The first attempt of the kind was made in Moscow under the direction of a certain Zubatof, chief of the secret police, who had been himself a revolutionary in his youth, and afterwards an agent provocateur.  Aided by Tikhomirof, the repentant terrorist whom I have already mentioned, Zubatof organised a large workmen’s association, with reading-rooms, lectures, discussions and other attractions, and sought to convince the members that they should turn a deaf ear to the Social Democratic agents, and look only to the Government for the improvement of their condition.  In order to gain their sympathy and confidence, he instructed his subordinates to take the side of the workmen in all labour disputes, while he himself brought official pressure to bear on the employers.  By this means he made a considerable number of converts, and for a time the association seemed to prosper, but he did not possess the extraordinary ability and tact required to play the complicated game successfully, and he committed the fatal mistake of using the office-bearers of the association as detectives for the discovery of the “evil-intentioned.”  This tactical error had its natural consequences.  As soon as the workmen perceived that their professed benefactors were police spies, who did not obtain for them any real improvement of their condition, the popularity of the association rapidly declined.  At the same time, the factory owners complained to the Minister of Finance that the police, who ought to be guardians of public order, and who had accused the factory inspectors of stirring up discontent in the labouring population, were themselves creating troubles by inciting the workmen to make inordinate demands.  The Minister of Finance at the moment was M. Witte, and the Minister of Interior, responsible for the acts of the police, was M. Plehve, and between these two official dignitaries, who were already in very strained relations, Zubatof’s activity formed a new base of contention.  In these circumstances it is not surprising that the very risky experiment came to an untimely end.

In St. Petersburg a similar experiment was made, and it ended much more tragically.  There the chief role was played by a mysterious personage called Father Gapon, who acquired great momentary notoriety.  Though a genuine priest, he did not belong by birth, as most Russian priests do, to the ecclesiastical caste.  The son of a peasant in Little Russia, where the ranks of the clergy are not hermetically sealed against the other social classes, he aspired to take orders, and after being rusticated from a seminary for supposed sympathy with revolutionary ideas, he contrived to finish his studies and obtain ordination.  During a residence in Moscow he took part in the Zubatof experiment, and when that badly conducted scheme collapsed he was transferred to St. Petersburg and appointed chaplain to a large convict prison.  His new professional duties did not prevent him from continuing to take a keen interest in the