← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Otho_Isch
Thread ID: 8333 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2003-07-22
2003-07-22 02:40 | User Profile
A VOICE FOR RUSSIA "Audiatur et altera pars!"
Printed in The Century, New York Volume 45, Issue 4 Feb 1893
SOME time ago an old gentleman called at our Legation in Washington and asked me to show him a detailed map of the Bering Sea. Explaining his request, the visitor said: "It is proposed to build a bridge across the sea, connecting Alaska with Siberia; and I should like to find out where it can be best located." Not being endowed with the spirit of American enterprise, I was about to reply that I considered such a plan impracticable, if not impossible; but there was something so extremely sympathetic in the bright eyes of the old gentleman, in the ener getic and determined expression of his face, that I at once stretched out my hand, and told him the bridge he had in his mind had already been built long ago, that it was existing at that moment, and will exist so long as a Russian shakes hands with an American in amity. I was in earnest then; and when I think of my venerable visitor, I feel happy in the reflection that I myself am enabled to constitute a small part of that great living link between the nations. Now, as winds are blowing foaming waves of the sea of public opinion over our bridge of sentiment, and damaging it, I take the liberty of attempting, if not to dissipate the causes, at least to mitigate the effect, of what has been done with a tendency, if not always with hostile intent, to disturb the continuity of our friendly connection.
I have never been surprised when hearing erroneous statements made here about Russia; my country is so far away from the United States, many things with us are so strange to your standards, and, of the thousands of Americans annually crossing the Atlantic, so few reach even the Russian frontier, that the great majority of the people of this continent are easily led to believe all sorts of fantastical tales of us. But I have been astounded in observing that American literature about Russia often shows not only lack of knowledge of us, but inimical feelings toward my countrymen, and especially toward our Government. This seems to me the more remarkable, as, residing here myself, I have had opportunity to notice what strong and real friendship is often manifested between the two great peoples when occasion arises.
Though their systems of government are so different, Russia and the United States are natural and disinterested allies, who have never fallen out, and are drawn to each other by bonds of sympathy.
Which was the first of the nations to extend to you a brotherly hand, and to bring to you moral support from abroad, in the hour of trial during your civil war? I need not remind you that it was Russia; for though years have passed since then, the story of the arrival of our fleet at the port of New York in that period is yet fresh in the memory of the appreciative American people.
What nation was the first to tender sympathy and aid to Russia last year, when many thousands of our people were suffering from famine? All know that it was the United States. You are aware how enthusiastically and thankfully outpourings of the population met every ship that brought grain at that time from this country. At the reception tendered July 18 to Mr. Talmage by the city authorities of St. Petersburg, the mayor, in delivering the address in behalf of the city, said: "The Russian people know how to be grateful. If up to this day these two great countries, Russia and the United States, have not only never quarreled, but, on the contrary, wished each other prospenty and strength always, these feelings of sympathy shall grow only stronger in the future ââ¬â both countries being conscious that, in the season of trial for either, it will find in the other cordial succor and support. And when can true friendship be tested if not in the hour of misfortune?"
"Why, gentlemen, do you thank us?" said Count Bobrinsky, in his speech made at the same reception. "You are here not to thank us, but to accept expression of our sincere gratitude. In behalf of thousands of our coun trymen whose sufferings are relieved by you, we exclaim, "God bless you!"
But almost as an accompaniment to these fervent manifestations of sentiment, I have heard in America the most incredible and absurd statements about Russia and concerning our internal administration. It is said that the Russian government is terrible and despotic; Russia is persecuting the Hebrews; there is no liberty in Russia; everything non-Russian is there Russianized by force; the Orthodox Church is intolerant; Russia, last and worst, has created and maintains that horrible Siberiaââ¬âpictures of which, drawn by Mr. Kennan and certain other writers, have made recent readers shudder.
I reply to this shower of undeserved accusations:
Yes, the Russian people is terribleââ¬âbecause as a nation it is young and mighty; because, being extended over much of Europe and occupying a great part of Asia, counting, in all, more than one hundred millions of souls among its subjects, the Empire is always growing and progressing; because, being great and compact, Russia is governed by the mighty hand of an autocratic monarch. Autocracy is as natural and satisfactory to Russia as is the republican form of government to the United States; and that our Government is not felt by the masses of the people to be a despotism is evident from the facts that they submit cheerfully to be ruled by it and that they prosper under it. The strength of Russia lies precisely in the unity of power, in the firm faith of the people in their Church, their love for their country, and their reliance upon and devotion to the high personality called to occupy their throne. In his constant care for the well-being of his subjects, the Emperor does not hesitate at any measure he deems useful for Russia. Alexander III, whose honesty, uprightness, notile character, and exemplary life challenged and earned the respect of the whole world, proved, during his reign of more than ten years, to be a peaceful and beneficent sovereign. All of his reforms were directed toward the improvement of the internal affairs of his country. Not being imposed upon by, and not heeding, criticisms or vituperation on the part of enemies of Russia who were always misrepresenting his measures, he found strength in his conscience and consolation and reward in the ever-increasing affection of his people. By what he accomplished, and by continued pursuit of his methods, Russia is gradually getting rid of her harmful elements. The political agitation which years ago disturbed the peace and prosperity of the country has ceased; and I believe I make no mistake in asserting that at present there are fewer anarchists in Russia than in any other area of equal population in the civilized world.
