The next development was that the intellectuals decided to educate the workers. An officer of the army resigned his commission and turned weaver. Sophia Perovskaia and other daughters of wealthy parents got into touch with the working and domestic women. The police of the “Third Section” (the secret police created by Nicholas) grew in numbers and dogged the steps of these fiery young apostles. In 1866 a man named Karakosoff, who had formed a society to promote the welfare of the people, attempted to shoot the Tsar. An isolated fanatic, the Tsar was told; and at that time there was certainly no real organisation of assassination. But the pressure of the police and the daily risk of arrest drove the agitation underground, and to their new quarters the spies and informers and police followed them. There was now, plainly, no question of persuading Alexander II to complete his scheme of reform. There was increasing question of making war upon him and the autocracy. It was the Russian tradition. When a Tsar was obnoxious you removed him; but to do so in the name of justice, not in the name of a covetous group of courtiers, was revolution of the worst order.
By this time, the early seventies, the Tsar saw that he had not merely to deal with a few unbalanced individuals. The jails were full of political prisoners. All the well-known leaders were in jail or exile, yet the work proceeded amazingly. In 1874 there were 1,500 arrests. The new courts were not called upon to decide the guilt of the prisoners. They were knouted, or thrust into prison, or sent to Siberia. Large numbers died in the overcrowded jails. Some went insane or committed suicide. When the experiment of a public trial was at last made, in 1877, people were amazed at the calm courage and high idealism of the young “criminals.” In 1878 nearly two hundred of them were tried. Many received terms of imprisonment, or penal servitude, of from ten to twenty years.
The rebels were now at war with the brutal ministers of the autocracy, and they began to use the same weapons. A young girl from the country came to St. Petersburg and shot the head of the police; and, amidst great enthusiasm, she was acquitted by a jury. Another head of the police was in the same year (1878) stabbed at Odessa. Spies were shot. Groups of young men who were surprised in secret council by the police produced revolvers and fought. The governor of Kharkoff, who treated political prisoners with great brutality, was assassinated. Another attempt was made to shoot the Tsar (1879).