V.I. Lenin

Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/casual/index.htm

V. I. Lenin

## Casual Notes

## I. Beat – But Not to Death!

O n January 23, in Nizhni-Novgorod, the Moscow High Court of
Justice, in a special session, with the participation of representatives of the social-estates , tried the
case of the murder of the peasant Timofei Vasilyevich Vozdukhov,
who had been taken to the police-station “to sober up” and there beaten up by four policemen, Shelemetyev, Shulpin,
Shibayev, and Olkhovin, and by acting Station Sergeant Panov, so
that he died in the hospital the next day.

Such is the simple tale of this case, which throws a glaring
light upon what usually and always goes on in our police-stations.

As far as can be gathered from the extremely brief newspaper
reports, what appears to have happened is the following. On
April 20, Vozdukhov drove up to the Governor’s house in a
cab. The superintendent of the Governor’s house came out to him;
in giving evidence at the trial the superintendent stated that
Vozdukhov, hatless, had been drinking but was not drunk, and
that he, Vozdukhov, complained to him about a certain steamboat
booking office having refused to sell him a ticket (?). The
superintendent ordered Shelemetyev, the policeman on duty, to
take him to the police-station. Vozdukhov was sufficiently sober
to be able to speak quietly with Shelemetyev and on arriving at
the police-station quite distinctly told Sergeant Panov his name
and occupation. Notwithstanding all this, Shelemetyev, no doubt
with the knowledge of Panov, who had just questioned Vozdukhov, “pushed” the latter, not into the common
cell, in which there were a number of other drunkards, but into
the adjoining “soldiers’ lock-up.” As he pushed him, his sword got caught on the latch of the door and it
cut his hand slightly; imagining that Vozdukhov was holding the
sword, he rushed at him to strike him, shouting that his hand
bad been cut. He struck Vozdukhov with all his might in the
face, in the chest, in the side; he struck him so hard that
Vozdukhov fell, striking his forehead on the floor and begging
for mercy.  “Why are you hitting me?” he implored, according to the statement of a witness, Semakhin, who was in
the neighbouring cell at the time. “It was not my fault. Forgive me, for Christ’s sake!” According to the
evidence of this witness, it was not Vozdukhov who was drunk,
but sooner Shelemetyev. Shelemetyev’s colleagues, Shulpin and
Shibayev, who had been continuously drinking in the police-station since the first day of Easter week (April 20 was
Tuesday, the third day of Easter week), learned that Shelemetyev
was “teaching” (the expression used in the indictment)
Vozdukhov a lesson. They went into the soldiers’ lock-up
accompanied by Olkhovin, who was on a visit from another
station, and attacked Vozdukhov with their fists and feet. Police Sergeant Panov came on the scene and struck
Vozdukhov on the head with a book, and then with his fists. “Oh! they beat and beat him so hard that my belly
ached for pity,” said a woman witness, who was under arrest
there at the time. When the “lesson” was over, the sergeant very coolly ordered Shibayev to wipe the blood from the
victim’s face—it would not look so bad then; the chief might
see it—and then to fling him into the common cell. “Brothers!” cried Vozdukhov to the other
detainees, “see how the police have beaten me. Be my witnesses, I’ll lodge a complaint.” But he never lived to
lodge the complaint.  The following morning, he was found in a
state of unconsciousness and sent to the hospital where he died
within eight hours without coming to himself again. A post-mortem revealed ten broken ribs, bruises all over his body,
and haemorrhage of the brain.

The court sentenced Shelemetyev, Shulpin, and Shibayev to four
years’ penal servitude, and Olkhovin and Panov to one month’s detention , finding them guilty only of
“insulting behaviour.”...

With this sentence we shall commence our examination of the
case.  Those sentenced to penal servitude were charged according
to Articles 346 and 1490, Part II, of the Penal Code. The first
of these articles provides that an official inflicting wounds or
injuries in the exercise of his duties is liable to the maximum
penalty reserved “for the perpetration of such a crime.” Article 1490, Part II, provides for a penalty of
from eight to ten years’ penal servitude for inflicting torture
resulting in death. Instead of inflicting the maximum penalty , the court, consisting of representatives of the
social-estates and crown judges, reduced the sentence by two degrees (sixth degree, eight to ten years of
penal servitude; seventh degree, four to six years), i.e., it
made the maximum reduction of sentence permitted by the law in
cases of extenuating circumstances, and, moreover, imposed the minimum penalty of that low degree. In a word, the
court did all it could to let the culprits off as lightly as
possible; in fact, it did more than it could, because it evaded
the law concerning the “maximum penalty.” Of course, we do not wish to assert that “supreme justice”
demanded precisely ten and not four years’ penal servitude; the
essential point is that the murderers were declared to be
murderers and that they were sentenced to penal servitude. But
we cannot refrain from noting a tendency characteristic of the
court of crown judges and representatives of the estates; when
they try a police official, they are ready to display the
greatest clemency, but when they sit in judgment over an act
committed against the police, as is well known, they display
inexorable severity. [1]

With a police sergeant before it, how could the court refuse him
clemency? He had met Vozdukhov as he was brought in and
apparently had ordered him to be placed, not in a common cell,
but first, in order to teach him a lesson, in the soldiers’
lock-up. He took part in the assault, using his fists and a book
(no doubt a copy of the Penal Laws); he gave orders to have all
traces of the crime removed (to wipe away the blood). On the
night of April 20 he reported to the inspector, Mukhanov, upon
his return, “everything in order at the station in his charge” (his exact words!)—but he had nothing to do with
the murderers, he was only guilty of an insulting act, just
insulting behaviour, punishable by detention.  Quite naturally,
this gentleman, Mr. Panov, innocent of murder, is still in the
police service occupying the post of a village police sergeant. Mr. Panov has merely transferred his useful directing
activities in “teaching lessons” to the common people from the town to the country. Now, reader, tell us in all
conscience, can Sergeant Panov understand the sentence of the
court to mean anything else than advice in the future to remove
the traces of a crime more thoroughly, to “teach” in such a manner as to leave no trace? You did right in ordering
the blood to be wiped from the face of the dying man, but you
allowed him to die.  That, pal, was careless. In the future be
more careful and never forget the first and last commandment of
the Russian

Derzhimorda [6] : “Beat—but not to death!”

