Landscape design and planning

The “People's Will” party arose in August - October 1879 as a result of the split in “Land and Freedom” and united supporters of intensifying the terrorist struggle against the autocracy. It had a strictly centralized structure, headed by the Executive Committee (EC), all members of which had equal rights and were subject to the will of the majority. The IC included A. Mikhailov, A. Zhelyabov, L. Tikhomirov, A. Zundelevich, N. Morozov, S. Perovskaya, M. Oshanina, V. Figner and others.

In total, during its existence - 45 people. There was a narrower Administrative Commission. The Narodnaya Volya believed that the interests of the people and the autocracy were opposed. The EC program included demands for the creation of a permanent representative state body with broad powers, broad local self-government, freedom of conscience, speech, press, meetings, associations and agitation, the transfer of land to communities and the use of peasants, the liquidation of property on it, the transfer of plants and factories to the hands of workers, etc. The Narodnaya Volya sought to organize the armed overthrow of the autocracy and the transfer of power to the Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of universal suffrage. To disorganize and intimidate the authorities, it was planned to carry out a series of terrorist attacks to eliminate major figures in the tsarist administration. On August 26, 1879, the Narodnaya Volya members sentenced Emperor Alexander II to death.

By 1881, about 500 people had joined Narodnaya Volya, and even more opponents of the autocratic regime collaborated with it. It included organizations that formed circles in different cities: Student, which organized mass gatherings, Military, which included dozens of officers, Workers, which included the Central Workers' Circle in St. Petersburg (several hundred workers), and other circles. Contacts were established with the revolutionary populist emigration. "Narodnaya Volya" published several newspapers: "Narod-naya Vol-lya" (1879-85), "Ra-bo-chaya ga-ze-ta" (1880-81), "Lis-tok "Na-rod" "-noy vo-li" (1880-86), "Bulletin "Na-rod-noy vo-li"" (1883-86). In exile, the Narodnaya Volya Red Cross Society was created to provide assistance to victims of repression.

“Narodnaya Volya” prepared a number of terrorist acts, including 5 attempts on the life of Alexander II, and eventually managed to carry out the assassination of Alexander II on March 1, 1881. It operated quite successfully in 1879-1880. The organization is also obliged to its police agent N. Kletochnikov. At the beginning of 1881, the police, taking advantage of the betrayal of I. Okladsky, who was sentenced to eternal hard labor and entered the path of cooperation with the secret police, arrested Zhelyabov, Kletochnikov and others, which hit the organization hard. The Executive Committee was destroyed. N. Rysakov, who was arrested during the murder of the Tsar, was betrayed by the Central Workers' Circle. From now on, the center of the party is in Moscow.

After the assassination of Alexander II, Narodnaya Volya turned to Alexander III with a proposal to convene a Constituent Assembly, promising to end the terror. But the government took the path of escalating repression. On March 18, 1882, revolutionaries carried out the murder of the Kyiv military prosecutor V. Strelnikov, known in the revolutionary environment for his cruelty. From June 1882, after Tikhomirov and the seriously ill Oshanina left abroad, Figner took charge of Narodnaya Volya, trying to restore the organization.

Following a denunciation by S. Degaev, she was arrested in February 1883. The Narodnaya Volya managed to kill secret police inspector G. Sudeikin. After the blow dealt to the organization by the “Degaev case,” the organization’s activities faded away despite attempts to revive Narodnaya Volya made in 1884 by G. Lopatin and in 1885 by B. Odzhikh, as well as Tikhomirov’s attempt to continue publishing its periodicals abroad . There were five high-profile trials of Narodnaya Volya: the trial of 16 (1880), the trial of March 1, 1881, the trial of 20 (1882), the trial of 17 (1883) and the trial of 14 (1884). More than 15 thousand people were subjected to various punishments for their involvement in Narodnaya Volya. Subsequently, attempts were made to revive the revolutionary populist party (for example, the Terrorist Faction of the People's Will of 1886-1887), but only the organizers of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR) succeeded in 1902.

Historical sources:

Andrey Ivanovich Zhelyabov. Materials for biography. M., 1930;

Archive “Zem-li i vol-li” and “Na-rod-noi vol-li”. M., 1932;

Li-te-ra-tu-ra part-tii “Na-naya will-la.” M., 1930;

“The people’s will” in do-ku-men-tah and vo-po-mi-na-ni-yah. M., 1930;

Na-ro-do-vol-tsy after March 1, 1881. M., 1928;

Mo-ro-call of N.A. According to the weight of my life. M., 1947;

Re-vo-lu-tsi-on-no-ro-d-no-st-in the 70s. XIX century: Sat. do-ku-men-tov and ma-te-ria-lov. M., 1965;

“The people’s will” and “Black re-deal.” L., 1989;

Figner V.N. Printed work. Memories. M., 1964. T. 1-2.

"PEOPLE'S WILL" PROGRAM

"People's Will" is a revolutionary populist organization that arose in July 1879 at the Lipetsk Congress, as a result of the division of "Land and Freedom" into two organizations: the "People's Will" itself and the "Black Repartition" (August 15, 1879). The Narodnaya Volya organizations, which existed in more than 60 cities, included about 500 people, and approximately 5 thousand more people actively assisted the Narodnaya Volya members. At the head of the organization was the Executive Committee, which consisted almost entirely of professional revolutionaries. The Executive Committee selected agents of the 1st and 2nd degree from among the party members, to whom it entrusted the affairs of the party. Each of them had the right to attract several agents (2 or 3) of the 2nd degree for whom the organization of the party remained a secret. An agent of the 1st degree had no right to tell anyone about his rank. This remains a secret between him and those who accepted him as agents. An agent of the 1st degree undertakes to maintain complete silence regarding the affairs of the party entrusted to him by the Executive Committee.

The party charter obliged its members to renounce personal connections and, if necessary, to be ready to endure hardships, prisons, hard labor, or even sacrifice their lives. Resignation from the ranks of agents carrying out special assignments was practically excluded.

