p. 6 | The Outlook in Russia by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Aug 11, 1904

The Outlook in Russia

By L. A. S.

Is the Russian autocracy on the verge of overthrow? This question is considered by a Russian writer, S. Kniajnine, formerly editor of a Russian liberal paper, in a contribution to The Independent, and is answered in the affirmative. Between the war with Japan and the organized opposition at home of vast numbers of Russian subjects, the present autocratic government will, he says, be forced to its downfall, and a constitutional government will be set up in its place. Whether a triumph of liberty is impending in Russia or not, M. Kniajnine makes it clear that the overthrow of the existing government is seriously menaced both from without and from within.

“The greatest enemy of the Russian government,” he says, “is not the Japanese army facing General Kouropatkin, but rather the army of discontented people at home within the borders of the empire itself, whom governmental oppression, through long years of evil-doing of all sorts, in all parts of the vast monarchy, has raised up as an implacable enemy.”

Composing the ranks of this home army of revolt are, he says, first, “the subjected races, peoples in a perpetual state of harassment on the part of the St. Petersburg authorities. In this category the Poles deserve to take front rank, filled with anger and hatred, as they are, against the governmental policy of excessive Russification.” An open insurrection in Poland has, he says, recently been with difficulty averted.

“Finland too,” he affirms, “is another Poland. The valiant, liberty-loving Finns detest the present regime of perjury, illegality, and violence set up against them by M. de Plehve, the Russian minister of the interior, and by General Bobrikoff, the military governor of Finland.” It remains to be seen how the situation will be affected by the assassination of these two officials.

In vast Siberia also, there are scattered over the country “colonies of convicts and political exiles who detest their keepers, both of low and of high degree.”

In the interior of Russia proper are three revolutionary parties who stand openly opposed to the government; namely, the Social Democrats, the Revolutionary Socialists, and the Union of Hebrew Socialists. “All three are keeping up a continual propaganda addressed to every stratum of society, but especially to the working classes of the cities, and even to those of the country districts. Thousands of tracts and proclamations are scattered broadcast throughout the land, explaining every event and the whole political policy of the government, in a spirit of stout opposition, . . . and in spite of wholesale arrests, the movement goes on unchecked.” “This reckless policy of arresting right and left has called forth this remark from St. Petersburg: ‘Here in Russia, while one half the population is fighting at the front, the other half is kept in prison.’ It is quite true that the prisons and jails are overflowing, and to such an extent that houses never intended for this purpose have had to be rented in which to lock up Russian citizens; and this at a moment when Russian armies need re-enforcements at the front.”

Another formidable enemy of the autocracy, which “is beginning to take on an organized form and to loom large on the Russian political horizon,” we are told, is “the Liberal party, representing and including all the various strata of the nobility, municipal bodies, district governments, the burgher classes of the cities, and the liberal professions,” which “are now coming forward to help organize a great political party and to demand political reforms.” This liberal movement is affirmed to be making rapid progress.

It will be when the present war with Japan comes to an end, this writer says, that the full force of the tide of opposition to the existing government will be felt. “Thousands of families are already ruined and in mourning, and the end is not yet. When these afflicted families finally rise above their losses, they will lend a willing ear to the words of the malcontents, the Revolutionists and the Liberals; they will then fully grasp the grave faults and criminal culpability of the present government, which rushed headlong into this murderous struggle with Japan. An exhausted treasury, business stagnation, all the evil results of a terrible war, will add their difficulties to the moral and political shortcomings of the regime, which will surely be shaken to its base thereby.”

In short, there is impending in Russia, M. Kniajnine says, “a life and death struggle between autocracy and liberty.”

In conclusion he adds: “The present coterie which rule Russia never dreamed, when they began this war, that they had started czardom on a course at the end of which was a fatal fall, or, at least, a change of regime in the direction of modern forms of government. We are now moving toward that fall or that change, perhaps toward both, with a giant’s step.” L. A. S.