Alfred Erich Senn
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS:
FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
UDK 070(470
Se-88
Recenzentai:
Prof. Egidijus Aleksandravičius, VDU, Lietuvių išeivijos institutas
Doc. Kristina Juraitė, VDU, PMDF, Viešosios komunikacijos katedra
Leidinys rekomenduotas publikuoti PMDI tarybos nutarimu Nr.16, 2008 05 20.
ISBN 978-9955-12-470-2
© Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas, 2008
© Alfred Erich Senn, 2008
Table of Contents
Introduction · 5
1. The Russian Free Press · 8
2. Years of Triumph · 13
3. The Young Emigration · 18
4. Elpidin’s Challenge · 23
5. Bakunin and Narodnoe delo · 28
6. The Young Fanatic From Russia · 34
7. Answering the Call · 41
8. A House on Sand · 47
9. Lavrov in London · 54
10. The Three Musketeers · 61
11. Propaganda of the Deed · 68
12. Counterattack · 74
13. The Revolutionary Movement as History · 79
14. The Group “Liberation of Labor” · 84
15. The Agony of Lev Tikhomirov · 90
16. A New Generation · 96
17. Kravchinsky’s Friends · 102
18. The Chimera of Unification · 108
19. Epilogue: The Leninist Inheritance · 114
Additional Readings · 117
Introduction
The year was 1853, the place London. The two men
stood looking at a galley proof lying on the desk.
The older one picked it up, and exclaimed, “My
God! My God! That I should have lived so long! A
free Russian print shop in London! This sheet, all
smeared with printer’s ink, wipes so many recent,
evil memories from my soul!” Alexander Herzen, a
Russian émigré, and his older Polish friend, Count
Stanislaw Worcell, were examining a manifesto
denouncing the institution of serfdom in Russia.
At that moment Herzen knew only too well that his
venture, printing texts in Russian, could result in
disastrous failure. The authorities in tsarist Russia
would probably never let him return; at the same
time he could not be sure that his publications
would ever find readers in Russia. Nevertheless,
he wanted to send uncensored words back to his
homeland.
Herzen was neither the first Russian to open a
Cyrillic print shop in the West nor the first Russian
émigré to write and publish literature critical of the
administration of the Russian Empire. The very origins of secular Russian book printing lay in Peter the
Great’s decision, at the beginning of the 18th century, to have Russian books printed in Amsterdam.
In 1849 Ivan Golovin’s had authored the first antitsarist book in Russian, Katikhizis russkogo naroda
(Catechism of the Russian People).
The novelty of Herzen’s venture lay in his intention
to provide uncensored literature for the reading
public within the Russian Empire. Since the time
of Peter the government had maintained a tight
control of the reading material of its citizenry. The
current Tsar, Nicholas I, had declared himself the
personal censor of the noted writer Alexander Pushkin. When Peter Chaadaev wrote an unflattering
comparison of Russia with Western Europe, the
authorities declared him insane and ordered him
to submit to medical supervision. When a group of
intellectuals known as the “petrashevtsy” resorted
to printing a pocket dictionary of foreign words in
order to discuss such concepts as “republic” and
“democracy,” the government banned the work.
Herzen believed that he could create an alternative
to the muzzled press in his homeland.
In the early 1850s, however, Russia lay seemingly
quiet under the heavy hand of Nicholas I. Herzen
had no proof that there were readers for his publications. There was no underground publishing to
speak of. Nevertheless, convinced of his mission,
he set out on uncharted waters. He was launching
a great adventure.
His gamble succeeded. In later years, he would call
the founding of the print shop “the best act” of his
life. “Let the whole world know,” he declaimed,
that in the middle of the 19th century a madman,
believing in Russia and loving Russia, organized a
print shop for Russians.
It took several years and cost great effort before
he saw any reward, but Herzen’s print shop won a
special place in Russian history, and it paved the
way for printing and publishing in Western Europe
to become an important part of the revolutionary
movement in Russia and even in the development
of Russian culture as a whole.
When he founded the Russian Free Press, Herzen
did not have in mind the publication of a periodical
or a newspaper, but the need for a vehicle carrying
up to date news and commentary soon became
obvious. Eventually his newspaper, Kolokol (The
Bell), became the standard by which later generations of publications were to be judged. Herzen
essentially inspired the network of Russian émigré,
revolutionary periodicals that at the beginning of
the twentieth century culminated in the particular
character of Vladimir Ulianov-Lenin’s Iskra (The
Spark).
The editors and publishers of émigré periodicals
had to master, or at least do battle with, the entire
complex of problems in creating publications: finding financial resources, collecting and culling
manuscripts, setting type and printing texts, and of
course then distributing them in the hope of finding
readers and receiving enough money to do more.
Herzen could rely on his own financial resources,
but his successors had to struggle and even to
intrigue for money. Print shops in turn became
intellectual and social centers, often visited even
5
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
by tsarist police agents. The distribution networks
always ran the danger of exposure and arrest. Over
all hung the continuing question of defining the
goals of each enterprise and finding readers.
For the émigrés printing and publishing became an
important occupation. Many of the leading figures
of the revolutionary movement – Herzen, Mikhail
Bakunin, Petr Lavrov, Sergei Kravchinsky, Georgii
Plekhanov, Lev Tikhomirov, Vladimir Lenin – spent
time in the emigration working for one publication
or another. When the first major Russian Marxist
organization, Osvobozhdenia truda (Liberation of
Labor), was established in Western Switzerland, its
formal birth announcement consisted in the purchase of a print shop.
That the Russian Marxists made their home in Switzerland was no accident. While émigrés might seek
haven almost anywhere in Western Europe, they
quickly discovered that if they wanted to publish,
they basically had to choose between two countries, England or Switzerland. France and Belgium
would not tolerate such activity, and although Russian liberals found that they could place their works
in Germany, until the end of the century revolutionaries felt unsafe there. In the choice between
England and Switzerland most émigrés tended to
choose Switzerland because, at least in those days,
it was less expensive to live and work in the Helvetic
Republic than elsewhere in Europe.
Emigration itself posed a variety of psychological
problems. To many émigrés, going abroad meant
to admit defeat, to acknowledge that one could no
longer remain in Russia. This might even involve
feelings of guilt in having deserted comrades still in
the field of battle. For those who wanted to justify
their actions and to influence the course of events
in the homeland, publishing became an important
activity. Their publications focused on the homeland, not on news of life abroad. They were meant
to stimulate opposition to the regime in Russia. The
uncensored word could in fact be a more powerful
weapon than a bomb.
6
The print shops usually operated on shoestring
budgets; Herzen sank a good part of his personal
fortune into his print shop, but no one else had
such resources. Once the type had been set – perhaps only a signature, 16 pages, at a time – the
shop manager would probably have to send it out
to a local printer, maybe not even a socialist, and
that type would then remain unavailable until the
job was done. Then the publisher had to find a bindery. In its early years, even Herzen’s shop could
print only one issue of the thick journal Poliarnaia
zvezda in a year. When Peter Lavrov later began
publishing a biweekly newspaper, Vpered, he had
to suspend publication of his thick journal of the
same name. If a periodical appeared to be well
funded, émigrés automatically suspected that tsarist sources lay behind it. After that there remained
the problem of marketing or, as it concerned the
readership in the Russian empire, smuggling. This
process required money and sacrifice. The émigrés
usually had little money, and they offered selfsacrifice in its stead.
There was a reciprocal relationship between oppositional and revolutionary activity within the Russian
empire and émigré publishing activities abroad.
When overt activity in the empire picked up in the
late 1870s, publishing waned and some émigrés
even returned home; when the government struck
back, publishing abroad intensified as new waves of
émigrés came to join in the work.
At the same time, in the background of émigré
publishing lay a continuing debate – sometimes
open, sometimes muted – as to the role to which
émigrés could aspire in the Russian revolutionary
movement. There was no consensus concerning the
purposes of publishing. Some wanted to view their
resources as being at the service of those silenced
at home; others insisted that they had a message,
a truth, to deliver. Herzen had appealed to right
reason; others criticized him for not offering a program of revolution. Bakunin called for immediate
revolt, but the revolutionaries who went to the
people had trouble delivering their messages. Some
turned to violence, but at the same time the émigrés
took to studying Russian society more carefully,
examining the history of the country and of the
revolutionary movement and looking for practical
theories of revolution.
By the end of the century, the émigrés were convinced that their publications had to educate the
people, and Marxism was beginning to enjoy considerable popularity as an explanation of social development. Many émigré writers, including in particular V. I. Lenin, came to doubt the revolutionary
readiness of the masses in Russia, and they couched
their messages as directives, claiming the right to
lead revolution at home. For Lenin, the periodical,
originating in the emigration, was to become the
skeleton of the party organization that was to bring
about revolution.
In the 1880s the émigrés found new markets as western audiences wanted more and more information
about the sensational news coming out of Russia.
This market, however, demanded different talents,
not to speak of language facility; the market was
not accessible to the average émigré. The western
reader, moreover, came from a different political
culture, and the most successful Russian émigré
writer, Sergei Stepniak-Kravchinsky, found that in
appealing to a western audience he ran the risk of
Introduction
criticism from his compatriots for having distorted
Russian realities.
The publishing enterprises tended to be the work of
individuals or at best small groups; their directors
often appeared to be generals without armies. The
Russian revolutionary movement had not yet developed parties, and the activists, by trial and error,
tried to find and build constituencies. As a result the
policies and practices in the print shops tended to
be highly personalized, and individual friendships
and antagonisms frequently seemed to dominate
policy decisions. Friedrich Engels snorted at what
he considered the petty rivalries of among the Russian émigrés, but at the same time he insisted that it
was important to know about all this since it constituted the “diplomacy of the proletariat,” the development of relationships between revolutionary
groups. Only in the last two decades of the century
did funding from Russia itself begin to direct the
efforts of the émigré print shops in any sort of systematic, although still sporadic, way.
Herzen frequently complained about the dis­
agreements among the people who sought social
change in Russia, and he attributed them to lack
of experience in the exercise of free speech. The
debates of the émigré publishers, in this sense,
could be considered a political kindergarten or perhaps a seed bed for political parties in the empire.
Some leaders, like Georgii Plekhanov, advocated
censorship of their publications program in the
interest of making their message clear; others, like
Sergei Kravchinsky, insisted that limitations on the
freedom of speech of any comrade threatened the
freedom of all.
For all their arguments, the émigrés usually conceived of themselves as a distinct society of Russians
abroad. They tried to remain independent of their
new surroundings, so as to be able to keep alive their
connections with Russia, and frequently they openly
scorned the manners and customs of their hosts.
Within their own ranks, on the other hand, challenges continually arose as to whether they in fact
still understood Russia with all its changes especially
as younger émigrés challenged the ways and views
of the older generations. Against this back­ground,
publishing, together with the concurrent hope of
making contact with the reading public in Russia,
provided the émigrés with feelings of participation
and self-worth, mixed with feelings of frustration.
This account aims at depicting 19th century tamizdat,
the émigré publishing world in the second half of
the century. The American writer Norman Mailer
insisted that no ordinary writer could capture the
essence of such a story:
It was always necessary to remind oneself that a
series of such interviews with Lenin, Martov, Plekhanov, and Trotsky in the days of Iskra would
have been likely to produce a set of stories about
short stocky men in rumpled clothes and unhealthy beards who seemed to talk with a great deal
of certainty in words which were hard to follow.
Obviously no journalist could have done the job – it
was work which called for a novelist...” (Prisoner of
Sex, Boston, 1971)
Despite Mailer’s warning, this account offers the
genealogy of the various Russian print shops and
the major publications in Western Europe – how
they defined their missions, how they tried to establish their identities, how they tried to win support,
and, of course, how their inventory and ideas passed
from generation to generation of émigrés.
7
Chapter I:
THE RUSSIAN FREE
PRESS
On February 21, 1853, Herzen issued, in lithographed form, his first announcement of Free
Russian Book Printing in London. Addressed to
“Brothers in Rus,” the broadside declared that since
there was no place for free Russian speech at home,
the time had come to publish in Russian outside of
Russia. Calling silence “a sign of consent,” Herzen
urged his compatriots to follow the example of the
Poles in carrying their struggle against tsarist rule
into the emigration, and he invited the submission
of anything written in the spirit of freedom. “Our
door is open,” he declared, “Whether you want to use
it or not, that will be on your conscience... If security is worth more than free speech, remain silent.”
This date of February 21, he concluded, “marks the
beginning of the Russian uncensored press.”
On June 22, 1853, the “Russian Free Press” print
shop began production. The “first free Russian
word” to be sent back to the homeland took the form
of a leaflet entitled Iur’ev den’ Iur’ev den’, addressed
to the Russian nobility. St. George’s Day, Iur’ev den’,
had historically marked the time of year when peasants could presumably leave a given landlord’s
estate, and the leaflet used this date as the jumping
off point for an attack on the institution of serfdom.
“We are slaves because we are masters,” Herzen
declared in the name of all landowners. “We are
servants because we are landlords.” Herzen mailed
copies of the leaflet to leading government officials
in Russia, and he placed copies for sale in radical
bookstores in Germany and Switzerland.
8
He realized that this was a turning point in his life.
Born in Moscow in 1812, the illegitimate son of a
Russian landowner and therefore furnished with
the foreign sounding surname of Herzen (Gertsen),
he had twice tasted the bitter experience of exile to
the provinces in Russia, and in 1847, having become
independently wealthy after his father’s death, he
had chosen to test the air of Western Europe, arriving just in time to share in the exultation and
disappointments of revolution when France, Austria, Italy, and Germany experienced the “Spring
of Peoples,” as the revolutionary events of 1848
became known.
Herzen thought of himself as a progressive, sharing
in the intellectual heritage of the so-called “Decembrists.” Following Russia’s victory over Napoleonic France in 1815, the intellectual legacy of the
French Revolution had proved more powerful than
Napoleon’s armies. New ideas flowed into Russia,
and in 1825, at the announcement of the death of
Tsar Alexander I, the trusted Imperial Guard, representatives of the nobility, tried to exploit confusion
over the order of succession to the throne to raise
calls for “constitution” and “republic,” alien concepts
that they had learned from foreign publications.
The authorities quickly quelled the disorder; the
Tsar, Nicholas I, executed five leaders of the trouble.
Nevertheless, the rebels, named for the month of
December 1825, left behind them a legacy of opposition to the traditions of autocratic government.
Imbued with idealistic images of popular revolt and
popular government, Herzen, from his very first
days in Paris, found the West disappointing. The
West, he pronounced, “has a great idea, a grand
ideal – but little strength, little energy.” Russia, he
became convinced, had nothing to learn from the
West. Watching the failure of revolution in 1848
only led him to despair of western liberal beliefs –
the people were unworthy of the faith that the liberals invested in them. “Universal suffrage, the last
banality of the formal political world,” he wrote,
“gave a voice to the orangutans, and you cannot
make a concert from them.” Russia, he concluded,
had to find its own path to social justice, one in harmony with its own traditions.
In the fall of 1852 Herzen had left the continent for
England as a bitter and disappointed man. Added
to his political discontent was devastating personal
travail. His wife had left him for a man he had
considered his good friend. Subsequently she had
returned, but then she had become ill, and in the
spring of 1852 she had died. Besides his personal
agony over the situation, he felt exposed and ridiculed before the world of European intellectuals.
He had intended to stay in England only a month
or two; then he would go on to America. London,
Chapter I: THE RUSSIAN FREE PRESS
however, seemed to offer him the haven and quiet
that he felt he needed. “One can establish a remarkable life here,” he wrote. “I repeat with full conviction that in all Europe there is one city, and this city
is London.” London, he declared, had “all the shortcomings of a free state in the political sense, and
in turn it has freedom and a religion of respect for
the individual.” Deciding that to go on to America
would constitute flight from the struggle in Russia,
he chose to remain in England.
Herzen now concluded that he had a mission to
write not just about but rather for Russia. For several
years he had been telling western Europeans about
conditions in Russia, assuring them that the land
consisted of more than just a mindless despotism.
He also worked intermittently on his memoirs, Past
and Thoughts, which took the form of essays and
vignettes, a project he would continue to the end of
his life. There remained yet the challenge of sending
his words back to Russia; while not abandoning his
task of educating the West, he wanted to speak to
his own people back at home. For this purpose, he
decided to found a printing press.
In his quest for social justice he focused on the
plight of the Russian peasant: The peasant must
be freed from the abominable system of serfdom.
Influenced by the writings of a German traveler to
Russia, August von Haxthausen, who had reported
the existence of apparently ancient communal
institutions among the Russian peasants, Herzen
claimed to discern a distinctive form of socialism
among these people, and he looked to them as the
key to the future. Their energy had to be released
and then directed into new, constructive channels.
“The whole Russian Question,” he wrote in a British
periodical, “for the present at least may be said to be
included in that of serfdom.” As he wrote to a friend
in February 1853, “The main thing now is propaganda for the emancipation of the muzhiki [i.e., the
peasants].”
Founding a publishing operation in London had
been no simple task. Herzen had previously considered starting a press while living in France in
1849, but that thought had come to nothing. Since,
with the aid of the banking House of Rothschild, he
had managed to spirit his wealth out of Russia, he
had enough money for the venture, but he needed
advice and contacts in the printing world. Now he
received aid and encouragement from a source no
Russian could have conceived of before this time –
from Polish émigrés in London.
He found support for his enterprise among the left
of the Polish emigration in London. Count Stanislaw Worcell, twelve years older than Herzen,
helped him to calculate financing and to purchase
Russian type in Paris, where it had been ordered by
the Russian Academy of Sciences but had not been
claimed. As his first typesetter Herzen hired a Pole,
Ludwik Czerniecki, who soon took over direction
of the shop’s work. Stanislaw Tchorzewski, another
Pole, handled problems of publishing and distributing the printed materials, and Herzen located
his type in a shop just established in London by
Worcell’s Polish group, known as the Centralizacja.
The first responses from his friends in Russia disappointed him. He had been sure that he would find
support and get materials to publish. Instead he
received cautionary warnings, and his friends in
Russia seemed unable – or perhaps unwilling – to
set up smuggling routes into Russia for his works.
(He had to rely on the Poles for this service.) The
historian T. N. Granovsky warned him to be careful,
saying “You have forgotten much about Russia.”
Late in the summer of 1853 another friend, M.
S. Shchepkin, appeared in London to warn that
Herzen’s publications could compromise his sympathizers in Russia. “I would get on my own knees
in front of you,” pleaded Shchepkin, “and would
ask you to stop while there is time.” Go to America,
he advised Herzen: “Write nothing, let yourself be
forgotten, and then after about two or three years
we will begin to work so that they will permit your
entry into Russia.” No one, Shchepkin declared,
would send any texts.
Herzen rejected all advice for caution. His writings,
he asserted, would not bring martyrdom to anyone
in Russia, and he lamented the serf mentality that
gripped the minds of his Russian friends, whom
he called an “unhappy, long-suffering, weary, noble
generation.” He regretted his friends’ faintheartedness, but he would persist:
My friends can say what they want; I will not close
the press... I will print, unceasingly print... If our
friends do not like my work, that will hurt, but this
will not stop me. Others value it, a young generation, the future generation.
For all his optimism, the work of the press cost him
money. “Remember,” he wrote to a friend, “that I
have a third daughter, the print shop, and that she
has a nanny, Czerniecki, who has a nasty habit – he
needs food and a place to live.” Nevertheless he persisted in his optimism, awaiting resonance for his
lonely voice.
For the moment he found his main support among
the Poles. In greeting the opening of Herzen’s
shop, Demokrata Polski, the Centralizacija’s organ,
patronizingly welcomed this example of “freethinking men of the Russian people,” who was ready
to become “an active participant in the great cause
of European liberation.” Herzen, the newspaper
9
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
concluded, “has understood the obligation of the
Russian people.” Herzen responded in kind, welcoming the support of the Poles. “The Poles forgive us,” he proclaimed, adding that it would be
“shameful” not to take the hand that they were
proffering. “I united this print shop with the print
shop of the Polish Centralizacja,” he wrote to the
French historian Jules Michelet, “as a sign of the
union and full unity between us and revolutionary Poland.” In November 1853 he declared to a
meeting celebrating the anniversary of the Polish
rising of 1830, “Long live independent Poland and
free Russia!” To a friend Herzen described this
moment as “the first time since the creation of the
world that the Russian word had sounded in the
revolutionary cause.” As he saw it, his link with the
Poles enhanced his own revolutionary credentials
in the eyes of western intellectuals but his support
of the Polish cause brought angry protests from
other Russians in England.
Events beyond Herzen’s control soon complicated
his position in London. Anti-Russian feelings, long
fermenting in England, exploded in reaction to
developments in the Middle East. In the summer of
1853, without a declaration of war, Russian troops
had crossed into the Danubian Principalities of the
Ottoman Empire. A flurry of diplomatic activity
ensued, and in October the Turkish government
declared war. At the end of November the Russians
destroyed a part of the Turkish fleet in the Black Sea,
and the London press angrily denounced this “massacre.” In January 1854 a joint English and French
squadron sailed into the Black Sea, and conflict in
the Crimea ensued.
In his own mind, Herzen could easily distinguish
the Russian people from the Tsar and his government. The Russian people, the Russian soldier, had
a liberating mission in the Balkans; the Tsar, on the
other hand, represented only intolerable despotism. In a statement to the English public, entitled
“Russia and the Old World,” Herzen argued that the
Russian question and the social question, the two
burning problems of the day in the West, were now
one. Herzen praised Russia’s youth and unspoiled
character, and he predicted that Nicholas I, serving
as an “instrument of fate,” would conquer Istanbul,
Constantinople, and thereby contribute to the collapse of the tsarist system and to the flowering of
the Slavic peoples. His English audience did not
necessarily accept his sanguine view of the prospect
of Russia’s frontiers expanding.
10
Herzen followed up this declaration by printing
four proclamations aimed at arousing the Russian peasantry, and he printed an appeal to Russian soldiers in Poland, ostensibly in the name of
the “Russian Free Commune in London,” calling
upon the soldiers not to lay down their lives for the
Tsar against the Polish people. His reaction to the
western powers differentiated between the English
and the French. He was opposed to Napoleon III of
France, but he allowed himself to dream about the
possibility of British successes in the Black Sea:
Then I will move with my press into the English city
of Odessa... This will be great!
Then in the fall of 1854, Herzen came into conflict
with the Poles. He could not accept all the nationalistic ideals of Poles; he objected to what he called
their medieval Catholic thoughts; and he also had
more immediate, practical complaints about affairs
in the print shop. The Poles were too casual in presenting him with printing bills, and he felt that their
smuggling operations were failing him. When the
time came in November again to mark the anniversary of the 1830 rising, the Poles asked him not to
speak. Herzen decided to do them one better, and
he stayed away from the meeting altogether. “As
they requested,” he wrote a friend, “I was eloquently
silent.” In December 1854 he finally decided to
move out of the space that he had been sharing with
Centralizacja, giving as his reason the economic
problems that the manager of the Polish shop was
experiencing.
From his new location on Brunswick Square in
London, where he had also brought Czerniecki to
run his printing operations, he renewed his call for
manuscripts from Russia, claiming that the press
had not stopped working since June 1, 1853. At the
same time he decided that he needed a connection
with a solid respectable English publisher. He had
already worked with several, both in England and
in Germany, but now he made the momentous
decision to distribute the publications of the Russian Free Press through M. Trübner & Co. 12 Paternoster Row.
Nikolaus Trübner, born in Heidelberg in 1817, had
come to London in 1843 after a decade of training
in the German book business. In 1851 he founded
his own firm in alliance with Thomas Delf, London
representative of several American firms. From the
beginning Trübner directed his efforts toward the
international book trade, and he was a member
of the important Börsenverein des deutschen
Buchhandels. With Trübner’s name protecting his
publications, Herzen could hope for less trouble
in arranging for shipments to Russia through Germany. Under the terms of the agreement, Herzen
covered all costs of printing, and Trübner distributed the publications on a commission basis.
Despite his new hopes, Herzen still found that
his publications were selling slowly. Speaking to
Chapter I: THE RUSSIAN FREE PRESS
a gathering of refugees on February 27, 1855, he
sounded despondent. As a Russian, he resented
pressures to make him speak publicly against Russia
in the current European conflict. Even among the
refugees, however, he had his troubles, having been
denounced as a German Jew, a Panslavist, and a
tsarist propagandist. But, warming to his audience,
he still spoke out in favor of Polish independence,
and, invoking the memory of the Decembrists, he
insisted that Russia would yet lead Europe on a
revolutionary path. “History,” he told his audience,
“is really unfair; to those who come late it doesn’t
just give remains, it gives the seniority of experience.” Russia, he argued, had a special mission for
the world.
Then suddenly, in the middle of his despondence,
Herzen’s world changed. “We are drunk, we are
crazy, we have become young,” he wrote. To an Italian friend he exclaimed, “Long live death and long
live the dead! Finally the nightmare of all Europe,
the vampire of Europe, is, as Hamlet said, feeding worms.” News had come of the death of Tsar
Nicholas I, whom Herzen hated personally more
than he hated the institution of monarchy.
Nicholas’s successor, his son Alexander II, was by
no means sure to be a better ruler, “but he would at
least be different.” Now Russia could expect a quick
end to the Crimean War, of course at the price of
“a shameful peace,” but “that is what will help our
cause in Russia.” In an open letter to the new Tsar,
Herzen declared that Alexander could make himself a genuine leader among the Russian people by
ending censorship and freeing the peasants. “The
death of Nicholas,” Herzen later declared, “was one
of those fortunate historical occasions, one of those
decisive interferences of Providence that must be
exploited.”
Within two or three days of the news of Nicholas’s
death, Herzen began working on a periodical, to be
called Poliarnaia zvezda (Polar Star). In their time
the Decembrists had published an almanac with the
same title, and after the crushing of their revolt, it
had become a highly sought bibliographical rarity,
fetching a price of 100 rubles for a compete set of its
three volumes. Making explicit his own symbolism,
Herzen declaimed, “The Polar Star has been hidden
behind the clouds of the reign of Nicholas. Nicholas
has departed, and the Polar Star again appears.”
To further his commitment to the memory of the
Decembrists, Herzen commissioned an English
friend, William Linton, to prepare portraits of the
five executed Decembrists as the cover design. It
made no difference that Linton had no idea what
the men looked like; Herzen cared more for symbols than likenesses.
In his announcement of the journal, Herzen again
asked for support in Russia. The journal, he stated,
would be “dedicated exclusively to the question of
Russian liberation and to the dissemination of a free
form of thought in Russia.” This periodical would
serve as a channel for the discussion of social issues:
“Official Russia has a tongue and finds defenders
even in London. But young Russia, Russia of the
future and of hope, has no organ. We offer this to
her.” For the third time Herzen publicly appealed
for manuscripts; the frequency of this publication,
he declared, would depend on the flow of materials.
“Manuscripts eventually die,” he warned; “they must
be preserved in print.”
For the first issue, however, there were only a few
items on hand. Herzen collected statements of support and sympathy from West European friends,
but almost half the volume’s 246 pages were filled by
excerpts from his memoirs, Past and Thoughts. He
was still receiving nothing from Russia. In June 1855
he complained to a friend, “... I am simply amazed
that there is not a line from anybody... The cowardice of our people in Moscow drives me to despair.”
He was also disappointed that the printing of the
first issue took longer than he had expected. He had
hoped to publish it on July 25, the anniversary of
the execution of the five Decembrists in 1826; the
job dragged on into August.
Then, just as the Russian Free Press was completing
its printing of the journal, a visitor arrived from
Moscow, Pavel Lukich Pikulin, who brought stories
of a new kind: “It was hard to see well from a distance – there had to be an eyewitness,” exclaimed
Herzen, at least once admitting his difficulties of
keeping in touch with events in Russia. Pikulin
brought Herzen new hope, as he delivered messages from friends and even brought manuscripts.
Herzen quickly added a note at the very end of this
first volume of Poliarnaia zvezda:
Our booklet was already printed when we received
a copybook of poems by Pushkin, Lermontov, and
Polezhaev. We will place some of them in the next
issues. We know no limit to our gratitude for this
delivery. Finally! Finally!
Despite this outburst of enthusiasm, the Russian
Free Press lay quiet for the last several months of
1855. Czerniecki went to Paris on business, and
Herzen kept busy with other work. Poliarnaia
zvezda received favorable comment; but in an open
letter to his friends in Moscow, written at the end
of 1855, Herzen again complained about their failure to send him materials: “For the last time I ask
you: Will they send me the books that I requested
through Paris or not? Will they send me some
manuscripts or not?” Herzen was frustrated by the
continued lack of contributions from Russia.
11
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
On New Year’s Eve, 1855-1856, a sentimental occasion under any circumstances, an anonymous letter
from St. Petersburg moved Herzen to tears. Young
people whom he did not know were thanking him
for maintaining the Russian Free Press and for
publishing Poliarnaia zvezda. The letter, to be sure,
criticized the press’s leaflets relating to the Crimean
War, but Herzen wrote this off as a product of inexperience with “free speech.” In any case, Herzen
wrote, the letter “concluded the year for me in grand
fashion, and I will stand, doubly bolder, at my printing press.”
The year 1856 therefore dawned promisingly as
the end of the Crimean War hung in the air and
rumors flew about the new Tsar’s intentions to
liberate the serfs in Russia. In February the warring powers finally opened negotiations in Paris.
On March 30, 1856, the Treaty of Paris formalized
a rather humiliating defeat for the tsarist empire.
The Russian could take heart in the failure of the
12
western powers to raise the Polish question at the
talks, but they resented the treaty’s neutralization
of the Black Sea. The generally poor showing of
Russian forces in the war, despite individual heroic
performances, raised the prospect of far-reaching
reforms in the empire.
For Herzen, however, this was still a period of
unrewarded waiting, still working in something
of a void. The anti-Russian feelings rampant in
England upset him, and he was fast losing his original enthusiasm for living in London. The cost of
living was high, and he called his position “boring,
like the situation of worms in cheese.” He was thinking of moving to Switzerland, but for the moment
the press, with Czerniecki back at work, was busy
setting up the second issue of Poliarnaia zvezda.
This could not be completed before May, but he
was planning to leave England as soon after that
as possible. “London,” he declared, “is weighing on
me like a storm cloud.”
Chapter 2:
YEARS OF TRIUMPH
The month of April 1856 brought a surprising and
happy turning point in Herzen’s fortunes. The Crimean War had ended, there were promises of new
developments in Russia, yet his personal life was
unhappy. The printing of Poliarnaia zvezda itself
epitomized his problems and limitations at this time.
In contrast to his hopeful thoughts at the beginning
of the year, the flow of manuscripts he had expected
still refused to materialize; for the second issue of
his almanac he had written about 190 of the 288
pages himself. The print shop, moreover, only had
the capacity to print one issue per year. Once this
second issue would be ready, he planned to make
changes in his life, probably moving back to the
continent.
On April 9, the arrival of an old friend, Nikolai
Platonovich Ogarev, brought an abrupt change to
all his plans and thoughts. Herzen immediately
recalled how, as youths in Moscow, he and Ogarev
had solemnly pledged themselves to follow the
lead of the Decembrists: “The sun was setting, the
cupolas glittered, beneath the hill the city extended
farther than the eye could reach; a fresh breeze blew
on our faces; we stood leaning against each other
and, suddenly embracing, vowed in the sight of all
Moscow to sacrifice our lives to the struggle we had
chosen.” Ogarev, moreover, now brought with him a
mass of literature – poetry, manuscripts, and books.
(Among the current writers with whom Herzen
could now become acquainted was “a very talented
new author” by the name of Count Lev Tolstoy.)
Now, finally, Herzen had both a sympathetic collaborator and fresh, current materials with which to
work.
But Ogarev also brought new problems. His debilitating weakness for strong drink had complicated
his bouts with epilepsy. “About Ogarev I will say one
sad thing,” Herzen wrote to a friend, “and this is his
completely deranged health. I don’t know whether
it will improve here. This is sad.” Herzen’s doctor
put Ogarev on an alcohol-free regimen – “not one
drop of wine.” Ogarev, however, would never free
himself of his alcoholism. Another new problem: In
an unconscious reversal of his own earlier unhappy
marital experience – he himself never drew the
parallel – Herzen became involved with Ogarev’s
wife, Natalia Tuchkova-Ogareva, and Tuchkova
eventually bore him three children. Ogarev accepted
all this stoically if not without some tension. He
turned to the bottle for solace, and he found consolation with a London prostitute, Mary Sotherland,
whom he persuaded to change her ways and to tie
her life to his.
Through all this personal turmoil, the Russian Free
Press kept the ménage together. In a troubled letter
written in 1859, Ogarev accused Herzen of having
been cruel, and then he exclaimed, “... if instead of
helping, you continue to display your rational-egotistical malice (just as she displays her irrationalegotistical malice), then I ask only one thing. Keep
me as a faithful employee of the printing press, but
let me live by myself.” The concern that the two men
shared for the printed Russian word, set against the
background of their youthful dreams, prevailed over
the confusion and tension of their personal lives.
As the first consequence of Ogarev’s arrival in
London, Herzen put off his thoughts of moving
to Switzerland. The manuscripts that Ogarev had
brought gave him plenty of work, and he also felt
encouraged by other signs of new activity in Russia.
Censorship seemed to be easing there; some periodicals even dared to reprint earlier writings of his.
The new Tsar, Alexander II, had reportedly advised
Moscow nobles that serfdom should be abolished
from above rather than “to wait for the time when
it will begin to abolish itself spontaneously from
below.” Herzen now felt his mission even more
strongly: “I will remain at my machine. Whatever
they said before, I now, more than ever, am convinced of the importance of having a completely
free organ for Russian thought.”
During the summer of 1856 the flow of Russians
traveling to Western Europe increased dramatically, and visiting Herzen in London became a fashionable as well as a stimulating thing to do. This
current of visitors delighted Herzen, who held open
house on Sundays, and with the visitors came a growing flow of manuscripts – old historic documents,
belles lettres that had circulated only privately, and
13
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
commentaries on contemporary events. As the flow
of manuscripts grew, moreover, so did demand for
the publications of the Russian Free Press. Herzen
was finally finding an audience.
In June 1856 Herzen estimated that since April
Trübner had sold 2000 francs worth of the Russian
Free Press’s publications, and six months later he
estimated the volume of sales since April at 10,000
francs. By then Trübner had sold out the stockpiles
of publications in his storehouse. “You cannot imagine,” Herzen wrote in the spring of 1857,
what dimensions our London propaganda is taking.
We can barely keep up, since there are just three
of us: I, Ogarev, and the typesetter. My books are
selling magnificently, expenses are being completely
covered. The third volume of Poliarnaia zvezda, for
example, comes out on April 15 – already there is an
order for 300 copies, and I can count on another 200
even before May 1. I would never have believed in
such things in the time of the renowned Nicholas.
In response to these developments, Herzen
expanded and diversified his publishing program.
But first he had to respond to correspondents in
Russia who objected to his vision of peasant socialism and of Russia’s mission to renew Europe and
who urged him to moderate his tone. As his old
friend K. D. Kavelin challenged, what had the Russian peasant done that one should expect of him
“the future rebirth of mankind”?
Although he disagreed with the cautious liberalism of Kavelin and others, Herzen wanted to give
them a chance to express their views publicly, and
to this end he began a new series of publications,
called Golosa iz Rossii (Voices from Russia). Calling
Kavelin’s criticisms the result of “our lack of experience in speaking without a censor’s supervision,”
he declared his readiness to serve as “just a typesetter, a typesetter ready to print everything useful
for our common goal.” As before, he believed that
with time even these cautious persons of good will
would recognize that he was right.
14
Herzen’s energy, however, could not be satisfied
with the passive role of being “just a typesetter,” and
in April 1857 he announced plans for a new publication, Kolokol (The Bell), which would be a supplement to Poliarnaia zvezda but would appear more
frequently. This publication had a specific program:
liberation of the word from censorship, liberation
of the peasants from the control of the landlords,
and liberation of the common people from corporal
punishment. Herzen invited all “who share our love
for Russia” not just to listen to the bell’s ringing, but
also to help its resonance by furnishing reports of
official malfeasance. The publication would have “a
strictly political character for the active opposition.
We will limit ourselves only to Russia and Poland.”
Kolokol quickly shed its original identity as a “supplement,” although it would continue to carry that
designation for several years. It appeared for the
next ten years, far outliving the most influential
period of Herzen’s activity. In its first five years,
Kolokol became a focal point of Russian intellectual
life. It became a model for a popular oppositional
Russian voice; subsequent generations would vainly
try to emulate its success. In short, the newspaper
consolidated Herzen’s position in Russian cultural
and intellectual history of the late 1850s as a catalyst
for critical thought about the tsarist order.
Underlying the creation of the newspaper was a
plan that Ogarev had prepared for what he called a
“secret society,” aimed at changing the social order
in Russia. The society, Ogarev argued, had to have
its own printed organ that would establish guidelines for theory and practice on the part of social
activists. The organization itself would spread out in
a series of concentric circles, each area of specialization having its own printed organ, and ultimately
followers out on the periphery of the organization’s
web would be unaware of the source of their instructions. “Naturally,” Ogarev conceded, “the society
cannot limit itself to the one activity, book publishing,” but its first task was to popularize and spread
knowledge especially in the fields of the natural sciences, economic, and jurisprudence – and for this it
must engage in publishing.
Ogarev’s grand plan, which anticipated V. I. Lenin’s
plan for the newspaper Iskra forty years later, was
stillborn. He and Herzen organized no secret society,
and Herzen, moreover, repeatedly demonstrated a
preference for printing informational rather than
programmatic material. Nevertheless he shared
Ogarev’s conviction that literacy and knowledge
would lead the way to revolution; the uncensored
printed word was a revolutionary weapon.
Through the late 1850s, Kolokol enabled the Russian
Free Press to flourish. It provided a forum for discussions of the peasant question; in 1858 the editors
entered the debate still more vigorously, passing
from simply printing items sent to them by correspondents on to offering their own views on desirable terms and conditions for emancipation. The
newspaper remained a monthly until February 1,
1858; then, beginning with February 15, it appeared
twice a month. Although it kept the subtitle of “supplement” to Poliarnaia zvezda, which continued to
appear as an annual, it quickly surpassed the popularity of its mother ship. The demand for Russian
Free Press publications grew so enthusiastically that
Czerniecki eventually found it profitable to reprint
a number of the early issues of Kolokol. Trübner
Chapter 2: YEARS OF TRIUMPH
undertook publishing some works at his own cost –
although he was, as one observer put it, “too careful
to risk his own wares” in smuggling. The press’s
publications, Herzen exclaimed, were moving “as if
they were on wheels.”
Herzen stood ready to publish anything he thought
interesting to the Russian reading public. He republished Alexander Radishchev’s Journey from St.
Petersburg to Moscow, for which the Empress Catherine had exiled the author, and he published Catherine II’s diary, which somehow came into his hands.
He started a new series Istoricheskii sbornik Vol’noi
Russkoi Tipografii v Londone (Historical Anthology
of the Free Russian Press in London), and he continued to publish Golosa iz Rossii, which appeared
in a total of nine volumes before its demise in 1860,
the victim of the growing radicalization of the Russian intelligentsia.
The Russian Free Press’s publications penetrated the
highest circles of the Russian government, and they
were even selling at premium prices. At a meeting
of the State Council in St. Petersburg during the
spring of 1857, Count S. G. Stroganov passed a note
to the chief of police Prince V. A. Dolgorukov: “If
you wish, prince, I will give you Poliarnaia zvezda
for five silver rubles, the price I paid myself.” Dolgorukov scribbled back, “It would be better if you told
me where you got this book so cheaply!”
Success bred still greater success. In August 1857
a mysterious visitor came to Herzen and offered a
contribution to the cause: “I have decided to leave
some money with you. Should it be necessary for
your printing press or for Russian propaganda
generally, then it would be at your disposal.” Herzen
protested that he did not need the money, but the
man insisted, “No sir, this is decided. I have 50,000
francs... I shall give you 20,000 for propaganda.” If
Herzen did not need and did not use the money, he
could return it when the man was again in England
– “but if I don’t return within some ten years, or if I
die, use it for your propaganda.” Within a day or two
he left London, never to be seen again. This nest egg,
which Herzen invested and which became known
henceforth as the “Bakhmetev fund,” remained
intact, although it quickly became an apple of discord within the emigration.
As the demand for his publications increased,
Herzen found that the demands for his time and
attention grew even faster. The Russian reading
public rapidly diversified, and its sectors would
not be satisfied with Herzen’s self-proclaimed role
of being “just a typesetter.” He resisted pressures to
take sides among groups in Russia, but he nevertheless had to make controversial decisions of his own
in choosing which of the growing flood of manuscripts to print.
Inevitably the criticism arose that in rejecting any
offered texts he was engaging in censorship. He
responded that he had to exercise his own editorial
judgment; he could not be “just a typesetter.” As
he explained, “It is unpleasant to be a censor, but
on the editor lies the moral responsibility that he
accepts.” The liberals in Russia attacked his radical
stances – “The first free Russian journals serve as
the strongest evidence for the usefulness of censorship,” wrote the historian B. N. Chicherin – and
the radicals in Russia criticized Herzen’s appeals to
the Tsar for reform.
Herzen consistently included the Tsar in the
audience that he wanted to reach. From the time
of Alexander’s accession to the throne, he had
expressed the hope that this Tsar would lead Russia
to a new life, and he welcomed every sign of progress. In Kolokol of February 15, 1858, the first on
the new biweekly schedule, Herzen enthusiastically responded to Alexander’s initiative urging the
emancipation of the peasants, exclaiming “Thou
hast conquered, Galilean!” In the third volume of
Poliarnaia zvezda, Ogarev wrote, “Your Majesty, free
yourself and free Russia,” and he had then added his
own thought that Alexander merited a place at the
head of “the great Russian cause – the liberation of
the peasants.”
A new generation of young radicals in Russia was
not so inclined to find anything of value in the Old
Order. It objected to Herzen’s signs of respect for the
Tsar, and it furthermore complained about Herzen’s
practice of exposés of malfeasance and abuses in
office, as if the tsarist order could be redeemed
through the appearance of a few honest men. N. A.
Dobroliubov, editor of the St. Petersburg literary
monthly Sovremennik, criticized Kolokol’s exposés
as accomplishing nothing of value. Stirred by personal animus toward Sovremennik’s director, V. A.
Nekrasov, Herzen accused the young radicals of
abetting the reactionaries and even suggested that
one might discern here the insidious hand of the
authorities. Dobroliubov immediately considered
challenging Herzen to a duel, but another member
of the St. Petersburg group, Nikolai Chernyshevsky,
insisted that the proper course would be to send an
envoy to London to meet with Herzen. Chernyshevsky undertook the mission himself.
Now 30 years old, Chernyshevsky came from a
clerical family, but, with the consent of his father,
he had broken the pattern by attending the University of St. Petersburg. At first deeply religious,
he had soon, under the influence of the events of
1848, turned to socialism and skepticism. Long an
admirer of Herzen, he had undertaken a literary
career in St. Petersburg, and he had become an outstanding practitioner of the art of circumventing the
15
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
censor in commenting on contemporary problems.
At the same time, he had become the intellectual
leader of the new generation of Russian radicals.
When he took up the question of the emancipation
of the peasants, he split with Herzen, insisting that
the terms that the government was preparing were
too costly for the peasants.
Chernyshevsky’s meeting with Herzen at the end of
June 1859 has been elevated by some to a confrontation between revolutionary generations. In fact,
their talks passed quietly, although the gap between the generations was not to be bridged. Chernyshevsky later described Herzen as a “Kavelin
squared,” an unreconstructable liberal, but Herzen
recognized the integrity of the Sovremennik group
and immediately published a retraction of his
innuendo: “It would be extremely painful if the
irony with which we expressed ourselves were to
be considered an insulting allusion.”
Despite the complaints of the Sovremennik group,
Herzen continued to publish exposés, soon launching yet another periodical, Pod Sud! (On Trial),
carrying accounts of miscarriages of justice in
Russia. A year later, in October 1860, he felt constrained to defend his own generation, the “superfluous” men of the 1840s, against the “jaundiced”
young radicals who “gloomily reproach men
because they dine without gnashing their teeth and
because they enjoy pictures or music and forget the
misfortunes of this world.”
Herzen also had to deal with other, less programmatic criticisms of his work, ranging from complaints that Poliarnaia zvezda was wasting paper
in printing poetry with broad margins to personal
attacks against his wealth. After the New York Evening Post had printed a letter saying that figures like
Herzen and the novelist Ivan Turgenev were living
on money derived from the sale of their serfs, Herzen
angrily responded that he had never sold a serf, that
the government had sequestered the family estate,
and that therefore he was receiving no money from
it. Herzen recognized that some people objected to
his personal wealth, but he argued that money constituted an important and essential weapon: “No one
throws away a weapon in time of war, although it
may have come from the enemy and even be rusty.”
16
Behind some of these criticisms undoubtedly lay
the heavy hand of tsarist authorities, trying to discredit Herzen and thereby undermine his remarkably strong influence. In 1857 Herzen discovered
that an employee in Trübner’s publishing house
was passing on information. The man was fired, but
Herzen knew only too well that among his weekly
visitors were quite probably tsarist agents, looking
for compromising information.
The authorities in St. Petersburg had been watching him for years, attempting, with occasional
success, to interfere with shipments of his publications through Germany. They had also engaged
in some discussion of establishing another publication, printed in the West, seemingly free of the
restrictions of censorship but at the same time
sympathetic to the government. They could not,
however, figure out how to do this; as one official
argued, to encourage a free press would be tantamount to killing “oneself out of fear of being killed.”
Therefore, as one official complained, “one can find
[émigré publications] in practically every home, not
to speak of every pocket” in the empire.
In its frustration, the Russian government sponsored
the publication of pamphlets attacking Herzen. After
reading one such attack, written by N. V. Elagin, an
official of the tsarist censor’s office, Herzen claimed
privately that he and Ogarev had laughed heartily at
it; in Kolokol, however, he solemnly declared that he
would not honor the work with a response. The tsarist officials nevertheless persisted; when Herzen, in
1862, rejected a manuscript submitted by one D. K.
Schedo-Ferotti, the writer, a Russian agent, publicly
charged Herzen with having exercised arbitrary
censorship. Herzen then published an open letter
to the Russian ambassador in London, reporting
threats against his life, but Schedo-Ferroti replied
with a publication, reprinted four times, ridiculing
Herzen.
In the face of all attacks, from whatever quarter,
whether liberal, radical, or government, Herzen
insisted that he would continue his work. “The
matter of Russian propaganda,” he declared, “is not a
caprice”; rather it was “the work of our life, our religion, a piece of our heart, our service to the Russian
people.” His task now was “to be an organ of movement, to show the way and the goal, to say what the
censorship wants kept silent.” He stood ready as ever
“vigorously to help any good enterprise, so long as it
does not contradict our religion.”
By the end of the 1850s, the goal to which Herzen
had dedicated his efforts was on the horizon, and
finally, on March 4, 1861, the tsarist government
announced the emancipation of the peasants in
the Russian Empire. The result of protracted, conservative, bureaucratic intrigues, the act actually
imposed a heavy new form of servitude on the peasantry. At the very least, the peasants were obliged
to live by new restrictions for nine years, that is
until March 4, 1870, at which time they would
be subjected to yet another set of conditions. The
complexity of the terms quickly undermined the
spontaneous enthusiasm that had greeted the
emancipation, and new voices of discontent arose.
In London Herzen greeted the first news with joy.
Chapter 2: YEARS OF TRIUMPH
He had long been waiting for this moment. “You
probably know,” he wrote to his son on February
24, “that on March 4 they will proclaim the emancipation with land (the portion of land is unknown).
This is surely, together with the unification of Italy,
one of the major events of the last twenty-five
years.” To celebrate the occasion, Herzen organized
a dinner for the associates of the Russian Free Press,
to be followed by an open house for “every Russian
of whatever party who sympathizes with the great
cause.”
The cries of joy, however, were quickly strangled.
Herzen had long recognized the cold hand of the
conservatives steering the course of emancipation,
and he had bemoaned Alexander’s failure to provide
more forceful leadership. “If only,” he lamented, “it
were possible to say again, ‘Thou hast conquered,
Galilean.’” Nevertheless he was still ready to toast
the Tsar, but then news came that Russian troops
were firing on Polish demonstrators. “Warsaw’s
blood,” he wrote later, cast a pall over the entire
evening. The celebrants drank toasts to “the emancipated Russian people” and to “The full, unconditional independence of Poland, for her liberation
from Russia and Germany, and for the fraternal
union of Russians and Poles.”
Over the succeeding months Herzen repeatedly
expressed his disappointment in the government.
In Kolokol of May 1, he grieved that Tsar Alexander
II had not died “on the day when the emancipation
decree was proclaimed to the Russian people.” In the
issue of June 15, Ogarev proclaimed, “The people
have been deceived by the Tsar,” and Herzen vigorously denounced the “tongue-tied illiteracy and
duplicity of the government.” The newspaper carried reports of peasant rebellions and other expressions of opposition, as in the case of troubles in
Bezdna, where the peasants believed that a second
emancipation decree had been suppressed.
Herzen and Ogarev now formulated new thoughts
for the radical youth in Russia. Writing in Kolokol
of July 1, in answer to the question “What do the
people need?” Ogarev offered the ringing slogan
that became the rallying cry of the next two decades
in Russia: “Very simply, the people need land and
freedom.” On November 1, taking note of student
demonstrations that had brought the closing of universities in Russia, Herzen offered his own call:
From all sides of our enormous motherland – from
the Don and the Ural, from the Volga and the Dnepr
– grows a moan, rises a murmur; this is the first
roar of the ocean wave which seethes with storms
after the terribly fatiguing calm. To the people!
To the people! There is your place, you exiles of
science...
In spite of this inspired oratory, Herzen had trouble
redefining Kolokol’s program. Emancipation of the
peasants had been one of the newspaper’s original
demands, and that, at least in form, had now been
realized. Herzen proclaimed new priorities: Independence for Poland, Land for the peasants, and
Freedom for Russia. He identified the social forces
that he thought would realize these goals: the Poles,
the peasants, the students. But these new goals could
not focus the emotions of the Russian public as clearly as he had been able to do in the past. Just as the
realities of the emancipation had disappointed him,
Herzen soon found new disappointments within
the new generation of Russian radicals.
Nevertheless, with his Russian Free Press awash in
a sea of manuscripts, Herzen could at this point
take considerable pride in his accomplishments,
and of these Kolokol would stand as his greatest.
Subsequent generations might dispute his views
and might challenge his methods, but they would
struggle to distill and reproduce the essence of
his popularity, and they would admire and envy
Kolokol, the promontory from which he had for
a time directed and watched over the discussions
about Russia’s future.
17
Chapter 3:
THE YOUNG
EMIGRATION
The emancipation of the peasants in Russia left
Herzen face to face with his critics. The Russian
behemoth had shifted a bit, and no one could be
certain what further changes would ensue. There
were those fearing too much movement, and those
demanding more. Herzen’s peculiar combination
of views, with his faith in the masses of peasantry,
his irritation with intellectuals who disagreed with
him, and his propensity for publicly addressing
words of wisdom to the Tsar, left him vulnerable
to attack from all sides. The attacks from the young
radicals especially hurt him over the next few years;
the radicals of the day, he asserted, “could drive an
angel to fighting and a saint to curses.” Instead he
claimed to espy a young generation, coming from
the “healthy Ukraine” or the “healthy northeast,”
that would appreciate the work of his generation.
That group, however, refused to show itself, and
Herzen had to find consolation in his own words.
By the early 1860s, moreover, Herzen no longer stood
alone on the publishing front as he had a decade
earlier. Russian publishing houses, to be sure, had
existed in Western Europe for generations, but they
had not indulged in printing dissident literature.
Herzen’s success in London evoked imitators; “Our
machine,” he chortled, “has become a grandfather.”
Even the tsarist court saw fit to exploit this development: Mikhail Lermontov’s poem Demon had
been banned in Russia, but in 1856 the court had it
printed in Karlsruhe in Germany. (Needless to say,
other shops immediately pirated it and reprinted
it.) Publishing in Germany was in fact cheaper than
in England, but Herzen, while welcoming this new
activity, insisted that in London he had greater freedom to express himself than he would on the continent.
18
If he needed evidence to demonstrate the power of
the tsarist authorities in pursuing émigré publishing
operations on the continent, Herzen needed but
point to the experiences of a new émigré of regal
lineage, Prince Petr Vladimirovich Dolgorukov,
who considered himself of nobler blood than the
Romanov who sat on the Russian imperial throne.
Long in trouble with the authorities for his literary
activity, Dolgorukov came to Western Europe in
May 1859 and published a book, La Verité sur la
Russie, which quickly went through several printings and was translated into Russian. The tsarist
authorities summoned him home, but the prince
refused to obey the call, sending the police a photograph, “a good likeness,” in case they simply wanted
to remember how he looked. The authorities responded by seizing his property in Russia.
Dolgorukov’s political views were constitutional
rather than radical-social. The government, he
argued, should make use of all persons of talent,
including of course himself. Herzen said of his
work, “The author thinks that we as socialists will
not agree with his constitutionalist striving. We
think, to the contrary, that there are circumstances
under which one cannot avoid these transitional
forms.” In particular he welcomed Dolgorukov’s
announced intention of exposing incompetence
in government: “Prince Dolgorukov does well to
publish in French; our bureaucrats fear publicity,
especially in French – ladies will read it, and so will
French privy councilors.” While Dolgorukov failed
to win any significant following for his program,
such as it was, the tsarist authorities spent considerable effort to silence him; as Herzen suggested,
they feared his gossip perhaps more than they did
his political ideas.
When Dolgorukov began his own Russian newspaper, Budushchnost’ (The Future), his French
publisher suddenly informed him that he would not
handle a newspaper offensive to the Russian government. Then another Russian took the prince into a
French court on the charge of having attempted to
blackmail him. When, to Dolgorukov’s dismay, the
plaintiff won, the prince moved on to Leipzig, in
Germany, where he started a new periodical entitled Pravdivyi (Truthful). Once again the long arm
of the Tsar seemed to intrude, and his new publisher
insisted on reviewing all articles before printing
them. Dolgorukov declared he would accept no
censorship, and he moved to Brussels where he
Chapter 3: THE YOUNG EMIGRATION
opened up his own print shop, putting out a newspaper in French, Veridique, and yet another Russian
periodical, Listok (Leaflet).
Even in Belgium, however, Dolgorukov was not
safe. He won the cooperation of another writer,
Leonid Bliummer, who had been publishing his own
Russian periodical, Svobodnoe slovo (Free Word),
in Berlin. Bliummer moved in with the prince in
Brussels, but the two men soon argued and accused
each other of bad faith. When Dolgorukov distributed a brochure attacking the French court’s decision against him, Belgian authorities seized it, and
in February 1863, with the threat of imprisonment
for contumacy toward the French judiciary hanging
over his head, he fled to London where he settled
into Herzen’s crowded shadow. Now a pamphlet
published in Russia named him as the author of
the lampoon against Alexander Pushkin, written in
1836, that had led to the duel that took the noted
writer’s life. Dolgorukov angrily denied the charge,
but his star was on the wane.
For Herzen the lessons to be drawn from
Dolgorukov’s odyssey were clear. Although printing
in London was expensive – 150 francs for a sheet of
Russian type as opposed to 75 francs on the continent – it was nevertheless a more secure operation
than it could be in France, in Germany or in Belgium. If any of his readers who were complaining
about the price of his publications wanted to try
their hands at publishing in Germany, they should
feel free to do so. If, on the other hand, his readers
wanted to lower the costs of his publications, they
could do so by improving the distribution network.
Ensconced in London, Herzen was physically safe,
but as the chaotic events in Russia of the early 1860s
unfolded, he was increasingly isolated, attacked
by both right and left. Although disagreeing with
the young radicals in Russia, he remained ready to
help them with his printing press. For this he drew
attacks in the legal Russian press, and when a series
of mysterious fires broke out in St. Petersburg in the
spring of 1862, even old friends like the writer Ivan
Turgenev shied away from him. Herzen accused
the tsarist government of having “female nerves”
and insisted that the young radicals were not to
blame for the fires: “Turning loose the red cock,” he
declared, had long been a form of social protest on
the part of the peasantry, but this was not the cause
of the urban fires.
Despite Herzen’s efforts to help and to defend them,
many young radicals dismissed him as a political
fossil and attacked him in public. Molodaia Rossiia
(Young Russia), a revolutionary proclamation that
appeared in the spring of 1862 calling for mass bloodletting in the name of revolution, declared that
Herzen had actually been a reactionary since 1849,
and it called Kolokol “a review of liberal tendencies
and nothing more.” While this could be considered
an extreme case in view of the fact that Herzen
was still cooperating with Chernyshevsky and
other radical leaders, Herzen found no consolation
among the young émigrés who were now seeking
haven in the West.
