Russia

by Donald Mackenzie Wallace

The theory propounded in these documents is that a lawless, arbitrary bureaucracy, which seeks to exclude the people from all participation in the management of public affairs, has come between the nation and the Supreme Power, and that it is necessary to eliminate at once this baneful intermediary and inaugurate the so-called "reign of law." For this purpose the petitioners and orators demanded:

(1) Inviolability of person and domicile, so that no one should be troubled by the police without a warrant from an independent magistrate, and no one punished without a regular trial;

(2) Freedom of conscience, of speech, and of the Press, together with the right of holding public meetings and forming associations;

(3) Greater freedom and increased activity of the local self-government, rural and municipal;

(4) An assembly of freely elected representatives, who should participate in the legislative activity and control the administration in all its branches;

(5) The immediate convocation of a constituent assembly, which should frame a Constitution on these lines.

Of these requirements the last two are considered by far the most important. The truth is that the educated classes have come to be possessed of an ardent desire for genuine parliamentary institutions on a broad, democratic basis, and neither improvements in the bureaucratic organisation, nor even a Zemski Sobor in the sense of a Consultative Assembly, would satisfy them. They imagine that with a full-fledged constitution they would be guaranteed, not only against administrative oppression, but even against military reverses such as they have recently experienced in the Far East—an opinion in which those who know by experience how military unreadiness and inefficiency can be combined with parliamentary institutions will hardly feel inclined to concur.

It may surprise English readers to learn that the corruption and venality of the civil and military administration, of which we have recently heard so much, are nowhere mentioned in the complaints and remonstrances; but the fact is easily accounted for. Though corrupt practices undoubtedly exist in some branches of the public service, they are not so universal as is commonly supposed in Western Europe; and the Russian reformers evidently consider that the purifying of the administration is less urgent than the acquisition of political liberties, or that under an enlightened democratic regime the existing abuses would spontaneously disappear.

The demands put forward in St. Petersburg did not meet with universal approval in Moscow. There they seemed excessive and un-Russian, and an attempt was made to form a more moderate party. In the ancient Capital of the Tsars even among the Liberals there are not a few who have a sentimental tenderness for the Autocratic Power, and they argue that parliamentary government would be very dangerous in a country which is still far from being homogeneous or compact. To maintain the integrity of the Empire, and to hold the balance equally between the various races and social classes of which the population is composed, it is necessary, they think, to have some permanent authority above the sphere of party spirit and electioneering strife. While admitting that the Government in its present bureaucratic form is unsatisfactory and stands in need of being enlightened by the unofficial classes, they think that a Consultative Assembly on the model of the old Zemski Sobors would be infinitely better suited to Russian wants than a Parliament such as that which sits at Westminster.

For a whole month the Government took little notice of the unprecedented excitement and demonstrations. It was not till December 25th that a reply was given to the public demands. On that day the Emperor signed an ukaz in which he enumerated the reforms which he considered most urgent, and instructed the Committee of Ministers to prepare the requisite legislation. The list of reforms coincided to a certain extent with the demands formulated by the Zemstvos, but the document as a whole produced profound disappointment, because it contained no mention of a National Assembly. To those who could read between the lines the attitude of the Emperor seemed perfectly clear. He was evidently desirous of introducing very considerable reforms, but he was resolved that they must be effected by the unimpaired Autocratic Power in the old bureaucratic fashion, without any participation of the unofficial world.