Russian Life To-day Part 10

All the transport in these steppes is by camels, and I could not be satisfied until I had made a small expedition upon one, and shall, perhaps, have to do the same again; but modern appliances are not to be despised, and no one can wish for a better experience of the steppes than to make the journey in the middle of summer and in a good modern motor-car.

CHAPTER IX

RUSSIA'S PROBLEM

The Social Problem, as it presents itself to thoughtful people in Russia, really demands a book to itself. No doubt it will come before long, and from some experienced pen. It is only possible for me just to touch upon it in this chapter, which one must write; or else even this very general view of Russia's life of to-day would be utterly inadequate and incomplete. And, in so doing, I shall have to try and show how different it is in Russia from the same problem as presented in other countries in Europe.

It is well known, for instance, that the great question for ourselves waiting for solution at some early date is the social question. What was called for us the "Triple Alliance" in the world of labour, the Union of the Railway, Transport, and Mining Workers was completed just before war broke out; and, though with a patriotism beyond praise all needs and desires of their own are put aside for the present, our workers will give expression to their wishes at no distant day after peace comes.

Even before this book is in print the ma.s.ses in Germany, grimly silent so long except for the ever-increasing votes for their socialistic representatives, silent even during the disillusionment which has come to them these last six months, may have at last spoken out. We are told that their leader, Herr Bebel, who is said to have known the German character through and through, declared that the first serious defeat experienced by Germany "would produce a miracle." Social unrest is still universal.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Russian Service at the Atbazar Mine._ (See page 178.)]

We find it, therefore, as we should expect to do, in Russia; and more general, perhaps, and more acute than at any other previous time, just before the war was declared. This, it may be remembered, is stated to have been one of the reasons why the curt and hurried ultimatum was presented at Petrograd, where it was thought that social troubles and dangers were so serious that it would be impossible for the government even to think of going to war. We have been told,[12] though it was probably not known outside Russia at that time, what a good turn Germany really did to the Russian government and the Russian people by turning their thoughts from their own grave difficulties to the dangers which threatened them from without. At that time, we are a.s.sured, not only Petrograd, but every big manufacturing district of Russia, was shaking with revolt of a peculiar kind, and civil war on the point of breaking out. In Petrograd there were barricades already erected, at least 120,000 were on strike, tramcars had been broken up, attacks upon the police had taken place, factories were garrisoned in expectation of attack, the Cossacks were everywhere--openly in the streets, hidden away in places most threatened. The police arrested those who were supposed to be leaders, but it made no difference, for the people needed no leading. They were all so thoroughly in the movement. Indeed, we are told, "things seemed to the Russian government to be as bad as they could very well be; and orders were actually given for the severest possible repressive measures, which would, perhaps, have involved a large-scale battle, probably a ma.s.sacre, and certainly a state of war in the capital." It would have been "Red Sunday" over again, only this time infinitely and more ominously worse. A great calamity was narrowly escaped.

Now there is this to be noticed about this Russian upheaval, and this social bitterness and discontent expressing itself in the way with which we are only too sadly familiar, and which claims our attention as being so entirely different from similar movements of our own. The Russian workers made no demands, had no special grievances nor complaints which they wished to make known. In all strikes one has previously heard of there has been some hards.h.i.+p or injustice to bring forward, some claim or request to urge. Here there was nothing of the kind. "They were not on strike," we are told, "for higher wages. In no single case did the men make a demand from their masters. In no single case had a man gone on strike because of a grievance which his master could put right. No concessions by the masters could have brought the men back to work. The only answer they returned when asked why there was a strike was that they were dissatisfied with their lives, and that they intended to disorganize the State until these things were altered." It is clear, therefore, that the social unrest, and the activity which has so long resulted from it, have not a very definite aim as yet. Hence the Nihilist. He is dissatisfied, embittered, smarting under a sense of wrong; and while he does not see how he can put things right, feels that he must do something, and so destroys. "That at least will be something," he feels, "then we can begin again."

This, we can further see, will be the youthful _student's_ view if dissatisfied and discontented, and without either experience or constructive and practical knowledge to suggest how the wrong may be put right. Some of us, therefore, think that Russia's greatest social danger arises from the _student_ part of her population, and that her great problem--a vital one for her to solve, and soon--is how to deal fairly and wisely with them, and, caring for them as paternally as she does for her peasant population, incorporate them fully and intimately into her national life.

