The government unleashed crude declarations of patriotism, stirred up popular hatred and religious intolerance with the libel in its journals, which summons the people to act as judges. Like i8i2, before the occupation of Moscow by the French, when Count Rostopchin led Vereshchagin13 out into the square and handed him over to the savage crowd, our open14 government has been handing over its opponents to a pack of dirty hack writers, applying censorship to every justification and every defense. The popular assemblies, the open discussion of the land question, the declaration of their support for government officials and measures, the political banquets, demagogic toasts, and terrorist icons—everything was permitted. The wise statesmen rubbed their hands together and could not get over how they had "splendidly lit up" public opinion and how nasty were the bloodthirsty agents of the literary-police gang that they had unleashed. These profound psychologists with portfolios imagined that, having become accustomed to the groans of human beings and human blood, their creatures, like Kry- lov's mongrels, would howl and then quiet down, as soon as their masters whistled—but that did not happen.
Two and a half years had not gone by before the government—which had changed in a real sense—wanted to lasso its pack of hounds, but could not do it. One minister was badly bitten, and others found their undergarments in shreds. And not just the ministers, especially the civilians! Konstantin Niko- laevich himself was not spared. The Moscow Gazette even pestered him.15 [. . .]
The government, dumbfounded, to this very day sees before it an unfamiliar power, which it wishes—because of changed circumstances—to banish, but which is not going anywhere. Why did it have to get mixed up in a family concert of unauthorized musicians?
The comic single combat of the minister of enlightenment with an official leaflet—published in opposition to him by one of the institutions under his jurisdiction—will pass away.16 The vile state of public opinion—on which a vile newspaper relies—will also pass away, but the realization of what a journal may do when public opinion is on its side, will remain.
We see the same thing in another sphere, which is closer to the matter at hand.
The patriotic banquets have ceased, no one is singing to Muravyov any more either in person or by telegraph, no one is sending affectionate addresses to the sovereign, and the day when one will blush in recalling this excess of servility is not far off. But the custom of gatherings, with collective discussion and abasement, continues. The address by the Moscow nobility, in which they desire not only to love the sovereign, but to speak with him without witnesses, without guardians, and to speak precisely about the disgraceful behavior of bureaucrats, will become the foundation stone of constitutional agitation, which will engulf all Russia and in its turn will stir up another kind of agitation than that dreamed of by the Bezobrazovs and Davydov-Orlovs. If Alexander II, governed by the example of his father, had not silently crushed the Poles and silently sent off to hard labor his own people, the question would not have been raised so soon of establishing some control over the autocracy.
Ne reveillez pas le chat qui dort!.}1 Only unfortunately, to wake the cat or not does not depend on personal will as much as it might seem. And there is no fatalism in this, but simply embryogenesis, certain phases of organic development. Yesterday, the fruit was not ripe and the cat slept soundly, today it is riper. and the cat sleeps innocently, but to make things worse everyone keeps trying to wake it.
The thing is, our pear is ripening rapidly, and for that reason everyone is trying to rouse us—the emperor Alexander and "Young Russia," the Moscow nobility and the Petersburg nihilists, privileges and hard labor, fair weather and foul. It is time for us to be convinced of this and act according to our convictions.
We will certainly reach the place toward which we are traveling without compass or sextant, if our strength—new and unexpected—does not fail us; consciousness will light the way and prevent aimless wandering from one side to the other, steps taken backward in confusion, and crude errors. [. . .]
Notes
Source: "K kontsu goda," Kolokol, l. 209, December i, Й65; i8:45i-69, 673-76.
Herzen: "Whether a stream is small or large, its path depends not on itself, but on the general slopes and inclines of the land" (The Bell, Й64).
Herzen most likely has in mind the young revolutionary democrats, followers of Chernyshevsky.
Herzen uses the word Cherv, the Old Slavic name for the letter that begins the name of his frequent adversary, Boris N. Chicherin (i828-i904), a proponent of what Herzen called "administrative progress." Cherv also means "worm," and the word for "purple- red" is the similar-sounding chervonnyi.
Moderantisme is a term for the party program of moderate republicans during the French Revolution.
The friend is M. A. Bakunin; the enemy is M. P. Pogodin.
A paraphrase from Eugene Onegin, chap. 8.
Vladimir Obruchev (i836-i9i2), on the staff of The Contemporary, was arrested in i86i for the distribution of the "Velikoruss" proclamation and sentenced to hard labor and Siberian exile. The other names mentioned here have appeared in previous documents in this collection.
Herzen compares the revolutionary dictatorship's terror of i793 with the tsarist regime's repression of i862.
The i862 proclamation "Young Russia," with its calls for violence against the existing order, was seen by liberals and even some to the left of them as having gone too far by provoking a strong reaction by the government (Doc. 45).
Vladimir P. Orlov-Davydov (i809-i882) and Nikolay A. Bezobrazov (i8i6-i867) were leaders of the nobility in the Petersburg region. The work of Henry Buckle, the English historian, had been translated into Russian; Christian Buntzen was a Prussian official and the author of theological works. Bezobrazov, who advocated a noble assembly, praised Katkov more for his attacks on The Bell than for other services to Russia, a fact which convinced Herzen that The Bell was a force to be considered, and that the sound of The Bell would outlast that of Katkov's Moscow Gazette. Orlov-Davydov and Bezobrazov are discussed in "Corrections and Additions" ("Popravki i dopolneniia"), The Bell, No. i96, April i, i865 (Gertsen, Sobranie sochinenii, i8:327-3i).
Polezhaev was arrested in i826 for his student lampoons. The poet Vladimir I. Sokolovsky (i808-i839) was arrested in Й34 for his part in a group that sang "libelous" verses. Both were sent to the Caucasus. Herzen was also implicated in the Sokolovsky case and imprisoned for the first time. Polezhaev and Sokolovsky are discussed in Her- zen's memoirs.
Count Alexander Khr. Benkendorf (1783-1844) became head of the political police and the Third Department in 1826; Leonty V. Dubelt (1792-1862) was the head of the Third Department from 1839 to 1856.
Count Fyodor V. Rostopchin (1763-1826) was the governor-general in charge of Moscow in 1812; Mikhail N. Vereshchagin (1789-1812), a merchant's son and translator, was accused of treason and killed by a mob at the instigation of Rostopchin.
At the beginning of his reign, Alexander II had embraced the policy of glasnost' (openness), to which Herzen makes a sarcastic reference.