FROM REVOLUTION TO REVOLUTION
I
No struggle for human freedom was ever wholly vain. No matter how vast and
seemingly complete the failure, there is always something of enduring good
achieved. That is the law of progress, universal and immutable. The First
Russian Revolution conformed to the law; it had failed and died in a tragic
way, yet its failure was relative and it left something of substantial
achievement as the foundation for fresh hope, courage, and effort. Czarism
had gathered all its mighty black forces and seemed, at the beginning of
1906, to be stronger than at any time in fifty years. The souls of Russia's
noblest and best sons and daughters were steeped in bitter pessimism. And
yet there was reason for hope and rejoicing; out of the ruin and despair
two great and supremely vital facts stood in bold, challenging relief.
The first of these facts was the new aspect of Czarism, its changed status.
Absolutism as a legal institution was dead. Nothing that Nicholas II and
his advisers were able to do could undo the constitutional changes effected
when the imperial edict made it part of the fundamental law of the nation
that "no law can become binding without the consent of the Imperial Duma,"
and that the Duma, elected by the people, had the right to control the
actions of the officials of the government, even when such officials were
appointed by the Czar himself. Absolutism was illegal now. Attempts might
be made to reintroduce it, and, indeed, that was the real significance of
the policy pursued by the government, but Absolutism could no longer
possess the moral strength that inheres in the sanctity of law. In fighting
it the Russian people now had that strength upon their side.
The second vital and hopeful fact was likewise a moral force. Absolutism
with all its assumed divine prerogatives, in the person of the Czar, had
declared its firm will "to grant the people the unshakable foundations of
civic freedom on the basis of real personal inviolability, freedom of
conscience, of speech, of assemblage and of unions." This civic freedom
Absolutism had sanctioned. By that act it gave the prestige of legality to
such assemblages, discussions, and publications as had always hitherto been
forced to accept risks and disabilities inseparable from illegal conduct.
Civic freedom had long been outlawed, a thing associated with lawlessness
and crime, and so long as that condition remained many who believed in
civic freedom itself, who wanted a free press, freedom of public assemblage
and of conscience in matters pertaining to religion, were kept from
participation in the struggle. Respect for law, as law, is deeply rooted in
civilized mankind--a fact which, while it makes the task of the
revolutionist hard, and at times impedes progress, is, nevertheless, of
immense value to human society.
Civic freedom was not yet a fact. It seemed, as a reality, to be as far
away as ever. Meetings were forbidden by officials and broken up by
soldiers and police; newspapers were suppressed, as of old; labor-unions,
and even the unions of the Intellectuals, were ruthlessly persecuted and
treated as conspiracies against the state. All this and more was true and
discouraging. Yet there was substantial gain: civic freedom as a practical
fact did not exist, but civic freedom as a lawful right lived in the minds
of millions of people--the greatest fact in Russia. The terms of the
Manifesto of October 17th--Absolutism's solemn covenant with the
nation--had not been repealed, and the nation knew that the government did
not dare to repeal it. Not all the Czar's armies and Black Hundreds could
destroy that consciousness of the lawful right to civic freedom. Nothing
could restore the old condition. Whereas in the past the government, in
suppressing the press and popular assemblages, could say to the people, "We
uphold the law!" now when the government attempted these things, the people
defiantly cried out, "You break the law!" Absolutism was no longer a thing
of law.
Nicholas II and all his bureaucrats could not return the chicken to the egg
from which it had been hatched. They could not unsay the fateful words
which called into being the Imperial Duma. The Revolution had put into
their souls a terrible fear of the wrath of the people. The Czar and his
government had to permit the election of the Duma to proceed, and yet,
conscious of the fact that the success of the Duma inevitably meant the end
of the old régime, they were bound, in self-protection, to attempt to kill
the Duma in the hope that thereby they would kill, or at least paralyze,
the Revolution itself. Thus it was, while not daring to forbid the
elections for the Duma to proceed, the government adopted a Machiavellian
policy.
The essentials of that policy were these: on the one hand, the Duma was not
to be seriously considered at all, when it should assemble. It would be
ignored, if possible, and no attention paid to any of its deliberations or
attempts to legislate. A certain amount of latitude would be given to it
as a debating society, a sort of safety-valve, but that was all. If this
policy could not be carried out in its entirety, if, for example, it should
prove impossible to completely ignore the Duma, it would be easy enough to
devise a mass of hampering restrictions and regulations which would render
it impotent, and yet necessitate no formal repudiation of the October
Manifesto. On the other hand, there was the possibility that the Duma might
be captured and made a safe ally. The suffrage upon which the elections
were to be based was most undemocratic and unjust, giving to the landlords
and the prosperous peasants, together with the wealthy classes in the
cities, an enormous preponderance in the electorate. By using the Black
Hundreds to work among the electors--bribing, cajoling, threatening, and
coercing, as the occasion might require--it might be possible to bring
about the election of a Duma which would be a pliant and ready tool of the
government.
One of the favorite devices of the Black Hundreds was to send agents among
the workers in the cities and among the peasants to discredit the Duma in
advance, and to spread the idea that it would only represent the
bourgeoisie. Many of the most influential Socialist leaders unfortunately
preached the same doctrine. This was the natural and logical outcome of the
separate action of the classes in the Revolution, and of the manner in
which the proletariat had forced the economic struggle to the front during
the political struggle. In the vanguard of the fight for the Duma were the
Constitutional Democrats, led by Miliukov, Prince Lvov, and many prominent
leaders of the zemstvos. The divorce between the classes represented by
these men and the proletariat represented by the Social Democrats was
absolute. It was not surprising that the leaders of the Social Democratic
party should be suspicious and distrustful of the Constitutional Democrats
and refuse to co-operate with them.
But many of the Social Democrats went much farther than this, and, in the
name of Socialism and proletarian class consciousness, adopted the same
attitude toward the Duma itself as that which the agents of the Black
Hundreds were urging upon the people. Among the Socialist leaders who took
this position was Vladimir Ulyanov, the great propagandist whom the world
knows to-day as Nikolai Lenine, Bolshevik Prime Minister and Dictator.
Lenine urged the workers to boycott the Duma and to refuse to participate
in the elections in any manner whatever. At a time when only a united
effort by all classes could be expected to accomplish anything, and when
such a victory of the people over the autocratic régime as might have been
secured by united action would have meant the triumph of the Revolution,
Lenine preached separatism. Unfortunately, his influence, even at that
time, was very great and his counsels prevailed with a great many Socialist
groups over the wiser counsels of Plechanov and others.
