RUSSIA: THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION
I spent all the winter of 1905-6 at Moscow with occasional visits to St.
Petersburg and to the country. The strikes were over, but it was in a
seething, restless state. Count Witte was Prime Minister. When he took
office after making peace with the Japanese he was idolised as a hero,
but he soon lost his popularity and his prestige. He satisfied neither
the revolutionaries nor the reactionaries, and he was neither King Log
nor King Stork. Elections were held in the spring for the convening of
the Duma, the first Russian Parliament, but they were not looked upon
with confidence and they were boycotted by the more extreme parties.
Russia was swarming with political parties, but of all these divisions
and subdivisions, each with its programme and its watchword, there were
only two which had any importance: the Constitutional Democrats called
Kadets,[11] which represented the _Intelligentsia_, and the Labour Party,
which represented the artisans and out of which the Bolsheviks were
ultimately to grow. The peasants stood aloof, and remained separate.
None of these parties produced either a statesman or remarkable man.
There were any amount of clever men and fine orators in their ranks, but
no man of action.
A man of action did ultimately appear, but in the ranks of the
Government—P. A. Stolypin—and he governed Russia for several years, till
he was murdered.
At Moscow I had two little rooms in the Mwilnikov pereulok on the ground
floor. I was now a regular correspondent to the _Morning Post_, and used
to send them a letter once a week. Their St. Petersburg correspondent was
Harold Monro, who wrote fiction under the pseudonym of “Saki.”
The stories that Monro wrote under the name of “Saki” in the
_Westminster Gazette_ and the _Morning Post_ attracted when they came
out in these newspapers, and afterwards when they were republished, a
considerable amount of attention; but because they were witty, light, and
ironical, and sometimes flippant, few people took “Saki” seriously as an
artist. I venture to think he was an artist of a high order, and had his
stories reached the public from Vienna or Paris, there would have been an
artistic boom round his work of a deafening nature.
As it is, people dismissed him as a funny writer. Funny he was, both
in his books and in his conversation; irresistibly witty and droll
sometimes, sometimes ecstatically silly, so that he made you almost cry
for laughter, but he was more than that—he was a thoughtful and powerful
satirist, an astonishing observer of human nature, with the power of
delineating the pathos and the irony underlying the relations of human
beings in everyday life, with exquisite delicacy and a strong sureness of
touch. A good example of his wit is his answer when a lady asked him how
his book could be got: “Not at an ironmonger’s.” His satire is seen at
its strongest in the fantasy, _When William Came_, in which he describes
England under German domination, but the book in which his many gifts and
his intuition for human things are mingled in the finest blend is perhaps
_The Unbearable Bassington_, which is a masterpiece of character-drawing,
irony, and pathos. And yet in literary circles in London, or at
dinner-parties where you would hear people rave over some turgid piece of
fiction, that because it was sordid was thought to be profound, and would
probably be forgotten in a year’s time, you would never have heard “Saki”
mentioned as an artist to be taken seriously.
“No one will buy,” as the seller of gold-fish remarked at the fair—“no
one will buy the little gold-fish, for men do not recognise the gifts of
Heaven, the magical gifts, when they meet them.”
Nobody sought the suffrages of the literary and artistic circle less
than “Saki.” I think he would have been pleased with genuine serious
recognition, as every artist would be, but the false _réclame_ and the
chatter of coteries bored him to extinction.
In 1914 he showed what he was really made of by enlisting in the army,
and he was killed in the war as a corporal after he had several times
refused a commission.
I spent Easter in Moscow, and this was one of the most impressive
experiences I ever had.
I have spent Easter in various cities—in Rome, Florence, Athens, and
Hildesheim—and although in each of these places the feast has its own
peculiar aspect, yet by far the most impressive and the most interesting
celebration of the Easter festival I have ever witnessed was that of
Moscow. This is not to be wondered at, for Easter is the most important
feast of the year in Russia, the season of festivity and holiday-making
in a greater degree than Christmas or New Year’s Day. Secondly, Easter,
which is kept with equal solemnity all over Russia, was especially
interesting in Moscow, because Moscow is the stronghold of old traditions
and the city of churches. Even more than Cologne, it is
“Die Stadt die viele hundert
Kapellen und Kirchen hat.”
There is a church almost in every street, and the Kremlin is a citadel
of cathedrals. During Holy Week, towards the end of which the evidences
of the fasting season grow more and more obvious by the closing of
restaurants and the impossibility of buying any wine and spirits, there
were, of course, services every day. During the first three days of Holy
Week there was a curious ceremony to be seen in the Kremlin, which was
held every two years. This was the preparation of the chrism or holy oil.
While it was slowly stirred and churned in great cauldrons, filling the
room with hot fragrance, a deacon read the Gospel without ceasing (he was
relieved at intervals by others), and this lasted day and night for three
days. On Maundy Thursday the chrism was removed in silver vessels to the
Cathedral. The supply had to last the whole of Russia for two years. I
went to the morning service in the Cathedral of the Assumption on Maundy
Thursday. The church was crowded to suffocation. Everybody stood up, as
there was no room to kneel. The church was lit with countless small wax
tapers. The priests were clothed in white and silver. The singing of the
noble plain chant without any accompaniment ebbed and flowed in perfect
discipline; the bass voices were unequalled in the world. Every class
of the population was represented in the church. There were no seats,
no pews, no precedence nor privilege. There was a smell of incense and
a still stronger smell of poor people, without which, someone said, a
church is not a church. On Good Friday there was the service of the Holy
Shroud, and besides this a later service in which the Gospel was read
out in fourteen different languages, and finally a service beginning
at one o’clock in the morning and ending at four, to commemorate the
Burial of Our Lord. How the priests endured the strain of these many and
exceedingly long services was a thing to be wondered at; for the fast,
which was kept strictly during all this period, precluded butter, eggs,
and milk, in addition to all the more solid forms of nourishment, and the
services were about six times as long as those of the Catholic or other
churches.
