The terrorists of the revolution bear precisely the same relation to the movement as a whole as sharp-shooters bear to a regular army. No military officer ever advocated turning a whole army into scouts and sharp-shooters, and no revolutionist I ever talked with desired turning the revolutionary movement into a vast terroristic organization. But as an auxiliary agency the fighting organization has its work, just as distinct and as important as the work of the military organization.
The Russian revolutionary parties, properly so-called, are two—the Social Democratic Party and the Social Revolutionist Party. The former is a Marxian socialist party, dominated by German thought, and influenced even to its working methods by German ideals. More and more the Social Democrats are tending toward the doctrinaire. They aim to keep in step with the international socialist movement, and their immediate efforts are all toned and tempered by their ultimate program, which is the establishment of a socialistic state in Russia, to supersede autocracy, as soon as the rank and file of the people are sufficiently instructed in the nationalistic principles which underlie their philosophy. Active fighting and insurrection with the Social Democrats is now only occasional, and is determined by peculiar local conditions.
The Social Revolutionists, on the other hand, are an out-and-out revolutionary organization in the usually accepted sense. This party believes in barricade fighting when circumstances seem propitious. At all times its propaganda encourages preparation for armed revolts, and instils the belief that it is through insurrection that the balance of power will eventually be wrested from the bureaucracy. While indorsing insurrection, the Social Revolutionists find that there are long periods when active revolt is inexpedient, when the people are for the moment exhausted, their resources drained, their spirits dampened by the cruel reaction such as characterized the period of M. Stolypin’s ministry, from the day of the dissolution of the first Duma. Yet there are always those who chafe under inaction, and who can not cease from the strife so long as life and liberty are spared them. Of such are the Maximalists, an offshoot of the Social Revolutionists, whose exploits thrilled all Russia from time to time during 1906, but whose reckless daring resulted in the almost complete extermination of the party.
Terrorism proper is not a blind, fanatical policy of bloodshed. It is a phase of warfare which can be logically justified even when it can not be sentimentally accepted. Assassination in a country where normal, peaceful conditions prevail can never be justified. But terrorism, as it exists in Russia, rests on the basis that Russia is not only in an abnormal condition, but it is a country seething with internal war. The government maintains its army on a war footing; during the entire year of 1906 at least four fifths of the empire was kept under martial law, military trials and punishments were meted out to ordinary civil offenders, and the men were executed for crimes so petty as stealing less than ten dollars. The Russian government maintains a state of perpetual warfare against its own people, therefore the ethics of a peaceful land do not at all apply to Russia.
Terrorism does not mean reckless and indiscriminate bloodshed. On the contrary, it means the prevention of bloodshed because victims of the red terror are almost without exception tyrants whose lives, and régime, if permitted to continue, would demand the lives of numberless victims falling under their rule. The assassination of a Plehve, a Sergius, a Pavlov, a Luchenovsky, sends a nation to its knees in praise and thanksgiving—I speak, I believe, without exaggeration—because the taking of each one of those lives saved the lives of many innocents who would have fallen under their merciless régime, precisely as hundreds did fall before these pitiless rulers were overtaken by the terror.
Marie Spiradonova was the first terrorist of the present movement whom I met face to face. I have described her charming girlishness, her burning idealism, her heroic daring. During the succeeding months I met a good many members of the fighting organization and I think with every one I was impressed with their splendid spirit.
Personally, I do not approve of bombs, save under extraordinary circumstances, but I can understand their vogue in Russia. And this I know, that the terrorist—the assassin of the revolution—usually pays greater heed to safeguarding the bystanders than the government ever does.
The slayer of the Grand Duke Sergius allowed five opportunities for striking his victim to go by, because the Grand Duchess Elizabeth was by his side and her death was not desired.
Zinaida Konoplannikova, who shot General Min at Peterhof in August, sacrificed her own life to save the lives of some children. On a certain morning when the general left his home he was approached by Zinaida, who was accompanied by one comrade. She held a velvet work-bag in one hand. In the bag was a bomb, in her pocket was a Browning revolver; Zinaida meant to do her work well. As she was on the point of passing the general and dropping the bomb two children ran toward her and flung themselves at her skirts. She carefully raised the bag above their heads, and turning to her comrade said: “I can not—the children.” That same afternoon Zinaida waited for General Min near the railroad station. Again she carried the velvet work-bag, and in her pocket the Browning. The station was almost deserted. She determined to use the bomb and attempt escape. The bomb would make sure her victim and occasion enough commotion to perhaps enable her to get away unnoticed. But when the general appeared he was accompanied by his wife and daughter. Like a flash she weighed the choice—the bomb would kill the general and the two women, but perhaps cover her escape. The revolver meant the general’s death and her own and no other. There was no hesitancy. Her hand reached for the Browning, and General Min fell. As soldiers rushed upon her she motioned them back, shouting “Careful! Careful! This is a bomb!” The soldiers hesitated. Zinaida gently put down the bomb, and gave herself up. In the dead of night, September 10, 1906, in the grim and sinister courtyard of the famous Schlüsselburg fortress Zinaida was hanged.
Many times have these “terrorists” shown similar care for the lives of the innocent. At least two or three sacrificed their lives during a Maximalist incident which is described at length in the following chapter, by the insistent daring of the “protecting party” in keeping the crowd of passers-by back from the zone of fire.