CORRESPONDENCE.

THE ELEMENTS IN THE DITMA.

LTO TUE EDITOR Or TUE " sracrAroa."1 SIn,—For the last six weeks the whole life of Russia has centred round the Duma, far more than it ever centred round the autocracy. What the Duma would be like no one could have guessed, least of all the Sovereign who called it. It is more or less a series of chances that have made it what it is. Yet it is now the one barrier between the Monarchy and revolution. It is threatened by a cross-fire ; and it must find its strength in the firmness and self-restraint of its own Members. What grounds have we for thinking that it will accomplish its enormous task?

The Duma as promised by the Decree of August nth, 1905, was utterly unsatisfactory. The franchise was absurdly high and the mass of the nation was excluded from the elections. Naturally

many even of those who had votes were disposed to abstain from using them. The Decree of December 24th, 1905, was one of the many effects of the groat strikes of October. Its importance was lost in the noiso of the Moscow rising ; but it was the most genuine concession which the Government has made in tho last two years. It' indefinitely extended the franchise to a degree which would appear radical even in England. As far as the number of electors was concerned, no one could now claim that the Duma would not be representative.

One provision of tho Duma Law, in particular, made it possible for the country to give as decisive a character as is possible to the election results. There were in many cases as many as throe stages of elections ; but when the final electors met in their provincial town, they were not divided, as in England, into separate one-man constituencies,. but all joined in

choosing the Members for the whole province. Thus, in the province of Tamboff ninety out of the hundred and sixty

final electors were peasants. These chose ono priest, just to

show that they could be generous, and selected all the remaining eleven Members from their own number. This is by no means a mere matter of detail. It would be impossible to devise a plan

by which a temporary majority could secure a more crushing victory. It exaggerated any mood which might at the moment

be dominant; and, if this plan is continued, we must expect in the future constant wholesale reversals of the verdict of the nation. Perhaps a transfer of fifteen votes at the final ballot will entirely change the whole reiresentation of a province.

• What, then, were the prevailing moods at the moment of deci- sion ? I need not point out that the miserable hesitations of the bureaucracy had entirely put out of Court any one who supported it. Not a single prominent reactionary has a seat in the Assembly. Five out of the five hundred and fifty odd Members were returned as supporters of absolutism, and have since been joined by one or two others. The group does not contain a single man who has received a University education. The kindred

"party of legal order'.' secured only two seats, and the Conserva- tive-Industrial Party, which was to represent the great merchuuts, after a huge expense of money, obtained only one. Certainly Russia has *yen exaWes of the ways in which political parties are punished for their mistakes. One of the

capital mistakes of last year was the Moscow rising of December. It was altogether wrong-headed in its aims ; it was started without premeditation, and in consequence of a chance rumour which turned out to bo false ; it was wretchedly con- ducted, the different revolutionary parties quarrelling among themselves throughout, and the Social Democrats in particular doing their best to make success impossible; and it ended by completely disgusting the workmen with their allies, the propa- gandist students. More than this, it for the time disgusted the country with revolution in general. The Social Democrats, in their vexation, began by childishly boycotting the elections, and when they did decide to take part in them, it was in many cases far too late to organise. The extreme Radicals, discredited by their working-men friends, found nothing left to them except to join hands with the more moderate Liberals.

By this curious process of elimination, which excluded the extreme men on both sides, the field was left open for a fight between the reasonable Conservatives of the English kind (who were known as the Octobrists) on the one side, and the Liberals (known as the Constitutional Democrats) on the other. And it was also certain that, in default of organisation, a large number of country districts would send up moderate non-party men, elected rather for their personalities than for any programme which they might represent. These non-party men would only find their political affinities when they actually reached the Duna.

But the process of elimination was not yet over. The Octobrists were in the main the party of the country gentry. They had no regular organisation, and though they included some of the best heads in the country, such as Mr. Dmitry Shipoff, the initiator of the whole Zemstvo movement, they were rather a group of men than a party. They made the mistake of choosing their title from a certain date, the day of the great Manifesto, October 17th. But that Manifesto had already been cruelly falsified ; and the great agrarian movement which had broken out in so many places was not likely to make the country gentry more popular as a class. The Octobrists received their last and most fatal blow from the Government, which ought to have relied upon them. Count Witte, who had attempted to bargain with them, lost all influence, and the real administrative power passed into the hands of Mr. Durnovo, who had no other policy than repression. After the Moscow rising had failed, this repression almost crushed all hope out of the country. And the Octobrists, who stood for moderate reform, found themselves wrapped up in the hate which all felt towards the Government. At the elections Mr. Shipoff was defeated in Moscow and the Octobrists secured no more than sixteen seats. Amongst their Members, however, were some of the natural leaders of the Assembly, such as Count Heyden, Mr. Stakhovich, and Prince Urasoff.

