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Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions

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Radicalism as Political Religion? The Case of Vera Figner

Stephan Rindlisbacher
a a

University of Bern, Switzerland

Available online: 06 Aug 2010

To cite this article: Stephan Rindlisbacher (2010): Radicalism as Political Religion? The Case of Vera Figner, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 11:1, 67-87 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14690764.2010.499672

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Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, Vol. 11, No. 1, 6787, March 2010

Radicalism as Political Religion? The Case of Vera Figner

STEPHAN RINDLISBACHER*
University of Bern, Switzerland
0 1000002010 11 Taylor and Movements and (online) 2010 & Francis Original Article 1469-0764 Francis Totalitarian(print)/1743-9647Political Religions 10.1080/14690764.2010.499672 FTMP_A_499672.sgm

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ABSTRACT Vera Figner was a leading member of the Russian terrorist group Narodnaia Volia [Peoples Will] in the late 1870s and early 1880s. In her biography one can trace what Eric Voegelin and Emilio Gentile called political religion. They argue that such a political religion is a basic component of mass mobilisation and also plays an important role in the exerting of political violence in totalitarian states in the twentieth century. Vera Figner and her comrades shared a deep belief in the Russian people as a sacralised secular entity. Because of their ascetic conduct of life within the group, they considered themselves as moral elite (virtuosi), able to lead the people to a better future. Within the political sect of Narodnaia Volia the unconditional submission to the authority of the Executive Committee and the resultant political violence against the regime became means to the revolutionary end. Vera Figner continued uncompromisingly in her struggle against the tsarist regime, even after it became clear that there was obviously no chance of success. In her view she had either to prevail or perish for her faith.

Introduction I had my God, my religion: the religion of liberty, equality and fraternity. In the name of this doctrine I bore everything.1 With these words Vera Nikolaevna Figner later described her mood, when she was being tried by a military court in 1884 for her leading position in the terrorist group Narodnaia Volia [Peoples Will]. Vera Figner was born into a Russian noble family. In her youth she was influenced by the modern ideas that were broadly discussed in Russian society after the Crimean War. She decided, like other noblewomen, to study medicine in Zurich, where she became part of the revolutionary milieu. Vera Figner went back to Russia without graduating in order to spread revolutionary ideas among the peasants. This peaceful form of propagandisation failed and some of the revolutionaries shifted to terrorism. For this
*Email: rindlisbacher@hist.unibe.ch 1 Vera Nikolaevna Figner, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v semi tomakh, 7 vols (Moscow: Izdatelstvo politkatorzhan, 1932), vol. 2, p.15. All quotes are translated by the author of the article. The article is lectured by Andreas Hemming.
ISSN 1469-0764 Print/ISSN 1743-9647 Online/10/010067-21 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14690764.2010.499672

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purpose Narodnaia Volia was formed and Vera Figner became one of its founding members. The most ambitious project, and greatest success, of this organisation was the assassination of Alexander II on 13 March 1881 (or 1 March using the Julian Calendar). Vera Figner helped to build the bombs but did not throw them herself.2 In 1883 she was the last of the leading members to be arrested, after which Narodnaia Volia finally collapsed. The tsarist judges condemned her to death. She was, however, not executed, but pardoned by Alexander III and subsequently imprisoned in the fortress Shlisselburg until 1904. During her exile in Western Europe (19061915), Vera Figner began to write down her memoirs. Her central intention was that her own and her comrades history should be preserved for coming generations.3 After the February Revolution in 1917, the archives of the tsarist secret police were opened and Vera Figners confessions, which she had made before tsarist investigators in 1883, were discovered. These confessions, 89 handwritten pages,4 were published immediately in the socialist-revolutionary journal Byloe [The Past].5 Later, they served in addition to the exile notes as basis for her comprehensive memoirs, which she could publish with the support of the Soviet authorities.6 The main interpretations of her own biography did not gravely change from 1883 up until 1932, although the historical contexts altered completely. These documents provide a good insight into how she assessed her biography and her path to political radicalism.7 What did Vera Figner mean by my religion, considering that she and many other Russian revolutionaries were proclaimed atheists?8 She seemed to be convinced that this religion was an essential part of her identity as a revolutionary. This article will deal with the question of the extent to which one is confronted with elements of political religion in her biography. In her memoirs, Vera Figner, as a leading member of Narodnaia Volia, described her own path to political violence in detail. Based on these sources the article will elaborate on the most important factors of her radicalisation and the form her radicalism took. While the concept of political religion has proven to be appropriate for the examination of totalitarian regimes in the twentieth century, to date, few attempts have been made to investigate whether elements of this concept could also be used to analyse politically radical groups. Klaus-Georg Riegel did examine the Bolsheviks in this light in his article on MarxismLeninism as Political Religion,
2

Anna V. Iakimova-Dikovskaia, Iz dalekogo proshlogo. Iz vospominanii o pokusheniiach na Aleksandra II, Katorga i ssylka 8/1 (1924), p.15. 3 RGALI (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva), f. 1185, op. 1, ed. khr. 133, l. 16. 4 GA RF (Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii), f. 102, 7-oe del-vo, 1884 g., op. 181, ed. khr. 747, ch. 4, ll. 33141. 5 Vera Nikolaevna Figner, Iz avtobiograi V e ry Figner, Byloe part 1: 24/2 (1917), pp.15382 /part 2: 25/3 (1917), pp.16691/part 3: 26/4 (1917), pp.5789. 6 Vera Nikolaevna Figner, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v shesti tomakh, 6 vols (Moscow: Izdatelstvo politkatorzhan, 19281930) and Vera Figner, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v semi tomakh, 7 vols (Moscow: Izdatelstvo politkatorzhan, 1932). The 1932 edition of Vera Figners collected works (later: PSS) will be used for the following analysis. 7 Two unpublished dissertations on the biography of Vera Figner exist: Andrej Voronikhin, V. N. Figner v russkom osvoboditelnom dvizhenii 18731884 gg. (Saratov, 1992) and Lynne Ann Hartnett, Perpetual Exile: The Dynamics of Gender, Protest and Violence in the Revolutionary Life of Vera Figner (18521917) (Boston, 2000). 8 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 3, p.47.
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Radicalism as Political Religion? 69 published in this journal9, and in the 1970s Vera Broido characterised the early Russian revolutionaries in her monograph as apostles of a new religion.10 It may therefore be instructive to look at the pre-revolutionary Russia along these lines. In the present article the concept of political religion will not be used to discuss mass movements or political regimes, but to analyse the biography of an individual, the interactions within radical splinter groups and the process of radicalisation itself. Following the definition by Emilio Gentile, a political religion implies: a) A sacralised secular entity (race, class, nation) in the centre of a system of convictions and myths, which is able to explain the function of the world; Downloaded by [91.203.67.50] at 02:18 26 February 2012 b) A certain codex of ethical and social instructions, which are able to connect the individual with the group; c) The conviction to be a part of an elected community and to have the duty to fulfil a messianic mission in the world; and d) The existence of a political liturgy in order to adore and glorify the secular entity.11 However, all these factors define the mere sacralisation of politics in general. What specifically characterises a political religion and differentiates it from a civil religion is its exclusive nature, its denial of individual autonomy in relation to the group and its disposition to use violence as a legitimate political tool in order to create a new man and a new society. Political religions may therefore also incorporate elements of traditional religions (myths, ethics, rites etc.).12 To begin with a brief background, between 1860 and 1880 in Russia initial groups were founded whose aim it was to establish a new socialist order. The Ishutin Group, the Nechaev Organisation, the circle of the Chaikovtsi, Zemlia i Volia (Land and Freedom) or Narodnaia Volia are considered the most influential examples. Later, the Bolsheviks could build on this existing revolutionary tradition. The old Narodniki were honoured as predecessor organisations by the Soviet authorities, at least until the Stalinist Short Course dictated its monolithic view of the revolutionary history. Following the biography of Vera Figner up to her trial in 1884, the article will focus on the crucial factors that led Vera Figner on her way to violence. Gender

