book in comparison; the Simian mind is more logical or

at least more nearly akin to our own; we should need a sixth sense, many new senses to begin to scratch his jaun- diced, Saturn-sodden skin.
Left for thousands of years to develop in the relentless grip of Nature, like glaciers or geological strata, Russia might at the last have brought forth a soul. As it is, the
———
DEMOCRATIC ROMANOFFS 157
injection of foreign phosphates into the fermentations of her soil has merely brought to birth devils and diseases.
Alexis Romanoff was first responsible for introducing Western civilisation to Russia at a time when Western civilisation was at a very low ebb. His brother Peter, nick- named the Great, imported new manners and customs picked up while working in Deptford dockyard, where politics are often primitive.
But the people were scarcely disturbed from their long slumbers for another century. Half-savage rulers played at soldiers and committed fantastic crimes, but the masses were spared the dangers of a little knowledge, proved useful serfs and were kept contented by a profusion of cheap liquor. Military service brought them into contact with Western peoples and Western ideas, but on so small a scale compared with the vast masses of their own population that their placid outlook was scarcely disturbed.
The poison was instilled from above. Romanoffs, with their vague yearnings after a civilisation that was to make them the sovereigns of a great nation, needed a governing class to make human materials more efficient for military campaigns, to develop science, industry and agriculture for the provision of the sinews of war. Promising youths were accordingly sent forth to study abroad and consti-
tuted a bureaucracy that remained a curse right down to the outbreak of bolshevism, when it was revived with mul- tiplied malignancy.
It was a peculiarly inauspicious period for acquiring political philosophy on the continent, then a prey to wild dreams of liberty, constitutional and parliamentary fetishes, all the various panaceas that have since proved dangerous everywhere, but could bring disaster only when thrust upon a primitive people.
The corruption of primitive Russia began with the usual philanthropic and educational societies, which soon followed their normal course and plunged into politics and privy conspiracy. In 1816, an Association for the Redemption of Russia was founded by three officers of the Imperial Guard to demand a more democratic constitution, the
‘\
158 SECRET SOCIETIES
abolition of serfdom and a reform of the judicial system. Under the influence of a hothead named Paul Pestel, it developed into a secret society for undermining the authority of the Crown, but disputes arose when a conspiracy was proposed for the deposition of the Czar. . The extremists were defeated and retired.
The moderates decided to prove their loyalty by changing the name and objects of the society, which now reappeared as the Union of Public Welfare and for a while concerned itself only with a patriotic and humanitarian programme. The members met to discuss such topics as the advancement of universal humanity, the spread of beneficence, the educa- tion of the people, the improvement of their conditions, and the codification of the laws. But nothing was ever accomplished. The Czar’s rule became more severe and un- popular, the moderate elements began to lose influence once more.
The Union of Public Welfare began to spread all over Russia, becoming more and more subversive, and in 1821 Pestel had made it thoroughly revolutionary with three secret orders or classes on masonic lines. Relations were opened with Polish secret societies, and rebellious plans were precipitated by the death (or disappearance) of Czar Alex- ander I on the lst of December, 1825.
Disputes over the succession arose among his brothers. Constantine, the eldest, had abdicated his rights, but the two others, Nicholas and Michael, contended so hotly that Nicholas was unable to mount the throne until the 24th. Then the secret societies spread a rumour that Constantine had not abdicated and that Nicholas was an usurper. Part of the St. Petersburg garrison mutinied and was joined by other insurgents, who came to be known as Decembrists, but Nicholas obtained the upper hand after fierce fighting. Pestel was hanged, and thus ended the first attempt to establish constitutional government in Russia.
Pestel and his societies were the forerunners of Nihilism, which does not seem to have taken shape much before 1848, the year of revolutions. I have not been able to trace the name further back than 1861, when Turghenieff used it in
NIHILISTS 159
his novel, Fathers and Sons, and the meaning of it is disputed to this day. According to the Oxford Dictionary, it refers to “negative doctrines,’ namely, ‘‘a total rejection of current beliefs in religion and morals,’ but others translate it to mean that “nothing nowadays is right,” that all authority must be combated, both human and divine, no law, duty or tradition is to be recognised. An attempt has been made to extenuate Nihilism as a mere assertion of French philosophic principles, and to distinguish it from Anarchism by representing the twain as ‘“‘ theory and prac- tice,” or ‘‘ dogma and religion.’”’ For all practical purposes, however, a Nihilist is merely a Russian Anarchist, Socialist, or Terrorist of any kind.
