RUSSIA, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL.*

THIS is the most complete book about Russia we have yet seen, and probably the most complete and " up to time" which exists in the English language. In making this state- ment, we have no intention of belittling either the magnum opus of Mr. Mackenzie Wallace, or the valuable works with which Stepniak has enriched the literature of the question. But Mr. Wallace necessarily wrote as a foreign observer, and so many things have happened since the publication of his work, that much of it has become obsolete ; while Stepniak's books. besides being to a certain extent fragmentary, are avowedly written with a political object, and though they teem with useful knowledge, their purpose is rather to influence than in- form. It is, of course, quite possible that when Stepniak's forth- coming volume on the Russian peasantry makes its appearance, his collected works will contain even a more valuable store of information than these two volumes by Leo Tikhomirov. Meanwhile, however, the latter " lead the field ;" and, as a single work, it is probably destined to remain unique for some time to come. In Russia its publication would be im- possible, and the exiles who have the ability to produce such a book as this, and the wherewithal to maintain themselves pending its preparation, must needs be very few. The transla- tion, we are glad to say, is admirably done. It reads as if it had been written originally in English ; but why has Dr. Aveling thought it necessary to inform the world in a " Note" that, though he has " tried to translate Leo Tikhomirov's work accurately," he does not wish to be understood as necessarily endorsing every opinion expressed in it," and that some of his author's opinions are opposed to his own P Are translators in the habit of rendering inaccurately books the whole of whose opinions they are unable to accept, or does Dr. Aveling think that without this disclaimer he might be identified with views for which he is no more responsible than the printer or the publisher ; or was the " Note " written lest some of his weaker Socialist brethren might fear that he was falling away from the faith

For Mr. Tikhomirov is far from being a man of extreme

opinions ; and albeit, like the vast majority of educated Russians who are not connected with the bureaucracy, he is a revolutionist and an opponent of the existing regime, he never dogmatises, and his book is neither marred by the onesidedness of the theorist nor disfigured by the passion of the political partisan. His subject, as he tells us in his preface, is Russia as a social organism. He aims at describing political and social Russia just as it is, with its vast territories peopled by millions of peasants, uncultured, but full of sympathetic qualities ; with its oddly organised classes; with its " Intelli- guentia," the martyr of its historic mission ; with its political problems, so mysterious and involved. " I see before me this land," he continues, " that causes so much suffering to those who love her, and yet knows how to attach them to her so strongly that no sufferings on her behalf terrify them. I am thinking of the poet's cry:— 'Poor and rich,

Powerful and powerless, Oh, Mother Russia!'

• Russia, Political and Social. By L. Tikhomirov. Translated from the French by Edward Avelino, D Se. 2 vole. London : Swan Sonnenschein.

Will this image rise to the eyes of my reader? It is for him to answer the question."

