notwithstanding that, he took no precautions whatever tc conceal himself, and I remember that one day he was severely scolded at one of our meetings for what was described as 2 gross imprudence. Being late for the meeting, as he often was, and having a long distance to cover in order to reach our house, he, dressed as a peasant in his sheepskin, ran the whole length of a great main thoroughfare at full speed in the middle of the street. ‘‘ How could you do it?” he was reproachfully asked. “You might have aroused sus picion and have been arrested as a common thief.” But I wish that every one had been as cautious as he was in affaig where other people could be compromised.
We made our first intimate acquaintance over Stanley’s book, ‘“‘How I Discovered Livingstone.” One night our meeting had lasted till twelve, and as we were about to leave, one of the Korniloffs entered with a book in her hand, and asked who among us could undertake to translate by the next morning at eight o’clock sixteen printed pages of Stanley’s book. TI looked at the size of the pages, and said that if somebody would help me, the work could be done during the night. Serghéi volunteered, and by four o ’clock the sixteen pages were done. We read to each other our translations, one of us following the English text; then we! emptied a jar of Russian porridge which had ae left. on the table for us, and went out together to return home. We became close friends from that night.
I have always liked people capable of working, and doing their work properly. So Serghéi’s bhi alebi and his capacity of working rapidly had already influenced me in his favor. But when I came to know more of him, I felt real love for his honest, frank nature, for his Ponihtal energy and good sense, for his superior intelligence, simplicity, and’ STEPNIAK 321 STEPNIAK 321 truthfulness, and for his courage and tenacity. He had ead and thought a great deal, and upon the revolutionary sharacter of the struggle which he had undertaken, it ap- geared we had similar views. He was ten years younger han I was, and perhaps did not quite realize what a hard sontest the coming revolution would be. He told us later ym, with much humor, how he once worked among the peas- mnts in the country. ‘One day,” he said, ‘I was walking long the road with a comrade, when we were overtaken ay a peasant ina sleigh. I began to tell the peasant that se must not pay taxes, that the functionaries plunder the seople, and I tried to convince him by quotations from she Bible that they must revolt. The peasant whipped up ais horse, but we followed rapidly; he made his horse trot, ind we began to trot behind him; all the time I continued io talk to him about taxes and revolt. Finally he made ais horse gallop; but the animal was not worth much, — in underfed peasant pony, —so my comrade and I did not ‘all behind, but kept up our propaganda till we were quite ut of breath.”
- For some time Serghéi stayed in Kazan, and I had to sorrespond with him. He always hated writing letters in sipher, so I proposed a means of correspondence which had vMiten been used before in conspiracies. You write an ordi- aary letter about all sorts of things, but in this letter it is mly certain words —let us say every fifth word — which aasasense. You write, forinstance: “‘ Excuse my hurried etter. Come to-night to see me; to-morrow I shall go wway to my sister. ~ My brother Nicholas is worse; it was ate to perform an operation.” Reading each fifth word, you find, ‘‘Come to-morrow to Nicholas, late.”” We had to write letters of six or seven pages to transmit one page of information, and we had to cultivate our imagination in order to fill the letters with all sorts of things by way of ntroducing the words that were required. Serghéi, from 322 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST - whom it was impossible to obtain a cipher letter, took to this kind of correspondence, and used to send me letters containing stories with thrilling incidents and dramatic endings. He said to me afterward that this correspondence helped to develop his literary talent. When one has talent, everything contributes to its development.
In January or February, 1874, I was at Moscow, in one of the houses in which I had spent my childhood. Early in the morning I was told that a peasant desired to see me. I went out and found it was Serghéi, who had just escaped from Tver. He was strengly built, and he and another ex- officer, Rogachoff, endowed with equal physical force, went traveling about the country as lumber sawyers. The work was very hard, especially for inexperienced hands, but both of them liked it; and no one would have thought to look’ for disguised officers in these two strong sawyers. They wandered in this capacity for about a fortnight without | arousing suspicion, and made revolutionary propaganda right and left without fear. Sometimes Serghéi, who knew the New Testament almost by heart, spoke to the peasants as a religious preacher, proving to them by quotations from the Bible that they ought to start a revolution. Sometimes he formed his arguments of quotations from the economists. The peasants listened to the two men as to real apostles, took them from one house to another, and refused to be paid | for food. In a fortnight they had produced quite a stir in’ 7 number of villages. Their fame was spreading far and. wide. The peasants, young and old, began to whisper to one another in the barns about the “ delegates;” they began | to speak out more loudly than they usually did that the land would soon be taken from the landlords, who would.
