258 Genl/emen to Officers
Mikhail) and Nikita, son of Mikhail Nikitich.^41 The significance of these
apparently obscure genealogical details will become evident shortly.
In November 1816 Aleksandr and Mikhail, respectively a lieuteQ.ant,colonel
and captain (?) in the guards, obtained the tsar's permission to set ,μp in the
General Staff, where they were both employed, an organization to PfOmote
military education-the cause with which their family, like Fon-Vizin's,,circle
before it, had been so closely identified. Known as the 'Society of Military
Men Who Love Science and Literature' (pompous titles were in vogue). it
resumed publication of Voyennyy zhurnal with F. N. Glinka as editor. In the
first year of operation its activities cost the sizeabl~ sum of SS,000
roubles^42 -presumably borne, at least in part, by the Treasury. Aleksandr
Murav"yev seems to have looked on this legal organization as useful cover for
a clandestine one which came into existence about this time. Paradoxically, the
latter is better known to historians than the former. It is generally referred to
as the 'Union of Salvation' (Soyuz spaseniya), although its unwieldy alternative
title, the 'Society of True and Loyal Sons of the Fatherland', gives a better
idea of its ideological tone. It had some 30 members, all guards officers, at its
peak. They took an oath to observe its statute, a document of which the text
has not survived; it was evidently patterned on the masonic model and contained
programmatic references to constitutional government and the ending of serf-
dom. When the Guards Corps moved to Moscow for several months in August
1817, Aleksandr Murav'yev, who conveniently was quartermastcr 1 arranged to
secure quarters where members of the group could meet and exchange ideas.
Differences soon arose. Aleksandr Murav"yev himself favoured. a military
coup, but neither this course nor the assassination of the tsar, -which was
also mooted, won general support. The moderates-among them Mikhail
Murav'yev-felt that acts of terrorism would discredit their enterprise. They
favoured instead a covert propaganda campaign among their fellow officers
and their civilian associates. Partly because of these tensions, and partly for
security reasons, it was decided to disband the organization and to prepare a
new statute which would serve as a rallying-point for those who wished to
continue clandestine activity.^43 --
The radicals set the tone in the new society, which came into'being early in
- The 'Union of (Public) Welfare' (Soyuz [obshchestvennogo] blagoden-
stviya: again there is some ambiguity about its title) ostensibly had cultural and
charitable rather than political aims, but most of its leaders saw this simply as
41 Druzhinin, Murav'yev, p. 59; Nechkina, Dvizheniye, i. 102-3, 443; id. (ed.), I. S. Kalantyr-
skaya et al. (comps.), /z epistolyarnogo nas/edsrva dekabristov: pis'ma k N. N. Murav'yev-
Karskomu, i., Moscow, 1975, which contains letters exchanged by members or this clan. The
relatively liberal atmosphere of the Column-Leaders' school is described by Basarain, Zapiski, pp,
245-76.
42 Prokof'yev, Bor'ba, pp. 274-6; Gabayev, 'Gvardiya', p. 161; Beskrovnyy, Potaitsial,
p. 217.
43 Yakushkin, Zapiski, pp. 13-14; Nechkina, 'Soyuz spaseniya' and Dvlz/rmiye, i. 141-84;
Druzhinin, Murav'yev, p. 92; Mazour, First Russ. Revol., pp. 66, 69; Luciani, SocUtt, p. 164.