Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

the Polish aristocracy was in some degree due, between 1856 and 1860, to the desire of bringing about, by an act of humanity and justice, such a fusion of national sentiments as to give hope for the recovery of Polish self-government. The Emperor, on his part, wished to make friends with the Polish peasantry by planting the standard of emancipation, if ever that had to be done, with his own hand. Two opposite currents thus met for the same favorable solution. Nevertheless, even the palpable Court interest was not sufficient to induce the Government to pursue a clear and persistent policy from the very beginning. As a proof of the strength of the conservative and reactionary sentiment at first prevailing in the councils of the Crown, I need only point to the circular of the Superior Committee of April 17 (29), 1858, which prescribed, as a basis of "emancipation," the continuance of compulsory labor!

While the Polish nobility in the country bordering upon Germany were among the most willing for progress, it was different in the old Russian part of the empire. The opposition there was partly traceable to the avarice of the "slaveholder"; partly it arose from political aspirations of a better nature. The more liberal views had the upper hand in the nobiliary assemblies of the northernmost as well as the southernmost provinces, so far as it was possible to get at the truth under a Government which did not, and does not, permit a free utterance in the press or by means of public meetings. The horror of publicity among the committees themselves was so great that, with the exception of a few departments-such as Tver, Orel, and Nizhni-the sittings were everywhere held in secret. Mystery characterized all the proceedings. The greatest reluctance was exhibited by the land-owners of the center of Muscovy proper. In some provincial assemblies, where parliamentary aspirations were strongest, they refused to discuss the imperial project unless permission were given to bring in amendments. Even the idea of the convocation of all the nobiliary county assemblies of Russia, as a united Assembly of Notables, was broached by some of the malcontents. This proposition was looked upon by the Czar as the germ of States-General, and therefore sternly rejected.

When the deputies of the nineteen provinces which had first finished their labors arrived at St. Petersburg, they were-in the words of Prince Dolgorukoff-received with a haughty contempt quite peculiar to Russian bureaucracy. The permission of meeting was altogether denied them. Five of the deputies—namely, M. Unkovski, marshal of the nobility of Tver; MM. Dubrovin and Wassilieff, deputies of Yaroslav; MM. Khrust

choff and Schrötter, deputies of Kharkov-presented to the Emperor, on October 16 (28), 1859, an address full of respectful loyalty, asking for a grant of land to the emancipated serfs, with a pecuniary indemnification for the land-owners ; for reforms in communal self-government and in the administration of justice; as well as for freedom of the press. These "unjust and ill-becoming pretensions" were severely reprimanded, and M. Unkovski at once deposed from his functions. The literal truth is, that, in regard to the convocation of such an assembly-as Mr. Wallace fully shows-the nobility were "cunningly deceived by Government." The Emperor had publicly promised that, before the emancipation project became law, deputies from the provincial committees should be summoned to St. Petersburg, where they might offer objections and propose amendments. But, when the deputies arrived, they were not allowed to form a public assembly, but were told that they had to answer in writing a list of printed questions. Those who wished to discuss details were invited individually to attend meetings of the Commission, where they found one or two members ready to engage with them in a little dialectical fencing in a rather ironical style. On making a complaint, by petition, to the Emperor-whom they believed, or at least professed to believe, to have been imposed upon by the Administration—they got no direct answer from the Emperor's Cabinet, but a formal reprimand through the police! Trying to bring on the question at the Provincial Assemblies, they were again foiled by a decree issued before the opening of those assemblies, forbidding them to touch upon the emancipation question at all.

A perfect comedy had been played-a practical joke in politics. This did not contribute to the popularity of Alexander II. among the educated classes.

VII.

THE ukase proclaiming the abolition of serfdom was dated March 3—or rather February 19, 1861. As in all other things, Russia is in her calendar several centuries behind the remainder of Europe.

On that occasion, all the uneasy suspiciousness of the despotic régime again came out glaringly-one might say, under comic colors. Surely, on a day when a so-called “Liberator" confers freedom upon his people, we could expect that he not only trusts that people, but that he would even hope for expressions of gratitude from it. But what were the facts?

