XV THE CHINOVNIK (THE RUSSIAN OFFICIAL)

Czar Nicholas I. is known to have been a great admirer of Gogol's "Revizor." Yet a more bitter satire on Russian officialdom than this realistic comedy does not exist. Plenty of utterances of the czars who have followed Nicholas are quoted to show that none of the supposedly unlimited monarchs of Russia has been in the least hazy as to the qualities of his most trustworthy servants. When, nevertheless, fifty years after the death of Nicholas I., the camorra of officials makes more havoc than ever, and obstructs all development of the Russian nation with the close meshes of its organization, as with a net of steel wire, this strange phenomenon is to be explained only in two ways. Either the czars who so clearly recognized the evil must have been unscrupulous cynics, who only laughed at corruption and had no feeling for the sufferings of their people, or else their power was not sufficient to break that of their servants. The omnipotence of autocracy must have found its limits in the omnipotence of the oligarchy of functionaries. The first of the possible explanations may be set aside without further consideration.[Pg 145] The autocrats, without exception, have desired the good of their people, and have been personally upright men and lovers of justice. If they had been strong enough to create a trustworthy and industrious official service, instead of their idle and corrupt one, they would certainly have done so. Only the second explanation, then, is possible. The power of the czardom has had to capitulate to that of the oligarchy of officials.

This explanation, however, requires a further one. What wrecked the attempts of well-intentioned autocrats at reform? These men did not understand joking; and open opposition to orders of the Czar is absolutely unthinkable, when punishments such as exile to Siberia are given for much slighter offences. Is it possible that the Russian nation stands morally so much lower than all others that honest and industrious servants of the state are not to be found at all? That would be hard to believe. For if men are approximately alike in any one particular it is in average morality. The Russian is not more immoral or dishonorable than the German or the Frenchman. Fifty years ago the officials in Austria and Hungary also were still very corrupt, and Frederick William I. was obliged, even in morally strict Prussia, to use all his energy in taking steps against the state officials, who acted on the principle of the proverb, "Give me the sausage, and I'll quench your thirst" (Gibst du mich die Wurscht, l?sch ich dich den Durscht). Besides, the [Pg 146]experiment of regenerating the official service with foreigners has also been tried in Russia, especially by Alexander II. In the imperial library at St. Petersburg I came upon a little French pamphlet in which a Russian patriot laments in the most passionate terms because Czar Alexander II. was surrounded by an impenetrable wall of officials from the Baltic provinces, who let no one but their congeners rise on the rounds of the official ladder. The complaints made of the dictatorship of officials were, however, the same, although it was not denied that in industry and honesty the Germans from the Baltic provinces surpassed the native Russians. Under Alexander III. unmistakable orthodox opinions and the purest possible Russian descent were necessary in order to gain the good-will of the omnipotent Pobydonostzev and of the Slavophils. The misery, however, remained the same, except that it was in some degree relieved by the greater corruptibility of the native Russians. For—to show the utter preposterousness of the whole system—the Russian people find it much pleasanter to deal with bribe-taking officials than with honest ones. You may hear it said often enough in Russia, "The Russian autocracy is alleviated by the ruble; without the ruble life would not be at all endurable." There must, therefore, exist some fatal cause which prevents any improvement of conditions. Even evils do not grow old without some necessary reason for their existence.

[Pg 147]

In order to explain this it must be clearly understood what the Russians really complain of in their officials. They thought themselves no better off under the system of Alexander II., with the infusion into the service of more honest and industrious elements. Hence it appears not to be primarily the dishonesty or idleness of the bureaucracy which provokes the most complaints. This is, indeed, the fact. What drives the Russians to despair, and what they feel to be the grossest evil of the country, much more than the domination of the Czar alone, is the tyranny of the official caste, which forms a state within the state, and has set up a special code of official morality quite peculiar to itself. As to how far the possibility of such a class development is consistent with the autocracy as such will be inquired into below. A ring of officials is not absolutely excluded even in republics, as is shown by Tammany Hall in New York. Only in constitutional states it rests with the people to put an end to evil once recognized, but in an autocracy it does not. Before going further, however, it is necessary to make clear to the foreign reader what is meant in general by such a tyranny.

