T HE official policy of Russia has now revealed itself as
one of stern repression. In Moscow dining the 'week a war has been raging between the revolutionaries and the Government which has had no parallel since the Barricades of 1848. A hundred years ago Moscow saw a similar scene of blood and fire and snow, when the powers of winter sent the Grand Army straggling back from the ancient Muscovite capital. To-day the spirit of the revolu- tion, which was not dead even in Napoleon's army, is taking its revenge. It is laying waste the city, and its agents are not a foreign invader, but the citizens them- selves. The fight began last Sunday, when barricades were erected in the streets,—frail works most of them, made out of tramcars and lamp-posts and garden railings, which offered no real protection against the fire of the Regulars. Gunsmiths' shops were ransacked to provide rifles and revolvers, and lances were extem- porised in default of other arms. There seems at first to have been no organisation in the revolutionary bands, —in striking contrast to the care which had been shown in the strategy of the industrial struggle. Guerilla tactics were adopted, and the troops were rather harassed than opposed. In the opinion of the Times correspondent, the whole thing was rather a sudden burst of fury than a scheme of preconceived aggression. The city was plunged in darkness, the barricades were forced, and hundreds— most of them beardless boys—were left dead in the streets. Houses filled with rioters were shelled by the troops, and in retaliation the mob set fire to public buildings and blocks of private property. The narrow alleys of the commercial quarter afforded the best chances for street fighting, and there all Christmas Day and afterwards raged a strife which recalls the scenes of the Thirty Years' War. Citizens were forbidden to leave their houses, shops were closed, and travel was impossible, since the railway stations were in flames and. all approaches to them swept by shot. On Wednesday a change seems to have come over the tactics of the revolutionaries. They aban- doned their makeshift barricades, and betook themselves to the shelter of houses, which provided a better protection against artillery fire. They also seem to have organised their forces in three bands, each occupying or attacking one of the main railway stations, and running trains along such portions of the line as it commanded. The latest telegrams seem to point to a policy of enclosing a portion of the city within substantial barricades, and using this enceinte as the revolutionary headquarters. If, as is also reported, the murderous lawlessness of the troops has turned popular sympathy to the side of the insurgents, such tactics might be most formidable. The Governor- General sends hourly messages for fresh troops, and is obviously in fear of certain parts of his command. He has taken refuge in the Kremlin, which is also the main arsenal, and it is said that if the revolutionaries manage to procure more guns, the whole of the troops may have to stand a siege in that fortress. So far, however, the Government have had the better of the contest, but there is something terrible in the dumb, hopeless, and yet unwavering courage with which the attack is urged. The lowest estimates put the dead at between twelve and fifteen thousand. Many of the rioters are boys and women, they seem to have no leader, they are certainly only half armed, and yet they suffer themselves to be shot down with an Oriental scorn of death which must be taken as at once the proof of Slav fatalism and the measure of their wrongs.
So much for the policy of repression in Moscow. In St. Petersburg it has been more successful, because better administered. The method of general strikes has failed, as it always must in the last resort. It may worry a Government, but if a Government is determined not to yield no strike can force its hand. For a strike affects the well-being of the whole community, and there comes a time when sympathisers are alienated and neutrals are turned into enemies, and even the most resolute strikers are pulled up by sheer absence of the material means wherewith to fight. The proletariat may sacrifice itself for a cause in the field, but not by a, slow starvation. Therefore the Czar's Government has won, as against all pacific methods of agitation, and nothing remained for the discon- tented but an appeal to force. There is small doubt but that the same appeal which has been made in Moscow would have been made in St. Petersburg had the Government not been beforehand. The days of the Plehve regime returned, and by a complex system of espionage and. the expenditure of immense sums on secret intelligence co-operation was made impossible among the revolu- tionaries. Wherever disorder showed its head the Govern- ment struck, and its blows were effective. St. Petersburg is for the moment as calm as any city at the foot of a smoking volcano can be. It is possible, too, that Moscow may be quieted by massacre. Unless active mutiny spreads among the troops, they must prevail in the long run against the ill-armed revolutionaries. But after repression, what then ?
We have as yet no data for any forecast. The Caucasus and Poland are smouldering in revolt, the Baltic pro- vinces are in open rebellion, the peasants seem on the verge of a rising, disaffection is rife in many quarters of the Army, and the populations of the great cities are either dying in thousands under the fire of the Regulars or biding their time in a temporary repression. Only in Fin- land is there any ray of hope. The Convocation of the Finnish Estates, and the promised grant of a true Con- stitution, show that the Czar's Government is not incapable of wisdom, provided its prejudices and passions are not kindled. The Finnish question is probably settled; but all others are in the wildest disorder. We do not say that a policy of armed repression may not be success- ful. When the people appeal to force they will of course be met by force, and can often be quelled by such methods. Undoubtedly among the rioters in Moscow there are those who are the foes of all civilised society, and who die justly at the hands of the tribunal to which they have appealed. But the tragedy of the thing is that many of the revolutionaries fight for no impossible creed, but for an honest ideal of civic liberty. If such are to be quieted, then the Govern- ment, while subduing anarchy, must be prepared with some policy of conciliation. But we see no hope of this in the purposeless bloodshed, which they are causing. As one Russian paper declares, if there is anarchy below, there is also anarchy above. We are given, indeed, a pill to cure an earthquake in the Imperial Ukase, which orders the Duraa elections to be proceeded with at once. But the electoral law is one of class representation, the industrial classes will have no voice in the elections, and the whole will be under the strictest police supervision. The promulgation of such a remedy shows the extraordinary lack of political common-sense which characterises the Czar's advisers. It has naturally been received with derision, and has only intensified the spirit of mutiny. "Reforms," as another Russian paper says, "must be effected before they can be defended." There is still a chance, though events in Moscow have much weakened it, that the grant of a true Constitution, such as has been promised to Finland, would satisfy the bulk of the nation and enable the irreconcilables to be isolated. The suppression of the Lett revolt would speedily follow, for the masses of Russia have no desire to see the Slav power diminished. If there is a vestige of wisdom in the bureaucracy, one considera- tion should incline them to such a course. The troops, already disaffected, will remain loyal only as long as they are paid and fed. In spits of a slight improvement on the Bourse and optimistic statements by Count Witte, there can be no doubt that Russian finance is in a precarious state. Soon, it may be, the shortage will be felt in the current administrative charges, and when that day comes it is hard to see what can delay the final overthrow.
It is gencr illy assumed that France is the Power who has most to lose from anarchy in Russia ; but for ourselves we should have thought Germany likely to incur greater danger. Her Emperor may gain a temporary advantage from the paralysis of the Dual Alliance, but he must feel that a State in revolution is a perilous neighbour. There are classes under his rule who may learn a lesson from the Russian example, and in any case a revolution is like a chemical change, and the result has no likeness to the original ingredients. A spirit is unchained which may upset all calculations, and an injudicious step might unite the Russian people in a crusade against a suspected enemy. It is reported that the new issue of £40,000,000 of Russian Treasury bonds—effected, it is said, by an illegal depletion of the gold reserve—has been mostly placed by a firm of Berlin bankers who are in the confidence of the German Government. We are inclined to believe that the Czar enjoys the advice of his neighbour and Such assistance as can be indirectly given. If this is so, it secures the Baltic provinces from any interference from the West, which is something gained ; but whether Germany is the best adviser iu a situation where liberalism is the only remedy is a question which must wait on events for its answer.
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