Political doctrines and revolutionary activities of populist organizations. Populism: political doctrines and revolutionary activities Labor movement in Russia at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries

QUESTIONS

1. What were the differences between Russian liberalism and Western European liberalism?

Firstly, liberal ideas in Russia began to play a significant role half a century later than in Western Europe (from the mid-1850s under Alexander II);

Secondly, unlike Western Europe, where the bearers of liberal ideology were primarily the bourgeois strata of society, in Russia its adherents were primarily enlightened nobles, including those in the public service. Liberal sentiments even gripped some of the top officials;

Thirdly, Russian liberals, without rejecting the achievements of Western European liberalism, were looking for a special path of parliamentarism for Russia, which should come from the autocrat.

2. How does the socialist doctrine of populism differ from other socialist teachings?

Populism was an original phenomenon. Its theoretical foundations were laid by A.I. Herzen and N.G. Chernyshevsky. Populism arose as one of the socialist doctrines, taking into account the peculiarities of the historical development of Russia and differing from Western European socialist doctrines.

Unlike other socialist teachings, the populists believed that the construction of a socialist society should be carried out not by the working class, but by the peasantry. The peasantry, interested in the abolition of serfdom and landownership, will fight for land and freedom. At the same time, it will destroy the existing exploitative system and easily adopt the socialist idea that corresponds to its communal consciousness.

If Marxists saw the prospect of socialism in the development of an industrial society, then the populists considered the peasant community to be the basis for its development in Russia. They made this conclusion based on the fact that collective land ownership and self-government already existed in it. Thanks to the presence of a peasantry organized into rural communities, which makes up the overwhelming majority of the population, Russia, according to the populists, could begin building a socialist society, bypassing capitalism, which brings new forms of exploitation and poverty.

3. How did the spread of Marxism go in Russia?

The spread of Marxism in Russia dates back to 1883, when former populists led by G.V. Plekhanov, who switched to the position of Marxism, created the “Emancipation of Labor” group in Geneva. It was Plekhanov who first raised the question of the need to create a Social Democratic Party in Russia. In 1883, in St. Petersburg, a group of students, organized by the Bulgarian D. Blagoev, adopted the loud name “Party of Russian Social Democrats.”

“Unions of struggle for the liberation of the working class” campaigned, issued proclamations and leaflets. A large social democratic organization was created by V.I. Lenin and Yu.O. Martov St. Petersburg "Union of Struggle".

The Liberation of Labor group, which operated abroad, widely launched propaganda of Marxist theory in Russia. The works of Marx and Engels were translated into Russian, the so-called “Workers' Library” (popular social democratic brochures) was published, and the first drafts of the program of Russian social democracy were developed. All this literature was illegally transported to Russia. Plekhanov and his comrades in the “Emancipation of Labor” group believed that Russian workers should take an active part in the political struggle of the entire society against the autocracy. At the same time, the workers, under the leadership of social democracy, will defend their class interests.

In 1898, the First Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party took place in Minsk. It was attended by 9 delegates from various social democratic organizations. The congress adopted a manifesto, which declared the formation of the party and its goals. However, almost all the congress participants were arrested, and it was not possible to create a unified Marxist party. The Social Democrats of Russia were still represented by separate independently operating organizations.

4. What is the essence of the views of Russian conservatives?

Conservatism in Russia defended autocracy and the class system of society. It was an expression of the official state ideology. Prominent representatives of conservative ideology were the publicist and publisher M.N. Katkov, lawyer and chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod K.P. Pobedonostsev.

Katkov, editor of the popular newspaper Moskovskie Vedomosti and the magazine Russkiy Vestnik, considered the radicalism of the populists disastrous for Russia. In his opinion, the country had to preserve its foundations unchanged - autocracy, Orthodoxy and landownership. At the same time, Katkov advocated the liberation of the peasants and the introduction of local self-government. He also condemned the constitutional aspirations of the liberals. Katkov's views influenced government policy.

Pobedonostsev enjoyed even greater influence in government circles. The “Course of Civil Law” he wrote was a reference book for Russian lawyers for a long time. Pobedonostsev was one of the inspirers of the conservative policies pursued during the reign of Alexander III. As the leader of the Synod, he was known for organizing persecution of sectarians and Protestants.

TASKS

1. If you lived in Russia in the 19th century, what ideology would you follow? Explain the reasons for your choice.

I would be a supporter of liberalism, since liberal ideas provided for gradual peaceful transformations in the country. Liberals took into account the historical features of the development of the Russian state and supported reforming the country from above.

2. What can you say about the views of the Russian liberal based on the answers of V.A. Goltsev to the questionnaire of the magazine “Russian Thought”? Which of his answers do you like and why?

Where would I like to live?

In Russia, but only free.

What do I hate most?

Despotism.

The reform I most admire in history?

Liberation of peasants in Russia.

The reform I want?

The fall of autocracy in Russia.

My motto?

Labor and political freedom.

Based on the answers from V.A. Goltsev, we can say that Russian liberals defended the idea of a Russia free from despotism. This idea must be implemented through reforms.

