In October 1906 I took up my duties as correspondent to the Morning Post at St. Petersburg. I took an apartment on the ground floor of a little street running out of the Bolshaya Konioushnaya.
The situation which was created by the dissolution of the Duma was aptly summed up by a Japanese, who said that in Russia an incompetent Government was being opposed by an ineffectual revolution. Although no active revolution followed the dissolution of the Duma, a sporadic civil war spread all over the country, accompanied by anarchy, and an epidemic of political and social crime. Governors of provinces were blown up; Stolypin’s house was blown up, his daughter injured, and he himself only narrowly escaped; banks were robbed; policemen were shot; and the political crimes of the Intellectuals were imitated on a wider scale by the discontented proletariat and the criminal class.
The professional criminals reasoned thus: “If University students can rob a bank in a deserving public cause, why should not we tramps rob and kill a banker in a deserving private cause?” “Expropriation” became a fashionable sport among the criminals, and the prevalence of anarchy, licence, and robbery under arms had the effect of disgusting the man in the street with all things revolutionary; for all the disorder was rightly or wrongly put down to the revolutionaries. Had it not been for this reaction, this turn of the tide in public opinion, Stolypin would have found it impossible to carry out his drastic measures. On the other hand, the Government met the situation with martial law and drumhead court-martials; revolutionary and other crimes were answered by reprisals and summary executions; and daily the record of crime and punishment increased, and Russia[357] seemed to be caught in a vicious circle of repression and anarchy.
The watchword of Stolypin’s policy was Order first, Reform afterwards.
He defended the nature of the steps taken to restore order by saying that when a house is on fire, in order to save what can be saved, you are obliged to hack down what cannot be saved, ruthlessly. He certainly did restore order, and he also initiated certain large measures which made for reform—his Land Bill and his Education Bill; but all the reforms that were started during his administration were curtailed by his successors; and the idea which ran through the policy of all Russian Governments like a baleful thread from 1906 to 1907, was to take back with one hand what had been given with the other.
Consequently the fire of discontent, instead of being extinguished, was maintained in a smouldering condition.
The Manifesto of 30th October 1904 promised, firstly, the creation of a deliberative and legislative Assembly, without whose consent no new laws should be passed; and secondly, the full rights of citizenship—the inviolability of the person, freedom of conscience, freedom of the Press, the right of organising public meetings, and founding associations.
Practically speaking, in the years which followed the granting of this Charter until the revolution of 1917, these promises were either not carried out at all, or were only allowed to operate in virtue of temporary regulations which were (a) liable to constant amendment; (b) could be interpreted by local officials.
Stolypin’s policy of “Order first, Reform afterwards,” had two results: firstly, as soon as order was restored by Stolypin, all ideas of reform were shelved by his successors. Stolypin himself was assassinated. Secondly, in the eyes of the Administration criticism became the greatest crime, because criticism was held to be subversive to the prestige of the Government. The officials, and especially the secret police, throve and battened on this situation. Accordingly, as order was restored material prosperity increased; but this was a palliative and not a remedy to the fundamental discontent. It only led to moral stagnation.
In the autumn of 1906, while this cycle of anarchy on the one hand and repression on the other was setting in, elections[358] were held for another Duma. I had a long talk one day with Stolypin himself. He struck me as a man of character, absolute integrity, rigid? innocenti?, and great personal courage. But he had come too late on the scene of Russian politics. He would have been an admirable minister in the reign of Alexander the Second, or Alexander the Third. As it was, he was engaged not in diverting a torrent into a useful and profitable channel, but in damming it. He succeeded in damming it temporarily; but the dam was bound to be swept away, and he paid for the work with his own life.
During the winter I saw a great many Russians; members of the Duma used to come and dine with me, and I was in close touch with the political life. But the most interesting experience I had that winter was a journey I made to the north. I will describe it in detail.
I meant to go to Archangel, and I started for Vologda at night. The battle for a place in the third-class carriage was fought and won for me by a porter. When I stepped into the third-class carriage it was like entering pandemonium. It was almost dark, save for a feeble candle that guttered peevishly over the door, and all the inmates were yelling and throwing their boxes and baskets and bundles about. This was only the process of installation; it all quieted down presently, and everyone seated himself with his bed unfolded, if he had one, his luggage stowed away, his provisions spread out, as if he had been living there for years, and meant to remain there for many years to come.
