It is known that in the period following the overthrow of the monarchy, the most influential political force in Russia was the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR), which numbered about a million of its followers. However, despite the fact that its representatives occupied a number of prominent positions in the government of the country, and the program was supported by the majority of citizens, the Socialist Revolutionaries failed to retain power in their hands. The revolutionary year of 1917 became a period of their triumph and the beginning of a tragedy.
The birth of a new party
In January 1902, the underground newspaper Revolutionary Russia, published abroad, notified its readers of the appearance on the political horizon of a new party, whose members called themselves social revolutionaries. It is unlikely that this event received a significant resonance in society at that moment, since at that time structures similar to it often appeared and disappeared. Nevertheless, the creation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was a significant milestone in Russian history.
Despite its publication in 1902, its creation occurred much earlier than was announced in the newspaper. Eight years earlier, an illegal revolutionary circle had formed in Saratov, which had close ties with the local branch of the Narodnaya Volya party, which by that time was living its last days. When it was finally liquidated by the secret police, members of the circle began to act independently and two years later they developed their own program.
Initially, it was distributed in the form of leaflets printed on a hectograph - a very primitive printing device, which nevertheless made it possible to make the required number of prints. This document was published in the form of a brochure only in 1900, published in the printing house of one of the foreign branches of the party that had appeared by that time.
Merger of two branches of the party
In 1897, members of the Saratov circle, led by Andrei Argunov, moved to Moscow and in a new place began to call their organization the Northern Union of Socialist Revolutionaries. They had to introduce this geographical clarification into the name, since similar organizations, whose members also called themselves socialist-revolutionaries, had appeared by that time in Odessa, Kharkov, Poltava and a number of other cities. They in turn became known as the Southern Union. In 1904, these two branches of an essentially single organization merged, as a result of which the well-known Socialist Revolutionary Party was formed. It was headed by permanent leader Viktor Chernov (his photo is presented in the article).
The tasks that the Social Revolutionaries set for themselves
The program of the Social Revolutionary Party had a number of points that distinguished it from most of the political organizations that existed at that time. Among them were:
- The formation of the Russian state on a federal basis, in which it will consist of independent territories (federal subjects) with the right to self-determination.
- Universal suffrage, extending to citizens over 20 years of age, regardless of gender, nationality or religion;
- Guarantee of respect for basic civil liberties, such as freedom of conscience, speech, press, associations, unions, etc.
- Free public education.
- Reducing the working day to 8 hours.
- Reform of the armed forces, in which they cease to be a permanent state structure.
- The distinction between church and state.
In addition, the program included several more points that, in essence, repeated the demands of other political organizations that aspired to power, just like the Socialist Revolutionaries. The highest body of party power for the social revolutionaries was the Congresses, and between them all current issues were resolved by the Soviets. The main slogan of the party was the call “Land and freedom!”
Features of the agrarian policy of the Socialist Revolutionaries
Of all the political parties that existed at that time, the Socialist Revolutionaries stood out for their attitude towards solving the agrarian question and towards the peasantry as a whole. This class, the most numerous in pre-revolutionary Russia, was, in the opinion of all Social Democrats, including the Bolsheviks, so backward and devoid of political activity that it could only be considered as an ally and support to the proletariat, which was assigned the role of “the locomotive of the revolution.”
Social revolutionaries took a different point of view. In their opinion, the revolutionary process in Russia should begin precisely in the countryside and only then spread to cities and industrialized areas. Therefore, in the transformation of society, peasants were given almost the leading role.
As for land policy, here the Socialist Revolutionaries proposed their own path, different from others. According to their party program, all agricultural land was not subject to nationalization, as the Bolsheviks called for, and not to distribution into ownership of individual owners, as the Mensheviks proposed, but was socialized and placed at the disposal of local self-government bodies. They called this path the socialization of the land.
At the same time, the law prohibited its private ownership, as well as purchase and sale. The final product was subject to distribution in accordance with established consumer standards, which were directly dependent on the amount of labor invested.
Social Revolutionaries during the First Russian Revolution
It is known that the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRs) was very skeptical about the First Russian Revolution. According to its leaders, it was not bourgeois, since this class was not capable of leading the new society being created. The reasons for this lie in the reforms of Alexander II, who opened a broad path for the development of capitalism. They did not consider it socialist either, but came up with a new term - “social revolution”.
