streets" and began a revolt against it, which, incidentally, is still going on. The government has adopted a reactionary program: after defeating the revolutionary movement of the 1870s, it shamelessly declared to the representatives of society that it considered them to be a "street people", unqualified to interfere not only in the legislation, but also in the management of the state, who should be banished from the sanctuary where Russian citizens are put on trial and punished by the methods of the Panovs. In 1887, a law was issued by which cases of crimes committed by and against officials were removed from the jury trial and transferred to the court of crown judges with class representatives.
As is well known, these class representatives, merged into a single panel with the judge-officials, are voiceless extras, playing the pathetic role of understanding, hand-holding what the officials of the judicial department will like to decide. This is one of those laws that, in a long line, stretch through the entire recent reactionary era of Russian history, united by one common desire: to restore "firm power. Circumstances forced the authorities to come into contact with the "street" in the second half of the 19th century, and the composition of this street changed with astonishing rapidity, and dark philistines were replaced by citizens who were beginning to realize their rights and were even able to put up fighters for rights. And, sensing this, the authorities recoiled with horror and now make frantic efforts to enclose themselves with a Chinese wall, to wall themselves up in a fortress, inaccessible to any manifestations of social activism... But I have deviated somewhat from my theme...4
(Lenin’s question mark)
In passing, we shall adduce another fact indicating the punishments imposed by our courts for various crimes. A few days after the Vozdukhov murder trial, the Moscow District Military Tribunal tried a private in the local artillery brigade for stealing fifty pairs of trousers and a few pairs of boots, while on guard duty in the storeroom. The sentence was four years’ penal servitude. A human life entrusted to the police is equal in value to fifty pairs of trousers and a few pairs of boots entrusted to a sentry. In this peculiar “equation” the whole of our police state system is reflected as the sun is reflected in a drop of water. The individual against state power is nothing. Discipline within the state power is everything... pardon me, “everything” only for the small fry. A petty thief is sentenced to penal servitude, but the big thieves, the magnates, cabinet ministers, bank directors, builders of railways, engineers, contracts, etc., who plunder the Treasury of property valued at tens and hundreds of thousands of rubles are punished only on very rare occasions, and at the worst are banished to remote provinces where they may live at ease on their loot (the bank thieves in Western Siberia), and from where it is easy to escape across the frontier (Colonel of Gendermes Meranville de Saint-Clair). —Lenin
Derzhimorda—the name of the policeman in N. V. Gogol’s comedy The Inspector-General; a boorish, insolent oppressor, a man of violence.
In Russia, instead of exposing the outrage in all its horror before the court and the public, they prefer to hush up the case in court and do nothing more than send out circular letters and orders full of pompous but meaningless phrases. For instance, a few days ago the Orel Chief of Police issued an order which, confirming previous orders, instructs the local police inspectors to impress upon subordinates, personally and through their assistants, that they must refrain from roughness and violence in handling drunkards in the streets and when taking them to the police-station to sober up. The order further specifies that police officers must explain to their subordinates that it is the duty of the police to protect drunkards who cannot be left alone with obvious danger to themselves; that subordinate police officers, whom the law has placed in the position of first protectors and guardians of citizens, must, therefore, in taking drunkards into custody, not only refrain from treating them roughly and inhumanly, but must do all they can to protect them until they have become sober. The order warns subordinate police officials that only by such conscientious and lawful exercise of their duties will they earn the confidence and respect of the population, and that if, on the contrary, police officials treat drunkards harshly and cruelly, or resort to violent conduct incompatible with the duty of a police officer, who should serve as a model of respectability and good morals, they will be punished with all the vigour of the law and any subordinate police officer guilty of such conduct will be rigorously prosecuted. A capital idea for a cartoon in a satirical journal—a police sergeant, acquitted of the charge of murder, reading an order that he must serve as a model of respectability and good morals! —Lenin