Nihilism As It Is

NIHILISM AS IT IS

NIHILISM
aS IT IS

BEING STEPNIAK’S PAMPHLETS
TRANSLATED BY E. L. VOYNICH,
AND FELIX VOLKHOVSKY’S
“CLAIMS OF THE RUSSIAN
LIBERALS” WITH AN INTRO¬
DUCTION BY DR. R. SPENCE

watson

LONDON : T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE

CONTENTS

Introduction. By Dr. R. Spence Watson . vii

Stepniak’s Pamphlets—

The Origin of the Book ... 3

What is Wanted ? ( Translated by ) 13

The Agitation Abroad { E. L. Voynich ) 52

Letter sent by the Revolutionary Executive
Committee to Alexander III. at his Acces¬
sion to the Throne . .81

The Liberal Programme . 91

The Claims of the Russian Liberals. By Felix

VOLKHOYSKY . ... 103

INTRODUCTION.

Many persons who are interested in the Russian
question have explained to me how much they
have felt the need of some authoritative informa¬
tion upon the true position of the different sections
of the party of reform in Russia towards each
other and towards the Russian Government, or,
in other words, some explanation of what the
aims and doctrines of the Russian Revolutionists,
whether extremists or moderate men, really are.
This book of Stepniak’s, to which Felix Volk-
hovsky has furnished a chapter, and which also
contains the full text of the famous letter of the
Revolutionary Committee to Alexander III., and
ample quotations from a memorandum of the
Russian Liberals to Count Loris Melikoff, will

INTRODUCTION.

vni

supply this long-felt want. It appears opportunely
at a time when extraordinary efforts are being made,
by concealing the facts and circulating false informa¬
tion, to induce free peoples to share the methods of
that darkest of despotisms, and to become accom¬
plices in its tyrannical treatment of those of its
subjects who venture to think for themselves on
political or religious matters.

There are already standard works from which
English-speaking people can learn much about the
Russian Revolutionary Party as it strikes writers
who, like George Kennan or Edmund Noble, have
carefully investigated the facts. But it is always
open to the apologists of the Russian Government
to say that these gentlemen are outsiders who
have only been shown what it was considered
desirable for them to see, and that the Russian
Revolutionist speaks with one voice to his foreign
friend and another to his allies at home.

But, in addition to such invaluable works as I
have mentioned, we have also access to the official
documents of the Revolutionary Party which have
been published, time after time, in the face of the

INTRODUCTION.

ix

world, and some of which are, as I have already
pointed out, given in extenso in this publication.
Indeed its special value is that it introduces the
reader, so to speak, to the inner life of the
so-called, and mis-called, Nihilists. Stepniak’s
chapters are reprints of pamphlets which were
written by him in Russian for Russian readers
only ; and they show, therefore, how these men
converse with each other, and what the doctrines
are which they are preaching from the shelter
they have found in England. They show also
that the fundamental objects of all Russian Revo¬
lutionists (however they may call themselves or
be called by others) are the same; that their
struggle is for freedom, national and personal; and
they forcibly urge the necessity of laying aside all
matters which are not absolutely essential, and of
working closely and unitedly together for those
fundamental objects which all alike hold dear.

No one can peruse this book with an open and
candid mind without coming to the conclusion that
the aims and objects of the Russian Revolutionary
Party are such as he can cordially sympathise with,

INTRODUCTION.

even should he be unable to accept some ol the
views held as to the means employed by the more
extreme party in the great revolutionary struggle.
He will not forget that he is reading of a country
where none of the ordinary safeguards of justice—
freedom of speech, liberty of the press, or popular
representation,—exist; but where, on the contrary,
free thought and free speech are criminal ; and
where the Government is all-powerful, and uses
its power tyrannically.

I must not speak about the writers themselves.
They have become well known amongst us. They
are members of that little band of Russian exiles
who have nobly handed down the noble traditions
of those great reformers who found refuge on our
shores in bygone days. But their works, and this
work, speak for them. I hope that this book will
be widely read and carefully considered. It puts
the position of the Russian opposition clearly and
simply before the reader, and it replies convincingly
to the wild and ridiculous mis-statements which the
apologists of the Russian Government are constantly
making. It is of much value. Everything must

INTRODUCTION.

xi

be valuable which tends to give a clearer view of
one of the greatest struggles for progress and free¬
dom which Europe has seen. Wider knowledge can
but increase the sympathy of those who, themselves
free, understand the grandeur of that struggle, the
triumph of which may be delayed, but cannot be
ultimately defeated.

Robert Spence Watson.

STEPNZAK’S PAMPHLETS.

THE ORIGIN OF THE BOOK.

The main part of the volume, for which I have to
ask the indulgence of the English readers, consists of
two pamphlets of mine written originally in Russian
and for the Russians, and which I never expected to
be known outside the dominions of the Tzar. But
certain attacks upon us some time ago gave me the
idea that it might be useful to bring them before the
general public.

There are two different and independent organisa¬
tions working nowadays in this country in their
different ways to promote the cause of Russian
liberty. The one is the well-known Society of
Friends of Russian Freedom, founded in 1890 by
Dr. Spence Watson, and now having its ramifica¬
tions all over the country. It is composed entirely
of English men and women, and its activity is
confined to foreign countries, its object being the
winning over of the public opinion of the civilised
world to the interests of Russian freedom. The other
society is hardly known to the English, though in

4

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

Russia it begins to be known, and rather widely.
It is the Russian Free Press Fund—a small pub¬
lishing company, composed of Russians, supported
by Russians, and intended exclusively for supplying
the subjects of the Tzar with literature tabooed
within the boundaries of Russia.

Both societies have achieved, in their different
lines, a success we can fairly term unprecedented,
which clearly shows that both were timely and have
answered to an actual need ; and it is difficult to say
which of the two have proved a sorer thorn in the
flesh of the Russian Government.

Those who would like to perpetuate the present
ignominious regime, in our country could not remain
indifferent to the fact that the public opinion of the
civilised world is gradually passing over to the side
of their opponents. Still less could they overlook
the effects of a direct appeal to the Russian people
themselves, and the fermentations resulting from
the spread of scores of thousands of our pamphlets
and books among the thinking men and women of
our country.

Anyhow, both societies have obtained their full
share of recognition in the form of calumnies and
insinuations on the part of the host of scurrilous
ineptities whom alone the Russian Government was
able to muster as its champions, both in the Russian
and the foreign press.

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

5

Their efforts have done us an excellent service in
Russia by making our work known in the spheres
which it would take us long to reach with our
clandestine publications. In this country we are in
no need of this sort of trumpeting-up and underhand
advertisement, because we can reach openly all
those who may be reached. Yet we must not be
ungrateful. These gentlemen (and ladies) have
surely done the little they could in strengthening
our position, by the display of utter shallowness,
mendacity, and evident bad faith of their charges.

To utter against Dr. Spence Watson, Mr. Byles,
Mr. Allanson Picton, Miss Hesba Stretton, and a score
of men and women of the same standing, the accusa¬
tion of furnishing money for the dynamite outrages
in Russia (which, by the way, have not been heard
of for I do not know how many years), was pro¬
claiming themselves at the outset calumniators,
deserving nothing but contempt and ridicule. All
the men and women who took the lead in the pro-
Russian movement in England are known to their
countrymen for many years, and it is not for an
obscure hireling of the Russian police to throw
upon them suspicion of participation in dynamite
plots.

Our detractors have brains enough to understand
that. Thus a mysterious Mr. “ Ivanoff,” who some
time ago made himself conspicuous by a scurrilous

6

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

article in the New Review, says explicitly that the
flagrant breach of international obligations on the
part of Dr. Spence Watson and the other members
of the society, must be an unconscious one due to the
diabolical machinations of the “nihilists,” with whom
they had the imprudence of associating. The same
is the tenor of Mme. Novikoff’s complaint. But
the proceedings of the society are public; the hon.
treasurer, into whose hands all the funds converge,
gives, in the Free Russia, detailed accounts both of
the receipts and of the expenditure.

Every penny is accounted for, and improper use
of money is materially impossible, machinations
or no machinations. Mme. Novikoff and her
satellites read Free Russia and cannot possibly
be ignorant of the existence of these accounts, and
their specific charge cannot possibly be uttered in
good faith. They not merely say what is false, but
they are fully aware that they are doing so.

But these ladies and gentlemen have a second
line of defence—their citadel to which they would
repair after having been ignominiously defeated in
the first encounter.

Granted that the Society of F. R. F. does not give
any material support to the so-called nihilists who
are fighting the Russian autocracy upon the Russian
soil; granted that all insinuations to this effect are
lies and calumnies, still they would say the fact

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

7

remains that these nihilists are anarchists of Rava-
chol's type, and it is utterly inconsistent and im¬
proper on the part of the English to give moral
support and encouragement to representatives of the
same party which they prosecute on their own soil.

For all those who have taken the trouble of in¬
forming themselves upon the real views and attitude
of the Russian revolutionary party these accusations
will appear as despicable as the former one. I, for my
part, do not believe in their sincerity. The Russian
Government and the Russian police—those at least
who are able to read and write—must know full
well by this time what are the real demands of the
so-called Russian nihilists.

But the mass of the English public, absorbed
by their own affairs, cannot have a very accurate
knowledge of what is going on in a foreign country
thousands of miles away. The champions of Russian
autocracy, who have never been overscrupulous, did
not scruple to avail themselves of this ignorance and
try their best to mislead the public opinion upon this
point.

Nothing can be easier than to confound their alle¬
gations by quoting a few lines from the authentic
and authoritative documents which may be called
the official exposition of the views and aspirations
of the Russian revolutionary party. We have done
it during the last campaign against us in the place

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

where these charges have been uttered, and I do
not think that those who have compared the attack
and the reply will trouble themselves any more with
the question. I may say that, without infringing
the rules of modesty, there is surely no glory in
getting the better of an opponent like Ivanoff.

But I know well that disposing of one Ivanoff
does not mean at all ending the controversy. At
the first favourable opportunity some new incar¬
nation of Mme. Novikoff will come forward as if
nothing had happened, and will repeat the very
same exploded charges and calumnies and insinu¬
ations.

With the progress of our work here we may
fairly anticipate that these attacks will get more
virulent and more numerous. It occurred to me,
therefore, that it might be good to publish for
the use of our friends and well-wishers a sort of
reference book which would give in a concise form
the materials necessary for establishing beyond
doubt or controversy the real nature, aims, and
position of the Russian revolutionists. I owe to
our opponents the suggestion how best to do it.

To prove that the programme we put forward
before the English is only a mask hiding the face
of bloodthirsty partisans of universal destruction,
Mr. Ivanoff quotes, or rather misquotes, a pamphlet
of mine, entitled “ What we want, and the beginning

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

9

of the end,” which he declares to be an appeal to
the worst instincts of the human race.

Such a challenge would excuse and justify in any
case my bringing that little thing of mine to public
notice. Besides, it seems to me that nothing could
serve better my double purpose, apologetical on one
hand and descriptive on the other, than the publica¬
tion in English of this pamphlet of mine. When
somebody comes to accuse you of having treacher¬
ously deceived your friend in company with a third
person, some member of your own family, the best
plan is to open your drawers and hand over to this
friend your private correspondence with that third
person. That is precisely what I am doing in
publishing in English this Russian pamphlet. But
it will have, I hope, more than a polemical interest
for an intelligent reader. Being written for Russians,
and about Russian affairs and parties, it will of
necessity be sometimes obscure for the English.
But with some attention the reader will be able
to get from it a very clear idea of the physiognomy
of our party, of its interior divisions, of the questions
which come to the front just now, and also of the
special attitude of one little body of Russian revolu¬
tionists represented by the Russian Free Press Fund,
which has been denounced to them with such in¬
cautious vehemence.

To the challenged pamphlet I have joined another :

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

io

“ The Foreign Agitation.” It explains to our Rus¬
sian friends and sympathisers the aims, the character,
and possible influence of the Society of F. R. F. It
may be of interest for the English on its own
account, and it will at the same time serve as
a reply to one of the favourite charges of Mme.
NovikofTs set : that of our speculating upon the
national hostility of the English toward Russia.

To these pamphlets I have added some docu¬
mentary evidences: the famous Letter of the Revo¬
lutionary Committee to the Tzar Alexander III.,
some extracts from the collective memorandum of
the Russian Liberals to Alexander II. (for which
I am indebted to the Century Magazine and Mr.
George Kennan). Felix Volkhovsky kindly con¬
tributed to this book a summing up of the official
memoranda of our Zemstvos. Put together, these
unimpeachable and now historical documents will
show to the impartial reader that the aspirations
of the so-called nihilist are shared by the best and
most representative and authoritative spokesmen of
the Russian Society.

I hope the volume will be found timely just now,
when the anarchist outrages on the Continent have
caused so much confusion, misconception, and mis¬
apprehension.

WHAT IS WANTED?

WHAT IS WANTED?

Among all nations the transition from absolutism to
modern representative government has been accom¬
panied by convulsive and painful struggles. But for
no people, perhaps, has the struggle been so hard a
one as for us Russians.

Entering so late into the combat for our own and
the people’s rights, we have found ourselves face to
face with a government which could employ in its
own defence all the modern improvements in the
mechanism of state and all the marvels of contem¬
porary technical science, bringing the size, arming,
and power of concentration of the army, as also the
art of getting out of financial difficulties, to a degree
of perfection of which the upholders of former tyran¬
nies could not even dream.

Another result of our coming so late in history is
that the Russian opposition, which has to deal with
so powerful an enemy, suffers from internal divisions
to an extent which was quite unknown to our prede¬
cessors in revolutionary work.

13

14

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

We are far from holding the rather widespread
opinion that the more unanimity of views and beliefs
there be in any party, the nearer is that party to an
ideal condition. No one formula can satisfy all the
various characters, temperaments, and intellectual
types among the whole mass of people who are
capable of being fired with a given idea. Moreover,
where there is real earnestness for a cause, all these
differences must necessarily show themselves even
in the manner of formulating general propositions,
and especially in matters relating to the application
of such propositions in life. Therefore differences
of opinion, within certain limits, are a sign of the
intensity of a party’s life, and work in common only
gains by the existence of differentiated, individualised
fractions.

Our misfortune is that to these natural differences
of our own we add foreign and artificial differences,
which are the result of our equivocal position among
the peoples of Europe. While Russia as a whole
lives in the eighteenth century of European history,
and her peasantry, as it were, in the sixteenth—the
age of the Reformation—the Russian educated class
stand side by side with the same classes in western
Europe; indeed, on the whole, it is even more pro¬
gressive and receptive than they. We pick up in
scraps the latest developments of science, and there
is no movement of advanced European thought

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

15

which does not at once reproduce itself among us.
Thus the strife of ideas and the differentiation which
in other nations have been spread over a whole series
of generations, are concentrated with us into one
generation, and we suffer undeserved punishment
both for being too progressive and for being too
much behind the age. Nothing but the widest
mutual tolerance could enable us to avoid the
practical consequences of so unfortunate a position.
But we are not, and never have been, remarkable
for tolerance. It is, therefore, not surprising that
the Russian opposition presents a kaleidoscope of
parties, which, while working, in essentials, for the
same cause, have contrived to become so much
divided as to have lost all internal cohesion, and in
many cases all capacity—even all desire—to under¬
stand one another.

The movement of the years 1873 and 1874, 1 from
which the present movement started, was by no
means the foundationless thing foisted on us from
outside which it may appear to superficial observers.
It was a native Russian movement, called into ex¬
istence by dissatisfaction with the so-called emanci¬
pation of the peasants—a reform whose insufficiency
had at that time become evident, and not to the
young generation alone.

