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 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 1

 
 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 BY 
 
 GREGOR ALEXINSKY 
 
 Ex-Deputy to the Duma 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE MANUSCRIPT 
 
 BT 
 
 BERNARD MIALL 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 597-599 FIFTH AVENUE 
 1917
 
 
 (All rights reserved)
 
 TO 
 MY WIFE 
 
 G. A.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 In Modern Russia I dealt particularly with all that 
 distinguishes Russian life from the life of Europe. 
 But even then I felt the necessity of presenting the 
 other aspect of the matter— of showing how Russia 
 has Europeanized herself, of summing up the action 
 of European influences in the past and the present 
 of the great Slav Empire. 
 
 The happenings of the present time, and the par- 
 ticipation of Russia in the formidable struggle against 
 Prussian Imperialism, increase the importance of the 
 question of the relations between Russia and the West. 
 
 I shall be happy if the present volume will help 
 
 the English public to study these relations. 
 
 G. A. 
 
 PS. — My sincere thanks are due to my translator, 
 Mr. Bernard Miall, for his valuable collaboration, which 
 has so greatly contributed to the success which my 
 works upon Russia have obtained with my English 
 readers .
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART THE FIRST 
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS BETWEEN 
 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter I 17 
 
 I. The foreign elements in the origins of Russian history. 
 
 II. The Byzantine influence — The opinion of a modern 
 Russian philosopher. 
 
 Chapter II 22 
 
 I. The appearance of true European elements — The Han- 
 seatic League and its r commercial relations with Novgorod. 
 
 II. Europeans in Russia under Ivan III and Ivan the 
 Terrible— The English merchants. III. The eighteenth 
 century and the development of trade between Russia and 
 Europe — State monopolies and commercial capitalism. 
 
 Chapter III 30 
 
 I. The period of Peter the Great — The problem of Euro- 
 peanizing the national economy of Russia. II. The fore- 
 runners — The basis of the economic reforms of Peter I. 
 
 III. Did Peter the Great wish to denationalize Russia ? — 
 National and international motives in the programme of 
 reforms devised by Peter the Great — Russian mercantilism. 
 
 IV. The balance-sheet of industrial Europeanization under 
 Peter the Great — Contradiction between the European and 
 Russian elements in Peter's work. 
 
 Chapter IV 39 
 
 I. Foreign influences under the successors of Peter the 
 Great — The conflict between Western tendencies and the 
 Russian system of government — Catherine II — The ukase 
 of 1763. II. European colonists in the Russian countryside 
 — Why is the Russian moujik poor and the immigrant 
 farmer rich? III. The true method of "Europeanizing" 
 
 the economic system of Russia. 
 
 9
 
 10 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter V 47 
 
 I. European influence and the national economy of the 
 Russia of to-day — The increase of imports and exports — 
 The general character of Russia's foreign trade. II. 
 Human immigration from Europe into Russia— Its com- 
 position. III. The penetration of European capital into 
 Russia. IV. Its forms and its dimensions— State loans and 
 private industry — National capital and foreign capital in 
 Russia. V. The distribution of foreign capital among the 
 various branches of industry. VI. German capitalism and 
 its influence on the Russian economy. 
 
 PART THE SECOND 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 
 
 Chapter I 67 
 
 I. Is the Russian people warlike ? II. A little philology 
 and arithmetic. 
 
 74 
 
 Chapter II 
 
 I. The struggle for the shores of the Baltic Sea as a 
 "window facing Europe "—The Livonian wars of the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. II. The " Period of Dis- 
 turbances " — The wars of the seventeenth century— The 
 Russo-Swedish War under Peter the Great— Its results and 
 its influence. 
 
 Chapter III 86 
 
 I. The war of 1812 and the Russo-Swedish War. II. The 
 causes of the war against Napoleon — Economic relations 
 between Russia and England— The "Continental Blockade" 
 and its effects on Russian economy. III. Two periods of 
 the war of 1812 — Official patriotism and popular patriotism. 
 IV. The Holy Alliance and Legitimism — The Russian 
 reaction. V. The effects of the war on the people and the 
 " intellectuals "—The Decembrists. VI. The effects of the 
 war in Poland. 
 
 Chapter IV 
 
 I. The Crimean War— Its origins. II. Causes of defeat — 
 The contrast between the old Russia and the new Europe. 
 III. The Eastern question— The Slav problem and the 
 Europeanization of Russia. 
 
 99
 
 CONTENTS 11 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter V 109 
 
 I. The war with Europeanized Japan — The Asiatic 
 question. II. The German barrier isolating Russia from 
 Europe — The Baltic Sea and the Straits — The great 
 European conflict, and its general import from a Russian 
 point of view. 
 
 PART THE THIRD 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 
 
 Chapter I 117 
 
 I. A European State in ancient Russia : the Free City of 
 Novgorod. II. The birth of the absolute monarchy and 
 its conflict with feudalism — Western influences in Russian 
 feudalism. 
 
 Chapter II 122 
 
 I. Military power and the reform of the State administra- 
 tion under Peter I — Swedish influences. II. The palace 
 revolutions of the eighteenth century and the influence of 
 Europe. III. German domination, and the anti-Germanic 
 movement under Anna — The participation of France and 
 England in the coup d'etat of 1741 — A Duke of Holstein the 
 Russian Tsar — His Prussophilia. IV. The conspiracy of 
 1 801 and British diplomacy. 
 
 Chapter III 137 
 
 I. The renaissance of feudalism — Catherine II and the 
 European sources of her ideas. II. Attempts to Euro- 
 peanize Russia under Alexander I — Anglophilia — Central 
 institutions — Speransky and his French loans. III. The 
 Decembrists — The European elements in their ideology and 
 their actions — The Spanish model — The reaction of Austro- 
 German origin— The Baltic nobles crush the insurrection 
 of the Decembrists. 
 
 Chapter IV 153 
 
 I. The Tartaro- Prussian Empire under Nicolas I — The 
 knout and the shpitzruteny — The necessity of reforms. II. 
 The " Period of the Great Reforms " and its European 
 sources — A fresh step to the rear.
 
 12 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter V 162 
 
 I. The problem of national representation under Alexander 
 II and the constitutional movement. II. The Duma — 
 Foreign elements in the representative system in Russia — 
 Is the political mentality of the Russian people Asiatic or 
 European? III. Some documents. 
 
 PART THE FOURTH 
 
 EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN RUSSIAN 
 LITERATURE 
 
 Chapter I 181 
 
 I. The theory of races — Non-Russian blood in the veins 
 of Russian writers. II. The formation of the literary 
 language and its European ingredients. 
 
 Chapter II 190 
 
 I. The literature of the people and the literature of the 
 cultivated writers — The first Western influences. II. The 
 importation from Europe of literary forms and subjects. 
 
 Chapter III 198 
 
 I. Various European influences in Russian literature — 
 Classicism, sentimentalism, and romanticism — Shakespeare 
 in Russia. II. Russian realism. III. Byronism in Russia — 
 Dostoievsky's opinion of Byronism. 
 
 PART THE FIFTH 
 IDEALS 
 
 Chapter I 211 
 
 I. The first collision between nationalist ideals and 
 Western influences — The first Russian zapadnik. II. Two 
 Muscovite emigres. III. The first Slavophile in Russia. 
 
 Chapter II 224 
 
 I. The impossibility of a compromise between Muscovite 
 Russia and European tendencies. II. The Russian Vol- 
 taireans — The " historical superfluities " — The opinions of 
 Klutshevsky and Herzen on the Russian Voltaireans. III. 
 Radistshev and Novikov.
 
 CONTENTS 13 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter III 236 
 
 I. The nationalist reaction under Catherine II and Alex- 
 ander I — Shtsherbatov and Karainzin — The Russian re- 
 actionaries and the French Revolution — The royalist 
 emigres. II. The positive influence of the ideals of the 
 French Revolution — Some opinions. 
 
 Chapter IV ... . 249 
 
 I. Catholic influence in Russia — Tshaadaev and his philo- 
 sophy of history. II. Vladimir Soloviev and the ideal of 
 the Universal Church. 
 
 Chapter V 266 
 
 I. The idealist philosophy of Germany — Hegelianism. II. 
 Bielinsky— The influence of Schelling and Fichte. III. 
 Bielinsky a Hegelian of the " Right " and a conservative 
 — His antipathy for French ideals. IV. His conversion — 
 French influences — Social aspirations. 
 
 Chapter VI 281 
 
 I. Bakunin, the Germanophile and conservative. II. The 
 Slavophiles — Their attitude toward the Europeanization of 
 Russia. III. European elements in the Slavianophilstvo. 
 IV. The Slavophiles and the zapadniki. V. Herzen's 
 ideological and moral crisis. 
 
 Chapter VII 304 
 
 I. Dostoievsky and his contradictory qualities. II. The 
 disintegration of the Slavianophilstvo — Katkov, Pobiedo- 
 nostzev, and Leontiev. III. The Occidental sources of 
 reactionary nationalism in Russia. 
 
 Chapter VIII 3" 
 
 I. The zapadnitshestvo triumphant. II. Nihilism — Its 
 European origin — Dobrolubov and Pisarev — The " destruc- 
 tion of aesthetics'* — Nihilism and Anarchism — Pisarev's 
 opinion of the French and English— The social problem 
 and " aesthetics." III. Tshernyshevsky — His materialism 
 — The popularization of Occidental ideas — Tshernyshevsky 
 and Feuerbach— The secularization of Russian thought — 
 English influences.
 
 14 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter IX 324 
 
 I. Socialism in Russia — Socialism and religion. II. The 
 earliest European influences — Saint-Simonism in Russia. 
 III. Fourier and Robert Owen. IV. The narodnitshestvo and 
 Marxism— The "Bakunists" in Russia. V. "Blanquism" 
 in Russia — Terrorism. VI. Philosophy and the reality — 
 The present situation of the narodnitshestvo and Marxism. 
 
 Conclusion 351 
 
 Index • 353
 
 PART THE FIRST 
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS BETWEEN 
 RUSSIA AND EUROPE
 
 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 I. The foreign elements in the origins of Russian history. II. The 
 Byzantine influence — The opinion of a modern Russian philo- 
 sopher. 
 
 I 
 
 The origins of Russian history present us v/ith two 
 half-real, half-legendary factors : the foundation of the 
 first principalities and the " baptism, of Russia." In 
 both popular tradition admitted an active participation 
 of foreign elements. 
 
 According to legend, the Russians of the ninth 
 century had as yet no organized States, but were living 
 in discord. Weary of this anarchy, they are said to 
 have applied to foreign princes (Varangian or Scandi- 
 navian), and to have said : — 
 
 ' Our soil is wide and fruitful, but order is lacking 
 there. Be our princes and come to govern us." 
 
 And three Varangian princes are said to have con- 
 sented to come into Russia and to have founded three 
 principalities in the north. 
 
 Foreigners also created the principality of Kiev, 
 whose first sovereigns bore names of Scandinavian 
 origin : as Igor (from Ingvar) and Olga (from 
 Helghi)/ etc. 
 
 As for the " baptism of Russia," which took place 
 in the year 988 A.D., popular legend has handed down 
 the story. 
 
 Prince Vladimir the Holy, dissatisfied with the 
 
 2 „
 
 18 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 paganism of his subjects, is said to have sought to 
 put an end thereto. With this object in view, he 
 is related to have sent into various countries special 
 envoys who were instructed to make a study of their 
 religions. The religion, or rather the ritual, which 
 charmed him most was the Byzantine. Thereupon 
 Vladimir is reported to have invited the priests of 
 the various cults to repair to Kiev, there to explain 
 to him their character and their advantages. As a 
 result of this competition the Prince of Kiev is said 
 to have set his choice on the Orthodox Byzantine 
 Church, which thereupon became the Orthodox Russian 
 Church. 
 
 In order to grasp the possibility of this extraordinary 
 admixture of Greek and Scandinavian contributions in 
 the first phase of the historical period, we must 
 remember that Russia formed the connecting link 
 between Scandinavia and Byzantium. Thus we may 
 say that in the dawn of her history Russia served as 
 intermediary between West and East, if we admit that 
 her two neighbours represented the two general 
 types . 
 
 But what I chiefly wish to emphasize is the role 
 of the State in this first introduction of foreign 
 elements : the Scandinavians entered the State in the 
 quality of princes and organizers — in short, of 
 governors ; while the Greeks brought their religion 
 into the State on the prince's invitation. We shall 
 see that down to our own days authority in Russia 
 has continued to favour the foreigner, often even to 
 the detriment of the native Russian. 
 
 II 
 
 The bond connecting Scandinavia with Byzantium, 
 across the wide Russian plain, which embraced two 
 points of great importance, one in the region of 
 Novgorod and one in that of Kiev, could not long 
 hold fast. 
 
 The Scandinavian influence, powerful enough at the
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 19 
 
 outset, 1 waned very rapidly ; for shortly after " the 
 coming of the Varangian princes " (in 862 A.D., accord- 
 ing to the Russian chronicles) no trace of their northern 
 principalities was left. Some centuries later, it is true, 
 Russia was again to encounter Scandinavia ; not the 
 Scandinavia which sent her brigand-princes to govern 
 her, but the kingdom of Sweden, with its twelfth 
 Charles, the object of the simultaneous hatred and 
 admiration of Peter the Great. 
 
 In the meantime Northern Russia was subjected to 
 Western influence in another form : by its close rela- 
 tions with the commercial League of the " Free 
 Towns " of the Hansa, which greatly contributed to 
 the development of two of the great Russian Free Towns 
 — Novgorod and Pskov, and to which I shall refer 
 later on. 
 
 The Byzantine influence succumbed before the 
 invasion of the Asiatic hordes, which seized upon 
 Southern Russia, thus cutting it off from Byzantium. 
 But the Eastern Empire, for the Russia of the tenth 
 and eleventh centuries, was the road to the civilization 
 of the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. Hence the 
 interruption of relations with Byzantium was greatly 
 to be deplored. The celebrated Russian historian S. 
 Soloviev says in this connection : ' s The nomads not 
 merely attacked Russia, but they cut her off from 
 the shores of the Black Sea and destroyed her com- 
 munications with Byzantium. . . . Asiatic barbarism 
 strove to deprive Russia of all the roads and all the 
 breathing spaces opening upon cultivated Europe." 
 
 Another great Russian historian, V. Klutshevsky, ex- 
 presses the same idea : "A thousand years of the 
 hostile neighbourhood of the rapacious Asiatic nomads 
 will by itself justify many times over the absence of 
 the European spirit in the history of Russia." 
 
 1 The title of kniaz (prince) which the Russian Slavs employed to 
 designate the head of the State is borrowed from the Scandinavian, 
 and is only a modification of the Scandinavian title of kunning.
 
 20 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 In my Modern Russia > I have already explained 
 the general consequences entailed by the invasion of 
 the steppes of Southern Russia by the Asiatic hordes. 
 We know that the principal result was the displace- 
 ment of the centre of economic and political gravity, 
 which shifted from the region of Kiev to that of Moscow 
 and Vladimir. Muscovite Russia was for a long time 
 deprived of her relations with Byzantium, and lost even 
 all contact with the Russia of the South-West — that 
 is, with Volhynian and Galician Russia, the most highly 
 Europeanized and civilized of all the principalities of 
 the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It was at this time 
 that Volhynia and Galicia began to lead a separate 
 existence, and at a later date were subjected to the 
 influence of Poland. 
 
 As to the Byzantine influence in itself, and the loss 
 which Russia must have suffered in being deprived of 
 this influence in the twelfth century, the various Russian 
 authors are in disagreement. A contemporary publicist 
 and philosopher of some considerable repute, Professor 
 Boulgakov (a Neo-Slavophil), endeavoured quite recently 
 to attribute a great importance to the role of the 
 Byzantine factor : — 
 
 " The Oriental orthodoxy of Byzantium contains, in 
 potential, all Hellenism in its immortal worth. In 
 general Hellenism is a principle of natural orthodoxy. 
 . . . This is why, in the heritage of Greek civiliza- 
 tion, our own share is richer tjian that of the West, 
 the legatee of Hellenism by an indirect path, by the 
 intervention of the Roman Church, and, at a later 
 date only, of Humanism by a pagan restoration." 2 
 
 To this pretentious assertion, which seeks to invest 
 Russia with a kind of supremacy over Western Europe, 
 we can easily oppose a few positive and decisive facts. 
 
 In the first place, it is not true that Byzantium 
 received the legacy of pure Hellenism while the West 
 knew it only by a deformation. On the contrary, 
 
 1 Modern Russia, trans. Bernard Miall, T. Fisher Unwin, 1914. 
 
 3 S. Boulgakov, The War and the Russian Mind (Moscow, 1915), p. 33.
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 21 
 
 it was Byzantium which distorted the original 
 Hellenism. For the democracies of antiquity it sub- 
 stituted a semi-Oriental monarchical regime ; for free- 
 dom of belief, expressing itself in a free art which 
 seized the imagination, a dry and scholastic " ortho- 
 doxy " which amounted to iconoclasm. There was no 
 real return to " Hellenism " save by that very " pagan 
 restoration " which was the Renaissance. 
 
 Assertions such as those of M. Boulgakov would 
 induce us to believe that the influence of Byzantium 
 on ancient Russia was purely spiritual, and was destined 
 to teach the " eternal meanings of Hellenism." In 
 reality, the Greeks who came to Russia and the Russians 
 who went to Tsargrad (Constantinople) were not con- 
 cerned with these abstractions. The true motive of 
 their relations was commercial, as was the principal 
 motive of the relations between Russia and Scandinavia, 
 for the Scandinavian dynasties, the creators of the first 
 Russian principalities, were at once brigands and 
 merchants. It was by following in the footsteps of 
 the Greek merchants that the Greek priests brought 
 orthodoxy to Kiev. And if the Byzanto-Russian and 
 Russo -Scandinavian relations were broken off in the 
 twelfth century, it was because the commercial high- 
 way " from the Greeks to the Varangians " was closed.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 I. The appearance of true European elements — The Hanseatic League 
 and its commercial relations with Novgorod. II. Europeans in 
 Russia under Ivan III and Ivan the Terrible— The English 
 merchants. III. The eighteenth century and the development of 
 trade between Russia and Europe — State monopolies and commer- 
 cial capitalism. 
 
 I 
 
 While the southern regions remained completely 
 isolated by the invasion of the nomads, the north of 
 Russia maintained and developed its exchanges with 
 the West : in the thirteenth century, for example, the 
 Hanseatic League held a considerable place in the 
 trade of Novgorod. 
 
 Modern historians have proved that even at the 
 period of the principality of Kiev foreign trade 
 was assuming a prominent place in Russian life. 
 For example, M. Nicolas Rojkov states that during 
 this period agriculture and industry occupied a 
 secondary position. Hunting and agriculture, or rather 
 the gathering of honey in the woods, were the principal 
 occupations. Foreign trade, on the contrary, or, more 
 precisely, the exportation through the princes and their 
 companions of what they obtained by hunting, honey, 
 and all that the princes received from the population 
 as dani (taxes paid in kind), was much in vogue. 
 The aristocracy sent their merchandise to Byzantium, 
 where they exchanged it for weapons, wine, stuffs, etc. 
 But these relations, confined to a minority, were of no 
 immediate interest to the great masses of the people. 
 
 In Novgorod and Pskov the position was quite 
 
 22
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 23 
 
 different. There the bulk of the population traded 
 and lived by trade. Agriculture occupied a secondary 
 place in the regions of Novgorod and of Pskov as 
 well as in that of Kiev. The activities of these regions 
 were absorbed by foreign trade. The local chronicles, 
 and the popular poetry also, give irrefutable evidence of 
 this fact. Who is the principal hero of the bylinas — 
 that is, the epic songs of Novgorod? Sadko the Rich, 
 the merchant, mighty not by the sword but by the purse. 
 
 The trade of Novgorod extended over a much vaster 
 region, and included a much larger quantity of products, 
 than the trade of Kiev. Skins, butter, fat, meat, flax, 
 honey, wool, wheat, etc., were bought by the merchants 
 of Novgorod in various parts of Russia and were sold 
 or exchanged for foreign merchandise. 
 
 " Commercial interests led foreign merchants and 
 adventurers along the waterways of inland Russia, and 
 laid the foundations of the Russian State. On the 
 success of external trade was based the ephemeral 
 wealth of the region of Kiev, which became im- 
 poverished and lost its political influence with the 
 disorganization of this trade. What really was the 
 importance, in the trade of Kiev, of the foreign 
 merchants, we can only imagine and conjecture, owing 
 to the lack of precise data. But as regards the role 
 of foreign intermediaries in the trade of Novgorod 
 it is already perfectly evident. The ' Gothic ' and 
 1 German ' ' courts ' or ' yards,' founded in Novgorod 
 in the twelfth century by the merchants of Gothland 
 and Liibeck, and united in the fourteenth century under 
 the direction of the Free Towns of the Hanseatic 
 League, monopolized, for some centuries, all the Russian 
 trade passing through Novgorod. The attempt on the 
 part of the men of Novgorod to found a Russian com- 
 pany which should trade with foreign countries did 
 not enable them to create their own merchant fleet, 
 and the oversea voyages of certain Russian merchants 
 in foreign boats, and even the warehousing of Russian 
 merchandise in foreign countries, were only the isolated
 
 24 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 attempts of individual venturers. The Novogorodians 
 had to content themselves with the role of monopolist- 
 middlemen between the buyers of merchandise in 
 Northern and South-Eastern Russia and the factories 
 of the Hanseatic League. The foreign trade of Russia 
 was able to free itself from the Hanseatic 1 domination 
 only when the foreign competitors of the League came 
 to its assistance ; when, by their own efforts, they 
 opened up means of direct access to Russian 
 merchandise. In the fifteenth century, and early 
 in the sixteenth, these competitors were the Swedish 
 traders and the towns of Livonia, which drew the move- 
 ment of merchandise into another direction than that 
 familiar to the trade of the Hansa towns. In their 
 footsteps appeared the representatives of the principal 
 capitalistic nations of the new Europe, whose merchan- 
 dise had until then formed the object of the Hansa 
 trade. These were the English and the Dutch." l 
 
 At the same time, the city of Novgorod began to 
 make way, in the matter of external trade, for the 
 city of Moscow. 
 
 II 
 
 Under Ivan III (145 2- 1505) Russia was delivered 
 from the Tartar yoke, and under Ivan the Terrible 
 (1534-89) the principality of Moscow established 
 direct economic relations with Europe. In the fifteenth 
 century there came to Moscow those European traders 
 and artisans who " laid the foundations of the principal 
 urban trades." The first comers were for the most 
 part Italians. Architects, engineers, experienced 
 physicians, masters and artisans of various crafts, 
 were called from Italy to Moscow. Among them were 
 celebrated masters like Fioraventi-Aristoteles (of Venice 
 or Bologna), Petro Antonio, and Marcus Albysius. 
 Aristoteles taught the Muscovites how to make bricks 
 and lime and the use of machinery ; he founded cannon 
 
 * P. Milukov, Studies in the History of Russian Culture, Part I, 
 pp. 105-6 (1st ed., Russian, Petersburg, 1900).
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 25 
 
 and constructed a floating bridge near Novgorod. " He 
 was the renovator of many crafts in Russia." 
 
 From this time onward the influence of Europe in the 
 economic life of Russia increased by leaps and bounds. 
 
 In the sixteenth century, under Ivan the Terrible, 
 Russia became for the first time the theatre of an 
 energetic rivalry between the traders of Germany and 
 England. The Germans had long maintained relations 
 with Russia by way of Novgorod. The English arrived 
 in Russia by chance : an English expedition went astray 
 in the Arctic Ocean and eventually reached the Russian 
 coast. The Tsar, Ivan the Terrible, having received 
 the news of the strangers' arrival, expressed to them 
 his ardent desire that permanent relations might be 
 established between their country and his kingdom, 
 and the town of Arkangelsk or Archangel became 
 the base of the Anglo-Russian trade. 
 
 In 1566 Ivan the Terrible addressed himself to 
 Elizabeth through the British Ambassador, Jenkinson, 
 begging her to send to Russia some good artisans and 
 craftsmen. The Queen granted his request, and in 
 1567 sent him an English physician, Reynolds; 
 a pharmacist, Thomas Curwin ; an engineer, Humfry 
 Lock, with his assistant, John Fenton ; a goldsmith, 
 Thomas Green ; and other specialists. 
 
 In 1569 the Tsar granted some English manu- 
 facturers a patent for the establishment of a metal- 
 lurgical works at Vytchegda, in the Government of 
 Vologda. The English penetrated yet farther, into the 
 Ural Mountains, and prospected for iron-mines in the 
 region of Perm. 
 
 Ivan the Terrible also sent a special envoy to 
 Germany to obtain the same services from the German 
 Emperor, and to recruit in Germany some hundreds of 
 " learned men, artists, and artisans." 
 
 But the preference of Ivan IV was given to the 
 English, and the English merchants, thanks to privi- 
 leges granted to them by the Tsar, entered the lists 
 in opposition to the German traders, who were grouped
 
 26 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 under the Hanseatic League and who traded through 
 Novgorod. The importation of English cloth and linen 
 was fatal to German competition, already enfeebled 
 by the general decline of the economic activity of 
 Novgorod. This market was ruined by the Muscovite 
 sovereigns, who could not endure the existence of a 
 free city, with a government almost republican, side 
 by side with their own monarchical State. 
 
 The sympathies of Ivan the Terrible for the English 
 were such that he was called "the English Tsar," 
 and in the time of Elizabeth, England 1 declared that 
 in no other country did her trade bring her such profits 
 as in Russia. 1 
 
 Ill 
 
 I have explained, in my Modern Russia, the general 
 nature of the economic evolution, or revolution rather, 
 which occurred in the Russia of the sixteenth century. 
 Then it was that the internal market was unified, and 
 relations and stable connections were established 
 between the various regions of the country, under 
 the influence of an intensive commercial exchange. 
 
 The foreign element played a most important part 
 in the birth of the new state of affairs, as it greatly 
 contributed to the development of the movement of 
 trade along the two principal trade routes : that from 
 Novgorod to Moscow and that from Archangel to 
 Moscow. 
 
 But at the beginning of the eighteenth century this 
 economic development was interrupted by a great 
 political crisis, known as the " Period of Disturbances," 
 which lasted until the year 1613, and the installation 
 on the Muscovite throne of the Tsar Mikhail Feodoro- 
 vitch, the first representative of the House of Romanov. 
 
 Under this Tsar and his successor, Alexei Mikhailo- 
 vitch, the economic relations with the outer world were 
 rapidly multiplied and became increasingly complex . 
 
 1 G. Schultze-Gavernitz, Studies in the National and Political Economy 
 of Russia (Russian trans., Petersburg, 1900), p. 6.
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 27 
 
 Among the most noteworthy phenomena of the 
 economic history of Russia in the seventeenth century 
 we find, in the first place, the multiplication of exchanges 
 with Europe. After the English, who contrived to 
 establish their factories along the entire route from 
 Archangel to Moscow, other Europeans began to trade 
 in Russia : and firstly the Dutch, who used the route 
 from the Arctic Ocean and the White Sea, as did 
 the English, and also the Baltic route, as did the 
 Germans, the Danes, and the Swedes. As early as 
 1603 we find an English writer complaining that after 
 seventy years of extensive trade with Russia the 
 English were beginning to be outstripped by the 
 Dutch. At the end of the sixteenth century a report 
 was presented to the States-General of the Nether- 
 lands, whose author asserted that the maritime trade 
 with Russia might be as profitable to Dutch traders 
 as the trade with Spain — that is, with America, through 
 the medium of Spain. " Neither Germany nor our 
 Netherlands," he positively stated, " can dispense with 
 trading with Russia." Russia had therefore become, 
 at this period, a necessary factor of the world's trade. 
 
 Muscovite Russia, in the seventeenth century, bene- 
 fited by international exchanges in a twofold manner. 
 On the one hand, she served as a means of com- 
 munication between West and East, Europe and Asia. 
 She bought Oriental merchandise (for example, silk, 
 in Persia) and delivered it to Western commerce. 
 Silk occupying a place of enormous importance in the 
 commercial life of the time, both private individuals 
 and European Governments endeavoured more than 
 once to obtain free transit through Russia for their 
 communications with Persia, the principal source of 
 this precious commodity. 
 
 In 1 61 4 a representative of England (John Merik) 
 came to demand, in the name of his king, the right 
 to make use of the Volga highway. In 1629 a French 
 ambassador presented a similar claim. In 1630 the 
 Dutch followed suit. But the Muscovite Government
 
 28 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 invited all these claimants to procure their Persian 
 goods by buying them of the Russians. 
 
 The traders of the duchy of Holstein were more 
 fortunate : they obtained the monopoly of the trade 
 with Persia for an annual payment to Russia of 
 600,000 efimoks— about 5,000,000 roubles. But it 
 appeared that " in Holstein theory was stronger than 
 practice, and that the folk of this country knew more 
 of ciphering than of payment. When it came to paying, 
 the necessary money was lacking, and the ambitious 
 enterprise came to a very pitiable end in a diplo- 
 matic quarrel between the Government of the Tsar 
 Mikhail and the Duke Frederick." » 
 
 In general the Government preferred not to allow 
 Europeans to cross its territory in order to reach its 
 eastern frontiers, being loth to lose the profits which 
 the trade with Asia assured to the Treasury. It even 
 went so far as to seek to monopolize, for its own 
 profit, the exportation and sale to foreign countries 
 of 'a portion of the native commodities, notably of skins 
 and articles made of leather, furs, caviare, wheat, etc. 
 
 In 1630 the States-General of the Netherlands pro- 
 posed through a special ambassador an ambitious plan 
 to exploit and " valorize," by means of Dutch capital, 
 the agricultural and forestal resources of Russia. It 
 was proposed to grow vast crops of wheat for ex- 
 portation, and also to exploit the vast forests lying 
 along the banks of the Northern Dvina. But the 
 Government decided to keep the trade in Russian pro- 
 ducts in its own hands. It admitted the principle 
 of the monopoly while preferring to apply it on its 
 own account. It also established a series of com- 
 mercial regies — for example, that of alcohol — which was 
 resuscitated by Count Witte at the end of the nineteenth 
 century and abolished in 1 9 1 4 at the beginning of 
 the war. 
 
 In the exploitation of these regies the Government, 
 in the seventeenth century, employed the wealthy 
 
 ■ M. Pokrovsky, Russian History, vol. i. p. 95 (Russian ed.).
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 28 
 
 merchants as its agents and representatives. These 
 intermediaries made large private profits by the 
 purchase and sale of the State commodities. If, as 
 an English author says, "the Tsar was the first 
 merchant in his dominions," other merchants also 
 enriched themselves by monopolizing foreign trade, and 
 they began to form a powerful corporation of capitalists, 
 to which, moreover, foreigners trading with Russia had 
 access, sometimes holding an important place therein. 
 These foreigners, with more experience and capital, 
 became the rivals even of the Russians, and in certain 
 respects supplanted them : for instance, in the last 
 quarter of the seventeenth century, Kilburger reported 
 that all the trade of Archangel was centred in the 
 hands of a few Dutchmen and merchants of Ham- 
 burg and Bremen, who had their representatives and 
 their clerks in Moscow. 
 
 At this time there was a sudden increase of imports 
 also, which assumed considerable proportions ; for 
 example, in 1671 there were imported into Russia, 
 through the port of Archangel, 2,477, tons of herrings, 
 783,000 needles, 5 tons of colours, 809 barrels of 
 indigo, 28,457 reams of paper, 1,957 bars of iron, etc. 
 
 Thus, under the influence of foreign relations, 
 developed that commercial capitalism whose formation 
 fills the history of the seventeenth century. From 
 foreign trade it spread to internal trade ; but indus- 
 trial production, in the seventeenth century, still retained 
 the characteristics of la petite Industrie, industrial 
 capitalism dating only from the reign of Peter the 
 Great. However, in some parts of the south and west 
 (as in the Ukraine), and above all in those parts which 
 were in dispute between Russia and Poland, there 
 existed before the days of Peter the Great an already 
 somewhat extensive industry (including distilleries, 
 making a corn spirit, glassworks, foundries, etc.). 
 Here, again, we mark the increasing influence of 
 Europe, which traversed Poland and had its two 
 maritime centres at Riga and Konigsberg.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 I. The period of Peter the Great — The problem of Europeanizing the 
 national economy of Russia. II. The forerunners— The basis of 
 the economic reforms of Peter I. III. Did Peter the Great wish 
 to denationalize Russia ? — National and international motives in 
 the programme of reforms devised by Peter the Great — Russian 
 mercantilism. IV. The balance-sheet of industrial Europeanization 
 under Peter the Great — Contradiction between the European and 
 Russian elements in Peter's work. 
 
 I 
 
 The reforms of Peter the Great have been much dis- 
 cussed. Some regard his work of reform as a veritable 
 Europeanization of the country, a cataclysm almost, in 
 which the ancient Russia, Muscovite and Asiatic, 
 perished, and out of which emerged the new, civilized, 
 European Russia. Others, on the contrary, are inclined 
 to deny that the influence of Peter the Great was of this 
 character, and to regard it as far more limited in scope. 
 
 In addition to this genetic and historical problem, a 
 question of teleological import arises. Was the work 
 of Peter the Great really positive and useful? Or, as 
 many Slavophiles assert, did Russia merely suffer, as 
 a result of this sovereign's efforts, a depravation of 
 her normal existence, a morbid and harmful crisis, 
 artificially provoked in the course of her natural and 
 logical development? 
 
 The best, that is, the surest means of judging objec- 
 tively these controversial questions, and of deriving solid 
 instruction therefrom, is to analyse the economic pheno- 
 mena of the reign of Peter the Great. For although it 
 is fairly easy to " reform " a few juridical statutes and 
 
 30
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 31 
 
 other external manifestations of the public authority, 
 the national economy of a people, which is the true 
 and intimate substance of its social and political exist- 
 ence, is far more refractory to force. Reforms are 
 valued by their economic results ; if their imprint on 
 the life of the people is profound, if they have con- 
 tributed to its development, we may admit that their 
 influence is important ; but if they have merely grazed 
 the surface of life they fall into place merely as 
 negligible incidents. 
 
 II 
 
 The first appearance in Russia of industry on the 
 large scale, the creation of the first large factories and 
 workshops, is very often referred to the period of Peter 
 the Great, and is attributed to the exclusive influence 
 of the foreigners in Russia. " Peter the Great was the 
 true creator and the great teacher of Russian industry," 
 says M. Ischchanian, the Armenian economist. 1 
 
 It must be noted, however, that industry on the large 
 scale was not unknown in Russia before the reign of 
 Peter the Great. A century and a half earlier it was 
 already in existence ; the first paper-mill was estab- 
 lished under Ivan the Terrible, as was also the first 
 printing-press. In the seventeenth century other works 
 were established ; the first cloth-weaving establishment 
 was founded in 1650 by a foreigner (Johann of 
 Sweden). Metallurgy was even earlier in the field ; in 
 1632 the Government granted to Vinius, a Dutchman, 
 a patent to found and exploit a large foundry, and 
 two years later another foreigner (Kojet) obtained 
 permission to erect a glass-works. 
 
 This proves that wholesale industry and the participa- 
 tion of foreigners preceded the advent of Peter the 
 Great. 
 
 Before his time, it is true, the small industry pre- 
 dominated ; the birth of great undertakings was merely 
 
 1 B. Ischchanian, Die Ausliindischen Elctnenie in der Russischen Volks- 
 mrtscha/i (Berlin, 1913), p. 19.
 
 32 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 a sporadic phenomenon, and it was only after his reign 
 that it became regular and systematic. Nevertheless, 
 in order that this transformation should be possible, a 
 material foundation was essential, which did, in fact, exist. 
 
 " In Russia, before Peter the Great, there was no 
 industrial capitalism, but a commercial capitalism was 
 already completely developed. The concentration of 
 commercial capital which we observe in this Russia 
 was not due to governmental measures, but to the 
 spontaneous development of trade and the recognition 
 of the advantages presented by commerce on a large 
 scale as compared with petty trading. It was pre- 
 cisely this commercial capital which furnished the 
 foundation of the greater industries under Peter the 
 Great. To convince ourselves of this we need only 
 consult the lists of contemporary manufacturers ; we 
 shall see that, contrary to a very prevalent idea, they 
 were, in a great majority, purely Russian, and belonged 
 to the corporation or guild of merchants." l 
 
 Such is the verdict of Professor Toughan-Baranovsky, 
 the leading historian of Russian industry. 
 
 '■' The foreigners and the nobles owned 1 only an in- 
 significant proportion of the factories existing under 
 Peter I. . . . The owners of the greater number of 
 these concerns were Muscovite capitalists of the old 
 stock — merchants. The fact that they were so shows 
 that the greater industries developed in a favourable 
 environment, created by the whole past of the Muscovite 
 State, more especially in the heart of the great com- 
 mercial world. This environment was not the work 
 of Peter ; without it, industry on the larger scale would 
 have found it impossible, in Russia, to attain any con- 
 siderable extension." 2 
 
 But, as we know, commercial capitalism on the 
 greater scale was able to wax fat and increase in 
 Muscovite Russia only thanks to foreign relations. Con- 
 
 1 M. Toughan-Baranovsky, The Russian Factory in the Past and 
 Present, vol. i. p. 8 (Petersburg, 1898, Russian ed.). 
 * Ibid., pp. 10, 11.
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 33 
 
 sequently we are justified in saying that the exchanges 
 with Europe rendered the advent of the great Russian 
 industries possible by, affording them the necessary- 
 soil . 
 
 As for the part played by Peter the Great and his 
 Government, it translated itself chiefly in measures 
 which were half-encouraging and half-coercive, but 
 which were designed to attract commercial capital to 
 the business of industrial production. ,WJe know what 
 these measures were : privileges and monopolies for 
 the founders of industrial undertakings, State contracts 
 to supply the army and navy, etc. To the period of 
 Peter the Great, therefore, we must refer the origin 
 of those close relations between the Government and 
 the great commercial capitalists which even to-day 
 appear as one of the most characteristic traits of Russia, 
 and are of great significance. On account of these 
 relations the wealthy middle classes of Russia are always 
 | greatly subject to the action of the State, which has 
 formed the habit of intervening in the economic life 
 of the nation and of tackling its problems directly. 
 The principle of taissez faire, laissez passer has never 
 been that of the Russian State, which is for ever carry- 
 ing on various undertakings, exploiting, as a private 
 individual, railways, distilleries, mines, factories, forests, 
 etc. I believe we shall nowhere else find a State 
 so greatly, concerned with trade and industry. 
 
 To understand how it has come to assume such a 
 function we must go back to its first great ventures 
 into the economic sphere, under Peter I, not forgetting 
 that it then found the soil prepared. For we know 
 that as early as the seventeenth century the State was 
 adding to its administrative functions the exercise of 
 trade, and notably that it carried on an extensive trade 
 with foreign countries. Thus conditions came into being 
 which were propitious to the reforms of Peter the 
 Great and to that economic " Europeanization " of 
 Russia which he so resolutely undertook.
 
 34 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 III 
 
 But it must not be supposed that Peter the Great 
 intended to "denationalize" Russia, or that he was 
 the enemy of the truly Russian elements of the nation. 
 On the contrary, his system was fully national in 
 character, and one of the authors who have studied 
 it was able to say of him with reason that Peter the 
 Great was merely an enlightened nationalist. 1 
 
 Peter I was a representative of the mercantile 
 doctrine. But the mercantile doctrine is merely an 
 economic nationalism. 2 This theory, as far as it applied 
 to Russia, was expounded by Baron von Luberas in 
 a scheme which he proposed to Peter : — 
 
 '•' To set the general economy in a solid and stable 
 order it is extremely necessary to give this structure 
 a suitable life or soul. This last consists in the amount 
 of credit which your Majesty enjoys abroad," As 
 for this credit, it is necessary to the development of 
 trade and industry in the interior of the country ; for 
 " one must take pains to improve the production of 
 one's own country " ; must no longer remain dependent 
 on foreign industry, but must obtain an active balance 
 in favour of Russia, and " create one's own manu- 
 factures." 
 
 Such was the advice of Luberas. 3 And such was the 
 opinion of Peter himself, who was familiar with the 
 mercantile doctrine not only through the theories of 
 Luberas and other " projectors," but also in practice — 
 in the Netherlands and other European countries 
 
 1 See the work already cited of M. Ischchanian, p. 20. 
 
 2 Mr. H. Higgs, the well-known English economist, says of the 
 " mercantilists " : " The mercantilists were always extremely anxious 
 to solve the following problem: By what means may a Government 
 contribute to the well-being of the nation ? Nationalism, State inter- 
 vention, and particularism constitute the essentials of their economic 
 
 policy." 
 
 3 Cited from Milukov's The Economy of the Russian State during the 
 First Quarter of the Tenth Century and the Reform of Peter the Great 
 (Petersburg, 1892, p. 528, Russian ed.).
 
 !\ 
 
 s. 
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 35 
 
 through which he had travelled. However, he could 
 not be a '■' mercantilist " according to the Dutch or 
 English pattern. In the Low Countries and in England 
 industry was created far more by private initiative than 
 by the public authorities. French mercantilism — 
 ' Colbertism " — was already more governmental. In 
 Russia the role of the public authorities had perforce 
 to be greater because private initiative was feeble, 
 and very often the Russian bourgeoisie was even hostile 
 to the introduction of new methods of economic 
 exploitation and to the '•*■ Europeanization " of the 
 national methods of production. Thus, for example, 
 one of the leading Russian publicists and economists of 
 the time of Peter I, Ivan Pososhkov, advised the Tsar 
 to " stop all the chinks " through which Russia placed 
 herself in communication with the West, and to sup- 
 press even postal communication. Pososhkov and many 
 others were partisans of a conservative and retrograde 
 economic nationalism, while Peter I represented an 
 enlightened and progressive nationalism. And as the 
 resisting force of the conservative nationalists was in- 
 sufficient, the authorities were able to effect changes 
 in the domain of economics which to us appear almost 
 a revolution from above." 
 
 IV. 
 
 (What were the practical results of the " Europeaniza- 
 tion " of industry under Peter I? 
 
 The figures relating to the Russian industry of the 
 period are by no means negligible, for on the death 
 of the Tsar there were in Russia 233 large industrial 
 establishments belonging to the State and to private 
 individuals, the mines being excepted. We may even 
 say that they satisfied immediate requirements. But 
 if we consider the elements and possibilities of future 
 evolution, the spectacle is less brilliant. 
 
 A superior economic system imposing itself upon a 
 country whose general level is inferior to it produces 
 a twofold effect. On the one hand, it stimulates the
 
 36 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 forces of production, whose means it tends to modernize 
 and improve. But at the same time it exerts a 
 destructive effect : it disintegrates and dissolves the 
 forms which preceded it, and which are no longer 
 adapted to the new requirements which it has evoked. 
 
 This is precisely what happened under Peter I . While 
 with great activity a new equipment was elaborated 
 and a new technique came into being, the representa- 
 tives of the old conceptions of life and labour waged 
 a truly desperate campaign against all M innovations " 
 and all that was " foreign." 
 
 Great material, social, and moral suffering was caused 
 by this clash between the old economic state and the 
 European form of exploitation introduced by Peter the 
 Great. These sufferings have impressed many Russian 
 historians and investigators to the point of inspiring 
 a condemnation of the entire work of industrial renova- 
 tion accomplished by this monarch. 
 
 One of the foremost of these writers, M. Korsak, 
 is of opinion that Peter's whole economic policy was 
 simply a huge mistake : that far from founding large 
 establishments in the European manner he should have 
 applied himself to organizing the small national crafts 
 and trades and the small local industries which existed 
 long before his time. " Instead of turning the artisans 
 into industrial workers, it would have been far better 
 to have made them independent industrial master-crafts- 
 men," and " instead of building factories on account of 
 the State and afterwards placing them in possession 
 of merchants and nobles, it would have been better 
 to entrust their exploitation to the communes, villages, 
 and towns." M. Korsak, whose work on Some Forms 
 of Industry appeared in 1861, was of opinion that 
 '•' the new form of industry (established by Peter I) 
 was in absolute contradiction to all the modes and 
 habits of Russian life." 
 
 But it is to be noted, in the first place, that the 
 concentration of small enterprises and the communal 
 exploitation of which M. Korsak speaks could not have
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 37 
 
 been realized in the eighteenth century, for even in 
 our days the " commercialization " of industry 
 encounters many difficulties and advances very slowly. 
 Peter's reign was a period of wars ; and the Govern- 
 ment was too much taken up by the necessities of 
 external conflict to exercise any choice ; it merely 
 borrowed from Europe what it found there. 
 
 The question, then, is not what Peter the Great 
 should have done, but what he was able to do. 
 
 On the other hand, was the new form of production, 
 as M. Korsak states, absolutely contrary to the modes 
 and habits of Russian life? In this connection we 
 must remember that commerce on the grand scale, as 
 we have seen, was not unknown before the reign of 
 Peter, so that industry had only to follow the example 
 of commerce. We may admit, however, that the general 
 economic conditions and " the new form of industry " 
 were in disagreement. But they were so precisely 
 because the one was superior to the others, as being 
 more progressive. 
 
 Fully to grasp the nature of this contradiction we 
 must consider and solve a special problem which com- 
 plicated the process of " Europeanizing " Russia — 
 namely, the problem of labour. 
 
 The efforts of Peter the Great to develop Russian 
 industry were confronted by a scarcity of " hands." 
 The founders of the first factories were not serf -owning 
 nobles, but merchants and foreigners, who owned no 
 serfs. The Government, in granting them a patent 
 for the establishment of an industrial undertaking, left 
 them at liberty to recruit Russian or foreign workers 
 " by paying them a proper wage." The principal con- 
 tingent of these " free " workers consisted of ex-serfs 
 who had of their own will left their noble masters. 
 The nobles, greatly vexed by this defection, demanded 
 that they should be sent back from the factories to 
 their villages. But Peter I, by a ukase dated 17.22, 
 forbade the surrender of these peasants, turned artisans, 
 to their lawful masters.
 
 38 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 Reading this ukase, one would naturally suppose that 
 in the conflict between the old national regime, based 
 on serfdom and forced labour, and the new industrial 
 exploitation, which enjoyed the co-operation of free 
 labour, Peter the Great was in favour of the second, 
 and that he would thus have arrived at the idea of 
 abolishing serfdom. Nothing of the kind ! In the 
 preceding year (1721) Peter, by another ukase, had 
 authorized " merchant folk ' owning factories to buy 
 peasants on condition that they bought them by the 
 whole village, and that each village was attached not 
 to the person of the manufacturer, but to the industrial 
 undertaking itself. 
 
 So, in their struggle against innovation, the " old 
 habits," unhappily, won the day ; and instead of hasten- 
 ing the disappearance of serfdom, as it did in Europe, 
 the new industry, as soon as it made its appearance 
 in Russia, adapted itself to its environment, and took 
 as its basis the same forced labour of the serfs which 
 was the basis of agriculture. 
 
 More than a century elapsed before a true 
 " Europeanization " of industrial production became 
 possible in Russia by means of the liberation of the 
 serfs.
 
 CHAPTER IVi 
 
 I. Foreign influences under the successors of Peter the Great— The 
 conflict between Western tendencies and the Russian system of 
 government— Catherine II— The ukase of 1763. II. European 
 colonists in the Russian countryside — Why is the Russian moujik 
 poor and the immigrant farmer rich ? III. The true method of 
 " Europeanizing " the economic system of Russia. 
 
 The immediate successors of Peter the Great did not 
 continue his economic policy. We may even say that 
 they followed a totally contrary line of conduct. Instead 
 of developing the forces of the country they occupied 
 themselves only with their own . . . consumption. 
 They wasted far more than they created. The general 
 character of such European influences as they did not 
 avoid underwent a total change. Peter I summoned 
 to Russia able specialists in industry, trade, the sciences, 
 and the military art — engineers, officers, and merchants ; 
 his successors fell into the hands of adventurers. 1 The 
 Tsars, and above all the Tsarinas (incapable of resist- 
 ing the charms of foreign beauty), distributed to their 
 favourites the property of the State, large sums of 
 money taken from the Treasury, lands, and entire 
 villages peopled with serfs. 
 
 What was even more serious was that without having 
 borrowed from Peter the Great one single positive 
 and fruitful idea, his immediate successors repeated 
 and revived his errors. 
 
 1 M. Emile Haumant mentions this fact in his remarkable work on 
 French Culture in Russia, stating that the wave of French immigration 
 into Russia became "more turbid" after the reign of Peter I. It was 
 the same with the immigration from other European countries. 
 
 39
 
 40 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 The ukase of 1721, which confirmed the principle 
 of serfdom, was doubtless an error in that it worsened 
 the situation of the labouring masses ; but at least it 
 recognized an equality of rights between the industrial 
 capitalists and the nobles, and did not reserve the 
 labour of the serfs exclusively for those who had until 
 then been their masters. Under Peter's successors the 
 nobles had their revenge. They applied themselves to 
 depriving the merchants and manufacturers of the right 
 of owning serfs, so that they could thenceforth 
 monopolize industry without risk of competition. 
 
 Under the pressure of their demands a law was 
 passed in 1762 forbidding persons not belonging to 
 the nobility to purchase serfs and to employ them in 
 factories and workshops. This law was only the logical 
 climax of a series of measures whose aim was to re- 
 establish the supremacy of the nobility in the indus- 
 trial domain, and was thus entirely opposed to the 
 tendency then prevailing in Europe, where the bourgeois 
 system was advancing by rapid strides. This " ennoble- 
 ment " of Russian industry had disastrous results, as 
 I have already explained elsewhere. 
 
 " Thanks to the law of 1762 and the small number 
 of free workers, the nobles were not slow to 
 monopolize all the principal branches of industry. 
 » . . But if the serfs were bad industrial workmen, 
 the nobles themselves were deplorable organizers. 
 Accustomed to live by gratuitous labour — that of their 
 serfs — the nobles possessed neither the energy nor the 
 initiative essential in a good manufacturer. . . . 
 Having no competition to fear, they had nothing to 
 stimulate them to improve the technique of their pro- 
 duction." ' 
 
 The advent of Catherine II seemed bound to cause 
 a revival of the economic policy and a return to the 
 positive conceptions of Peter the Great. Like him, 
 Catherine II resorted to the European element as to 
 a ferment. 
 
 1 Modern Russia, 2nd ed., p. 81.
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 41 
 
 In the second year of her reign (on the 22nd of July 
 1763) she published a ukase inviting foreigners to enter 
 Russia, promising them ( 1 ) entire liberty of religious 
 conscience and subventions for the institution of their 
 various cults ; (2) perpetual exemption from obligatory 
 military service ; (3) exemption from taxation during a 
 certain period • (4) communal autonomy in respect of 
 matters of administration and police, with the right to 
 elect their own administrators, and the creation of a 
 special superior body having the general direction of 
 the relations between the immigrants and the State j 
 (5) a special jurisdiction for matters as between one 
 immigrant and another. 
 
 These provisions attracted to Russia a multitude of 
 Europeans, who considerably reinforced the foreign 
 coefficient in the Russian economy. At the end of 
 Catherine's reign, for example, out of 1 63 factories and 
 workshops then existing in Petersburg 35, or 21*47 P^ r 
 cent., belonged to foreigners, 7 to Englishmen, 7 ta 
 Frenchmen, 5 to Germans, 3 to Bulgarians, 2 to Italians, 
 1 to a Swede, and 10 to persons of unknown origin — 
 probably, for the most part, to Germans. In Moscow, 
 too, a European colony established itself, consisting 
 principally of Germans^ 
 
 II 
 
 But the most important result of the ukase of 1763 
 was the appearance of immigrants in the agricultural 
 regions . 
 
 From 1764 to 1776 a great influx of Rheinlanders 
 and Westphalians entered Russia, to found villages on 
 the banks of the Volga (in the Governments of Saratov 
 and Samara), where they occupied an expanse of terri- 
 tory 100 versts in length. In 1783 another wave of 
 Europeans penetrated the south of Russia (in the 
 Government of Yekaterinoslav), on the banks of the 
 Dnieper. It consisted of Mennonites (a Protestant 
 sect), half Dutch and half German in origin, who 
 established agricultural colonies.
 
 42 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 The immigration of European agriculturists continued 
 under Alexander I and Nicolas I. In 1803 a vigorous 
 group of Mennonite families set foot in one of the 
 Caucasian regions. It was followed by other colonists, 
 who at first were exclusively German, and then Czech 
 and Bulgar, who established themselves in South- 
 western Russia. 
 
 A few figures will show how rapidly Southern Russia 
 was peopled with foreign agriculturists. 
 
 In 1775 there were in Russia only 23,000 individual 
 colonists. In 1877, a century later, there were 86,000 
 families, and in 1905 there were, 158,500. In 1877 
 they owned 2,894,500 desiatins of land; in 1905 
 3,190,000 desiatins.' 1 
 
 The greater part of the agricultural immigrants is 
 concentrated in the Governments of Kherson (61,000 
 families), Bessarabia (27,500), Samara (21,000), 
 Saratov (19,000), Yekaterinoslav (17,000), and the 
 Crimea (11,500). 
 
 Here we are speaking only of agriculturists who have 
 become Russian subjects . There are in addition to these 
 a certain number of landed proprietors who are foreign 
 subjects. In 1905 the number of estates belonging to 
 them was 868, and they possessed 350,000 desiatins of 
 land. Most of them are large landowners who have 
 been able to acquire property in Russia by, means of 
 their personal connections. 
 
 As for the peasant colonists, we must admit, and all 
 writers on the subject will confirm the fact, that their 
 economic situation is far superior tQ that of the Russian 
 peasants. For certain economists this phenomenon is 
 due to the " individualism " prevailing among the immi- 
 grants, whereas the Russian peasants have remained 
 attached to the communism of the mir. This theory 
 must even, to a certain point, have inspired the famous 
 agrarian reform' of the Minister Stolypin (the ukase of 
 
 1 I cite these figures from the results of the statistical inquiry into 
 landed property in Russia in 1905 (published by the Ministry of the 
 Interior, Petersburg, 1907, pp. xxiv-xxvii).
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 43 
 
 9/22 November 1906), whose central principle was 
 the dissolution of the agricultural commune and the 
 substitution of individual exploitation. 
 
 I am not a great admirer of the Russian mir, but I 
 must, however, say that the well-being of the immi- 
 grants and the poverty of the sons of the soil are not 
 imputable to the system of property, but to the difference 
 of general conditions to which they are severally subject. 
 If the Russian Government, which granted privileges to 
 the foreign immigrants, had treated the Russian peasants 
 in the same manner, if it had not crushed them by 
 taxation, had exempted them from military service, 
 and had left them free to administer their own affairs, 
 instead of keeping them under the terrible yoke 
 of serfdom, we may be sure that they would have 
 given equal proof of their capacity for labour and 
 organization . 
 
 On the other hand, we should remark that the lands 
 of the colonists are far more extensive than those of the 
 Russian moujiks. According to the official inquiry of 
 1905, a dvor (court or household) of colonists com- 
 prises an average of 20 - 2 desiatins, while a dvor of 
 Russian moujiks comprised only 6 to 9 desiatins ; and 
 millions of dvors of Russian moujiks average only 3 to 
 4 desiatins. 
 
 This lack of land is the greatest obstacle to the 
 development of rural exploitation in Russia. In 
 1908 the zemstva of Samara made a comparative 
 statistical inquiry into the state of agriculture within 
 its government. It admits that a family of Men- 
 nonite colonists possesses an average of 2>3k desia- 
 tins, while a Russian peasant family possesses only 
 7 desiatins. The authors of this inquiry, who are 
 greatly in favour of individual exploitation, nevertheless 
 remark :— 
 
 II Only a given quantity of land can maintain the life 
 of a Mennonite family at the level of affluence to which 
 it is accustomed. With the decrease of territorial 
 property begin those troubles which result in diminished
 
 44 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 exploitation and, finally, in the loss of the property 
 itself." « 
 
 The same conclusions result from the facts to be 
 observed in other parts of Russia: for example, in the 
 Government of Kiev, where there are Czech and German 
 agricultural colonies. Their prosperity results from the 
 fact that their properties are much more extensive than 
 those of the moujiks, and are cultivated under different 
 legal and social conditions. 2 
 
 Ill 
 
 The special and favourable treatment of foreign 
 colonists proves that Catherine II and her successors 
 held the European element in great esteem, but had 
 little understanding of the process of " Europeanizing " 
 their State. The transformation which they were seek- 
 ing could not be obtained by creating oases of European 
 culture in the desert of general poverty. What was 
 needed was to raise the native population by offering it 
 the possibility of living and working as in Europe. 
 Their false conception diminished the effects expected 
 from Western immigration. And we are always struck 
 by the contrast between the European colonies and the 
 surrounding Russian countryside. 
 
 Any progress in general politics, on the contrary, has 
 made way for a fresh economic impulse, and has added 
 to the real Europeanization of Russia. For example, 
 the great events of the period 1860-70 — the abolition 
 of serfdom, the reform of the administration, etc. — gave 
 it the strongest impulse. It is enough to say that three- 
 fourths of the industrial undertakings to-day existing 
 have been born since then. 
 
 However, despite all errors of domestic policy, in- 
 creasingly powerful ties were binding Russia to Europe, 
 
 1 Individual Exploitations in the Government of Samara, vol. i. p. 177 
 (Samara, 1909). 
 
 3 See M. A. Yarochevitch, Essay on the Individual Exploitations in 
 the Government of Kiev (extracted from the Inquiry held by the 
 Zemstvo of Kiev). Kiev, 191 1.
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 45 
 
 making her inseparable from the international economic 
 organism. And all through the nineteenth century we 
 may observe an increasingly, close correlation between 
 the evolution of Russia and that of the countries with 
 which she maintained relations. 
 
 To limit ourselves to a single example, let us take the 
 textile industry, whose development was continuous 
 throughout the nineteenth century, even at times when 
 depression and even stagnation prevailed in other 
 departments of production. 
 
 In the middle of the eighteenth century the whole 
 business of weaving cotton cloths was monopolized in 
 Russia by two Englishmen— Chamberlain and Cosens — 
 who had a large establishment in Petersburg. Since 
 then relations between the Russian textile industry and 
 that of England have been unbroken, surviving the 
 suppression of the privilege granted to the two English- 
 men. During the whole of the nineteenth century a 
 remarkable parallelism was observable between the fluc- 
 tuations of Russian and English production. All crises 
 occurring in the latter were followed by crises in the 
 former ; and any recovery or revival was communi- 
 cated from the English to the Russian industry, notwith- 
 standing Russian protectionism and the very high import 
 duties which it placed on woven stuffs. 
 
 Each crisis in the textile industry (for example, that 
 of 1820, 1837, 1840, etc.) lowered the price of thread 
 and yarns in England, and these were articles imported 
 into Russia. A comparison of figures proves the exist- 
 ence in Russia of the same state of affairs at the same 
 periods. The fall of prices, in its turn, provoked in 
 England changes of technical methods, the use of im- 
 proved equipment, and the more extensive use of 
 machinery, and we find the same process going forward 
 at the same time in Russia. *' Thus," says Professor 
 Toughan-Baranovsky, in commenting upon these facts, 
 " the evolution of our textile factory is explained, above 
 all, by the general international conditions of industrial 
 evolution. Russia has been caught in the wheels of the
 
 46 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 capitalistic development of England, and has profited 
 by the technical 1 successes of the latter." * 
 
 During the second half of the nineteenth century the 
 tendency indicated by the history of the textile industry 
 became generalized, and affected other important 
 branches of Russian production. The alternations pf 
 progress and arrest in the capitalistic economy were 
 almost simultaneous in Russia, in Europe, and in the 
 rest of the world. 
 
 vWe might point to other analogies and correlations 
 of the same kind between Modern Russia and Europe. 
 Some economists (notably J. Hobson in Jiis Evolution 
 of Modern Capitalism) declare that all periods of inten- 
 sive railway construction in England, on the Continent, 
 and in the United States were succeeded by moments 
 of economic depression and stagnation. The same phe- 
 nomenon appeared in Russia after the attacks of " rail- 
 way fever " in the seventh and ninth decades of the 
 nineteenth century, when periods of prosperity and 
 speculation were terminated by " smashes " ; by the 
 ruin and disappearance of dozens of industrial 
 enterprises . 
 
 In general it may be said that the industrial andl 
 capitalistic economy of Russia lives the same life as 
 that of Europe. 
 
 1 M. Toughan-Baranovsky, The Russian Factory in the Past and 
 Present, vol. i. p. 65 (Petersburg, 1898).
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 I. European influence and the national economy of the Russia of 
 to-day — The increase of imports and exports — The general char- 
 acter of Russia's foreign trade. II. Human immigration from 
 Europe into Russia — Its composition. III. The penetration of 
 European capital into Russia. IV. Its forms and its dimensions — 
 State loans and private industry — National capital and foreign 
 capital in Russia. V. The distribution of foreign capital among 
 the various branches of industry. VI. German capitalism and its 
 influence on the Russian economy. 
 
 I 
 
 Having glanced at the main outlines of the history of 
 the economic relations between Russia and Western 
 Europe, let us now examine, in a general manner, the 
 penetration of the European element into the national 
 economy of Russia. 
 
 The total value of the Russian exports and imports 
 amounted, on the average, during the first quarter of 
 the nineteenth century to 112,300,000 roubles ; from 
 1825 to 1849 ^ was 221,200,000; from 1849 to 
 1874, 525,000,000 ; and from 1875 to 1900, 
 1,092,000,000. In other words, the commercial move- 
 ment of Russia upon the international market increased, 
 in a hundred years, by 972 per cent. ; that is, it became 
 nearly ten times what it was. And thus Russia's 
 isolation with regard to the other Powers became ten 
 times less* while her ties with the other nations became 
 ten times more solid and complete. 1 
 
 At the beginning of the twentieth century the role and 
 the importance of Russia in the exchanges of the world 
 
 1 See my Modern Russia, T. Fisher Unwin, 1914, p. 97. 
 
 47
 
 48 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 continued to increase. During the first five years of this 
 century alone the total of her foreign trade increased 
 by one-third. In 1905 it reached the sum of 
 1,702,000,000 roubles ; in 1910ft: amounted to 
 2,533,000,000 roubles ; while in 191 3 it amounted 
 to 2,690,000,000. l 
 
 These figures are those of the international trade of 
 Russia, coming from all sources and going to all desti- 
 nations. But most of it passes by way of her European 
 frontiers. For the five years between 1907 and 191 1 
 inclusive, for example, the goods crossing these fron- 
 tiers represented an annual average of 2,083,700,000 
 roubles, while the Asiatic frontiers saw the entrance or 
 exit of only 202,700,000 roubles' worth of trade, on 
 less than one-tenth of the former sum. 
 
 There is no exaggeration in declaring that if, as 
 regards political forms, Russia is still far from being 
 truly Europeanized, at least her economic ties and 
 aspirations bind her far more closely to Europe than 
 to Asia. 
 
 What is the merchandise which Russia obtains from 
 Europe? 
 
 Alimentary products form the smallest part of the 
 Russian impprts of European origin, which is natural 
 in the case of an agricultural country. In 1902 their 
 value amounted to 82,300,000 roubles ; in ,1912 it 
 was 140,200,000 ; so in ten years the increase was 
 one of 70 per cent. The imports of "manu- 
 factured articles " — industrial products — were valued at 
 150,300,000 roubles in 1902 and 375,700,000 in 
 191 2 ; this was an increase of 150 per cent. But 
 the greater portion of the imports consist of " semi- 
 manufactured articles " and the raw materials of indus- 
 tries. Of these 295,000,000 roubles' worth were im- 
 ported in 1902, and in 191 2 this figure had risen to 
 518,000,000; an increase of 75 per cent, for the 
 decade. 
 
 1 See the Report of the Minister of Finances on the Budget Pro- 
 posals of 1914, Part II, p. 20 (Petersburg, 1913).
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 49 
 
 These figures, taken from the official Report of the 
 Minister of Finances on the Budget of 1914, enable me 
 to say that unreservedly to attribute all the advantages 
 of the commercial relations between Russia and Europe 
 to Europe, and all the disadvantages to Russia, would 
 be to fall into hyperbole. 
 
 The better to show that the introduction of foreign 
 industrial goods to the Russian market is of secondary 
 importance, I will cite two examples : — 
 
 In 191 2 there were imported into Russia 2,150,000 
 poods of wool, while the home production of wool 
 was 13,500,000 poods ; that is, the wool of foreign 
 origin formed only 14 per cent, of the total Russian 
 consumption (if we regard it as equal to the sum 
 of the home production plus the amount imported). 
 In the same year, 191 2, 306,000,000 poods of coal 
 were imported, into Russia, while the country produced 
 1,887,000,000 poods, or 87 per cent, of the total con- 
 sumption. 
 
 The sole class of products whose importation really 
 plays an enormous part in Russia, and in respect of 
 which the country remains dependent upon the outer 
 world, is machinery, of which in 191 2 there was im- 
 ported 146,000,000 roubles' worth, while in 1902 this 
 figure was only 51,000,000. But this rapid increase 
 of the demand is in itself a fresh proof of the develop- 
 ment of national industry, and the promptitude with 
 which its technical equipment is being improved. 
 
 The immediate influence of the Europe of to-day is 
 not confined, to the introduction of merchandise ; it 
 manifests itself under two additional forms ; the export, 
 into Russia, of men and of capital. 
 
 To realize the character and the extent of human 
 immigration we must repair to the results of the census 
 of the population of the Russian Empire — the only one, 
 alas ! — which was taken in 1897. There we find that 
 
 4
 
 50 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 Russia contained 605,500 foreign subjects, which makes 
 $ per cent, of the total population. 
 
 Some writers believe the proportion of foreign subjects 
 in Russia to be even less, and give the comparative 
 figures of immigration relating to other European 
 countries. In Switzerland the number of foreigners 
 per 1,000 inhabitants is 7J ; in France, 30 ; in 
 Belgium, 24 ; in Holland, 10 ; in Germany, 9 ; in 
 England, 8 ; in Austria-Hungary, 5 ; in Scotland, 4 ; 
 in the Scandinavian countries, 3 ; in Ireland, 3 ; in 
 Italy, 2 ; and in Russia, 1 . 
 
 Even in those parts of Russia which most attract 
 him, the foreigner is not very numerous ; in the Cau- 
 casus he forms 1*69 per cent, of the total population ; 
 in Poland, 1*15 per cent. ; in Siberia, 108 per cent. ; 
 in Central Russia, 0*27 per cent., etc. 
 
 According to race, the foreign subjects in Russia 
 were distributed thus : — 
 
 Germans, 158,000; Austro-Hungarians, 121,500; 
 Turks, 121,000; Persians, 74,000; Chinese, 47,500; 
 Koreans, 13,000; Greeks, 12,500; French, 9,500; 
 Bokharans, 8,000 ; English, 7,500 ; Swiss, 6,000 ; 
 Italians, 5,000 ; Roumanians, 4,000 ; and others, 
 18,000. 
 
 There is a great difference between the immigrants 
 of Asiatic and those of European origin, as regards 
 their economic functions. M. Ischchanian defines it as 
 follows : — 
 
 " .The foreigners entering Russia from the West form, 
 in the urban professions and especially in industry, 
 trade, and transport — the camp of the contractors, 
 the directing and administrative staff of the upper 
 strata of the technical and commercial hierarchy, the 
 foremen, and, to a less extent, the skilled artisans (this 
 almost exclusively in Russian Poland). The foreigners 
 of Asiatic origin, on the other hand, go to form, as a 
 rule, the middle and inferior strata in such callings as 
 that of the small trader, the commercial traveller, the 
 manual worker, and above all the great mass of those
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 51 
 
 who are known by the specific term of tshernorabotchtt 
 (that is to say labourers, unskilled workmen)." r 
 
 iWe may say, then, that Russia lies midway between 
 Europe and Asia, economically as well as geographi- 
 cally. Of the Asiatics she already asks no more than 
 simple manual labour ; for Europeans, Russia is a field 
 for the employment of their capital and their intellectual 
 faculties. 
 
 Of the 605,000 foreigners residing in Russia in 1897, 
 244,000 were women. But, as women, economically 
 speaking, are for the most part a passive element, 
 enjoying no independence, we need hardly consider them 
 in our argument, but only the men, who number 
 361,500. 
 
 Forty-one per cent, of the foreigners residing in 
 Russia in 1897 were living in towns ; 59 per cent, in 
 the country. Now, of the total population of the Empire 
 the inhabitants of the towns, in 1897, formed only 25 
 per cent. It is obvious that in Russia the foreigner 
 furnishes a far larger proportion of urban inhabitants 
 than the native population. But an even more interest- 
 ing fact is that 30 per cent, of all the immigrants are 
 gathered together in the four great cities : Petrograd, 
 Moscow, Odessa, and Warsaw. 
 
 However, all the foreign nationalities represented in 
 the Empire have not an equal predilection for urban 
 life : the Germans, the Czechs, and the Bulgars prefer 
 to settle outside the towns. Of the Austro-Hungarian 
 subjects J J per cent, live in the country, as do 58 per 
 cent, of the Germans and 57 per cent, of the Bulgars. 
 This fact is due to the numerous German, Czech, and 
 Bulgarian colonies in the south of Russia and on the 
 banks of the Volga. More than three-fourths of the 
 French in Russia, on the other hand (82 per cent.), are 
 town-dwellers, and 80 per cent, of the English, 60 per 
 cent, of the Belgians, and 78 per cent, of the Italians. 
 
 As for their professions, the French and English 
 
 1 This word is made up of two words : tsherny — black, and raboia 
 = labour.
 
 52 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 are mostly engaged in trade and industry j of ioo 
 " active " Frenchmen, 44 are engaged in industry } 2d 
 in trade and transport ; 28 are servants, while 5 are 
 farmers and 3 are engaged in other callings. The 
 English furnish 48 technical or industrial experts per 
 100 ; 28 are engaged in trade, 28 are servants, etc., 
 while only 1 per cent, are farmers. Of the German 
 subjects the farmers form a much greater proportion — 
 22 per cent. ; while 32 per cent, are engaged in industry 
 and 1 1 per cent, in trade. 
 
 The proportion of those engaged in trade and industry 
 is relatively much larger among the foreigners than 
 among the native inhabitants, the same census giving 
 12 per cent, as the proportion of the latter engaged in 
 industry, while 5| per cent, are engaged in trade and 
 70 per cent, in agriculture. 
 
 Ill ! 
 
 But it is by the penetration of capital that Europe 
 exerts the most powerful influence in Russia, for it is 
 through the foreigner's money and hi,s novel forms of 
 capitalistic exploitation that the old state of things is 
 undergoing the most profound upheaval. 
 
 European capital enters Russia in three distinct ways : 
 through the creation in Russia of industrial 'under- 
 takings by Europeans, whether by private persons or 
 companies ; through the participation of European 
 capital in undertakings organized by the Russians, 
 whether singly or in association ; and through loans 
 raised by Russian municipalities, or the State, in 
 European markets ; the municipal loans being devoted, 
 as a rule, to various public works in the cities (tram- 
 ways, waterworks, etc.) ; of the latter (that is, the 
 State loans), only a portion profits private industry, 
 through the medium of official contracts, payment of 
 which is assured by these loans ; the greater portion 
 goes to defray the costs of administration. 
 
 It is not easy to determine the total sum of the 
 European capital engaged in industry and the Russian
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 53 
 
 loans. M. Ischchanian claims that at the beginning 
 of the twentieth century it was 7,145,600,000 roubles, 
 of which 4,400,000,000 was French, 1,920,000,000 
 German, 372,000,000 English, and 253,000,000 
 Belgian, while 200,000,000 came from other European 
 countries. But M. Ischchanian's calculations are very- 
 inexact ; in reality the European interests in Russia 
 are considerably greater. 
 
 Thus, according to the data given in 191 2 by the 
 French review, Le Correspondant, France alone had 
 1 7, milliards of francs invested in Russia, or 
 £680,000,000. l M. A. Neymarck asserts that Eng- 
 land, by 1907, had £180,000,000 invested in Russia, 
 £80,000,000 of this being in State loans. Of the 
 680,000,000 sterling owed to France, £424,400,000 
 has been absorbed by external State loans, and 
 £53,600,000 by internal loans ; £16,000,000 by the 
 loans issued by the various governments and muni- 
 cipalities, and £190,000,000 by industrial under- 
 takings. 2 
 
 In this connection a Russian economist makes the 
 very justifiable remark that " the economic dependence 
 of Russia in respect of foreign countries is principally 
 manifested by the indebtedness of the State," and that 
 •' in comparison, the sums loaned to Russian trade and 
 industry appear insignificant." 3 
 
 ►While readily admitting the justice of the comparison, 
 we must, however, admit that the absolute role of Euro- 
 pean capital in Russian industry is very considerable. 
 And what is even more important is that of late it has 
 been rapidly increasing. Before 1890 there were only 
 16 shareholders' companies operating in Russia with 
 funds of foreign origin. Between 1 89 1 and 1900 no 
 
 1 In 1914, a few months before the war, Russia had arranged for 
 a new State loan in Paris, of the sum of £100,000,000, the first 
 instalment of which (£20,000,000) was issued the same year. 
 
 * Le Correspondant, December 25, 1913, p. 1050. 
 
 » A. Finn-Yenotaevsky, Sovremennoye Khoziaistvo Rossii (The Modern 
 Economy of Russia), Petersburg, 1911, p. 481.
 
