Narodnaya Volya

For other uses, see Narodnaya Volya (disambiguation).

people in the early 1870s, Narodnaya Volya turned its

energies against the central government. However, unlike Marxists, they continued to believe that Russia could
Narodnaya Volya (Russian: ; IPA:
[nrodnj vol], The Peoples Will or The Peoples achieve socialism through a peasant revolution, bypassing
the stage of capitalism.
Freedom[1] ) was a Russian revolutionary left-wing organization in the late 19th century, best known for the The members of Narodnaya Volya were not in complete
successful assassination of Tsar Alexander II of Rus- agreement about the relationship between the social and
sia. It was founded in 1879 and created a centralized political revolutions; some believed in the possibility of
and well-disguised organization in a time of diverse lib- achieving both simultaneously, relying on the socialist ineration movements in Russia. Narodnaya Volya was stincts of the Russian peasantry, as demonstrated in the
led by its Executive Committee: Alexander Mikhailov, traditional peasant commune. Other members believed
Aleksandr Kvyatkovsky, Andrei Zhelyabov, Sophia Per- that a political revolution would have to take place rst
ovskaya, Vera Figner, Nikolai Morozov, Mikhail Frol- and, after the autocracy had been overthrown and demoenko, Lev Tikhomirov, Alexander Barannikov, Anna cratic liberties established, revolutionaries would prepare
Yakimova, Maria Oshanina and others. Vladimir Lenin's people for the socialist revolution. The Liberal faction of
elder brother, Alexander Ulyanov was a later member of Narodnaya Volya (which had no real inuence) proposed
a subsequent incarnation of Narodnaya Volya, and led a to limit their demands to getting a Constitution from the
cell that plotted to assassinate Tsar Alexander III.
tsarist government.
The Executive Committee was in charge of a network of
local and special groups (composed of workers, students,
and members of the military). In 18791883, Narodnaya Volya had aliates in almost 50 cities, especially
in Ukraine and the Volga region. Though the number of
its members never exceeded 500, Narodnaya Volya had
a few thousand followers.

Narodnaya Volya spread its propaganda through all strata

of the population. Its newspapers, Narodnaya Volya
and The Workers Gazette, attempted to popularize the
idea of a political struggle with the autocracy. Their
struggle to topple autocracy was crowned by the slogan
Now or never! Narodnaya Volya did not succeed in enlisting the peasantry in its work, which would later lead
Soviet historians to charge it with Blanquism; these historians would argue that Narodnaya Volya understood political struggle only in terms of conspiracy and, therefore,
looked more like a sect.

Programme

Narodnaya Volyas Program contained the following demands: convocation of the Constituent Assembly (for
designing a Constitution); introduction of universal suffrage; permanent peoples representation, freedom of
speech, press, and assembly; communal self-government;
exchange of the permanent army with a peoples volunteer corps; transfer of land to the people; gradual placement of the factories under the control of the workers;
and granting oppressed peoples of the Russian Empire
the right to self-determination.

2 Resort to terrorism

Narodnaya Volyas Program was a mix of democratic

and socialist reforms. Narodnaya Volya diered from
its parent organization, the narodnik Zemlya i volya, in
that its members had come to believe that a social revolution would be impossible in the absence of a political revolution; the peasantry could not take possession
of the land as long as the government remained auto- The assassination of Alexander II of Russia, 1881
cratic. Given Zemlya i Volyas failures in its propaganda
eorts among the peasants in the movements to the As time went by, terrorism (by contemporary deni1

tions) too became increasingly more important. A special place in the history of Narodnaya Volya belongs
to its terrorist faction, whose members including
Aleksandr Ulyanov (Lenin's older brother) are also
known as Pervomartovtsy. Narodnaya Volya prepared
seven assassination attempts on the life of Tsar Alexander
II (until they nally killed him), and later on that of
Alexander III. Its terror frightened the government and
persuaded it to make a few concessions. However, the
regime soon realized that the people would not rise up
in support of the revolutionaries, and this encouraged the
Russian government to counterattack. In 187983, there
were more than 70 trials of NVs members with about
2,000 people brought to trial (see Trial of the Fourteen).
Narodnaya Volyas members were imprisoned or exiled.
This was the end of the organization. The great irony of
the Narodnaya Volya is that their aim was to save Russia
from the autocracy, yet their assassination of Alexander
II on 13 March [O.S. 1 March] 1881 perpetuated autocratic oppression. Alexander III would take no chances
with reform or with liberal ideas. In many ways the Narodnaya Volya convinced the tsar that he must use an iron
st, not an unclenched hand, to save the monarchy.