What I like most is the answer that most of all V.A. Goltsev hates despotism. I support his idea, since this form of government violates all natural human rights and does not allow society to develop.

3. Read a fragment of the program of the terrorist faction of the Narodnaya Volya party: “Recognizing the main importance of terror as a means of forcing concessions from the government through its systematic disorganization, we do not in the least belittle its other useful aspects. He raises the revolutionary spirit of the people; gives continuous proof of the possibility of struggle, undermining the charm of government power; it acts in a strong propaganda way on the masses. Therefore, we consider useful not only the terrorist struggle against the central government, but also local terrorist protests against administrative oppression.”

Do the arguments in favor of terror as a means of fighting power convince you? Why?

No, they are not convinced. Terror will never be effective, because, firstly, it always leads to casualties, and no one has the right to take the life of another person, and secondly, the result of any terrorist actions is the response of the authorities, from which not only the perpetrators suffer, but also innocent people.

Revolutionary democratic ideology in Russia 19th century. The theory of communal socialism.

In the middle of the 19th century in Russia, changes took place in the social structure of society associated with the emergence of a new layer - raznochinstvo.

Raznochintsy (literal meaning - people from different classes and ranks) were a significant social group consisting of an inter-class mixture of people engaged primarily in mental work: teachers, doctors, minor officials.
Not being connected by economic, political and social interests with a certain estate or class, the raznochintsy made a claim to a paternalistic role in relation to the “humiliated and oppressed.” They laid the foundation for the Russian intelligentsia, whose distinctive feature for a century and a half was the attempt to act as an ideological inspirer and leader in the struggle of workers for their rights.
According to their political sympathies, the commoners were socialists; in the ideological and political struggle they adhered to radical means, therefore their activities were called political radicalism. They did not have clearly expressed philosophical sympathies, because philosophy was seen as a means to achieve political goals.
This movement in Russian philosophy is represented by the names of A.I. Herzen, P.L. Lavrov, P.N. Tkachev, M.A. Bakunin.

COMMUNITY SOCIALISM is one of the theories of socialism that arose in Russia in the middle of the 19th century. First of all, it is associated with the name of A.I. Herzen, who in his writings of the 40-50s. drew the attention of Russian society to the communal order of the peasant world. Herzen believed that they would become a prologue to the establishment of a socialist system in Russia. Herzen’s conviction that he was right came from the characteristics of the peasant community. From the XVI-XVII centuries. it was characterized by regular redistribution of land (“fairly”), mutual responsibility for paying taxes, and collective resolution of local issues. The centuries-old experience of communal cohabitation among peasants has developed a whole range of measures to support bankrupt farms. Based on all this, Herzen considered it possible for the smooth transformation of the peasant community into a socialist society. The ideas of communal socialism were taken up by the raznochyn revolutionaries led by N. G. Chernyshevsky. He, following Herzen, argued that the peasant community is the best, most perfect form of social coexistence.

The spread of Marxism in Russia. Formation of the RSDLP.

The crisis of populism and the development of the labor movement led to the conversion of part of the intelligentsia to Marxism. The first Russian Marxist organization was created in Geneva in 1883. a small group of revolutionary populists, former members of the “Black Redistribution”: G.V. Plekhanov, P.B. Axelrod, V.I. Zasulich, V.N. Ignatov, L.G. Deich. The leader of the group, which adopted the name “Emancipation of Labor,” was the talented theorist and propagandist of Marxism G.V. Plekhanov. In his first works, “Socialism and Political Struggle” and “Our Differences,” Plekhanov criticized the views of the populists, who argued that capitalism in Russia was an accidental phenomenon, a decline, a regression. Plekhanov points out that it is wrong to complain about this. The task of revolutionaries is to use the development of capitalism in the interests of the revolution - to rely in the fight against autocracy on the new revolutionary force generated by capitalism, the proletariat. The proletariat, associated with large-scale factory production, is more receptive to the ideas of socialism and more capable of organization than the dispersed peasantry. leading small farm. Plekhanov rejected the Narodniks’ views on the peasant community as a stronghold of socialism. He pointed out that the community is going through a process of internal stratification, the separation of the poor and the rich peasantry (kulaks).

In its practical activities, the Liberation of Labor group focused on promoting Marxism. She translated into Russian, published and illegally distributed a number of works by Marx and Engels in Russia.

In the 80s - early 90s. Marxist circles also arise in Russia itself: in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Samara. In one of these circles, V.I. Ulyanov /Lenin/ begins his revolutionary activity. In 1895, Lenin became a member of the leadership of an illegal organization created in St. Petersburg, which took the name “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class.” The "Union" was built on the principles of centralism! and strict discipline, his work was aimed at establishing a close connection with the workers. The basis was workers' circles in factories and factories. In 1896, under the leadership of the Union, a general strike of textile workers in the capital took place. More than a dozen leaflets were published. Following the model of the St. Petersburg union, unions began to be created in Moscow, Tula, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Yaroslavl and other cities.

