CHAPTER FIVE
§ 29.
RUSSIANS are still fond of speaking of "the sixties," and usually refer in this connection to "the forties" as well. Unquestionably as a sequel of the liberation of the peasantry and determined by that liberation, national energies were unchained, and in all domains more vigorous activities and endeavours became manifest. The changes resulting from the reform of 1861 can be seen and measured in literature and journalism. Censorship grew less severe, the bureaucracy had certain definite tasks to execute, by reform alone could the army make head after its defeats. Ideas and programs, work and achievement, were generally expected, demanded, and to some extent supplied.
The men whom Europe now counts as leading figures in the Russian branch of world literature produced their most notable writings during the reign of Alexander II and during the opening years of that of Alexander III. The masterpieces of Dostoevskii and of Turgenev were published under Alexander II; and during this epoch Saltykov, Gončarov, Pisemskii, Lěskov, Nekrasov, Ostrovskii, and L. N. Tolstoi, were also active.
The rise of the so-called ethnographic literature, and in especial of the imaginative analysis of folk life, is organically connected with the liberation of the peasantry. In the late forties we have Turgenev and Grigorovič. Uspenskii, Zlatovratskii, and a number of novelists, must also be mentioned, men who studied the life of various regions in Russia, a country enormously variegated alike ethnographically and socially (Levitov, Jakuskin, Mel'nikov, Rěšetnikov, Pomjalovskii, and many others). All of those just named were "poets with a purpose," for the widespread distresses of the day forced upon thinking men an endeavour to overcome traditional evils and a desire to criticise proposals for reform. But besides the writers of this trend, there were a few men of note who inclined rather to cultivate art for art's sake, and among them I may name Aleksěi Tolstoi and Apollon Maikov.
After the death of Nicholas, the censorship, political and religious, became milder and more liberal. A. Nikitenko, author and censor, who had had personal experience of the bonds of serfdom (he had been liberated by his lord, Count Šeremetev, upon the recommendation of Žukovskii and others after he had already become known to the public}, in his Diary, a well known work, indicated the accession of Alexander II on February 18,1855, as the landmark of a-new epoch. Now Nikitenko was well acquainted with the Russian censorship. It cannot be said that the government showed any undue haste to prove itself liberal. Preventive censorship upon large books was not abolished in the capital until 1855, nor until after the press had made special representations to the ministry for home affairs. But this much, at last resulted from the preparatory work, during the first ten years of the new reign, for the liberation of the serfs and for the subsequent carrying out of that reform, that the ensuing reaction, whilst it could contest endeavours towards liberty, could no longer suppress these so effectively as had been possible under Nicholas.
Owing to the comparative freedom of the press and of literature, the various philosophical and historical trends, the various conceptions of Russia and of the tasks that lay before her, could develop more freely and could secure fuller expression under Alexander II. Ideas were now printed which during the reign of Nicholas had been discussed only in private.
During the reign of Alexander II and during that of his successor, there existed comparative freedom for the literary expression of political and social ideas. The novel now became a forum for the sociological analysis of society and its evolution, verse yielding place to prose.
The position secured by criticism through the work of Bělinskii was maintained, and the opposition to official Russia was continued. In this connection must be mentioned the names of many authors unknown in Europe, those of Maikov and Miljutin, the Comtists, those of Družinin, Annenkov, etc. The realists of the sixties exercised great influence, above all Černyševskii, Dobroljubov, and Pisarev. Next to them comes Mihailovskii, whose work as critic continued for more than thirty years.
Conservative and reactionary literature was notably weaker than progressive literature, alike quantitatively and qualitatively.
Characteristic of the epoch and of its consolidating character are the historico-philosophical investigations which form the content and purport of Černyševskii's novel What is to be Done? whose title sums up the whole problem. The book in question is devoted to an account of these various philosophical doctrines, but in the present historical sketch no more than a brief reference can be made to the different trends.
The contrast between Russia and Europe, between Old Russia and New, between Moscow and St. Petersburg, is represented by two parties, the slavophils (Kirěevskii, Homjakov, etc.) and the westerners (Čaadaev, etc.). The počvenniki, those whose leading interest was the land (počva, soil), occupy an intermediate position; so also do the narodniki, who take their stand upon the common people and upon the folk institutions of mir and artel.
Černyševskii marched forward to the adoption of western socialism; so did Herzen, whose "Kolokol" was at this time exercising considerable influence abroad. Side by side with Herzen, and sometimes in conjunction with him, Bakunin became representative of revolutionary socialism and anarchism.
The conservative and reactionary tendency, led in the journalistic world by Katkov, found a spokesman in Pobědonoscev, and in Dostoevskii as well.
Alike practically and theoretically, the alternative between Old and New Russia assumed a critical phase in the appearance of nihilism and in the discussion of these various revolutionary tendencies. Nihilism was peculiarly characteristic of the reform epoch of the sixties and of the next decade. The philosophical significance of Dostoevskii is to be found in his contest with nihilism. In a special section of the present studies independent treatment of this question will be undertaken.
It is further necessary to point out that theology, too, was influenced by the philosophic movement. Symptomatic of the time was the resignation of a professorship of theology in the year 1854 by Eliseev, subsequently a noted journalist. Buharev was one of the most distinguished liberal theologians of the day. In 1846 he had become monk and professor, but in the year 1863 he abandoned monasticism, relinquished his priesthood, and married, supporting himself precariously by journalistic work. To these external details of his personal history there corresponded a rich inner spiritual life, a struggle against faith in the letter, and a development of inclinations towards the world and worldly literature forbidden to the monk. Buharev's superiors and the synod opposed his teachings, with the assistance of reactionary writers, and above all with that of Askočenskii.