In general, the theorists of the Social Revolutionary Party believed that the transition to socialism should be carried out in a peaceful, reformist way without any social upheaval. However, a significant number of Socialist Revolutionaries took an active part in the battles of the First Russian Revolution. For example, their role in the uprising on the battleship Potemkin is well known.
Military organization of the Socialist Revolutionaries
A curious paradox is that for all its calls for a peaceful and non-violent path of transformation, the Socialist Revolutionary Party was remembered primarily for its terrorist activities, which began immediately after its creation.
Already in 1902, its military organization was created, then numbering 78 people. Its first leader was Grigory Gershuni, then at different stages this post was occupied by Yevno Azef and Boris Savinkov. It is recognized that of all the known terrorist groups of the early 20th century, this organization was the most effective. The victims of the acts committed were not only high-ranking officials of the tsarist government and representatives of law enforcement agencies, but also political opponents from other parties.
The bloody path of the SR military organization began in April 1902 with the murder of the Minister of Internal Affairs D. Sipyagin and the assassination attempt on the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod K. Pobedonostsev. This was followed by a series of new terrorist attacks, the most famous of which is the murder of the Tsar's minister V. Plehve, carried out in 1904 by Yegor Sazonov, and the uncle of Nicholas II - Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, committed in 1905 by Ivan Kalyaev.
The peak of the terrorist activities of the Social Revolutionaries occurred in 1905-1907. According to available data, the leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party V. Chernov and the leadership of the combat group were responsible for committing 223 terrorist attacks during this period alone, as a result of which 7 generals, 33 governors, 2 ministers and the Moscow governor-general were killed. These bloody statistics continued in subsequent years.
Events of 1917
After the February Revolution, as a political party, the Socialist Revolutionaries became the most influential public organization in Russia. Their representatives occupied key positions in many newly formed government structures, and their total membership reached a million people. However, despite the rapid rise and popularity of the main provisions of its program among the Russian population, the Socialist Revolutionary Party soon lost political leadership, and the Bolsheviks seized power in the country.
Immediately after the October coup, the leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party V. Chernov, together with members of the Central Committee, addressed all political organizations in Russia, in which he characterized the actions of Lenin’s supporters as madness and a crime. At the same time, at an internal party meeting, a coordination committee was created to organize the fight against the usurpers of power. It was headed by the prominent Socialist Revolutionary Abram Gots.
However, not all party members had an unambiguous attitude to what was happening, and representatives of its left wing expressed support for the Bolsheviks. From that time on, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party tried to implement its policies on many issues. This caused a split and a general weakening of the organization.
Between two fires
During the Civil War, the Socialist Revolutionaries tried to fight both the Reds and the Whites, alternately entering into an alliance with one or the other. The leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, who at the beginning of the war declared that the Bolsheviks were the lesser of two evils, very soon began to point out the need for joint actions with the White Guards and interventionists.
Of course, none of the representatives of the main warring parties took the alliance with the Social Revolutionaries seriously, realizing that as soon as circumstances changed, yesterday’s allies could defect to the enemy camp. And there were many such examples during the war.
The defeat of the Socialist Revolutionary Party
In 1919, wanting to make fullest use of the potential that the Socialist Revolutionary Party had, Lenin’s government decided to legalize it in the territories under its control. However, this did not bring the expected result. The Social Revolutionaries did not stop their attacks on the Bolshevik leadership and the methods of struggle resorted to by the party they led. Even the danger posed by their common enemy could not reconcile the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries.
As a result, the temporary truce soon gave way to a new series of arrests, as a result of which, by the beginning of 1921, the Central Committee of the Social Revolutionary Party practically ceased to exist. Some of its members had been killed by that time (M. L. Kogan-Bernstein, I. I. Teterkin, etc.), many emigrated to Europe (V. V. Samokhin, N. S. Rusanov, as well as party leader V. M. Chernov), and the bulk were in prisons. From that time on, the Socialist Revolutionaries, as a party, ceased to represent a real political force.
Years of emigration
The further history of the Socialist Revolutionaries is inextricably linked with the Russian emigration, the ranks of which were intensively replenished in the first post-revolutionary years. Having found themselves abroad after the defeat of the party, which began back in 1918, the Socialist Revolutionaries were met there by their fellow party members who settled in Europe and created a foreign department there long before the revolution.
After the party was banned in Russia, all its surviving and free members were forced to emigrate. They settled mainly in Paris, Berlin, Stockholm and Prague. The general management of the activities of foreign cells was carried out by the former head of the party, Viktor Chernov, who left Russia in 1920.
