Underground Russia; revolutionary profiles and sketches from life

Front matter

Book

UNDJlRGrEOUND RUSSIA

REVOLUTIOXARY PROFILES AND

Introduction

PAGE

The Terrorism .30

REVOLUTIONARY PROFILES.

Eevolutionary Profiles 45

Demetrius Clemens . ' . . . . . . .59

Valerian Ossinsky 70

Peter Krapotkine 83

Demetrius Lisogub 93

Jessy Helfman 101

Vera Zassulic 106

REVOLUTIONARY SKETCHES.

The Moscow Attempt, I. A Band of Hermits . . . 137 " " " II. The Mine . . . .141 xiii

XIV CONTENTS.

PAGE

The Ukrivateli (The Concealers) 166

The Secret Press . . . 185

Letter of the Executive Committee to Alexander 111. 265

INTRODUCTIOK

I

TuRGHEKEFF, the novelist, who will certainly live in his writings for many generations, has rendered himself immortal by a single word. It was he who invented 'Nihilism.* (At first the word was used in a contemptuous sense, but afterwards was accepted from ' party pride by those against whom it was employed, as so frequently has occurred in history.)

There would be no need to mention this but for the fact that in Europe the party called by this name was not that thus called in Russia, but another completely different.

(^The genuine Mhilism was a philosophical and literary movement, which flourished in the first decade after the Emancipation of the Serfs, that is to say, between 1860 and 1870. It is now absolutely extinct, and only a few traces are left of it, which are rapidly disappearingj for, with the feverish life of the last few years, a decade in Russia may really be considered as a period of at least from thirty to fifty years.

Nihilism was a struggle for the emancipation of intelligence from every kind of dependence, and it advanced ^ side bj side with that for the emancipation of the laboring classes from serfdom.

The fundamental principle of Nihilism, properly so-

' called, was absolute individualism. It was the negation, in the name of individual liberty, of all the obligations imposed upon the individual by society, by family life, and by religion. Nihilism was a passionate and powerful reaction, not against political despotism, but against the moral despotism that weighs upon the private and inner life of the individual. ^

But it must be confessed that our predecessors, at least in the earlier days, introduced into this highly pacific struggle the same spirit of rebellion and almost the same fanaticism that characterises the present movement. I will here indicate the general character of this struggle,

\ because it is really a prelude to the great drama, the last act of which is being enacted in the Empire of the Night. The first battle was fought in the domain of religion. But this was neither long nor obstinate. It was gained, so to speak, in a single assault ; for there is no country in the world where, among the cultivated classes, religion has such little root as in Eussia. The past generation was partly Christian by custom, and partly atheist by culture. But when once this band of young writers, armed with the natural sciences and positive philosophy, full of talent, of fire, and of the ardour of proselytism, was impelled to the assault, Christianity fell like an old, decaying hovel, which remains standing because no one touches it.

The materialist propaganda was carried on in two modes, whicli by turns supplemented and supported each other. Indirectly by means of the press, works being translated or written which furnished the most irrefutable arguments against every religious system, against free-will, and against the supernatural. In order to avoid the clutches of the censorship, passages which were too clear were veiled under certain obscure words which, with an ardent and attentive reader, brought out the ideas even more distinctly.

The oral propaganda, employing the arguments developed by the instructed, drew from them their logical consequences, flinging aside the reticence imposed upon the writers. Atheism excited people like a new religion. The zealous went about, like veritable missionaries, in search of living souls, in order to cleanse them from the ^abomination of Christianity.' The secret press was even set to work, and Biichner's book ^ Force and Matter, *" in which the German philos- \ opher directly attacks the Christian theology, was ' translated and lithographed. The book was secretly circulated, not without a certain amount of danger, and was highly successful. Some pushed their ardour so far as to carry on the propaganda among the young pupils of the schools.

