A year in Russia

by Maurice Baring

Especially remarkable are the various shapes taken by the criticism directed against Count Witte by the various parties. Roughly speaking, this criticism may be divided into three heads:

1. The revolutionaries (including the Constitutional Democrats) say that Count Witte is a Bureaucrat; that nothing good can come of him, and that he and his régime must go.

2. The Moderates—I call them Moderates for want of a better word—say that Count Witte has not proved himself to be equal to his task; that since the publication of the Manifesto he has not formulated a single law save an ineffectual one with regard to the Press.

3. The reactionary Nationalists say that Count Witte is a traitor, that he has been bought by the Jews and is playing for a Republic. There is a sentence of Napoleon’s which perhaps may occur to Count Witte under the present circumstances: “Un homme d’état est-il fait pour être sensible? N’est-ce pas un personnage complètement excentrique, toujours seul d’un côté, avec le monde de l’autre?” Count Witte is at this moment completely “excentric.” If he succeeds—and by succeeding I mean remaining in power until the Duma meets—his triumph will be great. To give some idea of the atmosphere which we vaguely call public opinion, I will quote some of the obiter dicta I have heard since I have been here. That Count Witte is a cunning old fox, worse than Plehve. That Count Witte is not what he was; that he is merely incapable of executing what he undertook. That Count Witte is the most far-seeing man in Russia; that he centralised Russia in order to lead to a revolution, and thus make radical changes easier; that he placed the railways in the hands of the State and created the spirit monopoly in order to have no private interests to deal with when the crash should come. That Count Witte is a Radical of the type of Robespierre, and will only declare himself to be on the side of popular representation when the upper classes are entirely destroyed.

That the Government is too weak, and that it all comes from having been too weak from the first and from not having hanged the Kronstadt mutineers. That the Government was too reactionary from the first, and that it destroyed the confidence of the people by establishing martial law in Poland directly after the Manifesto. That the régime of Plehve was better than the present state of anarchy. That the present régime is more reactionary than the system of Plehve. That with a Government as revolutionary as the existing one nothing good can be expected; that the Constitution should be withdrawn, the Emperor should be deposed and another appointed, and that Count Witte should be hanged. That the Government has not been explicit enough; that a programme including two Legislative Chambers—an Upper and Lower Chamber—should be published and sworn to by the Emperor, and that the utmost severity should be employed, after that, in case of necessity. That no Government at all is necessary in Russia; only a Bund, a Council of Empire, which should meet once a year and manage the railways; that the Army should be disbanded and the country entirely decentralised. That a Dictator should be appointed at once, and 10,000 “intellectuals” arrested.

That the revolutionaries merely want to destroy any form of government as an act of revenge; that they are as the Irish, “agin the Government”; that this act of revenge is not surprising, considering they are smarting under the monstrous wrong which has been done them for years, i.e., misgovernment carried to the extreme. That nothing can possibly restore peace to Russia except universal suffrage, and that Russia being by nature more democratic than other European countries need not feel herself bound to follow their example, but must proceed straight to universal suffrage. That the Emperor should go to Moscow. That if the Emperor goes to Moscow it would excite the peasants to kill the middle and upper classes. That this would be a bad thing. That this would be a good thing. That if the Emperor goes to Moscow he will be killed. That it is nonsense to think the Emperor would be killed at Moscow; that his position cannot be worse than it is, but might be improved by such a step. That the Kremlin would be a safer residence than the Tsarskoe Selo. That the Emperor must take an oath to the Constitution, and give guarantees that it will not be withdrawn. That the Emperor should put himself at the head of the peasants and the Army and snap his fingers at the Socialists and the landlords and give the peasants the land.

All these opinions I have heard from Russians since I have been here. In St. Petersburg considerable anxiety was felt as to what would happen in Moscow on the occasion of the Emperor’s birthday (to-day), since the reactionary party—the “Alliance of Russian People”—had requested and been allowed to organise a demonstration opposite the Kremlin. These fears, however, proved groundless. I was present at the demonstration. The holy banners were carried in procession from the Kremlin to the public place outside the Kremlin walls, where a service was held. The procession then returned into the Kremlin at twelve o’clock. There was a small crowd looking on, and one man (a butcher) made a speech, saying that the Emperor had been terrorised into giving a Constitution, but that he would be requested to take it back again. The crowd cheered, and one policeman repeated five times that the speaker was a fine fellow. The crowd then marched in procession to the Governor-General’s house, and Admiral Dubassoff spoke to the crowd. This crowd was a ridiculously small one; it dispersed at noon. The population of Moscow was conspicuous by its absence.

A great deal is talked at present about the doings of the hooligans in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In St. Petersburg the number of beggars in the street is remarkable; here the doings of the hooligans are said to take place mostly at night. One hears on all sides that the state of things is impossible and that the streets are unsafe, yet they are crowded with people all day long. There appears also to be some danger from the reckless way in which the population toy with “Browning” pistols in self-defence, but except for this and the hooligans there is no kind of danger for foreigners here.

The state of the Army here has caused the Government a good deal of alarm. The mutiny in the Rostov Regiment came to an abrupt end yesterday, and to-day news has arrived of a manifesto granting the soldiers extra pay, extra meat, and soap. The discontent among the soldiers and sailors has been up to now in every case economical and not political, therefore it is thought that if the economical demands are satisfied the discontent will disappear. It will be well for the Government if it does, for in the long run the ultimate issue of the conflict must depend on the Army, and the symptoms which have declared themselves up to now are not reassuring. It is quite possible, however, that the soap and the blankets which are to be given to the men may allay their political restlessness. The Cavalry is said to have been all along thoroughly reliable.

Moscow, December 28th.