Part 12

"What are you thinking of--under our present régime? We do not wish independent judges. A minister of justice like Muraviev, who certainly constitutes the supreme type of all that is meant by the expression, 'A man of no honor,' is the strongest hinderance to justice. Therefore, a monetary acknowledgment to the whole senate is expected for each satisfactory judgment. We have such a case just now. Here you have a list of names of seven judges who were promoted out of turn by Minister Muraviev on consideration of the kind support which they gave to the Ryaboushinskys, the Moscow millionaires, against the Bank of Kharkov, which was their debtor."

"Will you permit me to make a note of this list?"

"Certainly. I am not the only man who has it."

I noted down the names Davidov, Sokalski, Vishnevsky, Laiming, Delyanov, Dublyavski, Podgurski. They were entered on a type-written sheet with the distinction and encouragement they had respectively received after a suit which brought a considerable profit to a Moscow millionaire firm.

"But you said," I objected, "that the judges are not open to bribery. Yet they performed an illegitimate service to millionaires."

"Certainly I said the judges are not open to bribery; but I did not say that of the minister of justice. On the contrary, I called him a man without honor in a place of the highest power."

"You mean, then, that he was paid for the judgment that was given in the interest of the millionaires?"

"Your astonishment only betrays the foreigner. Only the little debts of the honorable minister were paid off--good Heavens!"

"It is incomprehensible."

"On the other hand, the judge has everything to fear when he is not compliant. Do you suppose that a comedy of justice like that of Kishinef can be played with independent judges? And yet there are always heroes to be found who fear no measures, but administer justice according to their convictions. That is the astonishing thing, not the opposite, under a Muraviev-Plehve régime."

"Was it better, then, formerly?"

"It was, and would have become better still if our authorities had remained true to their mission of uplifting the altogether immoral people instead of corrupting them still further. In the system of Pobydonostzev, in which politics take the place of morality, no improvement is to be expected. You might as well expect fair play from the Spaniards of the Inquisition as here, where premiums are set upon all sorts of unwise actions, if only they seem to lead to the levelling of the masses, who are to be kept unthinking."

"You say the people are immoral?"

"They lack--above all things, the sense of justice. No one here has rights. No one thinks he has. The natural state of things is that everything is forbidden. A privilege is a favor to which no one has any claim. To win a lawsuit is a matter of luck, not the result of a definite state of justice. One has no right to gain his cause simply because he is in the right. As a consequence of this, it is neither discreditable nor disgraceful to be in the wrong. You win or lose according as the die falls. I will illustrate from your own experience. You were to-day in the Hermitage. At a certain door, before which stood a servant, you asked whether people were permitted to enter. The answer was not 'yes' or 'no,' but 'Admittance is commanded,' or 'Admittance is not commanded.' This spirit extends to the smallest things. That you keep your child with you and bring it up is not a matter of course, but you are permitted to have children and to bring them up--the latter, be it noted, only in so far as the police allow. If you should to-day suffer heavy loss by robbery or burglary, what should you do?"

"I should report the matter, of course."

"You say of course, because it is a matter of course to you that a crime reported should become characterized as a crime, because in a certain way you feel the duty of personally upholding law and order. When the same thing happens to me, a Russian, I must first conquer my natural tendency, and then after a long struggle I, too, will report the matter, because--well, because I, as a lawyer and a representative of justice, am no longer a naïve Russian, but am infused with the usual ideas of justice. The normal Russian exceedingly seldom reports a case to the police, because he absolutely lacks the conviction of the necessity of justice. When he says of anybody that he is a clever rascal, his emphasis is laid on the word clever, which expresses unlimited appreciation."

"That must make general intercourse exceedingly difficult."

"Certainly. To live in Russia means to use a thousand arts in keeping one's head above water. One never has a sure ground of law under his feet. Property both public and private is perhaps not less safe in Turkey than here. Have you heard of the great steel affair?"

"No."

"It is no wonder, for we do not make much ado about a little mischance of this sort. In that affair a capital of eight million rubles disappeared without a trace. It was invested in the coal and steel works. A grand-duke, moreover, was interested in the enterprise, Grand-Duke Peter Nikolaievitch. A license to mine iron ore on a certain territory for ninety-nine years had been obtained. A company was formed with a capital of ten million rubles. The grand-duke took shares to the amount of a million rubles. The enormously rich Chludoff put eight million rubles into the concern. French and Belgian experts were brought on special steamers; champagne flowed in streams. Of course the reports of the experts were glowing ones. But after three years there was of the eight million rubles, barely paid in, not a kopek more to be found. It had all been stolen. Likewise there was no ore or coal on the territory, nor had there ever been. No one went to law about the affair, so little sensation did it cause."

