This article analyses the interpretation of the method of political propaganda by revolutionary populists in the 19th century. The author demonstrates the evolution of the attitude to the propaganda as to the means of the mobilization of the masses by representatives of different movements of populism in the 60th and in the 70th years, the change in the description of its essence and realization means in connection with the change of planes and methods in the conduct of a revolution and the victory of terrorism in the theory and practice of revolutionary populists.