The next step in the spread of Marxism in Russia was the creation of a workers' party. In 1898, the first congress of representatives of a number of social democratic organizations in Russia, mainly the Unions of Struggle, took place in Minsk. The Congress decided to form the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) and elected a Central Committee of three people. A manifesto was issued on behalf of the congress, which proclaimed: “The Russian proletariat will throw off the yoke of autocracy in order to continue the struggle with capitalism and the bourgeoisie with all the more energy until the complete victory of socialism.”

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. A new generation of revolutionary populists enters the arena of political life. In 1901, the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) was formed, combining the principles of populist ideology with calls for revolutionary violent measures to implement them. One of the recognized leaders of the party was Viktor Chernov. He was the author of the idea of socialization of the land, which became the most important requirement of the Socialist Revolutionary program. Socialization meant the elimination of landownership, the transfer of land into the public domain, the abolition of private ownership of land and its equal distribution among the peasants. The implementation of this program was associated with the destruction of the autocracy.

Populism: political doctrine and practice.

Classical populism, which arose in the 60s of the 19th century, reached its culmination in the 70s. The first political organization to officially call itself a party was, as is known, “People's Will” (1879). Previously, parties were called, in imitation of the West, court groups or circles of guards officers. The mass movement of the various intelligentsia into the “people” took a variety of forms (oral propaganda, resettlement in the countryside, individual terror) and was characterized by high organization. The most severe secrecy and strict discipline distinguished the populist organizations “Land and Freedom” (1876), “Black Redistribution” (1878), and “People’s Will” (1879).

The historical merits of classical populism include the search for a grounded, original path of development of Russia, the desire to make the people the subject of historical creativity. The populists, as we know, sought to solve the problem of involving the people (“the soil”) in active work by various means: “going to the people,” creating peasant settlements, promoting their ideas, immediate rebellion, etc. The populists were able to create political organizations capable of resisting tsarist secret services (“Land and Freedom”, and especially “People’s Will”, which, thanks to high discipline and secrecy, carried out its activities for three years).

“Populism,” wrote V.I. Lenin, “is the ideology (system of views) of peasant democracy in Russia.” Populism combined the ideas of utopian socialism with the demand of the peasantry, interested in the destruction of landowners' holdings. He opposed both serfdom and the bourgeois development of society. From the moment of its inception, two trends emerged in populism - revolutionary or liberal. The revolutionaries saw the main goal in organizing a peasant revolution and during the 60-80s. strived for it in various ways. Liberal populists, operating legally, sought peaceful forms of transition to socialism. Liberal populism did not play a significant role until the 1980s. when it became mainstream. Representatives of many nationalities of Russia took part in the populist movement. Populist ideology was uniquely refracted in the conditions of Ukraine, the Caucasus, the Baltic states, Poland and other regions. Populism was not a purely Russian phenomenon. A similar form of ideology was also characteristic of other countries that took the path of capitalist development late.

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 a former member of “People’s Retribution,” spoke out against its leader, who called for terror and provocations to undermine the regime and bring about a brighter future, he was accused of treason by Nechaev and killed. The criminal offense was discovered by the police, 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. Since the late 1860s, several dozen such circles have operated in large Russian cities. 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 show political trials took place across Russia with sentences of 10–15 years of hard labor for printed and oral propaganda; 16 death sentences were handed down (1879) just for “belonging to a criminal community” (this was judged by proclamations found in the house, proven facts transfer of 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 “Freedom or Death” group, without coordinating their actions with propaganda supporters (O.V. Aptekman, G.V. Plekhanov), it became clear that a general discussion of the conflict situation could not 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, Narodnaya Volya set the immediate goal of changing the political system (including through regicide), and then the convening of the Constituent Assembly and the establishment of political freedoms.

In a short period of time, within a year, the Narodnaya Volunteers created a branched 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 formations of all-Russian significance - the Workers, Students and Military organizations, 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 particularly distinguished himself in this matter, who later drew a diagram of a jet aircraft when he was awaiting the death penalty in solitary confinement in the Peter and Paul Fortress). 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 are 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. The strength of Abramov’s propaganda works was its clear targeting - an appeal to doctors, teachers, agronomists with an appeal to help the situation of the Russian peasant with their own labor. 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.

Other populist theories of the 1880–1890s, called “economic romanticism,” proposed the “salvation of the community” (N.F. Danielson), and put forward programs for state regulation of the economy, during which the peasant economy could adapt to commodity-money relations ( V.P.Vorontsov). It became more and more clear that the followers of the Land Volunteers 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 public thought to the peculiarities of Russia’s economic development.

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, the new editors of the 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 of Nikolai Mikhailovsky. M., 2001

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Populism: political doctrines and revolutionary activities

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Introduction

Classical populism, which arose in the 60s of the 19th century, reached its culmination in the 70s. The first political organization to officially call itself a party was, as you know, “People's Will” (1879). Previously, parties were called, in imitation of the West, court groups or circles of guards officers. The mass movement of the various intelligentsia into the “people” took a variety of forms (oral propaganda, resettlement in the countryside, individual terror) and was characterized by high organization. The most severe secrecy and strict discipline distinguished the populist organizations “Land and Freedom” (1876), “Black Redistribution” (1878), and “People’s Will” (1879). The highest point, which was also the collapse of classical populism, was the assassination of Tsar Alexander II by members of Narodnaya Volya in 1881 (the killer was A. Grinevetsky).

