Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-02


a monarch of its own, and there are about
thirty-seven smaller divisions and tribes,
each with it's own ideals and aspirations
and comparatively little sympathy with the
other thirty-six. Russia is not race of
people, but conglomeration of frequently
conflicting tribes.
Take the element that Is ripe for imme
date revolution. 1t is restricted almost
wholly to half dozen cities, and there are
only half a dozen cities worth the name in
the whole of the Russian empire. Say the
actual revolutionaries number million,
which Is putting it high, they a mere
drop in the bucket compared with the real
population. To be sure, million people
can make lot of noise. and sections of
them do. but they never all start to howl at
the same time and if they did they would
never all strike the same note at once. /
have no quarrel with the revolutionaries,
either. There are some very nice people
among them. but they are very largely made
up of long-haired men and short-haired
women, and their worst fault Is that they
are impracticable.
you cannot say that the rest of the great
mass of the population Is contented. The
commune system keeps them tied down. to
the communal land, when they would much
rather go and get drunk on an uncertain
salary in town, and the peasants, take them
as a whole. bad proposition If they
ever get started running amuck. But there
is about so per cent of illiteracy among
them. and by the time the walking delegate,
or what corresponds to him, has Sown dis
content among small section of them. the
others have forgotten all about the particu-
lar form of grievance they were supposed to
be suffering under, and the deep-laid revo-
lutionary work either dies stillborn or goes
out with splutter.
Now, against this take the intrenched
position of the existing government Peo-
pie in this country do not seem to realize it.
but the great bulk of the men who have
been sent to fight in Manchuria are not
regular troops, but reservists. The regular
troops stay at home and keep order. Also
they do not keep order among their friends
A regiment that is raised in Odessa may be
sent up on garrison duty in Finland. Men
from Moscow are sent out to Nignnoygo-
rod, a st. Petersburg regiment is put on
duty in Sebastopol, and so the troops never
are faced with the problem of firing their
own kindred. In fact. q good many of the
Cossack regiments who are drafted from the
Baikal region into European Russia cannot
talk the language of the people among
whom they are stationed.
y
Then there is the question of arms You
cannot run a revolution with clubs and
sticks against cavalry carbiles and maus-
ers. Also you cannot buy a revolver from
a shop in Russia without being known to
the police and having the purchase regis
tered, and frequently not then. So the
would-be revolutionarieS are armed with
red flags and perhaps six revolvers of ques-
tionable pattern among a thousand men
who would not know how to use a gun If
they had
rs 1t any wonder that people of this sort
run to dynamite and vitriol. which are
equally deadly in the hands of experts or
novices? Dynamite is comparatively easy
to smuggle, and there has been a good
deal shipped over the frontier concealed in
orange boxes and in other ways. At the
same time you note that the bomb throw
ing in the course of a riot is very small
factor in the whole disturbance.
Still the town population will get out
and demonstrate. 1t is heroic, in way, to
think of their going up against the guns
of the soldiers and the sabers of the cav
airy with flags and clubs. AT the same
time very large portion of the casualties
are among people who have merely come
out through curiosity to see the fight. For
the fights nearly always advertised be-
forehand, either by the revolutionary pam
phlets calling a meeting or by a govern
ment announcement in the papers warning
peaceable citizens to stay at home which
OF course. they do not do.
~ confess l have gone out twice on the
Nevsky to see a demonstration when ac-
eording TO official warning l ought to have
stayed home. Both of the rows / saw in
st. Petersburg were brought on by lot
of irresponsible students. who knew they
were going out to get thrashed and who
ought to have been well spanked for pulling
off a disturbance when what the country
needed was political quiet.
1.-THE student demonstration in St. Peters,
burg in October was the most inopportune
thing in the world. 1t was just at the time
when the car was on the point of issuing
a rescript which 1t was supposed would
contain a number of liberal and much need
ed reforms. WE'LL the row delayed the is
suing of the ukase till December, and when
il did come out 1t was disappointing in
tone Whether 1t would have been any bet