i was taken one day to see a young russian nobleman who was making a special study of the nature of sects. we drove to the outermost skirts of moscow and stopped before a small palace. my companion, another young boyar, spoke to the servants, and after a few minutes we were conducted up a broad marble staircase to the first floor, where a suite of rooms furnished in extremely modern style opened out before us. i remarked to my companion that, after all, there really are no boundaries between countries, for this little palace with its very modern interior might just as well have been in paris or london as here in moscow. instead of answering, the boyar motioned towards the ikon which hung in a corner. modern furnishings, a bookcase filled with the most modern philosophical literature, and above it the orthodox ikon—we were in moscow, after all.

the master of the house came in and embraced and kissed his friend. i was introduced, and we shook hands. cigarettes were lighted, and without further formalities the young host took some [pg 246]manuscripts from a shelf and began to give me a private reading. my companion helped out when the reader's vocabulary failed him. it is thus that i am in a position to give from my notes the following excerpts from a work which cannot be printed in russia, because it deals with the forbidden subject of the character of sects in a fashion not entirely acceptable to the censor.

the significance of sects in the inner structure of russian life is best shown by some figures which give approximately their membership. in the year 1860 about ten million raskolniks (non-conformists) were counted; in 1878, fourteen million; in 1897, twenty million; and to-day they number thirty million. these non-conformists not only do not belong to the orthodox church, but stand in hostility to the state, which identifies itself with the orthodox church. the sects are constantly increasing in number, and there is no doubt whatever that they answer much better to the religious needs of the russian people than the state church, just as they already comprise what is morally the best part of the nation.

the sects interested me less in themselves—although every expression of the human instinct of faith is of psychological interest—than in their bearing on the question as to how far they are united to form a revolutionary army which could disarm and overthrow the autocracy and then take in hand the new order of things. i tried to inform myself on[pg 247] this point from my attractive host's reading. i also asked about it directly. the answers i received have no room for expectation of a revolutionary organization in the near future. according to them deliverance cannot come from below. absolution no longer has the masses in hand, but it is at least able to prevent any general, all-inclusive organization of the dissatisfied; and the thinking class in the opposition to the government did not find the way to the people until the most recent times. only within the last few years has it been reported that the peasantry is beginning to show symptoms of unusual fermentation, the authors of which are unknown. the government does what it can. it has spent nine million rubles for the strengthening of the provincial mounted police. according to the accepted view the sects arose because patriarch nikon wished to have the sacred writings and books of ritual then in use, in which textual errors were to be found, replaced by texts carefully revised according to the originals. the clergy, however, clinging to the old routine, opposed this. when the great council of may 13, 1667, declared itself in favor of nikon's proposed reform, the division became complete. from that time forward the opposition of "old believers" (starovertzy) became the heart of all popular movements against the imperial power. my host represented a different shade of opinion. according to his idea, the sects arose with the introduction of christianity, and they represent the [pg 248]opposition of the simple paganism of the people to the complicated casuistry of the byzantine church. until the fourteenth century, he thinks, the church tried to keep with the sectarians, and suffered the procession to go according to the old pagan usage, with the sun instead of against it. since the fourteenth century, however, the church has identified itself with the power of the state. from this time dates the hostility of the sects to the government. nevertheless, until the seventeenth century, local gods were tolerated as patron saints. but when bishop mascarius issued a list of the saints recognized by the state, the quarrel with sects which clung to their own saints was made eternal. since that time the sectarians have not troubled themselves at all with the official religious literature. they print their own books on secret presses.

sectarianism really represents, therefore, in the first place, the national opposition of the russians to byzantium; next, the opposition to st. petersburg, and especially to peter the great, who was and is regarded as antichrist. but side by side with these nationalistic religious sects, and far in advance of them, have grown up mystically rationalistic ones also. some of these, going back to early christian ideas, refuse to bear arms and to take oath in court, like the german anabaptists, nazarenes, and baptists. others oppose the church on mere grounds of judgment, and lead a life regulated according to the teachings of pure reason. the old believers,[pg 249] after long and terrible martyrdoms in which their priests were burned or otherwise executed, and after a sort of recantation, finally came to an understanding with the state and are at present in part tolerated.

