* In this list I have not mentioned the assassination of M.Bogolyepof, Minister of Public Instruction, in 1901, becauseI do not know whether it should be attributed to theSocialist-Revolutionaries or to the Narodovoltsi, who hadnot yet amalgamated with them.
Though the Social Democrats have no sentimental squeamishness about bloodshed, they objected to this policy on the ground that acts of terrorism were unnecessary and were apt to prove injurious rather than beneficial to the revolutionist cause. One of the main objects of every intelligent revolutionary party should be to awaken all classes from their habitual apathy and induce them to take an active part in the political movement; but terrorism must have a contrary effect by suggesting that political freedom is to be attained, not by the steady pressure and persevering cooperation of the people, but by startling, sensational acts of individual heroism.
The efforts of these two revolutionary parties, as well as of minor groups, to get hold of the industrial proletariat did not escape the notice of the authorities; and during the labour troubles of 1896, on the suggestion of M. Witte, the Government had considered the question as to what should be done to counteract the influence of the agitators. On that question it had no difficulty in coming to a decision; the condition of the working classes must be improved. An expert official was accordingly instructed to write a report on what had already been done in that direction. In his report it was shown that the Government had long been thinking about the subject. Not to speak of a still-born law about a ten-hour day for artisans, dating from the time of Catherine II., an Imperial commission had been appointed as early as 1859, but nothing practical came of its deliberations until 1882, when legislative measures were taken for the protection of women and children in factories. A little later (1886) other grievances were dealt with and partly removed by regulating contracts of hire, providing that the money derived from deductions and fines should not be appropriated by the employers, and creating a staff of factory inspectors who should take care that the benevolent intentions of the Government were duly carried out. Having reviewed all these official efforts in 1896, the Government passed in the following year a law prohibiting night work and limiting the working day to eleven and a half hours.
This did not satisfy the workmen. Their wages were still low, and it was difficult to get them increased because strikes and all forms of association were still, as they had always been, criminal offences. On this point the Government remained firm so far as the law was concerned, but it gradually made practical concessions by allowing the workmen to combine for certain purposes. In 1898, for example, in Kharkof, the Engineers' Mutual Aid Society was sanctioned, and gradually it became customary to allow the workmen to elect delegates for the discussion of their grievances with the employers and inspectors.
Finding that these concessions did not check the growing influence of the Social Democratic agitators among the operatives, the Government resolved to go a step further; it would organise the workers on purely trade-unionist lines, and would thereby combat the Social Democrats, who always advised the strikers to mix up political demands with their material grievances. The project seemed to have a good prospect of success, because there were many workmen, especially of the older generation, who did not at all like the mixing up of politics, which so often led to arrest, imprisonment and exile, with the practical concerns of every day life.
The first attempt of the kind was made in Moscow under the direction of a certain Zubatof, chief of the secret police, who had been himself a revolutionary in his youth, and afterwards an agent provocateur. Aided by Tikhomirof, the repentant terrorist whom I have already mentioned, Zubatof organised a large workmen's association, with reading-rooms, lectures, discussions and other attractions, and sought to convince the members that they should turn a deaf ear to the Social Democratic agents, and look only to the Government for the improvement of their condition. In order to gain their sympathy and confidence, he instructed his subordinates to take the side of the workmen in all labour disputes, while he himself brought official pressure to bear on the employers. By this means he made a considerable number of converts, and for a time the association seemed to prosper, but he did not possess the extraordinary ability and tact required to play the complicated game successfully, and he committed the fatal mistake of using the office-bearers of the association as detectives for the discovery of the "evil-intentioned." This tactical error had its natural consequences. As soon as the workmen perceived that their professed benefactors were police spies, who did not obtain for them any real improvement of their condition, the popularity of the association rapidly declined. At the same time, the factory owners complained to the Minister of Finance that the police, who ought to be guardians of public order, and who had accused the factory inspectors of stirring up discontent in the labouring population, were themselves creating troubles by inciting the workmen to make inordinate demands. The Minister of Finance at the moment was M. Witte, and the Minister of Interior, responsible for the acts of the police, was M. Plehve, and between these two official dignitaries, who were already in very strained relations, Zubatof's activity formed a new base of contention. In these circumstances it is not surprising that the very risky experiment came to an untimely end.
