These “expropriations” were, moreover, not an anarchist speciality, for they were also undertaken by the other terrorist parties.
He, however, who believes that the revolutionaries employed this money for their personal needs is grossly deceived. After, as before, they remained in their miserable holes, eating rotten herrings and going barefoot, in order not to destroy their union with the workmen, and not to lose the latter’s confidence. The money was used solely for revolutionary purposes—for providing weapons and printing-presses; for the erection of laboratories for making bombs; for the expenses of the journeys of smugglers and propagandists; for bribery; and for the support of those who had been arrested, and of their families—also the families of those who had been killed or wounded.
XV.
Soon after my return from Baku, I was transferred to Warsaw, in order to take part in the May-day celebrations of 1905—these May-day celebrations taking place according to the calendar of non-Russian countries.
The war, the unceasing extensive strikes and disturbances, had resulted everywhere in giving rise to horrible misery, which was further increased by the political crisis and by the arrest of all branches of industry.
All the misery of which I had always dreamed I now saw unceasingly around me. It might be believed that at length my desires would have obtained satisfaction! But this was not so. In the same degree as that with which the poverty around me increased did my sensibility, too, become blunted; I became accustomed to its appearance; I regarded it as an everyday occurrence, as something easily comprehensible.
Somewhat more did I love and honour humanity on account of this misery; but not to the extent of something beyond force, something “superhuman,” which would have been necessary for my complete satisfaction. Perhaps in Baku I should have experienced this superhuman feeling, had it not been that at the decisive moment my body gave way under the strain. Was that, perhaps, prearranged by Nature? Has Nature imposed these limits upon an individual, in order to prevent him from raising himself above the human standard?
Can it be that the state into which I fell at Baku resembled a “syncope of the soul,” which ensued when my psychical state began to verge upon the superhuman, in consequence of the torments around me, just as bodily syncope renders us unconscious when physical pain exceeds the limits of human capacity?
These questions now began to occupy me. I could only attain certainty by means of experiment; and I must obtain certainty, even if the half of humanity had to be sacrificed, as one sacrifices a rabbit in an experiment.
Impatiently I awaited the first of May.... Perhaps that day would bring me a solution of the riddle!... The workmen were still undecided: should they demonstrate or not?... I began to urge them in favour of the demonstration; my reason is easy to understand....