receive pensions from the Tsar. The younger people became more aggressive toward the police officers, saying: “ Waita little; our turn will soon come; you Herods will not rule long now.” But the fame of the sawyers reached the ears.
FRIENDLINESS OF THE PRASANTS 323 of one of the police authorities, and they Were arrested. An © order was given to take them to the nex Police official, ten miles away..
They were taken under the guard of several peasants, and on their way had to pass through a villagewhich was holding its festival. ‘Prisoners? All right! Coifieé on here, my uncle,” said the peasants, who were all drinking in honor of the occasion. They were kept nearly the whole day in that village, the peasants taking them from one house to another, and treating them to home-made beer. The guards did not have to be asked twice. They drank, and insisted that the prisoners should drink, too. ‘“‘ Hap- ) pily,’”’ Serghéi said, “‘they passed round the beer in such large wooden bowls that I could put my mouth to the rim of the bowl as if I were drinking, but no one could see how much beer I had imbibed.” The guards were all drunk toward night, and preferred not to appear in this state be- fore the police officer, so they decided to stay in the village till morning. Serghdéi kept talking to them; and all listened to him, regretting that such a good man had been caught. As they were going to sleep, a young peasant whispered to Serghéi, “When I go to shut the gate, I will leave it unbolted.”’ Serghdéi and his comrade understood the hint, and as soon as all fell asleep, they went out into the street. They started at a fast pace, and at five o’clock in the morn- ing were twenty miles away from the village, at a small railway station, where they took the first train, and went “to Moscow. Sergh¢i remained there, and later, when all of us at St. Petersburg had been arrested, the Moscow circle, under his and Voinardlsky’s inspiration, became the main centre of the agitation.
__ Here and there, small groups of propagandists had set- _ tled in towns and villages in various capacities. Black- smiths’ shops and small farms had been started, and young 824 MEN ls OF A REVOLUTIONIST men of the weal’ ‘© -Jasses worked in the shops or on the farms, to be in ““\\y contact with the toiling masses. At Moscow, a num)...of young girls, of rich families, who had studied at th, iirich University and had started a separate organization, even so far as to enter cotton factories, RTE e 1 from fourteen to sixteen hours a day, and 1j 1a ‘he factory barracks the miserable life of the Kussian factory girls. It was a grand movement, in which, at the lowest estimate, from two to three thousand persons took an active part, while twice or thrice as many sympa- thizers and supporters helped the active vanguard in various ways. With a good half of that army our St. Petersburg circle was in regular correspondence, — always, of course, in cipher.; The literature which could be published in Russia under’ a rigorous censorship — the faintest hint of socialism being prohibited — was soon found mesnilcieny and we started | a printing-office of our own abroad. Pamphlets for the’ workers and the peasants had to be written, and our small ‘literary committee,” of which I was a member, had its hands full of work. Serghdéi wrote two such pamphlets, one in the Lamennais style and another containing an ex- position of socialism in a fairy tale, and both had a wide | circulation. The books and pamphlets which were printed abroad were smuggled into Russia by thousands, stored at certain spots, and sent out to the local circles, which dis- | tributed them amongst the peasants and the workers. All this required a vast organization as well as much traveling about, and a colossal correspondence, particularly for pro- tecting our helpers and our bookstores from the police, | We had special ciphers for different provincial circles, and often, after six or seven hours had been passed in discuss. ing all details, the women, who did not trust to our accuracy in the cipher correspondence, spent all the night in cover | ing sheets of paper with cabalistic figures and fractions.
