THE RISE OF NIHILISM

The first agitators for democracy among the civil population were the Nihilists, those long-haired, mysterious individuals whose bomb-throwing propensities and dark plottings have furnished so many Western fiction writers with material for romances. The Nihilists, so well described as a type in Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons," were the sons and daughters of the landed aristocracy, the provincial gentry, who went abroad and studied in foreign universities, or, studying at home, imbibed revolutionary ideas through foreign literature. Coming together in small groups, they began to formulate ideas of their own especially adapted to Russian conditions. At first these ideas were of a nonpolitical character and extremely abstract. They wished to go among the ignorant peasants and educate them in the Western sciences. "Going among the people" was a phrase among them which assumed the significance of a program. But with its antipathy toward all forms of learning the Government soon showed its determination to suppress all these efforts at educating the common people, and the youthful agitators were arrested and thrown into prison by the hundreds.

As a matter of fact their abstract ideas had made little impression on the ignorant mujiks, and had the Government ignored the Nihilists it is probable that their organization would have died a natural death from lack of success. But the opposition of the police only roused the fighting spirit of the young aristocrats, and they not only became more enthusiastic, but added recruits to their ranks more than enough in numbers to fill the gaps made by those in prison. The persecution by the police, furthermore, forced them to make a secret organization of their loosely knit groups, and this too fired the romantic imaginations of the young people.

The fight between the agitators and the police waxed stronger and more bitter. Then one day all Russia was shocked by the news that a Petrograd police chief had had a young woman in prison as a Nihilist suspect disrobed and flogged.

Hitherto the Nihilists had been entirely peaceful in their methods; violence had formed no part of their tactics. The indignation roused within their ranks by the outrage to the young woman resulted in a change. They decided to instill terror into the hearts of the Government officials by a systematic policy of assassination, whereby the most oppressive of the officials should be removed from their field of activity by death. The first of these assassinations, not quite successful, took place in Kiev in 1878. From then on violence on both sides increased and the bitterness intensified until in 1881 it culminated in the assassination of Alexander II. This so enraged the Government officials and vitalized their energy that soon after all the most active Nihilists had been captured or driven abroad, and for some years there came a lull in the agitation for democracy in Russia. But it was, after all, lack of success which had killed Nihilism rather than the violent measures of the Government. Practically all of the Nihilists had imbibed the radical doctrines of Karl Marx and Michael Bakunin, especially those of the latter, himself a Russian and more inclined toward violent anarchism than toward political socialism. These doctrines were far too abstruse for the untutored and practical minds of the peasants, and in most cases they had shown animosity rather than sympathy toward the agitators.

Yet the Nihilist doctrines and program formed the basis for later efforts toward creating a revolutionary spirit among the Russian people. To this day the few surviving Nihilists of the early days, notably Katherine Breshkovskaya, "the grandmother of the Russian Revolution," are venerated by the people as the last representatives of the heroic age.

It was not until the middle of the last decade of the nineteenth century, after the succession of Nicholas II to the throne in 1894, that revolutionary organization was revived in Russia. These modern efforts were concentrated into two forms of organization. The largest of these was the Social Democratic party, whose program consisted mainly of organizing the working people in the large cities and industrial centers. Its leaders were made up largely of recruits from the educated middle classes and from the Jewish elements.

Second in size, though quite as important in influence, was the Social Revolutionary organization. Though smaller in regard to membership, its leaders and most active members were those same students from the aristocratic classes which had made up the Nihilist groups. It was interested in injecting its doctrines into the peasantry, rather than propagating them among the working classes. And a certain branch of the organization, known as the Fighting Branch, still practiced assassination as a means to gaining its ends. As a result of its activities some of the highest officials of the Government and the most important dignitaries of the ruling clique lost their lives.[Back to Contents]