How does the socialist doctrine of populism differ from others? Populism - political doctrines and revolutionary activities. Narodnaya Volya program
In Soviet historiography, the history of populism was closely associated with the stages of the liberation movement, begun by the Decembrist movement and completed February Revolution 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.
Herzen and Chernyshevsky are the founders of populist ideology. The first signs of proto-populism are already found in the works of Russian writers of the 18th century. (A.N. Radishchev) and the beginning of the 19th centuries. (A.S. Pushkin, A.Ya. Chaadaev, N.V. Gogol), who showed a strong interest in social issues, the “truth of life.” But A.I. Herzen and N.G. Chernyshevsky are considered the founders of the ideology of populism, although despite the general similarity of their basic views, the lack of unity and integrity in the populist doctrine itself determined their serious differences on a number of fundamental issues.
Herzen, who experienced a passion for Hegelianism in the 1830s, was convinced of the intrinsic value of man. He believed that the main thing in social evolution remains the prospect of developing the individual, overcoming the atmosphere of spiritual and social despotism over it. However, having become disillusioned (after the revolutionary events of 1848) with European progress, convinced that the social structure of Europe was far from ideal (since it gave preference to private initiative and the entrepreneurial acumen of individuals to the detriment of the interests of the majority of the population), he, in his own words, “believed in Russia." He saw its future in changing property relations based on the development of solidarity and mutual assistance among members of society. He found these features of the Russian socio-economic structure in the Russian community. Herzen highly appreciated the moral character of Russian peasants, placing their “natural” collectivism above the individualistic aspirations of Europeans. These views of his formed the basis of Herzen’s concept of original “Russian socialism,” which became the initial basis for the populist doctrine. The principles of populist ideology that he formulated (the reconstruction of society on the basis of free workers organized in communities, their self-government, the combination of domestic tradition and the intellectual achievements of the West, including the ideas of enlightenment, political democracy, socialism) were shared by numerous supporters of populist ideas.
However, Herzen’s peaceful concept of “non-revolutionary socialism” did not satisfy the Russian radicals led by Chernyshevsky. Unlike Herzen (and being 16 years younger), Chernyshevsky had not outlived his passion for “Westernism,” therefore his idea of social progress was distinguished by greater faith in the universality of socio-economic processes and the commonality of Russian and European paths of development. Sharing socialist ideals, he did not exclude the possibility of violent resolution of social problems - i.e. revolution as “the last argument of the oppressed.”
Considering, like Herzen, the educational activities of the intelligentsia, which were supposed to prepare the people for social changes, to be necessary, Chernyshevsky believed, however, that the bearers of new ideas should not be nobles, but “new people”, commoners. They meant the children of priests, low-ranking officials, military men, merchants, literate peasants, small-landed and unplaced nobles. Representatives of this social stratum, engaged in writing and publishing books, filled by the mid-19th century. halls of universities, vocational and technical schools, newspaper editorial offices, and later zemstvo schools and hospitals, belonged (unlike the nobleman Herzen) to Chernyshevsky himself. His passion for the Russian community was replaced by the early 1860s with the idea of more expedient transformations - the establishment of urban cooperatives and labor associations in villages and cities.
Chernyshevsky clearly realized how long educational and political work among the people must be in order to solve their main social problems. The ideas he promoted (the release of peasants with land without ransom, the elimination of “bad management” (bureaucracy and bribery), reform of the state apparatus, the judiciary; the organization of local self-government with broad rights; the convening of an all-class representative institution and the establishment of a constitutional order) could not be implemented in overnight. However, domestic radicals saw in his works not calls for long, scrupulous propaganda work, but the idea of a revolutionary transformation of the country.
Two approaches to resolving the issue of “people's happiness” became the reason for the existence of two currents within the populist movement: moderate (liberal) and radical (revolutionary). Representatives of the first (“Herzenian”) sought non-violent social, political and economic transformations. They should have been aimed at modernizing the country, relying on traditional institutions and values, ethnocultural identity and the special role of the domestic intelligentsia. The latter, who considered themselves followers of Chernyshevsky, sought to quickly and violently overthrow the existing regime and immediately implement the ideals of socialism.
From the mid-1850s until 1881, the rulers of the thoughts were representatives of the radical “wing” (which gives grounds to call the populism of this time “revolutionary”). After the events of March 1, 1881 (assassination of Emperor Alexander II) and until the beginning of the 20th century. The influence of liberals became more obvious.
Populism as a special phenomenon of Russian culture and public consciousness. The genesis of populism is connected with the history of the formation of the Russian intelligentsia. The idea of “sorrow and compassion for the untruth and slavery of man” (N.A. Berdyaev) gave a special color to the entire system of social consciousness in Russia in the second half of the 19th century. Removing the opposition between Westernism and Slavophilism, supporters of the new ideological doctrine tried to combine elements of both trends of Russian proto-liberalism. Their unique views - the theory of the non-capitalist path of development of Russia, the transition to socialism through the preservation, use and transformation of the collectivist principles of the rural community - have become a significant and rather isolated phenomenon of Russian philosophical thought and culture.
