The result of all this was to drive the zemstvos toward the revolutionary movements of the peasants and the city workers.  That the zemstvos were not naturally inclined to radicalism and revolution needs no demonstration.  Economic interest, tradition, and environment all conspired to keep these popular bodies conservative.  Landowners were always in the majority and in general the zemstvos reflected the ideas and ideals of the enlightened wealthy and cultivated classes.  The peasant representatives in the zemstvos were generally peasants of the most successful and prosperous type, hating the revolutionists and all their works.  By means of a policy incredibly insane these conservatively inclined elements of the population were goaded to revolt.  The newspapers and magazines of the zemstvos became more and more critical of the government, more and more outspoken in denunciation of existing conditions.  Presently, the leaders of the zemstvos followed the example of the revolutionists and held a secret convention at which a program for common action was agreed upon.  Thus they were resorting to illegal methods, exactly as the Socialists had done.  Finally, many of the liberal zemstvo leaders formed themselves into a political party—­the Union of Liberation—­with a special organ of its own, called Emancipation.  This organ, edited by the brilliant and courageous Peter Struve, was published in Stuttgart, Germany, and, since its circulation in Russia was forbidden, it had to be smuggled into the country and secretly circulated, just as the revolutionary Socialist journals were.  Thus another bond was established between two very different movements.

As was inevitable, revolutionary terrorism enormously increased.  In the cities the working-men were drawn mainly into the Social Democratic Working-men’s party, founded by Plechanov and others in 1898, but the peasants, in so far as they were aroused at all, rallied around the standard of the Socialist-Revolutionists, successors to the Will of the People party.  This party was peculiarly a party of the peasants, just as the party of Plechanov was peculiarly a party of industrial workers.  It emphasized the land question above all else.  It naturally scorned the view, largely held by the Marxists in the other party, that Russia must wait until her industrial development was perfected before attempting to realize Socialism.  It scorned the slow, legalistic methods and resolutely answered the terrorism of Czarism by a terrorism of the people.  It maintained a special department for carrying on this grim work.  Its Central Committee passed sentences of death upon certain officials, and its decrees were carried out by the members of its Fighting Organization.  To this organization within the party belonged many of the ablest and most consecrated men and women in Russia.