CAUSES OF DISCONTENT.
I have already said in the preceding chapter that the principles of
central and parliamentary government in Russia, and the theory of local
administration and local self-government, if investigated on paper,
produce an excellent impression, so that the casual inquirer, glancing
at the subject for the first time, will be tempted to exclaim, “What
more can the Russian people want?”
Moreover, there has perhaps never been a period when Russia was more
materially prosperous than at the present moment, or when the great
majority of the people seemed to have so little obvious cause for
discontent; and yet—it would be futile to deny it—unmistakable signs of
discontent exist.
Seeds of discontent have been sown, and are every day being sown
broadcast, and unless their early shoots are uprooted in time, it is
difficult to imagine that they will not bear momentous fruit in the
future, however distant such a future may be.
Whereupon the casual inquirer would probably ask a further question: “If
the Russian people are discontented, why are they discontented? What are
these seeds of discontent? Whence do they come? And are their grievances
substantial or frivolous, real or imaginary?”
The answer is, I think, simple.
The seeds of discontent, where they exist, are the result of one simple
fact. In 1905 explicit promises were made to the Russian people, which,
if carried out, would insure their complete political liberty and the
full rights of citizenship. Those promises have in some cases not been
carried out at all, and in other cases they have only been carried out
partially, or according to the letter and not according to the spirit.
Practically, political liberty does not yet exist in Russia, and the
rights of political citizenship are still a vain dream.
Every now and then the spokesmen of the Government inform us that the
Russian people are quite indifferent as to legislative reform, and that
all they care for is competent administration. I think, however, putting
aside altogether the question whether competent administration can be
obtained without legislative reform, that nobody will deny that some
people in Russia want political liberty. It would be equally difficult
to deny that the absence of political liberty indirectly hampers and
annoys and exasperates a still greater number of people, who take no
interest in politics and who foster no political theories of any kind.
Hence discontent arises, which will necessarily vary and increase in
proportion as such annoyance and exasperation is felt by a greater or
lesser number of people.
In the years that followed immediately on the publishing of the
Manifesto in 1905, the policy of the Government during the
administration of P. A. Stolypin was: “Order first; Reform afterwards.”
To P. A. Stolypin fell the ungrateful task of restoring order. He
accomplished his task, successfully if drastically. And it is only fair
to say that it would have probably been impossible to restore order save
by drastic measures. It must also be said in fairness that P. A.
Stolypin initiated certain large measures which tend towards reform—his
Land Bill and his Education Bill, for instance. But the reforms
initiated during his administration, and during that of his successor,
have as yet only been partial; and so far the practical policy of the
Government has consisted in taking away, curtailing, and limiting with
one hand what has been given with the other.
This is partly due to the constant introduction of qualifying clauses
and amendments in any new laws that are liberal in spirit—amendments
which have the effect of hindering the practical operation of the laws;
and partly to the quality of the local administration, whose duty it is
to interpret and to execute the laws. As a general rule, the local
administrative officials, by the manner of their interpretation, are
completely successful in sacrificing the spirit to the letter of the
law, and of depriving the laws of their true meaning, and of rendering
them null and void in practice.
Such a policy must inevitably have an exasperating effect on the
population.
Let us look into the matter a little more closely.
The Manifesto of October 30 promised, firstly, the creation of a
deliberative and legislative assembly without whose consent no new laws
in the future should be passed; and secondly, the full rights of
citizenship—namely, the inviolability of the person, freedom of
conscience, freedom of the Press, the right of organizing public
meetings, and of founding unions and associations.
How far and in what manner have these promises been fulfilled? How far
are these things a practical factor in Russian political life to-day?
Let us take the Duma first.
We have already seen that the Duma possesses a considerable indirect
influence, and that by its very existence, and quite apart from what it
may effect or fail to effect legislatively, a change has come about in
the government of Russia; but in spite of this, the powers, or rather
the power, of the Duma is to a certain extent paralyzed by the attitude
of the Central Government towards it.
The attitude of the Government towards the Duma is a curious one.
Firstly, by its interpretation of the law, by the addition of qualifying
clauses and amendments, the Government tries, whenever it can, to
diminish the powers that have been granted to the Duma, and more
especially in so far as they concern the Budget; and secondly, the
Government floods the Duma with a great quantity of irrelevant and
trivial legislation with the object of keeping the more vital and
important issues out of its reach.