The first Nihilist troubles arose in 1849, when Petra- sheffski, a clerk in the Foreign Office, was denounced for holding secret meetings where Louis Blanc, Proudhon and Fournier were exalted. There was no evidence of any actual plot, but seditious opinions could not be denied, and twenty- one prisoners, including officials and officers of the Imperial Guard, were sentenced to death. They were all led out into Semenoff Square and bound to pillars; their sentences were read out to them, crosses given them to kiss, and swords broken over the heads of the officers. Then, as they had reconciled themselves to the approach of death, they were informed that the Czar had been graciously pleased to com- mute their sentences to penal servitude.
The reigns of the absolutist Czar Nicholas I and his suc- cessor, Alexander II, the Czar Liberator or crowned Nihilist with all his premature ideas of popular welfare, social, moral, intellectual and material progress, serve to prove that lenient government, at any rate in Russia, is the surest avenue to discontent. The average agitator desires nothing so little as reforms, which would deprive him of a profitable liveli- hood, and he regards them as a form of weakness welcome only because plots are thereby facilitated.
A perusal of the Nihilist literature of the period shows that too much was expected of the new Czar. With the best will in the world, he could have brought about nothing but chaos if he had suddenly bestowed representative govern-
‘
160 :SECRET SOCIETIES
ment upon his illiterate and half-savage subjects. He began by introducing widespread reforms, but the Nihilists did all they could to discourage him, and during the last half of his reign he was reluctantly compelled to revert to a certain severity. His mildness, however, had allowed the land to be deluged with subversive and irreligious publica- tions ; loyalty, respect for the laws and ordinary morality were relaxed among the masses; secret revolutionary societies found adherents all over the Empire ; the officers could no longer be trusted, and a revolutionary printing- press was found in the offices of the General Staff. Short of proclaiming Bolshevism, the Czar could not have hoped to pacify the malcontents.
Land and Freedom, an association specially intended to appeal to the peasantry, was founded at St. Petersburg in 1863, by uniting various secret societies that were already in existence. Then came the Krushki, Nihilist clubs chiefly consisting of students, with secret printing-presses and bomb factories, one of the clubs at Moscow proudly adopting the title of Hell. Students of both sexes, disguised as merchants, teachers and workers, travelled about preach- ing Nihilism everywhere. In April 1866, it was determined to murder the Czar Liberator in the hope of astonishing the people and forcing them to accept a revolution. It seemed an easy task, for His Majesty was accustomed to move freely among his adoring people. Vladimir Karakosoff, a public official and a member of the Moscow Hell Club, volunteered, but did not succeed in shooting the Czar, and the only result was to discourage honest supporters of reform as well as to convince the Czar of his mistaken kindness. Repression began anew.
But the Nihilists continued to nourish their cowardly crimes. The students were the wildest and most desperate of all, gloating over a savage manifesto from Bakunin: “Forsake your schools, your universities and your academies; out upon the teachings of science, which is but an official engine to fetter and unman you. Follow the footsteps of Stenka Rasin and become robbers. Unite yourselves to
MURDERS BY CHILDREN 161
the Spirit of Destruction which has sprung forth from the bowels of our people.”
Regular schools of revolution were formed. Men and women, boys and girls, from the highest to the lowest, took active part in the movement, the gentlest and mildest in appearance being often the sternest and most reckless criminals. The murder of informers and suspects, known as “enemies of the holy Cause,” was deemed the highest form of patriotism and proudly performed by children scarcely out of their schoolrooms. The most elaborate system was perfected for hiding murderers and facilitating their flight from the country, though that did not always avail, as in the case of Netshajeff, who slew a suspected in- former and was extradited by the Swiss Government as an ordinary criminal.
