The Narodnik movement was a populist initiative to engage the rural classes of Russia in a political debate that would overthrow the
Tsar's government in the nineteenth century. Unlike the
French Revolution or the
Revolutions of 1848, the "to the people" movement was political activism primarily by the Russian intelligentsia. These individuals were generally anti-capitalist, and they believed that they could facilitate both an economic and a political revolution amongst rural Russians by "going to" and educating the peasant classes. The concept of the narod, like the
volk in
Germany, was an attempt to establish a new national identity in Russia that was both nationalistic and liberal.
Fyodor Dostoevsky said that "none of us like the narod as they actually are, but only as each of us has imagined them." Russian political activists and government officials often claimed to be working to improve the lives of Russian peasants; in reality, they were manipulating the image of the peasant to further their own political objectives. Narodniks saw the peasant commune as a Russia that had not been tainted by western influence;
Alexander Herzen wrote that the narod was "the official Russia; the real Russia." Hampered by a biased understanding of the peasantry, the Narodniks struggled, mostly unsuccessfully, to relate to the peasantry. Rural Russians were typically highly devoted to the Tsar and to the
Russian Orthodox Church; not understanding this, the Narodnik rhetoric blamed the Tsar and centralized religion for the peasants' lack of land and material resources. Another example of the cultural disconnect between the intelligentsia and the peasants in the "to the people" movement was the Narodniks propagandizing through pamphlets when virtually all poor Russians were illiterate. In essence, the Narodnik movement in 1874 failed because they approached the peasants as though the peasants were intellectuals like themselves. Radicals in the latter part of the 1870s would learn that their concept of the narod was flawed, and intellectuals would have to instead make themselves into peasants to have success in the movement and begin a revolution against the government of Alexander II.
Nikolay Chernyshevsky's "anthropological principle" held that all humans, regardless of class, have many intrinsic similarities, and intellectuals saw in the peasants a purified version of themselves that could be radicalized; time demonstrated that this was simply not the case. Disunity between
Bakunists and Lavrists, and Narodnik circles acting on independent initiative, were a further obstacle. The Bakunists believed revolution among the peasantry and populist uprisings in Russia would begin in the immediate future, the latter believed that propaganda should precede revolution, and the process would be more gradual. Bakunists believed that the peasants were ready to revolt with little propagandizing, whereas the Lavrists thought that considerable effort would be needed for the uprisings to begin. A lack of ideological unity resulted in varied approaches to the movement, and because of this the Narodniks no longer presented a united front to rural Russia. Some Narodniks believed in propagandizing by staying in one area for an extended period of time and assimilating into a commune that they were trying to revolutionize ("settled" propaganda), and others practiced propagandizing by using pamphlets and literature to maximize the number of people that the message reached ("flying" propaganda). Disunity was prevalent even though Narodniks only traveled in three directions: either towards
Volga,
Dnieper, or
Don. It was not until the formation of Narodnaya Volya in 1879 that young revolutionaries saw the need for organization and a disciplined message. This lack of unity is responsible for the third reason that the "going to the people movement" failed; the peasants did not receive the intellectuals well. The reception that the
intelligentsia received in the communes was so poor that it destroyed their idealized image of the peasant that was so common prior to 1874. The Narodniks saw peasants as a unified body; they thought that all peasants dressed poorly, so intellectuals dressed as poorly as was possible in order to fit in. In actuality, the peasants saw a poorly dressed person as a person with no authority or credibility. Accordingly, intellectuals dressing as they imagined the peasant dressed had an adverse effect; it actually made peasants suspicious of the intellectuals. Furthermore, Narodnik propaganda failed to address the more mundane, ordinary concerns of the peasantry. The everyday troubles of a rural Russian—a lack of material goods, poor healthcare, etc.—left little time for discussions of
socialism or
egoism.
Feminism in the Narodnik movement was also hard for the peasantry to accept. Pre-Marxist revolutionaries believed in an unusually strong
equality of sex, and educated noblewomen played major roles in radical movements in the latter decades of the nineteenth century. The Narodniks promulgated Chernyshevskyan ideas of chaste cohabitation—that men and women should live together with no sexual interactions—and gender equality. These concepts were extremely odd to most peasants, and they did not generally react well to them. Furthermore, Narodniks often lived in communes where non-married men and women slept and lived in the same rooms. To Orthodox Russian peasants in the 1870s, such disregard of gender norms were both offensive and off-putting. Nearly 60% of Narodnik women were from the wealthy classes, which meant that Russian peasants could not relate to most intellectuals in the movement intellectually, economically or socially. Historian
Dmitri Pisarev writes that "sensing their inability to act alone, the intelligent radical made the peasantry the instrument to realize their hopes." As historian Daniel Field wrote, however, "Narodniks found that the peasant desire for land was not accompanied by a wish to rebel." The Russian government did not look favorably on the Narodniks advocating their overthrow, and peasants would only abide Narodniks so long as no criminal connections could be drawn to them. The Narodniks believed that the peasants were the class in Russia most prone to revolution, yet the peasants were not ready for revolutionary action. Government suppression of the Narodniki resulted in mass trials that widely publicized the views of the Narodniki, and outraged the public. Between 1873 and 1877, the Russian police arrested 1,611 propagandists, of whom 15% were women. Radicals in the movement focused on Russia's oppressive taxation and land laws, and their propaganda was viewed as a threat by Tsar Alexander II. He ordered the arrest and trial of known Narodniks and Narodnik sympathizers in the peasantry; peasants were forced to expose the Narodniks to the authorities to escape persecution themselves. Beginning in 1877, a long and slow
trial of 193 Narodniks was conducted. The propagandists had to either operate covertly or face imprisonment. The more the government tried to repress the Narodniks, the more radical the Narodniks became. They grew increasingly selective in their membership, and their Zemlya i Volya (Land and Freedom) members would eventually evolve to form more terroristic organizations:
Narodnaya Volya (The People's Will) and Chornyperedel (Black Repartition). These groups sought to begin a revolution through violence, and when members of Narodnaya Volya killed Tsar Alexander in 1881, the larger Narodnik movement lost virtually all support in the communes and rural parts of Russia. Government oppression further radicalized the Narodniks, and the peasants could not support enhanced radicalization of the already radical intelligentsia. ==Influence==