When young radicals showed up in London, Herzen
discovered that the new activists in Russia were
rejecting his values. At first he found their stories
exciting, but then he soon became bored. Most of
these young men had interrupted their university
studies, and they displayed little interest in resuming them. Although Herzen had himself called
upon the “exiles of science” to go to the people, he
was dismayed by their disdain for learning and their
lack of taste for the fine arts. “What need had they
of music? What need of poetry?” he asked. “These
came not from the training school of the coming
revolution but from the devastated stage on which
they had already been actors.” He acknowledged
their bravery and their energy, but he objected to
their scorn for “intellectual luxuries, among which
art stands in the foreground.” By his standards, they
read little and had no intellectual curiosity; instead,
they displayed “a morbid and very unceremonious
vanity.”
The young émigrés’ demands for financial assistance
further distressed Herzen. In order to help them, he
organized a “Common Fund” for “our common Russian cause,” proposing a graduated “income tax” for
sympathizers. Requests, rather naturally, far outstripped receipts, and the young émigrés demanded
that he contribute more. They criticized his refusal
to deny himself pleasures such as good cigars, and
they demanded that he surrender the Bakhmetev
money, which they called a fund to support the
revolution rather than just Herzen’s publishing ventures. As veterans of the recent revolutionary events
in Russia, they argued, they should administer and
spend this money. Herzen resisted and as a result
reaped a harvest of ill feeling.
In July 1862 the Russian government scored an
enormous success when it intercepted a courier
from Herzen to his contacts in Russia. The letters
seized on this occasion revealed Herzen’s network
of correspondents in Russia, and a campaign of
arrests ensued, culminating in the “Trial of the 32,”
persons “charged with relations with the London
propagandists.” The arrests decimated the ranks of
the radical leadership in St. Petersburg and decapitated the nascent revolutionary organization Zemlia
i volia (Land and Freedom), which had taken its
name from Ogarev’s slogan. Caught up in the dragnet were Chernyshevsky and another well-known
radical, Nikolai Serno-Solovevich. Amid charges
19
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
that his carelessness had contributed to this catastrophe, Herzen could only watch as his network
crumbled and anger intensified.
Schlusselberg fortress.” For Herzen these exchanges
might have been amusing, but they foretold trouble
within his own camp.
The consequences of this catastrophe were not,
however, immediately evident, and the Russian
Free Press seemingly continued to thrive through
the year of 1862, Ogarev and Herzen experimented
with reaching new, less sophisticated readers, as they
rewrote selected theoretical articles in simplified,
popularized form. They also directed some publications toward the Old Believers, religious dissidents
in Russia, whom they thought a fertile ground for
anti-establishment seeds. Beginning in the middle
of July, Kolokol printed yet another irregular supplement, this one entitled Obshchee veche (Common
Assembly), aimed at a wider audience.
Herzen faced a personal political crisis in the late
winter and early spring of 1863 when the Poles rose
against Russian rule in Warsaw. Many Russians, like
Dolgorukov, who objected to “Polish pretensions,”
put what they saw as Russia’s national interest first,
and they supported the government’s suppression of
the revolt. Bakunin, on the other hand, rallied enthusiastically to the Polish side. Even without Bakunin’s
influence, Herzen had a strong sympathy for the
Poles, and at Bakunin’s urging, he supported them,
seeing the cause of Polish independence as being closely tied with the cause of Russian freedom.
At the end of 1862, Herzen even seemed about
to forge new ties with the young émigrés when
he entered into negotiations with a new Russian
print shop in Bern, Switzerland, organized by B. I.
Bakst and other young Russians who had come to
the Swiss capital after their studies at the University of Heidelberg had been interrupted. Herzen,
however, was no more willing to put his property
and resources at the mercy of the young émigrés in
Switzerland than he was in London. He sent money
to help Bakst, and he commissioned the press to
print some of his works, putting on them false
imprints such as Naples, Moscow, and Kronstadt,
but he would not accept any responsibility for the
operation in Bern. Bakst’s press soon shut down for
lack of funds.
20
Supporting the Polish cause cost Herzen dearly. In
many Russian circles expressions of sympathy for
the Poles constituted treason. Herzen was further
embarrassed by Bakunin, who immediately raced
off to Sweden to be near the action and there issued
flaming, irrational statements. Despite earlier negotiations, the Russian radicals failed to come to the
help of the Poles, and in the course of the summer
the Russian army crushed the rebels. Kolokol’s
prestige suffered badly, and its circulation dropped
from over 2000 to barely 500. It would never again
rise much above 1000 copies, and whereas in 1862
the newspaper printed a total of 288 pages, in 1863,
it totaled only 176.
Momentarily bridging Herzen’s growing rupture
with the radical left was the appearance in London in
1862 of Mikhail Bakunin, an old friend of Herzen’s
who had just recently escaped exile in Siberia. Two
years younger than Herzen, Bakunin was also a
noble by birth, and in 1848 he had feverishly pursued the flame of revolution around Europe. Eventually taken prisoner by German authorities, he had
been extradited to Russia and then sent into exile.
Now, having escaped, he had come to see his old
friend in London.
In the aftermath of the Polish revolt and the
government’s campaign against radicals within the
empire, a new wave of émigrés flowed into Western Europe, and their meetings with Herzen led to
new disputes. In describing the visit of one, Herzen
wrote angrily, “The plenipotentiary was full of the
importance of his mission and invited us to become
the agents of Zemlia i volia.” Although Bakunin and
Ogarev stood ready as ever to rally to the revolutionary tocsin, Herzen would not commit himself,
but by summer, when Kolokol’s loss of readership
was becoming obvious, he welcomed the arrival of
another émigré, Nikolai Utin, who, he hoped, could
give the newspaper new vigor.
Even as the two men fell in each other’s arms,
Herzen realized that Bakunin’s arrival meant new
turmoil. Toothless, disheveled, and overweight, but
still feverishly energetic, Bakunin looked for revolutionary action. When Bakunin met Dolgorukov, he
allegedly told the prince, “I love you very much, but,
alas, when we take power in our hands, we will cut
off your head and those of your political sympathizers,” to which Dolgorukov responded, “Mikhail
Aleksandrovich, when my sympathizers take power,
we will cut off no one’s head, and I even hope that
we do away with capital punishment, but you, although I love you very much, we, alas, will return to
Utin, now in his early 20s, took it upon himself to
instruct Herzen and Ogarev on conspiratorial practices, and he clashed directly with Herzen’s editorial
policies. When he finally left London, shortly after
New Year’s Day of 1864, he was talking of founding
his own periodical in Switzerland, and he vainly
attempted to persuade Tchorzewski to come with
him. Herzen, who now feared a British-Russian
conflict over the Polish question, was himself thinking again of moving to Switzerland, and therefore
Utin’s intentions disturbed him greatly. He had to
pay greater attention to the growing Russian population in the Helvetic Republic.
Chapter 3: THE YOUNG EMIGRATION
The Russians in Switzerland had mostly settled
along the shores of Lake Geneva, and they constituted in fact several colonies. There were aristocrats
seeking a healthful climate and inexpensive comfort; landowners went there to educate their children at the many good Swiss schools; and the new
political émigrés, who cultivated a corporate identity as the “Young Emigration,” were fugitives from
the social disturbances of 1859-1862 and after. As
one observer wrote, in Geneva one could,
so to speak, study the geological stratifications of
all Russian revolutionary strata of the 19th century.
For Herzen these settlements represented an entirely new world, full of both promise and pitfalls.
In December 1863 Herzen visited Geneva, and
despite his trepidation about dealing with the
young émigrés his meeting with them went fairly
well. The émigrés asked that Czerniecki come
to Switzerland to revive Bakst’s printing establishment, and when Herzen responded that he
might move his entire operation to Central Europe,
they were delighted. Herzen rather rashly then promised to settle in Lugano, in the Italian speaking
part of Switzerland, by May of 1864, but once he
had returned to England, his enthusiasm quickly
cooled. He foresaw only trouble in trying to publish
in Switzerland: The young émigrés had no funds to
help with, and he did not consider them capable
of significant literary work. Therefore he chose to
remain in England for the time being, leaving the
émigrés in Switzerland muttering about his pusillanimous behavior.
Through the winter of 1863-1864 Herzen had other
troubles too. His press did not have enough work
any more, and he had to cover its costs out of his
own pocket. (By his calculations, this came to perhaps one-seventh of his income.) His investments
in US confederate bonds, moreover, were failing.
Kolokol’s readership was declining, and in Switzerland Utin was loudly complaining about Herzen’s
failure either to offer leadership to the young revolutionaries or to recognize their qualifications. He
considered moving to Brussels, but Dolgorukov’s
unhappy experience there gave warning. In the
summer of 1864, Herzen considered temporarily
suspending publication of Kolokol, but this publication now constituted a mission, an obligation, and
he struggled on.
Under these circumstances, Utin’s continued urgings
that he come to Switzerland began to have their
effect. Utin even claimed to have mobilized help for
the move. Baron Alexander F. Stuart, he reported,
who owned the equipment left from Baksts’s short-
lived printing enterprise, was ready to sell the type
to Herzen. Stuart, moreover, had unlimited credit
with a foundry in Frankfurt, Utin added, and therefore Czerniecki could leave his old type in London.
Herzen need only bring money to Geneva.
Finally, in December 1864, Herzen again visited
Geneva, where he faced a new list of demands. Utin
declared that Kolokol should be reorganized and
broadened, that it should be a general émigré organ,
and that it should adopt a skeptical attitude toward
the educated classes. The young émigrés, moreover,
stood ready to relieve Herzen of the obligation of
administering the Bakhmetev fund. If Herzen
should refuse these demands, however, the émigrés
would start their own journal. Please, Utin cajoled,
“Don’t bring harm to the cause dear to all.”
Herzen coolly responded that Kolokol would remain
“an organ for the social development of Russia” and
that he would welcome any contributions from the
émigrés. Émigrés, he argued, could not aspire to
lead the revolutionary movement; their role was
the help the people within Russia. The talks resulted
in an agreement that was in fact not an agreement.
The émigrés withdrew their demands for control of
Kolokol and of the Bakhmetev fund, while Herzen
agreed to bring Kolokol and the Russian Free Press
to Geneva and to work with the youths.
Almost immediately, Herzen had misgivings about
even this modest arrangement, but he saw no alternative but to move to Geneva. He converted his
press into a joint stock company, selling shares to
friends in order to raise money for the move, and
with Trübner’s help he shipped his stock of publications by way of a book dealer in Cologne. Kolokol
continued to appear in London until April 1, 1865,
and the next issue, no. 197, appeared in Geneva
with the date of May 25. “Our move,” the newspaper
assured its readers, “signifies no internal change in
our publication.”
With his sense of history and drama, Herzen saw
this as the start of a new period of his activity, the
third and perhaps the most important in his career
as an émigré in Western Europe. He had visions of
Kolokol’s now winning new life and renown as an
influential forum for progressive Russian thought,
and upon his arrival in Geneva on April 4, just two
days before his 53rd birthday, he thought of himself as remaining active yet “for another five years,
maximum seven.”
His enthusiasm, such as it was, quickly cooled when
he received the bills for the move. “Since the beginning of 1863,” he lamented to Tchorzewski, “Czerniecki has cost me (in addition to Kolokol) more
than 12,000 francs, and not only have I received
no thanks, but he himself and you yourself abuse
21
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
me.” It would have been better, he reflected, “to give
him 5000 francs and leave him in London.” Even
in this pessimistic mood, Herzen had no idea how
prophetic this thought would prove to be, but he
had trouble enough on his hands when new conflict
immediately arose with the “puppies,” as he called
the young émigrés.
Herzen contributed heavily to his own problems by
publishing as his first item in Switzerland another
open letter to the Tsar, this one, on the occasion of
the death of the autocrat’s son, urging the Russian
rule to seize the moment to renew himself, to rid
himself of the fear of the uncensored word, and to
complete the work of the emancipation of the whole
Russian people begun by the emancipation of the
peasantry. When this letter appeared in Kolokol, a
furor arose. Ogarev tried to praise his comrade’s
boldness and daring in addressing the Tsar, but for
the Young Emigration the letter smacked of liberalism, a belief in reform rather than revolution, and
it offered further proof that Herzen was little more
than a relic of the past.
Living in Geneva, Herzen met a wider variety of
Russians than he had known in England, and at
the same time he ran new risks of having his name
compromised. He rejected, for example, the efforts
of the young radical Ivan Khudiakov to put the press
22
at the service of a revolutionary circle in Moscow,
but when Khudiakov returned to Russia with stories about a “European Revolutionary Committee”
to which Herzen supposedly belonged, and when a
member of Khudiakov’s group, Dmitri Karakozov,
tried to assassinate the Tsar, the Russian authorities
noted Herzen’s name and intensified their surveillance of the émigrés.
All in all, Herzen’s move to Switzerland failed of its
purpose. At the end of the year 1865 he had little
to be optimistic about. Kolokol, he wrote to his son,
had actually published more pages in 1865 than in
1864, but it was not doing well. Ogarev had now
apparently destroyed his health; he had contributed
only one significant piece to Kolokol in the last six
months. Czerniecki was complaining of a lack of
work, and his wife was homesick for London. A
visitor to Herzen’s home in September 1865 later
recalled, “He himself recognized that he was losing
his footing” and that his prolonged absence from
Russia had “unfavorably influenced the vitality of
his publication.” Whatever his thoughts about the
future of Russia, Herzen could no longer be optimistic about his own role in those developments,
and even in Geneva, the new generation of émigrés,
however representative they were of Russia, was
deserting him.
Chapter 4:
ELPIDIN’S CHALLENGE
At odds with the Young Emigration, Herzen was
vulnerable to challenge by ambitious émigrés who
dreamed of assuming his historic role of the late
1850s, not to speak of his income, as a center of
Russian intellectual activity. His Russian Free Press
had already spawned a number of imitators in Germany, but these had been for the most part commercial ventures, aimed at making profits. While
some of the major German publishing houses could
maintain such an activity as a sideline, those enterprises that tried to make their fortune just from the
printing of Russian materials found the going very
difficult. One entrepreneur even applied to the Russian police for money to stave off his creditors.
Having angered the younger émigrés with his
appeal to the Tsar in 1865, Herzen intensified
the clash the following year when, in response to
Karakozov’s attack on the life of Tsar Alexander II,
he denounced the principle of individual terror as
“murder” and he called Karakozov’s act the work of
a “fanatic.” He feared that the tsarist regime would
now increase its pressure on the émigrés, and he
complained about the “spy mania” that considered
the émigrés responsible for Karakozov’s action.
“The horrors that are occurring in Russia,” he wrote
to a friend, “transcend fairy tales and romances.”
On another occasion he sighed, “I am more than
tired – I am aging.”
The young émigrés responded very differently to
the news coming from Russia. They did not welcome the Tsar’s escape from meeting his mortality; for them Karakozov was a hero. “The younger
generation,” Aleksandr Serno-Solovevich declared
to Herzen, “will never forgive you your statements
about Karakozov.” Serno, now some 27 years old
was the younger brother of Nikolai Serno-Solovevich, who had been arrested with Chernyshevsky
on the charge of having corresponded with Herzen.
Like other young émigrés, Serno revered Chernyshevsky, and he tended to hold Herzen at least in
part responsible for his hero’s, not to speak of his
brother’s, misfortunes. Angered also by news that
his brother had died in exile, Serno visited Herzen
to voice his thoughts, but Herzen brushed off the
visit casually: “Serno-Solovevich came here to tell
me that he hates me – just as he once loved me.” The
young émigrés, however, could not be dismissed so
glibly, and as Herzen told Ogarev, “Serno-Solovevich is our chief opponent.”
In this moment of turmoil Mikhail Konstantinovich
Elpidin emerged as a new focus for the efforts of the
Young Emigration to wrest control of the printed
word away from Herzen. Born in the Volga region
in 1835, the son of a priest, Elpidin had enrolled
at Kazan University in the fall of 1860. The following April authorities arrested him in the village of
Bezdna on the charge of having distributed inflammatory literature during peasant turmoil there, and
a few months later university officials expelled him
for his participation in a student demonstration. In
April 1863 the police again arrested him, and this
time Elpidin received a sentence of five years’ hard
labor. In July 1865 he escaped and fled abroad, arriving soon thereafter in Geneva.
Having long dreamed of being a writer, Elpidin produced an essay on recent events in Kazan, which
Herzen published in two installments, in the October
1 and October 15 issues of Kolokol. The essay became
a minor classic, enjoying a number of reprintings in
revolutionary anthologies, and some of the younger
émigrés assured Elpidin that he was actually a better
writer than Herzen. If someone should protest that
Herzen’s style was more elegant and polished, the
answer would come back that Herzen owed all his
achievements to the blood and sweat of the serfs on
his family’s estate – Elpidin was a man of the people,
rough hewn as a natural man should be. Elpidin’s
challenge to Herzen’s press quickly became a central
issue in the clash of generations.
In deciding to try his hand at printing, Elpidin
drew inspiration from Khudiakov and money from
Prince Dolgorukov. Khudiakov failed to persuade
Herzen to put the Russian Free Press at the disposal
of his group in Russia, but he had spoken at length
to the young émigrés of the desirability of establishing another printing press. Elpidin, who had done
some printing work in Kazan and more recently
had worked briefly in a shop in Geneva, asked
Dolgorukov for a loan, apparently without telling
him the purpose. Uneasy about dealing with this
23
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
uncultured commoner, the prince, who had come
to Switzerland with Herzen and who owned shares
in Herzen’s print shop, simply gave him the cash.
In the summer of 1866 Elpidin published his own
thoughts on the subject of assassination in a new
journal called Podpol’noe slovo (The Underground
Word), which he anticipated would appear as a
“series of brochures and popular books.” The first
issue, 38 pages in length, consisted of just one essay,
“Karakozov and Muraviev.” Written by Elpidin and
Nikolai Nikoladze, the essay denied the existence of
a conspiracy behind Karakozov and asserted that
only the rulers of Russia, like Catherine II, had use
for conspiracies in overthrowing and killing their
predecessors. Despite its topicality, Elpidin’s journal
proved short-lived, and it published only one more
issue, this one a reprint of Elpidin’s article on the
recent revolutionary history of Kazan, but the very
appearance of his journal announced his challenge
to Herzen.
Prince Dolgorukov, shocked that this “Cheremis”
had used his money to start a printing business,
denounced Elpidin to the Geneva authorities. This
uneducated man, he declared, had set up “a secret
printing press in the land of the free press,” and he
was issuing repulsive works that endorsed murder.
The authorities, however, did nothing, and the story
of the denunciation drove yet another wedge into
the rift between the generations.
Outraged by Dolgorukov’s action, Serno-Solovevich
again made his way to Herzen’s door, this time challenging Dolgorukov’s right even to call himself a
political refugee and questioning Herzen’s own credentials as a revolutionary. Herzen rejected Serno’s
argument that the emigration constituted a sort of
corporate unit and that therefore Dolgorukov had
had no right to appeal to outside authorities. Upset
by this cool response and finding even Herzen’s
taste for champagne offensive, Serno stormed off to
seek satisfaction elsewhere.
There was just no way, Herzen told himself, to work
with the young émigrés. In 1865 when the émigrés
founded their own mutual assistance fund, he had
tried to show good faith by helping them, but the
fund soon failed. Herzen then liquidated his own
Common Fund. He could not, he explained, tolerate
the young émigrés’ impudence. Since the émigrés in
any case resented his wealth, he could not satisfy
them, and he decided simply to withdraw from their
company. Even so, however, at Ogarev’s urging, he
agreed to give the young émigrés 1000 francs to
help them try to establish their own journal.
24
In the meantime, business had declined still further
for the Russian Free Press, and Herzen was facing
new financial troubles. “The press is dying,” Herzen
lamented in November 1866. In contrast to the image
that Czerniecki had once enjoyed as an efficient and
creative printer, he had now become a burden who
morbidly kept reminding Herzen of his dependence:
“If I thought otherwise,” the Pole moaned, “I would
surely have 500 pounds sterling in the bank, as my
co-nationals suspected in London, and in Geneva
I would not have to labor for 200 francs a month,
which does not suffice for the most humble life,
devoid of any luxury, working from early morning to
night...” Herzen tried to motivate his old comrade by
turning the press over to him, but Czerniecki countered this generosity with another plea for sympathy:
He was ready to give the press back to Herzen, but
then of course, “What future has a worker of forty
years without special talents or scientific training?”
Herzen had to keep paying the bills of the press out
of his own pocket.
In the fall and winter of 1866-1867 the differences
and divisions between Herzen and the Young Emigration burst out into public view. After Ogarev had
startled Kolokol’s readers by hailing tsarist expropriation of Polish landowners as a positive step
away from the “religion of property,” the newspaper
carried a series of articles by Herzen entitled “Order
Prevails.” In the third installment Herzen recalled
his own role in the development of Russian free
speech after the death of Nicholas I, and then noting
his differences with Chernyshevsky, he declared,
“This bifurcation ... does not at all represent an
antagonism. We served as a mutual supplement to
each other.” Herzen’s self-evaluation infuriated the
young émigrés.
Serno-Solovevich led the attack, producing a pamphlet entitled Our Domestic Affairs. Since the Russian
Free Press had already refused to print a pamphlet
he had prepared in French attacking Kolokol’s position in the Polish question, he turned to Elpidin
for help in getting his manuscript into print. Dated
March 9, 1867, Serno’s pamphlet amounted to a
catalog of complaints raised by the Young Emigration against the older émigrés. He called the work
a response to “Order Prevails,” but the pamphlet
actually collected together several essays that Serno
had written about Kolokol
“There was a time one impatiently awaited the appearance of Kolokol,” Serno began, and he went on to
say that Herzen had outlived his time. He called
Herzen a “tsarist socialist” who had failed to grasp
the imperatives of the revolutionary movement and
who indulged himself with dirty stories about the
revolutionaries. Herzen’s insistence on genuflecting
in front of Alexander II, he asserted, only impeded
the revolutionary movement. Serno put his strongest
words into his thoughts about Herzen’s relationship
with Chernyshevsky. Noting that Chernyshevsky’s
Chapter 4: ELPIDIN’S CHALLENGE
work had now been totally banned in Russia and
that Herzen’s old novel Who is to Blame had recently
been legally published, Serno exclaimed, “You complemented Chernyshevsky! You walked hand in
hand with Chernyshevsky! I did not expect such a
trick from you, and I have studied you well!” Chernyshevsky and Herzen, he insisted, had nothing in
common; they were in fact “representatives of two
hostile natures that do not complement each other
but rather destroy each other.” Finally dismissing
Herzen as a phrasemonger concerned only with
glorifying and even deifying himself, Serno pronounced, “You, M. Herzen, are a dead man.”
expressed concern about unpleasantness for him in
possibly meeting Serno there: “She, respecting me,
knows that I am very guilty towards Serno-Solovevich, and that he, Serno-Solovevich, is one of the
most remarkable figures of our time.” When Serno
committed suicide in August 1869, Herzen stated,
“I would be lying if I should say that I am especially
moved by the death of Serno-Solovevich – he was a
poisonous pimple.” When Bakunin and others then
sang Serno’s praise as a martyr for the common
cause, Herzen angrily commented, “Why is his suicide concealed – too diplomatic! When did he live
‘by his labor ... by his pen’?”
Serno’s pamphlet subsequently enjoyed its own
interesting history. A German socialist, Sigismund
Ludwig Borkheim, who bore Herzen little love,
came across it while visiting Geneva in the fall of
1867 and requested permission to publish a German
edition. Because Serno was slow to answer his letters, Borkheim immediately concluded that Herzen
was somehow interfering to block any translation,
but in fact Serno claimed that he had been contemplating whether it was worthwhile to have it appear
in German. In the end, Serno not only approved
the translation, but also added his own annotations
to the text. Borkheim then published it with the
announced intention of informing the West European reading public that there were indeed Russian
radicals other than Herzen worthy of their attention
and sympathy.
Behind Serno Herzen saw the hand of Elpidin. Since
the beginning of his open split with the younger
emigration, Herzen had been receiving anonymous
letters and broadsheets demanding that he recant.
Otherwise, warned one communication from the
“Cosmopoetic Society for the Preservation of Knowledge,” he would be “declared a traitor to the Creator
and to humanity, as the most rabid defender of the
policies of monarchism.” In his private correspondence, Herzen denounced the “Elpidins,” meaning
all the younger émigrés, and he eventually referred
to the Young Emigration as the “Elpidevka.”
For Herzen Serno’s pamphlet constituted the last
straw. Herzen had heard long before that Serno was
preparing some sort of literary attack, or series of
attacks, and by January 1867 he had already begun
to demand that other émigrés make clear whether
they would support him against these calumnies.
(In his diary, Herzen claimed that Serno, through
Utin, had offered to withdraw his brochure for a
price.) To sympathize with Serno, even to try to
understand him, Herzen made clear, would mean
the forfeit of his, Herzen’s, friendship.
When Serno’s pamphlet finally appeared in public
at the beginning of May 1867, Herzen decided that
there was nothing more for him to do in Switzerland.
“S-S’s brochure is so foul,” he cried out, “that we do
not even want to send it. Note that everyone here
cries out against it (except Elpidin and Nikoladze),
and no one dares to protest.” Switzerland was now
intolerable. “I detest Geneva with all my heart,” he
exclaimed. “You cannot imagine,” he wrote to Tuchkova-Ogareva, “what kind of abomination is being
created here; S-S’s life is dedicated to one intrigue
against me.”
Herzen maintained his hostility toward Serno-Solovevich for the remaining years of both their lives.
In April 1869 he bridled when a neighbor in Nice
So far as Elpidin was concerned, Serno’s brochure
constituted his succes de scandale, but he could claim
a far more lasting and significant achievement, earning him a significant place in the history of Russian revolutionary publishing, with his printing of
the works of Chernyshevsky. Even here, it would
seem, Herzen and the Russian Free Press had been
compelled to make an involuntary contribution. In
February 1868 Herzen turned on Ogarev with yet
another complaint about the latter’s friendship with
Utin: “Do you think you could ask that little Jew
Utin why he is tormenting Tchorzewski, who has
no money? He cut all Chernyshevsky’s articles out
of his Sovremennik, i.e., he has ruined years’ worth
of Sovremennik.” With Utin’s help, Elpidin’s expenditure in obtaining the text of Chernyshevsky’s writings that had appeared in Sovremennik would seem
to have been minimal.
As his first selection from the master’s corpus,
Elpidin chose What is to be Done?, a novel of revolutionary manners that had appeared in Sovremennik in 1862-1863, after Chernyshevsky’s arrest.
The choice recommended itself in many ways: The
young radicals idolized Chernyshevsky and thought
even of modeling themselves after the figures in the
novel; since the author was now in Siberian exile,
moreover, the work had not yet appeared in book
form. With the help of Utin, Serno, and others,
Elpidin now set about printing the first edition of
What is to be Done? in book form.
When Elpidin’s intentions became known, sources
25
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
in St. Petersburg objected to it as an infringement
of the rights of the Chernyshevsky family to the
author’s literary property. Elpidin nevertheless went
ahead, promising that the profit from the publication would be put into a foreign bank in the name of
Chernyshevsky’s family. Once the work had actually
appeared, A. S. Suvorin, a St. Petersburg publisher,
raised three specific objections: This constituted
literary theft, it could compromise the legal publication of Chernyshevsky’s works in Russia, and
it put the author and his family into an awkward
situation vis-à-vis the Russian authorities. Such
objections, however, had no effect on Elpidin, who
immediately began preparing a complete collection
of Chernyshevsky’s works, which he proudly called
the “first edition” of the master’s writings.
To his dismay, Elpidin soon found that the publishing business was infinitely more complicated and
problematic than he had expected. He obviously had
not understood the significance of Trübner’s help
to Herzen, and he had underestimated the significance of Herzen’s personal fortune in underwriting
the work of the Russian Free Press. Elpidin signed
a contract with a book dealer in Vevey, and he then
ran afoul of late deliveries, demanding creditors,
and slow payments. At one point, in January 1869,
the book dealer even had Elpidin’s shop sequestered. Elpidin somehow came up with the necessary money, but the experience left its scars. “It is
a bad deal for a foreigner to have debts where the
bourgeoisie is well organized,” he later complained.
Yet, in contrast to Czerniecki’s helplessness, Elpidin
demonstrated amazing powers of survival in the
publishing business.
While Elpidin struggled to establish his business,
Herzen chose finally to withdraw from the turmoil
of the émigré publishing world. On July 1, 1867, the
last issue of Kolokol appeared, officially completing
ten years of its existence. “The last five,” Herzen
wrote on the first page, “have been difficult.” Although he spoke of possibly reviving the newspaper
in the future, he had decided to retire. He moved
out of Geneva altogether, and he urged that “new
younger and fresher champions” try their hand at
printing and publishing.
When his old friend Bakunin appeared in Geneva
in the fall of 1867, Herzen had already left the city.
In his heart, he actually looked forward to Bakunin’s
confrontation with the “Elpidevka,” but much to his
dismay, Bakunin’s charm and enthusiasm captivated
the émigrés, including Elpidin and even Ogarev.
Herzen became even more bitter about his experience with these young activists.
26
Bakunin in fact used Herzen as a foil: When
Herzen, in a letter, called the young émigrés “swindlers who with their son-of-a-bitchism justified the
measures of the government,” Bakunin reproved
his friend for showing signs of getting old. “These
unwashed, clumsy, and often completely uncomfortable pioneers of a new truth and a new life,” he
declared, “stand a million times higher than all your
proper corpses.” Herzen, he advised, should show
respect for their efforts and for their sacrifices.
Bakunin then circulated among the émigrés a copy
of Herzen’s complaint together with his own reproving response.
While Herzen watched, Bakunin seemed to win
the hearts and minds of all. Ogarev had expressed
considerable fear about dealing with Bakunin, but
at Herzen’s urging he had agreed to see the man.
The meeting went unexpectedly well. “He is fine,”
Ogarev reported to Herzen, “and much better than
before.” Ogarev even scolded Herzen for criticizing
Bakunin, insisting that “he has great respect for you
and even friendship. Aren’t you being too negative
toward him?” Under Bakunin’s influence Ogarev
took the side of the young émigrés: “Look,” he urged
Herzen, “and you’ll see that in truth they are not evil,
i.e. not bad but good-intentioned, goodhearted.”
Herzen was probably not surprised by Ogarev’s conversion; he had always considered his friend rather
unstable and susceptible to sudden enthusiasms. As
for Ogarev’s urgings, Herzen was not to be softened.
In the fall of 1867 he had chosen to have nothing to
do with the international Peace Conference that had
brought Bakunin to Geneva. He foresaw only disorderly discussion, and the meeting, the pisovka as he
and Ogarev called it, was not worth the emotional
cost of a return to Geneva so soon after his recent
experiences. The success that Bakunin enjoyed at the
conference only added to his bitterness. During a brief
visit to Geneva in February 1868 Herzen declared, “I
detest [Geneva] for itself and for its gang of Russian
scoundrels.” He wanted to keep his distance.
While he could physically withdraw, however, he
could not withdraw financially. There remained
for one the problem of the Russian Free Press. He
hoped that Czerniecki could make a commercial
success of the press, and he experimented with a
French edition of Kolokol with a Russian language
supplement. (From 1863 to 1865 he had published
a French edition of Kolokol, entitled La Cloche, in
Brussels.) This was in itself recognition of defeat:
Kolokol, which had been designed to communicate
with Russians, could no longer fulfill that function.
As Herzen explained,
It was now easier to talk about Russia than to
speak with it.
In its fourteen issues, Kolokol (La Cloche): Revue du
développement social, politique, et litteraire en Russie
struck no resonance among the émigrés, who had
Chapter 4: ELPIDIN’S CHALLENGE
hoped that Herzen, under the influence of Ogarev
and Bakunin, would change his stance. When Serno
explained his delay in providing Borkheim with a
translation of Our Domestic Affairs, he declared that
he had thought that the new journal would perhaps
obviate his complaints, and if that should prove
so, he would not want a German translation of his
work to appear. When the émigrés had the newspaper in hand, they decided that in fact nothing had
changed, and they went ahead with their own plans,
proposals, and projects.
Herzen realized that his time had now passed: “They
don’t read us in Russia,” he declared, “and they don’t
want us; in general, they don’t believe the foreign
press.” In a particularly despondent moment, he
exclaimed, “Work, work. And now trouble. I have
done my work. I don’t want to work platonically
with science, actually I can’t. Our word has been
said and even heard. We have no other. Like Dickens, we are repeating the same thing.” He lacked
motivation to continue.
Kolokol had borne the motto “Vivos voco!” (I call
the living!) on its masthead, but Herzen could no
longer summon anyone. In the words of the Czech
philosopher and political leader T. G. Masaryk,
Herzen’s career recalls the fate of Goethe’s Euphorion. Radiating light he rises, on high he shines, but
he is dashed to pieces on the earth. In the fifties and
in the early sixties Herzen was the spokesman of
progressive Russia; after the liberation sof the peasantry and after the Polish rising he became more
and more isolated, increasingly lonely.
Herzen was “an awakener, his was the voice of one
crying in the wilderness,” but in the end, Masaryk
suggested, he “was never able to transcend a paralyzing skepticism.” He could not become a political leader.
For Elpidin Herzen’s withdrawal represented a
great opportunity. In 1868 the newcomer tried his
hand at another periodical, Letuchie listki (Flying
Leaflets), this one attacking the institution of marriage as a perversion of “the laws of nature, the freedom of the individual,” but the effort failed after
just one issue. (Herzen said of it that “the thoughts
are good but the form is foul.”) Another venture,
a periodical called Sovremennost’ for which he
served as simply the printer, ran for seven issues
before arousing general hostility by suggesting
that the émigrés as a whole were immature and
that therefore they should perhaps just become
“peaceful citizens of Switzerland.” In the ensuing
scandal, the publication had to close up.
Elpidin now had to admit at least to himself that he
could not replace Herzen. He was shrewd enough
in struggling for his own economic survival, but he
lacked the necessary literary talent and economic
resources to be a literary lion. His crude personal
manners, moreover, antagonized many. Instead
he had to settle for the role of a local eccentric in
the émigré community, to be sure an important
figure because of his print shop and because of the
reading room and book shop that he eventually
attached to it. It remained for others, first of all
Bakunin, to attempt to fill the void left by Herzen’s
retreat.
27
Chapter 5:
BAKUNIN AND
NARODNOE DELO
Of Elpidin’s various periodical ventures in the latter
1860s, Narodnoe delo (The People’s Cause), which
first appeared in September 1868, had the greatest
historic significance. The founding spirit of the
publication, however, was not Elpidin himself but
rather Mikhail Bakunin. Elpidin’s own connection
with the publication, moreover, soon ended; the
journal changed its character and even spawned yet
another Russian print shop in Geneva. Nevertheless it was born in Elpidin’s shop, and it marked the
start of a new era in the emigration, as the Russians
made tentative, uncertain efforts to relate their own
experiences and programs to developments within
Western European socialism.
Narodnoe delo’s pre-history dated from a year earlier, the fall of 1867, when Bakunin moved from
Italy to Switzerland, settling in Vevey in the same
house where Nikolai Utin and other Russians were
living. In the three or four years since his fiasco in
the Polish revolution, Bakunin had busied himself
with Western European revolutionary movements,
founding the “International Brotherhood,” a group
opposed to the authority of church and state alike
and endorsing federalism, communal autonomy,
and socialism. The organization did not extend far
beyond the confines of Bakunin’s brain, but his ardor
and passion in putting forth its program impressed
all who met him.
28
In September 1867 Bakunin came to Geneva to
attend an international Peace Conference, held
under the auspices of a group of liberals who wanted
to discuss problems of avoiding a conflict between
Bismarck’s Prussia and the France of Napoleon III.
He seized this opportunity to reintroduce himself
to the European left, and when the Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi publicly embraced him
in welcome, the assemblage arose spontaneously to
celebrate his appearance. Although the group was
more pacifist than revolutionary, Bakunin accepted
his election to the Central Committee of the League
of Peace and Freedom that the conference set up
as its permanent executive body. This gave him an
international platform on which he could perform.
In the years since the Polish rising Bakunin had kept
in touch with Herzen, but in the fall of 1867 Herzen
and his friends were as ever rather unsure about
the man. Dolgorukov considered leaving Geneva in
order to avoid him. With some trepidation Ogarev
remained, while Herzen, ever generous, offered
Bakunin the use of his apartment. When Bakunin,
however, complained about food, Herzen acidly
told Ogarev that he had promised only “walls,
chairs, and Tchorzewski’s conversation.” Ogarev, on
the other hand, surrendered his mind and his soul.
Bakunin’s arrival in Geneva revived thoughts of
publishing a new émigré journal or periodical. In a
letter to Ogarev, Nikolai Zhukovsky, a well-known
émigré, argued that the reconstruction of social
and economic relations in Russia could come about
only through a peasant revolution led by the urban
intelligentsia, and the youth, the urban intellectual proletariat as he called them, needed reading
material in order to properly understand their historical role and to draw up a program of action. The
proposed journal, as a publication of the émigrés,
should recount the historical development of socia­
list ideas, explain how socialism could arise from
the Russian peasant commune, and offer samples of
Western Europe’s practical experience as a model
for the Russians.
Zhukovsky would play an important role in
Bakunin’s activities over the next several years. Now
in his mid 30s, he had worked for a while in the
archive of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
after his graduation from the University of Moscow,
but in 1862, threatened with arrest for his part in
the operation of an illegal print shop, he had fled to
London. He had served briefly as Herzen’s agent in
Germany for smuggling publications to Russia, and
the two had again met in Geneva. Although some
émigrés considered Zhukovsky a braggart and an
insubstantial person, he was a prominent figure in
the emigration, frequently called upon to chair controversial meetings. In the fall of 1867, as he enthusiastically rallied to Bakunin’s banner, he persuaded his sister-in-law, Olga Levasheva, to promise
Chapter 5: BAKUNIN AND NARODNOE DELO
a subsidy of one thousand francs to underwrite a
new periodical.
For the moment, however, the émigrés only discussed the matter. Defining a program for such a
periodical and forming an editorial board took time.
As Utin had told Ogarev in the spring, the young
émigrés needed a journal or an anthology with a
program that was “definite, appropriate, radical”;
meeting that standard was difficult. Elpidin stood
ready to print anything, but the leaders of the young
émigrés, particularly Utin, wanted to proceed with
caution. Nor, for that matter, could Bakunin be bridled and harnessed for systematic action on short
notice.
Local Swiss political issues and the work of the
Geneva section of the International Workingmen’s
Association, better known to history as the First
International, also diverted the attention of the émigrés. When local construction workers in Geneva
went out on strike in the winter of 1867-1868,
the Russians, most notably Serno-Solovevich and
Bakunin, came to their aid, and this in turn brought
them into contact with the International and with
Karl Marx, the moving spirit of the International.
When the construction workers won a settlement
that cut their working day and raised their pay,
Marx triumphantly exclaimed, “We have achieved
a complete victory in Geneva.” In recognition of
Serno’s contribution to the situation, Marx sent him
a copy of Das Kapital.
Bakunin threw himself into this activity with his
characteristic enthusiasm. He helped to publish
a French language newspaper, Egalité, and, sponsored by Elpidin, he joined one of the sections of
the International in Geneva. At the same time, he
dreamed of leading this revolutionary ferment, and,
supported by Zhukovsky and two Poles, he tried
to convert the Central Committee of the League
of Peace and Freedom to his anarchist program.
“I have found here,” he wrote, “a live Russian and
international environment, and therefore I can act
according to my tastes and my thoughts.” For a brief
time in 1868 the various currents within the Russian
emigration – excluding of course, Herzen – seemed
united, and Bakunin eagerly adopted as his own the
thought of publishing a new journal.
Work on the new journal, to be called Narodnoe
delo (The People’s Cause), the same name as a
pamphlet that Herzen published in London in 1862,
began in April 1868; the first issue appeared in September. In telling friends about this new project,
Bakunin enthusiastically described how it was to be
an “anonymous” enterprise, produced by a collective or “artel,” as the younger émigrés were wont to
call such cooperation. (This was meant to contrast
with Herzen’s highly personal style in publishing
Kolokol.) In practice, however, Bakunin dominated
the collective’s discussions. According to Elpidin’s
later recollections, Bakunin sat as the “patriarch of
the editorial board”; after he had read and considered a manuscript, he would hand it to Elpidin to
be set into type. Since the first issue contained only
four articles, this procedure could not have been
followed very frequently, but Elpidin’s selective and
not altogether reliable memory probably captured
at least the atmosphere of the meetings.
Bakunin’s collaboration with Elpidin further
enra­ged Herzen, who was aghast when he first
heard of the plans for Narodnoe delo. This must be
a lie, he argued: Bakunin could not be involved in
such a new project; at most perhaps he had contributed an article to Sovremennost’. Herzen asked
Ogarev to look into the matter, but when Ogarev
reported that Bakunin had denied the rumors about
a new journal, Herzen, knowing Bakunin’s conspiratorial nature and his evasive manners, persisted:
“Ask him more simply.” When the rumors continued, Herzen exclaimed, “What kind of absurdity is
it that Bakunin is organizing a press? Where would
the money come from... Why is he undermining
Czerniecki?” Finally, in June 1868, after another
brief visit to Geneva, he understood: “Bakunin is
directing a journal, and everything is with Elpidin
and company.” Then he seemed to see more sinister
meaning: “Bakunin is conspiring with Eldyrin [sic]
behind our backs.” Finally he concluded, “Bakunin
completely belongs to Elpidin’s party.” Herzen concluded that the young émigrés were exerting an evil
influence on his old friend.
The first issue of Narodnoe delo carried two articles
by Bakunin and two by Zhukovsky. Describing the
journal’s program as materialist and atheist, Zhukovsky called for the economic reorganization of
society: “The land belongs only to those who work
it with their own hands – to the agricultural communes. Capital and all the tools of labor [belong to]
the workers – to the workers’ association.” Declaring, “We are opponents of the state,” he foresaw a
post-revolutionary society made up of “a free federation of free agricultural and factory-artel workers.”
Reviving the slogan “Land and Liberty,” Bakunin
declared that the “priests of science,” the intellectuals in Russian society, were as much the servants
of the state as the priests of the church. Therefore,
he proclaimed, the young people of Russia should
leave school and plunge into revolutionary activity
among the masses.
According to the publisher’s notice in the journal,
Narodnoe delo would appear twice monthly. There
would be no honorarium for contributors, and
all articles would be published anonymously. The
publishers went on to promise secrecy and protec-
29
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
tion for the authors: Once an article was set in type,
the manuscript would be burned. Herzen in fact
praised the first issue that with “all the impetuosity
of adolescence” was ready to confront the most difficult questions.
The appearance of Narodnoe delo marked the high
point of Bakunin’s general standing among the
émigrés. He was at this moment their acclaimed
leader, and he was also carving himself an important niche in the International. But having reached
this moment of triumph, Bakunin’s position almost
immediately began to disintegrate. In August 1868,
at a meeting of the Central Committee of the League
of Peace and Freedom, he had persuaded the group
to align itself with the International. He would seem
to have been aspiring to a position the equal of Karl
Marx’s. The league, Bakunin explained, could direct
the intellectual development of the international
workers’ movement, while the International would
concern itself with practical political and economic
questions. Marx, however, would have nothing of
such maneuvering, and at a congress of the International, held in Brussels at the beginning of September, delegates decreed that they had no reason
to recognize the League of Peace and Freedom. If
its members wished to join the International, they
should apply individually to any of its sections.
After this rebuff, Bakunin came under fire at the
league’s own congress, meeting in Bern in the latter
part of September. He explained how his views differed from Marx’s, calling himself “a collectivist,
but not a communist,” and he explained, “I want
the abolition of the state, the final eradication of
the principle of authority and patronage proper to
the state, which under the pretext of moralizing and
civilizing men, has hitherto only enslaved, persecuted, exploited, and corrupted them.” At the last
session of the congress, Bakunin led his followers
in resigning from the organization; he wanted, he
explained, to devote himself to finding a place in the
International.
Bakunin’s predilection for intrigue and conspiracy,
however, brought him new trouble. Unwilling to
yield to the demand of the Council of the International that his followers join the International
as individuals, he set up a new organization, the
International Social Democratic Alliance, which he
envisioned as a society of intellectuals that would
provide leadership for the workers’ movement. He
wanted this to be a secret organization, but when
his French and Italian followers objected, it was
constituted as an open group.
30
In the midst of this fervid activity, Bakunin lost
his position within the Russian emigration. His
colleagues on the editorial board of Narodnoe delo
objected to various aspects of his behavior, but espe-
cially his constant declarations that he was in fact
the director of Narodnoe delo. The editorial board
of the journal was supposed to be an anonymous
collective, not a replica of Herzen’s personal style in
publishing Kolokol. The younger émigrés also concluded, as Utin put it, that “Bakunin was incapable
of any sustained work.” Levasheva, Zhukovsky’s
sister-in-law who was funding the publication, now
insisted that Utin should be installed as the coeditor of the newspaper.
Bakunin naturally objected, and he interpreted
the developments as the result of personal intrigue
rather than of dissatisfaction with his own style and
behavior. He identified Utin as the leader of the
conspiracy against him, and he warned that this
man was a centralist who favored “a dictatorship of
the university, more or less doctrinaire, youth.” The
elitism represented by these former university students, he declared, contradicted all principles of a
mass popular rising. Turning on Utin personally, he
intimated that Levasheva’s interests in the man were
more physical than intellectual.
In the end, Levasheva, with her control of the purse
strings, prevailed, and Bakunin demonstratively
resigned from the editorial board. Zhukovsky followed him, and the second issue of Narodnoe delo,
which appeared at the end of October and carried
the number 2/3, printed a solemn statement calling
itself “an organ of revolutionary propaganda” and
declaring that its policies did not represent the arbitrary will of any one individual, that the editorial
work on the journal was the product of “collective”
effort. On the back page of the issue appeared a
letter from Bakunin to Elpidin, saying simply, “I am
taking no part in this journal.” At the same time,
however, the new board did not immediately dissociate itself from the program enunciated in the first
issue.
The antagonism between Bakunin and Utin would
dominate both their lives for the next several years,
and it would have repercussions on émigré publishing, on the general behavior of the émigrés, and
also in the Council of the First International. Ironically, other Russians frequently accused both men
of having turned their backs on Russian questions
in their concerns with Western European politics,
with the International, and with their mutual antagonism. The two had first met in London in October
1863, when Bakunin had returned in the aftermath
of his Polish adventure. They then met again at
the first congress of the League of Peace and Freedom, where, according to Bakunin, Utin had followed him around feeding off his popularity. After
their disagreement over Narodnoe delo, Bakunin
denounced Utin as a “little man with great pretensions,” repeatedly pictured his foe as an immoral
Chapter 5: BAKUNIN AND NARODNOE DELO
philanderer, and made pointed, uncomplimentary
references to Utin’s Jewish heritage. Utin, on the
other hand, turned to Karl Marx and became an
important source of information on Russian affairs
for Marx, providing him with details of Bakunin’s
intrigues within the Russian emigration.
In the immediate aftermath of Bakunin’s resignation from Narodnoe delo, Utin had to concern himself with the problem of how to keep the journal
going. At the time of the furor in the editorial board,
Elpidin had been in Scandinavia, preparing smuggling routes for the publication. Upon returning to
Geneva, he immediately declared his solidarity with
Bakunin and ordered the new editors of Narodnoe
delo out of his establishment. This separation too
was heated: Elpidin charged that Utin had diverted
money raised for the publication of Chernyshevsky’s
works to support the publication of Narodnoe delo,
while Utin and his associates complained that
Elpidin had exploited their resources for his own
“extravagant fantasies.” Narodnoe delo then had to
search for new quarters, and this resulted in the formation of a third Russian print shop in Geneva.
To head this new print shop, called the “Narodnoe
delo Press,” Utin summoned Anton Danilovich
Trusov from Paris. A native of the Minsk region,
Trusov had participated in the Polish rising of 1863
and had then emigrated to Paris, where he was
known in radical circles as “Antoine.” Recruited into
Bakunin’s International Brotherhood, Trusov had
come to Switzerland in the late summer of 1868 for
the congress of the League of Peace and Freedom,
and there he first met Utin. Upon the conclusion of
the congress, he returned to Paris, where he worked
as a typesetter. Now Utin promised him a position
in the Narodnoe delo shop so long as it was under
his, Utin’s, management; Trusov agreed and moved
to Geneva.
Trusov had yet another role to play in the saga of
Bakunin’s intrigues. When Bakunin sought to take
his Social Democratic Alliance into the International as a separate entity, the General Council of
the International, under Marx’s direction, rejected
the group’s application. In January 1869 a small
group of members of Bakunin’s International Brotherhood, including Trusov, lodged their own complaints about Bakunin’s dictatorial and secretive
intrigues. Bakunin, who for financial reasons could
not be present at the meeting, screamed in futile
rage at “all these gentlemen” but to no avail. Two
months later the International Brotherhood ceased
to exist, and Bakunin charged that the “Jew Utin”
had directed Trusov to break up the organization.
In May 1869, after a long silence during which
rumors abounded that Narodnoe delo would never
again appear, another issue was published, this one
bearing the number 4/5/6. With its announced purpose now to support the “Party of Popular Liberation” in Russia, the editorial board carefully guarded
its anonymity; only Trusov’s name appeared in the
newspaper in his capacity as secretary of the board.
In the only signed contribution in this issue, Trusov
announced that the newspaper had now taken its
final form; the first issues printed in Elpidin’s shop
had been just “trials.” This publication, he declared,
would replace Kolokol as the voice of the emigration.
One area where Narodnoe delo declared it would
improve on Kolokol’s practices concerned the problem of dissenting opinions. Utin had frequently
complained about Herzen’s personal control over
the content of his publication, and in February 1867
he had criticized the Russian Free Press’s refusal to
print Serno’s attack on Herzen. Kolokol, he declared,
should have printed the pamphlet: “You should do
everything possible so that the shop does not refuse
to print anything; you would not lose from this, you
would gain.” Trusov announced that Narodnoe delo
would carry a section for which the editorial board
“accepts no responsibility”; this would carry letters,
announcements, notes, and even criticism of the
editorial board’s position just so long as the items
“clearly evidenced the author’s sincere relationship
to the cause of freedom.” In practice, however, the
newspaper printed only one such item by an outsider, a signed account of a false arrest in Geneva
in 1870, and, for reasons never made explicit, it
ignored an article submitted by Herzen.
Driven from Narodnoe delo, Bakunin had little left
of his Russian constituency, and he moved back into
the international arena, in particular developing
his following among the French-Swiss in the Jura
mountains. Acceding to the demands of the General
Council of the International, he dissolved the Social
Democratic Alliance, but he continued his conspiratorial intrigues. Behind him now, relentlessly
pursuing him, came Narodnoe delo. When Bakunin
next clashed with Marx, Narodnoe delo aligned itself
with Marx.
The differences between Marx and Bakunin were
both doctrinal and personal. Bakunin was of course
challenging Marx’s personal role in the International, but the two men differed significantly in their
respective conceptions of the very idea of revolution. Marx advocated a class struggle aimed at the
nationalization of the means of production and the
establishment of a revolutionary dictatorship of
the proletariat, a centralized political structure that
would remake society. Bakunin offered a mystique
of insurrection, a mass popular rising that would
create a stateless and classless society without private property. (Bakunin saw no contradiction bet-
31
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
ween his opposition to the principle of inherited
property and his own complaints that he was not
receiving his share of the moneys from the family
estate in Russia.) Marx favored political activity,
educational work among the workers; Bakunin
called for action, not politicking, and for immediate
revolution. The views of the two men were irreconcilable even without any consideration of their personal antagonisms.
Recognizing Bakunin’s strength among the radicals of southern Europe, Marx looked for support
in Bakunin’s backyard, in the Russian emigration.
He knew that his own work was popular among
Russian intellectuals – a Russian publisher was
already planning to translate Das Kapital, and this
would be the first translation of the work into any
language. On the other hand, Marx generally bore
the Russians no particular love: He did not consider
Herzen a serious social scientist, and he considered
most other Russians blind and narrow on the Polish
question.
Marx saw considerable irony in the interest that the
Russians were showing in his work, but he found no
humor in the situation whereby, because of student
demonstrations in Russia, the project to translate
Das Kapital had to be moved into the emigration.
This only brought new problems, because Bakunin
had received the commission to do the job, accepting an advance of 300 rubles. Marx could not be
happy about Bakunin’s influencing the message of
socialism to the Russians.
32
For its part, the Narodnoe delo group looked sympathetically toward Marx’s teachings and of course
supported him against Bakunin. The newspaper’s
issue for May 1869 took note of Marx’s calls for pursuing the class struggle, and its next issue, nos. 7-10,
appearing in November, expressed support for the
program of the International. The newspaper even
turned its account of Serno-Solovevich’s suicide
to the benefit of the International, calling Serno a
victim of Russian life while at the same time taking
a few shots at Herzen: “We, whom the older generation accuses of lacking any historical gratitude –
we speak of love and of thankfulness, which both
the former generation, the contemporaries of the
[Serno-Solovevich] brothers, and the present young
generation will always carry for the memory of both.”
Granting that Aleksandr had suffered from psychological problems, the obituary charged that the hostility of the older generation had contributed to his
breakdown. Perhaps Serno had not used the proper
tone in criticizing Kolokol, the article conceded, but
“Chernyshevsky’s student” had been correct in the
substance of his comments. In more recent years, it
continued, Serno had thrown himself into the work
of the International: “It torments me that I do not
go to Russia to avenge the death of my brother and
his friends,” Serno allegedly had declared, “but my
single vengeance would be insufficient and impotent.” It was better, the article concluded, to work for
revolution through the International.
Narodnoe delo’s movement toward the International completed its path in March 1870, when the
newspaper’s directors proclaimed the formation of
a Russian section of the International. In a letter
dated the 12th, Utin and Trusov asked Karl Marx
to be their representative in the International’s
General Council. Pledging themselves to spread
the message of the International among Russian
workers, the men pointed out their opposition to
the idea of Pan-Slavism, the unification of all Slavic
peoples in one state, and they spoke of themselves
as students of Chernyshevsky. They explicitly stated
their opposition to “Bakunin and his few confederates,” and declaring that there were no Russians in
London to whom they could turn, they asked Marx
to represent them. Marx immediately agreed, praising Chernyshevsky, and the admission of the Russian section in Geneva as a member of the International was quickly consummated.
Now the organ of the Russian section of the First
International, Narodnoe delo had undergone a considerable transformation since 1868. Whether the
members of the editorial board in 1870 could really
be called Marxist has been the subject of some historical controversy, but regardless of that, the history of Narodnoe delo had revolved closely around
the controversial figure of Bakunin. Founded by
him, the newspaper turned away from him, and
when its editors joined the International they found
it desirable, if not necessary, to declare their opposition to him as part of their new profession of faith.
Together, Bakunin and Narodnoe delo were leading
the Russian revolutionary movement into closer
ties with Western socialists.
For Marx too the formation of the Russian section
was closely related to his struggle with Bakunin.
In summarizing the adherence of this group to the
International, Marx wrote:
Together with that, they declared – as if apologizing to Marx – that in the near future they would
tear away Bakunin’s mask, because this man
leads a double policy: one in Russia and completely
another in Europe. And so, an end will soon be put
to this highly dangerous intrigant, at least within
the framework of the International.
Indeed, if one may judge from Marx’s comments on
the usefulness of the Russian section, he looked forward more to the contribution it could make to his
struggle against Bakunin than he did to any work it
Chapter 5: BAKUNIN AND NARODNOE DELO
might carry out among the still minuscule Russian
proletariat.
For the Russian section, the struggle with Bakunin
had taken a new twist since the spring of 1869
that Marx himself did not yet fully appreciate. The
reference that Utin and Trusov made to “Bakunin
and his confederates” had a specific, sinister figure
in mind, namely one Sergei Nechaev, a revolutionary student who had come onto the émigré scene
in April 1869 and who had immediately stirred up
new fury and turmoil. The Narodnoe delo group
considered Nechaev dangerous; in the end, he was
to contribute heavily to Bakunin’s final defeat within
the ranks of the International.
33
Chapter 6:
THE YOUNG FANATIC
FROM RUSSIA
The problems of contacts and links with Russia, or
the lack thereof, always stood in the forefront of
émigré publishing considerations. By themselves
the émigrés could not long sustain revolutionary
publishing. Besides lacking the financial resources,
they looked to the opposition groups within Russia
for their material, and in turn, only through living
and vital contacts with the developing situation at
home could émigré publications find not just an
audience and even their rationale for existence.