The most solemn service of the year took place at midnight on Saturday in
Easter week. From eight until ten o’clock the town, which during the day
had been crowded with people buying provisions and presents and Easter
eggs, seemed to be asleep and dead. At about ten people began to stream
towards the Kremlin. At eleven o’clock there was already a dense crowd,
many of the people holding lighted tapers, waiting outside in the square,
between the Cathedral of the Assumption and that of Ivan Veliki. A little
before twelve the cathedrals and palaces on the Kremlin were all lighted
up with ribbons of various coloured lights. Twelve o’clock struck, and
then the bell of Ivan Veliki began to boom: a beautiful, full-voiced,
immense volume of sound—a sound which Clara Schumann said was the most
beautiful she had ever heard. It was answered by other bells, and a
little later all the bells of all the churches in Moscow were ringing
together. Then from the Cathedral came the procession: first, the singers
in crimson and gold; the bearers of the gilt banners; the Metropolitan,
also in stiff vestments of crimson and gold; and after him the officials
in their uniforms. They walked round the Cathedral to look for the Body
of Our Lord, and returned to the Cathedral to tell the news that He was
risen. The guns went off, rockets were fired, and illuminations were seen
across the river, lighting up the distant cupola of the great Church of
the Saviour with a cloud of fire.
The crowd began to disperse and to pour into the various churches. I
went to the Manège—an enormous riding school, in which the Ekaterinoslav
Regiment had its church. Half the building looked like a fair. Long
tables, twinkling with hundreds of wax tapers, were loaded with the
three articles of food which were eaten at Easter—a huge cake called
_kulich_; a kind of sweet cream made of curds and eggs, cream and
sugar, called _Paskha_ (Easter); and Easter eggs, dipped and dyed in
many colours. They were waiting to be blessed. The church itself was a
tiny little recess on one side of the building. There the priests were
officiating, and down below in the centre of the building the whole
regiment was drawn up. There were two services—a service which began
at midnight and lasted about half an hour; and Mass, which followed
immediately after it, lasting till about three in the morning. At the
end of the first service, when the words, “Christ is risen,” were sung,
the priest kissed the deacon three times, and then the members of the
congregation kissed each other, one person saying, “Christ is risen,”
and the other answering, “He is risen, indeed.” The colonel kissed the
sergeant; the sergeant kissed all the men one after another. While this
ceremony was proceeding, I left and went to the Church of the Saviour,
where the first service was not yet over. Here the crowd was so dense
that it was almost impossible to get into the church, although it was
immense. The singing in this church was ineffable. I waited until the
end of the first service, and then I was borne by the crowd to one of
the narrow entrances and hurled through the doorway outside. The crowd
was not rough; they were not jostling one another, but with cheerful
carelessness people dived into it as you dive into a scrimmage at
football, and propelled the unresisting herd towards the entrance, the
result being, of course, that a mass of people got wedged into the
doorway, and the process of getting out took longer than it need have
done; and had there been a panic, nothing could have prevented people
being crushed to death. After this I went to a friend’s house to break
the fast and eat _kulich_, _Paskha_, and Easter eggs, and finally
returned home when the dawn was faintly shining on the dark waters of the
Moscow River, whence the ice had only lately disappeared.
In the morning people came to bring me Easter greetings, and to give me
Easter eggs, and to receive gifts. I was writing in my sitting-room and I
heard a faint mutter in the next room, a small voice murmuring, _Gospodi,
Gospodi_ (“Lord, Lord”). I went to see who it was, and found it was the
policeman, sighing for his tip, not wishing to disturb, but at the same
time anxious to indicate his presence. He brought me a crimson egg. Then
came the doorkeeper and the cook. The policeman must, I think, have been
pleased with his tip, because policemen kept on coming all the morning,
and there were not more than two who belonged to my street.
In the afternoon I went to a hospital for wounded soldiers to see them
keep Easter, which they did by playing blind man’s buff to the sound of
a flute played by one poor man who was crippled for life. One of the
soldiers gave me as an Easter gift a poem, a curious human document. It
is in two parts called “Past and Present.” This one is “Present”:
“PRESENT”
“I lived the quarter of a century
Without knowing happy days;
My life went quickly as a cart
Drawn by swift horses.
I never knew the tenderness of parents
Which God gives to all;
For fifteen years I lived in a shop
Busied in heaping up riches for a rich man.
I was in my twentieth year
When I was taken as a recruit;
I thought that the end had come
To my sorrowful sufferings,
But no! and here misfortune awaited me;
I was destined to serve in that country,
Where I had to fight like a lion with the foe,
For the honour of Russia, for my dear country.
I shall for a long time not forget
That hour, and that date of the 17th,[12]
In which by the river Liao-he
I remained for ever without my legs.
Now I live contented with all,
Where good food and drink are given,
But I would rather be a free bird
And see the dear home where I was born.”
This is the sequel:
“PAST”
“I will tell you, brothers,
How I spent my youth;
I heaped up silver,
I did not know the sight of copper;
I was merry, young, and nice;
I loved lovely maidens;
I lived in clover, lived in freedom
Like a young ‘barin.’
I slept on straw,
Just like a little pig.
I had a very big house
Where I could rest.
It was a mouldy barn,
There where the women beat the flax.
Every day I bathed
In spring water;
I used for a towel
My scanty leg-cloth.
In the beer-shops, too,
I used to like to go,
To show how proudly
I knew how to drink ‘vodka.’
Now at the age of twenty-six
This liberty no longer is for me.
I remember my mouldy roof,
And I shed a bitter tear.
When I lived at home I was contented
I experienced no bitterness in service.
