The year is considered the beginning of mass circulation among the people. History of Russia XIX–XX centuries
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POPULARITY- the ideological doctrine and socio-political movement of the intelligentsia of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. Its supporters set out to develop a national model of non-capitalist evolution, to gradually adapt the majority of the population to the conditions of economic modernization. As a system of ideas, it was typical for countries with a predominantly agrarian nature of the economy in the era of their transition to the industrial stage of development (in addition to Russia, this is Poland, as well as Ukraine, the Baltic countries and the Caucasus that were part of the Russian Empire). It is considered a kind 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 Decembrists and completed by the February Revolution of 1917. Accordingly, populism was correlated with its second, revolutionary-democratic stage.
Modern science believes that the appeal of the populists to the masses was not dictated 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 for the rapprochement of cultures - the culture of the educated class and the folk. Objectively, the movement and the doctrine of populism contributed to the consolidation of the nation through the removal of class distinctions, formed the prerequisites for creating a single legal space for all strata of society.
Tkachev believed that a social explosion would have a "moral and cleansing effect" on society, that a rebel would be able to throw off "the abomination of the old world of slavery and humiliation", since only at the moment revolutionary action the person feels free. In his opinion, it was not worth doing propaganda and waiting for the people to mature for the revolution, there was no need to "rebel" the village. Tkachev argued that since the autocracy in Russia has no 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 man of labor and science will obviously be high, and new government will create an alternative to the world of robbery and violence. In his opinion, the state created by the revolution should really 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, the anarchist, was the opposite of the social revolutionary in terms of the 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 hyper-statehood can be found in the works of populist anarchists - P.A. Kropotkin and M.A. Bakunin. Both of them were skeptical about any power, since they considered it to suppress the freedom of the individual and enslave her. As practice has shown, the anarchist current performed a rather destructive function, although in theoretical terms it had a number of positive ideas.
Thus, Kropotkin, with a restrained attitude towards both political struggle and terror, emphasized the decisive role of the masses in the reorganization of society, called on the "collective mind" of the people to create communes, autonomies, federations. Denying the dogmas of Orthodoxy and abstract philosophizing, he considered it more useful to benefit society with the help of the 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 man a rebel "by instinct, by vocation", and the people as a whole, he believed, had already developed the ideal of freedom for many centuries. Therefore, the revolutionaries only had to move on to organizing a nationwide revolt (hence the name in Marxist historiography of the wing of populism headed by him "rebellious"). The purpose of the 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 of the danger of creating a proletarian state, since "bourgeois degeneration is characteristic of the proletarians." The human community was conceived by him as a federation of communities of districts and provinces of Russia, and then the whole world, on the way to this, he believed, the creation of the “United States of Europe” (embodied in our days in the European Union) should stand. Like other populists, he believed in the call of the Slavs, especially Russians, to the revival of the world, which had been brought into decline by Western bourgeois civilization.
The first populist circles and organizations.
The theoretical propositions of populism found an outlet 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. These first circles differed markedly in the methods of struggle for the idea: moderate (propaganda) and radical (revolutionary). ) directions already existed within the framework of the movement of the "sixties" (populists of the 1860s).
The propagandistic student circle at Kharkov University (1856–1858) replaced the circle of propagandists P.E. Agriropulo and P.G. Zaichnevsky, founded in 1861, in Moscow. Its members considered the revolution the only means of transforming reality. The political structure of Russia was presented by them 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-Solov'evichi, 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 the revolution." They expected it by 1863 - after the completion of the signing of the statutory letters to the peasants on the land. The society, which had a semi-legal center for the distribution of printed materials (A.A. Serno-Solovyevich's bookstore and the Chess Club), developed its own program. It declared the transfer of land to the peasants for ransom, the replacement of government officials by elected officials, and the reduction in spending on the army and the royal court. These program provisions did not receive wide support among the people, and the organization dissolved itself, remaining not even discovered by the tsarist security agencies.
In 1863-1866, a secret revolutionary society of N.A. Ishutin (“Ishutins”) grew up in Moscow from a circle adjoining “Earth and Freedom”, the purpose of which was to prepare a peasant revolution through a conspiracy of intelligentsia groups. In 1865, P.D. Ermolov, M.N. Zagibalov, N.P. Stranden, D.A. Yurasov, D.V. Karakozov, P.F. Nikolaev, V.N. Motkov established contacts 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 put into practice the ideas of Chernyshevsky on the creation of artels and workshops, to make them the first step in the future socialist transformation of society, they created in 1865 in Moscow free school, bookbinding (1864) and sewing (1865) workshops, a cotton factory in the Mozhaisk district on the basis of an association (1865), negotiated the creation of a commune with the workers of the Lyudinovsky ironworks plant in the Kaluga province. G. A. Lopatin’s group and the “Ruble Society” created by him most clearly embodied in their programs the direction of propaganda and educational work. By the beginning of 1866, a rigid structure already existed in the circle - a small but close-knit central leadership (“Hell”), the secret society itself (“Organization”) and the legal “Societies for Mutual Aid” adjoining it. The “Ishutintsy” 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 members of the circle, D.V. Karakozov, on Emperor Alexander II. More than 2,000 populists came under investigation in the "regicide case"; 36 of them were sentenced to various measures of punishment (D.V. Karakozov - hanged, Ishutin imprisoned in solitary confinement in the Shlisselburg fortress, where he went crazy).
In 1869, the organization "People's Punishment" began its activity in Moscow and St. Petersburg (77 people headed by S.G. Nechaev). Its purpose was also the preparation of a "people's peasant revolution." The people involved in the "People's Reprisal" turned out to be victims of blackmail and intrigues by its organizer, Sergei Nechaev, who personified fanaticism, dictatorship, unscrupulousness and deceit. P.L. Lavrov publicly opposed his methods of struggle, arguing that “without extreme necessity, no one has the right to risk the moral purity of the socialist struggle, that not a single 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 member of the "People's Punishment", spoke out against its leader, who called for terror and provocations to undermine the regime and bring a brighter future, he was accused by Nechaev of betrayal and killed. The criminal offense was solved by the police, the organization was destroyed, Nechaev himself fled abroad, but was arrested there, extradited Russian authorities and judged like a criminal.
Although after the "Nechaev Trial" some supporters of "extreme methods" (terrorism) remained among the participants in the movement, the majority of the Narodniks nevertheless dissociated themselves from the adventurers. As a counterbalance to the unscrupulousness of the "nechaevshchina", circles and societies arose in which the issue of revolutionary ethics became one of the main ones. From the late 1860s to major cities There were several dozen such circles in Russia. One of them, created by S.L. Perovskaya (1871), joined the “Great Society of Propaganda”, headed by N.V. Tchaikovsky. For the first time such prominent figures as M.A. Natanson, S.M. Kravchinsky, P.A. Kropotkin, F.V. Volkhovsky, S.S. Sinegub, N.A. Charushin and others .
Having read and discussed a lot of Bakunin's works, the Chaikovites considered the peasants to be "spontaneous socialists", who only had to be "awakened" - to awaken "socialist instincts" in them, for which it was proposed to conduct propaganda. The listeners of it were to be metropolitan otkhodnik workers, who from time to time returned from the city to their villages and villages.
