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T is not easy to ascertain Mihailovskii's attitude in political matters, and especially his views concerning Russian refugees and the Russian revolution, for very few sources of information on these matters have as yet been opened. Of late there has been a tendency to regard him as having been in truth, even though unoficially, on of the "ideologues" of the Narodnaja Volja, whilst some declare that even more that Lavrov he was a leader of the revolution.

My own view of Mihailovskii's relationship to practical politics is formed by a study of his works, and these suggest that his outlook was predominantly theoretical. As a sociologist, of course, he considered the political questions of the day; as a socialist and an adversary of liberalism he favoured the radical trends; but I do not believe that he was personally in the revolutionary camp.

Such is the general impression produced by his writings, even though, reading between the lines (as we must do in the case of all Russians who wrote under the pressure of the cencorship), I can discern passages containing extremely radical allusions to the misdeeds of powerful persons. It does not follow that Mihailovskii's influence was trifling because he was never banished to Siberia. In 1883, Pleve sent him to Viborg for a speech he had made to students at a ball, and it is said that sharper measures were contemplated.