When for a time I left Russia in February, the powers of reaction were at their highest, and at such a moment it might well seem absurd to speak of the dawn, for the ancient darkness of Russia appeared again to have closed in upon the land. In looking back upon the things I had witnessed, they naturally presented themselves to me as the scenes of a great drama, in which the old Titans and demigods of humanity played from behind strange masks, compelled by the rival immortals of Freedom and Oppression, whose voices could at times be heard and their forms almost seen, while the journalists of Europe chimed in with a chorus of alternately sympathetic comment. But there was no doubt that, as in all great dramas, the Protagonist had become involved in the toils of evil, and that, as far as worldly success went, a tragic fate was overwhelming him.

When first I arrived in the country, the air was still radiant with hope. It is true that the early flush had a little faded; the joyful intoxication of the October Manifesto was passing off, and people were beginning to realize that freedom is not a thing to depend on any man’s words. Liberty and despotism were hanging in the balance, and the dull weights of habit and force were pressing down their scale. But exiles were returning, prisoners were released, the Press was free. Great public halls sounded to unaccustomed words of liberty, and the Strike Committee, which had shaken the strongest tyranny of the world, was still the strongest power in the country. The Government stood uncertain and afraid. It felt itself confronted by an unknown and incalculable adversary, the more terrible for its vagueness—an adversary that out of unregarded obscurity had struck one sudden and paralyzing blow and now lay coiled up in its lurking place, only waiting for the fit moment to strike that blow again.

In its distress the Government looked round for help. It looked to the railways to carry its troops, and the trains ceased running. It looked to the post and telegraph to bear its orders, and the wires were cut, and the letters lay in heaps. It looked to the army, and from all sides came the tale of mutiny; to the navy, and it heard the flames of Odessa, the flames of Kronstadt, and the big guns of Sevastopol. It looked to the Press, and it found even the ancient supporters of Tsardom were beginning to hint at reforms. The very Ministers were understood to speak a little uncertainly of autocracy, and whenever a reporter was within hearing, the chief of them all kept muttering, “I am a bit of a Liberal myself.” So the Government stood uncertain, in the uneasy position of an animal which does not know whether it is to be hound or hare upon the course.

That we may call the first act of the drama, but when the second act opened, the powers of evil were seen more actively insinuating themselves into the course of tragedy. Their activity took the form of a plot which can be easily unravelled from the course of the events upon the stage. In order to involve the Russian people in the doom of tragedy, they may be represented as thus whispering to the leaders of the Government:—

“The first thing is to secure the Army, by promises of better food and pay. Having secured the Army, you may goad the people to open resistance by attacking them without warning. When they rise it will be easy to stamp them down, and under the excuse of their violent revolution, you can silence the Press, you can close the meetings, you can shoot or imprison the leaders, you can choke the voice of freedom in troublesome districts like Finland, the Baltic Provinces, Poland, and the Caucasus. By controlling the elections you can secure exactly the kind of Duma you want. You may then appeal to Europe to admire both your power and your progress, and all Europe will join in applause. The chorus of journalists which used to sing ‘The Dawn of Freedom,’ will chant warnings to rebellion and the triumph of order over chaos. Your object will then be gained, for you can obtain the money that is the one thing needful for your existence. England will again recognize your credit. France will contribute the interest on her own loans, and Germany will recognize a Government endued with just about as much liberty as her William likes.”

Such were the suggestions of the powers of evil, and the Russian Government is not to be blamed for accepting them gladly. That unhappy little group of royalties, Grand Dukes, landlords, officials, and priests, were fighting, not merely for an obsolete ideal of State, but for their very existence, for their daily pleasures, their daily bread, for a decent roof over their heads and a decent table over their legs. It was no child’s play for them, since all they valued was at stake, and the only wonder is that they were clever enough to understand the whispered promptings of the powers who spoke on behalf of Oppression, an ancient and venerable god. If any Russian statesman or general or admiral had displayed the strategic skill in dealing with the Japanese that the Government now revealed in suppressing the liberties of their own country, Russia would have been spared one of the most shameful and overwhelming disasters in history.

But in following these promptings, the Government succeeded at every point. The general strike was the only genuine weapon the people had—an irresistible weapon, provided it was used simultaneously and seldom. The Government drove the leaders to use it piecemeal and often. They confiscated the strike funds to starve the women and children, they employed hunger and Cossacks to shake the determination of the men. By bombarding a committee, they drove the revolutionists to build the Moscow barricades before the movement was ripe and while the other cities remained inactive. They discovered the fighting weakness of freedom, and the entire security with which men in uniform can be trusted to kill at the command of those who feed and pay them. They stamped down the rising in blood. They shot all the leading revolutionists, they imprisoned all the suspects, they hewed the insignificant in pieces. They applauded the murderers of doctors who were saving the wounded. They executed schoolboys for believing better forms of government possible, and they handed over schoolgirls to soldiers to be flogged.

