« — 1 1 — 
 
 ^^ a Journey
 
 fJiM 
 
 (nU^t/.
 
 RUSSIA 
 
 AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 BY 
 
 PAUL MILYOUKOV 
 
 Crane Lectures 
 for igo3 
 
 ^ 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 T'he University of Chicago Press 
 
 LONDON 
 
 T. Fisher Unwiriy Paternoster Square 
 
 1906
 
 COPYEIGHT 1905 By 
 The Univeesity of Chicago 
 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall 
 
 Published August 1905 
 Second Impression August 1906 
 
 Composed and Printed by 
 
 The University of Chicago Press 
 
 Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A.
 
 ^5 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This book is not a political pamphlet written for 
 the occasion, but a result of long years of study devoted 
 to the explanation of the Russian present by the Rus- 
 sian past. The present crisis in Russia necessarily 
 commands attention, and everything discussed in this 
 work converges to the one aim of explaining this crisis. 
 But the conditions which have brought on the crisis are 
 so deeply rooted in the past, and are so closely inter- 
 woven with every aspect of Russian life, whether of 
 religion or of politics, of doctrines or of institutions, of 
 social forms or of the composition of society, that an 
 explanation of the present situation, to be at all ade- 
 quate, must necessarily be a general picture of Russia 
 and a general description of the conditions under which 
 its civilization has developed. The crisis will pass, but 
 the conditions of civilization remain ; and my ambition 
 has been to explain, not the momentary and transient, 
 but the permanent and lasting, elements in the political, 
 social, and religious life of Russia. 
 
 The contents of the book are essentially the same 
 as those of my lectures on " Russian Civilization " 
 delivered during the summer of 1903 at the University 
 of Chicago, on the Charles R. Crane Foundation. The 
 first four chapters were put into type more than a 
 year ago; the two following have since then been 
 entirely recast, on a much larger scale; and chap, vii 
 is a new addition, reproducing the contents of my 
 lectures on "The Russian Crisis" dehvered at the
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 Lowell Institute in Boston, in December, 1904, during 
 my second visit to this country. In the last pages of 
 that chapter the events occurring in Russia during the 
 months of December, 1904, and January, 1905, have 
 been considered. But it gives me satisfaction to state 
 that I have had nothing to add to my conclusion, which 
 is published just as it was written in 1903, with the 
 addition only of a few lines mentioning the subject of 
 chap. vii. The reader may find it advisable, before 
 perusing the book, to make hnnself acquainted with 
 this conclusion, as it contains a summary, and points 
 out the main thread, of the argument. 
 
 I thought out and wrote this book in English, 
 though I am fully aware how imperfect is my command 
 of this beautiful language. Still, I think that this was 
 a better method than to have had it translated from a 
 Russian text. The most salient blunders have been 
 removed by my English and American friends, and I 
 avail myself of this opportunity to express my appre- 
 ciation of the kind assistance rendered me by Miss 
 E. M. Hughes, of England; Mr. Nott Flint and Dr. 
 W. Muss-Arnolt, of the Universitv of Chicago; Pro- 
 fessor Leo Wiener, of Harvard University; and the 
 reader of the University Press. On the other hand, I 
 alone am answerable for such imperfections of style 
 as may still remind the reader that the writer is a 
 foreigner. 
 
 My system of writing Russian names will be found 
 to differ somewhat from the usual method. For 
 instance, I write Keeyev, where an English writer is 
 accustomed to find the spelling Kiev; Novoya Vraimya 
 instead of Novoe Vremia; etc. In order to explain
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 this difference, I must say that the only existing 
 " scientific " system of transliterating Russian names 
 is founded on the German pronunciation, with the 
 addition of some diacritical signs. I have thought 
 that an English reader is justly entitled to his own 
 transliteration, founded on the English pronunciation ; 
 and as I have found it impracticable to employ any 
 diacritical marks, it remained for me to adopt a merely 
 phonetic method. I do not assert that I have been 
 entirely consistent in this, and sometimes I have pre- 
 ferred to retain the usual spelling of a name which I 
 supposed to be universally known; but I wish that 
 my hint might be taken up by somebody more experi- 
 enced than I in the orthography of foreign names, 
 
 I hope my personal attitude toward the questions I 
 have discussed in this book will be clearly understood 
 by every unbiased reader. I am not a " violent agita- 
 tor," as one of the Chicago "yellow " papers was good 
 enough to call me — without ever having heard me, I 
 presume. But neither am I what a gentleman con- 
 nected with the organization of the St. Louis Exposi- 
 tion expected me to be when he wished me to give 
 some suggestions as to the arrangement of the Russian 
 exhibit — suggestions that would please the Russian 
 government. I told this gentleman that I was not the 
 person to consult on such a subject; and I took the 
 liberty of adding that many other Russians would like- 
 wise be perplexed to answer his question, for the reason 
 that there exist two Russias, one quite different from 
 the other, and what pleases one is quite sure to dis- 
 please the other ; so that trying to please both at once 
 would be a hopeless task. Since that time, however,
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 people in America have become better aware of this 
 important distinction ; and I flatter myself with having 
 contributed a little to this result, if I may judge from 
 the interest taken in my discussions by the very appre- 
 ciative audiences which I had the pleasure of addressing 
 in Chicago and Boston. 
 
 Thus I am tempted once more to emphasize this 
 distinction. Were I to label these two Russias, I 
 should designate the one as the Russia of Leo Tolstoy, 
 the great writer; and the other as that of Plehve, the 
 late minister of the interior. The former is the Russia 
 of our " intellectuals " and of the people ; the latter is 
 official Russia. One is the Russia of the future, as 
 dreamed of by members of the liberal professions ; the 
 other is an anachronism, deeply rooted in the past, and 
 defended in the present by an omnipotent bureaucracy. 
 The one spells liberty; the other, despotism. 
 
 Exception may be taken to my drawing such a line 
 of demarkation betwen the two Russias, on the ground 
 that it is too contradictory and admits of no possible 
 third. I shall not deny the element of truth in this 
 objection, but I hope that the soundness of my dis- 
 tinction will become manifest after some further 
 explanation. 
 
 To be sure, Plehve, whose name is everywhere 
 recognized as synonymous with despotism, represents 
 only an aggravated form of what official Russia gen- 
 erally is; and now that he is gone, he is even dis- 
 avowed by the very people whose cause he championed 
 and in whose defense he lost his life. In so far it 
 would seem unfair to call the whole of official Russia 
 by his name. Attempts, however, have already been
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 made by some of our political writers — and .1 deem 
 them not unsuccessful — to prove not only that the 
 policy of Plehve was logically connected with the posi- 
 tion of official Russia, but that, under existing condi- 
 tions, it was the only possible policy for the autocracy. 
 This policy, these authors argue, was nothing but the 
 logical outcome of a desire to continue the defense 
 of a position which was virtually lost and avowedly 
 untenable. I admit that Plehve was only a reductio 
 ad ahsurdiim of autocracy — autocracy gone mad; 
 but this only because autocracy itself is reduced ad 
 absurdum by the very trend of life. If it is to survive 
 at all, there is really no other means of keeping it alive 
 than the policy of Plehve. If this, the " only possible," 
 policy has proved impossible, the fault is not with 
 Plehve. His failure is the most instructive object- 
 lesson ever held up to autocracy; the only conclusion 
 to be drawn from it is that not the man, but the system, 
 should be condemned. Unhappily, the lesson does not 
 appear to have been heeded, and as a result we are now 
 witnessing an attempt at welding autocracy and liberal- 
 ism. The successors of Plehve will soon realize the 
 futility of this endeavor. But the country at large is 
 tired of object-lessons and no longer needs them. The 
 people ask for political reforms which imply a nega- 
 tion of autocracy. So long as autocracy does not sur- 
 render, one may feel justified in regarding the cause 
 and methods of Plehve as identical with those of offi- 
 cial Russia, or with those of autocracy. And for this 
 reason we emphasize our distinction: autocracy and 
 liberalism are incompatible and contradictory, not only 
 according to my definition, but in life itself.
 
 X PREFACE 
 
 My designation of the other Russia as that of Leo 
 Tolstoy hkewise needs explanation. This, too, may 
 seem, and with more reason, an exaggeration, a going 
 to the opposite extreme. In Tolstoy's teachings, the 
 idea of liberty is abstract and absolute ; it is worked out 
 and shaped into a system of Christian anarchism. 
 Now, as a matter of fact, the Russian " intellectuals " 
 do not care much about the Christian element in it, 
 and no anarchism exists in Russia. We shall show 
 that what in Russia is really opposed to officialdom and 
 autocracy is either liberalism or collectivism. Never- 
 theless, Tolstoy's name stands for Russian opposition, 
 and will continue so to stand as long as it remains a 
 synonym for liberty in general — liberty as the abso- 
 lute negation of the existing order of things. 
 
 I shall not be expected to discuss Russian affairs 
 from the point of view of Plehveism. It is the cause of 
 the other, the "greater Russia," that I have made 
 mine. But, I am asked, is it seasonable, is it patriotic, 
 to speak of two Russias at a time when they should 
 forget their differences and unitedly face the common 
 enemy? The question may seem a delicate one. It 
 has of late been much debated in Russia, and has been 
 very differently answered. Many who were friends 
 became enemies when, in pleading for this or that 
 solution, they discovered themselves to be at variance. 
 Permit me to state, though not in my own words, the 
 typical answer given in Russia. Recently, in a circle 
 of intimate friends, I overheard what I think may be 
 called such an answer. Curiously enough, it was a 
 military man, a young officer, who gave expression to 
 the general feeling. "Unpatriotic?" he exclaimed,
 
 PREFACE 
 
 XI 
 
 replying to the above question. "But are we per- 
 mitted to be patriotic? What is it to be patriotic but 
 to love one's country, to know it, and to be free to act 
 for its best interests ? Now, are we permitted to know 
 all about Russia ? Are we permitted to act for Russia ? 
 No, we are not. The censorship keeps us from know- 
 ing the truth ; and never was the lack of real knowl- 
 edge of current events felt more sorely than now, dur- 
 ing this wretched war. And what about the possibility 
 of doing something for Russia? Is not every spon- 
 taneous action doomed ? Is not every public initiative 
 cut short? Is there any room left for conscious 
 patriotism? Has not even the humble attempt of the 
 self-governing assemblies to unite in helping the sick 
 and wounded been denounced as criminal, and for- 
 bidden by Plehve? What wonder, then, if the outward 
 manifestations of our patriotism are not like those of 
 other nations? How can it be otherwise, as long as 
 real patriots are treated as traitors, while traitors are 
 proclaimed patriots?" 
 
 So spoke the officer. The sympathies of a foreign 
 public may, indeed, have been chilled by what was 
 considered a conspicuous lack of patriotism in my 
 countrymen; for example, by a certain, seemingly 
 utterly unpatriotic, letter of Tolstoy's on the war. 
 But, in justice to us, it must be borne in mind that of 
 necessity our love of country sometimes assumes unex- 
 pected forms, and that its apparent absence in reality 
 represents with us the very highest expression of true 
 patriotic feeling. We may be thought a queer sort of 
 people, but we cleave to our own ideas of patriotism ; 
 and we have no hesitancy in deciding which of the two
 
 PREFACE 
 
 is the traitor and which the patriot, Plehve or Tolstoy, 
 if we are obliged to choose between them. We do not 
 call it patriotic to paralyze the living forces of the 
 nation by a police regime, and to name such a destruc- 
 tive policy a work of pacification. We do not call it 
 patriotic to wage war for new markets while we can- 
 not yet control our own, and to destroy the fountain- 
 head which makes the domestic market prosper — the 
 purchasing power of the agricultural producer. We 
 even go so far as not to care a whit about making other 
 people believe what we do not believe ourselves. If 
 such "make-believe" goes for "prestige," then we are 
 greatly averse to sacrificing truth to the preservation 
 of prestige. Perhaps this sort of political recklessness 
 is, at bottom, based on a certain self-confidence among 
 our people. We think, indeed, that the prestige of 
 Plehve's Russia is once for all ruined, beyond the 
 possibility of restoration. But we think, too, that the 
 prestige of Tolstoy's Russia is greater than ever, and 
 that we do not lose anything — nay, that we gain 
 enormously — if by the eclipse of the former sort of 
 prestige the cause of reform is the winner. 
 
 Everybody knows a certain beautiful fairy-tale of 
 Andersen's. Some wise men came to a country and 
 promised to make for its king a state robe of a gor- 
 geous material, but such as only wise men would be 
 able to see. The king was delighted, and the wise men 
 set to work. The robe was soon ready, and a solemn 
 procession on a feast-day was chosen as the occasion 
 for trying on the new dress. The state councilors 
 could see nothing, but as they were anxious not to be 
 taken for fools, they expressed admiration for the
 
 PREFACE xiii 
 
 dress of the king, and went with him in the procession. 
 The terrified throng Hkewise saw no garment; but 
 they were afraid to speak. And so the procession went 
 on in silence, until some little unsophisticated boy, too 
 young to be terrified or to be afraid of making a fool 
 of himself, suddenly cried out, amid the general silence : 
 " But the king is naked ! " The crowd howled and 
 groaned ; the cowardice and rascality of the councilors 
 became manifest to everybody; and the king was 
 ashamed and furious. 
 
 Thus it is with Russia. Serious men for years and 
 years have worn a state robe whose beauty was clear 
 only to a few conjuring wiseacres; and millions of 
 men, groaning under the burden of its cost, have 
 mournfully kept silence watching the solemn proces- 
 sion, until an untoward event has come, like the 
 child in Andersen's tale, to tell the whole world that 
 the wisdom is counterfeit and the wearers of the robe 
 are ''naked." This event is the war. 
 
 Well, the only advice we can give to these people 
 is: Put on new clothes, and do it as soon as possible! 
 
 Paul Milyoukov. 
 
 Chicago, 
 Abraham Lincoln's birthday, 1905.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter I. Introductory. Russia and the United 
 States : A Comparison 
 
 Chapter II. The NationaHstic Idea 
 
 Chapter III. The Religious Tradition 
 
 Chapter IV. The Political Tradition 
 
 Chapter V. The Liberal Idea 
 
 Chapter VI. The Socialistic Idea 
 
 Chapter VII. The Crisis and the Urgency of Reform 
 
 Chapter VIII. Conclusion 
 
 Index 
 
 MAPS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 3 
 
 30 
 
 65 
 
 131 
 
 221 
 
 334 
 433 
 546 
 565 
 
 Process of Settlement of European Russia . 
 Making of the Russian State . . . . 
 Local Types of Russian Culture . . . . 
 Reign of the " Small State of Siege " . 
 Changes in Peasant Prosperity in the Period 1861- 
 
 1900 
 
 Present State of Peasant Prosperity . 
 
 opposite 6 
 
 opposite S2 
 
 opposite 142 
 
 opposite 188 
 
 opposite 434 
 
 opposite 436
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES : A COMPARISON 
 
 In accepting the kind invitation of the University 
 of Chicago asking me to speak on Russian civiHzation, 
 I was perfectly aware that the task was not an easy 
 one. It is difficult, especially for a stranger, to attempt 
 to present to you, in the short time allowed, the very 
 complex and peculiar process of the historical develop- 
 ment of a nation; and when that nation is one whose 
 tastes, feelings, and habits seem to be so different 
 from your own, the difficulty is enhanced. Moreover, 
 it will not be possible for me to produce adequate 
 evidence in support of all I have to say; and yet I 
 cannot assume that the data are known to you. What 
 I have to do, under these circumstances, is to try a 
 shorter way than that of collecting material evidence 
 and plunging you into the arid details of Russian his- 
 tory. I shall start with those conditions in Russia 
 which are more generally known to you; and for 
 these conditions I shall try to find a historical explana- 
 tion. Great as the difference is between your country 
 and my own, there may be found many points of 
 contact and similarity in the general lines of social 
 development and in the general aims which a civilized 
 nation always strives to attain. But similar as the 
 aims and the general drift of civilization may be, the 
 conditions under which progress is achieved in various 
 countries are widely different. It will be the chief 
 
 3
 
 4 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 object of our study to point out what these conditions 
 have been in Russia. 
 
 As you know, Russia is just now struggHng for 
 political and religious freedom. You may have asked 
 yourselves whether this necessary condition of every 
 higher civilizaton is likely to be fulfilled in Russia. 
 Is the state of agitation in which we now find Russia 
 an outward sign of her moving forward to a higher 
 plane of existence? Or is this not rather a momentary 
 outburst of a slavish population, suddenly thrown from 
 fear to despair by hard times, and likely to relapse 
 soon into its former state of abject servility and 
 prostration? And if, as in the previous supposition, 
 these troubles represent a necessary stage of Russian 
 social and political evolution, why has this stage made 
 its appearance so comparatively late? What have been 
 the checks and obstacles which Russia has met on its 
 path? What chances are there for the final success 
 of the struggle for civilization? 
 
 The answer I shall give to these questions will not 
 be discouraging, so far as the future of Russia is 
 concerned. Though in its past and present only too 
 many diseases will be found to exist, I am sure that 
 one would find none of these diseases incurable. And 
 such as one observed would be seen to be nothing 
 but ailments of growth. For growth has always been 
 present in Russian history, however adverse may have 
 been at times the conditions for a normal development 
 of the Russian nation 
 
 Rapid growth is one of the most important 
 .i^StHJ.^?~-i??,..?,95}0^o^ between your country and mine. 
 .RiASSja^nd^Jhe Uji^^^^
 
 RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 5 
 
 gressing; neither has as yet attained the highest point 
 .,of_its possible develqpmentj both are very far from 
 any signs of decay. 
 
 The similarity fhus pointed out is far from being 
 only an outward one. We may trace it deeper into 
 the inward structure of the history of both nations. 
 Jiapid growth is the immediate result of recent settle- 
 ment. If we study the conditions of settlement, both 
 in Russia and in America, we shall soon discover how 
 close the similarity is between the countries. At the 
 same time we shall be enabled to cast a glance at 
 such differences as have made one country achieve an 
 amazing progress, while the other has been held back 
 in its development for whole centuries. Let us then 
 take the process of settlement in Russia and in America 
 as the subject of our introductory study. And this 
 study, though it will not furnish adequate answers to 
 the questions formulated, will yet indicate to us the 
 direction in which these answers should be sought. 
 
 Both Russia and the United States have been col- 
 onized, not at a prehistoric stage of their existence, 
 but in recent historic times. Hence the settlement 
 and the exploitation of the natural resources of the 
 country form the very warp of their historical texture. 
 Most of the important features of their economical, 
 social, and political development must be referred to 
 this process of colonization. 
 
 For our present purposes, the whole process of 
 Russian settlement may be divided into two consecu- 
 tive stages : from the earliest times till the middle of 
 the sixteenth century, and from that time down to the 
 present day. It is in its second stage that the process
 
 6 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 of settlement may be compared with that of America. 
 
 Only the northern half of Russia was populated 
 before the sixteenth century. It is poorly endowed 
 by nature and scantily settled, and therefore may be 
 compared with Canada.^ The whole of the better and 
 richer half of Russia — southward from the Oka River 
 — has been colonized only since the middle of the six- 
 teenth century. Before that time this '' granary of 
 Europe" presented the aspect of a limitless prairie, 
 laid waste for centuries by the continual raids of Turk- 
 ish and Tartar tribes. Central Asia sent forth, like 
 a series of tidal waves, these tribes of nomads, almost 
 without interruption, during a long period of ten 
 centuries — from the fourth to the thirteenth. No won- 
 der that they completely swept away the aborigines 
 of the prairie, who had supplied Athens with grain 
 in the olden days. 
 
 As late as the sixteenth century, life in the prairie 
 was again made, if not entirely safe, at least possible 
 for the settler. The Muscovite government provided 
 the settlers with some military defense, though of a 
 very inefficient nature, and they rushed in a flood to 
 the virgin prairie land.^ They sought new places 
 where the resources of nature were to be had in 
 
 *One may see on the map blank places in northern Russia, 
 which correspond to regions entirely unsettled even at the present 
 time. 
 
 *The plan of this colonization is represented on the map by four 
 consecutive strips which begin at the line of the military defense 
 constructed by the government of Moscow in the middle of the six- 
 teenth century, and proceed by centuries. The yellow strip corre- 
 sponds to the settlement from the middle of the sixteenth century 
 to the middle of the seventeenth century ; the green, to that from 
 the middle of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth
 
 r 
 
 T 7
 
 CD — 
 
 OTHER THAN RUSSIAN. 
 
 Nogais (Tartar). 
 :e parts of the map (how u
 
 RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 7 
 
 abundance; and at the same time hoped to free them- 
 selves from the Muscovite rule — a rule they were feel- 
 ing heavily just then on account of the increased 
 taxes and the severer military service, made necessary 
 for the defense of the southern frontier.^ 
 
 The old stock of the trans-Okan population thus 
 served to settle the prairie land, as the British and 
 the New Englanders served to colonize the territories 
 of North America. Of course, the general drift of 
 immigration was differently directed. In Russia the 
 newcomers, instead of being bound for the west, w'ent 
 to the south and the southeast, following the courses 
 of the Russian rivers. The Don was their Mississippi, 
 the Urals their Rocky Mountains. Siberia, the last 
 section to be colonized, may be compared with Oregon 
 and California ; and it exhibits breaks in the continuity 
 of settlement similar to those in Nevada or Utah. 
 
 The Russian colonists met with the same kind 
 of difficulties in their settlement as the Americans. 
 Woods had to be cleared ; the virgin prairie land had 
 to be broken; the necessities of life had to be provided. 
 Thus the immigrants of both countries were for cen- 
 turies completely absorbed in the process of utilizing 
 the natural resources of the newly occupied land, 
 taking possession of the riches of its rivers, of its 
 woods, and of its luxuriant vegetation, profiting by 
 the almost inexhaustible fertility of the soil, and at 
 
 century ; the orange, to the settlement of the second half of the 
 eighteenth century ; the purple, to the settlement of the nineteenth 
 century. The black shows places which are (and for many centuries 
 have been) occupied by the aborigines. 
 
 ■^ See chap, vi, p. 357, where social reasons for this shifting of the 
 population from the ancient center are shown.
 
 8 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 last — in Russia in recent times — by the mineral wealth. 
 During this slow and continuous process of hard 
 manual labor, social life in Russia assumed a shape 
 which is not dissimilar to that in the United States. 
 The colonists, tilling their own holdings with their 
 own hands, formed a population that was to a high 
 degree simple, agricultural, and democratic. To be 
 sure, this large social foundation of rural democracy 
 was to a great extent covered and disguised by the 
 growth of the landed aristocracy in Russia and by 
 the development of the commercial classes in the 
 United States. But neither of these classes was 
 powerful enough to eclipse the democratic spirit and 
 the agricultural character of both nations. Moreover, 
 in Russia the upper layer of the landed aristocracy 
 was finally destroyed, as we shall see later (chap. v). 
 Of course, a certain sense of class dignity, a kind of 
 fastidiousness, such as causes the continental nobility 
 of Europe to keep clear of every contact with the 
 lower strata of society, is not wholly absent in the 
 upper layers of Russian society. But in Russia as 
 well as in your country this feeling is a comparatively 
 recent foreign importation. There, as well as here, 
 it serves as a kind of substitute for historical and 
 legal distinctions between dififerent social stations. 
 Lacking such distinctions, the boundary lines between 
 the different classes are very indefinite, and the inter- 
 course between the lower and the upper classes is 
 actually free. As a matter of fact, both are perpetu- 
 ally interchanging their elements. That is why social 
 conventionalities and the outward marks of refined
 
 RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 9 
 
 culture are so eagerly preserved from final destruc- 
 tion in one country, and so eagerly built anew in the 
 other. Here as well as there, this is the only means 
 of defense against what is called by sociologists "social 
 capillarify/' 
 
 Thus — we say it again — the social structure, both 
 in Russia and in the United States, is very democratic. 
 
 But here the comparison ends. The settlers who 
 went from England to the American shore, or from 
 New England to the American West, were entirely 
 different from those who drifted from the old Mus- 
 covite center to the southern "black soil" prairies 
 of Russia; and different also were the things they 
 achieved. Ours were not the free men of Massachu- 
 setts, bringing with them into their new settlements 
 their old habits of religious freedom and moral self- 
 assertion, planting on new soil their ancient autonomic 
 organization of townships, and so preparing them- 
 selves for the requirements of democratic rule. Such 
 among the Russian settlers as wanted freedom and 
 activity dashed through uninhabited land and prairies 
 to the remotest borders of the country, where the state 
 officials were quite unable to follow them. On the 
 southern confines of the Muscovite Tsardom they lived 
 the lives of outlaws. They worked out a military 
 organization of their own — something between a 
 pirate crew and a horde of nomads, banded together 
 for economic purposes. The bulk of them lived by 
 fishing and hunting. And they sent forth their restless 
 youths to raid still farther southward, eastward, or 
 westward, along the shores of the Caspian or the 
 Black Sea, into territories inhabited by the "infidels,"
 
 10 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 the "Bussurmans" (Mussulmans), whom they thought 
 it no sin to rob and plunder. 
 
 The colonists of a more peaceful disposition did 
 not go so far. They r«mained in the interior of the 
 country, as close as possible to the strips of land that 
 had been settled last, and the government followed 
 at their heels. The state officials pressed them into 
 compulsory organizations, instead of allowing them 
 to found townships and to initiate a self-government 
 at their will. Men sent out by the central authorities 
 directed every step of the colonization. They deter- 
 mined the points at which the colonists were to meet 
 to do frontier service and defend the settlement ; they 
 ordered these points to be inclosed by town walls — and 
 thus about one-half the Russian cities were built; at 
 the same time they distributed the parcels of land 
 among the settlers in the districts. After this the 
 tilling of land became obligatory for the new settlers, 
 in order that the central government should not be 
 obliged to send grain for their maintenance from the 
 earlier settlements. Thus the inhabitants were com- 
 pelled to leave the easier pursuits of hunting and fish- 
 ing for that of agriculture, or to combine them. Of 
 course they reluctantly complied with the orders of 
 the Tsar; but so far as possible they shirked their 
 agricultural work. They tilled their fertile soil super- 
 ficially and carelessly, and were fully satisfied with their 
 scanty returns. 
 
 Thus, the consequences of a like process of settle- 
 ment in Russia proved to be widely different from 
 those in the United States. Of course, the conditions 
 of environment may partly account for the difference.
 
 RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES ii 
 
 There was one particular condition at work in Russia 
 which fettered the free play of private action and 
 individual enterprise. This was the danger from with- 
 out, which made the buildin^j of a powerful central 
 state organization absolutely necessary. The raids of 
 Tartars from the shores of the Black Sea, with Turkey 
 at their back, were infinitely more dangerous for Rus- 
 sia than the "Indian wars" have been here. The 
 nomad organization of the Tartar invaders admitted 
 of incomparably more concentration of power than 
 the tribal states of the Indians could possibly muster. 
 Hence, the Tartar incursions were much better organ- 
 ized and conducted ; and a more centralized military 
 defense had to be brought into action in order to hold 
 them in check. That is why the defenders had to be 
 put under the stricter rule of a central government. 
 Had American settlers been compelled to colonize 
 Russian prairies under these conditions, they too 
 would probably, to a certain degree, have been checked 
 in their unlimited individual development. 
 
 But Russian settlers were not Americans. And 
 this is the second reason for the difference in the 
 results of their settlement. The Americans came to 
 their new lands with a ready stock of energy, accumu- 
 lated at a previous period of their history. This con- 
 dition was entirely lacking in Russia. Therefore it is 
 that quite an opposite use was made by the Russian 
 and by the American settlers of supplies of nature 
 equally abundant. The Russian colonists, we saw, 
 were glad to get what nature gave them, with little 
 labor and with still less capital. Man's work, far 
 from adding anything new to the ready store of
 
 12 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 nature's resources, resulted in squandering these 
 resources, and thus impoverished the country, instead 
 of enriching it. The woods were cut away, and 
 thereby the soil exposed to droughts and to the free 
 action of the winds, and this, too, in the most fertile 
 part of Russia. Large quantities of arable land were 
 carelessly left to be swept away by the spring torrents, 
 and so were turned into sandy ravines. At the same 
 time the demand for land largely increased, because 
 of the growth of the population, and whole tracts 
 of land could no longer be left to lie fallow for years, 
 or even for one year, as had necessarily been done 
 under the former systems of tillage without manure. 
 And yet no better system was ready at hand to sup- 
 plant them. The wealth of nature having been spent, 
 Russia has stopped at a point which cannot be passed 
 unless more artificial ways and means of cultivation 
 are resorted to, and unless greater personal energy 
 and initiative are applied. And in these qualities we 
 are deficient. 
 
 We can now sum up the difference between the 
 results of the Russian and of the American settlement. 
 In America the exploitation of the untouched stores 
 of the natural resources resulted in a greater exercise 
 of the settlers' individual activity. In Russia the same 
 abundance of supplies served only as a temporary sub- 
 stitute for energy and individual effort. Thus the 
 riches of nature served there only to perpetuate the 
 inactive and socially undeveloped type of man during 
 a long period of four centuries. Therefore, the type 
 of the settlers, and not the outward conditions of the
 
 RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 13 
 
 settlement, appears to be mainly responsible for the 
 difference in the results of colonization in Russia and 
 in America. And this brings us to a more detailed 
 consideration of the question as to what the Russian 
 national type really was. 
 
 Everybody knows what was the social type of the 
 men who came from east of the Alleghanies to the 
 West. They had at their back centuries of social 
 struggle and co-operation. Their mental habits had 
 long been formed; their moral character had been 
 hammered into a definite shape by their past; their 
 traditions, political and religious, had had time to 
 crystallize. Thus they w^ere enabled to set out along 
 new paths of development which were to be unique 
 in the world. 
 
 What now was the social type of the people who 
 came from north of the Oka River? The question 
 needs consideration, because there is no answer to 
 which everybody w^ould agree. To state at once my 
 own conclusion on this subject, I should point to a 
 certain amorphousness, a certain plasticity in Russian 
 manners and character, as a chief feature in the Rus- 
 sian national type. This I consider to be its only 
 inheritance from the past, negative though it be. I 
 am quite sure that nearly everything, either good or 
 bad, that has ever been told about the Russian national 
 character by both foreign and native observers can be 
 referred to this feature. 
 
 Let us take as an illustration the description of 
 Russian character by one of the most recent and most 
 exhaustive of English observers, who fairly represents 
 the whole class. I mean Mr. Lanin (pseudonym), the
 
 14 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 author of the book on Russian Characteristics. As is 
 the rule with the sketches drawn by strangers, the 
 picture Mr. Lanin gives of us is indeed not a flattering 
 one. Still, except for the fact that Mr. Lanin's 
 authorities are not always either trustworthy or well 
 chosen, and that the instances he quotes are sometimes 
 exceptional rather than characteristic,"* the general 
 impression he gives is, we must admit, not far from 
 true. The average Russian, Mr. Lanin argues, is 
 likely to be very unsteady in his purposes, conse- 
 quently unreliable in keeping his word, apt to cher- 
 ish rather lax views of the right of prtpci^y, iC* 
 very lenient in matters of sexual morality. He does 
 not appreciate the value of time. He is much given 
 to lying and cheating, and this not only for his own 
 profit, but sometimes simply for the sake of politeness. 
 Of course, polite manners are everywhere based on 
 "conventional lies." But in Russia lying is not only 
 conventional; it is sometimes a matter of sincerity 
 and conviction. They lie there, Mr. Lanin observes, 
 in a genuine way, in a peculiarly "childlike and easy 
 manner," unconscious of doing ill and, accordingly, 
 free from any hypocrisy. Indeed, Mr. Lanin observes 
 (p. 173) that, in general, "curious combinations of 
 religion and rascality, friendship and treachery, with- 
 out the usual cement of hypocrisy," form one of the 
 
 *Mr. Lanin compiles very much of his evidence from newspapers, 
 relating the occurrences of everyday life with more or less imagina- 
 tive amplifications. Now, I think Mr. Bryce was perfectly right 
 when he observed about the American press — and such also was my 
 own impression in the Balkan states — that the newspapers tend 
 always to exaggerate a nation's weaknesses in order to make fun 
 of them.
 
 RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 15 
 
 most "conspicuous features of the Russian character." 
 The observation is a fine one and has a meaning 
 which it is necessary, for our present purpose, to 
 make clear. The cement of hypocrisy is not in the 
 Russian mind, for the same reason that it is absent 
 from the mind of a child. Hypocrisy becomes neces- 
 sary only when a certain standard of social conduct 
 becomes obligatory, or when it is enforced upon indi- 
 vidual members of society by a fear of responsibility 
 for transgressions. Then only is it that vice is to 
 take the shape of virtue and to pay her a tribute 
 i.i;y^iichjiscilled hypocrisy. Now this tribute is not paid 
 in Russia ; hypocrisy is not much practiced. 
 
 We shall soon see what inference may be drawn 
 from this observation. Let us now complete Mr. 
 Lanin's description by speaking of some positive traits 
 of Russian character, observed by the same author. 
 The link between the positive and the negative charac- 
 ter he finds to be very close. "The Russian is so 
 hearty," he says, "so good humored, so intensely 
 human, that dishonesty seems in his hands only dis- 
 torted virtue." I cannot abstain from quoting here a 
 charming little story which Mr. Lanin tells us in sup- 
 port of his assertion. 
 
 At Saratoff on the Volga the steamer "Alexander II." was 
 about to start. It was crowded with passengers. All the first- 
 and second-class tickets were .sold, and in the third class there 
 was no room for an apple to fall ; the passengers, so to say, sat 
 upon each other. After the first whistle, the assistant captain, 
 hurrying through the crowds of third-class passengers, was sud- 
 denly stopped by a peasant, who had just lodged a complaint that 
 his money was stolen.
 
 i6 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 "Your honor, the money has been found," he said. 
 
 "Found where?" 
 
 "Sewed up in that soldier's mantle. I went over there to 
 search for it, and sure there were forty-one roubles and a twenty- 
 kopeck piece," said the peasant, brandishing a chamois leather 
 purse as if it were a war trophy. 
 
 "Where is that soldier?" 
 
 "There he is, asleep." 
 
 "Well, he must be handed over to the police." 
 
 "Handed over to the police? Why to the police? Christ be 
 with him ! Don't touch him ; let him sleep on," he repeated, 
 naively, good-naturedly adding : "Sure, the money is found ; it's 
 all there. What more do we want?" 
 
 And so the matter ended. 
 
 Thus an intimate connection between what are con- 
 sidered to be Russian vices and Russian virtues is 
 duly testified to by a foreign observer, subject to no 
 suspicion of partiaHty. This close connection leads us 
 to suppose that Russian virtues and Russian vices 
 may be traced to a common origin. But before we 
 proceed to trace this origin any further, we have yet 
 to consider whether the Russian view of national 
 character agrees with that of foreign observers. Of 
 course, we must expect to find Russian writers exalt- 
 ing Russian virtues and omitting to mention or even 
 to take notice of Russian faults. We may take as an 
 extreme example of such Russian authors as are given 
 most to exaggerated ideas concerning national virtues 
 the renowned novelist Dostoyevsky. Russian virtues 
 are, according to Dostoyevsky, simply Christian vir- 
 tues. The Russian is full of love, humility, meekness 
 toward his neighbors; he is given to renunciation 
 and self-sacrifice. In short, the Russian is "all-human," 
 a phrase by which Dostoyevsky wishes to make us
 
 RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 17 
 
 understand that the Russian mind is universally sym- 
 pathetic and universally receptive ; and that this "uni- 
 versal receptiveness" is the very essence of the Russian 
 national character. To quote his own words : 
 
 You will agree with us that in the Russian character there 
 is one trait widely different from anything in the European, 
 namely, that it is in a high degree endowed with a capacity for 
 synthesis— with the talent for a universal reconciliation, with 
 an all-humanness.^ There is nothing in it like the European 
 angularity — no impermeability, no stiffness. It easily accom- 
 modates itself to everybody and adapts itself to every kind of 
 life. It sympathizes with everything that is human, without any 
 distinction of nationality, blood, or soil. It finds out and 
 immediately admits to be reasonable whatever may contain but 
 a grain of all-human interest. It is possessed by a sort of instinct 
 of all-humanness. This national character by instinct discovers 
 features of humanity even in the most exclusive peculiarities of 
 other nations. It at once conciliates and harmonizes them by 
 dint of its own generalization, finds a place for them in its own 
 scheme of reasoning, and thus often discovers a point of con- 
 vergence and of reconciliation between the entirely opposed and 
 conflicting ideas of any two different European nations, while 
 these nations of themselves would find no methods of reconciling 
 their ideas and thus, may be, would never be able to harmonize 
 them. At the same time you may observe in a Russian an 
 unlimited capability for the soundest self-criticism, soberest judg- 
 ment of himself, a complete absence of self-assertion, which is 
 sometimes prejudicial to the liberty of action. 
 
 These last words of Dostoyevsky are particularly 
 interesting to us. For he admits that the absence of 
 any positive motive for action — an absence originating 
 in the lack of any definite individuality — may go so far 
 in the Russian character as to preclude the possibility 
 of any action altogether. The observation is very 
 
 " Dostoyevsky's term is here translated literally, for even in the 
 Russian it is an artificial one.
 
 i8 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 sound, indeed, and its accuracy is above all suspicion. 
 The type is well known in Russian fiction. But with 
 this observation by Dostoyevsky we unexpectedly come 
 back to the same conclusion that was postulated by us 
 beforehand. We have now to accept as the chief fea- 
 ture of the Russian character a complete absence of 
 anything limiting, anything "stiff" and "angular" in 
 the Russian mind. But is not the "all-humanness" of 
 Dostoyevsky — while it is endowed with such traits — 
 just the same thing as the "amorphousness" and "plas- 
 ticity" of our own definition given by us at the very 
 beginning of this reasoning? It is so, indeed. The 
 plasticity and indefiniteness of the Russian type, and, 
 as a necessary consequence, its wonderful adaptability 
 to new conditions and surroundings; such are the 
 qualities that make the Russian mind so "universally 
 receptive," and accordingly "all-human." It does not 
 impress itself on things, but is impressed by their 
 "angularity" and "stiffness;" and thus it is rather 
 passive than active, rather receptive than creative. 
 
 Thus the bad and the good traits of the Russian 
 type really take their rise in this one fundamental 
 quality — its flexibility, its accessibility to every new 
 impression. A backbone is missing both in Russian 
 virtues and Russian vices. We have already quoted 
 Mr. Lanin's observation that in the Russian character 
 the "cement of hyprocrisy" is lacking; by which we 
 meant that in Russia hypocrisy has no medium of 
 social conventionalities to nestle in. Now we may 
 proceed to a further generalization. It is not only 
 the social conventionalities that are undeveloped, but 
 the "social mind" in general. The psychological web
 
 RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 19 
 
 of social forms, symbols, principles, and habits — in 
 short, of everything shaped by social intercourse — is 
 very thin and flimsy. A body of social tradition 
 generally determines social conduct and works out 
 formulas which act as stimulus or coercion. Russia 
 has not enough of this tradition. Hence we must infer 
 that our history has not given us sufficient social edu- 
 cation. Indeed, we may find proofs of this on any 
 page of Russian history. 
 
 An example will show what I mean. Foreign 
 travelers in ancient Russia were much struck by the 
 conduct of the Russian people during a conflagration. 
 No mutual aid was given, and no common plan of 
 action was organized. Instead of fighting the fire, the 
 people sat before their houses, holding the images of 
 saints, and patiently waiting till the turn would come 
 for their dwelling to burn. The only active conduct 
 displayed was that of some neighbors lurking about, 
 waiting for the opportunity to rob any inadvertent 
 persons who might attempt to put out the fire instead 
 of looking after their private property. This is only a 
 telling instance of the general state of social isolation 
 we have pointed out. 
 
 To take some of the permanent results of this social 
 isolation, let us mention that in Russia the very first 
 means of any social intercourse, the language, has been 
 constantly changing and wavering. It remained un- 
 settled until as late as the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century. We mean here not so much the spoken lan- 
 guage of the common people as the language of intel- 
 lectual intercourse, the written language of literature. 
 Intellectual intercourse was so extremely scanty that
 
 20 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 no continuous reaction of the literature on life was 
 possible, and no reciprocal influence among authors 
 and their readers could possibly exist. Each author 
 stood comparatively alone, working for himself, and, 
 left entirely to his individual resources, was not likely 
 to alleviate by his work the labor of the following 
 generations. Therefore no settled language in litera- 
 ture and no civilizing tradition were possible. The 
 Russian writers of the eighteenth century are read and 
 understood in Russia with the same difficulty that an 
 Englishman would experience in reading his Chaucer, 
 or a Frenchman his Montaigne. Thus a continuous 
 thread of civilizing literary tradition in Russia cannot 
 be traced farther back than about one, or one and a 
 half, centuries. This may help you to understand the 
 deficiencies in our social memory, and so to explain the 
 lack of proper tradition in the Russian social mind. 
 
 And so, whatever branch of social life we touch, 
 we shall find everywhere the same fundamental feature 
 in the Russian historical process: the lack of con- 
 tinuity and the insufficient development of any binding 
 social tradition. More than once in our subsequent 
 exposition we shall have occasion to point out that in 
 the economic intercourse the idea of- property, in the 
 legal the idea of law, in the moral the idea of an 
 ethical sanction, have been but lately developed in the 
 common consciousness, and until the present have 
 remained incomplete. 
 
 To avoid a possible misunderstanding, a reserva- 
 tion must here be made. When I characterized the 
 Russian national type, I necessarily had recourse to 
 terms ("amorphousness," "plasticity," etc.) whose
 
 RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 21 
 
 meaning is not narrow enough to be applicable to this 
 
 type alone. "Good-natured and morally lenient" 
 
 so I might have summed up a part of my observations 
 on the Russian psychological type; but you will 
 remember that these were the very words used by Mr. 
 Bryce to define the American type. You may have 
 observed now and then, while I have been speaking, 
 that this or that feature referred to, in order to specify 
 the difference between Europe and Russia, might also 
 have been used to point out a similar difference between 
 England and America. Of course, this does not make 
 the comparison untrue; but it makes you remember 
 that such comparisons are necessarily relative. 
 
 Anybody coming to Russia from western Europe 
 could not fail to notice such deficiencies in the Russian 
 character as I have referred to. But when I happened, 
 some years ago, to come back to Russia after two years' 
 stay in Bulgaria, my country appeared to me to be a 
 land of higher culture, and all Mr. Lanin says about 
 us I was tempted to apply to the newly born society of 
 the Balkan peninsula — I mean all his negative charac- 
 teristics. I should think a citizen of some middle state 
 of America would waver like that in his appreciation 
 of his own surroundings, according to whether he 
 came home from New England or from California. 
 
 From what has been said hitherto one might pos- 
 sibly infer that the development of Russia from its 
 primitive state has been very slow. The contrary 
 assertion would be nearer the truth. Far from being 
 stagnant, Russian development has proceeded very 
 rapidly, and thus Russia, having started far behind tlie 
 other countries, is now overtaking the lands of more
 
 22 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 ancient culture. First, the material growth of Russia 
 has been enormous; in fact, this growth is second 
 only to that of the United States. While at the time 
 of Peter the Great (1724) the whole population of 
 Russia was only thirteen millions, there are now five 
 times as many in the same area (sixty-five millions) ; 
 and the inhabitants are ten times as numerous (one 
 hundred and thirty millions), if we consider the whole 
 country, together with the territories colonized and 
 conquered since than. Two centuries ago the Russian 
 people formed about one-ninth of the whole population 
 of Europe ; today they make up one-third of the Euro- 
 peans, that is. they are proportionally three times as 
 numerous as formerly. The average density of the 
 population (in European Russia) has grown during the 
 same period from the very insignificant cipher of 9.6 
 per square mile to 50.5. The state budget has risen 
 from some twelve millions of dollars to more than one 
 thousand millions; i. e., nearly a hundred times as 
 much. The population of the cities since 1724 has 
 increased from 328,000 to 16,289,000; i. c, to nearly 
 fifty times as many. This may give you an idea of the 
 growth of the economic life in Russia during these last 
 two centuries. 
 
 The social, the intellectual, and the moral growth 
 of Russia is far from being so obvious; nevertheless 
 it has been actually going on very rapidly. There are 
 at hand no statistics with which to make a comparison ; 
 and it would not be right to judge the rate of the 
 progress by the modest results attained. To do Russia 
 justice, and simply be able to understand her history, 
 we must not forget what was the starting-point of her
 
 RUSSIA Ax\D THE UNITED STATES 23 
 
 development. Russia had no chance of building the 
 edifice of her culture on such an elevation as was given 
 to the United States by its English tradition. She 
 had to begin to build on the low level of barbarism, 
 and thus was obliged first to work through centuries of 
 an almost unconscious process of growth, before the 
 mere possibility of a civilized existence had dawned 
 for her. Hence it was impossible for Russia to pre- 
 serve the unity of her political and social tradition 
 through the course of her historical growth. The 
 starting-point was too different from the aims she is 
 striving after now. To give you a definite view of 
 this development, rapid and still incomplete as it is, I 
 shall draw for you three pictures, representing the 
 state of civilizing ideas at the end of each of the last 
 three centuries. By comparing these we shall be more 
 easily able to appreciate the measure of the change in 
 Russia. 
 
 Let us look first at Moscow, as early as the year 
 1689, /. e., just before the reign of Peter the Great. 
 At that time Moscow was the ancient and only capital ; 
 nay, in the boundless woods, marshes, and prairies of 
 Russia, it was the only Russian city at all worthy of 
 the name. And yet it was nothing more than an enor- 
 mous court-yard around the manor-house of the Tsar. 
 The city was inhabited by the officials of the Tsar's 
 palace and by the officers of the Tsar's army. There 
 was no room for any abstract ideas or feelings, in the 
 midst of this world of illiterate churls, where only 
 every tenth man could say his Lord's Prayer, not to 
 mention the Apostles' Creed and the Ten Command- 
 ments. An A-B-C book or a primer for reading was
 
 24 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 to be found there at the rate of one copy per 2,400 
 inhabitants; the gospel was never read and, when 
 recited at the mass, was heard without being under- 
 stood ; there was no elementary and no regular second- 
 ary school, even for the clergymen, and of course no 
 higher school at all. Ideas, if any were to be found 
 there, were of a foreign importation — a very rare 
 and most severely prohibited merchandise, kept for the 
 private use of a few persons of higher station, striving 
 after self-culture ; for the most part these ideas were 
 preserved in foreign books and carefully put up in 
 the book-cases of a dozen foreign merchants and higher 
 officers. Some sparks there were of a deeper and truer 
 piety, kindled in the depths of the Volga forests ; they 
 glimmered dimly through the thick covering of child- 
 ish faith and half-pagan ceremonial. Many and many 
 a year was still needed before these sparks could be 
 fanned into a continuous and steady flame. 
 
 Meantime another fire was kindled. In one of the 
 market-places of the capital of the Tsars, on the fourth 
 of February, 1689, a German mystic, Quirinus Kuhl- 
 mann (a friend of Jane Leade, the founder of the 
 Philadelphian Society), was burned at the stake. His 
 crime was that he had come to Moscow in order to 
 deliver a most important prophecy. The end of the 
 world was coming, he said; the Roman faith was to 
 be extinguished, the old apostolic creed was to triumph 
 in the whole world, and Christ alone w^as to rule, 
 instead of the motley crowd of princes and kings. All 
 men would be equal thenceforward; private property 
 would be turned to common use, and nothing any 
 longer would be called one's own. Righteousness was
 
 RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 25 
 
 to be enthroned, sin and lawlessness were to vanish. 
 The poor dreamer had hoped to make the Russian 
 Tsar his pupil and a forerunner of the coming king- 
 dom of God upon earth. But, of course, he found no 
 ear among the Russian authorities and no people to 
 listen to his turbid gospel of religious and social free- 
 dom; he was instead carried to torture, finishing his 
 life at the stake. This happened, it is true, just at the 
 time of the Salem witchcraft (1692) ; but it was also 
 the epoch when the foundations of religious freedom 
 and tolerance were laid in Great Britain and New 
 
 England. 
 
 A century has passed. We are again in the Rus- 
 sian capital, in the year 1789 — the era of the French 
 Revolution. This time, however, the capital is a new 
 one. It bears a foreign name: it is a Peter's burgh. 
 It was built all at once at the imperious beck of a 
 revolutionary ruler; and it has still remained foreign 
 to the country, in spite of a noisy existence of half a 
 century. As late as the epoch of Catherine II. it still 
 remained, as Diderot found it, "a city of palaces," 
 for it contained very few burgher dwelling-houses. 
 Nevertheless not only in Petersburg, but throughout 
 Russia, we are now far removed from that auto-da-fe 
 which took place in Moscow only a century before 
 (1689). It was in the name of religion that the 
 "magic incantations" of the unhappy prophet of the 
 millennium were condemned in Moscow. Now, a 
 century later, nobody in Petersburg cared about the 
 official religion. Magicians were no longer burned 
 for the sake of religion. In the time of Catherine 
 they were rather received with open arms by the
 
 2.6 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 higher society, if only, instead of preaching com- 
 munism, they were wilhng to teach the people how to 
 change baser metals into gold. But while Petersburg 
 society had entirely lost its religion and had not fixed 
 upon a new ideal to strive for, the unofficial — the 
 spiritual — religion was making rapid progress among 
 the lower classes. In the civilized upper crust the 
 "pre-revolutionary" ideas of religious and political 
 freedom were spreading at great speed. But this 
 upper crust was, as yet, very thin indeed, and its mem- 
 bers were quite powerless to apply new ideals to real 
 life. That is why the empress, jealous as she was of 
 her power, condescended to connive at the spread of 
 these new ideas : they did no harm, and they were so 
 attractive, so human! Thus, Catherine II. professed 
 that she was not afraid of her people's getting enlight- 
 enment; nay, she even contrived to spread a net of 
 secondary schools all over the country. 
 
 But, just as the French Revolution broke out, 
 everything was suddenly changed. Catherine searched 
 for victims of her anger and suspicion among the 
 adherents of the new ideas ; she tried to break up the 
 thin crust of the newly formed public opinion. One 
 of the best representatives of this public opinion was 
 Radeeshchev. He had been sent by the empress her- 
 self to Germany, where he had learned the lesson of 
 European civilization more deeply than any Russian 
 before him. Then he came back to tell Russia, just 
 on the eve of the Revolution, what he had learned. 
 He was cut short at his first utterance of the great 
 word of freedom. His book, A Journey from Peters- 
 burg to Moscozv, which has since become renowned,
 
 RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 27 
 
 was condemned by the empress herself to be burned 
 as revolutionary and dangerous. The author was 
 first sentenced to death, and the sentence was changed 
 to exile in Siberia. This was the first triumph of 
 Russian public opinion, for this treatment recognized 
 it as a force capable of influencing actual life. Still, 
 its further fate was quite uncertain. Would it recover 
 from the heavy blow it had received? Would it get 
 new adherents and wider influence? Or might it not 
 die in the moment of its birth? These questions 
 remained unanswered. 
 
 Meanwhile the dawn of political freedom was 
 shining brightly all over Europe, and your own vener- 
 able monument of political art was just raised in 
 Philadelphia. Russia had been following the march of 
 the world's civilization with rapid strides, but the road 
 stretched far ahead. 
 
 Let us return, however, to Petersburg as it was 
 a century later. Words had meanwhile become 
 deeds. The best dreams of poor Radeeshchev had been 
 carried into execution. Russia had got rid of her 
 slavery at the very time (1861) when the great war 
 against slavery began in the United States. The 
 hearts of the best men throbbed with joy at what had 
 been achieved, and with hope for what remained to 
 be done. People expected that the building of social 
 equality would soon be crowned by political freedom 
 and individual liberty, freedom of belief, liberty of 
 the press and of opinion, the rights of man and of 
 citizen, a reign of law and justice, independent courts, 
 real self-government. Public opinion seemed to glory 
 in its final victory, to have taken its proper place in
 
 28 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 political life. Vain hope. A few years passed, and 
 the golden dream was once more completely dispelled. 
 A struggle began, the most merciless and violent that 
 Russia has ever seen, between authority and opinion. 
 And how did the struggle end? In suspicious and 
 narrow treatment of every living force of the nation 
 on the side of the government; in bitter disappoint- 
 ment and rigid opposition on the side of public opinion. 
 Presently every scheme of further reform was gradu- 
 ally eliminated from the field of action, and their 
 promoters were exterminated. This extermination of 
 the intermediate shades of public opinion resulted in 
 a terrible shock between the old and the new, between 
 a dying tradition and a buoyant ideal of the future. 
 They met face to face, the old and the new, and the 
 shock was indeed terrible, because there was nothing 
 left between to soften the blow; no engine at hand 
 peacefully to convert the latent heat into useful action, 
 the potential energy into actual work. 
 
 Thus, as we have seen, a mad millennial dream 
 of foreign invention, the enthusiastic anticipation of 
 a student of European civilization, and a real political 
 struggle for a definite and practical platform — such are 
 the three steps which Russia has achieved during the 
 last three centuries of her history, on her way from bar- 
 barism to civilization. We must concede that a nation 
 that was achieving this had not been standing still. On 
 the contrary, the movement went on so rapidly that 
 Russia of necessity soon got out of touch with her old 
 tradition, and a question has arisen as to the desirability 
 of this departure. While drifting from her ancient 
 moorings, the defenders of the old order asked : Was
 
 RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 29 
 
 not Russia running the risk of losing her very nation- 
 ahty in her mad race for improvement ? Would it not 
 have been more prudent to remain "at home" than to 
 start on this long and dangerous journey of imitation 
 through Europe? The objection was, surely, sense- 
 less; the Russian nation is itself "European," and 
 the process of its remolding originated, as much as 
 elsewhere in Europe, in internal evolutionary causes 
 and not in the fanciful pleasure of "borrowing" new 
 fashions, or in a mere craving for change for change's 
 sake. Change was necessary, and there is nothing to 
 our discredit in having it. "To live is to change," as 
 Cardinal Newman says, "and to be perfect is to have 
 changed often." 
 
 Still, objections are not to be silenced by this kind 
 of reasoning. Russia was certainly to be civilized, the 
 defenders of the old tradition argued ; but she did not 
 need to be civilized after the European pattern, as there 
 were enough civilizing elements in her own tradition. 
 True or false, this argument has become the crutch of 
 every reactionary measure in Russia. Thus, our next ^ 
 task will be to examine more closely what elements 
 of a peculiar civilization are inherent in the national- 
 istic feelings and theories and in the Russian historical 
 tradition.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 
 
 It is with intention that I entitle this chapter, not 
 the "national," but the "nationalistic" idea. By this 
 term I mean to designate a particular kind of national 
 theory — that which declares certain national peculi- 
 arities to be unalterable and exalts them as a founda- 
 tion of national life for all future time. Civilization 
 makes nations, as it makes individuals, look alike; 
 while, on the other hand, the more backward a nation 
 is in culture, the more likely it is to be peculiar, and the 
 more scope is left to such politicians as assert the pres- 
 ervation of those peculiar features to be its only means 
 of political salvation. This is especially the case in a 
 country like Russia, where a new culture has over- 
 lapped the old, the two continuing to exist in a per- 
 petual contradiction of each other. Owing to this 
 situation in Russia, nationalistic aspirations and 
 theories have been built up in great number in order 
 to defend the old from the new, and they have played 
 such a large part in political life that the "nationalistic 
 idea" deserves a separate chapter. 
 
 Of course, the nationalistic idea in itself lacks any 
 scientific foundation. The peculiarities of a national 
 life cannot be considered "unalterable," for the reason 
 that in the eye of modern science nothing is unalterable. 
 What made the old theories hold the nation to be 
 unalterable was the fact that they confused the idea 
 
 30
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 31 
 
 of the nation with that of the race, which seemed to 
 be unaherable indeed. Race and nation, in fact, still 
 form, in the nationalistic view, one notion. But, in 
 the first place, in the view of modern anthropology, 
 not even the race is regarded as unchangeable; and, 
 in the second place, the race, the anthropological type, 
 has nothing in common with the nation. A nation 
 may include many racial types, and one racial type 
 may be scattered through many national groups. Of 
 course, a national type implies a certain physical uni- 
 formity; and this uniformity may be brought about 
 by mere natural forces, such as, e. g., a common descent 
 or the long action of uniform natural surroundings. 
 But natural forces of this kind are not essential in 
 producing a uniform national type; the best proof 
 of it is that the same forces may act as well in a 
 quite opposite direction, by differentiating the national 
 type, instead of making it uniform and homogeneous. 
 In its very substance, national uniformity is some- 
 times produced, not because, but in spite of, natural 
 causes; it is thus not a product either of unity of 
 race, or of unity of geographical surroundings; but 
 it is of a psychological and sociological origin. 
 National uniformity is the result of a long course of' 
 unconscious and half-conscious imitation among the 
 members of a given social aggregate. This kind of 
 social imitation is propagated in space by conquest 
 or by peaceful intercourse; it is perpetuated in time 
 by birth and tradition, i. c, by the natural growth and 
 the conscious education of new generations. Accord- 
 ingly, a national type, as a sociological product, is not 
 a group of characteristics that would stick inalienably
 
 32 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 to a man or a social group. The traits may be arti- 
 ficially dissociated. They may be taught and untaught 
 by custom and tradition, as in the United States with 
 the immigrant population.^ The national type may 
 even be learned or unlearned by purpose and politics, 
 as is often the case with mixed populations and with 
 small ethnic groups, living on the boundaries of many 
 large European states. 
 
 As a rule, however, the uniformity of a national 
 type is not the result of a systematic policy or of a 
 conscious volition. It is rather constituted and ac- 
 quired in dim periods of national life, when social 
 consciousness is just beginning to dawn. This is 
 generally the period when national territory is framed 
 into a political unit, under the leadership of a central 
 military power. In Russia this process of national 
 unification w^as going on at the end of the fifteenth 
 century. The leading part fell to the share of the 
 Duke of Moscow. John III. was the powerful ruler 
 who laid heavy hands on his prey and brought to an 
 end the existence of many smaller dukedoms or more 
 weakly organized territories, surrounding his central 
 seat of power.^ 
 
 But this period, when the national type is beginning 
 to form itself within a military state, is far from being 
 the time of the full blossoming of national feeling 
 
 ^ A study of the process of assimilation of foreign elements by 
 the old American stock will give one day a clearer insight into the 
 laws of the formation of nationalities. European science has a right 
 to expect this contribution to sociology from American students 
 of this branch of knowledge already so much enriched by American 
 scholars. 
 
 - See map of the " Making of the Russian State."
 
 rrm 
 
 The Muscovite Dukedom be- 
 fore John III (1462). 
 
 The acquisitions of John III 
 
 and Basilius III (1462-1533). 
 
 The acquisitions of John IV |[|||||[| 
 
 and Theodore (1533-1598). UltlMII 
 
 The acquisitions of Michael kJj^jJ^jJ^ 
 (1613-1645). \/Zr/2 
 
 The acquisitions of Alexis 
 (1645-1676). 
 
 The acquisitions of Peter the M|hh The acquisitions of Paul 
 Great (1689-1725). |H^| (1796-1801). 
 
 The acquisitions of Anna frrqTnp The acquisitions of Alexander 
 
 Ivanovna (1730-1740). [ i 'f 1(1801-1825). 
 
 The acquisitions of Elizabeth ; " ' The acquisitions of Nicholas 
 
 (1741-1761). !...,! (1825-1855). 
 
 The acquisitions of Catherine '\ The acquisitions of Alexander 
 
 II (1762-1796). I _..^ II (1855-1881).
 
 / r /- / 
 
 .L . ; '' ^'^ 
 
 
 ■v^*^ 
 
 j^ \.. 
 
 I ' 
 
 *WF.':''BaK^^1WvKC.Ta£3^Ui"tf»^-«W!r-.f±fiEia-y^i?'Se 
 
 ,i?.j:'5i-j'..S:} S 
 J j; '.,.;? "•! la f.nbiUf vp-^ •■^■' 
 
 I ■•> ■■■; r» *«(>!.' ;'.-.upr5? •■;* 
 
 .•"■cilS^l) I '.I nrf-l^V- a 
 
 ,(j-:;i-- ,••■ .i en; •■ .'J bn..-
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 33 
 
 and nationalistic theories in the unified nation. The 
 national feeling as yet lacks full consciousness. The 
 nationalistic theory is late in catching up with the 
 historical events of national unification. Both feeling 
 and theory come later, as a consequence and a vindica- 
 tion of the accomplished facts. 
 
 National consciousness generally begins at the time 
 when the politically unified nation as a whole is brought 
 into closer relations with some neighboring national 
 units. Then a comparison between the two nations 
 is frequently drawn. The results of such a com- 
 parison are twofold. First a sort of self-sufficiency 
 and self-conceit is felt. National arrogance thus ap- 
 pears to be the first utterance of the nationalistic idea. 
 This feeling is particularly emphasized if a struggle 
 for national existence is carried on, no matter whether 
 the issue of this struggle is disastrous or successful. 
 But then — perhaps simultaneously — the second result 
 of the comparison appears : self-criticism and self- 
 negation. The inferior nation looks up to the su- 
 perior, supposing that there is between the two a 
 difference in culture. 
 
 Between Russia and other European countries the 
 contrast was not so great at the moment of their first 
 meeting, some centuries ago, as it is perhaps now 
 between Japan and the Europe of today. Therefore 
 the contrast between nationalism and foreign culture 
 could not be fought out in Russia in such a rapid and 
 resolute way, and the victory over old traditions could 
 not be so soon and completely won, as would be the 
 case today. Instead of that there followed a long 
 process of compromise and assimilation, which in Rus-
 
 34 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 sia is even yet not completed. The consecutive stages 
 of compromise may be traced by study of the subse- 
 quent history of the nationahstic idea. The changes 
 Russian nationahsm has undergone closely correspond 
 to the positions it alternately assumed and surrendered 
 in its struggle with higher civilization. 
 
 In the very soul of the nation there thus appears 
 a clash between the awakened consciousness of national 
 selfhood and the dawning consciousness of belonging 
 to humanity in general. National self-consciousness 
 clings to particular features of national existence, such 
 as dress, dwelling, social habits, political institutions, 
 and old forms of the popular creed. But in the long 
 run these features cannot be preserved. By and by 
 they disappear from actual life and take the shape of a 
 dim remembrance of a past never to be recalled. And 
 while historical peculiarities are vanishing, a notion 
 grows up that nationalism does not consist in keeping 
 to dead tradition, but in realizing the living "spirit" of 
 the nation. Then a right to free action, to free play 
 for inherent forces of the national spirit, is claimed in 
 the name of the nation. But as soon as this view is 
 assumed by nationalism its end is near. For living 
 "spirit" is not to be bound by a dead tradition. It 
 remains only to understand that the national "spirit" 
 is not a metaphysical "substantia," or a simple element 
 of chemistry, but an evolving and complex product of 
 historical development. With this explanation nation- 
 alism is ferreted out of its last lurking-place, and it 
 not only dies out, it turns to its opposite. It thus kills 
 itself by the very process of its development. 
 
 Indeed, pari passu with the growing appreciation
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 35 
 
 of cosmopolitan elements of culture grows the per- 
 ception that some of them necessarily exist already in 
 the national spirit itself. The nationalistic idea thus 
 becomes messianic; that is, it begins to claim for itself 
 a place in the universal development of mankind. 
 In this stage of development the nationalistic idea has 
 already become cosmopolitan. Or else, in order to 
 avoid this logical result, nationalism must recoil from 
 its own conclusions and stick more steadfastly than 
 ever to some institutions and habits peculiar to the 
 past history of the nation; must become, in short, 
 reactionary. But in that case its influence on actual 
 life is paralyzed. Turn which way it will, it arrives 
 at the same end — self-annihilation. Thus, we may 
 distinguish three stages in the development of the 
 nationalistic idea. Nationalism is first instinctive; 
 then it turns out to be self-assertive and arrogant; and 
 finally it becomes subject to criticism and a comparison 
 with some higher culture. At that third stage the 
 nationalistic idea is differentiated into two opposite 
 types : the one, cosmopolitan and messianic ; the other, 
 particular and reactionary. Both bring the national- 
 istic idea to the same upshot — inner dissolution. 
 
 I have now only to substitute more Russian names 
 and data in order to fill up this general outline — which 
 may refer as well to any backward country — with its 
 proper contents. 
 
 I shall not here dwell long on the first two 
 stages of nationalism in Russian history. The national- 
 istic idea as an instinctive feeling was characteristic 
 of Russian ancient history; and in the same state of 
 instinctive feeling it remains until now in all but the
 
 36 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Upper layers of Russian society. Thus, large stores of 
 crude national feeling are kept untouched against the 
 future. And this is the reason why Europe has always 
 been afraid of a possible ascendency of the "spirit of 
 conquest" in Russia. But this instinctive feeling is 
 perhaps much more dangerous to Russia itself, because 
 it is always liable to deprive her of her self-control, as 
 was the case in our last war with Turkey (1877-78). 
 Or else it may be exploited for such shameful deeds 
 as we recently witnessed in Kishineff. 
 
 There follows then the second stage, in the develop- 
 ment of nationalism; I mean such first attempts at 
 consciousness in national feelings and theory as were 
 made during the age of national unification. But these 
 attempts are very closely connected with what is con- 
 sidered to be Russian political and religious tradition; 
 and therefore it will be better to make you acquainted 
 with them in the two chapters next following, where 
 Russian tradition is to be discussed. You will see there 
 that it was the stage of a serene self-complacency and 
 unperturbed self-reliance. 
 
 For our present purpose it will be more interesting 
 to dwell on the following — the third stage, when this 
 serenity of national feeling began to give place to a 
 vivid apprehension of confusion and trouble. This 
 came to pass when the contact with foreign culture 
 became so continuous as to be considered dangerous. 
 This condition was first realized in Moscow about the 
 middle of the seventeenth century. 
 
 Of course, foreign people lived in Moscow long 
 before that time; they came there as soon as the 
 political unification began, at the end of the fifteenth
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 7,7 
 
 century. But these foreigners were few and remained 
 as yet unnoticed by the great bulk of the native popula- 
 tion. Hence they were permitted to live where and 
 how they pleased. From the beginning of the seven- 
 teenth century, however, the strangers came in crowds 
 to Moscow. They entered Russia as commissioned 
 officers, wholesale merchants or trade agents, petty 
 craftsmen, or skilled artisans in the Tsar's personal 
 service. Their number doubled in Moscow within the 
 first half of the seventeenth century, increasing from 
 about five hundred to one thousand — a great many for 
 the Moscow of that time; they bought houses in the 
 city and estates in the province ; they conversed freely 
 with Russian people, wore Russian clothes, engaged 
 Russian servants, and spoke the Russian language. 
 Then the Muscovite clergy became alarmed. The 
 patriarch requested the Tsar to enjoin the strangers 
 from endangering further the Russian national habits 
 and creed. This request was granted : the foreigners 
 were ordered ( 1652-53) to sell their houses and estates, 
 and thenceforward to inhabit a single quarter in the 
 Moscow suburbs, since called the " German " quarter. 
 But this was, as they soon found, " drowning fish 
 in water." While residing among the Russians the 
 foreigners always ran the risk of being insulted by 
 urchins or plundered by ruffians; or else, in the long 
 run, of wholly losing their nationality by becoming 
 Russianized, Now, in the " German quarter " they 
 lived at their ease and thus were able to preserve 
 their national habits. The new quarter, entirely in- 
 habited by foreigners, stood there close to the walls 
 of the ancient city of the Tsar, a visible model for
 
 38 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 imitation. Russian people were thus prevented from 
 gradually intermingling with strangers, with the only 
 result that at a later period they were subjected to 
 the undisputed influence of European civilization. The 
 Tsar Alexis in 1652 drove the strangers to a suburb 
 outside his capital; Alexis's son, Peter the Great, 
 came, forty years later, to the suburb made "German;" 
 he lived there the European life to the full, and never 
 came back to his father's home. 
 
 Thus, before the seventeenth century came to a 
 close, the danger for the old nationalism was rapidly 
 increasing. Russia had to choose between the old and 
 the new, between the "Greeks," who gave Russia their 
 church, and the " Germans," who were going to give 
 Russia their culture. It w^as a compatriot, a Slav 
 though not a Russian, the learned and far-seeing 
 Croatian, Georges Kreeshanich, who first (about 1670) 
 pondered the issues of the choice. No Russian of that 
 time had been able to formulate so clearly and so pre- 
 cisely what were the chief points of the conflict of 
 the two civilizations that met at Moscow; and he 
 paid for his superior knowledge and his clairvoyance 
 by exile to Siberia. It was from Siberia that he sent to 
 the Tsar his book on Politics, in which he formulates 
 for the first time a systematic view of what may be 
 called a nationalistic policy. Says Kreeshanich : 
 
 The Germans wish to poison us with their novelties; but 
 then, the Greeks inconsiderately condemn whatever is new; 
 and they force upon us under the false name of antiquity their 
 foolish inventions. The Germans sow heresies; but the Greeks 
 also confound the true faith with schism [Kreeshanich was a 
 Roman Catholic]. The Germans propose to teach us true science, 
 but they mix it with the arts of the devil; on the other hand,
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 39 
 
 the Greeks count as heresy every bit of knowledge, and advise us 
 to remain in complete ignorance. The Germans vainly hope to 
 be saved by preaching the gospel ; the Greeks leave off preach- 
 ing and like better to forbear all discussion. The former permit 
 every laxity in life, and thus lead us by the broad way of perdi- 
 tion ; the latter point to a way still narrower than that of 
 salvation, by summoning us to pharisaic superstition and bigotry. 
 The Germans denounce as barbarous, tyrannical, and inhuman 
 whatever is Turkish in political matters; the Greeks declare 
 the same things to be admirable and praiseworthy. The Germans 
 do not acknowledge the due rank of the Russian state; the 
 Greeks exalt it in a way that is senseless, vain, fictitious, and 
 impossible." 
 
 This renowned patriot advised the Russians to 
 choose the middle course between these two extremes, 
 according to the "dictates of reason." Thus he hoped 
 to escape the danger of the Russian nationahty's de- 
 struction, whether by the Greeks or by the Germans, 
 a destruction which, as he well knew, had come to 
 some smaller southern and western Slavonic groups. 
 But then there were three things that Kreeshanich 
 was not aware of. First, there was at the time he 
 wrote no national consciousness and, accordingly, no 
 possibility of any reasonable choice. In the second 
 place, there was no danger of the Russian nationality 
 being destroyed, even if the borrowing of foreign 
 culture should go on as inadvertently and blindly as 
 possible. And last, though not least, he did not see 
 that there was really no choice, that there was only 
 one way to civilization, if civilization it was to be: 
 that of the West, not of the East; that of the "Ger- 
 mans," not of the '* Greeks." Thus only a quarter of 
 a century after Kreeshanich wrote, Russia was to be 
 
 'See chap, iv, pp. 160-64.
 
 40 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 made outwardly and manifestly European. Peter the 
 Great had come. 
 
 Let us see now what became of the nationalistic 
 feeling and theory after Russia had been Europeanized 
 by Peter. Such nationalistic tradition as had formed 
 in the two preceding centuries, the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth, by its very essence could not surrender. 
 Indeed, as we shall see later (chap, iii), it turned into 
 a stubborn opposition to the new culture, and, when 
 easily subdued in the higher cFasses, dragged out a 
 stealthy existence in the lower strata, where it persists 
 even to the present time. 
 
 But among the higher classes — the only ones that 
 were as yet Europeanized — nationalism took an en- 
 tirely new shape. It did not remain in the state of 
 instinctive feeling, uncompromising and inflexible, 
 such as made the masses and the genuine Muscovite 
 opponents of the new culture prefer death to surrender. 
 On the other hand, the higher society that acquiesced 
 in Peter's reform was not as yet guided in its con- 
 duct by a conscious theory. It got rid of the in- 
 stinctive feeling, but had not yet arrived at a theoretical 
 foundation for any new view of things. That is 
 why it accepted the new order of things without 
 resistance, but also without sincere conviction in its 
 favor. It simply adopted the new social customs and 
 the new style of living because such was the order 
 of the Tsar; but it did not really embrace the ideas 
 of western civilization. With it the imitation of for- 
 eign culture was limited at first to its outward aspects. 
 
 Even at this stage, however — the stage of a more 
 or less unconscious adaptation of the new culture —
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 41 
 
 the relation to it was different in individual members 
 of the higher society. Now that the way of imitation 
 had been decidedly taken, everybody followed it ; but 
 some people w^ent on grumbling and stubbornly insist- 
 ing that there was nothing at all to imitate. While 
 enjoying the pleasures and advantages of the new 
 culture, they contemplated a reaction, and looked back- 
 ward to their fictitious national paradise of ancient 
 Russia. Others, however, rejected with the same 
 fervor whatever was Russian, and prided themselves 
 on being the first to imitate. Thus two new social 
 types appeared, not unknown at this stage of national 
 development in every country; let us call them 
 "xenomaniacs" and "xenophobists" — the friends and 
 the enemies of the imported culture. Both were far 
 from leaning upon any conscious theory, as we have 
 already said; both were the immediate products of 
 life, not of theoretical training. A w'ounded national 
 vanity was their chief motive in both extremes of 
 imitation and rejection of the foreign culture. Both 
 types were also soon caricatured in literature and 
 ridiculed by witticisms of Russian satirical writers, 
 the literary imitators of Steele and Addison. And, 
 indeed, those types were grotesque enough. Let us 
 take, by way of illustration, a description of them 
 drawn from life by a foreign traveler, soon after their 
 first appearance and long before they had had time to 
 be represented by Russian literature. I translate the 
 following from a book by Peter Haven, a Hollander, 
 who traveled in Russia during the years 1736-39. 
 
 This is a portrait of a Russian lady, profitmg freely 
 by the new fashions and manners of life. In the
 
 42 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 second half of the century she will appear in Russian 
 satire as a "coquette," an elegante, with her male 
 counterparts, the "dandy," the pctit-maitre. It is not a 
 literary sketch, but an illustration from life of the 
 young Princess Koorakin: 
 
 She has a whole court round her. She drives six-in-hand, 
 with two post-boys and four footmen. She has two dozen 
 chamber-maids and as many men-servants. She eats luxuriously 
 and at no fixed time, sleeps until noon, and dresses like an opera- 
 singer. Though she speaks nothing but Russian, she mixes up 
 so many French and Italian words with Russian endings that 
 it is far easier for a foreigner to understand her than for a 
 native. In her talking she generally extols French fashions and 
 liberty of social manners. She laughs at pious women, who 
 lament the world's vanity, simply because they themselves have 
 no chance of marrying. Her own love stories are apt to prove 
 that in Moscow you may play no worse amorous dramas than in 
 London or Paris. 
 
 Let US look next at a worthy old-fashioned couple, 
 Prince and Princess Cherkasski : 
 
 The prince asked me whether I understood Russian. "Yes, a 
 little," I said. The prince then retorted that he could not allow 
 anybody to speak with him otherwise than in Russian while in 
 his country, because when traveling he had always been obliged 
 to speak the language of the country he was in. "I should like 
 to know," he went on, "why the Russian language should not be 
 put on the same level with French or German?" I answered 
 that perhaps the reason was that the sciences were not yet 
 flourishing in Russia; therefore the language was not much 
 in use and little studied. Again, another reason might be that 
 the Russian state only recently had begun to be held in esteem 
 by foreigners ; with the power of the state would also grow the 
 appreciation of the language. The prince was appeased by this ; 
 but then the princess asked me whether I was a German. I said 
 I was not. Then she took off her hat, made in the English 
 fashion and wanted me to say whether I really thought that
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 43 
 
 things like that ought to be ordered from abroad. I said this 
 fault was fully redeemed by the good quality of the hat and the 
 impossibility of getting it otherwise. "Well, now," the princess 
 rejoined, "my slave has made it for me here in Moscow ; thus, 
 you see, we don't want German goods, any more than we want 
 the Germans themselves, to come here into Russia. 
 
 Such were the first types of newly cultured people 
 that made their appearance in the higher society of 
 Russia in consequence of Peter the Great's reforms. 
 You have observed, perhaps, that of the two types 
 thus sketched by Haven the more grotesque is that of 
 the dashing lady, Princess Koorakin. In fact, the 
 new imitators of European culture offered much more 
 material for satire than its old-fashioned detractors. 
 The reason was that the influence of European culture 
 remained quite superficial. The real need for this 
 culture was felt by the state only, which borrowed 
 from abroad plans of military, naval, and administra- 
 tive institutions. Beyond these mere technicalities, the 
 only use made of foreign culture at first was for the 
 amenities of life. 
 
 But very soon the new standard of life brought 
 in from abroad began to serve another more practical 
 end. As the higher classes alone imitated Europe, the 
 new culture became a mark of social distinction. 
 French dress, French wines, French meals, and, last 
 but not least, the French language served to dis- 
 tinguish the Russian nobility from the bulk of the 
 people. All that was not noble was "vile;" thus 
 ancient Russian clothes and habits and creed became 
 so many attributes of the "vile people," of peasants, 
 merchants, and clergy. Thus the higher classes — the 
 nobility and the gentry — for the first time in Russian
 
 44 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 history were entirely and outwardly dissociated from 
 the lower strata. Later on (see p. 339) we shall see 
 that just then slavery had attained its full development 
 in Russia. Thus European culture had become a 
 property of the privileged landed aristocracy. Thence- 
 forward there were to exist in Russia two cultures, two 
 systems of tradition, almost two differait languages. 
 The "vile" multitude provided suppHes for the "noble" 
 few who lived in opulence and luxury. The common 
 people had to live the life of toil and suffering in order 
 that their "landlords" might live in a world of fiction. 
 Thus the civilized type of the higher society became 
 such as was known abroad until the epoch of the 
 emancipation of the serfs. Broad ways of living, 
 liberal hospitality, literary refinement, together with 
 entire incapacity for actual work and the lack of any 
 real interest in life — these were supposed sometimes 
 to be the features of the Russian national type. But 
 they were only features of the Russian "noble" during 
 the period of slavery. This was the type of the Rus- 
 sian bahrin (landlord). 
 
 This necessary digression may help you to under- 
 stand the further history of nationalism in Russia. 
 Both types of xenomaniacs and xenophobists were 
 thriving amidst the privileged nobles; but there was 
 something unreal, something fictitious and conven- 
 tional, about them. Whether they extolled either 
 merry old Russia or the advantages of civilization — 
 all that was mere idle talk. The real partisans of the 
 old traditions, the "Old-believers," as well as the real 
 admirers of Europe, were hardly to be sought in their 
 midst. The former were to be found only in the lower
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 45 
 
 classes; the latter, nowhere but among the very few 
 really educated people. 
 
 The real discussion of principles concerning nation- 
 alism or European culture went on only among these 
 last, the cultivated few — in Petersburg, in the imme- 
 diate neighborhood of the throne, and in close con- 
 nection with the higher schools opened by the succes- 
 sors of Peter the Great."* A few Petersburg journal- 
 ists began by ridiculing both the xenomaniacs and 
 xenophobists. Sincere adherents of European culture 
 though they were, they exposed to derision particularly 
 the civilized type, the xenomaniacs, just for the reasons 
 that we have seen, i. c, that these were representatives 
 of the privileged class, using new culture only as a 
 mark of social distinction. Thus the democratic jour- 
 nalists of St. Petersburg went even so far as to sigh 
 for the homely and patriarchal virtues of the good old 
 time, that were vanishing forever w^ith the new culture 
 of the privileged few. '^ 
 
 But the most prominent of these journalists, the 
 renowned Novekov, very soon remarked that the 
 empress Catherine 11. was trying to turn these mourn- 
 ings to her own advantage, and then he desisted at 
 once from lamenting the imaginary virtues of the Rus- 
 sian past. We know (sec p. 26) that Catlierine found 
 new ideas dangerous to the existing order of things, 
 and thus gradually ranged herself with the defenders 
 of the ancient tradition. Looking about for some 
 theoretical support of her reactionary aspirations, she 
 thought of utilizing Russian satire for the derision of 
 ne^v ideas. She expressly wanted Novekov tc exalt 
 
 * See chap, v, p. 274.
 
 46 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 old national virtues and to ridicule their detractors. 
 But far from having obtained what she wanted, she 
 only made a few liberal publicists of Petersburg aware 
 that they were running the risk of being used as a cat's- 
 paw for her own political views. Then for the first 
 time the boundary line was drawn between the de- 
 fenders of the backward and of the forward movement 
 in Russia. The government was with the former ; the 
 liberals were gathering around the banner of opposi- 
 tion. From that moment the nationalistic theory re- 
 ceived a governmental and reactionary meaning, which 
 it has preserved up to the present time. 
 
 Curiously enough, now that the practical necessity 
 of a nationalistic theory was felt by the government, 
 the elements required for it were found to be entirely 
 lacking. The old traditions of Russia before Peter the 
 Great had been entirely forgotten, and the historic 
 study of them had not yet begun. On the other hand, 
 the higher class had definitely adopted European cul- 
 ture and clung to it, because of its convenience. The 
 predominant theory of European literature at that time 
 was not in the least propitious to the building of a 
 nationalistic theory. In the enlightened age of ration- 
 alism the idea of "nation"' was drowned in the larger 
 idea of "mankind." Men were thought to be equal by 
 "natural right" all over the world. The subjugated 
 nations were to be free, not for the sake of their 
 separate and particular existence, but in order to fra- 
 ternize with the whole of mankind in one cosmopolitan 
 type of universal democracy. There was no room for 
 exalting national peculiarities, especially in a land like 
 Russia, which so entirely lacked tradition.
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 47 
 
 Thus, when Catherine II. was forming her national- 
 istic theory, she was obHget:! to start from an axiom 
 as contradictory as possible to the very essence of 
 nationalism. She had to accept as proved the proposi- 
 tion that "men are the same always and everywhere." 
 The idea was not bad when Russia was to be defended 
 against her foreign detractors. But the use Catherine 
 made of it was quite wrong. She affirmed, in her 
 criticism of a FVench writer on Russia, the abbe 
 Chappe d'Auteroche, that Russia stood on the same 
 level with Europe; that Russia was as good in every- 
 thing — or as bad, as the case may be — as western 
 Europe. In literary skirmishes with her own subjects 
 she went a step farther in building a nationalistic 
 theory : whatever was bad in Russia she declared to 
 come of foreign origin, from Scythians and Sar- 
 matians of old, and from the French at present. What- 
 ever was good was to be considered as old Russian. 
 
 All this did not go beyond mere playing with 
 abstract and historical ideas. At last a writer came 
 who helped Catherine to a better insight into the real 
 Russian peculiarities. This was Bolteen, the historian. 
 He started from an assumption quite contrary to that 
 which Catherine had made. Russians were to be 
 thought, not as like and equal to Europeans, but as dif- 
 ferent and peculiar. The reason of this difference was 
 to be sought in the outward conditions of historical 
 growth, especially in the climate, where Montesquieu 
 and Bodin had already found it. Undeveloped as this 
 theory was, it was the first really important step 
 toward the construction of a nationalistic theory for 
 Russia. But there was still wanting an important ele-
 
 48 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 ment to make this theory really nationalistic. Such 
 peculiarities as Bolteen found in Russian history were 
 only relative, not absolute. There was nothing in 
 either to prove the superiority of the Russian nation 
 over the other nations. On the contrary, the Russian 
 nation would have to be put on the same level with 
 others, if history was to be explained by the general 
 laws of nature. 
 
 Thus, the eighteenth century in Russia saw a 
 great development of national feeling, and of curious 
 national types ; but it did not witness the building of a 
 nationalistic theory; the times were not ripe for that. 
 
 Nationalistic theory was essentially the work of 
 the nineteenth century. With it appeared the romantic 
 idea of nationality. 
 
 The French Revolution had just proved a failure. 
 The Napoleonic wars and conquests had spread over 
 all Europe a rapidly growing discontent with French 
 fashions and with French ways of living and thinking. 
 This discontent prepared public opinion in France and 
 other countries of Europe for a sudden return from 
 French rationalism to the old national tradition. A 
 new intellectual movement set in, known as romanti- 
 cism. It entirely changed the views of theorists and 
 politicians concerning the question of nationality. Ac- 
 cording to the previous, the rationalistic, idea a nation 
 was looked at as a sum of individual units, entirely 
 equal one to another and bound together by a formal 
 or tacit act of "social compact." This idea was now 
 condemned and rejected as too abstract, too formal, and 
 too mechanical. The concrete and living nationality 
 was reinstalled in its rights by romanticism ; and it was
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 49 
 
 looked at as an organic whole, as a unit acting on a 
 kind of collective impulse. Rationalism had once op- 
 posed reason to Providence; the will of individual man 
 to the will of God in the making of history. It had 
 hoped to reconstruct the whole fabric of society with 
 the help of law made by reason. On the other hand, the 
 first principle of romanticism in politics was that human 
 law is powerless against the law of nature, and thus 
 no intentional reconstruction of the social order is 
 ever possible. The law of social phenomena cannot be 
 changed by individual will or reason. Thus far roman- 
 ticism agreed that there was a law in history; and it 
 was obliged to admit that this law was independent 
 even of God's momentary will. This idea born of ro- 
 mantic thought made a very important contribution to 
 sociology. According to this fundamental conception, 
 history was not to be understood in a rationalistic way 
 as a series of accidents, resulting from the personal 
 will and exertion of man; but neither was it to be 
 explained in a supernatural way as a series of miracles, 
 produced by God's intermittent attempts to force his 
 own will upon the natural drift of events. Between a 
 world of chance and a world of miracles, romanticism 
 interposed an intermediate notion, that of a world of 
 natural law, preformed by God and realized by man's 
 unconscious volition. The romanticists were the first 
 to make this sort of unconscious volition a subject of 
 study and trace it to its sociological origin. The role 
 of individual actor was thus to be explained by an 
 inherent law of society. 
 
 A nation is, according to the romantic idea, society 
 acting unconsciously as a living aggregate of like-
 
 50 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 minded and like-intentioned beings. Such a nation, 
 being subject to God's will and superior to individual 
 volition, is a tool in God's hands to lead humanity 
 toward its final destination. The universal history of 
 mankind is made up of a succession of many pre- 
 destined nations, each playing its part on the way of 
 mankind to that supreme end known to none but God. 
 Every nation has its own particular "idea" which it is 
 predestined to realize on this royal road of history; 
 and this peculiar "idea" forms the very essence of the 
 nation — its inmost "spirit" and its inborn soul, pre- 
 formed since the beginning of time in the Eternal 
 Council. This "spirit" is the very core of the nation, 
 the source of its living force, of its will, of its "free- 
 dom." Of course, it is to be thought unchanging and 
 unchangeable; on its durability the very existence of 
 a nation depends. 
 
 Such was the theory created by a group of thinkers, 
 politicians, and philosophers in France and Germany 
 on the verge of two centuries. The political meaning 
 of the theory was, however, different in the two 
 countries. In France the theory took on a reactionary 
 meaning, owing to the violent opposition to the French 
 Revolution. There were two nobles, both men of 
 political action, who formulated in that country the 
 romantic theory in question, De Maistre and De 
 Bonald. In Germany the popular opposition was 
 directed rather against French rule and French 
 fashions than against the revolutionary ideas of France. 
 The revival of national feeling here went hand in 
 hand with the movement for political freedom. Thus 
 it was understood in Germany that God's plan in
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 51 
 
 history was that of the ''education of the nation for 
 freedom," and while French pohticians were tending 
 to restore the ancient national institutions by means 
 of their romantic theory, the Germans preferred to 
 sound the depths of the living "soul" and "spirit" of 
 the nation. This national theory was promulgated 
 mainly by Fichte, in his renowned Speeches to the 
 German People in 1808. Then appeared Hegel's 
 Philosophy of History, in which a particular place was 
 assigned to every "historical" nation, worthy of repre- 
 senting some "idea" in the solemn march of universal 
 history; and, as was natural, the German people took 
 the lead. 
 
 This was the theory that was adopted by the 
 Russian nationalists of the nineteenth century. Thus, 
 by a curious irony of history, the first and only nation- 
 alistic theory ever developed in Russia lay on the 
 foundations of western European philosophic thought ; 
 and we must add that this theory was very old in 
 western Europe when it was first heralded by Rus- 
 sian nationalists. Russia, indeed, was slow in adopt- 
 ing the romantic theory. Very little of it was known 
 until the reign of Nicholas I., i. e., the second quar- 
 ter of the nineteenth century. In the first quarter 
 of the nineteenth century Russia's national feeling^ 
 it is true, burst into flame, in consequence first, of the 
 Napoleonic wars, and, then, of the national revolutions 
 of the second decennium in Europe. But very soon a 
 reaction against French fashion turned in Russia into 
 a rough chauvinism, deprived of any theory. The old 
 Russian virtues were exalted, just as the Teutonic 
 virtues were in Germany; only there came no Fichte,
 
 52 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 and there was no talking about the free utterance of 
 the national spirit. There was, to be sure, a political 
 movement, which had set in some years later in Rus- 
 sia — at the period of Congresses, 1818-22 — but it 
 was liberal, not romantic; and so its theory is to be 
 traced to Benjamin Constant, the French statesman, 
 rather than to the German philosophers, Fichte and 
 Hegel. This movement, resulting in the December 
 insurrection of 1825, has no place in this chapter; we 
 shall, however, return to it when we come to trace 
 the history of Russian liberalism (see p. 254-59). 
 »^ A genuine romantic movement was, however, 
 started in Russia immediately after this insurrection of 
 the so-called "Decembrists" only in a quite different 
 environment : not in Petersburg, but in Moscow ; and 
 not among the officers of the guards and the army, but 
 among the students of the university. This movement 
 soon became known as Slavophilism. After two dec- 
 ades of preliminary development, it culminated in an 
 organized theory of Russian nationalism. 
 
 The university movement in Moscow had nothing 
 in common with revolution and politics. It was 
 closely connected with German metaphysics and par- 
 ticularly with Hegel's philosophy of history. Slavo- 
 philism began to build up its theory just at the point 
 where Hegel stopped. The Slavophils took for 
 granted everything Hegel had said about the universal 
 development of nations; but they completed his phi- 
 losophy of history with a chapter of their own. If 
 Hegel were right, Germans were to be at the head 
 of humanity, and there was no place left for Slavs. 
 Now, Slavs were not to be thought outside the world
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 53 
 
 of law; they too must have a universal "idea" to be 
 realized in history. Of course, no "universal" idea 
 had as yet appeared in their past; but this only proved 
 to the Slavophils that the ascendency of the Slavs was 
 to be in the future. They thought they would bide 
 their time, and then, forming a fresh nation, unworn 
 by life's humiliating experience, they would forge 
 ahead of the Germans and of all the rest of the " rotten 
 West," as they called it. 
 
 What, then was the " universal idea " that Russia, 
 and Slavs in general, were to exhibit for the benefit 
 of mankind ? The answer to this question is the very 
 essence of Slavophilism. 
 
 The civilization of the West, they found, was rich 
 and luxuriant; but at the same time it was one-sided 
 and incomplete. Rationalism was its original sin; 
 rationalism divorced reason and feeling, and therefore 
 the western civilization failed. Whatever branch of 
 the life in western Europe we look at, everywhere we 
 are likely to find the same phenomenon of discord 
 and inner contradiction unappeased by feeling. In the 
 state, it is the struggle between subjects and authority; 
 in religion, that between Scripture and tradition; in 
 philosophy, between reason and experience; in social 
 life, between the upper and the lower classes; in social 
 conduct, between law and morals. Russia, on the other 
 hand, was always striving to unite and reconcile the 
 conflicting elements of life. And that is why the 
 Slavophils reasoned that her civilization is bound to 
 become wholesome and complete. 
 
 It is generally known what part feeling played in 
 the romantic theory. Feeling was opposed to reason ;
 
 54 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 it was thought to be the only way to that superior 
 truth which science can never discover for us. The 
 weapon of science is logic; and logic is not able to 
 grasp the essence of phenomena, to introduce us to the 
 inner meaning of things. Logic is only formal; life 
 and every living trait slips through its loosely woven 
 net. These traits of concrete things are retained in 
 our minds only by feeling; feeling supplies us with 
 sounds and color — with all the motley of actual life. 
 Art, therefore, which speaks to us in pictures and 
 appeals to our feeling, is a higher type of knowledge 
 than science. And for the same reason religion is the 
 highest of all possible types of knowledge: it gives 
 us communication with the very origin of the living 
 actuality of things. 
 
 Now, the Slavophils go on arguing, it is only in 
 the East that religion has gone the way of feeling. 
 Western religion has chosen the way of reason and 
 logic, and so has run astray, becoming the victim of its 
 own infatuation and lack of humility. The eastern 
 church alone knows what is the right way for human 
 progress, and toward eternal salvation. 
 
 Religion makes up the essence of civilization. 
 Hence the western civilization has erred in the erring 
 of its religion. Roman Catholicism was western civili- 
 zation's first step in the error of forsaking the collective 
 feeling of the church for individual judgment in reli- 
 gious matters. The second step in rationalism was the 
 Reformation; and it was the necessary consequence 
 of the first : just a step farther toward individualism. 
 The third and last step in the succession of this logical 
 necessity was revolution and atheism. None of these
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 55 
 
 was possible in tlie eastern world, it being the world 
 of traditional religion — the religion of love and hu- 
 mility. 
 
 Thus the essence of the eastern civilization is Chris- 
 tian self-absorption in love. Now, is this feature to be 
 found in Russian history? The Slavophils, to be sure, 
 found plenty of it. The community of Christian love 
 — was it not identical with the Russian village com- 
 mune that was supposed to form a peculiar feature of 
 the Russian social life? Was there to be found in 
 the inner life and order of the Slavic commune any- 
 thing like western formal law? Was there a differ- 
 ence between rich and poor, an idea of private landed 
 property? Was not the origin of that village com- 
 munity hidden in the remote past, so that it fitly repre- 
 sented the unalterableness of the "spirit of the nation" ? 
 Thus the key to the explanation of Russian culture 
 was found. Christian love and landed peasant com- 
 munity — these were the particular "ideas" to be intro- 
 duced by Russia into the universal history of man- 
 kind.^ Everything that did not agree with these 
 "ideas" in Russian history itself was to be explained 
 as foreign, and eliminated. Foreign, in the first place, 
 was the state, with all its worldly sins which did not 
 befit the community of Christian love. The "com- 
 monalty" of people, the "land" — this was the genuine 
 national element in Russia. The government origi- 
 nated in a military association of the prince's followers, 
 (the gesith) ; thus it had come from abroad and had 
 remained foreign to the "commonalty of the land." 
 
 ■^ See further applications of this theory for radical purposes, 
 on p. 366.
 
 56 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 This was the reason why the upper classes were so 
 easily conquered by foreign civilization after the reform 
 of Peter the Great began. They were foreign by 
 origin ; their high treason before the nation was, as it 
 were, hereditary. And yet the Russian state was not 
 so bad as the western European, because there was a 
 great difference between Russia and western Europe 
 as to the way in which the state was built. Russian 
 princes and barons ("thegns") had not conquered the 
 Russian natives, as was the case with the building up 
 of the mediaeval states in western Europe. Slavophils 
 laid much stress upon the old Scandinavian legend 
 with which Russian history opens. According to this 
 legend, the first rulers were voluntarily called by Rus- 
 sian and Finnish tribes from the Northmen in order 
 to preserve "peace" in the "land." Thus the state 
 authorities came from outside and remained foreign 
 to the genuine life of the nation. They liberated the 
 "land" from the material duty of keeping "external 
 right" and order; the nation was free to go its own 
 way of "internal righteousness." No conflict what- 
 ever was thenceforward possible between the state 
 and the nation; the nation — the "land" — retained its 
 "right of opinion," but never aspired to share in the 
 "power" of the state. The "right of opinion" was 
 embodied, according to the Slavophils, in the Old Rus- 
 sian States General; the "power" of the state was 
 embodied in autocracy, which, however, never inter- 
 fered with people's "opinion," up to the unhappy mo- 
 ment when this original compact was broken by Peter 
 the Great. 
 
 Thus, both the Russian state and religion were
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 57 
 
 Utterly idealized in the theory of the Slavophils. In 
 this idealized shape they resembled the actual ones as 
 little as the would-be "Russian" attire, worn by some 
 Slavophils and mistaken by their own peasants for 
 Tartar or Persian, resembled the ancient Russian dress. 
 
 In such spiritualized form Russian traditional 
 "ideas" were destined to play their part in the last and 
 most perfect stage of universal history. Russia was 
 to say the "last word" in the development of man- 
 kind. Thus, Russian nationalism became messianic, 
 just as its Polish counterpart was at this very time, 
 about half a century ago. 
 
 I am not here to confront the Slavophil theory with 
 the real facts of Russian history and the actualities of 
 Russian politics. We have only to follow the further, 
 purely theoretical, development of Slavophilism in 
 order to see how soon the dififerent elements out of 
 which the theory was formed became antiquated. 
 
 First, the metaphysical, the Hegelian, elements of 
 the scheme were forsaken. The "fundamental idea" 
 of the whole plan was the notion of a single thread 
 of universal history, consisting in a series of select and 
 privileged nations that came each in its turn to the 
 fore. This idea completely lost its value in the next 
 generation. Under the growing influence of natural 
 sciences, an opposite idea was generally accepted. 
 Every phenomenon had now to be explained by its own 
 motive forces, not by final causes lying outside of it. 
 Hence every nation was expected to live its own 
 national life, not that of mankind. Thus the very idea 
 of a universal history of nations was thrown aside. 
 When later it was resumed by sociology, it was entirely
 
 S8 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 purified of its teleological meaning. Then a practical 
 consideration presented itself. A theory that approved 
 of certain national qualities only so far as they suited 
 the general development of mankind was surely not 
 nationalistic enough. Such qualities were found to be 
 rather too cosmopolitan. And if the most important 
 of these qualities for a Russian was to be an orthodox 
 member of the eastern church, the further question 
 arose: Was the Greek church exclusively Russian? 
 And, moreover, did Russian people possess this quality 
 at least in such a measure as would be sufficient to 
 enable them to play the missionary part which was 
 theirs in the drama of universal history? Thus in the 
 second half of the nineteenth century a new current of 
 nationalistic thought appeared. It was now the im- 
 pending task to find out something more peculiar, 
 more fitting to characterize the Russian nation in par- 
 ticular, even though it should be not at all universal 
 and messianic. This particularizing tendency fully 
 prevailed, when national feeling was roused by im- 
 portant events of history : by European coalition 
 against Russia during the Crimean War (1853-56), 
 and by the Polish rebellion ( 1863), enjoying the moral 
 support of western public opinion. 
 
 The new nationalistic current found its outlet in 
 Danilevsky's book on Russia and Europe, which started 
 from the idea of their irreconcilable opposition. Fac- 
 ing the supposed fact of this opposition, the book in- 
 cluded an entirely new reconstruction of the Slavophil 
 theory; and it has remained until now the generally 
 acknowledged gospel of the nationalistic creed in Rus- 
 sia. Let us see what changes the old theory has under-
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 59 
 
 gone. According to Danilevsky's theory, Europe can- 
 not help hating Russia. The reason is that their " na- 
 tional types " are as different and as incapable of being 
 reduced to one as zoological species. You see by this 
 that Danilevsky takes his arguments from natural his- 
 tory ; it was not in vain that he was living and writing 
 (1860-70) when natural sciences were in their ascend- 
 ancy in Russia. But Danilevsky has not yielded to the 
 general drift of science. He is anti-Darwinian, and he 
 does not acknowledge the common descent of species; 
 he prefers to think that the zoological species were all 
 preformed by God's will and thus unchangeable. The 
 same he affirms to be the case with national types. 
 Thus the national types are exclusive and absolutely 
 particular ; no transmission of culture is possible from 
 one to another. Fish cannot be made to breathe with 
 lungs; and just so Russia cannot have European insti- 
 tutions. Accordingly, Russia has to live only on what 
 the Slavic "type of culture" has had in itself, since 
 the beginning of its existence. Hence the only his- 
 torical mission Russia has to accomplish is to make 
 free the Slavs of Turkey and to unify all Slavs under 
 its sway, choosing Constantinople for the center of 
 this federation of Slavs. 
 
 Now, "who says A, must say B," as the German 
 saying goes. Danilevsky stopped too soon in drawing 
 consequences from his premises. His followers went 
 farther. Danilevsky had opposed the Slavic type to 
 the European. With the same right the Russian type 
 could be opposed to the Slavic. Experience proved 
 just then that Slavs did not wish to be related to the 
 same "type of culture" as the Russian people. The
 
 6o RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 liberated Slavic nations of the Balkans were irrevo- 
 cably driven away by the European whirlwind of cul- 
 ture. The Poles wanted to be liberated from, not by, 
 Russia. Under these circumstances the puerility of 
 Danilevsky's scheme of a Slavic federation under Rus- 
 sian leadership became completely manifest. 
 
 There came then Mr. Leontiev, a Russian consul 
 in the near East, who declared that Slavs were entirely 
 lost to Russian culture in consequence of European 
 contagion. But then, were Russian people themselves 
 quite free from the same contagion of "liberty and 
 equality" ? Those who opposed the Russian people to 
 the emancipated Slavs were bound to oppose, among 
 the Russian people themselves, those social layers that 
 were still preserving the old national type of culture to 
 such as had been torn off from the old stock by Euro- 
 pean civilization. There existed a literary group in 
 Moscow — Apollon Grigoryev, Tertius Filippov, and 
 others — who professed that the genuine type of Rus- 
 sian culture was to be found only among Great Rus- 
 sians (to the exclusion of the Little Russians and 
 White Russians — two other branches of the Russian 
 speech) ; and in the midst of the Great Russians they 
 found their favorite type only among the inhabitants 
 of Moscow ; and even in Moscow the type was thriv- 
 ing nowhere but in the old merchants' quarter on the 
 other side of the Moskva River, where the best Rus- 
 sian songs and the oddest Russian customs were still 
 preserved free from European "progress." The 
 friends had regular gatherings in a Moscow tavern, 
 " Britannia," in order to sing the songs and to discuss 
 the admirable old habits. Now, this looked very much 
 like Mr. Pickwick's researches.
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 6i 
 
 And yet this was not all. The Moscovite Pick- 
 wickians found very little of their genuine Russian 
 type, but it was much more than Leontiev could find. 
 Indeed, he found no elements of culture in the "Rus- 
 sian type." The church and the state he declared to be 
 Byzantine, not Russian. Genuine culture in the com- 
 mon folk he found to be nil. And last, the very idea 
 of nationality he discovered to be of revolutionary and 
 European origin! He concluded from all this that 
 "Russian originality did not consist in a creation of 
 the new, but in the preservation of the old." Accord- 
 ingly, he gave the good advice to concentrate all the 
 state wisdom on one thing: namely, to "freeze out" 
 every new force, every element of progress, which 
 should bud under the surface of Russian Byzantinism. 
 Only this heroic cure could prevent decay. The best 
 model of such a treatment Mr. Leontiev found to be 
 the Turkish rule of the Christian rayah. This same 
 policy was to be used by the Russian autocracy, in 
 order that the barbarism of the Russian people might 
 be preserved in its entire "originality" from every 
 contact with any civilizing influence except that of 
 "Byzantine principles" in church and state. 
 
 Such was the last word of the nationalistic theory, 
 and such it ought to be, if the theory was to be con- 
 sistent and sincere in drawing conclusions from its 
 original assertions. We must add that such also was 
 the real sense of the actual policy of the Russian gov- 
 ernment during the last thirty years. Take, as an illus- 
 tration, the writings of Mr. Pobedonostsev, the man 
 of reaction in Russia of the present day. You will find 
 there nothing but Mr. Leontiev's program of policy.
 
 62 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Nothing is to be created anew ; nothing that is original 
 and positive is even to be expected to come from the 
 "soul" of the nation. The only aim is to preserve as 
 long as possible the Byzantine state and the Byzantine 
 church, the autocracy and the orthodoxy. Political 
 freedom in the whole civilized world Mr. Pobedonost- 
 sev proclaims a failure. Freedom of thought and 
 opinion he thinks a humbug, a sham employed by the 
 rich and cunning. Freedom of belief he declares sheer 
 nonsense. And all these he finds to be in flagrant 
 opposition to national ideals, which, however, nobody 
 knows how to read aright. 
 
 This series of exclusively negative assertions were 
 perhaps better as a reactionary program than as a 
 national theory. For a living nation, believing in its 
 future, it was simply an insult. It was to be expected 
 that even among the nationalistic party somebody 
 would arise who would try to find a way of escape from 
 the deadlock of reactionary nationalism. There came 
 now Mr. Solovyov, the theologian and philosopher of 
 a mystic stamp. He reminded his party that national- 
 ism is not necessarily reactionary. He tried to recall 
 to their memory the fact that cosmopolitan elements 
 alone were to help the Russian people to their historical 
 predestination, according to the prevailing idea in the 
 original Slavophil doctrine. Cosmopolitan elements 
 in a national type — this was to be its religion. Now, 
 Russian religion ought not to be thought of as fatally 
 lacking cosmopolitan elements. True Christianity, Mr. 
 Solovyov asserted, was identical with human progress, 
 not opposed to it. There exist no contradictions be- 
 tween modern ideas and Christianity. Thus Russia
 
 THE NATIONALISTIC IDEA 63 
 
 was to share in the general progress of mankind with- 
 out disclaiming its religion, but only by embracing 
 in it a deeper and larger sense. The Russian religion 
 was narrow-minded, because the rights of the church 
 were appropriated by the state; such was the Byzan- 
 tine form of religion, borrowed by Russia. But Rus- 
 sia had only to disown this, and to unite with the only 
 really universal form of Christian faith, the Roman 
 Catholic church. This universal creed was to be car- 
 ried through with the aid of the most powerful ruler 
 on the earth. Thus the medicxval idea of an only 
 church, attended by an only empire, was to be resus- 
 citated and realized. Pope and Tsar allied, with the 
 prophet of their union between them ; such was Solov- 
 yov's apocalyptical vision. You see that even here the 
 share of the Tsar and of the Russian people was ma- 
 terial power alone; the moral strength of the alliance 
 was to be the pope's. Thus even in Solovyov's cosmo- 
 politan theory of nationalism the only part of Russia 
 was that of self-resignation. 
 
 With this, every possibility of a nationalistic issue 
 had been tried and found wanting. Solovyov's bold 
 entanglement of ideas served only to complete and to 
 close the series of possible nationalistic schemes. 
 
 While studying thus the development of the nation- 
 alistic idea, we have gained some insight into what 
 has been supposed to be Russian historical tradition. 
 It consisted, we found, in a peculiar "spirit of the 
 nation," embodied in certain religious and political 
 institutions. Now, as far as regards the national 
 "spirit," we have nothing to add to what has been 
 said about the Russian psychological type in our first
 
 64 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 lecture. But a larger treatment is needed in so far 
 as the peculiar forms of the Russian church and state 
 are brought into consideration. What was really the 
 religious and political tradition bequeathed by ancient 
 Russia to modern Russia? What were the civilizing 
 elements of that tradition? Were there any such ele- 
 ments at all? Was this tradition continuous and in- 
 herited by many, or was it rather artificially revived 
 and shared only by few ? These questions, by the help 
 of historical evidence, we shall now try to answer.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 
 
 Those of you who have read the Lectures on the 
 History of the Eastern Church, by Dean Stanley of 
 Westminster, may remember his splendid pages on the 
 general characteristics of the eastern church. The 
 author was influenced in some measure by the Rus- 
 sian Slavophils, particularly by Homyakov. And the 
 Slavophils, in their turn, were influenced by the Ger- 
 man historians of religion. Thus the view Dean Stan- 
 ley takes of the subject is by no means personal; it is 
 rather characteristic of many generations of scholars 
 and general readers. As he rightly observes : 
 
 The distinction which has been most frequently remarked 
 [between the eastern and the western churches] is the speculative 
 tendency of the oriental and the practical tendency of the western. 
 "The East," says Dean Milman, "enacted creeds, the West dis- 
 cipline." The first decree of the Eastern Council determined 
 the relations of the Godhead. The first decree of the Pope of 
 Rome interdicted the marriage of the clergy. All the first 
 founders of theology were easterns. Latin Christianity con- 
 templated with almost equal indifference Nestorianism and all 
 its prolific race, Eutychianism, Monophysitism, Monothelitism. 
 Probably no Latin Christian ever felt himself agitated even in 
 the least degree by any one of the seventy opinions on the 
 union of the two natures which are said to perplex the church of 
 Abyssinia. This fundamental contrast naturally widens into 
 other cognate differences. The western theology is essentially 
 logical in form and is based on law. The eastern is rhetorical in 
 form and based on philosophy. The Latin divine succeeded the 
 Roman advocate. The oriental divine succeeded the Grecian 
 
 65
 
 66 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 sophist. The subtleties of Roman law as appUed to the rela- 
 tions of God and man are almost unknown to the East. 
 "Forensic justiftcation," "merit," "demerit," "satisfaction," "im- 
 puted righteousness," "decrees," represent ideas which in the 
 Eastern theology have no predominant influence— hardly any 
 words to render them. 
 
 And, on the other hand. 
 
 The Latin language was inadequate to express minute shades 
 of meaning for which the Greek is admirably fitted. The 
 Athanasian creed by the evident strain of its sentences reveals 
 the ineffectual labor of the Latin phrases, "persona" and "sub- 
 stantia," to represent the correlative but hardly corresponding 
 words by which the Greeks, with a natural facility, expressed 
 "the hypostatic union." 
 
 All these fine observations we may agree with. 
 But we must be aware that the subtleties of philosophy 
 and the subtleties of law which mark the difference 
 between the eastern and the w^estern theology have no 
 connection whatever with the Russian church. In Rus- 
 sia the Orthodox church was incapable of any subtle- 
 ties and possessed no theology of her own. Thus, such 
 characteristics of the eastern church as we have just 
 quoted from Dean Stanley's book ought not to be mis- 
 taken for the characteristics of the church of Russia. 
 The age of refined theological heresies, engrafted on 
 ancient philosophical systems, had long passed by be- 
 fore the oriental doctrine was spread among the north- 
 ern barbarians. To take a share in working out the 
 teachings of religion was for them chronologically im- 
 possible. The doctrine of faith was handed over to 
 Russia in the form definitely given by the Seven Ecu- 
 menical Councils. No further development was to be 
 tolerated. Thus, when Russians first embraced Chris-
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 67 
 
 tianity, the doctrine had already become stationary. 
 And for this reason the oriental doctrine preserved 
 many an archaic feature of primitive Christianity; 
 such, for instance, as the undeveloped and unspi ritual- 
 ized form of the sacraments, the close relation between 
 clergy and laity, the principle of electing the former by 
 the latter, the divine service in the vernacular, the 
 unsystematized theology and uncentralized hierarchy. 
 To perpetuate all these traits of stagnation north of the 
 Euxine proved easier than it would have been to trans- 
 plant to Russia the taste for refined dogmatical con- 
 troversies. The Russian church is not speculative 
 like the oriental churches of the first centuries after 
 Christ. But it is oriental in its other aspects, being 
 old-fashioned in ritual and stationary in dogma. 
 
 This, however, is not sufficient to give an adequate 
 idea of the Russian form of eastern orthodoxy. Rus- 
 sia was not only unable to develop any further the 
 religious idea which she had received, but she was not 
 even able to preserve it in its oriental shape unchanged. 
 She necessarily adapted very easily and involuntarily 
 the oriental dogma to her former pagan creed. She 
 attained this result by dint of simplifying the eastern 
 Christianity and reducing it to a state of complete 
 materialization. Simplified and materialized, the ori- 
 ental creed has become a particular and national type 
 of Russian orthodoxy. 
 
 Of course, this would not be done all at once. Cen- 
 turies passed before even this most imperfect kind of 
 religion was worked out. The bulk of the common 
 people remained entirely pagan and wholly unac- 
 quainted with even the rites of the Christian faith, not
 
 68 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 to Speak of the sense — nay, even of the letter — of their 
 new creed. When a foreign traveler asked a Russian 
 peasant, as late as the seventeenth century, why people 
 should not know either the Lord's Prayer or the Ave 
 Maria, he was ansv^^ered that this was a superior knowl- 
 edge, which did not at all suit the simple peasants, but 
 only Tsars and the patriarch, and in general the lords 
 and the clergy who had no work to do. Thus people 
 did not know the Christian doctrine at all, and they 
 acknowledged the Christian clergy only as a substitute 
 for the pagan one. The parson had to perform the 
 same duty as the pagan priest ; like a shaman, or popu- 
 lar wizard, he was asked to expel the evil spirits from 
 houses and from fields, by magic rites and sqjemn 
 incantations. And the clergy acquiesced in this; the 
 village priests of today still do so in times of droughts 
 and disease, just as the bishop of the first popular 
 monastery in Keeyev, Tlieodosius of Pechersk, had 
 done in the eleventh century. 
 
 The old pagan gods had now turned to demons; 
 the Christian gods, the saints, were there to take their 
 place. A popular writer of the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century, Pososhkov, complained that com- 
 mon people bowed before the image of God only from 
 the waist; while before St. Nicholas, the beloved 
 saint, they bowed down to the floor. Before the im- 
 age of St. Nicholas there were always plenty of tapers 
 lit in his honor or proffered as an offering ; while be- 
 fore the Lord our Savior there were none. Every 
 saint was supposed to cure a particular disease and 
 to be able to insure a special sort of benefit. But this 
 was not yet sufficient. Everybody had his own particu-
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 69 
 
 lar family saint. Instead of listening to the divine 
 service when in church, everybody preferred to wor- 
 ship his own particular god. People brought their 
 family images with them to church, set them up- 
 right in any place they chose, and bowed and prayed 
 to them, not attending to the general prayers. If they 
 chanced to be deprived temporarily of the Holy Com- 
 munion, their particular image ("icon") was sent 
 away with them from the church. Generally they did 
 not realize that a Deity existed somewhere beyond and 
 independent of their fetich. But even if they were 
 directed by their spiritual leaders to heaven as the seat 
 of a higher Deity, they did not need much mental exer- 
 tion to grasp this new idea; the popular theologians 
 themselves thought God and the saints abode materi- 
 ally in heaven, just as they saw them represented on 
 their icons. The angels had wings, and their hair was 
 bound by narrow bands that floated in the wind ; and 
 they were supposed to hold the little mirrors that they 
 held in their hands on the images. The Holy Trinity, 
 acording to popular theology, "sat in a row in heaven, 
 upon separate thrones, just like a father w^ith his sons : 
 God, the Father, in the middle, the Son on his right, 
 the Holy Spirit on the left; and Christ sat there also, 
 as a fourth person, on a special throne before God, the 
 Father." Then the question would arise in more 
 speculative minds: How could these Gods leave their 
 place to visit this world and still remain in heaven? 
 Popular theologians foresaw and wisely resolved this 
 embarrassing problem. The Holy Spirit went down 
 only to pour out his gifts upon the apostles; having 
 done this, he returned — or perhaps he did not move
 
 70 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 at all, and only sent the grace down. Well now, but 
 how could Christ be born on the earth from a virgin ? 
 Why, Christ certainly came into his mother through 
 the ear ! 
 
 Such was the sort of theology that Russian people 
 had got after many centuries of Christian existence. 
 These were, however, the opinions of the enlightened ; 
 the bulk of the nation was not even as far advanced 3S 
 this. In Mr. Wallace's Russia you may find an anec- 
 dote about a peasant who was asked by a priest to 
 name the three persons of the Trinity, and who imme- 
 diately answered : "Why, of course, they are the 
 Savior, the mother of God, and Saint Nicholas, the 
 miracle-worker." 
 
 Religion being considered, not as an inner state of 
 the soul, but as a formal contract for salvation between 
 man and God, the whole scheme of salvation was 
 worked out accordingly. "Do ut des" — 'T give to you 
 — in order that you should give to me" — such was the 
 meaning of the contract, which left no place to the 
 action of "grace" and reduced the "works" to their 
 outward expression alone. Prayer was not an inner 
 concentration of thought and feeling on religion; it 
 consisted in crossing and bowing, in kneeling and in 
 lighting tapers before the holy image, in order that 
 the saint might grant whatever was asked of him, no 
 matter whether it was good crops or success in a 
 scheme of robbery. Popular theologians tried to intro- 
 duce some amendments here also, but they could not 
 soar too high above the average thought and feeling. 
 They ventured to give advice as to the best magic 
 formula for prayer; they recommended as best the
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 71 
 
 short, "Jesus Christ, Iiave mercy on us" — the mediaeval 
 Kyrie eleison. They knew no other means for con- 
 centration of rehgious thoughts on prayer than the 
 continual repetition of this formula. Not relying on 
 any inner religious motive, they enforced their precepts 
 by frightening the people with familiar notions of 
 heathen times. The demons and the evil spirits were 
 lurking about — the air was full of them; if prayer 
 were interrupted by secular thoughts, this opened a 
 " chink " into the very soul, and demons entered it 
 immediately. Was the prayer inattentively said, the 
 demon intercepted it and dispersed it in the air, so that 
 God, or his saint, could not listen to it. It was only 
 when properly delivered that the prayer dashed through 
 the air up to the very throne. 
 
 In this kind of religion personal salvation was 
 everything; social action, nothing. Of course, works 
 of charity were to be practiced; but there remained 
 in fact little real charity in these works. "The old 
 Russian benefactor," a Moscow professor says, "did 
 not so much intend to raise by his good work the 
 standard of the general social welfare as to attain in a 
 higher degree to his own moral perfection. Hence 
 pauperism was not dealt with in ancient Russia as 
 an economical evil, as a plague of the social order, but 
 rather as a practical institution for moral education." 
 In short, charity did not exist because there were poor 
 and downtrodden people; but the poor and down- 
 trodden people existed in order that charity might be 
 practiced. It was a part of the divine order of things; 
 therefore pauperism was not to be destroyed or even 
 alleviated, but simply to be used for the soul's salvation.
 
 72 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 It was a kind of Eternal Life Insurance Company. 
 What sort of benevolent feelings this "institution" 
 contrived to produce may be seen from the Christian 
 advice of the popular theologian, Pososhkov, quoted 
 before : 
 
 When drinking exquisite liquors, recall to your mind such 
 paupers as do not possess even pure water, but are obliged to 
 drink muddy water and to draw it from a swamp, mixed with 
 flies and worms. When partaking of greasy and sweet meals 
 [this was the kind of gastronomy Russian people relished] 
 recollect the poor, who do not get even pure bread, but rotten 
 bread baked with chaff. And then consider how God has 
 replenished you and supplied you with such abundance, while 
 other people, who are quite like you, suffer. And having 
 brought to remembrance these sufferings, render thanks to God 
 because of such an abundance as yours. 
 
 To sum up the spirit of practical work in this 
 religion, we have only to refer again to the words of 
 the same Pososhkov : 
 
 Take care that you surpass the scribes and Pharisees by your 
 virtues, in order that you may enter into the realm of heaven. 
 Therefore you must, after having given to God the tenth of your 
 substance, add to it something — about 5 per cent, of it. The 
 Pharisee fasted twice a week; but besides this you must fast 
 the whole four fasts of the year, established by the holy fathers. 
 Thus you will be superior to the Pharisees. 
 
 But enough of these quotations. Russian religion, 
 as we see now, had ceased to be entirely heathen, with- 
 out becoming entirely Christian. By degrees it became 
 the national religion of Saint Russia, as foreign 
 travelers learned to know it as early as the seventeenth 
 century. It was the religion of a continuous ringing 
 of bells, innumerable bowings and crossings before 
 icons, long fasts, and interminable divine services,
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 73 
 
 which brought consternation even to the Christians 
 of the eastern ritual who happened to come to Moscow 
 in order to get the ordinary tsarish ahns for oriental 
 monasteries and bishops. 
 
 But in their turn Russian people, as they became 
 aware of the difference between their own national reli- 
 gion and that of the eastern divines, began to won- 
 der which was the genuine and original one. And 
 they came to the expected conclusion : they exalted 
 their national religion, and repudiated the oriental. 
 The consequences of this distinction and comparative 
 evaluation of the oriental and the national Russian 
 churches were so important that we must dwell on 
 them longer. 
 
 Russia received her Christianity, as is well known, 
 from the Greeks of Constantinople. But there existed 
 an antagonism between the Russians and the Greeks; 
 and it was perhaps as old as the time of the conversion 
 of Russia. All bishops in Russia were Greeks or 
 orientals until the epoch of the Tartar conquest in 
 the thirteenth century. Many of the simple priests 
 were also at first easterners. Through them the Rus- 
 sian church kept in close relation with her Byzantine 
 metropolis. She was under the direct rule of the 
 Constantinopolitan patriarch and under the control of 
 the Byzantine emperor. The oriental divines were as a 
 rule not much interested in taking spiritual care of 
 their flock. In ancient Russia they were what they 
 are even now in remote corners of Turkey, where 
 they still go on collecting their tithes from the Slavic 
 population, who hate them for their avidity and ar- 
 rogance. The difference in culture, then, was equally
 
 74 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 great between the sheep and the shepherds. A Greek 
 bishop, and even an ordinary priest, considered him- 
 self the bearer of a higher and more refined culture 
 among the barbarians, the "sheep-skins" — a culture 
 which they were not able to understand, still less to 
 adopt. As a rule, these eastern divines did not know, 
 and rarely tried to learn, the language of the natives. 
 In their turn the people did not trust them, and longed 
 to get divines of their own kith and kin. As long as 
 the patriarch of Constantinople could hinder this, he 
 did so. But then hard times came for Constantinople, 
 too. The same Asiatic wave which brought Tartars to 
 southern Russia brought their kinsmen, the Turks, 
 to Asia Minor; Constantinople was frightened at the 
 approaching danger at the same time as the Russian 
 Keeyev. The fourth crusade was organized for Con- 
 stantinople's defense ; and with the arrival of the 
 crusaders (1204-61) began the troubled period, which 
 ended only with the final conquest of Constantinople 
 by the Turks, two centuries later ( 1453). The Greeks 
 had to look for allies to the west, not to the east ; and 
 these were to be bought by promises of a religious 
 union. During this time the Russian church was left 
 to herself; she was just then working out her national 
 type of religion. Profiting by the distress of Con- 
 stantinople, Russia presently appropriated the long- 
 contested right of the ordination of bishops, and tried 
 to get rid of the right which still remained to the 
 patriarch — of confirming the elections made by the 
 council of the Russian bishops. At this moment Con- 
 stantinople fell under Mahomet II. 's arms. 
 
 The news of the fall produced a very deep impres-
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 75 
 
 sion in Russia. Surely it was God's punishment : Con- 
 stantinople had just accepted the union with the Roman 
 Catholic church (1439, "^ Florence). "Thencefor- 
 ward," as the Great Prince of Muscovy wrote to the 
 Byzantine emperor, "we began to be on our guard 
 concerning our Orthodoxy, and our immortal souls, 
 and to remember the hour of death and our respon- 
 sibility before the Judge of secret thoughts, at the last 
 judgment." The responsibility was great, indeed, in 
 the eyes of the Muscovite people : they had to assume 
 the legacy of the fallen empire, and see to the con- 
 tinuity of the church and apostolical succession to the 
 end of time, since there was no other independent 
 Orthodox church in the whole world. The theory 
 that Moscow was the third Rome originated in these 
 days, in order to formulate the new idea of the uni- 
 versal mission of the Russian national church. A 
 learned monk, Philotheus, wrote to John III., the Mus- 
 covite prince : 
 
 The church of ancient Rome was destroyed in consequence 
 of the heresy of Apollinarius, and the Constantinopolitan church 
 of the second Rome was cut to pieces by the axes of Hagar's 
 posterity. But this Holy Apostolic church of the third Rome 
 — to wit, of thy autocratic power — shines more brightly than the 
 sun in the whole universe. Look here now and listen, Oh thou 
 pious Tsar: Christian realms have all converged into thine, the 
 only one ; two Romes have fallen ; the third stands upright, and 
 there is no fourth to come; thou art the only Tsar of the 
 Christians in the entire world; thy Christian sway shall never 
 yield to anybody. 
 
 Now, were Russian spiritual resources equal to this 
 new task? Was the Russian church worthy of her 
 universal mission ? The very character of the mission
 
 76 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 gave the answer. There was nothing to create; just 
 because they strove for new things, two Romes had 
 perished. Russia had only to preserve her spiritual 
 wealth untouched unto the day of judgment. But, in 
 order to preserve it, she ought to know what that 
 wealth was. The first and the only task now to be 
 fulfilled was the collection and the examination of all 
 the elements of the national sanctity. 
 
