The barracks and the chancellery were the chief supports of Nicholas's political system. Blind discipline devoid of common sense combined with the dead formalism of Austrian tax officials—those were the foundations of the celebrated mechanism of power in Russia. What a poor concept of governance, what prosaic autocracy and pitiful banality! This is the simplest and most brutal form of despotism.
Add to this Count Benkendorf, chief of the gendarmes—that armed inquisition, that political Masonic order, with members in all corners of the empire, from Riga to Nerchinsk, listening and eavesdropping—heading the Third Department of His Majesty's chancellery (such is the name of the main office for espionage), sitting in judgment over everything, altering court decisions, and interfering in everything but especially in matters concerning political criminals. From time to time in front of this office-tribunal there appeared civilization in the form of a writer or student who was exiled or locked up, his place soon to be taken by another.
In a word, looking at official Russia one could only despair; on the one hand there was Poland, divided and martyred with amazing regularity; on the other hand, the insanity of a war which continued throughout the reign, swallowing up armies without advancing by a single step our domination of the Caucasus; and, in the center, general degradation and governmental incompetence.
But to make up for it, within Russia great work was going on, work that was muffled and mute but active and continuous; everywhere discontent grew, revolutionary ideas gained more territory during those twenty-five years than during the entire previous century, and yet they did not penetrate through to the people.
The Russian people still kept itself far away from political life, having little reason to take part in the work going on at other levels of society. Long-term suffering forced upon them their own sense of dignity; the Russian people had suffered too much to agitate for a minor improvement in their position—better to remain a beggar in rags than to change into something patched together from scraps. But if it took no part in the movement of ideas occupying other classes, this does not at all mean that nothing was transpiring in its soul. The Russian people breathed more heavily than before, and its countenance was sadder; the injustice of serfdom and pilfering by civil servants became more and more unbearable. The government had disturbed the calm of the village commune with its compulsory organization of labor, and, with the introduction of rural police [stanovye pristavy] even the repose of the peasant in his own hut was restricted and supervised. There was a major increase in cases brought against arsonists, those who killed landowners, and participants in peasant uprisings. There was grumbling among the large number of religious dissenters; oppressed and exploited by the clergy and the police, they were far from making any major move, and yet one heard from time to time in these dead seas vague sounds heralding fierce storms. The Russian people's discontent of which we have been speaking is scarcely visible to a superficial glance. Russia always seems so tranquil that one would have difficulty believing that anything was going on. Few people know what is happening under the shroud in which the government wraps the dead—the bloodstains, the military ex- ecutions—when it is said, hypocritically and arrogantly, that there was no blood and no corpse under the shroud. What do we know of the Simbirsk arsonists, and the massacre of landowners simultaneously organized by a number of villages? What do we know of local uprisings, which broke out in connection with Kiselev's new administration?2 What do we know of the destruction in Kazan, Vyatka, and Tambov, where one had to resort to cannon?
The intellectual effort of which we spoke was not taking place at the highest levels of the state nor at its base, but in between the two, that is to say, between the lower and middle nobility. The facts we will introduce may not seem to have great importance, but it must not be forgotten that propaganda, like all education, is not flashy, especially when it does not dare to show itself in the light of day.
The influence ofliterature has noticeably increased, and penetrates much more deeply than before; it has not changed its mission and retains its liberal and educational character, to the extent possible under censorship.
A thirst for education is taking hold of the entire younger generation; civilian and military schools, gymnasia, lycees, and academies overflow with students; the children of the poorest parents strive to get into various institutes. The government, which as recently as 1804 enticed children into the schools with various privileges, now uses every effort to hold back the tide; difficulties are created at admission time and during exams; tuition payment is demanded; the education minister issues an order restricting the education of serfs. Nevertheless, Moscow University has become a cathedral of Russian civilization; the emperor detests it, sulks over it, and each year exiles a batch of its students. He never visits it when in Moscow, but the University flourishes and its influence grows; in bad repute, it expects nothing, continuing its work and becoming a genuine force. The elite among the youth in neighboring provinces come to the University, and each year an army of graduates spreads throughout the country as civil servants, doctors, and teachers.
In the depths of the provinces, and even more so in Moscow, there is a visibly growing class of independent people not pursuing public service, who occupy themselves with their properties, science, and literature; they demand nothing of the government except to be left alone. This is in contrast to Petersburg nobles, who cling to government service and the court, are consumed by servile ambition, expect everything from the government, and live only through it. To ask for nothing, to remain independent, not to seek a position—under a despotic regime this counts as being in opposition. The government looked suspiciously at these idlers and was not pleased. They constituted a core of educated people poorly disposed toward the Petersburg regime. Some spent entire years abroad, bringing back with them liberal ideas; others came to Moscow for a few months, spending the rest of the year on their estates, reading everything new and acquainting themselves with intellectual developments in Europe. Among provincial landowners, reading was in fashion. People bragged about their libraries, and at the very least ordered new French novels, the Journal des Debats and the Augsburg newspaper; to possess banned books was to be in style. I do not know of a single well-kept house where one could not find de Custine's book about Russia, which was specifically banned by Nicholas. Denied the possibility of action, constantly menaced by the secret police, young people plunged into their reading with great fervor. The mass of ideas in circulation grew and grew.
But what new ideas and tendencies arose after the 14th of December?3
The first years following 1825 were terrible. It took people a dozen years to realize how servile and persecuted was their lot. Profound despair and general low spirits took hold. High society, with a haste that was cowardly and mean, renounced all humane feelings and all civilized thoughts. There was virtually no aristocratic family without a relative among the exiles, and almost none of them dared to dress in mourning or express their sorrow. Turning away from this sad spectacle of servility, immersed in reflection in order to find some source of advice or hope, one came up against a terrible thought, which made the blood run cold.