One day there fell into my hands an 'open letter' of B. Zaizeff, one of the contributors to the 'Russkoi i Slovo,' a widely popular paper of that period. In this 'letter,' intended for the secret press, the author.

b INTEODUCTION.

speaking of that time, and of the charges brought against the Nihilists of those days by the Nihilists of the present day, says, ^I swear to you by everything which I hold sacred, that we were not egotists as you call us. It was an error, I admit, but we were profoundly convinced that we were fighting for the happiness of human nature, and every one of us would have gone to the scaffold and would have laid down his life for [ Moleschott or Darwin.' The remark made me smile. The reader, also, will perhaps smile at it, but it is profoundly sincere and truthful. Had things reached such an extremity, the world would perhaps have seen a spectacle at once tragic and comical ; martyrdom to prove that Darwin was right and Cuvier wrong, as two centuries previously the priest Abbaco and his disciples went to the stake, and.mounted the scaffold, in support of their view, that Jesus should be written with one J instead of two, as in Greek ; and that the Halleluiah should be sung three times and not twice, as in the State Church. It is a fact, highly characteristic of the Eussian mind, this tendency to become excited even to fanaticism, about certain things which would simply meet with approval or disapproval from a man of "Western Europe. But, in the case to which we are referring, things went very smoothly. There was no one to defend the altars of the gods. Among us, fortunately, the clergy never had any spiritual influence, being extremely ignorant and completely absorbed in family affairs, the priests being married men. What could the Government do against a purely intellectual movement which found expression in no external act ?

The battle was gained almost without trouble, and without effort ; definitely, absolutely gained. Among people in Russia with any education at all, a man now who is not a materialist, a thorough materialist, would really be a curiosity.

The yictory was of the highest importance. Absolute atheism is the sole inheritance that has been preserved intact by the new generation, and I need scarcely point out how much advantage the modern revolutionary movement has derived from it.

But (Nihilism proclaimed war not only against religion, but against everything that was not based upon pure and positive reason. -This tendency, right enough in itself, was carried by the Nihilists of 1860 to such lengths that it became absurd. Art, as one of the manifestations of idealism, was absolutely renounced by the Nihilists, together with everything that excites the sentiment of the beautiful.

This was one of the fiercest conflicts in which the old Nihilism was engaged. One of their fanatics launched the famous aphorism that 'a shoemaker is superior to Raphael, because the former makes useful things, while the latter makes things that are of no use at all.' To an orthodox Nihilist, Nature herself was a mere furnisher of materials for chemistry and technology. J I say nothing of many other similar things, which would take too long to enumerate.

H

8 INTBODUCTION.

^ II.

[ But there was one question in which Nihilism rendered great service to its country. It was the important question of woman. Nihilism recognised her as having equal rights with man. The intimacy of social intercourse in Russia, where there are neither cafes nor clubs, and where the drawing-room necessarily becomes the sole place of meeting, and even more perhaps the new economical position of the nobles resulting from the emancipation of the serfs, gave to the question of the emancipation of woman an important development, and secured for her an almost complete victory./

Woman is subjugated through love. Every time, therefore, that she arises to claim her rights, it is only natural that she should commence by asking for the liberty of love. It was thus in ancient days ; it was thus in the France of the eighteenth century, and of George Sand. It was thus also in Eussia.

But with us the question of the emancipation of woman was not confined to the petty right of 'free love,' which is nothing more than the right of always selecting her master. It was soon understood that the important thing is to have liberty itself, leaving the question of love to individual will ; and as there is no liberty without economical independence, the struggle changed its aspect, and became one for acquiring free access to superior instruction and to the professions followed by educated men. The struggle was long and ardent, for our barbarous and mediaeval family life stood in the way.

It was maintained very bravely by our women, and had the same passionate character as most of our recent social struggles. The women finally vanquished. The G-overnment itself was compelled to recognise it.

Iso father now threatens to cut off the hair of his daughter if she wishes to go to St. Petersburg to study medicine, or follow the higher courses there of the other sciences. A young girl is no longer compelled to fly from her father's house, and the Nihilists no longer need to have recourse to ^fictitious marriages' in order to render her her own mistress.

