Land and Liberty Земля и воля | |
|---|---|
 Symbol of the Land and Liberty movement | |
| Founded | 1860 (1860)(first) 1876 (1876)(second) |
| Dissolved | 1864 (1864)(first) 1879 (1879)(second) |
| Succeeded by | People's Will Black Repartition |
| Newspaper | Land and Liberty |
| Ideology | Populism Agrarian socialism Collectivist anarchism |
| Political position | Far-left |
| Movement | Narodniks |
Land and Liberty (Russian:Земля и воля,romanized: Zemlya i volyaorZemlia i volia; also sometimes translatedLand and Freedom) was a Russianclandestinerevolutionary organization in the period 1861–1864, and was re-established as apolitical party in the period 1876–1879. It was a central organ of theNarodnik movement.[1][2]
The inspirers of the society wereAlexander Herzen andNikolay Chernyshevsky. The participants set as their goal the preparation of apeasant revolution, their policy documents created under the influence of the ideas of Herzen and Ogarev, the latter of which had coined the term "Land and Liberty" in one of his articles.[3]
The first Executive Committee of the organization included 6 of its organizers (Nikolai Obruchev, Sergey Rymarenko, the brothersNikolai andAlexander Serno-Solovyevich,Alexander Sleptsov,Vasily Kurochkin). Land and Liberty was a union of circles located in 13-14 cities. The largest circles wereMoscow (Yuri Mosolov, Nikolai Shatilov) andSt. Petersburg (Nikolai Utin andNatalia Corsini). The militant organization Land and Liberty also formed links with the "Committee of Russian Officers in Poland" under the leadership of Second LieutenantAndrei Potebnya.[4] According to the data available to Alexander Sleptsov, Land and Liberty counted 3,000 people as members (the Moscow branch alone consisted of 400 members).[5]
In the summer of 1862, the tsarist authorities dealt a serious blow to the organization, arresting its leaders - Chernyshevsky and Serno-Solovyovich, as well as the radical journalistDmitry Pisarev, who was associated with the revolutionaries.[6] In 1863, due to the expiration of theCharter of the landlord and peasants, the members of the organization expected a powerful peasant uprising, which they wanted to organize in cooperation with thePolish revolutionaries. However, thePolish underground members were forced to organize an uprising ahead of the promised date, and hopes for a peasant revolt in Russia did not materialize.[7] In addition, theliberals for the most part refused to support the revolutionary camp, believing in theprogressiveness of thereforms that had begun in the country. Under the influence of all these factors, Land and Liberty was forced to dissolve itself in early 1864.[8]
The second composition of Land and Liberty, which was restored in 1876 as a populist organization,[9] included such figures asAlexander Mikhailov,Georgi Plekhanov,Mark Natanson,Dmitry Lizogub, laterSergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky,Nikolai Morozov,Sophia Perovskaya,Lev Tikhomirov andNikolai Tyutchev.[10] In total, the organization consisted of about 200 people. In its activities, Land and Liberty relied on a wide range of sympathizers. The name Land and Liberty was given to the Populist Society at the end of 1878, with the appearance of the organ of the same name.[citation needed]
The organization consisted of the main circle (subdivided into seven special groups according to the type of activity) and local groups located in many large cities of the empire. Land and Liberty had its own organ with the same name. An agent of Land and Liberty, Nikolai Kletochnikov, was introduced into theThird Section.[11]
The revolutionaries chose to "settle" in the provinces ofSaratov,Nizhny Novgorod,Samara,Astrakhan,Tambov,Pskov,Voronezh, theDon region and others. They also attempted to spread their revolutionary activities in the NorthernCaucasus and theUrals. Land and Liberty organized clandestinepublishing and distribution of the revolutionaryliterature, conductedpropaganda among workers and took part in several strikes inSaint Petersburg in 1878-1879. It also influenced the development of the student movement by organizing or supporting demonstrations in Petersburg and other cities, including the so-calledKazan demonstration of 1876, where they would openly admit the organization’s existence for the first time.[12]
The Kazan demonstration was the first political demonstration in Russia with the participation of advanced workers. The demonstration was organized and conducted by the Zemstvoi Narodniks and associated members of workers' circles on Kazanskaya Square in St. Petersburg. About 400 people gathered in the square, where Georgi Plekhanov delivered a passionate revolutionary speech to the audience.[13]