 54 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 less than 2 1 5 were promoted ; between 1 900 and 1 9 1 o, 
 160 more; and 82 between 191 1 and 1913- I n tnis 
 last period 774 companies were founded with Russian 
 capital. Thus one-fifth of the new undertakings origi- 
 nating in a term of three years were the work of 
 foreigners. In reality the latter have contributed even 
 more considerably to the development of Russian 
 industry ; for the average share-capital of the foreign 
 companies was 1,736,000 roubles per company, while 
 the average share-capital per Russian company, was- 
 1,220,000 roubles. 
 
 In order correctly to appreciate the role of foreign 
 capital in Russian industry we must compare it not 
 with the external indebtedness of the State, but rather 
 with the national revenue and the national capital. 
 
 Here is an example : — 
 
 In 191 o the annual revenue of all the industrial 
 and commercial undertakings in Russia (counting only 
 those whose income was over 1,000 roubles) was 
 856,000,000 roubles. The total of the foreign capital 
 invested in authorized shareholders' companies in the 
 year 191 1 was 80,000,000 roubles. Supposing that 
 the Russian capitalists were in a position to devote 
 even 50 per cent, of their revenue to the creation of fresh 
 undertakings, we see that they could invest some 
 400,000,000 roubles, that is, only five times the foreign 
 capital invested in the same year. 
 
 IV 
 
 By the figures already cited the reader will have 
 seen that Europe exerts, on the Russia of to-day, a 
 considerable economic influence ; but it is not true that 
 Russia is completely dependent upon Europe. The 
 Russian Empire is no longer economically isolated, 
 though it has not lost its autonomy. 
 
 However, we must not overlook certain specific traits 
 of European participation in Russian affairs. 
 
 In the first place, we must note that relatively speak- 
 ing the foreign industrial undertakings in Russia are
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 55 
 
 more vigorous than the Russian. For example, the 
 capital of the shareholders' companies of European 
 origin established in Russia between 1 9 1 1 and 1 9 1 3 
 averaged 1,736,000 roubles per company, while the 
 average capital of the Russian companies founded during 
 the same period was only 1,222,000 roubles. Compe- 
 tition, therefore, is a difficult matter for the Russian 
 capitalist. 
 
 The situation as regards national capital is compli- 
 cated by the distribution of foreign capital through- 
 out the various branches of industry. The most im- 
 portant branches — for instance, metallurgy, coal-mining, 
 weaving, etjc. — are largely under the control of European 
 capital. 
 
 Here are some significant facts and figures : — 
 
 In the basin of Southern Russia, at the beginning 
 of the twentieth century, 75 per cent, of the coal pro- 
 duced came from 1 5 large concerns, of which two- 
 thirds, furnishing 62 per cent, of the annual yield, 
 belonged to Europeans. In the Dombrova mines, in 
 Poland, out of 1 3 large undertakings 6 are the property 
 of foreigners, yielding 86 per cent, of the total pro- 
 duction. 
 
 As for iron, we find the same state of affairs. For 
 example, in the basin of the Donetz, at the beginning 
 of the twentieth century, out of 23 large steelworks, 
 only 2 were the property of Russians j 1 5 are the 
 property of foreigners, or " mixed " companies in which 
 the foreign element predominates. 
 
 At Baku, once more, the foreign domination is indis- 
 putable. In 1909 Baku exported 371,932,500 poods 
 of petroleum and by-products, the yield of 45 enter- 
 prises. But more than 45 per cent, of this quantity, 
 or 167,982,000 poods, represented the contribution of 
 5 great companies of European ownership. 
 
 As for the textile industry, one of the first fields to 
 be invaded by foreign capital, it already boasts of a' 
 few centres, particularly in the region of Moscow, in 
 which it has become fairly Russianized, and most of
 
 56 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 the names of foreign origin borne by the heads of 
 industrial houses in this part of Russia are the names 
 of Russian subjects. But in other parts the weaving 
 of fabrics is almost entirely controlled by foreign 
 capital. Such is notably the case at Lodz, in Poland, 
 and in the surrounding district. 
 
 These facts enable us to state without exaggeration 
 that European capital is still a very great power in 
 the principal departments of Russian production. 
 
 Which nations provide the capital that feeds Russian 
 industry? 
 
 In the metallurgical industry, British, Belgian, and 
 French capital predominates. The real creator of 
 metallic exploitation in the Donetz region was an Eng- 
 lishman, the famous John Hughes, who was also the 
 pioneer of coal-mining in the European manner in the 
 same region. The memory of this energetic pioneer 
 is perpetuated in the name of one of the leading in- 
 dustrial centres of Southern Russia, Youzovka (Hughes 
 being pronounced as Youz in Russian, hence Youzovka, 
 " the town of Youz "). 
 
 After him some French capitalists established them- 
 selves in the Donetz region, at Krivo'i Rog (in 1880). 
 Ten years later a well - known Belgian company, 
 Cockerill &' Co., established a large works near the 
 town of Yekaterinoslav. A host of industrial promoters 
 of various nationalities followed them, among whom 
 were even Americans, but the principal contributions 
 of foreign capital to the industries of Southern Russia 
 were due to English, French, and Belgian investors. 
 
 The petroleum industry in the Caucasus is the work 
 of Swedish and English capital. A Swede, Robert 
 Nobel, arriving in Baku in 1877, established, five years 
 later, a company for the production of petroleum, which, 
 as far as Russia was concerned, effected a veritable 
 revolution in the industry and gave new life to a 
 whole region. In 1886 the house of Rothschild (of 
 Paris) joined Nobel on the Apcheron peninsula, there 
 to conduct, with him, the " petroliferous apostolate."
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 57 
 
 It treated with the English house of Lane and 
 McAndrew for the exportation of the product on com- 
 mission. From that moment there was an influx of 
 English (capital for the exploitation of Russian petroleum. 
 The English were able not only to buy most of the 
 enterprises already existing in Baku and the district, 
 but have also monopolized nearly all those which have 
 since been undertaken. 
 
 German capital has been attracted by the mines 
 and foundries of Poland (at Sosnowice and Dombrova), 
 where the first large works were established, between 
 1856 and 1863, by Count Renard and Major von 
 Kramsta, who came from Prussia. But it has since 
 then been attracted more especially by the textile 
 industry, which, although it was introduced by British, 
 Dutch, and French capitalists, none the less received 
 a powerful impulse at the hands of a German, Ludwig 
 Knoop, who came to Moscow in 1839 as the repre- 
 sentative of an English house, and there established, 
 first with the assistance of British capitalists, but after- 
 wards independently, 122 weaving-sheds in the regions 
 of Petersburg and Moscow. A popular proverb 
 enshrines his memory : Gdid tserkov, tarn pop, gdie 
 fabrika, tarn Knoop — " .Where there is a church, there 
 is a pope ; where there is a factory, there is a Knoop," 
 and the addition is sometimes made : " Gdii izba, 
 tarn ktop — "Where there is an inn there are bugs." 
 
 But to-day, as I have already stated, the role of 
 German capital in the textile industry of Central Russia 
 has decreased. In Poland, on the other hand, it is 
 enormous ; and the city of Lodz is not Polish, but 
 half German, , ■ 
 
 V 
 
 We shall now touch upon a particularly serious 
 question : the weight and the tendency which each 
 of the foreign elements exerts upon the economic system 
 of Russia. 
 
 In the industrial undertakings of the country the
 
 58 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 French and English are first. But this is not the case 
 with the general economic relations of Russia with 
 Europe — that is, when we come to deal not merely 
 with the investment of European capital in Russian 
 industries, but also with the commercial exchanges 
 between Russia and the various countries of Europe, 
 and the loans concluded by the Russian State in the 
 various European money markets. As to loans, France 
 occupies an exceptional position. She has lent 
 the Russian Empire io"6i7, milliards of francs 
 (£424,000,000) in external loans and 1*344 milliards 
 (£53,760,000) in domestic loans, besides the 
 310,000,000 (£12,400,000) lent to the zemstvos and 
 municipalities, and without counting the so-called 
 " railway loan " of 500,000,000 (£20,000,000) con- 
 cluded before the present war and the military loans 
 issued in the course of the war. 
 
 But the commercial exchanges between France and 
 Russia leave much to be desired, and in this respect 
 Germany is ahead of France. 
 
 " Towards the middle of the nineteenth century the 
 commercial transactions, exportation and importation, 
 between France and Russia on the one hand and Russia 
 and Germany on the other, were of almost equal dimen- 
 sions ; the average at this period (between 1841 and 
 1850) was 74,000,000 francs (nearly £3,000,000) for 
 France and 85,000,000 (£3,400,000) for Germany, 
 the inequality being relatively unimportant. The pro- 
 gressive development, in the latter half of the nine- 
 teenth century, of the trade exchanges between Russia 
 and the rest of Europe had as its basis the Ruisisian 
 customs tariff, which was uniform for goods of what- 
 ever origin, yet to-day l Germany has reached, in respect 
 of her exports to Russia, an annual average of 
 500,600,000 francs, or £20,024,000, her imports from 
 Russia being valued at 426,000,000, or £16,800,000, 
 while the French exports to Russia stand at 66,660,000 
 francs, or £2,666,000, and the imports at 168,000,000 
 francs or £6,7,20,000. 
 
 1 In the last years of the nineteenth century.
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 59 
 
 " Thus in the last fifty years the German trade with 
 Russia has grown to eleven and a half times what it was, 
 while the French trade is only three times what it was." ' 
 
 Such was the situation at the end of the last century. 
 At the beginning of the twentieth century the trade 
 relations between France and Russia are shown by 
 the following figures : — 
 
 Exports from Russia Exports from France 
 
 Year*. to France (in to Russia (in 
 
 millions of francs). millions of francs). 
 
 ic) 01 ^ i57'5 7 1 ' 8 
 
 1908 171-8 883 
 
 1909 2370 130*3 
 
 1910 248-9 i58"o 
 
 These figures, taken from the statistics published 
 by the Russian Customs Administration, are published 
 by M. A. Giraud, Secretary to the Russian Chamber 
 of Commerce in Paris. 2 To permit of a comparison, 
 M. Giraud also gives some statistics of German trade 
 in Russia. From these we see that " the trade relations 
 between France and Russia, compared to those of 
 Germany, are deplorable." This will be seen by the 
 following table, which gives the proportion of French 
 and German exports to Russia as compared with the 
 total sum of Russian imports : — 
 
 Years. 
 
 German exports to 
 Russia (per cent, of total 
 Russian imports). 
 
 French expor 
 
 Russia (per cent 
 
 Russian imp 
 
 I9OI-5 ... 
 
 ... ... 
 
 358 
 
 4'3 
 
 I906-IO ... 
 
 
 
 39'5 
 
 4'5 
 
 I9II 
 
 ... 
 
 42-0 
 
 4'9 
 
 1912 
 
 ... 
 
 50-0 
 
 5-3 
 
 I913 
 
 • • • • • • 
 
 527 
 
 46 
 
 The absolute figures are no more consoling to French 
 trade. "While in five years (1908-12) the German 
 imports have risen from 331 to 519 million roubles, 
 the French imports have increased only from 35 to 
 55 millions. The customs tariff is still the same for 
 
 1 M. Halperine-Kaminsky, France et Russie: Alliance iconomique, 
 Paris, E. Flammarion, pp. 4-9. 
 * A. Giraud, Le Commerce exterieur de la Russie, Paris, 1915, p. 10.
 
 60 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 all countries,; and the question of distance cannot 
 be invoked as a reason for this inferiority, since Austria- 
 Hungary, which has a common frontier with Russia, 
 comes far below France, while, on the other hand, 
 the United States, which are ten times as distant, show 
 very much larger figures ; in 1 9 1 2, for example, 
 85*7 million roubles, as against 55-2 for France." 1 
 
 The commercial superiority of Germany is crushing, 
 not only with regard to France, but also as compared 
 with the other countries of Europe. The following 
 figures prove this for the years 1908 and 19 13 ;-*» 
 
 Russian Exports to Various Countries, 1908 
 
 
 
 (E 
 
 ngland 
 1908. 
 
 excepted) ■ 
 
 1913. 
 
 Germany 
 
 • . • 
 
 ■ • • 
 
 278-9 
 
 (in millions of roubles) 
 
 452-6 
 
 Holland 
 
 • •• 
 
 • *• 
 
 93"5 
 
 
 177*4 
 
 France " 
 
 • • • 
 
 • •• 
 
 64-6 
 
 
 ioo*8 
 
 Austria- H ungary 
 
 ... 
 
 49-0 
 
 
 65-2 
 
 Belgium 
 
 ... 
 
 • • • 
 
 34*4 
 
 
 64-6 
 
 Italy 
 
 • • • 
 
 ... 
 
 29-9 
 
 
 73'6 
 
 Denmark 
 
 • • • 
 
 • • • 
 
 3i-5 
 
 
 357 
 
 Turkey 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 21-5 
 
 
 34"4 
 
 Roumania 
 
 • •• 
 
 ... 
 
 12-8 
 
 
 2I"6 
 
 Sweden 
 
 • • • 
 
 • • • 
 
 47 
 
 
 1 1-4 
 
 Norway 
 
 • •• 
 
 • •* 
 
 5-8 
 
 
 8-6 
 
 Spain ... 
 
 • •• 
 
 • • a 
 
 5'° 
 
 
 8-9 
 
 Russian Imports from Various Countries 
 (England excepted) 
 
 1908. 1913. 
 
 (in millions of roubles) 6427 
 
 56-0 
 
 34"6 
 21-5 
 167 
 i6 # 9 
 161 
 9-8 
 8-6 
 12-8 
 
 Germany 
 
 ... 
 
 331-8 
 
 France* 
 
 ... 
 
 357 
 
 Austria- Hungary 
 
 ... 
 
 26*4 
 
 Holland 
 
 •■• 
 
 "'5 
 
 Italy 
 
 ... 
 
 12-9 
 
 Turkey 
 
 ... 
 
 7-1 
 
 Sweden 
 
 ••• 
 
 IO'I 
 
 Norway 
 
 ... 
 
 87 
 
 Belgium 
 
 ... 
 
 8-i 
 
 Denmark 
 
 ... 
 
 87 
 
 * A. Giraud, op. cit. p. 17. 
 
 ' The figures relating to France do not entirely coincide with the per- 
 centage already cited. This is due to the fact that they are drawn from 
 different sources — the reports of the French and of the Russian Customs.
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 61 
 
 The United States, in 1908, exported 75-4 milldon 
 roubles' worth of goods to Russia and Imported 
 goods to the value of 2*8 million roubles. In 191 3 
 the exports were 74* 1 millions and the imports 
 1 4 # 1 millions. 
 
 As for England, her place on the Russian market 
 is far larger than that of the other European countries, 
 excepting Germany. 
 
 England's imports from Russia in 1908 were 220* 1 
 million roubles and in 191 3, 226*8 millions ; her 
 exports to Russia in 1908 were 119*9 millions and in 
 191 3, 170*3 millions. A comparison of these figures 
 with those of Russo-German trade shows that in this 
 period of five years (1908-13) the German exports to 
 Russia increased by 311,000,000 roubles, while the 
 British exports increased by only 50,000,000, making 
 the relative increase respectively 193 per cent, and 
 41 per cent. 
 
 It appears, therefore, undeniably that, as far as 
 Russia at least is concerned, the German lamentations 
 as to British competition are without foundation. Far 
 from being prevented by England from making colossal 
 conquests on the Russian markets, it is the Germans 
 who little by little are ousting all their competitors, 
 and are doing their best to monopolize the market. 
 
 yj 
 
 .What are the causes of the commercial supremacy 
 of Germany in Russia? 
 
 In the first place, geographical proximity, which 
 favours penetration. We have already seen that for 
 9,421 French and 7,481 English subjects the census 
 of 1897 numbered 158,103 German subjects who had 
 immigrated into Russia. But we must not forget that 
 besides these Germans who are still German subjects 
 there are the inhabitants of the Baltic provinces, the 
 farmers of the Volga basin and Southern Russia, and 
 so forth. According to the census of 1897, the 
 inhabitants of Russia whose mother-tongue was German
 
 62 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 made a total of 1,790,500 persons, who to-day must 
 have increased to at least 2,000,000. 
 
 Contiguity facilitates the economic Germanization of 
 Russian Poland. It also facilitates commercial ex- 
 changes. At the beginning of the nineteenth century 
 the foreign trade of T^issia was carried mostly by sea : 
 from 1802 to 1804 88 per cent, of the exports and 
 78 per cent, of the imports went by sea. A century 
 later, on the other hand, a considerable part of this 
 trade— a third of the exports and half the imports — 
 was already crossing the terrestrial frontiers, and the 
 greater portion of it the German frontier. Germany 
 also possesses a very large part of the maritime trade 
 of Russia, thanks to the proximity of the German 
 and Russian ports on the Baltic Sea. 
 
 The Russian customs tariffs are the same, or almost 
 the same, for all countries, and they are extremely 
 high (on an average they amount almost to a third 
 part of the value of the merchandise). Nevertheless, 
 German industry has invaded the Russian market and 
 has easily beaten all competitors, without excepting 
 the English, as is shown by the following figures, 
 published by the Russian Professor Goldstein, one of 
 the best authorities on this subject. 1 
 
 Year. 
 
 
 
 Russian imports from 
 
 Germany (per cent, of 
 
 total imports). 
 
 Russian imports from 
 
 England (per cent, of 
 
 total imports). 
 
 I 898-1902 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 34'° 
 
 
 1 8-6 
 
 1902-7 
 
 ... 
 
 • •• 
 
 ... 
 
 37-2 
 
 
 14-8 
 
 1908-12 
 
 • •« 
 
 ... 
 
 • • • 
 
 4i"6 
 
 
 13*4 
 
 1912 ... 
 
 • •a 
 
 • • • 
 
 • • • 
 
 45'4 
 
 
 I2'2 
 
 1913 ... 
 
 * • • 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 47-5 
 
 
 12-5 
 
 Jan.-June 
 
 1914 
 
 • . * 
 
 • •• 
 
 49-6 
 
 
 i3'3 
 
 The geographical conditions, and even the advantages 
 of the Russo-German commercial treaty in 1904 and 
 the complaisance of the Germanophile and reactionary 
 bureaucracy, are not sufficient to explain the triumph 
 of the Germans in our country. 
 
 1 See his article on The German Yoke in the Roussko'ie Slovo for the 
 27th January, 1915, Moscow.
 
 THE MATERIAL BONDS 63 
 
 The real cause of this is to be found in the special 
 system adopted by the German industrial syndicates : 
 the system of " export bounties," which permits them 
 not only to face the import duties, but even to sell 
 their products more cheaply abroad than at home. 
 
 Here are some of the results thus obtained :— 
 
 In 1909 the Rheinland-Westphalia Coal Mines 
 Syndicate sold in France a large quantity of coal at 
 15 francs 50 per ton. Import duties and expenses of 
 transport being deducted, this coal was sold at 
 5 marks 21, while on the German market it was 
 selling, at the same moment, for 10 marks 50, or 
 double the price. At the end of 1900 a German 
 syndicate of wire-drawers (the wire in question being 
 employed in making nails) ' decided to fix the price 
 of their product at 185 marks per ton for Germany 
 and 115 marks for the foreign market. The German 
 alcohol distillers' syndicate, or Spiritusring, sold its 
 product (in 1904 and later) at 22 marks the hecto- 
 litre in Germany and 11 marks in London. 1 
 
 The Germans make use of this system in exporting 
 their goods to Russia, where it has won an even easier 
 victory than in countries which are, economically speak- 
 ing, ahead of Russia, such as France and England. 
 
 With the help of export bounties and various other 
 measures, Germany has thus made a rapid conquest 
 of the Russian market, from which she has ousted all 
 competitors. 
 
 In 1902 the Russian Ministry of Finances published 
 an official note, in which it characterized the work of the 
 German industrial syndicates in the following terms :— 
 
 " The policy of exporting merchandise at prices lower 
 than those of the home market is extremely painful 
 and disastrous to those countries which have to suffer 
 its employment, as it ruins the native industry. . . . 
 There is to-day only one means of struggling against 
 
 1 These figures are taken from a recent Russian work by M. Gold- 
 stein : The War of the German Syndicates, Russian Exports, and the 
 Economic Isolation of Germany (Moscow, 1916).
 
 64 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 the evil of cheap goods exported by these syndicates : 
 it is, to defend native industry by increasing the customs 
 duties. But this means, to which the Russian Govern- 
 ment has been forced to resort, has its disadvantages 
 and its dangers as regards native industry, as it implies 
 frequent modifications of the customs tariffs and an 
 exaggerated system of protection. . . . Besides, this 
 increase of the tariff is unjust ; provoked by the actions 
 of the syndicates of one or of several countries, it 
 penalizes all the foreign States, which to-day are all 
 bound together by economic treaties." 1 
 
 Thus the stratagems of the German exporters' syndi- 
 cates damage not Russian industry alone, but that of 
 other countries. Moreover, the German population itself 
 is forced to submit to an artificial increase of prices 
 in order to provide the syndicates with the means of 
 carrying on their system of forced exports at low prices. 
 
 Yet another consideration presents itself. As I have 
 explained in my Russia and th\e Great War, 2 the general 
 character of the economic relations between the two 
 countries reveals an obvious tendency on the part of 
 Germany to make Russia her colony. I will not repeat 
 what I said in the aforesaid work ; I merely wish 
 to draw the reader's attention to a peculiarity which 
 is by no means understood. A great difference is to 
 be remarked in the relations between Germany and 
 Russia : Russia imports from' Germany principally manu- 
 factured goods and exports raw materials. This is to 
 say that German industry buys its raw materials at a low 
 price from Russia and sells them' after manufacturing 
 them. This is precisely the function of a metropolis. 
 
 Such a conception of exchange is contrary to any 
 real economic " Europeanization " of Russia, for this 
 process cannot be conceived without the free co-opera- 
 tion of all the European factors in the interior of the 
 country, followed by the free development of the forces 
 of indigenous capitalism, which would gradually acquire 
 European forms., . ' . 1 
 
 • See the Financial Messenger (Petersburg, 1902, No. 25). 
 
 1 Russia and the Great War, trans. B. Miall, T. Fisher Unwin, 1915.
 
 PART THE SECOND 
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE

 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 I. Is the Russian people warlike ? II. A little philology and arithmetic 
 
 All those who are familiar with the masses of the 
 Russian people are unanimous in declaring that they are 
 devoid of warlike aspirations and fundamentally pacific. 
 
 The popular poetry and religion of Russia, for 
 example, are remarkable for the profound love of peace 
 which has penetrated them from birth, and has sur- 
 vived into our own times. This love of peace is 
 revealed by even the most ancient manifestations of 
 the popular genius. 
 
 ' After the end of paganism, as before it, warlike 
 subjects play not the smallest sensible part in the 
 religious thought of the mass of the Russian people. 
 The Russian Olympus is distinguished by the profoundly 
 peaceable, and, if we may say so, the civilian character 
 of its divinities. This is particularly striking if we 
 compare it with the Olympus of the ancient Greeks, 
 or with the world of the ancient Germanic or Scandi- 
 navian divinities. Instead of Pallas -Athene, protected 
 by her cuirass, pagan Russia had her Moist Earth- 
 Mother, and Christian Russia her Saint Sophia, the 
 Most Wise, whose only weapon is her gentle wisdom. 
 Instead of Jupiters and Neptunes waging war among 
 themselves and upon humanity, we find, in ancient 
 Russia, Voloss, the protector of flocks and herds, and 
 Peroun, of whose bellicose tendencies no record has 
 survived ; while the forests of ancient Greece were 
 the dwelling-place of Diana Huntress, with her bow 
 
 67
 
 68 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 and arrows, the forests of pagan and Christian Russia 
 are peopled with Roussalkas, into which young girls 
 are transformed ' who do not die at their death/ and 
 who dance their rounds in the soft moonlight. 
 
 " Although, in these pagan beliefs of the Russian 
 Slav, or in the tales and legends of his modern 
 descendant, we sometimes witness the appearance of 
 some sanguinary being, who slays men and is thirsty 
 for their blood, this is neither a god nor a goddess, 
 but an ' impure force.' 
 
 " When the pagan divinities of the Russian Slavs, 
 being Christianized, assumed a new vesture and a new 
 exterior, becoming the God and the Saints of Christ- 
 ianity, they did not on that account lose their pacific 
 character. For example, let us take St. George, the 
 type of the warrior-saint. Of the steel-clad warrior, 
 lance in hand, mounted on his great charger, the Russian 
 peasant has made a peaceable and useful auxiliary 
 of his laborious life. He has given St. George the 
 care of the village pasture. 
 
 "In the spring of each year, on the 23rd of April 
 (Russian style), which is St. George's Day, the peasants 
 of all Russia leave in the fields their herds of cowsv, 
 their horses, and their sheep, exhausted by the 
 long winter sojourn in the byre. Early in the morning 
 of this day the peasants and their womenfolk make 
 the round of the sown fields, begging St. George 'to 
 rise early in the morning, to open the soil and to 
 sprinkle the dew on the rebellious barley with its fine 
 ears and beautiful grains.' Then they let out their 
 flocks and herds, which they drive with branches of 
 willow blessed in the church, and pray to ' the kindly 
 George to guard their herds in the fields and the woods 
 from the greedy wolf, the cruel bear, and every evil 
 beast.' 
 
 " A village shepherd, a farmer instead of a knight ! 
 Such is the metamorphosis undergone by the tradi- 
 tional figure of St. George when the saint found his 
 way into the midst of the Russian peasantry !
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 69 
 
 " Pacific sentiments and a natural aversion from war 
 are to be found also in the Russian proverbs, which 
 realize plainly that ' war loves blood,' but that ' blood 
 is not water,' and, consequently, that ' a bad peace is 
 better than a good war.' " ' 
 
 •When we come to look into the heroic Russian epopee 
 —the epic of the bylinas — we shall expect to find a 
 warlike element. But, in reality, even jn these essen- 
 tially warlike songs pacifism is predominant, and the 
 warriors give way before the labourers, the peaceful 
 workers. One of the bylinas represents an encounter 
 between Volga Vseslavitch, a proud and noble knight, 
 and Mikoula Selianinovitch, a peasant and a tiller of 
 the soil, who triumphs over Volga even without a fight. 
 
 "Mikoula is the rustic Hercules. . . . The Russian 
 epic is perhaps the only one (save the Finnish epic, the 
 Kalevala) in which a great heroic part is played by a 
 tiller of the soil "—so M. Alfred Rambaud remarks in 
 his book, La Russie E pique. "It is by this above all 
 that we realize that the bylinas were made by the people 
 and for the people. The French chansons des gestes, 
 for example, are of a more aristocratic character ; our 
 trouveres thought before all else of their auditors, 
 barons and noble warriors ; never would they have 
 dreamed of humiliating them before a base-born 
 hero." 2 
 
 The same comparison may be made between the 
 Russian epic and the German epic. 
 
 " In the Germanic epopee Thor, the patron of the 
 toilers, is constantly overridden by Odin, the warrior ; 
 it is just the contrary in the Slav epic." 
 
 The best loved and the most popular hero of the 
 Russian bylinas is Ilya Mourometz, the peasant's son 
 — this is the epithet which invariably accompanies Ilya's 
 
 * Quoted from my article La Guerre et les soldats dans la potsie popu- 
 laire Russe, in La Revue de Paris, 1916. 
 
 2 Alfred Rambaud, La Russie Epique (p. 37). This work was pub- 
 lished forty years ago (in 1876), but it has remained to this day one of 
 the best works on the history of the poetry of ancient Russia.
 
 70 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 name in all the bylinas, as the epithet Selianinovitch — 
 meaning " the villager " or " the son of the villager " — 
 accompanies the name of Mikoula. 
 
 Ilya, the peasant's son, who performs a great number 
 of varied exploits, commences by a rustic exploit — by 
 tilling the soil. Having received from his father, the 
 aged peasant, the commandment " to plot nothing 
 against the Tartar, not to kill the Christian on the bare 
 plain," and to busy himself " with good and not with 
 evil works," Ilya strives religiously to observe this 
 commandment. He uses his strength only to struggle 
 against evil and injustice, to defend his country against 
 enemies from without. He is a peasant warrior, who 
 seeks neither aggression nor conquest, and who accepts 
 battle only as a means of legitimate defence. 
 
 War, in the Russian bylinas, is as a rule accepted 
 only as a means of defence ; indeed, the bylinas repre- 
 sent it only as such. No doubt the poetry of the popu- 
 lace considered it unworthy to sing of offensive war. 
 The hero of the Russian bylinas is above all the 
 defender of his native soil, but by no means the con- 
 queror of foreign territory ; he is the guardian of his 
 people's independence, but by no means the oppressor 
 of other peoples. 
 
 II 
 
 If my readers will permit me a brief incursion into 
 the domain of philology, I would call their attention to 
 a very curious fact: the terms which serve to denote 
 the heroes of the Russian bylinas are not of Russian 
 origin. Bogatyr and vitiaz, which are equivalent to 
 the words " valiant knight," or preux chevalier, are 
 derived, the one from the Turco -Mongolian words batyr 
 or batour, bagadour or baghatour, and the other from 
 the Scandinavian word viking. Certainly, to denote 
 the heroes of whom they sing the bylinas also employ 
 the two words polenitsa and khorobre or khrabre ; 
 but these two words have not a specially warlike sig- 
 nificance. The first signifies "giant," "man of great
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 71 
 
 size " ; the second (which we find again in the modern 
 adjective khrabryi) means " courageous or virile man." 
 As for bogatyr and vitiaz, they have a more definitely- 
 bellicose and aggressive meaning. Now, both are of 
 foreign origin ; the one comes from the Turco-Mongols, 
 against whom the Slavs of Russia fought for ages ; the 
 second from the Scandinavians, or Variags, who, accord- 
 ing to the legend, as we know, were the first political 
 and military organizers to enter Russia. 
 
 We cannot but regard as characteristic the fact that 
 the first words denoting the warrior by vocation in the 
 ancient Russian epic are non-Russian words, taken from 
 foreign tongues, so that the ancient Russian vocabulary 
 evidently has no special term to denote the professional 
 soldier. It is obvious, then, that this calling did not 
 play any important part in the life of the ancient Russian 
 Slavs. 
 
 Lastly, I would remark that the foreign elements still 
 have a very perceptible and even a preponderant in- 
 fluence on the ulterior development of the military 
 forces in Russia. We can follow and estimate this 
 influence by studying the composition and the history 
 of the Russian vocabulary in the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries, which were those during which 
 the Russian regular army was being organized, and 
 which enriched the language with a host of terms which 
 were nearly all borrowed from foreign vocabularies. 
 The names of nearly all ranks or grades, from the 
 simple soldat to the gueneralanchef and the gueneral- 
 issimas are taken from the French or German ; as are 
 unteroffitzer and feldjebet, kaptendrmus and bombardir, 
 grenader and dragoun, goussar and feierwerker. The 
 pupils of the secondary military colleges are known as 
 kadety (cadets) ; those of the officers' schools are 
 junkerd'. The officer who carries orders for a general 
 or colonel is the adjutant, and the soldier who fulfils 
 the same function for an officer is an or dinar etz. The 
 terms which denote the different arms of the service 
 are also of foreign origin : such are artiUeriia, kaval-
 
 72 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 leriia, sapiory (sappers), and those which serve to denote 
 various military constructions : such as bastidn, shdntzy 
 (from the German schanzeri), fortifikdtsiya, etc. Of 
 alien origin also are the terms denoting the institutions 
 of the medical service and the military supply service: 
 gospital, lazaret, intendantsvo, etc. 1 
 
 But I must not linger over these details, although 
 they are interesting and worthy of attention. 
 
 In confining myself to these few brief hints and 
 returning to the general problem, I must remark that 
 the pacific mentality of the Russian people has been pre- 
 served by the labouring masses down to our own day, 
 and we shall find it, for example, in the ideology of the 
 numerous religious sects of our times. While still a 
 pagan, the Russian Slav had not, among his gods, any 
 god of war analogous to the Greek Ares or the Roman 
 Mars. Having become a Christian, he attributed pacific 
 characteristics even to those of the Christian saints 
 whom the West had endowed with a bellicose character. 
 The religious strata of the mass of the Russian people 
 had no need of a god of war, cruel, vindictive, mur- 
 derous, and destructive. In the profoundest manifes- 
 tations of their religious sense and their poetical genius 
 they have constantly introduced an element of hostility 
 to war, an ideal of peace (which in general, however, 
 has admitted of defensive war), and very large numbers 
 of Russian sectarians have paid by imprisonment or 
 deportation for the crime of preferring the god of peace 
 to the god of war. 
 
 The natural pacifism of the Russian people, which is 
 attested even by military specialists (for example, t?,y 
 General Kuropatkin in his Memoirs of the Russo- 
 Japanese War), is of great importance in that it facili- 
 
 1 However, some military terms have for some time been originated 
 from Russian words. Such, for example, is the onomatopoeic piishka, 
 for cannon. The common soldier is known as riadovoi, from riad 
 (rank) ; the sentinel is called tshassovoi, from the word tshas (hour), 
 etc. The machine gun has been newly baptized : it is known as the 
 pulcmiot, from pulia (bullet), and metal (to throw) ; and so forth.
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 73 
 
 tates the possibility of establishing amicable relations 
 between Russia and other nations. It is an incontest- 
 able fact that after a war fought by Russia against 
 this or that other nation, our people retains no resent- 
 ment, no hatred of its recent enemy, and is ready on 
 the morrow of a sanguinary conflict to treat him as 
 a friend. 
 
 The Russian people is a pacific people, and yet its , 
 history is full of wars. In the last two centuries — the 
 eighteenth and the nineteenth, to confine ourselves to 
 these— no less than 128 years and 4 months were times 
 of armed conflict, which leaves 71 years and 8 months 
 of peace. Of the 35 wars which Russia fought during 
 these two centuries, 2 were internal and 33 were 
 external. Twenty-two were wars of conquest, their * 
 object being the extension of the national territory, 
 and these inflicted upon the nation 101 years of war- 
 fare. Four were purely defensive wars ; these lasted 
 4! years. The rest were of a mixed or special 
 character, and absorbed only 10 years. As for the 
 internal wars (in the Caucasus and in Asia), these lasted 
 65 years. 
 
 This long succession of wars called to arms at least 
 ten millions of men (according to the official statistics, 
 winch in this case are not inclined toward exaggera- 
 tion !), and a third part of them was lost. 1 
 
 We shall concern ourselves, in the present work, only 
 with those of Russia's wars which were waged against 
 European States, or which were connected with the 
 problems of Europeanizing Russian life. 
 
 1 General Kuropatkin, Memoirs of the Russo-Japanese War, ch. i.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 I. The struggle for the shores of the Baltic Sea as a " window facing 
 Europe" — The Livonian wars of the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 centuries. II. The "Period of Disturbances" — The wars of the 
 seventeenth century — The Russo-Swedish War under Peter the 
 Great — Its results and its influence. 
 
 I 
 
 From the beginnings of her history down to the end of 
 the fifteenth century, when (in 1480) she shook off the 
 " Tartar yoke," to which she had been subjected for 
 more than two hundred years, Russia was confronted, 
 in the south and the south-east, by the invasions of the 
 Asiatic tribes, which rose again and again in gigantic 
 waves. But the moment she was free from the Tartar 
 dominion she resolutely turned her arms and her 
 diplomacy against her Western enemies and neigh- 
 bours ; for the first time she was really in contact with 
 Europe. 
 
 On this side she at first encountered Livonia, then in 
 the hands of the Livonian Order, and allied against 
 Russia with Lithuania and Poland. 
 
 The real conflict with Livonia, however, commenced 
 
 only later, under Ivan the Terrible, whose Government 
 
 had set itself the definite aim 1 of winning ports (Narva 
 
 and Reval) on the Baltic Sea. Thus the desire to 
 
 possess a " window open upon Europe," which is always 
 
 attributed to Peter the Great, very obviously existed 
 
 in the mind of his terrible ancestor, who was a tyrant 
 
 to his subjects, but who was very well aware of Russia's 
 
 need of relations with the Western world. 
 
 So Russia's " love affair with Europe " began mid- 
 74
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 75 
 
 way through the sixteenth century ; and it still survives, 
 after passing through alternate periods of diplomatic 
 negotiation and military activity to the impulses of 
 affection and of passionate and disinterested sympathy 
 which the elite of Russia conceived for " the West." 
 
 " The object of the Livonian .War was to gain posses- 
 sion of commercial highways. . . . Subsequent events 
 have proved that for Russia the possibility of a process 
 of economic evolution, however it might advance, was 
 almost entirely subordinated to the existence of direct 
 relations with the more progressive nations of Europe. 
 Contemporaries felt and expressed this very plainly. 
 The port of Narva (Narew), which remained in Russian 
 hands even after her first losses, seriously preoccu- 
 pied our competitors. ' The Muscovite sovereign is daily 
 augmenting his power by the acquisition of objects 
 imported through Narva,' wrote the Polish king, in 
 his embarrassment, to Elizabeth, Queen of England, 
 seeking to divert the English from trading with 
 Moscow ; ' for they import by this route not only 
 merchandise, but also weapons which to him (Ivan 
 IV) were unknown before. . . . Hitherto we have been 
 able to conquer him because he was without learning 
 and knew nothing of the arts. But if the trade with 
 Narva continues, what will remain unknown to him? ' 
 In Moscow, too, this was understood ; and as the port 
 of Narva was only a narrow wicket-gate opening upon 
 the West, they wished to acquire a wider path of access 
 by seizing one of the large ports of the Baltic Sea. But 
 the repeated attempts to conquer Reval (in 1570 and 
 1577) ended merely in a war with Sweden, in which 
 the Muscovites lost even Narva — and also its Russian 
 suburb, Ivangorod. They were thus completely cut 
 off from £he Baltic Sea. During the last years of his life 
 Ivan the Terrible thought no more of conquest in the 
 West ; he was driven to defend himself, and was 
 thankful not to lose what belonged to him." • 
 
 But although the Livonian wars did not yield Ivan 
 
 1 M. Pokrovsky, Russian History, vol. ii. p. 128.
 
 76 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 III, Vassili III, and Ivan the Terrible the desired fruit, 
 they did at least convince them of the great difference 
 between East and West, even in this one matter of the 
 art of war. Those who had defeated the Tartars found 
 themselves powerless before the Europeans. This lesson 
 was of profit to them. They began to take foreign 
 soldiers into their service, at first singly, but then in, 
 batches. These soldiers formed private corps, but 
 presently, in the first half of the seventeenth century, 
 they were occupied principally in the work of instructing 
 Russian recruits, who were made up into " regiments 
 organized in the foreign mode." Finally, in the second 
 half of the seventeenth century, the old militia was 
 wholly suppressed, and was replaced by cavalry con- 
 sisting of dragouny and rditary and infantry of 
 " regiments of solddty ." 
 
 The Livonian wars assisted the Europeanization of 
 Russia in a very curious fashion. The prisoners 
 taken by the Russians— Lithuanians, Poles, Germans, 
 Livonians, etc. — were transported into the interior of 
 the country, and there became the sponsors of Western 
 culture . 
 
 On the 24th of February, 1556, the Governor of 
 Novgorod received from Ivan the Terrible an order 
 couched in the following terms : " In Novgorod, in 
 the suburbs, provinces, and market towns, you will on 
 divers occasions cause it to be cried in the market-places 
 that it is not permitted that the sons of boyars, nor any 
 other persons, shall sell German, prisoners to the 
 Germans of Livonia, nor send them to Lithuania, but 
 only to Muscovite towns. I shall bestow marks of my 
 favour on the sons of boyars who shall inform me that 
 any one has sold German prisoners to the Germans ; 
 and a man of base condition will receive 50 roubles 
 from him he has denounced. As for the vendors, they 
 will be thrown into prison while awaiting our decision. 
 If in the house of a son of a boyar or another there 
 should be found a German prisoner who understands 
 how to discover silver ore, or how to treat silver, gold,
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 77 
 
 copper, or tin, or is acquainted with any other trade, 
 you will give orders that this prisoner shall be brought 
 to me in Moscow." 
 
 M. Ischchanian remarks in this connection: "Such 
 is the irony of fate that the bearers of Western civiliza- 
 tion were forced as slaves to cultivate and Europeanize 
 the barbarous East." 
 
 Russian history in this particular repeats a phase of 
 Roman history, for the Greek prisoners of ancient Rome 
 imported with them the high culture of Hellenism. 
 
 Some of the prisoners brought back from Livonia by 
 Ivan the Terrible were distributed among the various 
 provincial 1 towns ; others, taken to Moscow, had 
 assigned to them a special quarter known as the 
 Ndmetzka'ia Sloboda (literally the German suburb ; 
 but the word nemetz, which signifies " German " jn 
 modern Russian, formerly meant "foreigner"; it is 
 derived from nem, nemoi, the meaning of which is 
 dumb). The Tsar granted those prisoners established 
 in Moscow certain fiscal privileges ; they had the right 
 to sell brandy without a licence. Very soon this little 
 colony was in a flourishing condition. But in a fit of 
 tyrannical fury Ivan the Terrible treated these strangers 
 in a manner already so familiar to his Russian subjects ; 
 in 1578 the Sloboda was pillaged, ruined, and laid 
 waste, by direct order of the Tsar, by his famous guard 
 of opritshniki. 
 
 However, the foreign prisoners appeared so useful 
 to Russia that Boris Godunov accorded them various 
 favours ; he restored their personal liberty, and granted 
 them the rights enjoyed by other inhabitants of the 
 Russian States. 
 
 Under one of the first Tsars of the Romanov dynasty 
 the re-establishment of the " foreign suburb " was 
 authorized in Moscow. This was in 1652, and once 
 again there existed, in the midst of the Russian capital, 
 a little town peopled by foreigners. 
 
 This colony, consisting at first of a few voluntary 
 immigrants and prisoners of war, became the centre
 
 78 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 of a stable and permanent influence ; and the Inozetn- 
 skaia Sloboda, established in 1652, was Peter the 
 Great's first European school. 
 
 II 
 
 The period extending from the reign of Ivan the 
 Terrible to the accession of the first Romanov, which 
 is known by the expressive name of the Period of 
 Disturbances (literally " the troubled times "), was full 
 of civil discord, in which were involved not only the 
 various classes of Russian society, but also the 
 foreigners. The most famous protagonist of this great 
 upheaval, Dimitri-Samozvanetz (the Impostor), who 
 claimed to be a son of Ivan the Terrible, and who 
 for a few months even occupied the Muscovite throne, 
 was the instrument of the boyar opposition, and, at 
 the same time, of Poland, who provided him with arms 
 and soldiers. His rival, Vassili Shnisky, was supported 
 by a section of the boyars and the middle classes and 
 by the English traders. He also applied to the Swedes, 
 and, in order to fight Dimitri, he engaged a corps of 
 Swedish soldiers commanded by his young nephew, 
 Prince Mikhail Skopine-Shnisky. 
 
 Frenchmen also took part in the struggle, as volun- 
 teers ; some — the Huguenots — serving under Shnisky 
 with his Swedes ; others — the Catholics — on the side of 
 Dimitri and his Poles. One of the Catholics, Captain 
 Margaret, has left us an account of his sojourn in 
 Russia, in which he informs his compatriots that the 
 land of the Tsar is " greater, more powerful, more 
 abundant and more populous than is supposed," that it 
 " extends Christianity far into the East," and that the 
 Russians felt a peculiar esteem for France and the 
 French king. 1 
 
 .While the French went to fight in Russia only as 
 amateurs, each according to his preference, and actuated 
 by a thirst for glory, gold, and adventure, the Poles and 
 Swedes were incited by their political ambitions. 
 
 1 Margaret, Etat de I'Empire de Russie.
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 79 
 
 Profiting by the disorder prevailing in Russia, Poland 
 occupied the Russian territories of the West, together 
 with the city of Smolensk. Sweden seized upon 
 Novgorod. The Poles penetrated as far as the walls 
 of Moscow, which they besieged (in 1610) in company 
 with one of the numerous false Dimitris, imitators of 
 Dimitri I and pretenders to the Muscovite throne. The 
 Polish crown prince, Vladislav, also attempted to gain 
 the throne. In 1610 the boyars, and the dvorianie, 
 weary of the struggle, recognized him as the Tsar of 
 Russia, after concluding a treaty with him which 
 granted certain political and social privileges to the 
 nobility, and in particular increased its power over 
 the serfs. 
 
 For a time, then, the orthodox Russia of the Tsars, 
 a semi-Asiatic Power, shared a common dynasty with 
 Poland, Catholic, feudalized, and " Europeanized," and 
 was subjected to the tutelage of Poland. Who can 
 say what would have been the course of Russian history 
 had the Polish Tsar remained in power? But he was 
 unable to overcome the opposition of the bourgeoisie, 
 the peasantry, the clergy, and a portion of the provincial 
 nobility. A great popular movement was initiated to 
 ' unite ' Russia and to put an end to the constant 
 disturbances. Directed against the intrusion of 
 foreigners, it was of a national and patriotic character. 
 
 " Enemies are rending the Muscovite State on every 
 side ; we have become an object of shame and reproach 
 to all neighbouring sovereigns," said a proclamation 
 issued in 1 6 1 2, calling the people to the defence of 
 the country. In 862, according to the legend, the 
 Russians spontaneously invited certain Scandinavian 
 princes to come and reign over them > in 1612 they 
 rose that they might no longer be subject to a Polish 
 prince. So in eight hundred years they had learned 
 to regard themselves as a nation, opposed to other 
 nations, even to others of Slav origin. 
 
 Vladislav was driven from the throne, but he would 
 not renounce his claims nor surrender to Russia the
 
 80 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 western provinces which were occupied by Poland. Only 
 in 1634, after two long campaigns, did Vladislav 
 abandon his " rights " to the Russian throne, but he. 
 still retained Smolensk and some other towns. Another 
 war broke out in 1654, and continued, interrupted 
 by an armistice, until 1667. It left the city of 
 Smolensk in Russian hands, and the whole of the 
 Ukrainian territory on the left bank of the Dnieper, 
 together with Kiev, while Lithuania remained Polish. 
 The provisional treaty, which was concluded in 1667 
 for a term of thirteen years, was confirmed in 1686 ; 
 Russia thereupon signed a " perpetual peace " with 
 Poland, and entered the league of Poland, Austria, 
 and Venice against Turkey. 
 
 The war with Sweden for the recovery of Novgorod 
 commenced immediately after the advent of the first 
 Romanov. At the end of four years, in 161 7, Russia 
 recovered the city of Novgorod, but the Swedes retained 
 a considerable portion of the territory of Novgorod 
 and the Baltic shore. Forty years later a fresh war 
 with Sweden enabled Russia to occupy a good part 
 of Livonia, together with Diinabourg (Dvinsk) and 
 Dorpat (Youriev) ; but complications in the Ukraine 
 forced her to make peace in 1661 and to restore 
 her conquests. 
 
 Finally, Sweden remained mistress of the whole of 
 the Baltic shore, whence she could constantly menace 
 Russia and cut off all direct communication with 
 Western Europe. 
 
 Thus the road to the sea undertaken by Ivan the 
 Terrible was not completed until the reign of Peter 
 the Great, who had to repeat all the efforts of his 
 predecessors. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The war between Peter the Great and Charles XII 
 lasted for twenty-one years. On the Russian side a 
 total of 1,700,000 men took part in this war. Of 
 these 120,000 perished, and 500,000 were discharged
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 81 
 
 on account of sickness. The war ended in 1721 with 
 the final triumph of Russia, whose territory was 
 increased by the addition of Ingermanland, Esthonia, 
 Livonia, and a small portion of Finland, the whole 
 covering an area of 180,000 square miles. 
 
 The true value of this conquest, to Russia, resided 
 not in the territorial aggrandizement which it accom- 
 plished, but in the ports, those outlets to the Baltic 
 Sea, on which her whole future depended, and whose 
 possession assured the realization of many other plans. 
 
 " He had need of a port on the east of the 
 Baltic Sea for the execution of alt his ideas" said 
 Voltaire of Peter the Great in his History of 
 Charles X/IJ 
 
 The most important of these ideas was to open a 
 direct and rapid means of communication between 
 Europe and Russia. 
 
 From the economic point of view, this result was 
 attained by the conquest of Riga and the " construc- 
 tion " of Petersburg (in 1703). After creating the 
 port of Petersburg, Peter concentrated the foreign trade 
 of the country there, to the detriment of Archangel, 
 which toward the end of his reign fell into a state 
 of decadence. 
 
 Between 1 7 1 7 and 1 7 1 9 the value of the annual 
 import trade of Archangel was 2,344,000 roubles, and 
 that of Petersburg only 269 roubles. In 1726 the 
 imports of Archangel had fallen to 285,000 roubles, 
 while those of Petersburg had risen to 2,403,000. 
 
 As for Riga, Narva, and Reval, Russia had had 
 commercial relations with these ports before the Russo- 
 Swedish war of 1700-21, which certainly increased 
 her chances of conquering the littoral, as these relations 
 had resulted in a wave of " Russophilia " among the 
 influential representatives of the wealthy bourgeoisie 
 of Riga K and even the Livonian nobility. 
 
 The victory of Russia enormously affected inter- 
 national relations with that country. Sweden was then 
 
 1 Book I. 
 6
 
 82 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 one of the most powerful States of Europe, and her 
 conqueror could not fail to acquire a great prestige. 
 Possibly Voltaire exaggerated in saying of Russia that 
 " this immense country was hardly known in Europe 
 before the Tsar Peter." But it is true that under 
 Peter " the Muscovite State, for the first time, entered, 
 as an active and inseparable member, the family of 
 the European Powers, and played its part in inter- 
 national relations." r It mingled in them even during 
 Peter's campaigns, because " with his principal enemies 
 Peter fought in another manner to that of his pre- 
 decessors ; he waged war by means of coalitions and 
 alliances." 
 
 As a mark of the great development of Russo- 
 European relations, we may note the appearance in 
 Europe of Russian consular agents. On the 15th of 
 March, 1 7 1 5, Jean Lefort was appointed Russian agent 
 in Paris by Peter the Great, with the title of 
 " Commercial Councillor " ; and his brother Amedee 
 Lefort was appointed " Commercial Consul," also in 
 Paris. In the deed of appointment it is stated that 
 " the good order of trade and the necessity of fore- 
 seeing all difficulties require that Russia shall have 
 in the ports and other localities of the kingdom of 
 France, where our subjects, merchants or others, may 
 exercise their trade, a reliable person having experience 
 of trade, who might in such difficulties as arise, and in 
 all other cases, be of assistance to our traders." 
 
 Consuls and commercial agents were next appointed 
 at Spa, Antwerp, Breslau, Vienna, Liege, Bordeaux, and 
 Cadiz. 
 
 The war with Sweden brought Peter into contact 
 with the German States. " Unhappily, amid his allies 
 he numbered Brandenburg and Hanover, whose Elector 
 became, at this very moment, King of England^ and 
 a new passion seized upon Peter : the desire to 
 intervene in German affairs. He dispersed his nieces 
 
 1 Klutshevsky, The Course of Russian History, Part iv. p. 66, Moscow, 
 1910.
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 83 
 
 in many obscure corners of German territory ; he 
 married one to the Duke of Courland, another to the 
 Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin ; Peter was thus drawn 
 into the petty court intrigues and participated in the 
 petty dynastic interests of the enormous feudal spider's 
 web which enveloped the great cultivated nation." » 
 
 I insist on these facts because they had the effect 
 of bringing German influence to bear on the highest 
 governing circles in Russia. Some years after the 
 death of Peter this influence placed a German Duchess 
 on the throne. It had other consequences also, of 
 which I shall speak further on. 
 
 The war with Sweden, which altered the international 
 situation of Russia, at the same time left its mark 
 on her internal politics. All the historians of Peter 
 the Great's reforms are agreed on this point. Professor 
 V. Klutshevsky even asserts that " the war was the 
 most important of those factors to which the reforms 
 of Peter the Great owe their character." 
 
 Having entered upon a desperate conflict with a 
 truly European Power, Russia could only fight that 
 Power with the same European weapons. This 
 necessity was Russia's great motive power. By 
 ' weapons " we do not mean simply the instruments 
 of military action : men and material. These it was 
 not difficult to procure, and Peter succeeded in 
 procuring them in a manner more or less satisfactory, 
 with the assistance of his foreign councillors ; he 
 reorganized the land army and created a fleet, the 
 germ of which was an old English canoe, found by 
 Peter among the objects of all kinds which attracted 
 his childlike curiosity. But the question was not 
 merely one of armaments ; the entire fabric of Russian 
 life was to be reconstructed. The military failures, 
 which were almost uninterrupted during the first eight 
 years of the war, were extremely useful in this connec- 
 tion, as they showed Peter that he would have to go 
 to school with his conqueror. And he himself was 
 
 1 Klutshevsky, op. cit. p. 75.
 
 84 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 fond of saying that he had spent " three scholastic 
 periods " in this school (the duration of studies being, 
 in those days, seven years). 
 
 History has preserved for us the words spoken by 
 Peter at the banquet which followed the victory of 
 Poltava (July 8, 1709), to which he invited the Swedish 
 generals who had been taken prisoner. 
 
 " To the health," he said, " of my masters in the 
 art of war ! " Rehnskold asked him who those were 
 whom he honoured by so fine a title. " You, the 
 Swedish generals," was the Tsar's reply. 
 
 It was indeed a fact that Peter's government had 
 taken Sweden as its model. We shall presently see 
 that it more than once endeavoured to copy Sweden. 
 
 IV 
 
 The war with Sweden, the principal source of the 
 internal reforms introduced by Peter, had a very un- 
 favourable influence on the appearance and develop- 
 ment of these reforms. 
 
 " The work of reform went on amid the tumult and 
 confusion which habitually accompany a war. The 
 necessities and embarrassments continually provoked by 
 military action forced Peter to hurry himself. Pressed 
 by circumstances, the work of reform assumed a feverish 
 pace, and was effected with unnatural precipitation. 
 Amid the anxieties of the war Peter had no time to 
 pull up, to discuss his measures quietly, to deliberate 
 over them at leisure, to determine on their execution, 
 and to allow them to ripen naturally. He demanded 
 rapid performance and immediate results. . . . Peter 
 relied only on the power of authority ; he did not 
 attempt to win men's minds. Governing the State from 
 a campaigning-carriage or a posting-house, he could 
 perceive nothing but the matter in hand; he did not 
 think of the human element, and, trusting to the power 
 of authority, he reckoned too little with the power of 
 the passive masses . . . amid which the structure of 
 his novelties encountered but insecure and shifting foun-
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 85 
 
 dations. His reforms fell like a waterspout on the 
 people, alarming every one and remaining an enigma 
 to all." 
 
 So spoke one of those who knew Peter best, and 
 who at the same time was one of his fervent admirers. 
 The people did not comprehend the tendency or the 
 bearing of all the changes which were imposed upon 
 it, and had no time for reflection. Throughout almost 
 the whole of Peter's reign Russia was fighting a very, 
 onerous war. The continual levies of men and the 
 uninterrupted increase of taxes presented only the worse 
 side of Peter's work to the people. And this was all 
 the people could see. Hence its hatred for the Tsar ; 
 hence the legends which spread through the Empire, 
 representing the innovator as the enemy of his own 
 subjects, as a " foreigner," an impostor, and even as 
 the Antichrist. 
 
 Peter's internal policy, under the spur of war, thus 
 assumed the aspect of a catastrophe and a revolution. 
 Now, although the people will often gladly accept a 
 revolution which is its own work, it usually refuses to 
 approve of one coming " from above." The conjunc- 
 tures in which Peter operated, his system of acting 
 by violence — manu milltari — aggravated the popular dis- 
 content. When the Tsar died the public opinion was 
 that he could not have lived longer because " the people 
 had cursed him."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 I. The war of 1812 and the Russo-Swedish War. II. The causes of 
 the war against Napoleon— Economic relations between Russia 
 and England— The "Continental Blockade" and its effects on 
 Russian economy. III. Two periods of the war of 1812— Official 
 patriotism and popular patriotism. IV. The Holy Alliance 
 and Legitimism— The Russian reaction. V. The effects of the 
 war on the people and the " intellectuals"— The Decembrists. 
 VI. The effects of the war in Poland. 
 
 I 
 
 The war designed to acquire the " window opening upon 
 Europe " was national as regards its general and remote 
 results, because it promised a whole country the possi- 
 bility of free development and of maintaining relations 
 with other more civilized nations. But it was not 
 national in the sense that it was understood and sanc- 
 tioned by the people, for it was the Government which 
 decided upon the war and brought matters to a head, 
 despite the opposition of the people. 
 
 The war of 1 8 1 2 was very different : it may be 
 regarded as the first really national and popular war 
 undertaken by Russia. But it did not immediately 
 become so. 
 
 II 
 
 At the outset Russia's conflict with Napoleon was 
 powerless to rouse the people, because it resulted from 
 problems of European significance, rather than the 
 national interests of Russia. Its first cause, as we 
 know, was the rivalry between France and England. 
 
 At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of 
 the nineteenth century Russia was maintaining highly 
 developed economic relations with England. She sent 
 her agricultural products thither and received in ex- 
 
 86
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 87 
 
 change threads and yarns, which she wove into cloth. 
 44 England furnished us with the products of her manu- 
 factures and her colonies in exchange for the raw 
 products of our soil," says a contemporary (Fone- 
 Vizine). "This trade opened up the only routes by 
 which Russia received all that was necessary to her. 
 The nobility made certain of drawing the revenues 
 of its estates by exporting oversea wheat, timber for 
 shipbuilding and for masts and spars, tallow, hemp, 
 flax, etc." The Russian export traders also had close 
 relations with England ; so that two highly influential 
 sections of Russian society were economically inclined 
 to be Anglophile. This was well understood in France, 
 and in 1803 the French Ambassador in Petersburg 
 wrote to his Government that Russia was too closely 
 attached to England by her trade to be particularly 
 desirous of maintaining peace with France. 
 
 Moreover, the majority of the greater nobles and of the 
 governing classes hated France as a revolutionary country. 
 
 An alliance of Russia and England against France 
 was thus inevitable. It is true that Alexander I was 
 restrained by the fear of Napoleon's bayonets, and was 
 even impelled to effect momentary reconciliations with 
 France, but these only emphasized the solidity of the 
 Anglo-Russian friendship and the fragility of the 
 Franco-Russian ties. Particularly was this the case 
 after the Peace of Tilsit (1807), which brought Russia 
 into the orbit of the French economic policy, by associ- 
 ating her with the Continental Blockade which was 
 directed against England. The Treaty of Tilsit was 
 signed in July 1807, but by October of the same 
 year the French Ambassador to Russia, Savary, stated 
 that the closing of Russian ports to English vessels 
 was causing great dissatisfaction to the Russian com- 
 mercial classes, as their exports were threatened, and 
 also to the buyers of English produce. In vain did 
 Savary endeavour to raise the exchange value of the 
 rouble, which had fallen upon the interruption of rela- 
 tions with England, spreading the rumour in Petersburg
 
 88 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 that France was proposing to buy twenty million francs' 
 worth of Russian merchandise ; this promise offered only 
 a very meagre compensation for the great losses incurred. 
 
 It is true that although agriculture suffered by the 
 Continental Blockade, certain industries gained greatly 
 thereby, owing to the elimination of English competi- 
 tion. But the middle-class manufacturers and indus- 
 trialized nobles who were benefited by the blockade 
 were only a small minority, and had no say in matters 
 of foreign policy. 
 
 Two years after the Peace of Tilsit the blockade 
 was in reality broken by Russia, as she authorized 
 the importation of English merchandise under the 
 American flag. The rupture with France, which had 
 become inevitable, was hastened by other causes of a 
 political and even of a personal nature. In 1812 the 
 " patriotic war " commenced and the Russian Army 
 crossed the Niemen. 
 
 Ill 
 
 We must distinguish two periods in this war. The 
 first was the period of official and superficial patriotism, 
 of thoughtless boasting, of pompous proclamations which 
 denied the courage of the French Army. It ended, 
 as might have been expected, in a series of Russian 
 defeats and the occupation of Moscow. 
 
 The Government and the nobility were overwhelmed. 
 Alexander I hid himself from the people in his palace ; 
 and his sister, the Grand Duchess Yekaterina Pavlovna, 
 wrote to him uncompromisingly that " he must very 
 well understand what happens in a country whose ruler 
 is despised." Many of the nobles were afraid at once 
 of Napoleon and of their own peasants, whom they had 
 oppressed, and who might have found, in this war, an 
 opportunity to revolt. 
 
 But it was precisely the masses of the people, the 
 peasants, who in 1 8 1 2 represented the true patriotism, 
 together with an enlightened minority of nobles, from 
 which issued, at a later date, the first Russian Con- 
 stitutionalists.
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 89 
 
 " Salvation came from below, from this mass of 
 serfs, who commenced, in a spirit of abnegation, a 
 popular war. Stein (the Prussian Minister) was 
 perfectly right when he said (in a letter to Gneisenau) 
 that ' the people has reached the supreme degree of 
 fury, and the Emperor could not conclude peace — at 
 least, if he had any regard for his personal safety.' 
 The popular war was the natural consequence of the 
 gloomy distrust which the people entertained in respect 
 of authority. . . . The fundamental, principal, and 
 almost the only cause of the victory of 1 8 1 2 was the 
 coming into action of the popular masses against the 
 armies of Napoleon." 1 
 
 The memoirs relating to the war of 18 12 leave us 
 convinced that it was not the Government which, as 
 in the war with Charles XII, displayed the greatest 
 vigour and activity ; it was the people which, inter- 
 vening like a force of nature, saved Russia from the 
 Napoleonic invasion. 
 
 " All the orders and all the efforts of the Govern- 
 ment would not have sufficed to expel the Gauls and 
 the dozen other peoples who invaded Russia with them, 
 had the people remained in its old condition of torpor," 
 said a witness of events, the Decembrist Yakushkin. 
 " It was not upon the order of the authorities that the 
 inhabitants of the country withdrew into the forests 
 and marshes on the arrival of the French, surrendering 
 their homes to be burned. It was not upon the order 
 of the authorities that the whole population of Moscow 
 left the ancient capital with the army. To the right 
 and the left, along the Riazan road, the fields were 
 covered by a many-coloured host, and I can still 
 remember, to-day, the words of a soldier who was 
 marching beside me, ' Thanks to God, all Russia is on 
 the march. ! ' " 
 
 This Russia which was '•' on the march " saved her- 
 self, despite the collapse of her Government. And 
 
 1 N. Rojkov, The Year 1812 and its Influence on Contemporary 
 Russian Society {Sovremanny Mir, 191 2, vii., Petersburg).
 
 90 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 it was only when the war of legitimate defence Was 
 over, and the enemy driven from the national soil, that 
 the Government resumed the direction of the war, 
 passing to the offensive and pursuing the French armies 
 across Europe, in company with two professional 
 masters of international spoliation : the Prussian and 
 Austrian monarchies. 
 
 IV 
 
 The triumph of Alexander I over Napoleon enabled 
 him, in 1 8 1 5, to form, with his two autocratic allies, 
 the Holy Alliance, which was perfectly natural, for 
 between the three Conservative monarchies — Russian, 
 Austrian, and Prussian — there existed a reciprocal 
 attraction. But they were united only in their hatred 
 of France and of Napoleon, himself a despot, but "the 
 offspring of the Revolution." By their victory over 
 him it seemed to them that they had overcome the 
 revolutionary movement. In the dogma of legitimacy, 
 the defence of which constituted the essential point 
 of the policy of the Holy Alliance, was expressed not 
 merely the antipathy of the "' hereditary ' monarchs 
 for a " parvenu," but also the claim to inviolability 
 put forward by autocratic power regularly transmitted. 
 
 In order to be regarded as inviolable, the authority 
 of the monarch must prevail by supernatural virtue. 
 The fortunate issue of the war against Napoleon, to 
 which Alexander I personally contributed so little, im- 
 pelled him towards mysticism. Unwilling to refer the 
 success of his armies to the efforts and sacrifices of 
 the people, he attributed it to Divine intervention. " In 
 this great task, which was above human strength, we 
 recognize only the Providence of God," he said in 
 his manifesto. He expressed the same idea in a private 
 conversation held at Vilna, when he stated that " the 
 Lord Jesus alone is the true conqueror, and has 
 liberated the country from the invasion of ferocious 
 enemies." 
 
 Alexander never doubted that it was logical that
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 91 
 
 the Divine Providence and the will of Jesus should 
 select the Russian Tsar as their instrument upon earth. 
 If he appeared fairly modest in his conversations with 
 Mme. de Stael — " I am," he told her, " merely a happy 
 accident in the life of the peoples " — he spoke more 
 frankly to Baronne de Kriidner, assuring her of his 
 conviction that his acts were in perfect harmony with 
 the will of God. 
 
 This doctrine bore disastrous fruit in the foreign 
 policy of Russia, as well as in her domestic policy. 
 The Holy Alliance began its work in defence of 
 legitimacy by the restoration of the royal power in 
 France, where two bloody revolutions were necessary 
 to repair its error. 
 
 From 1 8 1 5 onwards the Russian autocracy became 
 a sort of " international policeman," and acted accord- 
 ingly. It was thus led into grievous errors, the chief 
 of which was committed in 1848, when the successor 
 of Alexander I, in the name of order and legitimacy, 
 placed his armies at the service of the Austrian 
 monarchy, in order to crush the Hungarian revolu- 
 tion, saving Austria from inevitable ruin and irreme- 
 diably alienating from Russia the best elements of 
 Hungarian society. The results of this policy are 
 perceptible even to-day. 
 
 As for the domestic life of Russia, the war of 1 8 1 2 
 inoculated it with two species of germs. On its subjects 
 the autocracy, from 1 8 1 5 onwards, imposed the system 
 of which it was the champion abroad ; and it was they 
 who suffered the worst effects of this system. An era 
 of the gloomiest reaction was inaugurated, and, accord- 
 ing to the expression of one of the men most prominent 
 at this period, the people were treated " like a flock 
 of sheep," who had to be " sufficiently nimble " to 
 make it ppssible to " lead " them towards the goal of 
 their enemies. This oppression, which was steeped in 
 mysticism, had certain points of likeness to the Holy 
 Inquisition : for instance, in the zeal of the monks, its 
 most notable and its best-qualified instruments.
 
 92 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 V 
 
 On the masses of the people and the more 
 enlightened minds of the country, the war of 1812 
 had quite another effect. 
 
 The Decembrist, Yakushkin, whose Memoirs I have 
 already cited, states that it " awakened the Russian 
 people to life, and formed an important period of its 
 political existence." Another Decembrist, A. Bestoujev, 
 in his letter to Alexander I, wrote that " Napoleon 
 having invaded Russia, the Russian people, for the first 
 time, was conscious of its strength. It was precisely 
 at this moment that the desire for independence arose 
 in every heart ; political independence first (that is, 
 external independence), and then popular. This was 
 the birth of Liberal aspirations in Russia." Bestoujev 
 also explains, in a fashion even more characteristic, 
 the state of mind prevalent in Russia after the war : — 
 
 '•' The soldiers said : ' We have spilt our blood, and 
 they make us sweat in oar lords' fields ; we have 
 freed our country from the tyrant, and we are tyrannized 
 over by our masters.' " 
 
 As a result of the war, therefore, the protest against 
 serfdom became keener and keener amid the rural 
 population ; and after the lapse of a few years a series 
 of rural disturbances commenced which continued, with 
 intervals, until the abolition of serfdom (in 1861). 
 
 The influence of the war of 1 8 1 2 caused an even more 
 direct and remarkable upheaval in the intellectual world. 
 
 At first this upheaval took the form of a general 
 awakening of the spirit of citizenship among the officers, 
 who then formed a sort of intellectual elite. A con- 
 temporary states that the campaigns of 18 12- 14 
 "exalted the soul of our army in an extraordinary 
 fashion, especially in the case of the young officers. 
 . . . The majority of the officers of the Guard and 
 the Staff returned to Petersburg in 1 8 1 5 with a con- 
 sciousness of their dignity and full of a sublime love 
 for their native country."
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 93 
 
 Moreover, their sojourn in foreign countries had made 
 an immediate impression on them. 
 
 " During their marches across Germany and France 
 our young officers learned to understand European civi- 
 lization, which impressed them all the more in that 
 they were able to compare it with what they beheld 
 at every step in their own country : the enslavement 
 of the great majority of Russians, the cruelty of chiefs 
 toward their subordinates, the abuses of power of every 
 kind, the arbitrary rule which everywhere made its 
 rigour felt. All this revolted the educated Russians and 
 hurt their patriotism." l 
 
 M. Emile Haumant, in his Culture frangaise en 
 Russle, cites a number of such observers : — 
 
 " Many of us," writes one of the officers who took 
 part in the war, " became acquainted with German 
 officers who were members of the Tugendbund, and 
 afterwards with some of the French Liberals. . . . 
 In conversing with them we made our own, although 
 we did not realize this, their manner of thinking and 
 their love of representative institutions, and we blushed 
 for our own country, humiliated by tyranny." The 
 more they saw of the countries moulded by French 
 institutions, the more the spectacle of their relative 
 prosperity impressed the Russians. A mere rebellion 
 of the lower classes — a jacquerie pure and simple — 
 could never have created such wealth ; so that there 
 were evidently beneficent revolutions. On the other 
 hand, events went to prove that the stability of thrones, 
 for which they were fighting, was a very uncertain 
 dogma. " We saw on every side thrones restored and 
 overthrown ... so that our minds became accustomed 
 to revolutions, their possibility, and the profit to be 
 derived from them," and this all the more rapidly 
 because, in the general chaos, " the majority of the 
 revolutionary institutions were preserved, and, there- 
 fore, were recognized as good." " Finally," says M. 
 Haumant, " the conquerors perceived that with all their 
 glory they were not so well off as the conquered." 2 
 1 Rojkov, op. cit. 2 Emile Haumant, op. cit. pp. 320-21.
 
 94 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 The Russian officers profited by their stay in France 
 to become acquainted with French ideas and with the 
 political literature of France. While the other Allies 
 mostly frequented the Royalist salons, the Russians 
 ventured to enter into close relations with the revolu- 
 tionaries, and even the " suspects," and to study the 
 formation and the statutes of the secret political 
 societies. Prompt to utilize what they had lately- 
 learned, they began to teach their soldiers, applying 
 to the process the Lancastrian method. According to 
 several observers, " the blows which were constantly 
 given in the other Allied armies were banished from 
 the Russian corps stationed in France." 
 
 So it was with new habits, a new spirit, and a 
 new state of mind that all this military youth returned 
 to Russia. But there disillusion awaited it. An oppres- 
 sive reactionary regime barred the way to generous 
 aspirations and schemes of liberation. A clash was 
 inevitable ; it came ten years later, on the 14th of 
 December, 1825 ; some officers who had taken part 
 in the campaigns of 18 12- 14 attempted a military 
 insurrection with a view to establishing a Constitution. 
 So it was that the war of 1812 gave rise to a 
 " revolution from below," just as the struggle with 
 Charles XII had caused a " revolution from above." 
 Peter I had imposed his authority, despite the oppo- 
 sition of the people. The Decembrists took up arms for 
 the liberation of the people from autocratic authority. 
 One of these Decembrists, the poet Lorer, has summed 
 up the meaning of the war of 1812 in some verses, 
 which put into the mouth of Napoleon the following 
 words : — 
 
 . . . Russia is my rival, 
 
 But Fate my conqueror. . . . 
 
 I followed not the steps of Batou-Khan, 
 
 I fought not without reason ; was not moved 
 
 By the vanity of glory . . . 
 
 I have seen Moscow's ashes, but am not 
 
 Another Erostrates. . . . 
 
 ... I willed, with iron hand, 
 
 Sudden to seize the centuries' coming void ;
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 95 
 
 Those centuries I summoned ere the hour, 
 To snap the rusty chain of prejudice, 
 And urge the idle giant upward still 
 Toward a higher goal of life. 1 
 
 The " idle giant," Russia, was rudely shaken by 
 the war upon Napoleon, but not sufficiently so to snap 
 the rusty chain of the ancien regime. The rising of 
 the Decembrists was stifled by the Government, and it 
 was only thirty years later, after a fresh international 
 upheaval, after the Crimean War, that the fetters of 
 Russia began to fall off her. 
 
 VI 
 
 But we must speak a few words as to Napoleon's 
 relations with Poland. 
 
 While the great Revolution was nearing accomplish- 
 ment — while in France the old order was falling in 
 ruins— Poland, in 1795, was finally destroyed, and 
 shared between the three neighbour monarchies — Russia, 
 Austria, and Prussia. 
 
 From the standpoint of the interests of Russia (that 
 is, of the whole Russian people, and not only of the 
 bureaucracy and the ruling circles) it was a great mis- 
 take to take a hand in the murder and dismemberment 
 of her neighbour. Even to-day this is very evident. 
 Russia has deprived herself of a barrier between herself 
 and the Germanic States, and is in immediate contact 
 with Germany and Austria. The dismemberment of 
 their little kingdom, which would have been impos- 
 sible without the participation of Russia, filled the Poles 
 with hatred of the Empire. Their enslavement became a 
 painful wound in the flank of the Russian Empire, which 
 on two occasions bled profusely, in 1831 and in 1863. 
 
 The violence done to Poland was and is still ex- 
 ploited by Russia's rivals, and has complicated the 
 external situation without in any way fortifying it. 
 