It may be said, in explanation and extenuation of Lenine's course, that the
boycotting of the elections was the logical outcome of the class antagonism
and separatism, and that the bourgeois leaders were just as much
responsible for the separatism as the leaders of the proletariat were. All
this is true. It is quite true to say that wiser leadership of the
manufacturing class in the critical days of 1905 would have made
concessions and granted many of the demands of the striking workmen. By so
doing they might have maintained unity in the political struggle. But, even
if so much be granted, it is poor justification and defense of a Socialist
policy to say that it was neither better nor worse, neither more stupid nor
more wise, than that of the bourgeoisie! In the circumstances, Lenine's
policy was most disastrous for Russia. It is not necessary to believe the
charge that was made at the time and afterward that Lenine was in the pay
of the government and a tool of the Black Hundreds. Subsequent incidents
served to fasten grave suspicion upon him, but no one ever offered proof of
corruption. In all probability, he was then, and throughout the later
years, honest and sincere--a fanatic, often playing a dangerous game,
unmoral rather than immoral, believing that the end he sought justified any
means.
II
When the elections for the Duma were held, in March, 1906, the failure of
the government's attempt to capture the body was complete. It was
overwhelmingly a progressive parliament that had been elected. The
Constitutional Democrats, upon a radical program, had elected the largest
number of members, 178. Next came the representatives of the peasants'
organizations, with a program of moderate Socialism, numbering 116. This
group became known in the Duma as the Labor Group. A third group consisted
of 63 representatives of border provinces, mostly advanced Liberals, called
Autonomists, on account of their special interest in questions concerning
local autonomy. There were only 28 avowed supporters of the government.
Finally, despite the Socialist boycott of the elections, there were almost
as many Socialists elected as there were supporters of the government.
Once more Russia had spoken for democracy in no uncertain voice. And once
more Czarism committed the incredible folly of attempting to stem the tide
of democracy by erecting further measures of autocracy as a dam. Shortly
before the time came for the assembling of the newly elected Duma, the
Czar's government announced new fundamental laws which limited the powers
of the Duma and practically reduced it to a farce. In the first place, the
Imperial Council was to be reconstituted and set over the Duma as an upper
chamber, or Senate, having equal rights with the Duma. Half of the members
of the Imperial Council were to be appointed by the Czar and the other half
elected from universities, zemstvos, bourses, and by the clergy and the
nobility. In other words, over the Duma was to be set a body which could
always be so manipulated as to insure the defeat of any measure displeasing
to the old régime. And the Czar reserved to himself the power to summon or
dissolve the Duma at will, as well as the power to declare war and to make
peace and to enter into treaties with other nations. What a farce was this
considered as a fulfilment of the solemn assurances given in October, 1905!
But the reactionary madness went even farther; believing the revolutionary
movement to have been crushed to such a degree that it might act with
impunity, autocracy took other measures. Three days before the assembling
of the Duma the Czar replaced his old Ministry by one still more
reactionary. At the head of the Cabinet, as Prime Minister, he appointed
the notorious reactionary bureaucrat, Goremykin. With full regard for the
bloody traditions of the office, the infamous Stolypin, former Governor of
Saratov, was made Minister of the Interior. At the head of the Department
of Agriculture, which was charged with responsibility for dealing with
agrarian problems, was placed Stishinsky, a large landowner, bitterly
hostile to, and hated by, the peasants. The composition of the new Ministry
was a defiance of the popular will and sentiment, and was so interpreted.
The Duma opened on April 27th, at the Taurida Palace. St. Petersburg was a
vast armed camp that day. Tens of thousands of soldiers, fully armed, were
massed at different points in readiness to suppress any demonstrations by
the populace. It was said that provocateurs moved among the people, trying
to stir an uprising which would afford a pretext for action by the
soldiers. The members of the Duma were first received by the Czar at the
Winter Palace and addressed by him in a pompous speech which carefully
avoided all the vital questions in which the Russian people were so keenly
interested. It was a speech which might as well have been made by the first
Czar Nicholas. But there was no need of words to tell what was in the mind
of Nicholas II; that had been made quite evident by the new laws and the
new Ministry. Before the Duma lay the heavy task of continuing the
Revolution, despite the fact that the revolutionary army had been scattered
as chaff is scattered before the winds.
The first formal act of the Duma, after the opening ceremonies were
finished, was to demand amnesty for all the political prisoners. The
members of the Duma had come to the Taurida Palace that day through streets
crowded with people who chanted in monotonous chorus the word "Amnesty."
The oldest man in the assembly, I.I. Petrunkevitch, was cheered again and
again as he voiced the popular demand on behalf of "those who have
sacrificed their freedom to free our dear fatherland." There were some
seventy-five thousand political prisoners in Russia at that time, the
flower of Russian manhood and womanhood, treated as common criminals and,
in many instances, subject to terrible torture. Well might Petrunkevitch
proclaim: "All the prisons of our country are full. Thousands of hands are
being stretched out to us in hope and supplication, and I think that the
duty of our conscience compels us to use all the influence our position
gives us to see that the freedom that Russia has won costs no more
sacrifices ... I think, gentlemen ... we cannot refrain just now from
expressing our deepest feelings, the cry of our heart--that free Russia
demands the liberation of all prisoners." At the end of the eloquent appeal
there was an answering cry of: "Amnesty!" "Amnesty!" The chorus of the
streets was echoed in the Duma itself.
There was no lack of courage in the Duma. One of its first acts was the
adoption of an address in response to the speech delivered by the Czar to
the members at the reception at the Winter Palace. The address was in
reality a statement of the objects and needs of the Russian people, their
program. It was a radical document, but moderately couched. It demanded
full political freedom; amnesty for all who had been imprisoned for
political reasons or for violations of laws in restriction of religious
liberty; the abolition of martial law and other extraordinary measures;
abolition of capital punishment; the abolition of the Imperial Council and
democratization of the laws governing elections to the Duma; autonomy for
Finland and Poland; the expropriation of state and private lands in the
interest of the peasants; a comprehensive body of social legislation
designed to protect the industrial workers. In a word, the program of the
Duma was a broad and comprehensive program of political and social
democracy, which, if enacted, would have placed Russia among the foremost
democracies of the world.
The boldness of the Duma program was a direct challenge to the government
and was so interpreted by the Czar and his Ministers. By the reactionary
press it was denounced as a conspiracy to hand the nation over to the
Socialists. That it should have passed the Duma almost unanimously was an
indication of the extent to which the liberal bourgeoisie represented by
the Constitutional Democrats was prepared to go in order to destroy
autocracy. No wonder that some of the most trusted Marxian Socialists in
Russia were urging that it was the duty of the Socialists to co-operate
with the Duma! Yet there was a section of the Marxists engaged in a
constant agitation against the Duma, preaching the doctrine of the class
struggle, but blind to the actual fact that the dominant issue was in the
conflict between the democracy of the Duma and the autocracy of Czarism.
