A history of socialism

by Thomas Kirkup

The success of the missionaries was limited. With all his strong suspicion and his narrow range of ideas, the peasant could not easily understand the meaning and purpose of those strange men teaching strange things. The traditions of the past, as they came down to him dim and confused, contained many a bitter memory of disappointed hopes. He was apathetic as well as suspicious. Moreover, the teacher often delivered his message in half-digested formulas which had a meaning only as connected with the economic development of Western Europe, and which did not rightly attach themselves to anything within the experience of the Russian Peasantry.

Above all, the propaganda enjoyed only a very brief period of activity. The teachers went about their work with very little circumspection, in the careless free-and-easy way which seems so natural to the Russian temperament. Consequently, the Government had no difficulty in discovering and following up the traces of the propagandists. Before the year 1876 had ended, nearly all of them were in prison. More than 2000 were arrested during the period 1873-76! Many were detained in prison for years, till the investigations of the police resulted in 50 being brought to trial at Moscow and 193 at St. Petersburg at the end of 1877. Most were acquitted by the courts, yet the Government sent them into exile by administrative process.

The adverse experiences which we have recorded brought the attempts at peaceful propaganda to a close, and the revolutionary party decided on the propaganda of action. They resolved to settle among the people and prepare them for a rising against the Government. Where peaceful teaching had failed, they sought to force a way by violent methods. It was a desperate policy to pursue among a people who had not been able even to understand the aims of the revolutionary party.

It is very characteristic of the circumstances of Russia that the most successful attempt at thus organising a scheme for revolutionary action could gain the adhesion of the peasantry only by pretending that it had the sanction of the Tzar. Jacob Stephanovitz, one of the prominent members of the revolutionary party, gave it out in South-Western Russia that he had an order from the Tzar to form a secret society among the common people against the nobles, priests and officials who were opposing the imperial wishes to confer land and freedom on the peasants. Those to whom he addressed himself could hardly believe that the Emperor was so powerless, but he did eventually succeed in forming a society of about a thousand members. When the plot was discovered by the police, the peasants were naturally enraged at the deception which had been practised on them. It should be added that such a method of action did not meet with the approval of the party as a whole.

Like the peaceful propaganda, the propaganda of action failed to gain a firm footing among the people.

At every step the revolutionary party found the organs of the central power ready to suppress their efforts in the most summary way. They were now convinced that they must directly attack the autocracy and its servants, and as they had received no mercy they decided to show none; and thus began the resolute, systematic, and merciless struggle of the revolutionary party against the Tzardom. For this end they naturally made a great change in their mode of action. They adopted a strong organisation instead of the lax discipline or total want of discipline commended by Bakunin. Affairs were conducted by a secret central committee, who with unsparing energy carried out the new aims of the party. The first great act in this the third stage of the Russian revolutionary movement was the assassination of General Trepoff, Prefect of Police, by Vera Sassoulitsch, at St. Petersburg, in 1878. The occasion of the deed was the flogging, by command of Trepoff, of a political prisoner personally unknown to her. Her object was to avenge the cause of outraged humanity on the servant of the autocracy. At the trial she was acquitted by the jury, to the great surprise of the Imperial Court. An attempt by the police to apprehend her on leaving the place of trial was frustrated by the mob, and she succeeded in making her escape to Switzerland.

The public gave the most unmistakable proofs of sympathy with Vera Sassoulitsch; and the event naturally excited great enthusiasm and emulation among the eager spirits of the revolutionary party. Police officials and spies of the Government were cut off without mercy. General Mezentseff, Chief of Police, was stabbed in the streets of the capital in broad daylight. Prince Kropotkin, Governor of Charkoff, a relative of the revolutionist, was shot. General Drenteln was also openly attacked in the streets. After thus assailing the officers of the executive, they proceeded systematically to plan the assassination of the Tzar himself, as the head of the central power which they abhorred so much. Solovieff fired five shots at the Tzar without doing any harm; three attempts were made to wreck the imperial train, one of them failing because the Tzar had made a change in his arrangements; and he escaped the terrible explosion at the Winter Palace only because he was later than usual in entering his dining-room. These failures did not prevent the executive committee from prosecuting its desperate work, and on March 13, 1881, followed the tragic death of Alexander II.

We need not say that the violent death of Alexander II. sent a thrill of horror throughout Europe. It was felt to be a most lamentable and regrettable ending to a reign which had begun with such high and generous aspirations, and with so much promise of good to the Russian people. There was a natural difficulty in understanding how a Sovereign, benevolent in character and not unwilling to pursue a liberal policy, should be the victim of a forward movement among his people. The explanation must be found in the special circumstances of Russia, for Alexander was merely the representative of a political system which, by its historic evolution, its nature and position, has exercised an absolute and often merciless mastery over its subjects, and the men that cut him off were youthful enthusiasts, who with revolutionary impatience were eager to apply to the belated circumstances of Russia the most extreme theories of the West.

The historian has often to regret that more wisdom is not available for the management of human affairs, and we may believe that a moderate measure of wisdom and patience might have prevented the fatal collision between the Tzar and the revolutionary party. The Tzardom, as we have seen, has performed a great and indispensable function in the national life of Russia. It still seems to be the only practicable form of government in such a country. No class is advanced or powerful enough to take its place. The mass of the Russian people are not yet capable of self-government on a wide scale. There is no large educated class. The middle and industrial class, in the modern sense of the word, are still comparatively small and unimportant; and it is probable enough that if there had been an influential middle class, and if the abolition of serfdom had been effected under their auspices, the peasants would have received less favourable treatment than they experienced from the autocracy. The best available form of government for Russia seems to be an enlightened Tzardom, and the Emperor Alexander II. was personally both enlightened and well-intentioned.

At the same time the position of the Tzardom cannot very long be tenable in its present form. Russia lies where it is, in close proximity to progressive countries. In the past the Russian people have been largely disciplined by Germans; they have learned much from England, and have perhaps shown the greatest social and spiritual affinity to the French. This intercourse will go on. The strongest and most watchful Tzar cannot maintain a Chinese wall of separation between his country and the rest of Europe. Nor can the Tzars expect to have the benefit of the science of Western Europe for military purposes, and at the same time succeed in shutting it out from influencing the social and political life of their people. It is inevitable, therefore, that the liberal ideas of the West will continue to dissolve and disintegrate the old fabric of Russian ideas and institutions. One of two results appears necessary, either that the Tzars must strenuously follow the path of reasonable and energetic reform, or they may risk a revolution which will sweep away the present central power.