The organization of the Narodnaya Volya party (the largest and most significant revolutionary populist organization that arose in St. Petersburg in August 1879) consists of a whole network of secret circles, grouped at the beginning of the centralization of groups of a lower order around a group of a higher order. Each group of the higher order is replenished with the best forces of the groups of the lower order. The entire organization is drawn to a single center - the Executive Committee. All groups are interconnected by the unity of the program and plan of practical actions, by the commonality of forces and means. Relations between groups are conducted through an agent of the higher group, who is part of the junior group as its co-member. The interests of the center for each member are higher than the interests of his group. Therefore, the center has the right to recall members of subgroups for needs known to it, without motivating the recall to the group. Each group is independent in managing its affairs and has its own budget. The center submits all program issues, as well as party policy issues, for discussion to the entire organization. Decisions on these issues are made by a congress of representatives of local central groups together with representatives from the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee monitors the exact implementation of the plans of the congress and directs all the forces of the organization in accordance with them. The mutual relations of local central groups with each other and with the Executive Committee, their terms of reference are determined by special agreements. This is the local organization. In large centers it is divided into subjects of competence; such is the workers' organization, military, youth, etc., at the same beginning of the autonomy of circles and centralization. There are many such groups: some of them are in the provinces, others are here in the capital. Some are of a fighting, general revolutionary nature, others are special fighting, like a workers’ squad, but adapted to a different environment.

The leaders of the organization were A.I. Zhelyabov, A.D. Mikhailov, A.A. Kvyatkovsky, S.L. Perovskaya, V.N. Figner, L.A. Tikhomirov, M.F. Frolenko, A.I. Barannikov and others.

The organization was strictly centralistic and conspiratorial in nature. Printed organs - the newspaper "Narodnaya Volya", "Leaflet of the People's Will", "Calendar of the People's Will", "Workers' Newspaper" and the revolutionary socio-political review "Bulletin of the People's Will".

In 1879 - 1883 it united up to 25 circles (students, gymnasiums, workers), operating in 50 cities, had 10 underground printing houses in Russia and one abroad, and published newspapers: “Narodnaya Volya”.

The party program was approved. It indicated the possibility of realizing freedom, equality, fraternity on a socialist basis, ensuring general material well-being and the complete, all-round development of the individual. The current situation in Russia was characterized in the program as complete economic and political slavery of the people, above whom stand exploitative forces created and protected by the state. The state was seen by the Narodnaya Volya as the largest capitalist force, the only political oppressor of the people. To implement its objectives, “People's Will” set its immediate goal to carry out a political revolution, seize power and transfer it to the people. It was supposed to seize power through a conspiracy of a minority, and then it should be supported by a popular uprising. The idea of ​​regicide came to the fore, which would disorganize the government and serve as a signal for a popular uprising, which would be supported by the workers and military, and carried out under the leadership of the party. The main program requirements of “Narodnaya Volya” were:

• 1) Permanent representation of the people, i.e. parliamentary democratic republic.
• 2) Complete freedom of speech, press, meetings, associations, conscience, election campaigning.
• 3) Universal suffrage without class and property restrictions and the election of all positions from bottom to top.
• 4) Land - to the peasants, factories and factories - to the workers.
• 5) National equality and the right of nations to self-determination.
• 6) Convening the Constituent Assembly.
• 7) Replacement of the standing army with a territorial one.

The practical activities of “Narodnaya Volya” in the program were divided into propaganda and agitation on the one hand, and through the “Red Terror” on the other. The program prioritized propaganda activities. Its goal is a democratic political revolution. Agitation must be subordinated to political objectives and strives to achieve the support of broad sections of society in carrying out protests and speaking out with demands for change. Forms of protest could be meetings, demonstrations, petitions, refusal to pay taxes.

As for terror, it did not occupy the main place in the program; it acted as an accelerator of the people's revolution. Through terror, the Narodnaya Volya members sought to solve a dual problem: on the one hand, to arouse a revolutionary mood among the masses, on the other, to disorganize the government in order to then raise the masses against it.

An important document was the “Program of Workers, Members of the People’s Will Party.” It allowed for the creation of a Provisional Government, and subsequently the convening of a Constituent Assembly and the introduction of constitutional orders.

To achieve the set goals and objectives, local organizations were created. There were up to twenty of them, they were created in cities such as Moscow, Odessa, Kharkov, Kyiv, Nezhin, Mogilev, Kazan, Saratov - 1881 (L. M. Kogan - Bernstein). They were created by representatives of the Executive Committee, or, accepting its program, joined the organization. By means of special agreements, the Executive Committee regulated its relations with local groups and determined their rights and obligations. When concluding such agreements, representatives of the Executive Committee were guided by the most important program and instructional document “Preparatory Work of the Party.” Later, in 1881, local groups began to develop their own charters.

As the grassroots level of the organization, the local group had a specific area of ​​activity. She was given the right to independently decide some local tasks, for example, to pronounce sentences and execute spies and officials of her district below the rank of governor. However, the local group did not have the right to publish a newspaper or make a decision about the uprising. In all actions she reported to the Executive Committee. Local groups supported him with material resources and people.

The Narodnaya Volya launched propaganda among the workers, publishing a special Program of workers, members of the Narodnaya Volya party (1880) and publishing three issues of the Workers' Newspaper (1880 - 1881), created a military organization, managing to attract several hundred circles to it and its accompanying circles officers, conducted active propaganda among students. However, terror turned out to be the most effective weapon of the Narodnaya Volya. The organization very quickly began to acquire a predominantly conspiratorial-terrorist character. This was clearly manifested in the secret instruction “Preparatory work of the party” (spring 1880): “The party must have the strength to create for itself a favorable moment of action, to begin a task and bring it to the end. A skillfully executed system of terrorist enterprises that simultaneously destroy 10 - 15 people - the pillars of modern government.

revolutionary populism party will

In the conditions of the revolutionary situation, the activities of revolutionary populism occupied a special place. Through its struggle, it contributed to the increased activity of the masses and deepened the crisis of the “tops.” Revolutionary populism was one of the factors in the revolutionary situation. On the other hand, populism itself was influenced by the revolutionary situation.

The most active populist organization was "People's Will" arose in August 1879. The formation of “Narodnaya Volya” meant overcoming the crisis that the liberation movement was experiencing after the failures of revolutionary propaganda among the peasantry.

The Narodnaya Volya moved away from many previous ideological principles. Socio-economic system of the 70s - early 80s. they considered it transitional when "everything has started, nothing Not it's over." The main direction of the populists’ struggle flowed from their definition of the balance of social forces. The revolutionaries considered the nobility to be an obsolete class that did not require efforts on their part for its final liquidation. The bourgeoisie was presented as a narrow and weak social stratum, consisting of “individual intelligent and unscrupulous predators” who could gain power over time. Capitalism, the populists believed, was the result of government policies that artificially raised the bourgeoisie and led to the growth of cities and urban populations. At the turn of the 70-80s. The Narodnaya Volya members could no longer ignore the decomposition of the village. It, in their opinion, was also the result of government policy, which created peasant poverty during the reform of 1861. Under such conditions, the community could not resist exploitation and capitalism. Its revival could only be expected as a result of a revolution. The proletariat, according to the Narodnaya Volya, was part of the peasantry and did not have its own separate goals. These arguments contain positive changes in the views of the populists and, at the same time, their delusions.