In the late 1860s, Herzen and Ogarev frequently
discussed the difficulties in maintaining links with
Russia. During Kolokol’s days of glory Herzen had
enjoyed such contact, but living in Nice in the
winter of 1868-1869, he was convinced that émigré
publishing was now a losing proposition. “Everything we are publishing abroad,” he lamented, “is
philanthropy and self-deception.” The Russian Free
Press was only draining his resources: “I admit that,
beyond good will, I would passionately like to be
relieved of this burden,” he exclaimed. “The Czerniecki affair, like a canker bores deeper and deeper
– it must be ended.” Nevertheless, Herzen had to
continue paying Czerniecki’s bills.
Less cynical and ever optimistic, Ogarev kept
hoping to find a solution, and at the end of March
1869, he thought he could see the way out of these
doldrums and uncertainties. “Yesterday,” he wrote
to Herzen on April 1,
a letter came in your name with a request to print a
message to the students from one student who had
just escaped the Petropavlovsk fortress. The message is perhaps somewhat overblown, but it must
be printed. It is my deep conviction that in any case
it will bring about the resurrection of the émigré
press.”
A few days later, the author of the letter, Sergei Gennadievich Nechaev, appeared in person at Ogarev’s
home in Geneva.
34
Born in 1847, Nechaev had just recently emerged as a
leader in the new wave of activity sweeping through
St. Petersburg students in 1868 and 1869. Revolution,
he argued, could be expected in the spring of 1870,
the ninth anniversary of the emancipation of the
peasantry, when the peasants would have to choose
whether to accept land with a heavy mortgage or to
take a reduced plot free of payments. The revolutionaries, he concluded, must prepare for action.
Nechaev found both Ogarev and Bakunin vulnerable and easy to manipulate. To Ogarev he spoke
of his respect for the memory of the Decembrists;
to Bakunin he declared his solidarity with the ideas
of mass revolution espoused in the first issue of
Narodnoe delo. Both of the older men welcomed the
newcomer as a man of the people, a revolutionary
from the masses. In this nervous young man, who
chewed his fingernails to the point of drawing blood,
they saw selflessness and dedication; they admired
his energy and enthusiasm; and they took him to
their bosoms as a representative of the new Young
Russia who still appreciated the revolutionary activities of the older generation. Bakunin glowingly
described Nechaev as “an example of those young
fanatics who doubt nothing and fear nothing.”
Full of enthusiasm, Ogarev drafted a proclamation entitled “From the Three Old Men to Young
Friends,” assuring Russian students “We will not
teach you. You seek nothing for yourselves, and you
want nothing but national needs and the national
movement. We know this and we see; therefore we
believe in your movement.” All three grand old men
of the emigration – Bakunin, Herzen, and himself
– should sign the declaration, Ogarev declared, and
he urged Herzen to telegraph his agreement. He
gave the manuscript of his proclamation to Czerniecki for typesetting even before he had received
Herzen’s response.
Herzen, however, objected. He did not share his
comrades’ enthusiasm for Nechaev’s vigor, and at
first he suggested that Nechaev’s own proclamation
“To the Students” be printed without any endorsement. Then, when he had had a chance to study the
document, he called it “simply bad,” declaring, “I
do not approve.” When he read Ogarev’s text “From
Chapter 6: THE YOUNG FANATIC FROM RUSSIA
the Three Old Men,” he responded, “If you have
decided and done it, then let it be – if not, put it
out without signatures.” The piece, he complained,
amounted to a “journalistic diatribe,” written in
“the jargon of 1863 and of Bakunin.” Upon reading
another proclamation written by Bakunin, “entitled
“A Few Words to Our Young Brothers in Russia,” he
commented that it was better written than Ogarev’s
effort, but that he still saw no purpose to it – it had
no relevance to the situation in Russia.
Herzen and Ogarev now came to verbal blows.
Ogarev called it “contemptible” and “shameful” not
to give unconditional support to the youth. Herzen
in turn objected to Ogarev’s misguided enthusiasm:
“How did you, a poet and musician, lose the feeling of form and measure?” he asked. “No, caro
mio, these are not the sounds with which the young
Kolokol electrified the youth.” Herzen’s “arrogance,”
as Ogarev called it, brought the poet to tears – “It
would be best to die.”
Bemused by the intensity of this exchange, Herzen
tried to make peace with Ogarev during a brief
visit to Geneva in May 1869. They reached agreement quickly enough on Ogarev’s second appeal
to the Russian students, which was called “Our
Story” and was printed over the signature “The editors of Kolokol.” Ogarev’s passion for working with
Nechaev and Bakunin, however, disturbed Herzen.
“Ogarev is still playing games,” Herzen wrote to his
son. “He has taken the bit and just makes noise,
scolds, and has even written a manifesto. What’s
with him? God knows it’s Bakunin.” He now began
referring to Ogarev as “bloodthirsty” and as “my
Robespierre,” and he declared, “I protest and decline all solidarity.”
Herzen found Bakunin no easier to understand.
Calling the anarchist “a mastodon” and comparing
him to Attila, Herzen wrote, “He preaches general
destruction everywhere... In the abstract he is right,
but in practice he is beyond the realm of possibility. Yet Russian youth takes his program literally.
The students are preparing to form robber bands.
Bakunin is advising them to burn all documents
– to destroy things and not to spare people.” In a
more moderate moment, Herzen characterized his
old friend as a “locomotive, overheated and off the
rails,” and he expressed regret about the influence
that Bakunin seemed to be wielding over Ogarev.
For Nechaev, Herzen felt only revulsion. Ogarev
had tried to ease the meeting of the two by warning
that Herzen’s first impression of “the little peasant”
might not be favorable: “His manners are still very
much peasantlike.” Herzen’s reaction was in fact
negative: “Rarely,” wrote Tuchkova-Ogareva, “has
anyone been so antipathetic to Herzen.” Herzen
simply could not understand Nechaev’s magnetism,
and he later referred to the young man as a “snake.”
On a second trip to Geneva at the end of May,
Herzen met with more trouble as the new troika
demanded that he surrender the Bakhmetev fund
to support their program of revolutionary proclamations. For almost a month, Ogarev, undoubtedly
influenced by Bakunin, importuned him daily,
arguing that Bakhmetev had actually delivered the
money into both their keeping and that therefore
he, Ogarev, had rights equal to Herzen’s in determining the use of the money. Herzen objected, but
Ogarev persisted. When Herzen left Geneva at the
end of June, the question remained open, but more
than anything else Herzen feared that others would
find out about these “unpleasant arguments” and
publicize them.
Herzen’s fears were well founded; within the Russian émigré community along the shores of Lac
Leman there were few secrets. When Utin heard
of Ogarev’s plans, he protested that Bakunin had
no right to claim to represent Russian youth and
that he had no significant ties with Russia. Instead,
Utin argued, the Bakhmetev fund should belong
to the “revolutionary cause” in general, and he
put in a claim on behalf of Narodnoe delo, which
he described as having extensive contacts with
Russia. Herzen coldly replied that the capital of the
Bakhmetev fund still remained intact as of July 1,
1869, and now he defended Bakunin: “He has small
shortcomings and enormous qualities. He has a
past, and he is a force in the present. Don’t count
on each succeeding generation’s being intensively
better than the preceding one.”
Herzen resisted Utin easily, but against Ogarev he
had no defense. He had to agree in principle that
Ogarev had equal claim to the Bakhmetev money,
and he could not in good conscience challenge
Ogarev’s competence. In July he gave in, hoping that
the Bakhmetev money could restore the economic
health of the Russian Free Press. Agreeing to divide
the fund in half, he wrote to Ogarev, “You know that
I protest. You must make bold to take upon yourself the full, sole responsibility for all such expenditures.”
The money barely stopped in Ogarev’s hands on
its way to Nechaev, who applied it to his “literary
campaign” of revolutionary leaflets and proclamations, printed by Czerniecki in the summer of 1869.
These publications, written mostly by Bakunin, had
confusing aims, but there was no mistaking their
bloodthirstiness and their call for violence. Young
people should stop their philosophizing and turn
to “declaration through deeds.” Ironically, the most
significant and lasting product of this campaign was
the first Russian translation of Marx’s Communist
Manifesto, printed in the fall of 1869.
35
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
Even as he directed this publishing campaign,
Nechaev repeatedly expressed scorn for the printed
word and for the people who specialized in producing it. Type, he would argue, should be melted
down for bullets: “Books do not educate, they put
to sleep.” In the first issue of a new periodical, Narodnaia rasprava (The People’s Vengeance), he wrote,
He who initiates himself in the revolutionary cause
through books will never be anything but a revolutionary sluggard... For us the word is of significance
only when the deed is sensed behind it and follows
immediately upon it.
Nechaev vigorously endorsed Bakunin’s calls to
action: “Bakunin rightly tries to persuade us to
abandon our academies, universities, and schools,
and go to the people.” Even such a call, however, he
considered vague, and he specified, “We have only
a single, negative, immutable goal – merciless destruction.” In contrast to the advocates of what he
called “paper revolution,” he demanded a campaign
of assassinations, saving the Tsar for a final bloodletting of popular vengeance. As for those who
disagreed with him, such as the editors of Narodnoe delo, Nechaev warned, “We can interfere with
the distribution of things, however sincere, that
directly counter our banner, with various practical
methods at our command.”
When Ogarev, totally enchanted by Nechaev, tentatively raised the thought of reviving Kolokol as
part of this new campaign of publications, Herzen
objected, “I cannot understand how you can think of
putting Kolokol together... Where would the reports
come from?” Herzen insisted that he could place
a regular column on Russian affairs in any one of
several newspapers; a revived Kolokol, on the other
hand, would have no readership. He also reminded
Ogarev that the print shop could not sustain the
work of printing a periodical. Nechaev left Geneva
late in the summer to return to Russia, and this
question faded away for the time being.
36
Nechaev’s impact on the emigration, however,
involved more than just his rapid conquest of
Ogarev and Czerniecki’s printing facilities, for
other suspicious characters came in his wake.
Tchorzewski unexpectedly received one such mysterious visitor, a Nikolai Postnikov, who expressed
interest in purchasing and publishing the papers of
Prince Dolgorukov. The prince had died two years
earlier, leaving his paper in Tchorzewski’s care, and
although Kolokol (La Cloche) of February 15, 1869,
had reported that Tchorzewski would soon publish
“extremely interesting revelations,” Tchorzewski
himself felt there was little there worth his effort.
When Postnikov inquired about the papers, Tchorzewski was very ready to sell them, but he cautiously
declared that Postnikov should negotiate directly
with Herzen in Paris.
Postnikov did not altogether welcome this invitation to visit the famed émigré, for while he presented himself as a publisher, he was in fact an
agent of the tsarist police, Karl-Arvid Romann,
dispatched to Western Europe with the dual assignment of tracking down Nechaev and of obtaining Dolgorukov’s papers. (The tsarist authorities
still feared Dolgorukov’s scandals as much as they
feared any revolutionary propaganda.) PostnikovRomann found Ogarev, Bakunin, and Tchorzewski
easy enough to fool, but Herzen had a reputation
for having a keener eye. “I held off from meeting
Herzen until I was forced into it,” PostnikovRomann reported back to his superiors. Finally,
anxious to have assurances that the papers in
Tchorzewski’s collection were complete, he agreed
to make the trip to Paris.
When the two men met at the beginning of
October, Herzen quickly approved the sale. He
liked Postnikov’s plan to publish the papers as a
series of brochures. “If you are so well acquainted
with the publishing business,” Herzen told his
visitor, “then the papers will not be lost in your
hands.” He recommended that Postnikov print the
works with Czerniecki in Geneva, but he admitted
that it could be cheaper to have the job done in
Brussels. The deal consummated, Postnikov collected the papers, declaring that he was taking the
documents to Brussels, and then he mailed them
off to St. Petersburg.
Once this flurry of excitement had passed, Geneva
again became quiet, and Ogarev, as supervisor of the
Russian Free Press, again became concerned about
the lack of work for Czerniecki’s press. Bakunin,
now in Locarno, was bombarding him with complaints about Karl Marx and especially about
Utin, whom he called “a rooster among [women],
a rooster revolutionizing in words and playing at
dictatorship,” indulging himself with “women and
money.” When Ogarev sadly questioned whether
his generation would live to see the revolution in
Russia, Bakunin responded, “None of us can guess
this. But even if we see it, Ogarev, there will not be
much consolation for you and me; other people,
new, strong, young – naturally not the Utins – will
bump us from the face of the earth, making us useless.” Yet, Bakunin concluded, the older generation
had made its contributions with its writings: “We
will then leave books in their hands.”
Bakunin was himself tormented by his lack of
funds. He had been able to move to Locarno
because of the 300 francs he had received as an
advance for translating Marx’s Das Kapital into
Russian, but once settled, he found that even with
Chapter 6: THE YOUNG FANATIC FROM RUSSIA
Locarno’s low cost of living, that money did not
go very far. On the other hand, the translation
proved to be more demanding that he had blithely anticipated. In December he asked Ogarev
for a loan of 800 francs from the Bakhmetev fund.
When Ogarev sent the request along to Herzen,
now again in Paris, Herzen exclaimed, “This is
mindless. You spent 3000 on something harmful
and not useful – and suddenly make the fund a
pawnshop!” It would be better, Herzen suggested,
to use the money to buy out Czerniecki. Nevertheless Herzen sent 300 francs to Bakunin as a gift;
he knew he could not consider it a loan. Ogarev
then had to listen to Bakunin’s lamentations about
Herzen’s lack of confidence in him.
Bakunin’s moaning did nothing to help Ogarev fulfill his responsibilities. Bakunin was urging him to
move the Russian Free Press to sunny Locarno, but
even if Ogarev had had the physical strength for such
a venture – he rarely traveled further from his apartment than to a local tavern – Czerniecki had little
enough work in Geneva. When Ogarev raised the
question of using the remainder of the Bakhmetev
fund to bail Czerniecki out, Herzen declared that
this money could only be used if Czerniecki had to
sell the press for less than it was worth. Instead, he
promised to continue paying Czerniecki 100 francs
per month out of his own pocket. Significantly, in
traveling between Paris and Italy, Herzen chose not
to pass through Switzerland. “I hate Geneva,” he
explained.
In January 1870 Nechaev suddenly reappeared in
Geneva, and Ogarev, who had heard that the young
revolutionary had been arrested, was enormously
relieved and excited. For Bakunin too, Nechaev’s
return promised new action; upon hearing the
news, he declared, he “so jumped for joy that I nearly
smashed the ceiling with my old head. Fortunately
the ceiling is very high.” Herzen’s reaction was considerably more restrained. At Ogarev’s urging he
agreed to receive Nechaev, “but I regard his activity and that of the two old men positively harmful
and untimely.” As far as Ogarev was concerned,
Nechaev’s arrival promised new activity and new
initiatives, and he asked Herzen for another 5000
francs from the Bakhmetev fund.
Suddenly Herzen was no more. In recent months
he had been complaining about various physical
problems; he was having trouble with diabetes.
On January 14, 1870, he felt pain in his chest. A
fever developed, and he was confined to bed. He
had an inflammation in his lungs. On the 18th he
seemed better; the fever was down. On the 19th he
sent Tchorzewski a telegram: “Great danger past.
Dissatisfied as ever with doctors. Will try to write
tomorrow.” That night he became delirious, and on
the morning of the 21st he died. His death allowed
Nechaev a free hand in exploiting and thereby destroying the last financial and intellectual capital of
Herzen’s generation of émigrés.
Nechaev now launched a new campaign of proclamations, and he indulged himself in fervent
self-glorification as a hero and a martyr pursued
by the tsarist authorities. “He collided with the
police frequently but always skipped away safely,”
he wrote about himself in the second issue of Narodnaia rasprava. “I was spared with the few survivors,” he wrote on another occasion, “The enraged
governmental tigers failed to capture me. They have
become rabid to the point of mindlessness, to the
point of absurdity; they have rushed to hunt me in
Europe.” The police were pursuing him because of
a murder of a comrade of his in Russia. Nechaev,
freely admitting the deed, insisted that he and his
followers had simply liquidated a police informer
from within their ranks, and he incorporated the
murder into the romantic aura that he was conjuring around himself.
Bakunin again threw his support behind Nechaev.
Although in one peculiar essay he suggested that
Nechaev was only a figment of the government’s
imagination – Nechaev published a piece in that
very same publication under his own name –
Bakunin published a more noteworthy defense
under the title The Bears of Bern and the Bears of St.
Petersburg. Comparing Nechaev, “a Russian patriot,”
to William Tell, “this hero of political murder,” he
protested against the Swiss government’s cooperating with any foreign government in extraditing a
political refugee.
Nechaev’s relationship with Bakunin now underwent a certain change. Instead of his earlier support of Narodnoe delo’s anarchism, Nechaev now
espoused more conspiratorial, Jacobin ideas, advocating the political seizure of power instead of
spontaneous mass revolution. Despite misgivings,
Bakunin followed his lead.
Nechaev persuaded Bakunin and Ogarev to help
him to obtain the remainder of the Bakhmetev
money in order to renew the publication of Kolokol.
For this they needed the approval of Herzen’s children, Natalie and Alexander, and at Nechaev’s
behest, the two older men pressured Natalie, who
was just recovering from a nervous breakdown, to
cooperate with their young hero. Ogarev introduced
her to Nechaev, explaining that her father had disliked the man because “he could not judge the present position of the young people in Russia or what
they are doing.” Bakunin assured her that working
with Nechaev and becoming involved in the revolutionary movement would be good for her health:
“It would be treachery against your conscience and
37
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
your honor not to help Nechaev.” He urged Ogarev
to press her on the subject:
For the time being write nothing to them about
Kolokol, but just demand relentlessly that the
whole fund be turned over. This is not only your
right but your sacred duty, and all delicacies of
social relationships must yield before this duty.
Turning to Natalie’s brother Alexander, Ogarev
first assured him that Natalie was well, living in
Switzerland, and warned him that the idle life of
the Herzen family constituted the real threat to her
health. Then, in a moment of triumph, Ogarev won
the younger Herzen’s approval for using the remainder of the Bakhmetev fund. Ogarev immediately
delivered the money to Nechaev, who went ahead
with his plans to revive the name of Kolokol for his
own purposes.
Even as he seemed to be logging victories, however,
Nechaev made several egregious blunders. On
February 25, in an effort to free Bakunin from the
nagging obligation to deliver something in return
for the advance he had received for the translation
of Das Kapital, Nechaev sent a letter to N. N. Liubavin, the man who had thought he was helping
Bakunin by giving him work. In the name of “The
Bureau of Foreign Agents of the Russian Revolutionary Society `Narodnaia Rasprava’,” the letter
warned Liubavin that the bureau intended to protect “dear personalities” who were being exploited
by “dilettante kulaks” and who were thereby being
“deprived of the possibility of working for the liberation of mankind.” If Liubavin did not free Bakunin
of “the moral obligation to continue the translation,” the society would “take extreme and therefore
rather rough measures.” Bakunin soon received his
release from this obligation to earn his money, but
Liubavin turned the letter over to Karl Marx, who
added it to his own arsenal in his campaign to expel
Bakunin from the International.
38
Nechaev also threatened the Herzen family. Alexander fils was reportedly planning the publication
of a number of his father’s last writings, including
his “Letters to an Old Comrade,” critical of Bakunin.
Ogarev attempted to persuade Sasha to postpone
publication of the letters, but then the Herzens
received a letter from the “Foreign Bureau of Narodnaia Rasprava,” this one declaring that the works
contradicted Herzen’s earlier writings and that their
publication would serve no useful purpose. The letter
expressed confidence that the society would not be
forced “into the sad necessity of acting in a less delicate manner.” Sasha angrily informed Ogarev, “You
yourself understand that now I must publish these
articles.” The work appeared in the course of the
summer of 1870, printed by Czerniecki.
Nechaev also overplayed his hand with Natalie.
He made advances toward her, but Natalie was not
ready to accept his clumsy moves. “Until such time
as you give me your word of honor that you will
not kiss me,” she angrily declared, “I shall not go to
visit Ogarev.” Nechaev urged her to “give free rein
to your mind, do not constrain it with comfortable
prejudices.” Natalie objected: “You will not leave
me in peace; you do not know how to treat people
in a civilized fashion.”
Natalie soon withdrew from her brief foray into
émigré political activities. A year later she wrote to a
friend, “Be very cautious with all the Russians who
have recently arrived. Remember, a new man a la
Nechaev is forming among them, a kind of revolutionary Jesuit who is ready to commit any vileness
in order to achieve his goal.”
With these problems arising within the emigration,
Nechaev hardly noticed the continued pursuit of
the tsarist police. At the end of March PostnikovRomann arrived back in Geneva, but he now found
the atmosphere somewhat uncomfortable. Tchorzewski was upset by rumors that he, Tchorzewski,
had sold Dolgorukov’s papers to the tsarist police.
Postnikov gently reassured him about his intentions
to publish Dolgorukov’s papers, but in turn Postnikov had to request money from his home office,
suggesting that he could burn the finished product
if St Petersburg so desired. St. Petersburg, however,
was unwilling to go ahead with the planned publication.
Postnikov seemed beaten, but the naiveté of Bakunin
and Ogarev rescued him. When he met Bakunin
in Ogarev’s apartment, he found that at least these
men trusted him. Indeed, Bakunin welcomed him,
and in turn Postnikov now offered his superiors
new information as evidence of his own efficiency.
“Bakunin’s opinion is the opinion of all extreme
conspirators,” he told his chiefs. Impressed, the
authorities renewed Postnikov’s commission and
approved the publication of some of Dolgorukov’s
papers. Although he became a close associate of
Bakunin’s, however, Postnikov somehow still could
not find Nechaev, even though he probably met him
at Ogarev’s apartment.
Despite all the controversy whirling about his
head, Nechaev began publishing his new version
of Kolokol, beginning in April 1870. He had won
Natalie Herzen’s approval for the use of the name,
although she refused personally to have anything to do with it. As the publication’s subtitle, he
added, “Organ of Russian Liberation, Founded by
A. I. Herzen.” The publication identified its editorial board only as “Agents of the Russian Cause.”
(Postnikov, whom Ogarev invited to contribute
to Kolokol, reported home that Czerniecki was
Chapter 6: THE YOUNG FANATIC FROM RUSSIA
the editor.) In a strange contrast to his earlier
pronouncements, Nechaev attempted to unite all
factions in the emigration as well as in Russia,
praising peasants and students, complaining of
censorship and corruption, and even indicating
that a constitution might be desirable for Russia.
In the first issue Ogarev published an open letter
to the editorial board announcing the passing of
the flame from the old Kolokol, and he promised to
remain a collaborator “to the end of my life.”
With Kolokol’s strange new program, Nechaev
managed to attract some notable collaborators. Varfolomei Zaitsev, just a few years earlier one of the literary lions of St. Petersburg, had recently emigrated,
and he was ready to contribute to the new Kolokol.
Another collaborator was Nikolai Zhukovsky, who
of late had served as something of a liaison between
Ogarev and Utin. Zhukovsky seemed to get along
well with all the émigré camps, perhaps because no
one took him too seriously. Bakunin himself did not
approve of the newspaper’s program.
Nechaev’s venture came to a sudden end in May.
The seventh issue of Kolokol had actually been
prepared, but it was never to be printed. A dispute
arose between Nechaev and Czerniecki. Nechaev
protested Czerniecki’s having sent copies of Kolokol
to Elpidin and Trusov; Czerniecki countered that
he had done this as a courtesy from one printer to
another; Nechaev argued that somehow this could
“compromise the cause,” and he complained of the
cost. Czerniecki exploded, “It is impossible to conceive of anything stupider than this!” Czerniecki
then refused to have anything more to do with the
publication.
More serious than the dispute with Czerniecki was
the growing controversy concerning Nechaev’s
personal character. With stories about the murder
of Nechaev’s follower in Russia swirling through
the emigration, a gathering of Russian émigrés in
Geneva on May 7 took up the entire complex of
questions surrounding Nechaev. (According to
police reports, those present included TuchkovaOgareva, Natalie Herzen, Elpidin, Zhukovsky and
Ogarev; the Narodnoe delo group refused to attend
because of its opposition to both Bakunin and
Nechaev.) While accounts of what transpired in the
heated, chaotic discussions are at best confused,
two definite results emerged. The émigrés agreed
to a petition protesting the thought of extraditing
anyone to Russia, and at the same time there was
a growing wave of hostility toward Nechaev personally.
Nechaev had to go into hiding, and his Kolokol died
immediately. Just two days later Geneva authorities
arrested an émigré on the street, believing him to be
Nechaev. The émigré, Semen Serebrennikov, pro-
tested vigorously, but the police, armed with a photograph, held him for some eleven days. Serebrennikov subsequently tried to sue the Swiss authorities, demanding 1000 francs as compensation for his
suffering. Even Narodnoe delo rallied to his support,
seeing this case as a threat to the safety of all émigrés, but the Swiss courts rejected Serebrennikov’s
complaint. The Russian émigrés stood on notice
that the authorities were very serious about their
pursuit of Nechaev, and Nechaev himself had to go
underground.
Still more dangerous for Nechaev than the pursuit
of the Russian and the Swiss authorities was the
appearance of a new figure in the Russian emigration, German Lopatin, a young man in his mid 20s.
In 1869, the Russian government’s dragnet to root
out Nechaev’s followers among students had picked
up Lopatin, even though he strongly opposed
Nechaev’s conspiratorial intrigues, himself favoring
mass revolution. Now, in order to defend his friend
Liubavin, he undertook to expose Nechaev’s mystifications, declaring that the murder of Nechaev’s
follower had arisen first of all from Nechaev’s own
wounded vanity and secondly from Nechaev’s insistence that the so-called “Committee” could dispose
of the goods and lives of its members without any
restriction. Lopatin’s revelations almost completely
undermined Nechaev’s standing in the emigration,
but only with difficulty could Lopatin convince
Bakunin of the young fanatic’s perfidy.
Bakunin could not let his dream die easily. In a
long letter dated June 2, 1870, full of self-pity, he
reprimanded Nechaev for his activities in Geneva.
Referring to the Bakhmetev money, he wrote, “You
could have done a lot of useful things in Geneva
with this modest sum in your hands and with
the help of a few people... You could have set up
a serious organ with an avowed social-revolutionary program and, attached to it, a foreign bureau
for the management of Russian activities outside
of Russia.” Bakunin even reproved Nechaev for
having instilled in Natalie Herzen “a deep suspicion toward all of us and a conviction that you and
I intended to exploit [her] financial resources and
to exploit them, of course, for ourselves and not
for the cause.” Despite all this, however, Bakunin
was still ready to work with Nechaev under certain
conditions, including Nechaev’s promise to have
nothing more to do with Utin.
Bakunin’s hopes notwithstanding, Nechaev’s influence among the émigrés quickly evaporated, but
his brief meteoric career had wrought significant
changes on the face of the émigré publishing world.
He had scorned the printed word as worthless in a
world that demanded revolutionary action, but he
had spent a great deal of time publishing works with
39
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
Ogarev and Czerniecki. He had gained control of
the Bakhmetev fund and had turned it to his own
purposes, to be sure for paper and ink rather than
for bullets, but he had quickly dissipated this potentially important resource. He had seriously damaged
the reputations of both Ogarev and Bakunin. Ogarev
retired again to drink, never again to be a significant
factor in printing and publishing. Bakunin would
yet have his moment on the revolutionary stage in
40
the turmoil that would sweep France in 1870-1871,
his ideas would yet influence future generations
of revolutionaries, but he personally became little
more than a relic of days past. Karl Marx, with Utin’s
help, would use Nechaev’s image as another weapon
with which to discredit Bakunin within the ranks
of the Workers’ International. Nechaev had ravaged
the intellectual heritage of the generation of Herzen
and Bakunin.
Chapter 7:
ANSWERING THE CALL
The collapse of Nechaev’s elaborate mystifications
left chaos within the Russian emigration, and the
print shops lapsed into relative silence. The kaleidoscope of émigré relationships now underwent a
radical rotation. Nechaev’s drama, after reaching its
climax in Geneva, eventually found its conclusion
in Zurich, even as a new generation of émigrés there
constructed institutions to replace those destroyed
by Bakunin’s intrigues and Nechaev’s manipulation.
Nechaev’s activities over the next two years, from
the summer of 1870 to the spring of 1872, have
remained hidden from the prying eyes of generations of historians: He published one issue of a new
periodical, Obshchina (The Commune), which bore
the imprint of London – a second issue was printed
but destroyed before distribution; in the spring of
1871 he was in France; after a brief stay in Zurich
he returned to France in the fall of 1871; in June
1872 he reappeared in Zurich for the last phase of
his public career. While he could still manipulate a
few young émigrés, he was in fact no longer a major
actor in the émigré community.
Utin, however, could not forget him. After Nechaev
had left Geneva, Utin discovered that the man
had even penetrated the offices of Narodnoe delo.
During the winter of 1869-1870, according to Utin,
a newly arrived Russian, Vladimir Serebrennikov,
had asked for help in resisting Nechaev’s threats.
After a while, Serebrennikov became secretary of
the Russian Section of the International, and he
had then attempted to take over the Narodnoe delo
print shop for Nechaev. Utin managed to block this
infiltration, and he hastened to add this story to the
catalog of complaints about Nechaev and Bakunin
that he was supplying to Karl Marx.
Marx himself had long been scornful of the activities of the Russians, but in the winter of 1869-1870
he forged his way through a new study of the working class in Russian, written by Vasily Bervi-Florovsky, and he acquired new respect for the revolutionary potential existing in the Tsar’s realm. He
still considered Utin’s Russian Section in Geneva
useful mainly as a weapon against Bakunin, and he
encouraged Utin to write a brochure exposing the
activities of the anarchist. As he explained to Friedrich Engels,
In Geneva... a colony has formed of Russian émigrés
who are opponents of Bakunin because they know
the ambitious striving of this completely average
man (although also an accomplished intriguer)
and because they are acquainted with the doctrines
propagated by Bakunin in his ‘Russian’ writings,
directly antagonistic to the principles of the International.
In turn, Engels warned Marx to be cautious:
What kind of stupid nonsense is this, half a dozen
Russians squabbling among themselves as though
world supremacy depended the outcome?... It is
good to know all the gossip for it belongs to the
diplomacy of the proletariat.
In contrast to his rather cautious use of Utin, Marx
genuinely respected German Lopatin, whom he met
in London at the beginning of July 1870. This young
man, he declared, had “a clear critical head, a cheerful disposition, patient and hardy like a Russian
peasant, who is satisfied with what he has.” Upon
hearing from him the full story of Nechaev’s mystification, Marx marveled at Bakunin’s naiveté, but
the revelations did not make him any more sympathetic toward the anarchist. At the same time,
Lopatin’s balanced account may well have made
Marx a bit suspicious of Utin’s unrestrained denunciations and exaggerations.
Marx sponsored Lopatin’s membership in the
General Council of the International, but the Russian remained a man of action. He was himself not
ready to lead the emigration, and in fact he soon
disappeared. He disapproved of the controversies
between Utin and Bakunin and between Marx and
Bakunin; he sat long enough to translate about
one-third of Das Kapital – he took no pay lest he
anger the Bakunists; and then in November 1870 he
suddenly departed London, heading for Russia in
the hope of rescuing Chernyshevsky from Siberian
41
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
exile. If Chernyshevsky could join the emigration,
Lopatin calculated, he would give it the leadership
it so desperately lacked. The Russian authorities,
however, arrested Lopatin when he arrived in
Irkutsk and then removed Chernyshevsky to a still
more remote exile. Émigré suspicions immediately
focused on the garrulous Elpidin as having betrayed
him, perhaps inadvertently, perhaps treacherously.
Lopatin later gave Elpidin the benefit of the doubt,
calling him “not an accomplished scoundrel but a
simple ass.” At any rate, Lopatin was lost to the emigration for several years.
Although the émigré presses were quiet, there was
no shortage of grand ideas being put forth; the idea
of publishing a new periodical was continually a
subject of discussion. Narodnoe delo could not fill
the obvious gap in the émigrés’ intellectual needs of
the moment. In its first issue for 1870, while Nechaev
was still active, its editors spoke of the problems
involved in producing essays of the proper theoretic
quality and described their plans to give the publication a new format: One part would have the character of a newspaper, covering current events, and
the other would offer more general considerations
about contemporary social movements. In practice,
the journal spearheaded Utin’s campaign against
Bakunin and Nechaev, denouncing the “charlatanry
of revolutionizing phrasemongers,” the “two or three
old émigrés and the several Muscovite youths who
play at a game called ‘revolution’.” In its third issue,
the newspaper spoke scornfully of “naive old men,
dreaming of the annihilation of Tsarism by some
proclaimed conspiracy,” and its fifth issue called for
“the development of popular understanding” rather
than the evocation of passion as a necessary condition for the success of the revolution. Narodnoe
delo ceased publication with no. 6/7, dated August/
September 1870. Some of its supporters spoke of
the difficulty of fighting the influence of Nechaev
and Bakunin among the Russian young people, but
the disappearance of Nechaev seemed in fact to take
away its reason for existence.
42
By general agreement, the obvious person to head
a new journal and to provide new intellectual leadership for the emigration would be the writer Petr
Lavrov, whose Historical Letters, first published
serially in the St. Petersburg magazine Nedelia, had
found a sympathetic audience among the youth.
Something of an elder statesman – he was born in
1823 – Lavrov, an artillery officer who published
essays and poetry, had long distinguished himself
as a liberal within the tsarist establishment. In the
wake of the Karakozov affair, he found himself in
exile in the interior of the Russian Empire, and in
February 1870 German Lopatin had come to him
unannounced to ask, “Are you ready? When can
you leave?” On March 13, 1870, Lavrov arrived in
Paris, but he was not ready to enter into the maelstrom of émigré politics.
Lavrov’s advice to Russian youth offered a strong
contrast to Bakunin’s injunctions to leave the universities. The study of social problems, Lavrov argued,
would contribute to the understanding of society
and nature. Although he insisted on the necessity of
organization to effect major social change, he paid
tribute to the power of individual zeal:
Not only words but deeds are necessary. Energetic, fanatical people are necessary, risking all and
ready to sacrifice all. Martyrs are necessary, whose
legend will grow far beyond their true worth, their
true service.
Calling knowledge the key weapon for revolution,
he argued that the revolutionary intelligentsia had
to lead the way for the masses.
Told by Dmitri Pisarev to study the natural sciences
and by Bakunin to give up their formal university
studies altogether, Russian youth welcomed Lavrov’s
injunction to study history and to strive for social
justice in payment of their “debt to the people.”
Lavrov posed no specific program; he spoke of the
necessity of working to realize a just society. His
young readers pondered his message and drew their
own conclusions.
Settled in Paris, Lavrov was not ready to take any
post of leadership; he did not yet consider himself a
revolutionary. He hoped that the authorities would
yet realize that they had made a mistake in his case
and would allow him to return to Russia; he thought
of himself as a scholar, not as a political émigré. As
he plunged into studying émigré publications, he
was dismayed by the discord that he found, and he
could not understand the rivalry between Marx and
Bakunin. (Engels later ridiculed Lavrov’s concern
for “unity” within the International.) “Accusations
and gossip are pouring down like hail,” Lavrov
exclaimed. “Why do these gentlemen bear such
malice toward each other?” He also criticized Narodnoe delo’s work, and he declared that Nechaev had
“lost the right to all political refuge.” As Lavrov saw
it, “The major error of our celebrities in the emigration is that they are hurrying as if the question
were a political revolution,” and he called the arguments among the émigrés “a natural pathological
phenomenon in every emigration torn away from
its homeland.”
Lavrov rejected invitations from both Bakunin
and Elpidin to join forces with them. Bakunin
announced that he and Ogarev were planning
a monthly review, revolutionary in content but
moderate in tone, with no “hard words or noisy
phrases”; your name, Bakunin told Lavrov, “so
Chapter 7: ANSWERING THE CALL
beloved in Russia, would give an enormous weight
to our journal.” Lavrov hesitated, saying that he
hoped yet to return to Russia, but privately he
expressed doubts about Bakunin’s project as a
whole. When Elpidin then invited him to edit “an
organ (or a newspaper) that would give some sort
of digestible food to the Russian public,” Lavrov
exclaimed, “Is each alone thinking of publishing
something?” Nevertheless he told Elpidin that he
considered three points central to the program of
such a journal: 1. “the struggle for a realistic scientific world view”; 2. the struggle against the bourgeoisie, and 3. the struggle to broaden women’s
rights. Elpidin responded enthusiastically, but the
project died without any result.
Suddenly Lavrov and many of the other Russian
émigrés had no time to think about participating in
any new publications; they found themselves thrust
into the exhilaration and hardship of war and revolution. Conflict had broken out between Prussia
and France, and in September 1870 the Germans
laid siege to Paris. While Bakunin rushed from his
haven in Switzerland to Lyon, dragging along the
reluctant revolutionary Postnikov-Romann, Lavrov
experienced revolution in Paris. He shared the
deprivations forced on the Parisians; like them he
was happy even to find horse or dog meat. But the
political life was exciting. He was thrilled to be present when the people of Paris proclaimed “Vive la
république!” and destroyed the eagle of Napoleon
III’s Second Empire.
Like Herzen in 1848 and 1849, Lavrov came to
express scorn for the behavior of French politicians.
“All the great names of France,” he declared, were
not worth a “copper penny”; they could only look
into the past. But in contrast to Herzen, he found
hope in the behavior of the masses. He welcomed
the establishment of the Paris Commune, a revolutionary order under which, as Lavrov put it, the
workers of Paris, “the real people” who constituted
“the only healthy and reliable class of this rotten
society,” took power into their own hands. When
the Commune fell, he attributed its collapse to the
failure of its leaders to rise above tradition and to
meet the tasks of the day. “The party that first puts
forth a man combining wisdom and energy,” he
declared, “will rule in France.”
Lavrov did not take a direct part in the revolutionary events. The writer Ivan Turgenev characterized
him at this time as a dove struggling to be a hawk;
much as he longed for a popular rising, Lavrov was
not himself a man of action. At one point he considered working for the ambulance service, but in the
spring of 1871 he eagerly accepted the mission to
travel abroad as a representative of the revolution.
One of Bakunin’s followers later accused him to
seizing this mission as an opportunity to flee Paris,
but whatever his personal concerns, Lavrov was
enthralled by the events in the French capital. He
now experienced a radical conversion in his own
thought; he was ready to give up hope of returning
to Russia and to dedicate himself to the cause of
social revolution.
In the fall of 1871 Lavrov settled back into Paris with
a new outlook. The Commune had been crushed,
and he now spoke of France and the French as
“the abomination of abominations.” The French
government’s reprisals against the Communards
distressed him. The Parisians, he complained, were
“cold, busy, and egoistic.” But when he had to consider the alternatives, he chose to remain in Paris.
He would not consider Germany because he feared
the possibility of arrest and extradition by the Russian authorities. London seemed pleasant enough,
but he believed that for now he had to remain in a
French-speaking area. He liked the people in Brussels – they “sing choral songs in the street” – but
the city lacked the intellectual resources that Paris
offered. Geneva had no appeal for him; the Russian
colony in Paris was in any case significantly larger.
Therefore he stayed for the time being in Paris.
In March 1872 he received the call that stirred him
into action. Several young Russians came to visit
him, and, on behalf of some undefined group in St.
Petersburg, they invited him to edit a journal. They
spoke of providing materials and funds. Lavrov responded with interest; in contrast to his earlier reservations about the character of Russian youth, he had
declared just a few months earlier that young people
“were altogether not as impossible as it seemed just
recently.” This new invitation, unlike the soundings
from Bakunin and Elpidin in 1870, found Lavrov
ready to respond; the invitation came, moreover,
from Russia itself, rather than simply from other
corners of the emigration.
Whatever the mandate of the mysterious visitors,
their promises proved to be empty, and upon investigating the question of publishing a journal, Lavrov
realized that he would have to organize the endeavor himself. The task proved more difficult than he
had expected; a year later he declared that had he
known in 1872 what he knew in the spring of 1873,
he would not have undertaken the publication of
any sort of journal. But once he had begun work, “I
felt a moral obligation to struggle with all my forces
together with the people who have gathered around
me and who had to accept my sole leadership.” As
Philip Pomper, an American historian, has described Lavrov’s sense of duty,
Lavrov continually resolved the problem of his
isolation in the same way – by moving forward
43
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
to meet the new generation of radicals within the
intelligentsia.
But even moved as he was by a sense of mission,
Lavrov had trouble finding his constituency for this
new project.
He first drew up a model program for his journal,
to be called Vpered! (Forward!). Believing that his
call had come from a group of liberals in St. Petersburg, he aimed his statement at what he thought
they wanted. Just being able to publish without
censorship did not justify “needless sacrifices” and
“unrealizable goals,” and therefore he emphasized
the responsibilities that faced an editor. He criticized Nechaev’s behavior of the past several years
and asserted that his journal would concern itself
with “exact facts.” His target, he declared, would
not be personalities but irresponsibility; he would
not indulge in personal gossip; and he specifically
rejected the use of lies as “a means for spreading
truth.” His journal would first appear irregularly, and he suggested that readers subscribe in
advance for four books, which would comprise
one volume.
When Lavrov sent out his first soundings, he found
great enthusiasm, but he received little in the way of
concrete support. He also encountered some opposition. When he commissioned friends to inquire
within Russia, they found some sympathy among
the Chaikovtsy, a new group aimed at self-education and concerned about the limited supply of
good literature, who were themselves considering
the possibility of supporting a journal in Western
Europe. Through the summer of 1872, however,
Lavrov received only vague reports of sympathy, no
firm material support.
Some friends, on the other hand, tried to discourage
him; their thoughts echoed the cautionary advice
that Herzen had received. G. E. Eliseev, one of the
people to whom Lavrov had directed his program,
suggested that “reaction is not in government but in
society,” the people themselves were not receptive to
liberal ideas. Eliseev advised Lavrov to concern himself with finding a way to return to Russia, where he
could be more useful than he was in the emigration.
“The government, it seems, is satisfied with you,”
Eliseev reported. “It must have expected that once
abroad you would act like Herzen. You, however, sit
absolutely quietly.” In a year or two the authorities
might be willing to allow Lavrov to return, and in
any case, Eliseev argued, it would be impossible in
the emigration to maintain a periodical concerned
with current events in Russia.
44
Lavrov disagreed, declaring that he had to respond
to the pleas of Russian youth. Eliseev urged that
Lavrov should not feel bound by the passions of the
young: “The young can want a great deal. But not
every desire can or should be fulfilled. The young
themselves change; many are just seeking careers
for themselves.” Turning to the principle of the ante
in a card game, Eliseev then advised that Lavrov
demand firm signs of cash support, that he not
rely on promises. The government, Eliseev warned,
could only too easily disrupt the journal’s support
network within Russia.
Lavrov sifted and weighed this contradictory advice,
but he was determined to go ahead: “What is to be
done? I will sing as my voice permits.” He painstakingly assured his friends that he was not yielding
to the “illusions” of age, but he had received a call, a
call that “came to me unsolicited, it arose in front of
me as a moral obligation.” Fate, moreover, seemed
to have freed him of personal ties: His close friend
Anna Czaplicka had recently died, and his friend
Lopatin was sitting in Siberian exile for his bold
effort to liberate Chernyshevsky. Lavrov began to
say that he would not be taking risks because he had
nothing more to lose.
He had yet to decide where to center his publication and to determine the conditions of publication.
In June and July of 1872 he visited London, and as
late as October he was still considering settling in
the English capital. The British Museum offered
fantastic intellectual treasures, and he felt secure
in England. On the other hand, the Swiss city of
Zurich, where a new, exciting colony of Russian students was growing, beckoned and appealed strongly
to his sense of mission and duty. He decided finally
to investigate the situation there for himself; if it
proved unsuitable, he would settle in London.
The colony in Zurich represented a completely new
element in the overall picture of Russians in Western Europe. The émigrés of the early and mid 60s
had by and large abandoned their studies to settle
in the West; they entertained, on the whole, little
hope that they would be able to return to Russia.
The new arrivals in Zurich, on the contrary, were
for the most part not even émigrés. They came to
study; they intended yet to return home and to
pursue careers in Russia. The University in Zurich,
founded in 1839, was welcoming foreign students,
and its attraction was enhanced by the presence in
Zurich of the ETH, the Swiss National Polytechnicum, which had a strong international reputation.
At first only a trickle of Russian students had come
to Zurich, but after the university admitted a Russian woman in 1867, the flow intensified.
Switzerland quickly became an important center
for the education of Russian women. The question
of women’s liberation concerned Russian intellectuals of the 1860s as much as the emancipation of
the peasantry, the rights of students, or questions
Chapter 7: ANSWERING THE CALL
of censorship. The cause of women’s liberation had
expressed itself in various superficial ways – smoking in public, women’s haircuts, clothing, personal
behavior – but one of its fundamental issues was the
right to education. Women commonly could attend
university lectures, but they could not matriculate
to prepare for examinations and to receive degrees.
Zurich was the first university in Europe to offer
women the opportunity to study for medical degrees,
and Russian women immediately responded to the
opportunity. By 1872 more than 75 Russian women
were studying at the university, most of them studying medicine. As Vera Figner put it,
The wish to be useful to society... that is the best
formula for defining the mood of the Russian youth
in Zurich in 1872.
Since male students followed the flow of female
students into Zurich, the colony’s appeal for Lavrov
was obvious. These were not political émigrés, and
he could find in their midst both an immediate
reading public and also new channels for communicating with Russia. Friends nevertheless advised
him not to go there: Eliseev warned that publishing an anti-governmental periodical in Zurich
could have an unfortunate impact on the colony
and could even possibly compromise the idea of
education for women; a Ukrainian friend, S. D.
Podolinsky, also worried about Lavrov’s activity
hampering the development of women’s education. Lavrov nevertheless decided to go ahead; the
students, he explained, needed “experienced and
mature advisors.”
The colony in Zurich, however, was not a tabula
rasa, a blank slate on which Lavrov could write
his message without contradiction. Although
the women students had for a time resisted being
drawn into émigré politics, the Bakunists had
already established a strong foothold in the city on
the Limmat. Mikhail P. Sazhin, a former follower of
Nechaev who had now switched to Bakunin, settled
in Zurich in the fall of 1870 and became, in his
own words, “the first organizer, if not the founder
of the Russian colony.” He established a library as a
central gathering place and a font for the spread of
Bakunin’s teachings.
Sazhin’s library became an intellectual center for
the students. As the colony grew, however, Sazhin
became concerned about keeping the political
outlook of his group intact, and he drew a distinction between users and members, reserving voting
rights for the more select “membership.” Insurgents
tried to claim the library as the property of the
community, but Sazhin declared, “The library was
always called ‘The Russian Library in Zurich’ and it
was never named the library of the Russian students
in Zurich. Such was its stamp or seal on its books.”
The library, he insisted, was a private, not a community institution.
Beneath the intellectual arguments in Zurich, moreover, lay the threat of violence. In June 1872 Utin
came from Geneva on a visit; late once evening, by
his account, he was beset by eight persons. But for
the appearance of four German students, he later
insisted, his assailants would surely have killed him.
As a result of the fracas, his right eye was permanently damaged. He blamed the Bakunists for the
attack, and he included this incident in his reports
to Marx on the nefarious work of the Bakunists
among the Russian émigrés.
In August 1872 the colony experienced another
convulsion when Swiss authorities in the city
arrested Nechaev, who had been living there since
spring. After Utin’s beating, various émigrés warned
Nechaev that the authorities were intensifying their
pursuit, but he had remained, trying to win support
for a new journal. Now he was betrayed by a Pole,
one Adolf Stempkowski, a longtime deep-cover
Russian police agent. By prearrangement Stempkowski delivered Nechaev to a cafe, and Swiss police
seized him. It remained, however, for Swiss judicial
authorities to authorize Nechaev’s extradition to
Russia. That would yet take several months, and
in the meantime the Russian colony erupted in a
storm of protest.
Most of the émigrés bore Nechaev no special love
– quite the contrary – but neither did they fear
him. They saw in his arrest an intrusion of tsarist
authorities into their haven in Switzerland, and
this intrusion threatened the principle of political
asylum in the Confederation. Polish radicals issued
a statement An das schweizerische Volk, calling
Nechaev a “Russian agitator, organizer of the revolutionary party in Russia,” and asserting that he was
guilty only of having killed a police spy. As Valerian
Smirnov, another émigré, declared,
True, it would have been better to kill him ourselves than to deliver him to the government. In
this moment as Sergei Gennadevich sits in chains,
I am unbearably sorry for him. You forgive him
everything, you would like to think that despite all
perhaps he would have straightened himself out
and become a useful person. The miserable Swiss
government!
In September the Swiss Bundesrat, the federal executive council, accepted the Russian government’s
version of the murder of Nechaev’s follower, declaring it to have been a criminal, rather than a political act, and it approved Nechaev’s extradition. Final
judgment, however, lay with the cantonal authorities
45
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
46
in Zurich, and the case dragged on for over another
month. Finally, by split decision, the judicial authorities of the canton of Zurich agreed to Nechaev’s
extradition. Although a few Russians, including
Utin, thought that Nechaev had received just what he
deserved, most of the Russians in Switzerland called
Nechaev the victim of momentary passions, and they
argued that the Swiss should have just expelled him,
not extradited him. There was some talk of trying to
free him by force, but the Swiss secretly and quickly
sent him to Russia by way of Austria.
deserved his fate or not, his case stood out in sharp
relief against the general picture of the political
asylum Russian émigrés found in Switzerland.
Despite their criticisms of the Swiss action in this
case, the émigrés did not flee the country, the colonies in the various parts of Switzerland remained
intact, and in fact they continued to publish their
anti-tsarist materials in this country. Their resentment simply permitted the émigrés to free themselves of any obligation to be grateful for their
asylum in Switzerland.
The decision of the Swiss to extradite Nechaev has
stimulated considerable discussion over the years.
Under pressure from the Great Powers to take steps
against units of the International, against the Communards (the veterans of the Paris Commune),
and against alleged counterfeiters, the Swiss chose
to yield in this particular case. Whether Nechaev
When Lavrov arrived in Zurich at the end of
November, the furor over Nechaev’s extradition was
just beginning to abate, and the Russian colony was
still in ferment. He understood that there would be
problems if he should choose to settle here, but with
his sense of mission, he seemed convinced of the
necessity and justice of his cause.
Chapter 8:
A HOUSE ON SAND
When Lavrov arrived in Zurich, he had two immediate goals: to acquaint himself with the nature of
the student colony in the city and to negotiate with
the Bakunists, who were again talking of producing their own periodical. His own first impressions of Zurich were very good. His public lectures were received with enthusiasm, he found his
discussions with the students stimulating, and his
preliminary talks with the Bakunists seemed to be
promising. He felt physically better and even spoke
of the atmosphere in Zurich as being good for his
health. He felt rested, he reported to friends, as
opposed to the various nagging complaints he had
had in Paris.
Negotiating with the Bakunists quickly became
the focus of his attention. Since he did not want
to compete with them for a reading public and for
the limited available resources, he looked for agreement. When he had first announced his intentions
to publish a journal, Sazhin had in fact approached
him with the possibility of cooperation: “What
do you think about joint work with Bakunin in a
journal?” he asked. “Before the war of 1870-1871
you were agreeable to this. Perhaps you have not
changed your mind?” Lavrov responded carefully;
besides wanting to avoid unnecessary conflict,
Lavrov believed that the Bakunists had money for
a publication.
The Bakunists, however, looked rather skeptically
at Lavrov. They considered his original program
too conservative and dull, and when he arrived
in Zurich they were scornful of his elegant dress.
Bakunin complained of Lavrov’s “learned self-satisfaction.” But the Bakunists also needed some sort
of public recognition. Bakunin had just suffered a
crushing defeat in the International; the General
Council, meeting in The Hague in September, had
backed Marx, who, with Utin’s exhaustive report on
Bakunin’s intrigues in hand, had excluded Bakunin
and his followers from the ranks of the International.
With his international position collapsing, Bakunin
had withdrawn again to Locarno, and his followers
in Zurich, led by Sazhin, calculated that association
with Lavrov, if acceptable, could bring contacts with
Russia that they at present lacked. Therefore, alt-
hough still skeptical, they were willing to hear what
the well-dressed gentleman had to say.
Revising his program to appeal to the Bakunists,
Lavrov added a discourse on his opposition to “centralized political programs.” He did not hide his
preference for legal change, but he added a criticism
of “pseudo-liberal legality.” If there were more Russian publications in the West, he argued, it would
be possible to be more definite in his program, and
he admitted that his views were “problematic.” The
journal, he suggested, would be a forum for discussions leading to the formation of a new party.
The first phase of the negotiations went seemingly
well, and Sazhin agreed to take Lavrov’s proposal to
Bakunin in Locarno. Bad snow conditions hindered
his travel, however, and he was absent for several
days.
While Sazhin was gone, Lavrov continued to charm
the members of the Russian community. As one
observer exclaimed, “I had not expected such a
popularizing talent of Petr Lavrovich!” His new
gospel of social responsibility won the hearts of
the students: “... little by little,” reported this same
observer, “our young revolutionaries will put aside
revolutionary rhetoric, their play at political onanism, and understand that it is possible to be a revolutionary without using bad words and donning a
Phrygian cap.” Admitting “perhaps I am prejudiced
and unjust,” the man declared that he now had
the deep conviction that Lavrov’s personality is
more imposing than Bakunin’s, that Lavrov is far
more dangerous to the Russian Empire than our
good Mikhail Aleksandrovich.
By the end of January 1873, Lavrov’s followers were
said to outnumber the Bakunists by a ratio of more
than five to one.
The observer just quoted here, Valerian N. Smirnov,
was himself Lavrov’s most important recruit within
the community. Smirnov had first come to Zurich in
1871 and had soon become the secretary of Sazhin’s
library. He had not been completely at peace with
Bakunin, having written of him, “He is not a serious
47
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
revolutionary but an old man – he knows little, he
works little, but he still stands a head taller than the
other activists for the homeland.” An enthusiast
for a workers’ movement rather than for a party of
intellectuals, which he considered simply a party of
alienated representatives of the privileged classes,
Smirnov was impatient and intolerant toward those
who disagreed with him, but Lavrov found him a
virtually indispensable assistant, industrious and
ascetic to a fault, even undermining his own health
in his zeal. Smirnov, in turn, foresaw a “shining
future” for the journal Vpered under Lavrov’s leadership as a modern day replacement for Kolokol.
When Sazhin finally returned to Zurich in the
middle of December 1872, he brought the news that
Bakunin opposed cooperation with Lavrov, and the
Bakunists demanded a high price for their participation in any journal. Sazhin presented Lavrov
with the conditions: a Bakunist – obviously himself – should be coeditor of the publication and the
Bakunists must control the business matters of circulation and correspondence. (Smirnov at this time
characterized Sazhin as being in a “psychopathological condition” because others were attacking his
control of the Bakunists’ library.) On December 16
Sazhin and Lavrov, each accompanied by two supporters, met in a climactic confrontation.
The negotiations collapsed when Lavrov refused
to share the editorship. He considered himself to
have been called to this responsibility, and therefore
he had the duty of assuming it by himself. Sazhin
forever after claimed that Lavrov had more or less
promised him joint editorship, but Lavrov was so
convinced of his own calling that he could hardly
have made such an offer. When the men parted,
Lavrov expressed the hope that they would still be
able to cooperate, but Sazhin replied that they were
locked in a struggle to the death.
From his haven in Locarno, Bakunin welcomed the
failure of the negotiations. Upon reading Lavrov’s
second program, he had taken issue with Lavrov’s
emphasis on “the necessity of scientific preparation”
for the revolution. “What then?” he asked, “Are we
preparing to establish a university abroad?” He
preferred his followers to keep their distance from
Lavrov’s ideas and to oppose wasting time in academic studies when they should be preparing revolution.
48
Lavrov now devoted himself to planning his publication. Taking Kolokol as his model, he wanted
Vpered to rise above its émigré environment and to
become a genuine part of the Russian literary world.
In asking Aleksandr S. Buturlin to write a quarterly
survey of bourgeois European politics, he specified
that he wanted this done “from the point of view of
socialism and the International. It would be desi-
rable to give it a somewhat humorous character
and to look at it as a comedy played out in front
of us as we watch, like something unreal, amusing
in its unrealness and only occasionally tragic in the
results of its unreal efforts.” The point was to expose
the moral decay of “bourgeois-legal society,” but
Lavrov was also concerned about observing high
literary standards.
Finances required special effort. The early promises of support proved evanescent, and Lavrov
had to raise the necessary funding himself. At the
end of 1872, he sent Rosalia Idelson, Smirnov’s
wife, to Russia, and he considered the results of her
trip a “brilliant success,” even though she brought
back more psychological than material aid. Lavrov
donated the income from various of his own writings to the cause, and others of his followers added
what they could. The publication’s total annual
income has been estimated at perhaps 3500 francs
at its best, and its creators were often barely able to
maintain themselves at a subsistence level.