Therefore, let us say, for example, that you have been seen on the street with a person who, for some reason, and naturally without knowing it himself, is under police surveillance. Of course you yourself are from this moment under suspicion, and therewith delivered up to the official zeal of the[Pg 148] whole, widely ramified organization, for the protection of the holy order. From that time forth letters directed to you do not reach you, or else bear a mark showing that by a remarkable accident they were found open in the letter-box and had to be officially sealed. You are surprised some night by the visit of an officer and of a dozen sturdy police officials, who rouse your children from their beds and search through your house from garret to cellar. If there should happen to be found in your possession a German translation of a novel of Tolsto?'s, or any book or newspaper which stands on the police index, with which you naturally are not acquainted, off you go to prison with the agents of the law. Here you remain, well taken care of, pending a thorough-going investigation of the facts of the case. This lasts from three days to six months, as the case may be, according to your popularity or to the influence which your friends are able to bring to bear. It is not the slightest protection for you that you are a well-known householder, a busy physician or lawyer, of whom it might be assumed that even without imprisonment he would not immediately turn his back on the place of his profession. To prevent the danger of collusion, so that you may not hide the traces of your crime, you remain to the end under lock and key, with the invaluable right to maintain yourself meanwhile at your own expense. You will endure this little inconvenience calmly, as becomes a man,[Pg 149] hoping that your friends will take care of your wife and children during this time and not let them actually starve. It is certainly unpleasant if your pretty daughter, who is studying history or art or philology, attracts the eye of the sacred "hermandad" and is carried off some night as a political suspect, and you can find by no pleading in what prison she is kept pending investigation. It is still more vexatious for you to know that your young son, a student, is in the hands of the police, since this young man has not yet learned self-control, and may possibly come to blows with his tormentors, who drive him so far that, finally, in order to put an end to his sufferings, he sets himself on fire with his own kerosene lamp and ends his life. I cite here only facts which came to my knowledge from the circle of highly respected families which I met during my stay of barely seven weeks. You yourself are, according to the degree of your offence, expelled for several years from the place of your profession or, at the worst, exiled to Archangel or Siberia. Finally, a crime on your part is not necessary. It is sufficient that you are not found loyal and respectful to the police.

These evidently are little unpleasantnesses which do not sweeten life for the citizen or greatly increase his loyal sentiments. They exert, however, a much more injurious effect on those who are in a position to inflict such torments on people who are to any extent in their disfavor. Travellers tell[Pg 150] of tropical madness which seizes Europeans in the torrid zone. Since my experiences in Russia I am no longer inclined to regard this phenomenon as climatic. There is only one madness, that is the frenzy of domination to which every morally weak person is exposed when his lust for power meets with little or no opposition. This phenomenon is not less well known in our barrack-rooms, where discipline breaks down all opposition, than in prisons. Non-commissioned officers, and also many officers and prison officials, are easily seized with this madness, which is nothing but the spirit of the Pr?torian Guard on a small scale. The German abroad, especially the young German noble, is most easily susceptible to it. He even likes to make up to himself a little in the primitive East for the strict provincial training to which he was subjected among the loyal and more moral ideas of his home. Hence the preference of Alexander II. for German officials caused no improvement in this respect.

In addition to the madness of power, which in itself is bad enough, there is, however, still another thing. The best elements in Russia do not select the political or police services. The pay is wretched, and can only be supplemented by illicit revenues. These illicit revenues arise from prompt releases from formalities, for which the interested persons show themselves grateful, and from carrying into effect orders against the Jews, who, for this very reason indeed, cannot be better established legally,[Pg 151] because if they were a great part of the official service would lose a principal source of revenue from toleration-money. Men of the better class turn away as a matter of course from a career which depends upon such revenues. Hence it is not exactly the best who serve as executives of the power of the state. In official service there is also another aim—namely, to rise constantly to higher and more lucrative positions. For this there is only one rule, that of maintaining absolute good conduct in the eyes of the higher authorities. The higher authorities, however, consist of chinovniks, who have only one interest, that of the supremacy of their class and the prevention of anything that could injure its omnipotence. So it goes on up to the highest oracle; to the man to whom primarily is intrusted the protection of the Czar and of the autocracy; to the minister of the interior. Imagine this office held by a man like Plehve, and you will understand what spirit rules under the pashas of sleepy villages down to the last provincial hamlet. C?sarian madness, aspiration for higher positions, class interest, all work together to produce entirely conscienceless libertines and barbarians, against whom there is no protection whatever. In a land without a parliament or a free press every complaint has only the effect of a denunciation of the devil to his grandmother. The complainant can by no means reckon the consequences, even if, indeed, the culprit is not especially rewarded for his[Pg 152] official zeal. It is much better to stand in with the authorities, not to kick against the pricks, but to pay.

And the Czar? Either he hears nothing of all these things or they are represented to him as indispensable for the preservation of order. If it is hard to make a successful stand even in constitutional states with parliament and press, in the rare enough cases of despotic justice, it is immensely harder where the protection of authority is the highest principle of government, and where no institution whatever exists for the protection of the subject. It should not be at all surprising, then, that the reign of terror from above tries to countermine the terror from below. Indeed, it is only a proof of the patience and gentleness of the Russian people that attempts upon official criminals are so rare. I was the more ashamed when, during my stay in Russia, I read that German statesmen were hurling words of condemnation against Russian patriots who, careless of their own lives, had declared war against the brutal officials. However far the desire to preserve a good-neighborly relationship may go, a German politician does not need to ingratiate himself with the Russian régime. In doing so he exposes himself to the condemnation which that régime invariably calls forth when people know its administrative methods. German authorities ought not to lend their assistance to a body which a patriot and strong monarchist like[Pg 153] Prince Ukhtomsky, the friend of the Czar, called a Camorra, a band of anarchists in office. Our sympathies ought rather to go out to those who strive to gain for Russia also a court where the shackled nation can bring its cry for help to a hearing—a parliament, however modest; a press not subjugated by the tyranny of the police. Only by these means can a nation full of good qualities be freed from the reign of terror of the chinovniks, from the Camorra of officials.