Despite the utopian nature of this system of ideas as a whole, it contained elements of an active attitude to reality. In accordance with it, transformations had to be carried out on the basis of a moral ideal - faith in Morality, Goodness, capable of changing the world. This faith and the dedication based on it, readiness for self-sacrifice, exceptional and rationally based selflessness are typical of “Russian socialism” and the peculiar mentality of the progressive part of Russian society of the 19th century. In general, it could be formulated as follows: “follow the moral rule and everything will work out.”
Many of the populists sought to show by their own example the possibility of creating a new type of culture with a special attitude to work, family, science, art, morality, and religion. They wanted to personally change the social development of the country, ennobling it. The sociocultural ideal of populism had a strong influence on the entire Russian society, revealing itself by the beginning of the 20th century. not only in Russian liberalism, but even in conservatism. Populist ideas were actively contested by many public figures and philosophers, but at the same time they forced them to become imbued with certain postulates of populism.
The influence of populist views was also experienced by the realists in art - the “Wanderers”, as well as the composers of the “Mighty Handful” group. In a country filled with a revivalist desire for freedom and social justice, imbued with the desire to create a humanistic image of a human citizen, the ideals of populism even influenced the originality of Russian symbolism, which obviously manifested itself in Russian idealistic philosophy of the early 20th century. (V. Solovyov, N. Berdyaev, V. Rozanov), in the Russian version of Marxism. As a powerful social movement, populism was reflected in Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century. Echoes of it can be found in novels N.G. Chernyshevsky What to do? And Prologue, I.S. Turgeneva Smoke, New, F.M. Dostoevsky Demons and many others, including relatively modern ones (Yu.N. Trifonov Impatience and etc.).
Populism had many faces in its concepts, theories and directions, which arose almost simultaneously. Rejection of the approaching capitalist civilization, the desire to prevent its development in Russia, the desire to overthrow the existing regime and carry out the partial establishment of public property (for example, in the form of a public land fund) united these idealistic “fighters for the people’s happiness.” Their main goals were: social justice and relative social equality, since, as they believed, “any power tends to deteriorate, any concentration of power leads to the desire to rule forever, any centralization is coercion and evil.” The Narodniks were convinced atheists, but in their minds socialism and Christian values coexisted freely (the liberation of public consciousness from the dictates of the church, “Christianity without Christ,” but with the preservation of general cultural Christian traditions). A consequence of the presence in the mentality of Russian society of the second half of the 20th century. Populist ideas became the insensitivity of the autocracy in Russia to reasonable and balanced alternatives to state liberalism. Any liberal was perceived by the authorities as a rebel, and the autocracy stopped looking for any allies outside the conservative environment. This ultimately accelerated his death.
Directions and currents in populism. According to the degree of radicalism in populism, there are (1) conservative, (2) liberal-revolutionary, (2) social-revolutionary, (3) anarchist directions.
The conservative (right) wing of populism was closely associated with the Slavophiles (Ap. Grigoriev, N.N. Strakhov). His activities, mainly represented by the work of journalists, employees of the Week magazine P.P. Chervinsky and I.I. Kablits, are the least studied.
The liberal-revolutionary (centrist) wing in the 1860-1870s was represented by G.Z. Eliseev (editor of the magazine “Sovremennik”, 1846-1866), N.N. Zlatovratsky, L.E. Obolensky, N.K. Mikhailovsky, V.G.Korolenko (“Notes of the Fatherland”, 1868–1884), S.N.Krivenko, S.N.Yuzhakov, V.P.Vorontsov, N.F.Danielson, V.V.Lesevich, G.I. .Uspensky, A.P. Shchapov (“Russian wealth”, 1876-1918). The leading ideologists of this trend in populism (referred to as “propaganda” in Soviet historiography, and “moderate” in post-Soviet history) were P.L. Lavrov and N.K. Mikhailovsky. Both of them were the rulers of the thoughts of at least two generations of Russian youth and made an enormous contribution to the intellectual life of Russia in the second half of the 20th century. Both sought to unite popular aspirations and the achievements of European thought, both pinned their hopes on “progress” and, following Hegel, on “critically thinking individuals” from among the intellectuals, the intelligentsia.
Lavrov believed that since the “civilized Russian minority” (intellectuals) owed the people their “liberation from physical labor” in the name of mental improvement, then they should pay their debt to the people by enlightening and training them, promoting the ideas of social equality and preparing the people for revolution. One of the first among the populists, Lavrov began to call for political unification in a single organization, the height of the thoughts of the members of which would correspond to the purity of the appearance of its members, and the organizational structure would be based on the voluntary delegation by grassroots organizations of their powers to the center, on the ability of the “grassroots” to influence decision-making “ top" and monitor their implementation.
Like Lavrov, who believed that the society of the future should develop while ensuring individual freedom, the synthesis of its interests and the interests of the collective, Mikhailovsky sought to see in every person a harmonious and free subject of history. Having introduced the term “struggle for individuality” into Russian philosophy, he forced like-minded people to feel the naturalness of man’s desire for freedom, for personal integrity, for equality in rights, for mutual assistance and solidarity.
