The Narodnaya Volya chose the main method of struggle. Why revolutionaries persecuted Emperor Alexander II

For the last half century of its existence, the tsarist government had to resist the onslaught of radical revolutionaries who chose terror as their strategy. Terrorism swept the country in waves, each time leaving behind ruined lives and hopes. What methods were used by the revolutionaries, what they fought against, and how it all ended - in our material.

From "Young Russia" to the assassination attempt on the Emperor

In 1862, a twenty-year-old prisoner of the Tver police station, Pyotr Zaichnevsky, wrote a proclamation "Young Russia", which quickly spread to all major cities of the empire. In a proclamation issued on behalf of the non-existent Central Revolutionary Committee, revolutionary terror was declared the cure for the ills of society, and the Winter Palace was the main goal of the terrorists.

The author was inspired mainly by the ideas of the French utopian socialist L. O. Blanqui, but partly by Herzen, whose works were distributed by the student circle organized by Zaichnevsky in Moscow. However, Herzen spoke of the young supporters of terror with paternal condescension: "Not a drop of blood has been shed from them, and if they do, it will be their blood - fanatic youths." Time has shown that he was wrong.

The popularity of radical views became apparent when the first of numerous assassination attempts on Alexander II was made. On April 4, 1866, a member of the secret society "Organization" Dmitry Karakozov shot at the emperor, who was heading after a walk in the Summer Garden to his carriage. Amazed, Alexander asked the terrorist, dressed as a peasant, why he wanted to kill him. Karakozov replied: "You deceived the people: you promised them land, but did not give it."

Both Karakozov and the leader of the "Organization" Nikolai Ishutin were sentenced to hanging. But the latter was declared pardon at the moment when a noose was already thrown around his neck. Unable to cope with the shock, he went mad.

Trial of the Nechaevites

In November 1869, an event occurred that prompted Dostoevsky the idea of the novel "Demons". Moscow student Ivan Ivanov was killed by his own comrades - members of the "Society of People's Punishment" circle. He was tricked into a grotto on the shore of a pond in the park of the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy, beaten to unconsciousness and shot dead. The body, lowered under the ice, was found a few days later.

The trial involved almost ninety people and was widely reported in the newspapers. A document was published, called the Catechism of the Revolutionary. It said that a revolutionary is a "doomed man" who has given up his own interests, feelings, and even his name. His relations with the world are subordinated to a single goal. He must, without hesitation, sacrifice a comrade-in-arms if this is necessary for the coming “complete liberation and happiness” of the people.

Sergei Nechaev, the leader of the "People's Punishment", the author (or one of the authors) of the "Catechism" and the organizer of the murder of Ivanov, really did not hesitate to sacrifice his comrades, but the purity of his intentions is more than doubtful.

He was a skilled hoaxer and manipulator. He spread legends about himself - for example, about his heroic escape from the Peter and Paul Fortress. Traveling to Switzerland, Nechaev misled Bakunin and Ogarev and received 10,000 francs for the needs of a fictitious revolutionary committee. He slandered the student Ivanov, accusing him of betrayal, while the whole fault of the young man was that he dared to argue with Nechaev. And this, according to the leader, could undermine his authority in the eyes of others.

After the arrests began, Nechaev fled, leaving his comrades to the mercy of fate, abroad - again to Switzerland. But he was extradited by the Swiss authorities to the Russian in 1872.

The trial of the Nechayevites made a strong impression not only on Dostoevsky. The revealed facts for several years averted the majority of the opposition-minded intelligentsia from thinking about the benefits of terror.

Trial of Vera Zasulich

Historians count a new milestone in the development of revolutionary terrorism in Russia from the assassination attempt on the St. Petersburg mayor F. F. Trepov in the early winter of 1878. The 28-year-old revolutionary populist Vera Zasulich, who came to the official for a reception, seriously wounded him with two shots in the stomach.

The reason for the attempt was the absurd trick of Trepov, who had a reputation as a bribe-taker and petty tyrant. Bypassing the prohibition of corporal punishment, he ordered the flogging of a prisoner who did not take off his hat in front of him.

Zasulich was saved from hard labor by two brilliant lawyers: the chairman of the district court A.F. Koni and lawyer P.A. Akimov. They managed to present the case in such a way that the jury, in fact, no longer considered a criminal offense, but the moral opposition of the cruel mayor, who personified everything mossy and inert that was in the government system, and a young woman driven solely by altruism.

Koni personally instructed Vera Zasulich - according to the memoirs of her contemporaries, soft, shy, distracted to the point of slovenliness - how to make the best impression in court. He brought a worn cloak ("mantle"), which was supposed to help the defendant appear harmless and deserving of pity, and persuaded her not to bite her nails so as not to alienate the jury.

The jury acquitted Zasulich. This aroused the enthusiasm of the liberal public in Russia and the West and the indignation of the Emperor and Minister of Justice K. I. Palen. But the main consequence of the Zasulich case was that her example inspired others and led to a wave of terrorist attacks in 1878-1879. In particular, on April 2, 1878, a member of the revolutionary society "Land and Freedom" Alexander Solovyov shot five times (all five times missed) at Alexander II near the Winter Palace.

Vera Zasulich herself soon became a staunch opponent of terrorist methods.

"People's Will". Hunt for the king

In the summer of 1879, "Land and Freedom" split into "Black Repartition", which professed peaceful "populist" methods of struggle, and the terrorist "Narodnaya Volya". Members of the latter in 1881 put an end to the fierce hunt for the "tsar-liberator" Alexander II, which had been going on for fifteen years, since the time of Karakozov.

In the autumn of 1879 alone, the Narodnaya Volya members unsuccessfully tried three times to undermine the tsar's train. They made their next attempt at regicide on February 5, 1880. A gala dinner was scheduled for that evening at the Winter Palace. Stepan Khalturin, who got a job as a carpenter in the palace, had already planted dynamite in the cellars. Interestingly, he had the opportunity to kill the emperor before the scheduled date. Khalturin and Alexander II accidentally remained alone in the royal office - but the emperor spoke so kindly to the "carpenter" that he did not raise his hand.

On February 5, Alexander and his entire family were also saved by an accident. Dinner was delayed for half an hour due to the delay of a high-ranking guest. However, the explosion, which thundered at 18.20, killed ten soldiers. Eighty people were wounded by shrapnel.

The denouement of the tragedy occurred on March 1, 1881. The king was warned about the preparation of the next assassination attempt, but he replied that if the higher powers had kept him hitherto, they would keep him in the future.

Narodnaya Volya mined Malaya Sadovaya Street. The plan was multi-staged: in case of a misfire, four bombers were on duty on the street, and if they failed, Andrei Zhelyabov was to kill the emperor with his own hands. The regicide was the second of the bombers, Ignaty Grinevitsky. The explosion mortally wounded both the terrorist and the emperor. Alexander II, whose legs were crushed, was transferred to the Winter Palace, and an hour later he died.

On March 10, the revolutionaries presented an ultimatum letter to his heir, Alexander III, calling for the rejection of revenge and "the voluntary appeal of the supreme power to the people." But they achieved exactly the opposite result.

The execution of five of the March 1st - Zhelyabov, Nikolai Kibalchich, Sofya Perovskaya, Nikolai Rysakov and Timofey Mikhailov - marked the beginning of the so-called period of reaction. And among the peasants, Alexander II was known as a martyr tsar, who was killed by the nobles dissatisfied with the reforms.

