CHAPTER XVIII. RUSSIA.
At the very name of Russia a kind of horror fills the souls of those who love liberty, equality, and detest “caste” and oppression. Russia is a veritable blot upon the civilization of the nineteenth century. She furnishes an example of all that was horrible under the old monarchical governments of Europe. Russia’s social life is honeycombed with anarchy, nihilism, and hatred. Beneath the surface, made smooth by military despotism, there burns the fierce fires of inextinguishable hatred. The people are deprived of those rights and liberties enjoyed by the citizens of even those monarchical governments by which Russia is surrounded, curtailed though those privileges may appear to the free American citizen. Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Italy are almost respectable in comparison with Russia. There can be, of course, but one end to such a condition—we can hardly call it civilization—in that tremendous empire. Revolution and anarchy in its worst form will sooner or later drench the soil of Russia with blood.
Unfortunately for the future welfare and happiness of the Russians, their autocratic master, the Czar, permits no existence of a vent-hole or crater of the volcano upon which the nation slumbers. An election like that of November 8th in America relieves the pressure. In Russia, the discontent of the Common People, and all expression of it, are suppressed by the iron hand that controls the vast horde of soldiers of which he is master. Russia’s history and record present not one shining spot to relieve the dark picture of crime, ignorance, oppression, intolerance, and the suffering of the Common People.
Briefly, Russia contains one-sixth of the land of the entire globe and one-quarter of the inhabitants. The government is an absolute and strongly centralized monarchy. It is one of the most arbitrary and merciless despotisms on the face of the earth.
As the positive and negative poles of an electric battery, or as like and unlike attract, there has long been a strong friendship between Russia and our country. The two represent the antipodes of government.
From the period of the appenages (small, petty States, 1054-1238) the enmity has been in a state of smothered or open revolt. It was overrun by the fierce Mongols and held under their iron yoke from 1238 to 1462. During that period Moscow and many other cities were burned and the country devastated.
Ivan III. (1263), during his reign of 43 years, did much to consolidate the empire, and introduced the knout as an agent of civilization.
Ivan IV., known as Ivan the Terrible, was a ferocious monster (1533-1584), who first assumed the title of Czar (a Slavonic form of the Latin Cæsar), committed numerous atrocities, and killed his eldest son by a blow in a fit of anger.