Chapter 52: Patriotic Organization

Just as Mikhail and Witte had predicted, the Nobles’ Committee declared this Manchurian development an emergency without precedent.

Not when the commies had tried to assassinate the Tsar, not when hundreds of thousands of workers had filled the streets in marching columns, had they ever felt this degree of crisis.

Back then, the target had been the vast system called Russia itself, not the nobility in particular; but this move by the Tsar was, by anyone’s reckoning, unmistakably aimed straight at the nobles.

“It must be stopped. It absolutely must. Stop it by whatever means necessary.”

“But… realistically, how exactly are we supposed to stop it?”

“Do you not grasp what happens if we don’t? If they swallow up all the money coming out of Manchuria, the imperial house becomes an absolute monarch with genuine absolute power!”

The more capital Witte raised in France with the Manchurian development venture as bait, the more the sheer scale of the concessions lying dormant in Manchuria was being broadcast in real time.

Railways, foodstuffs, timber concessions, coal, and so on; even a rough calculation put the figure at tens of millions of rubles a year.

That meant not simply turning the imperial household’s finances to surplus, but restructuring them so that tens of millions of rubles would keep piling up, year after year.

“If the Emperor holds the Okhrana in one hand and Manchuria in the other and starts doing exactly as he pleases, can we restrain him?”

“Minister Durnovo is right. Speaking bluntly, even if the Emperor were to establish an outright dictatorship, we would have no means of stopping him.”

“How can there be no means? Surely the people beneath him would never simply stand by and watch such a….”

The nobles who had been about to object shut their mouths mid-sentence.

Because, come to think of it, the means of mounting any meaningful resistance really had dwindled to almost nothing.

Agitate public opinion?

With the masses shouting long live the Tsar and turning in revolutionaries of their own accord, what agitation could anyone possibly do?

Then push the Tsar out by somewhat more extreme means?

With the Okhrana’s watchful eyes glinting at this very moment, how was anyone supposed to pull off a coup d’état?

To begin with, the very notion of militarily ousting a Tsar who did his job well and enjoyed broad popular support was difficult even to entertain.

“But with Witte rampaging about like a madman, meaningful interference is hardly easy, is it?”

“There’s no helping it. If it can’t be done at home, then it must be done abroad.”

If it couldn’t be done at home, abroad it would have to be.

Sure enough, with their own concessions on the line, one supremely rational judgment followed another.

“Only, this time too, we must leave no evidence.”

The current Emperor had become a monster who would wedge himself into the slightest opening and take their heads clean off.

Showing even the smallest gap could never be permitted.

“Any method involving our own hands is forbidden for the time being. Understand that the moment filth touches your hands, the Okhrana has you.”

“Correct. We must not forget the nightmare of the last hearing.”

“Then we send someone to France….”

“Sending our own people won’t do either. What if it comes out that Russian nobles were going around Paris sabotaging Manchurian investment? This time, that could be the pretext they seize on.”

Bobrinsky closed his eyes for a moment, sank into thought, and then spoke.

“Let us set up an intermediary. Someone chosen for having no direct connection to us.”

“What approach would be best?”

“We have Dmitri in Paris, do we not?”

Dmitri Sergeyevich Bobrinsky.

A distant collateral relative of the House of Bobrinsky, a noble who had served as a junior secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before retiring and settling permanently in Paris on the pretext of his wife’s health.

His face was reasonably well known in Paris society, but in Petersburg no one paid him the slightest attention, making him the perfect man for the job.

Being the most distant branch even among the collateral lines, he was, officially, a man with no connection whatsoever to the Nobles’ Committee.

“Even so, wouldn’t it be dangerous for your relative to meet the bankers in person?”

“Of course he mustn’t meet them in person. That is why we will have him hire a Frenchman.”

“True enough, the Paris financial district is crawling with men who style themselves independent consultants. Put money in one’s hands and set him on the investors; that should do it.”

Durnovo nodded slowly.

It was an extraordinarily meticulous and cautious plan, quite unlike the nobles’ usual form.

The Nobles’ Committee in Petersburg would strictly set the direction, nothing more.

Meanwhile, their spokesman in Paris would hire a French consultant to work covertly behind the scenes.

Even traced backward from the far end, the structure never reached the Nobles’ Committee directly; if they prepared a few more excuses to slip away in the meantime, they would be safe.

