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Title: The Constitutional Agitation in Russia Author: PĂ«tr Kropotkin Date: 1905-01 Language: en Topics: Russia Source: "The Constitutional Agitation in Russia." The Nineteenth Century, January, 1905. Online source: http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=142.
The greatest excitement has prevailed in Russia for the last few weeks
since it became known that representatives of the Zemstvos of
thirty-four provinces of the Empire were going to meet at St. Petersburg
in order to discuss the necessary reforms in the general political
organization of the country. The very fact that such an authorization
had been granted was equivalent to an invitation to discuss a scheme of
a Constitution; and so it was understood everywhere. When the Zemstvo
delegates were leaving their respective provincial towns they were sent
off by groups of enthusiastic friends, whose parting words were: 'Return
with a Constitution!'
Their original intention was to make of their conference a solemn
official gathering which would speak to the Government in its official
capacity, but at the last moment the Minister of the Interior refused to
grant the necessary authorization; and as the Zemstvo delegates declared
that they were decided to meet nevertheless, they were informed that
they could do so only in private, and that their conference would be
treated as a private gathering, but that their resolutions could be
handed by a few delegates to the Minister of the Interior, and through
his intermediacy to the Emperor. This is how this Conference, which
surely will become an important historical date, took place on the 19th,
20th, and 21st of November at St. Petersburg.
The decisions of the Conference were expressed in eleven resolutions,
which, as will be seen presently, are now becoming the program of an
agitation which is gradually spreading all over Russia. Moreover, in
contrast with all the petitions addressed to the Czar on previous
occasions by certain Zemstvos, the present memorandum is couched in far
more dignified language and in definite terms. It begins by mentioning
the abnormal character of State government which has developed since the
beginning of the eighties [1881], and consists in a complete
estrangement of the Government from the people, and the absence of that
mutual confidence which is necessary for the life of the State' (Section
1). 'The present relations hetween the Government and the people'—they
say further on—' are based on a fear of the people's
self-administration, and on the exclusion of the people from the
management of State affairs' (Section 2). The result of it is that while
the bureaucracy separates the Supreme Power [read The Emperor] from the
nation, it thus creates the very conditions for an entire lawlessness in
the administration, in which the personal will of every functionary
takes the place of law (Section 3). This destroys confidence in the
Government and hampers the development of the State (Sections 3 and 4).
Consequently, the Zemstvos express the following desiderata, which
deserve to be given in full, because in such history-making documents as
this the wording is almost as important as the general idea:
(5) In order to put an end to this lawlessness of the Administration,
the inviolability of the individual and the private dwelling must be
proclaimed and thoroughly carried out in life. Nobody can have a
punishment or any restriction of his rights inflicted upon him without a
sentence having been pronounced to this effect by an independent
magistrate. For this purpose it is moreover necessary to establish such
a responsibility of the members of the Administration as would allow of
their being legally prosecuted for each breach of the law, in order thus
to secure legality in the actions of the functionaries.
(6) For the full development of the intellectual forces of the nation,
as also the expression of the real wants of society and the free
exercise of public opinion, freedom of conscience, religion, speech, and
press, as also of meeting and association, must be guaranteed.
(7) The personal and political rights of all the citizens of the empire
must be equal.
(8) Self-administration being the main condition for the development of
the political and economical life of the country, and the main body of
the population of Russia belonging to the class of the peasants, these
last must be placed in the conditions that are necessary for the
development of self-help and energy, and this can only be obtained by
putting an end to the present subordinate and lawless position of the
peasants. Therefore it is necessary: (a) to equalize the rights of the
peasants with those of all other classes; (b) to free them from the rule
of the Administration in all their personal and social affairs; and (c)
to grant them a regular form of justice.
(9) The provincial and the municipal institutions which are the main
organs of local life must be placed in such conditions as to render them
capable of performing the functions of organs of self-administration,
endowed with wide powers. It is necessary for this purpose: (a) that the
representation in the Zemstvos should not be based on class principles,
and that all forces of the population should be summoned, as far as
possible, to take part in that administration; (6) that the Zemstvo
institutions should be brought nearer to the people by instituting a
smaller self-administrative unit;[1] (c) that the circle of activity of
the Zemstvos and the municipal institutions should include all the local
needs; and (d) that these institutions should acquire the necessary
stability and independence, without which no regular development of
their activity and their relations to the organs of the Government is
possible. Local self-government must be extended to all the parts of the
Empire.
(10) For creating and maintaining a close intercourse between the
Government and the nation, on the basis of the just-mentioned
principles, and for the regular development of the life of the State, it
is absolutely necessary that representatives of the nation, constituting
a specially elected body, should participate in the legislative power,
the establishment of the State's budget, and the control of the
Administration. [The minority of the conference, consisting of
twenty-seven persons, accepted this paragraph only as far as the words
'should participate in the legislative power.']
(11) In view of the gravity and the difficulties of both the internal
and external conditions which the nation is now living through, this
private conference expresses the hope that the supreme power will call
together the representatives of the nation, in order to lead our
Fatherland, with their help, on to a new path of national development in
the sense of establishing a closer union between the State's authority
and the nation.