Supporters of the third, social-revolutionary wing of Russian populism (in Soviet historiography called “Blanquist” or “conspiratorial”) were not satisfied with the liberals’ focus on long years of propaganda of revolutionary ideas, on long-term preparation for a social explosion in order to mitigate the consequences of its blow. They were attracted by the idea of forcing revolutionary events, the transition from waiting for a revolution to making it, which was embodied a quarter of a century later in the theory and practice of Bolshevik-style social democracy. The main theorists of the social-revolutionary current of Russian populism are P.N. Tkachev and, to a certain extent, N.A. Morozov.
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”), a secret society proper (“Organization”) and legal “Mutual Aid Societies” adjoining it. The “Ishutintsy” prepared Chernyshevsky’s escape from hard labor (1865-1866), but their successful activity was 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 (“Don’t like it, don’t listen, but 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 “Land and Freedom” (18761879). 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 and the beginning of 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 who sympathized with approx. 150. Her ideas were disseminated through the social revolutionary review “Land and Freedom” (Petersburg, No. 15, October 1878 April 1879) and the appendix to it “Leaflet “Land and Freedom” (Petersburg, No. 16, 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 campaigning in factories and enterprises in St. Petersburg, Kharkov and Rostov. They also organized the first demonstration in Russian history 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 and D.A. Lizogub, operating in Kyiv and Odessa, organized the murders of police agent A.G. Nikonov, gendarmerie 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 an organ of terrorists.
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 1015 years of hard labor for printed and oral propaganda, 16 death sentences were handed down (1879) only 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."People's Will" (18791882). The program of Narodnaya Volya, which operated under the motto “Now or never!”, allowed individual terror as a response, 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 it is to endure 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 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”, “Listok”
"People's Will" ", "Working Newspaper"), many proclamations with an unheard-of circulation for that time of 35 thousand copies.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 circle 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) 6 people were killed 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. Shkryab, 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
November 18, 1879).As a result, the government wavered, creating a 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
18 81), 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 at the end of 1881 and the beginning of 1882, Plekhanov, Zasulich, Deutsch and Stefanovich emigrated to Switzerland, where, having become familiar with Marxist ideas, they created the “Emancipation 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
abolition of the temporarily obligated state of peasants, abolition of the poll tax, reduction (by almost 30%) of redemption payments, 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. 1880 The 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 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.
In other populist theories of the 1880-1890s, called “economic romanticism,” the “salvation of the community” was proposed (N.F. Danielson), programs for state regulation of the economy were put forward, in the implementation of which the peasant economy could adapt to commodity-money relations ( V.P.Vorontsov). It became increasingly clear that the followers of the Land Volyas belonged to two directions: those who shared the idea of “adaptation” to new conditions of existence and those who called for political reform of the country with a reorientation towards the socialist ideal. However, the unifying element for both remained the recognition of the need for the peaceful evolution of Russia, the renunciation of violence, the struggle for personal freedom and solidarity, and the artel-communal method of organizing the economy. Being a generally erroneous petty-bourgeois theory, “economic romanticism” attracted the attention of 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 "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
LITERATUREBogucharsky 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
In the second half of the 50s of the XIX century. in the socio-political life of Russia there has been a certain convergence of different ideological trends. The whole society understood the need to renew the country. It pushed and stimulated the government's transformative activities that had begun. However, the implementation of the reform and its results caused an intensification of the ideological and political struggle and an even greater division of society.
Reasons for the rise of the social movement. The main thing is the preservation of the old socio-political system and, first of all, the autocratic system with its police apparatus, the privileged position of the nobility, and the lack of democratic freedoms. An equally significant reason is the unresolved agrarian-peasant issue, which remained central in the public life of the country. To the previous social contradictions (between peasants and landowners), new ones were added, caused by the development of capitalism, between workers and entrepreneurs, the liberal bourgeoisie and the conservative nobility, between the autocracy and the peoples that were part of the Russian Empire. The half-heartedness of the reforms of the 60-70s and fluctuations in government policy (either measures towards liberalization, or increased repression) also intensified the social movement.
A distinctive feature of the social life of Russia in the second half of the 19th century. there was political inertia of the broad masses. The peasant unrest that broke out after 1861 quickly faded away, and the labor movement was in its infancy. The people retained tsarist illusions. The bourgeoisie also showed political inertia. This provided the basis for the triumph of militant conservatism and determined an extremely narrow social basis for the activities of revolutionaries.
In the post-reform period, three directions in the social movement finally took shape - conservatives, liberals and radicals. They had different political goals, organizational forms and methods of struggle, spiritual and moral and ethical positions.
Conservatives. The social basis of this trend was the reactionary nobility, clergy, petty bourgeoisie, merchant class and a significant part of the peasantry.