 Let us recall here what has been said above about 
 the national type of the Russian creed. This creed had 
 become closely connected with outward rituals con- 
 siderably different from Greek religious practice. And, 
 from the new point of view, this was just what was 
 wanted. Russian faith was unlike, because the Greeks 
 had betrayed their tradition and their antiquity. This 
 faith had to be kept as the only genuine relic of Chris- 
 tianity in the world. To preserve it from all change 
 was the universal mission of Russia. Having this in 
 mind, Russian theologians began systematically to 
 search for differences between the Greek and the Rus- 
 sian ritual. And such differences as they found they 
 at once explained by this or that failure of the Greeks 
 in doctrine. The Greek church, for instance, did not 
 hold two fingers erect in making the sign of the cross : 
 this meant that the doctrine of the Trinity was wrong 
 with the Greeks. The Greeks in their processions did 
 not follow the rising and setting of the sun : it was 
 because they did not wish to follow Christ and to tread 
 down hell, the realm of darkness. 
 
 But if the Russian was to be considered as the only 
 true and righteous church, where were then the out- 
 ward signs of this righteousness — the Russian saints
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 77 
 
 and miracle-workers? We know how large was the 
 part assigned to saints in the Russian church. If saints 
 could be found to exist in Russia in sufficient numbers, 
 this would serve of itself as a proof that religious 
 formulas were effective, and religious work was oper- 
 ating in the Russian church. Tw^o consecutive coun- 
 cils assembled in 1547 and 1549 in order to bring to 
 notice information about all Russian saints who were 
 locally venerated, and duly to canonize them. Twenty- 
 two were found at the first and seventeen at the second 
 council. In these three years more was done than in 
 all the five centuries of the previous existence of the 
 Russian church. The national church was rich now^ 
 and so had no reason to envy the "two first Romes." 
 Of course, there were no great luminaries among these 
 "new miracle-workers," as they were called; no lights 
 of faith or of religious science. But then, in Russia 
 the idea of a saint was as different from that of both 
 the oriental and the occidental church as were the 
 doctrine and religious life. A Russian saint — i. e., a 
 really popular saint, not an official one — was not ex- 
 pected to possess exquisite qualities of mind, a power 
 of deep thought, an intense religious feeling, or a 
 strong will. He was not appreciated according to his 
 theological knowledge, mystic penetration, or admin- 
 istrative talents. The obstacles he had to overcome, 
 the pains he had to suffer, must be made visible and 
 easy to be understood by everybody. They were to 
 be physical pain and endurance. Thus he had to 
 stroll about in the streets naked during the most 
 severe winter frosts, and to mortify his llesh, not only 
 by fasting, but with real wounds and real bloodshed.
 
 78 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Therefore he wore a heavy iron collar around his 
 neck or a chain about his waist riveted too closely to 
 be unfastened. And the iron would eat into his very 
 body, staining his clothes with blood. His appearance 
 was squalid and disgusting: long hair, never cut or 
 combed, hung about his shoulders; his eyes looked 
 wild, or dull and dim. His dress, if he wore any, was 
 in rags. He was always insane, or he affected insanity ; 
 the broken sentences he spoke were as void of mean- 
 ing as an oracle's — and as apt to be turned into a 
 prophecy or an admonition. But by reason of this 
 very vagueness he enjoyed a quite exceptional free- 
 dom of speech, even in the times of the Terrible Johns 
 of Russian history. He was venerated just as a 
 lunatic through whose mouth God himself was under- 
 stood to pronounce judgments; his was the only mode 
 of life fit to escape the sinful ways of the world of 
 those days. Thus the world appreciated him as its 
 living contradiction and suffered him to be its uncom- 
 promising accuser. Do not think this a fanciful sketch, 
 for in Russia you may meet with this "beatified" per- 
 son in history as well as in actual life; in Fletcher's 
 account of his travels in the sixteenth century, as well 
 as in Gleb Ouspensky's modern novel. 
 
 Russia now, as we have seen, had got her national 
 type of religion. It was definitely framed and officially 
 sanctioned as early as the middle of the sixteenth 
 century. People were proud to possess at their home 
 in Moscow the best and the purest Christianity in the 
 world. They were extremely flattered to be intrusted 
 with its preservation imto the end of time. The foun- 
 dations of religious tradition seemed to be laid down
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 79 
 
 firmly for all time to come. We must add that at the 
 end of the sixteenth century the Russian church at 
 least became autocephalic : she had her own patriarch 
 at Moscow. But scarcely had a century passed before 
 this national tradition was completely destroyed by the 
 state. It was in opposition to the Greeks that this 
 national tradition had been formulated. Now, the 
 authority of the Greeks in matters of religion was 
 fully re-established. Everything that did not con- 
 form to the Greek church in ritual and in teachinsf 
 was declared schismatic. Russian books of divine 
 service were found to be spoiled by alterations and 
 interpolations. New translations from Greek texts 
 were ordered and printed; and these "new books" 
 were to be introduced everywhere for general use, 
 while the "old books" were to be burned. Such were 
 the exact commands of the imperious patriarch Neekon, 
 the "friend of the Greeks." 
 
 Of course, "old books" and old national tradition 
 that had to be thus canceled could not fail to find 
 fervent defenders in the world of the Muscovite Ortho- 
 doxy. We know what the spirit of the national church 
 was. People had been taught to believe firmly in the 
 infallibility of their rites. Russian rites were thought 
 to be the only true ones in the world. If they were 
 now condemned by the official authorities of the Rus- 
 sian church, it could only mean — in the eyes of the 
 people — that the official Russian church itself was 
 falling away from the true faith. This event had even 
 been foretold in "old books." The very time of the 
 Russian apostasy had been foreseen : it was to come 
 at the beginning of the second half of the seventeenth
 
 8o RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 century. And at that precise moment it came. The 
 Russian church — Neekon's church — had itself become 
 dehnquent from the point of view of men who were 
 stigmatized by the church authorities as "Schismatics." 
 It would seem that in this conflict the official church, 
 while taking the side of the Greeks as against her own 
 immediate past, represented the higher civilization. 
 Low as might be the religious level of the Greek 
 eastern church, it was doubtless higher than that of 
 the Russian national religion. And such was, of 
 course, the general meaning of Neekon's reform. But 
 we must add that, in fact, Neekon, while undertaking 
 his reform, did not represent at all the view of the 
 eastern church in his conflict with the popular religion. 
 For this latter view was formulated in a letter that 
 the patriarch of Constantinople had written to the 
 Russian Tsar, in order to tell him that a mere differ- 
 ence in rite was a matter of small importance. There 
 were differences enough among oriental churches them- 
 selves, the patriarch asserted; but that was not a 
 sufficient reason for proclaiming any one of these 
 churches schismatic. The patriarch might also have 
 added — if he had known this fact, revealed by modern 
 research — that some of the old Russian differences in 
 rite also occurred in the Syrian church, whence the 
 Russian people might have borrowed them through 
 the intervention of their first metropolitan at Keeyev, 
 a man of Syrian origin. The point of view of Neekon 
 was quite different from the patriarch's ; it was essen- 
 tially the same as that of the "Old-believers," his 
 enemies, who indeed, before he had become the "friend 
 of the Greeks," had been his "friends." The ritual
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 8i 
 
 seemed to both parties to be as necessary for salvation 
 as dogma. Hence both Neekon and his antagonists 
 were quite sure that there could exist only one formula 
 for every rite ; if the formula was not right, God was 
 "blasphemed," instead of being praised, in the per- 
 formance of the rite. The question was now : which 
 formula was right — Greek or Russian? That they 
 might be equally admissible was beyond the under- 
 standing of a Russian of that epoch. 
 
 Thus Neekon's reaction against the national re- 
 ligion was in its spirit and substance entirely national. 
 It could not be taken by its contemporaries as a step 
 forward in the understanding of religion. But, on 
 the other hand, it annihilated the former step, the only 
 one that Russian people had really taken. This former 
 step consisted in teaching Christian rites to a people 
 entirely pagan. The second step would consist in 
 teaching the spirit of ritual to the ritualistic believers 
 in its letter. Neekon, however, wished his flock, not 
 to learn the second step, but to unlearn the first. And 
 so the rupture was accomplished; an anathema was 
 proclaimed upon the "Schismatics" by a council of 
 bishops in the year 1667. 
 
 The consequences of this formal breach of tradition 
 for the Russian church were innumerable. The fruit 
 of many centuries of development had to be cut off. 
 A new start was to be made, which was discredited 
 in advance by the faithful adherents of the national 
 tradition. The result was that the people would not 
 follow their official leaders, and thus the creed became 
 twofold : the popular religion separated itself from 
 the official. The "true fold" became thus almost
 
 82 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 entirely empty and void of religious devotion. Those 
 who could make use of the religious reform of Neekon 
 for their further religious development were few. The 
 average believers were the *'01d Ritualists," the uncom- 
 promising supporters of the "old books." They turned 
 their back on the official church. Outside these two 
 categories, the adherents of Neekon and the adherents 
 of the old belief, there remained the great bulk of 
 plain, wholly illiterate folk, who were either com- 
 pletely indifferent to religion, or inclined to take the 
 side of the "Old-believers." But the "Old-believers" 
 were condemned by the church as Schismatics. Thus 
 there remained no moral link between the common 
 people and the few learned divines of the established 
 church. The true religious life was, in the eyes of the 
 people, that of the opponents of the official church. The 
 learned religion of the instructed few was, henceforth, 
 concentrated in schools, and these presently adopted 
 Latin, the learned language of the European theology. 
 They did not. however, invent any original theological 
 system; instead they were continually wavering be- 
 tween Protestant and Catholic authorities on theology. 
 They were busy confuting the first by the arguments 
 of the second, and the second by the arguments of the 
 first. And this was the method by which the Russian 
 theology was formed. The common people no longer 
 listened to these theologians, and so they were at 
 liberty to preach freedom of will or predestination, 
 good works or grace; in short, whatever they liked. 
 But whatever their opinion was, the church was not 
 in the least bound by their theological lucubrations. 
 Obliged to keep a constant equilibrium between the
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 83 
 
 Bible and the Seven Councils, the councils and the 
 elaborate science of theology of Christian churches 
 more advanced in learning, Russian theologians neces- 
 sarily became eclectics. 
 
 As far as the laity is concerned, the only instructed 
 men among them belonged, at this time, to the class 
 of the tsarish officials. Of course, they had to be on 
 the side of the official church, whatever might be their 
 own views on religion. The consequence was that an 
 atmosphere of religious indifference was formed in 
 this only educated class, and this indifference in its 
 turn became a tradition. Thus, at the very moment 
 when a powerful wave of foreign culture poured upon 
 Russia from abroad, the spiritual life of this class was 
 barren. Nothing stood in the way of their now be- 
 coming in soul and body the "apes of Europe." Re- 
 ligion could form no obstacle to this desire to imitate 
 foreign culture, and no other hindrance existed. 
 
 Thus the breaking of the old religious tradition 
 was the prelude to Peter the Great's reform : it helped 
 the higher class to achieve a complete departure from 
 the old culture of the lower strata of Russian society.^ 
 The same break prevented also the further spontaneous 
 development of the common people's religion within 
 the "true fold" of the official church. Outside, there 
 was going on a very peculiar and multifarious religious 
 development among Russian dissenters and sectarians ; 
 but the established church did not profit by that kind 
 of religious development. Accordingly, the official 
 church was morally very much weakened. And this 
 weakness brought forth a further consequence for the 
 
 ^ See above, pp. 43, 44.
 
 84 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 official church, which must now be mentioned : the 
 secularization of the Russian church. 
 
 Of course, the beginnings of this process of secular- 
 ization are to be discovered many centuries before 
 the religious break of the established church with the 
 "Old-believers." The preponderance of the state 
 authority in matters of religion is known to be one of 
 the most characteristic features of the eastern churches 
 in general. The Byzantine emperor shared with the 
 patriarch the power which the Roman popes alone 
 possessed. The emperor appointed and dismissed the 
 bishops; he presided over the councils and influenced 
 their decisions. The Byzantine emperor had his share 
 of power also over the Russian branch of the Con- 
 stantinopolitan patriarchate. In proportion as the Rus- 
 sian church became independent, Russian princes in- 
 herited the religious rights of the emperor. Moreover, 
 Muscovite grand dukes made a large use of the as- 
 cendency which their position as the "only remaining 
 Christian Tsars in the whole world" had given them. 
 Their clergy were the first to call them "Tsars and 
 autocrators." But they were not satisfied with this. 
 For after having strengthened, by the help of the 
 church, their own position, they began to feel uncom- 
 fortable when face to face with the church's increasing 
 wealth, and the growing popularity of the new patri- 
 arch of Muscovy. They more than once tried to dimin- 
 ish the rights of the church regarding landed property 
 and clerical jurisdiction. But more than once they 
 were obliged to repeal their measures or not to bring 
 them into execution. Nay, in the first half of the 
 seventeenth century they were forced to yield new
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 85 
 
 power to the church : they were brought to an actual 
 division of power, to a duarchy of Tsar and patriarch ; 
 after which Neekon formally renewed the mediaeval 
 theories of Hildebrand. All this was possible as long 
 as the nationalistic theory of religion stood firm and 
 the patriarchs knew that the whole population was 
 backing them. Now, as soon as the nationalistic theory 
 of religion was doomed as spurious, the great bulk of 
 its former supporters were proclaimed enemies of the 
 church, and the official head of the church was no 
 longer dangerous. And, too, there soon remained no 
 danger for the state in the body of the higher clergy. 
 Learned monks from the west of Russia gradually 
 took the place of the fanatical divines of the old Mus- 
 covite stock. And the new clergy, not feeling obliged 
 to support the universal claims of the national church, 
 proved to be much more obsequious to the secular 
 authorities. They were quite ready to surrender the 
 position of independence which the Russian church 
 still possessed; and nobody was there to defend it. 
 Thus the circumstances were most propitious when 
 Peter the Great came. With the help of one of those 
 western prelates, Theophanes Procopowitz, known to 
 sympathize with Protestant views, Peter substituted 
 for the patriarch a collegiate body, the "most holy 
 governing synod." Those who are surprised at the 
 ease with which this important reform was achieved 
 may consider that the national church was much too 
 weak just then to resist this measure, and that the 
 very essence of eastern Christianity made it possible 
 for the organization of the church to be changed by 
 a mere decree of the secular power. The eastern church
 
 86 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 has not to decide the fundamental questions of doctrine, 
 for they are supposed to be definitely settled by the 
 Seven Councils. She has only to preserve the received 
 tradition from any further change. Her daily action 
 thus is of a purely administrative character. There- 
 fore, as long as no extraordinary question arises, the 
 half-secular organization of the Russian church seems 
 to be entirely sufficient. Just such a question arose, of 
 course, even at the time of Peter the Great, when 
 the theologians of the Sorbonne proposed to Russian 
 divines a discussion regarding the unification of the 
 churches. At that time the "keeper of the patriarch's 
 seat," an enemy of Peter's reform (Stephen Yavorsky), 
 replied that Russian bishops were as unable to decide 
 anything in such a momentous question as the limbs of 
 the body would be unable to move without the head. 
 From this time the anti-canonic position of the Holy 
 Synod became still more obvious. The synod had got 
 its head ; but this head was a minister of the state, not 
 the head of the church. Peter the Great had already 
 appointed a Superior Procurator, who was to be chosen 
 among the commissioned officers ("one who would be 
 daring enough," as the imperial order ran), and whose 
 role was to control the activity of the Holy Synod. In 
 the course of the nineteenth century the Superior Pro- 
 curator became the actual chief of the ecclesiastical 
 office, and the Holy Synod became a ministry of cult. 
 That is why it has lost every moral influence over the 
 religious life of the nation. As a rule, its actions pass 
 without attracting much attention ; but it sounded 
 uterly incongruous when the actual procurator, Mr. 
 Pobedonostsev, tried to recall old times by launching
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 87 
 
 an excommunication against the new heresiarch, Count 
 Leo Tolstoy. Some petty shopkeepers and green- 
 grocers alone applauded the decision of the Holy Spirit 
 residing in Petersburg; but there was no end of 
 laughing among the educated classes over this decision 
 dictated to a dozen crazy sexagenarians by a prelate 
 in lay dress. After having allowed Russia for two 
 centuries to believe in whatever it wished — which for 
 the upper layer was equal to a permission not to believe 
 in anything at all — it was rather late, and certainly 
 ridiculous, to attempt the punishment of the only man 
 who was trying to inculcate into Russian society a 
 doctrine which at least was a sort of religion. It was 
 as if a hero of a former generation, after a centennial 
 sleep, should try to unbend his stififened joints, in order 
 to achieve one of his old-time strokes; but the limbs 
 dangle palsied and powerless; a too long inactivity 
 has benumbed them. And people who had believed 
 in the giant's legendary strength were now reassured ; 
 there was no danger to be feared from this venerable 
 relic. Mr. Pobedonostsev meant to bring about a 
 revival; but instead, what he did became matter for 
 derision. 
 
 We cannot expect, of course, to find more life in 
 the members than we have found in the head of the 
 official church. The parish priests remained what they 
 always were — the official performers of rites, instead of 
 becoming the pastors of souls. The only thing that 
 the village people wanted from their parsons was "that 
 there might be singing in the churches [by which they 
 meant that the divine offices might be performed], 
 and that deceased Christians should not remain witii- 
 out burial."
 
 88 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Higher duties than these the aspirants to curacies 
 could hardly perform. Indeed, these aspirants were 
 often chosen from among the peasants ; and even when 
 they were sons of clergymen it was not expected that 
 they should know how to read and write, to say 
 nothing of their having any knowledge of general 
 theology. Down to the second half of the eighteenth 
 century, candidates had to undergo, before their ordina- 
 tion, an examination at the bishop's court. But this 
 they passed quite easily : the illiterate would give 
 money to their examiners, and were then required to 
 learn by heart some two or three passages from the 
 Psalter; and they were then certain to be asked to 
 read one of these passages at the examination. By 
 and by the clergy became so numerous that there was 
 no room for more. So they formed a levitic caste, 
 whose social position was a flagrant contradiction to 
 their spiritual vocation. The peasants hated them for 
 their greediness and rapacity — vices that were pro- 
 voked by the material difficulties of a Russian clergy- 
 man's life. For they, receiving no fixed appointments 
 from the government, were obliged to live on voluntary 
 contributions. Generally these were very modest. 
 Thus the village priests were obliged to wear peasant's 
 clothes and to work in the fields ; and accordingly they 
 were quite unable to inspire their spiritual flock with 
 respect or deference. The squires looked down on 
 them and did not spare them any humiliation. On 
 a holiday a parson was obliged to call on his squire, 
 bringing the cross, to sing some prayers in his drawing- 
 room. Then he was invited to drink, and after both 
 the host and the guest had become tipsy, the parson
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 89 
 
 ran the risk of a beating or of a ducking in the manorial 
 pond ; of being bitten by the squire's dogs, or flogged 
 until he swooned; sometimes he had to flee for his 
 life. Indeed, as late as the middle of the nineteenth 
 century, all the innumerable whims of a drunken squire 
 could with entire impunity be inflicted upon his parson. 
 But it was only in his bishop's court that a curate could 
 undergo formal torture. Being low in morals and 
 character, a parson often incurred the punishment 
 legally ; but still more often he was flogged, deprived 
 of food, and imprisoned for not having been able to 
 satisfy the avidity of the bishop and his men. The 
 position, as we see, was not to be envied ; and nobody 
 from the higher classes ever wished to occupy it. 
 
 The consequence of all this was that the caste of the 
 clergy prevented, rather than increased, the spread of 
 a deeper religious instruction and feeling among the 
 Russian people. The following witness, for instance, 
 refers to the facts of the middle of the nineteenth 
 century : 
 
 Could the people respect the clergy when they heard how 
 one priest had stolen money from beneath the pillow of a dying 
 man at the moment of confession, how another had been publicly 
 dragged out of a house of ill-fame, how a third had christened 
 a dog, how a fourth while officiating at the Easter service was 
 dragged by the hair from the altar by the deacon? Was it pos- 
 sible for the people to respect priests who spent their time in the 
 gin-shop, wrote fraudulent petitions, fought with the cross in 
 their hands, and abused each other in vile language at the altar? 
 One might fill several pages with examples of this kind — in each 
 instance naming the time and place — without going beyond the 
 boundaries of the province of Nizhni-Novgorod. 
 
 I chose this quotation from an official report; you 
 may read more of it in the excellent book of Mr.
 
 90 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Mackenzie Wallace about Russia (see the chapter 
 "The Village Priest"). 
 
 Not only was the quality of spiritual food, thus 
 supplied by the official church, very low. Its quantity 
 also was quite insufficient ; and it went on diminishing 
 with the growth of the general indifference and distrust 
 of the ways of salvation within the "true fold." One 
 of the attractions which the "Old-believers" had for 
 Russian peasantry was that they very often provided 
 them with priests and with divine office in such places 
 of Russia where there were no priests of the established 
 church. To be sure, the absolute number of Orthodox 
 priests and churches increased with time; but this 
 increase was far from proportionate to the growth 
 of the Orthodox population. The following figures 
 may help you to realize to how large an extent this 
 disproportion increased during the last century and a 
 half: 
 
 For Every 100,000 Inhabitants During the Year 
 
 Churches 
 
 Secular clergy (including sextons) 
 
 Monasteries 
 
 Regular clergy (includ. novices) \ ^^^^ 
 
 1738 
 
 106 
 
 781 
 
 6 
 
 49 
 
 40 
 
 71 
 
 265 
 
 1 .2 
 
 19 
 
 15 
 
 56 
 
 137 
 
 I 
 
 18 
 
 38 
 
 All this makes clear. I hope, how many and how 
 important the consequences were which followed the 
 break of religious tradition in the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century. The continuity of religious life in the 
 official church was stopped. The ritualistic tendencies, 
 far from being weakened thereby, increased propor-
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 91 
 
 tionately as the indifference in matters of religion pre- 
 vailed. The bishops and priests became state officials. 
 All independence of spirit vanished, together with the 
 inner religious life of the church. Religion became 
 the instrument by which the instructed class governed 
 the illiterate crowd; i. c, the irreligious few, the 
 equally irreligious multitude. The many who were 
 religious were obliged to search for a substitute, and 
 to live their religious life (whatever that life might be) 
 outside the "true fold" of the official church. 
 
 Two different ways might have been chosen. The 
 one was that of the strict national tradition, so lately 
 betrayed by the official church. The other was that of 
 an entirely new movement deepening and enlarging 
 the religious feeling and understanding. The former 
 was in complete accordance with the past of the Rus- 
 sian church ; the latter, in complete contradiction with 
 it. The first was chosen by the so-called "Old- 
 believers," or "Old-ritualists." The second was ap- 
 proved by the "sectarians." We have now to follow 
 the evolution of the two.^ 
 
 The "Old-believers," to begin with them, were also 
 divided into two opposite bodies, those " Acknowledg- 
 ing Priests," and the " Priestless," and their signi- 
 ficance in the development of the Russian popular faith 
 was far from equal. Both factions accused the official 
 church of having betrayed the Orthodox religion. But 
 the "Acknowledging Priests" thought that the true 
 church still continued to exist in their own midst. The 
 
 - To make general lines of development and mutual relations 
 between different factions of the Russian " Old-belief " and sec- 
 tarianism more easy to follow, a " synoptic table " is appended, show- 
 ing also the time of first appearance of these sects and factions
 
 92 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 93 
 
 "Priestless" held to the extreme opinion that no church 
 whatever existed, and that the second advent was on 
 its way. This decisive view, however, was not adhered 
 to at once even by this uncompromising party of the 
 "Old-behevers." Some time after their excommunica- 
 tion at the council of 1667, the Schismatics were 
 uncertain and wavered between the two views just 
 mentioned. According to the chances either of recon- 
 quering the former dominant position of the old creed, 
 or of being obliged to surrender in the struggle with 
 the established church, they alternately clung to the 
 idea of the existence of a church or to that of the 
 reign of Antichrist. But in measure, as the years 
 went on and the hope for a re-establishment diminished, 
 they were brought to choose between these opposite 
 views. Moreover, the choice became quite unavoidable, 
 because they actually remained without priests and 
 legal hierarchy. At the moment when the "Old- 
 believers" were proclaimed Schismatics by the estab- 
 lished church, they had no bishops in their midst. 
 Thus their priests could not be duly ordained, and 
 accordingly they could not administer sacraments. 
 Now, it was understood that a church without sacra- 
 ments was no church at all; its further independent 
 existence, therefore, became impossible. And, indeed, 
 their theologians did not fail to find, contrary to the 
 current doctrine, that Holy Writ itself foretold the 
 extinction of the Christian church on the eve of the 
 coming of Antichrist. In its turn, the extinction of 
 the church served in their view to prove that the end 
 of time was approaching. Therefore the extreme fac- 
 tion gave themselves up to wait for Antichrist, which
 
 94 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 made all further questioning about the future super- 
 fluous. 
 
 But the moderate faction, even though they believed 
 in the coming of Antichrist, did not dare accept the 
 bold theory of the complete extinction of the church. 
 Had it not been promised by Christ himself, they 
 objected, that the church should exist until the end of 
 time? Of course, there were no bishops in their midst ; 
 but this only meant that Orthodox bishops must be 
 supposed to exist somewhere else, say in the far East. 
 The only task was then to find out where they were 
 hidden. Meanwhile they acquiesced in acknowledging 
 even such priests as came to the schism from the official 
 church. 
 
 Thus the moderate set of the "Old-believers" was 
 brought to "acknowledge priests." This implied, how- 
 ever, an inconsistent supposition that some scraps at 
 least of Orthodoxy were still lingering in the official 
 church. But why then leave it at all ? In fact, attempts 
 at full reconciliation were more than once really made. 
 Were it not for the uncompromising spirit of the 
 established churchj the reconciliation would have been 
 attained long ago. Failing that, the "Old-believers" 
 who "acknowledged priests" went on searching for 
 bishops of their own. After a century of search, they 
 succeeded in founding an independent hierarchy, whose 
 first chief was an Orthodox bishop from the Balkans. 
 He consented to be "corrected" regarding some details 
 in the rite of his consecration according to the demands 
 of the "Old-believers," and took his metropolitan seat 
 at Bailaya Kreenitza, in Austria, close to the Russian 
 frontier, in 1846. Then he ordained many Russian
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 95 
 
 bishops, and now the "Austrian hierarchy" flourishes 
 in Russia. Many "Old-behevers/' however, do not 
 acknowledge the Austrian bishops, owing to some 
 doubts about the "corrections" of the first metropohtan, 
 and also because this great change too was an "innova- 
 tion," not likely to please the illiterate conservative 
 crowd who had grown accustomed to their " fugitive 
 priests." 
 
 We see that this set of the "Old-believers" did not 
 go much astray from the highroad of Russian Ortho- 
 doxy. Centuries of persecution and the constant neces- 
 sity of searching for new issues and of adjusting them 
 to the strict letter of the canons helped, of course, this 
 faction to keep alive their religious interest. But 
 there was no inner incitement for them to come to a 
 deeper religious understanding. Their religious ideal 
 was behind them; their theological tendency was 
 chiefly conservative; thus they ended by coming back 
 to their starting-point, and they brought with them 
 only what they had lost at the very beginning of their 
 religious pilgrimage, the fulness of hierarchy; and 
 even this they got by dint of a very doubtful com- 
 promise. 
 
 Richer by far was the religious life of the extreme 
 set of the "Old-believers" — that of the " Priestless " 
 people. Their beginnings were quite revolutionary. 
 They prepared for the coming of Antichrist; hence 
 they did not wish to acquiesce in any compromise. 
 Antichrist was in their view Peter the Great. His 
 personality, his reforms, his aversion to everything 
 that was old, his persecution of schism, his way of 
 treating religion, all served to prove that the Father
 
 96 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 of Lies was himself reigning in person. In conse- 
 quence, there was no salvation for the people who 
 should remain in the "world." Their device was, then, 
 to flee from the world and, if possible, from life alto- 
 gether. "Save yourself by flight into the wilderness, 
 and if you are sought for by the authorities, burn 
 yourself or drown yourself or perish by starvation, 
 whichever you like, and you will deserve a crown of 
 martyrdom." Such became now their rule of life. 
 Just at the moment when Peter personally took the 
 reins (in 1691), the second advent was expected, and 
 there was a very epidemic of burnings : not less than 
 twenty thousand perished by fire. The woods and 
 wastes north of the Volga were the center of this 
 "Priestless" movement: in the tundras of the White 
 Sea region they founded their larger communities. 
 
 But as soon as these communities (particularly the 
 chief one among them, on the river Wig) were built, 
 the relation of the "Priestless" to the "world" began 
 to change. People who admitted no sacraments were 
 obliged to permit married pairs to live in their midst. 
 Men who looked at the state authorities as servants of 
 the devil were obliged to pay taxes, to serve in the 
 army, and even to receive passports, the very "seal of 
 Antichrist." Fanatics who shunned every contact with 
 the "outsiders" could not avoid meeting them in the 
 market-place, or even the buying of victuals from 
 them. These concessions to the "world" called forth 
 a protest from some members of the community. A 
 certain Philip in 1744 persuaded many of them to be 
 burned alive rather than take the seal of Antichrist 
 and pray for the Tsar, as they were ordered by the
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 97 
 
 authorities. A like opposition was kindled by the head 
 of another "Priestless" community, a certain Theodo- 
 sius. Thus the "Priestless" people were divided into 
 three branches : the moderate — who kept their geogra- 
 phical name of the "Littorals," the "Shore-dwellers" 
 along the White Sea ("Pomortsee") — and two ex- 
 treme sects — the Philippians and the Theodosians. 
 But naturally enough the extreme factions, in their 
 turn, could not keep clear of every compromise with 
 the world. The Theodosians were the first to share 
 the fate of the "Shore-dwellers." They also founded 
 a wealthy and powerful community in Moscow, during 
 the reign of Catherine II., and were obliged in their 
 turn to defer to authorities and to converse with the 
 "secular" people. But, while indulging in these neces- 
 sities of actual life, they did not wish to acknowledge 
 the necessity of any compromise in doctrine, and so 
 clung to their original idea of Antichrist's reign in the 
 world. Their chief aim was thus to bring back the 
 whole movement to the crazy enthusiasm and fanati- 
 cism of its old days. Accordingly, the extreme faction 
 become more conservative in theory, than the moder- 
 ate faction was. The moderate party, indeed, were 
 ready for a theoretical as well as a practical com- 
 promise. They did not feel bound by the psychopathic 
 strain of their origins; they considered the needs of 
 the new times. "We must not recoil in doubt before 
 the argument that our fathers did not know this or 
 that," their theologians declared. "Their life cannot 
 serve as an example for us. They were living far from 
 the world, in the wilderness and in isolation. But we 
 live in the midst of the world, and we dwell surrounded
 
 98 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 by all kinds of temptations." Thus, the moderate party 
 of the "Priestless" proved to be more inclined to inno- 
 vations in doctrine; they were theoretically more 
 radical. We may take as an illustration their debates 
 on the question of marriage. The difficulty was that 
 marriage was looked upon as a sacrament; but, with 
 priests lacking, no sacraments could be performed. 
 Therefore the Theodosians did not admit of marriage 
 and preferred concubinage. "It is better to sin than to 
 twist the teachings of the holy church," they argued. 
 Now, the moderate party, the "Shore-dwellers," pre- 
 ferred to "twist" the old doctrine of faith, in order to 
 have legal marriages kept. The outlet they found was 
 quite unusual for Orthodox and "Old-believers." The 
 "Shore-dwellers" found themselves asserting marriage 
 to be not a sacrament at all. Or rather, they found 
 the sacrament to be, not what it was supposed to mean 
 in the Orthodox church — not a rite, but an inner 
 fact of religious life, a state of soul. Marriage was 
 consummated, they asserted, by the very fact of union 
 of man and woman, not by the consecration of this fact 
 by the church authorities, by means of a certain rite. 
 The way they came to this conclusion was not less un- 
 common than the conclusion itself: they studied the 
 question historically and dogmatically. The ration- 
 alistic element was thus entering into the theology of 
 the "Old-ritualists." Accordingly, the very idea of 
 the church was to be entirely changed. The new idea 
 found its expression in a saying which thenceforth 
 passed from "Old-ritualists" to our sectarians : "The 
 church is not in the wooden walls, but in the ribs." 
 This meant : the church is not an outward form, but 
 part of conscience.
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 99 
 
 But before we enter into a closer study of this new 
 and liberal view of religion, which originated in the 
 midst of the moderate party of the "Priestless" people, 
 we must dwell on some novelties which the extreme 
 and uncompromising set of the same party contrived 
 to bring into the Russian religious life. Antiquated 
 though this latter faction was on points of rite and 
 dogma, they always tried to be as radical as possible 
 on questions of their relation to the ''world," to the 
 "outsiders." This was the point where, in the second 
 half of the eighteenth century, a vagabond dreamer, 
 Euphemius, made the last and most consistent attempt 
 at a revival and a reconstruction of the old "Priestless" 
 doctrine. He required that the true "Priestless" should 
 break the temporary truce which even the Theodosians 
 had concluded with the world of Antichrist, and that 
 they might again "flee away from town to town," as 
 they were doing at the end of the seventeenth century, 
 in general expectation of the second judgment. But 
 in order to prove most obviously that Antichrist was 
 really reigning over the world, Euphemius modern- 
 ized the antiquated religious theory of the "Priestless" 
 by means of recasting it into a radical social doctrine. 
 Landed property was, according to his teaching, the 
 chief tie which bound people to a settled station. But 
 landed property, he affirmed, was invented by Peter 
 the Great and Neekon. Before their time the land 
 was, as it ought to be, God's ; therefore it must remain 
 for collective use and possession. Men would again 
 become equal as they had been before, should they 
 return to the pure doctrine of shunning the world and 
 Antichrist. Thus the religious protest deepened into a
 
 100 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 complete rupture with the civil authorities, with the 
 state and its law, with society and its traditional morals. 
 A hundred years before Leo Tolstoy, his theory of 
 Christian anarchism was anticipated by the fugitive 
 soldier, Euphemius. The followers of Euphemius are 
 known under the name of "Runners" or "Wanderers;" 
 they exist up to the present day. 
 
 We may thus conclude that in both the moderate 
 and extreme ramifications of the "Priestless" the doc- 
 trine decidedly transgressed the orthodox limits of the 
 ritualistic "Old-belief." But long before this inner 
 evolution was accomplished among the Orthodox, Rus- 
 sia received the leaven of a purer faith in a more 
 direct way. In a parallel line with the "Old-belief," 
 modern sectarianism has developed in Russia. 
 
 The fact of its spread is as extremely important 
 for Russian culture as it was entirely unforeseen and 
 unheeded by the theorists of the Russian nationalistic 
 tradition. Up to the present time Russian nationalists 
 persevere in their serene conviction that Orthodox 
 religion is an indestructible quality in the national soul. 
 No thorough change of religion have they ever thought 
 possible for the Russian people. The only change that 
 actually occurred, i. c, the "Old-belief," they triumph- 
 antly pointed out to be only a more scrupulous and 
 anxious clinging to the old tradition of faith. No 
 other way of betraying the established church seemed 
 to them likely ever to be found. 
 
 Such was also the old Russian view of religion. 
 When, at the end of the sixteenth century, a Russian 
 lad, Boris Godoonov, sent abroad for study by the Tsar, 
 became an Anglican clergyman, the Russian govern-
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION loi 
 
 ment repeatedly insisted upon his extradition for this 
 specious reason that a man ''cannot get rid of his very 
 nature," and thus the person in question could not 
 possibly change his religion. Of course, there were 
 some instances in Russian history of men adopting 
 heresy. But this was explained as something quite 
 occasional and due to foreign influence. 
 
 Foreign influence there really was, as we shall soon 
 see; but it worked along the line of an inner process 
 of religious development. It was only when this pro- 
 cess of inner evolution had prepared Russian people 
 to embrace new views on religion that foreign influ- 
 ence became operative and effective. And we saw how 
 this preparation began while people still remained 
 within the limits of the "Old-belief." 
 
 In fact, this was the same line of religious develop- 
 ment that we may trace, mutatis mutandis, in western 
 Euroi^e and, in general, everywhere where there was 
 any possibility of such a development. It consisted in 
 making the ideas of religion clearer and more abstract 
 as well as in deepening religious feeling. What the 
 psychological substratum of this development is, we 
 do not undertake to show here; it is quite sufficient 
 for our present purpose to find out what was the 
 historical line of the process. And in this we find in- 
 dubitable uniformity. You will remember what was 
 the starting-point of the process in western Europe. 
 It took there the shape of a protest against mediaeval 
 views on religion. Deeper views were found to be 
 contained in earlier sources of Christianity, and a 
 return to the Scripture was felt necessary. There the 
 idea of an apostolic church was found to be opposed
 
 102 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 to the church of the Middle Ages. But this idea 
 served as a germ for further development. Man must 
 be in immediate communion with God; no outward 
 and magic help of rite and sacrament for salvation was 
 to be administered by the priests. Religion was to be 
 understood as a reign of grace, not a reign of strict 
 law. This again led farther: By rigid logic, the 
 idea of grace led to the notion of the church as con- 
 sisting exclusively of such members as had the grace 
 necessary for salvation; a church of the predestined, 
 as Calvin taught; or a church of "saints" and saved, 
 as the Independents preached; or a church of free 
 believers individually adopting grace, as was the teach- 
 ing of the Arminians. Thus the Christianity of Paul 
 and Luther was shaded off into the Christianity of 
 such sectarians as believed in the presence of the Holy 
 Spirit in the soul of man and asserted that Christianity 
 should be mystic, prophetic ; in short, entirely spiritual. 
 Spirit was opposed to Scripture, as Scripture had been 
 opposed to tradition. Evangelicism was evolved into 
 prophetism. 
 
 Of course, in Russia, as we shall see, no such 
 logical succession of stages in religious development 
 is to be traced. The evangelical forms of belief did not 
 precede prophetism; they appeared at the same time 
 as the spiritual form, and even somewhat later per- 
 haps. Accordingly, the spiritual belief, when it first 
 appeared, did not look like a purified and logically 
 developed evangelicism; on the contrary, it looked 
 inferior, because it was oddly enough intermingled 
 with elements of popular belief, and even of sheer 
 paganism, with which it still remained in immediate
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 103 
 
 touch. Then, the whole subsequent history of Rus- 
 sian evangehcism and spiritual sects consists not so 
 much in an evolution of doctrine as in a gradual 
 elimination of such elements as are due to the ancient 
 religious notions of the people. In this way a higher 
 degree of understanding is reached, and reception of 
 more advanced forms of Protestant thought is made 
 possible. 
 
 The influence of Protestant ideas on Russian belief 
 appears very early; it is contemporary with the first 
 attempts at a religious reformation in Europe itself. 
 The religious movement in the Balkans which spread 
 over jTiedissval Europe, and found its final expression 
 in the building of such sects as the Albigenses in 
 France and the Lollards in England in the thirteenth 
 and fourteenth centuries, had a remote reverberation 
 also in Russia. This influence of "Paulikianism," fur- 
 ther developed by other mystical teachings and rational- 
 istic heresies, came to Russia in the fifteenth century 
 through the orthodox channel of the Greek monasteries 
 at Mount Athos, and through the immediate inter- 
 vention of the Karaite Jews, they being also a kind 
 of Jewish Paulinists. But until the period of the 
 unification of Russia, at the end of the fifteenth century, 
 the influence of those heretical doctrines was limited 
 to the most civilized parts of the Russia of those times, 
 to the rich merchant republics of Pskov and Novgorod. 
 From this last city the heretical teachings found their 
 way to Moscow, just at the time of the political unifica- 
 tion, at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of 
 the sixteenth century. But here just then a national- 
 istic type of religion was being formed, entirely opposed
 
 104 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 to the new currents. The nationahstic rehgion was 
 growing rituaHstic, formal, and subject to state influ- 
 ence. The tendencies of the rationahstic and mystic 
 currents were spirituahstic, critical, and bent on inde- 
 pendence, moral and political. Thus no other relation 
 was possible between the old and the new types of 
 religious thought than struggle. The struggle set in 
 indeed, and after half a century, as was to be expected, 
 it resulted in the triumph of the nationalistic type, 
 which is already known by us. The new "heresies" 
 were completely vanquished and driven out of Russia; 
 they found their refuge in the neighboring countries 
 of Lithuania and Poland. Every spark of the pre- 
 Reformation ideas in Russia seemed herewith entirely 
 extinguished. 
 
 But now the immediate action of the Reformation 
 began to be felt. In Moscow this new current of 
 religious ideas succeeded the former one almost with- 
 out interruption as early as the middle of the six- 
 teenth century. The old "heresy," imported from the 
 Orthodox East, from Constantinople and Athos, here 
 came into contact with the new heresy, coming from 
 the German West. The German religion was then 
 supposed in Moscow to be still Roman Catholic, be- 
 cause nothing was known here as yet about the Ref- 
 ormation. In fact, a Russian officer, Matthias Bash- 
 kin, was condemned by a council of bishops in Moscow 
 in 1554 as an adherent of the "Latin heresy," though 
 his doctrine was entirely evangelical and had been 
 learned from a Protestant physician coming from 
 Lithuania. This early evangelist of Moscow professed 
 that there is no transsubstantiation ; that the church
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 105 
 
 does not consist of the building, but of the gathering 
 together of the faithful; that images of saints are 
 wretched idols; that there are no confession and no 
 remission of sins unless you actually desist from 
 sinning; that prayer must be addressed to one God, 
 the Father; that the traditions of the holy Fathers 
 were mere fables; that the resolutions of the ecu- 
 menical councils were arbitrary ; that one must believe 
 in the gospel alone. None of these doctrines found 
 any further echo in Moscow. We may understand 
 why if we consider that even in the second half of the 
 same century the Tsar John IV. himself — who was 
 much interested in religious questions, and who wished 
 really to know what the Protestant religion was — did 
 not find a better way to satisfy his desire than asking a 
 Protestant pastor "how they performed the rite of 
 divine service, how the priests entered into the church 
 and put on vestments, what they sang during the mass 
 and how they brought it to a close, whether they rang 
 the bells in the same way every day, or whether per- 
 haps they rang differently on great feast days of our 
 Lord." The Tsar had evidently not the least notion 
 that to answer these questions was not to inform 
 him what the essence of Protestantism was. He simply 
 did not know how to ask and what to ask about. Thus 
 the very essence of the new conception of religion 
 remained wholly incomprehensible to the Russians of 
 the sixteenth century. Therefore the European Re- 
 formation could not strike root in Moscow at this time. 
 That is also why foreigners were then permitted to 
 live in the midst of the Orthodox population without 
 any apprehension of danger.
 
 io6 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 We already know^ that the situation changed 
 greatly in the middle of the seventeenth century, when 
 the foreign inhabitants were relegated to the confines 
 of the city. This marks also the time when foreign 
 religious belief began to influence the Russian popula- 
 tion. The soil was now more ready for the seed, and 
 thus, in the second half, or rather at the end, of the 
 seventeenth century, the first original movements of 
 an evangelical and spiritual character appeared in 
 Russia. 
 
 We must recollect that this was just at the moment 
 when the separation of the radicals — the "Priestless" — 
 from the bulk of the "Old-believers'' began.^ We 
 have seen that it was the time of general agitation 
 and trouble: the second advent was said to be ap- 
 proaching, and Antichrist was expected to come. The 
 end of the world was foretold for the year 1691. The 
 doctrine of voluntary death and martyrdom was ar- 
 dently propagated among those most inclined to reli- 
 gious emotion. Such were the conditions under which 
 the ordinary concomitant of religious emotionalism, 
 prophctism, appeared. Men were seen to fall into 
 trances and to deliver revelations. "The Holy Spirit 
 talks through us," they asserted. 
 
 Such, then, was the origin of the first Russian sect 
 of spiritual Christians. They called themselves "Men 
 of God," or plainly "Christs;" later on this name was 
 altered to "HIeests," with a meaning something like 
 "Flagellants." The reason for their appearance they 
 explained in a legend about the founder of the sect. 
 There was once an old and wise man, the legend runs, 
 
 'See p. 37. * See pp. 95, 96.
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 107 
 
 named Daneelo Fillippitch, who was studying the ques- 
 tion which were the true books — the "old" or the 
 "new."^ This question Daneelo Fillippitch resolved 
 in a radical way. There was no need either of new or 
 of old books. The only book wanted for salvation 
 was a "living" one — the Holy Spirit himself. So he 
 gathered all his books and threw them into a river. 
 God's men afterwards assembled and resolved to send 
 wise men to ask that God himself might come to the 
 earth. And a chariot of fire rolled down from the 
 clouds, and God was in it, and he took up his abode in 
 the sanctified body of Daneelo Fillippitch. You may 
 conclude from this legend that the divine idea was not 
 quite comfortably lodged in the rather heavy mind of 
 Daneelo Fillippitch and his followers. They did not 
 grasp satisfactorily the notion of living inspiration. 
 Hence the whole of their teaching makes up a curious 
 mixture of the old and the new. To become inspired, 
 for instance, a peculiar method is used — a method 
 entirely outward and physiological. The Hleests 
 gather in circles, in a private room, and perform a 
 kind of dance to the tune of peculiar songs of their 
 own. The time of the song grows gradually quicker 
 and quicker, and also the movements of the choir. 
 Some people, more fit for inspiration, turn like der- 
 vishes in the midst of the circle, in a whirling dance, 
 until they fall on the floor wholly exhausted and begin 
 to vociferate some incoherent words which are taken 
 for a prophecy. Such people as can "turn in the 
 circle" are sure to possess the Spirit; they form a 
 higher rank of the community — the "prophets" and 
 
 ' See p. 79, Neekon's reform.
 
 io8 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 "prophetesses." The other members remain in a stage 
 of preparation. There is a "Christ" at the head of 
 every community — or "ship" as it is called — and a 
 "Mother of God," too, at his side. Many features in 
 rite and teaching are taken directly from the "Old- 
 believers," from whose number the Hleests issued. 
 The assemblies regularly end in orgies which remind 
 us of pagan rites; the notion of Christian love being 
 interpreted in a rather wide sense. 
 
 We shall not dwell on a reaction against the last- 
 mentioned feature, which gave origin, in the middle 
 of the eighteenth century, to an ascetic sect of "Castra- 
 toes" (Skoptsce). This, indeed, was no step further 
 in the development of the spiritualistic belief. And 
 before we take up the consideration of such sects as 
 really achieved progress, let us look back to the end 
 of the seventeenth century, when the Hleests first 
 appeared. We have to trace there also another origin 
 — that of the Russian evangelical creed. 
 
 We have just seen that the origin of the Hleests 
 was popular, and that by this origin they are imme- 
 diately connected with the extremest party of the "Old- 
 believers." The origin and the affiliation of Russian 
 evangelicism are quite otherwise. The surroundings 
 in which evangelistic doctrine first struck root were 
 entirely different from the popular gatherings of "Old- 
 believers" waiting for the day of judgment; it was 
 in the much more refined atmosphere of the first Rus- 
 sian academy for theological studies, which had just 
 been founded in Moscow in the year 1687. Of course, 
 no foreign theology was to be taught there. Roman 
 Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinistic books on religion
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 109 
 
 were rigorously forbidden, and lectures were to be 
 delivered in strict accordance with the Greek doctrine 
 of faith. Nevertheless, discussions about the different 
 denominations constantly took place in the school ; and 
 thus the differences in religious rite and belief became 
 current topics of scholarly controversy. Presently, 
 however, these discussions passed beyond the walls of 
 the academy. In connection with them an amateur 
 debating club gathered around a Muscovite free- 
 thinker, Demetrius Tvereetinov, and along with the 
 discussions the head of the circle undertook a work of 
 formal propaganda. Tvereetinov was assisted in this 
 propaganda by a change in the official position of 
 religion which occurred at the time of Peter the Great. 
 "Thanks to God," Tvereetinov would say, "now every- 
 body is free in Moscow to believe w'hatever faith he 
 chooses." In fact, contemporaries witness that Tveree- 
 tinov and his circle "professed their opinions as boldly 
 as if they were foreigners." This was so, however, 
 only for some dozen years; for in 1714 the religious 
 opinions of the circle were condemned by a council, and 
 the "heretics" w^ere obliged to renounce their opinions. 
 The only one among them who did not acquiesce in 
 this renunciation was burned alive. But Tvereetinov's 
 teachings were not extinguished with his renunciation. 
 From this time on, evangelistic opinions have always 
 existed in Russia. 
 
 To what extent, however, the term "evangelical" 
 may be used concerning Tvereetinov's body of doctrine 
 may be doubted. The term was, of course, his own; 
 but his opponents w^ere not incorrect when they ob- 
 served that "here a new heresy was beginning, worse
 
 no RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 than Lutheranism or Calvinism." The fact is that 
 Russian evangelicism, from its first appearance in the 
 sixteenth century, seems to have cherished some opin- 
 ions that remind one rather of Unitarian doctrines. 
 The influence of the PoHsh Socinians may account 
 perhaps for this pecuHarity. You will remember that 
 the Russian "heretics" of the sixteenth century, when 
 condemned by the Moscow councils in 1552-54, had 
 fled over the western frontier.*^ One of these refugees, 
 Theodosius the Squint-Eyed, was known to be at one 
 with the Polish Anti-trinitarians. He had followers 
 in Russia, and his teachings were refuted in Russian 
 theological tracts. As regards the followers, their fur- 
 ther fate is quite obscure; but the teachings were 
 preserved for the future by the theological refutations 
 just mentioned. Thus the very name for Russian 
 evangelical believers, until the second half of the eigh- 
 teenth century, seems to have been borrowed from 
 controversial tracts against Russian "heretics" of the 
 fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. These heretics 
 were called "Judaizers." It is not known positively 
 whether the name alone was preserved, or whether 
 there existed, from the end of the fifteenth century 
 onward, a continuous tradition of the "heresy" itself. 
 In the last case Tvereetinov's doctrine must have 
 served to revive this tradition of heresy, or else it may 
 even have laid anew the foundations of evangelicism, if 
 before the end of the seventeenth century evangelicism 
 may be found to have been extinguished. Anyhow, 
 the early Russian evangelists, such as the "Judaizers," 
 the "Seventh-day Observers," were now all adherents 
 
 ' See above, p. 104.
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION in 
 
 of Tvereetinov. Tvereetinov's "Extracts from the 
 Holy Writ" served them as a catechism and a gospel. 
 These extracts were systematically arranged by Tver- 
 eetinov under different headings, in accordance with 
 the chief points of evangelical criticism. Their aim, 
 though, was not an exposition of any positive doctrine, 
 but the making of converts by the refutation of errors 
 in the orthodox faith. 
 
 Thus both the spiritual and the evangelical currents 
 of Christian thought took their rise in Russia at the 
 end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eigh- 
 teenth centuries. Their teaching, however, did not 
 remain unchanged. Subsequently both currents, about 
 a century later, profiting by the comparative freedom 
 of the reign of Catherine II., who was indifferent to 
 sectarianism, and by that of Alexander I., who rather 
 favored it, took on quite a new form. The new sect 
 of spiritual Christians that now was developed from 
 the Hleests was that of the "Wrestlers with the Spirit" 
 (Dookhobortscc). The other new sect, the evangelical 
 one, that was also developed from the former — the 
 "Judaizers" — under the influence of the spiritual sect 
 just mentioned, took the name of the "Milk-Drinkers" 
 (Molokanee). 
 
 The Dookhobortsee (or " Dookhobory " ) are par- 
 ticularly interesting, because they achieved a consider- 
 able progress in the spiritual Christianity of Russia. 
 Such pagan ways and rites as the Hleests performed are 
 entirely eradicated from the religious practices of the 
 "Wrestlers with the Spirit." No whirlwind dances, 
 no ecstatic prophecy, no sensual orgies, can be found 
 there. At the same time the religious doctrine is con-
 
 112 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 siderably spiritualized. There is no hierarchical dis- 
 tinction like that which existed between the "prophets" 
 of the Hleests and the rest of the congregation longing 
 for inspiration. Everybody is inspired; everyone is a 
 "son of God," and as such possesses Christ in his 
 inmost soul. Such were all souls at the moment they 
 were created by God. But a part of them had sinned 
 even before God created the world. Therefore they 
 were cast off by God and plunged deep into the flesh, 
 the matter, which is the very element of sin. To free 
 themselves from every seduction of the flesh — this was, 
 they held, the only way to revive Christ in the soul. 
 Tlie first men on earth still were so perfect that they 
 had no need of outward rules or rites for this purpose. 
 But in measure as the flesh prevailed, prescriptions 
 of state and church were felt to be necessary. Then 
 also the divisions of churches began. As yet, how- 
 ever, all these authorities, laws, and doctrines were 
 no more than palliatives, powerless to restrain the 
 "wickedness of the wicked." For the righteous, on 
 the other hand, even such restrictions were not at all 
 necessary. "In whose hearts the Sun of eternal truth 
 has risen in midday brightness, there moon and stars 
 have no more light. For the children of God, tsars 
 and authorities and every human law are truly super- 
 fluous. Through Jesus Christ their will is made free 
 from any law: no law is given for the righteous." 
 No Holy Writ or sacraments or rite whatever can 
 bind the sons of God; for them such things are mere 
 "signs" and "images," having only a figurative, an 
 emblematic sense. Churches of every denomination 
 are equall}^ open to them. Superior to any particular
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 113 
 
 church, they feel also superior to the state. Like 
 Quakers they profess the unlawfulness of war and of 
 oaths for Christians. You know, I suppose, what 
 extreme consequences of Christian anarchism were 
 drawn from these general ideas of the "Wrestlers with 
 the Spirit" when their doctrine was recently renovated 
 by the teachings of Leo Tolstoy. In Canada they have 
 just tried to realize their social Utopia, which was per- 
 haps more easy to understand in the days of George 
 Fox and Roger Williams than it is in our own time."^ 
 
 In the year 1818 two Quakers, William Allen and 
 Stephen Grellet, saw the colonies of the "Wrestlers 
 with the Spirit" and had no difficulty in recognizing 
 how near the doctrine of the Dookhobortsee was to 
 their own. They visited also the neighboring colonies 
 of the Molokanee (the "Drinkers of Milk") who, as 
 we have seen, were a new evangelical sect, formed, 
 under the influence of the Dookhobortsee, out of evan- 
 gelical elements formerly existing in Russia.^ 
 
 The chief merit of this new sect was, indeed, the 
 unification of many sects, vaguely evangelical, and 
 also the formulating of a more definite, positive doc- 
 trine, which completed and took the place of the rather 
 negative criticisms of Tvereetinov's "Extracts from 
 the Bible." The contents of their new creed, quite 
 different from that of the Dookhobortsee and wholly 
 founded on Scripture, are very well epitomized by the 
 two Quakers just mentioned. We borrow the follow- 
 ing passage from a report sent by William Allen to the 
 emperor (1819) : 
 
 They believe in the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, 
 in the deity of our Lord and Savior, and in the influence of the 
 'See p. 119. "See p. iii.
 
 114 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Holy Spirit, as fully as any Christians whom we ever met with. 
 They believe it their duty to abstain from all ceremonies, and 
 think that the only acceptable worship is that performed "in 
 spirit and in truth." They collect their families two or three 
 times a day to hear the Scriptures read, and abstain from secular 
 employment on the first day of the week, called Sunday, con- 
 sidering it their duty to appropriate this day to religious exer- 
 cises. Their marriages are performed with solemnity in their 
 public meetings, and the parties promise to be faithful to each 
 other during life. They believe that the only true baptism is that 
 of Christ with the Spirit, and that the water baptism of John 
 is not now necessary; and they consider that the true com- 
 munion is altogether of a spiritual nature, and make use of no 
 outward ceremony. In their meetings for worship they sing 
 psalms, and several of those who are esteemed by the rest as 
 more pious read to the others, in turn. They have no appointed 
 preachers, but anyone who feels himself properly qualified, 
 through the power of the Divine Infiuence upon the mind, may 
 expound and speak to edification ; they, however, consider that 
 it should never be done for hire, or from any worldly motive. 
 
 They believe that a true Christian can never harbor revenge, 
 and they think it their duty rather to suffer wrong than to seek 
 to avenge it; if any differences arise, they are settled among 
 themselves, and not brought to the tribunals. 
 
 Some among them are considered as elders, and though it 
 does not appear that they are regularly appointed, yet those who 
 are most eminent for their piety are regarded as such, and it is 
 their duty, when any of the fraternity are ill, to visit them, and 
 if able to do so, to offer them advice, or afford them comfort. 
 No particular ceremony is observed at their burial, but they sing 
 a psalm. 
 
 If the moral conduct of anyone does not correspond with his 
 profession, he is tenderly exhorted, and much labor is bestowed 
 upon him; but if they judge that he cannot be reclaimed, he is 
 dismissed from the society. With respect to the poor among 
 them, they deem it Christian duty to take care of, and support 
 each other. It appears that they have no instance among them
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 115 
 
 of children acting irreverently towards their parents, and they 
 are very careful to have them instructed in reading and writing. 
 
 Another quotation, from the Memoirs of Stephen 
 Grellet, who journeyed together with Wilham Allen, 
 points out some new features, particularly of social 
 teachings, of the Molokanee, and also their similarity 
 to the Quakers : 
 
 Previous to our going to the meeting with the Spiritual 
 Christians, we prepared a list of the principal subjects respecting 
 which we wished to inquire of them. They were very free to 
 give us every information we asked for, and they did it in few 
 words, accompanied, generally, with some Scripture quotations 
 as their reasons for believing or acting as they did; these were 
 so much to the purpose that one acquainted with Friends' writ- 
 ings might conclude that they had selected from them the most 
 clear and appropriate passages to support their several testi- 
 monies, etc." On all the cardinal points of the Christian religion, 
 the fall of man, salvation by Christ through faith, the meritorious 
 death of Christ, his resurrection, ascension, etc., their views are 
 very clear; also lespecting the influence of the Holy Spirit, 
 worship, ministry, baptjsm, the supper, oaths, etc., etc., we might 
 suppose they were thoroughly acquainted with our religious 
 society, but they had never heard of us, nor of any people that 
 profess as they do. Respecting war, however, their views are 
 not entirely clear, and yet many among us may learn from them ; 
 they said, "War is a subject that we have not yet been able 
 fully to understand, so as to reconcile Scripture with Scripture; 
 we are commanded to obey our rulers, magistrates, etc., for con- 
 science' sake; and again, we are enjoined to love our enemies, 
 not to avenge ourselves, to render good for evil ; therefore, we 
 
 ° The Molokanee in their answers to Grellet, used doubtless a 
 selection from the Holy Scripture which took the place of Tver- 
 eetinov's " Extracts " and which until now formed their chief source 
 of religious knowledge. This selection is called "Ritual," because the 
 selections are classified here under the headings of different Christian 
 rites.
 
 ii6 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 cannot see fully how we can refuse obedience to the laws that 
 require our young people to join the army; but in all matters 
 respecting ourselves, we endeavor to act faithfully as the gospel 
 requires ; we have never any lawsuits ; for if anybody smites us 
 on the one cheek, we turn to him the other ; if he takes away any 
 part of our property, we bear it patiently, we give to him that 
 asketh, and lend to him that borrows, not asking it back again, 
 and in all these things the Lord blesses us ; the Lord is very 
 good also to our young men ; for though several of them have 
 been taken to the army, not one of them has actually borne arms ; 
 for, our principles being known, they have very soon been placed 
 in offices of trust, such as attending to the provisions of the 
 army, or something of that sort." Their ministers are acknowl- 
 edged in much the same way as ours, and, like us, they consider 
 that their only and their best reward is the dear Savior's appro- 
 bation; therefore, they receive no kind of salary. They use the 
 Slavonian Bible; few of them, however, can read; but those 
 who can, read to the others, and these from memory teach the 
 children, so that their young people are very ready in quoting the 
 Scriptures correctly. They pointed out to us the great dis- 
 tinction there is between them and the Dookhobortsee. The latter 
 deny the authority of the Scriptures ; they deny the divinity of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ ; the offering up of himself a sacrifice 
 for sin on Calvary and salvation by faith in him. 
 
 These rather long quotations show at first hand 
 how purified the hfe and the teachings of the Russian 
 evangehcals were a hundred years ago, and a hundred 
 years after Russian evangehcism took its rise. 
 
 We come now to the nineteenth century. Never 
 was rehgious hfe in Russia more animated, and never 
 was the official church more lifeless and powerless in 
 its spiritual struggle against "heresies." With the 
 ancient schism of the "Old-believers" the church had 
 long since come to terms; the parish priests generally 
 derived profits from its existence, by delivering to
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 117 
 
 "Old-believers" certificates for the performance of 
 Orthodox rites and sacraments. Thus they were inter- 
 ested in concealing schismatics from the persecution 
 of the government. With the new sects the case was 
 quite different. With the single exception of the 
 Hleests, the sectarians were eager to testify to their 
 faith and gave no bribes to the parish clergy. En- 
 dowed with a fresh spirit of proselytism, they made 
 many converts, and so diminished the number of the 
 Orthodox parishioners. Their very teaching seemed 
 infinitely more revolutionary for the church than were 
 the doctrines of the "Old-believers." Therefore, the 
 clergy had now to set at work proving that for the 
 state, too, sectarian doctrines were particularly dan- 
 gerous. And they did not appeal in vain to the secular 
 arm. A persecution began, systematic and relentless 
 as it never had been before. But. in spite of perse- 
 cution, the religious movement was always growing, 
 particularly in the second half of the century. The 
 growth manifested itself, first, in a considerable in- 
 crease of adherents of the old sects; secondly, in a 
 continual development of their doctrines; and, thirdly, 
 in the appearance of new sects. The results of this 
 evolution are at the present time so varied and so 
 continuously changing that I cannot give you here 
 even an approximate sketch of them. I can only point 
 out the chief changes which the sects already known to 
 you have undergone, and mention some of the most 
 important which have recently appeared. 
 
 The Hleests did not remain unchanged after the 
 development from them of a more perfect type of 
 spiritual Christianity — the "Wrestlers with the Spirit."
 
 ii8 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 There was no lack of attempt on their part to purify 
 their rite, to heighten the quaHty of inspiration, and to 
 deepen its mystical sense ; while at the same time they 
 endeavored to preserve to the sect such practical ways 
 of receiving the spirit as the too prosaic doctrine of 
 the "Wrestlers with the Spirit" had completely got 
 rid of. As concerns their former rite, many Hleests 
 desisted from the practice of ending their whirling 
 dances with fieshly orgies, and they regulated, in a 
 certain measure, their habits of "spiritual love." Some 
 of them even ceased to use any artificial ways what- 
 ever for eliciting the voice of the spirit in the soul. 
 The spirit was to be got, as was claimed by a new 
 theory, by a long series of spiritual exertions, implying 
 complete "self-negation," a "surrender of self to the 
 will of God," a "self-burial" in Christ. Only after 
 such complete mortification of flesh and will an in- 
 ternal voice began to be felt, commanding man's 
 actions independently of his own will. This is the 
 "mysterious resurrection" which follows the "mys- 
 terious death." The inward dictation of the spirit 
 makes the will free from any command of the law : 
 such is the necessary conclusion of Antinomianism of 
 every time and nation. 
 
 Unlike the Hleests, the life and doctrine of the 
 "Wrestlers with the Spirit" started from so high a 
 point that it has lowered in the course of the nineteenth 
 century. Their abstract teaching could not be grasped 
 by undeveloped minds, and so the sect was obliged to 
 recur to the help of outward symbols and figurative 
 expressions ; such, for instance, was the kind of short 
 catechism compiled for . their general instruction in
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 119 
 
 faith. As concerns their hfe, they were ruled rather 
 arbitrarily by a dynasty of " Christs," whose dignity 
 and vocation were supposed to pass regularly from 
 father to son. The last of this dynasty, the "Mother 
 of God," Lukairya, died in the year 1886, and her 
 heirs have appropriated as their own the collective 
 property of the "Wrestlers with the Spirit." This 
 served as a signal for a religious awakening. The 
 sectarians considered their loss as a punishment for 
 their sins, and so resolved to live thenceforward "ac- 
 cording to freedom and conscience." Just then they 
 were strongly influenced by the Tolstoyan doctrine of 
 "non-interference with evil." The most fervent imme- 
 diately began to practice their new teaching. They 
 changed their name for a new one — that of "All- 
 brethren" — refused military service, ceased to pay 
 duties which might serve to "hire other people to kill 
 men." They were then exiled — for the third time 
 during a century — to the confines of the empire, and 
 were transported from there, with the help of Tolstoy 
 and his followers, to Canada. In Canada they tried 
 to ward off every interference of the state in their 
 affairs. To this end they refused to acknowledge the 
 possession of landed property, to register births and 
 marriages, and generally to recognize any state law. 
 Because they wished to "be directed exclusively by 
 the dictates of their own conscience," they con- 
 sidered every outward rule "murderous to life." Be- 
 ing checked, by a positive refusal on the part of the 
 Canadian authorities to consider their point of view, 
 they addressed themselves "to all men, brethren of 
 all countries," asking to be told whether there is to be
 
 120 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 found anywhere a country or a society where they 
 would be tolerated. After some fruitless waiting for 
 an answer, the majority yielded to the requests of the 
 authorities ; but the minority, supported in their resolu- 
 tion to resist by Tolstoy himself, worked up their 
 spirits to a state of mystic exaltation, and so exhibited 
 to the puzzled Americans the mediaeval show of a 
 crowd proceeding, with a "John the Baptist" at its 
 head, in search of Christ's kingdom. But to do the 
 sect full justice, one must remember that they are 
 such only in moments of high religious emotion. 
 From time to time such emotions have swept like 
 epidemics through Russia itself. In quieter times, 
 however, the impression that our sectarians leave on 
 the observer is entirely different. It is like what we 
 saw in the descriptions of Allen and Grellet. By the 
 high moral tone which the sectarians exhibit in their 
 family life and social intercourse, by the strict observ- 
 ance of their pledged word, by the rigid keeping of 
 their obligations toward their fellow-men, by their 
 readiness to help and sympathize both with outsiders 
 and with their brethren in the faith, they present 
 exactly the opposite to what I described in my first 
 chapter as the average Russian type. Theirs is a 
 higher social type — the type of the Russian of the 
 future. 
 
 Of the sects of the eighteenth century there remain 
 to be spoken of the Molokanee, the "Drinkers of Milk." 
 As they were the most moderate, and as their doctrine 
 was the most definitely formulated in harmony with 
 the Bible view of the early apostolic church, they have 
 changed less during the nineteenth century than other
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 121 
 
 sectarians. But still the general drift of religious cur- 
 rents did not leave them untouched. In the same wise 
 as they themselves had been recast into a new sect, 
 from many congenial elements which had previously 
 existed, they in their turn served as a ready material 
 for the building of more advanced sects of a kindred 
 spirit. Two new sects appeared about the middle of 
 the nineteenth century, closely related to each other 
 in the original character of their inspiration, but 
 gravitating to quite different central ideas, either 
 spiritual or evangelical. One was called the "Shalo- 
 poots," the "Good-for-Nothing Men." The Shalopoots 
 shared the purified and spiritualized doctrine of the 
 Hleests; at the same time they adopted (or pre- 
 served) the "Ritual" or catechism of the "Drinkers of 
 Milk." Their social doctrine was that of collectivism; 
 their rural economy was practically communistic. In 
 general, they preserved the character of spiritual 
 Christianity. 
 
 The other sect was called by a German name, 
 "Stundists," which points out its foreign origin. It 
 originated, indeed, amidst German colonists of the 
 Mennonite denomination. In the middle of the nine- 
 teenth century a religious fermentation began among 
 the Mennonites, and it was felt immediately among 
 their Russian neighbors. In its origin the movement 
 was also spiritual, and even mystical. At the time, 
 however, strong influence of Baptist preachers began, 
 which gave to the movement rather an evangelical char- 
 acter. Baptist missionaries and learned Baptist presby- 
 ters tried to unify and organize the Russian Stundists, 
 and for the most part succeeded in their attempt, the
 
 122 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 more easily as the profession of the Baptist faith was a 
 means of escaping persecution by the state.^^ Never- 
 theless, plenty of differences still exist in the little 
 groups of the Stunclists, as regards questions of rite 
 and hierarchy, views about the sacraments, about 
 Scripture, and so on. The Baptist point of view 
 appears to be intermediate between the extremes of 
 the various existing opinions of these sectarians. 
 Whether it will prevail depends, in large measure, on 
 the further exertions of the Baptist missionaries from 
 abroad. At all events, it is clear that the sect will 
 remain essentially evangelical. Upon this condition 
 the prospects of its further expansion are dependent, 
 as there exists already another evangelical sect, of 
 recent origin, which is ready to unite with the Stund- 
 ists. This last sect was founded some twenty-five 
 years ago in the northern part of Russia, while Stund- 
 ism was spreading in the south. They were called 
 "Pashkovists," from the name of the founder of the 
 sect. Colonel Pashkov, who belonged to the higher 
 society of Petersburg and had undergone the influence 
 of Lord Redstock's preaching in the year 1874. The 
 central, and nearly the only, doctrine of the Pashkovists 
 is justification by faith, with its antinomian conse- 
 quences. Thus even here, as we see — in a doctrine 
 purely evangelical — there is a tendency to spiritualistic 
 conclusions. And this tendency appears more clearly 
 as the teaching spreads among the people from its 
 original center of educated society. 
 
 Thus, wherever we look we always find that the 
 process of Russian reformation is far from having 
 
 ^" See below, p. 126.
 
 TFIE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 123 
 
 reached definitive results. The last half-century added 
 more perhaps to the spread of the movement than 
 centuries of former history. It seethes and boils under 
 the seemingly placid surface of the Russian official 
 religion; there are many springs which spout hot 
 currents from the bottom. As yet, however, they are 
 isolated, and so act separately. Their action is dis- 
 sipated and seems to be almost entirely lost in the 
 standing water that surrounds them. Still, by degrees, 
 the temperature of the water is rising. Is the time 
 soon to come when the ebullition will become general ? 
 
 That is what our "home mission" foretold longf 
 since and is still afraid of. Accordingly, it cries and 
 vociferates for prompt measures to be taken by the 
 state, in order that the established church may be 
 saved from the new religious spirit. Morally power- 
 less, it appeals to material force. And material force 
 has been used for its protection; it is still used to a 
 degree quite incompatible with any claim to civiliza- 
 tion. Were it not for that reason, Russian reformation 
 would have been an accomplished fact. This is not 
 at all my personal supposition; the apprehension of 
 this result, as a necessary consequence of any religious 
 tolerance, is' loudly outspoken by the representatives 
 and apologists of the established church. In fact, this 
 apprehension it is that makes persecution so relentless 
 and brings the state authorities to the head of the 
 persecution. 
 
 I know, of course, that, in consequence of a re- 
 cently published manifesto, London newspapers in- 
 formed their readers that "the Tsar grants religious 
 freedom to his subjects." This view seems to have
 
 124 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 found its way to America also, if I may judge by an 
 article in the Chautauquan. It is affirmed there that 
 The recent decrees of the Tsar on the subject of religion 
 undertake to estabUsh absolute freedom of worship throughout 
 the empire. They thus not only give the nonconformists the 
 rights for which they have long been contending, but mark out 
 a broad and liberal policy of the state in religious matters which 
 certainly augurs well for the country. 
 
 I entirely agree with the author as to the apprecia- 
 tion of the policy in question ; and I am quite sure that 
 this policy will sooner or later be adopted. But un- 
 happily this is not yet the case; and the manifesto in 
 question actually says quite the opposite to what it was 
 supposed to say. It affirms that existing fundamental 
 laws are quite sufficient to preserve religious tolerance ; 
 and that to this effect "authorities will be obliged to 
 observe the fundamental law." This is something, 
 because until now religious persecution did not even 
 take care of the existing law; a ministerial circular, 
 or even an edict of a local governor, was quite suffi- 
 cient to inaugurate in any given locality — or in the 
 whole empire — the reign of terror for nonconformists. 
 A body of such circulars is still in action, though even 
 the Petersburg senate some twenty years ago pro- 
 tested against their having any legal power. But the 
 chief obstacle to the introduction of a new era of 
 tolerance is quite other ; namely, that even the funda- 
 mental laws of Russia do not at all assure the subjects 
 any religious freedom. To be more accurate, the sort 
 of religious freedom they give is quite different from 
 what is understood under this term by every civilized 
 nation. It is not at all synonymous in Russia with
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 125 
 
 the individual freedom of everybody to believe what- 
 ever he chooses. The idea of religion is so bound up 
 there with the idea of state and nation that the law 
 makes no attempt to draw a distinction between them. 
 Orthodoxy is a "Russian" religion just as Protestant- 
 ism is considered in Russia to be the "German" reli- 
 gion. Every nation is free to believe its own religion : 
 that is what is meant by the fundamental law. "Let 
 the Poles worship God according to their Latin 
 rite; but Russian people always were and will remain 
 Orthodox; together with their Tsar and Tsarina they 
 above all venerate and love the native Orthodox 
 church." This is a resolution which the Tsar wrote 
 some years ago concerning such Russian people as 
 were converted from Catholicism to Orthodoxy in 
 western provinces of Russia. 
 
 Accordingly there is no freedom as regards your 
 personal belief; you are free only to adhere to the 
 faith in which you are born. An exception is made 
 from this fundamental principle for the benefit of the 
 established church, which is free to receive converts 
 of any other religion. Otherwise the principle is 
 applied rigorously. A man born in the Russian reli- 
 gion cannot possibly change it. He may be heretic or 
 a freethinker; he may not believe in anything; he 
 still is supposed by law to remain Orthodox; and he 
 may be formally compelled to appear before a con- 
 fessional and to partake of a holy communion once a 
 year at least. If he insists (the fact is hypothetical) on 
 his individual belief, he still does not cease to be 
 Orthodox : he is merely an "erring Orthodox," and 
 he is supposed to repent and then to be given over to
 
 126 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 his confessor, in order to learn better. The law does 
 not foresee the possibility that anybody would further 
 insist on his individual belief. But this is not all. As 
 the change of the Orthodox religion is not admitted 
 to be possible, no legal punishment for the change 
 exists, unless there be some criminal transgression con- 
 nected with the new form of faith adopted; e. g., 
 mutilation of members. The law is strictly consistent, 
 considering every change as nullc ct non avenue. But 
 there is another side of the question. The convert is 
 not held responsible; but then the responsibility is 
 with the converter. Here is the point where persecu- 
 tion sets in. Not being able to deal with the converts, 
 and even being obliged to comply with the conversion 
 in the next generation, the law concentrates all its 
 severity on the would-be converters. A criminal must 
 be found when there is a crime. And so the punish- 
 ments are very severe — exile to Siberia or even hard 
 labor — if the conversion chances to be to a sect that is 
 proclaimed by the authorities "particularly dangerous." 
 Such is the case with all new sects that make prose- 
 lytes. You will be interested in one of them that is 
 most like the Baptists, the Stundists. The law pro- 
 claims Russian Stundism "particularly dangerous" and 
 severely treats the "converters." The same law admits 
 the existence of the Baptists as a foreign denomination. 
 Now, a formal struggle is going on between the sectar- 
 ians who, in the case of a judicial trial, attempt to 
 prove that they are Baptists, and the home mission- 
 aries, who declare the Baptist faith to be a "German 
 faith," not permitted to Russian sectarians. The ad- 
 ministrative authorities are always with the mission-
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 127 
 
 aries; but the judges are sometimes on the side of 
 sectarians. The result of a trial is thus always un- 
 certain. 
 
 The principle that a Russian is always supposed 
 to be Orthodox admits also of other applications w hich 
 practically lead to the same result of crying intolerance. 
 The spirit of proselytism has always been absent from 
 the Orthodox church ; it would seem strange to a 
 Russian to convert the Chinese and the Japanese to 
 Orthodoxy. But upon a Russian subject Orthodoxy 
 must be inflicted, for the sake of national uniformity, 
 not for religious reasons. And so it happened to Rus- 
 sian missionaries, who very rarely, if ever, try to 
 convert men of foreign creed, to convert at a bound 
 one and a half millions of adherents of the United 
 church (Graeco-Catholic) in 1836-39, and later about 
 half a million of Protestants, Catholics, and United 
 Greeks in Poland and thfe western and the Baltic gov- 
 ernments of Russia. The result of this forced con- 
 version, which was meant to be the best means for 
 Russianization, may be seen in the official reports of 
 Mr. Pobedonostsev. The report for 1895 showed 
 that 73,000 forced converts to Orthodoxy "stubbornly 
 clung to the errors of Catholic faith;" in 1896 their 
 number increased to 77,000; in 1898, to 83,000. Ac- 
 cording to the same official reports, these people were 
 "without any assistance of the church, either not per- 
 forming sacraments and spiritual duties, or doing so 
 clandestinely, in local and foreign Catholic churches." 
 In 1898 there were 2(y,yyy children whom their par- 
 ents preferred to be unbaptized, and 8,699 marriages 
 contracted without religious (/. e., official) sanction.
 
 128 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 I do not need to add anything about dismissed Catholic 
 priests and Protestant pastors who were performing 
 their duties; about formal fights for churches, and 
 monasteries sentenced to be closed by Russian author- 
 ities. The facts are too well known by Europe, which, 
 some years ago, protested in vain against such treat- 
 ment of coreligionists. 
 
 Of course, the educated classes of Russia have not 
 remained indifferent to such a state of religious intoler- 
 ance. The cry for freedom of belief and tolerance in 
 matters of religion has always been a war cry of the 
 Russian liberals ; nay, even of certain Russian conser- 
 vatives also. I shall quote to you some recent pleas 
 for religious freedom, belonging to this latter class. 
 At one of the last congresses of Russian missionaries 
 resolutions were passed with a view to enforcing prose- 
 cution against sectarians; among other things it was 
 proposed as a general measure — it had already been 
 used in individual cases — to take children from the 
 sectarian parents and to let them be educated by Ortho- 
 dox persons. Then an isolated voice was raised 
 against such barbarous measures, a voice that reminded 
 the fathers at the meeting of Christian charity and 
 tolerance. That was, however, the voice of a layman, 
 a marshal of nobility, Mr. Stahovich. Mr. Stahovich 
 proposed that the missionaries demand from the 
 government the real, the individual, freedom of con- 
 science. It gave the signal for a tempest of indignation 
 against existing intolerance in the liberal press, and 
 provoked many denunciations of Mr. Stahovich on the 
 part of the clergy. Since then the question of tolerance 
 has not been silenced. It was again raised and dis-
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 129 
 
 cussed by a Petersburg private society for religious and 
 philosophic culture which had been founded for pur- 
 poses of defending conservative nationalism, and as 
 such had enjoyed a certain protection in influential 
 spheres of Petersburg. Then the debates and the ad- 
 dress delivered on this occasion by Prince Volkonsky 
 — known to America as a lecturer — were published 
 in a monthly having nothing in common with Russian 
 liberals but this : It happened to be published after 
 the manifesto of the Tsar, and as the opinions of the 
 society and of the monthly both stood in decided con- 
 tradiction with what was considered to be freedom 
 of conscience in that official document, both the society 
 and the journal made only a hairbreadth escape from 
 suppression; both were saved by their conservative 
 reputations only. This will help you to realize to 
 what an extent the idea of an actual religious freedom 
 is popular and how widely spread it is through all 
 educated strata of Russian society. 
 
 Some attempts were even made to connect this idea 
 of religious freedom with the conservative tradition 
 of Russia. Slavophils were the first to attempt a 
 reconciliation between the spirit of tradition and the 
 spirit of religious freedom. We know already that 
 according to the teaching of Slavophils," liberty of 
 opinion was admitted to be the inalienable though only 
 right of the people, and as such it was opposed to 
 liberal aspirations after larger political rights. "Power 
 to the government ; free opinion to the people;" such 
 was the political scheme of the Slavophils. This im- 
 plied freedom of conscience as well as freedom of 
 
 " See p. 56.
 
 130 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 speech. But the Slavophils failed to perceive that 
 freedom of conscience was also a political right, like 
 others which they denied, and not likely to be realized 
 alone. And thus their political ideal was doomed to 
 remain a sentimental Utopia. Whatever our opinion 
 may be on this subject, one thing may be safely inferred 
 from everything that has been said in this chapter. 
 This inference is, that religious freedom and tolerance 
 mean nothing less than a break with Russian national- 
 istic tradition. And if they are one day to come, they 
 will come as the negation of the ancient religious tra- 
 dition of Russia.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 
 
 Let me remind you of the general trend of our 
 discussion which now is to be pursued further. We 
 started from the nationahstic supposition that Russian 
 Orthodoxy was one of the most distinctive features of 
 the Russian national type. Such was at least the com- 
 mon belief of Russian nationalistic politicians. This 
 belief necessarily implied that Orthodoxy had remained 
 unchanged, as befitted a distinctive feature of an im- 
 mutable national type. It seemed particularly fitting 
 to choose for such a distinctive feature the Orthodox 
 creed, just because immutability was thought to be 
 an inherent quality of Christianity in general and the 
 eastern form of the Christian creed especially. Now 
 we have seen that as a matter of fact Russia is no 
 exception to the general rule of religious change and 
 evolution. There, as everywhere, Christianity suffered 
 change : it took as many different shapes as there were 
 consecutive stages of culture. And these stages were 
 the same in Russia as everywhere else. First, as we 
 saw, there was a long stage of transition from pagan- 
 ism to ritualism. Then followed the stage of transition 
 from ritualism to evangelical and spiritual Christianity. 
 Peculiar to Russia was the particular circumstance that 
 the established church refused to take any active part 
 in aid of this religious evolution, but was very active in 
 its repression. Owing to the non-interference of the 
 
 »3i
 
 132 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 established church, the whole process in Russia took a 
 somewhat incidental character. The religious move- 
 ment was deprived of its natural leaders, and thus a 
 regular evolution of doctrine was made impossible. 
 Moreover, the natural growth of religious thought was 
 branded schism and heresy, and thus exposed to the 
 prosecution of the authorities and doomed to popular 
 disgrace. This, of course, could not prevent the final 
 triumph of new religious ideas, but it helped greatly 
 to retard the movement. Yet, in spite of all these 
 obstacles, the movement went its natural way and has 
 long broken all ties of tradition. Religious feeling 
 was not unchangeable in Russia, as we see, and if 
 Orthodoxy was, so much the worse for it. The pale 
 of the established church was therefore forsaken by 
 everybody who wanted any kind of living religion. If 
 everything remained unchanged inside the "true fold," 
 it was because there was no life. Accordingly we 
 come to the conclusion that religions immutability is 
 not a national distinction of Russia, because there was 
 no religious immutability, perhaps not even within 
 the precincts of the established church. 
 
 Now that we pass to the study of the political tra- 
 dition, we shall have to face a similar error of judg- 
 ment ; and it is to be corrected in a similar way ; i. e., 
 by confronting it with the real process of political 
 evolution. The error consists this time in the idea 
 that the actual political form, autocracy, never has 
 changed and is unchangeable. This is considered by 
 Russian nationalists to be the second essential feature 
 of the national type. We shall soon see that this theory 
 itself is of very recent origin; and that even at the
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 133 
 
 time of its appearance it did not correspond to the 
 scientific evidence then available. Indeed, the theory 
 of the persistence of Russian political tradition clashes 
 with the facts of history still more obviously than the 
 idea of the persistence of the religious tradition. Some 
 seventy-five years ago, when historical knowledge was 
 yet in its infancy, it was possible to hold the view that 
 the Russian state at its very coming into existence was 
 monarchical. But then the necessary stages of political 
 development previous to the building of a state had 
 not yet been studied by European scholars, and no 
 social embryology existed. The theory of the evolu- 
 tion of political forms was not yet much in advance of 
 Aristotle's teachings, though even those should have 
 prevented the error in question. Now that we have 
 this further knowledge, only such people as are inter- 
 ested in supporting old prejudices still cling to the 
 antiquated theory. Nevertheless the theory is made 
 obligatory by Russian fundamental law; not to share 
 it is considered a political crime, which may be pun- 
 ished by forced labor in Siberia. 
 
 But let us look at the facts in the light of the 
 contemporary science of sociology. Three consecutive 
 stages of political organization are generally distin- 
 guished by writers on sociology : that of tribal society, 
 that of the feudal state, and that of the national- 
 military state, from which the contemporary constitu- 
 tional state is evolved. Was there anything corre- 
 sponding to these three stages in Russian political 
 development ? 
 
 Before we answer this question we must first con- 
 sider that even in western Europe the political develop-
 
 134 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 ment was not entirely uniform in different countries. 
 As we advance eastward from the Atlantic shore to 
 the Urals, we are sure to find the whole process more 
 and more backward, and less intense. The same pro- 
 cess of the growth of the state out of the tribal organi- 
 zation which we observe going on upon the Seine and 
 the Loire as early as the fifth and sixth centuries 
 appears in the seventh and eighth centuries east of 
 the Rhine, from the ninth to the eleventh on the Ger- 
 man eastern marches (i. e., in Prussia and Austria), 
 from the tenth to the twelfth in Bohemia and on the 
 Dnepper, and in the twelfth and thirteenth in Lithuania. 
 The chief reason for a comparatively later start is, of 
 course, the lack of inner springs of development. As 
 such inner springs we may consider the social differ- 
 entiation within the tribal society and the resulting 
 changes in its composition. As a rule, the tribal stage 
 of social existence comes to an end when the leading 
 families of the tribe contrive to promote themselves 
 to a position of local power, i. c, when the local aris- 
 tocracy appears. The only privilege of such leading 
 families at the beginning of the process was generally 
 that their members should be by preference chosen as 
 headmen of clans or tribes. Later on they usurped 
 a kind of overlordship over the territory of the tribe, 
 claimed the right to dispose not only of the un- 
 settled march land and wastes, but also of the common 
 grounds of their fictitious kinsmen, and finally man- 
 aged to get possession of the whole estate, as its legal 
 proprietors, while the other landholders were dispos- 
 sessed and reduced to the state of dependent farmers, 
 or even to that of half-free "villains." Thus the
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 135 
 
 democratic composition of tribal society evolved itself 
 into the aristocratic composition of a feudal society. 
 The social groups built up on the ground of blood- 
 relationship (real or fictitious) gave way before social 
 constructions founded on territorial power and depend- 
 ence. The collective ownership of land was supplanted 
 by the regime of private property. Thus the village 
 community became a "manor." 
 
 The building of the great landlords' estates thus 
 may be called the inner spring of development from 
 a tribal to a feudal organization of society. Wherever 
 this inner spring is missing, no development from tribe 
 to state is possible, unless some outward political ele- 
 ments should supply the lack. Sooner or later these 
 outward causes begin to act in the same way as the 
 inner causes would. As a rule, they are two — war and 
 commerce — and their action is to emphasize differences 
 in wealth and power among the members of the tribe. 
 But when wealth and power come directly from with- 
 out instead of being accumulated by a prolonged pro- 
 cess of organic development, their influence on the 
 primitive tribal organization must necessarily be differ- 
 ent. In such a case the elements of political power 
 brought from abroad enter into immediate connection 
 with the local elements of tribal democracy, without 
 the intermediate link of indigenous aristocracy be- 
 tween the former and the latter. Thence the retarded 
 development of the feudal state comes to be quite 
 different from that in typical lands of mediaeval feudal- 
 ity. The representatives of political power take the 
 place that the local landlords had failed to take posses- 
 sion of; and they do so by owning the common
 
 136 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 grounds and wastes, by holding the state offices in 
 their own hands — in short, by taking possession, as far 
 as they can, of the superior ownership of the entire 
 domain and the overlord rights. Under these condi- 
 tions the social process of development of the landed 
 aristocracy is postponed. It becomes a secondary re- 
 sult of a previous political development ; i. e., the build- 
 ing of an aristocracy is in a large degree dependent on 
 the policy of the rulers, instead of being able to influ- 
 ence and to modify this very policy. 
 
 Now, as we have said, the farther east we go in 
 Europe, the slower is the process by which society 
 becomes aristocratic and feudal. We know, then, what 
 we have to expect from the study of early social de- 
 velopment and political institutions in Russia. A long- 
 protracted tribal existence, an undeveloped territorial 
 aristocracy, a political power coming from without 
 and easily appropriating the overlord rights over land, 
 a class of officials that gathers around and derives its 
 further claims from its position as king's servants — 
 such are the particular features of the Russian feudal 
 state. With all these peculiarities, the state that is 
 being so formed already bears within itself the germ 
 of the future autocracy; but this germ is first de- 
 veloped when the central power assumes military func- 
 tions, in the process of political unification. 
 
 Unhappily, we do not possess sufficient informa- 
 tion about the tribal organization of early Russia. 
 Some scholars have even gone so far as to deny its 
 very existence. But this is quite wrong. The fact is, 
 indeed, that in the central parts of the territory of 
 early Russia the political power, judging even from
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 137 
 
 our earliest sources of information, had so much en- 
 croached upon the tribal organization that only scanty 
 traces are left for our curiosity. But even these are 
 enough for historical reconstruction. Thus, we may 
 yet trace in earlier sources (eleventh century) the ex- 
 istence of the joint responsibility of kinsmen in cases 
 of avenging murder or of receiving the fees exacted 
 from the murderer's relatives. Of course, the degree 
 of kinship in which the members of a family were 
 bound to revenge was very narrow; and the group 
 that was obliged to pay the fee seems to be half 
 voluntarily formed ; the whole frame of tribal organi- 
 zation seems thus very loose and decadent. Still, 
 enough is preserved to bear witness to centuries of 
 fuller existence. The chief of the Russian house com- 
 munion (corresponding to the Welsh gwely) has in 
 the earliest sources the same name as that by which he 
 is known in early Bohemia. He is called ognishchanin, 
 i. c, the chief of the principal homestead, where the 
 ancestral hearth, ogneschay, is located — the tyddyn of 
 the Welsh. The fee for his murder was higher than 
 for that of a common man ; it was equal to that of a 
 king's servant. In the city these "town ancients" were 
 even admitted to the king's council. In the country 
 they very probably managed sometimes to push them- 
 selves into the position of proprietors of the whole 
 village. At least we may draw such a conclusion 
 from a recently discovered source, the circular letter 
 of the metropolitan Clement, written in the middle 
 of the twelfth century. He speaks there about some 
 people who seek "vain glory" : "They acquire house 
 after house, village after village; they take possession
 
 138 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 of liberated slaves (isgoccs) as much as of joint own- 
 ers (sayhrees) , of new clearings (lahda) as much as 
 of ancestral holdings (stareeny)^ The quoted pas- 
 sage points out, as we see, two types of appropriated 
 property, and to each type corresponds a particular 
 category of settlers. Evidently such proprietors as 
 are censured here enlarged their estates first by appro- 
 priating tribal lands which were already cultivated 
 (ancestral holdings), and second by colonizing new 
 ground. They used as colonists the "liberated slaves" 
 and other persons who had forsaken their situations 
 and were tramping, looking around for some new 
 station. These are the Russian isgoccs, as they are 
 known from other sources; they seem to me to be 
 identical with the hospitcs of Polish and Bohemian 
 mediaeval law. Now, the other category mentioned, 
 that of the "joint owners," the saybrcc, who were 
 dwelling on their "ancestral holdings," is particularly 
 interesting to us. This category is spoken of here for 
 the first and the only time in early Russian records. 
 In Poland and Bohemia they are more often mentioned 
 under the name of the hcrcdcs^ or the originariL^ 
 In both Poland and Bohemia the position of these 
 heredcs and originarii — the "joint-owners" — is quite 
 clear : they were no longer free tenants, but were 
 already appropriated by former headmen of their tribal 
 groups, by the ogneschahne, who thus became big 
 landed proprietors. Thanks to the circular letter of 
 Clement, we now may conclude — if our commentary 
 
 ^ The legal heirs, the possessors of the " grandfathers' holdings," 
 the daydechee. 
 
 ^ Corresponding to the Russian term staroshiltsee.
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 139 
 
 is found right — that in Russia the same process of 
 social differentiation was going on and came to its 
 natural end. This end was the dislocation of tribal 
 groups and the building of large private estates, or a 
 new aristocracy. 
 
 But why, then, are not the "joint-owners" and 
 their landlords more often mentioned in early Russian 
 documents ? The most probable answer is that neither 
 class was numerous enough to be taken as character- 
 istic of social life in early Russia. Of course, there 
 were landlords and landed aristocracy, independent of 
 the rulers of the land and even opposed to their rule; 
 but they were not many, and they soon disappeared, 
 giving way to the aristocracy of new origin — that of 
 the grantees of the prince, holding land and money 
 from him, forming his court and his military suite, 
 following him wherever he went, from town to town, 
 from land to land, until he and they — or rather the 
 descendants of both — became definitely settled. Thus, 
 lacking a strong landed aristocracy of tribal origin in 
 Russia, the old cultivators had more chance of pre- 
 serving the ownership of their ancestral holdings until 
 the prince himself came and took possession of the 
 overlord rights, which were still unappropriated by 
 the families of the headmen of the tribe. Such was 
 actually the position of the overwhelming majority 
 of Russian peasants in early Russia — the smcrds, as 
 they were called. If a smcrd died without leaving 
 heirs, his holding was inherited by the prince of the 
 land; the prince was considered to be the superior 
 owner of the whole territory and immediate owner of 
 the unoccupied lands. But the consequences of this
 
 140 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 general supposition had not yet been realized by law. 
 The prince did not seem to possess the right to eject 
 the sjiicrds from their holdings, or even to exact from 
 them anything besides the old custom of the land. 
 Such seems to have been the legal position of the 
 heredes — the daydechec — of western Slavic law. 
 
 But all this was to be changed later on. And per- 
 haps the very conditions under which the changes were 
 made were to a great extent the same in Russia as in 
 the western Slavic states. What was impossible and 
 inconsistent with old custom in the lands of old culture 
 became quite natural when princes began to colonize 
 uninhabited lands. Such lands must have been numer- 
 ous on the marches; therefore Russian princes, like 
 Bohemian and Polish ones, very early showed their 
 preference for transferring their activity to the boun- 
 daries of their dukedoms, there to build and to colon- 
 ize, using the wandering strollers and indigenous 
 cultivators as a ready material for colonization. To 
 attract the colonists to their lands, the princes gave 
 them franchises (the Ihotas of Bohemian and Russian 
 law) ; once settled, such colonists were not often re- 
 moved from their holdings, and thus the settlers in 
 their turn became the "old inhabitants," the staro- 
 sheeltsee. The idea, however, remained, that the land 
 was not theirs, but belonged to the prince; and thus 
 was introduced the custom of disposing of these lands, 
 of buying and selling them, giving them as land grants 
 and conveyances, with the peasants on them as their 
 natural appurtenance. Of course, no remains of tribal 
 property, no joint-ownership, could be preserved there; 
 in fact, they had already been destroyed by the very
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 141 
 
 process of the migration of isolated settlers to the 
 marches, where their clearings and villages from the 
 very beginning took the form of purely individual 
 settlements. 
 
 Such were the elements of early social life in Rus- 
 sia, and such was the difference in composition be- 
 tween the old political center and the land of new 
 culture. We shall presently see which prevailed. But 
 before we go any farther we must make this difference 
 between the types of Russian culture clearer, inasmuch 
 as they are determined by differences of geographical 
 position and historical influence. 
 
 The Russian territory was so large and the stages 
 of culture in the neighboring countries were so varied 
 that we really cannot expect to find throughout the 
 country one single line of development. There is, 
 indeed, no such uniform process going on. Before any 
 such general process could begin, it had to be preceded 
 by a number of local processes in various parts of the 
 vast country, which were partly interrupted by con- 
 quest or political unification, partly preserved and de- 
 veloped into a higher stage of existence. For a very 
 long time these local processes had no relation whatever 
 to one another. When, in the second half of the ninth 
 century A. D., a Norwegian traveler, Ohter, visited 
 "Gandvik;" i. c, the White Sea, he found there the 
 wild Beormas, while on the southern extremity of 
 contemporary Russia, on the Black Sea, the refined 
 culture of the Greek colonies still survived. They 
 were two different worlds, as dissimilar as Athens and 
 Greenland — these two opposite shores of eastern 
 Europe, just at the time when the germ of the Russian
 
 142 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 State was formed at a central point between them on 
 the Dnepper. When, seven centuries later, an English 
 seaman, Richard Chancellor, landed on tne shores of 
 the White Sea, the situation was entirely changed. 
 The chief current of national life in Russia was so 
 much enlarged that the inhabitant of the northern 
 shores was bound to know of the existence of country- 
 men on the southern shores; at least he was just then 
 obliged by the growing state to pay a certain tax every 
 year for the release of Russian prisoners, who were 
 regularly abducted by the robber states of the Black 
 Sea shores, and whom the Muscovite state was as yet 
 unable to protect with its military force. Thus, in the 
 middle of the sixteenth century, the White and the 
 Black Seas were first brought into some connection 
 by the central organization. During all this long 
 period, from the ninth to the sixteenth century, there 
 was no general political organization in Russia. Local 
 processes followed each its own line of development. 
 Before the Muscovite type of culture prevailed many 
 other types, differing geographically and chronologic- 
 ally, thrived and flourished. It is easy to guess that 
 the earlier types w^ere located in the best situations. 
 We may distinguish the following : 
 
 I . The primary south Russian type, which we have 
 already spoken about. It was in this southwestern cor- 
 ner of Russia that the Russian state originated.^ The 
 surroundings were there the best to be found in Rus- 
 sia; and yet even here the state could not be evolved 
 by a mere process of inner organic evolution. Com- 
 merce and war. these outward springs of political 
 
 ^ See adjoining map.
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 143 
 
 development/ helped the Russian state into existence. 
 A brisk commerce on the Dnepper was the combined 
 effect of two purely external causes: the advanta- 
 geous geographical position on the "Great Waterway" 
 from Scandinavia to Greece — the "Eastern Way" 
 (Austrvegr) of the Scandinavian sagas — and the good 
 luck of there being at the extreme ends of this eastern 
 way three nations : the Northmen, who were very 
 enterprising, and the Greeks and Arabs, who were 
 very rich and who wanted to buy the products of the 
 north — furs, wax, honey, serfs, etc. The necessity of 
 war was also determined by a merely external cause : 
 the political cataclysms of inner Asia, which drove 
 from it hordes of Turkish tribes into southern Russia. 
 The commerce with the Greeks and Arabs attracted 
 Scandinavian adventurers, scattered them through all 
 the "Eastern Way," made them build towns and estab- 
 lish the beginnings of political organization. The 
 necessity for the defense of the commercial highways 
 from southern nomads made the Northmen organize 
 their military force on a larger scale. And so it came 
 about that the military defense of the roads and water- 
 ways of commerce was concentrated in Keeyev, the 
 residence of the early Russian princes of Swedish ex- 
 traction. 
 
 Aside from the "Great Way," where no regular 
 commercial intercourse existed and no military defense 
 was needed everything went on as before. The tribal 
 organization remained untouched and entire, including 
 all the three degrees of kinship : the house communion, 
 the minor clans ("brotherhood," or "the larger kin- 
 
 *See p. 135.
 
 144 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 dred") with their heads, and the tribe with its greater 
 chief.^ 
 
 This looser tribal government made the conquest 
 of such tribes very difficult and by its means they were 
 able to protract their separate existences. But the 
 period of prosperity of the few commercial centers on 
 the main river was also very short. After the Arabian 
 kingdoms fell under the arms of the Turks, and their 
 kindred tribes in the Russian steppes became too power- 
 ful to be kept off by the southern princes, the Russian 
 dukedoms quickly became impoverished and one by 
 one finally yielded to the Tartar yoke. Such was the 
 end of the splendor of the southern commercial state 
 system which had existed from the middle of the ninth 
 to the middle of the thirteenth century. 
 
 2. After this, the center of political life shifted west 
 and north. Even such a fictitious unity as persevered 
 in the first period did not now exist, and three 
 quite different political groups had evolved from the 
 union of the southern system. Near to the original 
 scene of historical action, a secondary southern type 
 was developed under the strong influence of Polish 
 feudalism. But it was just this influence which, some 
 centuries later, proved the chief cause of its decay. 
 The feudal organization, being too loose, was obliged 
 to give way to the stronger. Presentl}'-, we shall again 
 refer to this type. 
 
 3. The northern type of the Russian merchant 
 republic was Novgorod and, though on a much smaller 
 
 ° At least so we may conclude from the fact of the existence of 
 whole tribes called by patronymic names and at the same time 
 lacking every central power ; e. g., the descendants of Radeem, or 
 Vatko.
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 145 
 
 scale, Pskov. Though dependent on western neighbors 
 to buy its merchandise, Novgorod gathered its riches 
 from the enormous territories of colonized land which 
 stretched as far eastward as the Urals. It was able, 
 therefore, to preserve its power during many centuries, 
 until it, too, met with the stronger organization of 
 central Russia. And at that time the democratic rule of 
 Novgorod had already changed into the oligarchy of 
 rich merchants, who dominated the republic through 
 the general assembly of citizens. 
 
 4. The next was the Muscovite type, that of the 
 colonized "marches." We shall have to speak of this 
 at greater length. Owing to their extended estates and 
 to their position as superior owners of the whole land, 
 the Muscovite princes had at their disposal greater 
 pecuniary resources, and so it proved possible for 
 them to organize a large military class of landed pro- 
 prietors. That is why they prevailed in the general 
 struggle for unification. 
 
 5. Yet powerful as the Muscovite princes were in 
 directing the process of unification, and reckless as 
 were the means they employed, they could not ex- 
 tinguish the chief differences between their stock lands 
 in central Russia and the lands annexed from the terri- 
 tories of the other types just mentioned. Thus some 
 secondary types came into existence. Two of them 
 in particular must be named. First the northern 
 peasant type, which was formed from the territories of 
 Novgorod. There was no landed military class there; 
 rather, the country served the state by its contributions 
 of money. On our map we call these regions the 
 " Peasant Districts ; " the Muscovite government 
 called them "Black" or "Tributary Districts."
 
 146 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 6. The second new type formed after the process of 
 unification was at its end. This is that of the new 
 southern colonization. We dwelt long enough on this 
 type in our first chapter. The older part of this region 
 of new colonization was not very different from the 
 Muscovite center, but in measure as we descend south- 
 ward, the population takes on a more modern aspect. 
 This is the land of new religious currents, while 
 the Old-belief found its adherents among the peasants 
 of the old Novgorodian north. Here also wheat is cul- 
 tivated and coal and iron mines are concentrated ; while 
 in the center, for a long time, it has not been considered 
 worth while to pay much attention to agriculture, and 
 in the north the products, as well as the population, 
 remain extremely scanty. In short, the Russian south 
 is "the promised land" of the Russian future. The 
 ties and traditions of the past do not press on it and 
 easily give way to everything connected with the new 
 phase of Russian existence. Thus this territory may 
 be compared with the American West. For nearly 
 all the features mentioned may find their counterparts 
 in American researches concerning the settlement of 
 the West. I have only to refer to the valuable articles 
 of Mr. Turner, of the University of Wisconsin.*^ 
 
 We must now return to the history of the two 
 chief regions which played the most prominent part in 
 the general history of Russia. These are the primary 
 southern type and the Muscovite. The difference be- 
 tween them is quite obvious; it may be explained as 
 the difference between the land of old tribal settlement 
 
 " The geographical disposition of all these regions of Russian 
 culture may be seen on the map.
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 147 
 
 and the land of later colonization on the "marches." 
 The rulers of the marches, as we have seen, were much 
 freer in carr3^ing on the process of settlement. They 
 easily appropriated over the whole of their territory the 
 rights of an overlord, as they had not to deal with 
 any former claims of local organizations or of the 
 indigenous aristocracy. And thus it is that the social 
 and political organization, on the marches, proved 
 comparatively more powerful, just as it had shown 
 itself on both of the German marches, Austria, and 
 Brandenburg, in northern France, and partly in Poland 
 and Bohemia. Nevertheless, this fundamental differ- 
 ence between the two types of settlement has, for 
 various reasons, often been denied. The Muscovite 
 princes themselves pointed to the continuous succes- 
 sion of both types whereon to lay the foundations of 
 their right to possess the "whole of Russia." Some 
 modern scholars of the nationalistic set used the same 
 argument to prove the right of the central government 
 to "Russianize" the "whole of Russia." Then an oppo- 
 site set of scholars, the radicals, set to work to prove 
 that the northern Russia of later times had been con- 
 nected with early southern Russia by the democratic 
 tradition of folkmotes, afterward so treacherously be- 
 trayed by the Muscovite princes. Then came an inde- 
 pendent scholar of law, Mr. Sergueyevich, who wished 
 to prove that there was no fundamental difference 
 between the southern and the northern Russian type, 
 as both societies were founded on the same principle of 
 contract. Contract was meant to be opposed as much 
 to the ties of blood, i. c, to the tribal organization of 
 society, as to the ties of state subjection, /, e., to the
 
 148 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 modern organization of society. And so far it is true 
 that both southern and northern Russian types are 
 intermediate between the tribal and the miHtary- 
 national stages of Russian history; but it is none the 
 less true, too, that the southern type originated in 
 tribal society, and that the northern type finished in 
 the military-national organization of John III. and 
 John IV. And so we are bound to suppose that in 
 the southern type there persisted a something which 
 kept it ever connected with its tribal origin, and in 
 the northern something was inherent that compelled 
 it to culminate in an autocracy. Both types had, of 
 course, enough elements in common, yet it was not 
 these, but the divergent elements, which determined 
 their final issue. These latter elements we have in 
 the beginning of our discussion already pointed out. 
 We saw that while aristocratic elements were gener- 
 ally lacking in Russian social life, they were, com- 
 paratively speaking, more lacking in the northern type 
 than in the southern. Also, we saw that political 
 power, which was generally stronger in eastern than 
 in western Europe, was comparatively stronger in the 
 north than in the south of Russia, and that here it 
 assumed the form of a general proprietorship over 
 the whole territory. And because of these character- 
 istics of northern Russia — a weaker development of 
 the aristocracy and a stronger development of the cen- 
 tral power — the question arose whether this inter- 
 mediate stage between tribe and state still has anything 
 in common with the feudalism of western Europe. 
 
 The answer is closely connected with what we have 
 already said. If the territorial aristocracy of great
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 149 
 
 landed proprietors was not much developed in Russia, 
 and if the territorial power of princes was much more 
 developed than in western Europe, we should have no 
 reason to expect that western feudalism would appear 
 in Russia, especially in the north. But feudalism had 
 another chance to develop on Russian territory — in the 
 secondary southern type. 
 
 After the primary southern type had been ex- 
 tinguished at the time of the Tartar invasion, and the 
 southern population had been driven backward — west- 
 ward to the Polish frontier and northward to Lithuania 
 — a new period of life began in these regions; and the 
 more developed Polish organization proved very in- 
 fluential to it. Then, indeed, many features of western 
 feudalism appeared in western Russia and in Lithuania. 
 There was formed, for instance, a compact class of 
 landed aristocracy, which, by the privilege granted in 
 the year 1447, finally emancipated itself from royal 
 taxation and justice, and so made it necessary for the 
 state power in each separate case to ask the lords, by 
 dint of summoning them to a national council, to share 
 in the military contributions and to serve in the 
 military service. This national council was soon 
 transformed into a regular parliament, consisting of 
 separately summoned magnates, as well as of formally 
 elected knights, who represented their class organiza- 
 tion in the shire. (There was no representation of 
 boroughs.) The competency of this great general 
 diet was extended to the sphere of legislation, and 
 even of foreign politics. Thus the Lithuanian and 
 western Russian baronage encroached on the rights 
 of their kings, just as the Polish baronage had done 
 aforetime.
 
 150 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 The consequence was that the central power be- 
 came too weak to organize an effective defense of the 
 country at the very time when such a defense was 
 particularly necessary. For it was the epoch of con- 
 stant struggles on all the frontiers, except that of the 
 allied and united kingdom of Poland. The Turks and 
 Tartars were attacking the southern frontier; the 
 Teutonic knights had to be driven from the north ; 
 and, from the east, Muscovite princes were threatening 
 to bring back the territory of the old Russian duke- 
 doms. This made the Lithuanian princes ready to 
 grant concessions in order to get money, military 
 levies, and mercenaries, all of which the barons of 
 the land were slow to grant. Having got whatever 
 social and political privileges they wished, the barons 
 did not for that become any the more attentive to the 
 state necessities. The feudal type of state in western 
 Russia and Lithuania was, therefore, obliged to yield 
 to the Muscovite type, which was at that time recon- 
 structed after a more oriental fashion. The necessities 
 of the times then felt in Moscow were quite the same 
 as those in Vilna or Warsaw : they needed money 
 and soldiers, but they were supplied in an entirely 
 different and far more successful manner. The Mus- 
 covite prince had no feudal elements to contend with; 
 therefore he took his lessons in politics from the By- 
 zantine empire, from the southern Slavic states on 
 the Balkans, perhaps even from Turkey, rather than 
 from Poland or western Europe. There, on the con- 
 fines of Europe and Asia on the Bosporus, the capital 
 problem of a standing army was resolved almost as in 
 mediaeval Europe : lacking money to give, the state 
 distributed its land among the warriors.
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 151 
 
 Similar, too. was the final result of the whole opera- 
 tion : the grantees finally became landed proprietors. 
 But in general this final forming of the landed aristoc- 
 racy took place in the Orient at a much later date, at a 
 time when the original aim of the military organization 
 had been achieved ; either the conquest had been made, 
 as in Turkey from the fifteenth through the seventeenth 
 century, or the national state was already founded, 
 as in Russia during the same period, or the military 
 landholders were transformed by foreign conquerors 
 of later times into landed proprietors, as by the Eng- 
 lish in India and the French in Algiers. In all these 
 cases the appropriation of state lands by private 
 owners did not lead to the feudal organization of so- 
 ciety, because the central power was already too strong 
 to be dispossessed of its superior rights in the land. 
 It was quite, opposite with the feudal aristocracy of 
 western Europe, which preceded the development of 
 a central administration, and thus succeeded in over- 
 powering the state. 
 
 The origin of the oriental system of land grants 
 for w^arriors may be traced to the moment when 
 both great eastern monarchies, Byzantium and Per- 
 sia, met together in a decisive clash. Kosru Nushir- 
 w^an was the Persian ruler of the Sassanian dynasty 
 who first used the system against the emperor Justin- 
 ian, in the sixth century A. D. A century later 
 Arabian khalifs stepped into the place of the Persian 
 kings, dividing the demesne among their own new 
 warriors ; this was the origin of the Moslem military 
 organization, which lasted for centuries. The attacks 
 of the Arabs on Constantinople made the Byzantine
 
 152 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 emperors adopt the same system of "military tenure." 
 At last the Turks superseded the Arabs, in the eleventh 
 and thirteenth centuries, and soon proved to be much 
 more dangerous to Constantinople. They improved 
 and completed the military system of the Persians and 
 the Arabians; and the Byzantine emperors had only 
 to follow their example. Thus the Ottoman military 
 holdings, the temars and zeeams, appeared, and they 
 were closely followed by the Byzantine proneas, which 
 had just the same meaning. The system of "proneya 
 holdings" was then adopted by the southern Slavs. 
 This system can be studied particularly well in Ser- 
 via in the fourteenth century. The institution is every- 
 where the same: the military holders — proneyars as 
 well as the teemarlces, or spahecs of the Ottoman em- 
 pire — were not the owners of their holdings, but 
 merely temporary possessors; and they held their 
 allotments only so long as they were able to perform 
 military service. While possessing their allotments 
 they could, under the threat of being punished and 
 even deprived of their holdings in case of oppression 
 of the peasants and deterioration of the estate, claim 
 from their peasants only such taxes and services as 
 were strictly determined by the law. As the holdings 
 were not hereditary, the heirs of the possessors had to 
 ask for the renewal of the grant, and were by no 
 means sure to get it back undiminished. Such were 
 at least the arrangements of the law, which of course 
 were often disregarded in reality. Now, this eastern 
 system of military holdings was borrowed by the Mus- 
 covite princes just at the time when their western 
 neighbors and competitors in Lithuania were vainly
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 153 
 
 exerting themselves to get money and soldiers from 
 their "great general diets," in the fifteenth and six- 
 teenth centuries. Thus the same state necessity which 
 led to a complete development of the feudal elements 
 in Lithuania and helped aristocracy to its fullest 
 development, kept back their development in Moscow. 
 To forestall possible objections to this opposing 
 of the Russian system of military holdings as oriental 
 to the feudal system of the west of Europe, some 
 further details are here necessary. To be sure, north- 
 eastern Russia had also possessed a kind of feudal 
 land-tenure, even before the oriental system had been 
 introduced. But this ancient system had nothing in 
 common with the niilitary allotments of land. What- 
 ever such allotments — and they were not over-numer- 
 ous — existed during that earlier period, the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth centuries, were granted by the princes in 
 return, not for military, but for court service. And 
 whatever landed estates were held at that time by men 
 of military service were not granted; they were held 
 as absolute properties ; not as conditional holdings from 
 the state authorities, but by right of inheritance. The 
 very name of these lands proves their status : they were 
 called "father's holdings." Such private holdings 
 stood in no connection whatever with military service, 
 for a possessor of a " father's land " was entirely free 
 to serve whom he liked, or even not to serve at all. 
 Thus, for instance, in the middle of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury there were 574 private possessors in the four 
 little counties of the dukedom of Tver (already in- 
 corporated by Moscow). But only 230 of these were 
 in the Muscovite service; sixty proprietors served the
 
 154 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 bishop of Tver, forty-six served the three repre- 
 sentatives of a lateral branch of the former princes of 
 Tver, about twenty served different persons, while 150 
 served nobody. 
 
 It will be seen, therefore, that there existed in 
 northern Russia no principle which corresponded to 
 the fundamental notion of feudalism, and which 
 French legists formulated in their thesis: no land 
 without sovereign (nulle terre sans seigiieur). And 
 there was no idea that a landed proprietor should 
 necessarily serve his own sovereign; i. e., the lord of 
 the territory on which his estate was situated. In 
 Lithuanian Russia the conditions were more like those 
 of western feudalism ; but even here the right of a 
 landed proprietor to serve whom he liked was acknowl- 
 edged, though only on the express statement of the 
 condition, in a contract; if it were not so stated, the 
 proprietor legally lost his estate when he went to 
 another sovereign. In northern Russia, as we have 
 said, this fundamental principle of western feudalism 
 did not exist. "Free service" was here the rule and 
 so dependent "military tenure" of the subsequent period 
 had no possibility of evolving out of this "free service." 
 
 The origin of the military holdings in the Musco- 
 vite state grew out of something different from west- 
 ern feudalism ; namely, from a principle identical at bot- 
 tom with that of the oriental states. Dependent mili- 
 tary tenure of the oriental states was always founded 
 on the idea of the superior property rights of the prince 
 in the whole land; without this idea of overlordship 
 no grants from the state lands were possible. In By- 
 zantium this idea of the superior right of the emperor
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 155 
 
 was derived from a Roman and a Christian source. 
 In Mussulman states it originated in the general teach- 
 ing of the Koran concerning property. In the Mus- 
 covite dukedom the idea existed also ; but here, as we 
 have seen, it had a different origin — the extended 
 power of the prince on the marches. This fact was 
 then further developed and formed into a principle of 
 law under Byzantine and Tartar influences. Indeed, 
 the princes of Moscow began very early to dispose of 
 free cultivators and their lands. As early as the four- 
 teenth century we see them granting and exchanging, 
 "permitting" persons of different stations to buy the 
 free peasants of central Russia as appurtenances of the 
 land whereon they lived, and themselves buying them 
 from other proprietors. Thus, so early, land grants 
 were made without the least consideration for the "old 
 inhabitants " of the granted lands. Thus the condition 
 necessary to the introduction of the military tenure 
 system— the right to dispose of settled land and of its 
 peasant inhabitants — was already existing at the mo- 
 ment when the process of political unification began, 
 and the necessity of military reform was felt. 
 
 One thing was yet lacking, however. The quantity 
 of settled lands in central Russia was not sufficient to 
 build up at once an extended class of holders of military 
 allotments. Such lands as the prince possessed here in 
 the center had to serve another purpose: they were 
 distributed among the servants of his court, in order 
 to organize and make safe the regular supply of grain, 
 hay, meat, and other necessities and pleasures of his 
 private household. It was only when the political uni- 
 fication of Russia under the Muscovite rule be^an that
 
 156 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 the formation of an extended military class became 
 particularly urgent. But just then the same process 
 of unification made this formation of a new Muscovite 
 army possible, by increasing immensely the quantity 
 of lands to be freely disposed of by the Muscovite 
 princesJ Little is known as to how this process of 
 military reform went on ; but what we do know of 
 it is quite sufficient to prove that the reform was car- 
 ried out systematically, and that the measures taken 
 were so bold and decisive that they must have brought 
 about a rather serious revolution in the Russian landed 
 property of that time. 
 
 The military reform was begun by John III., the 
 contemporary of Mohammed II., and was achieved by 
 John IV., the contemporary of Suleiman the Splendid. 
 And the years in which the chief reform measures were 
 taken correspond almost identically with those years 
 which saw the chief Turkish measures for the intro- 
 duction of the system of military tenure. In 1484 
 John III., who had just incorporated the Novgorodian 
 possessions, dispossessed in that country more than 
 eight thousand big and little hereditary proprietors, 
 and transferred there, to be settled on these estates of 
 former proprietors, as many military holders of the 
 new type as he wanted. To find so large a number of 
 tenants, he moved the military servants from the 
 courts of his big vassals and placed them in direct 
 allegiance to himself. This lower class of subvassals 
 or "courtiers" (dvoryane) formed thus the chief ele- 
 ment out of which the holders of new military tenures 
 were taken. The ancient class of hereditary owners 
 
 ^ Vide map, " Making of the Russian State."
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 157 
 
 of their "fathers' Jands"— the "boyars" and the "sons 
 of boyars"— were presently lowered to the same con- 
 dition as the courtiers, and obliged by the government 
 to serve as if they too were holders of military tenures, 
 and not of lands owned as private property. In fact, 
 these "sons of boyars" were even placed beneath the 
 "courtiers" in rank as early as the middle of the six- 
 teenth century. The name of "courtiers" became 
 thenceforth the preferred one for designating Russian 
 "noblemen," while the "sons of boyars" formed the 
 lowest layer of the military class : they were supposed 
 to serve in provincial detachments of the army, while 
 the "courtiers" were often enabled to enter the city 
 regiments, and even to be promoted to the dignities 
 of the court. 
 
 This sudden reversal of the comparative social posi- 
 tion of the old hereditary owners and of the new 
 dependent landholders was made possible by a series 
 of state measures. First, the military duties of both 
 classes were equalized, by exacting from the old land- 
 owners the same military service that the new holders 
 of military allotments were obliged to perform. Then, 
 from both these classes, so mixed up, a choice was 
 made by the government of John IV. in 1550, of those 
 best fitted for the court— the Tsar's guard. The chosen 
 "thousand" had to serve the Tsar in Moscow; there- 
 fore new allotments were apportioned to them within 
 a radius of a hundred miles from Moscow. Some 
 fifteen years afterward a new revolution in landed 
 property— the last one of this series— appears to have 
 been accomplished. The old hereditary proprietors in 
 the recently annexed territories, particularly the larger
 
 158 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 and more influential ones, were once more in a large 
 measure dispossessed. New holders from Moscow 
 took their place, and they were put in a particularly 
 close connection with the "court," which was made a 
 separate political institution opposed to the "land," a 
 kind of state within the state. These measures appear 
 to have done away with the large estates and inde- 
 l^endent landed property, in so far as at that time they 
 still existed in northeastern Russia. All higher social 
 elements were now mercilessly overthrown; the Mus- 
 covite society was systematically and intentionally 
 leveled, to form the foundation of an autocratic power. 
 Thus, by nothing less than a series of social revolu- 
 tions, completed nearly within a century ( 1484 to 
 1584), was begun the political tradition of autocracy. 
 The official doctrine of autocracy was always that 
 Russian monarchy was eminently democratic. We 
 can see, however, that this was true only in the sense of 
 its being the enemy of the landed aristocracy. For 
 the Muscovite princes really had got rid of the aris- 
 tocracy. Only in so doing they were supported not so 
 much by the population in general as by a lower class 
 of "serving men," the "courtiers." So far from being 
 relieved by the outcome of this struggle, the peasant 
 population paid its expenses, sacrificed as they were 
 to the holders of military allotments. Indeed, though 
 the statutes of John IV. determined in detail how these 
 military tenants ought to serve the government, noth- 
 ing at all was determined as to their rights and duties 
 toward their peasants. Thus was laid the foundation 
 for a future slavery. We saw that even in Byzantine 
 law and in the Ottoman and southern Slavic law
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 159 
 
 the position of the peasants on military tenures was 
 strictly determined, and the rights of tenants legally 
 circumscribed. Of course, the possessors could, as 
 they sometimes did by the inadvertence of the authori- 
 ties, appropriate their tenants' holdings; but they were 
 not likely to appropriate the peasants themselves and 
 make them into bondmen, as was the case in Russia. 
 Accordingly, the Russian autocracy may be called anti- 
 aristocratic, military, oriental, if you like; at least 
 it never really was democratic. 
 
 But we shall have other occasions to come back to 
 the history of the social elements of Russia. Now 
 that we are studying the political tradition, we are 
 much more concerned in other deductions from the 
 facts just set forth. We have seen how the autocracy 
 came into existence and power at the end of the fif- 
 teenth century, but we do not yet know of any tradi- 
 tion of the autocracy. It was entirely new when it first 
 appeared; in the past it had no antecedents, if we do 
 not consider as such the actual power that the princes 
 on the marches possessed in higher measure than other 
 princes of mediaeval Russia. The new regime had yet 
 to work out its own predominance by a formal struggle 
 against the heterogeneous elements in politics and in 
 social structure. In short, autocracy at the moment 
 of its origin in the process of the building of a militaiy- 
 national state was new and unprecedented. Has it 
 since that time remained unchanged, so as to form a 
 standing tradition? Or has it undergone a further 
 process of evolution? This is what we have now to 
 consider. 
 
 Autocracy, so far as we can know at present, was
 
 i6o RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 nothing more than a material fact, an event of history. 
 A fact, in order to grow into a tradition, must become 
 an idea. What idea, then, had autocracy to represent 
 from the time of its first appearance onward? Un- 
 doubtedly there was such an idea: the political and 
 national unity of the Russian state just then in process 
 of formation. But the idea of unity was, of course, 
 not inseparably connected with that of a definite polit- 
 ical form. There must have been some other ideas at 
 hand to make such a connection strike root in the popu- 
 lar mind. Let us then consider closely from what 
 elements the primary idea of autocracy was formed 
 in the minds of its founders, which of these elements 
 were lasting, and whicli proved temporary and tran- 
 sient ; lastly, what changes the original idea underwent 
 in its further development. 
 
 It is generally known that the Russian theory of 
 autocracy was a reflection of the Byzantine idea of a 
 theocratic imperium, or " c?esaro-papism," as it was 
 sometimes called. But what is less known is that this 
 Byzantine idea was not entirely understood, and was 
 perhaps never completely realized. There were two 
 different elements in it, one juridical and the other 
 theocratic, the first coming from the Roman law, and 
 the second from a Christian source. We shall presently 
 see that the second alone was embodied in the Musco- 
 vite political theory. The necessity for a legal theory 
 of power was not much felt in Moscow ; the very fact 
 of there being such a power as the Muscovite princes 
 possessed seemed to be quite sufficient in itself. When 
 the growing Muscovite dukedom began to be known 
 by western Europe, the emissaries of both pope and
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION i6i 
 
 emperor came to Moscow, in order to propose, each 
 for his side, the consecration of the prince to the dignity 
 of a king, if he would agree to take active part in the 
 struggle of Europe against the Turks. But — happily 
 for Russia — it was altogether above John's power of 
 comprehension to understand what a big thing the 
 Holy Roman Empire was, and what kind of legitimacy 
 it could impart to him by means of the new title. All 
 he understood was that, if he accepted the offer, instead 
 of being independent, he would have to acknowledge 
 some foreign sovereign. From this disadvantage he 
 deliberately shrank. He answered, therefore, that he 
 was quite satisfied with the sanction bestowed on him 
 by the very fact that his power was hereditary, that 
 it descended to him "from the very beginning, from 
 his first forefathers" (1488). But then John soon felt 
 that his answer was not quite right in the eyes of 
 foreign diplomatists. Would not his more civilized 
 western neighbor, the king of Poland and prince of 
 Lithuania, be afraid, and would not he be envied, were 
 he called by the pope or the emperor "King of the 
 Whole of Russia?" The half of Russia was then 
 under Lithuanian power. 
 