The last major question that had to be settled was
where to print the journal. One of Lavrov’s friends
had suggested Leipzig. The Brockhaus establishment
had excellent equipment for producing Russian
publications, and some liberal writers found that
they could even have their manuscripts converted
to print in just three days. But Russian political
émigrés in Germany lived in constant fear of tsarist
spies, and Lavrov dismissed Germany early on in
his considerations.
When Lavrov considered Geneva, he found that
the Russian print shops there had all fallen upon
difficult times. Czerniecki had died in the summer
of 1872, and his press was no longer functioning.
Reportedly things had gone so badly that the remaining stock of Kolokol had been sold off at fifteen
centimes a pound, and it was now serving as wrapping paper in a grocery store. Elpidin, of course, was
still in business, but he had a Bakunist background.
The Narodnoe delo print shop also had fallen on bad
times. Utin, once Lavrov had clearly broken with
Bakunin, seemed willing to negotiate, but he posed
elaborate conditions.
There was also a new print shop in Geneva, sponsored by the chaikovtsy, but it had just moved from
the Zurich region, and Lavrov was leery of having
much to do with it. The chaikovtsy, the Chaikovsky
circle in Russia, had decided to exploit the possibilities of publishing in the emigration some time
earlier, and they sent Vasily Aleksandrov, one of the
pioneers in their activity of providing reading material to the public, to Geneva, to purchase copies of
Elpidin’s edition of Chernyshevsky’s works. While
this move gave Elpidin some welcome cash, the
choice of Aleksandrov for the task had unfortunate
Chapter 8: A HOUSE ON SAND
consequences. The chaikovtsy observed stern ascetic
and moral principles as a group, and they were subsequently shocked to learn of Aleksandrov’s efforts
to win female members of the group over to his own
peculiar doctrine of free love.
Yet, he declared, “in general they are good people.”
He still had grand images of the support that the
students would give him. When he returned,
however, he found himself immediately drawn into
new controversy.
Aleksandrov nevertheless organized a print shop.
He established a good working relationship in
Geneva with Elpidin – perhaps in part due to their
common fondness for the opposite sex – and with
Elpidin’s help he obtained type. He first wanted to
set up shop in Zurich, but when the local authorities would not allow him to operate within the city,
he located in nearby Wintertur. He printed several
important works, including one by Karl Marx,
another volume (in cooperation with Elpidin) of
Chernyshevsky’s works, and a collection of folk
tales assembled by Aleksandr Afanasiev, a publication that later connoisseurs would consider a classic
of Russian erotica.
His first conflict, as he might well have expected,
came with the Bakunists, or the “Rossists” as they
were often called with reference to Sazhin’s revolutionary pseudonym “Armand Ross.” Lavrov’s followers, headed by Smirnov, had begun withdrawing
books in great numbers from Sazhin’s library and
not returning them; Sazhin closed his library. The
Lavrists proceeded to organize their own center.
Smirnov, declaring that the great majority of the
Russians in Zurich had shifted into Lavrov’s camp,
left his post as secretary of Sazhin’s library took
along with him some 300 francs in subscription
money.
Aleksandrov’s publishing career proved stormy
and short, yet his print shop represented a major
new thrust for émigré publishing. For the first
time a printer in the West was operating on the
basis of funds and, to some extent, orders from
Russia. Aleksandrov himself proved to be too controversial, even for the émigré publishing world.
His lectures, on topics such as “Down with Universities and Learning,” were popular enough, but
his personal relations with female students proved
his undoing. In the fall of 1872, in the midst of
the furor surrounding Nechaev’s arrest and extradition, Aleksandrov moved the press to Geneva.
The chaikovstsy, who also felt that he was not
adequately accounting for his expenditures, sent
a new man, Lazar Goldenberg, to work with him,
and eventually Aleksandrov had to give up his
publishing activity. Besides misgivings he might
have had about Aleksandrov’s character, Lavrov
probably considered this shop too sympathetic
toward Bakunin to be relied on.
Lavrov finally decided, despite contrary advice, to
found his own print shop. With some help from
Elpidin, the Lavrists purchased type in March 1873.
The Zurich authorities, still upset by the controversy of the Nechaev affair, allowed them to establish themselves in the city on the condition that
they print just their journal and no proclamations
or broadsheets. The shop only set type, it had no
machine. Once the type was ready, it had to be sent
off the premises to be printed, and of course the
finished product had to be bound elsewhere.
At the end of February 1873 Lavrov returned to
Paris to put his affairs there in order. At this point
he already had some misgivings about settling in
Zurich. The community there, he acknowledged,
was energetic, but it lacked the “right perspective.”
Bakunin urged Sazhin and his followers to continue the fight: “Your position is now so clear and
pure that nothing remains to be desired. What may
to others seem defeat I consider a victory. You are
twenty people, united by common ideals and a clearly defined target... You will unite still more closely; cursed be the man who would start conflicts
among you.” Bakunin, however, remained isolated
in Locarno, and Sazhin directed the struggle in
Zurich.
As his first step to counter Lavrov’s influence,
Sazhin organized his own printing press. He knew
that the group still lacked the financial and intellectual resources to publish a journal, but he calculated that they could handle brochures and booklets. When he looked for help in Geneva, however,
Elpidin exploded in rage: “Why don’t you want to
enter into an arrangement with someone and save
the revolutionary treasury?” The chaikovtsy should
be able to handle any job the Bakunists might have,
and as for Sazhin’s intention to organize a “secret”
shop, Elpidin exclaimed, “1. Either you are making
jokes from boredom, or 2. One of you is on friendly
terms with a provocateur.” Nevertheless Sazhin
went ahead.
Gathering funds from his followers, he ordered
type from Germany, and he himself built a model
case from which a carpenter could make more.
The group even purchased a printing machine,
although, according to Sazhin, they never learned
to operate it well. Despite having no experience in
printing, Sazhin began work on two publications
– essays on the history of the International and an
essay by Bakunin.
Seeing Sazhin’s activity, Lavrov rushed to publish a
new program for his journal in lithographed form,
since his own print shop was not yet ready. This
49
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
now constituted his third program in one year, and
he received considerable criticism for what seemed
to be the inconsistency of his ideas. Sympathizers
argued that he had been addressing different audiences and that indeed his views had developed and
changed as a result of his prolonged discussions
with different groups. Critics, on the other hand,
accused him of lacking ideological commitment. At
any rate, Lavrov now had a program with which he
was ready to work.
Lavrov admitted that he could not match the elegant writing style of Herzen, but he nevertheless
wanted to follow in the footsteps of that pioneer of
the uncensored word. He eschewed revolutionary
phraseology in his new publication and spoke of the
impossibility of “artificially” bringing revolution to
Russia. His goal, he explained, was to struggle for a
realistic, materialistic world outlook and for equality between people – in short, “the most just structure of society.” Emphasizing the “social struggle”
against the Russian government, as opposed to the
“political struggle” for reform of the empire, Lavrov
noted that there were no other émigré publications representing the various lines of thought now
emerging among Russians, and therefore he hoped
to include “all shades of Russian radical-socialistic
thought” in his journal. He wanted this to be a
popular informational publication. Contributions,
however, would have to be acceptable to the majority of the publication’s associates.
The Lavrists established their headquarters in a
building located atop the Zurichberg, where they
set up their print shop and where Lavrov himself
lived. (There was some debate as to whether the
Lavrists, in principle socialists, could own land;
in the end they organized a cooperative for which
they sold shares at 50 francs apiece.) Smirnov
served as Lavrov’s administrative assistant; Aleksandr Linev, whom Lavrov had met in exile, organized the print shop, handled business affairs, and
directed the typesetting work. Together the group
constituted a commune, receiving no salaries but
provided with the basic necessities of life by the
collective.
50
Much of the labor in the print shop came from
women students in Zurich, the so-called “Fritschi,”
who took their name from that of their landlady.
(Their work may in fact have violated Swiss law for
employment in printing establishments.) Numbering some 14 members, mostly from upper-class
backgrounds, the group looked to Sofiia Bardina
as their leader, and in subsequent years the women
maintained their collective identity when later
becoming active in Russia. In the spring of 1873,
they rallied to Lavrov, and their contribution to the
collective so intrigued Ivan Turgenev that he pro-
mised 500 francs annually to support the group.
Onto the scene, however, quickly came violence.
Smirnov had assured Lavrov that the struggle over
the Rossists’ library would not affect his work in
Zurich, but on April 7 several of Sazhin’s followers
visited Smirnov and demanded his copies of the
book The Refractories, by Varfolomei Zaitsev and
Nikolai Sokolov. (Smirnov had taken part of the
run in exchange for having underwritten the work’s
publication by Aleksandrov at the Chaikovtsy
press.) An argument developed, and Sokolov, a
robust man, struck Smirnov, by all descriptions a
frail, ascetic person. A major uproar then tore the
Russian colony apart.
The Lavrists henceforth guarded their leader carefully, fearing for his very life. Many of the émigrés
began to carry guns for their self-protection. Although neither side desired the intervention of the
Swiss authorities, the police in Zurich – at the requests of the Lavrists, the Rossists claimed – ordered
Sokolov out of the canton and put another man,
Zemfire Ralli, under surveillance.
Sazhin indignantly rejected demands by the Lavrists that he leave the city, but he too had to protect
himself from attack. One of Lavrov’s female supporters accosted him on the street and hit him with her
umbrella; Sazhin apparently pulled a gun from his
pocket and struck her in return, drawing blood. In
his memoirs, Sazhin pictured a gang of Lavrists stalking him through all of Zurich. Bakunin eventually
came to Zurich himself to help restore peace, but
both sides continued to nurture resentment toward
the other.
Lavrov found this atmosphere very difficult to live
and work in, certainly not what he had expected
when he had decided to move to Zurich, but he
adopted a fatalistic attitude. “There are a million
unpleasantries,” he declared,
such that I never thought I would experience, such
that practically put my life in danger, but I tell you
completely sincerely that all these unpleasantries
don’t bother me as they would have in another time.
I don’t have a penny’s worth of faith in people; I
know that individual passions, individual egoisms,
petty calculations, and personal vanities play a
very important role around me, alongside sincere
and semi-sincere convictions.
His only worry, he insisted, was his concern that he
should have the strength and energy to see his plans
through to completion.
Torn by internal strife, the Russian colony in Zurich
also faced attacks mounted by the Russian government. A token of official interest had appeared in
Chapter 8: A HOUSE ON SAND
an obviously inspired series of articles published in
Moskovskie vedemosti in January 1873. (The author,
a former émigré named Gzhebitsky, would seem to
have bought permission to return home by writing
this set of articles.) Offering a sort of history of the
emigration, the articles painted a picture of petty
intrigue and scandal, and they depicted the Russians
among the émigrés as being exploited and cheated
by various Jews, Poles, and Caucasians. The author
accused “B” (Bakst) of having lived on Herzen’s largesse and “Zh” (Zhukovsky) of having taken money
from Herzen and then losing it at roulette. The “hero
of the Russian emigration” was Elpidin, mentioned
by his full name: “poor, begging, or plundering,
always ragged, uncombed, with the expression of a
drunken lackey, and, moreover, endlessly stupid, he
carries on so well that he has won the general scorn
of his own people as well as of others.” Czerniecki
was a “sponger” of “a type only to be found among
Poles”; his patron, Herzen, had had only his money
to recommend himself. These denunciations, to
be sure, were out of date in 1873, but the Russian
government was firing only its first salvo.
In the early days of June 1873 there arose rumors
that the government in St. Petersburg was preparing
a decree concerning the emigration. On June 8 the
Swiss press carried the actual text, but the Russian
colony in Zurich already knew the main lines of
the document the day before. Dated June 3 (May
22 according to the Russian calendar), the decree
struck a mortal blow at the Russian colony, undermining its fundamental reason for existence, which
was to study in Zurich in preparation for careers at
home in Russia.
Claiming to be distressed by “unpleasant information” about a “revolutionary center” in Zurich,
the Russian government bemoaned the way in
which “the young and inexperienced minds” of the
women studying medicine there were being twisted
in a “false direction.” Becoming “obedient weapons”
of émigré leaders, the women were succumbing to
“communist theories of free love” and were disregarding “feminine chastity.” Some had “so fallen
that they are especially studying that branch of obstetrics that in all countries is punished by criminal
law and is despised by honest people.” Decrying this
“moral decay of the young generation,” the decree
expressed fears for the future when the women
would return home to become “wives, mothers, and
teachers,” and it asked, “What sort of generation
can such women raise?”
Affirming its own concern for the proper education
of women, the government promised an improved
program at home in the future, and then it stated
the purpose of the decree:
In view of all this the government duly warns all
Russian women attending the university and the
polytechnicum in Zurich that those who continue to
attend lectures in these institutions after January
1 of the coming year 1874 will not be admitted to
any occupations for which permission depends on
the government or to any examinations for Russian
institutions of higher learning.
If the women wanted to return to careers in Russia,
they would have to leave Zurich; the decree did not
discuss the male students in Zurich.
The decree hit its mark, just as a similar decree in
1866 had shattered a colony of Russian students at
the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Although
the Russians in Zurich protested, by and large they
bowed to the decree, which, after all, was by no
means as severe as some had feared. (There had been
rumors that the government would order everyone
home immediately.) By the fall semester of 1873 the
number of Russian students in Zurich had declined
precipitously, as the women turned especially to the
medical schools in Bern and Geneva. (The Swiss in
Bern came to call the university’s medical school
“eine slawische Mädchenschule.”) The male students
followed the lead of the females in leaving Zurich.
The decree also doomed the two Russian print
shops in Zurich because their constituencies were
suddenly washing away around them. Lavrov had
disregarded the warnings that his moving to Zurich
might compromise the colony of women studying
there, and while he was not dependent on the students for financial support, the dissolution of the
colony meant the loss of contact with Russians who
planned yet to return home. It also meant the loss
of volunteer labor in the print shop. Zurich was
losing everything that had appealed to him. For the
moment, however, Lavrov and Sazhin both continued the work of their print shops.
In the course of June 1873 the Vpered shop completed its first publication, an essay by Lavrov “To
the Russian Women Students in Zurich,” his response to the Russian government’s decree. (While
critical of the government and of Russian education, he told the students that each had to decide
her own course.) The first issue of Vpered, totaling
some 475 pages of small type, appeared toward the
end of the summer. “Far from the homeland we raise
our banner,” the editors wrote, “the banner of social
revolution for Russia, for the whole world.” Reconfirming the principle of anonymity for contributors,
the introductory essay spoke of the publication’s
representing “not the work of one person, of a
circle, but the’ work of all Russians aware that the
present political order is leading Russia to ruin, that
the present social structure cannot heal its wounds.”
51
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
In a contribution entitled “Knowledge and Revolution,” Lavrov reiterated his belief in the necessity of
preparing for revolution through education.
Lavrov’s readers had trouble understanding his
message: His summons to education might well
separate the intellectual still further from the
masses, telling the young to go to school rather
than to work among the people. The students still
in Zurich were beginning to complain that he was
too cerebral, too abstract, and that he seemed too
hesitant in lending them books. Lavrov in turn
bemoaned the students’ cultural level. The Russian
government’s decree served only to intensify, not
to cause, tension between Lavrov and his young
compatriots.
Over in the Bakunist camp, Sazhin welcomed
Lavrov’s problems, but he had little time to savor
them as he had troubles within his own small fortress. In his memoirs he would have his readers
believe that everying in his print shop had proceeded smoothly until his three comrades – Aleksandr
Golshtein, Zemfire Ralli, and Aleksandr Elsnits
– suddenly turned on him. The problems actually
dated back more than a year, as the three men had
repeatedly objected to Sazhin’s authoritarian practices and had tried to appeal directly to Bakunin.
Bakunin had firmly supported Sazhin; in July 1873
he formally confirmed Sazhin as the director of the
print shop. While the three rebels still protested
their devotion and feeling for Bakunin, they chose
to leave Zurich and to organize their own commune
in Geneva.
Sazhin found himself with two unfinished manuscripts in his print shop. He received some help from
newcomers, but he had to set type himself. Upon
finishing the last two signatures of his publication on
the history of the International, he decided to close
the shop. What remained to be done of Bakunin’s
essay State and Anarchy he sent to Geneva, where
Elpidin arranged to have it completed in Trusov’s
print shop. Once he had the sheets, Sazhin had
them bound in Zurich, and he then liquidated his
holdings. He sold the printing press; he turned the
remains of his library over to Elpidin in Geneva;
and he sent his type off to London.
52
Lavrov also began to cast his eyes at London, although for the moment he continued his work in
Zurich. In the fall of 1873 his press printed a manuscript entitled Khitraia mekhanika (The Cunning
Trick), which became one of the classics of a new
form of émigré publication called “books for the
people,” narodnye knigi. Presented as a conversation
between two peasants, The Cunning Trick aimed at
explaining the role of direct and indirect taxation
in the exploitation of the population. When Lavrov
received the manuscript, he decided it needed con-
siderable reworking, and as a result although the
typesetting was begun in November 1873, the job
was not completed until some time in 1874. The
work almost immediately became a revolutionary
best-seller, but successive reprinting and revisions
so changed it that the original author, Vasily E.
Varzar, eventually had trouble recognizing his own
creation.
Lavrov’s print shop scored another important success when he obtained a work by Chernyshevsky,
Letters without an Address, originally written in
1862. The manuscript had an odd history. Marx had
received it from a Russian correspondent in August
1872. The Russian, N. F. Danielson, had thought it
should be printed as a part of Chernyshevsky’s collected works, but because the collected works were
a project of Elpidin’s and Aleksandrov’s, Marx was
unwilling to pass the manuscript on. Therefore he
asked Utin about it, and Utin responded enthusiastically: “If this is an important piece, then we will
always find the means to print it.” Utin, however,
had no capital with which to start, and as Marx
explained to Danielson, “I still have the manuscript
you sent since Utin is not in a position to print it,
and Elpidin belongs to that gang of scoundrels.”
Utin nevertheless told Lavrov that the Narodnoe
delo shop was reserving its available paper for “a
very important manuscript, namely a manuscript
by N. G. Chern-sky (this is just between us),” but
the matter stood stalemated until German Lopatin
returned to the scene.
Lopatin had arrived back in the West in August 1873.
After two unsuccessful attempts to escape his prison
in Irkutsk, he had finally succeeded on June 10. He
first visited Lavrov in Zurich, and then he traveled
to Geneva, where, among other things, he looked
into the disposition of Chernyshevsky’s manuscript.
“It would seem that Trusov has acted the rogue with
you just as you have with him,” Lopatin reported to
Lavrov, “i.e., he assured you that he had the manuscript and was already setting type, when it had only
been promised him.” Although Utin insisted that he
was indeed about to begin printing, Lopatin won
the manuscript for Lavrov, insisting that the Vpered
group in Zurich had both the will and the funds to
act immediately
At Lopatin’s urging, Lavrov then interrupted his
work on the second issue of Vpered to print the
manuscript as a separate pamphlet, which appeared
in the middle of January 1874. The editors explained
that they had received this text by chance and had
decided to publish it as a service to their readers.
The next issue of Vpered then followed in March
1874; totaling over 440 pages, the volume had the
same format as the first, including three different
sets of pagination.
Chapter 8: A HOUSE ON SAND
Even before the appearance of Vpered’s second
volume, however, Lavrov had left Zurich. After
the departure of the students, there had been little
reason to stay there, and he had decided to move.
In all, his experience in Zurich had been disappointing. Lavrov later blamed the Swiss and the Russian
governments for his troubles, but he realized that
he too had erred. “I know that I seriously damaged
my reputation in Zurich,” he admitted, and in a
letter to Lopatin he complained about the problems
of “publishing a serious journal for circles who
should be studying the alphabet.” Leaving Smirnov
in Zurich to take care of the details of completing
volume II and of shipping the shop’s equipment to
London, Lavrov departed for London at the beginning of February 1874, again thinking of himself as
following in Herzen’s footsteps.
The task of moving the shop proved more diffficult
than expected. Aleksandr Linev. Lavrov’s business
manager, packed the type in his luggage, but on the
French coast he ran afoul of security precautions
aimed at protecting a visiting Russian Grand Duke.
The French authorities identified him and his traveling companion as Russians and stopped them
for questioning. His answers were confused, and
the authorities then insisted on examining their
luggage, in which they found forged passports,
women’s clothing, and the Russian type. When the
two Russians were taken into custody, Lavrov sent
an anguished appeal to a friend in Paris, who, after
much travail, managed to arrange their release.
Finally, in March, everyone was settled in new lodgings in London, ready to renew their activity on
behalf of social revolution in Russia.
53
Chapter 9:
LAVROV IN LONDON
Lavrov had few misgivings about leaving the émigré
environment in Switzerland – he considered his stay
there to have been an unfortunate experience – but
much to his surprise he encountered his first major
problem in London from within his own camp.
Petr Tkachev had joined him in the fall of 1873 as
a representative of the Chaikovtsy in Russia. Now
just over 30 years of age, Tkachev had been arrested
several times in the 1860s and then sentenced to
internal exile. Released at the end of 1872, he was
exiled to his family estate in Velikie Luki, and then
the Chaikovtsy had urged him to go abroad to work
with Lavrov. He agreed, although he had already
expressed his own opposition to Lavrov’s philosophical outlook.
Labeling himself a “nihilist,” Tkachev had published
extensively in Russia, and in 1869 he had briefly
operated an underground printing press in St.
Petersburg. Having accepted the principle of economic materialism, he demanded the overthrow of
the capitalist order; in 1871 the tsarist authorities
had exiled him on the charge “of having repudiated
the principle of property with the aim of destroying
it or weakening its foundation.” Since the masses
were not yet ready to understand this theory, Tkachev argued, it would be necessary for an intellectual elite to lead them into revolution. With those
Jacobin ideas, Tkachev was destined to clash with
Lavrov and also with other members of the Vpered
collective.
54
In Zurich, despite his established reputation and
experience, Tkachev had to take his place in the
second rank. Supported by Smirnov, Lavrov even
rejected an article by Tkachev; he particularly
criticized Tkachev’s picture of a post-revolutionary society of ease and plenty as being false and
misleading. On the other hand, Tkachev objected
to Smirnov’s essay “Revolutionaries from the Privileged Milieu,” printed in the second volume of
Vpered, which argued that the people, and not the
intelligentsia, constituted the revolutionary force
in society. Smirnov called on the educated youth
to divest themselves of their hubris and to devote
themselves to serving the people.
Tkachev also objected to Vpered’s practice of anonymity for its contributors. The cycle begun by Herzen
was now complete. As a reaction to Herzen’s personalized style, Narodnoe delo had insisted on anonymity in order to stress the concept of the collective,
the group; now Tkachev demanded the freedom to
distinguish his own views from those of the Lavrist
collective. Lavrov, as part of his own mystique of
publishing, insisted that articles must be published
anonymously.
Despite his various complaints and misgivings, Tkachev followed Lavrov to London and rejoined the
commune, but he also began to plan his break. First
of all he sought out Sazhin, who had now also moved
to London. Sazhin felt no particular friendship for
Tkachev. As he reported in his memoirs, “Calling
himself a friend of Lavrov and living together with
his fellow workers, Tkachev at the same time was
writing his well known brochure.” Sazhin nevertheless agreed to let Tkachev use his shop to produce a
tract attacking Lavrov.
Once the brochure, entitled Tasks of Revolutionary
Propaganda in Russia, was completed, Tkachev still
deceived Lavrov about his intentions. He announced
that he had to go to France, and Lavrov, together
with Smirnov and Lopatin, even went to the train
station to see him off. When Sazhin also showed
up at the station, Tkachev pretended that he did
not know him. Lavrov was still ignorant about the
brochure’s existence, and when he finally received
a copy of the brochure, his anger and indignation
knew no bounds.
Tkachev held nothing back in dismissing Lavrov
as a representative of an older generation and out
of date with the times: “You very clearly do not
believe in revolution,” Tkachev wrote, “and do not
wish its success.” The proper task for a revolutionary
journal, the younger man insisted, was not to theorize and to educate but to stimulate and to stir into
action. “The question what is to be done should no
longer be put to us!” he exclaimed. “It is long since
determined: A revolution should be made.” A conspiratorial organization should be working for the
seizure of political power.
Chapter 9: LAVROV IN LONDON
Lavrov tolerated no middle ground in this challenge
from Tkachev – either one supported the editorial
policies of Vpered or one opposed them. When
some of the Fritschi, now in Paris, took issue with
his position, Lavrov angrily called them “emptyheaded and worthless natures.” As he put it, “I forgive and will forgive none of those who know me
and who are not upset by this libel.” He ultimately
attributed the controversy to a generational problem:
I find our contemporary youth very poor in the
great majority of its examples. In the beginning of
the ‘60s, there was incomparably more flame, more
selflessness, less petty and worthless motives.
To be sure, his image of the early 60s was skewed –
Tkachev had been one of the flaming youths of that
period.
Lavrov framed his public response as separate brochure. “I have to write these pages,”” he asserted,
not to defend himself or Vpered, but rather to
counteract the harmful ideas advanced by Tkachev.
Arguing that propaganda and agitation were complementary and indistinguishable, he insisted that
the political seizure of power did not of itself assure
social revolution if the proper groundwork had
not been prepared by propaganda and education.
When his pamphlet was ready in June, Lavrov gave
it the broadest possible dissemination, even sending a copy to Karl Marx: “The author of Kapital,”
he wrote, “should have in his library the works of all
parties.” By July 1874 Lavrov believed that he had
won the struggle: Tkachev’s brochure was hard to
find while Trübner was distributing his response.
He refused to print Tkachev’s response in Vpered,
saying that the journal was not meant for polemics.
“Only a small minority is hostile to us,” Lavrov gloated to Lopatin. “Tkachev’s brochure made a repulsive impression. Practically no one supported him.
My brochure was well received.”
Eventually Friedrich Engels took the occasion of
this dispute to level a few more shots at an old foe.
In an essay on émigré literature, after a jab at the
Russians’ “comical” passion for anonymity, Engels
marveled at Tkachev’s bravado in demanding an
equal voice in the publication of Vpered. “In Germany they would have ridiculed him, but the Russians are not so crude.” Engels went on to challenge
Tkachev’s assertion that the people were ready for
revolution: “Why the devil don’t you get to work?”
he asked sarcastically. Turning back to Lavrov’s response, Engels laughed at the Russian’s alleged discomfort in having to resort to printed polemics. It
was just such silly editorial practices on the part of
the Russians, Engels concluded, that had allowed
Bakunin to deceive the West about developments
in Russia. Lavrov did not respond to Engels’s comments, but Tkachev engaged Engels in a polemic in
the German press.
As the controversy faded in the summer and fall
of 1874, the Russian emigration briefly turned its
attention to a demand of the tsarist authorities that
nineteen leading émigrés return home. Of the men
named in the decree of May 5, 1874, fifteen were
abroad without legal papers and four had violated
the terms of their passports by having remained
abroad for more than five years. If these men did
not return home within six months, the government would regard them as “exiles from the fatherland and take their property into custody.”
While the decree did not speak of émigré publications, its list gave ample testimony to the significance that the tsarist authorities gave to émigré
printing and publishing. Lazar Goldenberg,
Trusov, Sazhin, Lavrov, and Smirnov were currently directing presses; Aleksandrov, Elpidin,
Golshtein, Ralli, Elsnitz, and Tkachev were either
past or future directors of presses; Zhukovsky,
Sokolov, Semen Serebrennikov, and Vladimir
Ozerov were known as writers. Bakunin, Ogarev,
and Utin were now inactive, but the government
understood little of such distinctions. The nineteenth name, the man who caused the government
perhaps the most trouble by his travels in and out
of Russia, was German Lopatin.
The émigrés responded defiantly; unlike the students, they had no intention of openly returning to
Russia under the current regime. Angered by the
fact that the local authorities in Geneva contacted
persons mentioned in the decree, a number of them,
led by Elsnitz and Elpidin, called for a united, public
protest. Lavrov, however, chilled this move by refusing to join, arguing that the decree was too formal
and too insignificant to merit attention and publicity. Utin, now withdrawn to London, supported
Lavrov, and as a result the emigration remained
publicly silent. The government, on the other hand,
found the decree ineffective and confused; efforts
to seize property in Russia became tied up in long
drawn out court cases.
Having now dismissed both Tkachev and the
government from his mind, Lavrov concentrated
on developing Vpered’s image. “You are mistaken,”
he told Lopatin,
if you think that we are not responsible to the public
for the content of what we publish. True, with Goldenberg, from Trusov, from Elpidin, even from Aleksandrov, no one will question if they print on order,
but from Vpered, from me, they will question if we
print nonsense, and I would never in all eternity
55
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
recover from rubbish, sent with the best of will, but
nevertheless rubbish, if it appeared with us.
The press, he insisted, had to be careful about the
form, content, and even provenance of its materials.
Much as he wanted to picture himself as picking
up Herzen’s pen, however, Lavrov could not act as
independently as Herzen had. First of all, he did
not have the personal wealth to fall back on. He
was anxiously dependent on contributions from
Russia, and he was aghast when informed that a
Russian bookstore was demanding payment for
bills incurred before his flight from exile. He feared
that the long arm of the Tsar might yet drag him
before a British court and impound his possessions,
including the print shop.
Equally disturbing was his inability to control speculation in the sale of copies of Vpered (but then
this was a problem that had also troubled Herzen).
Each volume of Vpered was supposed to sell for
two and one-half rubles, yet Lavrov heard of a
copy’s going for as much as 25 rubles in Russia. He
received nothing of this profit, and dependent as
he was on donations, he feared that readers might
not feel the need to contribute to a publication that
cost so much. At the other extreme, he was also distressed by rumors that he had wealthy backers and
therefore did not need small contributions. He later,
to be sure, spoke glowingly of the contributions he
had received from the writer Ivan Turgenev.
Despite his financial problems he felt the need to
expand, not contract, because of the flood of news
coming from Russia. During the summers of 1873
and 1874 a remarkable movement of Russian students into the countryside, known as the movement “to the people,” had stirred up governmental
repression, and the third volume of Vpered, which
appeared in the fall of 1874, had blown up to over
740 pages. This type of thick, irregular publication
– like Herzen’s Poliarnaia zvezda – could not keep
up with the fast breaking news. Lavrov called for a
monthly or bi-weekly newspaper as a supplement
– much in the style that Herzen’s Kolokol had been
conceived.
56
Reports of new activity in Geneva also spurred him
on. Tkachev was said to be negotiating with Elpidin
for the publication of a periodical. The chaikovtsy
press was planning a newspaper to be called Rabotnik (The Worker). To be sure, the chaikovtsy’s
publication would probably follow the simplified
style of the “books for the people,” and so there
would be no serious competition from that quarter.
But Lavrov particularly feared the possible competition of Tkachev.
On December 25, 1874, the Vpered commune laid
plans for a new publication, which would also use
the name Vpered but bear the subtitle “A Biweekly
Survey.” The survey would be a supplement to the
thick journal, which would continue to appear irregularly. The newspaper would have three sections:
an editorial section with commentary; “What is
going on at home,” including news and small articles on current questions; and “Chronicle of the
Workers’ Movement,” including both articles and
small news items. There remained, as ever, the question of funds, and Lavrov recognized that he could
run into trouble: “If this is not set up,” he declared,
“then this new enterprise can put us in a real squeeze as regards money.” Nevertheless he was eager
to forge ahead.
Lavrov immediately discovered that the problems
of printing a newspaper were very different from
those he had faced up to this point. The existence of
deadlines made him compromise with his natural
bent to investigate a topic thoroughly, and he found
that even passing problems could be terribly disruptive when they ran into a deadline. As the first
issue went to press, for example, he was ill, and his
helpers completely forgot about his plan to print
100 copies on extra-thin paper so that they could be
more easily smuggled into Russia.
Despite such problems, the first issue, consisting of
sixteen double-columned pages and dated January
15, 1875, appeared on schedule. In his editorial
introduction, Lavrov called this an experiment: “If
this succeeds, then we will keep the new form of our
publication in its two forms of irregular books and
biweekly supplements. If it does not succeed, we will
return to the earlier form of publication.” The newspaper schematically outlined Lavrov’s program:
Prepare social, popular revolution. Prepare it in the
people, who alone can carry it out. Prepare yourself
for this intellectually and morally, in understanding and in customs of life, by thought, word, and
deed.
With the second issue, dated February 1, the Vpered
commune settled into a routine that produced the
most punctual and regular periodical published
by the nineteenth century Russian emigration. In
one room sat Smirnov, working day and night. In
the next room male and female typesetters labored
intensely at four cases. (According to Lavrov, one
typesetter set his answer to Tkachev, which came
to 60 pages, in one night.) When their work was
done, the typesetters could sleep, and Linev would
take over, formatting the pages, at times scurrying
into the editor’s office to force the dropping of a
line or two, the adding of a line or two. Once set,
the type had to be carried to the press of the Daily
Chapter 9: LAVROV IN LONDON
News to be run off. And so the commune toiled
for two years, publishing the newspaper every two
weeks.
As Lavrov devoted himself to the printed word, he
displayed little understanding of more adventuresome spirits. He despaired of Lopatin’s boldness,
and he was particularly upset when a new young
acquaintance, Sergei Kravchinsky, chose to go to
the Balkans in the summer of 1875 to take part in
the Serbian struggle against Turkish rule. Upon
hearing that “this crazy man is going to Herzegovina,” Lavrov decried the influence that Sazhin and
Bakunin still had on the youth – “But what can you
do with young blood?”
Adding insult to injury, Kravchinsky sent Lavrov
a long letter, paying tribute to Lavrov’s honesty
and integrity but telling him that he had no business publishing “a revolutionary organ,” because he
lacked the proper “revolutionary instinct.” Kravchinsky called him a “man of thought, not of passion. And this is not enough.” An émigré publication, Kravchinsky continued, could only “follow
the party,” not lead it. Demanding fewer words and
more deeds, Kravchinsky insisted that all revolutions begin with action; propaganda alone could
accomplish nothing.
Kravchinsky’s declaration deeply upset Lavrov,
who suggested a formal exchange of views in the
pages of Vpered and then went on to assail Sazhin
as an evil influence on the young. Kravchinsky
rejected the invitation to a literary duel, and he
defended Sazhin as a close associate of Bakunin,
adding “Surely you yourself don’t think... that
your word can have greater weight than Bakunin’s
word?” Kravchinsky then went off to battle, leaving Lavrov outraged.
Kravchinsky’s defection distressed Lavrov all the more
because his supporters in Russia at this time, the fall
of 1875, were conducting delicate negotiations with
Kravchinsky’s erstwhile colleagues, the chaikovtsy,
with the aim of establishing a single revolutionary
organization. Although the revolutionaries liked to
use the term “revolutionary party,” or even “socialrevolutionary party,” the revolutionary movement
had no organization; the term “party” referred only to
the vague sum of the various, sometimes competing,
circles that opposed the government and somehow
wanted to reorganize society. In an effort to unify and
thereby to strengthen the movement, Lavrov’s chief
supporter in St. Petersburg, Lev Ginsburg, entered
into talks with Mark Natanson, one of the founders
of the Chaikovtsy circle. In London Lavrov watched
anxiously as the negotiations dragged on; uncertain
what the future would bring, he feared that the rift
with Kravchinsky bode ill.
The negotiations resulted in the formation of the
“Union of Russian Revolutionary Groups,” and
in December 1875 Natanson came to the West
to explain the new organization. Lavrov knew in
advance that this would be a difficult meeting, but
he always believed that his work had to be subordinated to events in Russia. He did not want to edit
an “émigré” journal – on this score Kravchinsky’s
comments had particularly hurt – and he wanted
to be a part of the Russian scene. Therefore he
always stood ready to sacrifice his own position
for the good of the cause. Yet at the same time, he
craved recognition for his own efforts. Adding to
his uneasiness was the news from Russia: during
September 1875 mass arrests in Moscow had
picked up many revolutionaries, including members of the Fritschi.
Natanson therefore found Lavrov submissive but
reserved. Lavrov was not inclined to argue with
his visitor, he accepted Natanson as the spokesman
of the revolutionary movement in Russia, but he
could tolerate direction only up to a certain point.
On December 27, 1875, after three days of talks, he
declared that he would quit and turn the editorship
over to Smirnov. Frightened, Smirnov declared
that if Lavrov resigned, he too would resign. Distrustful of Smirnov’s urging that he compromise,
Lavrov finally yielded to his own sense of duty, and
he grudgingly withdrew his resignation. Natanson
went on to dictate a new program to the Vpered
group.
The print shop in London now became the property
of the Union of Russian Revolutionary Groups. The
union would provide an annual subsidy of up to
6000 rubles. Vpered’s publications would consist of
three types – books for the people, books for the
intelligentsia, and the newspaper. Of these only
the newspaper would have a degree of autonomy,
and even so it would have to accept direction from
Russia. The book publishing activities would be
fully subordinated to the center in Russia.
In the matter of books for the people, Vpered was
to print all manuscripts sent by the union without
making any editorial changes. The union would dictate the number of copies to be printed, and orders
in this category would take precedence in the print
shop over any other work with the exception of the
newspaper. If the shop received manuscripts in this
category from other sources, it should send them to
Russia for review before committing itself to publication. If the print shop produced a work on its own
initiative, it would run the risk of the union’s banning its distribution in Russia.
Concerning books for the intelligentsia, the union
was apparently willing to consider the London group
somewhat more competent. The shop could, on its
57
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
own judgment, print books dealing with questions
of socialism, the history of popular movements
both in Russia and in the West, and commentaries
on current events. Even so the shop had to keep the
center in Russia informed about its activities, and
the union could dictate the size of the edition to be
printed.
The newspaper, under this program, would constitute a third area of activity. Accepting the newspaper as “useful for the intelligentsia,” the union
was still unwilling to declare this to be its literary
organ. Vpered could continue in editions of 20002500 copies, 1200 of which were to be given to the
union for distribution in Russia. While the union
would not be responsible for the content of articles
in the newspaper, it would not distribute any issue
carrying something of which it disapproved. If the
union submitted an article for publication, Vpered
would have to print it in the next issue without any
changes.
For Lavrov this arrangement amounted to a demotion, even a slap in the face, but he recognized the
greater principle involved here of the relationship of
any émigré publication to the needs of the situation
in Russia. He adhered to the letter of Natanson’s
demands, insisting that he henceforth had nothing
to do with anything but the newspaper. Smirnov
insisted that the program constituted an effort at
renewal: “Either our Vpered will perish or it will
enter into a new stage.” Lavrov saw himself as being
forced into retirement.
In January 1876, after Natanson’s departure for
Geneva, Lavrov had to taste still more bitter dregs.
Natanson sent back a document with new surprises,
defining procedures and establishing new offices,
including a Shipping Agency, which would handle
the transportation of publications. A more serious
problem lay in Natanson’s restructuring of the print
shop, henceforth to be directed by a triumvirate
– Smirnov, Linev, and Lazar Goldenberg, whom
the chaikovtsy now transferred from Geneva to
London. This triumvirate would handle all aspects
of the book business, providing quarterly financial
reports, directing correspondence, and reporting
to the center in Russia. The print shop essentially
became the foreign center of the union.
58
Lavrov at first threatened to resign, but his colleagues persuaded him to hold off while they sought
an explanation. He then chose to react to this bureaucratic transformation of his commune with irony
and sarcasm. In Vpered no. 26 of February 1, 1876,
he published an elaborate notice for his readers:
“Manuscripts meant for publication in the journal,
in the newspaper, or separately, should be addressed:
To the Editor of “Forward,” 4, Lower Charles St.,
Clerkenwell, London, E.C.”
“All correspondence concerning subscriptions to
the journal, to the newspaper and other publications, on the shipping of these publications, and
such, should be addressed: To the Publishing Office
of “Forward,” 4, Lower Charles St., Clerkenwell,
London, E.C.” Money should be addressed: To the
Publisher of “Forward,” Hornsey Rd., Post Office,
London, N.
As he saw it, he could offer no clearer evidence of
the new bureaucratic spirit in the print shop. He
had already taken a demonstrative step in Vpered of
January 15, 1875, by writing in the first person “I”
rather than the editorial “we,” thereby emphasizing
his understanding of his reduced, personal role in
the editing of the newspaper.
However much travail Lavrov had endured before,
he now enjoyed his labor less. Work in the office was
now different; he particularly objected to the promotion of Goldenberg, who seemed to represent the
infiltration of Bakunist ideas. In alliance with Linev,
Goldenberg introduced more radical, insurrectionist
tendencies into the group’s thoughts, and in collaboration with Aaron Liberman, a recent arrival from
Vilnius, Goldenberg pressed for greater consideration of Jewish questions. Lavrov considered moving
to Paris and fulfilling his obligations by mail.
In the long run, the relationship with the Union
of Russian Revolutionary Groups failed to bring
Vpered the promised security. The union could not
deliver on its promises of financial support, and in
the spring of 1876 it disintegrated – the Lavrists
denounced the chaikovtsy as “maniacs of insurrection and gangs.” In the breakup Lavrov’s supporters recovered rights to the Vpered press, and they
immediately asked Lavrov to reconsider his intention to retire. To help him make up his mind, they
sent along 1000 rubles. Lavrov reluctantly agreed to
stay on.
As his price for continuing, Lavrov became more
assertive. In August 1876 he directed the formation of the Vpered Publications Society, which in
turn elected him editor; he went on to draw up a
plan for the organization of the Russian PopularSocialist Revolutionary Party. His draft conceived
of the party as a federation of local “independent”
societies, the executive organ of which would be
an annual congress. Under these terms the Vpered
Publications Society would constitute a legal entity
within the party. Lavrov was showing that he too
could manipulate bureaucratic structures.
These ambitious plans, as Lavrov himself probably
realized, were nevertheless doomed to failure. His
relations with his supporters in St. Petersburg were
deteriorating, and he even had differences with
Smirnov over the new program. Lavrov was him-
Chapter 9: LAVROV IN LONDON
self weary from the continued controversy – when
he printed an obituary for Bakunin, who had died
at the beginning of July 1876, the Bakunists called
it a “slander,” and when he printed a sympathetic
account of Bakunin’s funeral, Karl Marx objected
to the glorification of the anarchist. In the fall, as
rumors circulated that Vpered was on its deathbed,
Lavrov looked forward to a congress of his followers, scheduled for Paris at the end of the year, as
the decisive confrontation.
The congress in fact brought the publication of
Vpered to an end, and it also put an end to Lavrov’s
position in the emigration as a leading publisher.
The Lavrists had chosen Paris for their meeting as
a concession to Lavrov, but they were unwilling to
concede anything else. When Lavrov pressed for
recognition of the Vpered Publishing Society as a
full voting member of the gathering, the delegates,
mostly from Russia, declared they would seat him
personally without deciding on the “organizational”
question. After listening to a variety of complaints
about Vpered’s publications, Lavrov finally rose to
say that the reports of the delegates from Russia had
convinced him that he should resign.
The delegates accepted his resignation and went on
to draw up a program that recognized the usefulness of a publications program but stressed “life”
as the major factor in molding revolutionary convictions. They voted to close down the newspaper
Vpered and approved a plan for scientific books and
brochures, brochures on social questions, and semiannual surveys of events in Russia and abroad. The
last issue of the newspaper Vpered, bearing the
date of December 31, 1876, appeared a few weeks
later. Although everyone attempted to picture the
imminent changes as simply a matter of form and
not substance, the Vpered group proved unable to
survive without Lavrov’s guiding hand.
In its last issues Vpered reported new developments
in Russia that in fact presaged things to come. A
massive demonstration before the Kazan cathedral
in St. Petersburg marked the first major urban show
of opposition to the government. Arrests might
decimate individual underground organizations,
but the numbers of such groups were increasing.
The revolutionary movement was displaying significant signs of growth, but Vpered admittedly could
not keep in step with it.
With the ending of Vpered, the second English
period of Russian émigré publishing closed. Lavrov’s
experience had been very different from Herzen’s,
but they had shared many of the same problems.
Lavrov, lacking Herzen’s financial resources, needed
aid from supporters in Russia; but like Herzen he had
resisted the thought of a party’s being formed around
his publications. Neither man was truly a politician:
Herzen was a writer, Lavrov a philosopher. Both suffered seriously in their confrontations with Bakunin.
And both had troubles dealing with younger émigrés
following them out of Russia. Yet both succeeded in
editing newspapers, in highly personal and distinctive ways, that were idealized by later generations of
revolutionaries and historians.
Another unhappy coincidence that Herzen and
Lavrov shared was the activity of a particular Russian spy, Aleksandr Balaszewicz, also known as
Count Albert Potocki. After a rather successful tour
of duty in Paris, Balaszewicz-Potocki had settled
in England in December 1863, watching Herzen.
When the Third Section ordered him to follow
Herzen to Geneva in 1865, he refused and instead
opened an antique store in London. For this he had
to take a cut in pay, but his post again assumed significance when Lavrov visited London in the summer
of 1871 to seek support for the Paris Commune.
Balaszewicz made a point of meeting Lavrov, and
he then demanded a pay raise from his superiors
in the Third Section. In 1874, when Lavrov moved
Vpered to London, Balaszewicz-Potocki was eagerly
awaiting him.
Lavrov considered Balaszewicz a useful person
to know, a man “with broad contacts and able
to perform a service in a needy moment.” In first
describing him to Lopatin, Lavrov called the man
“somehow both a Jew and a count at the same time,”
“a radical, almost a socialist.” When Lopatin sent
a picture identifying Balaszewicz as a spy, Lavrov
reponded, “The picture of Potocki is the person I
know, but I will insist that in recent years he could
not be a spy of the Russian government... He is
simply a limited conniver, greedy and vain at the
same time; perhaps he is not Potocki and probably
not a count, but this is still far from being a spy.” Although he used Potocki’s shop as a “safe address” for
correspondence from Russia, Lavrov insisted that
there was no danger because all the important letters were written either with chemicals or in code.
Balaszewicz reported to the Third Section that he
had easily penetrated Lavrov’s operation and that
Lavrov “is in our hands.” While the agent did not
affect the contents of Lavrov’s publications and
he received little information that he could have
obtained otherwise, he could hinder the distribution of Vpered within London. Lavrov’s experience
in London had also differed from Herzen’s in his
failure to win the support of a British publisher
like Trübner; this gave the tsarist authorities, using
agents like Balaszewicz, a great opportunity to limit
his income and undermine his message.
The quick collapse of the Vpered group after Lavrov’s
departure testified eloquently to his personal role in
its work. His publication had called an embryonic
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THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
party into existence, but without him, neither the
publication nor the group could survive. When
asked at what part of the Russian public he had
been aiming, Lavrov replied, “At those who must be
awakened.” He had not specifically aimed at leading
a political group – such a thing still seemed problematic for someone sitting in the emigration – and
his publications eventually failed to sink roots in
Russia.
60
In contrast to Herzen’s unhappy latter years or to
Bakunin’s confusion, however, Lavrov did not withdraw from émigré life in the aftermath of his meteoric publishing career. He viewed his departure
from Vpered as liberation, and he soon set off for
Paris. In future years he became a respected elder,
whose opinion and sanctions the émigré community frequently sought for their various activities
and projects.
Chapter 10:
THE THREE
MUSKETEERS
With the closing of Vpered, the center of Russian
émigré printing and publishing shifted back to
Geneva. When Lavrov settled in Zurich at the end of
1873, the colony was still lost in the confusion that
followed its experience with Nechaev. Elpidin had
decided to be a publisher rather than a printer; he
had given up his shop, apparently turning his type
over to Trusov, and was concentrating his efforts
on his bookstore, his library, and the pension that
he had founded in conjunction with Utin. Trusov
was operating the former Narodnoe delo shop in his
own name, running it on purely commercial principles and accepting work from almost anyone. Lazar
Goldenberg, who had left Zurich in the aftermath of
Nechaev’s arrest, subsequently took over the Chaikovtsy press and led the revival of émigré printing
in Geneva.
In order to disguise the origins of the works it
printed, the chaikovtsy press usually furnished its
products with false imprints. Taking his type out
of its case (in Russian: kassa), Goldenberg, before
he left to join Vpered in London, liked to say that
the works were set at the Kassov print shop. Lev
Tikhomirov’s work Where is it Better? was called a
second edition, corrected and expanded, printed in
Moscow and passed by the censorship on April 19,
1868. Tikhomirov’s Emelka Pugachev or a Cossack’s
Love was labeled a second edition, “printed from
the edition of 1869 without changes” and permitted
by the censorship in Moscow on May 2, 1871. Other
works might bear no imprint at all.
Costs of printing were less in Geneva than the costs
of printing in England, and the émigrés enjoyed a
freedom that they could not find elsewhere on the
continent. In Paris, to be sure, there were more Russians; the émigrés liked to refer to the city of light as
a provincial Russian city. But in the smaller Russian
“town” of Geneva, they enjoyed a freedom of the
press that the French authorities would not permit.
They realized that the tsarist authorities could also
exploit that atmosphere, but they knew that they
had some recourse to Swiss laws and customs for
their own protection.
The community in Geneva had shown itself to be
considerably more resilient than the short-lived
blossom in Zurich. Tsarist officials considered the
authorities in Zurich more open to socialist ideas
than Geneva officials were, and accordingly less responsive to official Russian complaints. The Russian
colony in Zurich, however, had consisted mainly of
students who still planned to return home; therefore they had yielded to St. Petersburg’s threats and
had moved away. The émigrés in western Switzerland, on the other hand, generally entertained little
hope of returning to Russia short of revolution in
their homeland, and therefore the Russian authorities had no lever with which to pry them loose.
The émigrés in Geneva were now giving increasing attention to identifying the audience for their
publications. The practice of printing “books for
the people,” whatever problems the intellectuals
had in defining what the ‘people” needed or wanted,
marked a beginning of such concern, and with its
publications now directed toward specific readers,
the émigré printing world in Geneva achieved
rather more stability and continuity. Trusov and
Elpidin, to be sure, were essentially running their
respective enterprises on commercial principles,
accepting customers of any belief, but more specialized printing and publishing enterprises now tried
to reach specific sectors within the Russian reading
public.
Leading the way were Zemfire Ralli, Aleksandr
Golshtein, and Aleksandr Elsnits, Bakunin’s erstwhile followers who had rebelled against Sazhin’s
leadership in Zurich. Some émigrés scorned their
flight from Zurich; Smirnov called them “cowards”
and “old women” for having allowed Sazhin to keep
control of the Bakunist library and print shop. In
Geneva they organized themselves as the Revolutionary Commune of Russian Anarchists, and using
the chaikovtsy print shop, printed their own material. In their first proclamation “To Russian Revolutionaries,” they complained that Russian youth was
losing its strength, character and energy under the
weight of Russian liberalism, and they summoned
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THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
the youth to turn to “the peasant world, the Russian
people.” They saw themselves as offering a synthesis
of previous thought: Marx’s state-oriented revolutionary theory constituted the thesis, Bakunin’s
anarchy the antithesis, and as their synthesis they
called for a federation of nationalities.
When their effort to popularize the Revolutionary
Commune of Russian anarchists failed, the “three
musketeers,” as they called themselves, began
work on a new periodical, to be called Rabotnik
(The Worker). They presented their philosophy
in a book entitled, The Satisfied and the Hungry,
expounding on the origins of inequality. Dividing
society into the two classes of the satisfied and
the hungry, the authors emphasized the need for
organization in the struggle against this system
of inequality. “One cannot go alone against the
satiated,” they declared; “They will always crush
one lone person.” Despite its considerable size,
the work enjoyed a certain popularity, but it was
meant to constitute only the foundation of Rabotnik, the first newspaper “for the people.” (Some
historians later pointed to the publication’s title
and identified it as the first newspaper aimed at
the working class.)
Following the pattern of the “books for the people,”
Rabotnik spoke in a simplified language. In their
preliminary announcement the editors invited correspondence and letters directed toward Russian
workers, and the group won promises of support
from Russia, in particular from a Moscow organization called “The All-Russian Social Revolutionary Group,” better known as the “moskvichi”
(the Muscovites). While Rabotnik has frequently
been considered the organ of the moskvichi, Ralli
later claimed that it was in fact independent of the
Moscow group, and that the moskvichi paid only
for some specific publications. Nevertheless, the
editors of Rabotnik received aid from Russia, and of
course their cooperation with Goldenberg and the
chaikovtsy press testified to a certain degree of support from the Chaikovtsy organization.
62
The editorial board, however, almost disintegrated
before the first issue. At the center of the storm was
Nikolai Zhebunev, an odd figure whom many considered even clownish. Born in 1847, the son of a
landowner, Zhebunev had been part of the student
colony in Zurich. With his two brothers he had
directed a small circle, known because of its SaintSimonist proclivities as the Saint-Zhebunevists.
When the colony in Zurich broke up, he returned
to Russia with his wife Zinaida and participated
in the movement to the people, running a blacksmith shop in Odessa. Upon learning that he had
been denounced to the authorities, he fled again
into the emigration. Proud of their contact with the
“people,” both he and his wife insisted on dressing
in native costume.
When Zhebunev arrived in Geneva, he was ecstatic about the editorial arrangements he found
in Rabotnik’s office. “They are preparing a people’s
newspaper,” he wrote Lavrov, “as we discussed with
you in London and which you recognized as necessary. When I got to Geneva, I found the matter halfprepared; they have been working three months.”
After recounting how the group had formed a
commune, meeting every Thursday and deciding
all matters by a majority vote, Zhebunev broke
into German as he rhapsodized, “Mein Herz, was
wünschst du mehr! (My heart, what more could you
desire!)” He immediately offered the group a poem
and an article of his own. The article, entitled “Is
it True That an Affectionate Calf Sucks from Two
Mothers?” argued “the necessity of ending obedience to the existing order in Russia.” Bemused
by Zhebunev’s energy, the editorial board agreed
to publish both these contributions in the newspaper.
To Zhebunev’s dismay, however, another figure now
came onto the scene, Nikolai Morozov, a young
man of barely 20. Morozov had been a member of
the Moscow group of the Chaikovtsy and had participated in the movement to the people. The group
had now sent him to Geneva to work with Rabotnik,
and on his arrival he became an instant celebrity as a
witness and veteran of the exciting events in Russia
in the summer of 1874. Inevitably he also came into
conflict with Zhebunev, who was undoubtedly jealous of Morozov’s enthusiastic reception.
The first meeting between the two bode ill for the
future. According to Morozov’s memoirs, which
dripped with ridicule, he arrived as Tkachev’s apartment in Geneva without any idea of what the man
looked like. Confronted by the Zhebunevs, he presumed that these were Tkachev and his wife, and
in his mind he anxiously pondered how he could
tell them that the poetry they were reading him was
really terrible. Before Tkachev himself showed up
to rescue Morozov from his confusion, the Zhebunevs had also extracted five hundred francs from
the newcomer, ostensibly as a loan, although they
never repaid it.
When beginning work in the editorial office,
Morozov was shocked to find that the poetry that
the Zhebunevs had been declaiming to him had
already been set into type. Goldenberg explained
that the editorial board was made up of “prose writers,” who disclaimed any special understanding of
poetry. In any case, Goldenberg noted, the poem
had been well received “among the people.” When
Morozov called the piece unacceptable, Goldenberg protested that rejection now would constitute
Chapter 10: THE THREE MUSKETEERS
an insult to the Zhebunevs. Nevertheless Morozov
forced the editorial board to throw out the poem,
although he compromised by accepting Zhebunev’s
essay on the affectionate calf.
Zhebunev could not understand why his comrades had turned against him, and in a long letter
to Lavrov he denounced the editorial board. He
claimed to have been told, “We are not a party but
a commune,” but, he complained to Lavrov, “Whatever you call the devil, he remains the devil.” Moaning that others were taking advantage of his good
nature, he asserted that Zhukovsky had already
persuaded Goldenberg to retire from the board of
editors. While paying homage to the talents of both
Goldenberg and Zhukovsky, Zhebunev criticized
Elsnits and Ralli as “persons who know the people
only from books.” Morozov, he insisted, had even
changed the orientation of the paper, aiming it now
at the “popular intelligentsia.”
Lavrov repeated Zhebunev’s complaints to others.
“You have of course seen no. 1 of Rabotnik,” he
wrote to Lopatin in the latter part of January 1875.
“Not bad, very tolerable. But you could hardly know
about the internal revolutions of its editorial board,
about which I received a detailed letter. Founded,
of course, on pure equality, on anarchic principles,
etc., then, one fine day, three persons (Zhebunev
husband and wife and Goldenberg) are thrown out,
the latter, they say but I hardly believe, because of
his Jewish origins.” Goldenberg, Lavrov declared,
had been “the only acceptable person on the board.”
When Goldenberg came to London, he apparently
confirmed Zhebunev’s account, whereupon Lavrov
commented, “We could think that about the others,
but as regards Zhukovsky this is rather surprising.”
