A history of socialism

by Thomas Kirkup

The history of Russia turns on two great institutions, the Tzardom and the mir. The Tzardom is the organ of Russian political life, while the mir is the social form taken by the agricultural population, and is the economic basis of the nation generally.

No reasonable man can doubt that the Tzardom has performed a most important function in the historical development of Russia. It was the central power which united the Russian people and led them in the long, severe, and successful struggle against Tartars, Turks, Lithuanians, Poles, and Swedes. Without it Russia would in all probability have suffered the same fate as Poland, which was distracted, weakened, and finally ruined by the anarchy and incurable selfishness of its nobles.

As in other countries, so in Russia, the central power was established through the subjection of princes and lords who were crushed by the strong and merciless rule of the Tzars. Among those Tzars, too, were men of originality and courage like Peter the Great, who forced the people out of the old-world grooves which they loved so much; and when other means failed they did not hesitate to employ the cane, the knout, and the axe of the executioner to urge their nobles into the paths of Western progress. We need not say that the Tzars were not moved by benevolent reasons thus to benefit their subjects. The historic Tzars were not philanthropists or humanitarians. The aim of their reforms was political, to provide the Russian nation with better means and appliances for the struggle with her neighbours.

While the nobles were unable to make head against the Tzardom, the clergy were neither able nor disposed so to do. In Russia the clergy were not backed by a great international power like the Papacy. They were nursed in the traditions of Eastern Greek despotism and had no inclination to resist their rulers. The peasants were not a political power, except at the rare intervals when desperation drove them into rebellion.

Thus the circumstances of Russia have combined to establish an autocracy which has performed the greatest historic functions, and which has had a power and solidity without example in the rest of Europe. It has maintained the national existence against fierce and powerful enemies, it has in every generation extended the borders of the Russian power, and has been a real centre of the national life, satisfying the needs and aspirations of the people, not in a perfect manner by any means, yet with a considerable measure of success. If we do not realise the supreme importance of the work that the Tzardom has done for Russia, we cannot understand its present position and the hold it has on the feelings of the Russian people. The power of the Tzar has been such that it was hardly an exaggeration, when the Emperor Paul stated to General Dumouriez that there was no important man among his subjects except the person he happened to speak to, and while he was speaking to him.

It is only another instance of the irony of human affairs, however, that the really effective limit to the power of the Tzars is found in the officials, who are intended to carry it into effect. These officials act as the organs of the imperial authority from the centre to the farthest extremities of the empire. Yet they can by delay, by passive resistance, by suggestion, by falsehood, by the arts of etiquette and ceremonial, and all the other methods familiar to the practised servants of autocracy, mislead or thwart the will of their master or render it of no effect.

Such is the central power. Let us now consider the body of the people. In Russia, industry and city life have not formed a large part of the national existence. The mass of the people still live directly from the soil, and are organised in the mir. As is now well known, the mir is merely the Russian form of the village community, which at one time prevailed over all the countries of the world, as they attained to the sedentary or agricultural stage of development. It was the natural social form assumed by people settling down into agriculture. It was the social unit as determined by obvious local economic and historic conditions. In most countries the village community has been reduced to a shadow of its former self, partly through the operation of natural economic causes, but largely also because the central power and the classes connected therewith have crushed it out. The local life of England in particular has been repressed and starved through the want of the most elementary resources and opportunities. It has been recognised as a most pressing duty of statesmen to revive and restore it in accordance with the prevalent conditions, but it will be long before the capacity and habit of common action can be again adequately acquired.

Owing to a variety of causes, which we cannot explain here, the Russian mir has continued to survive. It gave to the mass of the Russian people their own form of social life and of self-government; and it was economically self-sufficing. The mir drew from the soil, which it held in common occupation, the means for its own support and for the support of the nation as a whole. The relations of the members of the mir to each other were substantially conducted on terms of equality and freedom; but in view of the nobles and the Tzardom they were serfs till their emancipation in 1801. The mir was a social-economic arrangement, convenient both for the noble proprietors and for the Tzardom. It afforded to the central Government the necessary taxes and the necessary recruits; and therefore the Tzars did not disturb it, but rather sought to fix and solidity it, and thereby make it more efficient as a source of supply both of soldiers and material means. Thus for centuries, full of movement in the political history of Russia, the mir has with little change endured as the social and economic basis of the national life.

In Russia, therefore, we find only two institutions that have had a real vitality and a specific influence, the Tzardom and the peasant community. Nobles and priests have exercised a substantive power only when the Tzardom has suffered a temporary lapse. The middle class has always been inconsiderable.

It was into a nation thus constituted that the most advanced revolutionary opinions of Western Europe at last found their way. The spirit of revolt had indeed not been unknown in Russia in former times. Among a peasantry sunk in immemorial ignorance and misery, and harassed by the incessant tribute of men and taxes which they were forced to pay, discontent had always been more or less prevalent, and it had sometimes broken out in open rebellion. During the reigns of the great Catharine and of Alexander I. a sentimental Liberalism had been fashionable in the upper classes. But it was not a very practical matter, and was not a serious danger to the autocracy. At the beginning of his reign Nicholas had to face a rising among the Guards at St. Petersburg, led by Liberal officers of high birth. He suppressed it in the speediest and most summary manner. Till his death, 1855, Nicholas maintained a régime of repression at home, and was the champion of absolutism in Europe.