 The Muscovite government now, hov/ever, began 
 to think whether there was any other means of getting 
 a superior title and of preserving the claims over the 
 "whole of Russia," without asking help from the Ger- 
 man "Cresar" or the Roman Pontifex. After some 
 months (1489) the Muscovite ambassador in Vienna 
 returned the emperor an unexpected answer — an an- 
 swer proving that Russian diplomatists had found a 
 way. For they had determined that John should assume
 
 i62 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 the high position quite independent of the sanction of 
 pope or emperor. "Our forefathers," the Russian 
 diplomatist now adds to his former explanation, "were 
 from olden times friends of the ancient Roman tsars, 
 who gave Rome to the popes and who ruled in By- 
 zantium." Thus, even then, Russians did not dare yet 
 affirm anything more than the mere fact of friendship. 
 But at once the Russian clergy set to work to change 
 this presumed friendship into a relationship, and to 
 build on this last supposition the theory of a formal 
 transmission of imperial power. 
 
 To be more accurate, it was not, however, the Rus- 
 sian clergy that started this learned proof of the theory. 
 There lived in Moscow many divines from southern 
 Slav countries, which just then had been conquered 
 by the Turks. They transmitted to Moscow their 
 patriotic hopes for the liberation of their countries. 
 Thus they felt it necessary to adorn the Aluscovite 
 rulers with all the insignia of power and dignity, 
 which they had formerly bestowed on their own 
 Slavic rulers. An Alexander of Bulgaria or a Stephen 
 of Servia had already worn the titles and the insignia 
 of the Romaic emperors in the fourteenth century, be- 
 fore these symbols of power were offered to John of 
 Moscow in the end of the fifteenth century. The 
 "most glorious" Bulgarian city of Tyrnov had already 
 played the part of the "second Constantinople" and 
 the "third Rome," which it was now proposed that 
 Moscow should play.^ A pedigree was concocted 
 which made "C?esar Augustus" the ancestor of the 
 Russian house of princes. An invented legend was 
 
 * See p. 75-
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 163 
 
 spread about, containing a detailed narrative as to how 
 and when a formal transmission of the Byzantine in- 
 signia and power from an emperor of Constantinople 
 to the Russian prince of Keeyev had taken place. The 
 Russian divines of that time were not very strong in 
 chronology, and so they unfortunately chose for the 
 hero of their legend an emperor (Constantine the 
 Monomach) who had actually died when his would-be 
 Russian correspondent (Vladeemir the Monarch) 
 was but two years old ; and they put the scene of the 
 transmission of the insignia, which they supposed to 
 have taken place in the eleventh century, into surround- 
 ings which could have existed only five centuries earlier. 
 Nevertheless the legend found credit with the public, 
 and half a century later was officially adopted by the 
 government, which now wanted the patriarch of Con- 
 stantinople to confirm it by a general decree of the 
 council. The patriarch seems to have had some diffi- 
 culties in gathering an actual council for this purpose; 
 and so, having the charter drawn up in his chancellery, 
 he forged the fictitious signatures of members of the 
 imaginary council. This was all very well, but the 
 contents of the charter were not what Muscovite di- 
 plomatists expected them to be. The patriarch appears 
 to have had scruples as to the historical reality of the 
 facts, alleged in the nationalistic legend invented in 
 Moscow, and he, therefore, acknowledged the only 
 one that could truthfully be assumed : the baptism of 
 the first Christian ruler, Vladeemir the Saint, and his 
 marriage with the Byzantine princess. Now, Musco- 
 vite princes did not care much about historical facts, any 
 more than they cared about the legal validity of their
 
 i64 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 claims for the Byzantine inheritance of power. Thus 
 they even did not wish to put forward the best claim 
 they actually had in their hands, namely, the recent 
 marriage of John III. with the heiress of the last Pale- 
 ologue. The only legal heir, at the time, of the last 
 Byzantine emperor was ready to sell his rights to the 
 highest bidder, but he vainly urged the transaction in 
 Moscow, and finished by selling his inheritance to 
 Charles VIII. of France. The Muscovite prince 
 wanted his claims traced to a deeper antiquity, one 
 that squared better with his fundamental argument — 
 that his power was inherited from his own "fore- 
 fathers " — and one that at the same time cost him no 
 money. Anyhow, the Muscovite government clung 
 to the popular legend, and then it resolved to introduce 
 into the forged charter of the patriarch a clause which 
 should make it prove, not the historical fact, but the 
 spurious legend. The theory of the transmission of 
 the imperial power was now openly proclaimed, the 
 new title of "Tsar" (i. e., Csesar) was solemnly adopted 
 by John IV., while the pseudo-Byzantine insignia were 
 used at his coronation (1547), and the newly adopted 
 legend was engraved on the Tsar's throne, which in 
 the Ouspensky cathedral of Moscow may even now 
 be seen — a lasting memorial of the great Muscovite 
 fraud. 
 
 Such was the legal origin of the Russian autocracy. 
 The legal claim, as we have seen, was not a very 
 strong one; and thus it was never referred to in the 
 days of greater enlightenment. Autocracy remained 
 what it actually was : a fact, not a legal institution. 
 There being no legal foundation for its support, the
 
 THE POLI'llCAL TRADITION 165 
 
 theoretical vindication of autocracy has ahvays been 
 uncertain and wavering. No wonder, then, if in the 
 course of our subsequent narrative we shall find dif- 
 ferent attempts to prove anew the necessity of autoc- 
 racy, and, at the same time, we shall find that those 
 attempts to lay new theoretical foundations for autoc- 
 racy are not in the least consistent with one another. 
 Not being bound to any obligatory tradition, they 
 necessarily reflect very different points of view, cur- 
 rent at the time the attempts were made. What they 
 really have in common is the tacit avowal that there 
 never existed a theory of autocracy that could be con- 
 sidered binding and legally valid. 
 
 Just such, of course — /. e., binding and legally 
 valid — the initial theory of autocracy, that of the 
 Byzantine origin, pretended to be. But, as we said 
 before, it was not borrowed in its full extent by the 
 Russian authorities. The legal — the Roman — ele- 
 ments of the imperial theory did not find an adequate 
 appreciation by Russian lawyers. There were no law- 
 yers, and there w-as no formulated state law in Russia 
 at that time, and thus no attention was paid to such 
 qualities of the Roman state theory as gave it full 
 weight and brought it into greatest consideration in 
 mediaeval Italy, or France, or Spain. There existed 
 no "legists," or letrados, in Russia to recall the im- 
 perial law of a princcps Icgibus solutus. And, on the 
 other side, feudal elements were not so mighty in Rus- 
 sia as to make this legal formula an important and 
 necessary weapon against them. The Russian autoc- 
 racy did not evolve without a struggle, as we have 
 seen ; but this was not a struggle of legal principles.
 
 i66 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 On the contrary, the theocratic elements of the By- 
 zantine theory were considered much more important. 
 As we have seen in a former chapter, the first part 
 that the Muscovite Tsar had to play as successor of 
 the Byzantine emperor was a religious part — that of 
 a defender of the faith, a champion of Orthodoxy. 
 The national state was founded in close connection 
 with the national church. The clergy were the first, 
 and for some time the only, advocates of the new 
 political theory ; they took the place of legists in Rus- 
 sia. Hence, the religious proofs of the rights of autoc- 
 racy overcame the legal ; in fact, the former were the 
 only ones that found currency. Everybody knew that 
 the Tsar was the representative of God on earth, that 
 just for this reason he was to be obeyed, and that even 
 his trespasses were to be considered as God's punish- 
 ment for sins ; nobody cared to know more. As to the 
 prince himself, he liked better to infer that his actual 
 power proceeded from his forefathers, instead of tra- 
 cing it to a more ideal origin, /. e., to God or to the By- 
 zantine emperor. But even in this direction the legal 
 theory of autocracy remained rudimentary ; as late as 
 the beginning of the nineteenth century there existed 
 no legally established order of succession. In the un- 
 developed understanding of Muscovite rulers^ Evi- 
 dently the actual facts appeared much more solid than 
 any legal claims; and this was the reason why they 
 neglected every opportunity of getting any legal foun- 
 dation for their power. 
 
 Now, however, the theocratic foundation of the 
 Russian autocracy soon became very much enfeebled 
 by the apostasy of the Tsars from what was con-
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 167 
 
 sidered by the overwhelming- majority of the nation 
 to be pure national Orthodoxy. We know the facts : 
 the national authorities themselves found national Or- 
 thodoxy to be spurious ; it had to be amended after the 
 Greek model. Since that time the old national creed 
 has been separated from the national state. Moreover, 
 the representati\'es of the state were thenceforth con- 
 sidered by the "Old-believers" to be delegates, not of 
 God, but of Satan. And even those people who per- 
 sisted in their former belief in the divine rig-ht of the 
 Tsars were indifferent as to the particular rights of 
 any given representative of power. Did not "every 
 power" proceed from God ? And so what did it matter 
 where that power actually lay? The "Period of 
 Troubles" ( 1598- 161 3) and the change of dynasty may 
 have strengthened this way of thinking, which is desig- 
 nated by a contemporary writer under the picturesque 
 term of "low-spiritedness." 
 
 The objection may be raised, however, that dur- 
 ing the "Troubles" the peasants kept defending the 
 right of a legal offspring to their democratic hero, 
 John IV.,® and that thus they were on the side of the 
 right. The fact is true, but the explanation may be 
 otherwise. The peasants just defended the legal heir 
 as their Tsar, one likely to take their side; and at the 
 same time they did not care much whether he was an 
 authentic person or an impostor. The "low-spirited- 
 ness" of those people made them sustain the right of 
 the first pretender, if only he was supposed to represent 
 the popular program. The popular pretenders to the 
 throne of the Tsar did not even need to conceal that 
 
 • See chap, vi, pp. 353, 354.
 
 i68 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 they were impostors. Later on, Poogachov, for in- 
 stance, not satisfied with having taken the false name 
 of Peter III., husband to Catherine II., gave to his 
 auxiharies the names of the first dignitaries of the 
 empire. Though everybody knew^ who they actually 
 were, nobody refused to acknowledge them in their 
 new quality. The power of the Tsar was, of course, 
 sacrosanct; but it w^as an institution, not a particular 
 person, that was venerated under the title. Thus even 
 such partisans of autocracy as admired the pretended 
 love of the Russian people for their rulers the most 
 enthusiastically, never tried even to prove that these 
 people were legitimists. "God is far above, and the 
 Tsar is far off" — this saying, so characteristic of the 
 passive obedience and indifferent skepticism of Russian 
 peasants toward any actual power, always remained. 
 We see now why the theocratic foundation of autoc- 
 racy could not supply the lack of a legal formula. In 
 any case such a legal formula had yet to be invented. 
 This w^as done, for the first time in Russian history, in 
 the day of Peter the Great, at the time of his entire 
 reconstruction of the state institutions upon European 
 models. Thus, by a curious coincidence, the autocracy 
 got its legal formula at the very moment when it 
 had decidedly broken with its oriental past. Naturally 
 enough, the new legal formula then invented was 
 in no w^ay dependent on the old theocratic foundation 
 of autocracy. Here again the tradition was cut off. 
 The new formula was borrowed from the current and 
 very modern doctrine of "natural law." According 
 to the "law of nature" the human rulers were not to 
 be considered as vice-gefents of God, appointed by
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 169 
 
 direct mandate of the Creator, but rather as delegates 
 of the people, deriving their power from a common 
 consent, "a social contract" of the nation. This theory 
 of "the social contract" was formally acknowledged 
 during Peter's reign in the official writing compiled by 
 the enlightened and learned archbishop, Theophanes 
 Prokopovich. The direct aim of his political pamphlet 
 was, as its title indicated, to prove the "Right of the 
 Monarch's Will;" namely, to justify Peter the Great's 
 disposition as to the free right of a monarch to nomi- 
 nate the heir-apparent. But in order to prove that, 
 Prokopovich made of the theory of social contract an 
 acknowledged state theory. "Every form of govern- 
 ment," Prokopovich asserts, " has its origin in an initial 
 mutual agreement among the people." Tlie object of 
 this agreement being the general welfare, the ruler is 
 obliged to care for the common good of the people; 
 though in case of inadvertence or misuse of his power, 
 even in Prokopovich's theory, he is answerable only to 
 God. 
 
 The moral feeling of Peter himself was quite in har- 
 mony with this new doctrine of autocracy. Peter was 
 one of the first and most typical representatives of the 
 "enlightened absolutism" of the eighteenth century. 
 Long before Frederic the Great, he proclaimed, and 
 actually practiced, the theory that the prince is the first 
 servant of the people. Of course, he served his people 
 as he himself chose, and, on account of his crudity and 
 violence of temper, his was a most despotic rule. It was 
 not in vain that in his political tract Prokopovich 
 formally deduced from popular election the right of 
 Peter to change "every rite, civil and religious, every
 
 170 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 custom, whether in the wearing of dresses, or in the 
 building of houses, in every kind of ceremony and pre- 
 scribed form at festivities, nuptials, burials, and so 
 forth." This is an accurate abstract of what Peter 
 really did. The practice as well as the theory of the 
 absolute monarchy were, now that autocracy was recast 
 into the quite new and more modern form of bureau- 
 cratic absolutism, quite revolutionary. The power of 
 the monarch, as well as the habits of his subjects, were 
 Europeanized — in an Asiatic manner. 
 
 The next step in the legal development of the auto- 
 cratic doctrine was taken some sixty years later, when, 
 during the reign of Catherine II., a truer and finer sort 
 of enlightened absolutism prevailed in Russia. This 
 new step led still farther away from the accepted Mus- 
 covite doctrine and, accordingly, from the old tradi- 
 tion. Catherine II. knew and shared in the theory of 
 "the law of nature," as everybody did at her time. 
 But she did not seem to know that a deduction might 
 be drawn from this theory, such as Hobbes had drawn 
 and Peter had practiced; namely, that the power of 
 the people's elected is absolute and unlimited. By her 
 principles she was not absolutist ; nay, she affirmed that 
 in her inner conscience she was republican. But, on 
 the other hand, Catherine felt a positive aversion to 
 the other extreme deduction from the theory of 
 "natural law;" namely, Rousseau's democratic theory 
 of "the social contract." She held rather a moderate 
 variation of the same theory — that of Montesquieu, her 
 principal teacher in politics. She was very glad to 
 know from Montesquieu that Russian autocracy ad- 
 mitted of what was then called a "philosophical" justi-
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 171 
 
 fication. The Russian territory was so much extended, 
 Montesquieu taught, that no other form of govern- 
 ment than the existing was there possible. And this 
 rationahstic explanation was followed by a rehabilita- 
 tion of autocracy, which was as agreeable to the Rus- 
 sian empress as it had been to the king of France. 
 The courteous writer kindly explained to both that a 
 European monarchy need not be humiliated by a com- 
 parison with Asiatic despotism. European monarchy 
 had originated in feudalism, and so it must be limited 
 by the rights and privileges of different social orders, 
 among which the nobility was chief. 
 
 There was, however, as we have seen, no feudalism 
 and not much of a nobility in Russia. But those social 
 orders might be formed anew on the European pattern ; 
 and Catherine proceeded to form such privileged orders 
 as Montesquieu wished. This seemed very easy to do 
 with the Russian nobility, which was then in its ascend- 
 ency, and which actually was the only influential social 
 power likely to form a check upon despotism. But the 
 same reform did not succeed at all with the " bourgeoi- 
 sie," which Catherine II. was powerless to create. 
 Lastly, it also proved impossible with the peasants, who 
 had to be left as serfs of the nobility, if the nobility were 
 to be favored. In fact, the position of the peasants was 
 aggravated, because the privileged nobility were now 
 no longer mere "men of service" dependent on the 
 government ; they now turned their former land grants 
 and military tenures into an entirely private property.^" 
 A self-government of the nobility was begun in the 
 country, recalling the provincial estates of France, or 
 
 " See p. 237.
 
 172 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 the land diets of Germany. Now that the pouvoirs 
 intermediaircs of Montesquieu — the "intermediate 
 powers" between the people and the throne — were cre- 
 ated in the provincial government and in the social 
 composition, a "true monarchy" could be realized in 
 Russia, as a political form quite opposed to an oriental 
 "despotism." But in order to achieve this liberal trans- 
 formation, should not a "true monarchy" be organized 
 as a " limited " one? 
 
 From the very beginning this logical issue did not 
 seem to be grasped by Catherine. She began her reign 
 by convoking a representative assembly elected by a 
 large vote, but she never thought of admitting these 
 deputies to share her power. The assembly remained 
 a deliberative one, and just as soon as it showed a 
 tendency toward independence, Catherine used the 
 first pretext — the Turkish war — to send away the 
 deputies. Nevertheless, for long, she cherished the 
 idea of perpetuating her deputies in a regular central 
 office, as Diderot urged her to do. Finally, how- 
 ever, she recoiled from this plan. The only remaining 
 method of transforming her arbitrary power into a 
 regular monarchy, according to the idea of Montes- 
 quieu, consisted in drawing a sharp line between the 
 legislative and the administrative power. But even 
 this task became much more difficult — in fact, quite 
 impossible — since Catherine had renounced her former 
 resolution of founding a representative assembly. For 
 so long as there is no representation there can be no 
 regular legislation. This is the unvarnished truth, 
 which the subsequent practice of Russian political 
 institutions did not fail to confirm, and which a
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 173 
 
 whole century of persecution has not been able to 
 eradicate from public opinion in Russia. 
 
 But let us see now what was done for the further 
 "self-improvement" of autocracy during this last cen- 
 tury of the Russian history. The nineteenth century 
 began by the attempt to take the third and most decisive 
 step from theocratic absolutism to legal monarchy. 
 Alexander I. mounted the throne with an ardent desire 
 to proclaim the rights of man and to give Russia a 
 constitution. But he was not able even to abolish the 
 most crying abuses in the sale of serfs ; and he thrice 
 failed in his endeavor to grant his subjects a constitu- 
 tional charter. On the first occasion, in 1801-2, the 
 affair did not go beyond a vague and general discussion 
 in the intimate circle of some few friends. But the 
 second time, in 1809, Alexander I. went farther." 
 This time there existed a definite plan of reform, 
 drawn up by Speransky. The Tsar had begun to put 
 this plan into execution, and had already taken the 
 first steps when he suddenly changed his mind, and, 
 yielding to the pressure of Speransky's enemies, sent 
 him into exile. The program was then abandoned: 
 and so the only institution brought into existence was 
 the Council of State. It had now to take the place of 
 the legislative assembly of representatives planned by 
 Speransky. Until the present time this council has 
 remained the chief — though far from the only^^ 
 
 "It was then that he addressed himself to George Washington, 
 who sent him a copy of the American constitution. 
 
 ^-An imperial order is law in Russia as well as the opinion of 
 the State Council confirmed by his majesty. All the chief measures 
 of the two last reigns were taken without asking for the "opinions" 
 of the State Council. And even if the "opinion" is asked for and
 
 174 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 legislative body in the Russian empire. In 1819, for 
 the third time, the draft of the constitution was 
 worked over by the Tsar's former friend, Novoseeltsov, 
 who was assisted by a French lawyer, Dechamps. But 
 though this was done by the Tsar's explicit order, 
 Alexander again withheld his consent at the last mo- 
 ment. He had just then come under the influence of 
 Metternich, who is known to have been anything but 
 favorable to free institutions. 
 
 Now what, we may ask, was the reason for this un- 
 decided and wavering conduct of the Russian autocrat? 
 Is the explanation to be sought, where Speransky was 
 said to have found it, in the personal temper of the 
 Tsar, who was "trop faible pour rcgir et trop fort pour 
 etre regi"? Or did Alexander's other counselors con- 
 sider that Russia was not ripe enough for a constitu- 
 tion? Or^ was it on principle that they opposed any 
 change in the form of government? Any one of these 
 three reasons — the personal character of the Tsar, the 
 real unpreparedness of Russia, the nationalistic opposi- 
 tion of the partisans of autocracy — would actually ac- 
 count for the failure. But what, on the other hand, 
 was the theory of the defenders of the constitution? 
 Their theory has been voiced by Speransky. In the 
 introduction to his draft of the "constitution," he 
 says:^^ 
 
 At every epoch the form of government must correspond to 
 the degree of civil enlightenment to which the state has attained. 
 
 given the emperor is not bound by the decision of its majority. 
 Emperor Alexander I., for instance, adopted the opinion of the 
 minority eighty-three times out of two hundred and forty-two times 
 in which the "opinions" were not unanimous. 
 
 " The following quotation is a little shortened from the original 
 text of Speransky.
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 175 
 
 Whenever the form of government is too slow or too fast to 
 keep pace with this degree of enhghtenment, it is overthrown 
 with more or less commotion. Thus time is the origin of every 
 renovation in politics. No government which does not harmonize 
 with the spirit of the times can ever stand against its powerful 
 action. How many calamities, how much blood, could be spared, 
 if the rulers of nations would observe with accuracy the move- 
 ment of public opinion, if they would conform to it the principles 
 of their systems of policy and adapt the government to the state 
 of the people, instead of adapting the people to the government ! 
 And see, what a contradiction ! You wish that sciences, com- 
 merce, ana industry should be developed, and you do not admit 
 their most natural consequences; you desire that Reason may 
 be free, but that Will should be fettered; that passions may 
 move and change, but that the object of these passions— which is 
 freedom— should remain unapproachable; that people should 
 grow rich, but that they may not use the best fruit of their 
 increase of wealth— liberty. There is no example in the world 
 of an enlightened and industrious people's remaining any length 
 of time in serfdom. The Russian state is now passing through 
 the second stage of the feudal system; namely, the epoch of 
 autocracy. Undoubtedly it is tending directly to freedom. In 
 part this tendency is even more straightforward in Russia than it 
 was in other countries. The unfailing signs of it are: (i) That 
 people lose all esteem for the former objects of their veneration, 
 e. g., for rank and honor. (2) The action of power is so 
 weakened .... that no measure of government can be put into 
 operation which appeals only to moral, and not to physical con- 
 straint. The true reason of this is that at present public opinion 
 is in entire contradiction with the form of government. (3) No 
 partial reform is possible, because no law can exist, if it may 
 any day be overthrown by a gust of arbitrary power. (4) There 
 is a general discontent to be observed, such as can only be 
 explained by a complete change of ideas, and by a repressed but 
 strong desire for a new order of things. For all these reasons 
 we may surely conclude that the actual form of government does 
 not correspond to the state of popular feeling, and that the time 
 has come to change this form and to found a new order of 
 things.
 
 1/6 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 But did not Speransky rather exaggerate the meas- 
 ure in which the popular opinion of the Russia of 1809 
 was ready for constitutional reform? It is likely that 
 he did. But then, did he not wish to start the reform 
 in time to prevent bloodshed and popular irritation? 
 He knew how to read the "signs of the times;'' and, 
 indeed, time proved his forebodings correct. Hardly 
 had a few years passed after he had uttered this 
 prophecy before blood really was shed on the streets of 
 St. Petersburg, and the first martyrs to political free- 
 dom appeared in Russia — the Decembrists of 1825. 
 Since then the number of those martyrs has enormously 
 increased; from units it has mounted to hundreds, 
 thousands, tens of thousands! 
 
 Let us pass over this century of political struggle 
 to see how, since the time of Speransky, public opinion 
 has actually become more embittered and violent on 
 the subject of Russian autocracy. Let me now quote 
 the speech of a Russian lawyer, recently delivered in 
 1903 at the trial of students and workingmen who were 
 accused of having taken part in a political demonstra- 
 tion in the city of Saratov. Revolutionary songs w'ere 
 there sung and banners hoisted, bearing such inscrip- 
 tions as "Down with autocracy!" This was a spectacle 
 very different from that wdiich Petersburg displayed 
 in the year 1825; and this comparison alone may help 
 you to realize how much the state of popular feeling 
 has changed during the course of one century. At that 
 time — three-quarters of a century ago — some few offi- 
 cers of aristocratic birth had become imbued with the 
 tenets of liberalism in western Europe (during the 
 military expeditions of 181 3-1 5), and made their sub-
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 177 
 
 ordinate soldiers demonstrate, without having- previ- 
 ously trained them for sympathy with their political 
 ideas; they chose an interregnum, as a seasonable 
 moment, and an oath of fealty to the very power they 
 wished to dispossess as a convenient pretext, for their 
 pronunciamento. But for all that they did not know 
 what to do with the forces they had gathered around 
 them, and they remained irresolutely in one place the 
 whole day, until they were dispersed by a few salvos 
 of artillery. Now, in the Saratov demonstration of 
 1903 we see only the small part of a great move- 
 ment, which from the capital has spread over all Rus- 
 sia, gaining adherents even among the lowest levels 
 of society, and which consciously and deliberately pur- 
 sues its scheme of social revolution. Political reform 
 is for this movement only the first and easiest means 
 of gaining better conditions for a further, more success- 
 ful struggle. Let us listen for a moment to the argu- 
 ment of the Russian lawyer, Mr. Wolkenstein, whose 
 plea was in defense of some persons accused of having 
 "criticised autocracy." In the fragment I quote the 
 advocate endeavors to show what the criticising of 
 autocracy really means at the present time in Russia. 
 Mr. Wolkenstein says : 
 
 In every conscientious text-book of state law you may find 
 what the "criticising of autocracy" means. Who "criticises" 
 autocracy "criticises" its evils : bureaucracy, centralization, admin- 
 istrative discretion, denial of the rights of individuality. But all 
 this is in our time everyday talk, words that have become truisms. 
 Open any newspaper you like, even a most reactionary one. 
 Should it be a question concerning school reform, you may find 
 such remarks as follows : Our school has become dead under the 
 pressure of bureaucracy. And what about the budget? The
 
 178 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 press, coerced by censors, still criticises openly the system of 
 taxation, whose whole weight rests upon the hungering mass 
 of paupers. Is it not a criticism of the regime? Are not finance 
 and taxation the chief center of the nervous system of the state? 
 Is it not by this very protest against the despotic and arbitrary 
 collection of taxes and the manner of spending the money col- 
 lected that nations always begin their struggle for political 
 liberty? Do you not hear the voices resounding from every- 
 where : from shires and counties, from province and capital, from 
 cities and villages — from every corner of the nation? These 
 speeches about the equalization of the rights of every station, 
 about the abolition of arbitrary administration, about the emanci- 
 pation from administrative tutelage, about the nationalizing of 
 land — is not all this a condemnation of the existing regime? 
 Now, these speeches form the reply of the educated class to the 
 question which recently posed the government — as to where 
 poverty and famine come from. Do not these speeches violate 
 Article 252 of the Statute of Penalties? [This was the founda- 
 tion of the accusation made by the state's attorney.] But the 
 government keeps silence and listens to such speeches. 
 
 It keeps silence, too, toward the loud voice of the Russian 
 nation ! This voice claims a share in legislation. Is this also no 
 condemnation of the established order of the state? 
 
 And such voices resound often and oftener. Bend your ear 
 and you shall hear how they murmur! And how persistent, and 
 how bold ! Twenty years ago they were answered by a repression 
 of what was called the "anarchy in provincial councils." Seven 
 years ago there rang concerning these "dreams" a threatening 
 veto of one [the Tsar] whose word is law for the empire." And 
 now the only reply to these voices is — silence! Meanwhile the 
 press, muzzled though it is by the censorship, asks for a general 
 representative assembly of the land — the Zemsky Sobor; it pro- 
 claims the "people's council" in 1903. 
 
 " The advocate refers here to a phrase pronounced by the Tsar 
 in the beginning of his reign. " Senseless dreams " was the qualifica- 
 tion of liberal aspirations by the young sovereign, in a speech which 
 is generally supposed to have been prepared for the Tsar by Mr. 
 Pobedonostsev, and which was pronounced before an audience of 
 land-marshals, come to congratulate the Tsar on his coronation.
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION I79 
 
 Life changes. Authority also changes its view. At last there 
 comes a time when authority gives ear to such things as were 
 forbidden even to be spoken in a whisper. 
 
 Gentlemen of the jury, you have just been told that your 
 sentence will put an end to the demonstrations; that demon- 
 strations disturb general tranquillity and unsettle people's well- 
 being. Well, I assert the contrary! Apart from the demon- 
 strations you will find no tranquillity in Russian society. The 
 fermentation is spread everywhere. The people here accused' 
 are guilty only of having spoken aloud what is said in a 
 thousand ways everywhere. Through the impermeable muteness 
 of our life, through all its pores, oozes criticism of the regime. 
 A criticism of the existing order bursts forth roaring and 
 whistling through every crack and gap. That is what these men 
 have seen and heard. And therefore they hoisted their red 
 banner. You may convict them. But then you must realize that 
 together with them tens, nay hundreds, of thousands of Russian 
 citizens are being judged. 
 
 This lawyer's speech, delivered in one of the late 
 political trials, shows clearly what is the general feeling 
 toward autocracy in Russia, and in the face of such 
 growing irritation autocracy has completely changed 
 its tactics. In the period from Peter the Great until 
 Alexander I. we saw it passing through a process of 
 self-improvement. Henceforth, we observe it in the 
 stages of another process: that of self-preservation. 
 When the Tsar Alexander I. visited England in 1814, 
 he spoke enthusiastically to the Whigs of the necessity 
 of forming an opposition in Russia, in order that a 
 parliamentary government might be started. Two 
 years later his younger brother, Nicholas, when on the 
 rjoint of visiting England, received instructions in 
 ^A^hich he was told not to imagine that it would be pos- 
 sible to copy an organic development like the English 
 constitution, in quite another climate and different
 
 i8o RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 surroundings. This fragment of a nationalistic view 
 became the poHtical theory which was used by the 
 government in self-defense just at the moment when 
 an actual "opposition" appeared in Russia. 
 
 The full blossoming of nationalistic theory, as we 
 already know, coincided with the reign of Nicholas I. 
 (1825-55). Then the nationalistic doctrine of Slavo- 
 philism was built. ^^ Now, the government of Nicholas, 
 in its system of self-preservation, surpassed by far the 
 nationalistic theory of the Slavophils. Conservative 
 though this theory was, it started from the notion of 
 the national "spirit" of the people as a living force, as 
 an active and creative power not to be stopped or ruled 
 by state policy or by the measures of the police. The 
 authority of the state, to be sure, was fully recognized 
 by the Slavophils, but their idea of what a state had 
 to be was not a flattering one. The state was some- 
 thing like the "flesh" in Greek philosophy and in 
 Christian morals; it was a principle of sin and evil; 
 and it had to be kept far from the free life of spirit ; its 
 only right and duty was to secure to the spirit the full 
 enjoyment of its inner freedom. No wonder that this 
 kind of nationalistic theory could not be adopted by 
 the government; on the contrary, it had become sus- 
 pected of democratism, and its supporters had them- 
 selves to experience what the actual policy of a national- 
 istic reaction was. Their periodicals were forbidden, 
 all their writings submitted to a special censorship, 
 their persons were put under the strictest surveillance 
 of the police.^" What the government really wanted 
 
 ^ See pp. 52-57- 
 
 " See pp. 365, 366, where radical and democratic deductions 
 from Slavophilism are shown.
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION i8i 
 
 in the way of a nationalistic theory it formulated for 
 itself. This was the doctrine of "official nationalism/' 
 poor and scanty as a political theory, but quite oper- 
 ative as a means for carrying out a policy of thought- 
 less immobility and reaction. 
 
 Such a theory did not need to be developed in 
 political pamphlets or in learned treatises. It found 
 expression in manifestos and official reports. The 
 most discursive exposition of it belongs to the minister 
 of public instruction, Count Ouvarov, who is gener- 
 ally accepted as the founder of the theory of "official 
 nationalism." To make you realize its tenets as well 
 as its political meaning, I cannot do better than to 
 quote from a report to the Tsar by Ouvarov, which was 
 written at the beginning of his ministerial activity, the 
 new nationalistic area, 1833. I" his pompous and 
 flourishing style, he writes : 
 
 While contemplating the problem which was to be imme- 
 diately solved — a problem closely connected with the future 
 of our fatherland — the mind involuntarily gave way almost to 
 despair and it wavered in its conclusions, while considering the 
 social tempest, which was making Europe tremble and whose 
 reverberations, more or less strong, reached us and threatened 
 us, as an impending danger. In the midst of religious and civil 
 institutions rapidly on the decline in Europe, keeping in view the 
 universal spread of subversive ideas and attending to distressing 
 events that were happening at every step, it was necessary to 
 establish the fatherland on those stable foundations on which 
 the welfare, the strength, and the life of the nation are generally, 
 built; it was necessary to discover such principles as beonged 
 exclusively to Russia— those principles which formed its pecu- 
 liar characteristics; to gather in one the sacred remainders of 
 its nationality, and there to anchor our hopes of salvation. 
 Happily Russia has preserved a warm faith in the salutary
 
 i82 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 principles without which it cannot prosper, grow stronger, nay 
 even live. While deeply and sincerely attached to the church 
 of his fathers, a Russian always thought of his church as a 
 covenant of social and family welfare. Without love for the 
 belief of his forefathers, the nation as well as the individual must 
 perish. A Russian who is devoted to his native country would 
 not acquiesce in the loss of any of the dogmas of our Orthodoxy, 
 or agree to be robbed of one of the pearls in the diadem of 
 Monomach." Autocracy is the chief condition of the political 
 existence of Russia. The Russian giant rests on it, as on the 
 corner-stone of his greatness. And besides these two national 
 principles there is a third not less important : that of nationality. 
 The question of nationality is more complex than the previous 
 one; but both originate in the same source and are united on 
 every page of Russian history. The difficulty consists here in 
 reconciling the old and the new ideas about nationality. But the 
 principle of nationality does not necessarily imply standing still 
 or going back; it does not demand immutability of ideas. The 
 state composition, like the human body, changes its outward 
 aspect with age: features are changed, but the general physiog- 
 nomy ought not to be changed. It would be improper to resist 
 the periodic march of things; it is enough if we may preserve 
 untouched the sanctuary of Russian popular notions, in order to 
 take them for a fundamental idea of government. 
 
 Thus appeared, immediately after the European 
 revokitions of 1830-31, the famous trinity of the Rus- 
 sian official nationalism : autocracy. Orthodoxy, and — 
 in as bad logical as material co-ordination — nationality. 
 Since that time the Russian government has never 
 renounced this doctrine, and Russian public opinion 
 has never in the struggle against it given in, excepting, 
 perhaps, a few years at the beginning of the reign of 
 Alexander 11. , when the preparations for the emanci- 
 pation of the peasants were going on. With this one 
 
 "One of the insignia, mentioned on p. 164.
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 183 
 
 exception, the whole period of the last three-quarters 
 of a century may be called one epoch of lasting con- 
 flict between government and public opinion. Many 
 things that would be found abnormal in every civilized 
 country have become quite normal and customary dur- 
 ing this long progress of political struggle in Russia. 
 What the ideas and the active forces of public opinion 
 are we shall see presently. But for the present we 
 have to consider what were the means resorted to by 
 the Russian government, in order to keep back the 
 increasing current of opposition. Seeing how severe 
 these means were, we shall be able to judge of the 
 strength of the movement that the government was 
 trying to fetter. You know, perhaps, that at the end 
 of March, 1903, two imperial edicts gave a kind of 
 dictatorial power to the governor-general of Finland. 
 By this new instruction he not only was entitled to 
 control and to direct every office and public institution 
 in the country, including the elective ones, to permit 
 and to stop public meetings and the collection of money 
 for whatever object, to control public and private 
 instruction, and so forth, but he also received, by a 
 temporary statute, such full powers as befit a formal 
 state of war: he is now free to arrest and to exile 
 persons whom he finds dangerous to the general tran- 
 quillity, to seize property, to close any establishment 
 of trade and commerce, to deprive any official, even 
 an elected one, of his office. 
 
 For a country like Finland — a country that has 
 been accustomed to be ruled by law — such measures 
 as these are nothing short of revolutionary. The 
 legal regime is at once overthrown by regulations
 
 i84 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 which, in the eyes of the people, not having received 
 sanction from the popular representatives, cannot 
 represent lav^^ either by their form or by their origin. 
 Now in Russia a like state of things, revolutionary 
 though it may be in its essence, has existed for years; 
 and, as people have never known what a legal regime 
 in politics really is, the same discretionary power does 
 not bring about nearly so much irritation as one might 
 think. Nay, there are people, there are even some 
 writers on politics, who find that even such arbitrary 
 rule, when it is thus founded on edicts and "tem- 
 porary" regulations, is better than a paternal regime 
 of unbounded autocracy, just because it is a step for- 
 ward toward a state of legality; at least, arbitrary 
 power is thus publicly proclaimed abnormal, and con- 
 fined within certain more or less definite limits. 
 
 In fact, the discretionary power of the Russian 
 government, having been formally extended by stat- 
 utes, has become more clearly defined, and thus in a 
 way more limited. But this certainly was not the aim 
 • of the authorities who wished their powers rather to 
 be enlarged. The direct purpose was always to give 
 the government some additional weapon in its inter- 
 minable struggle against public opinion. A short 
 survey of historical facts will suffice to prove this 
 assertion. 
 
 The first time that the ordinary — the "executive" 
 — police were found insufificient for the preservation 
 of the general tranquillity was at the time of the 
 military rebellion of St. Petersburg in 1825 — the 
 "December" mutiny. A contemporary. Count Lafer- 
 ronnais, the French ambassador, testified as follows 
 concerning the general tendency of public opinion :
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 185 
 
 The chief evil is that even the most prudent of men, such 
 as looked with horror and disgust upon the events, think and 
 say aloud that reforms are necessary, that a code is wanted, 
 that forms and principles of justice must be entirely altered, that 
 peasants are to be protected from the insupportable arbitrary 
 power of their lords, that it is dangerous to remain stationary, 
 that it is quite necessary to follow — if only at some distance — 
 the progress of time, and to prepare, though slowly, for more 
 decisive changes. 
 
 Such was also, as we know, the opinion of Speran- 
 sky. But such was not, of course, the opinion of the 
 emperor, Nicholas I. "Miserably educated," accord- 
 ing to his own statement, and fond of military disci- 
 pline and obedience, he did not realize the necessity, so 
 clear to Speransky, of following the progress of the 
 time. Yet even Nicholas understood that absolute 
 monarchy was powerless to control the abuses of 
 bureaucracy, and that some extraordinary measures 
 must be taken, if robbery, embezzlement, and the other 
 vices of a bureaucratic regime were to be done away 
 with. It was to improve these bureaucratic abuses 
 that the secret society of the "Decembrists" had been 
 started some years before.^* Now that its members 
 were hanged or exiled, Nicholas resolved to recur to 
 another kind of secret redress for public wrongs — 
 the kind that had been used by oriental monarchs 
 more than once. He founded — or rather he reformed 
 — the system of close surveillance both of society and 
 of state officials by means of a special body of the 
 state police, who should be the "ears" and the "eyes" 
 of the Tsar. The chief of this "separate corps of 
 gendarmes" was at the same time the chief of the 
 
 " See pp. 254-59.
 
 i86 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 "Third Section of His Majesty's Private Chancery," 
 and as such stood in close and immediate relation to 
 the monarch. The subordinate officers were scattered 
 all over the country, and had to correspond with their 
 chief on the subject of private morals and public 
 grievances. 
 
 The system was founded on the supposition that 
 the superior policemen were to be superior men — a 
 supposition which proved to be very hazardous. In 
 fact, the new set of officials were on quite the same 
 level as the old ones. Thus the system of bribery 
 and embezzlement was not broken, but only strength- 
 ened by a fresh link in the chain, and a more impor- 
 tant one, because the members of the superior police 
 in the provinces were surrounded by a halo of the 
 mysterious and irresponsible power from which they 
 drew their origin. Thus, though the original aim 
 was not attained, the "blue coats" of the gendarmerie 
 were soon found to form a most essential spring of 
 absolute power. Every illegal action against person 
 and property has since been carried out with their 
 help. Had an influential person to extricate him- 
 self from some complicated pecuniary or family affairs 
 that were not to be divulged or were not expected 
 to be untangled to his satisfaction in the ordi- 
 nary courts, by the current law, the officers of the 
 "Third Section" were there to relieve — not orphans 
 and widows, as they were supposed to — but the op- 
 pressor at the cost of his victim. It was like the 
 lettres de cachet of the ancien regime in France. 
 Again, had a too popular writer, or a too successful 
 sectarian chief, an applauded actor or actress, or even
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 187 
 
 an influential official, to be removed from his scene 
 of action and made harmless, a secret order was im- 
 mediately given, and the person in question suddenly 
 disappeared in the darkness of night, to reappear some 
 days afterward in some remote corner of Russia. All 
 these were manifestations of the paternal tutelage 
 which Nicholas I. claimed over his subjects as a 
 constituent part of the absolute power inherited from 
 his predecessors. 
 
 It is easy to understand why the "Third Section" 
 was hated by everybody and soon became proverbial 
 as the incarnation of the Russian autocratic regime. 
 It was supposed to fall into disuse, as a victim of this 
 general hatred, when the liberal reforms of Alexander 
 II. began; but, in fact, it was abolished only in the 
 last year of his reign (1880), after having served the 
 new wants of the government, and it only gave place 
 to new institutions of a similar kind which were 
 found to be more appropriate to the new requirements 
 for the self-defense of autocracy. 
 
 The new measures just hinted at were called into 
 existence by a new period of struggle between the 
 government and the revolutionists in the decade 1870- 
 80. The general situation which made the govern- 
 ment feel very strongly the necessity for new "bills 
 of coercion" is clearly represented by the minister of 
 the interior, Valooyev, in his report to the Committee 
 of the Ministers of 1879. We may compare his avowal 
 with the testimony of Laferronnais, quoted above: 
 
 We must not exaggerate the importance of the difficulties 
 and dangers to be conibatted; still the situation is rather em- 
 barrassing. A very bad sign is, first of all, such indifference as
 
 i88 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 is shown by nearly all more or less educated people regarding 
 the struggle of the government against a comparatively small 
 number of malefactors [i. e., revolutionists]. The majority of the 
 population is agitated, but it seems to wait for the issue of the 
 struggle, while not sharing in it and not taking the side of the 
 government. Moreover, the general public are nearly always 
 badly disposed toward the orders of the authorities, while they 
 find the measures that are taken sometimes too weak, sometimes 
 too oppressive. As regards the masses, who either do not reason 
 at all or who reason insufficiently, among them two different 
 inclinations may be observed. They are ready to help when first 
 called; but their assistance is disorderly and violent, bordering 
 on arbitrariness, and so is too dangerous to be relied upon. At 
 the same time these masses are accessible to every promise that 
 is held out to them of material profits or of new franchises ; and 
 when influenced by such promises they are always ready to 
 refuse obedience to their immediate authorities. 
 
 Under these circumstances no moral help from the 
 side of the populace could be hoped for, and a set of 
 new measures were taken in order to enlarge the power 
 of the local authorities. No less than twenty edicts 
 concerning those measures were then codified into a 
 kind of system in 1881 and, without being trans- 
 formed into standing law, were published as a decree 
 of the Committee of Ministers approved by the emperor 
 to be applied as "temporary" regulations. But since 
 then these "Regulations Concerning Enforced and 
 Extraordinary Protection" have remained a Russian 
 habeas corpus. They correspond pretty nearly to what 
 is understood in Prussia by the phrase "small state of 
 siege" and "great state of siege." And even during 
 these last few years, when the situation has again been 
 very much aggravated, even when compared with the 
 decennium 1873-84, the statute seems to be on the
 
 Districts and 
 
 Provinces. 
 _. Separate Cities 
 
 and Towns. 
 ^3 Districts and 
 ^3 Provinces. 
 ^» Separate Cities 
 
 and Towns. 
 
 Under the "Enforced Protection." 
 
 Where meetings are particularly forbidden. (Art. 421.)
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 189 
 
 point of being enriched by new methods of adminis- 
 trative oppression and by the use of miHtary force. ^^ 
 Let us now see what the combined result of all 
 these "temporary" measures of the state policy is — 
 measures which have formed a real tradition during 
 the last three quarters of the century. First, these 
 measures have multiplied exceedingly the number of 
 institutions and persons whose particular duty it is to 
 observe, to discover, and to punish political offenses. 
 If you live in either of the two capital cities of Russia, 
 and if you have the bad luck of manifesting political 
 activity, you may be traced by one of these institu- 
 tions, questioned by the second, and punished by the 
 third; although none of them have anything to do 
 with the general courts of justice. The honorable 
 office which watches your doings and sayings is 
 the Ohrannoye Otdclaineye of the prefect of the city 
 or the "Department for Protection." Its agents are 
 very numerous; they are scattered everywhere — in 
 schools and universities among the students, in editors' 
 offices among the journalists, in social gatherings, in 
 railway stations, in the most frequented streets, in 
 factories among the workingmen, even in revolu- 
 tionary circles and social-democratic organizations, in 
 private circles for self-culture, and among the young 
 people of the middle schools. What Tacitus says 
 about the dclatorcs of the time of Tiberius and Nero 
 is trifling in comparison with the large system of 
 denunciation actually at work in Russia. 
 
 Authorities who use this system are themselves 
 
 " On the map one may see how lar},'e is that part of the empire 
 in which the state of siege is continuous.
 
 igo RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 sometimes bewildered by its extent, and by the quality 
 of the implements; I myself have heard the gen- 
 darmes, the representatives of the former " Third Sec- 
 tion," boast their pride in that they no longer form a 
 part of the system, since the Ohrana has been formed. 
 Unhappily, they are not entirely right in their boast, 
 since their fellow-workers do the same thing in the Rus- 
 sian provinces, where no agents of the Ohrana exist. 
 And in the cities they perform the function of formal 
 inquiry, the second step after a person has been tracked 
 by the spies of the Ohrana. Thus, even where the 
 gendarmes are not spies and detectives, they are in- 
 quirers and — very often — inquisitors. While making 
 inquiry, these agents do not produce the evidence of 
 your accusation ; they try to conceal as much of what 
 they know about you as possible. They ask you 
 simply to avow what they do not yet know, and in 
 order to induce you to the avowal they use tricks such 
 as would never be permitted in a regular court of 
 justice. The inexperienced and the least guilty always 
 run the risk of aggravating their position, and even 
 of being convicted of quite imaginary faults, by break- 
 ing down before this Jesuitic system of inquiry. The 
 more experienced abstain now more and more from 
 giving any answers. A representative of regular 
 justice, who is obliged by law to assist at this trial, is 
 in fact rarely present. 
 
 In theory, the case, when stated by organs of pre- 
 vious inquiry, must then be sent over to an ordinary 
 court, in order to be pleaded before the jury. But, as 
 a matter of fact, this hardly ever happens. The regu- 
 lar Russian courts, founded in 1864, have been proved
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 191 
 
 too independent and liberal. In 1878 they declared 
 Vera Zasoolich not guilty — a girl who had fired at 
 the prefect of Petersburg, General Trepov, after hav- 
 ing read in the newspapers that he had had one of the 
 political prisoners flogged. Since then, by a set of 
 imperial orders, special courts have been introduced, 
 and governors-general have been given the right of 
 transferring political crimes to the courts martial. 
 But even these special tribunals presently fell into 
 disuse. This is due partly to the desire of the govern- 
 ment to avoid every public discussion of politics, be- 
 cause special courts", though made inaccessible to the 
 general public, yet gave to the accused and to their 
 advocates the chance of an open defense, which could 
 then be made public through the channel of the 
 clandestine press. 
 
 But this disuse of judicial procedure appears also to 
 have been partly the necessary consequence of an enor- 
 mous disproportion between the insignificance of politi- 
 cal offenses and the barbarity of the punishments which 
 were to be inflicted for them, if the legal procedure had 
 to be resorted to. Political criminals have now grown 
 too many, and political crimes have grown too ordi- 
 nary, to be punished by forced labor or prolonged im- 
 prisonment, as the antiquated Russian code demanded. 
 Thus a new tribunal was formed by the " Statute of 
 Protection" of 1881, composed of two representatives 
 of the ministry of the interior and as many from the 
 ministry of justice. They have to sit on every case 
 not judged important enough to call for one of the 
 grave punishments of the law, or in which the proofs 
 of guilt are not so evident as to be accepted as such by
 
 192 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 the regular court. These judges do not see the accused, 
 do not hear the witnesses, and do not listen to any 
 defense. Their only material for judgment is that col- 
 lected by the gendarmerie inquest. This secret tribunal, 
 called " The Particular Consultation," is authorized to 
 sentence to an administrative exile of not more than five 
 years. But in reality it does not observe this limit very 
 strictly ; it inflicts sometimes an exile of from eight to 
 ten years, and even imprisonment, though, of course, 
 this needs an imperial confirmation. 
 
 Just now^*^ a new criminal code is to be published, 
 in which punishments for political crimes are not much 
 alleviated, but the crimes themselves are dealt with in a 
 more detailed and modern manner. Some new attempts 
 were also made to judge political crimes by tribunals — 
 special ones, of course. But it does not seem that this 
 experiment of comparative " legality " can be put into 
 practice. Until the possibility of a more consistent 
 legal state of things is acknowledged, the " Particular 
 Consultation '' is destined to be perpetuated. Until then 
 also the police department of the ministry of the 
 interior will continue virtually to judge political 
 crimes. Some people find a kind of progress of legality 
 even in this order of things, when compared with the 
 old regime of the "Third Section of His Majesty's 
 Chancery." And, indeed, there is a kind of formal 
 procedure in what has just been described. We see, 
 then, that here too the personal regime has given place 
 to a system of legalized arbitrariness. But it may be 
 doubted whether the arbitrary power of the superior 
 police becomes more legal after it has been outwardly 
 
 ="July, 1903.
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 193 
 
 separated from its real origin — the arbitrary power 
 of the sovereign. The emperor Nicholas I., of course, 
 would have been jealous of this particular kind of 
 division of powers, he who knew well where the line 
 of demarkation lies between the autocracy of the mon- 
 arch and the autocracy of bureaucracy. But, as things 
 now are, the actual division of power between autoc- 
 racy and the state police is quite necessary, and even 
 such a Don Quixote of autocracy as was Nicholas I. 
 could not have found any other way of escape from 
 this division than to try a more dignified and honest 
 one; namely, by sharing his power with his people 
 instead of with the police.^^ 
 
 We know now what is the part of the Ohrana, of 
 the gendarmerie, and of the police department in their 
 business of observation of Russian citizens. But this 
 is far from all that can be said about the matter. 
 We have not said anything about the army of spies 
 who are directed by the provincial gendarmerie offi- 
 cers ; another army of the agents of the police depart- 
 ment who are entitled to control the former; and a 
 third, much more numerous, army of "janitors" who 
 are also made obligatory agents of the political police; 
 and a fourth, still more numerous, army of thirty-five 
 thousand guardians now on the point of being sta- 
 tioned in the villages, because during the last few 
 years the peasants have npt, to use the conventional 
 
 "' I need hardly say how many are the facilities for black- 
 mailing and other abuse of power which their exceptional position 
 and their utter lack of responsibilty give to these secret state police. 
 It is difficult to realize how often, particularly in the provinces, the 
 state police have used their power to the satisfaction of personal 
 revenge.
 
 194 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 term of the Russian police, proved quite "well- 
 intentioned." The part played by the janitors is 
 particularly interesting. The by-laws of governors 
 and prefects impart to janitors many rights and duties 
 which make them regular assistants of the police. 
 They are obliged to observe and to report everything 
 passing before them which may seem to them extraor- 
 dinary; they must be particularly vigilant about every 
 person unknown to them who comes in or goes out of 
 the respective houses ; they must inform the police 
 about every private gathering which seems to them 
 suspicious; in urgent cases they must detain sus- 
 pected persons even before the policeman appears. 
 The practice goes still farther: sometimes janitors are 
 formally invited to share in the free fights organized 
 by the police against political demonstration. 
 
 But from these means of political observation let 
 us pass over to the ways in which they are used. Here 
 also the janitors play a not unimportant part. You 
 know, perhaps, that every Russian citizen must pos- 
 sess a testimonial certifying his identity, and delivered 
 to him by such social groups as he belongs to. The 
 mere fact of not possessing such a testimonial or 
 "passport" is a crime that is punished by deportation 
 "on foot" to the supposed birthplace of the unfortunate 
 person in question. This order of things originated 
 in the necessity of following up and detecting in- 
 accurate payers of the poll-tax, which Peter the Great 
 introduced for the "taxable orders" of peasants and 
 unprivileged town inhabitants. The poll-tax was 
 recently abolished, but the passport system thrives and 
 flourishes, because it has proved an invaluable expedi-
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 195 
 
 ent for the police. Nobody is permitted to change his 
 dwelHng-place without a passport ; and before leaving 
 it, even with a passport, he must tell the janitor the 
 place of his destination; and the janitor tells it im- 
 mediately to the police. Wherever you arrive, you 
 must immediately show your passport to the janitor. 
 who again informs the police. You are not permitted 
 to pass the night, were it with your friends or relatives, 
 without showing your passport to the janitor, or your 
 host and landlord may be punished by a fine of as 
 much as $250. 
 
 Now, if you happen to be under "surveillance" 
 by the state police, the police officer of your dwelling- 
 place communicates immediately with the local police 
 officer of the place of your arrival, and you are 
 sure to be observed there in just the same way. It 
 is worse when you are not permitted to go to a 
 certain place; then your name is found there when 
 your passport is registered, and you are sent away at 
 once. Or, should you be under orders not to leave 
 your dwelling-place at all, your name is separately 
 registered, and it is a crime to have left your abode. 
 The former state is that of "secret surveillance;" the 
 latter, that of an "open" or patent surveillance, which 
 is generally connected with "administrative exile." It 
 legally deprives you of the right of moving without 
 special permission: it bars you at the same time from 
 every public activity ; it enables the police to come into 
 your lodging and to make domiciliary search whenever 
 they like. Of course, this last arrogance cannot be 
 particularly resented, because actually, though not 
 legally, such is the general condition of the Russian
 
 ig6 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 citizen. Writs of domiciliary search and of arrest very 
 often follow the fact, instead of preceding it, in Rus- 
 sia. As regards arrest and imprisonment, legally the 
 reasons should be explained within a certain time. 
 But actually they may be kept secret as long as it 
 pleases the authorities, the only condition being that 
 they suppose you to be so dangerous for the general 
 tranquillity as to deserve an administrative exile. 
 Thus the only legal result of your having been im- 
 prisoned for a prolonged time, without apparent rea- 
 son and without any explanation, is the legal necessity 
 of sending you away — though you may not have been 
 found guilty at all — just as a justification for your 
 imprisonment. 
 
 But, you may say, all this is only the fate of restless 
 people who disturb the general tranquillity. Severe 
 as these punishments and preventive measures are, 
 they may be very limited in their action; they have 
 nothing to do with the overwhelming majority of law- 
 abiding citizens, absorbed in their private vocations. 
 I may reply to this that the category of those who are 
 not considered "well-intentioned" citizens is far from 
 limited, and that this category is rapidly increasing. 
 In 1880 the number of exiled persons, under patent 
 police surveillance, was 2,873. I" ^'^^ spring of 1901 
 about sixteen thousand persons were exiled from 
 Petersburg alone, and the number of persons exiled 
 during two years of M. Seepyaghin's ministry is said 
 to be sixty thousand, though I cannot certify this 
 figure to be correct. But let us admit that the group 
 of "ill-intentioned" persons is comparatively narrow. 
 Let us put aside this group of politically active men
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 197 
 
 and pass over to the larger circle of the general public, 
 and to the conditions of any public activity. 
 
 I do not meaUj of course, public assemblies and 
 meetings. The Russian people do not possess the right 
 of gathering for any public discussion. There being 
 no legal provisions for public gatherings, every crowd 
 of people on the street or assembly of the people in a 
 private or public lodging is necessarily considered 
 illegal and must take the consequences. The by-laws 
 published by the governors under the "Statute of Pro- 
 tection" are particularly expressive on this point. The 
 following by-law, published in 1902 by the governor 
 of Bessarabia (where Kishineff is located) is typical: 
 
 Forbidden are alP gatherings, meetings, and assemblies on 
 streets, market-places, and other public places, whatever aim 
 they may have. Forbidden also for passers-by is any crowding 
 which impedes free circulation, and such gatherings are obliged 
 to disperse at the first request of the police. All meetings in 
 private houses for the aim of discussing the statutes of associa- 
 tions for which the permission of the government is necessary 
 are permitted only with the knowledge and approval of the 
 police, who have to give permission for each gathering separately, 
 on an appointed day and in an appointed place. 
 
 All gatherings are to be dispersed by armed force, 
 if they refuse to obey the "first request," and particular 
 (secret) instructions to army officers make them an- 
 swerable for any delay of action, "even should it be 
 caused by feelings of humanity." This may explain 
 wdiy mere crowding in the streets is considered both 
 by the government and the revolutionists as a means 
 
 ^■' Exception was time and again actually made by the police of 
 anti-Semitic gatherings, intended to teach Jewish socialists, by way 
 of massacres, to be more " well-intentioned " toward the existing 
 order of things.
 
 198 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 of revolutionary action. yVn entirely peaceful discus- 
 sion of workingmen about their strike recently served 
 as the signal for a formal attack of the Cossacks near 
 Rostov on the Don. 
 
 But even under normal conditions simple gather- 
 ings in private lodgings are closely observed and at 
 any time may be proclaimed illegal. If you gather 
 together a dozen or two of your friends, you must 
 make it known to the police. If they are students, 
 you had better not do it at all, even if you are a pro- 
 fessor and the students are your pupils in the univer- 
 sity. The professors of the Petersburg university, 
 who are not at all radical, recently claimed as a spe- 
 cial right "that it might be made safe for every pro- 
 fessor, on his own responsibility, to gather students 
 together, either in the university buildings, with the 
 permission of the rector, or in their own homes, with- 
 out asking a special permission of the police and with- 
 out incurring prosecution for the simple fact of having 
 convoked or admitted such gatherings, in order to 
 explain to the students questions touching their own 
 specialty." 
 
 Of course, the government cannot forbid every 
 public conference. But it takes care that no free word 
 shall be heard from a public chair. No public lecture 
 can be delivered unless it is specially permitted. To 
 get a permission is not easy. Even such lecturers as 
 occupy official chairs, or are highly placed in govern- 
 ment service, are not sure to be allowed to lecture, 
 especially in the provinces. Such a permission de- 
 pending on the high representatives of the Ministries 
 of Public Instruction and of the Interior, namely the
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 199 
 
 local "curator" and "governor," the same lecture may 
 be allowed in one province and forbidden in another. 
 P"or the most part, not only the subject of a lecture 
 must be made known previously to the authorities, 
 but also a syllabus, and often even the very text of it, 
 must be drawn up. the red tape is affixed to the manu- 
 script, and the lecturer is not afterward permitted to 
 add one word to the permitted text. Sometimes a 
 representative of the local authorities is present at the 
 lecture with a copy of the allowed text, in order to be 
 sure that no free word is pronounced. Yet all this 
 does not free the lecturer from responsibility, if his 
 delivery should chance to produce such a deep impres- 
 sion on his audience as is likely to displease the au-. 
 thorities and be classified under the head of "disturbing 
 public tranquillity." Quite recently an old and very 
 respectable journalist, immediately after a lecture 
 which he had delivered in Siberia, was carried off to 
 a political prison in Petersburg, merely because his 
 audience behaved too tumultously under the impres- 
 sion of his delivery. 
 
 Now, all these difficulties and measures of pre- 
 caution become infinitely greater if the lecture is to be 
 delivered to plain peasant folk or workingmen. Such 
 lectures were not delivered in Russia before 1872-74, 
 and then they were allowed only in Petersburg and 
 Moscow, where two "standing committees" w^ere au- 
 thorized to organize them. Yet these lectures were 
 not to be delivered extemporaneously: they were to be 
 read out of printed leaflets, compiled by the most con- 
 servative contributors of the Petersburg committee. 
 Until 1891 this committee had published only 140
 
 200 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 leaflets; but a third of them were absolutely unfit to 
 be read before the people, and the remainder consisted 
 mostly of the lives of saints, histories of churches and 
 monasteries, and so forth. No Russian classics were 
 comprised among them. This was the material which 
 was to be proffered to the popular audiences of the 
 provincial cities of Russia, according to the regula- 
 tions of 1876. Still, thousands of hearers crowded 
 before the doors of narrow and scantily furnished 
 rooms, longing for admittance; they gladly paid some 
 kopecks' entrance fee, patiently listened to the dry ex- 
 position, and did not tire of returning until they knew 
 so well the few pamphlets which they liked as to be 
 able to repeat them aloud in advance of the lecturer. 
 Nearly every attempt to increase the number of the 
 officially permitted pamphlets was an absolute failure. 
 Thus, for instance, in the year 1892, when the cholera 
 was approaching, a person intrusted with an office by 
 the governor of Riga asked in vain for permission to 
 read before a popular audience an article on "con- 
 tagion." I must mention that this article had already 
 been published in a newspaper edited by the govern- 
 ment itself for the people, a newspaper to which every 
 village board of administration is obliged to subscribe. 
 As regards district towns and villages, no public 
 lectures were permitted to be delivered there until 
 1894. How dangerous this departure seemed to the 
 government may be judged by the obstacles which 
 were put in its way. In order that a village philan- 
 thropist might read to the people some poor pages of 
 printed matter about the Holy Land or Columbus's 
 discoverv, three ministers had first to consult — the
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 201 
 
 Ministers of Instruction, of the Interior, and of the 
 Holy Synod. It was only in 1901 that the village and 
 district lectures were put on the same basis as pro- 
 vincial ones ; /. 'e., they were left to depend on the local 
 representatives of the Ministries of the Interior and 
 of Instruction. In the same year the latter ministry 
 yielded in a certain degree to the numberless demands 
 of provincial councils and local societies for the en- 
 lightenment of the people; permission was given to 
 read before the people, besides the scanty number of 
 pamphlets specially permitted for such popular read- 
 ings, also such as were allowed by the ministry to be 
 introduced into the libraries of the pupils of primary 
 schools. Then it was permitted not only to read the 
 books, but to "transmit their contents orally, while not 
 transgressing its limits." You must know that all the 
 lecturers in their turn have to be formally allowed 
 by the governor to read the printed matter ; they are 
 invariably refused permission if they are not supposed 
 to be quite "well-intentioned." I know cases where 
 only three out of eight persons proposed were found 
 reliable enough to read or to expound the printed text. 
 Of course, the general reading of the people also 
 is under close observation. There are not many free 
 public libraries in Russia. There were only forty-nine 
 in 1856, i. e., before the great revival of Russian 
 public opinion during the reforms of Alexander II. 
 At the beginning of the actual reign of Nicholas II. 
 (1894) tiiey numbered 862, but only ninety-six of this 
 number were outside the cities. The real growth of 
 village libraries has begun since that time, owing to 
 the philanthropic exertions of provincial councils and
 
 202 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 local societies for culture. This movement was closely 
 followed by restrictive measures of the government. 
 Here also the free libraries for the use of the upper 
 class are treated differently from those for the lower 
 classes. For the former the government is satisfied 
 to prescribe what ought not to be read. For the latter 
 it goes farther in its tutelage and decides what ought 
 to be read. Thus we have two official catalogues for 
 reading : that of books prohibited for general libra- 
 ries, and that of books permitted for the people's 
 libraries. 
 
 Which, then, are the books forbidden in the public 
 libraries of the educated? They are about two hun- 
 dred, and these books are published in Russia, with 
 the permission of the censor, and are sold freely in the 
 bookshops. Books which are altogether forbidden 
 even for private use are not included in this number. 
 Among the books prohibited in the public libraries 
 you may find Russian translations of Bagehot's Physics 
 and Politics, Huxley's Evidence as to Man's Place in 
 Nature, Lyell's Geological Evidence of the Antiquity 
 of Man, Mill's Political Economy, all Spencer's works. 
 Green's History of the English People, Bryce's Amer- 
 ican Commonwealth, Fyffe's History of Europe. 
 From these you may judge of the rest. 
 
 The other catalogue, that of books permitted in the 
 people's libraries, would not strike a foreign observer in 
 the same way ; but to a Russian it is simply crushing. 
 The "Learned Committee of the Ministry of Public 
 Instruction" undertook to make a choice for this pur- 
 pose among all Russian books actually on sale. They 
 are about ninety thousand, and the ministerial cata-
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION J03 
 
 logue allows the Russian people to read from two 
 thousand five hundred to three thousand of them; /. r., 
 about ^.7, per cent, of the whole number. And, indeed, 
 the committee is unable to avoid this : how can it itself 
 have read all Russian books ? Since the catalogue was 
 published in 1896 seventy-five thousand more Rus- 
 sian books have been printed ; but only 8 per cent, of 
 these are admitted to the people's and the young 
 people's libraries. Which, now, are these selected spe- 
 cimens of Russian literature? The provincial council 
 of Koorsk designated not less than sixty of the most 
 prominent Russian authors whose works were entirely 
 left out of the catalogue. Among the writers of fic- 
 tion, such as Saltykov, Korolenko, Garshin, Gleb 
 Oospensky, Chehov; among our poets, such as 
 Nekrasov, Nadson; among the critics, Belinsky, 
 Dobrolubov, Shelgoonov. Michailovsky ; among the 
 historians, Kostomarov — are not mentioned in the 
 catalogue. Our best periodicals, beginning with the 
 Contemporary of 1856-66, and including Fatherland 
 Memorials, Russian Thought, are also forbidden. On 
 the other hand, the catalogue is filled up by such 
 special works as can interest only a scholar, not an 
 ordinary reader. Among the periodicals and news- 
 papers which are admitted special ones largely prevail. 
 You may find there plenty of material about the rais- 
 ing of bees and birds, cattle and horses: but for p-en- 
 eral information you have only the nationalistic news- 
 papers, Nezv Times (Novoya Vraimya) , Light (Svyet), 
 and tlie Moscoiv Nc-lVS. Anything that may draw 
 attention to the liberal current of public opinion is for- 
 bidden entrance into the precincts of popular libraries.
 
 204 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Yet, you may say, all this is permitted to pass 
 freely through the printing press and to be bought in 
 the shops! And this brings us to the Russian censor- 
 ship. Here also we may distinguish the period of 
 paternal tutelage and the period of arbitrary rule legal- 
 ized by statutes. During the first period, the censor 
 was obliged to look after the transgressions of law 
 and of morals, as well as of good patriarchal habits 
 and even of Russian grammar on the part of the press. 
 This was the time when a censor could be arrested for 
 not having prohibited a too ardent poem, "To a 
 Beauty," and Emperor Nicholas I., as a particular 
 kindness, himself revised our greatest poet Pooshkin, 
 through the intermediacy oi the "Third Section." 
 This period ended with the reign of Nicholas I. in 
 
 1855- 
 
 The new era began with the statute of 1865, 
 
 which was nothing less than an adaptation of Napo- 
 leon III.'s law concerning the press, compiled by Per- 
 signy in 1852. But for the Russian government it 
 seemed the very incarnation of liberalism : the govern- 
 ment soon repented of having given the press so much 
 liberty, and fundamentally changed the statute of 1865 
 by the subsequent measures of 1872 and 1882. The 
 statute of 1865 had liberated periodicals and books of 
 more than ten sheets from the censure of a book before 
 printing, the former "previous censure." By this stat- 
 ute, the authors had had to answer for their trespasses 
 only before the regular court. 
 
 But as judges and attorneys persisted in their wish 
 to be independent and refused to find any crime in 
 books that censors handed over to them, it was found
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 205 
 
 more convenient to seize printed books before their 
 issue. The pubHshers are now obliged to keep printed 
 books a week, and the monthhes four days, before 
 pubHcation, in order to give time to the censor to 
 make himself acquainted with the book and to stop 
 pubHcation if he wants to. If the offense is of httle 
 importance, the pubHsher can transact his case pri- 
 vately with the censor, by sacrificing some lines of 
 pages that were incriminated. But if the trespass 
 seems to the authorities grave, the book is given over 
 to a committee of ministers, instead of to a court 
 of justice, as the statute of 1865 provided; the peri- 
 odical is to be judged by a special committee of four 
 ministers, instead of by a committee of the senate — 
 i. e., the Russian Supreme Court — as was the regu- 
 lation of the statute of 1865. When this extreme 
 measure is resorted to, it generally ends in the destruc- 
 tion of a book and the stopping of a periodical. The 
 legislation concerning the periodical press is particu- 
 larly rich in every kind of preventive, coercive, and 
 repressive measure. First, the government has its 
 hand in starting periodicals, as no paper can be edited 
 unless the editor is officially approved by the censor as 
 a " well-intentioned " person. Sometimes long years 
 pass before any independent organ is permitted to be 
 published. But if, owing to some lack of information 
 or by other slip, an independent journalist is permitted 
 to enter the field, there are plenty of means in reserve 
 to keep him quiet. The whole finely graduated scale of 
 coercive measures can be consecutively applied against 
 his paper : three consecutive warnings are followed by 
 the stopping of a periodical, after which it is given up to
 
 2o6 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 "previous censure;" besides this, the right of printing 
 advertisements may be reserved, or the retail sale of 
 copies forbidden. How often these measures were 
 taken may be seen from their number, which amounts 
 to 581 during a period of forty years; i. e., more than 
 one per month. But this can give you little idea of 
 how constant was the struggle, and how many of the 
 best and most influential periodicals succumbed in it. 
 Yet this is not enough. There exists another set of 
 measures used by the government, which serves it 
 better than all these punishments of the press crimes. 
 The best means was thought to be not to let the press 
 sin at all, by withholding from public discussion most 
 important questions just at the time when their dis- 
 cussion was most needed. Such a right was formally 
 given to the Minister of the Interior as early as 1873. 
 This is why it is quite impossible for the Russian press 
 to fulfil its aim, by discussing subjects which most 
 attract the public attention. The use made of these 
 prohibitive measures was as large as may be imagined. 
 If cholera approaches the Russian borders, the press 
 is ordered not to say a word about it. If a financial 
 reform is prepared, or a commercial treaty concluded, 
 or gold coinage introduced, however important it may 
 be for everybody, the Russian press is forbidden to 
 discuss the matter, in order that public credit may not 
 be shaken. Even if a bank is on the point of becom- 
 ing insolvent, the press has no right to disturb readers 
 by any rumors to that effect. The "public tranquil- 
 lity" seems to the government to be such a valuable 
 thing that it is not allowed to be troubled even by 
 signs of people's sympathy with the Tsar. When
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 207 
 
 Alexander III. was on his death-bed. newspapers were 
 not permitted to speak of his ilhiess. But, of course, 
 the chief use that is made of this right of the Ministry 
 of the Interior is that of preventing pohtical gossip. 
 No communication concerning pohtical processes or 
 criminals is permitted. No information about the 
 state of peasants and about their relation to landed 
 proprietors is to be published. When a movement 
 among workingmen began, during the present reign, 
 this subject also was withheld from public discussion. 
 Again, the disturbances among the students must be 
 passed over in silence by the press. Religious disturb- 
 ances and religious persecutions very often also must 
 pass unnoticed by Russian readers. In short, there is 
 no burning question of the times that is accessible 
 to the Russian press. The chronicle of the national 
 life in the Russian monthlies often consists only in 
 reprints of official edicts or communications, while 
 forbearing every criticism thereupon. Nothing is per- 
 mitted to be known about all these things, but what is 
 told to Russian readers in official communications by 
 the go\Trnment, reprinted by the press from the 
 Government's Advertiser. But sometimes even such 
 reprinting is found dangerous, and newspapers are 
 ordered not to publish the official communications of 
 the Government's Advertiser. ]\Ioreo\'er, not satisfied 
 to withhold from public knowledge and discussion 
 matters of general interest, the censorship uses its 
 power to protect private persons from public criti- 
 cism, if only they are mighty enough to claim its 
 protection. For instance, the editors were asked not 
 to speak about the family affairs of a certain Mr.
 
 2o8 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Markus, a privy councilor; to keep silence about the 
 attempt at suicide of a young aristocrat, Nicholas 
 Mooravyov; to forbear mentioning the duel between 
 two officers of high society, a quarrel between two 
 high officials, even not to print the articles of one high 
 official against another, etc. Very often scandals in 
 high society are known to the editorial staff only by 
 way of such orders of the censor. How customary this 
 role of censors as protectors of private interests has 
 finally become, you may judge by the fact that some- 
 times the censor does not even give himself the trouble 
 of concealing private motives for his orders. Lately, 
 an order was issued not to publish anything about some 
 scandalous facts concerning "doping" horses by influ- 
 ential sportsmen, on the ground that " this would not 
 please Grand Duke Demetrius Konstantinovich." 
 
 But the censorship tries to go still farther. It is 
 not sufficient for it to influence the press in a negative 
 way, that of imposing silence. It is also interested in 
 influencing it in a positive sense, that of making the 
 press tell what the authorities want told. In the ear- 
 lier, the patriarchial, period of its existence the press 
 was supposed to serve "the views of the government" 
 by its own initiative. When this supposition was 
 found not to square with actuality, the censor began 
 trying to induce the press to "serve the views of the 
 government" by way of persuasion and personal in- 
 fluence. 
 
 The minister of public instruction, Goloveen, in 
 1862 made an avowal before the Committee of Min- 
 isters, that all measures of rigor which had been taken 
 heretofore against the press availed nothing ; that they
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 209 
 
 only "embittered the writers, helped them to form a 
 conventional language tacitly agreed upon and well 
 understood by the readers, and finally produced a gen- 
 eral contempt for a government which was unable to 
 attain its aim." Mr. Goloveen recognized that the 
 government ought not to have tried to transform 
 literature into an official institution ; literature, he said, 
 was the expression of the thoughts and wishes of 
 educated society; the government must know these 
 wishes, but the censorship only helps to conceal them 
 from the government, without being able to change 
 them. Yet, Mr. Goloveen thought, the government 
 could indirectly influence journalists by letting them 
 know the views of the government and subsidizing 
 them. In the year 1858 it was even proposed to the 
 Committee of Ministers to form a particular com- 
 mittee for influencing public opinion. Now it was 
 quite clear that the best and most influential journalists 
 were not to be corrupted in this way. Hence the gov- 
 ernment was obliged to start an organ of its own, in 
 order publicly to defend the measures of the govern- 
 ment and so to influence public opinion. Such an 
 organ was the Northern Post, established in 1862 by 
 the minister Valooyev. The same question arose in a 
 committee in 1879; the minister Valooyev proposed 
 again to found a particular newspaper which should 
 be under the direction of the government. And indeed 
 in the following year (1880), such an official organ, 
 called The Shore, was started. It was edited by Pro- 
 fessor Tseetovich, who made himself a name by 
 venomous invectives against Russian radicalism. The 
 Shore succumbed before the end of the same year, a
 
 210 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 victim of public indifference, though materially it was 
 well supported by the government, receiving about 
 $65,000. This was also the fate of other enterprises 
 of the same kind, except such as received the right of 
 publishing official advertisements, for which big sums 
 of money were paid — the Moscow News, for instance. 
 
 Finally, one of the chief directors of the press de- 
 partment, Mr. Solovyov (1896-1900) recurred to a 
 simpler means of influencing newspapers. He proposed 
 to some of them, that were running the risk of being 
 stopped, the alternative of appointing official editors, 
 who were to be liberally paid and were to warrant the 
 good behavior of their papers. This resource was also 
 a failure. Some periodicals refused to comply with 
 the suggestion, and were stopped ; others that accepted 
 tried to satisfy their official heads with money and to 
 withhold from them the actual business. We cannot 
 leave this subject without mentioning a most ingenious 
 trick of the Minister of the Interior. In the years 1897 
 and 1899 two socialistic monthlies were published at a 
 time when no liberal organs were allowed to be started. 
 The riddle was explained soon : there was a spy in the 
 editorial staff of both periodicals, and he had helped 
 to start them, in order to observe the socialistic circles. 
 Of course, neither existed more than a year. 
 
 All these measures against the press having been 
 constantly in use since the time when the press had 
 become a social necessity in Russia, you may easily 
 guess how distorted must have been the reflection of 
 contemporary public opinion which the Russian press 
 was giving. Of course, public opinion sought a 
 remedy, and found it in the clandestine press written or
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 211 
 
 published abroad and smuggled into Russia in increas- 
 ing numbers of copies. Through not suffering any 
 legal opposition, the government thus helped to elimi- 
 nate moderate dements from public life. Maimed pub- 
 lic opinion took its revenge by growing more and more 
 radical. But later we shall return to this question of 
 what influence the policy of self-preservation of autoc- 
 racy had on the development of public opinion in Rus- 
 sia. Here it was only necessary to mention that the 
 stifling of open criticism and opposition was by no 
 means the only consequence of the governmental policy. 
 
 Now we come over to another branch of public 
 life, where the political influence of the government 
 could make itself still more easily felt. This is the 
 department of the public schools. I do not mention 
 the private schools, because they are quite insignificant 
 in Russia. They played a much larger part in the 
 popular instruction of a century or half a century ago ; 
 but since then they have been entirely pushed into the 
 background by the government schools. These schools 
 now almost exclusively possess the right of giving 
 such diplomas to their pupils as entitle them to enter 
 the ofiicial service, and to enter higher institutions of 
 learning. By this alone the official schools contrived 
 to monopolize public instruction. 
 
 A less official character is preserved as yet by the 
 elementary schools for the village population. This 
 is explained by the origin of these schools. The gov- 
 ernment was not very favorable to such schemes for 
 the enlightening of the common people as have been 
 formed since the end of the eighteenth century by the 
 philanthropists of the educated class. Thus it did
 
 212 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 almost nothing for the instruction of the people 
 until the epoch of the emancipation of the peasants 
 in 1 86 1. Then the activity of the newly founded 
 provincial councils, the Zemstvos, began, and the peas- 
 ant schools were first started by the Russian local 
 self-government. In correspondence with this origin, 
 the teaching staff of the village schools were accus- 
 tomed to consider their work as a kind of social 
 duty which was to be performed, not as a means of 
 livelihood or as a technical profession, but as a high 
 vocation, chosen by their own initiative, for the good 
 of the country. But this patriotic enthusiasm drew 
 the distrust of the government upon the village 
 teachers and upon the whole enterprise of the pro- 
 vincial councils. During the first few years, the 
 development of this type of village school remained 
 unheeded by the government; but when it assumed 
 considerable dimensions, the government became jeal- 
 ous of it and took measures to fetter the initiative of 
 the local self-government. The control of directors 
 and government inspectors of local school boards was 
 increased; the rights of the delegates of self-govern- 
 ment were diminished. The aim of the government 
 was to let the county councils pay the money, and to 
 take all the rest of the business into its own hands. 
 Thus far it has not succeeded, but the school programs, 
 the appointment of teachers, the choice of text-books, 
 the examinations — all that is already under the con- 
 trol of ministerial officials. 
 
 Not satisfied with this, and powerless to open 
 its own type of village schools, the government began 
 to encourage a competing initiative of the Holy
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 213 
 
 Synod. There was no regular parish school in an- 
 cient Russia, and our clergy, as we know already, 
 was too little educated itself to take care of the 
 education of the people. They were not in the least 
 interested in any action taken for popular enlighten- 
 ment. Such clerical tendencies as distinguish the 
 church schools in western Europe never existed in 
 Russia. Now, the government itself, which in Europe 
 tries to withdraw the school from church influence, 
 has in Russia recently tried to awaken the zeal of 
 the clergy, in order to oppose it to the "politically 
 dangerous" initiative of the provincial councils. A 
 type of parish school was started opposed to that of 
 the self-government school. Instead of the real knowl- 
 edge which the teachers were trying to impart in 
 the latter, the parish school was concerned chiefly 
 with singing religious hymns and reading mediaeval 
 Slavic — a dead and artificial language, in which the 
 Russian service books are written. But as long as 
 only the parish priests and the sextons were supposed 
 to teach in the parish schools, these schools existed 
 only on paper and in the official reports of the Holy 
 Synod. Exertions were then made to compel the pro- 
 vincial councils to turn their pecuniary help into the 
 clerical channel. A formal struggle for existence 
 began between the two types of village schools. Lastly, 
 Mr. Pobedonostsev managed to find money for the 
 support of the parish schools in the state exchequer. 
 But moral victory was on the side of the provincial 
 councils' schools, as is to be seen from the circumstance 
 that the clerical school is now about to adopt their 
 program and to prepare special teachers, in order to be 
 able to compete with its secular rival.
 
 214 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Unhappily both systems, even taken together, are 
 not equal to the rapidly increasing demand for ele- 
 mentary education. Of course, the number of young 
 men that have passed through the school increases at 
 a very rapid rate. Out of every hundred of the con- 
 scripts, for instance, there were ninety-live illiterate 
 men in 1868; seventy-nine in 1875; and not more 
 than fifty-five in 1898. But all exertions of philan- 
 thropy and of clerical policy are not enough to keep 
 pace with the natural increase of population. For this 
 increasing number alone it would be necessary to open 
 2,606 new schools every year; and there are not more 
 than one thousand and seven hundred opened annually. 
 There are about thirty thousand provincial council 
 schools, and about eighteen thousand parish schools, 
 while not less than three times as many (one hundred 
 and fifty thousand) new schools must be opened in 
 order that all young people of an age requiring educa- 
 tion may receive elementary instruction. We must 
 add that such instruction as is generally given by 
 elementary schools 'does not go far beyond simple read- 
 ing, writing, and counting. Every attempt to increase 
 the number of years of study (from three to four or 
 five), and still more any attempt to enlarge the pro- 
 gram and to impart some knowledge of geography and 
 history, invariably meets with obstacles from the side 
 of the authorities. 
 
 But to consider the next step in the system of 
 public education — the secondary and high schools. In 
 Russia these institutions antedate the village schools. 
 Schools were necessary, if only that the government 
 might have educated officials; they were necessary
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 215 
 
 also as a preparation for the higher institutes of learn- 
 ing. And so they were started by the government as 
 early as the reign of Peter the Great; and since 
 Catherine II. the system of government secondary 
 education may be considered as being firmly established 
 in Russia. The government continued to favor sec- 
 ondary education until the first half-century of their 
 continuous existence ( 1786- 1828). During this period 
 the secondary schools, while serving the aims of the 
 government, were not much frequented for the ideal 
 purposes of education. 
 
 But then the position entirely changed. Private 
 education, as prosecuted by the government, was 
 less and less resorted to. As a consequence of the 
 general spread of culture in Russia, the public schools 
 were filled with young people who studied for rea- 
 sons other than a diploma and the chance of official 
 service. At once the government became suspicious 
 and began to find that young people were over- 
 educated. It wished the children of the higher classes 
 to be prepared for service, civil and military; and, 
 as regards the children of the lower classes, it 
 wished them to have a professional education in 
 schools of a lower type. Both wishes, in spite of 
 a whole series of prohibitive measures, it was un- 
 able to realize. Particularly since the middle of the 
 nineteenth century young men longing for general 
 education have become more and more averse to state 
 service and to technical craft. Presently they became 
 absorbed by the growing political movement. Then 
 the secondary schools were transformed into an insti- 
 tution of the police as the best means of preventing
 
 2i6 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 the spread of political ideas in the younger generations. 
 A particular system of teaching was started which ex- 
 alted the formal side of education above the real, and 
 which tried to occupy the student's mind with objects 
 removed as far as was possible from the living present. 
 This was the "classical system" of the minister Deme- 
 trius Tolstoy. 
 
 By and by the system of political observation 
 increased enormously under the school regime of 
 Tolstoy. Pupils were allowed to read only such 
 books as had passed the censorship of school authori- 
 ties. I know of cases where lads were excluded from 
 the school for having dared to look into the works 
 of our best literary critic, Belinsky, or for having come 
 to a public library to take a book for their relatives. 
 For the student to be present at a meeting of a learned 
 society, or to visit the theater, a permission of the 
 headmaster was required. Neither was this system of 
 close observation restricted to the college walls; it 
 followed the pupil into the street, and even to his own 
 home. Special teachers were entitled to visit the lodg- 
 ings of the pupil at any time. When a pupil had fin- 
 ished his course of study, a moral and political "de- 
 scription" of him was to be drawn by a teacher, which 
 followed him to a higher institution of learning. Thus 
 no "ill-intentioned" pupil was likely to pass out of the 
 secondary school. 
 
 How severe was this process of selection may 
 be seen in the following statistics : In the years 
 1872-90 only 4-9 per cent, finished this classical 
 school in the proper time (f. e., eight years) ; of the 
 others, 21-37 P^^ c^^'^^- finished it with difficulty; but
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 217 
 
 not less than 63-79 P^'" cent, were thrown out as un- 
 fitted foe the higher institutions of learning. And the 
 government was quite satisfied with such results of the 
 secondary-school pedagogy. For, as we have seen, 
 since the second quarter of the nineteenth century, it 
 has always found that the spread of instruction is too 
 great in Russia, and has, therefore, tried to diminish 
 the number of pupils and students as much as possible. 
 The increase of pupils from the lower classes was 
 found particularly alarming when compared with that 
 of pupils from the nobility. In 1833 more than 
 three-quarters (78 per cent.) of the pupils were chil- 
 dren of the gentry, and less than a quarter (17 per cent. ) 
 of the town inhabitants, peasants (2 per cent.), and 
 clergy (2 per cent.) ; while half a century later (1884) 
 the children of noble birth formed less than half (49.2 
 per cent.), and the town inhabitants sent twice as many 
 as before (35.9 per cent.), the peasants nearly four 
 times as many (7.9 per cent.). Then in 1887 the 
 minister Delyanov published his famous decree re- 
 stricting the number of Jewish children in the schools 
 to a certain maximum, and withholding from the 
 school the children of the lower classes — "sons of 
 coachmen, domestic servants, cooks, laundresses, green- 
 grocers, and such people." And, indeed, in the next 
 years the percentage of pupils of noble birth mounted 
 to 56.2 per cent. But did the secondary school, as Mr. 
 Delyanov expected, avoid breeding those feelings of 
 "discontent with the conditions of life" or of "bitter 
 resentment against the inequality of social station 
 which was unavoidable by the very nature of things" ? 
 The state of mind of the students in the institutions 
 for higher study must answer this question.
 
 2i8 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Nearly all of the Russian young people who have 
 passed through the schools of Demetrius Tolstoy are 
 socialistic. All the exertions of the school authorities, 
 with all their system of minute police supervision and 
 their teaching of politically indifferent subjects, has 
 availed nothing; or, rather, this very system has con- 
 tributed to produce results quite opposite to those 
 desired. Russian students in the institutions of higher 
 learning play now the part which German students 
 played in the first half of the nineteenth century, when 
 no regular political life existed in Germany. With an 
 enthusiasm and self-sacrifice far surpassing that of 
 the German secret societies, the Tugendhiind and of 
 the Burscheiischaften, Russian students promote the 
 cause of the political and social reform of Russia. 
 Particularly during the last few years (since 1899), 
 the revolution is, as it were, insistent within the walls 
 of our universities and academies. Thus the task of 
 the government superintendence has grown much more 
 complicated. Difficulties have become quite insuperable 
 in this department of higher public instruction. Every- 
 thing apparently is tried by the authorities to repress 
 the movement. Liberal professors have been banished, 
 the autonomic statutes of the universities repealed, and 
 an entirely bureaucratic organization substituted in 
 their place, the number of students diminished, the fees 
 increased, the system of collegiate dwellings founded, 
 a close inspection introduced independent of univer- 
 sity authorities and connected with the superior police, 
 spies provided in abundance, student gatherings se- 
 verely forbidden, a representative organization of 
 moderate elements brought into existence under the
 
 THE POLITICAL TRADITION 219 
 
 close supervision and personal responsibility of the 
 professors, chosen by the faculties ("curators"); 
 scholarships and other foundations have been used for 
 political aims. And all of this has been of no avail, 
 and is not likely to change the situation in the future. 
 
 What is now the reason of such a complete and 
 continuous failure of all measures of oppression? 
 Here, in the higher schools, we may on a small scale 
 observe their inefficiency as we should be able on a 
 larger scale to infer from the general state of things 
 in the whole country. Oppression never can take the 
 place of measures of creative policy. Real wants and 
 difficulties are not overcome when, by means of the 
 enormous strengthening of oppressive measures, they 
 are brought to comparative silence. And besides, this 
 silence will never prove to be absolute. 
 
 What is, then, our general conclusion on behalf of 
 the system we were trying here to describe ? We may 
 sum it up in two questions and two ans\vers. 
 
 Can the government, while it remains what it now 
 is, namely, a mere system of police, hypocritically sup- 
 porting itself on fictitious nationalistic tradition, leav- 
 ing to legislation a merely fictitious independence, to 
 administrative power a likewise fictitious responsibility, 
 to the judiciary not even a shadow of its original free- 
 dom and competency — can a government such as this 
 lighten the system of oppression it is obliged to use 
 against any free utterance of an enlightened public 
 opinion? Can it, for instance, abolish the Ohrana, the 
 gendarmes, the system of political spies, re-establish 
 regular justice, respect the rights of the individual, for- 
 bear arbitrary arrest and exile, allow the population
 
 220 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 liberty to meet, to read whatever they wish, to speak 
 pubHcly about poHtics ? Can it free the press from cen- 
 sorship, the schools from police duties? Of course it 
 cannot, without denying itself in essence. 
 
 Now comes the second question : Are all these 
 measures of oppression of any use, of any final conse- 
 quence to the government? Can they actually prevent 
 growing irritation, the spread of political knowledge, 
 the increasing unity of oppositive action, the consolida- 
 tion of political parties ? They certainly cannot. 
 
 To a certain extent, they can, perhaps, delay the 
 movement, and they must greatly increase the number 
 of political victims. But the living forces of the nation 
 cannot be fettered in such a way. A living force is 
 only accumulated by the resistance it meets with. 
 And if it does not find an outlet, after all pores and 
 safety-valves have been stopped, it suddenly breaks 
 through, like 
 
 A gentle flood, which, being stopped, 
 The bounding banks o'erflows. 
 
 We have studied enough now of the "bounding 
 banks." Let us study the "flood" which, from being 
 "gentle," presently becomes violent.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 
 
 One of the conventional lies of Russian national- 
 ism is that in Russia there are and there can be no 
 political parties. Of course, such a political condition 
 as was described in the previous chapter is far from 
 being favorable to the formation of political parties. 
 No regular political life can thrive and prosper under 
 the system of police oppression that we have spoken 
 of. Nevertheless, beneath the surface of the official 
 uniformity, differences of political opinion have long 
 existed which correspond in every way to the differ- 
 ences of political parties in western Europe; and those 
 who adhere to the same opinion in politics to a certain 
 extent acknowledge such party ethics and party dis- 
 cipline as are necessary for combined political action. 
 The scope of this political action is wide enough, 
 though it often lies in such fields of public life as might 
 be expected, under more normal conditions of political 
 life, to be free from party spirit. Lacking such a main 
 road of politics as a regular representation of the people 
 would offer, political agitation has deviated from the 
 direct route and fills up the by-ways or breaks new 
 ground. Science and fiction, school and theater, 
 learned societies and establishments for charity, uni- 
 versities and technical institutions, associations for self- 
 help and self-culture, provincial councils and courts of 
 justice — none are free from party politics in a country 
 where political parties are supposed not to exist at all
 
 222 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 and political life to be confined to some high offices of 
 bureaucracy. Of course, no regular party organization 
 exists as yet ; but even this is only a question of time, 
 perhaps of some few years. An organization of the 
 more advanced groups for political action actually 
 exists in the only form that is now possible — in the 
 form of secret societies, as we shall see later on. The 
 more moderate elements avoid secret organization, but 
 even they cannot entirely abstain from such political 
 intercourse as involves in itself a sort of elementary 
 organization. And the time is near when the govern- 
 ment will understand that it gains nothing by keeping 
 the moderate elements scattered, while the extreme 
 ones are strong and skilled enough to combine in 
 united political action. 
 
 So far, at least, there may be distinguished two 
 different currents of Russian political opinion, opposed 
 to the government : the moderate and the radical. The 
 former has always been called in Russia by the party 
 title " liberals " of western Europe. The latter is essen- 
 tially socialistic. These political groups may be traced 
 to different origins ; their followers are recruited from 
 different social layers. Liberalism is chiefly spread 
 among the representatives of Russian self-government, 
 among men of liberal professions, even among state 
 ofticials ; all of them for the most part belonging to the 
 old Russian gentry. Radicalism is the prevailing color 
 of the advanced organs of the press and of men of 
 liberal professions ; among our youth it shades off into 
 socialism. We shall see later on how quickly socialism 
 is becoming the doctrine of the workingmen, and even 
 of the peasants.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 223 
 
 Liberalism is of old date in western Europe. When 
 it first appeared as a systematic policy, its political 
 meaning closely corresponded to the etymology of the 
 term. This was a consistent doctrine of individual 
 liberty. But this meaning has changed much with the 
 subsequent development of political life and theory. 
 Liberalism w^as a progressive and advanced doctrine 
 when it first exposed its teachings of individual free- 
 dom to the mediaeval privileges of social orders and to 
 the arbitrary rule of patriarchal government. But the 
 same theory of individual freedom received a difi:erent 
 interpretation when it had to deal with the democratic 
 encroachments of the modern state. If liberalism was 
 to preserve its place as an advanced doctrine, then it 
 must extend its meaning so as to cover the new and 
 enlarged scope of state activity. If, on the contrary, it 
 wished to remain faithful to its old laissc:;-faire doc- 
 trine, then it would necessarily become essentially con- 
 servative. Both issues were resorted to in different 
 countries. Where political life dated from early times, 
 where it was continuous and, so to speak, organic — as 
 was the case in England — the meaning of the old party 
 title was extended in order to preserve the unity and 
 the continuity of the party action as long as was pos- 
 sible. Thus liberalism, by a curious inversion of mean- 
 ing, began to signify the idea of state intervention by 
 way of social legislation. Of course, this new liberal- 
 ism — the liberalism of Gladstone and of Mr. Chamber- 
 lain of twenty years ago — was not quite like the 
 liberalism of Cobden and Bright. Now, in countries of 
 a more recent and less pacific political development the 
 other issue is generally taken : the old party title is
 
 224 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 worn out before its former adherents have time to 
 change or to extend their opinions; then it is thrown 
 aside by the more advanced groups, while remaining 
 the name of some conservative poHtical group. This 
 is the case in Germany, and still more so in the new 
 Slavic states, where "liberals" merely means "con- 
 servatives." 
 
 Now, in Russia the meaning of the term " liberal- 
 ism " is at once extended and worn out. It is extended 
 to the more radical groups, particularly in the press, 
 for the simple reason that every more advanced term 
 would be provoking to the censor and thus would incur 
 prompt suppression. The original meaning of liberal- 
 ism was the more easily altered, because in Russia it 
 was not bound by any historical recollections. It con- 
 noted the idea of state intervention, and thus became 
 more democratic, without being inconsistent with a 
 former tradition. General ideas are easily changed, if 
 they remain abstract, not being embodied in any system 
 of actual party policy. At the same time, however, the 
 term " liberalism " is worn out in Russia. This, of 
 course, is not because the liberal program is already 
 realized. Far from being so, this program presents 
 now the first step to be attained ; and this is recognized 
 and accepted by all parties in Russia. But, of course, 
 this first step is not acknowledged to be the only one : 
 political freedom and individual liberty no longer seem 
 to be the absolute good that they were considered when 
 the era of liberty dawned in France. In the eyes of 
 subsequent generations, liberalism was rather dis- 
 credited as a sort of class polic}'', that of the "third 
 estate," and thus anti-democratic. This was the mean-
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 225 
 
 ing of the term, which was already largely accepted 
 and current in Russia long before any continuous 
 liberal policy could be outlined. The greater number 
 of such as call themselves liberals in Russia in fact hold 
 to the more advanced opinions. That is why the term, 
 as I said, is worn out, without having actually served. 
 It certainly will not stand the slightest strain. With 
 the first gust of political liberty it will yield to some 
 more advanced term, while it will probably remain in 
 use to designate some conservative group. 
 
 We may now see the difference between the liberal- 
 ism of Russia and that of western Europe. But we 
 shall not be able clearly to understand the reasons for 
 this difference unless we resort to a historical explana- 
 tion. This is chiefly to be sought in the different 
 structure of the Russian society from that of western 
 Europe. 
 
 It is well known that European liberalism origi- 
 nated in the struggle of the bourgeoisie — the wealthy 
 and enlightened middle class of city inhabitants — with 
 an absolute monarchy and the privileged landed pro- 
 prietors. Russia, however, did not possess such a 
 bourgeoisie as that of w-estern Europe, and such as it 
 did possess was neither wealthy nor enlightened, nor 
 numerous and influential enough to have any political 
 weight in the country. To be sure, in Russia, too, 
 liberalism was directed against the agrarian class of 
 landlords, and particularly against their right to pos- ' 
 sess serfs. But it was started by members of the same 
 class of agrarian gentry and nobility, and the pro- 
 moters of the movement, far from supporting the class 
 interests, undermined the social position of the nobility
 
 326 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 and destroyed the very source of their pohtical power. 
 In doing so they were, of course, guided, not by 
 class considerations, but by philanthropic feehngs and 
 advanced pohtical theories. Thus they represented, 
 not class opinion, but general public opinion. Russian 
 liberalism was not bourgeois, but intellectual — to use 
 the French terms. Some chief features of Russian 
 social history may help to a better understanding of 
 what has just been advanced. 
 
 We must not dwell long, however, on the absence 
 of bourgeoisie and the insufficiency of Russian middle- 
 class development. We know already that for the most 
 part Russian towns originated, not in the necessities of 
 trade and commerce, but in those of military defense 
 and state colonization. We may add now that they 
 kept their original character for a long time. The 
 commercial population of the towns and cities was 
 growing very slowly ; the inhabitants for the most part 
 went on tilling the land and living the life of peasants, 
 even though they practiced some petty craft or trade. 
 But even such city inhabitants formed an insignificant 
 proportion of the whole population. In 1630 the entire 
 number of city inhabitants was 292,000 — about 2,9 
 per cent, of the whole population. In 1724 it was still 
 nearly the same, namely 328,000 (3 per cent.). A 
 century later the city population increased to ten times 
 what it was (3,025,000 in 1835), but even then the 
 •proportion to the whole population was only one and 
 one-half times higher (5.8 per cent.). In the second 
 half of the nineteenth century, however, the increase of 
 the city population went on more quickly, but even at 
 the present time (1897) the figures are 16,289,000 — 
 13 per cent, of the whole population.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 227 
 
 Rich merchants who were counted in Muscovite 
 Russia only by tens could be found in Moscow alone, 
 whither they were transplanted from other parts of 
 the country by the government as soon as they became 
 rich in some provincial town. These rich men were 
 very necessary in the city : they were intrusted here with 
 the collection of the indirect taxes, and they were made 
 liable by all they possessed for the accurate gathering 
 of money. Foreign trade was entirely in the hands of 
 foreign companies until the end of the seventeenth 
 century. Peter the Great introduced factories, but, 
 with the exception of some isolated cases of prompt 
 enrichment, these factories gave small profits and had 
 to be encouraged by government subsidies. In the 
 time of Catherine II. (1762-96), when the possession 
 of factories became profitable, noblemen threw them- 
 selves into the business, and their competition made 
 profits fall. After a short attempt at free trade, in the 
 reign of Alexander I., began the era of protectionism, 
 which, with few interruptions, has lasted ever since. 
 This system, though it enabled a certain number of 
 Russian factory owners to thrive, did not give them a 
 feeling of independence, nor did it contribute much to 
 the building up of the bourgeoisie, in the western Euro- 
 pean meaning of the word. Indeed, it was already too 
 late to form such a class, and its political role had long 
 been usurped by other social elements. 
 
 In western Europe it was the large landed property 
 which gave political power : the landed proprietors, the 
 nobility, contested the power of princes, before the 
 bourgeoisie came, in its turn, to help or to oppose them. 
 In Russia, owing to the primitiveness of economic
 
 228 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 development, landed property did not give so much 
 power and wealth. And so the possession of large 
 estates was often a consequence rather than a founda- 
 tion of the class power of the Russian nobility. Indeed, 
 this nobility never kncAv how to preserve such landed 
 property as it took possession of. It acquired or lost 
 property according to the gain or loss of its political 
 significance, which increased or decreased for quite 
 other — that is, for political rather than economical — 
 reasons. 
 
 When Russian autocracy was newly born (at the 
 end of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth 
 century), it was attended by a brilliant court of princes 
 and boyars. These princes had just been dispossessed 
 of political power over their hereditary properties, in 
 consequence of the unification of the Russian state. 
 Hardly a century had passed, however, before there 
 remained almost no traces of these large hereditary 
 estates of princes. To a certain extent this was their 
 own fault, because Russian aristocracy never could 
 give up the ancient custom of an equal partition of 
 their lands among the heirs. Nothing like the English 
 system of entail ever existed in Russia. Thus the 
 largest estates were scattered and dispersed in the 
 course of a few generations. The representatives of 
 most of the brilliant and aristocratic families were to 
 be found tilling their small shares of land as simple 
 peasants, as early as the seventeenth century. But 
 there was also another reason for this rapid impoverish- 
 ment of the ancient aristocracy. This was the con- 
 sistent policy of the Muscovite princes, who were quite 
 conscious of the aim which they were striving to
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 229 
 
 attain. In a former chapter^ we have seen how the 
 ancient landed proprietors were despoiled of their 
 properties by the government. This was particularly 
 the case with the large ducal estates of former sover- 
 eigns and high vassals. They were given lands in 
 other districts of the country, where they could have 
 no hereditary influence on the inhabitants; or, as a 
 more simple method, they were accused of the lack of 
 fealty, and then underwent capital punishment, some- 
 times "with all their kin," as one of them, Prince 
 Koorbsky, says. This was the policy of John IV., thie 
 Terrible. 
 
 One of John's advisers, a political writer of the 
 time, gave him good advice as to where to search for 
 support in this struggle against the aristocracy. In 
 order to be able to " play with magnates as little chil- 
 dren," he says, John had only to support and to organ- 
 ize the gentry, the men of military service. We have 
 already seen- that this was also the necessity of the 
 time, provoked by state reasons — not only a mere 
 device of internal policy. Thus the gentry took the 
 place left empty by the decline of the nobility of 
 ancient lineage. From the gentry also a new nobility 
 was to be enrolled. This was the nobility of state 
 service. Such persons as were higher officials became 
 members of this new aristocracy. And this new aris- 
 tocracy, being more dependent on the Tsar than was 
 the ancient order, often contrived to gain large landed 
 estates. The most important of them were such as 
 were personally related to the Tsar. But this kind of 
 
 'See p. 157. -'See p. 150.
 
 230 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 importance was not at all stable. According to their 
 rise or fall, their big landed properties came into exist- 
 ence or were again submerged during the seventeenth 
 century. With the new dynasty of the Romanovs, 
 which was of comparatively modest origin, members of 
 the same family take a leading place among Russian 
 landlords; during the next reign, that of Alexis, his 
 new friend and relative Morozov comes into promi- 
 nence; and only half a century later Romanovs and 
 Morozovs disappear, to give way to the relatives of the 
 new Tsar, the Nareeshkins and the Lopooheens. 
 
 Amidst this constant process of gain or loss of 
 influence, no independent source of power and influ- 
 ence could persist. The only power was that given 
 by the place occupied in the Tsar's service : the current 
 formula was that " Everybody in Moscow was great or 
 small according to the Tsar's appointment." Thus 
 the "appointment," the "place" in the Tsar's service, 
 became the chief thing which everybody strove to attain 
 according to his family precedents. The great w^ish of 
 everyone was not to be " diminished " (or " lowered ") 
 in the honor of service from the position which had 
 been occupied by his parents, and everybody was 
 closely observed by everybody else, that he might not 
 achieve such promotion in service as would throw into 
 the background his competitors from equally good 
 families. This is what was called the system of the 
 " struggle for places." You see that this system was 
 not conducive to the development of a feeling of unity 
 among the members of the upper layer. No esprit de 
 corps existed among the Russian aristocracy; and 
 nothing like an idea of equality among its members,
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 231 
 
 the idea of peerage, could possibly be evolved. No 
 other chance of forming a "corporate spirit" existed 
 for the lower stratum of the Russian nobility, the 
 gentry in the seventeenth century. Though favored 
 and protected by the government, they could not 
 become really influential so long as they possessed no 
 class organization, and had no opportunity of continu- 
 ous touch and intercourse. The military service 
 exacted from them was intermittent and badly organ- 
 ized. Gentlemen joined their regiments of cavalry 
 only when their regiments were quite ready to march ; 
 and they always tried so to manage as to go home 
 before the campaign was ended. They had no definite 
 place in the regiment, and they stood where they liked, 
 surrounded each by his servants. Naturally enough, 
 the government was not satisfied with such an army, 
 and wished to have a standing army of mercenary 
 soldiers, skilled in military art and armed with fire- 
 arms. Such a body of arquebusiers existed continu- 
 ously from the days of John IV.; till the end of the 
 seventeenth century they played the part of janizaries 
 in Moscow^ About 1630 regular infantry also began 
 to be organized in the country; and this reform was 
 achieved in 1670, without recurring to the knights of 
 the gentry. The military role of the Russian gentry 
 seemed to be played out by this reform of the Russian 
 army. New regiments for regular service consisted of 
 enrolled peasants or of such " lower ranks of serving 
 men " as were not socially far removed from peasants. 
 The officers who commanded them were also not mem- 
 bers of the gentry, but, nearly all of them, foreigners. 
 The ancient cavalry of the knights of the gentry thus
 
 232 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 became quite antiquated, and their military help could 
 now be entirely foregone. 
 
 Thus the old Muscovite system of military tenants 
 of the state was in its decay when Peter the Great began 
 his incessant wars and his civil reforms. Both his wars 
 and reforms made him want men ; and thus with Peter 
 began a new era in the history of the Russian gentry 
 and aristocracy. But there were also other reasons 
 which made him restore on a new and larger basis the 
 lower middle class of the " men of service." These rea- 
 sons were the same as had led John IV. a century and a 
 half before. Peter disliked and distrusted what survived 
 of the higher Russian nobility down to his time, both 
 the nobility of birth and the nobility of the state service. 
 He needed the social support of lower social elements 
 against the higher. At the same time he needed it also 
 against the former standing military corps in Moscow, 
 which was meant to be such a support, but which 
 instead had grown into a continuous danger. I mean 
 the arquebusiers, the Moscow janizaries of that time. 
 They proved particularly turbulent during Peter's 
 minority. Now, to counterbalance both nobility and 
 janizaries, Peter formed some new guard regiments, 
 largely composed of men of the gentry. He needed, 
 however, much more than that; he needed a standing 
 army for his great war with the Swedes, and another 
 army of officials for his bureaucratic institutions. The 
 old class of the " state servants " was not large enough 
 for both purposes. It had to be remodeled and entirely 
 recast on much larger foundations. 
 
 This was what Peter did. On a larger scale it was 
 what John III. had accomplished when he first formed
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 233 
 
 the class of military men of service. New social ele- 
 ments were now again to be resorted to. And the 
 principle on which they were to be united with the 
 former elements into a whole social group was just 
 that of the state service. 
 
 Peter wanted his soldiers from the old gentry to 
 serve " from the very foundations," as he expressed it : 
 they were to be obliged to start as simple soldiers, and 
 they were to be regularly promoted to the rank of offi- 
 cers. On the other hand, every simple soldier taken 
 from any other social layer served in the same way and 
 passed the same line of promotion, until he became an 
 officer and, as such, was considered a member of the 
 gentry. Thus, to the extreme dissatisfaction of the 
 ancient families of the gentry, the entrance into their 
 rank was kept wide open for new "men of service." 
 Its social composition was, once more in Russian his- 
 tory, very much democratized, and its social importance 
 very much lowered. 
 
 The same system of mixing up the social elements 
 by means of a central notion of the state service was 
 applied by Peter to the civil service. The lower ranks 
 of civil service had formerly been filled by a particular 
 class of " clerks," much despised by the gentry. But 
 now that civil service, with the introduction of the 
 European absolutism and bureaucracy, had gained 
 much in importance, Peter wanted the gentry, so 
 reluctant to follow his orders, to mingle with the 
 "clerks," In civil service as well as in military, an 
 equal system of promotion in rank, without regard to 
 social extraction, was also introduced. Here particu- 
 larly the ancient principle of state service, of " appoint-
 
 234 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 ment" and "place," far from being abolished, was 
 carried by Peter to its extreme consequences. From 
 this time forward there existed no social difference 
 which could not be equalized by means of the state 
 service. The " place " or degree in the service, the 
 Chin or rank, was everything; lineage was nothing. 
 (Fourteen ranks, or Chins, were to be passed from the 
 lowest to the highest, in established order, by every 
 "man of service.") The aristocracy of extraction was 
 thus for the second time discarded : the new aristocracy 
 of Chin took its place. 
 
 To be sure, this new aristocracy was not like that of 
 the seventeenth nor that of the sixteenth century. It 
 was neither an aristocracy of families entitled to high 
 service, nor was it an aristocracy of ancient lineage. 
 But still it was an aristocracy. Its privileges of state 
 service were, of course, extended to every social layer ; 
 still they remained privileges. The Chin abolished the 
 old marks of extraction; but the Chin itself now 
 marked the line between such as possessed it and such 
 as were denied. Thus the democratizing of the state 
 service by Peter the Great served as a new start in the 
 history of the privileged order, and was followed by a 
 new development of the class spirit. 
 
 The ranks of the new aristocracy of Chin were 
 soon filled up. It included the few that remained of 
 the former two aristocracies^ the princes of the six- 
 teenth and the high officials of the seventeenth century. 
 But the greater part of its composition was entirely 
 new, and was particularly dependent on the liberality 
 of the government. The new courts of the empresses 
 Anna (1730-40) and Elizabeth (1741-61), borrowing
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 235 
 
 French customs, wanted brilliancy, and demanded 
 enormous supplies of money. Few courtiers were able 
 to provide for these expenses out of their hereditary 
 estates. The greater number were to be relieved by 
 the government, and the government came to the aid 
 of the new court aristocracy of the eighteenth century. 
 The government gave them places, money, profitable 
 business : it was blind to certain illegal ways of enrich- 
 ment which were constantly resorted to ; lastly, it gave 
 them most liberal grants of land inhabited by the state 
 peasants; i. e., by free cultivators who thus became 
 serfs. These land grants became most numerous just 
 now, when no need of them for the state service existed. 
 Catherine II. granted 800,000 peasants to her courtiers 
 (on an average 23,000 each year). Paul, her succes- 
 sor, was still more liberal : he gave every year about 
 120,000 peasants, which made the whole sum 530,000. 
 Many large estates that still exist date from this period ; 
 but a still greater number of the estates built up during 
 his time have again disappeared. 
 
 Together with these grants to the highest order of 
 the nobility, the gentry as a whole acquired, in the 
 second half of the eighteenth century, a kind of political 
 influence which it never possessed before ; and it used 
 this influence to affirm its privileged position. The 
 chief foundation of this new power of the gentry was 
 the military service of the nobles in the Petersburg 
 guard regiments. After having liberated Peter the 
 Great from the fear of the arquebusiers of the seven- 
 teenth century, this guard of noblemen became itself a 
 body of janizaries. During the first sixteen years after 
 the death of Peter they four times took part in court
 
 236 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 revolutions. And the part they played became more 
 and more important. At first, in 1725, they were used 
 by their superiors only as a means for raising the wife 
 of Peter the Great, a simple Livonian peasant girl, to 
 the throne, at the cost of his legal heir. Five years 
 later, in 1730, the noble guards themselves raised their 
 voice in a debate over the form of government; and 
 practically they carried out the resolution of their 
 majority. They gave back autocratic power to the 
 empress Anna, after their more advanced colleagues 
 had failed to carry into execution a plan for a constitu- 
 tion. And this very failure was also characteristic of 
 the rising importance of the gentry. The plan, indeed, 
 had already been carried out by the high officials 
 of the superior council, who had just made the newly 
 elected empress sign a Russian magna charta. But 
 they did not wish the gentry to share in their political 
 victory: they quarreled with the liberal officers, and 
 this was enough to make them quite powerless. Again, 
 ten years later, the guards deposed a regent, and some 
 months afterward they deposed a baby sovereign; 
 after twenty years more (1762) they were to depose 
 an adult one, for the benefit of Catherine II. 
 
 The liberal guard officers of 1730 aimed, as we have 
 seen, at attaining a political ideal of their own. While 
 sharing in the theory of " natural law," they wished to 
 realize the theoretical right of the people to choose their 
 sovereign, and to determine their own and the sover- 
 eign's powers in legislation and government. The offi- 
 cers of 1762 had no opportunity of formulating their 
 political views ; but five years later the gentry had the 
 opportunity of defending their class interests in a gen-
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 2i^ 
 
 eral assembly of deputies called together by Catherine 
 11.^ This time the ascendency of the Russian gentry, 
 as a privileged class, was achieved. The internal 
 policy of Catherine II. was entirely turned to their 
 profit. Some timid steps toward the emancipation of 
 the peasants, or rather toward a mere limitation of 
 the rights of the landlords over their serfs, were made 
 by the empress in the beginning of her reign. But she 
 took them back, and entirely changed her policy as soon 
 as the large majority of the gentry assembled in 1767 
 raised its voice against this reform. In the following- 
 years Catherine, more than any other ruler, contributed 
 to the transformation of the Russian gentry into a 
 privileged class. Noblemen were definitively liberated 
 from their old duty toward the government — com- 
 pulsory service in the army. At the same time, their 
 serfs and their landed property, which until then they 
 had been supposed to hold from the state on the con- 
 dition of service, not only remained in their possession, 
 but even became their full and undisputed private 
 property. For the first time in Russia, a serf began to 
 be considered by the law as a thing which might be 
 owned in the same way as any other private property. 
 For the first time, also, local government was given up 
 to the elective representatives and assemblies of the 
 gentry. It seemed that a foundation was thus laid for 
 the predominance of the gentry in the state, and that 
 this predominance was to be solid and lasting. 
 
 Three quarters of a century had scarcely passed, 
 however, before this privileged position of the gentry 
 was again definitively destroyed ; more easily, perhaps, 
 
 ^ See p. 172.
 
 238 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 than it had come into existence. Serfs were liberated. 
 The prevaihng influence of the gentry in the local gov- 
 ernment was undermined and practically abolished, 
 owing to the introduction of a new system of self- 
 government, built on more democratic lines.^ The 
 other privileges of the gentry lost their significance, 
 because they were extended to other classes. How can 
 we explain such a rapid and easy change? 
 
 The explanation is the same as before. The privi- 
 leged gentry of the eighteenth century may have been 
 distinguishd by the high-sounding title of the " well- 
 born nobility of Russia;" as a matter of fact, they 
 remained what they always had been : humble " men of 
 service." After all their political successes, they still 
 preferred the "place" in the service, the Chin, to any 
 elective office in their class self-government. They 
 went on considering their landed property as a sort of 
 reward for their services to the state, and did not wish 
 to devote to the cultivation of their estates such time as 
 could be better employed to obtain promotion in a Chin 
 in military or in civil service. They still clung to their 
 old idea, that they served the state, and that, recip- 
 rocally, the state was obliged to provide for their 
 material well-being. In short, the kind of historical 
 tradition they cherished prevented them from facing 
 the new position of independence which the legislation 
 of Catherine II. opened to them. No wonder that the 
 emancipation of their serfs took them quite unawares, 
 and found them quite unprepared for meeting the 
 necessities of their changed position. In the modern 
 struggle of free competition, that they were now 
 
 * See pp. 241-44.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 239 
 
 obliged to engage in on equal conditions with every- 
 body, they were completely beaten. 
 
 Not in vain, however, did they invoke their old tra- 
 dition. At this moment of crisis the government once 
 more came to their aid. We know already that just 
 then the government itself was changing its policy of 
 self-improvement for another policy of self-defense. 
 Everything that was old and was thought to be of 
 some use for the support of the government was put 
 under the protection of the new theory of "official 
 nationalism." Now, the gentry had really served the 
 government in the days of old. Therefore they too 
 were to be fenced about and preserved for some future 
 use, as a particularly nationalistic institution. Thus, 
 curiously enough, Russian noblemen were again taken 
 under the protection of the government, at the moment 
 when their real significance for the state had become 
 nil. The new role that was by force bestowed on the 
 gentry is founded on a fiction, and on a political 
 ideology. This ideological character of the state pro- 
 tection is best shown by the inefficiency of the meas- 
 ures taken for the protection of the gentry after 
 slavery, their chief support, had been taken from them. 
 Measures were used lavishly, owing to Minister Tol- 
 stoy's policy. They formed one of the chief objects of 
 the legislation of Alexander III. (1881-94). But, in 
 spite of all these measures, the decline of the gentry as 
 a class went uninterruptedly on its way. First of all, 
 the only remaining foundation of their existence as a 
 class, their landed property, quickly melted away. 
 Before the liberation of the peasants, 281 million 
 acres of land belonged to the noblemen. They were
 
 240 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 obliged, in the process of emancipation, to sell to the 
 peasants 70 millions of acres, so that they kept after 
 this reform 211 millions, and received for the remain- 
 der ready money, which might have been used for the 
 improvement of their estates. For the most part, how- 
 ever, they spent that money quite unproductively, and 
 were soon obliged to borrow from institiftions of credit. 
 This completely ruined them, because they were nearly 
 always unable to pay the interest on their loans. They 
 lost or sold their estates, so that now they possess not 
 more than 143 million acres. Not less than a third 
 part of the estates went thus to possessors from other 
 social orders; and the number of noble proprietors 
 diminished at the same time from 123,000 to 102,000. 
 This decrease would have been greater still, had not 
 measures been taken by the state to prevent the sale of 
 noblemen's estates for debt. In 1885 a special bank for 
 the nobility was founded, in compliance with the 
 demands of indebted proprietors of the landed estates 
 of the nobility. This bank provides for cheaper credit, 
 and took so small a percentage for loans that it was not 
 able to cover even its own expenses and payments : the 
 loss was made good by a special state loan. In spite of 
 this, noble debtors proved most unreliable in their pay- 
 ments. About four thousand indebted estates are 
 yearly proposed for public sale by the bank (of which 
 number about one thousand to twelve hundred belong 
 to insolvent debtors), and yet only some thirty-three of 
 these estates are actually sold by auction. All the rest, 
 so far from fulfilling their obligations toward the bank, 
 simply manage to put ofif their payments, owing to 
 their personal influence, or to pay such a small sum as
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 241 
 
 will satisfy the bank officials, who very well know that 
 the government does not wish them to be too severe 
 toward the "men of state service." And when such 
 unpaid money grows to a certain amount, it still may 
 be added to the capital debt (or paid by way of an addi- 
 tional loan from the same bank), and the debt thus 
 increased may be permitted to be amortized in a longer 
 term. Thus the official figures quoted above, so far 
 from showing the full amount of economic ruin and 
 distress of the gentry, rather disguise the real condition 
 of things. Only in case the nobility had been treated 
 as ordinary debtors would the actual magnitude of the 
 evil instantly have appeared. 
 
 But there is another way in which the government 
 tried to make good the material losses of the nobility 
 after the emancipation of the peasants. While losing 
 economic predominance, the nobility wished to pre- 
 serve, and even to enlarge, their power in local admin- 
 istration and justice. They strove to attain such a 
 position as English squires and magistrates possessed 
 in parish and county, before the Reform Bill of 1832 
 had been passed. But the general tendency of that 
 time (1864) was rather adverse to class legislation. 
 Civic equality was the prevailing idea of the reformers. 
 Thence, the first statute for local self-government 
 (1864) based local representation, not on the differ- 
 ences of social orders, but on the quantity of landed 
 property. Noblemen had to elect their delegates 
 together with other landed proprietors, while other 
 orders, the peasants and the city inhabitants, were also 
 admitted to representation ; they chose their delegates 
 in separate conventions. Still, even here the predomi-
 
 242 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 nance in the local government remained with the gen- 
 try, which made up the large majority of private pro- 
 prietors, and so dominated entirely their convention. 
 But this did not yet seem sufficient, and a further step 
 was taken in order to give the representatives of this 
 first convention a prevailing role in the composition of 
 the provincial assemblies. In 300 districts (out of the 
 whole number of 318) they were permitted to elect 
 more than a third, and in 200 of them half the repre- 
 sentatives of all three orders; and thus they became 
 quite a leading group in the assemblies. Altogether 
 they possessed 6,204 seats out of 13,024 {i. e., 48 per 
 cent. ) , while the peasants were entitled to choose only 
 5,171 delegates (f. e., 40 per cent.), and the town 
 inhabitants 1,649 (^- ^v 12 per cent.). 
 
 How much out of proportion these figures were 
 with the actual numerical relation of the classes we 
 may gather, if we remember that the 48 per cent, of 
 delegates from private land-owners represented a 
 group of not more than 480,000 private proprietors, 
 and that out of this number every fourth man was 
 a nobleman, and every tenth man was entitled to 
 vote; meanwhile the 40 per cent, of the peasant mem- 
 bers represented a solid mass of 22.4 million poll-tax 
 payers, who were the collective proprietors of the Rus- 
 sian village communities; and the 12 per cent, of town 
 delegates represented about three million of the male 
 inhabitants. In approximate figures, this will give one 
 delegate for eight electors, who were generally noble- 
 men taken from eighty private proprietors of all 
 orders; one delegate for 1,800 male inhabitants of a 
 town ; and one delegate for 4,300 peasant rate-payers.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 243 
 
 The interests of the nobihty cannot be said to have 
 been neglected by the reformers. And, indeed, the 
 influence of the nobihty over the activity of the provin- 
 cial assemblies, or Zemstvos, was decisive. In such 
 questions, e. g., as local taxation they unfailingly used 
 this influence for the profit of their class. Still the 
 general tendency of the Zemstvos was, as we soon shall 
 see, liberal (and even in the matter of taxation they 
 often advocated a progressive income tax). The con- 
 servatives were not slow to infer that this liberalism 
 was due to the system of elections. The tendency of 
 uniting different social orders in the same conventions, 
 and of bringing them together in Zemstvos, they were 
 sure to trace back to the principles of the great French 
 Revolution. They thought that the remedy was to 
 be found in the re-establishment of pure class repre- 
 sentation, with the entire predominance of the ancient 
 ruling class of the gentry. It was taken for granted 
 that the enforced representation of the gentry would 
 change the liberalism of the councils into a kind of 
 nationalistic conservatism. Thus, by the new statute 
 of 1890 the general number of electors and their repre- 
 sentatives was diminished (the number of electors had 
 formerly been 226,174, except peasants; now they 
 were only 80,000, 35,000 of them being noblemen). 
 The non-noble electors were, so far as possible, 
 excluded ; a number of votes were transferred from 
 the peasants to landed proprietors; and the elective 
 heads of the district nobility were made members of 
 assemblies without further election. The new com- 
 position of the district assemblies was now as follows:
 
 244 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Representatives of landed owners - - . . . 5,433 
 
 (S7.i per cent., instead of the former 48 per cent., 
 
 I representative from 6.4 electors.) 
 City inhabitants --------- 1,273 
 
 i^33 per cent., i representative from 36 house 
 
 proprietors.) 
 Village communities -------- 2,817 
 
 9,523 
 
 Of course, the representation had now become still 
 more artificial, and the choice of the delegates from the 
 nobility had deteriorated, because places were now 
 more numerous than candidates, and, not being respon- 
 sible to any large constituency, the delegates did not 
 sufficiently appreciate the importance of their mandate. 
 At the same time. Zcmstvos were made much more 
 dependent on administrative authorities; their elected 
 heads and members of the executive boards were joined 
 to the state service, which made them feel responsible 
 to the Ministry of the Interior, instead of to their 
 electors. 
 
 With all this, however, was the political aim of 
 the new reform attained ? Was there no more liberal- 
 ism in the provincial and district assemblies? We soon 
 shall see that the liberal flame, far from being extin- 
 guished, reappeared at least as large and as intense as 
 before. 
 
 We must mention here a further measure taken to 
 increase the local influence of the gentry. The theo- 
 rists of the ruling class, as I have said, wished to give 
 them the direct right of governing the local population, 
 jurisdiction and the right of punishment;'^ in short, a 
 
 * There was such an office, the " justices of the peace " elected 
 by the Zemstvos according to the statute of 1864; but it did not at
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA ' 24S 
 
 discretionary power that would remind you more of 
 the power of an autocrat than of that of an EngHsh 
 landlord of the eighteenth century. The original 
 aspirations of the conservatives were hardly to be car- 
 ried out, being too barbarous even for such a country 
 as Russia ; still the government yielded to their pres- 
 sure, and in 1889 the " district commanders " (Zcmskca 
 Nachalnekee) were introduced. But even this meas- 
 ure came too late to raise the social importance of the 
 decaying gentry. The government used the new local 
 office of Zcuisky Nachalnik for its own ends, not for 
 the ends of the nobility. The nomination was made 
 dependent on the will of the local governor, and the 
 appointed "district commanders" are in all they do 
 responsible to the governor. Thus they are, in fact, 
 officials of the ministry; or, again, "men of serv- 
 ice," not men of credit and influence among the local 
 nobility. During the first few years of their existence 
 the " district commanders " still showed some examples 
 of the wild independence and energy worthy of the 
 ancient "landlords;" but afterwards they were so 
 often criticised by their superiors, condemned for their 
 overbearing deeds by tribunals, blamed by the senate, 
 subjected to the sarcastic criticisms and derision of the 
 press, that their initial resoluteness was shaken, their 
 arrogant abuse of power became rarer, and finally they 
 acquiesced in playing the role of secondary police offi- 
 cials, who unhappily still preserve their judiciary 
 rights and their discretionary power in the village, but 
 who, sooner or later, will be deprived of them. 
 
 all satisfy the promoters of the noblemen's interests, because this 
 office, so far from possessing discretionary power, was confined to 
 the branch of mere jurisdiction.
 
