The first populist organizations and going to the people. Populism - revolutionary ideology

Walking among the people- a movement of student youth and revolutionaries - populists with the goal of educating the people and revolutionary agitation directly among the peasant masses. The first, student and educational stage began in 1861, and the movement reached its greatest scope in the form of organized revolutionary agitation in 1874. “Going to the people” influenced the self-organization of the revolutionary movement, but did not have a significant impact on the masses. This phrase has entered the Russian language and is used ironically today.

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First stage

IN mid-19th century in Russia, interest in higher education, especially in the natural sciences, grew. But in the fall of 1861, the government raised tuition fees and banned student mutual aid funds. In response to this, student unrest occurred at universities, after which many students were expelled from educational institutions. A significant part of active youth found themselves thrown out of life - expelled students could neither get a job in the civil service due to “unreliability” nor continue their studies. Herzen wrote in the newspaper “Bell” in 1861:

In subsequent years, the number of “exiles from science” grew, and going to the people became a mass phenomenon. During this period, former and failed students became rural teachers and paramedics.

The propaganda activities of the revolutionary Zaichnevsky, the author of the proclamation “Young Russia”, who went to the people back in 1861, became very famous. However, in general during this period the movement had a social and educational character of “serving the people,” and Zaichnevsky’s radical Jacobin agitation was rather an exception.

Second phase

In the early 1870s, the populists set the task of involving the people in the revolutionary struggle. The ideological leaders of the organized revolutionary movement among the people were the populist N. V. Tchaikovsky, the anarchist P. A. Kropotkin, the “moderate” revolutionary theorist P. L. Lavrov and the radical anarchist M. A. Bakunin, who wrote:

A theoretical view of this problem was developed by the illegal magazine “Forward! ", published since 1873 under the editorship of Lavrov. However, the revolutionary youth sought immediate action, and a radicalization of views took place in the spirit of the ideas of the anarchist Bakunin. Kropotkin developed a theory according to which, in order to carry out the revolution, the advanced intelligentsia must live the life of the people and create circles of active peasants in the villages, followed by their unification into the peasant movement. Kropotkin's teachings combined Lavrov's ideas about enlightening the masses and the anarchist ideas of Bakunin, who denied the political struggle within the institutions of the state, the state itself, and called for a nationwide revolt.

In the early 70s, there were many cases of individual revolutionaries going to the people. For example, Kravchinsky agitated the peasants of the Tula and Tver provinces back in the fall of 1873 with the help of the Gospel, from which he drew socialist conclusions. Propaganda in the crowded huts continued long after midnight and was accompanied by the singing of revolutionary anthems. But the Narodniks had developed a general view of the need for mass outreach to the people by 1874. The mass action began in the spring of 1874, was associated with a social upsurge, remained largely spontaneous and involved different categories of people. A significant part of the youth was inspired by Bakunin's idea to immediately start a revolt, but due to the diversity of the participants, the propaganda was also varied, from calls for an immediate uprising to modest tasks of educating the people. The movement covered about forty provinces, mainly in the Volga region and southern Russia. It was decided to launch propaganda in these regions in connection with the famine of 1873-1874 in the Middle Volga region; the populists also believed that the traditions of Razin and Pugachev were alive here.

In practice, going to the people looked like this: young people, usually students, one at a time or in small groups under the guise of trade intermediaries, craftsmen, etc., moved from village to village, speaking at meetings, talking with peasants, trying to instill distrust in the authorities , called on people not to pay taxes, not to obey the administration, and explained the injustice of land distribution after the reform. Proclamations were distributed among literate peasants. Refuting the well-established opinion among the people that the royal power was from God, the populists initially propagated Earth and will decided to change tactics and announced a “second visit to the people.” It was decided to move from the unsuccessful practice of “flying squads” to organizing permanent settlements of agitators. Revolutionaries opened workshops in villages, got jobs as teachers or doctors, and tried to create revolutionary cells. However, the experience of three years of agitation showed that the peasantry did not accept either radical revolutionary and socialist calls, or explanations of the current needs of the people, as the populists understood them. Attempts to rouse the people to fight did not bring any serious results, and the government paid attention to the revolutionary propaganda of the populists and launched repressions. Many propagandists were handed over to the authorities by the peasants themselves. More than 4 thousand people were arrested. Of these, 770 propagandists were involved in the inquiry, and 193 people were brought to trial in 1877. However, only 99 defendants were sentenced to hard labor, prison and exile; the rest were either given pre-trial detention or were completely acquitted.

The futility of revolutionary propaganda among the people, mass arrests, the trial of the 193s and the trial of the fifty in 1877-1788 put an end to the movement.

Walking among the people (“Walking among the people”,)

mass movement of democratic youth into the countryside in Russia in the 1870s. For the first time the slogan “To the people!” put forward by A. I. Herzen in connection with the student unrest of 1861 (see “The Bell,” l. 110). In the 1860s - early 1870s. Attempts to get closer to the people and revolutionary propaganda among them were made by members of “Land and Freedom” (See Land and Freedom), the Ishutin circle (See Ishutinsky Circle), the “Ruble Society” (See Ruble Society), Dolgushintsy. The leading role in the ideological preparation of the movement was played by “Historical Letters” by P. L. Lavrov (1870), which called on the intelligentsia to “pay the debt to the people,” and “The Situation of the Working Class in Russia” by V. V. Bervi (N. Flerovsky). Preparing for the massive “X. in n." began in the fall of 1873: the formation of circles intensified, among which the main role belonged to the Tchaikovites (See Tchaikovtsy) , The publication of propaganda literature was being established (the printing houses of the Chaikovites in Switzerland, I. N. Myshkin and in Moscow), peasant clothing was being prepared, and young people were mastering crafts in specially set up workshops. The massive “H. in n." was a spontaneous phenomenon that did not have a single plan, program, or organization. Among the participants were both supporters of P.L. Lavrov, who advocated the gradual preparation of the peasant revolution through socialist propaganda, and supporters of M.A. Bakunin , seeking immediate rebellion. The democratic intelligentsia also took part in the movement, trying to get closer to the people and serve them with their knowledge. Practical activity “among the people” erased the differences between the directions; in fact, all participants conducted “flying propaganda” of socialism, wandering around the villages. The only attempt to raise a peasant uprising was the “Chigirin Conspiracy” (1877).

The movement, which began in the central provinces of Russia (Moscow, Tver, Kaluga, Tula), soon spread to the Volga region (Yaroslavl, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov and other provinces) and Ukraine (Kiev, Kharkov, Kherson, Chernigov provinces). According to official data, 37 provinces of European Russia were covered by propaganda. The main centers were: the Potapovo estate of the Yaroslavl province (A.I. Ivanchin-Pisarev , N. A. Morozov) , Penza (D. M. Rogachev) , Saratov (P. I. Voinaralsky), Odessa (F. V. Volkhovsky , Zhebunev brothers), “Kiev Commune” (V.K. Debogory-Mokrievich , E.K. Breshko-Breshkovskaya) and others. In “H. in n." O. V. Aptekman actively participated , M. D. Muravsky , D. A. Klements , S. F. Kovalik , M. F. Frolenko , S. M. Kravchinsky and many others. By the end of 1874, most of the propagandists were arrested, but the movement continued in 1875. In the 2nd half of the 1870s. "X. in n." took the form of “settlements” organized by “Land and Freedom” (See Earth and Freedom) , “flying” propaganda was replaced by “sedentary propaganda” (establishment of settlements “among the people”). From 1873 to March 1879, 2,564 people were involved in the investigation into the case of revolutionary propaganda, the main participants in the movement were convicted By"Process of 193" (See Process of 193) . "X. in n." was defeated primarily because it was based on the utopian idea of ​​populism (See populism) O the possibility of victory of the peasant revolution in Russia. "X. in n." did not have a leadership center, most of the propagandists did not have the skills of conspiracy, which allowed the government to crush the movement relatively quickly. "X. in n." was a turning point in the history of revolutionary populism. His experience prepared a departure from Bakunism and accelerated the process of maturation of the idea of ​​the need for a political struggle against the autocracy, the creation of a centralized, clandestine organization of revolutionaries.