The thing was done in a manner as if some terrible conspiracy were on the point of breaking out, or as if Government itself had committed some hideous deed, for which it feared a

revenge. First, instead of making the ukase of February 19th known at once, Alexander II. only did so on March 5th; that is, March 17th of our reckoning. He was under great apprehension lest, in the intermediate Carnival-time, the people would proceed to excesses if the tenor of his ukase became known at once. On the day when the manifesto was read in the churches of St. Petersburg, the Palace was surrounded with troops. During the whole night the Emperor's adjutants had to be next to his room; some keeping watch, while others were allowed to sleep until their turn came.

Ignatieff, the Governor-General, having heard a heap of snow falling from a roof, thought he had heard a cannon-shot from some rebel quarter, and duly gave the alarm. So the "Liberator," the "Friend of the People," trembled in his shoes before that very people.

The mass of the population in the capital listened in silence to the reading of the longwinded emancipation manifesto which the Archbishop of Moscow had drawn up in a heavy, pretentious style. "That population," Ogareff said in 1862, "is mainly composed of soldiers and functionaries. Of real popular classes there is little at St. Petersburg." We can measure by what has happened since-from the days of the trial of Vera Sassulitch to the establishment of a House-Porters' Army of twelve thousand men, for the purpose of watching all the streets-what a change has been wrought during the last seventeen years in the attitude of the St. Petersburgers. In the provinces, the Czar's manifesto also led to strange scenes. Some of the nobles sought to retard its promulgation before the serfs. There were priests who quaked, with ashy-pale faces, when they read the document after mass. Some of them were apprehensive of the wrath of their land-owners. Others feared a peasant revolt. In many cases the Government officials, who ought to have been present at the ceremony, reported themselves sick, or hid themselves-also from fear of a peasant riot. All this does not fit in with the customary idea of a people singing psalms of joy on the occasion of their deliverance from a galling yoke.

The forty-three folio pages of the statute were too much for the illiterate millions. The peasants only understood that there were still some hard years of a transitionary condition before them, and that the Emancipation Act did not bring with it such an ownership in land as they thought they had a right to expect. A cry went forth among the masses, of deception having been practiced at their cost. They said the "true law" had not been promulgated; and the true law" they would have. Meanwhile they would refuse to pay rents or perform socage duty.

Vague conspiratory movements were observed among the peasantry-not of the threatening nature of those which had marked the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but still movements not to be treated too lightly. A Government standing on the narrow basis of that irresponsible rule which found its expression in France in the royal saying, L'état, c'est moi!" can not afford to despise the first signs of an incipient rebellion. Its coward conscience is terrified by a snowball gaining in bulk as it falls. Autocracy always fears the coming crash of the avalanche.

66

In those eastern provinces of the empire where the insurrectionary spirit had repeatedly shown itself before, the emancipated land-slaves were the most unruly. A few weeks after the decree of Alexander II., they rose under Anthony Petroff, who explained to them the "true law” and the true liberty. Forming a mutinous troop about ten thousand strong, they marched forth under the banner of revolt, though not with the courage of their forefathers who died with Razin and Pugatcheff. It has always been the policy of the peasant leaders in Russia to make an impression upon their ignorant and superstitious followers by using the monarch's name, if not by giving themselves out as the real dynastic claimant. Anthony Petroff, too, convinced his adherents that the manifesto read to them was not the one which the Czar had signed. And when the envoy of the latter came in the shape of Count Apraxin, as general at the head of troops, the would-be insurgents, with that mixture of obtuseness and cunning which characterizes the peasants of many countries, professed to believe that Apraxin was a pseudo-envoy.

The end was the usual one. Being asked to disperse and to deliver over Anthony Petroff to the authorities, the rebels refused to do either. Thereupon a massacre followed. Petroff, however, surrendered himself of his own free will, holding the emancipation statute above his head, and declaring that the "true liberty," as decreed by the Czar, had not been promulgated. He soon got his own true liberty by being courtmartialed and shot, while General Apraxin was rewarded by Alexander the Liberator with an expression of thanks and a decoration-even as General Kaufmann has received similar imperial favors for his infamous atrocities in Turkistan.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

from Pensa his good wishes as a faithful subject on the occasion of Easter, asking at the same time for the right of punishing the peasants without trying them in accordance with legal procedures. The Emperor thanked him by telegram, and gave him the right of sentencing and punishing the peasants as he thought best. Thereupon the General began court-martialing and knouting the peasants, until the executioner himself became weary. He reported at last that order was restored. With one or two exceptions, the Adjutant-Generals of his Majesty introduced the 'Statute of Liberty' in the same manner. In many departments there was killing; everywhere there was knouting. The irritation became all the greater because the peasants had not in reality risen; they only wanted an explanation of that freedom which was but another form of slavery."