Assassination attempt on Alexander III

Attempts to revive the "Narodnaya Volya" and its cause were made several times. On March 1, 1887, exactly six years after the death of Alexander II, members of the "Terrorist faction" People's Will ", founded by Peter Shevyrev and Alexander Ulyanov, made an attempt on the life of Alexander III. The brother of the future “leader of the world revolution” bought explosives for the terrorist attack by selling his gymnasium gold medal.

The attempt was prevented, and its main organizers - again five people, including Ulyanov and Shevyrev - were hanged in the Shlisselburg fortress. The case of the "Second March 1" put an end to the revolutionary terror in Russia for a long time.

"We'll go the other way"

The phrase allegedly said by Vladimir Ulyanov after the death of his brother is actually a paraphrased line from Mayakovsky's poem. But it does not correspond to reality in essence. The Bolsheviks, as well as the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Anarchists, actively participated in the rise of revolutionary terrorism at the beginning of the 20th century. All these parties had militant organizations.

Between 1901 and 1911, terrorists killed and injured, including by accident, about 17,000 people. The revolutionaries did not disdain cooperation with criminals in operations related to the sale of weapons and smuggling. Children were sometimes involved in the attacks: for example, the four-year-old "Comrade Natasha" was used by her mother, the Bolshevik Drabkina, to cover herself when transporting mercury fulminate.

The terrorists' arsenal and tools, on the one hand, have become extremely simplified - home-made explosives from cans and pharmaceutical drugs were often used. On the other hand, the assassination attempts began to be planned more thoughtfully and carefully. In his memoirs, Boris Savinkov described how the SR militants hunted down important people for weeks, working as cab drivers and street vendors. Such surveillance was carried out, for example, in the preparation of assassination attempts on the Minister of the Interior V. K. von Plehve in St. Petersburg and on the Moscow Governor-General, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich.

The murder of P. A. Stolypin in 1911 by the anarchist Dmitry Bogrov is often called the last significant terrorist attack in literature, but terrorist actions continued until the February Revolution.

It is with revolutionary terror that the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood is connected. Surprises many.

The fate of the Narodnaya Volya party is doubly tragic: as a subject of history, it first went through a flurry of repressions from tsarism (its victims cannot be counted - hanged, shot, killed in prisons and hard labor burrows), and then, already as a historical object, through thorns of biased assessments by historians and publicists, up to today. All its critics - tsarist, Soviet and post-communist - portray Narodnaya Volya as a party of terrorists, mainly occupied with assassination attempts on Alexander II. Even some serious historians (M.N. Pokrovsky, M.V. Nechkina) thought so, not to mention numerous journalists who now amateurishly exaggerate such a view. Meanwhile, for a long time now, an extensive circle of sources has been available to everyone and everyone, irrefutably proving that terror has never occupied the main place either in the program or in the activities of Narodnaya Volya.

First of all, let us take into account the scale of the party, unprecedented for that time. S.S. Volk calculated that it united 80–90 local, 100–120 workers, 30–40 student, 20–25 gymnasium and 20–25 military organizations throughout the country - from Helsingfors (Helsinki) to Tiflis (Tbilisi) and from Revel (Tallinn). ) to Irkutsk. These calculations are far from exhaustive. L.N. Godunova established that there were at least 50 military circles of Narodnaya Volya in at least 41 cities. The number of active, legally registered members of the party was approximately 500 people, but 10–20 times more participated in its activities, helping it in one way or another. According to the police department, in just two and a half years, from July 1881 to 1883, almost 8,000 people were subjected to repressions for participating in Narodnaya Volya. They carried out propaganda, agitation and organizational work among all segments of the population of Russia - from the peasant "lower classes" to the bureaucratic "tops". As for terror, it was the work of only members and closest agents of the Executive Committee of the Party (who, moreover, were involved in all other aspects of activity) and several successive metalworkers, technicians, and observers. In the preparation and implementation of all eight Narodnaya Volya assassination attempts on the tsar, 12 people, known to us by name, participated from the rank and file members of the party.

Such was the proportion of terror in the practice of Narodnaya Volya. So the party program predetermined his place. "Narodnaya Volya" aimed to overthrow the autocracy and implement a number of democratic transformations (democracy, freedom of speech, press, assembly, etc., universal suffrage, electiveness of all posts from top to bottom, transfer of land to the people), which met the urgent needs of Russia's national development and the implementation of which even then would put our country on a par with the advanced powers of the West. Since the experience of the “great reforms” of Alexander II showed the Narodnaya Volya that tsarism would not voluntarily limit its own despotism, they relied not on reforms, but on revolution. At the same time, "Narodnaya Volya" proceeded from the fact that "the main creative force of the revolution is in the people", and planned to prepare a "people's revolution" by all (but mainly propaganda, agitation, organizational) means.

Terror against the "pillars of the government" was chosen as one of the means. The program of the "Narodnaya Volya" clearly formulated the dual function of the "red" terror: on the one hand, to disorganize the government, and on the other, to excite the masses, in order to then raise the excited people against the disorganized government. Thus, terror was seen by the authors of the program as a prelude and catalyst for a people's revolution.

I emphasize that the “Red Terror” of Narodnaya Volya was historically conditioned, imposed on the revolutionaries as a response to the “White Terror” of tsarism against the participants in the “going to the people”. From 1874 to 1878, tsarism unleashed a tornado of repressions on peaceful populist propagandists (up to 8,000 arrested in 1874 alone, of which 770 were involved in gendarmerie interrogation, the grandiose - the largest in the history of Russia - political trial of the 193s with convicts and exiles sentences, 93 cases of suicide, insanity and death in pre-trial detention were officially registered among the defendants in this case). “When a person who wants to speak is clamped down on his mouth, then his hands are untied,” - this is how one of the leaders of Narodnaya Volya, A.D., explained the Narodniks’ transition from propaganda to terror. Mikhailov. The Narodnaya Volya themselves insistently spoke of the transient conditionality of their terror. The Executive Committee of the "Narodnaya Volya" protested against the anarchist Charles Guiteau's assassination attempt on US President George Garfield. “In a country where the freedom of the individual makes it possible for an honest ideological struggle, where the free popular will determines not only the law, but also the personality of the rulers,” the EC explained on September 10 (22), 1881, “in such a country political assassination as a means of struggle is a manifestation the same spirit of despotism, the destruction of which in Russia we set as our task. Recognizing the political and moral reprehensibility of terror, the people of Narodnaya Volya allowed it only as a forced, last resort. “Terror is a terrible thing,” said S.M. Kravchinsky, “there is only one thing worse than terror: it is to endure violence without a murmur.” The Narodnaya Volya placed all responsibility for the horror of terror on tsarism, which, by its persecution, forced to resort to violence (at least for the purpose of self-defense) even people who, it would seem, were organically incapable of any kind of violence in their spiritual qualities. The Narodnaya Volya member A.A. remarkably said this from the dock before the death sentence was announced to him. Kwiatkowski: “To become a tiger, one does not have to be one by nature. There are such social conditions when lambs become them.

