A Secret Service: Being Strange Tales of a Nihilist — Background and Themes

orewords are necessary to this record of an adventurous life.

At the outset it is my earnest desire to disabuse the minds of English readers that the Narodnaya Volya, or the Party of Freedom, are mere murder leagues. Unfortunately, English writers, unacquainted with Russian life, ignorant of the true objects of the organisation, or of its inner working, and only recognising its far-reaching influence, have surrounded Nihilism with a glamour and mystery that would be highly amusing to us were it not for the fact that their sensational and sanguinary narratives injure our cause. So little does the average Englishman know of the conditions of life under the Tzar, that any argument in favour of Nihilism would be useless and wearisome, therefore I leave him to decide for himself, after reading the exciting episodes of a strange career, whether Autocracy or Freedom is to be preferred.

I, Anton Prèhznev, subject of the Tzar, now in exile in England, hereby make free and full confession of my secret alliance with the so-called and mis-called Nihilist Party. We, who are struggling to effect a change for the better in the internal and economical condition of the Russian people, look with envy upon every Englishman, at the same time regarding him as a brother. To overthrow the dynasty by murder is not our object, although, alas! human life has been sacrificed, as my narrative will show. We desire peace; and while staying our hand and refraining from dealing the blows that are at this moment in our power to strike at the Imperial Autocracy, we are living in the expectation that the flood of popular indignation will sweep off the face of the Russian soil the bureaucracy, the _tchinovniks_, and the present ruinous and shameful system of organised robbery and tyranny, and create something better than the existing brutality and corruption that has plunged so many millions in abject misery.

Prior to narrating the exciting incidents of my career, it will be necessary, in order that it should be rightly understood why I lifted a hand against the rule of the Tzar, Alexander III., or his successor the Tzar Nicholas, to describe the tragic events which led to the overflow of my indignation against tyranny, and caused my subsequent alliance with the Brothers of Freedom.

Few English readers rightly understand the claims of the Russian Revolutionists, therefore it will be well to make an explanation, and I cannot do better than quote from the secretly printed manifesto issued by the Narodnoe Pravo (“Popular Right”) Party. This manifesto, which was recently circulated widely by clandestine means throughout the Russian Empire, and even in Siberia, points out in forcible language that Russia must now determine her further destinies, and consider the question of political freedom. It proceeds as follows:—

“As there is not, and cannot be, a hope that the Government will willingly enter upon the path indicated, there is but one course remaining to the people, to oppose by the force of organised public opinion the inertness of the Government and the narrow dynastic interests of the autocracy. The Narodnoe Pravo has in view the creation of this force. In the opinion of the Party popular right includes in itself alike the conception of the right of the people to political freedom, and the conception of its right to secure its material needs upon the basis of national production. The Party considers the guarantees of this right to be:—Representative government on the basis of universal suffrage; freedom of religious belief; independence of the Courts of Justice; freedom of the Press; freedom of meeting and association; inviolability of the individual, and of his rights as a man.

“Thus understanding popular right, the Party sets itself the task of uniting all the oppositional elements of the country, and of organising an active force which should, with all the spiritual and material means at its disposal, attain the overthrow of autocracy, and secure to every one the rights of a citizen and a man.”

I commenced life under a disadvantage, for I am a Jew.