The Icon and the Axe

civil order through a coldlynulonal ???^?^?^??????^???????, manipulation, and deception. To implement his program Nechaev set up a series of "revolutionary fives," each secret from the other and connected only by a hierarchy that exercised absolute discipline over all. Nechaev evolved the extraordmary 1?‹^???„??^^

involving his fellow revolutiqr^ieiLin_ajCimmi^^inci-

dent on November 2i7j[H62› he and the three other members of a Moscow "???*~??1??1)????^ student and fellow conspinitOTj^aujse_j^i^ ???^^^^?^5?"^^^?????^?^?5^^5???? received from a (nonexistent) "central committee." The Nechaev affair became a cause celebre__ that did not leaveTnF^ubK eye for nearly five years. It took the Tsarist govSiirnernTTwo^yeMsTo™caTch ???????????'??^ 871 to try him. The

a "monstrosity," a survival of th£^gone_^ec^entric" or "metaphysical^

stagT'oTThlsTcrr^TTiey' believed in Comte's and Chaikovsky's "religion of

humanity" rather than Nechaev's religion of revolution.-

WTtn, nowever, the genejaHumJo^^ioJejc^an^the triuinphof_reac-tionary Pan-Slavism, populists were no Jonger able to scoff at the cynical coritJiitiorTof NecEaeTtEaT^o lovethepeoplejneans to lead it by grape-shot?is Tri" order to sustain its all-important vision of a dramatic social transformation in Russia, the populists were forced to OTnsjdertijgjOTg.-neglected question of a politicaldternaweJ?^tocragy. The lack of any parliamentary or legal opposition bodies through which to work and the enduring superstition of "idea-less" liberal reformers left them no anchor to prevent drifting into the whirlpool of revolution.

The siren song which lured them was that of the last great theorist of Russian Jacobinism, PeterTkacheTTHe" was a'v^teran' ????^^??^???????**-' portant conspiratorial organization of the sixties, a confirmed materialist andegalitarian who ha3 led the warofthe sons against the fathers by helping write "Young Russia" and urging at one point that mercy killing be administered to everyone over the age of twenty-five.

True to the tradition of professional revolutionaries, Tkachev was

deeply opposed to ffie~vag^Mes§^nd"o^!ifmsm(3f th^^pulisTbadition; but

urimte"pfeTiouTimeoret^^he saw in" trie

intetegefflsTy-ter^aT^FeltiFd populism the logical social grouping from which to recruit revolutionary leadership. In a correspondence with Engels in 1874-5, he foresaw the emergence of an "intelligentnaia revolutionary party" in Russia. In his Russian-language journal Nabat (The Alarm Bell) published from 1875-81 and aimed only at the intelligent, elite audience, he urged the rootless intpVJ^tnaJs_2f_Rqissin t? form n disciplined, military"* revolutionary organization out of their own ranks. He opposed relying on the popuhsHfhisjon of pej:s^m^sup_port or waiting fOT^^^nwgence of an_ urbanjaoletariat to providejnateriaHor a Marxist type of revolution. The important thing was to""aevelop a militant organization capable of over-throwing the existing regime through revolution. The nabat provided the -J signal to rally for emergency combat in Old Russia: and that was precisely what Tkachev intended that his journal should provide for Young Russia.

Tkachev did not exercise major influence on either the ideology or the

tactics which the second Land and Liberty and the People's Will adopted.

These organizations were true to thar^ojjuHsiJiejitag^to

believe in lETj^sibjih^

and""other groups; in being reluctant revolutionaries and_pooj _organi?ejs whose principal technique of political stru^gle_w^sj^dom_asjassination; and in seeking to[Represent themselves as expressions o£ "the jeQple'iwilL^ Nevertheless, the People's Will organization represents a fulfillment of (if not a response to) Tkachev's basic idea that Russia could and should produce out of its uprooted intellectual community a revolutionary organization with the conscious political objective of overthrowing tsarism.

With the formation of the People's Will organization in the summer of 182^1^^^^°^?^^2?^^~^^^.? ? dramatic prograrn__and^a, nationwide organization *°????_ amp;^^?^??? and organization-that reacl^onaryextre^^