RUSSIAN SOCIALISM.
WHEN people speak of Socialism in Russia, they are often apt to forget that, in a good many respects, Russia has never ceased to be a Socialist country. The Russian Empire, in fact, is an aggregation of Communes, bound together by the supreme authority, legislative and executive, of the Czar ; and down to the present time, this peculiar organisation, however it may interfere with the rate of the nation's progress, has been, at all events, consistent with an intense national unity and homogeneity. The periodical redistribution of the Communal land among the duly qualified members of the Commune has gone on for generations, without check or hindrance to or from the developing autocracy of the Czardom, and there seems to be no inherent reason why the same state of things should not continue to prolong itself indefinitely. If, however, the Daily .News has got hold of the right end of the story in a recent account of the Nihilist agitation, there would seem to be signs, and remarkably distinct ones, that the enormous mass of traditional and archaic usages and sentiments still everywhere underlying the modern organisa- tion of the Russian Empire is being utilised by skilful and daring agitators in a direction which bodes no good to the existing State system, and which we know from various sources is already being watched by the authorities with an intentness not easily distinguishable from uneasiness. It may or may not betrue that theNihiliste have been able to get possession of copies of an exposé of the internal situation, which the Crown Prose- cutor is alleged to have laid before the tribunal in secret session on the trial of the Socialist conspirators, whose arrest, at any rate, we know on indubitable authority, took place some months ago. Inasmuch as a number of the accused have been not only tried, but convicted, and since there must have been a statement of the case for the Crown—a statement which, like all the other details of the trial, has been carefully suppressed by the authorities—it is at least antecedently possible that the version published by the Socialists, or Nihilists, and which has made its way to our contemporary, is the very report laid by M. Zychareff before the St. Petersburg Court. The intrinsic evi- dence is besides so strong, that there seems to be little risk in accepting the document for what it purports to be,—namely, a painstaking and confidential statement, from the Government point of view, of the scope, object, and means of the revolu- tionary Socialism or Nihilism which for many years back has engaged the notice of the Russian police, and which now has developed to an extent that demands the most serious solicitude of the Government. In this aspect, the attempt to build up an entirely new social and political edifice out of the traditional communism of Russia is something very curious, and might easily be very important.
So far as the alleged report of M. Zychareff goes, the first object of the Nihilist leaders is to secure the co-operation of the young men, and indeed the young women, of the more in- telligent classes, as intermediaries between the heads of the movement and the masses of the nation. Young Russia is to play, with certain adaptations, the part of Young Italy and of Young Ireland. The voice and pen of "the intellectual proletariat" are to prepare the way for the use of the swords and muskets of a popular insurrection. Naturally the Crown Prosecutor is profoundly indignant at this never-to-be-suffi- ciently-execrated perversion of the inexperienced ardour of the rising generati6n. It is to be noted, however, that Count Tolstoy, in his circular of June last, published in the official journals, bears the most emphatic testimony to the existence of cause for serious anxiety in the prevailing disposi- tion of a large section of the Russian youth. "It has been proved," he writes to the subordinate heads of the Education Deparbnent throughout the Empire, "that the Revolutionists have determined to convert into a tool of their infamous pro- ; paganda that which is the special object of the care and Mb- tection of every honourable man, namely, Youth and the School." It is not this, however, which raises the Minister of I Education to the full pitch of indignation. He gives us to understand that he expected no better from Communists and Socialists. "What is deplorable," he continues, "is, that these children and youths, instead of finding in their families and in their surroundings any check or resistance to revolu- tionary incitements and anarchical fancies, sometimes, on the contrary, find encouragement and support. Only through this, is it to be explained that Socialist theories, which have been long since condemned by sound science, have been able to disseminate themselves through thirty-seven Governments." In fact, Count Tolstoy declares that the children grow up to be such bad subjects and dangerous citizens only because the parents are already little better, and he appends the just reflec- tion, "This shows how superficial and, I will say it, how ignorant a certain portion of our society is."
On turning to the recently published report ascribed to M. Zychareff, we find very much the same statements, only more in detail. Like the Minister of Education, the Crown Prosecutor denounces the Socialist revolutionaries who are endeavouring to corrupt, and, what is worse, are succeeding in corrupting, the youth of the nation. Like the Minister, he bewails the countenance which the kindred and friends of the young enthusiasts give to them in their subversive designs. Like the Minister, he describes the evil as having root in thirty-seven departments of Great and Little Russia,— that is to say, in all but three. Dealing, however, with the conspiracy as a whole, and actually engaged in bringing home the guilt of treason to the conspirators on trial, the Crown Prosecutor goes much more thoroughly into the ramifications of the Nihilist organisation. According to him, the plan of the revolutionists is so perfect, that the Government despairs of discovering all their "circles,"--were there not " circles " in Fenianiara h—and their adepts pervade every rank and class of society, from princes to peasants. The number of men of wealth and landed proprietors, strangest of all, who are &mewl of active and energetic participation would suggest the Wes, either that the emancipation of the Serfs has made a good many estates worthless to their noble owners, and thus quali- fied these latter for the part of Catilines, or that something of the philosophic and philanthropic fever which possessed so PilaV of the French noblesse before 1793 has developed itself awns the grands seigneurs of modern Muscovy. Perhaps the most curious, though, looking to revolutionary movements else, where, not the most surprising feature of the alleged con, spiracy is the imputed design of seizing the opportunity of the expected war with Germany, when the regular army would be- engaged on the frontiers, for calling the people to arms on be- half of the reorganisation of society, the redistribution of pro- perty, and the final triumph of the Russian Mir, or Commune. If Bakounin agrees with Colonel Chesney that there must be war between Russia and Germany, then there are big events in. preparation, and the end of them no man knoweth. Notwith- standing the advantage which the Nihilists must possess in the ignorance of the Russian masses, combined with their habitual familiarity with sonic of the most "advanced "—that is to say, the most archaic—of Communist forms, still we are not inclined to believe that the sacrosanct Czardom is seriously menaced. The House of Romanoff has not as yet played out the super- stitious devotion of their people. If the Imperial edifice were once sorely shaken and fractured—as by an impact of Von Moltke's legions for instance,—there might be room for a dif- ferent supposition. Meantime' the Court of St. Petersburg will be all the more resolute in keeping friends with Germany, if the Czar's advisers really believe that Bakounin could work mischief during a foreign war.
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