“But, supposing they don’t dissolve you?” I asked. I don’t know what his answer was, because this conversation took place in the lobby of the Duma, and the spokesman, who was a Cossack member (not a man with a shock of hair and golden sequins or silver braid on his coat, but a pale, thin, short man, with large bright eyes and no collar), had such a fiery and emphatic delivery that a large crowd collected round us, and one of the crowd entered with him into a heated argument, of which I heard fragments. “We have done nothing,” he said. “We have been here a month and talked.” “What else could we do?” said his interlocutor; “the Government take no notice of us.” “We ought to declare ourselves a Constituent Assembly. The people of St. Petersburg are like ducks who have been fired at. They are afraid of the sight of blood. But the Government needn’t think they have got the best of us, not those silly little gramophones (this to his interlocutor) who repeat what the Cadets say, but us, the representatives of the people; we shall have a nice surprise for them. We have got terrible means at our disposal without even appealing to the people. That’s the worst of us Russians: we know how to talk, how to write; they translate our books into foreign languages; but we don’t know how to act. I mean the educated Russians, the Cadets; but we are going to show that we do know how to act. Every day for the last month I have acted in a certain direction.”
The rest of the philippic was lost to me. One of the arguers, who had just joined the Cadet Party, and being a young official was frightfully proud of the fact, seemed somewhat mortified at being called a “little gramophone.” The temper of the Duma, although its outward behaviour is decorous, seems to be rising in temperature. The majority is in favour of moderation, and at present the majority is powerful. The Government has been treating the Duma like a spoilt child which needs humouring.
CHAPTER XXI
THE BEGINNING OF DISORDER
St. Petersburg, June 16th.
There can be no doubt that the political atmosphere has in the last two days become sultry. The tension of feeling in the Duma has ominously increased, and the feeling of the country has manifested itself in increasing disorders. Even among the troops mutinies have been reported from five different towns, and the sailors at the various ports are said to be in a dangerously excited state. It is now little more than a month since the Duma met, and by looking back one can judge to a certain degree of the effect its existence has had on the nation at large. Some people say the Duma has done nothing but talk. It seems to me it would be rather difficult for a Parliament, especially a new one, to pass measures of a complicated and important nature in dumb show. Even the House of Commons, after centuries of experience, has not arrived at this. There are four Bills in committee at this moment. The agrarian question is, it is true, being discussed at length before the committee has drafted the Bill. But it should be borne in mind that the situation of the present Duma is abnormal. It proposes to elaborate measures based on certain principles which the Government have declared to be inadmissible.
The Government morally deny the existence of the Duma. A Minister goes so far as to request a newspaper correspondent to state in the influential organ he represents that the Parliament which has been summoned by his Sovereign is no better than a revolutionary meeting, and that it is the result of the revolutionary machinations of his immediate predecessor in office. Besides this, the official organ of the Government publishes telegrams—which, even if they are not (as there is strong reason to suppose) manufactured in St. Petersburg or written to order by willing officials, can only be representative of a small fraction of popular opinion—inciting the population against the Duma, and begging the Emperor to dissolve it. When one reads these telegrams one is convinced that they cannot represent a widely-spread opinion, for they run somewhat after this fashion: “Great, unlimited autocrat, listen to us true Russians, dissolve the herd of rebels, who by means of Jewish money have usurped the position of representatives of the people. Pay no attention to their seditious cries, but listen rather to us, whose only wish is that thy Heaven-given, anointed, unlimited, multitudinous, incarnadined autocratitude should remain unlimited. Give us less bread and more taxes. We are perfectly contented. We have everything our heart desires, so long as thou remainest unlimited.”
If the British Cabinet were to circulate among the Army an invitation to destroy the House of Commons, full of insulting strictures on the members of the House, we should not consider this action to be constitutional. But this is what the Russian Government has been doing during the last month. The situation of a Parliament which has to deal with such a Ministry is abnormal. What guarantee is there that the Ministry will not dissolve it at any minute and change the electoral law? Not, certainly, the fact that this would be illegal and unconstitutional. Therefore, on these grounds, and in these circumstances, it seems to me that the action of the members of the Duma, in insisting on having their “say out” on the land question before anything else happens, is not so needless and not such a waste of time as it at first appears to be. The speeches of the members are reported in full, published in the newspapers, and read all over the country, and therefore if the Duma is dissolved suddenly the country will be already acquainted with the opinions and intentions of the Duma on the land question. This is why the fact that the Duma has existed and spoken out during a month is in itself one of paramount importance and likely to be big with far-reaching results. When the Duma met the Russian people echoed the French poet’s cry that “une grande espérance a traversé le monde,” but they were doubtful as to its efficacy. Now that it has met during a whole month, and that people within its walls have really been able to speak their minds on burning topics without being arrested, and have in no uncertain tones expressed their opinion of the present Government, the effect has been enormous.
Last night I was driven home by a cabman who favoured me with his political views. I attach far more importance to the views of any cabman in St. Petersburg than to those of any of the Ministers, because they are more intimately acquainted with popular opinion. The cabman first expressed his appreciation of the fact that some people in Russia had too much land and others too little. Count Ignatieff’s estate, he said, was a hundred versts long, and he had eight estates. The Duma, he continued, was demanding land and liberty. I objected that the Duma might be dissolved. “They won’t dare,” he replied. “But if they do dare?” I said. “Then we shall kill them,” he answered. “Kill whom?” “Why, all the rich.” “But will the soldiers be on your side?” I asked. “The soldiers are peasants, too,” he said. “But before they shot at the people,” I said. “Before they did not understand what it was all about. Now they know,” he said. “Go into any tractir (public-house) you like,” he continued, “and you will hear how the people are screaming.”
Some weeks ago a change in the spirit of the Army, owing to the existence of the Duma, was not improbable. It appears to be now on the way towards realisation. Some of the Guards regiments are said, on the other hand, to be highly incensed against the Duma. One of the peasant members told me that his brother, who is in a regiment here, informed him that the strictest surveillance was being exercised on the movements and on the correspondence of the soldiers. He said some of the regiments in St. Petersburg would be for the Duma, but only the minority. I think it must be difficult for people who have never been here, either in the past or in the present, to realise that although the old régime has not yet been destroyed there is an enormous difference in the general state of things owing to the fact that up to last year the expression of public opinion was impossible, and that now it is not only re-echoed under the protection of the Duma all over Russia but finds a vehicle in innumerable newspapers and pamphlets, not one of which is without what the Germans call a “Tendenz.” Every bit of fiction, verse, satire, history, anecdote that is now published is definitely and purposely revolutionary. The non-political part of every newspaper is therefore practically devoted to politics. Every day, and twice a day, the same string is sounded. Everything in Russia now is tinged with one colour, and that colour is bright red.
June 14th.