Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/222

196 of the renowned Colonel Komarov, but none the less it gives sufficient proof that Katkov's tsarism was affected by internal corrosion. The arguments Katkov used in favour of tsarism and autocracy were taken from de Maistre, but he lacked the political consistency of the man who glorified the executioner. Moreover, in youth Katkov had had dealings with Tocqueville and Macaulay; in France and in England these were accounted men of moderate views, but in Russia their opinions had a revolutionary influence. Not without significance was the fact that in youth Katkov had made translations from Shakespeare, Hoffmann, and even Heine.

His own indecisiveness enabled him to understand the indecisiveness of the government and the bureaucracy, and likewise enabled him to understand the shortsightedness of the censorship, which (in a petition to the government) he accused of undermining religion. Nor was he under any illusions concerning the weakness of the autocrat. In Katkov's devotion to the reaction there was a dash of anarchism.: If I mistake not, Herzen realised this when he pointed out with delight that Katkov had forced journalism upon tsarism.

We cannot discover in Katkov's writings any definite system of political views, nor did he exercise a guiding influence in matters of principle. Mihailovskii once aptly termed him the vii of the "Moscow News." The vii is a Little Russian mythical being who is unable to see in ordinary circumstances because his eyelids reach to the ground; but the vii can see perfectly well if his lids are held forcibly open with a pitchfork.

Katkov was continually vacillating. In the sixties, for example, he was opposed to the slavophils; in 1880, at the Puškin festival, he became reconciled with them (with Ivan Aksakov, at least, for Turgenev refused to clink glasses with him); but almost immediately after this reconciliation Katkov resumed his old attitude of hostility. During the Turkish war he was antigerman; in 1882 he was well pleased with Bismarck, because the chancellor was more Russian than was Russian diplomacy, which rested upon no national foundation; but from 1886 onwards he opposed Bismarck and the Bismarckians in the most violent terms. In like manner, he was, at first antifrench, and subsequently profrench. Having been