were publicly expressed for the recall and the amnesty of the Martyrs of
the Conspiracy and the Insurrection of December, 1825. Pestel, Ryleieff,
Bestujeff-Rumin, and the other leaders, had been strung up on the
gallows. Many of those transported to Siberia had died a miserable
felon's death in the lead-mines. Brought up in the lap of luxury, they
ended like galley-slaves, because they had loved freedom more than
wealth and ease. It is reported of one of the political prisoners, a
nobleman, that he died in Kamtschatka with a chain round his neck,
fastened to the wall. Others had been sent to the Caucasus, which in
Russia was long ago said to be "not so much a frontier as a grave-yard."
There they had fallen in a hateful war against brave, independent
mountain tribes, as the unwilling tools of an aggressive tyranny. Still,
some of the sufferers were yet alive--among them men of the foremost
families of the country. They had to be allowed to come back. They
came--mere shadows and ruins of their former selves. But their decrepit
condition was the most telling evidence of the infamy of the Tyrant who
had fortunately passed away.
In the salons of the upper classes these suffering witnesses of a
terrible past received lavish proofs of admiration. Men would listen
with sympathetic avidity to the tales of horror told by them. All those
present at such a gathering made it a point to be profuse towards the
martyrs with little attentions such as only women ordinarily receive
from the other sex. Thirty years--a long time--had passed since the
armed struggle in the streets of St. Petersburg. Now, all of a sudden,
memories were revived. Political tendencies, which some imagined had
died out, came up afresh among a younger generation, for whom the
"December Conspiracy" was surrounded with a poetical halo. There was
danger in the air for the autocratic principle.
Count Rostoptchin, the same who ordered the burning of Moscow in 1812,
said in 1825 he could not understand that attempt at a revolution. He
"could understand the French Revolution, because there the ordinary
citizen wished to become an aristocrat, but he could not conceive
aristocrats wishing to become simple burghers." That was the version of
a cynical, though otherwise clever, member of the nobility, who was
unable to comprehend the spirit of self-sacrifice for noble aims showing
itself even among the wealthy and the "noble" by birth. However, had
Count Rostoptchin only been capable of feeling the degradation under
which the Russian aristocracy itself lies in its relations with a
despotic Crown, he might, even from his own point of view as a mere man
of the world, have found a reason for the uprising of independent
characters among men of his own rank.
IV.
The more cultured and wealthier classes again came to the front as
political agitators, at the accession of Alexander. They wanted to throw
down the Chinese Wall which Nicholas had built around them--if it is not
an insult to the Chinese to compare the wall they erected as a
protection against barbarism with the barrier set up by Nicholas against
Western ideas of culture and freedom. At first, Alexander II. did not
hold out any hope of reform. Driven to straits, he busied himself with
throwing a sop to public opinion by various small relaxations in
administrative matters. They were small enough; and they were given with
a niggard hand.
Anyone taking a survey of the earlier part of the reign of Alexander II.
must see that the main object of his government was to foil the tendency
towards the introduction of parliamentary institutions, which was
sullenly but perceptibly making its way among the better educated
section of the nation; that, with the view of attaining this reactionary
end, he pursued the traditional despotic policy of approaching the lower
classes on the one hand, and engaging the country in fresh warlike
enterprise abroad on the other. Foiled in Europe by England and France,
he throws his armies, after the conclusion of the Peace of Paris, with
renewed fury upon the Tcherkess tribes. They had long barred the way of
Russia towards Asia Minor and Persia, thereby insuring the safety of
India from that side. Now Schamyl, the hoary-headed warrior-prophet, is
compelled to surrender in his last mountain stronghold. From his lofty
Alpine home, which is filled with the renown of his romantic deeds, he
is carried a prisoner to St. Petersburg, there to be stared at by the
crowd of decorated slaves of autocracy.
With this "pacification" of the Caucasus, the Czar obtained the
unimpeded use of the high-road leading into Asia Minor. He then struck a
blow against the independent tribes on the eastern shore of the Caspian.
