In principle the Raskol is conservative, not to say reactionary, but its attitude toward the Church and the State, and the habits engendered by two centuries of opposition and persecution, give it a revolutionary, or even an anarchical, character. A secret tie unites all the branches of public authority, and the rejection of one leads to the rejection of another. As has been said by an eminent historian of Russia, the refusal to submit to a single form of authority brings into activity a disposition to rid one's self of all social and moral ties. The Hussite revolt against Rome speedily results in the Taborite revolt against society: Luther calls the Anabaptists into being. The same phenomenon is repeated in Russia, in England and in Scotland. Once carried away by the spirit of revolt, an irresistible tendency sweeps the schism on in the direction of civil liberty; and both in theory and in practice some of these sects have reached the most unbridled license. Hence, by one of those contrasts which are so common in Russia, the Raskol is judged in two utterly different ways, each of which is partly correct. The reactionary movement in its inception had the appearance of an assertion of the rights of individual liberty and national life, as opposed to the autocratic government; and such it was, after a fashion--the fashion of refractory conscripts or of smugglers, not to say of brigands--the fashion, in short, in which all abuses and prejudices are defended. What it claimed was liberty, indeed, but liberty as the commonalty understand it--liberty to retain its customs, its superstitions and its ignorance--liberty to go and come as it chose. But in all this there was no notion of political freedom. With all his hatred of foreign importations, the Old Believer is no enemy to reform in the sense of national tradition or of furthering the interests of the lower classes, the artisan and the peasant. Like all popular movements, the Raskol is essentially democratic, and in some of its sects socialistic and communistic.