This is one reason why any prevailing discontent is prevented from
subsiding, since by acting in this manner the Government never ceases to
fan the smouldering ashes of discontent into flame, and to feed the
flame with slender but continuous supplies of fresh fuel.
So far, then, we have already one cause of discontent—the attitude of
the Government towards the Duma; and this attitude consists, in a word,
of doing everything it can to prevent the Duma from becoming a reality—a
vital factor in the State—and in trying to convert it into a passive
annex to the Government machine.
The second question now arises. What has been, and what is, the attitude
of the Central Government towards the remaining promises made by the
Manifesto of October 30th? I will take the promises separately; but
before doing so, it will be as well to point out that, at present, all
matters which are affected by the promises laid down in the Manifesto of
1905 are being carried out by temporary regulations, instead of by laws
passed through the Duma. It is clear that temporary regulations lend
themselves easily to amendment, and amendments signify a deviation from
the original intention of such regulations. Moreover, all temporary
regulations are interpreted by the local officials, whose powers of
interpretation are necessarily arbitrary, and whose powers of evasion,
explanation, and general tergiversation are incredibly ingenious, and
are almost invariably employed in the interests of reaction. I will now
take the various points in order.
(1.) _The Inviolability of the Person._—With regard to this question,
practically nothing has been done. A Bill on the subject was introduced
by the Government during the third session of the last Duma, but was
rejected by the Duma because it did not affect the root of the question.
Another Bill was introduced later, but has not yet emerged into the
region of fact. The laws of the country on this point are brief and
explicit. They guarantee to the subject a slightly protracted form of
_habeas corpus_, and are summed up in twelve short clauses; but if you
buy the book containing these twelve short clauses, you find they are
followed by a whole volume of amendments, explanations, and rules
relating to exceptional circumstances. Practically, these exceptions
deal for the greater part with so-called political offences; but owing
to the ramifications of these manifold amendments, both the central and
the local authorities can enlarge their conception of what constitutes a
political offence to almost any extent. The interpretation becomes
infinitely elastic; and thus it is easy for people who have no more to
do with politics than the man in the moon to fall under the suspicion of
a political offence, and the life of everyday people is reached and
touched by the ramifications of exceptional clauses made to a clear law,
which was originally passed in order to deal with cases germane to one
exceptional matter, and which could only therefore affect a small
minority.
Again, all the ordinary laws of the country can be suspended and
overruled by the putting into force of temporary regulations, which are
introduced by the authorities as administrative measures in districts
which are, or are supposed to be, disturbed.
These temporary measures are in reality minor forms and shades of
martial law. They consist of what are called the state of “Reinforced
Protection,” and the state of “Extraordinary Protection.”
Both these exception “states” may be proclaimed by the Ministry of the
Interior, after a resolution of the Cabinet Council, which must be
confirmed by the Emperor.
Under the state of “Reinforced Protection,” governors-general,
governors, and city prefects have the right of inflicting punishment for
the infringement of any rules they may issue by a fine not exceeding 500
roubles (£50), or by a term of imprisonment not exceeding three months,
without trial. They have also, among other things, the right of
prohibiting public or private meetings, of shutting commercial
establishments, of prohibiting the residence of any person in a given
district.
Under the state of “Extraordinary Protection” their powers are enlarged.
For instance, a special police can be created, and certain offences can
be removed from the jurisdiction of ordinary courts of law and can be
tried by courts-martial; newspapers and periodicals can be suspended,
and schools can be closed for a period not exceeding one month. The
state of “Reinforced Protection” is still in force at this moment in
many parts of Russia, and although one reads from time to time in the
newspaper that it has been removed from such and such a place, it often
happens that it is merely the name which has been abolished. The
governor will often continue to exercise rights which are supposed to
apply solely to exceptional circumstances.
Further, these “States of Protection” are often left in force in places
where there is not, and has not been for a reasonable time, a shadow of
disturbance.
(2.) _Freedom of Conscience._—A law whose sole object was religious
tolerance was passed a few years ago. Theoretically freedom of
conscience is supposed to exist. Practically, it exists only very
partially. If there are fifty members of any religious denomination in
any place in Russia, they are supposed to be allowed to build a church,
where they can worship as they please. But there is a clause in this law
forbidding propaganda; and lately the interpretation of this clause has
become more and more elastic, and in virtue of it technical objections
are raised showing that Catholic or Uniate, or other unorthodox
societies, are not in order, and their churches are consequently closed.
