The terrorists, the Tsar and the President

In the late 1870s, a revolutionary organisation flourished in Russia called Zemlya i Volya (Land and Freedom). Later it split, giving rise to the more radical Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will – note that Volya in Russian may mean both freedom and will), which embraced terrorism. At one time their Executive Committee consisted of three dozen people, one third of them women, an unusually high proportion for the time.

They did not like the idea of a leader, so in principle they did not have one, but nonetheless a few were particularly influential: Sofiya Perovskaya, Vera Figner, Andrey Zhelyabov, Nikolai Kibalchich. They wanted to bring down the Russian establishment by the simple means of assassinating those they found guilty of oppression. Being a terrorist meant that they could be arrested any day, thanks to an elaborate network of spies and informers. Many were arrested. The “trial of the 50” took place in 1877. The prisoners were allowed a “last word” which they used for telling the world what they had stood for. The most effective among them was the speech of Sofiya Bardina. I quote here the last part of her speech that spells out the conspirators’ world view:

“I am convinced that the day will soon dawn when our sleepy and lazy society will wake up and be ashamed that it has allowed itself to be humiliated for so long … and when this day comes, society will avenge us. Go on prosecuting us, physical force is still on your side: but moral force and the force of historical progress is on ours: ours is the power of ideas, and ideas cannot be impaled on the points of bayonets.”

The harsh sentences handed out did not stop further assassinations. Mezentsev, Head of the Third Section (Secret Police) was shot in 1878 by Sergey Kravchinsky, and General Trepov, Head of the St Petersburg police, was shot a year later by Vera Zasulich; the latter was wounded but not mortally. By this time, however, the planners had become more ambitious. They decided to aim high. Their intended victim was none other than the Tsar, Alexander II.

The first attempt was made in August 1879. The intention was to blow up the Tsar’s train as he returned from his summer holiday. The conspirators successfully mined the railway line at three places on the route. Alas, the Tsar’s train chose another route.

The second attempt also aimed at blowing up the Tsar’s train. This time the Tsar came on the expected route, but there was a faulty connection somewhere. The bomb did not explode.

The third attempt at mining the railway tracks was more successful, in the sense that the Tsar’s train travelled on the expected route and the bomb went off, but they blew up the wrong train.

The fourth attempt was of a different sort. A member of the organisation managed to get a job in the Winter Palace as a carpenter. He succeeded in placing dynamite under the Tsar’s dining room, but the charge was insufficient for the sturdily built floor to collapse. Anyway, the Tsar was late for dinner.

The fifth attempt at blowing up the Tsar’s train failed because the main perpetrator turned up late. He did not have a watch.

By the sixth attempt the police were desperately looking for the conspirators. They escaped for a while because the policemen were not Sherlock Holmes. The sixth attempt was very carefully planned. It was to intercept the Tsar’s carriage, guarded by six mounted Cossacks, on its way to the weekly parade at the Michael cavalry barracks. The first line of the attack was a mine under the street, the second was to throw bombs and third was to use daggers and revolvers in case the other efforts should prove unsuccessful.

March 1, 1881 was a cold, but clear, day. The terrorists were poised and ready. Undeterred by the Tsar choosing another route (rendering the mine useless), they spotted the imperial carriage on the way back. They threw two bombs. The first one stopped the cortege, the second one mortally wounded the Tsar. He died later in the day. The first bomb-thrower was arrested and later hanged, along with other accomplices; the second was killed by his own bomb.

While Narodnaya Volya was busy planning assassinations in Russia, the USA was electing James Abram Garfield, its 20th President, inaugurated on the March 4, 1881, just three days after the assassination of the Tsar. Garfield was assassinated four months later. The assassin was Charles Guiteau, a man somewhat lost when confronted with the realities of life. He claimed to have campaigned for Garfield and strongly believed that as a reward for his services he should be offered a diplomatic post in Europe. He had Vienna and Paris in mind. When he was rebuffed, he took deep offence. His threatening letters to the administration were ignored. He bought a revolver, and at the next opportunity he shot the President.

So far, the ties between the events in Russia and those in Washington are rather tenuous. They happened roughly at the same time. Is that all? Is it worth elaborating further? The answer is yes. Those only vaguely familiar with the ideas held by Russian terrorist-revolutionaries might assume that they welcomed the fall of the mighty everywhere in the world. They would be wrong. The differences between the two assassinations were pointed out in a letter addressed to the American people by those few who were still free after the successful attempt at the Tsar’s life:

“In a country in which the freedom of the individual allows an honest contest of ideas where the will of the people determines not only the forms of law but the actual persons of the rulers – in such a country political murder is an expression of the same despotic spirit which we feel it our duty to combat in Russia. Despotism, whether of a person or a party, is always reprehensible, and violence is justifiable only when it is directed against violence.”

One may wonder why this moral code was not adopted by present-day terrorists.

Sofiya Bardina’s speech and the Letter to the American People have been taken from Vera Broido’s excellent book Apostles into Terrorists, (The Viking Press, New York, 1977). She came from a political family. Her mother was exiled to Siberia. As a child she knew Martov and Axelrod, founders of Russian Marxism. Referring to the above letter she makes the final remark: “There could be no better summing up of the essence of Narodnaya Volya. And it would serve well as its epitaph.”

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