(^262) Gentlemen to Officers
societies. Units were periodically relocated or called out on manoeuvres. Officers
might be transferred, go on leave, or apply for discharge. This turnover made
it hard to maintain contact.^56 Army life did provide malcont~s with an
organizational structure to which they could adapt their own; moreover, officers
often had a good deal of leisure time, and manoeuvres might afford co,ver for
conspiratorial meetings; but these advantages were more than off5ct by the
heightened risk of exposure. Correspondence was subject to interception and
any hint of unconventional behaviour aroused immediate suspicion.
Alexander I revived the practice of internal espionage within the army,
which he had allowed to lapse earlier in his reign. In January 1821 he accepted
a proposal by General I. V. Vasil" chikov, commander of the Guards Corps, to
set up a secret military police force (distinct from the Internal Guard) to exercise
surveillance over troops stationed in and around the capital. It was allotted a
staff of only 15 and a modest budget (40,000 roubles),^57 but it could call on the
services of ad hoc informers who were rewarded in other ways. In May 1821
the authorities received valuable information from M. K. Gribovsky, a
(civilian) librarian in the Guards General Staff and a key member of the Union
of (Public) Welfare; under heavy pressure he not only betrayed his comrades
but even helped to set up the surveillance system over them." Two other
informers, Captain A. I. Mayboroda of the Vyatka infantry regiment and
I. V. Shervud (Sherwood), an NCO in the 3rd Ukrainian Ulans, reported on
the Southern Society and enabled the authorities to effect a majot coup by
arresting its leader, Colonel P. I. Pester, on the eve·of the ill-fated insurrec-
tion of 14 December 1825.s^9
Colonel Pester had played a key role in the movement almost from its
inception. Born to a family of Smolensk sz/achta-his father became governor
of Siberia-and educated first in Germany and then at the Page-Corps, he
entered the Litovsky guards regiment as an ensign and fought in the campaigns
of 1812-14; he was severely wounded at Borodino. Subsequently(l8l7) Pester
became adjutant to Field-Marshal P. Kh. Wittgenstein, command~in-i:hief
of the Second Army, and in September 1821, aged only 28, reache4 colonel's
rank.^60 This swift promotion testified to his remarkable intellect, drive, and
organizational talent. Pester gained a sound grasp of military affairs and was
also unusually well-read in contemporary political literature, from which he
56 Two examples must suffice. At the crucial Moscow conference of 'January 1821 the
'southerners' were represented by the moderate Burtsev rather than their radical lader Pester
because the former qualified for leave in that city and so could go there without attnctina atten-
tion: Semevsky, 'Fon-Vizin', p. 29. Nikita Murav·ycv, the 'northerners" leader, took a year's
leave in 1820-1 to attend to his family affairs, and after getting his old job back (throulh protec-
tion) absented himself again in 1824-5: Druzhinin, Murav'yev, pp. 114, 120-1, 147.
57 Shil' der, Aleksandr I, iv. 548-50 (cf. 203-15); Volkonsky, • Arkhiv', pp. 656, 660i cf. Monas,
Third Section, p. 46.
58 Yakushkin, ·s·yezd', p. 601; Volkonsky, 'Arkhiv', p. 661; Nechkina, D'IWIMll,e, i. 90, ii.
28.
S9 VD iv. 8-17, 38-40; Mazour, First Russ. Revol., p. 181.
60 VD iv. 6-7; a biography of Pester in English is forthcoming.
wang
(Wang)
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