A Historical Study on the Conditions and Possibility of the Development of Liberal Democracy in Post-Reform Russia

虽然帝国政府试图利用土地贵族来改善改革后地方行政和农民控制机制中存在的恶劣条件，但俄罗斯贵族证明无法完成这些任务。贵族阶层的法人机构和地方自治机构没有权力在农村创造一个新的独立的社会领导阶层。政府不希望在现代化初期形成独立的社会力量。地主贵族自己似乎也不愿意或没有能力形成一个新的政治阶层。随着贵族们越来越关注自身的狭隘利益，他们的历史作用被削弱，最终完全淹没在十月革命中。俄国贵族的力量太弱，无法成为一个政治阶级，无法协调农村的利益冲突。他们与农民的隔绝程度实际上并不亚于国家官员--太隔绝了，以至于无法为了共同的地方利益而影响农民。这在很大程度上解释了这一时期俄罗斯社会在政治发展过程中所经历的一些困难。正是在快速工业化和第一次革命之后，俄罗斯才以杜马的成立开始了新的政治生活。这个新成立的政治机构必须处理社会大变动中的尖锐冲突，日本在代议制政府方面有了更多的实践和经验后才处理了这一问题。似乎可以肯定的是，对俄罗斯贵族的研究有助于阐明俄罗斯帝国历史上已经充分注意到的各个方面，我们，日本历史学家，或许可以利用我们对日本近代的了解，加深对俄罗斯贵族及其在俄罗斯政治发展中作用的认识。

Though the Imperial Government attempted to use landed nobles to improve the poor conditions existing in the local administration and the peasant control mechanisms in the post-reform era, Russia's nobles proved incapable of fulfillling such tasks. The corporate institutions of the noble estate and zemstvo institutions did not have the power to create a new stratum of independent social leaders in the countryside. The government did not want the formation of independent social forces in the early stage of modernization. Neither did landed nobles themselves appear willing or able to form a new political class. As they became increasingly preoccupied with their own narrow interests, their historical role weakened, and was finally entirely submerged in the October Revolution.Russia's nobility was too weak to emerge as a political class and coordinate conflicting interests in the countryside. They were really no less isolated than the state officials from the peasantry --too isolated to influence the peasantry for common local interests. This helps to explain to a considerable extent some of the difficulties that the Russian society underwent in the process of political development in this period.It was after the rapid industrialization and the First Revolution that Russia started a new political life with the set-up of the Duma. This newly established political organ had to manage the sharp conflict of the society in great flux, which Japan had tackled after somewhat more practice and experience with representative government.It seems certain that the study of the Russian nobility is useful to elucidate various aspects that have been sufficiently noticed in the history of Imperial Russia, and that we, Japanese historians, might be able to use our knowledge regarding the Japanese modern period for deepending the understanding of the Russian nobility and its role in Russia's political development.