unfortunately, the unstable Czar, who would run into any mold, but
would not keep shape, did not adhere to his avowed purpose for a
single week. In the words of a Russian peasant song:

The Czar promised lightly to go,
And made all his plans for departing;
Then he called for a chair,
And sat down right there,
To rest for a while before starting.

Not even so much as an attempt was made to carry the "freedom
manifesto" into effect, and before the ink with which it was written
had fairly had time to dry, the rejoicing people, who assembled with
flags and mottos in the streets of the principal cities to celebrate
the dawn of civil liberty, were attacked and forcibly dispersed by the
police, and were then cruelly beaten or mercilessly slaughtered by
adherents of a national monarchistic association, hostile to the
manifesto, which called itself the "Union of True Russians."[27]
According to the conservative estimate of Mr. Milyukov, these "true
Russians," with the sympathy and coöperation of the police, killed or
wounded no less than thirteen thousand other Russians, whom they
regarded as not "true," in the very first week after the freedom
manifesto was promulgated. One not familiar with Russian conditions
might have supposed that the Czar would use all the force at his
command to stop these murderous "pogroms" and to punish the police and
the "true Russians" who were responsible for them; but he seems to
have regarded them as convincing proof that all true Russians would
rather have autocracy than freedom, and, instead of insisting upon
obedience to his manifesto and punishing those who resorted to
wholesale murder as a means of protesting against it, he not only