Going To The People Movement

During the "Going to the People" movement of 1874, also known as the "Mad Summer," thousands of Russian students and intellectuals abandoned city life and headed for the countryside. Historians estimate that as many as 4,000 young people left their studies, and some even burned their university degrees, hoping to live among peasants and spread populist political ideas. Many of these idealistic recruits had little or no firsthand experience of rural life and greatly underestimated the hardships they would face. The campaign largely failed, as many peasants distrusted the outsiders and authorities arrested hundreds of participants.

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