With the Court of Teheran he entered into relations calculated to
threaten Turkey with a double danger from the Asiatic side, in case of a
renewal of war. Again, he enlarged his Empire, at the cost of China, by
filching territories as extensive as some of the greatest European
countries. In what once was Independent Turkestan, his armies overran
one Khanate after the other, thus coming nearer and nearer to India from
the north-west. There is a striking war-picture by Vereshagin, with a
pyramid of skulls as its centre--a very Golgotha of the horrors of
massacre; but Russian monarchs, in their ceaseless career of conquest,
out-Tatar the Tatar in the fiendishness of their atrocities. Witness the
order given by General Kaufmann, the pampered tool of Alexander II., in
these Turkestan campaigns:--"_Kill all; spare no age, or sex!_" Witness
also the death-dance that took place when his Majesty, the crowned head
of Holy Russia, the magnanimous Champion of Religion and Humanity, made
his victorious entry into Plevna,[48] carousing there jubilantly,
whilst the Turkish wounded lay unattended in the town for fully two
days--a helpless mass of men, dying in raving agony.
I have anticipated for a moment the course of events. In glancing at the
reign of Alexander II., the eye involuntarily runs over the full
panorama of tyrannic outrages. From the time of the wholesale
proscription of the Tcherkess and Abchasian tribes to the heart-rending
horrors committed against Toork populations and wounded Ottoman
prisoners of war, there has been, in his career, a perfect climax of
inhumanity. Conferences for the professed humanization of warfare were,
with him, only the hypocritical precursors of fresh barbarities. But it
is not necessary to forestall events. Enough was done in the way of
atrocities even in the earlier years of his rule.
Between the conquests made in the Caucasus and the annexations on the
Amoor or in Central Asia, Alexander II. bullied, and at last put down,
by unspeakably cruel means,--even as did his predecessor,--the national
aspirations of unhappy Poland. Like Nicholas, he kept the road to
Siberia alive with the wretched convoys of unfortunate exiles. Even in
the Baltic Provinces, whence the Russian Government draws so many able
administrators, diplomatists, and military leaders, whose capacities
might be employed in a better cause, he began a system of persecution
against the German population, of so galling a nature that it
threatened, in course of time, to alienate that very mainstay of the
public administration. The special towns' charters of the Baltic
Provinces were infringed. The German tongue, hitherto possessing full
privileges, was threatened. A process of Russification was attempted;
the superior civilized element being pushed and annoyed by the inferior
and barbarous one.
These acts of the earliest years of the reign of Alexander II. have to
be kept in mind, in order to understand that humanitarian motives were
not the ruling ones in the final adoption of the Serf Emancipation
measure. On his death-bed, Nicholas is stated to have said to his
son:-- "Thou hast two enemies--the nobility and the Poles. Emancipate
the serfs; and do not allow the Poles any Constitution!"
It is impossible, with the mystery which envelopes the last days of
Nicholas, to know whether these words are authentic. At all events,
Alexander did not give back to the Poles the Constitution they
possessed until 1830. Nor did he grant a Constitution to the Russians
either. He emancipated the serfs--but not before the principles which
had actuated the Conspirators of 1817-25 once more began to show
themselves among the upper strata of society; and in passing his
measure, he mainly sought to deprive a restive nobility of some of its
influence, and to take the wind out of the sails of those Liberal
agitators who would have made the abolition of bondage the outcome of
the establishment of a freely-chosen Legislature. When, finally, the
Poles, counting upon a corresponding movement in Russia, resolved upon
that heroic, though desperate, rising which by anticipation I alluded to
in the last article, such fresh cruelties were practised by Alexander
II. against the vanquished victims, that every human heart worthy of the
name must shudder at the mere recollection of them.
From those days, however, the Conspiratory Movement in Russia began to
assume larger proportions. What I have said in the preceding pages, goes
far to explain the violence by which that movement has latterly been
characterized.
V.
