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THE SPIRIT OF RUSSIA
89

Further, the anarchist followers of Nečaev and Bakunin, Čerkezov, for instance, the opponent of Marxism, did not accept this aspect of Nečaev's anarchism.[1] Kropotkin does not reject the idea of armed revolution, but he is opposed to all deception, whether practised against friend or enemy.

Not until much later, when the younger generation had forgotten the facts established by Herzen against Nečaev in 1871, were certain attempts made to idealise him.

Once only was the method of Nečaev practically applied, this being in the peasant revolt of 1877 in the Chigirin district. Here a false "secret charter issued by supreme authority" was dangled before the eyes of the peasants.

iv. Of a very different character was the program of those organisations which made it their business to promote the revolutionary culture of the masses as a precondition of the definitive revolution. I may refer for example to the program of the Čaikovcy who were organised in the year 1871.[2]

For the Čaikovcy, the social revolution was the terminal aim of all revolutionary organisation, and the greatest possible number of peasants and operatives must be won over to the cause. Adherents among the operatives, returning to their native villages, would promote the spread of revolutionary ideas among the peasants. Local disturbances, such as were advocated by Bakuninist groups, were not approved, for it was held that these casual risings diverted people's attention from the terminal aim, the definitive revolution. But no objection was raised to local disturbances and local acts of resistance to government when these originated spontaneously.

The Čaikovcy sympathised with the workers' international of Bakuninist trend, and sympathised with the Russian refugees, to whom they attributed an independent and peculiar influence upon the Russian folk.

v. The program of the Lavrovists, the adherents of Lavrov, has important bearings upon revolutionary developments during the seventies. It will be found in the periodical "Vpered" (Forward) which was published in Zurich and in London in several different forms during the years 1873 to 1878.

The Lavrovist program recognises the existence of two

  1. Cf. W. Tcherkesoff, Pages d'histoire socialiste, I, Doctrines et Actes de la Sociale Démocratie.
  2. N. Čaikovskii was a refugee from Russia in the year 1871, but returned to Russia in 1905. His program was revised by Kropotkin.