The class consciousness of the old régime was much clearer and more
intelligent. The Czar refused to receive the committee of the Duma,
appointed to make formal presentation of the address. Then, on May 12th,
Goremykin, the Prime Minister, addressed the Duma, making answer to its
demands. On behalf of the government he rebuked the Duma for its
unpatriotic conduct in a speech full of studied insult and contemptuous
defiance. He made it quite clear that the government was not going to grant
any reforms worthy of mention. More than that, he made it plain to the
entire nation that Nicholas II and his bureaucracy would never recognize
the Duma as an independent parliamentary body. Thus the old régime answered
the challenge of the Duma.
For seventy-two days the Duma worked and fought, seventy-two days of
parliamentary history for which there is no parallel in the annals of
parliamentary government. For the sake of the larger aims before it, the
Duma carried out the demands of the government that it approve certain
petty measures placed before it for the formality of its approval. On the
other hand, it formulated and passed numerous measures upon its own
initiative and demanded that they be recognized as laws of the land. Among
the measures thus adopted were laws guaranteeing freedom of assemblage;
equality of all citizens before the law; the right of labor organizations
to exist and to conduct strikes; reform of judicial procedure in the
courts; state aid for peasants suffering from crop failure and other
agrarian reforms; the abolition of capital punishment. In addition to
pursuing its legislative program, the Duma members voiced the country's
protest against the shortcomings of the government, subjecting the various
Ministers to searching interpellation, day after day.
Not a single one of the measures adopted by the Duma received the support
of the Imperial Council. This body was effectively performing the task for
which it had been created. To the interpellations of the Duma the Czar's
Ministers made the most insulting replies, when they happened to take any
notice of them at all. All the old iniquities were resorted to by the
government, supported, as always, by the reactionary press. The homes of
members of the Duma were entered and searched by the police and every
parliamentary right and privilege was flouted. Even the publication of the
speeches delivered in the Duma was forbidden.
The Duma had from the first maintained a vigorous protest against "the
infamy of executions without trial, pogroms, bombardment, and
imprisonment." Again and again it had been charged that pogroms were
carried out under the protection of the government, in accordance with the
old policy of killing the Jews and the Intellectuals. The answer of the
government was--another pogrom of merciless savagery. On June 1st, at
Byalostock, upward of eighty men, women, and children were killed, many
more wounded, and scores of women, young and old, brutally outraged. The
Duma promptly sent a commission to Byalostock to investigate and report
upon the facts, and presently the commission made a report which proved
beyond question the responsibility of the government for the whole brutal
and bloody business. It was shown that the inflammatory manifestos calling
upon the "loyal" citizens to make the attack were printed in the office of
the Police Department; that soldiers in the garrison had been told days in
advance when the pogrom would take place; and that in the looting and
sacking of houses and shops, which occurred upon a large scale, officers of
the garrison had participated. These revelations made a profound impression
in Russia and throughout Europe.
III
The Duma finally brought upon itself the whole weight of Czarism when it
addressed a special appeal to the peasants of the country in which it dealt
with candor and sincerity with the great agrarian problems which bore upon
the peasants so heavily. The appeal outlined the various measures which the
Duma had tried to enact for the relief of the peasants, and the attitude of
the Czar's Ministers. The many strong peasants' organizations, and their
numerous representatives in the Duma, made the circulation of this appeal
an easy matter. The government could not close these channels of
communication, nor prevent the Duma's strong plea for lawful rights and
against lawlessness by government officials from reaching the peasants.
Only one method of defense remained to the Czar and his Ministers: On July
9th, like a thunderbolt from the sky, came a new Manifesto from the Czar,
dissolving the Duma. In the Manifesto all the old arrogance of Absolutism
reappeared. A more striking contrast to the Manifesto of the previous
October could not be readily imagined. The Duma was accused of having
exceeded its rights by "investigating the actions of local authorities
appointed by the Emperor," notwithstanding the fact that in the October
Manifesto it had been solemnly covenanted "that the representatives of the
people must be guaranteed a real participation in the control over the
lawfulness of the authorities appointed by us." The Duma was condemned for
"finding imperfections in the fundamental laws which can be altered only by
the monarch's will" and for its "overtly lawless act of appealing to the
people." The Manifesto charged that the growing unrest and lawlessness of
the peasants were due to the failure of the Duma to ameliorate their
conditions--and this in spite of the record!
When the members of the Duma arrived at the Taurida Palace next day they
found the place filled with troops who prevented their entrance. They were
powerless. Some two hundred-odd members adjourned to Viborg, whence they
issued an appeal to the people to defend their rights. These men were not
Socialists, most of them belonging to the party of the Constitutional
Democrats, but they issued an appeal to the people to meet the dissolution
of the Imperial Duma by a firm refusal to pay taxes, furnish recruits for
the army, or sanction the legality of any loans to the government. This was
practically identical with the policy set forth in the Manifesto of the
Executive Committee of the St. Petersburg Council of Workmen's Deputies at
the beginning of the previous December, before the elections to the Duma.
Now, however, the Socialists in the Duma--both the Social Democrats and the
Socialist-Revolutionists--together with the semi-Socialist Labor Group,
decided that it was not enough to appeal for passive resistance; that only
an armed uprising could accomplish anything. They therefore appealed to
the city proletariat, the peasants, the army, and the navy to rise in armed
strength against the tyrannical régime.
Neither appeal produced any noteworthy result. The response to the Viborg
appeal was far less than that which followed the similar appeal of the St.
Petersburg workmen in December. The signers of the appeal were arrested,
sentenced to three months' imprisonment, and deprived of their electoral
rights. To the appeal of the Duma Socialists there was likewise very little
response, either from city workers, peasants, soldiers, or marines. Russia
was struggle-weary. The appeals fell upon the ears of a cowed and beaten
populace. The two documents served only to emphasize one fact, namely, that
capacity and daring to attempt active and violent resistance was still
largely confined to the working-class representatives. In appealing to the
workers to meet the attacks of the government with armed resistance, the
leaders of the peasants and the city proletariat were ready to take their
places in the vanguard of the fight. On the other hand, the signers of the
Viborg appeal for passive resistance manifested no such determination or
desire, though they must have known that passive resistance could only be a
temporary phase, that any concerted action by the people to resist the
collection of taxes and recruiting for the army would have led to attack
and counter-attack-to a violent revolution.
