A Herzen Reader

In The Russian Gazette someone writes from Korsun: "As a consequence of all the difficulties in cultivating grain with hired labor and a minimal profit—or none at all—the landowners each year have reduced the amount of tillage, and, obviously, receiving from it even less income, have sold for a pittance their redemption certificates, have gone through the money they received from that and as a result have reached such a state that they are left like fish on a sandbar. Finding themselves in such a hopeless position, many of the landowners have decided with their last kopeck to set up in business, primarily the sale of liquor. After a brief period, very little promise has come of these ventures; hardworking people, look­ing after themselves, and, most importantly, leaving behind their gentry ways, have succeeded; those who are used to looking at business conde­scendingly and to use others to pull their chestnuts out of the fire, have been utterly ruined. The same has happened to the small landowners. They went through their redemption money, there was no further income, and it became necessary to sell the final bits of land for a pittance and with their last kopeck to set up a tavern. Lots of these establishments have sprung up in our province, up to almost five thousand. Careful people who didn't knock the price down too much, didn't get mixed up in vodka, and conducted their affairs in an orderly way, were able to earn enough on which to live. But the majority of these petty merchants went down another path."

Aksakov's The Day will not be published. What does that mean? One wonders whether private circumstances could have caused the publisher to curtail the journal, which he advertised a month ago. Our Valuev is up to something. [. . .]

Wouldn't it be simpler to instruct Katkov to publish five or six journals in both capitals with different names and a single direction? [. . .]

Notes

Source: "Iz Peterburga," Kolokol, l. 214, February 15, 1866; 19:31-33, 374-76.

The new provisions for local government were announced January 1, 1864, and went into effect the following year. While the zemstvos had responsibilities on the local level—in such areas as schools, health care, and road maintenance—without any mean­ingful power, the provincial administrations were uncomfortable with even a limited amount of autonomy. The zemstvos lasted until 1917, when the Bolsheviks abolished them.

Minister of the Interior Valuev took part in the planning for the zemstvos from 1861 to 1863, which explains his position in 1866.

Rather than risk a third post-publication warning, which would shut them down.

In April 1865 The People's Chronicle was ordered to cease publication for five months, but when the time was up it was not allowed to begin again.

Maxim A. Antonovich (1835-1918), Grigory Z. Eliseev (1821-1891), and Yuli G. Zhukovsky (1822-1907) worked for several progressive journals.

The Bell, No. 217, April 1, 1866. A correspondent from Switzerland (V. D. Skaryatin) wrote in The News (Vest') that, while remaining revolutionary, The Bell had adopted a more moderate tone. In reference to the article below, the same correspondent noted that the "family quarrel" between state and nobility was a source of great joy for the revolutionaries (Let 4:257).

1789 [1866]

Yet another step and we will see the Etats Generaux on the Neva.¹ We are moving directly toward 1789. We are not surprised—we talked about this from the very first issue of The Bell. For a long time we have assessed and understood the depth, the force, irresistibility of the movement, which arose after the Crimean War and the death of Nicholas. Sometimes this type of movement loses its way, sometimes it gets stuck in the mud, but it does not come to a stop, and it is certainly not stopped by police measures, acts of cruelty, and senseless banishment.

Petersburg despotism can only last by not noticing its own decrepitude, in the mute silence of slavery and the stagnation of all living forces. At the first oscillation, the Archimedes point slipped out of the government's hands, and they were left with only worn-out reins and a rusted brake. with every step the slope grows steeper and steeper. We do not know where we are headed, but it cannot be stopped!