ABSTRACT
After Russia's defeat in the Crimean War, the government significantly loosened the constraints on society. The rise of the student movement determined the next turn in the government's policies. The new regulations declared the universities and high schools open to students from all social estates. University autonomy, which Nicholas I had abolished, was restored. This became one of the sources of unrest in the post-reform universities. The Polish opposition movement, financed and supported by the extensive Polish emigration in Western countries, grew steadily more radical. Nechaev established contact with Russian revolutionary emigres in Europe and made a great impression on Mikhail Bakunin, one of their leaders. Peasantry rise is the first stage in Russian populism. It gave rise to an astonishing, historically unique event, the massive going to the people movement by the intelligentsia. The leadership of the new organization consisted of prominent Populists, among them Georgy Plekhanov, Andrei Zheliabov, Sofia Perovskaia, and Sergei Kravchinsky.
