A year in Russia

by Maurice Baring

On the other hand I think we fail—I am alluding to Englishmen who visit Russia, and not to those who live here permanently—to realise that the Russians have been up to now destitute of certain guarantees which Englishmen regard as a matter of course, and that they do not consider they have obtained these guarantees yet; and here it is difficult to contradict them.

Lately an incident happened which has proved a kind of focussing glass concentrating the opinions of both parties. The revolutionaries walked into the house of the head of the detective police service, dragged him from his family circle and shot him. Somewhat later a police officer named Ermolov walked into the house of a doctor and shot him before his wife’s eyes. The officer gave himself up to the authorities and said his act was due to momentary aberration. Around these incidents both parties wage a war of tongues. The sympathisers with the revolutionaries talk of the martyrdom of the doctor; whereas their opponents say that the fuss they are making is unjustifiable since they did the very same thing.

Personally I think that the weak side of the Government case is this: that the revolutionaries are sure of punishment if caught; whereas the official who does wrong is not punished, and his wrong-doing is surely more heinous because he is the representative of the law. On the other hand I think the wanton murder of policemen has nothing of the heroic in it, and when I hear it spoken of in terms of admiration I am disgusted.

As to the opponents of the revolutionaries, they also attack the Government, and especially Count Witte. They say that the only supporters of Count Witte are foreigners. The Slovo newspaper said, for instance, that foreigners only supported Count Witte because they desired the enfeeblement of Russia. But reactionaries say that the Russian revolution is entirely fostered and supported by a foreign Government. Now it cannot be to the French Government’s interest for Russia’s credit to collapse, nor can it be to the German Government’s interest for Russia to become a federation of autonomous States; therefore it must be the English Government, and, when pressed, they admit this. But if the English Press is trying to ruin Russia by supporting Count Witte, it is obvious that it cannot be at the same time trying to ruin Russia by supporting the revolutionaries. One of these two statements must be untrue; quite apart from the question as to whether the collapse of Russia’s credit would prove a material advantage to England. The fact is that the reactionaries who talk in this strain are politically limited in their ideas; they know practically nothing either of England or of any other country, they merely repeat old catchwords and musty traditions which have been proved to be absurd.

Now apart from these reactionary Jingoes, who are really of no importance whatsoever now, there is a large class of people who six months ago would have been called red revolutionaries, and who now call themselves “Moderates,” and are called by the revolutionaries members of the “Black Gang.”

These people wish for the most speedy fulfilment of the Manifesto of the 17th of October; they blame the Government for its delay in making laws, and they blame Count Witte. But they look upon the Duma as being competent to settle the various aspirations of the various parties. They should be a strong party; the trouble is that up to the present time they have never seen their way either to support the Government or to form a homogeneous party among themselves. It is possible that the recent events at Moscow may have the effect of causing them to coalesce. It is to be hoped that this will happen; for in them lies the safe via media between the two extremes of reaction and anarchy.

It will be noticed that all these various parties are united with regard to one detail, that is in their blame of Count Witte. It is also worth mentioning that in all the innumerable attacks made on Count Witte nobody has so far had the ingenuity or the perspicacity to name his possible successor. Would the revolutionaries really like him to go? I doubt it. They would have, in the first place, nobody to attack; in the second place, they would risk having a more reactionary successor. For that reason I have never up to now believed in any of the countless reports regarding Count Witte’s immediate resignation.

At present the Government is feeling extremely confident owing to the way in which recent events have turned out; the revolutionaries also profess to be in no wise disheartened; they say that the Moscow rising is nothing in comparison with what they will do in March, and that seeing that they have exhausted the efficacy of strikes and armed risings they will adopt the method of terrorism and blow up Government buildings with dynamite (in March). I have heard intelligent sympathisers with the revolutionaries talking of such a policy with enthusiasm, saying that this is the only way to deal with the Government, and that the Duma, such as it will be, is not only of no account but will never come into existence.

These people are members of the Russian “Intelligenzia,” or middle professional class. They have many admirable qualities, and I live among them and like them; but I think that sometimes some of their members talk most wildly and ought to know better. Up to now, of course, they have been carefully prevented by the Government from taking any part in politics whatsoever, and they feel now that vast possibilities have been opened to them; that it is they who made the revolution, and that it is they who are going to rule the country.

Only at present they have not succeeded in producing a great man. They arrogate to themselves the position of sole spokesmen and representatives of the Russian people, and at this also common sense revolts. For apart from the fact of the peasants distrusting them, and the Army hating them, what have they done for Russia? Possibly it was not they who brought about the Constitution. They class the whole gentry and aristocracy with the Bureaucrats under one sweeping ban of blame and abuse; but the gentry laid the foundations of reform and revolution long before they existed as a class at all (vide the Decembrists, 1825). Moreover, the gentry gave to Russia Poushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Tolstoi, Turgeniev, Tchaikovski, and Dostoievski; in fact, her literature, her art, her music, her poetry; all her great men and men of genius. In the sphere of the arts they have made Russia hideous by importing a debased art nouveau from Munich; and in the sphere of literature they have produced some excellent writers of short stories. In verse (the verse of such writers as “Skitaletzt” is weaker than the prose of Andreev and Co.) the English equivalent would be the political poetry of Mr. Alfred Austin; the political tendencies of the Russian writers, of course, differ widely from that of the English Laureate, whose work, although it has met with public recognition, would, perhaps, have made England less famous as a literary nation were it the sole representative of our poetical literature.