That is Verestchagin’s view. It is certainly original and at least presents matter for serious reflection to the thoughtful, even though his deductions are not agreed to.
Only recently a tremendous sensation was caused by the discovery of a dynamite bomb factory in Zurich, secretly conducted by students, and the tracing therefrom of a Nihilist conspiracy against the Czar, with extensive ramifications throughout Russia. Official and court circles in St. Petersburg were panic-stricken at the news, and the public journals, as usual, were promptly forbidden publishing information, making comment, or saying a word on the subject. In the meantime the police pushed investigation in all directions and a large number of arrests were made.
Following up the traces of the plot, they found in a street of the capital most important evidences of its ramifications in St. Petersburg. This conspiracy was said to be more formidable than any preceding one. Nor was the danger diminished by the discoveries made. The arrests were only of minor people, and these maintained unbroken fidelity to their leaders, refusing to divulge even the little they were allowed to know.
All over the world the apostles of disorder, rapine and Anarchy are to-day pressing forward their work of ruin, and preaching their gospel of disaster to all the nations with a more fiery energy and a better organized propaganda than was ever known before. People who imagine that the energy of the revolutionists has slackened, or that their determination to wreck all the existing systems has grown less bitter, are deceiving themselves. The conspiracy against society is as determined as it ever was, and among every nation the spirit of revolt is being galvanized into a newer and more dangerous life.
In Chicago the signs of the times are so plain that he who runs may read. The skulking conspirators, who but a few months ago met secretly and in fear, in out-of-the-way cellars and thoroughly tiled halls, now court publicity. Their meetings are advertised and open—any one who chooses may attend—and they evidently feel a confidence and security which was unknown before this year of grace 1889. If this feeling is rampant here in Chicago, where the heaviest blow was struck at Anarchy, what must it be in other American cities, New York for instance, where the reds have a formidable and growing organization, or in Philadelphia, Pittsburg or Cincinnati? It is manifest that a new era of “revolutionary activity” is at hand, and it is to be questioned whether the proper means for meeting the proposed attack have been taken, or are being prepared.
In Europe the same ferment is apparent. In England the conspiracy is still largely under cover, for the English proletariat, as the Anarchists love to call the raw material of Anarchy, is slow to move and difficult to arouse. But the propaganda is busy, and occasional rumblings may be heard of the work going on underground, which should be received as the danger signals they are. In London there are all the factors for the most dangerous mob the world can produce. There are thousands upon thousands of half-starved, desperate men, who have absolutely nothing to lose save lives which they themselves hold as almost worthless, and there is the constant temptation before them of wealth so great and so flaunting, and of a wealthy class often so cruelly unjust, that it need never be a matter of wonder when the East End of London springs at the throat of the West. In England, however, nobody seems to believe that there can be such a thing as a servile revolt—that might occur among the French or the Germans or the Russians, but never in John Bull’s island,—and the conspirators, safely covered by the fancied security of the people, are permitted to undermine at their will the fabric of English society.
In France the Commune is stronger than it ever was, and the Red Terror may appear with every turn of the whirligig of politics. France does not disbelieve in the danger, but it is practically powerless to avert it, owing to the general demoralization which has followed Boulanger’s success. Of course, it can only be a wild and bloody riot followed by a wild and bloody retribution, by a nation frightened out of freedom back into the arms of a strong government, for in France the issues are made up, and the country has made up its mind.
In Spain and Italy, and especially in the smaller states—Switzerland, Belgium and the Scandinavian countries—the Socialists are busy, while in Germany and in Russia a crisis is at hand. Thus, the world over, it is evident that Anarchy is at work with a feverish purpose never before displayed, and the governments are menaced with a danger before which foreign war is as nothing. Nothing but the uprooting of the very foundations and groundwork of our civilization will satisfy these enemies of order. Their fight is to the death. They will neither take nor give quarter. It is war à l’outrance—composition or truce is futile and foolish.
Are we prepared, or are we even preparing for the shock?
Let none mistake either the purpose or the devotion of these fanatics, nor their growing strength. This is methodic—not a haphazard conspiracy. The ferment in Russia is controlled by the same heads and the same hands as the activity in Chicago. There is a cold-blooded, calculating purpose behind this revolt, manipulating every part of it, the world over, to a common and ruinous end. Whether the next demonstration of the Red Terror will occur where its disciples are goaded to desperation under despotic measures, as in the land of the Czar, or in our own country, where they are allowed to preach its bloody doctrines under a broad construction of the American constitutional right of free speech, time alone can tell.