It was not merely the indifference or hostility of the masses that the propagandists had to complain of.  The police soon got on their track, and did not confine themselves to persuasion and logical arguments.  Towards the end of 1873 they arrested some members of the central directory group in St. Petersburg, and in the following May they discovered in the province of Saratof an affiliated organisation with which nearly 800 persons were connected, about one-fifth of them belonging to the female sex.  A few came of well-to-do families—­sons and daughters of minor officials or small landed proprietors—­but the great majority were poor students of humbler origin, a large contingent being supplied by the sons of the poor parish clergy.  In other provinces the authorities made similar discoveries.  Before the end of the year a large proportion of the propagandists were in prison, and the centralised organisation, so far as such a thing existed, was destroyed.  Gradually it dawned on the minds even of the Don Quixotes that pacific propaganda was no longer possible, and that attempts to continue it could lead only to useless sacrifices.

For a time there was universal discouragement in the revolutionary ranks; and among those who had escaped arrest there were mutual recriminations and endless discussions about the causes of failure and the changes to be made in modes of action.  The practical results of these recriminations and discussions was that the partisans of a slow, pacific propaganda retired to the background, and the more impatient revolutionary agitators took possession of the movement.  These maintained stoutly that as pacific propaganda had become impossible, stronger methods must be adopted.  The masses must be organised so as to offer successful resistance to the Government.  Conspiracies must therefore be formed, local disorders provoked, and blood made to flow.  The part of the country which seemed best adapted for experiments of this kind was the southern and southeastern region, inhabited by the descendants of the turbulent Cossack population which had raised formidable insurrections under Stenka Razin and Pugatcheff in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  Here, then, the more impatient agitators began their work.  A Kief group called the Buntari (rioters), composed of about twenty-five individuals, settled in various localities as small shopkeepers or horse dealers, or went about as workmen or peddlers.  One member of the group has given us in his reminiscences an amusing account of the experiment.  Everywhere the agitators found the peasants suspicious and inhospitable, and consequently they had to suffer a great deal of discomfort.  Some of them at once gave up the task as hopeless.  The others settled in a village and began operations.  Having made a topographic survey of the locality, they worked out an ingenious plan of campaign; but they had no recruits for the future army of insurrection, and if they had been