I write to explain why my journey to you did not come off. I was intending
to come to you not as a special correspondent, but on a commission from, or
more correctly by agreement with, a small circle of people who want to do
something for the famine-stricken peasants. The point is that the public
does not trust the administration and so is deterred from subscribing.
There are a thousand legends and fables about the waste, the shameless
theft, and so on. People hold aloof from the Episcopal department and are
indignant with the Red Cross. The owner of our beloved Babkino, the Zemsky
Natchalnik, rapped out to me, bluntly and definitely: “The Red Cross in
Moscow are thieves.” Such being the state of feeling, the government can
scarcely expect serious help from the public. And yet the public wants to
help and its conscience is uneasy. In September the educated and wealthy
classes of Moscow formed themselves into circles, thought, talked, and
applied for advice to leading persons; everyone was talking of how to get
round the government and organize independently. They decided to send to
the famine-stricken provinces their own agents, who should make
acquaintance with the position on the spot, open feeding centres, and so
on. Some of the leaders of these circles, persons of weight, went to
Durnovo to ask permission, and Durnovo refused it, declaring that the
organization of relief must be left to the Episcopal department and the Red
Cross. In short, private initiative was suppressed at its first efforts.
Everyone was cast down and dispirited; some were furious, some simply
washed their hands of the whole business. One must have the courage and
authority of Tolstoy to act in opposition to all prohibitions and
prevailing sentiments, and to follow the dictates of duty.
Well, now about myself. I am in complete sympathy with individual
initiative, for every man has the right to do good in the way he thinks
best; but all the discussion concerning the government, the Red Cross, and
so on, seemed to me inopportune and impractical. I imagined that with
coolness and good humour, one might get round all the terrors and delicacy
of the position, and that there was no need to go to the Minister about it.
I went to Sahalin without a single letter of recommendation, and yet I did
everything I wanted to. Why cannot I go to the famine-stricken provinces? I
remembered, too, such representatives of the government as you, Kiselyov,
and all the Zemsky Natchalniks and tax inspectors of my acquaintance--all
extremely decent people, worthy of complete confidence. And I resolved--if
only for a small region--to combine the two elements of officialdom and
private initiative. I want to come and consult you as soon as I can. The
public trusts me; it would trust you, too, and I might reckon on
succeeding. Do you remember I wrote to you? Suvorin came to Moscow at the
time; I complained to him that I did not know your address. He telegraphed
to Baranov, and Baranov was so kind as to send it to me. Suvorin was ill
with influenza; as a rule when he comes to Moscow we spend whole days
together discussing literature, of which he has a wide knowledge; we did
the same on this occasion, and in consequence I caught his influenza, was
laid up, and had a raging cough. Korolenko was in Moscow, and he found me
ill. Lung complications kept me ill for a whole month, confined to the
house and unable to do anything. Now I am on the way to recovery, though I
still cough and am thin. There is the whole story for you. If it had not
been for the influenza we might together perhaps have succeeded in
extracting two or three thousand or more from the public.
Your exasperation with the press I can quite understand. The lucubrations
of the journalists annoy you who know the true position of affairs, in the
same way as the lucubrations of the profane about diphtheria annoy me as a
doctor. But what would you have? Russia is not England and is not France.
Our newspapers are not rich and they have very few men at their disposal.
To send to the Volga a professor of the Petrovsky Academy or an Engelhardt
is expensive: to send a talented and business-like member of the staff is
impossible too--he is wanted at home. The _Times_ could organize a census
in the famine-stricken provinces at its own expense, could settle a Kennan
in every district, paying him forty roubles a day, and then something
sensible could be done; but what can the _Russkiya Vyedomosti_ or the
_Novoye Vremya_ do, who consider an income of a hundred thousand as the
wealth of Croesus? As for the correspondents themselves, they are townsmen
who know the country only from Glyeb Uspensky. Their position is an utterly
false one, they must fly into a district, sniff about, write, and dash on
further. The Russian correspondent has neither material resources, nor
freedom, nor authority. For two hundred roubles a month he gallops on and
on, and only prays they may not be angry with him for his involuntary and
inevitable misrepresentations. He feels guilty--though it is not he that is
to blame but Russian darkness. The newspaper correspondents of the west
have excellent maps, encyclopaedias, and statistics; in the west they could
write their reports, sitting at home, but among us a correspondent can
extract information only from talk and rumour. Among us in Russia only
three districts have been investigated: the Tcherepov district, the Tambov
district, and one other. That is all in the whole of Russia. The newspapers
tell lies, the correspondents are duffers, but what’s to be done? If our
press said nothing the position would be still more awful, you’ll admit
that.
Your letter and your scheme for buying the cattle from the peasants has
stirred me up. I am ready with all my heart and all my strength to follow
your lead and do whatever you think best. I have thought it over for a long
time, and this is my opinion: it is no use to reckon upon the rich. It is
too late. Every wealthy man has by now forked out as many thousands as he
is destined to. Our one resource now is the middle-class man who subscribes
by the rouble and the half-rouble. Those who in September were talking
about private initiative will by now have found themselves a niche in
various boards and committees and are already at work. So only the
middle-class man is left. Let us open a subscription list. You shall write
a letter to the editors, and I will get it printed in _Russkiya Vyedomosti_
and _Novoye Vremya_. To combine the two elements above mentioned, we might
both sign the letter. If that is inconvenient to you from an official point
of view, one might write in the third person as a communication that in the
fifth section of the Nizhni Novgorod district this and that had been
organized, that things were, thank God! going successfully and that
subscriptions could be sent to the Zemsky Natchalnik, E. P. Yegorov, or to
A. P. Chekhov, or to the editor of such and such papers. We need only to
write at some length. Write in full detail, I will add something, and the
thing will be done. We must ask for subscriptions and not for loans. No one
will come forward with a loan; it is uncomfortable. It is hard to give, but
it is harder still to take back.
I have only one rich acquaintance in Moscow, V. A. Morozov, a lady
well-known for her philanthropy. I went to see her yesterday with your
letter. I talked with her and dined with her. She is absorbed now in the
committee of education, which is organizing relief centres for the
school-children, and is giving everything to that. As education and horses
are incommensurables, V. A. promised me the co-operation of the committee
if we would start centres for feeding the school-children and send detailed
information about it. I felt it awkward to ask her for money on the spot,
for people beg and beg of her and fleece her like a fox. I only asked her
when she had any committees and board meetings not to forget us, and she
promised she would not....
If any roubles or half-roubles come in I will send them on to you without
delay. Dispose of me and believe me that it would be a real happiness to me
to do at least something, for so far I have done absolutely nothing for the
famine-stricken peasants and for those who are helping them.