In St. Petersburg a similar experiment was made, and it ended much more tragically. There the chief rôle was played by a mysterious personage called Father Gapon, who acquired great momentary notoriety. Though a genuine priest, he did not belong by birth, as most Russian priests do, to the ecclesiastical caste. The son of a peasant in Little Russia, where the ranks of the clergy are not hermetically sealed against the other social classes, he aspired to take orders, and after being rusticated from a seminary for supposed sympathy with revolutionary ideas, he contrived to finish his studies and obtain ordination. During a residence in Moscow he took part in the Zubatof experiment, and when that badly conducted scheme collapsed he was transferred to St. Petersburg and appointed chaplain to a large convict prison. His new professional duties did not prevent him from continuing to take a keen interest in the welfare of the working classes, and in the summer of 1904 he became, with the approval of the police authorities, president of a large labour union called the Society of Russian Workmen, which had eleven sections in the various industrial suburbs of the capital. Under his guidance the experiment proceeded for some months very successfully. He gained the sympathy and confidence of the workmen, and so long as no serious questions arose he kept his hold on them; but a storm was brewing and he proved unequal to the occasion.
In the first days of 1905, when the economic consequences of the war had come to be keenly felt, a spirit of discontent appeared among the labouring population of St. Petersburg, and on Sunday, January 15th—exactly a week before the famous Sunday when the troops were called into play—a strike began in the Putilof ironworks and spread like wildfire to the other big works in the neighbourhood. The immediate cause of the disturbance was the dismissal of some workmen and a demand on the part of the labour union that they should be reinstated. A deputation, composed partly of genuine workmen and partly of Social Democratic agitators, and led by Gapon, negotiated with the managers of the Putilof works, and failed to effect an arrangement. At this moment Gapon tried hard to confine the negotiations to the points in dispute, whereas the agitators put forward demands of a wider kind, such as the eight-hour working day, and they gradually obtained his concurrence on condition that no political demands should be introduced into the programme. In defending this condition he was supported by the workmen, so that when agitators tried to make political speeches at the meetings they were unceremoniously expelled.
A similar struggle between the "Economists" and the "Politicals" was going on in the other industrial suburbs, notably in the Nevski quarter, where 45,000 operatives had struck work, and the Social Democrats were particularly active. In this section of the Labour Union the most influential member was a young workman called Petroff, who was a staunch Gaponist in the sense that he wished the workers to confine themselves to their own grievances and to resist the introduction of political demands. At first he succeeded in preventing the agitators from speaking at the meetings, but they soon proved too much for him. At one of the meetings on Tuesday, when he happened to be absent, a Social Democrat contrived to get himself elected chairman, and from that moment the political agitators had a free hand. They had a regular organisation composed of an organiser, three "oratorical agitators," and several assistant-organisers who attended the small meetings in the operatives' sleeping-quarters. Besides these there were a certain number of workmen already converted to Social Democratic principles who had learned the art of making political speeches.
The reports of the agitators to the central organisation, written hurriedly during this eventful week, are extremely graphic and interesting. They declared that there is a frightful amount of work to be done and very few to do it. Their stock of Social Democratic pamphlets is exhausted and they are hoarse from speech-making. In spite of their superhuman efforts the masses remain frightfully "undeveloped." The men willingly collect to hear the orators, listen to them attentively, express approval or dissent, and even put questions; but with all this they remain obstinately on the ground of their own immediate wants, such as the increase of wages and protection against brutal foremen, and they only hint vaguely at more serious demands. The agitators, however, are equally obstinate, and they make a few converts. To illustrate how conversions are made, the following incident is related. At one meeting the cry of "Stop the war!" is raised by an orator without sufficient preparation, and at once a voice is heard in the audience saying. "No, no! The little Japs (Yaposhki) must be beaten!" Thereupon a more experienced orator comes forward and a characteristic conversation takes place:
"Have we much land of our own, my friends?" asks the orator.
"Much!" replies the crowd.
"Do we require Manchuria?"
"No!"
"Who pays for the war?"
"We do!"
"Are our brothers dying, and do your wives and children remain without a bit of bread?"
"So it is!" say many, with a significant shake of the head.
Having succeeded so far, the orator tries to turn the popular indignation against the Tsar by explaining that he is to blame for all this misery and suffering, but Petroff suddenly appears on the scene and maintains that for the misery and suffering the Tsar is not at all to blame, for he knows nothing about it. It is all the fault of his servants, the tchinovniks.
