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The great reforms of Tsar Alexander’s reign, and especially those of the zemstva, which had given the nobility a taste of administration, stimulated demands for the introduction of a constitutional monarchy. The initiative here came from the Moscow nobility, who in January, 1865, as Ivanov writes, “agitated for the convening of the people’s representatives, thanking the Tsar for his wise beginnings. The Moscow nobility, who always strove for the good of the State, asked him not to stop on his chosen path and bring to completion the state building begun by him ‘through the convening of a general assembly of elected delegates from the Russian land for the discussion of the needs that are common to the whole state’. Emperor Alexander did not accept this appeal. He underlined that ‘not one assembly can speak in the name of the other classes’ and that the right to care for what is useful and beneficial for the State belonged to him as emperor.
“Alexander thought and wisely foresaw that the granting of a constitution for Russia would be disastrous for the latter.
“In a private conversation with one of the composers of the appeal (Golokhvostov), Alexander said: ‘What do you want? A constitutional form of administration? I give you my word, at this table, that I would be ready to sign any constitution you like if I were convinced that it was useful for Russia. But I know that if I do this today, tomorrow Russia will disintegrate into pieces.’
“The Tsar’s forebodings had solid foundations.
“On April 4, 1868 Karakozov made an attempt on the life of the Tsar.
“It was necessary to speak, not about a constitution, but about the salvation of the State…”402
As Dominic Lieven writes, Alexander “explained to Otto von Bismarck, who was then Prussian minister in Petersburg, that ‘the idea of taking counsel of subjects other than officials was not in itself objectionable and that great participation by respectable notables in official business could only be advantageous. The difficulty, if not impossibility, of putting this principle into effect lay only in the experience of history that it had never been possible to stop a country’s liberal development at the point beyond which it should not go. This would be particularly difficult in Russia, where the necessary political culture, thoughtfulness and circumspection were only to be found in relatively small circles. Russia must not be judged by Petersburg, of all the empire’s towns the least Russian one… The revolutionary party would not find it easy to corrupt the people’s convictions and make the masses conceive their interests to be divorced from those of the dynasty. The Emperor continued that ‘throughout the interior of the empire the people still see the monarch as the paternal and absolute Lord set by God over the land; this belief, which has almost the force of a religious sentiment, is completely independent of any personal loyalty of which I could be the object. I like to think that it will not be lacking too in the future. To abdicate the absolute power with which my crown is invested would be to undermine the aura of that authority which has dominion over the nation. The deep respect, based on innate sentiment, with which right up to now the Russian people surrounds the throne of its Emperor cannot be parcelled out. I would diminish without any compensation the authority of the government if I wanted to allow representatives of the nobility or the nation to participate in it. Above all, God knows what would become of relations between the peasants and the lords if the authority of the Emperor was not still sufficiently intact to exercise the dominating influence.’…
“… After listening to Alexander’s words Bismarck commented that if the masses lost faith in the crown’s absolute power the risk of a murderous peasant war would become very great. He concluded that ‘His Majesty can still rely on the common man both in the army and among the civilian masses but the “educated classes”, with the exception of the older generation, are stoking the fires of a revolution which, if it comes to power, would immediately turn against themselves.’ Events were to show that this prophecy was as relevant in Nicholas II’s era as it had been during the reign of his grandfather…”403
The revolutionaries did not rest. In 1876 in London, the Jewish revolutionaries Liberman, Goldenburg and Zuckerman worked out a plan for the murder of the Tsar. Goldenburg was the first to offer his services as the murdered, but his suggestion was refused, “since they found that he, as a Jew, should not take upon himself this deed, for then it would not have the significance that was fitting for society and, the main thing, the people.”404
“On April 2, 1879 the village teacher Alexander Soloviev fired at the Emperor Alexander near the Winter palace while he was going for his morning walk.
“On May 28, 1879 Soloviev was hanged, while three weeks later a secret congress of revolutionaries in Lipetsk took the decision to kill the Tsar.
“The propaganda of socialism, they argued, was impossible in Russia under the existing form of government, and for that reason it was necessary to strive for its overthrow, for the limitation of autocratic power, for the bestowal of political freedoms and the convening of the people’s representatives. The means for the attainment of this goal had to be terror, by which the plotters understood the murder of people in [high] positions, and first of all the Tsar.
“On November 19, 1879 the terrorists tried to blow up the Emperor’s train.405
“In 1880 a mine was laid and exploded under the Tsar’s dining room in the Winter palace.
“On February 12, 1880, on the insistence of the Tsarevich-heir, a ‘Supreme Investigative Commission’ was founded and Loris-Melikov was given dictatorial powers.
“From February 12 to August 6, 1880 there was established the so-called ‘dictatorship of the heart’ of Count Loris-Melikov.
“The liberals from the zemstva and the professors were demanding a constitution, for this was the only way to struggle with the insurrection. The terrorists were attacking the government with bombs, daggers and revolvers, while the government replied with freedoms and constitutions.
“Count Loris-Melikov was, as was only to be expected, a humanist and a liberal and was under the direct influence of the Mason Koshelev.
