series of illegal leaflets were produced, putting party proclamations and manifestos in the hands of potential supporters. Narodnaya Volya saw themselves as continuers of the populist tradition of earlier years rather than marking a fresh break from the past, declaring in their press that while they would not keep the title Zemlevoltsy since they no longer represented the earlier party's entire tradition, they nevertheless intended to continue the principles established by the Zemlya i Volya organization and to continue to make "Land and Liberty" their "motto" and "slogan". The organization promulgated a program which called for "complete freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly, association, and electoral agitation". The group made the establishment of political freedom its top public objective, with the radical publicist N.K. Mikhailovsky (1842–1904) contributing two finely crafted "political letters" on the topic to two early issues of the party's official organ. The party declared its intention to lay down arms as soon as political concessions were made. There were no dreams of the organization forming the basis of a ruling party, with a fundamental hope maintained in the emergence of the self-governing village commune as the basis of a new socialist society. The Narodnaya Volya organization also began a terrorist campaign, with the governing Executive Committee issuing a proclamation calling for the execution of Tsar Alexander II for his crimes against the Russian people. While giving lip service to the demand for political freedom and a constitutional republic as its objective, the so-called Narodnovoltsy seem to have actually believed themselves to be pursuing a maximalist program in which terrorism and political assassination would "break the government itself" and end all vestiges of the Tsarist regime in Russia. The government was seen as weak and tottering, and chances for its revolutionary overthrow promising. Organizational structure Narodnaya Volya continued the trend towards secret organization and centralized direction that had begun with Zemlya i Volya—principles held to tightly in the face of growing government repression of participants in the terrorist organization. Democratic control of the party apparatus was deemed impossible under existing political conditions and the organization was centrally directed by its self-selecting Executive Committee, which included, among others Alexander Mikhailov, Andrei Zhelyabov (1851–1881), Sophia Perovskaya (1853–1881), Vera Figner (1852–1942), Nikolai Morozov (1854–1946), Mikhail Frolenko (1848–1938), Aaron Zundelevich (1852–1923), Savely Zlatopolsky (1855–1885) and Lev Tikhomirov (1852–1923). The Executive Committee was in existence for six years, during which time it was