It is from the educated cla.s.ses that social unrest and discontent have proceeded in Russia, and from them that those agents have come who have spread wild and daring dreams of change and revolution amongst the working cla.s.ses of the towns, and, although that has not been so successful, amongst the peasantry also.

To some extent their socialistic ideas have been echoes from Western Europe. I remember being told, when I first went to Petrograd, "We usually have your bad weather here about eight or ten days after you, only we have it worse." It would seem that the rule holds good in other ways also, for Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace tells us, in one of his three deeply interesting chapters on social difficulties in Russia, that during the last two centuries all the important intellectual movements in Western Europe have been reflected in Russia, and that these reflections have generally been what may fairly be called exaggerated and distorted reflections of the earlier socialistic movements of the West, but with local peculiarities and local colouring which deserve attention.

He goes on to explain how the educated cla.s.ses, absorbing these ideas from abroad, just as ideas, and not as relating to the conditions of life in Russia as closely as in England, France, and Germany, from which they came, have quite naturally been less practical in the conclusions they have drawn from them, if indeed they have pushed their ideas to any conclusion at all. We are shown plainly by this lucid and well-informed writer how natural it has been for Western Socialists to be constructive and definite in their aims, while Russians could only be destructive.

Nihilism is made clear, and we understand its origin, while we can equally well understand what we are so rea.s.suringly told about its present decline. This does not imply necessarily that Russian thinkers and workers are becoming less socialistic in sympathy and aims, but more practical; and that they are learning, just as the West has taught them, that the only way in which they can hope to advance their own views is to use all the legal means which their government, as it becomes ever more democratic and const.i.tutional, will increasingly give them.

But amongst all the different cla.s.ses who may be called educated, the university students of both s.e.xes form the cla.s.s which most claims our sympathies, and const.i.tutes, I consider, Russia's gravest problem. There are ten universities in the empire, only one of which contains less than 1,300 students, while the leading ones far exceed this number--Moscow having just under 10,000, and Petrograd about 8,500. We can hardly realize what such numbers mean for the national life, when over 40,000 men and women are receiving university education and being prepared for professional careers. Over 15,000 are studying law, nearly 10,000 are receiving a scientific education before taking up work as chemists, engineers, etc., another 10,000 are studying medicine, comparatively few only being left for the teaching profession. There are only about a hundred divinity students.

In addition to these there are Russian students in all the universities of Europe. I have never been able to ascertain their actual numbers, but at Geneva, Lausanne, Berne, Leipzig, Berlin, and other great centres of education I have always been told, not only that they were there in no small numbers, but that they were the keenest and most attentive of all the students in the cla.s.s, the first to come, and the last to leave, always in the front seats, and unflagging in their attention. They are evidently most eager to learn, and are turned out from all the universities of Europe and from their own, extremely well equipped and prepared for professional work. Then a vast number of students of this cla.s.s are pitiably poor, straining every nerve, putting up with privations undreamed of elsewhere, in order to get through the preparation for their life's work.

Many of them, great numbers of them indeed, must be miserably disappointed. Town and city life, upon which the professional cla.s.ses must rely chiefly in seeking the means of gaining their livelihood, has not developed as yet in proportion to that of the agricultural population; and certainly at nothing like the rate which would be necessary if all those educated and trained at the universities were to be provided with careers and given an adequate opportunity. The supply is far, far greater than the demand.

Thus we have in Russia a large cla.s.s of really competent, brainy, well qualified young graduates of both s.e.xes, naturally longing to take their part in the life, work, and affairs of their country, urged on also by their poverty to seek and even demand it; and yet many, it seems to me sometimes that it must be far the greater number, must be unable to find it. Here obviously are all the materials for a real social danger; and students, therefore, always appear in stories of plots and conspiracies, always fill an important place in plays of the same kind, and are always to the fore in tumults and demonstrations. It must be so, for they are the one really embittered cla.s.s, and to them it must seem sometimes that there can be no hope for them at all in the social order as it is, and that its only possibility for them lies in its being destroyed and reconstructed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A Cla.s.s of Russian Students with their Teachers._]

In many of our centres of work abroad we have a _foyer_ where the foreign students can meet, and at Geneva last year with great difficulty we had opened a hostel for Russian students when the war broke out.

