1891-92 Great Famine

• Many radical revolutionaries turned to humanitarian work to help the starving peasants rather than pursuing radical politics.
• The failure of government action during the famine highlighted the need for significant change to the rural economy and this led to a revival of Populist ideas in the mid-1890s.
• Although active opposition to Alexander III was limited, there were groups within Russia continuing the cause of the Populists of the 1870s and who were to provide the basis for the much larger and more dangerous Socialist Revolutionary Party which formed in 1901.