Narodnaya Volya () was a late 19th-century

revolutionary socialist Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revolu ...

political organization operating in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, which conducted

assassination Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives. Assassinations are orde ...

s of government officials in an attempt to overthrow the autocratic Tsarist system. The organization declared itself to be a

populist Populism is a contested concept used to refer to a variety of political stances that emphasize the idea of the " common people" and often position this group in opposition to a perceived elite. It is frequently associated with anti-establis ...

movement that succeeded the

Narodniks The Narodniks were members of a movement of the Russian Empire intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against tsarism. Their ideology, known as Narodism, Narodnism or ,; , similar to the ...

. Composed primarily of young

intellectuals An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the wor ...

believing in the efficacy of

direct action Direct action is a term for economic and political behavior in which participants use agency—for example economic or physical power—to achieve their goals. The aim of direct action is to either obstruct a certain practice (such as a governm ...

, ''Narodnaya Volya'' emerged in Autumn 1879 from the split of an earlier revolutionary organization called '' Zemlya i Volya'' ("Land and Liberty"). Similarly to predecessor groups that had already used the term "terror" positively, ''Narodnaya Volya'' proclaimed themselves as

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

s and venerated dead terrorists as "martyrs" and "heroes", justifying

political violence Political violence is violence which is perpetrated in order to achieve political goals. It can include violence which is used by a State (polity), state against other states (war), violence which is used by a state against civilians and non-st ...

as a legitimate tactic to provoke a necessary revolution. Based upon a

secret society A secret society is an organization about which the activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence ag ...

apparatus of local, semi-independent cells co-ordinated by a self-selecting Executive Committee, ''Narodnaya Volya'' espoused acts of political violence in an attempt to destabilize the

and spur

insurrection Rebellion is an uprising that resists and is organized against one's government. A rebel is a person who engages in a rebellion. A rebel group is a consciously coordinated group that seeks to gain political control over an entire state or a ...

against Tsarism, justified "as a means of exerting pressure on the government for reform, as the spark that would ignite a vast peasant uprising, and as the inevitable response to the regime's use of violence against the revolutionaries". This culminated in the successful assassination of Tsar Alexander II in March 1881—the event for which the group is best remembered. The group developed ideas—such as the assassination of the "leaders of oppression"—that were to become the hallmark of future small anti-state groups, and were convinced that new technologies such as dynamite enabled them to strike the regime powerfully and precisely, minimising casualties. Much of the organization's philosophy was inspired by

Sergey Nechayev Sergey Gennadiyevich Nechayev (; – ) was a Russian anarcho-communist, part of the Russian nihilist movement, known for his single-minded pursuit of revolution by any means necessary, including revolutionary terror. Nechayev fled Russia in 18 ...

and

Carlo Pisacane Carlo Pisacane, Duke of San Giovanni (1818–1857) was an Italian patriot and one of the first Italian socialist thinkers. He was an early advocate of propaganda by deed, arguing that violence was necessary not only to draw attention to, or gen ...

, the proponent of "

propaganda by the deed Propaganda of the deed, or propaganda by the deed, is a type of direct action intended to influence public opinion. The action itself is meant to serve as an example for others to follow, acting as a catalyst for social revolution. It is primari ...

". The group served as inspiration and forerunner for other revolutionary socialist and

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

organizations, including in the Russian

Socialist Revolutionary Party The Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR; ,, ) was a major socialist political party in the late Russian Empire, during both phases of the Russian Revolution, and in early Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Russia. The party memb ...

(PSR). Although they were socialist, they generally opposed

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

in favour of an ideal of

self-government.

History

The Populist background

The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 did not suddenly end the state of grim rural poverty in the

, and the autocracy headed by the Tsar of Russia and the

nobles Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally appointed by and ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. T ...

around him, as well as the privileged state

bureaucracy Bureaucracy ( ) is a system of organization where laws or regulatory authority are implemented by civil servants or non-elected officials (most of the time). Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments ...

, remained in firm control of the nation's economy from which it extracted pecuniary benefits. By the beginning of the 1870s, dissent regarding the established political and economic order had begun to take concrete form among many members of the

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...