Land and Liberty’s disappointment with the revolutionary activity in the countryside, intensification of the governmentalrepressions and political discontent during theRusso-Turkish War and ripening of therevolutionary situation favored the conception and development of new sentiments in the organization itself.[14]
TheLipetsk Congress was held in June 1879 inLipetsk. Members of Land and Liberty that gathered at the congress includedAlexander Mikhailov,Aleksandr Kvyatkovsky,Lev Tikhomirov,Nikolai Morozov andAndrei Zhelyabov, among others. The congress decided to include in the organization's program the recognition of the need for a political struggle against theTsarist autocracy as a primary and independent task. The participants in the Lipetsk Congress declared themselves the Executive Committee of the Social Revolutionary Party and adopted a charter based oncentralism,discipline andconspiracy. The Executive Committee, if the general congress of "land volunteers" inVoronezh agreed with the new program, was to take upon itself the implementation of the terror.[15]
Disagreements between the supporters of the former strategy of inciting the countryside calledderevenschiki, or "villagers" (Georgi Plekhanov,Mikhail Popov, Osip Aptekman etc.) and defenders of transition towards political struggle by means of systematic terrorist methods calledpoliticians (Aleksandr Mikhailov, Aleksandr Kvyatkovsky, Nikolai Morozov, Lev Tikhomirov etc.) led to theconvocation of theVoronezh Congress of Land and Liberty in June 1879, where the two rival groups would reach a short-term compromise.[16] About 20 people took part, includingGeorgi Plekhanov,Alexander Mikhailov,Andrei Zhelyabov,Vera Figner,Sophia Perovskaya,Nikolai Morozov,Mikhail Frolenko andOsip Aptekman. Supporters of political struggle and terror (Zhelyabov, Mikhailov, Morozov, and others) attended the congress as a close-knit group, which was organized at the Lipetsk Congress. The resolutions of the Congress were of a compromise: along with activities among the people, the need for political terror was also recognized. Plekhanov, who argued the danger of being carried away by terror for the prospects of working among the people, formally split from Land and Liberty and left the congress.[17]
By 15 August 1879, Land and Liberty had dissolved,[18] breaking up into two independent organizations: the terrorist wing formingPeople's Will and the political wing forming theBlack Repartition.[1][10]
The formation of Land and Liberty, inSaint Petersburg in 1876, was preceded by the analysis of the "Going to the People" campaign (Хождение в народ, or Khozhdeniye v narod) of 1873-1875. As a result, the members of Land and Liberty defined the basics of thepolitical platform, which would be callednarodnicheskaya (народническая, or "close to the people",populist). They admitted a possibility of a special,non-capitalist way of development ofRussia with thepeasantry as its basis. The members of Land and Liberty considered it necessary to adapt the purposes and slogans of the movement to independent revolutionary aspirations that had already existed among thepeasants, as they believed. The program proclaimed the ideal of "anarchy and collectivism" and its requirements, generalized in the slogan "Land and Liberty!", were designed to allow for theeven distribution of all the lands "into the hands of the rural workingstrata", "fullcommunalself-management" and division of theRussian Empire into parts "in accordance with thedesires of the locals".[19]
The Program of Land and Liberty also envisioned a course of actions, aimed at "disorganization of the state", in its members' opinion. In particular, it allowed for physical elimination of "the most harmful or prominent members of the government". The most famousterrorist act of Land and Liberty was theassassination of the Chief of theGendarmesNikolai Mezentsov in 1878.[20]
The members of Land and Liberty saw the peasantry as the principal revolutionary force, as opposed to theworking class, which would have to play a part of the "second fiddle". Proceeding from the inevitability of a "forcedcoup d'état", the revolutionaries consideredagitation and organization ofrevolts,demonstrations andstrikes to be very important. Land and Liberty represented a "rebellious" current of the revolutionary movement of the 1870s.Vladimir Lenin said that Land and Liberty’s "striving to enlist all the discontented in the organisation and to direct this organisation to resolute struggle against the autocracy … that was its great historical merit."[21]
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