It was Turguenief who first applied the ancient term “Nihilist” to a certain class of radical thinkers in Russia, whose theory of society, like that of the eighteenth-century philosophers in France, was based upon a negation of the principle of authority.  All institutions, social and political, however disguised, were tyrannies, and must go.  In the newly awakened Russian mind, this first assumed the mild form of a demand for the removal of legislative tyranny, by a system of gradual reforms.  This had failed—­now the demand had become a mandate.  The people must have relief.  The Tsar was the one person who could bestow it, and if he would not do so voluntarily, he must be compelled to grant it.  No one man had the right to wreck the happiness of millions of human beings.  If the authority was centralized, so was the responsibility.  Alexander’s entire reign had been a curse—­and emancipation was a delusion and a lie.  He must yield or perish.  This vicious and degenerate organization had its center in a highly educated middle class, where men with nineteenth-century intelligence and aspirations were in frenzied revolt against methods suited to the time of the Khans.  The inspiring motive was not love of the people, but hatred of their oppressors.  Appeals to the peasantry brought small response, but the movement was eagerly joined by men and women from the highest ranks in Russia.

Secret societies and organizations were everywhere at work, recruited by misguided enthusiasts, and by human suffering from all classes.  Wherever there were hearts bruised and bleeding from official cruelty, in whatever ranks, there the terrible propaganda found sympathizers, if not a home; men—­and still more, women—­from the highest families in the nobility secretly pledging themselves to the movement, until Russian society was honeycombed with conspiracy extending even to the household of the Tsar.  Proclamations were secretly issued calling upon the peasantry to arise.  In spite of the vigilance of the police, similar invitations to all the Russian people were posted in conspicuous places—­“We are tired of famine, tired of having our sons perish upon the gallows, in the mines, or in exile.  Russia demands liberty; and if she cannot have liberty—­she will have vengeance!”

Such was the tenor of the threats which made the life of Emperor Alexander a miserable one after 1870.  He had done what not one of his predecessors had been willing to do.  He had, in the face of the bitterest opposition, bestowed the gift of freedom upon 23,000,000 human beings.  In his heart he believed he deserved the good-will and the gratitude of his subjects.  How gladly would he have ruled over a happy empire!  But what could he do?  He had absolute power to make his people miserable—­but none to make them happy.  It was not his fault that he occupied a throne which could only be made secure by a policy of stern repression.  It was not his fault that he ruled through a system so elementary, so crude, so utterly inadequate, that to administer justice was an impossibility.  Nor was it his fault that he had inherited autocratic instincts from a long line of ancestors.  In other words, it was not his fault that he was the Tsar of Russia!