After his failure to start a revolution in 1863, Nechayev was preparing to launch another in the spring of 1870. He severed himself from all factions which wanted to begin the social revolution by propaganda and urged direct action. Organization and education, he taught, will be the task of coming generations, whereas "our own task is a terrible, thorough, ubiquitous and pitiless destruction. . . . Let us unite with the world of robbers, the only true revolutionaries in Russia". Nechayev's organization was known as the " Narodnaya Rasprava". (The judgment of the people.) He demanded unreserved submission from his followers, and when one of them, the student Ivanov, refused to subject himself to his iron will, he was murdered by order of Nechayev. The arrests and trials which followed this crime put an end to the leadership of Nechcayev, and with it also terminated the revolutionary plot of 1870. With the passing of Nechayev, Russian Jacobinism did not cease. Its new leader became X Tkachev, one of Nechayev's followers. He opposed Lavrov's propaganda of local revolts and incited to a political revolution, if a general social revolution was impossible. He was a Bakunist and, accordingly, wanted to use revolutionary organizations as a means of disorganization and the destruction of the existing political order.

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The years of 1873-74 were the period in which the revolutionary enthusiasm reached its zenith. The circle of the Chaikovstsy" in Petrograd, to which Kropotkin, Stepnyak and other revolutionary celebrities adhered, developed a titanic activity. It culminated with the general movement of the "going among the people" which lasted throughout the summer of 1874. This movement, which has no equal in Russian history, resembled a great religious revival. The bulk of the educated class, not only youthful students but many teachers, judges, physicians, officers and

officials joined the ranks. Denying themselves comforts and undergoing many hardships, they went to preach the new liberty to the people. The result of this crusade has been variously estimated. In its proximate results it was a failure; the peasant did not respond concurrently, he often turned against his enlighteners and delivered them to the authorities. Perhaps the greatest gain was to the propagandists themselves; while they went to the people as metaphysical, utopian dreamers, many of them came back as sober positivists.

The failure of the itinerant propagandists was to be remedied by a more enduring activity which a new organization, the "Land and Liberty" society took for its objective. It was to organize permanent settlements among the villagers and among the working classes of the towns. The propaganda of the "Land and Liberty" found more ready response among the proletariat of the cities than among the peasantry. The workingmen, however, went farther; they were more radical and direct in action of self-defense against the persecutions of the government. In 1879, the " Northern Alliance of Workingmen" was organized by some of the adherents of Tkachov. These did not refrain from terrorism as an effective means in the political struggle. But true populists could not uphold the terrorist policy, and the "Northern Alliance" split off from the "Land and Liberty" party. Another party dissenting from the old "Land and Liberty" was the "People's Will" party, organized in the South (1879). It was terroristic and advocated a propaganda by deeds. It had its Executive Committee which conducted all deeds of terror and under its auspices the regicide of March 13, 1881, was accomplished.

The "Land and Liberty" party split once more in 1879, giving birth to the "Cherny peredel Cherny peredel" (Black Land Parti

tion) party, which along with the advocacy of the nationalization of land, attempted to synthetize the interests of the city proletariat with those of the agrarian population. Plekhanov1 was one of the organizers of the “ Black Land Partition", and attempted to adjust its principles to those of Marx, although many of the older anarchistic ideas were retained.

The persecution of revolutionists and the reaction to revolutionary propaganda in general, which marked the accession of Alexander III, made actual propaganda almost impossible. The great revolutionary waves of the sixties and seventies had spent their force, and with the exception of occasional ripples there was for more than a decade general quiet on the surface of Russia's political sea.

Most of the leaders who survived the persecution fled abroad and took to study and engrossed themselves in literary activities. In the quiet of retreat, Plekhanov eliminated from his mind all anarchistic and populistic ideas and declared himself a consistent Marxist. He began the organization of the Russian Social Democracy, directing his attention primarily to the working proletariat of the cities. During the eighties Plekhanov wrote his books, which were to differentiate Marxian Socialism from the older populist socialism, Socialism and Political Struggle (1883), Our Variances (1885). Later he began his polemic against the subjectivist sociology and his attempt to establish a Marxist sociology. Socialism was taken up by the city proletariat during the nineties. There were great strikes in mills and factories everywhere, and for the first time Russia witnessed a real solidarity of the working masses. The intellectuals soon recognized in this movement the Marxian

1 Cf. infra, pt. iii, ch. i. 2 Cf. infra, pt. iii, ch. i.

process of social evolution, and only feared that it might lose its revolutionary character and drift into trade-unionism, and political opportunism. These fears, however, proved baseless. The government which persecuted labor organizations kept their revolutionary spirit alive, and German revisionism, although influencing some leaders,1 had not much affect upon the workingmen themselves. In 1903, the Social Democratic party of Russia was consolidated, with the exception of a few racial groups, of which the Jewish Bund was the most important. New dangers arose, however, from the left wing of the party. Remnants of the old "People's Will" party, who were absorbed by the triumphant Marxism, felt their differences keenly. They interpreted the "masses" as not limited to the city proletariat but as embracing as well the peasantry and the intellectuals. They also wanted to use more militant tactics than the peaceful strike, and to revive the terror to which soon the ministers Sippyagin, Plehve and others fell victims.

In its reorganized form this militant wing of Russian socialsm calls itself the "Social Revolutionaries". A rural branch organized by them was called the "Agrarian League". Their principal intellectual leader, Victor Chernov, has given the movement its philosophical bearing.3

The agitations of these socialist groups culminated in the revolution of 1905-06, after the disasters of the RussoJapanese war. The freedom attained by this uprising and the formation of the Duma gave opportunity to the revolutionary leaders to show their executive abilities. In this they fell short, and a general reaction followed. Many Marxists having become more moderate Liberals, are now associated with the party of the Cadets or the Constitutional

1

1 As, for example, P. Struve. Cf. infra, pt. iii, ch. ii.

2 Cf. infra, pt. iii, ch. iii.

Democrats. This party is nationalistic and aspires to improve conditions by constructive reforms. Paul Milyovkov and Peter Struve are its principal intellectual leaders.1

This in brief is the general social-political background of Russian sociology. Its theories appear to be related to the various movements we have described, and they reflect the idealogies of both the social-political groups in power and those of the opposition. Sociology in Russia was at its zenith during the great reform movement of the sixties and seventies and in a lesser degree during the period of Russia's industrial development in the nineties and during the revolution at the close of the Russo-Japanese war.

In following chapters we will analyze the various schools and trends of Russian sociology, both in their chronological order and their historical setting.