THE FREEDOM OF THE WORD
In those happy weeks when freedom still was young and living, two
things ruled the country--speech and the strike, the word and the blow.
The strike was everywhere felt. No letter or telegram went or came.
Each town in Russia was isolated, and the whole Empire stood severed
from the world. Banks sent their money to Europe by special messengers,
like kings. Telegrams were carried a twenty-four hours’ journey to the
frontier. Almost every night I was down at the Warsaw station watching
the passengers, to see if any could be trusted to take a letter home.
When I travelled further into Russia, I organized an elaborate private
post by stages, engaging hotel-porters, students, lady-doctors,
tram-conductors, and barmaids in my service. On one occasion the scheme
worked with real success, and brought me a halfpenny paper which
cost me three pounds. Later I found it best to give my own letters
to Lancashire women, going home for safety--wives of the managers or
engineers in cotton-mills--and they posted them under their skirts.
At St. Petersburg, the well-to-do classes, who were losing most by
the postal strike, made a heroic effort to assist the Government and
themselves. Having first seen that strong patrols of horse and foot
were stationed at all corners of the General Post Office, and at every
door, they organized a volunteer service of sorters among their own
number, and one saw elegant young men and white-haired gentlemen who
had passed an honoured existence in avoiding work, now struggling to
make out how it was done. Enthusiastic girls, in the prettiest of furs
and the smallest possible goloshes, hastened by eleven o’clock to
their stools in the stuffy office, and sat there till four, with the
self-sacrificing zeal of young ladies at a church bazaar. One must do
something for one’s country when the lower classes are giving so much
trouble. So with a smile and a flash of rings, they plunged into the
honest toil of sorting the stacks of letters which had been arriving by
half a million a day; and some of the letters reached the right address.
Other strikes were of almost equal interest. In Moscow the cooks
struck, and paraded the streets with songs never heard in the
drawing-room. The waiters struck, and heavy proprietors lumbered about
with their own plates and dishes. The nursemaids struck for Sundays
out. The housemaids struck for rooms with windows, instead of cupboards
under the stairs, or sections from the water-closets. Schoolboys
struck for more democratic masters and pleasanter lessons. Teachers
struck for higher pay and, I hope, for pleasanter pupils. All had
one’s sympathy, as all rebels necessarily have. There was a solidarity
about the grievances of all, and each movement proved how far the
revolutionary spirit had spread. The only danger was that the people
were making a good thing too common. The strike was the guillotine of
the Russian revolution in those days, and even the guillotine had once
been worked too hard.
But at the back of the strikes and all the revolutionary movement
lay the motive force of speech. In Russia, even more than in other
countries, was seen the power of the creative word. A strain of
unwonted idealism has long been audible in all Russian literature, and
has led to the hope that when Russia’s hour came she would advance
on finer and higher lines than the more material and self-satisfied
peoples of Europe. The hour seemed now to have come, and the hope to be
justified. The people were drunken with ideas. After these centuries of
suppression, all Russia was revelling in a spiritual debauch of words.
Meetings were held almost every night. Entrance could only be gained by
ticket; but crowds fought at the doors to hear discussions on the first
principles of government, taxation, or law, just as eagerly as English
people fight for a place at a football match or an indecent farce. To
Russians the power of the word was all so new and delightful. I myself
remember the first and only time I listened to a debate in the House
of Commons. It was the day when Mr. Wyndham was treading “with fairy
footstep” through the mazes of Irish statistics. I knew those mazes at
least as well as he did, but I have never heard anything so interesting
as that debate. And for Russians to listen to a man speaking was like
an escape from gaol.
I had noticed it in the Strike Committee and in Gapon’s meetings.
Without practice or tradition in public speaking, Russia was suddenly
found to be a nation of orators. At all the meetings it was the
same: speaker after speaker rose, and not one of them faltered for a
moment. There was no muddle, or shyness, or hesitation--none of that
weary up-and-down cadence, like riding over ridge and furrow, none of
that harking back and beating round the bush for words to which our
sporting legislators of the shires have long accustomed us at home. In
some cases, no doubt, the speeches were dull; but often, even without
understanding a thousandth part of what was said, one could tell how
true an orator the speaker was from the breathlessness of his hearers,
from the feeling of diffused unity in the crowd, and from the deep gasp
of applause which greeted the end.
