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NIHILISM
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NIHILISM , the name commonly given to the See also:Russian See also:form of revolutionary See also:Socialism, which had at first an academical See also:character, and rapidly See also:developed into an anarchist revolutionary See also:movement. It originated in the See also:early years of the reign of See also: Having learned the rudiments of See also:positivism, they conceived the See also:idea that Russia had outlived the religious and metaphysical stages of human development, and, was ready to enter on the positivist See also:stage. She ought, therefore, to throw aside all religious and metaphysical conceptions, and to regulate her intellectual, social and See also:political life by the pure See also:light of natural See also:science. Among the antiquated institutions which had to be abolished as obstructions to real progress, were See also:religion, See also:family life, private See also:property and centralized See also:administration. Religion was to be replaced by the exact sciences, family life by See also:free love, private property by See also:collectivism, and centralized administration by a federation of See also:independent communes. Such doctrines could not, of course, be preached openly under a paternal, despotic See also:government, but the See also:press censure had become so permeated with the prevailing spirit of enthusiastic liberalism, that they could be artfully disseminated under the disguise of See also:literary See also:criticism and fiction, and the public very soon learned the See also:art of See also:reading between the lines. The See also:work which had perhaps the greatest influence in popularizing the doctrines was a novel called Shlo Dyelati? (What is to be done?), written in See also:prison by Tchernishevski, one of the academic leaders of the movement, and published with the See also:sanction of the authorities! Since the See also:time of See also:Peter the See also:Great, Russia had been subjected to a wonderful series of administrative and social transformations, and it seemed to many people quite natural that another great transformation might be effected with the consent and co-operation of the autocratic See also:power. The doctrines spread, there-fore, with marvellous rapidity. In the See also:winter of 1861–1862 a high See also:official wrote to a friend who had been absent from Russia for a few months: " If you returned now you would be astonished at the progress which the opposition—one might say, the revolutionary party—has made. . . . The revolutionary ideas have taken See also:possession of all classes, all ages, all professions, and they are publicly expressed in the streets, in the See also:barracks, and in the government offices. I believe the See also:police itself is carried away by them." Certainly the govern,mert was under the influence of the prevailing See also:enthusiasm for reform, for it liberated all the See also:serfs, endowed them liberally with arable See also:land, and made their democratic communal institutions independent of the landed proprietors; and it was preparing other important reforms in a similar spirit, including the See also:extension of self-government in therural districts and the towns, and the reorganization of the antiquated judicial See also:system and See also:procedure according to the See also:modern principles adopted in western See also:Europe. The See also:programme of the government was extensive enough and liberal enough to satisfy, for the moment at least, all See also:reason-able reformers, but the well-intentioned, self-confident young people to whom the term Nihilists was applied were not reason-able. They wanted an immediate, thorough-going transformation of the existing order of things according to the most advanced socialistic principles, and in their youthful, reckless impatience they determined to undertake the work themselves, independently of and in opposition to the government. As they had no means of seizing the central power, they adopted the method of endeavouring to bring about the desired political, social and economic changes by converting the masses to their views. They began, therefore, a propaganda among the working See also:population of the towns and the rural population in the villages. The propagandists were recruited chiefly from the See also:faculty of See also:physical science in the universities, from the Technological See also:Institute, and from the medical schools, and a female contingent was supplied by the midwifery classes of the Medico-Surgical See also:Academy. Those of each locality were personally known to each other, but there was no See also:attempt to establish among them hierarchical distinctions or discipline. Each individual had entire freedom as to the kind and means of propaganda to be employed. Some disguised themselves as artisans or ordinary labourers, and sought to convert their uneducated See also:fellow-workmen in the See also:industrial centres, whilst others settled in the villages as school-teachers, and endeavoured to stir up disaffection among the recently emancipated peasantry by telling them that the See also:tsar intended they should have all the land, and that his benevolent intentions had been frustrated by the selfish landed proprietors and the dishonest officials. Landed proprietors and officials, it was suggested, should be got rid of, and then the peasants would have arable, See also:pastoral and See also:forest land in abundance, and would not require to pay any taxes. To persons of a certain See also:education the See also:agitators sought to prove that the See also:general economic situation was desperate, that it was the See also:duty of every conscientious See also:citizen to help the people in such a See also:dilemma, and that the first step towards the attainment of this devoutly to be wished consummation was the See also:limitation or destruction of the uncontrolled supreme power. On the whole the agitators had very little success, and not a few of them See also:fell into the hands of the police, several of them being denounced to the authorities by the persons in whose See also:interest they professed to be acting; but the great See also:majority were so obstinate and so ready to make any See also:personal sacrifices, that the See also:arrest and See also:punishment of some of their number did not deter others from continuing the work. Between 1861 and 1864 there were no less than twenty political trials, with the result that most of the accused were condemned to imprisonment, or to compulsory See also:residence in small provincial towns under police supervision.
