FURTHER IMPRESSIONS OF THE DUMA
_May 23rd._
Every time I pay a fresh visit to the Duma I am struck by the
originality of the appearance of its members. There is a Polish member
who is dressed in light blue tights, a short Eton jacket and Hessian
boots. He has curly hair, and looks exactly like the hero of the
“Cavalleria Rusticana.” There is a Polish member who is dressed in a
long white flannel coat reaching to his knees, adorned with an intricate
pattern of dark crimson braid, and he also wears a long, soft, brown
sleeveless cloak hanging from his shoulders, bordered with vermilion
stripes. There are some Socialists who wear no collars, and there is, of
course, every kind of head-dress you can conceive. The second, and what
is to me the principal impression of the Duma, is the familiar ease with
which the members speak; some of them speak well, and some of them speak
badly, but they all speak as if they had spoken in Parliament all their
lives, without the slightest evidence of nervousness or shyness. The
sittings of the Duma are like a meeting of acquaintances in a club or a
_café_. There is nothing formal about them. The member walks up to the
tribune and sometimes has a short conversation with the President before
beginning his speech. Sometimes when he is called to order he indulges
in a brief explanation. The last sitting I attended they did their work
in a most business-like manner and got through it fairly quickly and
without many speeches. The peasants think there is too much speaking
altogether. One of them said to me, “There are people here who have no
right to be here.” “Who?” I asked. “Popes, for instance,” he said. “Why
shouldn’t Popes be members?” I asked. “Because they get 200 roubles a
year,” he answered; “what more can they want?” If this principle were
carried out in England there would be no members of Parliament at all.
Nobody can possibly say the Duma is disorderly; it takes itself with
profound seriousness. Only one person has made a joke so far. But there
have been many dramatic moments; for instance, when the President
announced that he was not to be received by the Emperor, and when for
the first time, in breathless silence, one of the Under Ministers spoke
from the Ministerial Bench. The beauty of the hall in which the members
sit is increased by its outlook, for the windows form a semicircle
behind the President’s chair and they look out on a sheet of water and
trees; a kind of Watteau-Versailles landscape where _fêtes galantes_
were once probably held. Two peasants cross-questioned me narrowly the
other day about England and English Parliamentary institutions. They
asked me if there was an income tax in England, what sort of education I
had received, what was the state of agriculture in England, what was the
rotation of the crops (to which question I gave a vaguely complicated
answer), and how long the House of Commons had existed.
On Monday morning an amusing incident occurred in the Lobby; on the
notice-board a telegram from the _Temps_ was pinned, in which it was
said that the demands of the Duma were unreasonable. One of the peasants
strongly objected to this, and said that it might influence the
peasants. It was pointed out to him that telegrams were posted in the
House of Commons and in all Parliaments. He then said, “Why don’t they
put up all the telegrams? Why do they choose that telegram in
particular? Besides, the English House of Commons has existed for
centuries; our Parliament is being born, and to do that sort of thing is
like interfering with a woman when she is giving birth to a child.” If
it be urged that the members of the Duma have spoken a great deal, I
should like to remind my readers that they have got through a great deal
of business in a short time. They passed the rules with regard to
closure and the Address comparatively quickly, and they have now their
Agrarian Bill ready for discussion.
Last Sunday I spent the afternoon at Peterhof, a suburb of St.
Petersburg, where the Emperor lives. There in the park amidst the trees
the splashing waterfalls and the tall fountains, “les grands jets d’eau
sveltes parmi les marbres,” the lilac bushes, and the song of many
nightingales, the middle classes were enjoying their Sunday afternoon
and the music of a band. In this beautiful and not inappropriate setting
suddenly the Empress of Russia passed in an open carriage, without any
escort, looking as beautiful as a flower. I could not help thinking of
Marie Antoinette at the Trianon, and I wondered whether three thousand
swords would leap from their scabbards on her behalf.
ST. PETERSBURG, _May 24th_.
One is repeatedly told by the best authorities that it is a mistake to
compare what is taking place now in Russia with the French Revolution.
