POV: Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich
Moika Palace, St. Petersburg.
Moika Palace was not the largest building owned by the Yusupov family. Nor was it the oldest. It was, quite simply, the most discreet. Located on a corner where Moika Street curves toward the Kryukov Canal, with a pale stone facade free of showy ornamentation and an inner garden hidden behind a high wall, it had the virtue that no one who did not know exactly what to look for would have guessed that one of the richest families in the Empire resided there.
Kirill Vladimirovich had known the palace for years. He had attended dinners, receptions, musical evenings. He had never been to the east wing, the one facing the inner garden, where Félix Yusupov had established what he called "the small study" and which was nothing other than a workroom with no windows onto the street, its walls lined with books and a mahogany desk that had belonged to Félix's father.
That night, the small study had four occupants.
Félix Yusupov, Count Sumarokov-Elston, Prince Yusupov, heir to the largest fortune in Russia after the imperial family, was seated behind the desk. He was twenty-five, dark hair combed with a slightly feminine precision, and a beauty that most of the women of St. Petersburg envied and that he wore with a mixture of coquetry and disdain. He wore a dark blue velvet frock coat, a white silk tie, and a ruby ring on his right pinky. He looked like a dandy. He was a dandy. But beneath the surface there was a cold intelligence and a resentment deeper than any poem he had written in his youth.
To his right, in a leather armchair that seemed too large for his thin body, sat Prince Félix Yusupov senior, Count Sumarokov-Elston, sixty-three years old, Governor-General of Moscow during the reign of Alexander III, former member of the State Council, a man who had spent his entire adult life in the corridors of power and who now saw them populated by faces he did not recognize. He did not speak much. When he spoke, everyone listened.
To Kirill's left, seated with legs crossed and a glass of cognac in his hand, was Prince Dmitri Pavlovich, the Tsar's cousin, thirty years old, cavalry officer, hero of the war against Japan, and one of the few Romanovs who had not hidden his discontent with the reforms. Dmitri was not an intellectual. He did not read philosophers or economists. But he had a virtue Kirill appreciated: he was not afraid of anything in front of his eyes. And in the Russia of that moment, a man without fear was a scarce resource.
Kirill Vladimirovich occupied the fourth chair. It was not the head of the table, Félix had deliberately wanted to avoid any visible hierarchy, but it was the center of the room. Everyone else looked at him when they wanted to know what was being decided.
"Good". said Félix, breaking the silence. "We are all here. Shall we begin?"
Kirill nodded.
"Let us begin with what we know. The State Council is closed. Article 87 is in force. Stolypin can legislate by decree for three months, renewable. The aristocracy has no legal instruments to block his reforms".
"Three months". said Dmitri. "And after that?"
"After that, if Stolypin wants to extend it, he needs the Tsar's signature. And the Tsar, so far, has signed everything put in front of him".
"The Tsar is a child in the hands of another child". said Félix senior, speaking for the first time. "The Tsarevich handles him like a puppeteer handles a marionette".
"That is not fair". said Dmitri. "Nicholas is weak, but he is not a puppet. He has his own convictions".
"His convictions are the ones the Tsarevich puts in his head every morning". replied Félix senior. "I see it in Moscow. The decrees that arrive, the orders that are transmitted, the reforms that are announced. Everything has the same stamp. The stamp of a child playing at being Tsar".
Kirill raised a hand.
"We are not here to discuss the Tsar's personality. We are here to decide what we do. The legal path is closed. The aristocratic path is closed. What do we have left?"
"The private path". said Félix.
"That is what we are exploring. But the private path can mean many things. We need to be precise".
Félix senior leaned forward.
"The private path means economic pressure. We nobles control the land. We control the factories. We control the railways. If we want, we can paralyze the country in a week".
"And what would we gain from that?" asked Dmitri. "Paralyzing the country does not stop the decrees. It only makes people go hungry. And people who go hungry become revolutionaries".
"People who go hungry turn against the government that does not feed them". said Félix senior. "If Stolypin's government cannot guarantee bread, the Tsar will have to choose between Stolypin and the people. And the Tsar always chooses the people".
Kirill shook his head.
"That is too risky. A famine in the provinces could unleash something we could not control. The revolutionaries are waiting for exactly that. If we paralyze the country, we give them the opportunity they are looking for".
"Then what do you propose?" asked Félix.
