“Awake, O Russia!  Devoured by foreign enemies, crushed by slavery, shamefully oppressed by stupid authorities and spies, awaken from your long sleep of ignorance and apathy!  You have been long enough held in bondage by the successors of the Tartar Khan.  Stand forward calmly before the throne of the despot, and demand from him an account of the national disaster.  Say to him boldly that his throne is not the altar of God, and that God did not condemn us to be slaves.  Russia entrusted to you, O Tsar, the supreme power, and you were as a God upon earth.  And what have you done?  Blinded by ignorance and passion, you have lusted after power and have forgotten Russia.  You have spent your life in reviewing troops, in modifying uniforms, and in appending your signature to the legislative projects of ignorant charlatans.  You created the despicable race of Press censors, in order to sleep in peace—­in order not to know the wants and not to hear the groans of the people—­in order not to listen to Truth.  You buried Truth, rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, placed a strong guard over it, and said in the pride of your heart:  For her there is no resurrection!  But the third day has dawned, and Truth has arisen from the dead.

“Stand forward, O Tsar, before the judgment-seat of history and of God!  You have mercilessly trampled Truth under foot, you have denied Freedom, you have been the slave of your own passions.  By your pride and obstinacy you have exhausted Russia and raised the world in arms against us.  Bow down before your brethren and humble yourself in the dust!  Crave pardon and ask advice!  Throw yourself into the arms of the people!  There is now no other salvation!”

The innumerable tirades of which the above is a fair specimen were not very remarkable for literary merit or political wisdom.  For the most part they were simply bits of bombastic rhetoric couched in doggerel rhyme, and they have consequently been long since consigned to well-merited oblivion—­so completely that it is now difficult to obtain copies of them.* They have, however, an historical interest, because they express in a more or less exaggerated form the public opinion and prevalent ideas of the educated classes at that moment.  In order to comprehend their real significance, we must remember that the writers and readers were not a band of conspirators, but ordinary, respectable, well-intentioned people, who never for a moment dreamed of embarking in revolutionary designs.  It was the same society that had been a few months before so indifferent to all political questions, and even now there was no clear conception as to how the loud-sounding phrases could be translated into action.  We can imagine the comical discomfiture of those who read and listened to these appeals, if the “despot” had obeyed their summons, and suddenly appeared before them.

     * I am indebted for the copies which I possess to friends
     who copied and collected these pamphlets at the time.