Our Trans-Atlantic Friends

One of the causes of foreign press Russophobia. – Russian correspondents in American newspapers. – Misleading American public opinion. – Examples of American attitudes toward Russian questions. – The Russo-Turkish war on the American stage.

Anyone who has had occasion to follow everything written about Russia and Russian questions in the foreign press has undoubtedly been struck by the bitterness of Russophobia and the shamelessness of all manner of slanders which are generously supplied to the columns of various newspapers. We are accustomed to explain this phenomenon by the general hatred of the Western European world for its Eastern half, on which fate has settled the Russian person. But there are particular causes which give this hatred an especially bitter direction. Passing through England, I had the opportunity to meet in London a Russian who, having lived there for more than ten years, had been able to gain insight into the life of the English newspaper world. The conversation naturally dealt mostly with the attitude of English public opinion toward Russia and Russian affairs, and I was amazed to hear that the English generally love Russians, and only their traditional Eastern policy compels them to take a politically hostile attitude toward us, which is supported in every way by the Cabinet, which was then still Conservative. As if as factual proof of English love for Russia, in our company sat an Englishman who was devoted to Russia with all his heart, was interested in all its internal and external affairs, was studying the Russian language, and even adopted the Orthodox faith. How could I reconcile with this the desperate Russophobia of the English press, which, as a completely free press, must undoubtedly be a complete and accurate reflection of public mood?—I asked my compatriot in amazement. My compatriot smiled and remarked: “It is plain that you are new to being abroad. When you have lived here a bit longer, you will have a more correct idea of this notorious freedom. First of all,” he continued, “in political questions the press is far from as independent from the Cabinet as you are inclined to think. Suggestions from above play, one might say, a more important role here than in our Russia, inasmuch as they are incomparably more definite here and are expressed in round sums of pounds sterling. In particular, regarding Russia and Russian questions, the press cannot even be independent and autonomous. The English in general are not distinguished by knowledge of foreign languages, and Russian in particular. Therefore…

“Therefore, the Russian sections of the newspapers must be in the hands of Russians, and that certainly cannot promote Russophobia!”—I interrupted my compatriot impatiently.

“Exactly so,” he replied: “English newspapers cannot get along without Russians, or rather without those who know the Russian language. But that is precisely the point of the whole question. By some coincidence, which however is understandable from a certain perspective, the representatives of knowledge of the Russian language, possessed at the same time with a passion for writing, have historically been not real Russians, but Russian Poles and Jews. It is they who direct the Russian sections of the newspapers. Some time ago I myself became interested in this question, took the trouble specifically to find out who in fact serve in the local newspaper world as representatives of Russia, and my investigation fully confirmed what I have just said. In ten of the best newspapers, the Russian sections, as it turned out from my investigation, are in the hands of almost exclusively Poles and Jews, and among them only one or two Englishmen. And these Poles are of such a sort that they cannot say two words about Russia without frothing at the mouth, the bitterest enemies of ours and incurable dreamers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth…”