Enemies and critics of Narodnaya Volya say a lot (especially today) that it villainously persecuted and killed the Tsar-Liberator. At the same time, an indisputable, screaming fact is hushed up: by the end of the 70s, the tsar, who at one time freed the peasants from serfdom (although having robbed them), had already earned himself a new title - Hangman. It was he who drowned the peasant unrest of 1861 in blood, when hundreds of peasants were shot and thousands were beaten with whips, gauntlets, sticks (many to death), after which the survivors were sent to hard labor and exile. With even more bloodshed, Alexander II suppressed popular uprisings in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus (which then belonged to the Russian Empire), where General-Deathbreaker M.N. For two years, Muraviev hanged or shot someone every three days (for which he received the title of count from the tsar), and 18,000 people were sent to hard labor and exile from Poland alone. In this context, the cruelty of the tsar towards the peaceful populist propagandists of 1874-1878 is not accidental.

When some of the populists, in response to the "white terror" of tsarism, began in 1878 to resort to individual acts of the "red terror", Alexander II ordered that they be judged according to the laws of wartime. In 1879, he authorized the hanging of sixteen Narodniks. Among them I.I. Logovenko and S.Ya. Wittenberg were executed for "intention" to regicide, I.I. Rozovsky and M.P. Lozinsky - for "having" revolutionary proclamations, and D.A. Lizogub only because he disposed of his own money in his own way, giving them to the revolutionary treasury. It is characteristic of Alexander II that he demanded the gallows even in those cases when the military court sentenced populists (V.A. Osinsky, L.K. Brandtner, V.A. Sviridenko) to be shot.

All this was recorded by the IK of Narodnaya Volya in the death sentence to the tsar. Leo Tolstoy, who knew less about these repressions than the Narodnaya Volya knew, and he exclaimed in 1899: “How can there not be March 1 after this?” Indeed, in the entire history of Russia from Peter I to Nicholas II there was no such bloody autocrat as Alexander II the Liberator. Russian populists, unlike the tsarist punishers (and modern terrorists), have always tried - if possible, of course - to avoid outsiders, innocent victims in their attacks. That is how they executed the chief of the gendarmes N.V. Mezentsov, Kharkov Governor-General D.N. Kropotkin, "Proconsul" of the South of Russia V.S. Strelnikov, the leader of the secret police G.P. Sudeikin, several gendarmes and spies. Narodovolets N.A. Zhelvakov even asked Strelnikov himself if he was General Strelnikov before shooting him. In a word, all Narodnik (not only Narodnaya Volya) terrorist attacks, except for attempts on the tsar, did without unnecessary casualties. It was almost impossible to execute the king in the same way, for the king appeared in public only with guards and retinue. Therefore, the Narodnaya Volya only tried to reduce the number of victims of regicide to a minimum.

They did everything possible for this: they carefully planned each assassination attempt, chose the most sparsely populated places for attacks on the tsar - Malaya Sadovaya Street, Kamenny Bridge, Catherine's Canal in St. Petersburg. The plan for the explosion in the Winter Palace, which was fraught with the greatest victims, nevertheless did not come from the Narodnaya Volya itself, but was proposed to it from outside (the leader of the Northern Union of Russian Workers, S.N. Khalturin). Nevertheless, the IK officially expressed regret over the victims of the explosion in the Winter Palace on February 5, 1880.

“We look with deep regret at the death of the unfortunate soldiers of the royal guard, these bonded guardians of the crowned villain,” reads the proclamation of the IK dated February 7, 1880. “But while the army will be a stronghold of royal arbitrariness, until it understands that in the interests of the motherland its sacred duty stand for the people against the king, such tragic clashes are inevitable. Once again we remind all of Russia that we started an armed struggle, being forced to this by the government itself, by its tyrannical and violent suppression of any activity aimed at the people's good. And further: “We declare once again to Alexander II that we will wage this struggle until he renounces his power in favor of the people, until he grants social reorganization to the all-people Constituent Assembly.”

This condition (renunciation of power by Alexander II in favor of the Constituent Assembly), under which the EC was ready to stop its "armed struggle", was made public here not for the first time. And in the proclamation regarding the previous assassination attempt on the tsar, November 19, 1879, the IK stated:

“If Alexander II realized<...>as unjust and criminal oppression created by him, and, renouncing power, would transfer it to the all-people Constituent Assembly,<...>then we would have left Alexander II alone and would have forgiven him for all his crimes.”

The tsar, however, did not even allow the thought of any (and even nationwide, all the more so) Constituent Assembly. Even the draft constitution of Count M.T. Loris-Melikov, the meaning of which boiled down to the formation in the person of temporary commissions (from officials and elected from the "society") of an advisory body under the State Council, which itself was an advisory body under the tsar - even this project Alexander II agreed to consider reluctantly, exclaiming at this: "Why, this is the States General!" On March 1, 1881, a few hours before his death, he, contrary to popular belief, did not approve the “constitution” itself, but only its “basic idea regarding the usefulness and timeliness of attracting local figures to consultative participation in the preparation of bills by central institutions”, and ordered to convene 4 March Council of Ministers in order to agree on a government report on the Loris-Melikov project.

After the execution of Alexander II, the Executive Committee of Narodnaya Volya reiterated - in a historic letter to the new Tsar, Alexander III, dated March 10, 1881 - its readiness to stop the "armed struggle" and "devote itself to cultural work for the good of our native people." “We hope that the feeling of personal bitterness will not drown out your consciousness of your duties,” reads the letter from the IC. - Embarrassment can be with us. You have lost your father. We lost not only fathers, but also brothers, wives, children, best friends. But we are ready to stifle personal feelings if the good of Russia so requires. We expect the same from you." The IK convinced the autocrat of the futility of any attempts to eradicate the revolutionary movement: “revolutionaries are created by circumstances, the general discontent of the people, Russia's desire for new social forms. It is impossible to exterminate the whole people... Therefore, to replace those who are being exterminated, more and more new personalities are constantly being nominated from the people, even more embittered, even more energetic. The EC put the tsar in front of a dilemma: “either a revolution, absolutely inevitable, which cannot be prevented by any executions, or a voluntary appeal of the supreme power to the people. In the interests of the native country,<...>in order to avoid those terrible disasters that always accompany a revolution, the Executive Committee appeals to Your Majesty with advice to choose the second path.

Alexander III, who even considered Loris-Melikov’s constitution “fantastic” and “criminal,” chose the first path, at the end of which tsarism was to face retribution, exactly predicted in the quoted letter from the IK: “a terrible explosion, a bloody reshuffling, a convulsive revolutionary upheaval of all of Russia.”

So, the “Red Terror” was the forced response of the “Narodnaya Volya” to the “White Terror” of tsarism (“If it weren’t for the latter, there would be no first,” the Narodnaya Volya reasonably argued). Both in the program and in the activities of the party, it was one of the many means of struggle, and a very definite, negligible part of the Narodnaya Volya was engaged in it. But as an armed struggle, as a kind of warhead of the revolutionary charge of the "Narodnaya Volya", terror appeared in plain sight, obscuring the rest of the deeply secret work of the party. The philistine rumor concluded from this that the Narodnaya Volya in general were all or mostly terrorists, and the tsarist guards deliberately inflated such an idea about the Narodnaya Volya for the greater gravity of their accusation. The current philippics of historians and publicists against Narodnaya Volya as a terrorist party combine both philistine ignorance and protective predilection.

