THE ECLIPSE OF RUSSIA
BY
E. J. DILLON
AUTHOR OF "OURSELVES AND GERMANY" "RUSSIAN CHARACTERISTICS" ETC., ETC.
1918 LONDON & TORONTO J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. PARIS: J. M. DENT ET FILS
TO THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND AND RUSSIA'S UNIQUE STATESMAN S. I. WITTE
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. THE RUSSIAN ENIGMA II. THE RUSSIAN MIND III. LACK OF RUSSIAN UNITY IV. THE TSARDOM V. SOME PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS VI. THE RULE OF THE BUREAU VII. THE ADVENT OF NICHOLAS II VIII. THE RULE OF NICHOLAS II IX. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT OF 1905 X. FATHER GAPON AND AZEFF XI. WITTE CONDEMNED TO DIE XII. RASPUTIN--A SYMBOL XIII. RUSSIA'S INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Including _The Tsar's Plot to seize the Heights of the Upper Bosphorus--The Story of Kiao Chow_ XIV. THE LAST STATESMEN OF THE TSARDOM Including The Hague Conference Mystification XV. RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST XVI. THE SECRET TREATY OF BJÖRKE--I. XVII. THE SECRET TREATY OF BJÖRKE--II. XVIII. THE SECRET TREATY REVEALED XIX. THE DOWNFALL OF THE TSARDOM POSTSCRIPT APPENDIX--DETAILS OF THE SECRET TREATY INDEX
ERRATA
Page 2, line 18, for "statesments" read "statements." Page 22, line 18, for "have" read "has." Page 26, line 13, for "and to observe" read "and observed." Page 28, line 22, for "armoured" read "armed." Page 48, line 6 from foot, for "moral" read "a-moral."
[Transcriber's Note: the above Errata have been applied to this ebook's text.]
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THE ECLIPSE OF RUSSIA
CHAPTER I
THE RUSSIAN ENIGMA
The misfortunes of Russia and the disillusions of the nations that trusted her promises and relied on her help are attributed to no one circumstance more markedly than the failure of the interested statesmen to grasp the purely predatory character of the Tsardom, its incompatibility with the politico-social ordering of latter-day Europe, the pressing necessity on the one hand and the almost insuperable difficulty on the other of remodelling and adapting it to its European environment. It is no exaggeration to affirm that the history of drifting Europe--excluding the Central Empires--during the past quarter of a century, and of the outbreak of the awful struggle at its close, is the story of a tissue of deplorable mistakes--a tragedy of errors culminating in a catastrophe. The delusion of statesmen about the Tsardom, its origins and its drift, are the least blameworthy. For Russia is a cryptic volume to Slav nations, and to Britons a book with seven seals. Her own ruling class constantly misread the workings of her peoples' mind. Even the close observer who classified the strange phenomena that unfolded themselves to his eye seldom traced them back to their causes or realised their various bearings. Between Slav and Saxon, in particular, there yawns a psychological abyss wide enough in places to sunder two different species of beings not merely two separate races. And of all Slav peoples the Russian is by far the most complex and pulling. He often raises expectations which a supernatural entity could hardly fulfil, and awakens apprehensions which only a miracle could lay, yet somehow neither hopes nor fears are realised and, as they fade away, one wonders how they could ever have been entertained. In truth, Sarmatia is a {2} realm of illusions where the goddess Maya is hardly less active or thaumaturgic than in the Buddhist world of shows.
Unsophisticated foreigners are bewildered by the contrasts, subtleties, and contradictions that mark the thoughts and acts of the articulate, to say nothing of the inarticulate, Russian nation. In vain they strive to disentangle the skein of events and episodes in which these utter themselves. Nor do they perceive their own errors until it is too late. It is a noteworthy illustration of the easy-going ways of the Entente Governments that they should have accepted as adequate accounts of things Russian the fanciful pictures reflected in the minds of foreigners ignorant of the country, the history, the people, and the language. It fell to my lot more than once to hear the wildest theories propounded by responsible ministers during the war on the strength of such misleading reports, and I have seen political measures adopted which were bound to defeat the objects for which they were planned.