From the ordinary human point of view, the sentence Panov drew
was a mockery of justice. It reveals a cringing, servile spirit,
an attempt to throw the whole blame upon the minor police
officers and to shield their immediate chief with whose
knowledge, approval, and participation this brutal crime was
committed. From the juridical point of view, the sentence is an
example of the casuistry resorted to by bureaucratic judges who
are themselves not far removed from police sergeants. Speech was
given to man to conceal his thoughts, say the diplomats. Our
jurists may say that the law is given to distort the concepts of
guilt and responsibility. Indeed, what refined juridical art is
required to be able to reduce complicity in torture to simple
insulting behaviour! Panov was guilty of an offence equal in
gravity to that perhaps committed by a factory hand who possibly
on the morning of April 20 mischievously struck Vozdukhov’s cap
off his head! In fact, milder than that: it was not an offence
but merely an infringement.  Even participation in a brawl (let
alone the brutal assault upon a helpless man), if it results in
a fatality, is liable to a severer punishment than that meted
out to the police sergeant. Legal chicanery took advantage of
the fact that the law provides for various degrees of punishment
for inflicting injuries in the exercise of official duties and
allows the court the discretion to pronounce sentences ranging
from two months’ imprisonment to permanent banishment to
Siberia, according to the circumstances of the case. Of course,
it is quite a rational rule not to bind a judge to strictly
formal definitions, but to allow him certain latitude. Our
professors of criminal law have often praised Russian legislation for this and have emphasised its liberal
character. However, in praising our law, they lose sight of one
trifle, namely, that, for rational laws to be applied, it is
necessary to have judges who are not reduced to the role of mere
officials, that it is necessary to have representatives of the
public in the court, and for public opinion to play its part in
the examination of cases. Secondly, the assistant public
prosecutor came to the aid of the court by withdrawing the charge against Panov (and
Olkhovin) of torture and cruelty and pleading only for a
sentence for insulting behaviour. In his plea, the assistant
prosecutor called expert evidence to prove that the blows
inflicted by Panov were neither numerous nor painful. As you
see, the juridical sophistry is not very ingenious: since Panov
did less beating than the others, it may be argued that his punches were not very painful, and since they were not very painful, it may be argued that his offence was not
“torture and cruelty”; and since it was not torture and cruelty, then it was merely insulting behaviour. All this
works out to everybody’s satisfaction, and Mr. Panov remains in
the ranks of the guardians of law and order.... [2]

We have just referred to the participation of representatives of
the public in court trials, and to the part that should be
played by public opinion. The case in point is an excellent
illustration.  In the first place, why was this case tried, not
by a jury, but by a court of crown judges and representatives of
the estates?  Because the government of Alexander III, having
declared ruthless war upon every public aspiration towards
liberty and independence, very soon found that trial by jury was
dangerous. The reactionary press declared trial by jury to be
“trial by the street,” and launched against it a campaign which, be it said in passing, continues to this
day. The government adopted a reactionary programme.  Having
crushed the revolutionary movement of the seventies, it
insolently declared to the representatives of the people that it
regarded them as the “street,” the mob, which must not interfere in the work of legislation, let alone interfere in the
administration of the state, and which must be driven from the
sanctuary where Russian citizens are tried and punished
according to the Panov method. In 1887 a law was passed removing
crimes committed by and against officials from the jurisdiction
of courts sitting with a jury and transferring them to courts of
crown judges and representatives of the estates. It is well
known that these representatives of the estates, merged into a
single collegium with the bureaucratic judges, are mute
super-numeraries playing the miserable role of witnesses ready
to say yes to everything the officials of the Department of
Justice decide. This is one of a long series of laws adopted
during the latest reactionary period of Russian history and
having one single tendency in common: to re-establish a
“sound authority.” Under the pressure of circumstances, the government in the latter half of the
nineteenth century was compelled to come into contact with the
“street”; but the character of the street changed with astonishing rapidity and the ignorant inhabitants gave place to
citizens who were beginning to understand their rights and who
were capable even of producing the champions of their rights. Realising this, the government drew back in horror, and
is now making convulsive efforts to surround itself by a Chinese
Wall, to immure itself in a fortress into which no manifestations of independent public action can penetrate....
But I have strayed somewhat from my subject.

Thanks to the reactionary law, the street was deprived of the
right to try representatives of the government. Officials have
been tried by officials. This has affected, not only the
sentence passed by the court, but also the character of the
preliminary investigation and the trial. Trial by the street is
valuable because it breathes a living spirit into the bureaucratic formalism which pervades our government
institutions. The street is interested, not only, and not so
much, in the definition of the given offence (insulting
behaviour, assault, torture), or in the category of punishment
to be imposed; it is interested in exposing thoroughly and
bringing to public light the significance and all the social and
political threads of the crime in order to draw lessons in
public morals and practical politics from the trial. The street
does not want to see in the court “an official institution,” in which functionaries apply to given cases
the corresponding articles of the Penal Code, but a public
institution which exposes the ulcers of the present system,
which provides material for criticising it and, consequently,
for improving it. Impelled by its practical knowledge of public
affairs and by the growth of political consciousness, the street
is discovering the truth for which our official, professorial
jurisprudence, weighed down by its scholastic shackles, is
groping with such difficulty and timidity—namely, that in the
fight against crime the reform of social and political institutions is much more important than the imposition of
punishment. For this reason the reactionary publicists and the
reactionary government hate, and cannot help hating, trial by
the street. For this reason the curtailments put on the
competency of jury courts and the restrictions on publicity run
like a scarlet thread throughout the whole of the post-Reform
history of Russia; indeed, the reactionary character of the
“post-Reform” epoch was exposed immediately after the law of 1864, reforming our “judicature,”
came into force. [3] The absence of “trial by the street” was markedly felt
in this particular case. Who in the court that tried this case
could have been interested in its social aspect, and who would
have sought to bring it out prominently? The public prosecutor?
The official who is closely connected with the police, who
shares responsibility for the detention of prisoners and the
manner in which they are treated, who, in certain cases, is
actually the chief of police? We have seen that the assistant
prosecutor even withdrew the charge of torture against
Panov. The civil plaintiff—in the event that Vozdukhova, the
widow of the murdered man and a witness at the trial, had put in
a civil claim against the murderers? But how was this simple
woman to know that it was permissible to bring a civil claim for
damages before a criminal court? But even had she known it,
would she have been able to retain a lawyer?  And even had she
been able to do so, could a lawyer have been found who was
willing to call public attention to the state of affairs brought
to light by this murder? And even if such a lawyer had been
found, would his ”civic zeal” have been supported by such
“delegates” of the public as the representatives of the social-estates? Picture to yourself a rural district elder—
I have in mind a provincial court—embarrassed in his rustic
clothes, not knowing what to do with his rough, peasant hands,
awkwardly trying to conceal his feet encased in greased
top-boots, gazing with awe upon His Excellency, the president of
the court, who is seated on the same bench with him. Or imagine
a city mayor, a fat merchant, breathing heavily in his unaccustomed livery, with his chain of office round his neck,
trying to ape his neighbour, a Marshal of the Nobility, a
gentleman in a nobleman’s uniform, who looks sleek and well
tended, with aristocratic manners. By his side are judges, men
who have gone through the hard grind of the school of bureaucracy, genuine functionaries who have grown grey in the
service and are filled with a consciousness of the importance of
the duty they have to fulfill—to try representatives of the
authorities whom the street is not worthy to try. Would not this
scene dampen the ardour of the most eloquent lawyer?  Would it
not remind him of the ancient aphorism: “neither cast ye
your pearls before...”?