Klaus-Georg Riegel, MarxismLeninism as a Political Religion, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 6/1 (June 2005). 10 Vera Broido, Apostles into Terrorists. Women and the Revolutionary Movement in the Russia of Alexander II (New York: Viking, 1978), p.87. 11 Emilio Gentile, trans. George Staunton, Politics as Religion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 45; see also Emilio Gentile Fascism as Political Religion, Journal of Contemporary History 25/3 (MayJune 1990). 12 Gentile, Politics as Religion (note 11), pp.13840.

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aspects13 or historical developments in general14 will only be included if this is deemed pertinent to the core analysis. Childhood between Tradition and Modernity Vera Figner was born into a Russian noble family in 1852. The Figner family owned a large estate in the province of Kazan. Her father, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Figner, and her mother, Ekaterina Khristoforovna Figner, were among the wealthiest representatives of the nobility in this province. Vera Figner and her siblings had a sheltered childhood, but traditional Russia experienced a serious crisis in 1855 when the Empire lost the Crimean War and the regime under Tsar Alexander II realised that only a modernisation of society, economy, education and military could preserve Russias position among the other European Great Powers. Alexander II reduced press censorship and opened universities for students from outside the nobility. In this liberalising climate, several new intellectual tendencies emerged, which were reflected in a number of periodicals. Beginning in the early 1860s, Nikolai Chernyshevskii led an influential group of young intellectuals, among them Nikolai Dobroliubov, Michail Michailov and Dmitri Pisarev. They began to challenge the traditional order of society. According to them, all institutions, like marriage, education and gender roles, should be evaluated on the basis of scientific criteria.15 All traditional structures that failed this rigorous scientific evaluation should be abolished.16 In his influential novel What is to be Done? (Chto delat?), Chernyshevskii sketched the model of a new man, who actively and independently conducts his professional and private life, but takes care for the well-being of other people. According to Chernyshevskii, women as well as men could become new people. Women should have their own profession and should choose their partner by their own free will.17 The proponents of such modern ideas were called nihilists by their conservative
Richard Stites, The Womens Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism and Bolshevism 1860 1930 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990); Barbara Alpern Engel, Mothers and Daughters: Women of the Intelligentsia in Nineteenth-Century Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Margaret Maxwell, Narodniki Women: Russian Women who Sacriced Themselves for the Dream of Freedom (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990); Marie Claude Brunet-Vingiel, Femmes russes dans le combat rvolutionaire. Limage et son modle la n du XIXe sicle (Paris: Institut dtudes slaves, 1990); Anna Hillyar/Jane McDermid, Revolutionary Women in Russia: A Study in Collective Biography (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000); Bianka Pietrow-Ennker, Russlands, neue Menschen: Die Entwicklung der Frauenbewegung von den Anfngen bis zur Oktoberrevolution (Frankfurt a. M.: Campus Verlag, 1999). 14 The most important works: Franco Venturi, trans. Francis Haskell, Roots of Revolution: A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in Nineteenth Century Russia (London: Phoenix Press, 2001); Adam B. Ulam, In the Name of the People: Prophets and Conspirators in Revolutionary Russia (New York: Viking Press, 1977); Deborah Hardy, Land and Freedom: The Origins of Russian Terrorism, 18761879 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987); Stepan Stepanovich Volk, Narodnaia volia 18791882 (Moscow: Nauka, 1966); P. A. Zaionchkovskii, Krizis samoderzhaviia na rubezhe 18701880-kh godov (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Moskovskogo Universiteta, 1964); Grigorii Kan, Narodnaia volia (Moscow: Probel, 1997). 15 Dmitrii Ivanovich Pisarev, Novyi tip, in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem v dvenadtsati tomakh, 13 vols (Moscow: Nauka, 2000), vol. 8, pp.2156. 16 Michail Larionovich Michailov, Zhenshchiny. Ikh vospitanie i znachenie v seme i obshchestve, in Sochineniia v trekh tomakh, 3 vols (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo khudozhestvennoi literatury, 1958), vol. 3, pp.369430. 17 Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevskii, Chto d e lat?, in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii N. G. Chernyshevskago v 10 tomakh, 10 vols (St Petersburg, 1906), vol. 9, pp.1317.
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Radicalism as Political Religion? 71 adversaries the term Ivan Turgenev used in his novel Fathers and Sons (Ottsy i deti).18 These modern ideas were widely read by students, young intellectuals19 and also by some wealthy landowners, like the Figner family.20 The Figners were part of the liberalised Russian noble strata and they supported the Great Reforms of Alexander II, such as the abolition of serfdom in 1861. Soon after the emancipation of the serfs, however, such radical ideas fell out of favour with the tsarist regime. In 1866, the student Dmitri Karakozov tried to assassinate Alexander II. This led to a wave of state repression against the supporters of nihilist ideas.21 As a consequence, liberal or radical ideas lost much sympathy in the Russian upper classes.22 Not so in the Figner family: in the evenings after dinner, Vera Figners relatives discussed current political events. She often listened in.23 Despite these discussions about modern, even nihilist ideas, she was educated in a traditional manner. She was sent to a boarding school for girls where she was to be trained to become a good wife and mother. Absorbing these new ideas, however, Vera Figner began to rebel against traditional gender roles. She did not want to become a nice puppet and marry an old man, but desired to take part in the discussions in the family circle. Despite the progressive topics of their discussions, her male relatives did not take her opinions seriously, which made her miserable: I cried over how to become [a] better [discussant]. Therefore I directed my attention to books.24 Reading different newspapers, she discovered that Nadezhda Suslova had received a doctoral degree in medicine at the University of Zurich. Vera Figner, not in the mood to follow the traditional way of life, decided to follow Suslovas example instead.25 This may have been out of opportunism and does not mean that her convictions were already at that point radical, for she still considered herself a monarchist.26 Unfortunately, her father was against this plan and, without the permission of her father or her husband, a woman was not allowed to obtain a foreign passport. In 1870, Vera Figner met the young noble public prosecutor Aleksei Filippov in Kazan, who fell in love with her. They decided to marry and planned to move to Zurich in order to study medicine.

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Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, Ottsi i deti, in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem v dvadtsati vosmi tomakh, 28 vols (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 19601968), vol. 8, pp.193402. For more information about the nihilists, see Abbott Gleason, Young Russia: The Genesis of Russian Radicalism in the 1860s (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1983); Daniel Brower, Training the Nihilists: Education and Radicalism in Tsarist Russia (London: Cornell University Press, 1975); Roland Hingley, Nihilists: Russian Revolutionaries in the Reign of Alexander II 185581 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967); Viktor Arsenevich Malinin, Istoriia russkogo utopicheskogo sotsializma: Vtoraia polovina XIX nachalo XX vv. (Moscow: Nauka, 1991); James Hadley Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith (New York: Basic Books, 1980), pp.386417. 19 Brower, Training the Nihilists (note 18), p.163. 20 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 5, p.18 and vol. 1, pp.569. 21 Venturi (note 14), pp.34850 and Claudia Verhoeven, The Odd Man Karakozov. Imperial Russia, Modernity, and the Birth of Terrorism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009). 22 Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin, Zapiski revoliutsionera (London: Fond volnoi russkoi pressy, 1902), pp.1556. 23 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, pp.567. 24 Figner, Avtobiografiia (note 6) (part 1), p.157. 25 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, p.64. 26 Figner, Avtobiografiia (note 5) (part 1), p.158.

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Shortly after the wedding, Nikolai Figner died. His wife, Ekaterina Figner, who had until then lived in her husbands shadow, supported her daughters plans and permitted Veras younger sister, Lidiia, to study medicine in Zurich too. In 1872 Vera and Alexei Filippov as well as Lidiia Figner travelled to Zurich and enrolled at the university. They began to study immediately, but soon challenges arose in the lives of these students. Before elaborating on these events it is necessary to focus on the literary influences during Vera Figners childhood and adolescence. At boarding school, Vera Figner and some of her classmates read the Bible on their own in the evenings. They had lessons in religion, but no teacher ever encouraged the students to read the texts. Vera Figner felt inspired by the study of the New Testament: Many of these doctrines and complaints [of the gospels] supported a code of conduct [and] a life principle. This source was highly authoritative. It was the highest authority we knew. It was not merely authoritative because we had become accustomed to view the Gospel as the holiest book. No! The inner, spiritual beauty of the doctrine was fascinating and attractive [to us]. The authority [of the text] was achieved by the seal of martyrdom, the sacrifice [otdacha] of the most valuable life itself.27 Inspired by these texts she decided that she wanted to die for her convictions, like Jesus did,28 but in her childhood the exact content of these convictions was not yet defined. In her adolescence Vera Figner was an avid reader, in contrast to the prevailing ethos in her boarding school.29 Friedrich Spielhagens novel In Reih und Glied and Nikolai Nekrasovs poem Sasha impressed her in particular. In Sasha, the main theme was on how to act according to ones own word.30 Reading these pages, Vera Figner decided that she needed to broaden her perspective, so that her words would always to be in accordance with her deeds.31 Supported by her uncle, she studied the articles of nihilist authors such as Pisarev and Chernyshevskii. They radically criticised the traditional way of life and proposed the natural sciences as a means for emancipation.32 The main character in the novel What is to be Done?, Vera Pavlovna, for example, left traditional life and studied medicine. Vera Figner also studied the philosophy of John Stuart Mill and, influenced by these texts, became a utilitarian. The greatest happiness of the greatest number of men should be everyones aim was her motto. She interpreted utilitarianism in a collective way: a human being can only be happy if others are happy as well. Accordingly, Vera Figner chose to sacrifice herself in order to help the suffering Russian people by becoming a physician in a village.33

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Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 5, p.92. Ibid. 29 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, p.52. 30 Nikolai A. Nekrasov, Sasha, in Sobranie sochinenii v trekh tomakh, 3 vols (Mosow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1971), vol. 1, pp.194211. 31 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, p.55. 32 Dmitrii Ivanovich Pisarev, Skholastika XIX veka, in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem v dvenadtsati tomakh, 12 vols (Moscow: Nauka, 2000), vol. 2, p.277. 33 Figner, Avtobiografiia (note 5) (part 1), p.158.
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Radicalism as Political Religion? 73 Radicalisation in a Like-Minded Group The University of Zurich was the first to allow female students to enrol. Many young noblewomen from Russia availed themselves of this opportunity. In 1872 a Russian colony of about 300 people existed in the town a third of them women.34 Many, but not all, of these colonists took the opportunity to read texts, mainly socialist, that were strictly forbidden in Russia. In this period, Michail Bakunins ideas became exceptionally influential. He spoke of and for the revolutionary impulse of the Russian peasant and the vision of free association among men without any authority. Several times he travelled to Zurich in order to meet with students. Petr Lavrov, another socialist thinker, propagated a more moderate position as compared with Bakunin. He tried to win young Russian students for profound self-education first. However, Lavrov seemed to be far less successful then the practical revolutionary Bakunin.35 After her arrival, Vera Figner, like other students, ignored these revolutionary activities in the Russian colony and devoted herself entirely to her medical studies. Her husband and her sister were the only persons she felt close to.36 Lidiia Figner, in contrast, soon joined a radical female circle (kruzhok) known as the Fritschi. The circle was named after the owner of the house where they usually met. This self-education circle was exclusively for women because some of them were (still) reluctant to express their own view in the presence of men.37 Its members were Sofia Bardina, Varvara Aleksandrova, the sisters Olga and Vera Liubatovich, the sisters Mariia, Nadezhda and Evgeniia Subbotina, Betia Kaminskaia, Aleksandra Khorzhevskaia, Anna Toporkova, Evgeniia Tumanova and Dora Aptekman.38 Vera Figner eventually became interested in the Fritschi as well. She was, like many other women, anxious to talk about politics, because she felt unable to put her ideas into the right words. She only trusted Sofia Bardina, the informal leader of the Fritschi. During a lecture they sat next to each other and began to talk about politics.39 Later, Vera Figner was invited to attend one of the Fritschi meetings; she accepted. Most of the Fritschi were women from the Russian upper classes. They were young, between 16 and 21 years of age, had grown up in the liberal period after the Crimean War and considered themselves to be new people. This meant that they wanted to take their lives into their own hands and to become useful members of society. First the Fritschi tried to study the theories of socialism and developed a programme for self-education. The aim was to become familiar with
Jan Marius Meijer, Knowledge and Revolution: The Russian Colony in Zurich 18701877. A Contribution to the Study of Russian Populism (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1955). For more information on the question of why especially Russian women went to Zurich, see Daniela Neumann, Studentinnen aus dem Russischen Reich in der Schweiz (Zurich: Hans Rohr, 1987). 35 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 5, pp.5263. 36 Figner, Avtobiografiia (note 5) (part 1), p.160. 37 Similar groups of self-education circles exclusive for women can also be observed in Russia, see Barbara Alpern Engel, From Separatism to Socialism. Women in the Russian Revolutionary Movement of the 1870s, in Marilyn J. Boxer and Jean H. Quataert (eds), Socialist Women: European Socialist Feminism in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Oxford: Elsevier, 1978), p.60. 38 Engel, Mothers and Daughters (note 13), p.133; Amy Knight, The Fritschi. A Study of Female Radicals in the Russian Populist Movement, Canadian American Slavic Studies, 9/1 (Spring 1975); Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 5, p.173. 39 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 5, p.80.
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the socialist thinking of the time.40 Then they tried to implement the ideal socialist order they were discussing within the group itself. Therefore they also began to abstain from every luxury. Vera Figner later remembered the following anecdote: once Bardina was sitting on a couch and said that she liked strawberries with cream. The other members were horrified, and therefore Vera Liubatovich called Bardina bourgeois.41 This was the attribute that the Fritschi used to brand everybody and everything not corresponding to their ideals and so they could define themselves as a group against the externalised Other the bourgeoisie. Even though the Fritschi were one of the wealthiest Russian revolutionary groups of their time,42 they tried to live an ascetic life. Egoism was another bad word in the group. All individual aspirations were considered egoistic, everything had to be subordinated to a higher common good. The aim was as Vera Figner later pointed out to completely eliminate the individual element in life.43 This attitude of self-denial with respect to ones own corporal needs for the sake of a higher good may be defined as inner-worldly asceticism according to Max Weber. A worldly ascetic as ideal type is a rationalist, not only in the sense that he rationally systematises his own conduct, but also in his rejection of everything that is ethically irrational, aesthetic, or dependent upon his own emotional reactions to the world and its institutions.44 Such ascetics refuse every worldly pleasure (be it material or corporal) and focus all their activities on success in their profession or political projects.45 Within the Fritschi the fulfilment of these ascetic standards was ensured by means of mutual social control. Thus one may consider the Fritschi an order or because of their political orientation a political sect. The defining characteristic of a sect is the difference between those who are qualified as being within the group (in-group) and those who are considered outside the group (the out-group).46 Vera Figner experienced this distinction first hand as she was initially not allowed to join all group meetings. When the group once decided to visit a reunion of the Federalist (Bakuninist) International, Vera Figner had to stay at home.47 During their discussions, the Fritschi developed a different attitude towards science and their future professions. Vera Figner felt this change too: What once was an aim became more and more a means. The profession of a physician, of an agronomist or a technician lost every sense in our eyes. Once we thought to alleviate the sufferings of the people but not to be
40 41

Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, p.82. Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 5, p.94. The same processes of labelling can also be observed in radical circles within Russia: Sergei Viktorovich Kalinchuk, Psikhologicheskii faktor v deiatelnosti Zemli i voli 1870-kh godov, Voprosy istorii, 3 (1999), pp.478. 42 Ivan Dzhabadari, Protsess 50-ti. Vserossiiskaia sotsialno-revoliutsionnaia organizatsiia (part 1), Byloe 21/9 (1907), p.191. 43 Figner, Avtobiografiia (note 5) (part 1), p.170. 44 Max Weber, Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretative Sociology, Guenther Roth and Claus Wittrich (eds), 3 vols (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968), vol. 2, p.544 and Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Die Wirtschaft und die gesellschaftlichen Ordnungen und Mchte (Tbingen: Mohr, 1999), subvol. 2, p.323. 45 Weber, Economy and Society, vol. 2, p.543 and Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, subvol. 2, pp.3223. 46 Weber, Economy and Society (ibid.), vol. 2, pp.12041210 and Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (ibid.), subvol. 4, p.668. 47 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 5, pp.6668.

Radicalism as Political Religion? 75 able to cure them. we had planned to cure only the symptoms of the sickness but not its cause.48 In the group discussions, Vera Figner developed a revolutionary consciousness. In her opinion there were means to cure society and she began to consider herself as the other Fritschi did to be a professional revolutionary: In order to end this negative order of things it is indispensable to abolish private property in the means of production and to collectivise it []. This is possible only by force [putem borby], because the class living in comfortable circumstances will not voluntarily surrender it. In order to lead this struggle one must organise the class most interested in its successful end, this is the working class [rabochii klass], i.e. the people [narod]. Some men equate the interests of this class with the interests of the whole of mankind and they should sacrifice themselves in order to propagate socialist ideas among the people and organise the struggle in favour for these ideas.49 At that time Vera Figner and the other Fritschi were still uncertain, what struggle or positive order exactly they meant. They planned to use propaganda among the people as a means to initiate a social revolution and they considered themselves as the elite chosen to lead the people into this struggle. Through their inner-worldly asceticism the Fritschi elevated themselves above the outside world of common people. They had a self-perception as virtuosi, thus Klaus-Georg Riegels terminology.50 Virtuosi develop a special attitude towards other people. Their own group of like-minded individuals is in their eyes elevated above the common people due to their special conduct.51 The Fritschi were not the only group with such a virtuous self-perception. They were a part of a movement in which mostly intellectual young people were decidedly prepared for complete self-sacrifice in order to overcome the inequality within Russian society.52 In the Fritschi, Vera Figner found a group of like-minded people with a similar social background. She had until that time only known Chernyshevskiis vision of the new people from books, but now it seemed to have been realised in this small elitist group. Their inner-worldly asceticism and their self-perception as virtuosi seemed very attractive to Vera Figner. She planed to join this ideal society, in which she felt her socialist awakening: It became clear [that] I, nineteen years old,53 am an exploiter. My mother, my uncle and all my relatives are mean and selfish exploiters too.
48 49

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Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, p.84. Italics in the original. Ibid., p.85. 50 Riegel, MarxismLeninism (note 9), p.101. 51 Weber, Economy and Society (note 44), vol. 2, p.539 and Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (note 44), subvol. 2, p.317. 52 Broido (note 10), p.86. 53 Vera Figner made a mistake here. She could not have been nineteen years old. She was born on 24 June (new style: 7 July) 1852 and enrolled at Zurich University on 11 June 1872. It is quite impossible that she met Bardina only three weeks after her enrolment.

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Because of her interaction with the Fritschi, Vera Figner was able to extend her social contacts. She accepted their ideological position and began to participate in the political life of the Zurich colony. However, in spring 1873 student life in Zurich was suddenly interrupted by an ukaz (order) of the Russian government concerning female students. The government complained about the students revolutionary and immoral behaviour. In doing so, it decreed that all degrees obtained at the Zurich University by women after 1 January 1874 would not be recognised in Russia.55 The innocent (viz. non-revolutionary) female students should return to Russia and enrol in special medical courses for women in order to complete their studies. The government hoped to dissolve the Zurich colony with this measure, a response to its agents in Switzerland who were sending more and more alarming descriptions of the revolutionary activities of Russian subjects to St Petersburg.56 The ukaz effectively led to the dissolution of the colony. Some of the colonists went back to Russia and took their radical ideas home with them. In so doing, they contributed to the mad summer of 1874, when thousands of students tried to go to the people to distribute socialist propaganda among the peasants.57 The other part of the Zurich colony, however, decided to finish the studies in Geneva, Bern or Paris, since the ukaz applied to the University of Zurich alone. The Fritschi remained, but they split in two groups. One group began to study at the Sorbonne in Paris and the other at the University of Bern.58 Lidiia Figner settled in Paris, Vera Figner in Bern. Before splitting they took part in a conference of the Federalist International near Neuchtel (Switzerland). During this conference Vera Figner was officially initiated into the Fritschi by her sister. In doing so she had to meet the following conditions: [Lidiia asked], if I was ready to sacrifice all my power to the revolutionary cause. If I was prepared to break all ties with my husband, if necessary. If I would abandon science and refuse a career in order to serve the cause. I agreed with enthusiasm. Afterwards they told me that a secret revolutionary organisation had been founded and activities in Russia were planned. The charter and the programme of the party were read to me. After agreeing with all points I was declared a member.59 Here it was clearly formulated that the group planned to define the private and the professional lives of each individual member. Everything was to be subordinated to one final cause: the social revolution. After the conference Vera Figner soon severed all ties with her husband because Aleksei Filippov did not share the ideas of his wife. Her ties to the sectarian Fritschi group had led to the couples
54 55

Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 5, p.80. Neue Zrcher Zeitung, 12 June 1873, no. 293, p.1. 56 Meijer (note 34), pp.1403. 57 Ibid., p.162. 58 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 5, p.113. 59 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, p.86.

Radicalism as Political Religion? 77 alienation since Filippov was not willing to change his mind.60 In the eyes of the Fritschi he had positioned himself outside the qualified community and therefore they decided to boycott him. In the autumn of 1873 the relationship between Vera Figner and Filippov was finally dissolved, and later she would refuse all contact with him.61 Filippov went back to Kazan, where he pursued a career as the local magistrate.62 Meanwhile, Sofia Bardina and Lidiia Figner had met Ivan Dzhabadari, Michail Tsitsianov and Aleksandr Chikoidze in Paris. They were revolutionaries from the Caucasus, studying the workers movement in Western Europe. Discussing a revolution in Russia, the Fritschi and the Caucasians discovered many mutual interests and ideas. In Geneva a conference of the two groups was organised and they decided to go back to Russia together in order to distribute revolutionary propaganda material among working men and women in Moscow.63 They still felt deeply inspired by the mad summer of 1874. Vera Figner and Dora Aptekman, however, refused to return because they planned to finish their studies first.64 The rest of the Fritschi accepted this decision65 because they respected the freedom of will of every member. That seems to be odd against the setting of the noted conditions of initiation, but it might be explained in the following way: the group was not hierarchical and it could only define moral standards. The member might follow them, but the group was not allowed to actually force any member to undertake certain actions. The reasons for such a group structure had their origins in the scandal around the revolutionary Sergei Nechaev in the late 1860s.66 In the view of this experience, most Russian revolutionaries refused every hierarchical order within their groups for a time: they did not consider themselves cult members. In early 1875 the joint organisation of the Fritschi and the Caucasians the All Russian Social-Revolutionary Organisation (Vserossiiskaia sotsialno-revoliutsionnaia organizatsiia) was active among Muscovite working men and women. It was successful until its main members were arrested by the police in April of the same year. Like in the mad summer the tsarist regime responded to propagandistic activities with a wave of repression. Lidiia Figner and Sofia Bardina were among those who had been imprisoned. Later, in the Trial of the 50 in 1877, they were condemned to banishment in Siberia with other leading members of the group.67 Vera Figner felt a deep guilt towards her comrades, friends and her sister. Since she had not kept her revolutionary promise, she lived in freedom in Switzerland, while the others languished in Russian prisons. She found herself in a moral dilemma: she had promised her mother to finish her studies and she had
60

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Nikolai Grigorevich Kuliabko-Koretskii, Iz davnikh let. Vospominanija lavrista (Moscow: Izdatelstvo politkatorzhan, 1931), p.40. 61 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, p.94. 62 Kuliabko-Koretskii (note 60), p.41. 63 Knight (note 38), pp.911; Dzhabadari, Protsess 50-ti (part 1) (note 42), pp.1869. 64 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, p.90. 65 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 5, p.122. 66 For Nechaevs biography, see F. M. Lure, Nechaev (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 2001); Jeanne-Marie Gafot, Netchaeff (Lausanne: LAge dHomme, 1989); Philip Pomper, Sergei Nechaev (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1979). 67 Ivan Dzhabadari, Protsess 50-ti. Vserossiiskaia sotsialno-revoliutsionnaia organizatsiia (part 2), Byloe 22/10 (1907), pp.181190; Knight (note 38), pp.146.

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promised her comrades to join them as well. She desired to act in accordance with her words, but was torn between conflicting moral obligations.68 The revolutionary Mark Natanson visited Vera Figner in Bern in this time. He asked the remaining Fritschi Dora Aptekman and Vera Figner to come back to Russia and join a new revolutionary organisation. Their comrades in prison were calling them to take their places.69 She only had six months left before ending her studies, but Natansons words impressed Vera Figner. Now she took the most serious decision of her life and gave up her studies in order to pursue a revolutionary career in Russia.70 Dora Aptekman, in contrast, remained in Bern and finished her studies. As the only Fritschi she later worked as a physician in Russian villages for a long time.71 Propaganda in the Village Downloaded by [91.203.67.50] at 02:18 26 February 2012 In January 1876, Vera Figner arrived in St Petersburg. The revolutionary circles that had survived the repressions after the mad summer were contrary to Natansons promises in a state of confusion. Lavrovs followers still postulated self-education while Bakunins followers still wanted to go to the people and call for revolution. However, now they planned to present themselves as village-writers, teachers, medical assistants (feldshery) or midwives in order to win the peoples trust. The Bakuninists discussed whether the propagandists should organise themselves or whether there should only be loose connections between them. The supporters of a central organisation later formed Zemlia i Volia (Land and Freedom). The promoters of loose organisational structures among them Vera Figner were called separatists. Later Zemlia i Volia offered every separatist the opportunity to join the organisation.72 Now Vera Figner desired to use her medical skills in order to serve the Russian people, thereby becoming a useful new woman, in serving the people while also bringing revolutionary ideas to the masses. She got employment as a feldsher in the Volga region, first in Studentsy (Samara province) and then in Viazmino (Saratov province). When she began to work she was shocked by the miserable conditions, for until then she had known the people and their misery only from books: I stood, 25 years old, in front of them [the people] like a little child that had a strange object in its hands that it had never seen before.73 Like the going to the people movement as whole, her activities among the peasants did not succeed. Despite all her efforts, Vera Figner had the impression that her work was constantly being sabotaged by the elite of the villages. In her eyes, these men (the priest, writer, policeman, owner of the tavern) were exploiting the
68 69

Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, p.94f. Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 5, p.132. 70 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, pp.935. 71 D. I-va [Dora (Doroteia) Issakovna Aptekman], Iz zapisok zemskako vracha, Russkaia mysl, 12 (1884). 72 Osip V. Aptekman, Obshchestvo Zemja i Volja 70 gg. Po lichnym vospominaniiam (Petrograd: Kolos, 1924), p.322. 73 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, p.117.

Radicalism as Political Religion? 79 people and wanted no disturbance.74 She had to leave both villages because she was worried that she might be arrested: I noticed that the problem was neither due to my person nor to the conditions in the villages but due to the conditions in general, especially because there was no political freedom in Russia. Here I experienced for the first time the uncomfortable aspects of our political system. Earlier, Zemlia i Volia had invited me to join in order to propagate [our ideas] among the intelligentsia. I refused this proposition because I usually stick to my decisions. I had remained [in the village] until the last minute. Not naive behaviour but bitter necessity forced me to give up my earlier position and to go a new way.75 Vera Zasulich, since the mid-1860s a member in the revolutionary milieu, demonstrated what this new way of action might look like. Disappointed by the going to the people movement and shocked by the dimension of government repression, on 24 January 1878 she attempted to assassinate the governor (gradonachalnik) of St Petersburg, Fedor Trepov. In this terrorist act she saw a new method for changing public opinion. Trepov survived, although badly injured. Two months later Zasulich was acquitted by a jury.76 The acquittal was a huge propaganda feat for the Russian revolutionary movement and it was reported in Western Europe and in North America too.77 Vera Zasulich had proven that propaganda by the deed was more effective than thousands of leaflets.78 In view of such a success, Vera Figner and many of her comrades began to doubt their peaceful activities in seeking to spread the creed, but initially Vera Figner refused the use of terrorism.79 When Aleksandr Solovev, a close comrade, tried to assassinate Alexander II, she was wanted by the police. Considering this immediate danger, Vera Figner had to go underground. Up to this moment she had acted within the existing system of law and official institutions. The threat of repression was in Vera Figners case no pretext for abandoning peaceful propaganda in the village, but the core reason for doing so.80 In the radical circles arguments in favour and against the terrorist strategy were made. In summer 1879 a conference of Zemlia i Volia took place in Voronezh. Vera Figner and other separatists were invited as well. Despite the efforts to find compromises it became obvious that there was no chance of reconciliation
74 75

