THE ANARCHY IN RUSSIA. TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE anarchy of opinion which prevails among the governing groups of Russia, combined, as we repeat once more—for it is the ultimate secret of the situation— with their intellectual poverty, is producing an anarchy in the provinces so terrible that the revolution may yet march to its end through blood and rapine. The parties in the capital are still quarrelling fiercely, and swaying their weak Sovereign hither and thither, till the people are losing all confidence alike in the honesty and in the guiding faculty of the central power. Look at this business in Finland. The Finns, with the political capacity which they share with the Magyars, have accomplished a peaceful revolution, using a general strike. as their instrument ; have successfully entrusted the maintenance of order to a civic guard ; have expelled their tyrannical Governor, yet have abstained from the declara- tion of independence, which must have brought all Russia on their necks ; and have appealed to their Grand Duke to legalise their revolt. The Czar, for once well advised, has met them frankly, has restored their former liberties, has re- called their ancient Diet, and has directed its members to frame laws which shall secure to Finland liberty as it is understood in modern civilised States. Instantly disorder has disappeared, work has been resumed, the life of the grand duchy flows on in its accustomed channels, and the outrages of the past three years might be forgotten like a bad dream but for the report that the Czar was " considering " a project for appointing Trepoff Governor-General. Think of the depth of inability to comprehend popular wishes which a project like that, even if it were only "considered," reveals to every Finn. The Czar fears every liberty he grants till he doubts whether its guardianship had better not be entrusted to a Provost-Marshal. The Poles cannot revolt lest William IL should march in, and their tyrants be no longer of the same race as themselves ; yet the Governor of Warsaw threatens to meet, indeed does meet, demonstrations by furious charges of his Cossacks and deadly discharges by his riflemen. Away down in the South, where the passion for liberty has grown strong under the influences which spring from successful trade, the Manifesto which seemed to promise freedom was received with a sort of rapture; but the reactionaries, led by the bureaucracy and the police, who all alike are thunderstruck at the idea of a free Press and the revelations it may make, resolved on a final effort. They let loose the lowest elements of the mob of Odessa against the revolutionaries, paid them with the plunder of the Jews, and, declaring the rising " patriotic," prohibited the soldiers from interfering with " a demonstration of loyalty to the Czar." For three days the Jews were surrendered to their malignant enemies, thousands being slaughtered, often with ghastly aggrava- tions of torture, so that when the general interment began hundreds of the victims could not be recognised because their faces and eyes had been battered in, and every Jewish house was plundered. It was not till the prosperity of the hated race had been destroyed that peremptory instructions could be extorted from St. Petersburg to restore order at all costs. It was restored at once almost without an effort; and yet when it was restored, and the papers reappeared, they reappeared without a single reference to the massacres. Their editors had been significantly warned by the authorities that, if they dwelt on these atrocities, them was danger that the massacres might be re- newed. In other words, the roughs would again be permitted to rise without interference. In many other cities, especially at Kisheneff and Kieff, the invincible malignity of the populace towards the Jews was similarly . utilised. Yet Count Witte protested to a leading Israelite that he meant well to all Jews, but that their rights as human beings must be secured to them "by slow degrees " ! And then men wonder that the true Liberals of Russia, who might, if they were but backed by authority, make the revolution slow and merciful, are filled with distrust, and ready to agree with the extremists that only from universal suffrage, which may mean the division of Russia into a Federal State—a project already mooted and publicly alluded to by the Czar—can they hope to find the strength to battle with the reactionaries. The Court, though fully aware that immense concessions must be made, cannot endure to make them, and by spasmodic efforts to clutch at its fading power destroys all the confidence those concessions were intended to beget. There is supposed to be freedom, but the man who uses his freedom is treated as a traitor and subjected to arrest ; the Press is free, but, except in St. Petersburg, dare say nothing; and Parliament is to be free, but packed so far as the bureaucracy can pack it. Even Count Witte's reformed electorate will consist of only a fraction of the population, mainly composed of officials, house proprietors, and—it is scarcely credible !— twenty-five representatives of the peasantry among the six hundred. Members. It would be but one more illustration of the irony of history if the richer classes, being emanci- pated, as the peasants are not, from belief in the sacredness of Church and State, should prove to be more hostile to Royal authority than the poor people would have been, and should add to the present cry of " Down with the Autocracy ! " another and more menacing one, " Down with the Romanoffs ! "
We are perpetually being asked. what we think the end. of the Russian revolution will be ; but the question is as ridiculous as would be a confident reply. No one can know the future even for a single day, and there is no reason whatever why revolution in one country should follow the precedent of revolution in another. All we can say is that, judging by the symptoms on the surface, the struggle may possibly end. for a moment in a victory of the reactionaries, aided. unconsciously by the moderate Liberals, of whom Count Witte is assumed to be the chief. If that happens, they will so misuse their power that the revolutionaries will at last be compelled to summon the peasantry to their aid by promising them the land. That will break the sword in the hands of the Army chiefs, for tho soldiers are peasants too ; and the result may be civil war, ending in a slaughter of the civilised classes in Russia such as the world has never seen, even in France, and the rise of some soldier despot, who may or may not belong to the limited class of the men who found dynasties, but who will not be a Romanoff, and who must break out to the South or the West to secure glory for Russia and himself. That, we say, is the prediction justified of history; but foresight is not given to human beings, and all may go some totally different way. Russia may even throw up a statesman capable of crushing the reactionaries and yet protecting the Monarchy. The outlook, however, is a melancholy one for those who, like ourselves, desire only a liberalised. Russia. For the present the very foundations of order are loosened, and when that happens the history of the whole world. shows that the cement which brings back to the fluid mass the consistence which makes it a solid foundation for new piles of buildings has always been kneaded with human blood.
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