This memorandum, signed by 102 delegates out of 104—two abstaining—was
handed to Prince Sviatopolk Mirsky, and through him to the Emperor. Four
more resolutions were taken later on by the same Conference, and they
offer a special interest, as they represent a first attempt at
legislation upon a definite subject in the form, well known in olden
times in this country, of a Royal petition. Three of these resolutions,
which concern education, blame the Government for its negative attitude
in this matter, and ask full freedom for the Zemstvos to deal with it;
while the fourth demands the abrogation of the state-of-siege law and an
amnesty in the following terms:
Considering that the Law of the 26th of August 1881, embodying the
Measures for the Maintenance of Order in the State [state-of-siege law]
is one of the chief causes which favor the development of lawlessness in
the Administration and breed popular discontent, which both stand in the
way of mutual confidence and unity between the Government and the
population, the Conference finds that the repeal of this law is
desirable. Besides, taking into consideration that the system of
administratively inflicted penalties, which has been applied lately on a
large scale in virtue of that law, has produced a great number of
victims of the arbitrary actions of the Administration who are now
suffering various penalties and limitations in their legal rights, the
Conference considers it its duty to express itself in favor of a
complete remission of all penalties inflicted by mere orders of the
Administration. It expresses at the same time the hope that the Supreme
Power will introduce pacification in the country by an act of amnesty
for all persons undergoing penalties for political offenses.
The Press was not permitted to mention the Zemstvo Conference, or to
discuss its resolutions; but the latter were hectographed in thousands
of copies at St. Petersburg, reprinted in a more or less clandestine way
in many cities, and spread broadcast all over Russia. On the other side,
as soon as Sviatopolk Mirsky had made his declarations about the need of
'confidence between the Government and the nation'—confirming his
declarations by the release of a small number of 'administrative'
exiles—the Press at once adopted quite a new tone. The need for a new
departure, under which the nation would be called to participate in the
government of the country, began to be expressed in a very outspoken
way. All the main questions concerning the revision of taxation, the
necessity of not merely returning to the original law of the Zemstvos
(altered in 1890), but of revising it in the sense of an abolition of
the present division into 'orders'; the necessity of reestablishing the
elected Justices of the Peace, and of granting a thorough
self-government to all the provinces of the Empire; the equality of
political rights of all citizens, and so on—these and numbers of similar
questions are discussed now with the greatest liberty in the daily
Press, and nobody conceals any longer his disgust of the reactionary
régime which has swayed Russia for the last thirty years.
Of course, censorship continues to make its victims. The review Law
(Pravo) has already received two warnings, and of the two new dailies,
one (Son of the Fatherland), which came out under a new 'populist'
editorship, is already suppressed for three months; while the other (Our
Life), which has Social Democratic tendencies, has its sale in the
streets forbidden. With all that, the Press, with a striking unanimity,
support the Zemstvo resolutions, without naming them. Even the Novoye
Vremya, which has always vacillated between ultra-Conservative and
Liberal opinions, according to the direction of the wind in the upper
spheres, is now Constitutionalist. As to the ultra-reactionary Prince
Meschersky, owner of the Grazhdanin, he has published some of the most
outspoken articles against the old régime—only to turn next day against
those who demand a Constitution. Since 1861, this gentleman's house has
been the center of a semi-Slavophile but chiefly landlord and
bureaucracy opposition to the reforms of Alexander the Second. Hold was
adroitly taken in this center of the two successive heirs to the throne,
Nikolai Alexandrovitch and his brother, who became later on Alexander
the Third, in order to secure, through them, an overthrow of all the
reforms made by their father.[2] Now, the Grazhdanin reflects the
unsettled condition of mind in the Winter Palace spheres. The Moscow
Gazette is thus the only consequent defender of the old régime. At the
same time, the provincial Press acquires a new importance every day,
especially in Southern, South-Western, and South-Eastern Russia. I have
several of these papers before me, and cannot but admire the
straightforward and well-informed way in which they discuss all
political questions. They reveal quite a new provincial life.
It would be impossible to render in a few words the depth and breadth of
the agitation provoked in Russia by the Zemstvo Conference. To begin
with, 'the Resolutions' were signed at once by numbers of persons of
high standing in St. Petersburg society, who do not belong to the
Zemstvos. The same is now done in the provinces, so that the memorandum
of the Zemstvos becomes a sort of ultimatum—it cannot be called a
petition—addressed by the educated portion of the nation to the Emperor.
In most provincial cities the return of the Zemstvo delegates is being
made the occasion of influential meetings, at which the members of the
Provincial Assemblies (the District Assemblies will follow suit) send to
St. Petersburg their approval of the resolutions; while numbers of
landlords and other influential persons in the provinces seize this
opportunity for adding their signatures to those of the Zemstvo
delegates.
Wherever a few educated persons come together, nothing is spoken of but
the coming Constitution. Even the appalling war has been relegated to
the background, while the constitutional agitation takes every day some
new form. In the universities, both professors and students join it. The
former sign the resolutions, while the latter formulate similar
resolutions, or organize street demonstrations to support them. Such
demonstrations have taken place already at St. Petersburg, Moscow, and
Kiev, and they surely will be joined by working men as soon as they
spread southwards. And if they are dispersed by force they will result
in bloodshed, of which none can foresee the end.
Another important current in the movement was created by the
celebrations of the fortieth anniversary of the Judicial Law, which was
promulgated on the 2nd of December 1864. Large meetings of lawyers
(avocats), followed by banquets, at which all professions of
'intellectuals' were represented, including members of the magistracy
and, occasionally, of the administration, have been held at St.