And so it happened that the case was rushed through at express
speed, as if all concerned were eager to get it off their hands
as quickly as possible, [4] as if they feared to rake too thoroughly in the muck; one may
get accustomed to living near a cesspool and not notice the foul
odours emanating from it, but as soon as an attempt is made to
cleanse it, the stench assails the nostrils, not only of the
inhabitants of the particular street, but also of those of the
neighbouring streets.

Just think of the number of questions that naturally arise and
that no one has taken the trouble to clear up! Why did Vozdukhov
go to the Governor? The indictment—the document which embodied the effort of the prosecuting authorities to disclose
the crime—not only failed to reply to this question, but
deliberately obscured it with the statement that Vozdukhov
“was detained in a state of intoxication in the courtyard
of the Governor’s house by policeman Shelemetyev.” It even
gives ground for the assumption that Vozdukhov was brawling—
and where do you think? In the courtyard of the Governor’s
house! In actuality, Vozdukhov drove up to the
Governor’s house in a cab in order to lodge a complaint —this fact was established. What did he go
to complain about? Ptitsyn, the superintendent of the Governor’s
house, stated that Vozdukhov had complained about the refusal of
a steamship booking office to sell him a ticket (?). The witness
Mukhanov, formerly inspector of the station in which Vozdukhov
was assaulted (and now governor of the provincial prison in
Vladimir), stated that he had heard from Vozdukhov’s wife that
she and her husband had been drinking and that in
Nizhni they had been beaten up in the river police-station and
in the Rozhdestvensky police-station, and that Vozdukhov had
gone to the Governor to complain about this . Notwithstanding the fact that the witnesses
obviously contradicted each other, the court did not make the
slightest attempt to clear up the matter. On the contrary, one
has every reason to conclude that the court did not wish to clear up the matter. Vozdukhov’s wife gave
evidence at the trial, but no one took the trouble to ask her
whether she and her husband had really been assaulted in several
Nizhni police-stations, under what circumstances they had been
arrested, in what premises they had been assaulted, and by whom,
whether her husband had really wished to complain to the
Governor, and whether he had mentioned his intention to any one
else. Most likely the witness Ptitsyn, an official in the
Governor’s office, was not inclined to accept complaints from
Vozdukhov—who was not drunk, but whom, nevertheless, it was
necessary to make sober!—against the police and ordered the intoxicated police-man Shelemetyev to take
the complainant to the police-station to be sobered up. But this
interesting witness was not cross-examined. The cabby, Krainov,
who had driven Vozdukhov to the Governor’s house and subsequently to the police-station, was not questioned as to
whether Vozdukhov had told him why he was going to the Governor,
as to what he had said to Ptitsyn, and whether anybody else had
heard the conversation. The court was satisfied merely to hear
the brief written affidavit of Krainov (who did not appear in
court) which testified that Vozdukhov had not been drunk, but
only slightly intoxicated, and the assistant prosecutor had not
even taken the trouble to subpoena this important witness. If we
bear in mind that Vozdukhov, a sergeant in the army reserve and
consequently a man of experience who must have known something
about law and order, had said even after the last fatal blows,
“I am going to lodge a complaint,” it appears more than likely that he went to the Governor to lodge a complaint
against the police, that Ptitsyn lied to shield the police and
that the servile judges and the servile prosecutor did not wish
to bring this delicate story to light.

Further, why was Vozdukhov beaten? Again the indictment presents
the case in a manner most favourable ... to the accused. The
“motive for the torture,” it is alleged, was the cutting of Shelemetyev’s hand when he pushed Vozdukhov into the
soldiers’ lock-up. The question arises, why was Vozdukhov, who
spoke calmly both with Shelemetyev and with Panov, pushed
(assuming that it was really necessary to push him!), not into the common cell, but
first into the soldiers’ lock-up? He had been brought to the
station to be sobered up—there were already a number of
drunkards in the common cell, and later on Vozdukhov was put
into the common cell; why, then, did Shelemetyev, after
“introducing” him to Panov, push him into the soldiers’ lock-up? Evidently for the
purpose of beating him. In the common cell there were a number
of people, whereas in the soldiers’ lock-up Vozdukhov would be
alone, and Shelemetyev could call to his aid his comrades and
Mr. Panov, who was “in charge” of Police-Station No. 1 at the time. Consequently, the torture was inflicted, not for
some chance reason, but deliberately and with forethought.  We
can assume one of two things—either that all who are taken to
the police-station for sobering up (even when they behave
themselves decently and quietly) are first put into the
soldiers’ lock-up to be “taught a lesson,” or that
Vozdukhov was put in there precisely for the reason that he had gone to the Governor to lodge a complaint against
the police . The newspaper reports of the trial are so brief that one hesitates to express oneself categorically in
favour of the second hypothesis (which is not at all improbable); but the preliminary investigation and the court
examination could have cleared this point up beyond any
doubt. It stands to reason that the court did not pay any
attention whatever to this. I say “it stands to reason,” because the indifference of the court reflects not
only bureaucratic formalism, but the simple point of view of the
Russian man in the street.  “What is there to make a fuss
about? A drunken muzhik was killed in a police-station! Worse
things than that happen!” And the man in the street begins
to relate scores of incomparably more revolting cases, in which
the culprits have gone scot-free.  The remarks of the man in the
street are absolutely just; nevertheless, his attitude is
absolutely wrong and by his arguments he merely reveals his
extreme, philistine short-sightedness. Are not incomparably more
revolting cases of police tyranny possible in our country only
because this tyranny is the common, everyday practice in every
police-station? And is not our indignation impotent against
these exceptional cases because we, with customary indifference,
tolerate the “normal” cases; because our indifference remains unperturbed, even when a customary practice like an
assault upon a drunken (or allegedly drunken) “muzhik” in a police-station rouses the protest of this very muzhik (who
ought to be accustomed to this sort of thing), of this very
muzhik, who paid with his life for his most impertinent attempt
to submit a humble petition to the Governor?

