Narodnaya Volya (Russian: Наро́дная во́ля, romanized: nɐˈrodnəjə ˈvolʲə, lit. 'People's Will') was a late 19th-century revolutionary socialist political organization operating in the Russian Empire, which conducted assassinations of government officials in an attempt to overthrow the autocratic Tsarist system. The organization declared itself to be a populist movement that succeeded the Narodniks. Composed primarily of young revolutionary socialist intellectuals believing in the efficacy of direct action, Narodnaya Volya emerged in Autumn 1879 from the split of an earlier revolutionary organization called Zemlya i Volya ("Land and Liberty"). Similarly to predecessor groups that had already used the term "terror" positively, Narodnaya Volya proclaimed themselves as terrorists and venerated dead terrorists as "martyrs" and "heroes", justifying political violence as a legitimate tactic to provoke a necessary revolution.
Based upon a secret society apparatus of local, semi-independent cells co-ordinated by a self-selecting Executive Committee, Narodnaya Volya espoused acts of political violence in an attempt to destabilize the Russian Empire and spur insurrection against Tsarism, justified "as a means of exerting pressure on the government for reform, as the spark that would ignite a vast peasant uprising, and as the inevitable response to the regime's use of violence against the revolutionaries". This culminated in the successful assassination of Tsar Alexander II in March 1881—the event for which the group is best remembered. The group developed ideas—such as the assassination of the "leaders of oppression"—that were to become the hallmark of future small anti-state groups, and were convinced that new technologies such as dynamite enabled them to strike the regime powerfully and precisely, minimising casualties.