Petersburg, Moscow, Saratov, Minsk, Tomsk, and so on; and at all these
meetings the program of the Zemstvos, reinforced by strong resolutions
requiring the repeal of the exceptional state-of-siege law and
condemning the whole régime under which Russia is now, was voted and
transmitted to the Minister of the Interior. At Moscow the resolutions
passed at the meeting of the lawyers were worded very strongly, as may
be seen from the following characteristic abstracts:
1 (1) The fundamental principles of Right, expressed in the Judicial Law
of the 2nd of December 1864, and which recognize only such a form of
State life, in which all the actions of all are submitted to law, equal
for all, and applied by the Courts with no regard to any outside
influence, are incompatible with the principles of the bureaucratic
lawlessness which endeavors to take hold of every manifestation of life
and to submit it to its uncontrolled power.' . . . '(4) The principle of
religious tolerance, proclaimed in this law, was brought into
nonexistence by a series of by-laws and circulars, by means of which
large portions of the population were placed into special categories,
and deprived of important personal, family and property rights—and this,
not for crimes of theirs, and not in virtue of legal sentences, but
merely for the expression of the dictates of their conscience, and by
mere orders of the Administration.' . . . '(7) The principle of an
independent Justice, equal for all, has been reduced to naught by the
abolition of all guarantees of independence ' ; and the declaration
enumerates the main by-laws by means of which this purpose was achieved.
And, finally, their last resolution expresses what every educated
Russian is thinking, while at the same time it contains a reply to the
Czar's manifesto of April 1903. It runs as follows:
It appears from all the life of Russia for the last forty years that it
is absolutely hopeless to endeavor to introduce in our country the reign
of Right, so long as the arbitrary rule of bureaucracy continues to
exist, even though all sorts of rights may be inscribed in our code.
Nothing short of a thorough reform in the fundamental laws of the State
can secure the ends of justice and law—such is the conclusion of the
Moscow lawyers.
Striking facts were produced at these meetings. Thus, the following
figures just published by The Messenger of Law will illustrate the
lawlessness which prevails under Nicholas the Second in all matters
concerning political offenses. From 1894 till 1901, not one single
political affair was brought before a court of justice or an examining
magistrate. All inquests were dealt with by police officers or
functionaries of the Ministry of the Interior. As to the numbers of such
cases, they are simply extravagant. Thus in 1903 no fewer than 1988
political cases, concerning 5,590 persons, were opened, in addition to
all those which were pending. In the same year, 1,522 inquests,
involving 6,450 persons, were terminated. Out of this number 1,583
persons were liberated, 45 were sent before courts-martial, and no fewer
than 4,867 persons were submitted to various penalties, including
imprisonment, inflicted by the Administration, without the interference
of any magistrate. Out of these, no fewer than 1502 were sent into
exile, for terms up to ten years, to various remote provinces of Russia
and Siberia! Nothing on this scale was done even under Alexander the
Third, the corresponding figure for the last year of his reign being
only 55 (in 1894).
The Judicial Law of 1864 contained certain guarantees against the
arbitrary action of the police. But, as has been indicated during the
last few days, already in 1870 and 1875 the preliminary inquest was
taken out of the hands of independent examining magistrates and was
handed to the ordinary police and the State police officers. No fewer
than seven hundred by-laws have been issued since 1864 for tearing the
Judicial Law to pieces—limiting the rights of the courts, abolishing
trial by jury in numerous cases, and so on; so that—to use the
expression of the Saratov lawyers' meeting&mdash: 'all the principles of
the law of Alexander the Second have been annihilated. This law exists
only in name.'
At the same time the exceptional laws promulgated during the last two
reigns have given to every police officer, in every province of the
Empire, the right to arrest every Russian subject without warrant, and
to keep him imprisoned as a suspect for seven days— and much longer
under various other pretexts—without incurring any responsibility. More
than that. It was 'publicly vouched at one of the lawyers' meetings that
when arrests are made en masse, simple policemen receive in advance
printed and signed warrants of arrest and searching, on which they have
only to inscribe the names of the persons whom they choose to arrest!
Let me add that all these resolutions and comments have been printed in
full, in both the provincial and the Moscow papers, and that the figures
are those of official reports.
At St. Petersburg the fortieth anniversary of the Judicial Law was
celebrated by nearly 700 persons—lawyers, literary people, and soon—and
their resolutions were equally outspoken.
The martyrology of the Judicial Law [they said] is a striking
illustration of the fact that under the autocratic and bureaucratic
régime which prevails in Russia the most elementary conditions of a
regular civil life cannot be realized, and partial reforms of the
present structure of the State would not attain their aim.
The Assembly confirmed therefore the resolutions of the Zemstvo
representatives, only wording the chief ones still more definitely, in
the following terms:
3. That all laws be made and taxes established only with the
participation and the consent of representatives, freely elected by all
the nation.
4. That the responsibility of the Ministers before the Assembly of
Representatives of the nation should be introduced, in order to
guarantee the legality of the actions and the orders of the
Administration.
For this purpose, and in view of the extremely difficult conditions in
which the country is now involved, the Assembly demanded the immediate
convocation 'of a Constituent Assembly, freely elected by the people,'
and 'a complete and unconditional amnesty for all political and
religious offenses,' as well as measures guaranteeing the freedom and
the possibility of responsible elections, and also the inviolability of
the representatives of the people. This declaration was signed by 673
persons, and sent to the Minister of the Interior.
The anniversary meetings of the Judicial Law being over, the agitation
has already taken a new form. It is the municipalities, beginning with
Moscow and St. Petersburg, which now pass the same resolutions. They ask
for the abolition of the exceptional laws and for the convocation of a
representative Assembly, and they insist upon holding a general
Conference of representatives of all the Russian cities and towns, which
would certainly express the same desires.
