Peter the Great (1689-1725) was remorseless in his punishment of those who revolted, as in the case of the streltzi; the rebellion of the Cossacks of the Don; that of Mazeppa, the hetman of the Little-Russian Cossacks; he inaugurated serfdom, and tortured his own son, Alexis, to death.
The rule of Paul was intolerable; he was won over by the artful diplomacy of Napoleon, and assassinated in March, 1801. In the Polish insurrection of 1831 the people were ground to powder.
Alexander II. (1855-1881) emancipated the serfs in 1861. It was freedom only in name. Nihilism sprang up and flourished frightfully. Where his father daily walked unattended, Alexander was in hourly peril. April 16, 1866, he was shot at by a Pole; the following year another Pole shot at him while visiting Napoleon at Paris; April 14, 1879, another Pole attempted to kill him. The same year saw the first attempt to blow up the United Palace and to wreck the train upon which the Czar was riding from Moscow to St. Petersburg. A similar conspiracy was successful, March 13, 1881. Five of the conspirators, including a woman, were executed. Alexander ruled twenty-six years, and left Russia exhausted by wars and honeycombed by plots.
He was succeeded by the present Alexander, whose reign has been characterized by conspiracies and the constant depredations of suspected persons.
The mines of Siberia have been the living death of hundreds of thousands of patriots. More than 50,000 Poles were transported thither after the insurrection of 1863. Since the opening of the present century more than 600,000 men, women, and children have been sent to Siberia. All are in the depths of utter misery and despair. Out of 200,000, more than one-third have disappeared without being accounted for. From 20,000 to 40,000 are living the life of brodyaghi—that is, trying to make their way through the forests to their native provinces in Russia.
And yet nihilism, socialism, the spirit of revolt, are more powerful than ever, and ere long will come the upheaval, when all shall be overturned and “the old shall pass away and all things become new.”
The Russian nobility, with the Czar at their head, as the high priest of “caste,” are solely and entirely responsible for the spirit of anarchy and nihilism which is abroad in the domain of immense Russia. It is a fashion and the fancy of the sham aristocracy in this country to inveigh against anything like socialism, nihilism, and anarchism in America. Should the presence of this dread monster, called nihilism, ever be felt in America, the blame would rest entirely upon the shoulders of the sham aristocrats, just as the Czar and his nobles in Russia are responsible for its presence in that country. There must be a vent for the pent-up indignation of the people; this is, happily for us, found in the ballot-box. It is to this source of relief that we are indebted for the non-existence of socialism in America. It has not been the prudence, wisdom, or consideration of the sham aristocrats which prevents the growth of nihilism here.