Cljc Eussku f^torm^CIouti. 
 
 ^tfpntJtft, 
 
2)A 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
/f^6^<^^ 
 
 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 DEC4-^ 
 
 ^riir— 
 
 tt 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 j^jffc'i*™"?^''^^*™' 
 
 w"Wl?i|^ 
 
 f 
 
 ? 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CAVLORO 
 
 
 - -™--««WMi 
 
 I 
 
 •'■i.f" 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 3 1924 067 345 4 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924067345417 
 
THE 
 
 RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD; 
 
 §[ussm tit ^n llelatbits is |t«igj|bouriit0 €annixuB. 
 
 STEPNIAK, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "RUSSIA UNDER THE TSARS," "UNDERGROUND RUSSIA," ETC. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN A>ND CO. 
 PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 
 
 1886. 
 

 i^f 
 
 Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In this volume, which I have the honour to 
 present to the indulgence of English readers, I 
 deal with the two contending principles of modern 
 Russia — Liberty and Despotism- — from one parti- 
 cular point of view, viz., the influence both are likely 
 to exercise upon neighbouring European countries 
 and their general welfare and progress. The entire 
 work is entitled "The Russian Storm-Cloud," under 
 which title the first four chapters appeared in 
 l^ime. Ever since the creation of the Russian 
 Empire by Peter the Great, Europe has felt uneasy, 
 and still feels apprehensive at the vicinity of a 
 colossal State obedient to the despotic will of one 
 man and the continual extension of the empire in 
 all directions. On the other hand, Russian revo- 
 lution, owing to the extremely violent character 
 of the means adopted, appeared, and still appears, 
 to many minds as _a threatening phantom of 
 general destruction and of the overthrow of all 
 social order, scarcely less dangerous to the peace 
 of Europe than to the despotism of the Tzar. 
 My object has been to indicate the rival nature 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 and character of both of these elements. The book 
 is, therefore, essentially a political one. But I have 
 done my best to make it as objective as possible, — 
 describing our country, rather than advocating any 
 opinion, exposing facts which might enable the 
 reader to draw his conclusions instead of forcing 
 on him my own. 
 
 The article on Poland, together with those on 
 " European Socialism and the Dynamite Epidemic," 
 and "A Revolt or a Revolution?" were written to 
 complete the present volume. The chapters on 
 "The Russian Army" and on "Terrorism in 
 Russia and in Europe," are reprinted, by the 
 kind permission of the publishers, from the Tunes 
 and the Contemporary Review, to whom I must once 
 more express my earnest thanks for their uniform 
 courtesy. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Russian Storm-Cloud :— 
 
 I. What do the Nihilists want ? . . i 
 II. What are the Forces the Russian Revolution 
 
 commands ? . i8 
 
 III. Why Russia is a Conquering Country . . 47 
 
 IV. The Political Form of the Russia of the Future . 83 
 II. The Russian Army and its Commissariat . 97 
 
 III. Young Poland and Russian Revolution . 139 
 
 IV. Terrorism in Russia and Terrorism in Europe . 175 
 V. European Socialism and the Dynamite Epidemic . 207 
 
 VI. A Revolt or a Revolution? . • 229 
 
I. 
 
 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 WHAT DO THE NIHILISTS WANT ? 
 I. 
 
 Shortly after the Winter Palac^ explosion I re- 
 member having seen in an English satirical paper 
 the following caricature : — Two Nihilists are meet- 
 ing amidst heaps of ruins. "Is all blown up 
 already?" asks one of them. "No," answers the 
 other. " The globe remains firm still." " Well, 
 let us blow up the globe then ! " exclaims the first. 
 
 This was a graphical representation of the general 
 conception about the Nihilists just in the epoch 
 when their name was in everybody's mouth. 
 
 Five years followed, bringing with them, among 
 other facts of Nihilist history, some dozen of trials, 
 the most striking of them — that of Tzaricides, for 
 example — having a certain publicity, which enabled 
 the accused to explain before the audience and 
 reporters of foreign papers the real character and 
 aim of the movement. The Nihilists' clandestine 
 publications, hitherto completely ignored, are now 
 noticed by the best papers. The Nihilists' mani- 
 festoes are reprinted ; clandestine papers are 
 epitomised. We — Nihilists living abroad — did all 
 we could to satisfy the growing desire of the 
 European public to know something about our 
 movement. All this has wrought a notable change 
 
4 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 in the minds of Europeans. Here, in England 
 there are many who understand that the NihiHsts 
 are not at all apostles of destruction, and who, 
 though very moderate in their opinion, agree that 
 under such a rdgime as that of Russia nobody has a 
 right to blame the people when they take the laws 
 into their own hands. " Were I a Russian I 
 should be a Nihilist myself" That is a phrase 
 which I can testify to have very often heard from all 
 classes in England. And out of many expressions 
 of sympathy, I will here quote one as belonging 
 to a paper, by no means a subversive one, the 
 Christian World, which, in noticing one of my 
 articles in the Times, says : — " Nor is it wonderful 
 that now and again the wrath of the Russian people 
 finds expression in actions which are called crimes, 
 because they happen to-day ; but which, when we 
 read them in the pages of history, we think of as 
 testimonies of the patriotism of people who were 
 incapable of enduring the wrongs which base 
 tyrannies conceived and imposed " (September nth, 
 1884). 
 
 But in this time of febrile activity, when people 
 hardly notice what they pass by, or, having noticed, 
 forget it at once, new conceptions enter very slowly 
 into the public mind. And to destroy an inveterate 
 prejudice a vast quantity of printer's ink must be 
 wasted. There is no help for it. This philosophy 
 of patience was forced on me — I may be excused for 
 mentioning it — by reading the many notices which 
 honoured my last book, " Russia Under the Tzars." 
 Very careful and often very indulgent on other 
 points, many of the best-informed and most respect- 
 
WHAT DO THE NIHILISTS WANT ? 5 
 
 able papers have made some really surprising 
 blunders in speaking of the tendencies of the 
 " Nihilists." The impartial Athencsiim, while very 
 appreciative as to the work itself, and deeply im- 
 pressed by the horrors of Russian prisons described 
 in it, observes that English readers must not forget 
 that the Nihilists are people who are " resolved to 
 force upon an unprepared, if not an unwilling, 
 country the fantastic freedom of anarchy." The 
 Morning Post is still more categorical in its asser- 
 tion. This respectable paper is quite aware that 
 the Nihilists "do not work for reforms, or for 
 amelioration of popular burdens, but for the destruc- 
 tion of political and social order." The Si. James's 
 Gazette seems to hold the same opinion : "To the 
 Nihilist's mind nothing short of total destruction 
 of the State seems worth a moment's serious 
 consideration." 
 
 The best means to get rid of such misconception 
 would be, perhaps, to abandon the ill-sounding name 
 by which our party is designated. " Nihilism " 
 means " Nothingness." " Nihilists," many people 
 conclude, without much trouble, must then be par- 
 tisans of general destruction. The thing is clear 
 and simple, and easily remembered. " The very 
 name which the revolutionists have assumed is a 
 sufficient argument against them," says the Morning 
 Post. Yes, it would be an argument were it really 
 assumed by them. But every Russian, or student 
 of Russian things, will affirm that it is not so. The 
 Revolutionists call themselves, and are called in 
 their country, by a good many names — " Social- 
 revolutionist " in the " high " style of manifestoes, 
 
D THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 or more briefly " revolutionist ; " and in colloquial 
 slang, which is more usual, simply " radicals." They 
 were baptised with the name " Nihilist" by a whim 
 of European current journalism, which, wanting 
 some name for them, borrowed from Ivan Turg- 
 heneff's novel the first that came to hand. How- 
 ever it be, the name is so deeply rooted in popular 
 minds, that it is impossible to change it ; at all 
 events, more difficult than to attach to it a sort of 
 glossary. 
 
 To cut short all babbling about the Nihilists' 
 thirst for destruction, I will make a brief quotation 
 from a well-known document, — the letter of the 
 Nihilists' Executive Committee to Alexander III., 
 issued after his accession to the throne. I pass 
 over the explanatory part of this manifesto, in which 
 the blood-thirsty Nihilists show how unwilling they 
 are to use the violent means to which the Govern- 
 ment has driven them ; how anxious they would be 
 to avoid, " in the interest of the country," violent 
 revolutions, " which are an enormous waste of 
 strength and energy, capable of being applied in 
 other conditions to useful works, to the development 
 of popular intelligence, and of general prosperity ; " 
 and how eager they are to abstain from taking the 
 law into their own hands. Suffice it to reproduce 
 the few lines in which the Committee point out 
 their conditions for the cessation of hostilities. 
 
 " First, a general amnesty for all political offenders, 
 since they have committed no crime, but have 
 simply done their duty as citizens. 
 
 "Second, the convocation of the representatives 
 of the whole of the people, for the examination of 
 
WHAT DO THE NIHILISTS WANT ? 7 
 
 the best forms of social and political life, according 
 to the wants and desires of the people. 
 
 "We, nevertheless, consider it necessary to point 
 out that the legalisation of power by the represen- 
 tation of the people can only be arrived at when 
 the elections are perfectly free. The elections 
 should, therefore, take place under the following 
 conditions : — 
 
 " First, the deputies shall be chosen by all classes 
 without distinction, in proportion to the number of 
 inhabitants. 
 
 " Second, there shall be no restriction of any kind 
 upon electors or deputies. 
 
 " Third, the elections and the electoral agitation 
 shall be perfectly free. The Government will, 
 therefore, grant, as provisional regulations, until the 
 convocation of the popular assemblies : — 
 
 " (a) Complete freedom of the press. 
 
 " [6) Complete freedom of speech. 
 
 " (c) Complete freedom of public meeting. 
 
 "{d) Complete freedom of electoral addresses. 
 
 "These are the only means by which Russia can 
 enter upon the path of peaceful and regular develop- 
 ment. We solemnly declare, before the country, and 
 before the whole world, that our party will submit 
 unconditionally to the National Assembly which 
 meets upon the basis of the above conditions, and 
 will offer no opposition to the Government which 
 the National Assembly may sanction." 
 
 This document, issued in many thousand copies 
 for interior circulation, was translated and reprinted 
 in all the leading foreign papers, and made its way 
 through all Europe. It startled European readers 
 
o THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 as something quite unexpected from such people 
 as the NihiHsts; but this was due to the great 
 ignorance prevailing about Russian matters. The 
 letter to Alexander III. said nothing essentially 
 new. Every attempt against Alexander II. after 
 that of Solovieff was followed by a declaration of 
 the Nihilist Committee, that the hostilities against 
 his person would cease immediately, if the Emperor 
 would resign into the hands of a National Repre- 
 sentative Assembly (Zemsky Sobor) his autocratic 
 power The letter to Alexander III. gave only 
 more detail and precision to those declarations. 
 
 Such desiderata leave little room indeed for 
 accusing the Nihilists of being wild fanatics, striv- 
 ing to "impose on the unprepared nation" some 
 Utopian scheme. Let me point out, though 
 republican by their personal preference, they do 
 not ask even for the abolition of monarchy, but 
 only for the abolition of its exorbitant power, by 
 placing the supreme control over State affairs in 
 the hands of a National Assembly ; efforts which 
 surely cannot be identified with the " total destruc- 
 tion of the State," or of "political and social order,'' 
 since such things have existed in all civilised 
 countries for generations, sometimes for centuries, 
 without producing in the least degree such dreadful 
 consequences. 
 
 But is the ideal of the Russian Nihilists limited 
 to a free constitution ? No. Not at all. They 
 never winced from declaring publicly what are their 
 real opinions. There is another document little 
 known and hardly ever published in the English 
 language, to which I call the particular attention 
 
WHAT DO THE NIHILISTS WANT ? 9 
 
 of English readers. This is the programme of the 
 " Narodnaia Volia's party," which until now prac- 
 tically represented what may be called " Nihilism." 
 I will only quote some extracts showing the main 
 points of this programme. 
 
 "I. By our general convictions," so runs this 
 document, " we are socialists and democrats. We 
 are convinced that only on socialistic grounds 
 humanity can become the embodiment of freedom, 
 equality, fraternity, securing for itself the general 
 prosperity and the full and harmonious development 
 of man and social progress. We are convinced, 
 moreover, that only the will of the nation should 
 give sanction to any social institution, and the 
 development of the nation may be called sound 
 only when independent and free, and when every 
 idea which is to receive practical application has 
 previously passed the test of the national under- 
 standing and national will. 
 
 "II. We think, therefore, that as socialists and 
 democrats we must recognise, as our immediate 
 purpose, the liberation of the nation from the 
 oppression of the present state by making a political 
 revolution with the object of transferring the 
 supreme power into the hands of the nation. 
 
 " III. We think that the will of the nation should 
 be sufficiently clearly expressed and applied by a 
 National Assembly, freely elected by the vote of all 
 citizens, and provided with instruction from their 
 electors. This we do not consider to be the ideal 
 form of the manifestation of the will of the nation, 
 but it is the only one practically realisable, and we 
 feel bound, therefore, to accept it. 
 
10 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 "IV. Submitting ourselves completely to the will 
 of the nation, we, as a party, feel bound to appear 
 before the country with our own programme, which 
 we shall propagate before the revolution, recom- 
 mending it to the electors during the electoral 
 periods, and which we shall defend in the National 
 Assembly. This programme consists of the following 
 heads : — 
 
 "I. The permanent representative Assembly to 
 have the supreme control and direction in all general 
 State questions. 
 
 " 2. Large provincial self-government, secured by 
 the election of all public functionaries. 
 
 " 3. Independence of the village commune (' Mir') 
 as an economical and administrative unit. 
 
 " 4. Nationalisation of land. 
 
 " 5. Series of measures tending to transfer the 
 possession of fabrics to workmen. 
 
 " 6. Complete liberty of conscience, speech, press, 
 meetings, associations, and electoral agitation. 
 
 " 7. Extension of the right to vote to all citizens 
 having attained full age, without any class or wealth 
 distinctions. 
 
 " 8. Substitution of a standing army by a terri- 
 torial militia." 
 
 I have faithfully translated the essential parts of 
 the Narodnaia Volia's programme, omitting only 
 some repetitions and the explanatory paragraphs. 
 
 II. 
 The hope or desire to reduce a successful revolu- 
 tion into a vast electoral comity, and nothing more, 
 can hardly be realised in practice, however sincere 
 
WHAT DO THE NIHILISTS WANT ? I I 
 
 may be the desire of its initiators. If we want to 
 know what a political revolution will do, we must 
 inquire into the practical aspirations of the elements 
 of the society and of the nation which are likely to 
 take part in it. But this part of the programme is 
 very suggestive and conclusive of the spirit of the 
 party which stood for so many years at the head of 
 the Russian liberation movement. 
 
 Since the Nihilists never wanted to force on 
 anybody their private opinions, and proposed to 
 acquire adherents only by means of persuasion, the 
 persecutions to which they are subjected are no 
 longer " the defence of order," but are mere acts of 
 tyranny ; just as the religious persecutions were. 
 Every human being has a right to find, according 
 to his taste, the way to social happiness as well as 
 to paradise, and to show it to his fellow-men. No 
 matter whether he is right or wrong, people who 
 hear him will decide for themselves. But the Russian 
 Government will not afford this opportunity, knowing 
 too well that the people's decision will not be in its 
 favour. It tabooed not only socialism, but everything 
 tending to the good of the nation, to progress, and 
 to general liberty. This necessitated a political 
 struggle, and the battle began all along the line. 
 The socialists, recruited from among the well-to-do 
 classes as well as from workmen, were the first to 
 assume the initiative, and remained the most ardent 
 in carrying it through. Was it because they are 
 socialistic ? No ; socialism in itself has little to do 
 with it. They possessed in the highest degree what 
 urges people to similar struggles : the spirit of self- 
 sacrifice, and the unbounded ardour of serving their 
 
12 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 country. A pure "liberal," a man believing in poli- 
 tical freedom as the ultimate perfection of human 
 society, may unite quite fraternally with their efforts. 
 In one very important instance vi^e may infer that 
 this is no mere abstract possibility. I refer to the 
 numerous adherents the Nihilists have acquired of late 
 in the army. The military officers took hardly any 
 part in the movement when it was in its purely social- 
 istic state. Among the many hundreds of them who 
 fraternised with the revolution since it was directed 
 against autocracy, there must have been of course 
 many officers converted to socialistic ideas, but there 
 is no doubt that the bulk of them sympathised with 
 the revolution out of pure patriotism. And it is to 
 the patriotism of the army that the revolutionists 
 appealed. The fusion of the military patriotic ele- 
 ments and the initiatory socialist is now complete. 
 They make at present one compact body of con- 
 spirators, in which the intensity of the pending 
 struggle has put into the background any theoretical 
 divergency. We have full reason to believe that 
 this fusion is extending rapidly to the civilian 
 patriotic elements of our society in general. 
 
 Thus we may say that the Nihilist movement, 
 which some fifteen years ago was commenced by 
 a set of young enthusiasts of socialistic creed, now, 
 under the influence of internal causes, and the 
 great spread of disaffection in the country, is tend- 
 ing to transform itself into a vast patriotic revo- 
 lutionary party, composed of people of various 
 shades of opinions, united in a common effort to 
 destroy a tyranny obnoxious to all. They want to 
 substitute for it a national government, in which all 
 
WHAT DO THE NIHILISTS WANT ? I 3 
 
 shall possess the possibility of working pacifically 
 for the good of the country. Nothing can be more 
 moderate, more just, nor give them a greater right 
 to say they are working for the common good. 
 
 I will not leave the subject of the general de- 
 structive tendencies of the Nihilists withodt saying 
 some words on one particular point, — the connec- 
 tion of their political creed with religion. Taking 
 advantage of the well-known religiousness of the 
 English, some good friends of the Russian Govern- 
 ment are doing their best to spread among them 
 the idea that the Nihilists are striving to destroy all 
 kinds of religion, in order to force on people some- 
 thing like the worship of the Goddess of Reason. 
 
 The religious condition of Russia presents some 
 peculiarities which give to the religious policy of the 
 Nihilist a special stamp. That the Nihilists are 
 Atheists is quite true. But to say that they are 
 striving to destroy religion is quite false. First, 
 among the instructed classes of every description, 
 which until now have furnished the largest con- 
 tingent of revolutionists, there is nothing left to 
 destroy ; because among our educated classes 
 Atheism is as general a doctrine as Christianity is in 
 England. It is the national religion of our educated 
 classes, and as such it has already had time to acquire 
 the state of happy indifference, which, according to 
 Thomas Bucle's opinion, is the best guarantee of 
 religious tolerance. In this particular Russia differs 
 greatly from all European countries, Italy and 
 France included. I will not dwell on the causes 
 
14 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 of this peculiarity, due to the history and present 
 character of our Church. I simply state an unde- 
 niable fact. 
 
 With the lower classes it is of course different 
 Russian peasants are said to be very religious. 
 That is true in respect to the dissenting sects, but 
 not to official orthodoxy. What really prevails is 
 a mechanical, rather heathenish. Ritualism, under 
 which religious indifference is lurking. A clergy 
 deprived of any independence, controlled at every 
 step, submitted to censorship in every sermon, and 
 drilled to passive submission to the order of the 
 Tzar's officers, could as little answer the religious 
 wants of the peasants as withstand the free-thinking 
 movement of the superior classes. Unable to make 
 any suitable use of mental culture, science, philosophy, 
 and even theology ; driven by experience to consider 
 even strong religious zeal as something rather 
 dangerous, as threatening to break the dead somno- 
 lence which is the ideal of bureaucratic despotism, — 
 what could such a clergy be but the mere function- 
 aries of religious ceremonies, devoid of any spiritual 
 sense ? What moral influence may these mouth- 
 pieces of the Government have, speaking at its 
 bidding ? Long ago the Russian priests forsook 
 any proud emulation for moral leadership, caring 
 only to extract from the peasants as much money 
 and goods as possible. And the orthodox peasants 
 do not at all respect their voracious exacting priests ; 
 and they often despise and ridicule them. But the 
 peasants believe in Jesus Christ, in the Virgin Mary, 
 and in the many saints dividing among themselves 
 thvj cares of the universe, while the priest is the only 
 
WHAT DO THE NIHILISTS Y^ANT ? I 5 
 
 possessor of the secrets of propitiating all these 
 heavenly powers by certain ceremonies : St. Vlas, 
 the cattle preserver ; St. Elia, the rain giver ; and 
 St. George, whom the wolves obey. The priest is 
 indispensable for getting good harvests, good flocks, 
 and preserving the fields from drought.* People 
 cannot help recurring to them, however unwilling 
 they may be to pay them the high rate they impose. 
 As to Christian duties, an orthodox peasant thinks 
 himself perfectly acquitted if he baptises his chil- 
 dren, weds his daughter in church, and pays the 
 priest for officiating once or twice a year. He goes 
 to church only when it is not too distant and time 
 permits. The best illustration of his religious in- 
 difference is the general neglect to communicate, 
 as enjoined by the Church, not less than once a 
 year, although enforced by police regulation. The 
 official reports of country priests show that, in 
 parishes of three or four thousand people, very often 
 no more than two or three hundred take part in 
 this chief manifestation of an orthodox believer's 
 adherence to his Church. And often among the 
 peasants, especially those who are wont to travel, 
 you may meet people, without having a bit of heresy 
 in them, who for ten, fifteen, and twenty years have 
 never been to communion. A religion of this kind 
 is really not worth destroying, if even we had 
 nourished the absurd idea of carrying on a propa- 
 ganda of Atheism by means of secret societies. 
 All we cared for was to restrain our men from going 
 
 * The strong heathenish aspect of Russian orthodoxy is very 
 well noticed and illustrated in Mr. Mackenzie Wallace's " Russia," 
 to which book I refer my readers. 
 
1 6 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 to confession, lest some compromising word should 
 escape them. For, in Russia, a priest hearing in 
 confession anything about political conspiracies, is 
 bound by law to break the secret of the confessional ; 
 inviolable in case of parricide. This abstinence it 
 was, of course, very easy to obtain on mere practical 
 grounds of expediency. And I may add that the 
 initiative in such a resolution was usually taken by 
 our peasants and workmen converted to the idea of 
 revolution. Into purely theological discussions we 
 never entered with our workmen ; it would have 
 diverted their attention from the political and social 
 questions we cared so much about, to others 
 which had for us really no interest at all. 
 
 Now some words about the sects. They are 
 extremely numerous. The number of their adherents 
 is not known exactly. Competent specialists reckon 
 at jDresent no less than fifteen millions — about one- 
 fourth of the rural population of Russia proper. 
 But they spread and multiply every day. All the truly 
 religious elements of Russia are comprised in them. 
 If an orthodox peasant awakes from his religious in- 
 difference, he unites with some existing sect suiting 
 best his taste, or creates a new one. In those sects 
 religion is no longer a shallow ritualistic observance. 
 It is a living power, inspiring and informing all 
 political and social conceptions of the sectarian ; the 
 greatest moral force moving our peasantry. But all 
 these sectarian religions, being inspired by the 
 complex influence of religious discontent, and political 
 and social oppression, have more or less strongly 
 marked oppositionist and anti-governmental ten- 
 dencies. Some of them strive after the social 
 
WHAT DO THE NIHILISTS WANT ? I ^ 
 
 equality of the primitive Christian ; others go so far 
 as to proclaim the emperor to be an anti-Christ, and 
 refuse to recognise any official of his, or to obey 
 any order issued by the Government ; flying into the 
 wilderness to avoid taking passports. 
 
 Such religions we, of course, had no interest at 
 all in destroying. I will also add, among Russian 
 Nihilists there were many, and the writer of these 
 pages among them, who hoped that those discon- 
 tented masses might be induced by our propaganda 
 to some active protest. Such attempts, and they 
 were many, extended our sphere of propaganda, but 
 had no serious result. It would lead us too far 
 away to speak fully on this subject. The Russian 
 sects possess in them a great creative power, which 
 undoubtedly will be turned to account when the 
 country shall be free to assert its independence. But 
 their destructive power is, I daresay, nil. They 
 have displayed an enormous power of passive 
 resistance and self-sacrifice, but there is no way to 
 influence them to an active revolutionary protest 
 against their oppressor. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 WHAT ARE THE FORCES THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 
 COMMANDS ? 
 
 I. 
 
 " If a tithe of what is told in this (my last) book 
 be true, the social and political condition of Russia 
 is frightful beyond conception. The autocracy is 
 desperate ; the revolution, when it comes, will be 
 terrible," says the Scotsman. I abstain from 
 answering this, one of the many uncertain "ifs," 
 because without my stepping into the lists, there 
 appears day by day confirmation of all my state- 
 ments. The little indecision, very natural before 
 the enormity of the horrors going on in Russia, 
 gives way to the conviction that I have not given 
 to my possible opponents the satisfaction of 
 exaggerating any of my statements. "A careful 
 examination of our author's statements leads us to 
 believe that they possess the characteristic of 
 ' moderation and sobriety ' which he claims for 
 them," says the Westminster Review for July, 
 after discussing the many documents on Russia 
 English literature possesses. Time will induce, I 
 hope, all my readers to come to an identical con- 
 clusion. What I propose here to do is to say 
 something concerning the Scotsinans conjectures 
 
THE FORCES THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION COMMANDS. 1 9 
 
 about the coming revolution, as being very common, 
 and likely to spread with the diffusion of knowledge 
 about the real condition of Russia. 
 
 Is the coming Russian revolution likely to be as 
 dreadful as the horrors of the Russian rdgime 
 induce us to expect ? 
 
 Surely a revolution in St. Petersburg, when it 
 happens, cannot help being very energetic. But it 
 is not this which people generally mean. The 
 common idea of the probable Russian revolution 
 is that of a universal cataclysm, in which the long- 
 repressed hatred and revenge of the masses will 
 find at last free play. It is, in a word, a popular 
 or peasants' revolution. No categorical answer is 
 possible, of course, on the question of its probability. 
 I will only point out that the peasants' revolution, 
 in various times, was the object of many miscon- 
 ceptions. Judging by the general devotion of 
 Russian peasants to the Tzar, many observers, 
 especially of foreign origin, have sincerely expressed 
 their conviction that as long as this sentiment 
 maintains its vigour, the existing order of things 
 is exposed to no danger, and all exertions of the 
 Nihilists will be set at nought. On the other hand, 
 among the Nihilists of the first period, there were 
 many who pointed out the unmistakable hatred of 
 Russian peasants to all institutions which practically 
 embody what is called "the State," and "the social 
 order," concluding that the peasants were capable 
 of rising in arms against their oppressors at the 
 first opportunity, as their forefathers did under the 
 leadership of Pugatchefif, and Stenko Rasin. 
 
 Both opinions are, I think, quite erroneous. The 
 
I ' 
 
 20 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 traditional monarchism of Russian peasants, though 
 greatly diminished during the last twenty years, is 
 nevertheless a notorious element in our peasants' 
 ethics. But it would be quite wrong to consider 
 it as a general preservative against disturbances, 
 rebellions, or even revolution. People are prone 
 to picture things of other countries after their own 
 pattern. If the English know, for example, that 
 their countrymen are full of reverence and confidence 
 in the Prime Minister who is governing the country, 
 they can surely consider it as a perfect guarantee 
 for the maintenance of order. But it is wholly 
 different with Russia and its Tzar, or, I daresay, 
 with any autocrat and his faithful peasants. For 
 the agricultural classes of all despotisms, scarcely 
 differing in ignorance, are everywhere too short- 
 sighted to pierce, by their intellectual eyes, through 
 the thick hierarchy of officers, and see what their 
 sovereign feally is. Nonsense about the fatherly 
 disposition of the king was most common among 
 the French peasants in the epoch of the Great Revo- 
 lution. The German peasants of the sixteenth 
 century, followers of Miinster, whilst burning castles 
 and putting to torture and death hundreds of nobles, 
 professed allegiance to the emperor, and in their 
 well-known manifestoes desired the emperor alone 
 to rule them. And the Ruthenian peasants, who 
 perpetrated the Galician massacres in 1846, pro- 
 claimed themselves, and really were, most devoted 
 partisans of His Austrian Majesty. 
 
 If the Russian peasants, whose feelings toward 
 the officers of the State and the representatives of 
 privileged classes are hardly more friendly, begin 
 
THE FORCES THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION COMMANDS. 21 
 
 one fine morning to burn the noblemen's houses, 
 and destroy landlords, policemen, administrators, 
 the thing will be no worse and no better whether 
 they shout all the while "Long live the Tzar!" 
 or not. A peasant revolution can very easily burst 
 out in the present mental condition of the Russian 
 peasants. There is no need to wait until they 
 lose their monarchism, nor is this monarchism 
 a security against the possibility of insurrection. 
 If order is preserved, it means that they have not 
 yet lost patience ; that is all. But nobody can 
 guarantee that they will not lose it to-morrow. 
 Ideas find their way into the minds of illiterate 
 masses very slowly. But feelings and passions 
 spread like wildfire. A general famine, which in | 
 the present state of misery would be something 
 awful, a disastrous war, obliging the State to aug- 
 ment the taxes or to overstrain the conscriptions, 
 might cause disturbances to arise spontaneously in 
 many places, and there is no saying what might 
 happen. 
 
 But leaving the future to the future, and judging 
 with cool heads about the present, we say that 
 there is no visible sign of the imminence of such 
 a catastrophe. True, agrarian crimes grow rather 
 frequent. Serious agrarian disturbances, assuming 
 sometimes the character of organised armed rebel- 
 lions, and lasting many months, occur in a number 
 of places. The wild outbursts against the Jews, 
 embracing one-half of Russia, could not happen in 
 a well-balanced State. All these are serious signs; 
 but when the time is ripe, something far more 
 serious will be seen. The peasants' revolution — the 
 
2 2 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 sweeping, all-destructive, barbarous revolution — is 
 in the background. The revolution of to-day is 
 a town revolution, which is quickly approaching. 
 For the great intellectual evolutions of our time, 
 being very slow to work in the villages, acquire a 
 wonderful energy and thoroughness in our towns, 
 where they pervade not only the upper, but also the 
 lower classes. 
 
 II. 
 
 In every country considerable difference is 
 observable between town and village life — the 
 people of the town being always much quicker to 
 accept innovations both in their customs and in 
 the domain of intellect. In Russia, however, this 
 difference is greater than elsewhere, owing to the 
 social condition and the family life of our peasants. 
 The type of the peasant families is strictly patri- 
 archal. Only the independent Ruthenians are 
 accustomed when married to establish separate 
 households. The Russian peasant generally does 
 not separate from his paternal home, all the mem- 
 bers living together in very large families, composed 
 of two or three successive generations, under the 
 despotic rule of the head of the household, number- 
 ing sometimes ten to fifteen or more male and 
 female workpeople. Such families are very advan- 
 tageous from an economical point of view, being a 
 kind of productive and consuming associations. But 
 family despotism, the complete dependence of the 
 women and younger members upon the stubborn 
 will of the elderly " head-man," is one of the greatest 
 evils of our country life. Besides, as only the 
 
THE FORCES THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION COMMANDS. 23 
 
 independent householders have the right to assist in 
 the village assembly, it follows as a result that a 
 considerable part of the full-grown population is 
 practically excluded from having any voice in the 
 management of local affairs. Then village self- 
 government in a country ruled by ruthless bureau- 
 cratic despotism, where nothing is known about 
 individual dignity and independence, has naturally 
 outstepped its limit, and become in many cases a 
 sort of patriarchal tutorship. The Russian " Mir " 
 interferes with the private life of its members in a 
 manner that would never be suffered by a man of 
 Saxon origin, while the Russian peasants bear this 
 dependency with the utmost submission, accustomed 
 as they are to consider the " Mir " as their only 
 refuge and protector. In such a condition it would 
 be surprising if the Russian peasantry were less 
 conservative, less patriarchal than they are. And 
 the part of the community which always is the most 
 liable to be influenced by progressive ideas — the 
 young generation — in our villages is precisely that 
 which lacks any independence of spirit ; nay, any 
 interest in questions of general character. If you 
 are a propagandist going " among the peasants," 
 do not follow the traditional precept of addressing 
 new ideas to the new generations. You will be 
 entirely disappointed and dispirited by their utter 
 frivolity. You must win the ear of their elders, who 
 in the villages seem to have engrossed the intellec- 
 tual activity and the social instincts of the whole 
 community. 
 
 But go among the workmen of the towns, and 
 you will be struck by a perfect contrast. Our towns 
 
24 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 possessed until lately comparatively few professional 
 workmen. The majority of hands in our manufac- 
 tories consist of peasants whose families live in 
 some far distant village. If the workman cannot 
 afford to go home even for a holiday, or the summer 
 season, he brings his wife in town, but continues to 
 hold a share in the land of the family. In nine 
 cases out of ten peasants going into the town are 
 people occupying subordinate positions in the 
 household. The "head man" never abandons 
 the land unless he is totally ruined. Usually he 
 sends a younger member of the family, his son or 
 younger brother, to town to make up the money 
 required for taxes. The young people are, most of 
 them, very anxious to go to the towns. It is a sort 
 of emancipation from their dependent position at 
 home. There is no "elder" to command him, no 
 "old people" whose will is a law and guidance for 
 him. He is a full-grown, independent man, respon- 
 sible for his conduct, and bound to think for himself 
 and those whom he has left at home. He has new 
 cares, new interests ; his mental activity is at once 
 awakened. The stream of new impressions, con- 
 ceptions, observations, rushing on him from every 
 part, do not slide any more from his intellect without 
 touching it. He is in the fittest disposition to accept 
 everything new that strikes him, and the memory of 
 his past dependence makes him only the more in- 
 clined to do so. As to the old ideas carried from 
 home, they have no strong hold on him, being 
 associated with a standard of life and culture he 
 cannot help now thinking are backward, and some- 
 times ridiculous. An intelligent young peasant 
 
THE FORCES THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION COMMANDS. 2 S 
 
 coming for the first time into a town is really in a ' 
 position somewhat similar to that of a young man or 
 girl of the well-to-do classes fresh in the capital from 
 some remote little town or country house. The 
 workman's mental field of activity is certainly 
 limited, for he is generally illiterate, as the majority 
 of Russian peasants are, but he is the more easily 
 impressed by the less comprehensive but more subtle 
 vehicle of speech. 
 
 The seed of revolution thrown by zealous hands 
 on such a ground must have produced a very good 
 harvest. We may add that the sowing itself was 
 much easier in the towns than in the villages. An 
 intelligent man, a new-comer, settled in a village, 
 whether he be a schoolmaster, or communal clerk, 
 or an artisan, becomes at once the object of general 
 curiosity. All eyes are strictly kept on him. No 
 step, no word of his passes unnoticed in the patri- 
 archal drowsiness of village life, and the police have, 
 of course, full knowledge of it. But in the busy 
 swarming of great towns no police superintendence 
 can impede frequent intercourse among people, 
 provided they do not neglect to take some pre- 
 cautions. And a good deal of time will elapse 
 before the spies catch any hints of the suspi- 
 cious visits of a poorly dressed student to the 
 house of some workman. Finally, there is not so 
 great an abyss between workmen and the repre- 
 sentatives of the well-to-do classes as between the 
 latter and the peasants. They are both towns- 
 people ; they are in immediate contact with the 
 representatives of the authorities ; they feel the 
 vexations and wrongs inflicted by the despotism of 
 
26 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 the police. And to facilitate mutual understanding 
 there is an infinite variety of gradation between the 
 workpeople of the towns, the skilled labourers living 
 continually in the towns, presenting by their intel- 
 lectual development little, if any, difference with the 
 workmen of any great capital. 
 
 To show what the revolutionary propaganda 
 accomplished among workmen, let us stop a moment 
 in St. Petersburg. The revolutionists of i860 and 
 1 866 had some adherents among the working people 
 of St. Petersburg and Moscow, but with the de- 
 struction of organisations all connection between 
 revolutionists and workpeople was broken, and the 
 present generation had to begin anew. The first 
 attempts to do something among working men were 
 made at St. Petersburg about 1871, and it happened 
 that the propaganda was chiefly addressed to the 
 unskilled labourers, forming the bulk of the working 
 class of the capital. To give an idea of the primi- 
 tive state of their political conceptions, suffice it 
 to relate the curious difficulty we propagandists 
 encountered in our first steps, when, after some 
 chatting in plebeian tea-rooms, we succeeded suffi- 
 ciently in becoming acquainted with a number of 
 intelligent workmen to invite them to our lodging 
 to talk more freely about politics. Some called on 
 us, but many who promised did not come. We 
 suspected it was out of fear of the police, but it 
 was not so. The fact was, that some of the pro- 
 pagandists were medical students, and the workmen 
 having vaguely heard, not without superstitious 
 dread, of the dissection of corpses made in the 
 Anatomical Hall, the rumour spread among them 
 
THE FORCES THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION COMMANDS. 27 
 
 that the " students " inviting the workmen for a 
 mysterious interview planned for nothing less than 
 to murder them and to carry their bodies secretly 
 to the dissecting-room. The more timid were afraid, 
 and abstained from coming. When, however, they 
 saw that nothing of the kind happened, and their 
 companions returned from the dangerous visits safe 
 and sound, they grew emboldened, and came more 
 freely. But for a long time they were unable to 
 understand what on earth those visits meant. They 
 were so ignorant of politics that they could not con- 
 ceive how the simple talking about the poverty of 
 the peasants, the unjust distribution of taxes, and so 
 forth, might be an object of importance in itself. 
 The propagandists, in order to facilitate the acquire- 
 ment of social knowledge for their disciples, taught 
 them to read. The workmen thought that we were 
 simply good-hearted schoolmasters out of employ- 
 ment. Many of them went so far as to offer us 
 money spontaneously, as some remuneration for our 
 trouble. And when we categorically declined, the 
 workmen were quite puzzled, and decided among 
 themselves that it was the Tzar who ordered these 
 good men and women to give instruction to work- 
 men, and to tell them the truth about everything, 
 and that he would recompense the propagandists by 
 giving them medals for doing this act of kindness. 
 All this we learned later from the mouths of our 
 friends the workmen of the Vyborg and Petersburg 
 side district, in which the propaganda was initiated, 
 when they became really converted to our ideas, and 
 understood the meaning of what we taught them. 
 Of course not all the St. Petersburg workmen were 
 
2 8 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 SO ingenuous, but the great majority was undoubtedly 
 not so much in advance of such antediluvian ideas. 
 
 Ten years passed, and the political physiognomy 
 of the St. Petersburg workmen changed completely. 
 Save some stripling quite new from his village, it 
 became difficult to meet with an average workman 
 who did not know what revolution meant. And 
 among those who knew there were few who did 
 not sympathise with it. Many read the revolu- 
 tionary periodical, or kept in their small chests 
 revolutionary pamphlets. On the whole, we may 
 affirm, without exaggeration, that the workmen of 
 St. Petersburg at present are no less imbued with 
 revolutionary ideas than the youth of the educated 
 classes, and in all the trials of the last period (save 
 the military ones), among the accused there was 
 always a very large percentage of workmen. This 
 striking change was wrought not by the propaganda 
 only. With the best zeal and greatest ability of the 
 propagandists it would be impossible to work such 
 a miracle. We must remember that in Russia 
 there is no opportunity for influencing the masses. 
 We cannot convene large meetings, nor throw our 
 pamphlets and papers to the four winds of heaven. 
 To shake the secular torpor of the Russian masses 
 we had nothing but the whisper, the secret pro- 
 paganda addressed with circumspection to private 
 men. Such a propaganda is too inadequate for its 
 task. To rouse the spirit of our masses deeds were 
 required ; words served only to explain and bring 
 home to people's understanding that which had 
 struck their mind and excited their spirit. The great 
 change in the political atmosphere of St. Petersburg 
 
THE FORCES THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION COMMANDS. 29 
 
 is chiefly due to the mighty struggle with the Auto- 
 cracy, carried on for so many years by the Nihilists, 
 naturally impressing most strongly the population of 
 the town which was the chief scene of their activity. 
 The feeling of amazement passed over, curiosity 
 succeeded, and in the capital the means of satisfying 
 it being always at hand, the vague sympathy which 
 working people always feel for courage and pluck 
 turned quickly into conscious partisanship. The 
 longer the struggle lasted the greater was the wonder 
 and admiration for the strugglers, and the stronger 
 the sympathy with the cause they championed. And 
 the secret adherents of the revolutionary organisation 
 were always there ready to add fuel to this common 
 sentiment, to remove objections, and to enlist in their 
 ranks the most prominent and zealous among their 
 sympathisers. Revolutionary organisations, com- 
 posed of workmen, quite conscious of their revolu- 
 tionary ends and means, had taken the place of the 
 clumsy gatherings, half school, half club, of the period 
 of 1871-74. Police persecutions began; hundreds 
 of workmen were arrested, imprisoned, exiled. But 
 the movement grew in extent and intensity, em- 
 bracing new districts, spreading to other towns. 
 As an example, I will mention that in the time of 
 Kalturins' leadership (1879-80), for which I have 
 positive data, the St. Petersburg workmen's organi- 
 sation, known under the name of the Northern 
 Workmen's League, was composed of about 200 to 
 300 members, divided into about fifteen to twenty 
 groups, working in various quarters of the capital, 
 having their regular secret meetings, their own 
 finances, and their central governing committee to 
 
3° THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 dispose of the material means and the personnel of 
 the organisation. Such a force will seem very small 
 to a member of an English trade union numbering 
 many thousands. But it must be remembered that 
 with secret revolutionary organisations it is quite 
 different than with public and pacific ones. There 
 are thousands of considerations unknown to the 
 latter, which a revolutionary organisation must take 
 into account before admitting a man into its ranks. 
 One imprudent member may ruin in no time all which 
 has been done during years of incessant and perilous 
 toil. A secret society can only accept a small part 
 of those who would be willing to enter it. It is 
 not the body of the party, as it is with a public 
 association, but only its nerves and sinews which, 
 ramified among the large body of sympathisers, 
 can in the decisive moment give it the required 
 impulse. 
 
 In November 1879, when the violent death of 
 seven workmen at the explosion of the cartridge 
 manufactory of Vasiliostrov gave occasion for a 
 revolutionary manifestation, the Northern League, 
 though then in infancy, could lead into the street no 
 less than ten to twelve thousand workmen. In the 
 case of a barricade struggle, a well-selected organisa- 
 tion of 200 to 300 conspirators, having its ramifica- 
 tions in all the principal manufactories, can lead into 
 the streets the bulk of the working population of an 
 enormous town, provided the revolutionary feeling 
 has a strong hold over the masses. 
 
 The St. Petersburg workmen are much in advance 
 compared with those of the other towns ; just as in 
 France, in Germany, and other countries where the 
 
THE FORCES THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION COMMANDS. 3 1 
 
 centralisation of the strength of the Government 
 calls out naturally a similar concentration of revolu- 
 tionary forces and exertions. But in all the principal 
 towns the seed of disaffection is sufficiently spread 
 to render them very " unsafe " for the Government, 
 especially in the large towns of South and Western 
 Russia.* In 1879 Prince Dmitry Kropotkin (cousin 
 of Peter Kropotkin), then Governor-General of 
 the province of Kharkoff, in his secret annual report 
 to the Emperor, which the Nihilists succeeded in 
 obtaining and publishing, says plainly, that though in 
 the country the efforts of the propagandists have not 
 produced serious damage, in the towns it was quite 
 the reverse, and he can no more answer for the faith- 
 fulness of the working population of Kharkoff So 
 it is in many other principal Russian towns. The 
 conversion of so many workmen to revolutionary 
 ideas is undoubtedly one of the most important and 
 most useful services performed by the revolutionist 
 of the present generation. The idea of liberty, the 
 hatred to autocracy, is no more the exclusive patri- 
 mony of the superior classes, as it was formerly. 
 These ideas are brought now to the heart of the 
 masses, and nothing can prevent them continually 
 oozing out from the towns' workpeople to the 
 agricultural classes. Often wanting system, and 
 leaving little deposit in the form of permanent 
 
 * A revolutionary organisation quite similar in its tendencies 
 to the Northern League was created in 1879-80 in South Russia 
 (Kieff, Odessa, Kharkoff), under the name of the Southern Work- 
 men's League. It possessed a printing office, and issued at various 
 times many revolutionary proclamations. But I have no particular 
 information as to its numerical strength and organisation. 
 
32 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 organisation, the propaganda among the town 
 labourers was carried on uninterruptedly all the time 
 by a considerable number of people. The amount 
 of intellectual change wrought by it is very great. 
 And I am glad to state that lately a noticeable 
 revival of this activity manifested itself in the ranks 
 of the Russian Nihilists, and a numerous and grow- 
 ing body of people have accepted the propaganda 
 among workmen as their chief aim. 
 
 Taking all this into account, — the general disaffec- 
 tion of the town population, and the facility afforded 
 to the creation of revolutionary organisations among 
 them, — we are fully entitled to conclude that if 
 Russian towns were as large as those of Western 
 Europe, and had formed so considerable a quota of 
 the population as in France, England, or Germany, 
 we could fairly have hope in town revolutions like 
 those of Paris, Vienna, and Milan. But, unhappily, 
 it is not so. Russian industrial development is very 
 rapid, it is true, but it is due chiefly to the improve- 
 ment in the mode of production. The number of 
 hands employed by our manufacturers grows very 
 slowly. The capital which bears so strongly on the 
 destinies of a centralised state in Russia forms less 
 than To o'^h, whilst Paris forms about ^th of the whole 
 population of the country. In the insurrection of 
 1878 in Milan, a town of 200,000 inhabitants, it had 
 to struggle against 40,000 of Radezki's battalions, 
 and Milan won the battle. Paris, with its two and 
 a half millions, was under still more favourable con- 
 ditions. And that great town has won many times, 
 having been able to struggle with forces more or 
 less equalised with those opposing them. Whilst in 
 
THE FORCES THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION COMMANDS. ^^ 
 
 St. Petersburg there are two soldiers for every work- 
 man, and in the case of the prolongation of street 
 fighting for a few days there would be twice as 
 many : in such conditions a purely civil insurrection 
 is hopeless. The only insurrection having a chance 
 of success in Russia is that which combines the 
 advantages of surprise with energy ; an insurrection 
 which paralyses the whole governmental machine by 
 striking from within, while, in the meantime, other 
 forces are attacking it from without. The Revolu- 
 tion, in a word, must have adherents among those 
 who stand near the very centre of the Government ; 
 those who are the nominal supporters of the Auto- 
 cracy — the army. 
 
 How far is this prospect likely to be realised ? 
 
 III. 
 
 Russians, waking up to political life, began by the 
 insurrection of the Decembrist, in which the flower 
 of the army took part. The military could not 
 surely have a nobler tradition to inspire them, nor 
 better examples to follow. In the epoch of the 
 revival of intellectual and Liberal movement which 
 followed the Crimean war, we see the military taking 
 no less a part in it than the professors, students, 
 litterateurs, etc. There were Liberal clubs com- 
 posed of officers of all arms, and it is a well-known 
 fact that the chief office for the reprint and distribu- 
 tion of Kolokol (Herzen's clandestine paper) was 
 organised by the Military Academy of the general 
 staff. The names of generals and colonels are con- 
 nected with secret societies, and dozens of officers 
 
 3 
 
34 TITE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD, 
 
 of every grade are condemned to Siberia to im- 
 prisonment for life, and to death for their revolu- 
 tionary sympathies. 
 