By this device Petroff suppresses the seditious cry of "Down with autocracy!" which the Social Democrats were anxious to make the watchword of the movement, but he has thereby been drawn from his strong position of "No politics," and he is standing, as we shall see presently, on a slippery incline.
On Thursday and Friday the activity of the leaders and the excitement of the masses increase. While the Gaponists speak merely of local grievances and material wants, the Social Democrats incite their hearers to a political struggle, advising them to demand a Constituent Assembly, and explaining the necessity for all workmen to draw together and form a powerful political party. The haranguing goes on from morning to night, and agitators drive about from one factory to another to keep the excitement at fever-heat. The police, usually so active on such occasions, do not put in an appearance. Prince Sviatopolk Mirski, the honest, well-intentioned, liberal Minister of the Interior, cannot make up his mind to act with energy, and lets things drift. The agitators themselves are astonished at this extraordinary inactivity. One of them, writing a few days afterwards, says: "The police was paralysed. It would have been easy to arrest Gapon, and discover the orators. On Friday the clubs might have been surrounded and the orators arrested. . . . In a word, decided measures might have been taken, but they were not."
It is not only Petroff that has abandoned his strong position of "No politics"; Gapon is doing likewise. The movement has spread far beyond what he expected, and he is being carried away by the prevailing excitement. With all his benevolent intentions, he is of a nervous, excitable nature, and his besetting sin is vanity. He perceives that by resisting the Social Democrats he is losing his hold on the masses. Early in the week, as we have seen, he began to widen his programme in the Social Democratic sense, and every day he makes new concessions. Before the week is finished a Social Democratic orator can write triumphantly: "In three days we have transformed the Gaponist assemblies into political meetings!" Like Petroff, Gapon seeks to defend the Tsar, and he falls into Petroff's strategical mistake of pretending that the Tsar knows nothing of the sufferings of his people. From that admission to the resolution that the Tsar must somehow be informed personally and directly, by some means outside of the regular official channel, there is but one step, and that step is quickly taken. On Friday morning Gapon has determined to present with his own hands a petition to his Majesty, and the petition is already drafted, containing demands which go far beyond workmen's grievances. After resisting the Social Democratic agitators so stoutly, he is now going over, bag and baggage, to the Social Democratic camp.
This wonderful change was consummated on Friday evening at a conference which he held with some delegates of the Social Democrats. From an account written by one of these delegates immediately after the meeting we get an insight into the worthy priest's character and motives. In the morning he had written to them: "I have 100,000 workmen, and I am going with them to the Palace to present a petition. If it is not granted, we shall make a revolution. Do you agree?" They did not like the idea, because the Social Democratic policy is to extort concessions, not to ask favours, and to refrain from anything that might increase the prestige of the Autocratic Power. In their reply, therefore, they consented simply to discuss the matter. I proceed now to quote from the delegate's account of what took place at the conference:
"The company consisted of Gapon, with two adherents, and five Social Democrats. All sat round a table, and the conversation began. Gapon is a good-looking man, with dark complexion and thoughtful, sympathetic face. He is evidently very tired, and, like the other orators, he is hoarse. To the questions addressed to him, he replies: 'The masses are at present so electrified that you may lead them wherever you like. We shall go on Sunday to the Palace, and present a petition. If we are allowed to pass without hindrance, we shall march to the Palace Square, and summon the Tsar from Tsarskoe Selo. We shall wait for him till the evening. When he arrives, I shall go to him with a deputation, and in presenting to him the petition, I shall say: 'Your Majesty! Things cannot go on like this; it is time to give the people liberty.' (Tak nelzya! Para dat' narodu svobodu.) If he consents, we shall insist that he take an oath before the people. Only then we shall come away, and when we begin to work, it will only be for eight hours a day. If, on the other hand, we are prevented from entering the city, we shall request and beg, and if they do not let us pass, we shall force our way. In the Palace Square we shall find troops, and we shall entreat them to come over to our side. If they beat us, we shall strike back. There will be sacrifices, but part of the troops will come over to us, and then, being ourselves strong in numbers, we shall make a revolution. We shall construct barricades, pillage the armourers' shops, break open the prisons, and seize the telephones and telegraphs. The Socialist-Revolutionaries have promised us bombs, and the Democrats money: and we shall be victorious!*
* This confirms the information which comes to me from otherquarters that Gapon was already in friendly relations withother revolutionary groups.