Source: Process of the 193s, M., 1906: Revolutionary populism of the 70s. XIX in Sat. documents, vol. 1-2, M. - L., 1964-65; Propaganda literature of Russian revolutionary populists, Leningrad, 1970; Ivanchin-Pisarev A.I., Walking among the people, [M. - L., 1929]; Kovalik S.F., The revolutionary movement of the seventies and the process of the 193s, M., 1928; Lavrov P.L., Populists-propagandists 1873-1878, 2nd ed., Leningrad, 1925.

Lit.: Bogucharsky V. Ya., Active populism of the seventies, M., 1912; Itenberg B.S., Movement of revolutionary populism, M., 1965; Troitsky N. A., Great Propaganda Society 1871-1874, Saratov, 1963; Filippov R.V., From the history of the populist movement at the first stage of “going to the people”, Petrozavodsk, 1967; Ginev V.N., Populist movement in the Middle Volga region. 70s of the XIX century, M. - L., 1966; Zakharina V.F., Voice revolutionary Russia, M., 1971; Kraineva N. Ya., Pronina P. V., Populism in the works of Soviet researchers for 1953-1970, M., 1971.

B. S. Itenberg.


Big Soviet encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1969-1978 .

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Be that as it may, in 1873 both the “Lavrists” and the “Bakuninists” very intensely felt the need to begin any kind of practical activity. The government, for its part, accelerated their action. Rumors then reached the government that in Zurich, where the described elements of youth had accumulated, these youth, under the influence of malicious propagandists, were quickly losing all loyalty not only to the existing state system, but also to the social system, and, by the way, various insinuations were put into play account of freedom and promiscuity of sexual relations among the youth of Zurich, etc.

The government then decided to demand that these youth stop listening to lectures at the University of Zurich and that these youth return home by January 1, 1874, and the government threatened that those who returned after this period would be deprived of any opportunity to settle in Russia, receive any income and etc. On the other hand, the government indicated that it itself had the intention of organizing higher education for women in Russia, and one can really think that to a large extent these circumstances may explain the relatively lenient attitude of the reactionary Minister of Public Education Tolstoy, which He then, after the first decisive refusals, made new attempts by various public organizations to organize, one way or another, higher women's and mixed courses in Russia. Precisely in view of the threat that young people will find a way out educational institutions abroad, the government of that time apparently decided to better allow higher education for women, which it did not sympathize with in the least, in Russia as a “lesser evil”, thanks to which those first courses in Moscow and St. Petersburg appeared, which I mentioned in one of previous lectures.

Be that as it may, the youth, having received a government warning, decided to treat it in a very unique way; she decided that it was not worth protesting against this violation of her rights in any other form, and since all her ideas ultimately boiled down to serving the needs of the people, the Zurich students recognized that the moment had come when they needed to protest by going to the people and, precisely, not to win the right to receive higher education, but to improve the fate of the people. In a word, the youth felt that these government orders gave them a signal to move among the people, and, indeed, we see that in the spring of 1874 a general movement among the youth was hastily made, as if on command, albeit in scattered groups.

By this time, as I have already said, Russia had also prepared significant cadres of more or less revolutionary-minded youth who wanted to start new life among the people, where some dreamed of making their propaganda through riots, others simply to carry out propaganda of social ideas, which, in their opinion, were fully consistent with the fundamental views and demands of the people themselves, and these latter only had to be better clarified and called out. The majority, however, began to act quite peacefully at first, which was determined primarily by the unpreparedness of the people to accept their ideas, which they unexpectedly encountered. Meanwhile, they moved among the people, one might say, in the most naive way, without taking any precautionary measures against the detection of their movement by the police, as if ignoring the existence of the police in Russia. Although almost all of them dressed up in peasant clothes, and some of them stocked up with false passports, they acted so ineptly and naively that they attracted everyone’s attention from the very first minute of their appearance in the village.

Two or three months after the start of the movement, the investigation against these propagandists had already begun, which gave Count Palen the occasion and material to compose an extensive note, from which we see that the cadre of young people who moved among the people was quite extensive. Very few moved as paramedics, midwives and volost clerks and could more or less hide behind these forms from the immediate intervention of police power, while the majority moved as itinerant laborers, and, of course, they bore very little resemblance to actual laborers, and, of course, the people I felt and saw it; hence sometimes ridiculous scenes arose, later described by Stepnyak-Kravchinsky.

Arrest of a propagandist. Painting by I. Repin, 1880s

Thanks to the complete unpreparedness and lack of concealment of this movement from the eyes of the police, many of them were already in prison in May. Some, however, were released rather quickly, but some stayed for two, three, or four years, and these arrests eventually gave rise to big process 193, which was examined only in 1877.

From Count Palen's note, one can judge approximately the size of the movement: within two to three months, 770 people were involved in the case in 37 provinces, of which 612 were men and 158 women. 215 people were imprisoned and served for the most part for several years, and the rest were left free; Of course, some escaped altogether, so the number of those who moved among the people must be considered greater than according to the official investigation.

Here the main organizers of the movement were involved; Kovalik, Voinaralsky, a whole series of girls from noble families, like Sofia Perovskaya, V.N. Batyushkova, N.A. Armfeld, Sofia Leshern von Hertzfeld. There were merchant daughters, like the three Kornilov sisters, and a number of other persons different states and titles - from the book. Kropotkin up to and including ordinary workers.

Palen noted with horror that society not only did not resist this movement, that not only many respectable fathers and mothers of families showed hospitality to the revolutionaries, but sometimes they themselves helped them financially. Palena in highest degree This state of affairs was amazing; he did not understand that society could not sympathize with the reaction that had taken root in Russia, from which it suffered all kinds of embarrassment, and that, therefore, a number of people, even of respectable age and position, treated the propagandists cordially and hospitably, even without at all sharing their views.

    Theoretical foundations of populism

    Mugs from the early 70s.

    "Walking among the people."

    "Land and Freedom" (1876-79)

    "People's Will" (1879-81)

    Liberal populism.

The theoretical foundations of populism were formed in the mid-19th century. Herzen and Chernyshevsky made their contribution here in The Bell and Sovremennik. Populism had common theoretical features. Common views for all populists:

    Their goal was to overthrow the monarchy

    Eliminate the bureaucracy

    Transfer all land to peasants (free)

    Methods - by violent means, this is individual terror, as well as agitation among peasants and other segments of the population.

Populists are socialists. This was “peasant socialism”. All populists had three main positions:

    The populists believed that Russia would pass the stage of capitalism. They did not see the advantages of capitalism over the feudal system; they considered it a decline and regression. They criticized the evils of capitalism. It was noted that under him the moral level of the population sharply decreased. They criticized the spirit of profit and individualism. Many populists were familiar with the works of K. Marx, but believed that his works were unsuitable for Russia, because they were written for Western Europe. We saw that factories and factories were appearing in Russia, capitalism was advancing, but it was going along an artificial path, industry was being implanted by the state, starting with Peter 1. Therefore, it was necessary to carry out a revolution faster, otherwise the peasantry would disappear altogether.

