A history of socialism

by Thomas Kirkup

For Russia, as for other countries, there are but two alternatives, progress or revolution. If the latter consummation were to happen, it does not, however, follow that the cause of freedom would have any great direct and immediate furtherance. In the circumstances of Russia the man who wields the military power must be supreme. A new ruler resting on the army might be not less an autocrat than the old. We can but say that the present policy of the Tzardom is seriously retarding and arresting the natural and national development of Russia, and that it tends to provoke a catastrophe which may endanger its own existence. The industrial progress now being made in the country renders it only the more necessary that her political institutions should make a corresponding advance.

It remains now to say a word about the revolutionists who have played so remarkable a part in the recent history of Russia. The members of the Russian revolutionary party have been drawn from nearly all classes of the people. Some, as we have seen, belonged to highly placed aristocratic families; some have been sons of priests and of the lower officials. More recently the rural classes supplied active adherents to the militant party. One of the most notable features of the movement is the influence exerted in it by women. It was Vera Sassoulitsch who opened the death-struggle with the autocracy in 1878. A lady of high birth, Sophia Perovskaia, by the waving of a veil guided the men who threw the fatal bombs at the assassination of Alexander II.

But whether aristocrats or peasants, men or women, the members of the Russian revolutionary party have been remarkable for their youth. The large majority of those engaged in the struggle had not attained to the age of twenty-five. In view of their extreme youth, therefore, we need not say that they had more enthusiasm than wisdom, and more of the energy that aims at immediate success than of the considerate patience that knows how to wait for the slowly maturing fruits of the best and surest progress. Having regard to the very subversive theories which they tried to sow broadcast among the masses of the Russian people, we see clearly enough that no autocracy in the world could avoid taking up the challenge to authority which they so rudely threw down. Only the Government of an enlightened people long familiar with the free and open discussion of every variety of opinion, can afford to give unlimited opportunity of propaganda to such views as were entertained by the Russian revolutionary party.

Yet while the theories of the party were from the first of a most subversive nature, it is right to emphasise the fact that they did not proceed to violent action till they were goaded into it by the police and the other officials of the central Government. Indeed, the measures of the Government and its representatives have often directly tended to the stirring up of the revolutionary mood. By their irritating measures of repression they provoked, among the students at the universities, disturbances which they quelled by most brutal methods. Young men arrested on suspicion, and kept in vile prisons for years while awaiting investigation, were naturally driven to hostile reflection on the iniquity of a Government from which they received such treatment.

In speaking of a country like Russia, we need not say that the most elementary political rights were denied the revolutionists. They had no right of public meeting, no freedom of the press, no freedom of utterance anywhere. They were surrounded with spies ready to give to every word and deed the worst interpretation. The peasants whom they desired to instruct in the new teaching might inform upon them. Their comrades in propaganda might be induced or coerced to betray them. It was often fatal even to be suspected, as the police and the other organs of Government were only too disposed to take the most rigorous measures against all who were charged with revolutionary opinion. Nor could the accused appeal to the law with any confidence, for the ordinary tribunals might be set aside, and his fate be decided by administrative procedure; that is, he could be executed, or condemned to prison or exile in Siberia, without the pretence of a legal trial. In such circumstances it was natural that resolute champions of liberty should be driven to secret conspiracy in its extremest form, and to violent action of the most merciless character.

While, therefore, historical accuracy obliges us to emphasise the fact that the aims of the revolutionary party far exceeded all that is included in liberalism and constitutional government, it is only just to explain that they resorted to violent methods only because the most elementary political rights were denied them. In the fiercest mood of their terrible struggle with the autocracy, they were still ready to throw aside their weapons.

In the address sent by the Executive Committee to Alexander III., after the death of his father, in March 1881, they offered to give up their violent mode of action, and submit unconditionally to a National Assembly freely elected by the people. They meant under a constitutional government to have recourse only to constitutional methods.

With regard to the number of those concerned in the Russian revolutionary movement, it is not easy to speak with precision. There is no proof that the anarchist opinions have gained a large body of adherents in the country. The numerical strength of the party directly engaged in the struggle with the Tzardom has always been comparatively small. On the other hand, the movement has evidently met with a very wide sympathy in Russian society. In the absence of precise information, we may quote the words of one who has a good right to speak for the revolutionary party:—

‘The Russian revolutionary movement is really a revolution sui generis, carried on, however, not by the mass of the people or those feeling the need of it, but by a kind of delegation, acting on behalf of the mass of the people with this purpose.

‘No one has ever undertaken, and perhaps no one could with any certainty undertake, to calculate the numerical strength of this party—that is to say, of those who share the convictions and aspirations of the revolutionists. All that can be said is, that it is a very large party, and that at the present moment it numbers hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of men, disseminated everywhere. This mass of people, which might be called the Revolutionary Nation, does not, however, take a direct part in the struggle. It entrusts its interests and its honour, its hatred and its vengeance, to those who make the revolution their sole and exclusive occupation; for under the conditions existing in Russia, people cannot remain as ordinary citizens and devote themselves at the same time to Socialism and the Revolution.