The activity of the police naturally produced an ever-increasing hostility to the government, and in 1866 this feeling took a See also:practical form in an attempt on the See also:part of an obscure individual called Karakozov to assassinate the emperor. The attempt failed, and the judicial inquiry proved that it was the work of merely a few individuals, but it showed the dangerous character of the movement, and it induced the authorities to take more energetic See also:measures. For the next four years there was an apparent See also:lull, during which only one political trial took See also:place, but it was subsequently proved that the Nihilists during this time were by no means inactive. An energetic agitator called Netchaiev organized. in 186o a See also:secret association under the See also:title of the Society for the Liberation of the People, and when he suspected of treachery one of the members he caused him to be assassinated. This See also:crime led to the arrest of some members of the society, but their punishment had very little deterrent effect on the Nihilists in general, for during the next few years there was a recrudescence of the propaganda among the labouring classes. Independent circles were created and provided with secret See also:printing-presses in many of the leading provincial towns—notably in See also:Moscow,
Nijni-See also:Novgorod, See also:Penza, See also:Samara, See also:Saratov, Kharkof, See also:Kiev, liberal sense. His conciliatory methods failed signally, and were See also:Odessa, Rostov-on-the-See also:Don and See also:Taganrog; and closer relations repaid by an attack on his life. A semblance of See also:parliamentary were established with the revolutionary Socialists in western institutions was not what the Anarchists wanted. They simply Europe, especially with the followers of See also:Bakunin, who considered redoubled their activity, and hatched a See also:plot for the assassination that a great popular rising should be brought about in Russia as of the emperor. In See also: Bakunin's views did not, it is true, obtain ander II., when See also:driving in St See also:Petersburg, was mortally wounded unanimous See also:acceptance. Some of the Nihilists maintained that by the See also:explosion of small bombs, and died almost as soon as he things were not yet ripe for a rising of the masses, that the pacific had reached the Winter See also:Palace. On the following See also:day the propaganda must be continued for a considerable time, and that executive See also:committee issued a bombastic See also:proclamation, in which it before attempting to overthrow the existing social organization declared triumphantly that the tsar had been condemned to some idea should be formed as to the order of things which See also:death by a secret tribunal on 26th See also:August 1879, and that two years should take its place. The majority, however, were too See also:im- of effort and painful losses had at last been crowned with success. patient for See also:action to listen to such counsels of prudence, and These facts put an end to the policy of killing See also:Anarchism by when they encountered opposition on the part of the govern- kindness, and one of the first acts of the new reign was a manifesto ment they urged the See also:necessity of retaliating by acts of terrorism. in which Alexander III. announced very plainly that he had no In a brochure issued in 1874 one of the most influential leaders intention of limiting the autocratic power, or making concessions (Tkatchev) explained that the See also:object of the revolutionary party of any kind to the revolutionary party. The subsequent See also:history should be, not the preparation of revolution in general, but the of the movement presents little that is interesting or original, realization of it at the earliest possible moment, that it was a merely a continual but gradually subsiding effort to provoke See also:mistake to attach great importance to questions of future social See also:local disturbances with a view to bringing about sooner or organization, and that all the energies of the party should be later a general rising of the masses and the overthrow not only devoted to " a struggle with the government and the established order of things, a struggle to the last drop of See also:blood and to the last breath." In accordance with the fashionable See also:doctrine of See also:evolution, the reconstruction of society on the tabula rasa might be See also:left, it was thought, to the spontaneous action of natural forces, or, to use a Baconian phrase, to natura naturans. To this and similar declarations of irreconcilable hostility the government replied by numerous arrests, and in the winter of 1877–1878 no less than 193 agitators, selected from 2000 arrested on suspicion, were tried publicly in St Petersburg by a