THE TROUBLE OF RUSSIA.
TODAY the Emperor Alexander II. is to meet the Emperor Fran- cis Joseph and the Prince Regent of Prussia. They are to greet
each other in the palaces of the capital of Poland, that monument of the wrongful deeds of their ancestors. They assemble at a strange moment. Prussia, it is true, has no great and over- whelming internal difficulty, whatever peril from without may await her. But neither of Austria nor Russia can it be said, that they are not in trouble. Austria is in great and manifest danger —from subjects over whom she has usurped authority, from ex- ternal foes whose kindred she oppresses. Nor are the dangers that beset Russia less, though Russia defended by her snows and her vast extent,has not one foreign foe to dread. No Power proposes to dispossess her of conquered realms. No Power demands com- pensation for her gigantic stride towards the Pacific. If she remain at peace with Europe, she knows that Europe will remain at peace with her ; nay more, Europe would gladly see the development of the productive agencies of Russia, the enlargement of her markets for export and im- port, and the advancement of her population, towards free- dom and self-government. But when Russia stalks forth to War- saw and appears as the host of German kings, intent upon exert- ing her influence on the fate of Western Europe, we cannot but remember the adage that charity begins at home; and that Rus- sia has enough to do at present within her own frontier to prevent revolution.
One of the greatest enterprises of modern times is that upon which Alexander II. has entered. He has proposed to his Go-
vernment the task of emancipating-the serfs of Russia, and he
has promised the serfs that he will see the task completed. This step, postponed by Nicolas, who never forgot the scenes of De- cember 1825, has become essential to the internal peace of the Empire. The system of Peter I., and his forefathers, and sue- assors has run to seed. It has become rotten in all its parts. Serfage no longer agrees with the ideas of the serf or the wants of the Empire. It is hostile to the whole course of modern his- tory. Bureaucracy, elevated by Peter into an Order, has become a stumbling-block and an offence. Justice is a mere scheme of sys- tematic bribery, and to such perfection has the system been carried that he alone is regarded as dishonest, who, having taken a bribe, fails to give due consideration for the value received. The army, like the civil administration in all its branches, has long been a machine for the greatest amount of peculation with the least amount of risk. Dead soldiers are borne on the muster- rolls, stores for the army often exist only in imagination, cruelty and brutality inspire fear and destroy discipline. The class of nobles in Russia is timid, subservient, predatory. They are a noblesse, not an aristocracy. Country gentlemen exist, but they can only be found by very diligent seekers. There is no word for " gentleman" in the Russian tongue. A few great men, like Prince Woronzoff, keep alive the title of nobleman in its technical as well as literal sense ; but the bulk of the real descendants of ancient families have fallen into obscurity. The clergy, with rare exceptions, are as much the slaves of the domineering bu- reaucracy, as the poorest serf in Russia. The whole of the insti- tutions of the empire rest on factitious bases, and now, by strik- ing at one, the largest of all, these bases seem destined to give way altogether.
As in a house of cards, if one be touched, the whole edifice trembles if it does not fall, so in Russia, an empire with Euro- pean forms and an Asiatic substance, die touch which the Em- peror gave to the question of serf emancipation has set the whole fabric quaking from end to end. Whatever solution of this tre- mendous problem he adopted, and many solutions have been sug- gested, it has been found that the rest of the institutions of Russia must be altered and brought into harmony with that change. The real nobility thirst for independence, and freedom from sub- mission to the bureaucracy. The army longs for better treat- ment, better clothing, better feeding. The peasants detest a military life, which separates them from home and friends for a generation. Those who might form a middle-class desire legal institutions, in place of the will of the Emperor, which is the pleasure of his servants and courtiers, justice without bribes, freedom for enterprise, and local self-government. The only class, so far as we can gather, that desires to prevent change is the class that profits by the status quo—the " terrible bureau- cracy" as it has been justly termed. Before the great French revolution, there was in France a class somewhat similar to these, and we all know their fate. What will be the fate of the Russian bureaucracy ? The problem of serf emancipation, as every Russian writer shows, will affect in its solution the whole state of society. Whether the serfs be simply set free, and converted in mere re- ceivers of wages ; whether they receive house and land, abso- lutely or on conditions of purchase, together with personal free- dom ; still more if they receive house and land, and retain their
present communistic methods of cultivation and distribution, in any case, a great change will come over them' and they will demand
something of citizenship as a compliment to personal freedom. No freeman would bear the yoke of predatory and tyrannical offi- cials. If there is personal freedom, there must be law to protect it, and if there is law there must be justice, less impurely ad- ministered than at present. The only sound basis of a State is personal freedom, and the only sound guarantee of freedom is law. To maintain law pure and wholesome, in itself and in its admin- istration, there must be a powerful national sentiment at the back
of the law, and a strong public spirit to uphold itwhen threatened, to enforce obedience when assailed. And this spirit can hardly exist in modern society without freedom of speech and freedom of writing and printing. How to confer these liberties and take guarantees for order and peace, how to emancipate the serfs with- out a revolution, is what the Emperor has to discover. He has pledged his word to complete emancipation. He has laid down conditions. He has traversed his empire, and has made speeches at banquets and assemblies ofprovincial noblesse. He has started the theme, and the best heals and hearts in and out of Russia are working at the task with might and main. So are the worst heads and hearts in Russia working to prevent its accomplishment. In what way the empire can escape from the throes of a troubled, perhaps a bloody revolution, none can see. And at the bottom of all this turmoil lies a financial deficit in the public exchequer which demands measures compatible only with vast structural changes in Russian society to fill it. We wish Russia well through her hour of travail. Give her a true nobility, a solid middle class, and a free peasantry, and she would be in a position to play the part of assis- tant in the progress of the race. Keep her as she is, and she may, at times, be a scourge of her neighbours, but she is sure to be a lasting curse to herself, liable at any moment to be shattered to pieces. If there is any project of a Holy alliance formed at Warsaw, we must remember these things, and knowing the comparative impotence of Russia, look calmly on her efforts to domineer over Germany, and dictate to Western Europe.
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