A Short History of Russia Part 13

It is vain to expect the young Tsar to set about the task of demolishing the autocratic system created by his predecessors and ancestors. That work is in charge of more august agents. It is perishing by natural process because it is vicious, because it is out of harmony with its environment, and because the maladjusted life forces are moving by eternal laws from the surface to their natural home in the centre. And we may well believe that the fates are preparing a destiny commensurate with the endowments of a great--perhaps the greatest--of the nations of the earth.

Let it not be supposed that it is the moujik, the Russian peasant in sheepskin, with toil-worn hands, who has conducted that brilliant parliamentary battle in the _Duma_. Certain educational and property qualifications are required for eligibility to membership in that body, which would of necessity exclude that humble cla.s.s. It is not the emanc.i.p.ated serf, but it is _rural Russia_ which the _Duma_ represented, and the vastness of the area covered by that term is realized when one learns that of the 450 members const.i.tuting that body only eighteen were from cities. It is the leaders of this vast rural population, members of ancient princely families or owners of great landed estates, these are the men who are coming out of long oblivion to help rule the destinies of a new Russia. Men like Prince Dolgorouki, some of them from families older than the Romanoffs--such men it is who were the leaders in the _Duma_. They have been for years studying these problems, and working among the _Zemstvos_. They are country gentlemen of the old style,--st.u.r.dy, practical, imaginative, idealistic, and explosive; powerful in debate, bringing just at the right moment a new element, a new force. Happy is Russia in possessing such a reserve of splendid energy at this time. And if the moujik is not in the forefront of the conflict, he, too, affords a boundless ocean of elementary force--he is the simple barbarian, who will perhaps be needed to replenish with his fresh, uncorrupted blood the Russia of a new generation.