A Herzen Reader

It could be that the sovereign is frightened that the entire civil service— those fraudulent handlers of official papers—do not share this opinion, but if Panin affirmed or favorably received his proposal, then maybe we would have defenders for the accused and jurors, and the court would operate in the light of day.

The sovereign wished to make changes, but he is in the dark and does not know where to begin; everyone deceives him, from the lowest clerk to the chancellor, and the voices of people outside government do not reach him. The public status of those who are not in service or who have not served long enough is such that only the gentry might be allowed to dance in the tsar's presence at a ball, and the merchants might on some sad or happy occasion greet him with bread and salt on a golden platter.

This leads logically to our third demand—openness.

Isn't it absurd that they put up the dam themselves, bar access to it, and then are surprised there's no water? Lift the censor's floodgate and then you will find out what the people think, what is hurting, pressing, torment­ing, and ruining them. maybe all sorts of rubbish will at first float to the surface—what does it matter as long as the water carries away all those half- dead Vladimir cats and Andreevsky hares.

With openness, there can be publicity about legal cases that will throw a terrifying light on the subterranean misdeeds of the police and the courts, like that of our articles about Sechinsky, the Kochubey trial, Vrede, Elston- Sumarokov, Governor Novosiltsev, and others.⁹

If one removes the censorship restrictions, then the Third Department can be closed down; writers will denounce themselves, and finally this nest of spies will be destroyed in Russia. [. . .]

Have we demanded anything else?

Whatever our theoretical opinions, however "incorrigible" we were about them, we did not express them, we expunged them willingly while the mas­sive government coach plodded its way forward, but when it began to go backward, crushing legs under its heavy wheels, then we proceeded along a different path.

This is the third phase into which The Bell has entered.

We established a motto—I summon the living! Where are the live people in Russia? It seemed that there were live ones even at court and we ad­dressed our words to them—we do not regret that. No matter what hap­pens, the sovereign, having begun the process of liberating the serfs, has earned a great name in history and our gratitude is unchanged. But we have nothing to say to him. The live ones are those people of thought scattered all over Russia, good people of all castes, men and women, students and officers, who blush and weep when they think about serfdom, the arbitrari­ness in the courts, and the willfulness of the police; they are the people who ardently wish for openness and who read us with sympathy.

The Bell is their organ and their voice; on the barren, stony heights there is no one to listen to it, but in the valleys its pure sound rings out all the more powerfully.

Notes

Source: "1 iulia 1858," Kolokol, l. 18, July 1, 1858; 13:293-98, 569-70.

From a poem called "The Old Barrel Organ (Remembering the Unforgettable One)" ("Staraia Sharmanka. K vospominaniem o Nezabvennom"), probably by V. R. Zotov, which circulated in Petersburg and Moscow, and was published in The Bell on November 1, 1857. The "Unforgettable One" is the late tsar, Nicholas I.

Count Viktor N. Panin (1801-1874), minister of justice from 1841 to 1862.

Prince Alexey F. Orlov (i786-i86i), head of the Third Department from i844 to i856, from i856 chair of the State Council and Committee of Ministers, and from i857 chair of the Secret and then Main Committee to examine the question of serfdom.

While still heir to the throne, Alexander II traveled to the Caucasus and visited military units actively engaged in combat, for which he was awarded the Order of St. George, fourth degree.

Konstantin I. Arseniev (i789-i865) was a statistician, historian, and geographer, who tutored the future tsar from i828 to i835.

In November i857, the tsar instructed Vladimir I. Nazimov (governor of Vilna, Kovno, and Grodno) to allow local gentry to form committees to discuss how the serfs might be freed; copies of the rescript were sent to all the other governors and it was published. The "Secret Committee" Alexander set up in January i857 to examine the emancipation question was renamed the Main Committee early the following year.