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The Zubatov Idea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Kyril Tidmarsh
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Extract

One of the reasons for the debacle of Tsarism was its failure to counteract the elements of revolution by many methods more subtle than those of force. Not only were the radicals driven to revolution by the uncompromising policy of the government and not only was the landowning aristocracy alienated by being deprived of a share in the administration but, more important still, there was a complete failure on the part of the government to foster or to support the new antirevolutionary elements which had grown up among the intelligentsia as a reaction against the spread of terrorism. No effort was made to assist the body of social thought which grew up as a response to the extremism of the radicals during the second half of the nineteenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , October 1960 , pp. 335 - 346
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1960

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References

1 As the Soviet historian Nevskij put it: “The tragedy of the wise liberal-reactionary Chicherin lies in the fact that he offered his conservative policy depending on the nation to far from wise bureaucrats who did not realize that merciless repression of revolution in the name of and by the instrument of the whole society is much more profitable than in the name of the bureaucracy alone which took no account of this society.” Introduction to Chicherin, B., Vospominanija (Moscow, 1929), p.11.Google Scholar

2 Istorija rossii v XIX veke, Granat, ed., VIII, 137.

3 Ainzaft, S., Zubatovshchina i Gaponovshchina (Moscow, 1925), p.30.Google Scholar

4 Bogdanovich, A. V., Tri poslednikh samoderzhtsva, p. 126. She added significantly “Suvorin” (the editor and publisher of Novoe Vremja) “does not know what point of view to maintain: the conservative, he cannot, for then the public will not read him, and as for the liberal, he fears Sipiagin.” Ibid.Google Scholar

5 Sviatlovskij, V., Professionalnoe dvizhenie, (St. Petersburg, 1907), p. 75 Google Scholar.

6 Istorija proletariata SSSR, Sbornik I, dokumenty i materialy, “Novoe o Zubatovshchine,” Kommunisticheskaja Akademija (1930), p. 169.Google Scholar

7 Doklady vtoromu sjezdu social-demokraticheskoj partii, (Gosizdat, 1930), p. 125.Google Scholar

8 Lenin, V. I., Sobranije sochinenii, Vol. IV, 'Chto Delat'?', p. 449.Google Scholar

9 Mickevich, S., “Revoljucionnaja Moskva” (Gosizdat, 1940), p. 302.Google Scholar

10 In one of many protests to Sipiagin, Witte wrote, “I cannot but place before you the question as to whether the intervention of the Union of Workers into labor-management relations is legal and what authorization the Moscow Chief of Police has in permitting the organization of the Union of Workers.” Katorga i Ssylka (1929), p. 123.Google Scholar

11 S. Mickevich, op. tit., p. 301.

12 Alekseev, I. V., “Provokator Anna Serebrjakova” (Moscow, 1932), p. 136.Google Scholar

13 Arkhiv Russkoj revoljucii, Vol. XV (Berlin, 1924), Spiridovich, A. I., “Pri Carskom Rezhime.”Google Scholar

14 Byloe (1917), IV-VI, 176. The scene of Zubatov's dismissal does indicate that Plehve was personally much embittered at the failure of the experiment. He had Lt. General von Wahl present as witness because “he had not the habit of speaking tête à. tête with those whom he did not trust…”. He accused Zubatov of lèese majestè in writing to a subordinate “at last I have found someone who shares my views in the person of the Judophil Tsar.” See Byloe (1917), No. I.

15 Granat, op. cit., p. 128.

16 Byloe (July-September, 1906), p. 65.

17 Byloe, Nos. VII-IX (1918), p. 117. It was this kind of over-confidence which must have led Zubatov too far at times. So successful, for instance, were his interrogations of the Minsk school of Social Democrats that he decided to go to the very heart of the Bund organization, summoning Kramer, a member of the Central Committee, by telegram. This had the unfortunate repercussion that Kramer took flight abroad and a most injurious proclamation warning all social democrats of the danger of conversations with Zubatov was issued soon after.

18 AlekseevIn view of this, the claims of Serebrjakova to have impelled Zubatov towards the theory with which his name came to be associated, become difficult to believe. I. V., op. cit., pp. 131–33.

19 18 For instance, the suggestion to Fondaminskij in the Autumn of 1886 that they institute an illegal library.

20 Solomonov, Victor Danilov, Kogan.

21 Mickevich, op. cit., p. 300.

22 Byloe, No. VH-IX (1918), p. 110.

23 Alekseev, op. cit., p. 13.

24 Byloe IV-VI, 1917, 174; “Zubatovshchina” by Zubatov.

25 Istorija Proletariate! SSSR, Sbornik I, “Novoe O Zubatovshchine,” p. 169.

26 Ibid., p. 176.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

29 Balabanov, M., Ocherki po Istorii Rabochevo Klassa v Rossii, Vol. II, 1930, p. 170.Google Scholar

30 Ocherki, ibid.

31 B. Frumkin, “Zubatov i Evrejskoe Rabochee Dvizhenie,” Pereputie, III, 209.

32 Byloe (1918), VIMX, p. 107.

33 Ibid., pp. 108–09.

34 Ibid., p. 120.

35 Ibid., pp. 127–28.

36 Byloe (1918), Nos. VII-IX, p. 130.