While he had triumphed over Zhebunev, Morozov
could not always carry Rabotnik’s editorial board
with him. One of his first problems in policy came
with the decision of the board that, in accordance
with established revolutionary tradition, all articles would appear anonymously. This, Morozov
complained, forced him into an unnatural style of
writing; in the revolutionary movement, he argued,
“not the masses but individuals were acting, each at
his own risk.” Anonymity, he added, could also lead
to confusion as unnamed authors contradicted each
other. Nevertheless the others insisted on maintaining the policy of anonymity.
The enthusiasms of the editors could occasionally
lead them down false paths. When news came that a
worker had talked back to a tsarist court, Zhukovsky
exclaimed, “The working masses are speaking!”
and Ralli produced an article quoting his hero as
saying, “It is not true; I had no intention of killing
the Tsar. The Tsar is not responsible for the people’s
suffering.” When challenged, Ralli admitted that
he had made up the quotation, but he asked, “How
else could he have spoken?” Despite misgivings the
editorial board approved the article, but two weeks
later came a protest from the group’s correspondent
in Berlin, Dmitri Klements: “Were you all drunk in
the editorial office or were all of you simultaneously
struck by an attack of insanity when you printed in
Rabotnik a whole speech in Malinovsky’s name?”
The worker had actually only said “Yes” in answer
to the question whether he was a revolutionary. The
editorial board tried to defend its action, but it recognized that it had embarrassed itself.
Morozov stayed in Geneva for only about four
months. He found the intrigues and jealousies among
the émigrés intolerable; his comrades even accused
him of having betrayed them when he published
an article in Lavrov’s Vpered. Most of the émigrés,
he told himself, were “mentally ill, torn away from
their native land, not joining another, deprived of
any work other than arguments, the point of which
is not even the search for truth but only the wish to
assert one’s own, to have the last word in the argument.” But when Morozov returned to Russia, the
tsarist authorities arrested him at the frontier; his
revolutionary activity was abruptly stilled.
The first issue of Rabotnik, bearing the imprint of
the “Slavic Print Shop” and the date of January 1875,
repeated the philosophy espoused in The Satiated
and the Hungry. “The satiated person,” the editors wrote, “does not understand the hungry one.”
Reviving Bakunist ideas, the journal argued that
revolution would come through the spontaneous
explosion of the aroused masses, and it couched its
message in simple, primitive style, making heavy
use of simulated discussions and stories – the story
of Zhebunev’s thirsty calf ran across the lower part
of six pages.
The “worker” of Rabotnik’s title meant all toilers,
whether in the field or factory; the editors viewed
the worker in the factory as basically just a displaced
peasant. Nevertheless many émigrés viewed the factory worker as more receptive to political agitation
than the peasant. Nabat had already argued that
propaganda among the peasants had little use. In
the third issue, March 1875, Rabotnik declared,
It is necessary once and for all to stop relying on
the Tsar. It is necessary to reach agreement and to
raise rebellion through all of Rus’, but to raise it
only when the peasants’ force will be calculated,
when the Russian workers will know where they
are going and what they want.
The emancipation, the editors wrote in issue no. 6,
constituted a “tsarist joke, the freedom to hunger,
the freedom to die off from intolerable labor, the
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THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
freedom to fall under the bullets of tsarist soldiers.”
True to their anarchist background, the editors
foresaw a post-revolutionary society with no state:
“Any government will always be an enemy of the
people. The people will be free only when there is
no more government, when the people completely
annihilate government.” A democratic constitution
could be no guarantee of freedom; even in Switzerland there were “satiated and hungry.” The new
society would be a “free union of free communes”;
there would be only workers, “free and equal among
themselves.” Although the founders had planned to
publish the newspaper twice a month, Rabotnik
remained a monthly throughout its existence, putting out 15 issues before its demise.
Rabotnik’s decline and fall came about through both
internal and external developments. The departure
of Goldenberg at the end of 1875 was undoubtedly
a blow, but he had already become unhappy with
his position within the group. When the chaikovtsy
directed him to move to London, he apparently went
gladly. On the other hand, Rabotnik could no longer
count on any help from the chaikovtsy in Russia,
and its Moscow supporters had been completely
disrupted by a wave of arrests in September 1875.
The periodical’s last issue appeared in February/
March 1876, but the “three musketeers” maintained
the name Rabotnik for their print shop.
With Rabotnik’s demise, Petr Tkachev came into
new prominence as a publisher in Geneva. When
Tkachev first came to Geneva at the end of 1874,
Lavrov had feared that he would take over the
entire émigré printing establishment, but from the
beginning his relations with the other émigrés were
strained. Upon arriving, Tkachev made a point of
visiting Ralli, an old comrade from the days of the
Nechaevshchina, and he offered to cooperate with
Rabotnik. Ralli, however, distrusted him, and the
two immediately became mutually suspicious rivals.
Although there were rumors that he was planning a
new journal in collaboration with Elpidin, Tkachev’s
first publishing venture was a plan for a history of
the revolutionary movement, to be carried out in
cooperation with the ever-available Zhukovsky.
This project, however, died on the drawing board,
and Zhukovsky announced that he had nothing to
do with it.
64
Tkachev finally found a kindred spirit in the person
of Gaspar-Michael Turski, a man of noble Polish
birth from the Ukraine. Born in 1847, Turski had
been arrested while a student at Kharkov University
and had been exiled to Archangel. After escaping
into the emigration, he had fought with Garibaldi
and had participated in the Paris Commune. Turski
himself had well-developed Jacobin-Blanquist ideas,
favoring the seizure of power by a conspiratorial
minority that would then go on to carry out a social
revolution, and he later claimed that his group of
Jacobins had recruited Tkachev. Whatever the circumstances that brought them together in 1875,
Turski had money to support a publication, and
Tkachev had the ideas and literary talent to produce it. When they decided to produce a journal,
Elpidin helped them to obtain type, and they set up
the Nabat print shop.
Their journal, Nabat (The Tocsin), first appeared
in November/December 1875. As its slogan, the
masthead proclaimed, “Now or, if not very soon,
perhaps never.” According to Tkachev, “Only
abject cowards, only weak egotists remain deaf to
the sound of the tocsin.” Called the “Organ of Russian Revolutionaries,” Nabat appeared monthly for
a year and then irregularly over the following five
years. In its pages Tkachev advocated the seizure of
political power. Capitalism, he argued, had not yet
come to Russia, and therefore the seizure of power
would be easier now than it would be later when
capitalism and the bourgeoisie would have become
stronger. The seizure of political power by a conspiratorial revolutionary group constituted the first
stage of the social revolution, which would then be
directed from above.
Most other émigrés generally rejected Tkachev’s
arguments, calling his theories elitist, and they
shied away from the “political struggle” he advocated, which still had liberal overtones to their ears.
They argued that Tkachev’s views could find no
audience, but as they themselves discussed and disputed his views, Tkachev claimed success. He discounted arguments that his publication had only a
small circulation; he needed no mass distribution in
Russia, he asserted, because he was not advocating
mass revolution. At the end of the decade, when
Russian revolutionaries launched their campaign
of assassinations against tsarist officials, he insisted
that they were in fact following his program. Influenced by their personal dislike of Tkachev, many
émigrés nevertheless denied him credit for having
influenced anyone.
For the Rabotnik group, the “three musketeers,”
Tkachev’s aggressiveness posed special problems.
Angered by their rejection of his offer of cooperation, he denounced the practices of their print shop.
Having heard of Rabotnik’s agreement to print a
religious periodical entitled Vestnik pravdy (Messenger of Truth), Tkachev scornfully asked, “Are
there really émigrés who so little value their worth,
who so allow word and deed to diverge, that they are
ready to print in their shops any nonsense so long
as they receive money?” When the group finally
prepared its rebuttal to Tkachev’s attacks, Elsnits
objected to entering into polemics with this “scoun-
Chapter 10: THE THREE MUSKETEERS
drel” and “louse,” saying, “This is the first piece of
shit to come from our Rabotnik press, which up to
now has been clean.”
The musketeers in fact had trouble maintaining a
clear direction to their work. In the fall of 1876,
despite their Bakunist principles, they welcomed
a newcomer to their ranks, Mikhail Dragomanov,
who led them in the direction of supporting the
“political struggle,” the question of limiting or seizing government, as opposed to advocating the
social struggle for the overthrow of the government.
Dragomanov, a Ukrainian, gave new drive to their
thoughts of reorganizing society into a federation of
nationalities and directed them toward the struggle
for “political freedom.”
Dragomanov’s entry into the émigré community
forced the Russians there to turn their attention
to the nationalities question within the Russian
Empire. Although the empire was Russian in character, the Russians themselves comprised less than
half of the state’s inhabitants. Something over a
hundred nationalities made up the rest of the population, and several of these, notably the Poles, had
already displayed well developed separatist movements aiming at political independence. Both liberals and socialists among the Russians had been
unsympathetic to these currents: liberals viewed
the nationalist movements as a threat to the integrity of the Russian state and socialists considered
nationalism a false doctrine that diverted the attention of the workers from the international workers’
movement.
Until now the nationalities question had not posed
any serious problem for the Russian socialists. Those
persons joining their ranks from the minority nationalities – Jews, Ukrainians, some Poles – had individually accepted the principle of internationalism,
and as proof of their beliefs, they had assimilated
themselves into the Russian movement. The Poles,
to be sure, had posed special problems, especially
since they enjoyed significant sympathy among
Western European socialists, but the Russians preferred to believe that the Polish toiling masses, as
opposed to the nobility, had yet to be heard from.
Dragomanov gave a new twist to the discussions
of the nationalities question, as he claimed to be
both a Ukrainian and a socialist. He favored strong
and intense efforts on behalf of the development of
Ukrainian culture, but he did not advocate independence for the Ukrainians, offering instead a
vision of a decentralized Russia restructured as a
federated society giving considerable autonomy to
the various nationalities. To this end he advocated
a political struggle to free the nationalities and to
open the way for social change.
When he visited Zurich in 1873 to meet Lavrov,
Dragomanov had not believed that émigré publishing could accomplish much in the way of reform
of the Russian Empire, but when he came to Geneva
in 1876 after having been forced to leave his university post in Russia, he brought along money and
ideas for a new publishing program. Of the existing
print shops, he found the Rabotnik group the most
to his liking, and he moved in with them, calling his
own operation the Gromada print shop. The Rabotnik group in turn welcomed him, calculating that
it needed only to add a few letters of type in order to
print in Ukrainian. Dragomanov, however, brought
his own type and even his own typesetter, thereby
costing the musketeers nothing and bringing them
business.
Dragomanov’s typesetter, Anton Mikhailovich Liakhotsky, better known simply as “Kuzma,” himself
became a legendary figure in Russian émigré publishing, remaining active well into the twentieth century. His start with the Gromada group was modest
enough. Dragomanov considered him a quiet loyal
aide who could do everything involved in the printing process. Liakhotsky demanded little for himself,
at one time living in the doorway of Dragomanov’s
home and often bedding down in the print shop.
Beginning in these humble conditions, Liakhotsky
eventually obtained some land with which he could
support himself, and he became the director of the
shop. When Dragomanov left Switzerland, he ran
the shop for himself, and by the time of the First
World War he enjoyed a virtual monopoly in Russian émigré printing in Switzerland.
Dragomanov had at first planned just to publish in
Ukrainian, but soon he formulated a program for
producing both Ukrainian and Russian works. The
Ukrainian part would include everything having a
direct relationship to the Ukraine and to spreading
socialist ideas in the Ukraine. His Russian program
foresaw works of a political, liberal, and federal
character that could appeal to the Russian public.
Above all he wanted to print materials that would
help the development of a Ukrainian national consciousness and would contribute to spreading liberal
and socialist ideas in the Ukrainian lands of the
Russian and the Austrian empires.
Within the first months of his stay in Geneva Dragomanov gave evidence of his opposition to traditional émigré practices when he clashed with Lavrov,
a man with whom he had enjoyed good relations
up to this point. Lavrov had even suggested Dragomanov as his possible successor in editing Vpered,
but now they came to verbal blows over Lavrov’s
plans to publish another manuscript by Chernyshevsky, this one entitled Prologue of “Prologue”.
Lavrov had received the manuscript from Lopatin
65
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
with the understanding that Vpered should publish
it. Dragomanov, however, came forth as a spokesman
for A. Pypin, a noted Russian historian, who claimed
to control the literary rights to Chernyshevsky’s
works. Pypin insisted that Lavrov had no right to
publish the work, but Lavrov countered that any of
Chernyshevsky’s works having social significance
could and should be printed by the “revolutionary
party” if it just got its hands on them. Dragomanov
called Lavrov’s position unethical: “I think that the
narrow interests of your circle will sooner suffer
than prosper from your printing a novel while there
is still basis to think that it came to you through
theft.” Lavrov, angered by this challenge to his integrity, went ahead and published it.
Despite such controversy Dragomanov, born in
1841, quickly established himself as, at least for a
time, the intellectual leader of the community in
Geneva. He had been a member of the faculty of the
University of Kiev until the authorities had forced
him to leave, and now he enjoyed considerable sympathy as a professor who had suffered for his radicalism and for his antireligious teachings. He had a
solid reputation for honesty and sincerity, and most
people considered him charming. Unlike most
other émigrés, he did not frequent the cafes, but
rather he settled sedately in a quiet part of Geneva,
where he welcomed visitors on Sundays. They came
both to speak with him and to use his extensive
library. In a way, his position was analogous to what
Herzen had once enjoyed in London and to what
Lavrov enjoyed in Paris once he had moved back
there from London.
Dragomanov’s call for the political struggle found
support in a new publication entitled Obshchee delo
(Common Cause), which now began to appear in
Geneva. Aimed at uniting all the factions in the
emigration, the newspaper had its roots in Mikhail Elpidin’s efforts to persuade Lavrov to edit a
new periodical in 1870. That having failed, Elpidin
waited for the right person to appear, and in 1875
Aleksandr Khristoforov, an old friend and comrade
from Kazan, arrived in Geneva. Elpidin revived his
idea, and Khristoforov agreed enthusiastically. Obshchee delo called for limiting the power of the Russian autocracy; it advocated a constitution for the
Russian Empire.
66
Although most émigrés still objected to the thought
of pursuing a political struggle for a constitution
rather than a revolutionary social struggle, Elpidin
and Khristoforov quickly won a number of collaborators. Elpidin became the business manager, seeking
material support and recruiting contributors. Khristoforov became the editor; Nikolai Iurenev agreed to
give financial support, but his name had to remain
secret; Varfolomai Zaitsev agreed to cooperate alt-
hough he considered a constitution only a stage on
the road to socialism. After some hesitation, Tkachev
rejected Elpidin’s invitation to join the group. Trusov
accepted the job of printing the journal, but the group
soon established its own shop.
The newspaper first appeared on May 9, 1877, and
the publication proved to be the longest lived of the
nineteenth century émigré publications, putting
out 112 issues before its demise in November 1890.
Khristoforov aimed the publication at the Russian
traveler in the West, presumably a fairly well-to-do,
probably liberal person. Travelers, he explained,
ask, “Why is there no publication abroad that would
serve as the organ of the hopes and feelings of the
majority of society and that would present us with a
rounded picture of what is now going on in Russia?”
He wanted Obshchee delo to fill this gap.
Early in the newspaper’s existence, Khristoforov and
Elpidin won very important financial support when
Nikolai Belogolovy came to volunteer his help. A
Russian doctor who occasionally vacationed in Switzerland, Belogolovy had met Elpidin in 1870 and
at that time had offered him support for a journal,
but he had then lost contact with the community in
Geneva. In 1878, he – as Khristoforov had hoped
– discovered Obshchee delo in a Berlin bookshop.
He did not agree with all the views expressed; he
considered Khistoforov too theoretical and Zaitsev
a “cold-blooded nihilist of the ‘60s” with “too cheap
and disorganized a wit.” Nevertheless he sent money
and even some literary contributions of his own.
Several years later, in 1883, having retired from his
practice in Russia, he settled in Geneva and agreed
to underwrite the publication.
According to Khristoforov, Obshchee delo’s staff
constituted something of a parliament – on the left
was Zaitsev, who wrote quickly, in a “volley like a
rocket”; on the right Belogolovy, an ideal liberal, “a
knight without fear or reproach”; and in the center
himself. Since the contributors rarely if ever met as
a group, Elpidin acted as the organizer, receiving
their individual contributions and assembling the
various issues. Elpidin later called this publication
his favorite among those with which he had worked,
but others did not have such fond memories. Working with Elpidin could, as the saying went, put a
saint to swearing. “I found in him,” Belogolovy later
complained, “not only a complete absence of clear
political views, but the most confused and ignorant
view of the press.” When Belogolovy at one point
bemoaned the lack of material for the newspaper,
Elpidin reportedly urged, “Can’t we reprint the old
articles put out three or four years ago? Our readers
change, and they won’t know that this is old.”
Obshchee delo never enjoyed large circulation, but
it earned for itself a respectable place in the history
Chapter 10: THE THREE MUSKETEERS
of the émigré press. At the time of its birth, the
revolutionaries in Geneva disparagingly spoke of
it as a commercial venture, thereby grossly overestimating its financial success, and they identified
Elpidin as its editor. That was enough for them
to laugh the publication away. But as one commentator put it, “No one got angry at it, no one
thought it shameful to place an announcement
in it – occasionally this was necessary and there
was no organ of one’s own – but in general it had
neither supporters nor opponents in the revolutionary emigration.” It printed important revolutionary documents, and Belogolovy supplied it with
reliable information about the workings of the
inner circles of government and also with works
by the noted satirist Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin.
(Elpidin, always alert to a likely looking business
venture, reprinted Shchedrin’s works as separate
brochures for smuggling into Russia.) In all, Obshchee delo was a newspaper that many found worth
reading, whatever its policies.
Neither Obshchee delo nor Nabat, which was now
appearing irregularly under Turski’s guidance,
offered leadership for the revolutionary spirits in
Geneva, and the three musketeers, cooperating with
Dragomanov, began gearing up their print shop for
the publication of a new journal, to be called Obchchina (Commune), scheduled to begin in January
1878. Developments within the empires, however,
soon brought dramatic changes to life both at home
in Russia and abroad. Increased revolutionary activity, more rapid communications with the homeland, and eventually a new wave of emigration radically altered the character of Russian printing and
publishing in Western Europe.
67
Chapter 11:
PROPAGANDA OF THE DEED
Émigré publishing waxed and waned in reciprocal
relationship to events in Russia. Publishing, and
even emigration itself, constituted in fact an alternative to activity within Russia; Herzen had opened
his print shop as a means of keeping some sort of
contact with the homeland to which he could not
return. Accordingly, when revolutionary violence
exploded within the empire at the end of the 1870s,
the émigrés essentially stopped what they were
doing and watched in awe; they then willingly put
themselves at the service of the activists.
Some observers had long been predicting an outbreak of violence in Russia. In the fall of 1875 Sergei
Kravchinsky had predicted to Petr Lavrov that the
tsarist authorities’ plan to hold a mass trial of propagandists arrested in the course of the “movement
to the people” would have far-reaching repercussions for the revolutionary movement. This, he
declared, would be a “trial of propaganda,” and it
would demonstrate on the one hand the weaknesses
of the propaganda campaign and on the other hand
the necessity of organizing the oppositionist forces.
The result, he predicted, would be violence: “War
will start soon after the trial.”
The Trial of the 193, of which Kravchinsky spoke,
began in September 1877 and concluded on January
23, 1878. Tension ran high in the courtroom as the
defendants openly defied the court; one defendant
declared that government officials had lower morals
than prostitutes. Adding to the uneasy atmosphere was a controversy over a recent incident in
which the governor of St. Petersburg, General Fedr
Trepov, had ordered a political prisoner beaten for
alleged insubordination. In a seeming effort to show
understanding and patience, the court acquitted
most of the defendants in the Trial of the 193, sentencing only five of them to ten years’ hard labor,
ten to nine years, and three to five years’ hard labor;
forty were exiled.
68
On January 24, the day after the trial had ended, a
young woman named Vera Zasulich shot Trepov,
claiming vengeance for the beating that had taken
place some six months earlier. At her trial the
defense attorney depicted her as an innocent victim
of an unjust system, driven by the purest of motives.
The jury accepted this account of her biography and
acquitted the defendant.
Even before Zasulich’s trial, a wave of violence arose.
The revolutionaries had been preparing themselves
for this for some time, insisting that they were
acting in their own self-defense, and after Zasulich’s
acquittal, violence quickly escalated. On January
30, authorities in Odessa met with armed resistance when they raided an illegal printing press; in
February a group in Kiev, inspired by the actions of
Zasulich and the resisters in Odessa, attempted to
kill the prosecutor in a peculiar case known as the
Chigirin affair. The prosecutor survived the attack,
but the “war activities” predicted by Kravchinsky
had begun.
The violence had no clear political or social program. Driven by feelings of frustration and anger,
or even by fundamentally asocial instincts, the
revolutionaries first attacked individuals accused
of being government spies. Then they lashed out
at governmental officials, justifying their actions
as punishment for abuses of power. Then they
began to speak of the desirability of destabilizing
the government. As German Lopatin described the
process in a letter to Engels, many “energetic elements” had instinctively entered the path of “purely
political struggle” without understanding what they
were doing.
The news of Zasulich’s deed and of other terrorist
actions electrified the émigrés in Switzerland. They
collected what news they could, and some took it
upon themselves to provide theoretical justification
for the violence, which was called “propaganda of
the deed.” The revolutionaries, they explained, were
too busy acting to bother with ideological questions
and explanations. Writing in Obshchee delo, Khristoforov called Zasulich “a heroic nature from the
stock of Charlotte Corday, but more exalted than
her because she acted not under the influence of
religious fanaticism promising eternal salvation,
but in the name of insulted human dignity.” Khris-
Chapter 11: PROPAGANDA OF THE DEED
toforov considered her deed a step forward in the
political struggle, an effort to call the government to
account for the excesses of its officials.
Obshchina (Commune), the new publication of the
“three musketeers,” welcomed the news from Russia
with enthusiasm. In planning their first two issues,
for January and February 1878, the editors had concentrated on the Trial of the 193, but when news of
Zasulich’s act came, they had to juggle their format.
An essay by Dragomanov on Zasulich’s acquittal
was added so late that it was not even listed in the
table of contents. In no. 3/4, Sergei Kravchinsky’s
dithyramb to her complained that he knew only her
name: “Tell me, what is her face like? what sort of
voice? eyes? Tell me, how does she dress? How does
she speak? How does she love?” This, he asserted,
must be “one of those truly great souls who in
their humbleness and simplicity themselves do not
suspect what is lying within them.” Pausing to apostrophize her, he exclaimed, “Heroine, these lines I
write for you!” and he added, “Such idolization is
difficult for your childishly pure heart. You went
forth not to your apotheosis but to a sacrifice.” Then
turning back to his other readers, he declared that
her acquittal had struck a deathblow at the tsarist
regime: “The Russian autocracy has been killed;
March 31 was the last day of its existence.”
Obshchina now became one of the liveliest and most
significant of the émigré publications, but it did not
survive the year. Under Dragomanov’s influence, it
spoke more of federalism than of anarchism, calling
for a “free union of local and national social groups,”
and it aimed its message at the Russian intelligentsia
rather than at the worker. Ultimately it was both
helped and killed by the events in Russia. The news
of revolutionary violence gave it exciting material,
and the veterans of the Trial of the 193 publicly
acclaimed the newspaper as their organ. On the
other hand, the escalation of activity aroused divisive passions and even drew off participants.
Activist natures like Kravchinsky’s could not sit
still at a press in Geneva. In the summer of 1878
he returned to Russia, carrying with him equipment
for the establishment of an underground printing
press. An underground “Free Russian Press,” organized by Aaron Zundelevich, had existed since the
fall of 1877, and there also existed a Northern Revolutionary Populist Group, founded by the ubiquitous Mark Natanson, which would soon revive the
name Zemlia i volia and be known in history as the
“second” Zemlia i volia. Throwing himself into the
action, Kravchinsky drew the assignment of killing
the chief of the hated Third Department, the political police, General Nikolai Mezentsev.
In his enthusiasm, Kravchinsky at first wanted to
challenge Mezentsev to a duel, but his comrades
convinced him that he had to think about his own
escape. On August 4, Kravchinsky approached the
general in public and stabbed him to death – a knife
is obviously the most intimate of assassination weapons, requiring the assassin to be next to the target.
Kravchinsky succeeded in getting away, and his
comrades immediately sent him out of the country.
Accompanied by Zasulich, Kravchinsky returned to
Geneva at the end of the year with the tsarist police
in hot pursuit.
As the unpunished killing of a high government
official, Mezentsev’s assassination constituted a
formidable challenge to the government, which in
turn had been unprepared for such violent opposition. To be sure, Kravchinsky muddied the waters
with his pamphlet Death for Death, in which he
called the killing a measure of self-defense and not
a political act, but the murder evoked a heightened
governmental campaign of political repression, suspending trials for political offenders and directing
that the accused be brought before military courts.
(Since Russia was at war with Turkey, political
offenders in the south, as in Odessa, had already
been brought before military courts.) Kravchinsky’s
prediction of “war” proved more prescient than
even he had thought, but then he had made his own
contribution to the developments.
The escalation of revolutionary violence had a divisive impact among the various groups challenging
the tsarist order. Many who had hailed Zasulich
without reservation had second thoughts about
Kravchinsky’s deed. Among the staff of Obshchee
delo, for example, Zaitsev considered Death for
Death, which was published anonymously, a political ad absurdum, and he even questioned whether
it was not the work of a police agent. On the other
hand, Belogolovy opposed terrorism in any form as
a weapon of the political struggle. Within the ranks
of Obshchina, Dragomanov visibly cooled toward
the principle of political assassination, although he
still voiced some support for the use of violence in
political struggle.
The first wave of new émigrés escaping government
retaliation arrived in Switzerland at the end of 1878
and intensified the debates over the morality and
usefulness of violence. Petr Tkachev insisted that
the emergence of a terrorist party in Russia proved
that his arguments had found fertile soil at home.
The new émigrés objected strongly to Tkachev’s
claim, and in the last issue of Obshchina, no. 8/9 of
1878, Zasulich and Kravchinsky joined with others
in declaring that all the groups in Russia were organized in a federative fashion, not in the centralized
fashion that Tkachev and Nabat had called for.
The new arrivals also found that they had to defend
themselves against what they considered “preju-
69
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
dices” in the emigration. Lev Deich, for example, a
close associate of Zasulich’s, had to justify his own
revolutionary past. In 1876 he and a comrade, Iakov
Stefanovich, had beaten a suspected police informer
and had disfigured his face with acid. (Tkachev had
hailed the act: “Make more such masks for traitors.”) On another occasion, Deich had playfully
shot a loaded gun at a comrade, and in 1877 he
and Stefanovich had directed the “Chigirin affair,”
where they had tried to arouse the peasants to violence through the use of forged documents. Now
in the quieter atmosphere of the emigration, Deich
objected to being characterized as unprincipled and
bloodthirsty.
Deich immediately came into direct conflict with
Dragomanov, who challenged the morality of revolutionary violence. Deich, who was himself from
the Ukraine, responded by attacking Dragomanov’s
Ukrainophilism, his khokhlomania, and he labeled
the respect that Dragomanov enjoyed among the
émigrés, including the “three musketeers,” “scandalous” and “criminal.” In the final issue of Obshchina,
Stefanovich published a negative, critical essay on
Dragomanov’s Ukrainian periodical Gromada.
The attacks on Dragomanov contributed to the
collapse of Obshchina, but the newspaper also
suffered from a lack of material and problems of
bad management. There had been enough money,
Zhukovsky informed Ralli, but it had been spent
on other things: “It is necessary to give it up and to
wait until a better wind blows.” The Rabotnik shop
essentially closed down. “Our typesetters have
been orphaned,” Zhukovsky wrote. “There are just
no Russian works for propaganda.” Elsnitz argued,
“Besides money we also need new people,” and,
echoing Zhukovsky’s words, he lamented, “Our
print shop is decaying, and if not for the Ukrainian work it would long ago have been overgrown
with weeds and thistles.” The émigrés recognized
that they had little to do but watch the unfolding
drama within Russia.
70
In the spring of 1879, even as they complained of
inactivity, the Russian print shops in Geneva drew
the attention of the Swiss. The federal authorities,
disturbed by rumors of “nihilistic” activities in the
land and by Russian complaints, asked the authorities in Geneva “carefully and discretely” to investigate the activities of the émigrés from the tsarist
empire. The investigating officer in Geneva responded that there were “two print shops serving the
aspirations of the Russian liberal movement.” The
employees of both shops, including Russians and
Poles, were “all liberal, but in no way recognizing
nihilism.” The works they were printing all favored
the emancipation of the Russian people, but they
did not endorse assassinations. The Swiss govern-
ment decided that it had no reason to object to the
behavior of the Russians.
The Swiss investigation, however superficial its
conclusions, testified to the electricity in Geneva’s
atmosphere. Tsarist police agents, looking for
Kravchinsky and Zasulich, traced Kravchinsky to
Dragomanov’s apartment. Dragomanov, however,
turned the tables on them by complaining to the
Swiss. Trusov, on the other hand, was publishing
brochures favoring terrorism, but for this he was
using type that he had taken over from the Nabat
print shop, and he was putting the false imprint of
London on such works.
As passions for “the propaganda of the deed”
intensified, for the first time since Herzen opened
his shop in London the demand for radical literature seemed best met by secret presses within the
empire. When the Petersburg Free Press printed the
first issue of Zemlia i volia in November 1878, the
émigré press seemed to have lost its significance.
(In his time, Mezentsev had reportedly denied that
an underground press could exist in Russia; all the
revolutionary works, he argued, must be smuggled
in from abroad.) The revolutionaries in Russia now
had their own voice, and the émigrés became relatively quiet.
In the spring of 1879 Zemlia i volia split, and advocates of terrorism organized a faction called Freedom or Death. The group subsequently adopted
the name Narodnaia volia (The People’s Will) and
decreed that the Tsar must die. Opponents of terrorism objected, and they organized themselves as
Chernyi peredel (Black Repartition, a name signifying a call for massive land reform). After prolonged negotiations, the two groups agreed on a
complete split, dividing up the assets and property
of the Zemlia i volia organization.
Since the narodovoltsy, as the Narodnaia volia
group was called, won control of the main printing equipment of Zemlia i volia, they were able to
publicize their existence and their program immediately, putting out a newspaper bearing the group’s
name. Directing their clandestine publishing operations were Lev Tikhomirov and Nikolai Morozov,
who had previously been members of the editorial
board of Zemlia i volia. Morozov strongly endorsed
the terrorist campaign, declaring simply, “Political
assassination is the very essence of the revolutionary movement.”
On August 26, 1879, the Executive Committee, as
the conspiratorial core of the narodovoltsy called
themselves, confirmed its verdict that Tsar Alexander II must die, and its members launched an
unprecedented campaign of assassination. For
the next eighteen months they pursued the tsar
Chapter 11: PROPAGANDA OF THE DEED
throughout the country, mining railroad tracks and
even planting a bomb in the Winter Palace. For the
moment, however, he survived.
Early in the morning of January 18, 1880, tsarist
authorities struck back; police raided the apartment
in St. Petersburg where the Narodnaia volia printing
press was housed. The residents responded with gun
fire, and the battle continued for something over half
an hour before the police prevailed. According to an
official report, the raid netted 370 kilograms of type,
an excellent printing press and various typographic
equipment, in addition to revolvers, poison, dynamite, and an abundance of revolutionary printed
material. Ten days later, meeting with no resistance,
the police seized the Chernyi peredel printing establishment, taking some 65 kilos of type. On March
13-14, the authorities closed down a third illegal
printing establishment in St. Petersburg, this one
organized by a group of workers, and in yet another
victory over the revolutionaries, the police confiscated type being smuggled into the country in an
effort to set up a printing press for Nabat.
The government’s success in eliminating revolutionary print shops stimulated the revival of émigré
printing and publishing. Neither Narodnaia volia
nor Chernyi peredel could afford such losses of
capital equipment. Narodnaia volia, with its greater
resources, succeeded in reviving some printing activities within Russia, but Chernyi peredel chose to
turn to the emigration, and it contracted with the
Rabotnik press in Geneva to handle its printing
needs.
A major new wave of émigrés now fled to the West
and behind them came tsarist agents. On February
4, 1880, Russian officials in Paris succeeded in
arranging the arrest of Lev Hartman, a fugitive from
the investigation of an effort to mine the Tsar’s train
in Moscow. When the Russians sought Hartman’s
extradition, however, a storm arose in French politics. The émigrés, each frightened for his or her own
personal safety, rose as one to protest the thought of
extradition and demanded help from French politicians and public figures. In the end, the French
government decided against Hartman’s extradition,
calling his action political rather than criminal, and
it expelled him from the country, sending him off
to London.
Watching these fast changing developments, the
émigrés had no sense of purpose or identity within
their own ranks; they could only approve or disapprove of what was happening in Russia. To most,
the assassination campaign appeared to be a heroic
life or death struggle, perhaps the apocalypse itself,
and they felt that they had to support Narodnaia
volia’s Executive Committee, even if they were less
than enthusiastic about terrorism as a weapon. They
raised money; they supported Hartman’s cause; but
they had no unifying organizations or ideas.
Some émigrés tentatively offered theories to justify
the principle of political assassination, arguing that
the narodovoltsy were too busy acting to take time
to put the obvious down on paper. After he was
expelled from Paris, Hartman, lionized in London as
a martyr of both the French and the Russian governments, considered publishing a weekly newspaper,
to be called Nihilist, but nothing came of this. In a
pamphlet entitled The Terrorist Struggle, Morozov,
now again in Switzerland, argued that terrorism,
“this rich, consistent system,” should be established
in all societies as an effective means of preventing
“the recurrence of despotism in the future.” Even the
Executive Committee rejected Morozov’s thesis, but
within the emigration only Dragomanov dared to
condemn terrorism altogether, calling it “unclean.”
Another terrorist émigré, G. Romanenko, responded that “all revolution as a means of liberating
the people is moral” and that “terrorist revolution”
was more reasonable, humanitarian, and ethical in
its methods than mass revolution.
In this turmoil and confusion, the chernoperedeltsy,
the members of Chernyi peredel, led by Georgii V.
Plekhanov, emerged as the force of the future. Once
a member of the editorial board of Zemlia i volia,
Plekhanov opposed Narodnaia volia’s dedication to
terrorism, and he chose to go into the emigration.
Shortly after arriving in Geneva in January 1879, he
traveled with Zhukovsky to Paris to participate in the
struggle against Hartman’s extradition. After meeting Lavrov, whom he had long admired, he chose
to remain in the French capital for a year to work
with him. Lavrov helped him to place articles for
publication, and although he was constantly beset
by financial hardship, Plekhanov soon emerged as
one of the intellectual leaders of the emigration.
Born to a military family in 1856, Plekhanov had
publicly joined the revolutionary movement with
a passionate speech at the Kazan demonstration of
December 1876. After a brief stay in Berlin, he had
returned to Russia and had joined Zemlia i volia.
Choosing to work among urban workers rather
than among the peasantry, he earned a reputation
as a slashing orator and debater, at this time still
advocating Bakunist-style revolutionary action.
When Zemlia i volia split, Plekhanov threatened
to retire from the revolutionary movement, but he
remained in it when he found kindred spirits such
as Zasulich, Deich, and Stefanovich.
While in Paris, Plekhanov accepted Lavrov’s invitation to join a new publication venture, a series to
be called the Russian Social-Revolutionary Library.
Although he was not on the editorial board of the
library, Plekhanov wrote the announcement which
71
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
spoke of a desperate need for socialist literature:
“The only means for the exchange of ideas on all
these questions, which brook no delay, are individual meetings of these or those persons.” Intellectuals, Plekhanov argued, needed help in bridging
“the abyss that was separating the censored world
view of the Russian citizen from the world view of
the socialist.” Few could accomplish this passage
by themselves, and therefore the Russian socialists,
“who must regularly seek refuge abroad,” should
take this moment to contribute to the development
of Russian socialist literature.
As a participant in the Russian Social-Revolutionary
Library, Plekhanov opposed tolerating too broad
a range of opinions. “Censorship,” he declared to
Lavrov,
is not bad when the initiators of a specific literary
enterprise refuse to accept under their banner articles contradicting their convictions; it is only bad
when it interferes with such an initiative in other
enterprises.
He was particularly suspicious of the views of Hartman and Morozov, both still apologists for assassinations, and he succeeded in blocking the inclusion of Morozov’s essay on terrorism in the library’s
series. He also blocked endorsement of Rebellions
and Propaganda, by the anarchist Peter Kropotkin,
and he advised Lavrov against the idea of holding an
open election for the Editorial Commission because
the wrong people might win.
Of particular concern to Plekhanov in the organization of the library was the possibility of Dragomanov’s
becoming a member of the library’s Editorial Commission. Unwilling to give up his own independent
stance, Dragomanov had limited his participation
in the enterprise to literary questions and would
have nothing to do with the library’s administration, but Plekhanov opposed the Ukrainian’s influence in any matter. He scolded Lavrov for having
even asked whether the “Ukrainophile view was
compatible with the basic tenets” of the library. “In
my opinion no,” Plekhanov responded, and he went
on to declare that he would have nothing to do with
the Ukrainians: “Where there is no socialism, there
is no science.”
72
Dragomanov also drew the fire of Polish socialists.
His Ukrainian nationalism was not directed solely
against the Russians; as a former subject people
of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Ukrainians also had old social, political, and cultural
grievances against the Poles, whose nobility had so
long controlled their territory. When Polish nationalists spoke of restoring Poland to its frontiers of
1772, Dragomanov and other Ukrainians would
be quick to complain about Polish imperialism.
Dragomanov’s Russian opponents, led by Deich
and the other chernoperedeltsy, now found new
allies in a new Polish socialist group that was forming in Geneva. “We decided then to form a secret
coalition against Dragomanov,” Lev Deich later
recounted, “to strip him of his laurels, to knock him
down from his pedestal on which, in our opinion,
he unjustifiably stood.”
The turning point in Dragomanov’s public image
came in a public meeting of the émigrés in Geneva,
held in June 1880, at which Deich, in the name of
various revolutionaries from the Ukraine, objected
to the Ukrainian’s “excessive” nationalism; the
Ukrainians present, supporting Dragomanov, felt
threatened as a group and withdrew, refusing to
attend any more such gatherings. Deich attributed
their reaction to irrational, paranoid behavior on
Dragomanov’s part. Dragomanov then attracted
more hostility when he spoke out against Polish
imperialism at a public meeting marking the fiftieth
anniversary of the Polish rising of 1830.
Dragomanov completed his isolation by openly criticizing the terrorists. According to Deich, as late as
the spring of 1880 Dragomanov still paid grudging
tribute to the successes of the terrorists, declaring,
“If I had a large amount of money, I would give
three-quarters of it to terror and the rest to various
literary endeavors.” Dragomanov limited his endorsement, however, to violence as a weapon of selfdefense, and he was one of the first to express distrust of Narodnaia volia’s centralized structure. As
he spoke up, Dragomanov looked more and more
the political liberal reformer, not a radical socialist,
and the Russian émigrés began to draw away from
him.
In retreat, Dragomanov tried new initiatives. In a
proclamation dated June 15, 1880, he and the Gromada press announced the establishment of a “Free
Jewish Print Shop.” Saying that the great majority of
Jews in Russia could only read Yiddish, he declared
that this press would carry the socialist message
to Jewish workers, and he requested support from
other progressive groups. (When he was accused
of being anti-Jewish, Dragomanov explained that
the Jews must recognize that their national group
had its own class divisions.) The idea was still-born.
Many Russians rejected his basic notion that each
nationality should have its own socialist literature,
and they resented how busy Liakhotsky-Kuzma
was in the Gromada shop at a time when the Russian print shops were languishing. Dragomanov
received an unexpected endorsement when Andrei
Zheliabov, who was now directing Narodnaia volia’s
terrorist operations, asked him to be the guardian
of the group’s archive, but since Dragomanov was
Chapter 11: PROPAGANDA OF THE DEED
already speaking out against the group’s program,
nothing came of this initiative.
The Russian émigrés now drove Dragomanov out of
their ranks, although he maintained some personal
contacts. He and Kravchinsky remained friends, his
Gromada press had no trouble working on the premises of the Rabotnik shop, but he ceased to attend
meetings and his hospitality toward visitors cooled.
By the end of 1880 it was no longer a common practice as it had once been to take every newcomer to
meet him. As one commentator put it, he was not
just in a minority, he was isolated.
The field belonged to the new generation of émigrés,
fresh from the battles at home. The printing establishment in Geneva, to be sure, was still in a state
of disarray. The Rabotnik group had by and large
broken up; the shop’s days were numbered. Trusov
was getting old, and he was making sounds of quitting. Elpidin was going his own way, an eccentric
with whom people felt they had to do business, but
whom most did not trust. Dragomanov’s Gromada
was flourishing; later generations of Ukrainians
would hail it as the “Kolokol of Ukrainian socialism”; but it had nothing to do with the Russians.
The terrorist campaign in Russia had to run its
course before the émigré community could regain
its sense of mission in the revolutionary cause.
73
Chapter 12:
COUNTERATTACK
On March 1/13, 1881, Narodnaia volia finally
accomplished its goal, the assassination of the
Tsar. As Tsar Alexander II was passing through St.
Petersburg, one conspirator threw a bomb at him
that failed of its purpose. Having stepped out of his
carriage to see what had happened, the Tsar then
fell victim to another bomb that mangled him. He
died a few hours later. The terrorists had succeeded,
but whether they had won or not was another question. The government and its supporters responded
forcefully to the assassination.
Narodnaia volia paid heavily for its campaign and
then again for its success. By the late winter of
1881-1882, most of its original leaders had fled the
country or else had fallen into the hands of the authorities. The assassination failed to wrest any concessions, much less a constitution, from the government; indeed, the next decade would turn out to
be a period of renewed political reaction under the
iron hand of the new Tsar, Alexander III. But the
revolutionaries had won attention for themselves
both at home and abroad.
Revolutionary terror, of course, did not immediately cease with the Tsar’s death. The Executive
Committee issued communiqués explaining its
demands, and the attacks on government officials
continued. The statistics of the terrorist campaign
were impressive: Between 1878 and 1882, besides
four direct attacks on the Tsar’s life, one could count
six attacks on high government officials and four
more on police chiefs. Bystanders, such as the dead
in the explosion in the Winter Palace, did not figure
into the revolutionaries’ calculations, and they put
the body count of spies and traitors at nine killed
and two wounded. The police recorded twenty-two
cases of armed resistance to arrest in this period. In
return the revolutionaries paid heavily: Thirty-one
comrades were executed. With time the authorities
succeeded in breaking up the terrorist organization,
and they tracked the fugitives into the emigration.
74
Under the newly formed Department of State Police
of the Ministry of the Interior, official surveillance
of émigrés became far better organized. In the past,
tsarist diplomats and police agents on special mis-
sions had rather haphazardly watched Russians
living in Western Europe. In 1881 Russian consuls
abroad were co-opted as “correspondents and aides
of the Department of Police.” In 1883, the police, the
Okhrana, established their Foreign Agency, Zagranichnaia agentura, in the basement of the Russian
embassy in Paris, and the following year Petr Ivanovich Rachkovsky took charge and established its
network of operations.
Paralleling the systematization of the police in this
conservative counterrevolution were new initiatives
on the part of private groups who argued that the
security forces had failed in their duty of protecting
the Tsar. Some of them considered organizing a
campaign of assassinations aimed at revolutionary
leaders, but more significant was the effort of members of the so-called Holy Brotherhood to manipulate public opinion by influencing the press both
within Russia and also in the emigration.
The conservatives chose Dragomanov as their
target for entry into the émigré community. In the
summer of 1881 Dragomanov’s fortunes seemed
at low ebb; at odds with most of the Russians in
Geneva, he seemed particularly vulnerable and
accessible because of his open opposition to revolutionary terrorism. When a mysterious figure
suddenly appeared, claiming to represent a liberal
organization called the Zemskii soiuz (Zemstvo
Union) and offering to underwrite the publication
of a journal that would advocate a struggle for political freedoms and at the same time oppose the use
of terror, Dragomanov accepted the proposal with
alacrity and even gave the man a letter of recommendation to Petr Lavrov.
The visitor, Arkady Malshinsky, once known as a
radical journalist, persuaded others of his good faith
too. When he visited Lavrov in Paris, he pictured
himself as a socialist and a supporter of Chernyi
peredel. Lavrov reacted cautiously, but he offered
some suggestions as to other collaborators. He then
urged Pavel Akselrod to investigate this possibility
of paid work. “If he is not a soiled man,” Lavrov
speculated, “then this organ could be taken in hand
and made into something decent.”
Chapter 12: COUNTERATTACK
Akselrod, who was associated with the chernoperedeltsy, was to play an important role in the emigration through the next decade as a member of
the Marxist group “Liberation of Labor.” Born in a
poor Jewish family in the Ukraine, he was one of
the first of that nationality to come into the revolutionary movement with a Russian education. He
had worked briefly as a typesetter in Geneva in 1876
and had contributed to Obshchina in 1878, but he
did not settle in Switzerland until he joined Deich
there in 1880. Much to Deich’s distress, Akselrod
also maintained good relations with Dragomanov.
(Deich never could understand how Dragomanov
kept the respect of men like Akselrod and Kravchinsky.) At Lavrov’s urging, moreover, Akselrod
now joined this new publication, and his presence
on its staff gave it a degree of respectability.
The first issue of Vol’noe slovo (The Free Word), as
the publication was called, appeared with the date of
August 8, 1881. Printed in Dragomanov’s Gromada
shop, it eventually claimed to have its own print
shop, although the work continued to be performed
on the same premises. Coming out against centralism both in government and in revolutionary organizations and against revolutionary violence, the
newspaper demanded linguistic and religious rights
for all the nationalities of the Russian Empire.
From the first the newspaper evoked controversy
and opposition. Other émigrés considered it suspiciously well-funded, and they complained that it
seemed more concerned about attacking revolutionary practices than about considering problems
of Russian society. Dragomanov, who increasingly
spoke for the newspaper while Malshinsky tried to
remain in the background, responded that he was
against terror in any form; as he saw it, revolutionary
terror and governmental terror fed off each other.
The ideological and tactical disputes, however, soon
fell by the wayside as challenges arose to Vol’noe
slovo’s basic character – was it sponsored by the
government?
In September 1881 Varfolomei Zaitsev, writing
in Obshchee delo, called Vol’noe slovo a tool of the
Ministry of the Interior. Vol’noe slovo denied having
any special relationship “with persons standing at
the helm of government in Russia,” and it scoffed
at Obshchee delo’s revelations about a mysterious
organization called the Holy Brotherhood. Within a
month, however, it reported that it too had learned
something about such an organization. When Obshchee delo pursued the topic, the “editorial board”
of Vol’noe slovo responded, “Vol’noe slovo has no
relations with any official or semi-official person or
institutions, it is a publication completely independent, and it has no other goals than, by means of
the uncensored word, to serve the free development
of the people in Russia and in neighboring, related
lands.”
Rejecting this explanation, critics focused on Malshinsky, whom they now identified as the author of
a study of the revolutionary movement prepared a
few years earlier under the aegis of the police. Later,
various revolutionaries would claim to have been
the first to tell Dragomanov of his colleague’s suspicious background, but the Ukrainian always replied
that Malshinsky had simply been an employee of
the archive of the Third Section, not an officer of
that organization. This answer frustrated his challengers – “... he did not want to believe that this was
an organ of the Minister of Internal Affairs Ignatiev,” wrote Elpidin – but Dragomanov persisted.
Dragomanov even had to answer to Alphons Thun,
a Swiss professor who was preparing a history of
the Russian revolutionary movement. While Thun
was ready to accept Vol’noe slovo’s program as the
“only relatively correct” one for Russia, he was critical of the so-called Zemskii soiuz, and he rejected
Dragomanov’s request that he drop a reference in
his book to Malshinsky’s having worked for the
Third Section. As for Dragomanov’s insistence that
Malshinsky had only been an employee of the section, Thun declared, “I gainsay to note that the difference is not a great one.” Malshinsky, he asserted,
had written an essay for the use of the emperor and
had received “an appropriate honorarium.”
The furor over Malshinsky’s background and role
especially upset Akselrod. He worried about his
own reputation, but he also valued the 125 francs he
received each month as a contributor to the newspaper. Therefore he urged Dragomanov, who was
drawing no income from the publication, to speak
out more effectively in its defense; as a paid contributor, he, Akselrod, could do nothing. To soothe
the nerves of his collaborators, Malshinsky gave a
banquet for them at the end of January 1882 and
apparently succeeded in calming them down for at
least the time being.
For his own part, Dragomanov tried to balance
the attacks from the left by pointing to attacks on
him coming from the right. He cited articles in the
British press labeling him an advocate of tsaricide.
In answer to all, he declared that his views and his
activities were open and well known. He signed his
own material; he published nothing anonymously.
The printing shops of Geneva, he declared, were
based not on conspiratorial but on ordinary trade
foundations, and they print on their publications
their own names and addresses and present a
determined number of copies, in accordance with
Geneva laws, to the local city hall.
75
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
He complained of a conspiracy aimed against all
“who raise an independent voice on behalf of the
free development of all peoples of Russia and of
neighboring states.”
In addition to the controversy surrounding Vol’noe
slovo, Dragomanov’s moralizing angered the émigrés. In the fall of 1881 he criticized the way the
émigrés had branded one man a spy; Zaitsev responded that if one suspected another person of
being a spy, one had a duty to speak out even at the
risk of smearing an innocent person. Dragomanov
objected, but he was swimming against the tide.
Similarly, he drew considerable fire for his criticizing the formation of the Red Cross of Narodnaia
volia, a group established to raise money for the
revolutionary organization; a secret terrorist group,
he argued, had no right to exploit the image of a
public international philanthropic organization.
After Dragomanov and Rabotnik had parted company in the spring of 1882, he came out even more
sharply against the uses of political conspiracy and
of terror. In an article entitled “The Fascination of
Energy,” published in Vol’noe slovo of April 8, 1882,
he called Narodnaia volia’s program vague, and he
declared that the party now resembled a religious
cult, immune to rational criticism. By equating the
political struggle with war, “completely free of any
conventions,” the terrorists were displaying Jesuitical morals, and one should not be surprised by
stories of how these people, when captured, capitulate and cooperate with the authorities.
Dragomanov’s essay aroused a new storm, as critics
rushed forward to defend the names of the men and
women who were carrying on the struggle in Russia.
The chernoperedeltsy published an open letter challenging him to prove his allegations about the terrorists’ moral standards. Elsnitz exclaimed, “Gradually the conviction has formed for me that this man
is above all a nationalist, with spite and hatred for
all things Muscovite in general, and in particular for
all those elements of Muscovy, however revolutionary, who dare not to apply to the Ukrainian question that same significance that he gives to it.”
76
For Akselrod, this all presented a special dilemma.
Under attack for continuing to contribute to Vol’noe
slovo, he finally sent Malshinsky his resignation,
adding, “I will always have good memories about my
personal relations with you.” Kravchinsky, however,
urged him to reconsider. Despite his own past activities, Kravchinsky was critical of the elitist and
centralist philosophy underlying Narodnaia volia’s
actions. Insisting, “We must demand and defend
the freedom of any thought and any criticism,” he
denounced the Executive Committee’s efforts to
clothe itself in “papal infallibility.” Akselrod thereupon withdrew his letter, but when the editorial
board of the newspaper altered one of his contributions, he finally broke away.
In the face of these attacks, Malshinsky had considerable trouble keeping Dragomanov’s spirits up.
“I am very happy at the news that the narodovoltsy
have opened a campaign against Vol’noe slovo,”
he wrote. “I did not start it; but if they want to
fight, let’s do it!” Dragomanov, however, felt beleaguered. When V. A. Cherkezov announced that
he would publish a critical brochure in the form
of “a defense written by an enemy,” Dragomanov
exclaimed, “I don’t know in what dictionary to find
the appropriate phrase to apply to you.” Cherzekov
responded, “How can you suspect that I would say
anything about you or anyone else that I would
not say directly?” and he criticized Dragomanov
for having tried to discredit “the Russian movement and Russian revolutionaries.” Speaking of
Dragomanov’s essay “The Fascination of Energy,”
Cherkezov declared that the Ukrainian had now
fully earned the title of “scoundrel” (podlets). Dragomanov chose not to respond.
In addition to his troubles with the radical political
émigrés, Dragomanov had to deal with attacks from
a peculiar new publication, entitled Pravda (Truth),
which first appeared in August 1882. No one knew
exactly where the editor, I. Klimov, had come from,
but some claimed that he had once been a police
agent. Printed by Trusov, with the false imprint
of “Free Russian Press, London,” this newspaper
put out twenty issues, appearing regularly until
February 13, 1883. The punctuality and consistency
in itself bespoke sound financial backing and naturally aroused the émigrés’ suspicions.
As its program the newspaper breathed and snorted
a destructive radicalism. According to Khristoforov,
“Klimov called for attacking the landlords not only
with axes and fire, but also by crippling their livestock, breaking their horses’ legs, cutting out cows’
udders, etc.” The newspaper denounced “knutomonarchic [‘whip-monarchic’] absolutism” and
called for the rule of law in Russia. It claimed that
police spies had infiltrated the emigration, and it
enthusiastically endorsed terror as a revolutionary
weapon. In its ninth issue it announced its support
of the “socialist communist group” (gruppa sotsialistov-obshchinnikov), calling for the organization
of agricultural associations. Declaring that socialist
propaganda and tactics should be attuned to the
particular place and time, the newspaper went on
to argue that governmental leaders were so stupid
that the revolutionaries should support them: Such
tsarist officials as “the idiot plunderers” Konstantin
Pobedonostsev and Dmitri Tolstoy, it insisted, were
in fact helping the revolutionary cause: “We can
boldly hope that this reactionary barbarian road on
Chapter 12: COUNTERATTACK
which the Russian government has embarked will
yet long continue.”
Very soon Pravda joined in the attacks on Vol’noe
slovo, calling it a police organ. With sarcastic comment about “the level of culture of a great number
of our co-nationals,” Dragomanov labeled Pravda
a “constitutional-republican-socialist newspaper,
written in an illiterate style, and slow in printing
news.” He was willing to overlook the attacks on his
own newspaper, he declared, but he objected that
Pravda had stolen away one of his contributors,
Vasily Sidoratsky.
Sidoratsky, an eccentric living in Paris, was a selfacclaimed nihilist, whom almost no one, including
tsarist agents, took very seriously. Deich later said
of him that he “was already psychologically ill when
he emigrated; a ‘graphomane’ [‘writing maniac’],
an anti-Semite, he received funds from who knows
where for publishing a colossal quantity of the most
mindless works.” In the somewhat freer atmosphere
of Paris after Hartman’s success in avoiding extradition, Sidoratsky set up a printing press of his own,
publishing a periodical entitled Nigilist (Nihilist); his
product, including poetry of dubious literary merit,
was most noteworthy for his anti-Jewish sentiments
and for his attempts at orthographic reform of the
Russian language. When one of his essays appeared
in Pravda – he was apparently at home with the wild
pronouncements of that publication – Dragomanov
questioned what he was doing. Sidoratsky then
angrily withdrew a manuscript from Vol’noe slovo
and charged that Dragomanov was attempting to
censor his work.
Pravda’s days, however, were numbered. To the
very end Klimov continued to attack Vol’noe slovo,
declaring that “correspondence for Pravda comes
from Russia as the opportunity presents itself,
while Vol’noe slovo receives its directly from its
chief, practically through the imperial embassy.” In
December 1882 a group of twenty-six leading émigrés in Geneva issued a public declaration asserting
that Pravda represented none of them and that the
newspaper had to be viewed with suspicion. The
Russian government, they feared, could be trying
to compromise them in the hope of having them
expelled from Switzerland. Under the glare of public
scrutiny, the newspaper could not survive; it ceased
publication in February 1883.
For decades afterward, the émigrés debated Pravda’s
character and background, as well as the meaning
and significance of its dispute with Vol’noe slovo.
Elpidin, not noted for any subtlety in understanding political nuances, simplistically referred to the
dispute between the two publications as “a war between a chief spy and a plenipotentiary agent from
the same kitchen,” seeing both as the products of
the tsarist police. V. Iakovlev, a noted historian of
the revolutionary movement, saw Pravda as the
creation of the Ministry of the Interior, as distinguished from the Holy Brotherhood’s sponsorship
of Vol’noe slovo. Other historians have argued that
both were the work of the Brotherhood. After the
fall of the tsarist regime, researchers came up with
a police commentary on Pravda: “This estimable
newspaper was published not by revolutionaries
but by the Brotherhood, which thought it could
establish relations with socialist groups in this shameful way and expose them.” This commentary led
to speculation that Pravda was the work of the conservative “Voluntary Okhrana,” while Vol’noe slovo
came from the more liberal wing of the Holy Brotherhood.
