682 



NIHILISTS. 



for a change in the system of government of 

 the country ; but in its proper sense it belongs 

 only to those who are supposed to be acting 

 under the direction of a secret revolutionary 

 committee, of which nothing is known beyond 

 what it directs or permits to be published of 

 itself. The names Nihilists and Nihilism did not 

 originate with the party, but were given to 

 express contempt of the latter, because they 

 sought the destruction of the existing order 

 without proposing or seeming to contemplate 

 the substitution of any denned scheme of or- 

 ganization in its place. So far as is known, 

 they were first employed by the novelist Ivan 

 Turgenieff in his stories of Eussian society. 

 Eussia has been peculiarly exposed to conspira- 

 cies and insurrections. The despotic policy of 

 the Government toward the people of annexed 

 or non-Eussian provinces has provoked fre- 

 quent outbreaks. Among its own people, an 

 autocratic administration permeating every de- 

 partment of public life has left no room for the 

 legitimate discussion of political and social ques- 

 tions, in which the active minds of freer coun- 

 tries find healthful exercise; and such minds 

 in Eussia, for the want of a better field of ac- 

 tivity, have busied themselves with inventing 

 religious heresies and in secret plottings. 



The first notable manifestation of the secret 

 political societies was the insurrection of De- 

 cember, 1825, at the beginning of the reign of 

 Nicholas I., which aimed at overthrowing the 

 Czardom and establishing a constitutional form 

 of government. Though the insurrection was 

 suppressed, those engaged in it continued to 

 disseminate their views, and their party quietly 

 gathered strength. One of their leaders, Alex- 

 ander Hertzen, achieved considerable fame by 

 the energy and boldness with which he spread 

 his revolutionary writings in Eussia. He died 

 in 1870. (See " Annual Cyclopaedia " for 1870, 

 article HERTZEN.) The earliest advocate of 

 the present doctrines of Nihilism was Michael 

 Bakunin, a member of a rich family of high 

 rank, and a near relative of men prominent at 

 court and in the army. He was born in 1814, 

 advocated a Eussian republic in 1847, and in 

 1868 founded the " International Alliance of 

 the European Eevolution." He died at Ge- 

 neva in 1876. (See " Annual Cyclopaedia " for 

 1876, article BAKUNIN.) Societies were formed 

 in Eussia for the advocacy of the views taught 

 by Hertzen, as the Young Eussia, Land and 

 Freedom, etc., whose newspaper organs, the 

 " Sovremiennik " and the " Euskoie Slowo," 

 enjoyed considerable freedom of circulation 

 under the relaxed press restrictions which pre- 

 vailed from 1858 to 1872, but were finally sup- 

 pressed. 



In consequence of the general dissatisfac- 

 tion which prevailed after the Crimean war, 

 the new Emperor Alexander entered upon a 

 more liberal policy of government than had 

 prevailed. The abolition of serfdom was re- 

 solved upon as a measure that would improve 

 the condition of the people and conciliate a 



large mass of them, while it would not in- 

 fringe upon the absolute sovereignty exercised 

 by the Czar. Eepresentative assemblies began 

 to be talked of, and the nobility were author- 

 ized to choose committees to discuss the sub- 

 ject of emancipation. Demands were made in 

 connection with the meeting of some of these 

 committees for a general assembly, for char- 

 tered provincial assemblies, for the responsi- 

 bility of ofiicers to the law, and other features of 

 constitutional and representative government. 

 The Government refused to entertain any of 

 these demands, but manifested its displeasure 

 toward those committees. The deputies of the 

 committees, when they went to the capital with 

 their reports, were not permitted to meet for 

 discussion, or to present objections or propose 

 amendments to the plan which had been laid 

 before them, but were confined to a list of 

 printed questions which they were requested to 

 answer in writing. Thus every attempt to ob- 

 tain a representative body, or to secure liberty 

 to discuss administrative questions, was put 

 down. Persons of the higher and more intel- 

 ligent classes who had become interested in 

 such questions were driven to associate with 

 those who sought to accomplish by revolution- 

 ary methods what they had found it impracti- 

 cable to bring about by legal means. The Ni- 

 hilist party is largely made up of persons of 

 this class. To these are added those who are 

 dissatisfied with the measures of the Govern- 

 ment from the act of emancipation down to the 

 war with Turkey, or are disgusted with the 

 corruption which prevails ; unruly students ; 

 and such uneasy spirits as are called social- 

 ists, communists, or ted republicans in other 

 countries. The existence of a revolutionary 

 conspiracy was established in 1877, when, after 

 a great trial lasting eighteen months, 135 per- 

 sons out of 183 who had been arrested were 

 found guilty of belonging to such an organiza- 

 tion. The Nihilists began to attract attention 

 as a really formidable organization soon after 

 the trial of Vera Sassulitch in 1878 for shoot- 

 ing at General Trepoff, chief of the secret po- 

 lice. (See "Annual Cyclopaedia" for 1878, 

 article ETTSSIA.) Her acquittal by a jury of 

 presumed responsibility and conservatism, after 

 she had avowed the offense, and in the face of 

 the evidence and the law, seemed to excite them 

 to activity. A season of uprisings, assassina- 

 tions, and terror ensued, the disorders of which 

 were only partially arrested after the Govern- 

 ment had applied measures of extreme severity 

 for several months. The assassination of Gen- 

 eral Mezentzoff, who succeeded General Tre- 

 poff, was avowed by the Nihilists as their work. 

 Their journal, "Land and Liberty," published 

 an account of the offenses for which he had 

 been adjudged to deserve death, in which it 

 said that he had trampled right under foot, 

 tortured his prisoners, persecuted the inno- 

 cent, and in his official capacity murdered by 

 brutal ill-treatment, by hunger, thirst, and the 

 rod, a number of persons whose names were 



