Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/109

Rh should the rout venture forth into the open, hew them down in their dwellings, in the narrow alleys of the towns, in the wide streets of the capitals, in the villages and the hamlets. When that day dawns, he that is not for us will be against us, will be our enemy, and our enemies must be destroyed root and branch. But with each new victory and in the hour of struggle, never forget to repeat, 'Long live the social and democratic Russian republic!'"

The proclamation purported to be issued by the "Revolutionary Central Committee."

The excitement aroused by this bold document was intense. The liberals, no less than the authorities, were outraged beyond measure, for the liberals were stigmatised as henchmen of the tsar. Even Bakunin was ill pleased, for he considered that those who had issued the proclamation failed to understand the situation, that they had no definite goal, and that they lacked revolutionary discipline. Herzen, who was attacked by name in the proclamation, criticised it, but did not take it too seriously, saying that it was an ebullition of youthful radicalism, that its authors had wished to instruct politicians and officials more far-seeing than themselves. The proclamation, he said, was unrussian; it was a mixtum compositum of undigested Schiller (Robber Moor), Gracchus Babeuf, and Feuerbach.

The proclamation is an interesting testimony to the nature of the epoch. We see that the younger radical generation of the sixties is socialistically inclined, that liberalism and its constitutionalist formulas have been found inadequate; that society is to be rebuilt from its foundations on a socialist plan.

According to the philosophy of history of the writers of the proclamation, society consisted of two classes, the members of the tsarist party and the non-possessing revolutionaries, for the existing order was based solely upon private property; the tsar was merely the man standing on the highest rung of the ladder, whose lower rungs were occupied by landowners merchants, and officials—all alike capitalists. Private property was to be abolished; above all, the land was to belong to the whole people, and therefore the mir with its provisional subdivision of the land was accepted; but such property as had been hitherto held privately was to be held only on terms of usufruct, and after the usufructuary's death was to accrue to the mir. Since every individual must belong to a village