Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky

Sergey Mikhaylovich Stepnyak-Kravchinsky (Серге́й Миха́йлович Степня́к-Кравчи́нский) (Novy Starodub, July 1, 1851 - 23 December 1895, Chiswick), known in the 19th century London revolutionary circles as Stepniak or Sergius Stepniak, was the Russian who killed the chief of that country's secret police with a dagger in the streets of St. Petersburg in 1878.

Early life
Stepniak was the son of an army doctor and of a Ukrainian noblewoman, born July 1, 1851 O.S. in Novy Starodub, Alexandrovsky Uyzed, Kherson Governorate of the Russian empire, now part of Ukraine. He went on to attend Military academy and the artillery school before joining the Russian army. He was able to reach the rank of Second lieutenant before resigning his commission in 1871.

Revolutionary life
He received a liberal education, and, when he left school, became an officer in the artillery; but his sympathy with the peasants, among whom he had lived during his boyhood in the country, developed in him at first democratic and, later, revolutionary opinions. Together with a few other men of birth and education, he began secretly to sow the sentiments of democracy among the peasants. His teaching did not long remain a secret, and in 1874 he was arrested.

He succeeded in making his escape, possibly being permitted to escape on account of his youth, and immediately began a more vigorous campaign against autocracy. His sympathetic nature was influenced by indignation against the brutal methods adopted towards prisoners, especially political prisoners, and by the stern measures which the government of the tsar felt compelled to adopt in order to repress the revolutionary movement.

In 1874 Stepniak went to the Balkans and joined the rising against the Turks in Bosnia in 1876, and used that experience to write a manual on guerrilla warfare. He also joined the anarchist Errico Malatesta in his small rebellion in the Italian province of Benevento in 1877. He returned to Russia in 1878, joining Zemlya i volya (Land and Liberty), where he along with Nikolai Morozov and Olga Liubatovich edited the party journal.

For a time he was convinced that individual acts of political terrorism would convince Emperor Alexander II of Russia to introduce democratic reforms. On August 4, 1878 O.S. he assassinated General Nikolai Mezentsov, the chief of Gendarme corps, the head of the country's secret police with a dagger in the streets of St Petersburg.

After the killing, he exposed himself to danger by remaining in Russia, and in 1880 he was obliged to leave the country. He settled for a short time in Switzerland, then a favourite resort of revolutionary leaders, and after a few years came to London. He was already known in England by his book, Underground Russia, which had been published in London in 1882. In England he established the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom and the Russia Free Press, linking with Karl Pearson, Wilfrid Voynich and Charlotte Wilson (see ISBN 0-691-11445-5, pp. 108–109). He was also an editor for the Society's house organ, Free Russia.

He followed up Underground Russia with a number of other works on the condition of the Russian peasantry, on Nihilism, and on the conditions of life in Russia. His mind gradually turned from belief in the efficacy of violent measures to the acceptance of constitutional methods; and in his last book, King Stork and King Log, he spoke with approval of the efforts of politicians on the Liberal side to effect, by argument and peaceful agitation, a change in the attitude of the Russian government towards various reforms.

Stepniak constantly wrote and lectured, both in Great Britain and the United States, in support of his views, and his energy, added to the interest of his personality, won him many friends. He was chiefly identified with the Socialists in England and the Social Democratic parties on the Continent; but he was regarded by men of all opinions as an agitator whose motives had always been pure and disinterested. Stepniak was killed by a train at a railway crossing at Woodstock Road, Chiswick, London where he resided, on 23 December 1895. For more information see Stepniak's death on the railway. He was cremated at Woking on 28 December.