None of these historical analyses, however, considered the satirical content of Pravda. Klimov, the
editor, could be witty, and he obviously put considerable thought into carrying the arguments
of the terrorists to absurd extremes. The émigrés
denounced his calls as “provocative,” but at time he
would seem to have been laughing while writing.
His negative comments about the tsarist police and
about Vol’noe slovo would also indicate that he had
other purposes: Perhaps elements within the Holy
Brotherhood were attempting to satisfy personal
grudges against others both in the brotherhood and
in the government. At any rate, Pravda was simply
a brief, passing phenomenon on the émigré stage,
around only long enough to add to Dragomanov’s
troubles.
In the fall of 1882 the Holy Brotherhood made yet
another excursion into the emigration when it sent
Nikolai Nikoladze, once a radical émigré and now a
prominent liberal journalist, to Western Europe to
negotiate with the émigré leadership of Narodnaia
volia. Nikoladze proposed that Narodnaia volia
suspend its campaign of terror and allow the coronation of Tsar Alexander III to take place in peace;
the government would then launch a campaign of
moderate reform. The talks failed, and the Holy
Brotherhood decided to withdraw from its experiments in the émigré publishing world.
The Holy Brotherhood’s withdrawal left Vol’noe
slovo orphaned and impoverished. Gradually taking
more and more responsibility for the publication,
Dragomanov had made it into an informative work;
having obtained the papers of Herzen and Tchorzewski, he recounted the story of how Nechaev had
obtained control of the Bakhmetev fund. In January
1883, he officially became the newspaper’s editor,
but his effort to find support among liberals failed.
In the spring of 1883 the narodovoltsy in Geneva
delivered a death blow to Vol’noe slovo in their
publication Calendar of Narodnaia volia for 1883.
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THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
Listing émigré periodicals, they characterized
Vol’noe slovo as “an ardent opponent of the socialrevolutionary movement,” not only in principle but
also in action. In April 1883 Malshinsky notified
Dragomanov that the newspaper would have to
be temporarily suspended, and the last issue, nos.
61/62, appeared with the date May 22. Although
in November 1882the head of the Holy Brotherhood had personally promised Dragomanov that
he would be happy to provide material help for any
other literary ventures, Dragomanov now withdrew
from any such activity.
Among themselves the émigrés at times debated
why Obshchee delo had taken the initiative of exposing and attacking Vol’noe slovo’s suspicious origins.
Some thought that Zaitsev had raised the issue
simply out of his own personal convictions. Vera
Zasulich later claimed that Belogolovy had obtained
information from the Tsar’s former minister, Mikhail Loris-Melikov, who had been Belogolovy’s private patient. Belogolovy, however, asserted that he
saw Loris in the emigration for the first time only
several years later. Khristoforov, Obshchee delo’s
editor, on the other hand, later confirmed that Belogolovy had been the source of the newspaper’s information, but he asserted that Belogolovy’s source has
been the writer Saltykov-Shchedrin. Rather than
having any political motive, Obshchee delo was probably following the journalistic instinct of pursuing
a good story.
Vol’noe slovo cost Dragomanov heavily. The personal
aggravation could not be measured; according to
one biographer, the experience played no small role
78
in the development of his heart condition. He had
to have known of the role of the Holy Brotherhood
in sponsoring the publication; he at least once met
secretly with Pavel Shuvalov, the head of the Brotherhood. But he probably had convinced himself
of the usefulness of cooperating with the group in
seeking a constitution for Russia. Because of the
scandal, he now lost much of his funding from
Ukrainian sources, and yet he continued his struggles. In July 1883 he publicized a letter from Russia
criticizing the centralist and despotic nature of the
Executive Committee and charging that the committee viewed Russian youth as so much “cannon
fodder.” In a public meeting in January 1884 he
attacked Plekhanov; when Zhukovsky, the chairman
of the session, asked him to refrain from being “provocative,” the meeting broke up in disorder.
In all, the Holy Brotherhood’s excursion into
the world of émigré printing and publishing was
unsuccessful. Vol’noe slovo’s criticisms of the terrorist movement may have hampered Narodnaia
volia’s efforts at fundraising, but the suspicious
background of the publication undermined its
fundamental message. Dragomanov nevertheless somehow managed to avoid being personally
branded a police agent. Vera Zasulich declared that
she was willing to reestablish personal relations with
him: “He is an interesting conversationalist; there
are few such, at least in Geneva, and therefore it is
boring.” Pavel Akselrod later called him “an honorable and logical liberal-democrat with sympathies
for socialism.” The intrigues of the Russian conservatives had nevertheless compromised one of the
most moderate voices in the emigration.
Chapter 13:
THE REVOLUTIONARY
MOVEMENT AS
HISTORY
Ever since Vera Zasulich’s unsuccessful shot at
General Trepov, the western public had been
demanding news about the strange developments
in Russia. As the terrorist campaign against the Tsar
unfolded, the western press even sent its own correspondents to report the news. In May 1879 when
the would-be regicide Aleksandr Soloviev met his
executioner, two French journalists witnessed the
event. Taking note of this interest, Narodnaia volia
declared in its program:
Our party should acquaint Europe with the threat
that Russian absolutism poses to European civilization.
When Alexander II died, a German periodical
declared that the assassination constituted the conclusion of “only one act of the great drama the development of which Europe is following with breathless anticipation.”
Émigrés with the talent or simply the ambition to
write saw opportunity and perhaps even a duty to
respond to this thirst for knowledge. They resented
the picture of the revolutionary movement presented in the popular novels of Ivan Turgenev and in
F. M. Dostoevsky’s The Possessed. But satisfying the
curiosity of western readers could be difficult. Even
those Russians who had studied at Swiss universities might still have trouble expressing themselves
in German or in French. Speaking out could also
have unhappy consequences; when the anarchist
Petr Kropotkin extolled revolutionary violence, the
Swiss deported him. When Pavel Akselrod, on the
other hand, painstakingly tried to educate German
Social Democrats about the differences between
Narodnaia volia and the anarchists, he received
abuse in the pages of Narodnaia volia.
Besides wanting to educate foreigners, the émigrés
felt a need to study their history themselves. Herzen
had challenged the official version of Russian history sponsored by the court and its supporters, but
he had then fallen out with the Young Emigration.
A few years later Tkachev and Zhukovsky had
announced their intention of writing a history of
the “political movement in Russia.” Declaring that
Russian society knew only the “official, state version” of Russian history, they wanted to recount
“the history of protests against the authorities, the
history of the fifty-year struggle against them, the
history of the martyrs for Russian freedom, a history unknown in the West and unknown to Russian
society.” That project failed on the drawing board;
Tkachev complained that Zhukovsky had not been
able to comply with the work’s “strictly historical
character.”
In 1880 the most popular book on the revolutionary
movement available in the West would seem to have
been one by an Italian, J. B. Arnaudo, just recently
translated into French as Le nihilisme et les nihilistes.
The French edition appended letters by Turgenev
and Alexander Herzen fils, both dated August 1879,
testifying to its usefulness. Turgenev called the
work “the best thought out and the best written” of
all the recent works on “nihilism.” Herzen had some
objections about the image of his father presented
in the work, but he praised it as “one of the best studies published on the subject,” although he felt that
it did not pay enough attention to “governmental
nihilism.” Most political émigrés, on the other hand,
objected to Arnaudo’s characterization of “bloody
nihilism” and to the sympathy shown by the author
for assassination victims.
When Nikolai Morozov returned to Switzerland in
the winter of 1880, he announced plans to write a
history of the revolutionary movement, concentrating especially on the years 1873-1875, the period
of the flowering of the Chaikovtsy. He asked Lavrov
for documents concerning Vpered, but Lavrov responded that he had “no written materials.” Morozov
nevertheless continued his project, promising it
to the Library of Social Revolutionary Literature.
He soon tired of such quiet activity, however, and
79
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
returned to Russia, once again to be arrested on the
frontier. This time, he “sat” in tsarist prisons for the
rest of the century; the text he was able to prepare
saw publication only in Soviet times.
The tsarist authorities also needed accounts of the
revolutionary movement. Down to the end of the
1860s, the authorities had compiled annual summaries of the revolutionary troubles, but in the decade
of the 1870s developments came too fast. They therefore decided that they needed a complete history, a
reference work, and they assigned this job to one of
their own workers, Arkady Malshinsky, a man who
had studied in Heidelberg and who had personally
known Herzen and Ogarev, and also the man who
subsequently worked with Mikhail Dragomanov.
When it was completed, Malshinsky’s product
amounted to an intellectual history of the revolutionary movement. Relying more on literary sources
than on police reports, Malshinsky paid special
attention to émigré publishing activities, which he
saw as embodying the efforts of the people abroad
to influence the revolutionary movement at home.
Although almost all “poorly educated,” the émigrés supported “the system of agitation by means
of book propaganda on the soil of the fatherland.”
In conclusion, Malshinsky argued that the revolutionary movement sprang from Russia’s internal
problems, that it was not a product of foreign influences, and he warned that repressive measures by
themselves constituted an ineffective response – the
government had to deal with the roots of Russia’s
social problems.
First printed in a limited edition of just 150 copies,
Malshinsky’s work, entitled Obzor sotsial’no-revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia v Rossii, somehow became
public, and in 1880 it was reprinted commercially.
The revolutionaries naturally scorned this effort by a
representative of the government to study the revolutionary movement, but Narodnaia volia, for one,
essentially approved of Malshinsky’s conclusions.
The tsarist authorities, on the other hand, considered Malshinsky’s work too literary and generally
too interpretive on the part of the author. It did
not constitute the reference book that they wanted.
Therefore, dissatisfied, they commissioned another
historical survey.
80
After some confusion, Prince N. N. Golitsyn
undertook the job. When he finally completed his
manuscript, the tenth chapter, which considered
the period 1870 to 1874, was chosen for a sample
printing. Produced in a limited edition of 50 copies,
Golitsyn’s Istoriia sotsial’no-revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia v Rossii 1861-1881 gg. Glava desiataia stuck
closely to the desiderata presented by its sponsors.
Beginning with the death of Herzen in 1870, his
account followed the activities of Nechaev, Bakunin,
and Lavrov in the emigration. Based mainly on
police reports, it tended to emphasize scandals, and
it abounded in factual errors and contradictions.
Some 60% of the volume consisted in an alphabetical listing of biographies of leading émigrés.
In the early 1880s, the authorities obtained important additional information in the confessions of
revolutionaries such as Iakov Stefanovich. In the fall
of 1881, Stefanovich, one of the founders of Chernyi
peredel, had been arrested in Russia. Under interrogation, he yielded and produced a history of the
“Russian revolutionary emigration.” Structuring his
account around émigré publications, he explained
that Vpered had folded after the breakup of the
chaikovtsy circle; Nabat was supported only by a
few women; and Obshchee delo was a “commercial” enterprise from which Elpidin was making
a profit. Because Narodnaia volia demanded that
its adherents be ready to return to Russia, most of
the émigrés leaned toward Chernyi peredel, which
only demanded support for socialist publications,
but since the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, he
noted, sympathy for Narodnaia volia had been growing. In 1880 and 1881 the police decided to summarize and distribute all such information in a new
series of reports that soon became an annual publication, recounting events and police documents in
a narrative fashion.
The historical research of the police was for the
most part kept secret, and the most popular historical work on the revolution in this time emerged
from with the emigration –Underground Russia. A
Gallery of Revolutionary Portraits, written by Sergei
Kravchinsky, using the penname of Stepniak. Kravchinsky had undertaken this project as a means of
supporting himself while awaiting an opportunity
to return to Russia. He had spoken to Lavrov of
wanting to bring “the real truth about the ‘nihilists’” to the European public, and when he moved
from Switzerland to Milan, Italy, hoping thereby to
escape the tsarist agents who still sought him for
Mezentsev’s murder, he contracted with the newspaper Il Pungolo for a series of ten to sixteen articles
on the revolutionary movement.
As Kravchinsky conceived of his project, it would
characterize “the movement in persons and images.”
Upon reading the first installment, an essay on
“Dmitro,” (Stefanovich), Il Pungolo’s editor was full
of compliments. Naturally the newspaper could not
share all of Kravchinsky’s views, but, he concluded,
the newspaper would be happy to have the “letters”
decorate its columns. (Kravchinsky used the form
of letters, ostensibly written in Switzerland, in the
hopes that this would still confuse the police as to his
actual whereabouts.) Kravchinsky was delighted: “I
will write a semi-revolutionary thing,” he explained
Chapter 13: THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT AS HISTORY
in a letter to his wife, “and this is very pleasant after
all that censored nonsense.”
Kravchinsky planned a total of thirteen essays –
two historical studies, eight biographies (four men
and four women), and then three anecdotes, these
concerning Prince Peter Kropotkin’s escape from
prison, the Hartman case, and the work of underground printers. The essay on printers, he told his
wife, would be the last “and the most somber and
perhaps the best.” In his dreams he thought about
how these essays would live on: “All these together
will constitute very good material for a future historian or a novelist.”
The job of writing, however, was not easy. Kravchinsky composed his essays in Italian – he had
reportedly learned the language while sitting in an
Italian prison a few years earlier. He did not, however,
have a good memory for dates and details; he repeatedly had to ask his wife, who was still in Geneva,
to inquire among friends, to consult Dragomanov’s
books, and to send him publications. Then, in order
to get some reaction from his friends, he translated
the first two essays into Russian and sent them to
his wife to pass around for comments. Everything
had to be done quietly, without arousing attention,
lest the police learn where he was hiding.
There being no tradition among the revolutionaries
for writing about living comrades, Kravchinsky had
to expect criticism, and it came quickly. Responding to complaints that he had been too cool in his
comments about Stefanovich, who now sat in a tsarist prison, he declared, “They want to picture him
in gold. His face should shine like Moses’s on Mt.
Sinai – as Byzantine painters portrayed the saints.”
Vera Zasulich complained that memoirs about
people should only be written after their deaths,
and she objected to a statement that she wandered
“about the mountains alone at night.” Kravchinsky
explained that he had to write at a given moment
whether the person was living or not. The public
wanted to read about notable, living persons. As
for his account of her meanderings, he explained, “I
would not say ‘with Dmitri [Stefanovich] or Zhenya
[Deich]’ or just with an amico, just as I would not
say that I rushed in on Annie when she was in bed
and that I sat on her bed, etc., because foreigners
would not understand this in the Russian way.” On
the other hand, he abandoned his essay about Olga
Liubatovich when he heard of her arrest in Russia.
The first installment of the work, with the author
designated simply as “Stepniak,” appeared in Il Pungolo on November 8, 1881, and it won considerable
attention. The newspaper trimmed the essays to
fit the space in its columns, but Kravchinsky was
already looking ahead to the separate publication of
his full manuscript as a book. He now had a new
sense of mission, and when Lev Deich informed
him that everything was now ready for him to
return to Russia, Kravchinsky refused, saying his
book was now a more important activity. (Considering Stefanovich’s cooperation with the authorities, Kravchinsky may have been fortunate.) An
Italian publisher printed the book in an edition of
1200 copies, and in order to impress the public with
the credentials of the mysterious “Stepniak,” Kravchinsky persuaded Lavrov to write a short introduction, explaining that the author was indeed “a
person who had directly taken part in the movement he is describing.”
By the spring of 1882, with La Russia sotterranea
on the market, Kravchinsky was already negotiating
for translations in Paris, Vienna, and London. As
the succeeding editions came out in different languages over the next dozen years, he tinkered with the
text to keep it up to date. The profile of Stefanovich,
for example, was successively toned down. In the
original Italian edition, he spoke of Stefanovich as
“amico carissimo,” but the English edition of 1883
modified this to “dear friend.” The French edition
of 1885 spoke of “mon ami.” When the opportunity
finally came in the 1890s to publish a Russian edition, Kravchinsky dropped all reference to personal
friendship with Stefanovich, and instead he added
a page criticizing the man’s methods, especially his
“lack of principle” in the Chigirin affair when he
joined in deceiving the peasants.
The success of his book led Kravchinsky to shed
his anonymity, and it may well have influenced
his conversion from his earlier Bakunist sympathies. No longer did he have to fear the long arm
of the Tsar, although at times he was concerned
that genteel western friends might be shocked to
learn that he had assassinated a government official. Russian diplomats and police agents abroad
could only gnash their teeth in frustration as this
“bloodthirsty” person was acclaimed an interesting
new literary talent. His romantic, idealistic image of
the Russian revolutionaries was in turn very influential in winning western public support and sympathy for the revolutionary cause. To be sure, there
were criticisms – Dragomanov complained about
the “encomium, the fervid dithyramb” to the terrorists – but Kravchinsky now had a new career, writing about the revolutionary movement. When the
English translation of Underground Russia created
a demand for more of his work, he began studying
the language, and he soon moved to London, better
there to exploit his opportunities and fame.
However popular and authentic, Kravchinsky’s
works only offered vignettes of revolutionary life
and heroism; in the summer of 1882 the emigration
finally found its contemporary historian, when Alp-
81
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
hons Thun arrived in Geneva with the announced
intention of studying the revolutionary movement.
A native of Aachen, Thun had become Ordinarius
for History at the University of Basel in 1881, and
upon coming across some Russian publications in a
local book store, he had decided to study the events
in Russia. When he announced that he would lecture on the Russian revolutionary movement, he
drew enough students to fill the largest auditorium
in the university. Now he wanted to write a book.
It being summertime, Thun found only Dragomanov and Elpidin in residence in Geneva, but
when he returned to Basel, he received some unexpected help from Lev Deich. Having learned
of Thun’s reliance on Elpidin and Dragomanov,
Deich, who was living then in Basel under an
assumed name, visited the historian and struck up a
friendship, eventually agreeing to comment on the
professor’s manuscript. Since Deich was an illegal
alien in Switzerland, he did not reveal his true identity, thereby creating an awkward situation when
Thun criticized the principals in the Chigirin affair
for having deceived the peasants and commented
that the leader of that escapade, who happened to
be Deich, had “unfortunately” escaped. Thun, as a
moderate liberal, could in no way endorse violence
or deception. Deich found such discussion very
uncomfortable and thought it best not to visit Thun
so often.
Thun finished his manuscript in January 1883, and
when his book appeared in the summer, the émigrés were not entirely happy with the result. Comparing the Chigirin affair to Nechaevist mystification, Thun criticized the leaders of Chernyi peredel
for not having disavowed this use of deceit, especially for having called upon the peasantry to swear
a false oath. Displaying some response to Deich’s
arguments, he attributed terrorism to frustration
on the part of the activists:
Centralized political terror was rather a direct product of the uncompromising struggle between the
despotic government and the revolutionary youth
driven to desperation, in which neither side would
shy away from any means.
82
The émigrés welcomed his understanding of the
general development of the revolutionary movement and especially his noting the distinction between nihilism and socialism. Nihilism had negative
connotations in the West while socialism was becoming an increasingly acceptable theory. The nihilists, Thun declared, had the personal, individualistic values of an “honorable bourgeois”; they were
materialists, arguing that bureaucrats should not
take bribes, doctors should serve their patients well,
etc. These values allowed them, in some cases, to
make sizable incomes for themselves. In the 1860s
only a few leaders like Chernyshevsky had had a
socialist consciousness, but as Thun saw it, socialism had replaced nihilism as the dominant world
view in the period from 1869 to 1872, due mainly
to the influence of Narodnoe delo and of the Paris
Commune.
Once in print, Thun’s book enjoyed a unique history.
Appearing in an edition of 1000 copies, it had little
success in Western Europe; it was not translated
into any other Western European language. Thun
had hoped to put out further editions; he asked
Dragomanov to read it “with pencil in hand,” ready
to mark errors. But he unexpectedly died, leaving
no other studies of the revolutionary movement
except for some articles in the German periodical
press. The Russians, however, read the book avidly:
They criticized it, at times condemned it, but kept
on reading it. The book went through a remarkable
series of reprinting in Eastern Europe all the way to
the time of the revolution in Russia in 1917.
A Polish edition appeared in 1893, appending
Plekhanov’s memories of the development of social
democratic thought among the Russians and also
adding a list of corrections compiled by Lavrov,
including an explanation for his three variants of a
program for Vpered. At the beginning of the twentieth century, both major revolutionary groups in
Russia, the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Social
Democrats, came out with Russian translations,
enhanced with extensive commentaries. (Translations of sections had already appeared in hectographed form.) In both cases, the editors complained about details and even the tone of Thun’s
study, but they had to confess that no Russian had
yet written anything better, or even comparable.
The Socialist Revolutionaries called Thun’s study
“the only narrative of the Russian revolutionary
movement.” His effort to collect facts, they declared,
made up for his ignorance of the conditions of Russian life. Noting that there were “errors and omissions” in the work, the editor of the translation,
Leonid Shishko, added his own commentary at the
end of each chapter. In the case of the first chapter,
this meant an appendix of 27 pages added on to
Thun’s original 14 pages. Overall, Shishko’s commentaries equalled Thun’s work in volume, splitting
the 342 pages of the tome. On occasion Shishko also
censored Thun’s text: He eliminated, for example,
the account of Herzen’s negative views toward
the young emigration of the 1860s; he altered the
account of the founding of Vpered; but he approved
of Thun’s criticisms of Nechaev.
When the Social Democrats published a translation
by Vera Zasulich in 1903, Deich prefaced it with an
account of his own role in the preparation of the
Chapter 13: THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT AS HISTORY
study. Plekhanov added a critical introduction, stating that the work had no outstanding qualities, that
there were no original thoughts or insights here, and
that a more talented and a more sympathetic writer
than Thun would have done a much better job in
capturing and delineating “our revolutionary history.” The majesty of the topic itself was responsible
for whatever was worthwhile in the study, having
forced Thun, however unwillingly, to recognize the
“heroism, self-denial, and sometimes perhaps the
conspiratorial talent of the Russian revolutionaries.”
Since, however, no better writer had yet dealt with
the topic, Plekhanov concluded apologetically, “we
have decided to publish Thun’s book, which despite
all its obvious shortcomings at least has the no less
obvious virtue of honesty.”
In his rambling but detailed essay that ran to over
60 pages, Plekhanov offered his own version of
revolutionary history, criticizing Thun’s account of
Lavrovism, praising the description of the populist
movement of the ‘70s, and even taking himself to
task for some of his earlier, pre-Marxist, writings.
He also had to respond to the specter of the Chigirin affair, explaining that at the time the majority
of the activists in the movement had approved of
the revolutionaries’ tactic, although he himself had
viewed it negatively. The translation closed with an
essay by Stefanovich explaining the Chigirin affair
and also an account of the revolutionary movement
in the 1880s, written by D. Koltsov.
In the midst of the revolutionary turmoil of 19051906 in Russia, both Russian versions of Thun’s
work appeared legally in St. Petersburg. The books
now had a nostalgic as well as an educational value.
As one reviewer sighed, “Many people paid for this
book with prison and exile.” The reviewer complained that Thun had paid too much attention to
émigré publications and had not fully understood
what was going on within Russia; he called the book
outdated, having no contemporary significance, as
being superficial and generally unsatisfactory; but
he concluded, “Nevertheless up to now it is the only
complete outline of the history of the revolutionary
movements of the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s.”
As Russia then passed on through its travail leading
up to the revolutions of 1917, Thun’s book continued to serve as the basic text for studying the history of at least the early phases of the revolutionary
movement. In 1917 both Shishko’s and Zasulich’s
translations were again published. One reviewer
marveled at how the work had survived the years,
despite its obvious shortcomings: “Who of us in the
days of youth did not read Thun, printed with some
blue hectograph ink?” It was now time, the reviewer
declared, to replace the work with a scientific,
collective study: “But even so they will not forget
Thun. They will remember him as a person, in truth
alien to us in spirit and outlook, but as the sincere
academic who first related to us the history of the
revolutionary movement in Russia, perhaps even
involuntarily teaching us to live in struggle and by
struggle to justify our own place in history.”
When Thun was writing and publishing his study,
he could hardly have expected it to survive in this
way. He did not even live long enough to experience the first reactions of the Russians. But together
with Stepniak’s Underground Russia, his work constructed the foundation for generations to come in
their efforts to study and understand the Russian
revolutionary movement. In the latter 1880s a
German author, Karl Oldenberg, who had no special
connection with the Russian revolutionaries, paid
special tribute to both authors: “Stepniak not only
wields a very skilled pen, but through his artistic
form and literary refinement, he knows how to
draw a colorful and interesting picture that undoubtedly has its agitational purpose but still, despite all
embellishment, contains a mass of concrete features
that the impartial historian values.” Thun’s work this
writer called “the first and only, what can be called
in a certain sense exhaustive, historical description
of nihilism.”
The two works, Stepniak’s and Thun’s, sprang from
a common root. The Russian revolutionary movement had come of age; it had reached the western
press and it had even penetrated the halls of academe. It demanded its own history, and it needed
to record its own memory. Its leaders had become
celebrities about whom the western public wanted
to read, and its new adherents wanted to know what
had gone on before. Stepniak, the Russian, offered
western readers an idealized image of the revolutionaries. Thun, the German, provided the Russians
with the basic history that they wanted and needed
but which they did not yet have the perspective to
write themselves.
83
Chapter 14:
THE GROUP
“LIBERATION OF LABOR”
When Iakov Stefanovich told the tsarist police about
the growing sympathy that the émigrés in Geneva
were displaying toward Narodnaia volia after the
assassination of the Tsar, he may well have had his
friend Lev Deich in mind. While Deich later claimed
to have recognized the limits of Narodnaia volia’s
terrorist campaign, in 1881 and 1882 he joined
enthusiastically in the paeans to the heroism and
daring of the assassins. In January 1882 he accepted
appointment as the director of the Narodnaia volia
print shop in Geneva, to be called the Free Russian
Press, Vol’naia Russkaia Tipografiia.
Narodnaia volia had reached agreement with the
“three musketeers” to take over the Rabotnik shop
for a three-year, renewable, term, and it assumed the
shop’s debts. There were, of course, complications in
arranging the separation of Rabotnik’s possessions
from those of Dragomanov’s Gromada group, but
these were relatively easily resolved. Calculating
that Rabotnik owed him almost 1000 francs, Dragomanov wrote off 300 of this as his contribution to
the printing of Obshchina in 1878; he took type as
the equivalent of another 400 francs; the remaining
280 francs he received in cash. As Elsnits summarized the arrangement, “In general, I have to credit
Dragomanov’s justice; in the division he acted completely the gentleman.”
Under Deich’s direction the new press flourished. By
the fall of 1882 it had published six brochures and
had launched a new journal, Na rodine (In the Motherland). Consisting mainly of material reprinted
from Narodnaia volia, the journal first carried the
false imprint “London: Vol’naia tipografiia ‘Narodnoi voli’ (Free Press of “Narodnaia volia”). The
second issue said, “London: Zagranichnaia tipografiia ‘Narodnoi voli’” (Foreign Press of “Narodnaia
volia”), and the third finally declared, “Geneva:
Vol’naia Russkaia Tipografiia.” Elsnits, for one, was
overjoyed with this activity, declaring:
84
Up to this time this is the only print shop that has
not been converted into private property and that
continues actively to serve the collective cause.
Beneath the enthusiasm for Narodnaia volia’s propaganda, a new current was nevertheless developing,
led by Georgii Plekhanov. Still formulating his own
world outlook, Plekhanov worked closely with his
comrades in Chernyi peredel – Deich, Vera Zasulich, and Pavel Akselrod. For the moment, however,
this group had not taken a distinctive form, and,
like Deich, Zasulich publicly supported Narodnaia
volia.
Complementing Deich’s cooperation with the narodovoltsy, Zasulich, in the late winter of 1881-1882,
agreed to be a foreign representative for the Red
Cross of Narodnaia volia. Together with Lavrov
in Paris and Chaikovsky in London, she became
a fund raiser; the money, she insisted, would be
used for “charitable,” not terrorist, purposes. Try
as she might, however, she could raise little cash.
Over half her contributions came from the émigrés
themselves, and much of that went directly into
publishing programs. Lavrov had an even more
difficult time in Paris; as soon as his appointment
was announced, the French government ordered
him out of the country. He had to seek refuge in
England until his friends in Paris could arrange for
his return to the French capital. In London, much to
Chaikovsky’s dismay, on the very day of the group’s
public appeal for contributions, a potential assassin
barely failed in his attempt on the life of Queen Victoria; “This shot killed the Red Cross of Narodnaia
volia on the spot in England,” Chaikovsky sadly
reported.
Official Russian circles displayed a certain Schadenfreude in commenting on the attempt on the
Queen’s life. “In common with all we rejoice at her
deliverance from the peril that threatened her,”
wrote Moskovskie vedemosti. “At the same time,
however, we wish that this attempt may be followed
by consequences not previously contemplated. May
this event be a warning to the pharisees of civilization, who under the high sounding phrase of ‘holy
asylum’ harbor the political thieves of all countries.
England, who sows and supports disorder in foreign
countries, must now look to her own safety.” For-
Chapter 14: THE GROUP “LIBERATION OF LABOR”
tunately for the Russian émigrés, England did not
retaliate against them for the attack on the queen.
Deich’s and Zasulich’s involvement in the activities of Narodnaia volia upset Plekhanov. When he
returned to Switzerland from Paris in the fall of
1881, he criticized Deich’s enthusiasm, but Deich
replied that Plekhanov had lost touch with the latest
developments in Russia. Taking advantage of the
fact that Plekhanov then settled in Baugy, some
three hours’ distance from Geneva, Deich deliberately kept his colleague misinformed about the
degree of his cooperation with Narodnaia volia.
Plekhanov’s objections to Narodnaia volia stemmed
from both personal and political considerations.
He was angered by the criticism that the journal
Narodnaia volia had leveled at Pavel Akselrod’s
effort to explain the group to the German Social
Democrats, and he strongly objected to a terrorist
manifesto, written in Ukrainian, expressing sympathy for the anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia that
had followed the tsar’s assassination. His criticisms
became stronger in February 1882 when he read the
Executive Committee’s call for the revolutionary
seizure of power – Narodnaia volia now seemed to
have taken a Jacobin position a la Tkachev. Conferring with Deich and Zasulich, Plekhanov agreed to
respond cautiously to the Executive Committee’s
declaration, but he could not bring himself to write
the text. After Zasulich then tried and failed, it fell
to Deich to find the formula for a sympathetic but
highly reserved statement concerning Narodnaia
volia’s program.
In the winter of 1881-1882, Plekhanov was in the
process of a major change in his understanding of
the world and of revolution. He had undertaken
the translation of the Communist Manifesto for
the Russian Social-Revolutionary Library. To be
sure, he might have preferred better-paying work.
He even offered to surrender the task, but then he
became caught up in it: “I would not like to give the
translation over into other hands,” he wrote. When
done, this publication marked Plekhanov’s final
conversion to Marxism, it deepened his hostility
to the program of Narodnaia volia and his conviction that the Russian revolutionary movement must
embark on a new path.
Relations between the chernoperedeltsy and the
narodovoltsy took a new turn in the spring of 1882
when leaders of Narodnaia volia came straggling
out to the West. Once abroad, the narodovoltsy,
who had earlier declared that they would never
desert the battlefield, were shorn of their immunity
to criticism. No longer heroes above reproach, they
had to deal with the chernoperedeltsy as equals. The
enthusiastic unity formed in the campaign of assassinations proved to be too fragile to survive.
Maria Nikolaevna Oshanina, now designated the
Foreign Representative of the Executive Committee,
brought to Switzerland a new proposal for cooperation. The Executive Committee, she announced,
had decided to sponsor publication of a journal,
to be entitled Vestnik Narodnoi voli (Messenger
of Narodnaia volia), and as editors the committee
had chosen Lavrov, Kravchinsky, and Plekhanov. In
turn she welcomed the chernoperedeltsy’s proposal
to publish a new series of works on scientific socialism, tentative entitled Socialist Library of Narodnaia Volia, Sotsialisticheskaia Biblioteka Narodnoi
voli.
Neither Plekhanov nor Lavrov were unreservedly
enthusiastic about Oshanina’s proposals. Plekhanov distrusted Kravchinsky, but he was willing
to go along with the plan, he explained to Lavrov,
as a means of bringing the narodovolltsy onto the
proper ideological path. “I am ready,” he declared,
“to make from Das Kapital a Procrustean bed for all
the collaborators of Vestnik Narodnoi voli.” Lavrov,
while not a member of Narodnaia volia, was willing
to cooperate out of a sense of duty to the revolutionary cause. For the moment, however, all plans lay
in abeyance for lack of money.
Plekhanov’s view of the proposed cooperation
changed in the summer of 1882 with the arrival in
Switzerland of Lev Tikhomirov, another leader of
Narodnaia volia who had considerable experience
in writing. Plekhanov considered the newcomer
indifferent to revolutionary theory, but he took
heart in his expressed interest in scientific socialism. In any case, Tikhomirov replaced Kravchinsky
on the proposed editorial board of the Vestnik, and
Plekhanov could only welcome this.
Unlike most other émigrés, however, Tikhomirov at
first held back from revolutionary politics and activities. In his own words, “I went abroad not to influence Russia, not for any other reason but that I was
defeated.” When Oshanina drew him into the talks
with Nikoladze concerning the truce offered by the
Holy Brotherhood, Tikhomirov welcomed the idea
of ending the struggle in Russia. However utopian
Nikoladze’s proposals might seem, he argued, they
represented the only way out of a bleak and desperate situation. When the talks collapsed, Tikhomirov turned to his favorite activity, writing.
Arguing that Narodnaia volia should now show the
intellectual strength and vitality that lay behind its
terrorist activities, Tikhomirov welcomed the idea
of working on the board of Vestnik Narodnoi voli.
While the organizers awaited funding, he wrote
biographies of his revolutionary comrades: “I would
write essays about the events and people of 18701880. I loved these comrades very much. To save
their memory from oblivion seemed to me somet-
85
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
hing of a holy task.” In order to raise “the consciousness of Russian socialists and revolutionaries,” he
also prepared a general work on the revolutionary
movement. Published as Calendar of Narodnaia
Volia for 1883, the work offered a morsel of revolutionary history for each day of the year and then
added a literary section, a reference section, and a
number of appendices. Lavrov contributed a sizeable essay on the history of Russian socialism.
Once the calendar was finished in the spring of
1883, Tikhomirov could turn to Vestnik Narodnoi
voli, for which money had finally come from Russia.
Under Lavrov’s influence, he thought of using the
journal to unite all revolutionary forces under
Narodnaia volia’s leadership, but from the first he
had trouble with Plekhanov, who even complained
about the publication’s name, saying that it lacked
the proper revolutionary ring. Plekhanov argued
that “Vestnik” sounded too official: A revolutionary
publication, he insisted, should have programmatic
words like “egalité” or “Volksstaat” in its title.
Plekhanov also wanted to give the work a Marxist
orientation. In a prepared statement, he demanded
that the journal endorse socialism and populism
(narodnichestvo, meaning here popular government), and he declared that achieving these goals
had to be “the task of the working class, organizing itself in a special workers’ party.” Tikhomirov
replied that the Russian public was not ready for
Marxism. While Plekhanov was inclined to accept
this thought for the moment, Lev Deich, who was
still running Narodnaia volia’s print shop, took an
active dislike to Tikhomirov and began looking for
points of conflict.
Trouble flared when the question arose of the
chernoperedeltsy’s joining Narodnaia volia. According to Deich, he and Zasulich for some time had
been contemplating the establishment of a new
organization; in response to Tikhomirov’s demand
that the group join Narodnaia volia in order to participate in the publication, the chernoperedeltsy
insisted on being accepted as a unit. Tikhomirov
responded that they must join as individuals. Plekhanov protested, “We never conceived that union
could be anything but a merger of the two groups,
brought together by time and the course of events.”
Both Tikhomirov and Plekhanov then petitioned
Lavrov for his support.
86
As the standoff developed, Deich insisted that the
question of conditions of membership be resolved
before his group could participate in any publication. Tikhomirov seized the moment to recall that
Deich had agreed to head Narodnaia volia’s print
shop only “temporarily,” and he demanded Deich’s
ouster as manager. When Oshanina subsequently
announced her reluctant acceptance of Deich’s
“resignation,” Deich objected vigorously to such
“Blanquist-Nechaevist intrigue,” arguing that he
had organized the shop and had given it life. Narodnaia volia, however, had the title to the shop, and
Oshanina named a new manager, Vladimir Ilich
Iokhelson-Goldovsky.
Complicating the intrigues was the arrival in the
summer of 1883 of Sergei Degaev, a minor but wellknown figure on the revolutionary scene. In private
conversations with Tikhomirov, Degaev confessed
that he was working with the chief of the Russian
police, Sudeikin. Tikhomirov then took it upon himself to send Degaev back to Russia to kill Sudeikin.
Apart from informing Oshanina of the case, Tikhomirov told no one else. After Degaev had killed
Sudeikin, the story became known to the revolutionaries, and Tikhomirov came under fire for his
“dictatorial” practices. Plekhanov and Deich argued
that Degaev had somehow influenced Tikhomirov’s
demand that the chernoperedeltsy had to join Narodnaia volia as individuals rather than as a group.
Plekhanov now aroused new controversy with his
contribution to the first issue of the Vestnik, a long
essay on “Socialism and the Political Struggle.” The
ideas of Narodnaia volia, he declared, were outdated;
Russian socialists now had to arm themselves with
Marxism, with scientific socialism. “Without revolutionary theory there is no revolutionary movement in the true sense of the word,” he wrote.
An idea that is inherently revolutionary is a kind of
dynamite that no other explosive in the world can
replace.
Narodnaia volia, he explained, had correctly undertaken the political struggle; now one must recognize
the limitations of the terrorist program and proceed
to a broader political struggle to be led by the working class with Narodnaia volia at its head.
Tikhomirov, backed by Oshanina, raised several
objections to this essay. Plekhanov had written, “The
party Narodnaia volia is the most unprincipled of all
past parties.” Tikhomirov asked that this be dropped
or else that Plekhanov agree to an editorial note concerning it. (Editorial notes, it should be noted, had
been an acceptable practice in the Library of Social
Revolutionary Literature.) Plekhanov refused, insisting that if there was to be an editorial note, he must
have space for his own counter note. Tikhomirov
pointed out that Lavrov had already submitted an
article on the same topic but with different conclusions. Plekhanov thereupon withdrew from the editorial board of the publication.
Plekhanov had already been seeking a way to resign
from the publication. Deich, whose memory is not
always to be trusted, later insisted that Tikhomirov
Chapter 14: THE GROUP “LIBERATION OF LABOR”
had originally returned Plekhanov’s manuscript
without comment and that he, Deich, had then
pointed out problematic spots. Plekhanov, moreover, was willing enough to make the changes in
his essay when he subsequently published the work
independently. In any case, Plekhanov suggested
to Lavrov that it was better that he, Plekhanov, pull
out of the enterprise before the first issue appeared
rather than afterward to resign. Despite his resignation, he still published a book review in the first
issue of the Vestnik.
By the time Vestnik Narodnoi voli had appeared in
November 1883, the split between the narodovoltsy
and the chernoperedeltsy was complete and irrevocable. A new dispute arose over a letter written to
Deich by Stefanovich, who was now languishing in
a tsarist prison. The chernoperedeltsy charged that
Tikhomirov had diverted the letter, and Plekhanov
and Deich rushed off to Paris to complain to Oshanina. Such personal antagonisms, however, only
facilitated the split, they did not cause it: Plekhanov
felt that he had a mission and that he had to break
with the narodovoltsy in order to fulfill it.
In September 1883 the cherenoperedeltsy took the
step that opened their page in the history of the Russian revolutionary movement. As Tikhomirov noted
in his diary, “Deich & co. are buying Trusov’s print
shop for 2000 fr. and want to print as a brochure
Plekhanov’s article that we did not accept (where
there is a polemic with the narodovoltsy).” Tikhomirov had had his own designs on Trusov’s shop,
but he was mistaken in emphasizing the group’s
desire to print just Plekhanov’s essay. The group had
been planning their own publications program for
some time, and now they were ready to proceed.
As their first move, the chernoperedeltsy assumed
a new name, the group Osvobozhdenie truda, or
Liberation of Labor, which was itself the result of
prolonged discussion. Plekhanov had first proposed
the name Russian Social Democratic group,” but the
others feared that this might imply that they were
copying the German Social Democrats and it might
therefore alienate Russian young people. Plekhanov
thereupon suggested other names, from which the
group finally chose Osvobozhdenie truda, even
though this was somewhat vague. Henceforth
known for short as the osvobozhdentsy, the group
eventually became enshrined as the progenitors of
Marxism in Russia, eclipsing the efforts of Utin and
Trusov in the days of the First International.
In a statement dated September 25, 1883, the osvobozhdentsy, who called themselves a literary group and
not a party, announced “the formation of a workers’
literature – the simple, concise and intelligent presentation of scientific socialism.” The revolutionary
intelligentsia, they declared, had wrongly ignored
the problem of organizing the working class, and
the “destructive work of our revolutionaries has not
been supplemented by the creation of elements for
the future workers’ socialist party in Russia.” In order
to rectify this situation, the osvobozhdentsy were
beginning the Library of Contemporary Socialism.
In an appendix to the statement, they added,
In view of the constantly repeated rumors of a union
of the former Chernyi peredel with Narodnaia volia,
we consider it necessary to say a few words in that
regard here. In the last two years, negotiations
regarding union were in fact conducted between the
two groups. But although two or three of our group
even fully adhered to Narodnaia volia, it was unfortunately not possible to effect a complete merger.
Applying Marx’s teaching to Russian conditions
was not easy. In 1881 Vera Zasulich asked Marx for
his opinion whether the Russian peasant commune
could serve as a basis for revolutionary reconstruction of society; Marx replied that the commune
could become the base for the “rebirth of Russia”
if it could be allowed to function freely. In a special introduction for Plekhanov’s translation of the
Communist Manifesto, Marx spoke of Russia’s becoming “the leading detachment of the revolutionary
movement in Europe,” but he seemed to be thinking
of Narodnaia volia. In regard to the peasant commune, he specified,
If the Russian revolution serves as a signal for a
proletarian revolution in the West, so that they
complement one another, then contemporary Russian obshchina [commune] property relations on
the land can become the departure point for communist development.
These pronouncements, widely circulated in the
course of 1882 and 1883, foresaw little prospect of
Marxist revolution in Russia.
Nevertheless the osvobozhdentsy persevered in
introducing Marx to the Russian reading public.
Friedrich Engels, who took over the literary rights
to Marx’s work after the master’s death in 1883, put
off a request for permission to translate the second
volume of Kapital until the question of possible
legal publication in Russia could be resolved, but he
expressed delight that Zasulich, whom he addressed
as “dear and heroic citizen,” was translating his Development of Socialism from Utopia to Science. When
Zasulich called Marx’s The Poverty of Philosophy an
important tool for combating the influence of Proudhonism among the young, Engels responded, “For
me and for Marx’s daughters it will be a holiday when
The Poverty of Philosophy appears in Russian translation.” In reading one of Zasulich’s translations, Engels
87
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
exclaimed, “How beautiful the Russian language is!
All the advantages of German without its terrible
roughness and crudeness!” Even Engels, however,
did not seem to believe in the possibility of a workers’ revolution in Russia in the near future. He saw
as most likely a coup d’état led by a “constitutionally
inclined and bold grand duke.”
Plekhanov and his collaborators received no more
encouragement from other Russians. “The ‘liberators of labor’,” Deich quoted one émigré as saying,
“have conceived of gladdening Russia with translated
pamphlets and compilations of German works.”
Nikolai Zhukovsky reportedly snorted, “You are not
revolutionaries! You are students of sociology!” The
first and greatest of the group’s problems, however,
was not the opposition of other émigré leaders, but
rather its own lack of material resources.
The task of organizing the group’s finances and of
course directing the formation of the print shop fell
to Deich, who obviously had the best head for business in the group. The negotiations with Trusov for
the purchase of his equipment had not been simple.
Trusov had asked for 2500 francs. The group itself
had no such amount, and therefore Deich saw the
necessity of raising “a colossal amount of money
without being able to give any firm promise of returning it in the near future.” In desperation he turned
to a wealthy émigré, Vasily Ignatov, and rather to
his own surprise he received 1500 francs. With this
capital, the group negotiated the price of 1800 francs
for Trusov’s shop, to be paid in installments.
Meeting the operating costs of the print shop was
the next task; Deich calculated he would need 160
to 200 francs per month to pay for typesetting, to
purchase paper, and to obtain some new equipment.
In response to the peculiar needs of his organization,
Deich refused to continue the old practice of paying a
premium for typesetters to set materials into Cyrillic
letters, and he decreed that henceforth authors would
receive an honorarium for their works. In the first
six months of the shop’s operation, the typesetters’
remuneration ran to a total of 639 francs, while the
group’s authors – Plekhanov, Akselrod, and Zasulich
– received a total of 1269 francs as honoraria.
88
There remained the problem of marketing the
group’s publications, and here Deich had to deal with
Elpidin. The growing interest in literature about the
Russian revolutionary movement since the assassination of the Tsar had helped Elpidin’s business,
but his practices won him little love among the émigrés. “From the books he received on commission,”
complained Deich, “he extracted (as he did from
everything that came under his hand) all profit only
for himself. Publishers of underground works succeeded in getting nothing from him, since he always
informed them that the books have not been sold by
the dealers to whom he had given them on commission, but, please, just as soon as he received something from them, he would immediately settle with
the publishers.” Nevertheless, Deich prided himself
on dealing with Elpidin efficiently. When Elpidin
offered to take publications on commission, Deich
offered them to him at a discount of 25%. Elpidin
agreed, but then countered with a proposal to pay
in installments. Deich insisted on signing a formal
contract, written in French and signed in front of
witnesses. This firm stance, Deich later gloated, won
even Elpidin’s respect.
In order to reach their proposed readers directly,
the osvobozhdentsy sent an agent, Saul GrinfestFinster, their typesetter, to Russia with a message
composed by Deich: “Comrades! You now know
our views and aspirations; you know what made us
form a new group. On you now depends our success or our failure. We are ready to do what we can
and we will do it. If you do not support our literary
enterprises, the necessity of which I need not convince you, we will have to end our existence as a
group. Therefore if you share our views and aims,
try to enter into closer relations with us, organize
collections for our literary publications, send all
sorts of material, etc.” Although Grinfest’s reports
from Russia rang with enthusiasm and optimism,
the results of his mission were in fact disappointing.
A decade was to lapse before the osvobozhdentsy
enjoyed significant resonance in Russia.
Grinfest’s enthusiasm, on the other hand, led to
disaster for Deich. When Grinfest asked that he
be sent more literature, Deich took it upon himself
to take a shipment of materials through Germany.
Within three hours of crossing the Swiss frontier, he
was sitting in a jail in Freiburg im Breisgau, awaiting extradition to Russia. The tsarist authorities
soon had him in Siberia, where he spent the rest of
the century. For the Marxists his arrest constituted
a terrible blow. Grinfest attempted to replace him as
business manager of the group, but he was not up to
the task. He was never accepted into the inner circle
of the group, and the fortunes of the press suffered.
The group now faced even the danger of extinction. Ignatov died in 1884, and in the aftermath of
Deich’s arrest, Zasulich was so distraught that she
withdrew from any literary activity for six months.
Akselrod remained in Zurich, where as a result of
an illness he had begun to produce kefir for his own
needs and had then discovered that this could be a
modestly successful commercial venture. This work,
however, demanded an enormous amount of time,
and he had little opportunity to write. Therefore
the brunt of the literary work for the infant Marxist
movement fell on Plekhanov’s shoulders.
Plekhanov threw his whole being into the cause. He
Chapter 14: THE GROUP “LIBERATION OF LABOR”
did not, as a matter of fact, completely trust the literary efforts of his own comrades. When Akselrod
first sent a manuscript entitled “What is Socialism?”
the group, under Plekhanov’s guidance, rejected it.
Akselrod rewrote it, and the group again rejected it,
even as its typesetter sat idle without work. Plekhanov was not about to allow his vision of a Marxist
interpretation of Russia’s development to be diluted
by imprecise analyses and presentations.
The first original work the group published was
Plekhanov’s essay Socialism and the Political Struggle.
Now somewhat rewritten from the form that he had
submitted to Vestnik Narodnoi voli, the essay paid
tribute to the narodovoltsy for their having opened
the political struggle but went on painstakingly to
argue that all previous groups, including the Lavrovist Vpered group and the narodovoltsy, had not
properly understood the imperatives of the revolutionary struggle. Plekhanov urged the narodovoltsy to reexamine their “ideological baggage” and
to study “contemporary scientific socialism” as the
proper revolutionary theory. As for the debates on
terrorism, Plekhanov concluded, his group agreed
with the views expressed at the conclusion of the
recently published biography of the regicide Andrei
Zheliabov. According to that work, written by Tikhomirov, Zheliabov, by his adherence to the conspiratorial organization principles of the terrorist
party, had cut himself off from the people.
When the narodovoltsy responded by attacking the
Marxists in the second issue of the Vestnik, Plekhanov produced a more militant essay, Our Differences, defending scientific socialism and explaining
his break with the Vestnik. In Socialism and the Political Struggle he had protested his respect for other
Russian revolutionaries and had eschewed personal
polemics. In Our Differences he opened with a preface couched as a long letter to Lavrov, declaring,
“If the Russian socialists recognize in principle the
right of free speech and include it in their programs,
they cannot restrict its enjoyment to the group or
‘party’ that claims hegemony in a particular period
of the revolutionary movement.” The body of the
work concentrated on Tikhomirov, whose sole
contribution to revolutionary developments, Plekhanov averred, consisted of “a few historical, legal,
and statistical mistakes.” Plekhanov twitted Lavrov
for having become co-editor of the journal of the
“Russian Jacobins” despite his earlier disagreements
with Tkachev, and he dismissed Tikhomirov’s theories as reactionary, vacillating between Bakunin’s
anarchy and Tkachev’s Jacobinism: “Hating reaction generally, I hate it all the more when it attracts
people over to it in the name of revolution.”
Even as he threw down the gauntlet, Plekhanov
still could not count on the unreserved support
of Engels. In 1886 Vera Zasulich sent the socialist
patriarch a copy of Our Differences and requested
his comments. Engels responded cautiously, praising the work’s spirit and intentions, but insisting
that he did not know enough about the situation
in Russia to pass judgment on a revolutionary program. No doubt influenced by his own friendship
with Hartman and Lavrov, Engels was leery about
committing himself to this unknown voice coming
from Switzerland.
Undaunted, Plekhanov pushed ahead. In September
1884, in cooperation with Akselrod, he announced
the creation of a Workers’ Library, aimed at the
“developed strata” of the workers, “in other words,
the workers’ intelligentsia.” The two men apologized for ignoring the masses in this undertaking
and expressed the hope that someone else would yet
take up that mission; they had to deliver their message to the educated people. “The duty of literature
– books and newspapers – is to clarify in people’s
heads the goals and means that best lead to their
well-being,” Plekhanov wrote, and he asserted that
the peasantry and the working class both had to
recognize their own interests. The Workers’ Library
proposed to acquaint Russian workers with developments in the “educated lands” and to explain the
social character of the Russian workers themselves.
As the first work in this series, the group published
an essay by Akselrod, The Workers’ Movement and
Social Democracy.
The first years of activity of the osvobozhdentsy
passed into history as unrewarded effort. The responses that the group received from Russia, while
at first encouraging, failed to develop in any positive way. Financial problems loomed at every turn.
Plekhanov worked furiously to raise money to support both the press and himself, and he did this at
severe cost to his own health. Other émigré leaders
remained critical and even hostile. Lavrov’s opposition seemed particularly damaging, but Plekhanov,
together with Akselrod and Zasulich, persevered.
Plekhanov insisted that Russia had entered the
capitalist era and that the Russian proletariat would
grow to fulfill its historic mission. In the meantime
he insisted on maintaining Osvobozhdenie truda as
a “literary group” rather than a party; he restricted
its membership severely so as to maintain his vision.
Soviet historians considered that with the formation of this group, “the prehistoric epoch ended and
a new social democratic one was beginning,” but
even if a new epoch was beginning, the Marxists
had much suffering and travail yet to overcome.
89
Chapter 15:
THE AGONY OF LEV
TIKHOMIROV
For Lev Tikhomirov, émigré life smelled of defeat.
Like other narodovoltsy, he had once scorned the
thought of seeking refuge abroad, and now the
change from the heady days of 1880-1881 bore heavily on him. The intellectual disputes of the emigration seemed petty and irrelevant to him; for him
emigration brought a severe emotional and intellectual crisis. He sought solace in writing, especially in
singing the praises of his revolutionary comradesin-arms, but he could not be enthusiastic about the
future of the revolutionary movement.
Tikhomirov came from a long line of Orthodox
priests. His father had attended a seminary but
had then transferred to medical studies, going on
to serve as a military doctor. Lev began studying
medicine at Moscow University in 1870, but he was
soon drawn into the work of the Chaikovsky circle
and into the revolutionary movement. He tried his
hand at writing popular literature and produced a
classic of the genre. As one of the defendants in the
renowned Trial of the 193, he was found guilty, but
in view of the more than four years he had already
“sat,” he was then released. In July 1879 he was one
of the founding members of Narodnaia volia, becoming with Morozov co-editor of the group’s organ.
He never actually took part in an assassination
attempt, but he was considered one of the conspirators in the assassination of the Tsar. His specialty
was always writing, and he was the main author of
the Executive Committee’s proclamation to Tsar
Alexander III after the assassination of Alexander
II.
90
Although a prolific writer, Tikhomirov was never
considered much of a theorist. Writing in Narodnaia
volia, no. 7, he declared that there was no difference
between “political radicalism” and “socialism.” He
called Narodnaia volia a party of action that was, as
a matter of necessity, pursuing “the most economic
and expedient use of strength for the purpose of
revolution.” To this end, it had concentrated its
resources on terrorist methods, not on mass propaganda. Once revolution had delivered “political
authority into the hands of the people or at least of
its revolutionary representatives,” one could then
proceed to the social revolution. These thoughts
earned him a reputation as a Jacobin.
Pursued by the authorities after the Tsar’s assassination, Tikhomirov had fled into the emigration,
but, distressed by Narodnaia volia’s collapse, he
could find no consolation in the West. He disliked
Geneva, and in the fall of 1883 he moved to Paris.
Life there, however, was no easier. Upon taking an
apartment in the French capital, he noted in his
diary, “We have no money. We spent everything,
and we don’t even have a lamp in the apartment,
not even candles.” A few days later he wrote, “We
are absolutely penniless. Bills on all sides. Nothing
to pay with. Just wait – they will evict us from the
apartment.” In moments of dark humor he reassured himself that his landlady would not evict him
and his wife because she did not want to lose the
money she was surely receiving from Russian spies
to watch his activities.
Tormented by these personal concerns, Tikhomirov
buried himself in his work for the Vestnik Narodnoi
voli. The first issue, which appeared in November
1883, called itself “the organ for unifying all Russian socialist revolutionaries,” and the journal
promised to carry no personal polemics between
revolutionaries. In form it offered three parts: the
first contained theoretical articles, memoirs, documentary materials, and poetry; the second, called
“Contemporary Review,” considered developments
outside of Russia and carried book reviews; the
third, “Internal Survey,” discussed revolutionary
activities and developments, conditions of the working people, governmental actions, and news about
arrests and trials. The journal’s general message was
that the Russian government must be overthrown,
by a conspiracy if necessary – “Carthago delenda
est.” Although Tikhomirov had hoped to publish an
issue every two months, the second issue appeared
only in April 1884, and the prospects for the third
issue were at that point dim. On May 1 Tikhomirov
told his diary, “The print shop is almost without
work; there is no paper.” Later he added,
Chapter 15: THE AGONY OF LEV TIKHOMIROV
Soon there will be nothing. We are not paying the
typesetters. There is not enough even to mail books.
This amounts to death by starvation.
The journal also suffered from Tikhomirov’s disagreements with his fellow editor Lavrov. Lavrov and
Tikhomirov agreed in principle on the necessity
of jointly approving contributions to the Vestnik,
but in practice they disagreed strongly in assessing
the issues of the day. Lavrov criticized the osvobozhdentsy for breaking ranks within the revolutionary movement, but he objected to Tikhomirov’s
passion for attacking the Marxists personally. In
noting the death of Ivan Turgenev in September
1883, Tikhomirov dismissed the writer as having
scarcely understood the revolutionary movement;
in contrast, Lavrov contributed a long essay to the
Vestnik, noting Turgenev’s support of Vpered and
asserting that the writer had maintained his personal friendship with Lavrov even at some personal
cost to himself.
In the summer of 1884 conditions seemed to
improve somewhat. The Vestnik received 700 francs
from supporters in Russia, and Tikhomirov’s own
financial situation looked better. The narodovoltsy’s
print shop in Geneva scored a small victory in obtaining the type that had once belonged to the Nabat
group and had subsequently been held by Trusov.