Unless we are much mistaken, most of his readers will be able to answer this question in the affirmative; for Mr. Tikhomirov is so full of his subject, his knowledge of its various phases is so thorough, and his literary style so clear and vivid, that even a desultory perusal of the book can hardly fail to make an abiding impression, and all who desire to increase their know- ledge of the most interesting of European countries will devote to it earnest study. The scope of the work is so wide, that it were impossible, in the space at our command, to give an adequate idea of its contents. Every one of the author's seven books might well be made the subject of a separate notice. Perhaps the most interesting of these books is that which describes the intellectual movement, the birth and growth of the " Intelliguentia," the woman question, and the social influences of literature. " Intelliguentia " is a word used by the author to denote the educated class, albeit these are not a class in the ordinary sense of the expression. The majority of them may be technically " noble ;" but they are found in every grade of society, and include all who, whatever may be their political opinion, take part in the intellectual movement, and thereby become opponents of the Govern- ment and objects of official suspicion, if not victims of actual oppression. For education develops the personality of the individual, strengthens the sense of personal dignity and the desire for liberty to an extent which is irreconcilable with the principle of absolute monarchy, based on serfdom and main- tained by bayonets. Even though a man of culture, especially if he is a writer, be notoriously and sincerely orthodox, he can hardly help committing acts and advocating ideas which the authorities regard as dangerous and treat as subversive. The three Russian authors best known in England are DostoIevsky, Turgeniev, and Tolstoi, all writers of fiction, two of them intensely religious, and not one politically compromised. Yet what has been their fate ? DostoIevsky, for belonging to a literary society, and listening to the reading of a prohibited book, was condemned to death, sent to Siberia, and beaten with rods ; Turgeniev was banished to his estates, and com- pelled to pass many years of his life in exile ; and Tolstoi, though he is a great noble, lives quietly in the country, and has renounced the world, the flesh, and the devil, received only the other day a domiciliary visit from the police. For Count Tolstoi has a passionate love for the toiling millions of his countrymen, and sympathy with the lowly is looked upon in high quarters as a dangerous symptom, as implying discontent with the existing order. The eminent are persecuted ; the cultured suspected. So it comes to pass that the " Intelli- guentia," whether they will or not, are enemies of the Govern- ment ; for it is not in the nature of things that an educated Russian who loves his country should not in his heart hate the corrupt despotism by which its people are oppressed and its civilisation retarded. The younger and more enthusiastic of the " Intelliguentia " become propagandists, conspirators, terrorists, throwing themselves into the struggle with the courage of heroes and the constancy of martyrs. And though the active life of a Russian political agitator is reckoned at no more than six months, and they fall by thousands, the seem- ingly hopeless struggle still goes on. To the ordinary observer, this strenuousness and persistency appear both senseless and inexplicable, and we are not sure that Mr. Tikhomirov's ex- planation, which we give below, though it throws light on the subject, fully explains the phenomenon :-

" In 1878 I became acquainted with many terrorists, as they were then called. Then I was not acquainted with this type, and I asked out of curiosity, one of them, Ivitchevitch, as to their plans. It is open to doubt,' I ventured to say, whether a sufficient power can be got together to upset the Government. Too great a conspiracy would be needed for that.'-4 The Government,' he answered, may be forced to make concessions, even if we are not strong enough to overturn What, then, is your plan ?'- We shall punish it for each of its crimes. We shall terrorise it, and force it to respect the rights of man.'—` But do you really hope to frighten the Government ? Do you forget it has at its disposal police, army, vast means of defence ? It will hang, whip, exterminate you more rapidly than you will its servants.'—' We shall see.'—He was a strong, sterling, joyous fellow of unbounded courage. In war he would have performed prodigies. A year later, he was mortally wounded in a desperate struggle with the gendarmes. What is the meaning of this boundless belief in their own strength ? Is it not a sign of madness, as our reactionaries say ? No; in actual life, at all events in Russian life, it is often proved, to the astonishment of all, that the solitary man, immured in a dungeon, is in fact a force. In Russian prisons, the political prisoners, constantly liable to be thrown into cells and to be beaten, perishing from aneurism or phthisis, are sometimes suc- cessful in wearing out the authorities by this incessant struggle, making them doubt the success of what they are doing, making them let their prisoners do all they wish. What happens in the prisons happens also sometimes in politics. He that knows Russia, he that knows the extent to which the life of the Intelliguentia manifests itself in the national life, cannot fail to see that this confidence of the cultured class is in itself the result of its historic experience. The importance of the part played in our history by the man of the Intelliguentia' was often immense,

j and quite justifies Niekrasson's words

Who doubts the men of pre-historic timr, Since in our own days. heroes twain or three Bear shoulder-hi;h the burden of their time ?'

This belief has taken firm root in the mind of the cultured class. Heroic as some of its members are, it is assuredly not merely the abilities of these that have given rise to this confidence of the Intelliguentia' in its own strength. It is the more or less clear understanding of this historic fact that the • Intelliguentia,' even if not understanded of the people, is the instrument of the organic laws of growth of the whole country,—it is this consciousness that assures the persistence of its vitality."

