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To complete the slavery of the peasants under official
despotism, a new order of country police was created in 1878,
called uriadniks, chosen from the roughest, and invested with
practically unlimited powers in their own sphere—two
conditions that have inevitably made them, as a rule, into wild
beasts in human shape. As proofs of this we give instances
culled first from reports of proceedings in the police-courts,
and accounts in the Zemstvo newspapers.
A certain uriadnik named Makoni came one day to a village
in Samara, Vorony Kust, to attend a meeting at the local
offices. There he met some friends, one of whom, a well-to-do
peasant named Chaibol, invited him and others home “to take
a glass.” As they opened the gate to go, a big sow used the
opportunity to run out, and took it into its head to follow the
uriadnik. This he resented as a gross insult on the sow’s
part—and shot it dead. Coming back in a somewhat “elevated”
condition they met the owner of the sow, a saloon-keeper, who
asked for compensation. This enraged the uriadnik so much
that he declared he had a legal right to shoot both sows and
men, too, if he pleased. An old soldier who stood by observed
that he, too, had served the Tsar, but had never heard of such
a law. Without a word the uriadnik rushed at him and felled
him to the ground, afterwards dragging him with much violence
to the lock-up.
Another uriadnik entered a cottage and found a calf tied by
its leg to a table. Without further ado he drew his sword and
cut it to pieces.
In one place a uriadnik fired point-blank into a crowd of
unarmed people, and in another he rushed into the midst of a
number of peasants who were attempting to put out a fire, and
slashed right and left with his naked sword.
In the district of Bogorodsk the uriadnik used to steal the
peasants’ oats at night. Caught once red-handed, he threatened
to imprison the owner, declaring that he was “in the execution
of his duty”; with revolver drawn he went his way in triumph
through the crowd of enraged peasants. The matter was
reported to the authorities, but the man was not even
dismissed.
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