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Narodnaya Volya
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Narodnaya Volya (???????? ???? in Russian, known as People’s Will in English) was a Russian terrorist organization, best known for the successful assassination of Czar Alexander II of Russia. It created a centralized, well disguised, and most significant organization in a time of diverse liberation movements in Russia. Narodnaya Volya was led by its Executive Committee: Alexander Mikhailov, Aleksandr Kvyatkovsky, Andrei Zhelyabov, Sophia Perovskaya, Vera Figner, Nikolai Morozov, Mikhail Frolenko, Lev Tikhomirov, Alexander Barannikov, Anna Yakimova, Maria Oshanina and others.
The Executive Committee was in charge of a network of local and special groups (composed of workers, students, and members of the military).
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Encyclopedia
Narodnaya Volya (???????? ???? in Russian, known as People’s Will in English) was a Russian terrorist organization, best known for the successful assassination of Czar Alexander II of Russia. It created a centralized, well disguised, and most significant organization in a time of diverse liberation movements in Russia. Narodnaya Volya was led by its Executive Committee: Alexander Mikhailov, Aleksandr Kvyatkovsky, Andrei Zhelyabov, Sophia Perovskaya, Vera Figner, Nikolai Morozov, Mikhail Frolenko, Lev Tikhomirov, Alexander Barannikov, Anna Yakimova, Maria Oshanina and others.
The Executive Committee was in charge of a network of local and special groups (composed of workers, students, and members of the military). In 1879–1883, Narodnaya Volya had affiliates in almost 50 cities, especially in Ukraine and the Volga region. Though the number of its members never exceeded 500, Narodnaya Volya had a few thousand followers.
The Program of Narodnaya Volya
Narodnaya Volya’s Program contained the following demands: convocation of the Constituent Assembly (for designing a Constitution); introduction of universal suffrage; permanent people’s representation, freedom of speech, press, and assembly; communal self-government; exchange of the permanent army with a people’s volunteer corps; transfer of land to the people; gradual placement of the factories under the control of the workers; and granting oppressed peoples of the Russian Empire the right to self-determination.
Narodnaya Volya's Program was a mix of democratic and socialist reforms. Narodnaya Volya differed from its parent organization, the narodnik Zemlya i volya, in that its members had come to believe that a social revolution would be impossible in the absence of a political revolution; the peasantry could not take possession of the land as long as the government remained autocratic. Given Zemlya i Volya's failures in its propaganda efforts among the peasants in the movements "to the people" in the early 1870s, Narodnaya Volya turned its energies against the central government. However, unlike Marxists, they continued to believe that Russia could achieve socialism through a peasant revolution, bypassing the stage of capitalism.
The members of Narodnaya Volya were not in complete agreement about the relationship between the social and political revolutions; some believed in the possibility of achieving both simultaneously, relying on the socialist instincts of the Russian peasantry, as demonstrated in the traditional peasant commune. Other members believed that a political revolution would have to take place first and, after the autocracy had been overthrown and democratic liberties established, revolutionaries would prepare people for the socialist revolution. The Liberal faction of Narodnaya Volya (which had no real influence) proposed to limit their demands to getting a Constitution from the tsarist government.
Narodnaya Volya spread its propaganda through all strata of the population. Its newspapers, "Narodnaya Volya" and “The Worker’s Gazette”, attempted to popularize the idea of a political struggle with the autocracy. Their struggle to topple autocracy was crowned by the slogan “Now or never!” Narodnaya Volya did not succeed in enlisting the peasantry in its work, which would later lead Soviet historians to charge it with Blanquism; these historians would argue that Narodnaya Volya understood political struggle only in terms of conspiracy and, therefore, looked more like a sect.
Resort to terrorism
As time went by, terrorism became increasingly more important, as well. A special place in the history of Narodnaya Volya belongs to its “Terrorist faction”, whose members — including Aleksandr Ulyanov (Vladimir Lenin's brother) — are also known as Pervomartovtsi. Narodnaya Volya prepared 7 assassination attempts on the life of Alexander II of Russia (until they finally killed him), and later on Alexander III of Russia. Its terror frightened the government and persuaded it to make a few concessions. However, the regime soon realized that the people would not rise up in support of the revolutionaries, which encouraged the Russian government to counterattack. In 1879–1883, there were more than 70 trials of N.v.’s members with about 2,000 people brought to trial (see Trial of the Fourteen). Narodnaya Volya's members were imprisoned or went to exile. This was the end of the organization.
Aftermath
After the assassination of Alexander II, Narodnaya Volya was going through a period of ideological and organizational crisis. The most significant attempts at reviving Narodnaya Volya are associated with the names of Gherman Lopatin (1884), Pyotr Yakubovich (1883–1884), Boris Orzhikh, Vladimir Bogoraz, L.Sternberg (1885), and S.Ginzburg (1889). Organizations similar to Narodnaya Volya in the 1890s (in St.Petersburg and abroad) pretty much abandoned many of the revolutionary ideas of Narodnaya Volya.
Narodnaya Volya’s activity became one of the most important elements of the revolutionary situation in the late 1879–1880. However, ineffective tactics of political conspiracy, and preference of terrorism over other means of struggle failed. At the turn of the century, however, as increasing numbers of former members of Narodaya Volya were released from prison and exile, these veteran revolutionaries helped to form the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which revived many of the goals and methods of the former narodniki, including peasant revolution and terror.
Modern usage of the name
In December 2001, a small nationalist party led by a veteran Russian nationalist politician Sergey Baburin was created under the name Party of National Revival "Narodnaya Volya". Later Narodnaya Volya joined Rodina coalition which performed surprisingly well in the 2003 State Duma elections. Narodnaya Volya is seen by many as the most nationalist element in mostly leftist Rodina and a number of its members in the past were associated with Russian far right movements. When Rodina merged into the new party Fair Russia, Narodnaya Volya left the Rodina coalition instead.
See also
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