Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/83

 so, I suppose, they are indeed, not only as individuals but as a nation—a huge, unshapely mass, with a glossy polish on the outer surface, but fierce forces within, kept in control by a tremendous pressure of power, or superstition, or stolid faith, but really untamed and full of savage vigor. If they once break loose, awful cataclysms must result, producing in their turn—what? It is difficult to imagine how the Russian empire as it now is, from Poland to eastern-most Siberia, could be kept together and governed by anything else than an autocratic centralization of power, a constantly self-asserting and directing central authority with a tremendous organization of force behind it. This rigid central despotism cannot fail to create oppressive abuses in the government of the various territories and diverse populations composing the empire. When this burden of oppression becomes too galling, efforts, raw, crude, more or less inarticulate and confused, will be made in quest of relief, with a slim chance of success. Discontent with the inexorable autocracy will spread and seize upon the superior intelligence of the country, which will be inspired with a restless ambition to have a share in the government.

At the moment when the autocrat yields to the demands of that popular intelligence and assents to constitutional limitations of his power, or to anything that will give an authoritative, official voice to the people, the real revolutionary crisis will begin. The popular discontent will not be appeased, but it will be sharpened by the concession. All the social forces will then be thrown into spasmodic commotion; and, when those forces, in their native wildness, break through their traditional restraints, the world may have to witness a spectacle of revolutionary chaos without example in history. The chaos may ultimately bring forth new conceptions of freedom, right, and