Russia under the Old regime

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icals out of the movement. But on its most dedicated members it had the opposite effect; disappointment made them even more determined to find a strategy which would bring the system to its knees.

The solution adopted in 1878-9 was terror. It was argued by radical theorists that a campaign of assassinations against high government officials would accomplish two aims; demoralize and eventually grind to a halt the machinery of government, and at the same time demonstrate to the peasant the vulnerability of the monarchic system which he held in such awe. But once initiated, terror acquired a momentum of its own and its perpetrators quickly forgot their aims. Any sequence of daring suicidal acts, publicly committed - assassinations, bombings, self-immolations, hijackings - seems to produce a kind of resonance in some people who then become compulsively driven to re-enact it. Thesocialist-revolutionary terror, launched in 1878 and carried on for four years, kept on intensifying even after it had become apparent it would neither paralyse the government nor incite the peasants to rebel. In the end, it became terror for the sake of terror, carried out with impressive cunning and courage simply to prove that it could be done: a contest of wills between a tiny band of radicals and the whole imperial establishment.

As incidents of terror multiplied - and because of the very slight machinery for protecting government officials, they succeeded surprisingly often - the authorities were thrown into a state approaching panic. Although the actual number of terrorists at any one time was very small (the so-called Executive Committee of the People's Will, its whole effective force, had some thirty members), the psychology of an authoritarian regime is such that it tends wildly to over-react to direct challenges. In some respects, such a regime is like a commercial bank and its authority represents a form of credit. A bank keeps on hand only a small part of the capital entrusted to it by depositors - just enough to meet ordinary withdrawals - and the rest it invests. Depositors (those aware of the fact, at any rate) do not mind this practice as long as they are certain that whenever presented their claim will be fully honoured. But should a bank fail to meet even a single withdrawal demand, confidence in it is at once shattered, and depositors rush to reclaim their funds. The result is a bank run which forces the bank to suspend payments. An authoritarian state similarly succeeds in exacting universal obedience not because it has the forces required to meet all the possible challenges, but because it has enough of them to meet any anticipated ones. Failure to move decisively, producing a loss of prestige, invites multiple challenges and results in a kind of political bank run known as revolution.

In its eagerness to meet the threat posed by terrorism, the imperial government greatly over-reacted. It began to set in motion, sometimes overtly, sometimes secretly, all kinds of countermeasures, which in their