There one heard the most touching stories of their poverty, and yet of their pride and independence, and also of the special temptations to which their poverty exposed them. Some landlords, for instance, are not slow to tell girls that they would live better and more cheaply if they would temporarily "keep house" with one of the young men students, and occupy one room! Our hostel was hurried on last year as we heard of many instances of this kind, and a generous friend in Petrograd helped me very largely in finding the money. Everything was to be supplied at cost price, and no profits were to be made, the two English ladies in charge giving their services. There was a restaurant also which supplied good food at very moderate rates, and how moderate may be judged from the charge made for afternoon tea of a halfpenny! It consisted of a cup of tea and a small roll of bread without b.u.t.ter.

The first time I saw how cheaply the foreign students at Geneva lived was one festival evening when they invited me to supper, and when we had chicken salad with bread and b.u.t.ter followed by dessert, tea, and coffee, for which the charge was about fivepence each. The year after that I entertained them in return and gave them a Christmas party at which there were fourteen nationalities present, mainly Slav. Nothing could have been more interesting than that gathering, nor could any host have had more grateful guests. Last year the Noel Fest could not be held as there were no students; but I hope next Christmas may possibly see the war over, and that we may have a Slav evening party in Geneva once again.

It may be well to mention here how there comes to be a _foyer_ or club for Russians and other students at Geneva. It is a part of the organization connected with the World Student Christian Federation, which had its beginning in the eighties in the United States of America, as a movement to promote an interest in missionary work amongst students. In 1887 a deputation came over to this country to tell the student world what was going on across the Atlantic, and the student foreign missionary union was the result. Next the Christian Student Movement extended itself into all our European countries, and finally the World's Federation was accomplished at Wadstena Castle in Sweden in 1895. It is directed by a committee consisting of two representatives from each national movement, with Mr. John R. Mott, so well known, as its general secretary. Its operations now extend into all the leading countries of the world. There is a biennial conference, and it is admitted that one of the most interesting of any yet held was the one at Constantinople in 1911, which was attended by patriarchs representing all the Orthodox Churches of the East. It is not an undenominational movement, but exactly the opposite--a call rather to all the Churches of the world to be consistent in their Christian profession and "walk worthy of the vocation wherewith they are called." It is not a society nor a religious body, but a movement or union, and its basis, to be accepted by all its voluntary members and officers, is the declaration, "I desire, in joining this Union, to declare my faith in JESUS CHRIST as my Saviour, my LORD, and my G.o.d." There is no reason why any Christian in the world should not join it. Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, and members of other Churches the world over can have no possible difficulty in making such a simple declaration if there is any reality at all in their sense of members.h.i.+p in CHRIST'S Church; and there is every reason _why_ a Christian student should join a movement which is the only one of its kind to aim at work for CHRIST in those places where it is most urgently and sorely needed, and where it is most likely to be truly fruitful--the universities and colleges of the world.

There we have to-day those who have to lead and guide and guard the course of the whole world to-morrow. It is in the universities of the world that some of those influences which are most hostile and inimical to true social well-being are first set in motion, and it is there most certainly that we must begin if we wish to see the world made better and won for G.o.d. The war has made us long, I hope, for better things in a way the world has never dreamt of before, because there has never been anything in all history which has so focussed attention for the watching world upon a simple and direct question of right and wrong. The issue is even more momentous and significant than that. This great question of righteousness and unrighteousness must be answered by every one in the world according to his belief or unbelief. It is just a question for us all to settle whether our own interests, individual or national, or our duty to G.o.d comes first. The issue has never been more simply stated, and the Church of CHRIST has never in all her history had such a magnificent opportunity of giving her message, and proclaiming her mission. I hope, therefore, that all my readers will take an early opportunity of learning all they can about the Christian Student Movement, and satisfy themselves as to its fitness for helping the whole Church of CHRIST to avail herself to the full of this G.o.d-given opportunity and possibility.