 Napoleon I understood the profit to be derived from 
 
 1 Lorer, Napoleon. (See the collection, The War of 1812 in Russian 
 Poetry, p. 129, Moscow, 1912.)
 
 96 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 Poland, utilizing her as one of the levers of his anti- 
 Russian policy ; all the more easily because, before 
 the last partition of Poland, many of the irreducible 
 Polish patriots had taken refuge in France, and a 
 mutual sympathy united the defenders of national inde- 
 pendence and the French democracy. Here Napoleon 
 had a means of action at his disposal, and he made use 
 of it, during and even before the war of 1806-7, 
 posing as a champion of the Polish claims. But he 
 offered the Poles a mirage only ; for in 1807 he did not 
 impose on Alexander, as a condition, sine qua non, of 
 peace, the restoration of Poland. The Treaty of Tilsit 
 confined itself to creating a Grand Duchy of Warsaw, 
 formed out of Prussian Poland, and given as booty to 
 the Elector of Saxony. 
 
 But, thanks to this symbol, this fiction of an indepen- 
 dent Polish State, Napoleon was able to retain the 
 sympathies of the Poles, for whom he was the only 
 friendly monarch in Europe. And in 18 12 the Polish 
 Eagles hovered above the Franco-Russian battlefields 
 beside the standards of Napoleon. 
 
 Napoleon's Polophile diplomacy had its effect upon 
 Russian politics, for Alexander I could not allow the 
 Poles to regard France as their liberator. He him- 
 self said, in his secret instructions to Novossiltzev, 
 who was charged with confidential negotiations with 
 England : — 
 
 " The most powerful weapon which the French have 
 employed hitherto, and with which they are still 
 threatening all other States, is the idea, which they have 
 managed to diffuse abroad, that their cause is the 
 cause of the liberty and happiness of the nations. 
 . . . The welfare of humanity, the true interest of the 
 legitimate authorities, and the success of the under- 
 taking meditated by the two Powers (Russia and 
 England) demand that these shall wrest this formidable 
 weapon from the hands of the French, and, having seized 
 it, use it against the latter. 
 
 It thus appears that the proposal to set up an
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 97 
 
 autonomous Poland, on which Alexander so insisted 
 at the Congress of Vienna, and his desire to create a 
 " phantom Poland," were chiefly due to the necessity 
 of competing with France and Napoleon. 1 
 
 The rebirth of the Polish State, the work of the 
 French Army, and accepted — we know not if it was 
 sincerely — by Alexander I, was accomplished on the 
 1 5th of November 1 8 1 5, by the granting of a Con- 
 stitution to the kingdom of Poland. But as this king- 
 dom was under the tutelage of Russia, and as Russia 
 herself was not a constitutional country, the contra- 
 diction between this semblance of constitutionalism and 
 the Russian autocracy was to break forth anew and 
 engender a sanguinary conflict in which the political 
 individuality of Poland disappeared yet once again. 
 
 The confidence of Poland, who had come to regard 
 France — even the France of Napoleon — as her friend 
 and liberator, was yet further confirmed by a series 
 of measures taken by Napoleon in 1807 and 1808, 
 which were fruitful of results. 
 
 Napoleon effected the introduction into the consti- 
 tutional law of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw of an 
 article by whose terms serfdom was abolished and 
 all citizens made equal before the law. In virtue of 
 this principle, a decree passed about the end of 1807 
 authorized the peasants freely to leave their masters. 
 Unhappily, the serfs, while they received their liberty, 
 were at the same time dispossessed of the lands on 
 which they had lived, which were recognized as the 
 property of their seigneurs. Thereupon a portion of 
 the agricultural population rapidly became a proletariat, 
 which was quickly invaded by pauperism. But, taking 
 it all round, the abolition of serfdom gave a great 
 impulse to the economic and social development of the 
 country ; it was the ruin of the feudal system, but 
 profited the middle classes of society. 
 
 Another very important measure was the introduction 
 
 ' See the Mtmoires of Talleyrand (Paris, 1891, vols. ii. and iii.) and 
 the Mimoircs of Prince Metternich (Paris, 1886, vol. ii.). 
 
 7
 
 98 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 into Poland of the Code Napoleon. Concerning the 
 action of this reform, one of the best historians of 
 Polish economy remarks : — 
 
 " The widest breach in the civil regime, and above 
 all in the property system as it existed in Poland, 
 was made by the Code Napoleon, which was intro- 
 duced into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw in 1808. It 
 implanted the juridical forms of the modern bourgeois 
 system in the economy of a naturally feudal system of 
 exploitation. Incapable by itself of transforming the 
 means of production, it nevertheless dealt the most 
 damaging blows to the old property system, and 
 hastened its fall. The abolition of the special system 
 affecting leased property wrested landed property from 
 its immobilized condition and drew it into the current 
 of exchange." l 
 
 In 1809 and 18 12 the Government of the Grand 
 Duchy of Warsaw invited foreign manufacturers, experts, 
 and artisans to settle in Poland. They were granted 
 various privileges, for example, exemption from military 
 service, taxes on landed property, customs duties, etc. 
 In its " kingdom of Poland " the Russian Govern- 
 ment retained this policy, and between 18 16 and 1824 
 it issued a series of Imperial ukases, whose object was 
 to favour industry and to attract foreign capital and 
 capitalists. 
 
 As a result the general character of economic and 
 social life underwent a radical change. But the origins 
 of this new state of affairs must be traced back to 
 the brief existence of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw 
 and the triumph of the middle classes, when ' the 
 barriers which divided them from the nobility were 
 broken," and when they were enabled to seize upon 
 all the means of conquering the productive forces of the 
 country. So that it was said that " the embourgeoise- 
 ment of the political life of Poland was in great measure 
 the result of French influence." 2 
 
 1 Rosa Luxembourg, Industrial Evolution 0/ Poland. 
 1 L. Janowicz, A Sketch of the Evolution of Industry in the Kingdom 
 of Poland (Warsaw, i9°7).
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 I. The Crimean War— Its origins. II. Causes of defeat— The con- 
 trast between the old Russia and the new Europe. III. The 
 -tern question — The Slav problem and the Europeauization of 
 Russia. 
 
 I 
 
 From 1812 to 18 14, Russia, in alliance with England, 
 was fighting France. Forty years later the two Western 
 States were allied against the Russian Empire. 
 
 The composition of this alliance enabled the enemy, 
 in 1854, to represent the conflict as that of the West 
 against the East, Europe against Asia. 
 
 On the other hand, the immediate cause of the 
 Crimean War, or rather its immediate pretext, was 
 the possession of the keys of the church of Bethlehem; 
 the Orthodox monks and their Catholic competitors 
 disputed the right of possession. So that the struggle 
 seemed thus to be between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. 
 
 In reality it was much more material and concrete. 
 Once again it proceeded from the economic relations 
 existing between Russia and Great Britain. 
 
 At the beginning of the nineteenth century, as we 
 have seen, these relations were very close, and we may 
 even say that Russia and Great Britain could not do 
 without one another. Toward the middle of the century 
 the situation underwent a change. The commercial 
 ties between the two countries suffered a general 
 relaxation, 'due at first to the condition of the world- 
 market, and then to the economic policy of Russia. 
 
 England obtained from Russia chiefly raw materials 
 and cereals. But in the second quarter of the century 
 
 90
 
 100 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 the European market offered corn at moderate prices 
 and in fair abundance. England was therefore enabled 
 in great measure to dispense with the importation of 
 Russian corn. As for Russia, her industry, having 
 experienced the elimination of competition during the 
 short period of the Continental Blockade, was beginning 
 to manifest her predilection for an increasingly definite 
 protectionism. English merchandise gradually dis- 
 appeared from the Russian market, and about 1830- 
 35 the British Press was complaining that while 
 British trade with other foreign States was more or 
 less rapidly increasing, the trade with Russia remained 
 at the same level, or was decreasing. The English 
 especially complained that Russia was seizing upon the 
 Trans-Caucasian regions and the shores of the Black 
 Sea — Georgia too, and Bessarabia ; and she was 
 meditating the acquisition of Asia Minor, the Bosphorus, 
 and the Dardanelles ; that is, the highway by which 
 British trade penetrated the East. 
 
 Moreover, Nicolas I was endeavouring to establish 
 an absolute political hegemony over Europe, its 
 character being reactionary. 
 
 There was therefore more than one pretext available 
 for an Anglo-Russian conflict. 
 
 If France decided to take part in this conflict, it 
 was, according to modern historians, " not because of 
 her hostility towards Russia, but because of her friend- 
 ship for England." The Russian author who thus 
 defines the motive which France is supposed to have 
 obeyed bases his opinion on arguments of a material 
 order. He observes that at this period France was 
 not a competitor of England, but rather a collabo- 
 rator ; for nearly half the total trade of England 
 was carried in French vessels. 1 "And, similarly, the 
 East, with its ports and its trade routes, was acquiring 
 a particular interest for the French Government. About 
 the same moment de Lesseps was appealing for French 
 capital to construct the Suez canal, and Napoleon III 
 
 1 M. Pokrovsky, Russian History, vol. v. p. 34 (Moscow, 1914).
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 101 
 
 recalled the traditional protectorate exercised by the 
 French sovereigns over the Catholic inhabitants of 
 Turkey. As we know, it was the intervention of 
 France in the affairs of Palestine which provoked 
 an explicit conflict between the new Emperor of 
 France and Nicolas I. The keys of the temple 
 of Bethlehem opened the temple of the God of War, 
 which had been closed for forty years." 
 
 II 
 
 The God of War, so favourable to Russia during 
 the first half of the nineteenth century, deserted her in 
 1854; Russia was defeated. 
 
 It may at first sight appear astonishing that so great 
 a State should have been forced to declare herself 
 vanquished, and to place herself at the mercy of her 
 enemies, because of a defeat suffered at Sebastopol ; 
 that is, at one remote point of her immense territory. 
 There are qualified Russian writers who assert that 
 Russia could and should have continued the Crimean 
 War, and that she would have had a good chance of 
 emerging victoriously. Here, for instance, is the 
 opinion of the celebrated Russian historian, S. Soloviev, 
 as recorded in his posthumous notes : — 
 
 " Peace was concluded after the fall of Sebastopol, 
 while Sebastopol was playing the same role as Moscow 
 in 18 12. At this very moment Russia should have 
 declared that the war was not finished, but was only 
 beginning, in order to compel the Allies to renounce 
 it. . . . Foreign affairs were by no means in so 
 desperate a condition that an energetic sovereign could 
 not have emerged from the struggle retaining his 
 dignity and some essential advantages. In the interior 
 of the country there was no exhaustion, no extreme 
 distress. The new sovereign, whom all wished to love, 
 because he was new, could have raised enormous forces 
 by appealing to the love and patriotism of the people. 
 The war was difficult for the Allies ; they ardently 
 desired its termination. Before a Russian sovereign
 
 102 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 who spoke firmly, asserting his intention to fight until 
 the conclusion of an honourable peace, they would have 
 drawn back." 
 
 General Kuropatkin shares this opinion; he con- 
 siders that " finding inspiration in the example of 
 Peter I and Alexander I, we should have continued 
 the war, in order to ' drive the enemy into the 
 
 sea.' " 
 
 But both writers— the scholar and the professional 
 soldier— have themselves represented the condition of 
 affairs in Russia at the end of the Crimean War under 
 such an aspect that the impossibility of continuing the 
 war is obvious to those who are capable of objective 
 judgment. Soloviev states that Alexander II, at the 
 moment of his accession, had neither the breadth of 
 view, nor the courage, nor the initiative, nor the energy 
 necessary for the continuation of the struggle, and that 
 among those who surrounded him " there was not a 
 single man endowed with intellectual and moral power," 
 "not a single man capable of lighting the darkness." 
 As for General Kuropatkin, he draws the following 
 picture of Russia before and during the war :— 
 
 " The movement of liberation which originated in 
 Russia after the Napoleonic wars', which penetrated 
 even the ranks of the army, was followed (under 
 Nicolas I), by a powerful bureaucratic pressure, which 
 weighed heavily on all manifestations of public activity 
 and on all ranks and classes of society, including the 
 military. It was as though all Russia had donned 
 the same uniform, close-buttoned from top to bottom, 
 and was standing motionless. Russia and her army 
 could only say : ' I obey you,' ' You are right,' and 
 ' All goes well.' The soldiers were cruelly treated. 
 Their food was bad. Thefts of all kinds were habitual 
 phenomena in the army. The command of regiments 
 was given to landed proprietors who had squandered 
 their fortunes in order that they might make them 
 again. The Imperial Guard enjoyed oppressive 
 privileges. Every act of spontaneous initiative was
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 103 
 
 punished by law. The Press was timid and silent. 
 Any discussion in a military journal, even in respect 
 of the soldier's clothing, was often regarded as the 
 sign of a subversive mind. The army, therefore, in spite 
 of its great numbers, was backward in the matter of 
 intellectual force. And in the matter of material 
 strength we were equally backward, compared with 
 the European armies." * 
 
 General Kuropatkin, as we see, attributes the sorry 
 condition of the Russian Army on the outbreak of the 
 Crimean War to the general regime of reaction then 
 prevailing. So it was not the Russian Army which 
 was conquered at Sebastopol by the Allied troops, but 
 rather, and especially, the social and political system 
 of the old autocratic Russia. A serf -owning country 
 could not hold out against more civilized States. 
 
 It is a curious fact that this very backwardness, 
 which was responsible for Russia's weakness, and which 
 condemned her to defeat, was represented, by the 
 " patriots " of various shades of opinion, as giving 
 Russia an advantage over Europe. Such was the 
 opinion not only of the official chauvinists, with their 
 insincere optimism, but even of the sincere and honest 
 patriots of the Slavophile camp. The harangues 
 in prose and verse in which they contrast " Holy 
 Russia " with " pagan Europe " read very strangely 
 to-day. 
 
 "What are you counting on? " — so Mey, one of 
 the patriotic poets of 1855, addressed the enemy. " On 
 the courage of your troops? But every Russian soldier 
 is not merely brave in battle, he is intrepidly calm. 
 For everywhere, from the banks of the Neva to 
 Sebastopol, he stands erect to defend Russia and 
 religion. He does not stand for a chimera of the 
 Press, nor for the vanities of representative chambers." 
 
 Another Slavophile poet, A. Khomiakov, proclaims 
 in a poem written in 1854 that "God has bestowed 
 His love upon Russia, and has given her a fatal might 
 
 1 Kuropatkin, Memoirs.
 
 104 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 that she may destroy the malevolence of blind, 
 unreasoning, and barbarous (sic) forces." 
 
 Is this aberration or hypocrisy, or an unconscious 
 attempt to justify the blemishes of Russia by her 
 supreme predestination? 
 
 However this may be, in the same poem the poet 
 does not hesitate to tell his country the following 
 truths : — 
 
 Remember that to be the instrument 
 
 Of God is difficult for earthly creatures ; 
 
 His judgment of His servants is severe ; 
 
 And thou, alas ! dost bear the burden of 
 
 So many dreadful crimes. For in thy courts 
 
 Reigns black injustice ; thou dost bear the brand 
 
 Worn by the yoke of slavery ; thou art full 
 
 Of impious flatteries and pestiferous lies, 
 
 And all abominations. 
 
 Khomiakov himself realized that in truth his country 
 " was unworthy of the divine election," but he never- 
 theless believed that she was elected, and that " she 
 would smite her enemies with the sword of God." 
 
 This miracle did not come to pass. The defeat 
 of Russia at Sebastopol, so insignificant from a military 
 point of view, had an enormous political and moral 
 effect, because it opened the eyes of all more or less 
 discerning and conscientious Russians to all the evils 
 from which their country was suffering. The immediate 
 result of this defeat was the " period of the great 
 reforms," followed by the movement known by the 
 name of Nihilism. The military downfall of Russia 
 made an end of the legend of Russian supremacy which 
 had been prevalent abroad ; and within Russia it shook 
 the principle of autocratic government. The " nega- 
 tion " of the old ideas of authority, and of all those 
 prejudices on which the old life was based, was a 
 logical result of this catastrophe. This is why " nega- 
 tion " formed the basis of Nihilism.
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 105 
 
 III 
 
 The antithesis established by the patriots between 
 " Holy Russia " and " pagan Europe " at the time of 
 the Crimean War was to a certain extent justified by 
 the presence of Turkey in the coalition formed against 
 the Empire of the Tsar, which enabled the Russian 
 Government to pose as the defender of brother Slavs 
 and Christians against the " infidel," " heathen " 
 Mahomedans. 
 
 It is true that the situation of the Christian and 
 Slav peoples in the Balkans was at this time 
 unendurable. But the Government of Nicolas I, a 
 reactionary and an oppressor of his own people, 
 had no moral right to arrogate to itself the role of 
 defender, since its whole previous conduct had been in 
 absolute contradiction to the mission which it claimed 
 to fulfil. Alexander I, after the Congress of Vienna, 
 had declared himself openly hostile to a rising of the 
 Balkanic peoples against the Turks. For example, in 
 1821 (at the Congress of Lay bach), he severely 
 condemned the Greeks' desire for independence, regard- 
 ing it as a manifestation of the revolutionary spirit. 
 
 In order to confirm his opinion by action, he 
 dismissed Prince Ypsilanti from the corps of officers 
 of the Russian Army, because he had assumed the 
 command of the Greek insurgents ; and he dismissed 
 Count Capo d'Istria, a Greek citizen and Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs in Russia, who fomented the revolt of 
 his compatriots against the Turkish rule. The liberated 
 Greeks having elected Capo d'Istria President of their 
 Republic, the Russian Government attempted to induce 
 him to subserve its reactionary policy in Greece, thereby 
 provoking a protest on the part of the advanced parties 
 of that country and the assassination of Capo d'Istria 
 by two Republican patriots, the brothers Mavromikhalis. 
 
 Enlightened Russians did not approve of the obscure 
 and reactionary policy of their Government. The
 
 106 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 famous poet Pushkin encouraged the Greek insurrection 
 in the following lines : — 
 
 Arise, O Greece, arise ! 
 
 Not in vain is thy striving, 
 
 Not in vain does war shake Olympus, 
 
 Pindus, and the crags of Thermopylae. 
 
 Beneath the secular shadow of their peaks 
 
 Was born the liberty of ancient time, 
 
 The sacred marbles of Athens, 
 
 The tombs of Theseus and Pericles. 
 
 Land of heroes and of slaves, 
 
 Shatter the chains of slavery, 
 
 Singing the fiery songs 
 
 Of Tyrtasus, Byron, and Rigas ! 
 
 Austria encouraged the reactionary interference of 
 the Russian Government in the domestic affairs of 
 Greece, being well aware that it would thereby suffer 
 the loss of Greek sympathies ; and Alexander's 
 opposition to the movement of liberation was due to 
 the counsels of Metternich. 
 
 France and England, on the other hand, declared 
 themselves in favour of the establishment of a consti- 
 tutional regime in Greece ; but they were guilty of 
 another mistake in supporting the candidature of Prince 
 Otto of Bavaria to the Greek throne, thereby permit- 
 ting German influence to get its first roots into the 
 Greek soil. 
 
 Half a century later another example occurred of 
 the deviation impressed by internal reaction on the 
 external policy of the Empire : the Government 
 attempted to enforce the complete submission of 
 Bulgaria, whom the war of 1877-78 had rendered 
 independent, to its tutelage. It merely succeeded in 
 exciting an anti-Russian movement which carried 
 Stamhouloff into power, and allowed Germany and 
 Austria to implant their influence in the country. 
 
 We find the same blunder exemplified in the 
 present war. A considerable portion of the Russian 
 (Ruthenian) and Polish population of Buk'ovina and
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 10 
 
 Galicia, dissatisfied under the Austrian domination 
 gladly welcomed the Russians when they occupied the 
 two provinces. But the civil officials who followed 
 the armies immediately began their work of reaction 
 and oppression, irritating the indigenous population by 
 the persecutions of their police. 
 
 It is true that the Prussians too used to treat the 
 Poles abominably, and that the situation of the Slavs 
 in Austria and Hungary was extremely difficult ; but 
 Germans, Poles, Austrians, Czechs, Hungarians, 
 Ruthenians, and Serbs are divided among themselves, 
 politically and ethnically, while Russia, being akin to 
 the Slavs, might have been a true friend and protector, 
 had it not been for her bureaucrats. 
 
 It is now clear that the Slav problem is, for Russia, 
 bound up with the problem of her own progress, her 
 own Europeanization. Although fifty years ago Russia, 
 albeit herself but half-civilized and despotically 
 governed, drew to herself the Slavs of the Balkans, 
 then subjected to the terrible yoke of the Sultans 
 and leading an almost barbarous existence, to-day her 
 proteges have become independent, and have entered 
 upon a process of rapid civilization and European- 
 ization ; they have even, in some respects, outstripped 
 their sometime liberator, Russia. They possess highly 
 democratic Constitutions, Parliaments, an intense 
 political life, while in Russia the constitutional regime 
 is hardly born, and many vestiges of the old regime 
 remain. Consequently, the gaze of her sometime clients 
 is turning toward Western Europe, not to her. Austria 
 and Germany have contrived to profit by this change. 
 As for the Russian bureaucracy, it does not yet under- 
 stand. 
 
 In my Russia and the Great War I cited the opinion 
 of Baron Rosen, member of the Imperial Council, who 
 states that Russian influence has declined among the 
 Balkan Slavs, and that "the great Slav idea' is, for 
 Russia, " devoid of all real foundation." 
 
 " All undertakings inspired by this idea— as, for
 
 108 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 example, the Slav Bank, the exhibition of Russian 
 products, the Russian libraries in Slav countries, etc. — 
 either remain in the condition of mere projects, or 
 drag themselves through a miserable existence. . . . 
 In the domain of material civilization Russia has no 
 need of the Slav world, or the Slav world of Russia. 
 In the Slav States of the Balkans our industry, which 
 has at its disposal a vast home market defended by 
 extremely high protective tariffs, could only at a loss 
 compete with the Austro-German industries ; as for 
 the Slavs of the South, their commercial relations with 
 the Austro -Hungarian monarchy, their neighbour, will 
 always be more advantageous than their relations with 
 distant Russia. From the intellectual standpoint the 
 Slavs of the Balkans (and still more those of Austria), 
 despite a somewhat factitious Germanophobia, evidently 
 prefer — and this is very natural — to tap directly and 
 at first hand the Western sources, and principally those 
 of Germany." 
 
 Baron Rosen regards this situation as the normal 
 one. He does not seem to see that a " Europeanized " 
 Russia could group around her her brothers by race, 
 forming a veritable federation of Russo-Slavic civiliza- 
 tions. This simple idea does not occur to him, and 
 he advises his Government to abandon the Balkans 
 to Austro-German Imperialism, and, having bid the 
 West adieu, to turn again toward Asia. 
 
 " By abandoning to Germany supremacy in the 
 Western portion of Europe, and by dissociating herself 
 completely from all rivalries between European powers 
 based on interests purely European, Russia would assure 
 herself of the security of her Western frontier, and would 
 have her hands free for the accomplishment of her 
 mission in Asia." 
 
 For M. Rosen believes and proclaims that Russia 
 is "more especially an Asiatic Power."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 I. The war with Europeanized Japan — The Asiatic question. II. The 
 German barrier isolating Russia from Europe — The Baltic Sea 
 and the Straits — The great European conflict, and its general 
 import from a Russian point of view. 
 
 I 
 
 The theory advanced by Baron Rosen, that is, that 
 Russia should seek her objective in Asia, was by the 
 end of the nineteenth century supported by other repre- 
 sentatives of the ancien regime. It also had the support 
 of the German Government, which was anxious to urge 
 Russia to enter upon adventures in the Far East, in order 
 that Germany and Austria might thereby enjoy full 
 liberty of manoeuvre in Europe, the Balkans, and Asia 
 Minor. It is undeniable that Russia's advance towards 
 the frontier of Korea and Port Arthur was encouraged 
 by German diplomacy. 
 
 But, curiously enough, in the Far East Russia en- 
 countered Europe ! Not only because Europe, in the 
 shape of the gold of old England, stood behind Japan, 
 but also because Russia came into conflict with the 
 civilization of Europe, which, since the revolution of 
 1868, had entirely transformed the economic and 
 political life of Japan, and had given birth to new forms 
 of capitalist production, new industrial methods, and 
 novel means of warfare. 
 
 It should be remarked that the revolution in Japan, 
 
 and the beginning of the Europeanization of the 
 
 country, coincided with the " period of great reforms " in 
 
 Russia. But Japan had more sense of progress. Having 
 
 undertaken to modernize the country, the Japanese 
 
 10
 
 110 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 applied themselves to the task without intermission, 
 with the assistance of all the energies of the nation, 
 which were left free to develop themselves and to mani- 
 fest themselves in Parliament, the Press, the schools, 
 the industries of the country, etc. The Russian Govern- 
 ment, on the other hand, after some concessions granted 
 to the people in the time of Alexander II, halted 
 midway, and then began to draw back, and to restore 
 the ancien regime in all its most lamentable forms. 
 The energies of Japan, exploited according to European 
 conceptions, became relatively greater, or rather more 
 deeply rooted and readier for action, than the still un- 
 formed and sluggish energies of the vast Russian 
 Empire. And Russia was beaten by her puny adver- 
 sary, and with unexpected ease. In reality it was 
 once again the West which triumphed over Russia in 
 1905. 
 
 I shall not speak here, having done so elsewhere, 
 of the results of this unhappy war with Japan as regards 
 the internal life of Russia. I will merely observe 
 that then was finally determined the general position of 
 Russia between the East and the West, between Europe 
 and Asia. The reader will have heard the famous 
 query 1 : "Is Russia the most Western of all the Asiatic 
 States or the most Eastern of all the European States? " 
 The Manchurian War gave the best possible answer 
 to this question by suppressing it. The war demon- 
 strated, in effect, firstly, that the terms Eastern, Western, 
 Europe, and Asia are merely relative and retrospective, 
 the remotest of the States of the Far East having 
 become European, and having entered the Concert of 
 the European Powers. On the other hand, it imposed, 
 on Russia's action in Asia, the same law which con- 
 ditioned her action in Europe. Forced to become 
 European if she did not wish to remain in the rear 
 of her brothers by race, Russia was also obliged to 
 become European in order to maintain her rank among 
 the Asiatic States which were becoming modernized — 
 such as China and Persia.
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 111 
 
 II 
 
 iThis process of evolution is all the more necessary 
 to Russia in that the unhappy result of her adventure 
 in the Far East has thrown her back upon Europe. 
 But Germany, during the war, seized the opportunity 
 of carrying out her Pangermanist schemes in Western 
 Europe, Turkey, and Asia Minor. These schemes, 
 dangerous to all European States, were especially a 
 danger to Russia, for they threatened the very basis of 
 her future development. She had laid hands, or was 
 preparing to lay hands, on the Baltic Sea, the 
 Dardanelles, and the Bosphorus. 
 
 The construction of a powerful Navy and the cutting 
 of the Kiel Canal had made Germany the absolute 
 mistress of the Baltic Sea, from which the naval forces 
 of Russia had disappeared in 1905. Thus the work of 
 Peter the Great, a maritime highway communicating 
 with Europe, was, if not destroyed, at least entirely at 
 the mercy of the German Empire, which could at any 
 moment close it with its submarines and ironclads. 
 
 To measure only the economic significance of the 
 mastery obtained by Germany, it is enough to reflect 
 that about 30 per cent, of all Russia's exports 
 (£49,080,000 out of a total of £162,160,000 in 19 13) 
 travels by the Baltic Sea. As for the political and 
 intellectual value of Russia's connection with Europe 
 by way of the Baltic, it is incalculable. 
 
 But the Dardanelles route is no less necessary to 
 Russia ; it is perhaps even more necessary. From the 
 ports of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov a third part 
 of the total exportation of Russia leaves the country ; 
 in 191 3 its value was £51,440,000. Cereals in 
 particular go by way of the Dardanelles; in 191 3, 
 of 10,670,000 tons exported, 7,900,000 tons, or more 
 than 80 per cent., went by this route, which is that 
 followed more particularly by the grain destined for 
 Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Holland, and Eng- 
 land. Of the corn imported in 191 3 by the following
 
 112 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 countries, the amounts furnished by Russia were : 
 881,000 tons to Italy, the total imports being 1,8 1 1,000 
 tons; to Holland, 1,715,000 tons out of 3,883,000; 
 while 40 per cent, of the corn consumed by Switzerland 
 was of Russian origin. 1 The Dardanelles route is thus 
 of prime importance to Russia and to the countries of 
 Europe. It is also of prime importance to the industrial 
 future of Russia, for it forms the outlet by which she 
 exports the products of the mining regions, coal-fields, 
 and petroleum-fields of the South, and imports an ever- 
 increasing quantity of European merchandise. 
 
 The Dardanelles, while in the exclusive possession 
 of Turkey, were open to Russia, Turkey by herself 
 not being strong enough to dare to close them. But of 
 late years German Imperialism has installed itself in 
 Constantinople, there to commence the execution of 
 its gigantic scheme of the Bagdad Railway. Again, 
 but this time on the South, a Germanic barrier was to 
 divide Russia from the West, while the German Army 
 and Navy hemmed her in on the West. 
 
 That one of the aims of Germany in installing her- 
 self on the Bosphorus was to separate Russia from 
 Europe has long been admitted by the Pangermanists 
 themselves. 
 
 " Turkey opposes an obstacle to the penetration of 
 the Mediterranean by the mighty Eurasian nation — 
 Russia," wrote Colonel Rogalla von Bieberstein in a 
 military review (1902). "This obstacle resides rather 
 in the fortified works on the Bosphorus and the 
 Dardanelles than in the international treaties concerning 
 these straits. Germany also is greatly interested in the 
 maintenance of this barrier. It is greatly to the interest 
 of Germany that this barrier should be maintained, 
 and that Russia should not penetrate the Mediter- 
 ranean." 2 
 
 * I cite these figures from L Europe] devant Constantinople, by Max 
 Hoschiller (Paris, 1916), p. 101. 
 
 2 Cited from M. Andre Cheradame's work on La Question d'Orienl. 
 La Macidoine. Le chemin defer de Bagdad (Paris, 1903), p. 253.
 
 RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 113 
 
 German Imperialism had two reasons for wishing 
 to keep Russia apart from Europe. 
 
 The first reason is expounded as follows by a German 
 military writer, Colonel Hildebrandt : — 
 
 " The advantages acquired by Germany by the con- 
 clusion of the treaty relating to the Bagdad Railway 
 seriously diminish the influence of Russia in Asia Minor ; 
 and the activities of Russia are once more turning 
 toward Central Asia, which is, for that matter, her true 
 sphere." r 
 
 Russia thrown back upon Central Asia, the German 
 domination would spread without hindrance through the 
 Balkans, Turkey, and Asia Minor. 
 
 Finally, separated from Europe, Russia would inevit- 
 ably have become a German colony, an object of 
 exploitation for the subjects of the Kaiser. 
 
 This colossal and permanent blockade would have 
 arrested the economic development of Russia, award- 
 ing the final supremacy to the Germanophile reaction 
 in the Russian Government. 
 
 It is therefore the fact that in its present resistance 
 to German Imperialism the Russian people is fighting, 
 not merely for the defence of its territory, but for its 
 whole future, for liberty of communion in the life of 
 the West. 
 
 Happily it has, for its companions in arms, the most 
 advanced of the Western Powers. France, Belgium, 
 England, Italy, and Serbia (which is the most civi- 
 lized of the Slav countries of the Balkans), form, with 
 Russia, a single resistant mass to oppose the scheme 
 of subjection attempted by Germany and her allies, 
 Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria. 
 
 I will not repeat here what I said in my book on 
 Russia and the Great War concerning the effect of 
 the present war upon Russian life. I will only call 
 the reader's attention to those facts which best exhibit 
 this effect. 
 
 The present war with Germany presents this analogy 
 
 1 Cheiadame, op. cit. p. 255. 
 8
 
 114 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 with the war of 1812 — it has a national character. All 
 the democrats in Russia recognize in this war the cause 
 of liberty, external and internal. On the other hand, 
 for the reactionaries, the ante-bellum Germanophiles, 
 to fight against the junkers is the worst of calamities. 
 For a long time they had maintained close connections 
 with their political co-religionists in Prussia, and were 
 visibly full of complaisance toward them. Kaiserism 
 contrived to profit by this weakness of the Russian 
 bureaucracy and autocracy, which became its instru- 
 ments ; the German advance upon Bagdad, the Austrian 
 penetration of the Balkans, the annexation of Bosnia- 
 Herzegovina, were regarded with complete favour by 
 the friendly reactionaries of Russia, who subordinated 
 the international interests of the Empire to their own 
 domestic interests. They regret the rupture with 
 Kaiserism, which is one of the principal props of 
 the present monarchical regime, and the union of 
 their country with republican France and the consti- 
 tutional States of Great Britain, Italy, and Belgium. 
 The champions of progress are of a precisely opposite 
 opinion, seeing in the present fraternity of Russia and 
 the Western nations a force tending to democratize and 
 Europeanize their country. This is why they believe 
 that their country will achieve its own liberty when it 
 reaches the end of the road leading to victory over 
 the external oppressor.
 
 PART THE THIRD 
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE 
 
 STATE

 
 CHAPTER 1 
 
 I. A European State in ancient Russia : the Free City of Novgorod. 
 II. The birth of the absolute monarchy and its conflict with 
 feudalism— Western influences in Russian feudalism. 
 
 I 
 
 The historians of the old national school love to 
 attribute an external cause to the vices of the super- 
 annuated political system which has survived in Russia. 
 For some, the Tartar yoke vitiated the normal develop- 
 ment of the nation. Others accuse the contagion of 
 the West of having corrupted the purity of Russian 
 morals and the patriarchal relations existing between 
 the people and its sovereigns. Both look to the remote 
 past for the " true " character and the " national " 
 political spirit cited so often and so readily in the 
 histories of the " urban republics " of Novgorod and 
 Pskov, which they claim to be of purely autochthonous 
 origin. 
 
 Impartial criticism has destroyed this legend, and 
 has proved that the republican institutions of the Free 
 Cities of Novgorod and Pskov owe their birth and 
 their development to a direct external influence — to their 
 economic relations with the Free Towns of Europe. 
 
 What was the political constitution of Novgorod? 
 The city was governed by a vetche, that is, by a body 
 composed of all the citizens. The vetche elected 
 tysiatskii' (from the word tyslatsha, meaning thousand) 
 and the posadnik, that is, the president of the republic. 
 The tysiatskie with the posadnik formed a council which 
 directed affairs. Mutatis mutandis, this is the same 
 urban oligarchy which we find in all the trading cities 
 
 117
 
 118 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 of the Middle Ages, on the shores of the Adriatic (in 
 Venice) and the Mediterranean (in Genoa), as on the 
 shores of the North Sea (in Flanders, Holland, and 
 Germany). 
 
 But Novgorod traded with the Free Towns of 
 Germany. As early as the twelfth century it possessed 
 " markets of Gothland and Germany," founded by 
 foreign merchants from Gothland and. Liibeck. In the 
 thirteenth century it entered into relations with the 
 Hanseatic League ; and it was precisely at this period 
 that the burghers freed themselves from the domination 
 of princes and set up elective authorities. The moment 
 when the foreign trade of Novgorod attained the highest 
 pitch of prosperity coincided with the moment when its 
 republican institutions were at their apogee. 
 
 The oligarchical form of the Government was 
 borrowed by the Russian cities from the foreign urban 
 republics with which they were connected by a current 
 of exchanges. 
 
 " The success of the foreign trade, which had become 
 the principal focus of urban life," says Klutshevsky, 
 " resulted in the creation of certain great houses, which 
 placed themselves at the head of affairs, and subse- 
 quently assumed the direction of the civil administration. 
 This aristocracy governed only de facto, and without 
 the establishment of the democratic forms of the Novgo- 
 rodian constitution." 
 
 II 
 
 This constitution was forcibly suppressed by the 
 Muscovite Tsars in the fifteenth century. Then com- 
 menced the autocratic Tsarist regime which has lasted 
 until to-day. 
 
 As I have already stated in my Modern Russia, the 
 Muscovite monarchy, in order to become a real auto- 
 cracy, had to stifle not only the republican institutions 
 of the burghers of the Free Cities of the North-West, 
 but also the feudal and separatist tendencies of other 
 princes, princelets, boyars, etc.
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 119 
 
 Recent historical researches have demonstrated that 
 there is an analogy between feudal Europe and the 
 Russia of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth 
 centuries. There are similarities even in the terms 
 expressing the relations of sovereignty and law between 
 the suzerains and vassals of mediaeval Europe and their 
 Russian colleagues. 
 
 One question presents itself : Do these resemblances 
 arise merely from a coincidence of evolution, or from 
 the more or less direct influence of the West? 
 
 It seems to me that this influence cannot be disputed. 
 Still, it cannot positively be observed except in the 
 western provinces, neighbouring on Lithuania and 
 Poland. Poland, as we know, retained, until the loss 
 of her independence, a very active and profoundly rooted 
 feudal system. The frontier regions of Great Russia 
 and the Ukraine were affected by their contact with 
 Poland and Polish Lithuania, and it was their local 
 nobility which opposed the most obstinate resistance 
 to the absolute power which came into being in Moscow. 
 To Lithuania and Poland fled those Muscovite boyars 
 who were in conflict with the princes and tsars ; for 
 instance, Andrei Kurbsky in the reign of Ivan the 
 Terrible. 
 
 The influence of the West was also very perceptible 
 in Galician Russia, where the relations between prince 
 and boyar, in the thirteenth and fourteenth century, 
 were precisely similar to the relations between the 
 European suzerains and their feudatories. The Galician 
 princes even made use of seals of Western pattern, and 
 the language of their ukases was Latin. At one moment 
 they endeavoured to make themselves princes of all 
 the Russias. If they had succeeded, events might have 
 followed quite a different course. But Asia intervened, 
 in the invasions of the nomads and the Tartar yoke, 
 which divided South-Western Russia from- North- 
 Eastern Russia, and forced it into other paths. 
 
 The Government of the Russian State retained the 
 imprint of the Tartar yoke. During a long period
 
 120 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 the Russian principalities remained under the Asiatic 
 domination, and the Prince of Moscow, although High 
 Prince of Russia, was the principal vassal of the Tartar 
 Khan, and was subject to his tutelage. It was very 
 natural that his Government should be modelled on 
 the despotism of Asia. Foreigners who visited Russia 
 in the sixteenth century — that is, at the time of the 
 formation of the Muscovite autocracy — were amazed by 
 what they saw, and wondered whether they were in 
 Europe or Asia. " The Russian State greatly resembles 
 the Turkish, which the Russians endeavour to imitate," 
 said the Englishman John Fletcher (who visited Moscow 
 in 1588) in his work On the Russian Commonwealth. 
 " Their Government is purely tyrannical ; all its actions 
 serve the profit and the advantage of the Tsar ex- 
 clusively, and this in the most open and most barbarous 
 fashion." » The power of the central authority, and 
 the foundation of the autocracy, were alike favoured 
 by the necessities of the struggle against external 
 enemies : firstly against the Asiatic hordes, and then 
 against Russia's Western neighbours. With the Asiatics 
 Russia was at war until the end of the sixteenth century, 
 and her triumph over the Tartars coincided with that 
 of the Tsars over the feudal system. The historian 
 Klutshevsky is right in asserting that the victory of 
 Russia over the Mongols was the victory of Europe 
 over Asia. But Georg Plekhanov states, with equal 
 reason, that ' Europe conquered the Asiatics only be- 
 cause she herself had become Asia." 2 M. Plekhanov 
 develops this idea in a few remarkable pages of his 
 
 1 I may remark in passing that the first edition of Fletcher's work, 
 published in England at the end of the sixteenth century, was burned 
 by order of the English Government, which was anxious to avoid 
 offending the Tsar by permitting the expression of certain disagree- 
 able truths. In Russia the first edition of this book was published 
 in 1848, in a historical review. The number in which it appeared 
 was burned, and the editor had anything but an agreeable time, what 
 with the censorship, the police, and the gendarmerie. 
 
 3 G. Plekhanov, History of the Social Idea in Russia, vol. i. p. 98 
 (Moscow, 1914).
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 121 
 
 masterly History of the Social Idea in Russia, the 
 tv/o volumes of which have lately appeared. In 
 the formation of the State in Russia and in Europe 
 M. Plekhanov perceives these essential differences : — 
 
 " In Russia, as well as in Europe, the central authority 
 was able to overcome the centrifugal aspirations of 
 the feudal seigneurs. But in France, for example, 
 the kings, while imposing their authority on the nobility, 
 did not deprive the latter of the right of possessing 
 landed property, and did not subject them to obligatory 
 service. Or, as M. d'Avenel remarks, 'privilege was 
 not the recompense for service rendered, but the right 
 of birth.' In Russia it was quite otherwise. There 
 property in land became a State fund, into which the 
 Tsars dipped when they wished to repay the services 
 of a noble. And what the nobles did for the peasants, 
 in putting lands at their disposal in exchange for com- 
 pulsory labour, the Tsars did for the nobles, who were 
 thus, in a manner of speaking, merely superior serfs." 
 This condition of affairs was typical of ancient Chaldea, 
 ancient Egypt, and Persia, and in general of all the 
 great despotic States of Asia. M. Plekhanov is right 
 in comparing Muscovite Russia with these States, and 
 in perceiving the elements of Asiatic despotism in the 
 evolution of the Russia of this period. 
 
 But Russia did not remain in the stage of political 
 development which these States retained until their final 
 dissolution. " Russian evolution offers the peculiarity — 
 and this time it is in favour of progress — of a great 
 resemblance to Asia followed by a very slow but irre- 
 sistible turning toward the European West, while the 
 Asiatic States, properly so called, do not present us 
 with examples of the tendency toward Europeaniza- 
 tion until after the middle of the nineteenth century, 
 Japan lpeing the foremost." l 
 
 1 G. Plekhanov, op. cit.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 I. Military power and the reform of the State administration under 
 Peter I — Swedish influences. II. The palace revolutions of the 
 eighteenth century and the influence of Europe. III. German 
 domination, and the anti-Germanic movement under Anna — The 
 participation of France and England in the coup d'etat of 1741 — 
 A Duke of Holstein the Russian Tsar — His Prussophilia. IV. The 
 conspiracy of 1801 and British diplomacy. 
 
 At one particular and very important point the forma- 
 tion of the Russian State was unlike that of the 
 European States. This point was the organization of 
 the military forces. 
 
 In the Western monarchies, thanks to the rapid 
 increase of pecuniary wealth, the kings — for example, 
 in France — were enabled to take into their service 
 mercenary troops, and, consequently, were no longer 
 dependent on the seigneurial militia. The replacement 
 of the militia by paid troops forced the kings to depend 
 on the Third Estate, the source whence they derived 
 the necessary money. 
 
 In Russia, on the other hand, the urban bourgeoisie, 
 even in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was 
 too weak to be of material help to the Tsars, and the 
 military needs were too great to be filled by mercenary 
 troops. The military organism had to be constituted 
 otherwise than in Europe. 
 
 Until the year 1705 the Russian Army consisted 
 of a seigneurial cavalry — that is, a mounted militia, a 
 few regiments of paid infantry and cavalry. The war 
 
 with Sweden forced Peter's Government to draw with- 
 
 122
 
 THE EUROPE ANIZATION OF THE STATE 123 
 
 out delay upon other sources. It adopted the principle 
 of compulsory recruiting, which was applied, for the 
 first time, in 1705, when the Government ordered the 
 population to provide it with recruits at the rate of 
 one recruit for every twenty peasant dvors. 1 
 
 Towards the end of the reign of Peter I the Russian 
 Army already numbered 200,000 men of the regular 
 troops and 100,000 Cossacks and other irregulars. The 
 upkeep of these numerous effectives was costly — 
 5,000,000 roubles, to which must be added i£ million 
 for the maintenance of the fleet, so that the total 
 military expenditure on land and sea forces amounted 
 to 6j millions, which would be equivalent, in present 
 values, to from 52 to 58 millions. 
 
 The suppression of the militia and the creation of 
 a standing army demanded a new administration ; the 
 old administration consisted of a few very rudimentary 
 central bodies known as prikazy, which were directed 
 by boyars who had received from the Tsar a prikaz 
 — that is to say, an order of attendance. The local 
 administration was confided to the voievody (from the 
 words voin, soldier, and vodit, to lead), whose name 
 indicates their origin and their function ; they were 
 civil and military administrators in one. The voievody 
 received no fixed salary from the State, and had to 
 " maintain themselves (according to the official phrase) 
 at the expense of the population." 
 
 This system of administration, based on the prin- 
 ciple of the local militia, was not adapted to the new 
 organization, and Peter wished to replace it in order 
 to centralize the military machine, and above all its 
 revenues . 
 
 As Sweden, his enemy, appeared to him the most 
 powerful of States, and owed, or so he believed, her 
 strength, to her good administration, he sent thither 
 a foreigner (Tick) in order that he might discover, 
 buy, or at need steal, information as to the administra- 
 
 1 Dvor means a court or yard, and signifies a family or an economic 
 peasant unity.
 
 124 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 tive institutions of Sweden. Moreover, he took into 
 his service the Silesian Baron Luberas, of whom I 
 have already made mention, and who had the reputation 
 of a very extensive knowledge of Swedish affairs. 
 
 What is more, he was able to initiate himself directly 
 into Swedish methods by watching them at work in 
 the Baltic provinces, which he had conquered. One 
 of his ukazes ordered the adoption of these methods 
 in certain administrative services. 
 
 He borrowed also from other Western States. After 
 his first journey to Holland he created the ratashi and 
 bourmistry, in imitation of what he had seen there. In 
 i 7 14 he wrote to his "projector " — that is, the official 
 who elaborated his schemes of reform, Soltykov by 
 name — that he was to send him " the laws which he 
 had extracted from the English and other European 
 laws, those of the republics excepted." ' Among the 
 " laws " which Soltykov sent him was a proposal 
 relating to entail, the idea of which was borrowed 
 from England, and which was introduced into Russia 
 under the modified form of the inalienability and 
 indivisibility of seigneurial properties. 
 
 But as a source of inspiration the other States occu- 
 pied only a secondary place ; Sweden was the model 
 to be copied and faithfully reproduced. In the eyes 
 of the Russian Government she not only appeared 
 worthy of becoming an object of emulation on account 
 of the excellency of her military resources, but she 
 was also the only country in Europe in which the 
 absolute monarchy had finally defeated the feudal 
 system, which elsewhere was still perceptible. More- 
 over, the Swedish administration had the reputation 
 of being the best of its period. For this very reason 
 its adaptation to Russia was a highly audacious under- 
 taking — perhaps too audacious. 
 
 1 This dislike of republicanism was manifested by an earlier 
 monarch, Ivan the Terrible, who, despite all his symptoms of Anglo- 
 philia, interrupted commercial relations with England because "the 
 English, according to his own expression, had committed a very evil 
 deed : they had put their king, Charles, to death."
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 125 
 
 Peter I borrowed from Sweden all the external forms 
 of public authority, and created kollegii (colleges) to 
 replace the old prikazy ; and the Senate, which con- 
 sisted originally of the first presidents of the kollegii ; 
 the gubematory (governors) administering each one 
 of the eight gabernii into which Russia was divided, 
 and which were subdivided into provintsii (provinces) 
 and distrikiy (districts). 
 
 His ukases more than once indicate that " the in- 
 structions and regulations " according to which the 
 new administration was to function were to be drawn 
 up " in the Swedish fashion," or " with certain changes." 
 
 While he was replacing the old governmental machine, 
 Peter believed it necessary to replace the aristocratic 
 hierarchy by a bureaucratic hierarchy. In 1722 he 
 promulgated, in a ukase, the label o rangakh (table 
 of ranks) — that is, the scale of Ishin (or grades), civil 
 and military, in which nearly all the names of the 
 bureaucratic posts are borrowed from the Latin or 
 German (kollejsky assessor, major, etc.). 
 
 Believing that one "cannot act according to the 
 books alone, for in these all circumstances are not 
 foreseen," Peter did not confine himself to collecting 
 foreign laws and statutes. In Germany, Bohemia, and 
 Holland he recruited jurists, writers, and administrators. 
 Baron von Luberas alone engaged no less than 150 
 officials to enter the service of his Government. 
 
 Having created new administrative bodies, with new 
 denominations, having replaced the Russian names 
 by European names, Peter believed that he had 
 Europeanized the Muscovite State, whose capital, 
 baptized with a European name, he had removed, 
 geographically, towards the West. But he was deluded. 
 
 To his thinking, the Senate, constituted in 1 7.1 1, 
 should have seen to the general supervision and higher 
 direction of affairs of State ; but from 1 7 1 5 onwards 
 he was obliged to subject the Senate itself to the 
 supervision of a " General Reviser," whose duty it 
 was to attend the sessions of the Senate and to denounce
 
 126 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 to the Tsar those of its members who were neglecting 
 their duty. Five years later another official was 
 appointed to see that in the Senate "all should be 
 done properly, and that there should be no babbling, 
 shouting, or other things." He had to note, by the 
 aid of an hour-glass, if the deliberations were suffi- 
 ciently prompt, and to determine their duration. A 
 year later, as he was not sufficient for his task, he 
 was replaced by an officer of the Guard, who had 
 the right to arrest senators who made use of language 
 unseemly or insulting towards their colleagues. At the 
 end of yet another year the Senate was finally 
 subordinated to a General- prokuror (Procurator- 
 General), in whose hands it became, from being the 
 highest body in the State, a mere tool. 
 
 The history of the Senate and the other institutions 
 created under Peter is deplorable. The senators and 
 members of the colleges " played at law as at cards," 
 and " mined the fortress of justice " (this is Peter's 
 phrase), applying themselves continually to theft and 
 intrigue, and to quarrelling. Nearly all the high 
 officials disregarded the interests of the State, and 
 thought of nothing but their own. At one session of 
 the Senate, toward the end of his reign, Peter, when 
 the reports of their dishonesty were read to him, ordered 
 the immediate publication of a ukase according to which 
 any person who stole from the State even the price of 
 a rope should be hanged. His favourite, Yagujinsky, 
 General Procurator of the Senate, inquired : " Does 
 your Majesty wish to remain Emperor by himself, with- 
 out any subjects? We all steal ; only some steal 
 more and less discreetly than others." 
 
 The condition of the local administrations was no 
 better. The new gubernatory and landraty (from the 
 German landrath), in spite of their European names, 
 robbed the people and the Treasury as thoroughly as 
 did the Muscovite vo'ievody. The generals and other 
 officers, travelling through the provinces, beat and 
 plundered the civil officials. The population, im-
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 127 
 
 poverished by wars, taxation, and rapine, fled into the 
 steppes or forests, and there formed bands of brigands. 
 Peter issued ukase after ukase, threatening and 
 chastising, without effecting anything. " The Peters- 
 burg official, the general, the provincial seigneur, threw 
 the ukases of the terrible Reformer out of the window, 
 and, like the forest brigand, recked little that there 
 were in the capital an absolute Senate and nine or 
 ten ' colleges,' constituted in the Swedish manner, 
 with systematically defined attributions. The imposing 
 exterior of legal order hid a general disorder." ' 
 
 The attempt at Europeanization made in Peter's reign 
 failed, we must remember, because it coincided with 
 incessant warfare. Although war did enforce reforms, 
 it also gave them an accidental and provisional 
 character. The aim of the new institutions was fiscal 
 and military rather than social and political. Of the 
 nine colleges created in 1 7 1 8, six were to deal with 
 finances and military and foreign affairs, one with 
 justice, and two with trade and industry. There was 
 no department of the higher administration to watch 
 over the interests of agriculture, which nevertheless 
 was the principal occupation of the people. The 
 rural population, the real foundation of the State, was 
 absolutely neglected by the Government, which sought 
 rather to increase the power of the nobles over the 
 moujiks. 
 
 The condition of the Russian peasants, which had 
 never ceased to grow worse since the end of the six- 
 teenth century, became more and more like that of 
 the agricultural serfs of the despotic States of the 
 East. Peter the Great did not attempt to improve 
 it ; on the contrary. Any real Europeanization of 
 Russia was therefore impossible, and administrative 
 reform was condemned to sterility. 
 
 1 A foreign observer — Fokkerodt — wrote a book upon his sojourn 
 in Russia, in the reign of Peter the Great, in which he stated that 
 the Tsar despaired of reclaiming his officials, and therefore determined 
 to exterminate them by the axe and the gallows, so that wholesale 
 death sentences might be expected. However, Peter died first.
 
 128 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 II 
 
 The general disorder which harassed Peter I during 
 the last years of his life persisted and increased under 
 his immediate successors. 
 
 Peter the Great, for the first time since the reign 
 of Ivan the Terrible, realized the M ideal " of abso- 
 lute autocracy. In one of his laws he proclaimed 
 that " his Majesty was sovereign and autocratic. It 
 need reckon with no one in the world." He crushed 
 all the forces which might have opposed him ; old 
 boyar families were exterminated; the patriarchate 
 was replaced by an ecclesiastical Chancellery (Holy 
 Synod), subordinated to a civil official. The enforce- 
 ment of the "table of ranks " was intended to signify 
 that precedence depended not on birth, but exclu- 
 sively on the grade in the bureaucracy occupied by 
 the will of the Tsar or his mandatories. The trans- 
 formation of the Tsarstvo or Tsardom into an Empire 
 and the Tsar into an Emperor rendered the rupture 
 with the ancien regime still more evident. The Emperor 
 concentred in his person, fully and conjointly, the 
 powers of the State ; he became the supreme head 
 of the army, the head of the Church, the head of 
 the bureaucratic hierarchy. 
 
 In 1 613 the first Romanov was etected to the throne 
 by the representatives of the population. After this 
 the crown was transmitted by inheritance. Peter I, 
 rejecting the two principles of election and heredity, 
 published in 1721 a ukase asserting the Emperor's 
 right to appoint his successor. The monarchical 
 power became not merely absolute, but arbitrary and 
 personal . 
 
 It must, however, be admitted that Peter I did not 
 employ his power exclusively for his own advantage, 
 but for the good of the State. We may say that he 
 often applied means and methods which were those 
 of Asiatic despotism to European and progressive ends. 
 His successors retained these methods, but to attain
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 129 
 
 different ends ; and they confounded their own affairs 
 completely with those of the collectivity. 
 
 An absolute monarch, in reality, is absolute only in 
 name, because he always is dependent on his entourage, 
 his favourites, or his guards. This truth is fully con- 
 firmed by the history of the Russian monarchy in the 
 eighteenth century. Directly the principle of auto- 
 cracy was officially proclaimed, the throne fell into the 
 hands of those who surrounded it. 
 
 On the night of the 28th of January, 1725, while 
 Peter the Great lay dying, the officers of the regiments 
 of the Guard proclaimed as Empress his wife, 
 Catherine I, thus ruining the plans of the high officials, 
 who themselves wished to find Peter's successor. But 
 the bureaucracy and the aristocracy took their revenge 
 by persuading Catherine to form a sort of oligarchical 
 Government, which went by the name of the Superior 
 Secret Council (in 1726). At the instigation of the 
 Council, Catherine left the succession to her grand- 
 son, Peter, who in 1727 became the Tsar Peter II. 
 Three years later, in 1730, the Superior Secret Council, 
 with the aid of the Guard, raised to the throne the niece 
 of Peter I, Anna Ivanovna, Duchess of Courland, who, 
 before she died, chose for her heir Ivan Antonovitch 
 (aged two months), to be known as Tsar Ivan VI in 
 1740. Anna Ivanovna entrusted her favourite, the 
 famous Biron, with the regency. But a fortnight after 
 the death of the Empress the mother of Ivan VI, 
 Anna Leopoldovna, Princess of Brunswick, with the 
 aid of the officers and men of the Preobrijensky regi- 
 ment, started a palace revolution, deported Biron, and 
 proclaimed herself Regent. A year later a company 
 of the same regiment effected a fresh coup d'etat, 
 replaced Anna Leopoldovna and Ivan VI by the 
 daughter oi Peter the Great— Yelisaveta Petrovna— 
 who reigned for twenty years, and in dying transferred 
 the power of the throne to her nephew, the Duke of 
 Holstein-Gottorp, Peter III. The reign of this prince 
 was very brief ; at the end of six months his wife 
 
 9
 
 130 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 Catherine, born a princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, deposed 
 him, with the assistance of the Guards, and assumed 
 the reins of power. She remained on the throne for 
 thirty-four years (from 1762 to 1796), leaving the 
 crown to Paul I, who was deposed and killed in 1801 
 by the officers of the Guard. 
 
 Europe was no stranger to all these events. Some- 
 times her inspiration may be very plainly distinguished 
 therein, and even her intervention ; of this there is 
 documentary proof. 
 
 In 1726 the French Ambassador in Petersburg, 
 Campredon, wrote to Versailles that the Russian aris- 
 tocracy wished to diminish the personal power of 
 Catherine I and to organize the Government in the 
 English manner. The same opinion was expressed in 
 1730 by the Secretary of the French Embassy, who 
 stated that in Moscow men were speaking, in the streets 
 and in private, of the British Constitution and the 
 rights of the English Parliament. During the crisis 
 of 1730 the nobles who elected Anna Ivanovna also 
 desired to limit the absolute power of the throne, and 
 were seeking in the West for the best system of govern- 
 ment. " The Constitutions of those countries glitter 
 in their eyes like jewels in a shop window, each more 
 beautiful than the next, and among them all they do 
 not know which to choose." The European Ambas- 
 sadors reported that there were, in 1730, partisans 
 among the nobles of the parliamentary monarchy as 
 in England, of the elective monarchy as in Poland, 
 and of the monarchy sharing its power with an aris- 
 tocratic oligarchy as in Sweden ; there were even 
 republicans. 
 
 The Swedish mode won the day, and the election of 
 Anna Ivanovna greatly resembled that of Ulrica 
 Eleanora, sister of Charles XII, Who became Queen 
 of Sweden in 17 19. The Superior Secret Council, 
 on investing Anna with the power, forced her to sign 
 the " points " which limited her authority and sub- 
 jected her enactments to the approval and ratifica-
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 131 
 
 tion of the Council. Just as in Sweden, the middle 
 and the lesser nobles protested against the usurpation 
 of the high aristocracy; and Anna Ivanovna, relying 
 on this resistance, tore up the kondltzii (conditions) 
 which had been imposed upon her. As for this 
 oligarchical Constitution, it was devised after the 
 Swedish model. 
 
 As to the material participation of foreigners in 
 the domestic affairs of Russia, politics, the palace 
 revolution of 1741 and the murder of Paul I in 1801 
 offer two extremely interesting examples of such 
 participation. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The military pronunciamento which solved the crisis 
 of 1 74 1 lent a certain greatness to a mere palace 
 revolution. It was an expression of the national and 
 patriotic revolt against alien interference in the 
 government of the country. 
 
 As I have already remarked, Peter I had estab- 
 lished connections with the German world. The con- 
 quest of the Baltic provinces added a numerous German 
 population to the Empire. In 1 73 1 — that is, only six 
 years after Peter's death — the Russian throne was occu- 
 pied by a Duchess of Courland, who was half a German. 
 Anna Ivanovna, coming to Petersburg, brought with 
 her to the capital her whole entourage, composed of 
 Courlanders and Livonians. 
 
 ' Distrusting the Russians, Anna placed herself under 
 the protection of a crowd of foreigners whom she had 
 imported from Mitau and various corners of Germany. 
 The Germans spread over Russia as sweepings escape 
 from a torn sack ; they installed themselves in a crowd 
 at the Imperial Court, encompassed the throne, and 
 slipped into all the lucrative administrative posts. All 
 this motley crew was composed of the kleotoury 
 .(creatures) of two powerful patrons : of a ' cur of a 
 Courlander ' who had but one talent — that of discover- 
 ing pedigree dogs (we are speaking of Biron), and
 
 132 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 of a ' cur of a Livonian,' the auxiliary and eventually 
 the rival of Biron — Count Loewenwold, oberstaltmeister, 
 liar, incurable gambler, and peculator. In a dissi- 
 pated Court which had no other occupation than the 
 sumptuous fetes organized by another Loewenwold, the 
 oberhofmarschall, even more maleficent than his brother, 
 the whole crew glutted themselves, gambling with the 
 money extracted from the people by means of the 
 bastinade. It was not without reason that the 
 maintenance of the Court cost, under Anna, five or 
 six times as much as under Peter I, although the 
 revenues of the State had not increased^ but had rather 
 diminished." 
 
 The German bureaucrats, according to the same 
 author — Klutshevsky — " took up their positions round 
 the throne like hungry cats round a bowl of milk, 
 and subjected the Empire to the most abominable 
 methods of oppression : executions, deportations, 
 torture, and persecution." "■ The Tartar invasion 
 repeated itself, only this time it came not from the 
 southern steppes, but from the Russian Capital." 
 
 This picture resembles those drawn in their reports 
 by the foreign Ambassadors of Anna's reign ; they, 
 too, recorded the intolerable insolence of the favourites 
 — German favourites and bureaucrats — and predicted 
 a revolution. 
 
 An anti-Germanic movement was forming among the 
 officers and soldiers of the Guard and the middle 
 and lesser nobility. Having assisted Anna to rid her- 
 self of an oligarchy recruited from the Russian aris- 
 tocracy, the nobility saw, with irritation and amaze- 
 ment, the results of its fidelity to the new Empress 
 turned to the advantage of a German oligarchy. The 
 idea of a coup d'etat very naturally entered their 
 minds, and the conspirators decided to place 
 Yelisaveta on the throne. By one of the ironies 
 of history, and perhaps its justice also, the daughter 
 of Peter I, who in his lifetime was regarded as a 
 " foreigner " and a " German," as an enemy of her
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 133 
 
 people, became the incarnation of national feeling in 
 revolt against the Germanic tyranny. 
 
 But, which is even more singular, the success of 
 this undertaking was assured by the support of 
 foreigners, French and Swedish. La Chetardie, the 
 French Ambassador, Lestocq, the French doctor, and 
 his Swedish colleague, Nolken, were the principal motive 
 forces of the plot against the birotiovshtshina (the 
 rule of Biron), assisting it with their counsel and with 
 pecuniary support. 
 
 It may seem surprising that Sweden should have 
 served the ambitions of the daughter of Peter the 
 Great, the enemy who had deprived her of the Baltic 
 littoral. The fact is that she hoped to obtain in recom- 
 pense for her assistance the restitution of a portion of 
 her former territories ; and Nolken even requested 
 Yelisaveta Pavlovna to engage herself, by secret treaty, 
 " always to defend the interests of Sweden." There 
 was then a rivalry between Sweden and England, the 
 ally of Austria, with whom neither Sweden nor France 
 was on good terms. Moreover, these two Powers feared 
 the economic and political domination in Europe of 
 England, and particularly in Russia. And the English 
 Government and English traders were buying favour 
 of Biron and other of the German " creatures." 
 
 However, the Germanic intrigue was not completely 
 defeated by the accession of Yelisaveta, who confined 
 herself to pensioning some of the most notorious of 
 the German bureaucrats. The mutiny of a regiment 
 of the Guard against its German officers was severely 
 repressed. It is true that in Yelisaveta's immediate 
 entourage and among her principal political advisers 
 there were no Germans, but in choosing as her successor 
 Charles Peter Ulric, Duke of Holstein, Yelisaveta was 
 not only .leaving the crown to a German, but was 
 Germanizing the dynasty : the Russian House of 
 Romanov was from that moment replaced by the House 
 of Romanov-Holstein-Gottorp, which was German rather 
 than Russian. Becoming Tsar under the name of Piotr
 
 134 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 Fedorovitch (Peter III), the Duke of Holstein "could 
 not enlarge his narrow Holsteiner mind to the measure 
 of the vast Empire which destiny had bestowed upon 
 him ; on the contrary, once on the Russian throne, he 
 became more the Holsteiner than he had been at home." 
 
 He sought in all things to imitate Frederick II, 
 King of Prussia ; but such a model was too mighty 
 for his petty faculties, so that he only succeeded in 
 caricaturing it. He bore himself like a Prussian 
 soldier, publicly kissing the bust of Frederick and 
 kneeling before his portrait ; he wore the Prussian 
 uniform, which he imposed on the Russian Army ; he 
 himself mounted guard before the apartments of 
 Frederick's Ambassador in token of his respect for 
 his master ; he made the Russian Army the guardian 
 of the glory and the benefits acquired by the King of 
 Prussia. He ordered the Holy Synod to " purify the 
 Russian churches " — that is, to remove the ikons (those 
 of Jesus and the Virgin excepted) — and to impose on the 
 popes the costume and external appearance of Lutheran 
 pastors ; and he recruited Prussian soldiers and 
 corporals in order to form a private Holsteiner Guard. 
 
 In this way he contrived to get himself dethroned, 
 and, a week later, killed, by officers of the Russian 
 Guard. 
 
 This was a fresh check to the German penetration 
 of Russia. But the " German party " was not 
 destroyed. It merely became more prudent, and was 
 thus able to increase and retain its privileges. In 
 the Imperial Court the names of the dignitaries even 
 in our days are German : as freiline (fraiilein), 
 Kcimmerfrau, Kammer junker, Kammerherr, stallmeister ; 
 hoftneister, etc. In the upper civil and military 
 bureaucracy the elements of German origin were, and 
 still are, very numerous. This state of affairs has 
 been summed up by an eminent contemporary, Emile 
 Vandervelde, in the following sentence : " Russia is 
 the greatest democracy in the world, ruled by a small 
 German colony."
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 135 
 
 IV 
 
 The coup d'etat of 1801, which deprived Paul I 
 of his throne and his life, was not the retaliation of 
 patriotism, as was the fall of his father, Peter III, or 
 the elevation to the throne of Yelisaveta. But foreign 
 influence played a very large part in it. 
 
 The Russian nobility, as we have seen, was extremely 
 dissatisfied with the economic policy followed by Paul I 
 in respect of England. s< The rupture with England, 
 which was injurious to the material interests of the 
 nobility, increased its hatred of Paul, which had already 
 been whetted by a cruel despotism. The thought of 
 annihilating Paul, by whatever means, became almost 
 general," writes a contemporary. 
 
 But the foreign policy of the Tsar was still more 
 odious to the English Government and to English trade. 
 This explains why England, in the person of the English 
 Ambassador, was involved in the plot against Paul. 
 
 '■' English diplomacy did all it could to overthrow 
 Paul. The English Ambassador in Petersburg, Whit- 
 worth, took an active part in the first conspiracy against 
 Paul (the plot was spun in the spring of 1800, that 
 is, about a year before the final catastrophe) . . . 
 whose very form was ' English ' : Paul was to have 
 been declared insane, as George III of England was 
 a little later ; and Alexander Pavlovitch would have 
 become Regent. The enterprise was so far decided 
 upon that Panine (in touch with Whitworth and the 
 leader of the conspiracy) was already inquiring of 
 foreign diplomatists as to the forms with which such 1 
 an action would be invested abroad ; this was neces- 
 sary, for England, a parliamentary State, could not 
 furnish Russia with any juridical precedent." 
 
 And the failure, or rather the miscarriage, of the 
 first conspiracy, according to the same historian, was 
 due to the fact that Whitworth had left Petersburg ; 
 but from abroad he still remained in touch with the 
 Russian nobility, Paul's enemies, and continued to aid
 
 136 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 in fostering the excitement which prepared the way 
 for the second conspiracy and the violent death of 
 the sovereign. 
 
 British diplomacy was not deceived in its calcula- 
 tions, for the overthrow of Paul resulted in the imme- 
 diate " reconciliation of Russia with England," as Prince 
 Adam Czartoryski remarks in his Memoirs. 
 
 Profitable to England, the death of Paul was by no 
 means disadvantageous to Russia, for he was one of 
 the worst tyrants known to history. 
 
 One might add that by contributing 1 , on this 
 occasion, to the deliverance of Russia, England made 
 up, to some extent, for the support which she had 
 formerly given Biron and his German acolytes, the 
 exploiters and oppressors of the Russian people. 
 
 Although the nobles who overthrew Paul I received 
 advice and perhaps material help from England, the 
 ideas which gave birth to their conspiracy and the 
 pleas in its favour were borrowed from France. Certain 
 memoirs of contemporary Russian nobles endeavour to 
 justify the murder of the tyrant by arguments taken 
 from the French revolutionary authors. They speak 
 of the just and holy hatred of tyranny in the expressive 
 language of the sans-cul.ott.es, ; so that a Russian Con- 
 servative, Count Rostopshin, jestingly remarked that 
 in Russia the aristocrats had aims which in France 
 were the speciality of cobblers. 
 
 But, as we shall see, this comparison is not exact.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 I. The renaissance of feudalism — Catherine II and the European 
 sources of her ideas. II. Attempts to Europeanize Russia under 
 Alexander I — Anglophilia — Central institutions — Speransky and 
 his French loans. III. The Decembrists — The European elements 
 in their ideology and their actions — The Spanish model — The 
 reaction of Austro-German origin — The Baltic nobles crush the 
 insurrection of the Decembrists. 
 
 We must not exaggerate the social amplitude or political 
 significance of those " revolutions " which from time 
 to time, during the eighteenth century, shook the Russian 
 throne. Despite all the violence which they displayed, 
 they were yet limited to a clash between the central 
 power and the nobility, and the great masses of the 
 people did not take part in them. 
 
 Despite their phraseology, often extremely demo- 
 cratic, the nobles were in reality contending merely for 
 their own class interests, which during this century 
 achieved an increasingly complete supremacy. In the 
 seventeenth century and the first quarter of the 
 eighteenth, service in the civil or military administra- 
 tion was obligatory for the nobility, and the law estab- 
 lished two categories of landed property as affecting 
 the nobility : the votschina and the pomiestie. The 
 first was a true hereditary estate, the second was merely 
 a benefice of which the Tsar remained the proprietor, 
 granting the usufruct to the nobles in payment for 
 services. In 1 73 1 the nobility obtained a ukase which 
 abolished the distinction between the two kinds of 
 property, and the pomiestit, with the peasants attached 
 
 137
 
 138 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 to the soil, belonged thenceforward unconditionally to 
 their holders. In 1753, under Yelisaveta, the State 
 undertook the material support of the nobility and 
 created the Nobles' Bank to grant them credit on 
 favourable terms. But these privileges did not satisfy 
 them, and they demanded the abolition of obligatory 
 service. Yelisaveta gave way, and in a manifesto, 
 published in 1762 by her successor, Peter III, and 
 known as " the Manifesto concerning the liberty of 
 the Nobility," exempted the nobility from service 
 in the civil administration and the army, so that what 
 had been a legal obligation was now only a moral 
 duty. From that time the dvorlanie (nobles) ceased to 
 be the serfs of the State. They became its masters, 
 for about this time they themselves had realized the 
 advantages attaching to the possession of administra- 
 tive posts of any importance. The " table of ranks " 
 remained legally in force, but in fact the bureaucratic 
 hierarchy began to correspond with the aristocratic 
 hierarchy, with its "genealogical books": as on the 
 one hand officials who had reached a certain grade 
 obtained a title of nobility, while on the other hand the 
 nobility reserved for itself the majority of the higher 
 posts, so that the " table of ranks " lost the character 
 which Peter the Great had wished it to preserve, and 
 little by little became, at least in respect of its higher 
 grades, a fresh means of reinforcing the power of the 
 nobility. 
 
 The seigneurs, absolute and irresponsible masters 
 of their serfs in their pomiesties, dealt with affairs of 
 State in the same spirit. The administration of the 
 Empire resembled that of a seigneurial domain. Public 
 interest was assimilated to private interest in that the 
 officials whose duty it was to watch over it subordi- 
 nated it to their personal aspirations and made use 
 of it to enrich themselves. All other classes — the 
 bourgeoisie, higher and lower, the peasantry, and the 
 clergy — were regarded as inferior to the nobility. 
 Russia had become a State of nobles.
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 139 
 
 II 
 
 In one of the chapters of the first Part of this book 
 I have demonstrated that the increasing power of the 
 nobility was opposed to the economic evolution of the 
 country, and also checked the development of capitalistic 
 industry. From the third quarter of the eighteenth 
 century an opposition between the economic tendencies 
 and the political forms of the State became increasingly 
 apparent. 
 
 Moreover, the peasants, exploited by the nobles, 
 began to grow impatient. As early as the reign of 
 Yelisaveta a series of disturbances broke out in the 
 midst of the rural population. 
 
 All these disorders on the one hand, and on the other 
 the invasion of European ideas, impelled the Govern- 
 ment of Catherine II to attempt certain reforms. 
 
 As to the foreign inspiration of Catherine's ideas, 
 modern historians have discovered that it was far more 
 extensive, although far more superficial, than was 
 formerly supposed. It has been proved that the most 
 important political work of this sovereign, that known 
 as the Nakaz, was merely a systematic plagiarism of 
 Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois. M. Pokrovsky states 
 that Catherine simply stole from Montesquieu. M. 
 Haumant, more chivalrous in his dealings with this 
 crowned head, expresses the same opinion with more 
 politeness. " Indeed," he says, " in the Nakaz it is 
 Montesquieu who, wielding the pen of Catherine, treats 
 of government, of justice, of the rights of the citizen — 
 excepting when, as occasionally, it is his disciple 
 Beccaria." 
 
 Catherine wrote her Nakaz (Instructions) so that 
 it might serve as instructions to the Commission which 
 was to elaborate the new code of laws ; a Commission 
 invoked by her in 1767, again under the impulse of 
 Western Liberalism. This body was composed of 
 delegates of the various classes of society, the clergy 
 and the peasantry excepted. This exclusion of the
 
 140 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 peasantry shows that the Government's views were not 
 sufficiently broad to assure all citizens of the possibility 
 of making audible their complaints and their desires,. 
 
