‘The liberation movement in the broad sense, i.e. the struggle for the principles of liberalism, for individual freedom, the rule of law and self-government, had long been in existence and had at no point disappeared. In the 1860s it even inspired the autocratic state. But under Nicholas II the nature of this struggle altered. It concentrated exclusively and completely on the fall of the autocracy; it became an open war against [the autocracy]. And precisely this war soon took hold of the whole of society’.