A leader of the clandestine Narodnaya Volya ( People 's Will ) group , which advocated the use of terror to achieve a revolutionary overthrow of the government , Figner was a participant in planning the successful assassination of Alexander II in 1881 . Figner was later arrested and spent 20 months in solitary confinement prior to trial , at which she was sentenced to death . The sentence was subsequently commuted and Figner was imprisoned in the Shlisselburg fortress for 20 years before being sent into internal exile . Figner gained international fame in large part because of the widely translated memoir of her experiences . She was treated as a heroic icon of revolutionary sacrifice after the February Revolution in 1917 and was a popular public speaker during that year . Figner later became prominent in the Society of Former Political Prisoners and Exiles in the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1935 . Figner managed to survive the Great Terror of 1937 and died of natural causes in Moscow in 1942 at the age of 89
Great Terror of 1937
Great Purge
Vera Figner