The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1881-04-27
OLD N NEW RUSSIA.
4 Brief History Of its Political and sooia
Growth, in Connection With the Rise
Of the Romanohms.
Written for the RIVER PREss.l
NUMBER VI.

sa untll Lne beginning OIL CHe peIlou ~ lily
Crimean war, when signs Of internal Life and
agitation began to be manifest; and the vast
hive Of people began to show signs OF "a
t;onal consciousness and individual power.
From Peter to Nicholas it was more q work
of developing internal cohesiveness ratner
than an individual political life, by cement
ing with a common religious bond, and q
common national sympathy, the discordant
social elements from which the nation was
created. With some important exceptions,
the influence Of the czars had been exerted
in the effort to stimulate individualism, and
to introduce the activity and civilized meth
DDS of Western Europe, and to educate the
people into a newer life. There was little
fertility Of the soil for the development of
individualism, as W. have seen, from the pc
culiar communistic formation of the masses
Of Russian society, and the efforts to implant
its growth have proceeded from no impulse
from within, but form a creation Of circun-
stances from without too artificial in their
nature to affect the masses. The nobility
and the families of government officials and
those Of the merchant class were specifically
educated. and the educational influences were
almost solely French, and French literature
Of the past century is exactly OF that nature
to mislead a people like the Russian
With the student class, which as a class
has during the last twenty years amounted to
more than three hundred thousand, has
grown the agitation known as Nihilism, and
has gradually spread the idealism of West
ern civilization through the masses OF the
cities, where the Artd has furnished the nu-
cleus Of organization for the extension Of
political ''heresies," as new ideas and new
methods are usually termed. These ideas
have spread Of late through the peasant class,
who, since the Russian army has been reor-
gained on the Prussian plan, have become 8
living part of both the empire and army.
Nihilism is not, as has been SO generally
believed, a distinct political SYSTEM, but an
aglomeration of all the elements which are
opposed to the present government, and shade
from believers il constitutional monarchy to
communists Of the most radical type. The
fact that it is destructive III all its tendencies
does not result so much from the tenets OF
the sect-Which really has no settled beliefs
as from the fact that the czardom has OPP
posed itself so violently to al change, that
the change, when it came, as it inevitably
would, was equally as violent in it's nantes
tation and the. secret character and splena
did organization of the order existed in the
Arte1 before the period of change and unset
Element came.
The ideas Of Western Europe, with all
their neWness and %sp1endor, meet with a
ready response from the Russian masses, ow-
ing to the fact that Pan Helenism and Pan
Sclavism have both been so zealously fOs-
tered by the government that it is affecting
the entire character of the people. They
have had held before them the history and
example of the heroic Greek as a heritage
which was theirs by right, and through the
medium of Western literature they perceive
they are far from their Ideal, and the idea Of
liberty which is taught everywhere in the
lessons of their own experience and in the
national esprit of Pan Sclavism; they are
making protest in the only way q protest is
possible in Russia. How the government
has perverted the growth of Western ideas,
the following excerpt on the student life
will show, and no better reason for the presa
ent condition Of Russia can be given or re-
quired.
The crimes entered against them in the
books Of the s'Third Section" are, verbatim,
as folloWs:-They had become "suspected,'
but Of what or in what degree there was no
attempt at proof. They chad not denounced
comrades proved guilty Of receiving forbid
den pamphlets; they had been ''insubordin-
ate'' to school inspectors, or had received
more than the permitted Quantum ct bad
marks for Latin. Official reports say that
only 1906 cases come under the above men
toned category but sad and well founded
rumors say that 10, 900 such arrests took
place some three years ago on the occasion
of the political trial of the s'193." Up to the
present moment, out of the official 1913 only
115 have been set at libefty, and thirty out Of
that number allowed to continue their uni
verslty career, no grounds, legal or illegal,
being found to forbid their doing so. Rus
sian Commissioners work slowly; questions
and ansWers come and 60 but slowly between
st. Petersburg, Arkangel, ar Eastern Siberia;
and yet many among the remaining 1851 are
given signs of life; newspapers are keeping
them before the public; they themselves are
writing home carefully Worded letters and
are hoping as it were against hope. In the
cherries region of Arkangel-of which the
aborigines say, sGod made Russia but the
devil made Arkangel'-there are more than
two hundred Of those banlshed ones, men