The opponents of the Government, however, say that it is making for disorder, and point to the massacres of the Jews in the provinces. The Kronstadt mutiny is said not to have been political; nevertheless if the sailors had not got drunk, nothing could have prevented their blowing Peterhof to bits. A universal strike is threatened immediately.
November 17th.
Last night, while I was at the Opéra Bouffe, where the “Country Girl” was being given, the electric light went out. The performance continued all the same; the actors holding bedroom candles in their hands, while the auditorium remained in the dimmest of twilights. This is owing to the strike.
November 21st.
I started for London.
CHAPTER VI
MOSCOW—THE DECEMBER RISING
Moscow, December 12th.
When one is in England it is very difficult to form an idea of what is taking place in Russia, and this is not owing to the absence but to the superabundance of news concerning Russian events. One cannot see the wood for the trees. In Russia there is also a superabundance of news and of rumours; but merely by walking about in the streets one is brought face to face with certain facts, enabling one to check the news to some extent. I have been in Russia a week, at St. Petersburg, and I arrived here yesterday. In St. Petersburg the impression that a stranger receives on arriving is that everything is going on exactly the same as usual. The streets are crowded, the shops are all open, and there is nothing to show that the country is in a state of revolution.
The postal strike was over in St. Petersburg when I arrived, and it is now over here, although, owing to the dislocation and the arrears, the postal service is at this moment almost imperceptible.
With regard to political matters, the main impression one receives is that the revolutionary party is admirably organised, and although there are dissensions among it—as, for instance, between the Social Revolutionaries and the Social Democrats—they are willing if not ready to coalesce at any given moment against the Government, whereas the body of people who do not side with the revolutionaries are split up into various groups, differing on some of the most important points of policy. Perhaps the most important of these groups is the Constitutional Democratic Party, which is in favour of universal suffrage and a National Assembly.