The first "going to the people" (1874).
In the spring and summer of 1874, the Chaikovites, followed by members of other circles (especially the Great Propaganda Society), did not limit themselves to agitation among otkhodniks, and went to the villages of Moscow, Tver, Kursk and Voronezh provinces. This movement was called a "flying action", and later - "first going to 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 authorities, "without waiting for the uprising, would decide to make the widest concessions to the people," that the revolt would "turn out to be superfluous," and therefore now it was supposedly necessary to gather strength, to unite in order to begin "peaceful work" (S .Kravchinsky). But the propagandists were met by a completely different people, which they represented, having read books and pamphlets. The peasants were wary of strangers, their calls were regarded as strange and dangerous. According to the memoirs of the populists themselves, they treated stories about a “bright future” as fairy tales (“If you don’t like it, don’t listen, but don’t interfere with lying!”). N.A. Morozov, in particular, recalled that he asked the peasants: “After all, the land of God? General? - and heard in response: “God's where no one lives. And where there are people, there it is human.”
Bakunin's idea of the people's readiness for rebellion failed. Theoretical models Populist ideologists faced the conservative utopia of the people, their faith in the correctness of power and hope for a "good king".
By the autumn of 1874, "going to the people" began to wane, followed by government repression. By the end of 1875, more than 900 members of the movement (out of 1,000 activists), as well as about 8,000 sympathizers and followers, were arrested and convicted, including in the most high-profile case, the Trial of the 193rd.
The second "going to the people."
Having reviewed a number of program provisions, the populists who remained at large decided to abandon the "circle" 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, she completely entered the new, second "Land and Freedom" created in 1876 (so named in memory of her predecessors). M.A. who worked in it 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, subordinating the minority to the majority. This organization was a hierarchically built union, headed by a governing body (“Administration”), to which “groups” (“villagers”, “working group”, “disorganizers”, etc.) were subordinate. There were branches of the organization in Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkov and other cities. The program of the organization assumed the implementation of the peasant revolution, the principles of collectivism and anarchism were declared the foundations of the state system (Bakuninism), along with the socialization of the land and the replacement of the state by a federation of communities.
In 1877, the "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 the appendix to it "Leaflet" Land and Freedom "(Petersburg, No. 1-6, March- June 1879), they were vividly discussed by the illegal press in Russia and abroad. Some supporters of propaganda work justifiably insisted on the transition from "flying propaganda" to long-term settled rural settlements (this movement received the name "second going to the people" in the literature). This time, propagandists first mastered crafts that were supposed to be useful in the countryside, becoming doctors, paramedics, clerks, teachers, blacksmiths, and woodcutters. Settled settlements of propagandists arose first in the Volga region (the center is the Saratov province), then in the Don region and some other provinces. The same landowners-propagandists created and " working group", in order to continue campaigning at the factories and enterprises of St. Petersburg, Kharkov and Rostov. They also organized the first demonstration in the history of Russia - December 6, 1876 at the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg. A banner with the slogan "Land and Freedom" was unfurled on it, G.V. Plekhanov made a speech.
The split of the landowners into "politicians" and "villagers". Lipetsk and Voronezh congresses. Meanwhile, the radicals, who were members of the same organization, were already urging supporters to move on to a direct political struggle against the autocracy. The populists of the South of the Russian Empire were the first to embark on this path, 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 A.A. Kvyatkovsky, member of Narodnaya Volya, from the dock before the announcement of his death sentence. “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 the 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. -Governor D.N. Kropotkin.
From March 1878, a fascination with terrorist attacks swept over St. Petersburg. On proclamations calling for the destruction of 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 his successor, General A.R. Drenteln. The leaflet of "Land and Freedom" (chief editor - N.A. Morozov) finally turned into an organ of terrorists.
Police persecution was the response to the terrorist attacks of the landlords. Government repression, not comparable in scale to the previous one (in 1874), also affected those revolutionaries who were in the countryside at that time. A dozen demonstrations took place in Russia political processes with sentences of 10–15 years hard labor for printed and oral propaganda, 16 death sentences were passed (1879) only for “belonging to a criminal community” (this was judged by proclamations found in the house, proven facts of transferring money to the revolutionary treasury, etc. .). Under these conditions, the preparation of A.K. Solovyov to assassinate the emperor on April 2, 1879 was regarded by many members of the organization ambiguously: some of them protested against the attack, believing that it would ruin the cause of revolutionary propaganda.
When in May 1879 the terrorists created the Freedom or Death group, without coordinating their actions with the supporters of propaganda (O.V. Aptekman, G.V. Plekhanov), it became clear that the general discussion conflict situation can't be avoided.
On June 15, 1879, supporters of active actions gathered in Lipetsk to develop additions to the organization's program and a common position. The Lipetsk Congress showed that common ideas"politicians" with propagandists are becoming less and less.
On June 19–21, 1879, at a congress in Voronezh, the Zemlya Volya tried to resolve the contradictions and preserve the unity of the organization, but unsuccessfully: on August 15, 1879, Land and Freedom disintegrated.
Supporters of the old tactic - "villagers", who considered it necessary to abandon the methods of terror (Plekhanov, L.G. Deutsch, P.B. Akselrod, Zasulich, etc.) united in a new political entity, calling it "Black Repartition" redistribution of land on the basis of peasant customary law, "black"). They declared themselves the main successors of the cause of the "landlords".
"Politicians", that is, supporters of active actions under the leadership of the conspiratorial party, created an alliance, which was given the name "Narodnaya Volya". A.I. Zhelyabov, S.L. Perovskaya, A.D. Mikhailov, N.A. Morozov, V.N. a detonator of an explosion capable of awakening the peasant masses and destroying their age-old inertia.
Program of the People's Will,
operating under the motto "Now or never!", allowed individual terror as a response, a means of protection and as a form of disorganization of the current government in response to violence on its part. “Terror is a terrible thing,” said S. M. Kravchinsky, member of the Narodnaya Volya. “And there is only one thing worse than terror, and that is to endure violence without complaint.” Thus, in the program of the organization, terror was designated as one of the means designed to prepare a popular uprising. Having further strengthened the principles of centralization and secrecy worked out by Land and Liberty, Narodnaya Volya set the immediate goal of changing the political system (including by regicide), and then convening Constituent Assembly, assertion of political freedoms.
Behind short term, during the year, the people created an extensive organization headed by the Executive Committee. It included 36 people, incl. Zhelyabov, Mikhailov, Perovskaya, Figner, M.F. Frolenko. About 80 territorial groups and about 500 of the most active Narodnaya Volya members in the center and in the localities were subordinate to the executive committee, who, in turn, managed to unite several thousand like-minded people.
4 special formations of all-Russian significance - the Workers', Student 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, Listok Narodnaya Volya, Rabochaya Gazeta), many proclamations with a circulation of 3,000–5,000 copies unheard of at the time.
Members of the "Narodnaya Volya" were distinguished by high moral qualities (this can be judged by their court speeches and suicide letters) - devotion to the idea of \u200b\u200bthe struggle for "people's happiness", selflessness, self-giving. At the same time, the educated Russian society not only did not condemn, but also fully sympathized with the success of this organization.