Sometimes technical objections of another nature are found to meet the
case. A case in point is that of the Catholic Uniates who were allowed
by P. A. Stolypin to have a church in St. Petersburg. That church has
now been closed by the Minister of the Interior, Maklakov, on the
grounds that the church building does not fulfil the technical
conditions obligatory to buildings where public meetings are held.
Nothing could be more typical. The tendency during the last three years
has been to take away by means of technical objections, or under the
pretence of having discovered traces of propaganda, the larger liberties
that were given. And this again irritates all those whom it may concern.
As soon as any religious sect is suspected of opening rivalry to the
Orthodox Church, some means or other is immediately found for
prohibiting it. The Salvation Army are not allowed in Russia. Such
things being the case, it would be absurd to say that liberty of
conscience exists in Russia; on the other hand, it exists in larger
measure than it used to.
(3.) _Freedom of the Press._—Broadly speaking, the Press is free in
Russia at present, and this is perhaps the greatest asset which resulted
from the revolutionary movement. Before 1905, there existed what in
practice, although not in theory, was called “Previous Censure”—that is
to say, representatives of the censorship used to visit the newspaper
offices and censor the newspapers at their own sweet will. At present
people can write what they choose in the newspapers, but the
administration has the right to inflict a fine not exceeding 500 roubles
(£50) on a newspaper (_a_) for publishing false news concerning the
Government; and (_b_) for inciting the populace to rise against the
Government; and in the case of “Extraordinary Protection,” newspapers,
as we have seen, can be stopped altogether.
The effect of this regulation is felt far more in the provinces than in
the large cities, for it stands to reason that a small newspaper with a
narrow circulation will be more sensitive to such a fine than a large
newspaper with an enormous circulation, to which it will be no more than
a flea-bite. Moreover, the regulation is applied more often and more
indiscriminately in the provinces than in the large cities.
For instance, the Moscow newspaper, the _Russkoe Slovo_, which I believe
has the largest circulation of any Russian newspaper, published on
November 7, 1913, the following schedule of the fines imposed on
newspapers for comments on the Beiliss trial up to date:—
_October 24 (November 7, N.S.)._
Pamphlets confiscated 1
Newspapers fined 1
Total fines, 200 roubles (about £20).
_Total for 30 days of the Beiliss Case._
Editors arrested 6
Editors summoned 6
Newspapers confiscated 27
Pamphlets confiscated 6
Newspapers closed 3
Newspapers fined 42
Total of fines (up to date) 12,750 roubles (about £1,275).
A similar schedule, with its daily total of fines, appeared every day
during the ritual murder trial.
It will be seen that the fines, when added up, do not amount to a very
considerable sum, but a succession of such fines, not large in
themselves, can end by doing damage to a small provincial paper. In any
case they exercise an irritating effect.
Here again the question of interpretation plays an important part.
Almost anything can be interpreted as coming under the head of “false
news concerning the Government,” and it is often easy to catch a
newspaper out of a technical inaccuracy, although the statement made may
in its substance be true.
For instance, if in a schedule such as that I have quoted it were stated
that the editor of such and such a provincial newspaper had been
arrested, and supposing the fact were true; but supposing also he had
been subsequently released, and the news of his release had not reached
the newspaper which published the news of his arrest, the newspaper
would be fined for spreading false news with regard to the action of the
Government.
Supposing, again, a regulation in a provincial district had been
infringed by an official, and the news of the infringement were
published in a newspaper; if the newspaper made a mistake with regard to
the exact rank of the official in question, it would be fined for
spreading false news.
Newspapers that copy news from other newspapers which come under the ban
of “false news” are likewise liable to be fined.
This state of things, although it leaves the richer newspapers
indifferent, exasperates the great mass of the journalistic world beyond
measure.
(4.) _The right of holding Public Meetings._—Public meetings are
allowed, theoretically, under certain conditions. In the first place, in
order to hold a meeting you must apply for permission to the local
governor, and state the object of the meeting. If the local governor
refuses, you must give up the idea.
