THE DISCONTENT IN THE RUSSIAN ARMY.
WE shall wish well to the civil revolution in Russia if it ever arrives, because we believe that with the transmutation of the autocracy into a rttgime limited by the laws a vast amount of human misery will disappear, and the Slavic character, in many respects a fine one, will be purged of that hopelessness which at present paralyses its development. Russia rules the Northern world from Norway to Japan, and would, we believe, under an organisa- tion like that of Germany, rule it well, perhaps come to that honest arrangement with Great Britain which would give to all Asiatics, who make up two-thirds of humanity, a century of peace and prosperity, and of their long-deferred chance of developing quietly what is in them. But we cannot look forward to a military revolution in Russia, such as a correspondent of the Times seems to apprehend, with any kind of hope. A concerted breach of the military oath strikes us always as a declaration of war upon the civil population and its rights. It must in the nature of things be accompanied by a period of horrible anarchy, and is certain, if history is any guide, to be followed by disastrous civil wars, to be waged, it is true, among soldiers, but sure to renew in a deeper form the misery of the general population. The only escape from that in a, country like Russia would be an able military Dictatorship, and a rush of armed and boiling Russia upon Western Europe. There would be a repetition of the scene in 1793- 1815, with the suspension for a generation of all the civil progress of mankind. We read, therefore, without the slightest pleasure the series of documents published in the Times of Wednesday, and with a strong impression that the public here will exaggerate their collective effect. They are interesting, of course, because the vast Northern Empire is usually so silent; but they do not show that the Russian autocracy is in any acute danger from its own swordsmen. Great officers in Russia, with General Kuropatkin at their head, do, it is clear, suspect that ideas tending to mutiny are circulated among the soldiery ; but then the effort to propagate such ideas has been traced among many con- script armies. There is no more loyal Army than the German, and the German Staff is always searching out and denouncing the " S6cialistic " literature occasionally found in barracks. There is no more patriotic Army than the French, and General Andre has heaps of proofs before him of discontent bred in barracks by a variety of causes —religion, food, punishments, " hazing," and sheer ennui— of all of which the Labour party whenever it is excited takes advantage. There is, too, in France definite preaching by the whole Socialist party as to the advantage of changing the present military system for that of Switzerland ; but it produces no effect. The discontent in Russia is probably deeper, for its finances are more taxed by the weight et provision for the Army, the officers are more separated in feeling from the men, and unless matters have mended very recently, there is more of the corruption which shattered the Army of Louis XVI. Still, there is no evidence that the mischief is widely spread even in Russia, that any regiment is ready to revolt, or that the Army as a whole demands any relaxation in the existing system. The precautions adopted by the generals are, we fancx, dictated rather by annoyance than by fear.
Mutiny always strikes civilian observers as one of the dangers latent in the great States of the Continent, and prima* facie the observers have much to say for themselves.
The conscription which produces and feeds such vast armies is nowhere popular with the conscripts. While " drawings " existed, to be " drawn " was considered a grievous misfortune ; and now that in most countries service is universal, the " term " is regarded as little better than imprisonment. "A barrack life is a dog's life " is part of the soldier's creed. The men neither are, nor can be, paid the wages of other careers ; their food is of necessity the cheapest that will sustain strength, and is made worse by an exasperating monotony ; the daily work, especially in Germany, is exceedingly hard; and the " tyranny," especially of the non-commissioned officers, is bitterly felt. That tyranny, we see reason to suspect, tends to become heavier rather than lighter, partly because, as " the chief of the military district of Kazan ' recently remarked with much acuteness, education tends to indi- vidualism, and " therefore spoils " recruits, at least for the Russian system of discipline ; and partly because training has become more " intensive " and severe. No man can tell the exasperation a few " bad " recruits can cause in sergeants and sergeant-majors, and it is not unnatural that, protected as they are on the Continent by the terrible punishments for " indiscipline," many of them should develop into oppressors. Nevertheless, there is nothing like resistance. The Army in almost all countries is in possession of complete potential power, could upset any Government, appoint any Dictator, and resettle the terms under which soldiers should live. But it never does anything of the kind, even the pro- nuncia.mientos of Spain leaving the private soldiers as they were. The military hierarchy is never overset. A regiment may murmur or fret, or even shoot officers in time of action, but the spell of discipline is never broken through on any large scale. In what that spell consists, whether its root is patriotism, or professional pride, or only that swathing of habit which Carlyle believed to be the strongest of controlling forces, may be disputed, but its existence no one dreams of doubting. States are in reality built upon a profound confidence that whatever happens the readiness of the common soldier to obey will never disappear. " The soldier will kill you if he is bid " is the secret thought which makes Monarchs brave and statesmen adventurous. "After all," said Bismarck, " force is with us." And there is much more evidence at hand as to the submissiveness of the soldier. At this moment the haunting dread of the Kings, which arrests all their movements, and is visible even in the arrange- ments for their travels to friendly capitals, is the dread of assassination. And their grand preventive against that danger is to place along the streets they traverse lines of armed and disciplined men, any one of whom could kill them far more easily than any civil assassin could. Even the Sultan trusts his guards in the streets. So far as experience goes, the confidence is amply justified, and a Monarch, once among his soldiers, is safe.
We can see no reason for supposing that the Russian soldier is more likely to mutiny than his rivals in Germany or France or Austria. The Russian Slav is certainly not wanting in submissiveness, but is rather a long- enduring man. Though naturally nomadic, he bore with serfage for three hundred years, bating it all the while. His usual lot is so hard that barrack life scarcely appears to him worse than life in his own home. Like the Roman soldier, he is proud of the perfection of his obedience, which he regards as a quality making for righteousness. As for the influence of " instigation " or treasonable leaflets, we think it exaggerated everywhere, or all the world would be religious ; and in Russia the immense majority of the common folk are slow-witted and cannot read. It is not proved that the old feeling of the Russian peasant about the divine right of the Czar has in any way disappeared, while it is proved that his conviction of his duty to "Holy Russia" is as strong as in any Army in the world. The suggestion in the documents published in the Times is that the peasantry are discontented, that the- soldier is a peasant in uniform, and that if the peasants- rise the soldiers may refuse to fire. We question the truth of the argument. The evidence of history is that the soldier, once enrolled, feels for his new caste rather than his old, and will not join any class but his own in expounding its grievances. In Russia we should say that a mutiny of officers moved by new ideas as men are moved..by a new religion was much more probable than a mutiny of their men, and officers are never politically formidable unless their men are behind them,—the ultimate secret of the failure of Legitimism in France. What the effect of a great defeat in war might be it is difficult to predict, but it probably would only lead, as it always has done in despotic countries, to a change in the occupancy of the throne. There is no reason why it should break up the Army, or even impel the soldiers on the track which leads to revolution. The dangers which threaten " the system " in Russia are not, we think, military, but are the possible degeneracy of the reigning house, which lives under too terrible a strain, and the inadequacy of the Empire's resources to its ever- growing demands. The former may some day paralyse efficiency at the centre, thus handing over the Empire to a self-seeking oligarchy sure to be divided; while the latter may end in a bankruptcy which would throw the whole mechanism of government out of gear. The present writer, however, has watched the course of events in Russia for fifty years; he has detected in her a singular, and to him unexpected, recuperative power ; and though he believes, on the teaching of history, that a catastrophe is one day inevitable, he doubts whether it will be witnessed by this generation or the next. When it does come it will probably come from above, some Czar making some colossal mistake. Down below the sands spread so far that their movement in a common direction is almost outside speculation.
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