"Such, in a few words, were the ideas which Gapon expounded. The impression he made on us was that he did not clearly realise where he was going. Acting with sincerity, he was ready to die, but he was convinced that the troops would not fire, and that the deputation would be received by the Emperor. He did not distinguish between different methods. Though not at all a partisan of violent means, he had become infuriated against autocracy and the Tsar, as was shown by his language when he said: 'If that blockhead of a Tsar comes out' (Yesli etot durak Tsar vuidet) . . . Burning with the desire to attain his object, he looked on revolution like a child, as if it could be accomplished in a day with empty hands!"
Knowing that no previous preparations had been made for a revolution such as Gapon talked of, the Social Democratic agents tried to dissuade him from carrying out his idea on Sunday, but he stood firm. He had already committed himself publicly to the project. At a workmen's meeting in another quarter (Vassiliostrof) earlier in the day he had explained the petition, and said: "Let us go to the Winter Palace and summon the Emperor, and let us tell him our wants; if he does not listen to us we do not require him any longer." To a Social Democrat who shook him warmly by the hand and expressed his astonishment that there should be such a man among the clergy, he replied: "I am no longer a priest; I am a fighter for liberty! They want to exile me, and for some nights I have not slept at home." When offered assistance to escape arrest, he answered laconically: "Thanks; I have already a place of refuge." After his departure from the meeting one of his friends, to whom he had confided a copy of the petition, rose and said: "Now has arrived the great historical moment! Now we can and must demand rights and liberty!" After hearing the petition read the meeting decided that if the Tsar did not come out at the demand of the people strong measures should be taken, and one orator indicated pretty plainly what they should be: "We don't require a Tsar who is deaf to the woes of the people; we shall perish ourselves, but we shall kill him. Swear that you will all come to the Palace on Sunday at twelve o'clock!" The audience raised their hands in token of assent.
Finding it impossible to dissuade Gapon from his purpose, the Social Democrats told him that they would take advantage of the circumstances independently, and that if he was allowed to enter the city with his deputation they would organise monster meetings in the Palace Square.
The imperious tone used by Gapon at the public meetings and private consultations was adopted by him also in his letters to the Minister of the Interior and to the Emperor. To the former he wrote:
"The workmen and inhabitants of St. Petersburg of various classes desire to see the Tsar at two o'clock on Sunday in the Winter Palace Square, in order to lay before him personally their needs and those of the whole Russian people. . . . Tell the Tsar that I and the workmen, many thousands in number, have peacefully, with confidence in him, but irrevocably, resolved to proceed to the Winter Palace. Let him show his confidence by deeds, and not by manifestos."
To the Tsar himself his language was not more respectful:
"Sovereign,—I fear the Ministers have not told you the truth about the situation. The whole people, trusting in you, has resolved to appear at the Winter Palace at two o'clock in the afternoon, in order to inform you of its needs. If you hesitate, and do not appear before the people, then you tear the moral bonds between you and them. Trust in you will disappear, because innocent blood will flow. Appear to-morrow before your people and receive our address of devotion in a courageous spirit! I and the labour representatives, my brave comrades, guarantee the inviolability of your person."
Gapon was no longer merely the president of the Workmen's Union: inebriated with the excitement he had done so much to create, he now imagined himself the representative of the oppressed Russian people, and the heroic leader of a great political revolution. In the petition which he had prepared he said little about the grievances of the St. Petersburg workmen whose interests he had a right to advocate, and preferred to soar into much higher regions:
"The bureaucracy has brought the country to the verge of ruin, and, by a shameful war, is bringing it to its downfall. We have no voice in the heavy burdens imposed on us; we do not even know for whom or why this money is wrung from the impoverished people, and we do not know how it is expended. This state of things is contrary to the Divine laws, and renders life unbearable. Assembled before your palace, we plead for our salvation. Refuse not your aid; raise your people from the tomb, and give them the means of working out their own destiny. Rescue them from the intolerable yoke of officialdom; throw down the wall that separates you from them, in order that they may rule with you the country that was created for their happiness—a happiness which is being wrenched from us, leaving nothing but sorrow and humiliation."