The murder of General Trepoff, the Police Minister, illus- trated the terrorism to which the movement had attained in 1878. A prisoner having been whipped in gaol by his order, Trepoff received a visit from a young girl, named Vera Sassulitch, who contrived to shoot him when he was not looking. She made no attempt to escape and gloried in her cowardly crime—that goes without saying. But the amazing fact followed, an alarming example of the state of public opinion in Russia, the jury acquitted her.
More murders naturally followed this proof of the impo- tence of justice. Baron Heyking, Colonel of the Gendarm- ery of Kieff, was stabbed in the street. General Mesenzell, chief of the secret police, was assassinated in the streets of St. Petersburg in full daylight. Other crimes followed, often after mysterious warnings found in a napkin at lunch or in a pocket on going to bed, and it seemed as though no pre- cautions availed, for all the ingenuity of the secret service was baffled. The warnings were drawn up to suggest the death-warrants of some dread secret tribunal.
At last, in 1879, the Czar was solemnly condemned to death by the secret executive committee of the Nihilists. Two men volunteered as executioners, a half-crazy student named Solovjeff and a Polish Jew named Goldenberg, who already had the murder of the Governor of Tcharkoff to his
L
162 SECRET SOCIETIES
credit. They disputed quite hotly as to which should be chosen, and the Jew prevailed by protesting with Sadic violence, ‘‘ He is mine. The Czar is my affair. I must do it. I will surrender him to no man.” On the 14th of April, 1879, he fired five revolver shots at the unsuspecting monarch without wounding him, and went to the scaffold, loudly declaring that he would be avenged.
After this the Government began to take belated pre- cautions. The Empire was divided into six districts under Governors-General with dictatorial powers. The police watched every house and reported on the movements of every stranger or suspicious person. All who could not justify their conduct were deported or cast into prison.
Yet, when the Czar travelled from Livadia to St. Peters- burg in November of the same year, mines were laid on the line at Odessa, Alexandrovsk and Moscow in a fruitless en- deavour to blow up his train. It was only by a seeming miracle that he chanced to escape through having changed his train at the last moment.
Then a prodigious scheme was devised for blowing up the Winter Palace with the Czar and his family and some thou- sands of harmless dependants. The task was entrusted to a peasant’s son named Tchalturin, then employed as a care- taker and decorator at the palace. Every detail was mi- nutely studied in advance ; many pounds of dynamite were smuggled in by small instalments and hidden under cushions. Warnings were given, and the police ransacked nearly every hole and corner in the vast palace without finding anything Then, on the 5th of February, 1880, an unparalleled explosion occurred ; whole wings of the palace were reduced to ruins ; ten of the guards were killed on the spot and fifty-three wounded. But once more the Czar seemed to possess a charmed life. By waiting for his guest, Prince Alexander of Hesse-Darmstadt, whose train had been delayed, he failed to reach the dining-room in time for the slaughter. Tchal- turin also made good his escape and lived to commit several murders, but met with his deserts a couple of years later, boasting on the scaffold that he had blown up the Winter Palace.
PLOTS AGAINST CZAR 163
After the explosion, a manifesto was issued by the Nihilist executive committee regretting the fate of the guards, but declaring that the campaign of outrages would continue until the Czar conceded a free parliament. Rumours of a forthcoming constitution were indeed circulated, and the Czar himself was still disposed towards reforms, but he met with discouragement from his advisers, who pointed out that reforms had hitherto led only to the multiplication of outrages.
Three more attempts to murder the Czar were made in the winter of 1880-81. The first came to nothing. The second was very ingeniously prepared, with bombs laid where the Czar was to drive in the Malaia Sadovaja, or Little Garden Street, but given up at the last moment on a rumour that the police had discovered everything. The third attempt, however, was successful.
Sheljaeboff, who had presided over the outrage at the Winter Palace, was again in charge. Forty-seven volunteers presented themselves, and he chose six, including Ryssakoff, Grinevizki and the bloodthirsty Sophia Perovskaja, to blow up the Czar. The dynamite bombs had been prepared by a cunning chemist, Kibaltshish, shaped so that they could be concealed in clothes at the breast. Sheljaeboff was caught by the police on the eve of the event, but nothing could be extracted from him except that the Czar had been con- demned and would certainly be executed.