, which sought to foster a modern and democratic society in Russia in place of the economic backwardness and political repression which marked the old regime. A set of "populist" values became commonplace among these radical intellectuals seeking change of the Russian economic and political form. The Russian peasantry, based as it was upon its historic village governing structure, the peasant commune (''obshchina'' or ''mir''), and its collective holding and periodic redistribution of farmland, was held to be inherently socialistic, or at least fundamentally amenable to socialist organization. It was further believed that this fact made possible a unique path for the modernization of Russia which bypassed the industrial poverty that was a feature of early

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

in Western Europe—the region to which Russian intellectuals looked for inspiration and by which they measured the comparatively backwards state of their own polity. Moreover, the radical intelligentsia believed it axiomatic that individuals and the nation had the power to control their own destiny and that it was the moral duty of enlightened civil society to transform the nation by leading the peasantry in mass revolt that would ultimately transform Russia to a socialist society. These ideas were regarded by most radical intellectuals of the era as nearly incontestable, the byproduct of decades of observation and thought dating back to the conservative

Slavophiles Slavophilia () was a movement originating from the 19th century that wanted the Russian Empire to be developed on the basis of values and institutions derived from Russia's early history. Slavophiles opposed the influences of Western Europe in Rus ...

and sketched out by such disparate writers as

Alexander Herzen Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (; ) was a Russian writer and thinker known as the precursor of Russian socialism and one of the main precursors of agrarian populism (being an ideological ancestor of the Narodniki, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Trudo ...

(1812–1870), Pyotr Lavrov (1823–1900), and

Mikhail Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin. Sometimes anglicized to Michael Bakunin. ( ; – 1 July 1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the revolutionary socialist, s ...

(1814–1876). Socialist study circles (''kruzhki'') began to emerge in Russia during the decade of the 1870s, populated primarily by idealistic students in major urban centers such as

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

, and

Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...

. These initially tended to have a loose organizational structure, decentralized and localized, bound together by the personal familiarity of participants with one another. Efforts to propagandize revolutionary and socialist ideas among factory workers and peasants were quickly met with state repression, however, with the Tsarist secret police (''Okhrana'') identifying, arresting, and jailing agitators. In the spring of 1874 a mass movement of

Going to the People Going to the People was a Populism, populist movement in the Russian Empire. It was largely inspired by the work of Russian theorists such as Mikhail Bakunin and Pyotr Lavrov, who advocated that groups of dedicated revolutionaries could inspire ...

began, with young intellectuals taking jobs in rural villages as teachers, clerks, doctors, carpenters, masons, or common farm laborers, attempting to immerse themselves in the peasants' world so as to better inculcate them with socialist and revolutionary ideas. Fired with messianic zeal, perhaps 2,000 people left for rural posts in the spring; by the fall some 1,600 of these found themselves arrested and jailed, failing to make the slightest headway in fomenting agrarian revolution. The failure of this movement, marked by a rejection of political arguments by the peasantry and easy arrests of public speakers by local authorities and the ''Okhrana'', deeply influenced the revolutionary movement in years to follow. The need for stealth and secrecy and more aggressive measures seemed to have been made clear.

The antecedent organization

Following the failure of the 1874 effort at "going to the people", revolutionary populism congealed around what would be the strongest such organization of the decade, ''Zemlya i Volya'' ("Land and Liberty"), the prototype of a new type of centralized political organization which attempted to muster and direct every potential aspect of urban and rural discontent. The nucleus of this new organization, which borrowed its name from radicals of the preceding decade, was established in St. Petersburg late in 1876. As an underground political party marked by extreme secrecy in the face of secret police repression, few primary records originating from the group documenting its existence have survived. ''Zemlya i Volya'' is associated in particular with the names of M.A. Natanson (1851–1919), a committed activist from the first half of the decade who both founded the organization and provided it with

institutional memory Institutional memory is a collective set of facts, concepts, experiences and knowledge held by a group of people. Concept Institutional memory has been defined as "the stored knowledge within the organization." Within any organization, tools ...

, and Alexander Mikhailov (1855–1884), the leading representative of a new wave of participants and memoirist of the movement. This

vanguard party Vanguardism, a core concept of Leninism, is the idea that a revolutionary vanguard party, composed of the most conscious and disciplined workers, must lead the proletariat in overthrowing capitalism and establishing socialism, ultimately progres ...