Conservatism of the second half of the 19th century. remained within the ideological framework of the theory of “official nationality.” Autocracy was still declared the most important pillar of the state, ensuring the greatness and glory of Russia. Orthodoxy was proclaimed as the basis of the spiritual life of the people and was actively inculcated. Nationality meant the unity of the king with the people, which implied the absence of grounds for social conflicts. In this, conservatives saw the uniqueness of Russia's historical path.
In the domestic political sphere, conservatives fought for the inviolability of autocracy, the curtailment of reforms and the implementation of counter-reforms. In the socio-economic sphere, they advocated for strengthening the position of the nobility and preserving landownership. In foreign policy, they developed the ideas of Pan-Slavism - the unity of Slavic peoples around Russia. In the spiritual sphere, representatives of the conservative intelligentsia defended the principles of a patriarchal lifestyle, religiosity, and unconditional submission to authority. The main target for their criticism was the theory and practice of nihilists who rejected traditional moral principles. (F.M. Dostoevsky in the novel “Demons” exposed the immorality of their activities.)
The ideologists of the conservatives were K.P. Pobedonostsev, D.A. Tolstoy, M.N. Katkov. The spread of their ideas was facilitated by the bureaucratic apparatus, the church and the reactionary press. M.N. Katkov in the newspaper Moskovskie Vedomosti formulated the basic ideas of conservatism in an accessible way for the people and formed public opinion in this spirit.
Liberals. The social basis of the liberal trend was made up of bourgeois landowners, part of the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia (scientists, writers, journalists, doctors, etc.).
They defended the idea of a common path of historical development for Russia with Western Europe. Liberals insisted on the introduction of constitutional principles, democratic freedoms and the continuation of reforms. They advocated the creation of an all-Russian elected body (Zemsky Sobor) and the expansion of the rights and functions of local self-government bodies (Zemstvos). Their political ideal was a constitutional monarchy.
In the domestic political sphere, liberals advocated the preservation of a strong executive power, believing it to be a necessary factor in the stability of Russia. In the socio-economic sphere, they welcomed the development of capitalism and freedom of enterprise, proposed eliminating class privileges, lowering redemption payments, and taking measures to promote the establishment of a rule-of-law state and civil society in Russia. Recognition of the inviolability of the individual, her right to free spiritual development was the basis of their moral and ethical views.
Liberals stood for an evolutionary path of development, considering reforms the main method of socio-political modernization of Russia. They were ready to cooperate with the autocracy. Therefore, their activity mainly consisted of submitting “addresses” of petitions to the tsar proposing a program of reforms. The most “left-wing” liberals sometimes used conspiratorial meetings of their supporters.
The ideologists of the liberals were scientists, publicists, and zemstvo figures (K.D. Kavelin, B.N. Chicherin, V.A. Goltsev, D.I. Shakhovskoy, F.I. Rodichev, P.A. Dolgorukov). Their organizational support was zemstvos, magazines ("Russian Thought", "Bulletin of Europe") and scientific societies. The liberals did not create a stable and organized opposition to the government.
Features of Russian liberalism: its noble character due to the political weakness of the bourgeoisie and its closeness to conservatism. Liberals and conservatives were united by the fear of popular “rebellion” and the actions of radicals.
Radicals. Representatives of this trend launched active anti-government activities. Unlike conservatives and liberals, they sought violent methods of transforming Russia and a radical reorganization of society (the revolutionary path).
In the second half of the 19th century. the radicals did not have a broad social base, although objectively they expressed the interests of peasants and workers. Their movement involved people from different walks of life who dedicated themselves to serving the people.
Radicalism was largely provoked by the reactionary policies of the government and the conditions of Russian reality (police brutality, lack of freedom of speech, meetings and organizations). Therefore, only secret organizations could exist in Russia itself. Radical theorists were generally forced to emigrate and act abroad. This contributed to strengthening the ties between the Russian and Western European revolutionary movements.
In the radical direction of the second half of the 19th century. The dominant position was occupied by a movement whose ideological basis was the theory of the special, non-capitalist development of Russia and “communal socialism.”
In the history of the radical movement of the second half of the 19th century. Three stages are distinguished: the 60s, the formation of revolutionary democratic ideology and the creation of secret raznochinsky circles; 70s formalization of the populist doctrine and the activities of revolutionary populist organizations; 80-90s - the activation of liberal populists and the beginning of the spread of Marxism, on the basis of which the first social democratic groups were created.
"Sixties". The rise of the peasant movement in 1861-1862. was the people's response to the injustice of the February 19 reform. This galvanized radicals who hoped for a peasant uprising.
In the 60s, two centers of radical trends emerged. One is around the editorial office of Kolokol, published by A.G. Herzen in London. He propagated his theory of “communal socialism” and sharply criticized the predatory conditions for the liberation of peasants. The second center arose in Russia around the editorial office of the Sovremennik magazine. Its ideologist was N.G. Chernyshevsky, the idol of the common youth of that time. He also criticized the government for the essence of the reform, dreamed of socialism, but, unlike A.I. Herzen, saw the need for Russia to use the experience of the European development model.