The high level of thought in the speeches might be sneered at as an
idealist level by dull people who do not believe in ideas. But strength
was given to the speakers by the continual danger of the moment and the
reality of the horror waiting at the door. As though apologizing for
his impertinence in taking any part in such a mighty thing as politics,
a workman said humbly to me once: “I know nothing but the street, the
factory, and the prison. But I would die for the movement.” When his
turn came to speak, of course he spoke well. With such a training, he
could hardly fail to speak well; and as to law-making, his life was a
far more genuine preparation for it than English universities.
There was a similar outburst in newspapers as in speeches. Hitherto
most Russian journalists who were not mere hirelings, writing in
support of the bureaucracy, had been obliged to work underground, or to
write abroad and trust to the ruses of war for a circulation in their
own country. During the six weeks after the Manifesto the change was
astonishing. For a time there was not a country, except England, where
the freedom of the press was so complete. A new paper appeared almost
every other day. Now and then a number or two would be confiscated, and
sometimes the paper would cease to appear for a while. The first and
most notorious case of this suspension was when a little satiric paper,
called _The Machine Gun_ (_Pulemet_), printed a copy of the
Tsar’s manifesto with the impression of a bloody hand stamped upon
it, and the superscription, “Signed and Sealed.” This was seized as
an insult to the dynasty. The editor was imprisoned, the price of the
cartoon went up from five farthings to almost as many pounds, and, when
the paper appeared again, its fame was established.
But at the time a cartoon of that kind was mainly prophetic, and most
of the papers said what they pleased, and said it with seriousness and
self-restraint. Among the very best was the workmen’s little paper
called _The Russian Gazette_, sold at one farthing. It had been
started soon after Father Gapon’s petition, and since the Manifesto
only one number had been confiscated. Written in the common workman’s
language which all could understand, it had a very large circulation,
but its price kept the funds low, and its news from outside was small.
In politics it called itself Social Democratic, but being concerned at
first hand with the real workmen and their interests, it touched solid
ground, and its tone was the same as one heard at the meetings of the
labour delegates.
Next in revolutionary influence came the _New Life_ (_Novaya
Zhisn_), generally known as Maxim Gorky’s paper. He certainly
supplied the money and its general policy. Sometimes he wrote a
long letter or address in it, and his present wife, the actress of
his plays, was nominally editor. But, even when Gorky was in St.
Petersburg, which was very seldom, the paper was really conducted by
the poet Minsky and a few other Social Democrats of high education
and theoretic knowledge. The sternest and most official organ of that
sect, it followed Marx with doctrinaire exactness, and its teaching
was impeded by the stiffness and pedantry that characterize the
Social Democrats even in England. No one could question the skill and
enthusiasm of its attacks upon the oligarchy and capitalists, but it
often devoted more space to sour depreciation of other good Socialists
who doubted if Marx had said the last word in human history. It was
like a really clever staff officer who, on the morning of the battle,
goes from brigade to brigade telling the soldiers what fools all the
other officers have made of themselves, and what an immense disaster
will ensue if his own plan of attack is not adopted. So it often
happened that the truest friends of the movement were in despair at
the vanity and exclusiveness of the _New Life_, and irretrievable
opportunities passed by while its staff of editors were arranging the
future of humanity in neat little circles and squares, as though they
were the Creator and men were as obedient as the stars. If you work on
German first principles, you are likely to arrive at queer conclusions,
because mankind was not made in Germany. But still there was no denying
the paper’s honesty and zeal, nor its great influence within its own
wide circle of well-disposed and intelligent people.
_The Son of the Country_ (_Syn Otetchestva_) was an old paper; it had
been running off and on for nearly a century; but, since the manifesto,
it had become extreme in its Liberalism, and could be grouped as a new
paper among the Social Democratic organs. All Russians admitted that
it was particularly well written, and being far less pedantic than the
_New Life_, it was read by every advanced party and promised to become
one of the strongest papers of the revolution.