Shifts in the ideology of populism prompted a search for new ways to fight for the achievement of the socialist ideal. In its program documents, “Narodnaya Volya” put forward the tasks of liberating the people from the “oppression of the modern state”, carrying out a “political coup with the aim of transferring power to the people” and proclaiming “traditional principles: the people’s rights to land, community and local self-government, the beginnings of a federal structure, freedom of conscience and words." This meant a rejection of previous anarchism and a transition to political struggle. The Narodnaya Volya intended to carry out the revolution through State power. Their immediate goal was the overthrow of the autocracy and the transfer of power to the Constituent Assembly, elected on the basis of general elections.

"People's Will" proclaimed itself a revolutionary party defending the following principles:

1) popular representation, which has full power;

2) broad self-government;

3) economic independence of the people;

4) independence of the peasant world;

5) providing land to the people, and factories and factories to the workers;

6) democratic freedoms;

7) universal suffrage;

8) replacement of the standing army with territorial formations.

This program put socialist and democratic transformations on a par. The Narodnaya Volya members considered the political system of the autocracy to be the main obstacle to the implementation of their provisions. Compared to their predecessors, the Narodnaya Volya members took a step forward, moving on to political struggle.

"People's Will" was created as a party of revolutionary action. A large place in the practice of the People's Will was occupied by the propaganda of the political struggle against the autocracy, the ideas of a democratic revolution in the country. Soon after the creation of the party, the illegal newspaper “Narodnaya Volya” began to be published, which from its first issues refuted Bakuninism’s arguments about anarchy, proving the need for political struggle against the government.

The Narodnaya Volya attached great importance to propaganda among the workers, who acted as an active force during the years of the revolutionary situation. Considering the proletariat to be an integral part of the peasantry, the populists considered propaganda among the workers as one of the directions for preparing a peasant uprising. Realizing the importance of workers in the revolutionary struggle, the Narodnaya Volya members were unable to rise to the level of understanding the proletarian path of struggle and put forward specific proletarian slogans. This did not allow the populists to lead the labor movement. In a situation where both workers and peasants did not accept populist slogans, “People's Will” found itself isolated from the support of the popular masses.

"People's Will" was a cohesive, combat-ready organization. It was headed by the Executive Committee, to which circles and groups of local and special purposes were subordinate. The first composition of the Executive Committee included a group of professional revolutionaries, each of whom was the personification of high spiritual and moral qualities. The leading role was played by such ardent revolutionaries as A.I. Zhelyabov, A.D. Mikhailov, M.F. Frolenko, N.N. Kolodkevich, A.I. Barannikov, A.A. Kvyatkovsky, S.L. Perovskaya, V.N. Figner et al.

Developing a political struggle in the absence of support from the masses, the Narodnaya Volya began to pay more and more attention to conspiratorial tactics and terror. They could not imagine political struggle except in the form of a political conspiracy.

At first, a series of terrorist acts were planned against prominent tsarist figures: Odessa Governor-General E.I. Totleben, St. Petersburg provisional governor general I.V. Gurko, commander of the Kyiv Military District P.S. Vannovsky and others. However, the Narodnaya Volya members were increasingly captivated by the plan to kill the Tsar. The idea of ​​regicide was associated with the possibility of a popular uprising, a political coup and, ultimately, the seizure of power.

Since the autumn of 1879, preparations for the execution of the Tsar absorbed the main forces of the Executive Committee of the People's Will. In November 1879, not far from Moscow, an explosion was carried out on a train with the Tsar's retinue, which, contrary to custom, was launched ahead of the Tsar's train. The response from this assassination attempt was significant. The Narodnaya Volya became even more convinced that the royal throne was not firmly in place. In February 1880 S.N. Khalturin organized an explosion in the Winter Palace. Only an accidental delay for dinner saved the life of Alexander II. At the same time, local organizations of Narodnaya Volya carried out terrorist attacks against the most hated representatives of the administration and gendarmerie officers.

In the period from February 1880 to March 1881, the Narodnaya Volya temporarily stopped terrorist activities, preparing for a decisive blow against the autocracy. At this time, the Narodnaya Volya members began preparing an uprising: circles were created in provincial centers, in national regions; A network of workers and student organizations emerged. In order to gain influence in the army, the People's Will recruited officers into their ranks, who united in the military organization "People's Will". Local circles of Narodnaya Volya members spread slogans of political struggle. Since December 1880, the “Workers' Newspaper” was published.

The Narodnaya Volya planned an uprising that was supposed to break the government's resistance and lead to the seizure of power. The main link of their plan was the execution of the tsar, which, in their opinion, would paralyze the government, and in an atmosphere of confusion all opposition forces would come out, which would be the beginning of the uprising.

On March 1, 1881, Alexander II was mortally wounded by a bomb thrown by Narodnaya Volya member I.I. Grinevitsky. All of St. Petersburg was shocked by this event, but the crowd that gathered on Palace Square did not even express attempts at anti-government protests. The situation was tense, but the Narodnaya Volya members also did not take advantage of it to call on the workers for strikes or demonstrations. Local organizations of Narodnaya Volya were also in the dark. Having spent enormous efforts on preparing and carrying out the regicide, the Narodnaya Volya members turned out to be unprepared for any other actions. It turned out that the terror was a conspiracy of intellectual groups. The terror was completely unrelated to the mood of the masses. Terror did not prepare the combat leaders of the masses. The terror was the result of the populists’ disbelief in the uprising and the lack of real conditions for popular uprisings.

The events of March 1, 1881 did not mean the end of the revolutionary situation, since the main factors continued to operate. However, the role of Narodnaya Volya in the revolutionary struggle begins to decline. The Executive Committee made a number of calls for fair distribution of land, convening of representatives of the people, and amnesty for political prisoners. The emphasis was still placed on terror against the most odious figures in the tsarist administration. The old tactics remained ineffective, and the Executive Committee did not put forward new guidelines, taking into account the experience of the struggle. As a result, ideological confusion began in the movement, and revolutionary features began to fade away. Cases of failures have become more frequent. The scattered forces of the Narodnaya Volya continued to operate for a long time, but the main backbone of the organization ceased to exist in 1884 after the arrest of G.A. Lopatina.

The main goal was to force the government to democratic reforms, after which it would be possible to carry out the struggle for the social transformation of society. Terror became one of the main methods of political struggle of Narodnaya Volya. In particular, members of the terrorist Narodnaya Volya faction hoped to spur political change with the assassination of Emperor Alexander II. The members of the organization are called Narodnaya Volya. The most famous members of the organization are P. L. Lavrov, A. I. Zhelyabov, A. D. Mikhailov, S. L. Perovskaya, V. N. Figner, N. A. Morozov, L. A. Tikhomirov, S. N. Khalturin, N. I. Kibalchich, Yu. N. Bogdanovich, G. A. Lopatin, N. S. Tyutchev, A. I. Barannikov, N. V. Kletochnikov, Ya. L. Yudelevsky, V. I. Dzyubinsky .

Ideas

The People's Will party was organized at the Lipetsk Congress in June 1879. In contrast to “Land and Freedom,” from which “Narodnaya Volya” emerged, the latter emphasized political struggle as a means of conquering the socialist system.

The theoretical worldview of the revolutionary populists (participants in “going to the people”), expressed in the magazines “Forward”, “Nachalo”, “Land and Freedom”, was also adopted by the “Narodnaya Volya” party. Like “Land and Freedom,” the “Narodnaya Volya” party proceeded from the conviction that the Russian people “are in a state of complete slavery, economic and political... They are surrounded by layers of exploiters created and protected by the state... The state constitutes the largest capitalist force; it also constitutes the only political oppressor of the people... This state-bourgeois growth is maintained exclusively by naked violence... There is absolutely no popular sanction for this arbitrary and violent power... The Russian people are completely socialist in their sympathies and ideals; its old, traditional principles are still alive in it - the people’s right to land, community and local self-government, the beginnings of a federal structure, freedom of conscience and speech. These principles would be widely developed and would give a completely new direction, in the spirit of the people, to our entire history, if only the people were given the opportunity to live and arrange themselves as they want, in accordance with their own inclinations.” In view of this, the Narodnaya Volya party considered its task to be “a political revolution with the aim of transferring power to the people.” As an instrument of the coup, the party put forward a constituent assembly elected by free universal vote. Pledging to completely submit to the will of the people, the party nevertheless put forward its program, which it had to defend during the election campaign and in the Constituent Assembly:

1. permanent popular representation having full power in all national issues;
2. broad regional self-government, ensured by the election of all positions, the independence of the world and the economic independence of the people;
3. independence of the world as an economic and administrative unit;
4. ownership of the land by the people;
5. a system of measures aimed at transferring all plants and factories into the hands of the workers;
6. complete freedom of conscience, speech, press, meetings, associations and election campaigning;
7. universal suffrage, without class or any property restrictions;
8. replacing the standing army with a territorial one.

Story

Creation of "People's Will"

The political processes of 1877-1878 (the trial of the participants in the Kazan demonstration, the trial of 50, the trial of 193) had a serious influence on the mood in revolutionary circles. The assassination attempt by Zasulich, the murder of Mezentsov by Kravchinsky, and the assassination attempt by Solovyov led to increased terrorist sentiments in revolutionary circles.

In May 1879, in St. Petersburg, a group of Zemlya Volya members - supporters of political struggle and terrorist methods - created a secret organization "Freedom or Death".

A congress of land Volunteers representing both the capital and provincial circles was scheduled for the summer of 1879. Supporters of the new direction, “politicians” who were inclined to use terrorist methods of struggle, secretly from the rest held a separate congress in Lipetsk on June 15–17, where they agreed on their actions and program for the general Voronezh congress that followed soon.

At the Voronezh Congress, held from June 18 to 21, disagreements between “politicians” and “villagers” led to a split in the organization. The leader of the "villages" G.V. Plekhanov defiantly left the congress.

However, the formally unified organization “Land and Freedom” existed until the end of August - the beginning of autumn 1879, when supporters of political struggle and terror organized a new party “People's Will”, and the “villagers” created the “Black Redistribution”.

The Executive Committee (EC) of Narodnaya Volya initially included approximately 15 people (exact lists are unknown), in particular, participants of the Lipetsk Congress: A. I. Barannikov, A. I. Zhelyabov, A. A. Kvyatkovsky, N. N. Kolodkevich, A. D. Mikhailov, N. A. Morozov, M. N. Oshanina, L. A. Tikhomirov, M. F. Frolenko, S. G. Shiryaev.

Activities of “Narodnaya Volya” until March 1, 1881

In the fall of 1879, the IC was replenished by N.K. Bukh, M.F. Grachevsky, V.V. Zege von Laurenberg, S.S. Zlatopolsky, A.I. Zundelevich, S.A. Ivanova, G.P. Isaev, T I. Lebedeva, O. S. Lyubatovich, S. L. Perovskaya, E. D. Sergeeva, V. N. Figner, A. V. Yakimova, and in 1880 - M. R. Langans, A. P. Korba, Yu. N. Bogdanovich, N. E. Sukhanov, P. A. Tellalov, M. N. Trigoni.

"People's Will" had a centralized structure headed by the Executive Committee. By the beginning of 1881, the organization included about 500 people, and over the entire period from 1879 to 1883 it united 80-90 local, 100-120 workers, 30-40 student, 20-25 gymnasium and about 25 military circles.

The founders of Narodnaya Volya, as a rule, initially broadly understood the tasks of the new party, not reducing them only to terror and considering it as one of the means of political struggle. However, from the first days of the existence of the Executive Committee, its main practical efforts were aimed at executing the death sentence of Alexander II, passed at the Lipetsk Congress.

In November 1879, three attempts were made to blow up the royal train, in which the emperor was returning from Crimea to St. Petersburg. The assassination attempt near the village of Gnilyakovo near Odessa, which was prepared by M. F. Frolenko, T. I. Lebedeva and N. I. Kibalchich, did not take place due to a change in the train route. The second mine, laid by A.I. Zhelyabov’s group near Aleksandrovsk, did not work due to a technical malfunction. The third, near Moscow, was blown up on November 19 by a group of Narodnaya Volya members (A.D. Mikhailov, S.L. Perovskaya, L.N. Gartman, G.P. Isaev, A.I. Barannikov, S.G. Shiryaev and others. ). But this attempt also failed. Contrary to the usual order, the royal train was traveling first, and the explosion occurred under the baggage car of the entourage train, which was traveling second. No harm done.

Two more assassination attempts were prepared, but did not take place in the summer of 1880. In Odessa, at 47 Italianskaya Street, S. L. Perovskaya, G. Isaev and others were preparing a tunnel to blow up the carriage of Alexander II on the way from the station to the pier. However, the excavation was not completed on time.

Several members of the Executive Committee were arrested at the end of 1879. A.I. Zundelevich - October 28, 1879, A.A. Kvyatkovsky and G.D. Goldenberg - in November, and S.G. Shiryaev - December 4. On the same day, the organization's passport office was seized by the police.

