Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 February 1906 — MAXIM GORKY’S PREDICTION. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MAXIM GORKY’S PREDICTION.

Says Russia Will Be as Free a* America Within u Year. Maxim Gorky, the great Russian author, has submitted recently to some Interviews. Gorky, who is rather feeble as a result of his long imprisonment, spoke, however, with all the vim of a patriot. He said: “I predict that a year from this Russia will be as free 1 ‘as is the United States to-day,” The brilliant author-was asked to give some reasons for his above prediction. With the fire of an inspired soul gleaming from bis dais eyes Gorky said-: U*. _ ... “In regard to the situation at present we have cause to be thankful, but no cause to be satisfied. The greatest danger at present to be faced is that the people exhausted as they are, may relax their Last October It seemed that the popular cause was Irresistible. # “They forced the autocracy to abdicate and to Issue a manifesto limiting its own power. They gained undue confidence and imagined that they could at any moment exact further concessions. But since that time, though there have been two general strikes and numberless armed outbreaks, we have obtained no further privileges. Latterly the bureaucracy has gained confidence, and we have had a revival of arrests, newspaper suppression and acts of terrorism. “The fight is therefore not half over. The Czar's advisers are undoubtedly under the deluslftji that they can con-

tinue to resist the demand for government abslutely based upon tiio will of the people. The revolutionary movement must continue., until they surrender that delusion. “Our effort hitherto has been to force further concessions before the Douma, which satisfies no body, can meet. The government is attempting by means of a mixture of force and cajolery to keep itself alive until the meeting of the Douma. But we do not want to have German conditions reproduced here." We want an absolutely free government. That can only be achieved if the people frame the government themselves.. Dor that rerson I reject the Douma and every other concession granted by the Czardom, and demand a constituent assembly which will make its own constitution for the whole empire. “The real question before Russia today is whether she herself or the frightened remnant of the old government is to frame the political and social conditions of the future,—As things at present stand, the old re-" gime is to conduct its own fun val; that is to say, we are to have a Douma (or Parliament) granted from above, with powers limited by the Emperor. The franchise is limited; the Douros's powers are limited; it is a grant to misery.” tp. “A useful Douma is therefore an impossibility ?” “Absolutely. I am convinced that until the convoking of a constituent assembly has set the seal upon the people’s triumph there will be no peace. You must admit that Russia, falsifying all the predictions of reactionaries here and abroad, has qualified for it. In action the extremist of otir revolutionists have shown restraint There has been no class war.”

MAXIM GORKY.