THE ATTEMPT ON CZAR ALEXANDER.
ALITTLE glimmer of light, very faint, but still perceptible, has this week been thrown upon the objects of the Russian Revolutionary Committee. It is not strong enough to see by, and in fact rather deepens the gloom which envelopes the tragic scene now enacting upon the Russian stage ; but, nevertheless, it exists, and should be attentively watched. To understand it, we must keep clearly in our minds the chrono- logical order of the movements, and especially the fact that the Committee—if all that has occurred is due, as Russians think, to the Committee—while preparing for a grand coup, has been pursuing its ordinary course, striking, menacing, or terrorising the Governors, high officials of the secret police, and persons suspected of betraying its own designs. Since our review of its proceedings was published on April 5th, informa- tion has been received in London of its agents having struck at the Governor of Charkoff, actually kidnapping him, five officials in Kieff, a lad in Odessa, and a member of the Society, who had, it is presumed, opened relations with the police. This last, a young man of good fortune and position, was shot dead in a friend's drawing-room by a young lady, also of good position, who entered, bowed to the company, shot her victim dead with a revolver, and surrendered herself without resistance, saying, with the tranquil self-possession she maintained throughout, that her object was accomplished. During these operations, which almost paralysed Russian society with terror, seeming as they did, to prove the possession by the Society of agents ready to face death all over the Empire, and which drove the higher officials to dangerous exaggerations in the way of im- prisonments and arrests, the Committee prepared, as we read their action, a more formidable enterprise. On the night of the 31st of March (New Style), the corners of the streets lead- ing to the Imperial Palace were placarded with posters, eighteen inches long, containing an address to the Czar, and for the first time embodying a comparatively definite proposal. The Czar, who is addressed in the old and foolish form of French Revolutionists, as " Mr." Alexander Nicolaievitch—our own Cromwellians avoided this insulting tone, and spoke simply of " Charles Stuart "—is reminded that the Committee have hitherto addressed no menace to him or any member of his family, as they wished first to cleanse the Augean stable and deprive the despotism of its instruments, and is warned that he is marching towards the abyss. A terrible indictment of the system is presented to his eyes What can be the end of the present system, and to what goal can it lead Civilised nations despise and treat us with dishonour. They -refuse to admit us into the pale of humanity. Materially, Russia is ruined. Our enormous and inexhaustible resources are on the eve of being drained to the last dreg. The system of education throughout Russia is, in the true sense of the word, a system of brutalisation. The army of your tchinowas (official agents) is nothing but a band of cruel and insatiable brigands. Justice is a disgrace to equity. Your Governors, your police commis- sioners, and your Generals are mere satraps worthy of a Darius or a Xerxes. In whatever light regarded, and wherever we cast our eyes, we can see nothing but insane folly, which is accompanied by barbarity and endless strifes, concocted by the blood-suckers, who are never satiated. Militarism alone enjoys your paternal solicitude. Think well on it, Alexander Nicolaievitch, and consider whither all this leads, and must lead, Russia." The Czar is, therefore, implored to accept the warning, for the sake of giving which " we have hitherto spared you," and reform the Administration ; but if he will not, then at least let him accept the prayer of the District Councils, or Zemstvo, which was noticed by ourselves in our issue of January 13th, and by us treated as a revolutionary invention, but which gains a new meaning from this proclamation. This prayer, circulated in secret, but signed by many Councillors, was a prayer to associate the nation with himself, and grant institu- tions as liberal as those granted to the South Slays in Bul- garia, a prayer put in a somewhat jeering form, like the " Mr." prefixed in this warning to the Imperial patronymic.