Nihilism had conquered all along the line.

The Nihilist had only now to rest upon his laurels. The first two persons of the trinity of his ideal, as prescribed by the ^What are we to do ?' — independence of mind and intelligent female company, were within his reach. The third, an occupation in accordance with his tastes, is lacking, but as he is intelligent, and Russia is wanting in educated people, he will find it easily.

'Well, and what will happen afterwards ?' asks a young man full of ardor, who has just arrived from some distant province, and come to visit his old master.

*I am happy,' replies the latter.

'Yes,' the young man will say to him, 'you are happy, I see. But how can you be happy when in the country where you were born people are dying of hunger, where the Government takes from the people their last farthing and compels them to go forth and beg for a crust of bread ? Perhaps you do not know this ; and if you know it, wliat have you done for your brethren ? Did you not tell me years ago that you wished to combat *^for the happiness of human nature ?" '

And the model Nihilist, the Nihilist of Turgheneff, will be troubled by that look which knows nothing of compromise ; for the enthusiasm and the faith that animated him in the early years of the struggle have vanished with victory. He is nothing more than au intelligent and refined epicure, and his blood circulates languidly in his plump body.

And the young man will go away full of sadness, asking himself with an accent of despair the terrible question, * What are we to do ? '

We are now at the year 1871. Through those marvellous inventions by means of which the man of modern days may be called omnipresent, the picture is placed before him of an immense city which has risen for a grand idea, that of claiming the rights of the people. He follows with breathless interest all the vicissitudes of the terrible drama which is being enacted upon the banks of the Seine. He sees blood flow; he hears the agonising cries of women and children slaughtered upon the boulevards. But for what are they dying ? For what are they weeping ? For the emancipation of the working-man ; for the grand social idea !

And at the same time falls upon his ear the plaintive song of the Eussian peasant : all wailing and lamentation, in which so many ages of suffering seem concentrated. His squalid misery, his whole life stands forth full of sorrow, of suffering, of outrage. Look at him : exhausted by hunger, broken down by toil, the eternal slave of the privileged classes, working without pause, without hope of redemption ; for the Government purposely keeps him ignorant, and everyone robs him, everyone tramples on him, and no one stretches out a hand to assist him. No one ? Not so. The young man knows now ^what to do.' He will stretch forth his hand. He will tell the peasant how to free himself and become happy. His heart throbs for this poor sufferer, who can only weep. The flush of enthusiasm mounts to his brow, and with burning glances he takes in his heart a solemn oath to consecrate all his life, all his strength, all his thoughts, to the liberation of this population, which drains its life-blood, in order that he, the favoured son of privilege, may live at his ease, study, and instruct himself.

He will tear off the fine clothes that burn into his very flesh ; he will put on the rough coat and the wooden shoes of the peasant, and, abandoning the splendid paternal palace, which oppresses him like the reproach of a crime, he will go forth ^ among the people ' in some remote district, and there, the slender and delicate descendant of a noble race, he will do the hard work of the peasant, enduring every privation in order to carry to him the words of redemption, the Gospel of our age, — Socialism. What matters to him if the cut-throats of the Government lay hands upon him ? What to him are exile, Siberia, death ? Full of his sublime idea, clear, splendid, viyifying as the midday sun, he defies suffering, and would meet death with a glance of enthusiasm and a smile of happiness.

It Avas thus that the Eevolutionary Socialist of 1872-74 arose. It was thus that his precursors of 1866 arose, the unfortunate karakosovzi, a small nucleus of high intellectual character which developed under the immediate influence of the nascent 'Internationale,' but had only a brief life, and left no traces behind it.

Here then are the two t3rpes that represent the Kussian intellectual movement. The first, that of the decade 1860-70 ; the second that from 1871 onwards.

What a contrast !

