Narodniks
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The Narodniks (
The khozhdeniye v narod (хождение в народ; meaning 'going to the people') campaigns were the central impetus of the Narodnik movement.[3] The Narodniks were in many ways the intellectual and political forebears and, in notable cases, direct participants of the Russian Revolution—in particular of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which went on to greatly influence Russian history in the early 20th century.
History
Narodnichestvo as a philosophy was influenced by the works of
Narodnichestvo arose after the
Narodniki established semi-underground circles (кружки, kruzhki) such as the Chaikovsky Circle and Land and Liberty, with the goals of self-education and external propaganda work. They shared the common general aims of destroying the Russian monarchy and of distributing land fairly among the peasantry. The Narodniks generally believed that it was possible to forgo the capitalist phase of Russia's development and proceed directly to socialism.
The Narodniks saw the peasantry as the revolutionary class that would overthrow the monarchy, and perceived the village commune as the embryo of socialism. However, they also believed that the peasantry would not achieve revolution on their own, insisting instead that history could only be made by outstanding personalities, who would lead an otherwise passive peasantry to revolution. Vasily Vorontsov called for the Russian intelligentsia to "bestir itself from the mental lethargy into which, in contrast to the sensitive and lively years of the seventies, it had fallen and formulate a scientific theory of Russian economic development".[5] However, some Narodnik intellectuals called for an immediate revolution that went beyond philosophical and political discussion.
In the spring of 1874, the Narodnik intelligentsia left the cities for the villages,
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Unofficial narodnik anthem |
One response to this repression was the formation of Russia's first organized revolutionary party,
However, these events did not mark the end of the movement, and the later
The Popular Resistance Association is an example of a modern-day grouping claiming the heritage of the Narodniks and the democratic socialist parties inspired by them.
Challenges
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
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.[13] 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
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.[9]: 68
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.[19]
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).[20] 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
Narodnichestvo had a direct influence on politics and culture in Romania, through the writings of Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea and the advocacy of the Bessarabian-born Constantin Stere (who was a member of Narodnaya Volya in his youth). The latter helped found various groups, included one formed around the literary magazine Viața Românească, which he published along with Garabet Ibrăileanu and Paul Bujor.
Stere and the Poporanist (from popor, Romanian for "people") movement eventually rejected revolution altogether. Nevertheless, he shared the Narodnik view that capitalism was not a necessary stage in the development of an agrarian country. This perspective, which contradicted traditional Marxism, also influenced Ion Mihalache's Peasants' Party and its successor, the National Peasants' Party, as well as the philosophy of Virgil Madgearu.
See also
- Nihilist movement
- Narodnaya Volya
- Socialist Revolutionary Party
- Group of Narodnik Socialists
- Nakanune (newspaper)
- Nikolai Danielson
- Left Socialist-Revolutionaries
- Party of Narodnik Communists
- Party of Revolutionary Communism
- Popular socialism
Notes
- S2CID 147530830.
- ^ Sambuk, S. M. (1972). Revolyutsionnyye narodniki Belarusi.
- ^ Itenberg, B.S. (1973–1982). "Khozhdenie v narod" [Going to the People]. Sovetskaia istoricheskaia entsiklopediya (in Russian). Moscow.
{{cite encyclopedia}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Lyaschenko, L. M. Revolyutsionnye Narodniki.
- JSTOR 2492162.
- ^ a b Pearl, Deborah (2003). "The People's Will". In Millar, James R. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Russian History (in Russian). Tomson Gale. pp. 1162–1163.
- Narodnaya Volyaprogram of 1879.
- Marxists.org. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
- ^ a b Frierson, Cathy A. (1993). Peasant Icons: Representations of Rural People in Late 19th Century Russia. New York: Oxford University Press.
- ^ a b Field, Daniel (1992). Peasants and Propagandists in the Russian Movement to the People in 1874. London: Garland.
- ^ Venturi, Franco (1960). "Chaikovskists and Movement "To Go To The People."". Roots of Revolution. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. pp. 62–70.
- ^ a b Wortman, Richard (1967). "The City and the Countryside". The Crisis of Russian Populism. London: Cambridge University Press. pp. 87–111.
- ^ JSTOR 4202141.
- ^ Siljak, Ana (2010). "The "Girl Assassin"". Angel of Vengeance: The Girl Who Shot the Governor of St. Petersburg and Sparked the Age of Assassination. New York: Griffin. p. 48.
- ^ Thaden, Edward C. (1971). Russia since 1801: the making of a new society. New York: Wiley-Interscience. pp. 335–350.
- ^ Maxwell, Margaret. Narodniki Women: Russian Women Who Sacrificed Themselves for the Dream of Freedom.
- JSTOR 3786408.
- ^ "Remembering Nikolai Tchaikovsky: lessons from the Narodniks". Students for a Stateless Society. 6 January 2012. Archived from the original on 18 October 2014.
- Clarendon Press. pp. 205–225.
- ^ "Narodnik". Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Bibliography
- Pedler, Anne. "Going to the People: The Russian Narodniki in 1874–5". The Slavonic Review 6.16 (1927): 130–141. Web. 19 October 2011.
- von Laue, Theodore H. "The Fate of Capitalism in Russia: The Narodnik Version". American Slavic and East European Review 13.1 (1954): 11–28. Web. 19 October 2011.
- Woods, Alan. "Bolshevism: the Road to Revolution". WellRed Publications (1999): 33–50. Sat. 24 June 2017.
External links
- Vladimir Lenin. The Heritage We Renounce, 1897 at Marxists.org