Such is the account of a Russian writer, who otherwise speaks in comparatively mild and moderate terms of the character and Government of Alexander II. To cap his harsh measures, the Czar took the opportunity of a journey to the Crimea to assemble, on his way, the elders of some villages, and to declare to them that he would not confer upon them any other liberties than those mentioned in the statute. A copy of this imperial and imperious speech he ordered the Home Secretary to send into all the departments for publication.

VIII.

IN the midst of these sanguinary dealings with the peasants, the massacres at Warsaw took place. There, an unarmed crowd of men and women were ruthlessly shot and sabered down, for no other cause than a peaceful demonstration in the interest of their own nationality, and in spite of their offering no resistance whatever. It was a butchery without a fight. The cruel deed was ordained because the Polish landowners had met of their own free will to discuss the question of grants of land for their own peasants! This proposal had awakened the jealousy, the suspicion, the apprehensions of the Autocrat. Any attempt at a reconciliation between the Polish nobles and the peasantry had to be drowned in blood. So the streets of Warsaw ran with gore at the very moment when the emancipation of the serfs in Russia was carried out amid scences of butchery.

Peasant emancipation had scarcely been decreed when Alexander II. supplemented it by a reorganization of the army on the principle of a larger conscription. Before the slave's yoke was taken from the neck of the laborer, the Czar had to depend, for the getting together of his troops, upon the landed proprietors, the possessors of

the serfs. Now he was able to issue his conscription ukases without the slightest regard for the nobility. The aggressive policy of conquest had obtained an additional power. The true character of autocratic philanthropy appeared in its proper colors.

A Polish exile, Count Zamoyiski, was right in describing the Czar's measure, while it was being elaborated, as an experiment by which the Russian Government sought to augment its military resources and strength. In the same way an English consul, Mr. Michell, some years later, ably showed in a report that the objects of the Emancipation Act were fiscal and recruitingthat is to say, designed to increase facilities for raising men and money for purposes of war. Under the serfage system the autocrats experienced difficulties which not unfrequently crippled their warlike designs. The proprietor of the soil, from his position, naturally resisted the conscription; and, when it reached certain limits, often resisted effectively. Moreover, the serf being altogether exempt from fiscal obligations, the whole burden of taxation fell upon the landowners; and the Government, in want of money, had often to struggle with that class to reach their pockets. The emancipation entirely changed this state of things, as it was designed to do. The landlord had no longer any interest in opposing the conscription, and the imperial taxation was henceforth borne in part by the emancipated peasant.

A "landed freeman" the Russian peasant, since 1861, is often called in Western Europe. But on looking more closely at the state of things established by the Act of Manumission, a great deal of the alleged landholding and personal freedom vanishes into thin air. No better description could be given than the one contained in a valuable letter recently addressed to the "Newcastle Chronicle" by Mr. George Rule, than whom there are few men more conversant with the real aims of Russian autocratic policy. Referring to the Consular Report of Mr. Michell, Mr. George Rule says:

The original design of the Emperor and his Ministers was to give him (the serf) his homestead only, and to leave him otherwise to take his chance in the labor market. But this was deemed unsatisfactory both by peasant and landlord; and naturally so. On the one hand, it despoiled the serf of the land he con

sidered his own; and, on the other, deprived the landlord of the service-rent, which he might not be able to replace with corresponding advantage. It consequently fell through; and another arrangement

was adopted. The serf was now to have his homestead and allotment at a low-fixed rental, but freed from his old position of bondage to the owner of the soil. He might, indeed, by mutual agreement with

the proprietor, continue to pay his rent in service; and contracts for such purpose might be made to last three years at a time. This system of service-rent is still extensively in operation. . . . Usages of centuries are not to be got rid of in a day, either by ukase or enactment."