In this crash of parties, who were left standing ? We have now to deal with the Liberals. They are called the Constitu- tional Democrats, or, for convenience, the "Cadets" (Ka-de-ty). From 1876 a small group of County Councillors (or Zemstvoists), under the leadership of Mr. Petrunkyevich, worked for the satis- faction of the economic and political needs of Russia. They were roughly repressed, and in 1894 their best speaker, Mr. Rodicheff, was punished for putting forward a few moderate requests. From 1902 these men joined with others in a League of Liberation ; and this League gathered strength in the years that followed. Mr. Shipoff was already trying to unite the various County Councils (or Zemstva) for common work. While co-operating with him, some of the Liberationists set up a separate organisation called "The Zemstvo Constitutionalists." Thus the same men would be found working under all the last three titles, and always for the same ends. They included some of the very ablest men in Russia, such as the twin Princes Dolgorukoff, Mr. Droll, and Mr. Kokoshkin. But they were only a small group, and they needed to find a large following. If the best men in the professional classes could be induced to follow them, they would represent not only the administrative experience of the Zemstva, but also the voice of the country.

From November, 1904, the professions began to organise them- selves as political bodies. There were formed a number of pro- fessional Unions, of which the chief were the Lawyers', the Writers', the Engineers', the Doctors', and the Schoolmasters'. These last, from the nature of their work, were in close touch both with the Zemstva and with the peasants.

We now meet one of the most remarkable men of the present movement, Professor Milyuk6ff. He may be described as the best type of the Russian "Intelligent,"—a man with a mind as keen as a blade, full of resource, far-seeing, but with the most acute sense of detail. Beyond this, he is a born master, and has a breadth of knowledge and a sound sense which make him superior to any political bitterness or onesidedness. This man united all the professional Unions into a great Union of Unions, which represented almost the whole mass of intelligent opinion in Russia. Ho did more. He restrained the more radical members of his organisation, and kept it in tkifie wake of the Zemstvo men, until at exactly the psychical moent, just before the great strike of October, he carried over all his best colleagues into a new and definite political party, the Constitutional Democrats. This party, which he created, united the mass of professional opinion to those Liberal Zemstvoists who worked so long and so bard under Mr. Petrunkyevich. The experience of these Liberal Zemstvoists had now got a rank-and-file behind it. This party—the first to deserve the name by the closeneis of its organisation—contained, of course, many various elements. But Professor Milyuk6ff is not to be blamed for their variety or their discordancy. He ill rather to be credited with a political achievement of the first ordir in uniting these elements at all, and in any case his work will stand as a practical example of consolidation at a time of getferal chaos.

The "Cadets," as I will now call them, bad a clear programme, —that of Constitutional Monarchy. They alone were properly prepared for the electoral battle. They bad even made concordats with some of the other " parties " where the issue of a conflict was in doubt. All evidence goes to prove that there was no systematic oppression by the Government when the elections had got under way. It is difficult to see how it could have been practised at that time; and, indeed, the Government was almost

more unprepared for the elections than any one else. The Cadets, therefore, won a great triumph, capturing a number of seats variously estimated as a hundred and sixty or a hundred and ninety. All the chief leaders of the party were elected except Professor Milyuk6ff, who, by a stupid piece of anger on the part of the Government, was excluded on a purely technical plea. Though outside the Duma, he has none the less become its leader.

It remains that we should notice one of the most important developments of 1905, which was also the greatest surprise of that year. The Government reposed its chief confidence in tlL peasant, and did much to give him the predominance at the elections. It might perhaps have done so -without danger up to September, 1905. But a few able men, of whom the chief was Dr. Steal of Moscow, by a single simple idea revolutionised the situation. Well aware of the distrust, or at least indifference, with which the peasant would regard an attack on the principle of Monarchy, they arranged a simple programme which would be sure to appeal to him. All land was to pass into the possession of those who would work it. At the same time, the new Peasants' Union, thus formed, would admit into its ranks men of the most various political opinions, leaving each free to propagate his own opinions, and tying itself to none till the nation should have had an opportunity of declaring, through the Duma or otherwise, the will of the majority. The success of the Peasants' Union was little short of astounding. Whole villages, and later whole cantons, and later even larger units, began to pour in "decisions" in legal form, adopting the programme of the Union ; and it must be remembered that each decision had to be passed by a majority of two-thirds of the heads of houses in the village. There has probably been nothing similar since the great Federations of the French Revolution. The Government, in its vexation and despair, persecuted the Peasants' Union in every imaginable way. But the agrarian troubles, though not prompted by the Union, and still more the military expeditions which were sent to repress them, only, in the end, drove more and more peasants into the ranks of this new party. The Union, like the working men, partly boy- cotted the elections. But a large number of peasants who held these views were elected, often by the tacit goodwill of the Cadets. Among them were some men of considerable ability, such as Mr. Zhilkin and Mr. Aladin, the latter of whom has lived for five years in England. These men, on arriving at the Duma, proceeded to organise a Labour Party, which now numbers some sixty-six Members. Many of these came from the ranks of the non-party peasants, to whom reference has already been made. They also are in touch with the ten working-men Members who profess the Social Democrat creed, and who are now being rein- forced by fresh accessions from the delayed elections in the Caucasus.

I have, lastly, to notice the fifty odd Members who represent the racial claims of different nationalities. These are likely to act with the Cadets till their demands are satisfied ; but some of them, notably the Poles, are by nature much more disposed to ally themselves on general questions with the Octobrists.

It will be seen from this sketch that the Cadets have a dominant position in the Assembly, of which they have elected the President, Vice-Presidents, and Secretary. But it will also be clear that their victory is largely due to special causes, and that their triumph is by no means finally assured.