Revolution in Rural Russia 1905

Rural Russia will not be pacified so long as some substantial move has not been made in the sense of land nationalization.

Continuing The Russian Revolution of 1905,
with a selection from Special article to Great Events by Famous Historians, volume 20 by Prince Peter Kropotkin published in 1914. This selection is presented in 5.5 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The Russian Revolution of 1905.

Time: 1905
Place: Russia

As to the Caucasus, the peasants of Guria (western portion of Georgia) proceeded even in a more radical way. They refused to work for the landlords, sent away all the authorities, and, nominating their own judges, they organized such independent village communities, embodying a whole territory, as the old cantons of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden represented for several centuries in succession.

All these facts point in one direction. Rural Russia will not be pacified so long as some substantial move has not been made in the sense of land nationalization. The theoreticians of the mercantile school of economists may discuss this question with no end of argument, coming to no solution at all; but the peasants are evidently decided not to wait any more. They see that the landlords not only do not introduce improved systems of culture on the lands which they own, but simply take advantage of the small size of the peasant allotments and the heavy taxes which the peasants have to pay, for imposing rack-rents, and very often the additional burden of a middleman, who sublets the land. And they seem to have made up their minds all over Russia in this way: “Let the Government pay the landlords, if it be necessary, but we must have the land. We shall get out of it, under improved culture, much more than is obtained now by absentee landlords, whose main income is derived from the civil and military service.”

The peasant uprisings alone, spreading over wide territories, rolling as waves which flood to-day one part of the country and to-morrow another, would have been sufficient to entirely upset the usual course of affairs in Russia. But when the peasant insurrection is combined with a general awakening of the working men in towns, who refuse to remain in the old servile conditions; when all the educated classes enter into an open revolt against the old system; and when important portions of the Empire, such as Finland, Poland, and the Caucasus, strive for complete Home Rule, while other portions, such as Siberia, the Baltic provinces, and Little Russia, and, in fact, every province, claim autonomy and want to be freed from the St. Petersburg bureaucrats — then it becomes evident that the time has come for a deep, complete revision of all the institutions. Every reasoning observer, everyone who has learned something in his life about the psychology of nations, would conclude that if any concessions are to be made to the new spirit of the time, they must be made with an open mind, in a straightforward way, with a deep sense of responsibility for what is done — not as a concession enforced by the conditions of a given moment, but as a quite conscious reasoned move, dictated by a comprehension of the historical phase which the country is going through.

Unfortunately, nothing of that consciousness and sense of responsibility is seen among those who have been the rulers of Russia during the last twelve months. I have told in my memoirs how certain moderate concessions, if they had been granted toward the end of the reign of Alexander the Second or at the advent of his son, would have been hailed with enthusiasm, and would have paved the way for the gradual and slow passage from absolutism to representative government. Even in 1895, when Nicholas the Second had become Emperor, it was not too late for such concessions. But it was also evident to everyone who was not blinded by that artificial atmosphere of bureaucracy created in all capitals that ten years later such half-hearted concessions as a “Consultative Assembly” were already out of question. The January massacres widened that chasm still more. Therefore only an open recognition of the right of the nation to frame its own constitution, and a complete, honest amnesty, granted as a pledge of good faith, could have spared to Russia all the bloodshed of the recent years. Every intelligent statesman would have understood it. But the cynical courtier, Boulyghin, whom Nicholas the Second and his mother considered a statesman, and to whom they had pinned their faith, was not the man to do so. His only policy was to win time, in the hope that something might turn the scales in favor of his masters.

Consequently, vague promises were made in December, 1904, and next in March, 1905, but in the meantime the most reckless repression was resorted to — not openly, but under cover, according to the methods of Von Plehve’s policy. Death sentences were distributed by the dozen during the summer. The worst forms of police autocracy, which characterized the rule of Plehve, were revived in a form even more exasperating than before, because governors-general assumed now the rights which formerly were vested in the Minister of the Interior. Thus, to give one instance, the Governor-General of Odessa exiled men by the dozen by his own will, including the old ex-Dean of the Odessa University, Professor Yaroshenko, whom he ordered to be transported to Vologda! And this went on at a time when all Russia began to take fire, and lived through such a series of events as the uprising of the Mussulmans and the massacres at Baku and Nakhichevan; the uprising at Odessa, during which all the buildings in the port were burned; the mutiny on the ironclad Knyaz Potemkin; the second series of strikes in Poland, again followed by massacres at Lodz, Warsaw, and all other chief industrial centers; a series of uprisings at Riga, culminating in the great street battles of the 28th of July — to say nothing of a regular, un interrupted succession of minor agrarian revolts. All Russia had thus to be set into open revolt, blood had to run freely in the streets of all the large cities, simply because the Czar did not want to pronounce the word which would put an end to his sham autocracy and to the autocracy of his camarilla. Only toward the end of the summer could he be induced to make some concessions which at last took the shape of a convocation of a State’s Duma, announced in the manifesto of the 19th of August.

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