(osvoboditel). There exists a popular proverb: do Boga visoko, do Tsaria dalioko! God is too high: The Tsar is too far! This proverb indicates the deep-seated belief of the peasant that if it were only possible to let the Tsar know his wishes and his wants relief would be soon at hand.
(2) The peasantry do not want a central Parliament, they are not susceptible to political metaphysics nor to "immortal principles" which would carry the French off their feet. If they have any desire for political liberty, it only extends to the management of their own affairs in their village communities and in the County Councils or Zemstvos, a measure of political liberty which, however imperfect, they already possess. But what the peasant wants above all is more land; he is clamouring for a drastic agrarian reform. Let the Tsar initiate such a reform, let him satisfy that craving, that hunger, let him offer his people a comprehensive scheme of land reform, and the peasant would rather receive his additional plot of land at the hands of the Tsar than at the hands of the aristocracy, whom he suspects, or of the "intellectuals," whose language he does not understand, or of the Jews, whom he abhors.