Newspapers published by the Social Revolutionaries
Which party, having found itself in exile, did not have its own press organ? Social revolutionaries were no exception. They published a number of periodicals, such as the newspapers “Revolutionary Russia”, “Modern Notes”, “For the People!” and some others. In the 1920s, they were able to be smuggled across the border illegally, and therefore the material published in them was aimed at the Russian reader. But as a result of the efforts undertaken by the Soviet intelligence services, the delivery channels were soon blocked, and all newspaper circulations began to be distributed among emigrants.
Many researchers note that in articles published in Socialist Revolutionary newspapers, not only the rhetoric, but also the general ideological orientation changed from year to year. If at first the party leaders stood mainly in their previous positions, exaggerating the same theme of creating a classless society in Russia, then at the end of the 30s, they openly declared the need to return to capitalism.
Afterword
This is where the Social Revolutionaries (party) practically completed their activities. The year 1917 went down in history as the most successful period of their activity, which soon gave way to unsuccessful attempts to find their place in new historical realities. Unable to withstand the struggle with a stronger political opponent in the person of the RSDLP (b), led by Lenin, they were forced to leave the historical scene forever.
However, for many years in the Soviet Union, people who had nothing to do with it were accused of belonging to the Socialist Revolutionary Party and promoting its ideology. In the atmosphere of total terror that gripped the country, the very word “Socialist Revolutionary” was used as a designation of the enemy and was applied as a label to obvious, and more often imaginary, oppositionists for their illegal condemnation.
At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, revolutionary sentiments were gaining strength in the Russian Empire. Like mushrooms after rain, political parties are growing that see the future development and prosperity of Russia in the overthrow of the monarchy and the transition to a democratic form of collective governance. One of the largest and most organized parties of the left wing were the Social Revolutionaries, or Socialist Revolutionaries for short (in accordance with their abbreviation SR).
This party had enormous influence both before and after 1917, but was unable to retain power in its hands.
A little history
Since the mid-nineteenth century, all political circles could be divided into:
- Conservative, right-wing. Their motto was “Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality.” They did not see the need for any changes.
- Liberal. For the most part, they did not seek to overthrow the monarchy, but they also did not consider autocracy the best form of state power. In their understanding, Russia was supposed to achieve a constitutional monarchy through liberal reforms. Disagreements arose only in the proportions of the division of power between the monarch and the elected body of government.
- Radical, left. They did not see a future in autocratic Russia and believed that the transition from a monarchy to the rule of an elected council could only be accomplished through revolution.
At the end of the nineteenth century The Russian Empire is experiencing a colossal economic boom thanks to Witte's reforms. The downside of these reforms was the nationalization of production and an increase in excise taxes. Most of the tax burden falls on the poorest segments of the population. Hard life and sacrifices in the name of economic development are causing more and more discontent, including among the educated segments of the population. This leads to a serious strengthening of leftist sentiments in political circles.
At the same time, the liberal-minded intelligentsia is gradually leaving the political arena. The so-called theory of “small deeds” is gaining more and more momentum among liberals. Instead of fighting to promote the desired reforms that will improve the lives of the poor, liberals decide to do something on their own for the benefit of the common people. Most of them go to work as doctors or teachers to help peasants and workers receive education and medical care now, without waiting for reforms. This leads to a clash between the remaining circles of the extreme left and right. In the nineties, a party of social revolutionaries was formed - future ideologists of the left movement.
Formation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party
In 1894 A circle of socialist revolutionaries was formed in Saratov. They maintained contact with some groups of the terrorist organization “People's Will”. When the Narodnaya Volya members were dispersed, the Saratov social revolutionary circle began to act independently, developing its own program. Their press organ published this program in 1896. A year later, this circle ended up in Moscow.
At the same time, in other cities of the Russian Empire there were people's will, socialist circles, which gradually united with each other. At the beginning of the 1900s, a single Social Revolutionary Party was formed.
Pre-revolutionary activities of the Social Revolutionaries
The Socialist Revolutionary Party also had a military organization that carried out terrorist attacks against high-ranking officials. In 1902, they made an attempt on the life of the Minister of the Interior. However, four years later the organization was dissolved and was replaced by flying squads - small terrorist groups that did not have centralized control.
At the same time, preparations were made for the revolution. The Social Revolutionaries saw the peasants, as well as the proletariat, as the driving force of the revolution. The social revolutionaries considered the peasant question to be the main bone of contention between the state and the people. It was with the peasants that the Socialist Revolutionaries carried out propaganda work and formed political associations. They managed to incite peasants to revolt in several provinces, but there was no mass uprising throughout Russia.