 When, in 1870, ten years later, the socialistic rush 
 of the young people "among the peasants" began, 
 the officers, as such, could not take part in it. But 
 even this movement had an echo with the officers 
 of the army. About a score of them, chiefly of 
 younger grade, but also some of a higher rank, 
 abandoned the service, and united with the propa- 
 gandists. The military, in a word, was always 
 susceptible to the influence coming from the exterior 
 world. And there is nothing surprising in this. 
 The staff of Russian officers differs greatly from 
 what people are wont to associate with the idea of 
 a military caste. They are the direct contrast to 
 the stiff-necked Prussian younker, the ideal of a 
 modern soldier, who is proud of his noble origin, 
 proud of his uniform and traditional devotion to the 
 king ; who is enacting his drilling manoeuvre with 
 the earnestness of an officiating clergyman ; who 
 despises most sincerely all which is not rendered 
 sacred by a brazen casque or a bottle-green over- 
 coat. The Russian military officers are plain and 
 unassuming men, with no sentiment of inborn 
 superiority of origin, as such feeling is little known 
 among the Russian nobility to which they belong. 
 They possess neither particular devotion nor hos- 
 tility to the existing rdgime. Russians, unless 
 they begin to conspire, have little opportunity of 
 thinking seriously about politics, and the general 
 colour of political opinions of all official classes 
 is that of indifference. Neither have they any 
 
THE FORCES THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION COMMANDS. 35 
 
 Special attachment to the profession they have 
 adopted. They become miHtary officers as they 
 might become magistrates, surgeons, or agricul- 
 turists, because when still of tender age their parents 
 send them to military instead of civilian schools. 
 And they remain in the profession imposed on them, 
 since a man must serve somewhere to get his living, 
 and the military career, after all, is neither worse 
 nOr better than any other. Besides, they are doing 
 their best to smooth that life, devoting to military 
 duties as little time and trouble as possible. They 
 are, of course, eager for promotion, but prefer to 
 get their advancement remaining in their slippers 
 and dressing-gown. They do not read professional 
 books, and if they are subscribers ex officio to a 
 military magazine, you will see it uncut often for 
 years. If reading anything at all, it is the current 
 literature, especially our great popular monthly 
 magazine, supplying with intellectual food our young 
 generation. And among the young officers of 
 distant regiments or batteries there are partisans of 
 some popular author or the other, and discussions 
 on political and social questions are held as warm 
 as those among the undergraduates of a university. 
 Military "jingoism" is quite unknown among our 
 officers. If you hear of an officer who is raving 
 about his bloody profession, or who has a passion 
 for drilling exercises, you may bet twenty to one 
 that he is a blockhead. 
 
 With such a staff of officers an army is not 
 destined perhaps to develop to the utmost its aggres- 
 sive qualities, but it leaves it open to all humanitarian 
 and really patriotic influences ; it makes an irre- 
 
$6 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 movable obstacle to its turning to a lasting instru- 
 ment of oppression of the country. Every Liberal 
 movement will find supporters and adherents in its 
 ranks. And to return to our subject, so it was with 
 the present phase of the Russian Revolution. From 
 the epoch when the Nihilists entered resolutely into 
 the fierce battle of Autocracy, their adherents among 
 the officers grew very rapidly, extending from the 
 capital over all Russia. In 1881-2, when the first 
 conspiracy was discovered by treason, the police 
 made about two hundred arrests among military 
 officers of all grades and all arms. The traces of 
 conspiracy were discovered in fourteen among the 
 greatest military centres of Russia, such as St. 
 Petersburg, Cronstradt, Odessa, Nikolaieff The 
 judicial inquiry has brought out the fact that the 
 military were united in a conspiracy, with the deter- 
 mined purpose of helping the open insurrection 
 intended to overthrow the Autocracy. They had 
 a central directing committee, having its seat at 
 St. Petersburg, and composed of few members, 
 officers of the garrison of the capital and of the navy 
 of Cronstradt. By the care of their emissaries they 
 founded conspiracy groups among the officers of 
 other towns. The trial of October 1884, the only 
 one which the Government had the courage to hold 
 (all the rest of the military being sentenced to 
 various penalties without judgment), has shown that 
 really the best and noblest of Russia's sons are 
 uniting in the name of its freedom. And they are 
 no longer young people ; for among the first stand 
 the names of such men as Lieutenant-Colonel Ashen- 
 brenner, a warrior of forty years of age, and with 
 
THE FORCES THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION COMMANDS. ^ 
 
 twenty years' military service, the hero of the 
 Central Asian War, who won a dozen military 
 distinctions — crosses, medals, swords of honour, 
 promotions, and honourable mention — by his splendid 
 courage in many battles, in storming fortresses and 
 towns. In his mature age he became one of 
 the most resolute champions of the Revolution, 
 converting to it half a score of the officers of his 
 regiment, founding military groups in other regi- 
 ments, sending emissaries to far distant towns, 
 and himself making propagandist journeys through 
 Russia. There is also the brilliant artillery officer, 
 Captain Pochitonov, hero of the Turkish War, who 
 distinguished himself in many battles and difficult 
 passages, sieges, and stormings, who returned home 
 laden with honours and distinctions, finishing his 
 career with distinguished success at the Artillery 
 Academy, and entered the ranks of the conspirators, 
 becoming most active in propagating the Revolution 
 among them. There are Captain Rogachief, Baron 
 Stromberg, the naval officer, commander of the 
 Pacific Squadron — all people to whom their very 
 enemies were obliged to give credit for their merit. 
 When such as these declare unanimously before the 
 tribunal that the best service they felt bound in 
 honour to render to their country was to unite with 
 the enemy of the Government to which they had 
 sworn fidelity, this is an emphatical proof that such 
 a Government has become the worst enemy of the 
 country. 
 
 It is quite evident that the adherents of the 
 Revolution among the army in the epoch we are 
 speaking of are not to be trifled with. Numerically, 
 
38 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 as well as morally, they represented a force which 
 really promised to occasion serious trouble to the 
 Russian Tzars. In a strongly constituted healthy 
 state the material forces represented by the con- 
 spiracies of 1 88 1-2 would be ridiculously insufficient. 
 But it is quite different in Russia. Despotic states 
 in general have little power of resistance against 
 internal enemies. The concentration of all govern- 
 mental functions to one centre leaves the whole 
 body politic helpless, if the blow is adroitly struck 
 at the head. This explains the notorious fact of 
 the facility with which success was obtained by the 
 Palace revolutions in many despotisms, including 
 Russia of the eighteenth century, when a handful 
 of body guards exalted and dethroned Tzars and 
 Tzarinas. That is no longer likely to happen. If 
 the Autocracy arrive at such a condition of decom- 
 position that ambitious generals should aspire to 
 Praetorian revolution, they will undoubtedly hoist 
 some political banner to get support and conceal 
 their private aims. But against liberatory insurrec- 
 tion the Russian Autocracy is no better guaranteed 
 than against the Palace revolution in the past century. 
 We must remember that the great Decembrist 
 insurrection had few battalions under its command, 
 and it imperilled most seriously the throne of 
 Nicholas I., and might indeed have overthrown it, 
 were it not for the want of resolution in the leaders. 
 From early morning until 4 p.m. the soldiers stood 
 on the Winter Palace Square before the quasi- 
 defenceless palace, waiting vainly for the Dictator, 
 who had disappeared, to lead them to the assault. 
 Nobody took his place, and Nicholas I. consequently 
 
THE FORCES THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION COMMANDS. 39 
 
 had full time to assemble his troops and demolish 
 his enemy with grape-shot. 
 
 True, the military conspiracy of which we are 
 speaking now was much inferior to that of the 
 Decembrists. Though having the best reason to 
 count upon the immediate support of workmen and 
 the bulk of the educated classes, it was not sufficient 
 to raise the banner of insurrection. But it had 
 collected such considerable forces in so short a time, 
 and was spreading so quickly, that the best hopes 
 were entertained for the next few years. 
 
 But the bright prospects of the conspiracy were 
 blighted. Owing to the vilest of treason the military 
 organisation was discovered. Hundreds of officers 
 were arrested, to be either imprisoned, shot, hanged, 
 or exiled, together with many hundreds of civilians 
 and workmen. 
 
 We may admit, as a rule, if the conspiracy had 
 once obtained a given result, this example would 
 have been an additional chance for obtaining the 
 same next time, provided the general conditions 
 remained unchanged. I hardly need to add that not 
 all the military conspirators were arrested. There 
 still are plenty to continue the work. And one of 
 those conspirators, speaking for all his companions, 
 has recently published in Narodnaia Volia Mes- 
 senger a long letter, intended to answer the numerous 
 accusations made against the military conspirators 
 by their adversaries. Alarmed by the great spread 
 of revolution among the officers, the Government 
 nominated a Commission of Inquiry, composed of 
 generals, ministers, and grand dukes. But those 
 personages, in their high wisdom, concluded that the 
 
40 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 cause which induced the officers to unite with the 
 Revolution was their bad pay and slow promotion ! 
 In high society and the military circles of St. Peters- 
 burg people said that all the evil proceeded from the 
 devilish cunning of the revolutionist, who ensared 
 hundreds of officers, employing for this purpose 
 female propagandists. No ! answered the author of 
 this interesting letter, there is no need of ensnaring 
 nor of meeting with a revolutionary emissary for 
 converting an officer to an adherent of revolution 
 at present. The chief agent of conversion is the 
 part which the Government forces the officer to play ; 
 the principal cause of discontent is the degradation 
 of the functions laid on the modern military officer. 
 "Imagine," he says, "a model officer, who has 
 never troubled himself about politics, or read political 
 books, but who is endowed with natural good sense, 
 and think to what conclusions he must come in the 
 execution of such duties as this. Strikes have lately 
 grown common ; and if they become serious the 
 troops are always called out to ' restore order '- — in 
 other words, to force workmen to abandon their 
 demands, however moderate, and to submit to all 
 which the masters wish to inflict on them. If the 
 men call a meeting to discuss their grievances, the 
 troops disperse them, sometimes by force of arms, 
 but no objection is raised to the meetings and dis- 
 cussions of the masters and their friends. The 
 peasants, to take another instance, refuse to pay 
 taxes — an event common enough of late. The 
 ■ stanovi ' (chief of the district police) comes in order 
 to realise the amount due by selling their effects. 
 The peasants will not suffer the auction to proceed. 
 
THE FORCES THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION COMMANDS. 4 1 
 
 It is a ' rebellion ; ' the troops are called in and 
 set to work. They shoot down, slay, and make 
 prisoners. . The enemy is vanquished and surrenders. 
 The leaders are bound and sent to prison for more 
 severe punishment. The rest receive patriarchal 
 correction ; they are knouted in a body, from the 
 beardless boy to the white-haired grandfather. After 
 the general flagellation the stock and chattels of the 
 conquered are sold up, and the victors are quartered 
 for some weeks in the houses of the vanquished, to 
 consume, in the way of punishment, the last crust 
 left them after the auction. In the excitement of 
 the struggle our officer has no time to think. But 
 now the struggle is over, and he looks round him 
 with surprise. He knows military history, and has 
 read of wars with savage tribes, but he has never 
 heard that it is a conqueror's business to flog and 
 starve his defeated foes. The officer is curious to 
 know something more of this same enemy — the 
 very peasant so beloved of the Tzar and the 
 Tchinovniks. He has time and opportunity for his 
 studies now that he is billeted in the peasants' houses. 
 He finds that the so-called rebellion was an act of 
 sheer despair. The peasants had not a farthing to 
 pay the taxes, which exceeded their whole income. 
 They resisted the sale of their cattle, because they 
 cannot till the land without them, and famine must 
 follow their loss. The officer is forced to own with 
 shame he has played the part, not of a soldier, but 
 of a gendarme and executioner. Take another 
 case. The Dissenters have built a chapel of their 
 own, and will not permit the police to close it. The 
 Uniats, converted to orthodoxy in the bishop's 
 
42 
 
 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 reports, and in them alone, continue -to go to the 
 Roman Catholic Church. In both instances the 
 troops are called out with unavoidable results — a 
 struggle, followed by general knouting, and the 
 billeting of troops on the offenders. 
 
 " And the escort duties to Siberia, and the prison 
 guard ? What subjects for reflection these must 
 give ! What victims of political and religious per- 
 secution he may find in his keeping ! And the 
 orders of the Government when revolution was 
 expected, and the guards were put under the com- 
 mand of the police ? No, gentlemen," continues 
 the writer, " it is not the cunning of revolutionary 
 propagandists that urges us to side with the Revo- 
 lution ; it is the Government itself — the Government 
 which every hour makes its officers, gaolers, execu- 
 tioners, gendarmes, the servants of every swindler. 
 
 " Every officer entering the service takes an oath 
 of fidelity to the Tzar and the country. But is he 
 pledged to serve the Tzar as representing the 
 country, or to serve the country because it is the 
 property of the Tzar ? When the Tzar and the 
 country are at open war, which side should an officer 
 take ? 'If you want to side with the country,' 
 answer the partisans of the inviolability of military 
 discipline, ' if you want to conspire, quit the service. 
 You are not forced to wear the uniform. You serve 
 by your own wish. Unless you resign your com- 
 mission you must do what you are paid for.' Yes, 
 and such a step would be quite reasonable did the 
 army consist of officers alone. The malcontents 
 would throw up their commissions, and organise 
 themselves as a revolutionary force. They would 
 
THE FORCES THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION COMMANDS. 43 
 
 give battle to their comrades who remained true to 
 the Government, and the issue would be settled once 
 for all. But the difficulty is that the officers who 
 remain true to the Government will have over a 
 million of soldiers under their orders — over a million 
 of soldiers who are forced to serve, and cannot 
 resign; while the officers who side with the nation 
 will not be allowed to engage soldiers or recruits." 
 
 I have transcribed these paragraphs because they 
 are an authentic expression of the feelings and ideas 
 of those military conspirators. Nothing could be 
 more suited to give us a better assurance for the 
 future. We may fairly hope that the Russian 
 Revolution, once having begun this way, will pro- 
 ceed in the direction of open insurrection. It is the 
 promptest, the surest, — and however energetic it 
 be, — the most human means to get rid of the 
 present abhorrent system. And I know that 
 among Englishmen this new phase of our revolu- 
 tionary movement will meet with much greater 
 sympathy than the former one. But I prefer to be 
 quite frank. The difficulties Russian revolutionists 
 have to cope with are enormous. With a much 
 stronger tyranny against us than the Italian, whose 
 struggle for liberty was the direst, we have to 
 organise, on the soil of the enemy in a country 
 swarming with spies, what the Italian patriots could 
 prepare on friendly ground. Such work presents 
 incalculable perils and difficulties, and the further 
 the conspiracy extends the greater is the danger of 
 its discovery. The revolutionary organisation may 
 incorporate once more hundreds of the military and 
 thousands of civilians, and this only to be ruthlessly 
 
44 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 destroyed in its bloom, to rise anew and once more 
 be destroyed ; the dreadful test being repeated 
 again and again before arriving at the glorious and 
 longed-for day of open battle. 
 
 Now, will the Russian revolutionists persevere 
 in the purely insurrectional way, without wincing or 
 chafing, readjusting again and again the broken 
 thread, unmoved by the enormity of their losses, or 
 by the absence of palpable results ? It may be so, 
 but nobody can wager that so it will be. Russian 
 people, though born in an icy country, are very 
 nervous and excitable. The word of " terrorism " 
 was already uttered by the most popular of our 
 clandestine periodicals, and it will be not at all sur- 
 prising if we hear now and then of violent attempts 
 against the persons of various representatives of 
 the Government. It is a dreadful thing to take in 
 one's own hands to decide the life or death of men 
 whose guilt would be better judged by the country. 
 But it is the greatest injustice to set against Russian 
 patriots as an accusation what is their dire necessity. 
 No man or woman living in political conditions so 
 entirely different from the Russian has a right to 
 condemn them before knowing what these conditions 
 are. And no Russian, however moderate he be, 
 who knows and feels for the wrongs of his country, 
 has condemned them in the past, nor will ever con- 
 demn them in the future. 
 
 Here is a sample of Russian judgment and a 
 poetical epitome of the deeply tragical position of 
 Russians devoted to their country, expressed by the 
 pen of our great novelist, Ivan Turgueneff, in his 
 " verses in prose," under the title, 
 
THE FORCES THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION COMMANDS. 45 
 
 "THE THRESHOLD. 
 
 " I see a huge building, in the front wall a narrow 
 door, which is wide open ; beyond it stretches a 
 dismal darkness. Before the high threshold stands 
 a girl — a Russian girl. 
 
 " The impenetrable darkness is breathing frost, 
 and with the icy breeze from the depth of the build- 
 ing a slow, hollow voice is coming. 
 
 " ' O you ! wanting to cross this threshold, do 
 you know what awaits you ? ' 
 
 " ' I know it,' answers the girl. 
 
 " ' Cold, hunger, hatred, derision, contempt, 
 insults, prison, suffering, even death ? ' 
 
 " ' I know it' 
 
 " ' Complete isolation, alienation from all ? ' 
 
 " ' I know it. I am ready. I will bear all sorrow 
 and miseries.' 
 
 " ' Not only if inflicted by enemies, but by kindred 
 and friends ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, even by them.' 
 
 " ' Well, are you ready for self-sacrifice ?' 
 
 " ' Yes.' 
 
 " ' For an anonymous self-sacrifice } You shall 
 
 die, and nobody, nobody shall know even whose 
 
 memory is to be honoured.' 
 
 " ' I want neither gratitude nor pity. I want no 
 name.' 
 
 " ' Are you ready — for a crime ? ' 
 
 " The girl bent her head. 
 
 " ' I am ready even for a crime.' 
 
 " The voice paused awhile before renewing its 
 questioning 
 
46 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 " ' Do you know,' it said at last, 'that you may 
 lose your faith in what you believe now ; that you 
 might come to feel that you were mistaken, and 
 have lost in vain your young life ? ' 
 
 " ' I know that also. And, nevertheless, I will 
 enter.' 
 
 " ' Enter then ! ' 
 
 " The girl crossed the threshold, and a heavy 
 curtain fell behind her. 
 
 " ' A fool ! ' gnashed some one outside. 
 
 " ' A saint ! ' answered a voice from somewhere." 
 
 This vision is not to be found of course in the 
 censiJred edition of Ivan Turgueneff's work. It 
 appeared in the clandestine press, and Mr. P. 
 Lavroff, to whom "The Threshold" was read by 
 the author in the summer of 1882, at Baujival, bears 
 testimony to its fidelity to the original. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. 
 
 For good or for evil Russia must be a powerful 
 State in Europe and in Asia. A country with one 
 hundred millions of inhabitants, increasing, more- 
 over, with extreme rapidity, cannot be a second-rate 
 power, however badly it be administered. And 
 the seemingly insatiable greed of the Russian 
 empire for territorial extension is not calculated to 
 allay the natural apprehension of its neighbours — 
 of the English more especially, on account of their 
 vast Asiatic dominion. Quite recently this gave 
 rise to the Afghan difficulty, which came within 
 appreciable distance of a casus belli, and though the 
 dispute is settled for the present, the political sky 
 is far from being clear. The storm-cloud, laden with 
 war and bloodshed, is hanging over the horizon, 
 arousing much more anxiety than the storm-cloud 
 of possible Russian revolution. Having already 
 investigated the component elements of the latter, 
 let us endeavour to do the same with the former. 
 Why is Russia a conquering country .'' What 
 causes this unhappy nation to play the ignoble 
 part of a continual disturber of the tranquillity and 
 peaceful development of countries to which it owes 
 
48 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 nothing but gratitude for such glimpses of culture 
 and intellectual development as it possesses ? The 
 fundamental cause of this is perfectly understood 
 in Europe : it is the existence of Autocracy in 
 Russia. A free government does not exclude the 
 possibility of wars, as the example of Europe has 
 unfortunately shown too well. But in the autocratic 
 States the ambition and cupidity of the masters is 
 a weighty and an additional cause of strife. And 
 the overpowering strength of Russia, together with 
 its geographical position, is particularly adapted to 
 give full play to such propensities of its rulers. 
 Russia alone among European countries is a con- 
 quering State in these days. Of late the total 
 ruin of the moral prestige of the Government, 
 and the growing disaffection among all classes 
 of society, has converted into a sort of moral 
 necessity what formerly was a mere luxury. The 
 Tzar must look on external wars as an oft-tried 
 expedient to divert the storm of public discontent 
 from internal questions. The European writers 
 who admit it, ascribe, however, too exclusive an 
 influence in this matter to purely Nihilistic disturb- 
 ances. This is not quite correct. The Nihilist 
 plots play a comparatively modest part in inducing 
 the Government to look for such expedients, simply 
 because the Nihilists are not so easily diverted from 
 their work. Much more important is the hopeless 
 discontent of the main mass of society, of all who 
 have no share in the plunder and revelry of the 
 dominant clique. The Government must give 
 some occupation to the public mind, lest this dismal 
 uneasiness turn into keen disaffection. And what 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY 49 
 
 Is very remarkable and characteristic of the present 
 intellectual condition of the Russian people, is the 
 fact that the public opinion of this most pacific of 
 all countries seems at first sight to possess an easily 
 excitable jingoism, making such criminal expedients 
 particularly easy. Whenever there is some diplo- 
 matic complication, and some smell of powder in 
 the air, the Russian press seems as if intoxicated 
 all at once with a warlike spirit, and provided the 
 trouble lasts for some time, society seems to be 
 ablaze. Much, is to be attributed, of course, to the 
 servile position of the press and the exclusive 
 monopoly of public platforms for the expression 
 of official views. When the Government gives a 
 signal, there are dozens of papers ready to take the 
 hint, and cheer for war as they would have cheered 
 for peace, at the bidding of the authorities. But 
 all is not due to the influence of the police. There 
 are many people who unite in the general chorus 
 spontaneously, and often brawl the loudest, without 
 being in the least "jingoes" at heart. It seems 
 strange, but it is true. I have known such cases 
 myself, and all Russians have witnessed many un- 
 expected transformations into fiery jingoes of very 
 mild and reasonable people. They are simply 
 moved by the unbearable wretchedness of their 
 daily existence ; by the desperate feeling, sometimes 
 unconscious, sometimes quite conscious, that as 
 things cannot be made worse, every change is 
 likely to be for the better They welcome with 
 reckless indifference every event even seeming 
 calamity; everything, in a word, provided it promises 
 a violent shock to the unendurable system, no matter 
 
 4 
 
50 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 how disastrous be the crash. To arrive at such 
 sentiments, men must be driven to madness by 
 continued depression of spirit. And so they really 
 are in Russia. The fact I am alluding to is undeni- 
 able, and recurs at every threatened war. It was 
 so in 1883, when a war with Germany was in the 
 air, and also during the last Afghan dispute. And 
 half, if not more, of the so-called "national" excite- 
 ment which preceded the Bulgarian War, had 
 precisely the same source. This patriotic uproar 
 has, of course, no great weight in the balance of the 
 body politic. But it smooths considerably the way 
 for more serious influences, by giving the fictitious 
 support of public clamour to the Jesuitical calcula- 
 tions of some crafty statesman, the promptings of 
 fear, or the machinations of some influential military 
 chief. 
 
 The Russia of to-day would be surely a very dan- 
 gerous neighbourhood, and would have hardly limited 
 herself to showing her teeth now and then, if there 
 were nothing to moderate her ardour. But Russian 
 masters have, so to speak, their legs confined in the 
 stocks, which tighten in the same proportion as 
 their desire to rush forward increases. The material 
 decomposition, the financial difficulties, the disorder 
 in all the branches of administration, including the 
 army, exercise the most salutary and cooling effect 
 even on those who govern Russia. The prospect of 
 a defeat is not very well suited to restore the moral 
 prestige of a party or a Government. Thus the 
 longing for exploits abroad, and the fear lest the 
 sword should be turned against its own breast, 
 counterbalance each other. Which of these 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. SI 
 
 Opposite, and equally peremptory, influences will 
 prevail ? In ordinary circumstances it is impossible 
 to determine. Between this desire and this fear 
 external circumstances must decide. Internal dis- 
 content, assuming a rather acute character, may drive 
 the Russian Government to a desperate war at any 
 price, as was the case with the third Napoleon. 
 Any political difficulties in which the opposing 
 countries may be involved, by diminishing the fear 
 of them, may give the Russian Government greater 
 inclination to pluck a fresh laurel at their expense. 
 This is, of course, not particularly reassuring for the 
 future, and few people are deceived on this point. 
 But the real causes of the continual aggressive move- 
 ment of the Russia of to-day do not lie here. 
 Besides those accidental agencies, controllable, to a 
 certain degree, by both parties, there is another of 
 permanent activity, which merits our particular atten- 
 tion. My friend, Peter Kropotkin, has already 
 pointed this out in his article in the Nineteenth 
 Century, published under the title, " The Coming 
 War ; " it is the urgent necessity for obtaining access 
 to foreign markets. But this is a tendency common 
 to all modern industrial states, and in his brief notice 
 Kropotkin deals in generalities, without mentioning 
 how this common striving is manifested in Russia. 
 This is what has induced me to take up this subject, 
 and to try to connect with it some peculiarities of 
 Russian life which may perhaps interest English 
 readers. 
 
 II. 
 The Russian Autocracy is passing now through a 
 very curious phase of its existence. Being based, 
 
C2 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 as everywhere else in Europe, on the predominance 
 of landowners and warriors, Russian Autocracy 
 differed from western autocracies only in the fact 
 that this latter class was composed of elements of 
 somewhat different origin and character from those 
 of other countries. But when the exigencies of social 
 growth necessitated the emancipation of the serfs, 
 Russia was remodelled at once after the pattern of 
 its neighbouring states in everything but their 
 political institutions. The form of government re- 
 mained the same, but in social and economical life 
 the middle class, the bourgeoisie, received as much 
 predominance as in the rest of modern Europe. 
 Moved by the tradition of the Autocracy as well as 
 by the personal sympathies of those in power, the 
 Government neglected nothing to maintain the 
 former predominance of the landed gentry, and to 
 atone for the material losses caused by the emancipa- 
 tion. First the land was deliberately over-estimated 
 in value in all the provinces of Russia proper 
 (excluding Poland, where the opposite course was 
 adopted). Thus the annual payment for the re- 
 demption of land exacted from the peasants is also 
 a monetary compensation for the loss of gratuitous 
 labour. When, three years after the emancipation, 
 the Zemstvos (local self-government) were created, 
 the nobility received such a predominant power, 
 that, if it chose to do so, the landed gentry could 
 all at once transform the Zemstvos into so many 
 oligarchies promoting and favouring the interest 
 and privileges of the nobility. From the entering 
 into office of Count Tolstoi, in 1866, the Govern- 
 ment did its utmost to create a landed oligarchy 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. 53 
 
 mimicking English landlords, and at all times it has 
 encouraged the nobility in their class selfishness and 
 encroachment on the rights of the common weal, 
 whilst obstructing every generous attempt to destroy 
 the barriers of privilege. When shortly after the 
 emancipation there appeared most unmistakable 
 signs of the general ruin of the landed gentry, the 
 Government proffered most liberal assistance. 
 Hundreds of millions of roubles were showered on 
 the nobility with reckless lavishness, to preserve 
 this class from ruin. In 1867 the first territorial 
 bank, with Government advances, was founded. In 
 a few years their number grew to twelve. The 
 total sum advanced to the nobles, both by the banks 
 and by the State in the epoch of the emancipation, 
 amounted to seven hundred millions of roubles. 
 Besides which the landlords realised enormous 
 sums by destroying and selling the greater part of 
 their forests. 
 
 But all these rivers of gold were wasted, as water 
 thrown on the sands of a desert. The ruin of the 
 noblemen's estates was not prevented, and they were 
 hardly benefited in any respect. The cultivation of 
 the noblemen's land, if there is any cultivation at all, 
 is in a most pitiable condition. They are overladen 
 with debt, and their revenue is often nominal. Mr. 
 Kaufmann's banking statistics show that in the 
 whole agricultural region more than one-fourth of 
 the soil is mortgaged to the territorial banks for 
 large sums, which the landowners will never be 
 able to pay. The only exceptions are the three 
 provinces of the south-west, where, owing to some 
 chance local peculiarity, the money was invested in 
 
54 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 productive improvements. As to the remainder of 
 agricultural Russia, impartial statistics produce the 
 following eloquent figures. In the provinces of the 
 Lower Volga, the normal revenue, according to the 
 valuation of the Zemstvos, being ii6 kopecs for a 
 desiatine, the interest for the debts contracted with 
 the territorial banks takes 85 kopecs. The taxes, 
 very moderate for the landlords' estates, amounting, 
 in addition, to 1 1 kopecs from a desiatine, the pro- 
 prietors receive only 20 kopecs from every desiatine. 
 In the five provinces of the south (Black Sea 
 region) the conditions are still worse. The average 
 revenue, according to the valuation of the Zemstvos, 
 being about 146 kopecs, the interest due to the 
 banks amounts to 154 kopecs, which leaves a deficit 
 of 22 kopecs, resulting in permanent failure to pay 
 both the interest and the taxes. In the richest soil 
 of the ten provinces of the black earth zone, where 
 the net proceeds of a desiatine is 281 kopecs, the 
 interest takes 228 kopecs, the taxes 15 kopecs, leav- 
 ing for the proprietor only 38 kopecs per desiatine. 
 The possibility of so enormous an absorption of 
 income by interest is of course due to the over- 
 estimation of the land made by the too friendly 
 agents of the territorial banks. And we must 
 observe that the area of land thus irremediably in- 
 volved in debt makes a very considerable part of 
 the landlords' possessions. Only in the northern 
 regions, where the land has hardly any value, is 
 it not mortgaged. In the Black Sea zone, for 
 example, the hypothecated land constitutes about 
 40 per cent, of the landlords' possessions ; in the 
 Lower Volga it approaches nearly 50 per cent., and 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. $5 
 
 there are provinces — for example, that of Kherson 
 — where all the land held by landlords is in this 
 condition. (" Annalles," 1880, N. 248.) 
 
 Nothing can be more damning than such figures. 
 In this case bankruptcy, and the forced sale of the 
 land by auction, is unavoidable. And they are really 
 sold by dozens at every clearing up of the bank's 
 accounts. But the condition of the estates of the 
 bulk of the landed gentry is quickly approaching the 
 same level. The careful statistical inquiries of the 
 Moscow Zemstvo have startled all Russia, showing 
 that in this province, possessing so enormous a 
 market as the old capital, the estates of the landed 
 gentry are in total ruin ; the area of cultivated land 
 is diminished to four-fifths, sometimes to one quarter 
 of its former amount. In many districts there is no 
 culture at all. The forests are wasted ; even dairy 
 farming, so profitable near the great towns, is in a 
 most dejected state. Voices coming from all parts 
 of the vast empire are repeating the same sad dirge. 
 " The land yields nothing," is the general outcry of 
 the nobility, and they rush from the country to the 
 towns in quest of some employment in the State 
 service or liberal professions, leaving the land either 
 uncultivated, or abandoning it to the wasteful cultiva- 
 tion of cottiers, or selling it to new men, — some 
 wealthy tavern keeper or former manager of serfs, — 
 who are more fitted for the new mode of carrying 
 on business in the villages. 
 
 It would cause a long digression to inquire into 
 the agricultural condition created in Russia by the 
 abstruse Emancipation Act, and to explain thoroughly 
 why the landed gentry are going to ruin. The 
 
56 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 emancipation has ruined both the peasants and the 
 landlords. The peasants have too little land to pay 
 the exorbitant taxes, absorbing often the whole net 
 proceeds of the soil. The landlords, on the other 
 hand, can never secure a regular supply of agricul- 
 tural labourers at the most important seasons, if 
 they have not contrived to involve the surrounding 
 peasantry In an inextricable network of debt. The 
 peasants will not come at all, unless they are, how- 
 ever unwillingly, bound to work in the landlords' 
 fields, leaving their own crops to perish in the mean- 
 time. The only thriving cultures are those based 
 on this new sort of serfdom, to which the Russian 
 peasant gave the name of cabala; the very same 
 word which designated of old the act of selling 
 one's self in slavery. There are very few exceptions 
 to this rule. Now to organise and carry on for 
 years such a system, a good many special qualities 
 are required. A thorough intimacy with the sur- 
 rounding rural population is the first requisite ; but 
 it is not enough. A good deal of cunning, pluck, 
 and even cruelty and dishonesty are indispensable 
 for ensnaring and binding the peasants in the most 
 economical and effective way. The incapacity of 
 our landed gentry for adapting themselves to our 
 new agrarian condition is not, therefore, all to their 
 dishonour. They have no pluck and little practical 
 knowledge ; but they most of them feel reluctant to 
 play, with the help of the local police and the autho- 
 rities, the part of peasant hunters, preferring to 
 abandon their estates to their fate. 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. 57 
 III. 
 
 However this may be, the nobility, as a landed 
 class, is ruined, and is melting away because their 
 property is really their only privilege. From a 
 purely unproductive class of annuitants, formerly 
 slave owners, the bulk of the Russian nobility is 
 swelling continually another very interesting class 
 of Russian society, on which we must dwell awhile. 
 Most of the peculiarities of Russian life which 
 surprise foreign observers are due to the existence 
 and character of this class. It has no particular 
 official designation or position, but it is engrossing 
 almost entirely the most vital and most important of 
 social functions, that of intellectual activity. In 
 official documents these people, or rather a part of 
 them, are designated under the generic name of 
 raznotchenzy — literary men of variegated chin, or 
 grade. The best equivalent for this incongruous 
 term would be intellectual proletariat, which they 
 really are. Their generic distinction is the posses- 
 sion of more or less superior mental culture of the 
 European pattern, and the necessity of using it to 
 earn their livelihood. In all countries people devoted 
 to intellectual work as a profession are frequently 
 destitute of other resources. But they form but a 
 fraction of the vast number of men who, although 
 belonging to the wealthy classes, do not neglect 
 either study or various kinds of intellectual work as 
 the means by which they may extend their political 
 and social influence. Russia is a poor country com- 
 pared with her western neighbours, and, owing to 
 political conditions, there was no room for such 
 aspirations. The literary career was the only one 
 
58 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 capable of tempting a nobleman, but the majority 
 were too sluggish to take great interest in literary 
 or scientific pursuits. All sorts of intellectual work 
 was undertaken as a profession, and for no other 
 reason. In the dawn of our culture this work was 
 required by the State ; later on there arose a con- 
 siderable demand for it from the bulk of society and 
 the nation. The intelligent worker could throw off 
 the degrading official uniform, and serve his country 
 no longer at the caprice of some high personage. 
 But the general character of this class remained the 
 same. It is the intellectual proletariat in the full 
 acceptation of the term. We have only to cast a 
 glance at the material condition of Russian high 
 school students to feel it. The small nobility, having 
 no land, or too little to live on, furnish a con- 
 siderable contingent to this section ; next comes the 
 army of Government officials of the second and third 
 order, who, by stinting themselves, can indeed give 
 their children a sufficient education, but are unable 
 to leave them a penny. A very considerable pro- 
 portion is furnished at last by the priests of the 
 Greek Church, whose numerous sons are frequently 
 unwilling or unable to find room in the order. 
 
 These raz7iotchenzy furnish the bulk of the civil 
 as well as the military officers of the Government, 
 and manage all the branches of industry where some 
 education is required. In science, literature, and all 
 free professions they are the foremost. The emancipa- 
 tion of the serfs contributed largely to the extension 
 of this class, both by diminishing the number of 
 public drones and by causing a general diffusion 
 of learning. And under the present political regime 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. 59 
 
 no class is suffering so greatly, and none is so 
 deeply discontented. I will not dwell on the moral 
 suffering caused by the total deprivation of the sacred 
 human right to think and speak, which for intellec- 
 tually developed men is simply stifling ; this can 
 easily be pictured. But what an English reader 
 will surely fail to imagine are the continual petty 
 vexations, obstructions, arbitrary interruptions and 
 suppressions, which are constantly threatening all 
 the unhappy Russians devoted to any branch of 
 intellectual work. Be it the publication of a 
 periodical paper or of a book, the foundation of an 
 elementary school or of a co-operative association, 
 the writers, publishers, teachers, promoters of any 
 enterprise intended for something else than the 
 plunder of the people, must suffer the oppression of 
 the censorship, which is crippling their conceptions, 
 and maiming their best ideas ; while all the time 
 there is no guarantee that their enterprise, and often 
 their fortune also, will not be ruined by the brutal 
 interference of some gendarme or police officer. 
 
 I will add that, of late, there are unmistakable 
 signs that even such lame activity is becoming more 
 and more difficult to obtain for men trained for 
 intellectual work. A well-known Russian publicist, 
 Mr. W. W., has collected in a recent paper many 
 striking facts, showing that in all branches of pro- 
 fessional work, medicine, superior teaching, agro 
 nomy, technology, in the last years is observable 
 an overcrowding of applicants, showing a supply 
 enormously surpassing the demand. Medicine, 
 for example, which only a few years ago was 
 regarded as the surest of bread-winning professions, 
 
6o THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 is SO full now, that for every place offered by the 
 Zemstvos, or the municipalities, or the hospitals, 
 and so forth, there is often a crowd of eighty to 
 ninety applicants. Whilst formerly the Zemstvos 
 had the greatest difficulty in obtaining a competent 
 surgeon for the modest salary of about ^120 to 
 ^150 a year, now they have only to pick out the best 
 man from a crowd of bidders. There are instances 
 when, profiting by the competition, some stingy 
 Zemstvos have reduced their surgeon's salary from 
 jCiSO to ^90, or from ^^160 to ^80 a year, and 
 they could, if they wished, obtain them at still lower 
 prices. High-class surgeons with scientific degrees 
 are compelled to accept sometimes the office of 
 simple phlebotomist at a salary of a few pounds a 
 month. The Ministry of War, which had to spend 
 so much money in scholarships in order to secure 
 a staff of surgeons, because they preferred a free 
 practice, now is so worried with aspirants that it 
 must advertise to prevent surgeons from troubling 
 them uselessly. And the official paper of the 
 medical department now and then inserts emphatic 
 appeals to public beneficence to support some 
 graduated and experienced surgeons thrown on the 
 street, and unable to find any employment whatever. 
 In a word, the market is overloaded with the article 
 so much sought for a few years ago. And yet 
 nothing would be further from the truth than the 
 supposition that the country has more medical men 
 than it naturally requires. Russia has but one 
 surgeon to every 6,400 inhabitants — one-fourth of 
 the proportion in England, and one-tenth of that 
 in the United States. But if we exclude the two 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. 6 1 
 
 capitals, which absorb one-fifth of the whole medical 
 body, we shall have one surgeon to every 8,000 
 inhabitants. And still even in the provinces the 
 towns take up the greatest and certainly the ablest 
 part of the surgical staff. In the province of 
 Kharkofif, for example, of the total number of 200 
 surgeons, 123 practise in the town of Kharkoff, and 
 of the remaining 86 only 20 live in villages, the 
 rest preferring to stay in the small towns of the 
 province. Thus it happens that in the country parts 
 of many provinces there is one surgeon for 47,000, 
 for 50,000, and even for 73,000 of population. 
 Official statistics show that on 100 people dead, 
 93 died without having been ever seen by any 
 medical man. Only seven per cent, received some 
 medical assistance. Such figures tell their own tale. 
 The millions of Russian peasants remain without 
 any surgical aid whatever, and the Zemstvos refuse 
 to accept new surgeons offering their service, and 
 reduce the miserable salary of those accepted. 
 There is but one interpretation of this contradic- 
 tion. Peasants are reduced to such misery that 
 the Zemstvos cannot exact a kopec more from them. 
 The cheapest medical assistance is for them an 
 unattainable luxury. And the insignificant part of 
 the town population which is sufficiently rich to 
 afford it has enough and to spare with the handful 
 of surgeons our medical schools can turn out. This 
 state of things is repeated in all the most important 
 professions. Russian agriculture is in the same 
 state as it was in the thirteenth century, and of the 
 385 agronomists who studied in the Academy in 
 the period of 1861-79, only thirty-six occupied 
 
62 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 in 1879 posts as managers on landlords' estates, and 
 not one of them was engaged by the Zemstvos. 
 In 1 88 1, when, in the whole of Russia, the scourge 
 of various epidemic diseases destroyed the peasants' 
 cattle, the paper reported that more than one 
 hundred veterinary surgeons were out of work, and 
 had vainly applied for employment at the Ministry 
 of the Interior, because the Zemstvos refused to 
 engage them. (Poriadoc, 275.) 
 
 The position is quite clear. The acute crisis for 
 the intellectual proletariat has begun. The bulk of 
 this class has already, or soon will be, thrown on 
 the street, because the peasant, the only employer 
 requiring their services, is totally ruined. The close 
 union of interests between the brain worker and 
 the operative was always strongly felt by the most 
 enlightened Russians. Among our best writers, 
 publicists, critics, poets, novelists, — the teachers of 
 the nation in general, — this feeling, enlightened by 
 humanitarian Western philosophy, was fruitful of the 
 best consequences. Notwithstanding the severity 
 of the censorship, they always contrived to give it 
 shape in the literature by which the three last 
 generations were educated. The generous De- 
 mocracy developed in all Russian educated classes, 
 beginning with the raznotchenzy and lower nobility, 
 and diminishing as it approached the higher orders — 
 this Democracy is most promising for our future. 
 It will never be rooted out or crushed by the efforts 
 of the Government, and will always animate our 
 best men in their struggle against the Autocracy 
 for the sake of their own and the peasants' freedom. 
 Now it asserts itself, as we have seen, in the most 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. 63 
 
 peremptory way. It speaks not only to the heads 
 or hearts of the people, but to their stomachs — 
 a part of the body which in many is the most 
 sensible to persuasion. Even the officials of the 
 Government, save the few superior ones, must feel 
 uneasy, if not for themselves, at all events for their 
 children, if they care about their future. 
 
 Thus the mass of intelligent and educated Russians 
 grow more and more unanimous in their discontent 
 against the existing order of things. The removal 
 of the present political regime, which is the cause 
 of the misery of the nation, is a question of life and 
 death for our intellectual class. It appeals to every- 
 thing which can be appealed to. This accounts for 
 the tenacity of the revolution, which no bloody re- 
 prisal can extirpate, and also for the large sympathy 
 it meets with amongst all classes. And that is also 
 what makes the position of the Government a very 
 dangerous one. It cannot sweep out these deadly 
 enemies, because a modern state cannot live a day 
 without making use of a vast amount of intellectual 
 power. But can a Russian student, nourished by 
 our noble, humanitarian literature, can he don the 
 livery of a Tzar's servant, and become one of the 
 blood-suckers of the peasants ? Certainly not. A 
 Siberian convict's grey overcoat will oppress his 
 shoulders much less than the uniform of an official. 
 Only the morally destitute, the cynically egotistical, 
 the renegades of their better selves, can deliberately 
 accept the position of the Tzar's tchinovniks. Hence 
 the dishonesty, plunder, malversation for which the 
 Tzar's administration has become notorious. And 
 as to the many who enter the official body from 
 
64 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 necessity or from traditional habit, they become 
 either wretchedly discontented, or take to plotting 
 against the Government. The unbiassed testimony 
 of the secret memorandum of Count Schouvaloff, 
 formerly head of the Third Section, and Ambassador 
 to England, shows that the general disaffection of 
 the main body of tchinovniks is not a secret from 
 the Government. And the no less unbiassed testi- 
 mony of the list of the political arrests shows that 
 affiliation to revolution is as common among the 
 officials as among the other classes of society. A 
 very dangerous position it is for a Government to 
 have to lean on such a staff of people, charged with 
 ill omens, affording a particularly favourable ground 
 for conspiracies of every kind, from the small one 
 manifested in acts of terrorism to the large one, the 
 violent coup cCdtat, which sooner or later will over- 
 throw the Autocracy and the Autocrats, if the 
 general decomposition of the State does not force 
 the Government to lay down its arms. 
 
 IV. 
 
 But what are the chances of the Government ? 
 For it must have, after all, some support to uphold 
 it, otherwise, rotten as it is, it could not stand 
 against the four winds of heaven. It is in the 
 agricultural masses that the existing rdgime finds 
 its chief support, — not so much on account of their 
 devotion, which is rather a sort of superstition, as 
 on account of their patience. The masses supply 
 the soldiers for a colossal army, and obediently pay 
 the taxes, making an enormous total revenue. By 
 unscrupulous use of force and money, by corrupting 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. 6$ 
 
 one and slaughtering another, much can be done ; 
 not all, however. Even a conqueror who has im- 
 posed his yoke on a country by force of arms, if he 
 is provident, will always try to conciliate the good 
 graces of some large part of the body social. It 
 would seem at first sight that, for Russian Autocracy, 
 the fittest class on which to make such an attempt 
 would be the peasantry. For nothing seems easier 
 than to convert, by some real benefits, what now is 
 a simple misunderstanding into true attachment. 
 And, indeed, the Government of Alexander III., 
 who professes to be a peasants' Tzar, tried in the 
 years 1 88 1-3, with great pomp and roll of drums, 
 some petty experiments in democratic Caesarism. 
 But it failed miserably, without being able to im- 
 prove in the least degree the desperate economical 
 condition of the peasants. For to benefit the masses 
 is a task far beyond the resources, both material 
 and intellectual, of a bureaucratic despotism. All 
 that the latter is able to do, without renouncing its 
 uncontrolled power, is to give a share of the booty to 
 some clique it wishes to gain over. But whom can 
 it choose for its accomplices and allies ? That is the 
 question. The landed gentry are useless ; the pro- 
 fessional and educated classes hopeless. But, lo ! 
 there is the middle-class man, standing on the look- 
 out, and eagerly awaiting an opportunity of making 
 himself serviceable. His former existence was a 
 most wretched one, and his position dependent and 
 often humiliating in the extreme. The nobles were 
 really screening the sunlight from him. Having 
 the exclusive right of owning serfs, they excluded 
 him from the possession of the chief wealth of the 
 
 5 
 
66 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 country, — the land, — which had no value without a 
 labouring force to cultivate it. They occupied all 
 posts of honour ; they were pre-eminent everywhere. 
 The national industry was in quite a rudimentary state, 
 lacking the chief requisite for its development, — the 
 free workmen, — because the serfs, when the nobles 
 or the Crown graciously permitted them to abandon 
 the furrow, were the chief recruits for our industrial 
 establishments. Besides, there was but a very limited 
 demand for the productions of regular manufactories. 
 The peasants provided for most of their needs by 
 home industry, the women of the households weaving 
 linen and rough woollen stuffs for the hawkers. The 
 iron and leather wares, and other goods which could 
 not be produced by home labour, were supplied for 
 the whole country by the so-called custary — a kind 
 of home-working artisan, half agriculturalist, scat- 
 tered over the surface of Russia in hamlets and 
 villages, having each its hereditary and special 
 branch of industry. The landowners, having at 
 their disposal vast territorial possessions, and forty 
 millions of slaves to till them, had enormous masses 
 of agricultural produce for sale and exportation, and 
 were the richest consumers. But their capricious 
 and high-class demands could be satisfied most 
 advantageously by foreign importation. 
 