These revelations of my London friend were for me an instructive novelty and gave me the opportunity to understand more clearly certain aspects of the relations of English press to Russian questions, if only, for example, this well-known feverish sensitivity of theirs to the Polish question, this unceasing hysterical, malevolently helpless howling about the oppression by northern barbarians of poor, defenseless Poland. Two years have passed since then as I have crossed the ocean and settled in the New World, among our trans-Atlantic friends. The press here is already completely free, there is no traditional policy regarding the Eastern question, and the known “friendship” toward Russians can least of all support Russophobia. With a lively sense of self-satisfaction I ordinarily took up American newspapers in the early days to find out what our “friends” were really saying about us. If anywhere, then surely here we should have defenders against Western European slander and malice. Not at all. All the slanders, outrages, and absurdities with which the Western European press abounds concerning Russia are calmly transplanted to American pages and even with the addition of new ones. Struck by such abnormality, I set about discovering its cause. One aspect explained itself quickly. If Western Europe is little acquainted with the Russian language despite constant relations with Russia, then Americans do not know it at all, and it serves as a veritable Chinese wall in the business of direct acquaintance with the Russian people. Meanwhile, there is enormous need to become acquainted with Russia, and to satisfy this need the newspapers calmly reprint everything that appears on Russian questions in German, English, and partly French newspapers. In the course of time I had occasion to become somewhat acquainted with the intimate side of the American press and found that it has Russian contributors as well. But this acquaintance only served to clarify why it with such indiscriminacy, or rather with such hellish discrimination, carries over to its pages all the lies and filth with which the Western European press abounds concerning Russia. The fact is that there is not really any intelligent Russian element in New York that could undertake the task of seriously acquainting Americans with Russia. But in its stead there lives a whole gang of adventurers, whose various exploits, partly political but mainly of a purely criminal character, have forcibly driven to the soil of the New World, placing them in a hostile relationship toward Russia, which is inaccessible to them. Lacking any trade or skill and without any positive scientific or literary knowledge, they are at the same time filled with indignant negation. Part of them hovers around dirty German socialist papers (it is remarkable that there is no English socialist press here), and part has installed itself with large newspapers as “Russian correspondents” and managers of Russian sections. These are the ones who treat the American public to selections from Western European newspapers with the addition of their own inventions, explanations, and supplements. And you will encounter in American newspapers news of every trivial gossip and filth with which the Russian press abounds, but mostly in such an inflated form which gives the trivial fact the significance of “a symptom of incurable decomposition”; but in the meanwhile you will never learn of the most significant gratifying fact, unless you are informed about it by telegraph by real American correspondents in Russia. There is nothing to say about what damage this does in establishing correct relations between two undoubtedly friendly peoples, how much it confuses American public opinion regarding Russia. One need only wonder that with such a state of affairs they sometimes manage to express their warm sympathies toward Russia and the Russian people, especially on account of outstanding events in its life, such as, for example, the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the reign of the late Emperor, when almost the entire American press unanimously blessed our crowned jubilant and cursed nihilism. On such occasions American sympathies for us burst forth in a turbulent stream, and “Russian correspondents” ordinarily hide in their holes, not daring to contradict public opinion of the country. But the very next, “ordinary” day they crawl out of their holes again and continue as before to earn their daily bread.

Fortunately, we have, though few, some good defenders among Americans themselves, namely among those who have had occasion to personally become acquainted with Russia and the Russian people during their residence in it. They eagerly share their sympathetic impressions drawn from personal observation of Russian life, and even acquaint Americans with the historical heroes of the Russian people. Thus, at present in one of the best monthly journals Mr. Schuyler, the former American Consul General in Russia, publishes a magnificent biography of our great reformer Peter the Great and with such splendor as is unthinkable in Russia. Each page is illustrated with superb engravings, the total cost of which amounts to 30,000 dollars. Another American, the well-known lawyer Stoughton, recently returned from Russia, where he held an important post as Minister of the United States, published in the most widely distributed journal the “North American Review” an article whose character is to some extent determined by its very title: “Popular fallacies about Russia.” In this same journal, several months before that, a “Russian” published an article under the title: “Empire of the discontented.” Desperately waving his pen of denial and discontent, the author got so carried away and went to such lengths of invention that even the American editorial office found it necessary to wash its hands and on the very first page made a footnote remark that it “does not assume responsibility for the accuracy of the facts reported by the author.” Stoughton’s actual article serves in a certain sense as a reply to the article by the “Russian,” and is interesting not only from this perspective, but also from the fact that the author has just returned from Russia, where he held an important and high post, which gave him the opportunity to penetrate into such spheres of Russian life which are not accessible to everyone, and wrote his article under the vivid impression of observations just received. Therefore I consider it not inappropriate to present brief excerpts from this article, and especially from that part of it which has direct bearing on the subject touched upon.