Meanwhile, in the “Narodnaya Volya” a “Combat Group” was created (headed by Zhelyabov), which aimed to prepare terrorist attacks as a response to the actions of the tsarist government, which banned the peaceful propaganda of socialist ideas. A limited circle of people was 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, the military prosecutor V.S. F.A. Shkryaba, traitor A.Ya. Zharkov.
The Narodnaya Volya people staged a real hunt for the king. They consistently studied the routes of his trips, the arrangement of rooms in the Winter Palace. A network of dynamite workshops made bombs and explosives (in this case, the talented inventor N.I. Kibalchich especially distinguished himself, who later, when he was awaiting the death penalty in solitary confinement in the Peter and Paul Fortress, drew a diagram of a jet aircraft). In total, 8 attempts were made on Alexander II by Narodnaya Volya (the first on November 18, 1879).
As a result, the authorities faltered, creating the Supreme Administrative Commission headed by M.T. Loris-Melikov (1880). He was ordered to sort out the situation, including intensifying the fight against the "bombers". Having proposed to Alexander II a draft of reforms that would allow elements of representative government and should satisfy the liberals, Loris-Melikov expected 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 make them turn off the chosen path. Sophia Perovskaya took over the task of preparing the regicide. 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 that he join the ranks of the participants in this assassination attempt in order to share the fate of his comrades.
At that time, ordinary members of the People's Will were engaged not only in terrorist activities, but also in propaganda, agitation, organizing, publishing and other activities. But they also suffered for their participation in it: after the events of March 1, mass arrests began, culminating in a series of litigation(“Process of 20”, “Process of 17”, “Process of 14”, etc.). The execution of members of the Executive Committee of the "Narodnaya Volya" was completed by the defeat of its organizations in the field. 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 life exile.
The activities of the "Black Repartition".
After the assassination on March 1, 1881 by the Narodnaya Volya of Alexander II and the accession to the throne of his son Alexander III, the era of "great reforms" in Russia ended. Neither revolutions nor the mass demonstrations expected by the Narodnaya Volya occurred. For many surviving populists, the ideological gap between the peasant world and the intelligentsia became obvious, which could not be quickly bridged.
16 populists-"villagers" (Plekhanov, Zasulich, Deich, Aptekman, Ya.V. workers and peasants newspaper "Grain" (1880-1881), but it was also soon destroyed. Pinning their hopes again on propaganda, they continued to work among the military, students, organized circles in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tula and Kharkov. After the arrest of part of the Black Peredelists in late 1881 - early 1882, Plekhanov, Zasulich, Deutsch and Stefanovich emigrated to Switzerland, where, having familiarized themselves with Marxist ideas, they created the Emancipation of Labor group in 1883 in Geneva. A decade later, in the same place, abroad, other populist groups launched their work (the Union of Russian Socialist-Revolutionaries in Bern, the Free Russian Press Foundation in London, the Old Narodnaya Volya Group in Paris), whose goal was to publish and distribute in Russian illegal literature. However, the former "Chernoperedel" members, who were part of the Emancipation of Labor group, not only did not want to cooperate, but also waged a fierce polemic with them. Plekhanov's main works, especially his books "Socialism and the Political Struggle", "Our Differences" were aimed at criticizing the fundamental concepts of the Narodniks from the standpoint of Marxism. Thus, classical populism, leading its origins from Herzen and Chernyshevsky, has practically exhausted itself. Decline has begun revolutionary populism and the rise of liberal populism.
However, the sacrificial activity of the classical Narodniks and Narodnaya Volya was not in vain. They wrested many concrete concessions from tsarism in various areas economics, politics, culture. Among them, for example, in the peasant question - the abolition of the temporarily obligated state of the peasants, the abolition of the poll tax, the reduction (by almost 30%) of redemption payments, the establishment of the Peasants' Bank. In the labor question - the creation of the beginnings of factory legislation (the law of June 1, 1882 on the restriction of child labor and on the introduction of factory inspection). Of political concessions, the liquidation of the III branch and the release of Chernyshevsky from Siberia were of significant importance.
Liberal populism in the 1880s.
The 1880s–1890s in the history of the ideological evolution of the populist doctrine are considered the period of domination by its liberal component. The ideas of "bombism" and the overthrow of the foundations after the defeat of the Narodnaya Volya 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. So, N.K. Mikhailovsky continued the development of the subjective method in sociology. 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 person" (intellectual) in the progress of society. Not becoming a supporter of revolutionary violence, this theorist advocated reforms as the main means of realizing the overdue transformations.
Simultaneously with his constructions, P.P. Chervinsky and I.I. Kablits (Yuzova) expressed their opinion on the prospects for the development of Russia, whose works are associated with the beginning of a departure from the doctrine of a socialist orientation. Having critically comprehended the ideals of revolutionism, they brought to the fore not the moral duty of the enlightened minority of the country, but the awareness of the needs and demands of the people. The rejection of socialist ideas was accompanied by a new arrangement of accents, increased attention to "cultural activities". The successor of 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 the zemstvos. The strength of Abramov's propaganda work was its clear targeting - appeal to doctors, teachers, agronomists with an appeal to help the position of the Russian peasant with his own work. In essence, Abramov put forward the idea of a depoliticized "going to the people" under the slogan of doing small things that make up the lives of millions. For many zemstvo employees, the "theory of small deeds" has become an ideology of utility.
In other populist theories of the 1880–1890s, which received the name of “economic romanticism”, it was proposed to “save the community” (N.F. Danielson), programs were put forward state regulation economy, in the implementation of which the peasant economy could adapt to commodity-money relations (V.P. Vorontsov). The adherence of the followers of the landowners to two directions became more and more distinct - those who shared the idea of "adaptation" to the new conditions of existence and those who called for a political reform of the country with a reorientation to the socialist ideal. However, the unifying element for both remained the recognition of the need for the peaceful evolution of Russia, the rejection of violence, the struggle for individual freedom and solidarity, the artel-communal method of organizing the economy. Being on the whole an erroneous petty-bourgeois theory, "economic romanticism" drew the attention of public thought to the peculiarities economic development Russia.
From the mid-1880s, the main publication of the liberal populists became the journal Russkoye Bogatstvo, published from 1880 by an artel of writers (N.N. Zlatovratsky, S.N. Krivenko, E.M. Garshin, etc.)
Since 1893, the new editors of the journal (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.
The resumption of the "circle". Neopopulism.
Since the mid-1880s, there have been trends in Russia towards the decentralization of the revolutionary underground, towards the strengthening of work in the provinces. Such tasks were set, in particular, by the Young Party of the People's Will.
In 1885, a congress of the southern Narodnaya Volya (B.D. Orzhikh, V.G. Bogoraz and others) gathered in Yekaterinoslav, trying to unite the revolutionary forces of the region. At the end of December 1886, the “Terrorist faction of the Narodnaya Volya party” arose in St. Petersburg (A.I. Ulyanov, P.Ya. Shevyryov and others). The program of the latter, 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". Narodnaya Volya organizations and organizations ideologically close to them continued to operate in Kostroma, Vladimir, Yaroslavl in the 1890s. In 1891, the "Group of Narodnaya Volya" worked in St. Petersburg, in Kiev - "South Russian group of Narodnaya Volya".
