Senate of the Russian Empire

“ What can any Congress do for Russia, when such a process of disintegration is actually begun, round the whole circuit of the empire?
And what of the people? It is not (unless in Siberia) a case of popular awakening. Russian society is not so organised or so advanced as to admit of any established idea or sentiment of nationality, or of a national polity, to be treasured and guarded by the people. Under a failure of funds and soldiers, the Czar can only submit to circumstances. He has no resource in an organised society trained to political thought and action. ”

“ Gentlemen — Senators, you are well acquainted with the fundamental laws of the Russian Empire. You are aware that no one has a right to advocate any change in the existing imperial form of Government, or even to think of such a thing. Merely to present to the Crown a collective petition is forbidden — and yet the country is growing and developing, the conditions of social life are becoming day by day more and more complicated, and the moment approaches when the Russian people will burst through the barriers from which there is no exit. ”

“ The hand of autocracy is making a final and desperate grasp upon the prerogatives of the Crown. When the end will come, and how it will come, cannot be foretold. But it needs no prophetic power to see what that end will be. The days of autocracy in Russia are numbered. A century may be all too short for the gigantic task of habilitating a Russian people—making the heterogeneous homogeneous, and converting an undeveloped peasantry into a capable citizenship. ”

“ Accustomed to govern themselves within a certain range, the Russians could easily be fitted for participation in the higher duties which a constitutional government would impose upon them. A lower House could be evolved from the seeds of the Tir. An upper House could be created by the Tsar out of abundant existing materials. Thus, without any violent metamorphosis, liberal institutions might be introduced into Russia. They may come, as a spontaneous offering from the throne, sooner than their most sanguine friends in the empire now expect. ”

“ Not only the Duma, but even the Cabinet, even the Ministers, are often considered too Liberal by the Council of Empire. Every law which bears as they say "the stamp of the 30th of October"—the date of the constitutional manifesto—is sure to fall through, or to be relegated to the archives of the Upper Chamber. ”

“ In like manner the subject-nationalities would regard a parliamentary regime as a mere temporary expedient—a means of attaining greater local and national autonomy—and they would probably show themselves more impatient than the Social Democrats. Any inordinate claims, however, which they might put forward would encounter resistance, as the Poles found in 1863, not merely from the Autocratic Power, but from the great majority of the Russian people, who have no sympathy with any efforts tending to bring about the disruption of the Empire. ”

“ The peoples of Russia will express their will in the Constitutional convention which is to be called within a short time upon the basis of universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage. And now it may already be said with certainty in advance that the democratic republic will triumph in Russia. The Russian people is in possession of complete political liberty. Now it can say an authoritative word about the internal self-government of the country and about its foreign policy. ”

“ Moved by the thought, which is in the minds of the entire people, that the good of the country is paramount, I have adopted the firm resolution to accept the supreme power only if this be the will of our great people, who, by a plebiscite organized by their representatives in a Constituent Assembly, shall establish a form of government and new fundamental laws for the Russian state. ”

“ Only the authority that granted the first electoral law, the historical authority of the Russian tsar, is adequate to abolish that law and replace it with a new one.
The Lord God had entrusted Us with monarchical authority over Our people. It is before His throne that We shall give account for the fate of the Russian realm. ”

“ The government of Russia, as the world knows, is an autocracy. All power is vested in the emperor, and all authority emanates from him. Being an autocracy, Russia has, of course, no legislative body, such as is now a part of the government of nearly every civilized country on the globe. ”

“ Each of the Soviets of a particular character elected delegates to an Executive Committee; and each of the Soviets, of workers, of soldiers, and of peasants, elected delegates to a Congress of All-Russian Soviets, which in turn elected a Central Executive Committee sitting permanantly in Petrograd. The first All-Russian Soviet Congress was held in Petrograd in June, and it was decided to convene the Congress every three months. The Soviets comprised the actual mass of the people, the only organized expression of the Revolution, and it alone possessed a real power. ”

“ In Russia the family is the microcosm of the State. All power rests with the father. All theories of representative government in Russia are pure nonsense. "How can human statutes circumscribe the divine right of a father?" asks the Russian. So that the unlimited power in the hands of the Emperor is necessary and beneficial in a land where nothing is done that is not ordered from above. ”

“ In view, too, of many words and acts of the present Emperor, it is not too much to hope, that, ere many years, Russia will become a constitutional monarchy.
So shall Russia be made a power before which all other European powers shall be pigmies.
Before the close of the year in which we now stand, there is to be celebrated at Nijnii-Novogorod the thousandth anniversary of the founding of Russia. Then is to rise above the domes and spires of that famed old capital a monument to the heroes of Russian civilization. ”

“ It is better that we should all perish, we workmen and all Russia. Then good luck to the capitalists and exploiters of the poor, the corrupt officials and robbers of the Russian people! "‘Throw down the wall that separates you from your people. Russia is too great and her needs are too various for officials to rule. National representation is essential, for the people alone know their own needs. Direct that elections for a constituent assembly be held by general secret ballot. ”

“ The Russian nation is like a hive of bees, which absolutely require a queen-bee. In Russia the Czar is not the delegate of the people, nor the first servant of the state, nor the legal owner of the soil, nor even a sovereign by the grace of God. He is at once the unity, the chief, and the father of his people. He does not govern by right of office, but, as it were, by the ties of blood, recognised by the whole nation. This feeling is as natural to the whole population as that of their own existence, insomuch that the Czar can never do wrong. Whatever happens, the people always think him right. ”

