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Other factions, while not concealing their disappointment, were more tolerant and even became more hopeful when they realized that from the first Trepov was fighting to oust Protopopov. That meant, of course, a fight against Rasputin as well. Whatever Trepov's motives might be in fighting Protopopov and Rasputin he was helping the opposition. But Trepov was no match for such opponents.
The evil genius which inspired and controlled him led Nicholas II to appoint as Sturmer's successor the utterly reactionary bureaucrat, Alexander Trepov, and to retain in office as Minister of the Interior the infamous Protopopov, associate of the unsavory Rasputin. When Trepov made his first appearance as Premier in the Duma he was loudly hissed by the Socialists.
On his way to the front to procure the signature of the czar to the proclamation dissolving the Duma he was handed his dismissal. His successor was Alexander Trepov, also an old-time bureaucrat, but known not to be affiliated with the dark forces. It was hoped that he would conciliate the angry people.
Trepov himself did not prosecute them because of his sympathy with their deed. Now that Rasputin, the undoubted leader and master mind of the dark forces was dead, there was universal hope that the pro-German conspiracy was killed with him. But the machine he had built up for his own protection and medium through which to accomplish his ends was too well organized to be broken even by his removal.
Yet he had the courage of his evil convictions; with the desperate fury of a tortured bull in the ring he faced all his enemies and continued on his path, the whole nation against him. Trepov, who had shown his sympathy for the executioners of Rasputin, was removed. So were the Ministers of War and Marine, who had declared themselves for the people.
Heedless of the warning implied in the murder of Rasputin, and of the ever-growing opposition to the government and the throne, the Czar inaugurated, or permitted to be inaugurated, new measures of reaction and repression. Trepov was driven from the Premiership and replaced by Prince Golitizin, a bureaucrat of small brain and less conscience.
But Trepov never played an important part in later developments; the fight was now between the Duma and the people on the one hand and the Minister of the Interior, Protopopoff, on the other. This battle now began in earnest and was destined to be fought out to a bitter finish.
Two weeks went by, weeks of the tensest scenes in the contest between the democracy and the conspirators, of whom Rasputin and the Empress were the head. Protopopoff defied the new Premier, Alexander Trepov, a hide-bound bureaucrat, as well as the Duma, and it was then that the crisis was reached. Each day we went regularly to Tsarskoe-Selo, and there another plot was quickly hatched.
At about this time the newly appointed premier, Golitzin, who had succeeded Trepov, telephoned his resignation to the Duma. The other members of the cabinet had disappeared. That afternoon the Duma appointed a committee of twelve members, representing all parties, which should represent its authority and should assist the revolutionary organizers in maintaining order.
The premier, Trepov, who though a mere figurehead, was still loyal to Russia and secretly an enemy of Rasputin and Protopopoff, allowed all the details of the assassination to be published in the papers, even to the names of those concerned in the actual killing. These latter were of too high a rank to be punished, besides which popular sentiment stood solidly behind them.
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