 The labours of the Commission, whose members, 
 coming from various regions of Russia, presented the 
 nakazy of their electors, brought to light, in the first 
 place, a conflict between the nobility and the bourgeoisie 
 of the cities, the latter being prejudiced by the privi- 
 leges of the former, and, secondly, the fact that the 
 nobles themselves were not satisfied with the situation, 
 but desired to extend their rights by limiting the power 
 of the monarch. Severe criticism was expressed by 
 the members of the Commission, and Catherine replied 
 by dissolving the assembly. Thus died, before it had 
 really entered upon life, this feeble imitation of the 
 States General of France. 
 
 This brief incident shows how far Russia then differed 
 from France. The convocation of the States General 
 in France led to the revolutionary movement and the 
 end of the monarchy ; the rapid dissolution of the 
 Commission of 1767, on the other hand, proves that in 
 Russia the monarchical power won the day against 
 the forces which might have become hostile to it. In 
 France the Third Estate, having become economically 
 stronger than the noblesse, was in a position to seize 
 upon the political reins also ; whereas in Russia the 
 noblesse, economically and politically, kept the upper 
 hand. The last States General convoked in France 
 resulted in a clash between the Third Estate and the 
 nobility, which was supported by the power of royalty ; 
 the Russian Commission of 1767 betrayed only the 
 most superficial disagreement between the nobility and 
 absolutism. 
 
 The dissolution of the Commission irritated the 
 nobles ; but a social and political danger made its 
 appearance, which suddenly reconciled them with the 
 central power : the insurrection directed against them 
 both by the Cossacks and the peasants, led by Yemelian 
 Pugatshev, during the years 177,3-7$.
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 141 
 
 Pugatshev's rising had nothing anti-monarchical 
 about it ; indeed, its leader, in order to gain the 
 sympathies of the population, assumed the title of the 
 Tsar Peter III (who had been deposed and put to 
 death by Catherine IPs supporters). The Cossacks 
 and peasants led by him rose against the Empress in 
 the name of the " lawful Tsar " ; another dissimilarity 
 to the beginnings of the French Revolution, in which 
 the republican tendencies were so evident. 
 
 But the Pugatshevshtstiina had well-defined social 
 aims : it was directed against the nobles, of whom 
 more than fourteen hundred (according to the official 
 figures) were hanged by Pugatshev and his partisans. 
 
 Catherine had reasons for fearing this revolt. She 
 herself had aggravated the economical and legal con- 
 ditions of the peasants ; by one of her ukases she 
 forbade serfs to lodge complaints against their masters 
 in the courts or with the Government. This inhuman 
 measure dated from 1767 — that is, the very year in 
 which the Empress convoked the famous Commission 
 which was to elaborate the new code, and copied, ^n 
 her manuscript books, the liberal propositions of the 
 French Encyclopaedists. Three delegates sent to 
 Petersburg, despite the prohibition, by serfs employed 
 in provincial industries, in order to lodge complaints 
 against those who were exploiting them and torturing 
 them, were cruelly punished, each receiving a hundred 
 blows of the knout, after which their noses were burned 
 with hot irons and they were deported to Siberia for life. 
 
 While discussing lofty problems of justice and liberty 
 with the French philosophers, Catherine extended serf- 
 dom, introducing it in regions in which it had never 
 yet existed (in the Ukraine). She distributed lands 
 with the peasants dwelling thereon to many of her 
 favourites. She was thus personally interested in the 
 regime against which Pugatshev had taken up arms. 
 The Pugatshevshtshina reconciled her with that portion 
 of the nobility which the fate of the Commission inclined 
 to rebellion. In face of the danger threatening them,
 
 142 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 peasants, nobles, and the autocracy were united. The 
 phraseology of the " cobblers " was quickly rejected 
 by the alarmed nobles. 
 
 Later on it was the French Revolution which gave 
 the masters of Russia another lesson of the same kind. 
 The schemes of liberal reform were finally forgotten by 
 Catherine, and the country, at the end of her reign, 
 retained the same seigneurial regime as before her 
 time. It is true that Catherine II wished to make 
 certain concessions to the middle-class citizen, and she 
 published, in 1785, the " Charter granted to the Cities," 
 which enabled them to elect municipal councils or dutmy. 
 But these dumy had no real power and no real rights ; 
 they were empowered and intended merely to super- 
 vise the incidence and collection of the taxes, whose 
 tariff was determined not by them, but by the Govern- 
 ment. The sovereign authority, on the other hand, 
 became still more powerful. The number of the 
 governors increased, and their powers were extended, 
 under Catherine II, who created new gubernii, and 
 then a mass of administrative and judicial machinery 
 in each guberniya ; the gubernskoye pravlenle for 
 general administration, the kazennaya palata (fiscal 
 chamber), and the kaznatsheistvo (treasury), and certain 
 general and special tribunals. This system brought 
 a certain external order into the working of the 
 machinery of oppression, and it subsisted into the 
 middle of the nineteenth century, until the " Period 
 of the Great Reforms," under Alexander II. But at 
 bottom it was half-bureaucratic, half -feudal. The 
 governors, officially termed " masters of the guber- 
 niya" justified their title by exercising an absolute 
 power, and the memory of the " satraps of Catherine ' 
 is even yet not extinct. These officials were selected 
 from among the noble seigneurs. 
 
 The nobility also obtained a " charter ' from 
 Catherine ; it bore no resemblance whatever to the 
 charter of the cities, but completed the emancipation 
 of the nobility, which was commenced by the mani-
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 143 
 
 festo of 1762. Finally liberated from all responsi- 
 bility toward the State, it was endowed with a 
 corporative Constitution, with the faculty of forming, 
 in each guberniya, a privileged body, and the right 
 of representation in all the various administrative 
 bodies. It therefore shared with the Crown in the 
 direction of affairs. 
 
 Such were the reforms of Catherine, the pupil of 
 Voltaire, Diderot, and Montesquieu. Such was the 
 orientation of the life of the Russian Empire at the 
 precise moment when the noblesse of France was on 
 the eve of losing ail its privileges and the French 
 people was changing the monarchy for a Republic. 
 
 II 
 
 A few changes of form Were thus introduced in the 
 local administrations, but Catherine left intact the entire 
 central organism of the Empire and its entire social 
 basis. Yet she herself perfectly well understood that 
 it was precisely here that the real Europeanization of 
 the Government must commence. 
 
 The principal peculiarity of the modern European 
 State, which distinguishes it from the feudal State- 
 domain, in which the private interest of the master 
 replaces the public interest, and of the Asiatic .despotism, 
 in which the personal will of the sovereign is above 
 all laws, consists precisely in the fact that its legisla- 
 tion is not subject to the arbitrary will of an absolute 
 monarch. This principle was still unknown to the 
 Russian Empire at the end of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Catherine II wished to remedy this grave defect. 
 She devotes a page of her Nakaz to proving the neces- 
 sity of establishing a juridical distinction between a 
 law, which is a stable disposition, and a ukase, which 
 it issued on account of a particular and ephemeral 
 need. In order that the laws should derive from another 
 source than the Governmental decrees, it was therefore 
 necessary to create legislative institutions. Catherine II 
 did nothing of the kind ; she maintained the omnipo-
 
 144 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 tence of the autocrat, the legislator, and the master of 
 the Government. In this respect, therefore, the Empire 
 was inferior to the Muscovite zemstvo of the sixteenth 
 and eighteenth centuries, which comprised a Boyars\ka'iya 
 (Council of Boyars) entrusted with the preparation 
 of new laws, and the Zemskie Sobory (territorial 
 assemblies), to which the representatives of the various 
 provinces were convoked from time to time in order 
 to discuss the principal problems of legislation. 
 
 Catherine's successor was completely hostile to all 
 ideas of national representation. 1 He preferred to 
 govern by means of ukases, issued at random, which 
 dealt with the most important affairs of State and the 
 pettiest questions of private life, conditioning even the 
 shape of hats or carriages. The permanent interven- 
 tion of the supreme power contributed greatly to 
 increase the hatred felt for it by its subjects. 
 Alexander I had to devote several months to issuing 
 a series of ukases annulling those of his predecessor. 
 
 Then Alexander I and his collaborators began to 
 elaborate schemes of reform. The necessity of re- 
 establishing the alliance with England having been one 
 of the principal causes of the fall of Paul I, his son, 
 at the beginning of his reign, displayed a certain degree 
 of Anglophilia, under the influence of his " young 
 friends," Novossiltsev and Kotshubey. There was some 
 question of creating a House of Lords and a respon- 
 sible Ministry, after the English pattern. The celebrated 
 English jurist, Jeremy Bentham, was asked f of his advice. 
 
 But in place of a House of Lords the year 1801 saXv; 
 the birth of a Permanent Council (Nepremenny Soviet), 
 appointed by the Emperor, whose mission was " to, 
 establish the power and the prosperity of the Empire 
 on the immovable foundation of the law." He also 
 
 1 The following fact proves the strength of this hostility : Paul I 
 undertook a journey in the east of Russia in the company of a member 
 of his suite, who showed him a wood, saying, " Your Majesty, these 
 are the first representatives of the forests of the Ural." Paul was 
 so offended by the phrase that he disgraced the person who had 
 employed it.
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 145 
 
 created responsible Ministries, but they were respon- 
 sible only to the Emperor. The Senate, in 1802, 
 obtained the right to make " representations " to the 
 Emperor respecting defective laws and ukases; but 
 when it ventured to make use of this privilege the 
 Emperor appeared to be so greatly displeased that it 
 did not repeat the experiment. The first years of 
 Alexander's reign did no more than introduce a few 
 superficial modifications of the bureaucratic machine. 
 
 In reality, a fancy for reform and the real aspirations 
 of the absolute power were irreconcilable. " Alexander 
 positively desired that the ministers should be respon- 
 sible. ' But if a minister refused to countersign a ukase 
 of your Majesty's,' some one objected, ' would that 
 ukase nevertheless be valid? ' ' Certainly,' he replied; 
 4 my ukase must in any case be executed.' That is how 
 he conceived responsibility." l 
 
 Ten years later Alexander was attacked by a fresh 
 access of the reforming fever, and entrusted Speransky 
 with the preparation of a scheme of complete renovation 
 as regards the central institutions of the State. An 
 admirer of Napoleonic France, Speransky borrowed 
 therefrom nearly all the essential elements of his struc- 
 ture. He admitted the principle of the separation of 
 powers, concentrated the executive in the hands of the 
 Council of Ministers, referred the judicial power to the 
 Senate and the legislative power to a State Duma 
 (Gosudarstvennaiya Duma), consisting of deputies 
 elected according to the principles of the French 
 Constitution of the year VIII. 
 
 This system was fairly favourable to the bourgeois 
 influences in social and economic life. A modern his- 
 torian even regards Speransky as " the interpreter of a 
 bourgeoisie enriched by the Continental Blockade, and 
 aspiring to overthrow the autocracy and the privileges 
 of the nobles by means of a Constitution." It is to be 
 
 ' A. Pypine, Member of the Imperial Acack-my of Petersburg, The 
 Social Movement in Russia under Alexander I, 3rd ed. (Petersburg, 
 1900), p. 118. 
 
 10
 
 146 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 remarked, by the way, that it was under Alexander I 
 that the bourgeoisie was finally permitted to buy landed 
 property, a privilege previously confined to the nobles. 
 
 But the " Third Estate " of Russia once more proved 
 too weak to despoil the nobility, and Speransky's plan 
 was executed only very imperfectly. 
 
 The State Duma projected by him, although con- 
 sultative and deprived of any right of initiative, seemed 
 too dangerous to the autocracy, and a Council of 
 State only was established (Gosudarstvennyi Soviet), 
 appointed by the Emperor. According to Speransky, 
 the legal decisions of this Council were to possess the 
 force of law only after the approbation of the Emperor, 
 while the Imperial ordinances, issued in the form of 
 ukases, could not be regarded as laws. But Alexander 
 never regarded himself as bound by the decisions of the 
 Council ; very often he approved of the recommenda- 
 tions not of the majority but the minority, and some- 
 times he would even take the part of a single member 
 against all the rest, annulling the entire work of the 
 Assembly by a stroke of the pen. 
 
 Toward the end of his reign the role of the Council 
 of State was reduced to the vanishing-point, and the 
 Council of Ministers possessed itself of the entire legis- 
 lative power, submitting directly to the Imperial appro- 
 bation measures which should have been passed by 
 the Council of State. 
 
 After 1 8 1 5 the spirit of reaction finally got the upper 
 hand, raising to power a brutal and unintelligent man, 
 the cruel Count Araktsheev. The official attempt to re- 
 organize and Europeanize the State was thus check- 
 mated. " Russian progress does not follow a straight 
 line, but zigzags," and " the fair commencement of the 
 days of Alexander " ended in a gloomy regression. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The power of the State continually failing to realize 
 any real amelioration of the political system, the 
 Liberals and progressives endeavoured to make up for
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 147 
 
 its deficiencies. The solution adopted by the Decem- 
 brists was more radical than that of the " young 
 friends " of Alexander and Speransky. Instead of a' 
 subtle distinction between a " law " and a " ukase," 
 between a legal measure voted by the Council of Empire 
 and a personal decree of the sovereign's, they intended 
 to evade even the possibility of a conflict between the 
 two authorities, and to confine legislation to one single 
 and constitutional source. 
 
 The Decembrists sought models in Europe ; their 
 projects for a constitutziya (constitution) were copied 
 from Western institutions. 
 
 The more modern were borrowed from England. 
 That of Nikita Muraviev consisted, according to the 
 testimony of his comrade Yakushkin, of "an abridged 
 reproduction of the British Constitution." Some his- 
 torians assert (and M. Emile Haumant repeats in his 
 Culture f ran false en Russle) that the partisans of Nikita 
 Muraviev had obtained the essential points of their 
 system from the laws of the United States. " The Con- 
 stitution of the United States furnished most of the 
 articles relating to the power of the prince." This is 
 an obvious error, for the United States knew nothing of 
 the " power of the prince," so could not afford any 
 precedent on this point. A contemporary says of 
 Muraviev's project: "Admitting the monarchical form 
 of government, it differed fundamentally from the 
 American Constitution in the aristocratic principle of its 
 franchise. . ... It granted the enjoyment of political 
 rights to a fairly considerable franchise as regards 
 eligibility, and a smaller, but still indispensable rating, 
 as regards the electorate." It was, therefore, not from 
 the American Constitution that the moderate Decem- 
 brists obtained the fundamental elements of their own 
 project, but only its details. For the general provisions of 
 the scheme it was always to England that they applied. 
 
 Nikita Muraviev even placed under contribution some 
 articles of the Spanish Constitution of 1812, this being 
 at the time the newest, although its origins went back
 
 148 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 to the French Constitution of 1791 and the Declaration 
 of Rights. 
 
 His comrades, more radical, having Pestel at their 
 head, were the immediate pupils of France. Pestel 
 followed Destutt de Tracy step by step ; to him he 
 owed all that was essential in his conceptions, ; a 
 strongly pronounced republicanism, an absolute rejec- 
 tion of hereditary monarchy, and governmental cen- 
 tralization. In France also he found an organization 
 of the powers of the State suited to his Russian 
 Republic: a Directory resembling that of the year 
 III, two legislative assemblies, like the Council of 
 Ancients and the Five Hundred, judicial institutions, etc. 
 The Decembrists were the disciples of Europe also 
 in the matter of the means by which they should attain 
 their ends. The political societies which they founded 
 reproduced the European models which those of their 
 party who had served in the last wars against France 
 had learned to know in the West. The statutes which 
 they drafted were an adaptation, sometimes an almost 
 literal translation, of those of the German J ugendbund . 
 Naturally, the Decembrist associations, being illegal and 
 revolutionary, had no other resemblance to the Jugend- 
 bund, which was legal and conservative, having been 
 formed " to support the throne of the sovereign of 
 Prussia and the House of Hohenzollern against the 
 immoral spirit of the period " — that is, the revolutionary 
 spirit. This is why the Decembrists, while borrowing 
 the phrasing of their statutes from the Jugendbund y 
 borrowed the spirit of their activity from Republican 
 France and her institutions. 
 
 They were particularly impressed by the Spanish 
 revolutionary movement, which was directed, like their 
 own, by officers. The leader of the military rising of 
 1820, General Riego, who was executed, was for them 
 a " holy martyr," and they distributed his portrait in 
 Petersburg in a spirit of propaganda. The history of 
 Spain filled some Russian Liberals with hatred of the 
 monarchy and attached them to the Republic. The
 
 THE EUROPE ANIZATION OF THE STATE 149 
 
 author of one of the projected Constitutions, Count 
 Dmitriev Momanov, wrote that the Spanish system was 
 a very wise one, but was not entirely suited to Russia, 
 since it retained the monarchical principle. " iWhat has 
 become of the members of the Cortes? " he asks indig- 
 nantly. " They were deported, tortured, condemned to 
 death— and by whom? By an animal for whom they 
 had preserved the crown." 
 
 M. Haumant reproaches the Decembrists with not 
 having reckoned sufficiently with the spirit of the public, 
 which was not ready for the transformations imagined 
 by them, and with having sought " to transplant France 
 into Russia." This reproach is not merited, for the 
 Decembrists made many concessions to the ideas and 
 conditions then prevailing, and even to the interests of 
 the nobles, to which class they belonged. Other modern 
 historians accuse the Decembrists of having been too 
 moderate in the social department of their programme. 
 
 What is certain is that the love of country animated 
 the Decembrists and guided all their aspirations. On 
 the other hand, the reactionary policy which they were 
 fighting so ardently was truly inimical to the nation, 
 hindering its development, and was only too often h> 
 spired by alien influences, as is very clearly demon- 
 strated by the Russian academician, A. Pypine, in his 
 excellent work on The Social Movement in Russia under 
 Alexander I . 
 
 " Shortly after the Congress of Vienna the peoples 
 emerged from their enchantment. Instead of free insti- 
 tutions the reaction created that ' policeman's State ' 
 which, says a German writer, ' knew nothing of citizens 
 dwelling in a fatherland, but merely ruled herds which 
 were brutish as domestic cattle.' This form of ' police- 
 man's State ' had long been established in Germany and 
 Austria. During the later years of Alexander's reign an 
 attempt was made to extend it to Russia ; the pro- 
 cedures and the language which this form of government 
 had invented were adopted, and were for a long time to 
 maintain themselves intact in our country. After the
 
 150 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 Congress of Vienna, Alexander was surrounded by the 
 inspirations and the secret counsels of the German reac- 
 tionaries. . . . Hatred of popular liberty reached an 
 especial development in Austria. In Vienna the aristo- 
 cratic reaction was hatching its schemes. Metternich 
 and his right hand, Geuz, invented a theory of reaction ; 
 and the house of the Russian Ambassador, A. Razou- 
 movsky, became, among others, an asylum for aristo- 
 crats from all parts of Europe. The higher circles of 
 Russian society, which prided itself on its political 
 influence, and liked to think itself a power in European 
 affairs, readily absorbed the ideas of the Austrian 
 feudalists and the French emigres. . ,. . Austrian 
 diplomacy, as early as 1813, was suspicious of the 
 democratic movement in Prussia. . ■. . The King of 
 Prussia readily assented to these suggestions, and even 
 went beyond them. . .. . tWe know, on the other hand, 
 what were the opinions of the French Emperor, who 
 could not suffer the word ' constitution,' even in the 
 medical sense. Such were the men to whom the 
 Emperor Alexander joined himself to form the Holy 
 Alliance. . .. . tWe will not enter into the detail's of 
 the ways in which the European reaction crept into 
 Alexander's mind ; it is enough to say that by 1820 
 he shared its views, and the last years of his reign 
 presented a strange imitation of the measures then 
 invented by the German ' policeman's State ' against 
 pretended conspiracies and an imaginary spirit of 
 revolution." « 
 
 The work of the external reaction was reinforced 
 internally by that of the aristocrats and the foreign 
 bureaucrats in general and the German bureaucrats in 
 particular. Even during the war of 181 2 certain 
 Russians were annoyed by the preponderating power 
 exerted by the aliens in Alexander's immediate 
 entourage, and by the German generals in particular, 
 certain of whom were thoroughly incapable, like the 
 famous General Pfuhl, of whom Tolstoi gives us so 
 
 1 A. Pypine, op. cit. pp. 431-33.
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 151 
 
 living a portrait in his War and Peace. This clearly 
 explains the ultra-nationalistic traits to be found in 
 the projected Constitutions of the Russian Liberals 
 and Radicals of Alexander's reign. Thus Dmitriev- 
 Mamonov held that the members of the House of 
 Lords which he considered necessary should be of the 
 Graeco-Russian faith, and none were to be elected to 
 the second chamber but Russians, members of the 
 Orthodox Church. The Order of the Knights of Russia, 
 the precursor of the Decembrist societies, aimed, among 
 other things, at " depriving foreigners of all influence 
 in affairs of State," and even at " deporting for good 
 and all, and even putting to death, foreigners occupying 
 posts in the State." One of the Decembrist leaders, A. 
 Muraviev, on founding the political society known as 
 the Union of Security, stated that it was destined to 
 " fight the Germans in the service of Russia." 
 
 Among those who took part in the insurrection of 
 December 14, 1825, we find very few bearers of 
 German names. Pestel, and Pushkin's friend, the poet 
 Kuchelbaecker, were sincere Russian patriots, though of 
 German birth. The very names of the Decembrist and 
 anti-Decembrist societies proclaim their nationalism ; the 
 Order of Russian Knights, the Society of United Slavs. 
 
 Among their adversaries, the aristocracy and the 
 reactionary bureaucrats, German names were of com- 
 mon occurrence ; and the Germans displayed a great 
 activity. The first disturbances in the Imperial Guard, 
 which occurred in 1820, were provoked by the hateful 
 brutality of the German colonel, Schwarz, commander 
 of the Semenovsky Regiment. The Decembrist insur- 
 rection itself was crushed by German hands . When the 
 insurgents assembled in the Place du Senat in order to 
 demand a Constitution, and began their armed attack 
 (which was not well prepared), the Russian generals 
 did not know what to do. But "the Baltic officers 
 decided to take the initiative, and it was on the advice 
 of Baron Tol that artillery fire was opened upon the 
 conspirators." Nicolas I desired, later on, to "draw a
 
 152 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 veil over the part played by the Germans in the repres- 
 sion of the rising," says M. Pokrovsky, but " when one 
 runs through the list of the champions of the ' rightful 
 cause ' against the revolt, one is struck by the abundance 
 of Baltic names : those of the Benkendorffs, Griinwalds, 
 Frederichs, and Kaulbars gleam from every page." In 
 fact, says M. Pokrovsky, the German noblesse of the 
 Baltic provinces " was the most strongly feudal of all 
 the nobles of the Empire." 
 
 " The most loyal of the Germans " was Prince 
 Eugene of Wurtemberg, general in the Russian Army ; 
 and it was he who assumed the command of the troops 
 hurled against the insurrection.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 I. The Tartaro- Prussian Empire under Nicolas I — The knout and 
 the shpitzruteny — The necessity of reforms. II. The " Period 
 of the Great Reforms " and its European sources — A fresh step 
 to the rear. 
 
 I 
 
 The revolution once suppressed, and the Decembrists 
 hanged or deported and legal order re-established, it 
 only remained for the Government of Nicolas I to main- 
 tain it. How disastrous were the measures taken with 
 this end in view we have already seen by the opinion 
 quoted on an earlier page, of General Kuropatkin, ex- 
 Minister of War. Under Nicolas I the despotic Asiatic 
 conceptions of government attained their greatest ex- 
 pansion, and the Russian Tsar became " the most 
 powerful sovereign in the world." In order to preserve 
 his power intact, the Government endeavoured to 
 separate Russia from the civilization of the West by 
 hermetically sealed partitions. The only "European" 
 model which it regarded as worthy of being followed 
 in Russia was the police and military system of Prussia. 
 To combine the slavery of the East with the discipline 
 of the Prussian barracks — this was the naive ideal of the 
 autocracy and the bureaucracy. 
 
 It was realized to perfection in the " military 
 colonies " organized by Count Araktsheev. The 
 peasants attached to these colonies lived in houses of 
 the same dimensions and the same colour, which were 
 ranged along the street like a rank of soldiers. They 
 cultivated the soil, divided, like soldiers, into com- 
 panies, under the supervision and command of 
 
 153
 
 154 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 " leaders." Their agricultural labours were thus 
 veritably " militarized " in the Prussian manner, and 
 their life as well. Every action, every movement of 
 these peasants was regulated and ordered beforehand. 
 
 The administration was convinced that the authorities 
 ought to inspire a " salutary dread " in the people. The 
 Tartar knout and the German shpitzruteny were its 
 principal instruments. 1 Here is a description of the 
 punishment of the shpitzruteny introduced by Arakt- 
 sheev, whose name (spitzruten) indicates its origin: — 
 
 44 A thousand brave Russian soldiers stand in two 
 ranks, facing one another. In the hand of each man 
 is placed a rod — shpltzruten ; the living ' green lane ' 
 is gaily waving, swaying in the air. They bring the 
 criminal, naked to the belt ; his arms are attached to 
 the stocks of two muskets : before him march two 
 soldiers, who make sure that he shall go forward slowly, 
 so that the shpltzruten shall have time to leave its marks 
 on his skin. Behind him, on a sledge, is a coffin. The 
 sentence is read ; the lugubrious rolling of the drum 
 is heard. One, twoi ! And the green lane begins to 
 lash the victim on the right side, then on the left. . ,. . 
 In a few minutes his body is covered with broad stripes, 
 red and contused ; the drops of blood spring to the 
 surface. ... * Have pity, my little brothers ! ' This 
 cry pierces the dull rolling of the drum. But to have 
 pity is to be beaten in turn, then and there. So the lane 
 of birch-rods strikes more fiercely. Soon the back and 
 sides are simply one wound ; here and tjiere the skin 
 comes off in strips. The living dead advances slowly, 
 
 1 M. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu states that the word knout "seems 
 rather of Aryan origin, if it is not Germanic ; it has at all events 
 the same root as the German knot en " (V Empire des Tsars et les 
 Russes, vol. Li. "p. 414, 3rd ed.). "For the rest, corporal punish- 
 ments were characteristic of ancient Russia, in which the Byzantine 
 influence was perhaps in reality more ancient than the Tartar in- 
 fluence." To this assertion we may oppose that of Count Orlov, 
 who declared, as long ago as 1861, that " where Russia was able to 
 develop without the direct influence of the Mongols and the tshinovniki 
 there were no corporal punishments."
 
 THE EUROPE ANIZATION OF THE STATE 155 
 
 bound to the rifle-butts, covered with tatters of his 
 own flesh, wildly rolling his leaden eyes. . . . He falls. 
 But he must still be beaten— for a long time yet. The 
 body is placed on the sledge and again he passes, and 
 again, between the two ranks, whence fall without inter- 
 mission the blows of the shpitzruteny, which cut into the 
 bloody pulp. The moans have ceased ; one hears only 
 a sort of clapping sound, like the sound of a stick 
 striking the water, and the funeral drums are muttering 
 still." » 
 
 A State in which such savagery survived— even though 
 ordered and disciplined in the Prussian manner — could 
 not long co-exist with civilized States. Russia was 
 forced either to fall asunder or to transform herself. 
 
 II 
 
 When the debacle of the Crimea had opened the eyes 
 of all those who were capable of understanding, demon- 
 strating the impossibility of maintaining the ancien 
 regime, Russia, as in her earlier crises, applied to the 
 civilization of the West for remedies. The "great 
 reforms" of 1860-70 were thus merely a phase of 
 Europeanization . Thus they appeared to their partisans, 
 as well as to their adversaries. 
 
 One publicist, for example, a noble and a reactionary, 
 opposed them in order to preserve the old institu- 
 tions : — 
 
 " Each volost (canton) is governed by a parliament ; 
 in each ouyezd (district) there is a parliament ; in the 
 gubernii there will probably be the same," he complains 
 with indignation, " and finally, the centre of the State 
 must be transformed in the same manner. Thus cen- 
 tralization is adopted for the basis of the administration, 
 and a condition of this centralization is parliamentarism. 
 And the surroundings necessary to this monster, we have 
 them, too : justice rendered publicly, oral procedure, 
 the division of powers, and, to cap it all, the jury. In 
 
 « Gregor Djanshiev, The Period of the Great Reforms, 9th ed. 
 (Moscow, 1905), pp. 187, 188.
 
 156 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 a word, instead of Russia we see a Western State. 
 Gentlemen, in the matter of the reactionary demands 
 of the Liberals, have you not gone too far along the 
 path of transformation? " l 
 
 The partisans of this " transformation " considered, 
 on the other hand, that the reforms ought to be carried 
 as far as possible, precisely because the state of Russia 
 was so backward ; and that no compromise with the old 
 Russia was acceptable. Here, for example, is what a 
 provincial Procurator wrote during the discussion of the 
 judicial reform, which was effected in 1864: — 
 
 " In England the people and the Government, society 
 and justice, develop simultaneously. The result is that 
 these factors agree and collaborate, and the law is a 
 common product and a common possession. As for our 
 society, it participated in nothing ; it existed in a state 
 of lethargy." 
 
 Replying to those who wished to " go slowly," the 
 same writer replied : — 
 
 "On the contrary, we must transform things more 
 rapidly and more resolutely. Deliberateness in reforms 
 is always harmful ; the help of all is necessary. Half- 
 measures never lead us to the goal ; they are almost 
 always disastrous. Everything must be transformed 
 at the same time. For, if the old system is not good, 
 it must be suppressed entirely, not in part ; we must 
 not mix the old with the new. ... If we were not 
 alive, humanity existed. That which humanity has 
 acquired, with that we must endow our resurrection, 
 and by means of reforms take our part of the good 
 which belongs to all the peoples, and for which the 
 advanced peoples have laboured in the interests of 
 humanity." 2 
 
 To those who expressed the fear — generally facti- 
 tious — that sudden reforms might provoke administrative 
 
 1 Among the most notorious agents of reaction and oppression 
 under Nicolas I we find, as always, the bearers of aristocratic German 
 names, the Counts Adlerberg, Benckendorf, Kleinmichel, etc. 
 
 2 J. Guessen, The Reform of the Judiciary (Petersburg, 1905), pp. 82-4.
 
 THE EUROPE ANIZATION OF THE STATE 157 
 
 disorder, the champions of progress cited the experience 
 of the European States. 
 
 " Among others, the example of Hanover (where the 
 situation, as regards the judicial organization, was 
 perhaps even worse than with us) demonstrates the 
 possible rapidity and facility of such transformations. 
 Publicity of judicial debates was in Hanover intro- 
 duced at a single stroke, by the law of the 8th of 
 November 1850 ; and the oldest magistrates and 
 advocates accepted it with enthusiasm. It was the 
 same in Piedmont. This proves that there is no need 
 of any gradation in reform." 
 
 The same divergence appeared in respect of each 
 separate question. In the course of the discussion 
 on the introduction of the jury system, a Conservative 
 Senator wrote : — 
 
 " Authentic information as to this form of jurisdic- 
 tion dates only from the reign of Henry III, from a time 
 when the struggle against revolt had ceased only after 
 the King had confirmed the Magna Charta Libertatum 
 of John Lackland. . . . The jury, born of a period 
 thus full of disturbances, and under the conditions de- 
 scribed, was doubtless regarded not as a means merely 
 of ameliorating the judicial system, but also as a weapon 
 to defend the interests of the people against the en- 
 croachments of the supreme power." And as Russia, 
 he adds, is an autocracy, " the jury will be in absolute 
 contradiction to the fundamental laws of the State." 
 To these excesses of loyalism a provincial advocate 
 objected the modern history of England. Against the 
 proposal to withhold political crimes from the compe- 
 tence of the jury, he fulminates in the following terms : 
 " It is said that these exceptions are in imitation of 
 France, and that they do not exist in England. One 
 may inquire, however, where the greatest tranquillity 
 reigns — among the French people or the English." 1 
 
 European experience was of service not only in philo- 
 sophic discussions of a private nature concerning the 
 
 1 J. Guessen, op. cit. p. 93.
 
 158 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 " great reforms," but also in the labours of the official 
 bodies which were preparing the texts of the new laws. 
 
 Thus the Government instructed a special commission 
 to study the organization of the judiciary in Europe, 
 and particularly in France and England. In the rescript 
 relating to its labours, which was published at the 
 beginning of 1862, it is stated that the new judicial 
 system is to be established " according to the teachings 
 of science and the experience of the European States." 
 
 As M\ Leroy-Beaulieu remarks in his Empire des 
 Tsars, " neither the teachings of science nor the coun- 
 sels of experience were lacking among the promoters 
 of the judicial reform." In its liberty to do all things 
 and attempt all things the St. Petersburg Government 
 had on this occasion by no means set its mind upon 
 doing something new. The reform of the courts was 
 less an original creation than a combination and adapta- 
 tion of various elements, nearly all of which were 
 borrowed from the more advanced nations of Europe. 1 
 M. Leroy-Beaulieu considers that the reorganization of 
 the judicial system was more successful than the other 
 " great reforms " precisely because of the preponderat- 
 ing influence of European examples. 
 
 "If the judicial reform was the most largely con- 
 ceived and the most resolutely executed of all the great 
 reforms of the Emperor Alexander II, it was for this 
 reason : instead of being based on empirical data and 
 the convenience of the moment, it had a rational basis, 
 reposing at once on general ideas accepted by all modern 
 peoples, and on the practice of the more civilized States. 
 Thus, despite the repeated deviations of a Govern- 
 ment always too liable to go back on its own laws, 
 this reform displayed what was often lacking to con- 
 temporary reforms : unity and consistency." 
 
 In this connection, how was it that the teaching 
 derived from Europe was most plainly evident and 
 most closely followed in the domain of justice in par- 
 ticular? The reason is that the attempt to Europeanize 
 1 A. Leroy-Beaulieu, L'Empire des Tsars, vol. ii. p. 289.
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 159 
 
 Russia which was made in Alexander's time had its 
 point of departure in the embourgeoisement of Russia. 
 A stable, prompt, and uniform judicial system is an 
 essential condition of the civil and economic relations 
 of a bourgeois system of Government. We know, for 
 example, that the invasion of Oriental countries by 
 Europeans and European capital has always led to the 
 establishment of the system of " capitulations," which 
 renders them amenable to special tribunals and protects 
 them from native justice. European forms and elements 
 having permeated the economic life of Russia, it became 
 necessary to Europeanize the judicial institutions, wholly 
 archaic and Asiatic, which well merited their charac- 
 teristic cognomen of volokita (from volotshit, which 
 means to protract, to spin out). And as the old Russian 
 justice was in reality the negation of all justice, it was 
 necessary to suppress it altogether and to replace it 
 by an entirely new system. Even the nobles and the 
 bureaucrats understood that this necessity was absolute, 
 and they did not oppose the judicial reform as ener- 
 getically as they opposed other reforms, in which the 
 influence of Europe was less apparent. 
 
 In my Modern Russia I have explained the character 
 of the " great reforms " accomplished by the Govern- 
 ment of Alexander II, and notably of the agrarian 
 reform of 1861, and the introduction of local self- 
 government in 1 861 and 1870. Even then the seigneurs 
 and bureaucrats were striving to maintain their domi- 
 nation and to safeguard their interests. The peasants, 
 although now liberated, remained in economic and 
 juridical dependence on the nobles. The zemstvos were 
 subject to the property franchise, and the system of 
 electoral curia, in which the nobles predominated. 
 Members of the urban municipalities also were elected 
 by a property franchise. The zemstvos and the muni- 
 cipalities were placed under the tutelage of the 
 Governors ; and the presidency of the zemstvos became 
 a privilege of the marshals of the noblesse. In 1863 
 corporal punishments were abolished in principle, except
 
 160 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 in the case of peasants, on whom the rural tribunals 
 could still inflict such punishment. In short, the " great 
 reforms " emerged from the hands of the Governmental 
 commissions diminished and mutilated ; the feudal 
 system was not definitely overthrown, and a little later, 
 under Alexander III, it took its revenge. 
 
 The counter - reformation accomplished by this 
 monarch is in a certain measure to be explained 
 by international causes, but indirectly only. As I have 
 already pointed out in my Modern Russia, it really 
 originated as a slackening or relative decline of 
 economic activity. The agrarian crisis, which had 
 hampered the progress of agriculture and other forces 
 of production in general, lowered the standard of 
 material life, and, consequently, of social and political 
 life. The reinforcement of old economic forms and 
 relations resulted in the revival of the old political spirit. 
 
 Now, the agrarian crisis and the economic regression 
 which occurred about 1880 resulted from a factor of 
 world-wide importance : the appearance of American 
 wheat in the European markets, where it eliminated 1 
 its competitors, and, consequently, the cereals of Russia. 
 The falling prices which resulted from this invasion 
 started the crisis in Russia. The Government of 
 Alexander III was incapable of remedying the evil by 
 progressive means ; it could discover no other resource 
 than regression. 
 
 The seigneurial restoration reached its apogee in 
 1889, in the institution of the zemskie natshalniki 
 (" chiefs of the soil "), who were functionaries recruited 
 from the nobility, and invested with administrative and 
 judicial power over the peasantry. This was, in fact, a 
 partial return to serfdom. 
 
 For the rest, the American invasion of the European 
 market, and the sudden changes which it occasioned, 
 were not the only factors of the political and sociaj 
 reaction which Russia then underwent ; the governing 
 classes must also be held responsible. The spirit of 
 caste had warped the work of reformation under
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 161 
 
 Alexander II ; the directing circles had limited the 
 Europeanization of Russia by clinging as far as possible 
 to the old order of things. 
 
 It is a singular fact that they themselves went to 
 Europe for their ideas. For example, they quoted in 
 favour of the re-establishment of corporal punishment 
 an English peer who, so they claimed, had declared 
 that humanity could be perfected only by means of 
 the rod. The celebrated Pobiedonostzev, opposing the 
 jury system, invoked the testimony of European experts 
 (English in particular), who were opposed to this " un- 
 happy institution." As for their measures against the 
 Press, the Russian reactionaries sought for precedents 
 in the France of Napoleon III and the statutes of his 
 censorship. 
 
 The Germans were no strangers to the doings of 
 the reaction which occurred toward the end of the 
 nineteenth century. To please the Conservatives, the 
 Government placed at the head of the Ministry of 
 Justice a Baltic Junker of the Protestant faith — Count 
 Palen — whose appointment, according to another well- 
 known Conservative, Meshtshersky, " was intended as 
 a corrective of the excess of Liberalism occasioned 
 by the new judicial institutions." Sometimes the 
 Germans remained behind the scenes ; such was the 
 case with the Tsar's aide-de-camp, General Grunwald, 
 who occupied the modest post of Master of the Imperial 
 Stud, but who opposed a powerful resistance to the 
 reformation of the Russian Army (he was opposed to 
 general and obligatory military service, which, mingling 
 young men of education with the simple sons of the 
 soil, might have served to enlighten them) ; and he 
 helped to introduce into Russia the classical school, 
 disciplined in the Prussian manner. Somewhat later 
 the talent for organization displayed by the Germans — 
 but in the service of reaction rather than in that of 
 revolution — was brilliantly exemplified in the person of 
 Count Plehve, who was killed by the Terrorists after he 
 had employed his police to terrorize the whole Empire. 
 
 11
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 I. The problem of national representation under Alexander II and the 
 constitutional movement. II. The Duma— Foreign elements in 
 the representative system in Russia— Is the political mentality of 
 the Russian people Asiatic or European ? III. Some documents. 
 
 I 
 
 Despite all their imperfections, which were aggravated 
 by subsequent remodelling, the institutions created 
 during the " Period of Great Reforms " constituted a 
 considerable advance. But their operation, and their 
 existence even, were extremely precarious. We might 
 in this connection cite the opinion of a Russian Con- 
 servative, who, when certain innovations were being 
 discussed, declared them to be incompatible with the 
 basic principle of the Russian system — that is, the auto- 
 cratic power. He was right, and the more improvements 
 were involved by the new state of things, and the more 
 " Europeanism," the more profound, necessarily, was 
 the hostility between them and the ancien regime. 
 M. Guessen, the historian of the judicial reformation, 
 makes this remark. He considers that the new justice, 
 from the first days of its introduction into Russia, 
 " entered into the organism of the State like a foreign 
 body, which, according to the general law of physiology, 
 must be assimilated or eliminated." One might say as 
 much of the other great reforms of Alexander II, and 
 of local self-government in particular. 
 
 The imminence of a conflict between the organs 
 which had just been created and the old central power 
 was obvious from the time of their appearance. Also, 
 the reactionaries protested against the reforms, while
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 163 
 
 the Radicals and Liberals demanded their complement : 
 they believed that it was indispensable " to crown the 
 edifice " — that is, to reconstruct the State on constitu- 
 tional principles. Immediately the zemstvos were 
 created, several of these assemblies in various Govern- 
 ments of Russia presented addresses to the Tsar in 
 which they expressed their desire to obtain the " crown- 
 ing of the work." The secret political societies 
 published proclamations in favour of the Constitution. 
 And as the Government, far from giving way, increased 
 its measures of repression, the movement of liberation 
 assumed the morbid form of Terrorism. 
 
 The Terrcrist agitation became particularly active 
 after the war of 1877-78, which contributed to the 
 political preoccupations of the Russian people and 
 greatly irritated the more advanced spirits against the 
 governmental system. For them it was not admissible 
 that the Russian people, the liberator of the Balkan 
 Slavs, could be unworthy of the parliamentary system 
 conceded to their liberated brethren. M. A. Leroy- 
 Beaulieu, who had occasion to study on the spot the 
 spirit prevailing in Russian society after the war against 
 Turkey, describes it in the following words : — 
 
 " It is painful to the Russians to remain politically 
 inferior to the other States of Europe, almost all of 
 which are to-day provided with Constitutions ; inferior 
 even to their younger brothers of the Balkans, who 
 are still minors, and were emancipated only yesterday. 
 . . . Many Russians find it difficult to grasp the very 
 serious reasons which render a liberal development more 
 difficult in the great Empire of the North than in these 
 lesser States, which were liberated by the Russian arms. 
 Their eyes are offended by a contrast which the years 
 will but render more sensible and more revolting." l 
 
 The Gpvernment, which was not ignorant of 
 these considerations, remained, however, immovable. 
 Alexander II avowed that he saw nothing to object 
 to in the constitutional system, but added that he 
 
 1 A. Leroy-Beaulieu, L' Empire des Tsars, vol. ii. p. 581.
 
 164 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 refused to assume the responsibility of introducing; it 
 into Russia. But he thereby burdened himself with 
 a far heavier responsibility : that of depriving the 
 people of its sole lawful means of expressing its will. 
 And he became the victim of his own inconsequence, 
 and of the violent struggle which the reformers, whose 
 aspirations were awakened at the beginning of his 
 reign, undertook against the return of the reaction. 
 
 It was a singular thing that the hesitations of 
 Alexander II were provoked by the example of the 
 French Revolution, whose lessons the Emperor did not 
 sufficiently comprehend. Some weeks before his tragic 
 death his ministers wished him to convoke a consulta- 
 tive assembly of Russian representatives. Alexander II 
 replied to them : " Gentlemen, what is proposed to 
 us is the assembly of notables of Louis XVI. We must 
 not forget what followed." And " he postponed for 
 some weeks the publication of the Act on which 
 depended the future of the Empire and his own 
 existence." l 
 
 M. Leroy-Beaulieu recalls in this connection that 
 Louis XVI also had shuffled and hesitated. 
 
 We must not, however, attribute to the ministers 
 of Alexander II a foresight superior to his own. His 
 Prime Minister, Loris-Melikov, in a report dated the 
 28th January 1881, denied the possibility of repre- 
 sentative government in Russia. 
 
 " Russia cannot accommodate herself to a national 
 representation invested with forms borrowed from the 
 West. These forms are not only foreign to the Russian 
 people, but might even shatter all the foundations of 
 its political conceptions, and occasion a complete 
 upheaval of ideas, of which it would be difficult to 
 foresee the consequences. Similarly, we regard as 
 inopportune the propositions advanced by certain of 
 the supporters of the ancient forms of the Russian 
 State, to create in Russia a Zemskaia Douma, or a 
 Zemskii Sobor. Our period is so far removed from 
 1 A. Leroy-Beaulieu, op. cit., vol. ii. p. 509.
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 165 
 
 that in which this ancient method of representation 
 existed . . . that it would be difficult merely to 
 resuscitate it. In any case it would be a dangerous 
 attempt to return to the past." ■ 
 
 It goes without saying that to remain at a dead 
 stop, without advancing toward Europeanization nor 
 returning to national representation practised in 
 Muscovite Russia, was a solution even less practical 
 than resignation to the boldest Constitution. 
 
 II 
 
 After the violent death of Alexander II, those who 
 governed, with the new Emperor at their head, discussed 
 the question left in suspense by the defunct Tsar. 
 Alexander III adopted the advice of Pobiedonostzev, 
 his friend, who pronounced himself as absolutely 
 opposed to any constitutional regime^ and advised the 
 Tsar not to add a central " debating society " to the 
 local " debating societies," which, according to him, 
 already existed, in the shape of the zemstvos, juries, 
 etc. Instead of a national representation, even of the 
 consultative type, Russia was subjected from that 
 moment to a government by autocracy and the police, 
 which was more and more accentuated as time went 
 on ; and not until a quarter of a century later were 
 realized, very imperfectly, those ideas of parliamentary 
 government which had penetrated Russia from Europe 
 at the beginning of the century. 
 
 I will not here go into the European origins of 
 the charter published on 17/30 October 1905, and 
 known as the " Manifesto concerning Liberties." I will 
 confine myself to drawing the reader's attention to 
 the fact that the worst aspects of the " Constitution ' 
 at present existing in Russia are modelled upon the 
 example of Prussia. Such is the system of the 
 electoral " wards," which divide the electors into classes, 
 like so many horses put into isolated stalls in a stable. 
 
 1 S. Svatikov, The Social Movement in Russia, 1700-1905 (Russian 
 ed.), Rostov on the Don, 1905, pp. 129-30.
 
 166 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 It is the same system as that on which the Prussian 
 Landtag is based. 
 
 One might establish yet other points of resemblance 
 between the representative system of Russia and 
 that of Prussia, which are at the same time points 
 of dissimilarity between the Russian constitutional 
 legislation and the true parliamentary system of 
 Western Europe. None the less, in spite of all its 
 defects, the system of national representation which has 
 been operating in Russia since 1906 — with too many 
 interruptions and dissolutions, it is true — has played a 
 great part in the political evolution of the country. 
 
 The principal distinction between the European State 
 and an Asiatic despotism is that in the former the 
 population has the possibility of expressing its desires 
 and its will, while in the latter it is destined to 
 obligatory silence. Before the year 1905 the Russian 
 people had not the right of speech. A long time ago 
 a Russian Senator defined the principal character of the 
 political life of Russia as dumbness. 
 
 " The Russian people is dumb," said the Senator, 
 " and has no power of reaction against abuses." 
 
 The revolutionary movement of 1905 and the 
 convocation of the Duma in 1906 established a line 
 of demarcation between this ancient speechless Russia 
 and the new Russia which can speak' and dares to do 
 so. And immediately after the introduction of national 
 representation in Russia it became apparent that the 
 popular masses of Russia were far more conscious and 
 better prepared for constitutional government than was 
 supposed. 
 
 Ill 
 
 When the independent Press insisted on the necessity 
 of establishing a constitutional regime in Russia, the 
 reactionaries always objected that the demands for 
 reforms did not emanate from the people, but were 
 an artificial product conceived in the brains of the 
 intellectuals, who were alien to the people. The people
 
 THE EUROPE ANIZATION OF THE STATE 167 
 
 itself — asserted the reactionaries — had no thought of 
 any modification of the political system, and had no 
 organic need which corresponded with the constitu- 
 tional demands. 
 
 The beginnings of the Duma gave the lie to these 
 assertions in a striking fashion. In proof of this I 
 will here quote some documents which have hitherto 
 been very little known to the European public, but 
 which have a great significance for those who wish 
 to study the political mentality of the popular masses 
 in Russia, and to solve for themselves the question 
 whether this mentality is of a barbarous and Asiatic 
 character, or whether, on the contrary, it is European 
 and progressive. 
 
 These documents are the nakazy, concerning which 
 I have already published a few passages in the English 
 Press. 1 
 
 Just as in France in 1789, at the elections to the 
 States-General, the populace drew up the famous cahiers, 
 in which it set out its needs and troubles and gave 
 hints to its representatives, so in 1906 and 1907, 
 at the elections to the first two Dumas, the population 
 of the Russian Empire presented its deputies with 
 " grievances " or nakazy, in which it indicated the causes 
 and the details of its discontent, and formulated its 
 various economic and political desires. 
 
 While painting a gloomy picture of the condition 
 of the country, the democratic electors pressed upon 
 their representatives in the Duma demands for those 
 changes which they considered necessary, at the same 
 time indicating the manner in which these demands 
 should be realized. 
 
 The drafting and presentation of the nakazy was no 
 easy matter, and not without danger for the electors. 
 Although the Government had summoned the popula- 
 tion of the country to elect representatives, at the same 
 time it directed all its efforts toward rendering it im- 
 possible for these representatives to express the genuine 
 * See Darkest Russia, 1913 (September, October).
 
 168 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 will of their electors, and toward preventing any per- 
 manent and living connection between the constituencies 
 and the deputies. "Untrustworthy" citizens who had 
 been guilty of drawing up or signing a nakaz to their 
 deputy were everywhere subjected to searches by the 
 police, followed by acts of persecution. When, on the 
 dispersion of the second Duma, searches were made at 
 the residences of the deputies of the Left, the gendarmes 
 and agents of the Okhrana were particularly zealous in 
 ferreting out nakazy, letters, and complimentary 
 addresses from electors. 
 
 The receipt of such communications figured as the 
 chief count in the indictment of the Labour members 
 of the second Duma. In the demand for the surrender 
 of fifty-five Social Democratic deputies presented by 
 the late M. Stolypin to the second Duma, these deputies 
 were charged with having " received nakazy from troop 
 units of the Vilna and Petersburg garrisons," and with 
 having ' collected the revolutionary demands of the 
 poorer classes of the population." 
 
 But in spite of prohibitions and persecutions the 
 electors were eager to communicate with their deputies. 
 The deputies of the Left in the first two Dumas were 
 overwhelmed by telegrams, letters, greetings, and man- 
 dates from every corner of the country, and from the 
 most varied elements of the population. From the 
 Northern Dvina and the Caucasus, from the Baltic and 
 the Urals, from the shores of the Volga and from distant 
 Siberia, from the village peasant and the city prole- 
 tarian, from the artisan and the clerk, from the political 
 exile and the Cossack of the Don, from the soldier and 
 the sailor— from every quarter expressions of the popular 
 desires and demands were showered upon the Duma. 
 These were the genuine and authentic voice of the 
 popular masses themselves. 
 
 The nakazy contained a very severe criticism of the 
 state of affairs created in Russia by the inertia and 
 malevolence of the bureaucracy and the egoism of the 
 aristocracy.
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 169 
 
 " Arbitrariness and violence have reached their 
 highest pitch," declares the mandate of the employees 
 at Duig's factory in Petersburg. 
 
 Here are some examples of the contents of these 
 nakazy. 
 
 The peasants of the canton of Kiinsk, in the Govern- 
 ment of Novgorod, complain : — 
 
 " The condition of the lower classes has become 
 unbearable. Everywhere . . . the hovering phantom 
 of death is seen. The plunder of the people's money 
 and the abuse of authority on the part of officialdom 
 has attained terrifying proportions." 
 
 Especially bad was the condition of the peasantry. 
 
 A memorial to the second Duma from the subordinate 
 employees of the Nicolas Railway (Petersburg-Mos- 
 cow) thus describes the treatment of the peasants by 
 the landowners : — 
 
 " You look upon the peasant as something worse than 
 a useless dog, to whom one throws a gnawed crust 
 of bread so that it shall not growl and go mad with 
 hunger. There only remains one thing that you want — 
 to restore serfdom, your former joy. But the people have 
 not forgotten the old song. It is difficult to catch a 
 bird once released from its cage." 
 
 The peasants, when secretly communicating with their 
 representatives in the Duma, connect the ruin of the 
 villages with the general condition of the country, and 
 find the source of their calamities in the autocratic and 
 bureaucratic regime. In their mandate to the deputies 
 for the Kuban province the peasants and workmen of 
 one of its districts write : — 
 
 " You know, of course, without any reminder from 
 us, that the whole of Russia is languishing under the 
 yoke of an autocracy that has outlived itself. She is 
 suffering from the arbitrariness of officials who rob the 
 Treasury, who have disgraced Russia by an unfortunate 
 war, who have ruined the country by unbearable taxes 
 and imposts, and who have purposely kept the whole 
 people in ignorance and slavery. You know that the
 
 170 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 whole of Russia has been turned 1 into a conquered 
 country, with field courts-martial, martial law, extra- 
 ordinary and increased Okhrana — a country where hun- 
 dreds and thousands of men are butchered, shot, hanged, 
 imprisoned, and sent to penal servitude, and where a 
 simple mortal can invoke no laws whatever for safe- 
 guarding his honour and property." 
 
 The workmen of a brickyard in the Caucasus con- 
 clude their mandate by complaining : — 
 
 " In the absence of liberty of association we are 
 compelled to gather secretly late at night in a hal;£- 
 lighted hut in order to draw up a mandate to our 
 deputies." 
 
 The workmen of the village of Novoselki, in the 
 Government of Vladimir, make a pitiful appeal to their 
 representatives : — 
 
 " Try, in the Duma, to obtain rights for the oppressed 
 and the downtrodden. Do not forget that far away, 
 in a damp basement, something black and grimy is 
 creeping about. The rays of the sun can hardly pene- 
 trate thither. Stretch out, therefore, a helping hand to 
 your brethren." 
 
 While painting the condition of the country in sombre 
 colours, the democratic electors pressed upon their 
 representatives demands for those reforms which they 
 considered necessary, at the same time indicating the 
 manner in which those demands should be realized. 
 
 The first and most urgent demand expressed in the 
 mandates was for an amnesty for political exiles and 
 prisoners, for the release of these champions of the 
 people's liberty from their living tombs. " We demand 
 an amnesty for our fathers and brothers who have 
 fought for the people's cause . . . for all those who 
 have suffered for their political convictions. ..." The 
 inmates of the Morshansk prison pointed out to the 
 members of the Duma that they owed their election, 
 and the very existence of the Duma, to the fighters for 
 liberty. . . . The amnesty must be complete and 
 general. All those regarded by the Government as
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 171 
 
 ' political criminals " must be liberated without any 
 restrictions. 
 
 The electors of the town of Kustanay, in the province 
 of Turgay, declare, in their mandate : — 
 
 1 There must be an amnesty, because the men who are 
 now languishing in prison and in exile have been en- 
 deavouring, by spreading the truth, to enlighten the 
 ignorant people, to throw off the yoke of slavery from 
 their shoulders, and to lead them toward a bright future, 
 when the kingdom of God will be established upon earth 
 — the kingdom of liberty, equality, and fraternity. They 
 are men who keep firmly in mind the commandment of 
 Christ to love one's neighbour as oneself. Such men 
 should receive gratitude and appreciation, instead of 
 being persecuted and allowed to rot in prison." 
 
 In these mandates the amnesty is regarded not as 
 an act of grace or pardon but as the lawful right of 
 men suffering from the arbitrary lawlessness of a 
 despotic reaction, and it is claimed that this right 
 should be recognized and realized through the Legis- 
 lature. As the workers of Archangel put it : — 
 
 " Demand an amnesty in all political and religious 
 cases — as a legislative measure — a full amnesty, not as 
 an act of grace . . . but as a restoration of rights and 
 liberties which have unlawfully been taken away, and 
 see that it is extended to all those who have been 
 judicially condemned or persecuted administratively for 
 having fought against the Government." 
 
 Other nakazy demand that the amnestied prisoners 
 shall receive " temporary material provision," or be 
 restored to their homes at the expense of the State. 
 
 " An amnesty and the abolition of capital punish- 
 ment is the cry which issues from the breast " of the 
 democratic electors of Odessa. Indeed, it was obvious 
 from the mandates that this demand was the unanimous 
 cry of the whole country. Among the thousands of 
 mandates, greetings, and letters received by the deputies 
 there was not one that did not contain this claim. An 
 amnesty was regarded by the people as the indispensable
 
 172 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 preliminary of the political and social renovation of the 
 country . 
 
 The workers of the Ural demand " the prosecution 
 of the Minister of the Interior and other officials for 
 infringing the Manifesto of October 30th, which granted 
 the people inviolability of the person, liberty of con- 
 science and of speech and of the Press, and which 
 declared that no enactment should have the force of law 
 without the sanction of the Duma." 
 
 A mandate from the Kuban province requires " the 
 immediate dismissal of all Government authorities, who 
 should be replaced by officials elected on the basis of a 
 universal, direct, equal, and secret ballot." A mandate 
 from the Government of Vladimir demanded the abolition 
 of all class restrictions on the person and property of 
 the peasants, as well as of all payments and burdens 
 arising from class differentiation. . . . The 
 peasantry," affirm the Simbirsk peasants, " must be 
 equalized in their rights with all other classes. The 
 State must only consider the personal merits and 
 capacities of its citizens, without reference to their 
 origin." 
 
 •' We demand the total abolition of classes. Let 
 there be neither peasants nor burghers nor noblemen, but 
 only Russian citizens," say the working men of Shuya. 
 
 Great importance is attributed to financial reform, 
 including a radical change in the system of taxation. 
 Indirect taxes should be replaced by a progressive 
 income-tax. (In mandates from Petersburg, Kertsh, 
 Archangel, Vladimir, Turgay, and elsewhere.) 
 
 Next comes a demand for the reform of local self- 
 government, now in the hands of the upper classes. 
 
 " We demand that all local self-government bodies, 
 whether urban or rural, shall be elected by secret ballot 
 on a universal, equal, and direct franchise, so that the 
 zemstvos and town councils shall no longer serve exclu- 
 sively the interests of the rich, but shall administer to 
 the needs of the whole population ' (mandates from 
 Archangel, Nijni Novgorod, Kiev, etc.). 

 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 173 
 
 Perhaps in no other country is the Church in greater 
 subjection to the State than in Russia, where the clergy 
 have become the administrative and police agents of the 
 autocracy. The mandates demand the separation of 
 Church and State, complete religious toleration, and the 
 autonomy of the various denominations. The mandate 
 of the Mussulman inhabitants of Petropavlovsk demands 
 that " the ordinances of the Shariat, which regulate the 
 entire religious, political, civil, and domestic life of the 
 Mussulmans, shall be secure from violation by the 
 Government . This demand is not only printed on paper, 
 but is written in the hearts of our deputies." 
 
 As to the national question, not a single note of 
 chauvinism is to be met with in any of the mandates. 
 
 Full equality of rights for all the nations inhabiting 
 Russia and complete liberty of development— such is 
 the claim of the democracy. Some of the mandates 
 even go so far as to advocate the federative principle. 
 
 " We demand," runs a mandate from the Turgay 
 province, " the autonomy of the provinces and com- 
 munities, both urban and rural ; the widest possible 
 application of the federative principle in the mutual 
 relations of the various nationalities ; and the recog- 
 nition of their absolute right to self-organization and 
 proportional representation." 
 
 The mandates reflect in striking fashion the hostile 
 attitude of the Russian democracy toward the Govern- 
 ment's anti-Semitic policy. The workmen of the 
 Vladimir Government demand " the committal for trial 
 of all the pogrom executioners and their expulsion from 
 the Duma." 
 
 Another illustration of the extreme aversion of demo- 
 cratic Russia from the pogrom campaign and its authors 
 may be found in the following congratulatory mandate 
 sent to the Duma by the Peasants' Assembly of Pokrov- 
 skaya, in the Government of Samara : — 
 
 " We greet the members of the Duma, and wish them 
 to carry out our mandates. Our greetings do not 
 extend, however, to Krushevan (who organized the
 
 174 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 Kishinev pogrom) and his like, since the free sons of 
 the Volga can have no sympathy with those who 
 extinguish the light and the truth." 
 
 One of the Government's favourite assertions is that 
 the Russian revolution was " created by the Jews." A 
 most interesting reply to this is to be found in the 
 mandate of the workmen of Albertin, in the Government 
 of Grodno : — 
 
 " The parties of the Right pretend that it is the 
 Jewish speakers who imbue the people with sedition. 
 But, as a matter of fact, we have several speakers! 
 created by the Government itself. We can give you 
 their names, (i) Hunger and cold, which are caused 
 by the Government ; (2) heavy taxes imposed by the 
 Government on the necessities of the labourer's and the 
 peasant's life, while alleviations are granted to squires 
 and manufacturers." 
 
 Complete liberty of education is the watchword of 
 many mandates. 
 
 " In order to control and to squander with impunity 
 the money of the people, the Government has to keep 
 the latter in darkness and ignorance, depriving it syste- 
 matically of education and placing obstacles in the way 
 of obtaining it. The Government schools, beginning 
 with the parish schools, aim at killing all 1 aspirations 
 toward light and liberty." 
 
 There is a pathetic ring about the mandate of the 
 boy apprentices of the Yurevsky works in the Govern- 
 ment of Kharkov : — 
 
 " We, the younger generation of Russia, observing 
 the ignorance of our grandfathers, do not wish to be 
 like them. We have the desire and the zeal to learn, 
 but the bureaucratic system does not give us, the chil- 
 dren of poor toilers, the chance of developing our 
 intellectual capacities." 
 
 The Russian democracy is well aware that the 
 development of education and the public consciousness 
 requires a radical change of political regime. " At 
 present," say the peasants and burghers of the Odessa
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 175 
 
 district, "we do not know whether the taxes are 
 collected from us properly, or how they are spent, or 
 whether any Government measure is in the interests of 
 the people or to its detriment. We have much to learn, 
 and we want to be free to learn it." 
 
 The demand for complete political liberty and for 
 the democratization of the State system is to be found 
 in all the mandates. " It is time to put an end to blind- 
 ness, and to untie our hands, for we have outgrown our 
 swaddling-bands and require no nurse," say the workers 
 of the Yurevsky works at Altchevskaya . 
 
 A large number of mandates call for the restoration 
 and execution of the Manifesto of October 30, 1905. 
 This Manifesto, which promised the establishment of 
 constitutional guarantees, is not regarded as a voluntary 
 concession on the part of the autocracy, but as the 
 victorious achievement of the people. 
 
 " We demand the promulgation of a law guarantee- 
 ing all the civic rights and liberties won by the people's 
 victory on October 30th " (mandate from the Byelozersk 
 district of the Government of Novgorod). 
 
 The establishment of a parliamentary system and a 
 democratic representation constitutes, according to a 
 mandate from Ekaterinoslavl, the foremost need of the 
 country. There should be no other authority than that 
 appointed by the people, and responsible to its repre- 
 sentatives, declare the peasants of the Government of 
 Simbirsk. Ministers must be responsible to the popular 
 representatives. The Council of State, which " buries 
 the Bills born in the Duma," ought to be abolished. 
 The present electoral system should be replaced by 
 universal suffrage. 
 
 The following are some typical complaints : — 
 
 " In the present Duma there is no genuine popular 
 representation." 
 
 " Our participation in the elections by no means 
 implies recognition of the Duma as a genuine organ 
 of popular representation." 
 
 " We are well aware that the present Duma cannot
 
 176 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 be considered a genuine organ of popular representa- 
 tion." 
 
 " Your first task," declare the electors of Archangel 
 to their representatives, " must be a struggle for full 
 popular representation, making the Duma not an organ 
 of agreement with the Government, but a revolutionary 
 centre for the organization of the masses. You must 
 open the people's eyes to the fact that the Duma is not 
 genuinely representative, that it is merely consultative 
 in character." 
 
 But in spite of all this, even the partisans of the 
 extreme Left understood that the creation of the Duma 
 constituted a new phase of the history of Russia. 
 
 •When I was elected deputy for the city of St. Peters- 
 burg, among the greetings and congratulations I 
 received on that occasion was one from several revo- 
 lutionists lying under sentence of death at Samara : — 
 
 " We hail you as a member of the People's Parlia- 
 ment," they wrote. " We shall now boldly ascend the 
 scaffold, seeing the dawn of a new light." 
 
 Here I quote some of those nakazy in which the 
 electors endeavoured to give the deputies hints as to 
 the tactics to be followed : — 
 
 " In sending you to the second Duma we do not 
 cherish the hope that the Government will accede to the 
 popular demands. Indeed, since the workmen of St. 
 Petersburg, who, on January 22, 1905, bore a petition 
 to the Tsar, expressing their own needs and those of the 
 peasantry, were met by a hail of bullets and bayonets, 
 and since the Government dispersed the first Duma for 
 giving timid and partial expression to the popular 
 demands, we have realized that we cannot expect any 
 amelioration of our condition from the autocratic 
 Government, which by its nature is opposed to our 
 demands. It is our sworn enemy " (mandate from the 
 Government of Perm). 
 
 " Remember that the whole people is with you. Do 
 not make any partial concessions to the Right, but 
 insist on full popular government," write the peasants 
 of Novo-Kubanskoye\
 
 THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 177 
 
 " Remember," said a mandate from the same pro- 
 vince, " that the people have sent you, not to petition 
 Ministers and bow down to them, but to snatch liberty 
 from them." 
 
 " We do not elect deputies for the purpose of drafting 
 laws which, since they have to pass the Council of 
 State and the Star Chamber, will never see the light. 
 No, we have elected you in order that you may fight in 
 the Taurida Palace for the convocation of a Constituent 
 Assembly, for land and liberty " (mandate of the 
 citizens of Tekaterinburg). 
 
 The Sebastopol electors beg their deputy " not to 
 stop half-way in the struggle against autocratic govern- 
 ment." 
 
 The majority of the mandates, like that from 
 Tekaterinburg, express the opinion that the radical 
 transformation of the entire political system requires 
 the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, which alone 
 can effect pacification and secure liberty ; and for this 
 purpose the electors offer their support. 
 
 " We are anxious," write the Mussulmans of Petro- 
 pavlovsk, " to keep in touch with the Duma. It is for 
 you to organize that connection with us. Let our 
 thoughts and feelings become those of the Duma ; the 
 victory will then be sure and final." 
 
 " In the struggle with the Government for the realiza- 
 tion of the popular demands," say the citizens of Maikop, 
 " the Duma must rely on the support of the great masses 
 of the population who are in sympathy with it." 
 
 The peasants of the Syzran district instruct their 
 deputy as follows : — 
 
 ' The first Duma, which rightly championed the 
 people's needs, has been dissolved because the people 
 was not sufficiently organized, and could lend no support 
 to the Duma. We therefore request you to undertake 
 . . . the" organization of the people locally, in order 
 that at the decisive moment the people may stand up 
 for the Duma as one man. Only let the Duma explain 
 the nature of the support needed, so as to avoid mis-> 
 
 12
 
 178 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 taken and isolated acts, and the whole of Russia will 
 stand up for its right to land and liberty, which we 
 have sent you to obtain for us." 
 
 The same idea was still more vigorously expressed 
 by one of the workingmen's mandates : — 
 
 " We instruct our deputy not to submit to the 
 demands of the Government, and not to return to; us 
 without having carried out our mandate. If the gang 
 of torturers of the people should disperse you with 
 bayonets, then all of us who have elected you will 
 rise in defence of the deputies struggling for the liberty 
 and happiness of the people." 
 
 Such are the popular desires expressed in the nakazy. 
 Commenting upon them, an eminent English publicist 
 remarks : — 
 
 " Some of the demands, we recognize, are in advance 
 of the political and social conditions obtaining even in 
 the most liberally governed countries of Western 
 Europe . Their great importance is derived from the 
 light they throw upon the political development of the 
 Russian masses. Only a people thai has arrived at a 
 high pitch of self-consciousness could have produced 
 such documents as these. They constitute a powerful 
 argument in favour of the full emancipation of the pro- 
 letariat from the state of semi-serfdom in which it still 
 exists, and a proof that Russia is now more than ripe 
 for a Constitution based on democratic principles. 
 Those who object that the transference of the governing 
 power into popular hands would result in confusion and 
 anarchy would do well to study the present regime in 
 the provinces, where every official is a law unto himself, 
 and where clean government, free from tyranny and 
 corruption, is practically unknown. We have always 
 had great faith in the Russian people, and are convinced 
 that, once the deadening influence of the bureaucratic 
 administration has been shaken off, the true genius of 
 the country will manifest itself in a manner that will 
 compel both amazement and admiration."
 
 PART THE FOURTH 
 
 EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN RUSSIAN 
 
 LITERATURE
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The theory of races — Non-Russian blood in the veins of Russian 
 writers. II. The formation of the literary language and its 
 European ingredients. 
 
 I AM not a partisan of that theory of races which seeks 
 to explain the various phenomena of our life by racial 
 influences, by a remote heredity, and endeavours to 
 establish a more or less impenetrable barrier between 
 the various races. This theory is especially inapplic- 
 able to Russia, whose population is composed of a 
 great mixture of different races. It will suffice to recall 
 that the vielikoruss people (the Great Russian people) 
 is composed of an amalgam of the Slav element and 
 the Finnish element. 
 
 But there is perhaps no more startling proof of the 
 insufficiency of the theory of races than that which is 
 afforded by Russian literature, in which representatives 
 of all the races have collaborated. 
 
 A Russo- Polish writer who has interested himself in 
 this question has established, by a careful inquiry, that 
 non-Russian blood has often flowed in the veins of 
 Russian writers. 
 
 " By attentively studying the biography of the 
 Russian writers, one recognizes that a large number. 
 of those who constitute the pride and glory of Russian 
 literature, a considerable proportion of its lights, its 
 stars, its leaders, and its ' kings,' are not of Russian 
 origin ; that they are of mixed blood, that they are not 
 originally Russian in the precise sense of the word." J 
 
 1 S. Librovitch, Non-Russian Blood in the Veins of Russian Writers 
 (Russian ed., Petrograd). 
 
 181
 
 182 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 In support of this assertion the author gives us the 
 following examples : — 
 
 The real creator of the true national poetry of Russia, 
 the celebrated Alexander Pushkin, had as a maternal 
 ancestor an Abyssinian negro who married a German 
 woman ; the child of this strange inter-continental 
 union was the poet's grandfather. On the paternal 
 side Pushkin had among his ancestors a Prussian immi- 
 grant (who entered Russia in the time of Alexander 
 Nevsky, and who was probably of Slav origin) and 
 an Italian woman. 
 
 Another great Russian poet, Mikhail Lermontov, was 
 of Scottish origin. In the twelfth century there lived 
 in Scotland a famous bard, Leirmont or Learmount by 
 name, who is said to have predicted the destinies of 
 his country, and who was celebrated by Sir .Walter 
 Scott. A branch of his family emigrated into Poland, 
 and in 1 6 1 3 George Leirmont entered the Russian 
 military service with sixty other Scots and Irishmen, 
 and busied himself, under the Tsar Alexei Mikhailo- 
 vitch, reforming the first regiment of regular cavalry 
 known in Russia. 
 
 The poet Lermontov was extremely proud of his 
 extraction, and referred to it in his verses : — 
 
 Why am I not a bird, a crow of the steppes 
 
 Which passed just now above me ? 
 
 Why can I not hover in the heavens 
 
 And love liberty alone ? 
 
 Toward the West, toward the West I would direct my rapid 
 
 flight : 
 There blossom the fields of my ancestors, 
 Where, in an empty castle on the misty mountains, 
 Repose their forgotten ashes. 
 On the ancient wall their hereditary buckler 
 And their rusted sword are suspended. 
 I would fly above the buckler and the sword 
 And with my wing unhang them. 
 
 I would touch with my wing the string of the Scottish harp, 
 And the sound would die away in the vaulted roof ; 
 Heard by one alone and by one alone engendered, 
 It would die even as it broke the silence.
 
 EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 183 
 
 Many other Russian writers were of foreign origin. 
 The first Russian satirist, Prince Kantemir, was the son 
 of a Moldavian sovereign and a Greek woman. Another 
 satirist, who was also the great Russian publicist, 
 Radishtshev, was of Tartar descent. 
 
 The father of Russian romantic poetry, Vassili 
 Jukovsky, had for his mother a Turkish prisoner. 
 His contemporary Delwig, also a romantic poet, 
 belonged to a noble German family. 
 
 The poet Ogariov, the friend of Herzen, had Tartar 
 ancestors. Herzen was the illegitimate son of a German 
 woman and a Russian noble. 
 
 The brothers Aksakov, writers and founders of the 
 Slavophile movement, counted Norwegian kings among 
 their remote forbears. 
 
 The well-known novelist and writer of short stories, 
 Grigorovitch, was the son of a Frenchwoman, an 
 emigree . 
 
 The parents of Fete, a remarkable lyric poet, were 
 a German woman and a Russian noble. 
 
 The Jewish people has given many poets and 
 novelists, etc., to Russia ; for example, the poet 
 Semion Nadson, whose name marks an epoch in the 
 history of literature. 
 
 Among modern writers also we find many who are 
 not of Russian origin. 
 
 The celebrated Leonid Andreev is the son of a Polish 
 mother. Balmont, the well-known poet, has Scottish 
 and Scandinavian ancestors on the paternal side, and on 
 the maternal side Tartars. 
 
 This enumeration might be continued. But the facts 
 here cited are enough to show that what is called race 
 does not play a decisive part in the formation of literary 
 genius. What is of importance is the historical and 
 social milieu in which this genius is evolved ; and in 
 studying the European influences which have affected 
 Russian literature we should occupy ourselves not with 
 anthropological inquiries, but with phenomena of a 
 different order and significance.
 