    Idealization of the peasant community and the peasant. They said that the community is the future unit of a socialist society. They even idealized mutual responsibility. In fact, she was a relic of the deep past, she remained from the primitive system! Collective responsibility was a tool for the exploitation of peasants. They also idealized the peasant himself; they said that the Russian peasant was a born socialist.

    Exaggeration of the role of the populists in the historical process. The populists put forward the theory of the “critically thinking personality.” Peasants are not critical thinkers. Due to illiteracy, he does not understand his plight, only in extreme cases does he rebel. They believed that one intellectual could lead thousands of peasants.

The first direction of populism is rebellious or anarchic. Bakunin was a theorist. Bakunin began his revolutionary activities in Stankevich's circle. After the collapse of the circle, Bakunin moved to Europe and became involved in revolutionary activities. In the revolution of 48-49 in Germany and Austria-Hungary he took active action. He was extradited to Russia, imprisoned there, and managed to escape from hard labor. Through the East, through Pacific Ocean, through America he returned again to Europe. He joined the workers' party "First International". There he carried out subversive work against Marx and Engels. At the insistence of Marx, he is expelled from the international. Then Bakunin created his own anarchist international. The colors of anarchy are black and red. The slogan is “Bread and freedom.” The anarchist international had a strong position in Italy, Spain, France and Switzerland. Another theorist of anarchism is Kropotkin.

Bakunin's theoretical views:

    The main evil is the state, in any of its manifestations and forms, because it rapes the free will of man.

    Bakunin proposed a free federation of peasant communities and workers' artels instead of the state. There are no controls over them.

    Reality will sort everything out on its own. "Anarchy is the mother of order."

    Bakunin considered the driving forces of the future revolution to be the masses. The revolutions will be initiated by the urban lower classes. In turn, they will raise the peasantry. The All-Russian riot will begin. The people are always ready to revolt. He said: “It costs nothing to raise any village.” He compared the people to a haystack, to which you just put a match and it will burst into flames. “Every rebellion is useful,” said Bakunin.

His main work is “Statehood and Anarchy.”

The second direction is propaganda. Pyotr Lavrovich Lavrov headed the propaganda direction. After the shot, Karakozov was exiled to the Vologda province. In exile he wrote “Historical Letters”. In 1870 he fled to Europe. There he published these “Letters” and became revered among revolutionaries. Began publishing the magazine “Forward”. The letters outline a critically thinking personality, the duty of the intelligentsia to the people: it is said that the intelligentsia received education and upbringing while the rest of the people worked and endured, the task of the intelligentsia to repay this debt is to free the people from exploitation. Lavrov also believed in a peasant revolution. He believed that the peasants were not yet ready for revolution. We need to conduct propaganda among the people, we need not to rebel, but to teach the people, when they are ready, then they will call for a revolution. Supporters of Lavrov and Bakunin had different attitudes towards the state. Lavrov believed that some elements of the state must be preserved and transformed in order to be governed.

The third direction is conspiratorial. It is also called Russian Blanquism. The theorist of this direction was Pyotr Nikitovich Tkachev. Unlike Bakunin and Lavrov, he believed that the peasants were not ready for revolution, he believed that it was practically impossible to rouse the peasants to revolt. The initiative must be taken into the hands of a narrow society of conspirators. It will engage in terrorism. Thus, the state will begin to break down and eventually collapse. “Our state does not rely on anything and hangs in the air.” Engels, in a dispute with Tkachev, said that it was not the Russian state, but Tkachev himself, that was hanging in the air.

The revolutionary popular movement can be divided into 4 stages:

1. Revolutionary circles of the 70s. In Russia at that time there was no single organization, but there were circles consisting of commoners. Their merits are that they prepared a larger movement in the mid-70s - “Going to the People.”

Tchaikovsky (Sofia Perovskaya, Kropotkin, Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, N.V. Tchaikovsky). The name of the circle is random. The main person was not Tchaikovsky, he only carried out connections with other societies. It was a structured organization, with a center in St. Petersburg, and branches in university cities. The number is about one hundred people. The main task: to prepare a wider cadre of revolutionaries to go among the people. It had no charter or program. He had an underground printing house. Clandestine works by Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, and Charles Darwin were published there. The Tchaikovsky group made their first attempt to reach the people. In the fall of 1873, Stepnyak-Kravchinsky and Rogachev went to the Tver province. During the winter they communicated with the peasants and entered their team of sawmills. At the beginning of 74, they came to their comrades and reported to them that the people were ready for a riot, but this was not the case. The circle received this with a bang and began to prepare for action.

The next circle is the Dolgushins (St. Petersburg and Moscow), the Piterskaya commune.

2. “Going among the people.” This movement continued in 74-76. In the spring of 74, huge masses of revolutionaries (2-3 thousand people) headed to the villages to work with the peasants. People of different directions were present in the walk, but most of all there were supporters of Bakunin. The tactic used was flying propaganda. They called on the people to revolt. They also went to the national outskirts. Used in propaganda National language. This movement was not centralized. There was an attempt to unite it, Ippolit Myshkin made it. He ran an underground printing house in Moscow. Revolutionaries came to him there with their works. The printing house was destroyed by the police, Myshkin managed to avoid arrest. After that, he tried Chernyshevsky and put him at the head of the movement. He went to Siberia, disguised as a gendarme. I got to Yakutia and made a mistake there. After this he was captured and imprisoned in the Shlisseyburg fortress. The authorities were at first taken by surprise and even frightened by such a movement. But then they came to their senses and attacked the “walkers”. In the summer of '74, several people were arrested. The peasants themselves, moreover, handed them over to the authorities.

In 1875, the populists tried to reach the people from the other side. We began work among the proletariat. The populists did not consider workers a separate class. They considered them the same peasants who found themselves in the city; in the future they could be used in propaganda of the peasants.

“Going among the people” introduced the populists to the life of the population and did not lead to unrest among the peasants. The populists learned some lessons from these failures:

    It is necessary to change the content of propaganda and not talk to peasants about abstract things.

    We need to change our propaganda tactics. It is necessary to settle down, settle in villages for a long time, and try to establish close contacts with the peasants.

    It is necessary to have an organization that would coordinate the action of the populists.

“Land and Freedom” (1876-79). In the autumn of 1876 it was created in St. Petersburg. Its leaders were Sofya Perovskaya, Georgy Plekhanov, Alexander Mikhailov and Stepnyak Kravchinsky. Number of people: 150 people. Of these, 30 people were part of the central circle. The rest were either also in St. Petersburg or in other cities. Within the organization there was a clear specialization for individual social strata. The largest group is the “villagers”. There was a “working” group, in particular at the St. Petersburg plant. There was an intellectual group that carried out propaganda among students, officers and officials.

The official Kletochnikov worked in the 3rd department. He had very beautiful handwriting. This was greatly appreciated among officials. Among the documents were very important papers (documents about arrests, etc.). He leaked this information to the organization.

"Heavenly Office" She produced false document forms and fake stamps. There was also an underground printing house that created leaflets. It also produced the newspaper “Land and Freedom”.

In 1976, the society's program was adopted. The path is revolutionary for the establishment of socialism. The tactics are deep propaganda among the peasants, and additionally terrorist acts. They also wanted to unite all revolutionary forces together, to unite peasants, workers, students, Old Believers and sectarians.