This was on the 12th March, 1881, and he was to attend a review on the 13th. Everyone besought him not to take this hideous risk, but nothing could move him. He did, however, consent to alter his route and, on the advice of his morganatic wife, Princess Yurieffskaja, to return along the canal. Here the six assassins had been awaiting him from early morning with their bombs,*and the police suspected nothing. The Czar proceeded for some three hundred yards along Canal Street, then Sophia Perovskaja gave a signal and Ryssakoff threw his bomb under the Imperial carriage.
Once again it seemed as though Providence kept a special watch over Alexander. He escaped without a scratch, but he saw that a poor boy had been knocked down and was
164 SECRET SOCIETIES
writhing in agony, so he stopped his carriage and leaped out among the crowd to see if he could help. Ryssakoff was now in the clutches of the police, and the Czar stepped up to him without noticing that another assassin, quite a young man, had pulled out a bomb from his breast and was about to throw it. This was Grinevizki. In the*twinkling of an eye the bomb crashed at the Czar’s feet with a terrific ex- plosion. The Czar and his assassin were both mortally wounded ; the dead and the dying lay all around them. It was some time before the Czar could be raised and conveyed to the Winter Palace. He was in a terrible state, with scarcely a whole bone in his body, and he died within an hour. The five surviving assassins were all brought to the gallows.
But nothing seemed to daunt the Nihilists. Within a week, their executive committee met again, and the fol- lowing proclamation was directed to the new Czar: “ There are but two ways out of the present situation in Russia— either a revolution, which is not to be avoided or hindered by sentences of death; or a voluntary summons to the people to participate in the supreme work of government.”
Alexander III, however, was not to be intimidated or dismayed. He issued a proclamation announcing his firm determination to continue to exercise the imperial authority as it had been handed down to him from his ancestors. And the Nihilists were disappointed in their expectation of a revolution, for their crime served rather to strengthen autocracy and discourage belief in moderate reforms. In- deed, it is said that Alexander II had signed a liberal con- stitution on the morning of his murder, and that, of course, was not renewed.
A plot was organised to kill the new Czar at his coronation, but nothing came of it. There was a plot against a minister in 1881, and a high military official was shot at Odessa in 1882. The activity of the conspirators had, however, reached its zenith with the murder of Alexander II, and his successor died a natural death in 1894.
No sort of success can, indeed, be claimed for the Nihilists. Grant them reckless heroism, self-sacrifice, solidarity, lofty,
NIHILISTS AS REACTIONARIES 165
mistaken aims. They butchered one of the most benevolent rulers in history and a long series of loyal officials, some of whom undoubtedly possessed shortcomings, but most of whom did their duty according to their lights. But never once did the Nihilists move authority a hair’s breadth from its path or change a single institution in the direction they desired. Indeed, without their intervention, Alexan- der II’s reforms would have been developed with patience and prudence, building up a form of government wherein sovereign and people might have worked together in happi- ness, prosperity and peace.
Instead of loosening the reins or deflecting the whips of government, the Nihilists caused the people to be ridden with curbs and chastised with scorpions.
A constitution was extorted in 1905, not by the Nihilists but by the loss of the Japanese War, and the constitution brought neither peace nor contentment, merely a sea of troubles.
When the great catastrophe came in 1917, the Nihilists were regarded as the most dangerous of réactionaries and terrorised with even greater ferocity than any priest or noble or disciple of order. The only mark they have left in history is the mark not merely of the beast so much as of futile and demented dreamers.
AUTHORITIES
T. von Bernhardi: Geschichte Russlands und der europdischen Politik, 1814-1831. Leipzig, 1863-71. 3 vols.
J. Eckhardt: Modern Russia. London, 1870.
A. von Rosen: Aus den Memoiren eines russischen Deka- bristen. Leipzig, 1874.
E. Lavigne: L’ Histoire du Nihilisme Russe. Paris, 1880.
A. Thun: Geschichte der revolutioniren Bewegungen in Russ- land. Leipzig, 1883.
J. Scherr: Die Nihilisten. Leipzig, 1885.
K. Oldenberg: Der russische Nihilismus von seiner Anfangen bis zur Gegenwart. Leipzig, 1888.
Stepniak: La Russia Sotterranea. Milan 1882.
T. Schiemann: Geschichte Russlands unter Kaiser Nikolaus I. Berlin, 1904.