It is, I know, misleading, and yet I cannot help thinking that, besides
the fact of all revolutions having more or less the same fundamental
causes, and proceeding, broadly speaking, on the same lines, there are
certain superficial resemblances of detail between the two movements
which are startling. What occurred in Russia last year was, properly
speaking, a prologue; it was not comparable to the events of 1789,
because we had not in Russia yet reached the period which corresponds to
1789. But now with the opening of the Duma it seems to me that we are
reaching this point. This evening a Russian friend of mine asked me to
glance at a short manual of French history which was lying on the table
and to notice how striking the resemblance is between the account of the
opening of the States-General and that of the Duma.
Before discussing this point there is a greater and more important
resemblance to be noted, namely, that the Constitutional Democrats or
the Cadets are not only playing the part, but are in their essence the
same thing, as the Tiers-État in France. The Constitutional Democrats
represent the whole of the educated middle class of Russia, and they are
championing the rights and the wishes of the peasants. It is, therefore,
a case, if ever, of saying like Sieyès: “Qu’est-ce que le Tiers-État?—La
nation. Qu’est-il?—Rien. Que doit-il être?—Tout.” Up to now the
Tiers-État in Russia has been politically nothing. In the future it will
probably be everything.
What do the Cadets want? I find the answer in my French history.
“Établir l’unité politique et sociale de la nation par l’égalité devant
la loi et la garantir par la liberté, c’était là, en deux mots, tout
l’esprit de 1789.” That is also the whole spirit of 1906. People both in
Russia as well as abroad minimise the pretensions of the Cadets because
they are unaware of the existence, or rather of the nature, of the
middle class in Russia. This is not surprising, because the middle
class, besides having been denied all access to political life, has
produced no startlingly great men in the branches of production which
obtain popular fame. The great Russian writers and artists came nearly
all from the aristocracy or from the peasantry. Men who have contributed
much to modern science have abounded in the middle class, but the fame
of such men is rarely popular. But now the work which the Cadets have so
far accomplished politically is a work which needs not a few great men,
but a compact mass of men who are agreed.
To go back to the French Revolution. It is striking to read sentences
such as the following, describing the opening of the States-General:
“Dès le 2 mai tous les députés furent présentés au roi; le 4, ils se
rendirent en procession solennelle à l’église de Saint-Louis....
L’étiquette avait assigné aux députés du Tiers un modeste vêtement noir;
ils furent couverts d’applaudissements. Les habits brodés de la noblesse
passèrent au milieu du silence.... Le 5 mai s’ouvrirent les États.... Le
roi était sur son trône, entouré des princes du sang; sur les degrés se
tenait la cour. Le reste de la salle était occupé par les trois
ordres ... le roi exprima, en quelques nobles paroles, ses vœux pour le
bonheur de la nation, convia les États à travailler, en les engageant à
remédier aux maux, sans se laisser entraîner au désir exagéré
d’innovations, qui s’est emparé des esprits.” The powers which were
conferred upon the States-General were similar, both as regards their
extent and their limitations, to those of the Duma, and the spirit in
which they were given then was just the same as that in which they have
been given here. The members of the States-General cheered the King. And
the silence with which the members of the Duma met the Emperor recalls
the phrase of the Bishop of Chartres to the National Assembly, after the
taking of the Bastille, “Le silence du peuple est la leçon des rois.”
Unhappily the lesson is not generally learnt.
The Duma worked hard last week to finish the debate on the reply to the
Speech from the Throne. The third reading was passed at three o’clock in
the morning last Friday. It must be noted that the majority of the Duma
seem to have made a grievous mistake in refusing to add a clause to
their address deprecating the murder of policemen by anarchists; only
five members of the Right supported this clause. Later on Friday morning
the President of the Chamber asked for an audience of the Emperor, and
it was thought that no time would be lost in letting him present the
address, since all Russia was waiting breathless for the event. Friday
passed, Saturday also, and Sunday, and conflicting rumours as to the
reception of the President by the Emperor were continually spreading in
the city.