Western philosophy and literature, which had so powerfully affected the Russians during the days of Alexander I and Nicholas, continued its work, its influence being yet further increased by the vigorous impulsion of English philosophy. Positivism, in especial, secured in Russia numerous and congenial adepts. The positivism of Feuerbach, by which Herzen, Bělinskii, and Bakunin were decisively affected, was now deliberately carried a stage further under the influence of French and English positivism, and in particular under that of Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill. The writings of Spencer and Darwin and of the evolutionists in general, likewise came before long to play their part.
From 1848 onwards German philosophy was continually at work through the writings of Hegel and Feuerbach, and through those of the anti-reactionary materialists, Vogt, Büchner, and Moleschott. During these years Schopenhauer had great influence in Russia.
The French socialist doctrine of the thirties and the forties was alter 1848 rendered more precise (if I may use the term) by German socialism. Lassalle's thought was based upon that of Hegel; the thought of Marx and Engels was based upon that of Hegel and Feuerbach. As thinkers and socialist organisers, Lassalle, Marx, and Engels exercised decisive influence upon the more revolutionary Russians, and especially upon those who were in a position to study socialistic organisation abroad. Russian emigrants became acquainted with, and in part received their political education in, the international and the working-class organisations founded by Lassalle and the Marxists.
Like Marx and Engels, Stirner wielded some influencein Russia, but that of French socialism was more extensive.
The influence of Young Germany must here be given due weight, not forgetting its manifestations in the field of literature, and Heine's writings in especial. But all the similar movements had their effect upon Young Russia: Young Italy; Young Poland; the Mazzinist organisation known as Young Europe; and the analogous movements in France, Belgium, Spain, etc. Even before 1848, but still more after that year, during the epoch of reaction, Russian political refugees entered into association with German and other refugees in Switzerland, Paris, and London.
All these influences continued to affect the aristocracy, but the bourgeois intelligentsia was now increasing notably in numbers. The intelligentsia reacted upon the mužik, inclining the latter to the adoption of similar ideals. The mužik may be conservative or progressive, but is in any case oppositional and even revolutionary in outlook, as is shown by frequent revolts. The mužik is as a rule illiterate, but reading is not everything. He thinks and observes, doing these things often no less successfully than his cultured teachers. The mužik notes the technical changes and improvements rendered possible by scientific progress, he has a word with an official, an officer, a merchant, a commercial traveller; he hears what is going on in "Piter" (St. Petersburg); sometimes he reads, and passes on the result to his fellows. Ex-villagers return to see him from the town; as workman and as soldier he makes the acquaintance of a wider world; he has personal experience of the arbitrariness of officials and the indifference of popes; he experiences hunger and suffering, and again suffering and hunger—he becomes oppositional and revolutionary.
When, therefore, at the beginning of the seventies the members of the intelligentsia originated the movement "towards the people," among whom they lived as teachers, writers, workmen, etc., and when they began their practical propaganda of enlightenment, they found the soil prepared. It is an error to assert that the stimulating activities of these narodniki had no effect.
Thus the Russian mužik, no less than the intellectual, had his crisis to traverse; and in the case of the peasant it was natural that this crisis should manifest itself chiefly in the domain of religion. The oppositional influence of the raskol has never ceased, but of late there has been superadded the influence of European Protestantism, which has begun to affect large masses of the peasantry. During the sixties stundism became diffused in the south; during the seventies came stundobantism (now neo-stundism); other and analogous religious movements arose among the common people. In St. Petersburg, Lord Radstock and above all Paškov secured adherents. The religious aims of Tolstoi gathered all these tendencies to a single focus as it were, and for Tolstoi as for so many others the mužik was teacher.
Thus did the religious rationalism of the mužik take its place beside the positivism and nihilism of the intelligentsia. In his novel Pavel Rudenko, the Stundist, Stepniak (Kravčinskii) gives an accurate picture of this association, describing the way in which the believing stundist mužik makes common cause with the revolutionary student.
§ 30.
IN the political field, during the reign of Alexander II, progressively minded persons aimed at the inauguration of a constitution.
This idea was in conformity with decabrist tradition, which had been vigorously maintained by such refugee journalists as N. Turgenev and Herzen. As we have learned, in Russia as elsewhere, revolutionary political hopes were awakened by the year 1848, and were not destroyed by subsequent reaction. On the contrary, the desire for popular representation was stimulated by European example, for at the end of the fifties even reactionary Austria had to accept constitutionalism. The net result of 1848 was to teach the Russians that not the French alone, but likewise the Prussians and Germans beloved of Nicholas and his successor, had effected a revolution. After the liberation of the peasantry, Russia and her official hereditary enemy Turkey remained the sole absolutist countries, if we except a few insignificant freaks like Mecklenburg.
In the beginning of the sixties discontent with the internal situation became apparent in all strata and classes of the population. The liberation of the peasantry aroused considerable excitement upon its own account and its very incompleteness served to increase dissatisfaction. The mentality of those who regarded as inadequate the comparatively extensive liberties that had been secured is not difficult to understand. The granting of these liberties in all spheres of administration stimulated the desire for larger freedom.
It was at the universities that dissatisfaction first broke out, the initial political demonstration of the students occurring in St. Petersburg in 1860, at the grave of the actor Martynov. Similar demonstrations followed in other universities, the result being that in the year of liberation the university of St. Petersburg was closed. Most of the dismissed students adopted revolutionary views. Mihailov, a man of letters was arrested; an author named Avděev was expelled from St. Petersburg; excitement grew. The first constitutionalist secret society, "Velikorus" (Great Russia) was founded in 1861. It had a secret printing press and issued a few leaflets. In 1862 came into existence a secret society known as "Zemlja i Volja" (Land and Freedom, the name adopted also by a later and better known society). An Address to the younger Generation had been issued as early as 1861. The proclamation Young Russia now appeared preaching revolution and a socialist republic. Černyševskii and Pisarev were arrested.