The historical merits of classical populism include the search for a grounded, original path of development of Russia, the desire to make the people the subject of historical creativity. The populists, as we know, sought to solve the problem of involving the people ("soil") in active work by various means: "going to the people", creating peasant settlements, promoting their ideas, immediate rebellion, etc. The populists were able to create political organizations capable of resisting tsarist secret services (“Land and Freedom”, and especially “People’s Will”, which, thanks to high discipline and secrecy, carried out its activities for three years).

However, the doctrine of populism was erroneous primarily because it absolutized the archaic forms of economic and spiritual life of the Russian people. Its main ideologists - N. Chernyshevsky and A. Herzen - considered the peasant community to be the main unit of the future just socialist system. Terror occupied a significant place in the activities of the populists at all stages of the movement. The main reasons for the increased activity of terrorists were, firstly, unsuccessful attempts to “awaken society”, and secondly, the repressive, harsh policies of the autocracy. For example, in the winter of 1878-1879 alone, over two thousand people were arrested in St. Petersburg; Odessa Governor-General E. Gotleben sent populists into exile by train. Between 1877 and 1882, 30 revolutionaries were executed. There were cases when people were hanged simply because proclamations of “Narodnaya Volya” were found during a search. And yet, the Narodniks’ commitment to terrorism could not but cause condemnation of their activities by society, and, ultimately, led the movement to historical collapse. Populist organizations emerged from time to time in the 1980s. In the 90s, the ideas of the populists were adopted by new parties who called themselves socialist-revolutionaries. The largest of them are the "Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries", "Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries", "Workers' Party for the Political Liberation of Russia".

“Populism,” wrote V.I. Lenin, “is the ideology (system of views) of peasant democracy in Russia.” Populism combined the ideas of utopian socialism with the demand of the peasantry, interested in the destruction of landowners' estates. He opposed both serfdom and the bourgeois development of society. Since its inception, two currents have emerged in populism - revolutionary and liberal. The revolutionaries saw the main goal in organizing a peasant revolution and during the 60-80s. strived for it in various ways. Liberal populists, operating legally, sought peaceful forms of transition to socialism. Liberal populism did not play a significant role until the 80s, when it became the dominant trend. Representatives of many nationalities of Russia took part in the populist movement. Populist ideology was uniquely refracted in the conditions of Ukraine, the Caucasus, the Baltic states, Poland and other regions. Populism was not a purely Russian phenomenon. A similar form of ideology was also characteristic of other countries that took the path of capitalist development late.

Ideology

Populism represents a special type of utopian socialism, characteristic of countries with a predominance of agricultural production and a peasant population, with weak industrial development. By the time populism arose in the advanced countries of Europe, capitalism had already reached the stage of development when the fundamental socio-political contradictions of bourgeois society were revealed. The bourgeois-democratic revolutions in these countries, which did not improve the situation of the masses, caused disappointment among the advanced Russian intelligentsia. In this situation, the search began for “special ways” of social reconstruction in Russia, allowing for non-capitalist development for Russia. The belief in the possibility of a direct transition - bypassing capitalism - to the socialist system through the peasant community, which was assigned a special role, constituted the main content of the theory of Russian utopian socialism. Its founders were A.I. Herzen and N.G. Chernyshevsky. “Peasant socialism” was actively promoted by N.P. Ogarev.

Herzen believed that Russia would not repeat all phases of development of European countries. It will move to socialism in an “original” way thanks to the rural community, the liberation of peasants with land, peasant self-government, and the traditional rights of peasants to land. “The man of the future in Russia,” Herzen believed, “is a man, just like a worker in France.” Herzen also noted some negative aspects of the community, but considered them surmountable in the process of establishing socialist ideas among the people. Herzen's theory of communal socialism was developed by Chernyshevsky. He associated the preservation of the Russian community with the slowness of development and backwardness of the country, but at the same time assigned the community a greater positive role subject to radical social transformations: the people’s overthrow of the autocracy, the gratuitous transfer of all land to the peasants, and the combination of communal land ownership with communal industrial production. Thus, the theory of Russian peasant socialism was an attempt to use the community in order, on the one hand, to rouse the peasantry to revolution, and on the other, to preserve the egalitarian principles that existed in the community until the establishment of socialist principles.

60s were the first stage in the development of revolutionary democratic ideology, when the general theoretical principles of peasant socialism were translated into specific programs. Since the late 60s. in the revolutionary movement there was a turn towards “effectiveness”. The question of non-capitalist development moved from the realm of theory to revolutionary practice. The peasant socialist revolution is proclaimed as the immediate goal of the populist movement. The largest ideologists of N. in the 70s. were M.A. Bakunin, P.L. Lavrov, P.N. Tkachev, N.K. Mikhailovsky. Bakunin had a significant influence on the Russian revolutionary movement. Considering the Russian peasant to be a “born” socialist, Bakunin called on young people to immediately prepare a popular uprising against the three main enemies: private property, the state, and the church. Under his direct influence, a rebellious Bakuninist trend emerged in populism. The role of the people in the revolution was recognized as decisive.