 184 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 II 
 
 Before speaking of the Western elements introduced 
 by Russia into her literature, there are a few points to 
 be considered respecting the influence of Europe in 
 the formation of the literary language of Russia. 
 
 The whole historic evolution of a people is reflected 
 in its language. It is so with the Russian language, 
 which presents many highly interesting phenomena in 
 the province of pure linguistics and also in that of 
 general history. 
 
 The popular language and the literary language of 
 Russia were very differently formed. In the first are 
 to be perceived the movement of the population, the 
 colonization of the great Eastern plain by Slavo-Russ 
 tribes, and their commerce with other peoples, Mongols, 
 Finns, Poles, Lithuanians, etc. The three principal 
 dialects of the Russian language — the Great Russian, 
 Little Russian, and White Russian (Vielikoruss, Malo- 
 russ or Ukrainian, and Bielorusis) — retain traces of these 
 contacts. 
 
 As for the literary language, the Great Russian is, 
 properly speaking, the only Russian to possess such 
 a thing, for with the White Russians (who inhabit 
 the country bordering on Lithuania and Poland) litera- 
 ture is not yet sufficiently developed to possess its 
 means of expression, and with the Ukrainians, although 
 they already possess a very rich literature, its instru- 
 ment of expression is still in process of formation, 
 and is nearer the popular speech than literary Great 
 Russian. It is also subject to that same instability 
 which is so characteristic of the popular tongue ; 
 so that the writers of the Russian Ukraine em- 
 ploy an idiom which differs perceptibly from that 
 of the Ukrainian writers of Bukovina or Galicia 
 (Ruthenians). 
 
 The literary language of the Great Russians has 
 formed itself upon a stable and well-defined basis. 
 In this it differs greatly from the popular tongue, which
 
 EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 185 
 
 is by no means uniform, and is composed of numerous 
 differing patois. 
 
 The formation of the Great Russian literary language 
 may be divided into three principal phases, two of 
 which proceed from two distinct external factors. The 
 first phase begins with the evangelization of Russia ; 
 it is therefore Bulgar or Graeco-Bulgar in character. 
 It will be remembered that Russia received Christianity 
 from Bulgaria, or rather from Macedonia, whence came 
 also the clergy and the first religious and ecclesiastical 
 books. The Russian literary language was, in the 
 beginning, the language of religion, and it is known 
 by the name of the "Slav Church language." It was 
 entirely " foreign " to that of the people, and hardly 
 understood by the latter. But after some time the 
 second language became diffused into the first, and the 
 written language approximated to the living popular 
 speech. However, their resemblance is chiefly phonetic. 
 In its lexicology and syntax the scholarly language 
 remained Bulgaro -ecclesiastical. In this language — 
 Russian by consonance, foreign by inflexion, the con- 
 struction of words, and the turn of phrases — are written 
 the first historical chronicles and the first juridical 
 acts of the principality of Kiev. 
 
 After the removal of the capital from Kiev to 
 Vladimir, and thence to Moscow, an urban language 
 sprang up, which was distinct from the rural tongue, 
 and which, as Moscow increased and developed into a 
 Grand Duchy and a Russian Tsarstvo, became the 
 language of the State. " The Governmental Chan- 
 celleries are obliged to speak from Moscow to all 
 Russia in a comprehensible language. Thus a language 
 of the Chancellery, simple and precise, which is not 
 without picturesqueness and expressive power ... a 
 finished, and perfected language, which had a chance 
 of lasting unchanged as long as the needs and the 
 mentality of which it was born. . . . But from the 
 beginning of the nineteenth century all is again un- 
 settled. The language detaches itself from its quite
 
 186 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 recently constituted basis and moves onward at random, 
 accumulating, without any discretion, the raw material 
 of foreign terms and concepts. A moment comes when 
 Russian writers prefer, not without reason, to have 
 recourse to foreign languages in order to express them- 
 selves with sufficient art and precision. After the calm, 
 the solemnity, and the exactitude of the solid Muscovite 
 tongue, convulsive efforts are made to represent the 
 afflux of new thoughts and feelings. The veil of uni- 
 formity cast over the literature of the sixteenth century 
 disappears as by enchantment." > 
 
 Thus the evolution of the literary language in Russia 
 corresponds with the general development of the 
 country. The linguistic invasion of Russia by Europe, 
 which took place at the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century, coincides with the first great effort to 
 Europeanize Russia under Peter I. The two move- 
 ments do not merely coincide ; they are profoundly 
 correlated. There is a close connection between the 
 linguistic imports and the general multiplication of com- 
 munications between Russia and Europe. Commercial 
 exchanges brought a host of new terms into the Russian 
 vocabulary, names of articles of merchandise and the 
 terms defining transactions. The adoption of European 
 methods by the Russian Army also necessitated, as 
 we have seen, the employment of new military terms. 
 The same thing happened in the case of Govern- 
 ment institutions : almost all the names of the new 
 organs and officials (from the Senat to the land rat) 
 were borrowed from Europe. 
 
 It should be noted that even in the days of Peter I 
 it was realized that these importations ought not to be 
 mechanical, and Peter I often employed himself by 
 correcting the translations of foreign books into 
 Russian. 
 
 The Academician A. Chakhmatov states that during 
 the first half of the eighteenth century " the Russian 
 
 1 P. Milukov, Studies in Russian Culture, Fart II, p. 176 (Petersburg, 
 1897).
 
 EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 187 
 
 tongue was placed in a difficult position by the host 
 of foreign words which invaded it, coming from the 
 West in an irresistible stream." ' But during the second 
 half of the century the literary language was already 
 rapidly assimilating these European importations which 
 were transforming it. Moreover, at the close of the 
 eighteenth century Europe was affecting the Russian 
 language in a different manner to that observed at 
 the beginning of the century. Under Peter I the 
 European additions travelled by what we may call 
 the official path : that of translations commissioned 
 by the Government, diplomatic documents, etc. Under 
 Catherine II the Russian writers were spontaneously 
 delving into the linguistic wealth of Europe, and their 
 acquisitions were of a different kind. They were not 
 limited to technical terms, to the vocabularies of trade, 
 industry, and government ; they even extended to the 
 expressions which interpret the intellectual phenomena 
 peculiar to cultivated minds, abstract ideas, and the 
 movements of the heart and the soul. 
 
 Karamzin energetically contributed to this develop- 
 ment. Leader of the "sentimentalist " school, he could 
 not find, in the old literary Russian, all that he needed 
 to depict the inward life of his characters. To remedy 
 this penury of sentimental interpretation, and also to 
 build up the vocabulary required for his historical and 
 philosophical works, he created a great number of 
 words, proceeding by analogy and following the model 
 of the Latin tongues. He also ' Europeanized ' 
 Russian syntax, introducing more flexible and more 
 agreeable constructions. 
 
 This reorganization of the Russian language met with 
 considerable resistance on the part of the extremer 
 nationalists, one of whom (Shishkov) published a violent 
 protest against the " novelties " imported by Karamzin 
 and a defence of the " old style." The hostility of 
 Shishkov and his followers is in part explained by 
 
 1 A. Chakhmatov, "The Russian Tongue," in Brockhaus and Efron's 
 Encyclopedia, vol. 55 (Petersburg, 1899).
 
 188 RUSSIA] AND EUROPE 
 
 the exaggerations which certain of the innovators per- 
 mitted themselves ; some of them even went so far 
 as to say that they detested the Russian tongue and 
 preferred the French. But Karamzin and the best 
 of the protagonists of "' Europeanization " were in no 
 way responsible for these extravagances. Karamzin 
 did not " denaturalize " the literary language ; on the 
 contrary, he put life into it. Bielinsky, the famous 
 critic, was perfectly right when he asserted that "before 
 Karamzin's time no one read, for the little there 
 was to read was so frightfully heavy." 
 
 But Karamzin was obliged to seek for his means of 
 expression in European literature, and especially in 
 French literature. .When asked how he had accom- 
 plished this transformation, he replied that " he had 
 some foreign authors in his mind," and that " he had 
 in the first place imitated them." But his imitation 
 was not blind or mechanical ; for, as M. Haumant 
 observes, he " Russified more or less happily ' the 
 materials (for the most part French) which entered 
 into the construction of his Russian prose. He could 
 not therefore be accused of having "'denaturalized' 
 the language of his country ; but he made it fruitful 
 by means of the powers of expression which he brought 
 to it from the West. 
 
 What Karamzin did for prose, others did for poetry. 
 " The pains taken by the poetasters of the banks of 
 the Moskva to achieve the elegance of their colleagues 
 on the banks of the Seine," says M. Haumant, " were 
 not entirely fruitless." Those rhymesters of the early 
 nineteenth century, who had, without exception, learned 
 in the school of Europe, prepared the way for the 
 muse of Pushkin, whose style was thus formed upon 
 the teaching of foreign authors, and whose verse was 
 the first manifestation — as yet unequalled — of the Russo- 
 European synthesis in Russian poetry. 
 
 Since the days of Karamzin and Pushkin the literary 
 Russian language has had the benefit of a solid 
 foundation for its subsequent development, which has
 
 EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 189 
 
 been entirely national and original ; but it will not 
 forget that much of the material of these foundations 
 came from Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 This language was, at the time of its formation, 
 and is now, the language employed by the world of 
 thought ; it is alien to the people. The Europeaniza- 
 tion of the language, like the process of Europeaniza- 
 tion in general, has not yet touched the masses. 
 Although the spoken language of the cities is very 
 close to the written language, the heavy, rustic idiom 
 in common use among the moujiks is still far 
 removed from it. But the diffusion of the Press, which 
 is spreading from the towns into the country, the de- 
 velopment of political life, and the awakening of the 
 rural population to intellectual interests and the pro- 
 gress of popular education are gradually lessening the 
 difference.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 I . The literature of the people and the literature of the cultivated 
 writers — The first Western influences. II. The importation from 
 Europe of literary forms and subjects. 
 
 I 
 
 Foreign influences were plainly perceptible in Russian 
 literature even in the earliest period, when popular 
 poetry and oral tradition had their birth. In the early 
 written literature they were even more perceptible. 
 
 The written literature appropriated and absorbed 
 these foreign influences far more skilfully than did 
 the popular poetry ; intentional imitation being plainly 
 perceptible, while in folk-lore the borrowing of foreign 
 elements was effected unconsciously. 
 
 The general origin of foreign inspiration, its source, 
 and its paths of diffusion, differed considerably in both 
 literatures. Oral poetry in Russia is often the daughter 
 of the East, while the written literature draws vitality 
 from the West ; in the case of the latter Asia gives 
 way to Europe. 
 
 But this change of orientation was gradual. In 
 its beginnings Russian literature was forced to remain 
 under the severe discipline of the Byzantine Church 
 and its ascetic subjects. This quenched the radiance 
 of poetic imagination. Not until the sixteenth century 
 and afterwards did the literary influence of the West 
 hew out a road for itself — a road which was not at 
 first direct, but which followed a long and roundabout 
 course. 
 
 The first literary intermediaries between Russia and 
 
 190
 
 EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 191 
 
 Europe were the Southern Slavs — Bulgars, Sorbs, 
 and Dalmatians— whose relations with their northern 
 brothers were facilitated by the common alphabet in- 
 vented in the ninth century by Saint Cyril, the famous 
 apostle of the Slavs. Through them European litera- 
 ture found its way into Russia, and there produced 
 quite a spiritual revolution. The " Slavo-Roman " 
 novels (as the Russian historians and philologists call 
 them) — that is to say, the Slav version of the various 
 romances of chivalry (Tristan and Iseult, the Knight 
 Bova, Attila, the Fair Helen, etc.) made their way 
 through Russia and gave rise to a new world of ideas 
 and feelings and sympathies. The exploits and 
 adventures of knights, the glorification of their heroism, 
 and other similar subjects which furnished the matter 
 of the " Slavo-Roman novels," afforded a diversion, 
 a relaxation, to minds wearied by the monotonous moral 
 and religious parenetics which for centuries had been 
 their only mental fare. The legends of France, 
 Brittany, and Italy, having passed through Serbia and 
 Dalmatia, reached the Muscovites, in whom they re- 
 awakened the poetic traditions of the period of Kiev, 
 with its epic songs (byliny), which had been pitilessly- 
 persecuted and exterminated by the Church. Some 
 of these productions (for example, the Italian romance 
 of the Knight Bova) became, and have remained until 
 our days, the favourite reading of the great masses 
 of the Russian people. 
 
 Love, as a subject, was an especial novelty to the 
 Russians, who had for so long been subjected to an 
 ethical system of Byzantine origin, which, in accord- 
 ance with the teaching of the Church, strove to depict 
 woman as an " evil being," a " diabolic vessel," while 
 the story - tellers and poets of the West idealized 
 her and openly professed the cult of beauty and 
 of love. 
 
 In the seventeenth century it was through her two 
 most cultivated neighbours— Poland and the Ukraine, 
 then to a great extent Polish in thought and language
 
 192 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 — that Muscovite Russia received her literary importa- 
 tions from Europe. 
 
 '■' In Polo-Ukrainian attire they came to us — 
 Melusina, the gracious fairy, who mysteriously trans- 
 forms herself into a little snake ; Count Peter of 
 Provence with his faithful Magellonne ; Prince Bruns- 
 wig, followed everywhere by his lion ; pairs of lovers, 
 courageous knights, touching or pathetic visions." • 
 
 At the same period Russia became familiar with 
 the gay scenes of the celebrated humorous writers 
 in whom the West abounds, the French fabliaux, and 
 the episodes of Boccaccio's Decameron. This revela- 
 tion, says Professor Veselovsky, who has made a special 
 study of European influences in Russian prose and 
 poetry, M produced a definite alteration in the tastes 
 and judgments of the reader, by at last setting free 
 the eternal aspirations, passion, love, laughter, dreams 
 — all that was oppressed by the doctrine of abstinence 
 and false modesty." 
 
 II 
 
 European literature, while it developed the taste of 
 the Russians, was also a school, in which the foremost 
 representatives of prose and poetry were glad to study. 
 Before this period there were only two forms of literary 
 production : the lietopis — that is, the historical chronicle 
 — and the religious homily. Europe taught Russia to 
 employ other forms ; the ode, the drama, the romance. 
 
 In the seventeenth century the south-west of Russia 
 (and Kiev in particular) saw the creation of literary 
 centres, where writers composed syllabic verses accord- 
 ing to the rules of pseudo-classicism, and attempted 
 to build up dramas of a sort. An embryo theatre 
 even was established, organized by the students of 
 the ecclesiastical colleges of the Ukraine. At the same 
 time, society for the first time made the acquaintance 
 of the periodical newspaper. It is true that the first 
 
 1 Alexis Veselovsky, Western Influence in Modern Russian Literature, 
 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1896), p. 24.
 
 EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 193 
 
 Russian newspaper was founded very much later, at 
 the beginning of the eighteenth century, in fact, but 
 in the seventeenth century the Government caused foreign 
 newspapers to be translated into Russian. 
 
 From the beginning of the eighteenth century the 
 literature of the West had a direct effect upon Russia, 
 independent of Poland as an intermediary. Russian 
 writers began to come into immediate contact with 
 their European masters. 
 
 The first Russian satirist, Prince Antioch Kantemir, 
 who attacked ignorance and glorified knowledge, main- 
 tained personal relations with Montesquieu, Voltaire, 
 and others. It is obvious that he found inspiration in 
 Boileau, for he repeats almost word for word the famous 
 avowal that " the word, in order that it may delight 
 the reader, has often cost the author tears." " Hes 
 laughs in his verses," says Kantemir, " but in his heart 
 he weeps over unprincipled men." He also imitated 
 La Bruyere, Mathurin R6gnier, and Voltaire. 
 
 Another Russian poet of the first half of the 
 eighteenth century, Vassili Tretiakovsky, learned the 
 poetic art abroad. He travelled in Holland and in 
 France, and attended lectures at the University of Paris. 
 Lacking money, he had to go afoot for a great part 
 of the journey to Paris. He said of this city that 
 " only a man whose soul is bestial can fail to love 
 this beautiful spot, these beloved bank's of the Seine." 
 The poetical talent of Tretiakovsky was not very re- 
 markable (he wrote better verses in French than in 
 Russian), but he was the true pioneer of Russian versifi- 
 cation. By comparing it with French versification he 
 convinced himself that Russian versification must be 
 based upon the tonic and not on the syllabic principle. 
 Thanks to the revolution which he effected, Russian 
 poetry was able to develop freely, liberated from the 
 conventional rules of Latin or syllabic versification. 
 
 Another lyric poet, Bogdanovitch, the immediate pre- 
 cursor of Pushkin (he wrote late in the eighteenth 
 century), was also a pupil of the French. The sub- 
 
 13
 
 194 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 ject of his romance Dushenka is borrowed from La 
 Fontaine's Psyche. He also translated poems by 
 Marmontel, Voltaire, etc. 
 
 Tragedy too was an importation from Europe. 
 The pioneer in this department of letters, Sumarokov 
 (1717-77), was known as "the Russian Racine," and 
 he certainly attempted to imitate Racine — and also 
 Voltaire. He even wrote a poem in glorification of 
 these two poets and Moliere, in which he expressed 
 the conviction that " Moliere's Tartufe will not be 
 forgotten so long as the world endures." Sumarokov 
 was also the founder of Russian journalism ; he estab- 
 lished a monthly review, the forerunner of the periodical 
 publications of the close of the eighteenth century. 
 These early examples of Russian journalism were still 
 imitations of European journals ; they were merely 
 copies of the English Spectator and other publications 
 of the kind. All the Russian contemporaries of the 
 Spectator were full of translations and adaptations of 
 articles appearing in the Spectator. In this connec- 
 tion we may mention that the form of the Vision of 
 Mirza, a poem by the celebrated writer of odes, 
 Derjavin (1743-18 16), was taken from the allegorical 
 poem by Addison, published, under the same title, in 
 the Spectator. 
 
 At the same period two other forms of literature 
 were developed in Russia : the comedy and the fable. 
 In these, again, the Russian authors, even the most 
 independent and the most truly national, were merely 
 the docile disciples of Europe. In this connection the 
 evolution of talent in the well-known fabulist Krylov is 
 extremely interesting. He began by writing tragedies, 
 following the rules of the French classics. Then he 
 wrote comic operas and comedies, in which he 
 borrowed from Moliere, Beaumarchais, and other French 
 writers. Krylov 's comedy A Lesson for Young Women 
 is word for word a reproduction of Les Precieuses 
 Ridicules. When Krylov finally devoted himself exclu- 
 sively to the fables which made him famous not only
 
 EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 195 
 
 in Russia but throughout the world, he was still follow- 
 ing in the footsteps of his Greek and French originals. 
 The French biographer of Krylov, M. Fleury, and a 
 number of Russian critics have demonstrated that 
 Krylov imitated La Fontaine and remained an adapter 
 even in those fables which he professed to regard as 
 original and which seemed to bear all the marks of 
 invention . 
 
 As for the comic writers, the two best known at the 
 end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nine- 
 teenth century were Count Kapnist and Fonvizin. In 
 Kapnist's well-known comedy Tabeda (Trickery), which 
 vigorously attacks the venal and inequitable justice of 
 Russia, we find traces of the Misanthrope of Moliere, 
 and one of the principal characters in this comedy is 
 almost the twin brother of Alceste. Fonvizin, the father 
 of Russian comedy, and indeed of the Russian theatre, 
 presents a still more curious example of Western influ- 
 ence. Fonvizin was a militant opponent of " Gallo- 
 mania " — that is, the excessive admiration professed by 
 Russian society for French literature, French ideas, 
 French manners. Nevertheless, he himself, in his 
 comedies, " subjected French authors to a devastating 
 invasion " (in the words of M. Veselovsky), taking 
 from them whatever he could. He plundered Duclos, 
 La Bruyere, Voltaire, La Rochefoucauld, etc., and even 
 went to the length of actual plagiarism. What is 
 more, the very comedy in which he strikes his shrewdest 
 blows at " Gallomania " — his Ivanushka — is by no 
 means an original and national work, but a mere adapta- 
 tion of a comedy by Holberg, the Danish author of 
 Jean of France, the hero of which was a young Dane 
 who was over-Gallicized. Fonvizin did not even change 
 the name of the leading character, but merely trans- 
 lated it, Ivanushka being the diminutive of Ivan or 
 John or Jean. 
 
 To close this examination of the origins of the various 
 forms and departments of Russian literature, we must 
 not omit to mention what in Russia is known as
 
 196 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 " publicist " literature, that is, the literature of political 
 and social propaganda, which plays an enormous part 
 in Russian life. This species of literature made its 
 first appearance at the end of the nineteenth century, 
 and its first memorable example was the Voyage from 
 Petersburg to Moscow by Radishtshev. This " book, 
 which suffered greatly " (like its author), which was 
 placed on the Index by the Russian Government, and 
 was prohibited for a term of a hundred years ( ! ), con- 
 tained a fiery and audacious protest against the horrors 
 of despotic rule and of serfdom. A piece of noble 
 audacity, it proceeded directly from two foreign books : 
 Sterne's Sentimental Journey through France and Italy 
 (1796), and the Philosophical and Political History of 
 European Trade and Settlements in the East and Wsest 
 Indies (The Hague, 1774). To the English author 
 Radishtshev owes the outward form of his work and a 
 whole series of episodes ; to the French author, the 
 condemnation of Indian slavery, to which Russian serf- 
 dom bore a great resemblance. 
 
 It is thus clearly proved that the most celebrated 
 monuments of eighteenth century Russian literature are 
 the offspring of European literature — and of French 
 literature especially ; and that the principal literary 
 forms and models reached us from the iWest. The 
 eighteenth century was for Russian writers the didactic 
 century, during which they were shaping themselves 
 in the school of Europe. 
 
 The two first decades of the nineteenth century also 
 belong to this period. The best Russian novelist of 
 this period, Karamzin, found the type of his sentimental 
 romances in Rousseau (La Nauvelle Heh'ise) and 
 Goethe (Werthei*). The best-known poet of this period, 
 Jukovsky, wrote ballads modelled on those of Burger, 
 and other German romantics, and elegies in imitation 
 of European poets. 
 
 It was only towards the end of the second half of 
 the nineteenth century that the mighty trio arose — 
 Pushkin, Lermontov, and Gogol — and Russian literature
 
 EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 197 
 
 weaned itself from its pfarent, and began to lead a truly 
 independent and national existence. Not that it was 
 thenceforth closed to all foreign suggestion. The genial 
 creations of Pushkin, Lermontov, and Gogol, like those 
 of their predecessors, were matured by the beneficent 
 warmth diffused by the literature of the West. But 
 mechanical and explicit reproduction was replaced by 
 an organic appropriation and a national transformation 
 of international ideas and expressions. 
 
 Russian literature still keeps its eyes fixed upon 
 Europe ; perhaps more steadily than of old ; but it 
 no longer follows in another's wake, like a vessel under 
 tow ; it moves upon its own course.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 I. Various European influences in Russian literature — Classicism, 
 sentimentalism, and romanticism — Shakespeare in Russia. II. 
 Russian realism. III. Byronism in Russia — Dostoievsky's opinion 
 of Byronism. 
 
 My readers will understand that European influence 
 in Russian literature is not confined to the formal side 
 of the latter — to the language and the different creative 
 forms. It has also affected the spirit of literary pro- 
 duction in Russia, and all the principal " movements " 
 of European literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth 
 centuries will be found in Russian literature, from classi- 
 cism to symbolism (or even, if you will, to futurism 1). 
 
 The literary movements of Western Europe find their 
 way into Russia, and there undergo transformation. 
 Some of them strike only very feeble roots into Russian 
 soil ; others, on the contrary, become thoroughly 
 acclimatized and yield remarkable fruit. 
 
 A French historian, M. Andre" Lirondelle (Professor 
 in the University of Lille), published some three years 
 ago a very interesting work on Shakespeare in Russia. 
 This volume, which is a true literary incarnation of 
 the Anglo-Franco-Russian alliance (the work of a 
 French scholar investigating the influence upon Russian 
 literature of a great English writer !), affords us excellent 
 concrete material for the formation of an exact idea 
 as to the general character and the relative power of 
 the various literary movements in Russia. 
 
 The Russians made their first acquaintance with 
 Shakespeare perhaps in the seventeenth century. But 
 
 196
 
 EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 199 
 
 this first acquaintance was neither extensive nor pro- 
 found, and down to the end of the following century 
 the influence of Shakespeare was small in the extreme. 
 This will be readily understood, for the eighteenth 
 century was an age of classicism. Even at the begin- 
 ning of this century a well-known Russian writer — 
 Feofan Prokopovitch — gave evidence of "a classic 
 temperament," and derided the liberties taken by the 
 Russian imitators of the Jesuit dramas : " The Tsars, 
 on their stage, utter imbecilities ; they weep like women 
 and speak like artisans," he indignantly complains. A 
 historian of Russian literature, citing this remark, con- 
 cludes with justice : " With such ideas Feofan would 
 certainly have criticized Shakespeare and exalted 
 Corneille and Racine." 1 
 
 During the whole of the eighteenth century the 
 literary influence of France became more firmly estab- 
 lished in Russia, and the influence of classicism increased 
 simultaneously. And it was through the medium of 
 his French translators and critics that Shakespeare made 
 his way into Russian literature. He was a " Frenchi- 
 fied " Shakespeare. But he nevertheless helped to 
 weaken the influence of French classicism, because, as 
 M. Lirondelle very justly remarks, the Russian tempera- 
 ment itself was an aid to the diffusion of the Shake- 
 spearian influence. The propaganda of the new German 
 school of drama (that of Lessing) was also of assistance. 
 The protest of this school against the narrowness of 
 the classic school was bound to be extremely effective 
 in Russia. " To speak of the abrogation of rules, 
 to recommend simplicity and what is natural, was to 
 gain one's cause beforehand with minds impatient of 
 constraint." 2 
 
 However, we must not exaggerate the extent of the 
 anti-classical reaction which took place in the time 
 of Catherine II. The liberation from the rules of the 
 classical drama was only formal and external. As 
 
 1 Andre Lirondelle, Shakespeare en Russie, pp. 14-15 (Paris, 191 2). 
 ■ Ibid. p. 32.
 
 200 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 for the true Shakespearian spirit, it was still unknown 
 to the Russian literature of that period. The best 
 proofs of this statement are the dramatic works of 
 Catherine II, who renounced the " three unities " of 
 classicism and imitated Shakespeare in the construction 
 of her historic dramas, but was at the same time anxious 
 that history and the reality " should not be too dis- 
 agreeable." In her " imitations " of Shakespeare 
 Catherine misrepresented him rather than imitated him', 
 and the most original of Shakespeare's types suffer, 
 at her hands, metamorphoses which are utterly in- 
 credible. For example, in one of her plays " FalstafT, 
 a Flemish drunkard," the whale with belly swollen 
 with tuns of oil that is cast ashore at .Windsor, has 
 become an elegant coxcomb, always dressed, shod, and 
 barbered in the latest fashion. Considerations of a 
 political order entered into literature. Catherine elimi- 
 nated from her imitations of Shakespeare every really 
 popular or democratic element. In " a free adaptation " 
 of Timon of Athens she suppressed', for example, all 
 mention of the Greek democracy and its political con- 
 flicts. 
 
 The age of Catherine was too deeply steeped in 
 " enlightened despotism " and false classicism to adopt 
 the robust and popular realism of Shakespeare. These 
 are the words in which a Russian review, in 1769, 
 expressed the prevailing opinion of Shakespeare : — 
 
 " Shakespeare, that old tragedian, still adored by 
 the English, had thoughts of a very lofty order, and 
 was witty and scholarly, but wayward, and his taste 
 was bad. All his tragedies have now become curious 
 farces, in which the characters are described and inter- 
 mingled without selection. In his Julius Ccesar, 
 pleasantries which would be natural to coarse Roman 
 artisans are introduced into the very, important scene 
 between Brutus and Cassius." 
 
 This was written in 1769. Twenty years had not 
 elapsed when a very, different opinion was expressed. 
 Karamzin, the leader of the " sentimentalist " movement,
 
 EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 201 
 
 published in 1787 a translation of Julius Ccesar, and 
 in the preface to his translation he speaks of Shake- 
 speare as follows : — 
 
 " Few writers have penetrated human nature so pro- 
 foundly as Shakespeare j few have known so intimately 
 as this astonishing artist all the most secret forces of 
 man, his most hidden motives, the individuality of every, 
 passion, of every temperament, of every manner of life. 
 All his magnificent pictures directly imitate nature ; 
 all the changing lights of these pictures astonish those 
 who examine them attentively ; in his work every class 
 of mankind, every age, every, passion, and every 
 character speaks its own language. For every thought 
 he finds an image, for every feeling an expression, 
 for every movement of the soul the best interpretation." 
 
 Karamzin defends Shakespeare against the attacks 
 of " the celebrated sophist Voltaire " {sic), who ,4 strove 
 to prove that Shakespeare was an indifferent author, 
 full of great and numerous defects," and who held that 
 the tragedies of Shakespeare were " tragico-lyrico- 
 pastoral farces, without plan, without unity, with no 
 connection between one scene and the next ; a dis- 
 agreeable mixture of the base and the sublime." 
 Karamzin explains Voltaire's opinion by personal motives 
 — and asserts that " being indebted to Shakespeare for 
 the best elements of his tragedy, Voltaire feared to 
 praise Shakespeare lest he should thereby abase him- 
 self." 
 
 "That Shakespeare did not observe the rules of 
 the theatre is true," continues Karamzin. " The real 
 cause of this non-observance was, I believe, his ardent 
 imagination, which could not subdue itself to any pre- 
 scribed rule. His mind soared like an eagle, and 
 could not measure its flight by the measure of a sparrow. 
 ... He did not wish to confine his imagination within 
 limits ; he considered nature only, caring for nothing 
 else. ... His genius, like the genius of nature, em- 
 braced the sun and the atoms in its gaze." 
 
 But although the Russian " sentimentalists " were
 
 202 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 better able to appreciate Shakespeare than the repre- 
 sentatives of pseudo-classicism, they were as yet unable 
 to grasp the real meaning of " Shakespearism." The 
 violent passions of Shakespeare's heroes and his brutal 
 realism were too much for the tender sentimentalists. 
 One experiences a very curious impression on observing 
 their endeavours to discover " melancholy " in Shake- 
 speare, and on reading their lamentations over the 
 shocking attitude of his buffoons, who offend our sensi- 
 tive " melancholies " by their noisy cries and vulgar 
 pleasantries. 
 
 The writers of the romantic period, which in Russia, 
 as everywhere, followed the period of sentimentalism, 
 seek to exploit Shakespeare to the advantage of their 
 own literary school. Russian romantic poetry was 
 strongly influenced by its German sister, and followed 
 the latter in its preference for the fantastic and 
 mysterious. And these are the qualities which our 
 romantic poets discover in Shakespeare, while his realism 
 offends them almost as greatly as it revolted our senti- 
 mentalists. For example, the leader of the romantic 
 school in Russia, Jukovsky, " is fascinated by the 
 terrifying scenes of Macbeth, the fantastic witches, the 
 monologue which precedes the crime, the somnambulism 
 of Lady Macbeth." But " the pleasantries of Shake- 
 speare strike him as lacking in refinement." l Never- 
 theless, Shakespeare is officially classified by the 
 romantic critics and philosophers of Russia as among 
 the romantic poets, and his works " were the subject 
 of many great debates in our ' philosophical clubs ' 
 of the years 1830-40." The youthful members of 
 these clubs (of which I shall speak presently) drew 
 upon the Shakespearian drama for material to illustrate 
 the abstract ideas of their masters, the German philo- 
 sophers (Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel). 
 
 But at this same period Pushkin — first of all the 
 Russian writers — attained to a thorough understanding 
 and a just appreciation of Shakespeare, and expressed 
 
 1 A. Lirondelle, op. cit. p. 128.
 
 EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 203 
 
 the opinion that the popular laws of the English drama 
 were better suited to the Russian theatre than the 
 " courtly tradition " of the school of Racine. And in 
 his historical drama Boris Godunov Pushkin faithfully 
 observed the laws of the Shakespearian drama. Boris 
 Godunov became the starting-point of the new dramatic 
 art and of the new Russian literature in general ; the 
 watchword of the latter being realism. 
 
 II 
 
 All who are acquainted with Russian literature and 
 are able to appreciate its function consider that its 
 realism constitutes its principal virtue and attraction. 
 And it is this realism which makes it an international 
 literature. The connection between the realistic char- 
 acter of Russian literature and its universal quality is 
 very well defined by M. Venguerov in a recent volume. 
 This is what he says : — 
 
 " Are not all the great Russian writers at the same 
 time international writers? Must we not place them 
 in the front rank of humanity? ... If we limit the 
 comparison to the modern period of Russian literature 
 —that is, to the second half of the nineteenth century — 
 and if we enumerate only the best-known authors, we 
 see that its place is quite different. Are the works of 
 Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Dostoievsky on the same level 
 as the English and American productions of the same 
 period, the most eminent of which are the novels of 
 George Eliot and Mrs. Beecher Stowe, the short stories 
 of Bret Harte, the nebulous poetry of Browning, the 
 sugary idylls of Tennyson? Are they on a level with 
 the contemporary literature of Germany, the most 
 notable examples of which bear the names of Auerbach, 
 Freitag, Spielhagen, and Paul Heise? Lastly, is the 
 place of, Russian literature quite on the same level with 
 that of French literature, although this is illumined by 
 such talents as those of Dumas fits, Flaubert, and Guy 
 de Maupassant? 
 
 " No ; we may say it without any chauvinism ; in the 

 
 204 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 individual genius of its protagonists and, above all, in 
 its fundamental tendencies, the Russian literature of 
 the second half of the nineteenth century is absolutely 
 on a higher plane than the modern literature of Western 
 Europe, which reached its apogee not in the second 
 but in the first half of the century, with Goethe, Schiller, 
 Heine, Byron, Balzac, Hugo, George Sand, Dickens, 
 etc. Has not realism' — which quite recently, in Europe, 
 appeared to be the last phase of literary progress — has 
 not realism, with us, been predominant for some eighty 
 years ? And again, can any man with a cultivated sense 
 of the artistic fail to realize how far the famous Euro- 
 pean 'realism' of 1870-80, so nearly akin to porno- 
 graphy and absence of the ideal, is inferior to the 
 realism of the Russian writers? With the Russians life 
 is represented with a fidelity which amounts to complete 
 reproduction, and this reproduction, which attains the 
 very limits of the actual, is yet illumined by the ideal 
 and full of a love of humanity of which there is not even 
 a trace in the greater European realists. . ,. . And 
 there is no doubt that it is precisely this difference which' 
 explains the mystery of the stupendous success which 
 the Russian writers have achieved with the public and 
 the critics of Western Europe. Every one was con- 
 scious that the stagnant waters of European literature 
 had been stirred by a fresh current, full of fresh colours, 
 which were the result, not of putrefaction, but of the 
 organic labour of forces which were still young> virgin, 
 and incorruptible. The barbarians of yesterday were 
 speaking a new language, which was to echo profoundly 
 through European literature." l 
 
 But while admitting all this, we must not forget that 
 Russian realism' was born under the influence of a few 
 European authors, and in particular of Shakespeare, 
 whose mighty shadow hovered over the cradle of the 
 young literature. To-day, when all humanity has just 
 been celebrating the tercentenary of Shakespeare, Russia 
 has reason to be peculiarly, grateful to him. 
 
 * S. Venguerov, The Heroic Character of Russian Literature (Peters- 
 burg, 191 1), pp. 21, 22.
 
 EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 205 
 
 III 
 
 M. Lirondelle, in his work on Shakespeare en Russie, 
 touches on the important problem of the conflict between 
 the influence of Shakespeare upon Russian literature 
 and that of Byron. Speaking of the impress of Shake- 
 speare upon Pushkin, the father of Russian prose and 
 poetry, M. Lirondelle remarks that " Pushkin did not, 
 upon coming into contact with Shakespeare, incur the 
 danger which Byron brought upon him by leading him 
 toward an exaggerated subjectivity." The same idea 
 is expressed by many historians of Russian literature, 
 who assert, moreover, that Shakespeare delivered 
 Pushkin from the peril of Byronic subjectivism. 
 
 I do not share this opinion, for the following 
 reasons : — 
 
 In the first place, I do not understand why 
 Byronism should be, or should be said to be, 
 more idangerous to Russian writers than " Ham- 
 letism," which has left a deep imprint upon our 
 literature. " Hamletism " is the scepticism of a 
 superior mind devoid of all moral energy, all power 
 of action. These characteristics were predominant in 
 the Russian " intellectuals " of certain periods of the 
 last century, as I have already stated in my Modern, 
 Russia. As for Byronism, the lack of will so typical of 
 " Hamletism " is unknown to it. During its first diffu- 
 sion through Russia Byronism was accepted by our 
 " intellectuals " more especially as a revolutionary pro- 
 test of the individual against the old political and social 
 forces which oppressed it. Byron, to the Russians, was 
 not merely the author of Don Juan and Childe Harold ; 
 he was also the poet of the Greek insurrection and pf 
 liberty in general. It is of great importance to realize 
 that of the three principal currents of Western 
 romanticism, that which had the most influence over 
 Russian literature was not the romanticism of Germany, 
 with its fantastic ballads, nor the romanticism of France, 
 with its conservatism and mysticism, but the romanti-
 
 206 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 cism of England. And it was not the fault of thb 
 Russian writers and " intellectuals " that the external 
 conditions of their country did not allow them to realize, 
 in actual life, their Byronic impulse, which was for them 
 an impulse toward liberty and truth. It was not their 
 fault that this impulse, shattered by the social and 
 political conditions of the country, lost its energy and 
 degenerated into a passive " Hamletism." 
 
 In the Russian life of the nineteenth century there 
 were moments of the most intense social and political 
 activity. At these moments the young "intellectuals" 
 were often extremely hard upon the " Byronians." In 
 1877, when Dostoievsky pronounced a funeral address 
 over the tomb of the poet Nekrassov, beloved by the 
 vanguard of Russian youth, he compared the dead poet 
 to Pushkin and Lermontov, whereupon a voice from the 
 crowd about the tomb cried out that Nekrassov was 
 superior to Pushkin and Lermontov, because they " were 
 only Byronians." Dostoievsky himself had not much 
 love for the Russian " Byronians " ; they were anti- 
 pathetic to him as " Occidentalists," and men who felt 
 themselves detached from the national soil. More 
 than once he derided them ; more than once he 
 was unjust to them. In 1861 he wrote of them as 
 follows : — 
 
 "There were in our country Byronic natures. The 
 ' Byronians ' usually stood about with folded arms, with- 
 out even taking the trouble to damn things, like the 
 head of their school. They were content to smile 
 bitterly from time to time, and they derided their 
 English original because on occasion he wept or lost 
 his temper, which was entirely unworthy of a peer. 
 Their quiet disdain permitted them to spend their time 
 junketing in restaurants, growing fatter not daily only 
 but hourly ; and their gentle bitterness filled them 
 merely with an amiable hatred of property. Some there 
 were who, in their disinterestedness — in respect of others 
 —dipped into the pockets of their neighbours and en- 
 riched themselves at their expense. Some became
 
 EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 207 
 
 4 Grecians.' We regarded them with admiration. ' To 
 think,' we used to tell ourselves, ' that what these fine 
 fellows do they do on principle ! ' " 
 
 But later on Dostoievsky abandoned this point of 
 view, and when his auditors by the coffin of Nekrassov 
 sought in turn to belittle the Byronians, he took it 
 upon himself to defend the latter. In this connection 
 Dostoievsky published in his Diary of an Author a 
 remarkable passage descriptive of Byronism : — 
 
 " In the first place," he says, " it seems to me that 
 one should not employ the word ' Byronian ' as an 
 insult. Byronism was only a momentary phenomenon, 
 but it was not without importance, and it came at the 
 right time. It appeared at a period of anguish and dis- 
 illusion. After a frantic enthusiasm for a new ideal 
 born in France at the end of the eighteenth century — 
 and France was then the foremost nation of Europe- 
 humanity recovered itself, and the events which followed 
 were so little like those which had been expected, and 
 men understood so clearly that they had been tricked, 
 that there have been few sadder moments in the history 
 of Western Europe. The old idols lay overthrown, when 
 a powerful and passionate poet revealed himself. In 
 his songs echoed the anguish of man, and he wept that 
 he had been deceived. His was a muse as yet unknown 
 — the muse of vengeance, malediction, and despair. The 
 cry of Byron found an echo. How could it fail to do 
 so in a heart as great as Pushkin's? Any real talent 
 was bound, at that time, to pass through a Byronic 
 period. In Russia many grievous problems were still 
 unsolved, and it was Pushkin's glory that he discovered, 
 in the midst of men who barely understood him, a way 
 of escape from the dismal situation. This way of escape 
 was to return to the people." 
 
 As for Lermontov, "he," says Dostoievsky, ' was 
 also a Byronian ; but thanks to the power of his 
 originality he was a Byronian of a peculiar kind, dis- 
 dainful and capricious, believing neither in his own 
 inspiration nor in his Byronism." And if death had not
 
 208 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 stopped him on the way, " he too would have found his 
 way directly to the national truth." 
 
 For Dostoievsky the essence of Russian Byronism 
 consists of the opposition between " the type of Russian 
 tormented by Europeanism " and " the people." Dos- 
 toievsky saw the solution of this conflict in the sub- 
 mission of the " Europeanized intellectual " to the 
 " national truth," the truth of the common people. 
 The Occidentalists, on the contrary, saw it in the 
 Europeanization of the people themselves. But I do 
 not wish to lay stress upon this point. .Wthat I do wish 
 to emphasize is that Dostoievsky very correctly under- 
 stood and defined the historic significance of Byronism 
 in Russia. That this Russian Byronism achieved so great 
 an expansion was due precisely to the fact that it offered 
 a ready-made formula! for a real phenomenon. »We 
 cannot, therefore, compare " the danger of Byronic 
 subjectivism " with Shakespearean objectivism when 
 comparing the influence exerted by the one and the 
 other poet in Russia. tWith us, to be Byronic meant, at 
 certain periods, to be faithful to the objectivism of the 
 life which gave rise to the Byronic type within the walls 
 of Petersburg and Moscow. 
 
 For this reason, perhaps, we should not be surprised 
 by the undoubted fact that " Byronism," like " Shake- 
 spearism," was a factor present at the very, origin of 
 literary realism in Russia.
 
 PART THE FIFTH 
 IDEALS 
 
 14
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 I. The first collision between nationalist ideals and Western influ- 
 ences—The first Russian zapadnik. II. Two Muscovite hmgris. 
 III. The first Slavophile in Russia. 
 
 I 
 
 We have seen under what conditions Europe penetrated 
 the economic and political life of Russia. Let us now 
 consider how Europe contributed to form the Russian 
 mentality, the national consciousness of Russia. 
 
 To gain a proper understanding of the subject we 
 must once more ascend the stream of history and 
 commence our examination at the period when the first 
 collision occurred between European ideas and the soul 
 of ancient Russia — that is, the eighteenth century. 
 
 At the same time appears the very curious and very 
 characteristic figure of the first Russian zapadnik. 1 
 This was Prince Ivan Khovrostinin, the champion of 
 Occidentalism, which was finding its way into Russia 
 through Poland. 
 
 During the ephemeral reign of Dimitri the Impostor, 
 Khovrostinin was attached to his Court, in which there 
 were many Poles. In this environment Khovrostinin 
 became acquainted with Latin civilization and Catholi- 
 cism. Full of the ideas derived from these sources, 
 he rebelled against Muscovite manners and the Orthodox 
 religion. After the fall of Dimitri I he was accused 
 by the old Orthodox Russians of " Latin heresy," and 
 was deported to the monastery of St. Joseph, ' there 
 to do penance." Shortly afterwards he was set at 
 
 • Zapadnik, derived from zapad (west), signifies a partisan of 
 
 Western ideas, an admirer of Europe. 
 
 211
 
 212 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 liberty. In the " Period of Disturbances " he com- 
 manded a regiment of the Muscovite army against the 
 Poles and their allies. He even became a Muscovite 
 dignitary. 
 
 But the transformation was too great ; he could 
 no longer feel any sympathy for the old Russia. He 
 attacked her again, once more, for his compatriots, 
 becoming a "heretic"; once more to be accused by 
 them of pride and contempt for his country. In 1623 
 the Tsar gave orders for his imprisonment in the 
 monastery of St. Cyril, where he was to be placed 
 "under the orders of a good ancient (monk)." The 
 instructions of the patriarch were that the princely 
 heretic " did not pass a single day without prayers 
 and canticles." A year later he signed a deed of 
 abjuration, denying his heresy, and was released, to 
 die in 1625, " reconciled " with Orthodoxy, and having 
 assumed the monk's robe. 
 
 It is highly probable that his submission was only 
 apparent. The old faith 1 and the old ethics of Muscovite 
 Russia were too repugnant to Khovrostinin to admit 
 of his sincere conversion. 
 
 Professor Klutshevsky describes him as " an original 
 Russian freethinker with a Catholic basis, who was 
 imbued with a profound antipathy for the dry ritualism 
 of the Byzantine Church, and for the whole life of 
 Russia, which was steeped in this ritualism." 
 Klutshevsky even compares Khovrostinin to Tchuadaev, 
 of whom we shall speak later on. But it must not be 
 thought that Khovrostinin deserted Orthodoxy for 
 Catholicism. In his writings and the memoirs of his 
 contemporaries we find no evidence of his cbnversion. 
 What he knew of Catholicism and the iWest in general 
 did not lead him toward any positive new faith', but 
 merely made him sensible of the defects of his own. 
 He was an atheist. The indictment brought against 
 him asserted that not only, did h|e not go to church, 
 but he did not allow his serfs to do so, and in case 
 of disobedience he used to beat thernl and otherwise
 
 IDEALS 213 
 
 punish them. His accusers also pretended that he was 
 lacking in respect for the Tsar, and that he spoke 
 of him as " the despot." 
 
 What particularly impresses us in Khovrostinin is 
 his profound moral and intellectual isolation. " Euro- 
 peanized " mentally, he was above his environment. 
 If it is true that he assumed the gown of a monk towards 
 the end of his life, it was because he himself was 
 conscious of his spiritual solitude ; he would willingly 
 have quitted a world with which he could not possibly 
 live on peaceable terms. 
 
 Such was the first case known to us of rupture 
 between a " Russian European " and his country. 
 
 II 
 
 Thirty-five years after the death of Prince Ivan 
 Khovrostinin had disembarrassed the Orthodox Church 
 and the government of the Tsar of his hostility, the 
 Muscovite Chancelleries had occasion to deal with 
 another " refractory " — the young boyarin Voin Ordyn- 
 Nashtshokin, who took refuge abroad (in 1660) because 
 Russian life "made his gorge rise." 
 
 Voin Ordyn-Nashtshokin had been taught by his 
 father, a Muscovite diplomatist of some repute, to hold 
 things European in respect, and his education was con- 
 fided to Polish professors who succeeded in inspiring 
 him with a great affection for the lights of Western 
 civilization and a great contempt for his own back- 
 ward country. Dominated by these feelings, he 
 emigrated, first to Poland and then to France. The 
 Moscow Government was so irritated by his departure 
 that it sought to " put an end to his earthly existence." 
 But this was useless ; for after four years abroad the 
 young boyarin, overcome by a profound nostalgia, re- 
 pented, and was "pardoned" by the Tsar, who at first 
 ordered him to live on one of his father's estates, and 
 afterwards confined him for some time in the monastery 
 of St. Cyril, where he was obliged to be present at 
 the daily offices, in order to strengthen his orthodoxy.
 
 214 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 Thanks to the solicitations of his father he was able 
 to leave the monastery in 1667, and ended his days 
 as a provincial vo'ievoda. 
 
 The Russia of his days " made his gorge rise." 
 Yet he returned of his own free will. Why? M. 
 Plekhanov explains the fact as follows : — 
 
 " Men like Prince Ivan Khovrostinin and Voi'n Nasht- 
 shokin were ' nauseated ' by Moscow ; foreign lands 
 attracted them. But they found it as difficult to adapt 
 themselves to Western Europe. Their misfortune, their 
 great and irreparable misfortune, was that they were 
 foreigners either side of the Muscovite frontier." 1 They 
 were " the first victims when Muscovy turned toward 
 the West." 
 
 The third eminent zapadnik, Grigory Kotoshikhin, 
 was attracted by Sweden. He was an official of the 
 Prikaz of Foreign Affairs. He established relations 
 with a merchant of Narva, of Russian origin, but a 
 Swedish subject. He also came into contact with 
 Swedish diplomatists. He carried his complaisance 
 toward them to the length of giving them' certain secret 
 information. The following year, in 1644, he left 
 Russia and settled in Sweden, where he entered the 
 administration. But three years later misfortune over- 
 took him in his new country ; he mortally wounded 
 a Swede in a quarrel, and was condemned to death. 
 
 It was not to escape punishment for his act of 
 " high treason " that Kotoshikhin left Russia ; the 
 venality of the Muscovite bureaucracy was such that 
 it was accustomed to such indiscretions. Kotoshikhin 
 had other reasons for his actions : the same as had 
 previously impelled young Ordyn-Nashtshokin to leave 
 his country. A man of great intellectual ability (vir 
 ingenio incotnparabile, says his Swedish biographer), 
 he was incapable of descending to the level of his 
 compatriots . 
 
 In his remarkable work on Russia under Alexis 
 Mikha'ilovitch he paints in exact but pitiless colours 
 
 1 G. Plekhanov, History of Social Ideas in Russia, vol. i. p. 276.
 
 IDEALS 215 
 
 the fashionable Muscovite society of the mid-seven- 
 teenth century, the administration, the juridical system, 
 and the manners of the day. The impression produced 
 by his description, even at a distance of two and a half 
 centuries, is extremely painful. The population is 
 ignorant, even in its upper classes ; above all the 
 women, who are imprisoned between the four walls 
 of their homes. The Tsarina cannot be allowed to 
 assist at the official reception of the ambassadors, 
 because she is too unintelligent, and does not know 
 how to behave in the presence of foreigners. The 
 inhabitants even of the capital lack the most elementary 
 security ; the brigands are the masters in the streets 
 of Moscow. The public administrations are composed 
 of individuals chosen not for their intelligence, but on 
 account of their birth; and the boyars who sit in 
 the Duma are dense and stupid ; they " rest their 
 beards " on the table, understanding nothing. 
 
 All this, in Kotoshikhin's ppinion, because Russia 
 was isolated from Europe. 
 
 " They (the Russians) do not send their sons to be 
 educated abroad, because they fear that, having become 
 acquainted with the religion, the manners, and the 
 excellent liberty of other countries, they would proceed 
 to abandon their own religion and embrace another, 
 without giving a thought to returning to their homes and 
 their parents." 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Slavophiles bitterly reproached Kotoshikhin for 
 his attacks upon the old Russia. They often contrasted 
 him with another moralist of the same period — Jury 
 Krijanitsh. 
 
 Of Serb origin, born in Croatia in 1617, a pupil 
 in the Catholic seminary of Vienna, he entered Russia 
 in 1646, and lived there for five years. In 1660 he 
 returned to Russia, but in 1661 he was deported to 
 Tobolsk in Siberia, where he lived for fifteen years. 
 Between 1676 and 1680 he was in Poland. After 1680 
 we lose sight of him.
 
 216 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 Krijanitsh", according to his own statement, was drawn 
 to Russia by his love of the Slavs. He searched 
 among the Slavs for a people which had not as yet 
 been denationalized by foreign influence. He regarded 
 the Slavs of Pomerania, Silesia, Bohemia, and Moravia 
 as finally Germanized. The Slavs of the Balkans, 
 according to him, " had long ago lost not only their 
 national formations, but their power, their language, 
 and their understanding." " Their States cannot be 
 re-established at present, in these difficult times ; one 
 can only open their mind's eye by means of books, 
 so that they may learn for themselves to understand 
 their dignity, and to dream of their independence." 
 Krijanitsh had more hope of the Poles, but he believed 
 they would need help from Russia, whose assistance 
 and protection were still more necessary, to the other 
 Slavs . 
 
 But in order to protect and guide the Slav world, 
 Russia, said Krijanitsh, ought to emancipate herself 
 from her " xenomania," that is, from her exaggerated 
 love of foreign things and persons. Krijanitsh con- 
 sidered that foreigners weakened the two principal bases 
 of Russia's power : her material wealth and her military 
 forces. Foreign merchants exploited the population, 
 buying its products at a low price and selling their 
 own goods to it at a high price ; they exported grain, 
 which the country needed for the increase of its popula- 
 tion, and imported articles which helped to corrupt 
 the Russians and to introduce foreign tastes among 
 them. As for the military force of Russia, the par- 
 ticipation of foreigners in its transformation was an 
 evil, because the organization established by them was 
 adapted to wars upon the (Western frontier, but not 
 to the struggle against the nomads of the South, who 
 were particularly dangerous. The appointment of 
 foreigners as officers resulted in the rejection of 
 Russians, and the soldiers, who were given orders in 
 a foreign language, had no confidence in their officers, 
 and were losing confidence in themselves.
 
 IDEALS 217 
 
 Krijanitsh reached a very simple conclusion. The 
 foreigners must be expelled ; European merchants were 
 to be tolerated only in a few mercantile towns near 
 the frontier ; as for the foreign " colonels/' they were 
 to be dismissed and sent home to their own countries 
 as soon as they had transferred their knowledge to the 
 Russians — which they had already accomplished. 
 
 However, Krijanitsh was not a reactionary nationalist 
 after the pattern of those which Russia knew in the nine- 
 teenth century. He recommended the Russian people 
 to follow " a middle path," equally removed from the 
 two extremes; one of which, according to Krijanitsh, 
 was represented by the Byzantine Greeks and the other 
 by the Europeans. He compared the action of these 
 two factors, and described it in a very interesting 
 manner : — 
 
 ' There are," he writes, " two peoples which lead 
 Russia into temptation by offering baits of a contrary 
 nature. . . . They are the Niemtzy l and the Greeks. 
 Despite all their differences, these two peoples are in 
 perfect agreement upon one point: that is, as to the 
 fundamental aim of the temptations which they offer, 
 and this agreement is such that one might well believe 
 in a conspiracy against us. 
 
 " i . The Niemtzy recommend us to accept all sorts 
 of novelties. They want us to abandon all our old and 
 praiseworthy institutions, and to adopt their customs 
 and their depraved laws. The Greeks, on the other 
 hand, condemn all novelties, without exception. . .. . 
 They tell us again and again that every new thing is an 
 evil thing. But reason tells us that nothing can be good 
 or bad simply because it is new. Every good thing and 
 every evil thing has begun by being a new thing. . . . 
 We cannot accept novelties without discussion, frivo- 
 lously, fpr in that case we might be mistaken. But 
 we must not refuse that which is good because of its 
 newness, for in this case also we might be in error. . . . 
 
 1 The name of Niemtzy was then applied to Europeans in general. 
 To-day it is reserved for the Germans.
 
 218 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 " 2. The Greeks taught us long" ago the Orthodox 
 religion. The Niemtzy preach heresies which are impure 
 and have a disastrous effect on the soul. Reason 
 counsels us in this connection to be very grateful to 
 the Greeks, to avoid the Niemtzy, and to detest them as 
 though they were devils or dragons. 
 
 " 3. The Niemtzy try to induce us to go to school 
 with them. . . . They advise us to make the free 
 sciences — that is, the philosophical sciences — a common 
 possession, accessible to every moujik. The Greeks, 
 on the contrary, condemn all knowledge and all the 
 sciences, and recommend us to remain ignorant. But 
 reason says : Avoid diabolical enchantments like the 
 Devil himself, but believe that ignorance does not lead 
 to good. 
 
 "4. The Niemtzy set the preaching or the reading of 
 the Gospel above everything ; they hope to achieve 
 salvation thereby, without any help of penitence or good 
 works. Moreover, they provoke us to argument. As 
 for the Greeks, they have entirely suppressed and con- 
 demn the preaching of the Word of God. And they 
 have condemned and prohibited disputes and assem- 
 blies. But reason counsels us (1) to be zealous in the 
 matter of penitence and good works ; (2) not to despise 
 the preaching of the Gospel. But the first-comer must 
 not be permitted to preach. . . . Only the bishop or 
 one of the most ancient monks may do so. As for 
 mere priests— and even this is not fitting for all — it is 
 enough for them to read sermons from books. Now, 
 in Germany and Poland any drunken priest may preach 
 the word of God. 
 
 " 5. The Niemtzy advise us to abandon ourselves to; 
 all the pleasures of the body and teach us to despise the 
 life of the monks, vigils, and all mortifications of the 
 flesh. The Greeks require that we shall observe the true 
 and praiseworthy Christian temperance, but besides this 
 they propagate a special kind of false piety and Phari- 
 saical superstition. They seek to wash away spiritual 
 taints by means of corporeal ablutions, and they think;
 
 IDEALS 219 
 
 to cleanse the impurity of the body by the prayers Of 
 priests, etc. But reason says: One must by no means 
 suffer corporeal debauchment and despise the acts of 
 penitence nor the mortification of the flesh. As for 
 pious practices which are new and suspect and unknown 
 to our fathers, they should be carefully exainined 
 beforehand. 
 
 "6. In political matters the Greeks advise us to act 
 in all things according to the example of the Turkish 
 Court. Themselves devoid of political knowledge and 
 experience, they can only tell us of what they have seen at 
 the Porte. As for the Nlemtzy, they condemn all the 
 customs, laws, and institutions of the Turks. Anything 
 that bears the name of Turkish is, in their country, by 
 that sole fact, reputed as barbarous, inhuman, and 
 bestial. But reason says that even in Turkey there are 
 some institutions which are excellent and worthy of 
 imitation, though not, of course, all. 
 
 "7. The Nlemtzy, maintaining that no one should 
 be punished because of his religion, take their stand 
 upon the Gospel, which says : ' Judge not, that ye be 
 not judged.' The Greeks avail themselves of another 
 text : ' Let him that shall preach unto you that which 
 you have not heard be excommunicated,' and they 
 deduce from this passage and others like it that 
 we must set them apart and believe them without dis- 
 cussion. But if reason counsels us to reject without re- 
 examination the German heresies, and all others already 
 condemned, when a fresh controversy arises we must 
 first of all become acquainted with it and properly 
 examine it, and not condemn it without having informed 
 ourselves of its nature. 
 
 " 8. The Greeks flatter us and seek to gain our 
 favour by means of fables, exaggerating the antiquity 
 of the Russian State ; and in reality they disparage and 
 insult it. They have called Moscow the third Rome 
 and have imagined the ridiculous idea that the Russian 
 State should be a Roman State, having a right to the 
 insignia of the Empire. The Nlemtzy calumniate us
 
 220 . RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 and seek by. all means to prove that the Russian State 
 is only a simple principality, and that the Russian: 
 sovereigns are merely High Princes. Both Greeks and 
 Niemtzy refuse to this State the name and rank of king- 
 dom ; both agree in this imposture that the Roman 
 State could not be a mere kingdom, but something' 
 superior, and that Russia could not be its equal save 
 by an investiture which would be conferred upon it by 
 the Roman State. But reason says that God alone can 
 create sovereigns, and not the Roman Emperor. . . . 
 The Russian State is as great and as glorious as the 
 Roman State, has never been subjected to the latter, and 
 is equal to it in power. 
 
 "9. By all the foregoing we see plainly the danger 
 and diversity of the temptations to which the Niemtzy 
 and the Greeks expose us, while giving us, moreover, 
 counsels which are diametrically opposed. In fact, the 
 former want to contaminate us with their novelties, 
 while the latter condemn all novelties as a whole, and 
 foist their aberrations upon us under cover of a false 
 antiquity. The former sow heresies ; the latter, 
 although they taught us the true religion, have mingled 
 schism with it. The former offer us a mixture of the 
 true and the diabolical sciences ; the latter glorify 
 ignorance and regard all the sciences as heresies. The 
 former cherish the vain hope of saving themselves by 
 the word alone ; the others despise the spoken word! 
 and prefer complete speechlessness. The former, the 
 partisans of every licence, draw us toward the broad 
 road of destruction ; the others resort to pharisaicad 
 superstition and exaggerated devoutness, marking out 
 for us a path even narrower than the true and difficult 
 path of salvation. The former regard all institutions 
 of the Turkish State as barbarous, tyrannical, and in- 
 human ; the latter profess that everything about the 
 Turkish State is good and praiseworthy. The former 
 hold that we should judge no one ; the latter assert 
 that we should condemn without hearing the defence. 
 The former refuse to this State the honours which are
 
 IDEALS 221 
 
 its due.; the latter confer upon it nonours which are 
 fictitious, vain, absurd, and impossible. Thus, in dis- 
 agreement upon almost every point, they are in perfect 
 agreement to regard our people with equal hatred, to 
 despise and belittle it and load it with the most dreadful 
 calumnies and accusations." 
 
 As we see, Krijanitsh, often regarded as the father of 
 the Slavophile movement in Russia, was pretty severe 
 upon " Byzantism," which is so highly esteemed by the 
 Slavophiles. 1 It is especially significant that he opposes 
 the theory, introduced into Russia in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury by the Balkan Slavs, according to which Moscow 
 should be " the third Rome," the heiress of the first two 
 Romes (Rome and Byzantium). This theory had a 
 great vogue in the Muscovite Court under Ivan III, who 
 had married Sophia Palseologus, niece of the Byzantine 
 Emperor. It was essentially a conservative theory ; 
 lest she share the fate of the first and the second Rome, 
 Russia must change neither her habits nor her customs 
 nor her institutions, for " the country, which changes 
 these does not endure much longer." Krijanitsh held 
 that Russia should turn aside from the conservative 
 traditions of Byzantium as well as from the civilization 
 of iWestern Europe and should follow her own path. 
 
 He considered that Russia enjoyed many advantages 
 over the West. The Russians, he says, lead a simpler 
 life than the Europeans. In Russia the distance 
 between the rich and the poor is not so great as in 
 Europe, where on the one hand you find a " Sar- 
 danapalus " lapped in luxury, and on the other a' 
 starving artisan who possesses nothing. " In Russia, 
 thanks to God, everybody, the poorest as .well as the 
 richest, eats rye bread, fish, and meat," and lives in a 
 well-warmed house, while in the W.est the indigent suffer 
 from the cold because " wood is sold for its weight in 
 
 1 I refer the reader to the opinion of M. Bulgakov, one of the 
 leaders of the modern Slavophiles, cited at the beginning of the 
 present volume.
 
 222 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 gold." " Thus the life of the peasants and artisans is 
 better in Russia than in many countries." 
 
 In this connection a modern writer (G. Plekhanoiv) 
 says that Krijanitsh paints the condition of the Great 
 Russian people in too rosy a hue. " But there was truth 
 in his picture. In countries in which a natural economy 
 prevails, articles of prime necessity, such as bread and 
 meat, are much more accessible to the people than in 
 countries in which commercial exchanges are largely 
 developed. We know to-day that the division of social 
 labour in Western Europe has resulted in the im- 
 poverishment of the laborious masses. There is thus 
 undeniable truth in this antithesis between Muscovite 
 Russia and the West. Krijanitsh is the first writer to 
 make it. . . . This antithesis provided a sufficient and 
 logical basis for the doubt : Is it not a sin against the 
 people to favour the productive forces of the country? 
 The question did not occur to Krijanitsh himself. But 
 the Russian " intellectuals " of the nineteenth century, 
 to whom the interests of the labouring masses were very 
 dear, must have spent perhaps the greater portion of 
 their energies in trying to solve this " accursed " ques- 
 tion. In this respect the Serbo-Russian philosopher of 
 the seventeenth century was the precursor of our 
 contemporary narodniki. 
 
 Krijanitsh recognized that the character and the 
 life of the Russians presented many defects. For 
 example, he very severely condemns " the hideous 
 drunkenness " prevalent in Russia, the idleness and 
 prodigality, the lack of education, etc. He admitted 
 that Europeans were more civilized than the Russians, 
 and he realized that a cultivated and educated people 
 always exploits a more ignorant people. He even 
 admitted the necessity of education and civilization, 
 but he thought that the time had gone by for the 
 Russians to " sit on the benches of the European 
 school," and that they could now " expel the Niemtzy " 
 and live without their aid. He demanded " the closing 
 of the Russian frontiers." Yet, at the same time, when
 
 IDEALS 223 
 
 it came to giving the Russians practical advice, he again 
 took Europe as his example, and looked to Europe for 
 useful lessons. Showing the necessity of developing 
 the economic forces of Russia, he proposed England and 
 the Netherlands as examples. To the " bad legislation " 
 of Russia he opposed that of France, " which was 
 good." 
 
 Krijanitsh was the determined opponent of Byzantine 
 and Oriental despotism. He was in favour of an en- 
 lightened monarchy, based upon the privileged classes, 
 to which it should grant proper liberties. And again 
 he referred to the experience of Europe: M Among the 
 French and the Spaniards the great enjoy certain liber- 
 ties which they owe to their birth, and thanks to which 
 the kings are not exposed to any outrage from the 
 people nor from the army. Among the Turks, on the 
 other hand, where there are no liberties proper to the 
 nobility, the sovereigns are exposed to. the stupidity and 
 insolence of mere infantrymen." 
 
 In the existence of privileges and liberties for the 
 upper classes Krijanitsh saw a means of " changing 
 a rigorous government or a tyranny into a moderate 
 government." M. Milukov compares this system with 
 that of the " intermediary powers " of Montesquieu, 
 which was expounded a century later. 
 
 This brief glimpse of the ideas of Krijanitsh shows 
 that the first Russian " Slavophile " was by no means 
 radically inimical to Europe, and that he sought lessons 
 from the Western civilizations. If we are tempted to 
 regard him as the first representative of nationalism in 
 Russia, we must not forget that he was not of Russian 
 origin, that he came from the West, and that he brought 
 all these ideas from the West. 
 
 We shall see later on that the Slavophiles of the 
 nineteenth century, like Krijanitsh, borrowed from the 
 thought of Europe.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 I The impossibility of a compromise between Muscovite Russia and 
 European tendencies. II. The Russian Voltaireans — The "his- 
 torical superfluities" — The opinions of Klutshevsky and Herzen 
 on the Russian Voltaireans. III. Radishtshev and Novikov. 
 
 I 
 
 The middle way recommended by Krijanitsh was not 
 followed, and Russia passed from one extreme to the other. 
 
 In the middle of the seventeenth century the Euro- 
 peans were within an ace of being expelled from Russia, 
 as Krijanitsh recommended. The populace, excited by 
 the priests and other representatives of Byzantine con- 
 servatism, subjected them, in Moscow, to a regular 
 pogrom. At the instance of the clergy the Govern- 
 ment of the Tsar Mikhail Fedorovitch gave the order to 
 demolish the three Lutheran churches which, then existed 
 in Moscow, prohibited the wearing of European costume 
 by, Russians, confined foreigners to a residential zone 
 in Moscow, forbade them to employ Russian servants, 
 and expelled the English merchants from all 1 the towns 
 excepting Archangel. 
 
 But, as a Russian historian has remarked, " to expel 
 the foreigners from Moscow, while it was impossible to 
 do without them, was to make it compulsory to go to 
 them, to their own countries, there to. seek knowledge." 
 
 Under Alexei Mikha'ilovitch the nationalist insurgency 
 came to an end. But this sovereign strove to maintain 
 a certain equilibrium between the indigenous reaction 
 and European progress. Russian historians represent 
 him with one foot beyond the Wjestern frontier and one 
 planted on his native soil, " congealed in an attitude of 
 indecision."-
 
 IDEALS 225 
 
 This state of affairs could not last long, for no co- 
 existence, however brief, was possible to Byzantine con- 
 servatism and " Europeanization." The history of the 
 schism proves in a most striking fashion that the 
 partisans of the old Russia rejected even the most 
 necessary "novelties." The order given by the 
 Patriarch Nikon, that the text of the book of ritual 
 employed by the popes should be revised with refer- 
 ence to the originals, because the errors which it 
 contained were frequently of great importance and ex- 
 tremely gross, was denounced as a " heresy " by the 
 conservatives, who opposed it with all their might. 
 From this arose the great schism of the Orthodox 
 Church. To disturb nothing, to preserve everything 
 as it had been for centuries : such was the watchword 
 of militant nationalism. Its excesses explain those of 
 the spirit of innovation which appeared in the reign of 
 Peter I. The two conceptions were too violently 
 opposed for any possibility of reconciliation. But the 
 material force being on the side of authority, the oppo- 
 sition could do nothing but submit, or leave a country 
 invaded by European "heresies" and "novelties." 
 
 In the first half of the seventeenth century the parti- 
 sans of European influence had to seek refuge in the 
 West from the persecutions of Byzantine conservatism. 
 In the second half of the same century and the begin- 
 ning of the next it was for the conservatives to fall under 
 the blows of the " innovators," or, in their flight from 
 Western " civilization," to escape into the immense 
 forests of the Ural and the North, or the vast steppes 
 of the South. 
 
 But it must be admitted that in the reign of Peter I 
 it was no battle of ideas which broke out between the 
 old Russia and the new. The " Europeanization " 
 undertaken by Peter I was material, and brutal in its 
 practical materialism. Its immediate aim was, so to 
 speak, the transformation of the external aspect of 
 men and things, beginning with the long beards of the 
 boyars and ending with the names of State institutions, 
 
 15
 
 226 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 and it coincided with the burden of conscriptiSh and 
 taxation. For this reason it is very difficult t0 say 
 whether the conservatives protested and fled en masse 
 for spiritual reasons (as did Ordyn-Nashtshokin) or for 
 reasons of temporal interest. 
 
 In the second half of the eighteenth century, under 
 Catherine II, the conflict between Russia and Europe 
 was far more abstract, and was extremely interesting 
 from the standpoint of the history of ideological 
 evolution . r 
 
 II 
 
 While in the seventeenth century a Europeanized 
 Russian was regarded by his contemporaries as a 
 heretic, at the end of the eighteenth century he was 
 known as a voltairianetz (Voltairean) or a farmazon 
 (Freemason). The first term is especially characteristic, 
 as it proves how great was the influence in Russia' of 
 French philosophy in general and of Voltaire's in 
 particular. 
 
 But the Russian voltairianetz of the time of Catherine 
 II was not merely an admirer of Voltaire, as many were 
 in all European countries ; the Russian voltairianetz 
 was a veritable social and historical type, and no student 
 of the history of Russian culture can omit him 1 from the 
 scope of his inquiry. 
 
 Many of our historians have dealt with the Russian 
 voltairianstvo . But hitherto the best description of it — 
 I would even say the one unique and truly classical 
 description — is that of the poet-historian Klutshevsky. 
 I profit by this description all the more readily as it 
 is only to be found in the lithographed and extremely 
 rare examples of the lectures which Klutshevsky 
 delivered at the University of Moscow. 
 
 Under Yelisaveta, the " merry Tsarina," the impetus 
 which came from Europe was rather of an aesthetic 
 quality : Russia took from Europe what was capable of 
 embellishing life, in the purely material 1 sense of the 
 word. Under Catherine II the desire to adorn the mind
 
 IDEALS 227 
 
 was added to the desire to embellish the material aspect 
 of life. In the reign of Yelisaveta society was fully 
 prepared for the enjoyment of intellectual pleasures ; 
 it had learned French and acquired a taste for belles- 
 lettres. For the society of the day France had become 
 the school of worldly elegance just at the moment when 
 French literature was proclaiming new ideas in books 
 which found an echo on every hand. The Russians, 
 who were entirely ready to receive these new ideas, 
 welcomed them with an avidity which was favoured by 
 the Court. Even in Yelisaveta's reign the Court had 
 established relations with the great French writers. 
 Voltaire became an honorary member of the Russian 
 Academy of Sciences, and was commissioned to write 
 a history of Peter the Great. Catherine, in her youth, 
 had been fascinated by the masterpieces of French 
 literature ; once on the throne, she hastened to enter 
 directly into communication with their authors. Carried 
 away to some extent by the general tendency, Catherine 
 was also obedient to diplomatic considerations : she 
 sought to win the good graces of these masters of 
 opinion, because she attached a great importance to the 
 approval of Paris. Her correspondence with Voltaire is 
 a proof of this. She wished to entrust d'Alembert with 
 the education of the Crown Prince Paul, the heir to the 
 Russian throne, and reproached him keenly and at 
 length for his refusal. She extended her favours to 
 Diderot : having learned that the editor of the Encyclo- 
 pedia was in want of money, she bought his library 
 for £600 and entrusted the care of it to d'Alembert, 
 paying him a salary of £40 a year. 
 
 Fashionable Russian society shared the enthusiasm 
 of the Empress. The Russian seigneurs engaged 
 French tutors for their children. The republican La 
 Harpe educated Catherine's grandson, the future 
 Alexander I. Romme, the future Montagnard, did the 
 same for Count Stroganov, the friend of Alexander. 
 The sons of Count Soltykov were confided to the brother 
 of Marat.
 
 228 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 The lesser nobility could not afford the luxury of such 
 tutors, and contented itself with books. French works 
 circulated freely and extensively throughout the Empire, 
 finding their way to the remotest corners of the pro- 
 vinces. To-day we can hardly realize the immense 
 number of French volumes which were translated into 
 Russian and offered for sale in the reign of 
 Catherine II. A Ukrainian dvorianin, Vinsky, an 
 officer of the Guard, mentions in his memoirs some 
 very interesting details bearing on this point. During 
 his residence in Petersburg he found all the best French 
 authors in the houses of his friends, whether military 
 or civilian. Shortly afterwards he was deported to 
 Orenburg, for some such prank as was often committed 
 in the Guard. In that remote town he began, as a 
 distraction, the translation of French authors, his 
 versions being circulated in manuscript. A few years 
 later he had the pleasure of receiving several of his 
 own manuscripts from Siberia, sent him as a curious 
 " novelty." On the banks of the Volga, at Simbirsk, at 
 Kazan, and elsewhere, French literature was known and 
 appreciated. 
 