1 The great pilgrimage of thousands of the educated youth of
both sexes “among the peasants” as missionaries of Socialism.

16 NIHILISM AS IT IS.

This movement was in reality directed against
our political system, for only a new, free state could
successfully take up and solve the agrarian question.
But the young generation could not formulate its
real desires, and the educated class could not under¬
stand the young generation. The young extremists
were left to depend upon their own powers, and this
fact condemned the movement beforehand to com¬
plete and fruitless destruction.

The real movement began five years later, when
two-thirds of its supporters had perished, and when
the strength of the first impulse was spent.

Since then there have been many changes. The
revolution is no longer the affair of young people.
But the question of how to unite the scattered
members of Russian opposition remains, as it was
then, the question of the day. We may even say
that it is now more pressing than ever before. In
any case the discussions and writings on this
favourite theme of ours are now more serious and
better suited to the real needs of the case than
formerly.

The revolutionary cycle which began with that
movement of the young generation as a mass, of
which we have spoken, is evidently ended. Some¬
thing new will now begin, but what no one can say
beforehand. Only one thing is certain—that the
coming movement will be wider than the former

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

17

one was. It has become clear to every one that
revolutionists by speciality —“ Nihilists,” as they are
called in western Europe—cannot alone overthrow
the autocracy, however great may be their energy
and heroism.

The revolution must be widened. But how? To
whom must we look for support for it ? This is
the question about which programmes are drawn
up, over which parties split into fractions, and
newspapers come into and pass out of existence.

Russia is a land of peasants. And yet, so far as
we know, there is not at this moment a single
section among the Russian revolutionists which
seriously loolcs to the pejisantryTor. support—that is,
which really works_to obtain partisans among them.
The revolutionary party, having found the hopes
it had built upon the peasants so illusive eighteen
years ago, evidently fears to appeal to them again.
But during this long period the peasants have had
time to undergo a momentous change. Twenty
years of change and mental development, of district
commanders, sectarianism, famine, want of land,
and robbery, have not passed without leaving traces.

A new attempt to “ go among the people,” though,
of course, not in the old way and not with the old
message, but with a practical and comprehensible
plan of a transfer of the land by the state to the
people, and of peasant autonomy—such an attempt
3

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

would have, we believe, a good chance to meet with
a quite other response and to give quite other results
from those obtained by the attempts of the seventies.

But such a party does not yet exist, though it will
probably spring up in the natural course of the
movement’s growth, or at the first widespread signs
of upheaval among the people. Up till now our
movement is exclusively an urban one, depending
upon certain elements of the town population—
partly on the working-classes, but chiefly upon
the educated class in general.

Our revolutionary party splits up into two divisions
in accordance with this fact. A minority, the Russian
Social Democrats, or, to speak more accurately, The
Society for the Emancipation of Labour (as we are
all Social Democrats), who have grouped themselves
round the well-known Geneva periodical, see only
one possible support for the revolution—the factory
workmen, the proletariat now growing up in Russia.

That our town workmen present a most favourable
soil in which to implant political and social ideas
every one will agree who knows anything of that
very promising class. Any serious work among
them results in valuable additions to our revolu¬
tionary strength. Town workmen are more re¬
sponsive and easier to approach than peasants, and
possess the enormous advantage that their every¬
day life, containing as it does more intellectual and

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS .

19

exciting elements than that of the peasants, does
not choke the seed cast among them, but strengthens
and encourages its growth. We know of cases in
which a propagandist, coming to a factory abso¬
lutely unknown to him, unexpectedly meets with
“ a treasure trove ” of revolutionist workmen, who
prove to be either disciples or disciples of disciples
of some other propagandist who worked there six
or eight years before. Several such cases have
become publicly known, thanks to disturbances
among the workmen and the trials resulting there¬
from. The peasant class, unfortunately, does not
show such examples.

We sympathise deeply with the attempt of which
we have spoken, to increase the movement among
the town workmen. But to see in them the chief
lever by means of which the autocracy is to be over¬
thrown, is to lose sight, while looking at theories, of
the real state of things in Russia.

Whether the factory workmen be one million only,
as the official statistics declare, or three, or even
four millions, as the Social Democrat says, the case
remains the same.

Undoubtedly the numerical strength of the town
working class is not great, and, considering how
little education that class possesses, how scattered
it is, and how utterly lacking in any conscious class¬
feeling, it is impossible to speak seriously, at the

20 NIHILISM AS IT IS.

present time, of its playing an independent political
part; and, above all, of its leading the movement.
At present this class can be nothing more than a
help to the revolutionary movement. The principal
support, without any question, is the educated class.

This view is held, if not in words, at least in
practice, by the majority of Russian revolutionists,
from the old “ Narodnaya Volia ” to its latest
adherents ; and on this point we fully agree with
them.

After the peasantry, the educated class is certainly
the most powerful in the State. It commands the
Tzar’s army and fleet, and might, with one successful
military plot, hew down the autocracy at its very
root. .

The educated class has given us Jeliabov, Kibal¬
chich, Perovskaya, and many others, and will always
give successors to them and continuers of their work,
because it is the heart of the nation, which feels
more intensely than any other class the nation’s
wrongs and sufferings, and more passionately believes
in its bright and glorious future. Moreover, this
same educated class occupies all the high posts, and
fulfils all the most important social functions. It
manages the press, sits in the Zemstvos and
municipal councils, and holds the university pro¬
fessorships.

The educated class is an enormous power in the

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS .

land. Moreover, this class is thoroughly permeated
with discontent, and, above all, with conscious dis¬
content, as it fully understands what is the cause
of its troubles. If all those who at heart loathe the
autocracy could make up their minds to attack it
openly, it could not stand for five months.

But how is this powerful class to be persuaded to
take a more active part in the struggle for the libera¬
tion of Russia ? How are we to clear away the linger¬
ing distrust still somewhat felt towards the party
which has taken upon itself the initiative in that
struggle ? We say “ somewhat,” because, since the
time when the “ Narodnaya Volia ” raised the banner
of political strife, the position has materially changed.
The attitude of the general mass of educated Russian
society towards the revolutionary movement is at
the present time very different from that of fifteen
years ago. But for all that, the movement is still
far from having spread throughout all those strata
of society on whose support it ought to reckon. And
now there is arising among Russian revolutionists a
desire to work towards a common understanding.

This desire has found expression in a whole series
of publications produced abroad. But we will speak
of only one—the Geneva paper Svobodnaya Rossiya,
in which this tendency is shown in its extremest and
most characteristic form.

Starting from the hypothesis (in our opinion a

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

mistaken one) that our Liberals shrink from the
socialism of the revolutionary party, some of our
comrades in this paper propose to “temporarily”
entirely conceal their socialism, and, also “ tempo¬
rarily,” to become Liberals.

The Geneva organ of this group has done good
.service in that it, first of all the papers issued by
refugees, put forward certain useful and elementary
truths, which, however, were regarded by some
people as dreadful heresy. For this step it deserves,
if not the thanks of posterity, at least the indulgence
of its contemporaries. Nevertheless, we cannot re¬
frain from saying that its proposed plan of pruning
ourselves down and hiding ourselves away is one
which cannot bear even the mildest criticism, either
from the theoretical or from the practical point of
view.

Socialism is the greatest moral force at work in
modern society, and to hide its light under a bushel
or in any way to weaken its power in Russia would
be to wilfully destroy the very thing that is the life
and soul of our movement.

A struggle such as ours depends entirely upon
self-sacrifice, upon the capacity of separate indi¬
viduals to give up their life, their liberty, everything
for the happiness of their country. The deeper,
wider, and more universal the idea of this potential
happiness, the sooner will awake and the louder will

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

23

speak in human hearts the mighty social instinct.
No man will immolate himself for the sake of, say,
an extension of local autonomy or any other such
reform, however beneficial. But thousands of people
have willingly died when the belief grew up in them
that the happiness of humanity would be bought by
their death.

A hundred, even fifty, years ago, the idea of
political liberty had power to arouse this faith in
masses of men, and our political crisis would have
passed over more quickly and more easily had it
happened then. But that time is gone, and cannot
be recalled. The formulae of political liberty have
lost their magical power over men’s hearts. That
power is now possessed by socialism, and, we believe,
is possessed by it in as much greater degree as its
doctrine is completer, more scientific, and more con¬
crete than the political metaphysics of the last cen¬
tury. Even from an objective point of view, apart
from the question of liking or disliking socialism, all
opponents of the Russian autocracy ought to desire
the widest possible spread of socialism in Russia, for
the imperial absolutism has no more dangerous
enemy.

The very energy of the revolutionary struggle
evidently depends upon the attitude of the Russian
educated class towards socialism, and we attribute
the present comparative lull to the dying away of

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

the fresh influx of socialist ideas. Instead of the
wide, inspiring study of great social questions, on
which the former revolutionary generation grew up,
the young people of the present day have perforce to
content themselves with turning over and piecing
together old, musty “programmes.”

Undoubtedly this blank will be filled up, and, we
hope, soon. Undoubtedly the rapid development of
socialism in the West will sooner or later be reflected
in Russia; every new wave of socialism flings drops
of the living water across the frontier into Russia,
causing there a ferment, a lifting up of spirit, a
growth of social feeling, which cannot fail to result
in a strengthening of the political revolt.

But we must meet this natural influence half-way,
consciously introducing into our life that which is
being brought into it by the natural course of events.

There can be no question of any putting aside of
socialist work for the sake of any connections what¬
ever. Before talking of union, the party must take
care to become a power with which it will be worth
while to unite. And if we spent less time upon
discussions about unity and uniting, and worked at
that which is under our hands, each of us in his
own sphere, according to his own tendencies, capaci¬
ties, and even accidental position, our powers would
be far greater than they are now ; we should have
friends and allies everywhere, and the beginning of

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

25

the end would be nearer by many years than it seems
to be now.

But whether it be in consequence of our intoler¬
ance, which renders differences of opinion insuffer¬
able to us, or whether in consequence of our passion
for revolutionary dogmatism, our “cause” still
continues to be a mere cloud of words cast upon
the wind. In one town you will find two philoso¬
phers who agree with each other on every point
except some fifth wheel in the revolutionary cart.
One would have thought that when once they are
convinced that their difference is one which cannot
be got over, nothing would be simpler than for them
to peacefully part, and either take up practical work
for themselves, or gird up their loins and go each
his own way among indifferent and blinded men,
who have never heard the new word, and prepare
the soil by winning over new adherents. But the
philosophers prefer to go to each other’s houses and
spend days, weeks, months in fruitless discussions
about the everlasting fifth wheel, until the noise
they make attracts the police, who swoop down and
march them off to the Yakuts to finish their argu¬
ment in the open air. And if the two philosophers
have collected round themselves each a little band
of friends, the friends then continue to visit each
other, to carry on the same discussions and repeat
the same commonplaces, with the inevitable “draw-

26

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

ing up of general programmes ” and “ plans of
unification,” and all the customary revolutionary
mill-round, until the police swoop down again to
wind up the business this time with a general raid.

Three-fourths of our available and precious forces
perish in this way, and yet it is surely easy to see
that a change of tactics would be advantageous,
not only to the general cause, but even to the
beloved fifth wheel itself. Not from frivolity or
shallowness, but just from passionate devotion to
the cause and desire to serve it in any way, Rus¬
sians more than any other race follow successful
examples. There is, perhaps, no path upon which
they would not enter, however difficult, however
terrible it might be, no action from which they
would shrink, if they could only see plainly that
such a path or such an action would really lead to
the awakening of Russia from her age-long sleep, or
would be a real menace to the age-long tyranny.
Things which yesterday were condemned are looked
upon to-day as new revelations. The Byzantine
dogmatism is forgotten ; enemies of not long ago
become impassioned adherents; and the disor¬
ganised crowd of yesterday, fired with a common
enthusiasm, becomes to-day a phalanx of Titans,
ready to take by storm heaven itself. Historical
instances are not far to seek : it was not by argu¬
ments, not by the completeness of its theories, but

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

2 7

by the fascination of its actions, that the old Naro-
dnaya Volya gathered around itself all that was
most energetic in revolutionary Russia.

But let us return to our subject.

What we have said about the tactics as regards
each other of separate revolutionary subdivisions, is
applicable also to the relations between the various
parties of the opposition. For the sake of our
common cause we must make it our first care to
render our party a power in the land. And how
can any party become a power, which is afraid
openly to acknowledge its own convictions, which
puts on an artificial meekness in order to win over
or to please this person or that ?

And, indeed, what is the use of all these efforts,
which deceive no one, to hide our candle under a
bushel ? We ought long ago to have given up the
habit, borrowed from Western Europe, of confusing
Liberalism with narrow bourgeois class-interest.
Ours is not a class opposition, but an intellectual
opposition. Modern Russia, which so often reminds
us of France before the Revolution, in no other
respect so closely resembles her as in the humani¬
tarian and profoundly democratic feeling of her
privileged class. One must wear very thick spec¬
tacles indeed if he cannot see that our “ Liberals ”
are, by their opinions, very different from those of
the West in our day. The majority of them are

28

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

advocates of most radical economic reforms, and a
large number sympathise, in essentials, with social¬
ism. Where is the danger, here, of “frightening”
them with our socialism ?

There are, of course, in Russia chemically pure
Liberals, Manchesterites ; but we do not believe
that even they would turn away from us for our
socialism.

It is one thing not to agree with socialism, and
quite another thing to wish to deprive socialists of
the right to preach their doctrine as freely as other
parties. The English Liberals are, indeed, we may
say universally, opponents on principle of socialism,
and yet they not only do not attempt to shut the
mouths of their socialists, but even defend them
when any aggression is made upon their rights.
The entire Liberal press took the part of the
socialists at the time of the or.ce-famous Dodd
Street case, when the police tried to prevent the
socialists from holding meetings at that place,
and the most eminent of the militant opponents
of socialism, the late Charles Bradlaugh, made an
interpellation in Parliament about the case. And
this was by no means a demonstration of generosity
to an enemy, but a simple expression, which asto¬
nished no one, of that feeling of civil solidarity and
civil liberty which has become second nature to all
English people.

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

29

Is it possible that we are so hopelessly, so bar¬
barously behind the age that these elementary
truths, which ordinary English shopkeepers, cab¬
men, and cotton spinners, regard as the alphabet of
political education, are incomprehensible to our
picked men, our Liberals, among whom are hun¬
dreds of professors, writers, and savants, some of
them of European fame ?

If there are, indeed, among our malcontents, any
persons who, even now, at this time of general,
intolerable oppression, indulge in dreams of gagging
their opponents with anti-socialist statutes and
martial law, what sort of Liberals are they ? and
are they worth taking into account ? The sooner
and the more thoroughly we repel them, the better
for us and for the cause of Russian liberty.

We repeat: socialism is not, and never has been,
the hindrance to the uniting of the Russian opposi¬
tion ; that hindrance must be sought in the political,
not the economic side of our programme—so far
as programmes play any part in the matter at
all.

The putting forward of political revolt as a means
towards further development, was for us a decisive
step in advance. But from the formal point of view
it was a retrogression from a more extreme, though
less definite programme, and we have still not got
rid of a phraseology which makes it appear as if

30

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

we looked upon that step as a kind of “falling into
sin.”

When we speak of our desire to obtain political
liberty, we think it necessary to add, as it were in
self-justification, that we want it not for itself, but as
a means towards the solving of the social question.

