Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/127

Rh directed at first against the Jews, would subsequently develop into an attack upon the master class as a whole. Antisemitic articles were published in the organs of both these revolutionary associations. The Narodnaja Volja went so far as to prepare an antisemitic manifesto in the Little Russian tongue addressed "To the Ukrainian People," but it was never circulated. This took place in August 1881, and it must be remembered that after the assassination of the tsar on March 13th the party was in a state of incipient dissolution.

Terrorism and its revolutionary practice gave expression to the vigorous individualism characteristic of literature and of all liberal aspirations. I do not mean to imply that socialism and individualism are mutually exclusive, but I wish to emphasise the fact that these radical and revolutionary programs were not the issue of clear concepts concerning the revolution.

Their aim was the definitive social transformation, the social revolution, the inauguration of the new society and of the new man. We learn from the programs that the revolutionists were themselves doubtful whether terrorism, above all in the form of individual outrage, was the true tactic of the social revolution. The evolution of radicalism and terrorism shows, to put the matter in concrete terms, the way in which Marx was continually gaining wider influence as compared with Bakunin. The definitive social revolution was distinguished from preparatory revolutions, and still more from isolated terrorist outrages. Outrages, local disturbances, revolts, and revolutions, were appraised from the utilitarian utlook, their value as means to an end was estimated by the utilitarian calculus. Nihilist utilitarianism took a critical attitude towards Bakunin's revolutionism.

In this connection, the fact is distinctive and one to be stressed very clearly that the more Marxist members of the Zemlja i Volja, those who conceived the social revolution as a mass revolution, were beginning to part company with the terrorists even before the assassination of Alexander II and the ensuing reaction.

It is true that the ideas and programs of the respective sections had not yet been fully clarified. In all the programs we can discern uncertainty and vacillation in the delimitation frontiers between the social and political spheres. Between Lavrovists and the Bakuninists, for example, there were