Читать книгу The Red Reign. The True Story of an Adventurous Year in Russia онлайн

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“If a strong, central government becomes disorganized, if inefficiency, or idleness, or above all, dishonesty, once obtain a ruling place in it, the whole government body is diseased.”ssss1 No modern state, save Turkey, is more universally honeycombed with official inefficiencies and corruption than Russia, and even Turkey’s central government to-day represents more solidity than the Russian. The only possible justification for despotism of any character is in its actual power, and in its fruits. Military despotism in Russia not only broke down, but was hopelessly shattered by the inglorious and ignominious war with Japan. The hold that autocracy once maintained on the Russian people then loosened. It has been steadily weakening ever since Tsushima and the fall of Port Arthur, followed by the shadow of Mukden, which passed westward across the empire. Dishonesty and corruption stamps every one of Peter’s fourteen bureaucratic ranks. The war disclosed an enormous extent of thievery in all departments of the service. Especially sensational revelations came to light in connection with the Red Cross, where the funds were most flagrantly misappropriated—a portion of the spoils even going to the grand dukes. So recently as January, 1907, the Assistant Minister of Interior, Gourko, was involved in one of the most outrageous scandals in all the annals of Russian corruption—namely, the misappropriation of a large per cent. of one of the all too inadequate appropriations of money for the relief of the starving peasants.