On January 18, 1880, the police uncovered the secret printing house of the Narodnaya Volya in Saperny Lane. The revolutionaries offered armed resistance, one of them died, four were arrested. Among those arrested were two members of the IK - N.K. Bukh and S.A. Ivanova.

In the spring of 1880, the People's Will organized the Central Workers' Circle in St. Petersburg, which was led by A. Zhelyabov and S. Perovskaya, and which a year later numbered more than 300 workers. In the fall of 1880, the Military Organization was created. In the spring of 1881, it included about 50 officers from St. Petersburg, Kronstadt, and Helsingfors.

The active terrorist activities of Narodnaya Volya, especially the explosion in the Winter Palace, forced the government to take urgent measures. On February 12, 1880, the “Supreme Administrative Commission for the Protection of State Order and Public Peace” was established. The head of this commission was M. T. Loris-Melikov, who, having received broad powers, began urgent reforms in the administrative and police sphere and at the same time intensified the persecution of revolutionaries.

In the spring of 1880, the arrested Goldenberg gave extensive testimony to the police, which allowed the police to make further arrests.

In October, a trial of 16 Narodnaya Volya members was held in the St. Petersburg Military District Court. Two - A. A. Kvyatkovsky and A. K. Presnyakov - were sentenced to death, the rest - to hard labor and exile to Siberia. The execution of Kvyatkovsky and Presnyakov prompted the Narodnaya Volya members to speed up preparations for the assassination attempt on the Tsar, which they understood as retribution.

The key figure in the conspiratorial activities of “Narodnaya Volya” was A. D. Mikhailov, who established the work of underground printing houses, dynamite workshops, financing the organization, and maintained contact with the revolutionary agent in the Third Department - N. V. Kletochnikov.

Mikhailov's arrest in November 1880 led to disorganization and a series of failures.

N.N. Kolodkevich was arrested on January 26, 1881, A.I. Barannikov and N.V. Kletochnikov - January 28. On the same day, while returning illegally from abroad, N. A. Morozov was arrested.

In December 1880, preparations began for a new attempt on the Tsar's life. A shop was hired at the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and Malaya Sadovaya Street, from where a tunnel was made to lay a mine. At the same time, the emperor's travels were monitored. It was decided to carry out an assassination attempt on his way from the Winter Palace to the arena.

Assassination attempt on March 1, 1881. Explosion of the second shell (World Illustration Magazine, March 14, 1881).

The January failures forced the terrorists to hurry, since there was no guarantee of the very existence of the organization for a long time. On February 27, together with the leader of the Odessa organization M. N. Trigoni, who arrived in St. Petersburg, A. I. Zhelyabov, who led the preparation for the assassination attempt, was arrested. S. L. Perovskaya took over the leadership. The terrorist attack was planned for March 1. If the tsar did not go to Malaya Sadovaya, it was decided to use projectiles.

On the appointed day, the Tsar chose the route along the Catherine Canal and was killed there by a bomb thrown by I. I. Grinevitsky, who was also mortally wounded.

The popular unrest initiated by the regicide, which the revolutionaries were counting on, did not happen. Shortly after March 1, most of the organization's active members were arrested. At the trial that took place shortly after, six Pervomartovites (A.I. Zhelyabov, S.L. Perovskaya, N.I. Kibalchich, T.M. Mikhailov, N.I. Rysakov, G.M. Gelfman) were all sentenced to death. The pregnant G. Gelfman was replaced by lifelong hard labor.

"People's Will" after March 1, 1881

Meeting of the special presence of the Governing Senate on the case of the crime on March 1. From the magazine “Niva” No. 20 for May 16, 1881

Numerous arrests took place over the following months. As a result, Narodnaya Volya, having lost many members and the majority of the Executive Committee, moved the center of its activities to Moscow, where P. A. Tellalov and M. N. Oshanina operated. More and more attention was focused on the creation of military organizations and propaganda among officers. More and more Narodnaya Volya leaned towards conspiratorial tactics of seizing power.

Lacking the strength to carry out major actions, especially a new regicide, the organization makes an attempt on the life of the Kyiv military prosecutor V.S. Strelnikov, who earned the hatred of revolutionaries with his harsh actions in the South. On March 18, 1882, in the center of Odessa, he was shot by N. A. Zhelvakov. Zhelvakov, together with S.N. Khalturin, who accompanied him, was captured and executed.

At the beginning of 1882, in St. Petersburg, the police arrested a large group of terrorists who were preparing an assassination attempt on the gendarme colonel G.P. Sudeikin.

On the initiative of Yu. N. Bogdanovich, an organization was created to prepare escapes and help prisoners, the predecessor of the “Political Red Cross”. The organization was destroyed by the police in early 1882.

The betrayal of S.P. Degaev, a member of the officer organization, had critical consequences for the organization. In the summer of 1882 he was included in the Executive Committee and shortly thereafter was recruited by the police. Degaev betrayed a number of Narodnaya Volya members to the police, in particular Vera Figner. The central bodies of Narodnaya Volya were completely destroyed, and subsequent attempts to restore them were unsuccessful.

In March 1883, the police arrested most of the members of the military organization extradited by Degaev. Plans to carry out a coup by military forces were not realized. The activities of the remaining circles were limited to distributing brochures and leaflets and propaganda among workers.

Exposed by the Narodnaya Volya members, Degaev organized the murder of his “curator” Sudeikin on December 16, 1883, for which he was allowed to hide abroad.

An attempt to unite the scattered circles and recreate the organization was made by G. A. Lopatin, who arrived from abroad in the spring of 1884. However, already in October he was arrested, and the notes found on him gave the police the opportunity to destroy most of the remaining circles.

Saevskaya Maria Aleksandrovna, graduate student of M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University

V. K. Plehve and the revolutionary organization "People's Will"

On January 24, 1878, a member of the revolutionary organization “Land and Freedom” V.I. Zasulich shot at the St. Petersburg mayor and personal friend of Alexander II - F.F. Trepova and seriously wounded him. When the case came to trial, the jury, having learned that Trepov himself had previously ordered the flogging of a student prisoner who did not take off his hat in front of him, considered it possible to acquit the terrorist. The liberal public in Russia enthusiastically greeted Zasulich's acquittal. The Russian revolutionary was especially admired abroad. The influential French magazine “Revue des deux Mondes” wrote that “Europe forgot about war and peace, about Bismarck, Beaconsfield and Gorchakov, in order to focus only on Vera Zasulich and her amazing trial.”

The growth of revolutionary sentiment in Russia and their support in Europe stimulated the anti-government activity of revolutionaries and convinced them that new terrorist acts would be approved by society.

