It was to be the People’s Will’s most daring act yet. A bomb attack inside the Winter Palace itself. The People’s Will was an extremist revolutionary group active during the reign of Tsar Alexander II. Advocating acts of violence and terror, they sentenced the tsar, whom they considered a criminal, to death. Their manifesto of regicide was based on the belief that the tsar’s death would bring about the end of tsarism. The idea took hold of the popular imagination.
One of those inspired by it was a young workman called Stepan Khalturin.
Khalturin’s carpentry skills were much in demand in St Petersburg during the late 1870s. When he got a job repairing the tsar’s yacht, an opportunity presented itself to him. Such was his standard of craftsmanship that he caught the eye of palace administrators. Would he be interested in joining the maintenance team at the Winter Palace? they wondered.
It was at this point that Khalturin made himself known to key figures in the People’s Will.
