23 APRIL 1870, Page 7

THE MODERN RUSSIAN POLITY.

AN able writer on Russia in the North British Review for this quarter explains concisely a most significant fact in European politics, which is not yet generally recognized to be a fact at all. We refer to the isolation of the Russian State from the European system. Since the Crimean war, Russia in a very strict sense, notwithstanding appearances to the con- trary, has been out of the European pale. She has diplo- matized, and agitated, and appeared in congresses ; she has reserved her right to reappear on the scene by every kind of protest ; but she has carefully abstained from overt action. On the other hand, the Western Powers have refrained from meddling with their northern neighbour, the one abortive attempt to interfere with her at the time of the Polish in- surrection having contributed greatly to intensify her isola- tion. Such is the fact the causes and meaning of which the re- viewer seeks to describe, and which is certainly worthy of atten- tive study. The withdrawal from the scene of an empire like Russia, comprising in Europe alone about twie.e the popula- tion of any other state, guided by a traditional policy of aggression, and still reserving her right to resume that policy, cannot but be closely watched by her neighbours.

The explanation, which is confirmed by all the reports from Russia, especially so on many points by Dr. Eckardt's remark- able study on "Modern Russia," lately published,* ameunts shortly to this : that Russia isolates herself from Europe because she is in reality a thing apart, having a new " formula of civilization," and a different polity from anything in Western Europe; that she retreats to give time for develop- * Modern Russia. By Dr. Janus Echardt. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1870. ment and prepare future aggressions ; that a collision with Western Europe is only deferred. She was, no doubt, for many years, and perhaps still is, in a state of forced, in- activity, because too weak to take part in almost any hostile struggle in Europe, whether singly or in alliance with other powers ; but there is something more in her conduct than mere inaction. Since the Crimean war, indeed, there has been a. great revolution. Previously, the action of Russia was that of a military dynasty, supported by an aristocracy on the. European model, save for the enormously greater power of the despot at the top. There was no thought of a separate Russian life, or a "formula of civilization" different from that of the West ; we may fancy, indeed, how such talk would have sounded as the veriest jargon to Nicholasandhisabsolutist prede- cessors. But since the war there has been change upon change.

The serfs have been emancipated, the power of the nobles has been broken, the press has had a large measure of liberty granted to it ; the "nation" has been united in a great move- ment to suppress Polish and all other opposing nationalities. But all the changes have tended to develop a few ideas which.

compose the Russian "formula," or, as we should prefer to express it, the germs of a distinct Russian polity. They have favoured the idea of building up a State with an absolute head, and beneath it a uniform social mass, without classes or grades, and organized on a communistic basis. In the first few years after the Crimean war, the Liberal movement appeared to be flowing in the direction of Western Liberalism, —towards a free parliament and a free press, with a society organized in classes and on the principle of individual pro- perty. But this movement, which was skilfully used to break the power of the nobles, was speedily checked. The Russian.

Government swung back, and was greatly aided by the Polish insurrection in rousing a national spirit, and showing that the communistic ideal was only to be attained through despotism. For some time the party in favour of communistic despotism has been all-power- ful, and its reign gives promise of continuance. And it is with this communistic idea that the old policy of aggression is to be continued. Russia by virtue of this prin.- ciple is to become the chief of a Pan-slavio Confederation, and attract the masses of Western Europe, as it is maintained the masses of Poland have been attracted. It is to organize herself on this footing that she withdraws from Europe, limiting her external efforts to protests and manoeuvrea there which do not commit her to war, and to extension in Asia, where she acts without check, and quietly secures an exten.ded field for her principles, and strategical and other support for the time of her future action. Such is the picture presented of what Russia is doing and intending, which Western Europe is invited to consider and interpret.

