Page:Leo Tolstoy - The Russian Revolution (1907).djvu/87

 70 inciting them to robberies and insurrections, which always end in suffering and the yet greater enslavement for the people.

The intricate and difficult circumstances amid which we live in Russia demand of you, especially at the present time, not newspaper articles, nor speeches in assemblies, nor promenadings in the streets with revolvers, nor the (often dishonest) incitement of the peasants while you evade responsibility yourselves; but a frank and strict relation to yourselves and to your own lives, which alone are in your power, and the improvement of which is the sole means by which you can improve the general condition of the people.

[By the people I mean the whole Russian people, but especially the working, agricultural people, who by their labour support the lives of all the rest.]

You, Russian working people, chiefly agricultural peasants, now find yourselves in Russia in a specially difficult position. However hard it was for you to live with little land and large taxes and customs-duties and wars, which the Government devised, you lived, till quite recently, believing in the Tsar, and believing that it was impossible to live without a Tsar and without his authority and you humbly submitted to the Government.

However badly the Tsar's Government ruled you, you humbly submitted to it as long as there was only one Government. But now, when it has come about that a part of the people has rebelled, and ceasing to obey the Tsar's Government, has begun to fight against it: when in many places instead of one Government there are two, each of them demanding obedience, you can no longer humbly submit to the powers that be, without considering whether the Government rules you well or ill; but have to choose which of the two you will seep to. What are you to do? Not those tens of thousands of workmen who bustle and are hustled