It is evident that the reactionary party is also at work, and a meeting
of reactionists took place at the house of Pobiedonostsev, in order to
discuss how to put a stop to the constitutional movement. They will
leave, of course, not a stone unturned to influence the Czar in this
direction, and, to begin with, they hit upon the idea of convoking
meetings of the nobility in different provinces. They expected that such
meetings would vote against a Constitution. But, beginning with Moscow,
they met with a complete fiasco; the Moscow nobility adopted the same
resolutions as the Zemstvos. More than that. A new movement was set on
foot, in the old capital, in the same direction. A few days ago, at a
meeting of the Moscow Agricultural Society, one of the members proposed
a resolution demanding the abolition of the exceptional state-of-siege
law promulgated in 1881. He met with some opposition, but after
brilliant speeches had been pronounced in support of the resolution it
was voted with only one dissentient.
One may expect now that many other societies, economic and scientific,
will follow the example of the Moscow agriculturists. In the meantime
the public libraries, both municipal and supported by private
contributions, have inaugurated a movement for demanding a release from
the rigors of censorship. There is in Russia a special censorship for
the libraries, and even out of those books which have been published in
Russia with the consent of the censorship many works, chiefly historical
and political, are not permitted to be kept in the circulating
libraries. The Smolensk public library has now petitioned the Minister
of the Interior asking for the abolition of these restrictions, and this
petition is sure to be followed by many others of a similar kind, the
more so as simply prohibitive restrictions are imposed upon the village
libraries, the public lectures, and, in fact, in the whole domain of
popular education.[3]
It will be noticed that in all the above resolutions the form to be
given to representative government has not yet been defined. Must Russia
have two Houses or one? Will she have seven or nine Parliaments (like
Canada) and a Federal Senate? What extension is to be given to the
federative principle? And so on. All these matters have not yet been
discussed in detail. It is only known that some Zemstvo delegates, under
the presidency of M. Shipov, are discussing these vital questions.
However, as the Zemstvos exist in thirty-four provinces only, out of
fifty, of European Russia proper, and there are besides Finland, Poland,
the Caucasus, Siberia, Turkestan, and the Steppe Region, no scheme of
representative government can be worked out without the consent of these
units. This is why the idea of a Constituent Assembly is gaining ground.
All that can be said in the meantime is, that the Jacobinist ideas of
the centralizers find but little sympathy in Russia, and that, on the
contrary, the prevailing idea is that of a federation, with full home
rule for its component parts, of which Finnish home rule may be taken as
a practical illustration.
Such are, then, up to the 18th of December, the main facts of the
constitutional agitation which is going on in Russia. And from all sides
we hear the same questions: "Is it really the end of autocracy that is
coming? Is Russia going to pass from autocracy to representative
government, without a revolution similar to that of 1789 to 1793 in
France? Is the present movement deep enough to attain its goal? And,
again, are the Czar and his nearest advisers prepared to make the
necessary concessions, without being compelled to do so by popular
uprisings and internal commotions?"
First of all, let it be well understood that there is nothing unforeseen
in the demand of a Constitution, so unanimously expressed by the
representatives of provincial self-government. Over and over again, for
the last forty years, they have expressed the same desire, and it is for
the third or fourth time that they now address similar demands to the
Emperor. They did it in 1880-1881. They repeated it in 1894, as soon as
Nicholas the Second came to the throne, and again in 1902 in connection
with the Committees on the depression of agriculture. At the beginning
of this year, when the war broke out and the Zemstvos decided to send
their own field-hospitals to the seat of war (these hospitals, by the
way, are described as the best in Manchuria), representatives of all the
Zemstvos demanded the permission to meet together, to agree upon joint
action in the organization of relief for the wounded, as well as for the
families of the Reservists. On both occasions the authorization was
refused and the meetings forbidden; but on both occasions the Zemstvo
delegates held secret conferences at Moscow and discussed their affairs
in spite of the menaces of Plehve (Shipoff went for that into exile).
And in both cases they concluded that the convocation of a National
Assembly had become an imperative necessity. The present move is thus a
further development of several former ones. It is the expression of a
long-felt need.
The necessity of a representative government for Russia was spoken of
immediately after the death of Nicholas the First, and we are informed
by Prince Tatischeff (Alexander The Second and his Times) that as early
as in 1856 Alexander the Second had had a plan of a Constitution worked
out. However, precedence had to be given then to the abolition of
serfdom and the terrible corporal punishments then in use (which meant a
judicial reform); besides, some sort of local self-government had first
to be created. These reforms filled up the years 1859-1866. But in the
meantime the Polish revolution broke out (in 1863), and it was then
believed at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the uprising
was supported by promises of intervention given to its leaders by the
Western Powers.
This revolution had the worst imaginable consequences for Russia. It
closed the reform period. Reaction set in—the reaction which has lasted
up to the present day, and which has cost Russia hecatombs of her best
and most devoted men and women. All schemes of constitutional changes
were abandoned, and we learn from the same author that the reason which
Alexander the Second gave for this abandonment was his fear for the
integrity of the Empire. He came to Moscow in 1865, and there, at his
Illynsky Palace, he received Golohvastoff—that same President of
Nobility in one of the districts of the Moscow province who had
forwarded to the Czar an address, in the name of the nobility he
represented, demanding a Constitution. The words which Alexander is
reported to have said to Golohvastoflf during the interview are most
characteristic: 'I give you my word,' he said, 'that on this same table
I would sign any Constitution you like if I were sure that this would be
for the good of Russia. But I know that if I did it to-day, to-morrow
Russia would go to pieces. And you do not desire such an issue. Last
year you yourselves [the Moscow nobility] told me that, and you were the
first to say so.'[4] There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of
these words. They are just what Alexander the Second would have said,
and while he was uttering them he was quite sincere. But, as I have
explained in my Memoirs, his was a very complicated nature, and while
the menace of the Western Powers, ready to favor the dismemberment of
the Empire, must have strongly impressed him, the Autocrat also spoke in
him, and still more so the man who demanded above all to be trusted
implicitly. On this last point he was extremely sensitive.
