"Zemlya i Volya" is associated in particular with the names of M.A. Natanson (1851–1919), a committed activist from the first half of the decade who both founded the organization and provided it with institutional memory, and Alexander Mikhailov (1855–1884), the leading representative of a new wave of participants and memoirist of the movement. This vanguard party, composed almost exclusively of intellectuals, continued in the tradition of idealizing traditional peasant organization as a pathway to broader social transformation. As Alexander Mikhailov wrote: