With regard to the number of those concerned in the Russian revolutionary movement, it is not easy to speak with precision. There is no proof that the anarchist opinions have gained a large body of adherents in the country. The numerical strength of the party directly engaged in the struggle with the Tzardom has always been comparatively small. On the other hand, the movement has evidently met with a very wide sympathy in Russian society. In the absence of precise information, we may quote the words of one who has a good right to speak for the revolutionary party:— ‘The Russian revolutionary movement is really a revolution _sui generis_, carried on, however, not by the mass of the people or those feeling the need of it, but by a kind of delegation, acting on behalf of the mass of the people with this purpose. ‘No one has ever undertaken, and perhaps no one could with any certainty undertake, to calculate the numerical strength of this party—that is to say, of those who share the convictions and aspirations of the revolutionists. All that can be said is, that it is a very large party, and that at the present moment it numbers hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of men, disseminated everywhere. This mass of people, which might be called the Revolutionary Nation, does not, however, take a direct part in the struggle. It entrusts its interests and its honour, its hatred and its vengeance, to those who make the revolution their sole and exclusive occupation; for under the conditions existing in Russia, people cannot remain as ordinary citizens and devote themselves at the same time to Socialism and the Revolution. ‘The real revolutionary party, or rather the militant organisation, is recruited from this class of revolutionary leaders.’[5] ----- [1] The detailed Life of Bakunin, promised by Cafiero and Elisée Reclus in the preface to _God and the State_, has apparently not yet been published. Hence the above meagre account of life. [2] _Procés des Anarchistes_, p. 97. [3] _Le Procés des Anarchistes_, Lyons, 1883. [4] For the revolutionary movement in Russia under Alexander II. see Alphons Thun’s _Geschichte der revolutionären Bewegungen in Russland_. See also Stepniak’s _Underground Russia_, and _Russia under the Tzars_. [5] Stepniak, _Underground Russia_, p. 264. CHAPTER XI THE PURIFIED SOCIALISM We have, in the preceding chapters, sketched the rise and the principles of the leading schools of historic socialism. The history we have reviewed is a most protean one, and very prolific in theories which are more or less akin.