FRUITFUL LABORS 825 FRUITFUL LABORS 825 The utmost cordiality always prevailed at our meetings. Shairmen and all sorts of formalism are so utterly repug- sant to the Russian mind that we had none; and although sur debates were sometimes extremely hot, especially when “« programme questions” were under discussion, we always managed very well without resorting to Western formali- ties. An absolute sincerity, a general desire to settle the difficulties for the best, and a frankly expressed contempt for all that in the least degree approached theatrical affecta- tion were quite sufficient. If any one of us had ventured to attempt oratorical effects by a speech, friendly jokes would have shown him at once that speech-making was out of place. Often we had to take our meals during these meetings, and they invariably consisted of rye bread, with cucumbers, a bit of cheese, and plenty of weak tea to quench the thirst. Not that money was lacking; there was always enough, and yet there was never too much to cover the steadily growing expenses for printing, transportation of books, concealing friends wanted by the police, and starting new enterprises.
At St. Petersburg, it was not long before we had wide ‘acquaintance amongst the workers. Serdukoff, a young man of splendid education, had made a number of friends amongst the engineers, most of them employed in a state factory of the artillery department, and he had organized a ‘circle of about thirty members, which used to meet for ‘reading and discussion. The engineers are pretty well paid ‘at St. Petersburg, and those who were not married were ‘fairly well off. They soon became quite familiar with the current radical and socialist literature, — Buckle, Lassalle, Mill, Draper, Spielhagen, were familiar names to them; and in their aspect these engineers differed little from stu- dents. When Kelnitz, Serghéi, and I joined the circle, we frequently visited their group, and gave them informal ‘lectures upon all sorts of things. Our hopes, however, that 326 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST these young men would grow into ardent propagandists, amidst less privileged classes of workers were not fully realized. _ In a free country they would have been the. habitual sues at public meetings; but, like the privi-.
leged workers of the watch trade in Geneva, they treated the mass of the factory hands with a sort of contempt, and were in no haste to become martyrs to the socialist cause, | It was only after they had been arrested and kept three or four years in prison for having dared to think as socialists, | and had sounded the full depth of Russian absolutism, that | several of them developed into ardent propagandists, chiefly | of a political revolution.
My sympathies went especially toward the weavers and. the workers in the cotton factories. There are many thous | sands of them at St. Petersburg, who work there during» the winter, and return for the three summer months to. their native villages to cultivate the land. Half peasants | and half town workers, they had generally retained the | social spirit of the Russian villager. The movement spread like wildfire among them. We had to restrain the zeal of | our new friends; otherwise they would have brought to | our lodgings hundreds at a time, young and old. Most off | them lived in small associations, or artéls, ten or twelve persons hiring a common apartment and taking their meals _ together, each one paying every month his share of the general expenses. It was to these lodgings that we used to go, and the weavers soon brought us in contact with other | artéls, of stone-masons, carpenters, and the like. In some of these artéls Serghéi, Kelnitz, and two more of our friends | were quite at home, and spent whole nights talking about socialism. Besides, we had in different parts of St. Peters- burg special apartments, kept by some of our people, to | which ten or twelve workers would come every night, to — learn reading and writing, and after that to have a talk.
ZEALOUS AGITATION 327 trom time to time one of us went to the native villages of ur town friends, and spent a couple of weeks in almost ‘pen propaganda amongst the peasants.
Of course, all of us who had to deal with this class of vorkers had to dress like the workers themselves; that is, owear the peasant garb. The gap between the peasants nd the educated people is so great in Russia, and contact yetween them is so rare, that not only does the appearance D a village of a man who wears the town dress awaken general attention, but even in town, if one whose talk and lress reveal that he is not a worker is seen to go about vith workers, the suspicion of the police is aroused at once. ‘Why should he go about with ‘low people,’ if he has not 1 bad intention?” Often, after a dinner ina rich mansion, br even in the Winter Palace, where I went frequently to see a friend, I took a cab, hurried to a poor student’s lodg- Ing in a remote suburb, exchanged my fine clothes for a sotton shirt, peasant top-boots, and a sheepskin, and, jok- ing with peasants on the way, went to meet my worker friends in some slum. I told them what I had seen of the labor movement abroad. They listened eagerly; they lost not a word of what was said; ae: then came the question, “What can we do in Russia 2 “ Agitate, organize,” was our reply; “there is no royal road;” and we read them a popular story of the French Bavolution: an adaptation 2 Erckmann-Chatrian’s admirable ‘“ Histoire d’un Paysan.’ Every one admired M. Chovel, who went as a propagan- dist through the villages, distributing prohibited books, and all burned to follow in his footsteps. ‘Speak to others,” we said; “bring men together; and when we become more numerous, we shall see what we can attain.” They fully understood, and we had only to moderate their zeal.
