A year in Russia

by Maurice Baring

“In what country of the world are people who commit murder amnestied? And the land question—violent measures such as the Cadets propose will ruin the country. Agrarian reforms can only be gradual.”

A young man who had lately joined the Cadet party started to his feet. “You forget,” he said, “that we are in the midst of a Revolution; that it is not a question of what other countries do in times of peace and prosperity. What is called amnesty here is called justice in other countries, and as for doing things gradually, it is too late. The Ministers come to the Duma and speak of gradual reform. It is like telling a person who has got appendicitis to go to the Riviera and enjoy the sunshine. Matters have been brought to such a pass that a drastic remedy is imperative. The very people who preach to us now that prevention is better than cure are those who during fifty years refused to prevent.”

“As for the amnesty question,” said the man who belonged to no Party, “I refuse to discuss it. Both sides tire me with it. You,” he said, turning to the Cadet, “with your hysterical bomb-throwers, and you,” turning to the mild Conservative landlord, “with your bungling police. The question of amnesty is absurd, because very few criminals are in prison at all. The bomb-throwers nearly always either get killed or escape altogether. The mass of people who are in prison are there by chance. They might be in the Duma; it is a mere fluke. At Tambov the other day a clerk whom I know of went to take steps about the raising of his wages. He was arrested, together with the man who drove him, and the son of that man. They have been in prison ever since. No sort of accusation has been brought against them.”

“And don’t you call that a disgraceful state of things?” said the young Cadet.

“I was thinking of the amnesty as it affects the Government,” answered the man who belonged to no Party, “and I repeat that as far as danger goes it makes no difference one way or the other.”

“But as a question of principle it is impossible,” said the Frenchman.

“Yes, impossible not to give it,” said the Cadet.

“What do you think of the Cadets?” said the man who belonged to no Party to the ex-official who belonged to the landed gentry. “I could not vote for them or against them,” he answered. “I feel with regard to them exactly as I feel with regard to the Japanese; the same combination of admiration and disgust. I feel humiliated at recognising myself to be their inferior, and proud at being in some respects their superior. I believe that there is the same difference between myself and a Cadet as there is between a Mandarin and a Japanese. Perhaps the social value of Chinese philosophy in not incomparable to the French Eighteenth Century strain, which is still so strong in us. At any rate, going back to the Cadets and the Japanese, don’t you see a likeness between the faculty of organisation that both of them possess, the grasp of technical means, the near-sighted enthusiasm? Parallels between the ci-devant Russian and the Chinese have been worn threadbare. But now we are face to face with the extraordinary situation of having, as it were, Japanese and Chinamen in the same country struggling for prevalence. This is why I could neither vote for the Cadets nor against them. I feel that they are a superior and at the same time an inferior race, to whom one must leave the dirty business of governing the country just as the Merovingian Kings did with the Mayors of the Palace, reserving to themselves the faculty of healing scrofula and the divine right of remaining Kings.”

“I don’t feel that,” said the man who belonged to no Party; “the difference between us and all Europeans and the Japanese seems to me to be a difference of kind; they are as different from us as bees are different from men. The difference between you and the Cadets is merely a difference of class and of education.”

“I could get on perfectly well with the Cadets,” said the ex-official, “just as I could get on with the clerks who used to be in my office. If I were the Emperor I would prefer a Cadet Government to a Conservative one. But, for their weal or woe, Russia is not Cadet. The Cadets can reform Russia if they choose just as the Japanese can reform China. But just as the Japanese will never make the Chinaman Japanese in character, so the Cadets will never make Russia Cadet.”