Secondly, a member of the police must be present at any meeting, who
shall have the right of putting a stop to the proceedings if he thinks
the speakers are showing signs of an anti-governmental tendency.
The police have in the last few years continually enlarged their
conception of what can be considered anti-governmental, so much so that
they often go to a meeting with the sole purpose of stopping it, and
seize the first pretext of so doing, especially if it is a meeting of
working men. The net result of the policy is that public meetings are
rare, even at election times. Even the programmes of concerts must be
sanctioned by the police.
(5.) _Associations and Societies._—These had a brief and flourishing
existence immediately after the publication of the Manifesto, during the
administration of Count Witte and the session of the first Duma; since
then they have practically ceased to exist. They are entirely subject to
Government control, and have been controlled out of all existence.
These five clauses which I have just analyzed, if they were carried out
in practice, would confer on the Russian citizen complete rights of
citizenship—in a word, political liberty. As it is, they are either not
carried out at all, or in so far as they are carried out they operate in
virtue of temporary regulations which are (_a_) liable to constant
amendment; (_b_) at the mercy of the interpretation of local officials.
So, if the attitude of the Government towards the Duma is one great
cause of discontent, the nature and the tendency of local administration
is another.
The local administration is bad in itself, and has the effect of
exasperating the people.
One of the reasons why this is so, is the necessity which the local
officials feel themselves to be under of keeping up their prestige, and
the prestige of the Central Government. The result of the policy of
“Order first; Reform afterwards,” as it filtered through the various
branches of administration throughout the country, is that the greatest
crime in the eyes of the administration is criticism—criticism of any
kind—because the slightest breath of criticism is held to be subversive
and detrimental to the prestige of Government; and in the eyes of the
officials, the Government must be upheld at all costs.
In the country, in the provinces and districts, at the present day in
Russia, the illegality practised by Government officials is more
flagrant than it was before 1905, because before 1905 illegality came
from above, and from above only, and the local Government officials did
not dare to infringe their obligations, but now the illegality is
decentralized, and disseminated throughout the complicated network of
administration. And since any kind of criticism is looked upon as a
crime, those who are guilty of it, or are suspected of being guilty of
it, are liable to meet with every kind of small restriction, check, and
annoyance, and hence the life of the people is interfered with, and
discontent is engendered.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the part played by the secret police.
We have said that criticism is regarded as a crime, and as an attack on
the prestige of Government, but the reason of this is that criticism of
governmental methods or officials is regarded as being synonymous with
sympathy with the revolutionaries, and the ideas of the extreme parties,
and this wide definition of criticism includes religious propaganda, the
spreading of false news, and all anti-governmental speech or action. All
these things are regarded as denoting sympathy with revolution, and
revolution in its extreme form.
This is the view of the administration as a whole, and the view is
strongly reflected in the action of the secret police, which exists all
over the country; and the business of the secret police is, if not to
spread discontent, to make it appear far more formidable than it is; to
make it appear active where in reality it is only passive, otherwise
there would be no reason why a large part of the secret police should
exist at all.
In order to check and keep an eye on the revolutionary movement, whose
existence the administration suspects everywhere, a wholesale system of
espionage, of secret reports, of private denunciation, exists. The
administration employs a quantity of people who are paid to “sneak” of
what is going on in various quarters. Now the step from the office of
spy to that of _agent provocateur_ is an easy one. It is obvious that a
spy who wishes for further information about people who are thought to
be revolutionaries will obtain that information more easily if he
pretends to be a revolutionary himself. So the spy easily degenerates
into the _agent provocateur_, and the people, knowing that spies and
_agents provocateurs_ exist in their midst, feel they are never safe.
And this feeling that you are never safe, whoever you are, or wherever
you are (for a report may be at any moment being concocted about you, in
the very _milieu_ where you live), gives a constantly increasing
stimulus to discontent. It is not so much the things that happen, but
the feeling that something may happen, that nobody is safe, which
prevents discontent from dying out. Here, as in other respects, the life
of the people is interfered with, and the people are exasperated.
All that I have written so far applies to Russia proper, but it is
applicable in a higher degree to the Ukraines, to Poland, the Caucasus,
the Baltic provinces, and to Finland.