In 1893–1894, the “Social Revolutionary Party of People’s Law” (M.A. Natanson, P.N. Nikolaev, N.N. Tyutchev and others) set the task of uniting the country’s anti-government forces, but it failed. As Marxism spread in Russia, populist organizations lost their dominant position and influence.
The revival of the revolutionary direction in populism, which began in the late 1890s (the so-called "neo-populism") turned out to be associated with the activities of the party of socialist revolutionaries (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 in composition, populist groups and circles that existed in St. Petersburg, Penza, Poltava, Voronezh, Kharkov, Odessa united in the Southern Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (1900), others - in the "Union of Socialist-Revolutionaries" ( 1901). Their organizers were M.R. Gots, O.S. Minor and others - former populists.
Irina Pushkareva, Natalia Pushkareva
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Pirumova N.M. Social doctrine of M.A. Bakunin. M., 1990
Rudnitskaya E.L. Russian Blanquism: Pyotr Tkachev. M., 1992
Zverev V.V. Reformist populism and the problem of Russia's modernization. M., 1997
Budnitsky O.V. Terrorism in Russian freedom movement
. M., 2000
Blokhin V.V. The historical concept of Nikolai Mikhailovsky. M., 2001
1 . The labor movement, which at that time was only taking its first steps, cannot yet be taken into account here.
3. Against students, as well as against peasants, tsarism used troops, and for a time closed St. Petersburg and Kazan universities. Peter-Pavel's Fortress was then filled with arrested students. Someone's bold hand inscribed "Petersburg University" on the wall of the fortress.
4. Chernyshevsky was arrested by the gendarmerie colonel Fyodor Rakeev - the same one who in 1837 took the body of A.S. Pushkin and thus twice took communion with Russian literature.
5. It is striking that almost all Soviet historians, headed by Acad. M.V. Nechkina, although they were indignant at Kostomarov's perjury, they considered Chernyshevsky the author of the proclamation "To the Barsk Peasants" (in order to sharpen his revolutionary spirit). Meanwhile, "not a single argument usually cited in favor of Chernyshevsky's authorship withstands criticism" ( Demchenko A.A. N.G. Chernyshevsky. Scientific biography. Saratov, 1992. Part 3 (1859-1864) S. 276).
6. For details, see: The Chernyshevsky case: Sat. Doc-tov / Comp. I.V. Powder. Saratov, 1968.
7. Testimony of A.I. Yakovlev (a student of Klyuchevsky) according to the historian himself. Cit. By: Nechkina M.V. IN. Klyuchevsky. History of life and creativity. M., 1974. S. 127.
8. It was the Ishutins who tried to carry out the first of the eight known attempts to free Chernyshevsky from Siberia.
9 . He was interrogated before execution by Muravyov himself and threatened: “I will bury you alive in the ground!” But on August 31, 1866, Muravyov died suddenly, and he was buried a day earlier than Karakozov.
10. Its text was published repeatedly. See for example: Shilov A.A. Catechism of a revolutionary // Struggle of classes. 1924. No. 1-2. Until recently, M.A. was considered the author of the Catechism. Bakunin, but, as is clear from Bakunin’s correspondence with Nechaev, first published in 1966 by the French historian M. Confino, Nechaev composed the “Catechism”, and Bakunin was even shocked by him so that he called Nechaev “abrek”, and his “Catechism” - "Catechism of the Abreks".
"Journey to the people"
From the beginning of the 1970s, the populists began to put into practice Herzen's slogan "To the people!" By /251/ by that time, the populist doctrine of Herzen and Chernyshevsky was supplemented (mainly on matters of tactics) by the ideas of the leaders of the Russian political emigration, M.A. Bakunin, P.L. Lavrova, P.N. Tkachev.
The most authoritative of them at that time was Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin, a hereditary nobleman, friend of V.G. Belinsky and A.I. Herzen, a passionate opponent of K. Marx and F. Engels, a political emigrant since 1840, one of the leaders of the uprisings in Prague (1848), Dresden (1849) and Lyon (1870), sentenced in absentia by the royal court to hard labor, and then twice (by the courts Austria and Saxony) - to the death penalty. He outlined the program of action for the Russian revolutionaries in the so-called Addendum "A" to his book "Statehood and Anarchy".
Bakunin believed that the people in Russia were already ready for the revolution, because the need had brought them to such a desperate state, when there was no other way out but rebellion. Bakunin perceived the spontaneous protest of the peasants as their conscious readiness for revolution. On this basis, he urged the populists to go to the people(i.e., into the peasantry, which at that time was actually identified with the people) and call them to revolt. Bakunin was convinced that in Russia "it costs nothing to raise any village" and it is only necessary to "agitate" the peasants in all the villages at once in order for all of Russia to rise.
So, Bakunin's direction was rebellious. Its second feature: it was anarchist. Bakunin himself was considered the leader of world anarchism. He and his followers opposed any state in general, seeing in it the primary source of social ills. In the view of Bakuninists, the state is a stick that beats the people, and for the people it does not matter whether this stick is called feudal, bourgeois or socialist. Therefore, they advocated a transition to stateless socialism.
From Bakunin's anarchism also flowed specifically- populist apoliticism. The Bakunists considered the task of fighting for political freedoms to be superfluous, not because they did not understand their value, but because they strove to act, as it seemed to them, more radically and more advantageously for the people: to carry out not a political, but a social revolution, one of the fruits of which would be by itself, “like smoke from a stove,” and political freedom. In other words, the Bakuninists did not deny the political revolution, but dissolved it in the social revolution.
Another populist ideologue of the 1970s, Pyotr Lavrovich Lavrov, came to the fore in the international political arena later than Bakunin, but soon gained no less prestige. Artillery colonel, philosopher and mathematician of such bright talent that the famous academician M.V. Ostrogradsky admired him: “He is even faster than me,” Lavrov was an active revolutionary, /252/ a member of Land and Freedom and the First International, a participant in the Paris Commune of 1870, a friend of Marx and Engels. He outlined his program in the Forward! (No. 1), which published from 1873 to 1877 in Zurich and London.
Lavrov, unlike Bakunin, believed that the Russian people were not ready for revolution and, therefore, the populists should awaken their revolutionary consciousness. Lavrov also urged them to go to the people, but not immediately, but after theoretical training, and not for rebellion, but for propaganda. As a propaganda trend, lavrism seemed to many populists more rational than Bakuninism, although it repelled others with its speculativeness, its emphasis on preparing not the revolution itself, but its preparers. “Prepare and only prepare” – such was the thesis of the Lavrists. Anarchism and apoliticalism were also characteristic of Lavrov's supporters, but less so than the Bakuninists.
The ideologist of the third direction was Pyotr Nikitich Tkachev, a candidate of rights, a radical publicist who fled abroad in 1873 after five arrests and exile. However, the direction of Tkachev is called Russian Blanquism, since the famous Auguste Blanqui had previously spoken in France from the same positions. Unlike the Bakuninists and Lavrists, the Russian Blanquists were not anarchists. They considered it necessary to fight for political freedoms, seize state power and use it without fail to eradicate the old and establish a new system. But since. the modern Russian state, in their opinion, did not have strong roots in either economic or social soil (Tkachev said that it “hangs in the air”), the Blanquists hoped to overthrow it by force parties conspirators without bothering to propagandize or revolt the people. In this regard, Tkachev, as an ideologist, was inferior to Bakunin and Lavrov, who, despite all the differences between them, agreed on the main thing: "Not only for the people, but also through the people."