"When did this affair take place?"

"Between 1898 and 1901."

"And can your press do nothing to better this general corruption?"

"We have a saying, 'It is hard to dig with a broken shovel.' Talented people like ourselves soon learned from abroad the little art of corrupting the press. With a fettered press like ours, this is less difficult here than in other countries, where a paper respecting public opinion might under some circumstances be unreservedly outspoken. But why should a press with Suvorin and the _Novoye Vremya_ at the head, surpassing absolutely all records of baseness--why should such a press run the risk of bankruptcy? Moreover, you must always keep one thing in mind: a press may exert tremendous power by publishing a man's worthlessness, until he is made powerless in society; but since here notorious sharpers are readily accepted in the highest ranks of society, and even grand-dukes do not escape the suspicion of corruption, it does no one any harm to be reported as having dexterously spirited away a few hundred thousands."

"You say even grand-dukes?"

"--Are not safe from suspicion. I can personally testify that not one of them takes a ruble himself. But the persons who live by obtaining concessions for joint-stock companies, etc., know how to represent that they need considerable sums for the purpose of influencing the highest persons, the minister and grand-dukes. Hence arises this idea."

"And intelligent business men believe that?"

"Believe it? No one would understand the opposite. Imagine a scene in my office. A business man comes to me with a case. He inquires my fee. I say five hundred rubles. He asks what will be the expenses. I say a few rubles for stamp duties, etc. Then he becomes more definite. He means the _charges_. 'There are none,' I answer. The man of business rises, disappointed. 'Ah! so you have no influential connections?' I will not say that this happens very often with me; for the men who come to me once know what I can do, and what not, and what my practice is. The case is, however, characteristic. Outside the legal profession, which still lives on the tradition of the time of its independence, every one is open to bribery; and every one reckons with the fact."

"And no one is angry at open injustice?"

"What is injustice? Despotism of the great. We have been used to that for thousands of years and accept it like the caprices of fortune. The peasant makes no distinction between a hail-storm which ruins his crop and an authority who oppresses or injures him. There is no way of resisting either; for when one curses God, He sends greater misfortune; and when one disputes with the authorities, one is absolutely lost. 'Duck, little brother; everything passes'; that is the final conclusion of our wisdom. We are educated to it by inhuman despots and by an official service of thieves and debauchees. We lack, too, the sharply defined idea of ownership, in which the sense of justice, considered psychologically, has its root. You know that here the peasants own their own land only to an extremely small extent. The individual is merged and lost in the 'mir' (village community), where the trustee, the 'zemski nachnalnik,'[5] the village elder, and liquor rule. This _obshtchina_, communism, is the strongest fortress of reaction. No ray of enlightenment penetrates it. At the utmost, misery and ever-returning hunger produce finally a condition of despair in which the peasant is capable of anything except an action which might advance him in civilization. In the census of 1898 there were found villages where no one had any idea what paper is, and peasants who did not know the name of the Emperor. The 'mir,' moreover, is in its nature opposed to private ownership, and every discussion between the member of the village communism and the property-holder is artfully prevented by the scattering about of compulsory peasants. For property-owners are at present for the most part Liberal. The régime, however, stands or falls with the isolation of the peasantry from Liberal influences. For the peasant is not unintelligent by nature, and, if he is not prevented, he learns very quickly."

"That is also, then, one of the causes of the ill-treatment of the Jews?"

"It is _the_ cause. Do not suppose that the Holy Synod alone has power to influence legislation in favor of orthodoxy. Sectarians and Jews are demonstrably the only people who have a moral code of their own, and, therefore, know how to distinguish justice from injustice. They are also the only ones who criticise the actions of the authorities. They were, therefore, a dangerous leaven in the community, otherwise slipping off to sleep in a body. Therefore, it was a matter of self-preservation for the autocracy to isolate the Jews and make them harmless. Do not suppose that any anti-Semitic feeling is prevalent among us. The autocrats are trying artfully to implant it by means of such people as Plehve's intimate, Krushevan, of the 'Bessarabetz.' But the effect does not go deep, thanks to the same circumstance which makes the progress of civilization difficult; the peasant cannot read, and does not in the least believe the priest. The massacres of Kishinef were directly commanded. Every man was killed by order of the Czar. No anti-Semitism exists among the people. Whatever anti-Semitism there is is sown by the government for the purpose of isolating the peasants in order that 'the urchins may grow up stupid.'"

"Ought not the Jews to take that into account and not meddle with politics?"