It is a picture not without grandeur. It is a great thing for a Government or people to propose a new ideal, to proclaim its discontent with existing types of civilization, and launch a new species of force in the political sphere. There are many circumstances, moreover, which favour the experiment. Al- though a European race, the Russians are distinctly separated from the West by differences of language, morale, and histori- cal tradition, all contributing to veil their inner life from their neighbours, and deadening the action of Western thought on their development. It is not difficult to under- stand, then, why Europe should look with apprehension to- wards the Russian experiment. A great power having its roots in different principles, and having little in common with us, is at our gates, and is avowedly "sparring for breath," till her time for propagating a new revolution has come. But examining the picture closely, we must confess to the utmost incredulity in the success of the experiment. We doubt whether the new "formula of civilization" will come to anything even in Russia ; and we see little reason to antici- pate any danger to Europe in the attempt, though it should attain a very great degree of temporary success. The ex- periment is really one of enormous difficulty, and it can hardly be said yet that Russian society is organized on a communistic basis or approaches such an organization. Russian rulers are attempting so to organize it—what they call organization—and it is assumed that the thing can and. will be done ; but the one fact relied on to make the thing possible carries us a very little way. That fact is simply the communistic administration of the Russian villages. The occupants of a Russian village possess certain land in common, which is equally•dividecl among them, and this right a villager can fall back upon even after lie has left the village and failed in some other career. No villager can call a field or a plot his own, but there is a constant division going on, and all are liable in common for the Government burdens. This is the ultimate fact on which is based the possibility of organizing the State on a communistic basis. There has been nocommunism in the various products of industry, and there is a great deal of land which is not held in common ; but the village type embraces so large a mass of the population, that it is thought every other element may be disregarded—that the Czar and the peasants between them may easily arrive at the Panslavist ideal of "a uniform atomic population without organization or differentiation, ruled by an absolute autocrat." Now, this is simply to ignore the difficulty of communism, which begins at the point where the Russian theorists and their socialist friends in Western Europe leave off. The common enjoyment of a particular kind of property is not a difficult matter of arrangement; the thing has existed in various shapes at all times, and in principle is not different from the common-rights of the tenants of a manor ; even the particular form of communism in Russia, village tenancy, with the periodic division of the common soil among the members of the villlage, has not been unknown in the primitive history of Western Europe. The real difficulty of communism lies in the attempt to apply the same rule to all property, and Russia, with her village organi- zation, is no more advanced to that end than any other European state. The rural classes may preponderate, but other forms of industry are indispensable to society, and must grow in importance, if society is to exist,—must therefore become daily more indispensable. So far as we can see, how- ever, no attempt has ever been made to extend the principle of the Russian village system ; and how can Russian society be organized on a communistic basis, so long as the organiza- tion embraces only the most stationary of many indispensable branches of industry ? The curious part of the matter is that, by common confession, the village organization in its own field is a failure. It is fatal to the welfare of the Russian peasant. As might have been expected, the certainty of not continuing to possess the land he cultivates has destroyed every motive to agricultural improvement, and the common liability to taxes has destroyed the motive to industry, by placing the idle and vicious on a level with the industrious. Certain it is that the "moral and economical condition of the Russian peasantry has only deteriorated during the last six years," and the cause has visibly been the lack of individual property to supply the place of the masters' supervision which existed before emancipation. Thus Russian society is far from complete communism, and the partial communism existing does not thrive there, any more than it has done elsewhere.

All these considerations are fatal to the apprehended originality of Russian life. If she has no special basis for communism, Russia must grow materially like all other States, on the basis of individual property rights, submitting to the effects of that arrangement on her political system ; or she must arrive at complete socialism by methods which are equally open to other nations, and at similar risks. And the communistic ideal is the only thing really original in the Russian "formula." The notion of a sovereign despot and "atomic equality" under him is one of the forms of government of which the world has had ample experience. It is not very different in kind from that of an absolute Caesar, enthroned by masses of peasants through the agency of ballot-boxes and plebiscites. Instead of looking to Russia, therefore, for a really new lesson in polity, we are more likely to get fresh illustrations of old political experience. There is nothing strong enough to compete with the all-powerful ideas of the West, which must assuredly find an ever-widening door of access. If anything could make the issue more certain, it would be the increasing facility of communication, and the increasing temptations to intercourse with the West, before which a policy of Japanese isolation cannot last. To be strong, Russian thinkers and authors can dispense no more than others with the latest results of thought ; like authors and thinkers in other countries, they will also crave the widest appreciation ; and no conceivable policy would prevent the people from selling their own produce in the best market, and importing the products, and inventions, and capital of the West.. We have only to imagine for a moment how manifold the lines of connection are, to see what a dream it is to keep Russia apart, and how necessary it is that, being infinitely weaker than Western Europe in ideas and organization, the Russian State should borrow Western ideas and types, and for a long time to come give very little in exchange. The danger to Europe from Russian development may be very briefly dismissed. She may be feared either as a fresh impulse to the propaganda of Socialism, or as a conquering empire. But her example of Socialism, as we have seen, comes to very little. The opinion that it is something has no doubt great authority in its favour. The phrase is ascribed to Cavour that Europe had more to fear from Russian communism than from Russian armies. Still we cannot see how a discredited experiment in the use of common land is to tell on the artizans and mechanics of Western Europe, who would not stoop for an instant to the level of a Russian peasant ; nor how it is to tell on the peasant proprietors of France, or Prussia, or Italy, who would lose at once by adopting the Russian system. As to the danger of new Russian aggressions, these must also be esteemed very remote. No one can tell how long it will be before the present state of anarchy and social dissolution will be replaced by some sort of social order. Meanwhile, Russia is being immeasurably distanced in the race for material power. Her relative strength to Western Europe is not what it was in the beginning of the century, or even at the Crimean war. Other nations have been long before her in building roads, and railways, and factories, on which the force of industry depends. Even if she should succeed in reorganizing herself, and curing the defects of her vicious social arrangements, it would be many years before she could approach in mobility, organization, and endurance, the more rapidly advancing nations with which she must contend.