By the beginning of the mass "going to the people" (spring 1874) Bakunin's and Lavrov's tactics had become widespread among the populists. Most importantly, the process of accumulation of forces has ended. By 1874, the entire European part of Russia was covered with a dense network of populist circles (at least 200), which managed to agree on the places and dates of the "walk".
All these circles were created in 1869-1873. under the influence of nechaevism. Rejecting Nechaev's Machiavellianism, they went to the opposite extreme and discarded the very idea of a centralized organization, which was so ugly refracted in /253/ Nechaevism. The circle members of the 70s did not recognize either centralism, or discipline, or any charters and statutes. This organizational anarchism prevented the revolutionaries from ensuring the coordination, secrecy and effectiveness of their actions, as well as the selection of reliable people into the circles. Almost all circles of the beginning of the 70s looked like this - both Bakuninist (Dolgushintsev, S.F. Kovalik, F.N. Lermontov, "Kiev Commune", etc.), and Lavrist (L.S. Ginzburg, B.S. Ivanovsky , "sen-zhebunists", i.e. brothers Zhebunev, etc.).
Only one of the populist organizations of that time (it is true, the largest one) retained, even under the conditions of organizational anarchism, exaggerated circleism, the reliability of the three Cs, equally necessary: composition, structure, connections. It was the Great Propaganda Society (the so-called "Chaikovites"). The central, St. Petersburg group of society arose in the summer of 1871 and became the initiator of the federal association of similar groups in Moscow, Kyiv, Odessa, Kherson. The main composition of the society exceeded 100 people. Among them were the largest revolutionaries of the era, then still young, but soon won world fame: P.A. Kropotkin, M.A. Natanson, S.M. Kravchinsky, A.I. Zhelyabov, S.L. Perovskaya, N.A. Morozov and others. The society had a network of agents and employees in different parts of the European part of Russia (Kazan, Orel, Samara, Vyatka, Kharkov, Minsk, Vilna, etc.), and dozens of circles created under his leadership or influence adjoined it. The Chaikovites established business ties with the Russian political emigration, including Bakunin, Lavrov, Tkachev, and the short-lived (in 1870-1872) Russian Section of the I International. Thus, in terms of its structure and scale, the Great Propaganda Society was the germ of an all-Russian revolutionary organization, the forerunner of the second society "Land and Freedom".
In the spirit of that time, the “Chaikovites” did not have a charter, but they had an unshakable, albeit unwritten, law: the subordination of the individual to the organization, the minority to the majority. At the same time, the society was completed and built on principles directly opposite to those of non-Chaikovites: they accepted into it only comprehensively tested (by business, mental and necessarily moral qualities) people who interacted respectfully and trustingly with each other. "all were brothers, all knew each other, like members of the same family, if not more." It was these /254/ principles of relationships that henceforth were laid at the foundation of all populist organizations up to and including Narodnaya Volya.
The program of the society was developed thoroughly. It was drafted by Kropotkin. While almost all Narodniks were divided into Bakuninists and Lavrists, the “Chaikovites” independently developed tactics free from the extremes of Bakuninism and Lavrism, calculated not on a hasty revolt of the peasants and not on the “training of the instigators” of the revolt, but on an organized popular uprising (peasants under worker support). To this end, they went through three stages in their activities: “book business” (i.e., training of future organizers of the uprising), “working business” (training of mediators between the intelligentsia and the peasantry) and directly “going to the people”, which “chaikovtsy actually led.
The mass "going to the people" in 1874 was hitherto unparalleled in the Russian liberation movement in terms of the scale and enthusiasm of the participants. It covered more than 50 provinces, from the Far North to Transcaucasia and from the Baltic to Siberia. All the revolutionary forces of the country went to the people at the same time - about 2-3 thousand active figures (99% - boys and girls), who were helped twice or three times more sympathizers. Almost all of them believed in the revolutionary susceptibility of the peasants and in an imminent uprising: the Lavrists expected it in 2-3 years, and the Bakuninists - "in the spring" or "in the autumn."
The susceptibility of the peasants to the appeals of the populists, however, turned out to be less than expected not only by the Bakuninists, but also by the Lavrists. The peasants showed particular indifference to the Narodniks' fiery tirades about socialism and universal equality. “It’s not all right, brother, you’re talking,” the elderly peasant said to the young populist, “look at your hand: it has five fingers and all are unequal!” There were also big problems. “Once we are walking along the road with a friend,” said S.M. Kravchinsky.- A man on a firewood is catching up with us. I began to explain to him that taxes should not be paid, that the officials were robbing the people, and that according to the scripture, it turns out that one should rebel. The man whipped his horse, but we also quickened our pace. He urged the horse on to a jog, but we also ran after him, and all the time I continued to explain to him about taxes and rebellion. Finally, the peasant started the horse at a gallop, but the horse was crappy, so we kept up with the sleigh and propagandized the peasant until we completely took our breath away.
The authorities, instead of taking into account the loyalty of the peasants and subjecting the exalted populist youth to moderate punishments, attacked "going to the people" with the most severe repressions. All of Russia was swept by an unprecedented wave of arrests, the victims of which in the summer of 1874 alone were, / 255 / according to an informed contemporary, 8 thousand people. They were kept in pre-trial detention for three years, after which the most “dangerous” of them were brought to trial by the OPPS.
The trial in the case of "going to the people" (the so-called "Trial of the 193s") was held in October 1877 - January 1878. and turned out to be the largest political trial in history tsarist Russia. The judges handed down 28 hard labor, more than 70 exile and prison sentences, but almost half of the accused (90 people) were acquitted. Alexander II, however, sent into exile 80 of the 90 acquitted by the court.
The "going to the people" of 1874 did not so much excite the peasants as frighten the government. An important (albeit secondary) result was the fall of P.A. Shuvalov. In the summer of 1874, at the very height of the “walking”, when the futility of eight years of Shuvalov’s inquisition became obvious, the tsar demoted “Peter IV” from dictators to diplomats, saying to him among other things: “You know, I appointed you ambassador to London.”
For the Narodniks, Shuvalov's resignation was little consolation. The year 1874 showed that the peasantry in Russia had as yet no interest in the revolution, in particular the socialist one. But the revolutionaries did not want to believe this. They saw the reasons for their failure in the abstract, "bookish" nature of propaganda and in the organizational weakness of the "walk", as well as in government repression, and set about eliminating these causes with tremendous energy.
