Aberrated conscience in the revolutionary Narodnik Movement (by example of terrorism of the Socialist Revolutionary Party)

The subject of this article is the problem of aberrated conscience as a source of radical ideology and political terrorism by example of the revolutionary Narodnik Movement of late 19th - early 20th centuries. The aberrated conscience phenomenon makes it possible to distinguish between criminal violence and political terrorism in the anthropological and motivational spheres. Terrorism as an ideological crime often has no links with amorality or loss of conscience in the generally accepted sense. For example, the Narodniks who were engaged in terror in the Tzarist Russia combined ideological fanaticism (and idee fixe to revenge the autocratic power) with personal unselfishness and a sharp sense of moral responsibility. This contradiction may be resolved by means of the aberrated conscience hypothesis. The origin of the Narodnik Movement terrorism is associated with a particular social stratum of the pre-revolutionary Russian society - intelligentsia which appeared during the reign of Tzar Peter I. The sociocultural position of intelligentsia was marginal. Feeling existential alienation from the national life (which was a result of western education) people from intelligentsia compassionate to populace hardships turned to be ''penitent noblemen''. At the same time they became more and more estranged from the authorities because of their propensity to ''progressive'' western political values. The spiritual and metaphysical source of aberrated conscience can be revealed in connection with the aberrated religiosity phenomenon in the Christian culture of the Early Modern Period (17th - early 20th centuries). First registered terrorism ideas in Tzarist Russia appeared in the 1860s in the nihilistic intelligentsia environment. Nihilism as a total revaluation of values (as F. Nietzsche understood it) defined the era of the Early Modern Period en masse. The tendency of transferring human spiritual intentions appealed to the absolute ideal into the socio-political sphere is the phenomenon of ''incomplete'' or unfinished nihilism (F. Nietzsche). On the Russian cultural ground the Narodnik Movement was the manifestation of incomplete nihilism in the national spiritual tradition crisis (the Orthodoxy). ''Populace'' in the Narodniks' point of view became not only the object of a quasi-religious cult but also replaced God as a higher instance demanding human responsibility. Conscience in the left radical's views acquired a mainly immanent orientation instead of the transcendental one. The altruistic ethos of the revolutionary Narodnik Movement was a product of the nihilistic reconsideration of Christian values and ressentiment also presenting the cultural expression of conscience transformations. It prescribed sympathy for populace sufferings and hatred to its class enemies. The characteristics of the ethical motivation and refraction of aberrated forms of conscience in the Narodnik terrorist's mind are illustrated by several examples of socialist revolutionary terrorism movement personalities (E. Sazonov, I. Kalyaev, M. Benevskaya).

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