the great majority of rationalistic—mystic—sects, however, have remained hostile to the government, and are persecuted on all sides by the state, although a great part of their members lead much more moral lives than the orthodox russians.

they are to be distinguished at present—sects with priests ("popovtzy") and sects without priests ("bezpopovtzy"). the first are the old believers, who are especially well represented in the rich merchant class in moscow and are recognized by the state. they may be distinguished by their uncut beards, by their mode of crossing themselves, and by their great piety.

the sects without priests are, however, the most interesting. the most characteristic among them are the self-burners, or danielites, the beguny, or pilgrims, the khlysty, or scourgers, the skoptzy and skakuny, or jumpers.[11] their customs show what psychology knows already—namely, that religious emotion leads easily to sexual, and then both tend to revel in bloody ideas. one is led, indeed, to question whether the fascinating effect of so many of the stories of saints must not be traced[pg 250] back to that psychological connection in the subconsciousness. with the danielites voluntary death by fire is considered meritorious. the beguny are vagabonds, "without passport," an unheard-of thing according to russian ideas, without name, without proper institutions. in this sect men and women live together promiscuously. they are supported by secret members of the sect who live in towns, and who do not, like the regular beguny, expose themselves to the standing curse of antichrist—i. e., the state. the khlysty have direct revelations from heaven in the state of ecstasy which they experience at their devotional meetings. they are flagellants, dance in rings until they are exhausted, and then sink all together in a general orgy. the skoptzy castrate themselves in such circumstances. the skakuny, or jumpers, dance in pairs in the woods with frightfully dislocated limbs until they sink down exhausted. all these sects are accused of child murder. they are said to wish to send children unspotted to the kingdom of heaven. it is to be noted that all these data are unreliable, because no stranger is admitted to the secret devotions, while the imaginations of the denouncers have just as much tendency to revel in sexual and sanguinary ideas as that of the exalted devotees. the persecution of these sects by the government is easy to understand. spiritual epidemics must be fought as much as physical disease.

the persecution of the rationalistic sects is quite[pg 251] unjustifiable. they do not deserve the name of sects at all, for in other countries similar ones form simply free political, ethical, or philosophical societies. certainly they can only benefit the communities in which they exist by their high ideal of integrity and strict morality. count leo tolsto? has already made the banishment of the doukhobors known to all the world as an infamous proceeding, and has thereby raised large contributions for their settlement in canada. the shaloputy and the malevents, for the most part ruthenians, have a really ideal character, free from the narrowness and superstition of the church, without ritual, industrious, helpful, peaceful, and kindly. they live together in a state of free-love marriages, without constraint of church or state, neither lie nor swear, and do good even to their enemies. the stundists, who are said to have originated with the german pastor bonekemper, in the rohrbach colony near odessa, are similarly virtuous communists, who do not trouble themselves about the state, hold all property in common, adjust all quarrels among themselves, and harm nobody. the formula of the report with which the gendarmes are accustomed to give notice of the discovery of a stundist is characteristic: "i was passing the house of farmer x—— and his son and saw them both reading in a book. i entered and ascertained that this book is the gospel. farmer x—— and his son are therefore stundists, and as such are most [pg 252]respectfully reported to the authorities." russian nobles have been exiled to siberia for the crime of reading the gospel to their servants. a former officer of the guards, vassili alexandrovitch pashkov, who dedicated all his means to philanthropy and held religious exercises, was expelled from st. petersburg and the movement named for him was suppressed.

why is all this? the narrow-mindedness of pobydonostzev's system permits no falling-away from the official church. the police state tolerates no suspicious morality. the thinking class in russia quote with bitterness aksakov's saying, "be a rascal, but be correct in your politics" ("bud, razvraten, no bud, blagonamyeren"). debauchery is directly commended to young men of good family because it prevents intense absorption in politics. the crime of the stundists, doukhobors, and malevents consists in their wishing to be christians in the spirit of christ, and in being disaffected towards that diabolical machine the russian state. for this they are persecuted in the name of christ and of the state, but, as the above-quoted figures show, without result. sectarianism grows continuously. thus leo tolsto?'s religious anarchy is in a certain way comprehensible. whoever looks about him sees good people who, without making any disturbance, simply turn away from the state as something unchristian and inhuman; and he may easily fall into the delusion that it will some time be possible to found the kingdom of heaven upon[pg 253] the earth through the spreading of these teachings. their rise, however, is only too comprehensible in a state which has never pretended to represent the general welfare and justice—means by which even conscienceless conquerors and despots have spread civilization.

