Peter Struve, who invited him to contribute to Nachalo, the organ of the legal Marxists. Chekhov laughingly reported to Altschuler that Mariya Vodovozova, head of the literary division of Nachalo, declared that he had become a real Marxist but was unable to recognize the fact.
Chekhov's private views, however, would have discouraged the Marxists. As a gradualist with a pronounced sense of measure, he warned Leontiev-Shcheglov that one must be fair and objective in evaluating the abuses of the present. It was in this spirit that he approached the student disorders. Latent in his judgment was the conviction he had formed during the student troubles in Moscow University when he was there —the insincerity and misdirection of organized efforts on the part of the educated to bring about social and political change. Now, in a letter to his old friend Ivan Orlov — a Serpukhov rural physician who was having difficulties with the government in organizing medical assistance in the district — Chekhov wrote that "those very ones who make life difficult for you are the children of the times. It is not the tutor5 but the entire intelligentsia that is at fault, all of it, my good sir. While the young men and women are still students, they are a good, honest set, our hope, the future of Russia; but no sooner do these university students enter upon independent life and become adults than our hope and the future of Russia vanish in smoke and in the filter all that is left are doctors, owners of dachas, greedy officials, thieving engineers. ... I believe in individuals. I see salvation in individual personalities scattered over all of Russia — they may be intellectuals, or peasants — for although they may be few, they have strength." (February 22,1S99.)
Chekhov's opinions were further elaborated in his correspondence with Suvorin, who had become publicly involved in the controversy over the student strikes. At the beginning of the disorders, Suvorin published an article in Xe»r Times in which he condemned the actions of the students and praised the Tsar for appointing a committee to investigate the reasons for the spreading strikes. Students promptly demanded a boycott of the newspaper and Suvorin printed a second article in an effort to defend his position. This further enraged the students, who bombarded him with indignant letters and publicly called on people to cancel their subscriptions to Xew Times. Advertisers hesitated to patronize the paper, and organizations refused to admit its reporters
5 Chekhov uses the word gm-cnicr (tutor) in place of gubcmator (governor), no doubt as a precaution against the prying eyes of a censor.
to tlici'r meetings. The boycott was effective ;ик1 it spread to various citics. Even in f;iг-ofT Yalta a club of intellectuals published a scathing denunciation of Suvorin and requested subscribers to cease reading liis paper. A minor soon sprc;id that Suvorin li;id received ten thousand roubles frorn the government for writing the articles. And finally the Russian Writers' Mutual Aid Socicty publicly summoned him before its Court of Honor to answer charges of behavior liiibccoiuhif; one of its members, an action which carried with it the threat of .suspension. Alexander, who w;is Chekhov's ni.'iin source of iiifonii;ition on the details of this whole situation, reported that the business of New 'Пикт had greatly fallen off, several of the staff h;icl quit, ;i 11 с I that Suvorin',s health was cracking under the .strain. lie Jind heard, lie said, that the students li;id sent a collcctivc letter to Chekhov, asking Jiiin to jnd^c between them and Suvorin.
Meanwhile, the harrasscd Suvorin telegraphed and wrote Chekhov to explain his :ictious :uid to seek advice. He may well have been hoping that Chekhov would offer to support his stand in the Russian Writers' Mutual Aid Socicty. flow could 011c givс advice in such ;i predicament to a m;m like Snvoiin? Chekhov ;iskcd. He was further embarrassed by Gorky's open letter in Life to Suvorin on the student disorders, quoting a passage from ;i minor journalist's attack on Siivorin's handling of the Dreyfus ease in New T/'/nrx " '|Clickhovj was in I'Vance ;it the time of the Zola tri;il,'" Ooiky quoted the journalist. "'Ask hiin wh;it lie thinks about the culpability of Dreyfus, and the 1 )5i.sc tricks of the defenders of Kstcrha/.y? Ask liini wh;il lie thinks about your relations to this alfair ;ind to the Jewish question in general? Neither you nor New Ti/nr.Y will rejoicc ova liis opinion.' " Chekhov hastened to write Snvoiin, not to disavow the substancc of the journalist's statement, hut to condemn his motive in niakiii;; it. At the same tiiiic lie bluntly told Snvoiin that lie found liis two articles on the .student disorders quite uiisatislactoiy. lie rharp/jd that Suvorin hsul airily written about this deplorable .sitnation and about the government's rights and prerogatives when lie; knew lull well that it would not permit the real truth of the disorder; to appear in pihil, and that the government regarded its rights and justice as one and I lie same thing. "The concept ion of f;ovcniuieiil," lie argued, "ouplit to he based on concrete, lawful lclations — olliciwisc it is a bn/;aboo, an empty sound and terrifying to the hnajjinaliou." (Mtiidi ✓/, 1899,) I11 a letter a few weeks later Chekhov fell it ncccssaiy to drive home :ш obvious point, in connection with :i public demonstration at Kharkov on behalf of the students, a point which Suvorin, publisher ol :t leading newspaper, seemed unable to appreciate fully: "When people do not enjov the light to express their opinion freely, they will express it heatedly, with exasperation, and often, from the point ol view of the government, in an ugly and shocking form. Grant freedom ol the press and freedom of couscicncc; then the calm which :ill desiie will conic, and though it m:iy not last long, it will suffice for our lifetime." (Л/ш7 г, 1899.)
Suvorin refused to appear before the Court of Honor, but he privately printed his correspondence with its coimnittcc and sent copies to friends, among lliem Chekhov, for their reactions. With some misgivings Chekhov wrote liini and opposed the whole procedure. Such a court, lie declared, might he all right in the army, but in an Asiatic country where there was no freedom of expression or conscience, where life was so oppressive, and where the government and nine tenths' of society regarded journalists as enemies, these recriminations put writers in the ridiculous position of animals in a cage biting each other's tails. Ami if such a court condemned you tor writing what you desired, he declared, then this in itself was a violation of freedom ol the press and could well compel other journalists to fear that sooner or later they would also fall under the judgment of this same Court of 1 lonor.
Although Suvorin's articles on the student disorders might warrant shaip attacks 011 liini, Chekhov asserted, for the Court of Honor to concentrate on tlieui only evaded the chief reason for the whole scandal. Then he frankly stated what he thought was the reason: "Over the last few years society (not merely the intelligentsia, but Russian society in general) has been hostile to New Times'. The conviction exists that 1\<?)V Times receives a subsidy from the government and from the French General Staff. And New Times has done everything possible to support this undeserved reputation. . . . The opinion also exists that you are a person with powerful friends in the government, and that yon are harsh and implacable; and once again New Times lias done everything possible to support this prejudice in society." (April '899.) Chekhov concluded by pointing out that people and the Court of Honor were judging Suvorin 011 the basis of the legend that had grown up about him, and this degree of insincerity deeply troubled him.