With an innate sentiment of autocratic dignity the Emperor declined to obey the imperious summons, and he thereby avoided an unseemly altercation with the excited priest, as well as the boisterous public meetings which the Social Democrats were preparing to hold in the Palace Square. Orders were given to the police and the troops to prevent the crowds of workmen from penetrating into the centre of the city from the industrial suburbs. The rest need not be described in detail. On Sunday the crowds tried to force their way, the troops fired, and many of the demonstrators were killed or wounded. How many it is impossible to say; between the various estimates there is an enormous discrepancy. At one of the first volleys Father Gapon fell, but he turned out to be quite unhurt, and was spirited away to his place of refuge, whence he escaped across the frontier.
As soon as he had an opportunity of giving public expression to his feelings, he indulged in very strong language. In his letters and proclamations the Tsar is called a miscreant and an assassin, and is described as traitorous, bloodthirsty, and bestial. To the ministers he is equally uncomplimentary. They appear to him an accursed band of brigands, Mamelukes, jackals, monsters. Against the Tsar, "with his reptilian brood," and the ministers alike, he vows vengeance—"death to them all!" As for the means for realising his sacred mission, he recommends bombs, dynamite, individual and wholesale terrorism, popular insurrection, and paralysing the life of the cities by destroying the water-mains, the gas-pipes, the telegraph and telephone wires, the railways and tram-ways, the Government buildings and the prisons. At some moments he seems to imagine himself invested with papal powers, for he anathematises the soldiers who did their duty on the eventful day, whilst he blesses and absolves from their oath of allegiance those who help the nation to win liberty.
So far I have spoken merely of the main currents in the revolutionary movement. Of the minor currents—particularly those in the outlying provinces, where the Socialist tendencies were mingled with nationalist feeling—I shall have occasion to speak when I come to deal with the present political situation as a whole. Meanwhile, I wish to sketch in outline the foreign policy which has powerfully contributed to bring about the present crisis.
Rapid Growth of Russia—Expansive Tendency of Agricultural Peoples—The Russo-Slavonians—The Northern Forest and the Steppe—Colonisation—The Part of the Government in the Process of Expansion—Expansion towards the West—Growth of the Empire Represented in a Tabular Form—Commercial Motive for Expansion—The Expansive Force in the Future—Possibilities of Expansion in Europe—Persia, Afghanistan, and India—Trans-Siberian Railway and Weltpolitik—A Grandiose Scheme—Determined Opposition of Japan—Negotiations and War—Russia's Imprudence Explained—Conclusion.
The rapid growth of Russia is one of the most remarkable facts of modern history. An insignificant tribe, or collection of tribes, which, a thousand years ago, occupied a small district near the sources of the Dnieper and Western Dvina, has grown into a great nation with a territory stretching from the Baltic to the Northern Pacific, and from the Polar Ocean to the frontiers of Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, and China. We have here a fact well deserving of investigation, and as the process is still going on and is commonly supposed to threaten our national interests, the investigation ought to have for us more than a mere scientific interest. What is the secret of this expansive power? Is it a mere barbarous lust of territorial aggrandisement, or is it some more reasonable motive? And what is the nature of the process? Is annexation followed by assimilation, or do the new acquisitions retain their old character? Is the Empire in its present extent a homogeneous whole, or merely a conglomeration of heterogenous units held together by the outward bond of centralised administration? If we could find satisfactory answers to these questions, we might determine how far Russia is strengthened or weakened by her annexations of territory, and might form some plausible conjectures as to how, when, and where the process of expansion is to stop.
By glancing at her history from the economic point of view we may easily detect one prominent cause of expansion.
An agricultural people, employing merely the primitive methods of agriculture, has always a strong tendency to widen its borders. The natural increase of population demands a constantly increasing production of grain, whilst the primitive methods of cultivation exhaust the soil and steadily diminish its productivity. With regard to this stage of economic development, the modest assertion of Malthus, that the supply of food does not increase so rapidly as the population, often falls far short of the truth. As the population increases, the supply of food may decrease not only relatively, but absolutely. When a people finds itself in this critical position, it must adopt one of two alternatives: either it must prevent the increase of population, or it must increase the production of food. In the former case it may legalise the custom of "exposing" infants, as was done in ancient Greece; or it may regularly sell a large portion of the young women and children, as was done until recently in Circassia; or the surplus population may emigrate to foreign lands, as the Scandinavians did in the ninth century, and as we ourselves are doing in a more peaceable fashion at the present day. The other alternative may be effected either by extending the area of cultivation or by improving the system of agriculture.