Meanwhile, the most noble and authoritative minds of Russia and the West, including those who fundamentally rejected all violence, sympathized with the "Narodnaya Volya" in its struggle against tsarism, expressed sympathy for its heroes and martyrs. Among them - L.N. Tolstoy, I.S. Turgenev, G.I. Uspensky, V.M. Garshin, V.G. Korolenko, I.E. Repin, I.N. Kramskoy, V.I. Surikov, V.G. Perov, N.A. Yaroshenko, A.G. Rubinstein, M.N. Ermolova, P.A. Strepetova, later A.P. Chekhov, A.A. Blok, A.I. Kuprin, Ivan Franko and Lesya Ukrainka in Ukraine, Francis Bogushevich in Belarus, Vazha Pshavela in Georgia, Jan Rainis in Latvia. To them we must add the luminaries of world culture - V. Hugo, E. Zola, G. Maupassant, G. Spencer, O. Wilde, B. Shaw, A. Conan Doyle, E. Duse, C. Lombroso, G. Hauptmann, G. Ibsen, Mark Twain. None of them approved of terror - neither "white" nor "red". But they all understood that Narodnaya Volya was fighting (with forced recourse to cruel means) against autocratic despotism for a free and democratic Russia.

Scanning and processing: Sergey Agishev.

Populism 1861 - 95

Philosophy Society

circle of Cretan brothers (1826-27)

"Literary Society of the 11th Number" (1829-32)

Westernism (in 1830-1850s)

Ruble society (1867-68)

Sungur society (1831-31)

Circle of Stankevich (1831-35)

Slavophiles (40-50s of the 19th century)

People's Will(1879-82)

workers' union (1894-97)

vertepniks(1855-58)

Circle of Zaichnevsky (1861-61)