“Count Loris-Melikov entered into close union with the zemstva and the liberal organs of the press.
“The liberal Abaza was appointed to the ministry of finance406; Tolstoy was retired.
“Count Loris-Melikov conducted a subtle intrigue and suggested the project for a State structure that received the name of ‘the constitution of Loris-Melikov’ in society.
“He suggested stopping the creation in St. Petersburg of ‘temporary-preparatory commissions’ so that the work of these commissions should be subjected to scrutiny with the participation of people taken from the zemstva and ‘certain significant towns’, taken, as Tatischev put it, ‘from the elected people’.
“Lev Tikhomirov, the penitent revolutionary and former terrorist, being well acquainted with the events and people of the reign of Alexander II Nikolaevich, affirmed that Count Loris-Melikov was deceiving his Majesty and by his ‘dictatorship of the heart’ was creating a revolutionary leaven in the country.
“Emperor Alexander II confirmed the report of his minister on the constitution on February 17, 1881, and on the morning of March 1 also confirmed the text announcing this measure, so that before its publication it should be debated at the session of the Council of Ministers on March 4.
“On the same day that the report of Count Loris-Melikov was signed, a bomb thrown by terrorists, cut short the life of the Sovereign.”407
Ironically, since Alexander III rejected the project for a constitution, Russia had been saved from a constitution by the bombs of the terrorists…
"The murder of Alexander II," writes G.P. Izmestieva, "was seen by monarchical Russia as the culmination of the liberal 'inebriation' of earlier years, as the shame and guilt of all, God's judgement and a warning."408 As St. Ambrose of Optina wrote on March 14: "I don't know what to write to you about the terrible present times and the pitiful state of affairs in Russia. There is one consolation in the prophetic words of St. David: 'The Lord scattereth the plans of the heathens, He setteth aside the devices of the peoples, and He bringeth to nought the plans of princes' (Psalm 32.10). The Lord allowed Alexander II to die a martyric death, but He is powerful to give help from on high to Alexander III to catch the evildoers, who are infected with the spirit of the Antichrist. Since apostolic times the spirit of the Antichrist has worked through his forerunners, as the apostle writes: 'The mystery of iniquity is already working, only it is held back now, until it is removed from the midst' (II Thessalonians 2.7). The apostolic words 'is held back now' refer to the powers that be and the ecclesiastical authorities, against which the forerunners of the Antichrist rise up in order to abolish and annihilate them upon the earth. Because the Antichrist, according to the explanation of the interpreters of Holy Scripture, must come during a time of anarchy on earth. But until then he sits in the bottom of hell, and acts through his forerunners. First he acted through various heretics who disturbed the Orthodox Church, and especially through the evil Arians, educated men and courtiers; and then he acted cunningly through the educated Masons; and finally, now, through the educated nihilists, he has begun to act blatantly and crudely, beyond measure. But their illness will turn back upon their heads, as it is written in the Scriptures. Is it not the most extreme madness to work with all one's might, not sparing one's own life, in order to be hung on the gallows, and in the future life to fall into the bottom of hell to be tormented forever in Tartarus? But desperate pride pays no attention, but desires in every way to express its irrational boldness. Lord, have mercy on us!"409
It was not only the holy elders who saw in Russia the main obstacle to the triumph of “the mystery of iniquity”. “The same withholding role in Russia,” writes Mikhail Nazarov, “was seen by the founders of Marxism: ‘… It is clear to us that the revolution has only one truly terrible enemy – Russia’; the role of Russia is ‘the role predestined from on high of the saviour of order’.
“In those years Marx wrote in the New Rhine Newspaper (the organ of the ‘League of Communists’): ‘Russia has become a colossus which does not cease to elicit amazement. Russia is the one phenomenon of its kind in history: the terrible power of this huge Empire… on a world scale’. ‘In Russia, in this despotic government, in this barbaric race, there is such energy and activity as one would look for in vain in the monarchies of the older States’. ‘The Slavic barbarians are innate counter-revolutionaries’, ‘particular enemies of democracy’.
“Engels echoed Marx: what was necessary was ‘a pitiless struggle to the death with Slavdom, which has betrayed and has a turncoat attitude towards the revolution… a war of destruction and unrestrained terror’. ‘A general war will pay back the Slavic barbarians with a bloody revenge.’ ‘Yes, the world war that is to come will sweep off the face of the earth not only the reactionary classes and dynasties, but also whole reactionary peoples – and this will be progress!’”410
The elders saw signs of the coming Antichrist not only in specific acts of terrorism, such as the murder of Alexander II, but also in the general weakening and softening of the power of the Orthodox Autocracy. Thus Constantine Leontiev, a disciple of Elder Ambrose of Optina, wrote: “One great spiritual elder said: ‘It is true that morals have become much softer. But on the other hand most people’s self-opinion has grown, and pride has increased. They no longer like to submit to any authorities, whether spiritual or secular: they just don’t want to. The gradual weakening and abolition of the authorities is a sign of the approach of the kingdom of the antichrist and the end of the world. It is impossible to substitute only a softening of morals for Christianity.’”411
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