Feeling perfectly secure, the government, while promising the election of
another Duma, carried on a policy of vigorous repression of all radical and
revolutionary agitation and organization. Executions without trial were
almost daily commonplaces. Prisoners were mercilessly tortured, and, in
many cases, flogged to death. Hundreds of persons, of both sexes, many of
them simple bourgeois-liberals and not revolutionists in any sense of the
word, were exiled to Siberia. The revolutionary organizations of the
workers were filled with spies and provocateurs, an old and effective
method of destroying their morale. In all the provinces of Russia field
court martial was proclaimed. Field court martial is more drastic than
ordinary court martial and practically amounts to condemnation without
trial, for trials under it are simply farcical, since neither defense nor
appeal is granted. Nearly five hundred revolutionists were put to death
under this system, many of them without even the pretense of a trial.
The Black Hundreds were more active than ever, goaded on by the Holy Synod.
Goremykin resigned as Premier and his place was taken by the unspeakably
cruel and bloodthirsty Stolypin, whose "hemp neckties," as the grim jest of
the masses went, circled the necks of scores of revolutionists swinging
from as many gallows. There were many resorts to terrorism on the part of
the revolutionists during the summer of 1906, many officials paying for the
infamies of the government with their lives. How many of these "executions"
were genuine revolutionary protests, and how many simple murders instigated
or committed by provocative agents for the purpose of discrediting the
revolutionists and affording the government excuses for fresh infamies,
will perhaps never be known. Certainly, in many cases, there was no
authorization by any revolutionary body.
In February, 1907, the elections for the Second Duma were held under a
reign of terror. The bureaucracy was determined to have a "safe and sane"
body this time, and resorted to every possible nefarious device to attain
that end. Whole masses of electors whose right to vote had been established
at the previous election were arbitrarily disfranchised. While every
facility was given to candidates openly favoring the government, including
the Octobrists, every possible obstacle was placed in the way of radical
candidates, especially Socialists. The meetings of the latter were, in
hundreds of cases, prohibited; in other hundreds of cases they were broken
up by the Black Hundreds and the police. Many of the most popular
candidates were arrested and imprisoned without trial, as were members of
their campaign committees. Yet, notwithstanding all these things, the
Second Duma was, from the standpoint of the government, worse than the
first. The Socialists, adopting the tactics of Plechanov, against the
advice of Lenine, his former pupil and disciple, had decided not to boycott
the elections this time, but to participate in them. When the returns were
published it was found that the Social Democrats and the
Socialist-Revolutionists had each elected over sixty deputies, the total
being nearly a third of the membership--455. In addition there were some
ninety members in the peasants' Labor Group, which were semi-Socialist.
There were 117 Constitutional Democrats. The government supporters,
including the Octobrists, numbered less than one hundred.
From the first the attitude of the government toward the new Duma was one
of contemptuous arrogance. "The Czar's Hangman," Stolypin, lectured the
members as though they were naughty children, forbidding them to invite
experts to aid them in framing measures, or to communicate with any of the
zemstvos or municipal councils upon any questions whatsoever. "The Duma was
not granted the right to express disapproval, reproach, or mistrust of the
government," he thundered. To the Duma there was left about as much real
power as is enjoyed by the "governments" of our "juvenile republics."
As a natural consequence of these things, the Second Duma paid less
attention to legislation than the First Duma had done, and gave its time
largely to interpellations and protests. Partly because of the absence of
some of the most able leaders they had had in the First Duma, and partly to
the aggressive radicalism of the Socialists, which they could only
half-heartedly approve at best, the Constitutional Democrats were less
influential than in the former parliament. They occupied a middle
ground--always a difficult position. The real fight was between the
Socialists and the reactionaries, supporters of the government. Among the
latter were perhaps a score of members belonging to the Black Hundreds,
constituting the extreme right wing of the reactionary group. Between these
and the Socialists of the extreme left the assembly was kept at fever
pitch. The Black Hundreds, for the most part, indulged in violent tirades
of abuse, often in the most disgusting profanity. The Socialists replied
with proletarian passion and vigor, and riotous scenes were common. The
Second Duma was hardly a deliberative assembly!
On June 1st Stolypin threw a bombshell into the Duma by accusing the Social
Democrats of having conspired to form a military plot for the overthrow of
the government of Nicholas II. Evidence to this effect had been furnished
to the Police Department by the spy and provocative agent, Azev. Of course
there was no secret about the fact that the Social Democrats were always
trying to bring about revolt in the army and the navy. They had openly
proclaimed this, time and again. In the appeal issued at the time of the
dissolution of the First Duma they had called upon the army and navy to
rise in armed revolt. But the betrayal of their plans was a matter of some
consequence. Azev himself had been loudest and most persistent in urging
the work on. Stolypin demanded that all the Social Democrats be excluded
permanently from the Duma and that sixteen of them be handed over to the
government for imprisonment. The demand was a challenge to the whole Duma,
since it called into question the right of the Duma to determine its own
membership. Obviously, if members of parliament are to be dismissed
whenever an autocratic government orders it, there is an end of
parliamentary government. The demand created a tremendous sensation and
gave rise to a long and exciting debate. Before it was ended, however,
Nicholas II ordered the Duma dissolved. On June 3d the Second Duma met the
fate of its predecessor, having lasted one hundred days.
IV
As on the former occasion, arrangements were at once begun to bring about
the election of another and more subservient Duma. It is significant that
throughout Nicholas II and his Cabinet recognized the imperative necessity
of maintaining the institution in form. They dared not abolish it, greatly
as they would have liked to do so. On the day that the Duma was dissolved
the Czar, asserting his divine right to enact and repeal laws at will,
disregarding again the solemn assurances of the October Manifesto, by edict
changed the electoral laws, consulting neither the Duma nor the Imperial
Council. This new law greatly decreased the representation of the city
workers and the peasants in the Duma and correspondingly increased the
representation of the rich landowners and capitalists. A docile and "loyal"
Duma was thus made certain, and no one was very much surprised when the
elections, held in September, resulted in an immense reactionary majority.
When the Third Duma met on December 14, 1907, the reactionaries were as
strong as the Socialist and Labor groups had been in the previous Duma,
and of the reactionaries the group of members of the Black Hundreds was a
majority.
