A Herzen Reader

[. . .] The reforms carried out by the government are unsatisfactory. They are all unfinished, lack openness, are oblique, and all have the quality of a temporary deal, something for the time being, done offhandedly, faute de mieux.⁷ Their real importance is as an initiative and an involuntary rejection of the existing state of affairs. But in all this, only the government spoke and acted while we listened and accepted it mutely, without even having the right to refuse. That the time has come for us to say our piece is so obvious, that the government itself constantly stops and listens (like the notorious police chief of Moscow)⁸ to the silence. and if anyone takes it into his head to say something that rubs them the wrong way, he gets sentenced to a prison cell or hard labor. Such a doubly absurd situation must end, and the voice of the people must receive the rights of citizenship. For that reason an Assembly of the Land is Russia's most immediate and pressing need.

Along with this, there is a growing necessity for an explanation of the social, economic, civic, and judicial issues which are pressing their way for­ward in the contemporary movement of Russian thought and Russian life. The assembly must not catch us off guard.

We would also like, as far as possible, to take part in this explanation of issues, and—while sticking to our previous critique of official plans and our expose of official planners—to put forward the principles of a possible new system. This compels us to broaden the scope of our publication.

We no longer exclude either purely theoretical articles or historical monographs, as long as they have a direct correlation to our Russian social and civic development. If there are a lot of them, or they are too long for The Bell, we will once again start up The Polestar. Send us articles that you cannot publish in Russia even under the current situation of freedom of the press with censorship.⁹

And since we have already asked you for articles, we will mention in conclusion another requirement of ours. Despite all our efforts, despite all our editorials, we cannot make The Bell a living Russian organ without cor­respondence from the regions. During there past two years there has been very little of this. We are announcing this to you. We do not have to plead for correspondence; open discussion abroad is your business as much as ours, and your conscience should decide for itself what must be done. There are no serious problems in delivering letters to us.

The next issue of The Bell, No. 198, will appear on June 15. The price is fifty centimes. Booksellers outside of Russia have no right to raise the price.¹⁰

Notes

Source: "Nashim chitateliam," Kolokol, l. 197, May 25, 1865; 18:386-89, 637-40.

A river on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East.

This quote is a paraphrase of what Herzen wrote publicly to the tsar in 1855; see Doc. 5 in this collection.

Alexander II signed an order ending corporal punishment on April 17, 1863, but significant exceptions were made for peasants condemned by their local courts, for sol­diers in disciplinary battalions, and repeat offenders in exile and at hard labor.

On November 20, 1864, the new judicial system was signed into law by Alexan­der II after two years of discussion.

"Temporary Rules on the Press" were published April 6, 1865, which were in effect until the Revolution of 1905. Preliminary censorship was waived for certain publications not intended for a mass readership, but since the penalties for anticipating incorrectly the reaction of the authorities were high, Herzen saw this as yet another unsatisfying reform.

Alexander lifted some restrictions in 1855, and in August 1864 an order was issued which allowed freedom in matters of faith for the "less harmful sects," setting up a com­mission, which worked very slowly. Herzen and Ogaryov cultivated the Old Believers as a source of anti-government sentiment, but were for the most part disappointed in the response.

For lack of a better alternative.

General Alexander L. Potapov (1818-1876), police chief of Moscow and then direc­tor of the Third Department.

Herzen: "Such works demand a lot of time and reference works, and not everyone can work for free. We invite those who wish to be paid for articles placed in The Bell or The Polestar to write to us on this subject."

Herzen lists the names and addresses of booksellers in fifteen European cities where issues of The Bell will be available.

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