XXIII THE STUDENT BODY IN RUSSIA
Not very long after the dismissal of the former minister of education, Sänger, I sought out a certain university professor who had been mentioned to me as being accurately informed about university affairs. Of course, my visit to him had been carefully planned, for it is not possible in Russia for a person—least of all if he be an official—to express himself freely to strangers.
The information which I received from this authority on the general political and economic position of Russia agreed with the discussions I had heard on every side. Misery, despair, inevitable collapse, these were the words which were most noticeable in his description, too, and it would be almost superfluous for one to reproduce the conversation unless certain additional details had been brought out which are particularly characteristic of the intense ferment in which intellectual Russia is at just this time involved.
Just previously several students had been arrested. I asked about the cause of the arrest and the probable fate of the young folks. A demonstration in favor of the Japanese had been held by the students, and had been reported. This was the cause of the arrest. "As yet nothing can be said about the fate of the incautious young men," the professor answered.
"You say that the students held a demonstration for the Japanese? It is scarcely credible!"
"And yet it is true. All enlightened people, and accordingly the students, too, regard the Japanese as an unexpected ally in their fight against the existing conditions, and so sympathy for them is not concealed. And, besides, aversion to them as a nation does not exist."
"But it is the very brothers and fellow-countrymen of the students who must pay for it with their own blood if the Japanese retain the upper hand!"
"That is partially true. But, first of all, Poles, Jews, and Armenians have been sent to the seat of war, so that the Russian families do not as yet feel the war so keenly; and then the Russian is used to the idea that there must be bloody sacrifices for the cause of freedom. At any rate, those who were arrested are much nearer the other students than the troops who have gone to the front."