Next in revolutionary influence came the New Life (Novaya Zhisn), generally known as Maxim Gorky’s paper. He certainly supplied the money and its general policy. Sometimes he wrote a long letter or address in it, and his present wife, the actress of his plays, was nominally editor. But, even when Gorky was in St. Petersburg, which was very seldom, the paper was really conducted by the poet Minsky and a few other Social Democrats of high education and theoretic knowledge. The sternest and most official organ of that sect, it followed Marx with doctrinaire exactness, and its teaching was impeded by the stiffness and pedantry that characterize the Social Democrats even in England. No one could question the skill and enthusiasm of its attacks upon the oligarchy and capitalists, but it often devoted more space to sour depreciation of other good Socialists who doubted if Marx had said the last word in human history. It was like a really clever staff officer who, on the morning of the battle, goes from brigade to brigade telling the soldiers what fools all the other officers have made of themselves, and what an immense disaster will ensue if his own plan of attack is not adopted. So it often happened that the truest friends of the movement were in despair at the vanity and exclusiveness of the New Life, and irretrievable opportunities passed by while its staff of editors were arranging the future of humanity in neat little circles and squares, as though they were the Creator and men were as obedient as the stars. If you work on German first principles, you are likely to arrive at queer conclusions, because mankind was not made in Germany. But still there was no denying the paper’s honesty and zeal, nor its great influence within its own wide circle of well-disposed and intelligent people.
The Son of the Country (Syn Otetchestva) was an old paper; it had been running off and on for nearly a century; but, since the manifesto, it had become extreme in its Liberalism, and could be grouped as a new paper among the Social Democratic organs. All Russians admitted that it was particularly well written, and being far less pedantic than the New Life, it was read by every advanced party and promised to become one of the strongest papers of the revolution.
While I was still in St. Petersburg, at the end of November, some of the famous exiles, who had begun to return to Russia under the promised amnesty, started a paper called the Beginning (Natchalo). It was distinctly Social Democratic, and perhaps the leading spirit on it was Vera Sassoulitch, who had failed in an attempt to assassinate Trepoff’s father during the most gloomy period of tyranny, twenty years before. She had returned from Geneva, old and grey and wrinkled, but almost any night she was to be seen sitting out the revolutionary meetings, talking, writing, or stitching with unflagging energy, and on her face and in her pale grey eyes a fixed and beaming smile, as though at the fulfilment of hopes for which she and so many others had been willing to give their lives.
Not definitely connected with social democracy, but extreme in its opposition to the Government, there was another new paper called Our Life (Nacha Zhisn), which was started in September and at once was recognized for its excellent news and management. It has since increased its reputation, and become one of the leading papers in Russia.
But at that time perhaps the very best of all the papers, both for news and leading articles, was Russia (Russ). It had been founded three years before, but began to redate its numbers from the Manifesto of October 30th. During the war, it won a reputation by an overwhelming exposure of army scandals, and under the movement it was almost universally read for its progressive policy and fearlessness of speech. At the time, it was edited by one of the sons of Suvorin, the famous editor of the Novoe Vremya. Such divergence of political views must have strained the conversation at the family dinner-table, and perhaps it was really a relief at home when the son was shut up in prison, and the paper appeared under the new title of Molva.
The two Jewish papers—the News (Novosti) and the Stock Exchange Gazette (Birshevza Viedomosti)—were both old, one being nearly the oldest paper in Russia, and the other having run twenty-five years, but both had become very Progressive or even revolutionary. For in Russia, Jews are inevitably revolutionists, however much against their own nature, and the Stock Exchange paper was one of the most advanced political organs in the Empire, and had the best news.
At that time, two other Progressive papers had just been started—Dawn (Rassiojet) and Russia Renewed (Obnovlionnaya Rossiu), and at Moscow, Professor Miliukoff was on the point of bringing out his new paper called Life (Zhisn) of which I may speak later on. But there seemed no end to the number of excellent journalists that Russia could supply, just as there seemed no end to the number of excellent speakers. When I think of that sudden outburst of talent, I remember the saying of an Englishman who had lived thirty years in Russia and professed a good-humoured contempt for the whole people from the Court to the dustmen; “But unquestionably,” he always added, “they are the most intelligent race in the world.” In reality, however, it was intensity of conviction and present sense of wrong which converted those inexperienced men into such effective writers and speakers. Where conviction is sincere, habit and training are best away, just as really sincere and original dramas should be performed only by actors unhabituated to the stage.
To oppose these battalions of progress, there were only three or four journals on the reactionary side, and it is significant that none of these were new and nearly all were subsidized. First came the New Time (Novoe Vremya), almost the only Russian paper which is well known by name outside Russia. It is the Times of Russia, steadily on the side of the Government, the reaction, and the moneyed classes. Scornful of enthusiasm, deaf to every idea, incredulous of every hope, always ready to impute the vilest motives to reform, it stands like an impenetrable barrier on the road of human progress. Proclaiming itself the champion of stability, and taking law and order for its motto, and the price of funds for its test, it succeeds in pleasing the financier and the official, and its cynical disregard of humanity is matched by its unquestioned influence for evil. A certain dignity of tone, combined with the excellence of its foreign news, has given it a reputation for sobriety and truth, but against the rights of freedom it is virulent in its animosity, and against a leader of the people it will welcome any libel without reserve. To discover where justice lies, one has but to take the opposite view to its own, and to agree with it is a danger-signal that one’s sense of right has gone astray. Yet in moments of deep indignation against some governmental shame, it will affect the popular tone and act the reformer’s part with whines and deprecations. The scandals of the Japanese war were too flagrant even for its compliant worship of birth and rank, and after the Manifesto had granted freedom of speech it began to demand that freedom with righteous solicitude.
On the same side, though inferior in skill and reputation, stood the Citizen (Grashdanin), heavily subsidized by the Government, and possessing, it was said, a particular influence over the Tsar’s perplexed little mind; and the Petersburg News, also subsidized, but indignant none the less about the war scandals and the Grand Dukes.
Last of this group came the Word (Slovo), once famous for its violent attacks upon errors in high places, and for its fearless defence of freedom, especially on behalf of the Old Believers. But after the Manifesto appeared, the tone of the paper changed, and instead of joining like others in the joy of victory, it grew more and more sullen and distrustful of progress. Whether money was the motive of the change, as rumour said, I did not discover, but the paper’s influence had to be counted among the reactionary forces, and it was a strong paper.