The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎645v] (181/239)

150 PEACE AND INTERNAL POLITICS A LETTER FROM RUSSIA.
But the external tranquillity of St. Petersburg, and, as far as
spectators can judge, its mental serenity, were in no way affected
in the last days of May and first days of June. The “ evening
telegram ” broadsheets were bought, looked at indifferently, and
thrust into the pockets of men who a few hours later were to be seen
at the suburban summer-gardens sipping bad champagne, listen
ing to bad music, and looking sentimentally at the wonderful pink
and yellow zarya which hangs over the northern horizon through the
never-darkening night. Theatres were full. “ Songs and dances
multiplied,” said a newspaper critic truthfully. “ On the evening
after the first disastrous news was received, the Olympia
music-hall contained nearly all that remained of our fleet,
noisily applauding Sobinoff; even two admirals honoured the
celebration by their presence.” 1 The scandal of this ill-timed
merry-making raised the usual newspaper storm—with the usual
effect. The people voted the newspapers bores, and continued
their innocent amusements, leaving the impartial spectator con
vinced that war, peace and reform were the amateurish interests
of a handful of cranks alien to the mass of the nation. It would
be a mistake, of course, to exaggerate these impressions; national
life cannot be suspended merely because there is no oppression at
home and humiliation abroad. But had the disgust and fury
expressed by the Press been a just echo of national feeling, some
change, for however brief a period, would certainly have been
seen in the demeanour of the people.
Considei ations like these militate against the heroic view of
Russian politics taken in the foreign Press by persons either ill-
informed or, what is worse, ill-balanced or lazy. It is easy, no
doubt, to assume that Russia is now entering upon a death-
sti uggle from which the Tsardom must either emerge triumjihant
or be swept into the abyss. But it is hard to discern anywhere
the factors likely to operate in that dramatic way. Revolution,
of course, is a possibility. But what may be predicted with much
more safety is a long-drawn-out struggle in which, as the mass of
the people, still asleep, awake to civic ideas and consciousness of
power, the Tsardom, realising its increasing weakness, will make
concessions, each grudged and unsatisfactory, but all in the end
amounting to the full Constitutionalism which the most advanced
political parties now demand.
(1) Slovo, 4th June.
R. L.