While I was still in St. Petersburg, at the end of November, some of
the famous exiles, who had begun to return to Russia under the promised
amnesty, started a paper called the _Beginning_ (_Natchalo_).
It was distinctly Social Democratic, and perhaps the leading spirit on
it was Vera Sassoulitch, who had failed in an attempt to assassinate
Trepoff’s father during the most gloomy period of tyranny, twenty
years before. She had returned from Geneva, old and grey and wrinkled,
but almost any night she was to be seen sitting out the revolutionary
meetings, talking, writing, or stitching with unflagging energy, and on
her face and in her pale grey eyes a fixed and beaming smile, as though
at the fulfilment of hopes for which she and so many others had been
willing to give their lives.
Not definitely connected with social democracy, but extreme in its
opposition to the Government, there was another new paper called _Our
Life_ (_Nacha Zhisn_), which was started in September and at
once was recognized for its excellent news and management. It has since
increased its reputation, and become one of the leading papers in
Russia.
But at that time perhaps the very best of all the papers, both for news
and leading articles, was _Russia_ (_Russ_). It had been
founded three years before, but began to redate its numbers from the
Manifesto of October 30th. During the war, it won a reputation by an
overwhelming exposure of army scandals, and under the movement it was
almost universally read for its progressive policy and fearlessness of
speech. At the time, it was edited by one of the sons of Suvorin, the
famous editor of the _Novoe Vremya_. Such divergence of political
views must have strained the conversation at the family dinner-table,
and perhaps it was really a relief at home when the son was shut up in
prison, and the paper appeared under the new title of _Molva_.
The two Jewish papers--the _News_ (_Novosti_) and the _Stock Exchange
Gazette_ (_Birshevza Viedomosti_)--were both old, one being nearly the
oldest paper in Russia, and the other having run twenty-five years,
but both had become very Progressive or even revolutionary. For in
Russia, Jews are inevitably revolutionists, however much against their
own nature, and the Stock Exchange paper was one of the most advanced
political organs in the Empire, and had the best news.
At that time, two other Progressive papers had just been
started--_Dawn_ (_Rassiojet_) and _Russia Renewed_ (_Obnovlionnaya
Rossiu_), and at Moscow, Professor Miliukoff was on the point of
bringing out his new paper called _Life_ (_Zhisn_) of which I may
speak later on. But there seemed no end to the number of excellent
journalists that Russia could supply, just as there seemed no end to
the number of excellent speakers. When I think of that sudden outburst
of talent, I remember the saying of an Englishman who had lived thirty
years in Russia and professed a good-humoured contempt for the whole
people from the Court to the dustmen; “But unquestionably,” he always
added, “they are the most intelligent race in the world.” In reality,
however, it was intensity of conviction and present sense of wrong
which converted those inexperienced men into such effective writers
and speakers. Where conviction is sincere, habit and training are best
away, just as really sincere and original dramas should be performed
only by actors unhabituated to the stage.
To oppose these battalions of progress, there were only three or four
journals on the reactionary side, and it is significant that none of
these were new and nearly all were subsidized. First came the _New
Time_ (_Novoe Vremya_), almost the only Russian paper which is
well known by name outside Russia. It is the _Times_ of Russia,
steadily on the side of the Government, the reaction, and the moneyed
classes. Scornful of enthusiasm, deaf to every idea, incredulous of
every hope, always ready to impute the vilest motives to reform, it
stands like an impenetrable barrier on the road of human progress.
Proclaiming itself the champion of stability, and taking law and order
for its motto, and the price of funds for its test, it succeeds in
pleasing the financier and the official, and its cynical disregard of
humanity is matched by its unquestioned influence for evil. A certain
dignity of tone, combined with the excellence of its foreign news, has
given it a reputation for sobriety and truth, but against the rights of
freedom it is virulent in its animosity, and against a leader of the
people it will welcome any libel without reserve. To discover where
justice lies, one has but to take the opposite view to its own, and to
agree with it is a danger-signal that one’s sense of right has gone
astray. Yet in moments of deep indignation against some governmental
shame, it will affect the popular tone and act the reformer’s part with
whines and deprecations. The scandals of the Japanese war were too
flagrant even for its compliant worship of birth and rank, and after
the Manifesto had granted freedom of speech it began to demand that
freedom with righteous solicitude.