Partly from the aggressiveness which is the natural bent of a despotic
military monarchy, partly from the wish to check the home-growth of
Liberal sentiments by frequent blood-letting abroad, the government of
Alexander II. has tried to meet the danger which has been gathering
round the autocratic system by lighting up foreign wars. Central Asia
has served him for that purpose. So has Turkey. The flag of ambition was
flaunted before public opinion as soon as there was a revival of the
Opposition tendency in internal affairs.
An attempt at opening up the whole Eastern Question was made as early as
1870, when France and Germany were locked together in deadly embrace.
The confidential despatches and cypher telegrams exchanged in 1870
between Mr. de Novikoff, the Russian Ambassador at Vienna, and Mr.
Ionin, the Russian Consul-General at Ragusa, which fortunately came to
light some years ago, have fully proved that even then Muscovite policy
busied itself with getting up a phantom insurrection in Herzegovina,
preparatory to an attack upon Turkey. Nor is it a secret that a
Bulgarian Committee of Insurrection, affiliated to Russia, had been in
existence at Bucharest for years previous to the late war. All these
propagandistic intrigues were in a measure designed to occupy some of
the more active minds in Russia, who hesitated, between home reform and
Panslavistic ambition.
The Czar has indulged in his warlike enterprizes, but he has deceived
himself in his calculations as regards home policy. All his frightful
spilling of blood abroad has not been able to prevent the formation and
extension of what is called the Nihilist Conspiracy. Side by side with
his wars, the Secret League has grown apace, overshadowing all his
glory. So extensive have the ramifications of that Conspiracy become
that the liveliest interest is now awakened as to its origin and its
earliest germs.
In the nature of things it is impossible, at present, to speak with full
certainty on this subject. The Russian revolutionists, being engaged in
a desperate struggle, have neither the leisure necessary for writing
such statements; nor is it their interest to go into details. Judicial
inquiries have lifted, here and there, some corner of the mysterious
winding-sheets in which the secret _Vehme_ is enveloped. But more light
can only be expected after the Conspiracy has been entirely crushed,--in
which case, however, owing to the heroic silence which its adherents
generally maintain, a great deal of knowledge will for ever be buried in
the grave,--or the fuller clearing up will come when, as I would fain
hope, this fierce struggle ends with a triumph, whether complete or
partial, of the cause of freedom.
Even under the iron rule of Nicholas, there were, many years after the
St. Petersburg insurrection of 1825, still some faint traces of Secret
Societies, in which the spirit of Pestel and Murawieff was continued.
One of these occult Leagues was that of Petrascheski, detected in 1849,
whose members were sentenced to forced labour and to banishment to
Siberia. A nearer approach to the plebeian element than was observable
in the Conspiracies of 1817-25, characterized this later association.
Altogether the more educated classes gradually began to seek closer
contact with the people at large.
This task was in so far facilitated by the tyrannical Czar-Pope
Nicholas, in that he not only trod under foot that portion of the
nobiliary class which aimed at a Constitutional share of the political
power, but also persecuted the various dissenting sects in the most
barbarous fashion.
Under an outward gloss of official orthodoxy, Russia is eaten up with a
chaos of sects. The Raskolniks, or Old Believers, profess to be the real
Church; yet the simplest civic rights were always denied to them.
Besides those Old Believers, numerous other sects exist. They in their
turn are surrounded by a strange fringe of "Runners," "Jumpers,"
"Flagellants," "Self-Mutilators," and other eccentric or anti-social
pests which crop up most thickly in the dank shadow of an obscurantist
despotism, whose very roots, however, they gradually destroy and
encroach upon. Persecuted men often seek solace in wild hopes and
prophetic beliefs, which, if strongly nurtured by agitation, are apt to
imperil the persecutor. Under Nicholas, the persecutor of all
Dissenters, popular seers occasionally arose, who in their occult
meetings predicted from the book of Esdra that, after the reign of
Nicholas should be over, the Monarchy would fall down under his son and
that "the people then would be happy and free."
