He escaped and assassinated Kharkov Governor-General Prince Dmitri Kropotkin (cousin of a famous anarchist) in February 1879.
After his successful assassination of the Governor of Kharkov and eluding subsequent arrest, that June (1879) he attended the secret gathering at Lipetsk which created North dnata Volya and was elected to its executive committee.
He was then rearrested on November 14, 1879, in Elizavetgrad with a suitcase full of nitroglycerine, which he intended to deliver to associates in Moscow to blow up a train carrying the tsar.
[2] This led him to, prompted by skillful interrogation, into a vision the liberation of Russia through the Tsar's change of heart.
Therefore, the imprisonment of Narodnaya Volya and the end of its assassination campaign would lead to those liberal reforms being ushered in by the Tsar and, "under the sun of freedom the way would be speedily prepared for the advent of Socialism."