The Nihilist seeks his own happiness at whatever cost. His ideal is a ' reasonable ' and * realistic ' life. The Revolutionist seeks the happiness of others at whatever cost, sacrificing for it his own. His ideal is a life full of suffering, and a martyr's death.

And yet Fate decreed that the former, who was not known and who could not be known in any other country than his own, should have no name in Europe, and that the latter, having acquired a terrible reputation, should be called by the name of the other. What irony !

I.

The Kussian reyolutionary movement, as I indicated at the commencement of my introduction, was the result of the examples and ideas developed in Western Europe, acting upon the minds of the youth of Russia, who owing to the condition of the country were predisposed to accept them with the utmost favour.

I have now to trace out separately the true influences that determined this result, and their respective courses, as in the case of a great river, of which we know the source and the mouth, without knowing either its precise course, or the affluents that have given it such volume.

The influence of Europe is very easy to investigate, its course being so simple and elementary. The communion of ideas between Russia and Europe has never been interrupted, notwithstanding all the preventive measures of the censorship. Prohibited books like the works of Proudhon, Eourier, Owen, and other old Socialists, were always secretly introduced into Russia, even under the Asiatically ferocious and suspicious despotism of Nicholas I.

But owing to the difficulty of obtaining these precious volumes, and to the language which rendered them inaccessible to ordinary readers, they could not directly exercise a decisive influence. There was, however, an entire band of very able writers who, inspired by the ideas of Socialism, succeeded in rendering them universally accessible. At the head of these were the most intellectual men of whom Russia can boast : Cerniscewsky, a profound thinker and economist of wide knowledge, a novelist, a pungent polemist, who paid tlie penalty of his noble mission with a martyrdom, which still continues ; Dobrolinboff, a critic of genius, who died at twenty-six after having shaken all Eussia with his immortal writings ; Micailoff, a professor and writer, condemned to hard labour for a speech to the students — and many, many others. Hertzen and Ogareff, editors of the first free newspaper in the Russian language — the ^Kolokol' of London — brought from abroad their precious tribute to this movement. These were the real apostles of the new doctrine, who prepared the ground for the modern movement, having educated the entire generation of 1870 in the principles of Socialism. With the Paris Commune, which had such a formidable echo throughout the whole world, Russian Socialism entered upon its belligerent phase, and from the study and the private gathering passed to the workshop and the village.

There were many causes which determined the youth of Russia to accept so eagerly the principles of the revo-

THE PKOPAGANDA. 15

lutionary Socialism proclaimed by tlie Commune. I can merely indicate them here. The ill-fated Crimean War having ruthlessly demonstrated the rottenness of the whole Russian social edifice, it was essential to provide a remedy as expeditiously as possible. But the work of the regeneration of the country, directed by the hand of an autocratic Emperor, who wished to preserve everything ; both his sacred ' rights ' (the first to be abolished), and the prerogatives of the class of the nobles, in order to have their suj)port because he feared the revolution — such a work could only be imperfect, hypocritical, contradictory, an abortion. We will not criticise it, especially as there is no need to do so, for all the newspapers, including the ^ Official Gazette,' now repeat in various tones what the Socialists have been so much reviled for declaring, that all the reforms of Alexander II. proved ] utterly inefficient, and that the famous emancipation of the serfs only changed their material condition for the worse, the terms of redemption fixed for the scrap of j land bestowed upon them being onerous beyond measure.

The wretched condition, every day growing worse, of the peasants, that is to say, of nine-tenths of the entire population, could not fail to cause serious reflection to all those who had at heart the future of the country. It was essential to seek a remedy for this, and it may fairly be assumed that the public mind would have turned to legal and pacific means if, after having liberated the peasants from the bondage of their lords, the Emperor

Alexander II. had liberated Russia from his own bondage, bestowing upon her some kind of Constitution which would have made her the arbiter of her own destinies, or at least have afforded her the hope of one day becoming so. But this was precisely what he would not do on any account. Autocracy having retained all its power, nothing could be hoped for except from the good-will of the Emperor, and this hope went on diminishing as the years passed by. Alexander II. as a reformer stood the test only for a few years.

