Among the leaders of the Populist movement are radical writers, idealists, and advocates of terrorism.

In the 1860s, Nikolay Chernyshevsky, the most important radical writer of the period, posits that Russia can bypass capitalism and move directly to socialism.

His most influential work, What Is to Be Done? (1861), describes the role of an individual of a "superior nature" who guides a new, revolutionary generation.

Other radicals such as the incendiary anarchist Mikhail Bakunin and his terrorist collaborator, Sergey Nechayev, urge direct action.

The calmer Pyotr Tkachev argues against the advocates of Marxism, maintaining that a centralized revolutionary band has to seize power before socialism can fully develop.

Disputing his views, the moralist and individualist Pyotr Lavrov makes a call "to the people" that is heeded in 1873 and 1874 when hundreds of idealists leave their schools for the countryside to try to generate a mass movement among the narod.

The Populist campaign fails, however, when the peasants show hostility to the urban idealists and the government more willingly begins to consider nationalist opinion.