The group now announced the closing of the series
Library of Social Revolutionary Literature and the
formation of a new series, to be entitled Library
of the Social Sciences. Tikhomirov reportedly put
great hopes in this new project: “If it would just
begin to come out well, it would cut the osvobozhdentsy to the core.”
The publications of the narodovoltsy, however,
lacked fire; the pen proved harder to wield than the
sword. When the third issue of the Vestnik appeared in September 1884, even Tikhomirov called
it “pale and empty.” In its time, the assassinations
campaign had emphasized action over theory, and
now, without action, Tikhomirov could not keep
the flame of enthusiasm burning on words alone.
In October 1884 all of Tikhomirov’s dark forebodings about the fate of the revolutionary movement
seemed to be confirmed; on the 24th he wrote in
his diary, “There has not been such a damned week
in a long time!” There were misunderstandings and
problems in communication between the “young
narodovoltsy” in Russia and the émigrés, now
coming to be known as the “old narodovoltsy.” The
Russian authorities broke up a smuggling route and
captured a major shipment of publications. And
then came the shocking news that the police in St.
Petersburg had captured Lopatin and were starting
a new campaign of arrests.
Tikhomirov had had misgivings about Lopatin’s
latest venture. In January 1884 a Narodnaia volia
congress in Paris had called for reform and renewal
of the party in Russia and had dispatched Lopatin,
now a member of the group, to Russia to supervise
matters. When Tikhomirov heard that a “suspicious
figure” had shown up as Lopatin’s traveling companion out of Paris, he moaned, “Now they have surely
perished! Everything will perish!” A week later he
declared, “Nothing from Russia! Apparently bad
news!” Lopatin’s time, however, had not yet come,
and he managed to send money in the summer.
For a while things looked better, but then came the
news of his arrest. “It strongly appears that this is
the end,” Tikhomirov told his diary, “the end for a
long time, in the course of which our journal could
of course die ten times of starvation. That means an
end to this dream too.” When Lavrov questioned
“whether it pays to continue the publication in the
face of these uninterrupted misfortunes,” Tikhomirov nevertheless insisted on continuing for the
time being.
Lopatin’s misfortune had far-reaching consequences for the revolutionary movement. As a British diplomat reported home from St. Petersburg,
“The police have been fortunate enough to capture
a well known Nihilist and dangerous man whom
they had been watching for a long time... The police
found upon him some dynamite and the names and
addresses of several of his friends and co-conspirators. This enabled them to make about thirty more
arrests.” This roundup, he concluded, “will for the
moment check the nefarious designs of the Nihilists.” The tsarist authorities were delighted with
the documents that they found in Lopatin’s possession: his expense records, lists of addresses, and
correspondence, not to speak of a variety of weapons. A letter from Tikhomirov, who spoke about
his own “decline in revolutionary energy,” seemed
to be urging moderation on Lopatin, while Lavrov
reportedly favored reestablishment of the Executive
Committee. With this array of evidence, the police
struck heavily against the remnants of Narodnaia
volia in Russia.
Tikhomirov’s dark forebodings found expression
in the fourth issue of Vestnik Narodnoi voli, which
carried the date of January 15, 1885. While boldly
reconfirming the party’s program, the issue again
revealed the disputes within the ranks of its contributors. Lavrov emphasized the need to rally behind
Narodnaia volia, but Tikhomirov, not satisfied with
such general statements, continued his attacks on
the “catastrophic” policy of the Osvobozhdenie
truda group. At the same time, Lavrov, fulfilling a
promise that he had made to Engels, printed a sympathetic review of Engels’s new work, The Emergence of the Family, Private Property and the State.
91
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
Tikhomirov was finding Marxism a hydra that he
would not accept and could not control, and in an
essay that seemed directed more at himself than
at the public, he claimed that revolutionaries were
acting in accordance with the “laws of history” and
that therefore they had no right to lose faith.
Tikhomirov’s own faith was waning rapidly, as he
was tormented by visions of the journal’s bankruptcy
and his family’s possible starvation. He entertained
thoughts of suicide, but his sense of obligation to his
family drove these away. Lavrov could offer him no
help; the older man had his own troubles just now:
Besides ill health and his own financial woes, Lavrov
had to cope with the death of another dear friend,
Varvara Nikolaevna Nikitina, a well known émigré
writer. One person close to Lavrov later declared
that he was considering suicide at this time. In his
despondency, Tikhomirov associated all these misfortunes and cares with Lopatin’s arrest, and he
blamed Lopatin’s daring nature: “A fatal person, this
man German!” he wrote in his diary.
Having invested his waning psychological energy
in Vestnik, Tikhomirov was thunderstruck to hear
from new arrivals in the West that almost no one in
Russia was reading it. Indeed, apparently few even
knew of it. He despaired of this new generation of
revolutionaries; echoing the cry of the ages, he complained that the youth in Russia “accept nothing
from the old men but technique. Naturally this does
not keep them from being good people, but in politics this is not enough.” (About this time Vera Zasulich was bemoaning the indifference of readers in
Russia.) He cried out: “Revolutionary Russia... does
not exist.” As for himself, he felt that his revolutionary career, and even his beloved journal, had reached a dead end. “To publish Vestnik,” he wrote, “we
went into debt up to our ears. It is clear that this too
is a dying cause, beyond the party’s strength.” As a
result of these thoughts, he began to withdraw from
the revolutionary movement, which now seemed to
have degenerated into a vanity of intellectuals, and
to put his hope in “Russia and the Russian people.”
92
Still looking for a reading public, Tikhomirov tried
to follow Stepniak’s example. With Lavrov’s help
he published a few articles, but he put his greatest hopes in a book manuscript, published as La
Russie politique et sociale. If his book could enjoy
a reception like Stepniak’s Underground Russia, he
told himself, “I can win a position sociale for myself
here.” The book appeared in 1886 and indeed won
general acclaim, but it brought him little peace of
mind and not much money. He received 1600 francs
from the publisher, but about half of that had to go
to his translator – he lacked Kravchinsky’s genius
for language. Tikhomirov became more nervous
than ever. He particularly feared that the Russian
authorities might yet find some way to spirit him
off to Germany, where he would share Lev Deich’s
fate, extradition to Russia.
Tikhomirov particularly resented having to put
up with the intellectual and emotional life in the
émigré community; he could not escape it. At the
time of his arguments with Plekhanov and Deich he
had exclaimed, “Such petty, dull, unpleasant opponents! I now understand how they could drive Dragomanov to distraction and instill in him repulsion
for radicals.” When the Parisian police advised him
to leave the city, he chose to settle in Le Raincy, a
village an hour away, but, as he calculated, inconvenient for other émigrés to visit to seek him out.
“I was tired of the émigrés,” he wrote. “I was fed
up with them to the point of disgust. I wanted to
be alone.” To pay for his move, he took money, 700
francs, from the till of the Vestnik. “I took this sum
from the journal’s money,” he confessed to his diary.
“There is nothing to be done. I have to cut the Gordian knot.”
Still he responded one last time to the cause. At the
beginning of July 1886 money came from St. Petersburg earmarked for the publication of one more
issue of the Vestnik. In cooperation with Lavrov,
Tikhomirov decided to go ahead: “Now we will put
together the fifth and final number and then go out
on strike.” But he could not fit back in with his comrades. For his column “Life in Russia,” Tikhomirov
produced a long essay that scandalized his colleagues, who protested especially his criticism of terrorism, and, as if testifying to his own lack of fire,
Tikhomirov acceded to their demands, truncating
his essay for publication.
Before the fifth issue of Vestnik Narodnoi voli could
see the light of day, however, the tsarist police intervened to confuse and confound the narodovoltsy
still more. The head of the Foreign Agency in Paris,
Rachkovsky, had been closely watching the work of
their print shop in Geneva. He considered publications the major weapon at the émigrés’ disposal:
“Since the time of Kolokol,” he told his superiors
at home, the émigré print shops had served “as a
strong point of revolutionary infection in Russia
and among the student youth abroad.” So far as the
narodovoltsy were concerned, their shop in Geneva
constituted “the chief base of the revolutionary activity of the foreign section of Narodnaia volia.” Therefore he requested and obtained permission from
St. Petersburg to attack this hornets’ nest.
International good manners and Swiss law dictated
that Rachkovsky had to disguise his action, and therefore, as he explained, “I decided to give the entire
enterprise not a criminal but an exclusively political
character, whereby in case of failure the Geneva
authorities could not protest but rather would con-
Chapter 15: THE AGONY OF LEV TIKHOMIROV
sider it necessary to hush the matter up in their own
interest and even to threaten the Russian émigrés if
they should complain.” On the night of November
20-21, 1886, several men, using a key that they had
bought from a neighbor, crept into the shop. Working systematically, the intruders, who had obtained
a map of the shop from a confederate placed in its
staff, destroyed proofs and manuscripts and eventually scattered the type in the street. Their special
target was the printed sheets of the fifth issue of Vestnik Narodnoi voli, which had just arrived from the
printer. The intruders worked from 9 p.m. to 4.30 in
the morning; they complained of aches and pains
for several days afterward.
Rachkovsky was very pleased with the result of
his raid. “The importance of the print shop at the
present moment of Narodnaia volia’s existence,” he
declared, “demanded its destruction even at the cost
of some diplomatic difficulties or reproaches toward
the Russian government.” The raid, he insisted, “has
to spread panic among all the political emigration.”
Although the okhranka, as the Okhrana’s Foreign
Agency was unofficially called, planted the rumor
that the deed was the work of a “man who had
worked with Narodnaia volia and had then split
with it for “reasons of principle” – obviously meant
to point at Plekhanov – the Geneva police quickly
identified one Henry Bint, a French detective in the
employ of the okhranka, as the leader of the raid and
recognized the hand of the Russian government. To
Swiss complaints Russian authorities blandly replied
that the émigrés’ nefarious publishing activities had
violated any right of political asylum. For his efforts
Rachkovsky received the Order of St. Anne, third
class, and all the conspirators received handsome
remuneration.
Rachkovsky estimated that he had inflicted damages
amounting to 10,000 francs, and he claimed to have
destroyed “all means of Narodnaia volia propaganda.” The material effects of the raid, however,
proved short-lived; the print shop had not been
destroyed beyond recovery. A proclamation of Russian students called on all “for whom the free word
is dear” to help in the rehabilitation of the shop,
and the other print shops in Geneva came to the
aid of the narodovoltsy. “It turns out that we should
have destroyed all three print shops,” Rachkovsky
complained, and the narodovoltsy still succeeded in
producing the fifth issue of Vestnik Narodnoi voli.
As planned, the issue marked the end of Vestnik’s
publication; Lavrov and Tikhomirov had already
agreed on the parting of their ways. In his farewell
statement Lavrov repeated his reservations about
Narodnaia volia’s program but insisted that since
the group was the most important party within the
revolutionary movement, he considered it proper to
be a member. In his obituary of Tkachev, who had
died in Paris in 1886, Lavrov took a last shot at his
terrorist colleagues, declaring that although Nabat
had never enjoyed much of a following, one could
see Nabat’s ideals expressed in Narodnaia volia’s
program.
When the editors decided to add an account of the
police raid on the print shop, Lavrov asked Tikhomirov to write it. Tikhomirov, however, declined,
saying that he did not have time. Lavrov then wrote
the piece himself, declaring,
When these lines are being read, all our sympathizers will know from this very fact that the essential
goal of the perpetrators of this attack has not been
achieved.
When the statement appeared in the journal, Tikhomirov was shocked to find his own name signed
to it. The incident drove him further out of the revolutionary camp.
The Russian police recognized Tikhomirov’s loss of
heart. “Writing Russian revolutionary works abroad
pays poorly,” one report declared, “and Tikhomirov
constantly lacks even the basic essentials.” Rachkovsky had his agents increase their pressure on
him, imposing such close surveillance that he could
not fail to note their presence. Declaring that Tikhomirov “in general has the appearance of a wretched and psychologically ill coward,” Rachkovsky
wanted to pursue the man “literally to insanity, to
the collapse of his intellectual and physical forces.”
By the spring of 1887 every incident or argument
within the emigration added to Tikhomirov’s personal crisis. A scandal developed over a declaration
supposedly emanating from the younger narodovoltsy in Zurich and denouncing Lavrov and Tikhomirov for the moderate tone of the last issue of
the Vestnik and for their arbitrary leadership of the
revolutionary movement. It made no difference to
Tikhomirov that almost all the émigrés recognized
the document as a concoction from Rachkovsky’s
kitchen; everything looked increasingly futile to
him. Turning back to the faith of his youth but
fearing the “official” atmosphere of the Orthodox
church in Paris, he began attending the Roman Catholic church in Le Raincy. He pondered ways for his
young son to go back to the Russian motherland; he
did not want his offspring to grow up cut off from
his ethnic roots.
In 1887 Tikhomirov published two more books,
one in French entitled Conspirateurs et police and
the other in Russian, a collection of Herzen’s essays
culled from Kolokol. In his introduction to the
Herzen reader, he admiringly noted that Herzen
had always been his own man, not binding him-
93
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
self to the dictates of any party. These publications,
however, brought Tikhomirov little money; the growing rapprochement between France and Russia, he
calculated, had chilled Parisian attitudes toward the
émigrés: “The French are so making up to Russia
that they prefer to remain silent about this book,
which is written not directly in opposition to the
Russian government, but nevertheless in a tone not
favorable to that government.”
Tikhomirov was fast becoming convinced that he
had to get out of the emigration. “I need to create a
serious party,” he told himself, “that would become
a force in the country, a ruling party.” The way to
return to the political stage did not seem to run
through the intrigues of the emigration, and he had
no interest in any new publishing ventures. The pettiness of émigré life took on a new dimension for him
when Oshanina directed him to rebuff the claims of
Gaspar Turski for the type in the Narodnaia volia
shop that had once belonged to Nabat. Although
Tikhomirov had no illusions about Turski, whom
he called a “swindler” and possibly a spy, he ordered
the print shop to surrender the type – he really did
not care what happened. Oshanina and Lavrov were
both aghast as his attitude, and so Tikhomirov obligingly declared that he had no right to dispose of
the property of the print shop of “the former Vestnik
Narodnoi voli.”
He was now taking his final steps toward a complete
break with the revolutionary movement. He still felt
sympathy for a veteran like Lavrov, but he intensely
disliked the younger generation of radicals. The
occasion for his public break came in the reprinting
of his book La Russie politique et sociale, for which
he wrote a new preface, denouncing terrorism and
praising Nicholas I. He received the first printed
copies of his new preface on February 29, 1888, and
he immediately sent them off to various friends and
acquaintances. Within just a few days a storm of
outrage swept through the emigration.
Tikhomirov had expected an outcry. On February
29 he wrote to a friend, “I fear that the change transpiring in my views will seem to you as so to speak
‘treason.’ I can only say that I have reached these
views through much suffering, they have come to
me by the juices of my brain and the blood of my
heart.” To Nikolai Chaikovsky he wrote on March 5,
“I believe that terror (Russian, I know no other) has
corrupted the Russian movement.” He had made his
break public.
94
In order to explain his transformation, he immediately set to writing another book, this one in Russian.
He promised his friends – that is, anyone who would
still listen to him – that he would not endanger any
of his former comrades by making revelations, but
the émigrés angrily denounced him as a renegade, a
turncoat, and a traitor. When he finished his manuscript, he had trouble finding a printer. The first
shop he went to in Paris had only enough Russian
type to prepare one signature at a time; fearing some
sort of sabotage, he went looking elsewhere. Eventually a printer came to him to volunteer his services; the hand of the Russian police was probably
in the background. Even so, Tikhomirov anguished
over every delay, constantly expecting trouble from
one source or another.
Then, on August 3, 1888, he had his book; he had
made his statement: Pochemu ia perestal’ byt’ revoliutsionerom (Why I Ceased to be a Revolutionary).
He took his son to the Orthodox church in Paris,
and, to the amazement of many, he requested permission to return to Russia. Even more amazing, the
tsarist government welcomed him home. In Russia
he became a journalist, gradually moving further
and further to the right of the political spectrum.
Yet he abided by the confidences of the period of
his revolutionary activism and never betrayed his
erstwhile comrades to the authorities. His son grew
up deeply religious, joined the Orthodox clergy, and
became a high official of the church.
Tikhomirov was neither the first nor the last revolutionary to give up the struggle and to seek peace
with the Russian government. The police recorded
a number of such requests just in 1887 and 1888. In
earlier years, Utin and Trusov had already returned
home. On the other hand, many revolutionaries
who had faced the same emotional and psychological crisis as Tikhomirov’s had sought other means
to resolve their doubts, some even resorting to suicide. Tikhomirov was the most prominent figure in
the movement to surrender in this fashion.
His experience of course testified to his own psychological weakness as well as to the oppressive
atmosphere of emigration in the latter 1880s. His
defection nevertheless did not inspire others to
follow his example, but it nevertheless represented
a crisis at the very heart of the revolutionary movement. The other revolutionaries tried to forget him;
Stepniak wrote,
Well he is dead and buried. Much can be said about
his treason (in my opinion made not for money but
out of despicable flaccidity of temper and utter
absence of love for freedom as such, which is not
uncommon among the feckless Russians of a certain class to which Tikhomirov always belonged)
but the less said of it the better.
But the intensity with which the émigrés denounced
Tikhomirov showed clearly that they could not
forget his defection.
Tikhomirov’s fundamental criticisms of terror and
Chapter 15: THE AGONY OF LEV TIKHOMIROV
of the revolutionary program of the narodovoltsy,
and his emphasis on the need to concentrate on
the cultural development of the Russian people reflected the same problems that Plekhanov and the
osvobozhdentsy were addressing. Narodnaia volia’s
activist campaign of terror had failed to bring down
the government; one had to rethink the priorities
of the revolutionary movement and to find a new
program. Tikhomirov did not accept Plekhanov’s
answer of Marxism. More than one historian has
suggested that Tikhomirov was simply too old to
become a Marxist at this point, but his rejection of
Marxism had to come from more complicated roots.
Tikhomirov was contemptuous of the Marxists, and
he called their supporters “idiots.” But he had been
unable to provide a theoretical justification for his
own activities as a revolutionary and a regicide. In
the end, he put his faith not in the development of a
distinct social class but rather in the idea of Russia
itself as a mystic organism. In him it was Russian
nationalism rather than a sectarian political creed
that triumphed.
Tikhomirov’s collapse also showed that in his case
the printed word could not provide its own justification. He had put his pen at the service of the
assassination campaign, of propaganda of the deed,
and he had worked as a true believer. The task of the
word was to justify the deed. But when the activity
cooled, he could no longer sustain his enthusiasm
by words alone. His writing lost its purpose when
he found no public response, and he had to look for
new sources of intellectual support.
95
Chapter 16:
A NEW GENERATION
In 1887, while Lev Tikhomirov was completing his
intellectual transformation, the Russian revolutionary movement seemed to be waiting. The tsarist
authorities considered it a year in which things did
not happen. To be sure, there had been an abortive
plot against the life of the Tsar, Alexander III, but
this seemed only an isolated incident. The police
recorded only six political trials in the course of
1887, and despite the growing population of prisoners throughout Siberia, there were few escapes
from exile during the year. As for the emigration,
one police report insisted that during 1887 it had
produced “nothing notable as regards literature.” The
revolutionaries seemed demoralized. “The majority
of the émigrés,” an official declared, “are extremely
impoverished; according to their own admissions,
concerns about their daily bread have occupied
their heads more than revolutionary plans.” Yet by
the end of the year, new intellectual currents were
stirring in a long dormant center, Zurich.
The stimulation came from the breakup of the plot
against the life of the Tsar. In January the tsarist
police had learned of new terrorist plans. They investigated, and on March 1 they arrested a man they
had been watching as he and others were carrying
bombs on the Nevsky Prospect, the main street of
the Russian capital. Further investigation revealed
a plot against the life of the Tsar as a protest against
“the abnormal condition of the contemporary social
order.” The plot had been a poorly kept secret, and
even before the arrests of the individuals caught in
the act, students had begun fleeing abroad so as not
to get caught up in a governmental dragnet.
96
For the police this case seemed almost routine,
and they had no idea of the celebrity status that
several participants would subsequently enjoy in
the history books. The authorities executed Aleksandr Ulianov for his part in the plot, but Ulianov’s
younger brother Vladimir, under the revolutionary
name of Lenin, would lead Russia into one of the
great social revolutions of the twentieth century.
In the city of Vilnius, the center of the Northwest
Region of the empire, the police arrested Józef Piłsudski, who thirty years later would lead the new
Poland in a war against Lenin’s forces. For the
moment, however, the authorities just watched the
youth scatter.
In order to keep better track of events in the emigration, Rachkovsky established a new observation
post in Geneva when Henry Bint reached an agreement with Elpidin. Elpidin’s book store, which Tikhomirov called the beststocked Russian book store
in Western Europe, was a key intellectual center.
Newcomers came there to find addresses and to
find friends; it was a convenient mailing address for
individuals who did not want to divulge their true
abodes; and of course anyone who needed Russian
books had to visit it. To be sure, many émigrés did
not trust Elpidin; but they had to do business with
him. Over the next thirteen years, the police paid
Elpidin some 18,000 francs for information and for
copies of mail that he handled for other émigrés.
Elpidin’s value to the police, however, has to be
questioned. By now no one trusted him with important information. There were stories of his having
denounced one person or another, but apart from
a few statements he made to the Geneva authorities, there is no specific evidence on this count. The
money he received he obviously invested in his business. Over the course of the thirteen years he was
on Rachkovsky’s payroll, he published about three
times the number of titles that he had published in
his first twenty years of working in Geneva, and he
did not change the nature of his titles. The police,
accordingly, would seem not to have gotten their
money’s worth, and in 1900 they dismissed Elpidin
on the charge of “senility and uselessness.” At the
cost of his historical reputation, Elpidin would
seem to have exploited the Russian officials in Paris
for his own publishing purposes.
Elpidin’s usefulness was also compromised by the
fact that Geneva had now lost its pride of place
within the Russian emigration. The city was still an
important printing center, but for the next several
years first Zurich and then London eclipsed it as
an émigré intellectual center. The editors of Vestnik Narodnoi voli had established the precedent of
living even in another country while having their
printing done in Geneva. Plekhanov and the osvobozhdentsy, to be sure, still centered their activity
Chapter 16: A NEW GENERATION
in Geneva, but their time had not yet come. Their
Marxism had yet to take firm root among the Russian youth; therefore their presence in Geneva still
did not attract many new émigrés.
Instead the émigrés flowed back into Zurich, where
they tried to continue their education. A Russian
police report called the community there “a chance
selection of politically suspicious youth,” mostly of
Jewish origin. The new arrivals brought mixed and
even confused political views; they seemed in some
cases capable of combining Marxism, terrorism, and
even constitutional ideas for at least a time. The older
émigrés looked askance at their ignorance, but they
respected their energy. The elders hoped eventually
to direct this young force into the proper channels.
On their own initiative the youth in Zurich established a Socialist Literature Fund. Led by Isaak
Dembo, known in Zurich by the name Brinstein, the
group made tentative plans for the publication of a
journal and even briefly considered setting up its
own print shop. It raised money through soliciting
contributions, staging special events, and holding a
lottery. When it first approached Lavrov to ask for
his guidance, he had denounced as “harmful” the
group’s thoughts of publishing Tolstoy’s works, and
then he had questioned the idea of working with
Plekhanov, whom he indicated that he respected
but did not completely trust. Finally, however, he
agreed to help them: He would choose titles from
suggestions made by the group, and these would
be printed at the Old Narodovoltsy Print Shop in
Geneva. The fund then went ahead with plans to
publish “translated and original brochures on the
theory and history of socialism.”
Although the fund’s first publication was an essay
by Marx and the second a work by the German
socialist Karl Kautsky, some of the young Marxist émigrés objected to the fund’s organization.
Lavrov, they argued, was unsympathetic to the
new “serious socialist literature” emanating from
Plekhanov’s group in Geneva. The Foreign Union
of Social Democrats, led by Rafael Soloveichik and
Orest Govorukhin, challenged Dembo’s control
of the fund’s organization. They demanded that
Plekhanov be recognized as a literary authority the
equal of Lavrov; Plekhanov in turn objected to the
thought that Lavrov might have the right to review
any manuscript of his.
The Marxists made a test cast of a manuscript on
the history of the International, written by Vera
Zasulich. “Your International should be printed
at any cost,” Plekhanov wrote to Zasulich, and to
Akselrod he added, “If the narodovoltsy are not
agreed, then in my opinion our group must leave
the fund as an establishment obviously hostile to all
social democrats and their publications.” Although
Lavrov seemed ready to accept the manuscript, the
Socialist Literature Fund rejected it. The intellectual
atmosphere was at best confused.
The Marxists at the same time were experiencing
internal tensions. The young social democrats
found that the osvobozhdentsy hesitated to take
the newcomers unreservedly and unconditionally
to their breasts. Plekhanov did not believe that
the newcomers’ experiences in Russia made up for
their inadequacies in theory, and in a tumultuous
congress held during the summer of 1888 the osvobozhdentsy made clear that they would not allow
themselves to be dissolved within an organization
with a large membership. Plekhanov cared too
much about the nuances of his ideological line to
allow this to happen; he openly admitted to having
Jacobin sentiments. As a result, the congress intensified rather than assuaged the frictions within the
Marxists’ camp, but the social democrats did not
give up their struggle against the narodovoltsy’s
control of the literary fund.
In September 1888, in the shadow of Tikhomirov’s
defection, the Socialist Literary Fund broke up amid
mutual recriminations between the rival groups.
The social democrats took their share of the fund’s
treasury. Under Plekhanov’s patronage, they formed
the Russian Social Democratic Union, a group affiliated with Osvobozhdenie truda, but not a part of
it, and as the first in their new series of publications
they produced an attack on Tikhomirov written by
Plekhanov.
The arrival of youthful energy in 1887 and 1888 also
created new journals. A group of narodovoltsy in
Moscow, having entered into an alliance with some
liberals, felt the need of a printed organ in which
the new partners could discuss their common problems. Because they could not print the newspaper
within the Russian Empire, they sent two emissaries
to Switzerland, armed with their program and notes
for the first issue of the newspaper. When approached by the two women, Plekhanov enumerated his
differences with the group’s program and refused to
participate. Vladimir Debogory-Mokrievich, on the
other hand, agreed to see the project into print, and
the job of typesetting went to Dragomanov’s Ukrainian print shop.
The first issue of the new publication, Samoupravlenie (Self-Government), which bore the date of
December 1887 and the legend “organ of the socialist revolutionaries,” carried statements by various
émigré leaders emphasizing the need to continue
the political struggle. Debogory-Mokrievich called
the political struggle the first task of the revolutionaries, with local self-government and political
freedoms as the goal. Dragomanov demanded selfgovernment and political freedoms in the form of
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THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
the rights of man and citizen. Stepniak asserted
that personally he favored “gradualism” but that “in
practice” he had to put his faith in “political terror
and political-militant conspiracies where possible –
in general, in forceful action.” The forum concluded
with an excerpt from the program of the osvobozhdentsy, declaring that socialists had to fulfill what
would normally be the role of the middle class if
that were a properly functioning social group in
Russia; therefore the socialists supported agitation
for a constitution, representative government, freedom of conscience, a free press, and an end to the
standing army.
As regards tactics, the editors of Samoupravlenie dismissed the thoughts of either urban or rural revolts;
instead they advocated legal agitation, through the
press and through institutions of self-government,
and they endorsed the terrorist struggle. In the
second issue, dated May 1888, the editors tried to
make clear that they were socialists, favoring the
“socialization of the means of production.” They
favored “heightening the political significance of
the toiling classes, the expropriation of political
authority from the hands of the privileged minority
into the hands of all the people.”
The newspaper inspired a mixed reaction among
the émigrés. Lavrov hailed its publishers as “my
comrades in arms,” although he warned against
trusting the liberals. Plekhanov asserted that the
editors did not understand the class struggle and
obviously feared the working class: “It is clear that
petty bourgeois socialists are in principle enemies
of the liberation movement of the proletariat.” The
assertion by one of the editors that socialism could
not serve as the “militant slogan” of the day convinced many observers that this group constituted
“liberals with bombs.’
98
The next newspaper arising in the emigration came
from an old and well known but at the same time
controversial source. Gaspar Turski began printing
his own newspaper, entitled Svoboda (Freedom),
and collaborating with him was a man with a suspicious background, Kagan Solomon, also known as
S. Kniazhnin, E. Semenovsky, and Semenov. (Rumor
had it that Solomon was the one who had instructed
Bint on the layout of the narodovoltsy’s print shop
in Geneva.) Appearing in nine issues in the course
of 1888 and one the following year, Svoboda called
itself “the political organ of the Russian intelligentsia” and hailed the intelligentsia, rather than
the working class, as the dynamic, moving force in
society. As Solomon-Kniazhnin put it, “Insofar as
the people are not able to struggle, one must look
to society, the intelligentsia, as the most developed
and aware part of the people.” The newspaper’s program focused on the struggle for political rights.
Few took Svoboda very seriously, and it aroused
little discussion. Neither did Turski’s other new
newspaper Bor’ba (The Struggle). The Ohkrana
deemed Turski’s work “in content and in literary
quality not deserving of attention.” Obshchee delo
praised it. The osvobozhdentsy, on the other hand,
had different views. Plekhanov criticized Turski’s
conception of the intelligentsia as a distinct class
and quietly dismissed the publication as a “typical
organ of the liberal intelligentsia,” but he published
an article in it. Turski produced the newspaper in
the osvobozhdentsy’s print shop. As Deich later
explained, the osvobozhdentsy needed the business.
In the summer of 1888 the Osvobozhdenie truda
group was able to enter the lists with its own publication, which it called “irregular” rather than periodical, but which it labeled as no. 1. Sotsial-demokrat
owed its origins to a windfall. Nikolai KuliabkoKoretsky, an erstwhile collaborator of Lavrov’s in
publishing Vpered and now a lawyer with constitutionalist inclinations, had shown up in Switzerland at the end of 1887 ready to support the elusive
goal of uniting the radicals behind a single journal.
When he found it impossible to reach agreement
with the narodovoltsy or with the Ukrainian print
shop, he chose to give his funds, which amounted
to several hundred rubles, to Plekhanov, who used
the money to underwrite the publication of Sotsialdemokrat.
Publishing Sotsial-demokrat demanded all the
energy and resources that Plekhanov commanded.
Turski, to be sure, was cooperative; through the
summer months, when the work on Sotsial-demokrat was the most intense, Svoboda put out only
two issues, one at the beginning of the summer and
one at the end. But Akselrod, still living in Zurich,
became ill and could not even complete the article
that he was supposed to contribute; depressed, he
was ready to resign from the editorial board. Plekhanov convinced him to continue – “The world is
large enough and our literary activity will not be
limited to one anthology” – but this still left Plekhanov without any help. “You will surely say,” he
complained, “that corrections and insertions do not
need much time, but I had to run collect the books
necessary for copying, and just with Elpidin I had to
listen to the longest story about spies.” Not without
reason he wrote, “In putting out the first book of
Sotsial-demokrat, we unfortunately cannot even
approximate the appearance of the second.”
By the fall of 1888 the flurry of new publishing activity had peaked. The first issue of Sotsial-demokrat
remained without a successor, and the publication
efforts of the Osvobozhdenie truda group slowed
down. Samoupravlenie seemed to be in no better
Chapter 16: A NEW GENERATION
condition. News came from Russia of the arrests of
the leaders of the “socialists-federalists,” and Debogory-Mokrievich despaired of receiving any more
material. The only periodicals now appearing with
any continuity were Turski’s Svoboda and the seemingly indefatigable Obshchee delo.
At this point the emigration added a new figure who
was to play an important role in the political and cultural evolution for decades to come, Vladimir Lvovich Burtsev. Twenty-five or twenty-six years of age,
a member of the narodovoltsy, he had just fled from
Siberia. According to his own account, his arrival in
Geneva began his “responsible role in the revolutionary movement,” and he was to gain considerable
renown as a historian, an editor, and a pursuer of
government spies. (Some called him the “Sherlock
Holmes of the revolutionary movement.”) Ideally
he claimed to favor an alliance of the socialists’
energy with the liberals’ sense of balance. “I always
asserted,” he recounted, “that we need only the free
word and a parliament; then we can proceed to our
most cherished demands.” In Geneva he found his
intellectual circle with Debogory-Mokrievich and
Dragomanov, who did not share Burtsev’s belief
in the usefulness of terror but shared his thoughts
about the necessity of the political struggle.
Burtsev had actually come with the charge of taking
over the publication of Samoupravlenie, but the
arrests in Moscow made that seem hopeless. Instead
he now proposed to start a new publication. “For me,”
he later reminisced, “the basis of all struggle with the
government even then was propaganda.” Provisionally calling his publication Kolokol in testimony to
his vision of uniting the emigration as everyone now
liked to think Herzen once had, he looked around
for literary and financial contributors. Dragomanov
refused his invitation to become editor, saying
that after his experiences with Vol’noe slovo he had
resolved never to edit another periodical. Eventually,
using his own funds, Burtsev decided that he had to
take the post of editor himself.
Using Dragomanov’s print shop, Burtsev set his first
lead article for Svobodnaia Rossiia (Free Russia) into
type and sent it out separately to friends for advance
comment. From Zurich Isaak Dembo warned him,
“You will destroy your revolutionary career,” and
he urged Burtsev to keep clear of Dragomanov and
Debogory-Mokrievich. Despite such advice, Burtsev
forged ahead, and in the spring of 1889, when new
material came for Samoupravlenie, he printed nos. 3
and 4 of that newspaper in tandem with nos. 1 and
2 of Svobodnaia Rossiia.
Svobodnaia Rossiia strongly endorsed the political
struggle in alliance with the liberals, and it defined
the struggle’s goals as civil rights and self-government: Political freedom – there in two words is the
program of our organ.” Once the political struggle
had been resolved, “we will go on to essential economic reforms and then eventually to socialism.”
The first task, however, was to work with the liberals
for political reforms: “Now we are all liberals, now
we are all revolutionaries, and no one has the right
to deny the obligation and honor of being a liberal
and a revolutionary.” Burtsev believed that in a free
society many who now considered themselves revolutionaries would in fact be satisfied.
Svobodnaia Rossiia also spoke enthusiastically about
the duties and obligations of the émigrés in maintaining their printing establishments. In an essay
in the first issue entitled “A Few Words on a Free
Press,” Esper Serebriakov argued,
Every person in any way familiar with the revolutionary movement knows that almost the greater
part of those who have perished, perished because
of secret print shops or because of their relationship
to them and their organization.
The émigrés must continue printing revolutionary
literature, he concluded, and the revolutionaries in
Russia must concentrate on smuggling it into the
empire.
The narodovoltsy and the osvobozhdentsy vied with
each other in attacking the compromise with the
liberals that Svobodniaia Rossiia proposed. “There
is no journal dumber than Bor’ba [published by
Turski],” Vera Zasulich wrote to Kravchinsky, “but
worse (in its own way) is your beloved Svobodnaia
Rossiia.” The narodovoltsy and the osvobozhdentsy
even went on to plan a joint periodical through
which they could respond to Burtsev. To Burtsev’s
dismay, the liberals welcomed his work only with
words; they kept their wallets closed. To continue
the publication he had to keep using his own
resources.
On March 6, 1889, an incident in Zurich disrupted
Burtsev’s work as well as the activity of all other
émigrés in Switzerland. In experimenting with
explosives in the mountains, Issak Dembo blew
himself up. On his death bed he assured the police
that he had not meant to use the explosives against
any target in Switzerland. Swiss officials, already
concerned about terrorist bombings by Italian anarchists, launched an exhaustive investigation of the
activities and writings of the émigrés from Russia.
The émigrés protested that the terrorists represented only a small group, but the Swiss tightened
their surveillance of all foreigners, establishing a
new agency, the Fremdenpolizei, to watch the activities of aliens in Switzerland.
The Russian community in Zurich quickly broke
up, as it had in 1873. On May 7 the Bundesrat, the
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THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
Federal Executive Council of the Swiss Confederation, expelled thirteen Russians from the country.
In the course of the summer others were forced to
leave on an individual basis, and in August Plekhanov, despite his protests, was expelled, although his
wife, who was completing her medical education,
could remain in Geneva. Plekhanov was allowed to
reenter the country only to pay her short visits.
In this atmosphere even Svobodnaia Rossiia was
doomed, but Burtsev faced as much trouble within
his editorial board as he did from outside. Dragomanov, while approving the general line of the
publication, wanted it to come out more vigorously
against terrorism. Burtsev resisted, although he conceded, “We want the peaceful development of the
country.” Debogory supported Dragomanov, and
the debates reached the point that Burtsev finally
resolved to withdraw and found another newspaper,
tentatively called Zemskii sobor (Assembly of the
Land). Svobodnaia Rossiia therefore ended its brief
existence with its third issue, dated May 1889.
For Dragomanov this marked the end of his publishing career in Geneva. To friends he complained
that the experience with Svobodnaia Rossiia had
disappointed him. In 1887 he had thought that
the Russians were coming around to his way of
thought, but then he found the ideas of the youthful
émigrés incoherent and even incomprehensible.
“They seemed to be speaking a different language,”
he exclaimed. “Sometimes after an explanation you
understand even less.” He again despaired of further
cooperation with Russian radicals, and by the end
of the summer he had accepted a professorial post
in Bulgaria.
In the early summer of 1889 the narodovoltsy put
out their own newspaper, Sotsialist, to a great degree
designed as a response to Svobodnaia Rossiia. Edited
by Iurii Rappoport, the newspaper had the support
of both Lavrov and Plekhanov. Plekhanov had had
some misgivings about such cooperation, but, as he
explained, “it seems to me that we have to be diplomats.” In defining the newspaper’s program, Rappoport had written, “We will struggle with all means,
beginning with agitation and propaganda, printed
and oral, and concluding with terrorist acts, disorganizing the very center of the government, depending on which of these means seems at the given
moment the most expedient and applicable.” Plekhanov calculated that he could steer this enterprise in
the right direction: “Gradually we will either correct
them or we will break with them.”
100
The sole issue of Sotsialist was dated June 1889.
While the address of the editorial board was in
Paris, the printing was done in Geneva. Besides
theoretical statements by Lavrov and Plekhanov,
the issue carried a detailed account of the events
in Zurich after Dembo’s death. An obituary for the
man praised his dying words whereby he directed
his comrades to search his pockets and his room for
compromising materials before the police could get
there.
There was to be no second issue of Sotsialist, although Rappoport apparently had enough material. Burtsev later suggested that the closing of
Svobodnaia Rossiia had deprived the publication
of its raison d’etre, but more important, Plekhanov
was uneasy with this alliance. The osvobozhdentsy
did not like Lavrov’s contribution – Zasulich commented, “It is easier to understand what Hegel is
saying than to understand [Lavrov]” – and when
Plekhanov could not get to see Rappoport during
his visit to Paris in the summer of 1889, he felt
insulted. Angrily he announced his withdrawal
from Sotsialist and his intention to resume publication of Sotsial-demokrat.
Overshadowing the demise of Sotsialist in the
summer of 1889 was the meeting of the First Congress of a new workers’ international, to be known
in history as the Second International. Organized in
conjunction with the exposition in Paris, the congress brought together representatives of socialist
parties of various countries. The organizers had first
invited Lavrov and Kravchinsky to represent the
Russians; the former declined, and the latter, realizing that the meeting was meant to bring together
representatives of organizations, rather than individuals, recommended that they invite the osvobozhdentsy. On Kravchinsky’s recommendation,
therefore, and also with his financial aid, Plekhanov
and Akselrod traveled to Paris to represent Russian
socialism at this international gathering.
The meetings in Paris produced some odd confrontations, such as one between Plekhanov and Burtsev.
The Marxist angrily attacked Burtsev’s interpretation of the political struggle, and Burtsev tried to
defend himself, saying “I am also a socialist.” To
this Plekhanov angrily countered, “I am not an also
socialist. I am a socialist.” The exchange produced
such heat that Plekhanov, harking back to standards
of a bygone era, challenged Burtsev to a duel. The
conflict did not reach this ultimate physical dimension, but for years afterward the two men refused to
speak with one another or generally to acknowledge
each other’s existence.
From Paris, again with Kravchinsky’s help, Plekhanov traveled on to London and fulfilled a longstanding dream by meeting Friedrich Engels. For
the small Osvobozhdenie truda group this was of
enormous importance, as Plekhanov struggled to
impress the socialist patriarch with his little band’s
credentials. When he returned to Switzerland
in August, he underwent the ignominy of being
Chapter 16: A NEW GENERATION
expelled from Switzerland, but he was able to settle
just over the frontier from where he could maintain
contact with the print shop in Geneva.
Stimulated by having participated in the foundation of the Second International, Plekhanov pushed
ahead with his new periodical, also called Sotsialdemokrat, but different from its earlier namesake.
The first issue, carrying the date February 15, 1890,
employed a larger format and divided its contents
into two parts, each with its own pagination: articles, including translations, and a “contemporary
review,” including book reviews. Announcing that
this would now be a “literary-political” quarterly,
the editors declared that the journal aimed at showing the relevance of Marxism for conditions and
developments in Russia, “that even in Russia this
teaching has real soil beneath it.” The osvobozhdentsy recognized that Marxists still constituted
“a rarity” among Russian revolutionaries, but now
braced by his personal acquaintance with Engels,
Plekhanov worked with new enthusiasm.
Like the anthology of two years earlier, the new
periodical gave evidence of the difficult conditions
under which the Marxist émigrés lived. Once again
the editors noted that publication had been delayed
by the illness of an associate. In a rather clumsy effort
to mislead both Swiss and Russian authorities, the
periodical carried a false imprint, claiming to have
been printed in London and asking correspondents
to address inquiries to Stepniak in London. (The
editors had considered using New York as the false
imprint.) In the editorial introduction, however, the
subscription price was quoted in Swiss francs. The
second issue, dated August 15, admitted to being
printed in Switzerland, and its editors apparently
had no problems from the side of the Swiss authorities.
In financing the publication Plekhanov received
some help from a new émigré, Leon JogichesTyszko, but this relationship soon disintegrated as
the veteran Marxist again had trouble dealing with
the younger generation. Jogiches demanded authority and respect that Plekhanov was not ready
to give. “One would think,” Plekhanov’s wife later
wrote, “that the young people suffer from a disease
of not recognizing authorities and a fear of somehow
being obligated to them.” The youth, Plekhanov
complained, “do not speak with me directly, simply.”
In this case the conflict focused on money, as Plekhanov called Jogiches as “our Shylock,” and Jogiches
in turn took his money elsewhere. Plekhanov was
left complaining that his own journal Sotsial-demokrat could pay him only “one-third of what legal
journals pay” for articles.
By the time Sotsial-demokrat’s second issue appeared in the late summer of 1890, the émigrés had a
new set of police repressions to discuss and to worry
about. After the trouble in Zurich, a number of Russian émigrés had moved to Paris, and there some
were continuing the experiments with explosives.
The tsarist authorities, still complaining about the
Swiss’ “complete ignorance of the character of the
activity and the makeup of the Russian emigration,”
followed them to the French capital. In the spring
of 1890, after another accident with explosives,
the French launched a massive investigation that
resulted in six arrests and the expulsion of a number
of persons. (The revolutionaries later insisted that
this incident was in fact a case of police provocation.) “The results of the past year,” a Russian police
report declared in 1891, “can in general be called
successful,” and the police said this despite the
assassination late in the year of a Russian general
in Paris. Both the government and public opinion
in France, the Russian authorities believed, were
outraged by the activities of the émigrés.
The events in Zurich and Paris in 1889 and 1890
severely crippled the publishing activities of the
Russian émigrés for the time being, putting a temporary halt to the vigor that the emigration had
displayed since 1887. Apart from Sotsial-demokrat,
which obviously suffered from financial undernourishment, periodical publishing in Switzerland
withered away. Even Obshchee delo ceased publication as Belogolovy, its main financial supporter,
gave up and returned home to Russia. The center of
émigré activity now shifted back to London, where
Kravchinsky-Stepniak was raising the propagandizing of the Russian revolution among the western
public to something of an art form.
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Chapter 17:
KRAVCHINSKY’S
FRIENDS
Sergei Kravchinsky had settled in London in 1884.
He lived and wrote under the name Stepniak, but
his identity as Kravchinsky, the man who had assassinated Mezentsev, was no secret, even though
he did not care to publicize it. As a commentator
on Russian affairs he quickly acquired a large and
appreciative audience, and his writings included
essays in literary journals, books, and even fiction.
While he did not become rich from the proceeds of
these works, he was able to support himself comfortably.
Kravchinsky steadfastly resisted tying himself to
the fortunes of any one political group or trend.
Despite his role as one of the pioneers in the assassinations of the latter 1870s, he refused to put himself at the command of the Executive Committee of
Narodnaia volia; indeed he criticized the leadership
of the group for its Jacobin tendencies. Although
he was a friend of Friedrich Engels, he would not
declare himself a Marxist either. After first denouncing him, Soviet historians came to emphasize his
friendship with Zasulich and his cooperation with
Plekhanov, but in his time Kravchinsky called himself a man “without attachments, a free cossack.”
He wanted to show that the Russian revolutionary
movement was made up of persons “of different
views, united by the realization that the destruction of the autocracy and its replacement by a freer,
limited monarchy constitute the organic demand of
all, and without the achievement of this no one can
take a step.”
Plekhanov criticized him for his tolerant attitude
toward persons like Dragomanov, but Kravchinsky
argued, “Only by guaranteeing freedom to our opponents do we assure our own.” Upon reading one of
his early essays in the British press, a tsarist official
exclaimed, “Can it be that this article... belongs to a
terrorist pen?” In turn, Kravchinsky aroused considerable criticism from the revolutionary camp for
glossing over ideological and theoretical differences
among the Russians.
102
Kravchinsky’s closest associate in London, Nikolai
Chaikovsky, shared Kravchinsky’s sentiments.
Immortalized in Russian history for his role in the
propaganda activities of the early 1870s – the chaikovtsy bore his name – Chaikovsky had gone off to
the United States later in the decade to participate in
an experimental socialist colony. When he returned
to Europe, he settled in London. He agreed to represent the Red Cross of Narodnaia volia mainly as a
means of presenting the revolutionary movement
to the British public; his pet project was to create an
international bureau to provide the western public
with trustworthy information on the Russian revolutionary movement.
As he struggled to conquer the mysteries of the
English language, Stepniak found easy entry into
British society. His acquaintances soon included
members of parliament, writers such as George
Bernard Shaw, and theorists like Engels. To the émigrés living in Paris, Geneva, or Zurich, Kravchinsky
appeared to be well off; like Plekhanov in 1889, they
frequently turned to him for help. Kravchinsky responded as best he could to their appeals. On the
other hand, his Russian comrades frequently complained that he went too far to please his English
friends, but he struggled to integrate these two different worlds.
His relations with the American George Kennan,
suddenly a very popular writer on the Russian
prison system, exemplified Kravchinsky’s talents
and problems. Kennan had burst onto to the literary
scene with a series of articles in the American periodical The Century Magazine, beginning in the fall
of 1886 with an account of the suicide of Aleksandr
Kropotkin and continuing in subsequent years with
graphic and vivid accounts of the life of political
exiles in Siberia. The Russian émigrés welcomed the
work, although they complained that he made his
Russian subjects look more like liberals than socialists. As soon as his essays appeared, the émigrés
translated and reproduced them.
In 1885, at the time of his departure for Russia to
collect material for his series on the prison system,
Kennan had been a respected but unspectacular
journalist, holding the post of Night Manager of
Chapter 17: KRAVCHINSKY’S FRIENDS
the Washington office of the Associated Press. He
had visited Russia before, first in the 1860s, and had
published a book entitled Tent Life in Siberia that
had brought him modest note. After his trip in 1885
and 1886, however, he was a celebrity; flooded with
invitations to lecture, he resigned from his post with
the Associated Press, calculating that he could clear
$20,000 annually, after expenses, just by lecturing.
rough study not only of the life of the political exiles
but of the inner history of the whole Russian revolutionary movement.” A month later he wrote, “I
should like now to put on leg-fetters and the exile
dress and march two or three days with a party.”
Kennan’s sympathies for the exiles and his hostility
for the Russian government grew apace throughout
the remainder of his journey.
From the start of his trip Kennan has in mind the
possibility of eventually producing a book. His contract with the Century Company, signed on May 1,
1885, spoke of a “graphic, picturesque account of
exile life.” Kennan proposed “to collect materials for
a more vivid and striking picture, and at the same
time a truer picture of the life of the exiles during
their journey to Siberia.” He promised the magazine
“twelve papers upon the subject hereinbefore indicated of Siberian exile life,” and these would contain “the choicest and ripest fruits of the expedition
herein set forth.” The magazine agreed to pay a total
of $6000 for the work.
In July 1886 Kennan made a brief trip to London,
where he met Kravchinsky as well as Petr Kropotkin. Kravchinsky was delighted to hear the
American’s account of having made “more friends
than ever before in his entire life.” Kennan, Kravchinsky declared, “has now radically changed
his views and fully confirms everything we have
written in our books. Only his facts are newer and
more copious than what we can command.” When
Kennan pledged to expose the evils of the Russian
prison system, Kravchinsky exclaimed, “Seeing what
an impression the Russians made on this good but
strongly prejudiced man, I felt pride for my people,
for my country.”
Because in the past Kennan had discounted stories
of exiles’ suffering, he had little trouble in obtaining
the cooperation of the tsarist authorities for his
expedition. He expected that the Russians might
try to guide his investigation “into safe channels,”
but he was ready: “That is all right. I have no fault
to find with their precautions. They have been so
much misrepresented that they naturally feel a little
afraid of foreign writers.” Nevertheless he would not
allow himself to be led:
I shall find out what I wish to know all the same.
The official string is by no means the only string to
my Siberian bow.
In contrast to many other visitors to Russia, Kennan
spoke the language.
Kennan’s conversion began with his arrival in
Siberia. Writing from Tiumen on June 16/28, 1885,
he declared, “The forwarding prison is, I must
frankly say, the worst prison I have ever seen, and
if the places where they keep the exiles generally
further on in Siberia are as bad as this one, I shall
have to take back some things that I have said and
written about the exile system.” In Sempalatinsk he
spoke with prisoners for the first time:
The revolutionaries whose acquaintance I have
made here are not at all such people as I expected
to see. They are more reasonable, better educated,
less fanatical, and have far more character than
the Nihilists I had pictured to myself.
In the middle of August he declared, “I defy the
Government to prevent me from making a tho-
Once his articles had begun to appear in Century
Magazine, Kennan embarked on a new career. His
lecture topics included descriptions of camp life
in Siberia, the operation of a convict mine, “The
Great Siberian Road,” and “Vagabond Life.” He
illustrated his talks with lantern slides, on occasion donning prison garb and irons and singing
camp songs. His lecture tours ranged up and down
the east coast of the United States, from Boston to
Washington, and stretched into the Middle West,
reaching Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. Inspired by his stories, audiences invariably wanted to
know how they could help the unfortunate exiles
and contribute to the revolutionary movement.
As Kennan’s main entry into the world of the Russian emigration, Kravchinsky took great care to nurture this new resource and to respect the American’s
personal predilections. When Kennan heard of the
abortive plot of March 1887, he expressed regret
that “the Russian revolutionists have resorted again
to the ‘terroristic’ form of activity.” Kravchinsky responded, “We disagree of course upon theoretical
matters, i.e. upon the question of the use of violent
means,” but he went on to declare, “I’ll confess to
you, that had I some disposable funds of my own
personal property, I would never give it to the Russian dynamiters.” Instead he recommended “creating a free Russian press abroad.” Just £500 a year
could make émigré publishing “a powerful factor in
the struggle and there is no limit to its extension.”
Arguing that “the whole of the Russian revolutionary party is united nowadays upon the sole question of political freedom,” he particularly recommended Burtsev’s Svobodnaia Rossiia for Kennan’s
103
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
consideration. This newspaper, he declared, “should
not be too radical for Americans to support, but if
needs be we could create a more moderate one.” He
also recommended Dragomanov to Kennan, saying
that “he is a mine of information and the cleverest
of all Russians whom you can meet abroad.”
Both Kravchinsky and Kennan had to face opponents who challenged their good faith and their judgment. Prominent among Kennan’s American critics was Colonel Charles A. de Arnaud, who wrote,
“Generally speaking when such a hardened criminal,
after some years’ residence in Siberia, falls in with a
certain class of magazine writers, he calls himself a
‘political prisoner,’ and the magazine writer immediately heralds it to the American world that here is
another suffering patriot.” He had no better words for
“Stepniak,” whom he advised to follow Tikhomirov’s
example and to repent. After Kennan had sent him
one of de Arnaud’s articles, Kravchinsky commented,
“I read with much amusement de Arnaud’s rubbish,
wondering at the same time at his impudence. He
must have been drunk when he wrote it, or he is a
downright scoundrel to lie that way.”
Echoing de Arnaud’s charges for the British reading
public was an English geographer, Harry de Windt,
FRBS, who had previously published a travelogue
From Pekin to Calais by Land (London, 1887).
When Kennan’s articles began to arouse discussion
in England, de Windt, aided by sympathetic Russian officials, set off on his own investigation of
life in Siberia. His book on the topic, Siberia as it
is, appeared at the beginning of 1892, and notwithstanding his disclaimers that he was not “entering
into a paper war with Mr. Kennan,” there could be
no doubt of his intentions. “The credulity of the
English,” a Russian official reportedly confided to
de Windt, “has always amused me. They will believe
an American journalist but not their own countryman.” Charging that the Russian revolutionaries
“were currently maintaining their headquarters in
Geneva and other European cities,” de Windt suggested that the prisoners, who in any case deserved
their punishment, were perhaps better off than the
so-called free population in the eastern reaches of
the Russian empire.
104
Behind de Windt stood the formidable figure of
Madame Olga Novikova, or Novikoff, whom one
noted English journalist called “the M. P. for Russia.”
Mme. Novikova served as something of a lobbyist
for the tsarist regime. “That damn Stepniak,” she
wrote to Tikhomirov, “is stirring up everyone, and
everyone in England is against everything that is
dear to Russia. It is just a shame, a shame!” The British, she complained, should not allow “very young
people, even children,” to “discuss and twaddle on
politics instead of studying their grammars and the
geography.” Deploring British ignorance of Russia
– “I once said, and I believe it to be true, that as a
rule the only thing known in England about Russians is that they take lemon with their tea” – she
did the best she could to look after Russia’s public
image and to combat Kravchinsky’s efforts. One of
Kravchinsky’s supporters declared that the attacks
by Novikova and de Windt (whom he called an
“Englishman of doubtful nationality”) constituted a
sign of the Russian Free Press Fund’s success.
At the end of 1889 and the beginning of 1890, despite
such critics, Kravchinsky expanded his activities
with the formation of a group called “Friends of
Russian Freedom,” an association of British citizens
dedicated to publicizing the revolutionary struggle
against the autocracy in the Russian empire. Kravchinsky had tried to found such an organization
before, but with no success. Now he had found the
proper Englishman to head such an organization,
Robert Spence Watson.
A man in his early fifties, Spence Watson had long
held strong sympathies for various revolutionary
movements on the continent. To be sure, he was only
a recent convert to the Russian cause, but Kennan’s
writings had played an influential role in this. A
member of the Liberal party, he became a close friend
of Kravchinsky’s and in the fall of 1889 he agreed to
direct the “Friends of Russian Freedom.” Together
with ten or twelve friends of similar convictions he
planned to publish and distribute brochures with
texts taken from Kravchinsky’s and other works in
order to inform British public opinion about Russia.
In June 1890 the society began publishing a new
journal, Free Russia, which by fall was appearing on
a monthly basis. It would cease publication only at
the beginning of the First World War, a quarter of
a century later. The fact that the title constituted a
translation of Burtsev’s Svobodnaia Rossiia was probably no coincidence, and in response to his Russian critics, Kravchinsky spoke of the necessity of
uniting “with the Europeans as comrades.” Trying to
emphasize the need to pursue the political struggle
first, he pointed out that when Narodnaia volia had
employed assassination as a weapon, there had been
no socialist content to its arguments whatsoever.
His English “Friends” constituted only the first step
in Kravchinsky’s vision. With George Kennan’s aid,
an analogous group was formed in the United States,
and with the assistance of Lazar Goldenberg, who was
now living in New York, an American edition of Free
Russia began to appear in the fall of 1890. (When the
publication ran into financial problems after just two
issues, Kennan came to its rescue.) In the winter of
1891-1892 a German edition, Frei Russland, began to
appear in Zurich. As Kravchinsky conceived of these
publications, they should summon “all opponents of
Chapter 17: KRAVCHINSKY’S FRIENDS
the Russian autocracy without distinction of faction”
to the banner of Russian freedom.
