ABSTRACT
In Russia the political sky had been darkening for nearly a century before the final catastrophe. Because Russia was remote from the rest of Europe, a medieval and feudal autocracy long remained impervious to the influences which worked such profound changes among Western peoples. But the final stumbling-block to the development of Russia in a democratic direction lay in the refusal of the autocracy to recognize the necessity of such a course. Russia had long provided a fertile soil for the planting of revolutionary doctrine. The first modern Russian revolutionaries were not, consciously Marxists, though it so happens that they produced the type of revolutionary which foreigners have particularly identified with Russia, namely, the Nihilist. The rise of this movement dates from the early days of Alexander II's reign, just after the Crimean War, when Liberal ideas were more in favour in Russia than perhaps they ever were before or after. Russia was largely dependent on imports for manufactured goods.
