Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky

Stepniak was the son of an army doctor and of a noblewoman, born July 1 (O.S.; July 13 N.S.), 1851 in Novy Starodub (then part of the Alexandrovsky Uyezd, Kherson Governorate of Ukraine).[1] He received a liberal education, and when he left school, he went on to attend Military academy and graduate from the Mikhailovsky Artillery Institute before joining the Imperial Russian army.[2] He reached the rank of second lieutenant before resigning his commission in 1871.

His sympathy lay with the peasants, among whom he had lived during his boyhood in the country. This experience would develop in him a democratic and later revolutionary opinions. He would join the Circle of Tchaikovsky, a group of like-minded Narodnik philosophers and political activists whose ultimate goal was the "liberation of the people."[3] Stepniak would be a member of the original St. Petersburg branch of the Circle, where he would join thirty other men and women of education, including Pyotr Kropotkin.

As a member of this Circle, he began secretly to sow the sentiments of democracy and the ideals of the Narodniks among the peasants. To this end, he would participate in a precursor to the Going to the People, where members of the Narodnik movement would disguise themselves as peasants and laborers to spread the idea of revolution. Stepniak, accompanied by another member of the Circle, Dmitry Rogachev, would appear in a Tver village as woodcutters in the autumn of 1873. In November, they would be tracked down by the rural police, but would escape at first, swearing to each other that they would dedicate their lives to the people.[4] The Circle would be broken up in and his teaching would follow soon after, ending with his arrest in 1874.

He succeeded in making his escape, possibly being permitted to escape on account of his youth, and immediately began a more vigorous campaign against autocracy. His sympathetic nature was influenced by indignation against the brutal methods adopted towards prisoners, especially political prisoners, and by the stern measures which the government of tsar Alexander II felt compelled to adopt in order to repress the revolutionary movement.[5]

Sergey Stepniak

In 1874 Stepniak went to the Balkans and joined the rising against the Turks in Bosnia in 1876, and used that experience to write a manual on guerrilla warfare.[6] He also joined the anarchist Errico Malatesta in his small rebellion in the Italian province of Benevento in 1877.[7] He returned to Russia in 1878, joining Zemlya i volya (Land and Liberty), where he along with Nikolai Morozov and Olga Liubatovich edited the party journal.

For a time he was convinced that individual acts of political terrorism would convince tsar Alexander II to introduce democratic reforms. On August 4, 1878 O.S. he assassinated General Nikolai Mezentsov,[8] the chief of the Gendarme corps and head of the country's secret police,[1] with a dagger in the streets of St Petersburg.

After the killing, he exposed himself to danger by remaining in Russia, and he left the country in the fall of 1878. He settled for a short time in Switzerland, then a favourite resort of revolutionary leaders, and after a few years came to London. He was already known in England by his book, Underground Russia, which had been published in London in 1882.[9] In England he established the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom and the Russia Free Press, linking with Karl Pearson, Wilfrid Voynich and Charlotte Wilson. He was also an editor for the Society's house organ, Free Russia.

He followed up Underground Russia with a number of other works on the condition of the Russian peasantry, on Nihilism, and on the conditions of life in Russia. The British socialist and Fabian Annie Besant reviewed Stepniak’s The Russian Storm-Cloud in her journal Our Corner in July 1886. She wrote: “I earnestly commend this work to my readers, as a book to be read and kept. The deep interest of its theme is sufficient to ensure its welcome among all who turn to the Russian Revolutionary party eyes of admiration and of love.”[10] His mind gradually turned from belief in the efficacy of violent measures to the acceptance of constitutional methods. In his last book, King Stork and King Log, Stepniak spoke with approval of the efforts of politicians on the Liberal side to effect, by argument and peaceful agitation, a change in the attitude of the Russian government towards various reforms.[9]

