THE FIRST DAYS OF 1.11.8 DUNA.
WE must accept a new condition in forming our judgment of Russian affairs. The Russian people, taken as a mass, have much more political sense than the West has ever given them credit for. We have all imagined —we think without an exception—that when it came to the actual formation of the Duma the electors would either show themselves very timid, or very inconsequent, ignorant, and ill-advised. They have shown themselves very much of one mind, very determined, and animated by definite political and social aspirations. The bureaucracy have exerted themselves to the uttermost to pack the Repre- sentative Body ; but while four-fifths of the Deputies are " Constitutional Democrats," or, as we should say, Radicals, not one thick-and-thin supporter of the Govern- ment has been returned. The Deputies have chosen a man of rare sense and organising power to be their Speaker, or, as they call him, President, and even when thoroughly excited they obey his orders. They accept the formula that the Czar is to be Head of the State and mouthpiece of its decisions, and only insist that those decisions shall be suggested by themselves. They throw aside, with a kind of unconsciousness which is really most remarkable, all the bonds and withes intended to make them powerless debaters, and take their place not merely as a limited legislative body, but as the unquestionable Parlia- ment of the Empire. They tell the Czar in their reply to the Speech from the Throne that they represent Russia ; that he ought to punish the authors of recent massacres and acts of repression ; and that he must without delay grant to all Russia a complete political amnesty. Upon this subject they are peremptory, having, it is said, each of them a very special mandate from their constituents.
For the rest, their reply demands in substance three things : personal freedom almost exactly as Englishmen interpret it, the right to punish by " administrative order " being finally abolished ; equality among the nationalities and castes of the Empire ; and an Agrarian Law. In this last demand, as we understand them, they at present go further even than the French Revolutionaries went in theory, maintaining, in fact, the great principle acknow- ledged by all the communities of Asia, " Whose is the sweat, his is the soil." They will probably submit to some compromise in the form of a quit-rent; but what they ask for is the expropriation on their own behalf of all the State domains, which are very large, of all the Church domains, which are larger still, and of much of the land owned by great proprietors,—in fact, of all the culturable and forest land of Russia. Naturally, in the West they are said to be " extreme " ; but the point for outsiders to consider is not the righteousness of their demands, but their practicability. They do not think that they are breaking with civilisation any more than the French did in 1799, or the more extreme Irish tenants thirty years ago, but only recovering an inherent right of which they have been deprived. Even before the Emancipation they always protested that, while they them- selves might be the property of the " Basins," the land was still their own. We shall add, to complete the picture of the situation, that the Duma is perfectly orderly; that it is, in its own judgment, very moderate, rebuking and suppressing violent utterances ; and that the benches are 3 producing orators who, though they appear to our icy taste in eloquence rather " wild,' know how to develop enthusiasm in their own audience. Is it, indeed, quite certain that John Bright, who heard the wings of the Angel of Death beating through the House, would liave rejected as rant M. Roditcheff's all too eloquent figure of the ninety-nine ghosts of recently murdered agitators stalking through the hall of the Duma and demanding amnesty for the survivors ? No one can foresee the future, but neither can any one say that a Duma such as we have yet seen is hopeless as an agent for the regeneration of Russia.
Is there any chance that the Parliament will succeed in extorting from the Czar anything like this ? The instinctive answer of this country, with its fixed and just belief in the sanctity of property, is that it is impossible ; but we do not feel so sure. Except about the land, little is asked beyond what the proudest Kaiser in Europe, the Austrian Emperor, who thinks himself the representa- tive of the old Imperatores, has already granted ; and as regards the land, the ideas of Russians of all classes differ radically from those current in the West. The body of the peasantry arc upon that point Asiatics, and even in Bengal, where armed resistance is impossible, we dare not evict the cultivators while the fixed quit-rent is paid. The great Russian landlords think of the land only as producing income ; they are terribly anxious for a personal security which has nearly disappeared ; and they know that in a general agrarian rising they and their families will suffer far more than they could from any possible law. The French nobles were as brave as they are, and the French nobles fled. The Court, it is known, has considered the possibility of a demand for an agrarian revolution ever since the Decree of Emancipation, and the Court does not forget that if it grants this prayer the revolution which might shake or destroy the dynasty will become impossible. Physical force may prove to be on the side of the Agrarian Law. It is, of course, quite possible that the reactionaries may stake everything upon resistance to this demand; but it is not so certain as men who make up their minds amidst profound order are ready to believe. The Church in almost all countries has been stripped of its domains, and morally the claim of the Church is at least as good as that of the lay proprietors. If the demand is rejected absolutely, the Duma must be arrested or sent about its business ; and all who report from the interior of Russia affirm that with this arrest or dismissal hope will die in the Russian masses, and the Revolution, carried through by a hopeless people, will be something more furious and more bloodthirsty than the West has ever seen. There are the troops, no doubt. But the soldiers are peasants, and no Government likes to sit avowedly upon bayonets ; the peasantry will refuse to obey the orders to fill up the conscription lists ; and Russia is a very big place to hold down by military force alone. Upon this one question the charm of the autocracy has disappeared, and it may prove as impossible to avert a great transfer of the land as it proved in France, and is proving, though we adopt civilised means, in Ireland.
Much of this is in the future; but for the moment it is important to note that the Duma has a foothold which may prove too strong to be uprooted. If so, we may rely on it that the Deputies will persist and contrive in some way to put strong pressure upon the small group of governing men who surround the Czar, and who in the end induce him to take any step which does not demand great personal energy. The Deputies would, for instance, refuse to act until their demands were complied with, and the paralysis of a Parliament with the people waiting for its action has often before proved unendurable. They can create the impression that the Czar does not wish the prayers of his people to be heard ; and with that impression the moral bulwark of the Sovereign would at once pass away, and he would be left, as it were, politically naked, face to face with his people. There is an impression here, we perceive, that the new Upper House, or " Council of the Empire," will act as a buffer between the Duma and the Czar ; but the Deputies already denounce the pretensions of the Council, and it must be remembered that this body has no foothold except the will of the Czar himself. It is not even historic, as it might have seemed had the Czar called to it only the ancient nobility. No ; the Czar stands at the parting of the ways. He must either reign with the assent of the representatives of the people—who wish him, be it remembered, to be a great King, though not a despot—or must reign as a pure autocrat, with his incompetent Ministers for agents, and the Army for his sole bulwark ; and that is precisely what be has already failed to do. That system, at least, has come crashing down around. him.
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