In 1878, prosecutor M. M. Kotlyarovsky was wounded, Colonel Knop and the adjutant of the Kyiv Provincial Gendarme Directorate, Baron G. E. Geiking, were shot, and the head of the Russian police, N. V. Mezentsev, was stabbed to death. The following year, the Kharkov governor, Prince D.N. Kropotkin, was killed, and an attempt was made on the life of the chief of a separate gendarme corps, General A.R. Drenteln.”

In June 1879, “Land and Freedom” collapsed, and its main members - (A.I. Zhelyabov, S.L. Perovskaya, N.A. Morozov, V.N. Figner, etc.) created a new party - “People’s Volya", which became the largest, strongest and most authoritative of all Russian revolutionary organizations of the 19th century. The Narodnaya Volya “recruited” workers, officers, students and even high school students throughout Russia into their ranks. At the same time, Narodnaya Volya was a deeply secretive and strictly centralized organization. It is known that the Narodnaya Volya members set as their goal the physical destruction of the Tsar and other high-ranking officials and the organization of a mass uprising against the autocracy. The liquidation of Narodnaya Volya became the primary task of the tsarist government in the fight against anti-government activities.

On February 17, 1880, an explosion occurred in the Winter Palace. This was already the fifth attempt by “Narodnaya Volya” on Emperor Alexander II. At this time, young Vyacheslav Konstantinovich Pleve was the prosecutor of the St. Petersburg Judicial Chamber, and it was he who was entrusted with the investigation of this crime. Plehve's conclusion as a result of the investigation made a great impression on the emperor. During the competent report, which lasted more than an hour, the young prosecutor did not remove the papers from his briefcase. On April 20, 1880, Plehve was awarded the rank of state councilor.

Meanwhile, the Executive Committee of the People's Will continued to prepare the regicide, carefully monitoring the emperor's travel routes. On March 1, 1881, a bomb thrown by N. Rysakov damaged the royal carriage, after which I. I. Grinevitsky threw another bomb at the feet of the emperor, which killed both the criminal himself and his victim.

Now Plehve headed the investigation into the murder of Alexander II. His reports and notes to Alexander III and the Minister of Internal Affairs M. -T. have been preserved. Loris-Melikov, which mentions the main participants in the preparation of the regicide - A. I. Zhelyabov, T. M. Mikhailov, N. I. Rysakov, S. L. Perovskaya, N. I. Kibalchich.

In one of his reports, Plehve singled out the main organizer of the crime, from his point of view. In his message, he pointed out that A.I. Zhelyabov was a participant “not only in the November 1879 assassination attempts, but also in all the meetings that have recently taken place among society” regarding the preparation of the assassination of Alexander II. This served as a basis for suspecting Zhelyabov of organizing the murder. Plehve also referred to the testimony of N.I. Rysakov, who threw a bomb at the Emperor’s carriage, “who pointed to Zhelyabov as the person who persuaded him to participate in the crime.”

Modern researcher A.G. Chukarev writes: “A number of facts from this investigation speak of Plehve’s high professionalism and investigative instincts. He was the first in the Narodnaya Volya case to appreciate the central importance of the personality of A.I. Zhelyabov, who was arrested on the eve of the assassination attempt on the Tsar.”

Rysakov's testimony helped V.K. Pleve identify S.L. Perovskaya, who led the preparations for the murder of Alexander II after the arrest of A.I. Zhelyabov. On March 14, 1881, Plehve reported to Emperor Alexander III: “From Rysakov’s explanation it is clear that since the fall of last year, he, on behalf of Perovskaya, monitored the passage of the late Sovereign Emperor in Bose and each time gave a report on his observations to Perovskaya. According to Rysakov’s certificate, the drawing found in the apartment on Telezhnaya Street was drawn up on March 1 in the morning by Perovskaya in the mentioned apartment of the participants in the crime.”

It is worth noting here that Plehve, who led the investigation, behaved rather restrained during interrogations. A.V. Tyrkov, a participant in the organization of the assassination of Alexander II, recalled: “The first interrogations were conducted by Plehve with the participation of Dobrzhinsky and the gendarmerie authorities. Plehve behaved very importantly, but correctly. He didn't like to say unnecessary words. His cold isolation concealed undoubted willpower."

When the investigation into the murder of Alexander II was completed, and on April 3, 1881, the main participants in the crime were executed, M. T. Loris-Melikov recommended that Alexander III appoint Plehve to the post of Director of the Police Department of the Russian Empire. In his letter to the emperor, he wrote: “The official and moral qualities of Mr. Plehve serve as sufficient guarantee that he will bring to the new sphere of activity the same energy and reasonable attitude to the matter that has constantly distinguished his service in the judicial department.” The new position expanded Plehve’s ability to combat violators of peace and order in the Russian Empire.

Plehve's appointment as director of the Police Department was met with approval in monarchist circles. Thus, the conservative publicist V.P. Meshchersky wrote that Plehve was “a serious, immersed in thought over the matter, intelligent, calm and encouraging statesman with his appearance, talking about what he knows and knowing what he wants.”

Along with the ongoing work to eliminate the revolutionary underground, the director of the Police Department also took an active part in the work of the Commission convened on May 30, 1881 to develop a new regulation “on measures to protect state order and public peace.” According to this provision, a state of enhanced or emergency security was introduced in certain provinces of the Russian Empire. In a letter to the Minister of Internal Affairs, Count Ignatiev, Pleve outlined the areas of application of the new law - St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkov, Poltava, Kursk, Kiev, Warsaw, Chernigov, Saratov, Samara, Kherson, Yekaterinoslav provinces.

“Regulations on measures to protect state order and public peace” was approved on August 14, 1881. It gave the governor-general the right to prohibit “people's public and even private meetings”, close commercial and industrial establishments, press organs, establish special military-police teams, refer cases to a military court for attempted murder of civil servants, police officers and military personnel in the line of duty. them service duties.

In December 1881, Plehve approved the distribution of responsibilities in the Police Department according to structures (office work). The Department's first office was responsible for the formation of police personnel. The second was involved in organizational issues and the development of bills, monitoring the precise implementation of laws on the ground. The charters of public organizations, meetings and clubs were also approved there. The third office - (secret) - dealt with issues of political investigation in Russia and abroad. It was responsible for secret supervision over the connections of individuals and organizations suspected of revolutionary activities, the distribution of illegal literature, and was in charge of the security of the king and high-ranking officials.

By reforming the police department, Plehve sought to make its work more efficient and eliminate duplication of functions in police and judicial institutions. The reorganization and expansion of the department's powers was largely a reaction to the revolutionary activity of Narodnaya Volya.

According to the testimony of S.E. Kryzhanovsky, V.K. Pleve, while at the post of Director of the Police Department, put in order and established the detective part, which until that time was in a chaotic state, “creating security departments and a more effective organization of political investigation.”