The insurrection in Poland, stifled with a ferocity known to all, was the signal for a reaction, which grew more furious day by day. There was nothing to hope for in legal and pacific means. Everything must be uncomplainingly endured, or other ways of saving the country must be sought for. All those who had a heart in their breasts naturally clung to the latter course.

Thus, as the reaction grew more furious, the revolutionary excitement became more manifest, and secret societies swarmed in all the principal cities. The revolver shot of Karakosoff which resulted from that excitement was a terrible warning to the Emperor Alexander II. But he would not understand. Nay, after 1866, the reaction redoubled its fury. In a few months everything that still maintained a semblance of the Liberalism of the early years of the reign was swept away. It was a veritable ^ Dance Macabre,' a veritable 'White Terror.'

II

After 1866 a man must haye been either blind or hypocritical to believe in the possibility of any improvement, except by violent means. The revolutionary ferment visibly increased, and only a spark was wanting to change the latent aspirations into a general movement. As I have already said, the Paris Commune supplied it. It was immediately after the Commune, that is to say toward the end of the year 1871, that the Society of the * Dolguscinzi ' was formed at Moscow ; and in 1872 the important society was organized at St. Petersburg of the ^ Ciaikovzi,' which had its ramifications at Moscow, Kieff, Odessa, Orel, and Taganrog. The object of both was to carry on the Socialist and revolutionary propaganda among the workmen and peasants. I say nothing of many small bodies that were formed with the same object in the provinces, or of many isolated individuals who then went forth ' among the people,' in order to carry on the propaganda. The movement was entirely spontaneous, and was simply the necessary result of the condition of Russia, seen under the influence of the Parisian movement, through the prism of the Socialist ideas disseminated by Oerniscevsky and Dobroliuboff.

But a most powerful current which came from abroad very soon united with this native current. It was that of the ^ Internationale,' which, as is well known, had its own greatest development in the years immediately succeeding the Paris Commune. Here, also, two separate courses of transmission should be distinguished :

the firsfc, literary ; the second, personal and immediate. Two writers — the great Michael Bacunin, the genius of destruction, the principal founder of the anarchical or federalistic 'Internationale/ and Peter Layroff, the distinguished philosopher and writer, rendered great service to our cause with their pens ; the former as the author of a book upon the Eeyolution, and Federalism, in which, with inimitable clearness and power, the ardent tribune and daring thinker deyeloped his ideas upon the necessity of an immediate popular revolution ; the latter as editor of a review, the ' Vperiod ' (Onward), written, for the most part, by himself with unwearied application and erudition. However divergent on certain points — Bacunin being an ardent defender of the extreme party of the ^Internationale,' and La vroff being rather inclined towards the more moderate party — the two writers recognised the popular revolution as the sole means of effectively changing the insufferable condition of the Russian people.

But the ' Internationale ' also had a direct influence upon the Russian movement. Here I must retrace my steps for a moment, as the revolutionary movement touches at this point the individual movement of Nihilism, properly so-called, of which I spoke in my Introduction. The struggle for the emancipation of woman having been fused with that of the right to higher education, and there being in Russia neither college nor university which would accept women as students, they resolved to go and seek in distant countries the knowl-

THE PKOPAGANDA. 19

edge denied to them in their own. Free Switzerland, which shuts out no one from its frontiers or its schools, was the favourite country of these new pilgrims, and the famous city of Zurich was their Jerusalem. From all parts of Kussia — ^from the plains of the placid Volga ; from the Caucasus ; from distant Siberia — young girls of scarcely sixteen, with scanty luggage and slender means, went forth alone into an unknown country, eager for the knowledge which alone could insure them the independence they coveted. But, on arriving in the country of their dreams, they found not only schools of medicine there, but also a great social movement of which many had no conception. And here once more the difference became apparent between the old Nihilism and the Socialism of the modern generation.