The creation of Land and Freedom represented a significant step forward in the development of revolutionary organizations.

The populists tried to unite all revolutionary forces

The content of propaganda has changed

At this stage, Lavrov’s ideology dominated. In the spring of 1877 they moved huge forces of propagandists into the villages. Populists began to settle in villages for a long time. They acquired professions, became teachers in zemstvo and parish schools, doctors, blacksmiths, carpenters, and made close acquaintances with peasants. The populists became one of their own for the peasants.

However, this activity was to no avail. The largest event was the “Chigirin Conspiracy” (Deitch and Stefanovich). This happened in Ukraine. Its essence: the populists announced to the peasants that the tsar had given them freedom, but the landowners hid this. The populists are the “envoys” of the Tsar. They presented the peasants with a fake document. They began to recruit peasants into the “secret squad.” We managed to recruit 1000 people. The peasants firmly believed the populists that when they rebelled against the landowners, everything would be fine. But a snitch was found. The peasants were arrested. The populists themselves fled. This became known among the populists. All this gave rise to fierce debate: is it possible to use the name of the tsar to cover up revolutionary actions.

Because of the zero result, the populists began to believe that it was generally impossible to rouse the peasants to revolt. Then many of them began to resort to revolutionary terror. Terrorist acts began in the spring of 1877. The first one is: the assassination attempt by Vera Zasulich on the St. Petersburg mayor Trepov. She hurt him. After this attempt, she was put on trial and tried by jury. The chairman of the court was A.F. Horses. She was acquitted. She was released in triumph. The populists perceived this verdict as encouragement. They thought that the people were encouraging this terror.

In 78, the populist Solovyov made an attempt on the life of Alexander 2. He did this on the palace square. The guards were not near the king. The populist approached the king 20 meters and began to fire. He managed to shoot only his overcoat, was captured and after some time hanged. A wave of populist terror began. Stepnyak Kravchinsky stabbed a gendarme official with a dagger on Mezentsev Street. After the assassination attempt on Solovyov, the police unleashed brutal repression on the populists. Hundreds of propagandists were arrested. This caused fierce disputes between the "villagers" and the terrorists. Every terrorist attack violates the correctness of propaganda. The terrorists answered him that propaganda agitation does not produce any results, unlike terror. These disputes led to a split in Land and Freedom. Its progress:

in June 1879, a congress of “Land and Freedom” took place in Voronezh. On the outskirts, in a small forest, in a clearing, a congress took place. There was a quarrel, Plekhanov “went into the bushes.” In August 79 there was another congress. “Land and Freedom” is finally disintegrating - “People’s Will” are terrorists and “Black Redistribution” are “villagers”.

"People's Will" (1879 - 81). This is a terrorist organization in which Tkachev’s conspiratorial ideology prevailed. The head is Zhelyabov, also Nikolai Morozov, Vera Figner. Morozov wrote “The Tale of My Life” in two volumes in prison. Vera Figner wrote “Sealed Work.” It was headed by an executive committee. There were branches, there were only about 2000 people. It called itself the “People's Will” party. After its formation, in August the executive committee passed a death sentence on Alexander 2. All the forces of the people's will were aimed at hunting for the king. They acted according to Tkachev’s ideology. In November there was the first attempt on the railway. They began to dig a tunnel under the canvas. They secretly exported the land at night under the guise of goods. We worked for about two months. At the right moment, the populists blew up, the train derailed, it was not the same train, it was a train with the Tsar’s retinue.

Preparations began for the explosion of the Tsar in the Winter Palace. Stepan Khalturin, a cabinet maker, was hired to do this. He had a workshop in the basement of the Winter Palace. Gradually he began to carry explosives there. Khalturin began to study the king's life schedule. I learned that the king would be receiving a guest and having dinner with him. Khalturin lit the explosives and ran out of the palace. The ceilings of two floors fell through. Many guards died. The king was again not harmed.

After this assassination attempt, Alexander created the “Supreme Administrative Commission”. It is headed by Alexander Loris-Melikov. He distinguished himself in Turkish war, on the Caucasian front, fought the plague in Astrakhan. He was the governor of Kharkov and fought against revolutionary movements there. He subsequently became Minister of the Interior. He was called a dictator. He began to pursue a dual policy – ​​“carrot and stick”. He intensified repression against revolutionaries. Several members of the executive committee of the People's Will were captured. In February 1980, Zhelyabov was taken. On the other hand, Loris tried to attract wide circles of the public to the side of the state. He weakened censorship and disbanded the third department. Instead, the police department in St. Petersburg began to engage in political investigation. Loris first began holding press conferences for journalists and magazine editors. He explained the government's policies to them. The journalists were very pleased with this. The liberal public therefore began to go over to the side of the authorities, refusing to support the revolutionaries. Mikhailovsky called it: “the politics of a fluffy fox’s tail and a wolf’s mouth.”

There were no attempts on the tsar's life for more than a year. Loris decided to continue this policy. He drew up a project of reforms for the king. In this project, he proposed to the tsar to convene representatives of zemstvos and city dumas to discuss laws. In fact, this could be the first step towards the Zemsky Sobor and the creation of something like a parliament. And this is a change in the system. Discussion and adoption was scheduled for March 4, 1981. The populists were three days ahead of Loris. The Executive Committee of the "People's Will" prepared whole year assassination attempt on the king. On March 1, 1881, populists organized an assassination attempt on the Tsar on the embankment of the Catherine Canal. The Tsar was driving from the guard post. The first to throw a bomb at the Tsar’s carriage was the populist Rysakov, but he himself remained alive. The bomb damaged the king's carriage. Several people from the king's guard and several bystanders were killed. The king got out of the carriage to sympathize with the wounded. At this time, the second terrorist Granevitsky ran up and threw a bomb at the Tsar, the Tsar and the terrorist died. The goal of the populists was achieved. The Narodnaya Volya believed that after this the uncontrolled collapse of the state apparatus would begin.

His son, Alexander III, came to power. Almost all members of the executive committee were captured, later hanged or sentenced to life. Only Vera N. Figner remained free, who tried to restore “People’s Will” for two years, then she was captured and sent to prison.

The last assassination attempt was a few years later, in 1887, by “people's will”. The organizers were Alexander Ulyanov, Generalov and Andreyushkin. They decided to throw a bomb at the Tsar on Nevsky Prospekt. But nothing worked, they were caught red-handed and hanged.

A unique monument to Alexander 2 is the Church of the Resurrection on Blood in St. Petersburg.

Along with the people's will, there was a “Black Redistribution”. It showed itself not as brightly as the people's will. After March 1, 1981, many were arrested. Most of the leaders went abroad, including Plekhanov. There they moved away from populist positions and became interested in the theory of Marxism. In 1883, Plekhanov organized the first Russian Marxist group, the “Emancipation of Labor” in Geneva.

Liberal populism. After the defeat of the revolutionary populists, liberal populists continued to operate in the 80s. The leaders are Mikhailovsky, Vorontsov and Krivenko. The organ of the liberal populists is the magazine “Russian Wealth”. Korolenko, as well as M. Gorky, published their works on its pages.

They had similarities with the revolutionary populists: they recognized socialism as their ultimate goal. They also recognized the duty of the intelligentsia to the people. They believed that Russia would jump straight from feudalism to socialism.

Differences: they wanted to fight for ideas not through struggle, but through peaceful methods - the “theory of small deeds.” They believed that it was necessary to open schools and hospitals for the people. Improve agronomic assistance to peasants. These are all small matters. But all this, combined together, will improve the lives of the peasants. Most liberals worked in zemstvos.

