First of all, the Russian terrorist cannot delude himself into believing that he is acting in the name of the Russian people. The Narodnaja Volja openly declared itself to be a mere preparative for the popular will, not that will in actual operation. Stepniak took refuge in Rousseau against the parliamentary doctrine of majority rule. In like manner Kropotkin, in his theory of the revolution, said that its success would depend upon the acceptance of its ideals by the classes against which it had been directed. The terrorists, it is true, never attained to clear views regarding their relationship to the people. The people, they contended, had independent rights as a subjective entity vis-à-vis the state, but their explanations of what they meant by this contention were exceedingly confused. Moreover, the mass revolution can only be brought about by the dictatorial leadership and the initiative of a few persons, it may be of a single individual. In the last resort, the individual must hazard the initiative in all revolutions. Kropotkin suffers from self-deception when he asserts that the sole function of leaders is to instigate, not to lead, and when he contends that the leader merely provides the theoretical forms for which the masses furnish practical expression. To these views there still clings the haziness of the narodničestvo concerning the relationship of the individual to the social whole.
The terrorists attempted to carry out terrorism systematically but practice convinced them that the method was an impossible one.
Recognising the ethical dangers of their tactics, the terrorists manifested their dubiety in various ways. First of all they explained that revolution was always waged in self-defence, and that they adopted revolutionary methods solely as a last resort and with reluctance. In 1862, even Bakunin said that it would be much better if revolution could be effected without bloodshed, and he continued to hope that the tsar would initiate the necessary revolution by granting the essential and fundamental reforms. Mihailov, one of the first victims of the revolutionary movement, says in his proclamation, "To the Younger Generation," that he and his associates desired a peaceful revolution, but would not shrink from using force, should force ultimately prove necessary. Similar was the language of the terrorists of the Narodnaja Volja and even of the adherents of the Cernyi Pereděl; to the last moment they all continued to hope for a peaceful solution of the intolerable situation