Party numbers at the beginning of the twentieth century increased and its composition changed. During the first revolutions of 1905-1907, its extreme right and extreme left wings separated from the party. They formed the People's Socialists Party and the Union of Revolutionary Maximalist Socialists.
By the beginning of the First World War, the Socialist Revolutionary Party was again divided into centrists and internationalists. The internationalists soon received the name “Left Social Revolutionaries.” The radical left Socialist Revolutionaries were close to the Bolshevik Party, which the Internationalist Socialist Revolutionaries would soon join. But so far at the beginning of 1917, the Social Revolutionary Party was the largest and most influential revolutionary party.
February Revolution
World War I further shook the people's faith in the Russian autocracy. Here and there, riots of peasants and workers broke out, skillfully fueled by the agitation activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries. The general February strike in Petrograd turned into an armed uprising when the striking workers were supported by soldiers. The result of this uprising was the overthrow of the monarchy and the formation of a provisional government as the main authority in post-revolutionary Russia.
Social Revolutionaries in the provisional government
Since the main inspiring force of the February Revolution was the SR party, many positions in the provisional government went to them, although the cadet Lvov became the chairman of the government. Here are the most famous Social Revolutionary ministers of that time:
- Kerensky,
- Chernov,
- Avksentiev,
- Maslov.
The provisional government could not cope with the hunger and devastation that engulfed the state. The Bolsheviks took advantage of this in an attempt to gain power. The failure of the provisional government forced Lvov to resign. In August, the post of chairman of the provisional government went to the Socialist Revolutionary Kerensky. At the same time, a counter-revolutionary uprising occurred, to suppress which Kerensky took on the role of commander in chief. The uprising was successfully suppressed.
However, dissatisfaction with the provisional government grew as socio-economic reforms were delayed and the peasant issue was never resolved. And in October of the same year, as a result of an armed riot, the entire provisional government, with the exception of Kerensky, was arrested. The chairman managed to escape.
October Revolution and the fall of the Social Revolutionary Party
It was with the arrest of the provisional government that the October Revolution began. Peasants and workers became disillusioned with the provisional government and went over to the banner of the Bolsheviks. After the revolution, the Executive Committee, an executive body, and the Council of People's Commissars, a legislative body, were created. The first two decrees of the Council of People's Commissars were two decrees: the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land. The first called for an end to the world war. The second decree defended the interests of the peasants and was completely taken from the program of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, since the Bolsheviks were a workers' party and did not deal with the peasant issue.
Meanwhile, the Socialist Revolutionaries continued to remain an influential party and were members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly. But when the left Socialist Revolutionaries joined the Bolsheviks, the right saw their goal as the overthrow of the Bolshevik dictatorship and a return to true democracy. However, the Right Socialist Revolutionary Party was still legalized, since the Bolsheviks planned to use it in the fight against the white movement. However, social revolutionaries in their printed publications continued to criticize the policies of the Bolsheviks, which led to mass arrests.
By 1919 the leadership of the SR party was already in exile. It considered foreign intervention to overthrow the Bolsheviks justified. However, the right-wing Social Revolutionaries who remained in the country saw in the intervention only the selfish interests of the imperialists. They abandoned the armed struggle against the Bolsheviks, since the country was already exhausted by the war. At the same time, they continued to conduct anti-Bolshevik campaigning in their printed publications.
The Social Revolutionaries, indeed, contributed to the fight against the whites. It was at the Zemsky Congress organized by the Socialist Revolutionaries that it was decided to overthrow the rule of Kolchak. However, in the early twenties, the Social Revolutionaries were accused of counter-revolutionary activities and the party was dissolved.
SR party program
The program of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was based on the works Chernyshevsky, Mikhailovsky and Lavrov. This program was generously published in the printed publications of social revolutionaries: the newspapers “Revolutionary Russia”, “Conscious Russia”, “Narodny Vestnik”, “Mysl”.
General provisions
The general idea of the Socialist Revolutionary program was Russia's transition to socialism, bypassing capitalism. They called their non-capitalist path democratic socialism, which was to be expressed through the rule of the following organized parties:
- The trade union is a party of producers,
- The Cooperative Union is a party of consumers,
- Parliamentary bodies of self-government consisting of organized citizens.
The central place in the Socialist Revolutionary program was occupied by the peasant question and the socialization of agriculture.
