It is true, there are also very good and sincere men in this camp, who do not succumb to the enticements of the government and remain free from bribery, salary, and position. These men generally get caught in the meshes of the net which the government throws about them, and they struggle in this net, as you now do with your committees, whirling about in one spot. Or, they get excited and pass over to the camp of the revolutionists. Some commit suicide, or take to drinking, or in despair throw everything aside and (what happens most frequently) betake themselves to literature, where they submit to the demands of the censorship and express only what is permitted. By this very concealment of what is most important, they introduce the most perverse ideas, which are most desirable to the government, to the public, imagining all the time that with their writing, which gives them the means of existence, they are serving society. Thus, reflection and experience show me that both methods for struggling against the government, which have been in vogue, are not only not effective, but equally contribute to the strengthening of the power and the arbitrariness of the government. What, then, is to be done? Evidently, not that which in the course of seventy years has proved to be fruitless and has attained the opposite results. What, then, is to be done? The same that is done by those whose activity has accomplished all that forward movement toward the light and the good that has been accomplished since the world has existed. It is this that ought to be done. Now what is it? It is the simple, calm, truthful fulfillment of what one considers to be good and proper, quite independent of the government – of whether that pleases the government or not. It is the defense of one’s rights, not as a member of the Committee of Education, as an alderman, as a landowner, as a merchant, or even as a member of parliament. It is the defense of one’s rights as a rational and free man, and their defense, not as one defends the rights of County Councils and committees, with concessions and compromises, but without any concessions or compromises, as indeed moral human dignity cannot be defended in any other way. In order successfully to defend a fortress, it is necessary to burn all the houses of the suburb and to leave only what is fortified and what we will not surrender under any condition. The same is true here. It is necessary at first to concede what we can surrender, and to keep only what is not to be surrendered. Only by fortifying ourselves on what is unsurrenderable are we able to conquer everything that we need. It is true, the rights of a member of parliament, or even of the County Council, or of a committee are greater than those of a simple man, and, by making use of these rights, it seems that very much may be accomplished. But to acquire the rights of the County Council, the parliament, or the committee it is necessary to renounce part of one’s own rights as a man. And having renounced a part of one’s own rights as a man, no fulcrum is left, and it is impossible either to gain any new rights or retain those already possessed. To pull others out of the mire, a man must himself stand on dry land, and if he, for greater convenience in the work, goes down into the mire, he does not pull any one else out and sticks fast himself. It may be very well and useful to pass an eight-hour day in parliament or a liberal program for school libraries in some committee, but a member of parliament must raise his hand and lie in public to do this, and lie in pronouncing an oath and expressing in words a respect for what he does not respect. If we, to carry into execution the most liberal programs, are obliged to attend Te Deums, swear, put on uniforms, write lying and flattering documents, and make similar speeches, we renounce our human dignity and lose much more than we gain by doing all these things. By striving after the attainment of one definite end (as a rule not even this end is attained), we deprive ourselves of the possibility of attaining other important ends. The government can be restrained and counteracted only by men who have something that they will not give up for anything, under any conditions. To have the power for counteraction, it is necessary to have a fulcrum. The government knows this very well, and is particularly concerned about coaxing that which does not yield – human dignity – out of men. When this is coaxed out of them, the government calmly does what it needs to, knowing that it will no longer meet with any real opposition. A man who consents to swear in public, pronouncing the unbecoming and false words of the oath, or who submissively waits in his uniform for several hours to be received by a minister, or who serves in the “guard of protection” during a coronation, or who goes through the ceremony of the communion for decency’s sake, or who asks the chiefs of the censorship in advance whether certain ideas may be expressed or not, is no longer a danger to the government. Alexander II said that the liberals were not dangerous to him, because he knew that they could all be bought with honors, if not with money. Men who take part in the government or who work under its guidance may, by pretending that they are fighting, deceive themselves and those like themselves. Those who struggle against them know incontestably from the opposition which they offer that they are not in earnest, but are only pretending. And this our government knows in relation to the liberals, and it is constantly making experiments as to how much real opposition there is, and, upon having ascertained to what extent it is absent for the government’s purposes, it proceeds to do its work with the full assurance that anything may be done with these men. The government of Alexander III knew this very well, and, knowing this, calmly abolished everything of which the liberals had been so proud, imagining that they had done it all. It limited trial by jury, abolished the office of the justice of the peace, abolished university rights, changed the system of instruction in the gymnasia, renewed the school of cadets, and even renewed the governmental sale of liquor. It established the County Council chiefs, legalized the use of the rod, almost abolished the County Council, gave the governors uncontrolled power, encouraged public executions, and enforced administrative deportations, confinements in prisons, and the execution of political prisoners. It introduced new religious persecutions, encouraged the stultification of the masses by means of savage superstitions, legalized murder in duels, established anarchy in the form of the guard of protection, and instituted capital punishment as the normal order of things. In the enforcement of all these measures it did not meet with any opposition, except the protest of one honorable woman, who boldly told the government what she considered to be truth. Though the liberals softly said to one another that they did not like it all, they continued to take part in the courts, and in the County Councils, and in the universities, and in military service, and in the press. In the press they threw out hints at what they were allowed to hint at, and passed in silence what they were not allowed to mention, but continued to print what they were commanded to print. Thus every reader, who received the liberal newspapers and periodicals but was not initiated in what was quietly talked of in the editor’s office, read the uncommented exposition and condemnation of the most cruel and senseless measures – subservient and fulsome addresses meant for the authors of these measures, and frequently even laudations of them. Thus, all the sad activity of the government of Alexander III, which destroyed all the good that had begun to enter into life under Alexander II, and which endeavored to bring Russia back to the barbarism of the times of the beginning of the present century – all that sad activity of gibbets, rods, persecutions, and the stultification of the masses – became the subject of a mad eulogy of Alexander III. It was printed in all the liberal newspapers and periodicals and glorified him as a great man and a model of human dignity. The same has been continued during the new reign. The young man who took the place of the former czar, and who had no idea of life, was assured by the men who stand by the power and who profit by it that, to govern one hundred million, it was necessary to do the same that his father had done: no one ought to be asked what was to be done, and he ought to do anything that occurred to him or that he was counseled to do by any of the flatterers near him. Imagining that unlimited autocracy is a sacred principle of the Russian nation, this young man began his reign, not by asking the representatives of the Russian nation to help him with their advice, but by boldly and indecently shouting at the representatives of the Russian nation, who came to congratulate him, and by calling the timid expression of the desire of some of them to inform the authorities of their wants “senseless reveries.”