this is really a pleasant sight. Framed in alleys of tall trees, there
rises in the park a far-stretching stone structure, of St. Petersburg
dimensions, surmounted by a great cupola. On the payment of ten kopeks
at the entrance we walk into the well-heated central portion under the
dome, brightly illuminated by arc-lamps. Furs and overshoes are removed.
And now an exclamation of admiration escapes our lips. A well-dressed
crowd strolls naturally, without crowding and elbowing, towards a
platform rising at the farther end, on which, to judge at a distance,
Neapolitan folk-singers are performing. We join the procession, and when
scarcely in the middle of the immense hall supported by iron girders,
there resound behind us thundering notes that cause us to look upward.
An orchestra stationed on a one-story-high cross-gallery has begun a
Russian popular song. The singers before us stop for a while. The crowd
moves forward. A negro dandy with high, white standing collar and
patent-leather boots, proudly leads by the arm a voluptuous blonde of
the Orpheum type. He grimly shows his teeth and fists to the scoffers
who make fun of the unequal pair; but this does not end in a race
conflict, for it is not yet certain whether a negro boy is more in
sympathy with the Japanese or the Russians. We finally reach the
interesting side of the hall, and there opens before us a still more
enchanting picture. Behind long buffet-tables, kept scrupulously clean,
and laden with all the delicacies of Russian cookery, from caviar
sandwiches to the splendid mayonnaise of salmon, there bustle neat
waitresses in white caps and broad, white aprons. The prices are
maintained low throughout. The same is true of the warm dishes, the
preparation of which we could watch in the large, open kitchen.
Spirituous liquors are not sold, but in their place kvass, and tea from
the immense copper samovar blinking in the kitchen. The glasses are
continually washed by sparkling water on an automatically turning high
stand. The bright nickel, the reddish shimmer of the copper, the bluish
white tiles of the floor and walls, the snow-white garments of the
cooks, the white light of the arc-lamps could induce a Dutchman to
produce a very effective painting of neatness. We allow ourselves to be
crowded forward, and after a fruitful pilgrimage, pass the folk-singers,
where a part of the crowd is gathered, back towards the central hall,
which we now observe at our leisure. We are struck here, in the first
place, by the colossal portraits of the Emperor and Empress. They are
the hosts here; for the millions for the imposing structure came from
the Emperor's private purse. Then there is an immense map of the Russian
empire for stimulating patriotic sentiments. But there await us still
other pleasures. The entire left wing of the building is occupied by an
enormous popular theatre. To-night Tschaikowski's "Maid of Orleans" is
being played. We purchase tickets at the popular price of one ruble per
seat, whereby we secure a place at about the middle of the extensive
parterre, and are enabled to look over the public in front and at back
of us; and this is not less interesting than the play on the stage. The
seats in the rows ahead of us cost up to two rubles; in the rows at the
back of us up to sixty kopeks. On either side are galleries and standing
room that cost "only" from thirty to seventy kopeks. In comparison with
the prices in the other St. Petersburg theatres those of the "Narodni
Dom" must be considered decidedly popular, even though it is a peculiar
class of people that can spare thirty kopeks to two rubles for an
evening at the theatre, quite aside from the incidental expenses of an
evening drive, of admission, and of wardrobe. But of that later.
We follow the play. The performance is decidedly respectable, from the
leader to the chorus. The setting is quite brilliant, and true to style,
the orchestra well trained, with some very excellent performers among
the soloists. We forget, for the time being, that we are in Russia,
notwithstanding the Russian language and the Russian music. It is
Schiller's heroic composition which has inspired the composer. Dunoi's
Lahire, Lionel, Raymond, Bertram, Agnes Sorel, Charles, the cardinal
appear before us in familiar scenes, and we experience at times quite
peculiar sensations when we again come across this northern night, the
images, the glowing rhetoric of which in the dear tongue of our own poet
had given us the first intoxication of patriotic enthusiasm. The
passionately warm music of Tschaikowski, and the swing of his choruses
intensify the effect of those reminiscences.
