for special tasks, the most important of these being the "heavenly chancellery" of the central executive, whose business it was to provide passports, etc.
viii. The aim of the Zemlja i Volja was peaceful revolution, but nevertheless the heralds of this peaceful revolution advanced to terrorist methods, the white terror evoking the red. In July 1877, corporal punishment was administered in prison to Bogoljubov, a revolutionary, and the authorities committed a number of revengeful actions. In consequence of these, Trepov was shot by Věra Zasulič (1878), Mezencev was stabbed by Stepniak, and various other terrorist acts were committed or attempted.
In June 1879, there was organised a declared terrorist party, Narodnaja Volja (People's Will) replacing the Zemlja i Volja. The purpose of the new party was to terrorise the government and the reactionary elements of society.
The party declared itself socialistic in the sense of the narodniki. Only the people's will had the right to sanction social forms; every idea which was to be realised politically and socially must "first of all traverse the consciousness and the will of the people." To this people's will, which strongly reminds us of Rousseau, the capitalist state was counterposed as oppressor. In accordance with the principles of pcople's weal and people's will, the Narodnaja Volja desired to restore power to the people by political revolution, and a legislative assembly would then undertake the reorganisation of society. The leading socialistic principles, notwithstanding their infringement by the arbitrary proceedings of the monarchy, had remained alive in Russia. These principles were, the consciousness of the people that it was justly entitled to the land, communal and local self-government, the rudiments of federal organisation, freedom of speech and conscience.
The political program of the Narodnaja Volja comprised the following items: continuous national representation; local self-government; independence of the mir as an economic and administrative unit; ownership of land by the folk; all factories and similar industrial enterprises to be in the hands of the operatives; absolute freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly, combination, and electoral agitation; universal suffrage; replacement of standing armies by a militia.
More important than the program, were the organisation and the work of the Narodnaja Volja. The leadership of
