Justice July 1909
Source: Justice, (two short editorials, unsigned, the first “Anglo Russian Repression in Persia,” almost certainly by Hyndman, the second perhaps by Petroff, “The Czar’s Criminal Protectors”), both 17 July 1909, p.8;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.
Sir Edward Grey’s replies to the questions put in the House of Commons in reference to the Russian invasion Persia are as unsatisfactory as everything connected with this wretched business has been through the unholy alliance with Nicholas, the people of this country are implicated in the brutal Russian repression of a people “rightly struggling to be free.” The statement that the “chaos” in Persia has made the intervention of’ Russia necessary, is a gross fabrication. The Constitutional party were in power; and the “chaos” was created by Liakoff and his Cossacks. Even then the Constitutionalists were winning, and would have defeated the Shah and his reactionists, but for the further intervention of Russia. Surely the people of England will respond to the appeal we publish in another column, and will insist upon Sir Edward Grey withdrawing British support from this infamous crime which Russia is engaged in committing against the Persian nation.
How utterly corrupt and vile and criminal is the organisation of which the Czar is the head, and by which he surrounds himself for protection, has already shown by the exposure of the assassin-mouchard Azeff. The discoverer of that scoundrel, Vladimir Bourtzeff, has now unmasked another rascality. The latter, one of the chiefs of the Russian secret police who holds high military rank, was, it appears, sentenced in France in 1890 to five years’ imprisonment for being implicated in a plot against the late Czar Alexander III.! Bourtzeff produces evidence to prove the identity of the convict with the police official in question, and there is no reason to doubt that he has been playing the same double game as played by the infamous Azeff. Such are the creatures – assassins, mouchards, convicts, human reptiles – that Czar finds necessary to enlist in his “secret police” for his personal protection. Birds of a feather, indeed.