Nikolai Chernyshevsky was the author of a radical journal The contemporary and the book what is to be done? which he wrote in 1862. His writings suggested that the peasants had to be made leaders of revolutionary change.
Aleksandr Herzen was the editor of the radical journal 'The Bell' which was produced abroad and smuggled into Russia illegally. In this he advocated a new peasant-based social structure. In 1869 he called on followers to 'go to the people.
Mikhail Bakunin was both an anarchist and a socialist. He put forward the view that private ownership of land should be replaced by collective ownership and that income should be based on the number of hours worked. Bakunin had been forced to live in exile but he helped to introduce Marxism into Russia by translating Karl Marx's 'The communist manifesto' in Russian in 1869. The first volume of Marx's 'Das Kapital' was subsequently published in Russia in 1872.