The Russo-Slavonians, being an agricultural people, experienced this difficulty, but for them it was not serious. A convenient way of escape was plainly indicated by their peculiar geographical position. They were not hemmed in by lofty mountains or stormy seas. To the south and east—at their very doors, as it were—lay a boundless expanse of thinly populated virgin soil, awaiting the labour of the husbandman, and ready to repay it most liberally. The peasantry therefore, instead of exposing their infants, selling their daughters, or sweeping the seas as Vikings, simply spread out towards the east and south. This was at once the most natural and the wisest course, for of all the expedients for preserving the equilibrium between population and food-production, increasing the area of cultivation is, under the circumstances just described, the easiest and most effective. Theoretically the same result might have been obtained by improving the method of agriculture, but practically this was impossible. Intensive culture is not likely to be adopted so long as expansion is easy. High farming is a thing to be proud of when there is a scarcity of land, but it would be absurd to attempt it where there is abundance of virgin soil in the vicinity.
The process of expansion, thus produced by purely economic causes, was accelerated by influences of another kind, especially during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The increase in the number of officials, the augmentation of the taxes, the merciless exactions of the Voyevods and their subordinates, the transformation of the peasants and "free wandering people" into serfs, the ecclesiastical reforms and consequent persecution of the schismatics, the frequent conscriptions and violent reforms of Peter the Great—these and other kinds of oppression made thousands flee from their homes and seek a refuge in the free territory, where there were no officials, no tax-gatherers, and no proprietors. But the State, with its army of tax-gatherers and officials, followed close on the heels of the fugitives, and those who wished to preserve their liberty had to advance still further. Notwithstanding the efforts of the authorities to retain the population in the localities actually occupied, the wave of colonisation moved steadily onwards.
The vast territory which lay open to the colonists consisted of two contiguous regions, separated from each other by no mountains or rivers, but widely differing from each other in many respects. The one, comprising all the northern part of Eastern Europe and of Asia, even unto Kamchatka, may be roughly described as a land of forests, intersected by many rivers, and containing numerous lakes and marshes; the other, stretching southwards to the Black Sea, and eastwards far away into Central Asia, is for the most part what Russians call "the Steppe," and Americans would call the prairies.
Each of these two regions presented peculiar inducements and peculiar obstacles to colonisation. So far as the facility of raising grain was concerned, the southern region was decidedly preferable. In the north the soil had little natural fertility, and was covered with dense forests, so that much time and labour had to be expended in making a clearing before the seed could be sown.* In the south, on the contrary, the squatter had no trees to fell, and no clearing to make. Nature had cleared the land for him, and supplied him with a rich black soil of marvellous fertility, which has not yet been exhausted by centuries of cultivation. Why, then, did the peasant often prefer the northern forests to the fertile Steppe where the land was already prepared for him?
* The modus operandi has been already described; vide supra,pp. 104 et seq.
For this apparent inconsistency there was a good and valid reason. The muzhik had not, even in those good old times, any passionate love of labour for its own sake, nor was he by any means insensible to the facilities for agriculture afforded by the Steppe. But he could not regard the subject exclusively from the agricultural point of view. He had to take into consideration the fauna as well as the flora of the two regions. At the head of the fauna in the northern forests stood the peace-loving, laborious Finnish tribes, little disposed to molest settlers who did not make themselves obnoxiously aggressive; on the Steppe lived the predatory, nomadic hordes, ever ready to attack, plunder, and carry off as slaves the peaceful agricultural population. These facts, as well as the agricultural conditions, were known to intending colonists, and influenced them in their choice of a new home. Though generally fearless and fatalistic in a higher degree, they could not entirely overlook the dangers of the Steppe, and many of them preferred to encounter the hard work of the forest region.
These differences in the character and population of the two regions determined the character of the colonisation. Though the colonisation of the northern regions was not effected entirely without bloodshed, it was, on the whole, of a peaceful kind, and consequently received little attention from the contemporary chroniclers. The colonisation of the Steppe, on the contrary, required the help of the Cossacks, and forms, as I have already shown, one of the bloodiest pages of European history.
