Aksakov's The Day will not be published. What does that mean? One wonders whether private circumstances could have caused the publisher to curtail the journal, which he advertised a month ago. Our Valuev is up to something. [. . .]
Wouldn't it be simpler to instruct Katkov to publish five or six journals in both capitals with different names and a single direction? [. . .]
Notes
Source: "Iz Peterburga," Kolokol, l. 214, February 15, 1866; 19:31-33, 374-76.
The new provisions for local government were announced January 1, 1864, and went into effect the following year. While the zemstvos had responsibilities on the local level—in such areas as schools, health care, and road maintenance—without any meaningful power, the provincial administrations were uncomfortable with even a limited amount of autonomy. The zemstvos lasted until 1917, when the Bolsheviks abolished them.
Minister of the Interior Valuev took part in the planning for the zemstvos from 1861 to 1863, which explains his position in 1866.
Rather than risk a third post-publication warning, which would shut them down.
In April 1865 The People's Chronicle was ordered to cease publication for five months, but when the time was up it was not allowed to begin again.
Maxim A. Antonovich (1835-1918), Grigory Z. Eliseev (1821-1891), and Yuli G. Zhukovsky (1822-1907) worked for several progressive journals.
The Bell, No. 217, April 1, 1866. A correspondent from Switzerland (V. D. Skaryatin) wrote in The News (Vest') that, while remaining revolutionary, The Bell had adopted a more moderate tone. In reference to the article below, the same correspondent noted that the "family quarrel" between state and nobility was a source of great joy for the revolutionaries (Let 4:257).
1789 [1866]
Yet another step and we will see the Etats Generaux on the Neva.1 We are moving directly toward 1789. We are not surprised—we talked about this from the very first issue of The Bell. For a long time we have assessed and understood the depth, the force, irresistibility of the movement, which arose after the Crimean War and the death of Nicholas. Sometimes this type of movement loses its way, sometimes it gets stuck in the mud, but it does not come to a stop, and it is certainly not stopped by police measures, acts of cruelty, and senseless banishment.
Petersburg despotism can only last by not noticing its own decrepitude, in the mute silence of slavery and the stagnation of all living forces. At the first oscillation, the Archimedes point slipped out of the government's hands, and they were left with only worn-out reins and a rusted brake. with every step the slope grows steeper and steeper. We do not know where we are headed, but it cannot be stopped!
.It seemed that the "heartfelt agreement" between the government and public opinion on the Polish question would swallow up the movement—not at all! The movement grew more powerful, and became convinced of the government's weakness and its own strength, it saw the government confused at the moment of danger and bloodthirsty from fear in the presence of people shouting. It saw the Winter Palace dependent on the two English clubs and ceased to respect it, and it saw the sovereign talking nonsense, weeping, wishing to stop, carried along against his will—and ceased to fear him. The man, who in the first moment of danger, called forth declarations of devotion, must accept another kind of declarations, as Prince Shcherba- tov rightly noted in his speech.
i789
The incident in the Petersburg noble assembly carries the significance of a historical event—a revolutionary, oppositional event, with the full flavor of '89 along with several original touches, as one might expect, with Suvorov, for example, who (according to Le Nord) with deep regret relayed the veto by "the executive branch," rushing to such a degree that he answered before the question had been officially asked, probably as a result of informing carried out by some sort of spy.2
Readers know the details better than we do; thanks to the modesty of the free Russian newspapers we haven't even read the four points proposed by Shcherbatov.3 We await further correspondence. [. . .]
However, we do not consider it out of place to express our opinion of the new phase of the revolutionary movement.
We are not on the side of the nobility as a social class.
We are not on the side of the government in its Petrine form.
The government and the nobility have their own accounts to settle. Why did the former at the beginning try to win them over, giving them land and people? Why did it first make them a terror squad and courtiers, and then begin to take back from the children what had been illegally given to the fathers?
Why was the gentry so thick-headed when the government handed over the people to rob and beat, and became impatiently, feverishly liberal when a portion of their gain began to be taken away?
We will not involve ourselves in their family quarrel.
However, if we are not on the side of the nobility and not on the side of the government, then we are absolutely on the side of the movement.
Everything that can undermine and wash away the barracks and the government offices, everything that can carry into the general flow—and there dissolve—the bureaucracy and class monopolies, the military administration of civic affairs, the clerks who rob the treasury, the treasury which robs the people—all this we will accept with joy and delight, no matter by whose hands it is accomplished. Smash things, gentlemen, and smash each other most of all. With this smashing your lives and ours will disappear. Later on our children will settle accounts. Revolutions in general do not hand down an inheritance intact, but half-achieved ideals and newly opened horizons.
275
It's an odd thing—two fighters went at it, and victory depends on a third: with whomever he makes an alliance, that one will prevail, and this third fighter is the wordless people, the silent majority. It still remains silent and holds onto the land.
Only by bringing them into the movement, making their affair into a common affair, a popular affair for a landed assembly, rejecting monopolies, can the nobility have a serious talk with the government.
And the government can only undermine the oligarchic claims by confronting them with the popular majority, with the popular will, which insists and will insist on its right to land.
Notes
Source: "1789," Kolokol, l. 217, April 1, 1866; 19:46-48, 379-80.
The Etats Generaux were summoned May 5, 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution, to resolve the financial crisis which had arisen during the reign of Louis XVI, and became the National Assembly. Herzen ironically compared this to the meeting of the Petersburg Noble Assembly from February 27 to March 4, 1866. At the March 1 session, Grigory A. Shcherbatov (1819-1881), the leader of the nobility, spoke in favor of expanding the rights of the zemstvos and of permitting the zemstvo assemblies the right of petition. Shcherbatov's proposal passed by an overwhelming majority. On March 3, however, several members in the minority resolved to submit their own opinion, but the assembly turned them down, and the majority view was sent to the government. Five days later, it was reported in The St. Petersburg Gazette that the proposal had been rejected as incompatible with the zemstvo law.