802 



RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT, THE. 



The government of Russia was based on the 

 principle of autocracy. There was no other 

 law than the will of the Czar, so far as it 

 reached ; but beyond it, in the village com- 

 mune and in its aggregates, the canton and 

 the volost, as well as in the municipal coun- 

 cils and provincial senates, the rudiments of 

 an ill-defined but unlimited popular govern- 

 ment have been lately introduced. Wherever 

 the good pleasure of the Emperor and the 

 lawful or unlawful gains and perquisites of the 

 formidable host of his administration are not 

 interfered with, Russian subjects are allowed 

 to manage their own affairs at their discretion, 

 appointing their local authorities upon the 

 basis of universal suffrage, and in the interests 

 of democratic equality. That the Emperor 

 was not all-seeing, omniscient, or omnipotent ; 

 that the administration was a mass of corrup- 

 tion and the municipal organization vitiated 

 by bribery at its electoral sources, and, at 

 the best, incapable and inactive, were all un- 

 deniable truths, universally proclaimed and 

 admitted. But the special evil in Russia con- 

 sisted in a vain attempt to reconcile represent- 

 ative institutions with irresistible absolutism, 

 without at the same time fixing the limits be- 

 tween the sovereign power and the popular 

 rights. Self-government was given to the 

 Russians, not as a control upon, but as an 

 auxiliary to, the administration. The com- 

 mune was empowered to assess and collect, 

 provided it paid the taxes. The management 

 of the street pavements, of the sewers, of the 

 lighting of a city, was left to its corporation ; 

 but on the laws or their execution, on the 

 general interests of the state, none of these 

 local bodies had a voice, none were consulted ; 

 and even in mere local matters they never 

 came into collision with the civil and military 

 governors, with the police, or other agents of 

 the central power, without being worsted in 

 the conflict. 



That there is much discontent in Russia 

 with the existing state of things can not be de- 

 nied. The emancipation of the serfs, the open- 

 ing of the law courts, and other liberal meas- 

 ures with which the reign of Alexander II 

 began, raised expectations which have not 

 been and probably could not be fulfilled. The 

 educated classes are, however, rather addicted 

 to theorizing than capable of promoting prac- 

 tical reforms. They are dissatisfied with the 

 Government, and dream of an era of larger lib- 

 erty and sounder institutions, but are fearful 

 of insurrectionary movements, timid before 

 the power of the military organization of the 

 empire, and incapable of initiating or conduct- 

 ing any rational agitation for peaceful changes. 

 The lower classes, on the other hand, regard 

 the autocracy with a sort of superstitious rev- 

 erence, and have no discontent sufficiently 

 wide-spread or intelligent to admit of guidance 

 toward any practical improvement. The only 

 effective revolutionary force at work is that of 

 the Nihilists. The extent and precise charac- 



ter of this secret organization are unknown, but 

 its present purposes are wholly destructive. 

 It acts upon the principle that the first work 

 to be done is to destroy the autocracy, whose 

 vital and vulnerable point is the person of the 

 Czar. Hence its method is deliberate assassi- 

 nation. The Nihilists may not be capable of 

 replacing despotism with more liberal institu- 

 tions, but their persistent attacks upon the 

 head of the Government, making it insecure, 

 and compelling extraordinary precautions for 

 its protection, may nevertheless force changes 

 which would not so speedily come without 

 their terrorism. It may possibly be found that 

 a modification of the institutions of the gov- 

 ernment in a liberal direction may be a more 

 effective safeguard for the life of the Czar than 

 a system of espionage, rigorous repression, and 

 military despotism, with the concomitant of a 

 vigilant but not unfailing guard for the im- 

 perial person at all times and in all places. 

 Nihilism strikes at the Czar, because the sys- 

 tem which it hates centers in his person. He 

 alone has the power and responsibility which 

 it wields. If, as in countries with constitu- 

 tional governments, the power and responsi- 

 bility of the state were deputed and distrib- 

 uted, its nominal head would be safer. This 

 consideration, if no other, may induce changes. 

 With something like good-will and earnest pur- 

 pose, it would doubtless be possible to create a 

 system of government even out of such imper- 

 fect and corrupt elements as exist in Russia. 

 There might be a responsible cabinet to stand 

 between the assassin's dagger and the person of 

 a " reigning, not ruling," sovereign. Russia has 

 her communes, cantons, and volosts; her mu- 

 nicipal councils, her provincial senates; she 

 has a grand duchy of Finland, with a separate 

 constitution and administration; she has her 

 Baltic provinces of Esthonia, Livonia, and 

 Courland, with orders and institutions of their 

 own. It is difficult to see why the principle of 

 personal unity, which works tolerably well in 

 Austro-Hungary and Norway-Sweden, should 

 not be successfully applied to a vaster country 

 and a more divided people than either of those 

 dual monarchies applied on a larger scale and 

 a more comprehensive plan. A recent writer, 

 who has made the tour of most Russian depend- 

 encies, visited people more or less recently in- 

 corporated with the empire, races various in 

 blood, in faith, in language, in social progress, 

 declares that he has found nowhere, save, per- 

 haps, among the Poles, either implacable ha- 

 tred against the Russians or irresistible long- 

 ing for independence. There is in Russia, as 

 in all great empires, a cohesive strength, a 

 force of gravitation, arising from a community 

 of vast material interests, that, as a rule, under 

 good management, soon gets the better of local 

 pride and national antipathy. The Russian 

 subjects in non-Russian districts do not grudge 

 their allegiance to the Emperor, nor do they 

 expect that they could better their condition 

 either by isolation or by annexation to other 