I have learnt to know something,
Fate has brought me to Moscow;
I live in a house in fright and grief,
Every day and every hour;
And when I think of liberty,
I cannot see for tears.
That is how I lived from my youth;
That is what freedom means.
I drank ‘vodka’ in freedom,
Afterwards I have only to weep.
Such am I, young Vaniousia,
This fellow whom you now see
Was once a splendid merry-maker,
Named Romodin.”
These two poems, seemingly so contradictory, were the sincere expression
of the situation of the man, who was a cripple in the hospital. He gave
both sides of each situation—that of freedom and that of living in a
hospital.
On Saturday afternoon I went to one of the permanent fairs or markets in
the town, where there were many booths. Everything was sold here, and
here the people bought their clothes. They were then buying their summer
yachting caps. One man offered me a stolen gold watch for a small sum.
Another begged me to buy him a pair of cheap boots. I did so; upon which
he said: “Now that you have made half a man of me, make a whole man of me
by buying me a jacket.” I refused, however, to make a whole man of him.
On Easter Monday I went out to luncheon with some friends in the
_Intelligentsia_. We were a large party, and one of the guests was an
officer who had been to the war. Towards the end of luncheon, when
everybody was convivial, healths were drunk, and one young man, who
proclaimed loudly that he was a Social Revolutionary, drank to the health
of the Republic. I made great friends with the Social Revolutionary
during luncheon. When this health was drunk, I was alarmed as to what
the officer might do. But the officer turned out to be this man’s
brother. The officer himself made a speech which was, I think, the most
brilliant example of compromise I have ever heard; for he expressed
his full sympathy with the Liberal movement in Russia, including its
representatives in the extreme parties, and at the same time his
unalterable loyalty to his Sovereign.
After luncheon, the Social Revolutionary, who had sworn me eternal
friendship, was told that I had relations in London who managed a bank.
So he came up to me and said: “If _you_ give our Government one penny in
the way of a loan I shall shoot you dead.”
After that we danced for the rest of the afternoon. The Social
Revolutionary every now and then inveighed against loans and expressed
his hope that the Government would be bankrupt.
In May I went to St. Petersburg for the opening of the Duma, and I stayed
there till the Duma was dissolved in July.
The brief life of the first Duma was an extraordinarily interesting
spectacle to watch. The Duma met in the beautiful Taurid palace that
Catherine the Second built for Potemkin. In the lobby, which was a large
Louis XV. ballroom, members and visitors used to flock in crowds, smoke
cigarettes, and throw away the ashes and the ends on to the parquet
floor. There were peasant members in their long black coats, some of them
wearing crosses and medals; Popes, Tartars, Poles, men in every kind of
dress except uniform.
There was an air of intimacy, ease, and familiarity about the whole
proceedings. The speeches were eloquent, but no signs of political
experience or statesmanlike action were to be discerned.
I got to know a great many of the members: Aladin, who was looked upon
as a violent firebrand, and the star of the Left; Milioukov, the leader
of the Kadets, who was well known as a journalist and a professor;
Kovolievsky, also a well-known writer and professor, a large, genial,
comfortable man with an embracing manner and a great warmth of welcome,
and a rich, flowing vocabulary.
The peasants liked him and he was the only politician whom they trusted.
They sent him a deputation to inform him that whenever he stood up to
vote they intended to stand up in a body, and whenever he remained seated
they would remain seated too. I also knew many peasant members.
The proceedings of the Duma resulted in a deadlock between it and the
Government from the very first moment it met. It soon became obvious that
the Government must either dissolve the Duma or form a Ministry taken
from the Duma, that is to say, from the opposition. The question was, if
they did not wish to do that, would the country stand a dissolution or
would there be a revolution? The crucial question of the hour was, should
the Government appoint a Kadet Ministry, consisting of Liberals belonging
to the Constitutional Democratic party who formed the great majority of
the Duma, or should they dissolve the Duma? There was no third course
possible. I thought at the time that events would move more quickly than
they did. I thought if the Duma were dissolved, not only disorder but
immediate, open, and universal revolution would follow.
The army was shaky. Non-commissioned officers of the Guards regiments
were in touch with the Labour members of the Duma, and their
conversations, at which I sometimes assisted, were not reassuring. My
impression from these conversations and from all the talks I had with
the peasants and Labour members was that revolution, if and when it did
come, would be a terrible thing, and I thought it might quite likely come
at once. Mutinies had occurred in more than sixty regiments; a regiment
of Guards, the Emperor’s own regiment, had revolted in St. Petersburg.
I thought the dissolution would be the signal for an immediate outbreak
of some kind. I knew nothing decisive could happen till the army turned.
I thought the army might turn, or turn sufficiently to give the Liberal
leaders the upper hand. I was mistaken.
At the end of July 1906 the Government was vacillating; they were on the
verge of capitulation, and within an ace of forming a Kadet Ministry.
I think they were only prevented from doing so by the appearance on
the scene of P. A. Stolypin. As soon as Stolypin made his first speech
in the Duma, two things were clear: he was not afraid of opposition;
he was determined not to give in. He was going to fight the Duma; and
if necessary he would not shrink from dissolving it, and risking the
consequences. At the end of July, Stolypin strongly urged dissolution.
He argued that if the Kadets came into power they would not remain in
office a week, but would be at the mercy of the Extremists, and at once
replaced by the Extreme Left, and swept away by an inrush of unripe and
inexperienced Social Democrats who hated the Liberals more bitterly
than they hated the Government. There would then, he thought, be no
possibility of building a dam or barrier against the tide of revolution,
and the country would be plunged in anarchy. Judging from what occurred
in 1917, Stolypin’s forecast was correct. For this is precisely what
happened then. The Liberals were at once turned out of office, and
replaced first by Kerensky and then by Lenin. The pendulum swung as far
to the left as it could go, and this is just what Stolypin anticipated
and feared in 1906.
