RUSSIA'S DEMOCRATS 



213 



The whole social fabric of the early 

 Slav was of a communal kind, but of a 

 communism very different from that 

 which afterward grew up embracing 

 common property. Collectively the Slavs 

 tilled the soil and carried on other occu- 

 pations and collectively they lived in 

 large timber houses. 



It was an excellent system for the de- 

 velopment of certain features of self- 

 government ; but in the troublous times 

 in which it started, it was not sufficient 

 to give any one collection of people a 

 preponderance over other groups,, and it 

 was not suited to any great advance in 

 civilization. 



In time it was realized that some 

 stronger and more centralized form of 

 control was needed for the protection of 

 the Slavs from their more warlike neigh- 

 bors, the Asiatic tribes, by whom they 

 were surrounded. 



They took, then, voluntarily one of the 

 most remarkable steps recorded by his- 

 tory, or at least vouched for by legend : 

 they themselves called in to govern them 

 two Scandinavian princes and a prin- 

 cess — Rurik, Igor, and Olga — and said 

 to them, according to the story: "Our 

 country is wide and fertile, but there is 

 no order. Come and govern us." 



Eventually these princes and their fol- 

 lowers became the new aristocracy of the 

 time, very much as happened in England 

 with the Normans, who were, if we be- 

 lieve tradition, the same race of people. 



The union of the two elements gave 

 the people what they lacked and formed 

 the beginnings of the Russian Empire of 

 today, with their mixture of democratic 

 ideas with perfunctory obedience to es- 

 tablished rulers. 



In the early days princes could not ex- 

 act obedience against the wish of the peo- 

 ple. Unpopular rulers were dismissed 

 with scant ceremony in medieval Russia 

 and, especially in the palmy days of Nov- 

 gorod "the Great," there was a real self- 

 governing republic in the heart of Russia. 



THE TATAR CURSE 



In spite of the new blood thus ac- 

 quired and the traditions of democracy 

 which were rapidly and widely develop- 

 ing from these factors, the geography of 



the country once more showed its power 

 in influencing history. The Russian com- 

 munities were spreading and scattering 

 all over the plain, and while they were 

 laying the foundations for future great- 

 ness of empire there was not sufficient 

 cohesion among them to develop the 

 broad unity of purpose which was to be 

 found so necessary if these little States 

 were to resist invasion. 



For along with the growth of the prin- 

 cipalities came the great vital fact which 

 stands out and dominates everything else 

 in the history of medieval Russia, name- 

 ly, the later Tatar invasions and the grad- 

 ual subjugation by them of the Russian 

 princes. In another country the inhabit- 

 ants could have retreated to mountain 

 and desert regions and held off the new- 

 comers for centuries. 



But the peaceful and peace-loving Rus- 

 sians were in no condition to resist these 

 formidable barbarians, who, under the 

 celebrated Genghiz Khan and other lead- 

 ers, rapidly overran Russia and in a com- 

 paratively short space of time had 

 brought the whole country under their 

 rule. The very nature of the loose and 

 highly localized government of the princes 

 was their undoing and they suffered by it 

 for centuries, and in fact until they took 

 a leaf from the conquerors' book and 

 themselves built up the central power 

 they needed. 



We must therefore, I think, regard the 

 Mongol invasions as the underlying cause 

 of the development of the autocratic prin- 

 ciple in Russia. They built up a super- 

 structure of Oriental despotism and au- 

 tocracy, which, in one form or another, 

 has lasted in Russia until the present time. 



Even in far-away times the Russian 

 peasant was impatient of too much con- 

 trol over his personal liberty and his 

 property, and when he was not strong 

 enough to resist or powerful enough to 

 drive out the offending prince he did the 

 next best thing — disappeared himself, 

 with all his belongings, and founded a 

 new settlement elsewhere. This fact must 

 be kept constantly in mind in any study 

 of the reasons why the Tatars obtained 

 and kept for so long such a hold upon 

 the Russian principalities ; the people and 

 their rulers were not united by bonds 



