Narodnik

Narodnik, singular for Narodniki in Russian, refers to a loosely connected set of radical democratic and populist circles in the Russian Empire from the 1860s to the 1880s. They maintained that Russia’s path to social change would come from the peasantry rather than from the urban working class or a centralized state, and that ideas and education could awaken a peasant-led transformation.

Core beliefs centered on agrarianism, anti-autocracy, and moral reform. Narodniks criticized serfdom and autocratic rule, promoted universal education, and argued that peasants could become the agents of social revolution through self-organization. A key tactic was “going to the people” (orgoing to the peasantry) in the early 1870s, where educated youths lived among rural communities to spread ideas, win sympathy, and advocate reform.

The movement experienced a turning point as the mass campaigns in 1874–1875 led to widespread arrests and trials. A more radical faction, Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will), emerged in the late 1870s and adopted political terrorism, culminating in the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Repression followed, the publics campaigns waned, and the Narodnik movement gradually dissolved by the late 1880s.

Legacy is mixed. The Narodnik tradition influenced later populist and socialist currents, most notably the Socialist-Revolutionary Party formed in the early 20th century. The movement sparked enduring debates about whether peasants could spearhead socialist transformation and contributed to the critique by Marxists of peasant-based revolutions versus worker-led movements.