Failure of the populist party in Russia?

Answer 1

The populist party in Russia wanted the peasants to have the future of Russia in their hands. The populists wanted to educate the uneducated and illiterate peasants and inform them of their political ideas. To achieve this they went out into the countryside to live along side them. They called it 'going to the people'. It was an attempt to turn the peasants into the revolutionaries they were.

It was not a success. The peasants thought the populists were deluded and had no firm grasp on reality. They thought the Populist ideas were too unrealistic.

The populists were now in desperation to get their ideas across. They turned to terrorism as they had no legal right to exist anyway up until 1905. in 1879 a group was formed out of populists called 'The Peoples Will'. They had the intention of murdering the ruling class and they certainly got their notoriety out of it. However, one mistake was assasinating Tsar Alexander II. This was because Tsar Alexander II was a reformist Tsar himself, so revolutionaries mudering a reformist discredited the whole idea of reform.

The only success the populists had was establishing a violent anti-tsarist tradition.