In the mean time there had been the familiar rule of brutal reaction. Most
of the Social Democratic members of the Second Duma were arrested and
condemned for high treason, being sent to prison and to Siberia. New laws
and regulations restricting the press were proclaimed and enforced with
increasing severity. By comparison with the next two years, the period from
1905 to 1907 was a period of freedom. After the election of the Third Duma
the bureaucracy grew ever bolder. Books and leaflets which had been
circulated openly and with perfect freedom during 1905 and 1906 were
forbidden, and, moreover, their authors were arrested and sentenced to long
terms of imprisonment. While the law still granted freedom of assemblage
and the right to organize meetings, these rights did not exist as
realities. Everywhere the Black Hundreds held sway, patronized by the Czar,
who wore their emblem and refused to permit the punishment of any of their
members, even though they might be found guilty by the courts.
It is not necessary to dwell upon the work of the Third Duma. This is not a
history of Russia, and a detailed study of the servile parliament of
Nicholas II and Stolypin would take us too far afield from our special
study--the revolutionary movement. Suffice it, therefore, to say that some
very useful legislation, necessary to the economic development of Russia,
was enacted, and that, despite the overwhelming preponderance of
reactionaries, it was not an absolutely docile body. On several occasions
the Third Duma exercised the right of criticism quite vigorously, and on
two or three occasions acted in more or less open defiance of the wishes of
the government. A notable instance of this was the legislation of 1909,
considerably extending freedom of religious organization and worship, which
was, however, greatly curtailed later by the Imperial Council--and then
nullified by the government.
The period 1906-14 was full of despair for sensitive and aspiring souls.
The steady and rapid rise in the suicide-rate bore grim and eloquent
testimony to the character of those years of dark repression. The number of
suicides in St. Petersburg increased during the period 1905-08 more than
400 per cent.; in Moscow about 800 per cent.! In the latter city two-fifths
of the suicides in 1908 were of persons less than twenty years old! And
yet, withal, there was room for hope, the soul of progress was not dead. In
various directions there was a hopeful and promising growth. First among
these hopeful and promising facts was the marvelous growth of the
Consumers' Co-operatives. After 1905 began the astonishing increase in the
number of these important organizations, which continued, year after year,
right up to the Revolution of 1917. In 1905 there were 4,479 such
co-operatives in Russia; in 1911 there were 19,253. Another hopeful sign
was the steadily increasing literacy of the masses. Statistics upon this
point are almost worthless. Russian official statistics are notoriously
defective and the figures relating to literacy are peculiarly so, but the
leaders of Russian Socialism have attested to the fact. In this connection
it is worthy of note that, according to the most authentic official
records, the number of persons subscribing to the public press grew in a
single year, from 1908 to 1909, fully 25 per cent. Education and
organization were going on, hand in hand.
Nor was agitation dead. In the Duma the Socialist and Labor parties and
groups, knowing that they had no chance to enact their program, made the
Duma a rostrum from which to address the masses throughout the nation.
Sometimes, indeed, the newspapers were forbidden to print their speeches,
but as a rule they were published, at least by the liberal papers, and so
disseminated among the masses. In these speeches the Social Democrats,
Socialist-Revolutionaries, Laborites, and more daring of the Constitutional
Democrats mercilessly exposed the bureaucracy, so keeping the fires of
discontent alive.
V
Of vast significance to mankind was the controversy that was being waged
within the Socialist movement of Russia during these years, for this was
the period in which Bolshevism was shaping itself and becoming articulate.
The words "Bolsheviki" and "Bolshevism" first made their appearance in
1903, but it was not until 1905 that they began to acquire their present
meaning. At the second convention of the Social Democratic party, held in
1903, the party split in two factions. The majority faction, headed by
Lenine, adopted the name Bolsheviki, a word derived from the Russian word
"bolshinstvo," meaning "majority." The minority faction, which followed
Plechanov, though he did not formally join it, was called, in
contradistinction, the "Mensheviki"--that is, the minority. No question of
principle was involved in the split, the question at issue being simply
whether there should be more or less centralization in the organization.
There was no thought on either side of leaving the Social Democratic party.
It was simply a factional division in the party itself and did not prevent
loyal co-operation. Both the Bolsheviki and the Mensheviki remained Social
Democrats--that is, Socialists of the school of Marx.
During the revolutionary struggle of 1905-06 the breach between the two
factions was greatly widened. The two groups held utterly irreconcilable
conceptions of Socialist policy, if not of Socialism as an ideal. The
psychology of the two groups was radically different. By this time the
Lenine faction was no longer the majority, being, in fact, a rather small
minority in the party. The Plechanov faction was greatly in the majority.
But the old names continued to be used. Although a minority, the Lenine
faction was still called the Bolsheviki, and the Plechanov faction called
the Mensheviki, despite the fact that it was the majority. Thus Bolshevism
no longer connoted the principles and tactics of the majority. It came to
be used interchangeably with Leninism, as a synonym. The followers of
Vladimir Ulyanov continued to regard themselves as part of the Social
Democratic party, its radical left wing, and it was not until after the
Second Revolution, in 1917, that they manifested any desire to be
differentiated from the Social Democrats.
Vladimir Ulyanov was born in 1870, at Simbirsk, in central Russia. There is
no mystery about his use of the alias, Nikolai Lenine, which he has made
world-famous and by which he chooses to be known. Almost every Russian
revolutionist has had to adopt various aliases for self-protection and for
the protection of other Russian Socialists. Ulyanov has followed the rule
and lived and worked under several aliases, and his writings under the name
"Nikolai Lenine" made him a great power in the Russian Socialist movement.
Lenine's father was a governmental official employed in the Department of
Public Instruction. It is one of the many anomalies of the life of the
Russian Dictator that he himself belongs by birth, training, culture, and
experience to the bourgeoisie against which he fulminates so furiously.
Even his habits and tastes are of bourgeois and not proletarian origin. He
is an Intellectual of the Intellectuals and has never had the slightest
proletarian experience. As a youth still in his teens he entered the
University of St. Petersburg, but his stay there was exceedingly brief,
owing to a tragedy which greatly embittered his life and gave it its
direction. An older brother, who was also a student in the university, was
condemned to death, in a secret trial, for complicity in a terrorist plot
to assassinate Alexander III. Shortly afterward he was put to death. Lenine
himself was arrested at the same time as his brother, but released for lack
of evidence connecting him with the affair. It is said, however, that the
arrest caused his expulsion from the university. Lenine was not the only
young man to be profoundly impressed by the execution of the youthful
Alexander Ulyanov; another student, destined to play an important rôle in
the great tragedy of revolutionary Russia, was stirred to bitter hatred of
the system. That young student was Alexander Kerensky, whose father and the
father of the Ulyanovs were close friends.
