610 



RUSSIA. 



communication with the Caspian by the Central 

 Asian line running to Andijan, with a branch 

 from Merv to Kushka. This last will connect at 

 Samara with the Siberian line. In the Caucasus 

 a new railroad connects the Kostoff and Vladik- 

 avkaz line with Baku through Beslan, Petrovsk, 

 and Derbend, and lines have been built to connect 

 Tiflis with Kars, Tikhoryetskaya with Novoros- 

 siisk and Tsaritsin, and Kavkazskaya with Ekat- 

 erinodar. f he Siberian Railroad was opened be- 

 fore the close of 1902 to through traffic from Port 

 Arthur to St. Petersburg. The connection of the 

 Siberian and Transcaspian Railroads is planned 

 by means of a railroad from Tomsk through 

 Semipalatinsk and Verni to Tashkend. The har- 

 bor at Dalny, which is a free port, has been im- 

 proved at immense expense. A free harbor has 

 been opened at Vladivostok, where goods from 

 China are imported free of duty and articles 

 brought by foreign vessels can be transshipped 

 in bond. The journey from Paris to Pekin is 

 made over the Russian Railroad in less than fif- 

 teen days. 



Posts and Telegraphs. The post-office in 

 1900 transmitted 447,667,956 internal letters and 

 postal cards, 13,010,059 money letters, 72,435,867 

 book packets, 246,633,682 newspapers and peri- 

 odicals, 5,194,876 parcels, 10,051,531 postal orders, 

 and 229,601 telegraphic orders, and in the inter- 

 national service 54,959,331 letters and postal 

 cards, 591,283 money letters, 23,982,722 book 

 packets, 11,775,279 newspapers and periodicals, 

 676,272 parcels, and 22,232 postal orders. The 

 postal receipts were 30,682,201. In 1899 the re- 

 ceipts were 29,440,717 rubles, and expenses 33,- 

 156,423 rubles. 



The telegraphs on Jan. 1, 1900, had a total 

 length of 98,570 miles, with 290,634 miles of wire. 

 The number of messages in 1899 was 18,376,969, 

 besides 81,000,000 railroad telegrams. The tele- 

 phone-lines in 1899 had 41,850 miles of wire, and 

 the number of conversations was 97,565,867. 



Revolutionary Movement. The industrial 

 depression, which threw great numbers of work- 

 men out of employment and caused a lowering 

 of wages and lengthening of the working day, 

 and the results of the famine of 1901 in southern 

 and eastern Russia, afforded the Socialists and 

 Liberals an opportunity to start an agitation 

 among the people which the nihilists twenty years 

 earlier were unable to do, although they pre- 

 pared the way, when, throwing up their own 

 careers so as to dwell among peasants and work- 

 men, they preached their subversive doctrines 

 and taught many of the people to read and 

 write. The Government by providing instruction 

 for recruits in the army prepared them to re- 

 ceive revolutionary literature and spread it in 

 their villages. The workmen were imbued with 

 the socialistic ideas of the working classes of 

 western Europe by the foreign skilled artisans 

 employed in every factory. The active propa- 

 gandists of revolutionary ideas were still to be 

 found among the students and the intellectual 

 proletariat and, as is characteristic of the im- 

 pressionable and sympathetic Russian race, es- 

 sentially democratic by nature and tradition, 

 loyal to the Czar but not to the bureaucratic 

 hierarchy which is believed to conceal the state 

 of the country from the Czar, when the wave of 

 political and social unrest starts it spreads among 

 all classes, and the repressive measures used to 

 crush freedom of thought and its expression stim- 

 ulate a rebellious spirit, so that revolutionary 

 tracts are sent out from Government offices, offi- 

 cers of the army form revolutionary clubs, and 

 members of the provincial nobility at the risk of 



imprisonment discuss together political reforms. 

 The intellectual leaders, the chief literary lights 

 of Russia, live in exile, but their writings can not 

 be banished. In 1901 the students rebelled against 

 the antiquated classical curriculum and the pris- 

 on-like regulations of the universities. M. Bogole- 

 poff, the Minister of Education, was murdered 

 by a desperate student, and Gen. Vannovsky 

 took the portfolio with the intention of intro- 

 ducing reforms. His policy of conciliation was 

 recognized, but no adequate redress was expected 

 in face of the opposition of the Procurator-Gen- 

 eral of the Holy Synod and the Minister of the 

 Interior. A large proportion of the students, car- 

 ried away with ideas of political and social revo- 

 lution, thought the time favorable for political 

 agitation when they could make common cause 

 with the unemployed and discontented working 

 men. 



The movement among a section of the students 

 of the higher educational establishments of the 

 empire assumed toward the end of 1901 a char- 

 acter openly revolutionary. The leaders of the 

 movement no longer confined themselves to de- 

 manding various changes in the organization of 

 the universities, but endeavored, both in speeches 

 made at meetings held without permission within 

 the walls of the universities and by numerous 

 secret appeals and proclamations, to induce their 

 comrades to take part in a political movement, 

 and openly declared that changes were neces- 

 sary in the present form of government. At the 

 same time these leaders, recognizing how power- 

 less the students were to realize by themselves 

 the objects of the movement, entered into inti- 

 mate relations with the existing revolutionary 

 groups and clubs. Animated by the same spirit, 

 they carried on an illegal propaganda in the 

 community and amid the workmen of the large 

 towns. To this end they not only employed per- 

 sonal persuasion, but distributed forbidden liter- 

 ature. The agitators saw that one of the most 

 obvious means for furthering their objects was 

 the organization of street demonstrations, and 

 attempts at such demonstrations were made in 

 various cities. A vast secret association existed 

 among the laboring community throughout Rus- 

 sia which was headed by students in the large 

 towns. In Moscow, Odessa, Kieff, and other 

 manufacturing centers were printed well-edited 

 secret organs of the working class, inveighing not 

 only against capitalistic exploitation, but attack- 

 ing the Government and the court, and these 

 papers were circulated widely, while the police 

 were unable to discover the publishers or the 

 presses. Circulars giving details and announce- 

 ments of revolutionary demonstrations were is- 

 sued broadcast. Subversive documents were found 

 in the possession of officers as well as. privates in 

 the army and of men on the ships of war. 



The Government warned the agitators that if 

 they provoked trouble the universities might be 

 closed and all students set back for a year. Po- 

 litical suspects of all classes were expelled from 

 the cities and sent to live in the country, with 

 the result that disaffection was fomented by them 

 in the villages throughout Russia. On Feb. 15 

 street riots, announced beforehand by handbills 

 showered down from the gallery of the theater, 

 were started in Kieff by students and working 

 men, who unfurled red flags, sang revolutionary 

 songs, and shouted for the overthrow of the 

 autocracy. The Cossacks dragooned them through 

 the narrow streets for three days, wounding 

 many and killing some. On Feb. 21 St. Pe- 

 tersburg students and workmen made a demon- 

 stration denouncing the Emperor and his Gov- 