Unquestionably this movement was associated with the preparations for the Polish rising.
In some of the administrative districts members of the nobility publicly advocated the establishment of constitutional government and sent memorials to the tsar asking that the zemskii sobor should be summoned. The nobles of the Tver district adopted this course in 1862.
The suppression of the Polish revolt was the prelude to a declared reaction, of which Katkov was the chief leader amongst men of culture. The Poles were deprived of their constitutionalist rights; in 1864 Polish administration, previously distinct, was amalgamated with that of Russia; simultaneously the peasants were openly supported against the Polish aristocracy. Reaction was intensified because many Russians participated in the rising; and also because Herzen, influenced by the suggestions of Bakunin, espoused the cause of the Poles.
Russiffication speedily extended from Poland to other non-russian areas, beginning in 1869 with the Baltic provinces.
It is true that administrative reforms were undertaken, but the way in which they were carried out was soon influenced by the spirit of reaction. The resolute character of the retrograde movement was displayed in 1864 by the condemnation of Černyševskii, the most popular of progressive writers, who was exiled to Siberia. Pisarev was sentenced to imprisonment in a fortress. The secret society of which Karakozov was a leading spirit was now formed, and in 1866 took place the first attempt on the life of Alexander II. Whilst reaction became intense and more deliberate, opposition in its turn became more energetic and increasingly revolutionary. It grew ever plainer that the tsar was infirm of purpose, and his autocratic inclinations could not long be veiled in liberal phraseology. In 1869, Nečaev the Bakuninist was engaged in anarchistic plots which ended in the assassination of one of his own comrades, a student named Ivanov. Nečaev secured few adherents among progressive and revolutionary youth in general; but in the early seventies began the propagandist activity of the cultural societies, the first group under Čaikovskii being exceptionally well organised. The political influence of western Europe became yet more marked. The example of the Paris commune, the growth of socialism and anarchism, and the widespread agitation carried on with the aid of clandestinely imported literature, exercised a stimulating and encouraging effect. An additional factor in the movement was the acquaintanceship young Russians had obtained with Europe and European universities. During the reign of Alexander II attendance at western universities was at first permitted on a more liberal scale than had been the case under Nicholas, and young people were not slow to avail themselves of the privilege. Russian students of both sexes visited Zurich by the hundred. In 1873 an order for their recall was suddenly issued, and Russia was thereby peopled by large numbers of persons belonging to the cultured opposition. From 1872 onwards propagandist activities were vigorous among the peasants ("towards the people"); propaganda among the operatives dates from a year earlier.
It can by no means be said that these efforts were guided by a uniform spirit. Individual groups (Societies for Self-Culture and Practical Activity) consisted of adherents of Bakunin, Herzen, Lavrov and Tkačev. The teachings of the narodniki, socialism and communism, liberalism and anarchism, were frequently disseminated by members of one and the same circle.
From 1874 the government openly attempted to suppress the entire movement. Hundreds of young men and women were imprisoned. After a lengthy term of preliminary arrest, which would sometimes last for years, the accused were tried in batches ("the trial of the fifty," "the trial of the hundred and ninety-three," etc.).
A new revolutionary party known as "Zemlja i Volja" was organised in 1876. The war with Turkey in 1877 increased revolutionary sentiment, for the incapacity and corruption that prevailed under the absolutist regime were continually coming to light. The bold deed of Věra Zasulič took place early in 1878 at the very time when the Russian army was close to Constantinople, and this gave the signal for open war. The shooting of General Trepov, prefect of St. Petersburg, had an exceptionally powerful effect because Věra Zasulič was tried by jury and acquitted. The shooting of Trepov in January was followed in August by Stepniak's assassination of Mezencev, chief of police.
In the following year (1879) the Zemlja i Volja was subdivided into the "Narodnaja Volja" (people's will) consisting of declared terrorists, and into the party which aimed at socialistic propaganda among peasants and operatives, this latter being known as "Černyi Peredel" (black redistribution—of the soil, to wit). The terrorists were led by the much talked of executive committee (Ispolnitel'nyi Komitet).
Once again the military and diplomatic failures of the Turkish war urged a change of front upon the absolutist government. The increase in public demonstrations, and still more the frequency of desperate and self-sacrificing attacks upon high dignitaries and upon the tsar himself, induced the reaction to reverse its policy. In 1878 there began a series of arbitrary and repressive measures. Administrative exile was increasingly frequent; courts martial were established in various districts; the entire population of the towns was subjected to supervision, concierges being made tools of the police; the governors were given extraordinary powers, and at length special governors-general were appointed with dictatorial authority. On November 2, 1879, the tsar issued an appeal to all classes to co-operate in the struggle against the terrorists, but in vain. With the appointment of Loris-Melikov as minister for home affairs (1880) there ensued a mitigation of the anti-revolutionary repressive measures, the Nicolaitan third section being abolished, the censorship rendered less severe, and so on. In addition Loris-Melikov designed the introduction of positive reforms in favour of the peasantry, and hoped to reform the administration, but it was too late.
