The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-05-09
on THE EVE or THE DCMA.

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II was suggested TO me TO write a letter
throwing some light on the present condi-
tons OF private and public life In Russia,
with a view TO publication, the idea has
never for q day been out Of my thoughts.
I am extremely anxious TO give ar inside
GLIMPSE Of thfhgs-of facts Invested Of the
extreme party spirit which generally colors
the reports Of correspondents. After the
suppression Of the revolutionary baocha-
MALTA in Moscow / hesltated to prepare an
article, hoping that something definite
would emerge out Of chaos and the much
needed work Of reforms and legislation
would at last begin In earnest. But alas,
there is no sign as yet OF anything OF the
kind, IL we except the equivocal and half
hearted preparations TOWARD the elections
and the ~convocation OF the Duma, through
which one feels only too plainly the detain-
ing hand that would fain, II 1t only dared, put
IL of until autumn or, better still, ad calendds
orecas. The Emperor's own good win is
undoubted, as he has again just proved
blythe ukase of February rs, fixing the date
the Duma Is to hold It's first sitting for May
10 new Style. But the Emperor and Count
Whites Government are two very different
quantities.
Letters from America congratulate US
upon the suppression Of the revolutionary
outbreak In Moscow, upon the pacihcation
Of the country Save the markD and upon
the period of peaceful legislative reform
work which must now follow. This, alas,
ia 80 far from the truth that to US here it
sounds like mockery. We are unable to
| enjoy even the comparative tranquility of
the capital, not only because it is bought
at the price Of a system Of wholesale repres-
sion Of revolving rigor and cruelty, but still
more from an intimate conviction that the
approaching spring will bring on an up
heaval OF elemental forces compared with
which all that we have been through 30
far will seem like child's play.
Foremost and largest and most threaten
ing looms the so-ealled "agrarisn question. '
In plain words, the peasant riots. wonder
II Americans nave any idea Of the havoc
| that has already been done within the past
year. There are provinces Especially that
Of Saratof, along the Volga) where you
can travel along certain tracts for fifty
miles and not find one gentleman's place
standing, not one! The houses and build
lngs were burned to the ground with all the
furniture, pictures, portraits, family treas
ures, machinery, agricultural instruments,
stores of all kinds. The vandals derived
no benefit from these spoliations. They
knew well enough that the authorities and
military would be down on them some
| time, and they did not want any plumber
TO be found in their possession; so they
destroyed everything. Millions Of bushels
of grain, rye, wheat, barley, oats and thou
sands of tons Of fodder were burned or
scattered in the mire. and that, too, when
the poor creatures themselves were short
OF bread and fodder and dependent upon
Government aid. The sheep which are
no, w~ere!-bred on a large scale on the
fine grass steppes east Of the Volga were
slaughtered wholesale-three thousand on
one farm alone-and left to rot and breed
infection. The cattle and horses Jared no
better, especially the expensive fine breeds.
Against these the rioters seemed to lave
an especial spite, which they vented by
torturing and mutilating them most bar
barously before killing them, II not leaving
them slowly to die.
A ~favorite amusement was to cut out
the tongues of the blooded, pedigreed
stud horses and hamstring the short
horns and Holsteins, and worse. How
many nests Of culture, the product OF
two centuries of loving care and intelligent
boarding, radiating gentle, ennobling in
f~uences. nave persisted in this senseless
outbreak. productive of no good to the
perpetrators themselves! In one Did man.
sion eleven original Greuzes were burned
along with stacked up piles Of furniture,
piano, mirrors, children's toys, ladies'
wearing apparel, and Of course those were
not the only pictures or works Of art in
that house. But the greatest loss to our
world is a beautiful manor and park where
our lovable poet and dramatist, Count
Alexis Tolstoi, spent his youth and most
Of his leisure days in later manhood, and
where the painter Makofsky was 80 much
at home that he had a permanent studio
there, 80 that much Of his most intimate
work persisted in the flames, together with
a perfect museum of precious literary
relics, and a unique archive of our best
mems letters-whole files of correspondence,
notes, diaries, &c, which were collected by
the owner with the intention Of bequeath-
ing the whole to one of our museums or
libraries in st. Petersburg or Moscow.
There is not the slightest doubt that the
peasants would not of thems elves have
reached the point of evaporation where
such excuses take the form of an acute
popular epidemic but for the persistent
instigations Of a perfectly organized, long
enduring revolutionary propaganda, which
started it's undermining labors from the
very moment OF emancipation. Right then
the agitators began to breed suspicion in
the popular mind by asserting that the
peasants did not get all that the Gar meant
them to have, owing to Che covert opposi-
ton, Vaccinations and ever fraudulent
acts of the mobiles -gospodd (masters, gen.
try as the u%ncultured millions indiscrim-
inately style the classes that dress well,
live in comfortable conditions and use
books, in a spirit of hostility or, at best.
indifference and aloofness. After much
cropping and many mistakes the revolu-
tionary propaganda hit on the two DOM
inant chords which rule the peasants inner
world; his passionate greed for and-he
really wants all the land-and his devotion
to the Gar, the ideal being Of his dreams,
who symbolizes abstract divine justice
and mercy, who, enthroned above all class
interests and petty considerations Of sordid
~selfshness, is his final hope and resort, the
heaven born redresser Of wrongs, who
when once he knows what is being done,
once his poor, i'll used peoples voice reaches