Narodnichestvo

The Narodniks (Russian: народники, pronounced [nɐˈrodʲnʲɪkʲɪ]) were a socially conscious movement of the Russian middle class in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against the Tsardom. Their ideology was known as Narodnichestvo (народничество), from the Russian народ, narod, "people, folk", so it is sometimes translated as "peopleism" or more commonly "populism". A common slogan among the Narodniks was "хождение в народ", khozhdeniye v narod, "going to the people". Though their movement achieved little in its own time, the Narodniks were in many ways the intellectual and political forebears of the socialist revolutionaries who went on to greatly influence Russian history in the 20th century.

The Narodnik position was mostly held by intellectuals who read the works of Alexander Herzen (1812–1870) and of Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (1828–1889), whose convictions were refined by Nikolay Mikhaylovsky (1842–1904). In the late 19th century, socialism and capitalism were slowly becoming the primary theories of Russian political thought, and Mikhaylovsky, realizing this shift in thought, began to tweak his original ideas of Narodnism, such that two groups of Narodniks emerged: the so-called "Critical Narodniks" and "Doctrinaire Narodniks". Critical Narodniks followed Mikhaylovsky, and assumed a flexible stance on capitalism, whilst adhering to their basic orientation. The more well-known Doctrinaire Narodniks had a firm belief that capitalism had no future in Russia or in any agrarian country.

Narodnism arose after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 under Tsar Alexander II, which signalled the end of feudalism in Russia. Arguing that freed serfs were being sold into wage slavery, in which the bourgeoisie had replaced landowners, Narodnism aimed to become a political force opposed to the phenomenon. Narodniks viewed aspects of the past with nostalgia: although they resented the former land ownership system, they opposed the uprooting of peasants from the traditional obshchina system of communes.

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