There is another reason why we must not ignore this all too
common case. It has long been held that the preventive significance of punishment is not in its severity, but in its
inevitableness.  What is important is not that a crime shall be
severely punished, but that not a single crime shall pass undiscovered. From this aspect, too, the
present case is of interest. Illegal and savage assault is
committed in police-stations in the Russian Empire—it may be
said without exaggeration-daily and hourly, [5] and only rare and very exceptional cases are brought up in
court.  This is not in the least surprising, since the criminals
are the very police who in Russia are charged with the duty of
disclosing crime. These circumstances compel us to devote all
the greater, if unusual, attention to those cases in which the
courts are constrained to raise the curtain that conceals such
habitual facts.

Note, for example, how the police perpetrate their assault. Five
or six of them together set upon their victim with brutal
cruelty, many of them are drunk, all are armed with swords. But
not one of them ever strikes the victim with his sword. They are
men of experience and they know how to beat a man up. A sword
blow leaves a mark of guilt, but try and prove that bruises made
by fists were inflicted by the police! “Arrested during a
brawl in which he was beaten up,”—and your case isn’t worth a straw.  Even in the present instance, when the man, as
it happened, was beaten to death (“the devil tempted him to
die, a hefty muzhik like that! Who would have thought it!”), the prosecution was obliged to bring witnesses to
testify that “Vozdukhov was absolutely sound in health before he was taken to the police-station.” Apparently, the
murderers, who maintained throughout the trial that they had not
beaten the man, stated that they had brought him to the station
in a battered condition. It is an extremely difficult matter to
get witnesses to give evidence in a case like this. By a happy
chance, the window between the common cell and the soldiers’
lock-up was not completely curtained off. True, instead of glass
the panes consisted of sheets of tin with holes punched through,
and on the side of the soldiers’ lock-up these holes were
covered up by a leather curtain. By poking a finger through a
hole, one could raise the curtain and see what was going on in
the soldiers’ lock-up. Only through this circumstance was it
possible at the trial to obtain a picture of the scene of the
“lesson.” But such negligence as improperly curtained windows could exist only in the past century. In the twentieth
century, the little window between the common cell and soldiers’
lock-up in the Kremlin district Police-Station No. 1 in
Nizhni-Novgorod is no doubt blocked up.... And since there are
no witnesses, woe betide the poor fellow who finds himself in
the soldiers’ lock-up!

In no country in the world is there such a multitude of laws as
in Russia. We have laws for everything. There are special
regulations governing detention in custody, which specifically
state that detention is legally permissible only in special
premises, subject to special supervision. As you see, the law is
observed. In the police-station, there is a special “common
cell.” But before a man is put into the common cell, it is “customary” to
“shove” him into the soldiers’ lock-up. Although the role of the soldiers’ lock-up as a real torture chamber was
perfectly clear throughout the trial, the judicial authorities
did not even think of paying the matter the slightest attention.
Surely, the prosecuting attorney cannot be expected to expose the excesses of our brutal police and to take measures against
them!

We have referred to the question of witnesses in a case of this
kind. At best, such witnesses can only be persons in the hands
of the police. Only under the most exceptional circumstances
would it be possible for an outsider to witness a police
“lesson” given in a police-station. But it is possible for the police to influence the witnesses that are in their
hands. And this is what happened in the present case. The
witness Frolov, who at the time of the murder was in the common
cell, stated during the preliminary investigation that Vozdukhov
had been assaulted by the policemen and the sergeant; later he
withdrew his testimony against Sergeant Panov; at the trial,
however, he stated that none of the policemen had struck
Vozdukhov, that he had been persuaded to give evidence against
the police by Semakhin and Barinov (two other men in the common
cell who were the principal witnesses for the prosecution), and
that the police had not persuaded or prompted him to say this.
The witnesses Fadeyev and Antonova stated that no one had laid a
finger on Vozdukhov in the soldiers’ lock-up, that everything
had been quiet there and no quarrelling had taken place.

As is to be seen, quite the usual thing happened. And the
judicial authorities behaved with customary indifference. There
is a law that provides severe penalties for perjury. A prosecution instituted against the two perjurers would throw
further light on the outrages the police perpetrate against
those who have the misfortune to fall into their hands and are
almost completely defenceless (hundreds of thousands of the
“common” people meet with such misfortune every day). But all that the court is concerned about is applying this
or that article of the Penal Code; it is not in the least
concerned about that defencelessness. This detail in the trial,
like all the others, showed clearly how strong and all-entangling is the net, how persistent the canker, which can
only be removed by abolishing the whole system of police tyranny
and denial of the people’s rights.

About thirty-five years ago, F. M. Reshetnikov, a well-known
Russian writer, met with an unpleasant adventure. One evening he
went to the Assembly of Nobles in St. Petersburg under the
mistaken impression that a concert was to he given there. The
policeman at the door barred his way and shouted at him:
“What’s the shoving? Who are you?” “A factory hand,” roughly replied Reshetnikov, stung to anger by this
affront. What followed this reply, as related by Gleb Uspensky,
was that Reshetnikov spent the night in the police-station, from
which he emerged bruised and battered, bereft of his money and
his ring. “I report this matter to Your Excellency,” wrote Reshetnikov in a petition to the St. Petersburg Chief of
Police. “ I seek no compensation.  May I only humbly trouble you with the request that the police officers and their
subordinates shall not beat the people.... As it is, the people have only sufferings in store for them.” [7]

The modest request which a Russian writer was bold enough to
make to the chief of police of the capital so long ago has not
yet been fulfilled and it cannot be fulfilled so long as the present political system
lasts. At the present time, however, every honest man who is
tormented by the contemplation of this brutality and violence
turns towards the great new movement among the people that is
mustering its forces in order to wipe all brutality from the
face of the land of Russia and to achieve mankind’s finest
ideals. During recent decades, hatred for the police has grown
immensely and has become deep-rooted in the hearts of the masses
of the common people. The development of urban life, the growth
of industry, the spread of literacy, have all served to imbue
even the uneducated masses with aspirations for a better life
and a consciousness of their human dignity; the police, however,
have remained as tyrannical and brutal as ever. To their
bestiality we now see added a greater subtlety in the detection
and persecution of the new, most dangerous enemy, i.e.,
everything that brings to the masses of the people a ray of
consciousness of their rights and confidence in their strength. Fertilised by this consciousness and this confidence,
popular hatred will find vent, not in savage vengeance, but in
the struggle for liberty.