 Under its influence the relations between Russian 
 society and Europe were modified. In the reign of 
 Peter I the nobles used to go abroad to study the art 
 of war or navigation. Then they did so to acquire 
 le bon ton. In the reign of Catherine they went to 
 France to salute the philosophers. Russians appeared 
 from time to time among the guests of Voltaire at 
 Ferney, and Catherine wrote to him that many of her 
 officers were delighted with their visits to him. French- 
 men who visited Petersburg at the end of Catherine's 
 reign were equally delighted with the intellectual youth 
 which they met there, some going so far as to declare it 
 the most cultivated and " most philosophical " in Europe. 
 
 The reign of French literature and philosophy was 
 the last phase of intellectual and moral development 
 traversed by Russian society after the death of Peter I . 
 The fashionable gentleman, the artilleryman or naval 

 
 IDEALS 229 
 
 officer of the time of Peter, a dandy under Yelisaveta, 
 became, under Catherine, a " man of letters," a free- 
 thinker, and a freemason or Voltairean. 
 
 What has remained in Russia of this Western 
 impress? To understand this we must recall the 
 character of French Encyclopaedism. It was the first 
 revolt against the order of things based upon Catholic 
 and feudal tradition, to which it opposed a host of 
 logical conceptions and systems. This was the 
 philosophy which made the conquest of enlightened 
 minds in Russia, where feudality, properly so called, 
 and Catholicism did not exist. In France the Encyclo- 
 paedic theories expressed the very real and concrete 
 pretensions of the Third Estate, which aspired to apply 
 them. The Russian sectaries, on the other hand, did 
 not regard these theories as of any practical import- 
 ance ; they regarded them only as dogmas, intended to 
 remain in the domain of the absolute, not to control 
 the relations between man and man ; as noble ideals, 
 expressed in fine phrases, which gave one an air of 
 distinction, which would help a man to emerge from 
 the common ruck, but which must by no means be 
 regarded as rules of actual conduct. Their sensibility 
 and philanthropy were only verbal ; under this outer 
 garment they kept intact their egoism, their hardness, 
 and their old moral habits. 
 
 Klutshevsky depicts for us a few types of these 
 Russian " Encyclopaedists." A wealthy noble in the 
 Government of Penza, Nikita Strouisky, conceived a 
 passion for belles-lettres, and himself wrote verses, 
 which he willingly read to his friends, allowing him- 
 self to be so far carried away by the heat of declama- 
 tion that he would sometimes pinch his auditors till 
 the blood came. This gentleman was greatly interested 
 also in , jurisdiction, and instituted on his estates a 
 tribunal in accordance with the latest teachings of 
 European science, only retaining the old Russian method 
 of torture. The celebrated Princess Dashkov was the 
 most enlightened of all her contemporaries ; she was
 
 230 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 even appointed President of the Russian Academy of 
 Sciences. At the age of fifteen or sixteen she con- 
 ceived such a passion for French that she read the 
 works of Beyle, Voltaire, and Rousseau until she con- 
 tracted a nervous malady thereby. At the end of her 
 brilliant career she lived in Moscow, in isolation, in 
 which her true nature revealed itself. She received 
 no one, was completely indifferent to the fate of her 
 own children, beat her servants, and concentrated all 
 her feelings and all her activities upon some rats which 
 she had tamed. The death of her son caused her no 
 grief ; but if any ill befell one of her rats she was 
 stricken to the depths of her soul. To begin with 
 Voltaire and to end with a tame rat — only the subjects 
 of Catherine were capable of such eccentricities. 
 
 What was really the condition of the nobility to which 
 all these " Voltaireans " belonged? It lived by political 
 injustice and in a state of social inaction. From the 
 hands of a dlatshok « (precentor) the Russian noble 
 passed into those of a French tutor ; he completed 
 his education in the Italian theatre or the French 
 cabaret, applying the ideas thus acquired in the salons 
 of the capital, and ending his days in his study, in 
 Moscow or on his country estates, employing his time 
 in reading Voltaire. His manners, his habits, his ideas, 
 the sentiments which he had made his own, and the 
 very language in which he thought, all were of foreign 
 origin, all were imported from Europe. No living tie, 
 no organic function, united him to the population which 
 surrounded him ; he did no serious work, despite his 
 share in the local administration, where he was sub- 
 ordinated to the governors, and the exploitation of his 
 estates, which was based upon the labour of serfs. 
 He was a useless member of society. A historical 
 superfluity — such is the phrase which Klutshevsky 
 applies to the species. 
 
 This verdict, which is that of our foremost historian, 
 
 1 The precentors or lay clerks gave primary • instruction in those 
 days, and even now they teach in the "parish schools."
 
 IDEALS 231 
 
 may be compared with that of Herzen, our foremost 
 political writer, who in his youth had many opportuni- 
 ties of observing the survivors of Russian voltairianstvo. 
 
 " The eighteenth century produced in the West," 
 he says, " a wonderful generation, especially in France, 
 which possessed all the weaknesses of the Regency 
 and all the energies of Rome or Sparta. These 
 prodigies, Faublas and Regulus combined, flung open 
 the door of the Revolution, and were the first to rush 
 through it, pushing their way in, only to leave by 
 the ' window ' of the guillotine. Our century produces 
 no more of these vigorous and homogeneous natures ; 
 the last century, on the contrary, evoked them almost 
 everywhere, even where they were superfluous, where 
 they could develop only by an anomaly. In Russia, 
 those upon whom the great Western wind had blown 
 became not great historical figures, but ' originals.' 
 Foreigners in their own country, foreigners abroad, 
 passive spectators, spoiled for Russian life by their 
 Western prejudices, and for the West by their Russian 
 habits, they appeared as an intelligent superfluity, astray 
 in an artificial life." l 
 
 Although they agree as to the external type of the 
 Russian voltairiantzy, Klutshevsky and Herzen do not 
 see eye to eye as regards the mind concealed by this 
 outward aspect. Klutshevsky states that these amateurs 
 did not suffer from the opposition between their ideals 
 and the surrounding realities ; that they did not even 
 feel it ; that they were cheerful and had nothing to 
 say against the existing order of things. Books 
 embellished their minds, gave them a certain brilliance, 
 and sometimes even provided them with a nervous thrill. 
 But there the influence of French ideas stopped short ; 
 it did not impel them to form any decision or to take 
 action of any kind. It gave a charm to their lives, 
 leaving them indifferent to the lives of others. 
 
 Herzen gives a different picture of these Voltaireans. 
 He speaks of " their malicious raillery, irritability, re- 
 1 A. Herzen, (Euvres, vol. vi. p. 99 (Geneva-Lyons, 1878).
 
 232 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 moteness from humanity, suspicion, and rancour, a 
 result of the clash between things so different as the 
 Europe of the eighteenth century and the life of Russia." 
 
 However, Klutshevsky did recognize individual cases 
 in which the incompatibility between the ideals of the 
 West and the realities of Russia gave rise to great 
 suffering, and even to despair. A tragic example of 
 this despair is afforded by one Opotshinin, a seigneur 
 of the Government of Yaroslavl, who, as a result of 
 his European education, found it impossible to resign 
 himself to the condition of affairs in Russia, and finally, 
 in 1793, took his own life. In his will he explains 
 that " his repugnance for Russian life is precisely that 
 which constrained him spontaneously to decide his fate." 
 He then spoke of his library : — 
 
 '•' My beloved books, I do not know to whom I 
 should leave them ; I am sure that no one in this 
 country has need of them ; I humbly beg my heirs 
 to burn them. They were my greatest treasure ; they 
 alone sustained me in life ; without them my life would 
 have been nothing but a perpetual regret, and I should 
 long ago have left this world in disgust." 
 
 A few minutes before his death Opotshinin had the 
 courage to begin the translation of those verses of 
 Voltaire's which begin — 
 
 O Dieu, que nous ne connaissons pas . . .' 
 
 III 
 
 What Opotshinin understood of his own accord the 
 Government enabled other volt air iantzy and farmazony 
 to realize. 
 
 We know what a sudden change was produced in 
 Catherine II, toward the end of her life, by the French 
 Revolution. From the admirer of the Encyclopaedists 
 she became the enemy of all liberal ideas, and she 
 hunted everywhere for signs of the " French contagion," 
 in order to exterminate it pitilessly. Voltaire's bust, 
 
 * Klutshevsky, Lectures on Russian History. Lithographic edition of 
 lectures delivered at the University of Moscow, Part IV, pp. 264 et seq.
 
 IDEALS 233 
 
 which used to adorn her study, was, by her orders, 
 relegated to the lumber-room. 
 
 Two remarkable Russian writers fell as victims to 
 this reaction. They were Radishtshev and Novikov. 
 Both were true zapadniks, but they represented very 
 different tendencies. 
 
 Alexander Radishtshev (1749- 1802), tne author of 
 " the work which suffered greatly," the Journey from 
 Petersburg to Moscow, was in 1766 sent by the Govern- 
 ment, in company with other young men, to the Univer- 
 sity of Leipzig. There he attended the lectures of 
 Professors Gellert and Platner. But he preferred 
 French philosophy to German science, and read Voltaire, 
 Helvetius, Raynal, Mably, etc. Under their inspira- 
 tion, to which we must add that of Rousseau and the 
 English sentimentalists (and of Sterne in particular), 
 he wrote his famous book. His Journey is full of 
 rationalistic ideas, such as were preached by the 
 Encyclopaedists, concerning the rights of the man and 
 the citizen. " Man is born into the world equal in 
 all things to other men. We all possess the same 
 organs ; we all possess reason and will. . . . We are 
 all equal, from the time we leave the maternal womb, 
 in natural liberty ; we must be equals, too, in the 
 face of the restrictions which are imposed upon this 
 liberty." Russian society, in which we do not find 
 the slightest trace of the liberty and equality de- 
 manded by Radishtshev, he condemned implacably. 
 Catherine II, now a reactionary, could not tolerate 
 this courageous criticism, and although the Journey 
 from Petersburg to Moscow had been published with 
 the authorization of the censor, the Empress found 
 that " the intention of this book is visible on every 
 page ; its author is filled and infected with French 
 error ; he seeks in every way and by every means 
 to diminish the respect due to authority and the power 
 of the State, and to incite in people a feeling of indig- 
 nation against masters and rulers." Catherine gave 
 orders that legal proceedings should be instituted
 
 234 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 against Radishtshev, and entrusted the examination to 
 the cruel police-officer Sheshkovsky, who put his victim 
 to the torture in order to extort the confession of his 
 errors and to induce penitence. Radishtshev could not 
 bear the torture ; he retracted, declaring his book to 
 be "unreasonable and harmful." He was then con- 
 demned to death for his writings, but the capital 
 sentence was commuted for one of perpetual deporta- 
 tion to Siberia, whither he was sent in Chains. Paul I 
 restored him to liberty, and after the accession of 
 Alexander I he even became an official. But his 
 adversaries would not leave him in peace ; and in 
 1802, fearing fresh persecutions, he poisoned himself. 
 In his person a fervent and sincere partisan of European 
 civilization succumbed to the resistance of the old 
 Russia. 
 
 Nicolas Novikov (1744- 18 18) was no more fortu- 
 nate. He, too, may be regarded as a zapadnik, 
 but of another school. He was a pupil of the 
 German freemasons and pietists. German pietism was 
 diametrically opposed to the rationalism of the French 
 Encyclopaedists ; its sole aim was the moral renewal 
 of man. This doctrine attracted Novikov, who found 
 himself under the immediate influence of the German 
 freemasons, and of a certain Schwarz in particular. 
 But he was not one of those masons who admit only 
 of mystical means of human " perfection." On the 
 contrary, he united to his mysticism a great and sincere 
 love of science and an enthusiasm for public instruc- 
 tion. He founded printing-presses, learned societies, 
 and schools ; published school textbooks and other 
 volumes, reviews, etc. He was, moreover, a philan- 
 thropist, and in 1787, during the famine, he came to 
 the aid of the peasants. This beneficent activity was 
 enough to arouse the suspicions of Catherine. She 
 instructed an ecclesiastical inquisitor, the Muscovite 
 Archbishop Platon, to examine the publications of 
 Novikov and to " test " his religious convictions. 
 Platon declared that a portion of the books published
 
 IDEALS 235 
 
 by Novikov was useful and filled a gap in the exist- 
 ing scholastic publications ; another portion (the 
 mystical volumes) appeared to him incomprehen- 
 sible ; a third portion, consisting of the writings of 
 the Encyclopaedists, he considered to be harmful. As 
 for Novikov's religious opinions, Platon spoke of them 
 in the following terms : — 
 
 44 I pray the most generous God that there may be, 
 not only amid the garrulous flock confided to me by 
 Him and by thee, most gracious sovereign, but all 
 over the world, such Christians as Novikov." 
 
 Thanks to these attestations, Novikov was left at 
 liberty, but not for long. Catherine always regarded 
 him as a manifestation of the M French contagion," as 
 she had regarded Radishtshev . 
 
 In 1 791 Novikov saw that it was expedient to close 
 his printing establishments, to cease publication or pro- 
 paganda of any kind, and to retire to his country, 
 estate. This voluntary isolation did not save him ; 
 in April 1792 a detachment of hussars was sent to 
 his house, in order to make a search and arrest him. 
 Dragged away amid the tears of his peasants, who loved 
 him greatly (which was unusual), he was transported 
 first to Moscow, then to the fortress of Schlusselberg. 
 There the above-mentioned Sheshkovsky " attended " 
 to Novikov. ... In August 1792 Catherine issued a 
 ukase in which she declared that Novikov deserved a 
 44 pitiless punishment for his crimes " (of which the 
 ukase said never a word), but that the death penalty 
 would be commuted for fifteen years' imprisonment 
 in a fortress. 
 
 The injustice committed in respect of Novikov waa 
 so obvious that, according to a witness worthy of 
 credence, Paul I, having liberated him in 1796, after 
 his accession, was said to have asked pardon for his 
 dead mother, and even to have knelt before him. 
 
 Si non e vero. . . . 
 
 Four years' captivity in a fortress cost Novikov dear. 
 He emerged aged and infirm, and incapabje of further 
 work.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 I. The nationalist reaction under Catherine TI and Alexander I — 
 Shtsherbatov and Karamzin — The Russian reactionaries and the 
 French Revolution — The royalist emigres. II. The positive in- 
 fluence of the ideals of the French Revolution — Some opinions. 
 
 I 
 
 The story of Novikov proves yet again that Russia 
 opposed almost insuperable obstacles to the diffusion 
 of Western ideas, even of the most moderate nature. 
 Moreover, in addition to persecuting them by means 
 of the police, the reactionaries endeavoured to attack 
 them in their essentials, and to deny that their adoption 
 could be in any way useful. A volume written by 
 Prince Mikhail Shtsherbatov, The Depravation of 
 Morals in Russia, is a memorial of this conservative 
 prohibition. Shtsherbatov considered that Peter I had 
 gone too far and too swiftly along the path of reform, 
 and that the " changes " introduced by him were " ex- 
 cessive." According to Shtsherbatov, Peter I wanted to 
 obtain in a few years such results as might have been 
 obtained in the course of normal and natural evolution 
 at the end of " three generations." The sudden and 
 forcible transformation of the old Russia into a 
 European State was an evil, and resulted in the 
 depreciation of Russian manners. 
 
 But there were traces of the European spirit even 
 in this champion of conservatism. His historical con- 
 ceptions came from the West ; his theory of the 
 " science of causes " was borrowed from Hume ; and 
 he owed something to Rousseau and to freemasonry. 
 
 Shtsherbatov's ideas had their effect upon Karamzin. 
 
 236
 
 IDEALS 237 
 
 This " Europeanizer " of the Russian language was 
 at the same time one of the chief leaders of the 
 political and intellectual conservative nationalists. He 
 wrote a great History of the Russian State, of which 
 Pushkin said, in a biting epigram : — 
 
 The grace and simplicity of his history 
 Demonstrate for us with impartiality 
 The necessity of autocracy 
 And the beauties of the knout. 
 
 Karamzin expounded his ideas in a memoir On the 
 Old and the New Russia, which he presented to 
 Alexander I. Like Shtsherbatov and all the other 
 partisans of the old Russia, he condemned, in this 
 memoir, the reforms of Peter I, and protested against 
 his work of " Europeanization." But his especial 
 antipathy was the " liberalism " born of the French 
 Revolution. 
 
 Karamzin was in Paris during the Revolution, but 
 he understood nothing of it, and was not even very 
 greatly interested in it. It is enough to say that in 
 his Letters of a Russian Traveller he describes (in 
 1790 !) the gardens and the works of art to be seen 
 in Paris, but scarcely remarks upon the fact that the 
 city was in a state of effervescence. However, having 
 been to see the National Assembly, he decided with 
 regret that " its sittings were devoid of all pomp or 
 grandeur." This indifference was replaced, toward the 
 end of his life, by hatred of everything connected with 
 the Revolution, and, as happened to many others, this 
 hatred was extended to the West in general. A fervent 
 zapadnik in his youth, he became one of the heralds 
 of absolute nationalism. 
 
 This complete change of face was to be observed in 
 other Russian thinkers, some of whom were anterior to 
 Karamzin. We know what an effect the French Revolu- 
 tion produced in Russia. But its effect in the domain 
 of ideas — of which effect Karamzin affords us only a 
 poor example— was far more extensive, indeed almost
 
 238 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 incalculable. Some of its results were immediate, while 
 others were more general and more remote. 
 
 At first the Revolution could affect only the upper 
 classes . The masses of the people knew nothing about 
 it. By the Russian aristocracy it was accepted almost 
 as it was accepted by the French aristocracy. Some 
 of them applauded it. Count Paul Stroganov, among 
 others, who was in Paris at the beginning of the 
 Revolution, was present at the sessions of the National 
 Assembly, and posed as a true Jacobin, declaring that 
 "the happiest day in his life would be that on which 
 he should see a similar revolution in Russia." In 
 Petersburg the fall of the Bastille was celebrated ; 
 Grand Dukes declared themselves the partisans of the 
 Republic. But this enthusiasm did not last. 
 
 Catherine II was the first to understand that the intro- 
 duction of the principles and procedures of the French 
 Revolution would be dangerous to the monarchy and its 
 nobility, and she began to oppose them, taking no 
 pains to restrain the expression of the anger with which 
 she regarded the " hydra with twelve hundred heads ' 
 (the National Assembly), the " monster who sought 
 to be king " (Egalite), and the " asses of liberty " 
 (the members of the National Assembly). In 1780 
 Catherine said, with pride : **■ In my country every 
 one is free to speak his mind." After the fall of the 
 monarchy in France she suppressed the toleration 
 hitherto enjoyed by the freethinkers and French 
 philosophers whom she had so greatly admired, and 
 asserted that " in publishing the Encyclopedia Diderot 
 and d'Alembert had two objects : firstly, the destruc- 
 tion of Christianity ; secondly, the destruction of 
 monarchies." She ordered Russians resident in France 
 to leave that impious country without delay, expelled 
 the French residing in Russia, and prohibited, firstly, 
 the sale of the Encyclopedia, and then that of any 
 French book. This prohibition became even more 
 stringent under Paul I. After the brief phase of 
 liberalism under Alexander I it was revived and ex-
 
 IDEALS 239 
 
 tended by the Government of Nicolas I ; not only 
 French books, but all foreign books whatsoever were 
 proscribed. A strict censorship was instituted for all 
 books imported into the country, and this system is 
 still in force to-day : a foreign publication cannot enter 
 Russia until it has passed the " Central Committee 
 of the Foreign Censorship." 
 
 As for the interdict placed upon the residence of 
 French subjects in Russia, this was abolished soon 
 afterwards in favour of the emigre's, who were well 
 received by the Russian aristocrats and reactionaries, 
 and by the Government also, some being even 
 appointed to administrative posts. 
 
 With the Royalists and Jesuits, for they too were 
 readily welcomed, the Catholic propaganda made its 
 way into Russia. During the early years of the nine- 
 teenth century numbers of Russians became Catholics, 
 which induced Joseph de Maistre to remark " that the 
 adhesion of the mind to the Catholic faith is a very 
 speedy matter in Russia, and. the conversions to 
 Catholicism are remarkable, as much for the number of 
 persons converted as for the worldly position which 
 they occupy." 
 
 The majority of these " conversions " were only 
 ephemeral, and were due to a desire to be in the 
 fashion, as a contemporary assures us, many persons 
 (especially women) having been converted merely by 
 following the prevailing current, and returning to the 
 bosom of the Orthodox Church as soon as it ebbed. In 
 1 82 1 the Jesuits were expelled, and the Catholic 
 proselytism exercised by the emigres came to an end. 
 
 However, this proselytism left traces — not extensive, 
 but profound — in the heart of Russian society ; and 
 from time to time extremely interesting cases of con- 
 version to Catholicism occurred, notably that of 
 Tshaadaev. 
 
 But before speaking of Tshaadaev I must say some- 
 thing more of the positive effect of the French Revo- 
 lution. «
 
 240 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 II 
 
 I have already explained to my readers the immediate 
 effects of the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars 
 upon the political movement then developing in Russia. 
 But the ideological influence of the French Revolution 
 exceeded the limits of these immediate effects, and has 
 survived until our own days. 
 
 Even to-day in Russia the great Revolution of 1789 
 is for some an object of hatred, for others an object 
 of admiration. One may say that the attitude which 
 this or that Russian politician assumes toward the revo- 
 lutionary past of France, and his manner of appreci- 
 ating it, will in a very great measure enable us to 
 estimate his own opinions. In my Russia and the 
 Greed War I have cited the declaration made from the 
 tribune of the late Duma (1909) by the deputy Markov, 
 leader of the Right, to the 'effect that "the French 
 Revolution is the most odious and contemptible act 
 of modern history," and that " the Republic means 
 the reign of male and female prostitutes." This is 
 not merely the personal opinion of Markov himself ; 
 it is that of all the Russian reactionaries, some of whom 
 go to such lengths in their hatred of republican France, 
 the home of the Revolution, that even during the present 
 war they have expressed a desire that France should 
 be crushed by Germany, the home of monarchy and 
 conservatism. 
 
 The Russian democrats, on the contrary, love France 
 precisely because she is the incarnation of revolutionary 
 tradition. A true cult for the French Revolution exists 
 among the democratic elements in Russia. Even as a 
 schoolboy the young Russian indulges in this cult, 
 although the conservatives do their best to inspire him 
 with aversion for the traditions of 1789. I have before 
 me the Memoirs of a Russian lady, in which she de- 
 scribes the impressions received during a course of 
 lectures on French history which were delivered by 
 one of the professors of the Moscow girls' school at 
 which she was a pupil.
 
 IDEALS 241 
 
 "... To-day our professor began to tell us about 
 the French Revolution. After drawing the general out- 
 lines of the condition of France and the mentality of 
 the French on the eve of the Revolution, he described 
 the men of the Revolution. He began with Mirabeau. 
 My God, what a wonderful man was this Mirabeau ! 
 ... It was a beautiful day of spring when Mirabeau 
 quitted this life. He gave orders for the window to 
 be opened. The sound of the bells entered his room. 
 And in the street the urchins were crying : ' Treachery 
 of Count Mirabeau 1 ' . . . Oh, why, why did he end 
 like that? Great men should make a different ending 1 
 . . . After Mirabeau, Marat. His severity frightens 
 me. Everything about Marat is powerful and dis- 
 tressing. Perhaps I am too small to understand him, 
 but he gives me the impression of a stupendous force, 
 which is to be dreaded ! . . . Then the Girondins 1 
 Madame Roland ! What energy, what determination, 
 what love for her country, what enthusiasm, what faith 
 she displays ! How proud she is at the moment of 
 death ! . . . Vergniaud, that brilliant orator ! And 
 Camille Desmoulins ! On the eve of execution, in 
 prison, they gather together, they sing hymns to liberty. 
 Camille Desmoulins holds in his hand a rose which his 
 wife has sent him. On the following day, ascending 
 the scaffold, he speaks to his wife. . . . Ma cherie! 
 ... A few days later his wife, Lucile, stood calmly 
 before the guillotine awaiting death. 
 
 " I cried while the professor was telling us this. 
 Thanks, thanks, my worthy professor I You under- 
 stood so well how to stir and awaken what was sleep- 
 ing in the depths of my soul. Thanks ! I know 
 now what is the real meaning of life I 
 
 "... When Danton was advised to escape, he re- 
 plied proudly : ' Can I carry my country with me on 
 the soles of my shoes? " And he remained. Then, the 
 execution. He is taken to the Place. He stands before 
 the guillotine. He speaks to the executioner : ' You 
 will show my head to the people— it is worth seeing I ' 
 
 10
 
 242 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 " This is real life ! These are men ! My God, 
 how I envy them ! What am I saying? I do not 
 envy them, I quiver with admiration for them, for 
 the wife of Desmoulins. If I had been in her place 
 should I not have gone to my death as courageously, 
 following the example of my husband, as she did ! Oh, 
 surely, surely, I should have gone joyfully to my death ! 
 
 " I don't remember the moment when the class broke 
 up. ... I rushed up to the professor and begged 
 him to tell me of books on the Revolution. He told 
 me of some. . . . Directly the classes were over I ran 
 home, and then, without delay, to the library." 
 
 This extract from a private and personal diary enables 
 us to understand better than a long description just 
 what the young Russian feels about the events and the 
 men of the French Revolution. 
 
 The history of the Revolution has become, in Russia, 
 the object of a profound scientific investigation ; and 
 we find the names of Russian scholars among the most 
 eminent students of the period. 
 
 On the other hand, the ideals of the Revolution, 
 and even its phraseology, have found their way into 
 the programmes and the practices of our political 
 parties. For example, among the demands of all the 
 parties of the extreme Left we find that of the con- 
 vocation of a Constituent Assembly. The idea of the 
 confiscation of the landed property of the great seigneurs 
 for the benefit of the peasants, which forms part of 
 the programme of these parties, is another inheritance 
 from the Revolution. One of the favourite songs of 
 the Russian workers is a " Labour Marseillaise" that 
 is, a Russian socialist hymn sung to the air of the 
 French Marseillaise. 
 
 The tradition of the French Revolution survives and 
 finds an echo even in the debates of the Russian Duma, 
 when Mirabeau or Robespierre is quoted, or the epithet 
 of " Jacobin " is hurled from one bench to another, 
 or the Tsar's Ministers are reminded of the fate of 
 Louis XVI.
 
 IDEALS 243 
 
 We may therefore say with Dr. Sarolea, the author 
 of The French Revolution and the Russian Revolution, 
 and with M. Haumant, that the French Revolution, for 
 the Russians, " is not a thing of the dead past, already 
 remote, but a living actuality." 
 
 The love and admiration which the Russian democrats 
 feel for France, as the home of the Revolution, explains 
 the amazement with which they sometimes, indeed 
 frequently, observe the indifference displayed by middle- 
 class French society as regards the internal political 
 situation in Russia. To be sure, we cannot say that the 
 French bourgeoisie has displayed any sympathy for the 
 Russian reaction ; but it is perhaps too tolerant of it. 
 I can very well understand that the possibility of 
 German aggression and the necessity of maintaining 
 the Franco -Russian alliance has obliged France to be 
 sparing of her criticism of her ally's policy. Still, 
 as I demonstrated in my Russia and the Great War, 
 this policy was harmful, even in its effects upon our 
 military strength. 
 
 On the other hand, the reserve displayed by French 
 society in the matter of " Russian affairs " is explained 
 by the fact that France is our creditor. A creditor, 
 in general, thinks only of the payment of interest and 
 the repayment of the principal of his loan ; the methods 
 by which his debtor acquits himself do not greatly 
 concern him. 
 
 What does principally concern the creditor is the 
 advantages of his investment. Nothing else matters 
 greatly. Hence, for anything but his money, an in- 
 difference which often amounts to cruelty. Moreover, 
 the French capitalists acquire Russian stock by the 
 offices of the Russian Government, behind which they 
 fail to perceive the Russian people. But a people and 
 its government are not necessarily the same thing. 
 There are moments when a government has need of 
 money in order to stifle the just revolt of its people, 
 and a people does not consider that it owes a debt of 
 gratitude to those who lend money to its oppressor.
 
 244 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 For example, by subscribing to the loan of 1906 re- 
 publican France prevented the fall of the Tsarist auto- 
 cracy. Has she any right to feel indignant because 
 the Russian democrats, against whom she sided, allowed 
 her to perceive their profound amazement and their 
 bitter disappointment, even if these were expressed with 
 violence and scant politeness, as in Maxim Gorky's 
 letter " to beautiful France," whose hand, he said, " had 
 closed the path of liberty to a whole people "? 
 
 M. Emile Haumant, professor in the Sorbonne, in 
 his interesting work on French culture in Russia, ex- 
 plains the resentment which is often displayed by the 
 Russian democrats by the ideal which they have formed 
 of the duty of France ; they look to her, he says, for 
 a "perpetual repetition of the revolutionary gesture." 
 
 " For them we are the dancing dervishes of the 
 Revolution ! " he says. " Turn, turn, turn for ever 1 " 1 
 
 M. Haumant is mistaken. The Russian democrats 
 reproach France not with refusing to continue the Revo- 
 lution, but for the aid which they lent the dancing 
 dervishes of the counter-revolution. 
 
 " Whatever we do, we shall always shock those 
 idealists who consider that our past condemns us to the 
 indefinite repetition of the same gesture," says M. 
 Haumant. But I think M. Haumant himself under- 
 stands that the past does involve an obligation, and 
 that the Russian democrats have the right regretfully 
 to compare the doings of the Frenchmen of the Revo- 
 lution, who carried liberty into foreign lands on the 
 points of their bayonets and overturned thrones, with 
 the action of their descendants, who often bestow money 
 and security upon autocrats. But in spite of all, there 
 is, in the democratic circles of Russia, a vast and in- 
 exhaustible store of sympathy for France. Her intel- 
 lectual influence in Russia is enormous. Even Gorky, 
 who " spat blood and gall " into the face of France, 
 is, like all his political co-religionists, a great admirer 
 of the French people, of the history of France, so full 
 1 Haumant, La Culture francaise en Russie, p. 431.
 
 IDEALS 245 
 
 of heroic deeds, and of her noble literature. Interviewed 
 by a contributor to Le Temps in 191 o, Gorky 
 M assured him that he never ceased to advise Russian 
 writers to read the French writers, and again the French 
 writers, always the French writers." 
 
 The affection of the Russian democracy for France 
 and her heroic traditions has survived even the most 
 painful tests, not the least of which was the war of 
 1870. A well-known Russian critic, M. Kranichfeld, 
 has recently described the aspect of Russian society 
 during this war, and this is what he says : — 
 
 " The war between France and Prussia was of 
 absorbing interest to the more cultivated minds of 
 Russia. ' It introduced hatred and discord into our 
 life,' said a great Russian review, Otetshestvennyia 
 Zapiski (Annals of the Fatherland), which appears in 
 Petersburg and enjoys a great authority. ' The father 
 took arms against the son, brother against brother, 
 husband against wife, and all this because some 
 sympathized with France and desired her to win, while 
 others sympathized with Prussia, and hoped for a 
 Prussian victory.' 
 
 " ' The majority of notable Russians,' says the same 
 review, ' are on the side of Prussia. As for the defence 
 of France, that has been undertaken by the small fry.' " 
 
 Another writer of the same period (M. Nikitenko) 
 states in his memoirs : — 
 
 " In the upper circles the sympathy is for Prussia, 
 while throughout the people there is an equally powerful 
 hostility toward them." 
 
 But it is in the work of our great satiric writer, 
 Mikhail Soltykov (unhappily unknown abroad), that the 
 love of France finds its most inspired expression : — 
 
 " Poor France ! " he wrote in 1870. " Once again 
 you become the expiatory victim ! The world regarded 
 you as a flame which rekindled the life of humanity, 
 and now any native of Mecklenburg-Strelitz can with- 
 out restraint describe you as a collection of imbeciles. 
 Let him be, this native of Mecklenburg-Strelitz I He
 
 246 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 has taken from you all that he lacked. At the end of 
 the eighteenth century you gasve him the desire for 
 liberty ; in 1848 you gave him the desire to establish 
 ' the great Fatherland.' Nevertheless, you are guilty. 
 You are guilty because you were not able to create 
 'order.' . . . While you were creating liberty the 
 Mecklenburg-Strelitzer, Jiaving no need to create that 
 which already existed, thanks to you, preferred ' a 
 certain narrowness rather than a breadth of principle.' 
 Under protection of your political and social convul- 
 sions, he secretly examined the problem, far more 
 accessible to his intelligence, of the alliance between 
 dishonesty and imposture on the one hand, and 
 patriotism on the other, and it must be admitted that 
 he has solved it in a fairly satisfactory manner (without 
 exceeding the mean, which is so familiar to him). . . 
 
 " Yes, you are guilty, France ! Pursuing aims of 
 world-wide scope, you have forgotten the existence of 
 millions of little domestic details, whose accomplish- 
 ment assures life against usurpations, and forgetful- 
 ness of which may condemn even the best intentions 
 to annihilation. The Mecklenbergers, the Hessians, 
 the Hohenzollerns have understood this better than you, 
 although, on the other hand, they have not, perhaps, 
 sufficiently understood that at times, no matter what 
 care may be given to the petty details, the house may 
 be built upon the sand, if the general ideas which you 
 proclaim have not been used as foundations. 
 
 " A native of Meiningen, in his paltriness, does not 
 work out the smallest idea except for his own ex- 
 clusive use. A dummkopf, on the contrary, casts even 
 the grandest ideas before poor minds .... The Gallic 
 cock knows how to raise a principle to its true height." 
 
 Soltykov was a radical and freethinker. Here is the 
 opinion of the great Russian philosopher, V. Soloviev. 
 A Christian, and an enemy, in principle, of the methods 
 of the Revolution, he yet considered that the French 
 Revolution, and the Whole history of France in general, 
 were of universal significance : —
 
 IDEALS 247 
 
 M The period of the great Revolution and the 
 Napoleonic wars," writes Soloviev in one of his works 
 (The Justification of Good: Moral Philosophy), "is, if 
 not on account of its content, at least on account of 
 the internal tension of popular life and the amplitude 
 of external action, the culminating point of the national 
 development of France ; it was then that this country 
 best expressed her universal importance. Of course, 
 the rights of the man and the citizen were half 
 imaginary ; and the revolutionary trinity — liberty, 
 equality, fraternity — was realized in a sufficiently curious 
 manner. In any case, the enthusiasm of this people 
 for these universal ideas shows plainly enough that it 
 was a stranger to any form of narrow nationalism. . . . 
 Apart from this period, France has always been dis- 
 tinguished by her universal intelligence and her com- 
 municative character ; she is acquainted with, and is 
 anxious to assimilate, the ideas of others, to give them 
 a completed form, and then to give them to the world. 
 This peculiar quality, which makes the history of France 
 a brilliant and lucid summary of European history, 
 is so conspicuous, and has so often been remarked, 
 that there is no need to insist upon it." l 
 
 If from the Christian and anti-revolutionary philo- 
 sopher we turn to the atheist and anarchist, Prince 
 Kropotkin, we find in him the same opinion as to the 
 universal character of the great Revolution. 
 
 " The work of the French Revolution," writes Prince 
 Kropotkin in his work on this subject, " is not con- 
 fined merely to that which it obtained and that which 
 it maintained in France ; it extends also to the 
 principles which it bequeathed to the following century, 
 to the landmark which it planted for the future. . . . 
 Whatever nation may to-day enter upon the path of 
 revolution, it will inherit that which our ancestors per- 
 formed in France. The blood which they shed was 
 shed for humanity. The sufferings which they endured 
 
 1 J. B. Severac, Vladimir Soloviev. Introduction el choix de textes, 
 French cd., p. 144.
 
 248 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 they bore for the whole of humanity. Their struggles, 
 and the ideas which they put forward, and the clash 
 of these ideas — all this is the inheritance of humanity." " 
 Thus, when the Russian democrats adopt the ideals 
 of the French Revolution, they make common cause with 
 humanity itself. 
 
 1 P. Kropotkin, La Grande Revolution, Paris, 1909.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 I. Catholic influence in Russia — Tshaadaev and his philosoph y of 
 history. II. Vladimir Solovicv and the ideal of the Universal 
 Church. 
 
 Tshaadaev reminds us slightly of Khovrostinin, for 
 he, too, was a zapadnik with a Catholic shell, though 
 this was far thicker than Khbvrostinin's. The latter 
 had only a veneer of Catholicism! ; he used his religion 
 merely as a standpoint for his criticisms of the old 
 Russia, while Tshaadaev was steeped in Catholicism. 
 
 Born in 1794, Piotr Tshaadaev received a brilliant 
 education in an aristocratic environment. He studied 
 at the University of Moscow. Then he took part, as 
 an officer of the Guard, in the war against Napoleon. 
 He lived in Petersburg until 1821, enjoying the reputa- 
 tion of a philosopher. We find him among the future 
 Decembrists. In 1821 he left the Guard and the salons 
 of Petersburg and passed two years in solitude. In 
 1823 he went abroad, and while suffering from a 
 nervous malady he became influenced by the mystic 
 Jung-Stilling. He had prepared himself for this 
 influence by the reading of the works of the French 
 Catholic writers — Joseph de Maistre and Chateaubriand. 
 In 1826 he returned to Russia, where, after the failure 
 of the Decembrist movement, the reaction triumphed 
 " in the atmosphere of the gallows." Again he retired 
 from the world, passing four years as an anchorite. In 
 1830 he returned to the intellectual world, taking part 
 in the debates of the literary and philosophical societies 
 of Moscow, where two great movements were in process 
 
 349
 
 250 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 of formation : the Slavophile movement and Occi- 
 dentalism. He was more in sympathy with this last 
 movement, but his own Occidentalist ideas were based 
 upon Catholicism, while other zapadniki based them- 
 selves upon the idealistic philosophy of Germany or 
 the Utopian socialism of France. Tshaadaev expounded 
 his opinions in his Philosophical Letters. 
 
 The first of these Letters appeared in 1836, in a 
 Muscovite review, and produced an echo, according 
 to Herzen's expression, " like that of a gunshot in 
 a dark night," provoking quite a tempest of indignation 
 in official and " right-thinking " circles. It was an 
 indictment of the old Russia, and an ardent hymn of 
 praise to the glory of Western civilization, the highest 
 manifestation of which, in Tshaadaev 's eyes, was 
 Catholicism. Of course, a " Russian patriot of German 
 origin " appeared (a certain Viguel), who did not 
 scruple to denounce Tshaadaev as suspect of subversive 
 ideas. Another " Russian " patriot of like origin, Count 
 von Benckendorf, chief of the gendarmerie (the political 
 police), undertook to look into the matter, and having 
 examined the culprit's Philosophical Letter (of which, 
 no doubt, he did not understand very much), he dis- 
 covered it to be written with criminal intent. 
 
 Nicolas I, at von Benckendorf's suggestion, gave 
 the order that Tshaadaev should be officially declared 
 insane, and should be confined to his house, where he 
 was to be under police and medical supervision. After 
 a year of this supervision a new decision of the 
 Emperor forbade Tshaadaev to write. 
 
 Despite this absurd prohibition, Tshaadaev did not 
 cease writing ; he even published a remarkable Apology 
 of a Madman, in which he defended himself against 
 the attacks of his adversaries, and against " those whose 
 cries had unsettled his quiet life, and had once more 
 launched upon the ocean of human wretchedness his 
 ship, which had grounded at the foot of the Cross." 
 But the persecution to which the Government subjected 
 him made it impossible for him to live and write in 

 
 IDEALS 251 
 
 tranquillity, and hampered the expression of his ideas. 
 This is why this great thinker was unable to give to his 
 country and to the world all that he might have given 
 under other conditions. 
 
 However, what we have of Tshaadaev's is of the 
 highest interest, as it is the first noteworthy attempt 
 to construct a philosophy of Russian history against a 
 background of international history. 
 
 What is this philosophy? 
 
 Its principal point, its basis, consists of the statement 
 of Russia's moral and spiritual isolation in the world. 
 
 " It is one of the most deplorable features of our 
 singular civilization that those truths which elsewhere 
 are among the most trivial, even in peoples far less 
 advanced than ourselves in some respects, have yet 
 to be discovered by us. This is because we have 
 never gone forward with the other peoples ; we belong 
 to none of the great families of the human species ; 
 we are neither of the West nor of the East, and we 
 have the traditions of neither. Situated, as it were, 
 outside the times, the universal education of the human 
 species has passed us by." l 
 
 Comparing the history of Russia with that of the other 
 nations, Tshaadaev found that the difference was not to 
 the credit of his own country. There is, he said, for 
 every nation a time of violent upheaval, of passionate 
 restlessness, an age of intense emotions and great under- 
 takings, when the nations bestir themselves impetuously, 
 with no apparent motive, but not without advantage to 
 posterity. All societies have passed through these 
 periods. But " we Russians have gone through nothing 
 of the kind. First a brutal barbarism, then a period of 
 gross superstition ; then a foreign domination, ferocious 
 and debasing, the spirit of which was later on inherited 
 by the national power ; . . . a dull, gloomy existence, 
 without vigour, without energy . . . there is the 
 mournful history of our youth." 
 
 ■ (Euvres choisies de Pierre Tshaadaev (Paris, 1862), pp. 14-15 
 (French ed.).
 
 252 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 Unlike the Russian Slavophiles, Tshaadaev denied 
 that the past of Russia possessed any value, or any 
 moral or educative significance. 
 
 " Glance down the centuries we have traversed," he 
 says, " over all the ground we have covered ; you will 
 not find a single affecting memory, not a single vener- 
 able monument, which will speak to you of the past 
 ages with the power that recalls them in a living and 
 picturesque manner. We live only in the narrowest 
 present, without a past and without a future, in the 
 midst of a dead calm." 
 
 Having no traditions of her o]wn, Russia has no 
 traditions common to her and the rest of European 
 humanity: "Our first years, passed in an immovable 
 stupor, left no trace upon our minds, and there is 
 nothing individual upon which we can base our ideas ; 
 isolated by a strange destiny from the universal move- 
 ment of humanity, we gathered none of the traditional 
 ideas of the human species. Yet the life of nations is 
 founded upon such ideas ; their future grows out of 
 these ideas, and their moral development proceeds 
 therefrom." 
 
 These traditional ideas give all the peoples of Euffipe 
 a " common physiognomy, a family expression." 
 Tshaadaev believes that " in spite of the general 
 division of these peoples into the Latin branch and 
 the Teutonic branch, into Southern peoples and 
 Northern peoples,, there is a common tie which unites 
 them all in a single group, a tie plainly visible to those 
 who have studied their general history." This " in- 
 herited patrimony of ideas " gives these peoples " a 
 certain mental method " which is lacking in the 
 Russians. " The syllogism of the West is unknown to 
 us," says Tshaadaev. " There is something more than 
 frivolity in our best heads. . . . There is nothing pf 
 that wanton lightness with which the Erench used to 
 be reproached long ago, and which after all was only 
 a facile manner of conceiving things > which excluded 
 neither depth nor breadth of mind, and which added an
 
 IDEALS 253 
 
 infinite grace and charm to intercourse ; it is the heed- 
 lessness of a life without experience and without fore- 
 sight, which refers itself to nothing further than the 
 ephemeral life of the individual detached from the 
 species. . . . The experience of the ages means 
 nothing to us ; periods and generations have gone by 
 but have brought us no fruit. One would say, to look 
 at us, that the general law of humanity had been 
 revoked for us. Solitaries in the world, we have given 
 nothing to the world, we have taught nothing to the 
 world. . . . Not one useful thought has genrdnated 
 on the barren soil of our country, ; not one great truth 
 has sprung up in our midst." 
 
 To those who would oppose to Tshaadaev's indictment 
 the age of Peter the Great as the period of Europeaniza- 
 tion, when Russia entered the family of the Western 
 peoples, Tshaadaev replies by the following argument, 
 in which he seeks to emphasize the external and 
 superficial character of Peter's work : — 
 
 " Once a great man determined to civilize us, and, 
 in order to give us a foretaste of the light, he threw, 
 us the mantle of civilization ; we picked up the mantle, 
 but we did not touch civilization." 
 
 Tschaadaev then proceeds to explain all these sad 
 peculiarities of the mind and the history of Russia. 
 He finds his explanation in the schism which occurred 
 in the Christian Church, dividing it into the Catholic 
 Church and the Byzantine Church, to which latter the 
 Russians adhered. 
 
 " While the edifice of modern civilization was rising 
 from the thick of the struggle against the vigorous 
 barbarism of the Northern peoples and the lofty ideas 
 of religion, what were we doing? Impelled by a fatal 
 destiny, we were about to seek in miserable Byzantium, 
 the object of the profound contempt of these peoples, 
 the moral code which was to educate us. A moment 
 earlier an ambitious mind (Photius) had removed this 
 family from the universal fraternity ; it was this idea, 
 disfigured by human passion, that we accepted at that
 
 254 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 time. The vitalizing principle of unity animated every- 
 thing in Europe. Everything emanated from this idea ; 
 everything converged upon it. The whole intellectual 
 movement of the time tended only toi establish the unity 
 of human thought, and every impulse was derived from' 
 the urgent need of arriving at a universal ideal which 
 is the genius of modern times." 
 
 Only the Russian people remained " alien to this 
 wonderful principle." It remained outside that other 
 great European movement: the Renaissance. "By 
 turning back to pagan antiquity the Christian world 
 discovered those forms of the beautiful which it had 
 so far lacked. Secluded by our schism, nothing of what 
 was happening in Europe reached us. We had nothing 
 to do with the great business of the world. The notable 
 qualities with which religion had endowed the modern 
 peoples . . . those new forces with which it had en- 
 riched the human intelligence ; the manners which 
 submission to an unarmed authority had rendered as 
 gentle as they had at first been brutal ; nothing of all 
 this took place in Russia. . . . While the world was 
 entirely reconstructing itself, nothing was built in 
 Russia ; we remained hidden in our hovels of poles 
 and thatch. In a word, the new destinies of the human 
 race were not for us. Christians though we were, the 
 fruit of Christendom was not ripening for us." 
 
 In this extreme pessimism as regards the destinies 
 of Russia, Tshaadaev was in profound disagreement 
 with the foolish and hypocritical optimism of the ruling 
 circles and the reaction, the typical representative of 
 which, Count Ouvarov, was convinced, and publicly 
 declared, that the past of Russia was admirable, its 
 present more than admirable, and its future would 
 surpass imagination. A veritable religion, a veritable 
 adoration of the existing system, was proclaimed by 
 this spokesman of the official Russia. 
 
 Ouvarov and others like him believed that they loved 
 Russia and that Tshaadaev hated and despised her. 
 Tshaadaev was of the contrary opinion. In his Apology
 
 IDEALS 255 
 
 of a Madman, in which, according to his own expression, 
 he " attempted to discover what are the relations of a 
 man smitten with insanity by order of the supreme 
 tribunal of the country to his fellow-creatures, his 
 fellow-citizens and his God," Tshaadaev holds that 
 " there are several ways of loving one's country ; the 
 Samoyed, for example, who loves the native snows 
 which render him myopic, the smoky yourt in which he 
 remains hidden for half his days, the rancid fat of his 
 reindeer, which surrounds him with a nauseating atmo- 
 sphere, certainly does not love his country after the same 
 fashion as the British citizen, proud of his institutions 
 and of the high civilization of his glorious island. . ,. . 
 Love of country is a beautiful thing, but there is one 
 finer thing, and that is the love of truth. . . . It is not 
 by the road of the fatherland, but by the road of truth, 
 that we ascend to heaven." l 
 
 It must not be supposed that Tshaadaev consciously 
 intended to belittle and humiliate his country and its 
 peoples, as his adversaries asserted. On the contrary, 
 he was convinced that it was by an unhappy chance that 
 Russia had strayed from the great highway of universal 
 civilization, and that her place was with the European 
 peoples. He protests against "the European peoples, 
 who are strangely mistaken with regard to the 
 Russians." " They persist in surrendering us to the 
 East : by a sort of instinct of European nationality they 
 thrust us back into the East so that they shall not meet 
 us again in the West," writes Tshaadaev in a letter to 
 Alexander Turgenev. But for Tshaadaev Russia had 
 the right of communion with the West. " We are 
 situated in the East of Europe, that is certain, but we 
 have never for all that been a part of the East. The 
 East has a history which has nothing in common with 
 that of our country. We are simply a Northern country, 
 and by our ideas as much as by climate we are very far 
 removed from the ' perfumed vale of Kashmir ' and 
 the sacred banks of the Ganges." 2 
 
 1 QLuvres choisies de Pierre Tshaadaev, p. 127. 2 Ibid. p. 141.
 
 256 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 Tshaadaev cherished the dream that " a day would 
 come when the Russians would find a place in. the 
 midst of intellectual Europe, as we already stand in the 
 midst of political Europe ; more powerful then by virtue 
 of our intelligence than we are to-day by virtue of our 
 material strength." 
 
 But in order that this dream should be realized it was 
 essential that the spiritual and moral unity between 
 Russia and the W^est, now shattered, should be re- 
 established. And as Tshaadaev was convinced that 
 Catholicism was the best and only true guardian of the 
 spiritual unity of Europe, he called upon his people 
 to adopt the Catholic ideal. 
 
 It would not be difficult to indicate the weak 
 points and the errors of Tshaadaev 's argument. It 
 would be very easy to demonstrate that the European 
 and universal civilization which he so greatly valued 
 was not merely the work of Catholicism, and that many 
 of its important and primordial elements were, on the 
 contrary, born of the conflict between secular society 
 and the Catholic Church. But to Tshaadaev the 
 Catholic ideal was in reality of importance not as an 
 ecclesiastical and religious ideal, but rather as a 
 political and social ideal. To him it was the symbol 
 of the unity of European civilization. And he wished 
 his country to play its part in that unity. 
 
 " Believe me, I cherish my country more than any 
 of you," he declared, addressing his adversaries. " I 
 am ambitious : I wish to see her glorious. . . . But I 
 have not learned, to love my country with closed, eyes, 
 with bowed head, with shut lips. I consider that one 
 can be useful to one's country only on condition of 
 seeing it clearly ; I believe that the time of blind love 
 is past, that to-day one owes one's country the truth 
 before all else. I love my country as Peter the Great 
 taught me to love it. I have not, I admit, that fatuous 
 lazy patriotism which slumbers amid its illusions, and 
 with which, unhappily, many of our best minds are 
 to-day afflicted. I think that if we came after the rest 

 
 IDEALS 257 
 
 it was in order that we shall do better than the 
 rest." 
 
 And Tshaadaev hopes that Russia's long isolation 
 and solitude will perhaps be of value to her in the 
 accomplishment of her future mission, because " the 
 great things have always come from the wilderness." 
 
 II 
 
 Half a century later the Catholic tradition found; 
 expression in the works of another remarkable Russian 
 thinker, Vladimir Soloviev, whose name I have already 
 had occasion to mention. His French biographer and 
 commentator, M. J. B. Sdverac, says of him that 
 " Vladimir Soloviev deserves to be described as ' the 
 first Russian philosopher.' And, indeed, until his day 
 Russia had possessed no philosopher in the Western, 
 European sense of the word." ■ Without exaggerating to 
 this extent, we may, however, admit that Soloviev was 
 one of the most original figures in the world of Russian 
 thought toward the end of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Born in 1853 and dying in 1900, Vladimir Soloviev 
 left behind him, in addition to his philosophical works, 
 a reputation for great honesty and great moral courage. 
 Although by no means a revolutionary, he protested 
 against all kinds of injustice, and he fought for liberty. 
 When, after the assassination of Alexander II (on the 
 1st of March 1881), people were waiting for the execu- 
 tion of the Terrorists, who were accused of this act, 
 Soloviev made a public speech in which he appealed to 
 Alexander's successor to pardon his father's murderers : — 
 
 " To-day," he said, " the regicides are undergoing 
 their trial, and they will probably be condemned to 
 death. But the Tsar has the power to pardon them, 
 and if he really feels the tie which binds him to the 
 people h6 must do so. The Russian people know 
 nothing of two truths. Now, God's truth says : ' Thou 
 shalt not kill.' Here is the solemn moment of justifica- 
 
 1 J. B. Severac, Vladimir Soloviev. Introduction et choix de textes, 
 p. 14 (Paris).
 
 258 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 tion or condemnation. Let the Tsar show that he is 
 before all a Christian. But if he transgresses God's 
 commandments, if he enters upon this sanguinary path, 
 then the Russian people, the Christian people, can no 
 longer follow him." 
 
 For these generous words Soloviev was dismissed 
 from his post as Professor of Philosophy in the Univer- 
 sity of Petersburg, " and was forced thereafter to lead 
 an uncertain and wandering life, his pen providing him 
 with a living." l 
 
 I cannot here expound Soloviev's philosophical ideas 
 in all their bearings. What concerns us chiefly is his 
 historical and religious philosophy and his opinions on 
 Russia's place in the world and her relations with the 
 ^West. But I must not omit to emphasize the fact that 
 with Soloviev the problems of philosophy in general 
 were related to his philosophy of history and his ideas 
 as to the relations between Russia and Europe. 
 
 " The necessary and most recent results of the 
 development of Western philosophy," he writes in his 
 work on The Crisis of Western Philosophy, " are the 
 affirmation, in the shape of rational knowledge, of the 
 same truths which, under the form of faith and spiritual 
 contemplation, were affirmed by the great dogmas of 
 the East (of the East of antiquity as regards a portionj 
 but more particularly of the Christian East). Thus the 
 most recent philosophy, with the logical perfection of 
 its Western form, tends to reunite with the contempla- 
 tion of the East. On the one hand it is based on the 
 data of positive science ; on the other it joins hands 
 with religion. The realization of this universal syn- 
 thesis of the science of philosophy and religion . . * 
 should be the supreme aim and the ultimate result of 
 the evolution of thought." 
 
 We see that for Soloviev even a purely metaphysical 
 problem becomes a vital question, leading him to seek 
 for the grounds of a reconciliation between the East 
 and the West. 
 
 1 J. B. Severac, op. cit. p. 12.
 
 IDEALS 259 
 
 As for the distinction between the Eastern mind and 
 the Western mind, it is described by Soloviev almost in 
 the same terms as those employed by Tshaadaev, who 
 defined it as follows : — 
 
 " The world was from all time divided into two 
 portions— the East and the West. This is not merely a 
 geographical division. . . . We have here two prin- 
 ciples, which correspond with two dynamic forces of 
 nature, two ideals which embrace the entire economy 
 of the human species. In the East it is by concentrating 
 itself, by recollecting itself, by turning inward upon 
 itself, that the human spirit builds itself up ; but in the 
 West it does so by expanding itself externally, by 
 spreading itself in every direction, by struggling against 
 all obstacles. Society naturally constituted itself on 
 these primitive data. In the East, thought withdrew into 
 itself, seeking seclusion and repose; it hid in the wilder- 
 ness, and allowed the social power to become the master 
 of all earthly possessions ; while in the West thought 
 projected itself in all directions and embraced all forms 
 of happiness, founding authority upon the principle of 
 justice. . . . The East was the first-comer, casting 
 upon the earth the streams of light that came from the 
 womb of its solitary meditation ; then came the West, 
 which, with its immense activity, its eager speech, its 
 all-powerful analysis, engrossed itself in its labours, 
 finished what the East had commenced, and finally 
 enveloped it in its vast embrace." 1 
 
 Soloviev is less condemnatory of the past of Russia 
 than Tshaadaev, because at the outset of his philo- 
 sophical and literary activity Soloviev came under the 
 influence of the Slavophiles. At this period he did not 
 (as did Tshaadaev) demand the submission of the East 
 to the West, of Russia to Europe, of Orthodoxy to 
 Catholicism ; he spoke of a " synthesis," and in his 
 lectures on The Human God he even said that " in 
 the history of Christianity the Church of the East repre- 
 sented the divine principle ; the West, the human prin- 
 1 P. Tshaadaev, (Euvres, pp. 137-8.
 
 260 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 ciple. Before it became the fecundating principle of 
 the Church, reason Was forced' to divorce itself from 
 her, in order to develop all its forces in freedom. Once 
 the human principle had become completely indi- 
 vidualized and had felt the weakness of this isolation, 
 it was able freely to enter into conjunction with the 
 divine foundation of Christendom preserved in the 
 Church of the East, and, by this free conjunction, tq 
 give birth to spiritual humanity." This was written by 
 Soloviev in 1879, but ten years later he proclaimed the 
 supremacy of Catholicism over Orthodoxy, and pro- 
 ceeded to draw all the practical deductions therefrom. 
 
 Soloviev asked himself this question: " What is 
 Russia's raison d'etre in the world? " He distinguished 
 three principal phases of Russian history: the first 
 phase was the period of the formation of a great 
 national monarchy ; it ended under the Tsar Alexei', 
 the father of Peter the Great. Peter opened a new era 
 in the history of Russia: he sent Russia to school with 
 the civilized peoples of the West, in order that she might 
 assimilate their knowledge and their culture. But at 
 the close of this second phase it was needful to know 
 what Russia was to do after her years of apprenticeship ; 
 for "if one was right in asking : ' What is barbarian 
 Russia to do? ' and if Peter the Great replied correctly 
 by answering : ' She must be reformed and civilized ' — 
 then," says Soloviev, " one has no less the right to ask : 
 What is the Russia reformed by Peter the Great to do? 
 What is the aim of modern Russia? " 
 
 Soloviev is satisfied neither by the reply of the Slavo- 
 philes nor by that of the simple positivist "patriots." 
 When the first say that Orthodox Russia is sufficient to 
 herself, and that she has nothing to do with " the West, 
 which is in a state of decadence," Soloviev objects that 
 in speaking thus they reduce the final aim of the history 
 and the raison d'etre of the human species to the 
 existence of a single nation. 
 
 " A return to the ancient Judaism is proposed to us," 
 says Soloviev, "with this difference: that the excep-
 
 IDEALS 261 
 
 tional rdle of the Jewish people in the schemes of 
 Providence is attested by the word of God, while the 
 exclusive importance of Russia cannot be affirmed save 
 on the word of certain Russian publicists, whose inspira- 
 tion is far from being infallible." ' 
 
 As for the " more prosaic patriots," who, " in reac- 
 tion against the vague and sterile poetry of Panslavism," 
 have asserted that it is not indispensable that a people 
 should bear within it a determining idea, and that one 
 should simply strive to render one's country wealthy and 
 powerful, without speculating as to its superior purpose 
 in the comity of nations, Soloviev believes that " this 
 amounts to saying that the nations live by daily bread 
 alone, which is neither true nor desirable." Soloviev 
 holds that " the historic peoples have lived not only for 
 themselves but also for all humanity, purchasing by 
 their immortal labours the right to assert their 
 nationality." " One does not ask what is the historic 
 vision of the Ashantis or the Esquimaux," but " modern 
 Russia, which for two centuries has not ceased to 
 manifest herself on the stage of world-history, did not 
 quite know whither she was going nor what she in- 
 tended to do." It is therefore important to know what 
 idea Russia contributes to the world ; what she has 
 done and what she has yet to do for the good of 
 humanity as a whole. 
 
 Soloviev 's reply to this question is determined by his 
 general ideals. A convinced and sincere Christian, he 
 believed that human history was an incarnation of " the 
 •Word," a gradual realization of the Divine Will in the 
 life of men. But the incarnation of the Word and the 
 realization of the Divine Will does not come about by, 
 the intervention of a single man, but through the inter- 
 mediation of human society, which should be a 
 theocrac-y ; that is, it should be based on the religious 
 principle and directed by an ecclesiastical authority. 
 
 In his original work on Russia and the Universal 
 Churchy which he had to publish in French (in 1889), 
 ' V. Soloviev, La Russie et I'Eglise universelle (Paris, 1883), p. 3.
 
 262 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 as in Russia the ecclesiastical censorship would not have 
 tolerated the publication of a book so imbued with 
 Catholic ideals, Soloviev compares the two existing 
 Christian Churches, and likens them to two saints of 
 whom a charming Russian folk-tale speaks. 
 
 These two saints — St. Nicholas and St. Cassien — who 
 were sent from Paradise to visit earth, saw one day upon 
 their path a poor peasant, whose cart, loaded with hay, 
 was deeply mired, and who was making fruitless efforts 
 to urge his horse onward, 
 
 " Let us give a hand to this worthy man," said St. 
 Nicholas . 
 
 " I would rather not," replied St. Cassien. m I should 
 be afraid of soiling my chlamys." 
 
 *' Then wait for me, or else go thy ways alone," said 
 St. Nicholas, and, fearlessly plunging into the mud, he 
 vigorously assisted the peasant to drag his cart from the 
 slough . 
 
 (When the task was completed St. Nicholas rejoined 
 his companion. He was covered with mire, and his 
 chlamys, rent and soiled, was like a poor man's blouse. 
 Great was the surprise of St. Peter to see him arrive in 
 this condition at the gate of Paradise. 
 
 *' Well, what has made such a sight of you? " 
 inquired St. Peter. 
 
 St. Nicholas related what had happened. 
 
 "And you," asked St. Peter of St. Cassien, " wefe 
 you not with him in this affair? " 
 
 " Yes, but I am not in the habit of meddling 
 with what does not concern me, and, above all, I did 
 not wish to soil the immaculate whiteness of my 
 chlamys." 
 
 "Well/ well!" said Peter, "as for you, St. 
 Nicholas, because you were not afraid to dirty yourself 
 in helping your neighbour out of his trouble, you 
 shall henceforth be feted twice a year, and you will be 
 regarded as the greatest of the saints after me by all 
 the peasants of Russia. And you, St. Cassien, you may 
 content yourself with the pleasure of having an immacu-
 
 fIDEALS 263 
 
 late chlamys: you will have your festival only in Leap 
 Year — only once in four years." " 
 
 " The Oriental prays ; the Occidental prays and 
 works. Which of the two is right? " asks Soloviev, 
 and replies as follows : — 
 
 " Jesus Christ established His visible Church not only 
 that it might contemplate heaven, but also that it might 
 labour on earth and fight against the gates of hell. He 
 sent His apostles not into solitude and the wilderness, 
 but into the world, to conquer it and to subject it to the 
 kingdom which is not of this world ; and He recom- 
 mended them to be not only as meek as doves, but also 
 as wise as serpents." 2 
 
 From this point of view Soloviev believes that 
 although in the East there is a " Church which prays," 
 there is not a " Church which acts," and which labours 
 to reform the whole social life of the nations according 
 to "the Christian ideal." To accomplish the true will 
 of Christ, the Eastern Church must frankly accept 
 Catholicism' as its companion and its guide on its 
 terrestrial journey. 
 
 Soloviev very severely criticizes the present position 
 of the Orthodox Church, in which, he says, there is 
 no truly spiritual government. The Orthodox Church 
 is in complete dependence upon the power of the State, 
 and, in the words of the Slavophile Ivan Aksakov, 
 cited by Soloviev, it " presents the appearance of a 
 sort of bureau or colossal chancellery, which applies 
 to the office of the shepherd of Christ's flock all the 
 methods of the German bureaucracy, with all the official 
 falsity which is inherent in them. . . . The ecclesias- 
 tical government is organized like a secular depart- 
 mental administration. . . . The spiritual sword — 
 speech — is replaced by the sword of the State, and 
 near the; precincts of the Church, instead of the angels 
 
 1 The Orthodox Church celebrates the feast of St. Nicholas on the 
 6th of May and the 6th of December, and the feast of St. Cassien on 
 the 29th of February. 
 
 ■ Soloviev, La Russic et TEglise universelle (Paris, 1889), p. 4.
 
 264 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 of God, we see gendarmes and police inspectors — those 
 guardians of the Orthodox dogmas, those directors of 
 our conscience." * 
 
 For Soloviev the situation of the Church was incom- 
 patible with its spiritual dignity, its divine origin, and 
 its universal mission. But there was only one means 
 by which the Orthodox Church could escape from this 
 situation ; this was to unite with the Catholic Church. 
 The popular basis of faith is identical in Orthodoxy and 
 Catholicism. From the evangelical and historical point 
 of view the Catholic Church should be the guide. By 
 analysing at length the texts of the Gospel, the deliber- 
 ations of the Conclaves, etc., Soloviev arrived at the 
 conclusion that the Roman Papacy was truly charged 
 by Christ to represent Him on earth, and as " to Christ, 
 the one Being, the centre of all beings, the Church 
 should correspond, a collectivity aspiring to perfect 
 unity," so Orthodoxy should be reconciled with Catholi- 
 cism and submit itself to the power of the Pope. In 
 his " spiritual fatherhood " the unity of the human 
 species will be realized. We shall then accomplish 
 the will of Christ, who " in uniting all His disciples 
 in one sole communion did not falter before national 
 divisions. He extended His fraternity over all the 
 nations. And if this mysterious communion of the 
 Divine Body is true and actual, we, in partaking of 
 it, do truly become brothers, without any distinction of 
 race or nationality." 2 
 
 Thus, by re-uniting itself with Catholicism, the 
 Orthodox Church and all Russia with it would win 
 the possibility of participating in the great work of 
 11 the incarnation of the Word," the perfecting of human 
 nature and society. 
 
 1 Ivan Aksakov, Works, vol. iv. p. 84. Soloviev cites from the same 
 author the story of the shoulder-knots of a general's aide-de-camp, 
 with which Mgr. Irinee, Archbishop of Pskov, and a member of the 
 Holy Synod, was decorated under Paul I, which are highly significant 
 of the relations between Church and State in Russia. 
 
 1 Soloviev, op. cit. p. 329. 

 
 IDEALS 265 
 
 Herzen had said of Tshaadaev that in him was in- 
 carnated " the reasonable and social aspect of Catholi- 
 cism." One might also say this of Solovicv. His 
 religious faith, his mysticism even, are directed toward 
 the problem of the welfare and the happiness of man- 
 kind. 
 
 But neither Tshaadaev nor Soloviev, despite all the 
 power of their original minds, was able to control and 
 master Russian thought, which remained, in general, far 
 removed from the path followed by these two remark- 
 able philosophers, who were all their lives tormented 
 by the great problem of the relations between " the 
 Orient and the Occident," between Russia and Europe, 
 seeking to solve it by the religious unity of one and 
 the other.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 I. The idealist philosophy of Germany — Hegelianism. II. Bielinsky 
 — The influence of Schelling and Fichte. III. Bielinsky, a Hegelian 
 of the "Right" and a conservative — His antipathy for French 
 ideals. IV. His conversion — French influences — Social aspira- 
 tions. 
 
 I 
 
 A French poet has said that when one has no support 
 in heaven, one turns one's eyes toward the earth. This 
 aphorism is correct in the inverse sense also. .When 
 one finds no support on earth one turns to heaven again. 
 The intellectual life of Russia proves this most emphati- 
 cally. 
 
 In the first half of the nineteenth century, after 
 the Decembrist movement had been suppressed, when 
 political and concrete aspirations had been violently 
 stifled, a period of abstract and nebulous speculation 
 set in. This was the period of the Russian hegelianstvo, 
 that is, of the cult of Hegel and the idealistic German 
 philosophy in general. In the place of the late secret 
 political societies which discussed the French, British, 
 American, and Spanish constitutions, philosophic 
 " clubs " were formed, whose members passed their 
 time in discussing the most complex problems of meta- 
 physics. 
 
 " There is not a single paragraph in all the three 
 parts of the Logic of Hegel, in the two parts of his 
 Aisthetic, or in his Encyclopedia, etc., which has not 
 for some nights been the subject of furious discussion. 
 People who regarded one another with affection would 
 have nothing to do with one another for weeks after 
 
 266
 
 IDEALS 267 
 
 a disagreement respecting the definition of ' the inter- 
 cepting mind,' and would regard opinions concerning 
 
 I the absolute personality ' and its autonomous existence 
 as personal insults. All the most insignificant pamphlets 
 which appeared in Berlin or the various provincial 
 cities of Germany, which dealt with German philosophy 
 and contained even the merest mention of Hegel, were 
 bought and read until in a few days they were torn and 
 tattered and falling to pieces." 
 
 Such is the artistic description of life in these philo- 
 sophical clubs as given by Herzen, who himself entered 
 into it heart and soul. 
 
 The influence of the idealistic philosophy of Germany 
 was very great, and played a very important part in 
 the spiritual history of Russian society. Its positive 
 aspect consisted of the fact that it developed, in its 
 Russian adepts, a love of abstract thought and a habit 
 of logical argument. Certain of these Russian disciples 
 of the German school of philosophy became absolute 
 " monstrosities in their terse dialectic and their luminous 
 perception of ideas in their essence " (this was 
 Proudhon's opinion of Bakunin). This habit of 
 
 II dialectic " and argument liberated the Russian youth 
 of the time from many prejudices, and from docile 
 submission to the naive beliefs of their fathers. Re- 
 serving for man a supreme position in the system of 
 the world (" man is the completion of nature "), German 
 idealism fortified their sense of human dignity. 
 
 But German philosophy had also its negative and 
 perilous aspects. Fichte, representing the " external 
 world " as the product of the human mind, compelled his 
 Russian disciples toward an exaggerated subjectivism, 
 toward the concentration of all interests in their ego, 
 and toward the neglect of real life. Schelling, who 
 completed Fichte's theory by the addition of the poetic 
 element, and who declared that nature was the work 
 of the artistic and creative imagination of man, impelled 
 them toward an exaggerated " asstheticism." Even 
 Hegel, whose dialectic and philosophy of history were,
 
 268 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 for Herzen and his friends, an " algebra of revolution," 
 concealed, in his abstract formulae, great dangers for 
 the Russian mind, as we shall see later on. 
 
 'We must here add that an excessive enthusiasm for 
 German metaphysics was often, in Russia, accompanied 
 by an aversion for " French ideas." Happily, this 
 aversion was only ephemeral, and it was precisely these 
 " French ideas " which paralysed the action of the evil 
 aspects of the influence of German philosophy, and 
 permitted the Russian intellectuals to emerge from its 
 labyrinth without the loss of their best human feelings. 
 
 II 
 
 The 'thirties and 'forties of the nineteenth century 
 were very rich in men and in ideas. All the chief 
 literary and ideological movements of the century had 
 their roots in these years. The period is adorned by 
 a whole Pleiad of illustrious names ; the Slavophiles, 
 Khomiakov, the brothers Kireevsky, and the brothers 
 Aksakov ; the zapadnikt, Granovsky, Bielinsky, Herzen, 
 Ogariov, Stankievitsh, and Botkin. Bielinsky was 
 influenced by the destructive genius of the impassioned 
 philosophic and aesthetic romanticism of Schelling. In 
 an article entitled Literary Musings (or Elegy) he 
 reproduces, almost word for word, the " definitions " 
 of Schelling, and speaks of " the divine world, immense 
 and beautiful, which is nothing more than the breath 
 of a unique and eternal idea (of the thought of the 
 unique and eternal God), and which manifests itself 
 in innumerable forms, as a great spectacle of the abso- 
 lute unity in an illimitable variety. Only the enkindled 
 sentiment of a mortal can conceive, in its moments of 
 clairvoyance, how great is the body of this soul of 
 the Universe, whose heart is fashioned of stupendous 
 suns, whose veins are Milky Ways, and whose blood 
 is the pure ether." Only art and poetry can seize the 
 essential of this universal life ; art, for Bielinsky, is 
 the expression of the great idea of the Universe in its 
 infinitely variable manifestations.
 
 IDEALS 269 
 
 Bakunin was formed by this period. It also gave 
 birth to the Russian novel, and to that literary criticism 
 which for a long time fulfilled the part of a guide, 
 not only in the province of literary taste, but also in 
 that of the social and moral life of the Russian 
 intellectuals. 
 
 All those who wish to obtain a real knowledge of 
 this astonishing period should begin with a thorough 
 study of the ideas and the works of Vissarion Bielinsky. 
 Such a study will be of the greatest interest to those 
 who wish to understand the formation of the Occi- 
 dentalist and Slavophile movements and the nature of 
 those European influences which have affected the 
 Russian mind. 
 
 Endowed with an unusually active mind, and bringing 
 to the expression of his thoughts and feelings a remark- 
 able sincerity, sensitive in the extreme to all impres- 
 sions and impulses, Vissarion the Impetuous, as his 
 friends used to call him, reflected in his spiritual de- 
 velopment and in his works the principal factors of the 
 intellectual life of the period between 1830 and 1850. 
 
 At the outset Bielinsky was a disciple of Schelling. 
 ^Esthetic pleasure, in his opinion, consists of " a 
 momentary oblivion of our ego in a keen sympathy 
 with the universal life." 
 
 The history of humanity is also a series of manifes- 
 tations of the same divine idea, and " each people fills, 
 in the great family of the human race, its own place, 
 which is appointed by Providence." This historical 
 and national romanticism has not, in Bielinsky's works, 
 a democratic or popular character : M Our national 
 physiognomy is best preserved in the lower strata of 
 the population, but the superior life of the people is 
 concentrated principally in the higher strata." It was 
 to these- higher strata that Bielinsky looked for all 
 progress in Russia, and he already saw signs of such 
 progress in the " enlightened activity of the well-known 
 dignitaries, the advisers of the Tsar in the difficult 
 matter of the administration," who entered " the temples
 
 270 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 of Russian learning," pointing out to the youth of 
 Russia " the path leading to civilization, based on 
 orthodoxy, autocracy, and the national spirit " ; in " the 
 grateful nobility," who gave its children " a solid edu- 
 cation " ; in the " class of merchants," who " were 
 rapidly learning " ; in " our clergy," who " took an 
 active part in the holy work of national education." 
 
 iWith the same optimism Bielinsky considers the past 
 of the Russian people, and finds it full of favourable 
 phenomena. As for Russian literature, a consideration 
 of which forms the principal subject of the Elegy, he 
 condemns all its satyric or pessimistic works, pro- 
 nouncing in favour of " pure art," which is equivalent to 
 saying that he demolishes the principal monuments of 
 the Russian national genius. 
 
