Pugachev's Rebellion
Pugachev's Rebellion (Peasants' War 1773-75, Cossack Rebellion) of 1773-75 was the principal revolt in a series of popular rebellions that took place in the Russian Empire after Catherine II seized power in 1762. It began as an organized insurrection of Yaik Cossacks headed by Yemelyan Pugachev, a disaffected ex-lieutenant of the Imperial Russian Army, against a background of profound peasant unrest and war with the Ottoman Empire. After initial success, Pugachev assumed leadership of an alternative government in the name of the assassinated Tsar Peter III and proclaimed an end to serfdom. This organized leadership presented a challenge to the imperial administration of Catherine II.
Pyotr Tkachev
Orlando Figues has claimed that Lenin owed more to Tkachev than any other Russian theorist. Chief among the ideas that Tkachev espoused that were influential in the development of Lenin's political philosophy was the idea of a revolutionary vanguard. While not explicitly using this Leninist term, Tkachev argued that – in the absence of a popular, peasant-based revolution – revolutionaries should rise up and defeat a tyrannical government. The Leninist approach to Marxism was rooted in his origins in the Russian revolutionary movement, with the writings and ideas of Chernyshevsky, Tkachev, Nechayev and the "People's Will" injected into the passive Marxism to give it a 'Russian dose of conspiratorial politics'. This enabled the precipitation of a revolution by political action. Tkachev was a proponent of a closely organised revolutionary party, following the ideas of Nechayev, and was also influenced by the French revolutionary Blanquism movement. In Tkachev's eyes, the principal duty of revolutionary parties was not to engage in propaganda efforts, but to overthrow the government and seize power in the name of the proletariat.