The program of the revolutionary populists of the 70s. distinguished by her belief not in a conspiracy, but in a broad popular movement, in a peasant socialist revolution. The struggle for political freedoms was denied, and an indifferent attitude towards forms of state power was promoted. The Kazan demonstration of 1876 opened a series of political acts. In 1878, the southern populists (V.A. Osinsky, the Ivicevich brothers, etc.) switched to terrorist struggle, speaking on behalf of the “Executive Committee of the Russian Social Revolutionary Party.” In liberal circles they started talking about the constitution.

The Narodnaya Volya, like their predecessors, continued to believe in the socialist features of the Russian community, although they already saw the stratification of the countryside, the strengthening of world-eating kulaks, and the strengthening of the bourgeoisie. But they denied the regularity and organic nature of this process: “...In our country the state is not the creation of the bourgeoisie, as in Europe, but on the contrary, the bourgeoisie is created by the state.” The Narodnaya Volya hoped to stop the development of capitalist relations in the country by seizing power and move through the community to a socialist system. A major merit of the Narodnaya Volya members was their struggle to win political freedoms in Russia: demands for a constitution, universal suffrage, freedom of speech, press, gatherings, etc. The Narodnaya Volya members considered their immediate goal to be the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy and the establishment of a democratic republic based on the “will of the people.” Lenin considered the “great historical merit” of the Narodnaya Volya members to be their desire to “... attract all the dissatisfied to their organization and direct this organization to a decisive struggle against the autocracy.” At the same time, Lenin pointed out that the Narodnaya Volya members “...narrowed politics to only conspiratorial struggle,” and that the experience of the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia warns against such methods of struggle as terror.

K con. 80s - with the development of capitalism and the growth of the working class in Russia, with the beginning of the spread of Marxism in the country, the unfoundedness of faith in the “communist instincts” of the peasant, in the peasant socialist revolution, in the success of the single combat of the heroic intelligentsia with the autocracy was finally revealed. The ideology of revolutionary populism turned out to be untenable.

Revolutionary activities

During the years of the first revolutionary situation of 1859-61, illegal circles and populist organizations began to emerge. From 1856 to 1862 the Kharkov-Kiev secret society operated, the founders of which were Ya.N. Beckman and M.D. Muravsky. In 1861-62, a circle of P.G. functioned in Moscow. Zaichnevsky and P.E. Argiropulo, who printed illegal publications, began revolutionary propaganda among the people, calling for the overthrow of the autocracy (the “Young Russia” proclamation). In the conditions of the revolutionary situation, the rise of the mass movement and the struggle of the democratic intelligentsia, who were expecting a peasant uprising, the secret society “Land and Freedom” arose in 1861 - the largest revolutionary association of the 60s. and the first attempt to create an all-Russian organization. The ideological inspirer of “Land and Freedom” was Chernyshevsky, the foreign center was represented by Herzen and Ogarev, the most active members were the brothers N.A. and A.A. Serno-Solovievichi, A.A. Sleptsov, N.H. Obruchev, S.S. Rymarenko, V. S. Kurochkin and others.

70s were a new stage in the development of the revolutionary democratic movement: compared to the 60s. The number of participants in the movement, its scope and effectiveness have increased immeasurably. In the spring and summer of 1874, a mass “going to the people” of the democratic intelligentsia began, and the first rapprochement of revolutionary youth with the people took place. Theoretical discussions about duty to the people turned into practical actions aimed at raising the peasant masses to the socialist revolution. “Going among the people” was the first test of the ideology of revolutionary populism. Lenin praised this movement. By the end of 1875, the “going to the people” was crushed by the police, its participants were arrested and convicted in the “trial of the 193s” (1877-78). Among the defendants were major revolutionaries: P.I. Voinaralsky, Volkhovsky, S.F. Kovalik, I.N. Myshkin, D.M. Rogachev and others. “Going to the People” revealed the organizational weakness of the populist movement and determined the need for a single centralized organization of revolutionaries. This task was partly resolved in the activities of the All-Russian Social Revolutionary Organization (a group of Muscovites), which arose in late 1874 - early 1875. In the mid-70s. the problem of concentrating revolutionary forces in a single organization became central. It was discussed at congresses of populists in St. Petersburg, Moscow, in exile, and debated on the pages of the illegal press, among the participants in the “going to the people” brought in through the “trial of the 193s.” The revolutionaries had to choose a centralist or federal principle of organization and determine their attitude towards socialist parties in other countries.