We all understand quite well that, in contempo¬
rary Russia, political liberty can be obtained only
in the form of a constitutional monarchy. Up till
now the world has invented no other form of free
state except Constitutional Monarchy or Republic,
and so far no voices have been raised for a republic
in Russia. And yet we still continue to look upon
the word “ constitution ” as something unclean.
We carefully avoid the use of it, employing various
roundabout methods of speech, for fear people
should “confuse us with” the constitutionalists.
We become bitterly angry if any one of our number
calls things by their real names.

But why all these fig-leaves ? We prefer a re¬
publican form of government to any other, and
most certainly have no prejudice in favour of the
Romanov dynasty. But once we consider it in¬
expedient, or not worth while to try to overthrow
it, we prefer to say so frankly, and therefore we put
forward, as our immediate aim, the winning of a
constitution for Russia.

Finally—and this is the most important point—

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

3i

while preaching the principle of the supreme right
of the nation to decide all questions of state; while
repeatedly declaring that the violent actions to
which we now have recourse, are purely temporary
measures, which will give place to peaceful, intel¬
lectual work as soon as popular representation is
substituted for the present despotism—while ac¬
knowledging all this, we, at the same time, cannot
give up our revolutionary rhetoric and continue to
talk of our “revolutionary” socialism and of “the
social revolution without explaining whether we
mean these expressions to be understood in the
literal or metaphorical sense.

For our part we object to this ambiguity and
confusion. We recognise the expressions above
quoted only in the broad philosophical sense in
which Lassalle accepted them. But as they are
usually understood in another sense, we prefer to
leave them aside altogether.

We absolutely and categorically distinguish be¬
tween the two divisions of our tactics: the political
division and the economic..

We believe that the worthless gang which now
rules over Russia, taking advantage of a misunder¬
standing of the peasant masses, can be overthrown
only by force, and to this end we see no other means
than force. In politics we are revolutionists, re¬
cognising not only popular insurrection, but military

32

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

plots, nocturnal attacks upon the palace, bombs and
dynamite. We shall not, while living abroad,
preach these things to our Russian comrades.
Apart from the moral impossibility of inciting
others to actions in which we ourselves can take
no part, there is also the question of the timeliness,
and, therefore, of the expediency, of a given action—
a question which can be decided only on the spot.

But we regard all such acts as morally justifiable,
and we are ready to defend them and acknowledge
our moral solidarity with them, once people have
been driven to commit them. In view of the
cynical, boundless despotism now rampant in
Russia, every form of protest is lawful, and there
are outrages upon human nature so intolerable that
violence becomes the moral duty of the citizens.

But as regards the introduction of socialism into
life, we are evolutionists. We utterly disbelieve in
the possibility of reconstructing economic relation¬
ships by means of a burst of revolutionary inspira¬
tion. That is a huge work which needs great
mental efforts on the part of many people, much
preparation, much practical experience and correc¬
tion, and therefore much time.

We could prove, by quoting what have now
become historical documents, that those who at
one time really were “ the party," regarded the
realisation of socialism just as a peaceful intellectual

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

33

work. • But we will dispense with quotations. We
have cast off the authority of ancient tradition for
the right of the individual reason to judge of and^
decide all questions in heaven and earth. Let us
then reverence our past, but let us not .forge for
ourselves new_chajns and reintroduce the forgotten
cultus of tradition. Let us look upon the matter
with our own eyes, and answer the question whether,
general considerations apart, there is any logic in
the uniting of revolutionary socialism with that
struggle for representative government which is now
taking place on Russian soil ? Is it not clear that
a free state has incomparably more power than an
autocracy to repress disturbances of a political
character ? The latter depends solely upon the
police and the army ; the former will have at its
disposal the same police and army plus—and think
what a plus!—the support of the whole nation.
Why, then, substitute a powerful enemy for a weak
one ? Would it not be simpler to return to anarchist
theories, and, taking advantage of the moment, raise
at once the standard of rebellion ?

It is only from the point of view of evolutionary
socialism that the struggle against autocracy, with
its numberless and terrible sacrifices, has a true
and great significance; otherwise it is nothing but
an aimless and sanguinary farce—strife for strife’s
sake, practice in self-sacrifice.

34

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

But the logic of life has proved stronger than the
logic of our heads. From the time when the
question of political revolution became the principal
question of the moment, the anarchist theories,
which up till then had prevailed among us, were
replaced by the ideas of social democracy. To
anarchists, representative government is not worth
fighting for, and, therefore, there are no anarchists
in Russia.

Would it not be wiser to bring our programme
into harmony with our activity ?

We believe that political liberty gives all that
is needed for the solution of the social question.
If we look at the West, we see clearly to what
brilliant results our comrades have attained by using
those weapons of propaganda and agitation which
constitutional freedom has placed in their hands.
We also see that the more powerful becomes the
socialist party in a land, the more complete is the
victory of evolutionary socialism. In proportion as
the results obtained are more precious, as the
moment comes nearer when the party may expect
to be called to the practical realisation of its ideals,
the complications and difficulties of the gigantic task
become more evident, and the rhetoric of blood and
violence inherited from political revolutions is more
decisively abandoned. The German socialist party,
which has astonished the world with its titanic

STEPNIAK'S PA MPHLE TS.

35

growth, presents the most brilliant example of
political discretion and self-control.

Profiting by its experience, we propose to take our
stand openly in favour of evolutionary socialism,
recognising freedom of speech, freedom of the press,
and universal franchise as fully sufficient weapons ;
and, so long as they are guaranteed by inviolable
law, the only right weapons to use in the coming
social struggle.

But while regarding the solution of the labour
question in Russia as a problem which will be
brought prominently forward in perhaps the near
future, we emphatically protest against the habit
which has grown up among us of treating political
liberty exclusively as a means to “ the solution of
the social question.” We feel as an insult the idea
that we should look upon liberty as a mere tool with
which to obtain something else, as though the needs
and feelings of free men were strange to us, as
though our duties to the people have blinded us
to our duties to ourselves and our human dignity.

We think, moreover, that this timid phrase may
lay us open to a danger, the possibility of which
is probably unsuspected by many of the wise persons
who repeat it. From the constant harnessing, as
it were on principle, of political freedom to the
solution of the labour question, there is but one
step to democratic imperialism. From the point

36

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

of view of narrow labour interests, it may appear
more advantageous to uphold the huge power
already established, once it offers immediate
economic reforms, than to follow the long and
difficult path to general freedom. We may be
answered that only very short-sighted persons could
fall into this trap. But unhappily such short¬
sightedness is a common disease among Russians,
and this fact renders caution doubly necessary. We
admit of no compromise on this point, and, in case
of a conflict between civil liberty and imperial
socialism, we should take our stand on the side
of “bourgeois” Liberals against the “ peasantist ”
socialists, who allowed themselves to be caught
in such a snare.

We do not believe in the possibility of making
the people prosperous by decrees and edicts from
above. And both imperial and Jacobinical socialism
lead to the same result : the transformation of the
country into a huge workhouse.

Only where there exists general freedom and
where the whole people can judge of and decide
upon social matters, is it possible to practically
realise in life any new ideas or principles, including
the reconstruction of economic relations on the
basis of socialism. By the “people” we mean, not
merely the representatives of physical labour but
the whole nation. Therefore we desire the spread

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

37

of liberty throughout the length and breadth of
the country, that every social organisation should
be permeated by it from centre to periphery. We
flesire: autonomy, local and regional; we desire a
federalism which will render independent all those
races and lands which make up the state. We
{Jesire freedom for all Russians without distinc¬
tion of party; and we are ready to defend it in the
name of that universal sense of civic solidarity
which lies outside of class-questions, and which
exists in all advanced countries in proportion to the
degree of their advancement. To repudiate it for
the sake of any economic philosophy, even of
German origin, would be as unreasonable as to deny
the existence of mutual insurance companies on the
ground that all men are egotists.

It is only by guaranteeing liberty to our opponents
that we can secure our own. The science of liberty
does not consist in knowing how to do and say what
is pleasant or advantageous to ourselves—every one
can manage that without learning how—but in
developing the faculty of tolerating what is un¬
pleasant or even injurious, whenever it is the result
of the use of rights equal to our own.

We do not see why all persons of a progressive
turn of mind who are our opponents on the economic
questions should not pay us back in the same coin.
There is not in our view a single point which

38

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

could hinder us from working in common with
them.

We acknowledge without equivocation that, as
regards the political question, which for us is the
question of the day, our programme is just that of
the advanced section of Russian Liberals, as it has
been stated in the foreign press, and, to such an
extent as the censorship has allowed, in a few
Russian periodicals. We should not hesitate to say
that we subscribe and accept their programme, did
we not know that really we have taken it from the
same source from which they took it: observation
of European life and study of European political
history.

The Russian revolutionists, in consequence of the
peculiar conditions under which their movement was
born, protested for a long time, as we have said,
against “ politics ” ; and when at last they accepted
it, they avoided the beaten track and, wishing to find
out for themselves something new and original, went
by roundabout bypaths according to the proverb :
“Five miles straight, but perhaps three miles round.”

The Liberals, on the contrary, went straight
towards their end without any hair-splitting, and
thus attained to a simpler, more logical, and more
practical standpoint in politics.

In offering our suggestions to our Russian com¬
rades we have laid aside all considerations of

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

39

political opportunism, such as the desire to
“attract” the Liberals. Undoubtedly it is both
desirable and important to avoid all causes of mis¬
understanding and mutual distrust between the two
great branches of our opposition. But it is still
more desirable and important, for the sake of the
party itself, to set our foundation straight, as it
were, to get rid of all confusion of ideas; for such
confusion may, in the future if not now, become a
source of misunderstandings, errors, and even failure.

As for the question of the suggested leaguing
together of Liberals and revolutionists, we hasten
to explain that we are not contemplating any formal
or organic unification. We hold, in contradiction to
the general opinion, that a true organic league
between us and the Liberals will become possible,
not before the revolution, but, to use the common
term, “on the day after” it. To hope that, in a
moment and by one blow, we can win for ourselves
as much liberty as is enjoyed by the English and
Americans, would be too naive. There is far more
reason to suppose that our first portion of liberty
will be a much smaller one, and that it will become
widened later on by the common efforts of all pro¬
gressive parties. Until that time there can be no
question of a common organisation ; attempts at it
can lead to nothing but fruitless destruction. The
parties must remain separate, independent wholes,

40

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

joining together for special practical actions, but
without amalgamating, like diversely equipped
troops forming one army. The Liberal party
cannot, if only because of its size, adopt those
methods of action which are suitable for revolu¬
tionists.

A general league between the parties at the
present time can be only a moral one, based on
mutual comprehension and trust, and on the con¬
sciousness of common interests. It is for such a
league that we wish to make a way by removing
some of the imaginary obstacles. And here, too,
we would choose practice rather than theory, and
application to life rather than abstract propositions.
It is for us a matter of comparative indifference
whether any of our suggestions shall or shall not
enter into any of the numerous home-made “ pro¬
grammes ” concocted every year in various holes
and corners of our huge country. Everything that
has entered into life must necessarily, sooner or
later, find its way into a programme; but much
that stands in programmes will for ever remain a
dead letter in life.

What we fervently desire is that our words may
contribute, in however small a degree, to the de¬
velopment amongst us of greater mutual tolerance,
and especially to the abandoning of the absurd
attitude towards all persons called Liberals, which

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

41

has become customary among revolutionists. Our
party pride and narrowness, our constant drawing
of distinctions between “ours” and “yours,” with
a tacit assumption that we are made of finer clay,
have done more to cause dissensions among us than
all the programmes put together.

And it is useless for us to disguise this foolish
self-laudation under a mask of devotion to the cause
or strictness of principle. Principles have nothing
to do with the matter. As for “ the cause,” it has
become a shame and a sorrow to think of. The
autocracy has descended upon everything that is
alive in Russia like a leaden coffin-lid. Never
before has even our unhappy land lived through so
dark and dreadful a time. After a short period of
stupefaction, the autocracy has evidently determined
to revenge itself for the humiliation of two years’
captivity, for the hesitation caused by terror, and
for its momentary consent to compromise. And it
has succeeded. It triumphs, and no one resists it.
Serfdom, with its most monstrous attributes, has
been practically reintroduced. A gang of official
brigands does what it pleases with Russia ; and the
whips and rods of the police flourish over Russian
heads, in town and country, in prison and street, in
the police stations of the capital, and in far-off
Siberia. Things inconceivable, intolerable, that can
hardly be spoken of aloud, are done, and done with

42

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

impunity. In face of this boundless humiliation, of
this insolent and deliberate outrage upon every¬
thing that is sacred to us, shall there not awake in
us the direct and simple sense of indignation ?
Shall it not sweep away as dust both the dry bones
of dogmatism and all petty quarrels and dissensions,
and show us a comrade and a brother in every man
who is an enemy of our enemy, and who is willing
to take part in the fight ? It is only by our dis¬
sensions, by our incapacity to work together, that
the present system is enabled to stand ; and unless
we can attain to political coherency and learn to act
in unison, it will continue to stand for years and
years.

SUPPLEMENT.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

The present pamphlet was written more than half
a year ago ; 1 and, its publication having been un¬
avoidably delayed, it now appears under conditions
materially different from those under which it was
written. During this period the autocracy has re¬
ceived a blow from which it cannot recover, and
which may possibly shake it to its very foundations.
We speak of the terrible famine which has fallen
upon almost the whole of corn-growing Russia.

1 In January, 1891.

STEPNTAK’S PAMPHLETS.

43

Men have proved powerless and incompetent to
snatch the country out of the hands of the autocracy
before it was too late; and now Nature has risen up
to do the work with her blind and merciless agent,
hunger, which assuredly will sweep away a hundred
times more lives and cause a hundred times more
suffering than the most sanguinary revolution.

This is not a pleasant reflection. But once the
fact is so, it behoves us to think what we shall do
to render a repetition of such misfortunes impossible
in future.

It is needless to explain that the present famine
is the inevitable consequence of that condition of
chronic destitution to which the people had been
reduced before the beginning of this black year.
That is now acknowledged and repeated throughout
the whole Russian press, and the very Government
dares not deny it. It is also superfluous to demon¬
strate that the present crisis cannot pass over with
the current year, but is certain to spread itself over
many coming years, gradually shaking to pieces the
state machinery, bringing the finances into hopeless
confusion, and driving the Government into material
and moral bankruptcy. Already twenty-five (by
some calculations, thirty-four) millions of peasants
—that is to say, over a third of the taxpayers—are
hopelessly ruined, possessing no longer either cattle
seed-corn, or any other means upon which to exist

44

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

and to pay taxes. The necessity of supporting
them, and of somehow filling up the deficit in
the budget, must necessarily result in completing
the ruin of the other two-thirds who are still
contriving to somehow make both ends meet.
The year 1892 threatens to be still darker than the
present year, and we see no prospect of improve¬
ment in the future.

The most favourable atmospheric conditions
cannot produce corn on an unsown field, or render
it possible for the peasants to plough without cattle.
The position is a hopeless one, and we may indeed
look upon the present crisis as the beginning of the
end. All this is plain to see for any one capable of
looking further into the future than to-morrow. We
have spoken of this in order to warn those whom
our words may reach from exaggerating the political
effects of external elemental forces, among which
must be classed such crises as the present one.

We remember how, ten years ago, the enormous
and apparently invincible energy of the revolu¬
tionists, with the executive committee at their
head, favoured the growth, in certain circles, of
a peculiar kind of cowardice. People who, in all
other respects, were reasonable and well meaning
would put forward, as an excuse for their own
inactivity, their belief in the power of the revolu¬
tionists. “ They will smash up the autocracy,”

STEPNIAICS PAMPHLETS.