Amongst them I passed my happiest hours. New Year’s Day of 1874, the last I spent in Russia at liberty, is especially memorable to me. The previous evening I had a 328 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST been in a choice company. Inspiring, noble words were spoken that night about the citizen’s duties, the well-being of the country, and the like. But underneath all the thrill- ing speeches one note sounded: How could each of the speakers preserve his own personal well-being? Yet no one had the courage to say, frankly and openly, that he was ready to do only that which would not endanger his own dovecote. Sophisms—no end of sophisms — about the slowness of evolution, the inertia of the lower classes, the uselessness of sacrifice, were uttered to justify the unspoken words, all intermingled with assurances of each one’s willingness to make sacrifices. I returned home, seized suddenly with profound sadness amid all this talk. Next morning I went to one of our weavers’ meetings. It took place in an underground dark room. I was dressed as a peasant, and was lost in the crowd of other sheepskins, My comrade, who was known to the workers, simply intro- duced me: “ Borodin, a friend.” ‘Tell us, Borodin,’’ he said, ‘‘ what you have seen abroad.” And I spoke of the labor movement in Western Europe, its struggles, its diffi- | culties, and its hopes.
The audience consisted mostly of middle-aged people, | They were intensely interested. They asked me questions, all to the point, about the minute details of the workingmen’s unions, the aims of the International Association and its chances of success. And then came questions about what could be done in Russia and the prospects of our propaganda. I never minimized the dangers of our agitation, and frankly said what I thought. ‘* We shall probably | be sent to Siberia, one of these days; and you — part of you — will be kept long months in prison for having lis- tened tous.” This gloomy prospect did not frighten them.
“ After all, there are men in Siberia, too, — not bears only.”
*‘ Where men are living others can live.” ‘The devil is COURAGE OF THE WORKERS 329 not so terrible as they paint him.” ‘If you are afraid of wolves, never go into the wood,” they said, as we parted. And when, afterward, several of them were arrested, they nearly all behaved bravely, sheltering us and betraying no one.
XVI Durine the two years of which I am now speaking many arrests were made, both at St. Petersburg and in the provinces. Not a month passed without our losing some one, or learning that members of this or that provincial group had disappeared. Toward the end of 1873 the arrests became more and more frequent. In November one of our main settlements in a suburb of St. Petersburg was raided by the police. We lost Perdévskaya and three other friends, and all our relations with the workers in this suburb had to be suspended. We founded a new settle- ment, further away from the town, but it had soon to be abandoned. The police became very vigilant, and the ap- — pearance of a student in the workmen’s quarters was no- ticed at once; spies circulated among the workers, who were watched closely. Dmitri Kelnitz, Serghdi, and my- self, in our sheepskins and with our peasant looks, passed unnoticed, and continued to visit the haunted ground. But Dmitri and Serghéi, whose names had acquired a wide notoriety in the workmen’s quarters, were eagerly wanted by the police; and if they had been found accidentally dur- ing a nocturnal raid at a friend’s lodgings, they would have been arrested at once. There were periods when Dmitri had to hunt every day for a place where he could spend the night in relative safety. ‘Can I spend the night with you?” he would ask, entering some comrade’s room at ten o’clock. ‘Impossible! my lodgings have been closely watched lately. Better go to N.” “TI have just come from him, and he says spies swarm his neighborhood.”
‘Then go to M.; he is a great friend of mine and above.
