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154 onwards propagandist activities were vigorous among the peasants ("towards the people"); propaganda among the operatives dates from a year earlier.

It can by no means be said that these efforts were guided by a uniform spirit. Individual groups (Societies for Self-Culture and Practical Activity) consisted of adherents of Bakunin, Herzen, Lavrov and Tkačev. The teachings of the narodniki, socialism and communism, liberalism and anarchism, were frequently disseminated by members of one and the same circle.

From 1874 the government openly attempted to suppress the entire movement. Hundreds of young men and women were imprisoned. After a lengthy term of preliminary arrest, which would sometimes last for years, the accused were tried in batches ("the trial of the fifty," "the trial of the hundred and ninety-three," etc.).

A new revolutionary party known as "Zemlja i Volja" was organised in 1876. The war with Turkey in 1877 increased revolutionary sentiment, for the incapacity and corruption that prevailed under the absolutist regime were continually coming to light. The bold deed of Věra Zasulič took place early in 1878 at the very time when the Russian army was close to Constantinople, and this gave the signal for open war. The shooting of General Trepov, prefect of St. Petersburg, had an exceptionally powerful effect because Věra Zasulič was tried by jury and acquitted. The shooting of Trepov in January was followed in August by Stepniak's assassination of Mezencev, chief of police.

In the following year (1879) the Zemlja i Volja was subdivided into the "Narodnaja Volja" (people's will) consisting of declared terrorists, and into the party which aimed at socialistic propaganda among peasants and operatives, this latter being known as "Černyi Peredel" (black redistribution—of the soil, to wit). The terrorists were led by the much talked of executive committee (Ispolnitel'nyi Komitet).

Once again the military and diplomatic failures of the Turkish war urged a change of front upon the absolutist government. The increase in public demonstrations, and still more the frequency of desperate and self-sacrificing attacks upon high dignitaries and upon the tsar himself, induced the reaction to reverse its policy. In 1878 there began a series of arbitrary and repressive measures. Administrative exile