"The Sixties". The rise of the peasant movement in 1861-1862. was the people's response to the injustice of the February 19 reform. This activated the radicals, who hoped for a peasant uprising. In the 60s, two centers of a radical direction developed. One is around the editorial office of Kolokol, published by A.G. Herzen in London. He propagated his theory of "communal socialism" and sharply criticized the predatory conditions for the liberation of the peasants. The second center arose in Russia around the editorial office of the Sovremennik magazine. N.G. became its ideologist. Chernyshevsky, the idol of the raznochinnoy youth of that time. He also criticized the government for the essence of the reform, dreamed of socialism, but, unlike A.I. Herzen, saw the need for Russia to use the experience of the European development model. Based on the ideas of N.G. Chernyshevsky, several secret organizations were formed: the circle "Great Russian" (1861-1863), "Land and Freedom" (1861-1864). They included N.A. and A.A. Serno-Solov'evichi, G.E. Blagosvetlov, N.I. Utin and other "Left" radicals set the task of preparing a people's revolution. To do this, the landowners launched an active publishing activity in their illegal printing house. In the magazine "Land and Freedom", in the proclamations "Bow to the lord peasants from their well-wishers", "To the younger generation", "Young Russia", "To the soldiers", "What the army needs to do", "Great Russian" they explained to the people the tasks of the upcoming revolution, justified the need to eliminate the autocracy and the democratic transformation of Russia, a fair solution to the agrarian question. The landowners considered the article by N.P. Ogarev "What do the people need?", Published in June 1861 in Kolokol. The article warned the people against premature, unprepared actions, called for the unification of all revolutionary forces. "Land and freedom". It was the first major revolutionary-democratic organization. It included several hundred members from different social strata: officials, officers, writers, students. The organization was headed by the Russian Central People's Committee. Branches of the society were created in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tver, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Kharkov and other cities. At the end of 1862, a Russian military-revolutionary organization, created in the Kingdom of Poland, joined the Land and Freedom. The first secret organizations did not last long. The decline of the peasant movement, the defeat of the uprising in the Kingdom of Poland (1863), the strengthening of the police regime - all this led to their self-dissolution or defeat. Some members of the organizations (including N.G. Chernyshevsky) were arrested, others emigrated. The government managed to repel the onslaught of the radicals of the first half of the 60s. There was a sharp turn in public opinion against the radicals and their revolutionary aspirations. Many public figures who had previously taken democratic or liberal positions went over to the camp of conservatives (M.N. Katkov and others). In the second half of the 60s, secret circles reappeared. Their members preserved the ideological legacy of N.G. Chernyshevsky, but, having lost faith in the possibility of a people's revolution in Russia, they switched to narrowly conspiratorial and terrorist tactics. They tried to embody their high moral ideals by immoral means. In 1866, a member of the circle N.A. Ishutina D.V. Karakozov made an attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander II. In 1869, teacher S.G. Nechaev and journalist P.N. Tkachev created an organization in St. Petersburg that called on student youth to prepare an uprising and use any means in the fight against the government. After the defeat of the circle, S.G. Nechaev went abroad for a while, but already in the autumn of 1869 he returned and founded the organization "People's Punishment" in Moscow. He was distinguished by extreme political adventurism, demanded from the participants blind obedience to his orders. For refusing to submit to the dictatorship, student I.I. Ivanov was falsely accused of treason and killed. The police destroyed the organization. S.G. Nechaev fled to Switzerland, he was extradited as a criminal. The government used the lawsuit against him to discredit the revolutionaries. "Nechaevshchina" for some time became a serious lesson for the next generations of revolutionaries, warning them against unlimited centralism. At the turn of the 60-70s, largely based on the ideas of A.I. Herzen and N.G. Chernyshevsky, populist ideology took shape. It became very popular among the democratically minded intellectuals of the last third of the 19th century. Among the populists there were two trends: revolutionary and liberal. Revolutionary Populists. The main ideas of the revolutionary Narodniks are: capitalism in Russia is implanted "from above" and has no social roots on Russian soil; the future of the country is in communal socialism; the peasants are ready to accept socialist ideas; transformations must be carried out in a revolutionary way. M.A. Bakunin, PL. Lavrov and P.N. Tkachev developed the theoretical foundations of three currents of revolutionary populism - rebellious (anarchist), propaganda and conspiratorial. M.A. Bakunin believed that the Russian peasant was by nature a rebel and ready for revolution. Therefore, the task of the intelligentsia is to go to the people and kindle an all-Russian revolt. Considering the state as an instrument of injustice and oppression, he called for its destruction and the creation of a federation of self-governing free communities. In 1874, based on the ideas of M.A. Bakunin, more than 1,000 young revolutionaries organized a mass "going to the people", hoping to raise the peasants to revolt. The results were negligible. The populists faced tsarist illusions and the possessive psychology of the peasants. The movement was crushed, the agitators were arrested. "Land and freedom" (1876-1879). In 1876, the surviving participants in the "going to the people" formed a new secret organization, which in 1878 took the name "Land and Freedom". the program provided for the implementation of the socialist revolution by overthrowing the autocracy, the transfer of all land to the peasants and the introduction of "secular self-government" in the countryside and cities. The organization was headed by G.V. Plekhanov, A.D. Mikhailov, S.M. Kravchinsky, N.A. Morozov, V.N. Figner and others. A second "going to the people" was undertaken - for a long agitation of the peasants. The landowners also engaged in agitation among the workers and soldiers, helped to organize several strikes. In 1876, with the participation of "Earth and Freedom" in St. Petersburg, the first political demonstration in Russia was held on the square in front of the Kazan Cathedral. G.V. Plekhanov, who called for fighting for land and freedom for the peasants and workers. The police dispersed the demonstration, many of its participants were injured. Those arrested were sentenced to penal servitude or exile. G.V. Plekhanov managed to escape from the police. In 1878, part of the populists again returned to the idea of the need for a terrorist struggle. In 1878 V.I. Discussions began about methods of struggle, prompted by both government repression and a thirst for action.Disputes over tactical and program issues led to a split. "Black division". In 1879, part of the landowners (G.V. Plekhanov, V.I. Zasulich, L.G. Deich, P.B. Axelrod) formed the organization "Black Repartition" (1879-1881). They remained faithful to the main program principles of "Land and Liberty" and agitation and propaganda methods of activity. "People's Will". In the same year, another part of the landowners created the organization "Narodnaya Volya" (1879-1881). It was headed by A.I. Zhelyabov, A.D. Mikhailov, SL. Perovskaya, N.A. Morozov, V.N. Figner and others. They were members of the Executive Committee - the center and main headquarters of the organization. The program of the Narodnaya Volya reflected their disappointment in the revolutionary potential of the peasant masses. They believed that the people were crushed and brought to a slave state by the tsarist government. Therefore, they considered their main task to be the fight against this government. The program requirements of the Narodnaya Volya included: preparing a political coup and overthrowing the autocracy; the convocation of the Constituent Assembly and the establishment of a democratic system in the country; the destruction of private property, the transfer of land to the peasants, factories - to the workers. (Many program provisions of the Narodnaya Volya were adopted at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries by their followers, the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries.) The Narodnaya Volya carried out a number of terrorist actions against representatives of the tsarist administration, but considered the assassination of the tsar to be their main goal. They assumed that this would cause a political crisis in the country and a popular uprising. However, in response to the terror, the government stepped up its repression. Most of the Narodnaya Volya were arrested. Remaining at large, S.L. Perovskaya organized an assassination attempt on the king. On March 1, 1881, Alexander II was mortally wounded and died a few hours later. This act did not live up to the expectations of the populists. He once again confirmed the ineffectiveness of terrorist methods of struggle, led to an increase in the reaction and police arbitrariness in the country. On the whole, the activities of the Narodnaya Volya to a large extent slowed down the evolutionary development of Russia. Liberal Populists. This trend, while sharing the basic theoretical views of the revolutionary populists, differed from them in its rejection of violent methods of struggle. The liberal populists did not play a prominent role in the social movement of the 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, their influence increased. This was due to the loss of authority of the revolutionary populists in radical circles due to disappointment in the terrorist methods of struggle. The liberal populists expressed the interests of the peasants, demanded the abolition of the remnants of serfdom and the abolition of landlordism. They called for reforms to gradually improve the lives of the people. They chose cultural and educational work among the population as the main direction of their activity. For this purpose, they used the press (the magazine "Russian wealth"), zemstvos and various public organizations. The ideologists of the liberal populists were N.K. Mikhailovsky, N.F. Danielson, V.P. Vorontsov. The first Marxist and workers' organizations. In the 80-90s of the XIX century. fundamental changes took place in the radical movement. The revolutionary populists lost their role as the main opposition force. Powerful repression fell upon them, from which they could not recover. Many active participants in the movement of the 1970s became disillusioned with the revolutionary potential of the peasantry. In this regard, the radical movement split into two opposing and even hostile camps. The former remained committed to the idea of peasant socialism, the latter saw in the proletariat the main force of social progress. Emancipation of Labor Group. Former active participants in the "Black Redistribution" G.V. Plekhanov, V.I. Zasulich, L.G. Deutsch and V.N. Ignatov turned to Marxism. In this Western European theory, they were attracted by the idea of achieving socialism through a proletarian revolution. In 1883, the Emancipation of Labor group was formed in Geneva. Its program: a complete break with populism and populist ideology; propaganda of socialism; struggle against autocracy; reliance on the working class; creation of a workers' party. They considered the most important condition for social progress in Russia to be a bourgeois-democratic revolution, the driving force of which would be the urban bourgeoisie and the proletariat. They viewed the peasantry as a reactionary force in society. This showed the narrowness and one-sidedness of their views. Propaganda of Marxism in the Russian revolutionary environment, they launched a sharp criticism of the populist theory. The Emancipation of Labor group operated abroad and was not associated with the labor movement that was emerging in Russia. In Russia itself in 1883-1892. several Marxist circles were formed (D.I. Blagoeva, N.E. Fedoseeva, M.I. Brusneva, etc.). They saw their task in studying Marxism and propagating it among workers, students and petty employees. However, they were cut off from the workers' movement. The activities of the "Emancipation of Labor" group abroad, the Marxist circles in Russia paved the way for the emergence of the Russian Social Democratic Party. Workers' organizations. The labor movement in the 1970s and 1980s developed spontaneously and unorganized. Unlike Western Europe, the Russian workers had neither their own political organizations nor trade unions. The "South Russian Workers' Union" (1875) and the "Northern Union of Russian Workers" (1878-1880) failed to lead the struggle of the proletariat and give it a political character. The workers put forward only economic demands - higher wages, shorter working hours, the abolition of fines. The largest event was the strike at the Nikolskaya manufactory of the manufacturer T.C. Morozov in Orekhovo-Zuev in 1885 ("Morozov strike"). The workers for the first time demanded state intervention in their relations with the factory owners. As a result, a law was issued in 1886 on the procedure for hiring and firing, streamlining fines and paying wages. The institute of factory inspectors was introduced, who were obliged to monitor the implementation of the law. The law increased the criminal liability for participation in strikes. Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. In 1895, scattered Marxist circles in St. Petersburg united in a new organization - the Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Worker Mass. Its creators were V.I. Ulyanov (Lenin), Yu.Yu. Zederbaum (I. Martov) and others. Similar organizations were created in Moscow, Yekaterinoslav, Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Kyiv. They tried to lead the strike movement, published leaflets and sent propagandists to workers' circles to spread Marxism among the proletariat. Under the influence of the "Union of Struggle" in St. Petersburg, strikes of textile workers, metalworkers, workers of a stationery factory, sugar and other factories began. The strikers demanded that the working day be reduced to 10.5 hours, wages be raised, and wages paid on time. The stubborn struggle of the workers in the summer of 1896 and in the winter of 1897, on the one hand, forced the government to make concessions: a law was issued to reduce the working day to 11.5 hours. On the other hand, it brought down repressions on Marxist and workers' organizations, some of whose members were exiled to Siberia. Among the Social Democrats who remained at liberty in the second half of the 1990s, "legal Marxism" began to spread. The "economists" saw the main task of the labor movement in improving working and living conditions. They put forward only economic demands and refused political struggle. The social movement in the second half of the 19th century, in contrast to the previous time, became an important factor in the political life of the country. The variety of directions and currents, views on ideological, theoretical and tactical issues reflected the complexity of the social structure and the acuteness of social contradictions characteristic of the transitional period of post-reform Russia. In the social movement of the second half of the XIX century. there has not yet been a direction capable of carrying out the evolutionary modernization of the country, but the foundations were laid for the formation of political parties in the future.

Having crushed the Decembrist movement, the government did not solve any of the problems posed. And as a result, a month after the execution of the Decembrists in Moscow, a conspiratorial circle of the Cretan brothers was uncovered. Despite the small number, the members of the circle intended to make a coup on the day of the coronation of Nicholas I. The goals of the circle were, in essence, the same as those of the Decembrists: the elimination of autocracy and serfdom, the revision of the system of duties.