The content of the article

Populism– ideological doctrine and socio-political movement of part of the intelligentsia of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries. Its supporters aimed to develop a national model of non-capitalist evolution and gradually adapt the majority of the population to the conditions of economic modernization. As a system of ideas, it was characteristic of countries with a predominantly agrarian economy during the era of their transition to the industrial stage of development (in addition to Russia, this included Poland, as well as Ukraine, the Baltic and Caucasus countries that were part of the Russian Empire). It is considered a type of utopian socialism, combined with specific (in some aspects, potentially realistic) projects for reforming the economic, social and political spheres of the country’s life.

In Soviet historiography, the history of populism was closely associated with the stages of the liberation movement begun by the Decembrist movement and completed by the February Revolution of 1917. Accordingly, populism correlated with its second, revolutionary-democratic stage.

Modern science believes that the populists’ appeal to the masses was dictated not by the political expediency of the immediate liquidation of the autocracy (the goal of the then revolutionary movement), but by the internal cultural and historical need to bring cultures closer together - the culture of the educated class and the people. Objectively, the movement and the doctrine of populism contributed to the consolidation of the nation through the removal of class differences and formed the prerequisites for the creation of a single legal space for all segments of society.

Tkachev believed that a social explosion would have a “moral-cleansing effect” on society, that a rebel is able to throw off the “abomination of the old world of slavery and humiliation,” since only at the moment of revolutionary action does a person feel free. In his opinion, there was no need to engage in propaganda and wait until the people were ripe for revolution; there was no need to “revolt” the village. Tkachev argued that since the autocracy in Russia does not have social support in any class of Russian society, and therefore “hangs in the air,” it can be quickly eliminated. To do this, the “carriers of the revolutionary idea,” the radical part of the intelligentsia, had to create a strictly conspiratorial organization capable of seizing power and turning the country into a large community-commune. In a commune state, the dignity of a person of labor and science will be obviously high, and the new government will create an alternative to the world of robbery and violence. In his opinion, the state created by the revolution should truly become a society of equal opportunities, where “everyone will have as much as he can have, without violating anyone’s rights, without encroaching on the shares of his neighbors.” To achieve such a bright goal, Tkachev believed, it is possible to use any means, including illegal ones (his followers formulated this thesis in the slogan “the end justifies the means”).

The fourth wing of Russian populism, anarchist, was the opposite of social-revolutionary in its tactics of achieving “people's happiness”: if Tkachev and his followers believed in the political unification of like-minded people in the name of creating a new type of state, then the anarchists disputed the need for transformations within the state. The theoretical postulates of critics of Russian hyperstatehood can be found in the works of populist anarchists - P.A. Kropotkin and M.A. Bakunin. Both of them were skeptical of any power, since they considered it to suppress the freedom of the individual and enslave it. As practice has shown, the anarchist movement performed a rather destructive function, although theoretically it had a number of positive ideas.

Thus, Kropotkin, with restraint towards both the political struggle and terror, emphasized the decisive role of the masses in the reconstruction of society, and called on the “collective mind” of the people to create communes, autonomies, and federations. Denying the dogmas of Orthodoxy and abstract philosophizing, he considered it more useful to benefit society with the help of natural sciences and medicine.

Bakunin, believing that any state is the bearer of injustice and unjustified concentration of power, believed (following J.-J. Rousseau) in “human nature”, in its freedom from the restrictions imposed by education and society. Bakunin considered the Russian person to be a rebel “by instinct, by vocation,” and the people as a whole, he believed, had already developed the ideal of freedom over the course of many centuries. Therefore, the revolutionaries only had to move on to organizing a nationwide revolt (hence the name “rebellious” in Marxist historiography for the wing of populism he led). The purpose of a rebellion according to Bakunin is not only the liquidation of the existing state, but also the prevention of the creation of a new one. Long before the events of 1917, he warned about the danger of creating a proletarian state, since “proletarians are characterized by bourgeois degeneration.” He envisioned the human community as a federation of communities in the districts and provinces of Russia, and then the whole world; on the way to this, he believed, there should be the creation of the “United States of Europe” (embodied today in the European Union). Like other populists, he believed in the calling of the Slavs, especially the Russians, to revive the world, brought into a state of decline by Western bourgeois civilization.

The first populist circles and organizations.

The theoretical provisions of populism found outlets in the activities of illegal and semi-legal circles, groups and organizations that began revolutionary work “among the people” even before the abolition of serfdom in 1861. In the methods of struggle for the idea, these first circles differed markedly: moderate (propaganda) and radical (revolutionary) ) directions already existed within the framework of the “sixties” movement (populists of the 1860s).

The student propaganda circle at Kharkov University (1856–1858) replaced the circle of propagandists P.E. Agriropulo and P.G. Zaichnevsky created in 1861 in Moscow. Its members considered revolution to be the only means of transforming reality. They imagined the political structure of Russia in the form of a federal union of regions headed by an elected national assembly.

In 1861–1864, the most influential secret society in St. Petersburg was the first “Land and Freedom”. Its members (A.A. Sleptsov, N.A. and A.A. Serno-Solovyevich, N.N. Obruchev, V.S. Kurochkin, N.I. Utin, S.S. Rymarenko), inspired by the ideas of A. .I. Herzen and N.G. Chernyshevsky, dreamed of creating “conditions for revolution.” They expected it by 1863 - after the completion of the signing of charter documents for the peasants for the land. The society, which had a semi-legal center for the distribution of printed materials (the bookstore of A.A. Serno-Solovyevich and the Chess Club), developed its own program. It declared the transfer of land to peasants for ransom, the replacement of government officials with elected officials, and a reduction in spending on the army and the royal court. These program provisions did not receive widespread support among the people, and the organization dissolved itself, remaining undiscovered by the tsarist security authorities.

From a circle adjacent to “Land and Freedom”, in 1863–1866 in Moscow, a secret revolutionary society of N.A. Ishutin (“Ishutintsev”) grew up, the goal of which was to prepare a peasant revolution through a conspiracy of intellectual groups. In 1865, members of it were P.D. Ermolov, M.N. Zagibalov, N.P. Stranden, D.A. Yurasov, D.V. Karakozov, P.F. Nikolaev, V.N. Shaganov, O.A. .Motkov established connections with the St. Petersburg underground through I.A. Khudyakov, as well as with Polish revolutionaries, Russian political emigration and provincial circles in Saratov, Nizhny Novgorod, Kaluga province, etc., attracting semi-liberal elements to their activities. Trying to implement Chernyshevsky’s ideas on creating artels and workshops, making them the first step in the future socialist transformation of society, they created in 1865 in Moscow a free school, a bookbinding (1864) and sewing (1865) workshops, a cotton factory in Mozhaisky district on the basis of an association ( 1865), negotiated the creation of a commune with the workers of the Lyudinovsky ironworks in the Kaluga province. G.A. Lopatin’s group and the “Ruble Society” created by him most clearly embodied the direction of propaganda and educational work in their programs. By the beginning of 1866, a rigid structure already existed in the circle - a small but united central leadership (“Hell”), the secret society itself (“Organization”) and the legal “Mutual Aid Societies” adjacent to it. The “Ishutinites” prepared Chernyshevsky’s escape from hard labor (1865–1866), but their successful activities were interrupted on April 4, 1866 by an unannounced and uncoordinated attempt by one of the circle members, D.V. Karakozov, on Emperor Alexander II. More than 2 thousand populists came under investigation in the “regicide case”; of them, 36 were sentenced to various punishments (D.V. Karakozov was hanged, Ishutin was imprisoned in solitary confinement in the Shlisselburg fortress, where he went crazy).

