Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/204

 traders, the manufacturers, the merchants, the bankers, the railroad-builders. The gentry fear, and perhaps not without reason, that their place and importance will be usurped by these newcomers. And, in their fright, they are trying in vain to turn back the wheels of history.

In the government of Kursk, for example, a nobleman by the name of Emnich, presented to an Assembly of the Nobles a detailed report concerning the necessary reforms in Russia. In his report, he advocated the restoration of the institution of serfdom by means of a law which would forbid peasants to travel away from the place where they live. Such a condition would help the noble land-owners to build up their estates, as they would have a sufficient supply of cheap agricultural labor.

The same mediæval note was sounded only a year before the War in a report drawn up by a group of noblemen of the government of Poltava. The report pointed out the incalculable injury done to the interests of the Russian gentry by the introduction of banks and railroads, for these institutions "undermine the foundation of the existing political order," besides being "a menace to the State, as well as to the interests of the gentry."

If we add to these mediæval projects a conception of "nationalism," which would dispose, by extermination, of fifteen millions of "foreign" nationalities, such as Jews, Finns, Armenians, etc., we should have a complete picture of the social and political beliefs of the Russian ultra-reactionaries. It would be absurd to believe that such a program has the slightest chance of becoming the leading factor in the political life of Russia.

Despite their present position at the top of the political ladder, it is more than probable that they will soon be eliminated as a political power. Every war that Russia has fought wrought tremendous changes in the country. The War of 1812 spread liberal ideas among the upper classes of Russia. The Crimean War was followed by the emancipation of the serfs, while the Russo-Japanese War carried Russia just beyond the threshold of constitutionalism. The European War may mean the ultimate triumph of democracy in Russia. Whatever may happen, there will scarcely be room in the political life of Russia for the mediæval ideas of her reactionaries.