Practically—as Mr. Michell shows-the Russian peasantry are as firmly as ever fixed to the soil. Emigration from a rural commune may be said to be virtually prohibited; and immigration is almost impossible. It is the policy of Government, for fiscal and military reasons, to prevent the peasant from quitting the land on which he is at present settled. On this Mr. George Rule remarks:

The emancipated serfs were formed into village communities. The members of each community were made collectively and individually responsible to the landlords, on the one hand, for the rent of the whole communal land allotted; and, on the other, where the allotments were purchased, they were in a similar manner responsible to the Government for the repayment of the redemption money. It became, therefore, the interest of the community to keep the number of the responsible members up to the mark. Consequently, the conditions of separation imposed by the Government, though severe and binding, were such as their individual interests forbade them to resist. A member may free himself from his commune by payment down of sixteen and two-thirds times his yearly rental; that is to say, he can purchase his freedom at a heavy price. Or, subject to the approval of the commune, he may be replaced by a substitute, willing to take upon himself the responsibilities of the allotment; such substitute, I should suppose, it would be difficult to find. It will easily be seen that these conditions are prohibitory of separation, and it will as easily be observed that they must have been so framed to prevent what would have ensued, viz., a general relinquishment of the claims of his emancipated inheritance—the estates they were compelled to purchase at more than their worth. Let it be noted that they can be compelled to purchase, for in this the hardship and the root of their continued slavery lie. The compulsory power is not in the hands of the Government, but in those of the landlords. They can compel the commune either to buy or rent the lands they occupy. "In reality," says Mr. Michell, “it is not the peasant who can select between the system of perpetual tenancy and that of freehold. His former master has the arbitrary power of compelling him to remain attached to the soil which he cultivated before his emancipation by becoming its purchaser, and it is evident that the power has been and still is extensively used"; and he shows from statistics that purchasers by compulsion stand to voluntary purchasers as two to one, and that two-thirds of the ex-serfs occupy lands thus mortgaged to the state. To understand this, it must be known that the purchase of the communal lands was effected by the Imperial

Government from state funds paid to the proprietors. This purchase-money the peasantry are compelled to refund at payments equal to six per cent. over fortynine years. The position may be thus simply illustrated: I occupy a farm for which I pay a rent; the landlord has the power to compel me to purchase it at an arbitrary valuation, and to pay on such valuation six per cent. over forty-nine years before I am freed from payment. A rare bargain for the landlord, but not much to my advantage. It is true that I may get rid of the bargain, and quit my farm, by paying on the nail sixteen and two-thirds years' rent to the landlord; or I may pay the whole valuation at once, or by installments hasten the time of enfranchisement, in which case I should have an abatement of six per cent. of the value. There would be no benefit to me in this; on the contrary, it would be a burden for life. The benefit would be to my grandchildren. But what might not happen in half a century! . . . It must be admitted that, save in these conditions of bondage, which I have attempted to indicate, the peasantry have great freedom in the communities. But it really is no better than the freedom of domestic animals kept within narrow and rigid limits for purposes of production. Wherefore, then, the cant about the benevolence which prompted the act of emancipation?

To do away with increasing difficulties of conscription and finance; to become better able to carry on designs of aggression; and to traverse, by favors shown to the masses, a constitutional movement among the more enlightened section of the nation-these were the aims and results of the famed Emancipation Ukase.

IX.

NOT only peasant outbreaks followed that ukase, but fire-raising, too—which had been frequent between 1860 and 1862-began afresh, both in the agricultural districts and in various towns. This systematic incendiarism is known under the name of the Conspiracies of the "Red Cock"*-a Russian as well as German expression for arson.

