Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-pfhbr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T21:16:19.989Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

S. M. Kravchinskii and the National Front Against Autocracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Donald Senese
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The concessions embodied in the Manifesto of October 30, 1905 were wrung from the Russian autocracy by an opposition united as it had never been before. For once all the forces of Russian society which stood for change were focused on a common goal, the acquisition of a constitution and political rights. This remarkable consensus was largely the achievement of a group of Russian liberals, the osvobozhdentsy or “liberationists” inspired by the émigré newspaper Osvobozhdenie and guided by the Union of Liberation [Soiuz Osvobozhdeniia] inside Russia. The idea of a national front against autocracy did not, however, originate with the “liberationists.” Tendencies towards union within the ranks of the Russian opposition can be perceived over a decade before the appearance of the first issue of Osvobozhdenie. In the 1890s these tendencies were strengthened and national front tactics popularized by the work of the Russian Free Press Fund [Fond Vol'noi Russkoi Pressy] in London.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , September 1975 , pp. 506 - 522
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1975

References

1. A survey of the extensive literature in Russian on this topic can be found in Fischer, George, Russian Liberalism: From Gentry to Intelligentsia (Cambridge, Mass., 1958)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Probably the best single account is D. I. Shakhovskoi, “Soiuz osvobozhdeniia,” Zarnitsy, no. 2 (Moscow, 1909), pp. 81-171. See also the relevant chapters in Treadgold, Donald, Lenin and his Rivals (New York, 1955)Google Scholar; and Pipes, Richard, Struve: Liberal on the Left, 1870-1905 (Cambridge, Mass., 1970)Google Scholar.

2. Nevedomskii, M. [Miklashevskii, M. P.], “80-ye i 90-ye gody v nashei literature,” Istoriia Rossii v XIX veke, 9 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1907-11), 9: 103 Google Scholar. Miklashevskii's comments are especially valuable, since as a member of Narodnoe Pravo he was sensitive to the development of national front sentiment.

3. Houghton Library, Harvard University has all the titles issued under the RFPF imprint, as well as the complete run of Letuchie listki. Information about various aspects of the Fund's activities can be found in: Taratuta, E. A., Etel’ Lilian Voinich: Sutfba pisatelia i sud'ba knigi, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1964)Google Scholar. Stepniak-Kravchinskii, S. M., V londonskoi emigratsii, eds. Ermasheva, M. E. and Zakharina, V. F. (Moscow, 1968)Google Scholar. Dioneo, [Shklovskii, I. V.], “V emigratsii,” in Titov, A. A., ed., Nikolai Vasil'evich Chaikovskii (Paris, 1929)Google Scholar. Volkhovskii, F. V., “L. Shishko (biograficheskii ocherk),” in Pamiati Leonida Emmanuilovicha Shishko (Geneva, 1910)Google Scholar. Gol'denberg, L. B., “Vospominaniia,” Katorga i ssylka, 1924, no. 5, pp. 106–20Google Scholar; 1924, no. 6, pp. 121-26. The Paris Okhrana File at the Hoover Institute on War, Revolution, and Peace contains much material of varying quality. The Volkhovskoi [sic] File also at the Hoover Institute deals to some extent with the Fund's operations. A potentially more valuable collection of Volkhovskii's papers are as yet uncatalogued at the Houghton Library (accession no. *68M-120).

4. For a description of the Society see Barry Hollingsworth, “The Society of Friends of Russian Freedom: English Liberals and Russian Socialists, 1890-1917,” Oxford Slavonic Papers, n.s., 3 (1970): 45-64.

5. Felix Vadimovich Volkhovskii, 1846-1914. Studied law at Moscow University. Imprisoned for revolutionary activity three times prior to 1870. Formed student circle in Odessa in 1872. Met Kravchinskii in the winter of 1873-74. Convicted in “the trial of the 193.” Exiled to Tomsk where he edited the Sibirskaia gazeta together with Leonid Shishko. Escaped to Canada in 1889. Associate editor of Free Russia from the fall of 1890.

6. Leonid Emmanuilovich Shishko, 1852-1910. Fellow student of Kravchinskii at Mikhailovskii Artillery School 1869. Joined the Chaikovskii Circle in 1874. Convicted in the “trial of the 193.” Met Volkhovskii in exile in Tomsk.. Fled abroad in August 1890. Arrived in England in early 1891. Nikolai Vasil'evich Chaikovskii, 1850-1926. Organized in St. Petersburg the wellknown Chaikovskii Circle which Kravchinskii joined in 1871. Emigrated to U.S. in 1875. Came to England in May 1878. Acted as Kravchinskii's literary agent in England and persuaded him to settle there in 1884.