Kirill stood up. He walked to the window facing the inner garden. Snow covered the hedges and the paths with a uniform layer. In the distance, beyond the wall, the lights of the city could be seen.
"Propose is not the word. Propose is what the aristocracy does when it wants to seem reasonable". He turned. "What I am going to do is different. I am going to stop proposing. I am going to start obstructing".
"Obstruct how?" asked Dmitri.
"With every means at our disposal. Bureaucracy. The courts. The press. The Church. Every institution we still control, every official who still owes us loyalty, every judge who still answers to our orders. We are going to make every one of Stolypin's decrees impossible to apply. Not by force. By inertia".
Félix frowned.
"That is what we tried in the Council. And we failed".
"We failed because we tried to block the decree before it was signed. Now the decree is signed. We cannot block it. But we can make it unenforceable". Kirill returned to the table. "Think about what the government needs to apply these reforms. It needs officials to execute them. It needs judges to validate them. It needs police to enforce them. It needs inspectors to supervise them. If all those links fail, if officials declare themselves sick, if judges find procedural defects, if police cannot find the offenders, if inspectors lose the files, the decree becomes dead letter".
"That is sabotage". said Félix senior.
"That is passive resistance. It is not a crime. It is not a conspiracy. It is simply... inefficiency. The natural inefficiency of a State trying to do too much in too little time".
Dmitri let out a short laugh.
"That is brilliant. And it is completely cowardly".
"Cowardice is a relative term". replied Kirill. "In this case, it is the difference between winning and being hanged".
"And if Stolypin responds with purges?" asked Félix. "He has done it before. He dismissed Shcheglovitov's officials. He can dismiss ours".
"Let him try. Every official he dismisses will have to be replaced. And the replacements will have to be trained. And while they are trained, the files pile up. And while they pile up, the reforms do not advance". Kirill smiled. "Stolypin can dismiss a thousand officials. But he cannot dismiss every official in the Empire. And if he tries, the State paralyzes itself. Without us lifting a finger".
Félix senior nodded slowly.
"That is what the English call a filibuster. A parliamentary obstruction. But applied to the administration".
"Exactly. A filibuster". Kirill took his glass of cognac. "The difference is that in the English Parliament the filibuster lasts hours. Here it can last months. Years, if necessary".
"And in the meantime?" asked Dmitri. "What do we do? Wait?"
"In the meantime, we cultivate discontent. In the provinces. In the Church. In the army. At court". Kirill drank a sip. "The Tsarevich has many allies because he is successful. If we stop giving him successes, his allies will start looking for alternatives".
"That is a long-term plan". said Félix.
"It is the only plan that can work. We cannot defeat the Tsarevich in a single battle. But we can wear him down. Like water wears down stone. Slowly. Without it being noticed. Without him being able to point to a concrete enemy".
Félix senior stood up.
"That is what the Church is doing".
Kirill looked at him.
"The Church?"
"Metropolitan Pitirim". Félix senior walked toward the table. "He has contacted me. Not directly. Through an intermediary. He has let me know that he shares our concerns. That the Church also sees in the Tsarevich a threat".
"And what does he propose?"
"He proposes the same as you. Patience. Attrition. Infiltration. He has offered me the services of his contacts in the rural dioceses. Priests who can preach against the reforms without mentioning them. Catechists who can educate children in tradition. And, if necessary, men who can... persuade the less enthusiastic officials".
Kirill was silent for a moment. The Church. He had not thought of the Church. He had underestimated Pitirim. He had considered him an ecclesiastical bureaucrat, a diocesan administrator, a man without political ambitions. He had been wrong.
"And what did you tell him?" he asked.
"That I would listen. That I would not commit until I knew exactly what he offers and what he asks".
"What does he ask?"
"Nothing concrete. Not yet". Félix senior sat down. "But he suggests that the interests of the Church and the interests of the aristocracy are the same. That both institutions are being displaced by the new order. That both need to ally in order to survive".
Dmitri let out a whistle.
"The Church and the aristocracy. Together. Now that is an alliance".
"A dangerous alliance". said Kirill. "If the Tsar discovers that we are conspiring with the Church, he will accuse us of conspiracy against the Crown. And that accusation does have consequences".
"The Tsar will not discover it". said Félix. "Not if we are careful".
"The ISD will discover it. The ISD discovers everything".
Félix smiled.
"The ISD has its limits. The Grand Duchess is competent, but she is not omnipotent. And she has a weak point".
"What?"
