Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/391

Rh The counter-revolution which followed the revolution led the revolutionists to harbour doubts about the policy of individual outrage, for it seemed that these at best must be useless, seeing that even the mass revolution had been unsuccessful. At the same time, terrorism was compromised by the practice of brigandage, a decomposition in the revolutionary organisations setting in owing to the activities of those who practised expropriation in the name of the revolution.

It has previously been explained that an especially severe blow was administered to the party by the unmasking of Azev. When the terrorists could no longer feel sure whether they were not promoting the aims of provocative agents, they could not fail to reconsider the whole question of the efficacy of terrorism.

Since the government was actually willing to sacrifice persons of considerable importance in order to sow panic throughout society, and in order that the reaction might be enabled to pursue its course undisturbed, the revolutionists were compelled to ask themselves whether terrorism, whether the policy of individual outrage, could possibly be a sound and efficient method. After the unmasking of Azev, the Social Revolutionary Party was decimated. Azev had wielded great authority in the party and, as one of the party organs said, had been esteemed even more highly than the revolutionists Željabov and Geršuni. Now, of a sudden, came a crushing disillusionment! There was little consolation to be found in the fact that the party itself had discovered the traitor (Burcev, who unmasked Azev, was a member of the party); nor was it an effective argument that provocative agents had likewise been discovered among the social democrats and in the Bund, for in these non-terrorist organisations provocative agents had never played a leading part such as Azev had played among the social revolutionaries and Degaev in the Narodnaja Volja. When therefore in 1909, at a meeting of the party executive, the resolution of 1906 was revoked, and it was agreed that the terrorist campaign should be continued notwithstanding the experiences with Azev, the impression produced by this decision was that an attempt was being made to gloss over the disintegration of the party. A minority faction, organising