We are for Poland because we are for Russia. We are on the side of the Poles because we are Russians. We want independence for Poland because we want freedom for Russia. We are with the Poles, because we are chained by a single set of fetters. We are with them because we are firmly convinced that the absurdity of an empire that stretches from Sweden to the Pacific and from the White Sea to China cannot bring any blessings to the peoples who are kept on a leash by Petersburg. The vast monarchies of the Chin- gizes and Tamerlanes belong to the most elementary and wildest periods of development, to those times when the entire glory of a state consists of force and a great expanse. They are only possible when there is hopeless slavery below and unlimited tyranny above. Whether our imperial formation was necessary or not has nothing to do with us at this moment—it is a fact. But it has lived out its time and has one foot in the grave—that is also a fact. We are trying with all our heart to help it with the other leg.
Yes, we are against the empire because we are for the people!
Notes
Source: "Proklamatsiia 'Zemlia i voli,' " Kolokol, l. i60, April i, i863; i7:90-9i, 388.
M. L. Mikhailov was arrested in i86i as a cowriter (with N. V. Shchelgunov) of the proclamation "To the Young Generation," and was sentenced to six years, a sentence which was publicly announced on the 35th anniversary of the Decembrist uprising, and which he did not live to complete.
The Russian word oprichniki, which has come into usage in English, refers to special units set up by Ivan the Terrible after the worst of his crises; in the guise of rooting out treason, they terrorized their fellow Russians from ^65 to i572. For Russian officials "abroad" Herzen uses the Latin phrase in partibus, which refers to Catholic bishops sent to predominantly non-Catholic lands.
Katkov lashed out against Russian supporters of Poland in the first issue of The Russian Herald (Russkii vestnik) for Й63, and similarly critical articles were placed by Russian authorities in Le Nord.
♦ 54 *
The Bell, No. i60, April i, Й63 (Part I); No. i6i, April i5, Й63 (Part II); No. i63, May i, i863 (Part III). Herzen wrote this article soon after receiving news of the distribution in Moscow and Petersburg of a proclamation called "Polish Blood Is Flowing, Polish Blood Is Flowing.." He saw the call for widespread sympathy with the Polish cause as historically significant, a turning point in the life of Russian society. While Herzen misjudged the long-term impact of this proclamation on Russian politics and society, his continued public defense of Poland—despite his private feeling that the Poles had acted in haste—diminished respect for Herzen's political journalism in Russia, with even liberals seeing his pro-Polish stance as unpatriotic. Along with its topical interest, this essay continues Herzen's exploration of skepticism and irony as appropriate responses to the political realities of Russia. His ironic tone is in full force in a brief note in issue No. 160 about a report that two peasants had snatched a beaver hat off the head of a pedestrian on Petersburg's Nevsky Prospect. The crime was reported to the tsar, who ordered that they be immediately conscripted and sent to serve far from the capitals. Herzen asks whether or not there are laws covering theft, which would make it unnecessary to inform the sovereign every time such an outrage occurred. One did not have to look hard to find absurdities in "reform-era" Russia.
1831-1863 [1863]
I
"Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him." said Macbeth.
"What, will this blood n'er be washed away! Water!.. give me water!.. " said his wife.1
There are, in fact, old men who not only have a lot of blood in them, but whose blood is young. and so indelible that there is no possibility of washing it away.
Russia is experiencing all this. and God forbid there would be a murdered man in the woods, whose ghost would begin to appear at every feast.2
The Polish uprising has drawn a profound line. In future textbooks it will mark the end of one chapter of Russian history and the beginning of another. This is a turning point—it is possible to go on as before, but the break will be felt, and the line cannot be erased. The very same life on the other side of the line will not be the same. Russia will remember that the old man had a lot of blood in him, that this blood kept pouring down its arms. and that it did nothing to wipe it away.
"But was there really any less blood in Poland in 1831?"
"No, but Russia had less of a conscience, i.e., consciousness." History does not punish a half-conscious crime, a transgression done while half- asleep, it hands down an English verdict of "temporary insanity." The question is whether the Russia of 1863 has as much right to that verdict as the Russia of 1831?
We absolutely reject that.
The Polish uprising that followed five years after December 14th caught Russia off guard, dispirited and deep in thought. For almost the first time, Russians were then actually thinking about themselves. Nations come to a serious understanding rather late, the fruit of major ordeals, upheavals, and failures; the most developed nations can be in error for entire centuries under the influence of dreams and fantasies. For close to a century France believed itself to be liberal and even republican. Russia's thoughtful mood was completely appropriate. Boasting state significance and influence in European affairs, Petrine Russia imagined that it would be as easy to borrow political freedom from its neighbors as it was to borrow a military- police empire. Despotism increased tenfold, causing those who were not utterly crushed to fall into thought, and they began to doubt their path; their striving was sincere, but it was satisfied with ready solutions not appropriate to the phenomena of Russian life. The oppressive feeling of the lack of roots weighed as much upon what was being thought and what had been awakened as did the government's oppression. The way out of this was unclear and the weakness was obvious.
The Polish question was vaguely understood at that time. The leading people—people who were marching off to hard labor for their intention of curbing imperial despotism—were mistaken about it and came to a halt, without noticing it, at the narrowly official patriotic point of view of Karamzin. [. . .] 3
There was nothing to be said about the people; they were a sleeping lake, of whose currents flowing under the snow no one knew, and on whose frozen surface stood country estates, offices, and every sort of sentry box and barracks.
By that time Nicholas had somewhat recovered from the 14th of December and had calmed down. [. . .] Suddenly the news of the Paris revolution of 1830 came crashing down on him and he became flustered. Like a guards officer in a time of complete peace, he announced that soon it would be necessary to mount up, and ordered the army put on a wartime footing. He was rude to Louis Philippe without any call.4 Perhaps only in 1848 did he surpass the year 1830 in his constraints on every declared thought and every word not in agreement with the foundations of an all-consuming absolutism. It was then that for the first time he hoisted his absurd banner of "autocracy, orthodoxy, nationality.";5 since then, in contrast to what was going on in Europe, there began to form in his head that deification of the tsarist title in his person. [. . .]
But if no one believed in the divinity of imperial state power, everyone believed in its strength, those who loved it and those who hated it, Russians and foreigners, the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Sebastiani, Metter- nich and Casimir Perier,6 the orators who attacked Russia, and Pushkin, who responded to them in verse.7