Lenine's activities brought him into conflict with the authorities several
times and forced him to spend a good deal of time in exile. As a youth of
seventeen, at the time of the execution of his brother, he was dismissed
from the Law School in St. Petersburg. A few years later he was sent to
Siberia for a political "crime." Upon various occasions later he was
compelled to flee from the country, living sometimes in Paris, sometimes in
London, but more often in Switzerland. It was through his writings mainly
that he acquired the influence he had in the Russian movement. There is
nothing unusual or remarkable about this, for the Social Democratic party
of Russia was practically directed from Geneva. Lenine was in London when
the Revolution of 1905 broke out and caused him to hurry to St. Petersburg.
As a young man Lenine, like most of the Intelligentsia of the period, gave
up a good deal of his spare time to teaching small groups of uneducated
working-men the somewhat abstract and intricate theories and doctrines of
Socialism. To that excellent practice, no doubt, much of Lenine's skill as
a lucid expositor and successful propagandist is due. He has written a
number of important works, most of them being of a polemical nature and
dealing with party disputations upon questions of theory and tactics. The
work by which he was best known in Socialist circles prior to his
sensational rise to the Premiership is a treatise on _The Development of
Capitalism in Russia_. This work made its appearance in 1899, when the
Marxian Socialist movement was still very weak. In it Lenine defended the
position of the Marxians, Plechanov and his group, that Russia was not an
exception to the general law of capitalist development, as was claimed by
the leaders of the People's party, the _Narodniki_. The book gave Lenine an
assured position among the intellectual leaders of the movement, and was
regarded as a conclusive defense of the position of the Plechanov group, to
which Lenine belonged. Since his overthrow of the Kerensky régime, and his
attempt to establish a new kind of social state in Russia, Lenine has been
frequently confronted by his own earlier reasoning by those who believe his
position to be contrary to the true Marxian position.
From 1903 to 1906 Lenine's views developed farther and farther away from
those of his great teacher, George Plechanov. His position in the period of
the First Duma can best be stated, perhaps, in opposition to the position
of Plechanov and the Mensheviki. Accepting the Marxian theory of historical
development, Plechanov and his followers believed that Russia must pass
through a phase of capitalist development before there could be a
social--as distinguished from a merely political--revolution. Certainly
they believed, an intensive development of industry, bringing into
existence a strong capitalist class, on the one hand, and a strong
proletariat, on the other hand, must precede any attempt to create a Social
Democratic state. They believed, furthermore, that a political revolution,
creating a democratic constitutional system of government, must come before
the social revolution could be achieved. They accepted the traditional
Marxian view that the achievement of this political revolution must be
mainly the task of the bourgeoisie, and that the proletariat, and
especially the Socialists, should co-operate with the enlightened
bourgeoisie in attaining that political revolution without which there
could never be a Socialist commonwealth.
Plechanov was not blind to the dangers of compromise which must be faced in
basing the policy of a movement of the masses upon this reasoning. He
argued, however, that there was no choice in the matter at all; that the
iron law of historical inevitability and necessity determined the matter.
He pointed out that the bourgeoisie, represented by the Constitutional
Democrats in the political struggle, were compelled to wage relentless war
upon Absolutism, the abolition of which was as absolutely essential to the
realization of their class aims as it was to the realization of the class
aims of the proletariat. Hence, in this struggle, the capitalist class, as
yet too weak to accomplish the overthrow of autocracy and Czarism, and the
proletariat, equally dependent for success upon the overthrow of autocracy
and Czarism, and equally too weak to accomplish it unaided, had to face the
fact that historical development had given the two classes which were
destined to wage a long conflict an immediate unity of interest. Their
imperative needs at the moment were not conflicting needs, but identical
ones. To divide their forces, to refuse to co-operate with each other, was
to play the game of the Czar and his associates, argued Plechanov.
The Mensheviki favored participation in the Duma elections and co-operation
with the liberal and radical bourgeoisie parties, in so far as might be
necessary to overthrow the autocracy, and without sacrificing Socialist
principles. They pointed out that this position was evidently feared by the
bureaucracy far more than the position of the extremists among the Social
Democrats and the Socialist-Revolutionists, who refused to consider such
co-operation, and pointed to the fact that provocateurs in large numbers
associated themselves with the latter in their organizations and preached
the same doctrine of absolute isolation and exclusiveness.
It will be seen that the position of the Mensheviki was one of practical
political opportunism, an opportunism, however, that must be sharply
distinguished from what Wilhelm Liebknecht used to call "political
cow-trading." No man in the whole history of international Socialism ever
more thoroughly despised this species of political opportunism than George
Plechanov. To those who are familiar with the literature of international
Socialism it will be unnecessary to say that Plechanov was not the man to
deprecate the importance of sound theory as a guide to the formulation of
party policies. For many years he was rightly regarded as one of the
greatest theoreticians of the movement. Certainly there was only one other
writer in the whole international movement who could be named as having an
equal title to be considered the greatest Socialist theorist since
Marx--Karl Kautsky.
But Plechanov[1]--like Marx himself--set reality above dogma, and regarded
movement as of infinitely greater importance than theory. The Mensheviki
wanted to convene a great mass convention of representatives of the
industrial proletariat during the summer of 1906. "It is a class movement,"
they said, "not a little sectarian movement. How can there be a _class_
movement unless the way is open to all the working class to participate?"
Accordingly, they wanted a convention to which all the factory-workers
would be invited to send representatives. There should be no doctrinal
tests, the sole qualification being membership in the working class. It did
not matter to the advocates of this policy whether a man belonged to the
Social Democratic party or to any party; whether he called himself a
revolutionist or anything else. It was, they said, a movement of the
working class, not the movement of a sect within the working class.
They knew, of course, that in such a great mass movement there would
probably be some theoretical confusion, more or less muddled thinking. They
recognized, too, that in the great mass convention they proposed some
Social Democratic formulations might be rejected and some others adopted
which did not accord with the Marxian doctrines. But, quoting Marx to the
effect that "One step of real movement is worth a thousand programs," they
contended that if there was anything at all in the Marxian theory of
progress through class struggles, and the historic rule of the working
class, it must follow that, while they might make mistakes and go
temporarily astray, the workers could not go far wrong, their class
interests being a surer guide than any amount of intellectualism could
produce.
Lenine and his friends, the Bolsheviki, bitterly opposed all this reasoning
and took a diametrically opposite position upon every one of the questions
involved. They absolutely opposed any sort of co-operation with bourgeois
parties of any kind, for any purpose whatever. No matter how progressive a
particular bourgeois party might be, nor how important the reform aimed at,
they believed that Social Democrats should remain in "splendid isolation,"
refusing to make any distinction between more liberal and less liberal,
progressive and reactionary, groups in the bourgeoisie. Trotzky, who did
not at first formally join the Bolsheviki, but was a true Bolshevik in his
intellectual convictions and sympathies, fully shared this view.