On March 9, 1881, in a ukase to the minister for home affairs, the tsar approved what was known as the constitution of Count Loris-Melikov. The promulgation was postponed until the twelfth. When tidings of a new conspiracy reached him he ordered that on the following day (March 13th), the ukase should be published in the official gazette. On the 13th the "tsar liberator" was blown up by the bomb thrown by the peasant's son Rysakov at the very time when Loris-Melikov's proposal was handed in to the state printing office.
It is beyond dispute that Loris-Melikov had no idea of granting a constitution. His "dictatorship of the heart" amounted merely to the legal regulation of repressive measures, with an attempt to strengthen absolutism by reforming and cleansing the bureaucracy. "Preparatory committees" were to investigate the respective departments of the administration, and to draft proposals which would be submitted to a "general committee." Various members of the preparatory committee would be nominated by the tsar to the general committee, which would contain also delegates from the zemstvos and the larger towns (St. Petersburg and Moscow were to have two members each), and a few persons nominated from the administrative districts where there were no zemstvos. The general committee was to sit for no more than a specified period, and was to have deliberative powers only. After being passed by the general committee, the proposals were finally to be submitted to the council of state.
This can in no sense be regarded as a constitution. It was a conservative concession to the moderate supporters of the existing system. A similar scheme had been drafted by Count Valuev as far back as 1863, elaborated in 1866 by Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievič, rediscussed in the beginning of 1880 by the tsar and some of his advisers, and then rejected. It was the doom of Alexander that he should fail to make the concessions whose necessity he had recognised on ascending the throne.
§ 31.
AT the opening of his reign. Alexander III ordered that his father's intentions should be carried out unchanged, and that Loris-Melikov's constitution should be adopted. Speedily, however, he rescinded this resolution, and reactionary oppres- sion became dominant in all departments. This reaction took the form of exacting revenge for the murder of Alexander II, and it became known as the white terror.
Even the most rigid of legitimists must admit that immediately after the death of Alexander II the revolutionary executive committee issued a formal despatch to the tsar, admirably written, indicating that the granting of a constitution was the only means by which Russia could be tranquillised. As if in answer, on March 13th a "council of deputies" was created to collaborate with the prefect of St. Petersburg. This body, which had but a short life, was popularly known as the "rams' parliament," for the prefect of St. Petersburg was named Baranov, and baran is the Russian for ram. "Restrict education" was the tsar's formal command to the minister for education.
The manifesto in which Alexander promised to maintain and to strengthen the autocracy entrusted him by God, was described by Katkov as "the heavenly manna … which restores to Russia the Russian autocratic tsar, empowered by God and responsible to God alone."[1] In this spirit the administration was now centralised in such a way as to increase the strength of autocracy.
The election of justices of the peace was abolished; the competence of the jurors' courts was reduced; the zemstvos were placed under the supervision of the zemskie načal'niki (provincial authorities) and were aristocratised. Urban administration underwent similar modifications.
In August 1881 the police absolutism which had been introduced under Alexander II was strengthened and systematised by the regulation "concerning measures to protect civil order and to secure social tranquillity." This protection (ohrana) was of two kinds, "augmented" and an "extraordinary," the former being introduced for a year and the latter for six months. The minister for home affairs could, however, get the ministerial committee to prolong both varieties, and in actual fact Russia has remained under this “exceptional" regime since 1881.
Administrative repression was deliberately supported by the restriction of education which was desired by the tsar. Pobědonoscev came to reinforce the endeavours of Katkov; and Pobědonoscev, whose influence at court lasted until the close of the year 1905, did his utmost to enforce cæsaropapism against the revolution. He had been tutor to Alexander III (who himself acted as tutor to Nicholas II), and it was the spirit of Pobědonoscev, chief procurator of the holy synod that characterised the mental tendencies of the reaction.
He was the spiritual father of the church schools established in 1884. In the same year, owing to the continuous denunciations of Katkov, the universities were furnished with new statutes, reducing scientific studies to a minimum and practically suppressing the teaching of philosophy and sociology. The only permissible lectures on philosophy must relate to the doctrines of Plato, Aristotle, and their predecessors! Progressive professors were dismissed, to be replaced by persons whose views were agreeable to the government, and the wearing of uniform was reintroduced for the students. Nevertheless, in 1888, a university was founded at Tomsk in Siberia.
The middle schools were closely supervised. During the reign of Alexander II the reaction had already begun to work its will in this domain. Count Tolstoi, in 1865 chief procurator of the holy synod, and minister for education from 1866 to 1880, carried out his celebrated classicist reform, which was enforced from 1871 to 1893. He declared war on the modern schools, and the old endeavour to play off classicism against the spirit of revolt was renewed. Schools for girls likewise suffered, for Count Pahlen, a reactionary, had discovered as early as 1874 that revolutionary propaganda was carried on mainly by women. A forcible argument had been furnished to the reactionaries by Sophie Perovskaja's participation in the assassination of the tsar. A few commercial and industrial schools were founded for practical instruction.
Struggle furnished the philosophical foundations for progressive and liberal efforts and for conservatives and reactionaries nihilism ever remained the enfant terrible. To give the government a freer hand in this contest, a few concessions were made in other fields. It was characteristic that during the era of Pobědonoscev the raskolniki were treated with more toleration, and from 1884 onwards their cult was officially sanctioned. On the other hand, extreme intolerance was displayed towards Jews and Catholics.
Russification continued in the frontier territories, whilst army and civil administration were energetically nationalised.[2]
During the years 1881 to 1883 numerous antijewish mogroms occurred in the south.
