Methamphetamine or Vitamin? (5)

“The Tsar’s drawn his sword,” Prince Georgy Lvov, the liberal titan, calmly laid out the situation to a few Democratic Party loyalists.

“The Land Survey Committee didn’t start with a nationwide sweep—it’s targeting specific provinces,” he added.

“So the Tsar never meant to entrust reform to the Duma?” one asked.

“Who knows,” Lvov replied.

When or why the Tsar’s mood shifted, no one in the room could say.

Maybe he was fed up with the Duma, as rumors suggest, or perhaps, learning the ropes, he feared losing control to them.

What matters: all reform now flows from the summer palace.

And the empire’s people aren’t loudly opposing it.

“The whole summer palace feels like reform’s headquarters,” one said.

“No seasonal move? The Tsar and bureaucrats are dead serious,” another noted.

Reform should’ve started with the Duma, representing the empire’s people, not the old elite.

What change can come from those clinging to power?

Though his family fell a generation ago, Lvov, a Moscow University grad with zemstvo experience, grasped the reform’s crux.

“It’s a crisis and an opportunity. Emperors always upend the nation once. But they bear the fallout until they step down,” he said.

Like Alexander II’s rash serfdom abolition, its ripples still gnaw at the empire.

Lvov’s fallen family is living proof.

“Congressman Lvov, if the mir dissolve and peasants thrive, what happens?” one asked.

“Don’t worry. It won’t,” Lvov said.

Only ignoramuses see mir as mere plantation labor pools. Their real value lies elsewhere.

The mir are the government’s fingers and toes.

The lowest administrative unit, welfare for the downtrodden, the empire’s bedrock.

“I don’t know if our young Tsar grasps the gravity, but since he’s stepped forward, he’ll bear the blame,” Lvov said.

If mir vanish overnight, all fallout lands squarely on the Tsar.

Lvov, who sidelined Democratic Party founder Pavel Milyukov, made a snap judgment.

“Labor Party’s recently cozying up to populists,” he said.

“Those social-revolution-via-mir nuts?” one asked.

“They’re redder than the Labor Party!” another exclaimed.

Labor thinks it can sway millions of disgruntled mir peasants.

Left plus ultra-left.

Labor may be mainstream, but populists aren’t.

The Democratic-Labor alliance ends here.

Even if mir dismantling fails, the empire’s system and government won’t collapse. Labor’s now a ticking bomb.

No majority without the alliance, but Lvov was fine with that.

Crush the populists, and Labor goes down too. Then spin it as Duma suppression.

Reform failure and Duma crackdowns.

What better pretext?

Lvov doubted the Tsar planned this from the start.

A Tsar that meticulous wouldn’t show his claws so soon.

A Tsar not yet thirty—what does he know? Witte’s the real culprit.

Thinking of the Finance Minister’s ousting, Lvov barely hid his smirk.

As Democrats quietly bided their time, others acted differently.

“Land reform? Who cares! Money’s flooding the countryside!” one bourgeois cheered.

“An internal market in this country? Build! Plows, anything—build!” another urged.

“Check how far the policy funds reach!” a third demanded.

Bourgeois rejoiced at the Peasant Land Bank, the empire’s biggest vault, unleashing cash.

Others took the opposite path.

“We’re the only Duma party consistently backing His Majesty,” said the Monarchist Conservatives.

“Join in or get sidelined?” one asked.

“If this fails, our Duma seats might rank below Beren Volkov’s Far East cronies,” another warned.

“What do we do, Congressman Guchkov?” a third pressed.

Witte kept bureaucrats from touching the Duma, but not all were controlled.

Alexander Guchkov, Conservative leader backed by reformist bureaucrats, saw things differently.

“If it succeeds… what happens?” Guchkov asked.

“The mir are done,” one replied.

“Just the mir?” Guchkov pressed.

Would reform, gaining speed, fizzle out in the countryside?

No way. If it were that small, it wouldn’t be this loud.

The funds and resources for five provinces’ mir dismantling—massive.

If Guchkov were Witte, he wouldn’t stop there.

Might as well crush the Duma too.

With Labor and Democrats allied, the Duma’s theirs forever.

So… why not bet on it? Beren Volkov backs reform for a reason.

The bureaucrats, once lifeless drones, now burn with zeal, like they’re spending their lifespans.