Slavophilism as a current in the Russian social movement begins to take shape from the mid-30s of the XIX century. The idea of Slavophilism was worked out in conversations, in magazine polemics. In the most general form, these ideas can be formulated as a rejection of Western enlightenment and the need to revive the original principles of Russian life. The turning point in Russian history was recognized as the time of Peter's reforms. The Slavophiles saw the future of Russia in its past. Consequently, both government ideologists and Slavophiles recognized the exceptional nature of Russia's development. P.Ya. also wrote about a special historical path. Chaadaev. However, this fact in the "Philosophical Letter" is given a completely different interpretation. The letter was published in the journal "Telescope" in 1836. A feature of our civilization P.Ya. Chaadaev sees in the unwillingness of people to accept truths that have long been beaten among other peoples. In contrast to the eventful history of the West, Russia's past was filled with a gloomy and dull existence. And the Russian people are not inclined to revolutions only because they are lazy and indifferent. The most important reason for this is Christianity adopted from above in its Orthodox version.

In the 30s. 19th century another direction of social thought is taking shape. His supporters were named Westerners. The ideology of the Westerners was formed in the struggle against the theory of "official nationality" and in disputes with the Slavophiles.

In the preparation and implementation of reforms of the 60–70s. 19th century representatives of all directions of the Russian social movement participated. However, many prominent figures of the past were satisfied with the results achieved and joined the ranks of the defenders of the existing regime. So, M.N. Katkov by the end of the 70s of the XIX century. becomes one of the apologists of the government reaction.

The other part actively participated in the implementation of reforms on the ground. Work in zemstvo self-government bodies, fulfilling the duties of mediators and justices of the peace allowed public figures to better understand the needs of the country. It was necessary to deepen the transformation. But the majority in the government was of the opposite opinion. For supporters of reforms, in essence, the only legal way of struggle remained - the service for elections in zemstvo bodies. Zemstvos become the organizational base of the liberal movement.

Radical sentiments are also quite widespread in society. According to the representatives of this direction of the social movement, the Peasant Reform did not give either land or freedom to the peasant. The slogan "land and freedom" became the program for the movement of the 60-70s of the XIX century.

Youth movement in Russia at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century

"People's Will" (1879-82) the most significant revolutionary populist organization. Originated in St. Petersburg in August 1879. Program

provided for the destruction of the autocracy, the convening of the Constituent Assembly,

the introduction of democratic freedoms, the transfer of land to the peasants. In 1879 - 83 branches in 50 cities, about 500 members, several thousand participants in the movement. The Narodnaya Volya campaigned in all strata of society and organized terrorist acts. From 1881 began mass arrests, an ideological and organizational crisis. Separate Narodnaya Volya circles operated until the end of the 1890s. Many principles of the program and tactics of "Narodnaya Volya" were continued in the activities of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. First Marchers (1881-87)

Society of Translators and Publishers (1882-84) revolutionary youth organization in the early 1980s. 19th century in Moscow. It consisted mainly of students of Moscow University, immigrants from Siberia, who first formed the so-called. "kruzsibirak militarists", and in the autumn of 1882 they began to translate, publish and distribute Russian and foreign socialist literature. Its active figures: V. T. Raspopin, P. A. Argunov, I. Yu. Vorozheikin, In 1883-84, the society published the works of K. Marx and F. Engels (“Manifesto of the Communist Party”, “Wage Labor and Capital”, etc.); the collection "Socialist knowledge", as well as the works of V. Liebknecht, G. V. Plekhanov, P. L. Lavrov, L. Blanc, E. Dühring, F. Lassalle, leaflets for workers. Literature was printed in lithography by N. A. Yankovskaya. The publications were distributed in St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Kharkov, Odessa, Shuya, Rostov-on-Don, Perm, Orenburg, etc.

The society organized self-development circles among student and military youth (at the Technical College, the Alexander Military School, at the Higher Women's Courses, etc.); established ties with the "Emancipation of Labor" group, with the Polish party " Proletariat”, with the foreign (Paris) center of the “Narodnaya Volya”, with the group of D. Blagoev (See. Blagoev group). In May 1884 it was destroyed by the police.

St. Petersburg Student Corporation (1883-84) in 1883, the St. Petersburg Student Corporation was created, which was already liquidated by the police in 1884, since its members fell under the strong influence of the underground terrorist organization Narod i Volya.

Russianfalconry The "Russian Falconry" was also revived - an organization related to the Sokolsky movement of other Slavic countries. "Falcon" - the favorite bird of the Slavic epic - is a Slavic patriotic educational organization of all ages. "Falcon" consists of local societies that carry out regular work on the moral, patriotic and physical education of falcons, falcons and falcons. Gymnastics, sports and military training are the guarantee that every young citizen of his Fatherland has a healthy mind in a healthy body. Falconry was founded in 1862 in the Czech Republic by Dr. Miroslav Tyrsh as an instrument for the revival of his people. In Russia, work according to the Sokol method began in Moscow in 1883. These societies in Russia could be called Sokol only since 1907. At the insistence of P. A. Stolypin, the Sokol societies become one of the means of preventing the impending revolution, developing a new image of a citizen and patriot. World War swept away all these good intentions. Russian Falconry, in close cooperation with Yugo-Sokol, who played a major role in the life of the country, was able to grow and carry out a huge joint work. Societies "Russian Sokol" managed to educate a whole generation of foreign youth as Russian patriots, healthy in body and soul. The seeds of this work also spread to modern Russia, where Sokolstvo revived at several points. The role of non-partisan Sokol education in today's corrupt world requires close consideration and, presumably, support - especially in the Slavic countries. All this will be discussed in more detail in the report.

People's Law Russian illegal revolutionary-democratic organization of the populist persuasion (1893 - 1894). The members of the organization consisted of representatives of the diverse democratic intelligentsia, their activities were also aimed at propaganda among the intelligentsia. The emergence of the party was associated with the dramatic search by the former populist revolutionaries for new ways to fight the autocracy in the conditions of the crisis of the populist movement after the defeat of the Narodnaya Volya party in 1884. In the early 1890s, a significant part of the former Narodnaya Volya returned from exile. Since 1889, the populist M. A. Natanson, who settled in Saratov, made attempts to unite the fragmented populist circles into a single party. Since 1892, the former Narodnaya Volya member N. S. Tyutchev, who settled in Nizhny Novgorod, joined his efforts. At the same time, the populist N. F. Annensky and the writer V. G. Korolenko, who were serving a link for their political unreliability, were in Nizhny Novgorod. In May 1892, on the recommendation of V. G. Korolenko, A. I. Bogdanovich was attracted to the new party. In one way or another, prominent figures of the populist and people's will movement took part in the creation and activities of the party. The ultimate goal is the establishment of a socialist system. On this platform, the Narodopravtsy sought to unite with all Russian democratic forces, from revolutionaries to liberals, to achieve their goals. The party program included the following immediate goals: representative government based on universal suffrage, freedom of the press, gatherings, religion, personal immunity, political self-determination for all the peoples of Russia.

The method of the party struggle is revolutionary propaganda through illegal intellectual circles in legal educational institutions, in zemstvos, in educational institutions, workers' clubs, etc. The party had its own printing house in Smolensk, where in 1894 the party "Manifesto" and the brochure "The Urgent Question" were issued ". Later, after the defeat of the party, the author of the pamphlet A. I. Bogdanovich republished it in 1895 in London. The Narodopravtsy planned to discuss issues of party strategy and tactics, the economic program in their own party illegal magazine, but the party members did not manage to carry out the task of issuing their regular print organ - in the summer of 1894, along with the defeat of the party, the Smolensk printing house was also destroyed.

