ignorant masses and asked them to join them in the coming
struggle.

This epoch has been called "the moral springtime" of Russia, and in
truth it was a spring with all of its real splendors and illusions.
A sudden wave of life surged from one end of the empire to the
other. Up above, the government was making reforms prudently, as if
afraid of going too far; down below, a great transformation was
taking place. It was at this time that certain bold projects were
contemplated at which the government took fright. The "springtime"
proved ephemeral. A triumphant reaction nipped in the bud this
movement towards emancipation, with all its hopes. In 1877, after
the Russo-Turkish war, it seemed as if the movement were going to
start again. Less vast and less diverse, but more definite, it
immediately put all of its strength into the popular propaganda and
showed its activity by the assassination of the emperor and by
several other crimes. It was a terrible struggle, till finally the
leaders again succumbed under the mighty blows of their adversaries.
The years that followed this defeat (1880-1905) were most
inauspicious in Russian life. A profound apathy deadened society,
and an atmosphere of anguish and disillusion--which have left
visible traces in Russian literature--weighed it down.

* * * * *

In short, it may be said that Russian thought has always been led
away by the theories of certain European parties who are most
opposed to political and social organization of the state.

The vigor, the clearness, and the force of negation with which this
characteristic manifests itself in the ideas and customs of the
Russian radical-socialists have often distorted, in the eyes of
other countries, opinions or doctrines which it is important to
present in their true light.

Thus, Bazarov, that nihilistic creation of Turgenev, appeared to the
English, French, and German public as a mystical hero not viable in
human society, while Pisarev, one of the sanest of Russian critics,
considers him as a model of the really free man. As to Turgenev
himself, he saw that the coming of this type would make concrete a
rising force worthy of holding attention and also of commanding some
respect.

In practical life, this negative force has found its most extreme
expression in what has already been pointed out, that is, in the
revolutionary anarchism of Bakunin and in Tolstoy's recent theories
of pacific anarchism