The very first populist organization that arose after the “going to the people” in 1874 (the All-Russian Social-Revolutionary Organization or the “circle of Muscovites”) showed concern for the principles of centralism, secrecy and discipline, which was not characteristic of the participants in the “going”, and even adopted a charter. The Circle of Muscovites was the first association of populists of the 1970s armed with a charter. Taking into account the sad experience of 1874, when the Narodniks failed to gain the confidence of the people, the “Muscovites” expanded the social composition of the organization: along with the “intellectuals”, they accepted into the organization a working circle headed by Pyotr Alekseev. Unexpectedly for other populists, the "Muscovites" concentrated their activities not in the peasant, but in working environment, because under the impression of government repressions in 1874 they retreated before the difficulties of direct propaganda among the peasants and returned to what the Narodniks had been doing before 1874, i.e. to the training of workers as intermediaries between the intelligentsia and the peasantry. /256/
The "circle of Muscovites" did not last long. It took shape in February 1875, and two months later it was destroyed. Pyotr Alekseev and Sofya Bardina spoke on his behalf at the "50" trial in March 1877 with programmatic revolutionary speeches. Thus, for the first time in Russia, the dock was turned into a revolutionary platform. The circle perished, but its organizational experience, along with the organizational experience of the Great Propaganda Society, was used by the Land and Freedom Society.
By the autumn of 1876, the Narodniks created a centralized organization of all-Russian significance, calling it "Land and Freedom" - in memory of its predecessor, "Land and Freedom" of the early 60s. The second "Land and Freedom" was intended not only to ensure reliable coordination of the revolutionary forces and protect them from government repressions, but also to fundamentally change the nature of propaganda. The landowners decided to rouse the peasantry to fight not under the “bookish” and alien banner of socialism, but under slogans emanating from the peasant milieu itself—first of all, under the slogan of “land and freedom,” all land and full freedom.
Like the Narodniks in the first half of the 1970s, the Zemlednists were still anarchists, but less consistent. They only declared in their program: Finite our political and economic ideal is anarchy and collectivism”; they narrowed the specific requirements “to those that are realistically feasible in the near future”: 1) the transfer of all land into the hands of the peasants, 2) complete communal self-government, 3) freedom of religion, 4) self-determination of the nations living in Russia, up to their separation. There were no purely political tasks in the program. The means to achieve the goal were divided into two parts: organizational(propaganda and agitation among peasants, workers, intelligentsia, officers, even among religious sects and "robber gangs") and disorganizing(here, in response to the repressions of 1874, for the first time among the Narodniks, individual terror against the pillars and agents of the government was legalized).
Along with the "Land and Freedom" program, it adopted a charter imbued with the spirit of centralism, the strictest discipline and secrecy. The Society had a clear organizational structure: the Council of the Society; the main circle, subdivided into 7 special groups according to the type of activity; local groups in at least 15 major cities of the empire, including Moscow, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Voronezh, Saratov, Rostov, Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa. "Land and Liberty" 1876-1879 - the first revolutionary organization in Russia, which began to publish its own literary organ, the newspaper "Land and Liberty". For the first time, she managed to introduce her agent (N.V. Kletochnikov) into the holy of holies of the royal investigation - into the III department. The composition of "Land and Freedom" hardly exceeded 200 people, but relied on a wide /257/ circle of sympathizers and supporters in all sectors of Russian society.
The organizers of the "Land and Freedom" were the "Chaikovites", the spouses M.A. and O.A. Natanson: The landowners called Mark Andreevich the head of society, Olga Alexandrovna - its heart. Together with them, and especially after their quick arrest, student-technologist Alexander Dmitrievich Mikhailov, one of the best organizers among the Narodniks, came forward to the role of leader of the "Land and Freedom" (in this respect, only M.A. Natanson and A. I. Zhelyabova) and the most prominent of them (there is no one to put on a par with him) conspirator, a classic of revolutionary conspiracy. Like none of the landowners, he delved into literally every business of society, arranged everything, set everything in motion, protected everything. The landowners called Mikhailov "Cato-censor" of the organization, its "shield" and "armor", considered him a ready-made prime minister in case of a revolution; in the meantime, for his vigilant concern for order in the revolutionary underground, they gave him the nickname "Janitor" - with it he went down in history: Mikhailov the Janitor.
The main circle of "Land and Freedom" included other prominent revolutionaries, including Sergei Mikhailovich Kravchinsky, who later became a world-famous writer under the pseudonym "Stepnyak"; Dmitry Andreevich Lizogub, known in radical circles as a “saint” (L.N. Tolstoy portrayed him in the story “Divine and Human” under the name of Svetlogub); Valerian Andreyevich Osinsky is an extremely charming favorite of "Earth and Freedom", "Apollo of the Russian Revolution", in the words of Kravchinsky; Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov - later the first Russian Marxist; future leaders of the "Narodnaya Volya" A.I. Zhelyabov, S.L. Perovskaya, N.A. Morozov, V.N. Figner.
Most of its forces "Land and Freedom" sent to the organization of rural settlements. The landowners considered (quite rightly) useless the “wandering” propaganda of 1874 and switched to settled propaganda among the peasants, creating permanent settlements of revolutionary propagandists in the villages under the guise of teachers, clerks, paramedics, etc. The largest of these settlements were two Saratov settlements in 1877 and 1878-1879, where A.D. Mikhailov, O.A. Natanson, G.V. Plekhanov, V.N. Figner, N.A. Morozov and others.
However, rural settlements also did not bring success. The peasants showed no more revolutionary spirit to the sedentary propagandists than to the "vagrants". The authorities, on the other hand, caught sedentary propagandists no less successfully than "vagrant" ones, according to many signs. The American journalist George Kennan, who was studying Russia at the time, testified that populists who got jobs as clerks "were soon arrested, concluding that they were revolutionary by the fact that they did not drink /258/ and did not take bribes" (it was immediately clear that the clerks were not real ones).
Discouraged by the failure of their settlements, the populists undertook a new revision of tactics after 1874. Then they explained their fiasco by shortcomings in the nature and organization of propaganda and (in part!) by government repression. Now, having eliminated the obvious shortcomings in the organization and nature of propaganda, but again having failed, they considered it the main cause of government repression. This led to the conclusion: it is necessary to concentrate efforts on the fight against the government, i.e. already on political fight.
Objectively, the revolutionary struggle of the Narodniks has always been political in nature, since it was directed against the existing system, including its political regime. But, without singling out particularly political demands, concentrating on social propaganda among the peasants, the populists directed the spearhead of their revolutionary spirit, as it were, past the government. Now, having chosen the government as the No. 1 target, the landlords have put forward the disorganizing unit, which at first remained in reserve, to the fore. Propaganda and agitation of "Land and Freedom" gained political sharpness, and in parallel with them, terrorist acts against the authorities began to be undertaken.
On January 24, 1878, a young teacher, Vera Zasulich, shot at the St. Petersburg mayor F.F. Trepov (Adjutant General and personal friend of Alexander II) and severely wounded him because, on his orders, a political prisoner, landlord A.S. was subjected to corporal punishment. Emelyanov. On August 4 of the same year, the editor of "Land and Freedom" Sergei Kravchinsky committed an even more high-profile terrorist act: in broad daylight in front of the Tsar's Mikhailovsky Palace in St. Petersburg (now the Russian Museum), he stabbed the chief of gendarmes N.V. Mezentsov, personally responsible for the mass repressions against the populists. Zasulich was captured at the scene of the assassination attempt and put on trial, Kravchinsky fled.
