ilure, nor by the discovery of its
secret printing-press by the police, the Executive Committee next tried
to attain its object by an explosion of dynamite in the Winter Palace
when the Imperial family were assembled at dinner. The execution was
entrusted to a certain Halturin, one of the few revolutionists of
peasant origin. As an exceptionally clever carpenter and polisher, he
easily found regular employment in the palace, and he contrived to make
a rough plan of the building. This plan, on which the dining-hall was
marked with an ominous red cross, fell into the hands of the police, and
they made what they considered a careful investigation; but they failed
to unravel the plot and did not discover the dynamite concealed in the
carpenters' sleeping quarters. Halturin showed wonderful coolness while
the search was going on, and continued to sleep every night on the
explosive, though it caused him excruciating headaches. When he was
assured by the chemist of the Executive Committee that the quantity
collected was sufficient, he exploded the mine at the usual dinner hour,
and contrived to escape uninjured.* In the guardroom immediately above
the spot where the dynamite was exploded ten soldiers were killed and 53
wounded, and in the dining-hall the floor was wrecked, but the Imperial
family escaped in consequence of not sitting down to dinner at the usual
hour.

* After living some time in Roumania he returned to Russia
under the name of Stepanof, and in 1882 he was tried and
executed for complicity in the assassination of General
Strebnekof.

For this barbarous act the Executive Committee publicly accepted full
responsibility. In a proclamation placarded in the streets of St.
Petersburg it declared that, while regretting the death of the soldiers,
it was resolved to carry on the struggle with the Autocratic Power
until the social reforms should be entrusted to a Constituent Assembly,
composed of members freely elected and furnished with instructions from
their constituents.

Finding police-repression so ineffectual, Alexander II. determined to
try the effect of conciliation, and for this purpose he placed Loris
Melikof at the head of the Government, with semi-dictatorial powers
(February, 1880). The experiment did not succeed. By the Terrorists
it was regarded as "a hypocritical Liberalism outwardly and a veiled
brutality within," while in the official world it was condemned as an
act of culpable