Now, Lenine and Trotzky were dogmatic Marxists, and as such they could not
deny the contention that capitalism must attain a certain development
before Socialism could be attained in Russia. Nor could they deny that
Absolutism was an obstacle to the development both of capitalist industry
and of Socialism. They contended, however, that the peculiar conditions in
Russia, resulting from the retardation of her economic development for so
long, made it both possible and necessary to create a revolutionary
movement which would, at one and the same time, overthrow both autocracy
and capitalism. Necessarily, therefore, their warfare must be directed
equally against autocracy and all political parties of the landlord and
capitalist classes. They were guided throughout by this fundamental
conviction. The policy of absolute and unqualified isolation in the Duma,
which they insisted the Social Democrats ought to pursue, was based upon
that conviction.
VI
All this is quite clear and easily intelligible. Granted the premise, the
logic is admirable. It is not so easy, however, to see why, even granting
the soundness of their opposition to _co-operation_ with bourgeois parties
and groups in the Duma, there should be no political _competition_ with
them--which would seem to be logically implied in the boycott of the Duma
elections. Non-participation in the elections, consistently pursued as a
proletarian policy, would leave the proletariat unrepresented in the
legislative body, without one representative to fight its battles on what
the world universally regards as one of the most important battle-fields of
civilization. And yet, here, too, they were entirely logical and
consistent--they did not believe in parliamentary government. As yet, they
were not disposed to emphasize this overmuch, not, apparently, because of
any lack of candor and good faith, but rather because the substitute for
parliamentary government had not sufficiently shaped itself in their minds.
The desire not to be confused with the Anarchists was another reason.
Because the Bolsheviki and the Anarchists both oppose parliamentary
government and the political state, it has been concluded by many writers
on the subject that Bolshevism is simply Anarchism in another guise. This
is a mistake. Bolshevism is quite different from and opposed to Anarchism.
It requires strongly centralized government, which Anarchism abhors.
Parliamentary government cannot exist except upon the basis of the will of
the majority. Whoever enters into the parliamentary struggle, therefore,
must hope and aim to convert the majority. Back of that hope and aim must
be faith in the intellectual and moral capacity of the majority. At the
foundation of Bolshevist theory and practice lies the important fact that
there is no such faith, and, consequently, neither the hope nor the aim to
convert the majority and with its strength make the Revolution. Out of the
adult population of Russia at that time approximately 85 per cent. were
peasants and less than 5 per cent. belonged to the industrial proletariat.
At that time something like 70 per cent. of the people were illiterate.
Even in St. Petersburg--where the standard of literacy was higher than in
any other city--not more than 55 per cent. of the people could sign their
own names in 1905, according to the most authentic government reports. When
we contemplate such facts as these can we wonder that impatient
revolutionaries should shrink from attempting the task of converting a
majority of the population to an intelligent acceptance of Socialism?
There was another reason besides this, however. Lenine--and he personifies
Bolshevism--was, and is, a doctrinaire Marxist of the most dogmatic type
conceivable. As such he believed that the new social order must be the
creation of that class which is the peculiar product of modern capitalism,
the industrial proletariat. To that class alone he and his followers pinned
all their faith and hope, and that class was a small minority of the
population and bound to remain a minority for a very long period of years.
Here, then, we have the key. It cannot be too strongly stressed that the
Bolsheviki did not base their hope upon the working class of Russia, and
did not trust it. The working class of Russia--if we are to use the term
with an intelligent regard to realities--was and is mainly composed of
peasants; the industrial proletariat was and is only a relatively small
part of the great working class of the nation. _But it is upon that small
section, as against the rest of the working class, that Bolshevism relies_.
Lenine has always refused to include the peasants in his definition of the
working class. With almost fanatical intensity he has insisted that the
peasant, together with the petty manufacturer and trader, would soon
disappear; that industrial concentration would have its counterpart in a
great concentration of landownings and agriculture; that the small peasant
holdings would be swallowed up by large, modern agricultural estates, with
the result that there would be an immense mass of landless agricultural
wage-workers. This class would, of course, be a genuinely proletarian
class, and its interests would be identical with those of the industrial
proletariat. Until that time came it would be dangerous to rely upon the
peasants, he urged, because their instincts are bourgeois rather than
proletarian. Naturally, he has looked askance at the peasant Socialist
movements, denying that they were truly Socialist at all. They could not be
Socialist movements in the true sense, he contended, because they lacked
the essential quality of true Socialists, namely, proletarian class
consciousness.
Naturally, too, Lenine and his followers have always regarded movements
which aimed to divide the land among the peasants, and so tend to give
permanence to a class of petty agriculturists, as essentially reactionary.
The exigencies of the struggle have forced them into some compromises, of
course. For example, at first they were not willing to admit that the
peasants could be admitted into their group at all, but later on they
admitted some who belonged to the poorest class of peasants. Throughout,
however, they have insisted that the peasant class as a whole was a class
of petty bourgeoisie and that its instincts and interests would inevitably
lead it to side with the bourgeoisie as against the proletariat. Of course,
this is a very familiar phase of Socialist evolution in every country. It
lasted in Germany many years. In Russia, however, the question assumed an
importance it never had in any other country, owing to the vast
preponderance of peasants in the population. Anything more un-Russian than
this theorizing cannot be well conceived. It runs counter to every fact in
Russian experience, to the very basis of her economic life at this stage of
her history. Lenine is a Russian, but his dogmas are not Russian, but
German. Bolshevism is the product of perverted German scholasticism.
Even the industrial workers as a whole, in their present stage of
development, were not to be trusted, according to the Bolshevist leaders.
They frankly opposed the Mensheviki when the latter proposed to hold their
great convention of industrial workers, giving as their reason the fear
that the convention majority would not consist of class-conscious
revolutionary Marxian Socialists. In other words, they feared that the
majority would not be on their side, and they had not the time or the
patience to convert them. There was no pretense of faith in the majority of
the industrial proletariat, much less of faith in the entire working class
of Russia. The industrial proletariat was a minority of the working class,
and the Bolsheviki pinned their faith to a minority of that minority. They
wanted to establish, not democracy, but dictatorship of Russia by a small,
disciplined, intelligent, and determined minority of working-men.