 This exaggerated indulgence and this desire to see 
 in Russia nothing but what was good was obviously 
 antagonistic to the reality. It is enough to say that 
 the same Count Ouvarov, Minister of Public Instruc- 
 tion, who was the " well-known dignitary " mentioned 
 by Bielinsky, expressed during a visit to " the temple 
 of learning," namely, the University of Moscow, the 
 desire " that Russian literature should finally cease to 
 exist," because he regarded it as a vehicle for liberal 
 ideas ; he also believed that it was the duty of the 
 Government " to multiply spiritual barriers wherever 
 that is possible." 
 
 The striking contradiction between the " literary 
 musings " and the reality could not fail to distress 
 Bielinsky 's mind. He sought a remedy, or rather a 
 spiritual asylum, in Fichte. Under the influence of 
 his friend, Mikail Bakunin, who later became the father 
 of anarchism, Bielinsky absorbed the idealism' of Fichte. 
 
 In a letter to Bakunin he writes that " the ideal 
 life and real life were always divided in his conceptions," 
 but that, enlightened by Fichte, he understood that "the 
 ideal life is precisely the real life, positive and concrete, 
 while what one calls real life is only a negation, a 
 phantom, a nothing, a futility." In another letter
 
 IDEALS 271 
 
 (1837) Bielinsky says that "apart from thought all 
 is a dream, phantasmal j thought alone is substantial 
 and real. What are you yourself? A thought clad 
 in flesh . . . which is the more important : an idea 
 or a phenomenon, a soul or a body? Is the idea the 
 result of the phenomenon, or the phenomenon the result 
 of the idea? Without doubt the phenomenon is the 
 result of the idea." 
 
 Putting these theories into practice, Bielinsky " fled 
 to his books at the top of his speed," as he jestingly 
 observed later, seeking to seclude himself in the 
 44 ivory tower " of philosophy. 
 
 44 Submerge yourself, hide yourself in science and 
 art," he advises one of his friends. 4 ' Do not seek 
 God in the temples created by man, but seek Him 
 rather in your heart. . . . Philosophy — that is what 
 should be the object of your activities. . . . Philo- 
 sophy alone will give peace and harmony to your mind. 
 . . . You will not be in the world, but the world will 
 be in you. . . . Above all, leave politics alone and 
 beware of any political influence upon your judgment. 
 Politics, with us in Russia, has no meaning, and only 
 empty heads can bother themselves with it." 
 
 This determined external indifference concealed, as 
 does all systematic indifference, a conservative 
 tendency. 
 
 44 Russia is still in her infancy," he writes later on. 
 44 To give liberty to a child is to destroy it. To 
 give liberty to Russia, in her present state, is to destroy 
 her. The liberated Russian people would resort, not 
 to the Parliament, but to the drink-shop. All Russia's 
 hope lies in education, not in upheavals, revolutions, 
 and constitutions." 
 
 Russian conservatism is always hostile to France. 
 Bielinsky" forms no exception to this rule. 
 
 44 There have been two revolutions in France," he 
 wrote (in 1837) ; "their result was a constitution, 
 and behold ! In constitutional France there is much 
 less liberty of thought than in autocratic Prussia. And
 
 272 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 this is because constitutional liberty is a conventional 
 liberty, while the veritable and absolute liberty is 
 realized in the State in proportion to the success of 
 education, based on philosophy, on a speculative and 
 not on an empirical philosophy." 
 
 Further on Bielinsky condemns French thought in 
 the following terms : — 
 
 " Down with politics I Long live science ! In 
 France, science, and art, and religion have become, or, 
 to tell the truth, have always been, the instruments of 
 politics ; this is why there is neither art nor science 
 nor religion in France. Avoid French science then, 
 and above all French philosophy ; fear them even more 
 than French politics. . . . The French deduce every- 
 thing from the present state of society ; this is why 
 they have no eternal verities. ... A philosophy based 
 on experience is nonsense. The French of to-day have 
 mastered the Germans, but they do not understand 
 them, because a Frenchman can never attain to uni- 
 versality. . . . The devil fly away with the French I 
 Their activities have never brought us anything but 
 evil. We have imitated their literature, and we have 
 killed our own. . ,. . Germany is the Jerusalem of 
 modern humanity. . . . To youthful and virgin Russia, 
 Germany must transmit her family life, her social 
 virtues, and her philosophy, which embraces the 
 universe. . . . We must take the initiative in this union 
 with Germany." 
 
 Bielinsky, in his German ophilia and Gallophobia, went 
 so far as to praise the reactionary government of 
 Nicolas J, because it allowed " the products of 
 German thought " to penetrate Russia, while it pro- 
 scribed ideas of French origin. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The next phase in the mental development of 
 Bielinsky was dominated by the philosophy of Hegel, 
 or, more precisely, by a one-sided and erroneous inter- 
 pretation of a few propositions of Hegel's. " A new
 
 IDEALS 273 
 
 world is vouchsafed to us," wrote Bielinsky, describing 
 the impression produced upon him by Hegelianism. 
 ' Might is right, and right is might. No, I cannot 
 describe to you the feeling with which I heard these 
 words— it was a liberation. I understood the fall of 
 kingdoms, the legality of the actions of conquerors ; 
 I understood that there was no barbarous material 
 force, no domination by the sword and the bayonet, 
 that there was no such thing as despotism. And lo, 
 the mission of the teacher of the human race, the 
 mission which I undertook in respect of my native 
 land, appeared in a new light. . , . The word reality 
 has for me become synonymous with the word God. 
 . . . Blessed is that word which is able to illumine the 
 very laboratory of the idea of the infinite ! " 
 
 As we see, Bielinsky is always tormented by the 
 same contradiction : the contradiction between the idea 
 and the reality. And he seeks to reconcile the two 
 by the law of necessity and the lawfulness of all that 
 exists. We must admit that the historic philosophy 
 of Hegel might be interpreted in the sense which 
 Bielinsky attributed to it. Hegel says that " all that 
 is real is reasonable, and all that is reasonable is real." 
 tWhich is to say. that all that exists may be explained 
 by the reason, that is, that it has reasonable causes. 
 And, on the contrary, that which reason foresees as a 
 logical necessity of future evolution is real, that is 
 to say, will be realized in the future. On the other hand, 
 it results that all that exists to-day may and must 
 perish to give life to something new. Everything now 
 existing includes the germ of something new ; every 
 thesis supposes an antithesis. . 
 
 Bielinsky 's error was this : he perceived only a single 
 aspect of the Hegelian formula ; "all that is real is 
 reasonable." And this one-sided conception led him 
 logically to justify the existing order of things as 
 "necessary" and "lawful." This error was all the 
 more explicable in that Hegel himself gave this inter- 
 pretation of his historical philosophy (officially at least), 
 
 18
 
 274 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 and approved of the Prussian Government as being 
 " reasonable." 
 
 It is therefore not surprising that Bielinsky should 
 have tripped over the same stumbling-block. A 
 sincere, ardent thinker, who " did not change colour 
 over the most formidable deductions," Bielinsky en- 
 deavoured to reconcile himself entirely with real life, 
 with all its violence and injustice and its viileness, with 
 the " bayonet," the " sword," and the " laboratory," 
 and to show that all that existed in Russia was 
 " reasonable." He had the courage not to keep his 
 opinions for his own personal consumption ; he ex- 
 pounded them in a series of startling articles. In one 
 of these articles — which spoke of the anniversary of 
 the battle of Borodino — Bielinsky represented the 
 history of the Russian State as the manifestation of the 
 " mysterious substance " of the " kingdom of the 
 Infinite." The State is not a human institution, but 
 a phenomenon of divine origin. The autocratic power 
 is not derived from election or a contract (as a little 
 liberal French abbe would say). This power, "in- 
 cluding in itself all individual wills," is " a transforma- 
 tion of the monarchy of the eternal reason." The very 
 name of monarch is a mystic and sacred thing. The 
 needs and desires of individuals must not be taken into 
 consideration, because " an objective world should 
 vanquish a subjective world." All is reasonable and 
 necessary. Those who do not think so and revolt 
 against suffering and injustice are only " voluntary 
 martyrs " and insane. A poet or an artist should not 
 concern himself with the contemporary world, which 
 is only " a beginning without middle and without end." 
 The moralists are " vampires who kill life by the chill 
 of their touch, and seek to bind the Infinite within 
 the narrow limits of their reasoned but unreasonable 
 definitions." 
 
 French literature, being far from this almost super- 
 human detachment, is violently attacked by Bielinsky. 
 The works of Racine and Moliere consist, for him,
 
 IDEALS 275 
 
 merely of "insipid statements in insipid verse." 
 Voltaire is "an impudent scoffer at all things which 
 humanity holds sacred and holy." Victor Hugo and 
 Eugene Sue are " worshippers of the violence of bestial 
 passions," " butchers who pose as tragedians and 
 romance- writers." George Sand thinks of nothing but 
 introducing, into literature, the sectarian ideas of Saint- 
 Simonism, which lead us toward the annihilation of the 
 holy ties of marriage, kinship, and the family," and 
 transform the State first " into the scene of a bestial 
 and impudent orgy, then into a phantom, formed of 
 idle words." 
 
 It should be noted that at this period Bielinsky had 
 a great antipathy not only for French writers, but 
 also for such of the German writers as displayed the 
 same tendency toward protest and " moralism." Later 
 he said of Schiller, the German Hugo :— 
 
 ' Schiller was then my personal enemy ; and I had 
 the greatest difficulty in restraining my hatred for him 
 and to keep within the limits of the conventions to 
 which I was able to subdue myself. Why this hatred? 
 Because of his moral and subjective point of view ; 
 because of his horrible ideal of duty ; because of 
 his abstract heroism ; because of his conflict with 
 reality, because of all the suffering which the mention 
 of his name caused me." 
 
 IVj 
 
 The conservative and almost servile ideas professed 
 by Bielinsky greatly displeased the lettered youth of 
 Moscow ; and some of his friends broke with him, 
 Herzen being one of them. Happily for Bielinsky 
 and Russian thought, the period of his " reconcilia- 
 tion " with reality, or rather his resignation, was not a 
 lengthy one. 
 
 At the end of 1839 Bielinsky, having left Moscow 
 to live in Petersburg, was then able to observe the 
 worst aspects of " Russian reality," due to the 
 "militarized Byzantism " of Nicolas I. And by
 
 276 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 November 1839 he was writing to his friend Botkin : 
 " Piter [the popular name for Petersburg] has an 
 extraordinary gift of offending anything holy there is 
 in a man." And he added : " The more I see and 
 the more I think, the stronger and more intimate my 
 love for Russia becomes ; but I am' beginning to under- 
 stand that my affection for Russia is for its essence, 
 and its form or method of expression is driving me 
 to despair ; it is filthy, disgusting, repulsive, and in- 
 human." Early in the following year he wrote to the 
 same friend that " Petersburg was for him 1 a horrible 
 rock on which his simplicity ran aground." He con- 
 sidered that " this was necessary." He suffered at 
 the rupture with those who were revolted by his theory 
 of reconciliation, and he denied his abstract aspirations, 
 his " life in books." " The French disgust me as 
 formerly," he wrote, " but the social idea has taken 
 a firmer hold of me. . . . All that one sees revolts 
 the mind, offends the feelings. . . . No, the devil take 
 all aspirations and all superior aims. We are living 
 in a terrible period; it is our destiny to sacrifice our 
 personal interests ; we have to suffer so that our grand- 
 children may live better." 
 
 In a letter to K. Aksakov, Bielinsky declared [(in 
 June 1840) that "scientific reality is the reality of 
 life " — which must be the basis of science. He re- 
 nounced his recent ideas concerning Russia and her 
 past ; he declared that " he would pay a great price 
 for the power to destroy what he had written on those 
 subjects." 
 
 " China is an abhorrent State ; but still more 
 repugnant is the State in which exist abundant elements 
 of life, but which is oppressed by chains of iron." 
 Shortly after this he broke finally with all his old 
 philosophy. 
 
 * I curse my abominable .leaning toward reconciliation 
 with the abominable reality ! Long live the great 
 Schiller, the noble advocate of humanity, the shining 
 star of salvation, who emancipated society from its
 
 IDEALS 277 
 
 sanguinary and traditional prejudices ! . . . The human 
 personality is for me, to-day, more than history. . . . 
 I will not reconcile myself to the insipid reality. . . . 
 Reality is an executioner. . . . Negation constitutes 
 our historic right . . . and without it the whole history 
 of humanity would become a stagnant and foetid pool. 
 . . . And the enormities which I used to vomit in 
 my rage against the French, that vigorous, generous 
 nation, which sheds its blood for the most sacred rights' 
 of humanity. ... Of course, the French do not under- 
 stand the absolute in art, nor in religion, nor in science, 
 and it is not their part to do so. Germany is a nation 
 of the absolute, but a shameful State. ... Of course, 
 in France there are many brawlers and phrase-makers, 
 but in Germany there are many hofrdthe, philistines, 
 pork-butchers, and other reptiles." And Bielinsky 
 rejoices because "the Germans have at last divined 
 what the French are," and because, as the fruit of 
 French ideas, " there has appeared in their country 
 that noble company of enthusiasts of liberty known 
 as ' Young Germany,' at the head of which is Heine, 
 such a wonderful and beautiful personality." 
 
 In 1 841 Bielinsky amended his Hegelianism. "I 
 have been suspecting for a long time that Hegel's 
 philosophy is only a factor, however great ; but the 
 absolute character of his deductions is worth nothing ; 
 it would be better to die than to adopt them. . . . 
 The subjective, in Hegel, is not an end in itself, but 
 a temporary means of manifesting the objective, and 
 this objective appears, in him, in its relations to the 
 subjective, as a sort of Moloch, for after a brief adhesion 
 he discards it like an old pair of breeches. . . . The 
 fate of the subjective, of the individual, of personality, 
 is, for me, more important than the destiny of the 
 Universe and the good health of the Chinese Emperor 
 — that is to say, of the Hegelian Allgemeinheit. . . . 
 I thank you profusely, Yegor Fedorovitch," continues 
 Bielinsky in a bantering apostrophe to Hegel. " I 
 salute your philosopher's cap, but with all the esteem
 
 278 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 befitting your Philistine philosophy I have the honour 
 to inform you that if I had the chance to ascend to 
 the topmost rung of the ladder of evolution, I would 
 even then call you to account for all the victims of 
 life and history. . . . Otherwise I would fling myself 
 from the top of the ladder. I do not desire happiness 
 itself gratuitously obtained if I am not easy in my 
 mind in respect of all my brothers by race. ... It is 
 said that discord is a condition of harmony ; this is 
 very advantageous and agreeable for the melomaniacs, 
 but not for those whose own fate is to furnish discord." 
 
 Bielinsky explains with a great deal of depth and 
 subtlety the crisis through which he passed, and the 
 essential difference between French thought and German 
 thought : — 
 
 "In seeking a solution we flung ourselves eagerly 
 into the fascinating domain of German contemplation, 
 and we hoped to create for ourselves a pleasant world 
 full of warmth and light, a world of the inward life. 
 We did not understand that this contemplative sub- 
 jectivism is an objective interest for the German 
 nationality, that for the Germans it is what the social 
 sense is for the French. The reality aroused us," 
 continues Bielinsky, and he sides with the French : 
 " The social sense . . . that is my watchword. What 
 does it matter to me that the Universal lives if the 
 individual suffers? What does it matter to me that 
 genius, on earth, inhabits the summits, if the crowd 
 wallows in the mire? What does it matter to me that 
 I understand the Idea, that the world of the Idea 
 reveals itself to me in art, religion, and history, if I 
 cannot share all this with those who should have been 
 my brothers in the name of humanity . . . but who 
 are strangers to me, and hostile, on account of their 
 ignorance? What does it matter to me that happiness 
 exists for an elite, if the majority do not even suspect 
 the possibility of happiness? Away with happiness, 
 if it belongs to me alone amid thousands. I want 
 none of it if it is not common to me and my brothers,"
 
 IDEALS 279 
 
 Bielinsky applauded the criticisms brought against 
 Hegel's conservative abstractions by the Hegelians of 
 the " Left " ; he regarded these attacks " as the proof 
 that even the Germans may possibly in the future 
 become men and cease to be Germans." 
 
 Bielinsky 's opinion of French literature also under- 
 went a transformation. He prostrated himself before 
 Voltaire — * What a noble personality ! " he cried ; 
 before George Sand also, "an inspired prophet, the 
 vigorous champion of the rights of women " ; and he 
 admired the Saint-Simonians. But he retained all his 
 old independence of thought and judgment ; for 
 example, he was up in arms against Rousseau, con- 
 demning his personal life ; while in Auguste Comte 
 he did not find even d< the traces of genius." 
 
 In a letter dated 1847 he says of himself : "Mine 
 in not a Russian character. I would not be a French- 
 man even, though I love and esteem the French nation 
 more than the rest. The Russian character is so far 
 nothing but an embryo, but what strength and ampli- 
 tude it contains ! How stifling and horrible all 
 mediocrity and narrowness seems to it ! " Bielinsky 
 regards the spirit of criticism, protest, and negation 
 as the most precious gift of the Russian mind, and 
 in respect of his old ideas concerning reality he says : — 
 
 '•' That which exists is reasonable. But a hangman 
 exists, and his existence is reasonable and real ; never- 
 theless it is abominable and repulsive. . . . Negation ; 
 that is my god. In history my heroes are the destroyers 
 of the things whose time is past : Luther, Voltaire, 
 the Encyclopaedists, the French Terrorists, Byron (Cain), 
 etc. Reason is for me, to-day, superior to the reason- 
 able. This is why I set the blasphemies of Voltaire 
 above all submission to authority and religion and 
 society.'/ 
 
 This new phase in Bielinsky's intellectual develop- 
 ment is most completely depicted in his Letter to 
 Gogol, which will always remain among the most re- 
 markable models of Russian literature. Gogol, a
 
 280 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 famous satiric writer, had himself condemned all his 
 ideas concerning Russia, had retracted all the just 
 accusations which he had made against her ills, and 
 had exhorted the thinkers of Russia to mystic resigna- 
 tion, humility, and reconciliation with the Orthodox 
 Church and autocratic power. Bielinsky wrote him 
 a crushing reply, in which he stated that " Russia 
 beheld her salvation not in mysticism, nor asceticism, 
 nor pietism, but in the success of civilization, enlighten- 
 ment, and humanity." 
 
 At the end of his days Bielinsky began to be influ- 
 enced by the philosophy of Feuerbach, on the one hand, 
 and by Fourierism, on the other. But in the spring 
 of 1848 phthisis, that "'malady of occupation" of 
 Russian writers, brought him to the grave. Death 
 came in time to save him from persecution. The 
 Government of Nicolas I, which had no objection to 
 Bielinsky 's Hegelian conservatism, could not tolerate 
 his later principles, and at the very hour when he 
 lay dying the gendarmes came to his house to arrest 
 him. But it was too late.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 I. Bakunin, the Germanophile and conservative. II. The Slavophiles 
 — Their attitude toward the Europeanization of Russia. III. 
 European element in the slavianophihtvo. IV. The Slavophiles 
 and the zapadniki. V. Herzen's ideological and moral crisis. 
 
 I 
 
 The intellectual and moral crisis undergone by 
 Bielinsky was reproduced with individual variations in 
 the case of a great number of his more eminent con- 
 temporaries. His story is typical. Let us, for example, 
 examine the path followed in his ideological develop- 
 ment by the father of anarchism, Mikhail Bakunin. 
 In his youth he belonged to the same circle as Bielinsky, 
 over whom Bakunin exerted a very considerable influ- 
 ence, inciting him to plumb the very depths of the 
 metaphysical idealism of Germany. But he himself 
 hesitated before none of the logical results of the 
 Hegelian philosophy as he understood and interpreted 
 it. In an article on Hegel, his apology for reality 
 and his aversion for the French lead him perhaps even 
 to greater lengths than those of which Bielinsky was 
 guilty. He speaks with contemptuous irony of the 
 empirical " philosophications " of Voltaire, Rousseau, 
 Diderot, d'Alembert, and other French writers, who 
 had assumed the gaudy and unmerited title of 
 philosopher. He contrasts the peaceful and anti- 
 revolutionary Germans with the turbulent and recrimi- 
 native French. Expounding the difference between the 
 mentality and the history of the Germans and those of 
 the French, Bakunin condemns M the furious and 
 sanguinary scenes of the Revolution," rejoicing that 
 
 281
 
 282 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 " the profound religious and aesthetic feeling of the 
 German people " had saved it from the " abstract and 
 illimitable " whirlwind which " shook France and all 
 but destroyed her." Bakunin's reconciliation with 
 reality was so complete that he sought to justify all 
 ills and all suffering. '' Yes," he writes, " suffering 
 is good ; it is that purifying flame which transforms 
 the spirit and makes it steadfast." 
 
 At this period Bakunin had very conservative ideas 
 respecting Russia and the duty of the Russians. He 
 believed that the real education is that which '"makes 
 a true and powerful Russian man devoted to the Tsar," 
 and that ' ;< reconciliation with reality in all its relations 
 and under all conditions is the great problem of our 
 day." Hegel and Goethe were, for him, " the leaders 
 of this movement of reconciliation, this return from 
 death to life." These leaders must therefore be fol- 
 lowed, and the French ideals which are contrary to 
 their teaching must be repudiated. " In France the 
 last spark of Revelation has disappeared. Christen- 
 dom, that eternal and immutable proof of the Creator's 
 love for His creatures, has become an object of mockery 
 and contempt for all. . . . Religion has vanished, bear- 
 ing with it the happiness and the peace of France. 
 . . . Without religion, there can be no State, and 
 the Revolution was the negation of any State and of 
 all legal order. . . . The whole life of France is merely 
 the consciousness of the void. . . . ' Give us what is 
 new — the old things weary us ' — such is the watchword 
 of the young France. . . . The French sacrifice to 
 the fashion, which has been their sole goddess from 
 all time, all that is most holy and truly great in life." 
 
 This " French malady," said Bakunin, had attacked 
 the Russian intellectuals, who " filled themselves with 
 French phrases, vain words, empty of meaning, killing 
 the soul in the germ and expelling from it all that 
 is holy and beautiful." It was therefore necessary 
 that Russian society should " abandon this babbling " 
 and ally itself with " the German world with its
 
 IDEALS 283 
 
 disciplined conscience " and " with our beautiful Russian 
 reality." 
 
 One of Bakunin's Russian biographers has recently 
 published a letter written in his youth to his parents. 
 " The Russians are not French," he wrote ; " they love 
 their country and adore their monarch, and to them his 
 will is law. One could not find a single Russian who 
 would not sacrifice all his interests for the welfare 
 of the Sovereign and the prosperity of the father- 
 land." i If we compare this extreme conservatism with 
 Bakunin's later opinions, and with his anarchist pro- 
 paganda, which is too well known to call for mention 
 here, we shall realize that the moral and intellectual 
 crisis which Bakunin underwent was even more violent 
 and more profound than it was in the case of Bielinsky. 
 But we must not fail to remark that this crisis not 
 only cured Bakunin of Germanophilia — it also explains 
 why French ideas were finally triumphant over him. 
 His transition from political and religious conservatism 
 to anarchism, atheism, and other '•* subversive " 
 doctrines coincides with a radical change in his 
 way of regarding the conceptions of French and 
 German thinkers. From a Germanophile and Franco- 
 phobe he became a Francophile and Germanophobe. 
 And as though he wished to advertise his change of 
 front, he signed with a French pseudonym (Jules 
 Elisard) the first article 2 in which he proclaimed his 
 rupture with conservatism and his adhesion to the 
 Hegelians '■' of the Left." 
 
 II 
 
 The struggle between various European influences 
 which has caused the individual development of nearly 
 all the most remarkable minds of Russia has also 
 given birth to, and greatly influenced, the two great 
 
 1 Cited from M. Kovalewsky's article in the Viestnik Yevropy, 191 5, x., 
 Petrograd : The conflict of French and German influences at the end of 
 the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth. 
 
 2 This article appeared in the Deutsche Jahrbiicher, in 1842,
 
 284 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 currents of Russian thought, Slavophilia and Occi- 
 dentalism. 
 
 To study the slavlanophilstvo we must resort more 
 especially to the works of Konstantin Aksakov, who 
 was, in the words of his biographer (M. Venguerov), 
 "the militant advance-guard" of the movement. It 
 was Aksakov who expounded the Slavophile ideals to 
 the great public, while his co-religionists (the brothers 
 Kireevsky, Khomiakov, and Samarin) devoted them- 
 selves to historical, philosophical, religious, and other 
 studies, and occasionally mitigated the Slavophile 
 theory. Herzen said of Aksakov that he "'was re- 
 fractory, like every militant, for with a calm and 
 deliberate eclecticism one cannot wage war." So in 
 Aksakov we find the simplest, clearest, and most precise 
 expression of Slavophilia. 
 
 " The world has perhaps not seen as yet," says 
 Aksakov, " that universal force, at the service of all 
 humanity, which it will discover in the great Slav race, 
 and in the Russians in particular." 
 
 For Aksakov, as for other Slavophiles, v Russian 
 history possesses the value of a sacred history. It 
 will be read like a hagiography." The docile Russian 
 people is the chosen people of God ; ''' the doctrine of 
 Christ is the profound basis of the life of the Russian 
 people," and M the history of the people is the history 
 of the only Christian people in the world." 
 
 The .Western State was founded on the coercion of 
 servitude and antagonism, while in Russia the life 
 of the people is of a totally different character ; 
 " Russia is a Wholly original country, which has no re- 
 semblance to the European States." In the .West the 
 people has acquired the ideal of the State ; in Russia 
 it is in love with a moral ideal. The most demo- 
 cratic States of the West are those which shock Aksakov 
 the most. In the United States, for example, he finds, 
 " instead of the people, a State machine composed of 
 men." The external order of the United States is 
 brilliant, but "this brilliance is only superficial.; good
 
 IDEALS 285 
 
 order prevails there, but it is only the order of a 
 machine." In other words, the democratization of the 
 State does not lead to good results. 'The Republic 
 is the people's attempt to be itself the State, to 
 transform itself, as a whole, into the State ; it has 
 therefore striven to abandon once and for all the path 
 of moral liberty and inward truth in order to enter 
 upon the outer paths of ' statism.' " 
 
 Russia took quite a different direction. " The Divine 
 grace has descended upon Russia, who accepted the 
 Orthodox faith, while the West followed the path of 
 Catholicism." Unlike the West, "Russia did not adopt 
 slavery ; she knows neither slavery nor liberalism. She 
 is a free country. The West began by slavery, pro- 
 ceeded with revolt, and boasts of her insolent liberalism, 
 which is only the insolence of a slave." Law, duty, 
 and the State, or, generally speaking, an " external 
 dogma," prevails in the West ; while a free conscience 
 and the inner truth prevail in Russia, where " the State 
 has never seduced the people, nor flattered its dreams." 
 44 The West is accustomed to vice. There is a great 
 difference between a sin and a vice. In ancient Russia 
 there were sins, but no vices." 
 
 According to Aksakov there was, in ancient Russia, 
 no aristocracy and no paganism. " The State " never 
 dominated " the soil." Only after the reforms of Peter 
 the Great did the external norm of the West begin 
 to subdue the internal norm of Russia. Aksakov 
 cherished a genuine hatred of Peter the Great. He 
 even devoted some verses to him, in which he describes 
 him as follows : — 
 
 O mighty genius, O bloodstained man, 
 
 Far from the confines of the fatherland 
 
 Thou standest erect in the blaze of a horrible glory 
 
 With an axe covered with blood. 
 
 In the name of utility and knowledge, 
 
 Borrowed from an alien land, 
 
 More than once thy powerful hands 
 
 Were empurpled with the blood of thy people.
 
 286 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 All Russia, all her previous life 
 By thee was misconceived, 
 And upon thy stupendous work 
 Is set the seal of malediction. 
 
 Pitilessly didst thou repudiate Moscow, 
 And far from the people 
 Thou didst build a solitary city : 
 No longer could you dwell together. 
 
 In another poem, entitled The Return, Aksakov invites 
 the Russians to return " home "•: — 
 
 Uprooted by a mighty hand, 
 
 We have left our native country ; 
 
 We have fled far away, enchanted by a foreign land, 
 
 Despising the life of our own . . . 
 
 The cloud has lifted ! Before our eyes 
 
 Russia has reappeared. 
 
 Ended, ended is the aching separation, 
 
 The long-desired end of exile has come, 
 
 The voices of our country flock into our souls, 
 
 And our gaze is fixed, full of love, upon the East. 
 
 // is time to turn homeward. Our natal soil awaits us, 
 
 Our country, great in its speechless anguish. 
 
 Aksakov recurs to this idea of the " return " in a 
 later article : — 
 
 " .We must return to the principles of the native land. 
 The path to the West is a false track ; it is shameful 
 to follow it. Russians must be Russians, must take 
 a Russian path, the path of faith, submission, and 
 the inner life. . . . We must liberate ourselves wholly 
 from the West, from its principles as well as its 
 tendencies, its habits, and its morals ... in a word, 
 from all that bears the imprint of its mind." 
 
 The social and political life of Russia must not be 
 based upon a Constitution of the European type, but 
 on a moral understanding between the Government 
 and the people. " To the Government, unlimited State 
 authority ; to the people, full moral liberty. To 
 the Government, the right to act and consequently to
 
 IDEALS 287 
 
 legislate ; to the people, the right to judge, and there- 
 fore to speak." 
 
 An " Assembly of the Soil " (Zemsky Sobor) con- 
 voked by the Government, and having a consultative 
 voice ; such was the only kind of " Constitution " 
 admitted by Aksakov. 
 
 " We shall be told," he writes, " that the people 
 and the authorities may betray one another ; there- 
 fore a guarantee is necessary ! — No, no guarantee is 
 necessary ! A guarantee is an evil. When a guarantee 
 is necessary nothing is well ; let life disappear rather 
 when nothing is well." 
 
 Regarding the manifestations of public opinion and 
 liberty of speech as the principal right of the 
 people, Aksakov presents a brilliant justification of 
 this right : — 
 
 " Nothing can be more harmful than the intrusion 
 of brutal force in moral problems ; the only weapon 
 of moral truth is free conviction, is speech." Speech 
 is, for Aksakov, " the only sword of the spirit," " the 
 banner of man upon earth." " Created by man, even 
 as sound was created, all imbued with consciousness, 
 speech animates the visible world and gives a body 
 to the invisible." 
 
 As a rule the Slavophiles of this period were not, 
 subjectively speaking, reactionaries ; in their nationalistic 
 and conservative romanticism we find many demo- 
 cratic characteristics, the chief of which is the 
 antithesis of the " simple " people and the " high 
 society " corrupted by Europe. 
 
 " The simple people is the basis of the whole social 
 edifice of the country. Both the source of material 
 welfare, and the source of inward power and inward 
 life, and, lastly, the source of the national ideal, reside 
 in the simple people." 
 
 So it is throughout the world. But with us, in Russia, 
 the role of the " simple people " is greater than else- 
 where, because with us " the people alone is the 
 guardian of the national and historical assizes of
 
 288 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 Russia ; it alone has not broken with the past, jwith 
 the ancient Russia." 
 
 Aksakov speaks in very sarcastic terms of the 
 educated and Europeanized society which he calls 
 " the public," and which he contrasts with the " simple 
 people." The scission between the " public " and the 
 people is due to the reforms of Peter I. Before the 
 building of Petersburg " there was no public in Russia ; 
 there was the people." " The public constitutes our 
 permanent tie with the West, and is only a deformation 
 of the popular entity," says Aksakov. 
 
 In a famous article published in 1857 Aksakov estab- 
 lished this parallel between the " public " and the people 
 in Russia : — 
 
 " The public imports from oversea ideas and senti- 
 ments, mazurkas, and polkas ; the people draws its 
 life from its native source. The public speaks French ; 
 the people Russian. The public wears foreign clothes ; 
 the people the Russian costume. The public follows the 
 Parisian fashions ; the people adhere to their Russian 
 customs. The public still slumbers when the people 
 has long been awake and at work. The public works 
 .(usually with its feet on a wood floor) while the people 
 sleeps, or is already awakening to go to work anew. 
 The public despises the people ; the people forgivq 
 the public. The public is only a hundred and fifty years 
 old ; the age of the people is untellable. The public 
 passes away ; the people is eternal. In the public 
 there is gold and dross ; in the people there is gold 
 and dross; but in the public there is dross in the 
 gold, and in the people there is gold in the dross." 
 
 Alexander II, having read this article, found that 
 it "' was conceived in a bad spirit." 
 
 In a poem, To a Humanitarian, Aksakov addresses 
 these cultivated men and invites them to restore the 
 ties between them and the people, to '•'' rediscover them- 
 selves in the people," to v submit to the collectivity," 
 informing them that " otherwise they are only impotent 
 egoists, their fair-seeming life is void, their aspirations 
 futile, and their dreams deceitful."
 
 IDEALS 289 
 
 III 
 
 It might be supposed that the Slavophile theory — 
 so essentially nationalistic — was of national origin. 13ut 
 such a supposition would be erroneous. In reality 
 the Russian slavianophilstvo is objectively far less 
 remote from European ideals than its representatives 
 were personally alienated from the West. 
 
 Russian Slavophilia presents a close analogy with 
 the romantic nationalism of the West. I do not share 
 the opinion of Schulze-Gavernitz, who seeks to compare 
 the Russian slavianophilstvo with European mercan- 
 tilism. Mercantilism was a middle-class theory ; it 
 appeared for the first time in Russia under Peter the 
 Great, at the period of the first embourgeoisement . The 
 Slavophiles were, on the other hand, the desperate 
 enemies of bourgeois society, and of the bourgeois State 
 of the Occident. This is precisely why they opposed 
 the work of Peter I. Their dissertations on the evil 
 of " written guarantees " and the necessity of a moral 
 agreement between the rulers and the ruled were merely 
 an attempt to embellish their theory of a " paternal 
 authority," a feudal theory dear to the seigneurs, who 
 loved to regard themselves as the " fathers " of their 
 serfs. And it is no fortuitous coincidence that these 
 ideas were first professed just as serfdom and the 
 seigneurial right were on the eve of abolition. 
 
 Slavophilia is a Russian transformation of that 
 romanticism which flourished all over Europe during 
 the first half of the nineteenth century. 
 
 " The mass of the public is accustomed to consider 
 the birth of Slavophilia as a purely original and native 
 phenomenon. . . . But the intellectual history of Europe 
 proves that almost every country in its day was subject 
 to a movement resembling our slavianophilstvo."' This 
 was the case with Bohemia, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, 
 and above all in Germany, where, " combining their 
 efforts, romantic poetry and philosophy prepared all 
 the forces of the Germanophile movement : the idealiza- 
 
 19
 
 290 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 tion of the past, fortified by the cult of its memories, 
 and the predominance of the religious principle in the 
 legends and the life of olden times, lent its prestige to 
 a morbid piety and mysticism ; the search after the 
 providential mission, which is the raison d'etre of the 
 German people, gave rise to the principle of inflated 
 nationalism, by introducing the habit of resolutely con- 
 demning everything that did not harmonize with this 
 principle. . . . Instead of launching itself into the vast 
 domain of an advance extending to the whole of 
 humanity, thought confined itself within narrow limits, 
 and there struggled as though in chains, denying the 
 eternal law of the march onward and setting its ideals 
 behind it. . . . We know what was the lamentable 
 end of these romantics, with what a religious and 
 political fanaticism they became imbued, becoming the 
 faithful servitors of any reactionary government, and 
 the inspiring cause of all the persecutions inflicted upon 
 modern thought, which did not bow before their 
 archaico-nationalist theories." • 
 
 The points of contact between the romantic philo- 
 sophy of Germany and the slavianophilstvo of Russia 
 are plainly visible. From Fichte the Slavophiles 
 borrowed the comparison between internal truth and 
 external truth ; from Schelling they acquired a sort 
 of contempt for science, to which the German opposed 
 artistic intuition, which they replaced by " the pro- 
 fundity of the intuition of the Fathers of the Church, 
 original and inaccessible to European minds, living and 
 integral " ; an intuition preserved by the Orthodox 
 Church and by the " simple people." From Hegel 
 they borrowed the dogma of the people elected by God 
 and by Him predestined to a lofty mission ; but while 
 Hegel reserved this privilege for the German people, 
 they claimed it for the Russians. 
 
 If it were necessary, I could add biographical data 
 which would tend to prove that the idealism and 
 
 * Alexis Vcselovsky, Western Influences in the New Russian Literature, 
 pp. 185-6. 

 
 IDEALS 291 
 
 romanticism of Germany had a direct effect upon the 
 Russian Slavophiles. But I believe this point is suffi- 
 ciently established. 
 
 IV 
 
 I must add that the best representatives of Slavo- 
 philia, while preferring the " inner truth ' of Russia 
 to the " outward truth " of Europe, did not demean 
 themselves by a blind hatred of Europe. According 
 to Herzen, Ivan Kireevsky, the theorist of slaviano- 
 philstvo, was " an admirer of liberty and of the great 
 period of the French Revolution." Kireevsky himself, 
 in one of his works, gives a "synthesis of the Russian 
 truth and the European truth. " The love of European 
 civilization and the love of Russian civilization mingle 
 at the latest point of their development and become the 
 same love, the same aspiration toward a living civi- 
 lization, complete, and embracing all humanity, and 
 truly Christian." 
 
 Later, the leaders of the Occidentalist movement were 
 of opinion that there were far more points of simi- 
 larity between the Slavophiles and the zapadniki than 
 had been supposed. Herzen declared that Slavophilia 
 and zapadnitchestvo were in reality but a Janus whose 
 two faces looked in different directions, but which had 
 but one heart. Herzen even asserted that "the Occi- 
 dentalist party in Russia will only have the rank and 
 the power of a social force when it masters the subjects 
 and the problems which the Slavophiles have put into 
 circulation." 
 
 According to Herzen, Russian society saluted in the 
 zapadniki " the thought of the West, burning with the 
 desire for liberty, the desire for intellectual independ- 
 ence, and the desire for conquest. Through the Slavo- 
 philes it protested against the Bironic arrogance of 
 the Petersburg Government, which wronged the senti- 
 ment of nationalism." 
 
 But all these comparisons were made at a later 
 date ; we may even say that they were made too
 
 292 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 late ; for at the time of their origin the two great 
 ideological movements of Russia were in violent con- 
 flict. 
 
 The zapadniki of all shades became compacted by 
 their condemnation of the Slavophiles. The Catholic 
 Occidentalist Tshaadaev wrote as follows of their efforts 
 to base their theory upon history and archaeology : — 
 
 " Our fanatical Slavophiles may well, in their various 
 researches, exhume from time to time curiosities for 
 our museums or libraries, but it is, I think, permissible 
 to doubt whether they will ever succeed in extracting 
 from our history anything which will fill the void in 
 our souls, or concentrate the vagueness of our minds." 
 
 Tshaadaev criticized the Slavophilia of his day with 
 extreme severity : — 
 
 " A veritable revolution is taking place in our midst, 
 and in our national thought ; a passionate reaction 
 against the knowledge and the ideals of the West ; 
 against that knowledge and those ideals which have 
 made us what we are, and of which this very reaction 
 is the fruit." 
 
 Bielinsky was induced by his antipathy for the Slavo- 
 philes to recommend his friends to break off all personal 
 relations with them. " I am a Jew by nature," he wrote, 
 " and I cannot sit at table with the Philistines." He 
 believed the nationalist propaganda of the Slavophiles 
 to be useless : " If a nation possesses internal forces 
 it need not trouble about its national originality : this 
 will express itself spontaneously and naturally." 
 Stankievitch, Bielinsky's friend, writes as follows : 
 ".Why trouble about our nationality? We must aspire 
 to the things which concern humanity at large ; what 
 concerns the individual will come about despite our 
 efforts." 
 
 But this does not mean that the zapadniki were 
 cosmopolitans and enemies of their country. Bielinsky 
 states in one of his articles that " without nationalities 
 humanity would be only a lifeless logical abstraction, 
 a word without meaning, a sound without significance."
 
 IDEALS 293 
 
 V. Botkin, one of the most interesting zapadniki of 
 his times, wrote to one of his friends : "The Slavo- 
 philes have spoken a true word— which is, nationality. 
 This is their great merit. They were the first to feel 
 that our cosmopolitanism leads us only to empty argu- 
 ment and idle babbling. ... In general they were 
 justified in their criticism. But their good qualities 
 are confined to criticism. Directly they tackle a positive 
 subject they display narrowness of mind, ignorance, 
 an archaic mentality which is positively stilling, a mis- 
 conception of the simplest principles of economic and 
 political science, intolerance, obscurantism, etc." ' 
 
 The zapadniki could not endure the idealization of 
 ancient Russia of which the Slavophiles were guilty, 
 in the first place because it was contrary to reality 
 and historic truth. Then the reconciliation with the 
 past too readily degenerated into reconciliation with 
 the present, which was by no means beautiful under 
 Nicolas I, for all Russia was groaning under the heavy 
 sceptre of the Byzantino- Prussian regime. If the feel- 
 ings of the Slavophiles were injured because their adver- 
 saries were often lacking in respect for the national 
 past, the feelings of the zapadniki suffered even more, 
 on account of the disdain which the Slavophiles professed 
 for the " false " civilization of Europe and their obsti- 
 nate belittlement of this civilization. 
 
 We must not forget that Europe, as we have already 
 observed, 2 was to the Russian Occidentalists of those 
 days " the promised land," and they expected so much 
 of the Europeanization of their country, they hoped 
 such great things from it, that any attack upon the 
 object of their cult was regarded by them almost as a 
 personal outrage. 
 
 1 I cite this letter and Bielinsky's letters from an excellent collection 
 of documents relating to the Occidentalist movement in Russia, pub- 
 lished in Russian under the title The Zapadniki from 1840 to 1850 
 (Moscow, 1910). 
 
 3 See G. A. Alexinsky, Russia and Europe, trans. B. Miall (Fisher 
 Unwin), pp. 388-528.
 
 294 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 On the other hand — and this is a point of great 
 importance — the Slavophiles had " friends on the 
 Right " as their auxiliaries in their conflict with the 
 zapadniki. These reactionary nationalists, among whom 
 we must mention more especially Professors Shevyrev 
 and Pogodin, made very practical use of the theories of 
 the Slavophiles. Although the best of the Slavophiles 
 observed a certain moderation in their reprobation of 
 the Occident, their " friends on the Right " professed 
 without any mitigation that the West was " rotten," 
 that Europe was " carrion," etc. 
 
 The official and governmental world was also in- 
 volved in the conflict, and sought to profit by it. 
 Although it was shocked by the essential democracy 
 of some of the Slavophiles, it found their conceptions 
 far less dangerous than those of the Occidentalists. 
 The government of Nicolas I was afraid' of the example 
 of Europe. Count Ouvarov stated that " all the. Western 
 peoples are changing their conditions of life," but that 
 " Russia is still young and virgin," and " must not 
 acquire a taste for sanguinary upheavals." " Russia's 
 youth must be prolonged," he declared. " If I could 
 keep Russia for fifty years aloof from what these theories 
 are making ready for her, I should consider that my 
 duty was accomplished, and I should die content." 
 
 Ouvarov even conceived a theory of official con- 
 servatism : Russia does not resemble the European 
 States, and her life is based on three immovable foun- 
 dations : autocracy, Orthodoxy, and the Russian nation- 
 ality. For the salvation of this precious trinity the 
 Government punished all aspirations toward independ- 
 ence and progress, and employed against the zapadniki 
 all the might of its police mechanism. 
 
 Official nationalism did much to compromise the 
 Slavophiles by its adhesion to their ideas, and often 
 exploited them. The Slavophiles should not be held 
 responsible for the somewhat indecent procedures of 
 their " friends on the Right," and I do not share the 
 opinion of the Czech Professor Masaryk, who goes
 
 IDEALS 295 
 
 so far as to say that the Slavophiles, " with the help 
 of German philosophy, erected Ouvarov's programme 
 into a system." ' Nevertheless, the heat of polemics 
 might have resulted in a certain understanding, and 
 the zapadniki were possibly not always without justifi- 
 cation when they accused the Slavophiles of official 
 and reactionary support, and asserted that they did not 
 always hold themselves aloof from the nationalist 
 Extreme Right. 
 
 Thus the conflict between the two great currents 
 of Russian thought became envenomed, and they could 
 no longer co-exist in a peaceable manner. 
 
 Occidentalism was no longer entirely homogeneous. 
 Besides the Bakunin-Bielinsky-Stankievitsh group, the 
 zapadniki were also represented by the circle of Herzen 
 and Ogariov and their followers. Herzen has defined 
 the difference between these two elements as follows : — 
 
 " Between our group and that of Stankievitsh there 
 was not a great deal of sympathy. Our tendencies, 
 being almost exclusively political, did not please them. 
 Theirs, being almost exclusively speculative, did not 
 please us any better. They regarded us as French 
 and fault-finders ; we regarded them as Germans and 
 sentimentalists." 
 
 The French influence in Herzen and his friends was 
 betrayed in the first place by a genuine cult of Saint - 
 Simonism, of which we shall speak later on, and for 
 George Sand. The latter possessed so great and so 
 beneficent an authority that even Dostoievsky, who had 
 none too much sympathy with France and French 
 literature, glorified her at her death. 
 
 " Oh, be sure, there will be people who will smile 
 at the importance which I attribute to the influence 
 of George Sand," he wrote, " but the scoffers will be 
 
 1 Th. G. Masaryk, Russland unci Europa—Zur Russisckcn Geschichts t 
 unci Religions Philosophic. Soziologischen Skiasen, vol. i. p. 200 (Jena, 
 
 I9I3)-
 
 296 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 wrong. George Sand is dead. But all that made us 
 feel, at the time of the poet's first appearance, that 
 we were hearing a new voice, all that was universally 
 human in her work, all this found an instant echo in 
 our hearts, in our Russia. We experienced a profound 
 and intense impression, which has not faded, and which 
 proves that every European poet or innovator, every 
 new and powerful thought coming from the West, 
 inevitably becomes a Russian force." And Dostoievsky 
 places George Sand among those European writers 
 Who " rising yonder, in the country of blessed miracles," 
 have drawn to them, from our Russia, an enormous 
 sum of thought, of love, of noble impulses, of pro- 
 found convictions, of life." 
 
 The ideas of George Sand and of the great French 
 Utopian Socialists, to whom the memories of the French 
 Revolution gave an added prestige, inspired the Russian 
 zapadniki with a feeling of religious love and admira- 
 tion. Herzen, speaking of this period in his Memoirs, 
 states that " he illumined Europe with magical colours; 
 he believed in Europe, and above all in France" 
 Another great zapadnik, Soltykov-Shtshedrin, in spite 
 of all his scepticism (he was a satirist), speaks of 
 France with touching affection, and states that the 
 France of George Sand, Saint-Simon, Louis Blanc, 
 Cabet, and Fourier shed upon Russia the fair light of 
 hope and the conviction that " the best years of 
 humanity, its golden age, are not behind us, but before 
 us." 
 
 The influence of French thought upon Herzen's mind 
 was not exclusive, as he succeeded in combining it 
 with Hegelianism " of the Left " and the philosophy 
 of Feuerbach. As for Hegelianism, Herzen appro- 
 priated only its revolutionary algebra ; that is, the 
 idea that nothing is immutable, and that every social 
 condition contains the germs of a radical change. 
 
 With an ardent faith in the West in general, and 
 France in particular, with a faith no less ardent in a 
 revolutionary cataclysm, Herzen went to Europe. Dis-
 
 IDEALS 297 
 
 illusion awaited him there. A brief sojourn abroad 
 deprived him of all his enthusiasm and all his hopes. 
 This he declared openly and with entire sincerity. He 
 confessed that he was ashamed of his affection for 
 Europe ; that he " blushed for his prejudices." The 
 first origin of this disillusion was the events of 1848 
 in France. The general check which the Revolution 
 received throughout Europe intensified the crisis in 
 Herzen's mind, which resulted in the publication of 
 several remarkable works, notably his book From the 
 other Shore, which is full of a veritable universal 
 sorrow. 
 
 " We were young two years ago ; to-day we are 
 old," wrote Herzen in 1850, describing the effect 
 produced upon him by what he had seen in Europe. 
 From that moment he renounced his old " belief in 
 words and flags, in the deification of humanity and 
 the illusion that salvation can only be effected by the 
 Church of European civilization." For Herzen the West 
 was dead. It was an old world from which nothing 
 was to be expected. 
 
 Then began Herzen's famous " return to Russia." 
 He did not return to Russia in person, however, for 
 until the end of his days h;e remained a political 
 emigre, and he died far away from his country. His old 
 confidence in Europe was replaced by his trust in the 
 future of Russia. 
 
 The Nationalists, the Slavophiles, the conservatives, 
 and all the other Russian adversaries of Occidental- 
 ism, sought to exploit Herzen's change of front in 
 order to combat European ideals and the Euro- 
 peanization of Russia. Strakhov, the friend of Leo 
 Tolstoy, has devoted to Herzen quite the half of his 
 curious work, The Struggle against the W.est in our 
 Literature'. 
 
 " Herzen," says Strakhov, " was the first of our 
 zapadniki to abjure the West, and he consequently 
 lost his guiding line. He turned to the West in order 
 to draw from it wisdom and moral perfection, and
 
 298 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 he understood, after long and patient research, that 
 he could find nothing stable there, nothing positive." » 
 
 Strakhov sought to draw from this a deduction of 
 a more general nature. In his opinion Herzen, by 
 abandoning his illusions as to Europe, was continuing 
 the genuine tradition of Russian literature. " Occi- 
 dental civilization and ideals of European origin are 
 not at bottom suited to Russia," says Strakhov. Russia 
 may borrow from the West its " astronomy and mathe- 
 matics " ; simple elementary truths, such as " two and 
 two make four " ; but " as a whole " the spirit of 
 Europe can be of no service to Russia, who must 
 follow her own individual path. 
 
 ' For a long time now — very conspicuously since the 
 time of Karamzin — every Russian writer of worth passes 
 through intellectual changes, which in general are fairly 
 similar. He begins by falling in love with European 
 ideas, by seizing upon them greedily. Then comes 
 disillusion, in one form or another, for one reason or 
 another ; he doubts Europe and feels an antipathy for 
 her principles. Lastly begins the return homeward, 
 a love, more or less happy, for Russia, and it is in 
 Russia that he seeks for the assured destiny, the solid 
 foundations of thought and life." 2 
 
 In support of his theory Strakhov cites the names 
 of Karamzin, Griboiedov, Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoievsky, 
 and Tolstoy ; " all," he says, " have passed along this 
 road." 
 
 These examples differ too greatly to be convincing. 
 We know that Karamzin, at the end of his life, became 
 a conservative and anti-Occidentalist. But this fact 
 cannot be regarded as characteristic of every Russian 
 writer, because it was due to causes of a general kind 
 which at that period were in operation all over Europe ; 
 there was everywhere, at that time, a movement of 
 reaction, the inevitable result of the events of the French 
 Revolution. As for Griboiedov, he was by no means 
 
 1 N. Strakhov, The Struggle against the West in our Literature, p. 83, 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 94.
 
 IDEALS 299 
 
 an anti-Occidentalist. Although the hero of his im- 
 mortal comedy, Tshatsky, fulminates against the abuse 
 of a " vain, servile, and blind imitation of Europe," 
 he is not referring to European civilization, but the 
 false imitation, the caricature of this civilization wlii< h 
 is offered by Russian fashionable society. And he 
 attacks with even greater energy those representativ 
 of a pretended " national civilization " who want to 
 " replace Voltaire by a sergeant-major." In a letter 
 to a friend Griboiedov complains bitterly of the painful 
 lot of " an impassioned dreamer in a country of eternal 
 snows." As for Pushkin, Strakhov's error is even 
 greater ; Pushkin, to the last day of his too brief 
 life, remained a convinced Occidentalist ; never did 
 he condemn European civilization. Moreover, Pushkin 
 was, without doubt, the most national and the least 
 nationalistic of the Russian poets. He had a " uni- 
 versal mind," as Dostoievsky very justly remarked, which 
 combined a capacity for universal sympathy with the 
 essential traits of the true Russian character. 
 
 " What has the reform of Peter the Great meant for 
 us? " writes Dostoievsky in his lecture upon Pushkin. 
 " Has it not meant merely the introduction of European 
 costume, European science and inventions? Let us 
 consider. Perhaps Peter the Great undertook his 
 reform, in the first place, with a purely utilitarian 
 aim ; but later he certainly obeyed a mysterious feeling 
 which induced him to prepare a vast future for Russia. 
 The Russian people itself saw at first nothing but 
 material and utilitarian progress, but it soon under- 
 stood that the effort which it was being forced to make 
 was to lead it farther and higher. We soon attained 
 to the conception of universal human unification. Yes, 
 the destiny of Russia is Pan-European and universal. 
 To become a true Russian means, perhaps, only to 
 become the brother of all men, the universal man, if 
 I may so express myself. This division between 
 Slavophiles and Occidentals is only the result of a 
 gigantic misunderstanding. A true Russian is as much
 
 300 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 interested in the destinies of Europe, in the destinies 
 of the whole great Aryan race, as in those of Russia. 
 . . . Yes, all Russians in future will realize that to. 
 show oneself a true Russian is to seek a real basis of 
 reconciliation of all the European contradictions." 
 
 This quotation is highly typical of Dostoievsky 
 himself, who, in his best moments, was able to rise 
 above nationalistic exclusiveness. I may observe in 
 passing that we cannot draw any comparison between 
 the defection of Dostoievsky and the disillusionment 
 of Herzen, for between Dostoievsky the member of the 
 Fourierist club and Dostoievsky the believer and con- 
 servative lies an interval of several years' detention in 
 a "house of death," that is, in a convict prison. His 
 case is almost pathological. Still more pathological 
 is the case of Gogol, another instance of which Strakhov 
 boasts. Just before his death Gogol, suffering from a 
 mental malady, fell into the power of a monk, de- 
 nounced all his " liberal " opinions, condemned his 
 satirical works, burned his manuscripts, and invited 
 Russian thought to kneel before the political reaction 
 and the Orthodox Church. 
 
 Neither can any logical comparison be drawn between 
 Gogol's crisis and that of Herzen. Herzen, until his 
 death, remained the determined enemy of the political 
 and religious reaction. He adored neither the autocracy 
 nor the Orthodox Church, and he was convinced that 
 the " Germano-Byzantine " combination of the two was 
 one of the chief causes of the popular woes and 
 sufferings. 
 
 And Leo Tolstoy? In the first place no comparison 
 is possible between him 1 and Gogol or Dostoievsky. 
 The latter, impelled toward conversion by exceptional 
 circumstances, became good servants of the Tsar and 
 faithful children of the Church. Tolstoy, on the other 
 hand, broke with the autocracy and with Orthodoxy, 
 and was persecuted by the one while he was excom- 
 municated by the other. Moreover, Tolstoy never posed 
 as the enemy of European civilization, as Russia's
 
 IDEALS 301 
 
 hostility toward Europe was quite foreign to him. He 
 thought not of this or that nation, but of humanity 
 in general. The problems which he attacked were 
 far more general than those of the Nationalists. They 
 were the problems of progress, of human civilization 
 in general, which Rousseau had already discussed in 
 a different manner. 
 
 We may say, therefore, that Strakhov was mistaken 
 in interpreting the task of Russian literature as a 
 " struggle against the Occident," and in degrading 
 it to the level of a narrow nationalism. 
 
 As for the revolution which Herzen underwent, this 
 was the origin of it : Herzen himself admits that before 
 leaving for Europe he knew nothing of it, and had 
 embellished it with " marvellous colours." It had for 
 him the attraction of a " forbidden fruit." (It will be 
 remembered that the Government of Nicolas I sought 
 to withdraw Russia from the intellectual attraction of 
 Europe, and above all, from that of France.) On 
 beholding in reality this Europe, of which he had 
 formed too fair an image, Herzen was disappointed. 
 What struck him and angered him most was the 
 crushing of the labour movement in France in 1848 
 and the fusillades in Paris. What an overwhelming 
 experience for this man, who was steeped in the 
 Utopian socialism of France, and who had devoted 
 himself to its cult with the fervour which only the 
 T'ussians can feel for that revelation which reaches 
 them through the writings of foreigners ! For, as 
 Dostoievsky said, if I mistake not, " what to a European 
 scholar is only a hypothesis is an axiom for a youthful 
 Russian." 
 
 Herzen had received the advanced ideas of the West 
 as absolute dogmas, as axioms. Although he believed 
 that he understood the dialectic algebra of Hegel, the 
 true laws of historical evolution escaped him. He was 
 convinced that all was ready in Europe for the reign 
 of Utopian socialism (which he, of course, did not 
 regard as Utopian). His hopes having been deceived,
 
 302 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 he asked himself whether his ideal was false or whether 
 Europe was incapable of realizing it. We know the 
 reply : he did not condemn his ideal, but Europe. 
 
 For the rest, the ideal of political and economic 
 enfranchisement professed by Herzen and his friends 
 was not of Russian origin, but had come to them from 
 the Occident. 
 
 Thus we cannot say that Herzen was an anti- 
 Occidentalist. If he condemned contemporary Europe, 
 it was because Europe had failed to keep its promises, 
 because it remained inferior to its own ambitions. 
 
 Herzen did not extend his condemnation to Western 
 ideas ; he confined it to men and to situations. This 
 is where he differed so profoundly from many of the 
 " penitents " and " converts," and from Dostoievsky in 
 particular, who followed the Slavophiles in contrast- 
 ing the " Russian ideal " with the " European ideal," 
 as two essentially contrary things. 
 
 Herzen's " return to Russia " was not an abdica- 
 tion. In his own words, he " was saved from the 
 despair which the events of 1848 would have inspired 
 in him by his faith in Russia." But what was this 
 faith? Dostoievsky, returning from Siberia, became 
 the admirer of the people and its prejudices ; he shared 
 — whether sincerely or not — all its simple beliefs, its 
 primitive cult for the Tsar, the Orthodox Church, etc. 
 Herzen did not give way to the superstitions of the 
 people ; he chose other objects of admiration, notably 
 the mir, the rural commune, in which he saw the 
 embryo of a future " socialization " of Russia. 
 
 The real secret of Herzen's " return to Russia ' 
 is revealed by Herzen himself in his open letter to 
 Michelet. " The man of the future in Russia is the 
 moujik, just as in France he is the artisan." 
 
 This aphorism dates from 185 1, three years later 
 than the Revolution of 1848.; so that we cannot say 
 that Herzen had entirely lost his confidence in Europe. 
 He was disappointed by the " old " bourgeois Europe, 
 which he regarded as embourgeoise to excess ; but
 
 IDEALS 303 
 
 he continued to count on the future of working-class 
 socialism. 
 
 It is especially significant that Herzen placed the 
 Russian moujik on a level with the French artisan, in 
 whom, for him, the very idea of progress, liberation, 
 and revolution was incarnated. He did not believe 
 that the Russian moujik was reduced to a destiny 
 of submissiveness and resignation. He proposed for 
 the moujik the aim of the European socialist artisan ; 
 the end was the same ; the only difference was in tin- 
 ways and means of attaining it. Herzen believed that 
 Russia, thanks to the existence of the rural mir, would 
 establish the socialist state without previously passing 
 through the capitalist phase of evolution. 
 
 Many more beside Strakhov have sought to rank 
 Herzen with the anti-Occidentalists, and above all with 
 Dostoievsky, but in vain. There was nothing of the 
 narrow-minded nationalist about Herzen. While 
 Dostoievsky often demeaned himself by anti-Semitism, 
 Herzen remained always superior to blind chauvinism, 
 even during the Polish insurrection of 1863. At that 
 terrible period, when the Russian soldiers and the in- 
 surgents were battling in the forests of Poland, he 
 pronounced in favour of the Polish cause, together with 
 the whole of democratic Europe, although he ran the 
 risk of alienating a portion of his Russian readers, and 
 did, indeed, so alienate them. 
 
 The mental and spiritual contrast between Herzen 
 and Dostoievsky is most strikingly revealed in that 
 chapter of the Diary of an Author in which Dostoievsky 
 speaks of Herzen with barely concealed irritation, calling 
 him ironically a " citizen of the world." Well, Herzen 
 was a citizen of the world in the best sense of the 
 term, and as such he could not be either anti-Russian 
 or anti-European. This he understood perfectly well, 
 and he himself said that for the Slavophiles he was 
 a man of the Occident, while for the zapadniki he 
 was a man of the Orient,
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 I. Dostoievsky and his contradictory qualities. II. The disintegra- 
 tion of the slavianophilstvo — Katkov, Pobiedonostzev and Leontiev. 
 III. The Occidental sources of reactionary nationalism in Russia. 
 
 I 
 
 Dostoievsky was the only Slavophile of the " second 
 ban ' who was able to maintain the ideals of that 
 school at a certain level. This, perhaps, was precisely 
 because he was not a pure Slavophile. This he could 
 not be, for the true Russian Slavophilia is a product 
 of the seigneurial mentality, while Dostoievsky was 
 a true representative of the middle-class intellectual 
 world, the world of the daciasses, which constitutes, 
 according to Klutshevsky's remarkable definition, " the 
 fluid element of Russian society." And as such, 
 Dostoievsky united in himself ideals which were often 
 highly discordant. He condemned the revolutionary 
 movement as foreign to the popular spirit and anti- 
 national. He even went so far as to represent the men 
 of the advance-guard as a sort of herd of swine, in- 
 habited by demons, capable only of committing insane 
 actions and of destroying themselves. At the same 
 time, he remained the admirer of Bielinsky, George 
 Sand, Byron, and many other extremely " subversive " 
 personalities. He attacked European civilization, 
 stating that " the people would never welcome a 
 Russian as one of themselves." But when the con- 
 servatives demanded that the " false light " of Europe 
 should not be allowed to shine upon the people, and 
 sought to suppress public instruction as the instrument 
 of Europeanization, Dostoievsky protested against these 
 
 304
 
 IDEALS 305 
 
 ideas and proved that they served none but those who 
 were exploiting them. " The character of the Russians 
 differs so greatly from that of all the other European 
 nations that their neighbours are really incapable of 
 understanding them." v Russia is a country which 
 resembles Europe in nothing. . . . How can you expect 
 Russia to be enthusiastic about a civilization which 
 she has not created? " 
 
 You will often find such aphorisms in Dostoievsky's 
 works. And in addition to these there are many which 
 are totally different, and which reject all ideas of a 
 chauvinistic nature. We have already seen, for example, 
 that he attributed to the Russians a pan-human and 
 universal destiny. To this idea he frequently returns. 
 " In Russia," he writes, " the impenetrability and in- 
 tolerance of Europe does not exist. Russia finds it 
 easy to accommodate herself to universal influences, 
 to assimilate all ideas. . . . The Russian is able to 
 speak all foreign languages, thoroughly seizing the spirit 
 of them, grasping the finer shades, as though they 
 were his own : a faculty unknown to the other European 
 peoples, at all events as a universal national faculty." 
 This faculty of assimilation is greatly valued by 
 Dostoievsky, and — which distinguishes him profoundly 
 from the Slavophiles — he sings the praises of Peter 
 the Great as an eminent representative of this faculty, 
 and says of him that " he understood, by the intuition 
 of genius, the true mission of his country, and the 
 necessity of enlarging its field of action." We are a 
 long way from Aksakov and his maledictions of Peter 
 the Great ! 
 
 II 
 
 But in spite of all the powers of his genius, 
 Dostoievsky did not exercise a marked influence over 
 the younger generation of his time, nor over the Pleiad 
 of the " Slavophiles of the first ban" the brothers 
 Aksakov, Kireevsky, Khomiakov, and Samarin. In 
 1862 the " new master of nineteenth-century thought," 
 
 20
 
 306 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 the leader of the " thinking realists " and the positivist 
 zapadnlki, Dimitri Pisarev, described the Slavophiles 
 as " Russian Don Quixotes," and according to him a 
 sensible man would not even waste his time in arguing 
 with them. In his article on the works of Ivan 
 Kireevsky, Pisarev stated that Slavophilia was a psycho- 
 logical phenomenon, due to the fact that the Slavs 
 wanted to love and believe ; now, as in real life 
 nothing was deserving of love or of faith, they had 
 to idealize the reality. " Slavophilia is the Russian 
 Quixotism ; where there are but windmills the 
 Slavophiles see armed knights." l 
 
 Although on its romantic side Slavophilia seemed 
 entirely inoffensive, even to the Nihilists of i860 to 
 1870, it contained other elements which were leading 
 it toward a more and more emphatic conservatism and 
 toward degeneration. The first Slavophiles were 
 " archaeological liberals," as some one has called them, 
 and they demanded the moral support of ,e the old 
 Russia " in order to combat the injustice and oppres- 
 sion to which a Prussianized bureaucracy was sub- 
 jecting the people ; but their successors were 
 archaeological, or perhaps we should say archaic, 
 reactionaries. 
 
 This deviation from the old Slavophilia, caused above 
 all by the development of the general reaction 
 at the end of the reign of Alexander II and undJer 
 Alexander III, involved even those of the first 
 Slavophiles who had the misfortune to survive. Such 
 was Ivan Aksakov (brother of Konstantin), who, at 
 the beginning of the reign of Alexander III, violently 
 opposed all liberal or democratic elements as a 
 European intrusion. 
 
 The leaders of the Slavophiles described the ,West 
 as " rotten," and proclaimed the necessity of keeping 
 Russia untouched by European progress. The partisans 
 of official nationalism drew practical deductions from 
 this judgment. Katkov, Leontiev, and Pobiedonostzev 
 
 1 D. Pisarev, Works, vol. ii. p. 234 (Petersburg, 1894).
 
 IDEALS 307 
 
 •onstructed a complete w true Russian " system, a system 
 which was Orthodox, autocratic, and nationalist. 1 
 
 Katkov, an old disciple of Hegel and Schelling, 
 a member of the circle of Stankievitch and Bielinsky, 
 and afterwards (from 1856 to i860) a moderate liberal 
 and Anglomaniac, was after 1861 the theorist of the 
 reaction. Russia, he said, had no need of European 
 reforms ; she needed a strong State, based on national 
 union, a single language, a single religion, and the 
 rural mir . No adhesion of Russia to the ideals of 
 the Occident was possible or desirable. Instead of 
 striving to Europeanize Russia, an attempt should be 
 made to Russify all the heterogeneous elements in- 
 habiting the Empire, which were already affected by 
 the policy of ' Europeanization." The execution of 
 this programme would mean a desperate struggle 
 against all the non-Russian and unorthodox nations 
 (especially against the Poles and Finns) and against 
 the world of thought (and especially against the 
 students), the builders of Occidental chimera?, who were 
 strangers to the true Russia. 
 
 Pobiedonostzev and Leontiev expounded more par- 
 ticularly the " moral " and religious side of the con- 
 servative and nationalist system. In his Muscovite 
 Miscellany, Pobiedonostzev attributed a divine origin 
 to the autocracy. " One of the falsest political prin- 
 ciples," he wrote therein, ' is that of the sovereignty 
 of the people." Such was the false idea which had 
 ' unhappily been diffused since the French Revolu- 
 tion " ; the idea that " all power should emanate from 
 the people and should be subject to the popular will." 
 Hence was derived " the theory of parliamentarism, 
 which hitherto has led into error the mass of those 
 who are known as intellectuals, and which has pene- 
 trated, unhappily, our crazy Russian heads." "We 
 find in France an example of the bad effects of 
 parliamentarism," says Pobiedonostzev. ' In France 
 
 1 Compare Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationalism with Liberty, 
 Equality, and Fraternity (Tr.).
 
 308 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 nationalist thought is greatly demoralized, and the 
 political sense of the whole nation is enfeebled." 
 England " is already attacked by the same malady." ' 
 Constitutional and parliamentary institutions and 
 guarantees — this is the evil from which Russia must 
 be saved, says Pobiedonostzev, echoing the old Slavo- 
 philes. But while Aksakov and his co-religionists 
 allowed the people " liberty of opinion," Pobiedonostzev 
 opposes this liberty. Abstractions and general prin- 
 ciples, especially those inculcating liberty, equality, and 
 fraternity, " with all their applications and ramifica- 
 tions," are to him detestable. He opposes the Press, 
 the schools, and all that might contribute to the awaken- 
 ing and enfranchisement of thought. The only educa- 
 tion which is truly national and admissible in Russia 
 consists in " maintaining mankind in rigorous submis- 
 sion to order." 2 This is the business of the State 
 authority, which is " great, terrible, and holy." 
 
 The " true Russian " conservative doctrines were 
 most completely expressed by Konstantin Leontiev 
 (183 1 -91). In his youth he was an adept in " George- 
 Sandism," which he later declared to be "diabolical." 
 Then he became a convert to Orthodox mysticism, 
 and inaugurated the theory of Russian Byzantism. 
 In the domain of morals he prescribed the abso- 
 lute submission of the individual to the laws of 
 the Church — not of the Christian Church in general, 
 but of the Orthodox Church. For him Christianity was 
 not love and charity, but the fear of God. Human 
 nature is corrupt and evil. Only a salutary fear, a 
 severe discipline, and punishment can correct it. "It 
 is a lie to represent the idea of God as being that of 
 love. Faith in God is a yoke which should be borne 
 with humility. Autocracy is a Divine institution, and 
 the power of the Tsar should inspire the same fear 
 in his subjects as that which the power of God inspires 
 in believers." 
 
 1 K. Pobiedonostzev, Movkowskii Sbornik {The Muscovite Miscellany), 
 pp. 30-31 (2nd ed., Moscow, 1896). 2 Ibid. p. 86.
 
 IDEALS 309 
 
 Science and the education of the people are useless!, 
 because they do not lead to the knowledge of God ; 
 they are even harmful, because they destroy the 
 religious conscience. All progress, all novelties are 
 superfluous and maleficent, not excepting even the 
 mere knowledge of reading and writing. 
 
 Leontiev invented a theory of the ages of humanity. 
 In Europe, the period of the great migrations of the 
 peoples was youth ; the Middle Ages was maturity. 
 At the end of the eighteenth century, with " atheist " 
 philosophy and the Revolution, Europe entered into 
 decrepitude and is approaching death. The same fate 
 threatens Russia ; to avoid it, Russia must be " con- 
 gealed," must be maintained in a refrigerated condition, 
 so that she shall be unable to live and develop. Down 
 with all reforms : away with Europeanization ! ' 
 
 Happily, Leontiev's fantastic ideal was not realized ; 
 economic evolution, on the one hand, and European 
 penetration, on the other, have relegated it to the 
 world of dreams, and Russia, frozen at the end iof 
 the nineteenth century, is now, in the early years of 
 the twentieth century, thawing and beginning to live 
 again. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It is particularly interesting to note that national 
 and anti-Occidental conservatism owe their existence 
 very largely to that Europe which their prophets so 
 hate and detest. We have already seen that the first 
 Slavophiles were the nurslings of German philosophy. 
 Those that followed them were even more dependent 
 upon Europe. Vladimir Soloviev, with his remarkable 
 knowledge of Occidental philosophy, was able to demon- 
 strate this fact with ease and in a manner which left 
 nothing to be discussed. 
 
 Thus the Slavophiles of the second ban— that is, of 
 
 1 The conceptions of Leontiev and other anti-Occidental reaction- 
 aries have been excellently described by Professor Masaryk {Europa 
 und Russland, vol. ii. Part IV).
 
 310 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 the last quarter of the nineteenth century — found their 
 gospel and their textbook in Danilevsky's Russia and 
 Europe, a work which caused a great sensation and 
 was accepted as essentially original. It depicts the 
 *' types of civilization " which characterize the develop- 
 ment of the various peoples. No communion is possible 
 between these " types/' which are separated one from 
 another as though by impassable walls. Hence it 
 follows that Russia, representing a particular type of 
 civilization, will never be able to " Europeanize ' 
 herself. 
 
 Now this theory, as Vladimir Soloviev has proved, 
 is borrowed in its entirety from the German historian 
 Heinrich Riickert. Danilevsky's work is merely 'a 
 Russian copy of the German original," asserts Soloviev, 
 and he proves his accusation by quotations. 
 
 *' The supposedly Russian and original theory which 
 was to annihilate all European theories of the science 
 of history is in reality only a poor copy of a German 
 theory, published twelve years earlier. Of course, the 
 theory of the German scientist is neither improved 
 nor worsened for being restated by a Russian writer, 
 and by him enlarged by means of pseudo-patriotic 
 additions. But those conceptions of Danilevsky's which 
 amount to a denial of our spiritual ties with Europe 
 are gravely compromised by the fact that in order to 
 justify them in theory, or rather to seem 1 to do so, he 
 was forced to borrow one of the second-rate products 
 of the German mind." r 
 
 For the nationalists of the Extreme Right, Katkov, 
 Pobiedonostzev, and Leontiev, the essential and most 
 " national " portion of their ideas was provided, as 
 Soloviev has shown, by the Catholic reactionaries, and 
 in particular by Joseph de Maistre. 
 