Such a state of feeling in the lower and more backward social strata
rendered it at all events easier for would-be reformers of the
conspirator type to enter into closer contact with the plebeian
element. Though educated men could not have any sympathy with the
mystic views and tone, they found a practical ally in the sullen
dissatisfaction which drove Dissenters to opposition against the
Government. So it was under Nicholas. So it still is under Alexander II.
It may suit the sacerdotal Ritualists, who would fain establish a
connection of High Church Anglicanism with the official orthodoxy of the
East, to promote the aggressive policy of the Czar. But English
Dissenters, who prize their freedom from clerical trammels, might
remember that Autocracy in Russia represents all that is worst in
political as well as in religious fields. Besides upholding the Stuart
doctrine with the means of a Gengis Khan and a Tamerlane, it pretends,
in Church matters, to a Papal authority, crushing the Bible Christian,
the eccentric Mystic, and the religious Rationalist, with an equally
heavy hand--and, if need be, as in the case of the Greek Uniates under
Alexander II., with the Cossack knout.
In the educated class of Russia, two very different political currents
are observable: the one inclining towards Western Liberalism, whilst the
other cultivates the Nationalist sentiment under rather antiquated
forms. The "Westerners," "Europeans," or "Liberals," are often regarded
by the more stolid adherents of Katkoff as men lacking in patriotism.
Between these two parties--if we could speak of parties in a country
which has no ordered public life--a third group is observable: the
Panslavists, many of whom pursue, under a Liberal mask, aims favourable
to the aggrandizement of Czardom. Not a few of the Panslavists are in
reality mere Government tools. Others, who, like Aksakoff, began as
independent workers in the Panslavist cause, finally yielded to
Government temptation; but after a while even they were found to be too
much imbued with reforming ideas, and consequently were placed under
police surveillance.
The great mass of the Russian people has nothing to do with Panslavism;
it does not even know what it is. The idea of a Slav brotherhood is
foreign to it. It can be made, by much priestly preaching, to take a
sort of bigoted interest in alleged co-religionists who are said to be
ill-treated by "unbelieving Turks;" but the interest and the
understanding do not go beyond that. Such is the distinct statement made
lately by one of the best observers, Ivan Turgenieff, the novelist, in a
conversation with a German writer. As to the revolutionary party in
Russia, it has more and more become estranged from the Panslavistic
tendency--so much so that at present it stands in direct opposition to
it.
Alexander Herzen,[49] who favoured the Panslavistic cause, could still
speak, retrospectively, of Russian Czars as being "Robespierres on
horseback"--an expression of so doubtful a value that it rather reminds
us of the pseudo-revolutionary language of Napoleonism than of the purer
Democratic principles. Herzen's idea being that Constantinople should
become the capital of a great Russo-Slav Empire, we can easily
understand that he should have represented Muscovite history under such
a deceptive garb. Bakunin also was a Panslavist for a time, but of a
different type, aiming as he did at a loose Democratic Federation of the
various Slav tribes. The impossibility of this federation all those will
acknowledge who think it equally chimerical to form a Romanic Federation
between nations so dissimilar in origin, history, language, and
aspirations, as are the Italians, the French, the Spaniards, the
Portuguese, the French-speaking section of the Swiss, and the Roumans of
Moldo-Wallachia and Hungary. Or would it be less chimerical to try to
form a Teutonic Federation among Germans, Dutch, Danes, Swedes,
Norwegians, Icelanders, German-Swiss, Englishmen, North Americans, and
the various English colonies?
Nihilism, on its part, has nothing in common with those Panslavist
intrigues which mainly cover an Imperialist ambition. Nihilism, as at
present known, is, in fact, the very negation of such dangerous
ambitious schemes.
The first Nihilist Society, properly speaking, is said to have been
founded by Russian students about the year 1859. German works on
philosophy and natural science were then much in demand, as forbidden
fruit among the aspiring youths of Russia. The books not being allowed
to pass the frontier, stray copies were smuggled in, and lithographed
translations passed from hand to hand. The Agricultural College of
Petrovski, near Moscow, is considered to have been one of the first
places where young men became imbued with such advanced ideas. In this
neighbourhood the Netchaieff tragedy was enacted. Among literary men,
Tchernitcheffski was one of the first who became a "Nihilist." He
suffered for it by being banished to Siberia.