A _foyer_ is a necessary centre for students wherever a branch of the movement has been formed, and it would be difficult to speak too warmly of its value for its members. I have mentioned this movement here, briefly enough, I fear, of necessity, because I should think there is no place where it is more needed, nor, as far as I can judge, more likely to continue to succeed, than in Russia. In Petrograd there are already a number of influential and wealthy Russians deeply interested in its work amongst the men students. They include a near relation of the Emperor, and the work is directed by a number of extremely competent and earnest Americans. I had an opportunity of meeting and addressing them when in Petrograd a year ago.

The work amongst the girl and women students is being carried forward very quietly by our own country-women, who are full of hope. But up to the present a great deal of caution and wisdom has had to be exercised, both because the authorities have so long been accustomed to look suspiciously at anything which seemed to promote a.s.sociations amongst students, and because students themselves, for reasons already given, have naturally looked askance at anything which was obviously working in the direction of law and order. The movement, more and more, it will be seen, is one of the soundest of modern efforts in the direction of real social improvement, because it begins at the right end, with those who are thinking and pondering life's problems before launching out to try their best to solve them. Nowhere has it been more needed, as I have said, than in Russia, and nowhere has it made a better start. The hopeful thing about Russia just now is that _every one_ is most keenly and profoundly interested in the social well-being of the people--on the one hand anxious to obtain it more fully for themselves, and on the other really wishful to give and promote it, even if watchful and cautious lest they should make mistakes and have to draw back.

And surely caution is very necessary in Russia. It is only a little over fifty years since the emanc.i.p.ation of the serfs. Let any one think of Russia with a servile population so short a time ago, and then think of what she is to-day, and they will form some idea of the extraordinary social improvement and transformation which has taken place. Yet with all this caution the desire to see improvement is general, and no one is satisfied with the lives of the working-cla.s.ses in the large towns as they are. It is well known indeed, as I have already said, that Russia has been absorbed in plans for social improvement for the last few years, and was meaning to launch out into great undertakings this very year. Those plans are only deferred, we hope, and will be taken up with greater zest and confidence than ever when peace comes. Perhaps the delay will prove to have been an inestimable gain, if it has made it clearer than before that there are certain examples it might be well to avoid. A great deal has been said and written of late years of the vast superiority of German munic.i.p.al government and organization, and certainly no cities in Europe approach those of Germany for attractiveness and excellence of arrangements as to streets, parks, public buildings, and imposing blocks of flats for private families of all cla.s.ses. Germans have been for many years now animated by the very best spirit of munic.i.p.al initiative and responsibility, and have shown a really worthy civic pride. Railway stations, post offices, walks, and squares in Germany are beyond comparison with those of any other country. And yet I am a.s.sured that much is sacrificed for effect and appearance; and I was astonished to hear, a little while ago, how miserably inadequate was the accommodation that even a skilled artisan in Berlin could afford to have.

A well-known social authority, Mr. T. C. Horsfall, writing in the _Spectator_ last December, told us that there is terrible overcrowding in nearly all large German towns, and that the overcrowded tall blocks of buildings are themselves too closely crowded together, and the effect is bad both for health and morality. The death-rate, including that of infants, is much higher with them than with us. And I cannot help thinking that the effect of giving families only two rooms and a small scullery, one living-room and one bedroom for all, must have its effect upon the morality of a population. Whatever the cause, we are told that in Berlin 17 per cent. of the births are registered as illegitimate, in Munich as many as 28 per cent., in Vienna over 40 per cent., while in London they are only 5 per cent.

"The effect on German town populations," Mr. Horsfall states, "especially on the poorer inhabitants of Berlin, of the conditions existing in German towns is described in an appeal made in or about the year 1886 by Professor Schmoller to his fellow-countrymen to deal adequately and promptly with those conditions. The appeal has been reprinted in an important Report published in 1911 by Dr. Werner Hegemann:

'The circ.u.mstances are so terrible that one can only wonder that the consequences have not been even worse. Only because a large part of these poor people have brought from their earlier life a store of good habits, of religious tradition, of decent feeling, into these dens, has the worst not yet been reached. But the children and young people who are now growing up in these holes must necessarily lose the virtues of economy, domesticity, family life, and all regard for law and property, decency, and good habits. He who has no proper dwelling, but only a sleeping-place, must fall a victim to the public-house and to drink.... The community to-day is forcing the lower strata of the factory proletariat of large towns by its dwelling conditions with absolute necessity to fall back to a level of barbarism and b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, of savagery and rowdiness, which our forefathers hundreds of years ago had left behind them. I maintain that there lies the greatest danger for our civilization.'"