 Thus the greatly predominant typical middle-class 
 man of the epoch anterior to the emancipation was 
 almost exclusively a merchant. And so this class 
 was officially designated in Russia. Now this 
 particular occupation may require a good deal of 
 cunning and practical ability, but it demands little, 
 if any, of the scientific knowledge which manu- 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. 6j 
 
 facturing industries do. The Russian merchants of 
 the old type, as regards their intellectual develop- 
 ment, differed little from the peasants. The bulk 
 of them were illiterate ; and even in our time the 
 notables of the merchant class in provincial towns, 
 members of municipal councils, often can hardly 
 decipher the title of a newspaper, and in writing 
 never commit themselves further than in scrawl- 
 ing their names. The fact being that, when Peter 
 the Great by Herculean impulse tried to elevate 
 the Russian nation from Muscovite stagnation to 
 Western culture, only the head of the social body, 
 seized by the hair, followed the violent pull. The 
 body remained behind. The nation was split in 
 two, and the merchant class remained on the other 
 side, with the peasants keeping their old customs 
 and their old uncontaminated ignorance. They 
 suffered many annoyances for the sake of their 
 long beards and old Russian dress, and the majority 
 of them adhered to the schism of the ritualistic old 
 orthodoxy, shunning with sacred horror the culture 
 borrowed from foreign heretics. 
 
 The two most influential classes of the nation — 
 the nobility and the merchants — preserved all the 
 antagonism and exclusiveness of two castes, differ- 
 ing by birth, habits, and traditions. The nobles 
 mocked the merchants for their gross ignorance, 
 and despised them for their moral character. For 
 in Russia of old, as in all barbarous countries, 
 cheating and fraud were considered the fundamental 
 principles of a thriving commerce. " No cheating, 
 no selling," is the proverb of the Russian trades- 
 people, and all observers agree, that even in our 
 
68 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 time commercial honesty is not a virtue in which 
 Russian merchants excel. It would be gross par- 
 tiality to say that the Russian nobility were very 
 strict in the matter of the eighth commandment. 
 But, somewhat like the Germans described by 
 Tacitus, they were ashamed to steal by fraud what 
 they could rob quite frankly as their due as State 
 officials, administrators, and dispensers of justice. 
 The counting-house people were in very bad odour 
 with the nobility, and to allow a merchant to sit at 
 one's dining table was considered an act of supreme 
 condescension. 
 
 The merchants, on the other hand, repaid the 
 nobles with similar ill-feeling, despising and ridi- 
 culing their indolence, incapacity for business, and 
 reckless profligacy. They valued not a straw the 
 superior culture and various intellectual accomplish- 
 ments of those French-speaking, elegant gentlemen. 
 In the eyes of a genuine merchant every nobleman 
 was but a helpless fool, whom clever people, like 
 himself, were in duty bound to cheat and deceive. 
 The plucky and unscrupulous merchant had, how- 
 ever, to conceal in the depths of his soul the senti- 
 ment of his own superiority ; because in all strife 
 with him it was the nobles who held the knife by 
 the handle. Administration, justice, police— all was 
 in those times subject, directly or indirectly, to the 
 nobles ; and for a person belonging to an inferior 
 class it was a hopeless, often a perilous, enterprise 
 to take an action against any member of the privi- 
 leged order. " A raven will not pick out another 
 raven's eye," say the Russian people. The mer- 
 chant was at the mercy of the barbarous whim of 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. 69 
 
 every wild nobleman, whom the habit of Hving 
 among slaves had not taught to respect human 
 dignity. Only by making a show of craven obse- 
 quiousness and hypocritical reverence could a mer- 
 chant coming to transact business with a country 
 gentleman preserve himself from the worst treat 
 ment and even personal assaults. 
 
 In the towns, the centres of civilisation, the 
 merchant was more or less saved from having a 
 couple of dogs set at his heels, or his beard burnt 
 or any similar practical joke, by the proximity of 
 the police, with whom he was generally on friendly 
 terms. But his position was a most wretched one 
 nevertheless. For he was exposed, bound hand 
 and foot, to the petty tyranny of local authorities. 
 True, their relation bore the stamp of rough fami- 
 liarity, after a Russian fashion, and even they were 
 sometimes allies, indispensable to each other. "Oh, 
 you rogues, scoundrels, arch-knaves, seven devils and 
 one witch in your throats ! you wanted to ruin me 
 by complaining to His Excellency ! " shouts the 
 most typical of our Superintendents of police, the 
 hero of Gogol's " Revizor," addressing the penitent 
 merchants standing before him. " Have you for- 
 gotten, ungrateful dogs that you are, how many times 
 I have helped you to cheat the Government ? Was 
 it not I who assisted you, miscreant swindlers, to 
 palm off on the Crown Commission your worthless, 
 rotten rubbish ? " And the contrite delinquents can 
 but plead guilty, protesting that it was the devil 
 that seduced them to complain against so fatherly a 
 master, and they are pardoned on condition of bring- 
 ing a new bribe. To bribe always, to bribe every 
 
JO THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 member of the official hierarchy " according to their 
 rank," and to be worried, harassed, threatened in 
 order to further extortions — such was the fate of 
 our middle-class men in times not long gone by. 
 Like the Jew of the Middle Ages, the merchant had 
 to conceal his riches in order not to provoke cupidity, 
 and having his strong box brimful of silver and 
 gold, he lived like a beggar, eating nothing but 
 sour cabbages with bread, lest his opulence might 
 cause the doubling of his bribe. 
 
 He was a very poor figure, our middle-class man 
 before 1861. But the emancipation came, giving 
 all at once a new aspect to the country. With the 
 abolition of serfdom the nobility practically lost the 
 character of a privileged class. The chief source 
 of the national wealth — the land — could be hence- 
 forward acquired by everybody, since its possession 
 did not imply slave ownership. Vast tracts of land, 
 making in all about one-fourth of the noblemen's 
 possessions, have already passed from the hands of 
 the ruined nobles into those of the merchants and 
 new men of their stamp ; another fourth being 
 mortgaged to the banks, of which they are the share- 
 holders, is in their virtual possession. The millions 
 of peasants, who formerly worked for the nobles, 
 now are enriching with their labour the merchants, 
 who found excellent means of adapting themselves 
 to new agrarian conditions. Swarms of peasants, 
 compelled by hunger, and no longer detained by 
 anybody's will, are rushing to the towns, and crowd 
 at the doors of the manufactories, imploring work 
 for the lowest wages. After the emancipation all 
 the country began to move. New means of com 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. 7 1 
 
 munication were required to suit this new life, and 
 in a few years Russia was covered with a network 
 of railways. National industry received a wonderful 
 push. It has quintupled in the last twenty years. 
 (Elis6e's " Russian Geography.") Commercial and 
 industrial enterprises of every kind, banks, companies 
 of every description, sprang up like mushrooms 
 after a rainy day. The country entered with the 
 extreme rashness characteristic of all our social 
 process upon an entirely new phase of its existence. 
 And the hero of it is he, the formerly despised, 
 insulted, creeping merchant. He is everywhere : 
 as a landowner, elector of the provincial assembly, 
 as capitalist and rich tradesman, he reigns in the 
 municipalities. He alone is prosperous, and the 
 ruined nobles now accept with gratitude lucrative 
 employment in his office. He is quite at ease now. 
 From a milch cow, whom only the lazy abstained 
 from milking, he became the most respectable and 
 courted member of the community. He is no 
 longer afraid of the menials of administration, who 
 are now at his beck, anxious to earn as a gratuity 
 what formerly they took by force. The abolition 
 of slavery has cleared social life from many a 
 pestilent emanation of private tyranny, and new 
 tribunals, with jurymen and publicity of procedure, 
 judging all people, all offences (except, of course, 
 anything political), are prompt to redress any injury, 
 especially to a man who can secure the services of 
 the very best counsel. 
 
 But all this prosperity showered on him could 
 not change him personally. True, his former mean- 
 ness, timidity, and obsequiousness has been quickly 
 
72 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 turned into presumption and insolence toward his 
 inferiors, whom he can trample down. For towards 
 the big people he becomes all at once mean and 
 slavish. He has learned to spend lavishly, and to 
 make a show of his wealth, because now it can only 
 increase his reputation and influence. To make 
 himself more acceptable to the circles where he is 
 so kindly received, he has thrown off his old-fashioned 
 kaftan and donned the European overcoat ; some- 
 times shaving off his sacred beard. But he has 
 not in the least become an European. He is utterly 
 ignorant, and has none of those intellectual needs 
 which culture has generated in his European 
 confrere. The middle class — the bourgeoisie — of 
 European countries is a class uniting in itself the 
 greatest forces which modern culture possesses, 
 wealth and culture — being not only the richest, 
 but the most enlightened class of the nation. That 
 is what urged it to rise in arms against despotism 
 and gave it at the same time the force to subdue 
 the Monarchy and the territorial aristocracy. In 
 Russia, as we have seen, the genuine middle-class 
 men possess only one, and that not the most 
 important of these two qualifications — wealth, 
 coupled with great denseness of brain ; whilst the 
 intellectual power belongs to another class, which 
 possess none of the force and influence over the 
 masses which wealth gives. This most unfortunate 
 and anomalous division cannot last long. Out of 
 the 10,000 students in our universities, about 3,800 
 belong to the middle class, which in old times was 
 hardly represented at all in our high schools. As 
 to gymnasia (colleges), the pupils belonging to the 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. '] ^i 
 
 non-privileged classes form at present the majority. 
 The middle class is growing more and more 
 educated, in defiance of relentless and most cynical 
 obstruction on the part of the so-called Ministry 
 of Public Education. But until now the division 
 between wealth and intellect has been strongly 
 marked, and the Government well knows how to 
 make the best of it. The newly-born bourgeoisie, 
 composed of merchants, enriched burghers, country 
 usurers, and tavern keepers, are really the best, 
 the surest, the only sincere supporters of the exist- 
 ing rdgime ; because they are siding not with the 
 imaginary, mythical Tzar, as the peasants are, but 
 with the real one, the head and informing soul of 
 the existing state, with its oppression, arbitrariness, 
 peculation, and cruelties. For all the wrongdoing 
 of the Autocratic system does not affect our new 
 bourgeois in the least. How can he feel the suppres- 
 sion of liberty of speech when he has nothing to 
 say ? or of the liberty of the press, when he reads 
 nothing but the advertisements ? He is too narrow- 
 minded as yet to conceive the idea that a better 
 political order, by improving the general condition 
 of the country, will increase tenfold the income of 
 all his class. He finds it much more advantageous 
 to turn to his private benefit the prevailing arbi- 
 trariness and venality, which put at his service for 
 a miserable bribe the political forces of the State. 
 
 Thus both the parties are in perfect harmony. 
 The Government, which cares about nothing but its 
 own existence, is quite happy in having found such 
 supporters and allies, and the game goes on merrily. 
 The purest of middle-class regimes, with a bourgeois 
 
74 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 king of the stamp of a Louis Philippe, could not 
 sacrifice with half such selfishness the interests of 
 the whole nation to those of the bourgeoisie as did 
 the Tzars Alexander II. and III. Nobody has 
 calculated yet the total amount of funds spent in 
 direct subsidies to various industrial, railway, and 
 steamboat companies, as well as to private manu- 
 facturers of every description, " in order to support 
 the national industry." But judging by what was 
 published, as regards the railway, for example, we 
 must conclude that it exceeded five or six times 
 what was wasted on the nobility. It is to be reckoned 
 by milliards of roubles — like the contributions im- 
 posed on a defeated country. Selfish as they are, 
 our capitalists want nevertheless to shun any con- 
 tribution to the Exchequer of the State which is 
 benefiting them with such liberality. When the 
 Zemstvos, in the years 1865-6, passed a resolution 
 to tax the capital employed in industry, the capitalists 
 prevailed upon the Government to issue a special 
 law (19th November, 1867), expressly prohibiting 
 the taxation of the revenue of the industrial concerns. 
 Thus was maintained a very onerous and unjust 
 exemption in favour of the richest citizens. 
 
 With other classes, the nobility included, the 
 Government show always a certain diffidence. In 
 instituting the Zemstvos, and giving them entirely 
 into the hands of the nobility, the Government take 
 care to exclude the small nobility, by establishing a 
 high qualification for the suffrage. With the middle- 
 class men the Autocracy is much more confident. 
 The municipal statute of 1870, conferring a certain 
 amount of municipal self-government, leaves our 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. 75 
 
 towns completely at the mercy of those middle-class 
 men. It excludes the main body of the educated 
 class, but none of those who are educated by the 
 doubtful morality of our counting-houses. The 
 ignorant shop assistants and errand boys paying 
 for their commercial licenses four or five shillings 
 a year, have a vote for the election of municipal 
 councillors, whilst the citizens who do not belong 
 to any trade, but are members of respectable free 
 professions, — professors at universities, surgeons, 
 lawyers, etc., — have no right to vote unless they are 
 freeholders of houses, which, being very exceptional 
 in Russia, virtually excludes the most enlightened 
 class of Russian society from any voice in the 
 management of the towns in which they live. When 
 this system bore its fruit, and a series of scandalous 
 bankruptcies of municipal banks exhibited such a 
 corruption in the municipalities as equalled (unable 
 to surpass) everything previously known about 
 bureaucratic malversations, there was a general 
 outcry throughout the country, that something must 
 be done to stop the impudent embezzlement of 
 the public money. The extension of the municipal 
 franchise to the instructed classes was demanded, — 
 a very modest demand, — as the simplest means of 
 checking the cynical dishonesty of our respectable 
 town notables. But the Government remained deaf 
 to this clamour ; it thought it quite a sufficient 
 guarantee to prohibit near relations from becoming 
 managers of the same banks. 
 
 Protection of trade was always eagerly desired by 
 our middle class. At every chilling draught from the 
 Berlin, Paris, and London markets, unable to protect 
 
76 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 themselves, they whimpered for protective tariffs, 
 and the Government hastened to the rescue of its 
 cherished children. The customs duties being con- 
 tinually augmented, converted the protective tariff 
 into a prohibitory one, closing entirely the Russian 
 markets to foreign, especially to German, imports. 
 
 The Moscovif manufacturer hoped to sleep undis- 
 turbed in the shadow of the Moscow Gazette. But 
 here a very curious event took place, which marred 
 his prospects. The German products could not 
 cross the frontier, but nothing could prevent the 
 German producers from doing so in a body. Unable 
 to send their wares to Muscovy, the German manu- 
 facturers, with their capital, workmen, and machinery, 
 crossed the Russian frontier, and pitched their tents 
 on the other side of it. They chose for settlement 
 Poland, as a country better known to them and more 
 fitting to their tastes. The district of Lodz became 
 the centre of German colonisation. Formerly a 
 small village, Lodz is now the second city of Poland 
 by its population and by its industry. Seven-eights 
 of all the cotton wares of Poland are manufactured 
 in this town. The cotton-wool and dyeing manu- 
 factories — most of them German — extend for a 
 distance of more than ten kilometres. The same 
 is true with respect to neighbouring towns. All the 
 district is at present more German than Polish. 
 
 Thus the dreaded enemy entered the walls, and 
 hurled their packages of wares against their adver- 
 saries. This was a most unexpected and untoward 
 occurrence for the Russian manufacturer. The 
 products of German textile manufactories found 
 an excellent and always increasing market in Russia. 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. -JJ 
 
 They are now beginning to obtain a footing in the 
 old capital itself. It was a great disappointment 
 and a great annoyance to our long-bearded Mus- 
 covites ; but the Paladin of all the swindling and 
 pilfering legion, the editor of the Moscow Gazette, 
 was equal to the occasion, and began a fiery literary 
 campaign, advocating the establishment of an 
 interior frontier, cutting out Poland from the 
 Russian markets, by imposing custom duties on 
 goods of Polish manufacture. That would be a 
 very energetic measure indeed, and a very amusing 
 one also. For, suppose the project of Mr. Katkoff 
 realised, what would prevent the Germans from 
 crossing the new interior frontier ? What is to be 
 done if they come to Moscow at one stride .'' 
 
 But in June 1885 the editor of the Moscow Gazette 
 has gone still farther. He proposed nothing less 
 than to sell Poland to Germany for some million of 
 roubles, to free the Moscow manufacturers at once 
 from this dangerous competitor. This is certainly 
 the height of absurdity ; but what can be more 
 characteristic than to hear such an opinion expressed 
 by a man who is by no means a simple journalist, 
 whose whims have no importance ? Mr. Katkoff is 
 something like a permanent cabinet minister without 
 portfolio, one of the three men who rule the ruler of 
 the Russian Empire. 
 
 It is impossible to go farther, and it is difficult to 
 go so far. No statesman, no leading political paper 
 in a country where the middle class reigns supreme, 
 would have seriously proposed such an absurdity as 
 
78 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 selling an integral part of the State — officially 
 recognised as such, at all events — to another power, 
 because its industry is too much in advance of that 
 of the other provinces. No Government, represent- 
 ing the interest of the middle class, would impose 
 permanent contributions in favour of a small set 
 of private men, nor maintain an onerous immunity 
 from taxes in favour of those who are most capable 
 of supporting the burden of State expenses. All 
 this is impossible in a middle-class state, because 
 contrary to the interests of this class itself as a body. 
 But a despotic government is no more capable of 
 furthering the interests of the middle class than 
 those of the masses of the people ; because the 
 middle class, as a whole, requires for its prosperity, 
 in the first instance, general liberty, self-government, 
 the better management of public funds, and public 
 control over the officials. The Russia of to-day, as 
 a state, is nothing but a bureaucratic oligarchy, 
 serving with slavish devotedness a commercial 
 oligarchy of the worst kind. 
 
 An altogether peculiar position for an Autocracy. 
 
 Now having by the whole of its proceedings 
 ruined the country and reduced the peasants, who 
 form nine-tenths of the nation, to a state of virtual 
 starvation, which excludes them wholesale from the 
 chance of becoming buyers, the Government must 
 make shift to answer the desperate cry of these 
 people about the absence of any outlet for their 
 produce. The only expedient which is open to 
 the Government is to acquire new external markets. 
 Having all the western markets shut off, and being 
 unable to compete with foreign producers even in 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. 79 
 
 Asiatic markets, it tries to supplement, by force of 
 arms, the deficiency of industrial skill. 
 
 This is the chief reason why Russia is a conquer- 
 ing country ; military ambition is only secondary. 
 It is suggestive to look at Professor Arminius 
 Vamb^ry's map of Russian advances in Central 
 Asia, the enormous area of land, surpassing Austria 
 and Germany put together, representing Russian 
 acquisitions in the last one hundred and fifty years, 
 about two-fifths of which was conquered in the 
 brief period following 1863; i.e., in the commercial 
 phase of the Russian State. This gives a rate of 
 advance for the new epoch four and a half times 
 quicker than that of the old military period. 
 
 But all the support the Moscow industry can have 
 from the opening of the Central Asian markets, such 
 as the Khanates, Penjdeh, and even Herat, is very 
 limited. Russia must profit by every opportunity of 
 advancing further its line of Cossacks and custom 
 houses, in order to send under their protection 
 bales of wares. 
 
 Where will this march stop ? That is a question 
 which particularly interests the English. Is it likely 
 that the Russian battalions will disturb them on 
 the other side of the Indus ? Does the Russian 
 Government really cherish hostile plans against the 
 Indian Empire ? Such questions are continually 
 asked in this country, and we must answer them to 
 the best of our ability. Many eminent writers and 
 politicians have tried to do so, but all in vain, since 
 the question is not advanced a step, and hardly 
 admits at all of a distinct answer. Professor 
 Arminius Vambery and some other writers think 
 
8o THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 Otherwise. Accepting as evidence the geographical 
 fact, that the new acquisitions advance the Russian 
 frontier to India, they conclude that there is a pre- 
 meditated, a well-determined design on the part of 
 the Russian Tzars. That such a dream may cross 
 now and then some fantastic mind amongst our 
 St. Petersburg rulers is very probable. But I think 
 it would be doing our Government too much honour 
 to attribute to it any strongly determined and firmly 
 continued line of conduct in any matter whatever. 
 We Russians, witnessing the daily policy of the 
 Government in internal questions, know that there 
 was hardly one in which the Government has not 
 contradicted itself many times in the course of a few 
 years — from the greatest questions, as the emanci- 
 pation of the peasants, the Zemstvos, the press 
 ■ — down to secondary ones, as the Jewish question. 
 Everywhere we see the same uncertainty, vacillation, 
 repeated contradictions, absence of any determined 
 plan. And this chaos increases rather than sub- 
 sides with the times. Even so moderate a writer 
 as Mr. A. Leroy Beaulieu, in speaking of Russian 
 home politics during the last epoch, says : " The 
 last years of the period following the emancipation 
 have been in every respect a period of confusion, 
 reaction, and retreat. Hardly any Government 
 has ever shown such indecision, and such contra- 
 diction to its own views, knowing neither how to 
 conclude what it had begun, nor to destroy what it 
 had initiated ; " * and the monarchist and Slavophil 
 
 * " Les derniferes annees de I'emancipation ont ^t^ a tout dgard 
 une periode de confusion, de reaction, at de recul ; jamais peut. 
 elre un gouvernment ne s'tst montrd aussi irresolu, aussi en 
 
WHY RUSSIA IS A CONQUERING COUNTRY. 8 1 
 
 Kosheleff, who was personally acquainted with the 
 members of the St. Petersburg cabinet, says that 
 all the ministers of the Tzar live from hand to 
 mouth, thinking only how they can get through the 
 day, and not knowing in the evening what they are 
 going to do to-morrow. 
 
 Is it possible that such a Government is capable 
 of the constancy and steadiness of purpose ascribed 
 to it as regards its foreign policy ? It is more than 
 doubtful. The people ruling in both departments 
 being the same, in both branches the same principle, 
 or rather absence of principle, prevails, and in 
 foreign policy the Government follows the impulse 
 of external events and influences of the moment, 
 without any decided plan for the future. Thus it 
 is rather pushed from behind, than rushing headlong 
 after some long-determined purpose. For the pre- 
 sent an immediate campaign against India is an 
 absurdity. But the nearer the frontier approaches 
 the easier will it be. And the French say " rappetit 
 vient en mangeant." The great check to the satis- 
 faction of this appetite is, however, to be remem- 
 bered : the present forces of the Russian Colossus 
 are greatly exaggerated in Europe, notwithstanding 
 the many tests of it. Russian finances are quickly 
 approaching those of Turkey. Its army is numerous 
 and excellent so far as the personnel is concerned. 
 But it is gnawed by the gangrene of official pecu- 
 lation, which works more ravages in its ranks than 
 any enemy with whom it has had to cope. In such 
 
 disaccord avec lui-m^me, ne sachant ni achever ce qu'il avait 
 commence ni ddtruire ce qu'il avait dbauchd." {Revue des Deux 
 Mondes, 1882.) 
 
 6 
 
82 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 conditions a war to be carried on in a country- 
 distant many thousands of miles from the centres 
 of population, and certain to be protracted for a long 
 time, is particularly dangerous. I will not play the 
 alarmist. My object is simply to expose both sides 
 of the question, leaving my readers to draw their 
 own inferences. For myself, I will suggest only 
 one, with which most of my readers will agree, I 
 hope — that the surest and simplest way to solve all 
 doubt and to remove all uncertainty would be the 
 destruction of the Autocracy. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE POLITICAL FORM OF THE RUSSIA OF THE 
 FUTURE. 
 
 Well, the reader will say to the last words of the 
 preceding chapter, the Autocracy must be destroyed. 
 But is revolution really so certain a guarantee against 
 foreign aggression ? Who knows whether the 
 chronic danger Russian despotism presents will not 
 manifest itself at the outbreak of a revolution by a 
 wild rush for external conquests ? Was it not so in 
 France ? Will not history be repeated in Russia 
 also ? 
 
 No Russian, unless he has spent all his lifetime 
 abroad, will entertain such doubts and apprehen- 
 sions. But they exist, to a certain degree, in the 
 minds of the English. I will, therefore, ask per- 
 mission to dwell for a moment upon facts, which, if 
 not unknown, are at all events not sufficiently taken 
 into consideration ; otherwise the misapprehensions 
 about our future would have been impossible. I 
 refer to the absence of any tendency to centralisation 
 in the Russian nation itself. 
 
 The unification of France, ethical, intellectual, and 
 political, —due to the high standard of French 
 civilisation radiating from Paris, — was an accom- 
 plished fact long before the Revolution. When 
 this latter broke out none but a strongly centralised 
 
84 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 government was possible in France. During the 
 unexampled social fermentation of that period 
 the provinces showed no inclination for autonomy 
 and local independence. The innocent dreams of 
 federalism of the unfortunate Girondists were con- 
 sidered as treason, and among the imaginary crimes 
 imputed to them one of the heaviest was that of 
 desiring the "dismembering of France." And 
 notwithstanding the numerous changes of her 
 political constitution and great progress in her poli- 
 tical liberties, the centralised form of government 
 remained unshaken, the first practical manifestation of 
 federalism being made by the so much calumniated 
 Commune of 1871. 
 
 Now the centralisation of political power in any 
 shape, — be it in the form of the Roman senate or of 
 the French Committee of Safety, If not necessarily 
 aggressive, is always liable to be hurried Into foreign 
 war. France, moreover, was enticed into it by 
 external aggression. The usurpation of Napoleon I. 
 was the consequence both of this centralisation and 
 of those wars, and he only pushed to an extreme 
 what had preceded him. 
 
 The social conditions of Russia are quite the re- 
 verse of those of France. Only the central ethnical 
 nucleus of the Russian Empire — Muscovy proper — 
 was formed by a natural process of unification, 
 having some analogy to that of France ; the remnant 
 being either conquered by main force or annexed 
 voluntarily, to be enchained the following day. 
 None of these elements were ever fused in the 
 ruling nationality ; Muscovite habits had no attrac- 
 tiveness, and their culture was often much lower 
 
POLITICAL FORM OF THE RUSSIA OF THE FUTURE. 85 
 
 than that of the annexed country. Whilst the 
 German inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine, con- 
 quered by the French, became, after a few genera- 
 tions, most ardent French patriots, the Ruthenian 
 population, for example, formerly a military republic, 
 and annexed in 1654 by the decision of its popular 
 assembly, is not assimilated with Russia proper 
 after two centuries of common life. Excluding 
 the handful of nobles and the official classes, the 
 Ruthenians speak their own language, have their 
 own national customs, and, I venture to add, their 
 own religion, genuine Greek orthodoxy ; whilst the 
 real worship of the peasants of great Russia is 
 sectarianism. The Ruthenian peasants do not re- 
 member the early history of their republican insti- 
 tutions, but they feel strongly that their national 
 individuality is distinct from the dominant great 
 Russian nation, to which they still give the old 
 name of Moskals — i.e., Muscovites. Even among 
 the superior and educated classes of the towns, 
 we observe during the last two generations a strong 
 revival of national feeling under the influence of the 
 democratic ideas of our time. So it is with the 
 people who are, by blood, by religion, by language, 
 the nearest of kin to the Russians. I need hardly 
 speak of other nationalities — Poles, Lithuanians, 
 Finns, Caucasians, and many others — under the 
 dominion of the Tzar by the force of the bayonet, 
 and separated from the dominant nationality by 
 religion, language, and old historical traditions, with 
 nothing to atone for the loss of their national 
 freedom and to reconcile them to their rulers. 
 Modern Russia possesses no absorbent power. 
 
86 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 Such various elements are not likely to crave the 
 maintenance of the centralised form of government, 
 when once they are free to have their own way. 
 
 Nor is that all. Even in the genuine Russian 
 provinces there is no trace of centralistic tendencies. 
 The long centuries of bureaucratic despotism, to 
 which the enormous distances gave unlimited sway, 
 produced such a universal aversion to centralisation, 
 that in this respect there is hardly any difference 
 between the genuine Russian and the leading men 
 of other nationalities. Nobody but the bureaucratic 
 officials of the Government are partisans of centralisa- 
 tion. Even the obtuse Muscovite Slavophiles, like 
 M. Axakoff, representing extreme Russian con- 
 servatism, akin in sympathy to the upholders of the 
 official status, desire a large development of local 
 self-government as the sole guarantee against bureau- 
 cratic tyranny. 
 
 Under such conditions there is no possibility of 
 maintaining a centralised empire. Whether the 
 present regime shall be destroyed by an insurrec- 
 tion, — which is certainly the speediest and the least 
 painful way of getting rid of it, — or whether, in 
 consequence of a long and morbid process of internal 
 decomposition and of the impending national bank- 
 ruptcy, the Government will be obliged to appeal 
 to the country, as was the case in France, the result 
 will be the same. Russia, as soon as she obtains 
 the faculty of adjusting herself according to her own 
 disposition, will cease to be a centralised empire. 
 And we may add that the greater the liberty enjoyed 
 at this reconstruction, the fewer will be the cen- 
 tralised elements which will remain in it. 
 
POLITICAL FORM OF THE RUSSIA OF THE FUTURE. 87 
 
 There are, however, strong reasons for inferring 
 that this interior segregation will never arrive at a 
 total dismemberment of the State. I do not refer 
 to Finland, the Caucasus, or the Central Asian 
 conquests, quite heterogeneous elements, which have 
 nothing to do with Russia, and are rather an encum- 
 brance to a free state. They will certainly fall off 
 and constitute themselves into independent States, 
 or perhaps unite with the neighbouring countries. 
 With them the Russian people have nothing to do. 
 What is worth consideration is the political attitude 
 of the formerly independent states of Sclav origin 
 occupying the great eastern plain. To get a clue 
 to it we must dwell for a moment on the condition 
 of Poland. If there is a country which may reason- 
 ably be expected to adhere to the idea of an entire 
 secession, it is undoubtedly Poland. No country 
 has suffered so much from Russian despotism, and 
 in no one is the national sentiment so keen. Never- 
 theless, it is highly improbable that, should a 
 favourable change in Russian political conditions 
 take place, even Poland would secede. The reason 
 is as simple as it is conclusive. In our times of 
 great manufacturing industries and coming social 
 changes, economical considerations weigh enormously 
 in the political balance. Now, from our remarks on 
 the relations of Polish and Russian industry, with 
 which the reader is familiar from a former chapter, 
 it is evident that even at the present time, in the 
 miserable condition of the Russian nation, the union 
 with this country presents considerable economical 
 advantages to Poland. This small country stands 
 now at the head of our industries, which afford it 
 
88 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 a vast, we may say an unbounded, market for its 
 products. A wise nation will think twice before 
 forsaking this advantage for the mere pleasure of 
 having a king or a president of its own. And the 
 perfect mutual understanding between the most 
 advanced political parties of both countries indicates 
 that the time is close at hand when the old barrier 
 of hatred dividing both nations will give place to a 
 better feeling. 
 
 But no amount of freedom of export, nor even 
 general liberty and security, will reconcile the Poles 
 to union with Russia if they do not obtain a complete 
 assertion of their nationality. They will demand 
 Home Rule ; because if they have to send their 
 deputies to a common central parliament, they will 
 be swamped by the mass of deputies representing 
 the millions of other nationalities. For, according 
 to their present numbers, they would only be one 
 twenty-fifth part of the whole body. It would only 
 be a new kind of subjection for them. 
 
 The Polish question is only an extreme case 
 amongst many others. The Ruthenian is a repro- 
 duction in a more moderate form of the Polish 
 problem. Here the secession would be not dis- 
 advantageous, but simply impossible, since the pro- 
 vinces occupying the middle part of the rivers 
 forming the natural line of communication cannot 
 secede from the provinces holding their sources and 
 mouths. And, indeed, there is no political party in 
 this country nourishing the idea of secession. 
 
 But mere separation into nationalities cannot 
 satisfy the desire for liberty in so enormous a State 
 as Russia. For we must remember that the homo- 
 
POLITICAL FORM OF THE RUSSIA OF THE FUTURE. 89 
 
 geneous Ruthenians number about seventeen millions, 
 and occupy an area equal to that of France. Great 
 Russia numbers forty millions, a population equal 
 to that of the German Empire, and scattered over 
 a much greater area. Constituted as single states 
 according to nationalities, they would still make 
 enormous centralised bureaucratic states, with no 
 real self-government and with the additional draw 
 back of possible interior struggles. Further sub- 
 division will necessarily be called for. My friend, 
 Professor Michel Dragomanoff, the leader of the 
 Ruthenian Radical movement, thinks that his country 
 must be divided into no less than three independent 
 parts. For great Russia, taking into account its 
 size, the number of subdivisions must be at least 
 three times greater. This is, of course, the best 
 guarantee against the possibility of national rivalry, 
 and at the same time the sole mode of obtaining 
 that unification of the State which is desirable for 
 the purpose of national defence, combined with the 
 great variety of differences of the diverse tribes and 
 nations living on the vast eastern plain, and the 
 traditional habit of self-government in which the 
 Russian peasantry is educated by the self-governing 
 village communes. 
 
 Thus the only form into which Russia, when once 
 free, can mould itself, will be a series of autonomous 
 states, each having Home Rule — that is, legislative 
 and executive power, with a central government 
 providing for the general interest of the whole union ; 
 a form of government of which the United States 
 of America furnishes us with an example. This is 
 not a political dream or theoretical desideratum ; it 
 
90 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 is the simple inference drawn from the natural con- 
 dition of our country, the ultimate and inevitable 
 end of our political evolution. How soon this final 
 form is likely to be attained ; whether the remoulding 
 of the Russian State will be done at once or by a 
 gradual process of compromise with the existing 
 monarchical institutions, is, of course, another ques- 
 tion, which only the future can answer. But it is 
 beyond doubt that every change will bring the 
 country nearer to this ultimate form. It is not at all 
 impossible for the Monarchy to come to an agree- 
 ment with the nation. To people laying so much 
 stress on social amelioration as all Russian advanced 
 parties do, the mere form of a Republic — though 
 preferable, of course — does not present the same 
 fascination as to the French Montagnard of 1793, or 
 the Italian patriots of Mazzinian persuasion. General 
 civil rights and political freedom have always been 
 placed foremost by the advanced parties of Russia, 
 and the example of England shows that these are 
 not incompatible with a Monarchy. Russia would 
 willingly have abstained from shedding blood for 
 the mere chance of giving a better sounding name 
 to the chief of the State, provided, of course, that 
 the standing army be substituted by a national 
 militia. But in discussing the chances of any com- 
 promise the dispositions of both contending parties 
 are to be taken into account. Practically the 
 Russian movement for freedom has to deal with 
 the most stubborn dynasty the world has ever 
 seen, and which has always shown a most des- 
 perate incapacity for understanding the interests 
 both of the nation and itself. To hope for the 
 
POLITICAL FORM OF THE RUSSIA OF THE FUTURE, 9 1 
 
 conversion of the Romanoffs to a true liberal policy, 
 is indeed to be a dreamer of the most incorrigible 
 nature. It is more than probable that, as the 
 struggle advances, Russian patriots will openly 
 inscribe the word " Republic" on their banner. 
 And even a court revolution will be hopeless unless 
 it exalt to the throne some junior branch less imbued 
 with traditional short-sighted despotism, and less 
 insensible to reason than the elder one. 
 
 However it may be, one thing is certain — every 
 step Russia makes towards liberty will diminish the 
 danger of its military encroachment. And the more 
 the interior transmutation is radical, the surer such 
 a result becomes. Nothing can be so incorrect as 
 the supposition that a Russian revolution may result 
 in the outburst of warlike propensities. There is no 
 such feeling in the Russian people. The urgent 
 necessity for protecting the soil against the incessant 
 invasions of Asiatic nomads, to whom the country 
 was open from every part, turned Russia into a 
 centralised despotic State. And when there were 
 no longer any invasions, the Autocracy continued 
 the expansion of the empire on its own behalf. 
 But the character of the race proved stronger 
 than the combined efforts of the past and the 
 present Russian rulers. By a strange contradic- 
 tion the most aggressive of European nations is 
 really the most pacific in its disposition. Richard 
 Cobden said of them : " The Russians are, perhaps, 
 naturally the least warlike people in the world. All 
 their tastes and propensities are of an opposite 
 character. Even in their amusements there is an 
 absence of rudeness and violence " (Cobden's 
 
92 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 "Political Writings," p. 273) ; and he corroborates 
 his statement by quoting Mr. Danby Seymour, who 
 was rather distrustful of Russia as a political power, 
 but has the impartiality to testify that " the most 
 singular thing is that the people among whom this 
 military organisation prevails is, without exception, 
 the most pacific nation on the face of the earth ; and 
 upon this point, I believe, no difference of opinion 
 exists among all observers. Having lived for 
 several years in a position which enabled me to mix 
 much with the officers and men of the Russian army, 
 such is my strong conviction of the Russian cha- 
 racter." Mr. Hathausen mentions as a point, ad- 
 mitting, no doubt, the absence of all warlike tendency 
 among the Russian people : " The Russian people 
 have no pleasure in wearing arms like the Turks 
 or the Poles ; and the duel which now often takes 
 place among Russian officers is contrary to the 
 national manners, and a custom imported from the 
 West." 
 
 With such a disposition of its people, a free Russia, 
 with its political arrangements so constituted as 
 to be particularly unfavourable to any adventurous 
 foreign policy, prosperous and enlightened because 
 free, Russia will for ever cease to be a threat to 
 European tranquillity. Having so many interior 
 wants to satisfy, and so many important questions 
 to solve at home, it will certainly become the sure 
 guarantee of peace. Let us only observe that 
 having now a population of a little more than one 
 hundred millions, in the space of sixty-four years 
 this number will be doubled, according to Elis^e 
 Reclus' (" Geography ") average rate of multiplica- 
 
POLITICAL FORM OF THE RUSSIA OF THE FUTURE. 93 
 
 tion of the Russian people. With its present popu 
 lation Russia could afford to have an army of 
 about four millions of men, but that the finances of 
 the States will not bear the incorporation of such a 
 mass in the ranks of the standing army ; and the 
 despotic form of government prevents the institution 
 of a territorial militia. I abstain from computing to 
 what number such a militia might attain in a few 
 score years. Russia is the only country which 
 requires no standing army to withstand even the 
 strongest military powers of continental Europe. 
 
 Thus we may conclude : the careful, and, as far 
 as possible, impartial analysis of the Russian storm- 
 cloud, has shown us that its only threatening ingre- 
 dient is the autocratic power. All the rest resolves 
 in a rain, which can bring nothing but fruit that 
 can be welcomed by any good and upright man, 
 whose heart beats in sympathy with his fellow- 
 men. 
 
 And I may suggest that the benefit of the advent 
 of freedom in Russia will not be confined to Russia 
 alone, in the same way as the baleful influence of 
 the Autocracy is not confined to the country directly 
 suffering from it. Russian despotism has already 
 done incalculable harm to the civilised world. It 
 was the stronghold of all reaction, the supporter of 
 oppression in all neighbouring countries. Disre- 
 garding most cynically the rights of the people, it 
 drowned in the blood of the Hungarians the re- 
 volution of 1848 in Central Europe, one of the 
 noblest and most promising outbursts of liberal 
 aspirations. German unity, which would have been 
 the dawn of better days for all the German and 
 
94 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 Slavonic populations, had it been initiated by a 
 free country emerging from a generous revolution 
 — this union had to be effected by Prussian soldiers, 
 and resulted in the creation of its "blood and iron " 
 dictatorship, very superficially disguised by parlia- 
 mentary institutions, which is another and hardly 
 a less obstacle to the general freedom, peace, and 
 security. At present these twin brothers — Prussian 
 despotism, mitigated by representative forms and the 
 high culture of the whole of the German nation ; 
 and Russian despotism, cynically brutal and not 
 mitigated by anything — are mutually supporting 
 and protecting each other. Their instinct of self- 
 preservation proved stronger than the well-known 
 racial antipathy of one of the partners and the 
 insatiable appetite of the other, deluding the 
 hopes of certain continental politicians ; because it 
 is too evident that they cannot exist without each 
 other, and a severe disaster likely to involve the 
 downfall of the one would be the ruin of both. 
 On the day when the great German nation recovers 
 its real and not its fictitious freedom, there will be 
 exultation through all Russia, because the despotism 
 destroyed in Berlin would be impossible to maintain 
 for long in Petersburg. On the other hand, the 
 transformation of the Northern Colossus from a 
 gloomy centralised despotism into a vast union of 
 self-governing states and provinces, — the only form 
 into which a free Russia can mould itself, — will 
 drive into a liberal evolution the whole of Central 
 Europe. In Austria first, which otherwise will be 
 unable to withstand for a year the great attractions 
 of a free Russian federation on the masses of her 
 
POLITICAL FORM OF THE RUSSIA OF THE FUTURE. 95 
 
 Slavonic population ; in Germany next Prussian 
 dictatorship will be unable to keep its hold, sur- 
 rounded as it will be on all sides by free states. 
 With it will fall the reign of brutality, encroach- 
 ments, and, perhaps, the unendurable military 
 terror now crushing and ruining all continental 
 Europe. 
 
 Modern nations are no more isolated in their 
 separate pursuits and interests as they were some 
 generations back. Events taking place in one 
 country are as quickly and as widely known in 
 others as the events happening in a province of 
 the latter. Provided they are of absorbing human 
 interest, they react on the mind and the spirit 
 of the masses as strongly as if they were hap- 
 pening in close vicinity. That is why we Russians, 
 devoted to the freedom of our country, do not 
 separate our cause from that of general liberty 
 and democracy. We acclaim its victories in all 
 countries, because each of them opens a better 
 prospect for us. Our cause ought to be viewed in 
 the same light by the thinking men of all countries. 
 And it is certainly most reassuring to witness that 
 among the advanced thinkers both of England and 
 America there are many who are already viewing 
 it in this light. " Let the Tzar and his advisers 
 beware," says one of them, Mr. Edmund Noble, an 
 American who has recently contributed one of the 
 most learned and suggestive books extant on Russian 
 things. " The spectacle of this frightfully unequal 
 struggle — unequal alike in its justifications and in 
 the physical forces which it arrays against each 
 other— is not lost upon Europe, or even upon 
 
96 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 America. . . . Already nations are beginning to 
 recognise that the standing menace in the east 
 of Europe is not the Russian race, but Russian 
 absolutism. . . . Hence it is well that one can look 
 forward to the time when a new conception of 
 international rights and obligations shall take the 
 place of the old ; when serried lines of glistening 
 bayonets and smoking cannon will no longer be 
 needed to relieve the struggle for liberty from 
 the reproach of crime ; when tyranny shall be an 
 offence against the community of nations, as it 
 is now an offence against the community of indi- 
 viduals." 
 
II. 
 
 THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS 
 COMMISSARIA T 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS 
 COMMISSARIA T. 
 
 I. 
 
 " A COLOSSUS with feet of clay," is the current 
 phrase which best describes the great Power of the 
 North. If the military strength of the Tzars were 
 in proportion to the number of their subjects they 
 might dispose as they pleased of the balance of 
 European power, and Russian liberty would be a 
 vain dream. But fortunately it is not so. With a 
 population two and a half times greater than that 
 of the German Empire, Russia's effective military 
 strength is decidedly inferior to that of her Teu- 
 tonic neighbours, and, relatively to her size, may 
 be regarded as insignificant. Of this comparative 
 weakness no better proof could be adduced than 
 that which is afforded by the last Turkish war. 
 Even the enemies of the Russian Government, 
 those who were most sceptical as to the boasted 
 extent of its resources, did not expect to see its 
 armies held in check, beaten, and reduced to im- 
 potence by an enemy so weak and so ruined as 
 Turkey. And when at last, after a series of de- 
 feats, Russia at length succeeded in overcoming the 
 Ottoman armies in the field, the effort so exhausted 
 her that she was compelled to stop in mid-career. 
 
100 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 and lost the greater part of the fruit of her sacrifices 
 and victories — ^just as happened under Nicholas in 
 the war of 1828, in similar circumstances and in the 
 very same region. The cause of this weakness is 
 a matter of common knowledge — at any rate in 
 Russia. It arises, first of all, from the fact that the 
 condition of the Imperial finances allows of the 
 mobilisation and maintenance under arms of only 
 a fraction of the nominal military strength of the 
 country. In the war of 1871 Germany mustered 
 seven-eighths of her entire military forces. In the 
 war with Turkey the Russian Government sent 
 into the field no more than 400,000 men, about a 
 third of the paper strength of the active army. 
 And these were all whom, with the utmost exertion, 
 they could send. For the wars of these days 
 swallow up sums so enormous that, if they be at all 
 prolonged, the national exchequer becomes absolutely 
 incapable of providing for the manifold wants of the 
 forces in the field. 
 
 Yet, be that as it may, a force of 400,000 men 
 should have amply sufficed to crush a power like 
 Turkey, always provided that the force had been 
 efiiciently organised and well led, and if the Turks 
 had not found in the contractors and commissariat 
 of the Russian army their most puissant allies. 
 Bad clothing and worse food, and the sickness 
 thence resulting, made greater ravages in the ranks 
 of the Russian army than the bullets of the enemy ; 
 and this state of things has prevailed without 
 exception in every campaign in which the country 
 has been so unfortunate as to engage. 
 
 The English reader who is familiar with King- 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. 10 1 
 
 lake's " Invasion of the Crimea," will remember, 
 in the chapter of the war of 1828, the author's 
 graphic description of the diminution in the strength 
 of the Russian regiments during the march from 
 the interior of the country to the theatre of war. 
 He represents it by a diagram, a fallen cone, the 
 base of which occupies the central provinces, while 
 the attenuated extremity rests on the Balkan Penin- 
 sula. The waste implied in this delineation was 
 caused by the malversations of the commissariat 
 during the long marches of the period. And the 
 waste went on without abatement, even after the 
 army had reached its destination and active opera- 
 tions were begun ; for robberies are never so 
 frequent and so easily accomplished as in a time 
 of war. Attention is then exclusively directed to 
 the battlefield, the central point of the contest, 
 where the supreme struggle must be decided. "Is 
 this the time to inquire into malversations ? " said 
 the Russian generals during the Bulgarian war, 
 when complaints were made about the dishonesty 
 and inefficiency of the commissariat. It is a noto- 
 rious fact that army contractors may with impunity 
 perpetrate frauds in war time which would be 
 absolutely impossible in a time of peace — even in 
 Russia. The depredations which every war — or, 
 rather, the conclusion of peace— brings to light are 
 colossal and appalling. The frauds that went on 
 during the Crimean war, not in the army simply, 
 — for functionaries in every branch of the national 
 service were implicated in them — were so out- 
 rageous that they have almost passed into the 
 domain of fable. They were continually cited as 
 
102 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 something portentous and abnormal, and an ex- 
 ample of the enormities of bureaucratic depravity 
 in a country cursed with serfage. When in 1877 
 Russia, freed from this curse, resolved to liberate 
 the Slav population of Turkey from the Ottoman 
 yoke, the country was in a state of great excitement. 
 A splendid crusade was in prospect ; everybody 
 counted on an unbroken series of brilliant victories, 
 and dwelt with pride on the progress that had been 
 made since the Crimean war. In point of fact 
 considerable progress had been made, and this 
 nobody could deny. But the sequel proved that in 
 at least one all-important particular Russia had made 
 noadvance whatever. " Amid all the patriotic excite- 
 ment of the moment," wrote a St. Petersburg 
 journal (the Annals, No. 234), "we begin to hear 
 from the theatre of war voices which do not har- 
 monise with the chorus. These voices said, at 
 first timidly, that the army lacked this and that ; 
 some supplies being altogether wanting and others 
 of bad quality. Then they become louder, bolder, 
 and more frequent ; and now we hear cries of 
 sorrow and affliction — cries which are produced 
 not by some oversight, unavoidable omission, or 
 partial abuse, but by the actual want of daily bread. 
 ' They gave us nothing to eat ; we are dying of 
 hunger,' is the cry from all the army. ' The pre- 
 served meats served out to us are so putrid that 
 not alone are they unfit for food, but to prevent 
 the outbreak of an epidemic we have to put them 
 straightway under the ground.'" 
 
