through the Society for the Liberation of the People. Bakunin advised the
students to leave the universities and to go among the people to teach them
and, at the same time, arouse them to revolt. It was at this time, too,
that Nicholas Tchaykovsky and his friends, the famous Circle of
Tchaykovsky, began to distribute among students in all parts of the Empire
books dealing with the condition of the peasants and proposing remedies
therefor. This work greatly influenced the young Intelligentsia, but the
immediate results among the peasants were not very encouraging. Even the
return from Switzerland, by order of the government, of hundreds of
students who were disciples of Bakunin and Peter Lavrov did not produce any
great success.

Very soon a new organization appeared. The remnant of the Circle
Tchaykovsky, together with some followers of Bakunin, formed a society
called the Land and Freedom Society. This society, which was destined to
exert a marked influence upon revolutionary Russia, was the most ambitious
revolutionary effort Russia had known. The society had a constitution and a
carefully worked out program. It had one special group to carry on
propaganda among students; another to agitate among the peasants; and a
third to employ armed force against the government and against those guilty
of treachery toward the society. The basis of the society was the
conviction that Russia needed an economic revolution; that only an economic
revolution, starting with the producers, could overthrow Czarism and
establish the ideal state of society.

The members of this Land and Freedom Society divided their work into four
main divisions: (1) Agitation--passive and active. Passive agitation
included strikes, petitions for reforms, refusal to pay taxes, and so on.
Active agitation meant riots and uprisings. (2) Organization--the formation
of a fighting force prepared to bring about a general uprising. (3)