, composed almost exclusively of intellectuals, continued in the tradition of idealizing traditional peasant organization as a pathway to broader social transformation. As Alexander Mikhailov wrote:

The "rebels" idealize the people. They hope that in the very first moments of freedom political forms will appear which correspond to their own conceptions based on the ''obshchina'' and on federation... The party's task is to widen the sphere of action of self-administration to all internal problems.

An extensive program was drawn up in St. Petersburg in 1876 calling for the break up of the nations of the Russian Empire, granting of all land to the "agricultural working class", and transfer of all social functions to the village communes. This program warned "Our demands can be brought about only by means of violent revolution", and it prescribed "agitation...both by word and above all by deed—aimed at organizing the revolutionary forces and developing revolutionary feelings" as the vehicle for "disorganization of the state" and victory. These ideas were borrowed directly from

, a radicalized émigré nobleman from Tver guberniia regarded as the father of

collectivist anarchism Collectivist anarchism, also called anarchist collectivism and anarcho-collectivism, Buckley, A. M. (2011). ''Anarchism''. Essential Libraryp. 97 "Collectivist anarchism, also called anarcho-collectivism, arose after mutualism." . is an anarchis ...

. In practice, however, a significant percentage of ''Zemlya i Volya'' members (so-called ''Zemlevoltsy''), returned to the model of the study circle and concentrated their efforts upon the industrial workers of urban centers. Among these were the young

Georgi Plekhanov Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov ( rus, Георгий Валентинович Плеханов, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj vəlʲɪnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ plʲɪˈxanəf, a=Ru-Georgi Plekhanov-JermyRei.ogg; – 30 May 1918) was a Russian revolutionary, ...

(1856–1918), an individual later celebrated as the father of Russian

. Whatever the practical activities of its local groups, the official position of the ''Zemlya i Volya'' organization endorsed the tactic of violent direct action, which the lead article in the first issue of the party's newspaper characterized as a "system of mob law and self-defense" put into action by a "protective detachment" of the liberation movement. The group also rationalized political assassination as "capital punishment" and "self-defense" for "crimes" against the nation. The organization began to look at

regicide Regicide is the purposeful killing of a monarch or sovereign of a polity and is often associated with the usurpation of power. A regicide can also be the person responsible for the killing. The word comes from the Latin roots of ''regis'' ...

as the highest manifestation of political action, culminating in a December 1879 assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander II by the ''Zemlevolets'' A. K. Soloviev (1846–1879). Accelerated state repression of ''Zemlya i Volya'' followed the hanging of attempted assassin Soloviev, with arrests nearly wiping out revolutionary cells in the west of the Russian Empire and putting severe pressure on the organization elsewhere. The tension over the use of violence led to a division of the organization, with proto-Marxists who favored an end to the use of violent direct action to gain control over the official newspaper while the activist wing controlled a majority of the Executive Committee. Efforts to reconcile the two wings were unsuccessful and a split was formalized on 15 August 1879, by a commission appointed to divide the organization's assets. During the latter part of 1879, those favoring study circles and propaganda to build a revolutionary movement from the ground up, exemplified by Plekhanov and his co-thinkers, launched independent activity as a new organization called '' Chërnyi Peredel'' (Russian: Чёрный передел, "Black Repartition"). The unrepentantly violent wing re-established itself as well, this time under a new banner—''Narodnaya Volya'' ("People's Freedom", frequently albeit imprecisely rendered into English as "People's Will").

Establishment

During the first months after its formation, ''Narodnaya Volya'' founded or co-opted workers study circles in the major cities of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa, Kiev, and Kharkov. The group also established cells within the military, among the army garrison at St. Petersburg and the

Kronstadt Kronstadt (, ) is a Russian administrative divisions of Saint Petersburg, port city in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal cities of Russia, federal city of Saint Petersburg, located on Kotlin Island, west of Saint Petersburg, near the head ...