tribunal specially constituted for the purpose. Nearly all of them were condemned to imprisonment or See also:exile, and the revolutionary organization in the See also:northern provinces was thereby momentarily paralysed, but a few energetic leaders who had escaped arrest reorganized their scattered forces and began the work anew. They constituted themselves into a secret executive committee, which endeavoured to keep in See also:touch with, and partially See also:direct, the independent See also:groups in the provincial towns. Though they never succeeded in creating an efficient centralized administration, they contrived to give to the movement the appearance of See also:united action by assuming the responsibility for terrorist crimes committed by persons who were in reality not acting under their orders. During the years 1878, 1879 and 188o these terrorist crimes were of frequent occurrence. General Trepov, See also:prefect of St Petersburg, was shot by See also:Vera Zasulitch under pretence of presenting a See also:petition to him; General Mezentsov, See also:chief of the political police, was assassinated in broad daylight in one of the See also:principal streets of St Petersburg, and an attempt was afterwards made on the life of his successor, General Drenteln; See also:Prince Krapotkin, See also:governor of the See also:province of Kharkof, ''as assassinated for having introduced stricter prison discipline with regard to political prisoners; a murderous attack was made on the emperor in front of the Winter Palace by an es-student called Soloviev; repeated attempts were made to See also:blow up the See also:train conveying the Imperial family from the See also:Crimea to St Petersburg; and a See also:dynamite explosion, by which ten people were killed and See also:thirty-four wounded, took place in the Winter Palace, the Imperial family owing their See also:escape to the See also:accident of not sitting down to See also:dinner punctually at the usual See also:hour. Assassination was used also by the agitators against confederates suspected of giving See also:information to the police, an.: a number of gendarmes were murdered when effecting arrests. After each of these crimes a proclamation was issued by the executive committee explaining the motives and accepting the responsibility. When repressive measures and the efforts of the police were found insufficient to See also:cope with the evil, Alexander II. deter-See also:mined to try a new system. See also:Count See also:Loris Melikof was entrusted with semi-dictatorial See also:powers, relaxed the severity of the police regime, and endeavoured to obtain the support of all loyal Liberals by holding out the prospect of a series of reforms in a of the government, but also of the existing social and economic regime. A serious manifestation on the part of the terrorists took the shape of a plot to assassinate the emperor by bombs in the streets of St Petersburg in March 1887. It was the work of a very small See also:group, the members of which were being watched by the police, and were all arrested on the day when the crime was to be perpetrated. The movement afterwards showed occasionally signs of revival. In 1901, for example, there were troubles in the universities, and in 1902 there were serious disturbances among the peasantry in some of the central rural districts; and the assassination of M. Sipiaguine, the See also:minister of the interior, was a disquieting incident; but the illusions and enthusiasm which produced Nihilism in the young See also:generation during the early years of the reign of Alexander II. had been largely shattered and dispelled by experience. The revolutionary propaganda temporarily led to a serious situation in the early years of the reign of Tsar Nicholas II., but a new era opened for Russia with the inauguration of parliamentary government. The following criminal See also:statistics of the movement during six and a See also:halt years of its greatest activity (from 1st See also:July 1881 to 1st See also:January 1888) are taken from unpublished official records: Number of affairs examined in the police See also:department 1500 Number of persons punished . 3046 These 3046 punishments may be divided into the following categories: Death 20 Penal See also:servitude 128 Exile in See also:Siberia 681 Exile under police supervision in European Russia 15e0 Lesser punishments 717 3046 From the beginning of the movement tip to 1902 the number of Anarchists condemned to death and executed was See also:forty-eight', and the number of persons assassinated by the Anarchists was thirty-nine. There is no reason' to suspect the accuracy of these statistics, for they were not intended for publication. They are taken from a confidential memorandum presented to the emperor. (D M. 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