"In the first place, I see no reason why the Jews should become accomplices of this formidable and soul-killing régime of ours. They will be oppressed all the same, whether meek or unruly. They will remain under special legislation, simply because no one can stop the flow of the official's unfailing spring of revenue--the ravaging of the Jews. Moreover, the Jews have never received so much sympathy from us as since they began to place themselves on the defensive and to make common cause with our Radicals. Now for the first time they belong to us, and yet really only those who actually fight with us and for us. This matter, too, is misrepresented. Statistics, which show a percentage of eighty-five Jews in every hundred revolutionaries, are falsified, because gentiles are allowed to slip through in order to injure the Radical--_i. e._, the constitutional--movement by representing it as un-Russian and Jewish, and to mobilize foreign anti-Semitism against us. But the Jews ought to be grateful to Plehve, for, thanks to his machinations, all the intelligent opinion among us has become favorable to the Jews, and recognizes the solidarity of its interest and those of the Jews. The struggle conduces much, however, to the assimilation of the Jews. They are our brothers; they suffer with us and for us, even if also for themselves; for our whole Jewish legislation for twenty years past has consisted only in the curtailing of the rights accorded them under Alexander II. Why should they not become revolutionaries? But they are enemies of the administration merely, not of the state; therefore, we find ourselves on the same footing."

I closed my interview, as in all cases, with the question, "What hope is there for the future?" and received the same answer as in all other cases:

"Everything depends upon how this war ends. If God helps us and we lose the war, improvement is possible; for then ruin, above all, the chronic bankruptcy of the nation, can no longer be concealed. If a man should enter my room now--at this hour only respectable persons enter my room--and I should say to him, 'What do you hope and wish in regard to the war?' his answer would be, 'Defeat; the only means to save us.' If we calculate how many men are shot and exiled and how many families are ruined every year by absolutism, the total equals the losses in war--a more terrible one, however, for only a catastrophe can make an end of this war, which has long been destroying us. Therefore, I say again, if God helps us we shall lose the war in the East. Do not allow yourself to be deceived by any official preparations. Every good Russian prays, 'God help us and permit us to be beaten!'"

When I left the brilliant lawyer it was, as I have said, long after midnight. It was "butter-week,"[6] and my sleigh had trouble in avoiding the drunken men who staggered across our way, and the shrieking hussies, who, with their companions with or without uniforms, carried on pastimes suitable to the season.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Chief of the county council.--TRANSLATOR.

[6] "Butter-week" (maslyanitza) is in Russia the week preceding Lent. Meat is forbidden, but milk, butter, and eggs are allowed as food. Like the carnival, it is celebrated with popular amusements.--TRANSLATOR.

XX

THE IMPERIAL FAMILY AS THE PUBLIC SEES IT

"In no constitutional state is the practical influence of the head of the government so slight as in the autocracy of Russia," was one of the sayings I heard most often in St. Petersburg, when I endeavored to inform myself in regard to the personality and the acts of the reigning Czar. There are, to be sure, individual opinions to the contrary. According to these it depends entirely upon the personality of the autocrat whether he exerts a strong influence or not. The Conservatives incline to the latter view. Prince Esper Ukhtomski held it; so did a former high functionary in the department of finance, as well as a conservative aristocrat in another department, all of whom I questioned on this point. One of them said in so many words that the Czar needs only to lift a finger to banish all the evil spirits which now rule the land. The aristocrat believed the country might be delivered by an emperor better trained for his functions. Prince Ukhtomski ascribes to the leading statesmen, at least, influence enough to do good and to prevent evil, and, therefore, to do the contrary, as has been done for twenty years, especially under the régime of Plehve. The Liberals and Radicals, however, who form the greater part of the so-called "Intelligence," leave the personality of the ruler entirely out of the question, perhaps from a premature comparison with their constitutional model. They declare a change of conditions without a change of the system to be impossible. To be sure, they say, if a suspicious, inhumane, reactionary Czar like Alexander III. is on the throne, the domination of the camorra of officials is made more oppressive. Yet the present mild and benevolent autocrat cannot prevent the existence of conditions which are more insupportable than ever. Only the press and a parliament could amend matters, not the good intentions of a single man.