VIGILANCE OF THE POLICE 331 suspicion. But it is far from here, and you must take a cab. Here is the money.” But on principle Dmitri would not take a cab, and would walk to the other end of the town to find a refuge, or at last go to a friend whose rooms might be searched at any moment.
Early in January, 1874, another settlement, our main stronghold for propaganda amongst the weavers, was lost. Some of our best propagandists disappeared behind the gates of the mysterious Third Section. Our circle became narrower, general meetings were increasingly difficult, and we made strenuous efforts to form new circles of young men who might continue our work when we should all be arrested. Tchaykdvsky was in the south, and we forced Dmitri and Serghéi to leave St. Petersburg, — actually forced them, imperiously ordering them to leave. Only five or six of us remained to transact all the business of our circle. JI intended, as soon as I should have delivered my report to the Geographical Society, to go to the south- west of Russia, and there to start a sort of land league, similar to the league which became so powerful in Ireland at the end of the seventies.
After two months of relative quiet, we learned in the middle of March that nearly all the circle of the engineers had been arrested, and with them a young man named Nizovkin, an ex-student, who unfortunately had their con- fidence, and, we were sure, would soon try to clear himself by telling all he knew about us. Besides Dmitri and Serghdéi he knew Serdukéff, the founder of the circle, and myself, and he would certainly name us as soon as he was pressed with questions. A few days later, two weavers — most unreliable fellows, who had even embezzled some money from their comrades, and who knew me under the name of Borodin — were arrested. These two would surely set the police at once upon the track of Borodin, the man dressed as a peasant, who spoke at the weavers’ meetings. Within 332 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST a week’s time all the members of our circle, excepting Ser. | duk6ff and myself, were arrested.
There was nothing left us but to fly from St. Peters. | burg: this was exactly what we did not want todo. All | our immense organization for printing pamphlets abroad | and for smuggling them into Russia; all the network of | circles, farms, and country settlements with which we were | in correspondence in nearly forty (out of fifty) provinces | of European Russia, and which had been slowly built up | during the last two years; and finally, our workers’ groups at St. Petersburg and our four different centres for propa- | ganda amongst workers of the capital,—how could we abandon all these without having found men to maintain | our relations and correspondence? Serdukoff and I de-} cided to admit to our circle two new members, and to’ transfer the business to them. We met every evening in | different parts of the town, and as we never kept any ad- } dresses or names in writing, — the smuggling addresses alone | had been deposited in a secure place, in cipher, — we had’ to teach our new members hundreds of names and addresses and a dozen ciphers, repeating them over and over, until | our friends had learned them by heart.. very evening we | went over the whole map of Russia in this way, dwelling | especially on its western frontier, which was studded with § men and women engaged in receiving books from the smug- | glers, and on the eastern provinces, where we had our main’ settlements. Then, always in disguise, we had to take the new members to our sympathizers in the town, and introduce | them to those workers who had not yet been arrested.
The thing to be done in such a case was to disappear from ' one’s apartments, and to reappear somewhere else under an’ assumed name. Serduk6ff had abandoned his lodging, but, having no passport, he concealed himself in the houses of friends. I ought to have done the same, but a strange cir-| cumstance prevented me. I had just finished my report IN A DILEMMA S00 upon the glacial formations in Finland and Russia, and this report had to be read at a meeting of the Geographical Society. The invitations were already issued, but it hap- pened that on the appointed day the two geological societies of St. Petersburg had a joint meeting, and they asked the Geographical Society to postpone the reading of my report fora week. It was known that I would present certain ideas about the extension of the ice cap as far as Middle Russia, and our geologists, with the exception of my friend and teacher, Friedrich Schmidt, considered this a specula- tion of too far-reaching character, and wanted to have it thoroughly discussed. For one week more, consequently, I could not go away.
Strangers prowled about my house and called upon me under all sorts of fantastical pretexts: one of them wanted to buy a forest on my Tambéov estate, which was situated in absolutely treeless prairies. I noticed in my street — the fashionable Morskaya—one of the two arrested weavers whom I have mentioned, and thus learned that my house ‘was watched. Yet I had to act as if nothing extraordinary had happened, because I was to appear at the meeting of the Geographical Society the following Friday night.