On the same side, though inferior in skill and reputation, stood
the _Citizen_ (_Grashdanin_), heavily subsidized by the Government,
and possessing, it was said, a particular influence over the Tsar’s
perplexed little mind; and the _Petersburg News_, also subsidized, but
indignant none the less about the war scandals and the Grand Dukes.
Last of this group came the _Word_ (_Slovo_), once famous for its
violent attacks upon errors in high places, and for its fearless
defence of freedom, especially on behalf of the Old Believers. But
after the Manifesto appeared, the tone of the paper changed, and
instead of joining like others in the joy of victory, it grew more and
more sullen and distrustful of progress. Whether money was the motive
of the change, as rumour said, I did not discover, but the paper’s
influence had to be counted among the reactionary forces, and it was a
strong paper.
Even more significant than the printed daily papers were the satiric
and illustrated sheets, which appeared as suddenly and in greater
numbers. Perhaps the best managed and most constant was the _Observer_
(_Zritel_), but the _Signal_ (same word in Russian) was almost as
good, and below them came the _Arrows_ (_Streli_) and the _Libel_
(_Strekoza_). The _Vampyre_ (same word in Russian) came later, and
so did the _Sulphur_ (_Jupel_), which was the most artistic of them
all, but so bloody and savage that it survived only three numbers. The
character of nearly all the cartoons was, indeed, bloody and savage
rather than humorous. The satire was hardly ever kindly, as it has
become in England now that politics are so seldom a matter of life and
death. Sometimes, it is true, in those early weeks, Witte was treated
with a raillery that might be called gentle. He would be represented as
a cook trying in vain to make the dinner come right; or as a chemist
watching an empty bottle labelled “Constitution;” or as a brood hen
sitting on an egg with the same label; or as an old nurse cherishing
a sickly little figure; or as an acrobat balancing on a slack-rope,
while Trepoff held one end, and the red flags of the revolution surged
below; or as a cunning old tailor threading his needle to stitch up
the two-headed eagle, which lay dead or stuffed on his board, while
an inverted imperial diadem held the flat-iron, and the candle stood
in a vodka bottle representing Witte’s spirit monopoly. But as a rule
the design was far more savage, and the savagery grew as the reaction
became stronger, till after the Days of Moscow all the cartoons might
have been printed in blood, and most appeared in that colour. Then
we were shown the skeleton of death stalking through the devastated
streets, or the skeleton of hunger crawling upon the stage from the
flies, or the Kremlin floating in blood like an island, or Dubasoff
as butcher in a human meat-shop, or foul monsters brooding over
the corpses beneath the gallows of freedom. Right through its past
history, all Russian art that counts has been either horrible or
melancholy--a thing of skeletons and vampires and desolation. The
subjects chosen by painters are cruel scenes from war or history, and
dreary views of the steppe. The subjects chosen by writers are almost
invariably sad. It is part of the unbroken melancholy which pervades
all Russian life, and is no less visible on the faces of the people
than in the sound of their music. And all this sorrow and savagery
and blood lie at the door of a Government which has kept the people
poor and depressed, exposed to the constant peril of the scourge, the
prison, and secret death.
[Illustration: WITTE AND THE CONSTITUTION.
WITTE: “I’ve bought a pipe, and now I can’t play it.”
From _Sprut_.]
On the reactionary side, I think, the only satiric paper was the
_Harlequin_ (_Chout_) and though it was fairly clever, there
is an eternal law which forbids the service of satire or letters or any
other form of art to the enemies of freedom.
The crowd of Liberal and revolutionary papers was but the visible
sign of a grace that took many forms. In reality, perhaps, there
were even more parties than papers, and certainly there were many
parties that had no paper to represent them. The Anarchists, as I have
shown already, could hardly be called a party, at all events in the
towns, and no paper was occupied with the abolition of the State as a
fetish, when all were insisting upon the strengthening of the State
as against the government of the few. But even such a large party as
the Social Revolutionists had no organ of their own. Next to the
Social Democrats, they were the most powerful of the advanced parties.