“We’ll back the Tsar,” Guchkov decided.

The Conservatives, third in the Duma, had little to lose.

Failure? Only Witte and reformist bureaucrats get swapped out.

The Conservatives swung to reform’s side.

The Tsar’s resolve.

Diverging choices.

1898 dawns, the year to crown a victor.

The mir’s administrative weight was clear during the census.

Instead of sending clerks or police to count heads, the government used mir data on working men.

Mir handled conscription, welfare, local development, public works, road repairs—everything.

Sure, they’re poorly run, but their autonomy was a godsend for Russia’s government.

What’s it mean to delegate so much to a single, unaudited rural system?

“Rotten to the core,” Director Sekirinsky muttered, scanning papers, loud enough to be heard.

“Mir’s collective tax liability? Only the desperate pay to avoid trouble,” he said.

Instead of per-head taxes, the empire collected from mir.

Conscription worked similarly.

“They report adult males and send soldiers to military districts yearly,” Sekirinsky noted.

Meaning only poor peasants got drafted.

Facing mir leaders—those handling land redistribution and management—Sekirinsky acknowledged their role.

“But Deputy Kokovtsov says mir administration is so trash and outdated, it’s useless,” he added.

The two-year census is nearly done. Conscription can use that data now.

Taxes? Who’s redistributing land? Tax the allocated plots—no need for collective guilt.

“Get my point?” Sekirinsky asked.

“…S-save us,” a mir leader pleaded.

“You’re useless here,” Sekirinsky said.

To the bloodied, dangling mir officials, Sekirinsky calmly pronounced their fate.

“Generations of corruption—didn’t even need to dig. The countryside’s caste system might be worse than the capital’s,” he said.

“W-we’re sorry! Please, spare us—” one begged.

“Shh,” Sekirinsky hushed, pressing a finger to the crushed lips of a mir tax collector.

“Want to live?” he asked.

“Y-yes! Anything—” the collector gasped.

“Can you testify against the mir elders (starosta)?” Sekirinsky asked.

“…Uh,” the collector hesitated.

“Need time? I’ll come back. Stay alive,” Sekirinsky said.

“No! No! Argh!” the collector screamed.

The real rot at mir’s edge: the elders.

They send youths to the army, control forests, appoint tax collectors, investigate, and punish crimes.

“Rural kings,” Sekirinsky scoffed, wiping blood from his finger with a handkerchief.

While clever bureaucrats wrestled with land deeds and mir records, the Okhrana worked elsewhere.

“Elders are something. Say ‘mir elder,’ and every member trembles,” an agent said.

“Since 1861, no audits or investigations. Not rotting would be weirder,” Sekirinsky replied.

Elders and their families skip military service, farming, and taxes. Others cover taxes and service; elders treat communal funds as pocket money, no labor needed.

Why do police, gendarmes, and Okhrana scour the countryside?

To break every shackle on peasants’ feet.

“The next Duma, central bureaucrats’ necks, and His Majesty’s reform are at stake,” Sekirinsky said.

And populists, spreading strange ideas in restless mir, are multiplying.

These roaches, not content with lies and rumors, claim mir are socialism’s essence.

“So many bastards to crush,” Sekirinsky muttered.

The Tsar’s foresight in expanding the Okhrana to 3,000 was prophetic.

Without that manpower, investigations—let alone arrests—would’ve been impossible.

“By tonight, if that guy doesn’t talk, send him to trial and kill him. Scare the elders to flee, then nab them for desertion,” Sekirinsky ordered.

“Link the elders to populists?” an agent asked.

“Too soon. Next week, I want headlines: ‘Shocking Corruption in Mir,’” Sekirinsky said.

“Will do,” the agent replied.

“Good,” Sekirinsky said.

Hands behind his back, Sekirinsky strolled off lightly.

A lifelong soldier, he knows nothing of land reform or redistribution.

But he knows the empire’s crawling with traitors and revolutionaries.

Arrestees spit, calling him the Tsar’s dog or butcher, but it’s clear who holds state power.

He’s justice, serving the Tsar.

Those caught are injustice, defying the Tsar.

With this binary lens:

“Hmm, our Duma members’ day to face me is coming,” Sekirinsky mused.

Plenty of people left to meet.