In 1869, the organization “People's Retribution” began its activities in Moscow and St. Petersburg (77 people headed by S.G. Nechaev). Its goal was also to prepare a “people's peasant revolution.” The people involved in the “People's Massacre” turned out to be victims of blackmail and intrigue of its organizer, Sergei Nechaev, who personified fanaticism, dictatorship, unprincipledness and deceit. P.L. Lavrov publicly spoke out against his methods of struggle, arguing that “unless absolutely necessary, no one has the right to risk the moral purity of the socialist struggle, that not a single extra drop of blood, not a single stain of predatory property should fall on the banner of the fighters of socialism.” When student I.I. Ivanov himself former member“People's Retribution”, spoke out against its leader, who called for terror and provocations to undermine the regime and bring a brighter future closer, he was accused by Nechaev of treason and killed. Criminal offense The police discovered it, the organization was destroyed, Nechaev himself fled abroad, but was arrested there, extradited to the Russian authorities and tried as a criminal.

Although after the “Nechaev trial” some supporters of “extreme methods” (terrorism) remained among the movement participants, the majority of the populists dissociated themselves from the adventurers. In contrast to the unprincipled nature of “Nechaevism,” circles and societies arose in which the issue of revolutionary ethics became one of the main ones. From the late 1860s to major cities There were several dozen such circles in Russia. One of them, created by S.L. Perovskaya (1871), joined the “Big Propaganda Society”, headed by N.V. Tchaikovsky. Such prominent figures as M.A. Natanson, S.M. Kravchinsky, P.A. Kropotkin, F.V. Volkhovsky, S.S. Sinegub, N.A. Charushin and others first announced themselves in the Tchaikovsky circle. .

Having read and discussed the works of Bakunin a lot, the “Chaikovites” considered the peasants to be “spontaneous socialists” who only had to be “awakened” - to awaken their “socialist instincts”, for which it was proposed to conduct propaganda. Its listeners were supposed to be the capital's otkhodnik workers, who at times returned from the city to their villages.

The first “going to the people” (1874).

In the spring and summer of 1874, the “Chaikovites”, and after them members of other circles (especially the “Big Propaganda Society”), not limiting themselves to agitation among the otkhodniks, went themselves to the villages of the Moscow, Tver, Kursk and Voronezh provinces. This movement was called the “flying action”, and later – the “first walk among the people”. It became a serious test for populist ideology.

Moving from village to village, hundreds of students, high school students, young intellectuals, dressed in peasant clothes and trying to talk like peasants, handed out literature and convinced people that tsarism “can no longer be tolerated.” At the same time, they expressed the hope that the government, “without waiting for an uprising, will decide to make the broadest concessions to the people,” that the rebellion “will turn out to be unnecessary,” and therefore now it is necessary to supposedly gather strength, unite in order to begin “peaceful work” (C .Kravchinsky). But the propagandists were met by a completely different people than they represented after reading books and brochures. The peasants were wary of strangers; their calls were regarded as strange and dangerous. According to the recollections of the populists themselves, they treated stories about a “bright future” as fairy tales (“If you don’t like it, don’t listen, and don’t bother lying!”). N.A. Morozov, in particular, recalled that he asked the peasants: “Isn’t it God’s land? General?" - and heard in response: “God’s place where no one lives. And where there are people, there it is human.”

Bakunin's idea of ​​the people's readiness to revolt failed. The theoretical models of the ideologists of populism collided with the conservative utopia of the people, their faith in the correctness of power and hope for a “good king”.

By the fall of 1874, the “going to the people” began to decline, and government repressions followed. By the end of 1875, more than 900 participants in the movement (out of 1,000 activists), as well as about 8 thousand sympathizers and followers, were arrested and convicted, including in the most notorious case, the “Trial of the 193s.”

The second is “going to the people.”

Having revised a number of program provisions, the remaining populists decided to abandon the “circle-ism” and move on to the creation of a single, centralized organization. The first attempt at its formation was the unification of Muscovites into a group called the “All-Russian Social Revolutionary Organization” (late 1874 - early 1875). After the arrests and trials of 1875 - early 1876, it became entirely part of the new, second “Land and Freedom” created in 1876 (so named in memory of its predecessors). M.A. who worked there and O.A. Natanson (husband and wife), G.V. Plekhanov, L.A. Tikhomirov, O.V. Aptekman, A.A. Kvyatkovsky, D.A. Lizogub, A.D. Mikhailov, later - S.L. Perovskaya, A.I. Zhelyabov, V.I. Figner and others insisted on observing the principles of secrecy and the subordination of the minority to the majority. This organization was a hierarchically structured union, headed by a governing body (“Administration”), to which “groups” (“villagers”, “working group”, “disorganizers”, etc.) were subordinate. The organization had branches in Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkov and other cities. The program of the organization envisaged the implementation of a peasant revolution, the principles of collectivism and anarchism were declared the foundations of the state structure (Bakunism), along with the socialization of the land and the replacement of the state with a federation of communities.

In 1877, “Land and Freedom” included about 60 people, sympathizers - approx. 150. Her ideas were disseminated through the social revolutionary review “Land and Freedom” (Petersburg, No. 1–5, October 1878 – April 1879) and its supplement “Listok “Land and Freedom” (Petersburg, No. 1–6, March- June 1879), they were lively discussed by the illegal press in Russia and abroad. Some supporters of propaganda work justifiably insisted on a transition from “flying propaganda” to long-term settled village settlements (this movement was called in the literature the “second visit to the people”). This time, propagandists first mastered crafts that would be useful in the countryside, becoming doctors, paramedics, clerks, teachers, blacksmiths, and woodcutters. Sedentary settlements of propagandists arose first in the Volga region (center - Saratov province), then in the Don region and some other provinces. The same landowner propagandists also created a “working group” to continue agitation in factories and enterprises in St. Petersburg, Kharkov and Rostov. They also organized the first demonstration in the history of Russia - on December 6, 1876 at the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg. A banner with the slogan “Land and Freedom” was unfurled on it, and G.V. Plekhanov made a speech.

The split of the landowners into “politicians” and “villagers”. Lipetsk and Voronezh congresses. Meanwhile, radicals who were members of the same organization were already calling on supporters to move on to direct political struggle against the autocracy. The first to take this path were the populists of the South of the Russian Empire, presenting their activities as an organization of acts of self-defense and revenge for the atrocities of the tsarist administration. “To become a tiger, you don’t have to be one by nature,” said Narodnaya Volya member A.A. Kvyatkovsky from the dock before the death sentence was announced. “There are such social conditions when lambs become them.”

The revolutionary impatience of the radicals resulted in a series of terrorist attacks. In February 1878, V.I. Zasulich made an attempt on the life of St. Petersburg mayor F.F. Trepov, who ordered the flogging of a political prisoner student. In the same month, the circle of V.N. Osinsky - D.A. Lizogub, operating in Kyiv and Odessa, organized the murders of police agent A.G. Nikonov, gendarme colonel G.E. Geiking (the initiator of the expulsion of revolutionary-minded students) and Kharkov general -Governor D.N. Kropotkin.

Since March 1878, a fascination with terrorist attacks swept St. Petersburg. On proclamations calling for the destruction of yet another tsarist official, a seal began to appear with the image of a revolver, dagger and ax and the signature “Executive Committee of the Social Revolutionary Party.”