A look at the peasant question
The Social Revolutionaries' view of the peasant question was very original for that time. Socialism, according to the Socialist Revolutionaries, was supposed to begin in the countryside and from there expand throughout the country. And it had to begin precisely with the socialization of the land. What did this mean?
This meant, first of all, the abolition of private ownership of land. But at the same time, land could not be state property either. It was supposed to become public peasant property without the right to sell or buy it. This land was to be managed by elected bodies of collective people's self-government.
The provision of land for the use of peasants, according to the Social Revolutionaries, should have been equalization-labor. Namely, an individual peasant or a partnership of peasants could receive for use such an allotment of land that they could independently cultivate and which would be enough for them to feed themselves.
It was these ideas that later migrated to the “Decree on Land” of the Council of People’s Commissars.
Democratic ideas
The political ideas of the social revolutionaries gravitated towards democracy. During the transition to socialism, the Socialist Revolutionaries saw a democratic republic as the only acceptable form of power. With this form of power The following rights and freedoms of citizens had to be respected:
The last point implied that all categories of the population should be represented in government bodies in proportion to the number of these categories. Later, the same idea was put forward by the Social Democrats.
Legacy of the Social Revolutionary Party
What mark did the social revolutionaries leave in history? with their political and social program? First, there is the idea of collective stewardship of the land. The Bolsheviks already introduced it into life, and in general the idea turned out to be so successful that other communist and socialist states adopted it.
Secondly, most of the rights and freedoms of citizens that the Social Revolutionaries defended just a hundred years ago now seem so obvious and inalienable that it is hard to believe that not so long ago they had to be fought for. Thirdly, the idea of proportional representation of different categories of the population in government is also partially used in some countries in our time. In the modern world, this idea has taken the form of quotas in the government and beyond.
Social revolutionaries gave the modern world a lot of ideas about fair power and fair distribution of resources.
IN 90s XIX century Populism intensified again, in which there were several different movements. If the liberal populists sought to provide practical assistance to the peasantry (organizing agricultural artels, savings and loan partnerships, etc.), the left wing chose illegal activities - populist (Socialist Revolutionary) groups and circles operated in many cities. In 1896, the “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries” (A. A. Argunov) arose in Saratov; from 1897, Moscow became the center of its activities (from that moment on it was known as the “Northern Union of Socialist Revolutionaries”). A small, deeply secret organization, "Union" in 1901 he published two issues of the newspaper "Revolutionary Russia". At the end of summer 1900 In Kharkov, a congress of representatives of Socialist Revolutionary groups and circles in Odessa, Kharkov, Kyiv, Ekaterinoslav and others took place, which proclaimed the creation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party ("Southern Party"). However, the party had neither a leadership center nor a printed organ, so it was more a symbolic association than a real one.
In September 1901, gendarmes destroyed the printing house of the “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries” in Tomsk, and in early December 1901, the “Union” actually ceased to exist as a result of numerous arrests of its members. These events were closely related to the activities of the provocateur E.F. Azef. Back in the early 90s. He offered his services to the Police Department, and in 1899 he arrived in Russia and came to the disposal of the head of the Moscow security department, S.V. Zubatov. Azef helped the Soyuz organize the Tomsk printing house, but at the same time gave the secret police the opportunity to find out its location. With the failure of the newspaper, Azef began to persistently advise the leaders of the "Union" to move abroad and there resume the publication of "Revolutionary Russia". First, one of the leaders of the "Union", M.F. Selyuk, went abroad, then Azef himself. In December 1901, in Berlin, they met with one of the future leaders of the party, G. A. Gershuni, as a result of which they came to an agreement to unite the “Union” and the “Southern Party” into a single Party of Socialist Revolutionaries. The newspaper "Revolutionary Russia" became the official organ of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.
In the fall of 1901, Gershuni began to create a special terrorist group, which was called the “Combat Organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party” (BO AKP). After the arrest of Gershuni in May 1903, the BO AKP was headed by E. Azef.
In May 1904, the draft program of the AKP was published in Revolutionary Russia, which, together with the charter, was approved at the First Party Congress in December 1905 - January 1906 (Finland).
The main credit for developing the theoretical part of the Socialist Revolutionary program belongs to V. M. Chernov. He joined the AKP at the end of 1901 and was a member of the party's Central Committee.