45

said these enthusiasts; and considered that to offer
help to such Titans would be quite superfluous.
There are people ready to transfer this lazy optim¬
ism to famine, to an unsuccessful war, and to other
such blind forces.

This is a pitiful mistake. Neither war nor famine
will make a revolution for us, or destroy the
autocracy. Economic confusion may bring the
state into a condition of complete bankruptcy, of
incapacity to pay the salaries 'of its officers and
officials, may cause the entire loss of its credit;
and yet the despotism may remain unshaken, as
has happened in the case of Turkey. A war may
reduce Russia to the position of a third-rate
Power without necessarily destroying the auto¬
cracy. Nay, famine may call forth a whole series
of petty popular revolts and disturbances, which
may be each time suppressed, and may end in
nothing but the useless slaughter of now hundreds,
now thousands of rebels. Peasant revolts are a
mere elemental force, which, alone and without
the help of a conscious opposition, cannot change
anything containing an idea, be it even a worn-
out one.

We do not say that the upheaval of elemental
forces, should it take place, will subside leaving
no results. On the contrary, we are convinced
that this will not be the case, just because such

46

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

an outburst of elemental discontent would cer¬
tainly awaken to life and activity the represen¬
tatives of a conscious opposition. We only wish
to point out that for us there is no salvation
without a conscious revolution. Therefore the
most energetic activity on the part of the
conscious opposition is not merely a means of
“hastening events,” as the partisans of “organic
development ” like to express themselves, but a
conditio sine qua non of the very occurrence of such
events.

What are those to do who wish to alleviate the
misery of the people by word and deed, irrespective
of possible consequences to themselves ?

At present famine rages in the country districts
only ; and in several cases those districts have
already witnessed active expressions of popular
misery and despair. Is not the place of the
revolutionists now in the country ? and should
they not turn their energies towards the direct
incitement of the peasants to insurrection ?

Educated and determined persons may do great
service to the popular movement already beginning,
by organising it and giving to it greater energy and
stability and a wider reach. But it is not probable
that revolutionists can have much success as initia¬
tors and arousers of such movements. And this,
not because the work is too great for their powers,

STEPNIAK’S PAMPHLETS .

47

but because it demands means and weapons different
in character from those at our disposal. We cannot
spread rumours of “ Enoch having come to life
again,” or of a “ horse having fallen from the sky
with mystic inscriptions on its back.” Still less
can we circulate tales of mysterious imperial edicts.
Yet such fables, which excite the popular imagina¬
tion, are always at the bottom of peasant insurrec¬
tions. It is possible that this year’s famine may not
provoke any widespread peasant disturbances; and
even if it should do so, they will have to be the
work of the peasants themselves, not of revolu¬
tionists. Our forces are chiefly in the towns; and
there, without being compelled to resort to fables
and inventions, we can organise a direct, energetic,
fully conscious attack which may give the death¬
blow to the shaken autocracy. Shaken it un¬
doubtedly will be by the present crisis, whether
that crisis bring about a peasant war or not. We
do not speak of the non-payment of taxes; the
starving people cannot remain quiet, either in the
villages or in the towns, to which the famine-
stricken masses flock. The central Government
will thus become weakened and its conscious
opponents will be able to overthrow it more easily
than at any other time. Thus it was in the
French Revolution, and thus it must be in our
case.

48

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

By what means and in what way the attack
should be made is a question of tactics which can
only be decided by persons on the spot. All that
we can say is that only a widespread movement,
supported, as far as possible, by the whole mass
of the discontented, can succeed, and that this
moment is peculiarly favourable for such a move¬
ment.

We may compare the present position to defeat
in a war with an external enemy. The terrible
scourge of famine has been brought upon the
country by the Government ; for, under other
conditions, no failure of crops could have caused
anything resembling the present misery. And this
same Government now shows itself utterly incapable
of helping the people in their distress; it has acknow¬
ledged this fact before the whole country, and has
handed over the task to private initiative. Yet, at
the same time, so great is its fear of the public exer¬
cising any control over it, that it places in the way
of such initiative obstacles which render any real
help impossible. Neither Russian society nor those
foreigners who have shown themselves willing to
bring their millions to the aid of the Russian people
care to trust their funds to the uncontrolled disposal
of the Russian bureaucracy. Tens of thousands,
maybe hundreds of thousands, of Russians are
doomed to perish because the Government, which

STEPNIAJCS PAMPHLETS.

49

has refused to help them itself, is afraid to let others
do so.

Such a spectacle is intolerable to all in whom
everything human has not withered up. The
discontent grows more and more intense, and is
becoming universal, spreading through all spheres
of society, sowing dissension and confusion in the
ranks of the Government itself, terrifying it and
paralysing its energy. Anything may be done at
such moments if only the opposition prove capable
of organising the discontent.

The only way out of the present desperate position
is to convoke a general National Assembly, invested
with full powers. Such an assembly could put an
end to political and economic chaos and could give
to the forces of the nation room for general develop¬
ment and a more rational application to all spheres
of labour and thought. Nothing but the introduction
of popular representation can put a stop to the
chronic starvation, financial entanglement, and law¬
lessness which now prevail in Russia. This is
recognised by every one except the Government,
which still thinks only of how to prolong its
shameful existence by fair means or foul.

True, even if not elected, representatives of the
people must compel the Government to lay down
its arms, by moral pressure, by the imposing
strength of the masses gathered round the standard

5 °

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

of constitution, and also by force. We should be
glad to find ourselves mistaken, but we do not think
that our Government will yield until it has exhausted
all means of resistance, and this will force the oppo¬
sition to employ all means in the struggle. Neither
the Liberals nor the revolutionists separately can
overthrow the autocracy. There must be large and
energetic demonstrations, declarations, protests, from
the town and county councils, from the press and
from society; it is absolutely essential that there be
also a free organ to act as a mirror of the movement;
but it is doubtful whether such efforts can bring
about the desired end without direct attacks, without
military and other plots, which would force the
Government to seek refuge in timely compromises.

The pledge of victory is the mutual support of
both sections of the opposition. Therefore our last
word to all friends of the Russian people must be an
appeal to lay aside all sectarian differences for the
sake of the things we all demand, to join together
and to fight. Let us fight on the largest scale that
is open to us, but in any case let us fight, whatever
be the difficulties or the sacrifices.

The terrible disasters through which our country
is passing lay upon us great obligations, and upon
our way of fulfilling them it depends whether Russia
shall enter into the twentieth century as a free
country, or whether, degenerating, falling to pieces,

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

5i

losing her national features, she must shamefully
wait until the march of European progress flings to
her, as an alms, what other nations have conquered
for themselves by heroism and self-sacrifice.

THE AGITATION ABROAD.

I.

In December, 18S9, at a small private meeting of
only four persons, two English and two Russians,
it was determined to found in England a society,
with the object of helping forward the cause of
Russian emancipation by all means legitimate for
foreigners.

Taking into consideration the English dread of
“ responsibility,” and consequent dislike of interfering
in anything which they do not thoroughly understand,
we might have supposed the success of the project to
be very doubtful. But one of the two English persons
was Robert Spence Watson, now President of the
Liberal Federation of Great Britain, one of the most
influential and gifted Englishmen of our time. To
his fresh and living enthusiasm for the Russian
cause, to his energy and the powerful fascination
of his personality, we owe it that, in little more than
two months, dozens of the most respected names in
England were written down in the list of members
of the new society.

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

53

The motives which induced Dr. Spence Watson
(a man no longer young and as busy as only English
statesmen are) to take up the Russian agitation are
so characteristic, and the further success of the agi¬
tation is so largely his work, that it may be worth
while to say a few words about him personally.

Dr. Spence Watson is a Newcastle man, a lawyer
of radical convictions. He comes of an old family,
which belonged to the Society of Friends, and has
long been distinguished for its fervent sympathy with
the cause of liberty in all countries and for all nations.
His father was a strong reformer, a friend of John
Bright and Lloyd Garrison, and Dr. Watson him¬
self, having come under the personal influence of
Kossuth, Garibaldi, and Felice Orsini, at the age of
twenty, was much inclined to fling over the Quaker’s
unconditional objection to war and join Garibaldi’s
“ Thousand ” which landed in Sicily in i860. Ten
years later, at the time of the Franco-Prussian war,
he collected a large sum of money for the relief of
the French peasants ruined by the war, and, without
waiting for the promulgation of peace, went out to
the scene of hostilities to distribute the funds in
person. This form of philanthropy proved to be
almost more dangerous than direct participation in
the fighting. He had more to fear from friends than
from enemies. On several occasions he nearly lost
his life because the French imagined him to be a

54

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

Prussian spy who had come under the pretext of
philanthropy to examine their position.

In 1877, during the Russo-Turkish war, he was
an ardent partisan of Russia, as, like Mr. Gladstone,
he then believed that the Russian Government really
desired to free Bulgaria. His great influence in
the north of England counted for much in bringing
about that revulsion of English public opinion and
political action which followed the famous disclosures
of the “ Bulgarian Atrocities.”

A man with such antecedents and with sympathies
so wide could not fail to be interested in the sudden
outburst of internal discontent in Russia itself, that
Russian revolutionary movement which in Western
Europe has been dubbed “ Nihilism.” When a series
of publications appeared in the English language
explaining the meaning and aim of this struggle,
the position of the people, the mutual relations of
Government and society, that interest gradually
grew into profound sympathy. Such sympathy does
not necessarily imply complete solidarity, but renders
impossible all narrowness of view, and enables men
to rise above prejudices and dissensions and to
understand by simple human feeling all that is
great and noble in a movement such as ours.

The publication of Mr. Kennan’s Siberian articles
was the last touch which converted this feeling into
an overpowering impulse to do something to relieve,

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLE TS.

55

in however slight a degree, the miseries that had
produced so deep an impression.

At one of the preliminary meetings of the future
Society, Dr. Watson, speaking of his resolve to give
some practical expression to his sympathy with the
cause of Russian freedom, said, “ We cannot remain
indifferent spectators of the cruelties that are inflicted
upon our neighbours in Russia. We must help in
some way, however little may be the help that we
can give. For us this is a question of duty and of
conscience; for some of us it is a question of our
peace of mind.”

In answer to this appeal was formed, in 1890,
the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom, with a
committee consisting of twenty-eight members.
The committee now contains ten members of Par¬
liament and several leaders of the Radical party,
such as Professor Stuart, Mr. Burt, Mr. Allanson
Picton, and others. On the committee list we also
find such names as Stopford Brooke, Percy Bunting,
Charles Berry, Mrs. Mallet, &c. The first and most
difficult step was taken. In the following year, 1891,
the organisation spread to America, where another
society was formed resembling the English one in
aims and character, and with as influential a com¬
mittee.

In this manner the Russian work abroad was first
formulated and organised. Both societies, from their

56

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

very beginning, have kept before them definite aims
and a clear understanding of what means they judge
fit to use for the attainment of those aims.

Neither society confines itself to protesting against
special instances of Russian tyranny, such as the
Siberian horrors and the brutal treatment of political
prisoners in exile, although these are the things
which make the strongest impression upon foreigners.
The societies hold a wider view of their work ; and,
believing that the root of the mischief lies in the
autocracy itself, have set before themselves as an
aim the support from without of those who are
fighting against the autocracy within the country.

This more radical attitude of the societies towards
the Russian question shows a fuller understanding
on the part of foreigners of the true position of
Russia. Simultaneously with the founding of the
English society, another society, with as wide a
programme, was started in Denver, in the far
west of America, on the initiative of Mr. Scott
Saxon, an enthusiast in Russian affairs. At the
present time, in both England and America, one
may meet everywhere persons who feel in this way
towards Russian affairs.

Far more complex is the question: How can
practical help be given ?

The struggle for liberty, wherever it takes place,
always meet with sympathy and support among free

STEPNJAK‘S PAMPHLETS.

57

peoples. When matters reach the length of open
insurrection that sympathy and support express
themselves in a very simple manner, by the collec¬
tion of funds for the war and by the enlisting of
volunteers. Foreign volunteers took part with the
Americans in their War of Independence; with the
Greeks and Slavs every time those races rose
against Turkey ; with the Poles in their insurrec¬
tions, and with Garibaldi in all his campaigns.
Foreign volunteers would certainly join us too,
should any Russian Garibaldi raise the standard
of armed insurrection.

Open insurrection is a kind of plebiscite to which
all the nation is called to decide by siding with the
one party or the other, what kind of social order
it prefers. But so long as the fight is carried on
by means of plots and secret societies, over which
the nation has no direct control, foreigners have
no place in it. Only Russians can uphold, before
the face of the country and before that part of
society on which retaliation on the part of the
Government weighs most heavily, the supreme
right of men in a no-thoroughfare. We mean the
right of every man to defend himself and his
own, his honour, his life, and his human dignity
by any means possible, whatever be the results of
them, when less objectionable means of self-defence
are rendered impossible. Only Russians, fighting in

58

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

the name of the people and taking upon themselves
to decide what the people need and wish, can offer
not only a warrant of sincerity which is testified by
their readiness to sacrifice their own lives, but also
the warrant of competency to understand the needs
and conditions of life of the land for which they are
fighting.

All these considerations, suggested by simple
respect for the rights and dignity of the Russian
people, were thought of when the programme of the
new society was drawn up. The English, and after
it the American, society distinctly stated that the
form of active help which they could give to the
Russian liberation movement would be to win over
to its side, by means of free agitation, the public
opinion, first of their own country, and then of other
free lands. This form of help contains no trace
of license or forced interference in the domestic
affairs of another country, and merely represents
the use of the inalienable right of all men to express
freely what they think and feel.

Here we come to the oft-repeated question : Can
anything so intangible as the expression of what
foreigners think and feel exercise any serious in¬
fluence over the course of events in Russia ? Can
we expect that a Government which remains deaf
to the demands of public opinion at home will listen
to the voice of foreigners? Or that the stagnant

STEPNIAK’S PAMPHLETS .

59

iters of Russian patience will be stirred, even to
perceptible ripple, by any storm raised in far-off
nds—nay, on the other side of the globe ?

These questions and doubts are quite serious, and
iserve our full attention. We will, therefore, try
state as clearly as possible our view of the
Ration abroad, its conditions, and the extent of
> possible influence.

It is hardly necessary to explain that we fully
iderstand that such influence must, by its very
iture, be limited. The Russian question must
: solved on Russian soil by Russian efforts. That
as it must and as it should be. Every nation
orthy of liberty must win her for itself. But we
aintain that, with an active support from Russia,
ie agitation abroad may become a valuable help
i the struggle; that, whereas in Russia every step
>sts terrible sacrifices, the Russian opposition, by
orking abroad can, without any sacrifices and with
trifling expenditure of energy, create a force which
ie Government, in spite of its millions of bayonets,
ill have to take into account.

At the first glance these hopes may seem, to say
ie least, exaggerated.

It is quite true that the proposed plan of making

6o

NIHILISM AS 77 IS.

use of the foreign press is something new, un¬
known in former revolutions. But we must not
forget that during the last forty or fifty years there
have happened in the world many new things which
formerly did not exist, or existed only in the germ.
Moreover, the position of Russia and of the Russian
question abroad is also a quite new one.

The sum of many different general influences,
both intellectual and political, have created, so to
say, a new force: the periodical press, above all the
daily press, the newspaper. At any rate they have
developed it to an astonishing extent, rendering it
the greatest power in the world of to-day. The
sum of other conditions and influences has, as it
were, placed this enormous force at the disposal of
the Russian opposition.

