CHAPTER XVI
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION—ON THE EVE OF THE DUMA
SOSNOFKA, _April 29th_.
To understand the cause of the present state of agriculture in Russia, owing to the disastrous nature of which the agricultural question is the acutest of the problems which have to be settled by the Duma, it is necessary to go back to the time of the emancipation of the serfs.
It is from this epoch that the ruin of Russian agriculture primarily dates; it was then that the first crash occurred, and it was due to the following causes. The landlords, who had been accustomed to obtain manual labour for nothing, proved incapable of adapting themselves at once to the new conditions, and they did one of two things. They either spent the money they received from the Government in return for the land which they had given up in fruitless efforts to make agricultural improvements—fruitless because, being devoid of practical knowledge, they did what was not necessary and left undone what was imperative; or they simply spent the money anyhow until they had none left. Hence agricultural depression. Half the landlords in Russia disappeared, and their vacant places were occupied firstly in a small degree by peasants, and secondly in a greater degree by merchants, who were determined to extract the uttermost farthing from their possessions. In this manner there came into existence a new and mixed class of landed proprietors, who can be divided into two principal sections: (1) Those who let all their land to the peasants; (2) those who endeavoured as far as possible to carry on agriculture rationally, and arrived, in spite of the obstacles inherent in the circumstances, at comparatively good results.
As everybody is probably now aware, the question of expropriation of private property is being brought forward as a solution of the land question. And the question of expropriation as it is now being discussed applies to the second as well as the first class of proprietors mentioned above. With regard to the first class there is no possible argument against the expropriation of all their land. With regard to the second class, their land, considered from the point of view of the State, represents a considerable asset. If this land were immediately to be handed over in entirety to the peasants, the value that it represents to the State would cease to exist, because the peasants have not at this moment the means of keeping the output of the land up to its present level. And it would be impossible at this moment for the State to provide them with the necessary means. It is just because the peasants are without the necessary means—because, in a word, they are too poor—that they are asking for more land.
Therefore, from the point of view of the State, it is clear that if a plan of wholesale expropriation is put into practice the immediate results will be a decrease of public revenue and an increase of agricultural depression all over Russia. If we look at the question from the point of view of the peasants, the relief which they would obtain by wholesale expropriation would be only of a temporary nature, even if we presuppose that the distribution of land could be carried out on the same scale and in the same proportion as at the time of the emancipation of the serfs, which is improbable. The relief would be only temporary, because owing to the constant increase of the population the land would dwindle in an equally constant and increasing process of subdivision, and the State would be unable to come to the aid of the peasants and to furnish them with the means of improving their methods of agriculture, owing to the fall of revenue occasioned as aforesaid by the expropriation.
Besides the expropriation of private property, what further solutions are suggested? There are two further schemes which are under discussion: expropriation of the lands belonging to the State, and emigration into the undeveloped portions of the Russian Empire. There are in Russia large stretches of land belonging to the State and to the Crown; but they consist principally of woods, and it is therefore highly undesirable that they should be touched, for since Russia suffers from extremes of heat and cold, from dryness, and from the continental quality of its climate, the woods, which give moisture, are of the utmost value, especially at the present moment when so many woods belonging to private landowners have been and are being cut down.
Next comes the question of emigration. There exist in Siberia and Turkestan immense stretches of rich and fertile country; this being so it is obvious that if an emigration scheme could be carried out on a large scale the land question would be on a fair way towards settlement, and the State would be in possession of fresh resources.
The Left parties in general meet this plan with two objections: they say (1) that the peasants are not capable of adapting themselves to the new local conditions of agriculture which they would have to face; (2) that the expenses entailed by the agricultural installation of the emigrants, who would have to be provided with everything, could not possibly be met, and that therefore emigration cannot be regarded as a definite solution of the land question.
These objections are in their turn met with the following counter-arguments. It is said that the first objection has been proved to be groundless by the cases of emigration in Turkestan, where it is seen that the peasants who emigrate thither adapt themselves with surprising facility and rapidity to new conditions, which include a peculiarly complicated system of irrigation, and have nothing in common with the agricultural conditions of Russia proper. It might also be stated that Russians in general, and the peasants in particular, are a singularly adaptable race, as is proved by the ease and the speed with which those who emigrate to Europe and America adapt themselves to their altered circumstances.
As to the second question, that of expense, it is far more serious. But here it is objected that the premises on which those who are opposed to emigration on the grounds of expense base their arguments are derived from the results obtained at an epoch when emigration, like everything else, was as badly managed as possible; and that owing to this bad management hostility towards emigration was aroused among the peasants themselves, who as it is, do not care to leave their homes unless they are obliged to do so. That emigration is one of the possible radical methods of solving the land question is obvious. It is further obvious that if it is to be adopted a system of investigation into the suitability of places for emigration and likewise a system of means of communication must be organised. It is equally obvious that the State must not only furnish material aid but moral aid by furthering educational progress and the amelioration of general culture by every means at its disposal.
