Regarding the new system of local self-government, I may say briefly that I was very favorably impressed by the results. The first time I followed, as an attentive spectator, the proceedings of a Provincial Assembly, I was fairly astonished. It was in 1870—only nine years after the beginning of the great reforms—and already the local affairs were being discussed, on a footing of perfect equality, by noble landed proprietors in fashionable European costume and emancipated serfs in sheepskins. Some of the peasants were very able, unpretentious speakers, and in one respect they had an advantage over some of their former masters—they knew thoroughly what they were talking about. While the frock-coated young gentlemen who had finished their education in a university or agricultural college were often inclined to deal in scientific abstractions, their humble colleagues, who had come direct from the plow, confined themselves to thoroughly practical remarks, and usually exercised a very beneficial influence on the discussions.
The favorable impressions which I received from this Provincial Assembly were subsequently confirmed by wider experience, especially when I worked regularly during a Winter in the head office of the local administration of the Novgorod province. The chief defect of the new institutions seemed to me to be the very pardonable habit of attempting too much, without duly estimating the available resources. This illustrates a very important national characteristic—intense impatience to obtain gigantic results in an incredibly short space of time. Unlike the English, who crawl cautiously along the rugged path of progress, looking attentively to the right and to the left, and seeking to avoid obstacles and circumvent opposition by conciliation and compromise, the Russian dashes boldly into the unknown, keeping his eye fixed on the distant goal and striving to follow a beeline, regardless of obstacles and pitfalls. The natural consequence is that his moments of sanguine enthusiasm are frequently followed by hours of depression bordering on despair, when he is inclined to attribute his failure to some malign influence rather than to his own recklessness. When in this depressed mood the more violent natures are apt to have recourse to extreme measures.
By bearing in mind this national peculiarity the reader will more easily understand the strange events which followed close on the heels of the great reforms which I have just mentioned. Alexander II. was preparing to advance further along the path on which he had entered so successfully, when his reforming ardor was suddenly cooled by alarming symptoms of a widespread revolutionary agitation. Many members of the young generation, male and female, had imbibed the most advanced political and socialist theories of France and Germany, and they imagined that, by putting these into practice, Russia might advance by a single bound far beyond the more conservative nations and set an example for imitation to the future generations of humanity! The less violent of these enthusiasts, recognizing that a certain amount of preparatory work was necessary, undertook a campaign of propaganda among the lower classes, as factory workers in the towns and school teachers in the villages. The more violent, on the contrary, considered that a quicker and more efficient method of attaining the desired object was the destruction of autocracy by revolvers and bombs, and several attempts were accordingly made on the lives of the Czar and his advisers. For more than ten years, undismayed by these revolutionary manifestations, Alexander II. clung to his ideas of reform, but at last, in 1881, on the eve of issuing a decree for the convocation of a National Assembly, he fell a victim to the bomb throwers.
The practical result of all this was that for the next quarter of a century no great reforms were initiated, but those already effected were consolidated, and some progress was made in a quiet, unostentatious way, especially in the sphere of economic development.
A new period of reform began after the Japanese war, and this time the reform current took the direction of parliamentary institutions. At last, after much waiting, the political aspirations of the educated classes were partially realized, so that Russia has now a Chamber of Deputies, called the Imperial Duma, freely elected by the people, and an upper house, called the Imperial Council, whose members are selected partly by election and partly by nomination.
What strikes a stranger on first entering the Duma is the variety of costumes, showing plainly that all classes of the population are represented. There are landed proprietors not unlike English country squires; long-haired priests in ecclesiastical robes; workingmen from the factories and peasants from the villages in their Sunday clothes; one or two Cossacks in uniform; Mussulmans from the Eastern provinces in semi-Oriental attire. The various nationalities seem to live happily together—Great Russians, Little Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, Russo-Germans, Circassians, Tartars, &c. Almost as numerous as the nationalities are the recognized political parties—Conservatives, Nationalists, Liberals, Radicals, Labor Members, Social Democrats, and Socialists. Great liberty of speech is allowed, but the President has generally no difficulty in keeping order.
Thus, to all appearance, the Duma seems exactly what was required to complete the edifice of self-government founded fifty years ago; but we must not suppose that a Constitution not yet ten years old can be as strong and efficient as a Constitution which has gradually emerged from centuries of political struggle. In other words, the Russian Duma differs in many respects from the British House of Commons. One fundamental difference may be cited by way of example. In England, as all the world knows, the Cabinet is practically chosen by the party which happens to be predominant for the moment, and as soon as it fails to command a majority it must resign; whereas in Russia, as in Germany, the Cabinet is nominated by the Emperor. This is, of course, a very important difference, and all to our advantage, but it is not so great in practice as in theory. The Czar, though free theoretically to choose his Ministers as he pleases, must choose such men as can obtain a working majority in the Assembly; otherwise, the whole parliamentary machinery comes to a standstill. Such a deadlock actually occurred in the First Duma. Smarting under the humiliation of the Japanese war, attributing the defeats to the incurable incapacity of the Supreme Government, and believing that the old system had become too weak to withstand a vigorous assault, the majority of the Deputies resolved to abolish at once the autocratic power and replace it by ultra-democratic institutions. They accordingly adopted, from the very first day of the session, an attitude of irreconcilable hostility to the Cabinet, refused to listen to Ministerial explanations, abstained from all useful legislative work, and carried their strategy of obstruction so far that the Government had to take refuge in a dissolution.
For this unfortunate result, which tended to retard the natural growth of constitutional freedom in Russia, the Government was severely blamed by many of its critics, but I venture to think that a large share of the responsibility must be attributed to the unreasonable impatience of the Deputies and their supporters. In defense of this opinion I might adduce many strong arguments, but I confine myself to citing a significant little incident from my personal experience. Happening to meet at dinner one evening immediately after the dissolution an old friend who had played a leading part in the policy of obstruction, I took the liberty of remarking to him that he and his party appeared to me to have committed a strategical mistake. If they had shown themselves ready to co-operate with the Government in resisting the dangerous revolutionary movement and favoring moderate reforms, they might have made for themselves, in the course of nine or ten years, a very influential position in the parliamentary system, and might have greatly advanced the cause of democracy which they had at heart. Here my friend interrupted me with the exclamation: "Nine or ten years? We can't wait so long as that!"
The Second Duma was shipwrecked, like its predecessor, through youthful impatience. Among the Deputies there was a small group of Social Democrats who attempted to prepare a military insurrection, and when the conspiracy was discovered there was great reason to fear that the Government might adopt a reactionary policy; but it happily confined itself to some changes in the suffrage regulations and a dissolution of the Chamber, followed by a general election. Since that time the parliamentary machinery has worked much more smoothly. The Duma has learned the truth of the old adage that half a loaf is better than no bread, and on many important subjects, such as the preparation of the annual budget, it now co-operates loyally with the Ministers. In this way it gets its half loaf, and the country benefits by the new-born spirit of compromise.
Before going further, perhaps I ought to warn my readers that I am often reproached by my Russian friends with taking too favorable a view of the Duma and of many other things in Russia. To this I usually reply by taking those friends to task for their habitual pessimism in criticising themselves and their institutions. Naturally inclined to idealism, and not possessing sufficient hereditary experience to correct this tendency, they compare their institutions with ideals which nowhere exist in the real world, and consequently they condemn them very severely. The impartial foreigner who wishes to form a true estimate of these institutions must always take this into account. In spite of the impassioned philippics to which I have listened hundreds of times from my Russian friends, I am strongly of opinion that the Russian people have made in recent years considerable progress in their political education, and that they will continue to do so in the future.