The Nihilists And Their Work
In 1861 Alexander II., Emperor of Russia, signed a proclamation for the
emancipation of the Russian serfs, giving freedom by a stroke of the pen
to over fifty millions of human beings. In 1881, twenty years
afterwards, when, as there is some reason to believe, he was about to
grant a constitution and summon a parliament for the political
emancipation of the Russian people, he fell victim to a band of
revolutionists, an
the thought of granting liberty to his people
perished with him.
This assassination was the work of the secret society known as the
Nihilists. To say that their association was secret is equivalent to
saying that we know nothing of their purposes other than their name and
their deeds indicate. Nihilism signifies nothingness. It comes from
the same root as annihilate, and annihilation of despots appears to
have been the Nihilist theory of obtaining political rights. This
society reached its culmination in the reign of Alexander II., and,
despite the fact that he proved himself one of the mildest and most
public-spirited of the czars, he was chosen as the victim of the theory
of obtaining political regeneration by terror.
Threats preceded deeds. The final years of the emperor's life were made
wretched through fear and anxiety. His ministers were killed by the
revolutionists. Some of the guards placed about his person became
victims of the secret band. Letters bordered with black and threatening
the emperor's life were found among his papers or his clothes. An
explosive powder placed in his handkerchief injured his sight for a
time; a box of asthma pills sent him proved to contain a small but
dangerous infernal machine. He grew haggard through this constant peril;
his hair whitened, his form shrank, his nerves were unstrung.
In February, 1879, Prince Krapotkin, governor-general of Kharkoff, was
killed by a pistol-shot fired into his carriage window. In April a
Nihilist fired five pistol-shots at the czar. In June the Nihilists
resolved to use dynamite with the purpose of destroying the
governors-general of several provinces and the czar and heir-apparent.
Among their victims was the chief of police, while two of his successors
barely escaped death.
The first attempt to kill the czar by dynamite took the form of
excavating mines under three railroads on one of which he was expected
to travel. Of these mines only one was exploded. A house on the Moscow
railroad, not far from that city, was purchased by the conspirators, and
an underground passage excavated from its cellar to the roadway. Here
auger-holes were bored upward in which were inserted iron pipes
communicating with dynamite stored below. On the day when the emperor
was expected to pass, a woman Nihilist named Sophia Perovskya stood
within view of the track, with instructions to wave her handkerchief to
the conspirators in the house at the proper moment. The pilot train
which always preceded the imperial train was allowed to pass. The other
train drew up to take water, and was wrecked by the explosion of the
mine. Fortunately for the emperor, he was in the pilot train and out of
danger.
Some of the participants in this affair were arrested, but their chief,
a German named Hartmann, escaped. Despite the utmost efforts of the
police, he made his way safely out of Russia, aided by Nihilists at
every step, sometimes travelling on foot, at other times in peasants'
carts, finally crossing the frontier and reaching the nest of
conspirators at Geneva. Here he is supposed to have taken part with
others in devising a new and what proved a fatal plot. Meanwhile a fresh
attempt was made on the life of the czar.
On February 5, 1880, Alexander II. was to entertain at dinner in the
Winter Palace a royal visitor, Prince Alexander of Hesse. Fortunately,
the czar was detained for a short time, and the hour fixed for the
dinner had passed when the party proceeded along the corridor to the
dining-hall. The brief delay probably saved their lives, for at that
moment a tremendous explosion took place, wrecking the dining-hall and
completely demolishing the guard-room, which was filled with dead and
dying victims, sixty-seven in all. It proved that a Nihilist had
obtained employment among some carpenters engaged in repairs within the
palace, and had succeeded in storing dynamite in a tool-chest in his
room. He escaped, and was never seen in St. Petersburg again. Two days
later the corpse of a murdered policeman was found on the frozen surface
of the Neva, a paper pinned to his breast threatening with death every
governor-general except Melikoff, the successor of the murdered
Krapotkin.
Their failures had proved so nearly successes that the Nihilists were
rather encouraged than depressed. New plans followed the failure of old
ones. It was proposed to poison the emperor and his son, the murder to
be followed by a revolt of the disaffected in Moscow and St. Petersburg,
the seizure of the palaces, and the establishment of a constitutional
government. This plan, however, was given up as not likely to have the
"great moral effect" which the Nihilists hoped to produce.