In these provinces the arbitrary nature of local administration and the
illegality practised by Government officials is felt more strongly still
than in Russia. Consequently, in all these outlying dominions, there
prevails a greater or a lesser degree of discontent. And this discontent
is further increased by the policy of the Central Government towards
these dominions; for the Government _vis-à-vis_ of the Duma makes
capital out of the question of these different nationalities, and places
in the foreground questions of legislation which concern them. They are
used as a political weapon, as a spring-board for nationalist theory and
practice, and as a means for shelving measures of reform, which deal
with Russia proper. This not only exasperates these various
nationalities to a high degree, but it also exasperates those Russians
who wish to see the reforms that were promised realized in their own
country.
Finally, the question arises, “Why is this so?” What prevents Russia
from being quietly governed according to the comprehensive laws that
already exist in its code, and according to the admirable and
perspicuous principles of its political constitution? and further, what
prevents the Government from fulfilling those promises made, which are
as yet unfulfilled, and from putting into practice reforms which the
majority of thinking people in Russia agree are indispensable?
It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to give a satisfactory and
categorical answer to these questions.
Political Liberals in Russia would probably answer that the old _régime_
which was scotched but not killed in 1905 is gradually recovering
strength, and is simply fighting for its existence: that it is a case of
self-preservation. On the other hand, there are Independent
Conservatives and Independent Radicals who would tell you that what is
needful in Russia is a strong executive, a drastic and courageous
dictator, who would be strong enough to hew down the impediments, and
cart away the rubbish, and govern Russia according to its ancient
traditions; that this is the only form of government which has ever been
successful in Russia, but that no such man of action is forthcoming at
present. Others, more sceptically inclined, would probably remind you
that every country has the government it deserves; and that if political
liberty in Russia does not exist, it is owing to the fundamental
tendency of the Russian character towards indiscipline, and that since
every Russian is more or less undisciplined, it is impossible for them
to expect that their Government will be anything but arbitrary.
One thing is certain, the drawbacks, the restraint, the impediments, the
danger of criticism, the checks on free speech, on free worship, and
other forms of freedom, to which I have alluded, naturally touch the
educated part of the population more nearly than they do the great
mass—the majority, the peasants—who at this moment are better off
economically than they have ever been before; and consequently, even if
they are discontented, it stands to reason that in the present
circumstances it would need a powerful stimulus to increase their
discontent to breaking point.
And what is true about the peasants is true, to a certain extent, about
the remainder of the population.
The population on the whole are prosperous at the present moment, and
their grievances are neither sharp nor strong enough, nor sufficiently
abundant, to make the temperature of their discontent rise to boiling
point. When the discontent which now exists becomes sufficiently widely
and deeply felt to stir the average man to sympathy with action, and the
abnormal man to violent action, then there may be an outbreak, unless it
be anticipated by timely measures of reform, and the causes of
discontent be removed.
At present nothing is being done by the Central Government or the local
administration in this direction. At the present moment the local
administration is making capital out of the fear of a revolution and a
revolutionary movement, of whose existence there is little or no
evidence, and infecting the central administration with this fear. Both
the local and the central administration are constantly taking steps and
issuing minor repressive measures to counteract a danger which, in the
opinion of most people, exists only in the imagination of detectives;
but if this policy continues, it is more than probable that the
administrative powers will in time succeed in transforming the danger
from an imaginary one into a real one, or rather, they will create the
very danger they are afraid of; and the next revolution in Russia will
be the offspring of the fears of the administration—of a bogey.
The last revolutionary movement in Russia had a destructive and
demoralizing effect on the population; it produced a wave of hooliganism
among the lower classes, and a current of anarchical thought and conduct
in the educated classes. It also had a demoralizing effect on the minor
officials and public servants; but whereas in the great majority of the
uneducated and educated public the balance of equilibrium was
automatically restored, owing to the necessities of everyday life and a
natural reaction towards common sense, this demoralization had a more
lasting effect on the officials, who once having been used to meet
exceptional circumstances and lawless acts by arbitrary means and
illegal measures, found it difficult to divest themselves of the habit.
And the lower the rung of the official ladder the more apparent the
demoralization becomes.
Now, it is the small officials who are more intimately in touch with the
population. Consequently the effect of their action is being continually
felt, and the effect is bad. And until something is done from above to
remedy this state of things, the smouldering embers of discontent, as I
have already said, will never have a chance of growing cold, and may
ultimately burst out in a fire of alarming proportions.