Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [414]
He had done it.
Few events in Russian history have been more curious than the occurrences of the summer of 1874.
Nicolai and his friend were not alone: their strange mission amongst the peasants was being repeated in other villages all over Russia, in the movement known to Russian history as The Going to the People.
The young people – both men and women – were nearly all students. Some had studied abroad. About half were the children of landowners or high officials; the rest came from families of merchants, priests or minor bureaucrats. Their politics followed the ideas of those who believed, like the French philosopher Fourier, that the peasant commune in the countryside was the best kind of natural socialism. ‘Indeed,’ many claimed, ‘Russia’s very backwardness is her salvation. For she is scarcely corrupted by the evil of bourgeois capitalism at all. She can move straight from feudalism to socialism, thanks to the natural communism of the village.’ And though few of them knew much of peasant life at close quarters, they believed that after working in the villages and gaining the peasants’ confidence, they had only to give the word for a natural revolution to take place. ‘The peasants will rise and establish a new and simple order where the whole empire of Russia will be freely shared amongst the peasant brotherhood,’ they told themselves.
It was not surprising that Nicolai was drawn to this movement. Many of his most idealistic friends were volunteering. What was amazing was that, at first, the authorities did not realize what was happening. Some two and a half thousand students quietly slipped out into hundreds of villages that summer: some to their own or nearby estates; many others across the Volga or to the old Cossack lands by the River Don. Even now, some of these last were telling the Cossack peasants: ‘The time of Pugachev, and of Stenka Razin, has come again.’ And out of this, they all hoped, a new world would be born.
Nicolai looked at the faces before him. He had done it. At last, after all these months of preparation, the die was cast.
The way had been hard: how could it be otherwise? He had never minded the sacrifice of his own inheritance – he cared nothing for that – but his parents were going to be dispossessed. And it will destroy them, he thought. Whatever their faults, he still loved them. How close, when they took the walk along the ridge, he had come to explaining everything to his father. Until he had seen the ruined woodlands and decided that Misha was past saving. And he supposed it was better he had kept silent: his father would never have understood. Anyway, he told himself, soon nobody will have estates. His parents’ way of life was finished. At least, after the revolution, he thought, I’ll be there to show them the way.
For this was it. The word had been spoken and there was no going back. It was the revolution. And now that it had finally begun, he felt a sense of exaltation. Flushed and excited, he waited for the villagers to respond. ‘Well,’ he called, ‘are you with me?’
And nobody moved. There was absolute silence. They just gazed at him. Had he convinced them? It was impossible to say. What was in their minds? He suddenly realized he had no idea. Wasn’t anyone going to say anything?
It was only after a long pause that, at last, a small, black-bearded man stepped forward. He looked up at Nicolai with suspicion. Then he asked his question.
‘Are you saying, young sir, that the Tsar has given us the rest of the land?’
Nicolai stared at him. The Tsar?
‘No,’ he replied truthfully. ‘It’s yours to take.’
‘Ah.’ The man nodded, as though his suspicions had been confirmed. ‘Well then,’ he stepped back, ‘the Tsar has not given.’ And there was a sympathetic murmur which said, more plainly than any words: ‘This young fellow doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’
Nicolai felt himself go rather pale. Was this the revolution – the spontaneous uprising of the commune? What had gone wrong? Had his arguments been defective in some way? He scanned their faces for a sign. But