Late on Sunday night it became known that the Emperor had refused to
receive the President and his deputation, and it was ordained that the
address should be presented through official channels. The news was not
believed at first. The blunder seemed too great. Somebody had prophesied
to me on Sunday that such a course would be adopted, as a joke, never
dreaming that it would really be the case. On Monday morning it was
announced in the newspapers, and when I arrived at the Duma, I found
that the place was in a state of agitation. “The Government is defying
us,” was the general expression. An official remarked that the farce was
over; that the Duma would proceed to make a fool of itself by some
explosion of violence, and discredit itself for ever. This did not
occur. A short meeting of the party was held in one of the Committee
rooms, and Professor Milioukov, in an eloquent speech, pointed out the
extreme folly of any policy of violence, and his party agreed with him
unanimously. This lasted about three-quarters of an hour. Then the
debate opened; the President announced the intimation he had received as
regards his audience. M. Aladin made a speech in which he gave
expression to the general resentment at the way in which the Duma had
been treated. Professor Kovolievski analysed the situation, and
illustrated it with parallels from the procedure of other countries, and
then the House went on to the business of the day with unruffled
serenity.
Considering the intense bitterness of feeling created by the action of
the Emperor, the behaviour of the Duma was miraculous in its good sense
and moderation. But the fact that this action was received quietly does
not wipe out its effect as an irreparable blunder. The peasants were
more incensed than all, even the most conservative of the peasants. One
of them said to me: “The Emperor would not receive our delegates,” in a
tone of deep resentment, and this evening the telegrams tell us that the
feeling created in the provinces where the news has arrived is
alarmingly bitter. It is a melancholy fact that if a course is fatal it
will probably be taken. I have begun to think that the higher
authorities here are destined to take no single step which is not fatal.
When one reads the history of France, one understands people making the
mistakes they made, as they had not the glaring example of the past
before them; but it is hard to imagine how people who have read the
history of France can persist in making the very same mistakes over
again. Probably the Government relies—and perhaps rightly—on the troops
when the inevitable struggle comes. I asked a peasant member of the Duma
yesterday what he thought about that; he said that he had talked with
many soldiers, and that they would refuse to fight if it was to be
against the Duma. The peasant may be mistaken; he may be cherishing an
illusion. But what is undeniable is the fact that the existence of the
Duma entirely changes the situation of the Army in the event of a great
rising. Because the soldiers now know that, if the Duma falls, the
struggle of the peasants for land and liberty is lost, and the cause of
peasants is their cause, because they are peasants. In 1789 Paris was
full of troops for the purpose of keeping order. Paris was like an armed
camp. Eleven soldiers of the Guard were arrested in July for their
opinions. The National Assembly demanded the dispersal of the troops,
“dont la présence irritait les esprits,” and Mirabeau, commenting on the
line of conduct adopted by the advisers of the King, put the following
question: “Ont-ils observé par quel funeste enchainement de
circonstances les esprits les plus sages sont jetés hors des limites de
la modération, et par quelle impulsion terrible un peuple enivré se
précipite vers des excès, dont la première idée l’eût fait frémir?”
_May 24th._
I was talking to-night with a very cultivated Russian officer whom I had
known in Manchuria, who was a great admirer of Rudyard Kipling. He said
the “Jungle Book” was one of his favourite books. He said he thought
there was a certain kind of Jingoism to which he considered it weak on
Rudyard Kipling’s part to stoop. He did not mean the patriotism which
inspired his work in the sense of praise of England; but the passages
which were directed against other countries, such as France or Russia.
He cited the story “The Man that Was.” He said he knew a true story of
an Englishman made prisoner in the Crimean War. This Englishman had been
very ill during his captivity and was taken care of by a Russian family.
When peace was declared he returned to England. Two years afterwards he
died, and his mother had been so touched by the way in which he had been
looked after by the Russians with whom he had lived and by the way he
had always spoken of them, that she sent them a ring which had belonged
to him and a lock of his hair. He gave me the names. He said he always
wished to write and tell Kipling about this.