With such examples as this before her we must trust that Russia will set about promoting the social well-being of her people with all her characteristic independence, and determine that in their housing she will have only those "great s.p.a.ces" which are her characteristic features in so many other ways. We have to tread this same road of social reform also when the war is over, and it is good to think that we may, perhaps, be able to take it, just as we have carried on the war, without any party questions or party spirit connected with it, as will be the case also in Russia. It is even more inspiring to think, again let me say it, that we and our new friend may tread this path together: comparing notes and making plans together as we go. That would be indeed an _Entente_ worth the name, when it was not in order that we might make war together, only that we had come to an agreement, but that we might help each other's peoples in all the arts of peace. Mr. Baring tells us that he was once drinking tea with a Russian landowner who calls himself a moderate liberal, and when, in their conversation, the Anglo-Russian agreement was mentioned, he exclaimed (and I have no doubt he expressed the feelings of many others who desire the social good of Russia as he did so), "This is the most sensible thing the Russian government has done for the last forty years!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The English Church of S. Andrew, at Moscow, with the Parsonage._]

FOOTNOTES:

[12] "Anglitchanin" in _The Contemporary Review_, Nov., 1914.

CHAPTER X

THE ANGLICAN CHURCH IN RUSSIA

I welcome the opportunity that this chapter affords me of defining the position taken by our Church in Russia, for it is just the same there as in Germany, France, Belgium, and the other countries in our jurisdiction. Many English Churchmen deprecate, while others strongly resent, our having clergy, churches, and services on the Continent of Europe at all. They consider it an interference with the Church of the country, schismatical in its character, and a hindrance and impediment to the reunion of Christendom. Some English clergy come, therefore, into the jurisdiction of North and Central Europe from their own parishes, and though their own Church may have its services there, ostentatiously attend the services of the Roman Catholic Church. Young men coming out for business, girls taking positions as nurses and governesses, and others coming for health and enjoyment, are sometimes advised by their clergy not to go near the English Church, but to attend Ma.s.s and "wors.h.i.+p with the people of the country."

What, I fancy, many of our brethren at home, clergy and laity alike, fail very often to realize is the great difference between a temporary and permanent residence abroad. Many of us know what it is to spend a holiday in some simple and beautiful village--in the Black Forest, for instance--amongst devout and good people, far away from one's own Church, and where it is just as natural as anything can be, and completes the friendly feeling between us, to go to church on Sunday and wors.h.i.+p with them. Even in an unfamiliar service we have our own Prayer Books, and can read Collect, Epistle, and Holy Gospel, and be in spirit and touch with our brethren wors.h.i.+pping in their own churches all over the world.

There is something to be said, therefore, for sharing the wors.h.i.+p of the people of the place when pa.s.sing through or making but a short stay, though, even in holiday resorts or "Sports centres," the opportunities which our Church, chaplain, and services offer are too precious and important to be lost or undervalued. But there is nothing whatever to be said for leaving a community of our own countrymen, permanently resident in another land, without the ministrations of their own Church, if they can possibly be supplied to them; and still less if, as in Russia and some other places, the people can find the means of support themselves.

Will any of our brethren seriously maintain that, when families have to leave this country and go to live on the Continent of Europe, they must leave their own Church and be received into the Roman or Greek Communion? Or, if not, will they consider that they ought to frequent the services of those Churches as outsiders, never having the experiences and helps afforded by the sacramental means of grace? It must be one or the other. If abroad we are not to attend the services of our own Church, then the only alternative is either to leave it altogether or to live the maimed spiritual life of those who are without the ministry of the Word and Sacraments.

And, moreover, if it is thought that one of the pressing duties of our time is to follow our brethren across the ocean to Canada, though even there the Roman Church claims to be the "Church of the country" in its French-speaking territory, and to give them the ministrations of religion, why are we not to follow them across the Channel, when they leave their country for precisely the same reason, to extend its business and commercial influence and to serve its interests in diplomatic, consular, and professional life? To think at all carefully over the situation is to see at once that our people in North and Central Europe have just the same rights (and I don't ask for anything more than that) to the services of their own Church as anywhere else in the world.

