“It is better to be governed by honest demagogues and idealists than by dishonest Bureaucrats,” said the student. “The Bureaucrats made the war.”
“When the war was declared you students marched cheering into the streets, and I myself happening to be in uniform that day—I am in the Reserve—was carried in reluctant triumph on the shoulders of an enthusiastic crowd. The war can be blamed, not because it was immoral, for it was not more immoral than any other war, but because it was made too late, and because it was unsuccessful.”
“The war,” said the professor, “was a war made by irresponsible capitalists, in the same way as the South African War was the work of a gang of financiers, and had a true Englishman of genius, such as Gladstone or Bright, been alive, the war would not have been possible.”
“Yes,” said the student, “the feeling here was never so great against England during this war as during the war in South Africa.”
“The English,” answered the landlord, “made the same mistake as we did; they knew nothing about South Africa, and made the war later than they should have done; had they waited longer the Afrikander element would have probably turned them out of South Africa altogether, and they would have lost their prestige and their Colonies. Bismarck foresaw this, and hoped that it might happen.”
“The English have gained nothing by having betrayed their ancient tradition, and sacrificed to false gods,” said the professor, “but now they are returning to the true path, and it is to Liberal England that we must look for example and support.”
“You mean,” said the landlord, “that one set of men, including some bright intellects and a number of average, that is to say, mediocre men, have been replaced by another set of men containing exactly the same proportion of capacity, mediocrity, and incompetence. By what miracle are they to govern the country better or worse than their opponents? Have they shown that they could do so in the past? And I would apply this argument to the situation here. Do you imagine that a Ministry composed of intellectuals would be radically different from a Ministry composed of Bureaucrats? The intellectuals will be merely Bureaucrats who have not learnt their business, and when they have learnt their business they will be Bureaucrats; that is, perhaps, why the Zemstvo leaders were reluctant to enter the Cabinet.”
“The Zemstvo leaders were reluctant to join Count Witte because they disapproved of his programme,” said the student, “and, whether they become Bureaucrats or no, they will be under the control of society.”
“The Bureaucrats are blamed for lawlessness,” said the landlord, “but the revolutionaries seem to me so entirely incapable of controlling themselves that they do not lead one to believe in their capacity for controlling other people. The fact is that we Russians are all a mixture of lawlessness and apathy. We are blamed for our apathy, for our want of co-operation, but I thank Heaven for it, for did it not exist, the lawlessness would lead to excesses of a dangerous character; as it is, there is no country where an individual can enjoy such a degree of personal freedom as in Russia. Russia is the only country where the words liberty, fraternity, and equality have any reality. These things are facts in Russia. But they are not facts in England. First, as regards liberty. There is no liberty either of thought or mœurs in England. Liberty of thought flourishes under an autocracy; in the reign of Nero, Renan tells us, ‘la liberté de penser ne fit que gagner. Cette liberté-là se trouve toujours mieux d’avoir affaire à un roi ou à un prince qu’à des bourgeois jaloux et bornés.’ I do not consider my liberty of thought to be violated if I can only read an eclipsed version of the leading articles of the English and French halfpenny Press; but I do consider it violated if I am forbidden to witness a masterpiece full of thought and moral import, such as Ibsen’s ‘Ghosts’ or a beautiful play like Mæterlinck’s ‘Monna Vanna.’ This is the case in England. The English fetter themselves with convention, and ostracise those who revolt against the convention. You cannot smoke in a railway refreshment room in England. You must dress for dinner. You cannot have supper after 12.30 a.m. at a restaurant. You cannot go to a theatre on Sunday. You cannot admire anything unless it is the fashion, and once it is the fashion you must admire it. As to equality, the whole of English life is a struggle to belong to the layer of society immediately above your own, and not to be suspected of belonging to that immediately beneath your own. Hence England is the paradise of snobbery, social and intellectual. There is a mad race to be ‘in the swim’ socially and ‘in the know’ intellectually, and to read the right books and admire the right pictures. As to equality I will give you a concrete instance. Let two men get drunk in London, one a rich man and the other a poor man. If they make a disturbance and get taken up, the rich man, by taking a little trouble, will get the matter hushed up. The poor man will not get off. You will say that there is one law for the rich and one for the poor in every country. But I say that here in Russia nobody cares if you go drunk in the street, and that, whether you are rich or poor, if you do so the same thing will happen to you; you will be taken to the uchastok and kept there till you get sober. Whereas in England they care very much; you have to appear before a magistrate—but the rich man will get out of this. As to fraternity, the English hedge themselves round with every kind of social prejudice and barrier they can devise. Their clubs are like their prisons, places where it is forbidden to speak to your neighbour, except under special circumstances, and where you have to wear a special costume. A Russian convict enjoys a greater freedom of social intercourse than an English shopman. I judge from their books. Read ‘Kipps,’ by H. G. Wells. It is a record of leaden social tyranny.”
“What you call convention,” said the professor, “is merely the maintenance of order. It may be exaggerated, but an exaggeration in this sense is preferable to one in the other. You can sup here at a restaurant all night, but a man may shoot you for not being brisk enough in your manifestation of loyalty.”