Tsaricidal

That czaricidal crank arrested in Switzerland, charged with being from Paterson, New Jersey, has succeeded in proving an alibi. There are some accusations which will be resented, even by an anarchist.

Eventually it was decided that the Tsar’s carriage should be mined, with hand grenades at the ready as a second strategy; and if all else failed, one member should step forward and stab the Tsar with a dagger. Even the indomitable Maria Olovennikova was shocked to find on her return from Moscow that ‘all they can talk about now is dynamite’. She saw the Party as bent on a suicidal rather than a tsaricidal course, and urged the establishment of a powerful second-strike force in Moscow to save the Party from being wiped out by its own devices.

It was only after the ‘Dobrolyubov’ demonstration of November 1886, however, that Ulyanov began to lay plans for a more hazardous undertaking, the assassination of the Tsar. In September he was clearly not contemplating such a venture: in that month he moved into new lodgings with a friend from the ‘economic’ circle, Chebotaryov, whom he was later to exclude from his tsaricidal plans.

Under the influence of imprisoned radical Chernyshevsky’s novel, What Is to Be Done?, there formed in Moscow a student group called Organization (Organizatsiia), whose goal it was to spread socialism, destroy morality and religion, and overthrow the government through revolution. At Organization’s core sat a secret sui/tsaricidal cell called Hell (Ad).

Of all those in the society to whom it had been suggested to form the secret circle “Hell”—Petr Ermolov, Ishutin, Dmitry Iurasov, Karakozov, Osip Motkoy, Nikolai Stranden, and Maximilian Zagibalov—some had thought it still “too early” for tsaricide. Karakozov, however—“being, according to the testimony of his friends, always taciturn, an intense hypochondriac, who wanted, in his sick state, to commit suicide”—did not share these sentiments. During the first week of Lent (in early February), Karakozov traveled to Petersburg, contacted Khudiakov, and told him of his tsaricidal plan.

Vika is a regal-looking blonde of thirty-five. She’s a Romanova to boot, a descendant of the last tsar. She hates the tsaricidal Lenin.