In 1876, a new populist organization arose in St. Petersburg, which in 1878 received the name “Land and Freedom.” Its founders and active participants were: M.A. and O.A. Nathanson, A.D. Mikhailov, A.D. Oboleshev, G.V. Plekhanov, O.V. Aptekman, A.A. Kvyatkovsky, D.A. Lizogub, Osinsky and others. The great merit of the Zemlya Volyas was the creation of a strong and disciplined organization, which Lenin called “excellent” and a “model” for revolutionaries. The Zemlyavoltsy had their own organs: “Earth and Freedom” (1878-79), “Leaf of Earth and Freedom” (1879). In practical work, “Land and Freedom” moved from “wandering” propaganda, characteristic of the 1st stage of “going to the people,” to settled rural settlements. However, the hopes of the landowners to rouse the peasantry to revolution did not materialize. Disappointment in the results of propaganda, increased government repression, on the one hand, and public excitement in the context of the emergence of a second revolutionary situation in the country, on the other, contributed to the aggravation of disagreements within the organization. The majority of landowners were convinced of the need to move to a direct political struggle against the autocracy. Terror is gradually becoming one of the main means of revolutionary struggle. At first these were acts of self-defense and revenge for the atrocities of the tsarist administration. However, gradually the successes of the terrorist struggle, which caused confusion at the top, gave rise to the illusion among the populists of the special effectiveness of this method. In August 1879, as a result of a conflict between “politicians” (A.I. Zhelyabov, A.D. Mikhailov, Kvyatkovsky, etc.) and “villagers” (Plekhanov, M.R. Popov, Aptekman, etc.), a split occurred between the “Earth and will". Two independent organizations were formed - "People's Will" and "Black Redistribution".

"People's Will" further strengthened the principles of centralization and conspiracy developed by "Land and Freedom". The Executive Committee of Narodnaya Volya included outstanding revolutionaries Zhelyabov, A.D. Mikhailov, Perovskaya, V.N. Figner, N.I. Kibalchich and others. The organs of the Narodnaya Volya members were "People's Will" (1879-85, with interruptions), "Bulletin of the People's Will" (1883-86), "Leaflet of the People's Will" (1880-86).

After the murder of Alexander II by revolutionaries and the trial of the First Marchers, failures, betrayals, and arrests began, which bled Narodnaya Volya dry. A series of trials in the 80s. (“Process of 20”, “Process of 17”, “Process of 14”, etc.) completed the destruction of the organization. In 1885, a congress of southern Narodnaya Volya members (B.D. Orzhikh, V.G. Bogoraz, F.I. Yasevich, V.P. Brazhnikov, etc.) met in Yekaterinoslav, which examined the state of the revolutionary forces in the south of Russia and drew attention to the need to expand the struggle for political freedoms and widespread propaganda among the masses.

People's Will and ideologically close organizations continued to operate in the 90s. In 1889-90 in Kostroma, Vladimir and Yaroslavl there was a revolutionary organization led by M.V. Sabunaev. In 1891-94, the “Group of Narodnaya Volya” worked in St. Petersburg under the leadership of M.S. Alexandrov (Olminsky). In 1893, the “People's Law” party arose (M.A. Nathanson, P. Nikolaev, N. Tyutchev, etc.). As Marxism spread in Russia, populist organizations lost their importance.

Their best democratic traditions, in the changed conditions of the class struggle, were continued by a new revolutionary generation that overcame the mistakes and illusions of populism. Some populists, as the proletarian ideology was established, switched to the position of Marxism, and later became members of the social democratic party.

Zhelyabov A.I.

Zhelyabov, Andrei Ivanovich (1851-1881) - Russian revolutionary, leader of the populist movement, member of the Executive Committee of the People's Will. He bore the party nicknames “Boris” and “Taras”.

Born on August 17 (29), 1851 in the village. Nikolaevka Feodosiya district Tauride lips. In the family of a serf serf on the Sultanovka estate in one of the Crimean villages, he was taught to read and write by his grandfather from the psalter. In 1860, the landowner sent him to the Kerch district school (later a gymnasium), from which he graduated in 1869 with a silver medal. At the gymnasium I read N.G. Chernyshevsky’s novel What Is To Be Done?, which, according to him, shaped his ideological beliefs. In 1869 he entered the law faculty of Novorossiysk University in Odessa. Convinced that “history is moving terribly slowly, we need to push it,” he led student protests against one of the conservative teachers (Prof. Bogisich), for which he was expelled from the university in 1871 and expelled from Odessa.

In 1872 he married the daughter of a sugar factory, Yakhnenko, whose enterprises were located in Tiraspol district. Kherson province. They had a son, after which Zhelyabov, probably at the request of his friends, was reinstated at the university, but did not live with his family. Expelled for the second time from the 3rd year, he moved to Kiev in 1872, lived with occasional lessons in the Settlement of the Kiev province, where he established contacts with the revolutionary circles of Kiev and with the leaders of the Ukrainian liberal-bourgeois cultural and educational organization of the Ukrainian intelligentsia “Hromada”.

In 1873 he again ended up in Odessa, where he joined F.V.’s circle. Volkovsky - one of the southern Russian populists who maintained contact with the capital’s circle of “Tchaikovsky” (N.V. Tchaikovsky). Conducted propaganda among workers and intelligentsia. In September 1874 he was arrested, released on bail, and continued his illegal activities (“He lived on funds from the fund for the liberation of the people,” he later said at one of his trials).

In 1873-1874 he became a participant in the first “walking among the people.” On October 18, 1878, he was arrested again and tried in the “Trial of the 193s.” Acquitted in January 1879, he finally went underground and moved to Podolsk province, where he continued to conduct propaganda among the peasants. According to a comrade in the Narodnik organization, O.S. Lyubatovich, by that time he “had matured mentally and physically... his whole being was imbued with some kind of joyful light and great hope”; This hope was the belief in the need to fight the government using terror methods in the name of “people's happiness.”