Thus, we see, the process of expansion towards the north, east, and south may be described as a spontaneous movement of the agricultural population. It must, however, be admitted that this is an imperfect and one-sided representation of the phenomenon. Though the initiative unquestionably came from the people, the Government played an important part in the movement.
In early times when Russia was merely a conglomeration of independent principalities, the Princes were under the moral and political obligation of protecting their subjects, and this obligation coincided admirably with their natural desire to extend their dominions. When the Grand Princes of Muscovy, in the fifteenth century, united the numerous principalities and proclaimed themselves Tsars, they accepted this obligation for the whole country, and conceived much grander schemes of territorial aggrandisement. Towards the north and northeast no strenuous efforts were required. The Republic of Novgorod easily gained possession of Northern Russia as far as the Ural Mountains, and Siberia was conquered by a small band of Cossacks without the authorisation of Muscovy, so that the Tsars had merely to annex the already conquered territory. In the southern region the part played by the Government was very different. The agricultural population had to be constantly protected along a frontier of enormous length, lying open at all points to the incursions of nomadic tribes. To prevent raids it was necessary to keep up a military cordon, and this means did not always ensure protection to those living near the frontier. The nomads often came in formidable hordes, which could be successfully resisted only by large armies, and sometimes the armies were not large enough to cope with them. Again and again during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Tartar hordes swept over the country—burning the villages and towns, and spreading devastation wherever they appeared—and during more than two centuries Russia had to pay a heavy tribute to the Khans.
Gradually the Tsars threw off this galling yoke. Ivan the Terrible annexed the three Khanates of the Lower Volga—Kazan, Kipttchak, and Astrakhan—and in that way removed the danger of a foreign domination. But permanent protection was not thereby secured to the outlying provinces. The nomadic tribes living near the frontier continued their raids, and in the slave markets of the Crimea the living merchandise was supplied by Russia and Poland.
To protect an open frontier against the incursions of nomadic tribes three methods are possible: the construction of a great wall, the establishment of a strong military cordon, and the permanent subjugation of the marauders. The first of these expedients, adopted by the Romans in Britain and by the Chinese on their northwestern frontier, is enormously expensive, and was utterly impossible in a country like Southern Russia, where there is no stone for building purposes; the second was constantly tried, and constantly found wanting; the third alone proved practicable and efficient. Though the Government has long since recognised that the acquisition of barren, thinly populated steppes is a burden rather than an advantage, it has been induced to go on making annexations for the purpose of self-defence, as well as for other reasons.
In consequence of this active part which the Government took in the extension of the territory, the process of political expansion sometimes got greatly ahead of the colonisation. After the Turkish wars and consequent annexations in the time of Catherine II., for example, a great part of Southern Russia was almost uninhabited, and the deficiency had to be corrected, as we have seen, by organised emigration. At the present day, in the Asiatic provinces, there are still immense tracts of unoccupied land, some of which are being gradually colonised.
If we turn now from the East to the West we shall find that the expansion in this direction was of an entirely different kind. The country lying to the westward of the early Russo-Slavonian settlements had a poor soil and a comparatively dense population, and consequently held out little inducement to emigration. Besides this, it was inhabited by warlike agricultural races, who were not only capable of defending their own territory, but even strongly disposed to make encroachments on their eastern neighbours. Russian expansion to the westward was, therefore, not a spontaneous movement of the agricultural population, but the work of the Government, acting slowly and laboriously by means of diplomacy and military force; it had, however, a certain historical justification.
No sooner had Russia freed herself, in the fifteenth century, from the Tartar domination, than her political independence, and even her national existence, were threatened from the West. Her western neighbours, were like herself, animated with that tendency to national expansion which I have above described; and for a time it seemed doubtful who should ultimately possess the vast plains of Eastern Europe. The chief competitors were the Tsars of Moscow and the Kings of Poland, and the latter appeared to have the better chance. In close connection with Western Europe, they had been able to adopt many of the improvements which had recently been made in the art of war, and they already possessed the rich valley of the Dnieper. Once, with the help of the free Cossacks, they succeeded in overrunning the whole of Muscovy, and a son of the Polish king was elected Tsar in Moscow. By attempting to accomplish their purpose in a too hasty and reckless fashion, they raised a storm of religious and patriotic fanaticism, which very soon drove them out of their newly acquired possessions. The country remained, however, in a very precarious position, and its more intelligent rulers perceived plainly that, in order to carry on the struggle successfully, they must import something of that Western civilisation which gave such an advantage to their opponents.