I do not undertake to judge which of the two parties is right. In any case it seems worth while to sketch the Czar's personality, which is certainly an element in the fate of Russia and of Europe. The portrait is drawn from the reports of people who have had sufficient opportunity to form a conception of him from their personal observation. It is, of course, impossible for me to name my authorities, or to indicate them in any but the most distant way. It must suffice to say that among them were people who have known not only the present rulers, but also their parents and grandparents, from intimate association. I myself have seen the Czar only once. The current portraits of him are very good. The only striking and noteworthy thing in the handsome and sympathetic face is the expression of melancholy resignation. One authority alone--whose statements on other matters I have found to be invariably careful and accurate--expressed doubts of the good-nature of the Czar, and accused him of designing and of rather petty malevolence. All others, including Prince Ukhtomski, who had been the companion of the Czar for years, agree in emphasizing the extraordinary, almost childlike lovableness and kindliness of the Emperor, who is said to be actually fascinating in personal intercourse. This agrees with the fact, which I know from one unquestionably trustworthy source, that the Czar is intentionally deaf to everything in the reports of his counsellors likely to disparage or cast suspicion upon a colleague, while he immediately listens and asks for details when he hears from one of his ministers a word favorable to the action of another. It is an absolute necessity for him to do good, and it is a constant source of fresh pain to him that he cannot prevent the great amount of existing evil. Again, while the single authority says he has found in the Czar indications of a subtle if not powerful intellect, the others, while they praise his goodness of heart, do not conceal the weakness of his judgment, which, according to them, certainly has something pathological about it. Prince Ukhtomski alone speaks of the Emperor with invariable respect and sympathy, without limiting each hearty statement with an immediate "but." All others, without exceptions, explain the Prætorian rule of Plehve by the mental and moral helplessness of the Emperor, who is entirely uninformed, and is treated by those about him in the most abominable way--under cover of all outward signs of devotion. The things that people dare do to him, presuming upon this helplessness, border upon the inconceivable. That threatening letters can constantly be smuggled into the Czar's pockets, and even into his bed, without his finally hitting upon the idea of seizing his body-servant by the cravat, is a very strong proof of his mental inactivity; the more so, incidentally, because he hears himself ridiculed outside his own door. This police canard is told, moreover, of Alexander III., who was a dreaded despot. The rôle, too, which Plehve played, although the Czar did not esteem him in the least, shows how successfully the latter has been intimidated and persuaded into the entirely mistaken belief that Plehve alone could avert the threatening revolution.

At the same time the Czar is said to be anything but confiding in regard to his nearest counsellors. When a report is made to him he sits in the shadow; the man who makes the report sits in the light. He tries to decipher the man's expression and to control him, a thing which is, of course, impossible, since a good Russian physiognomy is more impenetrable than a Russian iron-clad. His lack of knowledge of affairs is as marked as his lack of judgment. I will give an instance of this. In the provinces a quarrel had broken out between the self-governing corporation, the "zemstvos," and the governors. This difference between self-government and autocracy was presented to the Czar as turning merely on the question of centralization or decentralization, and as if it were a matter for disagreement between the governors and the minister of the interior, the governors striving against the same full authority that is held by the ministers of the Czar. In this way the Czar was successfully deceived in regard to the nature of the quarrel; he did not learn at all that the provinces were making a demonstration against autocracy. The result of the deception was, of course, that the Czar declared himself for the ministry of the interior--that is, for Plehve, the increase of whose power he by no means wished.

The rôle which certain adventurers like the hypnotist Philippe and the promoter Bezobrazov are able to play at court is also certainly a notable symptom. The former was to suggest to the Czaritza the birth of a boy, while otherwise he carried through whatever he wished, since he used the spirit of Alexander III. to secure a hearing for his suggestions. His departure from court followed upon his impudently having the spirits recommend a specific firm of contractors for the building of a bridge. Bezobrazov, one of the agents who have the Asiatic war on their consciences, is now living somewhere abroad, and does not dare return, at least while the war lasts.

Still more significant, it seems to me, is the authenticated statement that the Emperor has many times received publications upon the condition of his empire, has carefully read them, and has praised them, without taking the slightest step towards carrying out the reforms recommended to him; indeed, after the lapse of a few days, he has ceased even to refer in conversation to the suggestions. This would seem to indicate an almost abnormal weakness of will, which makes it easy for a gifted, inconsiderate, and self-confident reactionary like the Grand-Duke Alexander Mikhailovitch to carry out his own ideas in everything.

According to these statements, which come directly in every case from original sources, the Czar is to be regarded as a man upon the whole good-natured and lovable, who is, perhaps, too modest and too conscious of his insufficient knowledge to have the full courage of responsibility, without which an autocrat is the least able of leaders to endure his great burden. Inconsiderate and crafty people, who profit by his weakness, govern him, and he may even be glad of this. In his perplexity and helplessness, which are due to his human sympathy and modesty, he is obliged to submit to others with whom he can at least leave the responsibility for affairs, which in general, as in the specific case of the war in eastern Asia, go contrary to his wishes.