A year in Russia

by Maurice Baring

This question—the promotion of universal culture by which alone progress can come—is the most acute of all the questions now existing in Russia, because the country has been driven by the present system to the extreme limits of its endurance—to the very brink of ruin, to the uttermost desperation. And it will not, therefore, be surprising if the reaction in the opposite direction is equally violent, and Russia passes from one extreme to the other; in which case those who are responsible for not having put an end to the present régime, until they felt the knife at their throats, and even then reluctantly, will find food for not altogether cheerful reflection.

Sosnofka, April 30th.

I have been ten days in the country and have seen the pageant of early spring in Russia. The trees are not yet all green, but the blossom is out everywhere, and the bees are buzzing round it and filling the air with their noise. To-day we went to see the examination held in the school. The children were examined in Scripture, geography, and reading. I did not stay the whole time. The children I heard acquitted themselves splendidly. I was allowed to look over and mark some of the dictations. After the examination was over we had dinner with the schoolmaster and played “preference.” A neighbour, who looked in at the schoolmaster’s, said that he was pleased to see the Russian Government was coming to its senses in one respect, and trying to arrive at an understanding with the British Government.

Moscow, May 7th.

In a few days the Russian Parliament will be sitting, the curtain will have risen, the drama will be in full swing, and the echoes and impressions of to-day will have been forgotten and superseded by the rumour of more important events. And yet significant things have happened in the last few days. The resignation of Count Witte did not come as a surprise; we knew during the last ten days that Count Witte had sent in his resignation; but the resignation of M. Durnovo was somewhat unexpected. It was generally said that Count Witte would go, and that M. Durnovo would remain.

The popular attitude towards Count Witte during the last year must be of singular interest to those to whom the contemplation of human affairs affords a melancholy amusement. The enthusiasm with which the hero of Portsmouth was received; the further enthusiasm created by his report to the Emperor; the Manifesto of October 17th, which everybody knew would not and could not have been but for Count Witte; then the gradual tide of reaction; at first, faults but hinted and dislike but hesitated; distrust, latent, but scarcely expressed; then impatient questioning; conflicting criticism; manifold explanation; and very soon unanimous blame, and venomous vituperation, hatred, and abuse. When time has swept away the dust-clouds of partiality, partisanship, and passion, the work of Count Witte will stand out clear in the impartial light of history. I do not think the verdict can be a severe one. Count Witte’s task was to get to the Duma somehow or other, to keep things going until the Duma should meet, without a general breakdown. This task he accomplished, and he has managed to get a foreign loan into the bargain. That it was an easy task not the most fanatical of his opponents would say; that he was hampered on all sides is obvious; that his instruments broke in his hands is likewise obvious; that not only no shadow of loyal co-operation was shown to him by his colleagues, but that even his subordinates flatly refused to obey him, was proved by one or two incidents which occurred during the last fortnight, such as the case of the Kharkov Professor, sent to exile by M. Durnovo, in spite of Count Witte’s express and expressed desire, and the case of M. Sipiagin, who was not permitted to go to Sevastopol, in spite of Count Witte’s categorical instructions. Whether Count Witte made the most of his opportunities I do not know, and the man who passes a sweeping judgment on this point will be bold; but I am convinced of one thing, and that is that no man in Russia would have performed the task which was Count Witte’s, given the peculiar circumstances of the case, better. Count Witte and M. Durnovo have gone, and their places have been taken by a Cabinet exclusively bureaucratical and reactionary. What is the meaning of this? I asked some one yesterday whether this Cabinet was meant to be of a temporary nature.

“It’s put there to be kicked out,” he answered. “Mind you, I mean kicked out,” he continued, “and not to go of its own accord.” If this is the case, what my friend Dimitri Nikolaievitch hinted to me at St. Petersburg—namely, that the fact that a course was fatal, so far from constituting a guarantee that it would not be adopted, on the contrary weighed down the balance of probabilities in its favour—has come true. I cannot quite bring myself to believe it. It is only when we turn to the past—to the history of revolutionary movements in every country and at every epoch—that we see how, in obedience to some mysterious law, a fatal mist seems to blind those in authority, and how they deliberately choose the disastrous course the perils of which seem to us so obvious, and the avoidance of which seems to us so simple. In 1769 Junius addressed the King as follows:—

“We separate the amiable, good-natured Prince from the folly and treachery of his servants, and the private virtues of the man from the vices of his Government. Were it not for this just distinction I know not whether your Majesty’s condition or that of the English people would deserve most to be lamented.... Your subjects, Sir, wish for nothing but that as they are reasonable and affectionate enough to separate your person from your Government; so you, in your turn, would distinguish between the conduct which becomes the permanent dignity of a King, and that which serves only to promote the temporary interest and miserable ambition of a Minister.”

In the same letter he wrote as follows about the Army:—

“From the uses to which one part of the Army has been too frequently applied you have some reason to expect that there are no services they would refuse. Here, too, we trace the partiality of your understanding. You take the sense of the Army from the conduct of the Guards, with the same justice that you collect the sense of the people from the representations of the Ministry. Your marching regiments, sir, will not make the Guards their example either as soldiers or subjects. They feel and resent, as they ought to do, that invariable undistinguishing favour with which the Guards are treated; while those gallant troops, by whom every hazardous, every laborious service is performed, are left to perish in garrisons abroad or pine in quarters at home, neglected and forgotten. If they had no sense of the great original duty they owe their country, their resentment would operate like patriotism, and leave your cause to be defended by those on whom you have lavished the rewards and honours of their profession.”