Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/131

Rh Stepniak had no profound insight into the ethical and philosophical problem, for he was nothing more than a revolutionary practitioner. In his novel he described the revolutionaries, noting among other things that they were men of atheistic views, but he went no further, he did not discuss the relationships between atheism and terrorism. Yet the philosophical problem of nihilism and terrorism, and in particular the problem of crime, to which we have just had occasion to recur, was far more deeply considered by Bělinskii, Bakunin, and Herzen. These writers had asked themselves what was the connection between nihilist atheism and materialism, on the one hand, and revolution with the associated method of assassination, on the other. Pisarev vindicated for the nihilists the right to kill and to rob; the opponents of nihilism, led by Dostoevskii, endeavoured to prove (above all from the works of Pisarev) that nihilist atheism was the parent of revolution and crime. But a word of caution is here necessary. We have to remember that certain theologians have defended tyrannicide, and we shall have in due course to ponder the problem more deeply.

N the various literary works devoted to nihilism, those of Turgenev, Černyševskii, Dobroljubov, etc., we find many contributions to the psychology of the Russian terrorist. In addition to these imaginative pictures, we have authentic records, and in especial we have autobiographies of noted revolutionists and terrorists of the epoch under consideration. Among these may be mentioned certain writings by Věra Zasulič, the memoirs of Debagorii-Mokrievič, etc. Those who read Russian can study the data furnished by clandestine periodicals, and all the literature of the movement towards freedom. Of especial importance are the works of Stepniak, wherein he described the revolutionary activities of the sixties and seventies. In my Russian library I have a special section for the revolutionists, containing, in addition to clandestine journals, the memoirs, diaries, political treatises and pamphlets, sociological works, short stories, and novels, which were written by men, young for the most part, in fortresses, Siberian prisons,