Kravchinsky’s chief aide in publishing Free Russia
was Feliks Volkhovsky, who in his past had worked
with both German Lopatin and Sergei Nechaev and
who had been one of the defendants in the Trial of
the 193. Volkhovsky had met Kennan in Siberia,
and after escaping through Japan, he made his way
around the world to London, where Kravchinsky
joyfully welcomed him. Since Volkhovsky was at
first concerned about smuggling his small daughter
out of Siberia, he used the pseudonym of Feliks
Brant for a while, but once his daughter was safe
in London, he threw himself into émigré activities
under his own name.
Kravchinsky realized that many émigrés did not
approve of what he was doing, and he had great
trouble in balancing his constituencies. In contrast
to his suggestion to Kennan that the émigrés could
found a publication that would suit the sensitivities
of Americans, he assured Lavrov that he understood the inherent problems in taking money from
westerners for Russian revolutionary publications.
Yet, eager to assure the western public of the unity
of the revolutionaries, he told an audience that “as
a supplement to social democracy, anarchism is a
beautiful thing” – in reporting this back to Plekhanov, a socialist exclaimed, “There is an expansive
Russian nature!” When a Russian émigré assassinated a tsarist police official in Paris, Kravchinsky
told the readers of Free Russia that assassination
contradicted the principle of majority rule, and the
émigrés in Paris heatedly objected to his judgment.
On the other hand, Kravchinsky called his friend
Volkhovsky to order when the latter wore a convict’s
uniform in addressing an English audience. Such
behavior might be acceptable for an American
like Kennan who did not understand the Russian
sense of dignity, he declared, but it was unworthy
of a Russian. Nevertheless many émigrés continually complained that Kravchinsky was pandering to
western liberal tastes.
Kravchinsky, sure that a great potential for uncensored Russian publications existed within the Russian empire, had his own vision of how to reach the
Russian public. “Under the Tsar’s rule,” he declared,
“the book hunger has become just a chronic as the
great hunger, having now reached its apogee.” The
Russian youth, he said, wanted books, not for frivolous reading but books that in other countries only
specialists read. To this end, on June 26, 1891, five
Russian émigrés in London – Kravchinsky, Chaikovsky, Volkhovsky, Leonid Shishko, and Mikhail
Voinich – signed a declaration creating the Fund
for the Free Russian Press. Addressed simply to
“Comrades,” the document spoke of the decline
of “reaction” in Russia and of the need for “fresh
thought and activity.” Although the endeavor was
Kravchinsky’s idea, he remained in the background
so as not to compromise his work for Free Russia.
As a new publishing house, the Free Russian Press
Fund announced that it would operate on commercial principles. It would charge for all its publications and thereby become a fully self-sustaining
operation. The fund’s executive committee argued
that the practice of donating works had resulted on
the one hand in limited circulation and on the other
in unwarranted speculation in such publications.
The Free Russian Press Fund would liberate itself
from the problem of finding patrons by relying on
its readers for its support. It promised honoraria to
its authors, and it promised to print large editions
to be distributed “cheaply but not free.” The fund
also set up a book store, managed by Voinich (who
used the pseudonym I. Kelchevsky), that stocked
the publications of all émigré presses.
The financing of the fund’s work remains rather
obscure. Historians commonly state that Kravchinsky donated moneys collected on his lecture
tour through the United States, i.e. donations from
the American public, but at the time, Kravchinsky,
perhaps sensitive to the criticisms of pandering to
the western bourgeoisie, insisted that the fund’s
money came from persons “residing in Russia.”
Whatever its financial sources, the group operated
on a shoestring budget.
In order to help its publications to reach their targets, the fund announced its readiness to commission “persons known or recommended to the warehouse” to deliver books and other publications,
“unable to appear in Russia because of censorship,”
to specified addresses within the empire. It stood
ready to handle orders of more than 500 copies of
its own publications without charge for transportation. For other publications it would charge, in addition to the costs of the works – ten pounds sterling
for the first 21 pounds (roughly 10 kilograms) and
three pounds sterling for each additional fourteen
pounds in each shipment.
The smuggling operation, however, soon gave rise
to problems. In view of the public character of the
Free Russian Press Fund, the directors of the fund
set up a separate secret organization, independent
of the printing operation, to handle smuggling. This
activity of necessity had to be conspiratorial, and in
1892 the fund experienced an embarrassing controversy concerning one of its agents.
Voinich-Kelchevsky, who was in charge of smuggling, had hired a Pole, Marcin Kasprzak, guaranteeing his expenses as well as providing his subsistence.
Stanislaw Mendelson of the London Polish organi-
105
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
zation Proletarjat got wind of the arrangement and
demanded to know the amount of money involved.
Kasprzak, who had had his differences with Mendelson about questions of cooperation between Poles
and Russians, asked Voinich to observe conspiratorial secrecy, and Voinich felt obligated to protect
“another person’s revolutionary secret.” His colleagues in the fund supported Voinich’s decision.
Tempers flared, and Mendelson called the leaders of
the fund “dishonest men,” accusing them of “dirty
action, which is in the character of Russian radicals,” and he proposed to submit the matter “to the
arbitration of English gentlemen.” At the same time
Chaikovsky sent Mendelson’s wife a letter in which
he complained of Mendelson’s “spying on his comrades, opening other people’s letters, etc., in order
to get into the secrets of another political organization.” With his own style of fractured English,
Chaikovsky exclaimed, “With him we don’t wish to
meet not only in his house but nowhere else.” Mendelson indignantly criticized Chaikovsky’s “import
of Asiatic customs” in “addressing his letter to a
lady” and therein insulting her husband.
106
was completing work on the first brochure in the Free
Russian Press Fund’s series. On April 26, 1892, the
day before Mendelson’s first attack on the directors of
the fund, Alexander Dębski had presented the fund
with a bill for £6.18.3 for the printing of What We
Should Do, written by Kravchinsky. The Polish press
went on to print the next work too, this one an essay
by Kravchinsky on the usefulness of trying to influence foreign opinion. The fund needed to maintain
good relations with the Proletarjat print shop even as
it fended off Mendelson’s attacks.
Trouble also arose among the founding fathers of
the enterprise. Voinich objected to the distribution
of jobs. “Feliks, and in particular Shishko, have imagined that I am an incompetent person,” he complained to Chaikovsky, “that I am only good for
manual labor, that I am not a conspirator, that I can
only be an aide for some general and cannot work
independently.” He asked Chaikovsky to intercede
with Stepniak and to help reestablish his position of
equality within the fund’s collective. Kravchinsky’s
response to this plea is unknown, but Voinich left
the group at the beginning of 1895.
Despite efforts at mediation undertaken by such
luminaries as Petr Kropotkin, neither side would
back down, and August 1892 a court of honor, consisting of three Englishmen, considered the arguments. In their judgment the arbiters criticized both
parties: Mendelson could not say that the leaders
of the fund had “corrupted” Kasprzak by having
him work with “Russian constitutionalists”; Chaikovsky had to apologize to Mme. Mendelson; and
Mendelson had to apologize for his unfounded allegations. “The court would strongly impress upon
all persons engaged in the inquiry,” the arbiters
declared, “the imperative necessity in the interest of
the Russian and Polish movements alike of avoiding
ill-feeling and jealousy which simply lead to outside
talks and scandal injurious to both causes alike.”
In its report issued at the end of 1892, after eighteen
months of its existence, the Free Russian Press Fund
claimed great accomplishments. Stepniak’s What
We Should Do had sold out its first printing of 3000
copies and now only 2340 were left of its second
printing of 5000 copies. Of the 5000 printed copies
of Stepniak’s Foreign Agitation, only 880 remained
in stock. The fund had sold over 12,700 books
and pamphlets, and it had smuggled 2000 items
into Russia. On the negative side, 2114 items had
been lost. The report calculated the fund’s income
in its first eighteen months at 242 pounds, and its
expenses at 231 pounds. Actually, despite the sanguine tone of the report, the fund was just limping
along; the Russian émigrés had not supported it to
the degree that Kravchinsky had hoped.
The judgment satisfied the fund, which immediately
printed a broadside carrying the news. Mendelson
angrily responded that the fund’s version left out the
arbiters’ judgment that the fund’s leaders had deliberately misled the Proletarjat group. Conjuring up
spirits of the past, Mendelson thundered, “Messrs.
Stepniak & Co.... seek their political inspiration from
a certain Mr. Dragomanoff, who in collaboration
with an agent of the Russian government Mr. Maltchinsky, published a journal in the Russian language,
entitled ‘The Free Word’.” Dragomanov, Mendelson
continued, “urges the depolonization of Lithuania
and seeks to create an anti-semitic movement in
Ukrainia.” In conclusion he warned the Russian Free
Press Fund to stay out of Polish affairs.
Even though he at times allowed himself to be pessimistic, Kravchinsky nevertheless kept looking
for the key to success, and in 1893 he decided to
go ahead with his dream of establishing a new Russian language periodical. He justified the enterprise
by saying, “In the meantime, material of a transitory but momentary keen interest was sent from
Russia; it became evident that the RFPF must take
some steps to meet the ripening demand in Russia
for having news and notes of the moment spread by
means of print. This demand seems to be the most
burning necessity of the moment, and let us hope
the answer to it will soon assume some definite and
practical shape.”
The conflict particularly embarrassed the fund
because at just that time the Proletarjat print shop
Kravchinsky’s thoughts on the need for a periodical echoed Herzen’s considerations in establishing Kolokol as a supplement to Poliarnaia zvezda
Chapter 17: KRAVCHINSKY’S FRIENDS
and Lavrov’s in establishing a biweekly newspaper
Vpered to supplement the thick journal of the same
name. The coincidence of those two predecessors’
also having been produced in London must have
struck Kravchinsky, but as testimony that perhaps
he wanted a modest image for his periodical at least
at first, he gave it the unpretentious title of Letuchie
listki (Flying Sheets).
Nevertheless he had great ambitions. Kravchinsky
had long argued that the periodical press, and its
utmost expression the daily newspaper, constituted
the major propaganda innovation of the latter part
of the nineteenth century. The growth of the European reading public made the periodical press an
awesome weapon for carrying one’s message to the
people, for educating the people, and he was sure
that a periodical appealing to the opposition elements in Russia could yet achieve the popularity
and significance once enjoyed by Kolokol.
Letuchie listki made only a humble start. With
Volkhovsky as its editor it began in December 1893
as simply a foldout, one sheet, but it quickly grew –
some of its issues eventually ranged up to 40 pages.
It appeared irregularly, with the intervals varying
from a week or two to several months. The leaders
of the fund never intended to make it the organ of
a political party; it was to serve as a rallying point
for the opposition in general and also to dispense
information. Its columns stood open to all comers.
It was not, however, a moneymaker.
The publication’s scope covered the whole of the
Russian empire. In its second issue, dated February
19, 1894, Letuchie listki carried a report on the
disturbances in Kražai, Lithuania, where Cossacks attacked a crowd protesting the closing of a
church. In the third issue, dated March 23, was a
report on a protest meeting of Lithuanians in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. The fifth issue, dated April
30, declared “The movement among Lithuanians
in America against the tsarist government is becoming stronger,” and it saw here a possible sign of the
future: “If we recall what a great role the American
Irish played in the national-democratic movement
in Ireland itself, then we will understand that the
movement of transatlantic Lithuanians can, in certain circumstances, provide support for the cause of
freedom in Russia itself.”
Kravchinsky had now constructed a formidable
network of publications, but this empire was fragile.
The German periodical Frei Russland closed down
in 1893 amid arguments with its editor as to who
should be responsible for its debts. After claiming
that the “Society of the Friends of Russian Fre-
edom is composed for a good deal of rich people
for whom this [i.e. 215.80 francs – aes] is a trifling
amount,” the editor, Wilhelm Anderfuhren, went on
to denounce the society’s activities in general: “But
if you like to know our opinion about Free Russia
and the movement of the society clinging thereto
in England, I beg your pardon, but I lay it down
as statement of our conviction that we look upon
this whole movement as a trick played by English
interests against Russian interests.” There were also
theoretical problems with Frei Russland as a result
of Anderfuhren’s editorial policies. Vera Zasulich
complained bitterly to Kravchinsky that the publication, in issue no. 9, had attacked the Osvobozhdenie
truda group. The group was especially sensitive to
criticisms printed in German, because German
Social Democrats would read them. Kravchinsky
had to let his German publication expire.
Similarly the American edition of Free Russia closed
up shop in 1894, after four years of publication. In
this case, Kravchinsky could not know that a Russian policy spy had sabotaged the operation. The
loss of this American venture particularly disappointed Kravchinsky, but he had already begun to
think of the American public as rather flighty and
uncultured. Therefore, he reckoned, the failure
of this journal was not necessarily the fault of the
publishers.
In this, the third “London period” of Russian émigré
publishing, Kravchinsky logged his greatest successes on the foreign front of the Russian revolutionary movement. The Friends of Russian Freedom
remained a forceful lobby in England for years to
come, although they did not grow into the powerful
group that Kravchinsky, in his sanguine moments,
had envisioned. With time its work expanded – it
printed pamphlets in English, it rallied to the aid of
religious dissidents in Russia, and it raised money
for various specific causes. The organization stood
as a lasting monument to Kravchinsky’s efforts to
rally support for the struggle against autocratic rule
in Russia.
Kravchinsky’s own political outlook, especially in
the 1890s, emphasizing cooperation between factions and groups, was much closer to the parliamentary life of England than to the prevailing moods of
the Russians. No other Russian revolutionary could
rival his literary accomplishments in western languages, but at the same time other émigré leaders
criticized his lack of ideological commitment. Even
his concepts of publishing emphasized the distribution of information more than organizing political
action. To the end, he was indeed “a man of the
steppe, a free cossack.”
107
Chapter 18:
THE CHIMERA OF
UNIFICATION
In the summer of 1891 Russia experienced bad
weather, and in some twenty normally productive
regions crops failed. Famine resulted, bringing
social unrest on a scale not seen in the empire for
over a decade. The government seemed incapable
of coping with the crisis; some even charged that it
contributed to the problem by continuing to export
grain. Urged on by public appeals of figures such as
the writer Lev Tolstoy, the zemstva, institutions of
local government, rallied to help feed the peasants,
and along with relief activities came an upswing in
the activities of the revolutionaries, who saw in the
crisis new possibilities for mobilizing opposition
forces.
In the emigration the socialists again argued among
themselves as to the desirability of working with the
liberals. Plekhanov and Akselrod were now ready to
do so in the name of famine relief, stressing political
as well as humanitarian goals. Others, remembering the controversy that had surrounded the idea
of cooperating with the liberals in the publication of
Svobodnaia Rossiia and still critical of Kravchinsky’s
behavior, considered such thoughts tantamount to
abandoning the class struggle.
Unity with the liberals was in fact impossible,
because the revolutionaries could not achieve unity
within their own ranks; the revolutionary movement was too diversified to unite under any single
banner. Lavrov refused to serve on any committee
with Kravchinsky. Plekhanov, on the other hand,
in contrast to his position in the formative days
of Vestnik Narodnoi voli, preferred Kravchinsky to
the narodovoltsy, saying, “When we unite with Stepniak, the narodovoltsy will be neither threatening
nor necessary for us.” Kravchinsky, in turn, argued
that the émigrés could not dictate to the people in
Russia. Although political activity escalated, the
only direct result of Akselrod’s and Plekhanov’s call
for the creation of a Society for Struggle against the
Famine was the publication of a brochure by Plekhanov.
108
The “old narodovoltsy” in Paris insisted that their
party’s program was still valid – “We are sure that
our comrades in Russia will organize a militant
revolutionary party in accord with this program” –
and in order to explain their party’s historical mission they announced two new series of publications.
The first, entitled “Materials for the History of the
Russian Social-Revolutionary Movement,” would
consist of seventeen titles, and the other, “Principles
of Theoretical Socialism and Their Application to
Russia,” would consist of six titles. Each title would
be the work of a single author and would appear as
soon as it was ready.
The series entitled “Materials” was to constitute a
multi-volume history of the Russian revolutionary
movement. Beginning with an introductory volume
on “history, socialism, and the Russian movement,”
it was to include contributions on Russian society
before the Decembrists, the Decembrists, the period
of Nicholas I, socialism and the era of reforms,
Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Bakunin, the decade of
1863-1873, the populists of the ‘70s, Zemlia i volia,
Narodnaia volia, workers’ organizations in the
early 1880s, nationalism and socialism, factions in
1885-1892, the foreign press on the revolutionary
movement, and finally “Conclusions on the history
of socialism in Russia.” The older generation of activists wanted to justify and explain their programs
for the younger generation. According to one of the
senior editors, they were particularly concerned
with the “good but naive people” who advocated
“childish bombism.” Only five volumes appeared,
however, all printed in Geneva, and the Old Narodovoltsy added an irregular periodical, S rodiny i na
rodinu (From the Motherland and to the Motherland), to each volume as it appeared.
Financially the series did modestly well. In the
course of 1893 the group took in almost 2300 francs
and paid out 1930. It made almost 400 francs on
sales, and, including the money left on hand at the
beginning of the year, it had a positive balance of
almost 1000 francs at the beginning of 1894. A later
accounting made in 1896 showed a continued surplus, amounting to almost 1150 francs. The bulk of
the income came through donations; sales totaled
Chapter 18: THE CHIMERA OF UNIFICATION
only 587 francs of the 5582 francs listed as income.
In all their publications the old narodovoltsy opposed
the thought of cooperating with the liberals. When
Tsar Alexander III died in 1894, a commentator in
S rodiny i na rodinu heaped scorn upon the liberals who “compose whole madrigals in honor of the
teeth of the autocratic wolf.” The old narodovoltsy
also denounced the frirushianskoe napravlenie (the
Free Russian tendency). Calling the Free Russian
Press Fund in London “a commercial enterprise
dealing in forbidden books,” they allowed the fund’s
bookstore to sell their publications but would have
nothing to do with the fund itself.
The Free Russian Press Fund operated on a
somewhat broader financial base than did the old
narodovoltsy, but it too was heavily dependent on
donations to balance its budget. For the year 1894,
the fund reported £373-10-9 in income, of which
£179-13 came through sales, as against £371-2-1 in
expenses. For the year 1895 income totaled £42719-1, including £112-11-4 in sales, while expenses
came to £426-19-2. Particularly disappointing for
Kravchinsky were the financial statements of his
periodical Letuchie listki, which reported income in
1894 of only £46-6 against expenses, for issues 1-13,
of £71-7.
In March 1895 the fund opened its own print
shop. Dissatisfied with their dependence on other
shops, the directors declared that the publication
of a periodical such as Letuchie listki demanded
“speed and promptness of work.” A fund-raising
campaign brought in contributions of £61, and the
fund moved into its new quarters free of debt. The
print shop had new type, enough for about five and
a half signatures (about 250,000 characters). The
shop was large enough to employ two typesetters,
but for the moment the fund’s budget could barely
support one.
The next step had to be to raise more money to keep
the shop working. As the fund’s directors observed,
“Agitational material is flowing to us unceasingly,
and the development of agitational activity now
depends exclusively on the flow of funds for publication.” Typesetters required pay: “No typesetter
will give up regular work in one print shop to work
in another on a temporary basis.” The fund encouraged donations of any size: “However small the
contribution might be, it will advance the cause;
even the sea consists of drops.”
Letuchie listki nevertheless could not turn a profit.
The periodical’s income for 1895 came to £76-16,
while its expenses, for issues 14-28, totaled £8115-4. At the end of the year the fund tried to raise 12
pounds to convert the Listki into a biweekly publication – since the late spring of 1895 it had been appe-
aring regularly on the 15th of every month – but the
campaign failed. In 1896 the publication’s financial
situation deteriorated seriously, with just £32-2-6 of
income as opposed to £66-6 of expenses.
In order to supplement its income, the Free Russian
Press Fund accepted orders from any oppositional
Russian group so long as the work would not contribute to further splits within the movement. (In
its listings, the fund distinguished between its own
series of publications and works it was publishing
on a commercial basis.) In the summer of 1895 it
announced that if it had 500 guaranteed subscribers, it would republish Chernyshevsky’s What is
To be Done? (The subscribers failed to materialize.)
On another occasion it accepted a 25 franc contribution to print 1500 copies of a letter to be distributed to Russian tourists abroad. The book store, on
the other hand, was ready to handle all publications.
Kravchinsky obtained 800 copies of Kennan’s books
for resale, and at the end of 1895 the fund bought
the remaining stock of Herzen’s publications held
by Trübner. Kravchinsky planned to start reprinting
Herzen’s works in 1896.
Kravchinsky focused the fund’s efforts on the political struggle for a constitution, but without violence. In a new conclusion that he appended to
the Russian edition of Underground Russia – this
was a translation from the original Italian, with
corrections, additions, and some alterations – he
announced, “Terrorism as a system has outlived its
time and it cannot be revived.” At best it constituted
“a weapon of very limited usefulness. It is satisfactory only in a period of unconditional hopelessness.”
The new revolutionary period, he continued, would
see “open risings,” resulting from war, financial
crises, or even revolutions in neighboring countries.
The task of the revolutionary lay for the moment in
“propaganda, propaganda among the intelligentsia,
propaganda among the urban workers, among the
armed forces, among the peasants.”
In 1893 Kravchinsky was delighted to establish contact with a new group in Russia called Partiia narodnogo prava (Party of Popular Right), founded by
Mark Natanson and Nikolai Mikhailovsky, which
sought a united front of all oppositional elements
for the common struggle. They had first thought
of printing their own periodical – “We now need
a Kolokol, only a Kolokol,” declared one member –
but had then decided to look to the emigration for
help.
In 1893 the party took advantage of the Russian
government’s liberalization of regulations for
foreign travel in 1893 in order to facilitate attendance at the Chicago World’s Fair, and it sent representatives, headed by the writer Vladimir Korolenko, to London and then on to the United States.
109
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
Kravchinsky welcomed the visitors, and the talks
went well. He later reported, “Korolenko likes the
absence of narrow party spirit in our program, since
he, even more than we, is not infected by the Plekhanovite German chauvinism and like us sees the
future of the Russian people as a result of all existing
currents and opinions in Russia.” Kravchinsky also
sent his own representative to Russia, Constance
Garnett, an English socialist who subsequently won
considerable note as a translator of Russian literature.
In the United States, Korolenko did no sightseeing
as he concentrated on his political conversations
with fellow countrymen. In New York he contacted
Lazar Goldenberg, and in Chicago Egor Lazarev
and Aleksandr Linev, at one time the business
manager of Lavrov’s Vpered and now an exhibitor
in the Russian section at the World’s Fair. Two other
representatives of the Partiia narodnogo prava followed Korolenko, and by the time the travelers from
Russia had all returned home, they had stirred up
considerable debate within the emigration on the
possibility and feasibility of uniting behind a new
periodical.
Egor Lazarev took the initiative in this endeavor. A
participant in the populist movement of the 1870s,
he had been sentenced to exile in Siberia. In 1890 he
fled to the United States. When Kravchinsky visited
the United States, Lazarev began to work with the
American Friends of Russian Freedom. After his
meetings with Korolenko in Chicago, Lazarev, in
the words of a police report, turned his “uncommon
energy, independent character, and tremendous
practical conspiratorial experience” to the cause of
uniting the revolutionary emigration.
As his first step, he moved to Europe, declaring,
“The printed word is necessary in Russia. Obviously
the place for a Russian newspaper is in Europe,
and not in America, if one wants to have contact
with Russia.” He refused to take sides in the disputes among Plekhanov, Lavrov, and Kravchinsky,
arguing, “To make an organ of just one of these currents would mean to weaken both the strength of
the newspaper and the drive for union.” He wanted
to create something new, combining the energies
that were now spending themselves without clear
direction. Everyone, he insisted, had to be ready to
compromise for the common good.
110
The émigrés, however, had already debated the
question of unification and had arrived at negative
conclusions. Kravchinsky and Zasulich had been
exchanging letters on the subject, and while she
assured him that the Marxists could endorse his
belief in the necessity of popular revolution, rather
than a coup d’état by a small group, both she and
Kravchinsky doubted that the emigration could in
fact be brought together under the roof of one periodical. The Free Russian Press Fund, moreover, had
dispatched representatives to visit Plekhanov, and
these men had returned with unfavorable reports,
calling him a member of the older generation, no
longer so active as he had once been. Plekhanov
had spent his energy “on polemics and arguments
with other Russian revolutionaries,” one man commented; the experience had left him “nervous, intolerant, and tactless.” Plekhanov’s arguments with the
social democratic youth, moreover, had allegedly
alienated him from the mass of the students in the
emigration, and he was now “physically and nervously a beaten man.” On the basis of such evidence,
Kravchinsky was disinclined to pursue the thought
of working with the Marxist group in Geneva.
The osvobozhdentsy had their own reservations
about the possibilities of a joint publication. The
“Americans,” Zasulich declared, wanted a newspaper that would carry interesting articles but not
a program. In January 1894 she stated that the emigration could not support a newspaper:
A newspaper must live by the interests of the day,
it must advance ideas only in connection with facts
of current life, and for this, besides constant close
relations with the Russians, one needs quick and
accurate distribution in the homeland.
At present the emigration simply could not meet
these conditions.
The osvobozhdentsy, moreover, lacked both physical and financial resources at this time. According
to a contemporary police report, the group’s members were barely “eking out a miserable existence,
not having at their disposal enough means not only
for the publication of brochures but even for their
life.” Plekhanov was in fact depressed by the lack of
response in Russia to his efforts. When Akselrod
tried to be encouraging, speaking of him as “chosen
by history,” Plekhanov called himself more of a
“squeezed lemon,” but he continued to struggle.
Particularly disturbing for Plekhanov were the
continued clashes with the young socialist émigrés
in Switzerland. In 1893, in an effort to calm their
young sympathizers, the osvobozhdentsy organized
the Union of Russian Social Democrats, a “periphery,” for which the Osvobozhdenie truda group
would comprise the brain. This arrangement did not
satisfy some of the young Marxists, and Leo Jogiches and Rose Luxemburg led a breakaway faction
protesting the osvobozhdentsy’s elitism. They had
no patience for Plekhanov’s concerns about theory;
they wanted more popular agitational literature.
Plekhanov struck back by blocking Luxemburg’s
admission to the Zurich congress of the Second
Chapter 18: THE CHIMERA OF UNIFICATION
International, but Jogiches used his money to open
his own print shop in Geneva, publishing the SocialDemocratic Library. This new series would include
both popular and theoretical works, and Boris
Krichevsky, Jogiches’s associate, began translating
works by Marx.
Plekhanov, however, had a trump card. When Krichevsky wrote to Engels, the socialist patriarch
inquired of Plekhanov as to the nature of this new
group. Plekhanov replied that Krichevsky had mastered only the letter and not the spirit of Marxism
and had now come under the influence of Jogiches, whom Plekhanov compared unfavorably with
Nechaev. Jogiches, Plekhanov admitted, had contributed to the publication of works by the osvobozhdentsy, but “at the same time he conducted a hidden
campaign against us wherever he just could.” The
Social-Democratic Library, Plekhanov insisted, is
“completely directed against us.” Engels thereupon
informed Krichevsky that his own and Marx’s writings constituted “my literary property” and therefore, “I hereby protest against your behavior and
intend to keep all rights.” Krichevsky hastily apologized, but Plekhanov had won Engels’s endorsement of the osvobozhdentsy as the official Russian
Marxists.
Bolstered by this success, Plekhanov began preparing an introduction to a republication of Engels’s
polemic with Tkachev in the 1870s. As his essay
developed, it became a major polemic against Mikhailovsky and the populists in Russia, and Plekhanov chose to make it into a separate pamphlet. The
result, disguised for purposes of passing censorship
under the abstruse title of On the Question of the
Development of the Monistic View of History and
under the author’s pseudonym of Beltov, appeared
legally in Russia during the winter of 1894-1895
and had a far greater impact on the revolutionary
movement than any terrorist bomb had wrought.
Commenting on the work’s influence in Russia,
Vladimir Lenin later declared that it had “reared a
whole generation of Russian Marxists”; an émigré
observer exclaimed, “In the Oberstrasse [i.e., in the
Russian quarter of Zurich] the Beltov influenza has
not yet abated.” Rather than searching for unity,
Plekhanov contributed significantly to the differentiation of the Marxists from the populist traditions
both at home and abroad.
Despite such obviously growing differences among
the émigrés, Lazarev argued that all the Russian
socialists were in principle agreed on the desirability of overthrowing the present Russian government, that the struggle against the autocracy constituted a foundation for coordinating all oppositional
elements, and that “a general oppositional-political
organ” could facilitate the further development
of the revolutionary movement. The organ, to be
edited by a prominent writer known by all the Russian intelligentsia, would print “all facts that could
not be published in the censored press,” including
protests; it would analyze current government policies and actions; and it would propagate “the ideas
of political liberty.” He found little enthusiasm for
these proposals; perhaps his most interested listeners were Russian police officials.
Warned of Lazarev’s mission to Europe by an agent
in New York, Rachkovsky, still in charge of the
Foreign Agency of the tsarist police, established
close surveillance of the new arrival’s activity in
Paris. Lazarev, he reported back to St. Petersburg,
was planning a coordinated campaign that would
employ terrorist attacks, then public bombings, and
finally public proclamations. Believing that Lazarev
was abour to send agents to Russia, Rachkovsky
recommended that the authorities alert the border
guards, and he launched his own more aggressive
campaign aimed at disrupting the activities of the
émigrés. As he put it in one of his reports, the English
press was now discussing the activities of the Russian émigrés in a more balanced manner; therefore
he planted articles in the London press critical of
the “nihilists and revolutionaries.” The assassination
of President Carnot in France in June 1894 helped
him: French officials carried out searches among
the émigrés in Paris and expelled Lazarev.
Lazarev now moved to London and turned the
money that he had brought from the United States
over to the Free Russian Press Fund with the stipulation that it be used to publish a revolutionary
calendar. The idea of such a calendar dated back to
Tikhomirov’s calendar for 1883; Lavrov had suggested such a project to the Literary Fund in Zurich
in the late 1880s. (Elpidin, ever alert for an easy
publication, reissued Tikhomirov’s calendar but
renamed it 1898.) Kravchinsky applied the money
to his announced “anthology on the history of the
political movements in Russia in the last century.”
Although Kravchinsky was listed as the editor of the
publication, Burtsev, who was now working with
the fund in London, put it together. Published in
two volumes, the work, Za sto let (After One Hundred Years), documented the development of the
revolutionary movement in the course of the nineteenth century, and the second volume offered a
year-by-year chronicle, 1801-1896, of arrests, trials,
executions, escapes, assassinations, obituaries, and
literary monuments.
The title page of the publication testified to émigré
disputes, listing Burtsev as the compiler “with the
editorial participation of S. M. Kravchinsky (Stepniak).” After Kravchinsky’s death in December
1895, Burtsev had claimed the work as his own,
111
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
but the directors of the fund, because of personal
disputes with him, refused to accept the anthology
as an official part of their series. When Burtsev
objected, they relented but still insisted on adding
an “editorial introduction.” Burtsev again objected,
arguing, “There can be no talk of editorial introductions since only Stepniak was ‘editor’ for us; I
agreed to his editorship and only to his.” In the
end the book appeared with a “publisher’s introduction,” explaining the collective effort behind
the publication.
So complicated and convoluted was the intrusion of
the tsarist authorities into the affairs of the emigration by this time that they even played an important role in the publication of Burtsev’s anthology.
A police agent, whom Rachkovsky had planted
within Kravchinsky’s group, made a considerable
contribution to the project, and once it was in print,
the police purchased at least 30 copies of it for their
own use, thereby helping it to become one of the
fund’s bestsellers.
Despite Lazarev’s failure, the idea of uniting the
socialist émigrés behind a single periodical refused
to die. In January 1895 Lazar Goldenberg suddenly
decided to return to Europe from the United States,
saying that it would be a simple matter to raise the
necessary money for a new periodical if one simply
mobilized the luminaries of the emigration such
as Plekhanov, Kravchinsky, and Lavrov. Startled,
Lazarev immediately tried put his friend off. Goldenberg refused to be discouraged. “I see clearly from
your letter,” he wrote, “that the financial situation of
the Fund is such that it is not only not in a position
to assure necessary subsistence of someone working
for it, but it does not have funds to pay necessary
debts – in other words, it is almost bankrupt.” He
thereupon agreed to put off his travel plans, but he
assured Lazarev that he would be no burden. The
enterprise should cost only $800 per year, $300 of
which would pay for his work as business manager.
If Lazarev would send him a “fine proclamation
with many known names,” Goldenberg calculated
that he could raise $400 by May and then could
raise the rest in another six months. On March 2,
he assured Lazarev that if he came to London he
would bring enough money to support himself for
six months. Then, unexpectedly, he announced on
March 27 that he was coming, adding, “I understand your difficult situation, old man.” Upon his
arrival in London, he immediately joined the leadership of the fund, but he could not come up with
the magic support, financial or intellectual, that he
had anticipated.
112
Eventually, in the course of 1895 the Russian Free
Press Fund and a group of liberals in St. Petersburg
reached agreement whereby the fund would publish
a periodical entitled Zemskii sobor (Assembly of
the Land), the name symbolizing the political goal
of establishing a national legislature. The periodical would replace the fund’s Letuchie listki,
and the London group would then use the Young
Narodovoltsy’s publication Russkii rabochii (Russian
Worker), which was edited in Paris and printed in
Geneva, for its own particular purposes. The arrangement, however, soon fell through.
In contrast to the misfortunes of the London group,
the Osvobozhdenie truda group in the mid 1890s
soon experienced a sudden surge for the better in
its affairs, but first it had to suffer still more. In 1893
Plekhanov, in desperation, had considered moving
to America, but friends had advised him against it,
saying that the Russian public in the United States
was too unsophisticated to appreciate him. When he
considered moving to England, on the other hand, a
German friend warned, “England – this is poverty;
if one is not to be the favorite of rich people, as
Stepniak is, then one can die of starvation.” Kravchinsky himself advised him not to come. Plekhanov nevertheless set off for London, but in the fall
of 1894, when the Swiss permitted him again to
settle in Geneva, he returned to Switzerland.
Summarizing the group’s situation in 1894, a tsarist
police official reported that it “was declining more
and more even in the eyes of the emigration, who
considered that it did not correspond to the needs
of the revolutionary struggle with the government.”
A year later, however, the police declared that the
group was now showing new life and activity, and it
“planned to publish a number of popularly written
brochures for distribution primarily among the
workers.”
The change had taken place as a result of the success of Plekhanov’s treatise on the “Monistic View
of History” and the development of Social Democratic groups in Russia, bringing together Marxist
intellectuals and workers, who all looked for guidance from the Osvobozhdenie truda group. In the
spring of 1895, two representatives of Moscow and
St. Petersburg Social Democrats came to inquire
about the possibility of a publishing program to
serve the needs of the groups in Russia, Plekhanov
could finally claim to have a constituency within
Russia. In 1896, supported by funds coming from
Marxists in Russia, Plekhanov could launch his own
periodical, Rabotnik (The Worker), on a reasonably
stable financial basis.
Plekhanov’s success in finding an audience spelled
doom for any lingering thoughts of creating a
single émigré publication, a Kolokol that could
unite all revolutionaries. In Herzen’s day Kolokol
had enjoyed a readership in all segments of the
Russian reading public, including the highest
Chapter 18: THE CHIMERA OF UNIFICATION
level. Plekhanov had now successfully identified a
much more specific audience. The Russian market
for uncensored materials was growing rapidly,
and in response émigré publishing began to diversify more rather than to unite. Parties and special
interest groups replaced the various individuals
who had maintained print shops by means of personal self-sacrifice. The old shops in Geneva and
London worked on, but they were soon joined by
new enterprises, ranging from the Tolstoyans in
England to the liberals in Germany. In the next ten
years the face of Russian publishing in Western
Europe would change drastically.
As if following a script, the year 1895, besides marking Plekhanov’s success in reaching an audience in
Russia, saw a remarkable series of deaths cut through
the emigration, in effect announcing the end of the
first era of émigré publishing, “tamizdat.” Each of
these deaths evoked a flood of reminiscences of how
things had once been, and each drew the curtain on
some phase of the history of the emigration.
On May 20, 1895, Nikolai Zhukovsky died. In an
obituary Varlaam Cherkezov recalled him as one of
the great figures of the 1860s. “A glittering orator,”
Cherkezov called him, “a talented publicist, a beautifully educated speaker, a witty conversationalist,
a talented musician.” Zhukovsky had never written
very much, but he always seemed to be close to the
activists in the printing world. His death, moreover,
snapped one of the few remaining links to the times
of Herzen and Bakunin.
On June 20 Mikhail Dragomanov died. He had
spent the last several years in Bulgaria, far from the
arena in Switzerland where he had experienced such
grievous wounds. An obituary, observing the motto
nihil nisi bonum de mortuis, pictured him as a dedi-
cated opponent of absolutism and intolerance, who
had been unjustly attacked for his opposition to the
contradictions of anarchism and Jacobinism. Reminiscences of Dragomanov also dredged up memories of the early tensions between revolutionaries of
different nationalist convictions and of the intrigues
of the tsarist authorities within the emigration.
In August Friedrich Engels died. At the time of
Marx’s death in 1883, there had been no Russian
Marxist movement to speak of; in the twelve years
since then, Engels had controlled the interpretations
of the master’s writings and had imparted his blessing on Plekhanov as the major exponent of Marxism in Russia. Now the new generation of adepts
would no longer have direct contact with either of
the “founders of scientific socialism.” The Russians
were free to find their own path.
In October Nikolai Belogolovy died in Russia. His
role in the publication of Obshchee delo was generally unknown to his contemporaries, but as a longtime friend of Lavrov’s, as a patron of good causes,
and as a friend of the satirist Saltykov-Shchedrin, he
represented for many the ideal of an activist liberal.
Then, to complete the picture, Sergei Stepniak-Kravchinsky died in December. He was hit by a train;
witnesses said that he had been reading a book
while walking onto the track. His Underground
Russia had taught many a gentle reader to admire
the assassin’s spirit and not to think of the victim’s
blood. His warm personality had won friends for
the common cause. But he had been unable to bring
unity to the emigration, and without his leadership
the Free Russian Press Fund quickly went into a
decline. In many ways, Kravchinsky’s death marked
the end to the era that had begun with Aleksandr
Herzen’s publications, an era of pioneers.
113
Epilogue:
THE LENINIST
INHERITANCE
Between 1853, when Herzen in lonely splendor
opened his shop in London, and the end of the century, when Plekhanov rejoiced in finally finding readers in Russia, émigré publishing passed through a
colorful history. Herzen, Lavrov, and Kravchinsky
stood out as strong individuals, human banners
calling Russians to assemble around them, but with
time each met rejection, in no small part because
they believed that the activities of the emigration
had to be dependent on initiatives from Russia.
Younger activists criticized all three as not being
true revolutionaries. Lavrov accepted the role of
elder statesman more gracefully, Herzen retired disgruntled from the field of battle, and Kravchinsky
more or less fell victim to modern progress.
Herzen’s first target had been intellectuals of good
will, and although he experimented with efforts to
target special groups, such as the religious dissidents
in Russia, his purposes in publishing had remained
mainly informational. He appealed to the Tsar and
the Russian intelligentsia to reform themselves and
their system. He eschewed efforts to offer a party
program, partly out of the belief that an émigré
should not pretend to lead the revolutionary movement, partly because of his own distaste for polemics among the oppositional forces.
Lavrov too had appealed to men of good will and
had believed that the émigrés could play only a
limited role in the revolutionary movement. He
essentially called a party into being when he established Vpered. He gave up his intellectual, thick
publication in favor of a newspaper, but he declined
to fight to keep control of it. When he withdrew
from Vpered, the enterprise collapsed.
114
Kravchinsky was not the only émigré to choose
western readers as his target, but he was the most
successful financially. His stories of revolutionary
idealism and heroism transformed the image of the
revolutionaries from bloodthirsty terrorists to William Tells and Charlotte Cordays. He produced no
thick journal, and his newspaper was open to all. To
be sure, his fellow Russians objected to his muddled
ideological picture, but there could be no doubt
about his influence in the West in raising money,
helping individuals, and generally winning respect
for the revolutionaries both at home and in the emigration.
Other émigré publishers played lesser roles in the
panorama; in so far as they targeted any group of
readers, they looked to the deprived and lesser
educated. In the absence of financial support from
Russia this tended to limit their readership. Elpidin
began as a flaming nihilist and finally settled for
the role of a garrulous entrepreneur. Utin wanted
to develop a programmatic publication, but in the
long run he could not sustain it. Bakunin had a program, but he could not apply himself long enough to
one project to find a broad public. The “three musketeers,” adopting the principle of “books for the
people,” directed their agitational message at workers and peasants and discovered that this audience
was extremely difficult to reach. Plekhanov chose
Marxism and had to wait for the capitalist system in
Russia to catch up with his vision.
In the 1850s Herzen’s voice had sounded alone, but
the image of his newspaper Kolokol as the rallying
banner for dissident thought posed a lingering ideal
for subsequent generations of journalists, In the
1860s the Young Emigration added dissonant tones,
but little substantial in the way of publishing. In the
1870s the émigrés watched rapturously as young
radicals in Russia first attempted to carry their new
gospel to the people and then turned to violence.
It was an axiom of émigré life that the greater the
activity in Russia, the less the émigrés could do;
emigration, after all, was an alternative to carrying
on the fight in Russia. But the corollary dictated
that repression within the empire would stimulate
émigré activity. When the assassinations campaign
of the late 1870s and early 1880s failed, a new wave
of revolutionaries fled to Western Europe where
they could debate the lessons to be drawn from
their experiences.
In this world of uncensored publishing, editors of
the émigré periodicals could not agree whether a
periodical should be a forum for open discussion of
Epilogue: THE LENINIST INHERITANCE
issues, an informational bulletin carrying the latest
news that the tsarist authorities were suppressing, or
a vehicle for a particular program. They differed in
their selection and rejection of manuscripts. Herzen
did not want a program, and Kravchinsky argued
that the revolutionary press must grant free speech.
Herzen refused to publish Serno-Solovevich’s criticism of him; Narodnoe delo refused to publish an
essay by Herzen. Tkachev, Plekhanov, and the Narodnoe delo group had their programs; Lavrov was
willing to open the pages of Vpered to Kravchinsky
but not to Tkachev. Plekhanov kept a jealous control over all his group’s publications, even rejecting
contributions by his associates.
A growing number of émigrés gradually concluded
that they needed better theory for revolution, that
the instinctive and spontaneous call to revolution
was not enough. Marxist ideology began to exert a
growing appeal as an analysis of society and, more
important, of social development. Although Russia
was not yet an industrialized land with a strong
working class, the obvious growth of capitalism in
Russia gave weight to Plekhanov’s argument that
time would show the applicability of Marx’s teachings to Russia.
In 1900 the Russian Social Democratic newspaper
Iskra (The Spark) began publication in Munich,
Germany, and opened what one might call the
Bolshevik era of Russian history. Vladimir UlianovLenin, who had been one of the two men from Russia
who visited Plekhanov in 1895, was the moving
spirit of the publication, and it laid the foundation
for Lenin’s conception of revolution embodied in
his Bolshevik party that came to power in Russia a
generation later. Although Soviet historians insisted
that Iskra was “a newspaper of a new type,” Lenin,
who was born in 1870, just three months after the
death of Alexander Herzen, drew heavily on the
heritage of 19th century revolutionary publishing,
especially on Plekhanov’s principles.
The announcement of publication called Iskra a
continuation of the work of Plekhanov’s group
Osvobozhdenie truda and emphasized the task of
fighting against perversions and misinterpretations
of Marxist thought. Social Democratic ideas, Lenin
declared, were spreading rapidly, but local groups
were interpreting these ideas in mistaken ways.
Therefore, in order to build a revolutionary party,
there must be a centralized organization, a “revolutionary party,” that leads workers on the “correct”
path. The newspaper would provide the skeleton of
this organization, reaching “all corners of Russia” in
order to develop a “firm ideological union,” and linking “all centers of the movement” while providing
timely information and guidance. While not ruling
out polemics in its pages, the newspaper would have
a “strictly determined course” and would not be “a
simple repository of various opinions.”
No one before Lenin had offered such a forceful
organizational plan. In his time, Herzen had failed to
follow through on Ogarev’s idea of a grand conspiratorial organization spreading out through Russia
in concentric circles. Piotr Tkachev had argued in
favor of a conspiratorial elite to carry out a revolution and then restructure society; he failed to organize any such group. Narodnaia volia had carried
out a terrorist campaign without a clear social or
even political program. Activists scorned theorists
as being irrelevant to what had to be done. Lenin
put together a powerful combination of theory and
practice.
When critics charged that he was advocating the
formation of an elite party in the mode of Narodnaia volia or even of Tkachev’s proposals, UlianovLenin produced a polemical book entitled What is
to Be Done? The fact that this was the first major
work he had written under the name he was forever
after to be known by, N. Lenin, testifies to the significance of the work. Commentators frequently link
it directly to Chernyshevsky’s novel published in
the 1860s, but the question “What is to be done?”
had been in fact a constant in émigré periodicals.
Lenin’s answer was different.
Arguing that the revolutionary must be armed with
proper theory, namely the true Marxist message,
Lenin declared that the “mass working class movement” imposes on the revolutionary the duty to
assume leadership,
because the spontaneous struggle of the proletariat will not become its genuine ‘class struggle’
until this struggle is led by a strong organization
of revolutionaries.
The organization must be “conspiratorial” because
in an autocratic country it has to be “secret.” And the
newspaper should play a key role in the program.
Like Plekhanov, Lenin declared that the newspaper
must be programmatic, delivering not just Marxist
“ideas,” but the true Marxist message, and it must
be in fact the force that directs the revolutionary
movement and ties its parts together.
As Lenin explained, “The mere function of distributing a newspaper would help to establish actual
contacts,” adding that he meant a newspaper issued
at least four times a month. Answering his own rhetorical question “Can a newspaper be a collective
organizer?” Lenin replied that
there is no other way of training strong political
organizations except through the medium of an
all-Russian newspaper…. The publication of an
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THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
The revolutionary movement, he argued, needed
an “official organ” that would “train” working class
leaders to direct the masses on the correct course
of action.
Lenin declared that party would build its base in the
masses, educating them and raising them to revolutionary consciousness and ultimately action. (“Class
political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from outside… the economic struggle.”)
He granted that his concepts might not be suited
for representative governments in other lands, but
he argued that his was the only course for overthrowing Russia’s autocratic system.
Responding to the charge that his concept of party
followed the conspiratorial model of Narodnaia
volia or Tkachev, he pointed out that Narodnaia
volia had emerged from the split of the second
Zemlia I volia organization. Narodnaia volia had
of necessity had a conspiratorial character, but
it failed to have the proper theoretical basis. The
chernodeltsy, the predecessors of Osvobozhdenie
truda shared common roots with Narodnaia volia.
Narodnaia volia, he argued, had been a product of
its time, but his concepts of party organization had
a much broader base, preparing the way for revolution with the spread and proper interpretation
of Marxist thought. As for Tkachev, he wrote that
while Tkachev’s plan had “grandeur,” attempts to
revive Tkachev’s proposal were “simply ludicrous.”
It is beyond the scope of this essay to follow the
further development of Lenin’s revolutionary program. He would yet split with Plekhanov, lose control of Iskra, and go on to found other revolutionary
publications. In contrast to his 19th century predecessors he would display a remarkable talent in persuading younger radicals to accept his program. The
purpose here is simply to point out how his conception of the purpose of Iskra drew on the history of
émigré revolutionary publishing in the 19th century.
Lenin, at this point himself an émigré, insisted that
using a newspaper as his key weapon, he could lead
the revolutionary movement in Russia; he endorsed
Plekhanov’s principle of a firm hand at the editorial
helm; and Iskra in turn would serve as a prototype
of Lenin’s conception of the party-state.
all-Russian political newspaper, it was stated in
Iskra, must be the main line by which we may unswervingly develop, deepen, and expand the organization…
116
Additional Readings
The original impetus for this account came through
my examination of the Russian Underground Collection at Memorial Library of the University of Wisconsin. Totaling almost 2000 volumes and including
both revolutionary and non-revolutionary works,
this collection suggested a story far greater than just
a listing of its part. I was then able to study this topic
in Moscow as a participant in the exchange between
the American Council of Learned Societies and the
Soviet Academy of Sciences, administered by IREX.
There I worked in archives and of course in the Rare
Book Room of the Lenin Library (now the Russian
State Library); the Manuscript Section of the Lenin
Library, however, refused me admission.
The literature on the life of 19th century Russian émigrés is enormous, and I have therefore chosen to list
here just a few publications and archives as suggestions for further reading. An obvious place to start
is Svodnyi catalog russkoi nelegal’noi i zapreshchennoi
pechati XIX veka, B. S. Itenberg, ed. (Moscow, 1971).
The irregular Soviet series Literaturnoe nasledstvo
has a number of volumes (39/40, 41/42, 62, 63, 87)
containing relevant documentation.
Archives:
Archive of the Soviet Revolutionary Party, International
Institute for Social History, Amsterdam.
Bundesarchiv, Bern, Switzerland.
Kennan, George, archive, United State Library of Congress,
Washington, D. C.
Nicolaevsky collection, Hoover Institution, Stanford, California.
Tsentral’nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva
(TsGALI, now RGALI), Moscow.
Tsentral’nyi Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Oktiabrskoi Revoliutsii
(TsGAOR, now GAOR), Moscow.
Volkhovski, Feliks, Hoover Institution, Stanford, California.
Zagranichnaia agentura Okhrany, Hoover Institution, Stanford, California.
Alexander Herzen:
Gertsen, A. I. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem,
M. K. Lemke, ed. 21 vols. Petrograd, 1919–1921.
Gertsen, A. I. Sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh.
30 vols. Moscow, 1954–1965.
Memoirs of Alexander Herzen. 4 vols. New York, 1968.
Mikhail Bakunin:
Archives Bakounine. Vols 4: Michel Bakounine et ses
relations avec Sergei Nečaev (Leiden, 1971) and 5: Michel
Bakounine et ses relations slaves, 1870–1875, Arthur
Lehning, ed. Leiden, 1974.
Pis’ma Bakunina k A. I. Gertsenu i N. P. Ogarevu, M.
P. Dragomanov, ed. St. Petersburg, 1906.
Petr Lavrov and Vpered:
Lavrov, P. L. Gody Emigratsii, 2 vols. Boris Sapir, ed.
Dordrecht, 1974.
Lavrov, P. L. Narodniki-propagandisty 1873–1878gg.
Geneva, 1895.
Vpered! 1873–1877. Materialy iz arkhiva Valeriana Nikolaevicha Smirnova. 2 vols. Dordrecht, 1970.
Georgii Plekhanov and the Group “Liberation of Labor”:
Aksel’rod, Pavel, Perezhitoei peredumannoe. Berlin, 1923.
Gruppa “Osvobozhdeniia Truda”, 6 vols. Moscow-Leningrad, 1923–1928.
Iz arkhiva P. B. Aksel’roda. Berlin, 1925.
K. Marks, F. Engel’s i revoliutsionnaia Rossiia. Moscow,
1967.
Literaturnoe nasledstvo Plekhanova, 8 vols. Moscow,
1934–1940.
Perepiska G. V. Plekhanov i P. B. Aksel’roda. B. I. Nikola­
evskii, ed. Berlin, 1925.
Pervaia marksistskaia organizatsiia Rossii – Gruppa
“Osvobozhdenie truda” (l883–1903). Moscow, 1984.
Zasulich, Vera, Vospominaniia. Moscow, 1931.
Useful Secondary Works and
Memoirs:
Ascher, Abraham. Pavel Axelrod and the Developmentof Menshevism. Cambridge MA, 1972.
Baron, Samuel. Plekhanov: The Father of Russian Marxism.
(Stanford, 1963.
Bergman, Jay. Vera Zadulich: A Biography. Stanford, 1973.
Burtsev, V. I. Za sto let (1800–1896). London, 1897.
Carr, E. H. The Romantic Exiles. London, 1933.
Deich, Lev. Rol’ evreev v russkom revoliutsionnom dvizhenii.
Berlin, 1923.
Deich, Lev. Russkaia revoliutsionnaia emigratsiia 70-kh gg.
Petrograd, 1920.
Duran, J. A. Lev Alexandrovich Tikhomirov and the End of the
Age of Populism in Russia. Doctoral dissertation, Urbana,
1957.
Elpidin, M. K. Bibliograficheskii catalog. Profili redaktorov
i sotrudnikov. Geneva, 1906. Golitsyn, N. N. Istoriia
sotsial’no-revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia v Rossii, 1861–
1881 gg. Glava desiataia. St. Petersburg, 1887.
Hulse, James. Revolutionists in London: A Study of Five
Unorthodox Socialists. Oxford, 1970.
Katorga I ssylka. Moscow, 1921–1935.
117
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS: FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
Kirichenko, T. M. Iz istorii russkoi revoliutsionnoi periodicheskoi pechati 80-kh godov XIX v. Moscow, 1972.
Koz’min, B. P. Iz istorii revoliutsionnoi mysli v Rossii. Moscow,
1961.
Kuklin, G. A. Itogi revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia v Rossii.
Geneva, 1903.
Mal’shinskii, A. M. Obzor sotsial’no-revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia v Rossii. St. Petersburg, 1880.
McClellan, Woodford. Revolutionary Exiles: The Russians in
the First International and the Paris Commune. London,
1979.
Masaryk, Thomas G. The spirit of Russia. 2 vols. London,
1955.
Meijer, Jan. Knowledge and Revolution. Assen, 1953.
Mysyrowicz, Ladislas. “Agents secret tsaristies et revolutionnaires russes a Geneve, 1987–1903,” Revue Suisse
d’histoire, 23:40-46.
Mysyrowicz, Ladislas. “Imprimeries revoliutionnaires russe
et ‘orientales’ à Genève (1865–1917,” in Cinq siècles
d’imperimerie genevoise (Geneva, 1981), pp. 309–15.
Obzor vazhneishikh doznanii po delam o gusudarstvenykh
prestupleniakh proizvodivshikhsia v zhandarmskikh
upravleniakh Imperii. 25 vols. 1881–1904.
Miller, Martin. The Russian Revolutionary Emigres, 1825–
1870. Baltimore MD, 1986.
Pomper, Philip. Peter Lavrov and the Russian Revolutiionary
Movement. Chicago, 1972.
Rudnitskaia, E.L. Russkaia revoliutsionnaia mysl’ – Demokraticheskaia pechat’, 1864–1873. Moscow, 1984.
118
Thun, A. Geschichte der revoliutionären Bewegungen in Rusland. Basel, 1883.
Thun (Tun), A. Istoriia revoliutionnogo dvizhenia v Rossii,
L. E. Shishko, ed. N.p., 1903.
Thun (Tun), A. Istorila revoliutsionnykh dvizheni v Rossie.
N. p., 1903.
Ulam, Adam. In the Name of the People. New York, 1979.
Venturi, Franco. Roots of Revolution. New York, 1960.
Volodin, A. and B. Itenberg. Lavrov. Moscow, 1981.
Other sources:
Senn, Alfred Erich. “Lighting the Road Behind: Soviet Historiography of the Russian Revolutionary Movement,”
in Soviet Society & Culture: Essays in Honor of Vera S.
Dunham, Terry L. Thompson and Richard Sheldon, eds.
Boulder CO, 1988. .
Senn, Alfred Erich. “M. K. Elpidin: Revolutionary Publisher,”
The Russian Review, 41:11–23.
Senn, Alfred Erich. ATerorizmo šaknys: Rusijos revoliucinis
judejimas XIX a.,@ Kulturos barai, 2002/3: 65–69.
Senn, Alfred Erich. The Revolutionary Word. A Guide to the
Underground Collection in Memorial Library of theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison. Madison, 1987.
Senn, Alfred Erich. The Russian Revolution in Swizerland.
Madison WI, 1971.
Senn, Alfred Erich, The Russian Revolution of the Nineteenth
Century as Contemporary History. Occasional papers of
the Kennan Institute. Washington, D. C., 1993.
Se-88 Alfred Erich Senn
Alfred Erich Senn / The Russian Émigré Press: From Herzen’s Kolokol to Lenin’s Iskra. – Kaunas:
Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas, 2008. – 120 p.
ISBN 978-9955-12-470-2
This account aims at depicting 19th century tamizdat, the émigré publishing world in the second half
of the century. It offers the genealogy of the various Russian print shops and the major publications in Western Europe – how they defined their missions, how they tried to establish their identities, how they tried to
win support, and, of course, how their inventory and ideas passed from generation to generation of émigrés.
UDK 070(470)
Alfred Erich Senn
THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉ PRESS:
FROM HERZEN’S KOLOKOL TO LENIN’S ISKRA
Designer / Viršelio autorė, maketuotoja Rasa Švobaitė
2008 12 29. 15 leid. lankų.
Užsakymo Nr.
Išleido Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas, S. Daukanto g. 27, LT–44249 Kaunas.