## Notes

[1] In passing, we shall adduce another fact indicating the
punishments imposed by our courts for various crimes. A few
days after the Vozdukhov murder trial, the Moscow District
Military Tribunal tried a private in the local artillery
brigade for stealing fifty pairs of trousers and a few pairs
of boots, while on guard duty in the storeroom. The sentence
was four years’ penal servitude. A human life entrusted to the police is equal in value to
fifty pairs of trousers and a few pairs of boots entrusted
to a sentry. In this peculiar “equation” the whole of our police state system is reflected as the sun is
reflected in a drop of water. The individual against state
power is nothing.  Discipline within the state power is
everything... pardon me, “everything” only for the small fry. A petty thief is sentenced to penal servitude,
but the big thieves, the magnates, cabinet ministers, bank
directors, builders of railways, engineers, contracts, etc.,
who plunder the Treasury of property valued at tens and
hundreds of thousands of rubles are punished only on very
rare occasions, and at the worst are banished to remote
provinces where they may live at ease on their loot (the
bank thieves in Western Siberia), and from where it is easy
to escape across the frontier (Colonel of Gendermes
Meranville de Saint-Clair).
— Lenin

[2] In Russia, instead of exposing the outrage in all its horror
before the court and the public, they prefer to hush up the
case in court and do nothing more than send out circular
letters and orders full of pompous but meaningless phrases. For instance, a few days ago the Orel Chief of
Police issued an order which, confirming previous orders,
instructs the local police inspectors to impress upon subordinates, personally and through their assistants, that
they must refrain from roughness and violence in handling
drunkards in the streets and when taking them to the police-station to sober up. The order further specifies that
police officers must explain to their subordinates that it
is the duty of the police to protect drunkards who cannot be
left alone with obvious danger to themselves; that subordinate police officers, whom the law has placed in the
position of first protectors and guardians of citizens,
must, therefore, in taking drunkards into custody, not only
refrain from treating them roughly and inhumanly, but must
do all they can to protect them until they have become sober.  The order warns subordinate police officials that
only by such conscientious and lawful exercise of their
duties will they earn the confidence and respect of the
population, and that if, on the contrary, police officials
treat drunkards harshly and cruelly, or resort to violent
conduct incompatible with the duty of a police officer, who
should serve as a model of respectability and good morals,
they will be punished with all the vigour of the law and any
subordinate police officer guilty of such conduct will be
rigorously prosecuted. A capital idea for a cartoon in a
satirical journal—a police sergeant, acquitted of the charge of murder, reading an order that he must serve as a
model of respectability and good morals!
— Lenin

[3] In their polemics in the legal press against the
reactionaries, the liberal advocates of trial by jury often
categorically deny its political significance and endeavour
to show that they favour participation of public representatives in the courts for reasons other than
political. This may partly be explained by the lack of ability on the part of our jurists to think politically to a
logical conclusion, notwithstanding their specialisation in
“political” science. But, chiefly, it is to be explained by the necessity to speak in Aesopean language, by
the impossibility openly to declare their sympathies for a
constitution.
— Lenin

[4] No one, however, thought of bringing the case to trial
quickly.  Despite the fact that the case was remarkably
clear and simple, it was not tried until January 23, 1901,
although the crime had been committed on April 20, 1899. A speedy , just, and merciful trial!
— Lenin

[5] These lines were already written when the press brought
another confirmation of the correctness of this assertion. At the other end of Russia, in Odessa—a city
enjoying the status of a capital—a magistrate acquitted a
certain M. Klinkov who had been charged by Station Sergeant
Sadukov with disorderly conduct while under arrest in the
police-station. At the trial, the accused and his four witnesses testified to the following: Sadukov arrested M.
Klinkov, who was in a state of drunkenness, and took him to
the police-station. When he became sober, Klinkov demanded
to be released, upon which a policeman grabbed him by the
collar and began to punch him. Three other police-men arrived on the scene, and the four of them fell upon him,
striking him in the face, on the head, the chest, and the
sides. Under the rain of blows and covered with blood, Klinkov fell to the floor, whereupon the policemen assaulted
him with even greater fury. According to the evidence of
Klinkov and his witnesses, this torture was inflicted at the
instigation and with the encouragement of Sadukov. As a
result of the blows he received, Klinkov lost consciousness. On reviving, he was released from the
police-station. Immediately on his release he went to be
examined by a physician. The magistrate advised Klinkov to
lodge a complaint with the prosecutor against Sadukov and
the policemen, to which Kinkov replied that he had already
done so and that he would bring twenty witnesses.

One need not be a prophet to foretell that M. Klinkov will
fail to get the policemen brought to trial and punished for
torture.  They did not actually beat him to death; but if,
contrary to expectation, they are prosecuted, they are sure
to get off lightly.
— Lenin

[6] Derzhimorda —the name of the policeman in N. V. Gogol’s comedy The Inspector-General ; a boorish, insolent oppressor, a man of
violence.

[7] Lenin quotes from Gleb Uspensky’s “Fyodor Mikhailovich Reshetnikov.”

## II. Why Accelerate the Vicissitude of the Times?

The Assembly of Nobles of Orel Gubernia has adopted an interesting
project, but more interesting is the debate which it occasioned.

The issue is the following. The gubernia Marshal of the Nobility,
M. A. Stakhovich, proposed in his report the conclusion of a contract with
the Finance Department, under which the Orel nobles would be appointed to
the posts of excise-collectors. With the introduction of the liquor
monopoly forty collectors are to be appointed to gather the moneys from
the government liquor shops. Their remuneration will amount to 2,180
rubles per annum (900 rubles salary, 600 rubles travelling expenses, and
680 rubles for hiring a guard). The nobles thought it would be a good
thing to get these posts, and for this purpose it was suggested that they
form a guild and enter into a contract with the Treasury. Instead of the
required deposit (from 3,000 to 5,000 rubles), they suggested that at
first 300 rubles per annum be deducted from the pay of each collector,
which sums could serve to establish a nobles’ guaranty fund to be
deposited with the liquor department.

The proposal—certainly a practical one—proves that our higher
estate possesses a highly developed flair for grabbing slices of the state
pie wherever possible. But it is precisely this business acumen that
seemed to many of the high-born landlords to be excessive, disreputable,
and unworthy of nobility. A heated discussion flared up on the question,
in the course of which three distinct points of view came to light.