Russia, with her population of over a hundred
millions, increasing at so exceptionally rapid a rate,
has always been, and must continue to be, a state
of the first rank as regards her influence on the
general course of European history. The overthrow
of autocracy and the establishment of a free con¬
stitutional government in Russia will be an in¬
calculable boon to humanity, for with it is bound
up the question of the deliverance of all Central
Europe from the iron yoke of militarism. The fall
of the autocracy in St. Petersburg will render
superfluous and, therefore, impossible the con-

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

61

tinuance of the half-autocracy in Berlin. And all
the international relations, the whole political life
of Europe will be changed when true liberty is
introduced into Germany. On the other hand,
every further year that the Russian autocracy
continues to exist is a source of further anxieties,
dangers, nervous tension and material loss and
expense for the whole western world.

The Russian question is therefore a question of
enormous international importance, and concerns
far more interests than those of the Russian people
alone. This circumstance is of the greatest con¬
sequence, as it gives stability and firmness to the
Russian cause abroad. Apart from temporary ex¬
citements, apart from the ebb and flow of political
curiosity, all that happens in Russia will always be
a matter of deep interest to thinking persons of all
civilised nations. Sympathy with the Russian
movement will grow, steadily and constantly,
together with the growth of general interest in
politics and social questions.

This international character of the Russian
question also affords us the best answer to one
special accusation. The Russian official press has
long been observing our movement. As usual, it
has accused us of “treason,” and has poured upon
us a flood of abuse for leaguing with “ the enemies
of Russia.”

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

To the gentlemen in the pay of the Russian
Government we have nothing to say. But we
respect and appreciate patriotic feeling in so far
as it is a manifestation of love to one’s own race,
not an expression of rapacious instincts towards
other races. We would rather see in our friends
an exaggerated jealousy towards anything that really
concerns the dignity of Russian people, than in¬
difference. And, therefore, to those who are honestly
hurt by the interference of foreigners in our domestic
quarrels, we answer that modern nations have no
longer any “domestic” quarrels, properly so-called.
Once we have telegraph wires—those nerves of the
collective human body—to instantly spread over
everywhere the knowledge of all the wrongs and
sorrows of the world, all the world suffers with
the griefs and misfortunes of every separate people.
Every man, as a man, has the right to war against
evil, wherever he find it, in the name of the moral
suffering which it causes him ; he has the right to
defend from that suffering both himself and those
near to him.

No one now recognises the pretensions of various
domestic tyrants to the right of exercising domestic
tyranny on the ground that “ a household is a
secret, private thing,” to use the expression put
into their mouth by our great national dramatist.
And yet the demand for political non-interference,

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS . 63

put forward by those to whom the misery of the nation
is advantageous, bears just the same character.

But these considerations may appear too abstract
and sentimental for a political pamphlet. We
therefore prefer to take our stand upon the palpable
and inalienable right of foreigners to fight against
the Russian autocracy as against a principle
injurious to themselves, inimical to liberty, retarding
progress in their own land .

But we, too, are Europeans. For to be a
Russian does not involve counting oneself an
Asiatic—at least not necessarily so. General
European interests are dear to us for their own
sake, irrespective of their possible influence on
Russian life. We, together with all the advanced
parties in Europe, desire to see realised in European
life, as rapidly and with as little hindrance as may
be, the great principles brought to light by modern
social science. We desire the unhindered develop¬
ment of our common culture.

Thus in the struggle on European soil against
Russian Tzarism we can join with Europeans as
comrades, on a basis of mutual help, in a cause
which we consider a quite general one. As for our
Jingoes, indignant—perhaps even sincerely indig¬
nant—at such a league, we can afford to treat them
with the same complete indifference with which we
revolutionists treat the howls of the knights-

64

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

errant of obscurantism in Russia. The analogy is
cqmplete.

We hope the reader will not take the above to
mean that we attribute the foreign support of the
Russian movement to utilitarian motives and policy.
We must not confuse what is really the lawful
sanction —or rather one sanction—of a movement
with its true motive force. The right to take part
in a particular struggle, the right to sacrifice for it
time, money, or greater things, has never yet
impelled a single human being to really take part
in it, or really to sacrifice anything for its sake.
For this we need something deeper and more
impulsive ; we need the living sympathy which
alone can induce a man to labour for the good of
others without any advantage to himself—even, it
may be, to his own detriment.

This living sympathy is the cause of the move¬
ment in Russia, and just so this is the cause of it
in England.

But what should suddenly arouse in English
people such sympathy with us ? What miracle ?
Why this love for Russian liberty and this unselfish
desire to help it ? Have the English not cares
and difficulties enough of their own ?

Dropping water wears away a stone. The con¬
tinual talk about the “ historical enmity ” to us of
“ perfidious Albion ” has left its trace in the minds

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS . 65

even of honest and well-meaning persons ; and this
of course opens to the partisans of reaction a wide
field for hints and insinuations.

To those whose astonishment is sincere we can
say that they are beginning to be surprised too late
in the day. There was a time when the name of
Russia was really an object of hatred, in England
and throughout Europe ; when it was identified
with the idea of strangled Poland and Hungary, of
a sullen brute force upholding everything reac¬
tionary and inhuman in the rest of Europe. But
that time is irrevocably past; there now remain
but few who confuse the Russian people with
the Russian Government. Russia has ceased to
be "The Gendarme of Europe”; she has become
the land of Siberian exiles, the land of tyranny
and of the hopeless misery of the masses; she
has become the true Russia which we have known
and over which we have mourned.

This change of feeling has come about gradually
during the last fifteen or twenty years. The way
was prepared by a number of serious investiga¬
tions which acquainted the scientific and literary
world with the Russian people and with Russian
culture. But the principal forces at work in the
accomplishment of this decided transformation
were undoubtedly the Russian novel on the one
hand and the Russian revolutionary movement on
6

66

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

the other: the poetry of form and the poetry of
action; the fascination of the genius of creation
and of the genius of self-sacrifice.

The immense success of the Russian novel
abroad is known to all educated people. It is a fact
not only of literary importance, but of the gravest
political significance; it marks an epoch for the
Russian cause abroad. Our great novelists have
been the propagandists of the Russian idea; they
have been the first to convince other nations that
the Russian people is not a horde of barbarians,
but a great and civilised nation, with boundless
potentialities of future development. Reflecting,
with the completeness and universality of genius,
all sides of Russian life, they have opened to
foreigners a whole new world, amazing in its
depth and enchanting in its wealth and variety;
they first have shown to outsiders the real Russia
which had lain hidden behind a forest of bayonets.
And there is now no corner of the earth to which
the Russian novel has not penetrated, or where
it has not won for the Russian people friends and
possible partisans of liberty.

The Russian revolutionary movement also has
been a revelation to foreigners, as a proof of a
political crisis and internal struggle, the existence
of which they had not suspected. It showed them
the Russians in a new light; it attracted their

STEPNfAK'S PAMPHLETS.

67

attention by the energy and dramatic force of the
unequal conflict; it conquered their hearts by the
irresistible force of sacrifice. This self-abnegation
disarms enmity and transforms reproaches and
accusations into wondering inquiry already only one
step removed from sympathy. The Russian move¬
ment, though not understood, has become a living
epos of our time, winning over to its side public
opinion, and awakening alike amazement and
sympathy.

America and England read with horror Kennan’s
mournful narrative, which has left an indelible
trace on the mind of the whole contemporary
world. Kennan’s great work has, once and for
all, dispelled the prejudices and misunderstandings
concerning our movement, and has placed its aims,
motives, and significance in their true light.

These are the sources of the Russian sympathies
of foreigners. At the present time there are,
among our “ historical enemies ” the English, just
as among our “ transatlantic friends,” thousands
of persons who have become true friends to the
real Russia, the Russia of the people. They
know and appreciate Russian literature ; they
understand the Russian race, know of its troubles,
fervently desire its well-being, and believe in its
future. We have even, to our astonishment, met
with persons who look to Russia for the “new world.”

68

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

Such persons are, of course, exceptional natures,
peculiarly impressionable and responsive to the
afflictions of others. They are rare in any one
spot; but, counted together, their name is legion;
and all these are potential workers for the Russian
cause abroad.

With the mass of the reading public the interest
in Russia is, of course, superficial. This could
not be otherwise, considering the intensity of life
in Europe and the press of burning home-questions.
But the interest undoubtedly exists, and, being
spread over so wide a field, forms an enormous
total strength, capable of being utilised for practical
work.

Several years ago, reading the biography of
Carlo Cattaneo, the hero of the Milan revolution
of 1848 and one of the profoundest thinkers of his
time, we came upon the following singular fact.
Cattaneo, who was not only a savant but a brilliant
journalist, and who realised the value of foreign
public opinion, wished to insert in The Times a
series of articles. They were intended to acquaint
the English public with the state of affairs in
Italy, and with the problems before the Italian
revolutionists, whom the average Englishman of
that day pictured to himself as monsters of much
the same kind as the later popular image of the
“ nihilist.” But notwithstanding all the efforts of

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS. 69

his English friends, Cattaneo succeeded in getting
inserted only one article; the other two he was
obliged to publish himself in pamphlet form.

The sympathy of the leaders of. public opinion
and the interest in everything Russian, shown by
the mass of the reading public, have opened to
the Russian cause not only the columns of The
Times , but also those of the leading papers of all
countries, with the exception of France, who still
amuses herself with her toy, the “Russian Alliance.”

But we make hardly any use of this power. The
amount of information that comes from Russia is
so small that only an infinitesimal part of the
demand can be supplied at first-hand and from
authentic sources. But once there is a demand
it must be satisfied; and therefore the foreign
papers are crowded with all kinds of nonsense
about Russia; often with pure inventions, refuted
the following day. This only puzzles the public,
and casts a shadow of doubt even on authentic
news. It is difficult for foreigners to disentangle
this mass of statements, and find out where is
truth and where falsehood.

A public opinion formed under such conditions
cannot have due weight; and the force of the edu¬
cated world’s indignation and sympathy is, as it
were, lost in a bog.

The special aim of the “ Society of Friends of

70

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

Russian Freedom,” is to alter this condition of
affairs and to utilise in appropriate ways the force
given by the sympathy both of that minority for
whom the Russian cause is no longer a foreign
cause and of the general mass of educated
society.

As a means towards the solving of this double
problem the society issues a newspaper, as yet of
small size, in the English language, in London and
New York simultaneously. Of this paper, Free
Russia, we wish to speak more in detail. It has
existed for three and a half years and has now its
own circle of five or six thousand readers, the
number of which still increases. Notwithstanding
the shortness of the period that it has existed, it
has won for itself a certain position among the varied
mass of periodicals, as the leading organ for Russian
affairs. Its voice is beginning to be listened to both
in England and on the Continent. This is very
much for such a paper, but very little for the
Russian cause. So far, the organ has only an
educative value. It unites in practical work the
friends of Russian freedom who are scattered every¬
where; it maintains in a certain circle interest in
the Russian cause, and explains by current examples
the character and significance of the Russian political
crisis. All this prepares the soil; the real work;
the real fight will begin only when the paper be-

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

7 1

comes a weapon for widespread and continual in¬
fluence on the great papers which are read not by
thousands but by millions.

The Russian autocracy cannot exist without the
support of Western Europe; it is in constant need
of money to fill up the holes in its budget; it needs
alliances or friendly neutrality in order that its
showy external politics may distract attention from
the festering sores of its internal politics. In Europe
public opinion rules everything, from the Exchange
to Parliaments and Cabinets; and the press rules
public opinion. For the Russian Government to
maintain as far as possible in the European press
a friendly feeling towards itself is not a sentimental
desire but a matter of state necessity. And, indeed,
notwithstanding its affectation of Olympian serenity,
the Russian Government furtively tries to paralyse,
by fair means or foul, all propaganda hostile to
itself. It hires special literary agents, and, though
needing every farthing of its resources, maintains
foreign papers and bribes everything that is venal in
the European press. When one of the English
“ smart journalists,” then editor of the Russophile
Pall Mall Gazette , went to St. Petersburg, lie was
received with almost official honours. The doors
of the Winter Palace were opened wide for him, and
the Tzar himself favoured the clever journalist with
a long personal audience which many a high Russian

72

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

official, wishing to speak on matters of national im¬
portance, might have begged for in vain.

If this is Olympian serenity, what is currying
favour ?

By winning over public opinion to the side of
Russian freedom and the Russian people, and thus
rendering it hostile to the Russian Government, we
can strike the latter a direct, positive, and effectual
blow. We have already struck one such blow by
undermining at its very foundations the sympathy of
the only sincere and trustworthy allies whom the
Russian Government had in Europe, the English
Liberals, who have now become our principal
partisans. We can do more by extending our
agitation to the Continent.

There is one question over which the Russian
Government has shown an extraordinary sensitive¬
ness and an excitability which verges on the absurd.
We refer to the extradition of political offenders.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of roubles
have been made clucks and drakes of to buy over
officials, judges, and ministers in France, Switzer¬
land, and Germany; state interests have been
recklessly sacrificed for the sake of extradition
treaties; so vehemently does the Government
long to put its claws upon some two or three
extra “nihilists,” and have a chance to boast
before the Russian people of the solidarity and
support of its great western neighbours.

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

73

Thanks to the agitation on English soil, and to it
alone, not one lackey now dares to suggest such a
treaty with England. In America our position is
almost as strong as in this country. The attempt
of the Russian Government to openly obtain an
extradition treaty in 1886 has been ignominiously
defeated by a little stirring up of American public
opinion. The friends of the Russian Government
dared not so much as to bring the matter before
the Senate, and the project was quietly withdrawn
by them.

Any open attempt of this kind would have met
with the same fate if it had been open to public
discussion, be it only for a few weeks. The Russian
minister in Washington and his partisans in the
legislature knew that, and they resorted to an
actual conspiracy in order to palm off upon the
unprepared Senate a treaty which they would have
repudiated if they had time to learn what it actually
meant. The effect of the ratification of the treaty
was not entirely harmful: the indignation it has
called forth infused new life to our movement in the
United States, and it gave Russia’s true friends a
practical object for their agitation. But the trick
would not have succeeded at all if our agitation had
spread in the United States not only in breadth but
in depth as in England, and the American legislature
had among its members men like Mr. Allanson

74

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

Picton, Mr. Byles, Mr. Chalmers Morton, and
others, who need no explanation to understand and
bring home to their colleagues the bearing of any
such project.

We have not been able to prevent the ratification
of extradition treaties with Germany, Austria, and
Switzerland. Our strength in these countries is not
sufficient to produce any noticeable effect upon the
public opinion.

But we are convinced that when once we can
obtain a firm foothold in those countries, we shall be
able to annul the treaties and turn the temporary
delight and triumph of the Russian Government into
shame and disappointment.

We can put more than one spoke into the wheel
of our rulers if we trust at once in public opinion
and in organised groups of persons of influence in
the political, legal, and financial spheres of each
separate country.

III.

But long before the Russian movement abroad
can become an international political force, it will
become a moral force of real influence on both sides
of the Russian frontier.

We render full justice to the stupidity and deaf¬
ness of our rulers. But we must avoid exaggerating

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS.

75

anything, even the obscurantism of Russian Govern¬
mental circles. The Government has remained—
and can afford to remain—indifferent to mere dis¬
approval, based on general ideas and considerations,
or on facts of doubtful authenticity; but towards
such things as the exposing of the Yakutsk massacre
and the Kara brutalities it could not take up an
attitude of indifference. It ordered an investigation,
it tried to justify itself through the mouths of its
higher officials.

