But the serfs were worse off than ever before, because in the proclamation nothing was said about the land on which they had been living and which belonged to the nobles. They knew no trade except that of tilling the soil, and now that they were no longer the property of the nobles, their land was taken away from them and they had no means by which they could earn a living. Then terrible scenes commenced to be enacted. The serfs were ruthlessly driven from their homes and when they sought to remain were beaten in great numbers, being flogged so severely with the knout that many of them died as a result. Most of them were densely ignorant, and reading and writing were far beyond their knowledge. They could not understand why the land on which they had always lived and worked was taken from them, and why they were now denied even the bitter bread that they had formerly been able to earn.
Among the Russian nobility, however, were many high minded young men and women, who like Catherine felt the injustice of the serfs' hard lot and desired to help them. These young people formed into philanthropic bands, and went into the villages to teach the serfs, help them with their labor, minister to them in sickness and to make their condition better in every way possible. Thousands of boys and girls of gentle birth flocked to the Russian Universities and from there went to befriend the serfs. Throughout the younger generation a different feeling existed toward the common people than ever before in Russian history.
Catherine's father himself was liberal in his views and had already done what he could to alleviate the sufferings of his former bondsmen. When Catherine came to him and told him that she did not think that she could endure living in idleness any longer, but desired to support herself, he consented, and the girl who all her life had been used to the greatest luxuries went away to become a governess in the house of a nobleman, where she could live honestly by the fruits of her own labor.
Her father did not long consent to this, however, and helped her to open a boarding house for girls, where she taught school until she was twenty-five years old when she was married. Her husband was a young nobleman who sympathized with her liberal ideas, and himself had done a great deal to better the condition of the Russian people. He helped his wife work for the peasants and began a cooperative banking scheme by which they might benefit.
But Catherine grew more and more discontented with the terrible conditions that surrounded her on every side. She happened to go to the city of Kiev to visit her sister and she took her meals at a student's boarding house. She heard a great deal of discussion of the condition of Russia there and saw a great many young students who were interested in public affairs. And one day she held a secret meeting of students in her room to talk over what more could be done to make Russia a better place to live in.
While the younger generation had been striving in every way possible to help the serfs, the Russian Government did all in its power to hinder them. This government was then an absolute autocracy, which means that it was under the complete control of one ruler and a few advisors. The Czar of Russia knew that when his people grew better educated and more enlightened his own power would grow less, so he did all that he could to keep them in the state of darkness and ignorance in which they had languished for centuries. When young noblemen and girls sought to teach or help the peasants, they met with obstacles on every side, and many of them were treated with great severity by the officers of the Czar. This naturally angered them, and they began to form plans to overthrow the Czar's power, since they saw that any real progress would be impossible so long as the regime that then existed remained in force. In short they became revolutionists; and Catherine herself was well on the road to becoming one.
When Catherine came home from Kiev she and her husband conducted a series of meetings in which they made speeches to the peasants and labored harder than ever to improve their condition, but this soon brought them under the eye of the Czar's spies, and they were warned that they had better discontinue their efforts and let the peasants take care of themselves. And this was the final event that determined Catherine to become a revolutionist and bend all her energies to overthrowing the Czar's government.
She talked it over with her husband and asked him if he were ready to throw in his lot with those who sought to change the government, saying that she herself had resolved to do so. It meant suffering, poverty, hardships and very probably prison or death. Her husband was unwilling to take the risk and they parted forever. Soon after this Catherine had a son, and on account of the life that she had chosen was obliged to leave him with friends. It was a bitter moment for her when she gave him up, but it only strengthened her in her purpose.
Many revolutionists were at work in Russia at that time, and were scattered all through the country in various disguises. They were sent from various revolutionary centers to preach revolution to the peasants and to kindle the flames of revolt against the Czar. Others did social work, and sought to educate the peasants to the point where they would have sufficient knowledge to understand the revolutionary doctrines when they heard them—and it was in this form of work that Catherine first engaged.
At last, however, she entered into the more active work of the revolutionists, and in person commenced to spread revolutionary ideas among the common people. With two companions disguised as peasants, and in peasant garb herself, carrying a pack crammed with revolutionary pamphlets and literature, Catherine made her way to a little village, where she took a small hut and pretended to be a woman who dyed clothes. As soon as she grew to know the peasants she commenced to preach to them and to incite them to revolution. She told them that the Czar was an evil ruler, and that he and his nobles had always fattened themselves at the peasants' expense; that the Russian people would always be poor and miserable so long as the Czar remained in power; that they had a right to the land that was taken from them, and were no better than slaves who dared not call their souls their own—and furthermore that their only salvation lay in rising throughout Russia, overthrowing the Czar and establishing a government where all men should be free and equal, and where every man would have a right to earn his daily bread.