The first is the practical point of view. A man must live, the nobility is
in straitened circumstances ... here is an opportunity to earn money
... surely they cannot refuse to help the poor nobles. Besides, the
collectors could help to encourage sobriety among the people. The second
is the point of view of the romantics. To trade in liquor, to be in a
position only slightly above that of a bar tender, subordinate to common
store managers, “very often persons of the lower orders”!?... and
there followed a hot stream of words about the high calling of the
nobility. We intend to deal with these speeches, but first let us mention the third point of view—that of the statesmen. On the one hand,
there is no denying that the thing seems some what discreditable, but, on
the other, it must be admitted that it is lucrative. But we can make money
and at the same time preserve our virtue. The chief excise officer may
even hand out appointments without deposits, and all the forty nobles may
obtain posts at the request of the gubernia Marshal of the Nobility
without forming a guild or entering into contracts, otherwise “the
Minister of Internal Affairs may refuse to endorse the decision in order
to safeguard the proper functioning of the existing state system.” In all
probability, this wise opinion would have prevailed, had not the Marshal
of the Nobility made two important statements: first, that the contract
had already been submitted to the Council of the Ministry of Finance,
which had recognised its feasibility and approved it in principle; and,
secondly, that “it was impossible to obtain such posts merely at the
request of the gubernia Marshal of the Nobility.” The report was
approved.

Poor romantics! They suffered defeat. But how eloquently they had
pleaded!

“Hitherto the nobility has provided people for leading positions
only. The report suggests the formation of some sort of guild. Is this
compatible with the past, the present, and the future of the nobility?
According to the law, if a bartender embezzles funds, the nobleman will
have to step behind the bar. Death is preferable to such a position
!"

Good Lord! How noble man is! Death is preferable to selling vodka! To
trade in corn is quite a noble occupation, particularly in years of bad
harvest, when high profits can be made out of the starvation of the
people. A still more noble occupation is usury in grain, the lending of
grain to the starving peasants in the winter with the stipulation that
they will work in the summer at one-third of the usual wage-rate. In the
central black earth zone, in which Orel Gubernia is situated, the
landlords have always engaged in this noble form of usury with particular
zeal. And in order to draw a distinction between noble and ignoble usury,
it is necessary, of course, to proclaim as loudly as possible that the
position of a bartender is a degrading occupation for a nobleman.

“We must carefully cherish our calling which is expressed in the
celebrated imperial manifesto by the words, unselfishly to serve the
people. To serve for selfish motives would contradict this.... A
social-estate that has to its credit such services as the valiant martial
deeds of its ancestors and that had to bear the brunt of the great reforms
of Emperor Alexander II still possesses opportunities for the future
fulfilment of its duties to the state.”

Yes, unselfish service! The distribution of lands, the granting of
inhabited estates, i.e., gifts of thousands of dessiatines of land,
together with thousands of serfs; the establishment of a class of big
landowners possessing hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of
dessiatines and by exploitation reducing millions of peasants to
poverty—these are the manifestations of this unselfishness. The
reference to the “great” reforms of Alexander II is particularly charming. Take, for example, the emancipation of the
peasants. How unselfishly our noble aristocracy fleeced these peasants,
compelling them to pay for their own land, at a price three times its real
value; robbing them by cutting off various parts of their land; exchanging
their own sandy wastes, gullies, and uncultivable land for the peasants’
good land;— and now they have the insolence to boast of these
exploits!

“There is nothing patriotic in the liquor trade.... Our traditions
are not based on rubles, but on service to the state. The nobility must
not become stockbrokers.”

Sour grapes! The nobility “must not” become stock brokers
because large capital is required on the Stock Exchange, and our quondam
slaveowners have squandered their fortunes. In the eyes of the broad
masses they have long ago become, not stockbrokers, but the slaves of the
Stock Exchange, the slaves of the ruble. And in their pursuit of the
ruble, the “highest social-estate” has long been engaged in
such highly patriotic occupations as the manufacture of raw brandy, the
installation of sugar-refineries and other enterprises, participation in
sundry dubious commercial and industrial undertakings, begging at the
doors of high Court circles, grand dukes, cabinet ministers, etc., etc.,
in order to obtain concessions and government guarantees for such
enterprises, in order to entreat for doles in the form of privileges for the Nobles’ Bank, sugar-export bonuses, slices
(thousands of dessiatines in extent!) of Bashkirian or other land, soft,
lucrative jobs, etc.

“The ethics of the nobility bear the traces of history, of social
position..."—as well as traces of the stable in which the
nobles were trained to practise violence and indignities on the
muzhiks. The age-long habit of command has bred in the nobles something
even more subtle: the ability to clothe their exploiting interests in
pompous phrases, calculated to deceive the ignorant “common people.”
Listen further:

“Why accelerate the vicissitude of the times? It may be a prejudice,
but old traditions forbid us to help bring these things upon
ourselves....”

These words, uttered by Mr. Naryshkin (one of the members of the council
that advocated the state point of view), express a true class sense.

0f course, to hesitate to accept the position of a collector (or even of a
bartender) is, in these times, mere prejudice. But does not the
unparalleled and shameless exploitation of the peasantry by the landlords
in our rural districts rest on the prejudices of the benighted masses of
the peasantry? Prejudices are dying out anyhow; why then hasten their
death by openly bringing together the noble and the bartender, and in this
way help the peasant to understand (which he is beginning to do, anyway)
the simple truth that the noble landlord is a usurer and robber, a beast
of prey, like any village blood sucker, only immeasurably more powerful
because of the lands he owns, his ancient privileges and his close
relations with the tsarist government, his habit to command, and his
ability to conceal his

Judas [4] nature under a doctrine of romanticism and magnanimity?

Yes, Mr. Naryshkin is certainly a counsellor from whose lips political
wisdom drops. I am not surprised that the Marshal of the Orel Nobility
replied to him in terms so refined that they would do honour to an
English lord. He said:

“It would be mere boldness on my part to object to the authorities
whom we have heard here, were I not convinced that in arguing against
their opinions, I am not arguing against their convictions.”

Now, this is true, and, moreover, in a much wider sense than
Mr. Stakhovich, who indeed accidentally let the truth slip, imagined. All the nobles, from the most practical to the most
romantic, share the same convictions. All are fully convinced of their
“sacred right” to possess the hundreds and thousands of
dessiatines of land their ancestors grabbed or had granted to them by
land-grabbers, the right to exploit the peasants and play the dominant
role in the state, the right to enjoy the biggest (and if the worst comes
to the worst, even smaller) slices of the state pie, i.e., the people’s
money. Their opinions differ only in regard to the expediency of
undertaking this or that enterprise, and their discussions of these
divergent opinions are as instructive for the proletariat as are all other
domestic quarrels in the camp of the exploiters. Such disputes bring out
the differences between the common interests of the capitalist or landlord
class as a whole, and the interests of individual persons or separate
groups. Not infrequently in the course of such disputes, one blabs what
one has sought ever so carefully to conceal.