Stepniak constantly wrote and lectured, both in Great Britain and the United States, in support of his views, and his energy, added to the interest of his personality, won him many friends. He was chiefly identified with the Socialists in England and the Social Democratic parties on the Continent; but he was regarded by people of all opinions as an agitator whose motives had always been pure and disinterested.[9] Russian anarchist leader Peter Kropotkin, who knew Stepniak personally, testified as to his character: "He was a stranger to the feeling of fear; it was as foreign to him as colors are to a person born blind. He was ready to risk his life every moment. Egotism as well as narrow partisanship was unknown to him; he believed that in a movement to defeat oppression there are always parties and factions with differences of opinion,— 'but let every party do its share in the work for the common good, the best it knows how'— he used to say — 'and the result will be much greater for the cause [...]' He also could not understand why there should be strife among the various parties, since all are involved in the struggle against a common enemy. This was the result of his inborn instinct for justice. I have known but few people who have possessed this instinct developed to such a degree. [...] When he heard someone relating about an injustice, he was at once ready to annihilate the oppressor. I shall never forget the expression of his face, when I related to him the treatment our comrades had received in France and Italy. And yet he was kindness personified. Whoever knew him loved him. The children in Russia worshipped him. He spent some of the most enjoyable moments of his life in America where, surrounded by bright black faces, he taught in a negro school."[11]

Stepniak was killed by a train at a railway crossing at Woodstock Road, Chiswick, London, where he resided, on 23 December 1895 (see Stepniak's death on the railway).[9] In the previously cited memorial essay on Stepniak written by Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin he explained the tragic manner of his death: "Sergei Stepniak was killed by a train, about three hundred feet away from his house. He left his house about 10.30 in the morning, in order to visit a gathering of friends and comrades in Shepherd's Bush (London). A few bricklayers who knew him well saw him go by. He was absorbed in a book, which he read while walking. He had to cross a single track of a branch line, between Hammersmith and South Acton. The place was very dangerous; one has to cross the track hastily and very carefully. At first glance one would think he could make it in a single leap, but in reality one has to make about seven steps across the track, in order to be out of danger. The sharp turn prevents the pedestrian from noticing the oncoming of a train. When the engineer saw Stepniak crossing the track, he sounded the whistle; but before Stepniak had time to turn his head, the train knocked him down, killing him instantly."[12] His body was cremated at Woking on 28 December[9] and the cremated remains deposited at Kensal Green Cemetery.

In the same memorial essay cited above, Kropotkin (who apparently was in attendance) describes the memorial ceremony: "The following Saturday the cremation of his body took place. Hundreds of his friends came to his house and walked to the Ravenscourt Park cemetery. At the Waterloo station, from where the train leaves for Wauking [sic], thousands of workingmen assembled with their banners, representing the societies and Labor Unions of various parts of London. Opposite the station, in a downpour of rain, speeches were held by English, Russian, Italian, German and Armenian friends, who were often interrupted by the loud sobs of the assembled. The manifestation was both magnificent and heart-breaking. I have seen funerals large in numbers, but I have never seen a funeral with so much deep grief and sorrow as was manifested by the mourners at the funeral of Sergei Stepniak. When the terrible accident happened, he was only 43 years of age, full of strength and courage, full of hope and belief in the future. [...] Hundreds of letters and telegrams received at his funeral, attested to his value to the Russian Revolutionary movement. He was its central figure."[13]

• Underground Russia. London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1883.
• Russia Under the Tzars. Translated by William Westall. London: Ward & Downey, 1885.
• A Female Nihilist. Boston, Mass.: Benj. R. Tucker, 1885.
• The Russian Storm-Cloud or, Russia in Her Relations to Neighbouring Countries London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1886.
• The Russian Peasantry: Their Agrarian Condition, Social Life, and Religion. London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1888.
• The Career of a Nihilist: A Novel. London: Walter Scott, 1889.
• King Stork and King Log: A Study of Modern Russia. London: Downey & Co., 1895.

• Butterworth, Alex (2011). The world that never was : a true story of dreamers, schemers, anarchists and secret agents (1st ed.). London: Vintage Books. ISBN 9780099551928.
• Kropotkin, Peter (1 January 1905). "The Constitutional Movement in Russia". revoltlib.com. The Nineteenth Century.
• Saunders, David (May 2005). "Sergey Mikhailovich Kravchinsky (1851–1895)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/62226. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

Attribution:

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Fyfe, Henry Hamilton (1911). "Stepniak, Sergius". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 889–890.

• The Anarchists, James Joll, second edition, page 103.
• The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists & Secret Police, Alex Butterworth, first edition, page 92.

S. M. Stepniak-Kravchinskii: The London Years. [Senese, Donald] /Newtonville -ORP- 1987/, pp. 130, ill. hc.

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• Works by Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky at Project Gutenberg
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