Let's go To the People! (70s~) Flashcards
Who were the populists, and what drove them to the people?
Younger generation of Intelligentsia post 60s who saw violence as pointless means of establishing revolution
- NOT a party -> discordant movement
- NO unified ideology (though mostly Russian Socialists)
- What held them together was instead spirit and camaraderie UNDER state suppression
COMMUNE = PEASANTS WILL LEAD SOCIETY / REVOLT -> acquire socialism
Ideology:
- Influenced by Ascetic lifestyle and devotion to cause by Chernyshevsky
- socialists for the large part -> want to skip nascent Russian capitalism by modelling nation off of unique Russian scenario of peasant commune:
- Peasant commune: coordinated growing crops, paying taxes, covering recruits needed for army. HAPPENED within councils -> heads of male households
- Idealized vision of Russian peasants (romanticists) -> actually supportive of Tsar, shocked when they don’t understand socialism
- Evidenced by People’s will having various justifications for Tsaricide. Want revolution sparking, actually issue moderate demands when it happens
Emerged from: debates between Lavrov and Bakunin:
- Lavrov: Historical Letters: 1870 book form
- “developed individuals” -> enlightened via education and ABOUT socialism. Income secure and ABLE to make sacrifices. Awareness that world is flawed (you’re well off while peasants aren’t) -> THEREFORE NEED TO WORK TO MAKE PEOPLE’s LIVES BETTER
- Don’t study what you love, go out into medicine and help peasants
- Basically Helplessness Blues.
Bakunin:
- Didn’t think intellectuals would lead revolution and take long time
- Way less patient -> can spark some peasant unrest, but won’t occupy leading roles. Peasants ALREADY have rev potential.
- Statism and Anarchy is book (1873)
- more immediate and can play direct role in rev in lifetime. As opposed to hard work w/o guarantees
- Bakunin urges revs to flock to countryside in 68 and propagata peasantry
According to Ely (and Rowley), what were the conditions that made populists most successful in urban environments? Who inspired Chaikovskii?
CREATION OF REVOLUTIONARY UNDERGOUND KEY TO SUCCESS
- Overall a kind of “cultivating desert power” -> trial and error
- What makes it able to operate internationally, etc
- New methods employed that will be useful later on, even if not violent now (still rev against the state)
Emergence:
- Nechaev DOES scare away notions of violence, but PROVES THAT CELL STRUCTURE VIABLE UNDER TSAR (1871 trial was public to this effect)
- Therefore develop circles that mimic structure but explicitly go against violence -> Chaikovtskii Circle (open, inclusive, “morally grouded” -> no strict hierarchy and non violent, more of a “brotherhood” described by members) -> all genders, military men, students, etc
FOUND ASCETICISM GOOD -> KINSHIP WITH THE PEASANTS (eat horsemeat, small apartments)
- tactics -> practical and media based -> public opinion more important than unified doctrine
NON VIOLENT -> NOT REVS -> PROPAGANDA AS OPPOSED TO TERROR
Strategies
- - Book project: printed cheap books for peasants and workers and rev lit
- Own printing house in Switzerland
NEVER violent -> but PIONEERED underground tactics like guarding meetings, escaping detection
Invisible ink ad such for correspondance
Collapse:
- 1872 underground version of Sunday School emerges - radical lit in industrial areas
- 1873/74 collapses because of arrests for this, pushes others further underground
- To the People emerges
POST to the People:
- (ILLITERACY> ALSO ANTI-STATE / TSAR FLYERS HATED BY PEASANTS) -
- LIE TO PEASANTS -. TSAR COMMANDS YOU TO REBEL
- - hundreds in support -> CHIGRIN AFFAIR -> cut down by po po
- Rebels return to city to carry out these operation save for a few stand ins
- - EVOLUTION -> rebels see countryside as key still, terrorists don’t
- Practiced shooting -> had longstanding implications beginning of armed revolt strats
- OVERALL: NEED MORE FUNDING FOR ORGANIZATION AND WEAPONS WHICH IS EASIER TO GET IN CITY -> ULTIMATE PIVOT
ULTIMATE PIVOT TO URBANIZATION AND TERROR
MOST SUCCESFUL THEREFORE element of populism is one operated out of city
despite emphasis on peasants and countryside (idelogy) it was urban environment that saw the revs the most success and wher ethey actually soent most of their time
How did Populism and To the People build off of previous revolutionary movements?