But many people in responsible positions (including General Trepov) were
advocating the formation of a Kadet Ministry; and had the Kadets had any
leaders of character, experience, and strength of purpose, the counsel
would perhaps have been a sound one.
At the time I thought the only means of avoiding a civil war would be
to create and support a strong Liberal Ministry. The objection to this
was, there was no such thing available. What happened was that Stolypin’s
advice was listened to. The Duma was dissolved and no revolution
followed. The army did not turn; the moderate Liberals capitulated
without a fight. They took the dissolution lying down; all they did
was to go to Finland and sign a protest, which had no effect on the
situation. It merely gave the Government a pretext for disenfranchising
certain of their leading members.
It may seem strange that the Duma, which was composed of the flower
of intellectual Russia, and certainly had a large section of public
opinion behind it, as well as prestige at home and abroad, should have
capitulated so tamely.
The truth was that neither in the ranks of the moderate Liberals,
nor in those of the Extremists, although they were in some cases men
of exceptional talents, was there one man sufficiently strong to be
a leader. The man of strong character was on the other side. He was
Stolypin; and no one on the side of the Liberals was a match for him. The
Liberals were journalists, men of letters, professors, and able lawyers,
but there was not one man of action in their ranks.
As soon as the Duma was dissolved and no open revolution came about, I
did not think there would be another act in the revolutionary drama for
another ten years. I put this on public record at the time, and as it
turned out, I was only a year out, as the revolution took place eleven
years after the dissolution of the first Duma.
All through those summer months I saw many interesting sights, and made
many interesting acquaintances.
One Sunday I spent the afternoon at Peterhof, a suburb of St. Petersburg,
where the Emperor used to live. There in the park, amidst the trees,
the plashing waterfalls, and the tall fountains, “les grands jets d’eau
sveltes parmi les marbres,” the lilac bushes, and the song of many
nightingales, the middle classes were enjoying their Sunday afternoon and
the music of a band. Suddenly, in this beautiful and not inappropriate
setting, the Empress of Russia passed in an open carriage, without any
escort, looking as beautiful as a flower. I could not help thinking of
Marie Antoinette at the Trianon, and I wondered whether ten thousand
swords would leap from their scabbards on her behalf.
The most interesting of my acquaintances in the Duma was Nazarenko, the
peasant deputy for Karkoff. Professor Kovolievsky introduced me to him.
Nazarenko was far the most remarkable of the peasant deputies. He was
a tall, striking figure, with black hair, a pale face, with prominent
clearly cut features, such as Velasquez would have taken to paint a
militant apostle. He had been through a course of primary education, and
by subsequently educating himself he had assimilated a certain amount of
culture. Besides this, he was an eloquent speaker, and a most original
character.
“I want to go to London,” he said, “so that the English may see a real
peasant and not a sham one, and so that I can tell the English what we,
the real people, think and feel about them.” I said I was glad he was
going. “I shan’t go unless I am chosen by the others,” he answered. “I
have written my name down and asked, but I shan’t ask twice. I never
ask twice for anything. When I say my prayers I only ask God once for
a thing; and if it is not granted, I never ask again. And so it’s not
likely I would ask my fellow-men twice for anything. I am like that; I
leave out that passage in the prayers about being a miserable slave. I
am not a miserable slave, neither of man nor of Heaven.” “That is what
the Church calls spiritual pride,” I answered. “I don’t believe in all
that,” he answered. “My religion is the same as that of Tolstoy.” He
then pointed to the ikon which is in the lobby of the Duma. “I pay no
attention to that,” he said. “It is a board covered with gilt; but a lot
of people think that the ikon is God.”
I asked him if he liked Tolstoy’s books. “Yes,” he answered. “His books
are great, but his philosophy is weak. It may be all right for mankind
thousands of years hence, but it is of no use now. I have no friends,” he
continued. “Books are my friends. But lately my house was burnt, and all
my books with it. I have read a lot, but I never had anybody to tell me
what to read, so I read without any system. I did not go to school till I
was thirteen.”
“Do you like Dostoievsky’s books?” “Yes; he knows all about the human
soul. When I see a man going downhill, I know exactly how it will happen,
and what he is going through, and I could stop him because I have read
Dostoievsky.” “Have you read translations of any foreign books?” “Very
few; some of Zola’s books, but I don’t like them, because he does not
really know the life he is describing. Some of Guy de Maupassant’s
stories I have read, but I do not like them either because I don’t want
to know more about that kind of people than I know already.” “Have you
read Shakespeare?” “Yes. There is nobody like him. When you read a
conversation of Shakespeare’s, when one person is speaking you think he
is right, and when the next person answers him you think he is right.
He understands everybody. But I want to read Spencer—Herbert Spencer. I
have never been able to get his works.” I promised to procure him Herbert
Spencer’s works.
One evening I went to see Nazarenko in his house. He was not at home,
but a friend of his was there. He told me to wait. He was a peasant;
thirty-nine years old, rather bald, with a nice intelligent face. At
first he took no notice of me, and read aloud to himself out of a book.
Then he suddenly turned to me and asked me who I was. I said I was an
English correspondent. He got up, shut the door, and begged me to stay.
“Do the English know the condition of the Russian peasantry?” he asked.