naval base. The organization established a party press and issued illegal newspapers in support of its efforts—five issues of the eponymous ''Narodnaya Volya'' and two issues of a newspaper targeted to industrial workers, ''Rabochaia Gazeta'' (The Workers' Newspaper). A series of illegal leaflets were produced, putting party proclamations and manifestos in the hands of potential supporters. ''Narodnaya Volya'' saw themselves as continuers of the populist tradition of earlier years rather than marking a fresh break from the past, declaring in their press that while they would not keep the title ''Zemlevoltsy'' since they no longer represented the earlier party's entire tradition, they nevertheless intended to continue the principles established by the ''Zemlya i Volya'' organization and to continue to make "Land and Liberty" their "motto" and "slogan". The organization promulgated a program which called for "complete freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly, association, and electoral agitation". The group made the establishment of political freedom its top public objective, with the radical publicist N.K. Mikhailovsky (1842–1904) contributing two finely crafted "political letters" on the topic to two early issues of the party's official organ. The party declared its intention to lay down arms as soon as political concessions were made. There were no dreams of the organization forming the basis of a ruling party, with a fundamental hope maintained in the emergence of the self-governing village commune as the basis of a new socialist society. The ''Narodnaya Volya'' organization also began a violent revolutionary campaign, with the governing Executive Committee issuing a proclamation calling for the execution of Tsar Alexander II for his crimes against the Russian people. While giving lip service to the demand for political freedom and a constitutional republic as its objective, the so-called ''Narodnovoltsy'' seem to have actually believed themselves to be pursuing a maximalist program in which violence and political assassination would "break the government itself" and end all vestiges of the Tsarist regime in Russia. The government was seen as weak and tottering, and chances for its revolutionary overthrow promising.

Organizational structure

''Narodnaya Volya'' continued the trend towards secret organization and centralized direction that had begun with ''Zemlya i Volya''—principles held to tightly in the face of growing government repression of participants in the organization. Democratic control of the party apparatus was deemed impossible under existing political conditions and the organization was centrally directed by its self-selecting Executive Committee, which included, among others Alexander Mikhailov, Andrei Zhelyabov (1851–1881), Sophia Perovskaya (1853–1881), Vera Figner (1852–1942), Nikolai Morozov (1854–1946), Mikhail Frolenko (1848–1938), Aaron Zundelevich (1852–1923), Savely Zlatopolsky (1855–1885) and Lev Tikhomirov (1852–1923). The Executive Committee was in existence for six years, during which time it was populated by less than 50 people, including in its ranks both men and women. The official membership of the ''Narodnaya Volya'' organization during its existence has been estimated at 500, bolstered by an additional number of informal followers. A document listing the movement's participants, including those from the period from 1886 to 1896 when only a small skeleton organization remained, totals 2,200. Jews were well represented within the party, especially among the women of the party. Almost about a third of the women in the party were Jewish.

Assassination of Tsar Alexander II

The assassination of Tsar Alexander II on marked the high-water mark of ''Narodnaya Volya'' as a factor in Russian politics. While the assassination did not end the Tsarist regime, the government ran scared in the aftermath of the bomb that killed him, with the formal coronation ceremony of Tsar Alexander III postponed for more than two years due to security concerns. The Tsar had been formally sentenced to death by the Executive Committee of ''Narodnaya Volya'' on 25 August 1879, on the heels of the execution of former ''Zemlevolets'' Solomon Wittenberg, who had attempted to build a mine to sink a ship carrying the Tsar into Odessa harbor the previous year. An initial plan called for the use of

dynamite Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern German ...

to destroy a train carrying the Tsar, which ended with an explosion that destroyed a freight car and led to a derailment. A February 1880 attempt used a quantity of dynamite to attempt to blow up the Tsar in a palace dining room. The resulting explosion killed 11 guards and soldiers and wounded 56, but missed the Tsar, who was not in the dining hall as expected. A state of siege followed, during which the demoralized Tsar avoided public appearances amidst sensational rumors in the press of additional attacks in the offing. One French diplomat likened the Tsar to a ghost—"pitiful, aged, played out, and choked by a fit of asthmatic coughing at every word". In response to the security crisis the Tsar established a new Supreme Commission for the Maintenance of State Order and Public Peace, under the command of Mikhail Loris-Melikov, a hero of the

Russo-Turkish War The Russo-Turkish wars ( ), or the Russo-Ottoman wars (), began in 1568 and continued intermittently until 1918. They consisted of twelve conflicts in total, making them one of the longest series of wars in the history of Europe. All but four of ...

. Just over a week later, a ''Narodnovolets'' attempted to assassinate Loris-Melikov with a handgun, firing a shot but missing, only to be hanged two days later. Repression was ratcheted upwards, with two ''Narodnaya Volya'' activists executed in Kiev the following month for the crime of distributing revolutionary leaflets.

References

Bibliography

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