"Her agents. The men and women who work for her. Not all of them are loyal. Some are loyal to money. Others are loyal to their families. Others are loyal to the Church". Félix leaned forward. "Pitirim has someone inside the ISD. Someone who passes him information. Someone who can delay a report, lose a file, divert an investigation".
Kirill looked at him fixedly.
"Do you have proof of that?"
"I have Pitirim's word. And Pitirim is not a man who gives his word lightly".
"Pitirim is a clergyman. Clergymen lie as much as politicians".
"Pitirim is a clergyman who has survived thirty years in the ecclesiastical court. He has not reached where he is by lying". Félix senior intervened. "If he says he has someone inside the ISD, it is because he does".
Kirill reflected. The information was valuable. If the Church had a mole in the ISD, that meant the resistance network was broader than he had thought. It meant he was not alone. It meant there were others who had seen the threat and were acting accordingly.
But it also meant there were risks. The Church was not a natural ally of the aristocracy. Priests and princes did not share the same interests. The priests wanted to maintain their influence over souls. The princes wanted to maintain their influence over the land. They were two distinct powers, which needed each other to survive, but which also competed for the same space.
"Have you told Pitirim that we have a plan?" asked Kirill.
"No. I told him we are exploring possibilities. That we share his concern. That we would be willing to coordinate efforts if the objectives are compatible".
"And are they?"
Félix senior shrugged.
"The immediate objectives, yes. Stop the reforms. Limit the Tsarevich's power. Restore the balance. The long-term objectives... that is another matter".
"The Church will want to recover control of the schools. We want to recover control of the land. The Tsarevich will want to keep both". Kirill sat down. "If we win, we will have to negotiate. And that negotiation could be more difficult than the war".
"It always is". said Dmitri. "Wars are won by soldiers. Peaces are won by diplomats".
"We are not at war". said Félix. "We are in a resistance".
"Call it what you like". Dmitri stood up. "But when the resistance ends, someone will have to decide what happens to the Tsarevich".
The silence that followed was denser than the previous ones. No one had spoken the word. No one had said what would happen to the child who had dared to reform Russia. But the question floated in the air, inevitable, like the smoke of a fire that has not yet started.
"The Tsarevich is the heir". said Kirill slowly. "We cannot touch him. Not without destroying the dynasty".
"The dynasty will destroy itself if he continues down this path". said Dmitri. "The question is not whether we can touch him. The question is whether we can afford not to".
"That is a conversation for another time". said Félix senior, firmly. "Not now".
Dmitri looked at him. Then he looked at Kirill. Then he sat down again.
"Fine. Another time".
Kirill took his glass. He emptied it. He set it on the table.
"Then the plan is as follows. First is administrative obstruction. Every decree that leaves St. Petersburg will find a thousand small resistances in its path. Officials who fall ill. Judges who find procedural defects. Police who find no one. Inspectors who lose files. It is not open sabotage. It is an inefficiency so profound that it will make the reforms arrive in the provinces converted into noise".
"Second". he continued: "Coordination with the Church. Pitirim has his networks. We have ours. If we merge them, the reach multiplies. Priests can preach in the villages. Landowners can pressure in the cities. Officials can sabotage in the offices. Judges can block in the courts".
"Third is patience. There will be no open confrontation. There will be no coup. There will be no war. There will be a slow, silent resistance that will wear down the regime until it collapses under its own weight. The Tsarevich is seven years old. We have a whole lifetime ahead of us. If we wait long enough, we will see his Empire crumble".
"And if it does not crumble?" asked Dmitri.
Kirill looked at him.
"Then we will have to help it crumble".
When Dmitri left, and Félix senior retired to his rooms, Kirill and Félix were left alone in the small study.
Félix poured two glasses of cognac. He handed one to Kirill. He sat in the leather armchair, crossed his legs, and looked at his guest with an expression Kirill could not interpret.
"Do you think it will work?" asked Félix.
"The plan?"
"The plan. The resistance. The alliance with the Church. All of it".
Kirill drank a sip of cognac. It was good. Better than the one in his own palace.
"I do not know. Administrative resistance can work. The alliance with the Church is more doubtful. Clergymen have their own interests. They are not easy to manage".
"Pitirim is not easy to manage. But he is a reasonable man. He understands that the Tsarevich is a threat to him as much as to us".
"I hope so". Kirill set down his glass. "There is something else".
"What?"
