A New Champion of Autocracy,
Or
Mr. L. Tikhomirov’s Grief

(Reply to the Pamphlet: Why I Ceased to be a Revolutionary)

From the Author

The present pamphlet is being published later than it should have been. Illness prevented me from finishing it in time. All the same I am publishing it because Mr. Tikhomirov’s fall is still a question of actuality for many readers.

Baugy, March 3, 1889

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Note

1. The occasion for the pamphlet A New Champion of Autocracy, or Mr. L. Tikhomirov’s Grief was Mr. Tikhomirov’s pamphlet Why I Ceased to be a Revolutionary, which was published in Russian in Paris in 1888 and caused a great sensation.

Lev Tikhomirov, a former member of Zemlya i Volya, member of the Executive Committee of Narodnaya Volya, betrayed the revolutionary struggle and calumniated the Russian revolutionaries. After the publication of this shameful booklet he filed an appeal for pardon in 1888 and in 1889 he returned to Russia from emigration. Soon he became one of the most devoted champions and ideologists of the autocracy and a contributor to, and later the editor of the reactionary newspaper Moskovskiye Vedomosti.

In August 1888, as soon as Tikhomirov’s booklet was published, Plekhanov wrote a review of it, saying, among other things, with great foresight: “There is the man to trust with editing Moskovskiye Vedomosti! Mr. Tikhomirov’s creative mind would be a real find for our reactionary press.”

A New Champion of Autocracy was first published in Geneva in 1889 by the Library of Modern Socialism (ninth volume). A second edition was put out legally in 1906 in Petersburg as an appendix to the journal Sokol. This was a reprint of the first edition and it bore very noticeable traces of censorship: particularly sharp points, especially in the characterization of the Russian autocrats, were considerably toned down.

In the present edition the work is printed according to the text of the third volume of Plekhanov’s Works (1923-1927), checked with the first Geneva edition of 1889.