and the better times did not seem to be within measurable
distance. He himself, after publishing a brochure entitled "Why I Ceased
to Be a Revolutionist," made his peace with the Government, and others
followed his example.* In one prison nine made formal recantations,
among them Emilianof, who held a reserve bomb ready when Alexander II.
was assassinated. Occasional acts of terrorism showed that there was
still fire under the smouldering embers, but they were few and far
between. The last serious incident of the kind during this period was
the regicide conspiracy of Sheviryoff in March, 1887. The conspirators,
carrying the bombs, were arrested in the principal street of St.
Petersburg, and five of them were hanged. The railway accident of Borki,
which happened in the following year, and in which the Imperial family
had a very narrow escape, ought perhaps to be added to the list, because
there is reason to believe that it was the work of revolutionists.

* Tikhomirof subsequently worked against the Social
Democrats in Moscow in the interests of the Government.

By this time all the cooler heads among the revolutionists, especially
those who were living abroad in personal safety, had come to understand
that the Socialist ideal could not be attained by popular insurrection,
terrorism, or conspiracies, and consequently that further activity
on the old lines was absurd. Those of them who did not abandon the
enterprise in despair reverted to the idea that Autocratic Power,
impregnable against frontal attacks, might be destroyed by prolonged
siege operations. This change of tactics is reflected in the
revolutionary literature. In 1889, for example, the editor of the
Svobodnaya Rossia declared that the aim of the movement now
was political freedom--not only as a stepping-stone to social
reorganisation, but as a good in itself. This is, he explains, the only
possible revolution at present in Russia. "For the moment there can be
no other immediate practical aim. Ulterior aims are not abandoned, but
they are not at present within reach. . . The revolutionists of the
seventies and the eighties did not succeed in creating among the
peasantry or the town workmen anything which had even the appearance
of a force capable of struggling with the Government; and the
revolutionists of the future will have no greater success until they
have obtained such political rights as personal inviolability. Our
immediate aim, therefore, i