Land and Liberty

Land and Liberty (; also sometimes translated Land and Freedom) was a Russian clandestine revolutionary organization in the period 1861–1864, and was re-established as a political party in the period 1876–1879. It was a central organ of the Narodnik movement. The first composition (1861-1864) The inspirers of the society were Alexander Herzen and Nikolay Chernyshevsky. The participants set as their goal the preparation of a peasant revolution, their policy documents created under the influence of the ideas of Herzen and Ogarev, the latter of which had coined the term "Land and Liberty" in one of his articles. The first Executive Committee of the organization included 6 of its organizers (Nikolai Obruchev, Sergey Rymarenko, the brothers Nikolai and Alexander Serno-Solovyevich, Alexander Sleptsov, Vasily Kurochkin). Land and Liberty was a union of circles located in 13-14 cities. The largest circles were Moscow (Yuri Mosolov, Nikolai Shatilov) and St. Petersburg (Nikolai Utin and Natalia Corsini). The militant organization Land and Liberty also formed links with the "Committee of Russian Officers in Poland" under the leadership of Second Lieutenant Andrei Potebnya. According to the data available to Alexander Sleptsov, Land and Liberty counted 3,000 people as members (the Moscow branch alone consisted of 400 members). In the summer of 1862, the tsarist authorities dealt a serious blow to the organization, arresting its leaders - Chernyshevsky and Serno-Solovyovich, as well as the radical journalist Dmitry Pisarev, who was associated with the revolutionaries. In 1863, due to the expiration of the Charter of the landlord and peasants, the members of the organization expected a powerful peasant uprising, which they wanted to organize in cooperation with the Polish revolutionaries. However, the Polish underground members were forced to organize an uprising ahead of the promised date, and hopes for a peasant revolt in Russia did not materialize. In addition, the liberals for the most part refused to support the revolutionary camp, believing in the progressiveness of the reforms that had begun in the country. Under the influence of all these factors, Land and Liberty was forced to dissolve itself in early 1864.