 246 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 After this short sketch of the social history of the 
 nobihty and gentry, we may now judge how much the 
 Russian nobihty and gentry always needed the sup- 
 port of the government, how much they owed to the 
 government their past and actual possessions, of how 
 small importance they would have been if left to their 
 own resources of wealth and power, and how hopeless 
 is their economic future. As we now know, the 
 nobility was too dependent on the government, and 
 presented too few elements of political opposition. 
 This is particularly clear in the role it played when a 
 question of most momentous significance and of vital 
 importance for it was being resolved by the govern- 
 ment — the emancipation of the peasants. A reform 
 that in other European countries might have been 
 achieved only very gradually or, if at once, only by the 
 help of a social revolution, in Russia was decided by 
 the autocratic power, met with no opposition except 
 mere grumbling and some clandestine intrigues, and 
 was carried out in a most decisive manner by an insig- 
 nificant minority of idealistic men of action. To 
 explain this, we may quote the following words of 
 Count Strogonov, one of the intimate friends of young 
 Alexander I. Count Strogonov, as early as the begin- 
 ning of the nineteenth century, wished to prove that 
 the danger consisted, not in abolishing serfdom, but in 
 preserving it, because not the discontent of the nobility, 
 but that of the people, was to be feared. " What is 
 nobility? " he asked. And his answer follows : 
 
 It is formed of a great quantity of people who became noble- 
 men only by way of service, who have received no education, 
 whose thoughts are so directed as not to conceive anything other- 
 wise than as arising from the authority of the emperor. They
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 247 
 
 have no idea of right or of law that could generate in them the 
 smallest resistance to the government. Such of them as have been 
 more carefully educated are not numerous, and they are for the 
 most part imbued with a spirit that is in no way contrary to the 
 reforms of the government. Such noblemen as have made their 
 own the true idea of justice will sympathize with the measure in 
 question ; the remaining majority will not reason much about it, 
 but only chatter a little. Where are now the elements of dan- 
 gerous discontent? But, on the other hand, there are nine millions 
 of people scattered through all the empire, everywhere feeling 
 equally the heaviness of their slavery. They possess a common 
 sense that astonished the men who knew them well. From 
 
 their very childhood they have been filled with hate At 
 
 all times it has been the peasants who have shared in disturb- 
 ances, and never the nobility What had not been done 
 
 against the rights, nay, even against the personal safety, of the 
 nobility during the reign of Paul ? If ever there had been reason 
 for growing disquiet, it was then. But had they even thought of 
 resistance? Quite the contrary. Every measure that aimed at 
 violating the rights of the nobility had been carried through with 
 astonishing accuracy; and it was a nobleman who had brought 
 measures into action that were directed against his brethren, that 
 were contrary to the interest and honor of his order. 
 
 This was said sixty years before the emancipation 
 (i8ot), but the general situation remained during a 
 century nearly the same. When Catherine II. first 
 opened up the question of emancipation, she told her 
 reluctant helpers that the peasants would soon or late 
 themselves take their liberty from the hands of the 
 landlords, if their burdens were not alleviated. And 
 Alexander 11. some four years befor-e the emancipation 
 repeated the same assertion to the nobility of Moscow : 
 " It is better that liberty should come from above than 
 from below." 
 
 This brings us back, then, to the question from 
 which we started in our discussion of Russian social
 
 248 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 history. We asked : In what classes ot Russian society 
 would HberaHsm be Hkely to find support? And we 
 have now the answer : The nolDihty as a class was too 
 weak, even as to questions touching its very existence, 
 to oppose the government. But the nobility, as the 
 most educated body in the empire, supported the gov- 
 ernment in carrying out measures directed against itself 
 as a class. In fact, the great measure of the emancipa- 
 tion of the peasants was first proposed, always sup- 
 ported, and finally carried into execution by the liberal 
 minority of the gentry. Emancipation was the chief 
 plank in their political platform during the whole first 
 period of their public activity. 
 
 This aim was attained in 1861 ; and the emancipa- 
 tion of the peasants brought with it the economic ruin 
 of the gentry class. Then began a second period in the 
 history of Russian liberalism — a period of struggle 
 for political liberty. This second aim. however, proved 
 much fnore difficult to attain ; for the educated gentry 
 had now to fight against autocracy, whereas during the 
 first period they merely helped autocracy against their 
 own class. In the beginning of this their new struggle 
 no other class sided with them, though millions of 
 serfs had backed the struggle for emancipation. More- 
 over, in espousing the cause of political liberty, they 
 were suspected by groups more radical than their own 
 of selfishly pursuing their class interests. Constitu- 
 tionalism, therefore, was doomed as aristocratic; and 
 this for nearly a generation spoiled the liberal plea. 
 Twenty years later, public opinion became more favor- 
 able to political reform; but "the educated gentry" 
 as a separate social group was no longer there; other
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 249 
 
 voices were heard, louder and more determined than 
 theirs. The struggle was resumed by an educated 
 minority of "mixed ranks." 
 
 Indeed, the main characteristic of this second period 
 of Russian liberalism is that the educated gentry were 
 no longer the only social milieu from which political 
 struggle originated. Owing to ''the great reforms" 
 of the sixties, new and more democratic social elements 
 had meanwhile come upon the political stage, and this 
 new condition changed greatly the very program and 
 character of the political struggle. The new genera- 
 tion was very desirous not to be taken for the old-style 
 lil^erals. The radical elements had so differentiated 
 themselves from the liberal ones that liberalism, from 
 being the general condition of every educated mind, 
 had become the moderate political doctrine of a cer- 
 tain group. In any country enjoying political freedom 
 liberalism under such conditions would have reduced 
 itself to the modest and efficient role of a doctrine for 
 the " leisure class." In Russia, however, even after its 
 differentiation from radicalism, liberalism remained 
 what it had been before — a movement patriotic and 
 philanthropic rather than professionally political ; and 
 its program, instead of becoming the representative 
 opinion of landed and moneyed interests, followed the 
 general trend of public opinion, until by and by it 
 became more democratic and radical. And this situa- 
 tion can change only when political reform has been 
 achieved in Russia. 
 
 Now that these general outlines of the history of 
 Russian liberalism have been made clear, let us proceed 
 to a more detailed exposition of the subject. In its first
 
 250 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Stage, the struggle against serfdom, it is chiefly the his- 
 tory of Russian pubHc opinion. In its second stage, 
 the struggle for political freedom, it is, however, the 
 history of a political party. 
 
 The beginnings of public opinion in Russia are 
 closely connected with the establishment of the first 
 institutions for higher study. These were the " Corps 
 of Nobility" started by the empress Anna in 1732, and 
 the Moscow University founded by the empress Eliza- 
 beth in 1755. Both institutions were intended for the 
 education of noblemen. The first generation of edu- 
 cated noblemen graduated from these schools was not 
 likely to throw itself into any political activity. Their 
 prevailing interest, according to the general taste of 
 that time, was essentially literary and sesthetic. The 
 theater, poetry, and novels attracted them as in the first 
 half of the eighteenth century these same things did 
 the western European public. In the second half of 
 that century literature and fiction gave way to phi- 
 losophy and politics ; and in either line more advanced 
 ideas gradually took the place of the more moderate 
 ones. Rousseau and Diderot, Helvetius and Holbach, 
 eclipsed Montesqieu and Voltaire. And the Russia of 
 1 750-1800 conscientiously followed each stage of this 
 European development. The above-mentioned genera- 
 tion of 1740-50, enjoying the refinements of the newly 
 introduced European culture, was followed by the 
 more politically developed generation of 1760 (the 
 beginning of the reign of Catherine II.). This latter 
 generation still believed in the "enlightened" legisla- 
 tion of absolute monarchs, and was ready to support 
 the wise rulers by widening their knowledge and sing-
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 251 
 
 ing their praise. After the failure of Catherine's 
 enHghtened legislation, the third generation — that of 
 1770 — appeared. The members of this generation no 
 longer credited the rulers with wisdom and had become 
 sure of the deliberate "wickedness" of the rulers. In 
 politics they wished public initiative to take the place 
 of bureaucratism ; in education they insisted upon the 
 development of the personal will. 
 
 Thus, the men of the two generations — 1760 and 
 1770 — represented the first independent political opin- 
 ion in Russia, and were the first to oppose this opinion 
 to the policy of the government.^ It was easier for 
 that generation than for their predecessors of 1750 to 
 assume an independent attitude toward the govern- 
 ment, since they were no longer in direct touch with 
 the court, as the first " intellectuals " had been. They 
 formed independent private circles in the capital and in 
 the provinces. In politics they professed democratism, 
 and stood up for the " vile " taxable multitude of the 
 village and of the borough, as against the privileged 
 few of their own class. In religion they opposed the 
 stern morality and the mysticism of freemasons to the 
 easy-going materialism and worldly frivolity of St. 
 Petersburg high-life. 
 
 This generation tried to influence public opinion 
 first as journalists. In their periodicals, among verse 
 and fiction, under the literary disguise of satire, more 
 serious matters were introduced. They spoke against 
 the social and legal privileges of the rich and the 
 " well-born ; " they undertook the defense of the poor 
 
 "As we have seen (pp. 26, 46, 172), this policy turned to 
 reaction.
 
 252 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 and the downtrodden. But this satire proved too mor- 
 bid, and too much imbued with the spirit of criticism 
 and opposition, to be tolerated by Catherine II. We 
 have seen how vain was her endeavor to allow the 
 liberal journalists to advocate her own cause. Having 
 failed in this, she attempted to fight them with their 
 own weapon, and to this end started her own literary 
 organ, in which she was to take reveng^e on recalcitrant 
 journalists by exposing them to pubic derision. 
 
 But the satire of the empress was not so efficient a 
 challenge; and then her irritated majesty resorted to 
 sharper methods. One by one the more advanced 
 periodicals were suppressed. But even this measure 
 did not cause the advanced circles to surrender. 
 Thrust out from the field of journalism, they 
 endeavored to act through private schools and by 
 means of editorial activity. They were busy printing- 
 books, organizing the sale and spread of them in prov- 
 inces where no books had until then existed; and 
 finally, by organizing public charity on a larger scale 
 than it had ever before existed, they started in phi- 
 lanthropic activity for the benefit of the lower classes. 
 
 The very fact of there being a private organization 
 for public activity was unusual in Russia, and was con- 
 sidered to be a provocation to the government. So the 
 circles of friends were closely watched by the govern- 
 ment as suspicious and dangerous. They came to 
 be particularly suspected when the philanthropists 
 founded a kind of secret organization in connection 
 with the masonic lodges abroad. For no political ten- 
 dencies had existed in the Russian masonry, which 
 rather had been absorbed in mystical "works" and
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 253 
 
 moral self-improvement. But political tendencies ha\- 
 ing been discovered in a branch of the European 
 masonry — the " Illnminates "' — Catherine II., who 
 knew scarcely anything of the uirferences between the 
 various masonic systems, would be certain to find these 
 same tendencies existing in the Russian lodges. And 
 she thought her suspicion fully confirmed when the 
 renowned book of Radeeshchev^ appeared (1790). 
 Catherine was quite certain that the author belonged 
 to the Moscow "ring" of freemasons, whose activity 
 was especially objectionable to her. And just then also 
 she was particularly alarmed at the horrors of the 
 French Revolution. The book of Radeeshchev was 
 the last straw, and so Catherine began a formal perse- 
 cution of the whole group of liberals, though Radeesh- 
 chev stood in no direct connection with the advanced 
 masons in Moscow. Radeeshchev was sent to Siberia ; 
 Noveekov, the leader of the Moscow circle — and the 
 most eager initiator and promoter of every kind of 
 activity: literary, educational, editorial, and philan- 
 thropic — was imprisoned for several years; and many 
 of his friends likewise suffered. 
 
 The book of Radeeshchev thus inaugurated the first 
 political persecution of public opinion in Russia. And 
 with full historical right, for it contains the first politi- 
 cal program of Russian liberalism. A cursory glance 
 into the book shows this clearly. After a thorough criti- 
 cism of the bureaucratic regime in Russia, the author 
 proposed as necessary reforms : the emancipation of 
 the peasants, the abolition of the privileges of the 
 nobility, and the liberty of the press and of religious 
 
 ' See p. 26.
 
 254 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 belief. He also contemplated national representation 
 and constitutional government as a corollary to previ- 
 ous reforms. In the book of Radeeshchev Russian 
 liberalism thus became of age, and immediately entered 
 upon its first open conflict with the government. 
 
 How this conflict ended we have seen. Yet this 
 end, violent as it was, looks harmless and innocent when 
 compared with the issue of the second conflict between 
 the government and public opinion. 
 
 The second conflict was that of the December rebel- 
 lion of 1825.^ A certain period passed between the first 
 conflict and the second. And this interval corresponds 
 to a break in the continuity of the development of Rus- 
 sian public opinion. It finds, also, its counterpart in 
 western Europe : the period of reaction against the 
 French Revolution and of the Napoleonic wars. This 
 break of continuity is filled by the attempts at political 
 reform by Emperor Alexander I.,^ but in his liberal 
 attempts the Tsar was not sufficiently supported by 
 public opinion, which, owing to the national irritation 
 against Napoleon, was at that time rather jingoistic ;^*^ 
 while liberalism was governmental and officially 
 accepted. 
 
 The real revival of liberalism among the educated 
 classes of Russian society, however, began first with 
 the end of the Napoleonic wars; and this liberalism 
 was not transmitted by tradition descended from the 
 time of Radeeshchev; rather it was generated at an 
 independent source and, as a matter of fact, it was then 
 first christened by the European name of " liberalism." 
 
 The new oppositionary current originated in fresh 
 
 *See pp. 176, 177. "See p. 173. "See p. 51.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 253 
 
 foreign impressions procUiced on the men of the gen- 
 try class by European events. A great many Russian 
 noblemen were as officers obliged to remain some 
 years in western Europe, and particularly in France, 
 with their regiments. After the Congress of Vienna 
 (181 5) they came back to Russia greatly influenced by 
 what they had seen abroad. Their habits of life and of 
 thinking became now quite different from those gener- 
 ally prevalent in St. Petersburg; and they laid much 
 stress on publicly professing their new opinions and 
 practicing their new habits. In a society in which 
 drinking and card-playing were the only social enter- 
 tainments, they drank no spirits ; they played no game 
 but chess ; they read political newspapers, then existing 
 only in foreign languages, and talked diplomacy, his- 
 tory, and current politics. In their capacity of commis- 
 sioned officers, they treated their soldiers humanely and 
 began to build primary schools for the instruction of 
 their men. In a word, they were the "austere men," 
 the "puritans," of the northern capital, as our poet 
 Pooshkin called them. Naturally enough, they could 
 not abstain from criticising loudly whatever they 
 deemed the limitations and deficiencies of Russian 
 political and social life as compared with that of west- 
 ern Europe. Not that they were sworn oppositionaries ; 
 far from it, they were quite willing to give the govern- 
 ment whatever help they could, should the government 
 endeavor to promote culture and the public welfare. 
 For this outspoken aim — of helping the government 
 — the young officers even resolved, encouraged l)y the 
 example of the German youth, to form a society, whose 
 statutes were copied from those of the Tiigcndbund.
 
 2S6 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 The emperor himself knew these statutes of the " so- 
 ciety for pubHc welfare," and could not find in them 
 anything- objectionable or dangerous. To attain the 
 aim of the society, which was " to help the government 
 promote Russia to a higher degree of grandeur and 
 welfare," every member chose one of four branches of 
 public activity : philanthropic, instructive, juridical, or 
 economic. 
 
 In regard to philanthropy, this society intended to 
 organize regular public help for paupers and tramps, 
 and for the old and infirm. In provincial towns it 
 planned labor bureaus. The landed proprietors were 
 to be persuaded by the members to behave properly 
 toward their peasants. The aims of enlightenment 
 were to be attained by the personal example of a virtu- 
 ous life, as well as by dint of publicly preaching moral 
 and social duties. The members were also obliged to 
 spread true ideas about education, to educate their own 
 children accordingly, and to open new schools. In 
 literature, poetry, and art they were to promote social 
 tendencies, and also to spread the knowledge of the 
 social sciences. Members of the juridical branch were 
 to obtain magistracies, and to influence provincial 
 society by exposing to the censure of public opinion 
 arrogance and servility, injustice, bribery, and every 
 kind of abuse in the state service. They were also to 
 oppose the retailing of peasants by the landowners. In 
 the economical branch the members were obliged to 
 promote useful industries and oppose monopolies. 
 And in the country districts a scheme of insurance for 
 general disasters was planned. 
 
 All this was quite harmless ; and there was no need
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 257 
 
 to conceal this kind of activity from the authorities. 
 The break in Hberal tradition seemed to have brought 
 its fruits, for the Hberal program of the beginning of 
 the nineteenth century looked far less offensive than 
 that of Noveekov and Radeeshche v. The young officers 
 evidently, lacked the practical grip of their predecessors 
 and testified by their action to a rather abstract book- 
 knowledge of political life, while exhibiting a good deal 
 of political sentimentalism in their aims and methods. 
 
 But that was a time when political education was 
 abundantly supplied by the facts of current political 
 life; and very soon the Russian liberals had a chance 
 to profit by fresh experience. Just then the political 
 situation in western Europe had entirely changed. The 
 period of revolutions of the second decennium began; 
 and this period was closely followed by reactionary 
 measures of the various governments, led by Metter- 
 nich. The period of "fraternization" between "na- 
 tions" and "governments," which began with the wars 
 of 1813-14, was soon left behind. "Governments" 
 were accused by liberals of having "cheated" their 
 "peoples," after they had no more need of their mili- 
 tary enthusiasm ; all the fine promises had now to be 
 wrung from the governments by armed force. 
 
 Of course, the sympathy of the Russian liberals was 
 with the " people " and their new revolutionary leaders. 
 The young Russian officers worshiped the new national 
 heroes, the Riegos and the Pepes, at the very time when 
 Alexander I. allowed his " Holy Alliance " to drift into 
 a merely reactionary channel, and finally renounced his 
 constitutional project of 1819." The internal policy 
 
 " See p. 174.
 
 258 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 of the Russian government henceforth had to be that 
 of Metternich. " Secret societies " and masonic lodges 
 were formally forbidden; the recently opened (1819) 
 societies for the building of primary schools on the 
 " Lancaster method of mutual instruction " were 
 closed ; even the Russian branch of the Bible Society, 
 which had enjoyed the particular protection of the 
 emperor, and which in some few years of its existence 
 had become the center of a large educational move- 
 ment, propagating itself over all Russia, had to cease 
 its activity. In the newly (since 1S02) opened Russian 
 universities (particularly in Kazan and Petersburg) a 
 formal persecution of liberal professors was begun, and 
 new programs were planned, according to which phi- 
 losophy was to be taught on the basis of the epistles of 
 Paul, the science of politics was to be based on Moses 
 and Solomon, in medicine the salutary action of prayer 
 was to be particularly recommended, and in natural 
 science the wisdom of God was to be exalted and man's 
 knowledge to be proved insufficient. 
 
 In the face of all these reactionary measures, Rus- 
 sian liberalism soon changed its original character. The 
 moderate and optimistic " Society of Welfare " was 
 closed by its own founders ( 1821 ). But this was done 
 only in order that new secret societies might be put in 
 its place, of a more resolute, and even revolutionary, 
 character. They were two : one in St. Petersburg, the 
 so-called " Northern Society," formed chiefly by officers 
 of the guards; and the other, the "Southern," in the 
 general quarters of the southern army. Both contem- 
 plated political reform ; but the Northern remained 
 more moderate, and was satisfied with claiming a mon-
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 259 
 
 archical constitution : while the Soutliern, led by Colo- 
 nel Pestel, dreamt of a federative republic after the 
 American pattern. So far. the aspirations of both were 
 chiefly of a political, not of a social, nature; and their 
 methods were those of a political revolution, attained 
 by means of a military pronunciamento. Encouraged 
 by the first successes of the Italian and Spanish revolu- 
 tions, both societies formed similar schemes; and the 
 moment for starting a military revolution was already 
 decided upon, when the death of Alexander I. com- 
 pelled the conspirators to act immediately, and so much 
 the more as the conspiracy had already been detected by 
 the government. The meager results of the December 
 rebellion (1825) have been shown.'- With it the second 
 conflict of Russian liberalism with the government 
 came to an end. A new break in political development 
 ensued, and when, after a shorter interval than before, 
 the movement was again started, it had no longer the 
 character of the western-European liberalism — a char- 
 acter to which the political movement of the reign of 
 Alexander I. adhered more closely perhaps than any 
 similar movement ever did again in Russia. 
 
 Indeed, we know that during the following reign 
 of Nicholas I. public opinion in Russia became national- 
 istic : from liberalism it turned to romanticism, from 
 politics to philosophy.'-^ And at the same time there 
 appeared in western Europe new social teachings that 
 found their way into Russia and in a curious way 
 amalgamated with the nationalistic teachings. Thus 
 far the romantic movement became to a certain extent 
 democratic, while remaining consciously anti-liberal. 
 
 '■ See p. 176. " See p. 52.
 
 26o RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 We shall see in the following chapter how this demo- 
 cratic tendency came to be emphasized, and how, with- 
 out entirely ceasing to be nationalistic, the movement 
 became socialistic. 
 
 Thus, with the failure of the December insurrec- 
 tion, pure liberalism had lost its only chance of prevail- 
 ing in Russian public opinion. And the government 
 of Nicholas I,, by having repudiated it entirely, also 
 lost the only chance peacefully to carry out a moderate 
 political reform. While stubbornly sticking to what 
 we know as a system of "official nationalism,"^'* 
 Nicholas himself opened the way for the- ascendency of 
 an opposite political extreme in the public opinion of 
 Russia. These extremes, too, seemed to be more natur- 
 ally connected with each other than with the excluded 
 middle. Nationalism repudiated liberalism as being 
 too cosmopolitan, too much of a chahlone. Socialism 
 saw in liberalism its chief enemy — "individualism" 
 embodied, as was the fact in western Europe. More- 
 over, to both nationalism and socialism, liberalism was 
 not democratic enough. If even in Russia it was not 
 the policy of the bourgeoisie which as yet had no 
 existence there — it was still looked at askance as the 
 policy of the educated gentry. In short, both national- 
 ism and socialism were equally averse to liberalism 
 proper. And, besides cardinal points of theoretical 
 divergence, there was an additional practical reason, 
 peculiar to Russia, which might explain why liberalism 
 could not exist in an atmosphere where both national- 
 ism and socialism of the old type throve and prospered 
 side by side. With all its deficiencies and limitations, so 
 
 "See p. i8i.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 261 
 
 far as theory is concerned, liberalism always stood for 
 a certain system of actual policy ; while both national- 
 ism and socialism, as they appeared in the Russia of 
 that time, were but abstract theories, easily satisfied 
 with some prospect of future glory, toward which from 
 the detestable present actuality no positive way was 
 leading. 
 
 This explains why the Russian government, which 
 already had had enough political experience to recog- 
 nize in liberalism a politically dangerous tendency de- 
 cidedly contradictory to the very essence of autocracy, 
 had not found much to be feared in the nationalistic 
 dreams and socialistic experiments of the Utopian 
 school. Nay, there was even a moment — a very short 
 one, indeed — when the Hegelian nationalists and the 
 admirers of Fourier could flatter themselves with the 
 hope of receiving direct help from the Russian govern- 
 ment for the prosecution of their aims, exactly for the 
 reason that they were equally opposed to "politics." 
 Much additional political experience was needed, how- 
 ever, to convince Russian socialism of the necessity of 
 reconciling itself with the anti-autocratic tendencies of 
 liberalism; and a still longer stage of political educa- 
 tion would appear to be needed by the Russian govern- 
 ment before it will decide to make one with political 
 reformers. This experience and this education might 
 have been given by nothing short of an actual political 
 struggle. But for any actual struggle the atmosphere 
 of Nicholas's reign was too close and stifling, while the 
 educated class was as yet too fresh in making politics, 
 and too much given instead to a kind of abstract politi- 
 cal philosophy; and, beside the gentry, there were
 
 262 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 under the rule of serfdom no other social elements to 
 take part in political action. Thus it was that, every 
 form of political life being absolutely lacking, the few 
 Russian "intellectuals" of the time reveled in absolute 
 doctrines, and came short of any scheme for immediate 
 practical action in "politics." 
 
 And so, with very few exceptions, the reign of 
 Nicholas makes a blank sheet and means an interrup- 
 tion in the history of Russian liberalism. Moreover, it 
 fostered a disposition of mind toward liberalism which 
 could only be prejudicial to its future. This fact 
 explains a great deal in the subsequent political history 
 of Russia. 
 
 First, there must be taken into consideration, in 
 order to explain what may seem a contradiction of this 
 statement, the ascendency of liberalism in the brilliant 
 era of "great reforms" of Alexander II. — an era 
 which closely followed the end of the reign of Nicholas 
 I, One may ask : How could liberalism have been 
 weakened during the reign of Nicholas, if immediately 
 at its close it was able to produce such an outburst of 
 public criticism and indignation against this very reign ? 
 How could the progressive movement have been lack- 
 ing in a positive program, when such a program was 
 unanimously proposed to the government by Russian 
 public opinion ? It is impossible to answer these ques- 
 tions without discriminating between two different 
 currents of political opinion, in order the more accu- 
 rately to determine the place of each in inspiring 
 reforms, in carrying out these reforms, and in modify- 
 ing original schemes of reform in their very realization. 
 
 To be sure, the great reforms of the new Tsar,
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 26^ 
 
 Alexander II., were not a l)it nationalistic, and they 
 did not look very radical; they were essentially liberal. 
 Even the great measure of the emancipation of serfs, so 
 much suspected of nationalism and radicalism by con- 
 temporary liberals, was carried out on principles judged 
 by both nationalists and radicals as too individualistic 
 and liberal — too much infected with the laissez-faire 
 doctrine. Then there was the momentous introduction 
 of local self-government, where liberalism was to find 
 its chief stronghold, although, owing to its very limite<l 
 vote and exceedingly moderate tendencies, this institu- 
 tion was severely criticised and caricatured by the 
 radicals. In the third place, there was a new system of 
 tribunals, consisting of justices of the peace for smaller 
 affairs and for voluntary jurisdiction, of regular courts 
 of appeal and revision for civil suits, and of a jury for 
 criminal affairs ; all strictly drawn on the line of Euro- 
 pean (and particularly French) judicial institutions. 
 As the leading principles of this reform there were 
 recognized public and oral procedure, instead of the 
 former secret and registered, and permanent tenure of 
 office and independence for the judges, instead of the 
 former mixture of the magistracy with civil offices of 
 administration. These were all things too badly wanted 
 in Russia's past, and too persistently claimed by every 
 advanced representative of public opinion, not to be 
 enthusiastically hailed both by the democrats and the 
 liberals, and even the nationalists, without distinction 
 of party. Of the same description was the universally 
 needed law of the press, which we have to mention in 
 the fourth place. Far from being radical, even the 
 name of " liberal " can be applied to it only in Russia,
 
 264 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 and in a very limited sense, as its contents and origin 
 are both very conservative.^^ 
 
 Certainly, the "great reforms" of Alexander II. 
 were liberal; and it is because of their liberalism that 
 they proved to be neither durable nor consistently 
 enough developed. There were some people for whom 
 they were too liberal ; and these people were naturally 
 opposed to the fixed establishment of such laws. There 
 were some other people for whom the reforms had the 
 disadvantage of being only liberal ; and these persons 
 withheld that moral support without which there was 
 no chance of a full and consistent development. Though 
 tlie objections came from different, and even opposite, 
 sides, their practical result was the same ; namely, that 
 the liberal reforms fell victim to a united disaffection, 
 no matter whether conservative or radical. This ex- 
 planation may serve to prove the seeming paradox we 
 have advanced. 
 
 Indeed, we shall never be able to understand why 
 the "era of great reforms" so soon came to its close; 
 why the most important of them — the political repre- 
 sentation — has remained unrealized, and why the 
 shortcomings of the others were so great, unless we 
 consider how much liberalism was weakened by its 
 variance both with the nationalistic and democratic cur- 
 rents of public opinion. 
 
 In order, then, to make our explanation quite clear, 
 let us trace this fundamental disunion among the ad- 
 vanced groups of public opinion to its historical origin ; 
 namely, to the conflict in which they became involved 
 while carrying out the greatest of the " great reforms " 
 
 " See p. 204.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 265 
 
 — the " emancipation of the peasants." We shall soon 
 see that this original clash contained in germ the whole 
 subsequent development of political parties during the 
 reign of Alexander II. 
 
 After the long strain of public indignation and dis- 
 content, endured under the reactionary rule of Nicholas 
 I., had broken out after Nicholas's death, which coin- 
 cided with the humiliating disaster of the Crimean 
 war, the emancipation was the first reform to be carried 
 out. As yet there w^ere no differentiated political par- 
 ties in Russia, but everybody agreed as to the general 
 assertion that the origin of all disasters and shortcom- 
 ings in Russian public life was to be traced to the dis- 
 trust of the government in public opinion, and to the 
 distressing self-assertion of the ruling bureaucracy, 
 which pretended to know better, to be omniscient as 
 w^ell as omnipotent. Autonomy, self-government, pub- 
 licity, an effective control of society over bureaucracy 
 — such was at that time the general cry of public 
 opinion. At complete variance with this settled public 
 opinion, how^ever, the first reform — a reform of tre- 
 mendous importance — w^as being carried out without 
 resort to public opinion, by the actual methods of the 
 discredited bureaucratic regime. These methods were 
 deliberately resorted to by some few democratic nation- 
 alists at the head of the chief offices in St. Petersburg, 
 in order to avoid and to crush beforehand the expected 
 opposition from such elements of public opinion as 
 were suspected of " landlordism." The real, the new 
 democracy, just then in process of formation, looked 
 wistfully to the work of the St. Petersburg bureau- 
 cracy, and as far from disapproving their ccntralistic
 
 266 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 methods of reform, rather accused these bureaucrats of 
 not having thrown their uncontrolled power to the full 
 on the side of the liberated peasants. 
 
 This was the tangled situation that caused the 
 liberal elements of the provincial gentry to disown 
 their liberal colleagues in the St. Petersburg chanceries, 
 and at the same time accuse them of demagogism ; an 
 indictment to which the St. Petersburg democrats — 
 both the pretended and the real — replied by accusing 
 the educated gentry of " landlordism." This mutual 
 embitterment was. all the greater in that the St. Peters- 
 burg bureaucracy had tried to avoid the open conflict 
 and sauvcr Ics apparcjiccs in the emancipation reform. 
 The landed proprietors from the country were invited 
 to participate in the preparation of the reform in spe- 
 cially organized local committees of nobility; and the 
 whole reform was supposed to be founded on the 
 "voluntary agreements" of landlords with their 
 former serfs. Not less than forty-six provincial com- 
 mittees, containing 1,366 representatives of noble 
 proprietors, were at work during eighteen long months 
 preparing their own drafts of the emancipation law. 
 Of course, they were sure to have a hand in the final 
 solution of the question. But very soon they became 
 aware that all they had done was a mere blind — mere 
 show and sham ; that the real question, in all its essen- 
 tial aspects, had already been solved in St. Peters- 
 burg, in a sense not at all acceptable to themselves. 
 
 Who, then, were these dictators in St. Petersburg? 
 There was no mistake about them ! It was not the 
 Tsar, whose opinion on this matter had been very 
 shifty; it was not some grand duke or grand duchess;
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 267 
 
 it was not the ministers — they who were never ex- 
 pected to have an unwavering opinion; it was a few 
 young men from their own class — the gentry class — 
 chosen by the government for a sham, but belonging 
 rather to a clique of " journalists " and "demagogues" : 
 a certain Millyoutin. a Solovyov, a couple of Slavophil 
 fanatics like Samarin and Prince Cherkassky; alto- 
 gether not more than a dozen secondary officials, sure 
 of themselves, and arrogantly prescribing their laws to 
 "all the Russias." 
 
 Of course, those men of St. Petersburg invited 
 deputies from the above-mentioned local committees 
 to come up to the northern capital with their drafts 
 of law; but, first they took particular pains to have 
 come not only the representatives of conservative 
 majorities of the committees, but also representatives 
 of insignificant minorities, as democratic and radical 
 as themselves. And then, too, they had given the 
 invited deputies no chance for an open and collective 
 discussion ; they did not produce their own draft of 
 fhe law; they simply asked questions — individual 
 questions from individual representatives — on the sub- 
 ject of each one's individual opinions; and such opin- 
 ions as were formulated by deputies were not even 
 recorded or protocolized. Evidently these opinions 
 were liable to be thrown aside and forgotten as soon as 
 the sitting of the central " committee " was over. This 
 caused even the liberal representatives of the gentry to 
 feel uneasy and nervous. They united, therefore, with 
 the conservatives in a common scheme to ask the Tsar 
 to admit them to a collective discussion of law in the 
 central commission. But they were harshly reproved;
 
 268 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 and then the only chance left them was their right of 
 petition to the central power, which the statute of 
 Catherine II. gave to their local assemblies. They left 
 for their homes determined to use that right; so dis- 
 appointed and hurt were they by their cool reception in 
 the Tsar's palace. 
 
 Such was the origin of the first political demon- 
 strations in the local assemblies of the nobility. The 
 period of these demonstrations, beginning with 1858, 
 ends only with the opening of new assemblies of local 
 self-government according to the law of 1864. The 
 character of these demonstrations was very mixed, 
 since liberal and conservative elements shared in them 
 without distinction. " Bureaucracy " was their general 
 target; actual representation, their final aim. But 
 "bureaucracy" was equally objectionable to men of 
 quite opposite political views: to democrats and per- 
 sonal friends of the St. Petersburg " demagogues," as 
 well as to such conservatives to whom these latter were 
 nothing but new Catilines — the destroyers of social 
 order. Again, representation meant to some a real 
 representation of the people, with extensive franchise, 
 while to others it meant only a representation of noble- 
 men, being a logical development of the local repre- 
 sentation granted by Catherine II. The intermediate 
 opinion demanded two houses : one for the representa- 
 tives of the nobility, and the other for the representa- 
 tives of the people.^ "^ 
 
 Even for members of the same provincial assembly 
 it was not always easy to find their way among such 
 differences in political opinion, just then in process of 
 
 " See p. 521.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 269 
 
 formation. No wonder that to the minds of outsiders 
 — advanced journalism included — the different shades 
 of opinion fully disappeared, and the liberalism of the 
 gentry was convicted of bearing undisguised traits of 
 class feeling. To be sure, the gentry claimed political 
 rights. But they wanted these for themselves, as a 
 compensation for losing their overlord rights over the 
 peasants; and they considered these rights to be a 
 means for preserving in the future their social position 
 as a higher, a privileged class. Another idea also cur- 
 rent among the provincial nobles was that of forming 
 small local units of administration, like the English 
 vestry, and of putting at their head the noble proprie- 
 tors of estates. This idea was also undoubtedly im- 
 pregnated w'ith aristocratic feelings; and a quite 
 reactionary use was made of it later on, in the days 
 of Alexander III.^^ 
 
 Thus it was not altogether without cause that 
 the ideas, both of political representation and of the 
 smaller unit of local self-government, became for a 
 time "suspect" in the eyes of Russian democracy. 
 What the result of it was in carrying out the " great 
 reforms" by democratic "bureaucracy" we shall soon 
 see. It is only fair to add, however, that those men- 
 tioned were far from being the only aspirations of the 
 liberal gentry. In general, their demands in the 
 assemblies of nobility of 1858-65 were colored very 
 little by class feeling; on the contrary, they were some- 
 times quite disinterested and rather ideological; i. c, 
 such as we have seen them to be in the previous history 
 of Russian liberalism. Thus both in the St. Petersburg 
 
 " See pp. 314 ff.
 
 270 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 and ill the Moscow assemblies of nobility the small 
 groups of discontented aristocrats were overruled by 
 the adherents of a more advanced liberalism ; and 
 resolutions were carried to the effect of convening the 
 central representative assembly of all the classes, in 
 order to examine into the desires and necessities of the 
 country. 
 
 In some of the provincial assemblies even more 
 radical decisions were taken. Thus in Smolensk and 
 in Tver the nobles had decided to demand a constitu- 
 tional form of government ; and, besides this, the 
 Smolensk assembly decreed the abolition of all the 
 rights of the nobility; and in Tver, by the over- 
 whelming majority of 113 to 22, the nobles required 
 the immediate and obligatory sale of all the peasant 
 holdings to the village communities, which had been 
 considered — and avoided by the government — as a 
 radical form of emancipation. Some assemblies de- 
 manded also a thorough reform of taxation, on the 
 principles of an income tax; /. c, the abolition of the 
 most important privilege which until then had dis- 
 tinguished the upper from the lower classes, which 
 latter for centuries had been the only " taxable " 
 ones. There was also a pronounced tendency to abolish 
 another matter-of-fact privilege of the higher classes 
 — the privilege of being judged according to the rules 
 of a written law ; while the peasants were supposed to 
 be in possession of a particular "custom law," which 
 virtually often issued in there being no law for them 
 at all. That demand, of course, was opposed to the cur- 
 rent doctrine of democratic nationalism, which credited 
 this custom law as a hidden well of popular wisdom,
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 271 
 
 much hig-her and more perfect than any ratio scripta of 
 the Romans, or of their too obsequious pupils in west- 
 ern Europe. 
 
 The clash was still more obvious between the views 
 of the democratic nationalists and those of the landed 
 proprietors with reference to the regime of the Russian 
 landed property, the Mir. The nationalists saw in this 
 institution the germ of future salvation for the whole 
 of humanity, whereas some of the landed proprietors 
 denounced this very system of the Mir as " commun- 
 istic" and objectional)le from the point of view of the 
 sacred rights of property. Reason and class interest 
 were so much intertwined in these arguments of the 
 agrarian gentry that it was very easy for the existing 
 current social doctrine of the Russian " populists " to 
 denounce the whole argument against the further exist- 
 ence either of custom law or of village community as 
 reactionary and undemocratic, and so to discredit it for 
 many years to come. 
 
 In this confusing medley of conflicting interests, 
 clashing arguments, and overlapping divisions, which 
 were to have the upper hand ? The prevailing opinions 
 were the same as had given the chief impulse to the 
 whole movement — the opinions of the omnipotent 
 "bureaucracy" in St. Petersburg. There has always 
 been an omnipotent bureaucracy in the northern capi- 
 tal ; but rarely has it had the privilege of having a 
 settled opinion of its own on political and social ques- 
 tions. Why, then, did it have such an opinion now ? 
 And where did it come from? We have seen that this 
 opinion was not that of the official chiefs, but rather 
 of their orderlies in service, the only ones who hap-
 
 272 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 pened to have any opinion just at the moment when 
 some opinion was necessary. But why did it happen 
 to be just this particular kind of opinion? We have 
 only to call this opinion by its proper name — as we 
 already have called it — the "democratic nationalism," 
 in order to fix it definitely. It was, as we have seen, 
 the very opinion the elements of which were in pre- 
 paration during the reign of Nicholas. Such a states- 
 man as Millyoutin and such a journalist as Kavailin 
 are the best representatives of the whole class. As 
 long as the chief question was a social one, and the best 
 means to resolve it was to impose a ready-made solu- 
 tion upon the proprietors, they were the right men in 
 the right place — virtually the only ones able to use the 
 tremendous power of autocracy for the aim of repeat- 
 ing, in a new and, as they thought, improved edition, 
 one of the best attempts of the French Revolution. 
 But these men had their limitations, and their system 
 partook of the nature of their drawbacks. The same 
 power of autocracy and the selfsame democratic pro- 
 gram of peasant emancipation Millyoutin conscien- 
 tiously applied to crush the oppositionary elements in 
 Poland ; and the same feeling against the gentry made 
 Kavailin proclaim as unripe every attempt for a politi- 
 cal representation in Russia. 
 
 Men like Kavailin could not be mistaken as to the 
 real importance of this new political cry for further 
 development in Russia. Practically, political repre- 
 sentation had now to become the chief claim of any 
 political opposition. But for the generation of 
 Kavailin it seemed too much tinged with the class 
 aspirations of the gentry. "A constitution," says he
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 273 
 
 in one of his early pamphlets (1861), "that is what 
 makes the subject of secret dreams and fervent hopes 
 of the nobility ; constitution is on all lips and in every 
 heart; it is discussed in all circles — in capitals and in 
 provinces; this is the pet idea of the higher class." 
 Now, was it really an idea of the higher class only? 
 And was it only in the interests of the higher class that 
 the educated gentry were claiming it? In order to 
 throw more light on this question, let us enter the pre- 
 cincts of one of those assemblies of nobility which were 
 at that time discussing the question. Let us choose the 
 Moscow assembly of 1865, the only one which pub- 
 lished accurate minutes of its proceedings. 
 
 To be sure, this assembly declaims, we find, against 
 the " camarila " of St. Petersburg trampling under foot 
 the fundamental laws of the realm, violating private 
 property, and in the name of the Tsar practicing its 
 dictatorial power. The members of this assembly are 
 so much more audacious in their invective that they 
 know — and dare to speak it out loudly — that these 
 men are not the " high dignitaries ; " rather they are 
 " democrats, radicals, socialists, and other people of the 
 same kind," who have somehow " slipped themselves 
 into administrative spheres, and sometimes even into 
 important posts." The conservatives of the assembly 
 even do not hesitate to denounce this or that speech of 
 their younger colleagues as " singularly reminding 
 one of the style of a certain Russian monthly" (the 
 renowned Sovremennik — "The Contemporary" — is 
 meant, which, abolished two years before for its radi- 
 calism, advocated the extreme solution of the emanci- 
 pation problem). At the same time the assembly sent
 
 274 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 congratulations to Katkov, the nationalistic journalist, 
 for having exterminated " the enormous influence of 
 Herzen," the renowned political refugee ;^^ and it 
 made one with the government against the Polish 
 rebels of 1863. All these are impressions of the time, 
 which were about to transform many a liberal noble- 
 man of yesterday into a reactionary of tomorrow.^ ^ 
 Now we must see what these men think about political 
 representation. 
 
 A motion to that effect having been introduced by 
 some district nobles, a vivid discussion was begun. 
 An overwhelming majority of the assembly was in 
 favor of a petition to the Tsar for a general repre- 
 sensation of all the social classes of Russia, tO' be 
 summoned to a central deliberative assembly. No 
 objection arose as to the desirability of such a repre- 
 sentation of all classes. And such objections as were 
 formulated by the extreme right and the extreme left 
 wings of the assembly were only : first, whether the 
 given assembly is authorized for such a petition, and 
 second, whether the petition is timely enough. Of 
 course, these were but formal objections; the real 
 objection was that, to the extreme right wing, general 
 representation seemed to be too democratic and meant 
 a final ruin of the nobility; while to the extreme left 
 even such a representation did not seem to exclude a 
 predominant influence of landed proprietors, and thus 
 to guarantee the ascendency of a real democracy. 
 
 This is why the first, the agrarian nobles, needed an 
 aristocratic representation, and the second, the demo- 
 
 " See pp. 363 ff. '* See next chapter, p. 427.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 275 
 
 crats, wished no representation at all. But let us listen 
 to their respective reasons. An extreme conservative 
 and agrarian, Mr. Bezobrazov, said that he " agreed 
 entirely with the great and noble idea of the necessity 
 of a representation, emanating from the whole coun- 
 try; " and that he " would not consider himself to be a 
 human being, a Russian, if such a just idea could not 
 penetrate his whole being." But he was afraid that 
 they, being themselves only an assembly of nobility, 
 had no right to speak in the name of the other classes. 
 What he would propose, therefore, to ask from the 
 emperor was, first, the inviolability of the charter given 
 to the Russian nobility by Catherine 11.-" and con- 
 firmed for himself and for all his successors by Alex- 
 ander I. ; and, second, as a new safeguard of this same 
 charter, a logical extension from the local representa- 
 tion granted in it, to a central representation of the 
 nobility. Everybody in the assembly knew, however, 
 that the " charter of nobility " granted by Catherine II. 
 had become waste paper after the emancipation of the 
 peasants, and nobody wished to defend it. Mr. Bezo- 
 brazov immediately received a ready rejoinder from 
 another speaker, Mr. Golohvastov, who was not at all 
 a "democrat." Mr. Bezobrazov — en vrai arisfocrate 
 — had just affirmed that the rights of the nobility were 
 not created, but only confirmed, by the charter of 
 Catherine II. ; he certainly was right, for these rights 
 had been created by the people, and, as a consequence, 
 the right to revise them belonged to the people, in an 
 assembly formed by way of general representation. 
 Thus, once again the doctrine of " natural law " and 
 
 '■" See p. 171.
 
 276 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 the "social compact" was substituted for a historical 
 right.^^ 
 
 Another argument in favor of the representation 
 by the nobles was offered by the chief representative 
 of the aristocracy in the assembly. Count Orlov- 
 Daveedov, the Anglophil. Besides being an agrarian, 
 he was a high dignitary, a master of ceremonies at the 
 imperial court and, accordingly a " bureaucrat." Says 
 Count Orlov-Daveedov : 
 
 It is clear to me — and I consider it quite unavoidable — that 
 after the institutions of local self-government, which have just 
 been introduced, shall have been sufficiently developed, the isolated 
 local assemblies will feel the necessity of a common center. There 
 is no doubt that this center, in form of a general assembly, will 
 one day come to exist. But if there be only one, if there is no 
 other assembly to serve as a counterpoise, then this general assem- 
 bly will distill a spirit so purely democratic that this spirit will 
 burn from the contact with the very air. 
 
 The count went on proposing to ask the government, 
 therefore, that, beside a first house representing the 
 people, there should also be founded a second house, 
 to be formed of hereditary members of nobility, nomi- 
 nated by the Tsar. 
 
 It is plain, then, that even the most conservative 
 members of the nobility were not averse to the idea of 
 a constitution. For, though yielding to the prevailing 
 opinion of the majority that representation should 
 include all classes, they merely wished precautions 
 taken for a particular representation of their own class. 
 The objection to any constitution whatever arose only 
 from the small group at the extreme left wing; the 
 objection being founded on their apprehension that 
 
 21 See p. 1 68.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 277 
 
 competent and conscientious people might not be found 
 in due number adequately to represent democracy. 
 They doubted whether the liberalism of the educated 
 gentry was reliable enough for building a really demo- 
 cratic representation upon it. Such reliable elements 
 as existed, they thought, were too much engaged in 
 carrying out the liberal reforms of emancipation, of 
 justice, and of local self-government. The best device, 
 according to their opinion, was first to concentrate all 
 efforts on a realization of these reforms, and to give 
 up the political reform until new assemblies, formed 
 out of delegates of all the orders, the Zemstvos, should 
 be inaugurated ; for these new assemblies would have 
 a much better right and title to petition for general 
 representation than the nobility, which just then was a 
 particular object of suspicion to the peasants. 
 
 These arguments, however, did not meet the ap- 
 proval of the large majority, who found them dilatory 
 in the action suggested, and even offensive, by implica- 
 tion, in that they cast doubt upon the loyalty and moral 
 strength of the gentry. The bicameral scheme of 
 Count Orlov-Daveedovj however, served as a means 
 for conciliation. And so, after having stripped the 
 scheme of the upper house of its hereditary and un- 
 elective character, the assembly unanimously accepted 
 the draft of a petition for a general representation of 
 all classes. 
 
 The extreme left wing of the Moscow assembly 
 was not in any way identical with the extreme left of 
 Russian public opinion. Tliis latter — c. g., Rus- 
 sian radicalism of that time — was becoming revolu- 
 tionary; and the theory which found universal credit
 
 278 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 among its adepts was that it mattered little or 
 nothing what the form of government should be, in 
 view of the coming social revolution, to be performed 
 by the workingmen and the agricultural classes without 
 external aid.^^ But the negative argument of both 
 groups of public opinion — radical and national demo- 
 cratic — was the same. Both were sure that any politi- 
 cal reform would turn to the profit of the nobles. And! 
 it was this idea that made liberalism powerless on the| 
 point of political representation. 
 
 Yet there was a moment when all shades of public 
 opinion appeared to be unanimous on the subject of 
 political reform. It was in the very beginning of the 
 sixties, when the currents of advanced opinion had not 
 yet begun to differentiate among themselves. In 1862 
 the cry was for a constitution — a cry not only from 
 the provincial gentry, but also from the Russian politi- 
 cal refugees, beginning with the most moderate and 
 including the most radical. Blummer in Berlin and 
 Prince Dolgorooky in Switzerland printed and dis- 
 cussed various drafts of a Russian constitution; and 
 among the friends of Herzen, a socialist of the old 
 school, and even by Bakoonin, who was not yet fully 
 conscious of his anarchistic theories, projects for a 
 petition to the Tsar for a constitution were in prepara- 
 tion. Bakoonin, some years later, excused his proposal 
 to the Tsar on the ground that it was a diplomatic 
 trick played for the purpose of rrjaking clear the im- 
 possibility of a peaceful reform. Herzen's project, so 
 far from relying on the educated gentry, was based 
 
 " See p. 398.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 279 
 
 upon suppositions such as made a concurrence of the 
 gentry neither possible nor desirable. Thus, he pro- 
 posed to ask the Tsar to summon a general council of 
 commonalty, elected by the whole adult population and 
 authorized to determine whatever matters it should 
 think necessary, but especially those most important to 
 the new radical theory; namely, the constitution of 
 property, and the organization of local self-govern- 
 ment, beginning with the primary commune and 
 ascending to the higher units. From a radical point of 
 view, nothing more was wanted, since the results of 
 this double vote, as contemplated by Herzen and his 
 closest friends, Ogarev and Bakoonin, would establish 
 a new form of social existence in complete harmony 
 with the "spirit" of the Russian people, which means 
 collective property and a free federation of landed 
 communes.^^ Accordingly, it was a demand not for a 
 "constitution," but for a "constitutional assembly" — 
 which here appears for the first time. 
 
 Of course, no constitution could possibly be needed 
 by men who had so much confidence in the political 
 ripeness of the people as to think that merely by a uni- 
 versal vote the masses could formulate their wishes 
 and lay the foundation for a new order of things. 
 Here, however, criticism set in. Tourguenev, the 
 renowned novelist, wanted Herzen to understand that 
 a new social order was as yet anticipated by none but 
 men of the educated gentry, and that the "people" 
 were not at all sure to exhibit precisely such features 
 of their own "spirit" as they were credited with by 
 
 ■■'" See p. 311.
 
 28o RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 their educated admirers. Herzen and his friends 
 (Ogarev and Bakoonin), says Tourguenev, 
 
 despise and trample on the educated class in Russia, while sup- 
 posing that revolutionary or reformatory elements exist in the 
 people. In reality, quite the opposite is true. Revolution — in the 
 true and concrete meaning of the word ; I might say, in the 
 largest meaning — exists only in the minority of the educated 
 class ; and this is quite sufficient for its triumph, if only we do 
 
 not extirpate ourselves by our mutual quarrels The role 
 
 of the educated class in Russia is to transmit civilization to the 
 people, in order that they may themselves hereafter decide what 
 they shall accept or repudiate .... and this role is not yet played 
 out But you, my friends, are reasoning just as the Slavo- 
 phils do : you use the German method of abstraction, and thus you 
 deduce from a dim and unintelligible essence of the people such 
 principles as you suppose they will use to build their whole exist- 
 ence upon, and so you turn around in a fog In fact, you 
 
 are brought to repudiate revolution, because the people you wor- 
 ship are conservative par excellence; in their sheepskins, their 
 warm and dirty hovels they foster the germs of a bourgeoisie 
 which will leave the ill-famed western bourgeoisie far behind. 
 .... The only sure point of reliance for an actual revolutionary 
 propaganda is this very minority of the educated ones whom 
 Bakoonin calls " rotten," and " torn from the national ground," 
 and " guilty of treason before the people." 
 
 ^" This Hterary debate between two eminent represen- 
 tative Russians is pregnant with poHtical significance. 
 It has been shown that a time was now beginning when 
 the former advocacy of the democratic cause by Hberal 
 men of the gentry had to give way to a more direct 
 defense of the people in their own name and by their 
 own representatives. We shall later on learn who were 
 the men to claim this direct defense as their right and 
 duty. But even now we can see that, when the claim 
 was first put forward, the chief, the real, claimant was
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 281 
 
 not yet there to take up his cause. The ideal of an 
 immediate democracy, to be realized by democracy's 
 own hands, was already present ; but the actual condi- 
 tion of things was such as to make the realization of 
 this ideal as yet impossible. On the other hand, there 
 was an educated class ready and greedy for political 
 activity for the sake of the people; but this activity was 
 in advance suspected by consistent democrats. Thus, 
 the only political action within the range of practical 
 politics was made impossible by the political idealism 
 of the Russian "intellectuals;" whereas the only con- 
 templated action, a popular plebiscite in favor of a new 
 order of things, was a Utopia. Nevertheless, ideas 
 which thus clashed in the minds of inexperienced Rus- 
 sian politicians of that generation — ideas of a consti- 
 tution or of a rule by the people — were neither futile 
 nor childish. Both of them were fundamental, but in 
 Russia the latter idea followed the former by a too 
 short interval. 
 
 Democracy as an ideal of the educated minority, 
 and democracy as a real fact of life, supported by the 
 real class feeling of the corresponding strata of society 
 — these were the two political notions, divided by 
 generations of political experience and belonging to 
 different periods of political life. In more advanced 
 countries the battle of political idealism had been won 
 first of all ; its practical results made up the level upon 
 which the latter systems of political realism began to 
 build. Political liberty was settled when the social 
 questions arose. Social radicalism simply accepted the 
 results of a struggle won by political radicalism, its 
 predecessor, without indorsing its theorv, but also with-
 
 282 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 out repudiating its achievements. In Russia alone it 
 so happened that social teachings prepossessed the more 
 active spirits at a time when the work of political 
 liberalism had yet to be done; and the Russian social- 
 ists, not satisfied to consider this liberal work super- 
 fluous, went even so far as to deem it dangerous for 
 the people. Indeed, both in politics and in social life 
 Russian radicalism fancied Russia able to jump clean 
 over what was thought to be a transient stage, to the 
 highest requirements of the most advanced theory. 
 Without knowing it, in so doing they had chosen the 
 way of bitter disappointment and of sad practical 
 experience. 
 
 Of course, we cannot say that the failure of politi- 
 cal reform in the "great era" of Alexander II. was 
 exclusively due to this inner discordance in public 
 opinion. Public opinion had not, even then, its full 
 sway, and the system of the self-preservation of the 
 autocracy had already been started. To credit this 
 system with being able to be brought to reason by any 
 kind of theoretical arguments is not to know what it 
 really is. A strong and united public opinion might, 
 however, have acted on it, not as an "opinion." but as 
 a force. And there are some reasons for thinking that 
 as a force it really acted for some time on the govern- 
 ment of Alexander II. Political reform had been con- 
 templated, at least for some future time. Men like 
 Orlov-Daveedov expressed the current opinion of high 
 official spheres of that time, when they said a consti- 
 tution was unavoidable. And the Tsar, while replying 
 to the above-mentioned petition of 1865, repeated
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 383 
 
 such arguments against political reform as one might 
 have heard in the assembly itself : 
 
 No single class is entitled to speak in the name of other 
 classes; no individual has any right to anticipate the continuous 
 care of the Tsar for Russia ; and what has already been done for 
 Russian progress must serve as token of what is to be accom- 
 plished. 
 
 This looked like a promise rather than a refusal ; and 
 like a promise still more positive sounded other words 
 of the Tsar, who just then was developing local institu- 
 tions in Poland and recalling to life the diet of class 
 representatives in Finland. In the State Council this 
 condition of public opinion was being taken into con- 
 sideration, and it was acknowledged that it was dan- 
 gerous to "give too little," and so to fall short of the 
 public expectation concerning self-government. Every- 
 body looked at the self-government of the Zemstvos 
 as a kind of introduction to the coming "era" of free 
 political life. 
 
 In some few years all this had changed, precisely in 
 the measure that political opinion had lost its unity, 
 and, from being oppositionary, had turned nationalistic 
 and conservative, on the one hand, and radical and 
 revolutionary, on the other. The year 1863 — that 
 of the Polish insurrection and of some attempts at 
 popular rising in Russia ^-i — proved decisive. Fa- 
 cing these events, public opinion differentiated at a 
 bound. Instead of a lot of scarcely discernible and 
 very personal shades of political opinion, we thence- 
 forward have to deal w ith three fundamental groups of 
 politically active men: the political opinions within each 
 
 " See pp. 380 r.
 
 284 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 group having become so cogent as to be almost com- 
 pulsory, and so had bound up their members in a kind 
 of political party. These opinions, expressed through 
 certain party organs and party representatives, obliged 
 their followers to a definite line of political action. In 
 a word, the year 1863 signalizes a new departure in the 
 political history of Russia; then it was that the con- 
 tinuous history of Russian political parties now in 
 action began. 
 
 The three groups mentioned are the following: 
 I. The conservative group, whose most active cen- 
 ter was formed out of a few moderate liberals who 
 became frightened by the drift of events. Some of 
 them had formerly been "European liberals;" e. g., 
 the members of the circle of Grand Duke Constantine ; 
 and others were " nationalistic democrats " of the type 
 already described. For about a quarter of a century 
 this group was represented by their leaders: Ivan 
 Aksakov, for the nationalistic and democratic, and 
 Katkov for the bureaucratic and centralistic, faction of 
 the party. Though starting from opposite principles, 
 these "nationalist democrats" and "nationalist liber- 
 als" ended by uniting for practical politics; and even 
 the third element, the remainder of the party of noble 
 "landlords," which had hated both the nationalistic 
 liberals and the democrats, later on acquiesced in the 
 undignified but profitable occupation of sitting at the 
 feet of these parties and nourishing themselves with 
 scraps from their tables, until better times should come. 
 These times have really come for the ancient nobility 
 and gentry, during the reign of Alexander III ; but it 
 was too late for their salvation.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 285 
 
 2. On the wing opposite to the group of con- 
 servatives the revolutionary socialistic-^ party was 
 formed, taking its origin in Herzen's and Bakoonin's 
 theories, though the leaders of the younger generation 
 soon went their own way. 
 
 3. The place of liberalism lay between the con- 
 servative and the revolutionary socialistic party. The 
 newly founded local self-government, the Zemstvos, 
 formed its headquarters; and men of liberal profes- 
 sions throughout Russia, its active army. 
 
 We already have seen, in chap, ii, the change of the 
 nationalistic movement to conservative and reaction- 
 ary. We also have seen, in chap, iv, what bureaucracy 
 contributed to the reactionary program. And we know 
 how the bureaucracy exploited both the nationalistic 
 aspirations of theorists and the class interests of the 
 decaying nobility for the self-defense of autocracy. In 
 the following chapter we shall study Russian socialism 
 and the revolutionary movement. Here it remains for 
 us to consider the subsequent history of the inter- 
 mediate current — that of liberalism. 
 
 Russian liberalism of this second period, beginning 
 , with the emancipation of the serfs, was not merely a 
 doctrine, it was also an actual scheme of practical poli- 
 tics. It fought for its program, not only by means of a 
 literary propaganda, but by means of actual work in 
 the newly created institutions of local self-government. 
 As we have said, liberalism recruited its army and 
 organized its headquarters. And that is why liberal- 
 
 " The term " revolutionary socialistic," which now designates 
 only one aspect of Russian socialism, formerly desiKnated the whole, 
 and its use can be traced back to the theories and the terminology of 
 Bakoonin (seep. 341;.
 
 286 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 ism no longer meant a more or less indefinite state of 
 public opinion, but rather a political group which soon 
 became a political party. 
 
 The composition of the liberal army was a first 
 manifestation of the important change thus character- 
 ized. For this arm}^ was no longer formed of the edu- 
 cated gentry alone; indeed, the educated gentry had 
 itself very much changed in character. This former 
 element of the liberal party had become more demo- 
 cratic; and new democratic elements joined the party 
 from the lower social classes. 
 
 Indeed, the ancient gentry, in consequence of the 
 emancipation of the serfs, had decayed rapidly. The 
 impoverished scions of the class, after the emancipa- 
 tion, had to make their living by personal labor, since 
 rents and other income from land were cut off. They 
 thus descended to the level of the so-called " men of 
 mixed ranks," according to the old Muscovite defini- 
 tion. And for the first time they met these people, not 
 as their subordinates, but as their equals in the free 
 field of competition. There was much friction, of 
 course; many an offspring of ancient lineage, thus 
 falling victim to the new order of things, was elbowed 
 out of work and even from life itself. After a while, 
 however, this new mixture of the social elements cooled 
 down, whereupon things came into a new state of 
 equilibrium. And in the process of all this change 
 Russian liberalism will be seen to have gained exceed- 
 ingly. 
 
 New men of liberal professions had now joined its 
 colors. Nearly all of these professions having been 
 newly created during the epoch of the great reforms.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 287 
 
 their followers were entirely independent of state serv- 
 ice, which until then had been the only refuge for every 
 educated Russian who, unable to live upon his own 
 income, was obliged to look around for subsidiary 
 earnings. 
 
 Literature was perhaps the first of these liberal 
 professions to attract young men, in the epoch of 
 Nicholas I., previous to the " great reforms." As early 
 as 1849-50 the ministry of public instruction observed 
 that the youths from the gentry overlooked positions in 
 military and civil service, which heretofore they had 
 generally filled, and in preference to the official career 
 took to writing articles and editing monthlies and news- 
 papers. How largely this category of educated liter- 
 ary men increased with the new era may be inferred 
 from the fact that after the long period of sterility, 
 during the severe regime of Nicholas I., hundreds of 
 new literary enterprises were permitted to start in the 
 very first years of Alexander II. While in the last ten 
 years of Nicholas I.'s reign (1845-54) only six news- 
 papers and nineteen (for the most part special) month- 
 lies had been permitted, during the first ten years of 
 Alexander II. (1855-64) the corresponding figures 
 were sixty-six newspapers and one hundred and fifty- 
 six monthlies. We must mention here that, though 
 Russia had possessed in former decades some influen- 
 tial monthlies, now for the first time in Russian history 
 independent and influential daily newspapers were 
 established, thus pointing the moment when, at least 
 for a part of Russian political opinion, public exj)res- 
 sion had become possible. The three most important 
 newspapers were the Moscow Nczvs, the organ of Kat-
 
 288 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 kov and of conservative nationalism; the St. Peters- 
 burg Nezvs, and Golos ("The Voice") — both 
 moderately liberal. 
 
 Another quite new liberal profession opened by the 
 new reforms of justice was that of lawyer, and par- 
 ticularly of advocate (which in Russia forms a separate 
 department in the judicial career). It need scarcely be 
 pointed out how large always and everywhere has been 
 the part that men of the law have played in politics. 
 
 But the chief resort of Russian liberalism was 
 found in the new institutions for local self-government 
 
 — the Zemstvos, or provincial and district assemblies 
 of deputies elected by the various social classes to take 
 care of local interests. Though the role of the lower 
 social strata — the peasants and the inhabitants of the 
 towns — has been very insignificant in these assemblies, 
 and the representatives of the nobility and of the gen- 
 try have largely prevailed,^® yet the policy of the 
 Zemstvos has remained faithful to the old liberal tra- 
 ditions, and, though slightly tinged with class feeling 
 
 — particularly in questions of local taxation — the 
 Zemstvos have aimed at representing the liberal public 
 opinion in general. But the political importance of 
 the Zemstvo has by no means been confined to the 
 activity of the members themselves. The executive 
 work of the Zemstvos is done by a number of boards 
 and offices created for the purpose by the Zemstvo, 
 and administered by intelligent and educated workers 
 of various kinds. Thus a series of new liberal voca- 
 tions has been called into life, in which the liberal ele- 
 ments of the population have sought and found occu- 
 
 " See p. 241.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 289 
 
 pation. This work for the Zemstvo has ever since been 
 preferred by every independent man who did not like 
 to submit to the red tape of the government offices ; by 
 every philanthropist and enthusiast who w^anted to serve 
 Russia according to his own ideas, or — practically 
 the same thing — according to those of an advanced 
 public opinion. 
 
 Thus the Zemstvos, having inaugurated a new sys- 
 tem of popular education, had at their service a numer- 
 ous army of school-teachers.^" To these must be added a 
 second group, not so numerous, but equally enthusi- 
 astic in the heavy work it does — the physicians and 
 surgeons in the service of the Zemstvo. Poorly 
 rewarded and badly overworked, the Zemstvo physi- 
 cian is generally a pioneer for the ideas of hygiene and 
 sanitation in the Russian village ; and the courage and 
 self-denial with which he performs his duty under most 
 unfavorable circumstances are unparalleled. A third 
 large class of the Zemstvo's army of intelligent 
 workers is the statisticians. No less enthusiastic than 
 the members of the former two classes, the statisticians, 
 from the very nature of their specialty, keep in close 
 touch with the peasants' everyday life and know^ every- 
 thing about it. Their role in Russian political life may 
 be characterized by the following fact: In the year 
 1887 the governor of Vyatka reported to the Tsar that 
 local statisticians were oppositionary and not to be 
 relied upon by the officials. The Tsar wrote on the 
 margin of the report : " Very sad. but it is like that 
 nearly everyw^here." And since then Mr. Plehve has 
 forbidden the statisticians to approach Russian villages. 
 
 " Sec p. 212.
 
 290 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 The fourth class of the Zemstvo workers, now in pro- 
 cess of formation, are the agronomists; their knowl- 
 edge of and influence upon the peasant population are 
 the same as those of the statisticians. In Russian 
 political slang, all these executive officers of the Zemst- 
 vos are known in an off-hand way as "the third 
 element" (after the government and the elective ele- 
 ments) ; and thus are characterized a certain solidarity 
 of their political opinion and the particular part they 
 play in the political struggle. 
 
 These are the constituents among which Russian 
 opposition found ardent adherents — adherents who 
 were no mere abstract theorists, or political philos- 
 ophers, but men who dealt with actualities, men con- 
 nected by their day's work with the lowest classes of 
 the population, knowing its wants, sharing in its sor- 
 rows, sympathizing with all its miseries. These men filled 
 with red blood the anemic body of Russian liberalism. 
 And at the same time they gave it a more advanced and 
 democratic character. 
 
 Now let us glance at the machine through which 
 all these accumulated stores of the new oppositionary 
 energy were manifested. The Russian Zemstvo, 
 started as a local organization for self-government on a 
 pretty large scale, had, in fact, nothing to envy in 
 corresponding European bodies, so far as the sphere 
 of its competency was concerned. But there was a 
 most deplorable organic fault in its fabric which made 
 it constitutionally weak in the performance of its func- 
 tions. Unhappily, it was not even so much a " fault," 
 in the proper sense, as a conscious omission by the 
 makers of the Zemstvo. This omission may be traced
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 291 
 
 to the same origin as the faikire of poHtical reform — 
 to the distrust of landed proprietors evinced by the 
 " St. Petersburg officials." So great was the fear of 
 the persistence in the provinces of the local power of 
 recent slaveholders — the landlords — that the Zemst- 
 vos were not permitted to have their hands free in their 
 own circuit. The link was purposely left missing by 
 which the Zemstvos could directly communicate with 
 the population whose interests they were supposed to 
 represent. No inferior elective unit was established 
 which would correspond to a vestry, a parish, or a 
 township, with their local primary assemblies.^^ The 
 Zemstvo assembly, with its executive board or council, 
 formed the only representative body for the whole 
 district — which in Russia is generally an exceedingly 
 large unit. Aboz'c these district institutions similar 
 ones for the whole pro\'ince were created : a pro^'incial 
 board and provincial assembly of Zemstvo, formed out 
 of members elected by district assemblies, to complete 
 and to regulate their local work. But there existed in 
 the midst of the population no commissioners and no 
 boards below those of the district, which could be 
 charged with the execution of the decisions of the 
 Zemstvos. Of course, both provincial and district 
 assemblies were granted the right of making by-laws ; 
 they possessed also the right of imposing local taxes. 
 But in levying taxes and in controlling the application 
 of their l)y-la\vs they were entirely dependent upon the 
 civil and police officers of the central administration. 
 Thus — to use a current saying — the new building of 
 the Zemstvos was left "without foundation — floatins" 
 in the air." 
 
 ^ On the demands for such a unit, see pp. 269 and 310.
 
 292 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 And it also remained " without the roof," as the 
 saying went. Let us remember that pubHc opinion had 
 very much changed ^^ when the draft for self- 
 government was being brought to execution. Thus the 
 original ideas predominant at its foundation had had 
 time to give way before quite opposite ones. No more 
 promises w^ere heard as to the " crowning of the build- 
 ing " with the copestone of central political representa- 
 tion. There also was no more apprehension of " giving 
 public opinion too little." ^^ but some were very much 
 afraid of yielding it "too much" and of "tying up the 
 hands of the government." Instead of thinking of 
 local self-government institutions as of " a preparatory 
 school for representative institutions," others were very 
 careful not to let them " form a state within the state ; " 
 and still others did everything to bring these institu- 
 tions under the close control of local and central gov- 
 ernment offices — that of the "governor" in the prov- 
 inces, and of the minister of the interior in St. Peters- 
 burg. 
 
 Thus the new local representation stood by itself, 
 entirely disconnected from the higher stages of govern- 
 ment as well as isolated from the lower units of local 
 administration. All the higher offices and the boards 
 of administration having been built in quite another 
 style — the autocratic and bureaucratic rather than the 
 representative — the org'ans of local self-government 
 represented a sort of political oasis in the waste. In 
 their isolation they were exposed to all the winds of 
 the desert. They were reprimanded and censured by 
 the organs of the central government ; their scope was 
 
 ^' See p. 283. '" See p. 283.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 293 
 
 now and then curtailed: their initiative in this or that 
 branch of local affairs was called in question; their 
 resolutions were put under control and checked ; their 
 debates were more than once stopped ; their petitions 
 were disregarded. But, in spite of all these repressi\-e 
 measures, one thing always remained certain : that the 
 power they still retained they held from their electors, 
 and no positive orders could be given to them by any 
 central authorities. With this one principle untouched, 
 they still formed a living contradiction to the general 
 political structure of Russia — and this by the mere 
 fact of their existence. This, of course, added a sting 
 to the persecution ; and the manner of their treatment 
 at the hands of the distrustful government drove them 
 head and tail into the camp of political opposition. 
 
 In the study of this new phase of the history of 
 Russian liberalism we are unexpectedly assisted by no 
 less an authority than the former minister of finance in 
 Russia, Mr. Witte. This well-known statesman some 
 years ago indorsed an elaborate memoir on the political 
 role of the Zemstvos, written at his order by one of the 
 higher officials. The position Mr. Witte assumed on 
 the question was rather ambiguous. He undertook to 
 prove that Zemstvos are inconsistent with autocracy. 
 and that therefore they must be annihilated. But while 
 following up the sad story of that interminable struggle 
 between the Zemstvos and the government, Mr. Witte's 
 mouthpiece so warmed himself up on behalf of the 
 Zemstvos, and the role of the government in the 
 account of this persecution appeared so miserable and 
 so powerless, that quite the opposite seems intended to 
 be proved ; namely, the inconsistency of autocracy with
 
 294 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 the Zemstvos ; and the practical conchision — the aboH- 
 tion of autocracy — was so obvious that the pamphlet 
 of Mr. Witte has been pubHshed by Russian Hberals 
 abroad and has served as the best means for propagat- 
 ing nowadays the constitutional idea. 
 
 And, indeed, this much can be admitted as proved 
 by the memoir of Mr. Witte : that Zemstvos and con- 
 stitutionalism in Russia are inseparably connected, both 
 by their fundamental principle of representative self- 
 government and by the actual role which the Zemstvos 
 played in repeatedly demanding of the government 
 that local self-government should be completed by 
 political representation. 
 
 We have seen that this idea of "crowning the 
 building" of local self-government by granting a con- 
 stitution Avas already widely spread at the time of the 
 very foundation of the Zemstvos. The Zemstvos were 
 expected by the more advanced groups to take the ini- 
 tiative in a movement of " all the orders " for political 
 reform, since the particular "order" of the nobility 
 had been refused the right to speak in the name of 
 "all the orders" by the above-quoted admonition of 
 the emperor.^^ But the Zemstvos have betrayed the 
 liberal expectations. In the first place, their legal posi- 
 tion was different from that of the assemblies of the 
 nobles as far as the right of petition was concerned. 
 They were not entitled to address themselves to the 
 emperor, and were permitted only to memorialize the 
 minister of the interior — and this only on the subject 
 of their local "material" needs, not on affairs of 
 general political importance. To be sure, in later times 
 
 "^ See p. 283.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 295 
 
 they did not observe these legal limitations very 
 strictly, but in those first days of their existence they 
 did not inaugurate immediately any strong movement 
 of political demonstration. The explanation of the 
 Zemstvos' failure must be sought, therefore, in the state 
 of public opinion. For since public opinion was uncer- 
 tain, and men of action were divided between the 
 extremes of conservative nationalism and social revolu- 
 tion, and since the constitutional tendencies of moderate 
 liberalism were repudiated as anti-autocratic by the 
 former, and as anti-democratic by the latter, the Zemst- 
 vos were brought to silence by other causes than the 
 direct persecution of the government. In the social 
 class out of which the liberal majority of the Zemstvo 
 representatives was elected the opinion set forth in the 
 Moscow debates of 1865 definitely prevailed. Men like 
 Millyoutin and Kavailin thought, as we have seen, that 
 a more or less prolonged period of modest work of 
 local culture undertaken by the Zemstvos must first 
 elapse before the question of political representation 
 could be raised. In the meantime, they thought, the 
 different classes would contract a habit of working 
 shoulder to shoulder, and the age-long distrust between 
 the lower classes and the gentry would be dispelled by 
 experience of mutual aid and local co-operation. 
 
 That is why, after some few attempts to formulate 
 political demands, the Zemstvos having been sharply 
 censured by the government (the Petersburg Zemstvo 
 was even temporarily dissolved), they held their 
 tongue. And so it came about that the expectations of 
 the liberals were frustrated. For some ten years after 
 that the Zemstvos did not renew their political peti-
 
 296 RUSSIA AND ll S CRISIS 
 
 lions. They had their hands full and made the most of 
 their time in that "peaceful work of improvement" — 
 an entire transforming of the conditions of Hfe in the 
 provinces. They founded schools, built hospitals, 
 helped the peasantry in every kind of agricultural im- 
 provement, and developed domestic industries. They 
 were at the very time busy in complying with govern- 
 mental demands and in finding material means for their 
 own work; i. c, in developing local taxation. But it 
 is impossible to enumerate here how much has been 
 done by the Zemstvos in their chosen work. Virtually 
 they were the first to come to the villages with mes- 
 sages of health, sanitation, enlightenment, and with 
 sound reasons for private economy. Whatever has 
 been done for culture in the Russian villages was done 
 by the Zemstvos — and that in spite of every sort of 
 obstruction (which recently has taken the form of 
 awkward competition, on the part of the central gov- 
 ernment). The results of all this work were so obvious 
 that the government itself was obliged to recognize 
 them. The following table, borrowed from an official 
 statement, shows how much has been done for local 
 progress in the provinces where the Zemstvos are at 
 work, in comparison with other such provinces where 
 local self-government has not yet been introduced. 
 
 Thus, under every heading of the table we see the 
 Zemstvos outbidding by far the other — antiquated — 
 type of local government. But these are mere figures, 
 and they cannot make clear all the deficiencies of the 
 former type of local administration. They do not 
 show, for example, how really poor the medical help is, 
 not only in quantity, but in quality, in the provinces
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 
 
 without the Zemstvos: how inferior the schools; how 
 formal and void of any enthusiasm the charity; how 
 lacking in energy and initiative the insurance agencies 
 — and, indeed, practically all officials of the govern- 
 ment service employed in the provinces. It must be 
 borne in mind also that this comparison can be drawn 
 only between those branches of administrative activity 
 
 Proportion 
 
 in the 
 
 Latter as 
 
 Compared 
 
 with the 
 
 Former 
 
 Average number of inhabitants to each 
 physician (appointed by representative 
 authorities') 
 
 Average amount spent for free distribution 
 of medicine in each province 
 
 Average yearly salary paid to a village 
 physician 
 
 Average number of hospitals for each prov- 
 ince 
 
 Average number of lunatic asylums 
 
 Average number of paupers and orphans 
 supported by public charity 
 
 Average number of inhabitants to each 
 (regular) school 
 
 Average number of inhabitants for each 
 pupil 
 
 Average number of buildings insured ("vol- 
 untarily") against fire 
 
 which are common to both types of local government ; 
 thus, a long list of functions successfully performed by 
 the self-governing provinces find no parallels in the 
 institutions of the provinces existing previous to the 
 era of " the great reform," where no local representa- 
 tion had been introduced. -^^ Such are, for instance, the 
 
 "These provinces are located in the borderlands of Russia, 
 partly too thinly populated, partly too much suspected of "separatist " 
 tendencies. The material from which the table in the text was 
 compiled pn,ved only able to persuade the government to introduce 
 into these provinces a sort of self-government unknown to any civil- 
 ized country — the self-go\ernment by the governmental nominees, 
 enjoying, nevertheless, the right of local taxation.
 
 298 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 fire brigades and other measures for preventing con- 
 flagrations, the local post-office, and particularly the 
 organization of economic helps to agriculture, trade, 
 and industry. To this last branch of activity the 
 Zemstvos have lately devoted much attention : agri- 
 cultural engines are sold on credit; new systems of 
 crop rotation and special cultures are introduced ; home 
 industry is provided with raw materials and the sale of 
 its products insured; Zemstvo agronomists and eco- 
 nomic boards are apportioned; statistical inquests are 
 organized on a large scale and their results published in 
 a splendid series of reports unique not only in Russia. 
 Tlie central government could not help finding all 
 such work useful ; but it also found it too expensive. 
 And, indeed, the growth of local taxation in the 
 Zemstvo provinces was comparatively great, though 
 quite insignificant when compared with the central 
 taxation. While in the older type of provinces local 
 taxation did not exceed ^ per cent, of the government 
 taxation, it increased to 5 per cent, in the Zemstvo 
 provinces. And if still other items of local taxation are 
 added, the whole sum will not exceed the moderate fig- 
 ure of 15.5 per cent, for the whole of Russia; while in 
 Great Britain it makes up 38 per cent., and in the 
 United States 41 per cent., of the whole taxation. Rus- 
 sia is — to its great disadvantage, as we shall see later 
 on — still the most centralized state economically as 
 well as politically. To make clear the difference in the 
 use of the governmental and the local revenue for local 
 purposes, we may study the following comparison 
 drawn up by the Yeletz Zemstvo :
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 
 
 299 
 
 Government revenue, per inhabitant. .. .533 kopeks.'^ 
 Zemstvo revenue, per inhabitant 49.8 kopeks. 
 
 Needs of the central state offices . . . 
 Finance and administrative organs 
 
 Police and justice 
 
 Prisons 
 
 Roads 
 
 Post 
 
 Sanitation and veterinary 
 
 Public instruction 
 
 Zemstvo 
 
 Expenditures 
 
 per 
 
 Inhabitant 
 
 2-3 
 
 2.6 
 0.7 
 
 32-3 
 10.3 
 
 Thus in Russia, as elsewhere, the proportion of the 
 local to the state expense only reflects the degree of 
 attention paid to the proper work of social culture in 
 comparison with the elementary necessities of the cen- 
 tral government. The Russian government, neverthe- 
 less, has thrown every kind of obstacle in the way of 
 this work, its latest achievement having been to limit 
 the yearly increase of the Zemstvo expenditure to a 
 small percentage, strictly determined by law, out of all 
 proportion to the growing needs and extending activity 
 of the Zemstvos. 
 
 In fact, all this "peaceful work of civilizing" was 
 " liberal " work in its very essence, and the Zemstvos 
 could not help its being liberal. Nor could the govern- 
 ment help finding such work contrary to its essential 
 principle, which was not liberal. And thus began a 
 conflict which has since become continuous, though at 
 times it has been latent, and only now and then, when 
 circumstances were propitious, has burst into open 
 opposition. 
 
 In his memoir quoted above, Mr. Witte fairly 
 
 "A kopeck (kopayka) is equal to one-half cent.
 
 300 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 acknowledges that it was the government that took the 
 offensive. First, the right of controlhng local repre- 
 sentatives by the organs of the central authority was 
 extended as far as possible. Already, according to the 
 original statutes of the Zemstvos, their assemblies were 
 to be presided over, not by meml^ers elected by these 
 bodies, but by the marshals of the nobility, instituted 
 by Catherine II. Now, in 1867 these chairmen received 
 full powers to stop any discussion, and even to close the 
 meetings, and they were made answerable for not using 
 these powers when necessary. The governors had also 
 been given the right by the original statutes to suspend 
 temporarily every decision of the Zemstvos; in 1866 
 they were further empowered to refuse their consent 
 to any election or nomination made by the assemblies, 
 if they should find that the candidate was "ill- 
 intentioned;" and in the year 1879 they were given 
 the additional right to dismiss even such "ill- 
 intentioned" persons as had already been admitted to 
 serve the Zemstvos. All specialists (such as teachers, 
 physicians, etc.) in the Zemstvo service were later on 
 subjected to the particular control of corresponding 
 boards and offices of the central administration. Fin- 
 ally, the new statute of 1890 gave the whcfle executive 
 body of the assemblies, the Oopravas ("boards of 
 administration"), the "rights" of civil service, thus 
 fettering them also to its " duties " and transforming 
 elected representatives into officials. The government 
 thus has turned to its profit an antiquated theory of 
 Gneist — the assimilation of elected bodies of local 
 self-government to governmental institutions. 
 
 The Zemstvos enjoyed the right of petitioning the
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 301 
 
 central government concerning their local interests. 
 This right, however, became particularly suspected ; 
 and Mr. Witte admits that, for fear of the political 
 character of such petitions, the most important of them 
 were often either left without answer or were given a 
 plain refusal. Indeed, out of the whole number of 
 2,577 petitions sent over to the ministry of the interior 
 by the Zemstvos in the period of 1865-82, not less than 
 1.354 — /. c, 52 per cent — were formally declined; 
 not counting such as w^re answered in an evasive way 
 or simply left unanswered. It would be quite wrong to 
 suppose that all these demands thus left without satis- 
 faction were inspired by the oppositionary spirit. By 
 far the greater part of them did not exceed the com- 
 petency of the Zemstvos, for they represented nothing 
 more than a realization of their duty to " have care for 
 the local needs and advantages." The Zemstvos were 
 generally requesting the government's help, or non- 
 interference, or special legislation, in regard to their 
 economic, financial, educational, and other functions 
 mentioned above. The government generally refused 
 these demands, not as being "illegal," but as conflict- 
 ing with the interests of the exchequer, or of some 
 influential social class , c. g., the large proprietors or 
 capitalists, protected by the central authorities. Or, if 
 no interest was to be protected, the government usually 
 neglected to answer, or alleged some formal reason for 
 not inquiring into the affair at all. Very persistent 
 petitioners might hope, by dint of repeated requests, to 
 get some satisfaction, after from eight to fifteen years 
 of waiting. The more indolent ones might have the 
 moral satisfaction of seeing some of their demands, if
 
 302 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 they had stated a very urgent need, embodied in a law 
 a quarter of a century later. 
 
 The impression produced on the Zemstvos by these 
 bureaucratic delays and heedless refusals, which thus 
 systematically hold in check the whole activity of the 
 Zemstvos, was not left unnoticed by Mr. Witte in his 
 memoir. Seeing themselves distrusted by the central 
 government, restrained in every way, unable to bring 
 into execution the resolutions of the Zemstvo assem- 
 blies, the best men cooled in their enthusiasm for the 
 work of the Zemstvos. As early as 1870 Mr. Katkov 
 summed up the unsatisfactory state of things as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 The institutions of the Zemstvo exhibit a sad spectacle. The 
 lepresentatives in many places are rendered apathetic toward 
 their work. They desist from seeing in it any serious significance 
 whatever, and begin to doubt its future. Many meetings of the 
 last session were conducted in a slovenly manner, and were 
 attended by very few representatives. Some of the assemblies 
 could not be held at all, because the number of the members pres- 
 ent was insufficient. 
 
 When the men most interested in the "peaceful 
 work of culture" went away, however, there were two 
 classes remaining: those who were kept by personal 
 interest in serving the Zemstvos, and those others who 
 were too enthusiastic and too conscious of the political 
 significance of the work done by the Zemstvo to yield 
 in the struggle begun by the government. These latter 
 were not numerous — they never are. But they were 
 the leaders ; and they were always sure to be followed 
 by the average, the political marais, as soon as circum- 
 stances permitted a somewhat freer expression of 
 opinion.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 303 
 
 The same cause that brought about the change just 
 mentioned in the hfe of the Zemstvos also raclicahzed 
 the most conscious elements in Russian educated 
 society ; namely, the reactionary policy of the govern- 
 ment in e\-ery department of public life. The general 
 dissatisfaction which had followed the too short 
 "honeymoon" of the "great era" formed the social 
 atmosphere in which the revolutionary movement 
 ripened. Its first outburst, the murderous attempt of 
 Vera Zasoolich and her trial, which issued in her 
 acquittal by the regular jury, left a very deep impres- 
 sion on the public mind, and immediately after her 
 acquittal a series of terroristic acts began. -"^^ 
 
 The government, ill-informed as it always was, 
 thought it could fiixl succor against the revolutionaries 
 in the ranks of educated society. On August 4, 1878, 
 an appeal was published in the Government Messenger 
 inviting Russian society in general to assist the govern- 
 ment in its struggle against the " revolutionary infec- 
 tion." During the summer of that year, quite inde- 
 pendently of that official appeal, a few liberals from the 
 southern Zemstvos entered into negotiations with the 
 revolutionaries with a view to stopping their acts of 
 violence. The liberals proposed to the revolutionaries 
 to address a collective petition to the government, 
 asking for (i) the restitution of the original (non- 
 curtailed) statutes for the Zemstvos and for the cen- 
 sorship; (2) the abolition of administrative evils and 
 of special courts for political crimes; and (3) a general 
 representation elected by the Zemstvos. 
 
 The southern liberals did not, however, succeed in 
 " See p. 416.
 
 304 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 converting the revolutionaries to their moderate scheme 
 of opposition ; but they themselves soon got an oppor- 
 tunity of addressing the government openly, through 
 the intermediacy of the Zemstvo assemblies. This 
 occasion presented itself after Alexander II. had re- 
 newed his appeal to society in his November (1878) 
 speech, at a general reception in Moscow. The emperor 
 said he " counted on their assistance in keeping the err- 
 ing youth from that ruinous path into which some irre- 
 sponsible people try to lure them." Answering this 
 address, five provincial Zemstvos gave voice to their 
 discontent. The assembly of Cherneegov stated in the 
 report of its committee that destructive ideas cannot be 
 overcome by mere repression ; that the deeper causes of 
 their general spread lie in the general state of educa- 
 tion, in the lack of freedom of speech and of the press, 
 and in the lack of respect for the law. The representatives 
 of the Zemstvo of Tver were still more explicit; after 
 having enumerated the same reasons for discontent — 
 and having pointed out an additional one, the restric- 
 tions imposed on the Zemstvos — they wound up their 
 address with a plain demand for a constitution : 
 
 Caring for the weal of the Bulgarian people after their libera- 
 tion from the Turkish yoke, the emperor found it necessary to 
 grant this people true self-government [a circumlocution for 
 '■ constitution," which word it was still found inopportune to 
 pronounce aloud], the inviolability of the rights of the individual, 
 the independence of the judiciary, and the liberty of the press. 
 The Zemstvo of Tver dares to hope that the Russian people, 
 which bore all the burden of the vi'ar with thorough readiness and 
 with a self-denying love for their Tsar, will be allowed to enjoy 
 the same blessings, which alone can conduct them along the path 
 of a gradual, peaceful, and legal development.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 305 
 
 The assembly of the Kharkov Zemstvo also asked the 
 Tsar "to give the Russians what he gave the Bul- 
 garians." Upon this condition — " of organizing society 
 by means of a regular representation" — they even 
 declared themselves ready " to eradicate the evil and 
 definitely to crush the propaganda undertaken by the 
 enemies of the government and of society." But even 
 such a readiness did not induce the government to 
 yield. Instead, police measures were taken against any 
 further spread of similar declarations and petitions, 
 and the voice of the Zemstvos again was silenced. 
 
 Meanwhile the political situation became more and 
 more acute. The revolutionary movement steadily 
 gained ground. The advanced liberals from the Zemst- 
 vos proceeded to organize regularly into a great politi- 
 cal party. The " Southern League," whose activity in 
 1878 has just been mentioned, transferred its activity 
 to the northern pro^•inces and had here even a larger 
 success. It grew into a " Society of the Allied Zemst- 
 vos and of Self-Government," or. shortly, the Zcuiskcc 
 soyou!:e ("Alliance"). In 1881 the liberal party 
 founded its literary organ abroad — the Free Word — 
 whose editor was Mr. Dragomanov. a former professor 
 at the University of Keeyev, " a man not only well 
 educated and endowed with large understanding, but 
 thoroughly civilized and scrupulously conscientious." 
 Thus runs the official characteristic of a later minis- 
 terial inquiry on secret societies, "not verv dangerous." 
 As to the success of the liberal propaganda among the 
 Zemstvos, Mr. Witte in his memoir values it as follows : 
 
 The Zemskec soyouzc, having spread their activity over all 
 the Zemstvos of Russia, and havinp; at their disposal their
 
 3o6 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 periodical which was very successfully smuggled in, soon suc- 
 ceeded in organizing a certain regular connection between the 
 Zemstvos and in starting a concerted movement for the intro- 
 duction of a constitutional regime. One might think that the 
 activity of the Alliance did not even need any particular exertion, 
 to prove itself successful. The abnormal character of the mutual 
 relations between the government and the Zemstvos was deeply 
 resented by every advanced member of the Zemstvos ; by the very 
 force of events, they could not help striving to change these rela- 
 tions, in order to enter into immediate touch with the central 
 government and raise their voice there. 
 
 Such was the general state of mind when the gov- 
 ernment, after having exhausted its own resources in 
 the struggle with the revolutionary movement, again 
 tried the method of concessions. Mr. Loris Melikov 
 was given extraordinary powers to combat the terror- 
 ists, and he thought of conciliating liberalism to the 
 government. That gave the Russian liberals a new 
 chance to propose terms. In March, 1880, Melikov 
 received a memorandum signed by twenty-five of the 
 most influential liberals from Moscow — including pro- 
 fessors in the university, leading barristers, well- 
 known authors, and representative citizens of the old 
 capital. This was a summary of liberal grievances and 
 desiderata. The memorandum began by showing that 
 
 the principal reason why the conflict with the government has 
 taken such a morbid form is the absence in Russia of any oppor- 
 tunity for the free development of public opinion and the free 
 exercise of public activity. Dissatisfaction cannot utter itself 
 through the channel of the press, since the press is closely 
 restricted in its comments upon governmental action. Questions 
 of the very first importance are wholly removed by censorial pro- 
 hibition from the field of newspaper discussion, just when they 
 most occupy public attention.^" Another reason for the develop- 
 
 "* See pp. 206, 207.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 307 
 
 nient of "underground" activity may be found in the enforced 
 silence of public assemblies. The government often treats with 
 contemptuous neglect statements and petitions from sources fully 
 competent to make them, and listens unwillingly to the repre- 
 sentatives even of the most legitimate interests. There may be 
 found in the reports of any provincial administration records of 
 innumerable petitions sent by the assemblies to the government, 
 which not only have never been granted, but which have never 
 been even answered.'" The result is the creation of an impression 
 that the government does not wish to listen to the voice of the 
 people; that it will not tolerate criticism, however just, of its 
 mistakes and failures; that it despises the opinions of competent 
 advisers; and that it has in view peculiar objects not related in 
 any way to the necessities of the people. The impossibility of 
 speaking out frankly compels people to keep their ideas to them- 
 selves, to cherish and nurse them in private, and to regard com- 
 placently even illegal methods of putting them into practice. Thus 
 is created one of the most important of the conditions upon which 
 the spread of sedition depends; namely, the weakening of the 
 loyalty of those who, under other circumstances, would regard 
 sedition with abhorrence. Educated society as a whole, irre- 
 spective of rank, position, or opinion, is intensely dissatisfied, and 
 out of that dissatisfaction arises the existing agitation. 
 
 Moreover, society demands the right to act. It is aroused 
 both by the nature of its own reflections and by circumstances 
 of the time, and it seeks to participate in the life of the state. 
 These strivings the administration regards with hostility, and 
 throws obstacles in its way. [But] the Russian people are becom- 
 ing more and more impressed with the conviction that an empire 
 so extensive, and a social life so complicated, as ours, cannot be 
 managed exclusively by officials. If the ruling mechanism in its 
 present form excludes from direct participation in the government 
 a majority of those who have the first right and the strongest 
 desire to take part in it, then that meshanism stands in need of 
 reformation. 
 
 Another demand of society which at the present time is even 
 less satisfied than the desire for political activity is the demand 
 
 '° See p. 301.
 
 3o8 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 for personal security. The indispensable conditions upon which 
 the very existence of modern society depends are free courts, 
 freedom from arrest and from search without proper precautions 
 and safeguards, the responsibility of officials for illegal detention 
 and imprisonment, and the due observance of all the legal for- 
 malities of public and controversial trial. [Meantime,] for the past 
 ten years the police, either upon a trivial suspicion, or upon a 
 false accusation, have been allowed to break into houses, force 
 their way into the sphere of private life, read private letters, 
 throw the accused into prison, keep them there for months, and 
 finally to subject them to an inquisitorial examination without 
 even informing them definitely of the nature of the charges made 
 against them. Still more offensive is the system of administrative 
 exile and banishment without examination or trial. Hundreds, 
 and perhaps thousands, of persons annually are subjected to the 
 severest punishment that can be inflicted upon an educated man; 
 namely, banishment from home and friends, upon a mere adminis- 
 trative order, without even his being informed how long his 
 punishment will continue. 
 
 The discontent which pervades Russian society, and which is 
 the result of the mistaken policy of the government in dealing 
 with intei'nal affairs, cannot be removed by governmental action 
 alone. [Its cure] requires the friendly co-operation of all the 
 vital forces of society. The only way to extricate the country 
 from its present position is to summon an independent assembly 
 consisting of the representatives of the Zemstvos, to give that 
 assembly a share in the control of the national life, and securely 
 to guarantee personal rights, freedom of thought, and freedom of 
 speech. The Russians are fit for free institutions, and they feel 
 deep humiliation at being kept so long under guardianship. The 
 granting of such institutions, and the calling together of a repre- 
 sentative body to preside over them, will give the nation renewed 
 strength and renewed faith in the government and in its own 
 future. 
 
 Unhappily, there was among the Hberals no con- 
 certed opinion as to what the much-desired " free insti- 
 tutions " should be. Indeed, the variance on this sub-
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 309 
 
 ject was very great. Conservatives, like Mr. Koshelov, 
 still stuck to the antiquated Slavophil scheme of reviv- 
 ing the deliberative assemblies of ancient Russia, sum- 
 moned at irregular intervals, irregularly composed, 
 granted only a consultative voice, and discussing only 
 such subjects as the government was willing to ask 
 them about. In the meaning of Mr. Koshelov, who 
 was recommending the Zcmskcc Sohor in his numer- 
 ous pamphlets printed abroad, this institution did not 
 progress much beyond the old Slavophil notion. (Mr. 
 Koshelov was himself a Slavophil, though he differed 
 from his friends in such questions of practical policy as 
 the enforced Russianization and the dispossession of 
 the noble landed proprietors in Poland.) The idea of 
 a Zcmskcc Sohor no longer satisfied even the most 
 moderate among the younger generation of liberals. A 
 somewhat more advanced scheme was discussed in 
 their midst — if we may judge by Mr. Leroy-Beaulieu's 
 articles in the Revue des Deux Mondes of that time. 
 A certain group bespoke the possibility of granting the 
 representatives a share in legislative power, by way of 
 introducing them into the existing legislative body, the 
 State Council, founded by Speransky, the constitu- 
 tionalist minister of Alexander I.-"^" But even that 
 second scheme could have had only a passing value, as 
 expressing some particular opinion of a private circle. 
 Since the "Alliance of the Zemstvos " — the Zemskec 
 Soyouze — was formed, a third scheme seems to have 
 been adopted, reminding one of the original and larger 
 plan of Speransky. The political representation was 
 to form the upper stage of a four-storied representative 
 
 '" See p. 173.
 
 310 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 organization. Underneath, as foundation, was to lie 
 the lowest representative unit — the township — repre- 
 senting all the classes of local inhabitants; they were 
 to choose representatives for the district assembly of 
 the Zemstvo, which in its turn — as is also the working 
 custom now — would send its delegates to the pro- 
 vincial assemblies; only, these latter, in this case, 
 would represent larger territorial units than at present ; 
 they would correspond rather to the provincial assem- 
 blies of ancient France, than to the existing Zemstvo 
 assemblies in the departments (or "governments"). 
 By this representation of larger territories there would 
 be secured the decentralization and the local autonomy 
 of the conquered borderlands of Russia, as well as that 
 of different component parts of Russia proper. 
 
 We m-ay trace this idea of — more or less politically 
 independent — provincial assemblies as CMie of the funda- 
 mental features of a future Russian constitution, back 
 to the Decembrists of 1825.^^ The project of Prince 
 Dolgorookee, of i860, also included this idea of pro- 
 vincial assemblies in the scheme; and they are intro- 
 duced in the printed project of a Russian constitution, 
 published anonymously by Mr. Stepnyak, as late as 
 1895. In the particular moment of which we are speak- 
 ing the politically independent provincial assemblies 
 had also the advantage of satisfying a prevailing tend- 
 ency of Russian radicals toward " federalism." Origi- 
 nating in the purely anarchistic tendencies of the then 
 current democrati-c doctrine,^^ the idea of " federalism " 
 
 ^^ Namely, their " Southern Society," under the program of 
 Pestel ; see p. 258. 
 ^^ See pp. 279, 385.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 311 
 
 was thereupon extended — and this by the very origi- 
 nator of anarchism, Bakoonin"*** — from the vokintary 
 anarchist associations, the " communes/' to the exist- 
 ing larger provincial groups, such as Poland or Little 
 Russia. Mr. Dragomanov, the editor of tlie Free 
 Word, being himself a Little Russian, the federalist 
 formula of the liberal program corresponded also to his 
 personal convictions. And so, after having admitted a 
 federalist organization of the provinical assemblies, the 
 program, consistently enough, was planned to include 
 a topmost form of representation on the American 
 pattern. There had to be formed two chambers, one to 
 represent the people, and the other to represent the 
 federal units. 
 
 This, however, was not the last scheme of the Rus- 
 sian liberals, nor the one generally agreed upon. We 
 have seen how the Zemstvo liberals asked the govern- 
 ment to grant Russia the same institutions as it had 
 given the Bulgarians. This meant by far the more 
 practical, and at the same time, the more democratic, 
 issue : no " federalism " and no second chamber, but 
 only one chamber and a universal franchise. And, 
 indeed, if we have to believe the ministerial inquiry 
 referred to above, the liberals of the '' Alliance " at 
 their congress of 1880 resolved to demand as a condi- 
 tion sine qua non a one-chamber system and a general 
 vote. There remains to mention a fifth scheme, the 
 most radical of all, in that it took into consideration the 
 dislike of the revolutionists for a " constitution " and 
 flattered their hope of getting everything directly from 
 a " people's convention." "^^ The plan of this scheme — 
 
 *" See p. 341. *' See pp. 382, 418.
 
 312 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 which reminds us of the scheme of Herzen — formu- 
 lated in an article written for the Free Word, was 
 confiscated by Austrian authorities. The author was 
 satisfied with three concessions : freedom of speech and 
 of press, guaranties of personal rights, and convocation 
 of a constitutive convention. 
 
 What Mr. Loris Melikov, the "dictator of the 
 heart," really had at his disposal for the satisfaction of 
 all these expectations and demands could, however, 
 not possibly satisfy even the most moderate of them, 
 if we exclude Mr. Koshelov, since he was the only 
 one who approximately knew from Mr. Loris Melikov 
 himself, what had been his intention. But Mr. Koshe- 
 lov never thought of limiting autocracy, which, as a 
 true Slavophil, he thought compatible with his scheme 
 of popular representation. It is doubtful whether the 
 more statesmanlike Melikov really adhered to the same 
 romantic illusion of preserving autocracy under a con- 
 stitution. The emperor, however, was made to believe 
 that this was Melikov's scheme — as this was the only 
 way to lure the emperor to commit himself to this path 
 of concession. Whether the step that was intended by 
 Mr. Melikov was to be followed by further and more 
 important steps; and, further, whether these were to 
 follow voluntarily or be imposed by public opinion — 
 these questions must remain forever unsolved. The 
 fates, in fact, spared Melikov's fictitious reform the 
 chance of a trial, for Tsar Alexander II. was killed by 
 the revolutionaries at the very moment when he had 
 ordered the draft of Loris Melikov's reform to be sub- 
 mitted to a previous discussion by the Committee of 
 Ministers.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 313 
 
 This unexpected turn has helped very much to mag- 
 nify the enterprise of Mr. :\Ielikov. People spoke — as 
 they had spoken after the Decembrist rebellion — about 
 liberal efforts turned to naught by the inadvertency of 
 the revolutionaries ; of Russia driven back into reaction 
 for decades; of the whole history upset — in short, 
 what is generally said on the occasion of such extraor- 
 dinary occurrences. The draft of Mr. Melikov was 
 called — always in parentheses — in a pamphlet which 
 first brought to light some details about it, a " constitu- 
 tion ; " but, in spite of its evidently derisive use by the 
 editor, the term found credit with the general public. 
 Mr. Loris Melikov was generally believed to have con- 
 templated a constitution for Russia. 
 
 In fact, Loris Melikov intended to summon the 
 representatives from the Zemst^•o assemblies and from 
 the chief cities to St. Petersburg; but not at all in 
 order to ask their advice about the needs of the people, 
 nor to speak about any right of legislation to be 
 granted to them. They simply were to discuss, and to 
 criticise, some drafts of laws at that time in course of 
 preparation. Bodies intrusted with this previous stage 
 of preparation were kept distinct from representative 
 assemblies; these were "preparatory commissions" 
 made up of officials and persons individually invited by 
 the government. During the discussion of drafts in 
 the deliberative assembly, gentlemen of the preparatory 
 commissions were to be present and to have a voice in 
 voting resolutions. After discussion, projects had to 
 go through the regular routine: /. c, were to be recon- 
 sidered by the respective minister, to be jjresented in 
 his name and on his sole responsibility to the real legis-
 
 314 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 lative assembly — the Council of State — in order here 
 again to be discussed, and only then converted into 
 laws. Thus the role of the representatives of the 
 Zemstvos, far from being important, was rather humili- 
 ating; it was not even like that of the tribunate of 
 Napoleon, which at least had been given the exclusive 
 privilege of discussion, if not the right to prepare or to 
 publish laws. And then, too, the tribunate was a stand- 
 ing institution, while no promise as to the continuity of 
 the summoned assembly of representatives was to be 
 given, according to the draft of Melikov. It was only 
 a timid experiment which could have been revoked 
 without the slightest difficulty by the government. 
 Reduced to this, it did not even grant the Zemstvos so 
 much in the way of discussing current legislation as 
 had occasionally been given them both before and after 
 that project. 
 
 After the death of Tsar Alexander II., the project of 
 Mr. Melikov preserved only a symptomatic significance. 
 The looked-for discussion really took place in the com- 
 mittee of ministers, on March 20, 1881, after the new 
 Tsar, Alexander III., had personally got acquainted 
 with the draft of Loris — which he approvingly at- 
 tested with his own handwriting on the margin of the 
 paper, "exceedingly well written." The majority at 
 the meeting — Grand Duke Vladeemir, Count Valooyev, 
 Nabokov, Solskee, Demetrius Millyoutin (brother 
 to the one formerly mentioned), Saboorov, Abaza — 
 voted for the reform. Count Stroganov, Pobedonost- 
 sev, Mahkov, Prince Liewen, and Possyet were against 
 it. The voice of Pobedonostsev, the former teacher of 
 the Tsar, was decisive. After some few days of inde-
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 315 
 
 cision, the Tsar invited Pobedonostsev, in the greatest 
 privacy, to write the renowned manifesto of April 27 
 (May 11), 1881, through which he made known his 
 determination to preserve autocracy, " which he found 
 necessary and useful for Russia," as he stated it in his 
 letter to Grand Duke Vladeemir. That such words 
 should be used to decide in such an innocent case as 
 that of Melikov's scheme — which did not at all raise 
 the question of autocracy — may witness to a lack of 
 political knowledge ; but it also may characterize what 
 was then the general feeling; namely, that, whatever 
 the intentions of the Tsar and his ministers might have 
 been, the real question was that of the further existence 
 of the form of government doomed by history. Pobe- 
 donostsev's manifesto solved this question for a time : 
 his solution meant a quarter of a century more of reac- 
 tion, thousands of fresh victims to the political struggle, 
 one or two more generations sacrificed, and, beyond all 
 that, an enormous loss of time for the cause of Russian 
 progress, and enormous complications in the possible 
 realization of the reform. To balance all this, the new 
 reign was most anxious to increase the material welfare 
 of the people, particularly that of the peasants and 
 noblemen. But in reality it achieved only the ruin of 
 the noble class and was preparing distress for the 
 peasants. 
 
 Yet the transition would have been too brusque 
 from the "dictature of heart" by Loris Melikov, and 
 from his promises, to the unqualified reaction. The 
 dissatisfaction in society was as strong as it had been 
 before, and the revolutionary movement was by no 
 means stifled. Thus, Russia first passed through a
 
 3i6 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 period of transition, under the rule of Melikov's suc- 
 cessor, Ignatyev. Count Ignat3'ev did not renounce at 
 once the idea of a reconciliation with the Russian 
 liberals. As a platform for this reconciliation, a new 
 variation of the old Slavophil political doctrine had to 
 serve. That doctrine was founded on the contrast of 
 the state and the country as that of ''power" and 
 "opinion.""^- The application v.as obvious, if "state" 
 were to mean government, and "country," province or 
 Zemstvo. According to the old theory, the power must 
 belong to the state, the freedom of " opinion " to the 
 country. The interpretation of the epigoni of Slavo- 
 philism, as Ivan Aksakov, was : autocracy to the Tsar, 
 self-government to the provinces. The question pre- 
 sented itself : Is then autocracy consistent with the local 
 autonomy ? No, it is not, the practice of the Zemstvos 
 answered. It is not, was repeated also by men of 
 political science — and by those who wished autonomy 
 curtailed or abolished in the interest of autocracy, as 
 well as by such as looked for autocracy to be abolished 
 and autonomy to be extended to central institutions. 
 Mr. Ignatyev, however, dissented : Yes, local autonomy 
 is consistent with autocracy, he said. Moreover, it is the 
 very essence of autocracy to have a large local auton- 
 omy of "communes" at its foundation. Accordingly, 
 the circular writings of the new ministers spoke a quite 
 peculiar language. "Bureaucracy," its members' 
 "negligence in performing their duties," their "uncon- 
 cern for the public weal," and even their "appetites for 
 public property " were severely criticised by the minis- 
 ter of the interior. On the other hand, "the repre- 
 
 *= See p. s6.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 317 
 
 sentative men of the provinces '" were promised a 
 '' vivid participation in the work of reaHzing the views 
 of His Majesty."^"' Not to fall short of these prom- 
 ises, Ignatyev smoothed Melikov's project into a plan 
 of calling from time to time " experts '* from provincial 
 Zemstvos to assist the government in preparing drafts 
 of laws. Of course, these experts — the "knowing 
 men" — were to be nominated by the government 
 itself, and no definite form of their collaboration with 
 the St. Petersburg officials was provided for. 
 
 This measure did not produce the expected effect. 
 On the contrary, it only provoked a storm of indigna- 
 tion in the Zemstvos, whose demands for a constitution 
 had become much more definite and peremptory with 
 the beginning of the new reign. No less than twelve 
 Zemstvo assemblies gave utterance to a most positive 
 and unequivocal disapproval of the system of calling 
 forth the "knowing men," picked by the government, 
 instead of summoning the actual representatives of the 
 country. Delegates of the Zemstvos, they argued, must 
 be duly elected by the assemblies, not nominated by the 
 ministry of the interior; else they had no right to be 
 considered as representing public opinion. They form 
 nothing but a "fictitious representation," and even 
 though they w-ere actually members of Zemstvos, they 
 must be formally forbidden to function as representa- 
 tives of anyone's opinion except their own.. 
 
 Now the situation became clear. Public opinion 
 
 " It recently became known that Mr. Ignatyev, in greatest 
 secrecy, considered the project of summoning a Zemskee Sobor — in 
 the Slavophil meaning of the word — and that even a date was 
 fixed for it, namely May 18, 1882; but the Tsar then dropped the 
 scheme, some few days before the term.
 
 3i8 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 was not to be lulled to sleep by small concessions, and 
 the government did not wish to try concessions on a 
 larger scale. Thus no compromise between the political 
 aspirations of the Zemstvos and what the government 
 was willing to accord appeared possible. At the same 
 time, the chief reason that forced the government to 
 deal with public opinion no longer existed. The revolu- 
 tionary movement was stifled or died out from internal 
 exhaustion. 
 
 Then a reaction set in, unswerving and undisguised. 
 The minister Tolstoy — a man who, intensely hated by 
 educated society for his school system,^'* had been 
 obliged to resign the ministry of instruction when Loris 
 Melikov's dictatorship had been started — was now 
 given a free hand as minister of the interior. His was 
 the policy of re-establishing the influence of the nobility 
 in local administration and self-government '^^ — at 
 variance with a sort of instinctive democratic national- 
 ism of Tsar Alexander III. As to the Zemstvos, Tol- 
 stoy acted toward them much more as a personal enemy 
 — one of the Zemstvos having had the courage to 
 refuse him the honor of membership — than as a 
 statesman. He resolved to annihilate entirely provin- 
 vial self-government, by means of substituting the 
 governor's boards for elective administrative ofifices of 
 the Zemstvos. The annual assemblies of representa- 
 tives in each province had to be preserved, but in Tol- 
 stoy's draft they were given only a consultative voice : 
 none of their decrees were to be executed until they 
 had been approved by the minister or by the governor 
 of the province. This measure, however, was con- 
 
 " See pp. 216, 217. ^ See p. 239.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 3ig 
 
 sidered as too reactionary even in high official spheres ; 
 and so it was only in a much modified form, as a half- 
 measure, that the original draft of Tolstoy after his 
 death was carried into execution.^*' 
 
 Russian liberalism as a political force was entirely 
 paralyzed after the revolutionary movement had come 
 to an end, in the middle of the eighties. The only 
 refuge of liberalism was now the press; but only 
 nationalistic organs, such as Ivan Aksakov's Russ or 
 Katkov's Moscozi' Nczus, were permitted to speak com- 
 paratively freely ; all other periodicals were submitted 
 to the regime of censure. Already in 1882 the chron- 
 icler of the best liberal periodical, Vestnik Ycvropce 
 ("The European Messenger"), compared the monop- 
 oly of the nationalistic press with the position of that 
 elector in Scotland, before the reform of 1832, who 
 alone came to the poll, proposed himself as a candidate, 
 seconded his proposal, gave his vote for himself, and 
 proclaimed himself to be duly elected. Under such 
 conditions, tamed and muzzled by the government, the 
 oppositionary press was unable to give adequate expres- 
 sion to public opinion and represented no political force. 
 Universities, under the new statute inspired by Tolstoy 
 and carried into execution in 1884, were deprived of 
 their autonomy and, later on, purged of the slightest 
 tinge of the liberal spirit. Learned and philanthropic 
 societies were strictly watched, and at the first signs of 
 political revival in the nineties the most active among 
 them were suspended or closed altogether. Thus the 
 social atmosphere became very close during the whole 
 
 '"See p. 243, the statute of 1890.
 
 320 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 decade beginning with 1881 — the year of the murder 
 of Alexander II. 
 
 w- That was also the moment when the surviving 
 revolutionaries began to revise their doctrines and 
 formally to repudiate their former illusions, already 
 much shaken in the process of struggle. The meaning 
 of that change, as we shall see later on, was to draw 
 them nearer to the idea of political reform. They had 
 already come so far as to acknowledge that political 
 reform was a previous step, necessary to any further 
 activity: the famous address of the Executive Com- 
 mittee to Alexander III., some few days after March i, 
 1 88 1, proposed the free election of a constitutional con- 
 vention — in the sense of Herzen — as a basis for 
 reconciliation. Now they began better to understand 
 the part of illusion in this very idea of a constitutional 
 convention, and to see that the people were not ready 
 to vote as they wished. The leaders of two oppo- 
 site currents (the " Socialistic Democrats " and the 
 "Socialistic Revolutionaries" — see the following 
 chapter) were ready to admit, the one, that the people 
 must first be prepared before the social revolution 
 might be started; the other, that meanwhile the work 
 of the educated class remained necessary and was to be 
 resorted to more systematically. Let us quote a few 
 passages from an article written in 1890 by Stepnyak, 
 the well-known author of many works on Russia 
 published in English, and one of the most prominent 
 terrorists of the seventies. These passages will remind 
 the reader of the observations of Mr. Tourguenev, 
 quoted above.^^ Says Mr. Stepnyak : 
 
 " See p. 280.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 321 
 
 The question of how to unite the scattered members of the 
 Russian opposition remains the question of the day. We may 
 even say that it is more pressing than ever before. There is not 
 at this moment a single section among the Russian revolutionists 
 which seriously looks to the peasantry for support — that is, 
 which really works to obtain partisans among them. Up to now 
 our movement is exclusively an urban one, depending upon cer- 
 tain elements of the town population — partly on the working 
 
 classes, but chiefly upon the educated classes in general 
 
 To see in [the workingmen in the cities] the chief lever by means 
 of which the autocracy is to be overthrown is to lose sight, while 
 looking at theories, of the real state of things in Russia. At 
 present this class can be nothing more than a help to the revolu- 
 tionary movement. The principal support, without any question, 
 
 is the educated class The educated class has given us 
 
 Shellyabov, Kibalchich and Perovskaya [see, on these names, the 
 next chapter], and many others, and will always give successors 
 to them and continuers of their work, because it is the heart of 
 the nation, which feels more intensely than any other class the 
 nation's wrongs and sufferings, and more passionately believes in 
 its bright and glorious future. Moreover, this same educated 
 class occupies all the high posts, and fulfils all the most important 
 social functions. It manages the press, sits in the Zemstvos and 
 
 municipal councils, and holds the university professorships 
 
 We ought long ago to have given up the habit, borrowed from 
 western Europe, of confusing liberalism with narrow bourgeois 
 class interest. Ours is not a class opposition, but an intellectual 
 
 opposition The majority of them are advocates of most 
 
 radical economic reforms, and a large number sympathizes, in 
 
 essentials, with socialism We all understand quite well 
 
 that, in contemporary Russia, political liberty can be obtained 
 only in the form of a constitutional monarchy. And yet we still 
 continue to look upon the word " constitution " as something 
 unclean. We carefully avoid the use of it, employing various 
 roundabout methods of speech, for fear people should " confuse 
 us " with the constitutionalists. We are not contemplating any 
 formal or organic unification [with liberals] .... [but] we 
 acknowledge without equivocation that, as regards the political
 
 2,22 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 question, which for us is the question of the day, our program is 
 
 precisely that of the advanced section of Russian Hberals 
 
 To hope that, in a moment, and by one blow, we can win for our- 
 selves as much liberty as is enjoyed by the English and Americans, 
 would be too naive. There is far more reason to suppose that our 
 first portion of liberty will be a much smaller one, and that it will 
 become widened later on by the common efforts of all progressive 
 
 parties In politics we are revolutionists, recognizing not 
 
 only popular insurrection, but military plots, nocturnal attacks 
 
 upon the palace, bombs and dynamite But as regards the 
 
 introduction of socialism into life, we are evolutionists. We 
 utterly disbelieve in the possibility of reconstructing the economic 
 order of things by means of a burst of revolutionary inspiration. 
 The violent actions to which we now have recourse are 
 purely temporary measures, which will give place to peaceful, 
 intellectual work as soon as popular representation is substituted 
 
 for the present despotism If we look at the West, we see 
 
 clearly to what brilliant results our comrades have attained by 
 using those weapons of propaganda and agitation which consti- 
 tutional freedom has placed in their' hands. In proportion as the 
 results obtained are more precious, as the moment comes nearer 
 when the party may expect to be called to the practical realization 
 of its ideals, the complications and difficulties of the gigantic task 
 become more evident, and the rhetoric of blood and violence 
 inherited from political revolutions is more decisively abandoned. 
 The German Socialist party, which has astonished the world with 
 its titanic growth, presents the most brilliant example of political 
 discretion and self-control. 
 
 We do not say that this is the generally accepted 
 view of the Russian socialists for all times past and 
 future. But we shall scarcely be contradicted if we 
 emphasize that this disposition of mind was typical of 
 the moment and common to all shades of socialistic 
 opinion — Mr. Stepnyak as well as Mr. Plehanov, the 
 "populists" as well as the "Democratic Socialists" 
 (see also p. 428). If Russian statesmen pretended to be
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 323 
 
 hindered in their work of reform by revolutionary 
 agitation, at that particular period (the second half of 
 the "eighties") this excuse did not exist. Then, if 
 ever, the reform on a larger scale might have been 
 tried. But the official illusions of the government 
 proved to be more tenacious against the " logic of life " 
 than even the Utopias of our early socialists. If Mr. 
 Stepnyak has succeeded in casting " the old bones of 
 dogmatism" out of the living body of socialism, the 
 body of official nationalism was not even a living body : 
 its doctrine and policy were, indeed, a " leaden coffin 
 lid " pressing suffocatingly upon the living forces of 
 the nation, but to be removed sooner or later — if not 
 by reason — then by some elemental force. 
 
 Thus one more chance to begin a conciliatory 
 policy was lost with the decade 1881-90. The article 
 of Stepnyak, quoted above, shows us the ebbing tide of 
 the Russian revolutionary movement at its lowest level ; 
 and the new flood immediately followed. Some few 
 months afterward the author added a postscript to his 
 article, under a particular and very optimistic title: 
 " The Beginning of the End." Here he already strikes 
 a quite different note. What has happened meantime ? 
 The author answers : " During this period [of half a 
 year] autocracy has received a blow from which it can- 
 not recover, and which may possibly shake it to its very 
 foundations. We speak of the terrible famine which 
 has fallen upon almost the whole of corn-growing 
 Russia." 
 
 One of the .saddest results of the abnormal condi- 
 tions of Russian political life is that public disasters 
 are needed to bring about periods of political revival.
 
 324 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 The Crimean defeat we have mentioned as the signal 
 of the era "of the great reforms" of Alexander II. 
 The famine of 1891 started a movement — Stepnyak's 
 foresight was clear and true — which has not yet 
 ceased, though it has not found a satisfactory issue. 
 No wonder, then, that Russian patriots sometimes are 
 brought so far as to look forward to some fresh dis- 
 aster to rescue Russia from the deadlock in which she 
 now is.'*^ One can imagine how great the political 
 tension must be in order that this mode of thinking, 
 which seems so utterly unpatriotic, may serve as a 
 distinctive feature of the highest patriotism in Russia. 
 
 The fresh political current did not, however, origin- 
 ate in the middle classes, as did liberalism. It came 
 from below — and so far the discussion of it belongs to 
 the following chapters. But it also influenced Rus- 
 sian liberalism. It was again a revolutionary move- 
 ment which awakened the political activity of the 
 liberals, and at the same time made the Russian govern- 
 ment more or less attentive to their demands. 
 
 The beginnings of the new movement were very 
 modest ; still they could not remain unnoticed by atten- 
 tive observers of Russian life, the Russian police 
 included. A quotation or two from a secret message 
 by the minister of the interior, Mr. Doornovo, to Mr. 
 Delyanov, the minister of public instruction (1895), 
 will show the initial character of the movement: 
 
 Among the social phenomena which came to the front during 
 the past year, the tendency to raise the level of popular education 
 by means of organizing popular lectures, libraries, reading-rooms 
 
 *' These lines were written before the Russo-Japanese war began ; 
 I leave them as they were written.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 3^5 
 
 for, and free distribution of, scientific, moral, and literary publica- 
 tions among the factory and rural population, which was so 
 
 strikingly manifested, must be specially pointed out While 
 
 the libraries and reading-rooms are, though not under sufficient, 
 yet still under some, control, the free distribution of books escapes 
 any governmental oversight. Still more must it be noticed that 
 the distributers of these books are intelligent young people of both 
 sexes, very often still pursuing their studies, who penetrate into 
 the midst of the people m the capacity of teachers, statistical 
 agents, organizers of soup kitchens, and the like. The failure of 
 the crops in 1891, and the cholera in 1892-3, caused an exception- 
 ally large influx of educated young people into the villages, and as 
 a result they have revived the tendency of Russian youth to raise 
 the level of education of the lower classes — a tendency which had 
 
 been somewhat slackened during the eighties It appears 
 
 probable that the above-mentioned movement, which was called 
 
 into being by the popular calamities of the last two years 
 
 will develop systematically in a way which will not be in accord- 
 ance with the views of the government, and that in the near 
 future it may lead to very undesirable results. 
 
 The revival of the Hberal movement in the Zemst- 
 vos is chiefly due to another event which happened a 
 little later; namely, the death of Alexander III. in 
 1894. The hope awoke at once that the " leaden coffin 
 lid" might be lifted, and the Zemstvos used the first 
 opportunity for addressing to the new Tsar their for- 
 mer demands. These addresses were very humble in 
 tone and most moderate in their contents — much 
 humbler and much more moderate than those of 1879- 
 81. The boldest wishes the Zemstvos dared to articu- 
 late were that the voice of the Zemstvos might be heard 
 by the throne, and that the law, as an expression of the 
 imperial will, might not be violated or made dependent 
 on the good-will of local executives ; that the curtailed 
 rights of the local representation should be respected
 
 326 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 by the government officers ; that more freedom should 
 be given to the Zemstvos in treating questions of popu- 
 lar education. No hints were made as to the limitation 
 of autocracy. How moderate w^ere not only the words 
 of the addresses, but even the intentions of the people 
 who vvcre sending them, may be seen from an "under- 
 ground " pamphlet wn-itten to develop and systematize 
 the ideas of the addresses, and evidently compiled by 
 one of the Zemstvo members. This author, Mr. S. 
 Mirnee — a nom dc plume which very characteristic- 
 ally means "the peaceful" or even "the tame" — in 
 his proposals does not go beyond the scheme of enlarg- 
 ing the composition of the State Council by introducing 
 representatives from provincial assemblies of the 
 Zemstvos, one from each, with rights of full member- 
 ship. "The consultative character of the resolutions 
 of the Council may be preserved," the author adds, 
 while ignoring the fact that even now the Council has 
 legislative power, though, of course, not " compulsory " 
 for the Tsar. 
 
 As to the answer of the ill-advised monarch to these 
 timid demands, you may read it in the following letter 
 to the London Times: 
 
 Whatever doubts may have been felt or affected as to the 
 policy of Nicholas II. were yesterday [January 17-29, 1895] 
 very decisively settled by a particularly clear and unequivocal 
 announcement from his own lips. St. Petersburg is at present 
 crowded with delegates from every part of the empire charged 
 with the duty of congratulating the Tsar upon his marriage. 
 More than six hundred deputations, each composed of three or 
 four members, representing the nobility, the military classes, and 
 the Zemstvos One hundred and eighty-two of these deputa- 
 tions were yesterday received by his majesty, whose speech upon
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 327 
 
 the occasion is a model of vigor and brevity. Advancing a few 
 steps, the Tsar pronounced in a strong, clear voice, and witli a 
 remarkably resolute manner, the following words : " I am 
 pleased to see here the representatives of all classes assembled 
 to express their feelings of loyalty. I believe in the sincerity of 
 those sentiments which have always been characteristic of every 
 Russian. But I am aware that in certain meetings of the Zemst- 
 vos voices have lately been raised by persons carried away by 
 absurd illusions ('senseless dreams' would better render the 
 original words) as to the participation of the Zemstvo repre- 
 sentatives in matters of internal government. Let all know that, 
 in devoting all my strength to the welfare of the people, I intend 
 to protect the principle of autocracy as firmly and unswervingly 
 as did my late and never-to-be-forgotten father." 
 