The Narodniks' turn to terror met with undisguised approval in broad circles of Russian society, intimidated by government repressions. This was clearly shown by the public trial of Vera Zasulich. At the trial, Trepov's abuse of power was so blatant that the jury found it possible to acquit the terrorist. The audience applauded Zasulich's words: "It's hard to raise a hand against a person, but I had to do it." The acquittal in the Zasulich case caused a real sensation not only in Russia, but also abroad. Since it was passed on March 31, 1878, and the newspapers reported on it on April 1, many took it as an April Fool's joke, and then the whole country fell, according to /259/ P.L. Lavrov, into "liberal intoxication". An upsurge of revolutionary spirit was growing everywhere, fighting enthusiasm was in full swing - especially among students and workers. All this stimulated the political activity of the landowners, prompted them to new terrorist acts.
Growing, the "red" terror of "Land and Freedom" fatally pushed her to regicide. “It became strange,” Vera Figner recalled, “to beat the servants who did the will of the sender, and not touch the master.” On the morning of April 2, 1879, the farmer A.K. Soloviev penetrated with a revolver to Palace Square, where Alexander II was walking, accompanied by guards, and managed to discharge the entire clip of five cartridges into the king, but only shot through the royal overcoat. Captured immediately by the guards, Solovyov was soon hanged.
Part of the landowners, led by Plekhanov, rejected terror, advocating the old methods of propaganda in the countryside. Therefore, the terrorist acts of Zasulich, Kravchinsky, Solovyov caused a crisis of "Land and Freedom": two factions separated themselves in it - "politicians" (mainly terrorists) and "villagers". In order to prevent a split in society, it was decided to convene a congress of landowners. It took place in Voronezh on June 18-24, 1879.
The day before, on June 15-17, the “politicians” had gathered factional in Lipetsk and agreed on their amendment to the “Land and Liberty” program. The meaning of the amendment was to recognize the necessity and priority of the political struggle against the government, because "no public activity aimed at the good of the people is possible due to the arbitrariness and violence reigning in Russia." This amendment was put forward by the "politicians" at the Voronezh Congress, where it became clear, however, that both factions did not want a split, hoping to conquer society from within. Therefore, the congress adopted a compromise resolution that allowed for the combination of apolitical propaganda in the countryside with political terror.
This decision failed to satisfy either side. Very soon, both the "politicians" and the "villagers" realized that it was impossible to "combine kvass and alcohol", that a split was inevitable, and on August 15, 1879, they agreed to divide the "Earth and Freedom" into two organizations: "Narodnaya Volya" and "Cherny redistribution". It was divided, as N.A. Morozov, and the very name "Land and Freedom": "village workers" took for themselves " earth", and "politicians" - " will and each faction went its own way. /260/
Walking among the people- the movement of student youth and revolutionary populists with the aim of enlightening the people and revolutionary agitation directly among the peasant masses. The first, student and educational stage began in 1861, and the movement reached its greatest extent in the form of organized revolutionary agitation in 1874. "Walking to the people" influenced the self-organization of the revolutionary movement, but did not have a significant impact on populace. This phrase entered the Russian language and is used ironically today.
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First stage
In the middle of the 19th century, interest in higher education, especially to natural sciences. But in the fall of 1861, the government raised tuition fees and banned student mutual funds. In response to this, student unrest occurred at the universities, after which many students were expelled from educational institutions. A significant part of the active youth turned out to be thrown out of life - the expelled students could neither get a job in the civil service due to "unreliability", nor continue their studies. Herzen wrote in the newspaper The Bell in 1861:
In subsequent years, the number of "exiles of science" grew, and going to the people became a mass phenomenon. During this period, former and failed students became rural teachers and paramedics.
The propaganda activities of the revolutionary Zaichnevsky, the author of the proclamation “Young Russia”, who went to the people as early as 1861, gained great fame. However, in general, during this period, the movement was of the social and educational nature of "serving the people", and Zaichnevsky's radical Jacobin agitation was rather an exception.
Second phase
In the early 1870s, the populists set the task of drawing the people into the revolutionary struggle. The ideological leaders of the organized revolutionary movement among the people were the populist N. V. Tchaikovsky, the anarchist P. A. Kropotkin, the "moderate" revolutionary theorist P. L. Lavrov and the radical anarchist M. A. Bakunin, who wrote:
A theoretical view of this problem was developed by the illegal magazine Vperyod! ”, published since 1873 under the editorship of Lavrov. However, the revolutionary youth strove for immediate action, there was a radicalization of views in the spirit of the ideas of the anarchist Bakunin. Kropotkin developed the theory that in order to carry out a revolution, the advanced intelligentsia must live folk life and to create circles of active peasants in the villages with their subsequent unification into a peasant movement. Kropotkin's teaching combined the ideas of Lavrov on the enlightenment of the masses and the anarchist ideas of Bakunin, who denied the political struggle within the institutions of the state, the state itself and called for a nationwide revolt.
In the early 1970s there were many cases of individual revolutionaries going among the people. For example, Kravchinsky agitated the peasants of the Tula and Tver provinces back in the autumn of 1873 with the help of the Gospel, from which he drew socialist conclusions. Propaganda in overcrowded huts continued well into the night and was accompanied by the singing of revolutionary hymns. But by 1874 the Narodniks had developed a general view of the necessity of mass going to the people. The mass action began in the spring of 1874, was associated with a public upsurge, remained spontaneous in many respects and drew in various categories of people. A significant part of the youth was inspired by the idea of Bakunin to immediately raise a rebellion, but due to the diversity of the composition of the participants, the propaganda was also diverse, from calls to immediately start an uprising to the modest tasks of educating the people. The movement covered about forty provinces, mainly in the Volga region and in southern Russia. It was decided to deploy propaganda in these regions in connection with the famine of 1873-1874 in the Middle Volga region, the populists also believed that the traditions of Razin and Pugachev were alive here.
In practice, going to the people looked like this: young people, as a rule, student youth, one by one or in small groups under the guise of merchants, craftsmen, etc., moved from village to village, speaking at gatherings, talking with peasants, trying to instill distrust in the authorities , urged not to pay taxes, disobey the administration, explained the injustice of the distribution of land after the reform. Proclamations were distributed among the literate peasants. Refuting the popular opinion that the royal power is from God, the populists initially propagandized the Earth and will” and decided to change tactics and announced a “second trip to the people”. It was decided to move from the unsuccessful practice of "flying detachments" to the organization of permanent settlements of agitators. The revolutionaries opened workshops in the villages, got jobs as teachers or doctors, and tried to create revolutionary cells. However, the experience of three years of agitation showed that the peasantry did not perceive either radical revolutionary and socialist appeals, or an explanation of the current needs of the people, as they were understood by the populists. Attempts to rouse the people to fight did not bring any serious results, and the government paid attention to the revolutionary propaganda of the populists and launched repressions. Many propagandists were handed over to the authorities by the peasants themselves. More than 4 thousand people were arrested. Of these, 770 propagandists were involved in the inquiry, and 193 people were brought to trial in 1877. However, only 99 defendants were sentenced to hard labor, prison and exile, the rest were either given pre-trial detention or were fully acquitted.
The futility of revolutionary propaganda among the people, mass arrests, the trial of the 193rd and the trial of the fifty in 1877-1788 put an end to the movement.
What is Walking among the People?