Based on the ideas of N.G. Chernyshevsky, several secret organizations were formed: the “Velikorus” circle (1861-1863), “Land and Freedom” (1861-1864). They included N.A. and A.A. Serno-Solovyevichi, G.E. Blagosvetlov, N.I. Utin and others. “Left” radicals set the task of preparing a people’s revolution. To achieve this, the landowners launched active publishing activities in their illegal printing house. In the magazine "Land and Freedom", in the proclamations "Bow to the lordly peasants from their well-wishers", "To the young generation", "Young Russia", "To the soldiers", "What the army needs to do", "Velikorus" they explained to the people the tasks of the upcoming revolution, substantiated the need for the elimination of autocracy and the democratic transformation of Russia, a fair solution to the agrarian question. The landowners considered N.P.’s article their program document. Ogarev “What do the people need?”, published in June 1861 in Kolokol. The article warned the people against premature, unprepared actions and called for the unification of all revolutionary forces.
"Land and Freedom". It was the first major revolutionary democratic organization. It included several hundred members from different social strata: officials, officers, writers, students. The organization was headed by the Russian Central People's Committee. Branches of the society were created in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tver, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Kharkov and other cities. At the end of 1862, the Russian military revolutionary organization created in the Kingdom of Poland joined “Land and Freedom”.
The first secret organizations did not last long. The decline of the peasant movement, the defeat of the uprising in the Kingdom of Poland (1863), and the strengthening of the police regime all led to their self-dissolution or defeat. Some members of the organizations (including N.G. Chernyshevsky) were arrested, others emigrated. The government managed to repel the onslaught of radicals in the first half of the 60s. There has been a sharp turn in public opinion against the radicals and their revolutionary aspirations. Many public figures who previously stood on democratic or liberal positions moved to the conservative camp (M.N. Katkov and others).
In the second half of the 60s, secret circles arose again. Their members preserved the ideological legacy of N.G. Chernyshevsky, but, having lost faith in the possibility of a popular revolution in Russia, they switched to narrowly conspiratorial and terrorist tactics. They tried to realize their high moral ideals by immoral means. In 1866, a member of the circle N.A. Ishutina D.V. Karakozov attempted to assassinate Tsar Alexander II.
In 1869, teacher S.G. Nechaev and journalist P.N. Tkachev created an organization in St. Petersburg that called on student youth to prepare an uprising and use any means in the fight against the government. After the defeat of the circle, S. G. Nechaev went abroad for a while, but in the fall of 1869 he returned and founded the “People’s Retribution” organization in Moscow. He was distinguished by extreme political adventurism and demanded blind obedience to his orders from his participants. For refusing to submit to the dictatorship, student I.I. Ivanov was falsely accused of treason and killed. The police destroyed the organization. S.G. Nechaev fled to Switzerland, he was extradited as a criminal. The government used the trial against him to discredit the revolutionaries. “Nechaevism” for some time became a serious lesson for the next generations of revolutionaries, warning them against unlimited centralism.
At the turn of the 60-70s, largely based on the ideas of A.I. Herzen and N.G. Chernyshevsky, populist ideology took shape. It became very popular among democratically minded intellectuals in the last third of the 19th century. There were two trends among the populists: revolutionary and liberal.
Revolutionary populists. The main ideas of the revolutionary populists: capitalism in Russia is imposed “from above” and has no social roots on Russian soil; the future of the country in communal socialism; peasants are ready to accept socialist ideas; transformations must be carried out in a revolutionary way.
M.A. Bakunin, PL. Lavrov and P.N. Tkachev developed the theoretical foundations of three trends of revolutionary populism: rebellious (anarchist), propaganda and conspiratorial. M.A. Bakunin believed that the Russian peasant was by nature a rebel and ready for revolution. Therefore, the task of the intelligentsia is to go to the people and incite an all-Russian revolt. Viewing the state as an instrument of injustice and oppression, he called for its destruction and the creation of a federation of self-governing free communities.
PL. Lavrov did not consider the people ready for revolution. Therefore, he paid most attention to propaganda with the aim of preparing the peasantry. The peasants had to be “awakened” by “critically thinking individuals” - the advanced part of the intelligentsia.
P.N. Tkachev, as well as PL. Lavrov did not consider the peasant ready for revolution. At the same time, he called the Russian people “communists by instinct,” who do not need to be taught socialism. In his opinion, a narrow group of conspirators (professional revolutionaries), having seized state power, would quickly involve the people in a socialist reconstruction.
In 1874, based on the ideas of M.A. Bakunin, more than 1,000 young revolutionaries organized a mass “walk among the people,” hoping to rouse the peasants to revolt. The results were insignificant. The populists were faced with tsarist illusions and the possessive psychology of the peasants. The movement was crushed, the agitators were arrested.
"Land and Freedom" (1876-1879). In 1876, the surviving participants in the “walking among the people” formed a new secret organization, which in 1878 took the name “Land and Freedom.” Its program provided for the implementation of a socialist revolution by overthrowing the autocracy, transferring all land to the peasants and introducing “secular self-government” in the countryside and cities. The organization was headed by G. V. Plekhanov, A.D. Mikhailov, S.M. Kravchinsky, N.A. Morozov, V.N. Figner et al.
