362 Towards a Modern Army, 1825-1874nant W. Kaplinski (V. T. Kaplinsky), was arrested in Warsaw. In June two
subalterns and an NCO were hanged in public. This brought an attempt on the
life of the acting viceroy, and at several places comrades of the executed men
staged commemorative religious services. Milyutin ordered a purge of 'all
officers ... who exhibit moral depravity and exert a harmful influence on their
comrades and subordinates'.^56 Several hundred men were discharged while
others were posted to areas in the interior. Regimental libraries were combed
for subversive material. In Vil'na and St. Petersburg commissions of investi-
gation were set up, but the officials who manned them displayed little energy
and considerable respect for legal forms. For instance, thanks to Nazimov's
intervention on his behalf, Zwiezdowski was simply transferred to another
staff job in Moscow, where he was able to continue his revolutionary agita-
tion.57 On the other hand, in August 1862 the authorities scored a coup by
arresting D~browski, although they did not discover his key role; his successor
on the KCN, Lieutenant Zygmunt Padlewski, lacked his drive and organiza-
tional talent.
In November 1862 Padlewski and a comrade, A. A. Potebnja, held talks in
St. Petersburg with the leaders of a shadowy Russian civilian organization,
Land and Liberty. Potebnja, a russified Ukrainian and an ensign in the
Shlisselburg infantry regiment, ~ad been through the Konstantinovsky Cadet
Corps (where he had first met D~browski) and the Tsarskoye Selo riflemen's
school; it was he who had shot and wounded the acting viceroy, General
Liiders.^58 The nucleus of Land and Liberty included at least two senior
officers, Obruchev and Lieutenant-Colonel A. D. Putyata, but most of its
members were students,^59 and its two representatives at the talks were both
civilians: A. A. Sleptsov and N. I. Utin. Confronted by the more experienced
military activists from Poland, they conceded that their organization was still
in its infancy and had little influence. Nevertheless an agreement was concluded
on 23 November which contained a phrase to the effect that, if insurrection
broke out in the Congress kingdom, the KCN 'counts on an efficacious diver-
sion by its Russian allies to prevent the tsarist government from sending fresh
troops to Poland'.^60 A good deal of wishful thinking was involved here, since
the Russian society lacked the means to undertake any such action; an element
of self-deception can also be discerned in the provision that the dissident Rus-
sian officers stationed in Poland should form a body of their own, which the
l6 Miller, 'Russko-pol'skiye revel. svyazi', p. 138; Smirnov, Revol. svyazi narodov,
pp. 210-13; Leslie, Reform and Insurrection, p. 144.
57 Smirnov, Revol. svyazi narodov, p. 214.
is Leykina-Svirskaya, 'Potebnya', p. 98.
l9 Venturi, Roots of Revolution, p. 269; D'yakov, Peterburgskiye ofttserskiye organizatsii, pp.
333-4.
(^60) Text in Venturi, Roots of Revolution, pp. 271-2; Panteleyev, Vospominaniya, pp. 319-20;
Miller, 'Russko-pol'skiye revol. svyazi', p. 143.