5 - Opposition

Question 1

Moderate Liberal Opposition

Answer 1

> Relatively small group whose size and influence grew in the late C19th. They had the benefit of time, education and travel to reflect on political manners

Question 2

Categories of Moderate Liberals

Answer 2

> Westerners = wanted to catch up with the west by copying their ways
Slavophiles = a superior Russian path to a better future

Question 3

Westerning Liberal Opposition

Answer 3

> Zemstvo was their natural home
Members hoped to reform autocracy, so the Tsar would listen to and rule in conjunction with subjects

Question 4

Radical Opposition

Answer 4

> Developed amongst younger generation, often children of liberals
1863 - “The Organisation” set up at Moscow Uni, wanted reform

Question 5

Radical Thinkers
Chernyshevsky

Answer 5

> Wrote the journal “The Contemporary” & the book “What is to be done?” (1862)
Suggested peasants had to be made revolutionary leaders

Question 6

Radical Thinkers
Herzen

Answer 6

> Editor of the journal “The Bell”, which was smuggled in
Advocated a new peasant style structure
1869 “Go to the people”

Question 7

Radical Thinkers
Bakunin

Answer 7

> Believed in collective ownership and income based on hours
Translated Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto” (1869)

Question 8

Tchaikovsky Circle

Answer 8

> Set up 1868-69 St Petersburg
Primarily a literary society
Wanted social revolution
No more than 100 members in St Petersburg & other cities
1872 - began organising workers to work with peasants

Question 9

Narodnyism
(Populism)

Answer 9

> “Going to the people2
1874 Lavrov & 2000 young people tried to persuade peasants that the future of Russia depended on the peasant commune
Were reported to the authorities - 1600 arrested
1876 tried again = arrests & show trials (1877-78)
Increased government awareness

Question 10

Land & Liberty

Answer 10

> Set up 1877 & continued Populist tradition
Members tried to work in peasant communities
Had public sympathy
Met with zemstvo to try & achieve constitutional reform
Political assassinations Head of Third Section, General Mezemtsev (1878(
1879 split into Black Repartition & People’s Will

Question 11

Black Repartition

Answer 11

> St Petersburg by Plekhanov
Wanted to share black soil provinces between peasantry
Worked with peasants, developed links with workers/students & published radical materials
Weakened by arrests in 1880-81 & ceased to exist
Plekhanov & others turned to Marxism

Question 12

People’s Will

Answer 12

> Led by Mikhailov
Had spy in Third Section
Advocated violent methods
1879 - Declared Tsar had to be removed
Assassinated Alexander II March 1881