And yet there are committed in Russia every day
—we might almost say every hour—outrages upon
human rights and persons as monstrous as the
Yakutsk massacre or the Kara tragedy. They may
be less sensational, but they are as horrible, if only
because their victims are not units, but thousands
of innocent persons. At present all this is hidden
away. But our friends in Russia only need to make
a small effort, and these things could be upon every
tongue.

If one-tenth—nay, one-hundredth—of the shameful
deeds that are committed in Russia in the dark, were
brought to light, day by day, and pilloried before
the whole educated world, neither the Russian
Government nor any other could remain indifferent.
Quite apart from the unconquerable sense of shame
which is felt by even bullies of the purest water when
actions of theirs are exposed which they themselves

76

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

cannot deny to be disgraceful, another feeling begins
to show itself—the fear of the reflected influence
which such exposures must have upon public opinion
in Russia itself.

The assiduousness of the French Republic may
to some extent paralyse the external results of the
agitation abroad ; but its reflection within Russia
cannot be paralysed, and will grow with its growth.
We hope to follow up, in time, the publication of
the English newspaper with editions in several
European languages, Russian among the number.
George Kennan, to whom belongs the lion’s share
in the creation of the Russian movement abroad,
has already suggested the simultaneous issue in
America of Free Russia in English and in Russian.

This, in our eyes, is the final aim and meaning of
the agitation abroad. With the exception of France,
the whole Western world sympathises with the
cause of Russian liberation. As to France, we can
do without her. The Anglo-Saxon race, England
and America—not to speak of the other continental
nations—forms a sufficiently broad support for any
movement. Among the English and Americans we
have thousands of fervent partisans who are willing
to express their sympathy, not in words alone. Their
only difficulty is to realise how and by what means
they can help in a struggle of such peculiar character
as that in Russia. To them we say : Help us to

STEPNIAK'S PAMPHLETS .

77

show the world a true and, as far as possible,
complete picture of what is being done in our time
in Russia. Light, if well concentrated and well
directed, can traverse enormous distances with a
scarcely perceptible diminution of intensity; and
what is done in Russia can be clearly seen by a
light thrown from London or New York. Let us,
then, unite our efforts to throw this light upon
Russia ; for if we can do that, sympathy from abroad
will, to some extent, replace the publicity that is
forbidden within the land.

We, as Russians, have a right to invite foreigners
to join in this irreproachable work. Foreigners have
undertaken and will continue it, as it is fully in
harmony with the spirit, customs, and ideas of free
peoples.

Our paper receives material help and expressions of
sympathy from all parts of the earth, even from such
far-off corners as South Africa, New Zealand, and the
Malay Archipelago. In England and America there
have gathered round the paper groups of friends,
who, for determination, stedfastness, and serious
attitude towards their work, might serve as an
example to many Russian organisations. The
support given to the movement already begun may
increase to an unlimited extent if only the mass of
sympathisers can see tangible proof that the work
which they have undertaken is really serious, that

78

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

their agitation may really become an actual power,
that it does truly, to some extent, take the place of
the right of publicity in Russia. Nothing but active
support from Russia can convince them of this.

IV.

We appeal to all opponents of the Russian auto¬
cracy without distinction of party—to socialists
and Liberals alike. Our work stands outside of
all parties ; it is devoted solely to the interests of
Russian political freedom, which all Russian parties
agree in desiring.

Everything that affects the fate of Russia depends
upon what is done in Russia by Russians. The
work abroad is no exception to this rule. Nay, we
may even say that the efficacy—the very possibility
—of the movement abroad depends upon the exist¬
ence of an active protest in Russia. Who is
interested in the question of, say, Turkish or Persian
liberty, when the Turks and Persians in no way
show themselves discontented ? An agitation abroad
can grow and develop only if there is a parallel
movement on Russian soil. The present foreign
movement is nothing more than a reflection of the
struggle which existed in Russia in the seventies and
in the beginning of the eighties. The best help that

STEPNIAfC'S PAMPHLETS.

79

our Russian comrades can now give to the foreign
movement is to take part in the struggle which is
coming into life in Russia.

The beginning of the nineties promises to open a
new epoch for the Russian revolutionary movement.
In face of the utter incapacity of the Government to
cope with the terrible misfortune which it has brought
upon the land, the discontent in Russia is becoming
wider and keener, and is spreading to spheres of
society which up till now have been mere ballast in
politics. The villages are already in a state of dis¬
turbance. But one need not be a prophet to foresee
that there will soon be far greater disturbance in
the towns, where the conscious opposition is concen¬
trated, and to which the irritated, starving crowds
are flocking. Under such conditions the discontent
must inevitably find active expression in one form or
another; and, we hope, in a wider form than it has
taken up till now. The fate of Russia depends, to a
great extent, upon what takes place during the next
two or three years. But, just because of the
enormous importance of the moment, it would be
an unpardonable blunder not to employ in the
interests of the Russian movement an instrument
of such large effect upon the consciousness of society
as the free foreign press. The foreign press must
complete and uphold our work ; it must increase the
weight of every blow, thus rendering the victory

8 o

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

easier and shortening the trying period of struggle.
And we must remember that every month, every
week of the fight costs Russia hundreds of victims,
ruins thousands of lives which might be preserved
for a better future.

LETTER SENT BY THE REVOLU¬
TIONARY EXECUTIVE COM¬
MITTEE TO ALEXANDER III.
AT HIS ACCESSION TO THE
THRONE.

“ March io, 1881.

“ Your Majesty, — Although the Executive
Committee understands fully the grievous oppres¬
sion that you must experience at this moment, it
believes that it has no right to yield to the feeling of
natural delicacy which would perhaps dictate the
postponement of the following explanation to another
time. There is something higher than the most
legitimate human feeling, and that is duty to one’s
country—the duty for which a citizen must sacrifice
himself and his own feelings, and even the feelings
of others. In obedience to this all-powerful duty
we have decided to address you at once, waiting for
nothing, as will wait for nothing the historical pro¬
cess that threatens us with rivers of blood and the
most terrible convulsions.

7

82

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

V “ The tragedy enacted on the Ekaterinski Canal 1
was not a mere casualty, nor was it unexpected.
After all that had happened in the course of the
previous decade it was absolutely inevitable, and in
that fact consists its deep significance for a man
who has been placed by fate at the head of Govern¬
mental authority. Such occurrences can be ex¬
plained as the results of individual malignity, or
even of the evil disposition of ‘ gangs ’ only by
one who is wholly incapable of analysing the life of
a nation. For then whole years, notwithstanding
the strictest persecution, notwithstanding the sacri¬
fice by the late Emperor’s Government of liberty,
even its own dignity ; notwithstanding the absolute
sacrifice of everything in the attempt to suppress
the revolutionary movement, that movement has
obstinately extended, attracting to itself the best
elements of the country, the most energetic and
self-sacrificing people of Russia, and the revolu¬
tionists have carried on for three years a desperate
warfare with the administration.

“You are aware, your Majesty, that the govern¬
ment of the late Government could not be accused
of a lack of energy. It hanged the innocent and
guilty and filled prisons and remote provinces with
exiles. Tens of so-called ‘ leaders ’ were cap¬
tured and hanged, and died with the courage and
1 The place where Alexander II. was killed.

LETTER TO ALEXANDER III.

83

tranquillity of martyrs; but the movement did not
cease—on the contrary, it grew and strengthened.
The revolutionary movement, your Majesty, is not
dependent upon any particular individuals. It is a
process of the social organism, and the scaffolds
raised for its more energetic exponents are as
powerless to save the outgrown order of things as
the cross that was erected for the Redeemer was
powerless to save the ancient world from the triumph
of Christianity. The Government, of course, may
yet capture and harry an immense number of indi¬
viduals, it may break up a great number of separate
revolutionary groups, it may even destroy the most
important of existing revolutionary organisations;
but all this will not change in the slightest degree
the condition of affairs. Revolutionists are the
creation of circumstances of the general discontent
of the people—of the striving of Russia after a new
social framework. It is impossible to exterminate
a whole people—it is impossible, by means of re¬
pression, to stifle its discontent. Discontent only
grows the more when it is repressed. For this
reason the places of slain revolutionists are con¬
stantly taken by new individuals, who come forth
from among the people in ever-increasing numbers,
and who are still more embittered, still more ener¬
getic. These persons, in order to carry on the
conflict, form an association in the light of the

8 4

NIHILISM AS II IS.

experience of their predecessors, and the revolu¬
tionary organisation thus grows stronger numerically
and in quality with the lapse of time. This we
actually see from the history of the last ten years.
Of what use was it to destroy the Dolgushinzy, 1
the Chaikovzy, and the workers of 1874? Their
places were taken by much more resolute democrats.
Then the awful repressive measures of the Govern¬
ment called upon the stage the terrorists of 1878
and 1879. In vain the Government put todeatli the
Kovalskys, the Dubrovins, the Ossinskys, and the
Lisogubs. In vain it destroyed dozens of revolu¬
tionary circles. From among those incomplete
organisations, by virtue of natural selection, arose
only stronger forms, until at last there has appeared
an Executive Committee, with which the Govern¬
ment has not yet been able successfully to
deal.

“ A dispassionate glance at the grievous decade
through which we have just passed will enable us to
forecast accurately the future progress of the revo¬
lutionary movement, provided the policy of the
Government does not change. The movement will
continue to grow and extend, deeds of terrorist
nature will increase in frequency and intensity,
and the revolutionary organisation will constantly

1 The famous groups of so-called propagandists, who vir¬
tually began the modern revolutionary struggle.

LETTER TO ALEXANDER III.

85

set forth in the places of destroyed groups stronger
and more perfect forms. Meanwhile the number of
the discontented in the country will grow larger and
larger; confidence in the Government on the part of
the people will decline, and the idea of revolution,
of its possibility and inevitability, will establish
itself in Russia more and more firmly. A terrible
explosion, a bloody hurly-burly, a revolutionary
earthquake throughout Russia will complete the
destruction of the old order of things. Upon
what depends this terrible prospect ? Yes, your
Majesty, ‘ terrible and lamentable ’! Do not take
this for a mere phrase. We understand better than
any one else can how lamentable is the waste of so
much talent and energy, the loss in bloody skir¬
mishes, and in the work of destruction of so much
strength, that under other conditions might have
been expended in creative labour and in the develop¬
ment of the intelligence, the welfare, and civil life
of the Russian people. Whence proceeds this
lamentable necessity for bloody conflict ? It arises,
your Majesty, from the lack in Russia of a real
Government in the true sense of that word. A
Government, in the very nature of things, should
only give outward form to the aspirations of the
people and effect to the people’s will. But with us
—excuse the expression—the Government has de¬
generated into a mere camarilla, and deserves the

86

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

name of a ‘ usurping gang ’ much more than does
the Executive Committee.

“ Whatever may be the intentions of the Tzar, the
actions of the Government have nothing in common
with the popular welfare or the popular aspirations. |
The Imperial Government subjected the people to
serfdom, put the masses into the power of the
nobility, and is now openly creating the most in¬
jurious class of speculators and jobbers. All of its
reforms result merely in a more perfect enslavement
and a more complete exploiting of the people. It
has brought Russia to such a pass that at the
present time the masses of the people are in a state
of pauperism and ruin, are subjected to the most
humiliating surveillance, even at their own domestic
hearths, and are powerless to regulate their own
communal and social affairs. The protection of the
law and of the Government is enjoyed only by the
extortionists and the exploiters, and the most ex¬
asperating robbery goes unpunished. But, on the
other hand, what a terrible fate awaits the man who
seriously considers the general good ! You know
very well, your Majesty, that it is not only social¬
ists who are exiled and prosecuted. Can it be
possible that the Government is the guardian of such
* order ’ ? Is it not rather probable that this is
the work of a ‘ gang,’ the evidence of a complete
usurpation ?

LETTER TO ALEXANDER III.

87

“ These are the reasons why the Russian Govern¬
ment exerts no moral influence and has no support
among the people. These are the reasons why
Russia brings forth so many revolutionists. These
are the reasons why even such a deed as Tzaricide
excites in the minds of a majority of the people
only gladness and sympathy. Yes, your Majesty!
do not be deceived by the reports of flatterers and
sycophants—Tzaricide in Russia is popular.

“ From such a state of affairs there can be only
two exits : either a revolution, absolutely inevitable
and not to be averted by any punishments, or a
voluntary turning of the Supreme Power to the
people. In the interest of our native land, in the
hope of preventing the useless waste of energy, in
the hope of averting the terrible miseries that
always accompany revolution, the Executive Com¬
mittee approaches your Majesty with the advice
to take the second course. Be assured, so soon
as the Supreme Power ceases to rule arbitrarily,
so soon as it firmly resolves to accede to the
demands of the people’s conscience and conscious¬
ness, you may, without fear, discharge the spies
that disgrace the administration, send your guards
back to their barracks, and burn the scaffolds that
are demoralising the people. The Executive Com¬
mittee will voluntarily terminate its own existence,
and the organisations formed about it will disperse,

88

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

in order that their members may devote themselves
to the work of culture among the people of their
native land.

“We address your Majesty as those who have
discarded all prejudices and who have suppressed
the distrust created by the actions of the Govern¬
ment throughout the century. We forget that you
are the representative of the authority that has
so often deceived and that has so injured the
people. We address you as a citizen and as an-
honest man. We hope that the feeling of personal
exasperation will not extinguish in your mind your
consciousness of your duties and your desire to
know the truth. We also might feel exasperation.
You have lost your father. We have lost not only
our fathers, but our brothers, our wives, our children,
and our dearest friends. But we are ready to
suppress personal feeling, if it be demanded by
the welfare of Russia. We expect the same from
you.

“We set no conditions for you; do not let our *
propositions irritate you. The conditions that are
pre-requisite to a change from revolutionary activity
to peaceful labour are created not by us, but by
history. These conditions in our opinion are two:—

“ i. A general amnesty to cover all past political
crimes; for the reason that they were not crimes,
but fulfilments of civil duties.

LETTER TO ALEXANDER III.

89

“2. The summoning of representatives of the
whole Russian people to examine the existing
framework of social and Governmental life, and
to remodel it in accordance with the people’s
wishes.

“ We regard it as necessary, however, to remind
you that the legalisation of the Supreme Power
by the representatives of the people, can be valid
only in case the elections are perfectly free. For
this reason such elections must be held under the
following conditions :—

“ 1. Delegates are to be sent from all classes
without distinction, and in number are to be pro¬
portionate to the number of inhabitants.

“2. There shall be no limitations either for
voters or delegates.

“3. The canvass and the elections shall be
absolutely unrestricted, and therefore the Govern¬
ment, pending the organisation of the National
Assembly, shall authorise, in the form of temporary
measures—

“ (a) Complete freedom of the press.

“(6) Complete freedom of speech.

“ (c) Complete freedom of public meeting.

“ (d) Complete freedom of election programmes.

“ This is the only way in which Russia can return
to the path of normal and peaceful development.

“ We declare solemnly, before the people of our

9 o 'NIHILISM AS IT IS.

native land and before the whole world, that our
party will submit unconditionally to the decisions
of a National Assembly elected in the manner
above indicated, and that we will not allow our¬
selves in the future to offer violent resistance to
any Government that the National Assembly may
sanction.

“And now, your Majesty, decide! Before you
are two courses, and you are to make your choice
between them. We can only trust that your
intelligence and conscience may suggest to you
the only decision that is compatible with the
welfare of Russia, with your own dignity, and
with your duty to your native land.

“The Executive Committee.”

THE LIBERAL PROGRAMME.

From the Liberals of Moscow to Count Loris Melikoff,
Chief of the Supreme Executive Commission.