This is the first definite proposal we have ever seen attri- buted to the Secret Committee, and even this is indefinite. The Czar is first insulted by an address which is meaningless, unless it denies his right to rule, then bidden to reform things for himself, and then, as an alternative, told to grant the prayer of the Zemstvo, or rather of some secret minority among the Councillors, and concede institutions as in Bul- garia—that is, if the prayer were ever made concrete, to con- cede a controlling power to an Assembly of which a majority would be elective, and in which all members would have perfect freedom of complaint. There is the old and perhaps intentional indefiniteness about this, as if the Committee, clear enough, like all Nihilists, while complaining and denouncing, had not made up its mind finally as to the remedy it would seek, or even whether it would or would not look beyond the Czar. It may be that its chiefs are really, undecided, or it may be that two impulses—that of the cos- mopolitan Revolutionists, who dislike all Kings, and that of the Russian Revolutionists, who would use the Kings to re- model society—are struggling within it, and that no formula has as yet obtained complete acceptance. At all events, the prayer placarded, though far more definite than any yet brought to the notice of the West, is still indistinct and tenta- tive. However that may be, the action of the Committee was far less indefinite than its policy. The posters were torn down by the police, but, of course, shown to the Government ; and the answer came in the shape of a new shower of arrests and im- prisonments, including, this time, it is hinted, persons closely allied to the central group of great officials which governs Russia, —a nephew, for example of General Mezentzeff, the Chief of Police slain by the Committee, is among those arrested. And then the Committee struck. A man of the usual kind—a schoolmaster, whose career had been in some way broken —waited for the Emperor, as he left the Palace, was unnoticed, probably because he wore a functionary's cap, and fired a revolver at his Majesty,—some say twice, but probably thrice, as three bullets have been found in the required direction. He then fired at a gentleman who pursued him, and at a policeman, wounding the latter, and was then arrested. It is believed that he had previously swallowed poison, for after his arrest he began vomiting incessantly, and glazed pills—said to contain cyanide of potassium, weakened by long keeping—were found upon his per- son, and he has hitherto made no revelation. Little doubt exists, however, that he was an agent of the Com- mittee, and Russia naturally is convulsed with rage and fear. The outburst of feeling which has followed is probably not due in any degree to what is in England known as " flunkeyism," but is a real emotion, at once of indignation and of terror. Apart from the sentiment of loyalty, the Sovereign is in Russia so completely the pivot of the State, that an attack on him disorganises the machine, and with it society ; may, if successful, change everything, and if unsuccessful, make of every person a possible " suspect." Moreover, every Russian feels that if this Secret Committee, which has so long defied the Government, really dare menace the Sovereign, and keep on menacing his successor, the system cannot go on, and Russia has entered on a Revolutionary period. The most terrible excitement is, therefore, quite natural, but in the midst of it an important question is lost sight of. Did Solo- vieff miss the Czar intentionally or not,—that is; did the Com- mittee design to make the Throne vacant, or to terrorise its existing occupant, and so convince him that the dread " Tribunal " is no longer satisfied with the execution of sub- ordinates, but unless the system is altered will strike at the monarch himself ? We should say, upon the whole, if the poison story is well founded, that the latter is the more pro- bable solution. It is true, Monarchs are generally missed. The immensity of the shock which the shot will occasion, the awe inspired by the victim, the severe conflict with customary reverence in the assassin's mind, all produce such a tumult in his nerves, that numerous as attempts have been, scarcely any monarch has ever been killed, except by a priest or a noble, the priest being nerved by an impulse stronger than political hate, and the noble not feeling the same awe of the monarch's person. The only exception we remember was the private murder of Charles of Parma, which was provoked, as his family admitted, by exceptional and personal wrong. But the assassin who meant murder would hardly take poison till he had succeeded, lest it should disorder his aim, or, with his victim in full sight, waste his remaining shots upon policemen. If, therefore, Solovieff is found to have previously made his own death certain, we should be inclined to believe that the Committee had resolved to employ the Italian plan, and terrorise rather than assassinate. It would be as easy, or easier, to find a desperate agent, resolved in any case to quit the world ; while the risk to the Committee would be in no respect greater, any successor to a Sovereign being specially bound to hunt down his predecessor's murderers. The temptation to this course, that of terrorising, must always be considerable ; first, because it disturbs the conscience less, both in those who order and those who execute ; secondly, because the only successful scheme of the kind carried out in our day was suc- cessful because of this limitation ; and lastly, because the monarch, if he yields, can carry out the measures demanded without the delays, difficulties, changes, and accidents insepar- able from a vacancy in the throne.
It is difficult to avoid asking once more if a society of this kind can succeed, but the speculation is very useless. The world has no data for such an inquiry, knows nothing either of the objects, the resources, or the deficiencies of the first party to the conflict. All that is proved, is that a Secret Society, more powerful than any one recorded in modern history, has arisen in Russia; it is striving to secure some result, which may become denite, by assassinating monarchs and great officials, and that hitherto it has succeeded in baffling the whole power of the State. It may be protected by a widely dif- fused, though secret sympathy ; it may be a triumph of Revolu- tionary organisation ; or it may be merely an ordinary political society, successful, as the Saw-grinders' Union was, until its op- ponents hit upon the right method of procedure. But it is quite certain that the conflict cannot go on without producing either a change of system, or an administrative anarchy fatal to society, or an impulse of repression so savage that Government Will govern like a Revolutionary Committee, through terror alone. It is the latter result—the regular result of every at- tempt to improve society by killing or threatening its chiefs— which we dread, as one of the most terrible calamities that could strike the largest and in some respects the most in- teresting of European communities. The conditions of life in Russia are hopeless enough, or Nihilism could not prosper ; but what will they be if the Government, still supported by the millions, postpones every consideration, human and divine, to the necessity of keeping itself alive.
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