The Portland daily press., 1877-09-29
The Peril Of the Czar.

An0 oplDlon OBTAINS prelLy s,eueFdllY III
Europe to-day that the continuance of the
Romanoff dynasty depends upon the success
OF Inc Russian armies in Turkey, that the
throne of Rurik rests upon most insecure
foundation, and that defeated Gear would
be deposed by humiliated and indignant
people. This belief seems wholly irrational
to us in this country. We have been accus-
toned to regard the rule of the Czars as the
most firmly established despotism the modern
world has known. But we have taken no
strange domain OF Alexan Ter Nicolovitch.
Careful students of European politics tell us
that Russia is to-day the most democratic
country in the world, and their opinion is
confirmed By those most careful observers,
the explorers and the novelists. Readers
familiar with the writings of Turguenef, or
with the exhaustive work of Wallace, will
recall the great Importance these authors at
tach to the village life of Russia and the ex-
cessiVe development of the communistic
theory. In their pages the enthusiasts who
are known in Western Europe as 'tNihilists''
prominently uSuIc. III tHc NlnlilSIS IlcS bHe
greatest danger of the Gar to-day.
The Nihilists are men and women who are
welded to the most extreme ideas of the
Paris Communists. They have formed
great society, the ramifcations of which
reach to the remotest parts of Russia. Their
objects are to produce social revolution, to
overthrow the government, TO degrade the
mobiles, to annihiate the capitalists, to deliv-
er all power into the hands of the peasantry.
In every hamlet their emissaries are found.
Every occupation numbers apostles of the
Communist creed in its ranks. The zealots
of the movement are drawn from mobiles and
from workingmen, from infdels and from
priests. There is not a village in Russia in
which they have not been at work for years.
In population oppressed for ages, impover-
ished, accustomed to the sight of the few
immensely rich while the many are groaning
in poverty, taught by the small measure of
liberty lately granted the large measure
which is their due, the social revolution
makes alarming progress. The fundamental
objects of the movement have been made
public by the discovery of the records of
secret association last year which had its
headquarters not a hundred miles from Mos
COW; according to these there should exist
among the members absolute equality, COM
pete mutual responsibility, and full conf
dence in each other. Each member should
be willing to sacrifice all ties of love or family
and devote himself wholly to revolutionary
activity; to possess great powers of self-sac-
rifice, aud capacity for keeping secret; and
to become when necessary common factory
laborer. The aim was to destroy all the
present social order and replace it by society
without class distinctions; to found an en-
pre of the working classes. The means of
accomplishing the revolution are enumerated.
Each member has liberty of action, but he is
to leave nothing undone to forward the cause
Of the revolution; this is to be done by mix
ing with the peasant and factory workers, as
one of them, and using conversation and
pamphlets, by exciting discomfort with the
government and all social order, by forming
organized groups and founding libraries and
funds. These, in the language ofIeyoiutfon-
ary society. are spropagandaa Besides
this there is agitation. The object of the
first is to enlighten the masses as to the revo-
luton, and of the second to incite them to
revolutionary activity.
The progress made by the Nihilist doc
trines is as rapid as that made by the princi-
pleof the social equality of man in the years
Immediately before the French revolution. A
similar outburst of frenzy is imminent. The
Russian people feel humiliated by defeat at
the hands Of the weakest nation in Europe.
They believe that the national honor has
been sacrificed by an incompetent govern
ment. Should the Gear return to his capital
at the head of conquered army, all his
power could not restrain his people from pre-
claiming the democratic and social Russian
renublic