"The Tsarevich is not an ordinary enemy. He is not a weak king or a corrupt minister. He is a child who thinks like an adult. A child who knows things he should not know. A child who seems to anticipate our movements before we make them".
Félix nodded slowly.
"I have noticed".
"What do you know about him?"
"What everyone knows. He is brilliant. He designs machines. He reforms ministries. He expels Rasputin. He does not attend Mass".
"And what else?"
Félix was silent for a moment.
"I have heard rumors. Rumors I cannot confirm. They say the Tsarevich is not what he seems. They say there is something inside him. Something that is not of this world".
"The Antichrist?"
"Something like that. I do not know if he is the Antichrist. I do not know if he is a demon. I do not know if he is simply a child prodigy who has read too many books. But there is something about him that does not fit. Something that is not natural".
Kirill looked at the fire. The flames danced in the fireplace, casting shifting shadows on the walls.
"Pitirim believes he is the Antichrist".
"Pitirim is a clergyman. Clergymen see the Antichrist everywhere".
"Pitirim is not an ordinary clergyman. He has survived thirty years in the ecclesiastical court. He is not easily frightened. If he believes the Tsarevich is the Antichrist, it is because he has seen something that made him believe it".
Félix drank his cognac.
"And what do you believe?"
Kirill took a while to answer.
"I believe the Tsarevich is dangerous. I believe he is destroying the Empire. I believe he must be stopped. The rest... the rest does not matter".
"It does not matter if he is the Antichrist?"
"If he is the Antichrist, then we are in a war against the devil. And in a war against the devil, all means are lawful. If he is not the Antichrist, then he is simply a child who has read too many books. And in that case, he must also be stopped. The difference is only theological".
Félix smiled.
"You are a pragmatist, Kirill".
"I am a Romanov. We Romanovs have been pragmatists since Peter the Great cut the boyars' beards".
"And you are not worried about what might happen if we win?"
"What do you mean?"
"If we win. If we stop the Tsarevich. If we restore the order. What happens afterward? The aristocracy returns to power. The Church recovers its influence. But the Empire remains the same. The peasants remain peasants. The workers remain workers. And in ten years, or twenty, or thirty, we will have another revolution. And this time there will be no Tsarevich to stop it".
Kirill looked at him fixedly.
"And what do you propose?"
"I do not know". Félix shrugged. "I am only saying that stopping the Tsarevich is not enough. We have to build something to replace him. Something that lasts".
"That is a problem for another day".
"Yes". Félix emptied his glass. "For another day".
They remained in silence. The fire kept crackling. The snow kept falling over the inner garden. Somewhere in the palace, a clock struck midnight.
"There is something I have not told you". said Félix finally.
"What?"
"Pitirim has a mole in the ISD. But he is not the only one. There is someone else. Someone who does not work for the Church".
Kirill tensed.
"Who?"
"I do not know. I know he exists. I know he has access to high-level information. I know he has been passing information to someone outside the ISD. But I do not know who he is or who he works for".
"How do you know?"
"Because the ISD has started investigating my father. They have asked for his accounts. His letters. His contacts". Félix looked at him. "Someone inside the ISD has decided that my father is a target. And that someone is not Tatiana Nikoláevna. Tatiana does not move a piece without a reason. Someone has convinced her that my father is a threat".
"And you believe that someone is a traitor?"
"Not necessarily. He could be an enemy. He could be a competitor. He could be someone who wants my father's position. But whoever he is, he has power inside the ISD. And that means we have a problem".
Kirill reflected.
"If there is someone inside the ISD working against us, we have to find out who he is".
"I know. That is why I am telling you". Félix stood up. "You have contacts in the army. I have contacts at court. Between the two of us we can find out who he is".
"And if we do not find out?"
"Then we will have to assume that the ISD is a more dangerous enemy than we thought. And we will have to act accordingly".
Kirill stood up as well.
"All right. I will work on it". He adjusted his coat. "Is there anything else?"
"Yes". Félix looked at him with an expression Kirill had not seen before. It was an expression of vulnerability. Of fear, almost. "Be careful, Kirill. The Tsarevich is not like the enemies we have had before. He does not play by the same rules. He does not respect the same limits. If he discovers what we are doing, he will not hesitate to destroy us".
"I know".
"And you are still going to go ahead?"
Kirill walked toward the door. Before leaving, he turned.
"If we do not go ahead, the Empire we knew will disappear. And I am not willing to allow that".
He opened the door and left
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