In the reign of Alexander III, revolutionaries were treated with ruthless cruelty. Executions, it is true, were comparatively infrequent, numbering no more that twenty-six during the thirteen years Alexander was on the throne, but the treatment of prisoners and exiles was positively inhuman. In 1884, the fortress of Schlüsselburg was devoted to the punishment of the gravest political offences, and what went on within its walls has become known through numerous reports. The reinstated rod became a favourite instrument of justice. Political prisoners and Siberian exiles were abominably treated, all their natural human feelings being unsparingly outraged. In 1888 whole sections were simultaneously ill-used; in Yakutsk, in 1889, the martyred exiles offered active resistance and appealed to the veto of Europe, whereby the horrors were somewhat mitigated.
The revolutionaries carried a few plots to a successful conclusion and made two attempts on the life of the tsar. On the whole during the reign of Alexander III political depression and stagnation were conspicuous, not only in Russia, but also among the revolutionary parties working on Russia from abroad. The same statement applies to the Narodnaja Volja. The revolutionaries had become disheartened; many of them were abandoning the principles of terrorism and nihilism, and were experiencing an extensive reaction on their own account. The influence of Dostoevskii was increasingly felt in this direction, whilst Tolstoi's preaching against the use of violence was beginning to exercise considerable effect. The intelligentsia was devoting itself to the Consideration of religious questions, and was to a large extent inclining towards the adoption of an extremely nebulous ethical anarchism.
Still weaker during this epoch were the liberal secret organisations.[3]
During this epoch of reaction, which was likewise an epoch of internal transformation, the revolutionaries seemed paralysed. For years after 1884 they did practically nothing. Typical of this crisis was the conduct of the revolutionary leader Tihomirov, who went over into Katkov's camp. The Spread of Marxist ideas contributed to the paralysis of the terrorist movement. As early as 1878 Stepniak, the man who had stabbed Mezencev, wrote: "We are not fighting the state but the bourgeoisie." In 1883 the first party of declared Marxists was founded, under the name Liberation of Labour. Provisionally established in Geneva, it remained in close touch with the intelligentsia and the working classes of Russia.
The whole of cultured Russia was occupied during the eighties and has been occupied to the present day in considering the problems forced upon the attention by Marxism. Above all were people interested in the dispute between the narodniki and the Marxists concerning the economic and capitalistic development of Russia. It is incontestable that Russian revisionism (Struve) developed under the influence of the narodniki. A return from materialism to philosophic idealism was associated with the growth of revisionism. "Idealism," was the cry heard on all sides, "idealism versus materialism!"
This appeal came not only from the revisionists, but from the jurists as well (Novgorodcev), and above all from the advocates of that literary idealism, of that mystical religious movement which during recent years has been associated with the teachings of Dostoevskii and of the philosopher Solov'ev. A peculiar position in this connection is occupied by Leont'ev the theocrat, a man of original mind.
The development of the poet Čehov was characteristic of the political and social fatigue that prevailed during the reign of Alexander III. He ushered in the literary decadence, the movement known as neoidealism or neoromantism. Merežkovskii and Volynskii may be mentioned as representatives of this school, the former as poet and essayist, and the latter as critic.
Similar was the theological trend towards a "new learned monasticism," initiated by Dostoevskii and Ivan Aksakov. The writers of this school desired that the church should be liberated from the state in the interest of religion.
§ 32.
THE champions of reaction did not fail to recognise that the economic and financial regeneration of Russia was essential. Economic reform was to sustain and justify reaction. Tsar Alexander III led a far simpler life than his predecessors. Himself thrifty, he did not hesitate to check the extravagance of his relatives.
To restore order to the national finances, the ministers Bunge, Vyšnegradskii, and Witte increased the revenue by enhanced taxation and higher protective duties, and were able to overcome the deficit, although large sums were needed for the nationalisation of the railways. After the accession of Nicholas II, during the years 1895 to 1897, a large gold reserve having been accumulated, the gold standard was introduced.
Theocratic Russia, though spiritually exclusive, had to attract foreign and unchristian capital to the country, The reactionary tsar, nolens volens and despite the protective tariff system, had to pursue a Europeanising foreign policy. Owing to the ill success of the Turkish war conducted by Alexander II, his son was estranged from England and Germany. As we now know, after the Berlin congress Bismarck was quite erroneously regarded as the hereditary enemy ("the way to Constantinople is through the Brandenburg Gate"). The tariff war with Germany initiated in 1891 came to a speedy close in the autumn of 1893 with the suspension of the autonomous Russian tariff, and in January 1894 a most-favoured-nation treaty was concluded in Berlin. But with France Russia entered into an alliance, tsarist absolutism becoming leagued with the French republic, for in 1892 the Parisian bourse had extended its ægis over Russian paper.
Economic policy is apt to lead Russian diplomacy into difficulties. Since Germany is Russia's immediate neighbour, it is Germany that can supply Russia most freely and can buy from her most extensively. In actual fact Russia's trade with Germany is the largest; next comes England; China and the United States do more business with Russia than does France. The political factor is of great importance in international relationships.
Russia is still a predominantly agricultural country, with a mainly rural pepulation, although of late the growth of the towns and of manufacturing industry has been comparatively rapid.[4]
Under Alexander III and his successor the peasants were granted certain concessions. From 1883 onwards the poll tax was abolished by progressive stages (in Siberia not until 1899). But during the reign of Alexander III there was a great increase in indirect taxation. The Peasants' Bank founded in 1882 helped the peasants to acquire land, but the Nobles' Bank was of still greater assistance to the nobility. After the liberation a severe crisis affected the noble landowners, but the trouble had in truth begun before 1861, for about two-thirds of the owners of serfs were heavily indebted.