Take, for instance, this typical case of a friend of mine living in one of the cities of Europe, and now retired from business, but still living on where he is so well known, and where he has many ways of making himself of use. He was married young, and his bride went with him to make her home abroad. They had their own Church there, and there they took their children to be baptized and, when old enough, to wors.h.i.+p, be confirmed, and become communicants. There those children have been married, and from there gone out into the world to make new homes. In his house the clergy have been always made welcome, and have visited them when sick, counselled them when necessary, and received much valuable advice in return. Can any one be heartless enough, or foolish enough, to say that there ought to have been no English Church in that place at all, and that he and his young wife ought to have attended the Church of the country, and with their descendants been lost to their own?

Then there are girls at school, young men learning the language, governesses, nurses, lads in the training stables, girls dancing on the stage--these are well shepherded in Paris--and others. Are they to feel in after life, "Just at the critical time, when I needed it most, my Church was not there to give me the helping hand--and all might have been so different if it had been!" I will not dwell upon all the priceless opportunities afforded us abroad, where touch is more quickly gained, and more easily maintained, of winning during sickness and at other times those who have never been in touch with clergy or Church at home, bringing them out into the light, gaining them for the Church, and sending them home to "strengthen the brethren" there.

Most of our clergy, from Northern Russia to Southern France and the Pyrenees, have their inspiriting stories to tell of the services they have rendered to the Church at home in this way, and yet that Church, if some of our brethren could have their way, would disown them. It won't bear seriously thinking of, this objection to English Church work abroad; and surely it rings more true to what we feel is the Englishman's duty wherever he is, when we read that our countrymen, after settling at Archangel in the sixteenth century, built their warehouses and their Church at the same time, and wished, in their adopted country, to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d "after the manner of their fathers."

I have taken a little time to explain our continental position thus, because it is the same in every country, is thoroughly understood, and never, as far as I know, resented. We always make it perfectly clear that we never wish to interfere with the Church of the country, nor the religion of its people, but are there to shepherd our own. And it is a curious thing that in Catholic Belgium, as it is called, with people devoted to their Church, and with a clerical government such as they have had for at least the last forty years, our Anglican clergy receive from the Belgian government the same recognition, status, stipends, grants for houses, etc., as are given to the clergy of the country.

But nowhere is the position of our Church more fully, sympathetically or affectionately recognized than in Russia. Nowhere would it be felt, as there, a grave and responsible neglect of duty on our part if we were to leave our own people without the ministrations of their own Church. They go further than this in sympathetic feeling, for they consider that there is a special link and bond of union between our Church and their own. An anonymous but evidently extremely well-informed writer about Russia, over the _nom de plume_ of "Anglitchanin" in a leading Review[13] a month or two ago, said, in the course of his article on _Russia and the War_, "the English Church is said to be very like the Greek Orthodox. It is not so in fact, but in Russia it is believed to be so by _all cla.s.ses of the population_. That is indeed the one thing about England that they all know. I have known more than one peasant ask me, 'Is England beyond Germany--far? or beyond Siberia? But your religion is like ours.'

"The origin of this belief," he adds, "is to be found in the fact that we are not Lutherans on the one side, and on the other do not acknowledge the Pope."

They welcome our bishops and clergy to their services in their robes, and attend ours in the same way. When the late Duke of Edinburgh married the daughter of the Emperor Alexander, the service took place first in the cathedral with the Russian rite, with Dean Stanley present in his robes, and then a second time in the English Church with our own service, with the Russian clergy present in the sanctuary. The Bishop of London also loves to describe his reception at the great Troitsky Monastery near Moscow, where he attended the services in cope and mitre, and with pastoral staff, and was greeted by all the clergy present as one of their own bishops; and the last time I heard him describe the beautiful ceremonial, he added significantly, "I should not have been received in that way at S. Peter's, Rome"; but who can say what may be the outcome of this war? There has been a wonderful drawing together of the French and English clergy, and perhaps we may soon have more brotherly relations with the Roman clergy, even though we do not have inter-communion.