On August 4, 1878, S.M. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky stabbed the St. Petersburg chief of gendarmes N.A. Mezentsev with a dagger in response to his signing the verdict on the execution of the revolutionary Kovalsky. On March 13, 1879, an attempt was made on the life of his successor, General A.R. Drenteln. The leaflet “Land and Freedom” (editor-in-chief – N.A. Morozov) finally turned into a terrorist organ.

The response to the terrorist attacks of the Land Volunteers was police persecution. Government repressions, not comparable in scale to the previous one (in 1874), also affected those revolutionaries who were in the village at that time. A dozen demonstrations took place across Russia political processes with sentences of 10–15 years of hard labor for printed and oral propaganda, 16 death sentences were imposed (1879) only for “belonging to a criminal community” (this was judged by proclamations found in the house, proven facts of transferring money to the revolutionary treasury, etc. .). Under these conditions, many members of the organization assessed A.K. Solovyov’s preparation for the assassination attempt on the emperor on April 2, 1879 ambiguously: some of them protested against the terrorist attack, believing that it would ruin the cause of revolutionary propaganda.

When in May 1879 terrorists created the group “Freedom or Death”, without coordinating their actions with propaganda supporters (O.V. Aptekman, G.V. Plekhanov), it became clear that there was no general discussion conflict situation can't be avoided.

On June 15, 1879, supporters of active action gathered in Lipetsk to develop additions to the organization’s program and a common position. The Lipetsk congress showed that “politicians” and propagandists have fewer and fewer common ideas.

On June 19–21, 1879, at a congress in Voronezh, landowners tried to resolve contradictions and maintain the unity of the organization, but were unsuccessful: on August 15, 1879, “Land and Freedom” disintegrated.

Supporters of the old tactics - “villagers”, who considered it necessary to abandon the methods of terror (Plekhanov, L.G. Deich, P.B. Axelrod, Zasulich, etc.) united into a new political entity, calling it “Black Redistribution” (meaning redistribution of land on the basis of peasant customary law, “in black”). They declared themselves the main continuers of the cause of the “landers”.

“Politicians,” that is, supporters of active actions under the leadership of the conspiratorial party, created a union, which was given the name “People's Will.” Those included in it, A.I. Zhelyabov, S.L. Perovskaya, A.D. Mikhailov, N.A. Morozov, V.N. Figner and others, chose the path of political actions against the most cruel government officials, the path of preparing a political coup - an explosion detonator capable of awakening the peasant masses and destroying their centuries-old inertia.

Narodnaya Volya program

operating under the motto “Now or never!”, allowed individual terror as a response measure, a means of defense and as a form of disorganization of the current government in response to violence on its part. “Terror is a terrible thing,” said Narodnaya Volya member S.M. Kravchinsky. “And there is only one thing worse than terror: accepting violence without complaint.” Thus, in the organization’s program, terror was designated as one of the means designed to prepare a popular uprising. Having further strengthened the principles of centralization and secrecy developed by “Land and Freedom,” “People’s Will” set the immediate goal of changing the political system (including through regicide), and then the convening Constituent Assembly, assertion of political freedoms.

Behind short term Within a year, the Narodnivtsi created an extensive organization headed by the Executive Committee. It included 36 people, incl. Zhelyabov, Mikhailov, Perovskaya, Figner, M.F. Frolenko. The Executive Committee was subordinate to about 80 territorial groups and about 500 of the most active Narodnaya Volya members in the center and locally, who in turn managed to unite several thousand like-minded people.

4 special educations of all-Russian significance – Work, Student and Military organization, as well as the Red Cross organization - acted in concert, relying on their agents in the police department and their own foreign representation in Paris and London. They published several publications (“Narodnaya Volya”, “Narodnaya Volya Leaflet”, “Workers’ Newspaper”), many proclamations with a circulation of 3-5 thousand copies, unheard of at that time.

Members of “Narodnaya Volya” were distinguished by high moral qualities (this can be judged by their judicial speeches and suicide letters) - devotion to the idea of ​​​​the fight for “people's happiness”, selflessness, dedication. At the same time, educated Russian society not only did not condemn, but also fully sympathized with the successes of this organization.

Meanwhile, the “Combat Group” was created in “Narodnaya Volya” (leader – Zhelyabov), whose goal was to prepare terrorist attacks as a response to the actions of the tsarist government, which banned the peaceful propaganda of socialist ideas. A limited number of people were allowed to carry out terrorist attacks - about 20 members of the Executive Committee or its Administrative Commission. Over the years of the organization’s work (1879–1884), they killed 6 people in Ukraine and Moscow, including the chief of the secret police G.P. Sudeikin, military prosecutor V.S. Strelnikov, 2 secret police agents - S.I. Preyma and F.A. Shkryaba, traitor A.Ya. Zharkov.

The Narodnaya Volya organized a real hunt for the Tsar. They consistently studied the routes of his trips, the location of the rooms in the Winter Palace. A network of dynamite workshops produced bombs and explosives (the talented inventor N.I. Kibalchich especially distinguished himself in this matter, drawing later, when he was expecting death penalty in solitary confinement of the Peter and Paul Fortress, diagram of a jet aircraft). In total, the Narodnaya Volya members made 8 attempts on Alexander II’s life (the first was on November 18, 1879).

As a result, the government wavered, creating the Supreme Administrative Commission headed by M.T. Loris-Melikov (1880). He was ordered to understand the situation and, among other things, to intensify the fight against the “bombers.” Having proposed to Alexander II a project of reforms that allowed elements of representative government and should satisfy the liberals, Loris-Melikov hoped that on March 4, 1881 this project would be approved by the tsar.

However, the Narodnaya Volya were not going to compromise. Even the arrest of Zhelyabov a few days before the next assassination attempt, scheduled for March 1, 1881, did not force them to deviate from their chosen path. The preparation of the regicide was taken over by Sofya Perovskaya. At her signal, on the indicated day, I.I. Grinevitsky threw a bomb at the Tsar and blew himself up. After the arrest of Perovskaya and other “bombers,” the already arrested Zhelyabov himself demanded to be included in the number of participants in this attempt in order to share the fate of his comrades.

At that time, ordinary members of Narodnaya Volya were engaged not only in terrorist activities, but also in propaganda, agitation, organizational, publishing and other activities. But they also suffered for their participation in it: after the events of March 1, mass arrests began, ending in a series of trials (“Trial of the 20,” “Trial of the 17,” “Trial of the 14,” etc.). The execution of members of the Narodnaya Volya Executive Committee was completed by the destruction of its local organizations. In total, from 1881 to 1884, approx. 10 thousand people. Zhelyabov, Perovskaya, Kibalchich were the last in the history of Russia to be subjected to public execution, other members of the Executive Committee were sentenced to indefinite hard labor and lifelong exile.

Activities of the "Black Redistribution".

After the assassination of Alexander II on March 1, 1881 by Narodnaya Volya and the accession of his son Alexander III to the throne, the era of “great reforms” in Russia ended. Neither revolutions nor the mass uprisings expected by the People's Will occurred. For many surviving populists, the ideological gap between the peasant world and the intelligentsia became obvious, which could not be quickly overcome.