I need not explain why the criminals were put to death who assassinated our magnanimous sovereign, who had liberated millions of serfs. Did not America also, and only a few years ago, execute certain anarchists in Chicago? The death-penalty is, however, inflicted in Russia only in exceptional cases; it is reserved for those convicted of an attempt upon the life of the Czar, and for those found guilty of certain other crimes committed during what is called a state of siege; imprisonment or exile to Siberia is adopted for ordinary criminals, including the general run of murderers.
Mr. Kennan, to whom our Government hospitably opened the darkest corners where it must keep the evil and pernicious of its subjects, has been pleased to paint our penitentiaries in the blackest colors. There is no country in which prisons and the punitive system of hard labor have been made attractive; but I allow myself to say that other foreigners, to whom we have as readily opened our prisons for inspection, have come to conclusions quite contrary to Mr. Kennanââ¬â¢s. I refer to the members of the Fourth International Prison Congress, who held their sessions in the spring of 1891 at St. Petersburg, and have repeatedly expressed their astonishment at the extremely humane treatment of convicts on the part of our authorities. I may also refer to a recent work of an Englishman, Julius M. Price*, who traveled all over Siberia. He had opportunities of talking freely with many prisoners whose like, as he said, he could never have the chance to get even a glimpse of in Englandââ¬âprisoners the enormity of whose crimes would, in another country, have brought them to the block or the scaffold.
I cherish the hope that in time, with the improvement of means of communication, and when a gigantic enterprise now undertaken by our Governmentââ¬âthe Trans-Siberian Railway ââ¬â shall have been completed, many foreigners, and among them many Americans, will venture to visit all parts, even the remotest confines, of our Empire; then, I am convinced, the disagreeable impression produced by Mr. Kennan's articles, and by other such publications, will altogether vanish before full knowledge of the actual facts.
Replying to the accusation against Russia in the matter of an alleged religious intolerance, I must first point out a great error I have repeatedly encountered here. The promulgation of the laws and regulations against the Jews is being generally ascribed in America to persecution on the part of the Orthodox Church. But the Hebrew question in Russia is neither religious nor political; it is purely an economical and administrative question. The actual meaning of the anti-Semitic measures prescribed by our Government is not animosity to the religion of the Jews; neither are those measures a deliberate hunting down of the feeble by the powerful: they are an effort to relieve the Empire of the injurious struggle against those particular traits of Hebrew character that were obstructing the progress of our people along their own lines of natural development. It may be said in general, that the anti-Semitic movement in Russia is a demonstration by the non-Hebraic part of the population against tendencies of Hebrews which have characterized them the world over, and to which they adhere in Russia.
The Hebrew, as we know him in Russia, is "the eternal Jew"; without a country of his own, and, as a rule, without any desire to become identified with the country he for the time inhabits, he remains, as for hundreds of years he has been, morally unchangeable, and without a faculty for adapting himself to sympathy with the people of the other race which surrounds him. He is not homogeneous with us in Russia; he does not feel or desire solidarity with us. In Russia he remains a guest onlyââ¬âa guest from long ago, and not an integral part of the community. When these guests without affinity became too many in Russia, when in various localities their numbers were found injurious to the welfare and the prosperity of our own people as a whole, when they had grown into many wide-spreading ramifications of influence and power, and abused their opportunities as traders with or lenders of money to the poor,ââ¬â when, in a word, they became dangerous and prejudicial to our people,ââ¬â is there anything revolting or surprising in the fact that our Government found it necessary to restrict their activity? We did not expel the Jews from the Empire, as is often mistakenly charged, though we did restrict their rights as to localities of domicile and as to kinds of occupationsââ¬âpolice regulations. Is it just that those who have never had to confront such a situation should blame us for those measures?
Our peasantry has only recently been organized in their existing social relations, and is not yet well educated, or well trained in the exercise of social rights or obligations under their present system ââ¬â having been liberated from serfdom only within this generation. Many of them cannot yet realize their condition, and the very idea of the emancipation they have experienced is sometimes wrongly conceived. If we take into consideration the character of the Slavonian folk, it is easy to understand why our meek, ignorant, and easy-going peasantry fell under the control of the Jews, who, as a class, are far better educated and more thrifty, and have the aptitude for commerce and for money-getting which distinguishes their race everywhere ââ¬â and who readily perceived and soon abused their superiority in those particulars, after the emancipation of the serfs had deprived them individually of the safeguards the old system of things had afforded them. This Jewish influence was everywhere oppressive, and now and then became an unbearable yoke. The peasants in some localities, having lost all patience, were guilty of violent excesses, mobbed the Jews, and destroyed their property. They tried to annihilate particularly all property which, to their exasperated minds, was ill-gotten. Such popular uprisings, criminal in nature, of course, cannot be excused, but cannot properly be regarded as anything but a protest of the people against what they found to be a thraldom to the Jews worse than the serfdom which had been abolisbied. But bloodshed has rarely been committed by such mobs, and the Government has always promptly adopted energetic measures to quell the riots. Troops have always been sent to disperse the rabble, to arrest the criminals, to defend the Jews, and to protect them in their property. During all these anti-Jewish outbreaks there were fewer Jews who suffered personal injuries at the hands of the peasants than there were peasants who were killed by soldiers. And recently a special law has been enacted by virtue of which any one committing a violent assault upon a Hebrew is to be sentenced to hard labor in Siberia (law of December 9, 1891).
