24. The Tsar Killed by a Spur of the Moment Decision
People’s Will was an underground 19th century Russian revolutionary organization dedicated to overthrowing Tsardom. It began in radical student study groups in the 1870s, that tried to spread socialist ideas to peasants and industrial workers. However, the Tsarist secret police, the Okhrana, swiftly arrested and jailed the agitators. So the students reconsidered, figured that only revolutionary violence could overthrow Tsarism, and decided to adopt more aggressive tactics: specifically, “propaganda of the deed”, or terrorism. The result was Land and Liberty, a radical organization that advocated political assassinations as self-defense and justified revenge against oppressive officials, but stopped short of viewing terror as a means of political struggle against the government.
People’s Will split off from Land and Liberty as a more radical splinter group, that viewed terror as a proactive tool for overthrowing the regime, and not simply as a reactive means of retaliation. People’s Will called for violence, and declared an ambitious program of terrorism and assassination to break the government. They also issued a proclamation declaring a death sentence against Tsar Alexander II, whom they condemned as an enemy of the people. People’s Will established clandestine cells in major cities and within the Russian military and began publishing underground revolutionary newspapers and leaflets targeted at industrial workers. They tried really hard to get the Tsar, but suffered failure after failure, until the Tsar himself inadvertently helped them by acting on the spur of the moment.