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Figner, Avtobiograia (note 5) (part 2), p.172. K Biograi Ve ry Figner, Byloe 5 (1906), p.6. 76 E. Serebriakov (ed.), Protsess V e ry Zasulich (St Petersburg, 1904) and on factors contributing to the acquittal, see Evelyn Meinecke, Vera Zasulich. A Political Life (Binghamton, 1984), p.303. 77 Ana Siljak, Angel of Vengeance: The Girl Assassin, the Governor of St. Petersburg, and Russias Revolutionary World (New York: St Martins, 2008), pp.279305. 78 This concept is said to have been propagated rstly by the Italian republican extremist Carlo Pisacane (18181857): Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), p.5. Others attribute it to Paul Brousse (18441912): Martin A. Miller, The Origins of Modern Terrorism in Europe, in Martha Crenshaw (ed.), Terrorism in Context (Pennsylvania University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 1995), p.42. 79 Figner, Avtobiograia (note 5) (part 2), p.177. 80 This is contrary to the conclusion that Deborah Hardy drew: Land and Freedom (note 14), p.129f. Archival documents of the secret police provide good insights into how urgently Vera Figner was wanted after Solovevs attempt: GA RF, f. 112, op.1, ed. khr. 481, ll. 318, 326, 446.
e] c a o r [ n o n a r c ] e [

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between the group in favour of systematic violence and the group against it. A month after this conference Zemlia i Volia split into two successor organisations. One followed the way of propaganda Chernyi Peredel (Black Repartition) and one put its faith in the mobilising effects of terror Narodnaia Volia (Peoples Will). Firstly unsure which path to take, Vera Figner thought about the advantages and the disadvantages of a strategy of terror: Every conflict not taking place on the ideological but on the physical level is a violent one. Violence can never improve morals if it is directed against the mind or acts against human life. It only worsens the situation. It only evokes animal instincts and similar excesses. It is the reason of abuse of confidence. Humanity and generosity are not reconcilable with it. The party [Narodnaia Volia] propagated that every means was acceptable during the conflict with the adversary and that the end justifies the means.81 Nonetheless, Vera Figner finally decided to join the terrorist faction. She believed that under special circumstances violent means in the political struggle were justified: However, the dark side of revolutionary action [i.e. political violence] was softened by the solidarity, the fraternity and the behaviour amongst the comrades. The outsiders accepted it because of its altruistic motives. The revolutionary atoned for it by rejecting material goods and by renouncing to lead a private life, which was totally interrupted when he took this dangerous path. It was atoned in prison, exile and death. If society became more brutal because it became used to the revolutionaries violence, it nevertheless saw if not everyone, then at least some of them exemplary self-sacrifice and heroism of extraordinary courageous people.82 Vera Figner defended the use of violence by emphasising the virtuosic lifestyle of the revolutionaries. The revolutionaries refusal of worldly goods and a private life elevated them above the common people and justified the use violence against the tsarist government. This self-conception as a virtuoso is key to understanding the motivation within Narodnaia Volia.83 Thereby Vera Figner referred to the motive of self-sacrifice, which she had known since her childhood. As mentioned above, she had dreamed of dying for her own convictions, like Jesus did. She had ideals inspired by Christianity but finally moved away from them. She did not desire to testify her faith in Jesus, but like Jesus did.84 Nevertheless, these secularised Christian ideals of self-sacrifice for a better social order alone could not explain this option for violence, but they confirmed and radicalised Vera Figners and her comrades minds as they met with a
81 82

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Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, p.251. Ibid., p.252. 83 Philip Pomper also mentioned the phenomenon of the virtuous assassins within Narodnaia Volia: Pomper, Russian Revolutionary Terrorism, in Martha Crenshaw (ed.), Terrorism in Context (Pennsylvania University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 1995), p.79. 84 Ana Siljak also noticed this acting like Jesus in the case of Vera Zasulich (note 76), p.313.

Radicalism as Political Religion? 81 complete rejection by the state authorities. Some radicals concluded that there was and would be no possibility for reconciliation with the present regime for the sake of changing or ameliorating social conditions in Russia. In the revolutionaries eyes this was proven in the show trials in 1877 and 1878 when the legal procedure was reduced to a complete farce and the verdicts were approved or even increased by the tsar.85 The revolutionaries also feared that the traditional rural commune (obshchina) could perish if the Russian economy was to become capitalist. Assuming collectivist and socialist structures in the obshchina, they believed that fragments of an original utopia86 existed in the Russian present and concluded that Russia might bypass the capitalist phase of development and jump directly into a socialist order of society even before Western Europe did.87 If the obshchina perished, the direct transition of Russian society to socialism might be questioned.88 Finally, the failure of the going to the people movement led some radicals to the conclusion that there is no possibility to initiate a revolution from below, from the people. The social change should come from above: by the seizure of power. The Way to a Dead End: Narodnaia Volia In late summer of 1879 the Executive Committee (EC) of Narodnaia Volia was formed with the aim of mobilising all forces in order to free the Russian people and save the obshchina. The EC originally had about 20 members among them eight women, including Vera Figner89 and it led Narodnaia Volia for the next four years. The EC quickly formulated a charter with its aims and methods. The charter begins with the following words: A) We are socialists and narodniki90 by conviction. We are convinced that only the peoples will can define a common order and that the development of a people is only constant if it flows freely and if every idea that is to be realised is firstly approved by the peoples will and consciousness. The prosperity and the will of the people are our two holiest and unshakeable principles.91
85 86

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Broido (note 11), p.177. See Eric Voegelin, Ersatz Religion, in The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1990), vol. 5, p.300. 87 Aleksandr Ivanovich Gertsen, Sobranie Sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh, 30 vols (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 19541965), vol. 7, pp.277 and 326; see also Manfred Hildermeier, Das Privileg der Rckschrittlichkeit. Anmerkungen zum Wandel einer Interpretationsgur der neueren russischen Geschichte, Historische Zeitschrift, 244 (1987), pp.57582. 88 Vera Zasulichs letter to Karl Marx (02/16/1881), in Iz archiva P.B. Akselroda. 18801892 gg. (Moscow: Pamiatniki istoricheskoi mysli, 2006), p.237. 89 For a list of members of the EC, see Kan (note 14), p.67. From 1879 until 1883 about 40 people were members of the EC. 90 For a denition of socialists and narodniki in this context, see Richard Pipes, Narodnichestvo: A Semantic Inquiry, Slavic Review 23/3 (Sept. 1964), p.447. 91 Stepan Stepanovich Volk (ed.), Revoliutsionnoe narodnichestvo 70-kh godov XIX veka, 2 vols (Moscow: Nauka, 1965), vol. 2, p.170f. Parts of this charter are also reprinted in Vera Figners memoirs: PSS, vol. 1, pp.36375.

