to thank God!"
cried N.I. Grinevitsky, hurling a bomb at the Czar. Within a short time
Alexander II and his assailant were both dead.

The assassination of Alexander II was a tragic event for Russia. On the
very morning of his death the ill-fated monarch had approved a plan for
extensive reforms presented by the liberal Minister, Loris-Melikoff. It had
been decided to call a conference three days later and to invite a number
of well-known public men to co-operate in introducing the reforms. These
reforms would not have been far-reaching enough to satisfy the
revolutionists, but they would certainly have improved the situation and
given Russia a new hope. That hope died with Alexander II. His son,
Alexander III, had always been a pronounced reactionary and had advised his
father against making any concessions to the agitators. It was not
surprising, therefore, that he permitted himself to be advised against the
liberals by the most reactionary bureaucrats in the Empire, and to adopt
the most oppressive policies.

The new Czar was greatly influenced by his former tutor, the reactionary
bureaucrat Pobiedonostzev. At first it was believed that out of respect for
his father's memory Alexander III would carry out the program of reforms
formulated by Loris-Melikoff, as his father had promised to do. In a
Manifesto issued on the 29th of April, 1881, Alexander III promised to do
this, but in the same document there were passages which could only be
interpreted as meaning that all demands for constitutional reform would be
resisted and Absolutism upheld at all cost. Doubtless it was due to the
influence of Pobiedonostzev, Procurator of the Holy Synod, that Alexander
III soon abandoned all intention of carrying out his father's wishes in the
matter of reform and instituted such reactionary policies that the peasants
feared that serfdom was to be restored. A terrible persecution of the Jews
was begun, lasting for several years. The Poles, too, felt the oppressive
hand of Pobiedonostzev. The latter was mastered by the Slavophil philosophy
that the revolutionary unrest in Russia was traceable to the diversity of
races, languages, and religions. He believed that Nihilism, Anarchism, and
Socialism flourished because the people were cosmopolitan rather than
nationalistic in experience and feeling, and that peace and stability could
come only from the persistent and vigorous development of the three
principles of Nationality, Orthodoxy,