“I say this just in case, but even the arguments deployed in the backroom operation must themselves stay within legal bounds.”

“That goes without saying. It will be quite sufficient to attach supporting evidence to lines of reasoning such as ‘Manchuria’s harsh climate is being underestimated’ or ‘the profit distribution of the imperial house’s monopoly venture is opaque’.”

On the surface it would be mere market analysis; who could call it a crime?

“‘Investment that rests solely on trust in Witte as an individual is risky’… shall we add that as well?”

“Excellent. Given Witte’s age, invoking his health would be persuasive too. Let us also add that there are whispers he may be concealing a chronic illness.”

Sukhomlinov, arms crossed, quietly contributed a word.

“What about the funds?”

“Obviously they cannot be sent directly from here.”

“We have them come out of Dmitri’s personal assets and compensate him later through other means. No official remittance records.”

Heads nodded in unison.

The work was so skillful it made one wonder whether, had they handled affairs of state like this in ordinary times, the Tsar would ever have dared even to attempt purging the nobility.

Judging that every hour counted, the nobles put the scheme into action at once.

Their wishes were conveyed to Dmitri not through secret correspondence but through an ordinary letter of family greetings, and the French consultant was hired under a perfectly legal contract for market-analysis services.

With the defense of their own concessions at stake, the nobles were anything but incompetent.

And indeed, among French investors, the temperature toward Manchurian investment began to dip, ever so slightly.

The nobles breathed sighs of relief as the unofficial reports came up from Paris.

“Look at this. It’s working, is it not?”

“This should be enough to slow Witte’s pace.”

“In the meantime we must devise our next move. The Tsar and Witte must not be allowed to run wild any further, that is what I am saying.”

Manchuria was nothing but a pretext.

The essence of this proxy war was a contest of strength between an imperial house striving for financial independence and a noble class that could never allow it.

Whoever won and whoever lost, Russia’s power structure could never go back to what it had been.

* * *

Around the time the nobles were grooming one another with heart and soul over a job flawlessly done.

Witte’s Special Committee for Far Eastern Development and Industrial Finance appeared before the Committee of Ministers to deliver its first activity report.

The ministers gladly attended, expecting to hear how the Manchurian development was progressing, but the first thing out of Witte’s mouth was an accusation no one had seen coming.

“Your Majesty, before I speak of the project’s progress, there is a matter I must report first.”

The Tsar scratched his head, feigning perfect ignorance.

“Go on.”

“Movements by a treasonous faction working against Russia’s national interest have been detected.”

“…Hk!”

Several ministers sucked in their breath sharply enough that it carried all the way back to me, where I stood sorting documents behind Director-General Yakov.

-Bet they never dreamed they’d get caught this fast, huh?

Of course not. They must’ve been convinced they’d handled everything flawlessly.

“Treason? What do you mean by that?”

“I heard troubling talk from old friends in France, and upon looking into it, I found that an organized operation to obstruct Manchurian investment is underway in the Paris financial district. It has reached a level I cannot possibly overlook, which is why I bring this report.”

Witte never once said the report had come from the Okhrana.

He was merely presenting it as something he had come to know naturally, thanks to his vast network of French connections.

“It is only because I work in such close cooperation with the French financiers that this came to light at all. Had it not been me, no one would have caught so much as a whiff of it.”

Slipping in a bit of self-promotion even at a moment like this; the man’s technique was something else.

Putting him out front really was the right call.

Having laid out his self-praise with gusto, Witte produced documents and spread them out for all to see.

“The Special Committee’s investigation found that a French swindler operating in Paris has been systematically obstructing investment in Russia’s Manchurian venture. Exaggerating the frozen-ground problem, casting doubt on the transparency of the imperial house’s ventures, even dragging my health into it.”

“What could possibly be the intent behind such base conduct?”

“When we looked into who had hired the man, it turned out to be Dmitri Bobrinsky, a collateral relative of the Bobrinsky family residing in Paris, and when we traced the source of the hiring funds….”

Witte deliberately broke off and swept his gaze around the room.

At the mention of the name Bobrinsky, the de facto head of the Nobles’ Committee, the air in the chamber froze another degree.

“It led to certain persons in Petersburg.”

The murmuring among the ministers grew louder.

“Ch-Chairman! Isn’t this rather sudden?”

