The Conservatives are opposed to any such proceeding; not in the same way as the extreme reactionaries, some of whom relegated the portrait of the Emperor to the scullery on the day of the Manifesto from sheer Conservative principle, but because they say that if the autocratic power is destroyed the peasant population will be convulsed, and the danger will be immense. To this Liberals—all liberal-minded men, not revolutionaries—reply that this supposed danger is a delusion of the Conservatives, who have unconsciously invented the fact to support their theory and have not based their theory on the fact; that many peasants clearly understand and recognise that there is to be a constitutional régime in Russia; that if this danger does exist, the risk incurred by it must be taken; that in any case it is the lesser of two evils, less dangerous than the maintenance of the autocracy.
Count Witte’s opponents on the Liberal side say that the course of events up to this moment has been deliberately brought about by Count Witte; that he disbelieved and disbelieves in Constitutional Government for Russia; that he provoked disorder in order to crush the revolutionary element; that the Moderate parties played into his hands by not meeting him with a united front; that, Duma or no Duma, he intends everything to remain as before and the power to be in his hands. What his supporters say I do not know, because I have never seen one in the flesh, but I have seen many people who say that what has happened so far has been brought about with infinite skill and knowledge of the elements with which he had to deal. Further, they add that Count Witte has no principles and no convictions; that he has always accommodated himself to the situation of the moment, and worked in harmony with the men of the moment, whatever they were; that he has no belief in the force or the stability of any movement in Russia; that he trusts the Russian character to simmer down after it has violently fizzed; that he intends to outstay the fizzing period; that he has a great advantage in the attitude of the Moderate parties, who, although they do not trust him, play into his hands by disagreeing on small points and not meeting him with clear and definite opposition. They add, however, that he has miscalculated and wrongly gauged the situation this time, because the simmering down period will only be temporary and the fizzing will be renewed again with increasing violence, until either the cork flies into space or the bottle is burst. The cork is autocracy, the bottle Russia, and the mineral water the revolution. The corkscrew was the promise of a Constitution with which the cork was partially loosened, only to be screwed down again by Count Witte’s powerful hand.
Among all the parties the most logical seem to be the Extreme Conservatives and the Extreme Radicals. The Extreme Conservatives have said all along that the talk of a Constitution was nonsensical, and the Manifesto of October 17th a great betrayal; that the only result of it has been disorder, riot, and bloodshed. They are firmly based on a principle. The Extreme Radicals are equally firmly based on a principle, namely, that the autocratic régime must be done away with at all costs, and that until it is swept away and a Constitution based on universal suffrage takes its place there is no hope for Russia. Therefore the danger that the Moderate parties may eventually be submerged and the two extremes be left face to face, still exists. As a great quantity of the Radicals are in prison they are for the time being less perceptible; but this era of repression cannot last, and it has already created a reaction against itself. But then the question arises, what will happen when it stops? What will happen when the valve on which the police have been sitting is released?
The influential political leader with whom I dined last night, and who is one of the leading members of the party of October 17th, said that there was not a man in Russia who believed in Witte, that Witte was a man who had no convictions. I asked why he himself and other Zemstvo leaders had refused to take part in the administration directly after the Manifesto had been issued, when posts in the Cabinet were offered to them. He said their terms had been that the Cabinet should be exclusively formed of Liberal leaders; but they did not choose to serve in company with a man like Durnovo, with whom he would refuse to shake hands.
He added that it would not have bettered their position in the country with regard to the coming Duma, which he was convinced would be Liberal. Talking of the Constitutional Democrats he said they were really republicans but did not dare own it.
CHAPTER XIII
IN THE COUNTRY
Sosnofka, Government of Tambov,
March 25th.
When one has seen a thing which had hitherto been vaguely familiar suddenly illuminated by a flood of light, making it real, living, and vivid, it is difficult to recall one’s old state of mind before the inrush of the illuminating flood; and still more difficult to discuss that thing with people who have not had the opportunity of illumination. The experience is similar to that which a child feels when, after having worshipped a certain writer of novels or tales, and wondered why he was not acknowledged by the whole world to be the greatest author that has ever been, he grows up, and by reading other books, sees the old favourite in a new light, the light of fresh horizons opened by great masterpieces; in this new light the old favourite seems to be a sorry enough impostor, his golden glamour has faded to tinsel. The grown-up child will now with difficulty try to discover what was the cause and secret of his old infatuation, and every now and then he will receive a shock on hearing some fellow grown-up person talk of the former idol in the same terms as he would have talked of him when a child, the reason being that this second person has never got farther; has never reached the illuminating light of new horizons. So it is with many things; and so it is in my case with Russia. I find it extremely difficult to recall exactly what I thought Russia was before I had been there; and I find Russia difficult to describe to those who have never been there. There is so much when one has been there that becomes so soon a matter of course that it no longer strikes one, but which to the newcomer is probably striking.
The first time I came to Russia I travelled straight to the small village where I am now staying. What did I imagine Russia to be like? All I can think of now is that there was a big blank in my mind. I had read translations of Russian books, but they had left no definite picture or landscape in my mind; I had read some books about Russia and got from them very definite pictures of a fantastic country, which proved to be curiously unlike Russia in every respect. A country where feudal castles, Pevenseys and Hurstmonceuxs, loomed in a kind of Rhine-land covered with snow, inhabited by mute, inglorious Bismarcks, and Princesses who carried about dynamite in their cigarette-cases and wore bombs in their tiaras; Princesses who owed much of their being to Ouida, and some of it to Sardou.