 Such were the supplies furnished by the con- 
 tractors Gorvitz, Kohan, and Gregar. Similar 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. 103 
 
 malversations were practised in other quarters, 
 malversations so shameless and extensive that, if 
 they were not proved by official documents, they 
 would be altogether incredible. The principal — 
 almost the sole — food of Russian soldiers is black 
 bread biscuits. Bearing this in mind, let us see 
 what the commission of experts had to say about 
 the biscuits supplied by the company of which 
 Prince Uroosoff and M. Perevoshikoff were the 
 chiefs, — a commission composed of professors of 
 the Kieff University, from whose official report the 
 following is an extract : — " In loo parts of these 
 biscuits we found an eighth part, by weight — equal 
 to I3per cent. — of innutritions ingredients, such as 
 husks of grain, straw, sand, and clay." The water 
 used in the making of them, according to the pro- 
 fessors' report, using their very words, " was, strictly 
 speaking, not water at all, but a red-brown liquid of 
 high specific gravity, bearing some resemblance to 
 cocoa with milk, and swarming with living organisms, 
 which kept it in continual movement, thereby hinder- 
 ing the subsidence of inorganic matters." The 
 factory in which these biscuits were produced (still 
 following the report) was low and damp, and, from 
 motives of economy, the ovens were kept at 
 a temperature never exceeding 70° C, whereas 
 to destroy the inferior infusoria a heat of 120° 
 is necessary. The consequence was that all 
 these organisms remained in the biscuits, which 
 became breeding-places for every sort of bacteria, 
 the creatures spreading over them and forming "a 
 green and brown velvet-like covering." The com- 
 mission absolutely refused to make any physiological 
 
104 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 experiments whatever with these precious biscuits 
 provided by the Government of the Tzar for his 
 valiant army. They would not give them even to 
 dogs or swine, "being unwilling to inflict on dumb 
 creatures the sufferings that such food must in- 
 evitably produce." Yet millions of pounds of these 
 very biscuits were consumed by unfortunate soldiers, 
 who, having no other food, were compelled to eat 
 what was given to them or starve. How many 
 deaths and how much sickness were caused by the 
 biscuits of Prince Uroosoff, and the preserved meats 
 of Messrs. Kohan and Gorvitz, who can say ? 
 
 Other articles supplied to the army were no better 
 than the food. In the depth of a rigorous winter 
 the men were without overcoats, and had often to 
 make long marches over stony ground without 
 shoes. All Russia shuddered with pity and indigna- 
 tion when the story was told of the terrible winter 
 march across the Balkans, — a march in which thou- 
 sands perished of cold and exposure, and thousands 
 more were crippled and mutilated by the frost, 
 being forced to walk barefoot through the snow 
 and over icy roads. The fate that befell the 24th 
 division of General Gourko's corps i£ arnide in that 
 cruel campaign could not be concealed ; the facts 
 were confirmed by all the war correspondents of 
 the period, even by those of the Government press. 
 And yet the Government assigned vast sums for 
 clothing and feeding the army in that war, the 
 expenditure thereon reaching a total of nearly 
 thirty-six millions sterling. What became of all 
 this treasure so lavishly dispensed ? 
 
 But let us go on ! If any have a right to careful 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. I OS 
 
 treatment, to good food, and comfortable quarters, 
 they are the wounded and the sick. If any may 
 appeal to the sentiment of our common humanity, 
 they are again the wounded and the sick. Yet we 
 have only to read the reports of the Sanitary 
 Service of the Red Cross, published in two volumes 
 by M. Abaza, red cross in the rear guard of the 
 Russian army (1877 and 1878), and of M. Richter, 
 red cross in the army of Bulgaria, to learn how 
 truly horrible is the fate of wounded Russian 
 soldiers, how cruel are the sufferings to which they 
 are exposed. Here is an extract from the first of 
 these reports : — 
 
 "The worst time was after the assault of Shipka. 
 Within twelve days we received 11,000 wounded 
 men. The small barracks literally swarmed with 
 them. They lay in the passages between the beds, 
 in the corridors, and on the landings. It was quite 
 impossible to give them proper attention. But all 
 had great need of it, and there were many bad 
 cases. Not one had received any medical aid in 
 the (field) hospitals. Many had only had their 
 wounds dressed once or twice. There were no 
 lists, and it often happened that the surgeon in 
 charge of the convoy did not know of how many 
 patients it was composed. When these convoys 
 were inspected by the doctors it came frequently 
 to pass that men were found with broken limbs 
 destitute of splints, and nothing to hold the fractured 
 bones together but damp and softened cardboard. 
 . . . Owing to the absence of ambulances and the 
 consequent impossibility of sending the wounded 
 to other quarters there was a complete block. On 
 
I06 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 the night of the 15th there came 2,704. On the 
 following day 1,511 more came. On the night of 
 the 1 6th we had 3,518, on the 17th upwards of 
 4,000. And for all this multitude of wounded men 
 we had no necessaries whatever, except such as 
 were provided by private benevolence — not -a shirt, 
 not a bandage, nothing." 
 
 Yet the Government had spent money without 
 stint in making, as they thought, proper provision 
 for the wounded ! 
 
 And thus it was everywhere. The troops lacked 
 everything. They had neither medicines, clothing, 
 nor food. They were robbed right and left ; the 
 strength of the army was sapped on every side, 
 and the difficulties of that sanguinary war, already 
 sufficiently formidable, rendered almost insuperable. 
 If Russian army contractors and commissariat 
 officers did not prove too much for Russia, as in 
 1855, it was because of the excessive weakness of 
 their Turkish allies. With more powerful auxiliaries 
 they would doubtless have repeated in 1877 the 
 victories of their predecessors in 1855. It is to 
 them, nevertheless, that Russia owes the enormous 
 losses of that terrible war, in which, according to 
 the reckoning of competent authorities, there 
 perished not fewer that 100,000 of her children. 
 The names of the principal starvers and poisoners 
 of the army — the chiefs of the commissariat com- 
 panies — are still held in execration, and will not 
 soon be forgotten. 
 
 II. 
 
 The exploits of the Russian commissariat are well 
 known, even abroad. In all this there is nothing 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. I07 
 
 very new. That which most concerns us is to trace 
 the relationship existing between the general system 
 and the primary causes of the depredations which, 
 whenever a war takes place, recur as inevitably as 
 if they were operations of nature, and with all the 
 regularity of the seasons. It is all very well to 
 inveigh against Gorvitz, Varshavsky, Prince Uroosoff, 
 and their 225 accomplices. But are they the only 
 culpables ? Why do such iniquities as theirs never 
 occur in other armies ? If contractors, in their 
 greed of gain, deliver rations and stores of bad 
 quality, why are they accepted as good ? This is 
 evidently the crux of the question. According to 
 the prescriptions of the military code all articles 
 of food and medicine delivered by a contractor have 
 to be examined by a surgeon or a medical com- 
 mission and the commandant of the corps for which 
 they are destined, or nominees acting under his 
 orders. Hence, without the connivance of all these 
 people fraud would be impossible. If the con- 
 tractors cheat, the brave commandant and the 
 erudite doctors must do likewise. Not a man 
 who went through the Bulgarian campaign would 
 deny that this was precisely the case. On the 
 other hand, there are always to be found in our 
 official spheres, corrupt though they be, some men 
 who, untainted with dishonesty, are eager to redress 
 the wrongs which they see around them — such, 
 for instance, as General Tcherkassoff, a military 
 inspector. At the beginning of the campaign this 
 officer presented to the commander-in-chief a volu- 
 minous work, in the shape of a report, in which 
 he had collected and set forth and proved by a 
 
I08 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 mass of facts, recent and palpable, the flagrant 
 malversations and frauds of the Gorvitz company 
 and consorts. This report, though a historical 
 document of high value, has not yet seen the light. 
 It was stifled by secret confederates of the implicated 
 parties. These confederates were of all ranks, says 
 the correspondent of the Novoe Vremya in his 
 covert language. Some interrupted the reading of 
 the report by jocular remarks which distracted 
 attention, others protested against it as ill-timed ; 
 and, encountered everywhere with either opposition 
 or indifference, it remained in the shade, and while 
 the war lasted the company continued their depre- 
 dations without let or hindrance. The gentlemen 
 of the commissariat were thus not the only ones 
 who had their fingers in the pie. War is an 
 Eldorado for all who keep to the wall side of the 
 road. During the trial of Rykoff, the notorious 
 manager of the bank of Skopine, it came out 
 that in 1877 the establishment had a considerable 
 increase in its deposits, which came in great part 
 from the seat of war, being lodged at high interest 
 by officers of the commissariat and their worthy 
 accomplices of the military branch of the service. 
 Another characteristic fact which transpired in the 
 course of the trial was, that when Rykoff became 
 bankrupt, the majority of those clients declined 
 to rank as creditors, fearing doubtless that if they 
 did so they would be compelled to reveal the 
 shameful secret of their ill-gotten wealth. 
 
 It is this universality of theft which provokes 
 and maintains the malversations of army contractors. 
 No sooner do signs of an approaching war appear 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. 109 
 
 on the horizon than there takes place at St. Peters- 
 burg a veritable steeplechase after contracts. To 
 ensure the acceptance of their tenders the competitors 
 scatter money right and left, hundreds of thousands, 
 even millions of roubles finding their way into the 
 pockets of people of influence, of their friends, kins- 
 folk, and mistresses. These gentlemen reckon, and 
 with good warrant, on the venality of the doctors 
 and military commanders, by whose connivance they 
 hope to recoup the money they thus dispense, and 
 millions in addition. On the other hand, the neces- 
 sity of bribing everybody, the impossibility of making 
 a single step without payment, obliges the con- 
 tractors to take out the difference in the quality of 
 the stores and provisions which they deliver for the 
 use of the army. In Russia highly placed personages, 
 as is natural, deign only to accept bribes of con- 
 siderable amount. Besides a few hundred thousand 
 roubles paid to sundry dignitaries of St. Petersburg, 
 Rykoff had to give General Berhard a round million 
 for looking after his business at the capital. At the 
 beginning of the Bulgarian war all St. Petersburg 
 was talking about a bribe of a million roubles, said 
 to have been given by the firm of Gorvitz and 
 Kohan to Mademoiselle Jchislov (a St. Petersburg 
 actress, whose relations with the Grand Duke 
 Nicholas, the elder, commander-in-chief of the army, 
 were notorious) to secure a contract. Rumour may 
 have exaggerated the amount in this instance ; but 
 it is quite certain that no company can obtain an 
 extensive contract, except at an enormous outlay in 
 bribes in the high circles. Nor is this all. Bribes 
 have to be administered, not only In high quarters 
 
no THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 to get contracts, but all round in order to ensure ac- 
 ceptance of the commodities tendered by the bribers. 
 It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that the 
 contractors have to bribe merely when they supply 
 articles of inferior quality. They must pay in one 
 case as the other. You can no more get on without 
 bribery in Russia than you can in Turkey. Bribes are 
 a sort of homage, a compliment to which the agents 
 of authority are so much accustomed that they regard 
 them as a legitimate source of income. If a con- 
 tractor should refuse to render the traditional tribute 
 on the ground that his supplies were of good quality, 
 it would be looked upon as an insult, an act of flat 
 rebellion, and be made to cost him dear. Under 
 one frivolous pretext or other his supplies would 
 be rejected, and persistence in his probity would 
 probably end in his ruin. 
 
 The commissariat service has a very evil reputa- 
 tion in Russia. It is no place for honest men. In 
 his book, " A Year of War," Mr. Nemirovitch 
 Dantchenko tells the story of a poor commissariat 
 officer, who, unable to bear the hatred and contempt 
 of which, in common with the service generally, he 
 found himself the object, committed suicide. He 
 was a man thirty-seven years old, married, and the 
 father of a family. When the war began he held 
 the post of tutor in one of the military gymnasiums 
 {corps de cadets), but desiring to see active service 
 he obtained the appointment of a commandant in 
 a commissariat brigade. But, as they say in Russia, 
 the poor man went into the water without first asking 
 where the ford was. After two months' experience 
 of his new position he blew out his brains at Zim- 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. I I I 
 
 nitz, in November 1877. A pathetic letter of fare- 
 well which he wrote to his wife shows clearly that the 
 unfortunate man was driven to this desperate act by 
 the sense of his utter powerlessness to contend with 
 the thefts and abuses of every sort which went on 
 around him. " The soldiers and wagoners of my 
 brigade," he wrote, " are in rags. Their condition 
 is deplorable. They have no tents or other shelter, 
 and freeze as they sleep on the bare ground, and I 
 can do nothing to help them." Another motive was 
 the general contempt with which, as he found, the 
 service was regarded. " The papers will tell," he 
 wrote, " that the commandant of such and such a 
 commissariat brigade blew out his brains, and then 
 everybody will say, ' He robbed too recklessly, and 
 his end is a fitting one for a scoundrel and thief.' I 
 send thee a little money — all that remains of my 
 pay, gained by the sweat of my brow. Not a 
 farthing of it has been stolen from the State. But 
 who will believe this ? Oh, how everybody curses 
 the commissariat ! One is ashamed to belong to 
 the service. I cannot bear to think of the burning 
 hatred in which the employes of the department are 
 universally held." 
 
 This sad story affords a striking illustration of the 
 character of the Russian commissariat. As may easily 
 be understood, no self-respecting man — save in the 
 case of a misapprehension like that to which the un- 
 happy officer mentioned by Nemirovitch Dantchenko 
 fell a victim — ever dons the uniform of a commissariat 
 tckinovnik, any more than that of a police officer or 
 gendarme. Neither does he become an army con- 
 tractor. There are nevertheless army contractors 
 
I I 2 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 who feel a certain degree of repugnance for the 
 practices which they are compelled to sanction and 
 to follow. One of my friends, a young doctor, who 
 shared in the first enthusiasm and deception of that 
 unlucky war, had the opportunity of hearing the 
 confession of one of these men. " I assure you," 
 said to him a great contractor, a partner in the 
 Varshavsky Company, "that it would not only be 
 more agreeable to us, but more profitable, to furnish 
 articles of good quality, than to scatter our money 
 broadcast in bribes. But what can we do ? The 
 commandants and receivers insist on being paid all 
 the same, and if the stores and other things we 
 deliver are good they are dissatisfied ; for in that 
 case they fear they will not get so much for them- 
 selves." 
 
 I leave the reader to decide which of the two are 
 the more to blame — the contractors, men of business, 
 speculators by profession ; or the generals, colonels 
 commandants, and doctors of various grades, to 
 whom the State confides its honour, who are re- 
 sponsible for the well-being of the army, and whose 
 duty it is to lead against foreign foes the flower of 
 the country. 
 
 III. 
 
 But what monsters of depravity must be these 
 high officers and doctors, who at the hour of danger 
 and in the face of the enemy make a shameful traffic 
 of the health and even of the lives of their soldiers, 
 of the men whom, by every consideration of honour 
 and duty, they are bound to cherish and protect. 
 No, they are not monsters. People are the 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. I I 3 
 
 creatures of habit, the slaves of custom. Things 
 which men see being done by everybody around 
 them they end in doing themselves, albeit these 
 things may have seemed in the first instance utterly 
 revolting. To understand how it is that the universal 
 thieving which prevails in war time lies, so to speak, 
 in the nature of things as they are in Russia, we 
 must know what the army is in time of peace. 
 
 And about this there is no difficulty, for there is 
 on record a whole series of trials of commandants, 
 doctors, and military administrators, from which may 
 be gathered some striking pictures of the life these 
 men lead the Russian soldier, that first victim of the 
 despotism which he sustains. Not to trench too 
 much on the space at my disposal I limit myself to 
 a single example, that of Dr. Skariatine, for his is 
 a case which comprehends all the others, a faithful 
 sample of the bulk. 
 
 Yet I would not have the reader for a moment 
 to suppose that Dr. Skariatine, the chief figure in 
 this trial, is one of those thieving and swindling 
 heroes who have given their names to innumerable 
 trials which have taken place in Russia. Dr. Skaria- 
 tine found himself in the dock, not for thieving out 
 of reason or with too much effrontery, but for his 
 obstinacy in protesting against dishonesty which, 
 though he could in no wise tolerate, everybody else 
 regarded with the indifference that comes of long 
 familiarity. The Russians are an artless and in- 
 genuous people. Notwithstanding the experience 
 of so many generations, there are still to be found 
 among the functionaries of the Tzar men innocent 
 enough to believe in the possibility of obtaining 
 
 8 
 
114 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 justice and redressing wrongs by bringing them 
 under the notice of the higher authorities. In every 
 branch of the administration there are men of this 
 stamp, even, as an example well known in Russia 
 proves, among the Imperial procurators themselves. 
 These unsophisticated functionaries, it is hardly 
 necessary to say, have no political bias ; quixotism 
 such as theirs is necessarily incompatible with sub- 
 versive or anti-monarchical ideas. They have 
 merely the sense of duty which renders it impossible 
 for them to wink at practices which they are bound 
 in honour to oppose and denounce. But it often 
 enough happens that these young eagles, after one 
 or two abortive attempts at reform, quietly fold their 
 wings and let the world wag, neither taking part in 
 the thefts nor exposing the thieves. "You cannot 
 break an axe with a stick ; " "It is impossible to 
 fight where there is only one man in the field ; " 
 "He who lives with wolves must learn to howl with 
 them ; " — are they not among the most popular of 
 Russian proverbs ? Those who cannot adapt them- 
 selves to this facile philosophy always end badly ; 
 they are either expelled from the service, prosecuted, 
 or sent to Siberia. 
 
 Dr. Skariatine, whose trial began on November 
 24th, 1883, was one of those unfortunate champions 
 of duty and right. His connection with the army 
 dated from the time of the Bulgarian war, when a 
 crowd of young medical students, who were about 
 finishing their final course, enrolled themselves at 
 the call of the Government as provisional surgeons 
 in the liberating army. From the very first, Skaria- 
 tine was painfully struck by the cynical indifference 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. I I 5 
 
 to the soldiers' well-being which everywhere prevailed. 
 As an instance of this he mentioned on his trial that 
 once at Odessa a number of troops, in course of 
 embarkment for the seat of war, were conveyed to 
 the steamer Vesia on barges without bulwarks, the 
 sea at the time being very rough. Skariatine and 
 another young doctor, his comrade, pointed out to 
 the officer in command the danger of this proceed- 
 ing, suggesting at the same time that means should 
 be taken to prevent the soldiers from being thrown 
 into the sea by the rolling of the boat. 
 
 " What does that matter ? " replied the officer. 
 "We have enough of that sort of merchandise. A 
 soldier Is not like a horse, for the loss of which we 
 are held responsible." 
 
 On his arrival at the seat of war, the young doctor 
 was soon made aware of the malversations which 
 were practised at the expense of the troops. His 
 protests were frequent and energetic, but nothing of 
 course came of them. In the hospitals, for instance, 
 the soldiers were robbed, not only of food and 
 medicines, but of their very pocket-money. There 
 is a regulation which prescribes that, in order to 
 hinder the sick from buying things which might 
 injure their health, they must, on their entrance into 
 the hospital, give up to the administration all the 
 money in their possession. This regulation is 
 rigorously enforced. But when they leave the 
 hospital, the soldiers, "in the majority of cases," 
 says Skariatine, are unable to get their money back, 
 beg and insist as they may. He told before the 
 tribunal that, being one day in hospital No. ii, he 
 took the part of a young soldier who was begging 
 
Il6 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 with hot tears that the seven roubles (fourteen 
 shillings), of which he had been deprived when he 
 entered, might be returned to him. All that the 
 doctor got for his pains was a recommendation to 
 mind his own business. When the Inspector-General 
 Priselkoff made his official visit, Skariatine com- 
 plained to him of these and other abuses, and the 
 former was so moved by his statement that he drew 
 forth his notebook in order to put down the names 
 of the delinquents. But so soon as he heard the 
 name of the principal depredator, the general closed 
 his book with the exclamation, " Malenine ! Oh, I 
 can do nothing against him. He is a man of in- 
 fluence. He won't let himself be caught." 
 
 The Government and soldiers were robbed with 
 equal cynicism and the most complete impartiality. 
 While giving his evidence, Skariatine related that he 
 had actually seen wood burnt instead of infected 
 clothing, linen, and so forth, which, having been 
 used for contagious cases in the hospital, was 
 ordered to be destroyed. The articles supposed 
 to have been burnt were then entered in the 
 accounts as newly acquired, and, of course, re- 
 issued, and paid for a second time. 
 
 The war over, the young doctor returned to St. 
 Petersburg to finish his studies. " I thought," he 
 said, in presence of his judges, " that it was only in 
 Turkey that the dregs of society could rise to the 
 surface, and I was under the impression that the 
 things which took place in that country were impos- 
 sible in Russia. This is the reason why, having 
 finished my course in the School of Medicine, I 
 again, despite my unfortunate experience in the war. 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. I I 7 
 
 joined the army, hoping that I might thereby be 
 able to do something towards improving the lot of 
 our soldiers. But I cruelly deceived myself." 
 
 In effect, Skariatine was appointed assistant 
 surgeon in the Ninth Regiment of Uhlans, then 
 quartered at Lubno, and at once addressed himself 
 to his modest task with all the energy and zeal of 
 youth. A multitude of witnesses testified that the 
 young doctor occupied himself exclusively with his 
 patients. He made no acquaintances ; he was 
 never seen outside the sphere of his duties. All 
 his days, from sunrise to nightfall, were passed in 
 the hospital. He bought with his own means 
 medicines for the sick soldiers, and gave himself 
 heart and soul to his work. A man so devoted to 
 duty could not fail from the first to fall foul of the 
 abuses and malversations of which the regimental 
 hospital was a very hotbed. Like all other 
 Russian hospitals, military and general, that of 
 which Skariatine had charge was divided into two 
 departments, the lazaretto, or hospital proper, for 
 serious cases, and the okolotok, or consulting 
 division, for the treatment of unimportant cases. 
 But the expenditure reports apply only to the former 
 department, that of the lazaretto ; the inspectors 
 presuming that the okolotoks, not being counted 
 as really sick, do not require medicine. By an 
 ingenious device the superior officers, in collusion 
 with the doctors, turn this arrangement to account 
 Colonels of regiments and generals of divisions 
 find it greatly to their advantage to have the 
 lowest possible number of sick figuring in their 
 reports. A low sick list brings them credit ; it is 
 
I 1 8 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 regarded as an unfailing test of the comfort and 
 health of the men and the care exercised by the 
 military and medical officers in the matters of food 
 and sanitation. To obtain this result, and ensure the 
 commendation of the Minister of War, or, to use the 
 current phrase, " in order not to spoil the reports," 
 the okolotok is crowded with serious cases which 
 are written down as trivial, although it is provided 
 neither with suitable beds, linen, nor food. In 
 August 1 88 1, when typhoid fever in an almost 
 epidemic form broke out in the Ninth Uhlan 
 Regiment, thirty patients were placed in the okolo- 
 tok, and, albeit some of them were suffering from 
 dysentery, they had no medicines nor any other 
 nourishment than the coarse food which is given to 
 Russian soldiers in a normal state of health. Yet at 
 the very same time there were twenty-four vacant 
 beds in the lazaretto, kept so, " not to spoil the 
 reports" with too many sick. When Skariatine, in 
 the absence of the senior surgeon, had the more 
 serious cases removed to the lazaretto, he was 
 severely reprimanded, and to prevent a repetition 
 of the proceeding the chief surgeon took the 
 okolotok out of his hands altogether, leaving in 
 his charge only the half-empty hospital. 
 
 The desire to have the smallest possible number 
 of sick — on paper — by no means implies that any 
 special pains are taken to cure those who are ill. 
 During Skariatine' s two years' service the regi- 
 mental pharmacy was quite destitute of medicines. 
 The senior surgeon, fearing to give offence to the 
 heads of the department, to whom the supply of 
 medical stores and hospital requisites is a lucrative 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT, II 9 
 
 source of income, refused to ask for any. In these 
 circumstances it became necessary to obtain a 
 supply of drugs from the local pharmacy. But for 
 this purpose, and inclusive of special food and so 
 forth for the patients, Colonel Goriatcheff, the com- 
 mander of the regiment, would allow no more than 
 ;^io a year ; at the very time, too, when he had in 
 his possession ;!{^7,ooo saved from the regimental 
 allowances and appropriated to his own use. This 
 sordid economy in requisites for the sick obtains 
 more or less throughout the service, and the system 
 . of doing everything for show, cloaking up evils — 
 often very real and serious evils — for fear of 
 " spoiling reports " and causing displeasure in high 
 quarters, is simply universal in Russia, the country 
 where bureaucracy reigns supreme. Such incidents 
 as those I have described are of daily occurrence 
 in every corps d'armee. An acquaintance of my 
 own, an army surgeon, was transferred from Kieff 
 to Vinnizy, an insignificant provincial town, for 
 having, in spite of several reprimands, dispensed 
 too much medicine in the hospital under his charge, 
 and, above all, because he insisted on taking prompt 
 and energetic measures to stamp out a malady of the 
 eyes, which had all the characteristics of an epidemic. 
 The colonel wished to conceal the fact from his 
 superiors, even at the risk of letting it become 
 more virulent and extensive. But not content 
 with giving out the necessary quantity of linen 
 and the rest, the surgeon took it upon him to 
 write to the heads of the Medical Department, 
 apprising them of the outbreak, and calling attention 
 to the danger which it involved. Then they sent 
 
I20 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 him away. His importunity had become intoler- 
 able. But I should be in no way surprised to hear 
 of him being one day in the dock, like Skariatine. 
 
 This double system has given rise to a general 
 and curious anomaly, yet the facts are easy of 
 verification — the great mortality in the Russian 
 army, as compared with the seemingly small number 
 of sick. The authorities would doubtless like to 
 obtain satisfactory tables of mortality by concealing 
 deaths. But that is beyond their power. According 
 to the Russian Calendar for 1880, the death-rate in 
 the Tzar's army is 1473 per 1,000 — an enormous 
 proportion for men in the prime of life. In the 
 English army the proportion is 8, in the Prussian 
 army only 6 per 1,000. But if we were to judge 
 by its sick lists alone, we should conclude that the 
 Russian army was the healthiest in Europe, for of 
 1,000 men there are no more than 600 (the okolotoks 
 included) who in the course of a year have occasion 
 to consult the doctor. In the French army, on the 
 other hand, the proportion is 1,965 ; that is to say, 
 every soldier sees the doctor on the average twice 
 in a twelvemonth. In the Prussian army the 
 average is 1,496. We have consequently this 
 startling contradiction — nearly twice as many deaths 
 as in other armies, and twice-thrice fewer cases of 
 sickness. It results from this consideration alone 
 that Russian soldiers either receive no medical care 
 worth mentioning or that the official reports are 
 garbled. As a matter of fact, and as we have seen, 
 both these conditions obtain in the army of the 
 Tzar. The rogueries and other malpractices that went 
 on in the hospital were not the only abuses which 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. 12 1 
 
 Skariatine's trial brought to light, nor was it with 
 regard to them that the contest which ended in 
 his trial arose. The young doctor got out of the 
 principal difficulty by buying medicines with his own 
 money. But other abuses were past curing by any 
 such expedient. The soldiers were plundered right 
 and left. Everybody stole "according to his rank," 
 to adopt an expressive Russian phrase. The colonel 
 took his stealings from the regimental chest. The 
 squadron commanders took what they could get out 
 of the sums assigned for their squadrons, and the 
 non-commissioned officers picked up the crumbs 
 which fell from the tables of their superiors in rank. 
 When the official inquiry took place, it was proved 
 that the commander of the first squadron economised 
 on his men's rations to such an extent that he 
 literally starved them. He appropriated even the 
 wretched pittance of two shillings a quarter, which 
 the Russian Government allows its soldiers, and 
 calls their pay, and took without scruple the money 
 remitted them by their kinsfolk through the post. 
 Yet the men, slaves of discipline, hardly ever pro- 
 tested against the malversations which cost them so 
 dear, for the officers of a regiment have a thousand 
 ways of evading responsibility, and of taking cruel 
 vengeance on those who dare to murmur or complain. 
 The higher authorities, moreover, are little disposed 
 to " endanger discipline " by listening to the accusa- 
 tions of subordinates against their chiefs ; but a 
 worm will turn, and a time came when the patience 
 of the soldiers of the gth Regiment was exhausted. 
 At a review held by the commander of the divi- 
 sion. General Korevo, the soldiers of Matveenko's 
 
122 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 squadron made formal complaint against him. It 
 was in vain that the under officers, faithful to their 
 chief, ran behind the ranks whispering fierce threats, 
 and reminding the men that the general was there 
 to-day but that they would be masters on the morrow. 
 The victims refused to be silenced. (When, after 
 a review, soldiers are asked if they have any com- 
 plaints to make, the commissioned officers leave the 
 ranks, while the non-commissioned officers, being 
 regarded as simple soldiers, remain.) The complaint 
 was made, and a young subaltern of the name of 
 Sytchevsky, questioned by the general, confirmed 
 the statement of the men. All the same nothing 
 was done. Sytchevsky was even, under some frivolous 
 pretext, submitted to disciplinary punishment. As 
 for the two principal delinquents, Matveenko and 
 Kopatch, against whose malversations the soldiers 
 had protested, they were both shortly afterwards 
 promoted, the former to the command of a regiment. 
 These indisputable proofs of the connivance of the 
 higher authorities in the abuses he had denounced 
 did not, however, suffice to quench the reforming 
 zeal of the unfortunate doctor. And it would not 
 be easy, in the presence of such enormities as pre- 
 vailed in the gth Regiment of Uhlans, to silence 
 any man not lost to all sense of duty and dignity. 
 The officers, not content with starving their men, 
 crippled them. Evidence was given on the trial of 
 eight cases of lameness, resulting from blows inflicted 
 on the men by their officers, from the sergeants 
 and corporals to Colonel Goriatcheff himself The 
 occasion was always some absurdly trivial offence, 
 such as a military salute clumsily given, a military 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. 1 23 
 
 exercise insufficiently learnt. Skariatine, who saw 
 men brought into the hospital bleeding from the 
 mouth and ears, sometimes insensible and with broken 
 limbs, perhaps crippled for life — Skariatine, unable 
 to contain his indignation, protested warmly against 
 these infamies, and was backed by the younger 
 officers of the regiment, but the movement, opposed 
 by the superior officers and their clique, came to 
 nothing. True, Colonel Goriatcheff resigned, but 
 to command a division, not to answer for his mis- 
 deeds before a court martial. His successor was 
 the late Colonel Brevern, and to him also Skariatine 
 complained of the barbarous way in which the soldiers 
 were treated. But the new colonel had the im- 
 pudence to answer in these words, as was testified 
 by several witnesses: "Russian soldiers must be 
 beaten and knocked about, otherwise you can do 
 nothing with them." To prevent as far as possible 
 any further interference on the part of the young 
 doctor, Colonel Brevern ordered that no soldier 
 who was beaten into a state of insensibility should 
 be taken to the hospital. On this Skariatine made 
 a formal complaint to General Tejelnikoff, com- 
 mander of the division. The answer was given 
 before the regiment, after a review. " Disciplinary 
 punishments are for imbeciles," said the general ; 
 "with a good soldier you must use your fists." 
 
 This peremptory argument did not convince 
 Skariatine. After failing with the general, he made 
 a complaint in due form to the surgeon-in-chief of 
 the division, supporting his charge with numerous 
 well-authenticated facts. On this a series of 
 intrigues, directed by Colonel Brevern, with the 
 
124 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 object of ruining Skariatine, were begun. It 
 were useless to recount them. But in any case it 
 was necessary to take legal cognisance of his 
 charges. A judge was sent to Lubny to verify 
 the statements he had made. Several officers, 
 Gichareff, Savenkoff, Damlovsky, and Sytcheff, 
 fully confirmed the doctor's depositions. It may 
 be supposed that a plaint so powerfully supported 
 could not remain without effect. Nor did it ; but 
 in the contrary sense. The general commanding 
 the division made a pretext for presenting himself 
 at Lubny, called together the officers, told them that 
 "a scoundrel" (this in allusion to Skariatine) "had 
 come among them," and set himself to bellow against 
 everybody, conduct in which several officers had 
 not been ashamed to countenance him. " In my 
 opinion," he went on, "these officers should be 
 expelled from the regiment as scabby lambs are 
 turned out of a flock of sheep." And this was 
 actually done. A short time afterwards the four 
 officers in question were expelled from the 9th 
 Regiment of Uhlans. But even yet Skariatine 
 would not be quiet. He refused to howl with 
 the wolves, and, though alone and unsupported, 
 continued the struggle. He appealed to the 
 Minister of War three times without effect, and 
 only after surmounting a crowd of obstacles did 
 he succeed in getting his memoir into his Ex- 
 cellency's hands. Then he had to make five 
 separate applications before he could obtain his 
 answer. In the end, however, he did obtain it. 
 The minister offered, if Skariatine would with- 
 draw his memoir, to liberate him from the service^ 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. 12$ 
 
 from which, being stipendiary of the Government, 
 he could not retire without permission. "It is 
 not for that I presented my memoir," answered the 
 doctor, and he categorically refused to sell his con- 
 nivance even for a bribe so delicately offered. On 
 this the minister issued an order " to expel Skaria- 
 tine from the regiment, and send him to serve in 
 some hospital." 
 
 It was only then that the optimism of the young 
 doctor, who up to this point had maintained un- 
 swerving faith in the integrity of his country's 
 Government, broke down. He was so much 
 affected by his repeated failures and the discovery 
 that there is no justice under the rule of the Tzar 
 that he fell seriously ill. When he recovered he 
 received an order to betake himself to the Bob- 
 rouisk hospital. Skariatine declined to obey this 
 order, and addressed to the minister a report justify- 
 ing his resolution, on the ground that "he refused 
 to serve in any place whatever, being convinced 
 that the position of a surgeon under the Ministry 
 of War is incompatible with the conscientious ful- 
 filment of his duties and the engagements into 
 which he enters when taking the oath of service.' 
 It was this declaration — a declaration regarded by 
 his superiors as utterly outrageous and monstrous — 
 which caused Skariatine to be put on his trial, and 
 led to the revelations I have described. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Skariatine's trial is like a window left open for 
 a moment, through which may be seen the general 
 and normal condition of the Russian army. That 
 which this trial reveals is done more or less every 
 
126 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 where. The difference is simply that there is not 
 everywhere a man of Skariatine's calibre to 
 denounce the wrong and lift the veil by which it 
 is hidden. The senior surgeon, Konstantinoff, did 
 not, when Skariatine made his first complaint, say 
 to him paternally, " Why do you give yourself so 
 much trouble, my dear fellow ? We all see the 
 things that you see, but we hold our tongues. 
 Why do you want to be cleverer than others ? " 
 And the Imperial Procurator, who conducted the 
 prosecution, could not refrain from ridiculing "this 
 Don Quixote, who fancies that the abuses which 
 prevail in the army are unknown to the Govern- 
 ment." He was quite right. The Government, 
 or, at any rate, the members of the headquarter 
 staff, who have served in every rank, cannot ignore 
 the things that are known to every greenhorn of 
 an officer who has been a year in the army. In 
 Russia the command of a regiment is a sinecure — 
 as sure a source of income as a landed estate. 
 These "incomes" are made in a variety of ways; 
 from " economies " effected in the purchase of food, 
 forage, saddlery, and the rest, down to the very 
 soles of the soldiers' boots. Food, being in daily 
 consumption, and its consumption less easily checked 
 than some other things, is the principal source of 
 revenue. 
 
 There is another matter which it is equally 
 instructive to observe. Skariatine's trial shows 
 how that principle of natural selection, which under 
 the present regime prevails throughout the admini- 
 stration, operates in the army. The general body 
 of officers, as we have already mentioned, do not 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. 1 27 
 
 in Russia represent any particular class or caste. 
 Russia is a country essentially democratic. It 
 has nothing even remotely resembling the military 
 aristocracy of Prussia, or, in a less degree, of 
 Austria. With the exception of a few privileged 
 corps of the Guard, officered by the aristocracy 
 of the Court, the Russian army obtains its officers 
 from that inferior nobility and that " little bour- 
 geoisie " who are the chief repositories and repre- 
 sentatives of progressive ideas. A considerable 
 proportion of these officers receive their education 
 in the Military Gymnasium and the five colleges 
 of St. Petersburg and Moscow, good secondary 
 schools, which give a general, as well as a special, 
 education. Russia might easily secure for its army 
 a body of officers as honest and as zealous for 
 the good of their country as any other state. Of 
 this the present wide diffusion of revolutionary ideas 
 among the officers of every arm is the very best 
 proof If there are found so many officers ready 
 to risk their future and endanger their lives in the 
 hope of freeing their country from the yoke of a 
 barbarous Government, there would, of a surety, 
 be found ten times as many willing to render her 
 the modest meed of honest service. But that 
 which the existing regitne does wherever its in- 
 fluence extends, it does also in the army ; it 
 represses the better elements to encourage dis- 
 honesty, egoism, peculation, and rapine. Officers 
 like Sytchevsky, Gichareff, and others, who under- 
 stand honour in the sense in which it is understood 
 elsewhere, are either expelled from the army, or, 
 weary of sterile struggles and outraged past bearing 
 
128 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 by the spectacle of daily infamies, leave the service 
 en masse. Others, more energetic, espouse the 
 cause of revolution, and retain their positions in 
 order that, on the first occasion, they may employ 
 their arms for the delivery of their country. The 
 Goriatcheffs, the Kopatches, the Matveenkos, they 
 alone, possessing as they do all the qualities which 
 enable men in the Russian army to rise, have the 
 best chance of advancement ; and, once they reach 
 the higher grades, they have only to bring into 
 play that terrible instrument known as military dis- 
 cipline to hush up their common peculations and set 
 detection at defiance. And these gentlemen, accus- 
 tomed as they are to rob their soldiers and the 
 State in a time of peace, how can they abandon 
 their malpractices at a time when, by reason of 
 increased expenditure and relaxed control, thieving 
 is abnormally easy and profitable ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 So much for the strictly military officers and the 
 Commissariat. In order to complete our picture it 
 is only necessary to say a few words concerning the 
 medical department, which, in peace as well as in 
 war, plays so important a part in the malversations 
 of which the army is the theatre. To give an idea 
 of the character of our medical service two recent 
 and characteristic trials may be cited — that of Bush 
 and that of Koritzky. Both these men were fully 
 matriculated thieves. The first was Surgeon-in- 
 Chief of the Fleet. His trial took place in 1882, 
 and made, as well it might, a great noise in Russia. 
 The other gentleman was Surgeon-in-Chief of the 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. 1 29 
 
 Army. His trial took place in December 1884. 
 The two trials in their main features were identical 
 — the same crimes, the same procedure, the same 
 subterfuges of defence. We need then analyse but 
 one of these trials, — that of Bush, — for, though older 
 than the other, it is richer in detail. Surgeon-in- 
 Chief and Civil-General, Dr. Bush did not, like 
 Rykoff, of the Skopine Bank, distinguish himself 
 by the enormity of his peculations ; the blackmail 
 he levied never exceeded from a hundred to two 
 hundred pounds, and he condescended, on occasion, 
 to accept as little as a five-pound note. Neither did 
 he show in his rogueries any peculiar cleverness and 
 finesse. The most characteristic feature in the Bush 
 affair is its amazing and patriarchal simplicity. For 
 eight years places, promotions, and transfers were 
 sold in the chief surgeon's office without any sort of 
 concealment or disguise, almost as openly as if they 
 had been offered by -auction. True, the director 
 did not actually receive the cash with his own 
 hands. But that made practically no difference. 
 It even simplified matters. The business was 
 managed by two confidential men — Andreef, who 
 acted as cash-keeper, and Parfenoff, who acted as 
 clerk. It was no secret ; everybody knew what 
 was going on. Of one hundred and twenty-six 
 surgeons who were called as witnesses, eighty-six 
 admitted that they had either paid blackmail them- 
 selves or knew those who had been thus mulcted. 
 The other forty denied all personal knowledge of 
 the doings in question : protested even that they 
 had never heard tell of them. But their sincerity 
 was doubted by the Imperial Procurator, who compli- 
 
 9 
 
I30 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 merited the eighty-six on the "civic courage" (^su) 
 which they displayed in confessing their fault. And 
 there is good reason to believe that the Procurator's 
 scepticism was not without warrant. Dr. Saviesheff 
 and Dr. Lukine testified that " everybody said that 
 Andreef, Bush's man of business, took bribes." The 
 fact was known even to the students of the Academy 
 of Medicine. Doctor- Inspector Popoff testified to 
 having heard students of the previous year speak of 
 it as matter of common knowledge, and he had said 
 sharply to one of them, " Don't talk nonsense. How 
 can you pay for an appointment when you have not 
 a kopeck in your pocket ? " On this, the student, 
 nothing disconcerted, made this answer, " Oh, that 
 is nothing. If I cannot give money I can give a bill." 
 So the young disciples of yEsculapius were already 
 familiar with the mysteries of "making paper" and 
 the procedure of semi-official bribery. The bill 
 system was only one practicable for impecunious 
 doctors, emulous of good places and fat pay. One 
 of the witnesses mentioned, among other things, that, 
 according to public rumour, Andreef always con- 
 ducted his questionable business "like a gentleman." 
 The bills, which he took beforehand, were never 
 presented for payment until the promises in con- 
 sideration of which they were accepted had been 
 fulfilled. If, on the other hand. Bush was not able 
 to keep his engagement, the bill was returned — a 
 curious instance of the " honour " which is said to 
 prevail among thieves. Both parties to these 
 nefarious transactions acknowledged a certain con- 
 ventional standard of honesty to which they felt 
 themselves bound to conform. 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. 1 31 
 
 As a further illustration, take the case of Dr. 
 Malinovsky. He undertook to pay Andreef, acting 
 on behalf of Bush, 400 roubles for a place at Vladi- 
 vostock. Bush asked for no other security than 
 the aspirant's word, received him " very graciously," 
 promised him the nomination he wanted, and in 
 dismissing him gave him a cordial shake of the 
 hand. But when Malinovsky's appointment was 
 gazetted as medical officer at Vladivostock, and he 
 received travelling money for his journey (out of 
 which Bush's fee was to have been deducted), he 
 did not pay up. This did not arise from any want 
 of will, but, as the young doctor testified in court, 
 it was absolutely impossible for him to spare just 
 then the sum he had agreed to give. Before leaving 
 St. Petersburg he went to Bush, explained his cir- 
 cumstances, apologised for his unpunctuality, and 
 promised to pay later on. But Bush would not 
 listen to reason, made "a great row," and showed 
 Malinovsky to the door, crying furiously, " If I had 
 known you were such a scoundrel, you should never 
 have entered the service." After this, as may hz 
 supposed, the Surgeon-in-Chief did not get his 400 
 roubles. But Malinovsky felt that he had not acted 
 quite uprightly in the matter ; his conscience always 
 troubled him, and he declared before the tribunal 
 that he still considered himself Bush's debtor. But 
 most of the doctors paid up in due course, either 
 out of a sense of honour, or to avoid incurring the 
 enmity of their chief Ordinary nominations and 
 simple transfers were dealt in " according to the 
 established tariff," which varied, however, from 200 
 to 400 roubles (^20 to ;^4o) for each transaction. 
 
132 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 Bush, of course, endeavoured to exact the larger 
 sum, and drove very hard bargains. The Surgeon- 
 General of the Baltic Fleet, V. Smirnoff, testified 
 that in 1880 he was travelling with two young 
 doctors, one of whom, unrestrained by his presence, 
 observed, " But it is altogether abominable. They 
 bargain down there {the Surgeon-in-Chiefs office) 
 as if it were a drug shop. I offered Andreef 250 
 roubles, but he wanted 300, and as I could not 
 afford so much my nomination did not come off." 
 Yet all was not " shop." The story was graced 
 with a touch of poetry and romance, represented 
 by Mdlle. Selezneff, a lady of the corps de ballet. 
 Tvlr. Efrenoff, one of the witnesses, testified that, 
 being invited to take tea at Bush's house, he met 
 there the lady in question and Andreef While 
 they were at table a packet was brought to the 
 chief, who, after opening it and running his eye 
 over the contents, exclaimed, " Ah, what a stupid 
 fellow this Shvank is! He does not know how to 
 make appointments." And then, turning to Mdlle. 
 Selezneff, he said, " Nominate somebody yourself," 
 whereupon the ballet dancer named Dr. Tichoff, 
 and her nomination was duly carried into effect. 
 
 Most of the posts at Bush's disposal were sold for 
 lump sums, but there were others from which he 
 drew a regular yearly income. In Russia, as every- 
 body is well aware, a naval or military hospital is a 
 small gold mine for those who know how to make 
 the most of their opportunities. So many things 
 are required, and it is easy, either by minimising 
 the quantities or deteriorating the quality, — perhaps 
 by both, — to "save" something on every one of 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. 133 
 
 them. For "save" read "steal." This being the 
 case, it is not surprising that the directorship of a 
 naval or military hospital should fetch a relatively 
 high price — two, three, and even four thousand 
 roubles. But Bush, not satisfied with a payment 
 down, levied on his nominees an annual tribute, 
 and if they fell behind with their payments, or did 
 not pay what he thought enough, the Surgeon-in- 
 Chief would threaten them with dismissal. As, 
 moreover, he knew every detail of hospital admini- 
 stration, and could gauge to a nicety how much 
 every directorship was worth, it was impossible to 
 keep back any part of the plunder which he con- 
 sidered rightly his due. There was found among 
 his papers a detailed list of the income of Cronstadt 
 hospital, expressly drawn up for his information by 
 his confidential clerk, Parfenoff. Its extent may be 
 inferred from the fact that it covered two folios of 
 foolscap. Nothing was omitted. Bush was equally 
 familiar with what may be termed the interior or 
 domestic bribery of the hospitals. In his own par- 
 ticular note-book was found the following interesting 
 memorandum : — " Grinzevitch (the director of a 
 hospital) receives bribes from the doctors through 
 the intermediary of the clerk Terentieff; from the 
 furnishers of food and firewood through the inter- 
 mediary of the clerk Makaroff ; from the furnishers 
 of the pharmacy through Skopenhalen ; from those 
 of the school of surgery through Akinfieff " 
 
 Thus Grinzevitch did in his hospital precisely 
 what Bush himself did in his more exalted sphere. 
 Each for himself, according to the measure of his 
 ability. And this went on for long years. And even 
 
134 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 the trial, when it did come to pass, was the result of 
 pure accident. A functionary so highly placed that 
 he could not be hushed up — General Dr. Vakulovsky 
 —fell out with Bush and denounced him in due form 
 and had him prosecuted. 
 