 Thus Mr. Pobedonostsev had again the upper hand, 
 as he had on iMay 11 (April 2^), 1881. But the old 
 gentleman did not take into consideration that, while 
 the manifesto of May 11 only stated the accomplished 
 victory over the revolutionary movement, the speech 
 of January 29 was a prelude and an instigation to a 
 new movement on such an enlarged scale as Russia had 
 never seen before. The day after his speech the Tsar 
 was answered by the liberals in an "open letter," as 
 follows : 
 
 You have told your mind, and your words will be known to 
 all Russia, to all the civilized world. Until now nobody knew you ; 
 since yesterday you became a " definite quantity," and " senseless 
 dreams " are no longer possible on your account. We do not 
 know whether you clearly understand the situation created by 
 your " firm " utterance. But people who do not stand so high 
 above and so far off from actuality can easily comprehend what 
 is their own and your position concerning what is now the state 
 of things in Russia. First of all, you are imperfectly informed. 
 No zemstvoist has put the question as you put it, and no voice 
 was raised in any Zemstvo assembly against autocracy The
 
 328 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 question was only to remove the wall of bureaucracy and court 
 influences which separate the Tsar from Russia ; and these were 
 the tendencies which you in your inexperience and lack of knowl- 
 edge ventured to stamp as " senseless dreams." .... Unhappily, 
 your unfortunate expression is not a mere slip of language, not an 
 occasional lapse ; it reflects a deliberate system. Russian society 
 realizes very well that not an ideal autocrat has spoken to them 
 
 January 29, but a bureaucracy jealous of its omnipotence 
 
 January 29 has dispelled that halo which surrounded your young, 
 uncertain appearance in the eyes of many Russians. You yourself 
 raised your hands against your own popularity. But not your 
 popularity alone is now at stake. If autocracy in word and deed 
 proclaims itself identical with the omnipotence of bureaucracy, if 
 it can exist only so long as society is voiceless, its cause is lost. 
 It digs its own grave, and soon or late — at any rate, in a future 
 not very remote — it will fall beneath the pressure of living social 
 
 forces The alternative you put before the society is such 
 
 that the mere fact of its being clearly formulated and openly pro- 
 claimed implies a terrible threat to autocracy. You challenged 
 the Zemstvos, and with them Russian society, and nothing remains 
 for them now but to choose between progress and faithfulness to 
 autocracy. Your speech has provoked a feeling of offense and 
 depression ; but the living social forces will soon recover from 
 that feeling. Some of them will pass to a peaceful but systematic 
 and conscious struggle for such scope of action as is necessary for 
 them. Some others will be made more determined to fight the 
 detestable regime by any means. You first began the struggle; 
 and the struggle will come. 
 
 Ten years have passed since these historical words 
 fell from the exalted lips of the Tsar. Russia is as far 
 as possible from that state of submissive resignation 
 which made it ready to " be thankful " for the slightest 
 alteration in its fate, as the conservative Soovorin tried 
 to suggest in his Novoy a Vraimya in 1894. The reform 
 became much more difficult in measure as it became 
 urgent. The government has now to face positive and
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 329 
 
 peremptory demands of different political parties, more 
 numerous, much better organized, and making a com- 
 mon front against the government. The choice of a 
 program to save the situation is not easy, and the 
 statesman who endeavors to determine what is the 
 minimum program that would carry with it public 
 approval must possess extraordinary skill and 
 authority. ^^ 
 
 That this minimum program has changed mean- 
 while we may judge from the opinions of such repre- 
 sentative men as never would be counted as liberals in 
 former days. A good instance is the lately deceased 
 Mr. Cheecherrin, an eminent lawyer and a former pro- 
 fessor at the University of Moscow. Mr. Cheecherrin 
 began his political career as a highly conservative man 
 by a rash rejoinder to Herzen. This was in 1859. 
 Then, in the epoch of Loris Melikov (1881), Mr. 
 Cheecherrin advocated a strong repression of the politi- 
 cal movement then in process, and gave advice, which 
 nearly coincided with Melikov's project, for a modest 
 participation by the " experts " chosen by Zemstvos in 
 the preparatory work of legislation. This, he then 
 thought, would "for a long time" satisfy Russian 
 society, which is not ripe for a real constitution. Now 
 we have the last profession dc foi by Mr. Cheecherrin, 
 in his book on Russia on the Eve of the Tzventieth 
 Century, published abroad anonymously. Cheecherrin 
 here holds to the opinion that 
 
 it is impossible to limit bureaucracy without limiting the power 
 
 *• These lines were written before the complications of the winter 
 of 1904-5. No individual statesman can "save the situation" now; 
 the word belongs to the representatives of the people. See also 
 chap. vii.
 
 330 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 whose weapon it is, or — as more often happens — which itself 
 serves as a weapon in the hand of bureaucracy. I mean the 
 unlimited power of the monarch. As long as this exists, unlimited 
 arbitrariness at the top will always generate like arbitrariness in 
 the dependent spheres. Legal order can never be affirmed where 
 everything depends on personal will, and where every person 
 invested with power may put himself above the law, while shelter- 
 ing himself behind an imperial order. If a regime of legality may 
 be said to form the most urgent need of the Russian society, we 
 must conclude that this need can be satisfied only by the change 
 
 of the unlimited monarchy into a limited It is necessary 
 
 that the elective assembly should be invested with definite rights. 
 A consultative assembly, whose decisions may or may not be fol- 
 lowed, will always be swayed by the ruling bureaucracy, though 
 it is just bureaucracy that must be limited. Only such an organ 
 as would be entirely independent and possess a deciding voice in 
 state affairs can counterbalance the officials surrounding the 
 throne. Only such an assembly, possessing some rights, can 
 limit the will of the monarch — which is the first condition of the 
 legal order. As long as the monarch will not grow accustomed 
 to the idea that his will is not almighty, that there exists a law 
 independent of his will, and that he must defer to it, every hope 
 to overrule the arbitrariness of the officials, every dream about 
 " guaranties," are vain and futile. 
 
 The words of Cheecherrin are clear and deliberate, 
 as well as thoroughly reasonable. They characterize 
 the prevailing idea and the minimum program of the 
 contemporary liberalism. In the face of them, all pre- 
 vious schemes of forming a " consultative " house seem 
 to be relegated from genuinely liberal circles to such 
 nationalists or conservatives as have been converted by 
 the general trend of opinion to liberalism, while pre- 
 serving their inclination to compromise with autoc- 
 racy. Among such new converts there are some 
 "officious" journalists, like Mr. Soovorin and other
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 331 
 
 contributors to his Noz'oya rrainiya, or a third-rate 
 publicist like Air. Sharahpov, who made his reputation 
 by announcing himself as the successor of Ivan Aksa- 
 kov, the last Slavophil ; or jNIr. Demchinskee, the 
 famous "weather prophet," who by a strange irony 
 of fate found himself to be private adviser of the Tsar 
 in things political. Curiously enough, to save autoc- 
 racy, all of them lay particular stress on '' federalism," 
 and, in order to avoid the convocation of a single 
 chamber in St. Petersburg, they advise the forming of 
 some eight chambers in the provinces, thus enlarging 
 the scheme of Ignatyev by the above-mentioned feature 
 of the former liberal scheme. Political science is 
 familiar to no one of them, as may be seen from their 
 projects ; they have instead the nationalistic conviction 
 that autocracy is " indissolubly a part of the very life 
 of the Russian people." "Russia will not be Russia 
 without autocracy," Prince Meshchersky recently said. 
 Mr. Cheecherrin, too, belonged to that generation of 
 Hegelian adepts who first laid the foundation of this 
 nationalistic belief; but his manner of explaining 
 away the deep-rooted axiom of nationalistic thinking 
 is worthy of one of the best scholars on Russian con- 
 stitutional history: 
 
 No doubt autocracy has had a great historical importance, 
 with us even more so than with the western nations. It has united 
 and organized Russia, has sown the seed of enhghtenment, and 
 it ended by liberating the people and uplifting social forces. But 
 when this was done its vocation was fulfilled. For an unlimited 
 monarchy is a form of government that suits peoples in their 
 infancy, not in their adult age. When social forces begin to move 
 by themselves, this form becomes an obstacle. .A-utocracy can 
 bring the people up to a certain degree of development, but this
 
 332 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 degree is not high, and it cannot be increased with the aid of 
 autocracy. And though, under the pressure of the irresistible 
 demands of life, autocracy may adopt liberal principles, by this 
 very adoption it sows the seed of its own destruction. 
 
 Thus, any consistent view, whether held by an 
 impartial observer like Cheecherrin, or by a consistent 
 liberal, or even by a consistent conservative, does not 
 admit any compromise on that particular point. Mr. 
 Witte, as we know already, holds the same opinion as 
 Cheecherrin in regard to the incompatibility of liberal 
 principles with the existing regime. Of course, from 
 this identical admission he draws quite opposite con- 
 clusions. It is not the political form, but the liberal 
 principles, that must be destroyed. But there is a cer- 
 tain undertone of pessimism running through the 
 memoir of Mr. Witte as to the unexpressed but 
 unavoidable question: Which of the two is easier — 
 eradicating liberal principles, or changing the old poli- 
 tical form ? As soon as this dilemma is made clear to 
 public opinion, the evolution of liberalism previous to 
 the constitutional stage of political life must be con- 
 sidered as completed. What remains is not the theo- 
 retical discussion, but the struggle. And " the struggle 
 has come," as the author of the open letter to Nicholas 
 II. foretold. In casting aside the liberal elements, the 
 government deprived itself of any chance of a peaceful 
 issue, and fostered instead a widespread revolutionary 
 movement. On this field the decisive battles were now 
 again to be fought and won ; and as long as the gov- 
 ernment hoped to be the winner, it always declined to 
 listen to the softer whisperings of Russian liberalism.
 
 THE LIBERAL IDEA 333 
 
 That is why, in order to have a key to the whole posi- 
 tion, we must make ourselves acquainted with the 
 revolutionary movement in Russia.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 
 
 We have now to consider the movement known 
 outside of Russia under the nickname of "nihiHsm." 
 This really was never its party title. The name was 
 given to the movement forty years ago — 2'. c, before 
 it had had time to assume definite shape — by its 
 opponents, in order to characterize its negative side; 
 and it has always sounded offensive to its adherents. 
 But even as a title descriptive of the negative character- 
 istics of the movement, is it a fair name? Even this 
 question can hardly be answered affirmatively. " Nihil- 
 ism " does designate a certain aspect of the early phase 
 of the movement — a general disposition toward a 
 summary negation of tradition and of all authority. 
 This negation can be brought into connection with the 
 peculiarities of the Russian mind and with Russian 
 history, as they have been described in chap. i. But 
 in this latter meaning " nihilism " is too broad a term, 
 and is liable to include and characterize everything 
 Russian — the government as well as its opponents; 
 while in the former meaning — as a feature of the 
 earlier phase of the movement it is too narrow a term 
 to cover the whole, or even the most characteristic part, 
 of the movement. Moreover, at this time the term was 
 used to characterize another and quite opposite activity 
 of forty years ago — a purely individualistic move- 
 ment of personal "emancipation," which partly pre- 
 ceded and partly ran parallel with the collectivist 
 movement which we are going to describe. 
 
 334
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 335 
 
 If, then, we eliminate the local and transient fea- 
 tures just mentioned, so-called "nihilism" will appear 
 in its true character as a specifically Russian variety of 
 the socialism of western Europe, without any exact 
 counterpart elsewhere in the world. To be sure, in its 
 beginnings this particular Russian movement had 
 strong peculiarities in theory, and it still remains 
 unique as far as its revolutionary practice is concerned. 
 But such peculiarities, so far from being national and 
 "nihilistic" only, are rather due to the early period 
 which Russian socialism was traversing, and are not at 
 all unfamiliar to the students of the international move- 
 ment of socialism in its earlier phases. These particu- 
 lar features of Russian socialism disappear as the 
 movement grows. The more it spreads and develops, 
 the more cosmopolitan it becomes. 
 
 But there is another feature characteristic of Rus- 
 sian socialism, not so obvious as, but much more impor- 
 tant than, its " nihilism " — a feature which is not likely 
 to be eliminated from the next stages of its develop- 
 ment. Socialism in Russia, more than anywhere else, 
 represents democracy in general. This is what makes 
 its political role much more important than it is in 
 countries with a more and earlier developed democracy. 
 
 When socialism made its appearance in these latter 
 countries, it found its field of activity already occupied 
 by a dangerous rival. The middle class, which actually 
 fought the early battles of modern democracy, has 
 imprinted on that democracy its own intellectual stamp. 
 Democratic habits of thought and life were essentially 
 individualistic, and thus were antagonistic to the teach- 
 ings of socialism. The militant democracy of the early
 
 336 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 days had considered its chief enemy to be the central- 
 istic state with its absohitistic rule. This enemy had to 
 be defeated by means of the principle of absolute free- 
 dom of individuality. The individual member of 
 society claimed to be in possession of inalienable 
 "natural" rights which no one but himself could give 
 away, and which he, as a matter of fact, had partly and 
 conditionally given away in order to found an asso- 
 ciation of human individuals. Thus the political democ- 
 ratism of that epoch found its expression in the theory 
 of a voluntary covenant of individuals, a " social com- 
 pact," as a foundation for the existing state. If con- 
 sistently developed, this idea led to the individualism of 
 Spencer, or to the anarchism of Proudhon : the state 
 was to be considered a necessary evil, to be reduced to 
 a minimum, or to be wholly exterminated. American 
 political thought was not, of course, so hostile to the 
 very idea of the state as was that either of the French 
 Encyclopedists or of the English Liberals ; for here in 
 America it was not a political struggle against despot- 
 ism that directed political thought, but an almost 
 inborn instinct of self-assertion fortified with a reli- 
 gious feeling of independence. Yet that instinct was 
 thoroughly individualistic, and as such was the pre- 
 vailing idea of New England Puritanism and of the 
 "fathers" of 1776. In spite of the modern encroach- 
 ments of collectivism and centralization, the country of 
 Jefferson even after a century of federal government 
 remains more faithful to that old spirit of individualism 
 than the country of Rousseau. 
 
 Under these conditions, socialism had to meet a 
 formidable adversary in the politically full-grown
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA ^^^7 
 
 democracy of the English-speaking countries. The 
 distrust of the state existing in these countries had first 
 to be overcome, and the idea of state interference to be 
 made famihar to them, before the collectivist view 
 could be substituted for the individualistic in politics 
 and social life. The advocates of the new movement 
 themselves avow that they are not yet far beyond this 
 very threshold of socialism either in England or in 
 America. One is here particularly slow to recognize 
 at the bottom of the general "social unrest" the 
 struggle of the "masses" against the "classes;" mere 
 " municipalization " schemes and the expansion of state 
 enterprise often are considered — and either extolled 
 or denounced — as socialism, the means thus being 
 taken for the end. The socialistic spirit to a large 
 extent remains "unconscious of itself." 
 
 This is totally different in countries of a more 
 recent political life and a less developed democracy. 
 The case of Germany may help us to realize the condi- 
 tions underlying the development and the possible 
 future of socialism in Russia. In both countries social- 
 ism found the ground of its activity unoccupied; its 
 rivals weak or wanting; the machine for centralized 
 political activity quite ready. The only task remaining 
 was to take possession of the steering-wheel. The 
 state of Frederic the Great, as well as that of Peter the 
 Great, already was a huge machine of centralized 
 bureaucracy. Both rulers were somewhat acquainted 
 with the theory of the "social compact;" but both 
 built upon it their own system of "enlightened abso- 
 lutism." After this superstructure was ready, a new 
 school of lawyers and politicians rejected the theo-
 
 338 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 retical foundation as "shallow" and "rationalistic." 
 They declared that the absolutistic state did not need 
 any fictitious "consent" or "compact," since it was 
 firmly founded on a historic basis — on centuries of 
 unconscious submission and rule; and they justified its 
 further existence by the philosophic argument that it 
 was a great instrument for the education of the national 
 spirit. 
 
 The state was now considered, not a "necessary 
 evil " to be tolerated, but an unmixed blessing, a provi- 
 dential good predestined to lead humanity to its highest 
 destination and fullest freedom. These ideas of the 
 state, originated by a Fichte and a Hegel, were 
 indorsed by a Lassalle and a Marx. In a sense, social- 
 ism was to become the " enlightened absolutism " of 
 democracy — quite the opposite of the anarchistic idea 
 of a free federation of individuals. Since a democracy 
 of voluntary associations for economic purposes — a 
 strictly professional, non-socialistic organization of 
 labor — had never been strongly developed in Ger- 
 many; no anarchistic scheme like that of Proudhon 
 could there take root. Voluntary co-operation was in 
 Germany dreamt of only by men like Schultze-Delitsch ; 
 and this dream was dispelled and made the subject of 
 derision in the very beginning of the serious socialistic 
 agitation. Thus the German labor party came into 
 existence both as a socialistic and as a centralistic party, 
 not as a trade-unionist and an anarchistic one. Far 
 from repudiating the state, the German socialists tried 
 to take hold of it by means of the universal suffrage, in 
 order to use its machinery for the bringing about of a 
 social revolution. German socialism, we need only
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 
 
 339 
 
 remind ourselves, began by entering into negotiations 
 with Bismarck, and it gradually grew into a great 
 parliamentary party ready to work — at least in the 
 persons of its more conservative members — "not for 
 the better future, but for the better present^' thus sub- 
 stituting the idea of social reform for that of social 
 revolution. 
 
 Russian socialism, then, differs from German social- 
 ism in that it carries to an extreme the features which 
 have made German socialism differ from English and 
 American. If in the English-speaking countries 
 democracy is not socialistic, and not likely to become 
 such in a measurable space of time, in Germany it is 
 socialistic, though German socialism is endeavoring 
 more and more to disavow its revolutionary beginnings. 
 In Russia it is both socialistic and revolutionary. 
 Trade-unionism which, within the region of the Anglo- 
 Saxon race, is becoming master of the situation and is 
 gradually imbibing the spirit of socialism, in Germany 
 is conservative and is overruled by socialism proper; 
 while in Russia it is the autocratic government that 
 recently tried to start trade-unionism in opposition to 
 the overpowering propaganda of socialism.* At the 
 bottom of these and similar differences, however, lies 
 the fact that both in England and in America democ- 
 racy has had to become conscious of itself; its decisive 
 victories were won long before socialism appeared; 
 while in Germany democracy awoke to consciousness 
 simultaneously wnth the growth of socialism, and in 
 Russia democracy was to be awakened by socialism. 
 In each case the ultimate explanation is thus found in 
 
 'See p. 541.
 
 340 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 the degree of development of individualism previous to 
 the appearance of socialism. 
 
 Russian socialism met with no opposition from the 
 individualistic spirit, and found no organized democ- 
 racy. Every page of the social history of Russia 
 explains why it is so. We have seen that the bour- 
 geoisie did not exist in Russia, and that that country 
 never developed such an intense social life as that which 
 in mediaeval Europe succeeded in balancing the central 
 power of absolute monarchy, and which in modern 
 Europe is sufficient to hold in check the absolute 
 democracy of the socialism of today. Whatever in 
 these conditions was unfavorable to individualism and 
 liberalism favored, and still favors, collectivism in 
 Russia. This also is the reason why it was not so 
 easy for socialism itself to become a class doctrine in 
 Russia. Socialism as well as liberalism for a long 
 time remained " intellectual ; " and if liberalism was so 
 because it was opposed to the interests of its own class, 
 socialism was so because — and as long as — it repre- 
 sented the class which was as yet unable to speak in 
 its own name and to articulate its own demands. The 
 next consequence of this similarity of conditions was 
 that Russian liberalism and Russian socialism were 
 not at all mutually exclusive. Russian liberalism was 
 always tinged with democratism, and Russian democ- 
 ratism has been strongly impregnated with socialistic 
 teachings and tendencies ever since socialism made 
 its appearance. To be sure, the modern — and pre- 
 dominant — socialistic doctrine in Russia today is a 
 strictly class doctrine — that of the German socialistic 
 democratism of Marx ; but we shall see that the other
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA '341 
 
 large division of Russian socialism still clings to the 
 former Russian idea : the negation of every class dis- 
 tinction, rather than the self-assertion of only one 
 class, the "proletariat." 
 
 The main point in the history of Russian socialism 
 is this change from the latter point of view to the 
 former — a transition which was only gradually taking 
 place. We designated the modern view as that of the 
 " scientific " socialism of Marx. We may designate 
 the earlier view as that of " Utopian socialism" — or 
 the anarchism of Bakoonin. Bakoonin and Marx — 
 the beginning and the end of Russian socialism ! The; 
 fundamental conception of the Marxist view is that th( 
 class-consciousness of the "proletarians" is gradually 
 and necessarily rising with the development of capital 
 ism, and that the proletariat must take possession of 
 the political power, in order to consummate the social 
 revolution which had already been prepared by the' 
 whole process of economical development. The view 
 of Bakoonin was that the masses are and always have 
 been socialistic, and that the Russian — or rather the 
 Slav — masses are so in particular, because they live 
 under the regime of communal property. They need 
 not to be taught socialism ; they need only to be" 
 awakened : the whole remaining task of changing th^ 
 social order will be accomplished by the masses them- 
 selves, from beneath by way of the free federation oi 
 communes. 
 
 Both these views of socialism appeal to the Rus- 
 sian " masses; " but before entering into further details, 
 we must first know what these " masses " are, and what 
 is likely to be their active part in the socialist move-
 
 342 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 ment. Let us proceed, therefore, to a sketch — which 
 we shall make as short as possible — of the Russian 
 lower classes, and of their aspirations in the past and 
 in the present. 
 
 It is well known that the lower classes in Russia 
 consist largely of agriculturists; more than 80 per 
 cent, of the population are peasapts. The number of 
 workingmen in the factories does not exceed two mil- 
 lions, and to a large extent even now they form, not a 
 separate social class, but a part of the same peasant 
 class which finds temporary employment in the factor- 
 ies as an addition to their farm work. The political 
 role of the workingman has just begun, and as was to 
 be expected, it at once gave an important meaning to 
 the socialistic propaganda. But even now no general 
 scheme of the socialistic reconstruction of society can 
 be planned — in Russia less than in any other country 
 — unless the interests of the agricultural population are 
 taken into consideration. This is what makes the posi- 
 tion of Russian socialism particularly difficult when 
 compared with that of countries more industrially 
 developed. The labor movement in Russia is develop- 
 ing along lines pretty similar to those of other coun- 
 tries; but the agrarian movement cannot but be very 
 peculiar. That is why we must concentrate our chief 
 attention upon the position of the peasants. 
 
 More than forty years have passed since the Rus- 
 sian peasants were emancipated. Social habits in the 
 meantime have changed greatly to their advantage. 
 Still, they remain a separate caste ; and the very latest 
 cry of Russian public opinion^ has been for the 
 
 - See p. 529.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 343 
 
 equalization of the peasant with the other social orders, 
 as far as their personal rights are concerned. 
 
 Emancipation, indeed, did not make the Russian 
 peasants equal with other citizens of the empire. This 
 was partly the result of too much care bestowed on 
 them by their nationalistic-democratic liberators, who 
 were afraid lest, should the peasants mix up with the 
 other classes, slavery might return, or lest the national- 
 istic type of Russian peasantry might perish. Thus 
 they prevented every intermixture of the Russian vil- 
 lage communities with outsiders : the Russian Mir had 
 to remain a world by itself, ruled by the elected alder- 
 men; judged by its own judges according to its own 
 customs, supposed to be transmitted orally from father 
 to son ; managing its economic affairs by a democratic 
 convent ; and allotting and redistributing its communal 
 lands among the heads of families, according to the 
 wants and working capacity of each member. The 
 Mir was even given the right of interfering in family 
 affairs, and of chastising its members by flogging them 
 or bending them into exile. 
 
 But the Mir as it actually was did not much 
 resemble the ideals of the Russian democratic nation- 
 alists.^ The organization of the commune always was, 
 and always remained, first and foremost a weapon in 
 the hands of the government for assessing and levying 
 taxes, and for getting every kind of local duties per- 
 formed. Therefore the elected aldermen of the village 
 became a kind of lower police officials, responsible to 
 every other authority, but not to their own electors. 
 This position was so difficult that it was shunned by 
 
 " See p. 271.
 
 344 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 every worthy man in the village. The village judges 
 were not much better, and their custom-founded law- 
 very often proved to be no law at all. The only literate 
 man in the village frecjuently happened to be the vil- 
 lage clerk ; and he used his position of influence to lead 
 the community affairs as best suited its w^ealthy and 
 powerful members. Thus the person and property of 
 everybody within the village commune were entirely 
 dependent on the good-will of a certain few. This evil 
 became so evident that the state tried to mend matters ; 
 but it only succeeded, however, in making them still 
 worse by the sort of measure it resorted to. The good- 
 will of the few was supplanted by the good-will of one 
 — the new "rural commander," an officer introduced 
 in 1800.'* virtually possessing unlimited power over the 
 village members, communal meetings, and authorities. 
 This, of course, only served to strengthen the regime 
 of arbitrariness and to accentuate the exceptional posi- 
 tion of the Russian peasant before the law and among 
 the other social orders. The peasant representation in 
 the Zemstvos, already insignificant, was practically 
 annihilated, because the elections could always be 
 directed by the "rural commander," and he himself 
 was for the most part elected to sit beside the peasant 
 representatives and tell them how to vote. At home 
 he was master of all the decisions of the Mir, and so 
 every individual was completely in his power. Very 
 often he even outwardly indulged in playing the part of 
 the landlord of olden times. He addressed the peasants 
 with the old-fashioned "thou" instead of "you;" and 
 demanded that they should bow and take off their hats 
 
 * See p. 300.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 345 
 
 whenever they met him. Sometimes he personally 
 condescended to beat them, and scolding was the 
 natural tone of his conversation. Woe to him who, 
 feeling his personal dignity offended, would grow 
 irreverent. There is a terrible provision in the institu- 
 tion for "rural commanders" which enables them, 
 without further formalities, to imprison such peasants 
 as hesitate immediately to execute their " legal " order; 
 the legality of it being left to their own determination. 
 The economic position of the Russian peasant by 
 and by became still worse, if possible, than his position 
 before the law, because economic evils were much more 
 acutely felt. Already by the conditions of the emanci- 
 pation his economic position was unsatisfactory. The 
 redemption money — the price he had to pay for the 
 allotment bought from his former landlord — was 
 often too high. Still worse, the size of his lot nearly 
 always was too small; and, in consequence of the 
 increased number in the family,^ it has grown even 
 smaller since then. Moreover, the lots apportioned to 
 the emancipated peasants were almost invariably cho- 
 sen from the worst parts of the landlord's domain ; and 
 generally they were scattered and divided into narrow 
 strips located among the landlord's possessions, which 
 made cultivation difficult and pasture impossible, for 
 fear of possible transgression, followed by a suit for 
 damages from the influential neighbor. A system of 
 fees was sometimes formally introduced by such 
 neighbors for petty trespasses of the peasants, to be 
 paid in the form of manual work on their estates — a 
 
 ' For further details on this point see chap, vii.
 
 346 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 custom which virtually meant the re-establishment of 
 slavery. 
 
 Worse than all this, however, was the position of 
 the peasants toward the usurers, or village creditors, 
 who charged enormous interest for loans. Loans were 
 unavoidable, as there was no accessible petty credit for 
 such members of the village as most needed it. At the 
 same time, the peasant has always been a stepchild of 
 the financial administration of Russia. Of course, the 
 time was past when the peasants and the inhabitants of 
 boroughs were the only "taxpayers." Some of the 
 direct taxes which were most burdensome in former 
 times have recently been reduced or repealed. But, at 
 the same time, indirect taxation has enormously 
 increased, and the peasant is virtually robbed of what- 
 ever small income he has.® After all of the many items 
 have been paid, little, if any, surplus remains. First 
 the peasant has to pay taxes, and, though the mode of 
 levying them has to a certain degree been improved, 
 this makes no difference to him, since his paying capac- 
 ity remains the same as before. In fact, the paying 
 power of the peasants is so exhausted that often they 
 are in arrears to the government for full three years. 
 For those who know the severity of the Russian 
 methods of levying taxes it is easy to realize the utterly 
 hopeless state of affairs signified by these arrears. 
 Then, besides his taxes, the peasant has to pay rent on 
 such lots as he rents from his neighbors, generally at 
 an exceedingly high rate.'^ And, finally, he has to pay 
 interest on his debts. Not having either cash or cheap 
 
 " For further details on this point see chap. vii. 
 'See examples, p. 451, note 6.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 347 
 
 credit, he invariably is obliged to sell what he needs for 
 himself. He sells his grain in the autumn, when it is 
 cheap, to buy it again for seed in the spring, when it 
 is dear. His working days for the coming summer he 
 sells in advance, at prices that are a mockery; and 
 when the time comes to fulfil his engagements, he tries 
 to shirk them, going off a hundred miles or so in 
 search of new work in a haphazard way; very often 
 he does not find anything, and comes back a tramp and 
 a pauper. Good crops do not always help him out, 
 because then grain is cheap and, not being able to wait 
 for better prices or to find a wholesale purchaser, he 
 sells it for a pitiable sum to the petty agents. Bad 
 crops ruin him entirely and bring him to starvation. 
 And bad crops are probable, because his tilling is quite 
 primitive, there is no such thing as artificial irrigation, 
 and the first drought may destroy everything. Then 
 he may have to sell his cow and his horse, give up his 
 lot to his village, and go to the city in search of work. 
 
 But what about the Russian Mir, the village com- 
 munity? Is it not said to bring help and salvation to 
 every one of its members, to give him his full share in 
 the rights of the commune, in its lands, its pastures, its 
 woods? Has it not always been looked upon as the 
 institution to prevent Russia from the danger of a 
 proletariat of paupers ? 
 
 Well, whatever opinion one may choose to hold 
 concerning the Russian Mir (and the opinions are very 
 many and very different), he cannot possibly expect 
 that the Mir will give to its members what it does not 
 itself possess. It is the Mir itself that has grown poor 
 and indigent; the Mir that has no more land to give;
 
 348 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 the Mir that accumulates the arrears, in spite of the 
 joint responsibihty for the payment of taxes by which 
 its members were bound until very recently. Thus far 
 everybody will agree that it is not the Mir, but the 
 general deterioration of agriculture and the material 
 distress of the Russian village, that is answerable for 
 the present condition of things. But has not the Mir 
 itself contributed to the causes mentioned? Is it not 
 the Mir that prevents the general cure and makes it 
 impossible ? 
 
 Here opinions largely differ. "The Mir hinders 
 any change in the primitive system of culture," some 
 people claim, " and thus precludes the possibility of any 
 agricultural progress." To this others reply that the 
 Mir is quite as able as an individual, and perhaps even 
 more so, to introduce any amelioration that may be 
 desired. " The Mir fetters the individual, stops every 
 private initiative, and thus makes any further develop- 
 ment impossible," say the opponents of the Russian 
 village community. This is met by the assertion that 
 quite the opposite is the case ; the Mir preserves for the 
 future stores of resources for a harmonious develop- 
 ment of individuality, being indeed the only institution 
 that guarantees the possibility of any such develop- 
 ment. " The village community must be annihilated," 
 its adversaries say, " in order that as many as possible 
 may be permitted to save themselves from general 
 shipwreck in an economic debacle, wherein the whole 
 commune will otherwise be submerged. Rather let 
 some of the peasants secure well-being than all become 
 paupers." "No," the adherents of the Mir reply; 
 " the Mir must be preserved in order that all be saved
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 349 
 
 for a better future; otherwise Russia will take the 
 path of capitalistic development, and there will be a 
 few who are wealthy, while all the rest will turn into 
 proletarians." But that is exactly what is really going 
 on now within the village community itself, in spite of 
 all the regulations and dispositions of law for pre- 
 serving material equality," the adversaries of the com- 
 munity argue. " The fact is only hypothetical," its ad- 
 herents retort. The differentiation of the constituent 
 elements of the village is by no means so great as it was 
 presumed to be; at least nobody can prove it, since 
 there exist no exhaustive studies of the actual con- 
 ditions in the Russian village. 
 
 Thus do Russian scholars and publicists disagree 
 on the subject of the Russian Mir, and public opinion 
 on this point is very uncertain. In general, one may 
 say that the individualistic tendency has constantly 
 gained ground in the views of both scholars and prac- 
 tical philanthropists, as far as the village community is 
 concerned. A pet child of Russian public opinion, the 
 Mir has always given it much more disappointment 
 than satisfaction. Concerning its past, views have 
 entirely changed. The village community is no longer 
 considered as an aboriginal and thoroughly democratic 
 institution, such as it was once looked upon, not only 
 when it was first discovered by Russian Slavophils and 
 by the German scholar. Baron Haxthausen, about 
 1840, but even twenty or thirty years later, when Ger- 
 man medisevalists constructed on the village com- 
 munity the whole fabric of their constitutional history, 
 and Henry Sumner Maine found a place for it in 
 the general scheme of comparative politics. Modern
 
 350 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 research, led by such eminent scholars as Fustel de 
 Coulanges or Mr. Seebohm, came to the conclusion 
 that village communities are by no means so elementary 
 and so antediluvian as they were supposed to be. And 
 now the point of view of Henry S. Maine has been 
 entirely abandoned in his own branch of study, as may 
 be judged from the excellent book of Mr. Baden- 
 Powell, Village Communities in India, which forms 
 an excellent introduction to the understanding of the 
 origin of the Russian Mir. This origin was, indeed, 
 multiform; but the unique character of the present 
 Russian commune has evolved from these different 
 forms under the undisputed influence of two powerful 
 agents: state authority as far as the financial and 
 administrative organization of the commune is con- 
 cerned, and landlord authority as far as economical 
 unity is concerned. Both forces worked in the same 
 direction, and some results of their combined action 
 may be traced to the fourteenth century, and even 
 earlier; others, to the eighteenth century, and even 
 later. The outcome is the existing Russian village 
 community. 
 
 Now, of course, this genesis of the Russian Mir, 
 whatever it might have been, cannot have the slightest 
 influence on its present position and its future role in 
 the structure of Russian society. All we may say is 
 that the agents which contributed to the making of the 
 Mir are now partly absent, partly decreasing. There 
 are no landlord authorities to direct the commune ; and 
 the financial ties of the state have also been much 
 loosened. At the same time, the individualistic, the 
 centrifugal, tendency undoubtedly increases within the
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 351 
 
 limits of the ;Mir, along with the material and moral 
 development of its members, slow as this process may 
 be. 
 
 The qnestian for a state facing this process of dis- 
 location is : What must be our agrarian policy ? And 
 the problem is as important as it is intricate and diffi- 
 cult of immediate solution. The traditional position 
 occupied by the Russian government consisted of a 
 kind of state socialism, which coincided queerly with 
 the point of view of one of the socialistic factions. The 
 peasant lands were considered as belonging to the state ; 
 that is, to the nation. Now, from this point of view it 
 was a most difficult thing to decide what was the mean- 
 ing of the redemption of their ancient allotments by the 
 peasants emancipated from serfdom. Were the lands 
 purchased by the peasants to be considered as their 
 own? Or were they to become, as the lands of the 
 crown peasants were formerly supposed to be, state 
 property? And, if the redeemed lots were to be con- 
 sidered as the property of the peasants, were they the 
 individual property of every purchaser, or the collective 
 property of the whole commune; /. c, something inter- 
 mediate between private and state property ? In spite 
 of the fundamental importance of a clear answer, the 
 problem was left unsolved. It therefore remains to be 
 settled by a compromise between further legislation 
 and the actual conditions of peasant life itself. Legis- 
 lation on the subject has been uncertain and shifting. 
 At first (after the emancipation) it favored the indi- 
 vidualistic view, but recoiled from its practical conse- 
 quences. Without formally proclaiming the lands of 
 the peasants the collective property of the communities,
 
 352 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 it practically took this view, and, as a consequence, for- 
 bade any sale of redeemed allotments, subjected divi- 
 sions of the lots among family members to strict 
 regulations, and made periodical redivisions of allot- 
 ments obligatory within a certain period of years. It 
 seems, however, that in practice these regulations are 
 often eluded, and that they do not prevent the process 
 of the individualization of landed property, as well as 
 the differentiation of a village population into rich and 
 poor — such as have more than the average and such 
 as practically possess nothing. The views of the peas- 
 ants themselves are utterly at variance, dijffering chiefly 
 according to the different conditions of existence in the 
 various sections of Russia. Tilling the soil has never 
 been considered a profitable business in Russia; and 
 the government, with its taxes and other requests, has 
 fully transformed it into a state "duty, a particular kind 
 of "state service." This was what made the existence 
 of a village community, with its joint responsibility, so 
 necessary to the government. But after the emancipa- 
 tion, conditions entirely changed; it now was indi- 
 vidual profit and interest, and not state interference, 
 that was to keep people in their former occupations or 
 to drive them away from them. Under these condi- 
 tions, wherever tilling of the land looks profitable for 
 the future, individualistic tendencies will have their 
 way; and to resist the dissolution of the village com- 
 munity will be a most difficult enterprise. But there 
 exist, particularly in the north and east of Russia, a 
 good many peasants who are satisfied with being able 
 to live upon their lots of land, without drawing any 
 profit; and for this element, generally the most con-
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 353 
 
 servative, the traditional village community will be 
 preserved for many years to come. Before long this 
 dififerentiation of forms of property must become quite 
 patent, and particularizing legislation will then be 
 needed. 
 
 But we may not pursue this interesting subject 
 farther. It was touched upon here only to prepare for 
 the understanding of such solutions as have been sug- 
 gested by the different socialistic factions, for all of 
 which the question of the Mir is one of the most, if not 
 the most, important. We now know something of the 
 juridical and economic position of the peasants. Let 
 us see what are the political ideas and aspirations of the 
 Russian peasantry. After that we must proceed to the 
 study of the Russian revolutionary movement. 
 
 We cannot expect, of course, to find political con- 
 sciousness very highly developed among the Russian 
 peasantry. Still, a certain amount of it has always been 
 present. Political ideas among them took the shape 
 most convenient for oral transmission among illiterate 
 people : the form of a legend, of a popular saying; and 
 the slower and simpler the means of transmission were, 
 the stronger was the action of political axioms impreg- 
 nated on the popular mind. These ideas proved able to 
 live through centuries, and to survive the most con- 
 vincing disproof furnished by historical events. The 
 chief of these fixed ideas was that of the democratism 
 of autocracy. We know that this idea played an 
 important role in Russian nationalistic views; but 
 undoubtedly it also made up an important ingredient 
 of the popular political consciousness. The origin of 
 the idea is very ancient; it appears together with the
 
 354 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 actual policy of the Muscovite princes directed against 
 the aristocracy in the sixteenth century. John IV., the 
 chief enemy of the aristocracy, particularly impressed 
 the popular imagination with his bloody and violent 
 methods of political struggle against the people's ene- 
 mies and his own. Popular songs like to represent him 
 in a picturesque attitude — putting on the Byzantine 
 purple and waving the imperial scepter, while he boasts 
 and threatens loudly : " I will extirpate treason from 
 the Russian land." "Treason" then meant the politi- 
 cal influence of the ancient ducal aristocracy. The 
 Tsar had the people's sympathy, because he was com- 
 bating the lords; and he was entirely conscious of it. 
 He even went so far as to request a kind of formal 
 plenipotence from the lower classes to help him in his 
 struggle with the higher. To this end he formally 
 resigned his power, and then arranged a sort of 
 re-election of himself, while he made representatives of 
 the different classes ask him to resume his dignity on 
 the express condition of dealing freely with his and the 
 state's enemies. 
 
 All these things produced such a profound impres- 
 sion on the popular mind that, even when the dynasty 
 had become extinct with the death of John's son, 
 Theodore (1598), the people were ready to support 
 the first impostor who should proclaim himself the 
 Tsar's other son, Demetrius (who had been stabbed in 
 his infancy, to clear the way for Theodore's brother-in- 
 law, Boris Godoonov). It was in vain that the few 
 remaining aristocrats tried to use this interregnum for 
 abolishing autocracy. They were in favor of a consti- 
 tution, with a higher chamber of " Tsar's councilors "
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 355 
 
 and a lower chamber representing "all the people." 
 But this political program of the Russian hoyars was 
 decidedly unpopular with the masses. An attempt to 
 elect a Tsar boyar (Basilius Shooysky), ruling on such 
 constitutional lines, ended in a popular mutiny, and the 
 Tsar boyar was forced to talce orders. The autocracy, 
 owing to the popular support, went out from that first 
 trial victorious. 
 
 We know, however, that the theory of a democratic 
 autocracy cherished by the people did not at all corre- 
 spond to any reality. And the people very soon began 
 to find this out. The Muscovite government, to be 
 sure, eradicated the aristocracy, but at the same time it 
 formed a new class of warriors, "the men of service," 
 who were even more dangerous to the peasants.^ The 
 original idea may have been to transform the peasants 
 who were granted to the warriors together with their 
 land into a sort of Russian " helots ; " i. e., state peas- 
 ants whose work and income were taxed only with a 
 certain legally determined duty for the benefit of the 
 soldiers. There were even some Russian publicists 
 who advised the government of John IV. not to let 
 warriors settle in the villages granted to them, but to 
 oblige them to live in cities, where their peasants had 
 to provide for their support ; or to let the peasants pay 
 their duty directly to the exchequer, from which sal- 
 aries then were to be paid to the warriors. Now, the 
 organization of the state at that time was too elemen- 
 tary to make this arrangement possible. And so the 
 warriors were left to deal as they would with their 
 peasants. No restrictions of law were provided for the 
 
 " See pp. 222 fif.
 
 356 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 protection of these latter, and, as a result, the first 
 germs of slavery soon appeared in the practice of the 
 landlords. Now the political consciousness of the peas- 
 ants became enriched by a new element : their social 
 protest against their new possessors. The first form, 
 however, which this protest assumed was merely pas- 
 sive. It was flight from the landlords. Just then the 
 government was rendering the southern frontier com- 
 paratively safe from Tartar raids, and there began that 
 settlement of the south which we described in chap, i." 
 The discontented peasants fled away from their land- 
 lords to the steppes. The most daring and reckless ele- 
 ments joined the Cossack communities near the mouths 
 of the Don and Dnepper, whence they began a long 
 struggle against their former oppressors. 
 
 The end of the dynasty (1598) served these new 
 settlers as a signal for a formal social war. The pre- 
 text of the peasants for their offensive action was, first, 
 to defend the claims of a " true Tsar ; " i. e., the 
 pseudo-son of John IV. ; second, to punish the boyars 
 for having killed the imposter. But soon their own 
 real purpose and their chief impulse became evident : to 
 sweep away the wealthy and the powerful, the boyars 
 and the merchants; to make free their personal serfs, 
 and to start a new regime of Cossack equality. At 
 least, such were the promises they were making in their 
 proclamations to the serfs of those boyars whom they 
 wished to rouse for a general rebellion. 
 
 Facing this position, the Muscovite government 
 had to decide between the policy of defending both 
 peasants and serfs against their lords, and of defending 
 
 * See p. 7.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 357 
 
 the lords against their dependents. Of course, it chose 
 the second alternative. It published edicts and ordered 
 measures to be taken against the general flight of peas- 
 ants from their lords; and it ended (1648) by inscrib- 
 ing peasants, in a kind of census, as the inseparable 
 appurtenance of granted lands. It drowned the south- 
 ern insurrection in floods of blood, and it gave the vil- 
 lages of the rebels to the free pillage of Tartars. 
 
 This, however, did not help the peasants to a better 
 insight into the actual social program of autocracy. In 
 their eyes autocracy was still democratic; and they 
 clung to the opinion that their only enemies were the 
 landlords, who were also the enemies of autocracy. 
 They now acquiesced in their new position as glcbae 
 ascripti — bondmen of the land. But they found an 
 optimistic explanation which helped them to represent 
 their humiliating position as being only temporary. 
 The Tsar had no money, they argued, to reward the 
 "men of service" by fixed appointments; therefore, 
 instead of pecuniary appointments, he gave them lands 
 with peasants. Their idea was that, though they 
 belonged now to the landlords, their land still be- 
 longed to them, and that both they with their land 
 and the gentry with their military service belonged to 
 the state. The time would come, they were sure, when 
 the government would find other means of rewarding 
 its warriors; and then their ancient "freedom" and 
 their ancient " lands " would be restored to them. 
 
 One can easily imagine how great their expecta- 
 tions became when, after more than a century of patient 
 waiting, the time for the promises to be fulfilled had 
 arrived. The gentry were liberated by Catherine II.
 
 358 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 from compulsory service. The peasants were sure that 
 now they would immediately be given their own " free- 
 dom " and their " lands." In this firm belief they did 
 not seem to notice that already half a century before 
 that time Peter the Great had thoroughly changed the 
 juridical terms of their slavery — terms to which they 
 were so conscientiously sticking. Since Peter the 
 Great land grants were to be possessed quite inde- 
 pendently of any military service, which everybody was 
 obliged tO' perform, whatever his social station. So 
 that, when Catherine II. relieved the gentry of their 
 obligation to military service, their position for the 
 first time presented itself to the peasants in all its horri- 
 fying clearness : they were now unmistakably serfs of 
 the landlords — their private property, and not their 
 temporary servants and the property of the state, as 
 they had been before.^" 
 
 This seemed to them quite impossible, incredible, 
 absurd. Surely some " freedom " had been prepared 
 also for them by the empress ; only, the imperial order 
 had somehow been concealed by the " men of service," 
 the common enemies of the Tsar and of themselves. 
 
 In a few years this new explanation became gen- 
 eral. The claims of the peasants were embodied in a 
 new social movement, and the chief of this movement, 
 Poosfachov, took the name of the assassinated husband 
 of Catherine, Peter III. He had been deprived of the 
 throne by the nobles — Poogachov explained to the 
 peasants — just because he wished to pay the gentry in 
 specie, and to give the land to the peasants. The mili- 
 tary service had to be made voluntary, as it was with 
 
 ^" See above, p. 237.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 359 
 
 the Cossacks; then there would be no need of remu- 
 nerating noble "men of service" by peasant work and 
 taxes. These explanations and schemes squared 
 entirely with the people's political ideas. And though 
 the rebellion of Poogachov was spreading only in the 
 customary regions of peasant rebellions — in the bor- 
 derlands then in process of settlement — yet there was 
 in the whole of Russia no single peasant who would not 
 have liked to join Poogachov and help him realize his 
 claims. 
 
 Again the rebellion was stifled in blood; but the 
 peasants persisted in their view, which seemed to be a 
 logical deduction from their whole history. Both the 
 social orders — the lords and the peasants — had 
 served the state; both must be simultaneously freed 
 from their service. And there was now no end of 
 small insurrections of peasants over the whole country. 
 Year after year these insurrections and agrarian 
 troubles repeated themselves with a regularity which 
 needed no Quetelet or Buckle to explain their causes 
 constantly at work. There was no mistake about it: 
 slavery was the reason, and slavery had to be abolished. 
 It was, as we have seen, the threatening attitude of the 
 peasants that gave no rest to the government, and fin- 
 ally forced it to proceed to the emancipation.^^ 
 
 But serfdom was not abolished as the peasants 
 would have had it. They wanted their land simply to 
 be restored to them without payment and without any 
 diminution of lots ; while, as a matter of fact, they 
 were given only a part of the lands they had been 
 accustomed to think their own, and were obliged to 
 
 " See p. 247.
 
 36o RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 pay, for such lots as they received, heavy " redemption 
 charges," which sometimes ate up all their income. 
 
 Again, of course, it was not the "true" freedom. 
 The "true" freedom was concealed by the nobility! 
 Disturbances began again in the villages. But this 
 time a new set of men appeared among the peasants — 
 men who, taking the peasants' ideas about the com- 
 munity of land and about the "true" freedom, wound 
 these ideas up into a theory that seemed as queer and 
 suspicious as the manners and deeds of these men 
 themselves were. They were strangers in the village, 
 and, though some of them tried to speak its dialect, 
 they betrayed by their habits that they did not belong 
 to the people. They spoke too well about the " land; " 
 but then they wanted the peasants to work in common 
 and to divide their collective produce. That was not 
 right. After some hesitation, the newcomers were 
 regularly delivered to the state authorities, who knew 
 well enough what they were. They were " socialists." 
 Some more years passed, and these very " sicilists," 
 as the villagers called them, killed the Tsar, the same 
 Tsar who had liberated the peasants. Now it was 
 quite clear to the peasants, too, who they were, and 
 there was no need to call them by a foreign name. 
 They simply were the boyars, the landlords, who were 
 avenging on the Tsar their class offense; the same 
 landlords who were concealing from the people the 
 "true" freedom. 
 
 After some twenty more years had passed, this 
 situation completely changed. The strange men came 
 again to the village, but they were no longer received 
 as strangers. They were now "Stundents" — a mis-
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 361 
 
 nomer in which "Stiindists" and "students" are 
 made one. " Stundents " are honorable personages; 
 they undoubtedly wish the people well. And what 
 about the Tsar ? The Tsar is good, too, but he ought 
 to be elected for some three years, as their village 
 aldermen are. 
 
 These are, of course, only some individual features 
 of the new situation ; but the talk referred to is of the 
 peasants' own invention, and it shows how much the 
 popular thinking on politics has changed. The time is 
 now past which Tourguenev had described in Nezvly 
 Broken Land. The hero of this novel was represented 
 to have been handed over to the authorities by the very 
 peasants whom he tried to convert to socialism. But 
 at present the peasants do their best to conceal the 
 propagandists from the police, and, when directly 
 requested to hand over seditious leaflets distributed by 
 socialists, they often answer with plain refusal. To 
 watch them more closely, thirty-five thousand special 
 village policemen had to be introduced by Mr. Plehve. 
 How has this change come about ? We shall learn 
 it from the history of the Russian socialistic movement. 
 The origin of Russian socialism is, of all political 
 events of the nineteenth century, most closely con- 
 nected with the French revolution of 1848; and its 
 early theory is, of all socialistic doctrines, most closely 
 connected with the anarchism of Proudhon. This was 
 also an era in the history of European socialism. The 
 revolution of 1848 marks the very moment when 
 European radicalism definitely wound up into social- 
 ism proper ; or, to state it more clearly, when the popu- 
 lar leaders first understood that the interests of the
 
 362 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 working "proletariat" were irreconcilable with the 
 interests of the middle class. The French revolution 
 was the last attempt to intrust the cause of the work- 
 ing men to the care of the middle-class politicians. 
 And the complete failure of that attempt seemed to 
 prove once and forever that political radicalism was not 
 to be trusted by the "masses." Proudhon's anarchy 
 seemed to be nothing but a further consistent inference 
 drawn from the same object-lesson. The French revo- 
 lution failed of success, he argued, not because it was 
 instigated by the middle-class politicians, but because 
 it was a political revolution. Every political revolu- 
 tion is liable to be a failure, because it does nothing 
 except change the power, and every power — even the 
 most democratic and republican — is always conserva- 
 tive. The existing economic order can be changed 
 only when all power is abolished and the adjustment 
 of the economic interests are left to private exertion; 
 i. e., to the direct mutual consent of the individual 
 members of every commune. No " revolution " is 
 necessary for that change to be accomplished; or. 
 rather, the only revolution that is necessary is the one 
 which is to be brought about in human minds. After 
 that, the existing economic order will be naturally and 
 spontaneously abolished. " The means that were taken 
 from society by an economic arrangement will be given 
 back to society by dint of another economic arrange- 
 ment." 
 
 This is, briefly stated, the doctrine which helped 
 to differentiate the economic interests of the working- 
 men from the political radicalism of the middle-class 
 politicians, and to draw a definite line between political 
 revolution and social overthrow.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 363 
 
 How did it react on the minds of the Russian orig- 
 inators of sociaHsm? The two leaders of it — Herzen, 
 the powerful writer and deep thinker, and his friend 
 Bakoonin, the more impulsive of the two, and for that 
 reason much better known in western Europe — were 
 just then wandering about the continent and with deep 
 concern observing the movements of European democ- 
 racy. The two friends approached it with a ready 
 determination to admire its boldest acts, and they pre- 
 dicted for it most amazing successes. Instead of this, 
 however, they had to witness its shortcomings and its 
 utter defeat. In close touch with Proudhon, they drew 
 from the events the same conclusion that he did, but 
 they went farther than he in the same direction. This 
 is what'Herzen himself gave as the explanation of that 
 bolder start. In one of his pamphlets he says : 
 
 A thinking Russian is the most independent being in the 
 world. What, indeed, could stop him? Consideration for the 
 past? But what is the starting-point of modern Russian history 
 other than an entire negation of nationalism and tradition? .... 
 On the other hand, the past of the western nations may well serve 
 us as a lesson — but that is all; we do not think ourselves to be 
 the executors of their historic will. We share in your doubts, but 
 your beliefs leave us cold. We share in your hatred, but we do 
 not understand your attachments for the legacies of your ances- 
 tors. You are constrained by scruples, held back by lateral con- 
 siderations. We have none We arc independent, because 
 
 we start a new life We are independent because we do not 
 
 possess anything — nothing to be loved. All our recollections are 
 
 full of rancor and bitterness We wear too many fetters 
 
 already to be willing to put on new chains What matter 
 
 for us, disinherited juniors that we are, your inherited duties? 
 Can we, in conscience, be satisfied with your worn-out morality, 
 which is non-Christian and non-human, which is invoked only in 
 rhetorical exercises and in judicial sentences? What respect can
 
 364 , RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 we cherish for your Roman-Gothic law : that huge building, 
 lacking light and fresh air, a building repaired in the Middle Ages 
 and painted over by a manumitted bourgeoisie? «... Do not 
 accuse us of immorality, on the ground that we do not respect 
 what is respected by you. May be we ask too much — and we 
 
 shall not get anything May be so, but still we do not 
 
 despair of attaining what we are striving for. 
 
 Here, in this pathetic confidential statement by 
 Herzen, we are at the very root of " nihilism." Lack 
 of conventionality and tradition — which constituted a 
 feature of the Russian national development ^^ — was 
 transformed into a theory of national superiority by 
 the generation to which Herzen belonged. It is, how- 
 ever, very important to emphasize that "nihilism," 
 though peculiar to Russia as a psychological disposition 
 of mind, as a theory is undoubtedly of foreign extrac- 
 tion. In Russia it was only a belated reverberation of 
 a movement which had had its day in both France and 
 Germany. " Nihilism " borrowed its theoretic expres- 
 sion from St. Simon and from Ludwig Feuerbach. 
 Individualism and collectivism, materialism and meta- 
 physics, were confounded in the doctrine of these pre- 
 cursors of the modern view of things. " Rehabilita- 
 tion of the flesh" — this designation characterized, to 
 be sure, but a part of the new teaching ; but it pointed 
 out just what part was considered at that time prac- 
 tically the most important. This was a complete nega- 
 tion of mediaevalism in religion, morals, philosophy, 
 and science. I hardly need to add that this teaching 
 had nothing in common with that practice of " free 
 love " .to which a Prussian minister recently chose to 
 refer while characterizing the Russian "anarchists." 
 
 " See chap. i.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 365 
 
 A depraved imagination has never in the least been a 
 fault of the Russian youth. While repudiating Chris- 
 tian asceticism, they introduced a new form of volun- 
 tary asceticism and self-sacrifice which did not lose 
 anything by being qualified in their writings under the 
 name of ** utilitarian morals." That is why The Kren- 
 tser Sonata of Tolstoy was not written for the Russian 
 youth, and why it failed conspicuously to be understood 
 by them. This was the psychology of "high life," and 
 they were democrats by conviction. In the next gen- 
 eration they also became democrats by birth. It was 
 particularly at that time — i. c, twenty years after 
 Herzen had been reading St. Simon and Feuerbach — 
 that the most typical " nihilism " appeared in Russia ; 
 and it is sufficient to read its Bible — the novel What 
 to Do, by Mr. Cherneeschevsky — or the Memoirs of 
 Sophie Kovalevsky, in order to know what sort of 
 thing Russian "free love" was, and with what chaste 
 and touching feeling it was really associated. 
 
 But, in accordance with the plan formulated at the 
 beginning of this chapter, we shall not stop to consider 
 this side of the movement — the "emancipation of the 
 flesh" — any more than the emancipation of the other 
 sides of personality. Tliis individualistic phase of 
 Herzen's doctrines was greatly emphasized and differ- 
 entiated by Mr. Pissarev, the literary critic of the next 
 generation. We omit it from our exposition and pass 
 on to the other aspect, which is the most important for 
 the general development of public life in Russia — 
 Herzen's socialism. 
 
 Here, as well as in his theories concerning the 
 emancipation of personality, Herzen was not at all free
 
 366 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 from the current doctrines of his time, independent as 
 he might have felt himself to be from the European 
 tradition. His early impressions were connected with 
 Moscow — his birthplace — and with the thirties — his 
 years of study. This was the time, as we have seen, 
 when, after the suppression of the December conspir- 
 acy (1825), of political life in Russia there was virtu- 
 ally none. Intellectual interest drifted toward philo- 
 sophical questioning, and the philosophical nationalism 
 of the "Slavophils''^^ was born. Now, side by side 
 with this nationalistic movement appeared a radical 
 movement.^ ^ Both movements later on became bitterly 
 opposed to each other, and have grown irreconcilable 
 since the era of the " Great Reforms." But their 
 starting-point and their fundamental idea were the 
 same : the idea of the people and of the people's glori- 
 ous destiny in the future. They originated in the same 
 atmosphere of feeling and thought, and they developed 
 in the closest contact during the quieter period of the 
 thirties and the first half of the forties. Says Herzen 
 in his Mojwirs: 
 
 We and the Slavophils represented a kind of two-faced Janus : 
 only they looked backward and we looked forward. At heart we 
 were one; and our heart throbbed equally for our minor brother, 
 the peasant — with whom our mother-country was pregnant. But 
 what for them was a recollection of the past was taken by us as 
 a prophecy for the future. 
 
 It it impossible to state in a clearer way what were 
 the original surroundings in which Russian socialism 
 was born. It sprang from the social stratum of the 
 highly educated and finely developed men of the Rus- 
 
 " See p. 52. " See p. 260.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 367 
 
 sian gentry. The peasants really were for them their 
 "junior brothers." Their feeling was all philanthropy 
 and enthusiasm for these "junior brothers." Their 
 thought was all anticipation of the people's great 
 destiny and glorious future. Herzen and his Slavophil 
 friends were likewise agreed as to the main foundation 
 for this future glory of the Russian people. They 
 found it in the Russian rural commune. But their 
 ideas as to the spirit of this rural institution ran wide 
 apart. The Slavophils appreciated the commune 
 chiefly as a national expression of the Christian spirit 
 — the spirit of love and of humility.^^ Herzen, how- 
 ever, by his university studies in the natural sciences, 
 and by his later readings of Feuerbach and the younger 
 Hegelians, had been brought to disbelieve in Christian- 
 ity and religion in general. Soon the idea dawned on 
 him — particularly during his subsequent travels in 
 Europe — that the Russian commune was destined for 
 quite another role in the future ; namely, that it repre- 
 sented in germ the socialistic society. 
 
 The impressions which fixed the mind of Herzen 
 upon this idea were the same as those that influenced 
 Proudhon in the framing of his theory. Similar nega- 
 tive conclusions were drawn by each of them from the 
 events of 1848-52 in France, which disappointed them 
 equally on the subject of political revolutions and 
 democratic radicalism. In close touch with Proudhon, 
 whom he particularly admired, Herzen adopted also 
 his positive advices as to the possible outcome for the 
 working masses. P>ut concerning the probability of 
 bringing about this result in western Europe Herzen 
 
 "See p. 55.
 
 368 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 allowed himself a free course of thought. In this 
 particular point he "shared in the doubts" of his 
 European friends, while "their beliefs left him cold." 
 He simply did not believe in the possibility of a social- 
 istic overthrow in Europe. Had it not already been 
 foretold by his Muscovite friends, the Slavophils, that 
 nothing whatever was to be expected for European 
 civilization, and that the only thing that remained for 
 it to do was to die the natural death of exhaustion? 
 Herzen's personal observations — and he was an 
 extraordinarily keen observer — supported him in his 
 opinion that no radical change was to be immediately 
 expected in western Europe. And so he was not 
 nearly so positive in his anticipations as in his criticisms 
 of the existing state of things. 
 
 We have now come to a point in the theory of 
 Herzen where the results of keen observation are 
 closely interwoven with elements of hypothesis and 
 of theoretical construction. An accidental impression 
 received in his youth seems to have given him the 
 key to his explanation of the present and to his 
 construction of the future of European civilization. 
 It was not a study in history or in sociology nor a 
 philosophical system, but a picture and a comparison, 
 which, very early, converted him to his system. He 
 found this picture in a novel, Anniuius, whose author 
 he even forgot. It was a glowing description of the 
 ancient society of decaying Rome, which Herzen, with 
 so many others before and after him, found most 
 astonishingly like the decadent "society" of our mod- 
 ern civilization. And as for socialism — was that not 
 to have the selfsame significance for this society in
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 369 
 
 decay that Christianity had had for the self-conceited 
 and arrogant civiHzation of the " Eternal City ? " Here 
 again numberless analogies presented themselves to the 
 mind of Herzen, and he was never tired of referring to 
 this double contrast : the ancient world and Christian- 
 ity — the new world and socialism. 
 
 But where were the Barbarians, to give the ancient 
 world its coup de grace and to start the new? 
 
 Here it was that the very realistic — not in the 
 least mystic — disposition of Herzen's mind yielded to 
 temptation. As a keen student of the natural sciences, 
 he was particularly anxious not to take ideas for facts 
 and aspirations for possibilities. No action without an 
 actor; no "abstract idea" without its embodiment; 
 no "logical series" taken for "material series" — such 
 were the chief principles of his reasoning in history as 
 well as in politics. But this very disposition played a 
 trick on him. No Christianity without "Barbarians" 
 to back it — was not that principle applicable as well 
 to the new Christianity, to socialism? If, according to 
 the terminology of the late disciple of Hegel, western 
 Europe had "outlived" its own "idea," and thus 
 " gone out of the circle of things possible for her," then, 
 evidently some " Barbarians " were needed for history 
 to be carried on. And why should not the function of 
 these " Barbarians " be performed by a people whose 
 fundamental principle of material life — the commune 
 — so closely correspond to the prevailing " idea " of 
 the new Christianity? 
 
 And, indeed, was it not the central idea of Proud- 
 honian anarchism that communes should appropriate 
 the state functions and perform them on the principle
 
 37o' FU^SIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 of mutual and voluntary agreement? "The political 
 function" of society would thus, according to Proud- 
 hon's scheme, "be reabsorbed in the industrial, and in 
 that case social order would ensue spontaneously out of 
 the simple operation of barter and exchange." This 
 was the new way shown to humanity, though unlikely 
 to be grasped by such portions of it as lived all their 
 lives under the law of the state. Now, the Russian 
 commune was just the thing wanted to inaugurate this 
 new historical movement. The Russian communes 
 had already preserved their members from dealing with 
 the state directly and from thus recognizing its laws. 
 The Russian peasant, of course, always submitted to 
 the outward force of the state and its officials; but 
 he never felt formally obliged to obey anyone other 
 than his own Mir and its elected authorities. The 
 Russian peasant is thus, as a member of the village 
 community, a socialist (we should now say a "com- 
 munist") by birth. He needs only to be allowed to 
 say his own word (" word " = .y/o7'6> in Slav, is sup- 
 posed to be of the same root with the ethnic term 
 "Slav"); and this will be the new word which will 
 regenerate the civilized world. This is the missionary 
 work which Russia has to do for the blessing of 
 humanity: to show humanity that social, and not 
 political, revolution is what brings salvation. And, 
 indeed, if a new social order is to come as a result of 
 private "barter and exchange" carried on by "each 
 particular citizen and by each particular commune and 
 corporation" for their proper use, then the task of 
 bringing about a social revolution becomes quite easy. 
 There is no longer a need of proceeding by the long,
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 371 
 
 roundabout way of political reform, of constitution, of 
 central representation, or even of direct legislation by 
 the people. These methods of a political delegation of 
 power — even in its most democratic shape — will 
 never lead to the desired aim. The political form of 
 the state is of no consequence ; the state itself is to be 
 removed and supplanted by a free federation of social- 
 istic communes. Now, the Slavs never liked the state, 
 never even founded one by their own wish or resources ; 
 their state is foreign to them; ^*' it shall be annihilated 
 by the very triumph of ethnic freedom, and the com- 
 mune is already there, ready-made, to take its place. 
 
 Such were the views and theories which Herzen 
 developed in a series of articles during the first two 
 years after he left Russia. In 1850 he re-edited them 
 for the foreign public in his books, From the Other 
 Shore and Letters from France and Italy (in German 
 translations). Owing to the nationalistic elements 
 which they contained, they could hardly have expected 
 to meet wath unmixed approval. In the eyes of a 
 European — and, particularly, a German — reader, this 
 was Panslavism : an appeal to the conquest of Europe 
 by the " Cossacks ; " and the exaltation of the role of 
 the Russian commune seemed to be identical with the 
 defense of the serfdom of the peasants. These were 
 the reasons why Marx declared himself against Herzen 
 without ever having met him personally. We shall 
 soon observe some further consequences of that feud. 
 
 In Russia, however, the impression produced by 
 Herzen's writings was all the greater in that he was 
 only building on the philosophic foundations laid by his 
 
 "See p. 55.
 
 372 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 own generation, and in that, in his beautiful and ener- 
 getic style, he advocated views and feelings already 
 very popular in Russian public opinion. The followers 
 of Herzen were recruited among such people as had 
 already been prepared by a Belinsky in the periodical 
 press, and by a Granovsky from a university chair. 
 The very fact that, in Herzen's teaching, criticism and 
 apprehension of coming evil prevailed over any definite 
 theory or positive program contributed much to the 
 universal influence of the " Russian Voltaire," as 
 Bakoonin, one of his best friends, called him. Soon 
 the influence of Herzen reached its climax, when the 
 bitter disappointments of the Crimean War roused 
 public opinion in Russia. Herzen then started his 
 Bell, the first free utterance of political opinion, 
 unhampered by the Russian censorship, and the influ- 
 ence of which was powerfully supported by the brilliant 
 literary talent displayed by the editor. 
 
 And )^et this influence did not prove lasting, owing 
 to the same quality of indefiniteness which aided it in 
 its initial success. The positive program formulated 
 by Herzen consisted of only three points : freedom of 
 the peasants from servitude, freedom of the press from 
 censorship, and freedom of the individual from cor- 
 poral punishment. With the emancipation of the 
 peasants by the government the most important point 
 of Herzen's program was realized, and the question 
 now arose, whether this emancipation ought to be 
 regarded as a stepping-stone to the realization of the 
 socialistic aspirations proper, and what were the means 
 most appropriate to bringing about that result. We 
 shall soon see what answer the new generation of Rus-
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 373 
 
 sian socialists gave to that question. But first we must 
 examine what this new generation was, in order the 
 better to comprehend why the chrection which it took 
 was entirely different from that of Herzen, and why he 
 finally fell behind the movement which nobody had 
 done more to foster than himself. 
 
 Indeed, we are now — in the era of "the great 
 reforms" — as far as possible from the beginnings of 
 Russian socialism in the forties. The new generation 
 which then appeared on the political stage made quite 
 a new departure in the intellectual and political life of 
 Russia. There is a wide gulf between this generation 
 and its predecessors. They were discordant in every- 
 thing — in habits and views, in modes of living and 
 methods of thinking, even in dress and food ; in every 
 detail of social customs. Those who have read Tour- 
 guenev's renowned novel, FatJicrs and So7is, know 
 well what I am speaking about. 
 
 The action of this novel arises from the clash 
 between the two generations of Russians above men- 
 tioned : between the "fathers" — the "men of the 
 forties," to whom the generation of Herzen and 
 Bakoonin, as well as of Tourguenev himself, belonged 
 — and the " men of the sixties," the " nihilists " proper, 
 whose early type was represented by Tourguenev in his 
 hero, Bazahrov. The novelist reaped the highest 
 reward that fiction can bring: his characters were dis- 
 cussed as living persons; and for this reason the dis- 
 cussion was all the more vivid. Neither generation 
 had reason to find that its respective representative was 
 not fairly treated by the novelist, while, as a matter of 
 fact, the older generation had perhaps the better
 
 374 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 grounds for getting offended. Characteristically 
 enough, Tourguenev vented his personal feeling 
 toward the younger generation, without at the same 
 time refusing to give them due credit. And, indeed, it 
 was a very complex feeling which he cherished for the 
 Russian youth of the sixties. To him and his con- 
 temporaries of the forties they were entire strangers; 
 he felt that in their inmost hearts they were hostile to 
 his generation; he was personally hurt in his amour 
 proprc, as in his aesthetic sentiment, by their whole 
 appearance and behavior; and yet he could not help 
 feeling their inner force and realizing their influence 
 on what was then called "young Russia." When he 
 was asked to tell his real feelings toward the hero of 
 his novel, Tourguenev answered as follows : Bazah- 
 rov is 
 
 the triumph of democracy over aristocracy If the public 
 
 will not like and appreciate him just as he is, with all his ugliness, 
 it is my fault; it means that I was unable to master the type I 
 
 have chosen The difficulty was to make him a wolf and yet 
 
 to justify him. 
 
 Tourguenev had hit it. The struggle of the two 
 generations was really a struggle between aristocracy 
 and democracy — between the home breed, well fed 
 and fostered, and the gray wolves of the country side, 
 all hungry and shabby as they were. Herzen was, 
 with the exception of his friend Bakoonin, the most 
 advanced of the older generation; and yet Herzen 
 himself, with all his enthusiasm for revolutionary 
 ideas, with all his great talent of observation and all 
 the brilliancy and elan of his literary style, did not 
 escape being classified as an old-fashioned aristocrat hy
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 375 
 
 the men of the new generation. And he in his turn 
 did not remain in debt; he uttered flame and daggers 
 in his mordant and venomous characterizings of the 
 new generation, and he was as far as possible from the 
 artistic equilibrium of Tourguenev. 
 
 But what was the matter ? What was it that roused 
 to such a degree the demi-godsof the older generation? 
 
 Tourguenev was again right. It was democracy 
 in its proper person that now appeared on the scene in 
 life and literature, and brought new criteria, new sym- 
 pathies and aversions, having nothing in common with 
 those habitual to the generation of the '' fathers." 
 
 Not yet quite the democracy, of course ; but by all 
 means it was a democracy, which was sometimes very 
 near to the real one. 
 
 Tourguenev, Herzen, Bakoonin, the Slavophils — 
 in short, all the writers and publicists — had been up to 
 this time, with one or two exceptions, men of the 
 ancient gentry. There came now to the foreground 
 new men — the so-called "men of mixed (/. c, lower) 
 ranks," the raanochintsee; and they took the lead. A 
 nobleman felt rather awkward in their midst. It was 
 no fault of his, Herzen argued, that he was born of 
 noble parents and educated accordingly. He could not 
 help being refined in all his feelings and doings. But, 
 from the new point of view, all this was mere " roman- 
 ticism," "sestheticism," and ''sentimentality," which 
 were to be thrown away and supplanted by ascetic sim- 
 plicity in manners and "naturalism" in theoretical 
 views. And after some few years the advanced noble- 
 man surrendered. He grew ashamed of being a noble- 
 man, and his predominant feeling became that of a
 
 376 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 "repentant." "Repentant nobleman" — this was the 
 very nickname given to this type by the late Russian 
 critic, Mihaylovsky. His sin was the great sin against 
 the people whom he had held in bondage for so long a 
 time, while getting refined and enjoying art and higher 
 culture at the people's expense. He had to pay the 
 people this enormous " debt " contracted by himself 
 and his forefathers. His atonement was to be a self- 
 sacrifice for the weal of the people. 
 
 To be sure, a "gentleman" w^as making now but a 
 poor figure in literature. The real host was the 
 raznochincx, the son of a priest, if not yet of a peasant. 
 His was the best monthly in St. Petersburg (the Con- 
 temporary), from which Tourguenev was soon rele- 
 gated to Katkov's Roosky Vyestnik, whose contributor 
 he remained until the moderate liberal Vyestnik Evro- 
 pee was started in 1866. At the jours fixes of the 
 Contemporary (Sovreuiennik) the uncouth son of a 
 priest — its chief critic, Cherneeshevsky — would 
 appear in his long black coat at the side of Tourguenev 
 in his fashionable suit ; and the hostess, the democratic 
 wife of an aristocratic editor, Panayev, would ofYer 
 Cherneeshevsky a simple porridge, while gastronomic 
 meals were served for such a connoisseur as Tourgue- 
 nev. And the young plebeian, fresh from his under- 
 graduate schoolj would not be in the least abashed by 
 the presence of the classical writer; moreover, he 
 would commence some very learned talk and would 
 cut short the story-telling of the finely educated gentle- 
 man. He would be annoyingly self-conscious and 
 bluntly sure of his opinion ; not a trace of the worldly 
 skepticism or literary flimsiness or artistic disguise;
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA m 
 
 everything flat and plain, clear and concise — and 
 desperately prosaic. 
 
 Facing such "sons/' Herzen would not surrender 
 nor feel repentant. The objections he had against 
 them may be reduced to three chief points. 
 
 First, they were not so new and original, these 
 " nihilists " of the sixties, as they pretended to be. 
 Herzen claimed a share in "nihilism" for the preced- 
 ing generation — that of the "Decembrists," that of 
 his own, that of the socialists of 1848, the " Petrashevt- 
 see." In this larger meaning nihilism is, according to 
 him, " an unconditional surrender before experience, 
 an unreserved acceptance of all the consequences, 
 whatever they may be, resulting from observation and 
 claimed by reason." We know that he saw the root of 
 that disposition of the Russian mind in its freedom 
 from all conventionality and tradition. And he was 
 right when he claimed this priority of nihilism for the 
 former generations of the Russian advanced "intel- 
 lectuals." 
 
 In the second place, what was really new and origi- 
 nal in the particular nihilism of the sixties Herzen pro- 
 claimed to be nothing but a studied pose or attitude, 
 purposely and deliberately assumed in order to form a 
 contrast with that of the previous generation. 
 
 You were hypocrites — we shall be cynics ; you were moral 
 only in your utterances — we shall profess crime ; you deferred 
 to your superiors and trampled upon your inferiors — we shall be 
 brusque to everybody; you bowed to the people, though you did 
 not respect them — we shall elbow and will ask no pardon; your 
 sense of dignity was reduced to outward honor and convention- 
 alities — our honor will consist in contemning all decencies and 
 despising ail " points of honor."
 
 378 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Here again Herzen was right so far as actual facts 
 were concerned. But in his wrath and anger he failed 
 to recognize the entire significance of the fact — 
 pointed out by Tourguenev — that it was the first form 
 of the victory of democracy over aristocracy. 
 
 But then, in the third place, Herzen did not wish to 
 admit that it was democracy which spoke through the 
 mouth of the new generation. They were, indeed, the 
 "men of mixed ranks," but not of the rank of real 
 peasants. 
 
 At every word and every move we recognize in them the 
 servants' chamber, the barracks, the scribe's office, the clerical 
 
 seminary Their systematic uncourtliness, their cross and 
 
 insolent way of speaking, have nothing in common with the 
 inoffensive and single-minded plainness of a peasant, while it has 
 very much in common with the ways of a clerk or a " counter- 
 jumper" or a footman. To the real people they were as for- 
 eigners, representing the lowest stratum of their hostile camp — 
 the destitute idlers, the Jacks-at-all-trades, the " alien " Russians. 
 
 Even this time Herzen was not entirely wrong, and 
 — from a purely sociological point of view — his obser- 
 vations were excellent. But he really did not know 
 what he was talking about; otherwise, he would not 
 have contested the role of advocates of real democracy 
 in the first beginners of the Russian " populist " litera- 
 ture : a Pomyalovsky, a Leveetov, not to speak of a 
 Cherneeshevsky and a Dobrolyoobov. 
 
 And here it was that Bakoonin set in with his 
 rejoinder. Of the whole generation he was the only 
 one who felt entitled to play the part of mediator, and 
 he finally forsook his former position to resume a new 
 one. Thus Bakoonin forms a most important link 
 between the forties and the sixties, and transmits the
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 379 
 
 legacy of Herzen's anarchistic socialism to the first 
 Russian revolutionaries of the sixties. 
 
 In one of his letters of 1867 Bakoonin writes: 
 No, Herzen ! Whatever the wrongs of the present young 
 generation are, it is infinitely above your Katkovs and Tour- 
 guenevs — so much above them that in denouncing it these latter 
 only do it greater honor. Ten or even five years ago, when you 
 were looking forward and leading so boldly and did not care a 
 whit about what people of short-sighted reasoning and of semi- 
 official opportunism would say, .... j'ou would not pronounce 
 such frightful words — frightful for you because they are senile. 
 .... True, there is much in individual members of the new 
 generation, taken separately, that is unpleasant, disorderly, even 
 unclean; which, however, is very natural, since their old 
 morality, which was founded upon religion, has been destroyed 
 forever, and new morals have been anticipated only, and are as 
 yet far from being reconstructed. All this is doubly felt in the 
 milieu of our poor inexperienced refugees, owing to that emigrant 
 disease which you have in such masterly fashion studied and 
 described in your Memoirs. But all this must not prevent us 
 from seeing important — nay, even great — qualities in our young 
 generation — their real, not artificial and not hothouse-bred, pas- 
 sion for equality, justice, freedom, and reason. Some ten of them 
 have already been brought to death by that passion, and hundreds 
 have taken the way to Siberia. There are many braggarts and 
 
 coiners of phrases, but also some heroes among them No, 
 
 you may think as you like, Herzen ! In my opinion, these 
 uncouth, ugly, and sometimes very vexatious pioneers of a new 
 truth and a new life are a million times higher than all your 
 respectable ghosts. 
 
 And in a long and very remarkable letter of July 19, 
 1866 — which I regret not to be able to quote at length 
 — Bakoonin draws a line of demarkation between him- 
 self and Herzen in his last years ; which is, at the same 
 time, the line that separates peaceful opposition from 
 revolutionary movement in Russia. While objecting
 
 38o RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 to Herzen's repeatedly addressing and sermonizing the 
 Tsar (in his Bell), Bakoonin admits that some few- 
 years ago he himself had addressed the Tsar with pro- 
 jects for the convocation of a Zcmsky Sohor; but, aside 
 from a general desire for a constitution/' which he 
 pleads as an "extenuating circumstance," he now pro- 
 fesses never to have believed in the possibility of a con- 
 stitution. Every attempt at a transaction with the 
 government and the Tsar, every hope for democratic 
 reforms at the hands of the monarchy, he now 
 denounces with the same fervor with which " Bona- 
 partist tendencies" were at that very time prosecuted 
 and exterminated by his European colleagues in the 
 "International" — by the legatees of Proudhonian 
 anarchism. He pleads for a definite and fundamental 
 separation of the cause of socialistic democracy from 
 any alliance with the bourgeois elements. He repu- 
 diates state socialism as a disguised alliance of this 
 kind; just as he during the same years opposed the 
 state socialism embodied in Marx's teachings and in 
 those of his party in the "International." A demo- 
 cratic Tsar, representative of the Zemstvo, is an impos- 
 sible fiction — if even this Tsar were Herzen himself. 
 It is the institution itself that is wrong and not the 
 person; to abolish the institution, the state itself, and 
 not to compromise with persons — this is the only real, 
 the only worthy, aim of the struggle. 
 
 I know you detest the word " revolution ; " but there is 
 nothing else to do; there is no forward step possible without 
 revolution. In order to be practical, you formulated an impos- 
 sible theory about a social overthrow to be accomplished without 
 
 " See p. 278.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 381 
 
 any political overthrow.'' But at present it is as impossible as a 
 political revolution without a social, while both go hand in hand." 
 
 Perhaps the line here drawn was, as often happens, 
 clearer to the plaintiff than to the defendant. There 
 was no idea in Bakoonin's reasonings which was not at 
 the same time that of Herzen; and almost" always the 
 idea was borrowed by Bakoonin from Herzen's writ- 
 ings — sometimes in his own words. But Bakoonin 
 wished Herzen to be consistent and to draw conclusions 
 from his own premise's : " Logic is the only thing that 
 is powerful," he said. *' Let us be logical and we shall 
 be strong, if not for the present, at least for the future, 
 which may be nearer at hand than seems to us." Now, 
 for Herzen, besides his logic of ideas there was also a 
 logic of facts; and he was not so sure to subject the 
 second to the first; and thus he accused Bakoonin of 
 confounding both according to the dictates of his tem- 
 per. As for Herzen himself, he was now determined 
 " to march only one step in advance of society, never 
 two steps ; " while Bakoonin to the end of his days stuck 
 to the idea that the people — of course, not "society" 
 — was at any time ready to embrace the last word of 
 his own anarchism and to " federate from below 
 upward " at the first flourish of a revolutionary 
 trumpet.^*^ 
 
 To be sure, the central idea of Bakoonin — that of 
 a coming overthrow — was already found in the writ- 
 
 '" That was as we know Proudhon's theory ; see his criticism of 
 " revolution " in his letter to Marx. 
 
 " This is the position taken by Bakoonin in his struggle against 
 Marx, accused of striving for a political revolution alone, which was 
 looked upon as treason against the workingmen's interests. 
 
 ^' See his part in the uprising of the Commune at Lyons, 1870.
 
 382 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 ings of Herzen. But it took there the form of a gloomy 
 foreboding, on the part of an observing historian, of a 
 universal cataclysm looming up in a future more or 
 less remote. For Bakoonin it was an idea, not to 
 threaten with, but to be considered more closely in the 
 light of contemporary events ; moreover, it was an aim 
 to be striven for. Thus from his first appearance on 
 to be striven for. 
 
 Thus from his first appearance on the political 
 stage in 1848, we see Bakoonin assuming this posi- 
 tion. He then tried to bring into action the "Bar- 
 barians" of Herzen's prophecies; he was busy 
 bringing about a revolution among the Slavs of Aus- 
 tria and Germany, and thus he laid a solid foundation 
 for Marx's accusation against the Panslavism of him 
 and his friends. After all this, he disappeared entirely 
 for some twelve years, having been arrested, twice sen- 
 tenced to death, and then thrown into the St. Peters- 
 burg fortress on a sentence of life-imprisonment. 
 Eight years later, however, he was exiled to Siberia. 
 From Siberia he fled to America, whence he reappeared 
 in Europe with this same dream of a Slav uprising as 
 the beginning of, and the signal for, a general Euro- 
 pean cataclysm (1862). The Polish rebellion was then 
 in preparation, and Bakoonin did his best to connect it 
 with the first revolutionary attempts in Russia, while 
 endeavoring to draw Herzen also into this desperate 
 undertaking, in spite of the latter's internal conviction 
 that it was foredoomed to complete failure. It was his 
 share in this rebellion that so disheartened Herzen as 
 to make him discontinue his chosen line of political 
 action. After having gone too far to preserve the
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 383 
 
 allegiance of his former moderate friends, he now 
 shrank from going far enough to gain the unreserved 
 adherence of the younger generation. As a conse- 
 quence, he was forsaken by both. Before the end of 
 1863 the circulation of the Bell decreased from 2,500 
 to 500 copies. The "old friends" mostly became con- 
 servative, and the new friends were revolutionary. 
 The former followed Katkov and Aksakov; the latter, 
 Bakoonin and Cherneeshevsky. 
 
 In that critical moment Bakoonin succeeded in pre- 
 serving his influence, and thus did manage to outlive 
 himself. He threw overboard his Slav dream, and 
 even temporarily repudiated his belief in the Russian 
 commune. After some few years of obscurity, he 
 emerged again as the organizer of a new international 
 conspiracy for attempting an immediate social revolu- 
 tion; and, absorbed as he was in his struggle against 
 the social democratism of Marx, and in instigating 
 now and then some local uprising, he succeeded in 
 grasping two other chances to influence the young 
 revolutionary movement in Russia: Nechayev's con- 
 spiracy and the " go-to-the-people " movement of 1873. 
 
 Thus it is that, while speaking of Bakoonin, we are 
 already so deep in the Russian movement that we can- 
 not pursue our narrative and remain within the limits 
 of the emigrant literary propaganda. To see the 
 results of that propaganda, and to witness an actual 
 revolutionary agitation, we must return to the Russia 
 of the beginning of the sixties. 
 
 The ideas of socialism had for a long time been no 
 novelty in Russia. When Herzen, in 1834. was exiled 
 from Moscow upon the accusation of holding to St.
 
 384 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Simon's doctrines, he was by no means the only one to 
 share these doctrines; he belonged to a circle of uni- 
 versity youths who worshiped the memory of the ' 
 "Decembrist" conspirators and enthusiastically em- 
 braced the ideas of social reform. In 1848 another 
 circle of young literati, school-teachers, and officers 
 was discovered by the police, the " Petrashevtsee," 
 so called after their leader Petrashevsky. They con- 
 templated some political activity, but meantime studied 
 and discussed the new productions of the European 
 socialistic literature; they planned the emancipation 
 of peasants and dreamt of the application of Fourier's 
 falanstcrcs to Russia. Under the impression of the 
 February revolution in France, they were severely pun- 
 ished by the government, and paid with prison and 
 deportation for their mere talk. In another connection 
 we have seen that, while averse to "politics," they 
 were not unconditionally hostile to the government; 
 and, indeed, some of them later became nationalists and 
 reactionaries ( for instance, Daneelevsky and Dostoyev- 
 sky). Now, the generation of i860 was made of 
 entirely different stuff. They, too, clung to the idea of 
 a social, in preference to a political, revolution; and 
 thus they also repudiated liberalism for socialism. But 
 they spoke of the socialism of former generations as 
 Proudhon (and after him Marx) would speak: they 
 condemned it as Utopian. And their reasons for con- 
 demning it were the same as in France in 1848. Social 
 revolution was to be accomplished, not by philanthropy, 
 but by the actual force of such social strata as were 
 personally interested in it. This new turn, which the 
 accession of the " proletariat " had given to European
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 385 
 
 socialism, was in Russia caused by the emancipation of 
 the peasants. 
 
 And, indeed, had not Herzen already, and after him 
 Bakoonin, exalted the Russian peasant commune as a 
 prototype, as an organic cell or structural unit, of the 
 future socialistic reconstruction of society? Was not 
 the Russian peasant, so to say, a socialist by birth, 
 being a member of the village commune ? Of course, 
 the Russian commune had not yet learned to be quite 
 socialistic : the members did not work, nor did they use 
 the product of their work, in common. But these 
 methods were to be learned in a short time, since the 
 commune already had adopted the fundamental prin- 
 ciple of socialism: collective ownership of the land — 
 the chief instrument of production in agriculture. 
 Agricultural co-operation was confidently expected to 
 evolve by itself, as a result of the coming ruin of the 
 isolated small farm and of the triumph of farming on a 
 large scale — which carried with it the necessity of 
 using co-operative methods. 
 
 Facing these bright prospects, the task to be per- 
 formed by the younger generation seemed to be quite 
 clear and definite. This task was also pointed out by 
 Herzen and emphasized by Bakoonin. Russian social- 
 ists did not have to imitate the " liberators " of Euro- 
 pean radicalism by starting a political revolution. 
 Neither did they have to act as "utopistic" socialists, 
 by imposing upon the people their own scheme of a 
 future organization. The Russian commune alone was 
 to decide everything for the future social order; the 
 only task left to the educated classes was, by the mere 
 work of destruction, to pave the way for the free action
 
 386 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 of the people. It was universally understood that the 
 old building of the state was to be swept away; the 
 only doubt was as to whether the people should sup- 
 plant the old state by " federating from below " in free 
 communes, or whether they should send their repre- 
 sentatives to an " assembly of land." 
 
 The excessive expectations to which the possibility 
 of active participation by the "people" in the move- 
 ment planned by the Russian radicals of the sixties 
 gave rise, may seem childish and incomprehensible, 
 and, of course, were chiefly due to their extreme lack 
 of experience. But the fact is that not only revolution- 
 aries indulged in these illusions. The Russian govern- 
 ment itself believed in the possibility — if not in the 
 success — of an agrarian revolution in Russia. The 
 explanation of that general belief must thus be sought 
 in the exceptional circumstances of the time. The 
 excitement caused by the emancipation of the peasants 
 just then had reached its climax, and a revolution was 
 being prepared in Poland. The general state of mind 
 may be characterized by a quotation from a contem- 
 porary pamphlet, entitled The Great Russian, being 
 one of the first productions of the Russian clandestine 
 press published within the limits of the empire. 
 
 The pamphlet suggests to the Russian intellectuals 
 that they sign a petition to the Tsar (we have seen that 
 there was an epidemic of petitions at that particular 
 time) asking him to summon representatives of the 
 people for the preparation of a constitution. Then the 
 pamphlet proceeds as follows: 
 
 We shall see what impression our proposal will produce on 
 the educated classes. But when we shall have seen that they do
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 387 
 
 not dare to act, then no choice will be left : we shall be obliged to 
 act upon the plain people, and to them it will be necessary to 
 talk another language and to discuss different subjects. We can 
 not long postpone our resolution ; if the educated classes will not 
 form a peaceful opposition, one that shall force the government 
 to eliminate the reasons for rebellion before the spring of 1863, 
 the people will rise in the summer of that year. The patriots 
 will not be able to avert this rising, and their only duty will be to 
 take care that the upshot of it shall be most profitable for the 
 nation. 
 
 What was then to happen in the spring of 1863? 
 In order to understand this, we must enter into some 
 details regarding the emancipation of peasants. 
 
 When in 1857 the question of the emancipation of 
 the peasants was first brought on the carpet, the Rus- 
 sian radicals — w^ith Cherneeshevsky, the critic of the 
 Contemporary, at their head — put forth two necessary 
 conditions for a profitable solution : ( i ) that the peas- 
 ants should be freed with their landj and (2) that for 
 their allotments they should be charged as little as pos- 
 sible, or not charged at all — the landowners in either 
 case to be paid by the state. They wished the redemp- 
 tion of land to be made obligatory, on the principle of 
 state expropriation for common utility. This, how- 
 ever, was considered too radical, and the emancipation 
 was carried out on the principle of voluntary agree- 
 ments between the landlords and their tenants. The 
 state regulated only the minimum and maximum size 
 of allotments to be redeemed by the peasants in each 
 locality. Even this solution was denounced by the 
 genti-y as " demagogical " and socialistic.^^ As a mat- 
 ter of fact, the proprietors succeeded in giving to 
 
 " See p. 266.
 
 388 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 peasants as little as possible, and in charging for that 
 little as much as possible.^^ 
 
 The radical advocates of the people did not need to 
 wait for the publication of the Emancipation Act to see 
 their hopes deceived. Men of the stamp of Millyoutin 
 ' — the "demagogues" in the government — were 
 looked at by the radicals as mere " trimmers " and 
 office-seekers; and, however much they did to defeat 
 the claims of the landowners, they were unable to 
 satisfy the democrats. Even Cherneeshevsky now 
 wished the attempt for liberation to be postponed, 
 rather than to have it accomplished on the proposed 
 lines. Meanwhile, the draft of the law was passing all 
 stages of legal procedure and was converted into a law. 
 The last and supreme tribunal was then the people 
 themselves. Would the people accept? 
 
 Cherneeshevsky and his party were sure they would 
 not. The state of mind of the liberated peasants seemed 
 to confirm the expectation of the radicals. The peas- 
 ants kept silence while the law was in preparation, but 
 after its promulgation they were, as has been seen, very 
 much disappointed, and the anticipated agrarian 
 troubles really began. There was some bloodshed. 
 
 It was not, however, as yet the kind of agrarian 
 revolution that the radicals looked for. They explained 
 this delay in the general rising by reference to a special 
 clause of the law, according to which the former rela- 
 tions between landlords and peasants were to be kept 
 stationary for two years more. This "temporary 
 state" of things would end in the spring of 1863 ; and 
 so it was that the signal for the popular uprising, 
 
 ^ See pp. 448 f.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 389 
 
 originally to be given in 1862 on the occasion of the 
 fete at the millennial anniversary of the Russian state 
 (862-1862), was postponed by the radicals until 1863. 
 Meantime, the coming revolution was to be prepared 
 and helped along by the educated classes ; and for this 
 reason the secret organization of the " Great Russian " 
 was addressing to them the above-quoted lines. 
 
 The appeal was answered chiefly by the young 
 people, most' of them students in higher institutions of 
 learning. The long series of student uprisings, never 
 interrupted since then, was inaugurated in 1861 by 
 demonstrations in the universities of St. Petersburg, 
 Moscow, and Kasan. Students of both sexes at once 
 began a large socialistic propaganda, addressed chiefly 
 to men of the lower classes : workingmen, soldiers, and 
 peasants. The best way of meeting those people was 
 through the popular school. Regular schools for the 
 lower classes had just been established by the Zemst- 
 vos ; but the immediate need was supplied by numerous 
 Sunday schools for adults, opened by young enthusiasts 
 in the chief cities. Closer relations with the working- 
 people were provided for by opening workshops of 
 various kinds, on the principle of association. Free 
 libraries were founded in order to direct the people's 
 reading. Circles for self-culture and self-help were 
 founded, in order to promote the intellectual develop- 
 ment and material well-being of the young propagan- 
 dists themselves. At first there existed no formal 
 organization for achieving these purposes ; the general 
 enthusiasm aroused by the emancipation among the 
 Russian youth, and directed by radical periodicals, was 
 strong enough to lead the activity of the young genera-
 
 390 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 tion into a uniform channel. But very soon the most 
 active elements began to combine and form secret cir- 
 cles. Their early activity is very little known, but it 
 seems that their programs were rapidly progressing in 
 radicalism and definiteness. Constitutional strivings 
 for a "Zemskays Dooma " (such was the very name 
 of one of the secret societies) gave way to a more 
 advanced scheme, which we quoted from The Great 
 Russian, and this scheme again led to the very revolu- 
 tionary program of the " Land and Liberty" organiza- 
 tion immediately aiming at an agrarian uprising. The 
 members of that organization gave out their numbers 
 to be some hundreds in St. Petersburg, and about three 
 thousand in the provinces; but Herzen, perhaps 
 rightly, took these figures for what they were worth — 
 a mere " bluff." " Some first foundations of an organi- 
 zation were indeed being laid in Russia," he observed; 
 "out of these filaments, threads, and knots a solid 
 texture might have been built with time and silence; 
 but, as a matter of fact, no texture was yet there, and 
 so every hard knock might burst the warp and spoil the 
 whole work for a generation." These apprehensions 
 were loudly announced when the Polish revolution- 
 aries entered into communication with the " Land and 
 Liberty" society, in order to make it serve their own 
 ends. A number of officers belonged to the society, 
 and they promised to make one with the Polish rebel- 
 lion. 
 
 Herzen, however, wished that the Polish leaders 
 should wait a while, until the looked-for Russian 
 revolution should have been started. But, in spite of 
 the exertions of Herzen, the Poles did not wish to wait.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 391 
 
 They stated that " the tendency of the ' Land and 
 Liberty ' society was to spread their ideas among the 
 people by means of Hterary and oral propaganda, in 
 order thus to attain their aim, were it even after 
 decades of work." For themselves, they were quite 
 determined not to wait so long as that ; and they seem 
 to have found sympathy among certain members of the 
 "Land and Liberty" society — at least with Bakoonin, 
 who wanted an immediate rising, and so threw his 
 personal influence into the balance. And, indeed, next 
 year (1863), while Bakoonin was leaving for his naval 
 expedition (via Stockholm), an attempt was made in 
 Russia to raise a general insurrection of peasants in 
 the region of the river Volga — a place which was 
 considered as particularly fitted for the agrarian move- 
 ment, because here all former peasant rebellions of the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had taken place. 
 A proclamation was therefore issued, taking the 
 form of an imperial manifesto. We have seen how the 
 emancipated peasants were convinced that such a mani- 
 festo existed, but they believed it to be concealed by the 
 officials and the nobility. This manifesto, which 
 reminds one very much of those by Poogachov,^"' pro- 
 claimed full freedom for the members of all classes ; and 
 to the peasants it granted full property rights to their 
 lands, without any payment. The army was to be dis- 
 solved, and the soldiers permitted to go home, where 
 they were promised free allotments from the state 
 lands. The capitation tax and conscription were pro- 
 claimed to be abolished ; district and government offi- 
 cials were to be elected l)y the people. Lastly, the popu- 
 
 -■ See p. .358.
 
 392 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 lation was authorized to rebel should the local author- 
 ities resist this order of the Tsar. Four members of 
 the plot, all officers of the army, journeyed through six 
 governments, scattering copies of the forged manifesto 
 in the villages. At the same time, four other officers 
 were to raise a revolution in Kasan, the chief city of the 
 middle Volga, take possession of the stores of arms 
 and gunpowder, the treasury, and then, by the only 
 means of locomotion, the steamers on the Volga and 
 the Oka, establish communication with the region of 
 propaganda and organize a people's army at the remot- 
 est corner of the rebellion, in the neighborhood of the 
 Urals (at Perm and Vyatka). The scheme was as 
 daring as it was naive ; but the theoretic axioms men- 
 tioned above stood for success, and the plan was 
 brought into execution in connection with the con- 
 temporaneous rebellion in Poland. The propagandists, 
 however, were caught by the police within the first 
 week of their missionary journey, and four members 
 of the plot suffered for their enthusiasm by capital 
 punishment. 
 
 This did not, however, stop the activity of the 
 academic youth in the university cities of Russia, par- 
 ticularly in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In various 
 student circles the question of social revolution in 
 Russia was eagerly discussed, and generally the orators 
 took one of two views, the same as we have seen 
 existing in the "Land and Liberty" organization. 
 Some wished to attain their aim by a gradual training 
 of the people in the ideas of socialism, in order that 
 revolution might come by itself; others, who thought 
 that no training was needed, wanted an immediate
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 393 
 
 revolution, to be brought on by the educated advocates 
 of the people's interest, even by way of violence.^^ 
 A formal "Organization" was formed (1865) to fur- 
 ther the plans of the former group, which formulated 
 the following program of action : 
 
 (i) A propaganda among the peasants, with the nationaliza- 
 tion of land as the leading principle. (2) A stirring up of the 
 peasants against the proprietors, the nobility, and the authorities 
 in general. (3) The founding of schools, associations, and 
 workshops (for bookbinding, sewing, and so on), as a means of 
 getting into touch with the people. (4) Free libraries, free 
 schools, and different societies in the provinces, on the principle 
 of communism, as a means of attracting and of training new 
 members; all these to be directed by the central society in Mos- 
 cow. (5) The spread of socialism among the people through 
 school-teachers and students of theological seminaries (secondary 
 schools). (6) Propaganda on the Volga, using the facilities of 
 river communication — there being at that time no railways except 
 from St. Petersburg to Moscow. 
 
 Some of the members of the " Organization " wished 
 to go to a different part of Russia as early as the spring 
 of 1866, in order to start a peaceful propaganda. They 
 had no time, however, to bring their plans into execu- 
 tion, because they were superseded by the other group, 
 ready to use terroristic means. 
 
 In the minds of leading government officials there 
 existed a strong suspicion that some definite action 
 tending toward terrorism had been planned by the 
 society after it had received the news of a " Euro- 
 pean committee " having for its aim the killing of all 
 the monarchs in Europe. This absurd suspicion may 
 
 '* Thus the two chief currents of Russian socialism appear 
 already in the sixties ; later on we shall see the further development 
 of each.
 
 394 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 have been founded upon a real fact : namely, that one 
 of the leaders of the group, the student Hoodyakov, 
 journeyed abroad in 1865 and made the acquaintance 
 of Bakoonin and other refugees. The " European 
 committee" may have been one of the two "alliances" 
 founded by Bakoonin in Italy (very probably that of 
 the "International Brotherhood"), which he himself 
 considered as the precursors of the "International." 
 At all events, the attempt by one member of the society, 
 Karakozov, to assassinate the Tsar, on April 16, 1866, 
 seems to have been made entirely upon his personal 
 initiative, without the consent, and even against the 
 wish, of the other members. 
 
 As a result of that attempt, the society was dis- 
 covered by the government, thirty-four members were 
 tried, and the majority of them sent to Siberia. With 
 the officers mentioned above, these were the first vic- 
 tims from the new generation — those whom Bakoonin 
 mentioned in his letter to Herzen.^^ But they were by 
 no means the last. 
 
 Soon after the trial of the "Organization" (it is 
 often called also the " Circle of Eshootin," after one of 
 the student leaders) there was a new political trial 
 where the accused were still more numerous — eighty- 
 four. These likewise were, nearly all of them, stu- 
 dents at different higher institutions of learning in St. 
 Petersburg and Moscow. Their leader himself was a 
 student and a teacher — a man of strong will-power, 
 Nechayev. Bakoonin, who thought for a time that 
 here was the man he wanted, characterizes him as a 
 person "with great ambition, reckless of himself and 
 
 ^ See p. 379-
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 395 
 
 of Others ; " a man who identified the revolution with 
 himself, and who therefore did not hesitate to betray 
 and to sacrifice anybody, including Bakoonin, at any 
 moment, just as he thought his purpose required; a 
 fanatic, but not merely "a commonplace egotist." To 
 the enemies of Bakoonin his alliance wath Nechayev 
 served as a good weapon, by dint of which Marx 
 defeated him in the International. What use they 
 made of Nechayev will be easily understood from the 
 following program, wherein Nechayev carries to the 
 extreme the theories of Bakoonin : 
 
 The only aim of the society is the complete liberation and 
 welfare of the people. But as the society is convinced that this 
 can be attained only by a sweeping popular revolution, it will use 
 all possible means to develop and spread such evils as are liable 
 to exhaust the patience of the people and necessitate a general 
 uprising. 
 
 Popular revolution is understood by the society not as a 
 regulated movement on the European classical pattern. This is 
 not a movement that would stop before property and the traditions 
 of the social order; it will not be satisfied by the destruction of a 
 certain political form with the single purpose of substituting 
 some other form and of establishing the so-called revolutionary 
 state. A revolution can be salutary for the people only when it 
 extirpates all the elements of the state, and eradicates all tradi- 
 tion of state order and all social classes in Russia. 
 
 The society, therefore, does not intend to engraft on the 
 people any organization from above. A future organization will 
 doubtless evolve from the popular movement and from life. But 
 this is the task of coming generations. Our own task is a terrible, 
 thorough, ubiquitous, and pitiless destruction. 
 
 Therefore, while approaching the people, we must first and 
 foremost unite with such elements among them as from the times 
 of the foundation of the Muscovite state never desisted from pro- 
 test against everything connected with the state, either directly or 
 indirectly; against the nobility, against officialism, against the
 
 396 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 priesthood, against guilds and usurers. Let us unite with the 
 wild world of robbers, the only true revolutionaries in Russia. 
 To consolidate this world into one irresistible, all-crushing 
 force — this is the whole of our task, our organization, our 
 inspiration. 
 
 We must add that all these horrors were not to be 
 relegated to a remote and obscure future. They were 
 to be perpetrated within one year, namely in 1869. 
 
 In May, 1869, the activity of the best men must be concen- 
 trated in Petersburg and, Moscow, as well as in other university 
 towns. During this period a protest must be prepared and car- 
 ried into effect in the higher institutions of learning, claiming the 
 right of meeting. From May onward the activity must be trans- 
 ferred to the provincial and district cities, and chiefly concentrated 
 among the lower middle class, theological students, etc. From 
 October onward the propaganda must be carried on among the 
 people by the united strength of the provincial and St. Peters- 
 burg members. 
 
 Lastly, on February 19, 1870, the anniversary of the 
 emancipation, the social revolution was to break out. 
 At that date the remaining obligations of the peasants 
 toward their former landlords would expire according 
 to the emancipation law, and the mass of the people 
 would rise by their own initiative. The society must 
 be there ready to help; and its help would consist in 
 destroying everything and everybody that might jeop- 
 ardize the success of a spontaneous popular revolution 
 (the supposed enemies of the revolution were called the 
 "imperial party"). Meantime, toward the middle of 
 1869, Nechayev went abroad, and, upon his assertion 
 that everything was ready for a revolution in Russia, 
 received, through the intermediacy of Bakoonin, a fund 
 deposited with Herzen by a Russian emigrant for 
 revolutionary purposes. In September he returned and
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 397 
 
 organized, among its few followers, a Russian branch 
 of the " International." In the last days of November 
 he forced his disciples, under the hypnotism of his 
 strong will, to kill one of their colleagues, Ivanov, the 
 only one who resisted the moral influence of the leader. 
 For this murder the members of the circle were 
 arrested. Nechayev fled to Switzerland, from where, 
 after some two years, he was extradited by the Swiss 
 government as a common criminal. 
 
 Thus ended the revolutionary movement in the 
 sixties. The revolutionaries of that decade played a 
 great game, and staked their lives upon one throw of 
 the die; but the game was dangerous only to them- 
 selves. The contrast between reality and their appre- 
 ciation of it was so great and so obvious that only their 
 youthful inexperience, their enthusiasm, and their 
 theories concerning the " innate " socialism of the Rus- 
 sian peasant and his readiness for the social revolution 
 could help them to bridge the gap. The Russian revo- 
 lution was as yet in its swaddling-clothes. It was, 
 however, born; and presently we shall study its 
 growth. At all events, its prehistoric period came to 
 its close with the plot of Nachayev. 
 
 The "inexperience" and the "enthusiasm," to be 
 sure, were destined to linger in the following period. 
 But the "axioms" were, later on, superseded. The very 
 exaggeration of Bakoonin's anarchism in Nechayev's 
 program, by way of reaction, made all further 
 movements somewhat more socialistic. Nechayev's 
 program was imposed on his disciples only by tlie 
 strength of his personality. Their depositions during 
 their trial show that many of them cherished quite
 
 398 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 different views as to the progress of the Russian revo- 
 lution. We have seen these moderate views to be 
 present already in the secret organizations of 1862-63 
 and 1865. Now, with the failure of Nechayev's enter- 
 prise, these undercurrents rose to the surface in the 
 form of new theories. 
 
 The naive belief that the social revolution was to 
 be immediately achieved by the people themselves, and 
 that nothing but " clearing the way " was expected 
 from the educated class, did not stand the test. New 
 theories had now to be tried, therefore, taking for their 
 starting-point either the people or the e'ducated classes. 
 The former movement is connected with the name of 
 Lavrov ; the latter is known as that of Tkachov. Both 
 endeavored to solve the problem imposed by the failure 
 of Bakoonin's anarchism and Nechayev's Jacobinism. 
 Both agree, as the result of the dismal experience of 
 the sixties, that social revolution is impossible at pres- 
 ent. But they lay stress on different parts of this con- 
 clusion. " Social revolution is impossible," Lavrov 
 says ; " let us then make a social propaganda." " No," 
 Tkachov retorts; "social revolution is impossible; let 
 us then make a political revolution." 
 
 Different as these points of view may seem, it is not 
 difficult to recognize in both the powerful influence of 
 Marx — Bakoonin's uncompromising enemy. Proud- 
 hon's influence was now upon the wane, Marx's theory 
 was to take its place in the minds of the leading revolu- 
 tionaries. 
 
 With the ascendancy of Marx's theory, its twt) 
 central ideas, which had met with such strong opposi- 
 tion from Bakoonin, were accepted. The first idea was
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 399 
 
 that the new order of things is to evolve from far more 
 powerful springs than an}- secret conspiracy can con- 
 trol, being rooted deeply in the very development of the 
 present capitalistic order ; and the second idea, that the 
 overthrow is to be accomplished by means of political 
 power previously appropriated by the workingmen; 
 and thus political reform is to precede economical and 
 social. But, as the former idea was as yet too new 
 to be grasped and fully understood at once, and the 
 second idea until then had been considered a most dan- 
 gerous heresy, " Marxism " could not be accepted in its 
 full significance. Instead, different elements of Marx's 
 theory were borrowed by two opposing doctrines and 
 developed in a way which made both one-sided and 
 irreconcilable. The idea of a political overthrow pre- 
 vious to the social revolution was framed into a new 
 variation of the old " Jacobinism " by Tkachov. The 
 idea of a spontaneous development of a new social 
 order was appropriated by Lavrov, but strangely inter- 
 mixed with the still prevailing " Bakoonism " of the 
 current "populist" doctrine. Of course, Lavrov was 
 opposing Bakoonin, but the result of his opposition was 
 to make of his own doctrine a sort of compromise 
 between current opinions and the more daring criti- 
 cism of Tkachov; though, as time went on, he was 
 forced in larger measure to accept the opinions of the 
 latter. 
 
 Tkachov, who in the sixties had been one of 
 Nechayev's circle, still thought that a revolution was to 
 be brought about "now if ever." He shared Cher- 
 neeshevsky's apprehension of the growth of capitalism 
 in Russia, and he thought the only means of preventing
 
 400 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 it was to overthrow the government by means of a con- 
 spiracy and to inaugurate a new era of social reform 
 from above. But " that is the way of poHtical revolu- 
 tion, which relegates to the second plane the aims of 
 the people, the task of socialism," Lavrov rejoined. 
 And he solemnly asked the growing generation of Rus- 
 sian youth 
 
 whether they would like to follow the same path as those con- 
 stitutionalists who also may form a conspiracy in order to limit 
 the imperial power by an all-Russian representative assembly, 
 requesting nothing but liberal checks and guaranties ; or whether 
 they forgot that the people were always cheated whenever an 
 alliance between the popular party and the bourgeoisie was con- 
 cluded ; or whether they thought that there was anything in com- 
 mon between a social revolution and a revolution for a liberal 
 constitution? No [he proceeded to answer his own question] ; 
 whether the time has or has not come for a revolution ; whether 
 this time comes before a bourgeoisie shall have been formed in 
 Russia, or after that time ^^ . . . . the revolution we look for must 
 be popular and social ; it must be directed not only against the 
 government, and its aim must be not only to deposit the power 
 in some other hands, but it must at once overthrow the economic 
 foundations of the present social order. 
 
 And, for fear of a " Blanquist " overthrow, Lavrov 
 shrank back to the initial assertions of pure anarchism. 
 " The state power, with whomsoever it rests, is hostile 
 to the socialistic state of things," and "only such per- 
 sons may become members of the socialistic organiza- 
 tion as will fight against the government with a view to 
 facilitating the popular uprising, in order that the state 
 may be directly transformed into an autocracy of popu- 
 lar communes, popular gatherings, popular bands." 
 
 ^' A possibility which, according to Lavrov, had been demon- 
 strated by western Europe.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 401 
 
 The mere idea of "centralism" was abhorred by that 
 generation; "federaHsm," which Tkachov thought to 
 be a Utopia, still prevailed among them. 
 
 And yet, while clinging to the old errors of doctrine, 
 Lavrov could not possibly cling to the former errors of 
 revolutionary practice. His previous activity, as pro- 
 fessor and writer on sociology, pre\'ented him from 
 being too sanguine on the subject of a Russian revolu- 
 tion. He could not possibly think that the only task of 
 the Russian revolutionaries was to proceed to the 
 immediate extirpation of the " imperial party," and to 
 the general destruction of existing institutions. To 
 "secure" the victory, a long period of "preparation" 
 and training had first to be traversed, and it was not 
 fair, according to Lavrov, to call the plain people out 
 upon the barricades to risk their lives at random. If 
 it were true that whatever was to be changed had to be 
 changed by the people themselves, then the people must 
 first learn to change themselves; they had yet to be 
 made socialistic, since it had been proved by experience 
 that they were not what they were expected to be — 
 socialists by birth. Now, these views resulted in a 
 complete change of opinion as to the role of the " intel- 
 lectuals" — namely, the socialistic youth — in the com- 
 ing revolution. Their role was no longer to be confined 
 to a few months of introductory agitation or to the 
 mere process of "clearing the way" for the impending 
 outbreak. They had to come into closer and more sys- 
 tematic contact with the people themselves, instead of 
 working among the educated classes or undermining 
 the ruling social strata. And first they had to study 
 deeply all about that "Great Unknown," the people;
 
 402 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 they were to learn from them who they were, in order 
 better to perform the subsequnt task of teaching them 
 what they already knew themselves — the social ideals 
 of the future. 
 
 Subsequent experience made Lavrov modify his 
 theory by introducing such elements of "centralism" 
 as at first he had stubbornly repudiated. He at length 
 came to understand that a closer organization and a 
 stricter discipline are necessary for any revolutionary 
 organization than were consistent with the current 
 theory of " federalism." He even admitted that, so far 
 from destroying the state, it would be necessary to pre- 
 serve it, even "the other day of the revolution;" and 
 he postponed indefinitely the anarchist reduction of the 
 state to naught. But all these concessions to the hated 
 " centralism " were so many heresies, not to be justified 
 even by the theory of the state as a "necessary evil," 
 which Lavrov now resorted to. In fact, Lavrov again 
 reflected in his periodical, the Forward, what w-as 
 really the new and current doctrine of the day. And 
 thus we must look to the actual revolutionary events in 
 order to understand how this gradual change in Lav- 
 rov's views had come to pass. 
 
 A sort of idyllic prologue to the thrilling drama of 
 the Russian revolution of the next decade was acted in 
 1872-73 at Zurich. There the Russian youth — par- 
 ticularly the girls — gathered in large numbers, owing 
 to the difficulties of study in the Russian universi- 
 ties and the entire impossibility of women securing in 
 Russia a higher education. The two chief leaders of 
 revolutionary thought — Lavrov and Bakoonin — also 
 came to Zurich ; and an animated exchange of \'iews
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 403 
 
 took place, followed by publications which extended 
 the discussions to the Russian universities as early as 
 the autumn of 1873. Lavrov here defended his thesis 
 that a previous training for revolutionists and a pre- 
 paratory propaganda among the people were necessary. 
 This thesis was vividly discussed, but mostly repudiated 
 by the enthusiastic youth, all too impatient to get at the 
 main work of making a social revolution. The experi- 
 ence of the former generation did not exist for them, 
 and mere theories could have no influence upon them. 
 To Lavrov's assertions that, as the social revolution 
 was to be achieved by the village communes, it must 
 come as a result of a thorough propaganda in these 
 communes, and not as a result of immediate popular 
 riots, founded on the supposition that the Russian 
 people were already socialistic, the " Bakoonists " 
 retorted that " riots " too were one of the best means 
 of propaganda — and they thought them to be the best 
 introduction to a general revolution. At any rate, one 
 central idea was out of the question ; namely, that the 
 revolutionaries had to work among the people, and that 
 for that purpose they had to learn to know the people 
 better. They had to "go to the people," whether they 
 intended to organize ''riots" or to make a peaceful 
 propaganda of socialism ; whether they were " Bakoon- 
 ists" or "Lavrists." Even the few who were 
 "Jacobins," with Tkachov, made no exception. 
 
 In harmony with the views of the "anarchistic" 
 and " federalistic " elements among the adherents of 
 the theory, there existed no central organization for 
 the movement. The movement was, as had been the 
 case ten years before, quite spontaneous. Its nucleus
 
 404 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 was formed out of isolated circles, scattered over the 
 whole of Russia. These circles of intimate friends had 
 been in existence for some time when the movement 
 began, and they had in different ways promoted the 
 socialistic propaganda. The Petersburg circle of 
 " Chaikovtsee," for instance, began with providing use- 
 ful books for home reading and self-culture. The 
 Moscow circle of Dolgooshin attempted to found a 
 secret press and to distribute leaflets among occasional 
 acquaintances from the people. The southern circles 
 of Odessa and Keeyev were from the beginning more 
 radical, and they were the first (1871) to try direct 
 agitation among the workingmen in the factories. This 
 method was, however, very soon (1872-73) adopted 
 also by the Petersburg revolutionary youth, and, some 
 few years later (1874-75) by the Moscow circle of 
 friends just returned from Zurich. This isolated 
 activity was now turned into one channel of the " going 
 to the people" movement of 1873-74. 
 
 The Memoirs of a Rei'ohifionisf, by Peter Kropot- 
 kin, reveal the fact that some organizing work had been 
 going on in the winter of 1873-74, preparatory to the 
 renowned crusade of the summer of 1874. Kropotkin, 
 Stepnyak, 'and some other members of the "Chaikovt- 
 see " circle had a large share in the preparatory activity 
 of establishing communications between the St. Peters- 
 burg circle and the provincial organizations mentioned 
 above : the writing of leaflets for the people ; the print- 
 ing of them abroad and the smuggling of them in ; the 
 conducting of a large correspondence with a hundred 
 centers spread over thirty-eight provinces of European 
 Russia; and at the same time the carrying on of an
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 405 
 
 extensive propaganda among the St. Petersburg work- 
 ingmen meeting in four different branches. Kropotkin 
 also wrote a memoir formulating the leading prin- 
 ciples of the new movement. Social revolution — /. e., 
 the overthrow of the existing social and economic state 
 institutions — was kept in view as the only possible aim 
 of Russian revolutionary socialism. Propaganda 
 among the peasants and workingmen was held to be 
 the best means of preparing such a revolution. Only 
 such youths as had severed all connection with the life 
 of the educated class — not only theoretically, but prac- 
 tically, by repudiating all the habits of educated life 
 and casting their lot with the working-people — only 
 such were regarded as fitted for carrying out the propa- 
 ganda. Local " riots " were acknowledged to have only 
 "educational" significance, and people were dissuaded 
 from organizing them for fear of losing sight of their 
 chief aim, which was the general uprising. For all 
 these purposes an organization was considered neces- 
 sary; but it was to be founded on the strictly " federal- 
 istic " principle of equality of members and publicity of 
 procedure, with absolute exclusion of everything like 
 Nechayev's methods — of all subjection, deceit, and 
 violence. No existing secret organization (including 
 the International Association of Workingmen) was to 
 be taken in, since it was held that the Russian revolu- 
 tionary party had to develop spontaneously amid the 
 Russian people themselves. 
 
 With so little of preparation and so loose an organi- 
 zation a widespread movement was started. One of its 
 leading men — Stepnyak — says : 
 
 Nothing similar has been seen before or since. It was a
 
 4o6 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 revelation rather than a propaganda. At first the book, or the 
 individual, that had impelled this or that person to join the move- 
 ment could be traced out; but after a while this became impos- 
 sible. It was a powerful cry, which arose, no one knew where and 
 whence, and which summoned the zealous to the great work of 
 the redemption of country and humanity. And the zealous, 
 heeding this cry, arose, overwhelmed with sorrow and indignation 
 over their past life, and, abandoning home and family, wealth 
 and honors, threw themselves into the movement with a joy, an 
 enthusiasm, a faith, such as are experienced only once in a life- 
 time, and which when lost are never found again. 
 
 I will not speak of the many young men and young women 
 of the highest aristocratic families who labored fifteen hours a 
 day in the factories, in the workshops, in the fields. Youth is 
 proverbially generous and ready for sacrifice. The most char- 
 acteristic feature of the movement was that the contagion spread 
 even to the people, advanced in years, who had already a future 
 clearly worked out and a position won by the sweat of their brows 
 — judges, physicians, officers, officials — and these were not 
 among the least zealous. 
 
 Yet it was not a political movement. It rather resembled a 
 religious movement, and had all the contagious and absorbing 
 elements of such a one. People not only sought to obtain a dis- 
 tinct practical object, but also to satisfy an inward sentiment of 
 duty, an inspiration, so to speak, leading them toward their own 
 moral perfection. 
 
 With the spring of 1874 all discussion abruptly ceased among 
 the circles of the revolutionary youth. The time for talking was 
 over : actual " work " was in contemplation. The working- 
 people's gear — boots, shirts, etc. — were hurriedly being prepared. 
 Short greetings and laconic answers were heard: "Whither?" — 
 " To the Urals," " To the Volga," " To the South," " To the river 
 
 of Don," and so on There were warm wishes for success, 
 
 and robust squeezings of hands "The spring is ending; it 
 
 is high time." .... And so, like an electric spark, that cry " to the 
 people " ran through the youth ; sure of themselves, daring and 
 wide-awake, though unarmed and unorganized, they dashed in 
 full sight of the enemy, into the storm.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 407 
 
 The number of these propagandists which became 
 known to the pohce was from one to two thousand; 
 the number of sympathizers and helpers was many 
 times larger. The aims and means of by far the great- 
 est number of them, however, were uncertain and 
 floating. They expected everything to become clear 
 at the first contact with that people with whom they 
 were longing to " melt into one." They were fully 
 aware of their utter ignorance of the Russian peasants, 
 and they approached them with feelings of deference 
 and humility. They expected to be taught and enlight- 
 ened by the people themselves — to learn the people's 
 wisdom, rather than to teach them their own knowl- 
 edge. It was not at all the necessity of concealing 
 themselves from the police that caused them to appear 
 among the peasants in peasant attire. They thought 
 this the best way to be understood and to win the con- 
 fidence of the people. And, besides, they were much 
 afraid of being taken for the people's enemies, the 
 " landlords." Their disguise was thus as much a means 
 of propaganda as a moral necessity. Tliey even pre- 
 ferred to dress as the lowest among the villagers, in 
 order to look like tramps and paupers, and they some- 
 times professed to be illiterate. 
 
 Under these conditions, the result of the first con- 
 tact of the propagandists with the people proved a 
 bitter disappointment both to the peasants and to them- 
 selves. Of course, the peasants were not satisfied with 
 the conditions of their emancipation ; they looked for a 
 "new freedom." But they did not think of fighting 
 for it ; rather, they patiently expected the new freedom 
 to be given at some future time by the T.sar himself.
 
 4o8 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 when at last " he should know the truth " about them 
 and about the noblemen's concealing from the people 
 their " freedom." To be sure, they cherished the hope 
 of a general partition of the land; and they eagerly 
 listened to a propagandist as long as he would talk 
 about the "land." But as soon as he began speaking 
 about socialism proper, they listened to his talk as 
 something of no- concern to themselves, and simply did 
 not understand. All their strivings were rather indi- 
 vidualistic than communistic. " What will you do," 
 one of the propagandists (Shellyabov) asked a peasant 
 whom he thought already entirely converted to the 
 socialist doctrine, "if you should get some five hun- 
 dred rubles?" "Well, I will open a saloon," the peas- 
 ant answered. 
 
 A few months, and sometimes even a few weeks, of 
 such experiences were sufficient to convince the young 
 men that their propaganda in the village was quite 
 hopeless. Both "propagandists" and "rioters," there- 
 fore, were disappointed : the former, to find the real 
 people so ignorant; the latter, to find them so unwilling 
 to adopt the road of action. The socialists expected 
 to find the people unprepared for an immediate social 
 revolution; but now they saw clearly that even a 
 preparation for a social revolution in the future was 
 much more difficult than they had generally realized. 
 To lay hold of the people, a much more realistic method 
 evidently was needed. 
 
 But what were these more realistic methods of 
 propaganda to be? The answer differed, according to 
 the difference in the doctrine. The " propagandists '" 
 or the "Lavrists" (improperly so called) now began
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 409 
 
 to realize that so long as communal property existed 
 it was useless to hope for any movement whatever on 
 the part of the peasantry, and that the workingmen 
 alone were able to understand the pure socialistic doc- 
 trine. But that group formed only a small circle in St. 
 Petersburg. They called themselves " Lavrists " be- 
 cause they had helped Lavrov to start his periodical 
 Fonuard; but we know that Lavrov, after having emi- 
 grated, developed a doctrine much more like the current 
 one, and he soon resigned the editorship on the ground 
 of being at variance with the circle. The great major- 
 ity of the revolutionists were with Lavrov (and Bakoo- 
 nin) against the "Lavrists." They were not prepared 
 to denounce their former faith in the commune and to 
 forsake the peasantry. The only lesson they derived 
 from the failure of 1873-74 was that in order to come 
 into closer contact with the people they must change 
 their methods of treating them. If the people could 
 not be raised up to their level of " pure socialism," then 
 they must descend to the level of the people's under- 
 standing. Mr. Shellyabov stated this view thus: 
 
 The short period of their going to the people has proved that 
 their strivings are nothing but book-wisdom and mere doctrinar- 
 ianism. But, on the other hand, the same experience has shown that 
 there are many aspects of the popular consciousness which must 
 be given careful attention. Considering, therefore, that under the 
 existing difficulties created by the government it was impossible 
 to make the people's mind entirely socialistic, the socialists have 
 become " populists." .... They have resolved to act in the name 
 of the interests acknowledged by the people — not in the name of 
 the pure doctrine ; and thus they would keep to the firm ground 
 of actual life and of the people's conscious strivings. From meta- 
 physical dreamers, then, they have become positivists.
 