A second “going to the people” was undertaken for long-term agitation of the peasants. The landowners also engaged in agitation among workers and soldiers and helped organize several strikes. In 1876, with the participation of "Land and Freedom", the first political demonstration in Russia was held in St. Petersburg on the square in front of the Kazan Cathedral. G. V. Plekhanov addressed the audience, calling for the fight for land and freedom for peasants and workers. The police dispersed the demonstration, many of its participants were injured. Those arrested were sentenced to hard labor or exile. G.V. Plekhanov managed to escape from the police.
In 1878, some populists again returned to the idea of the need for a terrorist struggle. In 1878 V.I. Zasulich attempted to assassinate St. Petersburg mayor F.F. Treneva and wounded him. However, the mood of society was such that the jury acquitted her, and F.F. Trepov was forced to resign. Discussions began among the landowners about methods of struggle. They were prompted to do this by both government repression and a thirst for activism. Disputes over tactical and programmatic issues led to a split.
"Black redistribution". In 1879, part of the landowners (G.V. Plekhanov, V.I. Zasulich, L.G. Deych, P.B. Axelrod) formed the organization “Black Redistribution” (1879-1881). They remained faithful to the basic program principles of “Land and Freedom” and agitation and propaganda methods of activity.
"People's Will". In the same year, another part of the Zemlya Volya members created the organization "People's Will" (1879-1881). It was headed by A.I. Zhelyabov, A.D. Mikhailov, SL. Perovskaya, N.A. Morozov, V.N. Figner and others. They were members of the Executive Committee of the center and the main headquarters of the organization.
The Narodnaya Volya program reflected their disappointment in the revolutionary potential of the peasant masses. They believed that the people were suppressed and reduced to a slave state by the tsarist government. Therefore, they considered their main task to be the fight against this government. The program demands of the Narodnaya Volya included: preparation of a political coup and the overthrow of the autocracy; convening the Constituent Assembly and establishing a democratic system in the country; destruction of private property, transfer of land to peasants, factories to workers. (Many of the program positions of the Narodnaya Volya members were adopted at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries by their followers, the Socialist Revolutionary Party.)
The Narodnaya Volya carried out a number of terrorist actions against representatives of the tsarist administration, but considered their main goal to be the murder of the tsar. They assumed that this would cause a political crisis in the country and a nationwide uprising. However, in response to the terror, the government intensified repression. Most of the Narodnaya Volya members were arrested. SL, who remained at large. Perovskaya organized the assassination attempt on the Tsar. On March 1, 1881, Alexander II was mortally wounded and died a few hours later.
This act did not live up to the expectations of the populists. It once again confirmed the ineffectiveness of terrorist methods of struggle and led to increased reaction and police brutality in the country. In general, the activities of the Narodnaya Volya members significantly slowed down the evolutionary development of Russia.
Liberal populists. This trend, while sharing the basic theoretical views of the revolutionary populists, differed from them in its rejection of violent methods of struggle. Liberal populists did not play a significant role in the social movement of the 70s. In the 80-90s their influence increased. This was due to the loss of authority of the revolutionary populists in radical circles due to disappointment in the terrorist methods of struggle. Liberal populists expressed the interests of the peasants and demanded the destruction of the remnants of serfdom and the abolition of landownership. They called for reforms to gradually improve the lives of the people. They chose cultural and educational work among the population as the main direction of their activity. For this purpose, they used printed organs (the magazine "Russian Wealth"), zemstvos and various public organizations. The ideologists of the liberal populists were N.K. Mikhailovsky, N.F. Danielson, V.P. Vorontsov.
The first Marxist and workers' organizations. In the 80-90s of the XIX century. radical changes took place in the radical movement. The revolutionary populists lost their role as the main opposition force. On them. powerful repressions struck, from which they could not recover. Many active participants in the movement of the 70s became disillusioned with the revolutionary potential of the peasantry. In this regard, the radical movement split into two opposing and even hostile camps. The first remained committed to the idea of peasant socialism, the second saw in the proletariat the main force of social progress.
Group "Liberation of Labor". Former active participants in the “Black Redistribution” G.V. Plekhanov, V.I. Zasulich, L.G. Deitch and V.N. Ignatov turned to Marxism. They were attracted to this Western European theory by the idea of achieving socialism through proletarian revolution.
In 1883, the Liberation of Labor group was formed in Geneva. Its program: a complete break with populism and populist ideology; propaganda of socialism; fight against autocracy; support for the working class; creation of a workers' party. They considered the most important condition for social progress in Russia to be a bourgeois-democratic revolution, the driving force of which would be the urban bourgeoisie and the proletariat. They viewed the peasantry as a reactionary force in society. This revealed the narrowness and one-sidedness of their views.
Promoting Marxism in the Russian revolutionary environment, they launched a sharp critique of populist theory. The Liberation of Labor group operated abroad and was not connected with the labor movement emerging in Russia.