Probably they were even more numerous, but their organization was not
so complete, and as they devoted themselves mainly to the peasants,
their voice was not so loud in cities. They were the Terrorists of the
time; they were what Europe confusedly calls the Anarchists, and it was
they who kept the agents of the Government in peril of their lives. Yet
they had no paper of their own.
Neither had a large and growing party of the Left Centre, which we may
call the Radical as distinguished from the Socialists. They issued a
programme which nearly all the advanced parties would have accepted
when the time for business came. Like all the rest, they demanded
first a Constituent Assembly elected by universal suffrage, and beyond
that their ideal of the Russian State consisted in a single chamber, a
ministry chosen from the majority, home rule for Poland, Finland, the
Caucasus, and the Baltic Provinces, the right of referendum, separation
of Church and State, expropriation of Crown and Church lands and of
private estates beyond a fixed maximum, free education, and a general
militia for defence. Moderate as these demands were, nearly all the
revolutionists, except the more starchy among the Social Democrats,
would have been content to fight for them and welcome them with joy;
but the Radicals had no special organ for their views.
As in all movements of intense and vital interest, the danger to reform
came from division. All were united in their final purpose, but as to
methods and strategy the divisions of parties were many and violent. It
was the same thing as in a restaurant of Polish students to which I was
often invited. There was a long, low room, furnished only with benches
and tables. At one end was a piano; at the other a counter where the
student could buy excellent meals at all hours of the day and night for
very small payment. Though the university had long been closed owing
to the disturbances, the place was always crowded with young men and
girls, living in perfect comradeship and much at their ease. One night,
a young girl, with clear grey eyes, a demure little face, and pale hair
tightly braided, was giving me a very satisfactory lecture in German
upon the minute distinctions between all the Polish parties. I heard
afterwards that in her zeal for knowledge, she had gained the necessary
passport to St. Petersburg by going through the form of marriage with
a student whom she had never seen since the ceremony. It is not an
unusual device, and I have known girl-students who have even taken “the
yellow ticket” as prostitutes in order to reach a university town.
In the midst of her disquisition, she suddenly burst into an attack
upon two or three girls at another table who were suspected of
betraying true comradeship by ordinary flirtation. “I suppose they
think themselves rather pretty,” she said, “but neither logically nor
psychologically do I understand their behaviour.” At that moment a few
notes sounded on the piano, and to distract her wrath I suggested she
should ask for some Polish music.
“Oh, I couldn’t speak to that end of the room,” she replied; “the other
party has captured it, and the piano besides.”
“But you hold the kitchen end,” I remarked consolingly.
“I am sorry to say our possession is not exclusive,” she answered, with
a look that was bloodthirsty in its conviction of righteousness. Then
she took a shining revolver from her pocket, examined its action, said
good-bye to her friends, and stalked through the enemy’s camp without a
sign either of fear or pardon.
She was herself a Social Democrat of the most attractive though
sternest type, and as such, she believed in international fraternity.
But “the other party” were Polish Revolutionists, or Democratic Poles,
or something just wrong, and they followed the old-fashioned faith of
nationality; and so the room was split by an invisible but impassable
barrier. To me it all seemed rather a pity, when I thought of the long
years of conflict which must pass before they reached the separating
point in their ideals, and how few would live to see a single item in
their programme fulfilled. Yet I know that at the first note of the
revolution, Social Democrats, Polish Revolutionists, Democratic Poles,
flirtatious girls, and all would be ready to die together for Poland’s
freedom. And so probably they will have to die.
It was the same throughout the length and breadth of Russia in those
happy weeks. Divisions are the evidences of life, and Russia was
seething with life like the world in the days of creation. But one
thought exhilarated all young and happy minds--the thought of liberty.
And if to a middle-aged man and a stranger in the country it was a joy
then to be alive, to the young and to the Russian it must indeed have
been very heaven.
