BAKUNIN  THE  APOSTLE  OF  NIHILISM.  20/
or  demur.”  Four  of  the  young  men  initiated  received  orders
to  enlist  fresh  adherents  and  to  form  each  a  small  independent
section.  Among  them  was  a  student  of  the  Academy  of  Agriculture, ­
  named  Ivanoff,  who  was  devoting  himself  to  works  of
charity  with  the  exaltation  of  a  saint  He  was  much  esteemed
by  his  fellow-students  and  had  great  influence  among  them.
He  had  organized  aid  funds  for  poor  students  ;  he  used  to
devote  all  his  spare  time  to  teaching  the  children  of  the
peasants,  and  he  habitually  stinted  himself  in  order  to  give  to
others.  He  believed,  however,  that  individual  beneficence
could  only  assist  a  few  unfortunates,  and  that  nothing  but
a  social  revolution  could  put  an  end  to  the  misery  that  exists.
Netchaieff  and  Ivanoff  did  not  long  pull  together.  Netchaieff
had  some  revolutionary  proclamations  posted  up  in  the  cheap
boarding-houses  that  Ivanoff  had  organized  for  poor  students.
These  were  in  consequence  shut  up,  and  the  managers  sent
into  exile.  Ivanoff  was  much  distressed  at  this,  and  announced
his  intention  of  quitting  the  Association.  Then,  in  fear  lest  he
should  betray  the  secret,  Netchaieff  and  two  other  members,
Pryoff  and  Nicolaieff,  though  hitherto  friends  of  Ivanoff,  enticed
him  one  evening  into  a  quiet  garden,  under  pretext  of  digging
up  a  secret  press,  and  then  they  shot  him  dead  with  a  revolver
and  threw  his  body  into  a  pond.
To  take  another  instance  of  a  similar  nature.  The  Congress
of  the  International,  which  was  going  to  unite  at  the  Hague  in
1872,  wished,  under  the  inspiration  of  Marx,  to  exclude  Bakunin, ­
  and  in  order  to  convict  him  of  having  founded  a  secret
society  with  statutes  contrary  to  those  of  the  International
a  Russian  exile,  Utin,  was  commissioned  to  draw  up  a  report
on  the  Netchaieff  affair.  Utin,  in  order  to  perform  his  task
took  up  his  abode  at¿Zurich.  One  evening,  as  he  was  walking
about  near  the  lake,  he  was  attacked  by  eight  persons  who
spoke  the  Slav  language.  These  men,  after  having,  as  they
believed,  beaten  him  to  death,  were  going  to  throw  him  into
the  water,  when  he  was  rescued  by  the  arrival  of  some  students
of  the  University.  We  may  therefore  conclude,  not  only  from
the  statutes  of  the  Alliance,  but  from  its  acts,  that  it  does  not
shrink  from  the  assassination  of  its  members.