RUSSIAN SECRET POLICE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3150, 30 March 1909, Page 7

RUSSIAN SECRET POLICE.

AZEFF AND HIS METHODS. AN EXTRAORDINARY MAN. Scarcely anything in the romantic literature suggested by the Russian revolutionary movement is stranger than some of the stories which are being told of the exploits of Eugene Azeff, the remarkable Jew, who lung filled the double role of organiser for the terrorists and agent of the secret police at a salary of £4,000 a year; a promoter of assassinations on the one hand, a hunter of assassins on the other, writes a London paper. "The Borgias," says one of the j terrorist leaders at Geneva, ''were almost angels when compared with Azeff. He has massacred at least 1,000 of us. and sent three timss that number to living death in I Siberia." Something more than caution and clever calculation were necessary to him throughout his career. Cool daring was one of his most striking characteristics. Dangei, according to Dr. Dillon, seems to\have had van irresistible fascination for his distempsred mind, treason f.ir his abnormal soul. He took a perverse delight in living in cjnstant danger of being'slabbed by the revolutionists or Hanged by the police. Yet he appeared aiways calm and seifposssssed, was attired in the height of fashion, sought distraction in the gay places of Northern Palmyra. From 1902 he resided on the banks of the Neva, but occasionally paid a short visit to Paris, where his family lived. 1 Lik° his friend, Gershooni, who was the ablest revolutionist Russia has ever produced, Azeff gave ail who came in contact with him a high opinion of his energy, will, and resourcefulness. He was never taken aback, never hesitated, never flinched. Gershooni and he founded the "Fighting League" of the revolutionary society, and he created many branches and other associations of a similar character in Russia and abroad. He was the moving spirit in the historic mutinies of Sveaborg, Cronstadt, and Moscow, and he was an indefatigable police agent in St. Petersburg, Paris, and Moscow whenever there were conspirators to arrest. 'ihe secret police attached great value tu Azeff's services, but they deny that they employ su:h inen when, in addition to supplying information of terrorist operations, they take a hand themselves in crime. "We cannot frustrate dastardly plots,'' an official of the police department explains, "unless we contrive to obtain timely information about them. This involves the employment of individuals who are members of the circles where these plots are fabricated, and this necessity we consider an unavoidable evil. But connivance at crime we vigorously eliminate from our system in theory and practicle. A reason of Sttte cannot justify lawlessness; therefore if any agent perpetrates crime he will be dealt with as a criminal." Yet Azeff is credited with having planned th>? murders of M. de Plebve and the Grand Duke Sergius, and his connection witii both these crimes cannot have been unknown to the police. The general assumption at St. Petersburg is that they paid him mainly, if not excrusively; to give information of plots aimed at the life of he Tsar, and were indifferent to what he did or instigated in other directions. It seems clear that even after he entered the service of the police he remaned to a large extent genuinely in sympathy with the revolutionary movement.

According to n report published in Paris, Azeff proposed to the terrorist organisation that an attempt should be made to assassinate the Tsar by dropping: explosives from an aeroplane. He is said to have cAllectad money ostensibly for the purpose of conducting experiments of this kind. Presumably the money went into his own pockets. He is known to have handled the funds of the revolutionaries in the French capital in a very free fashion. For some years before his disappearance he created a good deal of suspicion among his dupes by the extravagance of his habits. It is believed at St.. Petersburg that M. Lopuhkin will ultimately be exonerated from the charge of high treason which has been brought against him.