But let us return to Russian reality. A thin, black-bearded young man
paces busily through the rows during one of the entr'actes. He exchanges
remarks here and there with the officers and officials, whom he leaves
with a smile. And in the second entr'acte it becomes evident what
preparations had been made here. War had just been declared; the
password had just been given out to arouse patriotic enthusiasm, or, at
least, to make the attempt. Already in one or another of the theatres
the public had thunderingly called for the national hymn. What is proper
in the Imperial Theatre must be acceptable in the popular theatre. The
curtain had fallen after the second act, when suddenly, from one of the
boxlike recesses on the left gallery was heard the call "Hymn! Hymn!"
Everybody looked curiously up. There were there a few uniformed young
men, as we found later, student-members of that patriotic secret
association organized under the patronage of the reactionaries--a stroke
of Suvorin--to watch the progressive students. The orchestra replied to
the call with remarkable alacrity, and the public rose dutifully smiling
and stood to the beautiful hymn. But new shouts were heard. The choir
must join in. The curtain rose obediently, and the entire cast of "The
Maid of Orleans," Charles, Agnes, Jean d'Arc, and Lionel, Burgundy and
England; the people and knights were already properly grouped and joined
in the hymn with the orchestra accompaniment. The public again arose
politely and listened standing. The demonstration was not yet at an end.
It was reported that the hymn was sung three times in the other
theatres, hence that should occur also here. And the public patiently
rises for the third time, and lets the song float over it. The thin,
black-bearded young man, however, rubs his hands with which he joined in
the applause but shortly before, throws a significant glance to his
neighbors, and hastens out. I do not know to this day whether he was an
entrepreneur of the public resort, or a penny-a-liner who had arranged
an interesting piece of local news.
Thus I came to see the birth of one of those patriotic demonstrations of
which the papers were full in the following days. The impression was
anything but striking. The fine hand of the police could be detected in
the arrangement as well as in the audience. It was a forced
demonstration that no one could avoid. I remember from my boyhood the
explosive enthusiasm after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, and
the evening after the battle of Sedan. In man's estate I was a
non-participating observer of patriotic demonstrations in Hungary; my
heart beat fast at home as well as in Hungary under the stress of
sympathy. That was a real storm of feeling. Here--wet straw that would
not burn. Worse. An obedient participation--woe to him who did not
participate! and then a sarcastic wink felt as a compensation for the
coercion just experienced.
The difference was never clearer to me between free citizens and Russian
subjects, between national sentiment and obedience, as at these
patriotic demonstrations under police supervision and inspiration.
And now I looked at the public more carefully. Where was the "people"
among the thousands sitting in the theatre, or eddying up and down the
colossal halls? not one hundred, not fifty men or women in the dress of
the common people. All of it what is known in St. Petersburg as the
"gray public," officials, business-men, the class with an income of two
or three thousand rubles. I saw high-school instructors, students with
their girls, modistes, the good, small bourgeois, that often stand
morally and mentally high above the fashionable world; but the people,
in our sense of the term, the workingman, the peasant, for whom the
popular house was really built, in whose name the Czar was made to
contribute, and to whom the building is dedicated, these were absent,
and had to be absent, because they do not possess the schooling that
would enable them at all to enjoy the offerings of the "Narodni Dom."
The court may be persuaded that with such an institution they are
marching in the vanguard of civilization, and that something of the
future state has been realized with an institution that even the
republics of the West do not possess; but the Russian patriots who are
indeed living for their nation, and who would free it from the fetters
of ignorance and superstition, only shake their heads sadly at this
Potemkinism. Sand for the eyes of the philanthropic Czar, another winter
resort for the St. Petersburg middle class; for the people neither
"panem" nor "circenses," but for the paid eulogists a theme at which
enthusiasm may be kindled--that is the "Narodni Dom," the pride of St.
Petersburg. In Zurich, in Frankfort, in any place with real popular
education, this "Narodni Dom" would be an ideal people's house, adapted
to inspire sentiment of citizenship and patriotism, and to elevate the
general culture level. In St. Petersburg it only shows the good
intentions of the Czar and his consort, and the fundamental corruption
of the régime. A sober, enlightened, culture-loving people would not
submit to the autocracy of bureaucratic dictation shown above. It makes
ideal "people's houses," but takes care that as far as possible, this
house be kept free from the people.