“They think we are wolves and bears. Do I look like a wolf? Please say I
am not a wolf.” Then he ordered some tea, and got a bottle of beer. He
asked me to tell him how labourers lived in England, what their houses
were made of, what wages a labourer received, what was the price of meat,
whether they ate meat? Then he suddenly, to my intense astonishment,
put the following question to me: “In England do they think that Jesus
Christ was a God or only a great man?” I asked him what he thought. He
said he thought He was a great man. He said that the Russian people
were religious and superstitious; they were deceived by the priests,
who threatened them with damnation. He asked me if I could lend him an
English Bible. He wanted to see if it was the same as a Russian Bible. I
said it was exactly the same. He was immensely astonished. “Do you mean
to say,” he asked, “that there are all those stories about Jonah and the
whale, and Joshua and the moon?” I said “Yes.” “I thought,” he said,
“those had been put in for us.” I tried to explain to him that Englishmen
were taught almost exactly the same thing, and that the Anglican and
the Orthodox Church used the same Bible. We then talked of ghosts. He
asked me if I believed in ghosts. I said I did. He asked why. I gave
various reasons. He said he could believe in a kind of telepathy, a
kind of moral wireless telegraphy; but ghosts were the invention of old
women. He suddenly asked me whether the earth was four thousand years
old. “Of course it’s older,” he said. “But that’s what we are taught.
We are taught nothing about geography and geology. It is, of course, a
fact that there is no such thing as God,” he said; “because, if there is
a God, He must be a just God; and as there is so much injustice in the
world, it is plain that a just God does not exist. But you,” he went on,
“an Englishman who has never been deceived by officials, do you believe
that God exists?” (He thought that all ideas of religion and God as
taught to the Russian people were part of a great official lie.) “I do,”
I said. “Why?” he asked. I asked him if he had read the Book of Job. He
said he had. I said that when Job has everything taken away from him,
although he has done no wrong, suddenly, in the last depth of his misery,
he recognises the existence of God in the immensity of nature, and feels
that his own soul is a part of a plan too vast for him to conceive or to
comprehend. In feeling that he is part of the scheme, he acknowledges
the existence of God, and that is enough; he is able to consent, and to
console himself, although in dust and ashes. That was, I said, what I
thought one could feel. He admitted the point of view, but he did not
share it. After we had had tea we went for a walk in some gardens not
far off, where there were various theatrical performances going on.
The audience amused me, it applauded so rapturously and insisted on
an encore, whatever was played, and however it was played, with such
thunderous insistence. “Priests,” said my friend, “base everything on the
devil. There is no devil. There was no fall of man. There are no ghosts,
no spirits, but there are millions and millions of other inhabited
worlds.”
I left him late, when the performance was over. This man, who was a
member of the Duma for the government of Tula, was called Petrukin. I
looked up his name in the list of members, and found he had been educated
in the local church school of the village of Kologrivo; that he had
spent the whole of his life in this village, and had been engaged in
agriculture; that among the peasants he enjoyed great popularity as being
a clever and hard-working man. He belonged to no party. He was not in
the least like the men of peasant origin who had assimilated European
culture. He was naturally sensible and alert of mind.
One Sunday I went by train to a place called Terrioki, in Finland, where
a meeting was to be held by the Labour Party of the Duma. The train was
crowded with people who looked more like holiday-makers than political
supporters of the Extreme Left—so crowded that one had to stand up on the
platform outside the carriage throughout the journey. After a journey of
an hour and a quarter we arrived at Terrioki. The crowd leapt from the
train and immediately unfurled red flags and sang the “Marseillaise.”
The crowd occupied the second line, and a policeman observed that,
as another train was coming in and would occupy that line, it would
be advisable if they were to move on. “What?—police even here in free
Finland?” somebody cried. “The police are elected here by the people,”
was the pacifying reply; and the crowd moved on, formed into a procession
six abreast, and started marching to the gardens where the meeting was
to be held, singing the “Marseillaise” and other songs all the way. The
dust was so thick that, after marching with the procession for some time,
I took a cab and told the driver to take me to the meeting. We drove off
at a brisk speed past innumerable wooden houses, villas, shops (where
Finnish knives and English tobacco were sold), into a wood. After we had
driven for twenty minutes I asked the driver if we still had far to go.
He turned round and, smiling, said in pidgin-Russian (he was a Finn):
“Me not know where you want to go.” Then we turned back, and, after a
long search and much questioning of passers-by, found the garden, into
which one was admitted by ticket. (Here, again, anyone could get in.)
In a large grassy and green garden, shady with many trees, a kind of
wooden semicircular proscenium had been erected, and in one part of it
was a low platform not more spacious than a table. On the proscenium the
red flags were hung. In front of the table there were a few benches,
but the greater part of the public stood. The inhabitants of the villas
were here in large numbers; there were not many workmen, but a number
of students and various other members of the _Intelligentsia_—young men
with undisciplined hair and young ladies in large _art nouveau_ hats and
_Reformkleider_. M. Zhilkin, the leader of the Labour Party in the Duma,
took the chair.
The meeting was opened by a man who laid stress on the necessity of a
Constituent Assembly. Speeches succeeded one another. Students climbed
up into the pine trees and on the roof of the proscenium. Others lay
on the grass behind the crowd. “Land and Liberty” was the burden of
the speeches. There was nothing new or striking said. The hackneyed
commonplaces were rolled out one after another. Indignation, threats,
menaces, blood and thunder. And all the time the sun shone hotter and
“all Nature looked smiling and gay.” The audience applauded, but no
fierceness of invective, no torrent of rhetoric, managed to make the
meeting a serious one. Nature is stronger than speeches, and sunshine
more potent than rant. It is true the audience were enjoying themselves;
but they were enjoying the outing, and the speeches were an agreeable
incidental accompaniment. They enjoyed the attacks on the powers that be,
as the Bank-holiday maker enjoys Aunt Sally at the seaside. Some Finns
spoke in Russian and Finnish, and then Aladin made a speech. As he rose
he met with an ovation. Aladin was of peasant extraction. He had been to
the University in Russia, emigrated to London, had been a dock labourer,
a printer’s devil, a journalist, an electrical engineer, a teacher of
Russian; he spoke French and German perfectly, and English so well that
he spoke Russian with a London accent. Aladin had a great contempt for
the methods of the Russian revolutionaries. He said that only people
without any stuff in them would demand a Constituent Assembly. “You
don’t demand a Constituent Assembly; you constitute it,” he said. “The
Russian people would never be free until they showed by their acts that
they meant to be free.” Aladin spoke without any gesticulation. He was a
dark, shortish man, with a small moustache and grey, serious eyes, short
hair, and had a great command of mordant language. His oratory on this
occasion was particularly nervous and pithy. But he did not succeed in
turning that audience of holiday-makers into a revolutionary meeting.
