all the present conditions of life), but, on the contrary, imagining safety to lie in those coarse and obsolete methods of despotism—instead of advancing in agreement with the general development and increasing complexity of modern life—has, for twenty years, not even stood still, but has receded, and by this retrograde movement has separated itself more and more from the people and their demands.
So that it is not some wicked and troublesome people, but it is you yourselves—the rulers, who do not wish to consider anything but your own tranquillity for the passing moment. The thing needed is not that you should defend yourselves from enemies who wish to injure you—no one wishes to injure you—but the thing needed is, thta having recognised the cause of the social discontent you should remove it. Men, as a whole, cannot desire discord and enmity, but always prefer to live in agreement and amity with their fellows. And if they now are disquiet and seem to wish you ill, it is only because you appear to them as an obstacle depriving not only them, but millions of their brothers, of the best human blessings—freedom and enlightenment.
That they may cease to be perturbed and to attack you, very little is required, and that little is so necessary for you yourselves, and would so evidently give you peace, that it will be strange indeed if you do not grant it.
What needs to be done at once is very little. Only the following:
First: To grant the peasants equal rights with all other citizens, and therefore to—
(a) Abolish the stupid, arbitrary institution of the Zemsky Natchálniks.[1]
(b) Repeal the special rules, framed to regulate the relations between workmen and their employers.
(c) Free the peasants from the constraint of needing passports to move from place to place, and also from the compulsion laid only on them, to furnish lodging and horses for officials, and men for police service.
