Sergey Mikhaylovich Stepnyak-Kravchinsky (; July 1, 1851 – 23 December 1895), known in the 19th century London revolutionary circles as Sergius Stepniak, was a Ukrainian revolutionary mainly known for assassinating General Nikolai Mezentsov, the chief of Russia's Gendarme corps and the head of the country's secret police, with a dagger in the streets of St Petersburg in 1878.
Early life
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). 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. He reached the rank of second lieutenant before resigning his commission in 1871.
Revolutionary life
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." 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. 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.
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. He also joined the anarchist Errico Malatesta in his small rebellion in the Italian province of Benevento in 1877. 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, the chief of the Gendarme corps and head of the country's secret police, 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. 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.