A Nihilist student in St. Petersburg had sent to the Paris committee of
the society a recipe for a formidable explosive of his invention. A
quantity of this dangerous substance was manufactured in France and
secretly conveyed to St. Petersburg, where bombs to contain it had been
prepared. The plans of the conspirators were now very carefully laid.
They did not propose to fail again, if care could insure success. A
cheesemonger's shop was opened on a street leading to the palace, under
which a mine was laid to the centre of the carriage-way, it being
proposed to kill the czar when out driving. If his carriage should take
another route and follow the street leading from the Catharine Canal, it
was arranged to wreck it with bombs flung by hand. The death of the czar
was the sole thing in view. The conspirators seemed willing freely to
sacrifice their own lives to that object. As regards the mine, it was so
heavily charged with dynamite that its explosion would have wrecked a
great part of the Anitchkoff Palace while killing the czar.
How the explosive material was conveyed from Paris to Russia is a
mystery which was never successfully traced by the police. The utmost
care was taken at the frontiers to prevent the entrance of any
suspicious substance. For a year or two even the tea that came on the
backs of camels from China was carefully searched, while all travellers
were closely examined, and all articles coming from Western Europe were
almost pulled to pieces in the minuteness of the scrutiny. The explosive
is said to have looked like golden syrup, and to have been sweet to the
taste, though acrid in its after-effects. A drop or two let fall on a
hot stove flashed up in a brilliant sheet of flame, though without smell
or noise.
Among the conspirators, one of the most useful was Sophia Perovskya, the
woman already named. She was young, of noble family, handsome, educated,
and fascinating in manner. Her beauty and high connections gave her
opportunities which none of her fellow-conspirators enjoyed, and by her
influence over men of rank and position she was enabled to learn many of
the secrets of the court and to become familiar with all the precautions
taken by the police to insure the safety of the czar. There was another
woman in the plot, a Jewish girl named Hesse Helfman. Eight men
constituted the remainder of the party.
The fatal day came in March, 1881. On the morning of the 12th Melikoff,
minister of the interior, told the czar that a man connected with the
railroad explosion had just been arrested, on whose person were found
papers indicating a new plot. He earnestly entreated Alexander to avoid
exposing himself. On the next morning the czar went early to mass, and
subsequently accompanied his brother, the Grand Duke Michael, to inspect
his body-guard. Sophia Perovskya had been apprised of these intended
movements, and informed the chief conspirators, who at once determined
that the deed should be done that day. The lover of Hesse Helfman had
been arrested and had at once shot himself. Papers of an incriminating
character had been found in her house, and it was feared that further
delay might frustrate the plot, so that the purpose of waiting until the
czar and his son might be slain together was abandoned. It was not known
which street the czar would take. If he took the one, the mine was to be
exploded; if the other, the bombs were to be thrown.
Two men, Resikoff and Elnikoff, the latter a young man completely under
Sophia's influence, were to throw the bombs. She took a position from
which she might signal the approach of the carriage. As it proved, the
Catharine Canal route was taken. The carriage approached. Everything
wore its usual aspect. There was nothing to excite suspicion. Suddenly a
dark object was hurled from the sidewalk through the air and a
tremendous report was heard. Resikoff had flung his bomb. A baker's boy
and the Cossack footman of the czar were instantly killed, but the
intended victim was unhurt and the horses were only slightly wounded.
The coachman, who had escaped injury, wished to drive onward at speed
out of the quickly gathering crowd, but Alexander, who had seen his
footman fall, insisted on getting out of the carriage to assist him. It
was a fatal resolve. As his feet touched the ground, Elnikoff flung his
bomb. It exploded at the feet of the czar with such force as to throw
men many yards distant to the ground, but proved fatal to only two,
Elnikoff, who was instantly killed, and Alexander, who was mortally
wounded, his lower limbs and the lower part of his body being
frightfully shattered. He survived for a few hours in dreadful pain.
Terrible as was the crime, it was worse than useless. The proposed
rising did not take place. A new czar immediately succeeded the dead
one. The hoped-for constitution perished with him upon whom it depended.
The Nihilists, instead of gaining liberal institutions, had set back the
clock of reform for a generation, and perhaps much longer. Of the
conspirators, one of the men was killed, one shot himself, and two
escaped; the other four were executed. Of the women, Sophia was
executed. She knew too much, and those who had betrayed to her the
secrets of the court, fearing that she might implicate them, privately
urged the new czar to sign her death-warrant. She held her peace, and
died without a word.