AFFAIRS IN RUSSIA

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 10, 1879

AFFAIRS IN RUSSIA.

The Nihilists in Russia are not backward in taking the full responsibility of the recent murders of officials. A placard posted on the streets avows that Prince Krapotkine was “executed” by the “Russian Socialist revolutionary organization,” and gives the reasons therefor. Among these are the barbarous treatment of political prisoners, and his false report to the Minister of the Interior that the students began the celebrated university riots. The placard specified in detail certain barbarities of the Central prison, such as starvation, confinement in unventilated dungeons, etc. The man who shot the prince from the steps of his carriage, but who is not known, wrote a letter to the Revolutionary Committee, in which he said: “The bitterness of my heart can be understood when I ponder the fact that such barbarities remain unpunished.”

. . . The Russian public must be informed that a similar indignation and a similar desire stir the feelings of every honest man. It must be told that so long as its lethargy lasts, it can only participate in the funeral rites of persons in high places.” The leaven which makes revolutions is surely at work, perhaps more rapidly than is known by the world outside of the domain of the Czar.

The suppression of newspapers like the Russki Mir, is another straw. But this shows rather the unwisdom of the repressive policy of the government than the extent or intensity of the popular excitement. Here is one of the passages which gave offense. An editorial speaks of “the old, trite, well-known fact that the true interests of the State cannot be maintained without an active participation of the people and of society at large.” But in Russia “there is neither a national thought nor a legal form for the expression of the popular will. . . . Not only has the late war not led to any real political life among us, but its result has been that we have sunk deeper into the mire.” It seems that such expressions of a longing after a Constitution are regarded by the government as treasonable. Will Russia never learn to heed this voice of the people as the voice of God? If she is too proud to yield to the warnings of her own dissatisfied masses, she might, at least, study again the example of Peter the Great, who was willing to learn from other nations. Lord Dufferin, who has just been appointed as Minister at St. Petersburg, would doubtless be a good instructor as to the advantages and the methods of representative government.—The Advance.