 410 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 From the new point of view, the methods of the 
 propaganda of 1874 were simply infantile. " The times 
 have passed," one of the revolutionists then wrote, 
 " when every stripling and every damsel scarce out of 
 their teens could dream that they might become useful 
 factors in the village, and that they could promote the 
 popular cause by merely changing their fine linen and 
 their European dress for homespun duck and a peas- 
 ant's coat." And another revolutionist says, while 
 characterizing the propaganda of 1873-74: "I am 
 very sorry to have to acknowledge that our propa- 
 gandists were merely flying through Russia ; they did 
 not settle anywhere; and they offered as excuse that 
 they had chanced to drop into uncongenial surround- 
 ings. Living an idle life among working-people, they 
 at the same time thoitght themselves to be doing some- 
 thing sensible. They spent thousands of rubles for 
 their democratic outings, but all to no avail." 
 
 The only practical inference to be drawn from 
 these criticisms was that mere "outings" in rags and 
 disguise could never bring the "intellectuals" into 
 close contact with the people, but only steady profes- 
 sional work in the people's midst: the work of the 
 smith, the miller, the carpenter, the midwife, the 
 teacher, and the physician. To attain this aim, per- 
 manent settlements were to be founded in the villages. 
 
 Another inference drawn from the experience of 
 1872-74 was that with the loose organization of revo- 
 lutionary circles in "federated communes" no systematic 
 and lasting work was possible, and that therefore a sys- 
 tem of closer connections was to be founded, more 
 likely to secure secrecy and unity of action. Lacking
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 411 
 
 that concertedness and secrecy, nearly all the propagan- 
 dists of 1874, and of the two or three following years, 
 were at once detected by the authorities. 
 
 Thus, the establishing of permanent settlements of 
 educated propagandists in the villages, and a central- 
 ized direction of their activity, were to be the main 
 features of the new method, and necessitated the up- 
 building of a new organization. This organization 
 was started in the autumn of 1876, under the charac- 
 teristic name of the "Land and Liberty" party — a 
 popular formula already used by the Russian revolu- 
 tionists some fifteen years before. This name empha- 
 sized the central axiom of populism, that " the 
 foundation of every really revolutionary program 
 must be the ideals of the people, as they are formed at 
 a certain time and in a certain place." "We do not 
 believe," the program of the new party emphatically 
 stated, " that it is possible by means of any propaganda 
 to form in the people's minds ideals different from those 
 developed by the whole previous history of the people." 
 " Revolutions are the work of the masses as a whole. 
 Revolutionaries cannot correct anything. They can 
 only be a weapon of history, the recorders of the striv- 
 ings of a people." 
 
 And these popular strivings the populists be- 
 lieved to be twofold: (i) "the appropriation of 
 the land by those who till it" — an idea which corre- 
 sponded more or less to the real historical tradition 
 of the Russian agriculturists; and (2) "Liberty 
 for everybody to dispose his own afifairs" — an am- 
 biguous formula which transformed the former popu- 
 lar wish for "freedom" (as opposed to "serfdom")
 
 412 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 into a principle of Proudhon and Bakoonin. This for- 
 mula made it possible for the populists, on the one 
 hand, to preserve their former belief that a new order 
 of things would evolve by itself "out of those elements 
 of socialism already built up in the minds of the 
 people;'' and, on the other hand, in their quality of 
 real "positivists," quietly to leave this "future to the 
 future," while choosing for their present task "the 
 acceleration of the coming agrarian revolution." And 
 this next step was to be brought about by such means 
 as were thought to be accessible to the people even in 
 their pre-socialistic state of mind. Stenka Rahzin and 
 Poogachov — two leaders of the popular uprisings of 
 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — remained 
 the heroes of the populists. The more sanguine among 
 them were ready to resort to the methods of these 
 heroes and to lead the people to revolution in the name 
 of the Tsar. Indeed an attempt to rouse the popula- 
 tion by a forged manifesto had actually been made in 
 southern Russia (in Chighireen) ; and an article — 
 which remained unpublished — seriously discussed the 
 usefulness of nominating a Tsar impostor who should 
 start a popular revolution, and then complete it by a 
 formal abrogation of the tsardom. But the great 
 majority of the party rejected charlatanism and 
 mystification as a means of political action. 
 
 Mystification, however, was the necessary conse- 
 quence of the new attitude toward the peasants. To 
 indorse the ideals and the strivings of the people just 
 as they were formulated in the people's mind, and to 
 sacrifice to them — although only temporarily — the 
 ideas of the " intellectuals," was inherent in their very
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 413 
 
 idea. Thus a sort of mental and moral disguise took 
 the place of the physical disguise of the propaganda of 
 1874; but it did not succeed any better than the latter. 
 Naturally enough, the eagerness of the revolutionaries 
 for their work in the village cooled just in proportion 
 as it became clear that the " people's ideals " were too 
 peculiar to be used as a basis for an agitation or a 
 propaganda. And gradually as their resolution to 
 work in the villages weakened, the whole activity of 
 the party took another direction. 
 
 Along with the permanent settlements in the vil- 
 lages, the members of the " Land and Liberty " society 
 had also to organize settlements in the towns and cities. 
 The activity of these latter settlements was to be merely 
 subsidiary and administrative. They were to secure 
 the relations between the village settlements, to serve 
 as temporary places of refuge, to keep the money, to 
 procure forged passports for the revolutionists, and to 
 recruit new members among the students of the uni- 
 versities and among the workingmen of the factories. 
 The genuine "populists" looked down upon the activ- 
 ity of the city centers. In their program, to be sure, 
 they admitted the possibility of other forms of revolu- 
 tionary w'ork than their own activity in the villages. 
 But the same program considered any concentration of 
 the militant forces of the party upon these " second- 
 ary" lines of action — a propaganda in the cities, and 
 a direct struggle with the agents of the government — 
 as a " contradiction " of the chief aim of the " agrarian 
 revolution." Now that the agrarian movement had 
 proved to be impossible without a forgery, the city 
 group of the revolutionists gradually took the lead in 
 the whole movement.
 
 414 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 The revolutionists ought to have been aware that, 
 while their propaganda in the villages could not strike 
 root at all, the propaganda in the cities was always 
 successful. The workingmen proved much more recep- 
 tive toward "pure socialism" than the peasants of 
 populism; and the only complaint against the intel- 
 lectuals on the part of the factory workers was that 
 they did not pay enough attention to the revolutionary 
 elements among the latter. The most advanced work- 
 ingmen found the pamphlets spread by the revolution- 
 ists among the peasants too elementary and too childish ; 
 they asked for more serious reading. "We are not 
 plain peasants," they asserted — to the utter horror of 
 their populist leaders, in whose eyes a workingman was 
 merely a bad sort of peasant. And though in the vil- 
 lages the propagandists vainly tried to provoke an 
 agrarian movement, yet in the cities a strike of the 
 workingmen always came before the propagandists 
 were ready to draw full profit from it. In a word, if 
 for the villages the propagandists were too socialistic, 
 in the cities they proved to be not socialistic enough. 
 And last, but not least, the propagandists were against 
 political demands and in favor of a mere economic pro- 
 gram ; while the workingmen began to feel that politi- 
 cal reform was necessary for themselves as well as for 
 the liberals. In 1879 a "Northern Alliance of Work- 
 ingmen" was organized — an organization from which 
 the intellectuals were formally excluded. Its central 
 demand was for political reform as a necessary step to 
 the further advance of the labor movement. The fact 
 that this organization stuck to its political demands 
 loses nothing of its significance even though it be
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 415 
 
 proved that one of the founders was an adherent of 
 Tkachov, whose theories he brought directly from 
 abroad. The " Land and Liberty " periodical protested 
 against the heresy; but the protest merely served to 
 emphasize the significance of that heresy, without being 
 able to change the mind of the advanced w^orkingmen 
 of St. Petersburg. 
 
 Moreover, it soon became quite clear that more 
 important dissensions of the same kind existed within 
 the " Land and Liberty " party itself. The city mem- 
 bers of the party had decidedly forsaken the tradition 
 of populism, and had struck out a new line of activity 
 which entirely contradicted the dogma of populism. 
 
 This group had the most to do with the govern- 
 ment prosecution; and, quite imperceptibly to itself, 
 it was driven from a neutral position toward the gov- 
 ernment into overt defensive actions, and from a pas- 
 sive defense to active struggle of a quite political char- 
 acter. The necessity for "self-defense" already was 
 acknowledged in the program of the party. Very soon, 
 beginning with the assassination of spies, it culminated 
 in a deliberate and systematic struggle against the 
 higher representatives of the government. 
 
 In the beginning, the terroristic acts of the revolu- 
 tionists were due chiefly to psychological and personal 
 motives. Besides the necessity of self-defense, they 
 soon felt entitled to avenge on the government the 
 death and exile of their friends. But then they could 
 not remain unaware that, while all their propaganda 
 and agitation were lost without any visible result, their 
 attempts to oppose force with force produced a deep 
 impression both on the government and on Russian
 
 4i6 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 educated society. Terrorism proved to be a most 
 effective means of political struggle. One of the first 
 attempts of this kind, though a quite personal one and 
 unconnected with any party organization, was the 
 attempt of Vera Zasoolich upon the life of Trepov (the 
 father of the present governor-general of St. Peters- 
 burg), February 6, 1878.^^ The jury, with the general 
 approval of public opinion, acquitted Vera Zasoolich. 
 This, then, was a struggle for human rights, not for a 
 theoretical social revolution; and the revolutionaries 
 soon felt that they had with them the sympathies of 
 educated Russian society. They ended by forming a 
 nucleus of members, under the name of the " Executive 
 Committee of the Socialist Revolutionaries," which 
 undertook to wage a systematic war on the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Now, as a system, terrorism stood, of course, in 
 flagrant contradiction to the theory of populism. Not 
 that the terroristic acts themselves were condemned; 
 but they meant a political struggle, for a political re- 
 form; i. c, for the aims of the liberals. In the view 
 of the terrorists themselves,^^ terrorism was only an 
 incidental feature — one of the means of the struggle. 
 The chief question was whether or not the struggle 
 must be political or economic. And this question it 
 was, rather than terrorism, which brought dissensions 
 in the " Land and Liberty " party. 
 
 The current opinion on this matter was that a 
 political revolution alone would be not only ineffective, 
 
 '^ See p. 191. 
 
 ^' See, e. g., the depositions of Quaitkovskee and Sherayev in 
 their trials.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 417 
 
 but also dangerous to the people, since it would give 
 power to the liberals — the bourgeoisie and the middle 
 class. A constitution, the populists thought, would 
 rather delay than accelerate the advent of the social 
 revolution, and. furthermore, it w^ould compromise its 
 success. The only means for bringing about such a 
 revolution were the propaganda and the " riots ; " and 
 these must be used continuously until the socialistic 
 consciousness should be generally spread abroad and 
 the reign of socialism inaugurated. 
 
 But since both the riots and the propaganda had 
 proved unsuccessful, the revolutionists realized that 
 they must change their tactics. If the state of mind of 
 the peasants could in some degree account for their 
 lack of success, the other — and practically the only 
 important — cause of the failure was the impossibility 
 of influencing the lower classes, owing to the severe 
 measures taken by the police. They found that they 
 had not sufficiently appreciated the obstacles put in 
 their way by the complete absence of legal forms for 
 any political propaganda in Russia; and they, as w-ell 
 as the workingmen, came to the conclusion that such 
 elementary forms of political life as are secured by a 
 constitution were as necessary for themselves as for the 
 Russian liberals. Mr. Shellyabov, one of the most 
 prominent leaders of the new group, advocated the new 
 policy on the following grounds : 
 
 The party does not strive to attain political reforms. This 
 task should belong entirely to the men who call themselves 
 liberals. But these men are entirely powerless in Russia, and, 
 whatever the reasons are, they have proved incapable of giving 
 Russia free institutions and guaranties of personal rights. How- 
 ever, such institutions are so necessary that no activity appears to
 
 4i8 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 be possible without them. Therefore, the Russian socialistic 
 party is obliged to assume the duty of crushing despotism and of 
 giving Russia those political reforms under which a struggle of 
 opinions will become possible. That is why we must take for our 
 immediate goal something which will lay a solid foundation for 
 political liberty, and which will unite all the elements more or less 
 capable of becoming politically active. 
 
 Now, that "something" had to be chosen in such 
 a way as not to abandon entirely the accepted theory of 
 Russian popuHsm. And so the adherents of the new 
 program have adopted for their pohtical platform a 
 " constitutional convention," freely elected by a general 
 vote. It was understood that at least 90 per cent, of 
 such an assembly should consist of peasant delegates, 
 and that these should be ready to lift up their voices for 
 an agrarian revolution. With this argument the con- 
 science of the Russian populists was quieted; for, 
 though they were now struggling for political freedom, 
 they still remained true to their former aim of an 
 agrarian revolution. 
 
 Nevertheless, it was not easy to reconcile the great 
 bulk of the populists to this problematic argument of 
 a socialistic convention, through which the " will of the 
 people" should dictate its decisions. The populists 
 were also opposed to such measures of political warfare 
 as were resorted to by their more advanced friends. 
 They said that the partisans of the " will of the people," 
 while concentrating all their forces on terroristic acts, 
 forgot the real people. Thus activity in the villages, 
 owing to the enforced measures of the police, became 
 entirely impossible; and as only a few might share in 
 the plots of the terroristic group, the remaining major- 
 ity of the populists were doomed to remain inactive,
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 419 
 
 mere idle observerSj which necessarily must result in 
 cooling off their revolutionary ardor. And, supposing 
 that the aim of terrorism should be attained, who would 
 then prepare the people to vote for the populist candi- 
 dates ? And when would the people get their prepara- 
 tion? If unprepared, would not the people be obliged 
 to give way to the liberals and the middle classes the 
 day after the political revolution? Would it not come 
 to the same old and inefficient scheme of making a 
 social revolution by means of changing a government ? 
 These arguments were irrefutable. Evidently there 
 was no way of reconciling the two views. The popu- 
 list party of the "Land and Liberty" was split in 
 twain. The advocates of a political struggle in the 
 summer of 1879, at a private meeting in Lippetsk, 
 formed the germ of the new party, chiefly out of for- 
 mer " rioters " or of new recruits. Nearly all of them 
 belonged to southern Russia, where the movement was 
 the most pronounced, and where the northern organiza- 
 tion of " Land and Liberty " never had much influence. 
 In the autumn of 1879 the new party of the "Will of 
 People," terroristic and political, formally proclaimed 
 its independence, and resumed on a larger scale the 
 terroristic activity of the " Executive Committee," 
 which culminated in the regicide of March 13, 1881. 
 It is impossible to recount here the facts of the struggle, 
 which have so often been described, as our chief aim is 
 to trace the theory of the movement. 
 
 So far as this theory is concerned, the difference 
 between the new and the old party was not so great as 
 might have been expected. The same Shellyabov, 
 whose arguments for a new policy we have quoted,
 
 420 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 admitted in private that practical necessity alone had 
 forced him to assume a new position, for his heart 
 remained entirely on the side of his opponents. His 
 own letter, published by Mr. Dragomanov in the Free 
 Word in 1881, shows this pretty clearly : 
 
 So queer is the position of things that, though you begin with 
 the real interests of the people and profess their economic Hbera- 
 tion to be the most essential boon, you make political demands 
 your first aim ; and though you see salvation in changing the 
 empire into a federation of independent parts, you demand a 
 constitutional convention ! It is no great merit to keep intact 
 your social ideal, after the manner of an ascetic. We preferred, 
 anyhow, to remain laymen. 
 
 Even for the terroristic measures which it resorted 
 to in its struggle the new party was inclined to apolo- 
 gize, and to prove their necessity, not by any theory, 
 but by the conditions of time and place. Russian 
 terrorism was often, particularly abroad, understood to 
 be the application of an anarchistic theory. We have 
 seen, however, that the anarchistic elements were 
 gradually being eliminated from the Russian socialistic 
 theory; and the very appearance of the "People's 
 Will " party was one of the most decisive steps toward 
 a definitive rupture with the anarchistic origin of the 
 theory. We have seen that during their trials the 
 members of the party expressly emphasized that in 
 their view the only important feature of their policy 
 was political struggle, and that terrorism was only a 
 temporary and accidental means. And Shellyabov, in 
 his defense before the court, formally repudiated the 
 accusation of " anarchism " which was formerly, in a 
 sense, acknowledged by certain defendants in earlier 
 trials (e. g., in the speech of Bardena). "This is an
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 421 
 
 antiquated accusation," Shellyabov said. "We are for 
 the state, not for anarchism. We recognize that the 
 government will ahvays exist, and that the state must 
 necessarily remain so long as there are any public 
 interests to be served." 
 
 Thus the terroristic acts of the "People's Will" 
 party, whatever opinion one may hold about them, have 
 nothing in common with the theory of anarchistic 
 "propaganda by deeds." The difference between the 
 two cannot be defined more clearly than was done by 
 the " People's Will " party itself upon the occasion of 
 the assassination of President Garfield. The Executive 
 Committee of the party, while expressing deep sym- 
 pathy with the American nation, 
 
 also protested, in the name of all Russian revolutionaries, against 
 such violent acts as the assault of Guiteau. In a country where 
 the liberty of the individual makes an honest struggle of opinions 
 possible, and where the free will of the people determines, not 
 only the law, but even the personality of the rulers, political 
 assassination, as a weapon, is only an expression of the same 
 spirit of despotism the destruction of which in Russia we con- 
 sider to be our task. Despotism of an individual is equally as 
 despicable as despotism of a party; violence can be justified only 
 when it is directed against violence. 
 
 The terroristic activity of the Executive Committee 
 has entirely thrown into the background the " village 
 group " of the old " Land and Liberty " party. After 
 the secession of the terrorists in the autumn of 1879, it 
 was mutually agreed that the former party title should 
 no longer be used; and the remaining members of the 
 former "Land and Liberty" party adopted a new 
 name, the "General (or Black) Land Partition." This 
 again was a term very popular among the Russian
 
 422 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 peasants, meaning a kind of " nationalization of land." 
 The title emphasized the fact that the bulk of the 
 populists, though their former doctrine had been en- 
 tirely undermined by their practical failure, remained 
 true to it. With them as with their antagonists, their 
 heads were in discord with their hearts. Their heads 
 were for their theory, while their hearts were with the 
 actual stragglers. With the terrorists quite the oppo- 
 site was the case, their hearts still clinging to the old 
 theory, while their heads favored a change in the prac- 
 tical means to this end. The populists, then, though 
 keeping to their principles, remained inactive; while 
 the terrorists preferred to be active and inconsistent. 
 The position of both parties was inconvenient and 
 could be only transient. The necessity of reconciling 
 the theory of the socialistic movement to its practice 
 was evident to everybody; but for the terrorists at 
 least, who were in the heat of the struggle, there was 
 no time to reconsider fundamental principles. 
 
 Their opponents, the pure populists, however, had 
 more leisure to discuss their points of divergence. 
 While the terrorist leaders were one by one ferreted 
 out and either hanged or imprisoned for life, the 
 leaders of the "Black Partition" group fled abroad 
 (1879-80) and embarked upon a lively literary cam- 
 paign. As the activity of the terrorists was becoming 
 "political," and so suspected of "liberalism," the pure 
 populists found themselves in the profitable position of 
 defenders of socialistic principles. Thus they were 
 drawn nearer to that group of pure socialists who were 
 more " Lavrist " than Lavrov himself, and who, not
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 423 
 
 believing in revolutionary measures, remained in- 
 active."^ 
 
 The transition from pure populism to pure social- 
 ism was accomplished so much more rapidl)'- by the 
 " Black Partition " group for the reasons that this 
 group was comparatively small in number, was much 
 less bound by the tradition of the " Land and Liberty " 
 party, lacked the practical experience of the " People's 
 W'ill " party, and relied more upon new forces from 
 the 3'ounger generation. In short, the party was much 
 more inclined toward socialistic theory than toward 
 revolutionary practice. 
 
 The point of view of "pure socialism" — the same 
 as now prevails in the Socialist Democratic party — 
 had been formulated very early. Thus we found it in 
 the circle of St. Petersburg "Lavrists;" and as early 
 as 1880 we can see it again formulated by Mr. Axelrod, 
 I one of the leaders of the new group. 
 
 The statement of Mr. Axelrod runs as follows : 
 
 All nations have passed through the stage of the collective 
 ownership of land ; all have once fought a desperate fight for its 
 preservation; and yet finally it perished everywhere. And, 
 indeed, Karl Marx proved, by the theory of organic development 
 of human society, the internal necessity of that terrible process of 
 expropriation of communal property, to pave the way for the 
 civilization of the bourgeoisie. Russian life contains also material 
 enough to prove that the destruction of the village community 
 and the expropriation of the peasants are unavoidable. In the 
 face of this evidence, a serious question presents itself to every 
 conscientious man: If it is so, is it worth while to spend eflfort 
 upon a thing doomed to perish ? Is it not more rational to search 
 elsewhere for support? The revolutionary thought turns to the 
 workingmen. To be sure, this class is as yet too small in number 
 
 '^ See p. 409.
 
 424 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 for a successful struggle; they have not yet grown conscious of 
 what are the conditions of their existence, and therefore it is 
 difficult to expect that they should at present become a center of 
 a socialistic revolutionary movement. But if we consider the 
 labor movement in western Europe, with its quickly developing 
 theories and ideas, it will help the imagination to anticipate even 
 for Russia an impending movement on the part of the working- 
 men, on socialistic lines. And even if there should be no hope of 
 achieving in the immediate future any serious results by trans- 
 ferring revolutionary activity to the circles of workingmen, 
 still this will be better than that labor of Sisyphus, the agita-^ 
 tion among the peasants, whose economic organization is doomed 
 to destruction, and who are unable to adopt the socialistic point of 
 view because they cling to their ancient habits and because their 
 ideas are so limited.™ 
 
 It was a long journey from pure populism to this 
 view of orthodox Marxism. The road was, however, 
 traversed in a comparatively short time by Mr. Pleha- 
 nov, the former editor of the Black Partition periodical. 
 Mr. Plehanov's articles in the Black Partition were, 
 with some very slight alterations in the argument, quite 
 populistic. But after the arrest of the elder members 
 of the party, and his own flight abroad, and particu- 
 larly after the ultimate defeat of the " People's Will " 
 party, Mr. Plehanov's friends tried to rally the retreat- 
 ing army of revolutionaries; and, as a theoretical 
 rallying-point, Mr. Plehanov developed a doctrine in 
 which he tried to solve the difficulties and contradic- 
 tions of populism by socialistic arguments. The first 
 document pointing out the change is the " Program 
 of the North-Russian Society of Land and Liberty," 
 published in 1880. But here the change does not go 
 
 ^° See the Jahrbuch fi'tr Sociahvissenschaft und SocialpoUtik 
 (edited Dr. L. Richter), Vol. II.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 425 
 
 beyond a mere juxtaposition of the populist "agita- 
 tion" for land partition, the socialistic "propaganda" 
 of purer principles among the workingmen and the 
 "minority" of peasants, and a terroristic "political 
 struggle." A more thorough reconstruction of the 
 theory was undertaken three years later, in 1883, when 
 the group under Mr. Axelrod and Mr. Plehanov re- 
 appeared under a new name : the " Group for the 
 Liberation of Labor." Here we have to do with a 
 deliberate attempt to introduce into Russia the teach- 
 ings of the German Social Democratic party. This, as 
 we have seen, had been tried by Lavrov, and it had 
 failed because of the many concessions which he made 
 to the ancient theory, which had preserved its fascina- 
 tion for the Russian revolutionists. The " Black Parti- 
 tion " still united both theories, the anarchistic and the 
 socialistic — a union which found its characteristic 
 reflection in the very name of the party, " Federalist 
 Socialists." This time Mr. Plehanov's group took 
 definite leave of the last survivals of anarchism and 
 started a genuine social democracy in Russia. 
 
 It is well known that the doctrines of Marx repre- 
 sent a synthesis of the ideas of economic emancipation 
 and political struggle; and it was just such a synthesis 
 that the revolutionaries of the " People's Will " party 
 needed so badly, but which at the same time, they could 
 not attain until their centralistic practice became at 
 variance with their " federalistic " theory. Marx's 
 starting-point, as well as theirs, was that economic 
 emancipation can be achieved only by the workingmen 
 themselves ; but Marx wanted the workingmen to unite 
 for this purpose in a large political party and to fight
 
 426 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 their battles of class interest, not by way of small riots 
 in isolated villages, but by the large, centralized organi- 
 zation of a labor party whose aim should be to come 
 into possession of political power. These were also the 
 principles laid down for the reconstruction of the Rus- 
 sian socialistic doctrine in the pamphlets of Mr. Ple- 
 hanov. Socialism and Political Struggle (1883) and 
 Our Variances (1885). 
 
 In these pamphlets, however, Mr. Plehanov was 
 far from adopting the point of view of Marxism as 
 stated by Mr. Axelrod in 1880. He did not yet break 
 away from the populist view as to the general scheme 
 and surroundings of the coming social revolution. 
 According to him, the revolution was still to be an 
 agrarian one; and he even admits, on the authority of 
 Marx himself, that the Russian village community may 
 form a short-cut for attaining the socialistic stage. 
 " We do not hold to the view," he says for both him- 
 self and his friends, " a view which is falsely ascribed 
 to the school of Marx, that the socialistic movement 
 cannot be supported by our peasantry until the peasants 
 shall have been transformed into landless proletaries, 
 and until the village communities shall have been dis- 
 solved by capitalism. We think that, in general, the 
 Russian peasantry would accept with sympathy every 
 measure by which the so-called ' nationalization of land ' 
 is intended." Yet, at the same time, Mr. Plehanov 
 strongly objected to the delusion that the change 
 could be brought about immediately by that impossible 
 scheme of gathering 90 per cent, of the socialistic 
 deputies in the next constitutional convention, and he 
 was very far from thinking that the advent of a social-
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 427 
 
 istic government was at hand in Russia. Instead of 
 being discouraged by this delay, Mr. Plehanov insisted 
 all the more on the necessity of a political struggle for 
 economic emancipation ; and he emphasized the fact 
 that, in this struggle, " for the first time all attention 
 must be concentrated upon the industrial centers," and 
 that a central organization was necessary for carrying 
 out such a struggle. Says he : 
 
 The only aim of the Russian socialists that is not phantastical 
 can now only be, first, the attainment of free political institutions, 
 and, second, the preparation of the elements for the building of a 
 future socialistic party in Russia. They must put forth a demand 
 for a democratic constitution which would secure for the working- 
 man the " rights of a citizen " together with the " rights of man," 
 and give him, by means of a general vote, the possibility of taking 
 an active part in the political life of the country. Such a program, 
 while it would frighten nobody by a " red specter " which is far 
 off as yet, would evoke sympathy for our revolutionary party from 
 everybody who does not belong to the systematic enemies of 
 democracy; and, furthermore, it could be indorsed as well by 
 socialists as by very many representatives of our liberalism 
 .... In this case the interests of the liberals would make them 
 combine with the socialists in a common action against the govern- 
 ment At the same time, those liberals who are less timid 
 
 and more judicious would cease to regard revolutionaries as 
 unpractical youths who devise Utopias. This .... view would 
 yield to another, and society in general would not only admire 
 their heroism, but also have regard to their political maturity. 
 
 These words reveal a conciliatory spirit quite un- 
 common in the later writings of Mr, Plehanov, but 
 very characteristic of the general state of opinion after 
 the collapse of 1881 and during the following decade 
 of political stagnation. " Allies of today and enemies 
 of tomorrow"' — the liberals were now looked upon
 
 428 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 more as friends than as enemies, since "tomorrow" 
 appeared likely not to come immediately. Some of the 
 socialists even were ready to admit that the very col- 
 lapse of the revolutionary activity and the complete 
 failure of the terroristic struggle of 1879-81 might 
 have been avoided had the revolutionaries been able to 
 secure — not mere sympathy, which they had possessed 
 — but the active help of the educated classes of "so- 
 ciety." 
 
 The " alliance " with that " society " was now 
 planned on an enlarged scale. For this purpose the 
 socialists had to emphasize the fact that they were no 
 longer indifferent to the political form of government ; 
 that they appreciated political freedom as well as the 
 men of "society; " and that a "constitution" was their 
 first and foremost aim. All contemporary writings of 
 revolutionary socialists bear witness to this disposition. 
 That was the time when Stepnyak was trying to lay 
 stress upon the political and constitutional side of the 
 revolutionary movement, ^^ and when another populist, 
 Mr. Debagoree-jNIokreyavich, accused his colleagues of 
 having neglected the "political idea" in their program. 
 The new organ of the socialist revolutionaries, the 
 Self -Government (1887), had printed the letters of 
 different — and discordant — revolutionary leaders ad- 
 mitting that they considered political freedom the chief 
 and the next aim for the Russian movement. Another 
 revolutionary organ, Free Russia, went farther and 
 proclaimed, in 1889, that "political freedom" was not 
 only a temporary aim, but "a boon in itself;" that 
 " other than political aims cannot now exist in Russia ; " 
 
 '^see pp. 320 ff.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 429 
 
 and that " it was high time to cease from classifying 
 people as ' liberals ' and ' revolutionaries.' " The edi- 
 tors were ready to welcome the introduction of the 
 Zcmsky Sohor, even were it formed out of the repre- 
 sentatives of the Zemstvos. instead of those of the 
 people. 
 
 But this plan was too much for a socialist, and im- 
 mediately a reaction set in. This reaction, however, 
 very characteristically began by an attempt at concilia- 
 tion among the socialists themselves, since it was im- 
 possible between the socialists and the liberals. In June, 
 1889, the first and only issue of a new revolutionary 
 organ appeared in Geneva, under the significant title 
 of Socialist. Leaders of both factions of Russian so- 
 cialism — the socialistic revolutionaries of the passing 
 two decades and the socialistic democrats of the coming 
 decades — tried to unite on this common ground, in 
 order to oppose the too peaceful disposition of Free 
 Russia toward the liberals. The names of Lavrov, 
 Tarasov (pseudonym), and Serebryakov were to be 
 seen side by side with those of Plehanov and Axelrod. 
 They all agreed that the socialistic character of the 
 movement was to be retained, without abandoning its 
 nearest political aims. They likewise agreed that the 
 political struggle was to be carried on by the working 
 classes themselves; cind the help of the liberal "con- 
 stitutionalists " was to be made even more effective by 
 keeping it distinct from the socialistic movement 
 proper. Concerning socialism itself the editorial tried 
 to formulate a policy which might conciliate both 
 socialistic factions, but which was, as a matter of fact, 
 a surrender of the earlier views of the populists:
 
 430 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Considering the social economy of Russia, radical changes 
 are in progress in the very foundations of Russian life. Capital- 
 ist production gains more and more ground, destroying domestic 
 economy and pushing it along the line of money exchange. Pro- 
 duction in factories is ever on the increase. In domestic industries 
 the so-called " domestic system of capitalistic production " is 
 observed to prevail. The landed property reveals an undoubted 
 tendency toward concentration. The agricultural population is 
 losing its homogeneous composition, and is differentiating into 
 social strata of varying economic strength. In consequence of 
 the dissolution of the landed community, an agricultural prole- 
 tariat is being born; and, driven by pressing needs, the peasants 
 swell the ranks of the proletariat in the cities. All this persuades 
 us that Russia has entered upon the same course of social- 
 economic development which western Europe too has traversed. 
 The ever-increasing influence of international commerce forces 
 us to borrow from the more advanced countries such means and 
 forms of production as have been reached elsewhere only through 
 a slow and gradual evolution.^^ This connection of our economy 
 with that of the world makes any prediction as to the possible 
 limit of development for our capitalism even in the remote future 
 quite impossible.''^ We can only say that when the hour shall have 
 struck for the abolition of capitalistic property in western Europe, 
 and the " expropriation of the expropriators " shall have begun, 
 it will be necessary for our production also to be reorganized in 
 accordance with socialistic principles. 
 
 Meanwhile, "the common aim of the Russian revo- 
 lutionary socialists is the same as that of the socialists of 
 all countries : " socialization of the means of production 
 
 ^^ This statement makes allowance for the populistic view — the 
 possibility of a briefer evolutionary period for Russia ; i. e., a cer- 
 tain originality in the Russian mode of development. 
 
 " This is another compromise between populism and social 
 democracy, both of which, knowing surely what would be the future 
 of capitalism in Russia, held quite opposite views as to that future.
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA 431 
 
 as an aim, social revolution by the people as a means, 
 and the socialistic labor party as a necessary weapon. 
 But the necessary condition for forming a labor party 
 — namely, a "democratic constitution" — is lacking 
 in Russia, and it must first be won. The "actual 
 force " for this struggle is in Russia, again, the same as 
 abroad — the proletariat. But, since at present the 
 j'liral part of the country is not easily accessible to 
 propaganda — owing to a comparatively low degree of 
 culture, as well as to dispersion and isolation from the 
 intellectual, political, and industrial centers — our chief 
 attention must be given to the proletariat in the cities — 
 to the workingmen in the industries. In their midst 
 revolutionary circles have to be started, which shall 
 form the nucleus of a future labor party, and, " united 
 to socialistic circles of the intellectuals," shall form 
 what we call "the socialistic-revolutionary party." In 
 these last two phrases the new point of view of the 
 future " socialistic democrats " is being reached without 
 entirely abandoning the former point of view of the 
 populists. 
 
 Such was the state of feeling and doctrine in the 
 socialistic camp when, some few years later, the new 
 period of struggle began. Any attempts at reconcilia- 
 tion were at once forgotten. Both factions of Russian 
 socialism reappeared, each with its characteristic doc- 
 trines and methods of action, and fighting and compet- 
 ing with each other more bitterly than ever before. 
 But these quarrels were by no means a mere repetition 
 of the old ones. We shall see how new dissensions 
 were brought about by new and important practical
 
 432 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 issues ; and how a new step forward was taken by Rus- 
 sian socialism, though its stage of pohtical education is 
 still far from complete.^^ 
 
 "^ See chap, vii, pp. 481 ff.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CRISIS AND THE URGENCY OF REFORM 
 
 We now know what the social forces are, and the 
 poHtical schemes and theories, that condition the com- 
 ing reform in Russia. Some of these social forces — 
 namely, those of the higher social strata — we have 
 seen to be too weak to force reforms upon the govern- 
 ment through their social influence. The other forces 
 — namely, those inherent in the lower social strata — 
 we have found to be as yet too little organized. There- 
 fore, should any reform commend itself by virtue of its 
 intrinsic usefulness and urgency, there would be immi- 
 nent danger of its being indefinitely postponed — as has 
 actually been the case up to the present time. The 
 chances for the immediate realization of reform being 
 too small, it was only natural for us to find the very 
 schemes for reform unsuited for such immediate reali- 
 zation, either because they were not definite enough for 
 practical purposes — which was generally the case with 
 the liberal programs — or because they were too defi- 
 nite ; i. €., abstract and extreme. Of course, this would 
 be changed at once, if some impelling force could be 
 found to bring the lethargic social elements and the 
 torpid political schemes into action. It now remains for 
 us to investigate whether some such force really exists ; 
 and, if it does, to weigh its possible consequences. 
 
 There are two chief agencies which will make politi- 
 cal action effective — the growth of material want and 
 the growth of political disaffection ; and these will 
 
 433
 
 434 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 render reform unavoidable. Material want, growing 
 more and more acute, finally takes the shape of a 
 general crisis — agricultural, industrial, and financial. 
 Political disaffection, becoming permanent, forms an 
 atmosphere of social unrest which finds expression in 
 individual or combined violent action. A political con- 
 dition which has not only proved to be powerless 
 against the crisis and the social unrest, but which has 
 even notoriously contributed to the former and fostered 
 the latter, has by this shown itself to be incompatible 
 with the gratification of the most elemetitary social 
 needs. This order of things is thenceforth doomed. 
 And it writes its own sentence when, in the very midst 
 of a crisis and a state of social unrest, it is driven, by 
 no one's fault but its own, into an unsuccessful war. 
 These agencies, not unmentioned in our previous 
 exposition, must now be studied more closely. What 
 is the Russian crisis? And what is the Russian social 
 unrest? An attempt to elucidate these questions is not 
 an act of indiscretion toward my countrymen. The 
 crisis is now being chirped about even by the sparrows 
 on the roofs, and is being studied by government com- 
 mittees and discussed in hundreds of publications. The 
 social unrest cannot be too strongly emphasized before 
 an audience that enjoys the privilege of being well 
 informed by a free press, and of thus knowing much 
 more about it than many an average citizen of my own 
 country can ever hope to know. Unhappily, it is not 
 from knowing too much, but from knowing too little, 
 that we suffer in Russia; and the danger is not for 
 those who know that a position is untenable, but for 
 those who hesitate to surrender an untenable position 
 in time to prevent their own destruction.
 
 The Changes in Peasant Prosperity in the Period 1861-1900 
 
 > RfLTUby 
 
 rH 
 
 Orel 0/ 
 
 J 
 
 ^ • " /, 
 
 LV 
 
 !r«iBbof\ 
 
 ElmblrA'] 
 
 fSmUir 
 
 Sicim 
 
 VnlikL 
 
 Oimburg 
 
 
 I EkatherlnoelB,^ X /' 
 
 •^NovocherkftB6k\ 
 
 ^trahsoj 
 
 r. '. TlftdoekirS 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
 ^r»» 
 
 ( ^ 
 
 The average 
 change 
 
 Deterioration Amelioration 
 
 ^^^^^ In the slight degree ^^^^^ 
 
 WKKM "^c greatest ^^^H
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 435 
 
 We begin, then, with the agricultural crisis, which 
 lies at the bottom of all other crises in a country such 
 as Russia. Rapid as has been of late the development 
 of Russian industry, Russia still remains an essentially 
 agricultural country. About 80 per cent, of her inhabi- 
 tants are peasants and support themselves by hus- 
 bandry. Nearly the same figure expresses the share of 
 the rural products (grain, cattle, poultry) in Russia's 
 export trade. Any important change in this export 
 may seriously affect the balance of trade, and thus 
 strengthen or ruin the country's finances. The large 
 industries depend chiefly on the village customers, and 
 bad or good crops bring with them prosperity or stag- 
 nation to manufacture. Taxation, credit, marriages 
 and increase of population, and what not, depend on the 
 state of agriculture. 
 
 Now, everybody in Russia knows that the state of 
 agriculture is extremely unsatisfactory. The map, 
 which gives a general idea of it, summarizes a long 
 and voluminous investigation of that subject, just pub- 
 lished by the government. It represents the changes 
 in the prosperity of the peasants during the forty years 
 (1861-1900) which have elapsed since their emancipa- 
 tion. The neutral (yellow) tone represents the local 
 change which coincides with the average change for 
 the whole of Russia. On each side of that neutral tint, 
 three bright (red) and three dark (blue) colors, pro- 
 gressively deepening, represent the three increasing 
 degrees of amelioration or deterioration in one or 
 another particular province of Russia. Let us first 
 observe that even the average figures for the whole of 
 Russia often testify to a state of decay. Thus: (i)
 
 436 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 The size of the landholdings allotted by the commune 
 to each member has shrunk, in comparison with i860 
 (the figure for the latter year being taken for 100), to 
 54.2 per cent. (2) The crops of grain and potatoes 
 have since 1861 diminished to 94.4 per cent. (3) The 
 number of cattle on a unit of arable land has since 1870 
 diminished to 90.7 per cent. (4) The consumption of 
 alcohol has since 1870 diminished to 67.7 per cent. 
 (5) Arrears of taxes, which formed 22 per cent, of the 
 yearly payments in 1871-80, have increased to 117 
 per cent. ; or, taking the first figure for 100, to 532 per 
 cent. (6) In 1886-90 the average emigration was 178 
 to every 10,000 of the natural growth of population; 
 in 1896-1900, 972; or, taking the first figure for 100, 
 an increase of 546 per cent. 
 
 Let it be remembered that these figures represent 
 the average changes for the whole of Russia, coinciding 
 with those marked on the map in the yellow tint. Much 
 more ominous ones meet us when we examine con- 
 ditions in the provinces colored blue, as shown in the 
 followinof table : 
 
 Minimum 
 
 1 . Allotments diminished from i oo to 
 
 2. Crops diminished to 
 
 3. The number of cattle diminished to 
 
 4. The consumption of alcohol diminished to ... . 
 
 5. Arrears of taxes increased from 22 per cent, 
 to 172-444 per cent., or from 100 to 
 
 6. Emigration increased from 17.8 per cent, to 
 126.1-360.I per cent., or from 100 to 
 
 Besides these conditions, common to all Russia, 
 two others may be, mentioned which are particularly 
 unfavorable in these decaying regions, while the aver-
 
 The Present State of Peasant Prosperity (1900) Compared with the Average 
 
 State for the Whole of Russia 
 
 
 % laileemlt • >■ — ''^ ■ 
 
 r«JoTgorod 
 
 1-A 
 
 /' 
 
 .ft I' I %r'U'~l A'V^ Veetelei ^- ^ Mosto-v ;=5._, JA Novgorod 
 
 Oofa^ 'l 
 
 / ^/ Orel <: 
 
 ■ ''J ° A 
 
 Uralsls- 
 
 
 Symi'l 
 
 / ABtnbAnJ 
 
 AToBUyurt 
 
 'V'" 
 
 Coinciding with 
 
 the averajje for 
 
 Eur. Russia 
 
 Lower than the Average Higher than the Average 
 
 {HUH Greatest ^^^H
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 
 
 437 
 
 age for the whole country is rather favorable, or iK^t 
 positively unfavorable : 
 
 Minimum 
 
 7. Agricultural wages (average increase, 1 08.3 per 
 cent.) decreased since 1871 
 
 8. Inner migrations — permissions for temporary 
 change of residence — in order to find employ- 
 ment (average increase, 5.5 times since 1861) 
 increased 
 
 100% 
 
 8 times 
 
 64 -SJ^ 
 
 23.9 times 
 
 All these figures refer only to the agricultural popu- 
 lation — the peasants of the Russian villages. But 
 why, one may ask, should particularly the agriculturist 
 of southeastern Russia be suffering from this deteriora-- 
 tion, while the provinces of the other half of Russia 
 shine in bright colors, testifying to their comparative 
 prosperity ? In reply to this question I must first point 
 out that the prosperity of the northern peasant is only 
 comparative; /. e., his condition has not grown much 
 worse — or has grown a little better — than it had been 
 in the beginning of the period to which the map refers. 
 But already by that time (1861) it was not at all 
 satisfactory. On the map showing absolute degree of 
 welfare in 1900 will be noticed another distribution of 
 colors : the northwest of Russia is not so bright, and 
 the southeast is not so dark — with the exception of the 
 black spot in the south-central part — as on the former 
 map. This means that the northwestern peasant, in 
 spite of a general amelioration of his condition in the 
 last forty years, is yet not well off ; whereas the south- 
 eastern peasant, in spite of the general deterioration of 
 his state, still possesses some resources for living; and 
 the peasant of the south-central portion bears the full
 
 438 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 weight of the crisis, as in his case the lowest level of 
 present well-being is combined with the highest degree 
 of deterioration during the last forty years. The ex- 
 planation of all these differences must be sought in the 
 fact that the Russian crisis, is first and foremost an 
 agricultural one. The northwestern peasant knows 
 how to make both ends meet, because he has long been 
 accustomed not to rely upon his agricultural work 
 alone. The southeastern peasant, on the other hand, 
 lives exclusively on the products of the soil ; but in his 
 case agriculture gives some profit, because the natural 
 productivity of the soil is not yet exhausted ; while the 
 peasant of the south-central regions, still depending on 
 the produce of agriculture alone, lives from hand to 
 mouth, because his soil is already exhausted. 
 
 We shall still better understand the deeper reason 
 for the differences just stated, if we remember that they 
 nearly coincide with the differences arising in the pro- 
 cess of the settlement of Russia.^ Northwestern Rus- 
 sia is the region of the most ancient colonization ; the 
 south-central districts were settled later (after the 
 middle of the sixteenth century) ; and the southeastern 
 part still later (in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- 
 turies). As a result, in the northwestern portion the 
 agricultural stage of economic development has long- 
 since passed, giving place to the industrial stage; while 
 in the south-central territory it is only now passing 
 away, and in the southeastern part it has not yet passed. 
 The richer any of the three parts is in natural resources, 
 the poorer it is in human industry, and vice versa; and, 
 of course, the situation is most acute in the intermediate 
 
 ^ See chap. i.
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 439 
 
 Strip of land, where the natural resources have been 
 exhausted, while industry has not yet had time to 
 develop. 
 
 The situation was rendered particularly acute by 
 the increased rapidity of this transition from the agri- 
 cultural to the industrial stage. The causes of this 
 increased rapidity of transition from the so-called 
 "domestic economy," or "natural," stage to that of 
 " exchange economy " in Russia are many, and they are 
 pretty complicated. The most important causes are 
 the demands of the rapidly growing state, and the situa- 
 tion of Russia among the economically more developed 
 nations wnth w-hich she has had to compete in the inter- 
 national market. 
 
 Briefly stated, the agrarian crisis in Russia is the 
 necessary consequence of two agents : the elemen- 
 tary state of public economy, and the increased strain 
 exerted on it by the demand of the state and by the 
 changed conditions of life. As a result, private ex- 
 penditures have greatly increased, while private in- 
 comes have remained the same as before, or have even 
 diminished, owang to the exhaustion of the natural 
 resources, the increase of population, the condition of 
 the foreign market, etc. Hence the balance between 
 revenue and expense has been quite disturbed. This is 
 the crisis reduced to its simplest terms. Let us proceed 
 to a more detailed explanation. 
 
 Prior to the emancipation of the peasants, forty 
 years ago, economic life in Russia still preserved its 
 mediaeval character. It was based on home produc- 
 tion for home consumption — at least so far as peasant 
 life was concerned. The outlay for food, lodging.
 
 440 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 clothing, fuel, and light — in short, for all the chief 
 items of the family budget — was practically naught. 
 A man paid nothing for his own hovel ; he fed on the 
 products of his own field and garden ; he was amply 
 supplied with homespun clothing made of the wool of 
 his own sheep and of the fiber of his own flax ; he did 
 not spare the wood to keep hot the old-fashioned, 
 enormous oven which filled a quarter of the house, and 
 which during the long winter months turned it into a 
 bathhouse; nor did he spare his eyes, for he lit the 
 interior of the hut with thin chips constantly renewed 
 in a stand of prehistoric shape, during the long winter 
 evenings while the women spun threads on their distaffs 
 and spindles. Now, however, all this has changed. 
 Wooden chips have given way to a kerosene "smoker; " 
 homespun linen has been superseded by calicoes, while 
 woolen stuffs have disappeared without a substitute; 
 fuel has become very scarce and expensive. Food — 
 which consists of vegetable products alone — is insuffi- 
 ciently supplied; too often it has to be bought by the 
 grain-producers themselves ; in fact, so often that the 
 question has seriously been raised, and has been an- 
 swered in the affirmative by a body of learned econ- 
 omists, whether it is not better for the Russian pro- 
 ducers to have low grain prices. 
 
 Why have the conditions of life thus changed ? In 
 Russia you may sometimes hear the explanation, on 
 the part of the former landlords, that it is because the 
 Russian peasant has become lazy; that he is now a 
 spendthrift, since nobody is there to take care of him. 
 This is adduced as a reason why the peasant prefers the 
 factory products to those of his own making. The fact
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 441 
 
 is that the peasant now is too poor to utilize his and his 
 family's work for himself: and, at the same time, he 
 has no more raw material for his home industry. He 
 can no longer have his clothes prepared by the w^omen 
 of his own family, because he has no more wool or 
 linen to spare. His new^ expenses for the factory calico 
 are certainly not inspired by any taste for fancy articles, 
 but by mere necessity ; and his purchases are generally 
 cheap and of inferior quality. He can hardly be accused 
 of lavishness on the ground that he has to buy some 
 food in the market, since the fact is that on an average 
 his yearly consumption is still below the necessary mini- 
 mum. He gets only about twenty-three to twenty-six 
 Russian poodsr of grain, and sometimes even as little 
 as fifteen, while the soldiers are entitled to not less than 
 twenty-nine poods. Moreover, the Russian peasant 
 does not eat wheat, which he produces for sale only, 
 but rye or, more frequently, potatoes. While the pro- 
 duction of grain in general is now only 88 per cent, of 
 what it was forty years ago, the potato crop is more 
 than three times as large. Thus, his buying of grain in 
 the market only shows that the Russian peasant is 
 obliged to sell the better sorts to cover other necessary 
 expenses ; or that he is compelled to sell at one time in 
 order to buy at another (and this at a loss, as we sliall 
 soon see) ; or that upon his holdings he is unable to 
 produce even the necessary minimum of food. To be 
 sure, he will not be found buying meat, because on the 
 average he eats meat only four times a year. If he still 
 finds money to buy alcohol — the famous vodka — it is 
 not because he is a drunkard, but because vodka is con- 
 
 ^ A pood is thirty-six English pounds.
 
 442 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 sidered by the Russian to be as necessary for social 
 entertainment as soda and whisky in the American 
 ckibs. And yet the consumption of alcohol is lower in 
 Russia than in any other civilized country, and, as we 
 have seen, is still decreasing. 
 
 Thus, such purchases in the market as we have 
 enumerated are absolutely compulsory. The increase 
 in the peasant's cash expenditure for food, clothing, 
 light, etc., does not at all signify any rise in his 
 standard of life or any enhancement of his material 
 well-being; on the contrary, it is a symptom of the 
 deterioration of his condition. This will become still 
 more evident upon a closer examination of that most 
 important item of the peasant's expenditure, the one 
 which conditions all others; namely, his payment of 
 taxes. 
 
 If the Russian peasant has no time to work for 
 himself; if he is fatally underfed and underclothed ; if 
 he needs money badly, it is, first and foremost, because 
 he is compelled to perform his functions as a taxpayer. 
 He does his best to pay his taxes ; and if, in spite of all 
 his exertions, he accumulates arrears upon arrears, it is 
 not because he will not, but because he cannot, pay. In 
 the decade 1883-92, while the population increased 16 
 per cent., taxation increased 29 per cent. ; i. e., nearly 
 twice as much; and in the following decade, 1893- 
 1902, while the growth of the exhausted population 
 still further fell off, the increase being only 13 per cent., 
 taxation took an unheard-of upward leap, showing an 
 increase of 49 per cent., or nearly four times as much. 
 No wonder then that, while in 1871-80 every dessyatin 
 (2.70 acres) of the land owned by the peasant owed to
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 443 
 
 the state 19 cents in arrears, in 1881-90 this debt had 
 increased to 24 cents, and in 1 891-1900 to 54 cents. 
 We must add that ordinarily the authorities collect the 
 taxes by compulsory sales before allowing the arrears 
 to accumulate. Thus the peasantry is reduced to a 
 state of chronic insolvency, and finally grows quite 
 apathetic. As a writer says : 
 
 Any further diminution of the property of the peasants in the 
 middle provinces would hardly seem possible, because nothing is 
 left that can be sold [by the authorities, to pay the arrears]. Thus 
 the peasants' contribution to the exchequer has decreased, not by 
 law, but by the force of circumstances. The peasants now pay 
 only what they can, not what they ought to ; for the whole 
 amount of taxes can in no way be collected. The worst of it is 
 that, being insolvent, the peasants are anxious not to save any- 
 thing that may be sold for taxes. This hopeless state of poverty, 
 unavoidable and unalterable, takes away every wish to save or to 
 raise the standard of life, even if a possibility presented itself. 
 The practical sense of the peasants permits them to improve 
 nothing but the buildings, because these, whether they are good 
 or poor, cannot be sold for arrears. And so the peasants do not 
 strive to earn money for any other purpose of private economy, 
 and if they acquire some, they very sensibly prefer to squander it 
 rather than to hand it over to the collector. 
 
 This is by no means an exaggerated view of the 
 situation. The words quoted are the testimony of an 
 agrarian and an old-style landlord, Mr. Bekhtayev — a 
 man who thoroughly knows the Russian village, and 
 who is determined to tell the truth, which can no longer 
 be concealed. Below we cite another opinion, taken 
 from the official minutes of a committee appointed by 
 the Tsar to inquire into the real state of things, and 
 presided over by the present minister of finance, Mr. 
 Kokovtsev. At one of its meetings (October, 1903),
 
 444 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 the following statement was made by one of the fore- 
 most authorities on that subject, Mr. Schwanebach: 
 
 As a result of the overtaxation of the last decade, from the 
 nine central and eastern governments of Russia the exchequer 
 received only 407 million rubles, instead of the full amount of 450 
 millions due. Thus the arrears made up more than 15 per cent, 
 of the assessed sum. It is evident that the population was 
 actually unable to pay more than it really did. In fact, they did 
 not even pay this sum, because at the very time the government 
 was obliged to spend about 203 millions for feeding the same 
 population. Thus the exchequer was able to keep only half of 
 what was paid, and its real loss was 44 per cent, of the amount 
 assessed. The overcharge in taxation is evidently aimless, and it 
 would be better to leave the money with the population. 
 
 Things having come to such a pass, the government 
 was obliged to intervene and to abolish such part of the 
 taxation as it was powerless to collect. The unsatis- 
 factory state of rural economy was acknowledged as 
 early as 1873, by a government commission. Ten 
 years later, at the initiative of a liberal minister of 
 finance, Mr. Bunge, an attempt was made to alleviate 
 the burden of direct taxation. First of all, the heavy 
 redemption tax ( for land bought from the landlords by 
 the peasants, with the pecuniary help of the state) was 
 somewhat reduced, the northern half of Russia profit- 
 ing most by the reform. Then the antiquated capita- 
 tion tax, introduced by Peter the Great, was abolished. 
 The general decrease of the direct taxation from 1882 
 to 1885, caused by these reforms of Mr. Bunge, was 
 about 50 millions, or from 150 to 100 millions. Thus, 
 at present the amount of direct taxes forms only two- 
 thirds of what it was before Mr. Bunge's reform. But 
 under Mr. Bunge's successor, Mr. Veeshnegradskee,
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 445 
 
 the policy of the government was abruptly reversed. 
 To meet the deficit in the budget, a large increase in 
 indirect taxation was resorted to, which took back from 
 the peasantry more than had just been granted them. 
 The excises and customs paid into the treasury (1885- 
 95) a valuable yearly addition of 309.8 millions; i. c, 
 six times as much as had been taken from it by Mr. 
 Bunge's reform. The successor of Mr. Veeshnegrad- 
 skee, Mr. Witte, went still farther. He not only re- 
 tained and enlarged the system of indirect taxes, which 
 he found to be paid " voluntarily " and " fairly to 
 correspond to the paying powers "of the population, 
 but he made it his leading maxim " not only to satisfy 
 the current demands of the state out of the yearly in- 
 come, but to collect a certain free surplus." Mr. Witte 
 indeed succeeded jn collecting as " free surplus " more 
 than one billion rubles in eight years (1893-1900),^ 
 which he brilliantly spent in the protection of the large 
 industries and the introduction of the gold standard, 
 while at the same time he was obliged to feed the starv- 
 
 ^ During the period of 1895-1900 the yearly surplus of the 
 "ordinary" receipts over "ordinary" expenditures was 188.5 mil- 
 lions a year, while for the seven antecedent years, 1888-94, it was 
 only 83.7 millions, and in 1881-87 there had been a yearly deficit of 
 24.5 millions. These surpluses of 1895-1900 were swallowed up by 
 "extraordinary" expenses, which for the six years 1895-1900 
 amounted to a yearly sum of 221.2 millions over and above the 
 "extraordinary" revenues, while in 1888-94 they were only 59.8 
 millions, and in 1881-88 (the period of the ministry of Mr. Bunge) 
 there remained an annual balance of 25.7 millions. Thus, by his 
 ingenious device of secreting " free sums " from the regular budget, 
 Mr. Witte formed an " extraordinary " budget of his own, much 
 more pliant to his personal policy than would have been the " ordi- 
 nary " budget duly distributed among the chief central offices of the 
 State. What this personal policy was will be shown later.
 
 446 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 ing rural population and to deal with the enormously 
 increasing arrears. For the first purpose 275 millions 
 have been spent by the treasury, and 314 millions more 
 were lost through the remission of unpaid arrears. 
 The population, though unable to pay direct taxes, still 
 contributed to the treasury by buying liquors, tea, 
 sugar, matches, kerosene, and the products of the pro- 
 tected industries : iron, cotton manufactures, etc. The 
 real, the financial, crisis was to begin only when that 
 buying power was exhausted and the Russian peasants 
 had to curtail their expenses. Unhappily, this is now 
 the case. 
 
 We have seen that the consumption of alcohol has 
 considerably decreased. This cannot be explained by 
 any spread of temperance, as there are no teetotalers in 
 Russia, and the temperance societies are not permitted 
 to interfere with this revenue. The government made 
 some fruitless attempts at increasing the rate of excise, 
 and thus gaining in higher price what it was unable to 
 gain by increased sales. As the consumption was still 
 continuously diminishing, the government at last re- 
 solved to take the sale of intoxicants into its own hands ; 
 i. e., to introduce a state monopoly, in order to save the 
 revenue. 
 
 The consumption of sugar is slowly increasing 
 (from 8 pounds per capita in 1890 to 13 pounds in 
 1901), but it is yet far behind that of other civilized 
 countries (in Germany and in France, 27 pounds; in 
 the United States, 69; in England, 79). However, the 
 increase in consumption cannot keep pace with the 
 protected production of sugar. The surplus, therefore, 
 is permitted to be exported — at a lower price, of
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 447 
 
 course, than that commanded in the interior market. 
 But this loss is made good by the premium paid to the 
 exporter by the government. Thus a Russian customer 
 pays $1.34 for the same quantity of sugar that is ex- 
 ported at the price of 65 cents — just one-half. There 
 is a current saying in Russia, that English pigs enjoy 
 the privilege which is refused the Russian peasant; 
 namely, that of being fed on Russian sugar. There is 
 the same difference in price, to the detriment of the 
 Russian customer, in the case of tea, iron, and a dozen 
 other articles of prime necessity. 
 
 All of the foregoing leads to one unavoidable con- 
 clusion : that the necessity of buying and spending has 
 greatly increased, while at the same time the prices of 
 products and the rates of taxes have likewise risen 
 enormously. Thus a large portion of the peasant's 
 expenses has to be met with money. On the other 
 hand, we know that he is short of money and cannot 
 meet this increased demand. But we cannot realize 
 how great his distress is until we inquire into the 
 sources of his income, as we have already done in the 
 case of his expenditures. 
 
 The chief, if not the only, product which can be 
 raised and sold is grain; and thus we return to the 
 condition of Russian agriculture. We shall soon see 
 that, while the expenditure has increased, this basis of 
 the peasant's income has materially weakened. The 
 only question is as to what extent agriculture and the 
 sale of grain constitute the sole basis of the peasant's 
 budget. And this question, as we have already seen, is 
 differently answered in the case of northern and south- 
 ern Russia.
 
 448 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 In the northern half of Russia the peasant long ago 
 learned how to derive from additional sources what his 
 unfruitful soil refused to yield him. As early as the 
 eighteenth century, and even earlier, he began to find 
 subsidiary employment in transportation, in the build- 
 ing and home industries, or in petty trade. Thus, 
 before the emancipation, a Russian peasant from the 
 middle Volga out of every dollar earned did not receive 
 more than 12.37 cents from husbandry. For the re- 
 maining 87.63 cents he had to depend on subsidiary 
 industries. That is why, after the liberation, he did not 
 find himself entirely lost under the new conditions of 
 life, but, in spite of the enormously increased demand 
 for money, still found means to cover his expenses. 
 
 With the peasant of the southern half of Russia it 
 turned out quite differently. He did not know so well 
 how to earn money and relied entirely on tilling the 
 land, which was much more fertile here, in the " black- 
 soil " region, than in the northern country of clay and 
 sand. His landlord, even in olden times, did not per- 
 mit him to go to town or abroad in search of employ- 
 ment. As a rule, he kept him upon the manor, not 
 even giving him any allotment for private tilling, as 
 was the general practice in northern Russia. Thus the 
 peasant was obliged to pay his lord in kind, by manual 
 labor, much more than he might have had to pay in 
 specie. 
 
 Now, when the hour struck for liberation, the 
 northern landlord was ready to sell to his peasant as 
 much of his unproductive soil as the latter might desire, 
 provided that the peasant redeemed himself by paying 
 for his holding more than the soil was worth. At the
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 449 
 
 same time, the southern landlord withheld from his 
 field laborers as much blacksoil land as he could, doling 
 out to him as small a lot as possible, for which, how- 
 ever, the peasant had to pay a very high price. Thus 
 poorly equipped, the southern peasant went out to meet 
 the new era. The demands on him were the same as 
 on his northern brother. He had to get money — as 
 much as he could — since there was no landlord to pay 
 his taxes. But, unlike his northern brother, he had 
 nothing to sell besides his grain. And the conditions 
 for producing and selling grain had grown decidedly 
 worse. 
 
 In the first place, the per capita area on which 
 grain may be sown had greatly diminished throughout 
 Russia. The average peasant allotment in i860 was 
 6.21 acres, while forty years later, owing to the increase 
 of population, it was only 3.51 acres. Yet even this 
 amount would not have been entirely insufficient, if an 
 intensive system of agriculture could have been resorted 
 to. But with the three-field system in use — one-third 
 of the arable land always lying fallow, while the other 
 two-thirds are badly tilled and worse manured — the 
 productivity of this small lot is not, on the average, 
 sufficient to yield enough food for the laborer and his 
 horse. The average crop is 16.6 poods of grain per 
 inhabitant, while not less than 20 poods are necessary 
 to feed him ; and the average yield of oats is 23.6 poods 
 per horse, while not less than 40 poods are needed. 
 The returns are thus 17 and 41 per cent., respectively, 
 less than they should be in order that men and animals 
 may not be underfed, let alone the possibility of sale 
 and export. At the same time, on this small lot, under
 
 450 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 the system of tillage in vogue, the working power of 
 man and horse cannot be used to its full extent. Every 
 laborer can till about 39 acres, yet he actually does till 
 only 8 — i. e., nearly five times less; and thus 79 per 
 cent, of his working capacity remains unemployed upon 
 his plot of land. A horse can till lo-ii acres; yet its 
 labor is generally employed on an area one-third of 
 that. 
 
 The insufficiency of food is thus in a strange way 
 associated with an abundance of working power. To 
 find additional food and to spend additional work in 
 producing it, two methods are possible : either to in- 
 crease the productivity of the given plot, or to increase 
 the plot itself. But the productivity of the soil cannot 
 be increased without new investment of capital, if even 
 we admit, what many writers do not grant, that such 
 increase is possible at all on lands in communal owner- 
 ship and in precarious possession of the single culti- 
 vator. Now the peasant in distress does not possess 
 any capital, and rural credit for improving land does 
 not exist in Russia. The other, and, under existing 
 conditions, the only possible, method, is to buy or rent 
 additional plots of land. This has always been the 
 most ardent desire of the peasants, and a real struggle 
 for buying or renting land has been going on during the 
 whole period under consideration. Owing to the large 
 number of estates of nobles offered for sale,^ and also 
 to the material help of the Peasants' Bank (since 1883), 
 the agriculturists have succeeded in increasing the 
 property of the peasant communes since 1875 t>y 10 
 per cent. But even though we add such land as has 
 been purchased by individual peasants, independently 
 
 * See p. 240.
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 451 
 
 of the communal allotments, which would increase the 
 amount by another 13 per cent., this general increase 
 of 23 per cent, does not prove equal to the increase of 
 the peasant population during the same period, which 
 was 48 per cent., or more than double. As a result, the 
 holdings have constantly decreased,^ and it became 
 necessary to rent neighboring land. This necessity has 
 been so great, and opportunities for renting land have 
 been so comparatively few, that rent has risen enor- 
 mously. Contrary to the laws of classical economy, the 
 rent has not only reached the amount of the " unearned 
 increment," but has far exceeded it, swallowing up the 
 profits and, very often, the very w^ages of the tenants. 
 Instances are numerous where tenants pay as rent one, 
 three, or even five dollars more per dessyatin than the 
 land would yield as net profit, if tilled by hired labor.*' 
 Such exorbitant rent may be compared to what is 
 known to have been the case in Ireland before the great 
 famine of 1846-47, when the competition among the 
 tenants " reminded one of a struggle for food in a 
 besieged city or on a ship in open sea." The same kind 
 of competition is going on among the Russian peasants, 
 
 ^ See pp. 436 f. 
 
 ' For instance, in all but two of the districts in the province of 
 Nishnee-Novgorod the rent is higher than the net profit would be, 
 sometimes being one and a half to three times as high ; e. g., rent 
 $1.43 and net profit only $0.47 from each dessyatin (district of 
 Gorbatov) ; $1.76 and $1.01 (Ardatov) ; $2.97 and $2.14 (Sergach) ; 
 $1.45 and $0.86 (Nishnee-Novgorod) ; and so on. In the province 
 of Orel the same dessyatin that would yield $4-38, if tilled by hired 
 labor, may be rented by indigent peasants for $7.60. In the province 
 of Voronash the difference in some districts is $5.23 (net profit) to 
 $7.26 (rent), or $8.01 to $9.26. In the five districts of the province 
 of Poltava the difference is sometimes ^3.72 to $5.61.
 
 452 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 owing to the absolute insufficiency of their plots for 
 mere subsistence. Of course, no profits are looked for 
 from such renting, the only aim of the peasants — and 
 the only economic explanation of the possibility of such 
 a rent — being to apply their own and their horses' 
 gratuitous labor to produce some more grain for their 
 sustenance. Otherwise this possibility of subsidiary 
 work would be lost, and both man and horse must 
 starve. No wonder that they count their work as 
 nothing. 
 
 The acute character of this competition in the rent- 
 ing of land shows of itself that the chance for renting 
 is slim, and that all the needs cannot be supplied from 
 that source. The average proportion of leased land 
 to the communal allotments is very small, not exceed- 
 ing 17.4 per cent, for the whole of Russia. In the 
 southern half, where the allotments are particularly 
 small and the rent is particularly high, the w^ant is 
 especially felt. 
 
 What, noWj remains for the peasant after the land 
 for sale or for lease has been exhausted? The only 
 thing left for him to do is to leave his home village and 
 to look for other employment for that working power 
 which he cannot utilize within his own neighborhood. 
 And here again the great difference between the south 
 and the north of Russia manifests itself. Men go away 
 from both ; but they go in different numbers, for differ- 
 ent purposes, and with different results. In 1900, 14.2 
 million peasants of both sexes left their villages in 
 search of employment, or 32 per cent, of the whole 
 adult population. This proportion rises to more than 
 50 per cent. — more than half of the whole laboring
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 
 
 453 
 
 population — in the old industrial regions of the north ; 
 while it descends to less than 25 per cent. — one- fourth 
 
 — in the agricultural regions of modern settlement. 
 We do not speak, remember, of emigrants, but of 
 people \\ho merely went away for a few weeks or 
 months, and then returned with their earnings, thus 
 supplying the lack of money in their families which 
 had remained at home. The average amount brought 
 home from their wanderings was about $38 for every 
 laborer who had left his home (there being, on an 
 average, one such member in each family). But the 
 share of the north and the south in this additional 
 earning was different. On the whole, the work of the 
 northern wandering laborer was better paid and better 
 placed. The difference in the employment will be clear 
 from the following table, where two typical provinces 
 
 — one from the northern, the other from the southern 
 half — are compared as to the vocations chosen by the 
 wandering laborers : 
 
 Vocations 
 
 Province of 
 Tver 
 (north) 
 
 Province of 
 
 Voronash 
 
 (south) 
 
 Employed in factories, trades, or personal service. 
 Employed in handicrafts (as carpenters, shoe- 
 makers, smiths, fullers, etc.) 
 
 57.6,'^ 
 
 34-5 
 7-9 
 
 8.3^ 
 16. I 
 
 Employed in agriculture and rural work 
 
 75-8 
 
 
 From this it is seen that the order of frequency of 
 the supplementary vocations of the peasants in the two 
 types of provinces is reversed. While such occupations 
 in the older portions of Russia prevailingly are factory 
 work and the trades, in the younger provinces it is 
 rural work that predominates. This difference brings
 
 454 ' RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 with it a difference in earnings, as factory work is the 
 best paid. Those who are fortunate enough to secure 
 such employment bring home on an average $84, while 
 but $46 is brought back by such as can be employed at 
 rural labor onlyJ 
 
 But it is not so much the smaller pay that makes 
 agricultural labor less profitable away from home, as it 
 is the greater uncertainty of obtaining such work. The 
 supply of wandering farm hands is not regulated by 
 demand. Occasionally the demand may happen to be 
 large, and then the wanderers are made welcome and 
 are liberally paid. But again it may happen that there 
 is no demand; in which case the laborers, who early 
 in the spring may have left places where hands were 
 greatly needed, run the risk of returning in the autumn 
 as beggars. Mere rumors of good wages from prov- 
 inces where crops happened to be good the year before 
 may direct the current next year in increased numbers 
 to the same places, where this time the returns may be 
 zero. A round million of rural laborers from southern 
 Russia every year incur the peril of being ruined by 
 this blind play of chance. 
 
 From everything that has so far been said about 
 the sources of income of the peasant it might be con- 
 cluded that no grain is sold in the village, and that all 
 money comes from outside work and wages. Such a 
 conclusion would not quite correspond to the truth. It 
 is, indeed, a fact that Russian peasants have nothing to 
 
 ' The least profitable, of course, are the home industries, for 
 the same reason that make renting land unprofitable ; namely, that 
 the work is done at home, and that only such leisure time is taken for 
 it as cannot be put to other use ; — and that thus it is not rewarded 
 at its full value.
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 455 
 
 sell from their own farm products, which do not suffice 
 for their own need. Yet it is also true that grain is 
 sold, because the money brought home by the wander- 
 ing hands is not sufficient to cover the necessary ex- 
 penditures for rent and taxes. Great as is the value 
 in use of this part of the peasant's budget, we must 
 consider its value in exchange.^ We must also con- 
 sider the production of grain for sale for the further 
 reason that the peasants are far from being the only 
 producers. There are many private estates — such, 
 for instance, as those belonging to the nobility and to 
 private proprietors of the other classes — that rely en- 
 tirely on selling grain. These are not troubled with an 
 insufficiency of allotments nor with a surplus of human 
 and horse power in need of employment. And yet 
 they, too, are affected by the general crisis, thus bear- 
 ing witness to other causes for the distress than those 
 already described — those due to special conditions of 
 the peasants' rural economy. Let us now inquire into 
 such causes of the crisis as are common to all pro- 
 ducers of grain to members of communes and to private 
 proprietors alike. 
 
 The fact is that the production of grain for export 
 is on the verge of becoming unprofitable in Russia, as 
 it cannot stand foreign competition, first, because the 
 productivity of the soil under the given conditions of 
 tillage is too small, and, secondly, because the prices 
 
 * It must be borne in mind that only a very small part of the 
 crops is sold abroad. In 1890-94 the amount of grain exported was 
 only 15.1 per cent, of the average harvest. Of this amount, wheat 
 constituted 34.3 per cent.; barley, 30; oats, 10. i ; rye — the chief 
 nourishment of the people and numerically predominating over the 
 others — only 3 per cent.
 
 456 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 of grain have fallen too low to cover the expense of 
 production, and particularly the cost of transportation, 
 which in Russia is very badly organized. 
 
 The average harvest returns in Russia are lower 
 than those of other grain-producing countries. The 
 following table shows the figures (in poods from one 
 dcssyatin) : 
 
 Russia 
 
 United States 
 
 Canada 
 
 Germany . . . . 
 Sweden .... 
 
 Wheat 
 
 Rye 
 
 28.2 
 
 32.8 
 
 60.3 
 
 42.0 
 
 62.3 
 
 62.0 
 
 77.0 
 
 56.4 
 
 100.2 
 
 75-9 
 
 Oats 
 
 39-0 
 
 63.1 
 
 97-7 
 73-9 
 83.2 
 
 The price of exported grain (chiefly wheat) is 
 steadily falling, as can be seen from the following 
 figures : 
 
 Grain exported (in thousands of /oo(/.0 . 
 Money earned (in thousands of rubles). 
 Average price per pood (in rubles) . . . . 
 
 18SI 
 
 IS86 
 
 202,709 
 
 242,281 
 1. 19 
 
 278,546 
 
 233-350 
 
 0.84 
 
 617,242 
 
 369,383 
 0.59 
 
 It would take too long to explain why these figures 
 are what they are. and what should be done to change 
 the unfavorable position of Russia in the international 
 grain market. Let us only observe that of the two 
 symptoms of inferiority just mentioned, the second — 
 2. c, the price of grain — is absolutely uncontrollable. 
 The Russian producer cannot control the prices, be- 
 cause he cannot wait. He must sell at any price, there 
 being no facilities for storage, not even for the land- 
 lord, let alone the peasant, who often is obliged to sell
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 457 
 
 at a very low figure in the autumn only to buy again at 
 a higher price in the spring. The former symptom — 
 the low productivity of the soil — of course, can be 
 changed, but only in the long run, and by greatly in- 
 creased governmental activity and private initiative. 
 As a matter of fact, however, governmental activity is 
 headed in the opposite direction — that of protecting 
 industry, not agriculture; and private initiative is 
 checked by the political system for the self-defense of 
 autocracy. 
 
 The productivity of the land must be increased — 
 this is the general cry in Russia. But when it comes to 
 the question of how to do it, opinions differ widely. 
 Some few people think that it is the private proprietors 
 — the nobles — and not the peasants of the communes, 
 that must be relieved first, as it is on their estates that 
 new systems of tillage are tried, and as it is they who 
 produce grain for export and not for their own con- 
 sumption. The peasants v;ill then of their own accord 
 follow the example of the large owners. But even the 
 Russian agrarians admit that the difficulty is wide- 
 spread and is felt particularly by the peasantry. On 
 the other hand, they must admit that, as far as they 
 themselves are concerned, the crisis cannot be relieved 
 by the easy means of borrowing government money at 
 low interest, as they invariably have insisted upon 
 doing in the past. The most stubborn among them are 
 beginning to understand that this method of repairing 
 the "great injustice" of having forced them to liber- 
 ate their peasants, forty years ago, is not at all the 
 right way out of the crisis. Even such writers as sym-
 
 458 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 pathize with the agrarians (Mr. Goorko, for instance) 
 are compelled to acknowledge that cheap state credit 
 has only helped to consummate their ruin. The credit 
 they now desire is for agronomic amelioration alone, 
 subject to a strict control by the state. Another of 
 these writers (Mr. Bekhtayev) points rather to the 
 organization of the trade in grain by the state, by 
 tariffs, elevators, cheaper transportation, trade conven- 
 tions and facilities. 
 
 But all parties are agreed that these are far from 
 being the best methods of dealing with the problem. 
 When, about seven years ago, this question was raised 
 by a private committee of agrarians, it immediately 
 became clear that the crisis was universal, and that no 
 measure would do which failed to take into considera- 
 tion the condition of peasant agriculture. It is the 
 purchasing power of the chief taxpayer that is to be 
 raised — by raising his selling power; his only product 
 is to be increased in quantity, if it is not to be raised in 
 price. But this is not to be achieved without a com- 
 plete overthrow of all his antiquated habits of tilling 
 the land. Can this be accomplished without previously 
 educating him? Can it be accomplished within the 
 limits of his ancient form of owning land by com- 
 munes? Can it be left to his own initiative, or must 
 the state take the lead ? What are the means for pro- 
 moting the peasant's initiative? Is this initiative to 
 be permitted entirely free play, or rather are the inter- 
 ests of the whole to be protected by special legislation 
 against private encroachments? These are a few of 
 the many questions which arise in connection with the 
 idea of a radical change, and which are being eagerly
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 459 
 
 discussed. What is the position of the government 
 in the face of these discussions? 
 
 For a better understanding of this question, we 
 must pass to the consideration of another side of the 
 crisis : the crisis in the industries which are more 
 especially protected by the government, and which now 
 follow agriculture in the general collapse. 
 
 We have seen that the protection of industries 
 proved one of the most important causes of the agri- 
 cultural crisis, since it considerably increased the prices 
 of commodities without creating a corresponding in- 
 crease in the purchasing power of the customers. So 
 long as this purchasing power was thought to be 
 practically unlimited, the Russian government was 
 always on the side of protection, in order to secure for 
 itself a favorable balance and large custom revenues. 
 Of course, the theoretical argument — of "developing 
 the productive forces" and "organizing production 
 upon a national basis" — has never been wanting. As 
 a result, many branches of industry have been fostered 
 which were unable to exist — or to thrive — without 
 artificial help from the state. Claims for the protection 
 of manufactures have been very strongly supported 
 by the influential circles, and protectionist legislation 
 has gone on increasing since time immemorial. It 
 began with the foundation of Russian factories by 
 Peter the Great, and, with the two temporary inter- 
 ruptions of 1819 and 1857 (the "free trade" tariffs 
 having been immediately repealed), it reached the 
 present phase of enforced protection beginning with 
 the "gold customs" of 1876 and culminating in the 
 prohibitive tariff of 1891. The following figures are
 
 460 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 officially given by Mr. Witte as indicating the growth 
 of manufactures (in millions of rubles) :^ 
 
 Industries 
 
 Textiles 
 
 Food products 
 
 Animal products. . . 
 Wooden products. . 
 Paper products. . . . 
 Chemical products. 
 
 Ceramics 
 
 Metallic products . 
 Other industries. . . 
 
 Total 5410 
 
 1877 
 
 [illions 
 
 Millions 
 
 297.7 
 
 464.2 
 
 17.0 
 
 37-9 
 
 67.7 
 
 79.6 
 
 16.8 
 
 2S-7 
 
 12.7 
 
 21.0 
 
 10.5 
 
 21-5 
 
 20.4 
 
 29.0 
 
 8q.3 
 
 112. 6 
 
 8.6 
 
 10.4 
 
 Millions 
 581.6 
 47-9 
 72.6 
 33-3 
 25-5 
 355 
 32.3 
 162.3 
 
 195 
 
 802.0 1,010.0 1,816.0 
 
 1897 
 
 Millions 
 
 946.3 
 95-7 
 
 132.0 
 
 102. 9 
 45-5 
 59.6 
 82.6 
 
 3IO-6 
 4T.0 
 
 Or, to show the average yearly increase : 
 
 1878-87 26.1 
 
 1888-92 41-6 
 
 1893-97 161 . 2 
 
 Thus it is under the administration of Mr. Witte 
 that the development of Russian industry has reached 
 its climax. The mighty leap to the last figure of 161 
 millions — four times as much as the average yearly 
 increase of the preceding decade — could not have 
 been performed by the efforts of the Russian capitalists 
 alone. To achieve that, Mr. Witte had recourse to 
 foreign capital. How much the share of foreign capi- 
 talists in Russian undertakings has increased of late 
 may be seen from the following data, which were 
 compiled by a Russian author (Mr. Ole) in a book 
 destroyed by the Russian censorship : 
 
 YEARLY SUPPLY OF FOREIGN CAPITAL 
 
 Rubles 
 1851-88 1,561,000 
 
 "The figures (in millions of rubles) given by Mr. Witte for 
 single branches of industries are as follows (see his report to the 
 Tsar of 1900) :
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 461 
 
 Rubles 
 1889-94 5,306,000 
 
 1895 21,070,000 
 
 1896 52,490,000 
 
 1897 39,726,000 
 
 1898 97,770,000 
 
 1899 93,391,000 
 
 In forty-four years (1851-94) taken together the 
 supply of foreign capital (91,250,000) was not equal 
 to the influx of each of the last two years (1903-4). 
 
 Some people may have cherished the hope that 
 foreign capital would introduce with it the European 
 regime of competition, thus lowering the prices of 
 commodities for the benefit of the Russian customer, 
 and by and by accustoming the Russian capitalist to be 
 satisfied with smaller profits. But foreign capital was 
 attracted to Russia by the opposite hope of profiting 
 by the existing high rates, and it adapted itself admir- 
 ably to the Russian conditions of production protected 
 by prohibitive customs. The Russian customer, who 
 was already paying a tariff on imported merchandise 
 — nearly three times as much as he had to pay before 
 the last era of protection began (about 13 per cent. 
 ad valorem before 1876, and about 34 per cent, after 
 the tariff of i89i=about 170 millions in specie) — 
 had also to pay all the dividends of the new enterprises. 
 For instance, the cost of cotton manufactures amounted 
 to about 123 million rubles yearly over and above what 
 they would have cost without protection ; that is, an 
 increase of 28.5 per cent. In another branch of manu- 
 facture which particularly attracted foreign capital, 
 the metal industry, the output was intended to cover 
 the direct orders of the government. Here the divi-
 
 462 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 dends were not less than 40 per cent. To support the 
 new enterprises in that branch, government railways 
 were built on a large scale. The population again had 
 to pay — this time in the form of increased taxes. The 
 minister of finance then argued that "one must not be 
 hindered by a temporary strain on the paying power of 
 the population, which would be amply rewarded by the 
 respective accretion of means for the further increase 
 and development of this very power." The phrase 
 may sound well in a handbook of political economy; 
 unfortunately, it was used in a report to the Tsar, and 
 it served to cover the fiasco of the whole system — 
 which had become too evident, even to the naked eye. 
 Just then, at the close of the nineties, the " paying " 
 and the "purchasing" power of the population proved 
 to be so exhausted that the protected industries them- 
 selves began sorely to feel the consequences. The 
 crisis had come; industry had to face (relative) over- 
 production. Even government orders for rails and 
 rolling-stock could not be secured indefinitely. The 
 railway mileage was doubled in ten years (from 
 28,800 versts in 1892 to 53,000 versts in 1902). The 
 expense to the exchequer for building this network 
 amounted to more than one billion (1,005 niillion 
 rubles). The financial result was a corresponding in- 
 crease in the Russian indebtedness and almost yearly 
 deficits in the operation of new railways; the whole 
 loss amounting in twenty years to 600 million rubles — 
 or 30 millions a year — without counting the interest 
 and amortization of the corresponding part of the 
 public debt. The economic result, instead of an in- 
 crease in the " paying power " of the ruined peasantry,
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 463 
 
 was that the raihvays brought to the markets cheaper 
 grain from newly broken fields in the extreme eastern 
 parts of European Russia, and thus served still further 
 to deteriorate the condition of the producer in the 
 central provinces by the additional hardship of home 
 competition. 
 
 Under these conditions, the government found it 
 difificult to support, on the former large scale, metal- 
 lurgic enterprises started under its auspices. The 
 comptroller-general, in his confidential report to the 
 Tsar for the year 1902, stated that, besides facilitating 
 the conditions of loan and discount to meet the crisis, 
 the National Bank had been obliged to advance funds to 
 support the metal industries, though by its statutes it 
 was not permitted to do so. These advances were 41 
 million rubles in 1900, 75 million in 1901, and 100 
 million in 1902. Out of the sums advanced in 1901, 
 9 millions were already considered as lost to the bank, 
 and more losses were feared. The comptroller- 
 general's conclusion was that, "though the crisis was 
 not at all without issue, it was doubtless the result of a 
 too rapid and too artificial growth of industry, which 
 had far surpassed the absorbing power of the interior 
 market." To expand the interior market, and for this 
 purpose to improve the condition of agriculture, was 
 the comptroller's advice to the Tsar. And, indeed, the 
 ministry of finance tried to sermonize its moneyed 
 clientele, advising them to look for petty purchasers in 
 the home market, and to abandon the hope of further 
 aid from the treasury. Big orders were stopped. Of 
 course, the capitalists who had invested their money 
 in the metal industries became utterlv dissatisfied.
 
 464 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 They did not intend to cater to the retail trade, and 
 petty purchasers were few — not because the peasants 
 did not want iron, but because they were unable to pay 
 for it, at least unable to pay two or three times the 
 prices paid in England. Thus, without even attempt- 
 ing to organize production on the new basis of peasant 
 demand, many foreign investors preferred to go out of 
 business and transfer their money elsewhere. The 
 general cry abroad now was : " There are no cus- 
 tomers in Russia but the government." This was the 
 result of the government's attempt to increase the 
 "paying power" of the peasant by means of making 
 him pay more for supporting the industries. 
 
 In countries enjoying a higher degree of industrial 
 development the device would have been to look for 
 foreign markets. But this is not possible for the Rus- 
 sian manufacturers, for the reasons noted above. 
 Russian industry is conditioned by that regime of 
 protection which brought it into existence. With its 
 high cost of production, its still higher profits, and an 
 inferior organization of the whole mechanism of 
 exchange, it cannot bear competition, and thrives only 
 behind " closed doors," No commercial conquests have 
 been possible for it — except some neighboring mar- 
 kets in central Asia, where Russian trade has been at 
 home for two centuries. 
 
 The " foreign market " thus afforded no outlet for 
 Russian industry in times of crisis. In the end the 
 idea of mastering their home market must dawn upon 
 the Russian manufacturers, since protection alone has 
 proved insufficient to secure for them the domestic 
 customer. Up to this moment the interests of agri-
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 465 
 
 culture and industry have been supposed to be antago- 
 nistic. Now that the purchasing- power of the Russian 
 customer has been exhausted, the mutual interdepend- 
 ence of the two has for the first time become clear. 
 The question of expanding the home market by other 
 means than a constant increase of the prices of com- 
 modities forces itself upon our attention. Can and will 
 Russian capitalists solve this question themselves, or 
 must they receive an additional impulse, such as might 
 come from the loosening of the grip of protection ? In 
 1899 Mr. Witte gave this optimistic answer: 
 
 Protectionism — as a means, not as an end in itself — can 
 have only temporary importance, until the aim is reached for 
 which it was intended. The natural death of protectionism will 
 come when a sound national industry has been created and an 
 effective competition has been originated within the realm. The 
 logical consequence of protectionism is its self-annihilation. 
 
 There are, however, some people who doubt 
 whether this optimism of the former minister of finance 
 was well founded. His ovv'n financial policy certainly 
 did not tend to pave the way for the result which 
 he predicted. As a political philosopher he may have 
 successfully foretold the development of competition 
 and the self-annihilation of protectionism; but as 
 minister of finance he did everything in his power to 
 invigorate its decaying vitality — by protecting syndi- 
 cates, paying premiums on exports, etc. ; thus main- 
 taining high prices in spite of overproduction, and 
 eliminating that free play of competition which in his 
 eloquent scheme was to act as a destroying force upon 
 protectionism. It was Mr. Witte's merit, however, to 
 bring the question of protectionism to an acute stage
 
 466 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 by dint of the industrial as well as the agricultural 
 crisis. Protectionism, indeed, must result in "self- 
 annihilation," or enforced annihilation, in a measure at 
 least, if the home market were to be won — in the 
 interests of industry itself. 
 
 The financial policy of Mr. Witte was consistent — 
 not with his eloquent schemes, but with his ministerial 
 policy as protector of the great industries. The Rus- 
 sian Necker — Mr. Bunge — had inaugurated the era 
 of deficits; the Russian Calonne had come to prove 
 that Russia possessed credit — by constantly borrowing 
 and enormously increasing the public debt; and also 
 to prove that the Russian nation had money — by 
 increasing taxation, and by letting the starving popu- 
 lation pay a billion of *' free surplus " into the treasury. 
 
 It now remains to consider the financial crisis in 
 Russia. The agrarian crisis is already there; the 
 industrial crisis, owing to protection, is less acute, but 
 is nevertheless present. The financial crisis, happily, 
 has not yet come, though all its elements are surely at 
 hand. It will be fairer, however, to consider the 
 financial policy of Russia, not from the point of view of 
 its consequences, which may have been disastrous, but 
 first from the point of view of its aims, which were 
 intended to be beneficial. In America it is more fully 
 realized than anywhere else that the currency question, 
 more than any other, may be solved in a way which 
 seems to some people beneficial, while others will find 
 the same solution disastrous. This question has been 
 a vital one to many generations of Russian financiers, 
 and it was the merit of Mr. Witte to solve it by sub- 
 stituting the gold standard for the depreciated paper
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 467 
 
 currency. Thus public confidence was restored and the 
 Russian standard of vakie made permanent. This is 
 certainly a merit. But everything- has its drawbacks; 
 and the negative side of Air. Witte's achievement was 
 its result of throwing us — to use the terms of Presi- 
 dent Walker — from "irredeemable and fluctuating 
 paper currency — that alcohol of commerce" into "the 
 fast-tightening folds of the contracting money supply." 
 Thus one more element of confusion was added to the 
 general — and particularly the agricultural — crisis. 
 
 In olden times Russia had a steadily expanding sil- 
 ver currency. The supply of money was constantly 
 growing, owing to the invariably favorable balance of 
 trade ; and this increase of silver coin w as felt the more 
 since the original supply in former centuries had been 
 insufficient. Thus the purchasing power of silver fell 
 very rapidly. It is now from fifteen to eighteen times 
 less than it was four hundred years ago, and from 
 three to four times less than three hundred years ago. 
 The prices of commodities rose accordingly. But since 
 the time of Peter the Great silver has been only the 
 legal, or nominal, standard. Credit money formed the 
 actual currency, owing to the military expenses of the 
 government, which could not be met without resorting 
 to credit, while no credit abroad existed, and no con- 
 tracting of a public debt was possible at that time. 
 Thus in the period from Peter to Catherine II. copper 
 money made up the currency, and silver disappeared. 
 Then Catherine II. introduced national paper money 
 (the "assignats"), which rapidly depreciated as new 
 issues were resorted to, to meet the expenses of the 
 wars with Turkey and — during the reign of Alex-
 
 468 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 ander I. — with Napoleon. An attempt was made (in 
 1843) by a minister of Nicholas I. (Kankrin) to do 
 away with this inconvertible paper money by redeem- 
 ing it at its (depreciated) market value, three and a 
 half times less than its face value in silver. But even 
 at the price of this partial state- bankruptcy, the gov- 
 ernment did not succeed in restoring the silver cur- 
 rency, as the new state notes (one for each three and a 
 half of the former ones) were kept convertible only 
 until the next (the Crimean) war; whereupon they 
 again became a sort of forced state loan without inter- 
 est and without any guarantee as to their redeemability 
 at their face value. As a result, confidence was again 
 lost, and, owing to unlimited issues, the new bank notes 
 depreciated. 
 
 That such a currency was quite unworthy of 
 a civilized country; that by its fluctuations it greatly 
 hampered trade and commerce — particularly that with 
 foreign countries; that it made the circulation of 
 money an object of speculation, and thus brought Rus- 
 sian finance into dependence on foreign bankers and 
 stock exchanges — all these objections to the paper 
 currency were only too well justified and made its 
 reform most desirable. What was elsewhere said by 
 economists in defense of the principle of paper money 
 — its elasticity, as far as the expansion and contraction 
 of its volume are concerned ; its convenience ; its repre- 
 sentative function as a medium of exchange, if honestly 
 and wisely managed; its capacity for serving as a 
 stepping-stone to a "scientific currency" — all these 
 arguments could hardly be applied to the traditional 
 Russian method of dealing with the paper currency.
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 469 
 
 But certain class interests were closely interwoven 
 with the working of the old paper currency, and these 
 were to suffer from the coming reform. They were 
 the same as those represented by the People's Party in 
 the United States when this party advocated bimetal- 
 lism and the free coinage of silver. 
 
 In Russia, too, if the moneyed classes want an 
 unvarying, theoretically superior standard, the pro- 
 ducing classes want specie, first and foremost; they 
 want money to be present and to be abundant, not to be 
 theoretically reliable. If it is "cheap money," so much 
 the better. Scarcity of money and falling prices on 
 agricultural products — these we have seen to be the 
 chief plagues of the Russian village, and of Russian 
 country districts in general. They want more money 
 — an expanding currency, likely to raise the prices. 
 Coin is good ; but paper is better, if only it may be had 
 in abundance. That is why there has existed a small 
 agrarian party ready to defend the old currency, 
 unsatisfactory as it was from the point of view of 
 theory, and from that of the manufacturers as well. 
 
 But the latter did not wait for a reform of the cur- 
 rency to come to protect their interests. They made 
 the government — just as American industrialists did 
 in 1862 — protect them, particularly by the "gold 
 customs " ( 1876), against the fluctuations of the paper 
 currency. In Russia as in the United States this was 
 the first step toward a gold currency. But the Russian 
 industrialists did not need any further steps, as every 
 facility for foreign trade and capital — which a gold 
 currency was sure to bring with it — threatened them 
 with increased importation and competition.
 
 470 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 The gold duties on imports were also, as we have 
 seen, the signal for an enormous advance in the indus- 
 trial field, which reached its climax with the introduc- 
 tion of the prohibitive tariff of 1891. This latter 
 marked the second step toward the introduction of the 
 gold standard — the more important one, because its 
 direct aim was to store up the gold reserve by secur- 
 ing a favorable balance of trade and a large customs 
 revenue. 
 
 Then came the critical year of 1893 — the year of 
 the silver crisis and of the repeal of the Sherman Act 
 of 1890. The fact that brought about the victory of 
 the monometallists in the United States — namely, the 
 decision of the Indian government to stop the free 
 coinage of silver — also gave the signal for the first 
 Russian measure of the same kind, made public a 
 month later (July 28) by Minister Veeshnegradskee. 
 Free coinage of silver was stopped in Russia by an 
 executive order, which did not attract public attention, 
 just as was the case in America with the surreptitious 
 codifying order of 1870. The remaining steps leading 
 to the introduction of the gold currency were also taken 
 almost without opposition. Russia had no " Green- 
 backers," no " Farmers' Alliances," no " People's 
 Party," to defend the interests of the producers. Some 
 few agrarian publicists, of course, now decided to 
 abandon their advocacy of the paper currency and tried 
 to recommend the "cheap money" in the guise of a 
 silver currency. But they came too late (not until 
 1895), and were too much suspected of " landlordism," 
 to carry public opinion with them ; and moreover, they 
 found the public mind too ignorant on questions of
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 471 
 
 currency to side with them. The professional econo- 
 mists and professors of political economy were mostly 
 on the side of gold, and were not to be deterred by 
 low prices in agriculture, which they — in a collective 
 work published by the ministry of finance — even tried 
 to prove profitable. Thus the gold standard was defi- 
 nitely introduced in 1895. 
 
 While introducing it, the ministry of finance 
 scarcely foresaw the many exertions and sacrifices 
 required to keep the machinery of the new currency in 
 perfect operation. It was not sufficient to hoard up an 
 enormous mass of gold in the treasury. It proved 
 necessary constantly to be on guard lest the country be 
 drained of the much-coveted metal. Keeping up the 
 gold reserve became thenceforth the chief object of 
 financial solicitude; all other aims were made sub- 
 servient to it; and the administration thus became 
 slave to its own reform. 
 
 The task was by no means easy. With a favorable 
 balance of foreign payments a gold reserve is easily 
 kept up; but this condition has never existed in Russia. 
 It is true that our balance of trade, owing to the pro- 
 hibitive duties, is generally in our favor; i. c, the 
 exports exceed the imports. But even this surplus has 
 become noticeably smaller during the last decade — 
 just after the prohibitive tariff of 1891. It seems, 
 indeed, that protection has already done what it could, 
 and that no further increase of duties can diminish the 
 demand for foreign merchandise. Thus, in the five 
 years following the introduction of the new currency 
 the average surplus of exports was no more than $48,- 
 000,000. This could by no means cover the Russian
 
 472 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 expenses abroad. Twice this amount of gold, or about 
 $93,000,000, is wanted merely to pay the interest upon 
 foreign loans. And then the annual expenses of Rus- 
 sian tourists (whose number in the same period, 1895- 
 1900, has increased from 112,000 to 195,000) reach 
 $30,000,000, as a minimum. Some $10,000,000, at 
 least, must be paid to the foreign investors. The 
 expenses of the government abroad (for the Russian 
 marine, for instance) cannot be less than $8,000,000. 
 These items — though certainly attenuated — raise the 
 excess of Russian expenses abroad beyond the profits 
 from foreign imports to the considerable sum of $93,- 
 000,000 a year. To pay this balance out of the gold 
 reserve of the treasury would be impossible without 
 compromising the currency. The only sound means 
 would be to increase the exports. But that would 
 mean — protection for agriculture, which alone does 
 the exporting. Any other remedies would be mere 
 palliatives, or worse: they would be very much like 
 wasting funds to pay interest — temporary stop-gaps 
 inefficient in the long run. 
 
 The government first tried to attract foreign gold 
 by inviting investments; and it was successful, as we 
 have seen; but only for a short time, and only by 
 offering exceptionally good terms and securing high 
 dividends to the investors. That this meant increased 
 taxation has already been pointed out. Increased taxa- 
 tion, however, had its limit. This limit was reached, 
 when any further increase proved impossible. Even if 
 taxation should have proved more efficient than it 
 actually did, it would have been unable to procure gold ; 
 and it was gold that was wanted. The only means
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 473 
 
 available for getting gold was to contract foreign loans, 
 and to sell Russian bonds and securities abroad. The 
 government was obliged to resort to these means, if 
 for no other reason than to clear the balance. But this 
 was moving in a circle, since every new loan, by inflat- 
 ing the public debt and the interest to be paid on it — 
 in gold — increased the balance to be cleared. The 
 Russian public debt has already reached the unheard-of 
 figure of more than three billions, with an interest of 
 more than a hundred and twenty-five million dollars. 
 Our budget in the ten years 1893- 1903 has doubled 
 (from $500,000,000 to $1,000,000,000). Taxation 
 has doubled, too, with the result that, after having 
 eaten up the net profit of the population, it is eating 
 into the very core of its subsistence. The question has 
 naturally arisen : Where is all this going to end? 
 
 Before the writer lie the minutes of a plenary ses- 
 sion of the State Council, December 30, 1902, met to 
 discuss the budget for 1903. The report does not say 
 a word about the skeleton in the closet. Currency, 
 clearing balance, foreign loans, financial crisis, indus- 
 trial crisis, agricultural crisis — not a hint is given of 
 these unpleasant things. It discusses solemnly the 
 necessity of economy in every branch of the adminis- 
 tration. It reminds the chiefs of the central bureaus 
 that they must not increase their demands too rapidly ; 
 that the government, "which has not yet had time to 
 rise to the proper level of the economic w^elfare," is 
 "powerless" to face such public needs as the "re- 
 organization of the conditions of life of the peasant " 
 or the "assistance of the agricultural industry." It 
 even dares to admit that the money s]:)ent for construct-
 
 474 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 ing railways might have been used to better advantage. 
 But there is one thing about which even these prudent 
 state councilors think it useless to keep silence. And 
 this is the plain and simple truth that the "paying 
 power " of the population 
 
 has its limit, which it is impossible to transgress without im- 
 periling the economic welfare of the country, on which nat only 
 the national finances, but also the internal force and the inter- 
 national importance of the state, are founded At the 
 
 present moment direct and indirect taxation has reached the 
 extreme limit of strain. A further burdening of the taxpayers 
 would appear to be, not only an unproductive measure, but even 
 hardly admissible under the existing economic conditions. The 
 aim of a sensible financial policy must be to find means for 
 gradually alleviating the burden of taxation; and, first of all, to 
 reduce the rate of the direct taxes, particularly the redemption 
 tax, with which the poorest and most numerous class of the 
 population is burdened. 
 
 Evidently, these councilors are fully aware that a 
 reform must be commenced at the bottom, not at the 
 top, if it is to be a serious reform. The agricultural 
 crisis is at the bottom of the other crises, and the 
 diminution of the purchasing power of the peasant is 
 at the bottom of the agricultural crisis. They know 
 all that — but they talk palliatives. Is there anybody 
 who can put the question adequately? As a matter of 
 fact, there are as many as you please. Let me quote 
 a writer, Mr. Goorko, not at all a radical — not even a 
 liberal, as liberalism is understood in Russia. The 
 following lines may serve as a summary of what has 
 been said in the preceding : 
 
 We are facing three threatening conditions : first, periodical 
 famines and chronic underfeeding of the whole peasant popula- 
 tion in the central and eastern parts of the agricultural region;
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM ,475 
 
 secondly, manufacturing industries which are threatened with 
 ruin for lack of a market for their products ; thirdly, an annually 
 increasing deficit in covering the international balance, to the 
 amount of the payments due for our securities placed abroad — 
 pa>Tnents which can be covered only by new foreign loans. 
 
 The first symptom can be cured only by increasing the local 
 earnings of the population, which again can be accomplished only 
 by raising the productiveness of agriculture. The second possi- 
 bility can be averted only by increasing the paying power of the 
 population, which again can be achieved only by increasing the 
 profitableness of the rural economy. The third problem can be 
 solved only by increasing the value of our exports, which again 
 is possible only by raising the productiveness of our estates. 
 
 This is entirely true, and we perfectly agree with 
 the ceterum censco of Mr. Goorko; namely, his central 
 idea that the methods of Russian agriculture must be 
 improved, and that without such improvement no last- 
 ing betterment in the condition of Russian finances and 
 commerce is to be expected. The author, like so many 
 others with him, is not deficient in schemes for hun- 
 dreds of measures likely to improve the technic of the 
 tillage of land, the transportation of products, the sale 
 of grain without the middleman, the technical knowl- 
 edge of agronomy, and so on. And yet there is some- 
 thing essentially wrong about their reasoning. For the 
 technical improvements to be applied, there must be a 
 man who would and could apply them. For agriculture 
 to be ameliorated, there must be an agriculturist to 
 enjoy his work of amelioration and to secure the profits 
 of it for himself. For agricultural knowledge to be 
 widely disseminated in the Russian village, the condi- 
 tions for spreading any knowledge must first be 
 created. And thus from the sphere of mere technical 
 theorizings we are at once transferred into the only
 
 476 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 sphere where practical solutions are sought : the sphere 
 of general politics. Here we meet with views and 
 schemes for solving the difficulties which are entirely 
 different from those recommended by Mr. Goorko and 
 his adherents. 
 
 Mr. Goorko advocates what we in Russia should 
 call a conser\'ative view. This view is predominant 
 with our agrarians. Let us now see what is the posi- 
 tion of Russian liberals and democrats on the same 
 question. 
 
 Happily enough, the answer of Russian liberalism 
 is given, not in the form of a private address, a news- 
 paper article, or a special study, but in that of a nearly 
 unanimous declaration by hundreds of local assemblies 
 summoned in 1902 by the government itself to express 
 their opinion on the burning question of the agricul- 
 tural crisis. This was the inspiration of Mr. Witte, 
 whose initiative was then intercepted and appropriated 
 by Mr. Plehve, the late minister of the interior. Mr. 
 Plehve substituted himself for Mr. Witte as president 
 of the central commission w^iich was to summarize the 
 discussions of the local assemblies, and he did every- 
 thing possible to curtail the activity of these assemblies, 
 to threaten them, and thus to spoil their work. Never- 
 theless, the work was done. It is represented in a 
 stately collection of fifty-eight volumes published by 
 the ministry of finance. The assemblies that were 
 authorized to deliberate were not the district Zemstvos ; 
 but they had very much in common with them. The 
 presidents of the Zemstvo assemblies (the marshals of 
 nobility who preside at the Zemstvo meetings ex officio, 
 not by election) were entitled to compose these assem-
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 477 
 
 blies to their own liking ; and many of them used their 
 right to summon, not only all the representatives of 
 their local Zemstvos, but also, in many cases, such ele- 
 ments as are not represented adequately in the Zemstvo 
 assemblies; /. c, the peasants and the "intellectuals." 
 There were about eleven thousand members who thus 
 deliberated in more than four hundred districts of 
 Russia. Thus composed, the "district committees" 
 answered the question concerning the needs of agri- 
 culture in a way which may be characterized by the 
 motto which one member quoted from Montesquieu : 
 " Les pays ne sont pas cultives en raison de leur fer- 
 tilite, mais en raison de leur liberte." They found that, 
 " in order to be economically active and enterprising, 
 the rural population must secure for itself certain 
 rights, which would guarantee its work against en- 
 croachments, and it must also know that it is entitled 
 to defend its rights." Instead of that, the peasant is 
 now powerless against the whims of the local authori- 
 ties; his economic activity is under strict control; his 
 person, his property, and his family are dependent 
 upon the arbitrary decisions of the Mir (the com- 
 munity) ; he may at any time be arrested and flogged ; 
 although, since then, the manifesto of 1904 has abol- 
 ished flogging in Russia. 
 
 Life in the village will find its normal course only when the 
 personality of the peasant shall have been lifted up; when all 
 distinction shall have been abolished between the village inhabi- 
 tants who are subject and those who are not subject to the pay- 
 ment of taxes ; when the equality of all the social orders, so far 
 as their personal rights are concerned (which is a principle pro- 
 claimed by Alexander II. in his reforms) shall have been carried 
 into real life.
 
 478 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Concerning the technical education suggested by 
 the government, the district committees answered that 
 it was to be preceded and made possible by a wide 
 diffusion of general education, which was hampered by 
 the government control of the Zemstvo schools and of 
 the people's reading.^ "^ They added that overtaxation 
 and over-protection must first be reformed before any 
 agricultural improvements would become possible. As 
 a general result, they rejected the government's pro- 
 gram of " technical reforms " as insufficient, and asked 
 for a share in the legislation in matters concerning the 
 villages. Two of the members, who had formulated 
 this last demand in the most explicit w^ay — i. c, as a 
 demand for central political representation — were 
 immediately sent into exile by Mr. Plehve, and some 
 others w^re removed from their (elective) offices. But 
 the general state of mind was now quite clear: the 
 members of the committees were ready to help the 
 government, but only upon certain conditions, and did 
 not wish to pledge their influence in favor of such 
 minute reforms as the government wished to suggest. 
 The formal conflict between the government and the 
 country had begun. 
 
 It was, how^ever, merely a beginning, and the con- 
 sensus of opinion was not then nearly as strong and as 
 uniform as it has since become. The views expressed 
 by the committees were pretty discordant, and side by 
 side with liberal statements, as formulated above, many 
 voices from the agrarians in the committees were alsd' 
 heard; a still larger number of members were uncer- 
 tain and wavering. But the example set by the more 
 
 ^"*See pp. 212. 213, and 199-203.
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFOR]\I 479 
 
 determined proved decisive. Many a member who 
 until then had been clinging to antiquated views and 
 old panaceas here learned to know better; many a 
 trimmer was by the predominant current driven into 
 a more resolute line of action ; many a young man 
 received his first lessons in political education in the 
 sittings of the committees, or here first tried his hand 
 at public work. Thus the enthusiasm for the coming 
 reform has grown enormously owing to the activity of 
 the committees, and the interest in public affairs has 
 been widely spread all over the country. Yet the 
 result of this whole preparatory work might haA-e been 
 lost, had it not been powerfully instigated and sup- 
 ported by the general state of political disaffection, 
 which soon found expression in the increased activity 
 of the revolutionary parties. Let us now study this 
 part of our subject. 
 
 We have already seen that the revolutionarv move- 
 ment of twenty years ago left two leading ideas as an 
 inheritance to its successors. The one was that the aim 
 — I mean the next aim — of the movement should be a 
 direct political struggle with the autocracy. The other 
 was that this struggle had to be conducted in the first 
 instance by workingmen, the proletariat par excellence. 
 However different the shades of socialistic opinion may 
 have been, these two points were beyond dispute. Now, 
 we have seen how the events subsequent to the struggle 
 of 1879-81 only tended to fortify the opinion that 
 autocracy was the first obstacle to be overcome before 
 any serious reform could be inaugurated. The same 
 trend of events actually brought the Russian working- 
 men to the front. The artificial growth of manu-
 
 48o RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 factures and their rapid collapse were just the condi- 
 tions needed for the launching of a labor party. Of 
 course, some workingnien have even before that time, 
 from the very beginning, shared in the revolutionary 
 movement ; but, to a certain degree, when they became 
 revolutionaries they ceased being true representatives 
 of their own class. The socialist propaganda made 
 them '' intellectuals." The necessary conclusion drawn 
 by the socialists from this circumstance was that it was 
 not a " propaganda " among the best and most devel- 
 oped, but rather an " agitation " among the masses, 
 that was wanted. And events soon came to the sup- 
 port of this practical conclusion. 
 
 In June, 1896, St. Petersburg was roused by a 
 startling movement of workingmen, the like of which 
 it had never before seen. The workers in twenty-two 
 cotton factories of the northern capital, numbering 
 more than thirty thousand, organized something like a 
 general strike. There were no visible signs of any 
 preparatory propaganda by the socialists, and no 
 " intellectual " leaders made themselves prominent. 
 All the proclamations and other papers published dur- 
 ing the strike were written by the men themselves, in a 
 plain, half-educated language. To be sure, small cir- 
 cles of workingmen, reading socialist pamphlets under 
 the direction of young students, had always existed. 
 But these were few, and could by no means account for 
 the large spread of the strike. The socialists them- 
 selves vowed that they were taken by surprise, and 
 they bitterly upbraided themselves for not having been 
 better prepared to take advantage of the opportunity. 
 The demands formulated by the strikers were of a
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 481 
 
 Strictly professional — /. e., economic — character: a 
 reduction of their clay's work to twelve hours (one and 
 a half hours for dinner included) — from 7 a. m. to 
 7 p. M. ; wages to be slightly increased and to be paid 
 regularly; the machines to be cleaned during working 
 hours ; etc. The demands were so moderate and sensi- 
 ble that immediately after the strike became known the 
 minister of finance ordered the owners of the manu- 
 factures to remedy the most crying abuses. The 
 methods employed by the strikers were quite peaceful ; 
 no violence was resorted to, and the chief means of 
 protest was simply staying at home. The movement 
 was at once so unlike a "revolutionary outbreak," as 
 the Russian police was accustomed to represent it, and 
 so imposing that it could not fail to produce a deep 
 impression on both the government and the revolution- 
 aries. The former for a few moments was panic- 
 stricken; the latter renewed their efforts and remodeled 
 their theories in accordance with the apparent require- 
 ments of this newly re\'ealed force of organized labor. 
 The socialistic movement of the nineties has often 
 been compared with the movement of the seventies. 
 Its initial stage — the predilection for professional 
 strikes — particularly reminds one of the initial period 
 of the former movement, the so-called "going to the 
 people." Indeed, the new movement might have gone 
 through all the phases of the previous one. It might 
 have had its serene period of na'ive self-assertion, 
 brought about by the inexperience of the younger ele- 
 ments; then another period might have followed — 
 that of embitterment and of growing skill in conspir- 
 acy, ending in a desperate fight of violence by some
 
 482 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 few survivors. We have seen how pacific was the start, 
 and we shall have to witness a further warlike experi- 
 ence. But, in spite of this general similarity, the new 
 movement still has a character all its own. First, it is 
 a movement on a much larger scale than the former. 
 The Russian " masses," up to that time voiceless and 
 silent, appear now for the first time on the political 
 stage and make their first attempt to speak in their own 
 name. Their vanguard — the workingmen in the 
 larger factories — have already made a beginning, and 
 now the people in the villages are trying to imitate their 
 example. Of course, the latter hardly know how to 
 spell their claims and have scarcely begun to organize. 
 But their misery is great, and there is always an 
 abundance of inflammable material in their midst. 
 Thus the new revolutionary movement has gained 
 enormously in strength and is infinitely more danger- 
 ous to the government than it has ever been before. 
 
 We shall later return to the question as to how far 
 the present revolutionary movement is supported by 
 the general disaffection of the masses, but for the 
 present we must draw attention to another feature 
 which gives to the movement its complicated character. 
 This feature is the role which the surviving representa- 
 tives of the former movement have played in the pres- 
 ent one, while impressing their own intellectual stamp 
 upon the new generation of revolutionary beginners. 
 The democratic socialists of the " Group of the Emanci- 
 pation of Labor," who had been the last to appear in 
 the former movement/^ were the first to start a new 
 one. They were the "orthodox Marxists," proud of 
 
 " See p. 425.
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 483 
 
 having hoisted the banner of " pure socialism " repu- 
 diated by the former generation of "popuHsts." Their 
 program — that of a poHtical struggle for the "dicta- 
 torship of the proletaries" — seemed to be the logical 
 consequence of the complete failure of their opponents' 
 scheme for a " social revolution by the peasants." The 
 fact was that the struggle of the workingmen against 
 autocracy was of itself coming to the front; and such 
 a struggle offered the best chance of success to a theory 
 which had always taught that this was the only kind 
 of struggle which led directly to the advent of social- 
 ism, in strict accordance with the teachings of " scien- 
 tific socialism." 
 
 The young generation grown up in Russia in the 
 eighties had, however, its own views, and — what is 
 more — its own temper, which made it impossible for 
 it at once to adopt the whole program of the refugees 
 of 1880. This new generation grew up in the period 
 of political reaction, and it was quite lacking in that 
 political training which generally is gained only in 
 periods of political struggle. There were no bracing 
 elements, no strengthening influences, in its personal 
 experience. Any faith in social action was lost by the 
 men of that generation ; instead, they lived at a period 
 when schemes for individual self-improvement were 
 most popular, and when Tolstoy's ethical anarchism 
 was making numerous converts. Thus, when that dull 
 decade of 1 881 -91 had come to its close, and a new 
 political movement set in, the reformers of the eighties 
 hailed it in a most remarkable spirit. They were quite 
 delighted to find ready at hand a theory which relieved 
 them of the burden of carrying out the reform by their
 
 484 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 own efforts, the general trend of events being made 
 responsible for the final success of that reform. Social 
 revolution was now safely expected to come as an 
 unavoidable result of an organic and spontaneous 
 material evolution ; and people in possession of that 
 "scientific" prognosis looked down with contempt 
 upon their predecessors, who were shortsighted enough 
 to rely upon a weak individual effort. " The material- 
 istic explanation of history" satisfied their taste for 
 facts, for positive data, and justified their disbelief in 
 the "role of personality," in "ideology," and in every 
 sort of "Utopian" conception. Thus the "historical 
 materialism " of Marx became a revelation and a sanc- 
 tion for such of them as now emerged from the passiv- 
 ity of the eighties to the more active disposition of 
 mind of the first half of the nineties. 
 
 The development of Russian capitalism at this very 
 time seemed entirely to harmonize with the theoretic 
 explanations of Marx, and it warranted the final suc- 
 cess of socialism. The strikes of 1896 and 1897 defi- 
 nitely persuaded the young generation of revolutionists 
 that the evolution of socialism would take place all by 
 itself, and that the facts must give direction to the 
 theory of the revolutionary propaganda. 
 
 The consequence was that, in spite of the influence 
 of the elder Marxists, the active and individual — the 
 political — element in the revolution was disregarded, 
 and the chief attention was drawn to the passive and 
 spontaneous — the economic — side of the movement. 
 Strikes of workingmen — their struggle for better 
 wages — were to become the main, if not the only, 
 object of the socialistic propaganda and agitation. The
 
 THE URGENXY OF REFORM 485 
 
 young reformers took particular pains to emphasize the 
 peaceful character of the new movement, as the best 
 proof of its spontaneity and omen of its iinal success. 
 Even the advent of capitalism — so much feared by the 
 "populists" of the former generation — was now 
 hailed as the longed-for symptom of an approaching 
 social catastrophe. The precapitalistic forms of Rus- 
 sia's economic history, such as the village community 
 and the home industries, so much idealized in the 
 schemes of the populists, were now relentlessly criti- 
 cised and repudiated as an obstacle to the socialization 
 of the means of production. The Russian peasant, who 
 in the former scheme was to accomplish the social 
 revolution, was now proclaimed a petty bourgeois in 
 embryo; and the workingman was to be the hero of 
 the coming cataclysm. Every interest in the village 
 was lost, and the factories and workshops became the 
 exclusive field of activity for the young revolutionists 
 of the new generation. For some five or six years the 
 revolutionary youth reveled in their discovery of the 
 close harmony existing between the theory of Marx 
 and the corresponding facts of actual life in Russia. 
 But this stage of the movement did not last long, and 
 the old Marxists were the first to dispel the charm. 
 They sharply censured the youths for not being right, 
 or " orthodox," Marxists ; they proclaimed themselves 
 opposed to what they termed the one-sided "econo- 
 mism " of the new movement; they argued that the 
 movement thus directed was drifting toward " trade- 
 unionism " and away from socialism. Not strikes on 
 professional lines with demands for a shorter workday 
 and better wages, but direct political demands for the
 
 486 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 destruction of autocracy; not local work, but party 
 work on a large scale — such was now the watchword 
 of socialistic democratism. A new literary organ of 
 the "orthodox" Marxists was founded (The Spark), 
 and it carried the day against the inexperienced 
 " economism " of the younger generation. 
 
 It is necessary to add that the actual conditions of 
 life had contributed much to this first victory of a more 
 pronounced revolutionism. According to Russian law, 
 no strike on purely professional lines is possible. The 
 very fact of a strike — independently of its causes, its 
 character, or its demands — constitutes a crime; and 
 the authorities are obliged immediately to intervene — 
 not in order to satisfy the manufacturers or the work- 
 ingmen, but to re-establish " public tranquillity." They 
 generally choose the shortest road to this goal, which is 
 to support the stronger side — not always that of the 
 manufacturers. Thus neither side is satisfied with the 
 too vigorous intervention of the authorities, always 
 violent and too often untimely for one or the other 
 contesting party. This one result is certainly attained : 
 the strike from a professional contest becomes at once 
 a political demonstration — before even the workmen 
 themselves have had time to realize it. Thus they 
 generally begin with a protest against the manu- 
 facturer, but invariably finish by protesting against 
 autocracy; and very often the manufacturer himself, 
 in his inmost heart, feels inclined to join them. 
 
 There is one other point in which orthodox Marx- 
 ism found itself at variance with the generation of the 
 nineties — and where it likewise came out victorious. 
 It was at that very time that the German movement
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 487 
 
 for a "revision " of the Marxist theory became known 
 in Russia. The " revisionist " movement proved very 
 tempting to some deeper thinkers, and a stage of 
 "criticism" of the Marx theory set in. Now^ the 
 positon of "revisionism" and of Bernstein's theories 
 was indeed quite different in Russia from what it was 
 in Germany. There, as we ah-eady have seen, the 
 Social Democracy celebrated parliamentary victories 
 and formed a great political party. " Revisionism," 
 therefore, psychologically corresponded to a certain 
 tendency — so often denounced by the left wing of the 
 party, and yet existing and increasing — to adapt the 
 revolutionary doctrine of J\Iarx to the conditions of a 
 peaceful parliamentary struggle. 
 
 In Russia, on the other hand, there existed no 
 such reasons for moderation. The party was just 
 then in the process of formation; its political role 
 was necessarily revolutionary, not reformistic, and 
 everything that might tend to make it drift from 
 revolution toward reform w^as quite unacceptable: it 
 interfered with the socialism of the party and threat- 
 ened to keep a door open for the most heterogeneous 
 elements. It was then quite natural that, for the sake 
 of self-preservation, the party had to steer clear of 
 "revisionism," whatever might be its theoretical value. 
 The clash between revisionism and orthodoxy has 
 become still more acute owing to the fact that revision- 
 ist tendencies have found their way into legal literature, 
 and thus have enjoyed large circulation, while ortho- 
 doxism has had to defend its position by means of 
 the underground press. Again, the chief literary 
 leaders of legal Marxism — who turned to be " revi-
 
 488 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 sionists" — made themselves suspected of liberalism; 
 and, indeed, some of them soon changed their party 
 for another and a more moderate one. All this pre- 
 vented the large spread of " revisionism " and made 
 the Russian Social Democracy uncompromising and 
 " orthodox." That is why the Russian representatives, 
 together with those of some smaller countries recently 
 converted to socialism, unswervingly give their sup- 
 port to Marxist "orthodoxy" at the international con- 
 gresses of the Social Democratic party. 
 
 Thus far, the activity of the leaders, while directed 
 toward the elimination of the "opportunist" currents 
 of "economism" and "revisionism," was progressing 
 very satisfactorily. This success is easily explained by 
 the fact that their tendency coincided with the ascend- 
 ing line of the whole movement and was powerfully 
 supported by the whole trend of the increasing revolu- 
 tionism of the Russian socialists. Less successful, 
 however, was the attempt of the leading group to 
 assure its victory and to perpetuate its teachings by 
 means of an entire reconstruction of the party organiza- 
 tion on the principle of strict centralization. The 
 antiquated tradition of " federalism," to be sure, had 
 received a serious blow from the Social Democratic 
 doctrine, which postulated international unity of the 
 " proletaries of all countries," in their struggle against 
 the international bourgeoisie. Eut, on the other hand, 
 " federalism " has been powerfully enforced by the fact 
 of there being in existence some strong Social Demo- 
 cratic groups, composed chiefly or entirely of Poles, 
 Jews, Armenians, and other national elements, com- 
 bining their struggle for national independence with
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 489 
 
 the social struggle. An attempt at unification of the 
 whole Social Democracy of Russia was, however, suc- 
 cessfully carried through at the second congress of the 
 Social Democratic party (1903), under the strong pro- 
 test of a dissenting minority, accused of " separatism " 
 and of ■' federalist " tendencies. A series of independ- 
 ent organizations did not wish to submit to the strict 
 control planned by the leading group, since it would 
 mean their dissolution and their descent to the sub- 
 ordinate position of local committees; and so they 
 seceded from the reorganized Social Democratic party. 
 The independent association of the Jewish Bund took 
 the lead in this secession. 
 
 But, besides those separate "nationalistic" organi- 
 zations, there was a large branch of socialists that from 
 the very beginning preferred to go its own way, and 
 which never shared the doctrines of "pure Marxism," 
 whether "revised" or "orthodox." This was the old 
 " People's Will " party, whose surviving members soon 
 made their voices heard. Their resurrection came quite 
 unexpectedly, since they were supposed to have been 
 "wiped out" by the heavy artillery of triumphant 
 "Marxism." But, as the legal (the "economist") 
 Marxism was soon on the wane, they began to dispute 
 with "orthodox" Marxism the honor of reviving the 
 political career of Social Democracy. Soon they found 
 such gaps in the program and the political activity of 
 the predominant party as to give them an opportunity 
 to pursue their own revolutionary work without com- 
 petition, and even to become most dangerous com- 
 petitors of the Social Democrats themselves. The 
 explanation again is that they adopted the same
 
 490 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 policy toward the Social Democrats as the latter 
 had adopted toward the "economists" and the 
 " revisionists ; " namely, they represented increasing 
 revolutionism, while the Social Democrats played the 
 conservatives. 
 
 Indeed, the "orthodox" current, in spite of its 
 repudiation of revisionism and economism, was in its 
 turn handicapped and fettered by the traditional 
 scheme of Marx ; namely, by the theory of the " class 
 struggle." In strict harmony with this theory, their 
 activity was to be confined to organizing the masses for 
 the coming social revolution ; and the *' masses " they 
 were to organize were confined to the comparatively 
 small circle of Russian "proletaries;" /. c, producers 
 who owned none of the means of production. Mean- 
 time, the survivors of the " People's Will " party 
 proved more adaptable to the local conditions of time 
 and place. They were' ready to enter upon immediate 
 revolutionary activity in whatever form it should pre- 
 sent itself at the moment; and they enlisted their 
 followers wherever they found them — workingmen or 
 petty farmers, "proletaries" or "intellectuals." 
 
 Yielding to the pressure of the general trend of 
 opinion, the Social Democrats went one step farther, 
 in that, besides strikes and peaceful demonstrations, 
 they admitted armed demonstrations as a possible form 
 of their active struggle against the government. The 
 Social Revolutionaries (such is the official name of the 
 revived " People's Will " party) felt free to go farther, 
 and to resuscitate the most formidable — the terroristic 
 — method of revolutionary activity. They organized 
 the "fighting branch" of the party, which soon be-
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 491 
 
 came particularly known through a series of pohtical 
 murders, such as the assassination of the ministers 
 Bogolyapov, Sippyagin, Plehve, and others. 
 
 This was, however, not only, nor even the chief, 
 distinction between the old and the new socialism in 
 Russia. As a matter of fact, terrorism was the most 
 important feature so far as revolutionary practice was 
 concerned; but the successors of the "People's Will" 
 party were never satisfied with mere practice without 
 a corresponding theory. They always considered sys- 
 tematic terrorism as a sort of transient and temporary 
 expedient necessitated by the dire conditions of the 
 present struggle; but so far were they from believing 
 that individual action could essentially change the pres- 
 ent state of things, that they even went farther in the 
 opposite direction than did the Social Democrats. They 
 still stuck to their former idea that the zdiolc people, 
 and not workingmen and proletaries alone, had to 
 bring about the socialistic overthrow- i. c, they 
 believed that the real social revolution in Russia must 
 be made by the peasants. Contrary to the new Marxist 
 current, they never forsook that belief in the peasantry 
 as " a tremendous force upon which the realization of 
 the economic reconstruction of society depends in the 
 future." 
 