The program of the Socialist Revolutionary Party had much in common with the views of the revolutionary populists. It proclaimed the ultimate goal of the parties to be the expropriation of capitalist property and the reorganization of production and the entire social system on socialist principles. The originality of Socialist Revolutionary socialism and its national peculiarity lay in the theory of socialization of agriculture, based on the idea of the non-capitalist evolution of peasant communities to socialism and the “germination” of socialism in the countryside earlier than in the city.
The Socialist Revolutionaries intended to transform Russia into a democratic republic through legislation, through a constituent assembly.
Like the Narodniks, the Social Revolutionaries considered individual terror one of the main means of revolutionary struggle. The victims of the Socialist Revolutionary terror were: Ministers of Internal Affairs D: S. Sipyagin and V. K. Pleve, Kharkov-
Russian Governor Prince I.M. Obolensky, Ufa Governor N.M. Bogdanovich, Moscow Governor General Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich.
members of the Russian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (written: “s=r-ov”, read: “Socialist Revolutionaries”). The party was formed by uniting populist groups as the left wing of democracy in late 1901 and early 1902.
In the second half of the 1890s, small populist groups and circles, predominantly intellectual in composition, existed in St. Petersburg, Penza, Poltava, Voronezh, Kharkov, and Odessa. Some of them united in 1900 into the Southern Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, others in 1901 into the “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries”. The organizers were former populists (M.R. Gots, O.S. Minor, etc.) and extremist-minded students (N.D. Avksentyev, V.M. Zenzinov, B.V. Savinkov, I.P. Kalyaev, E. S. Sozonov and others). At the end of 1901, the “Southern Socialist Revolutionary Party” and the “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries” merged, and in January 1902 the newspaper “Revolutionary Russia” announced the creation of the party. The founding congress of the party, which approved its program and charter, took place, however, only three years later and was held on December 29, 1905 and January 4, 1906 in Imatra (Finland).
Simultaneously with the establishment of the party itself, its Combat Organization (BO) was created. Its leaders G.A. Gershuni, E.F. Azef put forward individual terror against senior government officials as the main goal of their activities. His victims in 1902-1905 were the ministers of internal affairs (D.S. Sipyagin, V.K. Pleve), governors (I.M. Obolensky, N.M. Kachura), as well as the leader. book Sergei Alexandrovich, killed by the famous Socialist Revolutionary I. Kalyaev. During two and a half years of the first Russian revolution, the Socialist Revolutionaries committed about 200 terrorist attacks ( see also TERRORISM).
In general, party members were supporters of democratic socialism, which they saw as a society of economic and political democracy. Their main demands were reflected in the Party Program drawn up by V.M. Chernov and adopted at the First Founding Congress of the Party at the end of December 1905 and beginning of January 1906.
As defenders of the interests of the peasantry and followers of the populists, the Socialist Revolutionaries demanded the “socialization of the land” (transferring it into the ownership of communities and the establishment of egalitarian labor land use), denied social stratification, and did not share the idea of establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat, which was actively promoted by many Marxists at that time. The program of “socialization of the earth” was supposed to provide a peaceful, evolutionary path of transition to socialism.
The Social Revolutionary Party Program contained demands for the introduction of democratic rights and freedoms in Russia the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, the establishment of a republic with autonomy for regions and communities on a federal basis, the introduction of universal suffrage and democratic freedoms (speech, press, conscience, meetings, unions, separation of the church from state, universal free education, the destruction of the standing army, the introduction of an 8-hour working day, social insurance at the expense of the state and the owners of enterprises, the organization of trade unions.
Considering political freedom and democracy to be the main prerequisites for socialism in Russia, they recognized the importance of mass movements in achieving them. But in matters of tactics, the Socialist Revolutionaries stipulated that the struggle for the implementation of the program would be carried out “in forms corresponding to the specific conditions of Russian reality,” which implied the use of the entire arsenal of means of struggle, including individual terror.
The leadership of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was entrusted to the Central Committee (Central Committee). There were special commissions under the Central Committee: peasant and workers. military, literary, etc. Special rights in the structure of the organization were vested in the Council of members of the Central Committee, representatives of the Moscow and St. Petersburg committees and regions (the first meeting of the Council was held in May 1906, the last, tenth in August 1921). The structural parts of the party also included the Peasant Union (since 1902), the Union of People's Teachers (since 1903), and individual workers' unions (since 1903). Members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party took part in the Paris Conference of Opposition and Revolutionary Parties (autumn 1904) and the Geneva Conference of Revolutionary Parties (April 1905).
