Russia offered five years of waiting for a few kind words, for the desire to do good. And what happened? The very same proof of inability, of bankruptcy in doing good that after five years turned out to be evil!
And what follows from this? It is time to stop playing at garrisons. Let the government govern and let us take up our own affairs. For this we must go into retirement—the household is in disorder, the children need to be educated and landowner's sons need to be tamed.
We will weaken the government by our non-participation. Their business will suffer but the office work will not stop. Without us they still have
enough assistants to fill all the official cracks—clerks, bureaucrat-Germans, and bureaucrat-doctrinaires. It has raised officialdom to a science and has lowered the government to the level of an office in charge of decorum. Out of gratitude they should remain with the government, like mice with a sinking ship...
But we will be off on our own!
April 25, 1860
Notes
Source: "Za piat' let," Kolokol, l. 72, June i, i860; ^274-78, 555-56.
Herzen is referring to Panin's appointment, the exile of Unkovsky and Evropeus, and the harassment of students and professors at St. Petersburg University.
"Seven terrible years" refers to the reactionary period between the failed i848 uprisings and the death of Nicholas I in Й55.
On "vivos voco," see the introduction and Doc. 9.
French forces landed in the Crimea in i854.
Russian forces were defeated near Eupatoria on February 5, Й55, news received by Nicholas I on February i4; his health took a serious turn for the worse within a few days and by February i8 he was dead. This rapid sequence of events led to rumors of suicide.
♦ 29 +
The Bell, No. 75, July i, i860. Earlier in i860, Herzen responded to a letter from a Russian ship captain with an essay about the extraordinary importance of ending corporal punishment, a practice which offended both human dignity and natural empathy. "The great men of the i4th of December understand the importance of this so well, that members of the society undertook an obligation not to tolerate corporal punishment on their estates, and eliminated it from regiments they commanded" (Gertsen, Sobranie sochinenii, 27:bk. i, 22).
The article below is one of Herzen's most direct and passionate public statements on the issue, one of the problems weighing on his mind when he established the Free Russian Press (Doc. i3). This became a cause dear to many in Russia's emerging civil society, but not one that soon led to new laws. Almost four decades later, at one of the lively and significant Pirogov medical congresses (April 2i-28, Й96, in Kiev), the former serf D. N. Zhbankov made a plea for "removing the negative factors which retarded cultural development," including corporal punishment. Zhbankov wore a peasant blouse, even to the Pirogov Society dinners, in order to call attention to the peasants' situation (Frieden, Russian Physicians, i9i).
Down with Birch Rods! [i860]
We would like to make a very simple and possible proposal to the educated minority of the gentry—a proposal carrying with it neither responsibility nor danger. We propose that they set up
a union to ban corporal punishment
The degree of education of this minority, its conduct on the provincial committees, its maturity as expressed in a desire for self-governance—all this is incompatible with the savage beating and lashing of serfs. In times of backwardness and patriarchal brutality, the conscience of the person meting out the punishment was to a certain degree clear; he believed that this was not only his right but thought that it was his duty. No one believes that now, and now everyone knows that punishment without a trial—based on personal views—is a selfish application of the rights of the stronger person and is the same kind of torment as the lashing of a horse. Serfs in the field and the house are beaten exclusively and naturally for financial advantage and for petty convenience.
The government cannot and will not hinder such a negative union. The government does not impose on gentry the obligation to lash their serfs. It simply allows this and helps in a fatherly way. [. . .]
Let landowners think that flogging will not be around for long, and, following the awkwardness of the transitional state, one must, against one's will, part company with the rod. is it not better to give it up voluntarily? To cast off the rod like the French nobility threw their feudal charters into the fire on August 4th? 1
It is noble to reject the right to flog in light of the Cherkassky party and Samarin and Milyutin who are united with Cherkassky.2 And, really, what would the government take you for, thinking that you demand human rights for yourself and also want to flog without a trial, and this at a time when the government itself is beginning to limit beating in the military?
In every province let three or four landowners give each other their solemn promise never to resort to corporal punishment, never to allow themselves to beat anyone—that is enough of a beginning. Of course it is perfectly clear that the thing shouldn't be done halfway—it's little enough not to beat people yourself and not to send them to be flogged. it is necessary to forbid stewards, elders, and butlers, and to forbid it in such a way that the field and house serfs knew!
This is not the first time we have had to be embarrassed at the poverty of our demands. Yes, there is a great deal one must tame and keep silent in oneself in order to stretch out a hand as if asking for alms. for what?.. for recognizing human dignity in oneself and in those near to you!
If only our voice is not in vain, if only it reminded some and advised others that the time has come to leave off butchery; if only as a first instance it succeeded in sparing several peasants from torture and several landowners from a stain on their conscience.
We do not want to know what landowners did up till now. We close our eyes to the past, when much was done due to ignorance, habit, an awful upbringing, and the disgraceful example of the parental home. Amnesty and oblivion are also necessary here. But three years ago, the situation changed, and from the point when the question of emancipation was raised by the government, discussed in journals, sitting-rooms, and front halls, in the capital and the provinces—since that time it has become impossible to be an honorable and educated person and beat one's people. (Of course, we exclude theoretical fanatics of flogging, these are damaged people, and they can talk nonsense and still be the most honorable of people, like every madman.)
Let us give each other our word of honor not to flog our peasants and set up not just one union but hundreds of them in various provinces and various districts. Most of all, do not be afraid of your small numbers; two energetic people, firmly marching toward their goal, are more powerful than a whole crowd that lacks any goal. Didn't Wilberforce and Cobden begin with three or four people who came to agreement in a club or a tavern?3 [. . .] Man is as weak as a spark and as strong as a spark, if he believes in his strength and comes upon a ready environment in time.
Throw away the despicable rod and join hands in the Union to Ban Corporal Punishment!
Notes
Source: "Rozgi doloi!" Kolokol, l. 75, July 1, i860; 14:287-89, 561.
At a meeting of the Constituent Assembly in 1789.
Prince Vladimir A. Cherkassky (1824-1878) was an expert member on the Editorial Commission considering the issue of serfdom and emancipation; Yury F. Samarin (1819-1876) was a writer, public figure, member of the Editorial Commission, and a Slavophile.