Many members of the
young generation, male and female, had imbibed the most advanced
political and socialist theories of France and Germany, and they
imagined that, by putting these into practice, Russia might advance by a
single bound far beyond the more conservative nations and set an example
for imitation to the future generations of humanity! The less violent of
these enthusiasts, recognizing that a certain amount of preparatory work
was necessary, undertook a campaign of propaganda among the lower
classes, as factory workers in the towns and school teachers in the
villages. The more violent, on the contrary, considered that a quicker
and more efficient method of attaining the desired object was the
destruction of autocracy by revolvers and bombs, and several attempts
were accordingly made on the lives of the Czar and his advisers. For
more than ten years, undismayed by these revolutionary manifestations,
Alexander II. clung to his ideas of reform, but at last, in 1881, on the
eve of issuing a decree for the convocation of a National Assembly, he
fell a victim to the bomb throwers.
The practical result of all this was that for the next quarter of a
century no great reforms were initiated, but those already effected were
consolidated, and some progress was made in a quiet, unostentatious way,
especially in the sphere of economic development.
A new period of reform began after the Japanese war, and this time the
reform current took the direction of parliamentary institutions.
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