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TSAR OF RUSSIA] towns, with elective assemblies possessing a restricted right of taxation, and a new rural and municipal police under the direction of the minister of the interior. These new institutions were incomparably better than the old ones which they replaced, but they did not work such miracles as inexperienced enthusiasts expected. Comparisons were made, not with the past, but with an ideal state of things which never existed in Russia or elsewhere. Hence arose a general feeling of disappointment, which acted on different natures in different ways. Some of the enthusiasts sank into a sceptical, reactionary frame of mind; while others, with deeper convictions or capable of more lasting excitement, attributed the failure to the fact that only half-measures and compromises had been adopted by the government. Thus appeared in the educated classes two extreme groups: on the one hand, the discontented Conservatives, who recommended a return to a more severe disciplinarian régime; and on the other, the discontented Radicals, who would have been satisfied with nothing less than the adoption of a thoroughgoing socialistic programme. Between the two extremes stood the discontented Moderates, who indulged freely in grumbling without knowing how the unsatisfactory state of things was to be remedied. For some years the emperor, with his sound common-sense and dislike of exaggeration, held the balance fairly between the two extremes; but long years of uninterrupted labour, anxiety and disappointment weakened his zeal for reform, and when radicalism assumed more and more the form of secret societies and revolutionary agitation, he felt constrained to adopt severe repressive measures.

The revolutionary agitation was of a very peculiar kind. It was confined to a section of the educated classes, and emanated from the universities and higher technical schools. At the beginning of the reform period there had been much enthusiasm for scientific as opposed to classical education. Russia required, it was said, not classical scholars, but practical, scientific men, capable of developing her natural resources. The government, in accordance with this view, had encouraged scientific studies until it discovered to its astonishment that there was some mysterious connexion between natural science and revolutionary tendencies. Many of the young men and women, who were supposed to be qualifying as specialists in the various spheres of industrial and commercial enterprise, were in reality devoting their time to considering how human society in general, and Russian society in particular, could be reconstructed in accordance with the latest physiological, biological and sociological principles. Some of these young people wished to put their crude notions immediately into practice, and as their desire to make gigantic socialist experiments naturally alarmed the government, their activity was opposed by the police. Many of them were arrested and imprisoned or exiled to distant provinces, but the revolutionary work was continued with unabated zeal. Thus arose a struggle between the youthful, hot-headed partisans of revolutionary physical science and the zealous official guardians of political order—a struggle which has made the strange term (q.v.) a familiar word not only in Russia but also in western Europe. The movement gradually assumed the form of terrorism, and aimed at the assassination of prominent officials, and even of the emperor himself, and the natural result was that the reactionary tendencies of the government were strengthened.

In foreign policy Alexander II. showed the same qualities of character as in internal affairs, ever trying prudently to steer a middle course. When he came to the throne a peace policy was imposed on him by circumstances. The Crimean War was still going on, but as there was no doubt as to the final issue, and the country was showing symptoms of exhaustion, he concluded peace with the allies as soon as he thought the national honour had been satisfied. Prince Gorchakov could then declare to Europe, “La Russie ne boude pas; elle se recueille”; and for fifteen years he avoided foreign complications, so that the internal strength of the country might be developed, while the national pride and ambition received a certain satisfaction by the expansion of Russian influence and domination in Asia. Twice, indeed, during that period the chancellor ran the risk of provoking war. The first occasion was in 1863, when the Western powers seemed inclined to interfere in the Polish question, and the Russian chancery declared categorically that no interference would be tolerated. The second occasion was during the Franco-German War of 1870–71, when the cabinet of St Petersburg boldly declared that it considered itself no longer bound by the Black Sea clause of the treaty of Paris. On both these occasions hostilities were averted. Not so on the next occasion, when Russia abandoned her attitude of recueillement. When the Eastern question was raised in 1875 by the insurrection of Herzegovina, Alexander II. had no intention or wish to provoke a great European war. No doubt he was waiting for an opportunity of recovering the portion of Bessarabia which had been ceded by the treaty of Paris, and he perceived in the disturbed state of Eastern Europe a possibility of obtaining the desired rectification of frontier, but he hoped to effect his purpose by diplomatic means in conjunction with Austria. At the same time he was anxious to obtain for the Christians of Turkey some amelioration of their condition, and to give thereby some satisfaction to his own subjects. As autocratic ruler of the nation which had long considered itself the defender of the Eastern Orthodox faith and the protector of the Slav nationalities, he could not remain inactive at such a crisis, and he gradually allowed himself to drift into a position from which he could not retreat without obtaining some tangible result. Supposing that the Porte would yield to diplomatic pressure and menace so far as to make some reasonable concessions, he delivered his famous Moscow speech, in which he declared that if Europe would not secure a better position for the oppressed Slavs he would act alone. The diplomatic pressure failed and war became inevitable. During the campaign he displayed the same perseverance and the same moderation that he had shown in the emancipation of the serfs. To those who began to despair of success, and advised him to conclude peace on almost any terms so as to avoid greater disasters, he turned a deaf ear, and brought the campaign to a successful conclusion; but when his more headstrong advisers urged him to insist on terms which would probably have produced a conflict with Great Britain and Austria, he resolved, after some hesitation, to make the requisite concessions. In this resolution he was influenced by the discovery that he could not rely on the expected support of Germany, and the discovery made him waver in his devotion to the German alliance, which had been the main pivot of his foreign policy; but his personal attachment to the emperor William prevented him from adopting a hostile attitude towards the empire he had helped to create.

The patriotic excitement produced by the war did not weaken the revolutionary agitation. The struggle between the Terrorists and the police authorities became more and more intense, and attempts at assassination became more and more frequent. Alexander II. succumbed by degrees to the mental depression produced originally by the disappointments which he experienced in his home and foreign policy; and in 1880, when he had reigned twenty-five years, he entrusted to Count Loris-Melikov a large share of the executive power. In that year the empress died, and a few weeks afterwards he married secretly a Princess Dolgoruki, with whom he had already entertained intimate relations for some years. Early in 1881, on the advice of Count Loris-Melikov, he determined to try the effect of some moderate liberal reforms on the revolutionary agitation, and for this purpose he caused a ukaz to be prepared creating special commissions, composed of high officials and private personages who should prepare reforms in various branches of the administration. On the very day on which this ukaz was signed—13th of March 1881—he fell a victim to a Nihilist plot. When driving in one of the central streets of St Petersburg, near the Winter Palace, he was mortally wounded by the explosion of some small bombs and died a few hours afterwards.

ALEXANDER III. (1845–1894), emperor of Russia, second son of Alexander II., was born on the 10th of March 1845. In natural disposition he bore little resemblance to his soft-hearted, liberal→minded father, and still less to his refined, philosophic, sentimental, chivalrous, yet cunning grand-uncle Alexander I., who