Walking among the people is a mass movement of democratic youth to the countryside in Russia in the 1870s. For the first time the slogan "To the people!" put forward by A. I. Herzen in connection with the student unrest of 1861. In the 1860s - early 1870s. attempts to rapprochement with the people and revolutionary propaganda among them were made by members of the Land and Freedom, the Ishutin circle, the Ruble Society, and Dolgushintsy.
The leading role in the ideological preparation of the movement was played by P. L. Lavrov’s Historical Letters (1870), which called on the intelligentsia to “pay their debt to the people,” and V. V. Bervi’s (N. Flerovsky’s) The Condition of the Working Class in Russia. Preparations for the mass “Walking to the People” began in the autumn of 1873: the formation of circles intensified, among which the main role belonged to the Chaikovites, the publication of propaganda literature was established, peasant clothes were prepared, and young people mastered crafts in specially arranged workshops.
The mass “Walking to the People”, which began in the spring of 1874, was a spontaneous phenomenon that did not have a single plan, program, or organization. Among the participants were both supporters of P. L. Lavrov, who advocated the gradual preparation of a peasant revolution through socialist propaganda, and supporters of M. A. Bakunin, who strove for an immediate revolt. The democratic intelligentsia also participated in the movement, trying to get closer to the people and serve them with their knowledge.
Practical activity "among the people" erased the differences between directions, in fact, all participants conducted "flying propaganda" of socialism, wandering around the villages. The only attempt to raise a peasant uprising was the Chigirinsky Conspiracy (1877).
The movement that began in the central provinces of Russia (Moscow, Tver, Kaluga, Tula) soon spread to the Volga region and Ukraine. According to official data, 37 provinces of European Russia were covered by propaganda. The main centers were: the Potapovo estate of the Yaroslavl province, Penza, Saratov, Odessa, the “Kiev Commune”, etc. O. V. Aptekman, M. D. Muravsky, D. A. Klements, S. F. Kovalik, M. F. Frolenko, S. M. Kravchinsky, and many others. By the end of 1874, most of the propagandists were arrested, but the movement continued into 1875.
"Going to the people" took the form of "settlements" organized by "Earth and Freedom", "flying" was replaced by "sedentary propaganda". From 1873 to March 1879, 2,564 people were involved in an inquiry into the case of revolutionary propaganda, the main participants in the movement were convicted in the “trial of the 193”. "Going to the People" was defeated primarily because it was based on the utopian idea of populism about the possibility of the victory of the peasant revolution in Russia. "Walking to the People" did not have a leading center, most of the propagandists did not have the skills of conspiracy, which allowed the government to crush the movement relatively quickly. "Going to the people" was a turning point in the history of revolutionary populism.
His experience prepared a departure from Bakuninism, accelerated the process of maturation of the idea of the need for a political struggle against the autocracy, the creation of a centralized, clandestine organization of revolutionaries.
Populism is an ideological trend of a radical nature that opposed serfdom, for the overthrow of the autocracy or for the global reform of the Russian Empire. As a result of the actions of populism, Alexander 2 was killed, after which the organization actually collapsed. Neopopulism was restored in the late 1890s in the form of the activities of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.
Main dates:
- 1874-1875 - "the movement of populism to the people."
- 1876 - creation of "Land and Freedom".
- 1879 - "Land and Freedom" splits into "Narodnaya Volya" and "Black Repartition".
- March 1, 1881 - the assassination of Alexander 2.
Prominent historical figures of populism:
- Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich is one of the key ideologists of populism in Russia.
- Lavrov Petr Lavrovich - scientist. He also acted as an ideologue of populism.
- Chernyshevsky Nikolai Gavrilovich - writer and public figure. Ideologist of populism and informer of its main ideas.
- Zhelyabov Andrei Ivanovich - was a member of the Narodnaya Volya administration, one of the organizers of the assassination attempt on Alexander 2.
- Nechaev Sergey Gennadievich - the author of the Catechism of a Revolutionary, an active revolutionary.
- Tkachev Petr Nikolaevich - an active revolutionary, one of the ideologists of the movement.
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 move 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 Narodism called revolutionary? Because it called for the overthrow of the autocracy by any means, including the way of 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 is one of the methods to achieve the goal (albeit an extreme method).
The ideological currents of populism in the 70s
In the 1970s, populism entered into new stage when the organization was actually divided into 3 different ideological currents. These currents had a common goal - the overthrow of the autocracy, but the methods for achieving this goal differed.
The ideological currents of populism:
- Propaganda. Ideologist - P.L. Lavrov. Main idea - historical processes thinking people should lead. Therefore, populism must go to the people and enlighten them.
- Rebellious. Ideologist - M.A. Bakunin. The main idea was that propagandistic ideas were supported. The difference is that Bakunin spoke not simply of enlightening the people, but of calling them to take up arms against the 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 it is necessary to create a secret organization that will carry out a coup and seize power.
All directions developed in parallel.
Entry into the People is a mass movement that began in 1874, in which thousands of young people of Russia took part. In fact, they implemented the ideology of the populism of Lavrov and Bakunin, conducting propaganda with the villagers. They moved from one village to another, handed out propaganda materials to people, talked with people, calling them to active actions, explaining that it was impossible to live like this any longer. For greater persuasiveness, entry into the people involved the use of peasant clothing and conversation in a language understandable to the peasants. But this ideology was met with suspicion by the peasants. They were wary of strangers speaking "terrible speeches", and also thought quite differently from representatives of populism. Here is an example of one of the documented conversations:
- Who owns the land? Is she God's? - says Morozov, one of the active participants in joining the people.
- “God she is where no one lives. And where people live, there is human land,” was the answer of the peasants.
Obviously, populism had difficulty imagining the way of thinking of ordinary people, which means that their propaganda was extremely ineffective. Largely because of this, by the autumn of 1874, "entry into the people" began to fade away. By the same time, the repressions of the Russian government against those who "walked" began.
In 1876, the organization "Land and Freedom" was created. It was a secret organization that pursued one goal - the establishment of the Republic. Peasants' war was chosen as the achievement of this goal. Therefore, starting from 1876, the main efforts of Narodism were directed towards preparing for this war. The following areas were chosen as training:
- Propaganda. Again the members of "Land and Freedom" appealed to the people. They got jobs as teachers, doctors, paramedics, petty 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 give any effect. The peasants did not trust these people.
- individual terror. Actually 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 Kharkov Governor D.N. Kropotkin. In addition, an unsuccessful attempt was made on Alexander 2.
By the summer of 1879, "Land and Freedom" split into 2 organizations: "Black Repartition" and "Narodnaya Volya". This was preceded by a congress of populists in St. Petersburg, Voronezh and Lipetsk.
Black redistribution
"Black redistribution" was headed by G.V. Plekhanov. He called for the 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 down on them, but soon the peasants would begin to understand everything and "take up the pitchfork" 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, whom they began to hunt from 1879 to 1881 (8 assassination 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 attempts on the emperor, unrest began among the people. Alexander 2 in this situation 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, when certain elements of local government could be transferred under the control of "electors". In fact, this was what the peasants demanded, which means that this step significantly strengthened the monarchy. This draft law was to be signed by Alexander II 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 shot by a court verdict. The terror unleashed by the Narodnaya Volya 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 the right goals, but to achieve them she chose the meanest and meanest opportunities.