 Dr. Krivouchev, one of the witnesses, threw a 
 side light on the customs of other departments 
 which revealed some curious facts. This young 
 doctor told that, after taking his degree, he made 
 the tour of all the departments, " and that every- 
 where it was the same thing." In one he was 
 informed bluntly that he must pay blackmail. In 
 others the fashion was to say nothing, but to write 
 on a piece of paper or trace with the finger on the 
 window glass the amount he was required to pay 
 — always a considerable sum, " more, even, than 
 Bush was in the habit of exacting from his clients." 
 And Dr. Krivouchev's comrade, Dr. Karst, avowed 
 frankly that " in the Ministry of War (territorial) 
 still higher bribes were demanded." On the trial 
 of Dr. Koritzky (a second Bush) the testimony of 
 the latter witness in this regard was fully confirmed. 
 When three young surgeons, who had bribed their 
 way to lucrative posts, arrived at Cronstadt, the 
 young sailor officers asked them openly "how much 
 their places had cost them," adding, " You are 
 luckier than we. You get what you pay for, but 
 with us (the Ministry of Marine) they make us pay 
 and give us nothing for our money." 
 
 This trial of Bush, equally with that of Rykoff, is 
 a mirror in which we see reflected all the rottenness 
 of Russian official life. As a journal of the day 
 observed, "It is a lump of mud taken at random 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. 1 35 
 
 from a marsh reeking with fihh." There are Bushes 
 everywhere, big and Httle. And every Bush has 
 his Parfenoff, his Andreef, and his Mdlle. Selezneff. 
 But I shall not dwell here on the social and political 
 significance of this scandalous trial. Let us confine 
 ourselves rather to what may be termed its special 
 and technical bearings, so far as they throw a light 
 on the subject more immediately before us. The 
 case of Dr. Bush enables us to see in action that 
 process of natural selection of which I cited several 
 instances in connection with the army. It may, 
 indeed, be safely affirmed that this process has gone 
 further in the department of medicine than that of 
 arms. We have seen by what sort of disgraceful 
 openings men enter on the noble career of healing, 
 and by what means they rise therein. Appoint- 
 ments, promotions, exchanges — all are obtained by 
 bribery. Yet a man who pays for a fav^our or a 
 place is not necessarily a scoundrel, — at any rate, 
 in Russia, — for in Russia bribery has become, so 
 to speak, acclimatised ; it holds a recognised place 
 among our manners and customs. But, even with 
 this qualification, a briber cannot be regarded as a 
 model of civic virtue, and those who, though they 
 may not actually either bribe or take bribes, never 
 raise their voices in protest against the malversations 
 and abuses of others, do not occupy a much loftier 
 position. If not robbers they are concealers, and the 
 line that divides the man who, by keeping silence, 
 makes himself a virtual accomplice, from the active 
 associate is easily trespassed. And if by chance an 
 honest doctor gets in by honourable means, and 
 is zealous for the public weal, as Skariatine was, it 
 
136 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 is much more difificult for him to remain in an 
 inferior position and keep his integrity than for a 
 military officer of the combatant branch of the ser- 
 vice. For a doctor is naturally a controller and a 
 chief. It is his duty to watch over and safeguard 
 the well-being of the soldier. Hence his part must 
 either be connivance and complicity, or war to the 
 knife against an entire system, a war a la Skariatine, 
 which can only end as his ended. 
 
 I would not suggest that all our naval and military 
 doctors are dishonest, any more than I would say 
 that all our superior officers are like Goriatcheff and 
 Matveeff. Yet it is beyond dispute that Bush and 
 Koritzky, Grinzevitch and Konstantinofif, are the 
 natural and logical outcome of the conditions we have 
 described ; and it is equally beyond dispute that in 
 times of war we can expect but a repetition on a 
 greater scale of the things that are done during 
 peace. 
 
 The colossal and universal robberies of which the 
 Russian army was the victim in the Bulgarian war, 
 as previously in the Crimean war, were not, let me 
 repeat, due merely to the bad faith of roguish con- 
 tractors, any more than to the fortuitous negligence 
 or incompetence of generals and inspectors. The 
 cause lies deeper. They were the natural results of 
 our political system. For this reason that which 
 has befallen in the past will happen in the future. 
 Before the Bulgarian war, as I have already observed, 
 the Russian people were under a fond illusion in this 
 regard. But they are under no such illusion now. 
 Bitter experience has opened their eyes to the 
 truth. From the first rumour of a possible war with 
 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS COMMISSARIAT. 1 37 
 
 England Russian papers have told us frankly what 
 to expect. And all Russia is of the same opinion. 
 In the next war, against whomsoever it. may be 
 waged, the soldiers will either be starved or poisoned, 
 either be compelled to eat adulterated bread and 
 putrid meat, or die of hunger ; wounded, they will 
 be left without help, without covering, and without 
 shelter. They will perish by thousands of exposure 
 and disease ; they will be forced to march barefoot 
 (because the contractors will deliver shoes to the 
 men after, not before, a battle, it being judiciously 
 calculated that, as many soldiers are sure to be killed, 
 a considerable saving will thereby be effected^ — not 
 to the State however). They will either get no 
 medicines at all, or drugs that are not medicines, — 
 cream of tartar instead of quinine, — the difference in 
 price going into the pockets of those who are ap- 
 pointed to watch over their health and cure their ills. 
 But is it needful to say that an army, however 
 numerous and courageous it may be, eaten up by 
 evils such as these, is utterly incapable of waging 
 a long and serious war ? Herein lies the cause 
 of the relative weakness of Russia. By raising an 
 enormous loan, and so imperilling the nation's future 
 and burdening beyond measure its resources, the 
 financial difficulty may be temporarily surmounted. 
 But against the gangrene which is gnawing away at 
 its heart the present regime is utterly impotent to 
 contend. How can it protect the private soldier 
 from his own chiefs and doctors ? It is an entire 
 personnel that needs purifying : it is the system, 
 which has made them what they are, that must be 
 remodelled and renewed. As things are, the evil 
 
138 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 can only increase. The antagonism between the 
 autocracy and the instructed forces of the nation 
 grows more virulent year by year, the army itself 
 included. 
 
 The existing Government has thus corrupted, 
 little by little, the entire body social. The autocracy 
 is as incompatible with the safety of the State as 
 with the peace of other nations. Though a military 
 regime par excellence, instituted with the intention 
 and object of waging wars of conquest, and likely 
 to grow more warlike in proportion to its interior 
 decomposition, the autocracy is actually the cause of 
 the present military weakening of the State, as much 
 as it is the cause of its extreme poverty and of the 
 stoppage of all intellectual progress. The military 
 courage and carelessness for life of Russian people, 
 having in it something of oriental fatalism, combined 
 with a power of enduring privations which no Euro- 
 pean soldiers would ever bear, have enabled the 
 Russian army to accomplish many high feats of 
 arms, and to acquire a well-earned military repu- 
 tation. It is, and will always be, a tremendous foe 
 in open encounters. But it is quite unfit for a long 
 and serious war. I remember an English colonel, 
 who as a member of the Afghan Boundary Com- 
 mission had good opportunity of observing our 
 soldiers in Central Asia, saying to me, " The 
 Russian soldiers could have conquered the world 
 but for a good commissariat." When they will 
 have such an one Russia will not want any more to 
 conquer anybody. And in its present condition it is 
 doubtful whether our army would be able to defend 
 the frontier in the case of a great continental war. 
 
III. 
 
 THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN 
 REVOLUTION 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN 
 REVOLUTION. 
 
 It was in the beginning of 1879 that I had 
 the first opportunity of seeing the PoHsh revolu- 
 tionists in their own homes. Early in the morning 
 the St. Petersburg train stopped at the beautiful 
 northern railway station of Warsaw. I was not 
 alone, having for fellow-traveller a Polish revolu- 
 tionist, whom I always called Michael. Whether 
 this was his Christian name or not I do not know. 
 During our short acquaintance he has changed his 
 name no less than half a dozen times, and most 
 probably had forgotten himself what his real one 
 was. It was quite pardonable, therefore, that I was 
 not more clear on this subject than himself. What 
 I did know of him was, that he was one of the 
 initiators of the new Polish revolutionary movement, 
 and one of the active members of the young revolu- 
 tionary association. Now we travelled together, and 
 stopped at Warsaw because he promised to intro- 
 duce me to all his friends in that town — a most 
 welcome promise, that any Russian revolutionist 
 would have willingly accepted, as I did. 
 
 In 1879 the police severity was already in all its 
 vigour, and it would have been surprising had things 
 
142 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 been better in Warsaw than elsewhere. We 
 had hardly time to enter our room at the hotel, 
 when we were asked for our passports, and sub- 
 jected to the minutest examination as to the object 
 of our journey, the time we proposed to stay in the 
 town, and many other particulars. This would have 
 seemed very indiscreet to peaceful citizens, but not 
 to us, of course. By giving a little play to our 
 imagination, we satisfied with the greatest ease the 
 curiosity of the police. As there was in the register 
 book a blank line, over which stood the word 
 "character," which means in Polish "occupation," 
 but in Russian " temper," it allowed me the 
 opportunity of pushing my frankness to the extent 
 of declaring in answer that we were both kind- 
 tempered and most pacific men. The waiter, not 
 being thoroughly versed in Russian, could not see 
 the joke, and so the register passed to the office. 
 Our passports were taken from us, also to be handed 
 over that very hour to the police for examination 
 and verification. The passports were home-made, 
 of course. But having already undergone many 
 verifications, both had their backs covered with as 
 many police stamps, acknowledging most peremp- 
 torily the incomparable skill of my friend Alexis 
 
 O and Mdlle. Alexandrine M , who presided 
 
 then over the Nihilistic passport department. We 
 had not the slightest doubt that our papers would 
 pass the ordeal quite safely, and return early on the 
 morrow with additional marks of their good quality. 
 Michael had a great deal of business, all equally 
 " urgent," to perform. I knew that on attending to 
 each detail he would find a number of details grow- 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. 1 43 
 
 ing out of it, and would try to do them at once. 
 Nevertheless, he promised to be back in two hours, 
 and to arrange in the meantime all the appointments 
 — a thing very complicated in Russia. To my great 
 surprise he arrived only one hour and a half behind 
 the time he had fixed. We started at once, and 
 went into the streets — the celebrated streets of the 
 Polish capital, which have seen so much greatness and 
 so many sorrows. Michael was my guide, and, as 
 we proceeded, explained to me the memories con- 
 nected with the places we were passing. A long 
 and pathetic record it was. Here was erected the 
 first barricade in 1830, where a handful of Polish 
 boys made head against the battalions of the Tzar. 
 There, in 1863, the Cossacks attacked a crowd of 
 unarmed people going to church ; women were 
 pierced through with pikes, and babies trampled 
 down under horses' hoofs. A little farther, in a 
 small thoroughfare, a Russian policeman was killed 
 in open daylight by some bold avenger ; and here a 
 Polish patriot put to death before the eyes of his 
 wife and children. We could hardly take a hundred 
 steps without my companion raising before my 
 imagination some deed of valour or self-sacrifice 
 of martyrdom. A sense of dread overpowered me. 
 There is no city in the world whose soil is so bloody 
 as Warsaw. It seemed as if every stone of the 
 pavement we trod, under the dirt and snow covering 
 it, must have had its stain of martyrs' blood. I 
 understood then why Warsaw has been and will 
 always be the site of revolution. Until it is burnt 
 to ashes and destroyed, the plough passed over its 
 ruins, and its citizens not allowed to settle within a 
 
144 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 score of miles, as with old Carthage — until then 
 Warsaw may be reduced to gloomy silence, but 
 never subdued by despotism ; and at the first call 
 of liberty they will rise in arms as one man. 
 
 I will not speak of all with whom I became 
 acquainted on that day and in the three following, 
 which I could not refrain from passing in this town. 
 I will dwell only on one particular which struck 
 me most : the character of the socialist movement 
 among the workmen was, indeed, the chief object 
 of the new revolutionary party. The day after 
 our arrival at Warsaw, Michael and another Polish 
 
 revolutionist — the engineer W , with whom I 
 
 was connected in St. Petersburg — came to my 
 hotel, and said they would accompany me to a 
 workmen's meeting to be held — secretly, of course — 
 in one of the democratic quarters of the town. 
 
 After some rambling through the narrow streets, 
 we entered a vast court-yard, at one corner of which 
 stood a large one-storied house. Heaps of rough 
 boards were laid on the ground, or stood erect 
 against the walls. It was a joiner's shop. The 
 meeting was to be held in a back chamber. When 
 we entered the ante-room, we could hear the hum 
 of voices. There were, however, but few persons 
 assembled. We came early, and could indulge in 
 conversation, which gave me the opportunity of 
 knowing these people better. After being presented 
 
 by Michael and W as a Russian revolutionist, 
 
 I was welcomed as a friend and brother. There 
 was not the slightest shadow of national distrust of 
 a Russian in their hearty frankness. Many mis- 
 fortunes were due in former times to such distrust. 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. 1 45 
 
 Two generations ago it separated by the space of 
 five years two great revolutions,— that of 1825 of 
 St. Petersburg, and that of 1830 in Warsaw, — which, 
 united, would have been decisive. Even a genera- 
 tion later, in the insurrection of 1863, as our fathers 
 in revolution, Herzen and Bakounin, complain, it was 
 the insuperable obstacle to a good understanding 
 between Russian and Polish democrats. 
 
 I knew perfectly well that this distrust had entirely 
 disappeared among educated revolutionists. But 
 I was most pleasantly surprised to see that it was 
 just the same with simple workmen. 
 
 When all had assembled, there were altogether 
 some fifteen to eighteen people. It was a meeting 
 of delegates or organisers, each of whom represented 
 a circle of fifteen to twenty persons. Thus at that 
 moment there must have been about 150 to 200 
 workmen united in one organisation — a number 
 that surprised me, indeed ; for I knew that all this 
 had been done in a few months, and that eighteen 
 months before there was not a single socialist circle 
 among the Warsaw workmen. I remembered that 
 when we Russian revolutionists began our propa- 
 ganda in St. Petersburg in 1 871, at the end of the 
 first two years we could hardly contrive to impart 
 to a dozen workmen the notions of socialism. Only 
 in 1879, after nine years' exertion, the first strong 
 and serious workmen's organisation, called the 
 Northern League, was founded. The difference in 
 the results seemed still more surprising when one 
 compared the respective forces that began the move- 
 ment in the two countries. At St. Petersburg the 
 number of propagandists belonging to the instructed 
 
 10 
 
146 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 classes — let us say of students, although the term 
 is not quite exact — was so great, that in the first 
 four or five years of propaganda we may reckon 
 without exaggeration at least three propagandist 
 students who have spent their forces to gain over 
 one socialist of the working classes. In Warsaw 
 it was quite the reverse. The 150 to 200 socialists, 
 united in a few months into one association, were 
 the result of the work of only three agitators of 
 the educated classes. All these three propagan- 
 dists I knew. They were very devoted, energetic 
 persons ; but they were not at all superior to those 
 of St. Petersburg, among whom there were many 
 people of longer experience. 
 
 Their wonderfully quick success was, therefore, 
 only an illustration and a measure of the great 
 difference in the material on which they had to 
 work. 
 
 Its rapidity of expansion was not, however, the 
 chief feature of the Warsaw socialist movement. 
 W and Michael told me that all the propa- 
 ganda was carried out now entirely by the workmen 
 themselves. The three initiators had some difficulty 
 in organising the first circle of workmen ; but when 
 once they had formed a small group of five to seven 
 workmen, the latter in no time acquired numerous 
 adherents among their companions, organised new 
 circles, and carried the propaganda further without 
 any assistance from their educated companions. 
 W^hen any circle grew too large it divided itself into 
 two, and, in order to keep in communication with 
 the whole association, elected a delegate to a separate 
 circle of a superior order, having its regular meetings, 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. 1 47 
 
 and entrusted with the general direction and super- 
 vision. The delegates or "organisers" in various 
 quarters of the town held small local meetings to 
 provide for the wants of their district, and had their 
 general as well as particular funds, small libraries 
 composed of clandestine publications, and so forth. 
 The organisation worked like a well-constructed 
 machine. 
 
 All this is very simple, of course. If asked to 
 draw up a scheme of a working men's organisation, 
 every propagandist would have proposed just the 
 same. But it is one thing to write out a scheme 
 and quite another to put it into practice. For us 
 Russian revolutionists the greatest difficulty was 
 the organising of our workmen. If we succeeded 
 in moving some three or four score of adherents, it was 
 a herculean task to put them, so to say, into rank ; 
 to introduce order into their gregarious mass ; to 
 place them in conspiratory array, — which, by dividing 
 functions, divides peril, — and in restricting the inter- 
 course the sphere of activity of each single part 
 strengthens the power of resistance and effectiveness 
 of the whole conspiracy. The Polish propagandist 
 has no such difficulty. Their workmen seem to 
 have been already educated for conspiracies, as 
 soldiers are drilled for war. They had only to be 
 called out and put in motion ; the placing them in 
 ranks went by itself. And it cannot be said that 
 this was due to the superior intellectual development 
 of Polish workmen in comparison with Russian. Not 
 at all. I speak not of peasants, but of St. Peters- 
 burg artisans, who are as intelligent as those of 
 Warsaw. It was all due to the political antecedents 
 
148 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 of the country, to the historical tradition which every 
 Pole seems to inherit. 
 
 We separated very late that evening, and all the 
 town was asleep when we went out into the street. 
 Michael accompanied me for a while. He was a great 
 patriot, although he denied this, professing to be 
 a cosmopolitan. But his Polish partiality manifested 
 itself in another way — in his anxiety to prove that 
 in every sphere of activity his compatriots were 
 superiors to us Russians. Now he had a very good 
 opportunity, indeed, of insisting on his favourite 
 theme. I readily acknowledged his right to be proud 
 of his party's achievements. 
 
 " But," I added, "it is not to yourselves that you 
 owe the greatest part of your success." 
 
 " To whom then ? " 
 
 I pointed to the ground of the long street winding 
 before us. As there was nobody to be seen, Michael 
 was at a loss to guess what I meant. 
 
 "You owe it, my friend, to the ground your work- 
 men tread, to the air they breathe ; that is the 
 inspiration you have that we have not." 
 
 II. 
 
 This was the first, but by no means the last, oppor- 
 tunity I have had of learning what was going on 
 in Poland. The most friendly relations between 
 Russian and Polish revolutionists never ceased. And 
 I will relate now in few words what I could gather 
 about the posterior history as well as the antecedents 
 of the new Polish revolutionary movement, of which 
 we have had a short glimpse. 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. 1 49 
 
 Being divided into three unequal parts between 
 the three empires, Poland has two provinces under 
 a constitutional regime, and enjoying a certain free- 
 dom of speech and of the press. Socialistic ideas 
 had, therefore, full access to these countries, and 
 could easily penetrate into Russian Poland, the 
 custom-house barriers never preventing the introduc- 
 tion of prohibited books and papers from abroad. 
 It is not from this side, but from the oppo- 
 site one, that the new revolution infiltrated into 
 Poland. 
 
 As is well known, a vast socialistic movement took 
 place in Russia in 187 1-3. It extended through all 
 the land, having as chief centres the higher schools 
 and universities. In the latter the Poles are mixing 
 with Russian youth, and it was quite natural that 
 the former were influenced by this strong current. 
 The Poles proved, however, to be far less inflam- 
 mable than their Russian comrades. They had a sort 
 of preservative against the revolution in the interest 
 of a class in the deep-rooted idea of general national 
 revolution. The few who united in the cosmo- 
 politan struggle of socialism took part in the Russian 
 movement, making propaganda in Russian towns, as 
 Drobish-Drobishevsky, and others. In 1874, how- 
 ever, at St. Petersburg was founded the first actual 
 Polish circle, having for its declared purpose socialistic 
 propaganda in Poland itself. Four Russian revolu- 
 tionists formed, nevertheless, part of this circle. In 
 1875 they acquired many adherents in the large 
 Polish colony of St. Petersburg ; they elaborated a 
 programme, and planned to found a paper. With 
 these views an emissary (Mr. G ) was sent on 
 
ISO THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 a circular journey to Moscow, Kieff, Warsaw, and 
 other Russian and Polish centres. In Kieff he 
 encountered a mixed Russo-Polish self-educating 
 socialistic circle, in which the leading spirits were 
 
 Ludwig W and Mdlle. Plascovitzkaia, who died in 
 
 1880 in Siberia. The St. Petersburg emissary visited 
 also the chief centres of emigration. At Lwow he 
 saw Mr. Limanovsky, at Geneva Mr. Vroublevsky, 
 general of the Parisian Commune, both old Polish 
 patriots, and in London Mr. Lavrof, the editor of 
 a Russian revolutionary periodical. All promised 
 their assistance. Thus in the literary enterprise, as 
 well as in the practical organisation, we see Russians 
 and Poles united in quite a brotherly association. 
 The publication of a paper was to be postponed, 
 however, for some time, from scarcity of means. But 
 the organisation grew in numbers. In the autumn 
 of 1876 the relations with Kieff were strengthened, 
 and two delegates were sent for permanent settle- 
 ment in Warsaw. Here the St. Petersburg delegates 
 met with Kasimir Gilt, a young man of great 
 capacity, too early lost for his cause and his country. 
 After being a Warsaw student. Gilt passed some 
 years at Cracow university. Here he became an 
 ardent disciple of the social democratic party, and, 
 returning to Warsaw, was the chief propagator of 
 pure scientific socialism, as formulated In Western 
 industrial countries. His influence, due to his 
 erudition and dialectical capacity, was very great and 
 beneficial at the moment of creation of the young 
 socialistic party in Poland. He neutralised the too 
 exclusive influence of the St. Petersburg elements, 
 educated in Russian socialistic schools, which re- 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. 151 
 
 fleeted in their theoretical views the transitory social 
 condition of Russia. 
 
 Being all members of well-to-do classes, the new 
 socialists began by addressing themselves to their 
 like — to students and educated people in general. 
 The success of the new party was very great. With 
 the speed familiar to all Polish conspiratory move- 
 ments, they grew in number and extent, dividing 
 themselves into circles, and so forth. Very soon a 
 special group of propagandists resolved to direct 
 their efforts to working men. In their first attempts 
 to address workmen the propagandists adopted Rus- 
 sian methods of propaganda, and entered into factories 
 
 as simple workmen. Thus did Ludwig W and 
 
 two of his companions. This method was little 
 practised in Poland afterwards, because the absence 
 of distrust between classes made it quite useless. 
 
 For the workmen socialistic books were required. 
 Gilt translated into Polish some pamphlets of Ger- 
 man social democrats, as Lassalle's " Labour and 
 Capital," and other short articles. They were printed 
 abroad. For the propaganda among the students 
 and educated people Russian socialistic books were 
 used with great success. To have these supplied in 
 sufficient quantity, the Warsaw circle, in company 
 with the Moscow circle of Russian propagandists, 
 organised a regular smuggling transport. 
 
 The growth of the socialistic movement in Warsaw 
 gave rise to a similar one in Posnanand Galizia. In 
 the latter took place, in May 1877, the first trial of 
 Polish socialists, which was followed by many others. 
 
 From the year 1877 Warsaw became the chief 
 camp of the new revolutionary movement. Hither 
 
153 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 converged all the forces gathered together in the 
 principal Russian towns among Polish students. 
 But the Poles, notwithstanding their proverbial 
 sanguineness, showed a great sagacity by abstaining 
 from the concentration of all disposable forces in 
 Poland. Strong organisations were left in St. Peters- 
 burg and Kieff to get new recruits, and to maintain 
 a reserve for every eventuality. This precaution 
 rendered the movement considerable service, as we 
 shall presently see. 
 
 The 8th of August, 1878, was a memorable day for 
 the new party : the first arrest of the revolutionist 
 of the new generation was made in Warsaw. The 
 police discovered a printing - press, a quantity of 
 type, some revolutionary pamphlets, and so forth. 
 The variegated crowd assembled around the building 
 (the arrest took place by day) was greatly excited by 
 a sight not seen for fifteen years. An unmistakable 
 .sympathy was shown to the new victims, and when 
 the conspirators contrived to throw from the windows 
 some compromising papers, they were in a moment 
 destroyed by the people before the gendarmes could 
 come into the street to seize them. 
 
 But, anyhow, the documents which remained in the 
 hands of the police were more than sufficient to ruin 
 their owners, and to reveal the threads of the con- 
 spiracy. The association of Warsaw was entirely 
 destroyed, and the remainder emigrated to Austria. 
 There were nearly two hundred persons arrested, of 
 whom seventy-two were accused of high treason, 
 and twenty-four, considered as the chief instigators, 
 condemned to severe punishments. The Govern- 
 ment did not choose to put them on trial : this 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. 1 53 
 
 would cause too great an excitement. All was done 
 in the administrative way, the Government having 
 recourse to the old war commission instituted for 
 judging the rebels of 1863, by Mouravieff, the hang- 
 man, and not abolished until recent times. Only 
 four members of the ancient organisation remained 
 in Warsaw ; but, being obliged to conceal themselves 
 from the police, who were at their heels, they were 
 unable to do anything, such a comparatively small 
 town as Warsaw not affording the facilities for the 
 existence of outlaws like St. Petersburg. 
 
 It was just in this most critical period of the 
 existence of the new association that its reserve, 
 of which we have just spoken, showed its utility. 
 Whilst the organisation made such progress at 
 Warsaw, the organisation left at St. Petersburg and 
 Kieff worked with the same zeal, recruiting ad- 
 herents among the Poles of the respective towns. 
 In St. Petersburg they were particularly successful. 
 
 H , and the engineer W , its most active 
 
 members, held secret meetings in the private 
 houses of eighty to a hundred men. A secret 
 organisation, selected with great care, was created 
 to support the agitation. It was presided over 
 by a central circle composed of sixteen members, 
 and had two other auxiliary circles composed of 
 about twenty members each. The chief pur- 
 pose of the organisation was to prepare people 
 for the propaganda in Poland. It was, there- 
 fore, essentially theoretical. Its members could 
 not, however, abstain from taking part in the revo- 
 lutionary movement of their Russian companions, 
 which at that period began to agitate so strongly 
 
I 54 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 all Russian society. In great meetings, as in the 
 startling street demonstration of the epoch, the Poles 
 mingled with Russians. And on the editorial staff 
 of the clandestine paper modestly called NachaLo, 
 beginning which opened the series of clandestine 
 revolutionary papers published under the very nose 
 of the gendarmes — among the four initiators of 
 
 this bold enterprise we see the engineer W , 
 
 whom I have already mentioned as one of the 
 leaders of the Polish organisation. It was quite 
 natural that the change which took place In the 
 Russian revolutionary party in this period should 
 have Its influence on their Polish companions. The 
 years 1878-9 signalise the beginning of terrorism 
 as a practical means of struggle with the Govern- 
 ment. But besides this practical change there was 
 another, theoretical, known under the name of narod- 
 nicliestro, an untranslatable word, which might be 
 rendered by the term " peasantism," which preceded 
 the political programme of the modern period. Its 
 most characteristic feature is the tendency to base 
 the revolution on the immediate desires and aspira- 
 tions of the peasants. Without waiting until under 
 the influence of propaganda, these aspirations ripen 
 into pure socialism. Transplanted into Polish con- 
 ditions, this basing the revolution on the immediate 
 desire of the masses could mean nothing else but 
 patriotism, nationalism, striving for political emanci- 
 pation from the Muscovite yoke. All these things 
 the Polish socialists of the first period considered as 
 something approaching treason to their cause, which 
 was that of cosmopolitan pure socialism. They 
 recognised no difference between a national govern- 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. 1 55 
 
 merit and a foreign one, since both were based on 
 the economical dependence of the working masses. 
 It is from the year 1878-9, that the PoHsh sociaHst 
 party in St. Petersburg made a step towards the union 
 between socialism and nationalism. When, after the 
 great disaster of the autumn of 1878, the delegates 
 of St. Petersburg were called to take the place of 
 their fallen comrades of Warsaw, the new tendencies 
 began to take root in Poland. 
 
 But in the second period of the movement we see 
 once more that the St. Petersburg elements find a 
 compensation and supplement in some representa- 
 tives of Western influence. Gilt was dying of 
 consumption in Switzerland. But a little later, after 
 
 the settlement of the St. Petersburg delegate, P , 
 
 at Warsaw, one of the most remarkable men of the 
 movement, who, like many Polish patriots of past 
 generations, — the great Traugut, for instance, — - 
 united the extreme moderation of their theoretical 
 convictions with great ardour of temper and sur- 
 prising energy in action, — P was quite a 
 
 white in his theoretical opinions— a social democrat 
 of the most moderate faction. In the capital of a 
 conquered country he tried to introduce the pacific 
 and nearly public methods of propaganda used in 
 Western countries. And, thanks to his great ability 
 and German precision in the work, as well as to the 
 strongly marked separation of Russian and Polish 
 elements, he succeeded in giving to the propaganda 
 an extension which never was reached before, nor 
 
 surpassed afterwards. One of P 's adherents 
 
 (Mr. B ) had even formed a bold project to 
 
 turn into a public socialistic organisation the obsolete 
 
156 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 and degenerate remainders of the mediaeval corpora- 
 tions of various trades, which had the nominal right 
 of meeting. 
 
 The direction of this vast propagandist movement 
 was concentrated in the hands of a secret organisation, 
 which was, however, very simple at that time. It 
 was divided into a central circle of organisers, com- 
 posed of seventeen or eighteen people, and a number 
 of secondary circles, which sent their delegates to 
 the central one, and comprised some hundreds of 
 people. 
 
 Whether it was the too large extension of the pro- 
 paganda, or some chance mistake in March 1880, 
 when the association reached the apex of its develop- 
 ment, it was struck by the most awful disaster. The 
 central circle was arrested to a man, so that all 
 activity was interrupted. Once more St. Petersburg 
 sent a supply of new forces to fill the gaps left by 
 the fallen. But for two months nothing could be 
 done by the St. Petersburg delegates. In June 1880, 
 on the initiative of the St. Petersburg organisation, 
 was convened a general meeting of the associations 
 existing in all Russian towns. A new plan of 
 organisation was elaborated, and many important 
 ameliorations were introduced to render it more 
 proof against the police. Greater circumspection 
 was prescribed in the mode of propaganda. The 
 organisation became more centralistic. The two 
 large circles of organisers were replaced by a small 
 central circle, composed of delegates from the five 
 parts of Warsaw, with an additional bureau of repre- 
 sentatives of student circles. In the central circle 
 itself a division of functions between members was 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. I 57 
 
 introduced, each having his own particular depart- 
 ment : workmen, students, book-office, measure of 
 general security. The growing danger of treason 
 forced the organisation to some rigorous measures 
 against traitors. The large workmen's circle was 
 divided into a number of smaller ones, communicat- 
 ing in hierarchical order with the centres, but not 
 with each other. All those changes proved very- 
 successful, and in the autumn of 1880 — i.e., only five 
 months after the great disaster of which we have 
 just spoken — the organisation was once more in full 
 swing. At that time it had its ramifications in all 
 parts of Poland, West Russia, and Lithuania, pene- 
 trating sometimes even into villages. In April 
 1 88 1 it had to undergo its first serious ordeal. A 
 refugee returning from Geneva, and entrusted with 
 some messages to the Polish socialists, fell into the 
 hands of the police on the frontier. Many addresses 
 of conspirators were found among his papers. 
 Numerous arrests followed everywhere. Treason 
 came to augment this bad luck. About fifty persons 
 were arrested at Warsaw, and twenty-five at St. 
 Petersburg. Kieff, Vilna, and Belostock paid a 
 tribute of twenty-seven victims. It was a heavy 
 loss, but the organisation proved of good service 
 this time by localising the damage, and preventing 
 arrests from spreading over a large area. It was 
 found advisable, nevertheless, to introduce further 
 changes in the system of organisation. At that time 
 the Russian revolutionary party of the Narodnaia 
 Volia, with the celebrated executive committee 
 at its head, in the deadly struggle of many years 
 with all the forces of the Russian police acquired 
 
IS8 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 an unheard-of strength and extension. The Warsaw 
 revolutionists adopted now the Narodnaia Volia's 
 system of organisation in all its details, changing 
 only in conformity with local conditions some par- 
 ticulars—as, for instance, those referring to military 
 men. We shall abstain, of course, from describing 
 the present organisation. It is enough to say that 
 from that time the Polish socialist party has pre- 
 served itself from any general disaster. The arrests 
 occurring from time to time do not involve any more 
 the vital part of the organisation, which continues 
 its work, gaining adherents, extending every year, 
 having within the very limits of the Polish capital 
 a secret printing office, which no efforts of the police 
 can discover, and publishing a clandestine paper, — 
 the Proletariat, — circulating like Narodnaia Volia, 
 an achievement which was thought possible only in 
 so large a town as St. Petersburg. 
 
 On January 29th, 1886, the young Poland had re- 
 ceived its first christening of blood. In December 
 of the past year twenty-nine out of hundreds of 
 arrested were committed before the military tribunal 
 at Warsaw— an unwonted event in the Polish capital, 
 because formerly all political offenders were sent to 
 Siberia without trial by administrative order. The 
 majority — sixteen out of twenty-nine prisoners — be- 
 longed to the working classes, four of them being 
 simple peasants. Among the remaining thirteen 
 we see a magistrate of Warsaw, Peter Bardowsky, 
 a man forty years old, who was one of the most 
 daring and active members of the conspiracy ; two 
 commissioned officers, lieutenants of the Tzar's army ; 
 a captain of engineers ; and half-a-dozen of well 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. 1 59 
 
 educated young university men. By the number 
 and the social position, as well as the intrepidity of 
 the prisoners' conduct before the tribunal, this trial 
 was destined to be memorable in the history of the 
 new Polish revolution. The capital punishment 
 (the first in Poland since 1863) inflicted on four of 
 the principal accused, — the magistrate Bardovsky, 
 the nobleman Kounizky, and the workmen Pe- 
 troussinsky and Ossovsky — has made of it an epoch 
 in the growth of young Poland. 
 
 As to the tendencies of the organisation, the 
 attorney's requisitory shows it to be that of " Re- 
 generating Poland on the bases of socialism by 
 means of the creation of a federation of self-govern- 
 ing communes l^gminas) composed of working men's 
 corporations, possessing in common all the indus- 
 trial establishments as well as the land." 
 
 I will not dwell on the small divergence of 
 theoretical opinions existing between the factions 
 into which the Polish socialists are divided. This 
 presents little interest for English readers. The 
 papers, such as Rovnost, Przedswit, Walka Klas, all 
 published abroad, and easily obtainable, can furnish 
 ample materials for those anxious to know more 
 thoroughly this subject. I will only mention 
 that "terrorism" is introduced in the programme 
 of the Proletariat. That is just the point of 
 divergence between the two principal factions of 
 the modern Polish socialist party^ — the Proletariat 
 and the Solidarity. But if from theoretical ab- 
 stractions we pass to practice, we shall see that 
 the Polish socialists have completely abstained from 
 such means ; for the few reprisals against spies are 
 
l60 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 acts of self-defence, and not of terrorism. And, 
 if a foreigner can be allowed to speak of a country 
 not his own, I will take the liberty of saying that I 
 cannot see what can be the use of terrorism in such 
 a country as Poland. As to agitating the masses, 
 preparing them for general activity, awakening them 
 from lethargy — nothing of the kind is wanted in 
 Poland. For there is no lethargy in the masses of 
 workmen, who by the former history of their country 
 are better advanced and prepared than by any amount 
 of terrorist attempts. More than that, many Poles 
 who have taken part in the propaganda among Polish 
 workmen tell that the organisers had always the 
 greatest difficulty in keeping down their too rash 
 temper and in moderating their desire to rush into 
 immediate struggle. As to the political effect of 
 terrorist attempts, everybody sees that, without 
 doing any harm whatever to the central power, it 
 would only give a pretext for submitting the country 
 to reprisals, which in a conquered country like 
 Poland may easily extend to atrocities quite im- 
 possible in Russia itself Unless the organisation 
 is strong enough to answer this by general insurrec- 
 tion, such reprisals can only increase the difficulty of 
 any general movement. 
 
 The true service of the Polish socialist party 
 consists in having prepared a large contingent of 
 socialist representatives of manual as well as in- 
 tellectual labour — a force which Poland did not 
 possess in 1863. I have tried to show in a few 
 pages what are the energy and devotion, adapta- 
 bility to circumstances and self-command, of young 
 Poland, and how she has shown herself a true and 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. l6l 
 
 worthy successor of the old one. As to the effective 
 results of this prolonged activity, it is far from being 
 represented by the intermittent growth and destruc- 
 tion of the various clandestine organisations of 
 which we have spoken. They are only the direct- 
 ing staff, and not yet the army of socialism. And 
 in organisations carrying on this incessant battle for 
 a new and brighter future, those who fall in largest 
 numbers are the officers, the leaders, and not the 
 soldiers. Those whom they lead remain for the 
 most part. And with the intellectual and moral 
 condition of Poland, with the surprising spirit of 
 initiative of the working men, the impulse received 
 is rarely lost. Poland is a fertile field for the seeds 
 of conspiracy and subversive ideas. Thrown into the 
 ground, they find there elements of further growth, 
 and rarely perish. A curious instance occurred when 
 the workmen's circles were by the disaster of 1878 
 cut off from communications with the centres, and 
 were supposed to have perished. But they did not 
 perish. They continued the work of propaganda 
 themselves, until, in 1880, they were by chance dis- 
 covered by some members of the general organisa- 
 tions, and united once more to the common family. 
 In the eight years of incessant socialistic pro- 
 paganda thousands of workmen in the always 
 fluctuating population of great industrial centres 
 have passed either through the ranks of the 
 socialistic organisation, or sufficiently near to be 
 influenced by the movement. And they have 
 carried socialism everywhere. From the end of 
 1879 colonies of propagandists began to form in the 
 villages, and in the winter of 1880, in the province 
 
 1 1 
 
1 62 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 of Kelzy, were arrested the mayor of a village 
 commune and some peasants — the first socialists 
 among rural classes. 
 
 Thus in the event of an insurrection Poland will 
 have a strong contingent of socialistic elements in 
 the field, and the longer the insurrection is post- 
 poned the greater probably will it be. 
 
 But however energetic and successful, clandestine 
 propaganda can never extend itself over the majo- 
 rity of a nation. Unless we suppose the Russian 
 autocracy will continue its disgraceful existence for 
 many generations, — which we will by no means 
 admit, — the coming catastrophe will find the socialist 
 element in Poland always in a minority. This 
 minority will have, of course, a great influence on 
 the destiny of the country — an influence greater 
 than in proportion to its numerical strength, as 
 extreme parties unite together the most energetic 
 and ardent elements. But its influence will hardly 
 be isolated. It will have evidently to share it with 
 old purely political parties, created during long 
 series of generations, and not likely to lose their 
 influence at once. The social question is compli- 
 cated in Poland with national questions, as in Russia 
 with political ones. The great advantage of Poland 
 is, that in that country both elements have their 
 separate representatives. The socialists can dedicate 
 themselves exclusively to socialistic activity, as they 
 have always done ; whilst in Russia the absence 
 of any constituted political party has thrown on the 
 shoulders of socialists the heavy task of working 
 as well as they can for both. 
 
 If, therefore, we want to have an idea of the 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. 1 63 
 
 conformation of subversive forces in Poland, we 
 must give a glance at its political parties. 
 
 III. 
 
 The epoch following the crushing of the insur- 
 rection of 1863 was the gloomiest through which 
 the unhappy nation has ever passed. 
 
 Never were such enormous sacrifices made by a 
 nation for the cause of its independence. There 
 was hardly a family that had not its best men lost 
 in the field, on the scaffold, or in the mines. All 
 was ruin, tears, desolation. Even hope was dead. 
 For what more could the nation do than she had 
 done, treacherously abandoned by those who by 
 their fallacious promises had incited and en- 
 couraged her ? 
 
 If there was ever a day when the desperate cry 
 of " Finis Poloniae " might have escaped from a 
 patriot's breast, it was then. 
 
 It was in those days of mourning and desolation 
 that a voice was heard — a voice of consolation — 
 saying, " All is not lost. We have been over- 
 powered by the brutal physical force of the majority ; 
 but there is another force which is superior to the 
 force of numbers — it is that of the mind. We are 
 stronger than our conquerors by our culture, and 
 we can use this advantage to regain what we have 
 lost. Let us dedicate all our strength to internal 
 development, intellectual and industrial, in order to 
 make this difference still greater ! Then we shall 
 subdue our conqueror, compelling him to work for 
 
1 64 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 our welfare, and governing him whilst he thinks to 
 govern us." 
 
 Poland has already had similar counsels, but in 
 Velepolsky's time they were rejected as an attempt 
 to check the revolution, growing and full of hope. 
 Now the unfortunate country clings to them as to 
 its last refuge. Thus was created the party of 
 " Organic Labour," which transforms the industrial 
 development into a political aim. This party was 
 very strong in the first period after the insurrection, 
 and many patriots joined it. Now the most in- 
 fluential of its representatives is the well-known 
 St. Petersburg barrister, Spassovich, a Pole by origin, 
 whose organs are the Kray and Noviny. Another 
 of its leaders is Sventokhovsky, editor of Pravda. 
 It meets with great support among the Poles who 
 occupy the high posts in Russian civil administration. 
 In Poland itself it is said to have degenerated into 
 a party caring about nothing but material interests, 
 and ready to submit to every government, provided 
 it secures them the enjoyment of their acquired 
 wealth. But it is undeniable that in its time it 
 rendered considerable service to Poland. The 
 country, weakened by so many sacrifices, wanted 
 tranquillity and quietude, as a man after a terrible 
 illness. And the theory of the party of " Organic 
 Labour," like some soporific medicine, was adapted 
 to give it some time for sleep undisturbed by 
 phantoms and remorse. As soon as power begins 
 to return to the exhausted body of the nation, as 
 soon as there come into activity new generations, 
 which feel only the wrongs inflicted by the con- 
 queror, without having shared the ruin of hopes — 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. 1 65 
 
 something more is required. The rich bankers 
 may console themselves still with the fact of their 
 superior industry, and dream themselves conquerors 
 and masters, because they compel the Russian 
 people of Moscow to wear their calico and their 
 flannels. A young student, barrister, or writer 
 cannot be so easily consoled for what is inflicted 
 on him and his friends by Russian administrators, 
 censors, or policemen. The bearers of the for- 
 lorn hope, the scattered mohikans of the gigantic 
 struggle, who carry with them into remote countries 
 the religion of the past and hope for the future, 
 begin the work of conspiracy, and grow in strength 
 and influence. 
 
 The prey of three rival masters, the fallacious 
 hope of profiting by their mutual jealousy never 
 left the Poles, however often it failed them. The 
 State which at present can boast of the greatest 
 sympathy among the Poles is Austria. And, indeed, 
 the Polish provinces enjoying the greatest local 
 liberty are surely those which fell to the share of 
 Habsburg. Galizia has a local parliament [seym), 
 much local autonomy, and no attempt is made by 
 the heterogeneous Austrian State to keep down the 
 Polish nationality. The traditional obscurantism of 
 the Austrian Government alienates from it the liberal 
 and radical parties. But all the clergy, so powerful 
 in Poland, are heart and soul for Austria. Their chief 
 organ is the Csas, of Cracow. The Nova Reforma 
 and Dzennik Polsky are the organs of the moderate 
 liberals, who are also in favour of Austria, believing 
 that she is more likely to follow out the federalistic 
 slave policy. We abstain, of course, from citing the 
 
1 66 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 many organs in Russian Poland that are in favour 
 of Austria, as far as the censorship will allow them 
 to be. The Habsburger sympathisers are said to 
 be sufficiently numerous in Russian Poland. They 
 are recruited chiefly from among the wealthy class ; 
 namely, those intercalated factions of that class which 
 are not sufficiently egoistic to accept prosperity under 
 the Tzar's sway, nor bold enough to think of open 
 insurrection. 
 
 Whatever may be the result, the advantages and 
 disadvantages, of the union of Poland under Austrian 
 dominion, it is hardly necessary to say that such 
 a dream is completely unreliable. Austria is too 
 feeble to tear from the claws of the Russian bear 
 the Polish provinces, and to checkmate its powerful 
 northern neighbour. Only Germany is a serious 
 competitor with Russia, and surely no provinces of 
 of the Tzar's empire excite so much ^the insatiable 
 appetite of the German Chancellor as Poland. In 
 the autumn of 1883, when war between Russia and 
 Germany was in the air, the first thing on which 
 Prince Bismarck kept his eye was the securing the 
 sympathy of Poland. I have it from three inde- 
 pendent and trustworthy sources that the German 
 Chancellor made overtures to many Polish patriots 
 and leaders of the last insurrection, proposing to 
 them to enter the Prussian army as officers on ad- 
 vantageous terms, and enticing them by prospects of 
 the creation of a Polish kingdom with the King of 
 Saxony at its head. It is quite beyond doubt that 
 Poland is much more coveted by Prussia than the 
 so-called German or Baltic provinces. The latter 
 are much poorer, and can add little to the power 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. 1 67 
 
 of the German Empire, whilst the possession of 
 Poland gives an excellent strategical and econo- 
 mical position. Besides, we must point out the fact 
 that German colonisation was so extensive during 
 the last generation that now the number of Germans 
 is greater in Poland than in the Baltic provinces. 
 The fact is surprising, but perfectly true. The 
 reader may find it in the geography of Elis^e 
 R^clus, in the chapter on Poland; Thus if we 
 bear in mind the definition given by Bismarck, that 
 Germany comprises all the lands where the German 
 language is spoken, Poland is much more Germany 
 now than the Baltic provinces, the dominions of the 
 old Teutonic order. In the event of a war with 
 Russia, nothing is more likely than the realisation of 
 such a dream. But we have every reason to think 
 that there are few Poles who ever cherished such 
 ideas, and who would rejoice on its realisation. 
 