Under Pleve, a system of double agents also arose for the first time, who were most often recruited from members of the executive committee of Narodnaya Volya. They simultaneously became members of the political police.

One of Plehve’s main associates was G.P. Sudeikin, who from the beginning of 1881 was in charge of the agents of the St. Petersburg Security Department, and from the next year he became a gendarme lieutenant colonel and inspector of the secret police. Sudeikin significantly improved political investigation and introduced a number of innovations into it. So, instead of immediately arresting a revolutionary, surveillance was installed on him, which was supposed to reveal the circle of his connections, after which it was possible to take the entire revolutionary group. One of the Narodnaya Volya members, A.V. Pribylev, recalled the police agents: “Now it turned out that for three months we were all under the constant supervision of Sudeikin and his minions, under supervision established in an unprecedented way. There were no spies following us , with a few exceptions, they did not spy on our every step. No, all the spies in the costumes of police officers were stationed at the intersections and noticed each of us passing by them. They noted in their books which of us was going in which direction. when and with whom he sees and so on.<…>Such surveillance did not catch the eye of the person being tracked and gave a complete picture of our actions to Sudeikin. But all this became known to us after the arrest, and then we walked in the dark, confident that no one would know about our secret activities.”

The new system of political investigation brought tangible results. On the night of June 5, 1882, one hundred and twenty Narodnaya Volya members were simultaneously arrested in St. Petersburg. And in December 1882, one of the main members of the executive committee, S.P. Degaev, was arrested in Odessa, who, after the arrest of the assassins of Alexander II, was promoted to the leading roles in Narodnaya Volya. After Degaev agreed to cooperate with the police, on February 14, 1883, he was organized to escape from prison. Returning to the revolutionary organization, becoming a double agent, Degaev betrayed to the police the Military Center of the Narodnaya Volya party and local military groups within four months. 200 officers and dozens of civilian party members were arrested, including V.N. Figner, the last member of the Executive Committee. Figner later recalled: “I was the last member of the Executive Committee of Narodnaya Volya, arrested in 1883, when none of the initiators and founders of this party who were members of the Committee were left at large in Russia.”

The revolutionaries, who had lost their fighting forces and wanted revenge, published in the "Bulletin of Narodnaya Volya" a slanderous story about how Plehve and Sudeikin, with the help of the Narodnaya Volya terrorists, planned for career purposes to destroy their immediate superiors - the Minister of Internal Affairs, Count D.A. Tolstoy. This story was conveyed to the revolutionaries by Degaev, who allegedly learned this information from Sudeikin himself. Apparently, this dubious story, in the minds of the revolutionaries, should have served, at the very least, to the resignation of the hated employees of the Police Department. However, Degaev’s “revelations” did not inspire any confidence in government circles. But the revolutionary did not stop there, and on December 16, 1883, with his most active assistance, G.P. Sudeikin was killed by Narodnaya Volya.

After a month of searching for Sudeikin’s killers, in January 1884, V.K. Pleve sent police department officer P.I. Rachkovsky to Paris to search for Degaev’s wife who lived there, hoping to find the killer himself. The initial plan of the operation could not be carried out, but in Paris an apartment was identified in which one of the most active members of the Executive Committee of the People's Will, L. A. Tikhomirov, then lived.

And here it should be noted that the fight against revolutionaries could not be limited to the borders of the Russian Empire. The fact is that many active figures of “Narodnaya Volya” (L.N. Hartman, P.L. Lavrov, L.A. Tikhomirov, M.N. Oshanina, etc.) were abroad. In addition, the Narodnaya Volya members were helped by English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Czech, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Hungarian, American and other socialists and radicals. The world community continually received letters from Narodnaya Volya (“Executive Committee to European Society”, “To the French People”, message to Karl Marx), to which they responded with support, sympathy and solidarity. Thus, in response to a letter “To the French People” with a request to release L.N. Hartmann, a participant in the assassination attempt on Alexander II (November 19, 1879), arrested in France at the request of the Russian authorities, mass actions followed in support of the revolutionary. Indeed, the violent negative reaction of the French public to Hartmann’s arrest led to the fact that the French government released him, citing the fact that it was impossible to identify the arrested person with the Hartmann who attempted to assassinate the Tsar.

V.K. Pleve understood that in response to the close foreign ties of the Narodnaya Volya members, it was necessary to organize an effective network of Russian agents in those countries with which the revolutionaries were connected. Having studied the history of such institutions, Plehve came to the conclusion that it was necessary to create a special unit of the Police Department - the Foreign Agents, which was done in the spring of 1883. It is known about the first four Russian secret employees who were introduced into the environment of the Russian revolutionary emigration and covered its activities, and about four foreigners who were engaged in external surveillance - Barle, Rian, Rossi, Bint. The activities of Russian emigrants were also monitored by consuls in Paris, Vienna and Berlin and “correspondents” of the Police Department in Geneva and Bucharest, Vienna and Paris.

As director of the Police Department, V.K. Plehve repeatedly personally communicated with revolutionaries - he interrogated some, tried to convince others, and, according to some information, even negotiated with individual revolutionaries. So, according to the terrorists themselves, already from the end of 1881, V.K. Pleve negotiated with the revolutionary O.S. Lyubatovich, and, on her recommendation, with a member of the Executive Committee of the People's Will, G.G. Romanenko, trying to find out Are there any conditions under which the revolutionaries will agree to stop the terror? In these conversations, Plehve made it his primary task to study and understand the causes of the Narodnaya Volya movement and to prevent new acts of political terror. This is evidenced, among other things, by the history of interaction between V.K. Plehve and Y.V. Stefanovich, who was one of the largest figures in the revolutionary movement.

Y. V. Stefanovich gained all-Russian fame thanks to the “Chigirin case”, when in 1876, having prepared forged royal letters calling on peasants to rebel against nobles and officials in the name of the emperor himself, he managed to create the only large peasant fighting organization in the entire history of the populist movement . After the formation of the People's Will party, Stefanovich was accepted as a member of the Executive Committee. On February 5, 1882, he was arrested.

The imprisoned Stefanovich, counting on mutually beneficial cooperation with the police, entered into negotiations with V.K. Plehve, in which he presented himself as a supporter of the moderate wing of the Narodnaya Volya movement, declaring that there were conditions under which the organization could stop terror. In response, Plehve said that he was ready to pursue a policy that would serve to reconcile the authorities with the radical opposition, promising to promote liberal reforms and amnesty for convicted revolutionaries. In addition, Plehve allowed Stefanovich to warn his comrade, L.G. Deitch, who was facing arrest, spoke about the danger of returning to Russia. Further correspondence between Stefanovich and Deitch was controlled by Plehve. However, Stefanovich managed to convey one letter to his comrade secretly. It contains details of his interaction with the director of the Police Department.