Even Russian statements have to be placed, so to say, in quarantine and truth sifted carefully from fiction. I remember an interesting illustration that came under my cognisance one evening soon after the promulgation of the Constitution of October, 1905, which was extorted from the Tsar by Count Witte. The press was discussing the question of how the future Duma should be elected, by direct universal, equal, and secret suffrage or otherwise. I was sitting in the Winter Palace with Witte when Count B. and Prince U., both of whom were afterwards elected to the first Duma, were announced. They were shown in. "We are come," said Count B., "from the country where we enjoy the confidence of the peasant population, and we wish you to know that we are absolutely opposed to direct universal suffrage. Absolutely. Under no conditions will we accept it, because it would lead to the ruin of the Empire. So true is this and so firm is our resolve to save the country from this calamity that if you make the suffrage direct or universal we two will march to Petersburg at the head of our armed peasants and will fight until the decree is rescinded. Please communicate this respectfully to his Majesty."
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Witte calmed the fiery passion of the count and the two visitors left. A fortnight later there was a dispute among the cabinet ministers on the subject of the suffrage. The Tsar displayed his interest in the matter, and Witte decided to send for Count B. and Prince U. and to give them an opportunity of laying before the sovereign the views of the population in that province of Central Russia. But when they arrived he stood aghast to hear Count B. inveigh in unmeasured terms against those short-sighted individuals who dared to restrict the suffrage and deprive the Tsar's loyal subjects of their right to vote for, or against, a candidate. "But," expostulated Witte, "was it not you who fourteen days ago said the very opposite and threatened to march on the capital at the head of the armed peasants if we enacted what you now demand?" "Yes, yes, I know all that. But during that fortnight I have been among the peasants and asked them for their views. And what is more, I can tell you that most Russians of the intelligentsia are of the same mind. And I am anxious to tell his Majesty how they think and feel on the subject."
As I was very well acquainted with Count B. I took him aside and taunted him with his sudden change of front, but he defended himself, urging quite seriously, "Most of my friends are for universal suffrage. So is the general public. Surely that is a good reason for yielding to the consensus of opinion." Down to the Revolution Count B. played a prominent but not a helpful part in Russian politics.
The struggle which, since the year 1904, has been going on in the Tsardom was so tremendous, the interests involved were so many and mixed, and the vicissitudes of the contest so frequent and sudden, that to be understood even approximately they need to be approached from more than one angle. The analyses made by the Russian people themselves, which are among the most instructive, are not by any means the most trustworthy. For class misunderstands class hopelessly. Indeed, the extent to which Russian observers have gone astray in their appreciation and forecast of events and situations, and in their interpretation of the nation's ideas {4} and aspirations, would astonish the reader if it could be set forth in detail. A few of the more striking instances may here suffice.
In the 'seventies the two main parties that advocated a revolution were anxious to get hold of the emancipated peasants and to energise them. But they had no knowledge of the people, whose soul was, to use a Russian saying, a dusky forest. They agreed, therefore, that their best plan would be to merge themselves in the peasantry, to live the unenviable life of the tiller of the soil, and to interest them actively in the upheaval that would bring about the millennium. Representative men and women of all the "intelligent" classes accordingly swelled the ranks of these apostles, and with alternating self-denial and self-indulgence, devoid of measure, self-discipline, and coherency, took to the life of squalor and hardship to which the _mooshik_[1] has for ages been inured and diversified it by bouts of looseness and back-sliding. Adoration of the people whom they hoped to indoctrinate and inspire was the new religion which the "intellectuals" preached and for a time endeavoured to practise. They looked upon the nation as a body mystical, somewhat as Roman Catholics regard their Church, but they went further than the Roman Catholic and worshipped the object of their veneration, sacrificed their ease to it, and in some cases died for it. Yet they were aggressive atheists withal, and atheists who took their dogmatic negation second-hand from foreign writers without verification or study. With no attainable goal, no lode star in their strivings, no inspiring dogma to sustain them, no cleanliness, moral or ethical, in their habits, with hardly a trace of conscience and no sense of individual duty,[2] they fancied that having fashioned a deity they could yoke it to their char-à-banc and drive to a marvellous Utopia. Everybody who disagreed with them was anathema, and even those who were not actually with them were under their ban. For they were the most intolerant of despots. My friend Leskoff, one of Russia's most gifted novelists, whose politics were colourless {5} rather than reactionary, was systematically ignored by them, and none of the Liberal reviews or newspapers would dare to publish a favourable notice of his works. Vladimir Solovieff, Russia's unique philosopher, was sneered at as a visionary, and Dostoyeffsky set down as an obscurantist, because they reproached those self-made missionaries with harbouring a fundamentally false idea of the Russian people and with being ignorant of its aims and aspirations. These courageous writers added that it was mischievous presumption in men of unclean lives, changeful purpose, and misty notions of science to hope to bring about the transfiguration of the masses and lead them to an enchanted, unpromised land.