The meeting came. The discussions were very animated, and one point, at least, was won. It was recognized that all old theories concerning the diluvial period in Russia ‘were totally baseless, and that a new departure must be ‘made in the investigation of the whole question. I had the satisfaction of hearing our leading geologist, Barbot-de- ‘Marny, say, ‘‘Ice cap or not, we must acknowledge, gentle- ‘men, that all we have hitherto said about the action of float- ‘ing ice had no foundation whatever in actual exploration.’ ‘And I was proposed at that meeting to be nominated presi- dent of the physical geography section, while I was asking ‘myself whether I should not spend that very night in the ‘prison of the Third Section.
334 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST It would have been best not to return at all to my apart ment, but I was broken down with fatigue, after the exertion of the last few days, and went home. There was no police raid during that night. I looked through the | heaps of my papers, destroyed everything that might be | compromising for any one, packed all my things, and prepared to leave. I knew that my apartment was watched, | but I hoped that the police would not pay me a visit before | late in the night, and that at dusk I could slip out of the — house without being noticed. Dusk came, and, as I was starting, one of the servant girls said to me, “‘ You had | better go by the service staircase.’? I understood what she | meant, and went quickly down the staircase and out of the | house. One cab only stood at the gate; I jumped into it. | The driver took me to the great Nevsky Prospekt. There — was no pursuit at first, and I thought myself safe; but pre- » sently I noticed another cab running full speed after us; our | horse was delayed somehow, and the other cab passed ours.
To my astonishment, I saw in it one of the two arrested | Weavers, accompanied by some one else. He waved his | hand as if he had something to tell me. I told my cabman to stop. ‘‘ Perhaps,” I thought, ‘he has been released | from arrest, and has an important communication to make to | But as soon as we stopped, the man who was with ° me.”’
the weaver — he was a detective — shouted loudly, “ Mr. Borodin, Prince Kropdtkin, I arrest you!”? He made a signal to the policemen, of whom there are hosts along the | main thoroughfare of St. Petersburg, and at the same time jumped into my cab and showed me a paper which bore the stamp of the St. Petersburg police. ‘‘I have an order to © take you before the governor-general for an explanation,” he said. Resistance was impossible, —a couple of police- men were already close by, —and I told my cabman to turn | round and drive to the governor-general’s house. The weaver remained in his cab and followed us.
HOW I WAS ARRESTED 335 It was now evident that the police had hesitated for ten days to arrest me, because they were not sure that Borodin and I were the same person. My response to the weaver’s call had settled their doubts.
It so happened that just as I was leaving my house a young man came from Moscow, bringing me a letter from a friend, Voinardlsky, and another from Dmitri addressed to our friend Polakéff. The former announced the estab- lishment of a secret printing-office at Moscow, and was full of cheerful news concerning the activity in that city. I read it and destroyed it. As the second letter contained nothing but innocent friendly chat, I took it with me. Now that I was arrested, I thought it would be better to destroy it, and, asking the detective to show me his paper again, I took advantage of the time that he was fumbling in his pocket to drop the letter on the pavement without his noticing it. However, as we reached the governor-general’s house the weaver handed it to the detective, saying, “I saw the gentleman drop this letter on the pavement, so I picked it up.”
Now came tedious hours of waiting for the representative of the judicial authorities, the procureur or public prose- ‘eutor. This functionary plays the part of a straw man, ‘who is paraded by the state police during their searches: he gives an aspect of legality to their proceedings. It was many hours before that gentleman was found and brought to perform his functions as a sham representative of Justice. I was taken back to my house, and a most thorough search of all my papers was made; this lasted till three in the ‘morning, but did not reveal a scrap of paper that could tell against me or any one else.
From my house I was taken to the Third Section, that ‘omnipotent institution which has ruled in Russia from the ‘beginning of the reign of Nicholas I. dewn to the present time,.— a true “state in the state.” It began under Peter 336 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST