The Socialist and Revolutionary movement in Russia could not fail to attract the attention of Western Europe. It is only natural, therefore, that in every European language a somewhat extensive literature should be found upon this subject. The object of some of these works is simply to relate facts others seek to penetrate deeper, so as to discover the cause of the movement in question. I take no account of an entire branch of this literature, the novels, the romances, and the narratives, in which the authors, endeavouring to reproduce in an agreeable form the events and the types of the Nihilist world, strive to excite the imagination of the reader.