Land and Liberty

• Land and Liberty (Zemlya i Volya) was set up in 1877 continued the populist tradition. Its members sought work within the peasant communes- as doctors teachers or workmen- but in a less obstructive manner.
• Some carried out political assassinations including that of General Mezmestev head of the Third Section in 1878. They elicited considerable public sympathy. There were even some talk between Zemstva and the Land Liberty organisation to try place more pressure on the autocracy for constitutional reform.
• In 1879 Land and Liberty split into two different groups: Black repartition and The people's will.
• Black Repartition organised from St Petersburg by Georgi Plekhanov and other colleagues. It was so called because it wanted to share or partition the black soil provinces of Russia among the peasants.
• It continued to work peacefully among the peasantry developing ties with students and workers and publishing radical materials in the hope of stimulating social change without resorting to violence.
• However it was severely weakened by arrests in 1880-81 when it ceased to exist as a separate organisation. Plekhanov and some of the early leaders turned instead to Marxism.
• The People's Will (Narodnaya Volya) was able ably led by Aleksandr Mikhailov who successfully planted a spy in the Tsar's Third Section to keep the group informed of the Secret Police's activities and so evade harassment and arrest.
• This was a bigger group than Black Repartition and it advocated violent methods undermining government by assassinating officials.
• In 1878 it declared that the the Tsar had to be removed- although it did offer to withdraw the threat if the Tsar agreed to a constitution which he did not causing the assassination of Alexander II in March 1881.