all these sects are limited to the peasantry. the sectarianism of the cities is called socialism. here, too, one must use the word "sectarianism." for even the little bands of organized labor split immediately, after the russian fashion, into smaller groups; and even the intelligent upper classes form just as many little circles, each with its own doctrine and its own organ. in spite of all efforts i did not succeed in getting approximately reliable figures for the strength of the separate socialistic groups. the estimates varied from forty thousand to two hundred thousand, and are, therefore, entirely worthless. in regard to the nature of the groups, both in general and in particular, there is much more definite information.

after the assassination of the czar alexander ii., which no one in russia will believe was committed without the help of these groups, who knew definitely that the emperor intended to sign an order for arrest, the small and entirely isolated group of perhaps a hundred and fifty desperadoes was simply exterminated, and several thousand people were exiled to siberia. with that the so-called aggression of nihilism came to an end. malicious persons,[pg 254] however, think it ended with the deed which was most in the interest of the omnipotent police—namely, the assassination of alexander ii. in any case, the police was not at all severe in getting rid of this definitely recognized band. at that time the doctrine of marx was beginning to spread in russia. this doctrine was looked upon by the authorities as an antidote for the terrorism of anarchy. the marxists, whose organ is the iskra (ray, or spark), are doctrinaires here as everywhere, swear—at least so the revisionists declare—by the theory that the poor are growing poorer, and wish the peasants to abandon their land and to become a wandering proletariat according to the catechism of marx. they were opposed by the late mikhailovski, who knew russia better than the founders of the iskra. to-day the marxists are supposed to be suppressed. besides these there is the league with the two parisian organs, the revolutionary russia, a monthly printed in russian, and the russian tribune, the real monitor of the socialistic movement, and, next to struve's oswobozhdenie, the best source of information upon russian conditions. the leaguers are former followers of lasalle. they are exceedingly troublesome to the police on account of their close organization.

for a while the police cherished the hope of being able to seize the labor movement for their own purposes. a certain subatov invented a plan by which the police were to give financial support to the [pg 255]organization of labor, and in exchange to require the political good conduct of the organization. the industrial barons, however, at whose expense this treaty of peace was to be brought about, put themselves on the defensive. gouyon in particular, a manufacturer of moscow, who employs over five thousand persons, simply threatened to close his factory if the inspectors were not withdrawn. so fell subatov, leaving only his name behind to designate those who still put in a good word for police socialism. they are called "subatovists." with this exception, no one has thought of an honest factory inspection as an effectual help for the workmen.

the socialistic movement is seizing not only the working classes, but also the universities, almost all of which to-day embrace a radicalism certainly related to socialism. no sharp distinction can be made, indeed, between these two stages in the general dissatisfaction and fermentation. the police keeps its strictest guard upon the universities and all the thinking classes. in the province of irkutsk there are at present no fewer than three thousand political exiles. how many are lashed to death with knouts in police prisons no man knows. the answer, however, is found in those unplanned outrages which are beginning to occur again, and to which a governor or a minister falls victim, now in one place, now in another. an outbreak of many of these is generally expected in the near future.

[pg 256]

there is still, however, a conservative element in russia. i asked a well-fed russian tradesman, a representative "kupetz" (small dealer) of moscow, what he thought about the war and the conditions in the country. his answer was so characteristic that i must give it: "it is not anybody's business to think, but to obey god and the czar." the present order of things in russia rests on this principle and on the stupidity of the half-savage cossacks. therefore, no one must be deceived by the symptoms of bitter feeling. a revolution under organized leadership and with a definite object is impossible. at the most, single nationalities and the starving peasantry may rise up, to suffer a sanguinary overthrow. deliverance is not yet within sight for these most unfortunate of all men. national bankruptcy, which no one doubts is imminent, will perhaps bring an improvement. therefore the russians pray, desirous to hasten it, "god help us so that we may be defeated."

footnote:

[11] a kind of shakers.