7. S. M. Stepniak-Kravchinskii, Sobranie sochinenii, 6 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1906-8), 6: 22-23Google Scholar.

8. Ibid., p. 6.

9. Ibid., pp. 7-5.

10. Ibid., pp. 8-9.

11. Ibid., pp. 14-15.

12. Ibid., pp. 16-17. The “foreign model” here is the German Social-Democratic Party.

13. A. Potresov, “Evoliutsiia obshchestvenno-politicheskoi mysli v predrevoliutsionnuiu epokhu,” in L. Martov, P. Maslov, Potresov, A., eds., Obshchestvennoe dvizhenie v Rossii v nachale XX-ogo veka, 4 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1909-12), 1: 555 Google Scholar.

14. Four numbers of Samoupravlenie were published between December 1887 and April 1889.

15. Samoupravlenie, no. 1 (December 1887), pp. 1-2.

16. Svoboda was edited by K. M. Turskii and S. Kniazhnin [S. M. Kogan]. Published irregularly in 1888 and 1889, it was directed to a liberal audience and urged sympathy with socialist goals and terrorist tactics. Svobodnaia Rossiia was edited by V. L. Burtsev and V. K. Debogorii-Mokrievich. Three numbers were published between February and April 1889.

17. Shirokova, V. V., Partiia “Narodnogo Prava” (Saratov, 1972), pp. 33–64 Google Scholar.

18. Throughout the period, however, his views on the proper content and form of propaganda were shifting continuously. The best modern treatment of this subject is Taratuta, E. A., S. M. Stepniak-Kravchinskii: Rcvoliutsioner i pisatel’ (Moscow, 1973)Google Scholar. Other useful studies are Maevskaia, T. P., Slovo i podvig: Zhisn’ i tvorchestvo S. M. Stepniaka- Kravchinskogo (Kiev, 1968)Google Scholar; and Zakharina, V. F., Golos revoliutsionnoi Rossii (Moscow, 1971)Google Scholar. Most valuable are the recollections of contemporaries: Deutsch, L. G., Sergei Mikhailovich Kravchinskii-Stepniak (Baloven’ sud'by) (Petrograd, 1919)Google Scholar. Shishko, L. E., Sergei Mikhailovich Kravchinskii i kruzhok chaikovtsev (Geneva, 1903)Google Scholar. Kropotkin, P., “Vospominaniia o Stepniake,” in Stepniak-Kravchinskii, , Sobranie sochinenii (St. Petersburg, 1907), l: xi–xxxi.Google Scholar

19. Deutsch is emphatic on this point (Baloven’ sud'by), p. 30. See also Berkova, K. M., S. M. Kravchinskii (K tridtsatiletiiu so dnia smerti) (Moscow, 1925), p. 8 Google Scholar; and Kravchinskii's tribute to Zasulich in Obshchina, no. 3/4, quoted in Taratuta, 5” . M. Stepniak- Kravchinskii, pp. 155-57.

20. Interview published in the New York Times, August 16, 1886, p. 5.

21. Aptekman, O. V., Obshchestvo “Zemlia i Volia” 70-kh gg. (Petrograd, 1924), pp. 328–29 Google Scholar.

22. Liubatovich, O. S., “Dalekoe i nedavnee,” Byloe, May 1906, pp. 210–11Google Scholar.

23. Deutsch, , (Baloven’ sud'by), p. 66 Google Scholar.

24. Ibid., p. 64. Plekhanov's appraisal of Dragomanov's influence is seen in a parody he composed on Lermontov's “Demon” in which Kravchinskii played Tamara to Dragomanov's demon.

25. Volk, S. S., ed., Revoliutsionnoe narodnichestvo 70-kh godov XIX veka, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1965), 2: 344 Google Scholar.

26. Ibid., pp. 342-43.

27. “Materialy i dokumenty,” Na chuzhoi storone, 10 (1925): 202.

28. Letter to Zasulich, V., June 1878, “Iz perepiski S. M. Kravchinskogo,” Krasnyi arkhiv, 19 (1926): 196 Google Scholar.

29. Deutsch (Baloven’ sud'by), p. 18. Shishko, Sergei Mikhailovich Kravchinskii i kruzhok chaikovtsev, p. 4. Kropotkin, “Vospominaniia o Stepniake,” p. xxv. Even police spies commented on this ability, Obzor vazhneishikh doznanii po delam o gosudarstvennykh prestupleniiakh proizvodivshikhsia v Zhandarmskikh Upravleniiakh Imperii (July 1, 1883- January 1, 1884), pp. 64-65.

