But where are the signs that ordinarily precede revolutions? Everything in Russia is so quiet, and people look at the new government in such a beaten-down way and with such good nature, awaiting its assistance, that one is more likely to think that centuries will go by before Russia enters into a new life.
But what would be the purpose of these signs? In Russia everything has happened differently; it has only had one fundamental upheaval and that was achieved by one man—Peter I. Since 1789 we have been accustomed to see all upheavals proceeding by means of explosions and rebellions, every concession achieved by force, and every step forward come from battle—so that when there is talk of upheaval, we involuntarily look for the public square, barricades, blood, and the executioner's axe. Without doubt, an uprising and open struggle is one of the most powerful means of revolution, but it is hardly the only means.
[. . .] We are just people who are deeply convinced that the current governmental structures in Russia do not work, and we wholeheartedly prefer a path of peaceful human development to a bloody path, but with all that, we sincerely prefer the stormiest and most unbridled development to the stagnancy of a Nicholaevan status quo.
The sovereign wants changes and improvements; instead of a useless rebuff, he wishes to listen to the voice of reason in Russia, to people of progress and science, practical people who live with the common folk. They will not only be able to clearly understand and formulate what they want— better than the Nicholaevan burgraves—but, more than that, they will be able to understand for the people their desires and strivings. Instead of faint-heartedly cutting off their speech, the government itself should undertake the work of social reconstruction together with them, the development of new forms and new outlets for Russian life. We do not yet know what they are, nor does the government, but we are moving toward discovering them, and in that lies the remarkable interest that our future holds.
Peter I alone carried within himself that unforeseen, new Russia, which he brought about with harshness and threats against the will of the people, relying on autocratic power and personal strength. The current government does not have to resort to any kind of progressive terror. There is an entire milieu, mature in thought, ready to move with or against the government, in the name of the people and for their benefit. This circle may not be very large, but we absolutely do not accept that it is inferior in consciousness and development to any circle in the West. If it is unaccustomed to the consideration of social issues, then it is freer of everything traditional, and is newer, simpler, and more youthful than Western society. It has also lived through the suffering, failures, and trials of European life, but survived by means of its education, ideas, and heart, not having exhausted all its strength, but carrying in its memory the dreadful lesson of recent events. Like a youth who has been defeated by some great unhappiness that took place before his eyes, it quickly matures and gazes with a grown-up look at life through this sad example.
But for this common task the government has to step over the palisades and fences of the table of ranks that prevent it from seeing and heeding this grown-up speech, which is timidly and half surreptitiously expressed in literature and educated circles.
Can the thought of moving forward an entire part of the world to redeem three gloomy decades, to unite the two Russias between whom Peter's razor has passed1—a matter of purification, emancipation, and development, touching along the way fearful and colossal questions about landowner- ship, labor and its reward, the commune and the proletariat, before whom all European governments tremble—is it possible that this huge historic mission, coming of its own accord, will flatter Alexander II less than the empty and solitary height of absolute imperial power, limited by bribes, relying on bayonets, serfdom, liquor taxes, the secret police, ignorance, and beatings, ruling amidst general silence and suppressed groans?
We do not think so. And even if it were so, it is hardly possible to have a continuation of the Nicholaevan reign. We are certain that this merciless, backward-dragging despotism has run its course in Russia. The government itself senses this, but feels new and awkward in the world of reform, improvement, and the human word; it is shy and slow-moving, not believing in its strength and confused by the difficulty and complexity of the task. This deadening notion of its own weakness, that we are not up to the task, exists among us, and, unfortunately, not just in the government but in us as well.
This is not modesty, but the beginning of despair and depression; for so long we were cowed and downtrodden, so accustomed to blush in the presence of other nations and to consider all the filth of Russian life to be irreparable—from bribes to birch rods—that we really almost lost faith in ourselves. This unfortunate feeling surely must pass. Goethe said quite correctly:
To lose one's courage is to lose everything, It would be better not to have been born.2
Of course, the last three decades were hard, and our whole historical development followed a difficult and strange path, but didn't this time leave us pledges for the future? Did we really come to a stop, exhausted, did Rus split up into parts or fall under foreign dominion? No, we stand whole and unharmed, full of strength, unified in the face of a new path.
We are frightened by the backward and terrible condition of the people, its habit of lawlessness, and the poverty that is crushing it. All of this un- arguably makes—and will make—development difficult, but, in contrast to Burger's ballad,3 we say: the living stride fast, and the pace of the popular masses, when they begin to move, will be very great. We do not need to lead them toward the new life, just to remove what is crushing their own traditional ways. [. . .]
For 150 years we have been living in the ruins of the old; nothing whole has remained and there is nothing to regret. We have an imperial dictatorship and rural life, and between them every sort of institution, attempt, initiative, and idea, coming more and more to life, not tied to any caste or to any existing order. Since Peter I we have been in a state of restructuring, looking for new forms, imitating, making copies, and a year later we try something newer. It is enough to change ministers for state serfs to suddenly become personal serfs of the imperial family or vice versa. What does not change is the foundation, the soil, i.e., there is still the village with its physiological character, its pre-governmental state and condition, a premise whose syllogism lies in the future rather than as a continuation of the Muscovite kingdom; it also existed at that time, that is all we can say. It would be very difficult to change it, and it is unnecessary; quite the contrary, on it will be built the Rus of the future!
Of course, it is not easy to go from military despotism and German bureaucracy to a simpler and more popular governmental structure. But where are the insurmountable obstacles? To be sure, it is difficult to see the truth if some are not permitted to speak it and others are interested in keeping it hidden. The sovereign sees nothing from behind the beams and posts of the chancellery and the bureaucracy and the dust raised by soldiers on maneuvers; that is why the government, as it enters into the era of reform, is feeling its way along, desiring it and not desiring it, and those who might give advice are floundering like a fish on ice, with no voice.
In order to continue Peter's work, the government must openly renounce the Petersburg period as Peter himself renounced Muscovy. These artificial contrivances of imperial administration have grown old. Having so much power and, on the one hand, leaning on the common folk, while, on the other, on all thinking and educated people in Russia, the current government could perform miracles without the slightest danger to itself.