f
this kind was the southern and southeastern region, inhabited by
the descendants of the turbulent Cossack population which had raised
formidable insurrections under Stenka Razin and Pugatcheff in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Here, then, the more impatient
agitators began their work. A Kief group called the Buntari (rioters),
composed of about twenty-five individuals, settled in various localities
as small shopkeepers or horse dealers, or went about as workmen or
peddlers. One member of the group has given us in his reminiscences an
amusing account of the experiment. Everywhere the agitators found the
peasants suspicious and inhospitable, and consequently they had to
suffer a great deal of discomfort. Some of them at once gave up the
task as hopeless. The others settled in a village and began operations.
Having made a topographic survey of the locality, they worked out an
ingenious plan of campaign; but they had no recruits for the future army
of insurrection, and if they had been able to get recruits, they had no
arms for them, and no money wherewith to purchase arms or anything else.
In these circumstances they gravely appointed a committee to collect
funds, knowing very well that no money would be forthcoming. It was
as if a shipwrecked crew in an open boat, having reached the brink of
starvation, appointed a committee to obtain a supply of fresh water and
provisions! In the hope of obtaining assistance from headquarters, a
delegate was sent to St. Petersburg and Moscow to explain that for the
arming of the population about a quarter of a million of roubles was
required. The delegate brought back thirty second-hand revolvers! The
revolutionist who confesses all this* recognises that the whole scheme
was childishly unpractical: "We chose the path of popular insurrection
because we had faith in the revolutionary spirit of the masses, in its
power and its invincibility. That was the weak side of our position; and
the most curious part of it was that we drew proofs in support of
our theory from history--from the abortive insurrections of Pazin and
Pugatcheff, which took place in an age when the Government had only a
small regular army and no railways or telegraphs! We did not even think
of attempting a propaganda among the military!" In the district of
Tchigirin the agitators had a little momentary success, but the result
was the same. There a student called Stefanovitch pretended that the
Tsar was strugglin