of the Press censure, a novel called
"Shto delat'?" ("What is to be Done?"), which was regarded at first as
a most harmless production, but which is now considered one of the most
influential and baneful works in the whole range of Nihilist literature.
As a novel it had no pretensions to artistic merit, and in ordinary
times it would have attracted little or no attention, but it put into
concrete shape many of the vague Socialist and Communist notions that
were at the moment floating about in the intellectual atmosphere, and
it came to be looked upon by the young enthusiasts as a sort of informal
manifesto of their new-born faith. It was divided into two parts; in
the first was described a group of students living according to the
new ideas in open defiance of traditional conventionalities, and in the
second was depicted a village organised on the communistic principles
recommended by Fourier. The first was supposed to represent the dawn of
the new era; the second, the goal to be ultimately attained. When the
authorities discovered the mistake they had committed in allowing the
book to be published, it was at once confiscated and withdrawn from
circulation, whilst the author, after being tried by the Senate, was
exiled to Northeastern Siberia and kept there for nearly twenty years.*

* Tchernishevski was a man of encyclopaedic knowledge and
specially conversant with political economy. According to
the testimony of those who knew him intimately, he was one
of the ablest and most sympathetic men of his generation.
During his exile a bold attempt was made to rescue him, and
very nearly succeeded. A daring youth, disguised as an
officer of gendarmes and provided with forged official
papers, reached the place where he was confined and procured
his release, but the officer in charge had vague suspicions,
and insisted on the two travellers being escorted to the
next post-station by a couple of Cossacks. The rescuer
tried to get rid of the escort by means of his revolver, but
he failed in the attempt, and the fugitives were arrested.
In 1883 Tchernishevski was transferred to the milder climate
of Astrakhan, and in 1889 he was allowed to return to his
native town, Saratof, where he died a few months afterwards.

With the arrest and exile of Tchernishevski the young would-be reformers
were constrained to recognise that they had no chance of carryi