Be that as it may, the idea of giving Russia a Constitution was
temporarily abandoned; but it cropped up again ten years later. The
great movement 'towards the people' was then in full swing. The prisons
were overflowing with political prisoners, and a series of political
trials, which had taken place with open doors, had produced a deep
impression on the public. Thereupon Alexander the Second handed in a
scheme of a Constitution, to be reported upon to the Professor of Civil
Law and the author of a book much spoken of on this subject—K. P.
Pobiedonostseff!
What the appreciations of Pobiedonostseff were, we do not know; but, as
he has expressed his views on representative government in a number of
works, we may be certain that his report was negative. His ideal is a
Church, as strongly organized as the Catholic Church, permeating all the
life of society and assuming, if need be, a fighting attitude against
the rival Churches. Freedom and Parliamentary rule are the enemies of
such a Church; consequently, he concludes, autocracy must be maintained;
and Russia is predestined to realize the happiness of the people under
the rod of the Church. The worst was that Pobiedonostseff succeeded for
years in maintaining a reputation for honesty, and only lately has it
become evident that, although he does not care for wealth, he cherishes
power and is most unscrupulous as to the means by which he maintains his
influence at Court.[5]
In 1876 Alexander the Second was thus besieged with doubts. But then
came the uprising in Servia, the Turkish War, the Berlin Treaty, and
once more the inner reforms were postponed. The Turkish War revealed,
however, such depths of disorganization in the State machine that, once
it was over, the time had apparently come for making a serious move in
the constitutional direction. Discontent "was general," and when the
trial of "The Hundred and Ninety-three" began at the end of 1878, and
full reports of it were given in the papers, the sympathies of the
educated classes went all in favor of the accused, and all against their
accusers. The moment was opportune; but one of those omnipotent
functionaries who had teen nurtured in the atmosphere of the Winter
Palace, Trépoff, gave a different turn to affairs.
The history of the years 1878-1881 is so fresh in the memories of all
that it need not be retold. How, immediately after the excitement
produced at St. Petersburg by the above trial, Trépoff, the head of the
St. Petersburg Police, ordered one of the 'politicals' to be flogged in
prison; how thereupon Véra Zasulitch shot at Trépoff, and wounded him;
how Alexander the Second, inspired by the Chief of the State Police,
MĂ©zentsoff, revised the relatively mild sentences pronounced by the
Court in the trial of 'The Hundred and Ninety-three,' and rendered them
very much heavier; how, in reply to this, MĂ©zentsoff was killed in broad
daylight; and how this was the beginning of a fearful struggle between
the Government and the revolutionists, which ended in a wholesale
slaughter and transportation to Siberia of the best elements of a whole
generation, including children sixteen years old, and in Alexander the
Second losing his life—all this is well known. It is also known that he
was killed the very day that he had made a timid and belated concession
to public opinion by deciding to submit to the State Council a scheme
for the convocation of an Assemblée des Notables.
This scheme is often described as a Constitution. But Alexander the
Second himself never attributed to it this meaning. The proposal of
Loris Melikoff, which received the approval of the Czar on the 17th of
February (March 1), 1881, consisted in this: the Ministries were to
bring together by the next autumn all the materials which they possessed
concerning the reorganization of the Central Government. Then special
Committees, composed of representatives of the different Ministries, as
well as of persons invited by the Government for this purpose, would
prepare schemes for reform of the Central Government 'within the limits
which would be indicated by the Emperor.' These schemes, before
submitting them to the State Council, would be discussed by a general
Commission composed as follows: (a) Persons nominated by the Emperor out
of members of the above Committees; (b) delegates from the provinces in
which the Zemstvos have been introduced—two delegates per province,
elected by the provincial Zemstvos—as also delegates from a few
important cities; and (c) members nominated by the Government to
represent the provinces which had no Zemstvo institutions. Only the
members mentioned under (a) would have the right of voting; the others,
(b) and (c), would only express their opinions, but not vote. The
Commission itself would have no legislative power; its resolutions would
be submitted to the State Council and the Emperor in the usual way.[6]
This measure had to be made public, and on the 1st (13th) of March
Alexander the Second approved the draft of a manifesto which had to be
issued to this effect. He only desired it to be read at a meeting of the
Committee of the Ministers on the following Wednesday. He was killed, as
is well known, a few hours later, and the next Committee of Ministers,
which took place on the 8th (20th) of March, was presided over by his
son, Alexander the Third. The meeting fully approved the manifesto,
which had now only to be printed. But Alexander the Third hesitated. Old
Wilhelm the First had advised him to yield; but the reactionary party,
headed by Pobiedonostseff and Katkoff, was very active in the opposite
direction. Katkoff was called from Moscow to exert a pressure on the
Czar by the side of Pobiedonostseff, and Alexander was easily persuaded
by Count Ignatieff and such a specialist in police matters as the Préfet
of Paris, M. Andrieux, that the revolutionary movement could easily be
crushed. Whilst all this was going on the Liberal Ministers, who were in
favor of constitutional reforms, undertook nothing decisive, and
Alexander the Third, who had already written to his brother: 'I feel so
happy: the weight is off my shoulders, I am granting a Constitution,'
yielded the other way. On the 29th of April (11th of May) he issued his
autocratic manifesto, written by Pobiedonostseff, in which he declared:
'Amid our affliction, the voice of God orders us to vigorously take the
ruling power in our own hands, with faith in Providence and trust in the
truth and might of the Autocratic Power which we are called upon to
reinforce and to protect against all attacks, for the welfare of the
nation.'