During the reign of Alexander III financial support and strengthening of the nobility became a deliberate policy. In 1883, in opposition to previous law and custom, a new law was promulgated concerning estates where the succession had failed. In future these estates were to accrue to the corporation of the nobility instead of to the state. The Nobles' Bank was founded in 1885, its aim being, as explained in its charter, to secure for the nobility the leading position in army, local administration, and judiciary, so that the example of the nobles might diffuse rules of faith and loyalty and establish sound principles of national culture.
In this spirit and with this aim financial privileges were continually being granted to the nobility, and it was in this spirit that the reforms of the period were conceived; but the government and the tsars, despite the best will in the world, could do little to help the nobles.[5]
Little, too, could be done to help the peasant, whose land hunger remains intense, and whose land is no less gravely burdened with debt than that of the great landowners.
The size of the peasant farm has been reduced through increase in population. The mean landholding per head of the male peasant population was in 1860, 4·8 desjatinas; in 1880, 3.5 desjatinas; and in 1900, 2·6 desjatinas.
Whilst land hunger has thus continually increased, since the liberation the price of land has more than doubled. The average price per desjatina of land was:
| 1868–1877 | . . | . . | . . | . . | . . | 19·1 | roubles |
| 1878–1887 | . . | . . | . . | . . | . . | 26·5 | {{{1}}}„ |
| 1888–1897 | . . | . . | . . | . . | . . | 42·5 | {{{1}}}„ |
It is by no means easy to appraise the actual position of the peasantry in respect of landownership in various regions to-day. But if we remember that on the average a peasant family requires 12·24 desjatinas for a satisfactory livelihood, it is evident that about three-fourths of the peasant families have insufficient land.
The land hunger of the Russian peasantry gives rise to a need for food which is chronic, with acute exacerbations. This is illustrated by the following data: 70·7 per cent of the peasants secure less from the land than would suffice for a decent existence; 20·4 per cent can feed themselves but cannot feed their stock; only 8·9 per cent can buy anything more that the bare necessaries of daily consumption. According to trustworthy reports, in the south, upon the fruitful black earth, after all taxes have been paid by a Russian family consisting of five persons, no more than eighty-two roubles remain for the entire year's subsistence.
The agrarian committee appointed by Witte in 1903 reported as follows: "When the harvest is normal, the amount of nutriment obtainable by the peasant is, on the average, 30 per cent below the minimum physiologically requisite to maintain the strength of an adult worker on the land."
The annual yield per head is—
Cereals—in Russia, 246 kilos, in Germany, 316 kilos.
Potatoes in Russia,„ 131 kilos,„ in Germany,„ 620kilos.„
In Russia, when the need for food becomes acute, conditions prevail which were familiar enough in Europe during the middle ages and in the days of classical antiquity, but which are now known only m such countries as India. In western Europe, acute famine has long been a thing of the past. And yet hungry Russia has to export grain!
The great famines of 1891 and 1892 are of recent memory; in the latter year cholera was epidemic.
During the sixties the state disbursed 797,000 roubles per annum for the support of the poverty-stricken population. Between 1870 and 1880 the average annual payments on this account were 1,780,000 roubles. Between 1881 and 1890 the figure was lower, for the harvests were good, and the area under cultivation was comparatively large; during this period the disbursements averaged about 1,000,000 roubles per annum. But from 1891 to 1900 the annual cost increased to 19,100,000 roubles. During the years 1901 to 1905, owing to the failure of the crops the total disbursements were 118,057,090 roubles; whilst in the single year 1906 the expenditure under this head amounted to 150,000,000 roubles.
During the sixties, governmental help was requisite in eight administrative districts; during the seventies in fifteen; during the eighties in twenty-five; during the nineties in twenty-nine; and during the years following 1900 in thirty-one.
These data are all the more alarming seeing that the yield of the soil has permanently increased since 1861, although Russian agriculture lags far behind that of European countries.[6]
During the years of famine, Alexander III's government was able to display all the strength of its compassion. The autocrat's uneasy conscience actually led him to look askance at and to interfere with the philanthropic projects of the cultured and well-to-do classes. The movement "towards the people" was never regarded with favour!.
A further evidence of land hunger is afforded by the increasing migration of peasants to Siberia.[7]
It need hardly be said that land hunger is not the sole explanation of chronic and acute famine. In certain regions there is a positive superfluity of land. I am not thinking here of the districts inhabited by nomads and semi-nomads, but refer to such areas as those in northern Caucasia, where the average farm often exceeds 20 desjatinas in extent. Yet here also, just as in Siberia and in all parts of Russia with the exception of the northern regions, the peasant complains of land hunger. There are numerous contributory causes of chronic famine, and among these it is necessary to refer to the backward state of Russian agriculture.
According to comparative statistics published in 1907 by the Russian ministry for finance, the yield of wheat per desjatina is in Russia 42 poods, in Italy 50, in North America 60, in Austria 75, in Hungary 77, in France 78, in Germany 120, and in England 137.
It must not be supposed that the peasant is solely responsible for the defective returns from Russian soil; general conditions, remoteness of the cultivated areas from the peasants' dwellings, and similar causes, are contributory. But it remains true that the peasant's lack of culture and capacity for work, together with the backward state of civilisation in general, are, in conjunction with the unjust distribution of land, the principal causes of the agrarian crisis.
Since the liberation, the development of manufacturing industry has been comparatively vigorous. The growth of manufacture was, indeed, a contributory cause of the liberation; but, conversely, the enfranchisement of the peasants promoted the growth of industry and commerce.