So much for the philosophy of the question ; but it requires a stronger motive than mere philosophic belief to steel men's hearts to deeds of heroic daring, and create that capacity for self-sacrifice which enables the Russian revolutionist to leave father and mother, brother and sister, forego the advantages of wealth and social position, and risk life and liberty on behalf of a cause. This motive is, no doubt, of a mixed character,—partly a sense of duty and love of country, partly the burning indignation which men exposed to the continual persecution of a tyrannical police, men whose friends are dying in dungeons and lingering in exile, must necessarily feel, and partly the conviction that they will succeed in the end, and that the names of those who fall will be numbered among the " heroes and martyrs of Russian liberty."

A further explanation may be found in the moral ideals of the " Intelliguentia." These, according to our author, are based on the most complete development of the individual ; they assume that the more the individual is developed, the wider are his interests. Hence, the widest of all interests being the social, the individual, as he grows, tends more and more to identify the interests of society with his own. " Thus the individual comes into possession of the true morality," not the legal or conventional morality, which, being made up, as they hold, of forms and restrictions, is held in utter contempt by the man of the " Intelliguentia :"—

ward seeming, a human being Morality is an inner tendency to good, a desire to be useful, a longing to see those around us happy."

This vague and dangerous teaching delineates the general or average ideal, since in any company or class there must needs be divergences. Although, for instance, the " Intelliguentia," as a body, are democratic and free-thinking, there are some who, like Pouchkine and Kochelev, are "mild partisans" of the nobility, while others, like DostoIevsky and Count Leo Tolstoi, are orthodox and devout.

The ideas of the " Intelliguentia " naturally influence the relations of the sexes ; but Mr. Tikhomirov indignantly repudiates the free-love theories which M. Leroy Beaulieu has imputed to Russian reformers. When they speak of free- love, they mean not promiscuous intercourse, but freedom to

love. They hold sensuality in abhorrence, and define love as " a feeling founded on reciprocal respect and sympathy, upon

that harmony of mental and physical natures which makes two human beings seem the essential complement the one of the other." Mr. Tikhomirov avers that the mutual relations of the young peop!e of the educated class are much purer than in any other country known to him. No Russian mother fears to let her daughter go out with a young man ; Russian girls enjoy as much freedom as American girls, and are even less hampered than they by the fear of " what people will say." Yet love-intrigues are more rare among the "Intelliguentia" than in any other class of Russian society.

But this purity is not due to want of passion. Russian women know how to love without reserve, even to the grave. Every year, and of their wn free will, two thousand wives follow their exiled husbands to Siberia and the galleys. Nevertheless, their ideas of morality are not ours, and are dangerous enough. " A girl would not think it wrong to enter into alliance with a man without her parents' consent, without any marriage benediction, without any legal formality, if only she loved seriously. But she would be ashamed of marrying a man, even with the full con- sent of her parents and quite legally, if in marrying she was yielding to interest only or to the sensual impulse." This contempt for law and the absence of the commercial spirit, meaning thereby a keen appreciation of the value of money and social position, pervade Russian literature, and are among the most marked characteristics of Russian men of letters. The Russian author who avowedly wrote for money, or made it other than a secondary consideration, would be looked upon as prostituting his pen, and would be generally despised.

We have dwelt at so great length on Mr. Tikhomirov's description of the " Intelliguentia" because, although his book contains a mass of valuable information about the peasantry, the Jewish and German questions, the economic condition of the country, and other matters, this is really the most im- portant part of his book. The educated class are fighting the autocracy, informing the mind of the nation, making its litera- ture, and preparing the way for an inevitable revolution. When it will come, or what shape it will take, no man knows ; but we may venture to say that it will neither be the cataclysm which many people expect, nor follow the course of the French Revolution of 1789. The peasants, though marvellously ignorant of the world and its ways, are naturally shrewd and kind-hearted, and in their weirs have already learnt the art of self-government ; while, as we have seen, the ideals of the men who would guide the movement, if often lawless, are in some respects elevated, their patriotism is beyond reproach, they have learnt self-denial in the school of adversity and persecu- tion, and albeit the revolution which they are preparing may not be bloodless, we may hope that it would lead neither to a reign of terror nor a war of classes.