Some steps had already been taken in that direction. In the year 1553 an English navigator, whilst seeking for a short route to China and India, had accidentally discovered the port of Archangel on the White Sea, and since that time the Tsars had kept up an intermittent diplomatic and commercial intercourse with England. But this route was at all times tedious and dangerous, and during a great part of the year it was closed by the ice. In view of these difficulties the Tsars tried to import "cunning foreign artificers," by way of the Baltic; but their efforts were hampered by the Livonian Order, who at that time held the east coast, and who considered, like the Europeans on the coast of Africa at the present day, that the barbarous natives of the interior should not be supplied with arms and ammunition. All the other routes to the West traversed likewise the territory of rivals, who might at any time become avowed enemies. Under these circumstances the Tsars naturally desired to break through the barrier which hemmed them in, and the acquisition of the eastern coast of the Baltic became one of the chief objects of Russia's foreign policy.
After Poland, Russia's most formidable rival was Sweden. That power early acquired a large amount of territory to the east of the Baltic—including the mouths of the Neva, where St. Petersburg now stands—and long harboured ambitious schemes of further conquest. In the troublous times when the Poles overran the Tsardom of Muscovy, she took advantage of the occasion to annex a considerable amount of territory, and her expansion in this direction went on in intermittent fashion until it was finally stopped by Peter the Great.
In comparison with these two rivals Russia was weak in all that regarded the art of war; but she had two immense advantages: she had a very large population, and a strong, stable Government that could concentrate the national forces for any definite purpose. All that she required for success in the competition was an army on the European model. Peter the Great created such an army, and won the prize. After this the political disintegration of Poland proceeded rapidly, and when that unhappy country fell to pieces Russia naturally took for herself the lion's share of the spoil. Sweden, too, sank to political insignificance, and gradually lost all her trans-Baltic possessions. The last of them—the Grand Duchy of Finland, which stretches from the Gulf of Finland to the Polar Ocean—was ceded to Russia by the peace of Friederichshamm in 1809.
The territorial extent of all these acquisitions will be best shown ina tabular form. The following table represents the process of expansionfrom the time when Ivan III. united the independent principalities andthrew off the Tartar yoke, down to the accession of Peter the Great in1682:EnglishSq. Miles.In 1505 the Tsardom of Muscovy contained about 784,000" 1583 " " " " 996,000" 1584 " " " " 2,650,000" 1598 " " " " 3,328,000" 1676 " " " " 5,448,000" 1682 " " " " 5,618,000
Of these 5,618,000 English square miles about 1,696,000 were in Europe and about 3,922,000 in Asia. Peter the Great, though famous as a conqueror, did not annex nearly so much territory as many of his predecessors and successors. At his death, in 1752, the Empire contained, in round numbers, 1,738,000 square miles in Europe and 4,092,000 in Asia. The following table shows the subsequent expansion:
In Europe and the Caucasus In Asia.Eng. sq. m Eng. sq. m.In 1725 the Russian Empire contained about 1,738,000 4,092,000" 1770 " " " " 1,780,000 4,452,000" 1800 " " " " 2,014,000 4,452,000" 1825 " " " " 2,226,000 4,452,000" 1855 " " " " 2,261,250 5,194,000" 1867 " " " " 2,267,360 5,267,560" 1897 " " " " 2,267,360 6,382,321
In this table is not included the territory in the North-west of America—containing about 513,250 English square miles—which was annexed to Russia in 1799 and ceded to the United States in 1867.
When once Russia has annexed she does not readily relax her grasp. She has, however, since the death of Peter the Great, on four occasions ceded territory which had come into her possession. To Persia she ceded, in 1729, Mazanderan and Astrabad, and in 1735 a large portion of the Caucasus; in 1856, by the Treaty of Paris, she gave up the mouths of the Danube and part of Bessarabia; in 1867 she sold to the United States her American possessions; in 1881 she retroceded to China the greater part of Kuldja, which she had occupied for ten years; and now she is releasing her hold on Manchuria under the pressure of Japan.
The increase in the population—due in part to territorial acquisitions—since 1722, when the first census was taken, has been as follows:—