The First of a Few Times They Nearly Got Him

Stalepin and his government invoked article 87 of the revised fundamental laws, which allowed the czar to rule by decree when the duma was not in session. They used this to issue a decree establishing a system of field courts martial to combat terrorists. The idea was to expedite cases where suspects were caught red handed committing violent crimes or plotting to commit violent crimes. This was all supposed to be over in less than a hundred hours from initial arrest to final punishment. It was purposely designed to be swift and brutal. Over the next eight months, the authorities used these courts martial to execute about 11 hundred people,. with another thousand or so sent into either exile or imprisonment as hanging was the