In Russia itself in 1883-1892. Several Marxist circles were formed (D.I. Blagoeva, N.E. Fedoseeva, M.I. Brusneva, etc.). They saw their task in the study of Marxism and its propaganda among workers, students and minor employees. However, they too were cut off from the labor movement.
The activities of the Liberation of Labor group abroad and Marxist circles in Russia prepared the ground for the emergence of the Russian Social Democratic Party.
Workers' organizations. The labor movement in the 70-80s developed spontaneously and unorganized. Unlike Western Europe, Russian workers had neither their own political organizations nor trade unions. The “South Russian Workers' Union” (1875) and the “Northern Union of Russian Workers” (1878-1880) failed to lead the struggle of the proletariat and give it a political character. The workers put forward only economic demands: increased wages, shorter working hours, and the abolition of fines. The most significant event was the strike at the Nikolskaya manufactory of manufacturer T.S. Morozov in Orekhovo-Zuevo in 1885 (“Morozov strike”). For the first time, workers demanded government intervention in their relations with factory owners. As a result, a law was issued in 1886 on the procedure for hiring and firing, regulating fines and paying wages. The institution of factory inspectors was introduced, responsible for monitoring the implementation of the law. The law increased criminal liability for participation in strikes.
"Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class." In the 90s XDC c. There has been an industrial boom in Russia. This contributed to an increase in the size of the working class and the creation of more favorable conditions for the development of its struggle. Stubborn strikes in St. Petersburg, Moscow, the Urals and other regions of the country became widespread. Textile workers, miners, foundry workers and railway workers went on strike. The strikes were economic and poorly organized.
In 1895 in St. Petersburg, scattered Marxist circles united into a new organization, the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class. Its creators were V.I. Ulyanov (Lenin), Yu.Yu. Tsederbaum (L. Martov) and others. Similar organizations were created in Moscow, Yekaterinoslav, Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Kyiv. They tried to take the lead in the strike movement, published leaflets and sent propagandists to workers' circles to spread Marxism among the proletariat. Under the influence of the "Union of Struggle" strikes began in St. Petersburg among textile workers, metal workers, workers at a stationery factory, sugar and other factories. The strikers demanded to reduce the working day to 10.5 hours, increase prices, and pay wages on time. The persistent struggle of workers in the summer of 1896 and winter of 1897, on the one hand, forced the government to make concessions: a law was passed to reduce the working day to 11.5 hours. On the other hand, it brought down repression on Marxist and workers' organizations, some of whose members were exiled to Siberia.
In the second half of the 1990s, “legal Marxism” began to spread among the remaining social democrats. P.B. Struve, M.I. Tugan-Baranovsky and others, recognizing some of the provisions of Marxism, defended the thesis of the historical inevitability and inviolability of capitalism, criticized the liberal populists, and proved the regularity and progressiveness of the development of capitalism in Russia. They advocated a reformist path to transform the country in a democratic direction.
Under the influence of “legal Marxists,” some of the Social Democrats in Russia switched to the position of “economism.” The “economists” saw the main task of the labor movement in improving working and living conditions. They put forward only economic demands and abandoned political struggle.
In general, among Russian Marxists at the end of the 19th century. there was no unity. Some (led by V.I. Ulyanov-Lenin) advocated the creation of a political party that would lead workers to implement a socialist revolution and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat (the political power of the workers), others, denying the revolutionary path of development, proposed limiting themselves to the struggle for improving living conditions and the labor of the working people of Russia.
The social movement in the second half of the 19th century, unlike the previous time, became an important factor in the political life of the country. The variety of directions and trends, views on ideological, theoretical and tactical issues reflected the complexity of the social structure and the severity of social contradictions characteristic of the transitional time of post-reform Russia. In the social movement of the second half of the 19th century. A direction capable of carrying out the evolutionary modernization of the country has not yet emerged, but the foundations have been laid for the formation of political parties in the future.
Populism is an ideological movement 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 disintegrated. Neo-populism 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 among the people.”
- 1876 – creation of “Land and Freedom”.
- 1879 – “Land and Freedom” splits into “People’s Will” and “Black Redistribution”.
- March 1, 1881 – murder of Alexander 2.
Prominent historical figures of populism:
- Bakunin Mikhail Aleksandrovich is one of the key ideologists of populism in Russia.
- Lavrov Petr Lavrovich - scientist. He also acted as an ideologist of populism.
- Chernyshevsky Nikolai Gavrilovich - writer and public figure. The ideologist of populism and the speaker of its basic ideas.
- Zhelyabov Andrey Ivanovich - was part of the management of “Narodnaya Volya”, one of the organizers of the assassination attempt on Alexander 2.
- Nechaev Sergei Gennadievich - author of the "Catechism of a Revolutionary", an active revolutionary.
- Tkachev Petr Nikolaevich is 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 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.
The whole situation in the country - the ruin of the peasant masses and barbaric forms of capitalist exploitation, the incompleteness of bourgeois reforms and the desire of the upper nobility to turn back to the pre-reform order, the complete political lack of rights of the people and the omnipotence of tsarist officials - created the ground for a new revival of the democratic movement.