The inhabitants of the villas clapped. The young ladies in large hats
chortled with delight. It was a glorious picnic—an ecstatic game of Aunt
Sally. And when the interval came, the public rushed to the restaurants.
There was one on the seashore, with a military band playing. There was
a beach and a pier, and boats and bathers. Here was the true inwardness
of the meeting. Many people remained on the beach for the rest of the
afternoon.
As soon as the Duma was dissolved I went to Moscow and stayed a few days
at Marie Karlovna’s _datcha_ at Tsaritsina, near Moscow.
Near the house where I was living there was a village; as this village
was close to the town of Moscow, I thought that its inhabitants would
be suburban. This was not so. The nearness to Moscow seemed to make no
difference at all. I was walking through the village one morning, when a
peasant who was sitting on his doorstep called me and asked me if I would
like to eat an apple. I accepted his invitation. He said he presumed
I was living with Marie Karlovna, as other Englishmen had lived there
before. Then he asked abruptly: “Is Marie Alexandrovna in your place?” I
said my hostess’s name was Marie Karlovna. “Of course,” he said, “I don’t
mean here, but in your place, in your country.” I didn’t understand.
Then he said it again louder, and asked if I was deaf. I said I wasn’t
deaf, and that I understood what he said, but I did not know whom he was
alluding to. “Talking to you,” he said, “is like talking to a Tartar.
You look at one and don’t understand what one says.” Then it suddenly
flashed on me that he was alluding to the Duchess of Edinburgh.[13]
“You mean the relation of our Queen Alexandra?” I said. “That’s what
I mean,” he answered. “Your Queen is the sister of the Empress Marie
Feodorovna.” It afterwards appeared that he thought that England had been
semi-Russianised owing to this relationship.
Two more peasants joined us, and one of them brought a small bottle (the
size of a sample) of vodka and a plate of cherries. “We will go and drink
this in the orchard,” they said. So we went to the orchard. “You have
come here to learn,” said the first peasant, a bearded man, whose name
was Feodor. “Many Englishmen have been here to learn. I taught one all
the words that we use.” I said I was a correspondent; that I had just
arrived from St. Petersburg, where I had attended the sittings of the
Duma. “What about the Duma?” asked the other peasant. “They’ve sent it
away. Will there be another one?” I said a manifesto spoke of a new one.
“Yes,”said Feodor, “there is a manifesto abolishing punishments.” I said
I hadn’t observed that clause. “Will they give us back our land?” asked
Feodor. “All the land here belongs to us really.” Then followed a long
explanation as to why the land belonged to them. It was Crown property. I
said I did not know. “If they don’t give it back to us we shall take it,”
he said simply. Then one of the other peasants added: “Those manifestos
are not written by the Emperor, but by the ‘authorities.’” (The same
thing was said to me by a cabman at St. Petersburg, his reason being that
the Emperor would say “I,” whereas the manifesto said “We.”) Then they
asked me why they had not won the war, and whether it was true that the
war had been badly managed. “We know nothing,” he said. “What newspaper
tells the truth? Where can we find the real truth? Is it to be found in
the _Russkoe Slovo_?” (a big Moscow newspaper). They asked me about the
Baltic Fleet and why Admiral Nebogatov had made a signal which meant
“Beat us.”
I went away, and as I was going Feodor asked me if I would like to
go and see the haymaking the next day. If so, I had better be at his
house at three o’clock in the afternoon. The next day, Sunday, I kept
my appointment, but found nobody at home in the house of Feodor except
a small child. “Is Feodor at home?” I asked. A man appeared from a
neighbouring cottage and said: “Feodor is in the inn, drunk.” “Is he
going to the haymaking?” I asked. “Of course, he’s going.” “Is he very
drunk?” I asked. “No, not very; I will tell him you are here.” And the
man went to fetch him. Then a third person arrived—a young peasant in his
Sunday clothes—and asked me where I was going. I said I was going to make
hay. “Do you know how to?” he asked. I said I didn’t. “I see,” he said,
“you are just going to amuse yourself. I advise you not to go. They will
be drunk, and there might be unpleasantness.”
Presently Feodor arrived, apparently perfectly sober except that he was
rather red in the face. He harnessed his horse to a cart. “Would I mind
not wearing my hat, but one of his?” he asked. I said I didn’t mind, and
he lent me a dark blue yachting cap, which is what the peasants wear all
over Russia. My shirt was all right. I had got on a loose Russian shirt
without a collar. He explained that it would look odd to be seen with
someone wearing such a hat as I had. It was a felt hat. The little boy
who was running about the house was Feodor’s son. He was barefooted, and
one of his feet was bound up. I asked what was the matter with it. The
bandage was at once taken off, and I was shown the remains of a large
blister and gathering. “It’s been cured now,” Feodor said. “It was a huge
blister. It was cured by witchcraft. I took him to the Wise Woman, and
she put something on it and said a few words, and the pain stopped, and
it got quite well. Doctors are no good; they only cut one about. I was
kicked by a horse and the pain was terrible. I drank a lot of vodka, and
it did no good; then I went to the Wise Woman and she put ointment on the
place and she spoke away the pain. We think it’s best to be cured like
this—village fashion.” I knew this practice existed, but it was curious
to find it so near Moscow. It was like finding witchcraft at Surbiton.
