Land + Liberty

• The Populists that avoided arrest decided to regroup and set up “Land and Liberty” in 1877.

  
  

  This was better organised and more radical.
• Land and Liberty pursued two courses of action.

  
  

  On the one hand, they sought to live alongside the peasants for longer period to better understand their mentality and therefore be able to influence them more effectively.

  
  

  On the other hand, they sought to advance Bakunin’s anarchist ideas more directly by attempting to assassinate prominent members of the Tsarist autocracy.
• In 1878, the head of the Tsarist secret police (the Third Section) was killed.

  
  

  The public support that these assassins appeared to enjoy was very worrying for the Tsar’s government.