le."
Recalling these words, Nicholas II. confirmed them at his accession, and
warned the peasants not to be led astray by evil-disposed persons.

Notwithstanding these repeated warnings, the peasants still cling to
the idea that all the land belongs to them; and the
Socialist-Revolutionaries now announce publicly that they intend to use
this belief for the purpose of carrying out their revolutionary designs.
In a pamphlet entitled "Concerning Liberty and the Means of Obtaining
it," they explain their plan of campaign. Under the guidance of the
revolutionary agents the peasants of each district all over the Empire
are to make it impossible for the proprietors to work their estates, and
then, after driving away the local authorities and rural police, they
are to take possession of the estates for their own use. The Government,
in its vain attempts to dislodge them, will have to employ all the
troops at its disposal, and this will give the working classes of the
towns, led by the revolutionists, an opportunity of destroying the most
essential parts of the administrative mechanism. Thus a great social
revolution can be successfully accomplished, and any Zemski Sobor or
Parliament which may be convoked will merely have to give a legislative
sanction to accomplished facts.

These three groups--the Liberals, the Social Democrats, and the
Socialist Revolutionaries--constitute what may be called the purely
Russian Opposition. They found their claims and justify their action
on utilitarian and philosophic grounds, and demand liberty (in various
senses) for themselves and others, independently of race and creed. This
distinguishes them from the fourth group, who claim to represent
the subject-nationalities, and who mingle nationalist feelings and
aspirations with enthusiasm for liberty and justice in the abstract.

The policy of Russifying these subject-nationalities, which was
inaugurated by Alexander III. and maintained by his successor, has
failed in its object. It has increased the use of the Russian language
in official procedure, modified the system of instruction in the schools
and universities, and brought, nominally, a few schismatic and heretical
sheep into the Eastern Orthodox fold, but it has entirely failed to
inspire the subject-populations with Russian feeling and national
patriotism; on the contrary, it has aroused in them a bitter hostility
to Russian nationality, and to the Central Government. In such of
them