XII
RUSSIA'S FINANCIAL FUTURE
I had a long and exhaustive conversation about the material welfare of
the Russian people with a statesman to whose identity I am not at
liberty to furnish even the slightest clew, if I am faithfully to carry
out my promise to guard against his recognition as my informant. They
were several hours of searching criticism, such as I had never listened
to, from a man who through long years had himself been active in a
prominent position, an outpouring quite permeated by the most hopeless
pessimism, and stated with a passion that contrasted oddly with the gray
hair and deeply furrowed face of the speaker. My references to him were
of such a nature that he felt it safe to allow himself the most
uncompromising plainness of statement. But I carried away the impression
that it would be sufficient to give the Russian statesmen the
possibility to speak freely, and there would be left no stone unturned
in that wicked structure that is called "the Russian government," so
great is already the accumulation of bitter anger even among those of
whom it would be supposed that they are the real leaders of the state.
The autocracy cannot even utilize the forces that are at its disposal.
"Yes, fate is cruelly upsetting all our calculations with this war,"
said the statesman, in answer to my question as to the probable effect
of the war on the Russian economy. "No one even suspects what
catastrophe we are facing, thanks to the policy that is just now
celebrating its greatest triumph."
"Is not that a paradox, your excellency?"
"No, not at all. The triumph of our policy is the money reserve at our
disposal, which enables us to mobilize without borrowing. But only
nearsightedness can find therein additional justification of this
economic policy, which, on the contrary, receives with its triumph also
its death-blow."
"May I have a fuller explanation?"
"It may be easily given. Financial and fiscal considerations have
destroyed our economy. You are surprised at this statement. But one must
understand this system. The creation of a gold-reserve, the formation of
a fiscal balance even at the expense of the internal forces of the
nation, are, under certain conditions a necessity. For a backward
agrarian state it is necessary, before all else, to join the more
advanced countries in fiscal economy and guaranteed values, and if that
requires sacrifices, it pays, in the end, in the greater credit
facilities, I might say by the greater financial defense of the state."
"And your excellency believes that the internal development of the
nation was thereby neglected, just as an athlete develops the muscles of
his limbs at the expense of his heart muscles?"
"Certainly; I accept the analogy. We have increased our fighting
efficiency, and have paid for it by internal weakening. I repeat that
there was no other way, if we ever were to pass from the natural to the
money system. This would be the right time to employ the credit thus
secured for internal strengthening. But the war has upset our
calculations and not only has it consumed our cash reserves, but will
also compel us to make new sacrifices. We are in the position of a man
who is still out of breath from running, but must begin running anew in
order to save his life, and may only too easily get a stroke of
apoplexy."
"Has not the industrial development in the western part of the country
strengthened the national finances?"
"No; on the contrary, it has involved sacrifices. And we cannot expect
salvation from these either. We have a yearly increase of two million
souls, and our entire industry does not employ more than two million
workmen. Our national existence must still depend for a long time on our
agriculture, and this, so far from advancing, is becoming poorer from
year to year."
"On account of the industrial policy?"
"No; but you should not forget that this industrial policy has by no
means mastered the system. Nay, had the spirit whence our industrial
policy originated been the ruling spirit, our agriculture would also
have been in a better position; for that is the spirit of enlightenment.
But now the strength of the soil is decreasing; and the peasant has no
manure, nor is he acquainted with any system of cropping under changed
conditions of fertility."
"And why is nothing done for the uplifting of his economic insight?"
"You must ask that of the gentlemen of the almighty police and not of
me. I am of the humble opinion that hunger is beneficial neither to the
soul nor to the body; but in that department where there is more power
than in ours, it is believed that knowledge is under all conditions
injurious to the soul. Also, that too many people should not come
together and take counsel of one another; in the opinion of our
government, no good can come of it. We had appointed commissions for the
uplifting of the peasantry, for road-construction, for the regulation of
questions of credit; but always the results were only conflicts between
the provincial corporations, the zemstvos, and the government."
"What was the cause of these conflicts?"
"The tradition and the guiding principle of the present system, which I
can only designate as the principle of gagging. An administration that
does not oppress the peasantry is not yet to be thought of. Our peasant
needs nothing so much as travelling agricultural teachers. But what
would be the end of such teaching? To Siberia direct. Fear of the
intelligent classes has already become a mania. Intelligence, if it
pleases you, is revolution; only no contact with Liberal elements. The
salvation of our people lies in its isolation."
