Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/157

Rh In addition, there were incessant mutinies. The military colonies on the frontier, reintroduced by Alexander I, could not be maintained. The troops and many of the officers were frequently in revolt, and it is further noteworthy that from time to time the soldiers rose against their officers as aristocrats.

In addition to these active symptoms of discontent, the serfs sometimes adopted methods of passive resistance, and a number of suicides occurred, officially recorded as instances of "sudden death."

Finally, during the reign of Nicholas, serious labour troubles began. There had been disturbances in the labour world in earlier reigns, in those of Catherine II, Paul, and Alexander I; but under Nicholas they became far more extensive. In 1845 the first anti-strike law was promulgated. Nicholas' government watched with concern the increase of the proletariat, but the industrial interests of the capitalists and those of the state itself prevailed over the political fears of the police and the administration. In Russia, as in Europe, there were frequent attempts to prevent the establishment of new factories and thus to hinder an increase in the number of operatives, but the state was compelled to found factories of its own, and had often to support manufacturing industry in defiance of the aristocratic and agrarianising aims by which it was animated.

The intelligentsia, influenced by French socialist ideas, sympathised with the revolting mužiks. The eyes of Nicholas and his advisers might have been opened when, in 1848, the Petraševcy created the Fourierist league; but Nicholas contented himself with sending Dostoevskii and the others to the scaffold, and surprising them at the last minute by commuting the death sentence to one of administrative exile.