Peter A. Kropotkin, John T. Bealby, Walter A. Phillips. and Donald Mackenzie Wallace

“ So long as the Mongol empire remained united and strong, they were most submissive and obsequious, but as soon as it was weakened by internal dissensions and began to fall to pieces, they assumed airs of independence, intrigued with the insubordinate Tatar generals, retained for their own use the tribute collected for the grand khan, and finally put themselves at the head of the patriotic movement which aimed at throwing off completely the hated Mongol yoke. ”

“ The peculiar feature of Russian industry is the development out of the domestic petty handicrafts of central Russia of a semi-factory on a large scale. Owing to the forced abstention from agricultural labour in the winter months the peasants of central Russia, more especially those of the governments of Moscow, Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Tver, Smolensk and Ryazañ have for centuries carried on a variety of domestic handicrafts during the period of compulsory leisure. The usual practice was for the whole of the people in one village to devote themselves to one special occupation. ”

“ When workmen from any province come, for instance, to St Petersburg to engage in the textile industries, or to work as carpenters, masons, &c., they immediately unite in groups of ten to fifty persons, settle in a house together, keep a common table and pay each his part of the expense to the elected elder of the artel. All over Russia there is a network of such artels—in the cities, in the forests, on the banks of the rivers, on journeys and even in the prisons. ”

“ Russia remains a vast empire, composed of the most heterogeneous, sometimes even mutually hostile, elements, whose antagonisms were bound to be an element of weakness in any assembly truly representative of all sections of the people. In France the Revolution had been the work of the middle classes; in Russia an indigenous middle class has, comparatively speaking, no existence, the peasants forming the overwhelming majority of the population. ”

“ Like the European settlers on the coast of Africa in more recent times, they wished the barbarians of the interior to be restricted to the use of their primitive weapons. One of the Polish kings, for example, threatened with death the English sailors who should attempt to carry on the illicit trade in arms, on the ground that “the Muscovite, who is not only our opponent of to-day but the eternal enemy of all free nations, should not be allowed to supply himself with cannons, bullets and munitions or with artisans who manufacture arms hitherto unknown to those barbarians.” ”

“ The rest of the black earth zone, which stretches from these governments N.E. to the Volga, is less favoured by nature; the winters are longer and more inclement, and droughts are not uncommon. When this happens there is great suffering from famine, for wheat is the crop upon which the people principally depend, though rye, buckwheat and oats are also cultivated. But a long course of continuous cropping with these grain crops, without affording compensation to the soil in the form of manure or deep cultivation, has so exhausted it that its productiveness has sadly deteriorated. ”

“ It is a special feature of Russia that she has no free outlet to the open sea except on the ice-bound shores of the Arctic Ocean. Even the White Sea is merely a gulf of that ocean. The deep indentations of the gulfs of Bothnia and Finland are surrounded by what is ethnologically Finnish territory, and it is only at the very head of the latter gulf that the Russians have taken firm foothold by erecting their capital at the mouth of the Neva. ”

“ The three-field system of cropping a patch of land until its fertility is exhausted, and then allowing it to revert to the primeval condition, is still pursued, and both landowners and peasantry suffer from want of capital and lack of agricultural training. Flax is one of the principal exports of this region, timber being another.
In middle Russia the winters are both longer and harder, and agriculture is consequently carried on under greater difficulties. One of the most serious of these is caused not by the unfavourable character of the climate but by the shortness of labour. ”

“ Thus the cultivators, whether noble or peasant, have not profited much from the change in their economic circumstances brought about by the social emancipation of 1861. Agriculture suffers from the widespread poverty of the agricultural classes, from the taxation which weighs unjustly upon the peasantry, from their lack of education, their technical ignorance and national indolence, and from the absence of those progressive institutions (e.g. co-operative buying) by means of which the peasantry of Denmark have so wonderfully improved their position. ”

“ In the old times the grand-prince was simply primus inter pares among the minor princes, and these lived with their boyars almost on a footing of equality. Now the tsar of Muscovy and of all Russia adopted the airs and methods of a Tatar khan and surrounded himself with the pomp and splendours of a Byzantine emperor. Ivan III., notwithstanding the influence of his Greek consort, showed some respect for the ancient traditions and the susceptibilities of those around him, but his successor Basil did not follow his father's example. ”

