Lipetsk Congress

a congress of members of the Narod-nik (Populist) organization Land and Liberty that took place in June 1879 in Lipetsk.

The congress convened at a time of sharp discord among the revolutionary Narodniks over the issue of the organization’s future direction and activity. At this congress, A. D. Mikhailov, A. A. Kviatkovskii, L. A. Tikhomirov, N. A. Morozov, A. I. Barannikov, M. N. Oshanina, A. I. Zheliabov, N. I. Kolod-kevich, G. D. Gol’denberg, S. G. Shiriaev, and M. F. Frolenko met secretly apart from other Land and Liberty members. The congress decided to introduce into the program of Land and Liberty the recognition of the necessity for political struggle against autocracy as an independent task of paramount importance. The participants in the congress declared themselves the Executive Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and adopted a party charter based on centralism, discipline, and conspiracy. If the imminent general congress of Land and Liberty in Voronezh agreed with the new program, the Executive Committee would assume the task of carrying out terrorism. After the split of Land and Liberty at the Voronezh Congress, the Executive Committee laid the basis for the new organization called the People’s Will.