By the beginning of the revolution of 1905-1907, over 40 Socialist Revolutionary committees and groups were operating in Russia, uniting about 2.5 thousand people, mainly intellectuals; more than a quarter of the composition were workers and peasants. Members of the BO party were engaged in the delivery of weapons to Russia, created dynamite workshops, and organized fighting squads. The party leadership was inclined to consider the publication of the Manifesto on October 17, 1905 as the beginning of the constitutional order, so it was decided to dissolve the BO of the party as not corresponding to the constitutional regime. Together with other left-wing parties, the Social Revolutionaries co-organized the Labor Group consisting of deputies of the First State Duma (1906), which actively participated in the development of projects related to land use. In the Second State Duma, the Socialist Revolutionaries were represented by 37 deputies, who were especially active in debates on the agrarian issue. At that time, the left wing separated from the party (creating the “Union of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists”) and the right wing (“People’s Socialists” or “Enesy”). At the same time, the number of the party increased in 1907 to 50-60 thousand people; and the number of workers and peasants in it reached 90%.
However, the lack of ideological unity became one of the main factors explaining the organizational weakness of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in the climate of political reaction of 1907–1910. A number of prominent figures, and above all B.V. Savinkov, tried to overcome the tactical and organizational crisis that arose in the party after the exposure of the provocative activities of E.F. Azef at the end of 1908 and the beginning of 1909. The crisis of the party was aggravated by the Stolypin agrarian reform, which strengthened the sense of ownership among the peasants and undermined the foundations of Socialist Revolutionary agrarian socialism. In a climate of crisis in the country and in the party, many of its leaders, disillusioned with the idea of preparing terrorist attacks, focused almost entirely on literary activities. Its fruits were published by legal Socialist Revolutionary newspapers “Son of the Fatherland”, “Narodny Vestnik”, “Trudovoy Narod”.
Until the February Revolution, the Socialist Revolutionary Party was illegal. On the eve of the First World War, its organizations existed in almost all large metropolitan enterprises, all in agricultural provinces. 1914 intensified the ideological differences in the party and divided the Socialist Revolutionaries into “internationalists” led by V.M. Chernov and M.A. Nathanson, who advocated ending the world war, against annexations and indemnities, and “defencists” led by N.D. Avksentiev, A.A. Argunov, I.I. Fondaminsky, who insisted on waging the war to a victorious end as part of the Entente.
In July 1915 in Petrograd, at a meeting of the Socialist Revolutionaries, Popular Socialists and Trudoviks, a resolution was adopted that the moment had come to “change the system of government.” The Labor Group headed by A.F.Kerensky.
After the victory of the February Revolution of 1917, the Socialist Revolutionary Party became completely legal, influential, mass, and one of the ruling parties in the country. In terms of growth rates, the Socialist Revolutionaries were ahead of other political parties: by the summer of 1917 there were about 1 million people, united in 436 organizations in 62 provinces, in the fleets and on the fronts of the active army. Entire villages, regiments and factories joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party that year. These were peasants, soldiers, workers, intellectuals, petty officials and officers, students who had little idea about the theoretical guidelines of the party, its goals and objectives. The range of views was enormous, from Bolshevik-anarchist to Menshevik-Enes. Some hoped to gain personal benefit from membership in the most influential party and joined for selfish reasons (they were later called the “March Socialist Revolutionaries”, since they announced their membership after the Tsar’s abdication in March 1917).
The internal history of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1917 is characterized by the formation of three currents in it: right, center and left.
The right Socialist Revolutionaries (E. Breshko-Breshkovskaya, A. Kerensky, B. Savinkov) believed that the issue of socialist reconstruction was not on the agenda and therefore believed it was necessary to focus on issues of democratization of the political system and forms of ownership. The right were supporters of coalition governments and “defencism” in foreign policy. The Right Socialist Revolutionaries and Popular Socialists (since 1917 Labor People's Socialist Party) were even represented in the Provisional Government, in particular A.F. Kerensky was first the Minister of Justice (March-April 1917), then the Minister of War and Navy (in the 1st and 2nd coalition governments), and from September 1917 the head of the 3rd coalition government. Other right-wing Social Revolutionaries also participated in the coalition composition of the Provisional Government: N.D. Avksentyev (Minister of Internal Affairs in the 2nd composition), B.V. Savinkov (administrator of the Military and Naval Ministry in the 1st and 2nd composition) .
