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Zemlya I VolyaZemlya i volya ("Земля и воля" in Russian, or Land and Liberty), a Russian clandestine revolutionary organization of Narodniki in the 1870s, founded in Petersburg in 1876. Zemlya i volya (Z.i.v.) received its name in the late 1878 with the creation of the printing shop with the same name. Its former names were "Severnaya revolyutsionno-narodnicheskaya gruppa" (Северная революционно-народническая группа, or Northern Revolutionary Group of Narodniki) and "Obschestvo narodnikov" ("Общество народников", or The Society of Narodniki). Z.i.v.s most prominent members from the times of its inception were Mark Natanson, Aleksandr Mikhailov, Aleksei Oboleshev, Georgi Plekhanov, Aleksandr Kvyatkovsky, Dmitry Lizogub, Valerian Osinsky, Osip Aptekman and others. Later, Sergey Kravchinsky, Dmitry Klements, Nikolai Morozov, Sophia Perovskaya, Lev Tikhomirov, Mikhail Frolenko (all of them - Chaikovtsi) would later join Z.i.v. The club of Vera Figner shared the views of and cooperated with Z.i.v. The organization had close ties with the revolutionaries in Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa. The formation of Z.i.v. was preceded by the analysis of the Call to the people campaign (Хождение в народ, or Khozhdeniye v narod) of 1873-1875. As a result, the members of Z.i.v. defined the basics of the political platform, which would be called "narodnicheskaya" (народническая, or "close to the people", populist). They admitted a possibility of a special, non-capitalist way of development of Russia with peasantry as its basis. The members of Z.i.v. considered necessary to adapt the purposes and slogans of the movement to independent revolutionary aspirations that had already existed among the peasants, as they believed. These requirements, generalized in the slogan "Land and Liberty!", were designed to allow for the transition of all the lands "into the hands of the rural working strata", even distribution of the land, "full communal self-management" and division of the Russian empire into parts "in accordance with the desires of the locals". Z.i.v. stood for the creation of permanent "revolutionary settlements" in the countryside for the purpose of preparing a peoples revolution. The members of Z.i.v. saw peasantry as the principal revolutionary force, as opposed to the working class, which would have to play a part of the "second fiddle". Proceeding from the inevitability of a "forced coup d'tat", the revolutionaries considered agitation and organization of revolts, demonstrations and strikes to be very important. Z.i.v. represented a "rebellious" current of the revolutionary movement of the 1870s. Vladimir Lenin said that Z.i.v.s merit was its desire to "...attract all of the discontent and direct the organization towards decisive struggle against autocracy". Discipline, mutual comradely control, centralism and conspiracy became this organizations principles. The revolutionaries chose to "settle" in the provinces of Saratov, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Astrakhan, Tambov, Pskov, Voronezh, the Don region and others. They also attempted to spread their revolutionary activities in the Northern Caucasus and the Urals. Z.i.v. organized clandestine publishing and distribution of the revolutionary literature, conducted propaganda among workers and took part in several strikes in Petersburg in 1878-1879. It also influenced the development of the student movement by organizing or supporting demonstrations in Petersburg and other cities, including the so-called Kazan demonstration of 1876, where they would openly admit the organizations existence for the first time. The Program of Z.i.v. also envisioned a course of actions, aimed at "disorganization of the state", in its members opinion. In particular, it allowed for physical elimination of "the most harmful or prominent members of the government". The most famous terrorist act of Z.i.v. was the assassination of the Chief of the Gendarmes Nikolai Mezentsov in 1878. However, Z.i.v. didnt yet consider terror as means of political struggle against the existing regime, perceiving it as revolutionary self-defense and their revenge towards the government. Z.i.v.s disappointment with the revolutionary activity in the countryside, intensification of the governmental repressions and political discontent during the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78 and ripening of the revolutionary situation favored the conception and development of the new sentiments in the organization itself. By spring of 1879, the faction of political terrorists was formed in Z.i.v. Disagreements between the supporters of the former strategy of inciting the countryside called derevenschiki, or "villagers" (Georgi Plekhanov, Mikhail Popov, Osip Aptekman etc.) and defenders of transition towards political struggle by means of systematic terrorist methods called politicians (Aleksandr Mikhailov, Aleksandr Kvyatkovsky, Nikolai Morozov, Lev Tikhomirov etc.) led to the convocation of the Voronezh Congress of Z.i.v. in June of 1879, where the two rival groups would reach a short-term compromise. In August of 1879, however, Z.i.v. broke up in two independent organizations: Narodnaya Volya and Chernyi Peredel.
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