 But for some time they thought this future to be 
 far off, ^2 and in their new pr6gram, published in 1898, 
 they renounced any "systematic activity among the 
 peasants," on the assumption that they were too ignor- 
 ant and downtrodden. Like their adversaries, they 
 preferred to operate in the more intelligent stratum of 
 
 " See p. 417.
 
 492 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 the workingmen of the cities. But they did not ideal- 
 ize the workingmen as the only chosen people of the 
 socialistic state, and relied upon their more developed 
 vanguard only for the same reason that they relied 
 upon the "intellectuals;" both were to work for the 
 time when the peasants would be able to advocate for 
 themselves the cause of the social revolution. Some 
 two years later, the agrarian riots in southern Russia 
 and the unexpected facility of the propaganda among 
 the peasants made the Social Revolutionaries recon- 
 sider their decision as to the part to be played by the 
 peasants in the general movement. They organized a 
 particular branch of the party — the so-called "Agra- 
 rian League" — which was to begin direct work in the 
 villages. Here again, as well as in their terroristic 
 activity, they met with no competition from the Social 
 Democrats. 
 
 But the determined position of the Social Revolu- 
 tionaries in the villages obliged the Social Democrats 
 likewise to formulate an agrarian program. It is well 
 known that the agrarian question forms the weakest 
 point in the genuine theory of Marx; and such it 
 remained in the Russian reproduction of the theory. 
 But the candid followers of Marx in Russia were not 
 satisfied with a mere reproduction of the German 
 lacuna; and they tried conscientiously to fill up the 
 gap. Their theory is that, since the Russian peasantry 
 still lingers in the precapitalistic age, it must first be 
 brought to capitalism. To this end communal prop- 
 erty must be supplanted by private property, and then 
 the natural process of " proletarization " (^. e., the 
 separation of the producers from their means of pro-
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 493 
 
 duction — the land) would be carried out. In that 
 theory, as we have seen, the part of Russian socialism 
 was to help the Russian peasants to become bourgeois 
 and to dispossess their weaker members. This posi- 
 tion was queer enough — to work for capitalism in 
 order to bring about socialism in the Russian village. 
 The Social Democrats, however, made the position still 
 more awkward by proposing, instead of the general 
 socialistic scheme — the nationalization of land — a 
 specific Russian scheme for giving back to the peasants 
 only such plots of land as had been withheld from them 
 by their landowners forty years ago, at the time of 
 their emancipation. 
 
 Out of the two agrarian programs, that of the 
 Social Revolutionaries is, of course, more acceptable to 
 the Russian peasant, since it tries to engraft new 
 demands on his own ancient craving for land. The 
 attempt of the Social Democrats to organize the " pro- 
 letaries " of the village separately, and to oppose them 
 to the owners of petty landholdings (as bourgeois), is 
 certainly possible only on paper. But, at the same time, 
 the Social Revolutionaries are supporting only a social 
 Utopia, while the Social Democrats are swimming with 
 the current of actual life; the former, by trying to 
 preserve and to impregnate with the socialistic spirit 
 the landed commune ; and the latter, by acknowledging 
 the predorninant tendency toward the destruction of the 
 commune and the coming ascendancy of private prop- 
 erty in the village. 
 
 Thus a desperate struggle and a very acute com- 
 petition exist between the two currents of socialism in 
 Russia. The Social Democrats are aggressive, if only
 
 494 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 because they pretend to possess a universal and inter- 
 national — a cosmopolitan — doctrine. The Social 
 Revolutionaries are holding their own — and are even 
 growing in influence and in number, since they much 
 more fully represent the local aspect of the movement, 
 such as is determined by particular conditions of time 
 and place. To an outside observer it is perhaps much 
 clearer than to the participants in the struggle, that the 
 two currents, so far from being mutually exclusive, 
 rather complement each other. Of course, the more 
 profitable part — that of representing the theoretical, 
 the ideal, side of socialism — falls to the cosmopolitan 
 doctrine, while the local current has to bear all the sins 
 of an inadequate realization of the former in the actual 
 conditions of life in Russia. While the Social Democ- 
 racy is most anxious to preserve *' the clearness of party 
 lines " and the " purity of doctrine," and thus prepare 
 itself for the work of the future, the Social Revolu- 
 tionaries adapt themselves as well as they can to the 
 dirty work of the present. That is why all the revolu- 
 tionary blows wdiich have essentially determined the 
 change in the political situation during the last three 
 or four years have been struck by Social Revolu- 
 tionaries. 
 
 But the Social Democrats meantime violently 
 charged their rivals with acting contrary to the best- 
 established maxims of scientific socialism, and thus 
 making common cause with the bourgeois. They 
 themselves confidently made their preparations for the 
 time when a ''class struggle" by the "proletariat" 
 should become possible. By the very trend of events, 
 however, they were thrown from their preparatory
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 495 
 
 work for the "organization" of a labor party into an 
 active, and a revolutionary, struggle. Their strikes, 
 at first purely economic, soon became political, and 
 their mass demonstrations from peaceful became 
 armed. The psychology ai the revolutionary move- 
 ment has decidedly outgrown the stage marked by 
 "orthodox Marxism ; ".and though the " Social Demo- 
 crats try to keep clear from any suspicion of making 
 common cause with " nationalistic " and " revolution- 
 ary" socialists, they practically work toward the same 
 end of a political, and not a social, revolution. The 
 whole movement is thus much more united in its prac- 
 tical activity than in its theoretical foundations. Thus 
 it is that, in order to appreciate the real strength and 
 political importance of the movement, we must not 
 confine ourselves to a study of party doctrines and of 
 mutual party criticisms. 
 
 These variances between the two parties m-ight have 
 more importance if there were any real chance for an 
 application of programs and schemes drawn up on 
 paper. But, as things now are, the chief requirement 
 of a program is that it correspond to the degree of the 
 revolutionary disposition of the public mind, and that 
 it be plausible enough to make converts. That is why, 
 in spite of the profusion of bitter words and accusa- 
 tions exchanged by the leaders of both parties in the 
 literary organs of their central organizations (the 
 palm, however, beii7g carried off by the Social Demo- 
 crats), we shall find much less exclusiveness and less 
 "clearness of party lines" if from the centers we 
 descend to the rank and file of the revolutionists in the 
 country. Social Democrats and Social Revolution-
 
 496 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 aries very often side with each other; and their 
 negative work certainly is the same. The chief ques- 
 tion is hozi> fuuch work is done ; and only in finding an 
 answer to this can we appreciate how widespread is 
 political disaffection in Russia. 
 
 For the first five years of the movement (1895- 
 1900) a report was presented by the Social Democrats 
 to the international congress in Paris. This report 
 contains the history of the nine large local organiza- 
 tions which united in forming the Russian Social 
 Democratic Labor Party in 1898 (St. Petersburg, 
 Moscow, Ivanovo-Vosnessensk, Keeyev, Yekatereen- 
 oslav, Harkov, Odessa, Nikolayev, and some organiza- 
 tions in the Urals; not to mention smaller ones in 
 eight minor local circles). The story is always the 
 same : A group of " intellectuals," mostly young men 
 from the universities and other higher institutions of 
 learning, conduct a socialistic "propaganda" among 
 local workingmen, and for this purpose organize 
 several private circles for self-culture. The most 
 intelligent among the pupils soon join their teachers in 
 forming a local committee, which starts an " agitation " 
 on a large scale for an " economic " struggle in the 
 factories and workshops. As a result, a more or less 
 successful strike follows. Then the attention of the 
 authorities is drawn to the local group, and after some 
 few^ months of existence the committee is ferreted out 
 by the police and the members are sent to prison. A 
 short interval ensues, after which the committee is 
 re-established. Then a larger group of workingmen is 
 "organized." The local center becomes steadier, and 
 its existence less dependent upon the occasional raids
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 497 
 
 of the police and discoveries of the spies. Thereupon 
 its activity is enlarged. Some kind of manifolding- 
 niachine or a printing-press is acquired, and a local 
 publishing center is established. It begins with reprints 
 of small leaflets, and it sometimes ends with a regular 
 periodical. The " literature " is spread among the 
 workingmen, and thus a larger circle of sympathizers 
 is secured by the central nucleus. This makes possible 
 periodical political demonstrations on a still larger 
 scale. The first and the most regular of these demon- 
 strations is the international Labor Day — the first of 
 May. The ideal aim is a general strike, on political 
 lines. ^^ 
 
 The numerical results of these various kinds of 
 activity by the Social Democrats, for the first five years, 
 1895-1900, are as follows: The strikes numbered 
 about 220 ; the total number of strikers was more than 
 200,000; out of 160 cases of known results, 120 were 
 successful ; three-fourths of the strikes were in the cot- 
 
 " In spite of its being composed of both workingmen and " intel- 
 lectuals," a Social Democratic Committee has not yet lost its 
 prevailingly " intellectual " stamp. " Our party has not yet become a 
 class party of proletaries, in the true sense of the word : . . . . 
 there exists only an organization of Social Democrats, and, at its 
 side, an unorganized mass of proletaries, which from time to time 
 manifests itself in revolutionary outbursts. We feel a certain 
 isolation between the intellectual summit and the proletarian downs ; 
 and, in spite of all the eagerness of the latter to melt into one with 
 the former, they have not yet succeeded. The mass has remained 
 incredulous toward all the appeals of the intellectual Social Demo- 
 crats .... We cannot carry the mass with us. Our generals remain 
 
 without an army Only on the very last occasion the mass 
 
 began to manifest that confidence for which our vanguard looked 
 for so long a time." This quotation is taken from a letter by a 
 workingman published in The Spark, January 7, 1905.
 
 498 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 ton and the metal manufactures; of periodicals (pub- 
 lished in six different places) thirty numbers were 
 issued ;^^ persons arrested, 5,942. As a person 
 arrested generally remains in prison at least six months 
 waiting for a trial — during which time a ''preliminary 
 inquiry" is supposed to be going on — the aggregate 
 time " previously " passed in prison, for the period in 
 question, amounts to seven hundred years of solitary 
 confinement. 
 
 These figures, of course, do not represent the results 
 of the whole socialistic movement over the whole of 
 Russia. They refer only to the activity of the groups 
 united in 1898 under the general name of the Social 
 Democratic Labor party. If we now turn to the other 
 chief branch of Russian socialism — the Social Revolu- 
 tionaries — we can quote new figures, referring chiefly 
 to their editorial activity. At the end of 1901 all local 
 groups of the Social Revolutionaries united in one 
 party organization ; two other large organizations 
 joined the party in 1902; and now it numbers more 
 than forty-nine committees and groups scattered 
 throughout Russia. Their literary organ, Revolution- 
 ary Russia, was started in December, 1900; and the 
 number of copies published has steadily increased. 
 The first issues were of only 1,000 copies; but as more 
 and more were needed, the number of copies printed 
 gradually increased to 2,000, 4,000, 5,000, 7,000, and 
 10,000 in subsequent issues. Besides, some forty- 
 three leaflets were published (1902), amounting to 
 317,000 copies and more than 1,000,000 sheets of 
 
 " One must keep in mind the difficulties and dangers with which 
 printing in underground printing-offices is fraught.
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 499 
 
 printed paper. In the following year (1903) there 
 were distributed 2,000.000 sheets and 395,000 copies. 
 And yet the local committees always complain that the 
 literature forwarded is insufficient, and that the supply 
 lags far behind the demand. The editorial activity of 
 the "Agrarian League" of the party is not included 
 in these reports. As has been mentioned above, it is 
 chiefly in the villages that the party has carried on its 
 work during the two past years (1903-4). 
 
 Besides the two socialistic organizations described, 
 there exist in Russia other national organizations — 
 some of them older, better organized, more widely 
 extended, and more influential in the regions of their 
 activity. 
 
 Two Polish socialistic parties are first to be men- 
 tioned, the difference between them reminding one of 
 that existing between the two Russian parties. The 
 one is purely "Social Democratic" and cosmopolitan; 
 the other, local and, as a result of local conditions, 
 intensely nationalistic. It professes to work for the 
 political independence of Poland. The latter is par- 
 ticularly active and aggressive ; the role of the former 
 up to the present time has been mostly defensive and 
 secondary. Thus their mutual relation and compara- 
 tive importance are just the opposite of what we have 
 seen in the case of the corresponding Russian parties. 
 Since the nationalistic branch of Polish socialism has 
 been predominant, the results of its activity are par- 
 ticularly interesting. These results are published in 
 the report on The Present Revolutionary Movement in 
 Poland, printed in London in 1904, in the name of 
 the party (the "Polish Socialist Party," or P. P. S.).
 
 500 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Below we quote some figures from the report, showing 
 the publishing activity of the party : 
 
 Year 
 
 1895- 
 
 1896. 
 
 1897. 
 
 1898. 
 1899. 
 
 1900. 
 I90I . 
 1902. 
 
 1903. 
 
 Published in 
 Poland 
 
 12,700 
 26,900 
 25,980 
 55.350 
 63,475 
 31,950 
 25,300 
 41,640 
 103,600 
 
 Smuggled 
 in from Abroad 
 
 16,767 
 21,381 
 19,887 
 29,402 
 
 36,397 
 55-560 
 67,750 
 47,660 
 74,260 
 
 Total Number 
 of Copies 
 
 29,467 
 48,467 
 45,212 
 «4,752 
 99,872 
 87,510 
 93,050 
 89,300 
 177,860 
 
 In spite of this steady increase in the number of 
 printed copies, the report admits that the party " falls 
 short of satisfying the awakened demand for revolu- 
 tionary literature, although special attention is directed 
 to this branch of its activity." The report states that 
 regularly " every one of these pamphlets goes from 
 hand to hand until it is completely worn out and illeg- 
 ible." The number of victims of police persecution for 
 the same period, 1895-1903, is given as 717. This 
 figure takes account of those only who were sentenced 
 to hard labor, prison, or exile; slighter punishments 
 and " previous detention " not being included. 
 
 For Russia proper a far more significant movement 
 is that among the Jews. The particularly hard condi- 
 tions of existence created for the Russian Jews during 
 the last twenty-five years by the restrictions and pro- 
 hibitions of the law have prepared the soil for political 
 agitation, and at the same time made necessary a 
 formation of a separate party organization on strictly 
 national lines. Many socialistic groups united for that 
 purpose in September, 1897, and formed "The General
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 501 
 
 Jewish Working-men's Alliance for Russia and 
 Poland" (better known under its shorter title, the 
 ''Bund"). The activity of the ''Bund" among the 
 workingmen and petty craftsmen in western Russia 
 was particularly fraught with consequences. For the 
 first three years alone the " Bund " was able to present 
 the following figures as a result of its agitation : 
 strikes, 312; number of strikers in 156 known cases, 
 27,890; of the 262 cases where the result was known, 
 239 (91 per cent.) successful and 23 (9 per cent.) lost. 
 As a result, the general position of the workingmen in 
 that region has been conspicuously improved : wages 
 have been raised 30 to 100 per cent., and the working- 
 day has been shortened by two or three hours. Of 
 printed papers in Yiddish (the Jewish jargon), 82,000 
 copies were distributed. /\.nd here again we meet with 
 the assertion in the party report that the demand is 
 much larger than tlie supply. The number of readers 
 during the following year increased to two or three 
 times the number in 1897. 
 
 In its next report, for 1901-2, the "Bund" gives 
 the following figures: printed papers (periodicals, 
 leaflets, proclamations), 398.150 copies; strikes, 172; 
 out of 95 whose result was known, 80 won, 3 partly 
 won, and 12 lost; street demonstrations, 30; mani- 
 festations in synagogues and theaters. 14; political 
 strikes, 6; secret meetings, 260, with 36,900 partici- 
 pants. The governor of Wilna, Pahlen, in his con- 
 fidential memoir of October, 1903, stated that "this 
 political movement is undoubtedly a result of the 
 abnormal position of the Jews, legal and economic, 
 which has been created by our legislation. A revision
 
 502 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 of the laws concerning the Jews is absohitely urgent, 
 and every postponement of it is pregnant with most 
 dangerous consequences." 
 
 The same reasoning can on equally good grounds 
 be applied to the position created by the measures of 
 the Russian government dealing with two other nation- 
 alities, inhabiting opposite borderlands of Russia — 
 Finland and the Caucasus. Previous to the famous 
 manifesto of 1899, which violated its constitution, 
 Finland was an unusually law-abiding country. Of 
 course, the local national movement was very strong; 
 but it was not at all inconsistent with feelings of pro- 
 found loyalty such as perhaps never existed in Russia 
 proper. Years of arbitrary rule enforced by the bru- 
 tality of the Russian police were needed to extirpate 
 the last vestige of that loyalty and to rouse that peace- 
 ful population — generally characterized by a phleg- 
 matic, though stubborn, temperament — to the utmost 
 hatred and anger toward everything Russian. I do 
 not know of any more striking or dramatic incident in 
 history than that of a loyal young man, in the role of 
 a modern Harmodius, killing the tyrant, and then in 
 the next moment killing himself, and yet signing him- 
 self as a "loyal subject of his majecty" in a posthumous 
 letter in which he implores the Tsar's mercy for his 
 people and his country. Up to the very last moment 
 these Finnish people forebore turning to the side of the 
 opposition ; up to the very last limit of endurance the 
 opposition remained passive ; up to the very last possi- 
 bility the opposition, when finally turning to active 
 resistance, still tried to remain on the ground of legality 
 and right. And yet they were bound from peaceful
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 503 
 
 to become oppositionary, from a passive opposition to 
 become active, from legal to turn to illegal and violent 
 activity; in short, while beginning with most humble 
 petitions, they were bound to end with conspiracy and 
 murder. If there were any need of proving that auto- 
 cracy breeds revolution, the proof is furnished by 
 Finland. 
 
 In the Caucasus — a country whose inhabitants 
 possess a southern temperament — the same political 
 change took place in a much shorter time, and violence 
 was much more quickly returned with violence. Some 
 few years ago the Armenian revolutionaries on Rus- 
 sian territory were planning schemes for the liberation 
 of their compatriots in Turkey. Now, the situation on 
 the Russian boundaries in the Caucasus does not differ 
 in any respect from that in the worst-governed prov- 
 inces of Turkey. I have seen their leaders, and have 
 heard them use language such as I had heard elsewhere 
 only in Macedonia; and, as in Macedonia, they have on 
 their side the best of conspiracies to back them and to 
 defend them against Russian persecution: the con- 
 spiracy of hatred of the whole population toward the 
 common oppressor. What produced this enormous 
 change in the situation? Again it was Mr. Plehve's 
 policy — his device to take from the Armenians the last 
 refuge of their nationality, their supreme hope in a 
 better future: their national school and the material 
 resources of their national church. No wonder that 
 they bite the foot that tramples on the most delicate 
 flowers of their naticwial life. 
 
 We see that the policy of the government toward 
 the annexed borderlands created new enemies for the
 
 504 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 autocracy, and thus further compHcated the task of its 
 "self-defense," And, at the same time that disaffec- 
 tion was spreading- wide over the Russian confines, it 
 struck deep and deeper roots in the soil of Russia 
 proper, and penetrated to such social strata as had 
 never before been touched by it. The universities and 
 factories are quite honeycombed with political agita- 
 tion. Our 5^outh, year in, year out, makes sacrifice of 
 itself for the cause of the liberation of Russia, with the 
 ardor and the readiness for martyrdom of a religious 
 conviction,^^ No regular work is possible now for the 
 Russian professor or student, as every December the 
 political tide mounts high, and it does not ebb away 
 
 ^^ In order to characterize the disposition of mind of our youth, 
 I translate here a letter of a very young girl student, which may serve 
 to introduce American readers into the moral and mental atmosphere 
 of a Russian street demonstration, and to show why these protests 
 will never cease, in spite of all the barbarous cruelty of armed force, 
 so long as that disposition and the causes which provoke it shall 
 exist. "The demonstration was ordered for December ii [1904. 
 St. Petersburg]. Then a rumor was heard that it had been postponed, 
 owing to some theoretical variances and to the solicitations of the 
 ' minority.' But as early as Saturday morning I knew that the 
 demonstration would take place. And we began to prepare ourselves. 
 I went with a pure, unburdened heart, all joy ; and I was not the only 
 one. We all — all my friends and I — came out expecting death, 
 and we did not hope ever to come back to our homes. We took 
 leave of each other, and we were shining with joy. No clouded face, 
 no word of sorrow. At noon we were at the Nevsky. I was 
 instructed that the banner would be hoisted at the corner of Nevsky 
 and Mihailovskaya, and naturally we tried to keep close to that place. 
 As the hour struck one, we heard shouts : ' Come here, friends ! ' 
 We clustered about the bearers of the banners (they were two), sing- 
 ing the ' Marseillaise.' We moved on down Nevsky, whence the 
 cavalry with drawn swords was already charging against us. In two 
 seconds a part of the demonstrators lay scattered over Nevsky, and 
 the rest were locked in some shop Now I can quietly speak
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFOR^I 505 
 
 before April. In January. 1905. about four hundred 
 professors from all the Russian uni\ ersities and other 
 higher institutions of learning- signed a declaration in 
 which they stated that no educational activity, no study 
 of science, is possible so long as politics has not been 
 granted its proper channel of political representation, 
 and that no independent work in acquiring or imparting 
 knowledge can be done until guaranties of personal 
 rights have been given and educational institutions 
 have been relie^■ed of their role of police organs in the 
 system of self-defense of the autocracy. 
 
 Political disturbances similar to those endemic in 
 the Russian universities have now become a permanent 
 feature of factory life. The workingmen always fra- 
 
 (but not think) of what followed. I can forget everything, all the 
 joys and sorrows of my life, but I shall never forget that, especially 
 the horrible moment when, with my body writhing, I lay down and 
 saw the horse's shoe swing over my head, and saw my friends 
 struck and wounded, and heard their cries and groans. Of our own 
 party, my friend has suffered : she was severely beaten by two 
 policemen, and is still being treated. Other people escaped with 
 trifles: some were pulled by the hair, others had their legs struck, 
 and some their teeth damaged. In all, they say, four were killed, of 
 whom two are girl students. And one more died terror-stricken. 
 .... In the evening we arranged a feast of the Social Democrat 
 party. It was at the hall of the students of technology. There were 
 many speakers, and a resolution was carried ; then we cried : ' Long 
 live the International and the Russian Social Democracy ! ' We sang 
 the ' Marseillaise,' and with flying banners we entered the concert hall, 
 where the other part of the public, after music and song, wished to 
 dance. But we did not allow them to do so. There came to our 
 assistance some students from a meeting held in a neighboring room, 
 and with our whole force we expelled the ' bourgeoisie ' from its 
 legal grounds. The meeting was resumed. We spoke, we sung, we 
 shouted again. Poor Social Revolutionaries ! They tried to say 
 something, but did not succeed ; they proposed a demonstration for 
 the 13th, but it was declined."
 
 5o6 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 ternize with the students and unite with them for com- 
 mon poHtical action against the autocracy. A few 
 years ago May i (Labor Day) and February 4 (the 
 anniversary of the emancipation of the peasants) were 
 chiefly chosen for the demonstrations of the worlving- 
 men, but now the disturbances are Hkely to stop the 
 operation of the factories at any time, and they are 
 gradually becoming better organized, more simultane- 
 ous, and more conscious of their political significance.^® 
 
 ^^ Here is the list of demonstrations of workingmen beginning 
 with the autumn of 1901 and ending with the spring of 1902 (the 
 dates are given according to the old style of reckoning) : Kishinev, 
 September 11 ; St. Petersburg, September 19; Moscow, November 8; 
 Kharkov, November 29 and December 2 ; Ekatherinoslav, December 
 15 and 16; Keeyev, February 2 and 3; Mocow, February 9; 
 Ekatherinoslav, February 17; Rostov upon the Don, February 18; 
 Odessa, February 23 ; St. Petersburg, March 3 ; Krasnoyarsk and 
 Rostov upon the Don, April 18 ; Bakoo, April 21 ; Sormovo, May i ; 
 Saratov, May 5. The following list of strikes for the period from 
 May, 1903, to January, 1904, will complete the picture: May i: 
 a series of demonstrations in western Russia, the Caucasus, Tagan- 
 rog, Youzovka, Mareoopol, Tomsk ; strikes in St. Petersburg, 
 Irkootsk, the government of Tver ; Kostroma, May 5-23 ; St. Peters- 
 burg, May 31-June 5 ; other strikes in May: Nikolayev, the govern- 
 ments of Moscow and Cherneegov ; Oofa ; July : Moscow, Tomsk, 
 Ivanovo-Vosnesensk, Borisoglebsk, Tiflis, and Bakoo (general 
 strike) ; Odessa (partly with the help of the government), Keeyev, 
 Nikolayev, Batoom, Elisavetgrad, and some others ; August : Ekat- 
 herinoslav, Cherneegov, Berdeechev, Kerch, Simpheropol ; September : 
 Tomsk, Bryansk, Keeyev, Moscow, Odessa, Grodno ; October : St. 
 Petersburg, Lodz, Rovno, Rostov upon the Don, Youzovka, Taganrog ; 
 November : Tiflis, Soovalkee, Warsaw, Kamennee Brod, Byalystok ; 
 December: ibidem (general strike), Grondno, Krasnoyarsk, Eerman 
 mines, Parichee, Ekatherinoslav ; January : Minsk, Riga, Berdeechev, 
 Bakoo. Strikes without dates during the same period : Arkhangelsk, 
 Vilna, Veetebsk, the government of Kherson, Neekopol, Warsaw, 
 Shlobin, Mozyr, Bakhmoot, Toolsha, Pogachev in Volhynia, Moosni- 
 kee, Mohilev, Pinsk, Sebastopol, Vyaznikee.
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 507 
 
 These two elements — the students and the work- 
 ingmen — are the chief, but by no means the only, 
 classes disturbed by the tidal wave of the revolution. 
 We have already mentioned the village. Even to such 
 people as have never visited Russian villages it is clear 
 th^t some new element is now found there which tends 
 to make life unpleasant for the former landlords. One 
 of our chief dignitaries recently made the statement 
 that nearly every day complaints are lodged with him 
 by members of the landed gentry. Just wdiat their 
 grievances are is not always easy to determine ; but 
 this indefiniteness in itself is very characteristic. It is 
 not only agrarian crimes and trespasses, but the whole 
 demeanor of the peasants, that makes them uneasy. 
 The peasant has assumed new airs which are as far 
 as possible from the subservience and humility of olden 
 times. Some call it insolence and effrontery; others 
 call it self-consciousness and self-assertion ; but the 
 fact itself of the existence of this new spirit is beyond 
 dispute. How did it invade the village? Different 
 reasons are given in different cases. In one place it is a 
 workingman from the "organized" Labor Party, who, 
 sent by the government into a remote village — his 
 birthplace — acquainted his fellow-citizens with the 
 current topics of general politics. At another place it 
 is a student who scattered among the peasants a few 
 revolutionary leaflets which he brought with him for 
 his holidays — or perhaps his place of exile — in his 
 native country. But more often it is one of numerous 
 vagrants who, returning to his village with a few dol- 
 lars in his pocket and some new ideas in his head, is 
 always welcome, if he brings home some indefinite
 
 5o8 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 rumors about new land to be granted by the state. 
 From whatever source, the spirit of the new time 
 pours into the village through ever}^ chink left open; 
 and the more so because all normal avenues are stopped 
 up. And while entering the village, not by the large 
 channel of general enlightenment, but by clandestine 
 ways of hear-say evidence, the modern spirit only too 
 often assumes a distorted shape in the minds of the 
 peasants and manifests itself by unsystematized out- 
 breaks of violence. Local outbreaks of this kind are 
 traditional in the Russian village. From time to time 
 they will spread over more or less extended regions, 
 like prairie fires, and as quickly die out, leaving only 
 ashes and devastation.^' One of the latest agrarian 
 uprisings of this — almost spontaneous — type oc- 
 curred in May, 1902, in the governments of Poltava 
 and Harkov. Eighty estates of the local gentry were 
 ransacked by the peasants, who did not assail the 
 owners, but "peacefully" took from their barns grain, 
 hay, and potatoes. Their excuse was that they had 
 nothing to eat (there being a local famine), while the 
 landlords had more than ^vas necessary. Afterwards 
 the Cossacks were sent to the villages, where they 
 behaved themselves as if they were in a conquered 
 country : the peasants were scourged and flogged, their 
 wives and daughters were violated, and a contribution 
 of $400,000 was levied by Mr. Plehve on the starving 
 population, without discriminating between the guilty 
 and the innocent, and without previously determining 
 the amount of damage suffered by the landowners. 
 We know that at the same time an "Agrarian 
 
 ^' See p. 359-
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFOR^I 509 
 
 League" was formed by the Social Revolutionaries, 
 with the direct aim of systematizing the agrarian move- 
 ment and of organizing the disaffected elements among 
 the peasants. In July of the same year (1902) the 
 provincial governors recei^'ed frouT the department of 
 police a secret communication, that 
 
 in various parts of Russia there appear some unknown young 
 men, who pass by in railroad trains or carriages, or on horseback 
 along the by-ways, or e^'en walk afoot through the villages ; and 
 all these people throw from the car windows or carriages revolu- 
 tionary leaflets, or distribute them among the peasants passing by. 
 .... Sometimes these publications are surreptitiously thrust into 
 houses or yards ; sometimes they are openly placed in the peas- 
 ants' carts at the time of public fairs. 
 
 Up to this point the government communication may 
 remind us of the methods of propaganda used some 
 forty years ago and disclosed by the political processes 
 of that time. But this is what is new : 
 The leaflets mentioned are willingly read by the peasants, and 
 they pass from one reader to another ; sometimes they are even 
 publicly read before a crowd of peasants. And, after having made 
 themselves acquainted with the contents of that literature, the 
 peasants begin to look for a coming division of the landlords' 
 estates among themselves ; and their relations with the neighbor- 
 ing landlords become more or less strained. 
 
 This epic report of the police evidently does not 
 overstate the success of the agrarian propaganda. 
 And, indeed, in two years the " Agrarian Branch " of 
 the Social Revolutionary party published about a dozen 
 leaflets, in 120.000 copies; and it spread them, to- 
 gether with other publications, in forty-four govern- 
 ments; i. e., nearly over all Russia. The contents of 
 the pamphlets do not quite correspond to the impres- 
 sion which they make upon the peasants — if we are to
 
 5IO RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 believe the government communication. To be sure, 
 the "division of land" remains the starting-point ol 
 this propaganda; and it is certainly the most interest- 
 ing part of it for the peasants. But the Social Revolu- 
 tionaries try to build upon that desire of the peasants 
 a whole system of policy. Their aim is to give to the 
 agrarian movement the same character as has already 
 been assumed by the other currents of the revolutionary 
 movement ; /. e., a political character. They suggest to 
 the peasants that their chief enemy is the Tsar, and 
 that their desire for the " partition of land " cannot be 
 realized without political representation on the prin- 
 ciple of universal suffrage.^ ^ They do not expect the 
 peasants to be able themselves to bring about a social 
 revolution ; and, while organizing their most advanced 
 followers in a series of circles or committees of a 
 " Peasants' Alliance," they seem to confine their role in 
 the general revolutionary movement chiefly to the 
 refusal to pay taxes and to serve in the army. This is 
 very far from the " riots " of a quarter of a century 
 ago; but to change the mind of the peasants is much 
 more difficult than to change the mind of the revolu- 
 tionaries; and if an agrarian movement on a larger 
 scale is to come at present, it is more than probable that 
 the ancient, not the modern, elements, of the agrarian 
 
 "The Tsars Alexander III. and Nicholas II. themselves have 
 contributed very much to dissociate in the minds of the peasants the 
 ancient connotations of " autocracy " and " democratism." Both, 
 in the beginning of their reigns, in speeches to the delegates of the 
 peasants, disclaimed the popular expectations of a coming " general 
 land partition," and advised the peasants to obey the marshals of 
 nobility. A picture representing the Tsar pronouncing these words 
 is officially placarded by the board of every village administration 
 community.
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 511 
 
 program will receive the chief emphasis; so much the 
 more as these — the "Poogachov" — points are also in- 
 cluded in the program of the Social Revolutionaries. 
 
 The university, the factory, and even the village — 
 these are more or less customary and habitual spheres 
 of revolutionary agitation ; and we have already met 
 them at an earlier stage of the revolutionary move- 
 ment. It is, however, of importance to mention that 
 new groups are freshly invaded by the same feeling of 
 disaffection at the present stage of that movement. 
 
 The teachers in the middle and elementary schools 
 have joined in the revolutionary movement. They 
 have organized an " alliance " which is formally affil- 
 iated with the Social Revolutionary party (1903). 
 The students in the colleges and secondary schools soon 
 followed their example. One would be loath to believe 
 that things had gone so far, if there were not first-hand 
 evidence. Let me quote from a confidential letter, 
 addressed by the minister of the interior, the late Mv. 
 Plehve, to the minister of public instruction, Mr. 
 Sanger (May, 1903) : 
 
 Among the papers confiscated on the occasion of the search 
 of the home of a pupil of the seventh class of the St. Petersburg 
 Third Realschule, Avel Rosenoer, a copy has been found of 
 No. 2 of the periodical To the Light for the current year, repro- 
 duced by means of a mimeograph. The periodical is edited by the 
 executive committee of the " St. Petersburg Organization for 
 Middle Schools.". . . . The editorial discusses various forms for 
 giving utterance to a protest against the present obstacles to free 
 thought and free study, and it mentions the existence of the fol- 
 lowing anti-governmental organizations started on a more or less 
 large scale: (i) the Harkov Alliance of Undergraduates; (2) 
 the Keeyev Central Branch of the United Circles and Organiza- 
 tions of the Middle Schools; (3) the Southern Russian Group
 
 512 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 of Undergraduates ; (4) the St. Petersburg Organization of the 
 Middle Schools. Besides these four main organizations, there 
 exist secondary circles and groups in Moscow, Neeshnee, Pskov, 
 Minsk, Irkootsk, Yaroslav, Novgorod, Penza, Orel, Toola, Kos- 
 tromah, Serpoohov, Saratov, Cheeta, Byalostok, Wilna, Warsaw, 
 Simbirsk, Samara, Kalooga, Vittebsk, and Yekaterinburg. They 
 are all in constant correspondence with the St. Petersburg 
 organization, and their final aim is to found an alliance for the 
 whole of Russia. The editorial states that in one of the cities of 
 central Russia the students of the colleges have founded a 
 " fighting branch " for active opposition to the detestable school 
 regime; in the south the circles of undergraduates have included 
 in their program the study of socialism; several provincial 
 organizations have started periodicals : in Orel, The Word of 
 Youth; in Minsk, Forivard; in Neeshnee, The Youth. They 
 now are anxious to start a periodical for the whole of Russia. 
 Often the undergraduates have organized congresses in Perm, 
 Moscow, Rostov, Keeyev, Saratov, and Warsaw, in order to dis- 
 cuss plans for further activity. 
 
 Another sphere of political propaganda formerly 
 left untouched but now opened, is the army. Some 
 organizations, as for instance the " Bund," carry on a 
 systematic propaganda among the soldiers; others do 
 it occasionally; and the result seems already to be 
 important enough to render the government uneasy. 
 The Russian underground press has published series of 
 official " circulars " which state that revolutionary 
 pamphlets are often circulating in the barracks ; and 
 cases of disobedience on political grounds are becom- 
 ing more and more frequent.^ ^ In an official (secret) 
 
 "In August, 1902, General Kooropatkin, then minister of war, 
 addressed the following secret message to the commanders of the 
 military districts : " The attempts of political agitators to spread 
 propaganda in the army, formerly comparatively rare, have in recent 
 time become more prevalent, and are carried on so boldly that it is 
 necessary to give serious attention to them. From the reports of
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 513 
 
 document from February, 1903, the success of the 
 propaganda is admitted as a fact, and its possibiHty is 
 explained by the change in the composition of the army. 
 "In former times," the document states, "the term of 
 service was much longer, the soldiers were recruited 
 almost exclusively from the Russian population, and 
 the officers mostly belonged to the gentry; that is why 
 it was comparatively easy to maintain internal dis- 
 cipline. But now, with the military service made 
 obligatory for all and the term shortened, with the 
 soldiers coming from various ethnic groups and their 
 feeling of personal dignity ever increasing, and with 
 
 military commanders, and from communications of the ministers of 
 justice and of the interior, the following facts appear: (i) In May 
 1 901, proclamations were found in the barracks of the 11 6th Mal- 
 syaroslavl infantry regiment. (2) In the same month two leaflets of 
 mutinous content, entitled Politics and Officers and Abolition of 
 Standing Armies, were sent from abroad to the address of the staff- 
 captain of the 141st Moshaysk infantry regiment. (3) In August all 
 the officers of the twenty-seventh infantry division received from 
 fictitious postmen proclamations ' To the Officers,' sent by the 
 ' Social Democratic group in Vilna.' In these documents the officers 
 were reproached because, in compliance with the orders of their 
 superiors, they played the part of ' executioners of honest laborers,' 
 and they were urged to give up that part. (4) A copy of that same 
 proclamation was then (February, 1902) sent by mail to the officers 
 of the Moscow garrison and to the officers' rifle school. (5) in Janu- 
 ary, 1902, an officer of the ninth Siberian regiment received a letter 
 inviting all officers to resign from military service. ^(6) In the same 
 month a manuscript was circulated among the soldiers of the sixty- 
 fifth Moscow infantry regiment, the sixty-sixth Booteerkee infantry 
 regiment, and the twenty-first White-Russian dragoon regiment ; it 
 was written by hand and lithographed in the regiments' chanceries, 
 and it contained a revolutionary imitation of ' Our Father,' inviting 
 the soldiers to revolt against their superiors. (7) In February and 
 March proclamations were sent to the officers of the St. Petersburg 
 garrison, inviting them to side with the students in their political 
 demonstrations. (8) In April the officers of the Vilna garrison again
 
 514 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 the body of officers of mixed origin, the task of pre- 
 serving order is made much more compHcated." This 
 may explain why the " Cossacks " alone are considered 
 entirely reliable, and are generally used to suppress 
 disturbances, while other sections of the army have 
 more than once demonstrated their aversion to that 
 business, and sometimes have even refused to fire. 
 
 Owing to this enormous increase in political agita- 
 tion during the last ten years, the task of the state 
 police, as well as that of the organs of prosecution for 
 political crimes, has become very burdensome. A large 
 part of Russia is permanently kept in a state of siege in 
 
 received by mail proclamations from the ' Russian Social Democratic 
 Labor Party,' persuading them to join the ' general Russian revolu- 
 tionary movement.' (9) In the same month a large number of copies 
 of a proclamation from the ' Siberian Social Democratic Alliance ' 
 were thrust into the barracks of the Krasnoyarsk garrison, urging 
 the soldiers not to raise arms against their brothers — peasants and 
 workingmen struggling for a just cause. (10) In April and May a 
 proclamation was widely circulated among the soldiers of the thir- 
 teenth infantry division, who were invited to disobey the Tsar, and 
 to throw off the authorities as lawless and unjust ; whereupon 
 attempts at propaganda among the soldiers were disclosed, and many 
 agitators were found to belong to the mariners of Sevastopol. (11) 
 In March, 1902, a well-organized propaganda among the soldiers of 
 the Yekatereenoslav grenadier regiment was discovered. In this 
 regiment the soldiers themselves functioned as propagandists, and 
 at their head was a noble, who had given up his right to a shorter 
 term of service for the express purpose of carrying on the propa- 
 ganda Some soldiers helped him directly ; others knew of the 
 
 propaganda, but did not denounce it. Particular attention must be 
 called to the fact that an officer of the 1326 Simpheropol regiment 
 took part in the agrarian disturbances which recently occurred in the 
 southern provinces of Russia. These instances of propaganda in the 
 army are by far not the only ones ; there exist good reasons for 
 believing that a great many other instances have remained undis- 
 closed "
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 515 
 
 order the more closely to control political movements.-'^ 
 But the ordinary means of political control introduced 
 by the " temporary measures " of twenty years ago 
 have proved insufficient ; and the state police have been 
 obliged to organize, in the provinces, new centers of 
 political observation, directly connected with the cen- 
 tral, perfected system of espionage at St. Petersburg. 
 After the murder of Mr. Sippyagin, new agencies were 
 established in twenty provincial towns, and to many 
 other places special agents were continuously dis- 
 patched. This greatly increased the expense, and the 
 budget of the ministry of the interior for the purpose 
 of secret political observation will give a fairly good 
 idea of how much the oppositionary movement has 
 grown. From 1883 onward the "secret fund" of the 
 ministry was 952,712 rubles a year. Up to 1896 — 
 during the thirteen years of comparative rest of the 
 oppositionary activity — this was more than sufficient. 
 Thus a very large " sinking fund " was formed from 
 the residues. Beginning with 1894, owing to "the 
 increased activity of the anti-governmental societies, 
 and to disturbances among the students, the working- 
 men, and the peasants" (as the official document from 
 which we here quote states it), the yearly expenditure 
 from the "secret fund" increased as shown in table 
 on following page. 
 
 This increased expenditure compelled the ministry 
 to resort to the sinking fund in order to cover the 
 yearly deficits (growing from 82,596 rubles in 1896 
 to 1,197,154 in 1903) ; and, besides this yearly expense, 
 another million (1,143,446), for unnamed purposes, 
 
 ""See the map facing p. 188.
 
 5i6 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 was borrowed from the same source. Thus, all the 
 reserve funds having been si>ent (or embezzled), the 
 ministry was obliged to ask for new credits — just at 
 the time when all the other ministers were cutting down 
 
 
 1894 
 
 1903 
 
 For new agencies 
 
 For the same pur] 
 
 For central boarc 
 
 and separate 
 
 aside from their 
 
 within the empire 
 
 jose abroad 
 
 s (departments of 
 
 corps of gendarn 
 
 ordinary budget . 
 
 police 
 nerie). 
 
 Rubles 
 
 330,000 
 
 64,000 
 
 170,000 
 
 Rubles 
 
 1,424,737 
 178,665 
 
 454,636 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 564,000 
 
 2,058,038 
 
 
 their ordinary expenses in view of the Russo-Japanese 
 war. The "secret fund" was increased frcfm 952,712 
 to 2,135,189 rubles yearly. 
 
 Another — and not a less instructive — criterion of 
 the growth of the oppositionary movement is the in- 
 crease in the number of political criminals. Since, 
 with a few isolated exceptions, there have existed, dur- 
 ing the last twenty years, no regular procedure and no 
 regular courts of justice for political crimes,^^ political 
 criminals in Russia are such as are found guilty by the 
 police, with the obliging connivance of the state pros- 
 ecutors. The result is that the office of public prosecu- 
 tor is generally considered as having nothing to do with 
 the idea of justice; and the position is shirked by every 
 man of honor. Political crime is considered by public 
 opinion to be no crime at all ; and to be branded as a 
 political criminal by the police is a mark of distinction, 
 gradually becoming a quite necessary qualification for 
 everybody who claims to advocate liberal public 
 opinion. 
 
 " See pp. 189-92.
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 
 
 517 
 
 The number of persons yearly receiving this pre- 
 hminary quahfication is growing- at a very rapid rate, 
 as may be judged from the following table: 
 
 
 1894 
 
 189s 
 
 1896 
 
 1897 
 
 1898 1899 
 
 1900 
 
 1901 
 
 1902 
 
 1903 
 
 Foreigners sent away from Russia. 
 
 5 
 21 
 
 34 
 244 
 156 
 
 29 
 
 6 
 42 
 
 66 
 2ig 
 104 
 
 20 
 
 I 
 53 
 
 42 
 218 
 102 
 
 16 
 
 II 
 117 
 
 Ti 
 767 
 148 
 
 92 
 
 2 
 
 47 
 
 IIQ 
 440 
 162 
 
 88 
 
 II 
 
 49 
 
 105 
 308 
 
 108 
 195 
 
 I 
 49 
 
 85 
 618 
 
 57 
 102 
 
 9 
 
 38 
 
 SI 
 486 
 203 
 141 
 
 10 
 
 "5 
 
 77 
 193 
 362 
 217 
 
 31 
 910 
 
 592 
 
 1,268 
 
 332 
 
 84s 
 
 Exiled to remote parts of Euro- 
 pean Russia 
 
 Put under "open surveillance ". . . 
 Punished by imprisonment 
 
 
 Total 
 
 489 
 
 457 
 
 432 
 
 1,214 
 
 858 
 
 776 
 
 912 
 
 928 
 
 974 
 
 3,978 
 
 
 But large as is the number of qualified political 
 criminals, the number of candidates for that honorable 
 distinction is still greater. In Russia there exists no 
 "habeas corpus," and thus candidates are always wel- 
 come to a "preliminary confinement" likely to last 
 many months and to end, not in acquittal — because 
 there is no acquittal where there is no legal procedure 
 — but in exile by the police (as proof that the police 
 cannot be wrong). Below w^e cite the official figures 
 of the number of persons accused of political crime : 
 1894 919 1899 1.884 
 
 1895. 
 1896. 
 
 1897. 
 
 944 
 
 1900 
 
 1,668 
 
 1901 
 
 1,427 
 
 1902 
 
 1,144 
 
 1903 
 
 .1.580 
 ■ 1.784 
 
 • 3.744 
 
 • 5,590 
 
 But we have now sufficient proof as to how acute 
 is the present political situation in Russia. The particu- 
 lar difficulty of this situation is that in proportion as 
 the revolutionary movement grows stronger and more 
 dangerous, the gap between the revolutionaries and the 
 government also widens. The only hope for a peaceful
 
 5i8 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 issue rests with such elements as, either by their social 
 position or by their political views, are intermediate 
 between the rulers and the revolutionaries ; /. e., which 
 are oppositionary without being revolutionary. The 
 political importance of this group depends chiefly upon 
 this intermediate position, and grows in proportion as 
 the role of intermediators is required by the general 
 political situation. The program of the group also 
 depends largely upon the general state of public opinion 
 at a given moment, being more or less advanced accord- 
 ing to the more or less pronounced radicalism of this 
 opinion. It thus reflects public opinion; with public 
 opinion it stands or falls. Accordingly, the possibility 
 of a peaceful outcome for the Russian political unrest 
 depends entirely upon the circumstance whether or not 
 it will be possible for this political group to influence 
 the government without becoming untrue to the public 
 opinion which is the only source of its power. It 
 remains for us to consider what are at the present 
 juncture the aspirations of this group, and how these 
 aspirations are met by the government; and then we 
 shall be able to form an opinion as to whether or not 
 any peaceful issue is possible in the immediate future. 
 The present state of public opinion has had its 
 share of influence upon the Russian liberals — the 
 political group of which we shall now speak. The work 
 begun by them twenty years ago they are now pursu- 
 ing with renewed vigor and much greater determina- 
 tion. They have again their political organ abroad — 
 the Ejnancipation (Osvoboshdaneya) , since 1902 edited 
 by Mr. Struve, formerly in Stuttgart, and now in Paris. 
 This new organ reminds one of the Free Word pub-
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 519 
 
 lished by Mr. Dragonianov twenty years ago, but it 
 keeps in much closer contact with Russian HberaHsm 
 within the empire, and is much more strongly sup- 
 ported by the latter, thus being better entitled to the 
 name of party organ. The Emancipation is backed by 
 an organized group of the " Alliance for the Emancipa- 
 tion," which, like the socialistic parties, has its com- 
 mittees in all imix)rtant cities of Russia. The alliance 
 in its turn is supported by a much larger circle of sym- 
 pathizing adherents, who, if circumstances are pro- 
 pitious, will form an actual political party. 
 
 Such a party, of course, cannot represent Russian 
 liberalism of all shades, because the shades are too vari- 
 ous, and because everybody in Russia is liberal at a 
 moment like the present. But it will form the left wing 
 of Russian liberalism, and its political program will 
 correspond to the name by which many of its members 
 call themselves now : " Democratic Constitutionalists." 
 They are and will remain constitutionalists, because 
 they want the constitution to be a real thing, not a 
 fiction. They are decidedly opposed to any half- 
 measures and governmental tricks such as "Loris 
 Melikov's constitution." They also no longer speak of 
 the re-establishment of the ancient Russian Zcmskce 
 Sohor — the consultative assembly of the Muscovite 
 state. They wish a real political representation such as 
 every civilized country all the world over now pos- 
 sesses ; they want given to the Russian people the right 
 of legislation, of voting the budget, and of control over 
 the administration. Within these limits there still 
 remains much room for important differences of opin- 
 ion, and some of the disagreements are discussed in the
 
 520 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 pages of the above-mentioned periodical. The results 
 of this discussion are to bring different views closer 
 together, and thus to bring about a still greater uni- 
 formity of opinion within the limits of organized 
 liberalism. Thus. c. g., universal suffrage, which for- 
 merly was not generally accepted by the party, now 
 constitutes one of the chief features of its political 
 creed — the feature which gives it the right to call itself 
 democratic. 
 
 If we compare that program with what we know to 
 have been the state of liberal opinion twenty years ago, 
 we at once see that of the five different schemes for 
 political reform which we then enumerated,^- only two 
 are seriously discussed, while the other three, character- 
 izing the extreme right and the extreme left of old-time 
 liberalism, seem to have been entirely abandoned.^^ An 
 attempt is being made to combine these two schemes. 
 The plan for a four-storied representation of the people 
 by the deputies of the provincial Zemstvo assemblies is 
 still clung to by the more moderate liberals for the 
 upper house; and this plan is also the last vestige of 
 the formerly so popular " federalism." But even under 
 this plan the fundamental idea is that the lowest stage 
 of representation — that of the district Zemstvos — is 
 to be founded upon a general vote in the townships. 
 The partisans of that view admit that there must be 
 another — a lower — house of representatives elected 
 
 ^^ See pp. 306 ff. 
 
 ^^This was written before the events of 1904-5. which discredited 
 the government to such an extent as to make the liberals indorse the 
 demand for a " constitutional convention," originally claimed by the 
 socialists. The expectations of the two groups from a freely elected 
 constitutional convention of course remain quite different.
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 521 
 
 by universal suffrage. A draft of a constitution \vori<e(l 
 out on these lines has recently been circulating in Rus- 
 sian political circles, and, as was to be expected, it met 
 with opposition on the part of the more democratic ele- 
 ments of the party. 
 
 The arguments of the adherents of the bicameral 
 system are chiefly two. In the first place, they argue 
 that there must be an upper house to represent the 
 local interests of the provinces, side by side with the 
 representation of the people at large. To this their 
 opponents object that there are no local units in Russia 
 proper corresponding to the American states or the 
 French provinces before the Revolution, and thus far 
 no elements of "federalism," the existing Russian prov- 
 inces being of purely administrative origin. ' Further- 
 more, such provinces — of a historically independent 
 origin — as Poland and the Caucasus ^-^ would not be 
 satisfied with a representation in the senate or upper 
 house, as their chief claim is for more or less extended 
 self-government. 
 
 The other argument advanced in favor of an 
 upper house is that it will represent a higher stage 
 of intelligence — and, therefore, perhaps more liberal- 
 ism. This argument is founded upon a double appre- 
 hension ; namely, that the general vote may be misused 
 either by absolutism, by the pressure of bureaucracy, or 
 by " dem.agogues " from the extreme parties. Indi- 
 rectly, this is an argument against the general vote, and 
 its point is that the people of Russia are not yet ri|)e for 
 universal suffrage. The argument is not new, as it has 
 
 ■* Finland is not mentioned here, as it has its own political 
 representation.
 
 522 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 always been used by reactionaries of all countries 
 against every decisive movement in the line of progress. 
 This was, indeed, the argument of the defenders of 
 American slavery and of Russian serfdom. The 
 answer of the democratic liberals is, that there is no 
 essential difference between the Russian people and 
 many others who are enjoying the privilege of uni- 
 versal suffrage without endangering the social order 
 and with great profit to the social peace; that there 
 never was a people that was " ripe " for a constitution 
 when that constitution was first introduced; and that 
 the establishment of free political institutions is the 
 only way to educate a people for political life. No 
 restrictions of the franchise are possible in Russia 
 without spreading a feeling of great injustice, and thus 
 disseminating the germs of further internal struggle, 
 because there are no marked differences between the 
 various strata of Russian society. On the other hand, 
 there is no ground for apprehension that the first Rus- 
 sian parliament will be a " Parliament of Saints or 
 Levelers," and that it will end in the dictatorship of a 
 new Cromwell. On the contrary, one may hope that 
 the actual practice of general suffrage will do more 
 than anything else to disillusionize the socialists and to 
 free them from one more of those Utopias preserved 
 by their theoricians from the earlier stages of their 
 political education. The mere existence of an upper 
 house will serve to prolong the period of theoretic 
 struggle in politics, as it will always be suspected of 
 defending class interests, and its introduction will 
 undoubtedly be considered as treason to the principle 
 of direct and general representation.
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 523 
 
 Which of the two views will prevail and form a 
 foundation for the coming reconstruction depends 
 chiefly on the general political situation. This situation 
 has changed much since the beginning of the struggle 
 of the liberals with the government, and the longer any 
 concessions are withheld, the more radical becomes the 
 liberal program. We have seen the liberals suspected 
 of "landlordism" and aristocratism by the more ad- 
 vanced public opinion, when they first appeared as 
 a distinct political group in the sixties; and we have 
 seen that this deprived their political program of any 
 moral influence either on the government or on public 
 opinion. In the second period of their struggle, in the 
 seventies, the liberals were much more strongly sup- 
 ported by the public opinion of the educated classes; 
 but the revolutionists remained opposed to them, and 
 they in their turn were ready to help the government 
 against the revolutionists. Since then both groups 
 have learned better than to fight each other while 
 opposing the common enemy. We have seen the 
 socialists and the revolutionists confessing that their 
 failure is to be partly explained by insufficient support 
 from the educated classes.^^ At the same time, the 
 liberals have come to realize that no partial com- 
 promises with the government are capable of guaran- 
 teeing the concessions given, and thus of establishing 
 a permanent state of social peace.2« xhus, the revolu- 
 tionists having become more practical, and the liberals 
 more democratic and more advanced in their demands, 
 a direct agreement between the two groups has become 
 possible. 
 
 ^ See pp. 276 ff. ^ See pp. 293 ff-
 
 524 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 In December, 1904, a very interesting document 
 setting forth this agreement was published in a num- 
 ber of newspapers. It is a " declaration " founded upon 
 the minutes of the conference held at Paris by the 
 representatives of the three oppositionary and five revo- 
 lutionary organizations, announcing their intention of 
 uniting their efforts in combined action. The three 
 oppositionary parties are the Finnish, the Russian, and 
 the Polish Constitutionalists. The revolutionary 
 groups are chiefly the local and the national ones, since 
 the cosmopolitan Social Democrats declined participa- 
 tion in any co-ordinated action with the bourgeois, 
 largely for the reason that they had here a good chance 
 of proving that their rival — the local and national 
 socialistic organizations — are nothing but the bour- 
 geois in disguise. The revolutionary groups present at 
 the Paris conference were the Russian Revolutionary 
 Socialists, the Polish Socialist Party (P. P. S.), the 
 Georgian Revolutionary Socialist and Federalist Party, 
 the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, and — as an 
 only exception — the Lettish Social Democratic Labor 
 Party.^'^ These parties mutually agreed that the 
 political situation in Russia is so serious, and the 
 chances for political reform are so great, that an 
 attempt must be made to find a common ground for, if 
 not "combined," at least "co-ordinated," action. The 
 result of their discussions is formulated in their 
 " declaration," as follows : 
 
 None of the parties represented at the meeting, in uniting for 
 concerted action, thinks for a moment of abandoning any point of 
 its particular program, or of the tactical methods of the struggle, 
 
 " This party, however, accepted the decisions of the conference 
 only ad referendum.
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 525 
 
 which are adapted to the necessities, the forces, and the situation 
 of the social elements, classes, or nationalities whose interests it 
 represents. But, at the same time, all declare that the principles 
 expressed below are recognized by all of them : 
 
 1. The abolition of the autocracy; revocation of all the 
 measures curtailing the constitutional rights of Finland. 
 
 2. The substitution for the autocracy of a democratic regime 
 based on universal suffrage. 
 
 3. The right of every nationality to decide for itself; free- 
 dom of the national development, guaranteed by the law ; sup- 
 pression of all violence on the part of the Russian government, 
 as practiced against the different nationalities. 
 
 In the name of these fundamental principles, the parties 
 represented at the conference will unite their efforts in order to 
 hasten the inevitable fall of absolutism, which is equally incom- 
 patible with the realization of all the ulterior purposes pursued 
 by each of the parties. 
 
 There is no ambiguity in the first paragraph of this 
 statement, which is chiefly negative. The suppression 
 of the autocracy is thus uni\-ersally recognized as a 
 common aim of all political groups, oppositionary as 
 well as revolutionary. We have seen that a long 
 development of political struggle was needed to reach 
 this unanimity. In the same paragraph the exceptional 
 position of Finland is generally recognized. It is inter- 
 esting to note that the real initiative of the Paris con- 
 ference belonged to " a few members of the Finnish 
 opposition," which heretofore had been much averse to 
 making common cause with the Russian revolution- 
 aries. It is likewise interesting to note that these Fin- 
 nish members signed in the name of the '' i'arty of 
 Active Resistance." which name, if I am not mistaken, 
 appears here for the first time, thus testifying to a new- 
 step achieved — or a new group formed — by the Fin-
 
 526 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 nish opposition, which formerly had always adhered to 
 the methods of passive resistance. 
 
 The second paragraph of the declaration is couched 
 in consciously ambiguous terms. "A democratic 
 regime" is understood as a constitutional monarchy by 
 the moderate parties, while a republic is the only regime 
 consistent with the socialistic claims. But as a step 
 toward the realization of their own program they may 
 be more ready to admit, as a matter of fact, a constitu- 
 tional monarchy than to accept, even temporarily, a 
 constitutional formula. Another ambiguity in the 
 second paragraph it has in common with the third. 
 The " regime " is evidently understood by some of the 
 Poles as meaning that of political independence of Rus- 
 sia, while the rights of national freedom recognized in 
 the third paragraph according to the more moderate 
 view, do not go so far as political separation from 
 Russia. But for the great mass of the Polish opposition 
 the idea of the re-establishment of a free Poland is as 
 necessary as is the idea of a direct democracy for the 
 socialists ; and both are ready to make such concessions 
 to actual conditions as they would not admit in their 
 theory or in their formal declarations. 
 
 Still another characteristic feature of the agree- 
 ment is that it does not mention economic reforms. 
 This does not mean, of course, that the Russian liberals 
 are opposed to economic reforms; on the contrary, 
 their party published a declaration (simultaneously 
 with the agreement just quoted) by which " the defense 
 of the interests of the working masses " is proclaimed 
 to form one of the integral parts of their program. 
 The Russian " intellectuals " thus remained true to
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 527 
 
 their tradition. But their formula is at variance with 
 that of the sociaHsts. which is '' the defense of the inter- 
 ests of the proletaries by the proletaries." The " intel- 
 lectuals " of the Osvohoshdaneya may be classified as 
 "social reformers;" and it is well known that social 
 reformers are violently repudiated by the revolutionary 
 socialists of all countries : Germany, France. Italy, 
 England. And, indeed, harmonization is hardly pos- 
 sible between a program that tries to "sharpen" and 
 one that aims to "blunt" the social contradictions. 
 One works for "social peace," while the other aims at 
 " social revolution ; " one is rather humanitarian, while 
 the other is a strictly class doctrine ; one is " opportun- 
 ist" and works through compromise, while the other 
 is uncompromising and works through social struggle. 
 Competition is always strongest among the closest 
 rivals; that is perhaps why no article in the Osvo- 
 hoshdaneya was ever more strongly denounced by 
 the socialists than that on agrarian reform, which not 
 only demanded that " the state shall contribute toward 
 the passing of the land into the possession of the work- 
 ing masses," but even admitted, as one of the possible 
 means, the " compulsory expropriation " of land- 
 owners.^^ 
 
 Now, under these conditions it would evidently l)e 
 hopeless to discuss a common platform for economic 
 and social reform. This is tacitly admitted by the 
 silence on the subject of such reform of the document 
 of the Paris agreement. So long as political reform 
 remains the first and chief reform to be achieved, it is 
 obviously not considered necessary to discuss matters 
 
 ''See Osvobshdancya, No. g (33), and The Spark, No. 54.
 
 528 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 likely to bring about divergences instead of " co- 
 ordinate action." As soon as that political reform shall 
 have been attained, a radical change of party lines will 
 take place. Very likely the question of economic 
 reforms will serve as one of the reasons for such 
 rearrangement. Some of the liberals will become 
 bourgeois or "agrarians;" others will remain "intel- 
 lectuals" and "social reformers;" while others again 
 may join the socialists, among a similar differentiation 
 between the more moderate and the more radical ele- 
 ments will be caused by the conditions of freer political 
 life. But until this political freedom comes, they all — 
 as a matter of fact or as a matter of formal agreement 
 — will make common front against the common enemy; 
 and their unity of action will continue to increase in 
 the future as it has been increasing in the past. 
 
 The " declaration " of the oppositionary and revolu- 
 tionary parties certainly marks the climax of the politi- 
 cal movement in Russia. Its practical result is to 
 isolate the government in its struggle with the Rus- 
 sian opposition. This, indeed, is the most notable feat- 
 ure of the present situation. Let us see what are the 
 recent facts and events which go to prove this assertion. 
 
 The members of the Zemstvos, taken as a whole, 
 are not at all identical with the " Emancipation Party." 
 Yet so powerful is the present current of liberal public 
 opinion that their program, recently formulated in the 
 petition presented to the Tsar, is that of the " Emanci- 
 pation." We have seen that as early as 1902 voices 
 were heard in the local committees advocating the 
 introduction of a constitution. But these voices were 
 indistinct, and such as had a more positive ring
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 529 
 
 were stifled, and their possessors sent into exile. The 
 cry was, however, raised again — this time not by 
 three or four isolated individuals, but by fully a hun- 
 dred; and it was not in the local assemblies legally 
 summoned in the districts, but in a semi-ofificial meet- 
 ing of the members of all the Zemstvos, first invited by 
 the minister Svyatopolk-AIirskee, then forbidden, and 
 finally tolerated to meet at St. Petersburg. 
 
 This was the first meeting in Russian history which 
 represented the Zemstvos as a whole, and which sum- 
 marized the opinion of the Zemstvos, not about local 
 and economic, but about general and political questions. 
 This meeting formulated a demand which was much 
 more positive than that of the few exiled members of 
 1902. In its petition it enumerated all the fundamental 
 rights of the individual and the citizen : the inviolability 
 of the person and of the private home; no sentence 
 without trial, and no diminution of rights except by 
 judgment of an independent court ; liberty of conscience 
 and of belief ; liberty of the press and of speech ; equal 
 rights — civil and political — for all social orders, and, 
 as a consequence, enfranchisement of the peasants; a 
 large measure of local and municipal self-government ; 
 and last, as a general condition and a guaranty for all 
 the preceding rights, "a regular representation in a 
 separate elective body, which must participate in legis- 
 lation, in working out the budget, and in controlling 
 the administration." Of the ninety-eight members 
 present, seventy-one voted for this last clause as a 
 whole, while the minority of twenty-seven was satisfied 
 with its first half; L e., the most conservative asked for
 
 530 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 a "regular representation in a separate elective body, 
 which must participate in legislation ; " and they found 
 this reform "absolutely necessary for the normal 
 development of the state and of society." In the last 
 paragraph of their petition the members of the Zemst- 
 vos requested that the anticipated reform be carried out 
 with the assistance of the " freely elected representa- 
 tives of the people;" i. e., demanded the convocation 
 of the "constitutional assembly." 
 
 This degree of unanimity in the St. Petersburg 
 assembly has surpassed the boldest expectations even 
 of those observers who have closely followed the latest 
 events in the political life of Russia. " The Petition of 
 Rights" of November 19-21, 1904, will remain a 
 beautiful page in our annals; and whatever be its 
 immediate practical consequences, its political impor- 
 tance cannot be overestimated. It was the first political 
 program of the Russian Liberal party, openly pro- 
 claimed in an assembly which had full moral right to 
 represent liberalism throughout the empire. More- 
 over, this petition of the Zemstvo men from all Russia 
 was officially handed to the Tsar, and a deputation of 
 the assembly was received by him. The pacification of 
 Russia depended at that moment on the satisfactory 
 answer of the Tsar to the petition. This answer 
 seemed to have been more or less determined upon in 
 advance; otherwise there would have been no political 
 sense in permitting the assembly to gather in St. 
 Petersburg, and in receiving the petitioners in a formal 
 audience. All Russia was in a state of feverish ex- 
 pectation; and meanwhile all social groups — writers
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 531 
 
 and journalists, professors and men of science, lawyers, 
 engineers, individual Zemstvos, provincial circles of 
 intellectuals, workingmen, students, learned societies, 
 the general public in the street, each in his own way, 
 in demonstrations, banquets, resolutions covered with 
 thousands of signatures, etc., etc. — hastened to indorse 
 the petition of the Zemstvos. No more united and 
 '* co-ordinated " political action has ever been witnessed 
 in the history of the country. To be sure, socialistic 
 publications drew a sharp line between their own 
 demands and those of the liberals, and tried to intro- 
 duce workingmen speakers into all the assemblies of 
 the liberals, proposing to include in their resolutions 
 a more positive demand for a "direct, equal, and 
 secret" general vote, freedom of strikes and a constitu- 
 tional convention, as well as for the immediate cessa- 
 tion of the war. In many cases these demands were 
 agreed to, as practically they did not contradict — and 
 often were even implied in — the demands of the lib- 
 erals themselves. The freedom of discussion and the 
 boldness of speech in these assemblies surpassed every- 
 thing that Russia had ever before seen ; and the same 
 spirit pervaded the press. Conservative newspapers — 
 as Novoya Vraimya — became liberal ; liberal news- 
 papers became radical ; and two new daily papers were 
 started in St. Petersburg to advocate the claims of the 
 more advanced public opinion. Though severely cen- 
 sored, they used a bold, open language, which, with 
 perhaps two exceptions — at the beginning of the era 
 of the "Great Reforms" (1859-61), and in 1881 — 
 was unprecedented in the history of our press. Public 
 manifestations in the streets, though peaceful, were
 
 532 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 treated with relentless cruelty.^^ Policemen and 
 "janitors"^" in groups of four or five fell upon single 
 unarmed students and girls, beat them with their fists, 
 and struck them with drawn swords, until the poor 
 disabled victims lost consciousness. Some of them 
 died ; others were maimed for life. Evidently this was 
 a deliberate and systematized attempt, intended to 
 inspire horror. Instead, it only inspired hatred and a 
 feeling of revenge. 
 
 At the same time the question ot reform was under 
 discussion in the Tsar's palace, Tsarskoya Selo; and 
 in a cabinet session on December 15, under the presi- 
 dency of the Tsar, it received a fatal solution which, 
 instead of ending the conflict, hopelessly enlarged the 
 gulf between the Tsar and his people. Mr. Mooravyov, 
 the minister of justice, who was the first to speak, 
 tried to prove that the Tsar had no right to change the 
 existing political order. Mr. Pobedonostsev attempted 
 to prove the same proposition by arguments from reli- 
 gion. He thought — in his own peculiar language — 
 that Russia "would fall into sin and return to a state 
 of barbarism," if the Tsar should renounce his power; 
 religion and morality would suffer, and the law of God 
 would be violated. It was such arguments as these 
 which for a time decided the fate of Russia. Mr. 
 Svyatopolk-Mirskee tried in vain to prove that the 
 minister of justice talked nonsense; and Mr. Witte 
 grimly concluded : " If it should become known that 
 the emperor is forbidden by law and religion to intro- 
 
 " See p. 504, footnote. The same is true of the demonstrations of 
 December 18-19, 1904, in Moscow, stifled by Mr. Trepov and Grand 
 Duke Sergius. 
 
 •'" See p. 194.
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 533 
 
 duce fundamental reforms of his own will — well, then 
 a part of the population will come to the conclusion 
 that these reforms must be achieved by w'ay of violence. 
 It would be equivalent to an actual appeal to revolu- 
 tion ! " Mr. Witte played the prophet. •'' 
 
 As a result of this discussion, the manifesto of 
 December 26, 1904, was published. It began with the 
 declaration that " when the need for this or that change 
 shall have been proved ripe, then it will be considered 
 necessary to meet it, even though the transformation to 
 which this change may lead should involve the intro- 
 duction of essentially new departures in legislation." 
 The meaning of that solemn declaration was, however, 
 ludicrously contradicted and narrowed by the opposite 
 affirmation some few lines previously: "the undevi- 
 ating maintenance of the immutability of the funda- 
 mental laws must be considered as an established prin- 
 ciple of government." Such innovations as would 
 interfere with that immutability of the fundamental 
 laws were deliberately classified — and in advance — by 
 the manifesto as " tendencies not seldom mistaken, and 
 often influenced by transitory circumstances." These 
 introductory principles were enough to annihilate any 
 further concessions in the manifesto. All the demands 
 of the Zemstvos, except political reform, were men- 
 tioned in the manifesto, but the promised changes were 
 stated in such evasive and ambiguous terms and 
 
 ^' According to other reports, however, Mr. Witte advocated the 
 theory of a " Democratic autocracy ; " i. e., he was of the opinion that 
 concessions to the lower classes — peasants and workinpmen — 
 would save the autocracy from the political demands of the liberals. 
 Both versions may he true, thus characterizing the political role 
 played by Mr. Witte in these days of crisis.
 
 534 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 accompanied with so many "limitations," "possi- 
 bilities," and other restrictions, that the impression 
 produced was just opposite to what had been expected. 
 The immediate measures of the government still 
 further increased the contrast between promises and 
 good intentions, and the dire reality. While the mani- 
 festo promised to reconsider the " temporary " and ex- 
 ceptional regulations taken in its self-defense, as a mat- 
 ter of fact the government found itself obliged to resort 
 to enforced measures of repression, domiciliary 
 searches, arrests, imprisonments, etc. While it was 
 promising to stop arbitrariness and to enforce a regime 
 of " legality," in Nishnee Novgorod a crowd of police- 
 men made a raid on a local club and treated the mem- 
 bers of a party which they found in the clubroom just 
 as they did the political demonstrators in the streets: 
 they struck them with drawn swords — and the feat 
 remained unpunished. The manifesto promised to free 
 the press from "excessive" repression; and there was 
 a shower of repressive measures against the press : in 
 three weeks of December there were doled out seven 
 warnings, two prohibitions of retail sale, one "severe 
 reproof," and two periodicals were stopped for three 
 months. The manifesto answered, and tried to com- 
 ply with, a political demand by the men of the Zemst- 
 vos ; and at the same time an order was issued that no 
 political demands should be permitted to be discussed 
 in the Zemstvos. The Tsar promised to make more 
 effective his promises of religious freedom given in an 
 earlier manifesto of 1903; and at the same time the 
 Holy Synod, led by Mr. Pobedonostsev, made public 
 an address to the clergy which sounded very much like
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 535 
 
 a disavowal of the Tsar and invited the priests to pray 
 God to give the Tsar more power and wisdom. 
 
 In short, it was not pacification, but increasing irri- 
 tation, that ensued from the publication of the mani- 
 festo. Its only positive result was to state that there 
 were good reasons for the complaints and demands of 
 public opinion, and at the same time to show that con- 
 cessions formerly had been withheld by the govern- 
 ment, not in consequence of any systematic plan of wise 
 statesmanship, but simply because there was no urgency 
 in the demand for reform. Evidently, the onus pro- 
 handi now rested upon public opinion. Public opinion 
 had to show that the need for this or that change was 
 " ripe," in order that the government should " consider 
 it necessary to meet it." Instead of diminishing, the 
 tension thus further increased. 
 
 An outbreak must come. It was openly spoken of 
 in private and in public, with apprehension by some, 
 anticipated by many, foretold by all. Quotations from 
 the time of the great French Revolution were on e\-ery- 
 body's lips. Prince Troubetskoy, the Moscow marshal 
 of nobility, informed the Tsar, in a classical expression, 
 that what he saw in Moscow was "no more a revolt, it 
 was a revolution" ("ce n'etait plus une emeute, mais 
 une revolution") ; and the grand duke Vladeemir, in 
 an interview with an American journalist, quoted 
 Napoleon — I guess it was another classical phrase: 
 "II faut mitrailler cette canaille." 
 
 Now, as it often happens, the apprehension has 
 helped to conjure up the danger apprehended. On 
 January 22, 1905, the St. Petersburg authorities, nerv- 
 ous as they were, repeated on a larger scale, in the
 
 536 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 clearness of a sunny day, what Admiral Roshdestven- 
 skee did in the darkness of night to the Hull fishermen. 
 They fired on an unarmed crowd of workingmen who 
 tried to see the Tsar in his Winter Palace in order per- 
 sonally to present a petition asking for the amelioration 
 of their lot. To complete the parallel, the authorities 
 attempted to justify their fear by semiofficial allega- 
 tions — laid at the door of the grand duke Sergius by 
 the European and American press — that the St. 
 Petersburg disturbances were brought about by Eng- 
 lish and Japanese money. 
 
 The idea of presenting a petition to the Tsar was 
 anything but revolutionary. It was rather traditional ; 
 and though there have been in our history instances of 
 meeting the demands of the people as they were met 
 on January 22 (the Tsar Alexis, for example, in the 
 seventeenth century made his soldiers slaughter the 
 crowd that came to his palace in Kolomenskoya), there 
 have also been instances of a different reception. A 
 quarter of a century ago (1878) a deputation of work- 
 ingmen was quietly received in the Anichkov Palace 
 by the then heir-apparent (Alexander III.). This 
 time the petitioners had even better reason to believe 
 that the Tsar w^ould listen to them, as the initiative 
 belonged to the " Society of St. Petersburg Working- 
 men," organized a year ago by the government itself, 
 in order to form a government party among the work- 
 ingmen and oppose it to the revolutionary organizations 
 of the socialists. Father George Gopon — the first hero 
 of the Russian revolution — w^as the president of this 
 society, started under the benediction of the same arch- 
 bishop of St. Petersburg, Antonius, who excommuni-
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 537 
 
 cated him on the " red Sunday." And the whole aspect 
 of the procession, with the "ikons" and crosses, with the 
 portrait of the Tsar home by a priest in full vestments, 
 had nothing in common with the red banners and the 
 " Marseillaise " of the socialistic demonstrations. 
 
 Yet the crowd of January 22 was doubtless revolu- 
 tionary. Such was the general tension that in less than 
 a week of preparation the movement from purely trade- 
 unionistic had really become political.- The police 
 watched the developments; but, instead of preventing 
 the movement, they chose to give the plain people a 
 bloody lesson — /// anima vUi — just as they had given 
 it to the students of St. Petersburg and Moscow on 
 December 11 and 18-19. 
 
 The trade-unionist origin of the movement is closely 
 connected with the evolution of the " Society of St. 
 Petersburg Workingmen," protected by the police. At 
 a certain juncture the police became aware that the 
 workingmen of the society took too seriously the 
 promises of the government. The society was widely 
 extended, and had eleven branches in St. Petersburg; 
 it felt itself strong by its own power, and became 
 aggressive in its dealings with the employers. Then 
 the police withdrew their protection from the " inde- 
 pendent " workingmen, and the manufacturers, having 
 met in December, decided to dismiss the " union men " 
 from their factories. This served as a signal, and the 
 first demands — purely unionistic — were formulated 
 by the society as early as January 15. But the very 
 next day Social Democratic speakers appeared at the 
 workingmen's meetings, and the movement very soon 
 reached its second stage, in which, the professional
 
 538 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 demands of the union was exchanged for the minimum 
 program of the Social Democracy. The third stage 
 immediately followed, in which the socialistic demands 
 were supplemented by the political demands which 
 were just then being put forth by all classes of society, 
 and were willingly indorsed by Father Gopon — "the 
 Russian Lassalle." In a few days all industrial St. 
 Petersburg was on a strike. In a few days more a 
 political strike had spread to every part of Russia, and 
 became particularly acute in the Polish provinces and 
 in the Caucasus. There were many people in Russia 
 during these days who seriously believed that a civil 
 war had begun. 
 
 But the fear, as well as the hope, proved exagger- 
 ated. It was, indeed, the greatest political outbreak 
 Russia had ever seen. Hundreds of victims fell dead, 
 and thousands were wounded. The movement was, 
 however, stifled in blood. Comparative and temporary 
 quiet had been re-established. But it was evident to 
 everybody that for the Russian government it was a 
 Pyrrhus victory. Its moral authority had been 
 drowned in the blood of the wretched victims of Janu- 
 ary 22. Educated Russian society, in its public gather- 
 ings and assemblies, by silently arising paid homage to 
 the memory of its martyrs, as it had done in honor of 
 Mr. Sazonov, the "executioner" of Mr. Plehve. Far 
 from having ceased, the struggle is sure to become 
 more virulent. Nothing short of speedy concessions — 
 much more extensive and much more deliberate than 
 those of the manifesto of December 26 — is likely to 
 prevent further disasters. Facing that urgent need, 
 what is the position of the government?
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 539 
 
 Unhappily, it is as uncertain and vacillating as ever. 
 Possessing no program of their own, the authorities are 
 trailing in the rear of public opinion ; and when they 
 finally decide to grant some unimportant concession, it 
 is always too late, and the public demands are far 
 ahead. 
 
 And, indeed, how can they have any program for 
 important reforms, as long as they are handicapped by 
 their theory of national immutability? We know how 
 inefficient and rudimentar); that theory of "official 
 nationalism " was at its first appeararkce. Some seventy 
 years ago it was derived from Slavophilism by depriv- 
 ing the latter of any deeper sense and any liberal inter- 
 pretation. The present epigoni of "official national- 
 ism " do not even keep up to the level of this simplified 
 and distorted nationalistic theory. The theory of 
 "official nationalism" had to justify the system of 
 "self-defense" of the autocracy w^hich had been 
 deliberately applied since that time.^^ But then the 
 policy of "self-defense" itself became a tradition, and 
 its theoretical justification somehow seemed no more 
 necessary. It was now an axiom, and its wisdom was 
 admitted, not upon arguments discussed, but upon some 
 precedents quoted. An " example " set by a " prede- 
 cessor " was always at hand to take the place of any 
 sociological, political, or even strictly practical reason. 
 The only semblance of theoretical argumentation was 
 that displayed by Mr. Pobedonostse^^•'•^ and we have 
 seen that that was merely negative. The mere holding 
 in check and destruction of everything new and fresh, 
 the mere " freezing out " of everything that was alive 
 
 '•'' See p p. 1 80-82. '^ See pp. 61, 62.
 
 540 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 — that for the last forty years has been the only doc- 
 trine of the state. It may fairly be called "govern- 
 ment nihilism." The supreme stolidity of such a con- 
 ception was equaled only by its serene self-reliance. 
 The " fatherly "' power of the state stubbornly persisted 
 in treating its "subjects" as children or minors. It 
 claimed to be alone in the possession of science, of 
 statesmanship, and of a superior wisdom inaccessible 
 to the " limited understanding of the subjects." 
 
 Naturally enough, when it met with certain 
 demands on the part of public opinion, it did not think 
 of treating them seriously. Instead, it alternately tried 
 ineffective persecution and unsatisfactory concessions. 
 The only possible peaceful solution — to rule zvith pub- 
 lic opinion, and not against it — was never tried. 
 Accordingly, there was neither system nor sincerity in 
 the concessions, because only such were granted as 
 could be wrung by force from the government, and 
 then only to those who could force them, and not until 
 they could. As soon as there was nobody there to 
 watch them, they were gradually withdrawn. Such is 
 the whole story of the "great reforms" granted by 
 Alexander II. Such is also the story of our factory 
 legislation. The laws of 1882-86, 1897, and 1903 
 were all passed after large strikes and disturbances had 
 occurred, and then explained away by subsequent 
 "instructions" when the difficulty was over. During 
 the last few years, when public dissatisfaction became 
 particularly acute, a systematic policy of falsifying 
 public opinion was resorted to. There were mass meet- 
 ings to congratulate the government and to thank it for 
 the paternal care it bestowed on its " subjects " — such,
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 541 
 
 for instance, as that of March 4, 1902, organized by the 
 Moscow poHce for Grand Duke Sergius. There were 
 "trade unions" started by the gendarmes and spies, 
 protected by the poHce, and winning a strike here and 
 there ; while regular strikes remained forbidden by law 
 and were severely punished. There were deputations 
 of workingmen to the Tsar, organized by the police and 
 repudiated by their supposed constituents. There were, 
 side by side with these "independent" workingmen, 
 some "free-acting" students, organized and protected 
 by the authorities. There w^ere even some attempts to 
 organize a government party in the Zemstvos. Gov- 
 ernment protection w^as given to certain " Russian " 
 societies and assemblies formed in various cities, com- 
 posed of government officials and people dependent on 
 government favors, to make a show of nationalism and 
 jingoistic patriotism, to speak in the name of Russian 
 educated society, and so to represent Russian public 
 opinion. There is in Russia a special name to designate 
 all these governmental attempts to falsify public opin- 
 ion. They are called "the work of Mr. Zoobatov" — 
 Zoobatovcheena — from the name of an ingenious 
 detective who inaugurated the system upon the advice 
 of a renegade from the revolutionary People's Will 
 Party, Mr. Leo Tikhomeerov. 
 
 But all these and like attempts proved miserable 
 failures. Instead of helping the government out of its 
 difificulties, they only increased its embarrassments. 
 This was particularly the case with the sham " trade 
 unions," which awakened class consciousness among 
 such workingmen as the socialists had not yet been able 
 to reach with their propaganda, and thus served to pro-
 
 542 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 mote the cause of the latter. Far from fooHng any- 
 body, the government was only fooling itself. 
 
 But there was another danger for the government 
 beside that of being lulled into the illusion of making 
 internal peace, while actually it was breeding increased 
 dissatisfaction. A much greater danger inherent in 
 that policy of deceit arose from the fact that all faith in 
 the sincerity of the government was gradually disappear- 
 ing; so that when the time came for making real con- 
 cessions, nobody could rely upon the sincerity of the 
 promises. The imperial manifestoes, like those of 
 March ii, 1903, and December 25, 1904, only con- 
 tributed to this general skepticism. As a result, now 
 even the moderate elements of public opinion are ready 
 to unite with the more radical in their demand that 
 the work of the coming reforms shall be done — not 
 by the government boards ; not even by such institu- 
 tions as the Council of Ministers, which has always 
 been a weapon in the hands of the reactionaries ; not by 
 the Council of State, which is a body of officials mostly 
 relegated there from the higher offices on account of 
 senility, incapacity, or a too reactionary disposition^'* — 
 but by the freely elected representatives of the people, 
 in a special constitutional convention. This is also the 
 only way of bringing new men into politics. The pres- 
 ent composition of our official class is exceedingly 
 unsatisfactory, owing to that system of eliminating the 
 talented and the independent, and of promoting the 
 
 " The former scheme is now used by the government ; the latter 
 was recently proposed by the marshals of nobility, who, however, 
 wished the Council of State to be completed by representatives of the 
 existing self-governing bodies. Both schemes are unable to satisfy 
 public opinion.
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 543 
 
 obsequious and the "trimmers," which is just the 
 reverse of "natural selection/' and results in breeding 
 incapacity and dishonesty as the most fitting qualities 
 for the civil service. 
 
 The necessity of a radical change in the methods 
 of administration cannot but be painfully felt by the 
 government itself. After the ministry of deceit and 
 violence of Mr. Plehve followed the ministry of 
 " benevolent autocracy " of Prince Svyatopolk-Mirskee. 
 The program of the latter, however, proved even more 
 impossible than the former. The saddest thing is that 
 the government does not seem to have learned by 
 experience, and is now again going to try deceit and 
 violence. The scheme of summoning a Zemskcc Sobov 
 will certainly be understood as a further piece of deceit 
 by the irritated society, unless it be done on the lines 
 demanded by all. But, then, there is no use of calling 
 the future assembly a Zemskcc Sobor^^ — a term gener- 
 
 ^ It was generally expected that on March 4, 1905, the anniver- 
 sary of the liberation of the peasants, a promise to summon the 
 Zemskee Sobor would be made public. On the morning of this com- 
 memoration day, however, instead of the expected promise appeared 
 a manifesto of another sort, couched in terms implying political 
 notions generally known as those of M. Pobedonostsev. In this 
 manifesto the " ill-intentioned leaders of the seditious movement " 
 were severely censured for their " audacious assaults upon the 
 foundations of the Russian state — foundations sanctioned by the 
 Orthodox church and by law." Further, these leaders were charged 
 with " intending to destroy the existing political order and of sub- 
 stituting a new rule uncongenial to our country." " All Russians who 
 held sacred the obligations of our national antiquity " (a class of 
 whom there are extremely few) were invited to unite in defense of 
 the throne. Soon, however, it transpired that this manifesto was as 
 great a surprise to the ministers as the manifesto of 1881 had been to 
 Loris Melikov, although this time the reactionary advisers of the 
 Tsar failed to outwit the ministry. .\ stormy meeting followed, held
 
 544 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 ally discredited as implying a certain amount of politi- 
 cal sham. 
 
 And as to violence — it has never stopped. The 
 nomination of Mr. Trepov and Mr. Booleeghin, to 
 succeed Prince Svyatopolk-Mirskee, can but be taken 
 as a threat of violence and a provocation. Everybody 
 knows that these men belong to the same set as the late 
 Mr. Bogoleppov, minister of public instruction, and 
 Mr. Zvairev, recently dismissed from the post of chief 
 censor. They all received their preparatory training 
 in politics at Moscow, under the auspices of Grand 
 
 in presence of the Tsar. The minister of justice — the guardian of 
 official legality — threatened to resign if the manifesto were not 
 immediately withdrawn. As a result, another rescript to a quite 
 opposite effect was published on the evening of the same day. In 
 this document the latest petitioners — virtually the same persons as 
 the "ill-intentioned leaders of the seditious movement" — were now 
 thanked for their loyal feelings on the occasion of their congratula- 
 tions on the birth of the heir-apparent ; and their demands for 
 political representation were in a vague way brought into connection 
 with the wise examples of the royal " predecessors " who gradually 
 yielded to the " ripe " necessity of reform. The " rescript," though 
 it urged the difficulty of carrying out the reform under the condition 
 of preserving unshaken the fundamental laws, finally gave the craved 
 for promise : henceforward, with God's help, to admit the most 
 deserving ones, those invested with the confidence of the people, 
 their elected representatives, to share in the preparation and discus- 
 sion of the drafts of laws. Of course, such a promise, coming imme- 
 diately after the solemn declaration of that most obsolete of formulas, 
 lost nearly all its effectiveness. Through its obscure terms and 
 straggling, confused definitions, however, one thing was clearly to be 
 perceived : autocracy is to be preserved at any cost, and the role 
 of the representative assembly is to be the same as in that one 
 planned by Loris Melikov. The fact that the writers forbore to use 
 the term Zemskee Sobor, implies, under the circumstances, not an 
 increase of rights for the coming assembly, but rather their diminu- 
 tion. A study of the " rescript " shows that no time for convoking 
 the assembly was set, no definite scheme for the franchise was
 
 THE URGENCY OF REFORM 545 
 
 Duke Sergius.^^ It is also known that the policy of the 
 latter is that of unswerving reaction. The sum of 
 statesmanship for him is condensed in the advice "to 
 be firm." 
 
 What does this advice really mean? Has not 
 experience abundantly proved that to be "firm," in the 
 sense in which the grand duke employs the phrase, is, 
 not to be "strong," but to be blind and deaf; that it is 
 to try to resist an avalanche with two bare hands? 
 Beating drums in order to prevent the eclipse of the 
 sun is a much wiser policy than this ; because beating 
 drums does not harm anybody, whereas standing "firm" 
 against an avalanche means provoking a catastrophe. 
 
 History has known few examples of such voluntary 
 blindness. The civilized world looks with amazement and 
 horror at the sad spectacle presented by Russia, and can- 
 not comprehend how it is possible that people do not see 
 what is so self-evident to all outsiders. How can any- 
 one, unless he be a lunatic, persevere in so dangerous a 
 game, and one which he has so little hope of winning? 
 
 To be sure, the persons responsible for that spec- 
 tacle are not suffering from any mental disease. But 
 they are, nevertheless, monomaniacs. They are the 
 iitopists of autocracy. 
 
 mentioned, and that previous to putting the promised assembly into 
 operation, the whole proposition — even as to its possibility — is to 
 be discussed by a special committee under the presidency of the 
 minister of the interior, Mr. Booleeghin, an official of the late Grand 
 Duke Sergius. Under these circumstances it will be clearly seen 
 how illusory the promise must be ; and the fact of its being set forth 
 in such a form as this merely adds one to the long series of political 
 mistakes already mentioned in this text. 
 
 3« When the manuscript was in the hands of the printer the 
 telegraph brought news of the assassination of Grand Duke Sergius.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 The reader who has come as far as this may feel 
 that the multitude of details in this book is so great 
 that at times he has nearly or quite lost his way ; or, at 
 least, that the cogency and effectiveness brought to the 
 conclusion of the argument by this mass of detail have 
 been partly lost by a dissipation of attention. It may 
 now, therefore, be well to leave a clue — to summarize 
 the most important points, and to indicate the essential 
 relation existing betwen the different parts of the book. 
 
 We began with the obvious consideration that in 
 every aspect of her life Russia is in process of change. 
 To this observation we added that she changes very 
 rapidly; that in some respects, indeed, she cedes prior- 
 ity in this matter only to the United States. We then 
 glanced at Russia's past history, and saw that she has 
 ever been changing; in fact, we might have added, as 
 the result of a deeper historical study, that in Russian 
 history there is no single half-century just like the one 
 succeeding or the one preceding, and that always the 
 changes have been quite essential. 
 
 Just here, however, we met the opposite assertion : 
 that Russia, at least in certain aspects of her life, has 
 never changed. We reviewed the history of this asser- 
 tion, proffered by our nationalists, and came to the 
 conclusion that this theory of the immutability of Rus- 
 sia is itself a product of change; that even as a theory 
 this idea had no existence until a certain, quite recent, 
 
 546
 
 CONCLUSION 547 
 
 time ; and that, when it appeared, it was not the result 
 of a deep scientific study of Russia's past, but rather the 
 joint product of a romantic theory of nationality and 
 the practical need of the present government for self- 
 defense. Now, of course, such an origin does not say 
 much in favor of the theory of the immutability of 
 Russia. And the theory will appear to us still more 
 objectionable if we consider that, in the view of some 
 of its adherents, the only result of this presumed immu- 
 tability is an extreme adaptability of the national type, 
 and its aptness to be influenced by other national types. 
 We did not decline to adopt this latter view, as far as it 
 was founded on a true observation; and we found it 
 fully supported by other, particularly by foreign, 
 writers, who spoke from an entirely different point of 
 view. We thus acknowledged the plasticity of the 
 Russian type to be a real national trait; but, far from 
 seeing in it anything inherent and essential to the 
 national type, we recognized in it only a characteristic 
 of an early stage of culture and of an incomplete social 
 development. 
 
 Not satisfied, however, with this ostensible refuta- 
 tion of the theory of national immutability, we under- 
 took to follow the historical arguments for this theory. 
 And here again we had to put the same question, which 
 this theory tries to answer in a positive way : Is the 
 Russian historical tradition unchangeable? Is it even 
 as firm and solid as the tradition of other countries 
 which never claimed immutability? Then we recon- 
 sidered the case in the light of both the religious and 
 the political tradition in Russia. So far as the religious 
 tradition is concerned, the nationalistic theory laid par-
 
 548 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 ticular stress on the immutability of Orthodoxy, as the 
 chief foundation of the Russian national type; and as 
 to the political tradition, autocracy was referred to as 
 an immutable political form, likewise characteristic of 
 the national type. In order to find the proofs for or 
 against the thesis of immutability, we reviewed the 
 history of Russian Orthodoxy, as well as that of autoc- 
 racy; and we found always that the facts disprove the 
 thesis. 
 
 In the matter of the religious tradition, it appeared 
 that Russian Orthodoxy was rather a product than a 
 factor of the national life. We saw that in Russian 
 history a certain time had passed before this product 
 appeared; and that there was another time when it 
 ceased to be characteristic of the religious life. And 
 while trying to explain why it was so, we found that 
 the period in which Russian Orthodoxy, as a particu- 
 lar type, had no existence, occurred when the religious 
 life was of an exceedingly low type — something like 
 Shintoism in Japan — and when Christianity remained 
 under the tutelage of the Greek missionaries who intro- 
 duced it into Russia. Then we saw that the period in 
 which Orthodoxy was no longer characteristic of the 
 popular belief was when religious thought, becoming 
 more advanced, could not be satisfied by the old type 
 of faith. The new types of faith we found to be, in 
 their essence, the same as in western Europe ; or, as we 
 called it, the evangelical and the spiritual Christianity. 
 And what prevented the new religious movement from 
 its timely spread was shown to be only restrictive 
 measures and a system of religious persecution. 
 
 Orthodoxy, then, we found to be the national type
 
 CONCLUSION 549 
 
 of religion, formed in the intermediate period of Rus- 
 sia's religious history, when religious thought was 
 somewhere between its ebb and its flood. When this 
 national type of religion was soon found by the govern- 
 ment itself not to be upon the same level with the Greek 
 tradition we saw that the authorities repudiated this 
 production of the national creative genius as being too 
 national. And ever since that time the religious life of 
 the established church has been entirely paralyzed. 
 Without a spark of life in its head or in any of its 
 members, the church became secularized, and so was 
 transformed into an institution of the state. What, 
 then, could we conclude as to the firmness and solidity 
 of the Russian religious tradition? 
 
 Necessarily we found that there was no such tradi- 
 tion as was able to stand by itself; that the living 
 thread of tradition had been cut ojff by the authorities as 
 early as the seventeenth century; and that the formal 
 tradition is at present forcibly upheld, while a new liv- 
 ing one is as forcibly prevented from forming. And 
 yet this new and persecuted tradition appears firm and 
 solid in comparison with the old and formal one, which 
 stands in dire need of the support of the state. 
 
 Then, proceeding to study the Russian political 
 tradition, we saw that nearly the same conclusions 
 must be drawn from this study as from that of the reli- 
 gious tradition. First, we found autocracy to be the 
 result of a long evolution, during which no autocracy 
 existed. We noted many parallel processes of political 
 evolution working themselves out upon the surface of 
 the great Russian plain ; but no tradition of autocracy 
 appeared to jje inherent in any of them up to the time
 
 550 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 that autocracy was formed by the Muscovite princes at 
 the end of the fifteenth century. We saw, too, that the 
 process of poHtical development in Russia followed 
 the same lines as in western Europe ; except that in the 
 western and southern, and still more in the eastern and 
 northern, parts it was delayed, as compared with the 
 same process in the west of Europe. This postpone- 
 ment in political development was accompanied by, or 
 rather closely connected with, the too slow growth of 
 the native aristocracy, and the still slower growth of 
 the cities, both these features again being more promi- 
 nent in the northeastern part of Russia than in the 
 southwestern. Then we noted how these differences in 
 social composition helped bring about in northeastern 
 Russia the development of a better and stronger sys- 
 tem of military defense than the southwestern half 
 could afford; and this difference in military power 
 sliowed clearly how, in the struggle between these two 
 types of Russian culture, the stronger prevailed, where- 
 upon the system of autocracy immediately evolved 
 itself in the northeastern half. Thus the case of autoc- 
 racy is that of the survival of the fittest. 
 
 At this point a tradition of autocracy, which until 
 then could not possibly have existed, may have sprung 
 up. That autocracy was and remained, however, rather 
 a fact than an idea was what our study showed. This 
 lack of ideological elements, then, it was which, fatally 
 reflecting itself in the political theory of autocracy, pre- 
 vented it from becoming a real historical tradition. 
 Autocracy had, therefore, no juridical basis other than 
 a reference to the power of the " predecessors " of the 
 Muscovite monarch, who in fact did not at all possess
 
 CONCLUSION 551 
 
 this authority; and another reference to the sanction 
 of God, which could be extended to any form of poHti- 
 cal power. But just as the national religion of the 
 sixteenth century had proved unable to form a tradi- 
 tion, so neither the historical nor the theocratic claims 
 of autocracy were fit to build up such a tradition on. 
 They also were too national ; they smacked too charac- 
 teristically of the age which formulated them ; and 
 at that time no other — particularly no legal — claim, 
 founded on any legal form of transmission of power or 
 on the Roman elements of the Byzantine theory, was 
 provided for. Thus, as more civilized times have come, 
 autocracy has found itself under the necessity of pro- 
 viding some justification of a more modern character. 
 But every one of the principles borrowed for this pur- 
 pose from European jurisprudence proved contradic- 
 tory to the very essence of autocracy and. if consistently 
 applied, must have ended by transforming autocracy 
 into a limited monarchy. The new arguments advanced 
 for the justification of autocracy therefore had to be 
 cast aside, while the old ones had long since been 
 abandoned. 
 
 Thus, after a series of attempts at self-improve- 
 ment, autocracy remained what it originally had been : 
 a material fact, not a political principle. In the eleventh 
 hour, and not till then, an attempt was made to apply 
 the principle of the immutability of nationahlife as an 
 argument for the preservation of autocracy. But no 
 serious proof for this argument has ever been sub- 
 mitted. And thus it is, even after centuries of exist- 
 ence, that no legal and moral tradition of autocracy can 
 be found to exist either in institutions or in minds ; and
 
 552 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 SO nothing is opposed to its overthrow except the mere 
 fact of its being there, in full possession of power. As 
 a matter of fact, however, during all the four centuries 
 of its existence, autocracy had been changing from an 
 institution inherited from the "forefathers" into a 
 theocratic institution; even further, from a theocratic 
 power on Byzantine lines into a bureaucratic monarchy 
 on European lines; again, from a bureaucratic mon- 
 archy into a manifestation of the absolute "general 
 will" of the people; still again, from that absolutism 
 of Hobbes into a mediaeval monarchy of Montesquieu, 
 limited by the "intermediate powers" of the nobility 
 and the bourgeoisie; and, finally, from this monarchy 
 of mediaeval orders — the Standcsmonarchie — into a 
 national institution sanctioned by the mere fact of its 
 long existence and by the supposed quality of its being 
 immutable. 
 
 If, now, we ask once more whether the Russian 
 political tradition is firm and solid, we may answer that 
 a real tradition here, just as in the sphere of religion, 
 was broken by Peter the Great, and that since Peter's 
 time no new tradition has sprung up, while the ancient 
 one, having been entirely forgotten, cannot possibly be 
 renewed. It is clear, therefore, that the existing politi- 
 cal form, however firm and solid it may prove to be, 
 owes its solidity not so much to any tradition as to the 
 force of inertia, and to such multiform and numerous 
 measures as the autocracy has been obliged to take in 
 self-defense. And this very system of self-defense, 
 whether from material violence or from public opinion, 
 serves to prove how small are the resources of an ideal 
 nature which may be relied upon by the autocracy.
 
 CONCLUSION 553 
 
 This observation we found to have been made already 
 by Speransky, about a century ago. 
 
 While these lectures were proceeding at the Uni- 
 versity of Chicago, many of my hearers may have 
 listened to the eloquent words of Professor lyenaga on 
 the subject of the civilization of his native country, 
 Japan. For myself, as a Russian, his course of lectures 
 was particularly instructive. When Mr. lyenaga spoke 
 of the old spirit of the Japanese warrior class — their 
 gentry, the boosJii — a spirit which he said was still 
 living in the present generation; when he exalted the 
 spirit of self-sacrifice with which the Japanese noble- 
 men parted with half of their feudal income in order 
 to maintain the national unity; when he explained to 
 us how the historical and religious claims of the central 
 power at last overcame the opposing forces of the 
 feudal elements ; when he told us about the opposition 
 of the popular religion to religious innovations, how the 
 old popular belief kept on co-existing with the estab- 
 lished church, and how the educated classes have 
 recently grown irreligious — it seemed to me as if I 
 were listening to the well-known melodies of a musical 
 composition which in its ensemble was entirely strange. 
 I think I have the key to the explanation of this simi- 
 larity in parts and dissimilarity of the whole. The 
 processes of "restoration" and "renaissance" which 
 Professor lyenaga described appear to have been the 
 same as they were in Russia during the process of her 
 political unification and Europeanization. But the 
 tempo of these processes was quite different. Things 
 that with us took centuries to pass away, in Japan 
 appear to have been crowded into the short space of
 
 554 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 some decenniums. Now, one of the consequences of 
 this rapidity of process is that the ancient tradition of 
 Japan, as it were, had no time to die out, and has kept 
 enough of its vitality to be able to enter into some 
 desfree of combination with the elements of the new 
 life and culture. 
 
 A like combination was dreamed of by Russian 
 Slavophils, but Russian history has provided us with 
 ample evidence that no possibility of such combination 
 between new and old exists any longer in Russia. The 
 old tradition was too long a time in dying out, and ele- 
 ments of the new culture struck root too deeply. No 
 hving elements of the old historical tradition are now 
 in existence. That is why some facts of Japanese life, 
 as they were related by my brilliant colleague, may 
 awaken in a Russian some reminiscences of a past never 
 to be recalled, and may remind him of some aspirations 
 long buried under new currents of life and thought. 
 
 But there is one discordant note in this comparison. 
 Recent as is the new culture of Japan, and compara- 
 tively old as is our own new culture ; heterogeneous as 
 may be the mixture of the elements of old tradition and 
 of new culture in Japan, and homogeneous as are the 
 elements of progress with us, yet Professor lyenaga 
 appears to have had nothing to tell of any serious social 
 or political struggle in his country, and it is chiefly with 
 the elements of such struggle that I had to deal. 
 
 One explanation of the difference may be that 
 society in Japan is not no much democratized as in 
 Russia. It may be that it is not so much demanded by 
 public opinion in Japan as in Russia. But another 
 explanation is that much more is given. Japan enjoys
 
 CONXLUSION 555 
 
 the elementary condition of progress — a free political 
 life — which we are yet striving to attain. The states- 
 men that reformed Japan seem to have acted upon the 
 same wise counsel as was given to Alexander I. by the 
 greatest of Russian statesmen, Speransky, to the effect 
 that patriotic battles should be permitted, not in the 
 streets, not in the lecture-rooms of universities, not in 
 annual sessions of Zemstvos, but within the walls of a 
 national diet. The point of this advice was to keep in 
 advance of public opinion. I do not know what Rus- 
 sian life would be like now, if, nearly a century ago. 
 Emperor Alexander had yielded to the patriotic pres- 
 sure of Speransky and had inaugurated an era of 
 political freedom. It is quite possible that the political 
 opposition would have taken a much more peaceful 
 form ; that the old spirit of the warrior class, so promi- 
 nent at the time of Catherine II. and Alexander I., 
 would have been preserved in a larger degree than it 
 is now; that moderate elements would have played a 
 much more conspicuous part in political life and in 
 public opinion; that the struggle between the govern- 
 ment and public opinion would not have taken the form 
 of a continuous war between two different races, each 
 possessing its own " patriotism " and its own " loyalty." 
 All this might have been, and something of it may still 
 come, if political conditions are made more normal ; 
 but with the system of self-defense of the autocracy, 
 the actual events of our political life took an entirely 
 different direction. 
 
 From what has just been said it may be inferred 
 that the Russian government had the possibility of a 
 choice, and that it freely chose the line it now follows.
 
 556 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 To be sure, this free choice would have been impossible 
 had there been any social forces to compel the govern- 
 ment to take another course. Thus the uncertainty of 
 political issues is chiefly due to the absence of such 
 social forces as would be able to determine these issues, 
 in the same way as they have been determined wherever 
 those social forces were present. Not satisfied, how- 
 ever, with this a priori inference, we reviewed the chief 
 data of the social history of Russia, and found that the 
 inference was true. The social orders in Russian his- 
 tory have always been subservient to the aims of the 
 state. They have had no privileges, except such as 
 resulted from their state duties and such as were given 
 them by the state. This was the position of the social 
 orders at the time when the Muscovite state was in 
 process of formation, and particularly during the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries. The ties between these 
 classes and the government were somewhat relaxed 
 when the most impending national military aims of the 
 Muscovite state were attained: and an attempt was 
 even made by the government of Catherine II. to trans- 
 form the social orders of Russia into a kind of privi- 
 leged orders like those of mediaeval Europe. But 
 this attempt to form a substitute for the missing social 
 tradition came too late, and therefore proved a failure. 
 For here, as well as in the realms of religion and of 
 political institutions, the past had left no legacy of 
 tradition to the present. And this conclusion, we saw, 
 proved equally true, whether we studied the history 
 of the nobility, of the gentry, or of the bourgeoisie. 
 
 The tradition of the Russian nobility was purposely 
 and systematically discarded by the government itself.
 
 CONCLUSION 557 
 
 We have seen how the ancient aristocracy of lineage 
 was crushed by John IV. in the sixteenth century, and 
 how the second aristocracy, that of state service, was 
 democratized by the measures of Peter the Great. We 
 know that the third aristocracy, that of the courtiers of 
 the eighteenth century, was too dependent upon the 
 government to form any real social force. Then we 
 saw that the Russian gentry, though having moments 
 of great brilliancy in its history, had little or no chance 
 of ever becoming independent. This was, to be sure, 
 the class most needed by the government to serve as 
 military power and political support. In return for 
 this service, the members of the gentry were actually 
 granted whatever they wanted : lands and peasants, 
 places in the state service, appointments by the Tsar. 
 The whole peasant class was sacrificed to the pressing 
 needs of the state. There was a time, in the middle 
 and the second half of the eighteenth century, when it 
 seemed as if the gentry would become interested in 
 affirming their social position through the use of politi- 
 cal privileges. But just then the government, having 
 no more need of the gentry for military purposes, was 
 ready to listen to the cry for freedom rising loud and 
 louder from the oppressed peasantry. So, instead of 
 political representation, the gentry were granted pre- 
 dominance in local government. This, however, they 
 did not appreciate as a class privilege; they looked 
 upon their local duties and rights merely as stepping- 
 stones to the state service. Thus the chance for getting 
 political privileges was lost, and when, some three- 
 quarters of a century later, the gentry were dispos- 
 sessed of their slaves, they claimed in vain the right of
 
 5S8 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 voice ill a reform which was to deprive them of a 
 third of their income. 
 
 Little has been said about the Russian bourgeoisie, 
 for the reason that until very recent times there w as no 
 bourgeoisie in Russia worthy the name. The depend- 
 ence of the Russian trading and commercial class on 
 the government was still greater than that of the 
 gentry; and this could but be expected, since the cher- 
 ishing and fostering of Russian industries are entirely 
 due to state measures. 
 
 Thus we were obliged to conclude that there was 
 on the stage no social force which could influence 
 political life and take part in the development of politi- 
 cal ideas. Nevertheless there zvcre in Russia a political 
 life and a political development. Who, then, were the 
 representatives, and what role did they play in the 
 history of Russian civilization? 
 
 We have seen that in the beginning these were men 
 of the gentry, the first to become educated. The state 
 itself W'as obliged to give them education, for the pur- 
 pose of its own Europeanization. Their class feeling 
 was weak, but this very weakness made them more 
 sensitive to the ideal side of education. Thus, men of 
 the gentry who, so long as they represented their class, 
 were politically insignificant, became stronger and 
 stronger after they began to represent general public 
 opinion. With their political idealism they were under- 
 mining chiefly their class privileges, and the govern- 
 ment was not entirely averse to this kind of public 
 opinion. But then, after having attained the first great 
 aim of their program — the liberation of the peasants — 
 they looked to the second — political freedom. And
 
 CO\XLUSION 559 
 
 here their successes were for a long time checked by the 
 self-defense of autocracy. What, now, are their means 
 of attaining their second aim? Is it as yet the ideal 
 force of public opinion alone, or are there other and 
 stronger means at their disposal? 
 
 We must observe, first, that already, in attaining 
 their primary aim, they used forces other than those of 
 mere opinion. We had occasion to mention that the 
 emancipation of the peasants was in a large degree the 
 result of a social danger steadily increasing in propor- 
 tion as serfdom was becoming unbearable. Not less 
 important was it that the economic growth of the 
 country was checked or impeded by the preservation of 
 slavery; and thus economic reasons, together with 
 social and philanthropic ones, tended in the direction 
 of emancipation. 
 
 All these and other reasons may likewise have 
 played a part in the second phase of the political 
 struggle. What must be mentioned first is the enor- 
 mous growth of the politically conscious social elements 
 that make public opinion in Russia. The gentry still 
 play a part among these elements, but are by far not 
 the only social medium of public opinion, as they were 
 before the emancipation of the peasants. Members of 
 the ancient gentry are now found in all branches of 
 public life: in the press, in public instruction, in the 
 liberal professions, not to speak of the state service, 
 and particularly the local self-government. But it 
 would be impossible to say what is now the class opinion 
 of the gentry. The fact is tbat the gentry are no 
 longer a class ; they are too much intermingled with 
 other social elements in every position they occupy,
 
 56o RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 including that of landed proprietors. By this ubiquity 
 the gentry have added to the facilities for the general 
 spread of public opinion; but as a class they influence 
 public opinion m an even smaller measure than in 
 former times. The " men of mixed ranks," the Raz- 
 nochintsec, have enormously increased in all vocations; 
 and the democratic spirit brought by them, and fostered 
 by the liberal and radical press, is a distinctive feature 
 of the educated class in present-day Russia. 
 
 Of course, this educated class is not politically 
 homogeneous, and the political opinions cherished by 
 its various representatives are widely different. We 
 have distinguished the two chief currents, which we 
 called the liberal and the socialistic.^ Now, the pre- 
 dominant feature of political life in Russia, owing to 
 its abnormal conditions, is that political opinion, 
 instead of differentiating and splitting into small groups 
 and factions, tends rather toward united and common 
 action against the general enemy, which is represented 
 by these abnormal conditions. This process of unifica- 
 tion of public opinion is twofold. First, only such 
 shades of political opinion as are more or less radical 
 are represented. There being no " spoils," political 
 opinion, having had no chance to back the private inter- 
 ests of any particular group or person, is disinterested, 
 abstractly humanitarian, largely democratic, and thus 
 naturally radical. That is why the scale on which a 
 reconciliation and unification of public opinion are 
 striven for is not so large as to preclude the possibility 
 of such unification. In the second place, the scope of 
 
 ' There is no real conservative opinion in Russia ; there is only 
 an official opinion, that of the government, which does not count here.
 
 CONCLUSION 561 
 
 divergence among different shades of opposition is 
 steadily diminishing just in the measure that poHtical 
 struggle is going on. In studying the history of the 
 liberal and socialistic currents, we have found that the 
 chasm existing between them at their inception was 
 perpetually narrowing, so as to make possible at last 
 almost an alliance, or at least concerted action for an 
 aim which was admitted to be general. We have seen 
 that the liberal current was gradually radicalized and 
 democratized, and that it one by one eliminated from 
 its program such elements as might have only a class 
 interest. At the same time, as we have noted, the 
 Utopian element was slowly but steadily vanishing from 
 the socialistic programs; and thus the way has been 
 paved for the transformation of a revolutionary into 
 a political party, and of its methods of struggle from 
 oriental to European. 
 
 Political reform — this is now the general cry of all 
 shades of political opinion in Russia. But is this only 
 an opinion? Are there no interests, no organizations, 
 ready to fight for political freedom? Are there no 
 impelling forces to extort it from a reluctant govern- 
 ment ? 
 
 We have found the answer in the study of the pres- 
 ent situation. Yes, the impelling forces are there, and 
 they are twofold : the material crisis and the political 
 disaffection. The picture here drawn, at any period 
 before January, 1905, might have been considered an 
 exaggeration; but now nobody can think it an over- 
 statement. Russia is passing through a crisis; she is 
 sick ; and her sickness is so grave as to demand imme- 
 diate and radical cure. Palliatives can be of no use;
 
 562 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 rather, they but increase the gravity of the situation. 
 To pretend that all is right in Russia, except for a few 
 *' ill-intentioned " persons who are making all the fuss, 
 is no longer ridiculous, it is criminal. Upon quite 
 peaceful and law-abiding citizens, who never shared in 
 any political struggle and never had any definite politi- 
 cal opinions, the feeling begins to dawn that the system 
 of self-defense practiced by the government precludes 
 general progress and the development of private initia- 
 tive, just as, forty years ago, progress was precluded 
 by the further existence of serfdom. Indeed, the 
 development of private initiative is held by the govern- 
 ment itself to be the chief need of the present time, and 
 the chief remedy for the present industrial, commercial, 
 and agricultural crisis which has become endemic in 
 Russia. It would be presumption on the part of a 
 historian to predict what, under these conditions, will 
 be the probable result of the secular conflict between 
 Russian opposition and alleged tradition, between pub- 
 lic opinion and government. We must leave to history 
 its whims, says Herzen. And we must acknowledge 
 that there is a large scope for the whims of history in 
 the situation as we have described it. Increased and 
 united as they are, the forces of opposition are still not 
 strong enough to replace the government by a violent 
 overthrow. But they are strong enough to make the 
 use of violence continuous, and by increasing this to 
 preclude any further peaceful work of civilization. No 
 form of government can survive, we may say with 
 Speransky, which possesses no moral force and is 
 obliged to carry all its orders into execution by mere 
 material force. And if the only question that remains,
 
 CONCLUSION 563 
 
 is, How long will the material force of the bayonets 
 side with the government? then the position is des- 
 perate. Where thirt}--five thousand policemen are sent 
 to the villages, while no student of statistics is per- 
 mitted to enter them, the condition of affairs must be 
 recognized as utterly indefensible. And a good politi- 
 cal strategist, if he will not surrender, ought to take 
 thought not as to further defenses, but as to a more 
 tenable position. 
 
 It may, of course, have been inferred, from what 
 has been said in the preceding, what this tenable posi- 
 tion is, in the view of Russian public opinion. Russia 
 wants a political representation, and guaranties of 
 what are called the fundamental rights of individuality ; 
 i. e., freedom of belief and of speech, the right of asso- 
 ciation and of public meetings, liberty of the press, a 
 strict regime of law, and the free course of justice, 
 which implies the repeal of arbitrary edicts and regula- 
 tions, the abolition of extraordinary tribunals, and last, 
 but not least, a habeas-corpus act, /. c, security from 
 arbitrary arrest and domiciliary search. There is no 
 general opinion as to the kind of representative institu- 
 tions wanted, but a medium current may easily be 
 found. Public opinion will not now be satisfied with a 
 consultative chamberj and will not join the extremists 
 who want a federative republic and a referendum ; 
 i. e., immediate legislation by the people. The great 
 majority will be glad to have what was once claimed 
 by the liberals of Tver, i. c, a constitution similar to 
 that which was sanctioned in Bulgaria by the Russian 
 Tsar twenty-five years ago. One must know that the 
 Bulgarian constitution is consistently democratic, and
 
 564 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 that it includes both of the features claimed by the 
 democratic liberals of Russia; i. c, universal suffrage 
 and one chamber. The habitual argument of the con- 
 servatives, that Russia is not ready for a constitution, 
 is cut short by this example of Bulgaria. The broad 
 democratic basis of the constitution of that country did 
 not correspond to the degree of political development 
 of the Bulgarian people ; but it proved highly valuable 
 as a means of promoting their political education, and 
 precludes for a long time any discussion about further 
 changes in the form of government, which cannot fail 
 to establish a good and durable political tradition, and 
 to concentrate all struggle within the legal frame of 
 guaranteed institutions. 
 
 Whether this example of political wisdom, which 
 takes care, not only of the present, but also of the 
 future, will be followed by Russian statesmen is an 
 open question. But for a historian there is no question 
 as to whether there will or will not be any political 
 reform at all. History may have its whims, but it also 
 has its laws; and if the law of Russian history is 
 progress, as we have tried to demonstrate, political 
 reform may not be avoided. To deny it is to despair 
 of the future of Russia.
 
 ANALYTICAL INDEX 
 
 Abolition of autocracy: present general 
 
 demand for, 176. 
 Aborigines: fate of Russian, 6. 
 Absence of spirit of proselytisra from 
 
 Orthodox church, 127. 
 
 Absolutism: bureaucratic, of Peter the 
 Great, 170; enlightened, of eighteenth 
 century, loo. 
 
 Academy for theological studies founded 
 in Moscow (1687), 108. 
 
 "Acknowledging-priests" Old-believers: 
 historical sketch of, 02. 
 
 Active resistance: Finnish party of, in 
 1904, 525 f. 
 
 Administrative exile, 195 f. 
 
 Adoption : of title of Tsar by John IV., 164; 
 of Persigny's press law, 204. 263 f. 
 
 Agitation: socialistic, in villages twenty 
 years ago and at present, 360. 
 
 Agrarian: nobles and democrats, assembly 
 of, at Moscow (1S65). 274 f.; legislation 
 and indi\idualistic tendencies in the Mir, 
 350; troubles continuous after Catherine 
 II., 359; revolution expected by Russian 
 government in the sixties of last century, 
 386; uprising in its first attempts. 391; 
 movement in the late seventies and its 
 failure, 413; crisis and its causes, 430, 
 439; uprisings (1902) in governments of 
 Poltava and Harkov, 508; movement, 
 509. 
 
 "Agrarian League": of Social Revolution- 
 aries (1902) and its propaganda, 508 f.; 
 organizes agrarian revolution and agra- 
 rian programs (1900), 492, 499. 
 
 Agreement: Paris declaration of (Decem- 
 ber, 1904), between radicals and liberals, 
 524- 
 
 Agricultural: character of Russia and 
 United States of America; 8, co-opera- 
 tion as program of Russian .socialism. 
 385; crisis, 435; its cause, 446 ff, 459; 
 means of relief proposed, 458. 474 ff.; 
 country. Russia still an, 435; conditions 
 in southwestern, south-central, and 
 northwestern Russia, 437; effects at 
 present of Russian early settlement, 438; 
 Goorko and Council of State on agri- 
 cultural and financial crisis, and solu- 
 tion thereof, 473 ff. 
 
 Agriculture: symptoms of decay in, 435, 
 
 451- 
 Agriculturists constitute 80 per cent, of 
 
 Russian fX)pulation, 342. 
 
 Agronomists' work for Zemstvos, 290. 
 
 Ak.sakov, Ivan, 284, 316, 319. 
 
 AIex.ander I.: favorable toward sectarian- 
 ism, hi; and constitutions, 172 ff., 257; 
 reforms of. 173, 254; renounces his con- 
 .stitutional project of 1819. 174. 257; and 
 Metternich, 174, 257; and Decembrists, 
 176 f., 254; reactionary policy of, 257 f.; 
 confirms "charter of nobility" granted 
 by Catherine II., 275. 
 
 Alexander II., 182 f., 187; Russian "intel- 
 lectuals" in time of, 262, 281; era of 
 "Great Reforms" of, 262 ff., 477; an- 
 swers petition of 1865, 283; appeals to 
 society in November, 1878, 304; death 
 of (killed March 13, 1881), and Meli- 
 kov's "constitution," 312 ff., 419. 
 
 Alexander III., 206 f.; reactionary move- 
 ment under, 269; determined upon pre- 
 servation of autocracy, 314 f.; executive 
 committee's address (March, 18S1) to, 
 320; death of (1894), revives Hberal 
 movement in Zemstvos. 325; declara- 
 tion against peasants' idea of a general 
 land partition, 510 n. 18. 
 
 Alexis. 536; and strangers in his capital 
 (1652), 38. 
 
 ".\ll-brethren" (1895): spiritualistic sec- 
 tarians and successors to the Dookho- 
 bory. 92, iio; represent type of Russian 
 of the future, 120. 
 
 Allen, William: report of, on the Molo- 
 kanee (1819), 113 f. 
 
 "All-humanness" of Russian character, 
 according to Dostoyevsky, 17. 
 
 " AHiance for the Emancipation": backing 
 Emancipation , 519, 
 
 Alliance: Peasants', formed by Agrarian 
 League, 510; of teachers and pupils of 
 college.'^ and secondary schools for revolu- 
 tionary purpo.ses, 511. 
 
 .'Vllotments of landholdings: decreasing 
 since 1861, 436; size of. insufficient from 
 beginning for fjcasants of southern Rus- 
 sia, 449. 
 
 .'Amalgamation of Russian belief with pa- 
 ganism. 67. 
 
 America: socialism and democracy in, 
 336 ff. 
 
 American and Russian colonists, 7; mone- 
 tary history of, 469 ff. See also United 
 States. 
 
 Amorphousness: chief feature of Russian 
 national type, 13, 20 f., 547. 
 
 565
 
 566 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Anarchism: Leo Tolstoy's Christian, 
 taught in 1770 by Euphemius, 100; of 
 Bakoonin replaced by "scientific" so- 
 cialism of Marx, 341; Proudhon's, 336, 
 3691.; forerunner of Russian socialism, 
 361, 363. 367; no part of theory of Peo- 
 ple's Will party, 420. 
 Ancient: aristocracy of lineage in fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries, and its decline, 
 228; aristocracy crushed by John IV., 
 557; deliberative assemblies recom- 
 mended by Koshelov, 309; nobility vs. 
 new, in seventeenth century, 229; tra- 
 dition, defenders of, 41 ff. 
 Anna, Empress: Magna Charta of, 236; 
 
 founds Corps of Nobility (1732), 250. 
 Antagonism: historical, between Russian 
 
 and Greek church, 73. 
 Anti-aristocratic character of Russian 
 
 monarchy, 158. 
 Anti-canonic position of Holy Synod since 
 
 Peter the Great, 86. 
 Antichrist's coming in doctrine of "Old- 
 believers," 93 ff., 106. 
 Anticipations by peasants of emancipation, 
 
 under Catherine II., 357. 
 Apologists of established church decry 
 
 religious tolerance, 123. 
 Appeal: of Alexander II. to society, in 
 November, 1878, 304; of Zemstvos to 
 Nicholas II. (1894-95) for more free- 
 dom, 325 f. 
 Appearance of prophetism in Russia, 106. 
 Approximation, gradual, of radical (revolu- 
 tionaries') and liberal (constitutional- 
 ists') program, 523 f. 
 Arabian conquests of Turks in their effect 
 
 on southern Russia, 144. 
 Arbitrary rule legalized by statutes begins 
 
 with statute of 1S65, 204. 
 Arguments of Speransky in favor of a con- 
 stitution, 173 f. See also 185, 309. 553. 
 555- 
 Aristocracy: local, and its rise, 134 ff; less 
 developed feudal, 135; and prince, 139, 
 147 f., 158; of lineage in fifteenth and 
 sixteenth centuries, and its decline, 228; 
 crushed by John IV., 229, 557; of Chin, 
 or rank, and the courtiers of eight- 
 eenth century, 234, 557; protection of, 
 by Demetrius Tolstoy, 230; of state 
 service democratized by Peter the Great, 
 557- 
 Armenians: revolutionary spirit among, 
 
 S03 ff. 
 Arminius: a novel, influencing Herzen in 
 
 shaping his socialistic theory, 368. 
 Army: revolutionary spirit in, 512. 
 Arrest and imprisonment of political sus- 
 pects, 196. 
 Aspirations of lower classes in Russia, 342. 
 Assertive and arrogant stage of national- 
 istic idea, 36. 
 
 "Assignats": or national paper men';/, 
 introduced by Catherine II., 467. 
 
 Attempt: of Slavophils at reconciliation 
 between spirit of tradition and spirit of 
 religious freedom. 56, 129; to supplant 
 Zemstvo schools by parish .schools. 212 f.; 
 of Stepnyak at reconciliation with liber- 
 alism (1890), 320 ff., 42S; at reconcilia- 
 tion of two sociaUstic factions (1889 ff.), 
 429 ff. 
 
 Attempts: first, to construct a nationalistic 
 theory, 46; at " self-improvement" of 
 autocracy under Alexander I., 173; to 
 influence press in a positive sense, 208; 
 of government to include aristocracy in 
 its system of self-defense, 239; of agra- 
 rian uprising, 391. 
 
 "Austrian hierarchy" in Russia, 95. 
 
 Authorities of state and church and non- 
 conformists, 124. 
 
 Authors: real, of Emancipation Act, 267. 
 
 Autocephalic character of Russian church 
 since end of sixteenth century, 79. 
 