“ The Petrograd Soviet feels that at last the moment has arrived when the power must fall into the hands of the Soviets. This transfer of government will be accomplished by the All-Russian Congress. Whether an armed demonstration is necessary will depend on... those who wish to interfere with the All-Russian Congress...
“We feel that our Government, entrusted to the personnel of the Provisional Cabinet, is a pitiful and helpless Government, which only awaits the sweep of the broom of History to give way to a really popular Government. ”

“ Well, what's happened in Russia, of course, is they've moved from being a democracy under Yeltsin to being a complete autocracy under Putin. The government has been centralized. Any kind of democratic effort, any opposition party, any opposition voice has been squashed. ”

“ The emperor is now practically the great conservative power who stands between them and their dependents. Any increase of authority to the aristocracy would deprive the masses of the limited protection which they now enjoy. Already the head and front of Russian despotism are the camarilla and the bureaucracy, who practically administer the affairs of the government. So long as they hold their power, they stand as a barrier to all progress on the part of the people. ”

“ It is not even uniform. It is full of faults and difficulties; clumsy, and in its final development it is not democratic. The present Russian Government is the most autocratic government I have ever seen. ”

“ Accustomed to be the absolute masters of their peasants, they wish the monarch, in his turn, to be omnipotent, for the purpose of maintaining the hierarchy of despotism. The state of citizens does not yet exist in Russia; it begins however to be forming; the sons of the clergy, those of the merchants, and some peasants who have obtained of their lords the liberty of becoming artists, may be considered as a third order in the state. The Russian nobility besides bears no resemblance to that of Germany or France; a man becomes noble in Russia, as soon as he obtains rank in the army. ”

“ There was nothing in the Russian administration of the province which was adapted to prepare them for such a Constitution, or teach them how to conduct a free and liberal government. Prince and people have to begin everything for themselves. Indeed, they are probably worse off than they would have been if there had been no civil administration attempted in the province by the Russians. An army of occupation of any country is unfitted for the organization of civil government. ”

“ Therefore, having heard the explanations of the Socialist Ministers and having full confidence in them, the Congress insisted that the Socialist Ministers be solely responsible to the "plenipotentiary and representative organ of the whole organized Revolutionary Democracy of Russia, which organ must be composed of the representatives of the All-Russian Congress of Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, as well as of representatives of the All-Russian Congress of Peasants' Delegates." ”

“ New men in politics are commonly fresh, progressive, representative; it's the later statesmen that damp the enthusiasm and sober the idealism of legislators. In Russia all legislators, all, are young or new. It is as if we should elect in the United States a brand-new set of men to all offices, from the lowest county to the highest Federal position, and as if the election should occur in a great crisis, when all men are full of hope and faith. The new leaders of the local Soviets of Russia were, and they still are, of the people, really. ”

“ Even the German Emperor after the election of 1907 spoke of himself rather as the successful leader of a popular electoral campaign than as the inheritor of a divine right. The vast majority of the Russian nation passionately desires a sovereign parliament, and a reactionary Duma finds itself steadily pushed by circumstances towards that position. ”

“ We now find ourselves at one of the most important turning points of Russian political history, when by a regulated system of succession and by the incorporation of the independent principalities with the grand principality, the Russian monarchy began to establish itself firmly and to extend its bounds; when the hitherto terrible defiance of over-powerful nobles and of princes who claimed equal rank with the grand prince submits to the restraints of a common obedience; when no more dangers threaten Russia from the side of Novgorod and the Tatars ”

“ On June 10 a resolution favoring intervention in Russia was offered in the Senate by Senator King of Utah. It was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. The full text of the resolution follows:
Whereas, The people of Russia after centuries of political servitude are finally about to realize their aspirations for liberty and the constitution of a federal republic ”

“ Together we should protect the monarchical institutions which are common to both of us, and set our faces, in the interest of order, against all the opponents of it in Europe. Russia's monarch, moreover, fully understands that these are the duties of the allied monarchs. If the Emperor of Russia should find that the interests of his great empire of one hundred million people demand war, he will wage it, I do not doubt. ”

“ The highest authority in the state is the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which consists of representatives of town Soviets, on the basis of one delegate for each 25,000 electors, and a provincial council of Soviets on a basis of one delegate for each 125,000 inhabitants. ”

“ This is a system which must surely fade away beneath that public opinion which is fast becoming too strong for even autocratic monarchs to despise; for we are told that the emancipation of the Russian serfs has made a vast legal, social, and material improvement in the lower orders of the people; and it is to the people that the world will look for that much-needed reform, which will enable Russia, perhaps at no distant day, to take an honourable place amongst civilised nations. ”

“ But, no matter how these majorities are obtained, the result is that when the Communist Party has made up its mind on any subject, it is so certain of being able to carry its point that the calling together of the All-Russian Executive Committee is merely a theatrical demonstration of the fact that it can do what it likes. ”

“ But New Russia is no longer an obstacle to true democracy; and we hope that the Russian democracy, whatever may be its legitimate development, will not frighten the democracies of the West, which, as a result of their particular situation and development, have become somewhat conservative and free. Democratic Russia will be enthusiastically greeted by America. ”