“Sudden? What is?”

Witte’s tone sharpened in an instant.

“Systematically obstructing His Majesty’s state project from abroad is not ‘sudden’; it is treason. Or are you suggesting there is some further intent at work here?”

“N-no, that is not what I meant… only that solid evidence should be assembled before….”

“Evidence? It is all right here. Copies of the contract, records of the movement of funds, even transcripts of remarks made at investor gatherings. Would you care to see more?”

No one raised a hand.

“I believe these men should be indicted on charges of damaging the national interest.”

The Tsar listened quietly to their exchange, then tossed out a single short remark.

“Let the Okhrana open an investigation.”

A plain enough sentence, but the faces of the ministers seated in the chamber all turned a ghastly pale.

As if any investigation would ever confine itself to that one charge.

In this era, the collateral investigation isn’t a loophole; it’s so common it might as well be called standard investigative procedure.

Shake any man hard enough and dust comes off, so once an investigation began, they would simply be shaken out until crimes fell loose.

And when the charge in question was treason, well, nothing more need be said.

The moment the Tsar’s order fell, the Okhrana swung into action.

Dmitri Bobrinsky in Paris was the first to be collared.

The Nobles’ Committee had no doubt figured that, being a collateral relative, he was a tail they could cut off whenever they pleased, but the Okhrana these days isn’t such a pushover of an organization.

From the letters and ledgers seized at Dmitri’s Paris residence, the links to Petersburg came spilling out one after another.

Coded instructions cunningly hidden inside letters of family greetings.

The source of the funds that had flowed from Dmitri’s personal account to the consultant.

Even the two intermediary couriers who had moved unofficially in Petersburg to compensate Dmitri for those funds.

And it didn’t end there.

In the course of the fund compensation, traces emerged of the Nobles’ Land Bank’s loan procedures having been circumvented.

To raise money for the Manchurian sabotage operation, they had fraudulently processed an estate-backed mortgage loan.

This was no longer mere damage to the national interest; financial fraud could be bundled in and thrown on the pile as well.

As if there existed anywhere in this world a covert operation that could be run through entirely legal means.

Frankly speaking, the laws of this era can be bent to mean whatever suits the occasion.

“Young Master, Dmitri and the intermediary couriers are all slated for indictment. In keeping with your and Chairman Witte’s view that it would be best not to touch the heads, we concentrated strictly on cutting off the arms and legs.”

“Very good.”

The reason we hadn’t gone directly after Bobrinsky, Durnovo, or Sukhomlinov was simple.

Sweeping away great nobles of that caliber in a single stroke over a case of this size was impossible, so the most practical squeeze was to make a show of leniency while thoroughly cutting off their arms and legs.

But while the heads hadn’t rolled, every last one of their operatives was due to be hauled off to the newly established ‘labor reeducation camps’, so they must all be feeling wonderfully refreshed.

Labor is a sacred thing; let them work until the day they die and drive the demons from their heads.

“And fortunately, the nobles appear to believe that Chairman Witte was the mastermind of this operation. We, after all, merely acted on the orders of His Majesty and the Chairman.”

“That’s a relief. They’ll all find out eventually, but the further back that day gets pushed, the better.”

Yakov folded the report with satisfaction and asked.

“Then shall we maintain surveillance on the Nobles’ Committee going forward?”

“We should tighten it beyond what it is now. This incident has revealed that such acts of treason are being committed abroad as well, so wouldn’t it be only natural to request additional personnel?”

“True. Who could ever have imagined there would be this many traitors obstructing people who work for the country, like us?”

“I know. It’s truly worrying. Where on earth is this country headed?”

The nobles, for their part, seem to be doing their utmost not to leave a trail, but their room to maneuver is narrowing in real time, even at this very moment.

The head-on collision failed, their legal defensive operations at home were neutralized, and now even their overseas operation has been exposed.

With their options shrinking, in the end the only two choices left will be to submit, or not to submit.

The odds of them choosing the former are vanishingly low, so they’ll end up choosing the latter, and then… well, too bad for them, I suppose.

My Okhrana will simply do its duty as a patriotic organization that loves His Majesty the Emperor and Russia.

Make men who have never once in their lives performed sacred labor work until the day they die, and surely they will be reborn as new men.

You could call it a truly humane and patriotic punishment.

Or maybe not. Whatever.

~~~

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