Arizona republican., 1918-09-08
THE NEW RUSSIAN PRESIDENT
 LOCAL MAN TELLS ABOUT HIM

of the work of the Tchaillovsky Circles. | Tchaikovsky was Number One of the | Inner Circle of that famous organiza- tion, whose daring deeds were for while the only thing which tempered | the most absolute despotism and the | most brutal tyranny. The men who | jumped into power last year when the | revolution broke out and the men who | are now in power were quite unknown | in Russia five years ago. The name of | Tchaikovsky has been known to every i intelligent Russian for ten times that | time: and I prophecy that in view of | the mess these unknown men have got | the country into, there will be a gen- | eral tendency to fall back upon re- sponsible men whom time has tried | Before the revolution too, he was the | head of the Russian Federated Co., operative Societies, With over fourteen million members, and the best known man in the party of the Social -Revo- lutionists.
 When still a young man. at some pause in the heroic struggle of the Ter rorists. Tchaikovsky found time to think again: ara he saw then that however magnificently his little band might throw their lives away. there was no hope in thnt alone for the rev olution at which they aimed. He real ized that it could come only after tOus years of education, agitation and or eanization. Unable to live longer in Russia, he escaped to the United States, where for while he was a farmer in Kanss~ with some other ref ugees. l remember him telling me how he was happy there for several years. till one day, resting on his axe. he asked himself Is it always going to be like this? And next = he was off for the east.
 After while in New York, he went to London to take up the reorganiza- tion of the revolutionary movement. He lived there for nearly thirty years, he learned to speak English like an Eng lishman; his children grew up and married English people, he seemed fated to die just a quiet English bus mess man.
 But his opportunity did come +i1- ally. The agitation in Russia seemed coming to a head (some nine or ten years ago): his children were grown up so that he no longer had his family responsibilities to stay him; he dropped his business enterprises and plunged into the storm After a tour in America in which he was very sue cessful in raisinr funds, he returned to Moscow in company with old Babusn- ka' (Granny) Breshkovskaya. The two were betrayed and caught immediately on their arrival, and it looked like dreary death in Siberia for both.
 But their presto, and their reeog- nized nobility of character were so great that even when caught thus, practically in the act. an attempt was
 made to save them from conviction. joined in no doubt by governmental | friends. Tchaikovsky took the hint and pleaded not guilty. Everybody knew, of course, all about him. but
 when the prosecutor said he had been the head of the Terrorists and later the organizer of the revolutionary move ment the old man merely said, Prove 1 it. Whether 1t was really not easy to prove such things or the government did not really care to have the odium of sending off to a wretched death two | such fine people or whether it was that the jury just happened to be a little more courageous than most Rus
 sian juries, I never found out. as ! Tchaikovsky never returned to Eng land or America. He was acquitted, and an arrangement was made with the government whereby he was al
 lowed to live in peace on the under ! in actual revolutionary work.
 ''The old lady. however. would have none of this evasion. Yes. she said boldly, I am a revolutionist and yolr enemy till the last breath 1 draw So
 off she went to Siberia.
 "Tchaikovsky's attitude naturally
 was much criticized at the time. But
 the old man knew what he was doing
 all right. He had had in his lifetime all
 the adventure. romance and drama
 that he needed, and he decided then
 that he would be a whole lot more use
 full organizing in Moscow than starv-
 ing in Siberia
 q am very ,roud of the fact that it
 was who first called his attention in
 England to the great social possibil-
 ities of the cooperative movement
 there. and he had taken the deepest interst in it. Now back in Russia when
 the intelligent youth of the country
 came Hooking to him asking what
 could be done now that the revolution had failed; he set them to work. The government saw no danger in this new line of his; and so before the war started. Tchaikovsky was at the head of fourteen million co-operators-fed- : erated peasants societies organized to standardize, ship and market their produce, 10 Duy ana use machlnery Co., operatively and to spread instruction about better agriculture. They aimed
 ultimately also at getting into touc1 with the workmen of the cities if they too cared to organize (the workmen's s
 cooperative sartep has always been an
 extraordinary feature in Russia's eco-
 homie life), so that with exchange or ganiZed there would be at least the l nucleus. of complete cooperative
 system.' Herbert Spencer in his last
 books developed much the same idea. He is now the leader of the Social
 Revolutionists. They are. as their nalle
 implies for the Social Revolution ill
 Russia. But they have no Utopian pro-
 gram in regard to that: they are not
 Marxists nor doctrinaires. Their pro-
 gram is the simplest possible-Land and Liberty. All parties in Russia, all parties. are for the break-up of the great territories held by the nobility.