“The tendency of newspaper correspondence and journal articles of recent times,” says the author, has been to produce the impression that the Russian Empire is filled with seeds of disorder, threatening uprising and even revolution, if the government does not make immediate changes to satisfy what they call the demands of the people. This literature is mainly of English origin and is the result of that prejudice and that hostility toward Russia which, with insignificant interruptions, have constantly existed in England for the last hundred years. Their origin actually dates to the reign of Empress Catherine II, who, for all her faults (and they are much less than attributed to her) was one of the greatest and wisest rulers who ever lived; and, what is especially remarkable, these prejudices and hostilities arose as a result of her refusal, during our struggle for independence, to help Great Britain in its war with France and Spain, or through bribery to contribute to European peace, so that England, freed from its continental enemies, could with all its might crush our ancestors and suppress their uprising. Since that time Russia, its people and government have constantly been friends of our country, continuing to be so even at a time when no other government in Europe regretted the partition and the subsequent threatened destruction of the great republic. We must not forget that the Emperor of Russia, who is accused of such oppression of his people as to justify even murders and the outrages committed and threatened by nihilists, is that very humane and Christian monarch who in 1861, risking his life and throne, freed millions of slaves. We must also remember that when in 1861 the echo of our southern cannon thundered across Europe and its rulers gladly took it as a signal of a dying nation, he with sincere sympathy, which obligates us to his eternal gratitude, and with a deep understanding of what the integrity of the Union meant for us, entrusted his Chancellor Prince Gorchakov to announce to us his “deep interest with which the Emperor followed the development of the crisis threatening the prosperity and even the existence of the Union”; that “in the course of more than eighty years of its existence the American Union owes its independence, its grandiose growth, and its progress to the agreement of its members, sanctified under the guidance of its famous founder with institutions which could combine unity with freedom. This Union was fruitful; it presented to the world a spectacle of prosperity without precedent in the annals of history. It would be lamentable if, after such a brilliant example, the United States were to rush to the violation of the solemn treaty which until the present time constituted their strength… This Union in your eyes is not merely an essential element for universal political equilibrium. It constitutes, moreover, a nation toward which our most August sovereign and all Russia nurture the most friendly feelings; for these two countries, lying on the outskirts of two worlds, both in the ascending period of their development, seem called to a natural community of interests and sympathies, for which they have already given each other mutual proofs.”

A ruler who could praise republican institutions before the face of monarchical Europe in such enthusiastic expressions and who understood so clearly their significance for the development of the resources, wealth, and happiness of a people, cannot be indifferent to the welfare of his own people or inclined to deny them such political advantages and free institutions as they are capable of enjoying and benefiting from. Therefore it would only be just toward him and his government to suppose that as soon as the Russian people (the mass of whom were only recently serfs) is capable of enjoying that political freedom which consists in representative government, it will be granted to them. And indeed, I have the highest authority to say that this is precisely the goal of the imperial government, and that some time ago it was seriously occupied with discussing a plan of how, on a more general basis of representation, one could introduce partial representation, by means of which the highest interests of all parts of the Empire could be represented in St. Petersburg. It would not be surprising if even the highest and most humane mind had doubted the wisdom of granting recently freed slaves the right to elect representatives to assist in governing a great empire. But they do not even wish for this. The murderers who have recently declared themselves unfit for freedom or even for life except among savages and lawless vagabonds do not belong to the freed class or even to any of Russia’s productive classes at all. They are few in number, recognize no organization except for purposes of outrage and murder; they have no plan for changing or reforming the government; they have no theory except the theory of destroying and living without labor, by robbery of others. Nihilism is a doctrine from which even socialists and communists shudder. It presupposes the destruction of everything that holds even the worst society together. Its first mission, according to the declaration of its founder, consists of the destruction of “lies” and “the first lie is God. When we are rid of it,” says this abhorrent missionary (Bakunin), “and are convinced that the existence of ourselves and everything around us is due to a conglomeration of atoms, according to the laws of gravity, then and only then shall we take the first step toward freedom, and meet less difficulty in freeing the soul from the second lie, which is right, invented by force, which creates and destroys laws.” And then he declares that “when our souls are freed from fear of God and from this childish reverence for the fiction of right, all the other chains which bind us and which are called science, civilization, property, family, morality, and justice, will break like threads.” Such is the teaching of these wretched men, who have drawn attention to themselves by their murders and attempts at murder and who, among ignorant and irresponsible people, have even gained sympathy as the oppressed and working for the sake of state reform.