History's Assassins by Mann Don;

Author:Mann, Don;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 7161539
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Company, Incorporated
Published: 2023-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

People’s Will was a Russian socialist revolutionary political group bent on overthrowing the autocratic Russian government through assassination and revolution. It was the more violent offshoot of an earlier group, Zemlya i Volya, Land and Liberty. Ignaty Grinevitsky was drawn to the promise of action against the tsar and the Russian Empire. He was once approached by his fellow Poles, who questioned him on why he didn’t get involved in Polish revolutionary groups. His response was “When you start partisan fighting, I will be with you. But for the moment, when you do nothing, I shall work for Russia’s freedom.”

Ignaty was clever and assumed various pseudonyms like Mikhail Ivanovich or Kotik (meaning “kitten” in Russian) to protect himself from the Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order. That name was a mouthful, so it was usually referred to as “the guard department” or “the guard”—Okhrana in Russian. Ignaty engaged in a number of anti-government activities. He started by distributing revolutionary propaganda to students and workers. He later established a secret printing press with which he and his colleagues published an illegal underground newspaper, Rabochaya Gazeta.

In 1879 a schism developed within Land and Liberty. A failed attempt by a Land and Liberty member to kill the tsar resulted in a Russian government crackdown. Revolutionary cells in Ukraine were almost eradicated, and the organization was under tremendous pressure. Two factions developed—those who advocated terrorism and assassination, and those who wanted to end the use of terrorism. The anti-terrorism faction gained control of Land and Liberty’s newspaper, but the terrorists gained control of its Executive Committee. Attempts to reconcile were not successful, and an amicable spit was formalized in August 1879. The terrorist wing became People’s Will.

People’s Will characterized terrorism as a system of mob law and self-defense. They believed assassination was merely capital punishment and self-defense against those who committed crimes against the nation. They considered killing the tsar the best way to achieve their goals. They assessed the government as weak and believed a concerted plan of assassinations and terror would cause it to fall.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.