Now let us draw the reader’s attention to another
document, coming from quite a different source, yet
which, making allowance for the tone, resembles the
former one not only in the final conclusions, but in the
general ideas and views upon the conditions of the
country, the appreciations of the evils from which it
is suffering, and of the possible remedies, at times
repeating almost the same expressions. This
document is a letter or memorandum to the Tzar
from a representative body of men, who may be
fairly called the Liberal Executive. It refers to the
same period as the letter of the Revolutionary
Executive we have just quoted, that is to say to
the period of the most fierce struggle between the
terrorists and the autocracy. After having vainly
tried the policy of reprisals, the Tzar Alexander II.
appointed the “ Liberal ” Loris Melikoff to the post
of virtual dictator. The moderate section of the
opposition—the Liberals—resolved to try once again
the effect of peaceful exhortations. Twenty-five of

91

92

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

them, who were the most courageous and influential
in their party, including professors of the universi¬
ties, leading barristers, well-known authors, and
representative and able citizens of the old capital,
drew up a memorandum which they all signed, and
which one of them carried personally to Loris
Melikoff in March, 1880, with the request to lay it
before the Tzar.

This interesting document, the publication of
which we owe to the indefatigable zeal of Mr.
George Kennan, throws a flood of light upon the
attitude and views of the actual, though not officially
recognised, representatives of the country.

I will quote here its most characteristic passages,
putting in parenthesis a few occasional words to
make its meaning clearer to English readers.

“ The unfortunate conditions of Russia at the
present time,” so runs the memorandum, “ is due to
the fact that there has arisen in Russian society a
party [the terrorists] which acts with great irration¬
ality, and is carrying on a contest with the Govern¬
ment in a manner with which right-thinking people,
no matter what their position or degree of educa¬
tion, cannot sympathise. This contest, which is
seditious in its character, manifests itself in a series
of acts of violence directed against the ruling
authorities. The question is, how can the evil be *
remedied ?

THE LIBERAL PROGRAMME.

93

“ In order to answer this question it is necessary
first to uncover the real causes of the evil. The
object of the present letter is to show:

“ First. That the principal reason for the morbid
form which the contest with the Government has
taken is the absence in Russia of any opportunity
for the free development of public opinion and the
free exercise of public activity.

“ Second. That the evil cannot be eradicated by
any sort of repressive measures.

“ Third. That the present condition of the people,
many of whose most urgent needs are wholly
unsatisfied, constitutes ample causes for dissatis¬
faction, and that this dissatisfaction, having no
means of free expression, necessarily manifests itself
in morbid forms.

“ Fourth. That the causes which underlie this
widespread discontent cannot be removed by Govern¬
mental action alone, but require the friendly co¬
operation of all the vital forces of society.

“ The unnatural form which the contest with the
Government has taken is due to the absence of all
means for the free and orderly expression of public
discontent. Dissatisfaction cannot be expressed
through the press, since the press is closely
restricted in its comments upon Governmental
action. Questions of first-class importance are
wholly removed by censorial prohibition from the

94

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

field of newspaper discussion, and that at the very
time when they most occupy public attention.
Newspapers are not even allowed to publish facts, if
sucli facts compromise or reflect in any way upon
Governmental organs.

“ Another reason for the development of ‘ under¬
ground ’ activity may be found in the enforced
silence of public assemblies. The Government often
treats with contemptuous neglect statements and
petitions from sources fully competent to make them,
and listens unwillingly to the representatives even
of the most legitimate interests. There may be
found in the reports of any provincial administra¬
tion records of innumerable petitions sent by the
assemblies to the Government, which not only have
never been granted, but have never been even
answered.

“ The result of the state of things above set forth
is the creation of an impression the Government
does not wish to listen to the voice of the people;
that it will not tolerate criticism, however just, of its
mistakes and failures; that it despises the opinions
of competent advisers, and that it has in view
peculiar objects not related in any way to the
necessities of the people. [This means the same
as pp. 86 of the former letter.]

“The impossibility of speaking out frankly com¬
pels people to keep their ideas to themselves, to

THE LIBERAL PROGRAMME.

95

cherish and nurse them in secret, and to regard
complacently even illegal methods of putting them
into practice [this means terrorism, revolution, &c.].
Thus is created one of the most important of the
conditions upon which the spread of sedition de¬
pends, namely, the weakening of the loyalty of
those who, under other circumstances, would regard
sedition with abhorrence.

“ There are in organised societies self-reliant
opinions, which strike for free expression, an accu¬
mulated fund of energy, which seeks a field for
activity. The more rigorously these impulses are
repressed in their legal form the sooner they will
take on a form which is not legal; the more ap¬
parent will become the lack of harmony between the
strivings of society and the working methods of the
ruling powers; and the more general and emphatic
and consequently the' more infectious will become
the illegal protest. When society has no means of /
making known and discussing peaceably and publicly
its wants and its necessities, the more energetic
members of that society will throw themselves
passionately into secret activity \i.e. terrorism, Revo¬
lution].

“At the present time there is a prevalent opinion
that the existing evils can be eradicated only by
repressive measures. Many people believe that
before anything else is thought of, attention should

96

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

be concentrated upon methods of repression, and
that when such methods shall have attained the
result expected from them, it will be time enough to
proceed with the further development of Russian
social life. But the evils cannot be remedied by
repressive measures; and that is not all—repressive
measures not only do not cure the evils which exist,
but they create new evils, because they are inevitably
accompanied by administrative license. License
above creates license below.

“ But aside from all this, repression cannot kill
human thought. Convincing proof of this fact is
furnished by the last reign (Nicholas I.) as well as
by more recent years. The idea of popular repre¬
sentation, for example, has recently taken enormous
strides forward and has made its way even into the
far distant country places, notwithstanding the fact
that public discussion or consideration of that idea
has been absolutely forbidden.

“ In the absence of a free press there arises an¬
other medium of inter-communication in the shape of
the oral transmission of ideas from mouth to mouth.

“ The most marked feature of the present situation
in Russia is extreme dissatisfaction and urgent need
of free expression. Educated society as a whole,
irrespective of rank, position, or opinions, is in¬
tensely dissatisfied, and out of that dissatisfaction
arises the existing agitation.

THE LIBERAL PROGRAMME .

97

“The first and most important of society’s un¬
satisfied demands is the demand for an opportunity
to act. This demand even a constantly growing
bureaucracy has been unable to silence. The old
mechanism of Government proved to be incapable of
directing the new and complex forces which were in
operation. Only by the free and independent efforts
of society itself could they be regulated and con¬
trolled. The striving of the people for an opportunity
to act—to take part in the control of the national
life [supremacy of national parliament]—has therefore
become a phenomenon which the ruling power must
take into account. Unfortunately, however, it is a
phenomenon which the administrator regards with
hostility. At the very moment when society is
aroused both by the nature of its own reflections
and by the circumstances of the time [revolutionary
struggle] and seeks to participate in the life of the
State, the administration throws obstacles in its
way. If the ruling mechanism in its present form
excludes from direct participation in the government
a majority of those who have the first right and
the strongest desire to take part in it, than that
mechanism stands in need of reformation.

“The Russian people are becoming more and
more impressed with the conviction that an empire
so extensive and a social life so complicated as ours,
cannot be managed exclusively by officials.

8

93

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

“ Another demand of society which at the present
time is even less satisfied than the desire for political
activity is the demand for personal security. The
indispensable conditions upon which the very exist¬
ence of modern society depends are free courts,
freedom from arrest, and search without proper
precautions and safeguards, and responsibility of
officials for illegal detention and imprisonment, and
the due observance of all the legal formalities of
public and controversial trial.

“ In the almost unlimited province of political
crime, where the features which distinguish the
permissible from the forbidden are so difficult of
definition (according to Russian official views, of
course), and where, consequently, personal liberty
should be surrounded by the greatest possible safe¬
guards, there exists a state of things which is in
flagrant violation of the most elementary principles
of justice.

“ For the past ten years the police, upon trivial
suspicion or upon a false accusation, have been
allowed to break into houses, force their way into
the sphere of private life, read private letters, throw
the accused into prison, keep them there for months,
and finally subject them to an inquisitorial examina¬
tion without even informing them definitely of the
nature of the charges made against them. Many
persons have been arrested in this way by mistake
or under misapprehension.

THE LIBERAL PROGRAMME.

99

“ Still more out of harmony with the views of the
people is the system of administrative exile and
banishment without examination or trial. Whilst
the spirit of the law and the first principles of
justice forbid the infliction of punishment without
previous trial, hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of
persons annually are subjected to the severest
punishment that can be inflicted upon an educated
man, namely, banishment from home and friends,
and that by a mere administrative order, based upon
nothing. Persons exiled in this way have no means
of knowing how long their punishment will continue.
They are deprived even of the consolation which
every common criminal has in knowing definitely
the length of time he has to suffer.

“ The discontent which pervades Russian society
and which is the result of the mistaken policy of the
Government in dealing with internal affairs, can be
removed only by measures in which society will take
part. The Government cannot accomplish the
desired result alone. The only way to extricate the
country from its present position is to summon an
independent parliament— Sobranie —consisting of the
representatives of the Zemstvos ; to give that parlia¬
ment a share in the control of the national life, and
to securely guarantee personal rights, freedom of
thought and freedom of speech. Such freedom will
call into action the best capabilities of the people,

IOO

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

will rouse the slumbering life of the nation, and will
develop the abundant productive resources of the
country.

“The Russians are fit for free institutions, and «■
they feel deep humiliation at being kept so long under
guardianship. The desire for such institutions,
although forced into concealment and half-stifled
by repressive measures, finds expression, neverthe¬
less, in the Zemstvos, in the assemblies of the nobles,
and in the press. The granting of such institutions
and the calling together of a representative body to
preside over them, will give to the nation renewed
strength and renewed faith in the Government and
in its own future.”

THE CLAIMS OF THE RUSSIAN
LIBERALS.

THE CLAIMS OF THE RUSSIAN
LIBERALS.

Whatever has been printed in English about the
Russian political movement has been almost exclu¬
sively confined to the so-called revolutionists, or
“ nihilists,” as they are often termed in this
country—that is, to people who have lost all faith /
in getting for the Russian people a brighter light
and a better day by any other means but violently
overthrowing the present regime . There was hardly
anything except George Kennan’s “ Last Appeal
of the Russian Liberals,” printed in the Century
Magazine , dealing with any attempts to get the same
by peaceful and “ legal ” means. One of the effects
of this was that many people got the wrong impres¬
sion that in the whole mass of the Russian nation
there was only a handful of revolutionary spirits who
wanted political changes, while all the rest were
quite satisfied by the existing regime. Of course all
the interested and the disinterested supporters of the
Russian Government tried to strengthen that im-
103

104

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

pression. They maintained that every one within
Russia was contented with the present form of
government, the only malcontents and aspirants
for political changes being a small set of trouble¬
some people full of perverted ideas and exulting in
political crime. Some of these champions of a bad
cause went so far as to assert that “ the Russian
nation urged its Government to take energetic
measures against the revolutionists.”

In reality there is plenty of evidence to prove the
contrary, although every difficulty is put in the way
of the Russian people’s expressing their wishes freely;
the press is gagged, political meetings are strictly pro¬
hibited; as to the local councils (zemstvos), assemblies
of the nobility, town councils (doumas), and similar
bodies, either the law or administrative practice very
carefully and strictly limits their right of petitioning
the Government to local or class wants.

Notwithstanding that, however, the nobility and
the zemstvos (as well as some of the doumas ) have
from time to time profited by the opportunity, when
Governmental discipline slackened, of expressing
their hidden and intimate aspirations and views
which do not show much satisfaction with the
present state of things. So far back as the year
1865 the nobility of the Moscow province presented
the Tzar Alexander II. with a “most devoted”
petition, entreating the monarch “to convene a

THE CLAIMS OF THE RUSSIAN LIBERALS . 105

representative assembly of the people of Russia to
discuss the question of the wants common to the
whole country.” To this the Tzar replied by
proclaiming that “ no class of the population has
the right to speak in the name of other classes, and
to take on themselves the initiative in questions of
which the solution depends exclusively on the Head
of the State.” This step of the Tzar was really a
breach of the privileges of the nobility, as solemnly
acknowledged by the Russian monarchs.

In 1866 the Government restricted the rights of
the zemstvo to impose rates for local necessities on
the wealthiest part of the population. On this
occasion Count Andrew Shouvalov, a member of the
St. Petersburg zemstvo , delivered at its session of
1867 several forcible speeches in which, criticising
the new law and its preparation without any parti¬
cipation of the zemstvos in it, he proposed to petition
the Government that the grave questions raised by
that law should be inquired into “by the combined
efforts and common work both of the administration
and of the whole Russian zemstvo .” “ I say * of the

whole Russian zemstvo' ” accentuated the speaker,
“ because, if discussed separately by different pro¬
vincial assemblies, the result may come to have the
same disadvantage as now; that is, may be as one¬
sided as now.” The St. Petersburg local assembly
accepted the Count’s proposal. But the Government

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

106

answered the petition by closing for a time the
zemstvo institutions of the province altogether, and
by administrative exile of some of its members to
eastern provinces. Side by side with this, the
curtailing of even those very limited rights which
were granted to the zemstvos when they were
instituted was further continued.

In the meantime the revolutionists gathered
more and more strength, and gradually became so
formidable that on August 4, 1878, the Government
inserted in No. 186 of The Official Messenger an appeal
to the peaceful class of society, asking for help
against the “ revolutionary plague.” In November
of the same year Alexander II. delivered a speech
in Moscow, in which, addressing the representatives
of different classes, he said, “ I count on your assist¬
ance in stopping the erring youths on that ruinous
path into which some untrustworthy people try to
lure them.” Five local assemblies (Kharkov, Pol¬
tava, Chernigov, Samara, and Tver) profited by the
opportunity and answered the appeal by presenting
the Tzar’s Government with memoranda, in which,
while manifesting their thorough loyalty, they ex¬
pressed most explicitly the belief that there was no
outlet from the difficulty but in granting personal
security to citizens, political liberty, and representa¬
tive government. Only the Kharkov memorandum
reached officially its destination, being presented by

THE CLAIMS OF THE RUSSIAN LIBERALS. 107

the governor of the province, through the ministry
to the Tzar, and the consequence was that the
discussion of the subject was declared by the
Government to transgress the powers and aims of
the zemstvos; all further transactions on the matter
were prohibited, and the governors of the other four
provinces, acting on instructions from St. Petersburg,
declined to accept the further memoranda for presen¬
tation, at the same time forbidding them to be made
public. In fact, besides the Kharkov memorandum,
only two others (those of Tver and Chernigov) ever
appeared in print, and that despite the Governmental
veto. These documents are quite sufficient, however,
to show clearly the views and claims of the peaceful
and loyal part of the Russian Liberals of that
time.

The Chernigov zemstvo not only does not urge the
Government to use coercion and terrorism against
the revolutionists, but declines to take any part in
it itself. “The late events have shown it clearly,”
so runs the memorandum, “ that penal and coercive
measures are powerless to stop the flood of subversive
ideas. . . . And if punishment, which, according to
our ‘ code,’ is more severe than in any other European
legislation, proves to be impotent to abash the erring
ones, this points to the existence of causes which are
unavoidable and in which originate the lamentable
facts.” ... Of these causes three are, in the esti-

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

mation of the zemstvo, the most important (besides
some others of minor importance), namely:—

“ i. The present organisation of (Governmental)
middle and higher class schools.

