In his search for assistance from other Socialist-Revolutionary groups, Chernov soon realised just how isolated he was from the prevailing mood of these groups, which were at that time primarily engaged in negotiations with one another to find a common programmatic base for unification. Ideological innovation, in the form of proposals for a renewed emphasis on the revolutionary and socialist potential of the peasantry, was therefore doubly inappropriate to the existing spirit of the Socialist-Revolutionary movement.

Chernov visited Saratov, the major revolutionary centre on the Volga, but received no support there from either of the more influential circles, those of the Rakitnikovs and Argunov. Neither did he receive any encouragement from his contacts with the newly-formed ‘Southern Party’ of Socialist-Revolutionaries, or with the St Petersburg ‘Group of narodovol'tsy’.

In 1899, Chernov's period of administrative exile in Tambov came to an end, and he decided to take the opportunity of going abroad, to study at first hand the latest developments in the Western European socialist movement – which was at that time being racked by the revisionist controversies – and also to seek, in the émigré Populist circles, support for his plans to create an organisation which would coordinate and supply with suitable propaganda literature the groups and individuals working among the peasantry in Russia. En route to Switzerland, he first stopped off in St Petersburg to consult with Mikhaylovskii and the editorial board of his ‘Legal Populist’ journal, Russkoe Bogatstvo (‘Russian wealth’), to which Chernov was beginning to contribute articles.