The Portland daily press., 1878-04-24
The Russian Nihilists.

the presence OF the Eagtlsh 1eet IN the Sea
of MaImora. The Nihilistic uprisings at
st. Petersburg, Moscow and Kief, show the
deep uneasiness of the Russian people. The
uprisings have been summarily suppressed.
hundreds of students have been thrown into
prison, other hundreds have been killed, and,
the official reports assure US, tranquility has
been restored" But the fact remains that
despite the mercess severity of the govern
ment these outbreaks are growing more fire.
quent and increasing in strength. Harsh
laws are insufficient to repress the spirit of
revolt, the great movement which aims at
nothing less than the overthrow of the i'm
perial rule and the ecclesiastical hierarchy,
and which is making irresistible progress
among all classes of the population. The
Russian universities are the active centres of
the Nihilistic prop aganda, but the spirit Of
revolt is found everywhere. Sometime since,
the chief imperial prosecuting officer made
report to the minister of justice con-
cerning the alarming progress of Nihil-
ism, and used these words: "The guilty ones
are found not only among the youth of the
schools, but among fathers of families, high
functionaries of state, military officers of
rank, and above all, among young women.
are regarded by the Nihilists themselves as
the most active and successful apostles of the
new doctrine.' The minister of justice in
forwarding this report to the Gar, said:
"The government is powerless to arrest the
course of these subversive doctrines that
are the result of dissoute morals, of the
constantly increasing antagonism between
paternal authority and children who are re-
solved no longer to submit, and of
the complete absence of religious princi-
Piles not only in families but in the state
schools where religious instruction is almost
wholly neglected" 1t is evident from these
reports and from the action Of the authors
ties that the Russian government is pro-
foundly alarmed. 1t is acting with great en-
ergy. The Nihilist reunions have been for
hidden. The police exercise harassing
surveillance over all classes of the people, and
the press has been visited with penalties more
rigorous than ever before. But repression
stimulates the Nilhilists and their strength
is increasing every day.
A ST. Petersburg correspondent of Paris
paper, quoted by the Courier des Etats-
Unis,the French journal in New York, draws
striking comparison between the condition
of Russian society to-day and French
society in the eighteenth century. We
find the same inpatience at the existing
condition of things, the same skepticism, the
same contempt for tradition, the same rejec-
ton of all beliefs that have been held by men
in the past. There, as in France, the revo-
lutionary movement draws many of its re-
cruits from the higher ranks. The richest
Russians dream of the social reform. The
Russian Prince, skeptical of everything else,
sated with luxury, mad for novelty, takes up
the doctrine of Nilhilism as the French Mar
quis defended the social contract. To the
mobiles have come
"That last dread mood
OF sated lust and dull decIepitude."
What good, they ask, are laws, morals,
family ties, social rules, principles of author
ity? When these ideas take as strong hold
upon the common people as they have upon
the higher classes the end of the Russian,
state is at hand. One condition in the COM
parson between France and Russia is still
wanting, the terrible suffering aud abject
misery of the peasantry. A few years of bad
crops and increased taxes may bring that
about. Then let but man of action step
forward, and we have the Russian revolu-
tion.
Perhaps the Gar hopes to avert domestic
revolt by engaging in foreign war, and thinks
thereby to turn the attention of his people
from their troubles by inspiring them with
lust for military domination and territorial
extension. He seeks to substitute Pan.Sclav-
ism for Nihilism. The expert ment is a haz-
ardous one. France sent her young mobiles
10 America to fight the battles of revoted
colonists, and they came back dreaming Of a
French republic. The Russian mobiles and
soldiery may come back dreaming of the Pan
Sclavic republic. France incurred by her
American crusade great debt which led TO
an increase of taxation and further derange-
ment of her disordered finances. A long war
with England may bring the same fate upon
Russia. A series of brilliant victories in a
short campaign might strengthen the mon
archy. A series of defeats or prolonged
and eX hausting war might overthrow it. No
wonder. Russia hesitates.