K ISWOLSKY'S MEMOIRS.* Tex late M. Iswolsky, who directed the
Russian Foreign Office f mm 19013 to 1910 and was afterwards Russian Ambassador in Paris, has left some interesting though fragmentary memoirs, which have been translated from the French by Mr. Seeger.
Iswolsky was an accomplished diplomatist, who had seen a great deal of the world. He belonged by training and conviction to the moderate party, composed largely of provincial landowners, who saw that Russia under the rule of court factions and a soulless bureaucracy was heading for perdition. These moderate politic1aru3 wished to infuse new life into a worn-out system by
77a L Ar.n ondon .ira of Aka:oder Imolai,. Edited and translated by C. I. Seeger. : Ilutrinnson. lea. mid developing local self -government in the provinces and entrusting the Zemstvos, or provincial councils, with larger powers. M. Iswolsky and his friends had no great liking for Panalavism, the central tenet of which was that the Slays were the chosen people ; but they knew well that Russia differed widely from Western Europe and could not successfully adopt Western democratic institutions in a day or a year. They would have grappled with the land question, recognizing the average peasant's need for a larger holding and of hastening the abolition of the obsolete " Mir " or village community which has kept the Russian cultivator in mediaeval fetters. IL Iswolsky's political programme had no success. It was denounced by the reactionaries, by the Democrats and by the Socialists with equal fervour, although it might have saved Russia from the ruin that extreme courses have brought upon her. But his moderation made M. Iswolsky an impartial witness of the beginnings of the Russian revolution, which is the main subject of his book. The mistakes of the early years of the late Tsar's reign prepared the way for the collapse of 1917 and for the anarchy which- has followed.
K Iswolsky was appointed Foreign Minister in 1906, just before the first Duma met under the charter of October, 1005. Ho explains very clearly why the Duma failed. In the first place, the Government had provided nothing for it to do. Instead of having a number of Bills ready for the Dunce to discuss, 111. Goremykine, the Premier, left the assembly to its own devices. Thus all the energy of the members was concen- trated upon interpellations and violent party attacks on tho Government. K Iswolsky shrewdly remarks that the adoption of the French Parliamentary arrangements for the Duma, with a tribune for speakerafacing the deputies, was in itself a mistake, as it encouraged rhetoricians, whereas if members had been allowed to speak from their seats, as at Westminster or Washington, the debaters would have been more sober and practical. It is not surprising that the Duma, having no regular business to transact, became more and more violent in the quarrel with the Government which absorbed its attention. M. Iswolsky also points out that the bureaucracy had blundered in securing the election of some two hundred peasants, on the assumption that the peasants were absolutely loyal to the Tsar and the Church. The peasants took no interest in polities ; all that they wanted was more land, and they were ready to support any party which promised to break up the largo estates in favour of the small cultivators. The Government might have retained their allegiance, had M. Goremykine put forward at ones a liberal scheme of agrarian reforms. But as he did nothing and promised nothing, the peasants went over to the opposition and became imbued with the idea that revolution would mean more land for them. Tho peasants have learned by now that revolu- tion has other meanings of a less agreeable kind, but the Tsardom, in alienating them in 1906, signed its own death-warrant.
Iswolsky thinks that Count Witte's grandiose industrial policy was faulty for the same reason, inasmuch as it neglected the interests of the peasantry who make up four-fifths of the Russian people. Had Count Witte devoted the produce of the vast foreign loans which he raised to developing agriculture instead of urban industries, he would have strengthened Russia. The industries which he fostered at great expense, under the protection of a high tariff, drew masses of ignorant peasants to the towns, whore they fell a prey to revolutionary agitators. It is significant that Lenin will not accord the peasant, even under his sham representative system, more than a fifth of the voting power given to the town labourer. The Russian peasantry, rightly led, would, as K Iswolsky saw, be a strongly conservative and patriotic force, upholding the sound national traditions against the German and Jewish theorists who have perverted Russia for the time being. M. Iswolsky tries hard to do justice to the late Count Witte, whose achievements Dr. Dillon has pictured in the most glowing terms for somewhat incredulous English readers, but there can be little doubt that Count Witte hastened the end of the old Russia by his over- ambitious and costly policy.
The author's sketch of the late Tsar is kindly and just. Nicholas the Second was honest and well-meaning, he assures um, but far too easily influenced by the old courtiers who surrounded him and played upon his weakness. Thus, the Tsar's unhappy speech at the outset of his reign, in which he told the Zemstvet that their aspirations for more power were "insensate dreams," was written for him by the notorious Pobiedonostzeff, Pro- curator of the Holy Synod, and handed to him as he entered UN
audience-chamber. H. Iswolsky says that the Tsar had desired at least to temporize with the Liberals, but had yielded to the courtiers, who declared that he must nehold the traditions of his father's reign. Nicholas became more and more of a fatalist as the years passed. He conceived himself to be the passive instru- ment of a divine power, and schooled'himself to endure with fortitude every calamity that befell him. Such a state of mind, however admirable in a hermit, was fatal for an autocrat, as it seemed to relieve him of responsibility for his actions. IL Iswolsky discusses at some length the Bjorkoe agreement of 1905, by which the German Emperor persuaded the Tsar to make a secret defensive treaty with Germany. On the face of It, the treaty was incompatible with the Franco-Russian affiance, despite the clause enabling Russia to invite France to adhere to the new compact. There was not the least reason to suppose that France, then engaged in a sharp controversy with Germany about Morocco, would join a new triple alliance of Russia, Germany and France, directed, of course, against Great Britain, with whom France had arrived at an understanding. Yet Count Witte, it seems, cherished this fantastic idea and may have partly convertedthe Tsar to his views. In any ease, we find no difficulty in supposing, with M. Iswolsky, that the Tsar had no wish to weaken or betray his alliance with France. He signed the German treaty, partly because he was overborne by the strong will of the German Emperor, and partly because he thought, erroneously, that somehow Count Witte woul& prove to be right, although he had no personal liking for Count Witte. When the Foreign Minister, Count Lansdorff, heard about the secret treaty, he quickly made the Tsar realize what a blunder he had committed. The Tsar agreed that the treaty must be annulled, and thenceforth he resisted all the German Emperor's blandishments and threats. It was characteristic of the German Emperor that he appealed to the Tsar's piety and sense Of honour on behalf of a dishonourable treaty which he had tricked the Tsar into signing. M. Iswolsky recalls a conversation which he had with the German Emperor at Copenhagen in the summer of 1905, when the Emperor expounded to him the plan for a Franco-Russo-German alliance against Great Britain. H. Iswolsky ventured to warn the Emperor that France would never be reconciled with Germany so long as she was deprived of Alsace-Lorraine. The Emperor angrily retorted that the question was dead.
"I threw down the glove to France, apropos of the Moroccan affair, and she dared not pick it up ; having then declined to fight Germany, France has renounced for good and all any claims she may have had in respect of her lost provinces."
He went on to say that France might be forced to join his pro- jected anti-British alliance. The contrast between these two autocrats is remarkable. It is hard to say whether the weak man or the unscrupulous man was a greater peril to his own country. But the Tsar had good intentions, and may well be remembered with sympathy. In the war he was a faithful ally.
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