"But that is the régime of a conquered country! Are not the rulers
themselves Russians? How can they be so cruel to their own flesh?"
"The police official is no Russian. He is quite free from national
sentiment; he is only an oppressor, a detective. Our ministry of the
interior is merely a great detective bureau, a monstrous and costly
surveillance institution. When the notorious 'third division' was
abolished and subordinated to the ministry of the interior it was
considered a step in advance. But it was not the ministry of the
interior that absorbed the 'third division,' but the reverse. We no
longer have administration, but only surveillance, arrest, deportation.
Shall I tell you? Our commission worked honestly. It consisted of
noblemen, high-minded patriots, who took part in working out a project
for the improvement of economic conditions. Only three hundred copies of
the report were printed; it was not meant for general circulation. But
the result of the labors undertaken at our instance was the arrest of
the outspoken, upright critics. Do you consider that an encouragement
for patriotic endeavor? Our merchants and our zemstvos have opened, in
the last six years, one hundred and thirty-six schools without one kopek
of state aid, and with a yearly expenditure of four million rubles. The
instinct for what is necessary is therefore present. Our society should
only be let alone and we also might go through the same development,
perhaps in a slower measure, which Germany has passed through with such
momentous success in the last thirty years--from an agricultural state
dependent on the weather to a mighty industrial country. But Germany is
a constitutional state and we are a police state. Germany has a middle
class; we have none, and the formation of such a class is prevented by
every possible means. The commercial schools are subjected to annoying
conditions because they are under the jurisdiction of the ministry of
finance, where, naturally, a different spirit prevails. The commercial
guilds are making enormous material sacrifices, spending annually,
besides the four millions for maintenance, five additional millions on
buildings, only to retain their autonomy, to keep in their own hands the
staffs of instruction and inspection, and to possess a greater
elasticity of adaptation to local conditions. This sacrifice is
overlooked, and the slightest exhibition of free initiative is jealously
suppressed."
"Your excellency, I find that one cannot discuss the least question of
pedagogy or economics in Russia without touching high politics."
"Very true. You may see from that to what a pass we have come. We have
been going backward uninterruptedly for the last twenty years. The
nobility is losing its estates because it has not learned to manage
them, and has not recovered to this very day from the abolition of
serfdom. But the land does not fall into the hands of the peasants, who
need it, but into those of the merchants. The agricultural proletariat
remains unprovided for. The peasant cannot raise the taxes. The soil
here gives fourfold returns; in Germany eightfold returns. It pays at
the same time, this side of the Dnieper, ten to fifteen per cent.
annually for tenure; in England two to three per cent.; in France and
Germany four to five per cent.; and on the other side of the Dnieper,
where long tenures are in vogue, five to six per cent. Remember that
this is a yearly tenure. It is a premium on soil robbery. Sixty rubles
for the tenure of one desyatin. The peasant cannot raise that amount,
and yet he is compelled at the same time to pay taxes. Year after year
hunger visits entire governments, for the peasants are utterly
impoverished and have not even seed. With an empty stomach and a dark
mind the peasant must bear family, communal, and government burdens."
"I read something similar two years ago in a book by an Englishman."
"You mean _The Russian Conditions_, by Lanin, from the _Fortnightly
Review_."
"Quite right, your excellency. But I considered the description
overdrawn. Moreover, I cannot conceive how abuses could be so clearly
painted as in that book, the statements of which your excellency now
confirms, without any prospects of redress."
"Who is to give redress?"
"The Czar."
"The Czar is living behind a Wall of China. He has never visited a
'duma' (city council), never a zemstvo (district council), never a
village, never an industrial centre. He is kept by the camarilla in
constant dread, and is so closely watched that he sees not a
finger's-breadth of heaven, much less of earth. He rejoices when an
occasional quarrel breaks out among the ministers, for he then has the
opportunity to learn here and there a fragment of truth."
"And does no one succeed in representing to him conditions as they are?"
"I will make a confession to you. Not very long ago I myself prepared a
paper, not bearing my name--that would have offered certain
difficulties--but anonymous, and had it transmitted to the Czar by a
trustworthy person. For eight days there was great joy at the court. The
Emperor and the Empress were delighted to know where the trouble lay and
how it was to be remedied. Then the whole matter, as it were, vanished
and was forgotten."
"Then that already is pathological."