Enfranchised peasants flocked to the towns and crowded into the factories, which before long assumed a European and even an American character. Wages are decided by free contract; modern machinery is employed; with the aid of foreign capital, great industry and capitalistic enterprise develop. Old Russia is being economically and socially transformed, the former class divisions being replaced by the new segregation into a class of capitalists and a class of operatives. Contemporancously there has occurred a transformation of commerce, and since the beginning of the sixties the locomotive and the steamboat have facilitated the export of grain to Europe.
So rapid was the evolution of Russian industry, so prompt the adoption of capitalistic methods of production, that no long time elapsed before the labour problem was superadded to the peasant problem. Philosophical historians and other writers could not fail to discern the mighty changes which a the growth of large-scale manufacture was effecting. Hence arose the socialistic and semi-socialistic theories of the narodniki and the early Russian socialists, who hoped to save agricultural Russia and the Russia of home industries from the onslaughts of hungry foreign capital.
The position of Russian operatives is far worse than that of the same class in Europe. Labour protection laws are comparatively inadequate, and social legislation is less efficient. Flerovskii's book, The Condition of the Working Class in Russia, published in 1869, though based upon imperfect statistical evidence, gave an accurate picture of the unhappy condition of the peasants and workers. Since then, more trustworthy data have become available. We know that in Russian factories accidents are far commoner than in the west, the percentage in some establishments being as high as 22. The popular poetry of the working classes has long been concerned with these lamentable conditions.[8]
§ 33.
ALEXANDER III died in the belief that Russia was the greatest and strongest monarchy in the world. He spoke of Russia as the sixth continent, and the following anecdote is related of him. He was fishing in Finland, when Giers, the minister for foreign affairs, came to ask his decision upon some urgent matter, saying that Europe was waiting for an answer. Alexander rejoined. "When the Russian tsar is fishing, Europe can wait."
Before the outbreak of war with Japan the Russian army was ten times as numerous as that of her opponent, and the Russian fleet was nearly three times larger than the Japanese. The Siberian railway, begun under Alexander III for the protection of the far east, had been completed.
The Japanese war was entered upon with a light heart. Even before Kuropatkin's revelations, it was known that the motives of the clique which had done most to promote the war had been petty and sordid. Although Nicholas II had, when heir to the throne, visited Japan and Siberia, and although the official writer who described the tsarevitch's travels announced Russia's panasiatic program. governmental Russia at the time of the war knew nothing of the great question which was subsequently voiced in the catchword of "the yellow peril."
The reader may be referred to Prince Uhtomskii's account, of Nicholas' journey in eastern Asia during the years 1890 and 1891. He will find it recorded in black and white that panasiatism had become the national program of official and Orthodox Russia.
From Byzantine orthodoxy to panasiatism! According to the fantasies of Prince Uhtomskii, all the peoples of Asia would gladly accept the rule of the white tsar, for in Russian civilization, in the Russian national character, they would rediscover elements in inward correspondence with their own outlook on the universe. In the Asiatic races Uhtomskii discerned the mystical faith, the religious introspectiveness, which the slavophils regarded as essentially Russian and Orthodox qualities.
Ever since Muscovy had become great through its victory over the Tatars, dominion over Asiatic peoples, extension of Asiatic empire, had consciously or unconsciously been the Russian goal. The south and the east of the existing empire were Asiatic, and the same might be said of the north. Rule over Asia had been extended step by step. In 1701, during the reign of Peter, Siberia had been entirely incorporated; there had been wars with Turkey and Persia, the two greatest Mohammedan realms, and these wars had been the opening of a struggle still undecided; Crimea and Caucasia had become Russian; Central Asia and the Amur region had been occupied; in Asia, now, Russia was coming into contact with her European rivals, was awakening the slumbering empire of China, and was unchaining the energies of the watchful island realm.[9]
It is indisputable, therefore, that Asia is of profound importance to Russia. So far as this is true, there is nothing particularly striking about Uhtomskii's program. Even the utopian romanticism of panasiatism would have been by no means censurable if the advisers of the future tsar had conscientiously weighed the pros and cons of the Asiatic problem. But the most characteristic feature of Uhtomskii's work was the incredible superficiality with which he estimated the Asiatic powers, and above all Japan. While the coming tsar was indulging his panasiatic dreams, the Japanese were learning all that was to be learned from Europe; and with the aid of European civilisation they were able to force upon Russia the peace of Portsmouth (U.S.A.).
Defeat was sustained in Manchuria, not by the Russian soldier, but by Russian army administration, the Russian general staff, the St. Petersburg court and its diplomacy, the Russian bureaucracy—in a word, the whole regime of Pobědonoscev. Nonchristian, unbelieving Japan overthrew Orthodox, Holy Russia.
I do not consider that the Japanese performed any deeds of extraordinary strategic significance, and their financial resources for the conduct of the war do not seem to have been very considerable (cf. Helferich, Das Geld im Russisch-Japanischen Kriege, 1906). But in the light of these considerations Russia's defeat appears all the more disastrous. From the Russian side we are frequently and perhaps truthfully assured that notwithstanding her reverses Russia would have been able to pursue the war to a successful conclusion had it not been for the outbreak of revolution at home. Can we levela graver accusation against Russian policy and administration? It is not to be denied that upon the battlefields in the far east Russia was conquered, not by the Japanese, but by the enemy within her gates, that the author of her defeats was cæsaropapist absolutism.
Numerous Russian works have been published of late dealing with the Russo-Japanese war. Andreev's The Red Laugh is Well known in Europe. Bělorěckii, who had personal experience at the front, analyses the war successfully. In a number of tales he depicts for us the mood of the Russian army. The general title of his stories is Without Idea. The various characters endeavour to discover "the idea," the meaning, of the war. In the end, however, one of the officers sums it up by saying: "What is the meaning of the war? Its principal meaning is that it has no meaning at all. . . ."