 Poland hates the Muscovite yoke, wants to be 
 free, and will be free sooner or later ; but it will not 
 be with the idea of subjecting itself to Germany. 
 If we compare the dominions of the two states, we 
 find, of course, that the Prussian is more tolerant from 
 a political point of view than the Russian. There 
 is, however, one point of great difference. Both 
 governments are doing their best to destroy the 
 Polish nationality, and the Russian Government 
 is even more violent and barbarous in this point 
 than the Prussian. But with all their goodwill 
 the Russian Government cannot and never will be 
 able to destroy the Polish nationality, for one simple 
 and sufficient reason, — the superiority of Polish 
 culture. Russian colonisation in Poland is quite 
 
1 68 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 impossible ; the peasants and workmen would die 
 in the competition with more skilful Poles. The 
 Russificating element consists only of Russian 
 tchinovniks, and a heap of swindlers and speculators 
 attracted by the great pecuniary advantages and 
 facilities afforded to them for acquiring lands con- 
 fiscated from the patriots. Such elements are of 
 too low a quality to have the smallest influence on 
 the highly civilised Polish elements. All the Russi- 
 ficatory measures of the Government do, is to 
 mantain unquenched the burning national hatred 
 of its dominion. 
 
 With Germany it is quite the reverse. Here the 
 chief factor of denationalisation is a large and various 
 colonisation of peasants, artisans, men of the liberal 
 professions coming from the over-populated German 
 country. Strong by their intellectual development 
 and workmanship, and the feeling of their nationality, 
 this flow of colonists must exercise quite another 
 effect, supported, as it is, by the arbitrary and violent 
 measures of the Government, which help its com- 
 patriot to acquire political and economical predomi- 
 nance ; and when this is found insufficient, does 
 not recoil before the unheard-of barbarism of sum- 
 mary expulsions. It is not with the prospect of 
 destruction of their nationality by German elements 
 that Poland will give up the considerable economical 
 advantages of the union with Russia. The chances 
 of military struggle and diplomatic combinations may 
 throw the unfortunate country from the hands of one 
 of three crowned robbers to another. But what has 
 the nation to do with those fawning and pusillani- 
 mous "parties" who are putting the heart's hopes 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. 1 69 
 
 in the good graces of any foreign king ? Only the 
 idea of the national independence will find an echo 
 in the soul of the masses. 
 
 It remains for us to say a few words about the 
 latest and most important of Polish political currents, 
 the only one which, indeed, merits attention for its 
 ultimate influence. 
 
 The purely patriotic elements of the Polish in- 
 surrection are now represented by the well-known 
 Ej (Mialkovsky), novelist of repute and warrior. 
 They remain quite at the same point as the insurrec- 
 tion of 1863 left them. A new insurrection of the 
 same kind will put all things right. That of 1863 
 was unsuccessful only from some lack of prevision 
 on the part of the leaders. The supply of arms 
 was not sufficient. Had it been sufficient, the 
 insurrection of 1863 would have had quite another 
 end. 
 
 There are three points which may be urged by 
 the friends and sympathisers of Polish insurrection. 
 The upper and rich classes being in 1863 one heart 
 and soul with the working classes, how can it happen 
 that a new insurrection will be better provided with 
 funds now, when a considerable number of the 
 industrial class are against the insurrection, pre- 
 ferring the " pacific conquest" of Russia by means 
 of cotton and woollen wares ? 
 
 Much more striking are the reasons for the non- 
 success of the Polish insurrection pointed out by 
 more impartial observers. Eyewitnesses affirm 
 that in great part this was due to the attitude of 
 the peasants. Whilst the workmen of the towns were 
 always the most ardent patriots, the peasants were 
 
170 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 often indifferent, or mostly hostile to the insurrection 
 of the " nobles," because the Russian Government 
 hastened to make very democratic agrarian reforms, 
 all in favour of the masses of the peasants. Now 
 these reforms being already introduced, will the 
 insurrection make any new concession to interest 
 the peasants in its success ? The patriots who 
 kept uncontaminated their political faith of 1863, 
 gave a peremptory answer : No new concessions 
 are to be made for the material welfare of the 
 masses. The new insurrections, stronger than that 
 of 1863, must be made out of pure patriotism. 
 
 As sympathisers with the Polish insurrection, we 
 may hope that this too Roman firmness will not be 
 maintained. The presence and growing strength of 
 the socialist party will force the patriots to great con- 
 cession, in order to secure its powerful assistance. 
 
 With the other reef of the last insurrection — the 
 question of nationalists — the solution is not so obvi- 
 ous. There are two kinds of Polands : the real one, 
 or the ethnographical Poland, where the Polish tongue 
 is spoken by the masses, and the historical Poland, 
 which comprises a good many provinces more, not 
 Polish at all, and sometimes professing the deepest 
 hatred to Polish dominion, as, for instance, the 
 Ruthenist orthodox provinces, which formed also 
 part of the ancient conquering Poland. It is known 
 that the insurrection of 1863, made in the name of 
 the historical Poland, encountered the most cruel 
 reprisals on the part of the Ruthenian peasants, 
 whom it wanted to liberate from the Muscovite 
 yoke. 
 
 Now, do the Polish patriots persevere in their dream 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. 171 
 
 of historical Poland ? There can be no 'positive 
 answer to this question, the statements of the 
 democrats of the old school differing on this point. 
 
 But if even we suppose the best of all possible 
 eventualities on every point ; namely, that the insur- 
 rection will not have on its hands new enemies in 
 the person of hostile peasants of the orthodox re- 
 ligion ; that the presence of the socialist party will 
 enforce truly democratic concessions, which will 
 augment the sympathies of the agricultural classes — 
 even in this case it would be a miracle that so small 
 a country will not be crushed by the overwhelming 
 power of the Tzar ; especially now, when the con- 
 centration of so many railway lines converging 
 towards Poland renders it quite easy to concentrate 
 there in a few weeks 100,000 soldiers. It is quite 
 evident that without an internal diversion, which will 
 keep occupied the forces of the Government else- 
 where, a successful rising in Poland is a chimera. 
 
 The Russian revolutionary movement, which gave 
 so much trouble to the Tzar, could not fail to attract 
 the attention and the sympathy of the Poles. The 
 best mutual relations were established between these 
 natural allies. I have already spoken of the socialists, 
 and need not return to the subject. It is just the 
 same with all the subversive parties of Poland ; the 
 mutual advantage and the necessity of mutual 
 support are too evident. The difference between 
 patriots and socialists consists in the fact that the 
 former do not want to make propaganda of their 
 ideas in time of peace, as the latter are doing. An 
 insurrection for independence is preparing itself in 
 Poland. The first signal will suffice to raise in arms 
 
172 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 its intrepid workmen. And I am able to state 
 that the late religious and national persecution, the 
 forced conversion of uniats to orthodoxy, suggested 
 by the antediluvian obscurantism of people like 
 Pobedonostzev and Tolstoi, have secured to the 
 insurrection a much wider sympathy than it could 
 have had otherwise. 
 
 The police have never as yet discovered patriotic 
 conspiracies ; for the patriots do not conspire, con- 
 fining their attention to keeping an eye on those 
 who may be used at an emergency. Why should 
 they waste their strength in conspiring when, in 
 a favourable opportunity influencing the national 
 spirit, an insurrection in Poland may be raised in 
 a few weeks ? 
 
 Under these conditions the expectant position 
 maintained by the Polish insurrectionary party is 
 quite rational. Poland can be free only along with 
 the whole of Russia. A premature insurrection would 
 expose Poland to unavoidable ruin, and greatly 
 impair the chances of Russian revolution in general. 
 Poland, in the whole scheme of the movement, is 
 what the old guard of Napoleon was in his battles. 
 All the other forces must begin, certain that the 
 help of Poland will not fail at the most decisive 
 moment. 
 
 These respective positions in the day of future 
 reckoning impose on both parties mutual obligations 
 in the present. The union with Russian revolu- 
 tionary elements imposes, as a condition sine qua 
 non, the forsaking of mediaeval dreams of historical 
 Poland, which was as aggressive a state and as 
 regardless of the rights of nations as the Russia of 
 
THE YOUNG POLAND AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. 1 73 
 
 to-day. On the other hand, the presence of PoHsh 
 elements reacts on the Russian revolution, imposing 
 also as a condition sine qud non the acceptance of 
 the completely federalistic idea. Poland will never 
 accept a rdgime which does not give it full autonomy. 
 And this once recognised for Poland can by no means 
 be denied to any nationality entering into the present 
 Russian Empire. 
 
IV. 
 
 TERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND 
 TERRORISM IN EUROPE. 
 
TERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND 
 TERRORISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 Time was when dynamite seemed likely to remain 
 the exclusive patrimony of Russian revolutionists— 
 that is to say, of Nihilists — and to have no function 
 outside the Muscovite Empire, except the innocent 
 industrial one of exploding mines. But in the last 
 year events have occurred, now in one place, 
 and now in another, which make this supposition 
 questionable. In France, in Belgium, in Spain, in 
 Italy, and even in England, there have been explo- 
 sions of dynamite, of which the aim has been by no 
 means industrial. It is true that the acts of terrorism 
 committed in Europe have not as yet assumed a 
 serious aspect, owing to the manifest want of 
 organisation in their preparation, the inexperience 
 shown in their execution, and the defect of concerted 
 plan by which they are all characterised. They are 
 all isolated attempts, evidently conceived and carried 
 out either by single individuals or by small groups, 
 and may be regarded as experiments in the use of 
 dynamite rather than as political acts. 
 
 But may not this aspect of the matter change 
 with time ? The first step has been achieved, and 
 it involves much : to the acts mentioned above, the 
 
 12 
 
178 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 significance of a policy has been given ; dynamite 
 has become the accredited symbol of anarchy, the 
 banner of the extreme revolutionary party. And 
 for a certain class of minds extreme parties will 
 always have peculiar attractions. Will it not be 
 possible for all revolutionary spirits who have resorted 
 to courses of destruction and violence to unite them- 
 selves under this banner in a single organisation of 
 a prudent and far-seeing character, which shall give 
 a terrible concentration to these hitherto disconnected 
 acts ? It is not necessary to look far in order to 
 find the country in which all this has already 
 happened. The spectre of Russian terrorisrri rises 
 before eyes dilated with panic, and forces upon us 
 the question — Are the bombs and explosives of the 
 European terrorists merely extravagances of a few 
 hot heads, or are we on the eve of a new era in the 
 revolutionary movement ? In order to answer this 
 question, and, what is more important, to put the 
 reader in a position to answer it for himself, we 
 propose to pass in review the causes of Russian 
 terrorism — considering them impartially and as far 
 as possible objectively, not as a political tendency, 
 but as historical facts, the inevitable and fatal result 
 of special circumstances, by studying which we 
 may perhaps come to understand the conditions of 
 terrorism in general, and so qualify ourselves to 
 form an opinion upon the terrorism of the present 
 anarchy. 
 
 II. 
 
 That which surprises and perplexes all those who 
 interest themselves in the so-called Nihilists, is the 
 
TERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND IN EUROPE. 1 79 
 
 incomprehensible contrast between their terrible 
 and sanguinary methods and their humane and 
 enlightened ideals of social progress — a contrast that 
 is suggested most forcibly by their personal qualities. 
 For whenever these men come actually before the 
 eyes of the public, every unprejudiced and inde- 
 pendent observer is forced to recognise that, instead 
 of the ferocious monsters their acts would suggest, 
 they are in fact men of the gentlest disposition, 
 evidently inspired by unselfish love for their country, 
 and, more often than not, well-educated, refined, 
 and belonging to the best society. How is it then 
 that men of this sort not only commit so many deeds 
 of blood, but defend them, and proclaim them openly 
 as fair means of political warfare ? 
 
 This is the peremptory question that every his- 
 torian of the revolutionary movement in Russia has 
 to answer. And accordingly each one in turn first 
 approaches the phenomena of terrorism from a 
 psychological point of view, and shows how this 
 apparent contradiction is explained by the conduct 
 of the Government towards the socialists. On this 
 point it may be said that there is but one opinion 
 among competent judges. 
 
 When a Government considers all things permitted 
 against a particular section of its subjects, and hunts 
 them down like wild beasts, without mercy and 
 without truce, the persecuted body are ipso facto 
 absolved from all civil obligations. The social pact 
 ceases to exist for them, and unable to put them- 
 selves under the protection of the civil law, they 
 are constrained to appeal to the natural instinct of 
 self-defence and retaliation, which, under the name 
 
l8o THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 of lynch law, prevails in the forests of the New 
 World, where there are neither judges nor tribunals 
 — as, in Russia, there are none for the socialists. 
 
 It is, however, a mistake to treat the ferocity of 
 the system of repression as the sole or even the 
 principal cause of terrorism in Russia. The acts 
 we are considering have never been mere measures 
 of personal defence or vengeance — they have always 
 contained an element of aggression, of war; they 
 have had a general purpose ; they represent, in short, 
 a system of political strife. And as such they have 
 been adopted ; by which I mean, that in the present 
 condition of Russian affairs it is hoped, by these 
 means, to realise approximately, if not entirely, the 
 common aim of the party — that is to say, the liberty 
 of the country. 
 
 Liberty won by assassination ! exclaim the good 
 people. The phrase has an ugly sound. We are 
 the first to acknowledge it and to regret it. But 
 is the idea altogether new ? Is not Timoleon, the 
 liberator of Syracuse, universally celebrated as a 
 hero, though he slew his own brother to deliver his 
 country from a tyrant ? The executions of Charles I. 
 in England and of Louis XVI. in France, were they 
 not called legal assassinations by Royalists ? And 
 were they not really such ? Yet who can deny that 
 these acts helped the cause of liberty in the countries 
 in which they were perpetrated ? Why then should 
 not the assassination of Alexander II. prove equally 
 useful ? But let us not involve ourselves in moral 
 considerations. It is not the apology for terrorism 
 that we are making, but the analysis of it. The task 
 before us is to inquire rather than to palliate. 
 
TERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND IN EUROPE, l8l 
 
 The anomaly presented by the struggle for liberty 
 in Russia is but a reflection of the anomalies inherent 
 in the social condition of the country. 
 
 In other countries which have had a genuine 
 national culture liberal ideas have been developed 
 concurrently with the material and intellectual de- 
 velopment of the classes that stand in need of them, 
 and the result has been the overthrow of the auto- 
 cracy by the revolutionary movement ; the bourgeoisie, 
 valuing itself upon its influence with the working 
 class, and especially with the more intelligent and 
 excitable operatives of the towns, has stirred up the 
 people to overthrow the ancien rdgime, and establish 
 upon its ruins the parliamentary institutions that 
 belong to the new political order. But in Russia 
 nothing of this sort is possible. The whole nation 
 languishes under its barbarous and incapable 
 Government, and the agricultural class suffers 
 most of all. Political freedom will be of the ut- 
 most benefit to the peasants, by enabling them to 
 realise the agrarian reforms which they foolishly 
 expect to be made by the Tzar. But this they 
 do not understand. And the class which has to 
 strive for political freedom is that to which it is 
 a boon and necessity in itself — the educated class, 
 called in Russia the intelligent class. It has, as 
 mentioned above, no distinctive origin or even posi- 
 tion, except such as comes by professional occupa- 
 tion. It includes the nobility and the educated part 
 of the bourgeoisie, sons of the Church, as well as 
 officers of the Government. It is upon this class, 
 nourished from childhood on the liberal thoughts 
 of the best European thinkers, and permeated by 
 
I 82 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 the most advanced democratic ideas, that the actual 
 despotism presses most painfully. But with a cruel 
 irony this class is deprived of its natural support by 
 its moral alienation from the people, due partly to 
 the exotic character of Russian culture, but chiefly 
 to the fact that until 1861 the only cultured class 
 was the slave-owning nobility. The Russian could 
 not forgive the sons for the crimes and oppression 
 of the fathers. A genuine Russian peasant, unless 
 he has spent much time in town, and become educated 
 to a better feeling, is extremely diffident, and sus- 
 picious of all those who wear a German overcoat ; 
 in other words, are connected in any way with the 
 class to which his former masters and tyrants 
 belonged. When in 1870 the enthusiastic rush of 
 intelligent youths towards the people took place, 
 only a few of the apostles of the new doctrine suc- 
 ceeded in making themselves acceptable to the 
 peasants, and those had to cope with obstacles and 
 difficulties entirely unknown and hardly imaginable 
 to democrats of Western countries. 
 
 This social chasm is the supreme misfortune of 
 our country. Left to itself, without means of 
 enlightenment, the people is given over to mediaeval 
 prejudices in politics and religion, and becomes the 
 docile and unconscious instrument by which the 
 Government maintains the very rdgime under which 
 the peasants suffer ; while the cultivated classes, 
 deprived of support, are placed in a truly desperate 
 position. In their own country, surrounded by 
 compatriots in speech and in blood, their condition 
 is that of a race numerically small but of superior 
 culture, subject to conquering barbarians. 
 
tERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND IN EUROPE. 1 83 
 
 This, then, is the anomaly in the social state that 
 produces the anomaly of the political issue. There 
 was only one course by which it could have been 
 obviated — that the Government, accepting the situa- 
 tion, should have voluntarily abstained from using 
 the material forces at command to oppress this new 
 nation within the nation that has been begotten by 
 the ardour of the Western breeze on the plains of 
 the Muscovite Empire. The part of a generous 
 conqueror would have been to recognise that this 
 new nation had its needs and its sacred rights, 
 however incapable it might be of asserting them by 
 force. But this the Government has never done, 
 and in truth cannot do, without renouncing the 
 autocracy. It has gone to the opposite extreme, 
 and treated the new class with a brutality rather 
 Vandal than European. Every manifestation, how- 
 ever slight, of that independence of spirit which is 
 the very breath of life to intelligent citizens — every 
 freedom of thought or of speech it has been the 
 policy of the Government to requite with exile or 
 the galleys. Rebellion was inevitable, and we have 
 it in fact. Turn Nature out by the door and she 
 comes back through the window. Intellectual Russia 
 was indeed unable to resort to open rebellion. It 
 had to bear in slavish submission everything that 
 the brutal despotism of the Tzar's bureaucracy chose 
 to impress upon it. But they are men with blood in 
 their veins after all, our educated classes. Offences 
 not avenged are not forgiven ; hatred concealed is 
 not quenched. The more the nation was cowed 
 by secular submission the greater must have been 
 the fascination of the dashing courage and careless- 
 
lS4 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 ness of personal danger in those who dared to 
 provoke openly the dreaded, all-crushing power. Thus 
 intelligent Russia, expecting to become an insurrec- 
 tionary force itself, becomes in the meantime an 
 excellent milieu, in which the few practical rebels 
 found enthusiastic encouragement, moral support, 
 material assistance, warm and safe refuge in moments 
 of danger. For in this class there is no disposition 
 to be squeamish about the means resorted to by the 
 more desperate spirits ; the inequality of the forces 
 pitted one against the other is so well appreciated — 
 the wrongs, the griefs, the outrages are so intimately 
 felt — that every thing is justified, everything applauded, 
 i:)rovided the blow strikes to the heart of the enemy, 
 and the serpent that strangles the whole nation is 
 made to writhe. 
 
 These are, in our opinion, the principal causes 
 which have led, among us, to the system of war known 
 by the name of terrorism. The repressive measures 
 of the Government do but supply the kindling spark : 
 they educate socialists in the implacable hatred of 
 oppressors, and they determine the first acts of 
 terrorism, but they do not create terrorism : without 
 the creation of the milieu, so brimful with suffer- 
 ings and hatred, already indicated, these manifesta- 
 tions would remain isolated acts of self-defence and 
 vengeance, and could never achieve the importance 
 belonging to the systematised policy of a whole 
 party. On the other hand — supposing for a 
 moment that an impossibility had occurred — that 
 the actual Autocratic Government, while continuing 
 to oppress the country, had treated the socialist 
 party with the utmost mildness ; we still think it 
 
TERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND IN EUROPE. 1 85 
 
 more than probable that terrorism would none the 
 less have made its appearance in Russia — with only 
 this difference, that in that case the movement would 
 have begun at the point of aggression — that is to 
 say, at Tzaricide — instead of passing through the 
 preliminary phase of attacks upon Government 
 employes, all acts of this character having been 
 directly provoked by the repressive measures. In 
 the short history of our revolutionary movement, 
 there is an interesting incident that justifies this 
 assumption. Karakozoff's attempt, made in 1866, 
 was determined simply by the general policy of 
 reaction pursued by the Government, and had no 
 pretext of provocation in measures of repression 
 against the socialists, who indeed hardly existed as 
 a party at that date. We have it on the authority 
 of one of the old members of the conspiracy that 
 the society of which Karakozoff was a member 
 had deliberately planned a series of similar attempts. 
 But the times were not then mature ; neither the 
 society nor the revolutionary party was equal to 
 so great a cause. How they have become so 
 since, we shall see in the next chapter. Let us 
 conclude this one with a recognition that, with the 
 existing constitution of parties in Russia, only two 
 courses of events are possible^ — -either political ter- 
 rorism on all sides, or a social revolution of the 
 starving and desperate masses of the population. 
 There is only one way of escape from this dilemma 
 — that the revolution shall convert an integral part 
 of the Government, that is to say, of the army, 
 of the ministry, of the Imperial family itself, and 
 the officials nearest to the throne. By this means 
 
I 86 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 the Government would be divided against itself, 
 and the autocracy would fall to pieces by a pro- 
 cess of natural decay. Such an event is ano- 
 malous, but the system now obtaining in Russia is 
 an anachronism monstrous enough to make such 
 anomalies possible. Should this state of things be 
 realised, we should have a series of coups d^dtat and 
 military insurrections, with more or less intervention 
 on the part of other sections of the social body. 
 And this is precisely the programme adopted by 
 the party of Narodnaia Volia, and which they are 
 seeking to carry out. If they succeed, it will be 
 well for us ; if not, we shall have very likely 
 terrorism once again. 
 
 III. 
 
 In the preceding chapter we have endeavoured to 
 point out the method and the causes of the creation 
 of terrorism, as an idea, a tendency, and a system. 
 We have now to consider its machinery ; and on 
 this aspect of the matter we propose to linger a little 
 as that which is above all interesting. Modern 
 social science teaches us that every phenomenon of 
 social life has its material substratum, with which 
 it is so intimately and essentially connected that it 
 cannot exist independently of it. We shall see that 
 this principle holds in the present case ; and in order 
 to make the application plain we will venture upon a 
 parallel. Karl Marx, the founder of the new school 
 of political economy, has proved to demonstration 
 that in the course of history the creation of capital 
 and the development of the power of the third 
 estate, or botirgeoisie, has always been based upon 
 
TERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND IN EUROPE. 1 87 
 
 the Spoliation of peasants and artisans, and the 
 conversion of the whole labouring class into a 
 proletariate without property in the soil, and obliged 
 to hire itself out for daily wages to landlords and 
 capitalists. In like manner it may be said that 
 terrorism is based upon the creation of a political 
 proletariat consisting of the so-called " illegal men" 
 or outlaws of Russian society. I have explained 
 elsewhere that this name is given to all those who 
 continue to live in open defiance of the police by 
 means of false names and passports. This is a 
 class that exists in no other country, but is nu- 
 merous in Russia, in consequence of the arbitrary 
 action of one party and the revolutionary temper of 
 another. 
 
 The fact is that in Russia every one who has the 
 misfortune to fall into the hands of the police as a 
 political offender — no matter how trivial his offence 
 may be — is, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, 
 a lost man. The preliminary detention is made at 
 the arbitrary pleasure of the prosecution, which in 
 Russia is another name for the police: they can 
 arrest and detain whom they will. No blame 
 attaches to a mistaken arrest : on the contrary, the 
 more arrests the greater the merits of the prose- 
 cutor. For instance, at the time of the trial of the 
 "hundred and ninety-three" in 1878, there were, 
 over and above this number of the accused, about 
 one thousand four hundred persons arrested. Of 
 these, half were set at liberty after a few months, 
 but the remainder were kept in prison from one 
 to the four years that the case lasted ; save only 
 seventy-five, who died, some by suicide, some of 
 
1 88 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 consumption, some insane. And in more recent 
 times, when the white terror followed upon out- 
 breaks of revolutionary terrorism, and especially in 
 the reign of Alexander III., — who invented a species 
 of political proconsuls, such as Strelnikoff, to de- 
 vastate towns and provinces, and arrest right and 
 left, — the severities have been even greater. But I 
 have no positive figures at hand. 
 
 The normal penalties for political crimes are 
 simply Draconian — ten years at the galleys for a 
 single speech, or for reading or preserving a pro- 
 clamation. And whenever a prosecution follows 
 an outbreak, the tribunal receives special orders to 
 aggravate the penalties so as to make " a salutary 
 example," and the verdicts become legal assassina- 
 tions of the most monstrous character. The lad 
 Rosovsky was condemned to death, and actually 
 hanged at Kieff on the 5th of March, 1880, for 
 merely having in his house a proclamation of the 
 Executive Committee. The same judgment was 
 passed on the student Efremoff for having lent a 
 room in his house to two revolutionists who were 
 concerting a plan of escape without even taking 
 their young host into confidence. But his sentence 
 was commuted to a lifelong condemnation to the 
 galleys, in consequence of his having made an 
 appeal for mercy. Drobiasgin, Maidansky, Liso- 
 gub, Tchubarov, were all hanged — some for having 
 subscribed money to the revolutionary cause, others 
 for conveying a box, of which they did not know the 
 contents : offences, one and all, which the actual law 
 of the country punishes only with exile or a few 
 years of imprisonment. 
 
TERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND IN EUROPE. 1 89 
 
 But is there not a degree of innocence that can 
 avail even before a Russian tribunal ? If a man 
 knows himself to be absolutely uncompromised in 
 any revolutionary enterprise ; if the police, on 
 searching his house, could find; no compromising 
 document ; if no treacherous deposition aggravate 
 his danger, — might not this man hope to get off with 
 a few months, or at the utmost one, two, or three 
 years of detention, and be left in peace for the rest 
 of his life, with health impaired, perhaps, but not 
 ruined, a future spoiled but not destroyed, and the 
 means of recovery with time and industry ? Even 
 so poor a hope as this will prove illusory in Russia. 
 The principle of the terrible law of suspects is that 
 not only the act, but the thought and the intention 
 shall be punished, and that these can be divined by 
 the intuition of clairvoyant policemen, who need no 
 proofs to confirm their guesses. It is an altogether 
 exceptional and astounding thing for a man once 
 implicated in a state prosecution to be ever again 
 left in peace. Convicts with definitive sentences, 
 just after they have served out their term of punish- 
 ment, as well as those who are acquitted by the 
 tribunals, even the very witnesses (who had also 
 suffered imprisonment to make them more malle- 
 able), except, of course, those on the side of the 
 prosecution, are generally sent afterwards into exile 
 by order of the administration. The imposition 
 of this final penalty is left entirely to the 
 discretion of the police, who are guided only by 
 information privately received, and who, according 
 to the behaviour of the witness or implicated person 
 before the tribunal or the judge, pronounce sentence 
 
190 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 of exile and appoint the place of punishment. This 
 last point is a very weighty one, for it makes a 
 material difference to a man whether he is sent to 
 the uttermost parts of Siberia or to some less re- 
 mote region. It is, moreover, in the power of the 
 police to extend or shorten the term of exile at their 
 pleasure. But they are in little haste to shorten it. 
 Without any exaggeration, we may declare that no 
 man of the opposition who refuses to renounce his 
 convictions, or to pretend hypocritically to do so, 
 will ever be recalled from exile, even though he may 
 have committed absolutely no offence. Some of the 
 witnesses in the case of Netchaieff, tried in 1871, are 
 to this day in administrative exile. 
 
 And what is this administrative exile ? A horrible 
 slow decay, an undermining of the whole moral and 
 physical constitution of a man, a consumption by 
 slow fire. We need not speak of administrative exile 
 in Eastern Siberia, among the wild Yakut of the 
 horrible deserts, in the country where winter lasts 
 ten months and cold reaches to 40 or 50 degrees 
 below zero ; where no clothing can be had but 
 untanned skins of beasts, where bread is a rare 
 delicacy, and almost the only luxury is a meal of 
 rotten fish ; where there are no human beings to 
 exchange speech with, for the aborigines speak an 
 unintelligible gibberish ; where the post comes but 
 once in the year. In these icy deserts exile is 
 worse than the galleys. Nevertheless, it is inflicted 
 administratively that is to say, at the sole will and 
 pleasure of the police, and for offences too trivial 
 (when not purely imaginary) to be cited even before 
 a Russian tribunal. 
 
TERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND IN EUROPE. 191 
 
 But enough of this. Let us consider administrative 
 exile in its milder forms — in Western Siberia or 
 Northern Russia. Here we are in civilized coun- 
 tries — at least so far as the material side of life is 
 concerned. There are houses to live in, there is 
 food to eat, the European costume is in vogue. 
 Only In order to enjoy all this we must have money 
 or the means of earning It. But how shall this last 
 be done without Intercourse with other citizens ? 
 And this is just what the Government Is determined 
 to prevent, on the ground that " loyal subjects " are 
 In danger of being corrupted. Hence the monstrous 
 regulation of March 12th, 1882. It Is forbidden to 
 administrative exiles to give lessons, or occupy them- 
 selves In any educational function, or even to give 
 Instruction in manual arts. They are also forbidden 
 to hold conferences, to take part In scientific meet- 
 ings, or to attend theatrical performances, to serve 
 in libraries, in printing offices. In lithographers' 
 or photographers' shops, or even as journeymen 
 labourers ; and always for the same reason — to ob- 
 viate the risk of propaganda. On the same ground 
 those who are doctors, chemists, or accoucheurs, are 
 forbidden to exercise their respective professions. 
 Finally, because many of them are men of letters, 
 they are forbidden to contribute to reviews and 
 newspapers (§§ 24th, 27th). What means of earning 
 their bread is left to them ? Manual labour, in some 
 cases. But what does that mean for educated men 
 who have never held a workman's tool In their hands ? 
 And even that is not always permitted. The 
 Government does not think Itself safe, short of 
 granting discretionary power to the administration. 
 
192 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 to forbid any exile to practise his own handicraft 
 (§ 28th). 
 
 Obviously, having thus deprived the exiles of the 
 means of earning their living, it is incumbent upon 
 the Government to maintain them, like prisoners, 
 at the public cost. And in fact this obligation is 
 recognised in principle, and a monthly allowance is 
 made to every political exile — eight roubles to those 
 who are of noble origin, and four to those who are 
 not noble. The larger sum is about equal to sixteen 
 shillings, the smaller to eight shillings, a month. 
 Such an allowance as this is a mockery. And were 
 it not for the contributions of friends and relations, 
 which all the exiles share like brothers, they must 
 all die of starvation. But the friends of the exiles 
 are overburdened with other expenses ; and the 
 utmost they can do for their unfortunate comrades 
 amounts to little more than a few crumbs cast into 
 an abyss of indigence. The exiles sink into a state 
 of squalid misery, and their health wastes away for 
 want of the commonest necessaries of life. At the 
 same time, the absence of books and newspapers, 
 the want of occupation and of intellectual interests, 
 in this death-in-life, dragged out from day to day 
 under the incessant espionage of the superintendents, 
 produces a dull despair and apathy that wears out 
 the spirit even more terribly than the physical hard- 
 ships ruin the body. Those who have suffered it for 
 a few years feel the effects of it all their lives, and 
 maintain that even the misery of solitary confine- 
 ment is preferable to this slow consumption pro- 
 longed through years and years, and sometimes 
 through a lifetime. Proof of this lies in the number 
 
TERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND IN EUROPE. 1 93 
 
 of suicides that occur among the administrative 
 exiles. 
 
 Such is the future that awaits not only every 
 revolutionist in Russia, but every member of the 
 opposition who has once come in contact with the 
 police. It would be easy to fill whole pages with 
 examples of arbitrary inflictions of the extreme 
 penalty. Not seldom, the police are unable to 
 formulate any kind of definite accusation, and the 
 charges written against the names of men sent to 
 perish in Siberia will be of this sort — " he belongs 
 to a dangerous family," "has perverse opinions," 
 "had a brother who was hanged!" We have not 
 as yet complete statistics as to these exiles. It is, 
 however, calculated approximately that in the reign 
 of the two Alexanders their number amounted to 
 five or six thousand — the flower of a whole generation 
 brought to the sickle like the corn in ear. Verily, 
 in these scattered hamlets of the desert, the youth 
 of Russia is immolated. It is not necessary to 
 seek further for the causes of sterility in all our 
 fields of intellectual labour ; a country as poor as 
 ours in intellectual resources cannot stand this con- 
 stant letting of its best blood. 
 
 But now let us suppose the case of a man who, 
 by some lucky chance, learns beforehand that he is 
 regarded with suspicion by the police. An inquiry, 
 followed by an arrest, is inevitable. Beyond this, 
 the event is doubtful : he will be cited to a trial of 
 some sort, and may appear either at the prisoner's 
 bar or in the witness box ; he may be acquitted 
 or condemned, hanged or restored to provisional 
 liberty. All these points are uncertain, and a man 
 
 I?. 
 
194 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 of sanguine temperament may flatter himself that 
 the issue is doubtful also ; but, in fact, one thing 
 is certain, he will be sent into administrative exile, 
 and will suffer all its miseries ; and unless he is pre- 
 pared to be a hypocrite, or to make compromises, 
 he must lay his account to spending the best years 
 of his life in such exile, if not to die in it. Unless, 
 indeed, he will have recourse to the only remaining 
 expedient — flight . 
 
 In this case, is it not better to fly at once ? 
 
 Accordingly, he flies. All who hold the revolu- 
 tionary faith fly ; those only who have not sufficient 
 faith to endure the life of an outlaw remain, because 
 their position in the heart of the revolutionary move- 
 ment would be like that of an atheist priest within 
 the Church. 
 
 It is precisely the predominance of the revolu- 
 tionary faith that has created this class of outlaws. 
 In former days a man being warned that he was com- 
 promised with the Government, began by getting 
 out of the way, and kept in hiding until he could 
 succeed in crossing the frontier ; then he devoted 
 himself either to active agitation among the European 
 populations, or to the literary propaganda of revolu- 
 tionary ideas. But since the year 1873, when the 
 movement reached its maturity, and was reinforced 
 by new life and ardour, to abandon one's country 
 and agitate abroad has been felt to be too painful a 
 course, and the resolution has been taken to remain 
 on the soil and work for the cause under cover of 
 false passports. At this point the new figure of the 
 " illegal man " comes into the political field. 
 
 We have seen that the anticipated arrest is the 
 
TERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND IN EUROPE. 195 
 
 principal means of his creation. Such cases occur 
 every day ; never an arrest takes place that does 
 not carry with it loss of legality (as the Nihilist 
 phrase has it) for several citizens, whose addresses, 
 letters, or photographs show them to be friends or 
 acquaintances of the accused ; the most energetic of 
 these always resort to outlawry, and their number is 
 swollen by those who, less fortunate or less resolute, 
 have not been able to evade arrest, and after being 
 sent into exile, contrive to get away from their 
 station, a comparatively easy matter. And, finally, 
 these are joined by a curious contingent of volunteer 
 outlaws, consisting of men who renounce legality 
 before they have even compromised themselves, 
 knowing well that they stand in daily risk of doing 
 so, and not wishing to be caught unprepared. Such 
 are the sources from which illegal Russia has sprung 
 into existence. Statistics are wanting by which to 
 estimate its numerical strength ; we can only say 
 that it is less than it should be in the present con- 
 dition of Russia ; and this because none enter into 
 it except the socialists. Even so, however, the 
 number of "illegal men" who have come upon the 
 scene must be reckoned by hundreds. 
 
 These outlaws may be described as men deprived 
 of all political and civil rights. If they have had a 
 profession, a trade, or any sort of occupation, they 
 can no longer practise it, for to make themselves 
 known is to be arrested. If they are men of pro- 
 perty, they must renounce all rights of property ; 
 for having lost their identity, they are no longer 
 in a position to enjoy their estates, or to alienate 
 them by will or gift. If they have families, they 
 
196 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 must disown them, for they cannot venture to see 
 them any more. The police, knowing the weakness 
 of human nature, keeps special watch over the near 
 relations of every " illegal man," and seizes the 
 opportunity of a stolen interview to effect his 
 arrest. His sweetheart will sometimes follow him, 
 abandoning everything for his sake. 
 
 All these things taken into consideration, the 
 position of the " illegal man " is not so miserable 
 or so defenceless as might be supposed. For these 
 reasons. Their own number is considerable, and 
 the number of those who, without throwing in their 
 lot with them, are yet willing to help them, is simply 
 enormous. So that they constitute a State within 
 the State, having their own organization, their par- 
 ticular code of manners and customs, an independent 
 public opinion, a special press and various offices of 
 government, among which the most important are 
 the passport office and the finance office— by which 
 the community provides for the needs of its mem- 
 bers. This mysterious republic, in constant war 
 with the Government, is moreover on terms of 
 peace and amity with all the world outside. Alto- 
 gether the life of such an outlaw is as different as 
 possible from what a European reader might sup- 
 pose, if he judged by the case of man in a cor- 
 responding position in any other country. The 
 Russian outlaw is on his guard, but he is not obliged 
 to hide himself. He goes about openly, frequents 
 public haunts and domestic circles, attends theatres 
 and concerts, becomes a member of scientific and 
 literary societies, etc., etc. ; and wherever he goes 
 he meets people who are aware of his illegality. 
 
TERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND IN EUROPE. 1 97 
 
 But he has nothing to fear from them, for any one 
 who should betray his secret would incur universal 
 contempt, and be counted irredeemably dishonoured 
 for the rest of his life. Generally speaking, it may 
 be said that an " illegal man " stands in no danger 
 whatever so long as he keeps quiet. The real and 
 only danger is when he puts himself in relation with 
 comrades to concert a revolutionary attempt. 
 
 It is from among this class of " illegal men" that 
 the ranks of terrorism are recruited, and I affirm 
 that the creation of this class of men, destitute of 
 political rights, and outlawed, is the conditio sine 
 qua non of the creation of terrorism as a system. 
 The one is the material substratum of the other. 
 The truth of this assertion may be tested by a single 
 question. Is it possible to carry on an organised revo- 
 lutionary movement in the manner of Zassoulitch — 
 that is to say, can every man who takes part in a 
 revolutionary act consign himself afterwards into the 
 hands of so-called justice, as Vera Zassoulitch did 
 when she shot General Trepoff.'' This is a ques- 
 tion that admits of no answer but a unanimous 
 and emphatic " No ; " except perhaps on the part 
 of mere lookers-on, quiet citizens who, knowing 
 nothing of the real working of revolutions, always 
 imagine the revolutionist to be an abnormal creature 
 outside the ordinary laws of human nature. The 
 revolutionists of all countries, and especially those 
 of Russia, will answer with one accord that on these 
 terms a systematic revolution is a thing absolutely 
 impossible ; no party, however enthusiastic, exalte, 
 heroic, can produce men like Zassoulitch by the 
 dozen. 
 
198 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 But the violence of the Russian despotism has 
 created the class of " illegal men," and so solved 
 the problem. The revolutionary outlaws are men 
 sacrificed in advance. They know that the fatal 
 hour must come for each one of them sooner or 
 later ; and one and all they throw themselves into 
 the desperate struggle initiated by a handful of 
 heroes. I do not know who it was that calculated 
 the average duration of an " illegal man's " life at 
 two years. Possibly the estimate is even too long. 
 But in that short space there is no definite moment 
 or act that is known beforehand to be the fatal one 
 — an important point, as every one knows who 
 understands human nature. The outlaw knows 
 that he stakes his life upon every enterprise in 
 which he embarks, but he knows also that by 
 courage, resolution, and presence of mind he may 
 escape death, and that in that case he loses nothing, 
 while he gains the satisfaction of having done his 
 duty well. It matters little to him that the police 
 are on his track ; he is not a person— but a shadow, 
 a number, a mark. He has but to change his name, 
 his passport, and his dwelling-place, and he vanishes, 
 to begin life anew. If through any unfortunate 
 combination of circumstances his real name trans- 
 pires, he only suffers the annoyance of being, for 
 a short time, carefully sought by the police. Pro- 
 tected and hidden in his little world beyond the law, 
 he can afford to laugh at their pains ; and, after a 
 short interval of repose, he appears again and once 
 more openly defies the emeny. Neither does he 
 lose consideration in general society if he has any 
 relations there which he cares to maintain; for the 
 
TERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND IN EUROPE. 1 99 
 
 devotion and affection of " loyal subjects " to their 
 Tzar is of such a singular character that a man who 
 has attempted the life of his sovereign, or of one 
 of his ministers, does not thereby lose respect and 
 esteem, or cease to be a welcome guest in the houses 
 of the best society. (This is a statement that will 
 provoke a shriek of rage from Katkoff, the present 
 vice-emperor ; but neither he nor the Government 
 can deny its perfect truthfulness.) Least of all does 
 the prospect of punishment deter the " illegal man " 
 from attempting desperate deeds. That is a con- 
 sideration that does not weigh with him for a 
 moment ; he knows that as a revolutionist he has 
 no hope of escaping, whatever he does or does not 
 do. He is only concerned to crowd into the brief 
 term of life allotted to him the greatest possible 
 number of services to the cause of liberty and of 
 injuries to the common enemy. 
 
 But the opposing forces are so unequal that the 
 revolutionary party cannot carry on the struggle in 
 the form of war. Its soldiers often transform them- 
 selves into voluntary martyrs, and invoke victory for 
 their cause, after the manner of the Roman leaders, 
 by dedicating themselves to the infernal gods. 
 Such was the part of Solovieff, of Grinevezki, of 
 Karakosoff, of Mlodezki, and others. But these 
 cases of exceptional heroism, and indeed all the 
 general heroism displayed by the revolutionary 
 party to the amazement, and even the admiration, 
 of their very enemies — is it not due in no inconsider- 
 able degree to this life beyond the law and under 
 the sword of Damocles ? 
 
 We have no sympathy with the apotheosis of a 
 
200 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 nation any more than of a party. If the Nihilists 
 have any virtue pecuhar to themselves (as they 
 certainly have some defects) it is in consequence^ of 
 the conditions in which they live. The ancients 
 said : poeta nascuntur oratores fiunt. We may 
 say with more truth that heroes are not born, but 
 are moulded in the school of danger and sacrifice. 
 Man is altogether a creature of habit. There is 
 nothing to which he may not be accustomed : to 
 privations and inconveniences, to things pleasant as 
 well as unpleasant. By merely having it every day 
 and each day before his eyes, he may become so 
 used to danger that he will not think of it. He 
 may become indifferent even to the idea of death, 
 by looking it constantly in the face and carrying it 
 always in his thoughts. A Russian traveller relates 
 that once, when he was visiting the monastery of 
 Mount Athos, an earthquake occurred during the 
 celebration of mass. All the congregation were 
 seized with panic, and rushed out of doors shrieking. 
 But the monks remained at their posts and went 
 through the service with imperturbable calm. When 
 the shock was over, the traveller expressed his 
 surprise to a friend among the monks, who answered 
 simply : " What surprises you ? Is not all our life 
 a preparation for death ? " A like answer may be 
 given by the Russian revolutionary about to ascend 
 the gallows with a firm step. Sophie Perovskaya, 
 a few days before her execution, wrote to her 
 mother : " My fate does not afflict me in the least, 
 and I shall meet it with complete tranquillity, for I 
 have long expected it, and known that sooner or 
 later it must come." We do not pretend, therefore. 
 
TERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND IN EQROPE. 201 
 
 that these men are, in any sense, giants — or even 
 strange freaks of chance or nature ; we will not even 
 call them rare and passing types, but simply men 
 who have been well trained in the awful school the 
 Russian Government supports. So long as this 
 school exists, and education in it continues to be 
 compulsory, the supply of such people will not fail. 
 
 Those anomalous conditions which created these 
 two constituted elements of the terrorism of 1878-81 
 in Russia — men disposed to fight to the last, and 
 surroundings which enabled them to fight a con- 
 siderable length of time — we consider the only 
 ones in which similar or analogous phenomena can 
 develop. They are natural because derived from 
 human nature. Everything has its limits. The 
 spirit of self-sacrifice for what it thought right is 
 like everything else. It can go thus far, but not 
 farther. 
 
 At the same time it is quite evident that the plan 
 to be adopted, with a view to destroy and render 
 for ever impossible the recurrence of terrorism, is 
 the pacification of the country by the removal of 
 the causes which created the latent discontent that 
 makes possible such a ruthless form of internal 
 struggle. In Russia this can be obtained by the 
 concession of political freedom, and by no other 
 means. Now this seems to be farther off than ever. 
 The reaction is raging with unbounded sway. The 
 general condition of society is more wretched 
 and miserable than ever. Our would-be national 
 Government is in the position of a hated conqueror, 
 maintaining its power by main force. Arrests, 
 
202 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 banishments, summary executions, — the maintenance 
 of the state of siege for half Russia, — are doing their 
 work uninterruptedly. Those who are not willing 
 to bend their heads to the yoke are virtually or 
 politically outside the law, and constitute a tre- 
 mendous stratum of explosive materials. The sub- 
 versive elements are quiet for the moment. But 
 the apparent calm is not to be trusted. Modern 
 Russia may be compared to Germany during the 
 Thirty Years' War, when the whole country teemed 
 with volunteers. The cry of a popular leader and 
 some striking examples suffice to turn them into 
 an army, and put the country to fire and sword. 
 What will be the form of the next outburst of 
 revolution nobody can predict — the future will de- 
 cide. Under certain circumstances the revolution 
 may enter upon the period of open insurrection, 
 half military, half civil, of which we have spoken 
 in our first chapters. Under other circumstances 
 it may throw in its lot as a powerful factor, with 
 a still larger and more momentous movement — a 
 general revolution of which we shall speak in our 
 concluding pages. But in the desperate conditions 
 in which intelligent Russia is living, with a nervously 
 excitable people like ours, with such enormous con- 
 centration of power and responsibilities, which, like 
 the high top of a mountain peak, attract the thunder- 
 bolt of revenge — in such a country nothing can 
 be a guarantee against the possibility of the revolu- 
 tion assuming once more its acutest though narrowest 
 form, as in the struggle of 1878-81. As things are 
 at present nobody but a fool can feel certain as to 
 the tranquillity of the country, any more than one 
 
TERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND IN EUROPE. 203 
 
 can sleep peacefully in a house under which a barrel 
 of dynamite is concealed. 
 
 IV. 
 
 I have completed my study of terrorism in Russia, 
 and it only remains for me to come back to the 
 question concerning the nascent terrorism in Europe, 
 which I put at starting. Is it the beginning of a 
 new revolutionary movement — has it a future ? 
 
 I need not linger long over the answer, which 
 the reader can hardly have failed to anticipate. 
 I do not believe that dynamite will ever be naturalised 
 in Europe as a political agent. I do not think that 
 terrorism has a future there. 
 