LESS SOPHISTICATED:
- Underground imperfect
- no exposure to peasants unlike worker knowledge of Lenin/Krupskaya
- Naivety of peasant situation. believe they will be receptive to socialism but not (conservative, monarchist, still want original papers)
- Breshkovskii undone by lime and manure hard work -> trad women’s work (unaccustomed)
- NOT in touch with URBAN workers en masse yet -> only using them to propagandize peasants because of close links
- Chaikovksii circle engages w/ workers in literacy, still see them as corrupted by capitalism
MORE SOPHISTICATED:
- ENHANCED disguises over karakozov -> acid on face of Breshkovskii
- Chaikovskii circle relocate to working class neighbourhood to blend in
- Adopt cell structure of Nechaev despite steering away from violence
- MOST URBAN STAGE OF POPULISM -> organized in cities, started here, backed by urban “circles of development”
- invisible ink
- Collapses because revolutionary underground conditions NOT the same in countryside as city
ESSENTIAL FOR KICKING OFF URBAN REV ACTIVITY
Explain the role of women in populism and how their roles differed from past movements
women now play HUGE role
- Result of social status changing in decades.
- 1850s -> Women could ATTEND university (just listen but still no degrees)
- 1860s -> new employment (midwifery, telegraph agencies, railway network secrataries) (Couldn’t hold employment before that)
- 1870s -> Higher courses for women (Bestuzhev lectures, etc). COULD get diploma at end -> practical subjects like medicine and natural sciences.
- Bias in central cities,Enter the Fritschi:
- Switzerland makes radical choice: allows forign women to ocme and EARN DEGREES
- Zurich specifically -> most women want to be doctors. 300 people by early 1870s -a colony forms (at least 100 women, want to be ACTUAL doctors)
- Come into contact with socialist ideas (Bakunin, etc)
- All female book club to discuss socialism, males gradually let in
- VERY ascetic lifestyles. Elites but gave away generously.
- THEREFORE -> “proper behaviour” for revolutionaries -> bread and tea diet, malnourished. Not very romantically active.
- Ascetic lifestyle to LINK SELVES W/ PEASANTS -> socialist/populist asceticism
Gone by 1873
- Govt orders women home FROM ZURICH or else exile/not accepting degree. If COME HOME -> can become a midwife/assistant but not doctor.
- Get around this by going elsewhere beyond Zurich.
- WHY ? -> WANT TO SERVE PEASANTS AND THE NAROD -> NEED TO SELF SACRIFICE>
- Others went home and were fed up FIGNER (Vera)
- Decide to become revs. Dreams shattered so blow up Tsar
- THEREFORE -> cross fertilization evident from emigre communities and people back home. Evidence Bakunin/etc exile ideas are leaking in/influential
To the People:
- Catherin Breshkovsky and others playing leading roles
- Organizing/speaking to peasants, going “into the field,” etc.
Explain the causes of Populism’s shift into violence and the collapse of the to the people movement
- State crackdown/overreaction
- In 1874 and such, state cracks down. Arrests in 37 provinces (often at behest of peasants)
- Catherin Breshkovsky arrested after being unwittingly outed by a peasant (PROOF COUNTRYSIDE HOSTILE) 1874
- Placed in P/P prison where radicalized more
- - ticking communication w/ revs in other cells of solitary
- tell stories for comraderie, united by shared suffering / suppresion
- - 44 die, 12 suicides +, 38 went insane
- Leaks out to int -> these kids coming from elite, elites therefore outraged at govt response -> press jumps on this.
