The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎644v] (179/239)

148 PEACE AND INTERNAL POLITICS : A LETTER FROM RUSSIA.
of place to the various Liberal congresses to consider the question
of Female Suffrage before the right has been secured for men.
On one question all agree; that the class system, known as
soslovnost, which is the basis of the present system of local
government, must be abolished once and for all. The Zemsky
Sobor solution was rejected not so much because the Sobors had
little power, but because they represented the classes and not
the nation.
The Buluigin scheme, as far as its details have transpired, em
bodies all the unpopular features of class-rule. The projected
Gosudarstvennaya Duma, apparently to be so-named as a foil to
the existing Gosudarstvenni Soviet, or Council of State, is to be
elected according to the franchise qualifications laid down in the
Zemstvo law of 1864. Class and property alone are to count, the
large landowners voting separately both from peasants and from
bourgeois. The “ intelligent ” classes, who have engineered the
present revolt, and have the power of continuing it, will be prac
tically unrepresented; and the “equal, secret, direct voting,”
demanded by the Liberals, will not be conceded. The functions
of the Duma will fall short of even w T hat the moderate Liberals
demand. It may advise on laws, and even initiate legislation;
it may discuss the Budget and departmental estimates; it may
interpellate Ministers, though Ministers will remain responsible
only to the Tsar. But all its labours will be rendered vain by the
transformation into an Upper Chamber of the present Council of
State, which is apparently to continue a wholly nominated
assembly, composed of reactionary retired Ministers and generals,
and high officials. If the elected Duma disagree, as it always
must, with the nominated Soviet, the Tsar’s will is to decide.
A Constitution of this kind will be rejected with scorn by all
Liberals, though it will probably do them the service of alienating
from the Autocracy many of its reactionary adherents. Possibly,
the Council of Ministers will advise its rejection or amendment.
But in the present mood of Nicholas II., it is not likely that
amendment will go in the way expected by the people. It is
plain, therefore, that the struggle for emancipation will continue;
and that the Duma, if it ever meet, will meet merely as a machine
for exacting further concessions.
It must be admitted, too, that there is no positive proof that
the Constitutionalist movement embraces all Russia save the noisy
adherents of patriotic and other leagues with avowed Absolutist
aims, bo far, in common with all other observers, I have taken
it for granted that, as the known Absolutists (outside official
spheres) are few and insignificant, and the known Reformers
many and distinguished, educated Russia is on the whole over-