A Herzen Reader

Study them while there is still time.

We still believe in you; you gave a pledge and our heart has not forgotten it, that is why we do not directly address our unfortunate brothers in order to tell them how strong they are, something they do not realize, show them remedies that they have not figured out, and explain to them your weak­ness, which they do not suspect, in order to say to them:

"Well, chaps, it's time for the axe. We won't be shut up in a fortress for­ever, or spend more time doing unpaid labor or as house serfs. Stand up for your sacred freedom; for too long the masters have had their fun with us, have defiled our daughters and broken sticks over the ribs of the old men... Well children, let's bring straw, straw to the master's house, and let the gents warm themselves for the last time!"

Instead of that speech we are telling you: prevent a great calamity while it is still in your power.

Save yourselves from serfdom and the serfs from the blood they will have to spill.

Have pity on your children and on the conscience of the poor Russian people.

But hurry—it is harvest time and there is not an hour to lose.

The feverish breath of a sick, weakened Europe is blowing revolution toward Rus. The tsar has fenced you off, but there are chinks in that govern­ment fence and the draft is stronger than the wind.

The coming upheaval is not so foreign to the Russian heart as it once was. Our people are still unfamiliar with the word socialism but its meaning is close to the soul of a Russian who has lived out his days in a rural com­mune or a workers' co-op.

In socialism Rus will meet up with the revolution.

Such an oceanic stream of water cannot be stopped by customs regula­tion and birch rods. If you do not want to be drowned, get out of the way or swim with the current.

.Maybe those of you who do not want the emancipation think that the tsar will help in case of a crushing defeat. They are accustomed to fierce mil­itary pacification, they are accustomed to the role of executioner, which the government so willingly takes on itself at the behest of the gentry. They are accustomed to the gentry's criminal deafness to the peasants' complaints and shameful pandering to illegal sales, extraordinary tax assessments, and the forcible settlement of peasants outside the village.

Maybe the tsar will help with such means as his blessed predecessor used to help introduce the military colonies, flogging to death every tenth or twentieth person. Maybe.

But if you make use of the tsar's protection, be sure to behave yourselves; forget about any kind of human dignity, about any sort of free speech, and about the dream of personal independence, for at that point you will be loyal subjects and only loyal subjects. [. . .]

Notes

Source: "Iur'ev den'! Iur'ev den'!", 1853; 12:80-86, 514-15.

Herzen lists four of the five Decembrists executed in 1826.

At first a court official in sixth place on the Table of Ranks, by 1850 it designated those in ranks three and four.

Herzen: "Every noble class in the West can refer to some sort of weak, transparent rights to own peasants; we don't even have that. The Russian nobility didn't acquire slaves by spilling its own blood, but through a series of police actions, base pandering by the tsars, tricks by the civil servants, and the shameless greed of their ancestors."

4- Herzen misstated the date; he meant August 4, 1789, when noble members of the Constituent Assembly renounced their feudal rights.

5. The Pugachev rebellion of 1773-75 was led by a Cossack adventurer, Emilyan Pugachev, who claimed to be Tsar Peter III, the latest in a series of pretenders to the Russian throne. His large band of followers, including escaped serfs, deserting soldiers, branded convicts, Old Believers, and Cossacks, achieved early success in the Volga and Ural regions and marched on Moscow until the rebellion was finally halted and Pugachev was executed. Alexander Pushkin wrote both a historical account based on ar­chival research and a novel, The Captain's Daughter, concerning this historical episode. It was seen as a warning about the underlying violence in a repressed society.

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