It is hardly necessary to say now that up to the present the State has acted in the contrary sense by every means at its disposal. There was a moment after the emancipation under Alexander II. when this was not so, and efforts towards general improvement were made; this epoch did not last long, and progress was definitively checked by the reactionary _régime_ of Alexander III., which reached its culminating point under the reign of M. Plehve. That it is feasible to make for progress in Russia and that this is not a Utopian ideal is proved by the simple fact that in spite of all the obstacles created by the Government, schools, instituted by the Zemstva, have flourished, with the result that, roughly speaking, 40 per cent. of the younger generation in Russia can now read and write, whereas at the time of the emancipation of the serfs, when the Zemstva came into existence, 2 per cent. only could read and write.
This question—the promotion of universal culture by which alone progress can come—is the most acute of all the questions now existing in Russia, because the country has been driven by the present system to the extreme limits of its endurance—to the very brink of ruin, to the uttermost desperation. And it will not, therefore, be surprising if the reaction in the opposite direction is equally violent, and Russia passes from one extreme to the other; in which case those who are responsible for not having put an end to the present _régime_, until they felt the knife at their throats, and even then reluctantly, will find food for not altogether cheerful reflection.
SOSNOFKA, _April 30th_.
I have been ten days in the country and have seen the pageant of early spring in Russia. The trees are not yet all green, but the blossom is out everywhere, and the bees are buzzing round it and filling the air with their noise. To-day we went to see the examination held in the school. The children were examined in Scripture, geography, and reading. I did not stay the whole time. The children I heard acquitted themselves splendidly. I was allowed to look over and mark some of the dictations. After the examination was over we had dinner with the schoolmaster and played “preference.” A neighbour, who looked in at the schoolmaster’s, said that he was pleased to see the Russian Government was coming to its senses in one respect, and trying to arrive at an understanding with the British Government.
MOSCOW, _May 7th_.
In a few days the Russian Parliament will be sitting, the curtain will have risen, the drama will be in full swing, and the echoes and impressions of to-day will have been forgotten and superseded by the rumour of more important events. And yet significant things have happened in the last few days. The resignation of Count Witte did not come as a surprise; we knew during the last ten days that Count Witte had sent in his resignation; but the resignation of M. Durnovo was somewhat unexpected. It was generally said that Count Witte would go, and that M. Durnovo would remain.
The popular attitude towards Count Witte during the last year must be of singular interest to those to whom the contemplation of human affairs affords a melancholy amusement. The enthusiasm with which the hero of Portsmouth was received; the further enthusiasm created by his report to the Emperor; the Manifesto of October 17th, which everybody knew would not and could not have been but for Count Witte; then the gradual tide of reaction; at first, faults but hinted and dislike but hesitated; distrust, latent, but scarcely expressed; then impatient questioning; conflicting criticism; manifold explanation; and very soon unanimous blame, and venomous vituperation, hatred, and abuse. When time has swept away the dust-clouds of partiality, partisanship, and passion, the work of Count Witte will stand out clear in the impartial light of history. I do not think the verdict can be a severe one. Count Witte’s task was to get to the Duma somehow or other, to keep things going until the Duma should meet, without a general breakdown. This task he accomplished, and he has managed to get a foreign loan into the bargain. That it was an easy task not the most fanatical of his opponents would say; that he was hampered on all sides is obvious; that his instruments broke in his hands is likewise obvious; that not only no shadow of loyal co-operation was shown to him by his colleagues, but that even his subordinates flatly refused to obey him, was proved by one or two incidents which occurred during the last fortnight, such as the case of the Kharkov Professor, sent to exile by M. Durnovo, in spite of Count Witte’s express and expressed desire, and the case of M. Sipiagin, who was not permitted to go to Sevastopol, in spite of Count Witte’s categorical instructions. Whether Count Witte made the most of his opportunities I do not know, and the man who passes a sweeping judgment on this point will be bold; but I am convinced of one thing, and that is that no man in Russia would have performed the task which was Count Witte’s, given the peculiar circumstances of the case, better. Count Witte and M. Durnovo have gone, and their places have been taken by a Cabinet exclusively bureaucratical and reactionary. What is the meaning of this? I asked some one yesterday whether this Cabinet was meant to be of a temporary nature.
