Narodnaya Volya

Narodnaya Volya (Наро́дная во́ля) was a late 19th-century revolutionary socialist political organization and left-wing terrorist group operating in the Russian Empire, which conducted assassinations of government officials in an attempt to overthrow the autocratic Tsarist system. The organization declared itself to be a populist movement that succeeded the Narodniks. Composed primarily of young revolutionary socialist intellectuals believing in the efficacy of terrorism, Narodnaya Volya emerged in Autumn 1879 from the split of an earlier revolutionary organization called Zemlya i Volya ("Land and Liberty"). Based upon an underground apparatus of local, semi-independent cells co-ordinated by a self-selecting Executive Committee, Narodnaya Volya continued to espouse acts of political violence in an attempt to spur mass revolt against Tsarism, culminating in the successful assassination of Tsar Alexander II in March 1881—the event for which the group is best remembered. It favored the use of secret society terrorism as an attempt to violently destabilize the Russian Empire and provide a focus for popular discontent against it for an insurrection, justified "as a means of exerting pressure on the government for reform, as the spark that would ignite a vast peasant uprising, and as the inevitable response to the regime's use of violence against the revolutionaries". The group developed ideas—such as assassination of the "leaders of oppression"—that were to become the hallmark of subsequent violence by small non-state groups, and they were convinced that the developing technologies of the age—such as the invention of dynamite—enabled them to strike directly and with discrimination. Much of the organization's philosophy was inspired by Sergey Nechayev and "propaganda by the deed"–proponent Carlo Pisacane. The group served as inspiration and forerunner for other revolutionary socialist and anarchist organizations that followed, including in particular the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR).

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Related concepts (14)

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire, also known as Imperial Russia, was the final period of the Russian monarchy from its proclamation in November 1721, until its dissolution in late 1917. It consisted of most of northern Eurasia. The Empire succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad. The rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighbouring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Qajar Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and Qing China.

Narodnaya Volya

Propaganda of the deed

Propaganda of the deed (or propaganda by the deed, from the French propagande par le fait) is specific political direct action meant to be exemplary to others and serve as a catalyst for revolution. It is primarily associated with acts of violence perpetrated by proponents of insurrectionary anarchism in the late 19th and early 20th century, including bombings and assassinations aimed at the State, the alleged ruling class, and religious groups, even though propaganda of the deed also had non-violent applications.