Aftermath

After the assassination of Alexander II, Narodnaya Volya

went through a period of ideological and organizational
crisis. The most signicant attempts at reviving Narodnaya Volya are associated with the names of Gherman
Lopatin (1884), Pyotr Yakubovich (18831884), Boris
Orzhikh, Vladimir Bogoraz, Lev Sternberg (1885), and
Soa Ginsburg (1889). Organizations similar to Narodnaya Volya in the 1890s (in St. Petersburg and abroad)
largely abandoned the revolutionary ideas of Narodnaya
Volya.
Narodnaya Volyas activity became one of the most important elements of the revolutionary situation in the late
18791880. However, ineective tactics of political conspiracy and preference for terrorism over other means
of struggle failed. At the turn of the century, however,
as increasing numbers of former members of Narodnaya
Volya were released from prison and exile, these veteran
revolutionaries helped to form the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which revived many of the goals and methods
of the former narodniki, including peasant revolution and
terror.

Modern usage of the name

In December 2001, a small nationalist party led by a veteran Russian nationalist politician Sergey Baburin was
created under the name Party of National Revival Narodnaya Volya. Later Narodnaya Volya joined Rodina
coalition which performed surprisingly well in the 2003

REFERENCES

State Duma elections. Narodnaya Volya is seen by many

as the most nationalist element in mostly leftist Rodina
and a number of its members in the past were associated
with Russian far right movements. When Rodina merged
into the new party Fair Russia, Narodnaya Volya left the
Rodina coalition instead.
In Assassins Creed: The Fall (an American comic book
mini-series set in the ctional universe of the historical action-adventure video game series called Assassins
Creed), the Narodnaya Volya were the Russian branch of
the Assassin Order. They were responsible for a number
of acts of sabotage and murder; their most well known being the assassination of Tsar Alexander II of Russia with
a bomb, after ve separate attempts on his life.[2]
In episode nine, season four, of the televised show
Warehouse 13 a tatouage referencing Narodnaya Volya
appears throughout the episode.

5 In Fiction
The assassination of Alexander II by Narodnaya Volya
has been ctionalized several times:
Les Vies parallles de Nicola Bakhmaltov by
Sbastien Doubinsky (1994), p. 41 and .
The Peoples Will by Eric Berbig (2010)
To Kill a Tsar by Andrew Williams (2011)
The Peoples Will by Jasper Kent (2013)

6 References
[1] Narodnaya Volya is sometimes translated as Peoples
Freedom, according to another common meaning of the
Russian word ; see Bruce Homan, Inside Terrorism, Dening Terrorism, however some claim that the
intended meaning was Peoples Will, see Yarmolinsky,
Avrahm, Road to Revolution: A Century of Russian Radicalism, 1956. Chapter 12. The Peoples Will.
[2] WildStorm | Comics

Berlin, Isaiah, The Populists Moral Condemnation

of Russia Political and Social Systems, in Problems
of European Civilization: Imperial Russia after 1861,
Arthur E. Adams, ed. D. C. Heath and Company,
1965.
Maynard, Sir John, Russia in Flux: Before the October Revolution, Collier Books, 1962.
Yarmolinsky, Avrahm, Road to Revolution: A Century of Russian Radicalism, 1956. Chapter 12. The
Peoples Will.

External links
Ocial website of modern Russian political party
named Narodnaya Volya"" (in Russian). Retrieved
May 6, 2006.
Memorial plaque in Odessa, Ukraine for members
of Narodnaya Volya. 2odessa. Retrieved May 6,
2006.
Peoples Will, from Spartacus educational encyclopedia

8 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1

Text

Narodnaya Volya Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodnaya_Volya?oldid=669011469 Contributors: AxelBoldt, Danny, Kwertii,

Delirium, Kingturtle, Jmabel, Altenmann, Chris Roy, Xyzzyva, Lupin, Fleminra, Sesel, Piotrus, Mzajac, OwenBlacker, Balcer, Kevin Rector, KNewman, Bornintheguz, Jkl, E. abu Filumena, Vervin, Celeron~enwiki, Adrian~enwiki, Giraedata, Man vyi, Kaganer, Nightstallion,
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8.2

Images

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