s
under the rod of M. Pobedonostsef, recognised as uncanonical such
subordination to a layman, and petitioned for the resurrection of the
Patriarchate, which had been abolished by Peter the Great.

On May 9th a new Zemstvo Congress was held in Moscow, and it at once
showed that since their November session in St. Petersburg the delegates
had made a decided movement to the Left. Those of them who had then led
the movement were now regarded as too Conservative. The idea of a
Zemski Sobor was discarded as insufficient for the necessities of the
situation, and strong speeches were made in support of a much more
democratic constitution.

It was thus becoming clearer every day that between the Liberals and the
Government there was an essential difference which could not be removed
by ordinary concessions. The Emperor proved that he was in favour of
reform by granting a very large measure of religious toleration, by
removing some of the disabilities imposed on the Poles, and allowing the
Polish language to be used in schools, and by confirming the proposals
of the Committee of Ministers to place the Press censure on a legal
basis. But these concessions to public opinion did not gain for him the
sympathy and support of his Liberal subjects. What they insisted on was
a considerable limitation of the Autocratic Power; and on that point the
Emperor has hitherto shown himself inexorable. His firmness proceeds
not from any wayward desire to be able to do as he pleases, but from a
hereditary respect for a principle. From his boyhood he has been taught
that Russia owes her greatness and her security to her autocratic form
of government, and that it is the sacred duty of the Tsar to hand down
intact to his successors the power which he holds in trust for them.

While the Liberals were thus striving to attain their object without
popular disorders, and without any very serious infraction of the law,
Revolutionaries were likewise busy, working on different but parallel
lines.

In the chapter on the present phase of the revolutionary movement I
have sketched briefly the origin and character of the two main Socialist
groups, and I have now merely to convey a general idea of their attitude
during recent events. And first, of the Social Democrats.

At the end of 1894 the Social Democrats were in what may be called their
normal condition--that is to say, they were occupied in organising and
developing the Labour Movement. The removal of