Liberation Union an illegal political movement that united "liberation" circles at first in 22 cities of Russia. The core of the organization was formed from supporters of the Osvobozhdenie magazine. A. Berdyaev,S. N. Bulgakov,V. I. Vernadsky, V. V. Vodovozov, I. M. Grevs, Pyotr D. Dolgorukov, D. E. Zhukovsky, B. A. Kistyakovsky,S. A. Kotlyarevsky, E. D. Kuskova, N. N. Lvov,P. I. Novgorodtsev, I. I. Petrunkevich, S. N. Prokopovich,F. I. Rodichev,P. B. Struve, S. L. Frank,D. I. Shakhovskoy. There the question of creating a party or movement was decided. Struve's point of view won out: a broad front must be created to fight by legal means for the attainment of political freedom. However, it took another meeting in Kharkov in September of the same year.

The first congress was held in St. Petersburg in private apartments on January 3-5, 1904. The party program implied the creation of a constitutional monarchy, voting rights, the right of peoples to self-determination, the forced alienation of privately owned lands, and advocated holding illegal zemstvo congresses. The tactics of the movement consisted in the siege of the autocracy with the help of public mass campaigns. At the end of the same month, the war with Japan began. Based on patriotic motives, the Union did not launch a single anti-autocratic campaign. Almost all of his activities were limited to the distribution of the magazine "Liberation". At the end of October, from 20 to 22, the second Congress of the Union met in private apartments in St. Petersburg. It was decided to come out of the underground and declare its existence in its own press, and most importantly, decisions were made:

promote the adoption of constitutional resolutions at the upcoming Zemsky Congress;

On November 20, on the anniversary of the judicial reform, organize a campaign of banquets demanding the introduction of freedoms, popular representation and a constitution;

start the formation of trade unions with the aim of uniting them in an association to achieve the above requirements.

After the Tsushima defeat, the tsar received a deputation from the delegates of the next Zemsky Congress and the representatives of the St. Petersburg City Duma who joined them. This event was unprecedented: for the first time in history, a Russian monarch received a delegation of liberals.

Youth movement in Russia in 1908–1916 of the XX century.

It is worth noting that the terror of the Narodnaya Volya was purely individual. They did not seek to massacre ordinary inhabitants for the purpose of intimidation, as many modern extremist organizations do. Their actions were directed exclusively against certain representatives of the authorities. Random people, even if they became victims of revolutionary terror (for example, during the assassination attempt on Alexander II on March 1, 1881, the Cossack of the Life Guards Alexander Maleichev and the 14-year-old boy Nikolai Zakharov were killed) were never his target. The Narodnaya Volya strove to avoid unnecessary bloodshed as much as possible.

The transition to such methods was associated with the opinion formed in the Russian radical revolutionary environment of the post-reform period that under the conditions of an authoritarian monarchical regime, the struggle for new transformations by legal political methods is impossible. It was believed that the only effective way was to kill individual high-ranking representatives of the authorities, who should disorganize the activities of the tsarist government and push the broad masses to fight against it.

One of the first representatives of Russian revolutionary terrorism was the leader of the circle "People's Reprisal" Sergei Nechaev, who became the prototype for Pyotr Verkhovensky from Dostoevsky's novel "Demons". He wrote about the transition to new methods of struggle: “... We have lost all faith in words; the word has meaning for us only when it is felt and directly followed by the deed. But not everything that is called a deed is a deed. For example, the modest and overly cautious organization of secret societies, without any external, practical manifestations, in our eyes is nothing more than a boyish game, ridiculous and disgusting. We call actual manifestations only a series of actions that positively destroy something ... hindering the people's liberation.

Individual terror has become one of the types of practical activity created in 1879 by the "Narodnaya Volya". He did not take the main place in the plans of the organization, since the members of the party considered the peaceful path of the country's development to be preferable. The program of the Executive Committee of Narodnaya Volya spoke of such forms of protest as "gatherings, demonstrations, petitions, tendentious addresses, refusal to pay taxes." The party instructions for the preparatory work, adopted in the spring of 1880, expressed the hope that "the decrepit government, without waiting for the uprising, would decide to make the widest concessions to the people" and "so much the better: the gathered forces would then go to peaceful work."

Terror was supposed to be only a catalyst for a people's revolution. The program of the Executive Committee emphasized: “Terrorist activity, consisting in the destruction of the most harmful persons of the government, in protecting the party from espionage, in punishing the most outstanding cases of violence and arbitrariness on the part of the government, administration, etc., has the aim of undermining the charm of government power , to give continuous proof of the possibility of fighting against the government, thus raising the revolutionary spirit of the people and faith in the success of the cause, and, finally, to form forces fit for battle. For these purposes, numerous assassination attempts were made on Alexander II and tsarist officials.

Members of the Executive Committee of Narodnaya Volya have repeatedly stated that they will immediately stop terror as soon as a constitution is established in Russia. At the same time, they had a sharply negative attitude towards such methods of struggle in a democratic state. In a statement on the assassination of US President James Abram Garfield, published in Narodnaya Volya, No. 6, October 23, 1881, it was said: “The Executive Committee considers it its duty to declare on behalf of the Russian revolutionaries its protest against violent actions similar to the assassination of Guiteau. In a country where the freedom of the individual makes it possible for an honest ideological struggle, where the free will of the people determines not only the law, but also the personality of the rulers—in such a country political assassination as a means of struggle—is a manifestation of the same spirit of despotism, the destruction of which in Russia we aim my task. The despotism of the individual and the despotism of the party are equally reprehensible, and violence is justified only when it is directed against violence.

The Narodnaya Volya terror did not lead to the expected wide revolutionary explosion. Sometimes ordinary people helped the police to detain members of the organization. For example, Nikolai Rysakov, a participant in the assassination attempt on Alexander II on March 1, 1881, was captured by the peasant Mikhail Nazarov, who happened to be near the bridge watchman on the horse-drawn railway. However, sometimes acts of revolutionary terror aroused sympathy among the population. This is how a correspondent of the Russian émigré magazine Na Rodine, published in London, described the details of the arrest of Narodnaya Volya members Stepan Khalturin and Nikolai Zhelvakov, who on March 18, 1882, killed prosecutor Strelnikov in Odessa.

“... Khalturin, making sure that it was impossible for Zhelvakov to get through to the cab, jumped off it and, drawing a revolver, wanted to rush to help his friend, but at the very first steps he stumbled. A Jew, a clerk from a coal warehouse, a district warden and several quarantine workers rushed to detain him. “Leave! I am a socialist! I'm for you!” Khalturin shouted. The workers instinctively stopped. “May you live as you do for us!” replied the clerk, a hefty scoundrel, who, together with the policeman, leaned heavily on Khalturin. “Of course, not for such bastards as you, but for the unfortunate working people!” - he said, catching his breath with difficulty. The police came to the rescue and helped them tie up Khalturin and brutally twist his hands with ropes deeply stuck into his body.

Zhelvakov saw what was happening near the cab and, almost at the very passage, turned aside in the direction of Quarantine Square, still continuing to run, although his forces must have already begun to leave him. Faced with the official Ignatovich, who also rushed to block his path, he stopped a little; then the chase instantly surrounded him and disarmed him, knocked him down and tied him up. Both of those arrested were immediately taken to the police. And the crowd that remained on the spot, breaking into groups, talked about the incident. “What happened here?” the newcomers asked. “Yes, they killed a girl on the boulevard,” they answered in one place; “An old man was killed by one,” they said in another; “One killed his bride, such a young one,” was reported in a third. No one knew yet the true meaning of the incident. But gradually spreading from the boulevard, the news reached the lower streets. At first contradictory: “Strelnikov was killed!” - “The mayor was shot!” - “Gurko himself”. But by nightfall, it was already known everywhere that the murder was “political” and it was Strelnikov who had been killed.