In some instances the serf, dissatisfied with what was being done for him, revenged himself upon a hard taskmaster. The conflagrations in the towns were attributed by Government to a "party of disorder." It was supposed that the originators of these ever-recurring fires intended working upon the popular imagination, and that,

* In the heathen Germanic creed there is a "brightred cock, hight Fialar," that crows on the Tree of Sordown on a bed of flames. The bird, by its song, heralds row when the whole world, at the End of Times, fails in the great fiery catastrophe. Another cock crows be neath the earth, a soot-red cock, in the Halls of Hel, while a third cock, Gullinkambi (Golden-Comb), wakens the heroes that are with Odin, the Leader of the Hosts, to tell them of the coming conflagration of the Universe.

if a chance offered itself, they would perhaps make use of the confusion created for a revolutionary outbreak. Whole bands of members of the Red-Cock League were believed to exist all over the Empire, with regular branch affiliations. In May, 1862, St. Petersburg was repeatedly the prey of fires of threatening extent. A state of siege had at last to be proclaimed in order to cope with this conspiracy of arson; but for a considerable time the authorities were utterly unable to meet the mysterious danger with any degree of efficiency.

Whatever may be thought of the moral question involved in these Confederacies of Fireraisers, they certainly quickened the resolution of Government to go beyond the original narrow scope of the emancipation programme. Meantime the signs of a sullen political unrest compelled the Czar to introduce a few administrative reforms; but no sooner had this been done than it was found to give no real satisfaction. Discontent grew apace. Severe repressive measures followed upon concessions granted with a reluctant hand. The fetters put upon public instruction were somewhat relaxed; but then tumultuous demonstrations in favor of fuller rights arose in the academies and universities. And, as Government at once proceeded to the old harsh police measures, riots increased, whereupon imprisonments and proscriptions were resorted to, as under Nicholas.

Even Turkey had long ago published financial statements concerning the income and outlay of her state exchequer, though yet without any parliamentary control. Was Russia to lag behind Turkey? The outcry against official corruption and mismanagement during the Crimean war, and the demand for some insight into the finances of the state, becoming daily louder, Alexander II. had to consent to a publication of the budget. The measure was of little real use, being a mere promise to the ear. As soon as the press spoke out with some degree of firmness, the censorship was again rendered more stringent. Is it to be wondered at that a secret press was founded under the circumstances?

"

A paper came out under the same title as the one which of late has been revived by the Revolutionary Committee, namely, "Land and Liberty." Another journal was called "The Great Russian." It only reached three numbers, but these were largely propagated by an apparently extensive secret organization. The Great Russian," beginning with a moderate opposition, became bolder with that miraculous rapidity which marks the transition from a Russian winter to a flowery spring. It raised the question as to whether the dynasty was to be maintained or not. These were some of the sheet-light flash

ings on the horizon, which Government thought might portend a coming storm.

The spies and informers of the Czar inclined to the opinion that "The Great Russian" was edited by a secret society of students. A war against students was therefore initiated—even as in these present days a war against women is being waged by the Russian authorities. In Germany and France, the students have played a large part, from 1815 to 1848, in the struggles for national union and freedom. It is a noteworthy sign that the Russian youth, too, should have come forward in a similar way, in the liberal or democratic interest.

The students refusing to bear with new university regulations framed for purposes of what they called "government espionage," many conflicts took place in various university towns. Some of the students were killed, or severely wounded; a great many others banished to distant provinces. There they soon acted as propagandists among populations hitherto sluggish and servilely obedient. Many of the students belonging to that lesser nobility which in Russia is eager for progress, the Government police, with the malignant craftiness which has been its peculiar mark since the days of Boris Godunoff, stirred up the people by the shamefully false statement that these young men were “mere lordlings who rose in revolt because the Czar had abolished serfdom!" General Bistrom hounded on his soldiers against the students by equally mendacious means. He told them that "these young fellows all wanted to become officials in order to rob the people." The wiliest tricks of a corrupt, despotic, and at the same time demagogic régime were thus flourishing once more under Alexander the Humane.

The spirit of liberalism among the students of the universities gained even those of the Church Academy in the capital. The latter, being the offspring of the so-called White Clergy (that is, of the married priesthood, who are considered the flower of the Orthodox Church), were declared guilty of rebelliousness, by the Holy Synod, for having refused to attend the lectures of an unpopular, inefficient, and reactionary professor of Greek literature. Many of them were banished from the capital. These measures laid the foundation of an estrangement between not a few members of the White Clergy and the Crown.

Some of the professors also, owing to the temporary closing of their universities in consequence of tumults, began to join the ranks of the malcontents, and bethought themselves of giving public lectures which every one could attend, without being inscribed at the university. One of the best friends of the students, a literary

« AnkstesnisTęsti »