Russian teachers of revolution, in the sixties, next to Bakunin. Černyševskii was most influential. Enough has been said previously regarding the influence of other Russian thinkers, above all of Herzen.
Atheism and materialism are definite demands in these programs, being counterposed to the Russian theocracy; atheist and materialist teaching is popularised to make it palatable to the common people.[1]
The problem as to the permissibility of revolution, and above all as to the permissibilify of assassination and crime, will subsequently be considered in fuller detail, when we have made acquaintance with the views of the other theorists of revolution. The theorists of terrorism do not treat the question in association with the various philosophical problems formulated by nihilism, but content themselves with asserting the revolutionary jus talionis. A Life for a Life was the title of the pamphlet published by Stepniak shortly after the assassination of Mezencev. This title gives concise expression to the ethical theory of the terrorist revolution, and it is found also in Stepniak's other writings on terrorism, above all in his novel The Career of a Nihilist, which describes the life of the nihilist terrorists.
Stepniak compares the arbitrary use of force by the gendarmerie, the way in which the members of that body cynically oppress on the large scale all who cherish thoughts of freedom, depriving them of life, with a band of robbers, against whom everyone is by natural right entitled to defend himself by force. Faced by the absolute and arbitrary power of the gendarme, the socialist's only resource is to take up arms in his own defence. Mezencev was formally condemned to death by Stepniak's associates, and the sentence was carried into effect. But Stepniak was aware that political slavery was conditioned by economic slavery, not conversely. The bourgeoisie is the real enemy of the socialists; the gendarmes, and the government generally, protect the bourgeoisie and the economic inequality sanctioned by the bourgeois class; only in so far as they do this, are gendarmes and government attacked by the socialists. Stepniak therefore demanded of
- ↑ For example, in the popular pamphlet The Story of the Kopeck (1870?), the mužik philosophises as follows concerning God: "God takes care of us, for without the mužik he would not have so much as to buy a candle for himself, and he would have to do without incense. In fact, but for the mužik, God would have perished long ago."