The attitude immediately changed: “If they had known, they would have recaptured it,” the quarantine workers said. They say that even Ignatovich himself fell ill from remorse, which helped to detain Strelnikov's killer. There was excitement in the city. Some hurried to the boulevard, to see the scene, the blood, the bench; others crowded around the police station, where they had brought the arrested. The sympathetic attitude to the event could be seen everywhere. Not to mention the exclamations: “dog death to a dog!” - “so he needs a son of a bitch!” - I happened to come across such scenes: on the boulevard at the very descent, a group of the public surrounds an eyewitness of the incident. He, with heat and waving his arms, tells how Zhelvakov fought back, how he fled, and in rapture incessantly interrupts his speech with exclamations: “Here is a hero! Well done!” The audience listens sympathetically with bated breath.

At the leaven shop, opposite the police, I noticed a small circle, consisting of a shopkeeper, several apprentice shoemakers, and a gray peasant, who was whispering something to the others. As I approach, the conversation falls silent. “What happened?” I ask. - "Eneral was killed." - “Who?” - “Yes, two of them ... young.” - “Caught?” - “Caught the poor,” the peasant replies and, immediately recollecting himself, adds, changing his tone: “Well, they caught ... they brought it already.” “Why did they kill him?” I ask. The peasant looked at me intently and quietly said: “Yes, you know ... it’s impossible to talk now,” and mysteriously falls silent. Everyone has sad faces...

> Narodnaya Volya sought, if possible, to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.

Oh, yes, of course, it was precisely to avoid unnecessary bloodshed that the explosion of the royal train was organized in 1879, or the explosion in 1880 of 30 kilograms of dynamite in the building of the Winter Palace across the floor from the dining room (11 soldiers and guard officers who were in the room directly above the bomb died , 56 wounded). Of course, this is solely to ensure that innocent people do not suffer and to avoid bloodshed.

Comment

The perfect answer above initially didn't even want to comment. But since someone else still has questions, I'll try to sketch a few more ideas.

Pay attention to the duration of the action. The second half of the 19th century, rapid technological progress is increasingly in conflict with the almost complete lack of social progress. The era of enlightenment, the rise of science, brings new ideas about how society should develop. However, all this runs up against extremely authoritarian and paternalistic traditions of state governance. There is no feedback loop even from the nobles to the emperor, attempts to improve their personal position stumble upon the social disapproval of the old aristocracy (moreover, this applies to both clothing, manners, and ways of housekeeping, remember the Young Lady-peasant). At the same time, even the abolition of serfdom, which had been brewing for more than 100 years, was consistently postponed by Catherine 2, Alexander 1 and Nicholas 1. Even the large-scale reforms of Alexander 2 lagged behind the demands of society (for example, although noble fraternities were created, they were forbidden to conduct political activities , they could be disbanded at any time).

From here grows the tradition of creating first circles, then secret societies. The first technology they used was the palace coup, well known from the last century, on 12/14/1825, but due to poor preparation, a complete failure, the leaders were hanged, the rest were exiled. The search for alternatives begins. Everyone has heard examples of the French Revolution, Polish uprisings, European revolutions of 1848-1849. Accordingly, the nobles begin to try to agitate the common people, namely the peasants (as the most numerous and most disadvantaged group of the population) - this is where the movement of "populists" grows.
The famous "Land and Freedom", the predecessor of "Narodnaya Volya", was created just in 1861, when it becomes obvious that the reforms are going much slower than desired. They begin to try to organize mass agitation, but it turns out badly - the peasants do not perceive the nobles as equals, as defenders. Plus, the famous third department is on the alert, there are arrests. Individual terror is the only possible tactic to counteract the huge well-oiled state machine of coercion. As already described above, terror is only a necessary evil that should serve as a catalyst for revolution, frighten the government and show the lower classes that the Narodnaya Volya are serious. However, terror provokes only reactionary actions of the government, propaganda is practically useless, which ultimately leads the socialists to rely on the small number of workers, and not on the peasants. But that's a completely different story.

In general, if we move away from a specific historical period, then there is a rather large layer of literature devoted to game-theoretic modeling of the behavior of government and society in the context of reforms. There, a sequential game is usually considered:
1 move is made by the government, it chooses between 2 strategies - to carry out reforms or not.
Society makes the 2nd move, it chooses in both cases (if reforms have been carried out or if they have not been carried out) whether the government should be changed or not
The 3rd move is made by the government (new or old), deciding whether it is necessary to maintain the course of reforms or switch to reaction.

The government is interested in maintaining its power (especially if the country has a monarchy or dictatorship). Society is interested in reforms and minimum costs.
Without going into lengthy explanations, in the end, the implementation of reforms is determined by the ratio of costs, expected benefits from reforms, and the likelihood of a change of government. If the benefits of reform can be obtained without the risk of a change of government (in the Russian case, the fall of the monarchy), the government will reform. If the risk of a change of power is high, then the government will be reactionary.
Society, on the contrary, will increase the costs of maintaining the status quo, provoking it either to reform or to resign.
In fact, the entire political history of Russia in the 19th century is described by this.

Student's independent work

Topics for reports and messages

1. The main achievements and losses of Russia in the XIX century.

2. Statesmen of Russia in the XIX century. (M.M. Speransky, D.I. Milyutin, A.N. Gorchakov and others)

3. Patriotic War of 1812.

4. Crimean War 1853–1856.

5. Russian-Turkish war 1877–1878.

6. Caucasian war: causes, results, significance.

7. Economic course S.Yu. Witte.

Dictionary work

Arakcheevshchina, military settlements, Holy Union, industrial revolution, "theory of official nationality", raznochintsy, populism, "communal socialism", Narodnaya Volya, zemstvo, pan-Slavism, liberalism, Westerners and Slavophiles, conservatism, social democracy, Marxism, mutual responsibility, Decembrists, "Eastern Question", codification, redemption payment, global mediator, temporary obligation, latifundia, labor system, monopoly, anarchism, terror.

Run Tests

1 "Office Napoleon" was called by contemporaries:

a) Alexander I

b) M.I. Kutuzov

c) M.M. Speransky

d) A.A. Arakcheeva

e) N.N. Novosiltseva

2 An organ conceived but not created in Russia in the 19th century:

a) Council of State

b) Council of Ministers

c) State Duma

3 Taxable estates were not:

a) peasants

b) merchants, Cossacks

a) Nicholas I

b) M.I. Kutuzov

c) A.A. Arakcheev

d) Alexander I

e) M.M. Speransky

5 At the beginning of the XIX century. established in Russia:

a) orders

b) boards

c) ministries

d) people's commissariats

6 The reform of 1861 granted land to peasants:

a) for ransom

b) free

c) at the expense of the community

d) at the expense of the landowner

7 The theory of "communal socialism" was put forward by:

b) Plekhanov

c) Herzen

d) Alexander II

8 The Narodnaya Volya chose the following as the main method of struggle:

a) propaganda

b) "going to the people"

c) terror

9 The first Russian Marxist circle was (o):

a) "Land and freedom"

b) "Southern Society"

c) "Northern Society"

d) "Emancipation of labor"

e) "Narodnaya Volya"

10 Counter-reforms began in the reign of:

a) Alexander I

b) Nicholas II

c) Nicholas I

d) Alexander II

e) Alexander III

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