596 



RUSSIA. 



of obtaining provisions from bonded warehouses 

 without payment of duty for the reason that 

 Russia did not grant the same privilege to Amer- 

 ican war-ships. The question whether the Rus- 

 sian system of sugar rebates acted as a bounty, 

 as the United States Government finally decided, 

 was brought up in the Brussels Sugar Conference 

 of 1898, where it was contended that the limita- 

 tion of the supply of sugar on the home market, 

 aided by a fixed remunerative selling price, stimu- 

 lated production, and that the unsold sugar must 

 be exported at less than the cost of production. 

 It was calculated by one of the delegates that it 

 operates as an indirect bounty of 17.00 francs per 

 100 kilograms. The Russian delegate declared 

 that Russia paid no bounty, but simply refunded 

 the excise duty, and that the Russian legislation 

 was designed to hinder overproduction. 



Popular Disturbances. Industrial depres- 

 sion, monetary stringency, agricultural distress, 

 vexatious Government regulations, and official 

 maladministration produced discontent among all 

 classes of society in 1901 when the foreign policy 

 of Russia had attained brilliant successes and the 

 empire seemed to have entered on a new career of 

 greatness and expansion. In January, 1901, be- 

 gan a movement among the students more gen- 

 eral and more desperate and determined than any 

 that had preceded it. The agitation spread not 

 only among the students of all the universities, 

 but among the townspeople, and the laboring 

 class far and wide showed their sympathy with 

 the students by taking part in their demonstra- 

 tions. This was very unusual in Russia, where 

 in previous revolts of the students against the 

 university authorities the mob has usually encour- 

 aged and helped the police and showed animosity 

 against the students. A secret organization 

 among students with ramifications in all the uni- 

 versities was discovered by the police long before 

 any open demonstrations took place. The object 

 was to secure more liberal university statutes and 

 the abolition of the temporary regulations of 1899. 

 A congress of the secret league was held at 

 Odessa, and when the delegates from all univer- 

 sities were arrested the Government believed it 

 had checked the movement at the start. The ob- 

 noxious statutes were not altered, and the appli- 

 cation of the temporary regulations at Kiev 

 gave the movement a great impetus. In Kiev the 

 university council condemned some law students 

 to the career, or university jail, with the object 

 of intimidating the whole student body, and stu- 

 dents of law more particularly because the latter 

 had objected to taking lectures on international 

 law from a professor of criminal law, and the 

 Governor-General on hearing of their complaints 

 had forbidden this incompetent professor to lec- 

 ture on that subject. The students met in the 

 hall and invited the rector to come and discuss 

 with them the abolition of the punishment of 

 career, but he sent for the military, who entered 

 the hall and took the names of 500 students. 

 These were tried before a special court composed 

 of representatives of the university, the police, the 

 army, and the judiciary, and 138 were condemned 

 to be sent into the ranks of the army for one, 

 two, or .three years, the only punishment pro- 

 vided by the law of 1899 for cases of insurbordi- 

 nation among the students brought before such a 

 tribunal. The military and judicial delegates 

 voted against this kind of penalty, but the uni- 

 'versity delegates and those of the Ministry of 

 the Interior prevailed. In consequence of the dis- 

 turbance the Governor-General of Kiev pro- 

 claimed a state of siege. In Moscow, where the 

 general strike of the students began in 1899, stu- 



dents interrupted lectures, attempted to create 

 disturbances, distributed proclamations, and com- 

 mitted all the usual acts of revolt, for which 300 

 of them were cited for discipline. The demands 

 of the Russian students were only for somewhat 

 more liberal statutes, some changes in the rules 

 for examinations, the removal of a professor here 

 and there, better treatment by the police, and the 

 annulment of the statute requiring them to wear 

 uniforms. They wished to return to -the statutes 

 of 1863 which were changed in 1884 for the strin- 

 gent and galling regulations that have been re- 

 sented by the students ever since their enactment. 

 The professors have under the new order become 

 officials of the Government whose tenure of office 

 depends on maintaining discipline. The police re- 

 gard students as a dangerous and revolutionary 

 class who are hatching conspiracies for the over- 

 throw of the Government, and they look for pro- 

 motion if they show zeal against such enemies of 

 the state. When the Cossacks are called out 

 these use their knouts unmercifully on the uni- 

 formed students wherever they are found, and the 

 students defend themselves by stabbing the 

 horses. Public sympathy, which was averted 

 from the students when nihilism was rife, has 

 turned in their favor. The persecution of the 

 Jews, the Roman Catholics, and the Russian sec- 

 taries was felt to be of a piece with the univer- 

 sity regulations, and the trammels and vexations 

 of the administration to be a cover for corrup- 

 tion. When everybody felt now the pinch of 

 hard times the Government was held responsible. 

 Discontent with the laws and their administration, 

 which formerly was confined to a section of the 

 students and professors, now extended to the com- 

 mercial class, the working men, the peasants, and 

 the landed proprietors. In the Moscow disturb- 

 ances the tradespeople and the factory hands, in- 

 stead of pelting and striking the students as on 

 former occasions, attempted to rescue them from 

 the police. At Kharkov student demonstrations 

 were treated in the same manner as at Kiev. 

 The fermentation in the universities began long 

 before any open demonstration occurred. Bulle- 

 tins were printed in the various universities and, 

 in spite of the vigilance of the police, were widely 

 distributed, usually by young girls. Nothing 

 more revolutionary was demanded than free ac- 

 tivity and liberty of thought. Even the univer- 

 sities of the Baltic provinces were now sufficiently 

 Russianized to take part in the movement. In 

 St. Petersburg the troubles were more serious than 

 in the other cities. When the first manifestation 

 was made by the students 13 of the ringleaders 

 were sent to serve in the army and 30 were ex- 

 pelled. The Kiev students who had been sent to 

 the army refused at first to take the military 

 oath, and the military authorities were unwilling 

 to accept them. M. Bogolepoff and M. Sipyaghin, 

 the Ministers of Education and the Interior, and 

 M. Pobedonostseff were determined to take the 

 most stringent measures to check the movement 

 which seemed to be spreading from ttye students, 

 into other ranks of society and threatened to lead 

 to revolution. Governments that yield are gov- 

 ernments that fall was the opinion of the Minister 

 of the Interior. M. Witte, the Minister of Fi- 

 nance, and Gen. Vannovsky were rather in favor 

 of conciliatory measures, and so the students be- 

 lieved the Czar to be. On Feb. 27 Peter Karpo- 

 vich, a former student who had written from 

 Berlin for permission to complete his studies at the 

 University of St. Petersburg and met with a 

 refusal, shot and fatally wounded M. Bogolepoff 

 with a revolver. In Moscow students and work- 

 men together erected barricades, smashed win- 



