A year in Russia

by Maurice Baring

All these are opinions I have heard expressed by Russians during the last two days. I have also heard it said that the dissolution of the Duma is an excellent step, that the Duma did no good and some harm. I have also heard all the disaster attributed to the Cadets, some people saying they were too constitutional, and that it is impossible to be constitutional during a revolution, others that they did not succeed in dominating the Left parties, but allowed themselves to be overridden by them.

In the meantime the new Prime Minister has announced his intention of carrying out a great Liberal programme of far-reaching reforms on a large scale, and of maintaining the strictest order throughout the country, so that the reforms may be realised. This sounds charming. “At first, of course, you think it’s charming, but very soon it gets alarming.” The first step taken in the new direction has been to suppress all the Moderate Liberal newspapers and to introduce a system of censorship more severe than that which prevailed during the worst times of Plehve, and to arrest a man who took off his hat to the members of the Duma at the railway station. To-day, however, the Cadet newspaper, the Retch, has once more made its appearance. The Government are looking forward to the new elections, which they hope will return a Conservative majority truly representative of the people.

Among other constitutional matters there is one lesson which they have not learnt, and probably never will learn, and that is that if you have a Parliamentary system you must put up with the fact that it will often return a majority which is distasteful to you. If the elections are carried out fairly it can safely be predicted that the majority returned will be ultra-Radical. But I suppose this time those steps will be taken which the present Ministry so bitterly accuse Count Witte of having omitted to take, the steps to “arrange” the elections, which, we are told (several officials told me personally), the Government always take in England. That is to say, Mr. Balfour and Lord Lansdowne, it is thought, take the necessary steps to prevent the election of Mr. Keir Hardie and his supporters. It is strange that so far this plan should have proved unsuccessful. It would be, perhaps, simpler here to pass an electoral law in virtue of which only policemen could be elected members of Parliament. This would prove a constitutional measure which the present Ministry would thoroughly understand.

One sometimes hears it said that the Duma was in too great a hurry, and that it should have waited patiently and obtained everything by constitutional means. This was the course the majority were doing their best to pursue. They had to reckon with a Government which was opposing them by unconstitutional means. It is certainly not constitutional for a Government to distribute among the troops proclamations (I have seen them) inciting the Army against the Parliament, and attacking members of Parliament with every kind of gross insult and calumny. Nor is it constitutional for a Minister to request the correspondent of a large foreign newspaper to state that the Parliament is not a thing to be reckoned with, but merely a revolutionary body. The answer people made to these objections is that there is not, and there never has been, a constitution in Russia, and they are perfectly right.

But, apart from this, I agree with the Russian landlord I have quoted above, who said that the main question must be decided before one can talk of a Parliament here. The abscess must be pierced to the core, he said. It was a pleasing illusion to think the Cadets would obtain a change of régime by constitutional means. “You must wait, little pigeon, you must wait,” says a character in a novel by a famous Russian satirist. “I have done nothing else during my whole life,” is the reply. And if the Parliament had waited until the Government became constitutional it could have waited until Doomsday, because, as another Russian said to me not long ago, “it has less idea of what constitutional means than the Turks, only the Turks are more competent and are better governed.”

Of course, if the new Prime Minister succeeds in quieting the country and carrying out Liberal reforms on a large scale every one will admit that the Government was right from the first, and that the Duma was wrong. “But what use are reforms,” said some one to-day, “when the Government has decided not to give the initial reform which should be the cause of all the others: namely, a change of régime, a constitution and a system of responsible government?” Besides, in order to quiet the country the Government must first succeed in recovering the confidence of the people. At present it has not got the confidence of any party, any group, or any section of the population.

St. Petersburg is full of troops. A cabman said to me yesterday that these were not Russian troops, but Austrians in disguise. This is a curious reflection of the remarks on foreign intervention which were published on the first page of the semi-official newspaper here last week, without, of course, the knowledge of the Ministers. I asked the same man what he expected would happen. “There will be a big skandal,” he answered. “It is impossible that it should be otherwise. They say: ‘Let us have a Duma,’ and then they say, ‘Let us send it away’; there can only be disorders after that. We, the cabmen, have never yet struck, but we shall this time when the moment comes.” (I think he thought that would make all the difference.) “What about the soldiers?” I asked. “The soldiers oughtn’t to rebel,” he answered, “but they ought to refuse to fire on the people. They would not be breaking their oath. Their oath obliges them to fight the enemy, but not their brothers. That is wrong.” Another cabman said a curious thing to me, as we were driving along the Quays. “We of ourselves can do nothing,” he said; “but those are the people who will do it for us,” and he pointed to a student who was passing by.

The hall porter at the house where I lived told me he had known it all along. “It is bad,” he said; “very bad.” I think that is really all there is to be said about the matter. It is bad; very bad—that is to say, if one looks back and then forward.

Later.

News has come of the appeal the ex-members of the Duma have made to the country, urging citizens not to pay taxes and to refuse to serve in the Army. Everybody is agreed that their action is a fatal mistake, since they have no means of having any such measures carried out.