 The situation in Russia has been determined, as 
 we have seen, by the fact that the party through 
 which the actual political revolution is maintained 
 is numerically so small, that were it to venture 
 upon an open trial of its strength, it must inevitably 
 be overpowered by the Government, which has the 
 mass of the people at command. In Europe, on 
 the other hand, the revolutionary movement is not 
 so much political as economical, and the class con- 
 cerned in it is the strongest as well as the largest 
 numerically ; so much so, that a considerable section 
 of it, — let alone the whole, — supposing it to be united 
 and determined to act, would suffice to oblige all 
 its enemies to lay down their arms. Therefore, for 
 European revolutionists to make personal attacks 
 upon the Government or the bourgeoisie, would 
 be as absurd as if, in the last Franco-Prussian war, 
 Moltke, Manteuffel, and other Prussian generals, 
 instead of encompassing the weak enemy with their 
 
204 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 mighty battalions, would seek to penetrate in disguise 
 to the heart of the French camp to engage in single 
 combat with Napoleon, Bazaine, and MacMahon, 
 instead of meeting them at the head of their bat- 
 talions.* Terrorism has no raison d'etre on Euro- 
 pean soil, and will therefore not succeed in forming 
 for itself the indispensable surrounding of a mass 
 of sympathisers and supporters. 
 
 Moreover, the cause wants soldiers ; there are 
 no "illegal men" in Europe like those of Russia. 
 The conditions of European life have certainly pro- 
 duced revolutionists and socialists, but these are not 
 driven to put themselves beyond the law in order 
 to work for their ideals. They remain citizens of 
 their respective countries, and will certainly not 
 sacrifice willingly the possibility of appearing in 
 public, and speaking freely and openly — the only 
 means by which men can seriously influence their 
 fellow-citizens in Europe. 
 
 But if the adoption of terrorism as an organised 
 system of political warfare is absolutely impossible 
 in Europe, what is the meaning of those acts of 
 terrorism that occur now here, now there ? We are 
 very far from approving of them. On the first page 
 of the number of the Auirodnaia Volia, published 
 shortly after the death of President Garfield, the 
 following declaration appeared : — 
 
 " While expressing profound sympathy with the 
 
 * Invert the comparison and imagine that by misadventure 
 a single company of franctireurs, left alone to defend their 
 country against the invaders, act in the same way towards the 
 Prussian generals — you have then the case of the Russian 
 Nihilists. 
 
TERRORISM IN RUSSIA AND IN EUROPE. 205 
 
 American people in the death of President James 
 Abram Garfield, the Executive Committee feels itself 
 obliged to protest in the name of the Russian revo- 
 lutionary party against all acts of violence like that 
 which has been perpetrated. In a country where 
 the liberty of the subject allows peaceful discussion 
 of ideas, where the will of the people not only 
 makes the law but chooses the person by whom it 
 is administered — in such a country as this political 
 assassination is a manifestation of the identical 
 despotic tendency, to the destruction of which we 
 are devoting ourselves in Russia. Despotism, 
 whether wielded by individuals or by parties, is 
 equally condemnable, and violence can only be 
 justified when it is opposed to violence" (No. VI., 
 Oct. 23rd, 1 881). 
 
 This declaration sums up the feeling of Russian 
 revolutionists in regard to the real terrorism in 
 Europe, and we can but endorse it. Nevertheless, 
 it would be neither very philosophical nor altogether 
 reassuring to regard the acts of terror committed 
 on European soil as mere manifestations of indivi- 
 dual wickedness and madness. For what guarantee 
 should we have against madmen ? To us it seems 
 that these acts are the fruit of class hatreds and 
 antagonisms developed under the influence of foreign 
 examples, and without due regard to the condi- 
 tions of the struggle into a sanguinary political 
 theory. It is precisely for this reason that we do 
 not believe they will continue long. In politics no 
 course is adopted without the hope that it will make 
 its party the strongest ; and the modern anarchists 
 (we should rather say a few knots of anarchists) would 
 
206 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 not have betaken themselves to terrorism if they 
 had not expected to draw a number of people into 
 their camp, and inaugurate a movement of con- 
 siderable importance which, for the reasons indicated 
 above, can never be realised. 
 
 There is, however, one important factor in the 
 problem, by means of which the life of this still- 
 born babe may perhaps be artificially prolonged. 
 To wit, the action of those governments who, 
 wishing to avoid the state of things that has come 
 about in Russia, have had the unlucky inspiration 
 to adopt the methods used by the Russian Govern- 
 ment in struggling against its opponents, putting 
 all who profess certain opinions beyond the pale 
 of the law, and making life unbearable to them. Is 
 not this a reproduction of Russia in miniature ? But 
 it is always the same ; repression is the easiest and 
 quickest mode of response to what Carlyle would 
 have called a "petition of hieroglyphs." Nothing 
 so simple as to blow brains out and refuse to inquire 
 into anything. 
 
 What is to be done by those who will take the 
 trouble to decipher the hieroglyphs in order to 
 satisfy the abstruse petition it is not my business 
 to answer. I leave it to others. As for me, I have 
 only endeavoured to show, by a true exposition of 
 Russian events, a useful example of what should 
 not be done, of that which all civilised countries 
 should avoid as completely as possible. 
 
V 
 
 EUROPEAN SOCIALISM AND THE 
 DYNAMITE EPIDEMIC. 
 
EUROPEAN SOCIALISM AND THE 
 DYNAMITE EPIDEMIC. 
 
 The prognostications about the inherent impro- 
 babiHty of the vast extension and further develop- 
 ment of " terrorism " in Europe which end the 
 former chapter seem since to have been confirmed in 
 the most peremptory way. The dynamite explosions 
 which a few years ago produced in a certain part 
 of society something almost approaching to panic, 
 have not been heard of for a considerable length of 
 time. The dynamite attempts, though subsiding in 
 practice, are quite fresh in people's memory. And 
 since there is no guarantee that under certain 
 circumstances they cannot be repeated, it is well 
 worth our while to investigate more closely the 
 causes and circumstances of their origin. 
 
 I must begin a long way off, because the action and 
 component parts of one subversive element cannot 
 be represented in its true light without speaking 
 of those which surround it. And I must apologise 
 for perhaps offending some of my readers' suscep- 
 tibilities in speaking of a country which is not my 
 own. 
 
 It is a commonplace saying that ours is a time 
 of general transformation, levelling, and rebuilding. 
 
 14 
 
2IO THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 There is, however, a great discrepancy as to the 
 final aim to which this reconstruction is tending. 
 The majority, arrayed under the banners of Radical, 
 Liberal, and other progressive parties, opine that 
 it will be only the partial improvement of the pre- 
 sent system, by making the laws more democratic 
 and life more human. I adhere to the minority, 
 who think that the general reconstruction will 
 affect the very foundations of modern society, — i.e., 
 the economical arrangements, — and will ultimately 
 transform the present wage workers into the pro- 
 prietors of every sort of instruments of labour. 
 This means socialism in one form or another. 
 
 Much has been spoken and written by the par- 
 tisans of both systems, to show the respective ad- 
 vantages of the one and the disadvantages of the 
 other. I will not repeat the arguments of those 
 with whom I am siding. From the objective and 
 historical point of view which I take it has com- 
 paratively little interest. Whether we like or dislike 
 socialism, the fact is that modern Europe, with the 
 most industrial state at its head, is unmistakably 
 marching toward it. 
 
 The peremptory cause of it lay in the gradual 
 democratisation of European culture, in the re- 
 markably quick enlightenment of the working masses, 
 in the growth of their class consciousness and 
 capacity for organisation, as well as in the improve- 
 ment of their material conditions. The opponents 
 of socialism have given themselves much trouble to 
 prove the latter point. If we take only the period 
 of great industry beginning at the last quarter of the 
 eighteenth century, there can be no doubt about it. 
 
EUROPEAN SOCIALISM. 211 
 
 From 1833, and especially from 1844 and 1850, which 
 years were marked by important Factory Acts, the 
 conditions of workmen have wonderfully improved. 
 As long as they are not out of employment, of 
 course, the workmen receive higher wages and live 
 more comfortably. But it is quite a mistake to 
 draw from this premise a conclusion against 
 socialism. It is not misery and degradation that 
 give birth to social changes. Were it so the most 
 backward and barbarous countries would have been 
 the first in carrying out social reforms. But 
 history shows us that the element determining the 
 realisation of reforms is the strength and not the 
 sufferings of those who are interested in it. Now, in 
 the most advanced countries of both hemispheres — 
 in England, France, Germany, and Italy, as well 
 as in the United States of America — the working 
 classes steadily and continually acquire a greater 
 command over the political, intellectual, and 
 material forces of their respective countries. And 
 in no country has this progress been more signal 
 than in that which in the course of only ten years 
 introduced the School Board system, which will 
 mark an epoch in popular education, and the 
 Franchise Bill, which gives the virtual control of 
 political power into the hands of the democracy — the 
 working men of the towns and the villages. They 
 will remould sooner or later the social and political 
 institutions in a way that their interest may be fore- 
 most — just as the middle class did in the end of the 
 past and first half of the present century on the 
 Continent, when the forces of this class became 
 equal to the task. The most important and vital in- 
 
212 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 terest of the working classes being with economical 
 concerns, it is this branch that they will remould 
 to their advantage, which in its ultimate end 
 is nothing but socialism. And if we get rid of 
 the narrow and purely mechanical conception of 
 the idea of a revolution, we must acknowledge that 
 this remoulding has already begun. The growing 
 strength of the working classes has already mani- 
 fested its influence in modifying the relations between 
 employers and workmen, between proprietors of 
 the instruments of work and the hands who are 
 using it for the creation of goods. The Factory 
 Acts, limiting the work time and regulating the work 
 in the principal industries of this country ; the Irish 
 Land Bill of 1871, depriving the Irish landlords of a 
 good deal of right recognised to be inherent to pro- 
 prietorship — are the first attempts in this direction, 
 feeble as yet, but unmistakable and highly important, 
 since they admit in principle the legislative interven- 
 tion in industrial concerns and with the rights of 
 property. The extent which the agitation for the 
 nationalisation of land has received in so short a time 
 in England ; the great stress laid on very radical 
 economical reforms by the programmes of some of 
 the most prominent men of the present parliament — 
 all this shows clearly enough that the encroaching 
 on the present economical system will not stop here. 
 The world is going fast nowadays, and the pro- 
 cess of social fermentation has acquired striking 
 intensity and thoroughness. Thus the Irish question 
 has ripened singularly in a few years, and a very 
 radical solution of it seems to be at hand. If not 
 settled by the Liberals to-day, it will be settled by 
 
EUROPEAN SOCIALISM. 
 
 213 
 
 the Radicals to-morrow. And when once settled, 
 nobody can doubt its deep and lasting influence on 
 the minds of the agricultural as well as industrial 
 working men on this side of the Channel. The 
 great demand put forward at the end of the nine- 
 teenth century : the security of man's work and 
 man's material well-being against the caprice of the 
 market and the will of employers, once obtained 
 under certain obligations by the Irish tenants, 
 cannot long be denied to the English workmen. 
 The social revolution is in full work in England. 
 More than ever England can be said to stand at the 
 head of the historical development of the civilised 
 world, leading to socialism as it formerly led to 
 political freedom. Whether the attributing of such a 
 part to England will be taken as very flattering by my 
 readers, or whether they would rather prefer to be 
 spared such a compliment, I do not know. In either 
 case I will say that I have on my side the authority 
 of Karl Marx, who in his preface to " Das Kapital " 
 says that the process of the " social transformation 
 is evident in England, so that it can almost be 
 touched by the finger. And having arrived in 
 England at a certain intensity, it will undoubtedly 
 find an echo on the Continent." This was written 
 in July 1867, and since that time the great thinker's 
 judgment has only been confirmed. 
 
 True, there have been as yet no barricades, no 
 bloodshed, nothing, in a word, which is usually 
 connected with the idea of a "revolution;" and 
 there is little probability of a similar thing being in 
 store in the future. But this proves only that in 
 England this revolution has found its proper and 
 
2 14 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 natural way of realisation. Because in what is 
 called a "social revolution" the peacefulness of 
 proceedings is not only a thing desirable, as in 
 political changes, but the indispensable requisite 
 of its fruitfulness, I may say its fulfilment. This 
 difference is by no means an accidental one. It 
 lies in the very nature of the transactions both the 
 revolutions have to deal with, and I cannot put too 
 much stress in insisting on this difference. 
 
 Economical transactions — the care for the supply 
 of the material requisites for life — is certainly the 
 most important function in the body social. There 
 is hardly an individual in the community who is 
 not affected most feelingly by any change in the 
 domain of economical transaction, as likely to in- 
 fluence the amount of good he has for his share in 
 life. And for the main mass of the community the 
 work for material existence fills up their whole life- 
 time, and is almost a synonym for their life itself 
 Being thus the most momentous of all the interests, 
 the economical transactions are at the same time 
 the most delicate of all, possessing little, almost no 
 force of resistance against the inclemency of ex- 
 terior influences. The need for the consumption 
 of all sorts of goods is too great to admit much 
 sparing of them. The general statistics show that, 
 contrary to the current notion, almost the whole of 
 the yearly produce of national work is consumed in 
 the course of the same year. In the wealthiest of 
 European nations — the English — the total amount 
 of centuries of accumulation makes about one and 
 a half year's produce. England, as its statistics 
 boast, is so rich that she could maintain her present 
 
EUROPEAN SOCIALISM. 215 
 
 population in idleness for full eighteen months. 
 But if we remember that for about two centuries and 
 a half she has had no revolution or serious internal 
 trouble, causing great waste of property ; that from the 
 fourteenth century English industry was constantly 
 prospering, and from 1770 — the epoch of great me- 
 chanical discovery and application of machinery — - 
 it entered on a period of wonderfully rash de- 
 velopment, — if we remember all this, the rate of 
 accumulation will appear to us very slow indeed. 
 It amounts to less than i per cent., even if we take for 
 starting-point the beginning of the great industry, 
 and not the great geographical discoveries of the 
 sixteenth century. This wealth seems great only 
 because heaped up in the hands of a very small 
 body of people. The bulk of the nation, earning 
 their bread in the sweat of their brows, live from 
 hand to mouth, consuming what they earn by a 
 week's labour during the next week, and there are 
 few who are capable of sustaining themselves by 
 their savings more than a fortnight or so. 
 
 Such being the case, it is only natural that the 
 slightest change in economical conditions is instanta- 
 neously and most painfully felt by the country. The 
 so-called commercial and industrial crises, which 
 hardly ripple the surface of the whole momentous 
 stream of human work, are one of the greatest 
 disasters that a community can incur. In the pre- 
 sent condition of nations and international industry, 
 in which the chief branches of manufacture of the 
 most advanced countries are calculated for export 
 trade, a measure which should disturb the regular 
 course of the whole of the national work only for 
 
2l6 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 a few weeks would produce such a general cataclysm 
 as the world has never seen. This makes entirely 
 impossible any sudden and violent readjustment of 
 economical conditions. The simple approach or 
 probability of such a measure would produce the 
 most disastrous effect, which would prevent any 
 possibility of its realisation. The present form of 
 economical conditions, as created by the whole of 
 historical influences, cannot be changed unless its 
 substitution by a new one might be performed 
 without any interruption or relaxation of the work ; 
 and this can take place only if a very considerable 
 part of the nation, virtually leading the bulk of 
 it, has previously come to an understanding and 
 agreed upon what is to be done in main points 
 and in details. But in that case there is no need, 
 and, therefore, no room, for a "revolution" in the 
 ordinary acceptation of the word ; i.e., for a violent 
 outburst accompanied with a physical struggle. 
 What is violence if not the effort of the weak 
 to assert its right against the strong ? If the 
 party aspiring, after remoulding the economical 
 conditions of the country, embrace a very con- 
 siderable minority enjoying the full confidence of 
 the bulk of the nation, such party can realise the 
 desirable change in an evolutionary way ; i.e., with 
 little if any violence at all, being so incomparably 
 stronger than its adversaries. 
 
 This is, however, a mere theoretical supposition. 
 In practice things can never come to such a sudden 
 though pacific transformation. The fact of the 
 possibility of the vast preparation we are speaking 
 of implies necessarily a high standard of political 
 
EUROPEAN SOCIALISM. 21 
 
 freedom in the country, because without it no 
 serious change can be wrought in the spirit of 
 the nation. Now in a country in which the pri- 
 vate as well as the collective initiative has full 
 play, and the masses have control over political 
 power, a new idea as soon as it has entered into 
 the conception of the masses will by-and-by re- 
 ceive practical application, and give its stamp both 
 to the legislature and to institutions depending on 
 private initiative. Thus from whatever side we 
 approach the question we arrive at the idea of the 
 social evolution as the only possible interpretation of 
 the may-be " revolution." 
 
 In the great complication of modern, social, and 
 political life, in which political and economical 
 questions are so closely united, it would be too 
 presumptuous to expect that so arduous and burn- 
 ing a question as the economical one can be carried 
 out and settled quite smoothly, without hitches 
 or disturbances of any kind. In the countries of 
 imperfect political freedom the governing classes, 
 by obstinately obstructing this natural process of the 
 introduction of new conceptions into practical life, 
 or by interfering with the forces of the State in 
 favour of one of the contending parties, may certainly 
 provoke and even necessitate disturbances or even 
 partial revolt. But such revolt can play but a 
 secondary part in the large and organic process of 
 social transformation by removing the obstacles to 
 its free course. They have in them more of a 
 political than of a social revolution. The social 
 revolution is a task too complicated and difficult for 
 the resources of an insurrection. 
 
2l8 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 II. 
 
 If we consider the whole of the political concerns 
 of a nation — i.e., all the complex network of law, 
 customs, written and unwritten precept of conduct 
 regulating the relation of the individual to his fellow- 
 citizens and to the State — we shall certainly find that 
 they are as important by their influence on the life 
 of the community as they are impressive by the 
 enormous total of human work they represent. 
 Reducing the influence of political forms to their 
 ultimate expression, we can say that they determine 
 whether the whole of the intellectual power the 
 nation can produce in a given social condition is 
 applied to the work of progress, enlightenment, 
 and development of better forms of social life ; or 
 whether this collective intellectual power of the 
 nation will be somewhat clipped or half suppressed, 
 or almost entirely stifled, as is the case, for in- 
 stance, in modern Russia. Viewed in this light, 
 the influence of the political forms of a nation can 
 hardly be exaggerated. They affect in the end not 
 only the moral character, the intellectual develop- 
 ment, and the culture, but even by their intermediary 
 the material welfare of the country. The civil 
 training or education of a nation is, however, due 
 in very insignficant part to the real work of those 
 who in any given moment are concerned with it, 
 from legislators down to philosophers, poets, writers, 
 and other teachers of the people. This is a work of 
 all the past as well as of the present. Work in this 
 domain produces its effect slowly, but it possesses a 
 considerable power of perduration. We may say it 
 
EUROPEAN SOCIALISM. 219 
 
 is the very reverse of the work in the economical 
 domain ; its absolute amount is insignificant, but it 
 leaves a considerable deposit, whilst the other is 
 extremely extensive, but has almost no deposit 
 at all. 
 
 The share of the government proper in this 
 work of civil education is not very extensive. It 
 maintains order and internal peace as far as it 
 goes, which allows the other elements of society 
 to proceed in their civilising mission, as long as they 
 are not restricted. But the internal peace and order 
 being maintained for long series of generations, finish 
 by entering into people's habits and customs, and 
 the laws are obeyed, and order preserved by its own 
 tradition, with quite an insignificant amount of current 
 work represented in the governing body. Thus we 
 observe that, whilst the main mass of the community 
 spends almost the whole of its lifetime to provide 
 for its material existence, only an imperceptible 
 quota of human work is spent to keep in order the 
 political concerns of the community. In a district 
 of 10,000 people, who are to a man engaged in a 
 daily struggle for existence and for a better share 
 in the enjoyment of material good, one magistrate 
 with a few constables, one administrator with a few 
 clerks, suffice to do all the work required for securing 
 to the community perfect ease in carrying out their 
 affairs. It is, of course, an important question for our 
 small community to have these officials as wise as 
 Solomon and as honest as Aristides. But if they 
 happen to be somewhat tarnished characters, if 
 even it chances that both of them desert their post, 
 the commune will be able to make shift by itself, 
 
2 20 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 and will not be half so troubled as if the bread 
 had suddenly risen a sixth of its price. What 
 makes the bulk of the population care much 
 about the State is not so much the services 
 received from it, as the contributions exacted by it. 
 In despotic states, which interest us particularly in 
 this study, the conception of the maintenance of 
 order is somewhat strange, as everybody knows. 
 Here the Government, though exerting itself to 
 prevent people cutting each other's throats, and 
 stealing each other's property (this being the pri- 
 vilege of officials) is still more anxious to prevent 
 people from questioning and criticising its own pro- 
 blematic wisdom, and honesty, and justice. Here 
 preservation of order means dead silence in respect 
 of people's wrong, passive obedience to all the ex- 
 actions of the governing caste, obstructing and 
 stifling of any useful work which private individuals 
 should be disposed to do for the community. Such 
 states present a small but well-organised body of 
 people, who, having command over the militaiy and 
 civil forces of the community, — the army and the 
 police, — enforce their will on the masses of unor- 
 ganised nation. 
 
 Now, if we suppose that, notwithstanding the 
 obstruction, the country is happy enough to bring 
 forward a body of men sufficiently strong to over- 
 power and overthrow this organised oppression, it 
 would be unnecessary, unwise, even cowardly and 
 criminal toward the community and posterity if 
 these men should postpone their attack a day longer. 
 To the honour of humanity it must be said that 
 this was never the case. The generous love for 
 
EUROPEAN SOCIALISM. 221 
 
 freedom, and pity for the oppressed country, 
 always urged people to the struggle rather be- 
 fore there was sufficient strength to carry on the 
 combat. And in all countries the way to freedom 
 has been bedewed with the blood of martyrs. Even 
 the great French revolution of 1789-93 — the most 
 momentous popular rising known in modern history — 
 was begun by a handful of men, and carried out 
 by the small minority of the population among the 
 sympathising, consenting, or indifferent masses. 
 This is a fact peremptorily proved by all the in- 
 vestigators of this epoch, its detractors and admirers 
 included, from Ziebel and Taine down to modern 
 revolutionists of the reddest dye. And there was 
 certainly no revolution which commanded such con- 
 siderable numerical strength as this great one. The 
 other continental revolutions, made under the in- 
 fluence of this great one, were numerically far 
 less strong. If some tyrannical government had 
 been overthrown by a mere handful of men, one 
 could only say, so much the better. The violence 
 of revolutionary proceeding has, of course, its draw- 
 back : it always produces a temporary disorder in 
 the sphere into which it is carried. But as this 
 disorder is localised within the narrow political 
 domain, it affects really only the surface of national 
 life ; the more so that only such deep and long 
 revolutions as that of 1789-93 in France affect to 
 a certain degree the inferior branches of administra- 
 tion — those concerned with the every-day work for 
 the maintenance of order and security. Generally 
 they begin and finish in the high or central spheres 
 of government. If, nevertheless, they are so heavily 
 
222 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 felt by the nations, it is only because, and as far as, 
 they affect indirectly or incidentally the economical 
 province. 
 
 Thus the two revolutions — the political and 
 economical — differ considerably by the mode of 
 their realisation. The element of violence, which 
 is inefficient, almost inapplicable for the latter, plays 
 a very essential and important part in the former. 
 The political regeneration of a nation, the infusion 
 of liberty into the habits, customs, social and political 
 intercourse, cannot be done by a sudden stroke. 
 What was created by time requires time to be 
 undone. But the starting-point for such a work 
 was always a sudden and violent outburst of national 
 indignation and enthusiasm, bearing the glorious 
 name of revolution. 
 
 III. 
 
 In the natural course of things the acquisition of 
 political freedom must precede any serious attempt 
 at social reorganisation. It is self-evident. For 
 how to set to work without having first freed the 
 workers' hands from bondage ? Had all the coun- 
 tries, at least in Europe, advanced at the same pace 
 on the way of their internal development, no great 
 complication in their march to progress could have 
 arisen. All would become politically free, and then, 
 secure from all obstruction, proceed in the way of 
 social reorganisation. But it is not so. Owing 
 to the difference of the natural condition of the 
 countries, their geographical position and historical 
 peculiarities, the European states of to-day, though all 
 unmistakably progressing in their culture, have dis- 
 
EUROPEAN SOCIALISM. 223 
 
 tanced each other no less than for almost three 
 centuries, or something like, in their political con- 
 ditions. Whilst England has almost forgotten the 
 epochs of its violent civil struggle for political 
 freedom, which are looming in the darkness, con- 
 founded with recollections of the Middle Ages, 
 Russia remains under an autocracy much more 
 absolute than that of Henry VIII. 
 
 The bulk of continental Europe has awakened 
 to liberty only since 1848, and in France herself, 
 which has given the signal for and led them, the 
 first victory of freedom was followed by its defeat, 
 which necessitated several new revolutions. What 
 could be more natural than the idea of applying the 
 quick medicine of popular insurrection, which proved 
 so successful against political oppression, to the 
 healing of economical wrongs ? Thus arose the 
 idea of the "social revolution" as such. 
 
 Such theories were particularly popular among the 
 socialists of the Latin race, owing partly to their more 
 impatient temper, but still more to the fact that the 
 political revolutions have played a much more im- 
 portant part in their immediate past than in 
 Germany. But even in these countries the prac- 
 tical life enforced by-and-by a more rational con- 
 ception of the social revolution. It is impossible 
 to provoke an artificial revolution, and some 
 few attempts in this direction in Italy made a com- 
 plete fiasco. The working men organisations, 
 stepping into the field both in France and Italy, 
 put the social question from the domain of revolu- 
 tionary metaphysics on to practical ground. The 
 fraction which proclaimed violent insurrections as 
 
2 24 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 the only means for realising socialism was reduced 
 to almost imperceptible dimensions. 
 
 When in the year 1882 it became suddenly most 
 conspicuous, most spoken of, becoming unexpectedly 
 the bugbear of the peace-and-ease-loving bour- 
 geoisie, a new method was invented by which 
 every single individual, with little or no assistance 
 at all, shall wage war against the existing regime : 
 I mean the introduction of dynamite as a political 
 agent. Dynamite outrages began in France in this 
 year, and very soon found imitators. 
 
 What could produce this strange fit of dynamite 
 epidemic? 
 
 I think we shall be very near the truth in 
 admitting that the chief factor in determining this 
 outbreak was the example of Russian Nihilists : a 
 case not devoid of interest for a student of social 
 psychology. 
 
 In all times there were violent attempts against 
 various representatives of the governments — kings 
 and their ministers. Very often such attempts were 
 followed by a series of three or four outrages, com- 
 mitted in different countries, but closely following 
 each other ; then subsiding for a long number of 
 years until a new stroke roused the seemingly 
 sleeping destructive spirit, and a new file-firing 
 began. This suggestive fact can only be explained 
 by the tendency for imitation, which is observable 
 in mankind. 
 
 One very interesting example of the contagious in- 
 fluence of such acts is presented by the five attempts 
 against the crowned heads which took place at short 
 intervals from May 1878 to December 1879, and then 
 
EUROPEAN SOCIALISM. 225 
 
 dropped off, and have never been repeated since. 
 What could be the cause of this sudden file-firing ? 
 What the scope of attempting against a constitu- 
 tional sovereign who, de jure and de facto, cannot be 
 answerable for anything which is done in the state ? 
 But the thing will become quite clear if we admit 
 the possibility of moral contagion in certain acts 
 which strike the imagination. All these attempts 
 followed immediately the attempt of Vera Zassou- 
 litch, who shot General Trepoff, the Russian police 
 officer, who ordered the flogging of a political pri- 
 soner for having omitted to take off his hat to him. 
 There was, of course, the widest difference between 
 these acts. But this might mean something in the 
 case of a rational tendency, but nothing at all in the 
 case of an epidemic contagion. Zassulitch's shot, 
 and still more her acquittal by the jury, found the 
 most tremendous reverberation throughout all the 
 civilised world, creating thus the exciting atmosphere 
 in which the Russian idea of avenging public wrongs 
 by attempts against representatives of power could 
 assume any shape, or receive any practical application, 
 according to the circumstances and individual pecu- 
 liarity. And the brief but violent regicidal epidemic 
 arose. No single act of Russian terrorists has agitated 
 so strongly European public opinion as the Zassu- 
 litch affair. But what they failed to do separately 
 they did, and more effectively combined. When, 
 after the first attempts against functionaries, the 
 Nihilists began their dynamite duel with the autocrat 
 in person, they acquired the most tremendous popu- 
 larity throughout the whole world. The mystery, 
 the fascinating courage and spirit of self-sacrifice, 
 
 15 
 
2 26 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 and the wild energy of the gigantic struggle, were 
 particularly apt to strike the imagination. The 
 partisans of order and legality, at any price and 
 under any circumstances, objected to the means. 
 But even they were dazzled by the Nihilists, who 
 for years were the living romance of the whole 
 European press. As to the extreme parties, both 
 political and social, we are proud and thankful to say 
 that from the very beginning they were with us. 
 Radicals and socialists — among whom the majority 
 were by no means partisans of violence — were 
 willing to consider the deep wrongs of the Russian 
 people, and warm in their sympathies ; they sided 
 with us, and did us that justice which other parties 
 are beginning to do now. Among them the Nihilist 
 struggle won from the beginning an unconditional 
 approbation. It was the same with the great mass 
 of working men of all countries and of all shades of 
 opinion. Having no vested interests to defend, they 
 were less exacting in their judgment. The longer the 
 struggle lasted, the greater was the interest in it 
 and the enthusiasm for it. And it was quite natural 
 that in some individuals the example might have 
 proved contagious. And so it did. The European 
 dynamite period was of an epidemical, and not of 
 a sporadic kind. It is only fair to add that a 
 very perspicacious writer, whom I have had already 
 opportunity to mention — Professor Michel Drago- 
 manoff — had forewarned Europe that such a fact iimst 
 happen almost two years before it really happened. 
 In his pamphlet, "Tyrannicide en Russie et I'Action 
 del'Europe Occidentale," Geneva, 1881, after having 
 shown that the terrorists are struggling for political 
 
EUROPEAN SOCIALISM. 227 
 
 freedom, and the present Russian crisis is a political 
 one similar to that which England underwent in 
 the sixteenth century, he concludes : " But this Russian 
 crisis, however different by its character from the 
 socialist. movement of Western Europe, cannot be 
 carried on without influencing to a certain degree 
 the latter. It will impart to it its bloody character, 
 exciting those passionate rather than rational instincts 
 which are latent among the disinherited classes, 
 even in the most advanced countries. This is the 
 point on which every political man in Europe must 
 reflect, and this is also the reason for the inter- 
 vention of Europe in the Russian crisis " (pp. 12-13). 
 This prognostication proved to be true. And is not 
 the fact of the subsiding of dynamite attempts in 
 Europe due to a very considerable extent to the 
 absence of the exciting influence from Russia ? 
 
 But will it always be so ? Certainly not. The 
 Russian struggle for liberty practically began only 
 some ten years ago. With the quick intellectual 
 growth of Russians, and the rashness of all our 
 social process, the crisis cannot be protracted very 
 long. It began with greater intensity than in other 
 European countries, and must end sooner. But it 
 would be pusillanimous for us to hope and presume 
 to sweep away the autocracy with a few pounds 
 of dynamite. Our hardest strife is in the future ; 
 and in this strife all arms must and will be employed 
 to atone for the enormous disparity of material 
 strength. This cannot be helped ; and this spectacle 
 cannot be lost upon Europe. Thus it is not the 
 success of the Russian revolution, but the protraction 
 of the sanguinary struggle, that really threatens the 
 
22 8 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 tranquillity of European people. This would be a 
 sad eventuality of course. We have every reason 
 to desire that the great social reconstruction in 
 which all the advanced countries are concerned 
 should be carried out as orderly as possible. 
 Because what will be the best of good fortune for 
 Europe will be the best of examples for Russia. 
 But every country's first duty is towards itself 
 The historical mission of our generation is to over- 
 throw the ferocious Asiatic despotism which is 
 stifling our country to death. And we will over- 
 throw it by whatever means we find within our 
 reach. The civilised Europeans have as little right 
 to urge us to desist from our violences as a man who 
 hears groans coming from next door, where some 
 diabolic torture is inflicted on a human being, has 
 to say to the victim, " Keep silent, because your 
 groans prevent me from digesting comfortably my 
 good dinner." It is in a more generous way that the 
 thinking men of free countries should intervene in 
 the fierce strife raging on the eastern plain. They 
 cannot prevent it. But they will undoubtedly shorten 
 it and minimise its violence by affording the cause of 
 Russian liberty the assistance which can reasonably 
 be afforded, and which Russian people have the 
 right to expect from the public opinion of the more 
 advanced nations. 
 
VI. 
 A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION? 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION? 
 {Conclusion}) 
 
 It is a well-established truth that foreigners, pro- 
 vided they are sufficiently well informed, are often 
 the best judges of a country. They possess, in the 
 first place, the most valuable requisite for dis- 
 passionate observation, that thorough impartiality 
 which it is difficult for a native to attain. Besides, 
 as they are new to the country, their senses and in- 
 tellect are more keenly alive to peculiarities that 
 pass unnoticed by those born and educated in it. 
 At the time of some great crisis in the history of a 
 nation it is often given to foreigners to discover the 
 first symptoms of coming events. When at the end 
 of the last century French society was indulging in 
 humanitarian dreams, it was an Englishman, Arthur 
 Young, who predicted the approach of the great 
 revolution. 
 
 Russia had not the good fortune to attract so 
 much attention from European nations as France 
 under Louis XVI. The Russian crisis was revealed 
 to Europe by the echo of dynamite explosions, and 
 not announced in anticipation by some far-seeing 
 traveller. Before the Nihilist struggle began there 
 
232 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 was hardly a man in Europe who cared about 
 Russian liberty, and the conspiracies of which now 
 and then the European press was informed were 
 regarded as mere childish enterprises, having no 
 serious meaning and no future. Since then the 
 times have considerably changed. The partisans of 
 the Russian Government might cry themselves 
 hoarse, repeating that the Nihilists were maniacs, 
 fond of destruction for destruction's sake. All 
 sensible and thinking men felt that there must 
 be something wrong in Russia if hundreds and 
 thousands of people, showing after all no symptom 
 of madness, sacrifice their future, their prosperity, 
 and often their lives for getting something better. 
 Attention once awakened, the truth could not fail to 
 be discovered. There is no divergence of opinion 
 any more among all serious and conscientious in- 
 vestigators of Russian life as to the seriousness and 
 depth of the Russian crisis. 
 
 I will quote only one of them, undoubtedly the 
 best and most universally recognised authority on 
 the matter, — M. Leroy Beaulieu. His name is 
 sufficiently well known in England to render com- 
 ment unnecessary. Here are some extracts of the 
 conclusion of his two volumes, " L'Empire des Tzars 
 et les Russes' (vol. ii., pp. 605, 608, 611-15). 
 
 " To sum up, Russia, according to our opinion, is 
 compelled to begin, and that very soon, the practice 
 of modern free institutions. By what door will she 
 enter ? It is beyond our power to predict the course 
 of events, or to point out to her the path to be fol- 
 lowed. On the part of a foreigner this would be 
 presumption. What we know as quite certain is. 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION? 233 
 
 that it is high time for her to start on this 
 journey. 
 
 " For a long tirtie the most advanced among 
 Russians were httle inclined to hasten with their 
 wishes the hour when the nation should be put in 
 possession of political rights. Some months before 
 the last Bulgarian campaign an intelligent and liberal 
 Russian, discussing the subject, said to me, ' The 
 constitution will be for the next reign. It is better 
 for Russia to have it fifteen years later than fifteen 
 years too early.' These words seemed the embodi- 
 ment of wisdom, and I confess to having admired 
 their prudence myself, whilst acknowledging this 
 truth. Are we as certain of the accuracy of this 
 sentence now ? After-events have induced me to 
 doubt it. The disorderly agitation of the young 
 generation, the nervous irritability of society, which 
 increases constantly ; the evident impossibility of 
 preserving the status quo, and the difficulty of break- 
 ing it up under pressure of threats from the revolu- 
 tionists, — all this forces us to ask ourselves, if it 
 would not be better not to wait until the hour of 
 political reform rings out, but to grant the needed 
 reforms at once. 
 
 " The excitements and disappointments of the 
 Bulgarian war ; the implacable campaign of the 
 terrorists ; the confusion of a Government obliged 
 to try uselessly, one after another, all its ministers 
 and advisers, — all this has in a few years strikingly 
 ripened the question, if not the nation. The whole 
 of the educated classes seem to have arrived at such 
 a state of mind that to beguile their appetite for 
 political reforms and freedom, the Imperial Govern- 
 
2 34 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 ment will have no other expedient than external 
 diversions, heroical adventures. 
 
 "For these Russia is not prepared either as to 
 diplomacy, finance, or the army. Like our 
 ephemeral French empires this Government, after 
 ten centuries of duration, will be more and more 
 forced to choose between internal reforms and 
 external wars, between liberty and glory. In de- 
 fault of one it will be obliged to give the other. 
 This dilemma, well known in France, will impose 
 itself more and more on Russia. And the last 
 Oriental campaign has shown her how hazardous 
 and uncertain is this game, even in the case of 
 victory. There is, indeed, a kind of vicious circle. 
 Often war lays open the sores of a country, makes 
 palpable the vices of the Government, and the 
 necessity of control by the people. 
 
 " That is precisely what has been done at an 
 interval of twenty years by the two Oriental wars. 
 The invasion of the Crimea was the starting-point 
 of the emancipation of the serfs and the great laws 
 of Alexander II. The double campaign of Bulgaria, 
 followed by no general reform, not having been the 
 signal for political emancipation, became the starting- 
 point of revolutionary terrorism and of the Tzaricide." 
 
 I would say a few words on the subject of the 
 influence of the Bulgarian war in connection with 
 the opinion, quoted by M. Leroy Beaulieu, of a 
 wise Russian statesman on the usefulness of post- 
 poning political reforms. There is a considerable 
 difference in the effect of the two Oriental wars. 
 The reign of Nicholas I. was one of pure niili- 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION? 235 
 
 tarism, a feeble example of which is to be observed 
 in modern Prussia. The Crimean defeat was a con- 
 demnation of the whole system of Nicholas I., and 
 had, therefore, the same moral effect as a defeat of 
 the modern German Empire in some external war 
 would have to-day. The reign of Alexander II. was 
 that of internal reforms, initiated at the beginning 
 of his reign. The defeat of his system consisted 
 in the abortion of all his reforms, which began 
 to be strongly felt ten years before the Bulgarian 
 war. The political crisis which the general dis- 
 appointment gradually brought about arrived at its 
 acutest point before the Oriental war broke out. 
 Our whole literature was full of. it. The Bulgarian 
 campaign had certainly its share in embittering the 
 crisis, but this influence was a secondary one, not 
 at all comparable with that of the Crimean war. 
 It is quite certain that, had there been no Bulgarian 
 war at all, the Nihilist struggle would have begun 
 all the same. The elements for it were quite ready 
 in the general disposition and spirit of Russian 
 society, and in those of the secret organisations 
 of revolutionists. And yet, just at this period, 
 M. Leroy Beaulieu's wiseacre indulged in idle 
 talk about political reforms as premature, and the 
 utility of their being postponed for some fifteen 
 years ! Is this not a proof that even for certain 
 classes of Russians something stronger than the 
 outcry of "penny-a-liners" was necessary to bring 
 them to think and observe what was going on in 
 the country under their feet ? 
 
 " To the struggle with a foreigner succeeded an 
 
236 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 internal war of much greater length, greater ferocity ; 
 and, notwithstanding the small number of soldiers 
 who entered the lists, of more expense to the 
 country and the Government. This war with an 
 invisible and always re-appearing Alexander III. 
 cannot end by a treaty of peace as his father did 
 with the war in 1855. It is the soul of the young 
 generation that he must pacify. This he cannot do 
 otherwise than by reconciling his government with 
 the spirit of the century, without being influenced 
 by the threats of some, and the flatteries of others, 
 without being diverted by the pride, the fear, or 
 the presumption of false security. 
 
 " From whatever point of view we consider it, a 
 liberal revolution seems to us the best, or rather the 
 only possible solution of the crisis. Seek as long 
 as we like, we shall discover no other. Does it 
 mean, then, that all will be settled by its intro- 
 duction ? Certainly not. The supplanting of the 
 present regime by another will be not so much a 
 solution as a new starting-point, a beginning rather 
 than an end. Liberty and political constitutions 
 are like marriage, which in novels and plays appears 
 often as a solution, but in reality is only the inau- 
 guration of a new life with its toil, its struggle, and 
 its trials. In entering upon the way to which public 
 opinion is prompting it, Russia will certainly have 
 her difficulties, her troubles, and even her perils if 
 you like. But these will be the troubles and perils 
 common to all modern governments. Such a change 
 alone will be of good to her. Her struggles, errors, 
 and even her disappointments will become useful to 
 her. With the status quo, on the contrary, there is 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION? 237 
 
 nothing to gain. There are dangers which must be 
 hurried on, were it only in order not to increase 
 them. There are cases when the safest of ex- 
 pedients is that which is the boldest, when there 
 is more to risk in risking nothing. Such is the 
 position of the heir of Alexander II. 
 
 " How many times have the French asked them- 
 selves at what precise moment the Revolution could 
 have been arrested as it sank towards anarchy and 
 terror? Nobody could point out this moment with 
 certainty. To us it seems that this moment was 
 already lost at the epoch of the convocation of 
 the £tats Ghi'eraux. The only means to prevent 
 the revolution was to outstrip it. The Russia of 
 Alexander III., though differing singularly from 
 the France of Louis XVI., is, I think, precisely in 
 the same position. The surest means to impede 
 the revolution is to outstrip it by giving its initia- 
 tion to the Government. ' Reforms from above, 
 or revolutions from below,' said Alexander II. at 
 the beginning of his reign, 
 
 " There are, however, changes so momentous to 
 be made, that we ask ourselves anxiously whether 
 they can be effected peacefully without trouble or 
 revolution. So was it in France at the downfall 
 of the feudal regime. Will it be otherwise in 
 Russia with her political transformation ? It will 
 depend perhaps upon the ability and good fortune 
 of the dynasty. Nations and societies have what we 
 may call their moulting time : great transformations 
 that can hardly be effected without disturbance and 
 suffering, without a sort of external decay or ap- 
 parent death. But let not appearances deceive us ; 
 
238 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 if Russia has to pass through similar trials, and 
 issue temporarily enfeebled, this will be for her, as 
 for France of 1789, a crisis of growth, and not the 
 convulsion of agony and decrepitude. 
 
 "And if in Russia at the end of the nineteenth 
 century, as in France at the end of the eighteenth, 
 a revolution becomes unavoidable, what will be the 
 result of it for Russia and Europe ? What new 
 order of things will issue from this chaos ? 
 
 "In many respects a Russian revolution (if it be 
 anything else than a disordered and brief inter- 
 regnum) will have a stamp of originality and novelty 
 which are not to be found in any revolution of other 
 European nations. The West had already its re- 
 volution in the French, since all the nations of 
 Germano-Latin origin have more or less felt its 
 influence, borrowed its doctrines, tasted its benefits 
 and its evils. Our revolution was, so to say, the 
 redemption of feudal Europe. But it may be said 
 that patriarchal Eastern Europe, the Slavonic world, 
 awaits still its revolution, or what must represent it. 
 And whence, if not from Russia, can the initiative 
 of it come ? Viewed in this light, a Russian revo- 
 lution might be the greatest of historical events 
 since the French revolution, to which, at an interval 
 of one century, it would be the natural supplement. 
 
 " The presumptuous hope of creating a new type 
 of society, which the reactionary Slavophiles claim 
 for their country, is repeated in a different form, 
 but with the same assurance, by many Russian revo- 
 lutionists. They dream that the Russian revolution 
 will completely outdo our revolutions, which were 
 all individualistic, profitable to the bourgeoisie rather 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION? 239 
 
 than to the masses of the people, whilst the Russian 
 revolution will bring into the world a new really- 
 popular gospel, having more of a socialistic stamp 
 than a political one, adapted to the wants of the 
 Slavonic people, and presenting at the same time 
 to the West an example worthy of imitation. 
 
 "And really a Russian revolution, which must 
 almost certainly arrive at a kind of agrarian socialism, 
 cannot help being different from what we have seen 
 elsewhere. It is precisely in a revolution that 
 Russia will have the greatest facility of showing her- 
 self original, and of producing something new and 
 purely Slavonic. But at what price ? with what losses 
 for civilisation and science ? 
 
 " Priority in revolutions is, moreover, a kind of 
 primato too dearly bought, too perilous for us to 
 hope for on behalf of Russia. Much better will it 
 be for her not to have such fallacious ambitions, to 
 march by more modest and by safer ways. And 
 this all the more, as in such cases the time seemingly 
 gained to-day is often lost to-morrow, and the way 
 .which was thought the shortest is found to be the 
 longest " 
 
 I have translated these pages inspired by true 
 humanity and sincere goodwill to our unhappy 
 country and its freedom. For them every Russian 
 whom they will reach will be deeply thankful to the 
 author. And certainly I could not find a more solid 
 basis for some further considerations than this sum- 
 ming up of many years' study and observations on 
 the part of a scholar whose impartiality as well as 
 competency cannot be questioned. 
 
 Thus, M. Leroy Beaulieu entertains no doubt as 
 
240 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 to the imminence of a Russian catastrophe, or as to 
 its sweeping character. He thinks that the momen- 
 tous crisis cannot be arrested or prevented ; but it 
 may be either sanguinary or pacific, according to the 
 hne of conduct of the government as to the introduc- 
 tion of poHtical freedom into Russia at short notice 
 or too late. The possible peacefulness of the solu- 
 tion of the Russian crisis, according to M. Leroy 
 Beaulieu, is, however, only comparative. He greatly 
 doubts whether so great a transformation as he fore- 
 sees, even initiated by the existing government, 
 can avoid the reef of popular disturbances, and 
 he does his best to prepare his readers to accept 
 the unavoidable, and tries to minimise, as far as 
 possible, the importance of the temporary disturb- 
 ances that must be. 
 
 II. 
 
 Without absolutely denying the possibility of some 
 temporary and local disorders, we think that the 
 above-mentioned apprehensions are based rather on 
 abstract historical analogies than on the realities of 
 Russian life. It is quite certain that the inaugura- 
 tion of political freedom in Russia — whatever be the 
 door by which it enters — will be the starting-point of 
 a series of agrarian and social reforms, much more 
 radical than those which accompanied the French 
 revolution. This is the reason why that very 
 modest thing called the " Constitution " is worth 
 having and struggling for, not solely for its own 
 sake, but also for the sake of the masses of our 
 people. But if we throw off preconceived historical 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION ? 24 1 
 
 notions, and look at the present condition of Russia, 
 we shall see that at the present moment at least 
 there are really no elements to justify such appre- 
 hensions. That which distinguishes Russia from 
 France at the end of the eighteenth century as well 
 as from all modern European States is its great uni- 
 formity. It is a peasant's state in the fullest possible 
 acceptation of the phrase. Official statistics show 
 a rural class constituting about 82 per cent, of 
 the whole number of inhabitants. This is three 
 times more than in France, and five times more 
 than in Great Britain. But in reality, as every 
 Russian knows, the proportion of the rural class 
 is still greater. The people inscribed in the official 
 registers of population as "citizens," or inhabitants 
 of towns, also belong to a considerable extent to 
 the rural class. The small provincial towns with 
 less than ten thousand inhabitants are in reality great 
 villages, the bulk of whose population is devoted to 
 agriculture. Even in the larger towns a consider- 
 able number of the inhabitants of the suburbs are 
 mere peasants. 
 
