Doukhobor Race

An emaciated, unkempt, aging man who looks more than his 50 years was taken out of prison in Prince Albert, Sask. one night last week, bundled hastily into a railway car. On the eastern edge of Canada, at Halifax, a ship awaited him. He would be put aboard, taken to his native Russia. There, he felt sure, waited Death. He was Peter Verigin II, leader of Western Canada's 17,000 Doukhobors. With him were government officials, to hustle him along, keep his progress quiet. When the train reached Montreal Peter Verigin II was hustled through the station so that the Press might not question him. One cried in Russian: "Do you want to go back to Russia?" "Hell, no!" shouted Peter Verigin II. That night he was put on a train for Halifax.

Meanwhile an airplane had roared out of Winnipeg and down to Chicago. It had been chartered by two men who wanted very much to see Peter Verigin II before his boat sailed. There was little time left--if they had only known 24 hours sooner! They stopped in Chicago, got into a burlesque house by mistake, hurried along to catch the night plane to Newark. Then to Boston, where one of them rested from airsickness, and on to Halifax, to have one last word from Peter Verigin II before he left to meet Death.

Western Canada has more than once regretted admitting that strange, lusty, religio-communistic sect, the Doukhobors. Needing settlers, Canada offered them asylum and 450,000 acres of land in 1899. Descended from Tartars, bandied about for almost a century from Tauris to Transcaucasia to Georgia to Cyprus, the Doukhobors--over 4,000 of them--arrived in Canada leaderless and penniless despite the help given them by British Quakers and by Count Leo Tolstoy who donated the royalties from his novel, Resurrection. Peter Verigin, the Doukhobor leader, was in Siberia but three years later he was released, went to Canada. Thereafter his flock grew numerous and prospered. Their canneries and granaries expanded. Their property became worth $20,000,000 even though Canada took back 360,000 of the now fruitful acres. Peter Verigin aged lustily, riding from village to village in a cart filled with beauteous singing maidens. This was shocking to his wife and his son, Peter II, who hastened back to Russia.

The Doukhobors are thrifty, peace-loving. They eat no flesh, drink no wine, use no tobacco. In their communal life, marriages (compulsory for all) are effected simply by taking partners. The Doukhobors are averse to paying taxes and putting their children in provincial schools. Their resentment against schools they sometimes expressed by burning them. Nakedness is a part of the Doukhobors' religious practice, especially in a fanatical inner sect called the "Sons of Freedom." Often, on their own lands, they go about naked even in midwinter, although this is less popular with the younger generation than with strapping Doukhobor matrons and bearded elders. Nakedness is also a convenient form of protest against the Government, a protest which the Northwest Mounted Police combat with whips, tear-bombs, itch-powder (TIME, Sept. 23, 1929 et seq.).

In 1927 old Peter Verigin was killed in a strange explosion on a railroad train. Young Peter, who said he had been imprisoned and twice remitted from death by the U. S. S. R., got leave to return to Canada on condition that he stay away from Russia for good. Since then he has admitted receiving $720,000 from his loyal, prosperous Doukhobors. But clashes with the Government have increased, hundreds of Doukhobors have been jailed. Proposals have been made that the Doukhobors be at least isolated on an island; by the terms of their admission in 1899 it is impossible to exile them.

To exile Peter Verigin II is possible because he came later, is an alien; but an alien convicted of a crime may be deported after serving half his prison term. Last May, on the same day that 118 other Doukhobors were given three-year sentences for parading naked, Peter Verigin II was jailed for perjury. He hoped to be sent to Mexico (whose government would permit 10,000 Doukhobors to settle there) but Canada preferred to return him to the land of his birth. Canadian officials called his death-talk the usual plea of deportable persons, said the U. S. S. R. had given permission for his return.

The two who raced to Halifax last week were Simon F. Reibin, Peter Verigin's personal secretary, and Peter C. Makaroff, counselor to the Doukhobors, first of the sect ever to attend a university or become a lawyer. In Boston they were joined by the Doukhobors' Vice President, Joseph P. Shukin, who had also hastened across the continent. They wished to see Peter Verigin II before he went back to Russia to learn about secret Doukhobor affairs from him, get from his lips a last message for his people.

When the three Doukhobors arrived in Halifax they pretended to be pessimistic about their chances of saving Peter Verigin II. But just as the Montcalm was about to sail, a sheriff rushed aboard, served the captain with a writ. Peter Verigin II was taken ashore. This week Canadian immigration authorities were to appear in court, show cause for his detention.

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