We started for the hay meadows, which were about ten miles distant. On
the road we met other peasants in carts bound for the same destination.
They all gravely took off their hats to each other. After an hour and a
half’s drive we arrived at the Moscow River, on the bank of which there
is a tea-shop. Tea-shops exist all over Russia. The feature of them is,
that you cannot buy spirits there. We stopped and had tea. Everybody was
brought a small teapot for tea and a huge teapot of boiling water, and
some small cups, and everybody drank about four or five cups out of the
saucer. They eat the sugar separately, and do not put it into the cup.
We crossed the river on a floating bridge, and, driving past a large
white Byzantine monastery, arrived at the green hay meadows on the
farther river-bank towards sunset. The haymaking began. The first step
which was taken was for vodka bottles to be produced and for everybody
to drink vodka out of a cup. There was a great deal of shouting and an
immense amount of abuse. “It doesn’t mean anything,” Feodor said. “We
curse each other and make it up afterwards.” They then drew lots for the
particular strip they should mow, each man carrying his scythe high over
his shoulder. (“Don’t come too near,” said Feodor; “when men have ‘drink
taken’ they are careless with scythes.”)
When the lots were drawn they began mowing. It was a beautiful sight to
see the mowing in the sunset by the river; the meadows were of an intense
soft green; the sky fleecy and golden to the west, and black with a great
thundercloud over the woods to the east, lit up with intermittent summer
lightning. The mowers were dressed in different coloured shirts—scarlet,
blue, white, and green. They mowed till the twilight fell and the
thundercloud drew near to us. Then Feodor came and made our cart into a
tent by tying up the shafts, putting a piece of matting across them, and
covering it with hay, and under this he made beds of hay. We had supper,
Feodor said his prayers, and prepared to go to sleep, but changed his
mind, got up, and joined some friends in a neighbouring cart.
Three children and a deaf-and-dumb peasant remained with me. The peasants
who were in the neighbouring tent were drunk. They began by quarrelling;
then they sang for about four hours without stopping; then they talked.
Feodor came back about half an hour before it was light, and slept
for that brief space. I did not sleep at all. I wasn’t tired, and the
singing was delightful to hear: so extremely characteristic of Russia
and so utterly unlike the music of any other country, except Mongolia.
The children chattered for some time about mushroom gathering, and the
deaf-and-dumb man told me a lot by signs, and then everybody went to
sleep.
As soon as it was light the mowers all got up and began mowing. I do not
know which was the more beautiful effect—that of the dusk or of the dawn.
The dawn was grey with pearly clouds and suffused with the faintest pink
tinge, and in the east the sun rose like a red ball, with no clouds near
it. At ten o’clock we drove to an inn and had tea; we then drove back,
and the hay, although it was quite wet, for it had rained in the night,
was carried there and then. “The women dry it at home,” Feodor explained;
“it’s too far for us to come here twice.” The carts were laden with hay,
and I drove one of them home, lying on the top of the hay, in my sleep.
I had always envied the drivers of carts whom one meets lying on a high
load of hay, fast asleep, and now I know from experience that there is
no such delicious slumber, with the kind sun warming one through and
through after a cold night, and the slow jolting of the wagon rocking
one, and the smell of the hay acting like a soporific. Every now and then
I awoke to see the world through a golden haze, and then one fell back
and drowsed with pleasure in a deep slumber of an inexpressibly delicious
quality.
When we recrossed the river we again stopped for tea. As we were standing
outside an old woman passed us, and just as she passed, one of the
peasants said to me: “Sit down, _Barin_.” _Barin_ means a _monsieur_, in
contradistinction to the lower class. “Very like a _Barin_,” said the
woman, with a sarcastic snort, upon which the peasant told her in the
plainest and most uncomplimentary speech I have ever heard exactly what
he thought of her personal appearance, her antecedents, and what she
was fit for. She passed on with dignity and in silence. After a time, I
climbed up on the wagon again, and sank back into my green paradise of
dreams, and remembered nothing more till we arrived home at five o’clock
in the evening.
A few days later I travelled from Moscow to St. Petersburg by a slow
train in a third-class carriage. In the carriage there was a mixed and
representative assembly of people: a priest, a merchant from Kursk, a
photographer from Tchelabinsk, a young volunteer—that is to say, a young
man doing his year’s military service previous to becoming an officer—two
minor public servants, an ex-soldier who had been through the Turkish
campaign, a soldier who had lately returned from Manchuria, three
peasants, two Tartars, a tradesman, a carpenter, and some others. Besides
these, a band of gipsies (with their children) encamped themselves on the
platform outside the carriage, and penetrated every now and then into the
carriage until they were driven out by threats and curses.
The first thing everybody did was to make themselves thoroughly
comfortable—to arrange mattresses and pillows for the night; then they
began to make each other’s acquaintance. We had not travelled far
before the gipsies began to sing on the platform, and this created some
interest. They suggested fortune-telling, but the ex-soldier shouted at
them in a gruff voice to begone. One of the officials had his fortune
told. The gipsy said she could do it much better for five roubles (ten
shillings) than for a few kopecks which he had given. I had my fortune
told, which consisted in a hurried rigmarole to the effect that I was
often blamed, but never blamed others; that I could only work if I was
my own master, and that I would shortly experience a great change of
fortune. The gipsy added that if I could give her five roubles she would
tie a piece of bark in my handkerchief which, with the addition of a
little bread and salt, would render me immune from danger. The gipsies
soon got out. The journey went on uneventfully.
“Le moine disait son bréviaire,
… Une femme chantait,”
as in La Fontaine’s fable. We had supper and tea, and the ex-soldier
related the experiences of his life, saying he had travelled much and
seen the world (he was a Cossack by birth) and was not merely a _Muzhik_.
