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THE FATHER OF TERRORISM 21
the women who are entirely with us, that is
to say, completely
initiated and having accepted our program
in its
entirety. We ought to consider them as the most precious
of our treasures, without whose help we can do
nothing." (Sec. 21.) (27)
The last section of the ''Catechism" treats of the duty
of the association toward the people. "The Society has
no other end than the complete emancipation and happiness
of the people, namely, of the laborers. But, convinced
that this emancipation and this happiness can
only be reached by means of an all-destroying popular
revolution, the Society will use every means and every
effort to increase and intensify the evils and sorrows,
which must at last exhaust the patience of the people
and excite them to insurrection en masse. By a popular
revolution the Society does not mean a movement regulated
according to the classic patterns of the West, which,
always restrained in the face of property and of the traditional
social order of so-called civilization and morality,
has hitherto been limited merely to exchanging one form
of political organization for another, and to the creating
of a so-called revolutionary State. The only revolution
that can do any good to the people is that which utterly
annihilates every
idea of the State and overthrows all
traditions, orders, and classes in Russia. With this end
in view, the Society has no intention of imposing on the
people any organization whatever coming from above.
The future organization will, without doubt, proceed
from the movement and life of the people ;
but that is the
business of future generations. Our task is terrible,
total, inexorable, and universal destruction." (28)
These are in brief the tactics and principles of terrorism,
as understood by Bakounin and Nechayeff. As
only the criminal world shared these views in any degree,