The “collaboration” of the country’s main police officer and a dangerous state criminal led to Stefanovich compiling a “Note on Emigration” for Plehve, detailing the activities of Russian revolutionaries abroad. Plehve also asked the Narodnaya Volya member to write a “historical sketch” of the revolutionary movement before 1879. Plehve himself, in turn, gave Stefanovich “some material, testimonies of some people (Trudnitsky, Velednitsky, Boguslavsky)” for this work. Stefanovich confessed to his “intimate friend” Deutsch about his work on this essay: “At first it went quite well, I willingly stopped at the movement of 74, the process of 193, in order to show how the behavior of the authorities at that time laid the first solid foundation for the subsequent movement, but Little by little I became terribly lazy about writing.<…>In a few months I wrote only 37 sheets of large handwriting.” In this essay, Stefanovich wrote not only about the history of the revolutionary organization, he wrote about the fact that the intelligentsia should have wide access to the people, the need for a general amnesty and the replacement of the existing state system with a more liberal one.

Stefanovich himself understood that his willingness to cooperate was useful to Plehve. He confessed to Deutsch: “We also cannot deny some utilitarian significance of our correspondence for him. From it he could still get an idea of ​​the general situation in the emigration, and generally glean some information for himself, although it could not harm anyone, but it was still interesting for a person who had seriously taken up the study of our movement. And he works a lot on this, rummaging through the oldest cases, sitting in the Department from 1-6 in the afternoon and from 9-12 in the evening. If I come to him at the end of his classes, I always find him terribly tired, a completely wet chicken, and no wonder.”

Plehve really worked seriously on studying the revolutionary movement. He also compiled, based on materials from the “Trial of 16,” for official use, “An Essay on the Origin, Development, Organization and Activities of the Russian Social Revolutionary Party (“Narodnaya Volya”).” When compiling this essay, Plehve used, among other things, the investigative testimony of members of the executive committee S. G. Shiryaev and A. A. Kvyatkovsky about the emergence, goals and means of struggle of this organization.

Analyzing the activities of Narodnaya Volya, Plehve came to the conclusion that the main participants in the revolutionary organization were invariably students, whose involvement in criminal actions ruined their destinies. “Sedition produces recruitment during student unrest,” noted Plehve. In his statement made to the Commission under the Ministry of Public Education regarding student unrest, he said that young people expelled from educational institutions for revolutionary activities find themselves “inactive, in need and deprivation,” and that their lives are thus “ turns out to be broken at the very beginning.” For this reason, they “are becoming bitter against the entire social and state system, and those of them who were previously only inclined towards the teachings of sedition are now completely imbued with them.” Plehve further noted that in the places to which the students were exiled, they began to “exert a harmful influence on the local population.” Referring to forensic police statistics, Plehve argued that each time student riots were followed by revolutionary and terrorist acts organized by former students expelled precisely for participating in these riots.

Indeed, Narodnaya Volya student circles were spread throughout Russia. There was a Central University Group in St. Petersburg, which led the People's Will circles in all higher educational institutions of the capital. Similar central groups coordinated the activities of numerous student circles in Moscow, Kyiv, and Kazan. And here it should be noted that the main Narodnaya Volya members identified by V.K. Pleve were the organizers and leaders of the central student circle, which took a leading position among student circles in St. Petersburg - A.I. Zhelyabov and S.L. Perovskaya.

Plehve saw the reasons for the growth of revolutionary activity in the widespread dissemination in the press and printed publications of the teachings of “extreme materialism and socialist utopias.” In 1882, in a note to Count D.A. Tolstoy, he pointed out that to neutralize the influence of the revolutionary and liberal press on society means “to disrupt the external form into which this hostile force managed to organize itself.” Plehve also argued that it is necessary to fight “not only with a bunch of monsters who can be caught during the actions of the police, but with an enemy of great strength and strength, who does not have flesh and blood, that is, with a world of a certain kind of ideas and concepts, with which the struggle must have a special character."

In a special report prepared for Alexander III in 1883, Plehve wrote that editors, publicists and writers were to blame for the emergence and spread of nihilistic and revolutionary ideas in Russia. In this report, he also outlined his ideas about what role the press should play in public and state life in the Russian Empire: “The time of the late sixties and early seventies,” he wrote, “was a period of implementation of a number of transformations conceived back in at the beginning of the last reign: zemstvo and city self-government, in connection with judicial reform, seemed to open the way for the comprehensive development and peaceful prosperity of social forces. Apparently, the periodical press also had the opportunity, by understanding the fruitful principles underlying the changes that had taken place in the social system, to serve the renewed Russia, while at the same time, on the basis of reverent gratitude, consolidating the age-old connection between the supreme power and the people, which has always been Our political system is strong." But instead of strengthening the unity of power and the people, “magazines, and after them newspapers, angrily rejoicing at every failure of the government, did not cease to present themselves as if they were the initiators of the completed transformations, weakening or obscuring the significance of the authorities themselves in them.” Plehve also noted that “united by a common feeling of hostility not only towards the government, but also towards the Russian people (this, in the characteristic expression of the “Voice” of that time, “holy beast”), journalism had a harmful response to the existence of anti-government movements in zemstvo assemblies, city thoughts, scientific societies, brazenly mocking the failed, in the opinion of the liberal economists of the “Bulletin of Europe” and “Otechestvennye Zapiski”, the cause of liberation.”

V.K. Plehve’s report to Alexander III also provided data that representatives of the legal press sheltered revolutionaries in their houses and apartments, provided them with material support and gave them the opportunity to publish on the pages of their publications.

After reading Plehve’s note, Alexander III imposed a resolution: “I read it with great interest. The written note makes a sad and painful impression. “The Government faces a difficult struggle, but we must go directly and decisively against all this literary scum.” And indeed, almost all of the printed publications that V.K. Plehve pointed out in his report were soon closed.

Thanks to the consistent anti-revolutionary policy of V.K. Plehve, in 1884 “Narodnaya Volya” was beheaded, demoralized and virtually disintegrated. The statesman of that time, V.I. Gurko, rightly noted that at that time Plehve “was so able to establish the police apparatus that he managed in a short time to almost completely defeat the revolutionary party “Narodnaya Volya”: not only did terrorist acts, so frequent in recent times, stop years of the reign of Alexander II, but even the very attempts to accomplish them.”

T Roitsky N. A. Russia in the 19th century: A course of lectures. - M.: Higher. school, 1997. - P. 259.