In all this they proved themselves entirely wise, for they gained their end. The moment that the Moscow rising was crushed, troops were let loose with confidence upon Poland, the Caucasus, and the Baltic Provinces. Preparations were made for the reconquest of Finland. Executions became general throughout the Empire. The prisons were crammed, and typhus finished what the rifle and hang-rope left undone. The elections for the Duma were prepared under police supervision, and Liberal candidates removed to prison. Liberal meetings were forbidden, Liberal papers suppressed. The chorus of European journalists chanted the overthrow of rebellion and the restoration of order. And at last, as the crowning reward of a faithlessness and cruelty so cleverly displayed, the deficit of over £80,000,000 was freely supplied by a fresh European loan, to which the so-called Liberal Powers of France and England were the chief contributors. There is something divine in success so unquestioned and unassailable, nor can we wonder that its worship is almost universal. In the autumn of 1905, no one thought it possible for the Russian Government to raise another loan for its existence, unless under guarantees of liberty and popular control. But the Government quietly set about the work of slaughter, and when that was finished held out a bloody hand to Europe; and Europe kissed the bloody hand reverently, and filled it with gold. In the spring of 1906, a loan of £90,000,000 was subscribed without question, and upon a triumphant tableau of Oppression reinstated and Evil enriched the curtain fell. In the distance the spirits that attend on Freedom were faintly heard bewailing her defeat.

Under large and shadowy symbols, the powers of human history may thus be imagined to move upon their stage, and it is much easier to conceive their great abstractions than to realize the life or sufferings of one man or woman out of the millions of human beings, compared to whom all principles of freedom, government, or justice are but unstable visions of the mind. It is in realizing solid and visible things that the imagination fails. I have seen a few peasants starving on potatoes warmed with straw, while they had sold their corn to Europe before it was reaped, so as to pay for defeated armies, sunken battleships, a bloodthirsty police, and the pleasures of landowners in St. Petersburg. I have seen a few, but the imagination refuses to picture the millions on millions like them, who are actually now existing. I have seen a few tattered soldiers from the war draggling into Moscow at last, begging for farthings, squatting on the curb-stones or murmuring vacantly to themselves, “Alive and home; alive and home!” I have seen a few, but there were at least five hundred thousand of them still to come—starving, tattered, mutinous, broken with terror and distress. I have seen a few work-people in their homes—scant of food, empty of comfort, and crowded with human beings—but there are millions like them. A few people I knew were shot, many were imprisoned; but there are thousands whose sons and lovers and friends have been shot, and thousands on thousands who are themselves in prison. I have heard and read of girls being flogged; but there are hundreds of lovers and brothers and fathers who have known the girls that were flogged, and have seen them come back tortured and shamed from the soldiers’ hands. The picture of such things indefinitely repeated throughout a vast Empire becomes like the nightmare of a madman, and before such bare realities the imagination falls helpless. If we wished to be charitable, we might say that this is why Frenchmen and Englishmen could still be found to bolster up the bloodthirsty tyranny with a loan, and no shout of laughter arose when Witte still went on murmuring, “I am a bit of a Liberal myself,” and the Tsar telegraphed to England that he was meditating a new Peace Conference at the Hague.

So the triumph of reaction appeared to be complete: it seemed assured by the mere immensity of its horror, and the returned exiles admitted that in the worst days of their youth Russia had never suffered as she was suffering now. Yet I suppose that no single revolutionary in the country abandoned hope or contemplated peace. If there is something discouraging in the Russian passive endurance, it has its compensation in a slow but unwavering persistence in rebellion. In spite of all the winter’s executions and imprisonment, I doubt if there was one good rebel the less in spring than in autumn, and revolutionists of all types were now drawn together by that just and savage indignation which is the strongest bond of union. The bureaucrats of Tsardom had stamped for themselves a red surface on which their little circle might continue to live a while longer; but the revolution was boiling underneath, and even they could not be deaf to the hum and rumble of its working. In such mood, and amid such hopes and fears, the advent of the long-promised Duma was awaited.

The main items of expenditure were—

But besides these items of ordinary expenditure there remained—