THE UNREST IN RUSSIA. T HE unrest in Russia is more
serious even than we thought. We still remain convinced that if the Government is determined, the Army faithful, and the peasantry quiescent, any movement whatever can be put down, the educated classes, even if supported by the artisans, being totally unable on those vast plains to resist a million trained soldiers, with the unusual proporticn of cavalry and light artillery which their Asiatic conquests have forced upon the War Office of St. Petersburg. Our fellow-countrymen are still blinded by tradition as to the resisting power of a populace ; but though it is great in a country of mountain and prairie like South Africa, and in Spain, where men will die behind. anything built of brick, it is very little indeed in a country like Russia, where the smallest elevation is a hill, where there is no tradition of Saguntum, and where the people have not, except in a few forest districts, the means of procuring modern arms. There is reason to doubt, however, whether all the conditions which make for authority are at this moment actually present in Russia. About the Army it is impossible to form an opinion, except the abstract one that armies in our day do not revolt, the persistent rumour that the non-commissioned officers are displaying a temper which alarms the Government being unconfirmed by any sufficient evidence. It is there, no doubt, that disaffection would show itself first, the Russian non-commissioned officer being able to read and write, and having as little chance of promotion as the French sous-officier before the Revolution. He comes, too, into collision with the system more than the private does, and he perceives more clearly the corrup- tion which in the Russian as in the old French Army the Government has found it so difficult wholly to eradicate. Mutiny, however, is to the veteran soldier an immorality as well as a dangerous offence, and we shall require evidence as yet unprocurable before we believe that, ex- cept when the conscripts are drafted, the fear of it ever impedes the decision of Russian generals. That the peasantry are in a state of ferment in Central and Southern Russia seems, however, to be proved. As far as we can ascertain, the case stands thus. There has been all over Southern Russia, where, be it remembered, the mass of Russian cultivators have since the emancipa- tion elected to live, a fall in prices so serious that the peasant cannot pay either his taxes or his debts, which nevertheless are relentlessly exacted. His consequent die- - content, which is bitter, his idea being the universal one of his class, that he ought to have remissions in bad years, has been aggravated by a succession of bad harvests, and by a persuasion, probably true but possibly false, that the slight relief which the Government can afford is stopped on its way by corrupt officials. He has, therefore, in some districts reached the point when he has no longer any grain at all, either to eat or sow ; and as that must be the fault of somebody other than God or the Czar, he is ready for any measure of vengeance that may be suggested to him. There have always been agitators in Russia, and just now they are very numerous, the educated having convinced themselves that they must convert the cultivators before anything will be done to modify the system. They therefore preach insurrection as a and are holding out to the peasants the hope that panacea, which they, like Irishmen, believe would belong to them "if right were done," will be restored by decree. They have even, if a correspondent of the Morning Post may be trusted, resorted to an expedient not without precedent in Russian history, and have forged a ukase from the Czar bestowing the land upon them by what they them- selves regard as a supreme fiat. "Ukase of his Majesty the Emperor Nicholas. My grandfather now resting in God, the Emperor Alexander, by abolishing serf- dom gave you peasants liberty, and at the same time divided the land among you. The magnates of the land, however, were discontented with this, and they brought the land again into their possession, and thus robbed you. The country which, for a needy wage, you cultivate in the sweat of your brows is your own land, and the corn in the barns of your oppressors is your corn. I love you, and as I desire to be a just Emperor I allow and command you to demand back your property and to divide it among yourselves as your legal possessions. If they refuse to give it to you peaceably, then take it from them by force, together with the cattle in their stalls and the corn in their barns." In the peasant's eyes this is simple justice, and he demands the land of the stewards, who, and not the landlords, manage the estates. Being refused, and probably mocked, he seizes any arms he can find, and proceeds to destroy the château and its papers. The stewards fly for their lives, the officials in the absence of orders temporise with the mob, and till the troops arrive with orders to fire on all armed men the peasants hold a kind of revel. This scene is admitted to have occurred all over the two provinces of Pultawa and Kharkoff, in which some eighty châteaux have been sacked, and when the truth is known it will probably be found to have been repeated in isolated districts all over Southern Russia. This is, of course, insurrection; troops are rapidly converging on the most dangerous spots; M. Plehve, the Minister of the Interior, has himself hastened to the scene to give the frightened officials the necessary " energy " and cohesion ; and in a few days we shall doubtless hear that order reigns once more in Southern Russia. The movement, however, has been most serious, the collection of revenue has been arrested, the troops do not like the work, no amount of dragonnades will prevent hunger and its consequences, and the Government of Russia is probably the last in Europe to wish for an internecine quarrel with the peasantry, upon whose fidelity in the last resort its foundations rest. If their feeling spread to the Army the cataclysm so long dreaded for Russia would have arrived, and the Empire so slowly and so strongly built would be thrown into the crucible.
Intermediately there is another danger almost equally threatening. In spite of the secrecy enforced in Russia, where almost anything is forgiven sooner than an appeal to the opinion of the Western world, it is well known that a deadly struggle is going on between the advocates of concession, headed, it is asserted, by the Czar, and the advocates of repression, headed by M. Pobiedonostzeff—who sees a victory for Dissent in any relaxation of the claim to autocracy or any grant of freedom to the Press or the Universities—and supported by the higher bureaucracy and the more influential Army chiefs. Hitherto the latter have prevailed ; but there is reason to believe that the Czar would like to call to his aid a representative Council, such as his grandfather had decreed on the day before his assassination, and that the issue of a prOclamation in that sense is only prevented by pressure of the most determined description, in short., by threats of a Palace revolution. This may be untrue ; but it is true that the burden of Russian autocracy, which in- volves, among other things, an incessant issue of execu- tive orders, the far-reaching character of which the Emperors know and dread, can be borne only by a very strong man with immovable decision. The present Czar, Nicholas II., though intelligent, and conscientious to a morbid degree, is not a man of that kind, and the con- sequence is that Russian society, apparently so unanimous, is really cloven from top to bottom into two parties, more equal in strength perhaps than is imagined. The Ad- ministration therefore vacillates. On the recent murder of M. Sipia.guine it was decided that a strong reactionary policy must be pursued and all resistance put down by terror; but the bureaucracy are never certain that this policy will last, and hesitate to order the free shedding of blood which can alone make it successful, but which the Czar is believed to abhor, and his Empress to despise as a mere sitting on the safety-valve. The determination, therefore, which is the first condition of safety for the autocracy is not present ; and with the finances in tem- porary, though not incurable, difficulty, the peasantry ready to burn chateaux and their landlords' stewards in them, and the Army employed in distasteful work which brings neither glory nor promotion, Russia is drifting it may be into a haven of safety, but it may also be on a rock,—that is to say, a quarter of a century of fierce internal conflict. It is quite useless for any outsider to predict the course of events in a country where the con- ditions are so numerous and so confusing ; but judging simply as impartial historians, sincerely friendly to a Power which ought to be our ally, nothing would surprise us less than the abdication of the present Emperor and the complete ascendency for a short time of the "military party," that is, the old Conservatives, who would almost inevitably seek in external war a relief from the internal malaise. All Russians are patriotic, and war has hitherto with them always terminated all disputes except as to the method in which it ought to be carried on.
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