366 SEER, 82, 2, 2004 LocalGovernment, I900-I9I4 (New Brunswick,NJ, I98I). To omit one source is a misfortune, to omit all of these looks like carelessness.In contrast to the above, however, Zuckermandoes include a considerablenumberofreferences to his previous book TheTsaristSecret Policein RussianSociety,I880-I9I7 (Basingstoke,I996) with over twenty, often unnecessary,citations. St CrossCollege IAIN LAUCHLAN University ofOxford Pipes, Richard. 7he DegaevAffair. Terror and Treason in TsaristRussia.Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, and London, 2003. xi+ I53 pp. Illustrations.Notes. Appendix. Index. $22.95: [i6.95. ON I6 December I883, Lt Colonel Georgii Sudeikin, the head of the St PetersburgSecurity Section the Okhrana was assassinated.For senior officials in the Russian government, the threat of murder was ever-present and, only twoyearspreviously,EmperorAlexanderII had himselfbeen blown to pieces by a terroristbomb. Sudeikin'smurderwas unusual, however, since the assassin, Sergei Degaev, was one of his own secret agents. Sixteen years later, the University of South Dakota appointed one Alexander Pell as its first professor of mathematics, unaware that Pell, with his strong Russian accent, was the Degaev who had assassinatedthe head of the St Petersburgsecret police. Richard Pipes's book is both a biography of Degaev-Pell and a wider reflection on aspects of terrorism.As Pipes notes, a full biographical study of this intriguing man is made difficult by the lack of source materials. In particular, while the basic facts and contours of his life can be established, evidence to explain Degaev's psychology and the motivation for his actions is largely lacking. Degaev's duplicitywas multifaceted:he became a member of the revolutionary People's Will organization in 88o and was arrestedtwice for seditious activity. In I882, during his second period in custody, he was recruited by Sudeikin as a police agent. Degaev provided Sudeikin with the names of revolutionarieswho were then duly arrested. Degaev's betrayal of his own comrades evidently weighed heavily on his mind, for he revealed his actions to Lev Tikhomirov, a fellow member of the People'sWillwho ordered Degaev to murderSudeikinas an act of contritionand to demonstratehis real commitment to the revolutionary movement. After assassinating Sudeikin, Degaev left Russia for Paris,emigratingto North America in i886 and, after engaging in coursesof studyin St Louis and atJohns Hopkins University,was appointed to teach at South Dakota, living a life of the utmost respectability until his death in 192 I. The centralpiece ofevidence to explainDegaev's behaviouristhe statement published by the People's Will after Sudeikin'sassassination.Unsurprisingly, thisattributedDegaev's treacheryto hisown psychologicalflawsanddescribed him as being in a condition of 'spiritualgloom and moral collapse'. Pipes, however, seeks to explain the attraction of terrorismin more general terms. He takes the example of terrorism in Russia, and contrasts this with the existence of the phenomenon in both modern Germany and the United States to reject the idea that revolutionaryviolence is prompted either by political oppression or by poverty. Instead, Pipes suggests that 'for some dimly REVIEWS 367 understood reason', from time to time nihilisticimpulses affectyoung people in modern societies and that these also become transformed into selfdestructive urges. This does not advance the discussion and leaves us in the dark about both Degaev's motivation and the causes of terrorism in the developed modern world. Pipes'sbook is an interestinginsightinto a hitherto unilluminated corner of the Russian revolutionary movement, but the shortageof sourcesfor Degaev's life inhibitsany deeper analysis. Department ofHistoy PETER WALDRON University ofSunderland Peter, Laszl6; Rady, Martyn and Sherwood, Peter (eds). LajosKossuth Sent Word. . . Papers Delivered on theOccasion of theBicentenagy ofKossuth's Birth. SSEES Occasional Papers, 56. Hungarian Cultural Centre and School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London, 2003. viii + 263 pp. Notes. Index. ?20.00 (paperback). THE reader of these essays may be somewhat startled to discover that two eminent English historians, perhaps not knowing what the other was up to, decided not to write on Kossuth, but on his uncompromising foes. Robert Evans is fascinated by the Slovak L'udovit Stiur,while Alan Sked is equally intriguedby the Croat nationalism of the imperial generalJosip Jelacic. The motive for their selection may well be that each dreaded uncriticaleulogies of Kossuth by the other essayistsand took evasive action in this way. However...