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By Root 3428 0

’s fate? According to his lights, the old man had been forgiving. For the letter he had seen, supposedly written by Peter and confessing to laying the fire, had been a terrible blow. For months afterwards, in secret, he would mutter to himself: ‘To attack his own family!’ It would have been hard to say whether this treachery, or the accidental killing of the two young people, shocked him more; and he was so shaken that he never told anyone, including Vladimir, about it. Now, therefore, when news of Peter came, Savva sent him a strongly worded message: return at once to make amends for his terrible crimes or be cut off from the family for ever. It seemed to Savva that he was acting with forbearance. And he was shocked still further when, having received the message with a groan, Peter refused to return. ‘His heart is hardened into sin,’ old Suvorin declared, and never spoke of the young man again. Six months later he died.

The Will of Savva Suvorin was clear. The dangerous revolutionary Peter was cut out of all control of the Suvorin enterprises and left with only a modest allowance. ‘You could contest it,’ Vladimir told him frankly. ‘Or I’ll give you part of my fortune myself.’ But Peter was young and proud. ‘Besides, I want no part of it anyway,’ he said. He returned to Moscow and his studies. He fell in love but was rejected. He discovered a talent for physics, studied the subject deeply, and even wrote a small textbook on the subject which was published successfully. He told himself that he was happy enough. And he continued, steadfastly, to look for a better world.

He came to Marxism in the 1880s. Ever since his first meeting with Popov, he had become a student of revolutionary thought. He had several times encountered Popov again, and that secretive fellow had put him in touch with certain radical groups; but by all these people he was seen as a kindly dreamer. In Marxism, however, he had found a system that gave him more stature. Here was his longed-for utopia, but scientifically arrived at – not by some violent, conspiratorial overthrow, but by a gradual and natural historical process. ‘You call my views utopian,’ he would say to Vladimir, ‘but I just call them human progress.’ And in his heart he secretly believed that one day the Suvorin factories would pass into the hands of the workers with scarcely a shot fired.

Strangely, it was his early interest in Marxism that had convinced the tsarist authorities that the mild-mannered professor was harmless to the state. That very year a senior official had privately conveyed the government’s attitude to Vladimir Suvorin himself.

‘My dear fellow, as long as your brother sticks to studying Marx we’re not very worried. We’ve looked at all these things, you know,’ he added wisely. ‘This Marx was an economist. We’ve even allowed some of his works to be translated and published – because right or wrong, no one can understand a word of him anyway. It’s revolutionaries we’re worried about, not economists – and I can’t see your brother throwing any bombs, can you?’

It was a strange relationship between the brothers – the rich industrialist and the poor professor, the family man and the lonely bachelor. They were fond of each other, but some strain was inevitable. Nor was it helped by the fact that Vladimir’s handsome young second wife, who loved to entertain in the great Moscow house, could not help feeling rather sorry for this kindly man whom she regarded as a poor unfortunate. ‘Peter should marry,’ she would tell Vladimir. ‘But I’m afraid he’s too timid.’ Peter sensed her feelings and it hurt his pride. He did not go to the Suvorin house often.

This evening’s meeting was small, but Peter Suvorin believed it was important, and he was especially anxious it should go well. As he spoke, therefore, he tried to gauge the reaction of the audience carefully. With admirable precision, he outlined for these young people the developments in Europe. Only three years before, an important Socialist conference, the Second International, had been held for delegates from many countries.