I. TO THE GOVERNMENT.
[By Government I mean those who, availing themselves of
established authority can change the existing laws and put them in
operation. In Russia, these people were and still are: the Tsar, his
Ministers, and his nearest advisers.]
The acknowledged basis of all Governmental power is solely
the promotion of the welfare of the people over whom the power
IS exerted.
But what are you who now govern Russia doing? You are
fighting the Revolutionists with shifts and cunning such as they
employ against you; and, worst of all, with cruelty even greater
than theirs. But of two contending parties, the conqueror is not always the more shifty, cunning, cruel, or harsh of the two, but the one that is nearest to the aim towards which humanity is advancing.
Whether the Revolutionists rightly or wrongly define the aim
towards which they strive, they certainly aim at some new
arrangement of life ; while your only desire is to maintain
yourselves in the profitable position in which you are established. Therefore, you will be unable to resist the Revolution, with your banner of Autocracy, even though it be with constitutional amendments, with perverted Christianity called Orthodoxy, a renovated Patriarchate, and all sorts of mystical interpretations.
All that Is moribund, and cannot be restored. Your salvation lies
not in Dumas, elected in this way or in that ; still less in rifle-shots, cannons and executions ; but it lies in confessing your sin against the people, and trying to redeem it and efface it while you yet have time to do so. Set before the people ideals of equity, goodness and truth, more lofty and more just than those your opponents advocate. Place such an ideal before the people, not to save yourselves, but seriously and honestly setting yourselves to accomplish it, and you will not only save yourselves, but will save Russia from those ills which already afflict or are now threatening her.
Nor need you invent this ideal ; it is the old, old ideal of all the
Russian folk: the ideal of the restoration to the whole people —
not to the peasants only, but to the whole people — of their natural
and just right to the land.
To men unaccustomed to think with their own minds, this idea
seems unrealizable, because it is not a repetition of what has been
done in Europe and America. But just because this ideal has
nowhere yet been accomplished, it is the true ideal of our day : and, more, it is the nearest ideal, and one which, before it is; accomplished in other countries, should now be accomplished in Russia. Wipe out your sins by a good deed ; while you still have the power, strive to destroy the ancient, crying, cruel injustice of private property in land, which is so vividly felt by the whole agricultural population, and from which they suffer so grievously ; and you will have the support of all the best people — the so-called "intellectuals." You will have with you all true Constitutionalists; who cannot but see that, before calling on the people to choose representatives, the people must be freed from the land-slavery in which it now lives. The Socialists, too, will have to admit that they are with you, for the ideal which they set before themselves : the nationalization of the implements of labour — is attainable first of all by the nationalization of the chief implement of labour—the land. The Revolutionists, too, will be on your side, for the revolution which you will be accomplishing by freeing the land from private ownership, is one of the chief points in their program. On your side, above all, will be the whole hundred- million agricultural peasantry, which alone represents the real Russian people. Only do what you, occupying the place of Government, are bound to do, and, while there is yet time, make it your business to establish the real welfare of the people ; and in place of the feeling of fear and anger which you now encounter, you will experience the joy of close union with the hundred-million Russian people ; you will know the love and gratitude of this kindly folk, who will not remember your sins, but will love you for the good you do them, as they now love him, or those, who freed them from slavery.