16 populists-“villagers” who broke away from “Land and Freedom” and entered the “Black Redistribution” (Plekhanov, Zasulich, Deitch, Aptekman, Ya.V. Stefanovich, etc.) received some of the money and a printing house in Smolensk, which published for workers and peasants newspaper "Grain" (1880–1881), but it was also soon destroyed. Placing their hopes again on propaganda, they continued to work among the military and students, and organized circles in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tula and Kharkov. After the arrest of some of the Black Peredelites in late 1881 - early 1882, Plekhanov, Zasulich, Deutsch and Stefanovich emigrated to Switzerland, where, having become familiar with Marxist ideas, they created the Liberation of Labor group in Geneva in 1883. A decade later, there, abroad, other populist groups began working (the Union of Russian Socialist Revolutionaries in Bern, the Free Russian Press Foundation in London, the Group of Old Narodnaya Volya in Paris), with the goal of publishing and distributing Russia's illegal literature. However, the former “Black Peredelites” who became part of the “Emancipation of Labor” group not only did not want to cooperate, but also engaged in fierce polemics with them. Plekhanov’s main works, especially his books “Socialism and Political Struggle” and “Our Differences” were aimed at criticizing the fundamental concepts of the Narodniks from the perspective of Marxism. Thus, classical populism, which originated from Herzen and Chernyshevsky, has practically exhausted itself. The decline of revolutionary populism and the rise of liberal populism began.

However, the sacrificial activity of the classical populists and people's will was not in vain. They wrested from tsarism many specific concessions in various areas of economics, politics, and culture. Among them, for example, in the peasant question - the abolition of the temporarily obligated state of peasants, the abolition of the poll tax, the reduction (by almost 30%) of redemption payments, and the establishment of the Peasant Bank. On the labor issue - the creation of the beginnings of factory legislation (the law of June 1, 1882 on the limitation of child labor and the introduction of factory inspection). Among the political concessions, the liquidation of the Third Section and the release of Chernyshevsky from Siberia were of significant importance.

Liberal populism of the 1880s.

The 1880–1890s in the history of the ideological evolution of the populist doctrine are considered the period of dominance of its liberal component. The ideas of “bombism” and the overthrow of the foundations after the defeat of the People’s Will circles and organizations began to give way to moderate sentiments, to which many educated public figures gravitated. In terms of influence, the liberals of the 1880s were inferior to the revolutionaries, but it was this decade that made a significant contribution to the development of the doctrine. Thus, N.K. Mikhailovsky continued the development of the subjective method in sociology. The theories of simple and complex cooperation, types and degrees of social development, the struggle for individuality, the theory of the “hero and the crowd” served as important arguments in proving the central position of the “critically thinking individual” (intellectual) in the progress of society. Without becoming a supporter of revolutionary violence, this theorist advocated reforms as the main means of implementing the urgent changes.

Simultaneously with his constructions, P.P. Chervinsky and I.I. Kablits (Yuzova), whose works are associated with the beginning of a departure from the doctrine of a socialist orientation, expressed their opinions on the prospects for the development of Russia. Having critically reflected on the ideals of revolutionism, they highlighted not the moral duty of the country's enlightened minority, but an awareness of the needs and demands of the people. The rejection of socialist ideas was accompanied by a new emphasis and increased attention to “cultural activities.” A successor to the ideas of Chervinsky and Kablitz, an employee of the newspaper “Nedelya” Ya.V. Abramov in the 1890s defined the nature of the activities of the intelligentsia as helping the peasantry in overcoming the difficulties of a market economy; at the same time, he pointed to a possible form of such practice - activity in zemstvos. Strength Abramov’s propaganda works were clearly targeted - an appeal to doctors, teachers, agronomists with an appeal to help the situation of the Russian peasant with their own work. Essentially, Abramov put forward the idea of ​​a depoliticized “going to the people” under the slogan of carrying out small things that make up the lives of millions. For many zemstvo employees, the “theory of small deeds” became the ideology of utility.

In other populist theories of the 1880–1890s, called “economic romanticism,” the “salvation of the community” was proposed (N.F. Danielson), programs were put forward government regulation economies, in the implementation of which the peasant economy could adapt to commodity-money relations (V.P. Vorontsov). It became increasingly clear that the followers of the Land Volyas belonged to two directions - those who shared the idea of ​​“adaptation” to new conditions of existence and those who called for political reform of the country with a reorientation towards the socialist ideal. However, the unifying element for both remained the recognition of the need for the peaceful evolution of Russia, the renunciation of violence, the struggle for personal freedom and solidarity, and the artel-communal method of organizing the economy. Being a generally erroneous petty-bourgeois theory, “economic romanticism” attracted the attention of social thought to the peculiarities economic development Russia.

From the mid-1880s, the main print organ of the liberal populists became the magazine “Russian Wealth”, published since 1880 by an artel of writers (N.N. Zlatovratsky, S.N. Krivenko, E.M. Garshin, etc.)

Since 1893 new edition magazine (N.K. Mikhailovsky, V.G. Korolenko, N.F. Annensky) made it the center of public discussions on issues close to the theorists of liberal populism.

Renewal of “circle-ism.” Neo-populism.

Since the mid-1880s, there have been trends in Russia towards the decentralization of the revolutionary underground and towards intensifying work in the provinces. Such tasks were set, in particular, by the Young Party of the People's Will.

In 1885, a congress of southern Narodnaya Volya members (B.D. Orzhikh, V.G. Bogoraz, etc.) met in Yekaterinoslav, trying to unite the revolutionary forces of the region. At the end of December 1886, the “Terrorist faction of the People’s Will” party arose in St. Petersburg (A.I. Ulyanov, P.Ya. Shevyrev, etc.). The latter’s program, along with the approval of the terrorist struggle, contained elements of Marxist assessments of the situation. Among them - recognition of the fact of the existence of capitalism in Russia, orientation towards workers - the “core of the socialist party." People's Will and ideologically close organizations continued to operate in the 1890s in Kostroma, Vladimir, Yaroslavl. In 1891, the "Group of People's Will" worked in St. Petersburg, in Kiev – “South Russian Group of People’s Will”.

In 1893–1894, the “Social Revolutionary Party of People's Law” (M.A. Nathanson, P.N. Nikolaev, N.N. Tyutchev and others) set the task of uniting the anti-government forces of the country, but it failed. As Marxism spread in Russia, populist organizations lost their dominant position and influence.

The revival of the revolutionary trend in populism, which began in the late 1890s (the so-called “neo-populism”), turned out to be associated with the activities of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRs). It was formed through the unification of populist groups in the form of the left wing of democracy. In the second half of the 1890s, small, predominantly intellectual, populist groups and circles that existed in St. Petersburg, Penza, Poltava, Voronezh, Kharkov, Odessa united into the Southern Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (1900), others into the “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries” ( 1901). Their organizers were M.R. Gots, O.S. Minor and others - former populists.

Irina Pushkareva, Natalya Pushkareva

Literature:

Bogucharsky V.Ya. Active populism of the seventies. M., 1912
Popov M.R. Notes of a landowner. M., 1933
Figner V.N. Captured labor, vol. 1. M., 1964
Morozov N.A. Stories of my life, vol. 2. M., 1965
Pantin B.M., Plimak N.G., Khoros V.G. Revolutionary tradition in Russia. M., 1986
Pirumova N.M. Social doctrine of M.A. Bakunin. M., 1990
Rudnitskaya E.L. Russian Blanquism: Pyotr Tkachev. M., 1992
Zverev V.V. Reform populism and the problem of modernization of Russia. M., 1997
Budnitsky O.V. Terrorism in the Russian liberation movement. M., 2000
Blokhin V.V. Historical concept Nikolai Mikhailovsky. M., 2001