A shrug of the shoulders was his answer. "Above all things there is the
great anxiety and fear at the responsibility. There is also a weakness
on account of conscientious scruples. The Emperor knows nothing
thoroughly enough to enable him to overcome the arguments of a skilled
sophist, and he is too indulgent to say to one of his counsellors, 'Sir,
you are a cheat.' He hears in the reports only praise of somebody, never
any censure. For he has a great dread of intrigue, and not without good
reason. The atmosphere is a fearful one in the vicinity of every
autocrat. The Czar is pathetically well-meaning, and is modesty itself,
but he is not the autocrat for an autocracy, who must be equal to his
task."
"And what, in your excellency's opinion, should be done to help the
country?"
"No more than the rest of the world has already accomplished. Abolition
of the police system, security of personal freedom, abolition of the
censorship, discontinuance of the persecution of sectarians, who are our
best subjects, and--I say the word quietly--a constitution."
"And would the country really be helped thereby?"
"Unconditionally. With these little concessions to-day any political
convulsion could be avoided, and the intelligent class freed from its
fetters. No one knows what will be offered ten years from now."
"Are there prospects of this concession?"
"Not the slightest. On the contrary, whoever falls under the suspicion
of unconditional approval of the present system may be morally destroyed
at any time."
"What will then be the end?"
"That the terror from above will awaken the terror from below, that
peasant revolts will break out--even now the police must be augmented in
the interior--and assassination will increase."
"And is there no possibility of organizing the revolution so that it
shall not rage senselessly?"
"Impossible. Our rural nobleman is, to be sure, not a junker; but the
strength of the régime consists in the exclusion of any understanding
between the land-owners and the peasants because of the social and
intellectual chasm between them."
"Your excellency, I remember a saying of Strousberg's, who was a good
business man, 'There is nowhere a hole where there once was land.' One
learns to doubt that here in Russia. There is not one with whom I have
spoken who would fail to paint the future of this country in the darkest
colors. Can there be no change of the fatal policy that is ruining the
country?"
"Not before a great general catastrophe. When we shall be compelled, for
the first time, partly to repudiate our debts--and that may happen
sooner than we now believe--on that day, being no longer able to pay our
old debts with new ones--for we shall no longer be able to conceal our
internal bankruptcy from foreign countries and from the Emperor--steps
will be taken, perhaps, towards a general convention. No sooner."
"Is there no mistake possible here?"
"Martin Luther hesitated as long as he had not seen the pope, no longer
after that. Whoever, like myself, has known the state kitchen for the
last twenty-five years, doubts no longer. The autocracy is not equal to
the problems of a modern great power, and it would be against all
historical precedents to assume that it would voluntarily yield without
external pressure to a constitutional form of government."
"We must wish, then, for Russia's sake, that the catastrophe come as
quickly as possible?"
"I repeat to you that it is perhaps nearer than we all think or are
willing to admit. That is the hope; that is our secret consolation."
Such was the substance of my long interview with one of the best judges
of present-day Russia, from which I have omitted only those places and
versions which would render their author easily recognizable. For the
rest, I must say here that, with slight variations, the statements of
all the other competent persons whom I had the opportunity to meet
agreed with those of my present informant. The unwritten public opinion
of Russia is absolutely of the same mind in its judgment of existing
conditions; it differs only as to the remedies.
"We are near to collapse--an athlete with great muscles and perhaps
incurable heart weakness," repeated the statesman at parting. "We still
maintain ourselves upright by stimulants, by loans, which, like all
stimulants, only help to ruin the system more quickly. With that we are
a rich country with all conceivable natural resources, simply
ill-governed and prevented from unlocking its resources. But is this the
first time that quacks have ruined a Hercules that has fallen into their
hands? Whoever shall free us from these quacks will be our benefactor.
We need light and air, and we shall then surprise the world by our
abilities and achievements."
XIII
THE RUSSIAN FINANCES
It was shortly after the Port Arthur naval catastrophe that I sought out
a bank director, with whom I had become acquainted, to talk with him
upon the financial effects of the war, that had had such noteworthy
results on the floors of European exchanges. To my astonishment, I found
the comfortable bank director very calm.
"The system will still help us out," said he, evasively, to my question
whether Russia would have to face a financial crisis after the war.
"What system?" said I.