This offended one of the peasants, a bearded man, who walked up from his
place and grunted in protest, and then walked back again.
They began to talk politics. The Cossack was asked his opinion on the
attitude of the Cossacks. He said their attitude had changed, and that
they objected to police service. The photographer from Tchelabinsk
corroborated this statement, saying he had been present at a Cossack
meeting in Siberia. Then we had a short concert. The photographer
produced a mandoline and played tunes. All the inmates of the carriage
gathered round him. One of the peasants said: “Although I am an ignorant
man” (it was the peasant who had grunted) “I could see at once that he
wasn’t simply playing with his fingers, but with something else” (the
tortoiseshell that twangs the mandoline). He asked the photographer how
much a mandoline cost. On being told thirty roubles he said he would give
thirty roubles to be able to play as well as that. Somebody, by way of
appreciation, put a cigarette into the mouth of the photographer as he
was playing.
I went to bed in the next compartment, but not to sleep, because a
carpenter, who had the bed opposite mine, told me the whole melancholy
story of his life. The volunteer appeared later; he had been educated
in the Cadet Corps, and I asked him if he would soon be an officer, “I
will never be an officer,” he answered; “I don’t want to be one _now_.”
I asked him if a statement I had read in the newspapers was true, to
the effect that several officers had telegraphed to the Government that
unless they were relieved of police duty they would resign. He said it
was quite true; that discontent prevailed among officers; that the life
was becoming unbearable; that they were looked down upon by the rest of
the people; and besides this, they were ordered about from one place
to another. He liked the officers whom he was with, but they were sick
of the whole thing. Then, towards one in the morning, I got a little
sleep. As soon as it was daylight, everybody was up making tea and
busily discussing politics. The priest and the tradesman were having a
discussion about the Duma, and everyone else, including the guard, was
joining in.
“Do you understand what the Duma was?” said the tradesman; “the Duma
was simply the people. Do you know what all that talk of a movement
of liberation means? It means simply this: that we want control,
responsibility. That if you are to get or to pay five roubles or fifty
roubles, you will get or pay five roubles or fifty roubles, not more and
not less, and that nobody will have the right to interfere; and that if
someone interferes he will be responsible. The first thing the Duma asked
for was a responsible Ministry, and the reason why it was dissolved is
that the Government would not give that.”
The priest said that he approved of a Duma, but unless men changed
themselves, no change of government was of any use. “Man must change
inwardly,” he said.
“I believe in God,” answered the tradesman, “but it is written in the
Scripture that God said: ‘Take the earth and cultivate it,’ and that is
what we have got to do—to make the best of this earth. When we die we
shall go to Heaven, and then”—he spoke in a practical tone of voice which
settled the matter—“then we shall have to do with God.” The priest took
out his Bible and found a passage in the Gospel. “This revolutionary
movement will go on,” he said, “nothing can stop it now; but mark my
words, we shall see oceans of blood shed first, and this prophecy will
come true,” and he read the text about one stone not being left on
another.
They then discussed the priesthood and the part played by priests. “The
priests play an abominable part,” said the tradesman; “they are worse
than murderers. A murderer is a man who goes and kills someone. He is
not so bad as the man who stays at home and tells others to kill. That
is what the priests do.” He mentioned a monk who had preached against
the Jews in the south of Russia. “I call that man the greatest criminal,
because he stirred up the peasants’ blood, and they went to kill the
Jews. Lots of peasants cease to go to church and say their prayers at
home because of this. When the Cossacks come to beat them, the priests
tell them that they are sent by God. Do you believe they are sent by
God?” he asked, turning to the bearded peasant.
“No,” answered the peasant; “I think they are sent by the devil.”
The priest said that the universal dominion of the Jews was at hand.
The tradesman contested this, and said that in Russia the Jews were
assimilated more quickly than in other countries. “The Jews are cunning,”
said the priest; “the Russians are in a ditch, and they go to the Jews
and say: ‘Pull us out.’” “If that is true,” said the tradesman, “we
ought to put up a gold statue to the Jews for pulling us out of the
ditch. Look at the time of the _pogroms_; the rich Russians ran away,
but the richest Jews stayed behind.” “They are clever; they knew their
business. If they stayed you may be sure they gained something by it,”
said the merchant from Kursk. “But we ought to be clever, too,” said the
tradesman, “and try and imitate their self-sacrifice. Look at the Duma.
There were twenty Jews in the Duma, but they did not bring forward the
question of equal rights for the Jews before anything else, as they might
have done. It is criminal for the priests to attack the Jews, and if they
go on like this, the people will leave them.”
“Whereas,” said the merchant from Kursk thoughtfully, “if they helped
the people, the people would never desert them.” “The priests,” said
one of the other nondescript people, “say that Catherine the Second is
a goddess; and for that reason her descendants have a hundred thousand
acres. General Trepov will be canonised when he dies, and his bones will
work miracles.”
The guard joined in here, and told his grievances at great length.
At one of the stations there was a fresh influx of people; among others,
an old peasant and a young man in a blouse. The old peasant complained of
the times. “Formerly we all had enough to eat; now there is not enough,”
he said. “People are clever now. When I was a lad, if I did not obey my
grandfather immediately, he used to box my ears; now my son is surprised
because I don’t obey him. People have all become clever, and the result
is we have got nothing to eat.” The young man said the Government was to
blame for most things. “That’s a difficult question to be clear about.
How can we be clear about it? We know nothing,” said the old peasant.
“You ought to try and know, or else things will never get better,” said
the young man. “I don’t want to listen to a _Barin_ like you,” said the
old peasant. “I’m not a _Barin_, I am a peasant, even as thou art,” said
the young man. “Nonsense,” said the old peasant. “Thou liest.”
The discussion was then cut short by our arrival at St. Petersburg.