In order to prevent such collisions between the Jews and the peasantry, and to relieve the latter from what they could not be persuaded was not a Jewish tyranny, the measures I have referred to, restricting and regulating Jews, have been promulgated by the Government to secure good order and to maintain stability in the communityââ¬âmeasures generally but erroneously styled abroad, the "barbarous expulsion of the Jews from Russia."
Is it surprising that, under these circumstances, the Emperor remained deaf to protests of the Lord Mayor of London, for example, and will leave unheeded any and all such foreign remonstrances demanding a change in methods which have been deliberately, and we think necessarily, adopted for such purposes by Russia? Speaking not of the mere inconvenience of such an interference with the internal affairs of another country,ââ¬â itself a direct violation of international law,ââ¬âis it not evident that the Czar, in his actions as to such matters, must be guided only by what he perceives to be the interest of his own people as a whole, rather than by the opinions of foreigners who do not understand a situation very different from that existing in their own countries, but undertake to pass with authority upon vital questions of administration in another nationality. The principle we contend for in Russia is home rule.
And as to the Russian Church. When I recall the various accusations against the Orthodox Church of Russia, which is charged with intolerance toward other religions, I do not find one that is well grounded. Russia has always deferred to the fullest extent to the saying in the Scriptures, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Though the great majority of the Russian people are of the Orthodox Church, the amplest freedom of faith and of practice in religion is allowed in our country. We have not only Christians of all denominations, and Hebrews, but also Mohammedans and even pagans in great numbers. In the principal street of St. Petersburg, just opposite the Orthodox Cathedral itself there are Roman Catholic, Protestant, Armeno-Gregorian, and other churches. All these places of worship were built long ago in the very center of the capital, some of them on lands granted by our Government for the purpose. As to actual freedom in the practice of religious services, therefore, there can be no question. Two years ago I myself witnessed the commemorative ceremonies upon the fiftieth anniversary of the American church at St. Petersburg, on which occasion the American colony paid tribute of the greatest respect to the memory of Emperor Nicholas I, who had given lands for their church in the best part of the city, and had assisted in erecting the building. If our Government has displayed some perseverance and even austerity in regard to the suppression or prosecution of certain sects of our own Church, it was chiefly because the doctrines of these sectarians were subversive of morals or good order in society. The Orthodox Church is the state Church in Russia; and as I have explained, the strength and might of the Empire are considered by us to depend to a great degree upon the firm faith of the people in its doctrines and discipline. Our history abounds in proofs of this. It is therefore natural that our Government cherishes and supports the Orthodox religion, and tries to prevent the members of that Church or their children from heedlessly going off to other communions. The law requires, for instance, that in the case of a mixed marriage the children must be brought up in the religion of the Orthodox parent, be it father or mother.
I close this article at this point, because I would not abuse the patience of my readers; as to me, I shall never be tired of speaking for and defending my country. I shall consider myself fortunate if what I have now written persuades some Americans, and restores to us the sympathy of some of them whose kind disposition has been disturbed by malignant or exaggerated stories about us. I firmly believe in the friendship heretofore maintained between Russia and the United States ââ¬â a friendship that, in my opinion, will play a far more important role in the history of the future than has been allowed to it as yet; and for that reason I take very much to heart any word designed or likely to drive us asunder.
Pierre Botkine Secretary of the Russian Legation in Washington
2003-07-22 02:46 | User Profile
My how nothing changes!
2003-07-22 03:32 | User Profile
My how nothing changes!
Very little, if at all.
It may be said in general, that the anti-Semitic movement in Russia is a demonstration by the non-Hebraic part of the population against tendencies of Hebrews which have characterized them the world over, and to which they adhere in Russia.
2003-07-22 05:39 | User Profile
During the 1904-5 War between Russia and Japan the House of Warburg extended unlimited credit to Tokyo. At the same time, the lumpenprole Jewish Bolsheviki were fomenting the Revolution of 1905 in Russia.
The classic squeeze play.
2003-07-22 06:36 | User Profile
**During the 1904-5 War between Russia and Japan the House of Warburg extended unlimited credit to Tokyo. **
And 35 years later they were profiting from the destruction of Japanese nationalism.
Classic bait and switch.