One of the first acts of this personal power was the promulgation of
that state-of-siege law which, as we saw, handed all classes of Russia
to the now omnipotent police officials, and made of Russia one great
State prison. Thus began those gloomy years 1881-1894, of which none of
those who lived them through can think otherwise than as of a nightmare.
To tell the truth, Alexander the Third was not exactly a despot in his
heart, although he acted like one. Under the influence of the
Slavophile, Konstantin Aksakoff, he had come to believe that the mission
of autocracy in Russia is to give a certain well-being to the peasants,
which could never be attained under a representative government. Towards
the end of his life he even used to say that there were only two
thorough Socialists, Henry the Fourth and himself. What induced him to
say so I do not know. At any rate, when he came to the throne he adopted
a program which was explained in a French review, in an article
generally attributed to Turguéneff.[7] Its main points were: a
considerable reduction of the redemption tax which the ex-serfs paid for
their liberation; a radical change in the system of imperial taxation,
including the abolition of the 'poll-tax,' and the excise on salt;
measures facilitating both the temporary migrations of the peasants and
emigration to the Urals and Siberia; rural banks, and so on. Most of
these measures were carried through during his reign; but in return the
peasants were deprived of some of the most elementary personal and civil
rights which they had obtained under Alexander the Second. Suffice it to
say that instead of the Justices of the Peace, formerly elected by all
the population, special police officers, nominated by the Governors,
were introduced, and they were endowed with the most unlimited rights
over the village communities, and over every peasant individually.
Flogging, as in the times of serfdom, was made once more an instrument
of 'educating' the peasants. Every rural policeman became a governor of
his village. The majority of the schools were handed over to
Pobiedonostseff. As to the Zemstvos, not only were they gradually
transformed more and more into mere boards of administration under the
local Governor, but the peasants were deprived of the representation
which they hitherto had in that institution. The police officers became
even more omnipotent than ever. If a dozen schoolmasters came together
they were treated as conspirators. The reforms of 1861-1866 were treated
as the work of rank revolutionists, and the very name of Alexander the
Second became suspect. Never can a foreigner realize the darkness of the
cloud which hung over Russia during that unfortunate reign. It is only
through the deep note of despair sounded in the novels and sketches of
Tchéekoff and several of his contemporaries— 'the men of the
eighties'—that one can get a faint idea of that gloom.
However, man always hopes, and as soon as Nicholas the Second came to
the throne new hopes were awakened. I have spoken of these hopes in the
pages of this Review, and shown how soon they faded away. Since then
Nicholas the Second has not shown the slightest desire to repair any one
of the grave faults of his father, but he has added very many new ones.
Everywhere he and his Ministers have bred discontent—in Finland, in
Poland, in Armenia (by plundering the Armenian Church), in Georgia, in
the Zemstvos, among all those who are interested in education, among the
students—in fact, everywhere. But that is not all. There is one striking
feature in this reign. All these last ten years there has been no lack
of forces which endeavored to induce the ruler of Russia to adopt a
better policy; and all through these ten years he himself—so weak for
good—found the force to resist them. At the decisive moment he always
had enough energy to turn the scales in favor of reaction by throwing in
the weight of his own personal will. Every time he interfered in public
matters—be it in the student affairs, in Finland, or when he spoke so
insolently to the Zemstvo delegates on his advent to the throne—every
time his interference was for bad.
However, already during the great strikes of 1895, and still more so
during the student disturbances of 1897, it had become apparent that the
old régime could not last long. Notwithstanding all prosecutions, a
quite new Russia had come into existence since 1881. In the seventies it
was only the youth which revolted against the old régime. In our circles
a man of thirty was an old man. In 1897 men of all ages, even men like
Prince Viazemskiy, member of the Council of State, or the Union of
Writers, and thousands of elderly men scattered all over the country,
joined in a unanimous protest against the autocratic bureaucracy.
It was then that Witte began to prepare the gradual passage from
autocracy to some sort of a constitutional régime. His Commissions on
the Impoverishment of Agriculture in Central Russia were evidently meant
to supply that intermediate step. In every district of the thirty-four
provinces which have the Zemstvo institutions, Committees, composed of
the Zemstvos and of local men invited ad hoc, were asked to discuss the
causes of this impoverishment. Most remarkable things were said in these
Committees, by noblemen and functionaries, and especially by simple
peasants—all coming to one conclusion: Russia cannot continue to exist
under the police rule which was inaugurated in 1881. Political liberties
and representative government have become a most urgent necessity. 'We
have something to say about our needs, and we will say it'—this was what
peasant and landlord alike said in these Commissions. The convocation of
an Assembly of the representatives of all provinces of Russia had thus
become unavoidable. But then Nicholas the Second, under the instigation
and with the connivance of Plehve, made his little coup d'etat. Witte
was shelved in the Council of State, and Plehve became an omnipotent
satrap. However, it is now known that in 1902 Plehve had handed to
Nicholas the Second a memoir in which he accused Witte of preparing a
revolutionary movement in Russia, and already then the Czar had decided
in his mind to get rid of Witte and his Commissions. This he did,
handing Russia to that man whom the worst reactionists despised, even
though they called upon him to be their savior.
