The plans of the Populists to win the support of the peasants and serfs failed, as they were simply not interested in reform. Many of them were arrested, sparking the formation of a new radical group the ‘People’s Will’ who’s goal was in fact to assassinate leading members of the Tsarist state. You could argue that overthrowing the Tsar was one of their only aims, as they actually managed to assassinate Tsar Alexander II in 1881. However this did not lead to any reform of governments, as Alexander III simply took over with an even more brutal and repressive rule than his predecessor. This means that the ‘People’s Will’ were so fixated on overthrowing the Tsar that they had not properly considered the consequences it would have on the grand scheme of autocratic rule.
The next wave of Radical parties came with the expanding industrial classes in Russian society. Victor Chernov formed the Socialist Revolutionary party attempted to win their support, as he was another believer that the future of Russia was embedded in the workers and the peasants. However this radical part was different in the sense that it contained two contradicting views. On one hand there were the extremists, who attempted to assassinate Tsarist figures such as Plehve, the minister of the interior in 1904 and the Tsar’s uncle, Grand Duke Sergei. Suggesting they were attempting to overthrow the Tsar and little else. Although, on the one hand the party also contained a group who supported peasant socialism, who disagreed with the methods the other half of the party used to overthrow the Tsar, although arguably both sections of the party were both fixated with removing the Tsar.
At the time of the radical parties, and the rule of the Tsar, you could argue that the radical parties could not really have any other aims other than to overthrow the Tsar, as in an autocratic society, opposition to the Tsar was illegal, so until the Tsar had been removed, the radical parties could not put forward any other policies.
The first radical revolutionary party to bring widespread change were the Social democratic party. They also wanted to overthrow the Tsar but wanted to replace the Tsarist autocracy with the ideas of Marxism. However for Marxist ideas to succeed, industrialisation needed to be accelerated to make Russia more suitable for a socialist revolution. This meant that the Social Democratic party did have other aims other than overthrowing the Tsar such as bringing in industrial change and Marxism, although these other aims revolved around making Russia more suitable for a revolution, and therefore as I previously mentioned, every action undertaken by a radical group inevitably was connected to removing Tsarist autocracy, otherwise there would be no need for the formation of radical groups if they were not opposed to Tsar rule. The advancement in the Social Democrat party came with Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, later known as Lenin outlined his plan for the creation of a radical part of political revolutionaries who would lead Russia to social revolution in a pamphlet called ‘What is to be done?’ He too planed to overthrow the Tsar, but thought that revolution could be organised in a scientific way, by studying social and economic factors.
Eventually, The pressure applied by the Radical groups and the Social Democratic party, even after it’s split into the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks succeeded in overthrowing the Tsar. Therefore I think that ultimately such things must have been their ultimate goal, however I also think that it was the hatred of autocratic Tsarist government that forced the parties into Western Marxist ideas. And so I think that the radical parties of Russia were more concerned with changing the ways of government that overthrowing specifically the Tsar.