“ Everywhere the rainfall is small: if Finland and Poland on the one hand and Caucasia with the Caspian depression on the other be excluded, the average yearly rainfall varies between 16 and 28 in. Nowhere does the maximum rainfall take place in winter (as in W. Europe) , but it occurs in summer, and everywhere the months of advanced spring are warmer than the corresponding months of autumn.
Though thus exhibiting the distinctive features of a continental climate, Russia does not lie altogether outside the reach of the moderating influence of the ocean. ”

“ The characteristics of the oak region, which comprises all central Russia, are totally different. The surface is undulatory; marshy meadow lands no longer exist on the flat watersheds, and only a few in the deeper and broader river valleys. Forests are still numerous where they have not been destroyed by the hand of man, but their character has changed. Conifers are rare, and the Scotch pine, which is abundant on the sandy plains, takes the place of the Abies. The forests are composed of the birch, oak and other deciduous trees, the soil is dry, and the woodlands are divided by green prairies. ”

“ Ethnography.—Remains of Palaeolithic man, contemporary with the large Quaternary mammals, are few in Russia; they have been discovered only in Poland, Poltava and Voronezh, and perhaps also on the Oka. Those of the later Lacustrine period, on the contrary, are so numerous that there is scarcely one lacustrine basin in the regions of the Oka, the Kama, the Dnieper, not to speak of the lake-region itself, and even the White Sea coasts, where remains of, Neolithic man have not been discovered. ”

“ In the forests not many animals which have disappeared from W. Europe have held their ground; while in the Urals only a few—now Siberian, but formerly also European—are met with. In S.E. Russia, however, towards the Caspian, there is a notable admixture of Asiatic species. Three separate sub-regions may, however, be distinguished on the E. European plains—the tundras, including the Arctic islands, the forest region, especially the coniferous part of it, and the ante-steppe and steppes of the black earth region. ”

“ The White Sea has also been brought into connexion with the central Volga basin while the sister-river of the Volga—the Kama—became the main artery of communication with Siberia.
But although the rivers of Russia rank before the rivers of W. Europe in respect of length, they are far behind them as regards the volumes of water which they discharge. They freeze in winter and dry up in summer, and most of them are navigable only during the spring floods; even the Volga becomes so shallow during the hot season that none but boats of light draught can pass over its shoals. ”

“ Since 1870 the municipalities in European Russia have had institutions like those of the zemstvos. All owners of houses, Municipal dumas. and tax-paying merchants, artisans and workmen are enrolled on lists in a descending order according to their assessed wealth. The total valuation is then divided into three equal parts, representing three groups of electors very unequal in number, each of which elects an equal number of delegates to the municipal duma. The executive is in the hands of an elective mayor and an uprava, which consists of several members elected by the duma. ”

“ Manufacturing industry in the modern sense can hardly be said to have existed in Russia before the 19th century, that is to say, industries carried on with capital and machinery in large factories. Industry of this character was first established in Poland in 1820, and it has grown there rapidly, though never so rapidly as during the last few years of the 19th century. The principal centre is Lodz in the government of Piotrkow, the staple industry being cottons. A good many factories have sprung up also in Warsaw and at Sosnowice and Bendzin in the extreme S.W. corner of Poland. ”

“ In a small but influential section of the educated classes there was a conviction that the revolutionary tendencies, which culminated in Nihilism and Anarchism, proceeded from the adoption of cosmopolitan rather than national principles in all spheres of educational and administrative activity, and that the best remedy for the evils from which the country was suffering was to be found in a return to the three great principles of Nationality, Orthodoxy and Autocracy. ”

“ The aggregate value of the redemption and land taxes often reaches 185 to 275% of the normal rental value of the allotments, not to speak of taxes for recruiting purposes, the church, roads, local administration and so on, chiefly levied from the peasants. The arrears increase every year; one-fifth of the inhabitants have left their houses; cattle are disappearing. Every year more than half the adult males (in some districts three-fourths of the men and one-third of the women) quit their homes and wander throughout Russia in search of labour. ”

“ Finland ponies are exported in large numbers. The best bred races of cattle are those of Poland, the W. provinces, Little Russia and the far N. (Kholmogory) . Of the 55 million sheep kept in Russia only about 15 millions belong to the fine merino breed, and these are pastured chiefly on the Black Sea steppes. Modern dairy-farming is only just beginning in Russia, but butter is being exported in increasing quantities to W. Europe, including Great Britain. Poultry-farming is being more extensively engaged in, and vast numbers of eggs are exported.
Agriculture stands at a low level in Russia. ”