XII.
Everywhere now the revolution was in flood. We developed a feverish activity in all our centres.... At first we had no very great influence, but our emissaries were actively at work everywhere, in order to convert our movement from a political one to a social one, or at least to an economic one.
For this purpose we had provided a secret printing-press in Warsaw, where we prepared the necessary leaflets. They were written by a student, who was a genius in this speciality. No one understood as well as he how to appeal to the instincts of the crowd. The moving power of his style was incomparable.... He put the facts side by side, illuminated them from the side that seemed to him most suitable, and then drew his conclusions, which, in their simple convincing logic, seemed irresistible. Then he turned to inflame fanaticism, reminded us how, then and there, and there, and there, so many victims had been sacrificed to the same idea; how, there and elsewhere, on the barricades men had died for it, and had rather rotted in prison than abandon their just demands. In this way he always succeeded in moving the crowd.
It was very efficacious, also, to remind the people of all the little tricks which had been played upon them by the manufacturers and by the authorities; he drew their attention to the fact how they, who had created everything, were actually not recognized as human beings, far less as human beings with equal rights.... These proofs most readily infuriated the proletarians to frenzy, and in some places, as in Lagonsk, Tiflis, and Baku, we succeeded in turning the movement in the economic direction. It was a great advantage that we had associates everywhere, and we were quickly notified when the rain was likely to begin, so that we could speedily move to another place.
In Tiflis the affair did not go as I wished; here the people were only too practical.... They began neither to strike, nor to demolish, nor to attack the soldiers.... No.... They simply said: “So much wages do we want; then we shall work only for such a time; and no commodity must rise in price.... Every one who will not take part with us we shall shoot.”... All the inhabitants joined them.... After a short time all this came to nothing.
Baku was more pleasing to me.... Here the petroleum-borers made their demands, and as these were not agreed to within two days, they set fire to 140 wells.... Then, to my great regret, the proprietors agreed to everything which had been demanded. I had been so inhumanly glad to see my life-ideal fulfilled. It seemed as if the situation was going to be such as I had often imagined....
A long time already had the religious and racial hatred between the Armenians and the Tartars been inflamed to the uttermost. In the whole of the Caucasus there was a bubbling as if in a witch’s cauldron.... Naturally, I remained in Baku, in order to be ready for what I hoped would happen there.
The whole population was at the uttermost point of tension; everything seemed painfully uncertain; would the dance begin or not?... I felt that it would only be necessary to throw a grain of sand into machine, and in an instant it would lead to an avalanche.... I was possessed by a frightful excitement; this mental tension was intolerable.... From minute to minute the horrible anxiety of the undetermined increased in me, and the hellish desire still burned within me; I longed that it might start at this very minute, so that, at last, my nerve-destroying tension might be relieved.
Then I became possessed with a demoniacal idea: one only needed to give the slightest little push at the right place, and the storm would break.
Inwardly I shuddered at the idea of the horrible consequences; and yet something within me drove me forward with an irresistible force—finally, to close the switch, and to allow the current to pass which must give rise to the explosion.... “It is only a kind of benevolent midwifery,” something seemed to whisper in my ear. “It must happen, in any case!... The sooner the storm breaks, the better!”