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The abstract and not exactly defined entity people was hallowed in the eyes of the Narodovoltsy (the members of Narodnaia Volia). This worldly entity was explicitly sacralised and became the nexus of all ideas and actions of the group. An interesting point is the connection that Narodnaia Volia drew between itself and the people: C) 2. We demand that the peoples will is expressed and realised in a constituent assembly. 3. Therefore it is our aim to overthrow the present government, to assume power and to transfer it to the constituent assembly, which will order our state and society according to the voters decision.92 Downloaded by [91.203.67.50] at 02:18 26 February 2012 Narodnaia Volia postulated that the peoples will could articulate itself in a constituent assembly which would define the future fate of the country. The group should seize power in order to enable such an assembly. These measures were to be accompanied by terrorist acts. The term terror was used explicitly: Terrorist action [italics SR] means to destroy the most harmful people of the government, to protect the party from spies and to punish the most arbitrary acts of violence committed by the government. Thereby, the revolutionary spirit in the people and the faith in success will become stronger and recruit new forces for the struggle.93 The EC considered terror as a means to instigate a general uprising. In doing so, the terrorists planned to win sympathies among the people and the liberal society in order to strengthen their revolutionary fervour. Unlike the Fritschi, this group was hierarchically organised. The Narodovoltsy created a centralised and strictly conspiratorial organisation, able to force each member to act according to the decision of the group.94 Paying tribute to the necessities of conspiracy, the subordinate members did not know all the members of the EC95 so that they could not betray the whole organisation if questioned by the police. Narodnaia Volia was also organised in an opaque way in order to evoke the idea of a mighty organisation to both the outside world and the subordinated members and sympathisers. Thus the committee became an anonymous and unpredictable institution. Vera Figner was well aware of the fact that Narodnaia Volia had obvious similarities to Sergei Nechaevs organisation. Everything seemed to be allowed if it was good for the revolution. However, the hope for success let her overcome doubts about these methods: The demands [of the charter of Narodnaia Volia] were enormous but they were easy to meet for those who were animated by a revolutionary feeling. This feeling knew neither limitations nor obstacles and it went straight ahead, neither looking back nor right nor left. If these conditions had been
92 93

Volk (ibid.), Revoliucionnoe narodnichestvo, vol. 2, p.172. Ibid., p.173. 94 Ibid., p.200. 95 Ibid., p.208f.

Radicalism as Political Religion? 83 less radical, if they had not touched the soul, they would not have been satisfying. The personality was elevated by their severity and their sublimeness [vysota]. The personality lost its prosaicness. The individual felt all the more that there is and must be an idea [ideal] in his heart.96 Vera Figner felt substantiated as a virtuosa elevated from the common world. The organisation or rather the EC understood itself as the true representative of the peoples will to which every member had to submit. Initially the members followed these conditions with pleasure. Aleksandr Michailov an EC member told his comrades that I [] would be ready to wash dishes with the same devotion that I would commit to meeting the most interesting intellectual challenges, if the party demanded it.97 From here it seems to be only a small step to the point where the members had to submit themselves and their minds to the demands of the party unconditionally if the party ordered it, they would have to take something black for something white. In the conflict between Narodnaia Volia and the tsarist government that lasted until 1884, approximately 60 people died on both sides including Tsar Alexander II. Hundreds of members and thousands of sympathisers were arrested.98 From the beginning, terrorist acts were able to direct the public attention of Europe and North America on their demands, but they failed in create mass support for overthrowing the tsarist regime. Although some liberals were sympathetic for the terrorists cause, they supported them only marginally in practice. At the beginning of 1881 the EC established close ties with several worker, army and student groups, but only about 500 people were under their direct command and could be mobilised. The possibility of any revolution or insurrection seemed very distant indeed.99 In 1879 and 1880 Vera Figner joined a fighting unit in Odessa, which tried to attack Alexander II on his trips to the Crimean peninsula. At the same time, Nikolai Morozov, a member of the EC, left Russia for exile due to ideological differences with the other members. Vera Figner continued a correspondence with him. In a letter from November 1880, she lamented the difficult situation: everything is going badly, slowly. Sometimes I am ready to abandon myself to despair .100 Nevertheless, Vera Figner asked Morozov to rejoin the group: No differences within the group should affect your loyalty, which demands that everyone has to be available, when the struggle is going on. Do you want to save yourself for a better future bought by the precious blood of so many comrades?101 Morozov returned in February 1881, but he was arrested as he was crossing the border. He was not the only loss of the group. The collapse of Narodnaia Volia
96 97

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Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, p.172. Figner, Avtobiograia (note 5) (part 3), p.64. 98 Nikolai Alekseevich Troitskii, Narodnaia volia pered tsarskim sudom (Saratov: Izdatelstvo Universiteta, 1983), pp.35887 and Norman M. Naimark, Terrorists and Social Democrats: The Russian Revolutionary Movement under Alexander III, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), p.42. 99 Iakimova-Dikovskaia (note 2), p.10. 100 GA RF, f. 1762, op. 4, ed. khr. 652, l. 13. 101 Ibid., l. 1.

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began even before the assassination of Alexander II, when its leading figures Aleksandr Mikhailov and Andrei Zheliabov were arrested. At that time Vera Figner was renting an apartment in Petersburg where the bombs that killed Alexander were built.102 The tsars death was a success for the group, but they had no realistic plan for the day after as there was no pro-revolutionary reaction among the masses. In the first days after 1 March Sofia Perovskaia, the organiser of Alexanders assassination, felt depressed and desperate. She did not try to hide herself any longer and was eventually arrested near the Nevskii Prospekt.103 The party leaders Sofia Perovskaia and Andrei Zheliabov were subsequently tried and executed. Many organs of the conspiracy were dispersed. Notwithstanding these personal and material losses, Vera Figner, as the head of the remaining group, tried to reestablish personal connections with local radical circles104 and with sympathising army officers.105 The final aim of these connections was still to initiate an insurrection and seize power, even as the chances of the realisation of such a plan seemed slim.106 Vera Figner also developed plans for a new terrorist attack. She chose the military prosecutor in Odessa, V. Strelnikov, as the target for the next assassination: I proposed to the committee to remove him from his office, where he was able to do so many bad things. I further told to the committee about the damage that his form of prosecution caused to the party as whole. I reminded the committee about Strelnikovs behaviour as whole during the political trials, where he had made all efforts to throw dirt on the socialists. He had presented them as a gang of isolated criminals who consciously cover their rotten personal interests under a political banner 107 In this officer Vera Figner saw a challenger to her own and her groups selfperception as virtuosi struggling for justice and equality. He had to be killed as a symbolic act of revenge. A fighting unit under her command was therefore formed and, in February 1882, Strelnikov was shot dead in the streets of Odessa. This assassination had no practical value, but it showed that the organisation was still active. It was the last successful terrorist act in Russia for many years. Lacking material and personal means, Vera Figner still tried to organise the group from Kharkov in the south and to install a new printing press in Odessa. Sometimes she was separated from her sympathisers and did not know where to stay the next night.108 Other members of the EC, like Lev Tikhomirov and his wife Ekaterina Sergeeva, or Mariia Oshanina, had no faith in the survival of Narodnaia Volia and left Russia for exile in Western Europe. Vera Figner refused
Iakimova-Dikovskaia (note 2), p.15. Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, p.245. 104 GA RF, f. 102, 7-oe del-vo, 1884 g., op. 181, d. 747, ch. 10, ll. 4658. 105 Michail Ashenbrenner, Voennaia organisaciia partii Narodnoi voli, Byloe 7 (1906), pp.1013. 106 Volk, Revoliutsionnoe narodnichestvo (note 90), vol. 2, pp.31522. Later Vera Figner denied this jacobin strategy of Narodnaia Volia: Vera Nikolaevna Figner, L. G. Deich i Narodnaia volia, Byloe 25 (1924), pp.2802. 107 Figner, Avtobiograia (note 5) (part 3), p.82. 108 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 5, p.3515.
103 102