The lines of cleavage between the Mensheviki and the Bolsheviki were thus
clearly drawn. The former, while ready to join in mass uprisings and armed
insurrections by the masses, believed that the supreme necessity was
education and organization of all the working-people. Still relying upon
the industrial proletariat to lead the struggle, they nevertheless
recognized that the peasants were indispensable. The Bolsheviki, on the
other hand, relied exclusively upon armed insurrection, initiated and
directed by desperate minorities. The Mensheviki contended that the time
for secret, conspiratory action was past; that Russia had outgrown that
earlier method. As far as possible, they carried the struggle openly into
the political field. They organized unions, educational societies, and
co-operatives, confident that through these agencies the workers would
develop cohesion and strength, which, at the right time, they would use as
their class interests dictated. The Bolsheviki, on the other hand, clung to
the old conspiratory methods, always mastered by the idea that a sudden
_coup_ must some day place the reins of power in the hands of a
revolutionary minority of the workers and enable them to set up a
dictatorship. That dictatorship, it must be understood, was not to be
permanent; democracy, possibly even political democracy, would come later.
As we have already noted, into the ranks of the terrorist
Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Bolsheviki spies and provocative agents
wormed their way in large numbers. It is the inevitable fate of secret,
conspiratory movements that this should be so, and also that it should
result in saturating the minds of all engaged in the movements with
distrust and suspicion. More than once the charge of being a provocateur
was leveled at Lenine and at Trotzky, but without justification,
apparently. There was, indeed, one incident which placed Lenine in a bad
light. It belongs to a somewhat later period than we have been discussing,
but it serves admirably to illustrate conditions which obtained throughout
the whole dark period between the two great revolutions. One of Lenine's
close friends and disciples was Roman Malinovsky, a fiery speaker of
considerable power, distinguished for his bitter attacks upon the bourgeois
progressive parties and upon the Mensheviki. The tenor of his speeches was
always the same--only the interest of the proletariat should be considered;
all bourgeois political parties and groups were equally reactionary, and
any co-operation with them, for any purpose, was a betrayal of Socialist
principle.
Malinovsky was trusted by the Bolsheviki. He was elected to the Fourth
Duma, where he became the leader of the little group of thirteen Social
Democrats. Like other members of the Bolshevik faction, he entered the
Duma, despite his contempt for parliamentary action, simply because it
afforded him a useful opportunity for agitation and demonstrations. In the
Duma he assailed even a portion of the Social Democratic group as belonging
to the bourgeoisie, succeeding in splitting it in two factions and becoming
the leader of the Bolshevik faction, numbering six. This blatant demagogue,
whom Lenine called "the Russian Bebel," was proposed for membership in the
International Socialist Bureau, the supreme council of the International
Socialist movement, and would have been sent as a delegate to that body as
a representative of Russian Socialist movement but for the discovery of the
fact that he was a secret agent of the Czar's government!
It was proved that Malinovsky was a provocateur in the pay of the Police
Department, and that many, if not all, of his speeches had been prepared
for him in the Police Department by a former director named Beletzky. The
exposure made a great sensation in Russian Socialist circles at the time,
and the fact that it was Nikolai Lenine who had proposed that Malinovsky be
chosen to sit in the International Socialist Bureau naturally caused a
great deal of unfriendly comment. It cannot be denied that the incident
placed Lenine in an unfavorable light, but it must be admitted that
nothing developed to suggest that he was guilty of anything more serious
than permitting himself to be outwitted and deceived by a cunning
trickster. The incident serves to show, however, the ease with which the
extreme fanaticism of the Bolsheviki played into the hands of the
autocracy.
VII
While Bolsheviki and Mensheviki wrangled and disputed, great forces were at
work among the Russian people. By 1910 the terrible pall of depression and
despair which had settled upon the nation as a result of the failure of the
First Revolution began to break. There was a new generation of college
students, youthful and optimistic spirits who were undeterred by the
failure of 1905-06, confident that they were wiser and certain to succeed.
Also there had been an enormous growth of working-class organizations,
large numbers of unions and co-operative societies having been formed in
spite of the efforts of the government. The soul of Russia was once more
stirring.
The end of 1910 and the beginning of 1911 witnessed a new series of
strikes, such as had not occurred since 1905. The first were students'
strikes, inaugurated in support of their demand for the abolition of
capital punishment. These were quickly followed by important strikes in the
industrial centers for economic ends--better wages and shorter
working-hours. As in the period immediately preceding the First Revolution,
the industrial unrest soon manifested itself in political ways. Without any
conscious leadership at all this would have been inevitable in the existing
circumstances. But there was leadership. Social Democrats of both factions,
and Socialists of other groups as well, moved among the workers, preaching
the old, yet ever new, gospel of revolt. Political strikes followed the
strikes for immediate economic ends. Throughout the latter part of 1911 and
the whole of 1912 the revolutionary movement once more spread among the
masses.
The year 1913 was hardly well begun when revolutionary activities assumed
formidable proportions. January 9th--Russian calendar--anniversary of
Bloody Sunday, was celebrated all over the country by great demonstrations
which were really demonstration-strikes. In St. Petersburg fifty-five
thousand workers went out--and there were literally hundreds of other
smaller "strikes" of a similar nature throughout the country. In April
another anniversary of the martyrdom of revolting working-men was similarly
celebrated in most of the industrial centers, hundreds of thousands of
workers striking as a manifestation against the government. The 1st of May
was celebrated as it had not been celebrated since 1905. In the various
industrial cities hundreds of thousands of workmen left their work to march
through the streets and hold mass meetings, and so formidable was the
movement that the government was cowed and dared not attempt to suppress it
by force. There was a defiant note of revolution in this great uprising of
the workers. They demanded an eight-hour day and the right to organize
unions and make collective bargains. In addition to these demands, they
protested against the Balkan War and against militarism in general.
Had the great war not intervened, a tragic interlude in Russia's long
history of struggle, the year 1914 would have seen the greatest struggle
for the overthrow of Czarism in all that history. Whether it would have
been more successful than the effort of 1905 can never be known, but it is
certain that the working-class revolutionary movement was far stronger
than it was nine years before. On the other hand, there would not have been
the same degree of support from the other classes, for in the intervening
period class lines had been more sharply drawn and the class conflict
greatly intensified. Surging through the masses like a mighty tide was the
spirit of revolt, manifesting itself much as it had done nine years before.
All through the early months of the year the revolutionary temper grew. The
workers became openly defiant and the government, held in check, doubtless,
by the delicate balance of the international situation, dared not resort to
force with sufficient vigor to stamp out the agitation. Mass meetings were
held in spite of all regulations to the contrary; political strikes
occurred in all parts of the country. In St. Petersburg and Moscow
barricades were thrown up in the streets as late as July. Then the war
clouds burst. A greater passion than that of revolution swept over the
nation and it turned to present a united front to the external foe.