 Autocracy: embodiment of "power" of 
 state, according to doctrine of Slavophils, 
 56; immutability of, 131 f.; second essen- 
 tial feature of national type, 132, 136; 
 development of , 136; nature of, 148; com- 
 paratively new and a product of histor- 
 ical evolution. 158. 540; has no tradi- 
 tion, 159, 549 f'. Byzantine in theory, 
 160; and John III., 160; search for legal 
 sanction of, 162; a fact, not a legal insti- 
 tution, 164; theocratic sanction of, pre- 
 vails over the legal, 164 f.; insufficiency 
 of such theocratic sanction of, 167; 
 natural law as basis of, 168; philosophic 
 justification of, 170 f.; self-improvement 
 of, during nineteenth century, 173 ff.; 
 irritating and embittering public opin- 
 ion, 173. 176 f., 182; abohtion of, present 
 general demand for. 176 f.; turns from 
 "self-improvement" to "self-defense," 
 179, 552; first and foremost in trinity of 
 oflaci.il nationalism, 182; new require- 
 ments for self-defense of, 187; Alexander 
 in. and Nicholas II. determined to pre- 
 serve, 314 f., 327; and local autonomy, 
 316; as now viewed by Cheecherrin, 
 331 f.; and liberalism, as viewed by 
 Witte, 332; democratism of, origin of 
 view, 353 f. (see also 533 n. 31); upheld 
 by peasants against nobility, 353; sacri- 
 fices peasantry to landlords in sixteenth 
 century, 355; evasive answer of, to 
 "Petition of Rights" (November 19, 
 1904), 533 f.; self-defense of, and official 
 nationalism, 530;. founded at end of 
 fifteenth century by Muscovite princes, 
 55°- 
 
 Autonomy: autocracy and local, 316. 
 
 Axelrod: formulates (1880) point of vi?w 
 of "pure socialism," 423; leader, with 
 Plehanov, of "Group for the Liberation 
 of Labor," 425, 487.
 
 ANALYTICAL INDEX 
 
 567 
 
 Backbone missing in Russian virtues and 
 Ru^jian \ices. 18. 
 
 BacKward and forward movement in Rus- 
 sian society of eighteenth century, 41,45. 
 
 Baden-Powell: on Village Commur.itus in 
 India, 350. 
 
 Bailaya Kreenitza: metropolitan seat of 
 bishop of moderate sect of the "Old- 
 believers," 94. 
 
 Bahrin: or Russian landlord of eighteenth 
 century, 44. 
 
 Bakoonin, 285; demanding constitutional 
 assembly (1862 ff.), 278 f., 380; and idea 
 of "federalism," 310 f.; and beginning 
 of Russian socialism, 341; anarchism 
 of, replaced by "scientific" socialism of 
 Marx, 341; replies to Herzen's criticism 
 of the "new generation," 37S; advocates 
 revolutionary struggle vs. Herzen's 
 peaceful opposition, 379; and Herzen, 
 381; and origins of revolutionary move- 
 ment in Russia. 383; theory of, carried 
 to extreme by Nechayev, 39';; reaction 
 against, in favor of Marxism, 398 ff., 405. 
 
 Bank: founded for benefit of nobility, 240; 
 for assistance of peasants (1883), 450, 
 
 Baptist: faith, profession of, a means of 
 escaping persecution by state, 122, 126; 
 missionaries and Stundists, 121 f. 
 
 Bashkin, Matthias: condemned on charge 
 of "Latin heresy" by council of bishops 
 in Moscow (1554), 104. 
 
 Basilius Shooysky: the Tsar boyar, 355. 
 
 Bazahrov: in Tourguenev's Fathers and 
 Sons representative of " new generation ' ' 
 of the sixties, 374, 
 
 Beginning: of national self-consciousness 
 and self-criticism, 33; of public opinion, 
 249 f.; of formal conflict between gov- 
 ernment and country (1902), 478 ff. 
 
 Bekhtayev: on present condition of px;as- 
 antry, 443; scheme of, of amelioration, 
 458. 
 
 Belinsky: aiding Herzen's views, 372. 
 
 Bell: organ of Herzen, 372, 383. 
 
 Beormas at Gandvik: i. e., the White Sea, 
 141. 
 
 Bernstein: revision theories of, of Marx's 
 doctrine defeated, 487. 
 
 Bezobrazov: on "Charter of Nobility," 275. 
 
 Bicameral system of representation: ad- 
 vocated by Count Orlov-Daveedov. 276; 
 and universal franchise, questions touch- 
 ing, 521 f. 
 
 "Bill of coercion": Valooyev's report to 
 committee of ministers in 1879 on new, 
 187. 
 
 B'ack Land Partition party, 421 f. 
 Bodin: on nationalistic theory, 47. 
 Bolteen, the historian: aids Catherine IL's 
 theory of nationalism, 47, 
 
 Books forbidden in public libraries and 
 books permitted in people's libraries, 
 201, 478. 
 
 Booleeghin, 544. 
 
 Boris Godoonov, 354, 356. 
 
 Bourgeois stri\-in.n;s of "People's Will" party 
 opposed by "General Land Partition" 
 party, 422 f,: Russian liberalism not 
 bourgeois, 226. 
 
 Bourgeoisie in Russia, 225 f., 558; not 
 aided by pouvoirs inlcrmidiaires of 
 Catherine IL, 171. 
 
 Boyars: and sons of boyars under John 
 IIL, 157, 229; political program of con- 
 stitution by (about 1598). 354 f.; or 
 landlords, name of peasants for .social- 
 istic agitators twenty years ago, 360 f. 
 
 Break: of old tradition, 20; in political 
 tradition under Peter the Great, 16S, 
 S52; in religious tradition and its effect 
 upon educated class, 83, 549, 
 
 Bulgarian constitution: would satisfy lib- 
 erals, 304 f,, 563. 
 
 Bund, Jewish: see Jewish Bund. 
 
 Bunge: financial policy of (1883), 444 f. 
 
 Bureaucracy: in the early sixties omnipo- 
 tent in St. Petersburg, 271; repressing 
 work of Zemstvos, 292 f. 
 
 Bureaucratic absolutism of Peter the Great, 
 170. 
 
 Bussurmans (Mussulmans), 10. 
 Byzantine: influence in shaping Muscovite 
 
 military system, 150; autocracy in 
 
 theory, 160. 
 Byzantinism : Russian, of Mr. Leontiev, 61 
 
 Canada: Dookhobory in. 113, 119. 
 Canonizing of national saints, 77. 
 Capillarity: means of defense against 
 
 social, 9. 
 Capitation tax of Peter the Great alxil- 
 
 ished, 444. 
 
 Castratoes: spiritualistic sectarians (about 
 1770). 92, loS, 
 
 Catalogues for reading: two official, 202. 
 
 Catherine IL: St. Petersburg of, 25; and 
 new ideas, 26, 45, 252 f.; and public 
 opinion during French Revolution, 26; 
 founder of secondary schools, 26, 215; 
 aided by Bolteen in her theory of nation- 
 alism, 47; indifferent toward .sectarian- 
 ism, 1 11; rejects Rousseau's theory of 
 "social contract," and attempts to trans- 
 form "despotism" into a "monarchy" 
 according to doctrine of Montesquieu, 
 170; grants "Charter of \ol)ility," and 
 pouvnirs intermiiliaires. helping nobility, 
 but not bourgeoisie nor serfs. 171, 552; 
 and general assembly of deputies, 171, 
 237; fails to start a representation. 172; 
 and her land grants, 23s; transforms 
 gentry into a privilegecl class, 237; 
 favors emancipation of peasants, 247;
 
 568 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 uses satire against liberal journalists,2 5 2 ; 
 persecutes Masons for aiding philan- 
 thropists, 252; frees gentry from compul- 
 sory military service, 357 f.; continuous 
 agrarian troubles after time of, 359; 
 introduces "assignats" or national paper 
 money, 467. See also Poogachov. 
 
 Caucasus: disaffection in, 503. 
 
 Causes: for reformation in general and in 
 Russia in particular, loi f.; of difference 
 in Russian liberalism to be found in the 
 peculiarities of the social structure, 225; 
 of agrarian crisis, 439 ff. 
 
 Censorship, 204 ff.; and Goloveen, 208 f. 
 
 Censure, previous, 204, 206. 
 
 Central government: and colonists, 10; 
 power of, strengthened by colonization, 
 140, 148, 157- 
 
 Ccntralistic reorganization and unification 
 of social democracy (1903), 489. 
 
 "Chaikovtsee" circle of St. Petersburg and 
 "go-to-the-people movement," 404 f. 
 
 Chambers in provinces: advocated by 
 Demchinskee and Sharahpov, 331. 
 
 Chancery: Third Section of his Majesty's 
 Private, 1S6, 192, 204. 
 
 Change in conditions of Ufe caused by in- 
 crease of expenditures, 440. 
 
 Changes: in social composition of liberal 
 party through the decay of gentry, 286; 
 in prosperity of peasants from 1861 to 
 present time. 435 f-i in Russia's history, 
 rapid and essential, 546. 
 
 Chappe d'Auteroche: criticised by Cath- 
 erine II., 47. 
 
 Character: of settlers of Russia and United 
 States different, and cause thereof, 10; 
 of Russians described by Lanin, 13; and 
 by Dostoyevsky, 16. 
 
 Charity in early Russia, 71. 
 
 "Charter of Nobility": granted by Cath- 
 erine II., and confirmed by Alexander I., 
 171, 275; as viewed by Bezobrazov and 
 Golohvastov, 275. 
 
 "Cheap money": general demand for, 
 469 ff. 
 
 Cheecherrin: a former conservative, states 
 chief demand of hberalism in his book, 
 Russia on the Eve of the Twentieth Cen- 
 tury, 328 ff.; view of, on autocracy, 331 f. 
 
 Cherkassky: one of real authors of Eman- 
 cipation Act, 267. 
 Cherneeschevsky: book of. What to Do? 
 376; as a raznochinex, 376; on emanci- 
 pation of peasants (1857 ff.), 387. 
 Chin: meaning of, 234. 
 Cholera of 1892-93 starts new movement 
 
 for reform, 324. 
 Christian : anarcliism of Leo Tolstoy taught 
 by Euphemius about 1770, 100; self- 
 absorption in love essence of eastern 
 civilization, 55; thought, evangelical 
 and spirituaUstic currents of, 92, in. 
 
 Chronic insolvency: present condition of 
 peasantry, 443. 
 
 Churches and priests: increase disprDp.or- 
 tionately in number compared with the 
 Orthodox population, 90. See also Es- 
 tablished church, Orthodox church, and 
 Russian church. 
 
 City population at various periods of 
 Russian history, 226. 
 
 CiviUzation: present struggle of, in Russia 
 significant, 4. 
 
 Clandestine press, 210 f. 
 
 Clash: between democratic nationaUsts 
 and landed proprietors on question of 
 the Mir, 271; between poUtical and 
 social radicaUsm, 281, 282. See also 
 Conflict. 
 
 Clement: circular letter of metropolitan, 
 quoted, 137. 
 
 Clergy: condition of, in early Russian 
 church, 70 f. 
 
 Coercion, bill of: see Bill of coercion. 
 
 Colonists: in Russia and America (United 
 States). 7; social life of, 8; central gov- 
 ernment and, 10. 
 
 Colonization: conditions of, different in 
 Russia and United States. 3 f.; develop- 
 ment of, 5 438; strengthening central 
 power, 140; region of southern, 11 ff.; 
 146. 
 
 Coming of Antichrist: in doctrine of "Old- 
 beUevers," 93 ff., 106. 
 
 Commerce and war: outward springs of 
 poUtical development, 135, 142 f. 
 
 Commune: see Mir and Village commun- 
 ity. 
 
 Comparative table of harvest returns, 456. 
 
 Competition: among Russian peasants, 
 struggle for, 451; eUminated under 
 VVitte's regime, 464 f-', and struggle be- 
 tween Social Revolutionaries and Social 
 Democrats, the former winning, 493 f. 
 
 Condition: of clergy in earlier Russian 
 church, 70 f.; of serfs during eighteenth 
 and nineteenth centuries, 171 ff.; of 
 peasantry as stated by Bekhtayev and 
 Schwanebach, 443 f. 
 
 Conditions: of colonization different in 
 Russia and United States, 3 f-", oi Ufe 
 changed in provinces by work of Zemst- 
 vos, 2q6; of Ufe changed on account of 
 increase of expenditure, 440. 
 
 Conflict: between "Greeks" and "Ger- 
 mans" in Russia during seventeenth 
 century, 38; of pubUc opinion with gov- 
 ernment, 183, 250, 234; of Zemstvos 
 with government, 299; final, between 
 goverruncnt and country begins in 1902, 
 478 ff. See also Clash. 
 
 Confusion of terms "race" and "nation," 
 
 31- _, . 
 
 Consciousness: political, among Russian 
 peasantry, 353.
 
 ANALYTICAL INDEX 
 
 569 
 
 Conscripts: illiteracy among, 214. 
 
 Consequences of Danile\-sky's theory. 
 Slav opposed to European, 59. 
 
 Conser\-ative party: since 1863, 284; \-iew 
 of. on agricultural and financial crisis, 
 and its solution, 474 ff. 
 
 Conspiracy of Nechayev, 383. 
 
 Constant. Benjamin: founder of liberal 
 movement in Russia, 52. 
 
 Constantinople: fall of, in its results upon 
 development of Russian church and 
 hierarchy, 74 ff. 
 
 Constitution: and .-Mexander I., 172 ff , 
 257; Speranskys arguments for a, 173 f., 
 185. 309- 553' S55'> public opinion and, 
 173, 176 f.. 182 ff.; Novoseeltsov's draft 
 of. 174; favored by vast majority of 
 Moscow assembly in 1865, 276; de- 
 manded by refugees in 1862 ff.. 278; 
 plainly demanded by some of the Zemst- 
 vos. 304 f.. 311. 563; of Loris Melikov. 
 
 312 ff.; boyars' political program of 
 (about 1598). 354 f". of Bulgaria would 
 satisfy demands of liberals, 304 f., 563. 
 
 "Constitutional assembly or a constitu- 
 tion": debate between Herzen and 
 Tourguenev, 280 ff., 320. 
 
 Constitutional: project of 1819, Alexander 
 I. renounces his. 174, 257; assembly de- 
 manded by Herzen and Bakoonin, 27S f., 
 3S0; convention freely elected by a gen- 
 eral vote, program of Shellyabov's social- 
 istic group, 418. 
 
 Constitutionalism and Zemstvos, 294. 
 
 Consultative assembly: ifcZemskec Sobor. 
 
 Continuity: lack of, and social tradition. 
 19. 
 
 Contrast between Muscovite type and pri- 
 mary southern type, 146. 
 
 Co-operation: agricultural, program of 
 Russian socialism, 385. 
 
 Copper currency: from Peter the Great to 
 Catherine II., 467. 
 
 Corps: of gendarmes, 190. 193; of nobility, 
 founded by Empress Anna (1732), 250- 
 
 Cossacks: now only trusty part of army, 
 
 Cosmopolitan: theory of nationalism, ac- 
 cording to Solovyov, 63; doctrine of 
 social democracy in struggle with local 
 current of Social Revolutionaries, 493 f. 
 
 Coulanges, Fustel de: on Mir, 350. 
 
 Council, national, or parhament in fifteenth 
 century, 149. 
 
 Council: of Florence, 75; of Moscow 
 (1554), 104; in 1714 condemning 
 Tvereclinov and his followers, 109. 
 
 Council of State: established, 173. 309; 
 in Melikov's draft of a "constitution." 
 
 313 f.; on agricultural and financial 
 crisis and its solution. 473 f. 
 
 Councils: of 1547 and iS40 canonizing 
 national saints, 77; of 1607 condemn- 
 
 ing schismatics, 81, 93; at Moscow in 
 1552-54. 104, no. 
 
 Country lectures particularly difficult and 
 dangerous. 200. 
 
 Court, or third, aristocracy of eighteenth 
 century, 234 ft". 
 
 Courtiers. 156; most dependent on will of 
 government. 557. 
 
 Creed: national type of Russian, 76. 
 
 Crimean defeat starts era of "Great Re- 
 forms" of Alexander 1., 324. 
 
 Crimes: increase of political. 516. 
 
 Crisis: Rus.sian, its nature and urgency of 
 reform, 433-545; agricultural, 435 ff- 
 (and see Agrarian and Agricultural); 
 industrial: result of overprotection, 
 459; and foreign market, 464; reliefs 
 proposed. 473 ff.; financial: causes, 466; 
 schemes of relief proposed, 473 ff. 
 
 Criticisms and defense of new culture by 
 
 liberal journalists, 45. 
 Currency question, 466 f. 
 Currents: evangelical and spiritualistic, 
 
 in Christian thought of Russia, 92, 111; 
 
 of political opinion, moderate or liber.il, 
 
 and radical or socialistic, 222, 560. 
 
 Daily press: measures against, 205. 
 Danilevsky: book of, Russia and Europe, 
 
 outlet of new nationalistic current of 
 
 second half of nineteenth century, 58; 
 
 formerly a Petrashevtsee, 384. 
 De Maistre: and De Bonald, formulating 
 
 romantic theory in France, 50. 
 Decay of gentry, 286. 
 Deceit and violence of present government, 
 
 540. 
 December insurrection of 1825, 52, 366; 
 
 Laferronnais on, 184 f., 187. 
 Decembrist revolution, 176. 184 f., 254-59. 
 
 Decembrists: Alexander I. and, 176 f., 
 254; Pooshkin on. 255; philanthropy 
 and, 256; Southern Society of. led by 
 Pestel, 259 f.; provincial assemblies in 
 scheme of, 310. 
 
 Declaration of agreement (December, 
 1904). between r.idicals (revolutionaries) 
 and liberals, 524. 
 
 Decline: of aristocracy of lineage in fif- 
 teenth and sixteenth centuries. 228; of 
 nobility and gentry since liberation of 
 I)easants, 237 f. 
 
 Decrease: in landholdings among peasants 
 since 1861, 436; of surplus of exports 
 over imports, 471 f. 
 
 Defects in organization of Zemstvos, 288 ff. 
 
 Defenders of old tradition against pro- 
 gressive public opinion. 28. 41 ff. 
 
 Defense of new culture by liberal journal- 
 ists, 43. 
 
 Deficiencies of Russian Koci;d mind, 19.
 
 57° 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Deliberative assemblies of ancient Russia 
 (Zemskee Sobor): recommended by 
 Kosheiov, 30Q. 
 Delyanov: decree of, restricting number of 
 
 Jewish children in schools, 217. 
 Demchinskee: advocating "federalism" 
 
 and chambers in provinces, 331. 
 Democracy: primitive, better developed in 
 earlv Russia, 136, 149". and socialism in 
 England, Germany, and Russia, 336 2-; 
 represented by "new generation," i. <"., 
 Tourguenev's "sons," 375- 384; social 
 {see Social democracy. Socialism). 
 Democratic: spirit in early Russia and 
 United States, 8; social structure m 
 these countries, 9; theory of Rousseau 
 rejected bv Catherine II., 170; national- 
 ists in St. Petersburg omnipotent in early 
 sixties, 271 f.; and revolutionary fac- 
 tions, attempt (iSSoff.) at reconciling 
 the, 429 ff.; constitution.ahsts, left wing 
 of present liberal group. 5^9; autocracy 
 advocated by Witte (December 15, 
 1904), 533 n. 31- 
 Democratism of autocracy, 353 f. 
 Democratization: of aristocracy of state 
 service by Peter the Great, 232, 557; of 
 public opinion, 559 i- 
 Democrats and agrarian nobles at Moscow 
 
 (1865): assembly of. 274 f. 
 Demonstration at Saratov (1903), 176 f- 
 Demonstrations: of university students and 
 workingmen (autumn, 1901, to spring, 
 1902), 504 S. 
 Density of population in European Russia 
 
 since Peter the Great, 22. 
 Department for protection, 189. 
 Despotism: Catherine II. 's attempt to 
 
 transform into monarchy, 170. 
 Determination of nationalistic idea, 30. 
 Development: of Russia and United 
 States, 5, 438; nationa'ism in its three 
 stages of, 3s; of Russian church and 
 hierarchy through fall of Constantinople, 
 74; of sectarianism, 83, 01 i.- 100 ff.; 
 political, caused by social differentia- 
 tion in tribal society, 134; commerce and 
 war outward springs of political, 135. 
 142 f.; of feudal state, 135 f-. i43; 01 
 Japan and Russia compared, 553. 
 Diderot, 25, 172- 
 
 Difference: in conditions of Russian and 
 American colonization, 3 f.; in re.sults 
 of Russian and .\merican settlements. 9, 
 12; of nation and race. 31; in evolution 
 of political organization in western and 
 in eastern Europe. 134; in liberalism of 
 Russia caused by peculiarities of social 
 structure, 22s. 
 Differences: in character of settlers of 
 Russia and United States, and their 
 causes, 10; in creed and ritual of Rus- 
 sian and Greek churches early empha- 
 sized, 76. 
 
 Differentiation of political parties (1863), 
 
 2S3f. 
 Disaffection, political: a compelling force 
 toward reform, 433 f-i supported by 
 activity of revolutionary parties (since 
 1903), 479 f.; in Finland and Caucasus, 
 502 f. 
 Discordant: public opinion loses hold on 
 the government, 282; views as to r61e 
 of Mir, 347. 
 Discretionary power: legalized by "tem- 
 porary" regulations, 1S3. 
 Disparities of political opinion: arising 
 from different schemes for emancipation 
 of peasants. 265 f. 
 Disproportionate: increase of churches, 
 monasteries, and clergy, 90; predomi- 
 nance of nobility in Zemstvos or pro- 
 \-incial assemblies, 241; revenue and 
 expense causes agrarian crisis, 430, 439; 
 increase of taxes ruins Russian peasant, 
 442. 
 Dissatisfaction: created by reactionary pol- 
 icy of government. 303; of peasants with 
 conditions of emancipation, 359. 
 Dissociation from lower strata: nobility's 
 
 and gentry's first outward, 43 f., 84. 
 Dissolution of nationalism, 57. 
 Distribution of revolutionary leaflets 
 (1Q02) reported on by department of 
 police, 509. 
 District: lectures particularly difficult and 
 dangerous. 200; commanders again men 
 of service, 244 f., committees (1902) on 
 agricultural crisis, 477; political import- 
 ance of their discussion, 478 f.; liberals 
 in, 476 f. 
 Divergence: points of, in declaration of 
 agreement between radicals and liberals 
 (December, 1904), 525 ff- 
 "Division of land": starting-point of 
 propaganda among peasants, 510; 
 "Poogachov points" with respect to, 
 511. 
 Doctrine of modern socialism, 362. 
 Doctrines of Russian Orthodox church, 
 
 66. 
 Dolgooshin circle of Moscow: and "go-to- 
 
 the-people movement," 404 f. 
 Dolgorookee: recommends (i860) pro- 
 vincial assemblies, 310. 
 "Domestic economy": transition from, to 
 
 "exchange economy," 439. 
 Domiciliary search, 195. 
 Dookhobory: successors to Hleests, spirit- 
 ualistic sectarians (about 1770), 92, 
 III ff., iiS f.; in Canada, 113. "9'. and 
 Leo Tolstoy, 113. 119- 
 Doornovo: secret messages of, to Delyanov 
 
 on new movement (1898). 324 f. 
 Dostoyevsky: on national virtue, 16; and 
 Russian character, 17; formerly a 
 Petrashevtsee , 384.
 
 ANALYTICAL INDEX 
 
 571 
 
 Dualism in social life since eighteenth 
 century. 44. 
 
 Duarchy of Tsar and patriarch in seven- 
 teenth century, 85. 
 
 Dvoryane: or courtiers, 156. 
 
 Early Russia: until sixteenth century, 6; 
 rural democracy in. 8; local types of 
 culture of. 141; Polish influence in. 144. 
 179; popular beliefs concerning trinity 
 in. 69 f. 
 
 Earnings of migrating laborers, north and 
 south. 453 f. 
 
 Eastern: cinUzation. essence of, 55; 
 church. Dean Stanley on general char- 
 acteristics of. 65; creed, simplified and 
 materialized as Russian Orthodoxy, 67; 
 origin of land grants, 151. 
 
 Eastern and Western : church in estimation 
 of Slavophilism, 54; Europe, difference 
 in evolution of political organization in, 
 134- 
 
 Eclecticism of Russian theology of seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth centuries. 83. 
 
 Economic: pxjsition of Russian peasants- 
 345; condition changed since iS6i' 
 439 f.; and social reform questions un- 
 touched in Paris agreement of Decem- 
 ber, 1904. 526 ff. 
 
 "Economism": of new (or young) gener- 
 ation of the nineties vs. older "orthodox" 
 Marxism. 484 f .; gives way to latter, 486. 
 
 Editorial and hterary acti\ity of both 
 branches of Socialist party. 496 ff., 509 f. 
 
 Educated class: poUtical power of gentry 
 as, 248. 
 
 Educated classes: indifferent to religion 
 because of break in religious tradition. 
 83; protest against religious intolerance 
 and persecution, 128; or people: sub- 
 ject of debate between Herzen and 
 Tourguenev, 280 ff., 320; political ideal- 
 ism of, 558. 
 
 Education: secondary, under Peter the 
 Great and Catherine II., 215. 
 
 Effects of overtaxation, 442, 472 f. 
 
 Eighteenth century: and Russian culture, 
 40 f.. 45; nationalism and higher classes, 
 40; and before, popular theology crude 
 and materialistic in belief and practices 
 during, 70. 
 
 Elimination of competition under Witte's 
 regime, 464 f. 
 
 EUzabeth. P'mpress: founder of Moscow 
 University (1755), 250. 
 
 Emancipation: organ of Liberal party 
 since 1902, 257, s'S. 
 
 Emancipation Act: real authors of, 267. 
 
 "Emancipation of Labor Group," 425, 
 482 f. 
 
 Emancipation of peasants: favored by 
 Catherine II.. 247; disparities of po- 
 litical opinion arising from different 
 
 schemes for, 265 f.; and peasantry, 343; 
 anticipations by peasants of. under Cath- 
 erine II., 357; condition of. creates dis- 
 satisfaction among peasantry, 3^9; and 
 first revolutionary program. 385 f.; and 
 poUtical freedom, gentry's twofold pro- 
 gram, 558 f. 
 
 Emancipation of Russian church from 
 Greek, 75. 
 
 Embitterment of public opinion by gov- 
 ernment's postponement of political re- 
 form, 173, 176 f.. 1S2, 210 f. 
 
 Energy and initiative: lacking in character 
 of Russian colonists, 11. 
 
 Enforcement of "self-defense" by regu- 
 lations 187 f. 
 
 "Enlightened absolutism" of eighteenth 
 century, i6g. 
 
 Entail system: lacking in Russia, a disaster 
 in its results, 228. 
 
 Era of "Great Reforms": of Alexander 
 II., and liberalism, 262 ff. 
 
 Eshootin: circle of, 394. 
 
 Esprit dc corps: lacking among Russian 
 nobility of seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries, 229 f. 
 
 Essence: of Slavophilism, 53; of eastern 
 civdUzation, ss- 
 
 Essential features of national type: immu- 
 tability of religion and autocracy, 131 f. 
 
 Established church: decries rehgious toler- 
 ance, 123. 
 
 Euphemius: reconstructs doctrine of old 
 "Priestless" about 1770, 99; and the 
 "Wanderers," 100; teaches Tolstoy's 
 Christian anarchism, 100. 
 
 European: Russia, density of population 
 since Peter the Great. 22; Slav opposed 
 to, a consequence of Danilevsky's theory, 
 59- 
 
 Europeanizing of Russia by Peter the 
 Great, 40. 
 
 Evangelical: and spiritual Christianity, 
 transition from ritualism to, 83 ff., 131; 
 and spiritualistic currents of Christian 
 thought, 92, III. 
 
 Evangelicism in Russia: and western 
 Europe, 102 f; beginnings of, 108; dur- 
 ing nineteenth century, 1 16 ff. 
 
 Evolution: law of religious, 101; of 
 Hleests, 117; of Dookhobory in nine- 
 teenth century, 118; of political organi- 
 zation different in western and in eastern 
 Europe, 134. 
 
 "Exchange economy": transition from 
 "domestic economy" to, 439. 
 
 Excommunication of Count Leo Tolstoy, 
 86 f. 
 
 Executive: officers of Zemstvo called 
 "Third Element." 290; committee ad- 
 dresses Alexander III. (March, 1881), 
 320; committee of Socialist Kevolution- 
 aries, 416, 419,
 
 572 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Exile: administrative, igs f. 
 
 Exiles: great increase in number of, during 
 
 ministry of Seepyaghin, 196. 
 Expenditure: increase of, cause of change 
 
 in condition of life, 440. 
 Expense and revenue, being dispropor- 
 tionate, cause agrarian crisis, 430, 439. 
 Expenses abroad of government: exceed 
 
 profits from foreign imports enormously, 
 
 472. 
 Export price of grain: constantly falling 
 
 off of, 456. 
 Exports: surplus of, over imports steadily 
 
 decreasing, 471 f. 
 
 Factories: introduced by Peter the Great, 
 
 227; protective legislation since then, 
 
 459- 
 Factory life: political disturbances in, 505. 
 Failure: of Catherine II. to start a repre- 
 sentation, 172; of agrarian movement in 
 
 the late seventies, 413. 
 Fall of Constantinople: its results upon 
 
 development of Russian chvurch and 
 
 hierarchy, 74 f. 
 Famine: of 1891 starts new movement for 
 
 reform, 324; of 1902 causing uprisings, 
 
 508- 
 Fate of Russian aborigines, 6. 
 Fathers and Sons, by Tourguenev: repre- 
 senting generations of the forties and of 
 
 the sixties (new or young; "NihiUsts"), 
 
 373' 384- 
 Federalism: idea of, with Russian radicals, 
 
 310 f.; and chambers in the provinces 
 
 advocated by Demchinskee and Sharah- 
 
 pov, 331. 
 Feeling and religion in system of Slavo- 
 
 pliilism, 54. 
 Feudal: stage of political organization, 
 
 133; state, development of, 13s f., 143; 
 
 aristocracy, 135, 149- 
 Feudalism: in secondary southern type, 
 
 149; its cause of weakness, 150, 229; 
 
 not existing in Muscovite state, 153. 
 Feuerbach, Ludwig: originator, with St. 
 
 Simon, of theory of nihiUsm, 364, 384. 
 Fichte's: Speeches to the German People 
 
 (180S) and nationaUstic idea, 51; idea 
 
 of state indorsed by Lassalle and Marx, 
 
 338. 
 "Fighting Branch": of Social Democratic 
 
 party, 490 f.; among college students, 
 
 S12. 
 Filippov, Tertius: on genuine type of 
 
 Russian culture, 60. 
 FiUippitch, Daneelo, 107. 
 Final decline of nobility and gentry since 
 
 Uberation of peasants, 237 f. 
 Financial policy: under Bunge (18S3), 
 
 Veeshnegradskee (1888 ff.), and Witte 
 
 (1893 £f.), 444 f., 466; its crisis, 466; 
 
 schemes proposed for relief of the latter- 
 473 ff- 
 
 Finland: and the discretionary powers of 
 governor-general, 183 f.; disaffection in, 
 502. 
 
 Finnish "Party of Active Resistance" in 
 1904, 525 f. 
 
 First: attempt to construct a nationalistic 
 theory, 46; conflict of public opinion 
 with government, 250, 254; political 
 demonstrations of local assemblies of 
 nobility (1858-64), 268; revolutionary 
 program and emancipation of peasants, 
 385 f.; appearance of Russian "masses" 
 on political stage, 482. 
 
 Flagellants : see Hleests. 
 
 Florence: council of , 75. 
 
 Foreign: origin of theory of nihilism, 364; 
 competition and peasantry. 455 f.; mar- 
 kets no remedy for industrial crisis, 464; 
 imports, and profits therefrom largely 
 exceeded by governmental expenses 
 abroad, 472; capital assisting Witte in 
 developing manufacture, 459 f., 472; 
 loans and pubUc debt, 473. 
 
 Foreigners' influence upon Russia in mid- 
 dle of seventeenth century, 36 f. 
 
 Formal conflict between govermnent and 
 country begins (1902), 478 £f. 
 
 Formula for "official nationaKsm," 181. 
 
 Forward and backward movement in Rus- 
 sian society of eighteenth century, 41,45. 
 
 Fourier's theory and Petrashevtsee, 384. 
 
 Four-storied representation: a scheme of 
 twenty years ago, favored at present by 
 many Uberals, 520. 
 
 Fourth crusade, 74. 
 
 Franchise: universal, questions touching, 
 
 521 f. 
 
 Free: speech excluded in people's lectures, 
 199; public hbraries scarce, 201; coin- 
 age of silver stopped, 470. 
 
 ' ' Free institutions ' " : differently interpreted 
 by liberals themselves (1880J, 308 f. 
 
 "Free love": Russian, and its true char- 
 acter, 365. 
 
 Free Russia: opportunism of, condemned 
 by the Socialist (1889), 428 f. 
 
 Free Word: founded as organ of Liberal 
 party in 1881, 305. 
 
 Freedom of rehgion: and Tsar, 123 f.; 
 vs. tradition, 129; Zemstvos' appeal to 
 Nicholas II. for more (1894-95), 325 f. 
 
 Freedom: political, in Japan and Russia, 
 554 f- 
 
 French Revolution: affecting Russian con- 
 ditions, 26; and German romanticists 
 on nationahstic idea, 50. 
 
 From the Other Shore: by Herzen, 371. 
 
 Frontier: settlement, southern, at end of 
 sixteenth century, 7, 356; service of 
 early colonists, 10.
 
 ANALYTICAL INDEX 
 
 573 
 
 Future: Russian south "promised land" 
 of Russian. 146. 
 
 Gand\ik: i. c, \Mutc Sea, Beormasat, 141. 
 
 General: assembly of deputies and Cath- 
 erine II., 171 f., 237; vote and one- 
 chamber system demanded by liberals 
 of the "Alliance" (1880). 311; "consti- 
 tutional convention" freely elected by a 
 general vote, program of Shellyabov's 
 socialistic group. 418; Jewish W'orkinp- 
 men's Alliance for Russia and Poland 
 (.see Jewish Bund). 
 
 "General Land Partition" party (1879): 
 conservative wing of "Land and Lib- 
 erty" party. 421 f ; "pure populism" of, 
 evolves into "pure socialism" vs. bour- 
 geois strivings of " People "s Will" party, 
 422 f. 
 
 Gentry: first outward dissociation of, 
 from lower strata. 43 f., 84; social his- 
 tory of. 227-45; nobility of state serxice 
 organized by John IV. against aris- 
 tocracy. 22g; military service of. 231; 
 political intluence of, 235; transforma- 
 tion of. into a privileged class by Cath- 
 erine II., 237; final decline of. since 
 emancipation of peasants. 237 f.; lacks 
 in political power as a social group, 246, 
 557; political power of, as educated 
 class, representing public opinion, 248; 
 struggle of. for political liberty. 248 f.; 
 freed by Catherine II. from compulsory 
 military service. 357 f.; twofold program 
 of : emancipation of peasants and pohti- 
 cal freedom, 558 f. 
 
 German: quarter in Moscow, 37; roman- 
 ticists on nationalistic idea, 50; Refor- 
 mation and its influence in Russia, 104. 
 See also Greeks. 
 
 Germany: socialism and democracy in, 
 337- 
 
 Gesitli, 55. 
 
 Glebae ascripli: peasants become (1648), 
 337- 
 
 Godoonov. Boris: founder of Russian sec- 
 tarianism, 100, 354, 356. 
 
 Gold: customs of 1876. 469; and prohib- 
 itive tariff of 1 89 1, and their conse- 
 quences, 459 f., 471 ff.; currency intro- 
 duced (189s), 466, 469 f.; reserve kept 
 up with great difficulty, 471. 
 
 Golohvastov: on "Charter of Nobility," 
 27S- 
 
 Goloveen: and cen.sorship of press, 208 f. 
 
 "Good-for-nothing-men": see Shalopoots. 
 
 Goorko: on agricultural and financial 
 crisis, and its solution, 474 ff. 
 
 Gopon. Father George: Russian La.ssalle, 
 536 ff. 
 
 "Go-to-the-people movement" of 1873-74, 
 383, 403(1 ; preparation of, 404 f.; epi- 
 demic character of, 405-7; failure of, 
 407 f.; lessons from, 410. 
 
 Government: central .Tnd colonists. 10, 
 140; in conflict with public opinion, 180, 
 183. 250-54; and with Zem.stvos. 294, 
 299 ff.; newspaper. 209; attempts to 
 include aristocracy in its system of self- 
 defense, 230; creates general dissatis- 
 faction by its reactionary policy. 303; 
 asks help against revolutionists (1878),' 
 303; memorialized by Zemstvos, some 
 demanding oisenly a constitution. 304 f., 
 311, 563; in present struggle with liber- 
 alism, 328 ff.; in formal conflict ipvith 
 country since 1902, 478 ff.; now as vacil- 
 lating and irresolute as ever. 539; nihil- 
 ism present poUcy of authorities, 540. ' 
 
 Governors: powers of, over Zemstvos, 300. 
 
 Gradual approximation of radical and 
 Uberal programs, 523 f. 
 
 Grain: only pea.sants' product to sell, 
 455; raising of, unprofitable owing to 
 foreign competition, 455 f. 
 
 Granovsky: aiding Herzen's views, 372. 
 
 Great Russian: opposed to Ru.ssian (Mos- 
 cow circle), 60. 
 
 Great Russian, 390; quotation from, 386. 
 
 Great Russians: especially Moscow, type 
 of Russian culture for Grigoryev, Filip- 
 pov, and others, 60. 
 
 Greek and Russian churches: historical 
 antagonism between, 73; differences in 
 creed of, early emphasized, 76. 
 
 Greek religious tradition reintroduced in 
 seventeenth century, 79. 
 
 Greeks and Germans: in conflict in Russia 
 during seventeenth century. 38; influ- 
 ence of, upon nationalism contrasted, 37. 
 
 Grellet, Stephen: on Molokanee, in his 
 Memoirs, 115. 
 
 Grigoryev: on genuine type of Russian 
 
 culture, 60. 
 
 "Group for Liberation of Labor" (1883): 
 under Axebod and Plehanov, 425, 487; 
 adopts La\Tov's views, 425. 
 
 Growth: material, of Russia, 22; of civil- 
 izing ideas, 23; of sectarianism and per- 
 secution, 123; of Russian manufacture, 
 459 f. 
 
 Harvest returns: comparative table of, 453. 
 
 Haven, Peter: on Russian social life of 
 eighteenth century, 41. 
 
 Haxthausen, Baron: and Mir (1880), 349. 
 
 Hegel's: Philosophy of History and 
 nationalistic idea, 51, 261; idea of state, 
 indorsed by Lassalle and Marx, 338. 
 
 Hercdes and originarii, 138. 
 
 Herzcn, 320; and Katkov, 274; demands 
 a con.slitutional assembly (1862 ff.), 
 278 f., 380; debate of, with Tourguenev, 
 280 ff., 320; a leader of Russian social- 
 ism, 363; nihilism of, 363 f.; socialism 
 of, 365 f.; te.aches Russian village com- 
 mune to be germ of socialistic society.
 
 574 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 367 ff.; influenced by novel Arminius, 
 368; opposed by Marx because of his 
 Panslavism. 371, 382 f.; founds the 
 Bell as his organ, 372. 383; his From the 
 Other Shore and Letters from France and 
 Italy, 37I-, socialistic program of, 372; 
 and public opinion in Russia, 371 f.; 
 view of, aided by Belinsky and Granov- 
 sky. 372; criticism of, of "new genera- 
 tion," 377; rejoinder to, by Bakoonin, 
 378; advocates peaceful opposition as 
 against Bakoonin, 379 ff-", and Bakoonin, 
 381; on "Land and Liberty" organiza- 
 tion (1862), 390. 
 
 Hierarchv: of Russian church since fall 
 of Constantinople, 74 f-'. and Tsars of 
 seventeenth century, 84 ff.; re-estab- 
 lished among "acknowledging-priests" 
 Old-believers, 94; "Austrian," in Rus- 
 sia, 95- 
 
 Higher classes: and nationalism of eight- 
 eenth century, 40. 
 
 "Historical materialism of Marx:" adopted 
 by new generation of the nineties, 483 f. 
 
 Historical Russian tradition, 3-29. 63. 547- 
 
 History of Russia changing rapidly and 
 essentially. 546. 
 
 Hleests (Flagellants): spiritualistic sec- 
 tarians (about 1690), 92, 106, 117 f. 
 
 Hobbes, 170; his absolutism. 552. 
 
 Holy Synod: anti-canonic since Peter 
 the Great, 86; attempts to supplant 
 Zemstvo schools by parish schools, 
 212 f.; more intolerant after manifesto 
 of December 16, 1904, 534 f- 
 
 Home market : not to be expanded without 
 slackening protectionism, 465. 
 
 Homyakov: influencing Dean Stanley's 
 conception of Eastern church, 65. 
 
 House communion: and tribal organiza- 
 tion in early Russia, 133, 136 f. 
 
 Human and horse power in rural districts 
 of southern Russia, 450 ff. 
 
 Hypocrisy: and Russian character, 15. 
 
 "Icons": fetish of Russian peasant of 
 
 eighteenth century, 69. 
 Idea: nationahstic, 30-64; Uberal, 221- 
 
 333; sociaUstic, 334-432; of federaUsm 
 
 with Russian radicals, 310. 3n- 
 Ideas of religious and political freedom 
 
 previous to French Revolution, 26. 
 Ignatyev: period of transition of, 316. 
 "Ill-intentioned" and "well-intentioned," 
 
 196. 
 Illiteracy among conscripts, 214. 
 Imitators and reactionaries in Russian 
 
 society of eighteenth century, 41. 
 Immediate reforms of government not in 
 
 sight, 433. 
 Immigration: drift of Russian, 7. 
 
 Immutability: of religion one of the two 
 essential features of national type of 
 Russia, 131 f. {but see 547 f.); theory 
 of national, prevents any form of pro- 
 gress on part of government, 539; theory 
 itself a product of change, 546 f. 
 Imports: surplus of exports over, steadily 
 decreasing, 471 f.; foreign, do not pay 
 governmental expenses abroad, 472. 
 Impoverishment of peasantry of southern 
 Russia through three-field system and 
 poor tillage, 440, 450. 
 Imprisonment of political suspects, 196. 
 Income of peasants, 417; different in 
 
 northern and southern Russia, 448. 
 Increase: of expenditure cause of change 
 in condition of life, 440; of present 
 police persecutions, 514; of poUtical 
 crimes, 516. 
 Indifference in religion among educated 
 
 cla.sses, 83. 
 Individual belief and Orthodoxy, 125 f. 
 Individualism of socialism in English- 
 speaking countries, 336. 
 Individualistic tendencies in Mir, and 
 
 agrarian legislation, 350. 
 Indorsement by all classes and masses 
 of "Petition of Rights" of November 
 19-21, 1904, 530 f. 
 Industrial crisis: a result of overprotection, 
 
 459; and foreign market, 464. 
 Industries: protection of, a most important 
 cause of agricultural crisis, 446 ft., 459. 
 Inefficiency of whole system of oppression, 
 
 219. 
 Influence: of foreigners upon Russia in 
 middle of seventeenth century, 36 f.; of 
 schismatics of seventeenth century with 
 peasantry, 90 f ; of Paulikianism, 103; 
 of pre-Reformation ideas in Russia, 103. 
 Initiative; lacking in character of Russian 
 
 colonists, II. 
 Inner migrations of peasants in search 
 
 of employment, 437, 452. 
 Instinctive feeUng: nationalistic idea as 
 
 an, 35. 
 Insufficient: number of .schools, 214; size 
 of allotments for peasants of southern 
 Russia from 1861 on, 449: character 
 of "temporary measures" of the eighties, 
 515- 
 Intellectual: Russian liberaUsm not bour- 
 geois, but, 226. 
 "Intellectuals": Russian, in time of 
 Nicholas I. and Alexander II., 262, 2S1; 
 task of, according to LavTov, 401; and 
 socialist propaganda, 480; and work- 
 ingmcn to be helpers for social liberation 
 of peasants, according to Social Revolu- 
 tionaiies' party, 492; found Social 
 Democratic Labor party in 1898 ff., 496- 
 Intermediators: between government and 
 revolutionaries, role of liberals as, 518,
 
 ANALYTICAL INDEX 
 
 575 
 
 "International." 304; Russian branch of, 
 founded by Xechuyev, 396 f. 
 
 Intolerance: and its source: Russianiza- 
 tion, 126; in relifiion decried by edu- 
 cated classes. 128 f.; of Holy 'Synod 
 increased after manifesto of December 
 26, 1904, 534 f. 
 
 Introduction: of military tenure, 151, 
 154 IT.; of special "state police" by 
 Nicholas I., 185. 
 
 Irreconcilable breach between national- 
 ism and radicalism since era of "Great 
 Reforms," 366. 
 
 Irritation, not pacification, result of mani- 
 festo of December 26, 1904, 535. 
 
 Isgoccs: or liberated slaves, 138. 
 
 Janitors: spies and, 193; officials of 
 government, 532. 
 
 Japan: development of, and that of 
 Russia compared, S53 f.'i political free- 
 dom of, and that of Russia, 554. 
 
 Japanophilism, 554. 
 
 Jewish Bund: September, 1897. secedes 
 from United Social Democratic party, 
 489; actinty of. 500 f. ; work of. among 
 soldiers. 512; Pahlen on, 501 f. 
 
 Jews: children of. restricted in number in 
 public schools, 217. 
 
 John III.: and national unification, 32; 
 boyars and sons of boyars under. 157, 
 229; and autocracy, 160; military- 
 national organization of, 148, 156; 
 forms class of military men of service, 
 232. 
 
 John IV., 167, 353 f.; interest of, in reli- 
 gious questions. 105; military and na- 
 tional organization of, 148, 156; takes 
 title of Tsar. 164; treatment of heredi- 
 tary princes and high vassals. 229; 
 crushes ancient aristocracy of lineage, 
 230. 557; standing armies since. 231; 
 and democratism of autocracy, 354 f. 
 
 Journalists: of eighteenth century and 
 new culture, 45; and Catherine II., 252. 
 
 Journey from Petersburg to Moscow (1790): 
 by Radceschev, 26, 253. 
 
 Judaizers: evangelical sectarians, 92, 103, 
 110. 
 
 Karakozov: attempts to as.sassinate Tsar, 
 April 16, 1866, 394. 
 
 Katkov, 274, 284; organ of, Moscow News, 
 287. 319; on unsatisfactory condition of 
 Zemstvos in 1870, 302. 
 
 Kavailin and Millyoutin: directing nation- 
 alistic democratic affairs in early sixties, 
 272 f.; on work of Zemstvos, 293. 
 
 Kceyev, 68, 74 80; early center of military 
 defense, 143, 163. 
 
 Kooropatkin: August. 1000, on political 
 agitation among soldiers, 512 n. 19. 
 
 Koshelov. the Slavophil C1880): on "free 
 institulioub," and recommends Zemskec 
 
 Sobor, 309; agrees to Melikov's "con- 
 stitution," 312. 
 
 Kovalevsky. Sophie: Memoirs, 365. 
 
 Kreeshanich, Georges: on Politics, 38. 
 
 Kreutzer Sonata: of Leo Tolstoy, 365. 
 
 Kropotkin: Memoirs of a Revolutionist, 
 on "go-to-the-people movement" of 
 1873-74, 404- 
 
 Kuhlmann, Quirinus: auto-da-fe of, 24. 
 
 Labor party: launching of, 480. 
 
 Lack of continuity and social tradition, 19. 
 
 Laferronnais: on December mutiny, i.S4 tT. 
 
 Laity: at end of seventeenth and eight- 
 eenth centuries, 83. 
 
 "Land and Liberty" organization: pre- 
 paring agrarian uprising (1862), 390 f.; 
 or Populist party, organized (1876), and 
 its progr;mi, 41 1 ; tiissensions within, 418. 
 
 Land for sale and for rent for agric\iltural 
 purposes insufficient and dear, 450. 
 
 Land grants: eastern origin of, 151; 
 under Catherine II. and Paul, 235. 
 
 Land-dinsion: starting-point of propa- 
 ganda among peasants, 510. 
 
 Landed property: a consequence rather 
 than a source of social power, 227 f.; 
 and nobility in nineteenth century, 230 f. 
 
 Landed proprietors clash with demo- 
 cratic nationalists on question of Mir, 
 271. 
 
 Landholdings of peasants decreased since 
 1861, 436. 
 
 Landlord: Russian, of eighteenth century, 
 40. 
 
 Landlords: aristocracy's sacrifice of peas- 
 antry in sixteenth century to the, 355 f. 
 
 Language: Russian, constantly changing 
 and wavering, 19. 
 
 Lanin: on Russian Characteristics, 13. 
 
 "Latin heresy": Bashkin condemned for, 
 by council of bishops in Moscow (1554), 
 104. 
 
 La\Tists: or pure socialists, object to 
 further propaganda among peasants, 
 408 f., 422 f. 
 
 Lavrov: new theory of, on social revohi- 
 tion, 398 ff.; advocates social propa- 
 ganda 399", opinion of. on intelkctuais 
 task. 401; views of, adopted by "Group 
 for the Liberation of Labor," 425. 
 
 Law: of religious evolution. loi; of 
 nature as basis of autocracy, 168. 
 
 Legal: origin of autocracy, 164; formula of, 
 168; Marxism (sec Miu-xism). 
 
 Legalization of arbitrary rule by statutes, 
 204. 
 
 Lcontiev: on Slavic and Russi.-in culture, 
 60 f.; reactionary nationalism of, O2. 
 
 Letters from France and Italy: of Ilerzen, 
 371-
 
 576 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Levitic caste: formed by clergy, 88. 
 Lholas of Russian law, 140. 
 Liberal: movement in Russia founrlcd by 
 Constant, 52; idea, 221-333; political 
 opinion, two steps in history of, 248 tf.', 
 party changing in its social composition 
 by decay of gentry, 286; party joined 
 by new men of liberal professions, 286; 
 propaganda among Zemstvos and Mr. 
 Witte's report, 305 f.; party organ. Free 
 Word, 305; movement revived in 
 Zemstvos at death of Alexander III. 
 (1894), 325; groups' schemes of twerrty 
 years ago abandoned by party, except 
 two, 520; program, 563. 
 Liberalism: in western Europe, especially 
 England, and in Russia. 223; in Russia 
 as compared with English and German, 
 224, 249. 253; of Russia not bourgeois, 
 but intellectual, 226; and era of "Great 
 Reforms" of Alexander II., 262 ff.; 
 after emancipation, 285 ff.; Zemstvos 
 headquarters of, 285, 2S8 f.; in its 
 present struggle with government. 328 £f.; 
 and autocracy as viewed by Witte. 332; 
 powerless in Russia, according to Shelly- 
 abov, 417; present political role of. 518; 
 program of, sipf.: organized, sipf-.; .one 
 of the two currents of public opinion, 
 222, 560; view of, on agricultural and 
 financial crisis and its solution, 476 f. 
 Liberals: advocate forward movement 
 since eighteenth century. 46; disap- 
 pointed by work of Zemstvos, 295; 
 would be satisfied with constitution like 
 that of Bulgaria, 304 f-. 563; and Lons 
 Melikov (1880). 303; of Moscow and 
 their memorandum of grievances and 
 desiderata. 306 f.; political schemes of 
 (1880), 309; of "Alliance" demand one- 
 chamber system and general vote, 311; 
 answer in an open letter Tsar Nicholas 
 II. 's speech of January 17 (29). 1895. 
 327; in district committees on agricul- 
 tural and financial crisis and its solution, 
 476 f ; favor now, to a large extent, 
 four -storied representation, a scheme of 
 twenty years ago. 520; and declaration 
 of their agreement with radicals. Decem- 
 ber, 1904, 524; as intermediators be- 
 tween government and revolutionaries, 
 518. 
 Liberation of serfs: and decline of nobility 
 
 and gentry, 237 f- 
 Libraries: only few free public. 201; 
 village, 201, 478; people's, and books 
 perrnitted and forbidden in, 202 f. 
 Literary acti^^tv: during last ten years of 
 Nicholas I. and first ten of Alexander 
 II., 287. 
 Local: aristocracy and its rise, 134 ff-; 
 tvpe of early Russian culture, 141; 
 assembhes of nobility and first political 
 demonstrations (1858-64), 268; auton- 
 omv and autocracy, 316; conditions, 
 of agriculture in southwestern, south- 
 central, and northwestern Russia, 437; 
 
 assemblies called together (1902) on 
 agricultural crisis, 476 f.; current of 
 Social Revolutionaries in struggle with 
 cosmopolitan doctrine of Social Democ- 
 racy, 493 f. 
 
 Lopooheens: in eighteenth century, 230. 
 
 Ix)w producti\'ity of soil: one cause of 
 agrarian crisis, 456; opinions as to 
 proper relief for, 457. 
 
 Lower classes in Russia: and their aspira- 
 tions, 342. 
 
 Magna Charta of Empress Anna, 236. 
 Maine, Henry James Sumner: and Mir 
 
 349- 
 
 Manifesto of Tsar: upholding autocracy, 
 
 April 27 (May 11), 1881, 315; of March 
 
 II, 1903, and December 26, 1004, 532 ff., 
 
 542; of March 4, 1905, 543 ff. 
 
 Manufactures: growth of Russian, 4Sof., 
 
 472. 
 Marshals of nobility: created by Catherine 
 II., preside over Zemstvos, 300, 310; 
 call together local assemblies on agri- 
 cultural crisis of 1902, 476 f. 
 Marriage question: among Priestless Old- 
 believers, 98. 
 Mart>TS to political freedom, 172 f. 
 Marx: opponent of Herzen because of 
 latter's Pansla\-ism, 371, 382 f.; Rus.sian 
 socialism drifting to point of view of 
 from that of Bakoonin, 341; "scientific' 
 socialism of, taking place of "Utopian' 
 socialism or anarchism of Bakoonin. 347 
 theory of, ascendant in the seventies 
 398 f.; "historical materialism" of 
 adopted by new generation of the 
 nineties. 483 f.; doctrine of, as revised 
 by Bernstein, defeated, 487- 
 Marxism: ultimate end of pure populism, 
 424; as taught by A.xelrod, 423 f-;. by 
 Plehanov, 426 f.; legal or "economist." 
 another name for "revisionism" in the 
 nineties, 487 f. See also Orthodox 
 Marxism. 
 Masonic lodges: forbidden (1819), 258. 
 Masonry of Russia: aids philanthropists 
 under, and is persecuted by, Catherine 
 II., 252 f. 
 Massacre of St. Petersburg. January 22, 
 
 1905, 505 f- 
 Masses: Russian, appear for first time on 
 
 political stage, 482. 
 Material: growth of Russia, 22; want and 
 political disaffection impelling forces 
 toward reform, 433 f. 
 Measures: to check political opposition, 
 183; against early press and periodicals, 
 205; of repression after December 26, 
 1904, 534- 
 Melikov. Loris: and liberals (1880), 306; 
 
 "constitution" of, 312. 
 "Men of God": jce Hleests.
 
 ANALYTICAL INDEX 
 
 577 
 
 Men of (niilitary) service. 153 fT., 355. 
 
 "Men of senice": lower middle class of. 
 favored hy Peter the Great against 
 nobility both of birth and of state service, 
 232. 
 
 "Men of mixed (»'. c, lower) ranks." or 
 Raznochinlsee: true leaders of socialism, 
 and their intiuence. 375 f.; criticised by 
 Herzen, 378; in Russia, ,i;6o. 
 
 Messianism of nationalistic idea. 35. 57. 
 
 Mettemich: and Alexander I., 174. 257. 
 
 Migration of peasants: in search of em- 
 ployment north and south, 437, 452; 
 and their earnings, 453 f. 
 
 Mihaylovsky: and "repentant noblemen," 
 376. 
 
 Military: stage of political organization, 
 133; center of defense in early Russia, 
 143. 163; men of serWce formed into a 
 class by John III., 232; national organi- 
 zation of John III. and John IV., 148, 
 156; tenure, introduction of, 151, 154 ff.; 
 ser\ice and gentry. 231. 3S7 f', defense 
 and state colonization origin of towns, 
 226. 
 
 "Milk-Drinkers": i«« Molokanee. 
 
 ^Iil!youtin : one of real authors of Emanci- 
 pation Act, 267; considered a "trim- 
 mer" by radicals, 388. See also 
 Kavailin. 
 
 Mir = village community: democratic na- 
 tionalists and landed proprietors clash 
 on question of. 271; nature and effect of. 
 on social life. 343; "rural commander" 
 of, 344; discordant views as to role of, 
 347 ff.; origin of, 340; indiridualistic 
 tendencies in, and agrarian legislation, 
 350- 
 
 Mimee: on Zemstvos' appeal to Tsar 
 Nicholas II., 326. 
 
 Moderate (or liberal) and radical (or 
 socialistic) currents of political opinion, 
 222. 
 
 Modem socialism: its doctrine, 364. 
 
 Molokanee: evangelistic sectarians (about 
 17Q0), 92. iiiff., 120 ff. See also 
 Alien and Grellet. 
 
 Monarchy, Russian: anti-aristocratic, 
 military, not really democratic. 158; 
 Catherine II. attempts to transform 
 "despotism" into "monarchy," 170. 
 
 Monasteries: disproportionate increase of, 
 over Orthodox population, 90. 
 
 Monetary history of Russia and United 
 States .'466 ff- 
 
 Monomach. Vladeemir: and Constantine, 
 163; insij;nia of, 164, 182. 
 
 Montesquieu: on nationalistic theory, 47; 
 principal political teacher of Catherine 
 II., 170; theory of, of media-val mon- 
 archy limited by "intermediate power," 
 170 f.. 552. 
 
 Morozov, 230. 
 
 Moscow: in 1689, 23; and foreigners 
 about middle of seventeenth century, 
 36 f.. 106; seat of romantic movement 
 of nineteenth century. 52; conservatives 
 opposed to Great Russian, 60; genuine 
 type of Russian culture, according to 
 Grigoryev and Filippov, 60 f.; called 
 "third Rome," 75. 162; seat of Ru.ssian 
 patriarch. 79; and sixteenth century 
 Reformation, 104; seat of academv for 
 theological studies since 1687, 108; 
 couiicils at, in 15^2-54, 104. no; Uni- 
 versity of, founded by Kmpress Elizabeth 
 •n i7.'i5' 250; assembly of agrarian 
 nobles and democrats in 1865. 274 ff. 
 
 Moscow N'e-u.'s: Katkov's organ. 287. 319. 
 
 Muscovite: government protecting prairie 
 settlers, 6; Pickwickians and genuine 
 Russian type, 61; and primary southern 
 Russian type, 145 f.; military system of 
 Byzantine oriental origin. 150 f., 229; 
 state never had feudalism to contend 
 with, 153; government ends (1648) 
 rebellion of peasants against their lords, 
 357; princes form autocracy at end of 
 fifteenth century, 550. 
 
 Muzzling of press, 205 ff., 534. 
 
 Nareeshkins: in eighteenth century, 230. 
 
 Nation and race: two different terms, 31; 
 according to romantic idea, 49. 
 
 National: virtue, 16; um"formity and its 
 origin. 31; unification and John III., 32; 
 self-consciousness and self-criticism be- 
 ginning. 33; character according to Rus- 
 sian view, 76; saints. 77; council in fif- 
 teenth century. 149; paper or "assig- 
 nats," 467: immutability, theory of, 
 131 f., 547 f.; prevents any reform pro- 
 gram on part of government, 539. 
 
 National religion : of Saint Russia of seven- 
 teenth century, 72; exalted above orien- 
 tal, 73; type of, worked out, 74; con- 
 demned by Neekon, 85. 
 
 National type: and its chief features. 13, 
 20 f., 131 f.. 547; a social product, 31, 
 547; of Russian creed, 76; of relision, 
 78; of church and Neekon 's reaction, 79. 
 
 Nationalism: self-annihilation of, 34 f.; 
 three stages of development of, 35; 
 grows conscious. 35 f.; critical, 37; 
 becomes messianic and cosmopolitan, 
 35, 57; after Peter the Great, 40; 
 during eighteenth century, 40; Cath- 
 erine II. 's theory of. 47; reconstruction 
 of, by Danilevsky. 58; Solovyov's cos- 
 mopolitan theory of, 63; and tradition, 
 64, 547; averse to political lif)eration, 
 260; and radicalism irreconcilable since 
 era of "(jreat Reforms," 366. See also 
 Official nationalism. 
 
 Nationalistic democrats: in St. Pctcrsljurg 
 omnipotent in early sixties, 271 ff. 
 
 Nationalistic idea, 30-64; as an instinc- 
 tive feeling, 35; assertive and arrogant
 
 578 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 stage of, 36; French and German 
 romanticists on, 50; policy taught by 
 Kreeshanich, 38. 
 Nationahstic theory: first attempts to con- 
 struct a, 46; Bodin on, 47; creation of 
 nineteenth century, 48; based on 
 western European philosophic thought, 
 51; under Nicholas I., 180, 260. 
 Nationality: one of the trinity of Russian 
 
 official nationalism, 182. 
 " NationaUzation of land": in program of 
 
 social democracy (1900), 493. 
 Natural law: as basis of autocracy, 168. 
 Nechayev: a fanatic, carries Bakoonin's 
 theories to the extreme, his conspiracy, 
 383; Jacobinism of, 394 ff-; circle of, 
 394; program of, 395 f.; founds Russian 
 branch of "International," 396 f.; 
 reaction against, in favor of Marxism, 
 398 ff., 40S- 
 Neekon: "friend of the Greeks," patriarch 
 of Russia, and his reform, 79; and 
 "Old-believers," 80. 
 Negative traits of Russian character, 14. 
 New culture: mark of social distinction, 43; 
 criticised and defended by liberal jour- 
 nalists in eighteenth century, 45. 
 "New generation": of Tourguenev's time, 
 representing democracy of the sixties, 
 375. 384; Herzen's criticism of, 377; 
 of the nineties vs. populist teachings, 485; 
 adopts Marx's "historical materiaUsm," 
 483 f- 
 New ideas: and Catherine II., 26, 45, 47, 
 
 252 f. 
 New movements for reform: started after 
 
 public disasters, 324 f. 
 New vs. ancient nobility in seventeenth 
 
 century, 229. 
 Newspapers: supported by government, 
 209; and periodicals permitted and for- 
 bidden in people's Ubraries, 203. See 
 also Press. 
 Nicholas I., 180, 185, 193; and censorship, 
 204; and "intellectuals," 262; literary 
 activity during last ten years of, 287. 
 Nicholas II.: and appeal of Zemstvos 
 (1894-95) for more freedom, 325 f.; 
 answer of, 326 f.; determined to uphold 
 autocracy, 327; against peasants' notion 
 of a "general land partition," 510 n. 18; 
 answers "Petition of Rights" of Novem- 
 ber 19-21, 1904, by manifesto of 
 December 26, 1904, 533. 
 "Nihilism": an inadequate term for char- 
 acterization of Russian sociaUsm, 334; 
 of Herzen, 363 f.; theory of, of foreign 
 origin, 364, 384. 
 
 Nineteenth century: Russia at end of, 27; 
 creates nationalistic theory, 48; evan- 
 gelicism in Russia during, 116 ff. 
 
 No free speech in people's lectures, 199- 
 
 Nobility: first outward dissociation of, 
 from lower strata, 43 f., 84; charter 
 granted to, by Catherine II. and con- 
 firmed by Alexander I., 171, 275; 
 social history of. 227-45; of state service 
 (second aristocracy) in seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries lack corporate 
 spirit, 229 f.; final decline of, since 
 liberation of peasants, 237 f.; in nine- 
 teenth century, 239 f.; bank founded 
 for benefit of, 240; disproportionate pre- 
 dominance of, in Zemstvos or provincial 
 assemblies, 241; corps of, founded by 
 Empress Anna (1732), 250; first politi- 
 cal demonstrations of local assemblies of 
 (1858-64), 268; assembly of, at Mo.scow 
 (1865), 274 f. See also Marshals of 
 nobility. 
 
 Nonconformists: and authorities of state 
 and church, 124. 
 
 "Northern AUiance of Workingmen" 
 (1879): formed in accordance with 
 Tkachov's theories, 414. 
 
 Northern peasant type, 144; secondary 
 northern type, 145. 
 
 Northern Russian peasants: source of 
 income of, chiefly from subsidiary em- 
 ployment, 448; inner migrations of, 453. 
 
 "North-Russian Society of Land and 
 Liberty" (1880): program of, 424 f- 
 
 Novekov: the journalist, 45; imprisoned 
 by Catherine II., 253, 257. 
 
 Novgorod and Pskov: seats of fifteenth 
 century reformation, 103; centers of 
 northern Russian type, 144. 
 
 Novoseeltsov: draft of, of constitution, 174. 
 
 Ofi&cial church: of seventeenth and eight- 
 eenth centuries, and its theology, 82; 
 
 separation of popular faith from, 79. 
 "Official nationalism": and Slavophilism, 
 
 180 ff., 239, 280; seventy years ago and 
 
 now, 539. 
 Ognishchanin: chief of Russian house 
 
 communion, 137. 
 Ohrana: or "Department for Protection," 
 
 189. 
 Oka River, 6, 13. 
 "Old-believers:" and Patriarch Neekon, 
 
 80; historical sketch of, 92 ff. 
 Old-Russian States General: embodiment 
 
 of "right of opinion," according to 
 
 Slavophils, 56. 
 Old tradition: break of, 29; defenders of, 
 
 41,46. 
 Ole: on share of foreign capital in Russian 
 
 enterprises, 460 f. 
 One-chamber system and general vote: 
 
 demanded by liberals of the "AUiance" 
 
 (1880), 331- 
 "Open Letter" of liberals: in answer to 
 
 Tsar Nicholas II. 's speech of January 17 
 
 (29), 1895, 327-
 
 ANALYTICAL INDEX 
 
 579 
 
 Opportunism: of Free Russia (1884) con- 
 demned by the Socialist, 428 f. 
 
 Opposition: to government appearing in 
 Russia. 180; governmental measures to 
 check political, 183. See also Conflict, 
 Clash, etc. 
 
 Oppositionaries: see Liberals, Liberalism, 
 etc. 
 
 Oppression: insufficiency of whole system 
 of governmental, 219. 
 
 Organization : three stages of political, 133 ; 
 of Zerastvos and its defects: a building 
 without foundation and roof, 2888.; 
 of 1865, or "Circle of Eshootin," and 
 its project of gradual propaganda, 393. 
 
 Organized: labor since 1896, 479 ff., 
 496 ff.; liberalism, 519 f. 
 
 Oriental origin of Musconte military sys- 
 tem, 151. 
 
 Origin: of national imiformity, 31; of 
 T.sar's guard, 158; of towns, 226; of 
 socialistic movement in Russia, 361; 
 of nihilism, 364, 384. 
 
 Originarii, 138. 
 
 Origins: of Mir. 349; of Russian socialism , 
 361; of revolutionary movement in 
 Russia, 383. 
 
 Orlov-Daveedov, Cotmt: on representa- 
 tion of nobles, advocating a bicameral 
 scheme, 276, 282. 
 
 Orthodox church: and its doctrines. 66; 
 and its relation to Old-believers and to 
 sectarians, 116; without spirit of 
 proselytism, 127; number of priests and 
 churches disproportionate to orthodox 
 population, 90. 
 
 Orthodox Marxism: of older generation, 
 gains victory over "economisra" of new 
 generation of the nineties, 484 tT.; and 
 against "^e^■isionism" of Marx theory, 
 487; and its staunch adherents, the 
 Russian social democracy, 488. 
 
 Orthodox Marxists = the old "Group of 
 the Liberation (Emancipation) of La- 
 bor": and their program, 482 f.; or 
 Socialistic Democrats vs. Socialistic 
 Revolutionaries, or "People's Will 
 party," 489. 
 
 Orthodoxy: a "Russian" religion. 125; 
 and individual belief. 126; a most dis- 
 tinctive feature of national type accord- 
 ing to imtionalistic idea, 131 (but see 
 547 f.); one of the trinity of Russian 
 official nationalism, 182. 
 
 Osvoboshdaneya OT Emancipation, 518, 527. 
 
 Outbreak of January 22, 1905, 535. 
 
 Ouvarov, Count: and hiS formula for 
 "official nationalism," 181. 
 
 Overproduction in industries and its con- 
 sequences, 462. 
 
 Overprotedion : cause of industrial crisis, 
 459- 
 
 Overtaxation: and its effects, 442, 472 f. 
 
 Paganism: cropping out in peasants, 
 religion and practices. 67 ff.; transition 
 of. to ritualism, 67, 131. 
 
 Pahlen, governor of Wilna: on Jewish 
 Bund (1903). 501 f. 
 
 Pansla\"ism of Ilerzen, 371, 382 f. 
 
 Paris conprcss (December, 1904) of radi- 
 cals and liberals, 524 f. 
 
 Parish priests: and their lack of educa- 
 tion, 8-'; ill-treated by squires, 88 f.; 
 and bishops, 89; and "Old -believers," 
 116; and sectarians, 117; schools vs. 
 Zemstvo schools, 213. 
 
 Parliament, or National Council: in 
 fifteenth century. 149. 
 
 "Particular consultation": a secret tri- 
 bunal, 192. 
 
 "Partition of land": starting-point of 
 propaganda among peasiuits, 510. 
 
 Party organization: not yet existing in 
 Russia, 222. 
 
 Pashko\ists (about 1876), 92, 122. 
 
 Pa.ssport system, 194. 
 
 Paternal tutelage until 1855, period of, 204. 
 
 Patriarch of Russia: residing in Moscow, 
 7q; and Tsar's duarchy in seventeenth 
 century, 85. 
 
 Paul: land grants under Catherine II. 
 and under, 235. 
 
 Paulikianism : influence of, 103. 
 
 Pauperism: cure of, in ancient Russian 
 religious practice, 71. 
 
 Paying and purchasing power: of Russian 
 peasants e.xhausted, 446 f.; of popula- 
 tion in general, 462, 465, 474; schemes 
 for relief of, 457 f. 
 
 "Peaceful work" of improvement by 
 Zcmstvos, and its results, 296 f. 
 
 Peasant districts, 145; or village schools, 
 211 f.; after emancipation, 342; repre- 
 sentation of, in Zemstvos, since 1800, 
 insignilicant, 344; and usurers or \illage 
 creditors. 346; and taxes, rent, and 
 interests on loans, 346 f. 
 
 Peasantry: political consciousness among 
 Russian,'353; sacrificed to landlords by 
 autocracy of sixteenth century, 355 fl.; 
 chronic insolvency present state of, 443. 
 
 Peasants: present paganism of, 67; con- 
 dition of, during eighteenth and nine- 
 teenth centuries, 171 ff.; liberation of, 
 causes final decline of nobility and 
 gentry, 237 f.; schemes tor emancipa- 
 tion of, 265 ff. (see Emancipation); 
 revolutionary spirit among. 307; econo- 
 mic position of, 345; political ideas of: 
 for autocracy, ag:iin.st nobility, 353; 
 anticipate emancipation, under Cath- 
 erine II., 357; become glebae ascripti. 
 3S7f.; dissatisfied with conditions of 
 emancipation, 359; suspicious of social- 
 ist agitators in beginning, 360; repre- 
 sent "proletariat" of western socialism,
 
 58o 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 384 f.; protests and rebellions of, 
 against landlords and men of ser- 
 vice, at end of sixteenth century, 357; 
 prosperity of. changed since 1861, 43"; i-'. 
 ruin of, increased by disproportionate 
 increase of taxes, 442; paying and pur- 
 chasing power of. exhausted, 4461-; 
 schemes for reUef of, 457 f-; income of, 
 different in northern and southern 
 Russia, 448; bank assisting, 450; 
 struggle of, for competition, 451". mner 
 migrations of, in search of employment, 
 437, 452; "proletarization" of, in social- 
 ists' program, 492 f- 
 Peasants' alUance: formed by "Agrarian 
 
 League," 510. 
 Peculiarity of Russian sectarianism, 102. 
 People or educated classes: debate be- 
 tween Herzen and Tourgucnev, 2801!., 
 320. . 
 
 People's lectures: no free speech m, 199; 
 hbraries: books, periodicals, and news- 
 papers permitted and forbidden in, 
 202 f., 478. 
 "People's Will" party (1879): terroristic, 
 but not anarchistic, left wmg of the 
 "Land and Liberty" party, 419 f-. 421; 
 program of, 418 f.; surviving members 
 of, active again in the nineties, 489- 
 Pepes and Riegos, 257. 
 Periodicals and newspapers permitted 
 and forbidden in people's hbraries, 202 f. 
 Permanent settlements in \-illages: as 
 means of propaganda, 410 f.; prove a 
 failure, 413. 
 Persecution of pubUc opinion in Russia, 
 
 250 ff. 
 Persigny's press law accepted by Russia, 
 
 204, 263 f. 
 Peter the Great: nationalism after, 40; 
 Europeanizing Russia, 40; religious 
 reforms of, 83, 86; creates office of 
 superior procurator, 86; Antichrist of 
 priestless Old-beUevers, 95". break in 
 political tradition under, 168, _ 552; 
 bureaucratic absolutism of, 170; intro- 
 duces passport system for poll-tax pur- 
 poses, 194; and secondary education, 
 215; introduces factories, 227; democ- 
 ratizes service, 232. 557; capitation tax 
 of, later on abolished, 444". introduces 
 copper currency, 467. 
 Peter III.: Poogachov as, 168. 
 Petersburg: see St. Petersburg. 
 Petition of 1865: and Tsar Alexander I.'s 
 
 reply, 283. 
 "Petition of Rights": by St. Petersburg 
 Zemstvos' meeting, November 19-21, 
 1904, 53c; universal indorsement of, 
 535 f.; autocracy's answer to, 533 f- 
 Petrashevtsee, socialistic, of 1848, 377, 384. 
 Philanthropy: and the Decembrists, 256. 
 "Philippians": extreme Priestless "Old- 
 believers," 47. 
 
 Philosophical nationalism of Slavophils, 52. 
 
 366; justification of, of autocracy, 170 f. 
 
 Philotheus: on universal mission of 
 
 Russian national church, 75. 
 Pissarev, 365. 
 
 Place of feeling and religion in Slavo- 
 philism, 54. 
 Plasticity: chief feature of Russian 
 
 national type, 13, S47 
 Plehanov, 322; starts Russian social 
 democracy (1883), 425- 487; evolution 
 of, from pure populism to orthodox 
 Marxism, 429; moderation of, typical 
 for the eighties, 426 f. 
 Plehve: as Witte's successor, and local 
 assembhes of 1902, 476 f-l on revolu- 
 tionary movement among teachers and 
 pupils of colleges and secondary schools, 
 511- 
 Pobedonostsev, 178 n. 11; advocating 
 Leontiev's program of policy, 61; and 
 excommunication of Count Leo Tolstoy, 
 86 f.; report of, for 1895 and following 
 years on forced converts to Orthodoxy, 
 127; and parish schools, 213; opposed 
 to reforms (1881), 314; author of mani- 
 festo of April 27, 1881, 315; defeats 
 (189s) aims of Zemstvos, 327; part of, 
 in manifesto of December 26. 1904. 532, 
 534 f.; on self defense and official 
 nationaUsm, 539", Part of, in manifesto 
 of March 4, 1905, 543 ff- 
 PoUce: courts, three special, 189; sur- 
 veillance of secondary schools, 215; 
 department on distribution of revolution- 
 ary leatlets (1902), 509; persecution on 
 the increase, 514. 
 Polish: influence in earlier Russia, 144. 
 140; uprising (1863) and "Land and 
 Liberty" organization, 390; socialistic 
 parties, 499 f- 
 Political: tradition, 131-220; organiza- 
 tion and its three stages, 133; organi- 
 zation in western and in eastern Europe, 
 134; development and its outward 
 springs, 135; tradition, 549; broken by 
 Peter the Great, 168, 552; freedom, 
 martjTs of. 172; reform, postponement 
 of, embitters pubUc opinion, 176; 
 opposition and governmental measures 
 against it, 183; role of university stu- 
 dents and measures against them, 218; 
 parties in Russia, 221; opinion's mod- 
 erate (or Uberal) and radical (or social- 
 istic) currents, 222; influence of gentry, 
 235; power of gentry as a social group 
 lacking, 246. 557; hberal opinion and 
 the two stages of its history. 248 ff.; 
 liberalism combatted by nationalism as 
 well as socialism, 260; power of gentry 
 as educated class representing public 
 opinion, 248; first demonstrations of 
 local assemblies of nobility (1858-64), 
 268; representation and Moscow assem- 
 bly of 186.S, 274; parties differentiate 
 positively in 1S63, 283 f.; schemes of
 
 ANALYTICAL LXDEX 
 
 S8i 
 
 liberals (1880). 300; actj\-ity and peti- 
 tions of liberals. 304 ff. ; ideas of peas- 
 ants. 353; reform and terrorism come to 
 front in the late seventies. 414 f.; dis- 
 aiiection one of the impelling forces 
 toward reform, 433 f.", disaffection 
 supported by actiWty of revolutionary 
 parlies (since 1900), 479 f.; disturbances 
 in factory life, 505; agitation among 
 soldiers as reported by Kooropatkin, 
 S12 f.; crimes increased at present, 516; 
 present role of liberalism. 518; freedom 
 in Japan and in Russia. 554 f.; idealism 
 of educated class, 558?.; freedom in 
 gentry's program, 558 f.; reform, ur- 
 gency of, 561. 
 
 Poogachov: takes name of Catherine's 
 assassinated husband, Peter 111., 168; 
 chief of peasants' social movement, 
 S.sS, 301; leader of popular uprisings, 
 412; "the Poogachov points," 511. 
 ' Poor tillage: one of the causes of impov- 
 erishment of peasants of southern Russia, 
 440, 450. 
 
 Pooshkin: on Decembrists, 255. 
 
 Popular: theology of eighteenth century 
 and before, crude and materialistic in 
 belief and practices. 70; religion: Old- 
 beUevers and sectarians, 91. 
 
 Population in European Russia since 
 Peter the Great, 22. 
 
 Populism and terrorism contradictory. 
 417. See also Pure populism. 
 
 Populists: or "Land and Liberty" party. 
 and its program. 411; teacliing vs. the 
 new generation of the nineties. 485; 
 compromise (1874) with "ideals of the 
 people," 409. 
 
 Positive traits of Russian character, 15. 
 
 Pososhkov : on popular belief in ei'jht- 
 eenth century, 68; on practical charily, 
 72. 
 
 Postponement of political reform em- 
 bitters public opiniun, 176. 
 
 Pouvoirs inlermedimres: a creation of 
 Catherine II. , helps nobiUty, but not 
 botu'geoisic nor serfs, 171, 552. 
 
 "Power of the state": according to Slavo- 
 phils, 56. 
 
 Prairie settlers: protected by Muscovite 
 government, 6. 
 
 Prayer: in early Russian church, 70. 
 
 Predominance of nobility: remains in 
 Zemstvos, 241. 
 
 "Preliminary confinement" of political 
 criminals, 517. 
 
 Preparations for a social revolution in 
 1863, 389. 
 
 Pre-Reformation ideas in Russia and their 
 influence, 103 f. 
 
 Pre-revolutionary ideas of religious and 
 political freedom. 26. 
 
 Present Rtvnlutionary Movement in Poland: 
 quotation from, 499 f. 
 
 Present : struggle for civilization in Russia 
 and its significance. 4; general demand 
 for aboUtion of autonomy, refiected by 
 speech of Wolkenstein, 176 f.; struggle 
 between liberalism and government, 
 328 ff. 
 
 Preservation of the old: only policy of 
 Pobedonostsev and his followers, 61. 
 
 Press: attempts to influence, 208; clandes- 
 tine, 210 f.; muEzHng of, 2058, 534; 
 law of Persigny, 263 f. 
 
 "Previous censure." 204, 206; detention, 
 
 49S, soo. 
 
 Price of grain: uncontrollable by Russian 
 producer, 456. 
 
 Priest-acknowledging and Priestless Old- 
 believers, 91 ft. 
 
 Prim.-iry south-Russian type, 142; in con- 
 trast with Muscovite type, 146. 
 
 Primitive democracy: quite well preserved. 
 136. 
 
 Prince and aristocracy, 139, 147 f., 15S. 
 
 Princes: Muscovite, form autocracy at 
 
 end of fifteenth century, 550. 
 Private Chancery: Third Section of his 
 
 Majesty's. 186, 192, 204. 
 
 Private gatherings: closely watched, 19S. 
 
 Process of colonization and development 
 
 in Russia and United States, 5, 438. 
 
 Program: political by boyars. of a consti- 
 tution about 1598.354 f.; of Herzen, 372; 
 of Russian socialism, 385; of "Land and 
 Liberty" party, 411; of Shellyabov's 
 militant sociaHsm ("People's Will" 
 party), 418; of north-Russian .society of 
 "Land and Liberty" party (1880), 424 f.; 
 of "Orthodox Marxists," 483; of Social 
 Revolutionaries (1898). 491; of Social 
 Democracy (1900), 493; of liberalism 
 in present conditions. 518 IT., 563; of 
 radicals (revolutionaries) and that of 
 hbcrals (constitutionalists) gradually 
 appro.ximating. 523 f.; of gentry is two- 
 fold: emancipation of peasants and po- 
 litical freedom, 558 f. 
 
 Programs: agrarian, organized by "Agrar- 
 ian League" (1900), 492, 499. 
 
 Progressive public opinion: and defenders 
 of the old, tradition, 28. 
 
 Prohibitive: measures against press, 
 205 f ; tariff of 1891 and its conse- 
 quences, 459 f., 470 ff. 
 
 Prokopo\ich, Theophanes: on theory of 
 "social contract," 169. 
 
 "Proletariat" of western socialism repre- 
 sented by ix'asants in Russia, 384 f. 
 
 " Proletarization" of peasants in socialists' 
 program, 402 f. 
 
 "Promised land" of Russian future, 146. 
 
 Proneya holdings: especially in Servia in 
 fourteenth century, 152.
 
 582 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Propaganda: liberal, among Zerastvos 
 and Mr. Witte, 305 {•; gradual, aim of 
 organization of 1865 (circle of 
 "Eshootin"), i93\ in cities always suc- 
 cessful, 414; of "Agrarian League" of 
 Socialist Revolutionaries (1002)^08 f.; 
 among peasants and its starting-point, 
 510; by the Bund among soldiers, 512. 
 Prophetism in Russia: appearance of, 106. 
 Proselytism: spirit of, absent from Ortho- 
 dox church, 127. 
 Protection: Department of, i8q; state of, 
 and its by-laws, 191, ig?; of aristocracy 
 under Demetrius Tolstoy, 239; of indus- 
 tries a most important cause of agri- 
 cultural crisis, 446 ff., 459. 
 Protectionism: optimistic ^^ews of Witte 
 
 (1899) on, 465. 
 Protective legislation since founding of 
 
 factories by Peter the Great, 459. 
 Protestant ideas: influencing Russian 
 
 belief, 103. 
 Proudhon: anarchism of, 336, 369 f.; 
 forerunner of Russian socialism, 361, 
 363. 367- 
 Provinces: conditions of life in, changed 
 
 by work of Zemstvos, 296. 
 Provincial assembhes, or Zemstvos (which 
 see), 241; idea of, in scheme of Decem- 
 brists of 1825, 310; recommended by 
 Dolgorookee (i860) and Stepnyak 
 (189s), 310- 
 Pskov: iee Novgorod. 
 Public: meetings forbidden, 197; lectures 
 strictly controlled, 198; libraries of the 
 educated and books forbidden in, 201 f., 
 478; schools, 211 f.; debt and foreign 
 loans, 473; prosecutor's position shun- 
 ned by men of honor, 516. 
 Pubhc opinion: and Catherine II. during 
 French Revolution, 26; romantic and 
 abstract nature of, during reign of 
 Nicholas I., 52, 259; and constitution, 
 173, 176 f., 182 ff.; conflict between 
 government and, 183; more and more 
 embittered, 210 f.; two currents of 
 present, 222, ';6o; represented by gentry 
 as the educated class, 248; beginnings 
 of, 248 ff.; persecuted by government, 
 250 ff., 254; becoming discordant, it 
 loses hold on the government, 282; in 
 Russia and Herzen, 371 f.; only source 
 of power of UberaHsm, 518; purposely 
 falsified by government since 1900, 
 540 f.; democratization of, 559; unifi- 
 cation of, 560. 
 " Public tranquillity" : and the press, 206 f., 
 
 306; and strikes, 486. 
 Pure populism: of General (or Black) 
 Land Partition evolves into pure social- 
 ism, 422 f.; ultimate end of (orthodox) 
 Marxism, 424. 
 Pure socialism: favored by workingmen 
 in cities, 414; whose point of view is 
 formulated by Axelrod in 1880, 423- 
 
 Pure socialists, or "Lavrists": object to 
 further propaganda among the peasants, 
 408 f., 422 f. 
 
 Race and nation: difTerent one from the 
 
 other, 31. 
 Radeeshchev: A Journey from Petersburg 
 
 lo Moscow (1790), 26, 253, 257. 
 Radical and moderate currents of political 
 
 opinion, 222. 
 Radicalism: clash between political and 
 social, 281 f.; and nationalism irrecon- 
 cilable since era of "Great Reforms," 
 366. 
 Radicals: in Russia and idea of "feder- 
 ahsm," 310 f.; and liberals gradually 
 approximating each other in their pro- 
 grams, 523 f.; Paris Congress (Decem- 
 ber, 1904) of hberals and, 524 f. See also 
 Revolutionaries, etc. 
 Rahzin, Stenka: of seventeenth century, 
 
 leader of popular uprisings, 412. 
 Rank, or Chin: aristocracy of, in eight- 
 eenth century, 234. 
 Rapidity of Russian development, 27. 
 Rationalism: not favorable to national- 
 istic idea, 46 ff., 547; shortcomings of, 
 according to Slavophils, 53. 
 Raznochintsee: see Men of nuxed ranks. 
 Reaction: of Neekon against national type 
 of church, 79; against Bakoonin and 
 Nechayev in favor of Marxism, 398 fit., 
 405- 
 Reactionaries: in Russian society of 
 
 eighteenth century, 41. 
 Reactionary: type of nationalistic idea, 35; 
 nationalism of Leontiev and Pobedon- 
 ostsev, 62; policy of Alexander I.. 257 f.; 
 movement under .\lexander III.. 269; 
 policy of government creates general 
 dissatisfaction, 303. 
 Rebellion of peasants against their lords 
 (1648) ended by the Muscovite govern- 
 ment, 357- 
 Reconciliation: between spirit of tradition 
 and spirit of religious freedom attempted 
 by Slavophils, 56, 129; of two socialistic 
 factions (the revolutionaries and the new 
 democratic) attempted (1889 ff.), 4298. 
 Reconstruction of nationalism by Dani" 
 
 levsky, 58. 
 Reflection of party variances upon debates 
 
 on constitution in 1865. 274. 
 Reform: postponement of political, em- 
 bitters pubUc opinion, 176; and its 
 impelling forces: material want and 
 poUtical disaffection, 324, 433 f.; ur- 
 gency of, 561. See also "Era of Great 
 Reforms." 
 Reformation: in general, causes for, 10 1; 
 in Russia, 102; Pskov and Novgorod 
 seats of fifteenth-century, 103; action of 
 sixteenth-century, 104.
 
 ANALYTICAL LXDEX 
 
 583 
 
 Reforms: religious, by Neekon. 7q; of 
 Peter the Great. 83. 86; political, of 
 Alexander I., 173, 254. 
 
 Refugees: demand a constitution (1S62 Q.), 
 278. 
 
 Region of southern colonization, 11 ff., 146. 
 
 "Regulations concerning enforced and 
 extraordinary protection:" enforce sys- 
 tem of self-defense, 187 f. 
 
 "Rehabilitation of the Flesh": in theory 
 of nihilism, 364. 
 
 Reign of Antichrist: in doctrine of Old- 
 believers, 93. 
 
 Religion: and its progress among lower 
 classes in 1780, 26; in east and west 
 according to Slavophilism. 54; and 
 charity in early Russian church, 70; 
 popular: Old-believers and sectarians, 
 91. 
 
 Religious: freedom and tradition, attempt 
 of Slavophils to reconcile spirit of, 56, 
 129; tradition. 65-130, 548 f.; and 
 break in it through reforms of Peter 
 the Great, 83. 86. 549; indifference of 
 educated class owing to break of tra- 
 dition. 83; reforms of Xeekon, 79; evolu- 
 tion, law of. 10 1 ; tolerance decried by 
 representative and apxilogists of estab- 
 lished church, 123; and demanded by 
 educated classes. 128 f.; freedom and 
 Tsar, 123 f.; and vs. tradition. 129; 
 immutability not a national distinction 
 of Russia, 132, 547 f. 
 
 Reorganization and unification of social 
 democracy (1903), 489. 
 
 "Repentant nobleman" of Mihaylovsky, 
 376. 
 
 Representation: failure of Catherine II. 
 to start a, 172; as demanded by different 
 political groups, 268; political, and 
 Moscow (1863) assembly. 274; Orlov- 
 Daveedov on, by nobles, 276, 282; 
 four-storied, a .scheme of twenty years 
 ago. again favored by many liberals. 520. 
 
 Representative assembly tmder Catherine 
 II., 172, 237, 
 
 Repressive measures of government since 
 December 26, 1904, 534. 
 
 Revenue and expense: disproportionate, 
 causes agrarian crLsis, 430, 439. 
 
 Revisionism of Marx's theory defeated by 
 "orthodox" Marxism, 487. See also 
 Legal Marxism. 
 
 Revival of liberal movement in Zemstvos 
 after death of Alexander III. (1894), 325. 
 
 Revolution: agrarian, even expected by 
 Russian government in the sixties, 386; 
 and agrarian programs organized by 
 "Agrarian League," and by Social- 
 Democrats, 492, 499, 
 
 Revolutionaries: during decade 1880-90, 
 320; liberals intermediators between 
 government and ,518. See also Radicals, 
 etc. 
 
 Rrcolulionary Russia: organ since 1900 of 
 Social Revolutionaries, 498, 
 
 Revolutionary: Socialist party. 285; move- 
 ment in Russia in its origins and 
 Bakoonin. 3S3; program and emancipa- 
 tion of peasants. 385 f.; movement of 
 the sixties and its results. 397; and of 
 the la.st decade, 479 ff,; spirit in Finland 
 and the Caucasus, 503; and in villages 
 among the pea.sants, 507; and in army, 
 509 ff,, 512. 
 
 Revolutionists: government asks help 
 against (1878), 303. 
 
 Riegos and Pepes, 257. 
 
 "Right of opinion": embodied by the Old 
 
 Russian States General according to 
 
 Slavophils, 56, 
 "Right of monarch's will": by Proko- 
 
 povich. 169. 
 Ritualism: transition from to evangelical 
 
 and spiritual Christianity, 83 ff., 131, 
 Romanovs, 230, 
 
 Romantic idea of nationality in nineteenth 
 century vs. rationalism, 48, 547. 
 
 Rousseau's democratic theory of social 
 contract rejected by Catherine II., 170. 
 
 "Rurmers" or "Wanderers": the anar- 
 chistic Pricstless Old-believers (1770), 
 92, 100, 
 
 Rural: commanders of Mir, 344; democ- 
 racy in early Russia. 8, 
 
 Russia and Europe: by Danilevsky, 58. 
 
 Russia: and its crisis, 3-564; historical 
 tradition of, 3-29; significance of present 
 struggle for civilization in, 4; till six- 
 teenth century. 6; density of population 
 in European, since Peter the Great, 22; 
 material growth, 22; lack of unity of 
 poUtical and social tradition in. 23; at 
 end of nineteenth century. 27; nation- 
 alistic idea in. 30-64: and other Euro- 
 pean countries at their first meeting. 33; 
 under influence of foreigners in middle 
 of seventeenth century, 36 ff.; and 
 Peter the Great's efforts at European- 
 izing it, 40; religious tradition of, 65- 
 131; and influence of German Reforma- 
 tion, 104; political tradition of, 132-221; 
 no exception to general rule of religious 
 evolution, 131; nor of political tradition, 
 132, .'147 f-; liberal idea in, 221-333; 
 socialistic idea in, 334-432; role of, in 
 bringing about a soci,aiistic stage of 
 human history, 368; crisis and urgency 
 of reform in, 433-539; still an agri- 
 cultural country. 435; agricultural local 
 conditions in southwestern, southeast- 
 ern, and northwestern, 437; monetary 
 history of, 466 ff.; financial crLsis of, and 
 proposed schemes of reUef, 466 ff., 
 473 ff.; in process of change, 546; social 
 forces of, weak, 556, See also Early 
 Russia, 
 
 Russia and Japan: see Japan.
 
 584 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 Russia and the United States: see Amer- 
 ica, .American, and United States. 
 
 Russia on the Eve of the Tzventiclh Century: 
 by Cheecherrin, 329 f. 
 
 Russian and Greek churches: their his- 
 torical antagonisni, 73, differences in 
 creed and ritual early emphasized. 
 
 Russian character: its positive and nega- 
 tive traits, 13 £f.; hypocrisy. 15; \irtues 
 and vices, backbone mis.sing in, 18; 
 social mind undeveloped and its defi- 
 ciencies illustrated, 18 f.; culture and 
 eighteenth century, 40; social life of 
 eighteenth century, 41; romantic move- 
 ment started in Moscow after 1825. 52; 
 culture and its genuine type: Great 
 Russians, especially Moscow circle, 60; 
 culture, local types of early, 141; lower 
 classes and their aspirations, 342; 
 "free love" and its true character, 365. 
 
 Russian Characteristics: by Lanin, 13. 
 
 Russian historical tradition, 3-29, 63. 547; 
 settlement, 5; and its agricultural effects 
 at present, 438; fate of aborigines, 6; 
 drift of immigration, 7; colonists lack- 
 ing in energy and initiative, 1 1 ; language 
 constantly changing and wavering, ig; 
 development most rapid, 21; conditions 
 affected by French Revolution, 26; 
 (Moscow circle) as opposed to Great 
 Russian, 60; of future typified by "All- 
 brethren" and like sects, 120; south 
 the "promised land" of Russian future, 
 146; population agriculturist 80 per 
 cent., 342; crisis and urgency of reform, 
 4:53-545; enterprises and foreign capital, 
 460 f'.; history changing rapidly and 
 essentially, 546- 
 
 Russian landlord of eighteenth century, 44; 
 village coinmune, 55, 367; peasantry of 
 seventeenth centurv still more pagan 
 in belief than Christian, 68; peasants: 
 economic condition of, 345 ff.; political 
 consciousness among, 353; represent 
 in Russia proletariat of western social- 
 ism, 384 f.; source of income, 448 ff. 
 See also Mir. Peasant, Peasantry, Vil- 
 lage community, etc. 
 
 Russian national type, 13, 20 f., 547; 
 nationalistic idea, 30-64; nationalistic 
 theory based on western philosophic 
 thought, 51; nationalism becomes mes- 
 sianic and cosmopolitan, 35. 57; state 
 and religion idealized in theory of 
 Slavophils. 56 f.; Byzantinism of l,eon- 
 tiev, 61; \\e\v of national character. 76; 
 tvpe, 142 ff.; monarchy anti-aristocratic, 
 military, not really democratic, 158; 
 official nationalism's trinity, 182. 
 
 Russian political tradition, 132-221: op- 
 position's first appearance, 180; and 
 government's measures to check it, 1S3; 
 liberal idea, 221-333; political parties, 
 221; libenalism as compared with 
 English and German, 224, 249, 253; 
 Uberalism different in nature, owing to 
 peculiarities of social structure, 225; 
 
 bourgeoisie, 225 f., 558; liberalism not 
 bourgeois, but intellectual, 226; perse- 
 cution of public opinion, 250 ff.; Ma- 
 sonry persecuted by Catherine II., 253; 
 "intellectuals" in time of Nicholas I., 
 262; radicals and idea of federalism, 
 310 f.; socialistic idea, 334-432; social- 
 ism, 335 ff.; drifting from the point of 
 view of Bakoonin to that of Marx, 341; 
 socialism, origins of, 361; its leaders, 
 363; public opinion and Herzen, 371 f.; 
 revolutionary movement and its origins, 
 383; socialism's program, 385; branch 
 of "International" founded by Necha- 
 yev, 396 f.; masses appear for first time 
 on political stage, 482; social democ- 
 racy a staunch friend of "orthodox" 
 Mar.xism, 488. 
 
 Russian religious tradition, 65-130: Or- 
 thodox church and its doctrines, far 
 behind eastern, 66; church: _ old-fash- 
 ioned in ritual and stationary in dogma, 
 67; belief mixed with paganism, 67; 
 orthodoxy the simplified and material- 
 ized eastern creed, 67; saints, 68, 77; 
 popular theology, 69; prayer, and 
 charity in early church, 70 f.; clergy in 
 early times, 70 f.; church and hier- 
 archy's development since fall of Con- 
 stantinople, 71, 75; national church 
 and its universal mission, 75; national 
 type of creed, 76; of reUgion, 78; both 
 condemned by Neekon, the patriarch. 85; 
 patriarch's seat in Moscow, 76; church 
 autocephalic since end of sixteenth cen- 
 tury, 79; theology of seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries eclectic and scho- 
 lastic, 83; church, secularization of ,84; 
 sects, 92; sectarianism and its pecuUar- 
 ity, 102; evangeUcism as compared with 
 western Europe's, 102 f., 108; reforrna- 
 tion, causes for. 102; pre-reforraalion 
 ideas and their influence, 103; prophet- 
 isiTi, appearance of. 106; religion equiv- 
 alent with Orthodoxy, 125; Orthodoxy 
 a most distinctive feature of national 
 type according to nationalistic idea, 131; 
 but also a product of national evolution, 
 548. 
 
 Russianization: sovjrce of intolerance, 126. 
 
 Sacrament of marriage and the Priestless 
 Old-beUevers, 98. 
 
 Sacrosanct character of Tsarism, 168 
 
 St. Nicholas: the beloved saint, 68. 
 
 St. Petersburg: in 1789, 25; in 1861, 27; 
 guard regiments of, in eighteenth cen- 
 tury and their influence, 235; bureau- 
 cracy of, omnipotent in the early sixties, 
 271; strike of 1806 in, and its lesson, 
 480; meeting of all the Zemstvos at 
 (1904), 529 f.; press more Hberal since 
 November 19-21, 1904, 531 f.; massacre 
 of. 535; Workingmen's Society in, 536 f. 
 
 St. Simon: sec Feuerbach. 
 
 Saints of Russian church, 77-
 
 ANALYTICAL INDEX 
 
 S8S 
 
 Samarin: one of real authors of Emanci- 
 pation Act, 267. 
 
 Saratov: demonstration of 1903, 176 f. 
 
 Saybrces: or "joint owners," 138. 
 
 Sazonov: "executioner" of Plehve, 538. 
 
 Schemes of liberal groupys of twenty j-ears 
 ago: abandoned, except two, 520. 
 
 Schismatics: or "Old-believers" and "Old- 
 ritualists" of seventeenth century and 
 later, 80, 84. 91 ff.; anathematized in 
 1667, 81 , 93; inllueuce of, with peasants, 
 90 f.; teachings of, 93; two factions of, 
 91. 
 
 Scholasticism of Russian theology, 82. 
 
 School regime of Demetrius Tolstoy: 
 hated by all, 216, 31S. 
 
 Schools: lacking entirely in Moscow of 
 1680, 24; peasant or village, 211 f.; 
 insufficient in number, 214. 
 
 Schwanebach: on present condition of 
 peasantry, 44-1; and his scheme of 
 ameUoration, 458. 
 
 Search for: legal sanction of autocracy, 162; 
 new legal formula: autocracy founded 
 on "natural law," 168. 
 
 Second advent: in doctrine of Old- 
 beUevers, 93 ff., 106. 
 
 Secondary schools: founded by Catherine 
 II., 26; and high schools, 214. 
 
 Secondary: southern Russian type, under 
 Polish feudalism, X44; northern type, 
 145- 
 
 Secret: societies and Masonic lodges for- 
 bidden (1819 ff.), 358; police observa- 
 tion very expensive, and "secret fund" 
 of ministry of interior constantly in- 
 creased since i8g6, 515. 
 
 Sectarian: general type of a, 120. 
 
 Sectarianism: development of. 83, gi f. , 
 100 ff.; Boris Godoonov, founder of, 
 100; relation of Orthodox church to Old- 
 believers and, no; Catherine 11. 
 indifferent, Alexander I. favorable to, 
 in; and persecution. 123. 
 
 Secularization of Russian church. 84. 
 
 Seepyaghin's ministry and large number 
 of exiles, ig6. 
 
 Siebohm: on Mir, 350, 
 
 Self-annihilation of nationalism, 34 f. 
 
 Self-consciousness and self-criticism: be- 
 ginning of national, 33. 
 
 Self-dcfen.se of autocracy: enforced by 
 "regulations concerning enforced and 
 extraordinary protection." 187 f.; at- 
 tempts of, to include aristocracy in its 
 system, 239; and official nationah.sm, 
 S39- 
 
 Self-government: organ of SociaUst Revolu- 
 tionaries (1887), 428. 
 
 Self-improvement of autocracy: during 
 nineteenth century, 173 ff.; turned into 
 self-defense, 179, 552. 
 
 Self-preservation: present object of autoc- 
 racy, 179. 
 
 Separation of ixipular faith from official 
 church, 79, 
 
 Serfs: condition of, during eighteenth 
 and nineteenth centuries. 171 ff., 552, 
 559. See also Emancipation and 
 Peasants. 
 
 Sergueyevich : on southern and northern 
 Russi;in type, 147. 
 
 Settlement: Russi.an, and its present agri- 
 cultural effects, 5, 438. 
 
 *' Seventh-Day Observers," no. 
 
 "Shalopoots": spiritualistic sectarians 
 (about 1S50), 92, 121 f. 
 
 Sharahpoo: advocates "federalism" and 
 chambers in provinces, 331. 
 
 Sliellyabov: on pure socialism and popul- 
 ism, 400; on program of militant social- 
 ism or "People's Will" party: consti- 
 tutional convention freely elected by a 
 general vote, 417 f,, 420; considers 
 liberalism powerless in Russia, 417; 
 repudiates anarchism, 420 ff. 
 
 Shooysky, Basilius: the Tsar boyar, 355^ 
 
 Shore-Dwellers: moderate Priestless Old- 
 believers, 92, 97. 
 
 Shortcomings of ratisnalism, according to 
 Slavophilism, 53. 
 
 Significance of present struggle for ci\ili- 
 zation in Russia. 4. 
 
 Silver: currency in old-time Russia, 
 467; stoppage of free coinage of, 470. 
 
 Skoptsee: see Castratoes. 
 
 Slav: opposed to European, a consequence 
 of Dunilevsky's theory, so; clergy's 
 part in forging legend of transmission 
 of power from Byzantium, 102. 
 
 Sla\'ic and Russian culture: Leontiev on, 
 
 60 f. 
 Slavophil political doctrine in Ignatyev's 
 
 scheme, 316. 
 
 Slavophilism, 52, :8o; philosopliical 
 nationalism of, 52, 366; essence of. S3; 
 shortcomings of rationalism according 
 to. 53; eastern and western church m 
 estimation of. 54; feeling and religion 
 in system of, 54; "right of opinion" 
 and "power of stale" according to, 56; 
 untenableness of, of first half of nine- 
 teenth century, 57, and "official nation- 
 alism," i8o, 239, 280; and Japan- 
 ophilism, 554. 
 
 Slavophils: attempt reconciliation between 
 spirit of tradition and spirit of religious 
 freedom, 56, 129; inlluence Dean 
 Stanley, and are themselves influenced 
 by Oerman historian of religion, 65; 
 and Russian village community, 55. 367. 
 
 Snuril: or Russian peasant, 139. 
 
 Social : cai)illarity , means of defense against, 
 9; tradition and lack of continuity, 19;
 
 586 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 life since eighteenth century and its 
 duahsm, 44; differentiation in tribal 
 society a cause of political development, 
 134- 
 "Social contract": Prokopovich on theory 
 of, as applied to Tsars, 169; of 
 Rousseau too democratic for, and 
 rejected by, Catherine II., 170. 
 Social democracy in Russia: started by 
 Plehanov in 1883. 425; role of, in move- 
 ments of last decade, 483; staunch for 
 "orthodox" Marxism. 488; and its 
 centralistic reorganization and unifica- 
 tion (1903), 489; proposes in its pro- 
 gram (1900): nationalization of land, 
 493; cosmopolitan doctrine of, in strug- 
 gle with and succumbing to local current 
 of Social Revolutionaries, 493 f.; and 
 massacre of January 22, 1905, 537 f. 
 Social Democratic Labor party (iSgSff.)- 
 founded by a group of "intellectuals," 
 496. 
 Social Democratic party: loses, September 
 1897. Jewish Bund, 489; fighting branch 
 of, 490 f. 
 Social revolution: ultimate aim of modem 
 movement, 177; and prepiirations for 
 it in 1863. 389; views of Lavrov and 
 Tkachov concerning, 398 S.; 
 Social Revolutionaries: name of revived 
 "People's Will" party, 490; resuscitate 
 terrorist methods, 490; program of, 
 of 1898,491; branch of the "Agrarian 
 League" {which see), 492. 508 f.; local 
 current of, gains upper hand over cos- 
 mopoUtan doctrine of social democracy, 
 493 f.; organ and work of, from 1895 
 to 1900, 498. 
 Social: structure, in its pecuUarity, cause 
 of difference in Russian liberalism, 225; 
 history of nobility and gentry, 227-45; 
 unrest general at present, 434; reform 
 questions not touched in Paris agree- 
 ment of Liberal and SociaUst parties, 
 December, 1904. 526 ff.; forces in 
 Russia weak, 556. 
 Socialism, Russian: averse to pohtical 
 liberaUsm, 260; of Russia different from 
 other only in beginning. 335, 339; 
 represents democracy in general, 335; 
 and democracy in English-speaking 
 countries, 336; and in Germany, 337; 
 Bakoonin its beginning and Marx its 
 end, 341; Proudhon's anarchism the 
 forerunner of, 361, 363, 367; doctrine 
 of modern, 362; leaders of, 363; of 
 Herzen. 365 f.; has Russian peasant in 
 place of proletariat of western socialism, 
 384 f.; agricultural co-operation program 
 of, 38s; militant branch of Shellyabov, 
 417 f., 420; one of the two currents of 
 public opinion, 222, 560; aim of both 
 branches the same: a political revolu- 
 tion, 495. See also Pure socialism. 
 Socialist: agitation in villages twenty 
 years ago and now, 360; congress at 
 Zurich (1872-73) and its debates, 402; 
 
 propaganda and " intellectuals," 480*, 
 editorial and literary activity of both 
 branches of sociaUst party, 496 ff., 509 f. 
 
 Socialist: condemns opportunism of Free 
 Russia (1889), 428 f. 
 
 Socialist Revolutionaries: executive com- 
 mittee of, 416, 419; organ of, 428. 
 
 Socialistic democratic work from 189s to 
 1900, 496. 
 
 SociaUstic idea, 334-432: origin of social- 
 istic movement in Russia, 361; Russian 
 village community germ of sociaUstic 
 society, according to Herzen, 367; 
 Russia's role in bringing about a social- 
 istic stage of human history, 368; pro- 
 gram of Herzen, 372; reconciliation 
 attempted of the two factions (Social 
 Revolutionaries and Social Democrats) 
 in 1889 ff., 429 ff.; movement of the 
 nineties similar to that of the seventies 
 in general features, but strongly sup- 
 ported by the masses, 481 f.; parties in 
 Poland, 499 f. 
 
 Socialistic Revolutionaries (People's Will 
 party): vs. SociaUstic Democrats (or- 
 thodox Marxists). 489; but aim of both 
 is same: political revolution, 495. 
 
 Socialists: twenty years ago were called 
 boyars, or landlords, by suspicious peas- 
 ants, 360; of 1848 called Peirashevtsee, 
 377, 384; proletarization of peasants one 
 plank in platform of, 492 f.; activity of, 
 and practical results, 495 f. 
 
 "Society for Public Welfare": work and 
 aims of, 256. 
 
 Society of eighteenth century in Russia: 
 backward and forward movement of, 
 41. 45- 
 
 "Society of St. Petersburg Workingmen": 
 a government creation, with Father 
 Gopon as president, 536 f. 
 
 "Society of the Allied Zemstvos and of 
 Self-Government," 30s. 
 
 Socinian influence on doctrines of Russian 
 evangehcism, 210. 
 
 Soldiers: and Jewish Bund, 512. 
 
 Solovyov: teaches cosmopohtan elements 
 in a national type to be religion of 
 Russian people, 62; cosmopohtan 
 theory of, of nationalism, 63; plan of, 
 of influencing newspapers, 210; one of 
 real authors of Emancipation Act, 267. 
 
 Soovorin, 328, 330. 
 
 South Russian type: primary, 142; in 
 contrast with Muscovite type, 146. 
 
 Southern Russia: frontier settlement of, 
 at end of sixteenth century, 7, 356; 
 secondary type of, 144; under Tartar 
 yoke, 144, 149; colonization of, 11 ff., 
 146; "promised land" of Russian 
 future, 146; Society of the Decembrists 
 of. led by Colonel Pestel, 259 f.; peas- 
 ants of, and their source of income, 448; 
 inner migrations of, 452.
 
 ANALYTICAL L\DEX 
 
 S87 
 
 Southwestern, south-central, and north- 
 western Russia: and its agricultural 
 local conditions. 437. 
 
 Spark: literarj- organ of "orthodox Marx- 
 ists." 4S6. 
 
 Speransky's arguments for a constitution, 
 173 {•; i(( <^so 185.309, 553. 5SS. 562. 
 
 Spies: and janitors. ip3; in newspaper 
 offices. 216; at students' gatherings. 218. 
 
 Spiritualistic and evangelical currents of 
 Christian thought. 92, iii. 
 
 Staho\-ich: protests against religious 
 intolerance and persecution, 128. 
 
 Standesmonarchie of Montesquieu, 170, 
 552- 
 
 Standing armies: since John IV., 231. 
 
 Stanley. Dean: influenced by Horayakov 
 and other Slavophils. 65. 
 
 Storoshiltsee, 138 n. 2, 140. 
 
 State: idea of foreign to genuine life of 
 nation, according to Slavophils, s^; f., 
 129. 180, 371; and religion. Russian, 
 ideahzed in theory of Slavophils, 56 f. 
 
 State colonization: and military defense 
 as origin of towns, 226. 
 
 State police: introduction of a special, by 
 Xicholas I.. 185; present organization 
 of, 193; and activity in provinces, 514 f. 
 
 State sernce: nobility of. second aristoc- 
 racy in seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
 turies lacks corporate spirit, 229; or- 
 ganized by John IV. against ancient 
 aristocracy, 229; Peter the Great 
 favoring lower middle class of men of 
 serrice against nobility both of birth 
 and of. 232. 
 
 States General of ancient Russia: embodi- 
 ment of "right of opinion," according to 
 Slavophils, 56. 
 
 Statisticians' work for Zemstvos, 289. 
 
 Statute: of 1865 begins era of arbitrary 
 rule legalized liy statutes, 204; of 1890 
 (Demetrius Tolstoy), 319. 
 
 Stepnyak: recommends pro\'incial assem- 
 blies (1895). 310; one of leaders in 
 movement of 1873-74, 405 f.; attempts 
 reconciliation with hberalism (1890), 
 320 £f.. 428. 
 
 Strict control of public lectures, 198. 
 
 Strike in St. Petersburg and other cities, 
 January 15, 1905, 535 if. 
 
 Strikes: since 1895, 480 ff., 496 IT., 506. 
 
 Strogonov, Count: on indifference of 
 nobility (1801), 246. 
 
 "Struggle for places": system of, in seven- 
 teenth century, 230. 
 
 Struggle: significance of present, for ciri- 
 lization in Russia, 4; tjctween liberalism 
 and government. 328 ff.; for competition 
 among Kusskin pea.sants. 451. 
 
 Student uprisings: since 1861, 389. 
 
 "Stundcnts": peasants' present name for 
 socialists, 360 f . 
 
 StundLsts: evangelical sectarians (about 
 i860), 92, 121 f. 
 
 Superior procurator: created by Peter the 
 
 Great, 86. 
 
 Surplus: of human and horse power in 
 south Russian rural districts, and its 
 employment. 450 ff.; of exports over 
 imports steadily decreasing. 471 f. 
 
 Surveillance: of political suspects, 195; 
 of schools and political r61e of classical 
 system of Demetrius Tolstoy, 215 f., 318. 
 
 Svyatopolk-Mirskee: and his ministry of 
 "benevolent autocracy," 529, 532, 543. 
 
 Symptoms of decay in agriculture, 435, 451. 
 
 Synoptic table of Russian sects, 92. 
 
 System of oppression wholly insufficient, 
 219. 
 
 Tartar: incursions and "Indian wars," 
 ii> 357; yoke on southern Ru.ssia, 144, 
 149. 
 
 Taxation: local and central, 298. 
 
 Taxes: rent, and interests on loans ruina- 
 tion of peasants, 346; disproportionate 
 increase of, in recent years. 442. 
 
 Teachers and pupils of colleges and sec- 
 ondary schools: join in revolutionary 
 movement, 511. 
 
 ''Temporary": regulations legalizing dis- 
 cretionary power, 183; measures of the 
 eighties insufficient 515. 
 
 Terrorism: and political reform come to 
 front in the late seventies, 414 f.; con- 
 tradictory with populism, 417; theory of, 
 held by revolutionaries, 491. 
 
 "Terrorist" party: city wing of "Land 
 and Liberty" party, 415; methods of, 
 quite at variance with theory of popu- 
 lism, 416. 
 
 Terroristic group of 1865-66. 393 f.; 
 methods of. resuscitated by Social Revo- 
 lutionaries, 490. 
 
 Theocratic sanction: of autocracy prevails 
 over legal, 164; insufficiency of, 167. 
 
 ''Theodosians": extreme Pricstlcss Old- 
 believers (about 1706), 92, 97. 
 
 Thcodosius of Pcchcrsk: bishop of first 
 popular monastery in Kceycv, 68. 
 
 Thcodosius the "Squint-Eyed"': and anli- 
 trinitarianism, no. 
 
 Theology: Russian popular, 60 f.; of 
 official church of seventeenth and eight- 
 eenth centuries, 82 f. 
 
 Theoretical expression of nihilism bor- 
 rowed from abroad, 364. 
 
 "Third Element": i. <•., executive officers 
 of Zemstvos, 290. 
 
 Third Section of his Majesty's Private 
 Chancery, and its activity, 186, 192, 304.
 
 588 
 
 RUSSIA AND ITS CRISIS 
 
 "Tliree-field" system and poor tillage 
 impoverish soutliern Russian peasant, 
 449 f- 
 
 Three stages: of development of nation- 
 alism, 35; of political organization, 133. 
 
 Three special police courts established, 189. 
 
 Tikhomcerov, Leo, 541. 
 
 Tkachov: advocates political revolution, 
 398 ff. 
 
 Tolerance in religion: decried by repre- 
 sentatives and apologists of established 
 church, 123; demanded by all educated 
 classes, 128 f. 
 
 Tolstoy, Demetrius: school regime of, 
 215 f., 318; protects aristocracy, 239; 
 minister of the reaction, 318; statute of, 
 1890 of, 319. 
 
 Tolstoy, Leo: and his excommunication, 
 86 f.; Christian anarchism of, taught 
 in 1770 by Kuphemius. too; and the 
 Dookhobory, 113, 119; Kreutzcr Sonata 
 of. 365- 
 
 Tourguenev: and Herzen debate on 
 "people or the educated classes," or 
 "constitutional assembly or a conven- 
 tion," 280 ff., 320; Newly Broken Land 
 of, 361; Fathers and Sons of, repre- 
 senting the two generations, the old of 
 the forties and the new of the sixties 
 (or "nihilists"), 373- 384- 
 
 Town and city settlements: become pre- 
 dominant over work in villages and 
 country, 413. 
 
 Tradition: social, and lack of con- 
 tinuity, 19; poUtical and social, lacking 
 unity, 23, 131-220; defenders of old, 
 against progressive public opinion, 28, 
 41 fi.; break of old, 29; historical, 63, 
 547; and nationalism, 64. 547; religious, 
 65-130. 548 f.; political, broken by 
 Peter the Great. 68, 549. 552; religious, 
 break of. 83, 86; vs. religious freedom, 
 129; lacking in autocracy, 159, 540 f- 
 
 Transformation of gentry into a privileged 
 class by Catherine IL, 237. 
 
 Transition: from ritualism to evangelical 
 and spiritual Christianity, 83 S.. 131; 
 from "domestic economy" to "exchange 
 economy." 439. 
 
 Trepov: Sr.. killed by Vera Zasoolich, 191, 
 
 416; the younger, 544. 
 Tribal organization and house communion 
 
 in Russia, 134, 136 f. 
 Trinity: early popular beliefs concerning, 
 69 f.; of Russian official nationalism: 
 autocracy, orthodoxy, nationality, 182. 
 Tsar: duarchy of, and patriarch in seven- 
 teenth century, 85; and religious free- 
 dom, 123 f.; adoption of title of, by 
 John IV.. 164; sacrosanct character of, 
 168; "social contract" theory as 
 applied to, 169; Basilius Shovysky, the 
 Tsar boyar, 355. 
 Tsar's guard: origin of, 158 
 
 Turkish- Arabian conquests: and their 
 effect on southern Russia, 144. 
 
 Tver Zemstvo: suggests constitution for 
 Russia like that sanctioned by Tsar for 
 Bulgaria, 304 f., 563. 
 
 Tvereetinov: and his followers (1700), 92; 
 condemned by council in 1714, 109. 
 
 Two: essential features of national type 
 131 f.; official government catalogues 
 for public libraries, 202, 478; steps in 
 history of liberal pohtical opinion, 
 248 ff. 
 
 Unification: Jolrn IIL, and national, 32; 
 of public opinion, 560. 
 
 Uniformity: national, and its origin, 32. 
 
 United States and Russia: a comparison, 
 3 ff.; rapid growth of, 4; colonization 
 and development of, 5, 438; similarity 
 and difference in character of colonists 
 of. 6 f.; and its causes. 10; social life of, 
 8; agricultural character of, 8; differ- 
 ences in result of settlement of, 9. 12; 
 democratic social structure of, 9: settlers 
 in Russia of inferior type to those of 
 United States, 12; monetary history of, 
 466 ff. 
 
 Universal: idea of Russia and Slavs in 
 general, 53; franchise and bicameral 
 system, 521 f. 
 
 Universities and learned societies: under 
 Demetrius Tolstoy's statute, 319; and 
 present student demonstrations, 504 f. 
 
 University of Moscow: founded by Em- 
 press Elizabeth (1755), 250. 
 
 University students: founders of Slavo- 
 philism, 52; political role of, and 
 measures against them, 218. 
 
 Untenableness of Slavophilism of first half 
 of nineteenth century, 57. 
 
 Uprisings: of students since 1861, 389; 
 Polish, and "Land and Liberty" organi- 
 zation, 390; agrarian (1902), in govern- 
 ments of Poltava and Harkov, 508. 
 
 Urgency of political reform and the 
 crisis, 433-545. 561. 
 
 Usurers or village creditors: and peasants, 
 346. 
 
 "Utilitarian morals" in theory of niliilism, 
 365- 
 
 Valooyev: report of, to committee of 
 ministers in 1879 on new "bill of 
 coercion," 187; founder of Northern 
 Post, 209; and others in favor of political 
 reform (1881), 314- 
 
 Veeshnegradskee: financial policy of, 
 444 f., 466; measure of. of July 28, 1893, 
 stopping free coinage of silver, 470. 
 
 Village and district: lectures particularly 
 difficult and dangerous, 200; libraries, 
 201, 478; schools, 211 f.; creditors, or 
 usurers, and peasants, 346.
 
 ANALYTICAL INDEX 
 
 589 
 
 Village commune (community): repre- 
 sentative of community of Christian 
 love, 55. 367; germ of socialistic society 
 according to Herzen, 367 ff. See also 
 Mir. 
 
 Villages: and socialist agitation twenty 
 years ago and now. 360 f.; permanent 
 settlements in , as a means of propaganda , 
 prove a failure, 413; revolutionary 
 movement in, 507. 
 
 Virtues and vices: backbone missing in 
 Russian, 18. 
 
 \'olkonsky. Prince: protests against reli- 
 gious intolerance and persecution, 128. 
 
 Madeemir, the Monomach, and Constan- 
 tine, the Monomach, 163. 
 
 WaUace's Russia, 70, 81, 90. 
 
 "Wanderers": see "Runners"; and 
 Euphemius, 100. 
 
 Western and Eastern church in estimation 
 of Slavophilism, 54. 
 
 Westward march of political development, 
 133 f- 
 
 Witte: on Zemstvos, 293, 299 f., 302, 305 f.; 
 on autocracy and liberalism, 332; 
 financial policy of (1893 ff.), 444 f., 446; 
 assisted by foreign capital in developing 
 Russian manufacture. 459 f,, 472; elim- 
 inates competition under his regime, 
 464 f.; optimistic \iews of. concerning 
 protectionism, 465; protector of great 
 industries: introduces gold standard, 
 466; advocates (December 15, 1904) 
 "democratic autocracy," 533 n. 31, 
 
 Wolkenstein: reflects present general 
 demand for abolition of autocracy, 176 f. 
 
 "Workingmen": chief factor in political 
 struggle of the future, 479 f. 
 
 Workingmen: in cities favorable to "pure 
 socialism," 414; demonstrations of 
 (autumn, 1901, to spring, 1902), 506; 
 Society of St. Petersburg, 536 f. 
 
 "Wrestlers with the Spirit": see Dookho- 
 bory. 
 
 Xenomaniacs and Xenophilists in eight- 
 eenth century, 41, 45. 
 
 Vavorsky. Stephen: keeper of patriarch's 
 seat in Peter the Great's time, 86. 
 
 Zasoolich. Vera, 191, 303, 416. 
 Zemsky Nachalnik: office of, 245. 
 
 Zemsky Sobor: general representative 
 assembly, 17S; rcrommended by Kos- 
 helov, 309; in scheme of Ignatyev. 317 
 n. 43; consultative a.ssembly of Musco- 
 \ite state not wanted by Dt-mocratic 
 Constitutionalists. 519; summoning of, 
 planned by present government, 543. 
 
 Zemstvo schools, 289; and attitude of 
 government. 212 f.; and parish schools, 
 213; controlled and hampered in their 
 work, 289, 296. 478; e.xecutive ofilccrs 
 of, 290. 
 
 Zemstvos, or provincial assemblies: dis- 
 proportionate predominance of nobility 
 in, 241 ; tendency of, on the whole lib- 
 eral, 243, 285. 288 f.; organization of, 
 defective: a building without foundation 
 and roof, 2S8 ff.; work of. repressed by 
 bureaucracy, 292 f.; and constitution- 
 alism, 294; as \iewed by Witte, 293, 
 299 f,, 302, 305 f.; work of, a disap- 
 pointment to Hbcrals. 295; pwsition of, 
 of "peaceful work" of improvement and 
 its results. 296 f.; change conditions of 
 life in pro\-inces. 297; coniiict of. with 
 government, 299; presided over by 
 marshals of nobility, 300, 310; under 
 control of provincial governors, 300; 
 right of. of petitioning central govern- 
 ment and the latter 's evasive attitude, 
 294, 301 f.; memorialize government, 
 some plainly demanding a constitution, 
 304 f., 311, 563; liberal propaganda 
 among, according to Witte, 305 f., 
 occupy a humiliating place in "consti- 
 tution" of Loris Melikov. 314; stron.!jly 
 disapprove systems of Ignatyev and 
 Demetrius Tolstoy, 317 f.; appeal to 
 Nicholas II. for more freedom (1894), 
 325 f.; Tsar's answer to timid demands 
 of. 326 f.; aims of. defeated by Pobcdo- 
 nostsev (1895), .^27; have hut an in.sig- 
 nificant peasant representation (since 
 1890), 344; and Plehve, 476 f.; indorse 
 present liberal pro.'jram, 528 f.; meet 
 in a body at St. Petersburg, November 
 19-21, 1904, 529; "petition of rights" 
 of, 530. 
 
 Zoobatovchecna: meaning of, 541, 
 
 Zurich socialist debates (1871-73), 40a.
 
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