Besides this, however, the Orel episode throws some light upon the
character of the notorious liquor monopoly. What benefits our official and
semi-official press expected from it! Increased revenues, improved
quality, and less drunkenness! But instead of increased revenues, all we
actually have so far is an increase in the price of spirits, confusion in
the budget, and the impossibility of determining the exact financial
results of the whole operation. In stead of improvement in quality, we
have deterioration; and the government is hardly likely to impress the
public with its reports, displayed in the entire press, of the successful
results of the “degustation” of the new “government vodka.” Instead of less drunkenness, we have more illicit trading in
spirits, augmented police incomes from this trading, the opening of liquor
shops over the protests of the population, which is petitioning against
their being opened, [1] and increased drunkenness in the streets. [2] But above all, what a new and gigantic field is opened for official
arbitrariness, tyranny, favour-currying and embezzlement by the creation
of this new state enterprise, with a turnover of many millions of rubles,
and the creation of a whole army of new officials! It is the invasion of a
locust-swarm of officials, boot-licking, intriguing, plundering, wasting
seas of ink and reams upon reams of paper. The Orel project is nothing but
an attempt to cloak in legal forms the striving to grab the fattest
possible slices of the state pie, a desire which is so prevalent in our
provinces, and which, in view of the unrestrained power of the officials
and the gagging of the people, threatens to intensify the reign of tyranny
and plunder. A simple illustration: last autumn the newspapers reported
“a building incident in connection with the liquor monopoly.” In
Moscow, three warehouses are being built for storing vodka to supply the
whole of Moscow Gubernia. The government appropriated a sum of 1,637,000
rubles for this purpose. It now appears that “it has been found
necessary to make a supplementary appropriation of two-and-a-half millions .” [3] Apparently the officials who had charge of this state property pinched a
little more than fifty pairs of trousers and a few pairs of boots!

## Notes

[1] For example, it was recently reported in the newspapers that as far back
as 1899 a number of villages in Archangel Gubernia adopted resolutions
against the opening of liquor shops in their localities. The government,
which at this very moment is introducing the liquor monopoly into that
district, of course answered with a refusal, no doubt out of
regard for the sobriety of the people!
— Lenin

[2] This is quite apart from the enormous amount of money the peasant communes
have lost as a result of the liquor monopoly. Hitherto they obtained a revenue from liquor shops. The Treasury has deprived them
of this source of revenue without a kopek compensation! In his interesting
book, Das hungernde Russland ( Reiseeindrücke, Beobochtungen und Untersuchungen [ Starving Russia (Travel
Impressions, Observations, and Inquiries).— Ed .] by
C. Lehmann and Parvus, Stuttgart, Dietz Verlag, 1900), Parvus justly
describes this as robbing the rural commune funds . He states that
according to the calculations of the Samara Gubernia Zemstvo, the losses
incurred by the peasant communes in the three years 1895-97 as a result of
the introduction of the liquor monopoly amounted to 3,150,000
rubles !
— Lenin

[3] Author’s italics, see S. Peterburgskiye Vedomosti ( St. Petersburg Recorder ), No. 239, September 1, 1900.
— Lenin

[4] Lenin refers to Porphyry (nicknamed Judas) Golovlyov, a sanctimonious,
hypocritical landlord serf-owner described in M. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s The Golovlyov’ Family .

## III. Objective Statistics

Our government is in the habit of accusing its opponents, not only
revolutionaries, but also liberals, of being tendentious. Have you ever
read the comments of the official press on the liberal (legal, of course)
publications? Vestnik Finansov , [2] the organ of the Ministry of Finance, would at times publish reviews of
the press, and each time the official in charge of this column referred to
the comments of the (big) liberal magazines on the budget, on the famine,
or on some government measure, he always spoke with indignation of their
“tendentiousness” and, by way of contrast, pointed, “objectively,” not only to “the seamy side,” but to the
“gratifying features.” This, of course, is only a minor example, but
it illustrates the habitual attitude of the government, its habitual
tendency to brag of its “objectivity.”

We shall endeavour to bring some satisfaction to these strict and
impartial judges. We shall endeavour to do this in dealing with
statistics. Naturally, we shall not take statistics on this or that set of
facts of public life: it is well known that the facts are recorded by
biased people and generalised by institutions which are sometimes
decidedly “tendentious,” like the Zemstvos. No, we shall deal with
statistics on ... laws. The most ardent supporter of the government, we
imagine, would hardly dare to assert that there is anything more objective
and impartial than statistics on laws—a simple calculation of the
decisions made by the government, quite apart from any consideration of
the divergence between word and deed, between promulgation and execution,
etc.

And now, to the matter.

The State Senate publishes, as is known, a Compendium of the Laws and
Edicts of the Government , a periodical that announces the measures
adopted by the government. We shall examine these facts, and note what the laws and edicts are about. Precisely: what
they are about. We dare not criticise the official edicts; we shall
merely compute the number issued in this or that sphere. The January
newspapers reprinted from this government publication the content of
Nos. 2905 to 2929 of last year and Nos. 1 to 66 of the current
year. Thus, in the period from December 29, 1900, to January 12, 1901,
the very threshold of the new century, ninety-one laws and edicts were
promulgated. The character of these ninety-one laws renders them very
convenient for “statistical” analysis. None of them is out
standing; there is nothing that puts everything else in the shade and lays a special impress upon the present period of domestic
administration. All of them are relatively petty and answer to current
requirements continuously and regularly arising. We thus see the
government in its everyday garb, and this serves as a further guarantee
of the objectivity of the “statistics.”

Of the ninety-one laws, thirty-four, i.e., more than a third, deal with
one and the same subject: extension of the call dates for payment of
capital on shares or of payment of purchases of stock in various
commercial and industrial joint-stock companies. These laws can be
recommended to newspaper readers as a means of refreshing their memory in
regard to the list of our industrial enterprises and the names of various
firms. The second group of laws is entirely analogous to the first in
content. It deals with changes in the articles of association of
commercial and industrial companies. These include fifteen acts revising
the articles of association of K. and S. Popov Bros., tea dealers;

A. Nauman & Co., cardboard and tar-paper manufacturers; I. A. Osipov
& Co., tanners, and leather, canvas and linen merchants; etc., etc. To
these must be added eleven more acts, of which six were passed to meet
certain requirements of trade and industry (the establishment of a public
bank and a mutual credit society; the fixing of prices of securities to be
taken as deposit for state contracts; rules for the movement of
privately-owned cars on the railways; regulations governing brokers on the
Borisoglebsk Corn Exchange), while five deal with the appointment of six
additional policemen and two mounted police sergeants to four factories
and one mine.

