Radical opposition

Question 1

Who was Nikolai Chernyshevsky and what did his writings suggest? (2)

Answer 1

• Author of The Contemporary and What is to be done?

- Suggested that the peasants had to be made leaders of revolutionary change

Question 2

Who was Aleksandr Herzen and what did he advocate? (2)

Answer 2

• Author of The Bell that was smuggled into Russia illegally

- For a peasant-based society and he called on followers to ‘go to the people’

Question 3

Who was Mikhail Bukanin, what were his views and what did he introduce into Russia? (3)

Answer 3

• An anarchist and a socialist
• Held the view that private ownership of land should be replaced by collective ownership and income based on the number of hours worked
• The Communist Manifesto

Question 4

Who was Sergei Nechaev?

Answer 4

A radical activist who called on St Petersburg students to assassinate the Tsar

Question 5

What was the Tchaikovsky circle?

Answer 5

• Sought social revolution
• Primarily a literary society that organised the printing, publishing and distribution of scientific and revolutionary literature.
• From 1872 they started organising workers to work amongst peasants in the countryside

Question 6

What is Narodnyism (populism)?

Answer 6

Going to the people

Question 7

What did Pyotr Lavrov encourage in 1874? (2)

Answer 7

For a group of 2000 young men and women to go to the countryside and persuade the peasantry about the development of the peasant commune

Question 8

What was the aim of the people that went to the peasants?

Answer 8

To exploit the resentment since emancipation with the lack of land and heavy tax burden still carried

Question 9

Why did the Narodniks fail on their first attempt, and what was the consequence? (2)

Answer 9

• Peasant ignorance, superstition and deep loyalty to the Tsat
• 1600 were arrested

Question 10

What did Narodnyism help do? (2)

Answer 10

Take radical opposition away from underground meeting rooms to the countryside, helping to make the government more aware of the depth of the feeling of the opposition.

Question 11

When was Land and Liberty set up and what did they do? (3)

Answer 11

• 1877

- Continue the populist tradition and place more pressure of the autocracy for constitutional reform

Question 12

What two groups did Land and Liberty split into and what did they want? (4)

Answer 12

• The People’s Will: Advocated violent methods, by assassinating officials, but agreed to withdraw the threat if the Tsar agreed to a constitution
• The Black Repartition: wanted to share or partition the black soil provinces of Russia among the peasants