IV
The general strike and uprising of October, 1905, compelled the obstinate Czar to “grant” a tolerable constitution. It seemed that the long struggle had come to an end, that the desired goal having been reached, the bitterly fought-for concession having been attained, there was no reason for continuing the bloody war between the government and the people. The Manifesto of 30 (17) October, 1905, pledged liberty of speech, press, and public meetings, equal rights for all, and a representative government with a comparatively liberal election-system.
Only those who happened to abide in Russia during the autumn months of 1905 are able to comprehend the indescribable joy of the population at the announcement of the Manifesto. An intoxication of happiness reigned all over the country, strangers embraced and kissed each other, everyone was addressed with the hearty “comrade,” a sincere feeling of brotherhood and mutual love overfilled all hearts, and from Finland to farthest Siberia, from the polar regions to the Black Sea, over the entire vast empire thundered the exalted cry: “Long live liberty!”
The enchantment, however, was of a short duration. The people soon found out that they had put too much confidence in the paper pledge of the Czar, and that they should not have laid their weapons aside. The solemn promise declared from the heights of the throne was broken. One after one the pledged liberties were taken away, and a wave of brutal repression and massacre swept over the tormented land. Only too late one could recollect with the American Russologue Joubert, the ever-new aphorism of Bertrand: “The tree of liberty can grow only when it is watered with the blood of the tyrants.”
The government recovered its senses after the first collapse, and decided to play its game on the obscurity and ignorance of the army. The simple-minded soldiers, themselves miserable peasants or workingmen, were ordered to shoot and flog their fathers and brothers, their friends and defenders; and they fulfilled their official duty with incomparable brutality. The revolution was betrayed and strangled. Its leaders were shot, hanged, or banished; the free press shut up, liberal parties and meetings forbidden, and once more the monster-bureaucracy held in its claws the palpitating unhappy land.