In June 1879, Zhelyabov took part in the Voronezh congress of populists, where he was accepted into the organization “Land and Freedom”, actively defended the tactics of terror, which contributed to the split of the organization into supporters of this method of struggle (they formed a little later “People’s Will”) and opponents (they created organization "Black Redistribution"). At the Lipetsk congress of terrorist politicians, held immediately after the Voronezh one, Zhelyabov came to the conclusion that terror is “an exceptional, heroic means, but also the most effective.” Since August 1879, he was the main organizer and ideological inspirer of the St. Petersburg organization “People's Will” (which he personally called the party), a defender of the terrorist direction of its activities. He believed, however, that “it is possible to seize power only in order to transfer it into the hands of the people” (testimony of M.F. Frolenko). At that time, he showed the makings of a people's tribune: “a pleasant and strong voice”, extreme “clarity, fervor, impetuosity of speech.”

With the leadership participation of Zhelyabov, the workers, student and military organizations of “Narodnaya Volya” were founded, and program documents were written. They, in particular, 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, the publication of illegal printed publications (the newspaper “Narodnaya Volya”, published 1879-1881, and “Rabochaya Gazeta”, published in the autumn of 1880, 3 numbers, 1000 copies). Zhelyabov also headed the main collegial governing body of “Narodnaya Volya” - the Executive Committee (besides him, it included A.D. Mikhailov, S.L. Perovskaya and others).

Gendarmerie General N.I. Shebeko called Zhelyabov a “terrible” person, but later noted that this “great organizer of assassination attempts had an amazing power of activity and did not belong to the trembling and silent ones; It is impossible to allow even a shadow of repentance to touch his heart in the interval between the organization of the crime and the hour of his atonement..."

It was Zhelyabov who led the “combat group” of terrorists in 1879, whose goal was to prepare the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. He justified the need for attempts on his life by the fact that it was the tsarist government that banned the peaceful propaganda of socialist ideas and brought down repressions on their bearers (“our movement was defeated exclusively by the numerous obstacles that it encountered in the form of prisons and exile; peaceful propaganda turned out to be impossible - we had to move away from the word to the point").

He personally participated in the preparation and determination of the tactics of the terrorist attacks. For the first assassination attempt, having learned about the tsar’s proposed trip by rail, he rented a plot of land near the town of Aleksandrovsky, Yekaterinoslav province, under the fictitious surname Cheremis’ev, and also selected a place to lay a mine under the rails. This attempt on November 18, 1879 failed: the mine went off after the train passed over it. In total, he prepared 8 assassination attempts on Alexander II.

At the beginning of 1880 he became the de facto leader of the Executive Committee of the People's Will and the organizer of new attempts on the life of the Tsar. He skillfully conducted propaganda work. He was going to go to the Samara province to raise a peasant uprising there, he said that he felt “the strength to do this,” but the Executive Committee found a mass uprising untimely and rejected his intention.

Having entered the so-called “Administrative Commission of the People's Will,” he led new preparations for the assassination attempt on the Tsar (according to L.G. Deitch, Zhelyabov was a man of “indomitable energy, holding in his hands all the threads of the regicide being prepared”).

On February 27, 1881, he was accidentally arrested at the apartment of his friend. Not only did he not try to escape, but he voluntarily surrendered to the police. The preparation of the assassination attempt, planned two days later, was taken over by his common-law wife, S.L. Perovskaya. At her signal, on March 1, 1881, I.I. Grinevitsky threw a bomb at the Tsar and blew himself up. After the arrest of S.L. Perovskaya on Nevsky Prospekt on March 10, 1881, Zhelyabov demanded that he be included in the trial of the regicide on March 1, 1881.

Before the trial, Zhelyabov was placed in the Trubetskoy bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress. At trial he refused to have a lawyer. Repeatedly interrupted by the chairman of the court, he nevertheless managed to use the court hearing as a platform to present the program and principles of the activities of “Narodnaya Volya” (“served the cause of the liberation of the people”). Declaring that he denies the Orthodox faith, at the same time he emphasized that in the teachings of Christ he sees “the struggle for truth, for the rights of the weak and oppressed.” In conclusion, he admitted that he would renounce terror if “the possibility of peaceful propaganda of ideas arose.” According to the verdict of the Supreme Criminal Court, he was hanged along with other “First Marchers” on April 3 (15), 1881 at Semenovsky Parade Ground in St. Petersburg (the last public execution in Russia).

Already in 1882 (a year after the execution), a biography of this revolutionary terrorist was published abroad. His social activities were widely covered in the magazine "Byloe" in 1906-1907. IN AND. Lenin put Zhelyabov on a par with Robespierre and Garibaldi. In 1928, a village in the Ustyuzhensky district of the Vologda region was named after Zhelyabov. In the famous novel by Yu.V. Trifonov Impatience (1973), which tells about the ascetic activities of the Narodnaya Volya members, the figure of Zhelyabov occupies a central place.