Thus, sixty out of ninety-one of the laws, i.e., two- thirds, directly
serve the various practical needs of our capitalists and (partly) protect
them from the discontent of the workers. The impartial language of figures
tells us that our government, judging by the very nature of most of its
everyday laws and edicts, is a loyal servant of the capitalists and that,
in relation to the capitalist class as a whole, it functions in exactly
the same way as, say, the head office of an iron trust, or as does the
office of a sugar-refining syndicate in relation to the capitalists in the
individual branches of industry. Of course, the fact that special laws have to be passed in order to introduce some trifling
alteration in the articles of association of a company or to extend the
call dates for payments on shares simply shows the unwieldiness of our
state machinery; only a slight “improvement in the machinery”
is necessary for all this to come under the jurisdiction of the local
authorities. On the other hand, the unwieldiness of the machine, the
excessive centralisation, the necessity for the government itself to poke
its nose into everything—this is a feature of the whole of our
public life, not merely of the sphere of commerce and industry. Hence, the
examination of the number of enacted laws of this or that kind gives us a
pretty fair insight into what the government interests itself in, into
what it thinks and does.

But the government displays considerably less interest in private
associations that do not pursue aims so honourable from the moral point of
view, and safe from the political point of view, as profit-making (except
that it displays interest in order to hamper, prohibit, suppress,
etc.). In the period “under review”—the writer of these lines
is in the civil service, and he hopes, therefore, that the reader will
forgive his employment of bureaucratic terms—the articles of
association of two societies were sanctioned (those of the Society for the
Aid to Needy Students in the Vladikavkaz Boys’ Gymnasium, and of the
Vladikavkaz Society for Educational Excursions and Tours); by imperial
grace permission to change the statutes was authorised for three others
(the Saving and Mutual Aid Societies of the office employees and workers
of the Lyudinovo and Sukreml Works and of the Maltsov Railway, the First
Hop-Cultivation Society, and the Philanthropic Society for the
Encouragement of Female Labour); fifty-five laws were passed pertaining to
commercial and industrial companies; and five, in relation to various
other societies. In the sphere of commercial and industrial interests,
“we” exert our best efforts for the task and strive to do
everything possible to facilitate association between merchants and
manufacturers (strive, but do nothing, for the unwieldiness of the machine
and the end less red tape considerably restrict the “possibilities” in the police state). In the sphere of
non-commercial associations, we stand in principle for homeopathy. Now,
hop-growing societies and societies for the encouragement of female labour are not so
bad, but educational excursions.... God knows what may be discussed on
these excursions! And will not the constant surveillance of the inspectors
be made difficult? Now, you know, one must be careful in handling fire.

Schools. As many as three new schools have been established. And what
schools!  An elementary school for farm yard workers in the village of
Blagodatnoye on the estate of His Imperial Highness, the Grand Duke Pyotr
Nikolayevich. That the villages belonging to the Grand Dukes are all paradises [1] I have long ceased to doubt. But neither do I now doubt that
even the highest personages may sincerely and whole-heartedly interest
themselves in the education of the “younger brother.” Moreover, the
rules of the Dergachi Rural Handicraft School, and of the Asanovo
Elementary Agricultural School have been confirmed. I regret that I have
not a reference book at hand to inform me whether or not some
highly-placed personage owns these village paradises, in which popular
education—and landlord farming are being cultivated with such
zeal. But I console myself with the thought that such inquiries do not
enter into the duties of a statistician.

This, then, is the sum total of the laws that express “the
government’s solicitude for the people.” As the reader will observe, I
have made the greatest possible allowances in grouping these laws. Why,
for example, is the Hop-Cultivation Society not a commercial enterprise?
Perhaps be cause commerce is not the only thing that is discussed at its
meetings. Or take the school for farmyard workers. Who can tell whether it
is a school or an improved stockyard?

We have still to deal with the last group of laws that shows the
government’s solicitude for itself. This group consists of three times as
many laws as we assigned to the last two categories, twenty-two laws,
dealing with administrative reforms, each one more radical than the
other—changing the name of the village Platonovskoye to
Nikolayevskoye; modifying the articles of association, staffs, rules, lists, hours for sessions (of certain uyezd conferences), etc.; increasing
the salary of midwives attached to army units in the Caucasus military
area; determining the sums for shoeing and veterinary treatment of Cossack
mounts; changing the by-laws of a private commercial school in Moscow;
defining the rules of the scholarship grants endowed by Privy Councillor
Daniil Samuilovich Polyakov at the Kozlov Commercial School. I am not sure
whether I have classified these laws correctly. Do they really express the
government’s solicitude for itself, or for commercial and industrial
interests? If I have classified them wrongly, I beg the reader’s
indulgence, since this is the first attempt that has been made to compile
statistics on laws. Hitherto no one has attempted to raise this sphere of
knowledge to the level of a strict science, not even the professors of
Russian state law.

Finally, one legislative act must be treated as a special, independent
group, both because of its content and be cause of its being the first
governmental measure in the new century. This is the law concerning the
“increase in the area of forests to be devoted to the development
and improvement of His Imperial Majesty’s hunting.” A grand début worthy of a great power!

Now, to strike a balance. Statistics would be incomplete without it.

Fifty laws and edicts devoted to various commercial and industrial
companies and enterprises; a score of administrative name-changes and
reforms; two creations and three reorganisations of private societies;
three schools for the training of landlords’ employees; six policemen and
two mounted sergeants appointed to factories. Can there be any doubt
whatever that such richly varied legislative and administrative activity
will guarantee our country rapid and undeviating progress in the twentieth
century?

## Notes

[1] A play on the name of the village Blagodatnoye which implies an earthly
paradise.— Ed .

[2] Vestnik Finansov, Promyshlennosti i Torgooli ( Finance,
Industry and Trade Messenger )—a weekly journal published by
the Ministry of Finance in St. Petersburg from November 1883 to 1917
(until January 1885 it was called Ukazatel Pravitelstvennykh
Rasporyazheny po Ministerstvu Finansov — Record of
Government Instructions, Ministry of Finance ). It carried
government regulations, economic articles, and reviews.