- Two big trials -> “of 150 and 193”
- Press records the minimal crimes (pamphlets, etc) contrast to
- EXACTLY LIKE PETRASHEVSKY -> any sedition dangerous -> WANTED public response to be angry
- However, most sympathetic because they’re young -> CONDITIONS FOR PEOPLE’S WILL - Realization peasants won’t budge, pivot back to cities
- Also because of crackdowns from state -> pivot to violence
- GAIN SYMPATHY FROM RUSSIAN SOCIETY FOR TRIALS -> get funds
- SPB was also always INTELLECTUAL hub of planning .etc
(ILLITERACY> ALSO ANTI-STATE / TSAR FLYERS HATED BY PEASANTS)
WHAT REBELS DO: Instead, try to LIE TO PEASANTS -. TSAR COMMANDS YOU TO REBEL
- hundreds in support -> CHIGRIN AFFAIR -> cut down by po po
- Rebels return to city to carry out these operation save for a few stand ins ->
- VOLUTION -> rebels see countryside as key still, terrorists don’t
- Practiced shooting -> had longstanding implications beginning of armed revolt strats
- OVERALL: NEED MORE FUNDING FOR ORGANIZATION AND WEAPONS WHICH IS EASIER TO GET IN CITY -> ULTIMATE PIVOT
Explain the origins/ideology behind TTP.
OVERALL:
- Want to BYPASS Bourgeoisie capitalism of west by using peasant commune (land redistribution)
- Uniquely Russian situation (Bakunin, Herzen)
- Need to help peasants spark revolt -> use propaganda to do this (socialist childrens’ stories)
- Personal motives ranged from class guilt to warfare, to
Ideological origins
Class origins: - New class mixing in unis -> - Different class motives -> middle class (lower) want to fight a "proxy class war" while noble populists are guilt ridden and want to do penance for privilege by helping out peasants upon whom their wealth is based
- SPECIFIC INDIVIDUALS EMODY THESE, BUT NO UNIFYING MOTIVE/FACTOR
Populism and origins
-> term derives from narod -> therefore broadest theme is willingness to help the (mostly rural) poor (majority of Russ pop)
HIGHLIGHT (like heroic scenario)-As the only “voice” of public dissent throughout Nick I and Alex II, Int like they have super intense responsibility to society
Specific Ideological Influences:
Herzen:
- Lays foundation by creating “Russian Socialism” -> PIONEERED IDEA THAT RUSSIAN PEASANTS WERE INHERENTLY COMMUNAL -> land redistribution is a socialist idea after all
- Russia, therefore contains egg of possibility for stepping OVER capitalism and Bourgeoisie (inheritors of LLs)
- current system benefitted elites on backs of peasants, autocratic state either didn’t want to or couldn’t fix this, govt was trying to westernize the country along with capitalism -> NEED TO ABOLISH OR MODERATE AUTOCRACY
Chaikovskii Circle:
- ASCETICISM GOOD -> KINSHIP WITH THE PEASANTS (eat horsemeat, small apartments in SPB)
- Reestablishment of gender roles -> inspired by what is to be done , fictitious marriages to liberate women who held equal importance (allegedly)
EMERGENCE of TTP:
- Summer 1874 after Chaikovtskii
- First group Dolgushin -> arrested 1873 but were too open. Start flood gates
- Pamhplets to Int to go to people -> only way to FOMENT REVOLUTION
- Group encourages Int to abandon tecahing, Zemstvo involvement because this is just working WITH Tsar and regime -> “nowhere will you be so useful as a propagandist” -> against autocracy specifically
Why Revs go: - Actually seen as action -> individuals crave this instead of theory -> Kravchinskii calls it "procession to the cross" (in response to class guilt / need to educate peasants since education in unis built off their backs
NEED CULTURAL CLEANSING AND/OR REDUCTION OF GUILT
- Chaikovskii becomes disciple of “Godmanhood” new religious movment inspired here (created by populists in country) -> to the people as basis for spiritual revolution that emphasizes roots in country as place to find God
Failure:
- Despite sophisticated strategies of disguise, ultimately flawed (womanly hands, can’t handle trades, overturned by peasants)
- Also peasants unreceptive because:
- Didn’t live up to ideas about them -> cigarette paper pamphlets
- Wanted private ownership of land
- Tsar was benefactor and king
- Populists untrustworthy like “foreign” landowners
- Illiteracy makes propaganda hard
- Disillusionment with asceticism -> FIGNER WAS DOING MEDICAL WORK -> FEELS INDIFFERENT BECAUSE OF OVERWHELMINGLY POOR HEALTH
