The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1881-03-23
OLD AND NEW RUSSIA,
A Brief History Of its Political and Social
Growth, IN Connection With the Rise
Of the Romanofs.
Written for the RIVER Press
.... NUMBER r.

development, and which the death of the
Car has brought into prominence, is inter-
esting not only from its W peculiarites, but
has an important bearing on the future, show
ing, IS it does, the natural growth Of the
nation and popular life out of the most incon-
grous elements, and subject to peculiar and
distressing vicessitudes.
It is popular to view the Russian au-
tocratlc system as something hideous, and
opposed to every essential of democratic liber-
ty, because of the general habit of associating
all that is not representative as despotic $
forgetting that this very %despotism, as it is
generally understood, may be representative,
and also forgetting that a representative sys-
tenn may be the essence Of despotism and
forgetting the truism that strength is liberty,
and weakness despotism, because strength
implies popular support, without which there
can be no strength, and popular support i'm
plies popular satisfaction, which certainly
does notimply despotism while weakness is
~despotism because it implies a condition of
helplessness and anarchy. The forms of
government are only o manifestation Of IN
toward circumstances, and are always the
best adapted to meet the difficulties evolved ia
their creation. Ihe United States is a repub-
lie, go called, because it was the only express
eion possible, When an expression was neces-
sary for existence. Russia is an autocracy
for the same reason, and while the methods
are Numerically opposed, the ends comprised
have in both cases demonstrated that each
was best adapted to it's surroundings and
necessities; and both are tending to the same
result Of popular emancipation through radi-
cally different means.
1t is necessary, therefore, to examine both
the elements and the manner Of their forma-
ton and also the disturbing causes which
have operated to repress or change the ma
tional impulse from its natural channel,
before a fair understanding of the situation
and the lesson it so ~forciblyp conveys can be
had.
Three different chronological families have
united to produce, not a Russian people, but
the autocracy, and the autocracy is slowly
creating q Russian people. The Slavonian,
the Norman-Gothic, and the Tartar, each
radically differing from the other in habits,
tendencies and occupation. The first has al
ways been known (What little is known Of
it at alD as q quiet agricultural people,
who had so little effect on the tide OF the
world S affairs that they are hardly mentioned
by the restless and enterprising Greeks, who
describe them as q hardy but simple and
quiet people. 1t is mere speculation to IS.
sumo their legal customs, for nothing is
known Of them prior to the 9Th century that
was not already described in the Odessy Of
Homer. It was through the second men
toned element, the Norman, that the vast
hive Of people OF Central and Southern Rus
STA, or Great and Little Russia, began to as
eume a tangible existence. Always tied to
the land and a part Of it, (as indeed most OF
the people of Europe were previous to the
rise Of the Roman poWer.) they had never
entered into competition with the world, but
existed ia @ state Of extreme simplicity, politi-
cally crystalized, and without either enterprise
or any incentive for it, being isolated from the
world by Unreasonable distances and the un-
approachable nature Of a land-locked coun-
try. There was no individuality, for there
was no m There was no prosperity
Gas we measure prosperity because it is COM
merce that creates wealth and stimulates en-
terprise.
Their political system was 8 communal
organization, not in a national form, but 6
vast number of little villages each existing in
deDendent of the other. and controlling lust
enough of the adjacent lands for their sup
port, owned, not by the individual who cult
waited it, but by the village rs a whole, both
women and men taking part in the elections,
which were only held for the purpose of
nominating the village elder and subdiyiding
the lands, which would, from the growth Of
some families and the decadence Of others,
get out OF equilibrium. If there was q politi-
cal organization aside from this, nothing is
known Of its nature or extent, but it is safe
60 assume that it was not much, or It must s
have made g greater impression upon the |
people themselves and upon the world. In .
fact, SO long as 8 mere living was the only |
end OF existence, and so long as whatever
surplus there was over the needs Of the COM |
munity must rot, because it could not be re- !
where it was needed, and so long as c
there was no pressure upon them for fedora =
ton from outside causes, as the necessity OF
union to resist invasion, there would be no 7
need OF union. and hence it may be taken for a
granted that the condition they had been in t
r.-a& a. NJ srFrcnd unwy 1IFn and =