“Sirs, from all parts of Russia we have come hither not only with complaints and indignation, but with a keen thirst for action, for self-sacrifice and truth, with true patriotism. There are many among us here whose income depends on their property, and have we heard from them one word against compulsory expropriation of the land in the interests of the working man? And is it not this very ‘revolutionary Duma’ which from the first day of its activity up to the last few days has attempted to raise the authority of the Crown, to place it above party strife and above our errors, and to preserve it from the responsibility for those errors? What sort of a Duma is necessary now that the hour of inevitable reform has struck, if not such a one in which party interests and the class-division have given way to the triumph of the union of the welfare of the people and the welfare of the State? Nevertheless, we feel that those dark forces are arming against us, and dividing us from the Crown, and are preventing the Crown from having confidence in us. They will not allow us to accomplish that union with the Crown which, according to the law granting us a new order of things, is the indispensable condition and the only pledge of the peaceful development of the life of our country. Herein lies a great danger, and this danger will not disappear so long as in the direction of affairs and in the fortunes of our country we continue to feel the influence of men who have the education of policemen and sergeants, and are massacre-mongers on principle.” CHAPTER XXIII NAZARENKO AND OTHER PEASANT MEMBERS ST. PETERSBURG, _July 6th_. After a week’s absence in England I returned to St. Petersburg to find the situation much as I had left it, except that the tension has perhaps imperceptibly grown greater. The main factors of the situation are unchanged.