Despite the limitations of the transformations of the 60s, they still opened up a greater opportunity for opposition and revolutionary activity than in the past. Its focus was, in particular, higher educational institutions, to which young people of common descent moved after the reform.
The main legal platform for progressive democratic thought was the journal Otechestvennye zapiski, which passed in 1868 into the hands of N. G. Chernyshevsky’s associates - N. A. Nekrasov and M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. The growth of the international labor movement and the activities of the First International, and the heroic struggle of the Paris communards also had a significant influence on the course of events in Russia.
V.I. Lenin considered the development of the revolutionary movement in Russia from the fall of serfdom to the mid-90s as one period - bourgeois-democratic in its class content, raznochinsky in the composition of participants in the movement, populist (in the broad sense of the word) in their worldview . Populism, Lenin said, is “an enormous zone of social thought.” The 70s were his heyday.
The new generation of revolutionaries, who entered the public arena in the early 70s, were associated with their predecessors who acted in the 50s and 60s, both by common democratic views and by the belief in the possibility for Russia to bypass the capitalist path of development, faith in the feasibility transition to socialism through the rural community; both of them considered the peasantry as the main force capable of rising to the socialist revolution. At the same time, there were significant differences between the most mature representatives of the revolutionary democratic movement of the 60s and their successors active in the 70s.
In the person of its influential ideologists (P. L. Lavrov, N. K. Mikhailovsky and others), populism retreated from the consistent materialism of Chernyshevsky towards idealistic philosophy and subjectivist sociology with its characteristic underestimation of the decisive historical role of the masses and an exaggerated idea of social vocation intelligentsia. Most of the revolutionary figures of the 70s, in contrast to the main core of the sixties revolutionaries, for a long time occupied anarchist or semi-anarchist positions; they denied the need for political struggle, based on the erroneous belief that the peasant revolution would at one blow end both the monarchical system and the socio-economic order based on the exploitation of the masses. The views of one of the founders of anarchism, Mikhail Bakunin, became widespread at this time among revolutionary youth.
The populism of the 70s split into several movements. The disagreements concerned mainly issues of tactics. Bakunin's followers considered the people ready for revolution; They saw the task of the revolutionary intelligentsia in rousing the peasants to active military actions (“revolts”) and in uniting scattered unrest into an all-Russian peasant uprising. Supporters of another prominent leader of populism - Pyotr Lavrov (a professor at the St. Petersburg Artillery Academy, who joined the liberation movement in the 60s and then fled abroad from exile) proceeded from the need for a lot of preparatory work of a revolutionary nature, mainly propaganda, and "rebellious" activities were viewed negatively. There was a third movement, related to Blanquism. Its founder, the famous journalist of the democratic camp Pyotr Tkachev, defended conspiratorial tactics and the need to seize power by a small revolutionary minority.
Taken as a whole, with all its shades and differences, populism was a unique expression of the interests of the broad peasant masses. The predominance in post-reform Russia of the class of small producers, who suffered more from the remnants of serfdom than from the ripening capitalist relations, the disguise of the latter by communal orders in the countryside and the wide spread of “handicraft” trades - such was the source of the long existence of the populist movement, which combined peasant democracy with utopian socialism.
The revolutionary movement in Russia in the 70s had extensive ties with the Western European socialist movement. The biggest event was the publication in St. Petersburg in 1872 of the first volume of Capital - the first foreign translation of Marx's immortal work. A few years later, the populists wrote to Marx that “Capital” had become “the handbook of educated people” in Russia. However, the revolutionary populists were unable to perceive all the deepest content of Marx’s work, much less build a correct theory on its basis. The understanding of the class nature of the proletariat and its historical mission was completely alien to them: by “workers” they understood working people in general, especially peasants. A number of populist ideologists then, and especially later, tried “according to Marx” to refute the inevitability of capitalist development in Russia.
Marx and Engels knew that representatives of revolutionary populism do not and cannot stand on the positions of scientific socialism, but all their sympathies were on the side of the Russian revolutionaries, who fought one-on-one with a powerful and infinitely cruel enemy - tsarist despotism. Believing in the inevitability of the Russian revolution, Marx and Engels expected that it would free the hands of the workers and socialist movements of Europe and put Russia in the vanguard of the world revolutionary movement. Therefore, they followed the internal life of Russia with exceptional attention, maintained personal relationships and were in correspondence with many Russian political and cultural figures - Lavrov, the courageous revolutionary German Lopatin - a member of the First International, with economists and sociologists N. F. Danielson, M. M. Kovalevsky and others. The founders of Marxism highly valued the achievements of advanced Russian social thought, its critical orientation and “selfless quest for pure theory, worthy of the people who gave Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky.”
At the same time, Marx and Engels criticized the populist doctrine, revealed the inconsistency of Bakunin's anarchism, the fallacy of Tkachev's views on the social nature of tsarism and the tasks of the Russian revolutionary party; Despite their friendship with Lavrov, they sharply criticized his attempts to “reconcile” the Marxists with Bakunin’s supporters in the International.
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.