An orgy of insolent police omnipotence now began: the wholesale
deportation of all discontents; massacres of the Jews, of which the
instigators, such as the Moldavian Krushevan, editor of the Bessarabets,
were under the personal protection of the Minister; an orgy of wholesale
bribery, general corruption, and intimidation. And Nicholas the Second
had not one word to say against that man! Only now, when Plehve's
successors have brought to the Czar the copies of all his Majesty's
correspondence with the Grand Dukes, which Plehve opened and had
carefully copied for some unknown purpose— only now they go about in the
Winter Palace exclaiming: 'It is Plehve who is the cause of all that
agitation! It is he who has brought upon us all this odium!' As if
Plehve was not their last hope—the last card of autocracy! Truly has the
lawyer Korobchevsky said before the Court, in defense of his client
Sazonoff: 'The bomb which killed the late Minister of the Interior was
filled, not with dynamite, but with the burning tears of the mothers,
sisters wives, and daughters of the men whom he sent to the gallows or
to die slowly in prison or in Siberia!'
But who are these new men of the Zemstvos—it will be asked— who come now
so prominently to the front? Are they capable of playing the responsible
part which history seems to bestow upon them?
When provincial self-government was introduced forty years ago there
certainly was among the promoters of this reform some sort of idea like
this: 'Let the landlords, the merchants, the peasants, familiarize
themselves, through the provincial and the district assemblies, with
representative government and the management of public affairs.' This is
also how the reform was understood on the spot, and this is why the
Zemstvos attracted at the outset so many of the best provincial forces.
The mode of composition of these assemblies is original. Russia, as is
known, is divided into provinces, and each province into ten to twelve
districts. Leaving aside Poland (ten provinces), Finland (which has its
own Parliament), Caucasia and Asiatic Russia (Siberia, Turkestan, the
Steppe Region), European Russia is divided into fifty provinces, out of
which thirty-four have now the institution of the Zemstvo. This means
that in these provinces each district has an assembly, elected by all
the inhabitants, for the management of quite a number of local matters.
Each assembly nominates its own executive, and all the district
assemblies nominate a Provincial Assembly, which also has its executive,
and is presided over by the provincial President of the Nobility. The
towns have their own municipal government. The district elections,
however, are made separately by the three 'orders'—the nobility, the
mixed landowners (merchants and peasant proprietors), and the peasants
belonging to the village communities. Besides, as the foundation of the
electoral rights is the value of landed property owned by each person in
the district, and the nobility are the chief landowners, the result is
that in most assemblies the number of peasant representatives is
inferior to those of the other two orders taken together. Only in
certain north-eastern provinces such as Vyatka have the peasants a
dominating voice. This is, at least, how the Zemstvos were constituted
till 1890, when the would-be 'Peasant Czar' further reduced the number
of peasant delegates.
It would seem that under such an organization the Zemstvos would soon
become mere administrative boards, on which the country squires would
find a number of well-paid positions. So it was indeed at the outset in
some central provinces, where the landlords of the old school had the
upper hand. But on the other hand there were also provinces, such as
Tver (an old nest of 'Decembrists'), Voronezh, Poltava, partly Ryazán,
etc., in which the nobility, owing to various circumstances, took the
lead of the reform movement. In these provinces, as also in the
north-eastern ones, in which the peasants dominate, the Zemstvos became
an active force for introducing in the villages all sorts of useful
institutions on a democratic basis. These two sorts of Zemstvos became
the leaders of the others. This is why, notwithstanding all the
obstacles opposed to them by the Central Government, the Zemstvos, as a
rule, have accomplished something. They have laid the foundation of a
rational system of popular education. They have placed sanitation in the
villages on a sound basis, and worked out the system which answers best
the purpose of free medical help for the peasants and the laboring
classes. They elected Justices of Peace who were decidedly popular. And
some of the Zemstvos are doing good work by spreading in the villages
better methods of agriculture, by the supply of improved machinery at
cost price, by spreading cooperative workshops and creameries, by mutual
insurance, by introducing school gardens, and so on. All this, of
course, within the narrow limits imposed by the present economical
conditions, but capable, like similar beginnings in Western Europe, of a
considerable extension.
Another important feature is that the Zemstvos draw into their service a
considerable number of excellent men, truly devoted to the people, who
in their turn exercise a decided influence upon the whole of the Zemstvo
institution. Here is a country district in North-Western Russia. Its
district assembly consists of twenty noblemen elected by the nobility,
one deputy from the clergy (nominated by the Church), one functionary of
the Crown (who sits by right), five deputies elected by the second
'order' of mixed landowners (merchants, peasant proprietors, etc.), and
nine peasants from the third 'order,' representing the village
communities.[8] They decide, let us say, to open a number of village
schools. But the salaries of the teachers are low, the schoolmasters'
houses are poor log-huts, and the assembly people know that nobody but
a' populist,' who loves the people and looks upon his work as upon his
mission, will come and stay. And so the 'populist' comes in as a
teacher. But it is the same with the Zemstvo doctor, who is bound to
attend to a number of villages. He has to perform an incredible amount
of work, traveling all the year round, every day, from village to
village, over impassable roads, amid a poverty which continually brings
him to despair—read only Tchékoff's novels! And, therefore, nobody but a
'populist' will stay. And it is the same with the midwife, the doctor's
aid, the agricultural inspector, the cooperator, and so on. And when
several Zemstvos undertook, with their limited budgets, to make
house-to-house statistical inquests in the villages, whom could they
find but devoted 'populists' to carry on the work and to build up that
wonderful monument, the 450 volumes of the Zemstvo inquests? Read
Ertel's admirable novel, Changing Guards, and you will understand the
force which these teachers, doctors, statisticians, etc., represent in a
province.