- ↑ The Christian and legitimist zeal of the new tsar's immediate advisers is sufficiently indicated by the fact that Pobědonoscev and his triends founded a secret anti-revolutionary "Holy Retinue" (known also as the "Voluntary Protectors"), aiming at the destruction of the enemies to the throne by all possible means, including murder. Towards the end of 1882, these Jesuits of absolutism entered into relationships with the executive committee of the Narodnaja Volja (the negotiations were conducted by Lavrov, Mihailovskii,
- ↑ At the close of the reign of Alexander II, the percentage of Germans in the various departments was as follows:—
Per cent. Civil Service . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 High Military Command . . . . . . . . . . 41 Imperial Council . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Senate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Ministry for Foreign Affairs . . . . . . . . 57 Ministry for Home Affairs . . . . . . . . 27 Ministry for Public Instruction . . . . . . . . 28 Ministry for finance . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Ministry for the Domains . . . . . . . . . . 34 Ministry for Ways and Communications . . . . . . 34 Imperial Audit Office . . . . . . . . . . 18 Ministry for Marine . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Ministry for War . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Ministry for the Imperial Court . . . . . . . . 39 Imperial Aides-de-Camp Post and Telegraphs . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 At this time the percentage of Germans among the general population was 1·1.
- ↑ From 1861 there existed in Russia and abroad secret liberal associations which maintained the decabrist tradition in their demand for a constitution, but these secret organisations were of an entirely different character from the revolutionary secret societies. They had no propaganda worth considering, and displayed little power of attraction. Not until 1878 and 1879 did the liberals attempt to get into touch with the revolutionaries, but negotiations proved fruitless. A few secret societies were organised during the Loris-Melikov era, but remained without influence. Better known are the societies Liga, and the Union of Zemstvos and for Self-Government. The periodical "Volnoe Slovo," edited during and after 1883 by Dragomanov, has been generally regarded as the organ of these associations, but it is more probable that it served the aims of the before-mentioned reactionary group Holy Retinue. The leading point in the Union at Zemstvoe and for Self-Government was the demand for a national duma (elected from the whole empire by universal suffrage) and a zemstvo duma. The latter was to be the organ of local sell-government, the former the organ of centralisation.
- ↑
Year. Percentage of
Towndwellers.Round Total of
urban Population.1724 . . . . . . . . 3·0 17,300,000 1784 . . . . . . . . 3·1 17,800,000 1796 . . . . . . . . 4·1 11,300,000 1812 . . . . . . . . 4·4 11,600,000 1835 . . . . . . . . 5·8 13,000,000 1851 . . . . . . . . 7·8 13,500,000 1878 . . . . . . . . 9·2 16,000,000 1890 . . . . . . . . 12·85 13,900,000 1897 . . . . . . . . 13·25 17,100,000 Between 1724 and 1897 the urban population increased fifty-onefold and the rural population eightfold. In France the urban population comprises nearly 41 per cent. and in England more than 75 per cent. of the total.
- ↑ Between 1863 and 1892 the landowners, chiefly noble landowners, lost about twenty-five million desjatinas of land. To-day the total loss considerably exceeds forty millions. Since the liberation, land has been bought freely by well-to-do peasants, by merchants, and by the towns.
- ↑ Cattle breeding, too, is relatively on the down grade. The head of cattle per hundred inhabitants numbered 37·2 in 1880, 33 in 1906, 30 in 1909. Statistics further show that the weight of the stock has declined, and more particularly that there is a reduced yield of milk. (It should be noted that the decline in cattle breeding leads to the soil being less efficiently manured!)
- ↑ Between 1885 and 1896, the emigrants to Siberia numbered 912,000; they numbered 1,387,532 between 1897 and 1906: from that year down to 1913 they numbered about two and a half millions. There have also been extensive migrations to Caucasia and to Central Asia. Emigration to the west (America) remains inconsiderable, but began about 1891. Jewish emigration has been extensive, more than one million Jews having left Russia between 1899 and 1906.
- ↑ No accurate statistics regarding the numbers of Russian operatives are at present available, but the following figures may be considered approximately correct.
Year. Factory Hands in Establishments
subject to Inspection.Miners. Totals. 1900 1,618,000 716,000 2,334,000 1901 1,617,000 683,000 2,300,000 1902 1,624,000 627,000 2,300,000 1903 1,684,000 610,000 2,294,000 1904 1,660,000 599,000 2,259,000 1905 1,685,000 582,000 2,267,000 1906 1,718,000 643,000 2,361,000 1907 1,762,000 657,000 2,419,000 1908 1,765,000 — — 1909 1,789,000 — — On the average the English workman earns twice as much, the American workman nearly four times as much, as the Russian. The standard of life of the Russian workman is extremely low. Fourteen roubles a month is considered a good wage for a male operative. Russian workmen are as hungry as Russian peasants.
- ↑ Russian territory in Asia comprises 16,550,000 square kilometres; European territory in Asia comprises 9,906,000 square kilometres. Siberia alone is larger than Europe (including European Russia). But it must be remembered that the Asiatic possessions of Russia are uncultivated, and for the most part unfitted for economic exploitation.
and others), desiring to learn its strength and the names of its leaders. But in December 1882 Count Tolstoi, being appointed minister for home affairs, put an end to these activities, for in his view the Holy Retinue was itself revolutionary, and was a nuisance to the police. It seems that these reactionaries were the founders of the periodical "Volnoe Slovo" (Free Word) which was published abroad to play the part at agent provocateur. For a time Dragomanov acted as editor at this paper, not realising its true character.