This particular carriage was full. The people in it were workmen going home for the winter, peasants, merchants, and mechanics. Opposite to my seat were two workmen (painters), and next to them a peasant with a big grey beard. Sitting by the farther window was a well-dressed mechanic. The painter lighted a candle and stuck it on a small movable table that projected from my window; he produced a small bottle of vodka from his pocket, a kettle for tea, and some cold sausage, and general conversation began. The guard came to tell the people who had come to see their friends off—there were numbers of them in the carriage, and they were most of them drunk—to go. The guard looked at my ticket for Vologda and asked me where I was ultimately going to. I said: “Viatka,” upon which the mechanic said: “So am I; we will go together and[359] get our tickets together at Vologda.” The painter and the mechanic engaged in conversation, and it appeared that they both came from Kronstadt. The painter had worked there for twenty years, and he cross-questioned the mechanic with evident pleasure, winking at me every now and then. The mechanic went into the next compartment for a moment, and the painter then said to me with glee: “He is lying; he says he has worked in Kronstadt, and he doesn’t know where such and such things are.” The mechanic came back. “Who is the Commandant at Kronstadt?” asked the painter. The mechanic evidently did not know, and gave a name at random. The painter laughed triumphantly and said that the Commandant was someone else. Then the mechanic volunteered further information to show his knowledge of Kronstadt; he talked of another man who worked there—a tall man; the painter said that the man was short. The mechanic said that he was employed in the manufacture of shells. They talked of disorders at Kronstadt that had happened a year before. The painter said that he and his son lay among cabbages while the fighting was going on. He added that the matter had nearly ended in the total destruction of Kronstadt. “God forbid!” said the peasant sitting next to me. No sympathy was expressed with the mutineers. The painter at last told the mechanic that he had lived for twenty years at Kronstadt, and that he, the mechanic, was a liar. The mechanic protested feebly. He was an obvious liar, but why he told these lies I have no idea. Perhaps he was not a mechanic at all. Possibly he was a spy. He professed to be a native of a village near Viatka, and declared that he had been absent for six years (the next evening he said twelve years).
From this question of disorders at Kronstadt the talk veered, I forget how, to the topic of the Duma. “Which Duma?” someone asked; “the town Duma?” “No, the State Duma,” said the mechanic; “it seems they are going to have a new one.” “Nothing will come of it,” said the painter; “people will not go.” (He meant the voters.) “No, they won’t go,” said the peasant, cutting the air with his hand (a gesture common to nearly all Russians of that class), “because they know now that it means being put in prison.” “Yes,” said the painter, “they are hanging everybody.” And there was a knowing chorus of: “They won’t go and vote; they know[360] better.” Then the mechanic left his seat and sat down next to the painter and said in a whisper: “The Government?” At that moment the guard came in; the mechanic stopped abruptly, and when the guard went out, the topic of conversation had been already changed. I heard no further mention of the Duma during the whole of the rest of the journey to Vologda. The people then began to prepare to go to sleep, except the peasant, who told me that he often went three days together without sleep, but when he did sleep it was a business to wake him. He asked me if his bundle of clothes was in my way. “We are a rough people,” he said, “but we know how not to get in the way. I am not going far.” I was just going to sleep when I was wakened by a terrific noise in the next compartment. Someone opened the door, and the following scraps of shouted dialogue were audible. A voice: “Did you say I was drunk or did you not?” Second voice (obviously the guard): “I asked for your ticket.” First voice: “You said I was drunk. You are a liar.” Second voice: “You have no right to say I am a liar. I asked for your ticket.” First voice: “You are a liar. You said I was drunk. I will have you discharged.” This voice then recited a long story to the public in general. The next day I learnt that the offended man was a lawyer, one of the bourgeoisie (a workman explained to me), and that the guard had, in the dark, asked him for his ticket, and then, as he made no sign of life, had pinched his foot; this having proved ineffectual, he said that the man was drunk; whereupon the man started to his feet and became wide awake in a moment. Eventually a gendarme was brought in, a “protocol” was drawn up, in which both sides of the story were written down, and there, I expect, the matter will remain until the Day of Judgment.
I afterwards made the acquaintance of two men in the next compartment; they were dock labourers, and their business was to load ships in Kronstadt. They were exactly like the people whom Gorki describes. One of them gave me a description of his mode of life in summer and winter. In summer he loaded ships; in winter he went to a place near Archangel and loaded carts with wood; when the spring came, he went back, by water, to St. Petersburg. He asked me what I was. I said that I was an English correspondent. He asked then what I travelled in. I said I was not that kind of correspondent,[361] but a newspaper correspondent. Here he called a third friend, who was sitting near us, and said; “Come and look; there is a correspondent here. He is an English correspondent.” The friend came—a man with a red beard and a loose shirt with a pattern of flowers on it. “I don’t know you,” said the new man. “No; but let us make each other’s acquaintance,” I said. “You can talk to him,” explained the dock labourer; “we have been talking for hours; although he is plainly a man who has received higher education.” “As to whether he has received higher or lower education we don’t know,” said the friend, “because we haven’t yet asked him.” Then he paused, reflected, shook hands, and exclaimed: “Now we know each other.” “But,” said the dock labourer, “how do you print your articles? Do you take a printing press with you when you go, for instance, to the north, like you are doing now?” I said they were printed in London, and that I did not have to print them myself. “Please send me one,” he said; “I will give you my address.” “But it’s written in English,” I answered. “You can send me a translation in Russian,” he retorted.
“English ships come to Kronstadt, and we load them. The men............