The ideology of revolutionary populism

Revolutionary populism in Russia originated in the 60s of the 19th century. Initially it was called not “populism”, but “public socialism”. The author of this theory was A.I. Herzen N.G. Chernyshevsky.

Russia has a unique chance to transition to socialism, bypassing capitalism. The main element of the transition should be the peasant community with its elements of collective land use. In this sense, Russia should become an example for the rest of the world.
Herzen A.I.

Why is Populism called revolutionary? Because it called for the overthrow of the autocracy by any means, including through terror. Today, some historians say that this was the innovation of the populists, but this is not so. The same Herzen, in his idea of “public socialism,” said that terror and revolution are one of the methods of achieving the goal (albeit an extreme method).

Ideological trends of populism in the 70s

In the 70s, populism entered a new stage, when the organization was actually divided into 3 different ideological movements. These movements had a common goal - the overthrow of the autocracy, but the methods of achieving this goal differed.

Ideological currents of populism:

Propaganda. Ideologist – P.L. Lavrov. The main idea is that historical processes should be led by thinking people. Therefore, populism must go to the people and enlighten them.
Rebellious. Ideologist – M.A. Bakunin. The main idea was that propaganda ideas were supported. The difference is that Bakunin spoke not simply about enlightening the people, but about calling them to take up arms against their oppressors.
Conspiratorial. Ideologist – P.N. Tkachev. The main idea is that the monarchy in Russia is weak. Therefore, there is no need to work with the people, but to create a secret organization that will carry out a coup and seize power.

All directions developed in parallel.

Joining the People is a mass movement that began in 1874, in which thousands of young people in Russia took part. In fact, they implemented the ideology of Lavrov and Bakunin’s populism, conducting propaganda with village residents. They moved from one village to another, distributed propaganda materials to people, talked with people, calling them to take active action, explaining that they could not continue to live like this. For greater persuasiveness, entering the people presupposed the use of peasant clothing and conversation in a language understandable to the peasants. But this ideology was greeted with suspicion by the peasants. They were wary of strangers who spoke “terrible speeches,” and also thought completely differently from the representatives of populism. Here, for example, is one of the documented conversations:

- “Who owns the land? Isn’t she God’s?” - says Morozov, one of the active participants in joining the people.

- “It’s God’s where no one lives. And where people live is human land,” was the peasants’ answer.

It is obvious that populism had difficulty imagining the way of thinking of ordinary people, and therefore their propaganda was extremely ineffective. Largely because of this, by the fall of 1874, “entering the people” began to fade away. By this time, repressions by the Russian government began against those who “walked.”

In 1876, the organization “Land and Freedom” was created. It was a secret organization that pursued one goal - the establishment of the Republic. The peasant war was chosen to achieve this goal. Therefore, starting from 1876, the main efforts of populism were directed towards preparing for this war. The following areas were chosen for preparation:

Propaganda. Again the members of “Land and Freedom” addressed the people. They found jobs as teachers, doctors, paramedics, and minor officials. In these positions, they agitated the people for war, following the example of Razin and Pugachev. But once again, the propaganda of populism among the peasants did not produce any effect. The peasants did not believe these people.
Individual terror. In fact, we are talking about disorganization work, in which terror was carried out against prominent and capable statesmen. By the spring of 1879, as a result of terror, the head of the gendarmes N.V. Mezentsev and Governor of Kharkov D.N. Kropotkin. In addition, an unsuccessful attempt was made on Alexander 2.

By the summer of 1879, “Land and Freedom” split into two organizations: “Black Redistribution” and “People’s Will”. This was preceded by a congress of populists in St. Petersburg, Voronezh and Lipetsk.

Black redistribution

The “black redistribution” was headed by G.V. Plekhanov. He called for an abandonment of terror and a return to propaganda. The idea was that the peasants were simply not yet ready for the information that populism brought upon them, but soon the peasants would begin to understand everything and “take up their pitchforks” themselves.

People's will

“Narodnaya Volya” was controlled by A.I. Zhelyabov, A.D. Mikhailov, S.L. Petrovskaya. They also called for the active use of terror as a method of political struggle. Their goal was clear - the Russian Tsar, who began to be hunted from 1879 to 1881 (8 attempts). For example, this led to the assassination attempt on Alexander 2 in Ukraine. The king survived, but 60 people died.

The end of the activities of populism and brief results

As a result of the assassination attempts on the emperor, unrest began among the people. In this situation, Alexander 2 created a special commission, headed by M.T. Loris-Melikov. This man intensified the fight against populism and its terror, and also proposed a draft law whereby certain elements of local government could be transferred under the control of “electors.” In fact, this was what the peasants demanded, which means this step significantly strengthened the monarchy. This draft law was to be signed by Alexander 2 on March 4, 1881. But on March 1, the populists committed another terrorist act, killing the emperor.

Alexander 3 came to power. “Narodnaya Volya” was closed, the entire leadership was arrested and executed by court verdict. The terror that the Narodnaya Volya unleashed was not perceived by the population as an element of the struggle for the liberation of the peasants. In fact, we are talking about the meanness of this organization, which set itself high and correct goals, but to achieve them chose the most vile and base opportunities.