 " The Russian disciples of Joseph de Maistre, instead 
 of speaking in the name of their master, have spoken 
 in the name of the Russian people, who, however, have 
 
 ■ V. Soloviev, "A German original and a Russian copy" (Works, 
 
 AOl. V. p. 294). 

 
 IDEALS 311 
 
 never or in any manner expressed any sympathy with 
 the doctrine of the Savoyard squire. In our past and 
 in our present there are assuredly many things which 
 correspond with the principles of Joseph de Maistre. 
 But the truth is that the Russian people as a whole 
 has never constructed absolute truths out of certain 
 episodes or characteristics of its life. It has never 
 made idols of its national defects, or of the necessities 
 to which it has been subjected. Yes ; individuality 
 and the social relations are not greatly developed in 
 Russia ; the precepts of law and justice are not yet 
 rooted in our minds, and because of this (as some 
 one has remarked) honest men are more uncommon 
 than saints in Russia. All this is true. The faithful 
 votaries of Joseph de Maistre believed that things must 
 be so ; but does the Russian people believe it also? That 
 is another question." ' 
 
 As Soloviev very justly observes, the only originality 
 of the pseudo-nationalist and anti-Occidentalist thinkers 
 of Russia is that it seeks to clothe European thought 
 in a tattered Tartaro-Byzantine " kaftan." 
 
 1 V. Soloviev, "Slavophilia and its degeneration" (Works, vol. v. 
 p. 220).
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 I. The tapadnitshevstvo triumphant. II. Nihilism— Its European 
 origin— Dobrolubov and Pisarev— The " destruction of aesthetics " 
 — Nihilism and anarchism — Pisarev's opinion of the French and 
 English— The social problem and "aesthetics." III. Tshernyshevsky 
 —His materialism— The popularization of Occidental ideas— 
 Tshernyshevsky and Feuerbach— The secularization of Russian 
 thought — English influences. 
 
 To-day Slavophilia may be regarded as dead. It is 
 true that from time to time a Russian politician or 
 author attempts to exhume its remains and warm it 
 back to life by means of heady rhetoric. But such 
 attempts are idle, for the social, economic, and political 
 bases of the old Slavophilia have disappeared. They 
 no longer exist either in the interior of Russia, where 
 bourgeois relations have taken the place of the old 
 " patriarchal " system, nor in the rest of the Slav world. 
 This outer Slav world is more fully Europeanized than 
 Russia herself. 
 
 Lately an attempt was made to revive the Slavophile 
 formulas in order to embellish the Imperialist tendencies 
 professed in certain circles (happily not numerous) of 
 the Russian bourgeoisie ; notably the claim to hegemony 
 in the Balkans and the conquest of Constantinople, 
 which the speeches of the Neo-Slavophiles represented 
 as the " communion " of Russia with the Divine Wisdom 
 (in allusion to St. Sophia of Byzantium). But orators and 
 audience were well aware how little all this archaic 
 phraseology was adapted to the tendencies of modern 
 Imperialism. No one will be able to revive the old 
 
 812
 
 IDEALS 313 
 
 Slavophilia. Occidentalism remains the sole master of 
 the battlefield. But the zapadnitshestvo of to-day is 
 no longer the Occidentalism of Bielinsky's days and 
 Herzen's. That also has passed through a develop- 
 ment which has not led it to its death, as was the case 
 with the old Slavophilia, but which has subjected it to 
 great transformations. 
 
 Let us glance at this latter phase of its history. 
 
 II 
 
 The great poet Nekrassov has said of the Russian 
 intellectual: — 
 
 What the latest book has told him 
 
 Will remain on the surface of his heart. 
 
 This means that he will always be in love with the last 
 idea with which he has made acquaintance, and that 
 previously acquired ideas will be easily forgotten. 
 
 There is an undeniable justice in this observation ; 
 the currents of thought in Russia often displace one 
 another with extreme suddenness. The history of 
 Russian Occidentalism proves this statement, but it 
 also shows us that in spite of these frequent and sudden 
 changes of what has for a moment prevailed, something 
 always remains, I do not say immovably, but it does 
 remain, more or less stable, and it constitutes the 
 national peculiarity of our Occidentalism. 
 
 The first great turning on the road followed by the 
 zapadniki was reached at the " Period of the Great 
 Reforms," or during the " 'sixties," which formed the 
 period so named in Russia. 
 
 This was the period of " Nihilism." In my Modern 
 Russia I have described the general character of Russian 
 Nihilism, and its social origins. But I have not spoken 
 there of the European influences which have affected 
 it, and which were extremely potent. One may even say 
 that the basis of Nihilism is a determined struggle of
 
 314 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 European ideas against the old principles and ancient 
 forms of Russian life. 1 
 
 Nihilism had three protagonists : Dobrolubov, 
 Pisarev. and Tshernyshevsky. All three were con- 
 vinced Occidentalists. Dobrolubov (born in 1836, died 
 of phthisis in 1861), a literary critic of high talent, 
 was the disciple of European authors. One of his 
 friends said that " Dobrolubov, during the years which 
 determined the shaping of his intellect, was nourished 
 upon our great Occidental masters. Books and articles 
 written in Russian might please him, might delight him, 
 but they could not possibly furnish him with the know- 
 ledge and the information which he owed to his reading." 
 
 One may object that Dobrolubov was not a true 
 " Nihilist " and " negator." These qualifications would 
 apply rather to Pisarev (1841-68). Dead at the age 
 of twenty-seven, Pisarev wrote only for nine years, 
 of which four were passed in prison (on account of the 
 publication of a "subversive" article). In this brief 
 space of time he succeeded in writing some thousands 
 of pages which were destined to propagate " Nihilism," 
 and pisarev shtshina has become synonymous for 
 Nihilism par excellence. 
 
 sWhat was Pisarev's Nihilism? 
 
 In the first place, he rejected what was, for the 
 zapadniki, the most conspicuous trait of the preceding 
 generation: idealistic philosophy and "aesthetics." 
 Pisarev displays a profound contempt for " the husk 
 of Hegelianism " with which the ideals of Bielinsky, 
 his predecessor, were covered. But it was especially 
 " asstheticism " which he attacked. In his efforts to 
 destroy it he went so. far as to describe our great 
 poet Pushkin as a " sublime cretin" and asserted that 
 Beethoven had the same social value as a skilful chess 
 or billiard player. 
 
 1 I insist on this point because certain foreign writers have mis- 
 understood the real nature of Russian Nihilism, and have represented 
 it as rejecting all European culture in general and all French culture 
 in particular. M. Haumant has not avoided this error (see pp. 500-3 
 of his Culture fratifaise en Russie).
 
 IDEALS 315 
 
 However, M. Haumant commits a sensible error in 
 comparing Pisarev's Nihilism to negation for nega- 
 tion's sake, or even to the anarchism of Bakunin. 
 Pisarev was nol by any means an anarchist, and 
 had no idea of contesting the raison d'itre of the State. 
 This is clearly proved by his article on the Historical 
 Ideas of Auguste Comte, in which the parallel estab- 
 lished by Comte between the political institutions oi 
 continental Europe and those of England is compared 
 with the parallel drawn by Buckle. Now, Pisarev 
 ranged himself on the side of Buckle, and wrote as 
 follows : — 
 
 " The Anglomania cultivated in France by the dis- 
 ciples of Montesquieu and the co-religionists of Guizot, 
 and with us by a certain school of moralists and pro- 
 fessors, has excited an extremely strong reaction against 
 it, which in its turn has gone too far, or at least has 
 assumed a false direction. Of course, it is absurd to 
 prescribe the British Constitution as a panacea for all 
 social evils ; it would be unreasonable to transplant 
 upon the European Continent institutions under whose 
 protection all the beauties of a colossal pauperism have 
 blossomed. It was necessary to denounce, with the 
 utmost energy, the social maladies of England, in 
 which these doctrinaires beheld a Paradise. But it 
 would not have sufficed to content oneself with mere 
 reprobation. It was enough merely to say, without more 
 ado, that there was much evil in England, without 
 inferring that this evil did not exist, or was less, on the 
 Continent. To set any continental country whatsoever 
 above England, or even to pass over the enormous 
 advantages which distinguished England from all other 
 European countries, would have been to fall into a very 
 perilous and harmful paradox. ... To convince one- 
 self of this it will suffice to glance at the gravest evil 
 of English life — its pauperism. The condition of the 
 British labourer is extremely painful, it is true. But, in 
 the first place, the position of the French working-man 
 is no better ; secondly, in England there are incom-
 
 316 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 parably greater resources for a satisfactory solution of 
 the labour question than in France, or in any other 
 continental country. These conditions are due to the 
 fact that the English are in the habit of managing their 
 own affairs, and enjoy the greatest political and civil 
 liberty . 
 
 " It has often happened to me to read or hear disser- 
 tations as to the indifference with which a man dying of 
 starvation would regard political rights and guarantees. 
 These dissertations are correct if the man is literally 
 dying of starvation or some other evil ; for example, of 
 dropsy or phthisis. In this case, indeed, he is not 
 interested in a Constitution, nor in political meetings, 
 nor in the Habeas Corpus Act, nor in the liberty of the 
 Press. But for a man who is living and who enjoys a 
 certain degree of health, who struggles like a fish under 
 the ice, who makes every effort to better his position 
 and to escape from a crushing poverty, the laws and 
 customs of the country in which he must live and labour 
 are of great importance." l 
 
 As we see, Pisarev has nothing in common with the 
 anarchists, who are adversaries of the principle of the 
 State, and for whom all States and all Constitutions are 
 the same. 
 
 In the same article Pisarev compares the political 
 mentality of the French with that of the English (we 
 must remember that this article was written in 1865, 
 that is, in the time of Napoleon III) : — 
 
 " The French know how to conquer, but after victory, 
 when the last barricade has disappeared, they hasten to 
 put all their hopes in one father or protector, no matter 
 whom, who, to reward their simplicity, will not fail to 
 force them, a few years later, to erect new barricades, 
 which will evoke new hopes and a new ingenuousness. 
 . . . Until that day the Frenchman is reduced to 
 repeating : ' If the Committee knew ! If the Consul 
 knew ! If the Emperor knew ! If the King knew I 
 If the President knew ! ' . . .As for the Englishman, he 
 1 Pisarev, Works, vol. v. p. 432.
 
 IDEALS 317 
 
 is familiar with rights, which are necessary to him, to 
 such a point that without them life itself is impossible 
 to him." ' 
 
 To complete our demonstration that Pisarev, what- 
 ever one may wish to discern in him, was not in any 
 case an anarchist, I will quote a passage from his 
 article on The Realists, which is his profession of 
 faith : — 
 
 1 To arouse public opinion and to form conscious 
 leaders of popular labour, this is to open to the labour- 
 ing majority the wide and fruitful road of intellectual 
 development. But to accomplish these two tasks, on 
 which the whole future of the people depends, it is 
 necessary to act exclusively upon the cultivated classes 
 of society. The fate of the people is decided not in 
 the primary schools but in the Universities." 2 
 
 Wherein does this intellectual aristocracy resemble 
 the glorification of " holy ignorance " which we find 
 in Bakunin? 
 
 And why does Pisarev fall foul of " aesthetics "? 
 Because he prefers positive science and social utili- 
 tarianism. 
 
 " vWe shall try to destroy sestheticism in order to con- 
 centrate the attention and the intellectual energies of 
 society upon a minimum of imperious and unavoidable 
 objectives of primordial importance," writes Pisarev. 
 These objectives are, on the one hand, the destruction 
 of all routine and all prejudices, and on the other hand 
 the moral and material uplifting of the masses. All 
 this may be accomplished by the aid of the positive and 
 natural sciences. Pisarev sings a veritable hymn in 
 honour of scientific naturalism, and hopes that 
 " aesthetics will transform itself into a dependency 
 of physiology and hygiene, as alchemy has become 
 chemistry and astrology astronomy." He wrote articles 
 in which he endeavoured to popularize the theories of 
 contemporary European " naturalists " and to preach 
 the study of Buchner, Moleschott, Huxley, Tyndall, Carl 
 
 1 Pisarev, Works, vol. v. p. 435. 2 Ibid., vol. iv. p. 140.
 
 318 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 Vogt, Comte, Darwin, and other Occidental materialists 
 and positivists. 
 
 As for aesthetics and art, one should not make too 
 much of them, as for the most part they only end in 
 a loss of time. Now, time should be economized, 
 especially in Russia, a poor and backward country. 
 
 We must admit that Pisarev was to a certain extent 
 right. The preceding generation of Russian Occi- 
 dentalists were concerned to excess with abstractions 
 and big phrases, and all that is implied by the term 
 " aesthetics." (And the big phrases of the Europeanized 
 seigneurs were only too often glaringly inconsistent with 
 serfdom and the condition of the people. Nekrassov 
 well depicted the character of this generation in a poem 
 describing those who 
 
 . . . Wander through the world 
 Seeking some gigantic task, 
 Because the heritage of opulent fathers 
 Has exempted them from petty toil. 
 
 Was Russian society to abandon itself to the dreams of 
 an Italian lazzarone, or to acquire the realistic and 
 practical common sense of the American? asked 
 Pisarev, and he himself pronounced in favour of realism 
 and practical common sense. 
 
 In reality, however, there was no resemblance between 
 the Russian Nihilists, or Pisarev himself, and the typical 
 Yankee. Despite all their pleas for materialism, despite 
 all their industrious endeavours to appear " hard," 
 " egoistic," and " materialistic," they remained the true 
 sons of their fathers, idealists of the " 'forties." 
 
 Pisarev wished to condemn and annihilate aestheti- 
 cism. By what means? He "based his realistic con- 
 ception of science and art," according to his own 
 admission, on the following idea of Pierre Leroux: 
 " From my lofty point of view the poets are those who, 
 from period to period, express the woes of humanity, 
 just as the philosophers are those who concern them- 
 selves with healing and safeguarding humanity." In-
 
 IDEALS 319 
 
 spired by this idea, Pisarev stated that " one must 
 always draw the attention of society to economic and 
 social problems, systematically opposing and condemn- 
 ing all that diverts the intellectual energies of cultivated 
 persons from their mission. If among the objects which 
 distract them we find art in general, or certain branches 
 of art, it should be understood as a matter of course that 
 art also is to be opposed and condemned." 
 
 Accused by his adversaries of " vandalism," Pisarev 
 replied as follows : — 
 
 " If you choose to. tell me that Beethoven's sonatas 
 ennoble, uplift, and exalt humanity, etc., I shall advise 
 you to tell these fables to others, not to me, who will 
 never credit them. Each of my readers knows, no doubt, 
 a number of true melomaniacs and profound connois- 
 seurs of music, who, despite all their love for the great 
 art, and despite the depth of their musical knowledge, 
 remain frivolous, pitiable, good-for-nothing creatures." 
 
 It is a curious thing that Pisarev's theory, as the 
 reader will see, resembles Tolstoy's. For Tolstoy also, 
 at a later period, rejected aesthetics in the interest of the 
 suffering masses. He, however, went farther than 
 Pisarev, condemning science also as a useless thing 
 "which leads men astray." 
 
 Vladimir Soloviev used to say that the Russian 
 Nihilists had a logic all their own, and that they 
 deduced their social programme from their naturalistic 
 materialism with the aid of peculiar " syllogisms," such 
 as the following: "Man is descended from the ape. 
 Therefore our duty is to sacrifice ourselves for the 
 happiness of the people." 
 
 This pleasantry is not very far from the truth. 
 
 To complete the portrait of the " Nihilists " it must 
 be mentioned that personally they led an extremely 
 modest and virtuous life. Pisarev, the chief of the 
 " negators " and the " destroyers," the incarnation of 
 all mortal sins (it was thus that the reactionaries 
 regarded him), was an affectionate and respectful son, 
 and his principal work was dedicated to his mother.
 
 320 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 Tshernyshevsky, at the age of twenty-four, wishing to 
 marry, asked himself what he would do if his fiance'e 
 did not please his mother : could he marry against his 
 mother's will? And what did he decide? To kill 
 himself in such a case, as he could not vex his aged 
 mother, yet could not live without the woman he loved. 
 But we must speak of Tshernyshevsky separately. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Nicholas Gavrilovitsh Tshernyshevsky was born in 
 1828. At the age of twenty-five he had made a name 
 in literature. From 1855 to 1862 he was one of the 
 most conspicuous leaders of the intellectual and social 
 movement in Russia. In 1862 he was arrested for the 
 " crime " of subversive opinions, and was condemned 
 to fourteen years' hard labour and life-long deportation 
 to Siberia. Only in 1883 did he receive the authoriza- 
 tion to return to " European Russia." 
 
 He died six years later, in 1889. Although Pisarev's 
 influence was ephemeral, Tshernyshevsky's has endured 
 until the present day. During the last few years a 
 number of historians, critics, litterateurs, sociologists, 
 and economists have undertaken a complete study of 
 his works and his ideas, and have arrived at the con- 
 clusion that " his life belongs to history, and his name 
 will never cease to recall itself to all those who are 
 interested in the destinies of Russian literature, and 
 who are able to appreciate wit, talent, knowledge, 
 courage, and abnegation." l 
 
 The prevailing influence in Tshernyshevsky's mental 
 life was that of the ideas of the European vanguard. 
 In general, the period of ' nihilism " was the period 
 when the Occidental spirit was completely triumphant 
 in Russia — the spirit of materialism and positivism, 
 which under Nicolas I was regarded by State and 
 Church as contrary to the Orthodox doctrine and the 
 
 1 G. Plekhanov, A r . G. Tshernyshevsky (Petersburg, 1910), p. 78. 
 This large volume gives a complete analysis of Tshernyshevsky's 
 ideas.
 
 IDEALS 321 
 
 autocratic system, and which thereby received its most 
 undoubted titles to success. After the Crimean disaster 
 the police supervision of the intelligence of Russia was 
 slightly relaxed ; the educated youth of Russia, by a 
 wholly natural reaction, hastened to pluck the forbidden 
 fruit of European thought. Positivism and material- 
 ism, then known by the common title of realism, became 
 a powerful weapon of warfare against the religious 
 prejudices supported by official pressure. 
 
 But the materialism of the Nihilists was not of 
 uniform quality. In Pisarev it took the form of " naive 
 realism," everything being proscribed that was not jus- 
 tified by the immediate statements of the natural 
 sciences. Of all the social sciences, Pisarev admitted 
 the necessity only of anthropology, geography, and 
 statistics. As for philosophy, he regarded it with superb 
 disdain. Even the materialistic philosophy of Feuer- 
 bach appeared to him useless and superfluous, fit only 
 for ' those who seek to erect a whole building with 
 a score of bricks." 
 
 Tshernyshevsky did not share these opinions ; he 
 did not seek to confine thought within the narrow limits 
 of the exclusively naturalistic positivism of the pisa- 
 revshtshina. But he agreed with Pisarev as to the task 
 imposed on Russian writers and scientists. He used 
 to say that in the West men have the right to serve pure 
 art or pure science. " Bacon, Descartes, Galileo, Leib- 
 nitz, Newton, Humboldt, Liebig, Cuvier, and Faraday 
 worked steadily on, thinking of science in general, not 
 of what such or such a country, their native land, 
 required at a given moment. We do not know and we 
 do not ask ourselves if they loved their country. By 
 virtue of their works they are cosmopolitan. It is the 
 same with many of the great Western poets." Tsherny- 
 shevsky names Shakespeare, Ariosto, Corneille, Goethe. 
 " Their names," he says, " make us think of their 
 artistic merit ; not of any special and predominant 
 devotion to their native countries." 
 
 Matters are very different in Russia. " For the 
 
 21
 
 322 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 moment a Russian has only one fashion of really serving 
 the lofty ideals of truth, art, and science : namely, to 
 work at diffusing them throughout his country. The 
 time will come when in Russia also, as elsewhere, 
 thinkers and artists will devote themselves exclusively 
 to science and art ; but as long as we are not on the 
 same level as the more advanced nations there is another 
 task which must be dearer to each of us : to contribute 
 according to his strength to continue what Peter the 
 Great began. This task has hitherto demanded, and 
 in all probability will demand for a long time yet, all 
 the moral and intellectual forces of the best endowed 
 of Russia's children." ' 
 
 Tshernyshevsky, who suggested that the immediate 
 and effective duty of Russian thinkers was to popularize 
 European thought, and who himself undertook this duty, 
 showed a much greater breadth of mind in his manner 
 of fulfilling it than did Pisarev. For example, he did 
 justice to the philosophy of Hegel. He very truly said 
 of Hegel that " his principles were extremely ample and 
 vigorous ; his deductions were narrow and impotent." 
 
 More particularly did Tshernyshevsky adopt Hegel's 
 maxims " that there exists no such thing as abstract 
 truth " ; " truth is concrete " ; 2 and that " one cannot 
 judge of good and evil without taking into account the 
 circumstances in which a given phenomenon occurs." 
 The Hegelian idea of constant change, caused by the 
 internal contradictions contained by every phenomenon 
 and every condition, was also accepted by Tsherny- 
 shevsky. But he relied especially on Feuerbach, and, 
 as he himself declared, he sought " to apply Feuer- 
 bach 's fundamental ideas to the solution of various 
 problems." 
 
 The most important of these ideas was that of the 
 unity of the human being: this implied the rejection of 
 the old dualistic conception which divided " soul " from 
 " body," the " spiritual " from the " material " element. 
 
 1 Tshernyshevsky, Works, vol. iii. p. 120 (Petersburg, 1907). 
 ■ Hegel himself does not always abide by this rule.
 
 IDEALS 323 
 
 For Tshernyshevsky, as for Feuerbach, there was only 
 one " sole human nature, real and unique," and the 
 " spiritual " life of man was only the " subjective 
 aspect " of certain objective and material facts. 
 
 The recognition of such a principle had capital results 
 for Russian thought, for it struck a terrible blow at the 
 Orthodox Byzantine ideology, which saw two principles 
 in man: the one "celestial," holy, spiritual, the other 
 " terrestrial," diabolic and material ; an idea which 
 was the basis of the ascetic doctrine of submission to 
 the Divine Will, to the power of God and His repre- 
 sentatives on earth: spiritual and temporal authorities. 
 
 The materialistic monism proclaimed by Tsherny- 
 shevsky was thus a true secularization of Russian 
 thought. As Plekhanov remarks in his work on 
 Tshernyshevsky, this was a step in advance compared 
 with the naive realism of Pisarev and the German 
 naturalists, Buchner and Carl Vogt, his masters, who 
 reduced the whole problem of the human soul to the 
 structure and the functioning of the brain. Plekhanov 
 asserted that Feuerbach, without realizing it, had 
 approached the French materialism of La Mettric and 
 Diderot, which was less narrow and more profound. 
 Professor Masaryk discovers in Tshernyshevsky a strong 
 predilection for English thought, which distinguishes 
 him from the majority of Russian thinkers. But I 
 must say that in this Tshernyshevsky was by no means 
 exceptional, for at that period English thought in 
 general exerted an immense influence in Russia. At 
 the risk of shocking some of my readers I will venture 
 to assert that Russian " nihilism " is for the most part 
 the child of English positivism. A Nihilist was almost 
 always a Darwinian, and the " Buckle-book " (that is, 
 Buckle's History of Civilization in England) was one 
 of the textbooks of nihilism ; it was their gospel. 
 The names of Darwin and Buckle were no less detested 
 by all Russian obscurantists than that of Feuerbach.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 I. Socialism in Russia — Socialism and religion. II. The earliest 
 European influences — Saint-Simonism in Russia. III. Fourier 
 and Robert Owen. IV. The narodnitshestvo and Marxism — The 
 "Bakunists" in Russia. V. " Blanquism " in Russia — Terrorism. 
 VI. Philosophy and the reality — The present situation of the 
 narodnitshestvo and Marxism. 
 
 I 
 
 The literary productions of Tshernyshevsky are closely 
 bound up with the history of Russian socialism. 
 
 One might certainly attribute this socialism to 
 remote origins. Peter Kropotkin believes that Euro- 
 pean socialism in general may be referred to the French 
 Revolution, which, he says, " repeated, in its turn, the 
 work of the English Revolution," and " was the source 
 of all the anarchist, communist, and socialist concep- 
 tions of our times." Kropotkin asserts that "modern 
 socialism has as yet added nothing, absolutely nothing, 
 to the ideas which were in circulation among the French 
 people during the year II of the Republic. Modern 
 socialism has only arranged these ideas in systems, 
 and has found arguments in their favour, either by 
 turning certain of their own definitions against the 
 bourgeois economists, or by generalizing the falcts of 
 the development of industrial capitalism during the 
 nineteenth century." According to Kropotkin " there 
 is a direct filiation from the Enrages of 1793 and 
 Babeuf (1795) to the International." 1 
 
 If one were to accept this verdict of Kropotkin's, 
 doubtless one might trace Russian socialism 1 back 
 
 1 Peter Kropotkin, The Great Revolution. 
 324
 
 IDEALS 325 
 
 through Occidental socialism to the French Revolution. 
 But it is possible to go farther and to find the source 
 of communistic ideas in Christianity ; not the Chris- 
 tianity of the Orthodox Church, but that of the first 
 Christian communities. 
 
 In Russia some interesting attempts have been made 
 to justify the Communist and Socialist demands by 
 Christian doctrine. Leo Tolstoy invokes the name of 
 Christ in his attack upon the rights of private property. 
 Various rural religious sects make the Gospel the basis 
 of their agrarian communism. Dostoievsky recom- 
 mended educated Russia to bow before the Orthodox 
 truth of the moujiks, which, according to him, is 
 identical with the principle of social justice. Herzen, 
 although quite without Dostoievsky's respect for Ortho- 
 doxy, advised enlightened minds to reckon with the 
 religious convictions of the peasants. 
 
 But what is much more curious is the existence of 
 such ideas, during the last few years, in the Russian 
 Social-Democratic party. M. Lenin, although a con- 
 vinced Marxist, proposed, some years ago, that the 
 party should profit by the religious convictions of the 
 peasants, for whom the earth is " the property of God," 
 and cannot belong to any one. The Socialists should 
 make use of this ingenuous faith, says M. Lenin in his 
 pamphlet on the agrarian question, in order to persuade 
 the peasantry that it is necessary to confiscate all landed 
 property and to effect the " nationalization of the soil " ; 
 that is, to declare the private lands the property of the 
 State. But none of the sections of the Social-Demo- 
 cratic party cared to adopt this demagogic plan, and 
 to enter upon a still more demagogic exploitation of 
 the superstitions of the peasantry. 
 
 For the rest, such an artifice was destined to en- 
 counter a ' check, because, for the majority of the 
 moujiks, " the soil is the property of God " in a sense 
 entirely special, which has nothing in common with 
 true socialism. What the peasant regards as the 
 'property of God " are the estates of the nobles, the
 
 326 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 great landed proprietors, which he wishes to expro- 
 priate for his own benefit. God is merely a pious pre- 
 text for the wholly material aspirations of the peasantry. 
 
 Another small group of Russian Social-Democrats 
 wished to do better than to make religion its auxiliary ; 
 it meditated erecting socialism itself into a religion. 
 The leader of this pseudo-socialist " chapel " pub- 
 lished two volumes intended to prove that socialism is 
 a religious doctrine, that the Socialist groups are merely 
 a new Church Universal ; that Karl Marx and Fried- 
 rich Engels were the successors of the prophets of 
 Israel and of Christ, and that the dogma of the pro-> 
 letariat must replace that of God. As for the applica- 
 tion of his doctrine, the inventor even composed a new 
 Lord's Prayer, in which the name of God is replaced by 
 that of the proletariat, and it is to the latter that the 
 prayer is addressed that " its reign shall come as soon 
 as possible." 
 
 The founders of the " Socialist religion " chose for 
 its propagation the period following the rising of 
 1905-6, when the reaction was triumphant in the 
 political, social, and intellectual domains. They pro- 
 fessed to be able to cure Russia of the despair into which 
 she had been plunged by a disastrous war and an 
 abortive Revolution. Nevertheless, and in spite of the 
 aid of the celebrated writer Maxim Gorky, they met with 
 no success, and the only trace which remains of their 
 enterprise is the ironical nicknames of " the Proletarian 
 God " and " the Saint " which the Socialist Press 
 bestowed on the founder of the new pseudo-religion. 
 
 This little episode shows that socialism and religion 
 are in Russia divided by such an abyss that no attempt 
 to reconcile them' can be regarded seriously. 
 
 Nihilism has left behind it such a vigorous ferment 
 of positivism and materialism, both of which were so 
 widely diffused by Pisarev and Tshernyshevsky, that the 
 Russian intellectuals, with very rare exceptions, remain 
 completely deaf to religious prejudices, and accord a very 
 cold welcome to those who seek to reintroduce them.
 
 IDEALS 327 
 
 In nearly all European countries, however, some 
 attempt has been made to combine socialism with 
 religion. In Austria and Germany the Catholic and 
 Protestant clergy take part in the labour movement, 
 and do their best to unite, in a peculiar and extremely 
 reactionary mixture, the doctrine of the Church and the 
 aspirations of the labouring masses. In Switzerland 
 and in England there are among the Socialists believing 
 and practising Christians who are extremely sincere and 
 in no way reactionary. We find nothing of the sort 
 in Russia, where there are no labour organizations 
 directed and protected by the Church ; one cannot even 
 cite individual cases in which socialism is combined 
 with a belief in God. A Russian Socialist is always an 
 atheist . 
 
 II 
 
 To return to the share of the French Revolution in 
 the development of socialism, I should mention that in 
 Russia at least we do not find that filiation of which 
 Kropotkin speaks. In Russia we find that men's minds 
 have been influenced by the political conceptions of the 
 Revolution of 1789, and not by its "communism," 
 which was in general extremely vague. The en- 
 lightened Russians have turned toward socialism pre- 
 cisely because the revolutionary tradition has in Russia 
 been confined to politics. Herzen is the best witness of 
 this natural reaction ; he experienced it in person. 
 This is how he describes the diffusion in Russia of the 
 Saint-Simonian ideals, which may be regarded as the 
 point of departure of Russian socialism. 
 
 "The embryo liberalism of 1826, which was gradu- 
 ally formed according to the French conceptions, recom- 
 mended by such men as Lafayette and Benjamin 
 Constant, and which was sung by Be>anger, lost its 
 power of seduction, as far as we were concerned, after 
 the fall of Poland. It was then that a portion of our 
 Russian youth hastened to make a profound and serious 
 study of Russian history ; others studied German philo-
 
 328 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 sopliy. As for Ogariov and myself, we belonged to 
 neither party. We were too deeply rooted in other 
 modes of thought to abandon them so quickly. Our 
 faith in a revolution a la Beranger, to be accomplished 
 sitting at table, was shaken, but we were seeking for 
 something else, which we could find neither in the 
 Chronicle of Nestor nor in the transcendental idealism 
 of Schelling. While our minds were thus struggling 
 amid conjectures, and efforts to understand, and the 
 doubts which alarmed us, some of the pamphlets of the 
 Saint -Simonians fell into our hands, and we became 
 acquainted with their doctrines and the proceedings 
 brought against them. . . . We were impressed by 
 these pamphlets. They proclaimed the new faith ; they 
 had something to say ; they had good reason to cite 
 before their tribunal the old order of things which 
 wanted to try them according to the Code Napoleon 
 and the Orleanist religion. 
 
 " On the one hand, the emancipation of woman, 
 her access to community of labour, her destiny restored 
 to her own hands, and union with her as with an equal ; 
 on the other hand, the redemption and rehabilitation of 
 the flesh ! 
 
 1 These great formulas involved a world of new 
 relations between men, a world of health, wit, and 
 beauty, a world naturally moral and consequently 
 morally pure. 
 
 " What courage was required to speak openly in 
 France of emancipating oneself from a spiritualism so 
 strongly established in the ideas of France and so utterly 
 absent from the conduct of the French ! 
 
 " A new world was knocking at the door ; our 
 minds and hearts opened to it. Saint-Simonism took 
 its place as the basis of our convictions, and there, in 
 all its essentials, remained for ever." " 
 
 We see, however, that the essentials of Saint- 
 Simonism were not, for Herzen, the same as for the 
 Saint-Simonians themselves. The positive organization 
 
 1 A. Herzen, Works, vol. vi. pp. 195-6.
 
 IDEALS 32tt 
 
 of Saint-Simonism, its social and religious constitution, 
 did not compel Herzen's admiration. The following 
 generation of Russian thinkers, the " Nihilists," pro- 
 nounced with decision against Saint-Simonism precisely 
 because of its religious character. The force of repug- 
 nance aroused in the Nihilists by all that savoured of 
 religion may be gauged by the example of Pisarev, who, 
 a " popularizer " of the positivism of Auguste Comtc, 
 never forgave him for introducing a sort of religious 
 element into his philosophy. 
 
 " Having completed a stupendous work," said 
 Pisarev, " Comte was unable to stop where he 
 should have stopped ; and he spoiled his own work, 
 as far as an individual person can spoil that which is 
 of value to the whole of humanity, by creating a new 
 religion, of which these have no need, while those can 
 obtain no satisfaction from it." 
 
 In his article on the trial of the Saint-Simonians 
 Tshernyshevsky protests against their attempt to base 
 a new social order on an authority of a religious 
 nature. 
 
 " Authority," he says, " always prevails in prejudices 
 and routine, that is, in those matters in which the 
 reason has no part. Reason is aware of facts, is con- 
 vinced by proofs, but accepts nothing on authority. 
 ... To think otherwise, to believe in the possibility 
 of an authority to which an established reason would 
 readily submit, is a thing that no one but a fanatic 
 could do, and a fanatic inspired by an unjustified belief 
 in the ancient benefits of the Papacy." Tshernyshevsky 
 does not accept love either as the basis of the new 
 society, because love influences men only in rare 
 moments of exaltation, while in general men are swayed 
 by calculation, usage, and habits. For him the Saint- 
 Simonians, we re drawing-room reformers. 
 
 At the same time, however, Tshernyshevsky con- 
 sidered that the fundamental idea of Saint-Simonism 
 was " simple and pure," and he expresses his opinion of 
 it in the following words : —
 
 330 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 " For the pacification of society it is necessary that 
 the moral and material existence of the most numerous 
 and most poverty-stricken class of society should be 
 ameliorated as rapidly as possible." Tshernyshevsky 
 declares that " the duty of every good citizen, of 
 every honest man, is to devote his energies to this 
 task." 
 
 Tshernyshevsky was thus able to distinguish between 
 the sublime ideal of Saint-Simon and his disciples and 
 their errors of practice. Their doctrine is regarded 
 even to-day with attention and sympathy in Russia. It 
 forms a subject of study and examination in the Uni- 
 versities. Fifteen years ago, in the faculty of history 
 and philology at the University of Moscow, when I 
 was following the course there, it was made the subject 
 of special lectures. Many textbooks of the history 
 of economics employed by Russian students devote 
 chapters to it. Even the most bourgeois scholars 
 regard it very favourably. 
 
 Here, for example, is what Professor Toughan- 
 Baranovsky, the well-known economist, has to say of 
 it : — 
 
 " The position which Saint-Simon occupies in the 
 history of thought is so tremendous that it cannot be 
 exaggerated. We regard him as the most vital social 
 thinker of the new age ; we believe he has, with a sure 
 hand, laid solid foundations for the scientific structure 
 at whose completion many generations have yet to 
 labour. Saint-Simon's ideas refer not to one isolated 
 science, but to the whole cycle of sciences relating to 
 human society. The philosophy of history, sociology, 
 political economy, and, to a certain extent, jurisprudence 
 in its broad general principles, all date from Saint- 
 Simon." ' 
 
 M. Toughan-Baranovsky also believes that " the 
 whole of the ' positivist philosophy ' was borrowed by 
 Comte from Saint-Simon," and that " this remarkable 
 
 1 M. Toughan-Baranovsky, Sketches of the History of Contemporary 
 Political Economy and Socialism, 2nd ed., p. 98 (Petersburg, 1905). 

 
 IDEALS 331 
 
 thinker, with far more reason than Marx, may be re- 
 garded as the creator of modern social science." 
 
 Ill 
 
 Despite this homage, Saint-Simonism has had no 
 effective influence upon the socialist movement in 
 Russia. The ideas of Fourier and Robert Owen 
 hindered its diffusion, and those " Nihilists " who 
 had been unable to accept the doctrine of Saint-Simon 
 became the most enthusiastic " Fourierists." 
 
 Tshernyshevsky, during his imprisonment, wrote a 
 novel (What's to be Done?) which acquired enormous 
 popularity, although, considered merely as literature, 
 it leaves something to be desired. This novel is full 
 of " Fourierist " ideas, and it did more to diffuse them 
 throughout Russia than all the theoretical works taken 
 together. 
 
 " Tshernyshevsky proposed nothing new," says his 
 biographer and critic : " he merely made known the 
 deductions at which Occidental thought had long before 
 arrived. . . . But he gave the ideas of Fourier a vogue 
 previously unknown in Russia. He taught them to 
 the great public." ' 
 
 Plekhanov observes that, under the inspiration of 
 Fourier, Tshernyshevsky was the first of the Russian 
 Socialists to imagine socialist society of the future 
 organized upon the basis of a very highly developed 
 technique and wholesale production by gigantic under- 
 takings. Certain of his successors, who believed, on 
 the contrary, that the future would see a federation of 
 small communes and pigmy enterprises, were really 
 behind him in their ideas, for if socialism is a superior 
 form of economic organization, it must make use of 
 the technical victories won by the capitalist world, in- 
 stead of -returning to the small bourgeois ways of the 
 pre-capitalist era." 
 
 But this error was inevitable, because the imagina- 
 tion always reflects the reality, and a communal petit - 
 1 G. Plekhanov, N. Tshernyshevsky, p. 75.
 
 332 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 bourgeois ideal of socialism was bound to come into 
 being in Russia, the country of small rural exploitations. 
 
 Tshernyshevsky himself was unable entirely to escape 
 from this conception ; he continued to favour it, tracing 
 the social function of the rural commune in Russia. 
 
 In general Tshernyshevsky was a convinced Occi- 
 dentalism He used to say of the Slavophiles : " Their 
 sight is so peculiarly constituted that any Russian filth 
 they may see appears to them excellent, and admirably 
 suited to reanimate moribund Europe." He severely 
 criticized Herzen's opinion concerning " young " Russia 
 and the " old world " of Europe ; protesting against 
 this species of national pride, of which Herzen was not 
 always innocent. Tshernyshevsky believed that Europe 
 has nothing to learn from Russia, because " she herself 
 understands better than we what new conditions she 
 has need of, and the way to create them." But on the 
 subject of the mir Tshernyshevsky agreed both with 
 Herzen and certain of the Slavophiles, who asserted 
 that that which in the West was still an aspiration Jiad 
 in reality already passed away in Russia, because the 
 Russian rural commune succeeds in reconciling the 
 principle of individuality with the interests of the com- 
 munity. He, too, asserted that in Russia "there exists in 
 reality what in the West appears to be a Utopia." In 
 Russia " the popular mass regards the soil as a common 
 possession," while private estates are not numerous, 
 and the individualistic conception of property is not 
 rooted in " the soul of the people." In the West the 
 dissolution of the rural commune has had the most 
 unfortunate results ; it has engendered pauperism and 
 poverty. So " we must not ignore the example of 
 the Occident, and must maintain the commune in 
 Russia." In the Occident " the individual is already 
 accustomed to exercise unrestricted rights over his 
 private property," and ' the prevalence of a better 
 system in economic relations would demand sacrifices 
 there ; this is why it is difficult. Such a system is not 
 in agreement with the habits of a French or English
 
 IDEALS 333 
 
 peasant." In Russia, thanks to the existence of the 
 commune, this moral and juridical obstacle does not 
 exist. 
 
 We shall see later on that the mir became the subject 
 of long and violent discussion between the two gr< 
 schools of Russian socialism which took shape towards 
 the end of the nineteenth century (narodnitshestvo and 
 Marxism). Now, this question had already been brought 
 into prominence by Tshernyshevsky and his contempo- 
 raries. Europe was not unaware of this. In the first 
 place, the first serious study of the Russian mir, in its 
 social and economic relations, was the work not of a 
 Russian but of a German (von Haxthausen ), who 
 veritably " discovered " the rural commune in Russia, 
 and explained its full importance to the public. This 
 was in 1847. Tshernyshevsky and several of his com- 
 patriots and contemporaries were acquainted with von 
 Haxthausen's work, and found therein the elements of 
 a verdict upon the institution. 
 
 Then the Utopian Socialists, French and English, 
 with their schemes of " associations ' of producers — 
 among others Louis Blanc and Robert Owen — led the 
 first Russian Socialists to seek for a practical form 
 under which they might install the " new social order " 
 in Russia. And as the method of capitalistic exploita- 
 tion was not then very highly developed, and as there 
 was as yet no industrial proletariat in Russia, they could 
 find no subject but the rural population. In this they 
 had to seek for a basis of association. They believed 
 they had found it in the mir. 
 
 Some European Socialists also shared this positive 
 appreciation of the Russian rural commune. This is 
 what Proudhon says in his posthumous work of the 
 communal ownership of the soil : — 
 
 " This form of ownership is essentially equalitarian : 
 in Russia the commune, which is regarded as sole pro- 
 prietor, has to provide each household with a quantity 
 of cultivable soil, and if the number of families increases 
 the division has to be modified so that no one is
 
 331 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 excluded. This method is common to all the Slav 
 peoples ; it has been maintained in Russia by the decree 
 of emancipation (of 1861)." 1 
 
 Proudhon considered that " political economy itself " 
 can require nothing better than this form of ownership, 
 " which is contrary to inequality," and which, there- 
 fore, should be " regularized and confirmed." 
 
 I may remark in passing that there are other points 
 of agreement between Proudhon and Tshernyshevsky, 
 notably in the theory of economics. There is no doubt 
 that Proudhon exercised a certain ascendancy over 
 Tshernyshevsky . 
 
 But M. Plekhanov, in his work on Tshernyshevsky, 
 asserts that of all the great Utopian Socialists of Europe 
 it was Robert Owen who made the strongest impression 
 of Tshernyshevsky, and he explains this by certain 
 peculiarities of Tshernyshevsky 's. " By the nature of 
 his temperament, in which reason predominated, he was 
 inclined to sympathize with those of the great founders 
 of the socialist systems who were less guilty of yield- 
 ing to the temptations of fantastic imaginings. Thus 
 Robert Owen was assuredly more akin to him than 
 Fourier." 2 
 
 Plekhanov thus confirms what I have already said 
 in a more general form of the influence of English 
 thought upon Russian "nihilism." But it must not 
 be supposed that Owen's ideas could have received 
 a practical application in the Russia of those days, as 
 was possible in industrial England. It is only to-day 
 that Owen's ideas are guiding the effective action of 
 certain Russian Socialists, notably those who are 
 collaborating in the co-operative movement. For the 
 promoters of co-operation in Russia Owen has become 
 a guiding star. In the working-men's clubs his life 
 and work are studied and his precepts are taught, 
 while articles and pamphlets are devoted to these sub- 
 jects which find tens of thousands of readers. 
 
 1 Proudhon, (Euvres Posthumes, vol. i. p. 89 (Paris, 1866). 
 
 2 Plekhanov, op. cit. p. 302.
 
 IDEALS 335 
 
 Robert Owen, like Saint-Simon and Fourier, has won 
 a place in the academic life of Russia. Professor 
 Toughan-Baranovsky states that the influence of Owen 
 is " an instructive and glorious page in the social history 
 of modern England." " The whole co-operative move- 
 ment of to-day is the result of Owen's propaganda. 
 . . . Millions of workers in England and all the world 
 over, who are at present deriving real economic advant- 
 ages from co-operation, have to thank none other than 
 the ingenuous dreamer Owen, who in his day was so 
 riddled by the scorn of the representatives of so-called 
 common sense, who were only too clairvoyant as regards 
 their immediate advantage, but were completely unable 
 to see into the future." ' 
 
 But, I repeat, the practical application of 
 " Owenism " in Russia has only become possible in 
 our days. As for Tshernyshevsky's time, the Russian 
 Socialists were able to adopt only the theory of 
 " Owenism." Tshernyshevsky in particular borrowed 
 from Owen a very important and wholly materialistic 
 principle : the impress of the social environment upon 
 the actions and feelings of mankind. 
 
 Still, Tshernyshevsky, like Owen and the French 
 Utopians, had retained a great measure of metaphysics 
 and idealism. He was inclined to explain historical 
 events as a rationalist. He believed that men had 
 been and were unfortunate because they were insuffi- 
 ciently "educated " and " conscious." It would, there- 
 fore, suffice to explain to them the justice and convince 
 them of the necessity of changing the existing state 
 of things, to win them over to a good " scheme ' of 
 a new order, and the social problem would be solved. 
 
 This belief in the power of reason, which links 
 Tshernyshevsky and other of the Russian " Nihilists " 
 with the Encyclopaedists and the French Revolutionists, 
 played a great part in the evolution of socialist theory 
 and the revolutionary movement in Russia. If it is 
 reason which rules the world, who, then, is the master 
 1 Toughan-Baranovsky, op. cit. p. 89.
 
 336 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 in the struggle for liberty and the happiness of the 
 people? Not the masses of the people themselves ; 
 but the enlightened men of the country, the profes- 
 sional representatives of reason, so to speak. The 
 task incumbent upon the intellectuals in the socialist 
 and revolutionary movement in this way became one 
 of the most burning questions of the day, and Russian 
 socialism split upon this rock into two violently opposed 
 camps. 
 
 IV 
 
 In the general evolution of Russian thought in the 
 nineteenth century we observe a very significant change 
 in the attractive forces which our Occidentalists obeyed. 
 In 1830 and in 1850 they were chiefly captivated by 
 the abstract ideas of philosophy and metaphysics. 
 Nihilism gave the preference to the natural sciences. 
 But Tshernyshevsky betrayed a great interest in the 
 problems of sociology and history and economics. This 
 tendency became preponderant in his successors, and 
 the conflict between narodnitshestvo (Populism) and 
 Marxism, which almost wholly occupied the intellectual 
 life of cultivated society in Russia at the end of the 
 last century, was fought over problems of history, 
 sociology, and economics. Maxim Kovalewsky, an 
 ocular witness of the change of front, compares it 
 with the happenings in France at the end of the 
 eighteenth century. He says : — 
 
 ' In a country in which political debates are un- 
 known, the discussions of the great problems of social 
 science, above all those which concern the present situa- 
 tion in a direct or indirect fashion, occupy a position 
 which they could never attain in a more disturbed 
 environment. It being the fashion to debate such 
 problems, everybody in our days is either a sociologist 
 or an economist, in speech at least, neither more nor 
 less than in France, a few years after the krach 
 occasioned by John Law, the famous Dr. Quesnay in- 
 spired the people who had recovered from their infatua-
 
 IDEALS 337 
 
 tion for the system of protection by his doctrines of 
 free trade and natural economic laws. 
 
 " This is not, moreover, the only trait of resemblance 
 between modern Russia and the France of a century 
 or more ago. Like our grandfathers, the men of the 
 Constituent Assembly, the young generations in Russia 
 are steeped in the conviction that a new social era 
 is shortly to open. They believe that they are called 
 upon to facilitate its advent by the judicious employ- 
 ment of the scientific data and the social experience 
 acquired by the European Occident. 
 
 " These are generous ideas, which assuredly do not 
 merit the belittlement and animosity with which they 
 have been received by those who declare themselves 
 unmitigated partisans of the secular bases of our 
 economic system." 
 
 The analogy drawn by M. Kovalewsky between the 
 passion excited by economic problems in France at 
 the close of the eighteenth century and that observable 
 in Russia at the end of the nineteenth century is in- 
 teresting, but the explanation which he gives of the 
 Russian interest in such matters is insufficient. He is 
 not correct in saying that people became enamoured 
 of economics because the Government would not allow 
 them to meddle in politics. The interest in matters 
 of economics was due to two factors : in the first 
 place, to the fact that after the suppression of serf- 
 dom in 1 80 1 Russia entered upon a period of very 
 intense commercial, industrial, and financial activity, 
 which could not fail to draw the attention of all open 
 minds ; and in the second place, because economic 
 questions were inseparable from political questions, so 
 that at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning 
 of the twentieth century parties were divided on both 
 political and economic principles, a certain political 
 system being always attached to a certain economic 
 system ; and the adherent to the one system was neces- 
 sarily a supporter of the other. A narodnik belongs 
 to a given school of economics, and also to a given 
 
 22
 
 338 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 school of politics. The term "Marxist" denotes not 
 merely a supporter of Marx's doctrine of " economic 
 materialism/' but also a member of the Social-Demo- 
 cratic party. 
 
 These two beliefs — Populism and Marxism — literally 
 monopolized the minds of the Russian democrats before 
 the movement of 1905. The entire youth of Russia 
 was caught in the cogs of the theoretical conflict to 
 which they devoted themselves. Their divergences were 
 principally on account of the following points : — 
 
 What is the Russian type of economic development? 
 Is it identical with that of Western Europe, or different? 
 
 What, in particular, is the future of rural economy 
 and the mir in Russia? 
 
 What is the role of the peasantry, of the bourgeoisie, 
 of the industrial proletariat, and of the intellectual 
 world? What, in general, is the role of the individual 
 in history? 
 
 All these questions, abstract and theoretical at first 
 sight, were in reality of great practical importance, 
 because the political parties regulated their programmes 
 and their tactics according to the response which they 
 received, which, of course, varied according to the social 
 mentality of those who responded. 
 
 Thus between 1870 and 1885, in the opinions and 
 actions of the revolutionaries were perceptible the 
 characteristics of the educated classes from which they 
 were exclusively recruited : extreme rationalism and 
 an exaggerated idea of the role of " personality ' in 
 social life. On the other hand, these same men adopted 
 the thesis of Bakunin respecting the communist 
 mentality of the popular masses in Russia. According 
 to the resulting theory, it is they who are the conscious 
 upholders of the same communist ideal which is, so 
 to speak, innate in the masses of the Russian popula- 
 tion. 1 They have, therefore, only to draw closer to 
 
 1 An analogous idea is developed by Prince Kropotkin in his Modern 
 Science and Anarchy, in which he regards anarchy as a thing which 
 " does not come from the Universities, but from the creative energy
 
 IDEALS 33« 
 
 the people, to descend into the depths of the peoplo. 
 there to carry on propaganda, distribute pamphlets, and 
 sow revolt. 
 
 Russian literature has kept the record of this great 
 attempt at communion : — 
 
 A passport, a wallet, 
 
 A baker's dozen of " publications," 
 
 Sturdy legs, 
 
 Many places, many dreams. 
 
 Fields and meadows, 
 
 Clearings, the wealth of nature, 
 
 Empty roads, 
 
 The distress in the peasants' houses : 
 
 But in every house 
 
 Bread is ready for the " traveller " ; 
 
 Eagerly the people listen 
 
 The words of truth. 
 
 In the villages are gendarmes, 
 
 Fines, duties, taxes. 
 
 " There will be a revolution, little brothers ! " 
 
 One hears on every side as they talk.' 
 
 But the poetic records were fairer than the effective 
 results of the propaganda. In vain did the " intel- 
 lectuals " mingle with the people and summon the 
 peasants to " revolt " ; with rare exceptions the 
 peasants, to whom the agitators attributed " a collective 
 cranium," refused to bestir themselves or revolted 
 against the propagandists, tying their hands and pre- 
 senting them to the authorities. This revolutionary 
 campaign among the peasants miscarried, not, as might 
 be supposed, because they could not understand it, nor 
 
 of the people," and at the same time as "an attempt to apply general- 
 izations acquired by the inductive method of the natural sciences to 
 the appreciation of human institutions, and to divine, taking its stand 
 on this appreciation, the future progress of humanity along the path 
 of liberty, equality, and fraternity, for the greatest possible happiness 
 of each unit of human society" {Modem Science and Anarchy, London' 
 
 I 901). 
 
 1 M. Mouravsky, Among the People (poem written in 1874).
 
 340 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 because they were indifferent to " politics." The 
 majority of the propagandists did not seek to excite 
 the political susceptibilities of the Russian population, 
 but its economic aspirations. Many of them believed, 
 with Proudhon and Bakunin, that the labouring masses 
 have nothing to do with politics or changes in the 
 system of government. The germ of this theory is 
 to be found in Herzen's Open Letters to Linton, a 
 well-known English writer, in which he states that 
 if the Russian people one day revolts it will not be 
 to replace the tyranny of a Tsar by that of a Presi- 
 dent or a bourgeois Parliament, but to attain a " verit- 
 able and complete " liberty. This true political 
 nihilism, which puts all systems and all governments 
 into the same basket, reflects both the anarchism of 
 Europe and the indifference of the contemporary 
 Russian peasant. The " Bakunists " beheld in it a 
 proof of the communist mentality of the Russian people, 
 which, according to them, should already have under- 
 stood the vanity of all political transformations, so 
 that they would accept only a social revolution. 
 
 Russia's backwardness was reacted into superiority 
 over Europe. 
 
 The Marxists, who attacked the " anarchizing " move- 
 ment of the narodnitshestvo, were easily able to demon- 
 strate that the reality did not correspond with the 
 imaginings of the " propagandists," and that the Com- 
 munist movement, starting from Europe, was born of 
 the resistance of the workers to the capitalist system, 
 while the Russian peasants were still living in the 
 pre-capitalist age. On the other hand, the Russian 
 peasant, who readily accepted the idea of a " just dis- 
 tribution " of the soil when the property of the great 
 landowners was at stake, will have none of it when his 
 own property is concerned. Moreover, the communal 
 possession of the soil does not signify any sort of 
 actual communism, for while possessing the soil in 
 common the peasants cultivate it individually ; and 
 individually they profit by the product of their labours.
 
 IDEALS 341 
 
 We must not, therefore, count on the " collective 
 cranium " of the moujik to effect a social revolu- 
 tion. We must look to the industrial proletariat for 
 that. 
 
 The check suffered by the " descent " of the intel- 
 lectuals upon the rural districts proved that the Marxists 
 were right. 
 
 But as between 1870 and 1880 the Russian prole- 
 tariat was as yet neither sufficiently strong nor 
 sufficiently numerous to inspire Russian thinkers with 
 the hope that their aspirations were soon to be satisfied, 
 they preferred to choose another " shorter " way : the 
 way of conspiracies and of terrorism. 
 
 As early as 1875 a revolutionary organ (Nabat, 
 which is to say The Tocsin) protested vigorously against 
 the anti-State theory of the " Bakunists," opposing their 
 federalistic ideas by the idea of a centralized revolu- 
 tion, which would take the form of a coup d'etat. 
 
 " In the West, as at home," said the Nabat, " we 
 observe two movements ; one is purely Utopian, federa- 
 tive, and anarchist ; the other is realistic, centralizing, 
 and ' statist.' Failing the forcible capture of the 
 governmental power by the revolutionary party, no solid 
 or radical changes in the existing social order are 
 possible." • 
 
 But the people were not yet capable of seizing the 
 reins of power. This was not an obstacle, as a 
 " revolutionary minority " might do so for the people. 
 
 " It goes without saying that the fewer revolutionary 
 elements there are in the people, and the smaller the 
 dimensions of its revolutionary energy, the smaller must 
 be its part in the realization of the social revolution, 
 and the greater must be the role, the power, and the 
 influence of the revolutionary minority. . . . The revo- 
 lutionary minority, having liberated the people from 
 the yoke of the terror and awe with which the Govern- 
 
 • Cited from P. Lavrov's The Propagandist Narodniki of the Years 
 1873-78 (Petersburg, 1907), p. 172.
 
 42 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 ment inspired it, would provide it with the possibility of 
 manifesting its revolutionary power of destruction. . . . 
 The revolutionary minority, profiting by the destructive 
 power of the people, would destroy the enemies of 
 the revolution, and, basing itself upon the general spirit 
 of the positive ideal of the people (that is, on its 
 conservative energies), would lay the foundation of a 
 new and rational social order." 1 
 
 The distrust with which the ideologists of this " revo- 
 lutionary minority " regarded the people was so great 
 that they declared that " never, neither to-day nor in 
 the future, would the people, left to itself, be capable 
 of effecting a social revolution. We alone, the revolu- 
 tionary minority, might achieve it, and we mast do 
 so as soon as possible." 
 
 V 
 
 The Marxist critics of this theory of the " revolu- 
 tionary minority " have pointed out the fact that it 
 is by no means original, but that its prototype is to 
 be found, on the one hand, in Jacobinism, and on the 
 other in the ideas and activities of Auguste Blanqui, 
 who also believed that a small number of well-organized 
 revolutionaries might, at a propitious moment, make 
 an attempt which would be crowned by success. And 
 the theory of the revolutionary minority is known in the 
 history of the socialist movement in Russia as Russian 
 Blanquism. But Russian Blanquism was more " Blan- 
 quist " than Blanqui himself. We know that 
 Blanqui, extreme revolutionary though he was, had 
 the sense to wait when it was necessary, and even to 
 restrain his more impatient comrades. The leaders 
 of Russian Blanquism used to tell their disciples : " The 
 people is always ready for the revolution. . . . Wait? 
 Have we the right to wait? We shall tolerate no waiting, 
 no delay. . . . We cannot, we will not wait ! . . . 
 Let each take that which he has, as speedily as may 
 be, and move forward ! " 
 
 1 Cited from P. Lavrov, op. cit. pp. 173-4.
 
 IDEALS 343 
 
 The contributors to the Blanquist organ declared 
 any person to be a renegade who, belonging to the 
 revolutionary party, did not believe in the possibility 
 of an immediate revolution. 
 
 The Russian " Blanquists ' sought to justify their 
 tactics by aid of highly original arguments. Notably 
 they asserted that these tactics were best suited to 
 the national conditions of Russia . Their leader, Peter 
 Tkatshev, expounded these arguments in his open letter 
 to Friedrich Engels : — 
 
 " .We in Russia have at our disposal none of those 
 means of revolutionary conflict which you possess in 
 the West. . . . We have neither urban proletariat, nor 
 liberty of the Press, nor national representation. . . . 
 We cannot think, in our country, of publications for 
 the workers ; but even if they were possible they would 
 be useless, as the majority of our people cannot read." 
 But all this does not mean that the victory of the 
 social revolution is more problematical in Russia than 
 in the West. By no means ! "We have no urban 
 proletariat, it is true ; also there is no bourgeoisie. No 
 middle class, in Russia, divides the suffering people 
 from the despotism of the State which oppresses it ; 
 our workers can only bring political force into the 
 battle ; the power of capital, with us, is still 
 embryonic." ' 
 
 " Our revolutionary party of intellectuals is not 
 numerous, it is true. But it pursues none but socialist 
 ideals, and its enemies are still more powerless than 
 it. . . . Our Government appears strong only from 
 a distance. In reality its strength is fictitious and 
 imaginary. It has no roots in the economic life of the 
 people. . . . Among you Europeans the State stands 
 with both feet on capital. With us it is suspended 
 in the air." 
 
 This wholly unreal and erroneous theory was matched 
 by equally erroneous and ineffectual practical applica- 
 tions : men believed in the possibility of changing 
 
 • Cited from Plekhanov's Our Dissensions (Petersburg, 1906), p. 47.
 
 344 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 the system of government by means of conspiracies 
 and acts of terrorism. The whole of the close of 
 Alexander II's reign was marked by plots and attempts 
 upon the Tsar, who was killed on the ist of March 
 1 88 1. But the violent death of Alexander II demon- 
 strated in the most obvious fashion how useless were 
 the efforts of the conspirators and terrorists. The 
 autocracy emerged from the crisis not enfeebled, but 
 stronger than before. 
 
 But twenty years later, at the beginning of the 
 present century, we witnessed a revival of political 
 terrorism in Russia. The Revolutionary Socialist party, 
 which continues the tradition of the old narodnitshestvo, 
 makes terrorism one of its levers of action. It creates 
 " fighting organizations " and " flying columns," which 
 hunt down Grand Dukes, Ministers, Governors of 
 provinces, etc. But after some years of a highly 
 intensive terrorist campaign the political in- 
 efficacy of terrorism became obvious. More : we 
 may say that individual terrorism is more dangerous 
 to the party which employs it than to the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The tactics of individual terrorism weaken the effec- 
 tives of the revolutionary party, which loses its best 
 members, the most energetic and the most devoted ; 
 it weakens the organization and even the propaganda ; 
 for why waste time in organizing the labouring masses 
 if one can command an instrument so " effective " and 
 giving such rapid results as terrorism in the imagina- 
 tion of those who apply it? Again, terrorism offers 
 such scope to the agents- provocateurs that in the end 
 the whole organization of the party becomes a play- 
 thing in the hands of the secret police, which very 
 thing has happened to the Revolutionary Socialist party 
 in Russia. M. Bourtzev has shown that during more 
 than ten years all the central organisms of the party 
 were under the supervision, if not under the direction, 
 of a certain Azev, " the greatest provocateur in the 
 world."
 
 IDEALS 345 
 
 The dismal history of the terrorist organization of 
 the Revolutionary Socialist party provoked a reaction 
 against the tactics of terrorism among the members 
 of the party itself. In 1909 (subsequently to the revela- 
 tions of Bourtzcv), at the meeting of the council of 
 this party, some of the delegates declared against the 
 terrorist method, and proposed that the party should 
 officially renounce it. In support of this proposal they 
 employed the arguments which are always employed 
 by the Marxists in their polemics against individual 
 terrorism. They stated that terrorism was at one time 
 plausible, that " it was imagined that the political con- 
 flict in Russia was of a Titanic character — that is, 
 that it partook of the character of the struggle of 
 a group of individuals against another group of 
 individuals " ; but actually " when the political struggle 
 has become a class conflict " one cannot allow terrorism, 
 because an act of individual terrorism cannot change 
 the social system. 1 
 
 However, the majority of the party leaders would not 
 admit this argument, and decided to retain terrorism, 
 if not in practice, at least in principle. 
 
 It must be mentioned (as I have already said in 
 Modern Russia) that the " principle " of individual 
 terrorism agrees with the mentality of an intellectual, 
 because an intellectual, not participating directly in 
 the material mechanism of economic life, and being 
 " independent " of it, is very slightly sensible of the 
 bond between him and the social mass, is inclined to 
 oppose his " personality " to society, and considers the 
 phenomena of social life as the manifestations of indi- 
 vidual wills. Seeing in the social organization a com- 
 bination of individuals, an intellectual easily comes to 
 believe that one may alter this organization by 
 suppressing such or such a person. 
 
 1 See the report of the Debates upon Terrorism in the Council of the 
 Russian Revolutionary Socialist Party, May 1909 (LeSocialiste Revolution- 
 naire, No. 2, Paris, 1910).
 
 346 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 VI 
 
 To understand the political mentality of a Russian 
 intellectual, we must have recourse to the works of 
 those writers who have formulated the social and moral 
 philosophy of Populism, above all the works of Peter 
 Lavrov and Nicholas Mikhailovsky. 
 
 " How has history progressed? " asks Lavrov in 
 his celebrated Historic Letters. " What has pushed 
 it onward? Isolated personalities. . . . Energetic, 
 fanatical men, risking everything and ready to sacrifice 
 everything, are necessary. Martyrs are necessary, whose 
 real qualities and effective merits are often far sur- 
 passed by their legend. They will be endowed with 
 energy which they did not possess. The noblest 
 thoughts, the finest sentiments elaborated by their 
 disciples, will be put into their mouths. To the crowd 
 they will become an inaccessible ideal, impossible of 
 realization. But their story will inspire thousands of 
 men with the energy which is necessary for the con- 
 flict. . . . The number of those who perish does not 
 matter. Legend will multiply it to an extreme limit 
 . . . the whole of social progress depends on the 
 activity of isolated personalities." l 
 
 The same idea is expressed by another eminent 
 narodnik, N. Mikhailovsky, in his work on The Heroes 
 of the Craned. It is interesting to note that the theory 
 of " personalities which create history," which, in its 
 day, was popular in the West, receives a sort of local 
 colour in Russia. In particular, our narodniki assert 
 that in Russia the role of a " conscious personality ' 
 may be much more important than in Europe. Why? 
 Because the social environment of Russia is more 
 uniform, less varied. Therefore an idea or an example 
 may have a great power of contagion in such an 
 environment. As we see, a defect is once again trans- 
 formed into a virtue ; the uniformity and the unim- 
 
 1 P. Mirtov (pseudonym of Lavrov), Historical Letters (Petersburg, 
 1870), pp. 108, 109, 121.
 
 IDEALS 347 
 
 portant variation which are the proofs of a backward 
 condition become, for our narodniki, an advantage. 
 
 The problem of the role of personality in history is 
 narrowly connected with the philosophy of history in 
 general. It was especially upon this point that the 
 discussion between the narodniki and the Marxists was 
 centred. The narodniki declared that the objective, 
 determinist method offered by Marxism for the ex- 
 planation and appreciation of historical phenomena is 
 not sufficient, that it must be replaced by the sub- 
 jective or ethical method. A historian must be at 
 the same time a moralist, said Mikhailovsky. He must 
 not only establish the causes and consequences of events, 
 but must judge them according to its ethical and social 
 ideal. 
 
 This historical and moralizing " subjectivism " is in 
 reality merely a form of dualism in historical and social 
 science. We shall find this dualism again in the 
 Nihilists. Materialistic monists in the natural sciences, 
 they were spiritualists and dualists in the domain of 
 history and sociology, and in Pisarev we find almost 
 the same subjectivist conception of philosophy as in 
 Mikhailovsky. But Pisarev felt that the subjective 
 method as applied to the social science was in contra- 
 diction to the materialistic monism of the naturalistic 
 philosophy. Not knowing how to resolve this contra- 
 diction, Pisarev simply excluded the social sciences 
 (geography, anthropology, and statistics excepted) from 
 the domain of " exact " and positive sciences. Mikhail- 
 ovsky did worse — he sought to legitimize the subjective 
 and anti-scientific method in the social sciences. 
 
 The Russian Marxists believed, on the contrary, that 
 they ought to continue the materialistic tradition, and 
 apply it to the social sciences and to the philosophy of 
 history. fThey declared that ideals are only a forecast 
 of historical necessity, and that any attempt to construct 
 a social ideal outside this forecast is futile. Human 
 ideals are determined by social conditions, not by class 
 interests. Those ideals are justifiable and progressive*
 
 348 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 which belong to the progressive classes. As the indus- 
 trial proletariat is a class of the future, and one of the 
 most progressive forces, it is the ideal of this class 
 which must be accepted and defended by all those who 
 wish to contribute to the progress of humanity. But 
 as the industrial proletariat develops and becomes more 
 and more numerous, powerful, and conscious as capital- 
 ism develops, a true partisan of progress and the revo- 
 lution cannot uphold in any measure an institution 
 which places obstacles in the way of this development. 
 
 From this point of view the Marxists pronounced 
 against all attempts to artificially maintain the mir, 
 while the narodniki even demanded a special legis- 
 lation to maintain it. The Marxists declared vain all 
 the socialistic hopes which the narodniki based on the 
 peasants, and easily demonstrated that the peasants 
 did not represent a single social class ; that in the 
 interior of the rural commune an economic differentia- 
 tion has come about, and a social conflict has developed. 
 They also oppose the idea that the " intellectuals " 
 constitute a separate social group, and assert that class 
 conflicts and class mentality are reflected in the ideology 
 of the various groups of intellectuals. 
 
 The conflict between the narodniki and the Marxists 
 was extremely violent. The narodniki interpreted the 
 economic determinism of the Marxists as a form of 
 admiration of capitalism, and accused them of being 
 friends of the exploiting classes. 
 
 The insurrection of 1905 put these two doctrines to 
 the test. The narodnitshestvo was divided, during and 
 after the revolution of 1905, into three different cur- 
 rents ; and this division very plainly revealed the weak 
 points of the movement. Its left wing, inspired by the 
 idea that personality " creates " history, and that the 
 laws of capitalistic evolution are not applicable to 
 Russia, adopted a sort of anarchism, proclaiming the 
 ' maximalist " theory, according to which Russia might 
 immediately, without any delay, realize the maximum 
 programme of the Socialist party ; that is to say, might
 
 IDEALS 349 
 
 bring about a social revolution and leap directly from 
 the semi-feudal autocratic regime into the Socialist 
 Paradise. The "maximalists" began to effect the 
 " social revolution " by inviting the workers to possess 
 themselves of the factories and workshops, and by 
 forming " groups " which committed acts of terrorism 
 and expropriation. This movement very soon degene- 
 rated into simple brigandage. 
 
 The right wing of the narodnitshestvo, on the other 
 hand, assumed the character of a peasants' party, not 
 particularly socialistic, but extremely democratic as far 
 as its political programme was concerned. The Labour 
 group in the Duma and the " Popular Socialist " group 
 represent this tendency. The " Centre " of the narod- 
 nitshestvo, represented by the official organizations of 
 the Revolutionary Socialist party, remains the guardian 
 of the orthodox doctrine of the movement. Its pro- 
 gramme is an eclectic mixture of communal federalism 
 of a semi-Bakunist type and State Centralism, and 
 the naive belief in the " communist " sentiments of the 
 members of the rural mir and the desires of the indus- 
 trial proletariat. The disintegration of the party con- 
 tinues ; certain of its elements are inclining toward the 
 " Labourites," others toward the Anarchists, and others 
 toward Social Democracy. 
 
 As for Social Democracy, it remains far more united, 
 from the point of view of theory, than the narodnit- 
 shestvo. But in Russian Social Democracy there are 
 also internal movements. Even before the Revolution 
 of 1905 there were lively disputes among the Russian 
 Marxists. Some of those who had accepted the Marxist 
 doctrine afterwards found it necessary to " revise ' it. 
 They renounced historical materialism, returning to the 
 metaphysical conceptions of Kant or of Nietzsche. 
 Many of the leaders of the Liberal movement in Russia 
 (such as Peter Struve, founder of the " Cadet " party) 
 formed their present ideology by means of revising 
 Marxism . 
 
 After the Revolution of 1905 we witness a new
 
 350 RUSSIA AND EUROPE 
 
 " revision " of the Marxist doctrine. But this time 
 it is not based upon the philosophy of Kant or of 
 Nietzsche, but on " Machism," that is, on the ideas of 
 Ernst Mach, a well-known Viennese physician. This 
 attempt did not meet with much success. The 
 " Machists " were received by the violent criticism 
 of the orthodox Marxists, and Plekhanov in particular. 
 Thirty years earlier the chief duty of upholding Marxist 
 ideas in Russia had fallen upon him, and he had 
 acquitted himself with the greatest brilliancy. 
 " Machism " recruited a few disciples among the 
 intellectuals, but the Social-Democratic workers 
 remained indifferent to it. 
 
 As to their theoretical opinions the Socialist workers 
 in general are far more stable and conservative in 
 Russia than the " intellectuals." From the moment 
 when Social-Democratic Marxism 1 had penetrated the 
 labour world, it acquired a very strong position. Russia, 
 who gave to the world Marx's most powerful enemy, 
 Bakunin, has become, by the irony of history, in respect 
 of its Socialist proletariat, one of the chief fortresses of 
 Marxism. But, as I have elsewhere remarked, Marxism 
 and Russian Social Democracy are not identical in 
 German eyes. 
 
 The Russian Marxists are fond of saying that the 
 true revolutionary Marxism is a synthesis of three 
 elements : the dialectic philosophy of Germany, the 
 revolutionary practice of France, and the history of 
 economic evolution in England. Generally speaking, 
 the Russian Socialists and Revolutionists are to-day 
 divided, in the matter of tactics, into two schools:) 
 those who want to " speak German," that is, they 
 recommend a gradual organization and a reforming 
 opportunism, and those who wish to " speak French," 
 that is, those who prefer that the revolutionary impulses 
 of the popular masses should work out their own 
 destinies. The adherents of the " French method " are 
 in the majority among the more thoughtful elements 
 of the party.
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 We have followed the development of the relations 
 between Russia and Europe, and the diffusion of Euro- 
 pean influences in the various domains of the material, 
 social, political, and intellectual life of the Russian 
 people. We have seen that the influence of European 
 elements in Russia is already several centuries old, and 
 is very extensive— more so, perhaps, than Europeans 
 themselves believe. 
 
 The facts expounded in the present work show that 
 the destinies of Russia are closely bound up with the 
 future of Europe. Not only in the sense that Europe has 
 struck indestructible roots in the economic domain and 
 the political life of Russia, but also because for Russia 
 the general type of life and historic evolution is the same 
 as for the West. 
 
 Of course, we cannot say that the Europeanization of 
 Russia is already accomplished. Economically speak- 
 ing, that is, as regards the forms of labour and ex- 
 change, it is already complete in Russian industry, and 
 more or less complete in Russian commerce. In rural 
 exploitation it is still very incomplete. 
 
 But it is especially the political system of Russia 
 which is out of date and too Oriental, and which con- 
 sequently offers a striking contrast with that of the 
 European States. At the present moment, then, it is 
 to the political system that the process of Europeaniza- 
 tion must be extended, in order to adapt it to the 
 economic environment, and to subject it to the con- 
 science and aspirations of society. This conscience is 
 well expressed by these words of Dostoievsky's :— 
 
 351
 
 352 CONCLUSION 
 
 ".We Russians have two countries: our Russia, and 
 Europe." 
 
 What do we need? That our country shall cease tq 
 be a European Russia and shall become a Russian 
 Europe. This formula synthetizes what is good in 
 Russia and in Europe. Its realization will allow Russia 
 to work in common with other European countries for 
 the future of the human species. 
 
 /> 
 
 Printed in Great Britain by 
 
 UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON
 
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