The word "Nihilist" is, however, a somewhat misleading one. It was
conferred at first as a nickname. Afterwards it was adopted (like the
name of the _Gueux_) in a kind of dare-devil mood; and has covered, ever
since, a great many varieties of political and social discontent, as
well as of philosophical Radicalism. There are Nihilists who, from the
sheer hopelessness engendered by a tyranny lasting a thousand years,
have come to cultivate a Philosophy of Despair, of Disgust, and of
Destruction, without troubling themselves as to the constitution of the
Future. These are men that profess a wish to do away with all State
organizations, for the sake of a morbid Individualism. Others there are
who, in the semi-revolutionary vein of Comte, incline towards a
socialist Collectivism in a rather utopian, not to say hierarchic, form.
To them the word "Nihilist" is scarcely applicable.
Strictly speaking, the word "Nihilist" covers, at most, a small group of
persons of a brooding and impracticable temper, such as is sometimes
created under the darkest tyrannies. It may be doubted whether the
majority of those who use the dagger and the revolver without
compunction against the vile _sbirri_ of an intolerable despotism would
call themselves Nihilists, or even Socialists. The greater number of the
members of the secret leagues are believed to hold views not far removed
from those which have found a practical expression in some freely
constituted countries. The violent means employed are, with many, only
the outcome of a feeling of revenge easily to be understood under the
circumstances; or else they are regarded as a dire necessity in
insurrectionary warfare. True, there have been Russians abroad who spoke
of "abolishing the Family and Property." But nothing warrants the
assumption that this is the principle of the Nihilists in Russia itself.
If either mere anarchy, or a system of barrack Communism, be the object
of the majority of the men and women whose deeds have of late riveted
the attention of all Europe, it is hard to comprehend that these
conspirators should have secured so many friends among classes which by
education and position cannot possibly have any sympathy with mere
destructive or utopian schemes. Of the existence of numerous friends of
the Nihilists in the higher classes there is, however, no doubt. Thus
only can the hold be explained which the occult propaganda of this _hic
et ubique_ conspiracy has obtained upon the commonwealth.
VI.
I have mentioned the participation of women in the present desperate
struggle. Students, lawyers, officers, Government officials, landed
proprietors, merchants, all kinds of men of the more educated or
well-to-do classes, have been found to be mixed up with the "Nihilist"
Conspiracy. By far the most characteristic feature, however, is the
share which women have taken in the late startling events. When women
thus actively and enthusiastically step forth in a revolutionary or
national movement, even to the extent of sacrificing their lives, it is
always a sign of a people's feelings being wrought up to the highest
tension. So great a strain upon the more delicate nature of the fairer
sex cannot be borne very long. It is only at a time of extreme crisis
that the unusual event occurs; and Russia is now at the very acme of
such a crisis.
We have seen, in succession, Vjera Sassulitch, a captain's daughter;
Sophia Löschern von Herzfeld, a lady of high rank; Nathalie von
Armfeldt, the daughter of an Imperial councillor; Mary Kovalevski, who
also ranks as a noble; Katharina Sarandovitch, the daughter of a
_tchinovnik_, or official; and several more, of equally prominent
position, playing in the revolutionary contest a most remarkable part.
They have suffered imprisonment; they have risked their lives; some of
them have been condemned to hard labour. One of them was sentenced to
be shot--but this latter decision even the Czar, though having to wage
war against women, dared not carry out. This extraordinary mixing of the
female sex in a widely ramified conspiracy is of so phenomenal a
character that a sketch of the educational and emancipatory movement
which led up to it, may well be here in its place.
By way of contrast, let us first look into times which seem to lie ages
behind us, but which are yet in the recollection of a great many.