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96 the party was vested in the executive committee. The work was subdivided into the popular diffusion of the idea of a democratic revolution, and into agitation which was to give expression to the dissatisfaction of the folk and of society with the existing order. Terrorist activities were to take the form of the removal of the most noxious individualities in the government. The killing of spies was another terrorist duty.

With this end in view, small secret societies were to be organised everywhere, these being affiliated to and directed by the central executive committee. Members of the party were to endeavour to secure influential positions and ties in the administration, in the army, in society, and among the people.

Aware of the fact that a secret organisation whose members comprised no more than an infinitesimal minority could not properly express and sustain the people's will, the energy of the party was concentrated upon preliminary labours, upon the preparations for a rising. "If, contrary to our expectations, this rising should prove needless, our collected forces can then be applied to the work of peace."

These general principles were incorporated in a number of specialised programs, which prescribed the work to be done among the urban operatives, in the army, in the intelligentsia, and among young people. Moreover, the party had to attempt to arouse European sympathy for its aims, and this, it was considered, could best be effected by suitable literary activities.

The Narodnaja Volja conducted all the terroristic attemps and enterprises, and was before all responsible for attempts made upon the life of the tsar. Three such attempts had been undertaken before the society was organised, whilst the Narodnaja Volja was responsible for four. Despite its declared terrorist aim, "to break the charm of the administrative power" by the assassination of the most noxious members of the administration and the government, the Narodnaja Volja condemned the blind campaign of destruction advocated by Bakunin and Nečaev, Nečaev's methods being rejected as charlatanry. After March 13, 1881 (the assassination of Alexander II), the terrorist activity of the society came to an end. In the general belief this change of tactics was brought about by the alienation of public sympathy from the Narodnaja Volja, but according to Stepniak this was not the determinin cause of the change. The Narodnaja Volja, he declares, dis-