“It’s put there to be kicked out,” he answered. “Mind you, I mean _kicked_ out,” he continued, “and not to go of its own accord.” If this is the case, what my friend Dimitri Nikolaievitch hinted to me at St. Petersburg—namely, that the fact that a course was fatal, so far from constituting a guarantee that it would not be adopted, on the contrary weighed down the balance of probabilities in its favour—has come true. I cannot quite bring myself to believe it. It is only when we turn to the past—to the history of revolutionary movements in every country and at every epoch—that we see how, in obedience to some mysterious law, a fatal mist seems to blind those in authority, and how they deliberately choose the disastrous course the perils of which seem to us so obvious, and the avoidance of which seems to us so simple. In 1769 Junius addressed the King as follows:—
“We separate the amiable, good-natured Prince from the folly and treachery of his servants, and the private virtues of the man from the vices of his Government. Were it not for this just distinction I know not whether your Majesty’s condition or that of the English people would deserve most to be lamented.... Your subjects, Sir, wish for nothing but that as _they_ are reasonable and affectionate enough to separate your person from your Government; so _you_, in your turn, would distinguish between the conduct which becomes the permanent dignity of a King, and that which serves only to promote the temporary interest and miserable ambition of a Minister.”
In the same letter he wrote as follows about the Army:—
“From the uses to which one part of the Army has been too frequently applied you have some reason to expect that there are no services they would refuse. Here, too, we trace the partiality of your understanding. You take the sense of the Army from the conduct of the Guards, with the same justice that you collect the sense of the people from the representations of the Ministry. Your marching regiments, sir, will not make the Guards their example either as soldiers or subjects. They feel and resent, as they ought to do, that invariable undistinguishing favour with which the Guards are treated; while those gallant troops, by whom every hazardous, every laborious service is performed, are left to perish in garrisons abroad or pine in quarters at home, neglected and forgotten. If they had no sense of the great original duty they owe their country, their resentment would operate like patriotism, and leave your cause to be defended by those on whom you have lavished the rewards and honours of their profession.”
Finally, he makes an appeal which has been made at all times and in all countries in times of popular dissatisfaction, and has always been made in vain. The words which I am about to quote embody what has been thought in this country during all the last months by the vast majority of thinking people, by all who had brains to think and were not blinded by fanatical rage.
“Without consulting your Minister, call together your whole Council. Let it appear to the public that you can determine and act for yourself. Come forward to your people; lay aside the wretched formalities of a king and speak to your subjects with the spirit of a man and in the language of a gentleman. Tell them you have been fatally deceived: the acknowledgment will be no disgrace, but rather an honour to your understanding. Tell them you are determined to remove every cause of complaint against your Government; that you will give your confidence to no man that does not possess the confidence of your subjects; and leave to themselves to determine, by their conduct at a future election, whether or not it be in reality the general sense of the nation that their rights have been arbitrarily invaded....”
Hope, indeed, springs eternal in the human breast; otherwise people would not persist in giving such admirable, such simple advice, seeing how little chance there is that it will ever be adopted.
Yesterday morning a man threw a bomb at the Governor-General’s carriage, killing his _aide-de-camp_ and losing his own life, while the Governor-General escaped miraculously. About an hour after the explosion I went to the Hôtel Dresden with a naval officer who was staying with me. It appeared that the man who had thrown the bomb was disguised as a naval officer; a man in such a costume is seldom seen in Moscow, and is certain to attract attention. I and my naval friend had already been to the hotel in the morning; when we returned the hotel keeper said to us, “You are suspected of having thrown the bomb.” It was easy to prove that we were not guilty, owing to the presence of the dead man who had done the deed. His naked body was lying in a house on one side of the Square; he had a horrible wound in his head. The attitude of the general public with regard to the attempt was curious. When we got home, people said to us, “Have you heard the news? What a pity that two men were killed uselessly, and that the Governor-General escaped!” They talked about it exactly as if they had narrowly missed backing a winner. Later I heard of two girls who quarrelled because one of them said that she was sorry the _aide-de-camp_ had been killed. The lower classes do not seem to pay the slightest attention to the matter. In the middle classes people have lost all moral sense with regard to these outrages. They consider that throwing bombs is a kind of lynch-law; they do not distinguish one individual from another, the honest from the dishonest, the harmless from the guilty. But the people who are to be blamed are those who, by bringing certain things to pass, have created this feeling. When the Government takes no notice of outrages committed on the people, and allows the perpetrators to go scot free, it is not to be wondered that the people are “more than usual calm” when they hear that a governor has been blown up. It is none the less very demoralising for the present young generation in Russia.
_May 11th._
Two men asked me for some money in the street this morning because they had been drunk yesterday. I went to the soldiers’ hospital in the afternoon, and was much struck by the way in which the soldiers talked of the Duma. These men, during the epoch which had followed the “Manifesto,” had been violently against what they called the “Strikers.” They had told me that when the procession attending Bauman’s funeral had passed the windows of their hospital they would have liked to have shot the dogs. Now they say that they understand that had there been no strike there would have been no Duma, and that on the Duma everything depended. One man asked me how long the Duma would last and when the first Parliament was made in England. One of the soldiers asked me for books the other day, and I bought him several of Scott’s novels. He was so delighted with “Quentin Durward” that the nurse told me he read all day and would not leave his book for a moment. He told me the whole story of “Quentin Durward” with the various conversations between the characters.
##