^ What is all this knowledge,' the young girls asked themselves, ^but a means of acquiring a more advantageous position among the privileged classes to which we already belong ? Who except ourselves will derive any advantage from it ; and if no one does, what is the difference between us and the swarm of blood-suckers who live by the sweat and tears of our poor fellow-countrymen ?

And the young girls deserted medicine, and began to frequent the sittings of the 'Internationale' and to study political economy, and the works of Marx, Bacunin, Proudhon, and of all the founders of European Socialism. In a short time the city of Zurich from being a place of study was transfarmed into an immense permanent Club. Its fame spread throughout all Kussia, and attracted to it hundreds and hundreds of persons, men and women. It was then that the Imperial Goyernment, as a supreme precaution, issued the stupid and shameful (Ukase of the year 1873, ordering all Eussians, under pain of outlawry, to immediately abandon the terrible city of Zurich. The engineer was hoist with his own petard. Among the young Eussians assembled there, plans, more or less rague, were formed to return home in order to carry on the Internationalist propaganda. The Ukase had this effect, that, instead of returning separately in the course of several years, almost all returned at once in a body. Eagerly welcomed by their companions, they every where carried on the most ardent Internationalist propaganda.

III

Thus in the winter of 1872, in one of the hovels in the outskirts of St. Petersburg, a number of working men gathered round (Prince) Peter Krapotkine, who expounded to them the principles of Socialism, and of the revolution. The rich Cossack Obuchoff, though consumptive and dying, did the same upon the banks of his native Don. An officer, Leonidas Sciscko, became a hand- weaver in one of the St. Petersburg manufactories, in order to carry on the propaganda there. Two other members of the same society — an officer, Demetrius Eogaceff, who afterwards inspired so much terror, and a friend — went into the province of Tver as sawyers, for the purpose of carrying on the propaganda there among the peasants. In the winter of 1873, in consequence of the delation of a land-owner of the district, these two were arrested. After having escaped by the aid of the peasants from, the hands of the police, they reached Moscow, in order to carry on the propaganda among the youth of that city. There they found two women who had just arrived from Zurich Avith the same object. Thus the two currents, the home and foreign, met each other at every point, and both led to the same result. The books said : ^ The hour of the destruction of the old hourgeois world has sounded. A new world, based upon the fraternity of all men, in which there will no longer be either misery or tears, is about to arise upon its ruins. Up and be doing ! All hail to the Eevolution, the sole means of realising this golden ideal.'

The men and women who had come back from abroad inflamed the public mind with the recital of the great struggle already undertaken by the proletariat of the West ; of the ' Internationale ' and of its great promoters ; of the Commune and its martyrs ; and prepared to go ' among the people ' with their new proselytes in order to put their ideas in practice. And both turned anxiously to those, who were few then, who had come back from the work of propagandism, to ask them what were these powerful and mysterious beings — the people — whom their fathers taught them to fear, and whom, without knowing, they already loved with all the impetuosity of their youthful hearts. And those appealed to who just before had the same mistrust and the same, apprehensions, said, overflowing with exultation, that the terrible people were good, simple, trusting as children ; that they not only did not mistrust, but welcomed them with open arms and hearts; that they listened to their words with the deepest sympathy, and that old and young after a long day of toil pressed attentively around them in some dark and smoky hovel, in which, by the uncertain light of a chip of resinous wood in place of a candle, they spoke of Socialism, or read one of the few propagandist books which they had brought ; that the communal assemblies were broken up when they came into the villages, as the peasants abandoned the meetings to come and listen. And after having depicted all the terrible sufferings of these unhappy people, seen with their own eyes, heard with their own ears, they told of little signs and tokens, exaggerated perhaps by their imaginations, which showed that these people could not be so dispirited as was believed, and that there were indications and rumours denoting that their patience was coming to an end, and that some great storm was felt to be approaching.