DIARY OF EVENTS
_December 6._--General Sakharoff, who had succeeded
Kuropatkin as Minister of War, and had lately been appointed
Governor-General of the Saratoff district on the Volga, was shot
in his office at Saratoff by a woman, a Social Revolutionist,
who said, when she was arrested, “Now he can cause the peasants
no more suffering.”
_December 7._--The Strike Committee (Central Labour
Committee in St. Petersburg) called on the work-people to
withdraw their money from the savings-banks. They rightly
believed that bankruptcy was the best way of overthrowing the
Government.
_December 9._--Khroustoloff, the President of the Strike
Committee, and three other leading delegates were arrested at
the Printers’ Union and imprisoned.
At this time severe fighting was renewed in the Caucasus between
the Tartars and Armenians.
There was also a violent outbreak of revolution in Riga, and the
Letts of the three Baltic Provinces of Esthonia, Livonia, and
Courland, rose against the Government, and burnt some of the
country houses belonging to German landowners who had inherited
estates from the Teutonic Orders of Knight and other Prussian
conquerors in the Middle Ages.
_December 16._--The Council of Workmen’s Delegates (Strike
Committee), combined with the Committee of the Peasants’
Congress, the Committee of the Social Democratic Workmen’s
Party, and the Committee of the Social Revolutionists, issued
another manifesto on Government finance. The following extracts
show its tendency:--
“The Government is on the verge of bankruptcy. With the capital
obtained by foreign loans, it has built railways and fleets
and fortresses, and supplied itself with arms. The foreign
sources of capital are now dried up. The Government orders have
ceased, and the merchants and factory-owners, accustomed to
enrich themselves at the expense of the State, are closing their
offices. No one is sure of the morrow.
“The Government has wasted all the State revenues on the
army and the fleet. There are no schools, and the roads are
neglected. Troops throughout the country are disaffected,
impoverished, and hungry. The Government has robbed the State
savings-banks. The capital of small investors has been played
with on the Bourse. The gold reserve of the State Bank is
insignificant compared with the demands of the State loans and
commercial transactions.
“The Government covers the interest on old loans by contracting
new loans. Year by year it publishes false estimates of the
revenue and expenditure, so as to show a surplus instead of the
real deficit.
“Only after the fall of the autocracy can a Constituent Assembly
put an end to this financial ruin. The national representatives
must then liquidate the debts as soon as possible.
“There is but one way out of this abyss--the overthrow of the
Government, and the removal of its last weapon. We must take
from it the last source of its existence--its financial revenue.
“The Government is issuing orders against the people as though
Russia were a conquered country. We have decided not to allow
the payment of debts contracted by the Tsar’s Government, since
it has openly waged war against the whole nation.
“We call on you to withdraw your deposits from the savings
banks, and to refuse to pay taxes, or to take banknotes, or to
subscribe to loans.”
This manifesto showed how clearly the leaders of the working
classes realized that the control of finance is the basis of
political power.
The Government recognized it too, and took immediate measures.
On the 14th the Tsar had proclaimed “his inflexible will to
realize with all possible speed the reforms he had granted.”
On the 16th came a Government message denouncing “the groups who
are threatening the Government, society, and all the population
who do not share their views,” and threatening imprisonment
against all strikers and inciters to strike.
That evening the hall of the Free Economic Society, which I
described in the first chapter, was surrounded by troops and
police. Three hundred men and women were arrested, and two
hundred and sixty-four of them were imprisoned, including twenty
of the Executive.
At the same time the editors of all the papers which had
published the Committee’s manifesto were arrested, and their
papers suppressed. Of the leading dailies, only the reptile
_Novoe Vremya_ continued to appear.
_December 18._--An entirely new council and executive were
appointed for the Strike Committee, and at once they determined
on another general strike. “The Government has declared civil
war,” ran the decree, “and, as it wants war, it shall have it.”
In the mean time, on December 8th, I had gone to Moscow, and it
was to Moscow that the centre of revolution now shifted. But
before I take up the narrative of the rising in that city, I
will describe a few days’ visit I made from there into the open
country and the villages where peasants live. The change in the
order of date is unimportant, and the story of Moscow can then
follow continuously.
[Illustration: PEASANT SLEDGES.]
[Illustration: A PRIVATE SLEDGE.]