Nikolai Alexandrovich Morozov - Revolutionary Activities

Revolutionary Activities

The son of a landowner by a serf woman, Morozov was born in the village of Borok in the Yaroslavl Oblast of Russia. He early became interested in politics and was expelled from secondary school when he was accused of subversive activity (His distribution of a scientific magazine was considered subversive because Russian schools did not teach science ). He joined the Circle of Tchaikovsky before departing for Geneva in 1874. He later was a member of Zemlya i volya (co-editing their mouthpiece, Land and Liberty, with Sergei Kravchinsky) and one of the leaders of another revolutionist group, Narodnaya Volya, starting in 1879.

In 1880 Olga Liubatovich and Morozov left Narodnaya Volya and went to live in Geneva and London, where he was introduced to Karl Marx. While in exile Morozov wrote The Terrorist Struggle, a pamphlet that explained his views how to achieve a democratic society in Russia. He advocated large numbers of small independent terrorist groups and argued that this approach would make it difficult for the police to apprehend the terrorists. It would also help to prevent a small group of leaders gaining power, forming dictatorships after the overthrow of the Tsar.

Morozov returned to Russia in order to distribute The Terrorist Struggle. This led to his arrest soon after arriving. He was then imprisoned in Suwałki. Liubatovich only just having gone through child birth decided to attempt to rescue Morozov, though her plan did not go well, ending in her arrest leading to Liubatovich being sent to Siberia in November, 1882.