A group of young men and women began to spread the revolutionary word during the first years of Alexander II's reign. The membership of these revolutionary groups were not limited to any one group, and included some of the most well known figures in the literary world:

-Nikolai Chernyshevsky, who wrote What is To Be Done?, one of the books which most influenced Lenin, and who was exiled on insufficient evidence and spent 20 years in Siberia and prison

-Peter Lavrov, who wrote Historical Letters and urged his followers not to revolts but to advocate social rebellion, and not to resort to violence

-Ivan Turgenev, whose Fathers and Sons discusses the differences between generations and the issues that came between them

-Leo Tolstoy, a member of the landed gentry that had been involved in emancipation, whose works chronicled the history of Russia while including discussion of necessary changes in religion, social structure, etc
-Dostoyevsky, whose Crime and Punishment remains one of the classic examples of someone good who goes bad, and The Devils, in which he introduces a female revolutionary

-George Plekhanov, who became the father of Russian Marxism and the mentor (in spirit) to Lenin and the other Marxists

In 1874, a group of these young people travelled into the countryside to try to help the peasantry with medicine, planting, and other skills. They were met with suspicion and fear, on the parts of, alternatively, the peasants and the tsarist officials, and many of them were arrested. Those who directly verbally attacked the tsar and the landowners were put on trial. The two major trials, that of the Fifty in Moscow and then of the Hundred and Ninety Three in St Petersburg, were both held in 1877. Nearly everyone was set free without being found guilty, but they marked a major milestone in the way that the government dealt with dissent.

Other types of dissent were dealt with harshly as well: Old Believers were suppressed, a major plan of Russification was taking place, native languages were not being taught in schools. Nicholas I's ideas of Orthodoxy and Nationality were still being advocated.

Women in the Revolutionary Movements

The role of women in these activities cannot be overstated or overlooked, as many young women were rebelling against being forced into traditional roles. These women responded by travelling abroad, becoming educated, and joining revolutionary movement.

In 1876, in response to a well publicised beating of a young revolutionary, a women named Vera Zasulich shot and wounded General Trepov, the man accused of having ordered the beating (he was the governor of St Petersburg). She did not try to escape, nor did she deny the action, and she was tried by a jury (which had been one of the reforms introduced by Alexander II). The jury acquitted her, and in the uproar that followed the verdict she escaped to Switzerland, where she became part of Plekhanov's group. The repercussions were severe, as those judges deemed to be more liberal (including the judge who oversaw her trial) were removed from the bench.

A second Vera Figner, was also responsible for several assassination attempts before she and her colleagues in the "People's Will" (which had separated from Plekhanov's Land and Freedom party because they advocated terrorism to achieve their goals) managed to assassinate Alexander II on March 1, 1881. Figner had actually become the leader of the group following the arrest of her lover, and she managed to allude capture for several months after the assassination. It had been at her flat that the bombs had been made, although she was not one of the throwers. She was eventually taken prisoner and locked up at the Peter and Paul Fortress (where there is now a monument to her being there). Eventually she was sent to another prison, and was released in 1904 while her mother was dying. She became something of an icon for the Bolsheviks, although she did not support them, and they gave her a pension and supported her until her death during the siege of Leningrad. (Her story makes fascinating reading; she left behind her "Memoirs of a Revolutionary", which is really quite good).

Why were women such good revolutionaries? There have been a number of theories. Like their male partners, they were dedicated and intelligent, but it also seems as if they were perhaps less cynical than their male counterparts. They also, tragically, were not allowed to die for their causes (something the men were allowed to do), and so many of them wasted away in exile, were physically and sexually abused, and were not able to make the final symbolic gesture of revolution. Several committed suicide in prison to avoid being abused any further, but very few were ever executed (a trend that continued into the Soviet period, where women tended to be exiled or imprisoned rather than murdered outright).

Women are going to play a significant role in the Bolshevik revolution, although they will later be removed from any real positions of power; the only women of any significance will either die within a few years of the revolution (Inessa Armand), be exiled (Nadezhda Krupskaya) or be given meaningless positions within the government (Alexandra Kollontai).