30. Liubatovich, “Dalekoe i nedavnee,” p. 239.

31. Deutsch (Baloven’ sud'by), p. 65Google Scholar.

32. “Pis'ma Kravchinskogo, S.,” Katorga i ssylka, 48 (1928): 76–77Google Scholar. 33. Taratuta, E. A., Etel’ Lilian Voinich: Sud'ba pisatelia i sud'ba knigi, p. 89 Google Scholar.

34. Catalogue bound interleaf with Letuchie listki at Houghton Library, Harvard (Slav 1450.30*).

35. No. 8 RFPF series (London, 1894). Contemporaries, quite unfairly, tended to regard Volkhovskii as Kravchinskii's epigone. For an assessment of his independent contribution to the RFPF, as well as that of Chaikovskii, see Donald Senese, “S. M. Kravchinskii and the London Emigration” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1970).

36. Ibid., pp. 9-14.

37. Ibid., p. 19.

38. Ibid., pp. 30-32.

39. Ibid., p. 43.

40. Letuchie listki izdavaemye Fondom Vol'noi Russkoi Pressy v Londone, no. 41 (December 1, 1897), pp. 14-15.

41. Ibid., no. 1 (December 25, 1893), p. 4.

42. Free Russia, December 1893, p. 135.

43. Taratuta, E. A., Pod'polnaia Rossiia: Sud'ba knigi S. M. Stepniaka-Kravchinskogo (Moscow, 1967), pp. 213–25 Google Scholar.

44. No. 8 RFPF series.

45. Shirokova, , Partita “Narodnogo Prava,” p. 146 Google Scholar.

46. Ibid., p. 121.

47. Vozzvanie partii “Narodnogo Prava” (supplement to no. 16 RFPF series). Letuchie listki, no. 9 (June 25, 1894), pp. 1-2; no. 15 (February 9, 1895), pp. 4-5; no. 30 (March 22, 1896), p. 10.

48. Letuchie listki, no. 27 (December 1, 1895), p. 7.

49. Ibid., no. 1 (December 25, 1893), p. 4.

50. Obsor vazhneishikh dosnanii … (1892-93), pp. 219—20.

51. Letuchie listki, no. IS (February 9, 1895), p. 1.

52. Free Russia, April 1895, pp. 27-28.

53. Letuchie listki, no. 27 (December 1, 1895), p. 8.

54. The clearest account of the accident is Kropotkin's in “Vospominaniia o Stepniake,” pp. xxvii-xxix; the most detailed is E. E. Lazarev's, Letuchie listki, no. 28 (January 18, 1896), pp. 3-6Google Scholar. Neither account gives any basis for later claims of suicide or foul play.

55. Dioneo, [Shklovskii, I. V.], “V emigratsii,” in Titov, A. A., ed., Nikolai Vasil'evich Chaikovskii, vol. 1, p. 206 Google Scholar; K. N. Berkova, 5. M. Kravchinskii (K tridtsatiletiiu so dnia smerti), p. 16; Deutsch (Baloven’ sud'by), p. 67.

56. Obzor vashneishikh doznanii … (1895-96), p. 291.

57. Letuchie listki, no. 28 (January 18, 1896), p. 8.

58. Chernov, V. M., Pered buret (New York, 1953), p. 1953 Google Scholar.

59. Ibid., pp. 107-8.

60. Tereshkovich, K, “Posle katorgi v emigratsiiu,” Katorga i ssylka, 1928, no. 42, p. 78 Google Scholar. Letuchie listki, no. 35 (September 15, 1896), pp. 6-7.

61. R. M. Plekhanova et al., eds., Literaturnoe nasledie G. V. Plekhanova, 8 vols. (Moscow, 1934-40), 4: 305Google Scholar.

62. [Chernov, V. M.] Ocherednoi vopros (London, 1900), p. 2 Google Scholar.

63. Kubov, A, “S. N. Sletov (biograficheskii ocherk)?,” Pamiati Stepana Nikolaevicha Sletova (Paris, 1916), pp. 10–11 Google Scholar. Chernov, , Pered burei, p. 158 Google Scholar.

64. Pipes, , Struve, p. 363 Google Scholar.

65. Miliukov, P., Russia and its Crisis (New York, 1962), p. 1962 Google Scholar.