“ 2. The lack of freedom of speech and the press.
“3. The lack of respect to law in our society.”
Then, after showing that all the three evils were
created and maintained by the policy and unlawful
practices of the Government itself, the memorandum
concluded as follows: “Under the circumstances the
provincial zemstvo of Chernigov states with a most
unexpressible heavy heart that it is powerless to
take any practical steps in the struggle with the
evil, and considers it its duty to bring this to the
knowledge of the Government.”

The starting-point of the Tver memorandum was
the same as that of Chernigov. It proceeded with a
very definite charge against the Ministry of National
Education. That Ministry, it is said, while preventing
the zemstvo from taking any part in the direction of
schools (which are in Russia all either in the hands
or under the strictest control of the Government),
manages the middle schools in such a way that one-
eighth of the whole number of pupils leave them
before completing their studies. As to those who
enter the universities and similar institutions, “sus¬
picion and coercion await them, which make quiet
study impossible, while calling forth discontent and

THE CLAIMS OF THE RUSSIAN LIBERALS . 109

irritation, conditions under which respect of law
is hardly to be expected to be developed in our
youths.”

Disrespect to law is further cultivated by the
Government among grown-up citizens. “ His Im¬
perial Majesty has granted to the Russian people
the Z£wsft>0-self-government in which we cannot fail
seeing the pledge of a peaceful and lawful national
development. We are grieved to say, however, that
the administration restricted the zemstvo's activity,
and really deprived it of any real importance; even
its most modest petitions on account of its dire needs
remain unsatisfied, nay, unanswered. An indepen¬
dent, fair, prompt, and humane administration of
justice is indispensable to secure to life its regular
course, and to sustain the idea of the sacredness of
law in the minds of the people—an idea without
which no state can exist. Such a judiciary was
granted us by his Majesty on the 20th of November,
1864. But the administrative practice of the Govern¬
ment undermines the sacredness of justice; confidence
in law, as maintained by inviolable decisions of the
courts, is shaken; the court and the law cease to
safeguard the citizen, who becomes exposed to the
good or ill will of an arbitrary administration. All
this is only preparing the soil for subversive ideas.
Subversive ideas might find a formidable enemy in
the press; but the press, as is well known, is also

I IO

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

deprived of any possibility to treat social questions
independently, and while the number of clandestine
publications grows, the organs of the press are com¬
pelled to stop one after the other.”

The memorandum of the Tver zemstvo concluded
by stating that the Russian people felt it impossible
to do anything against the internal evil unless the
Government would remove the above-mentioned
social conditions which originate that evil, and
which it is altogether within the power of the
Government to remove. “ His Imperial Majesty,
with kind care for the welfare of the Bulgarian
people, just liberated from the Turkish yoke, thought
it indispensable to grant to that people a true self-
government, personal security, independence of the
judges, and liberty of the press. The zemstvo of the
Tver province dares to hope that the Russian people,
who bore all the burdens of the war with such a
thorough readiness, with such love towards its Tzar,
the liberator, will be allowed to enjoy the same bless¬
ings which alone can enable it to enter, in virtue of
our monarch’s will, the path of gradual, peaceful, and
lawful development.”

It will be easily understood that the injustice,
arbitrariness, and insincerity with which Alexander
II. and his Government treated the Russian Liberals
strengthened the position of the revolutionists. The
latter proclaimed the Government hopeless, a Govern-

THE CLAIMS OF THE RUSSIAN LIBERALS, hi

ment that could not be trusted; and the manner in
which the peaceful and loyal class of society was
treated, that very class to which it applied itself in
difficulty, justified the uncompromising attitude of
the revolutionary party in the eyes of many who
before thought differently. Among other reasons,
we find here the explanation of the enormous activity
the revolutionary party developed, notwithstanding
the comparatively small number of its acknowledged
adherents—an activity which culminated in the death
of Alexander II.

That tragedy raised again a burning question for
the peaceful citizens of Russia who cared for the
welfare of the community. They wanted to put
an end to the deplorable internal struggle, they
wanted to remain loyal to the Tzar and to do their
duty as citizens; but they felt that neither was
possible so long as the Government clung obsti¬
nately to bureaucratism and autocracy and sup¬
pressed aspirations towards liberty and self-govern¬
ment. At the same time they had no earnest trust
of the Government’s good faith or grasp of the
political situation. That is evident from speeches
that were delivered in some of the zmstao-assemblies,
convened soon after the 13th of March, 1881.

In the Novgorod zemstvo one of its members,
N. N. Nechayev, delivered a speech in which,
among other things, he said: “ Hardly can we

I 12

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

doubt that it is our duty to speak out on this
occasion. True, the literal meaning of the * zemstvo
statutes ’ does not grant us that right. But it is
impossible to be guided only by the literal meaning
of the law at a moment of such historical importance
as the present ; we have to elevate ourselves and to
see what is the spirit of the law. According to the
‘statutes’ we are empowered to deal only with local
interests. But it is impossible to separate the wel¬
fare of the Tzar from any local interests ! Is not his
welfare the most urgent interest of any locality and
any person ? The historical moment we are living
through is a horrible one ! Look around you, account
to yourself for what is going on, and you will find it
impossible to be silent.

“ We have before our eyes a long series of en¬
deavours to fight the evil purely by means of police
measures, without any co-operation with society.
The utter uselessness of such a struggle and the
impossibility of obtaining any real success on that
path is nowadays evident to every one. There is no
going further on that path; it is also impossible to
listen to appeals to reaction, as that would mean
renouncing the great principles which were be¬
queathed to us by the late monarch. So only one
path remains open : society must be called upon to
take part in the struggle with the evil, then there can
be no doubt about the issue.”

THE CLAIMS OF THE RUSSIAN LIBERALS. 113

The Samara zemstvo was still more explicit and far
less hopeful.

On March 18, 1881, its president 1 proposed to
present Alexander III. with an address, in which
the feelings of grief at the sad end of the late Tzar,
as well as congratulations on his own accession to
the throne, were expressed. But the deputy, Zhdanov,
opposed the motion. “ During the last few years,”
he said, “ we have presented five similar addresses ;
none of them led to anything, nor did they really
express anything, because all that was in fact weighing
on our souls was unrevealed and still remains so.” He
was supported by two other speakers. The deputy
Naoumov said, “We do not know what awaits us. 2
It is better, therefore, to keep silence.” The deputy
Noudatov said he now considered it a question
whether he was right in signing the preceding
addresses. “ Did we ever mention in them the
over-burdening of the peasantry with taxes, the
crushing of labour by capital, the lack of safeguards
to personal liberty? No; we never did ! Well, then,
it is better not to say anything at all—to be silent.”

[The motion of the president was declined almost
unanimously.]

1 The presidents of the zemstvo assemblies are, according to
law, the marshals of the local nobility, which is often not in
accordance with the wishes of the assemblies.

2 That is, what the attitude of the central Government towards
the zemstvo will be.—F. V.

9

114

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

We are unable to mention here all the zemstvos
that at that time expressed themselves in favour of
representative government and political liberty, as
the publication of the accounts of the sessions were
dependent upon the permission of the governor of
the province. We know, however, that the zemstvos
of Ryazan, Taurida, and Kazan, also the douma of
Kazan and the nobility of Samara were among them.

Loris Melikov was succeeded in his capacity as
Minister of Internal Affairs by Count Ignatiev. On
May 6, 1881, the new minister published a circular,
in which he again appealed to society at large for
help against the revolutionists, and in establishing
order and peace in the empire. And again he
received from many zemstvos the same reply: “We
are powerless to do anything so long as we are
exposed to the arbitrary and lawless practices of
the administration; we are unable to help the
Government unless it establishes a central body of
representatives from the zemstvos .”

Then Count Ignatiev convened a “ commission of
experts ” chosen by the Government from the midst of
the zemstvos , as well as from people who did not
belong to them. He wanted to satisfy the Liberals
with a mummy of representative government. But
the Liberals would not be satisfied. In the next
session of the Novgorod provincial assembly, for
example, deputy E. I. Ragozin said that the

THE CLAIMS OF THE RUSSIAN LIBERALS. 115

members of the said commission “ cannot be re¬
garded as representing the zemstvos; that is only
a fictitious representation, and in discussing the
gravest questions which concern the zemstvos as
well as the whole nation, the commission only
creates misunderstanding among the population,
because the opinions expressed in it are taken as
being those of deputies elected by the people, while
in reality the members of that body are chosen by
the Ministry of Internal Affairs.”

We have quoted sufficiently from the different
speeches delivered in the assemblies of nobles or
assemblies for local affairs, and also from the
memorandums and resolutions passed by them. It
is evident from these quotations, that that part of
the Russian people, which holds in its hands the
landed property of the empire, and to a large ex¬
tent the different branches of manufacture and trade,
look with great dissatisfaction upon the present
arbitrary Russian rule, feel deeply its outrages upon
the population, and ask, whenever they can, for a
habeas corpus , political liberty and representative
government. So far as has transpired, at different
times seventeen zemstvos in all, also two doumas
(town councils), and the nobility of three provinces
have made such declarations. Besides that, the
Mayor of Moscow expressed similar wishes at a
public banquet, which was the more significant, in

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

116

that the speech was made at the coronation of the
present Tzar, in the elder capital of the empire,
which has always been considered the most loyal,
and the mayor himself was a late professor of the
Moscow University. But we are sure that these
were not by any means all the bodies who have,
though in courteous and loyal terms, condemned
the present Governmental system in Russia, and
asked for liberty and constitutional government.

Now what was the attitude of the Tzar and his
Government towards those just aspirations of his
loyal and peaceful subjects? Foreseeing them, the
zemstvos had not been given the right of electing the
chairmen of their assemblies. The marshals of the
nobility had been appointed as such, and made
responsible for everything said by the deputies on
the one hand, and on the other given the power of
stopping any discussion. No report of the debates
or declaration of any zemstvo can be printed without
a special permit of the governor of the province.
And if we look at the records of the proceedings of
the local boards, we shall see that the vetos either of
the chairmen or of the governors intervened nearly
every time, when the questions discussed touched the
vital points of national life. When, however, the
Russian people contrived to make themselves heard
notwithstanding all this gagging, then the Tzar in
person showed his displeasure and declined to grant

THE CLAIMS OF THE RUSSIAN LIBERALS. 117

his people a fair hearing. Imprisonment and exile
was awarded to loyalty combined with honesty and
Liberalism, shown on several occasions by good and
esteemed citizens. Our readers had an instance of
that kind in the preceding chapter, and will find
another in detail, if they read G. Kennan’s article
“ The Last Appeal of the Russian Liberals.”

Such was the attitude of Alexander II. and his
son and successor has followed his example : tired
of having to deal with separate instances of the
“ breach of discipline ” in the zemstvos, he has “ re¬
formed ” them by reducing them to mere tools in
the hands of the administration.

We see now the fruit of it. The peaceful elements
of society, after having kept for years to the fantastic
idea of replacing the present working arbitrary mode
of government by a representative one and at the
same time remaining loyal to autocracy, came
finally to the conclusion that the present autocratic
Russian Government would never give up its un¬
natural prerogatives unless forced to do so by the
pressure of popular wishes. We know that the
political arrests in Russia carried out this year on a
large scale and with precautions which showed that
the Government apprehended unusual danger for
itself, revealed the existence of a vast organisation,
including people of a certain social standing, and
of high education, and also of a number of young

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

people studying in universities, acadamies, and
other such educational institutions. This organisa¬
tion calls itself the “ Party of Political Right ”
(Narodnaya Volya) the platform of which as set
forth in its secretly printed manifesto is identical
with the claims put forward at different times, partly
or in full, by the different zemstvos , assemblies of
nobility, town councils, and the Liberal press. The
manifesto runs as follows :—

“Manifesto of the ‘Popular Right ’ (Narodnoe
Pravo ) Party.

“ There are moments in the life of States when one
question occupies the foremost place, thrusting into
the background all other interests, however essential
they may be of themselves—one question, upon the
solution of which in one way or another depends the
future of the people. Such a moment Russia is now
living through, and such a question, determining her
further destinies, is the question of political freedom.
Autocracy, after receiving its most vivid expression
and impersonation in the reign of Alexander III.,
has with irrefutable clearness proved its impotence
to create such an order of things as should secure
the country the fullest and most regular develop¬
ments and all her spiritual and material forces.
The tendency of the present reign, expressed with

THE CLAIMS OF THE RUSSIAN LIBERALS. 119

a peculiar sharpness in the reforms (!) of the last
few years, in the shape of the institution of rural
authorities (Zemskie Nachalniki) and the limitation
of the organs of self-government, as also in the
systematic support afforded to capitalistic produc¬
tion, clearly shows that the Government continues
to pursue inflexibly a policy of administrative arbi¬
trariness and class interests, wholly ignoring the
perfectly matured questions of national and social
life. The result of this policy has been the social
demoralisation and the extreme decline of the
country, to avert the consequences and development
of which is no longer in the power of the Govern¬
ment. All who recognise the whole danger of the
situation see no other issue than an abrupt turn in
the direction of the interests of the masses, which is
possible only with the immediate participation of
the country in the Government—that is, with the
replacement of autocracy by free representative
institutions.

“As there is not, and cannot be, a hope that the
Government will willingly enter upon the path
indicated, there is but one course remaining to the
people: to oppose the force of organised public
opinion to the inertness of the Government and the
narrow dynastic interests of the autocracy. The
party of Popular Right (‘ Narodnoe Pravo ’) has in
view the creation of this force.

120

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

“ In the opinion of the party, popular right includes
in itself alike the conception of the right of the
people to political freedom and the conception of its
right to secure its material needs upon the basis
of national production. The party considers the
guarantees of this right to be—

“ Representative government on the basis of uni¬
versal suffrage.

“ Freedom of religious belief.

“ Independence of the courts of justice.

“ Freedom of the press.

“ Freedom of meeting and association.

“ Inviolability of the individual and of his rights as
a man.

“In view of the fact that Russia is not a homo¬
geneous whole, but a very complex political body,
a necessary condition of political freedom is the
recognition of the right to political self-determina¬
tion, for all the nationalities entering into its
composition.

“ Thus understanding Popular Right, the party
sets itself the task of uniting all the oppositional ele¬
ments of the country and of organising an active
force which should, with all the spiritual and
material means at its disposal, attain the over-

THE CLAIMS OF THE RUSSIAN LIBERALS. 121

throw of autocracy and secure to every one the
rights of a citizen and a man.

“ Being convinced that its aspirations fully corre¬
spond to the demands of the historical moment, the
party hopes that its call will meet with a warm
response in the heads of those who have not yet lost
the feeling of human dignity, in whom autocracy
has not eaten away the consciousness of their civil
rights, who are weary of the yoke of violence and
arbitrariness, and to whom are dear the commonweal
and the highest ideals of truth and justice.”

The “ Popular Right ” seems to have taken root
in every part of the country and in every class of
society, the official class included. Therefore the
measures taken against it can hardly attain their
end, or they have very often to be administered by
the secret adherents of the party, and although the
state police exult in their recent work, other signs
indicate that by making several hundred arrests they
have only touched the outskirts of the movement.
The Tzar himself and his advisers seem to under¬
stand that they can no longer rely on their own
bureaucracy. This is shown by the revival of an
institution from the time of Nicolas I., a special
committee to control all official appointments in the
name of the Tzar. Of course it would be childish
to imagine that such an institution which might

122

NIHILISM AS IT IS.

have had some significance at the time when serf¬
dom existed in all its rigour, when life was simple
and no public opinion existed, could prevent the
development of a political movement at a time when
the population has enormously increased, life become
complicated and public opinion is no longer a myth.
History cannot be stopped, and it is not impossible
that even our generation will see yet great political
changes in Russia.

O

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