NO RUSSIAN LEADER by San Francisco Call

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jan 3, 1905

NO RUSSIAN LEADER.

By San Francisco Call

THE blind and pitiful revolution in Russia goes on, unchecked and unled. A brutal bloodthirst is upon the people, and is slaked by slaughter of the Jews, who seem to be a target for all parties, the loyal Cossacks cheerfully joining the disloyal revolutionaries in murdering and robbing that defenseless people. The army and navy are no longer reliable agents of the government, and the unfortunate De Witte seems to have let the situation slip out of his hands, and is as much lacking in influence with the people as the most despised of the Grand Dukes.

The army in Manchuria, often whipped by the Japanese, starving and desperate while waiting for repatriation, has added a new terror to the troubles of the government. If left where it is, it is likely to massacre its officers, and if brought home it is ripe to join the revolution. The hand of the government is everywhere paralyzed, and order is unknown. It seems to be a fearful break-up of the whole social and civil order. Even murder is not systematized, and riot seems for the sake of riot, and is not for some ulterior purpose, such as final order and peace. Mechanic and mujik, the urban and agrarian population, seem to feel only that, repression being removed, now is the time to wreak vengeance on somebody, and they are rather indifferent as to the class or personality of the victims.

It is the first revolution that has seemed lacking in a head and a purpose. There is no formulation of a grievance, and no driving, even through blood, to a definite purpose. What is done so far seems to be instigated by the socialists. The heads of Socialism in Europe should be impressed by the fact that their present responsibility for the Russian uprising is a trial of their dream. If they prove themselves capable of leading only in destruction, and to have no constructive capacity, then their dream is ended. They have the sympathy of Tolstoi, but he makes a weak showing as a leader. He has been a capable and copious critic of what is, but has shown no capacity as a leader toward definite and organized reform. In any other country the movement would by this time be in definite shape. It would have taken form. It would have said what was wanted, and the purpose of all this violence and defiance would be known to all the world. That has been the case in revolutions of the Anglo-Saxons, Celts and Gauls, Germans and Scandinavians. No matter how confused the aspect they presented, a purpose could be traced in their most complex evolutions.

This is not yet the case in Russia. The government has made repeated concessions, but without effect. That would not signify if this national mob could march upon some definite point. But it goes on milling, like a cattle herd in panic, and no opinion can be formed concerning it and its purpose.

To a far outsider one thing is apparent. If present conditions continue there will be a military dictatorship, class will play against class, the revolution that has no head will be suppressed, partly by exhaustion, and the lid will be on Russia again and the autocracy, restored as the representative of social and civic order, will renew its historic policy of repression. The people will return to their former subjection, and all the violence and bloodshed will have been in vain.

All this will be for the need of a leader. The collapse of De Witte seems to be certain. He is not supported by the middle class, is rejected by the nobility, and has no influence with the great mass of the people, who are now in the hands of socialists. The only choice so far apparent is between autocracy and anarchy.

The Russians seem to be lacking the saving quality of imagination. They seem to be sodden. It was the French imagination that directed the revolution of 1793. Certain ideals appealed to the imagination. Liberty, equality, fraternity, became the motto of that bloody struggle, and the imagination and its ideals softened even the prolonged slaughter of The Terror. It was the romance of murder, the poetry of spoliation. Pet names were given to the guillotine, and music and poetry were enlisted in the ranks of the destroyers, who destroyed with their hands and reconstructed with their imaginations.—San Francisco Call.