There is much of animal patience about the muzhik. He is a stolid, stubborn, creature. These qualities have led enlightened Russians to call him a child. When the Duma began landed proprietors and gentry were wont to speak of peasant deputies as “children.” But impartial observers soon formed their own opinions. The muzhik is wily. He may not have been so outspoken in the Duma as men more accustomed to town life, but he has the voice where voice means influence, and his vote is as good as a university professor’s in the assembly. The peasant members usually stand solidly together. They know what they want, they ask for it concretely: “Land and liberty,” and mark the craft! They know that they cannot work out the land problem, so they say to the Constitutional Democrats: “You want certain measures passed. Very well. We will vote for them, but you must turn your thoughts to the land question which is what we are interested in.” The Constitutional Democrats could not dispense with the peasant vote, so they were coerced into agreeing. And the muzhiks would sit on the benches in the lobby, swinging their legs and smoking cigarettes, while tedious debates lasted, going in when time to vote. The peasants know their time is coming. They have only to keep on smoking cigarettes in the lobby, going in in time for each vote, and to keep talking all the time about “land and liberty.” During the Duma session their telegrams went to every part of the empire. They well knew they could afford to appear indifferent to the details of working out any bill. The pretentious frock-coated gentlemen might see to that. The muzhik understood that it was his part to lie low for a time, only not to cease murmuring “land and liberty.” He had the whip hand and knew it then. No fool is this simple, untutored, rustic. During the first Duma the peasant deputies awoke to a consciousness of their power and importance. Through painful surprises they realized that they had a destiny to fulfil. When these deputies returned to their respective villages, all over the provinces they related to their fellow villagers all that had transpired in the Duma. Then came the great peasant awakening which marked a new era for Russia. Just those few months from May to July did it. During that period the Russian peasants bounded forward almost incredibly, and in a few weeks advanced further than in many previous years. To gather evidence of this change which literally swept over Russia during the spring and early summer of 1906 I planned a long trip through the interior where I would see typical peasant villages, and come in contact with many hundreds of the men upon whom it had suddenly dawned that they were indeed men, men of power, of ultimate influence, and with a future in which to work out their own great destiny. CHAPTER XV THE PEASANT AWAKENING