 The peasants are certainly the most powerful class 
 of the Russian nation, I may say the only class in 
 the scientific acceptation of the word. They present, 
 moreover, a remarkable uniformity in their economi- 
 cal aspirations, political organisation, and traditional 
 code of laws. 
 
 The class which by its social importance is next 
 to that of the peasants is certainly the educated 
 class, representing the spiritual forces of the nation, 
 — its brains and nerves, — as the peasants represent 
 its bones and muscles. This class, however, as the 
 
 16 
 
242 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 reader may remember, embodies no special interests 
 distinct from those of the peasants. They can 
 hardly be called a privileged class at all, for they 
 depend on the work of their brain, as the workmen 
 on that of their hands. Their material prosperity, as 
 well as social influence and position, depends en- 
 tirely on that of the peasants. If the peasants 
 prosper, the educated classes will prosper also ; if 
 the peasants become masters of their destiny, enjoy 
 freedom, and real and not fictitious self-government, 
 the educated men will acquire all the political and 
 social influence due to their capacity as managers, 
 teachers, political representatives of the masses. 
 They can have no other function. And we have 
 seen that by their education, their former history, and 
 the traditions of three generations, our intellectual 
 classes, far from recoiling from — are most willing 
 to accept — this mission of devoting their forces to 
 the service of the masses, the most glorious office 
 for people possessing the benefits of high education. 
 When the free political institution replaces the 
 present bureaucratic despotism — the third great force, 
 — that of the state, which is now striving by hook or 
 by crook to prevent the union and mutual under- 
 standing of the two above-mentioned elements, will 
 be placed in their hands. It might, it will require 
 a certain time of political training and education to 
 enable the peasants to use to their advantage the 
 representative institutions they will receive. It is 
 very likely that at first many of them will consider 
 the sending of deputies to a Zemsky Sobor (a Par- 
 liament) as a new burden, of which they must get 
 rid as cheaply as possible. But is this the possible 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION ? 243 
 
 source of "disturbances," "troubles," "convul- 
 sions," and the like ? 
 
 And when this transitory period passes, and the 
 wishes of the masses are represented effectively and 
 not nominally, where is the force in Russia capable 
 of resisting their fulfilment ? In France there was 
 a powerful clergy and a feudal nobility that in some 
 provinces preserved its traditional influence. Do 
 we see something like this in modern Russia? Our 
 clergy never had any political influence at all, and 
 now it has morally ruined itSelf by accepting the 
 vile part of spy and police agent, assigned to it by 
 the dying autocracy. As to aristocracy, Russia has 
 nothing of the kind. Our slave-owning nobility can 
 claim this name with as little right as the planters 
 of Virginia amongst their liberated negro slaves. In 
 our day there is, I may say,, no nobility. Only the 
 great men, who are at the same time members of 
 the high bureaucracy, can supply their losses as land- 
 owners by direct subsidies from the State, and thus 
 withstand the general depression. The bulk of our 
 landed gentry is totally ruined, and its land culture 
 is in such a miserable condition that their class would 
 be not at all displeased to give up the land for a 
 very moderate compensation from the State. Such 
 is at least the statement of those among these classes 
 from whom I could obtain information. The only 
 class — or better, the only set of people — interested in 
 the maintenance of the present ruinous and absurd 
 land system are the new land forestallers, the 
 miroieds, — eaters of the mir, as the peasants call 
 them. Profiting by the dependent and utterly down- 
 trodden condition of the peasants, these professional 
 
244 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 usurers have engrossed a good deal of communal 
 land, and ensnared the peasants, reducing them into 
 a state of economical slavery, very similar to the 
 old one. It is not this gang of robbers, universally 
 hated by the peasants and despised by the educated 
 classes, that will be able to incite disturbances. 
 
 No, in Russia no reform tending to the real benefit 
 of the agricultural masses has to apprehend anything 
 worth the name of troubles. The uniformity of the 
 Russian nation, which was the source of our unhappy 
 political rdgime, has at least a compensation in the 
 facility and simplicity of our future social reforms 
 As to the towns — ^where once the concession of 
 political freedom satisfies the aspiration of the whole 
 of the educated class, and opens to it the best prospect 
 for the future— the impossibility of any insurrectional 
 attempt is too evident to need any explanation. 
 
 In giving to the government of Alexander that 
 most thoughtful suggestion, that the concession of 
 political freedom would be profitable even to the 
 dynasty, the French scholar might have dispensed 
 with mentioning, as a drawback, the quite theoretical 
 danger of threatening disturbances. For nothing 
 worthy this name is really to be expected in such 
 cases. 
 
 And yet it is the most fallacious of all hopes to 
 expect that the liberal evolution will be initiated by 
 the Tzar's spontaneous impulse. The implicit con- 
 fidence in the possibility of such an event is the 
 only point in which the opinion of Mr. Leroy 
 Beaulieu will be contradicted by every Russian who 
 has followed rationally modern Russian history. 
 There is nothing to expect from the government 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION ? 24 S 
 
 of Alexander III. I doubt whether there are two 
 Opinions on the matter in Russia, and at present, 
 after five years of experience, it is hardly necessary 
 to discuss the point with Europeans. It is also a 
 mistake to think that it was the Nihilists' attempts 
 that frightened the Government out of its poor wits, 
 preventing it from doing something rational, as 
 Mr. Leroy Beaulieu and many Europeans with him 
 are inclined to think. The reactionary policy of 
 Alexander II., in all the last fifteen years of the 
 twenty-five of his reign, was the cause and not the 
 result of the Nihilistic insurrection. As to the third 
 Alexander, we have only to appeal to the memory 
 of our contemporaries to establish the fact that his 
 internal policy becomes more reactionary in propor- 
 tion as the catastrophe of the 13th March recedes 
 in the background. Having begun by maintaining 
 Count Loris Melikoff, he passed to Count Ignatieff 
 with his jokes of representative commissions, and 
 ended by Count Tolstoi's ministry, which is obscu- 
 rantism and reaction with no hope or remorse. If the 
 Government has made such a use of the five years' 
 respite, given to it by the revolution, what indeed 
 is to be hoped from the good graces of the Gatchina 
 court ? The dense net, woven of selfishness, conceit, 
 cowardice, of dark, impenetrable ignorance prevailing 
 in high circles, can be broken only by the effect of 
 external forces, coming from the world outside it. 
 
 I am most willing to admit that these external 
 forces are not exclusively material ones. There is 
 no way open to the manifestation of public opinion 
 in Russia, as freedom of the press and of speech 
 are entirely suppressed. Even the right of petition 
 
246 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 ing, SO humble that it can hardly be called a right, 
 is considered a " political crime," if exercised without 
 special permission of the administration. An 
 " arbitrary petition," even drawn up in the most 
 respectful and humble terms, if referring to some- 
 thing like political freedom, is punishable with im- 
 prisonment, exile to Siberia, or elsewhere, as many 
 examples prove. In such a country the only way 
 to give vent to the opinions and wishes of the nation 
 is by what may be called with the awkward term of 
 "peaceful rebellion." 
 
 A manifestation, made in disregard of police pro- 
 scription and prohibitions by a large body of people, 
 will make it impossible for the Government to punish 
 the delinquents, which at first the Government 
 certainly will do. Such a manifestation, if made 
 boldly and frankly, might have the greatest moral 
 effect both in Russia and in Europe. It is highly 
 desirable, and it would be most opportune at any 
 time. It would be childish to expect that with the 
 absurd Government we have the misfortune to 
 possess, any amount of moral pressure alone will 
 be sufficient to induce it to lay down its arms. 
 Russia has already shown an instructive example 
 of a very general manifestation of public opinion in 
 favour of political liberty. It was in i860, in the 
 epoch of the emancipation of the serfs. But this 
 movement failed to produce any effect, because in 
 this epoch of general confidence in the good faith of 
 the Government it could not be supported by more 
 impressive actions on the part of Russian patriots. 
 On the other hand, the great terrorist struggle with 
 the Tzardom was within a hair's breadth of forcing 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION ? 247 
 
 the autocracy to listen to reason. Ample proof of this 
 can be found even in M. Leroy Beaulieu's writings 
 (especially in Revue des Deux Mondes for October, 
 1881), which show that the terrorists were not so 
 foolish after all as some people are inclined to 
 believe, and the theory about violence producing 
 only a recrudescence of reaction is not quite an 
 unimpeachable one. They did not give freedom 
 to their country ; hundreds of noble heroes and 
 martyrs perished in the unequal struggle without 
 realising their generous dream, because they were 
 left almost alone in the field. They received no 
 support worth the name either from the bulk of 
 Russian progressive parties or from European 
 public opinion, because the extreme rashness of our 
 revolutionary movement prevented them from being 
 known and accepted for what they really were. 
 And the reports circulated by the police about the 
 Nihilists' destructive anarchical tendencies and com- 
 plete absence of any positive ideals frightened the 
 good people in Russia and in Europe. Thus the 
 great movement for hberty of 1878-82 proved to be 
 as one-sided as that of 1859-62. The former was 
 supported by forcible pressure only, as the latter 
 only by moral. The amalgamation of all parties in 
 Russia, and the growing disposition of the public 
 opinion of the civilised world to do justice to the 
 champions of Russian freedom, are a guarantee that 
 this fatal dualism will not be repeated any more. 
 The physical attack to be efficient must be sup- 
 ported by the moral action of the public opinion of 
 the country and of the world. The moral action, 
 in order to become effective, must be supported by 
 
248 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 force of arms, by the effective or imminent insurrec- 
 tion, which we have analysed in this book, showing 
 its scope, its methods, and the forces which are at 
 its command. This is in reaHty not a revolution, 
 but only a revolt. Because by revolution a universal 
 catastrophe is generally meant. The insurrection 
 we are speaking of cannot be of this nature. From 
 the brief analysis of it we have made in our first 
 chapters, the reader might infer that the elements 
 on which until now the insurrection can depend are 
 town's people. There is no danger that such an 
 insurrection could be turned to the exclusive advan- 
 tage of the people living in the towns, thus necessi- 
 tating perhaps a new insurrection in favour of the 
 peasants, as a very thoughtful English critic has 
 observed.* Democracy is imposed in a country like 
 Russia. Whatever the elements which a town in- 
 surrection places at the head of the affair, they will 
 be obliged to make at once the greatest agrarian 
 concessions in favour of the peasants as the only 
 means to interest them in the maintenance of the 
 new regime, and prevent their being made an in- 
 strument of a counter-revolution. On the other 
 hand, it is as improbable that an insurrection, similar 
 to that of the Decembrists of 1825, would be a signal 
 for a general rising of the agricultural masses, 
 since there are no elements as yet in our villages 
 to echo it. The rising in the capital may certainly 
 have such an effect ; but later on, not now. At 
 present a successful insurrection in the towns, a 
 revolt made by the common efforts of those to whom 
 the present regime is no longer tolerable, will 
 * Bradford Obseiuer, September 4th, 1885. 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION ? 249 
 
 prevent and render unnecessary the destructive, 
 tremendous, and chaotic revolution of the masses, 
 prognosticated by Mr. Leroy Beaulieu as approach 
 ing and imminent. 
 
 Thus into his alternative : either a voluntary 
 resignation at short notice of the autocracy — which 
 is impossible, — or a revolution. I beg to introduce 
 a modification : the alternative is — either a revolt or 
 a revolution. 
 
 IIL 
 
 Which of the two shall we have ? It is difficult 
 to give an answer which would be taken as an 
 impartial one, free from the suggestions of party 
 spirit and party hope, and not open to the accusation 
 of party optimism. Let us rather try to understand 
 the working and the mutual relation of the elements 
 which are working together towards the revolt or 
 the revolution. 
 
 What is, to begin with, the immediate, the funda- 
 mental, the most palpable cause of the instability 
 of the autocracy in Russia ? It is its own insufficiency 
 and inadequacy to the task incumbent upon it. Pro- 
 tected by force of bayonets it can withstand as 
 yet the universal desire of the whole of educated 
 Russia and the attacks of the few. But nothing 
 can prevent the system from having its natural 
 effects, the first of which is the gradual impoverish- 
 ment of the agricultural masses. The frightful 
 misery of the bulk of our peasantry, which the 
 official press decried as the invention of the 
 socialist dreamers in 1873, is now a fact admitting 
 no discussion, acknowledged even by the official 
 
2 so THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 commission of "experts," and amply proved by 
 official statistics. I will mention briefly only a few 
 concluding facts from indisputable authorities. Pro- 
 fessor Janson, in his " Essay on the Peasant's Allot- 
 ment," has shown the deterioration of peasant's 
 agriculture, the insufficiency of land, the insufficiency 
 of pasture, the diminution in the number of cattle, 
 insufficiency of bread. Mr. One, one of our best 
 authorities on economical questions, has made the 
 stirring discovery that the average consumption of 
 bread, which is almost the exclusive food of our 
 peasantry, has diminished during the years 1861-79 
 at about 14 per cent. [Slovo for 1878, p. 120). 
 To conclude : quite recently — the 1 8th December, 
 1885 — a report on the sanitary condition of Russia 
 was read at the regular meeting of the Society of 
 Russian Surgeons, the well-known Mr. S. P. Botkin, 
 body-surgeon to the Emperor, in the chair. This 
 report points out the enormous mortality among 
 Russian people, surpassing normally what in other 
 countries is considered the precursor of epidemic 
 disease. In England, when the death-rate ap- 
 proaches 23 in 1,000, a regular inquiry and sanita- 
 tion of the district is prescribed by law, the case 
 being recognised as an abnormal one In Russia 
 the death-rate per 1,000 was above 31, sometimes 
 as high as 35. And the first cause of this frightful 
 mortality is stated simply and eloquently to be 
 deficiency of food l^bread). Novosty, 1 7th (30th), 
 December, 1885. 
 
 Neither is the chief cause of this wretched misery — 
 I may say, this chronic starvation — a secret. It lies 
 in the enormously high taxation, on the one hand, 
 
A KEVOLT OR A REVOLUTION ? 251 
 
 and the no less enormous malversation of the inferior 
 agents of the administration, to whom our peasants 
 are subjected, on the other. 
 
 In all states enjoying political freedom the taxes 
 are distributed in a certain proportion to the wealth 
 of the citizens, so that the rich classes bear a very- 
 considerable part of the state expenses. But in 
 despotic states it is the opposite line which is always 
 followed. Here the superior classes have almost 
 complete immunity from taxation, which lies almost 
 entirely on the poor classes alone. There is not 
 a single exception to this rule, and indeed there 
 can hardly be any. Free, self-governing countries 
 alone can lay heavy taxes on the superior classes, 
 without recoiling before the unavoidable conse- 
 quences of this. The despotic must be content 
 with ignorant peasants, accustomed to consider taxes 
 as a calamity inherent to earthly existence, and 
 paying taxes, however heavy, without inquiring 
 what is done with them. The educated classes, 
 when giving up their money, will jealously observe 
 how it is managed ; their hearts will bleed at the 
 spectacle of its dissipation. And the outcry for the 
 right of managing it by means of national representa- 
 tion will become more clamorous, and certainly more 
 general than at the sight of the most cynical violation 
 of individual liberties. I have already mentioned 
 how prudently the Russian Government has behaved 
 in this matter, when in 1871 the representatives of 
 our privileged classes, all the thirty-four Russian 
 zemstvos, were in favour of the freeing of the peasant 
 from exorbitant taxes, and petitioned for the intro- 
 duction of a progressive income tax on all citizens. 
 
252 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 The Tzar, "father of the peasants," cut short these 
 democratic desires. And from his point of view he 
 acted very wisely, unwilling as he was to add a 
 new and powerful stimulus to rebellion to the many 
 already existing. 
 
 Thus the famishing Russian peasants are the 
 chief, not to say the sole tax-payers, as they have 
 been before, and will be in the future, as long as the 
 autocracy exists. Of the total budget of the State, 
 the peasants, possessing only 30 per cent, of the cul- 
 tivable soil, pay no less than 83 per cent., leaving 
 to landowners and capitalists, having twice as much 
 landed property and five times as much capital, only 
 1 7 per cent. (According to Prince Variltchekoff 's 
 estimation the share of the peasants is 90 per cent., 
 and that of the other classes only 10 per cent.) Such 
 a burden must inevitably crush under its weight 
 the peasants whom the emancipation of 1861 — of 
 the greatest moral benefit — left very badly off as 
 far as concerns their material conditions. Our 
 moujik is no longer a citizen paying his share of 
 contribution to the State expenses. He is virtually 
 a serf of the State, obliged to give it in taxes about 
 one half, sometimes more, of his whole work time,* 
 — in the whole, more than they gave to their 
 seigneurs in the times of serfdom. And when 
 times are bad, and no extra revenue is forthcoming, 
 economy is made as to nourishment at the expense 
 of health and life, as we have just seen. For the 
 
 * I mean all the work done by a peasant during the year, both 
 on the land and in the towns. As to the land, which is the base 
 of taxation, it is often taxed beyond its total net produce. See 
 Professor Janson. 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION ? 2 53 
 
 State is a hard master, exacting unpaid taxes with 
 a cruelty which no modern conqueror would apply 
 in extorting contributions from a conquered land. 
 The insolvent are pitilessly flogged, and when this 
 punishment produces no effect, all the property of 
 the peasant — cattle, tools, houses — is sold by auction. 
 And yet, notwithstanding the panic dread inspired 
 by such summary punishment, every year there are 
 millions of arrears in the peasant payments, and 
 every year whole villages, sometimes whole districts, 
 are invaded by bands of soldiers and policemen, con 
 ducting the auctioneer, followed by a motley crew 
 of merchants, and the work of destruction begins, 
 leaving the village or the district devastated as by a 
 conflagration, and the whole population reduced to 
 irremediable ruin. 
 
 I hardly need dwell on the second cause of the 
 ruin of the peasants, the malversations of the inferior 
 police agents, administrators, those anxious to be 
 elected headmen, communal clerks, and all who are 
 willing to rob them with the easily obtainable assist- 
 ance of the administration. I will only say that the 
 amount of plundering and material harm (without 
 speaking of the other aspects) produced in this way 
 is simply enormous. The malversation going on in 
 the superior spheres of imperial administration is 
 great, but the wrong done to the totally helpless 
 and ignorant peasants entirely eclipses this. And 
 the autocracy is as impotent to prevent these mal- 
 versations as to disburden the peasants of their 
 weight of taxes. If changing the system of dis- 
 tribution of taxes means national representation at 
 short notice, the only remedy for these abuses is 
 
254 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 a free press, the free access of educated and really 
 " well-intentioned " elements to villages. This, in 
 the eyes of the Government at least, is social 
 revolution at once. 
 
 Thus the process of the progressive impoverish- 
 ment of the agricultural masses goes on, and must 
 go on its way, irremediable, fatal. And as certainly 
 it brings in a country like Russia the total econo- 
 mical, financial, and political decomposition of the 
 State, with all its natural consequences. 
 
 IV. 
 
 This process of undermining the very foundation 
 of the State is accompanied by another process of 
 quite an opposite character ; the continual and very 
 rapid growth of the culture, industry, and enlighten- 
 ment concentrated in the towns. The despotic 
 regime exercises its baleful influence everywhere 
 and in everything, in towns as well as in villages. 
 But the townspeople are much cleverer than the 
 peasants ; they have thousands of ways of escaping 
 the heavy hand of the Government ; they possess 
 the greater force which numbers give, and the 
 Government shows them always a certain regard. 
 Thus the action of the existing regime on town 
 life is only debilitating. 
 
 I have already spoken of the wonderful progress 
 of manufacturing industry. Whilst agriculture is 
 in continual depression, and, notwithstanding the 
 extension of great culture, the average value of 
 agricultural produce remains stationary, being about 
 1, 800 million roubles yearly, the value of manu- 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION? 255 
 
 facturing industry is continually increasing. From 
 1865 to 1878 its value increased to about five times, 
 and since then has increased again twice as much. 
 
 The population of the towns is rapidly increasing. 
 In 1 86 1 there were only six towns having more 
 than 100,000 inhabitants ; now the number is thirteen, 
 more than double. The number of provincial towns 
 having more than 10,000 inhabitants increased in 
 the same period from 185 to 315. And the total 
 town population has augmented about thirty-three 
 per cent. 
 
 The greatest progress was, however, made in the 
 domain of education, which is all the more striking, 
 as society had to overcome on this point relentless 
 obstruction on the part of the Government. The 
 best results were obtained, of course, in the higher 
 branches of education. Thus, in the last ten years 
 alone, the number of pupils in the colleges has in- 
 creased from 30,000 to 66,000 ; and the number 
 of students in the universities from 6,200 to 10,400. 
 And all those who know anything about Russia are 
 aware that the Government did all it could to tamper 
 with the high schools, considered to be the nurseries 
 of revolutionary agitation. Were it not for these 
 artificial obstacles the progress would have been 
 three times as great as it is. But even the pro- 
 gress achieved is wonderful, and hardly equalled in 
 another European country. Nothing, indeed, could 
 give better proof of the vigorous vitality of the 
 young Russian nation, or be of better promise for 
 its future. 
 
 The popular classes of the towns are not excluded 
 from the benefits of better education, and, let us 
 
256 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 observe, show no less anxiety about it. In the 
 capital, for example, the progress made in this 
 branch is one of the best trophies of our embryonic 
 self-government; from 1872 to 1882 the number 
 of schools has increased from 13 to 158, and the 
 number of pupils from some few scores which the 
 old schools hardly taught at all to 6,000 well- 
 taught children, the majority of whom belong to 
 the working class. 
 
 A century ago the culture introduced under the 
 auspices of Peter the Great, being superficial and 
 imitative, was the cause of the splitting of the 
 nation into two parts, divided by an almost im- 
 passable gulf. The modern culture, penetrating 
 the country in the teeth of the Government, acts in 
 quite an opposite way. Like the fabulous " healing 
 and vivifying water " of our popular legends, it 
 reunites the head of the nation to its maimed trunk, 
 infusing life and soul into the inert social body. It 
 destroys, on the one hand, the artificial barrier be- 
 tween the educated and uneducated classes, between 
 those wearing " German overcoats," and those wear- 
 ing the workmen's jacket, by destroying the class 
 prejudices inveterate in the latter. On the other 
 hand, in the well-to-do classes, it creates humanitarian 
 and democratic sentiments which draw them toward 
 the masses. 
 
 Here lies the real source of the Russian in- 
 ternal struggle. Nihilism, socialism, liberalism, 
 radicalism, are all but off-shoots. The root is 
 European culture. Autocracy and European culture 
 are incompatible. The more Europe advances in 
 her political liberty and culture, the keener will be 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION? 257 
 
 the disaffection, the jealousy, the shame, and the 
 anger the contrast will produce in Russian minds 
 imbued with it. 
 
 This culture, however, is spreading with remark- 
 able rapidity only in towns. In the villages education 
 promised to make as rapid progress as in the towns, 
 owing to the enthusiastic zeal with which the wishes 
 of peasants were met by our educated classes and 
 their representatives. But, as I have explained 
 elsewhere, the government stopped in the most 
 cynical, and I may say unprecedented way this 
 work of enlightenment. And its obstruction, which 
 can be overcome to a great extent in towns, is 
 unfortunately very effective in the villages. I do 
 not want to exaggerate anything ; and it would 
 be an exaggeration to say that popular education 
 is making no progress. Some progress is made 
 certainly, even under Count Tolstoi's ministry, but 
 it is extremely slow as compared with the magnitude 
 of the country. Thus culture is as yet the stimu- 
 lating element of a revolt, and not of a revolution. 
 
 But there are circumstances in which a revolt is 
 naturally converted into revolution. 
 
 Among the active body of Russian revolutionists 
 voices of bitter complaint are often raised against the 
 want of civil courage, resolution, and faithfulness to 
 their convictions of the bulk of Russian society, 
 which is liberal only in words, shrinking timidly 
 from any manifestation of opinions. The accusation 
 is, it must be confessed, not quite groundless, bui; 
 this does not prevent it from being unjust at 
 
 17 
 
258 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 bottom. In great masses the love of freedom can 
 never reach such intensity as to drive them to an 
 attack, the issue of which is an almost inevitable holo- 
 caust of the bulk of the assailants. This would be 
 the case only with comparatively small groups of 
 individuals. In all the revolutions the world has 
 ever seen, the masses were set in motion just at 
 the moment when there was a gleam of some chance 
 of victory. The greater these chances the bigger 
 the crowd. 
 
 In Russia, where the cultured classes are nume- 
 rically so feeble, the dangers and difficulties of an 
 open insurrection and the disproportion of forces are 
 so evident, that this " crowd " must naturally be very 
 diffident and slow in entering the lists. Thus the 
 natural difficulties of the struggle, already great, are 
 augmented tenfold. The Russian revolution must for 
 a certain time be the work of a comparatively small 
 group of men, surrounded by a crowd of irresolute 
 sympathisers. They are quite sincere in their sym- 
 pathy, often willing to give occasional help to the 
 strugglers. But they have no faith in the possi- 
 bility of success, and cannot, therefore, throw in their 
 lot with the revolution. To inspire this faith in 
 their hearts, and to convert them into actual sup- 
 porters, the revolutionists must show their strength in 
 deeds and not in words. The great difficulty is to 
 organise a body sufficiently strong to initiate the 
 insurrection and to keep the field for a certain time. 
 If not suppressed the first day, there are great 
 chances that the thousands and thousands who are 
 now irresolute and hopeless would join the banner of 
 the insurrection, rendering it no longer subduable. 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION? 259 
 
 There is nothing chimerical in such an expectation 
 in countries brimful of disaffection, and history 
 affords some instances of the success of similar 
 attempts. The temptation to try them is, therefore, 
 very great, I may say irresistible. Neither dis- 
 appointment nor cruel reprisals can prevent their 
 being renewed again and again. Provided latent 
 discontent exist, there will be always people suffi- 
 ciently bold and willing to risk their heads again and 
 again for such a golden prize. 
 
 The peculiarity in the respective positions of the 
 active and potential revolutionists explains to us 
 another characteristic of this period when the revo- 
 lution is, so to say, in its incubation. I mean the 
 possibility of preventing it by way of comparatively 
 moderate concessions, the more moderate the earlier 
 they are made. The bulk of society, timorous and 
 worried as it is, prefers to obtain something 
 without struggle and risk to risking everything for 
 more. The extreme party may be satisfied or dis- 
 contented as it likes, personal feelings and inclina- 
 tions have little weight in historical evolutions. With 
 good or bad grace they must accept the inevitable. 
 They have no more chance of success, of support, 
 or of continuance. 
 
 But in great revolutions, however, there comes 
 a very interesting moment, which is characterised 
 precisely by the reverse — the movement ceases to 
 be manageable. It acquires the character of some- 
 thing fatal, unconscious, incapable of arrest or guid- 
 ance. The concessions and reforms which the 
 frightened Government, awakening to the danger 
 too late, never fails to make, in order to propitiate 
 
2 6o THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 the howling monster, are no longer of any avail. 
 They only increase the fermentation, and augment 
 the ardour of the assailants, as so many tokens of 
 the weakness of the enemy. If the leaders of the 
 movement for the time being, frightened by the 
 aspect of what they foolishly think to be the work 
 of their hands, try to arrest it and oppose it, they 
 are pitilessly trampled down by the crowd thronging 
 behind them. New men immediately take the posts 
 they have left vacant, often to repeat the same 
 fallacious experiment, and to fall victims of the same 
 fruitless hesitation. It is no longer in human power 
 to arrest the development of the historical tragedy. 
 The revolution must sfo on as long: as it has not 
 consumed its own fuel. Then, and then only, it 
 remains motionless, like the avalanche which has 
 reached the plain. This indomitable character of the 
 popular moves is one of the most striking features 
 of the great French revolution — the one that 
 frightened most of the good people. 
 
 And yet all recognise that it was not always thus 
 in France and Paris. Many times the question was 
 asked, as M. Leroy Beaulieu tells us, when the 
 revolution would be arrested on its path by peaceful 
 reforms. Though he admits that nobody has an- 
 swered this question satisfactorily, by putting it, all' 
 acknowledge, as an incontestable truth, that there 
 was such a moment, when concessions, instead of 
 augmenting the fermentation, would have quieted 
 it and prevented the revolution. That, in a word, 
 French society, before entering upon the turbulent 
 revolutionary period, was in a state quite analogous 
 to that through which we think Russia is passing 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION? 26 1 
 
 now. And so it was really, but it changed. Was 
 it the intoxication of revolutionary ideas which 
 converted the very modest, timorous bourgeoisie, 
 so full of regard for, and obsequiousness to the 
 crown as the cahiers of 1789 show them to have 
 been, into fierce, uncompromising leaders and insti- 
 gators of the proletariat ? 
 
 There was certainly a good deal of enthusiasm 
 and excitement in this epoch — more than in any 
 other, — just as in modern Russia. But men are 
 always men, and it is quite improbable that the mass 
 of people would under any circumstances become 
 possessed of any very exalted and abstract ideals. 
 If by the magic shoes, described by Anderssen, 
 we could be transported into the epoch of the great 
 revolution at the time of its greatest effervescence, 
 inquiring into the minds and intellectual dispo- 
 sitions and aspirations of every unit composing 
 the collective being — that many-headed crowd, the 
 author of the revolution, — we should find most 
 likely something very incoherent, strange, and con- 
 tradictory ; something resembling the explanatory 
 answers which voters give sometimes when asked to 
 explain private aspirations which induced them to 
 vote as they did. Voices of exalted dreamers and 
 Utopians would sound powerful and passionate. 
 But, on the whole, such spiritual statistics would 
 undoubtedly show a surprising moderation, narrow- 
 ness of expectation and pettiness of individual desire, 
 especially in the beginning, when the revolution 
 was in its first bloom. So, at least, we may infer 
 from such authentic documents as show the 
 genuine thought of the men of the epoch. There 
 
2 62 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 would be, however, one thing not to be found in the 
 pubHc mind, and really distinguishing revolutionary 
 periods from all others ; that is, the firm and strong 
 belief rooted in the masses and individuals that the 
 time has arrived when all their grievances are to be 
 set right, — all their desires, the petty one as well as 
 the lofty, to be realised immediately, to-morrow, if 
 not to-day. And since all these desires can never 
 be realised at once, and the realisation of one wish 
 generates a new one, the masses rush forward and 
 forward, always discontented, always turbulent, 
 threatening, ready to be set on fire, certain to be 
 victorious and to carry their point. 
 
 I will not enumerate what created in the Parisian 
 crowd such convictions and such desires. These in- 
 fluences were numerous and various, some direct 
 ones, exciting people so as to make them forget 
 the dangers of the struggle ; the others, indirect, 
 showing the feebleness of the Government and 
 making people feel that there is little danger in 
 the assault. It is very suggestive, however, to 
 note that even in France, where great development 
 of the town element afforded extraordinary faci- 
 lities for the direct instigative influences, the most 
 decisive blow to the old rigime was given by 
 indirect influences, namely, by peasant risings, the 
 revival of the jacquerie, the campaign against the 
 castles. M. H. Taine mentions about 300 iso- 
 lated peasant rebellions during the period. And it 
 is known that the great revolutionary victories, be- 
 ginning with the famous night of the 4th August, 
 took place after the rising of the peasants. 
 
 There was nothing, or very little, of spiritual in- 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION ? 263 
 
 fluence and aspiration in these chaotic peasant 
 risings. Peasants are never influenced by the 
 abstract idea of liberty. Their risings were simply 
 the outburst of despair and misery ; the case with all 
 the numerous risings of which the Middle Ages wit- 
 nessed so many. They had nothing creative in 
 them, and had they occurred at another time they 
 would have been once more drowned in blood 
 without producing any consequence. But they 
 occurred at an epoch when a profound fermentation 
 and striving after liberty was going on in the centres 
 of intellectual and social life. And by materially 
 enfeebling and disorganising the Government, by 
 making a powerful diversion, to use military 
 terminology, the French peasants made the French 
 monarchy an easy prey for the proletariat guided by 
 the bourgeoisie of the towns. 
 
 Something very similar, though not identical, is 
 approaching in Russia. Peasant insurrections are 
 growing in Russia. In all countries, Russia in- 
 cluded, the peasants are a very patient, all-enduring 
 race. They are too much cowed by traditional sub- 
 jection. They are, moreover, quite isolated. No 
 separate peasant rising has any chance of victory, 
 and no simultaneous rising is possible. They rise out 
 of sheer despair when they cannot bear any more ; 
 when their condition is such that they have either 
 to die from hunger and misery, or to take the law 
 into their own hands. Such a moment is approach- 
 ing for hundreds of thousands, millions of Russian 
 peasants. To give complete evidence of my asser- 
 tion, I must show what are the momentous econo- 
 mical, intellectual, and moral changes, wrought in our 
 
264 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 village life since the emancipation of 1861. The 
 modern village and modern peasant are not those 
 of twenty-five years ago. Such a study is too 
 extensive to be made as a parenthesis. Here I will 
 quote only one instance, showing that in some 
 Russian provinces agrarian disturbances are assum- 
 ing already a somewhat serious character. 
 
 At the sitting of June 27th, 1883, the marshals 
 of the nobility of five districts of the Uffa province 
 stated in the name of their electors that the nobility 
 of their respective districts were quite unable to 
 enjoy their landed property. Peasants of Bashkir 
 origin, assisted by peasants of Russian origin, who 
 committed from time to time acts of plunder on 
 their property, have within the last two years de- 
 clared open war against them. In daylight, in bands 
 armed with axes, clubs, and guns, they come, take 
 possession of the land, and behave as masters. They 
 mow down dozens of acres of grass, and cut down 
 entire forests of wood. At the slightest sign of 
 resistance from the managers, proprietors, servants, 
 or representatives of local authority, the peasants 
 use arms, inflicting severe injuries or death upon 
 their enemies, and they plunder or burn the 
 buildings. 
 
 Here are some examples of their proceedings. 
 
 On January 13th, 1882, the Bashkir peasants of 
 the village Sharanbush arrived on twenty cars at 
 the estate of M. Tchlnghis, drove away the guards 
 of the forest, threatening to kill them, and pro- 
 ceeded to hew a great deal of wood, which was 
 then transported to their village. Two days after — 
 the 15th of the same month, — fifty peasants Invaded 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION ? 265 
 
 the same estate and offered violent resistance to the 
 mayor of the district, who tried to prevent them from 
 hewing the wood. In March, April, and May, the 
 incursions became so frequent that it was difficult to 
 ascertain their exact number. One of these inva- 
 sions was accompanied by the expulsion of the police 
 inspector of the fifth district, together with his men. 
 
 On May 5th, 1882, they appropriated and sowed, 
 without M. Tchinghis' permission, a piece of land 
 already ploughed by his men for his own use, and 
 on June 5th they mowed, without the proprietor's 
 leave, several acres of meadow. At the end of the 
 year the incursion turned into regular predatory 
 inroads. 
 
 On November 13th the peasants appeared in a 
 band of a hundred men, armed with guns and clubs, 
 and behaved as masters; on the 22nd, meeting 
 with some resistance, they dispersed and disarmed 
 the guards, who owed their life to the protection 
 of the mayor of the district (starshina). In January 
 1883 the peasants became undisputed masters of all 
 M. Tchinghis' woods, so that the proprietor did not 
 venture to provide himself with wood from his own 
 forest. 
 
 In other places things were no better. In De- 
 cember 1 88 1 the Bashkir peasants of the village 
 Abramov invaded in a crowd of seventy to eighty 
 people the estate of Major Tevkeleff, and routed and 
 dispersed the guards and male servants of the farm, 
 though these were supported by volunteers from a 
 neighbouring village. Then they set themselves 
 undisturbed to hewing wood, which they carried 
 safely to their village. Next year these invasions 
 
2 66 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 continued. The peasants went with a train of thirty 
 to forty carriages, protected by as many armed men, 
 and behaved as if on their own land. When the chief 
 guard Tchainysheff remonstrated, they threatened to 
 shoot him, and they attempted to kill with their 
 hatchets M. Biglow and his son, who took the part 
 of the proprietor. In February 1883 the peasants, 
 being attacked by the guards, fired a volley against 
 them, and put them to flight. 
 
 The nobleman, M. Karvovsky, repeats the same 
 sad dirge : — " From 1882 the noblemen's lands have 
 been lawlessly appropriated by the peasants of 
 Bashkir as well as of Russian origin, assaulting the 
 proprietors and their men, wounding and putting 
 them to death, burning the buildings, and divid- 
 ing among themselves the arable land thus ap- 
 propriated." 
 
 The nobleman V. Fok confirmed the above 
 statements. Agrarian outrages, according to him, 
 are spreading, and are committed in open daylight, 
 with unheard-of audacity. On his own estate all 
 the arable land is violently appropriated by the 
 peasants, the wood is all hewn down, the guards 
 dispersed, and one of them was brutally killed, then 
 sewn in a sack, and thrown on the road. 
 
 Similar events happened in half-a-dozen other 
 places. At the end of 1882, and the beginning 
 of 1883, the agrarian disturbances spread over four 
 districts. The estates of the noblemen Tevkeleffs, 
 Karvovsky, Shafranofi", Goriansky, Pokvistneff, 
 Krotloff, and many others, were appropriated by 
 force. To Mr. Rail, nobleman, the peasants, his 
 former serfs, sent a message intimating to him that 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION ? 267 
 
 they had passed at their meeting a resolution to 
 take for their use one of his fields of about sixty-two 
 acres, and were firmly resolved to carry their 
 resolution into effect. An identical intimation was 
 made to the Colonel of the Body Guards, Tevkeleff. 
 Few proprietors had the audacity to disobey. The 
 peasants never shrank from having recourse to vio- 
 lence. The landlord Karvovsky was beaten almost 
 to death, and saved his life by throwing himself 
 into the river. The manager of General Voronoff's 
 estate, in trying to dissuade from plunder a mob 
 of sixty peasants, was beaten severely, had one rib 
 broken, and died in the hospital. The farms of the 
 noblemen Lode, Aksenoff, Nelken, Beresovsky, were 
 burnt. In the spring of 1883, in Uffa district, the farm 
 of the nobleman Therniovsky was burned, and all the 
 five persons who occupied it massacred. In another 
 the nobleman Zabussoff was wounded by a gunshot. 
 
 The landlords, greatly cowed, abandoned by dozens 
 their estates, fleeing to the towns, where the police 
 were better able to protect them, and leaving their 
 estates to their fate. 
 
 Such were the facts brought to light at the sitting 
 of June 27th, 1883, of the Uffa nobility. The nobles 
 remonstrated against the laxity of the local autho- 
 rities, and moved a resolution to petition the Minister 
 of the Interior for measures " intended to re-establish 
 order in the Uffa province and to protect the Uffa 
 nobility against the growing violences of the pea- 
 sants." The motion was put to the vote by the 
 Marshal of Nobility, and carried by sixty-two votes 
 against eight, the ballot being secret. {Messenger 
 of Narodnaia Volia, No. 4, 1885.) 
 
268 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 These disturbances among the peasants — chiefly 
 of Bashkir origin — of the four districts of Uffa can 
 be certainly ascribed to a considerable extent to the 
 particularly disgraceful malversation in the land- 
 distribution made by the authorities some ten years 
 ago. But it must be remembered that the whole 
 agrarian arrangement created by the Act of 1861 is 
 in flagrant contradiction to the fundamental concep- 
 tions of all Russian peasants as to the tenure of 
 land. It is, therefore, only natural that agrarian 
 outrages and disturbances occur in many other 
 places, assuming sometimes serious proportions. 
 In the spring of 1884, in the province of Don, 
 agrarian disturbances occurred quite similar to those 
 of the Uffa province, and also necessitating the 
 intervention of troops. They were provoked ex- 
 clusively by the general influences common to all 
 Russian peasants. The landlords, having their 
 estates disposed all around the land of the peasants, 
 and holding in their power roads, pastures, and 
 wells, imposed on the helpless peasants such economic 
 slavery as drove them to ruin and open rebellion. 
 Agrarian crimes began first isolated, then assum- 
 ing by-and-by the character of inroads. Bands of 
 peasants armed with guns, clubs, and hatchets, 
 plundered farms, driving cattle, stealing corn, burning 
 buildings, and having regular battles and sieges 
 with the proprietors and their men. 
 
 The best-informed English papers send now and 
 then reports of the frequency of agrarian crimes 
 throughout Russia — a question on which Russian 
 papers are bound to keep unbroken silence. Quite 
 recently the Odessa correspondent of the Daily 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION ? 269 
 
 News (February i8th, 1886) sent the following in- 
 teresting account : — 
 
 " I am told on the best authority that the number 
 of agrarian crimes is greatly increasing in almost 
 every part of Russia, and especially in the southern 
 provinces. This fact is said to be undoubtedly owing 
 to the incessant agitation carried on in the country 
 by the emissaries of the Revolutionary party (?). 
 A colonel, who is president of one of the many 
 court-martials which are in constant activity in the 
 southern provinces since they have been declared in 
 a state of siege, has given me anything but a satis- 
 factory description of the state of things there. The 
 discontent amongst the peasants is deeper than it 
 ever was before, and the landowners are living in 
 continual fear that the peasants will do them some 
 injury. This statement is not exaggerated. You 
 remember, perhaps, the following words in the 
 recently-published address from the nobility in the 
 Simbirsk district : ' We hope that measures will be 
 taken in order to enable us to live in security on our 
 estates.' The president of the court-martial I have 
 already referred to told me that only about ten per 
 cent, of the offences he had had to judge were of 
 a military nature. All the others were agrarian. 
 Socialist, or Nihilist in their character." 
 
 (The reader must remember that all political 
 offences there, which the writer calls Nihilist and 
 Socialist, are dealt with by military tribunals.) 
 
 These isolated examples show that all is not peace 
 and obedience in the green fields and hamlets of 
 holy Russia. 
 
 Well ; from the moment when such disturbances 
 
270 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 cease to be isolated, when they spread over pro- 
 vinces as they are spreading now over districts, 
 when they happen in some central province, and not 
 at the extremities of the Empire, some chamberlain 
 of the Tzar, who has a bit of brain in his head, 
 will be able to say to Alexander III., "Sire, it is 
 not a revolt, but a revolution." 
 
 The town elements are very feeble in Russia 
 compared with those of the France of Louis XVI. 
 The "diversion" of the agrarian insurgent must be 
 very great indeed to enable St. Petersburg to play 
 the part of Paris. But we have, on the other hand, 
 our compensation in the closer union of the towns 
 with the villages, which disappeared entirely in 
 France at the end of the eighteenth century. The 
 workmen of the towns are many of them peasants 
 who have their family and relatives in the villages, 
 and have kept up their communications with them. 
 The educated classes — the " intelligence " as we 
 call it — are attracted by all their sympathies to the 
 peasants also. 
 
 Then another peculiarity of Russia is the 
 enormous amount of combustible elements embodied 
 in men and parties in whom the unheard-of cruelties 
 of the latter day despotism of the Romanoffs have 
 developed an intensity of hatred and resoluteness 
 of action unknown to men under the comparatively 
 mild despotism of the last Bourbons. Any serious 
 symptom of the approaching popular storm will have 
 a tremendous echo in our towns. Surrounded and 
 prompted by the general excitement among the 
 well-to-do and working classes, the subversive 
 elements in which excitement will reach its highest 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION ? 27 1 
 
 pitch are prepared by their traditions and their 
 utter carelessness about personal dangers, to act 
 with the greatest energy against the central 
 organs of the Government. On the other hand, 
 this excitement will re-echo to the villages. No one 
 who knows our " intelligence " and revolutionist 
 workmen, can doubt that a considerable part of these 
 elements will rush headlong to the villages that 
 rise. The most gifted of them will find means to 
 acclimatise themselves to their new environment, 
 and will give to a Russian jacquerie the tenacity, 
 organisation, and military direction, which the 
 French had not. Save the reactionary, Vendeen 
 jacquerie, the only one which obtained vast assist- 
 ance from cultured and intelligent elements, that 
 transformed it from a peasants" rising into regular 
 guerilla warfare, the most dangerous and durable of 
 all. Perhaps the only form of warfare for coping with- 
 regular forces after the invention of metallic cart- 
 ridges and breechloaders, which render in our days 
 open street fighting extremely hazardous. Little 
 Poland, withstanding for fourteen months the efforts 
 of 100,000 Russian bayonets, has shown in compara- 
 tively recent times the great tenacity and strength 
 of guerilla warfare, for which Russia in general, with 
 its enormous distances and vast forests and marshes, 
 affords peculiar facilities. 
 
 Nobody can force the march of a momentous 
 historical crisis. But it seems but an inference from 
 our social condition to suppose that the crisis will be 
 the combined effort of the town and rural elements. 
 Since the latter have to play a much more active 
 part than in any former revolution, the Russian 
 
272 THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 revolution will very likely assume a more violent 
 and destructive character than any of its predecessors. 
 There is, indeed, much exaggeration on this point. 
 Russian peasants are not at all as wild as they are 
 supposed to be, and their old hatred to all bearing 
 the stamp of civilisation has greatly subsided since 
 the emancipation. But the rural crowd is always 
 more violent when excited than the proletariat of 
 the towns, and it will most likely fulfil some of the 
 gloomy forebodings nourished in respect to it. This 
 cannot be helped. 
 
 The conflagration once begun at both ends will 
 cease to be controllable by human will. And it 
 will be the duty of the extreme party, whatever the 
 name it bears then, to take part in the movement 
 whatever it be, to try to minimise its ferocity as far 
 as possible, but to secure its victory at any price, at 
 the expense of any sacrifice. 
 
 But is this fierce cataclysm really likely to 
 happen? The Government — a clique of brazen- 
 headed courtiers and sycophants like Tolstoi, 
 Pobedonorzeff, and Katkoff, — they are the masters of 
 Russia, not Alexander III. Does it really require 
 for its overthrow the fermentation and violent con- 
 vulsion of an enormous nation of one hundred 
 millions of people ? The classes in which keen 
 discontent is not blinded by ignorance of the cause 
 of their sufferings, will they be really unable to get 
 rid of the absurd and antediluvian autocracy without 
 appealing to the horrors of a popular insurrection ? 
 No ; we will never admit it for a moment. We believe 
 too much in the patriotism of the Russian people of 
 all classes and shades of opinions — revolutionists and 
 
A REVOLT OR A REVOLUTION ? 273 
 
 liberals, civilians and military, — to admit for our 
 country the possibility of such a shame. We believe 
 in a political revolution — in a revolt. Through 
 many trials, misfortunes, and fruitless hecatombs 
 of lives the glorious moment of the revival of the 
 Decembrist traditions will come, and it is right that 
 Europe should know beforehand what to expect 
 from it and with whom to side. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed by Hazell, Watson, Si. Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 
 
 18 
 
m^mji'^ :■