Radicalism as Political Religion? 85 to do so and tried to find new leaders in sympathising army circles.109 However, she had the impression that these people were in fact not able to lead Narodnaia Volia: If I had wanted to find strong people, with their own point of view on how to lead the party and who could be able to advance their views, then I would not have found them. They did not have a clear opinion about what to do and what not to do in this [critical] situation.110 All of her comrades from the EC had been arrested or had left the country and there no longer existed an effective leadership. Ignoring these obviously desperate circumstances, Vera Figner did not surrender and continued to work for the common cause111 according to her motto that she would not retract a decision, once made, and would continue to put her words into deeds. She remained true to this credo even though it seemed increasingly irrational. In October 1882, the liberal journalist and sympathiser Nikolai Michailovskii met with her. He noticed that a life in conspiratorial circles had deeply marked her: This wonderful human being was very tired because of her stormy life in this minute and because of the hard situation in the underground. She was always looking around, always fearing that she could be recognised by someone.112 The constant threat of being arrested left her no calm. Vera Figner was prepared to perish together with Narodnaia Volia and to share the fate of its other leaders. Vera Figner did finally fail, but it was not because of her own mistakes or the efforts of the secret police. She was betrayed by a comrade Sergei Degaev at the beginning of 1883. This was particularly hard for Vera Figner because she had herself introduced him to the EC. Now, as double agent, he contributed to the end of Narodnaia Volia and then escaped to live abroad.113 In 1884 Vera Figner was the central defendant in the Trial of the 14.114 She saw herself at the end of a tradition of revolutionary trials, beginning with the Trial of the 50 in 1877, when the Fritschi and the Caucasians had stood before the court. Vera Figner frankly confessed her activities within Narodnaia Volia.115 In her final speech she tried to change roles and put the tsarist regime itself in the dock.116 She was finally condemned to death by hanging. Waiting for the execution in her cell, she felt free of any moral guilt:

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109 Lev Tichomirov, Vospominanija Lva Tichomirova (Moscow: Gosudarstevennoe izdatelstvo, 1927), p.13841. 110 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, p.312. 111 Ibid., pp. 3223. 112 Nikolai Michailovskii, Vospominanija. 1. Vera Figner. 2. V. K. Pleve (Berlin: Verlag Hugo Stein, 1904), p.8. 113 For more on Degaev, see Richard Pipes, The Degaev Affair (London: Yale University Press, 2003). 114 Nikolai Alekseevich Troitskii, Protsess 14-ti, Sovetskoe grazhdanstvo i pravo 9 (1984), pp.119126. 115 GA RF, f. 102, 7-oe del-vo, 1884 g., op. 181, ed. khr. 747, ch. 4, ll. 33141. 116 K biograi V e ry Figner, pp.78.
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S. Rindlisbacher Everything was over and a great calm entered my soul. It is said that such a happy mood of enlightened calm only appears before death.117 I knew that all efforts had been made and everything possible had been done. If I had taken anything from life or from society, then I had given back everything possible to life and society. I felt completely free from guilt towards my country, society or the party.118

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In sacrificing her life on the gallows she planned to become a martyr of her faith in order to persuade the Russian people of her pure ideas.119 However, fate took a different route. She was pardoned by Alexander III and spent the next 20 years in the high-security prison Shlisselburg near St Petersburg together with the most dangerous members of Narodnaia Volia.120 In 1904, she was finally pardoned by Nicholas II and freed. Vera Figner became an icon of the Russian socialist movement121 as a result of her heroic devotion to the revolutionary cause. Until her death in 1942 she was honoured by all Russian socialist parties, including the Bolsheviks.122 Conclusion This article has tried to elaborate Vera Figners path from emancipation to an unconditional struggle against the autocratic state; for this purpose the concept of political religion allows an interesting approach. Vera Figner grew up in a time when liberal and emancipatory ideas were in vogue. To her, the idea of Chernyshevskiis new people provided the basis for escaping from traditional gender roles. She also began to develop a strict moral codex influenced by the Gospels, literature (Nekrasov and Spielhagen) and utilitarian philosophy (J.S. Mill). Against this background she decided to become a physician and dedicate herself to the welfare of the people and to always act according to her words. During her studies in Zurich she met with a group of like-minded women, the Fritschi. There she learned about socialist ideas and the ascetic way of life propagated in the group. She became more and more radical under the influence of this political sect. The Fritschi like other such circles at that time saw themselves as a chosen elite or virtuosi with a calling to create a better and fairer social order in Russia. The form that this struggle for a better future was to take did not seem clear. In the mid-1870s the main task was seen in peaceful propaganda among the peasants in order to initiate social change. In the case of Vera Figner, this peaceful propaganda failed because of the uncompromising repression of the state. In the eyes of the most radical, there was no way to initiate such a change from within
117 118

Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 1, p.355. Ibid., p.356. 119 See also Elun Gabriel, Performing Persecution. Witnessing Martyrdom in the Anarchist Tradition, Radical History Review 98 (Spring 2007). 120 Figner, PSS (note 6), vol. 2: Kogda chasy zhizni ostanavilis. 121 Lynne Ann Hartnett, The Making of a Revolutionary Icon: Vera Nikolaevna Figner and the Peoples Will in the Wake of the Assassination of Tsar Alexander II, Canadian Slavonic Papers 43/1 (March 2001). 122 For example, Pravda, 17 June 1942, p.3.

Radicalism as Political Religion? 87 the bounds of the present order. Under these circumstances, Vera Figner and about 30 other radicals formed the hierarchically structured group Narodnaia Volia. This group tried to induce a political change with a wave of terror against the tsar as a symbol of the autocratic system. The final aim was to seize power and transfer it to the people. In 1881 the group succeeded in assassinating Alexander II, but there came no revolutionary response from the masses. Following the assassination of the tsar, Narodnaia Volia was almost completely dissolved by the police. Vera Figner became the head of the remaining group and she was dedicated to continuing the endeavour uncompromisingly, refusing to seek exile when she had the chance. She was virtually at a dead end, because in her eyes only victory or death seemed acceptable. Her Weltanschauung was hermetically closed so that terrorist acts (like the assassination of Strelnikov) and her longing for self-sacrifice became ends in themselves. The concept of political religion can help to illuminate this seemingly irrational behaviour. Vera Figner had an unfailing faith in the Russian people and its goodness and in the wickedness of the autocratic state. She had a strict corpus of ethical and social principles. By following these principles she maintained her self-perception as virtuosa and felt compelled to fulfil her mission by every means available. She felt also obliged to stay loyal to her comrades legacy, which is to say the religion they shared. Furthermore, her social contacts were limited to the underground circles of true believers, where the political values and the closed Weltanschauung were not put to question. Her high moral convictions as a virtuosa, a sense of mission for the people and her absolute hatred of the autocratic regime became the unquestionable faith which helped Vera Figner to bear all losses, including her arrest as well as the death sentence after her trial. It let her be free of any moral guilt. In her eyes, she had done everything possible for the common end and the end, in the end, justified the means. Notes on Contributor Stephan Rindlisbacher was educated across the European continent at the Universities of Berne, Fribourg, and the State University of St Petersburg. He is currently scientific assistant in the History Department at the University of Berne, Switzerland, where his research specialism pertains to the ideology and practice of revolutionary groups in pre-revolutionary Russia.

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