The more the Zemstvos develop their activity, the more this 'third
element' grows; and now it is they—the men and women on the spot, who
toil during the snowstorm and amid a typhus-stricken population—who
speak for the people and make the Zemstvo speak and act for it. A new
Russia has grown in this way. And this Russia hates autocracy, and makes
the Zemstvos hate it with a greater hatred than any which would have
sprung from theories borrowed from the West. At every step every honest
man of the Zemstvo finds the bureaucracy—dishonest, ignorant, and
arrogant—standing in his way. And if these men shout, 'Down with
autocracy!' it is because they know by experience that autocracy is
incompatible with real progress.
These are, then, the various elements which are arraigned in Russia
against the old institutions. Will autocracy yield, and make substantial
concessions—in time, because time plays an immense part under such
conditions? This we do not know. But that they never will be able any
more to stop the movement, this is certain. It is said that they think
at the Winter Palace to pass a few measures in favor of the peasants,
but to avoid making any constitutional concessions. However, this will
not help. Any improvement in the condition of the peasants will be
welcome. But if they think that therefore they will be able to limit
their concessions to the invitation of a few representatives of the
provinces to the Council of State, where they may take part in its
deliberations, this is a gross mistake. Such a measure might have
pacified the minds in 1881, if Alexander the Third had honestly
fulfilled the last will of his father. It might have had, perhaps, some
slight effect ten years ago, if Nicholas the Second had listened then to
the demand of the Zemstvos. But now this will do no longer. The energy
of the forces set in motion is too great to be satisfied with such a
trifling result. And if they do not make concessions very soon, the
Court party may easily learn the lesson which Louis Philippe learned in
the last days of February 1848. In those days the situation at Paris
changed every twenty-four hours, and therefore the concessions made by
the Ministry always came too late. Each time they answered no longer to
the new requirements.
In all the recent discussions nothing has yet been said about the
terrible economical conditions of the peasants and the working men in
the factories. All the resolutions were limited to a demand of political
rights, and thus they seem to imply that the leading idea of the
agitation was to obtain, first, political rights, and to leave the
discussion of the economical questions to the future representative
Government. If this were so, I should see in such a one-sidedness the
weak point of the agitation. However, we have already in the resolutions
of the committees on the Impoverishment of Central Russia a wide program
of changes, required by the peasants themselves and it would be of the
greatest importance to circulate this program at once in the villages.
It is quite certain that every Russian—even the poorest of the
peasants—is interested in the destruction of the secular political yoke
to which all Russia is harnessed. But the destruction of that yoke, if
it has to be done in reality, and not on paper only, is an immense work,
which cannot be accomplished unless all classes of society, and
especially the toiling classes, join in it. Autocracy has its outgrowths
in every village. It is even probable that no progress in the overthrow
of that institution will be made so long as the peasant masses do not
bring their insurrections to bear upon the decisions of the present
rulers. They must be told, therefore, frankly and openly by the educated
classes, what the intentions of the latter are concerning the great
problem which is now at this very moment facing millions of Russian
peasants: 'How to live till the next crop?' Let us hope, therefore, that
those who have started the present agitation with so much energy will
also see that they must tell the ninety million Russian peasants the
improvements in the economical conditions of the toiling masses which
they can expect under the new régime, in addition to the acquisition of
political rights.
P. Kropotkin.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The smallest self-administrating unit is now the district (uyezd),
which embodies from 100,000 to 200,000 inhabitants. The next unit below
it, the canton (volost), has also a self-administration, but only for
the peasants. The Zemstvo resolution asks for a self-governed canton,
composed of all the inhabitants, while the peasant self-government would
be limited to the village community. It must be said that all the
peasant self-government, introduced in 1861, had been entirely wrecked
under Alexander III. by the introduction of special 'land-chiefs,'
nominated by the Governor of the Province, and endowed with unlimited
rights.
[2] The Memoirs of Prince Meschersky contain extremely instructive data
in this respect.
[3] Here is the resolution passed on the 9th of December by the
Zadneprovsk public library at Smolensk, and published in the Russian
papers:— 'After having heard the statement of the committee concerning
the difficulties standing in its way the meeting decided to ask from the
Minister of Interior: (1) The abolition of the bylaws according to which
the administration and the helpers of the library have to receive the
investiture of the Government; (2) that all books allowed to circulate
in Russia be allowed to be kept in the library; (3) the abolition of
censorship; (4) to permit educational societies to be opened after a
mere notification. At the same time the meeting has entrusted its
committee to inform the Minister of the Interior of its deep conviction
that the spreading of education in the country is quite impossible
without the rights and the dignity of the individual, and the liberty of
conscience, speech, the Press, the associations and meetings being
guaranteed.'
[4] They had asked indeed that the integrity of the Empire should be
maintained, and that Poland should not be separated from Russia.
[5] See, for instance, his article in the North American Review,
September 1901, in which he threw the responsibility for the law in
virtue of which students, for university disturbances, were marched as
private soldiers to Port Arthur—a law of which, we now know, he himself
was the promoter, and which led to such serious disturbances—upon the
Minister of Public Instruction, already killed by a student, and the
Minister of the Interior, who was killed soon after that by Balmashoff.
[6] After the Council has voted, the Emperor decides himself whether he
accepts the opinion of the majority or that of the minority. This
opinion becomes the law.
[7] See Stepniak's "King Stork and King Log: a Study of Modern Russia."
2 vols. London (Downey & Co.), 1896, pp. 22 "seq."
[8] Taking a district of North-Eastern Russia where, owing to the small
number of nobles, the first two 'orders' vote together, we have three
functionaries of the Crown sitting by right, twelve members elected by
the first two orders (three nobles, the remainder are merchants, etc.),
and seven peasants representing the village communities.