“Bismarck,” said the Zemstvo representative, “is a case in point. He followed and used ideas. He worked for the great national ideal, the ideal of united Germany. He incarnated the national idea. What is Count Witte’s ideal? A national loan or the expansion of the Russo-Chinese Bank? It is not enough to say that the revolution is merely the work of enemies financed by foreigners, and then Schwamm darüber, as the Germans say. Whoever supports it, it is there; and if it were merely an artificial forced product, surely you, as a man of business, must admit that it would have died a natural death by this time. You say that the people can only be actuated by their own interests. I say that the people are often actuated by something which has nothing to do with their interests. History affords me countless examples which prove I am right. When people have been killed, tortured, and burnt for an idea, it is absurd to say they were interested. Interested in what? In the possible rewards of a future life? But people have been tortured and burnt not only for their faith but for their opinions: Giordano Bruno, De Witt, and many others. There are some, too, whose outward enthusiasm has been lined with scepticism, and who have died for a cause in which they did not even believe. And when a person now throws a bomb at a governor it may explain the fact to say he is mad, but it does not explain the fact to say that he is bought, because he knows quite well he is going to certain death. To deny this is a sign, in my opinion, of a limited intelligence. ‘Il n’a pas l’intelligence assez large,’ a French writer once said, ‘pour concevoir que l’intérêt n’est pas seul à mener le monde, qu’il se mêle souvent et qu’il cède parfois à des passions plus fortes, voire à des passions nobles.’ This is why I disbelieve in Count Witte. I believe he suffers from this limitation, the limitation from which Bismarck did not suffer. In times of peace it would not signify; in times such as these it makes all the difference. Have you read a book by H. G. Wells called the ‘Food of the Gods’? I do not know what the English think of Wells; but we, some of us at least, and the French, take him seriously as a thinker. Well, in this book there is an argument between a Prime Minister and the representative of the giant race. All the Prime Minister’s arguments are excellent, but they are fundamentally wrong, because his action is morally wrong. This story applies to the situation here. A race of giants has grown up. Count Witte, with conviction and eloquence, repeats again and again that their action is impossible, that he must be helped, that the existence of mankind is at stake. But all the time he is denying to this race the right of existence. And they know they have the right to live. He is denying the moral law and saying that his opponents are only hirelings, or madmen. His arguments are specious, but the giants are there, and they will not listen; he sends troops and police against them; they answer by bombarding the country with their giant food, which causes gigantic growth to spring up wherever it falls. In our case this food takes the shape of ideas and the rights of man.”
“Yes, but since he has promised a Constitution,” said the Moderate Liberal, “you cannot prove that he does not mean to keep his promise.”
“I feel certain he will give some kind of a Constitution,” answered the Zemstvo representative. “I feel equally certain that it will mean nothing at all. I am not convinced for a moment that he believes in Constitutional Government for Russia. And if he disbelieves in it, why should he give it?”
“But what makes you think he disbelieves in it?” asked the Liberal.
“His present action,” remarked the student.
“His past actions,” said the Zemstvo representative. “Why did he not support Prince Mirsky’s reforms? And apart from this, has he not said in the past, again and again, that a strong autocracy is the only Government suitable for Russia?”
“He is quite right there,” said the man of business.
“Then you agree with me,” said the Zemstvo representative, “in thinking that he does not believe in a Constitution. I think myself that a capable and wise autocracy may very well be the ideal Government. But the position now is that the autocracy has for a long time past shown itself to be neither capable nor wise, and therefore the enormous majority of thinking Russians are quite determined to do away with it. ‘Absolute Princes,’ Dr. Johnson said, ‘seldom do any harm, but those who are governed by them are governed by chance.’ We are tired of being governed by chance. We may be unreasonable, but we are determined to try something else.”
“We will see,” said the man of business, “assuming what you say to be true, who is the stronger, you and your giant food of ideas and moral laws, or Count Witte and his practical sense. We have the bayonets on our side.”
“The bayonets of a defeated army,” said the Zemstvo representative. “We will see how long you will be able to sit upon them.”