The Left Socialist Revolutionaries who disagreed with them (M. Spiridonova, B. Kamkov and others, who published their articles in the newspapers “Delo Naroda”, “Land and Freedom”, “Banner of Labor”) believed the current situation was possible for a “breakthrough to socialism”, and therefore they advocated the immediate transfer of all land to the peasants. They considered the world revolution capable of ending the war, and therefore some of them called (like the Bolsheviks) not to trust the Provisional Government, to go to the end, until democracy was established.
However, the general course of the party was determined by the centrists (V. Chernov and S.L. Maslov).
From February to July-August 1917, the Socialist Revolutionaries actively worked in the Councils of Workers', Soldiers' and Sailors' Deputies, considering them "necessary to continue the revolution and consolidate fundamental freedoms and democratic principles" in order to "push" the Provisional Government along the path of reforms, and at the Constituent Assembly to ensure the implementation of its decisions. If the right Socialist Revolutionaries refused to support the Bolshevik slogan “All power to the Soviets!” and considered a coalition government a necessary condition and means for overcoming the devastation and chaos in the economy, winning the war and bringing the country to the Constituent Assembly, then the left saw the salvation of Russia in a breakthrough to socialism through the creation of a “homogeneous socialist government” based on a bloc of labor and socialist parties . During the summer of 1917 they actively participated in the work of land committees and local councils in various provinces of Russia.
The October Revolution of 1917 was carried out with the active assistance of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. Decree on land, adopted by the Bolsheviks at the Second Congress of Soviets on October 26, 1917, legitimized what was done by the Soviets and land committees: the seizure of land from landowners, the royal house and wealthy peasants. His text included Order on land, formulated by the Left Social Revolutionaries on the basis of 242 local orders (“Private ownership of land is abolished forever. All lands are transferred to the disposal of local councils”). Thanks to the coalition with the left Socialist Revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks were able to quickly establish new power in the countryside: the peasants believed that the Bolsheviks were the very “maximalists” who approved of their “black redistribution” of the land.
The Right Socialist Revolutionaries, on the contrary, did not accept the October events, regarding them as “a crime against the homeland and the revolution.” From the ruling party, after the Bolsheviks seized power, they again became the opposition. While the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries (about 62 thousand people) transformed into the “Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries (Internationalists)” and delegated several of its representatives to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the right wing did not lose hope of overthrowing the power of the Bolsheviks. In the late autumn of 1917, they organized a revolt of cadets in Petrograd, tried to recall their deputies from the Soviets, and opposed the conclusion of peace between Russia and Germany.
The last congress of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in history worked from November 26 to December 5, 1917. Its leadership refused to recognize “the Bolshevik socialist revolution and the Soviet government as not recognized by the country.”
During the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Socialist Revolutionaries received 58% of the votes, at the expense of voters from the agricultural provinces. On the eve of its convening, the right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries planned the “seizure of the entire Bolshevik head” (meaning the murder of V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky), but they were afraid that such actions could lead to a “reverse wave of terror against the intelligentsia.” On January 5, 1918, the Constituent Assembly began its work. The head of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, V.M. Chernov, was elected its chairman (244 votes against 151). The Bolshevik Ya.M. Sverdlov, who came to the meeting, proposed to approve the document drawn up by V.I. Lenin Declaration of the Rights of Workers and Exploited People, but only 146 deputies voted for this proposal. As a sign of protest, the Bolsheviks left the meeting, and on the morning of January 6, when V.M. Chernov read Draft Basic Law on Land forced to stop reading and leave the room.
After the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the Socialist Revolutionaries decided to abandon conspiratorial tactics and wage an open struggle against Bolshevism, consistently winning back the masses, taking part in the activities of any legal organizations - Soviets, All-Russian Congresses of Land Committees, Congresses of Women Workers, etc. After the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty in March 1918, one of the first places in the propaganda of the Social Revolutionaries was occupied by the idea of restoring the integrity and independence of Russia. True, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries continued in the spring of 1918 to look for compromise ways in relations with the Bolsheviks, until the creation of the Committees of Poor People and the confiscation of grain from the peasants the Bolsheviks overflowed their cup of patience. This resulted in a rebellion on July 6, 1918, an attempt to provoke a military conflict with Germany in order to break the shameful Peace of Brest-Litovsk and at the same time stop the development of the “socialist revolution in the countryside,” as the Bolsheviks called it (the introduction of surplus appropriation and the forcible confiscation of grain “surplus” from the peasants). The rebellion was suppressed, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party split into “populist communists” (existed until November 1918) and “revolutionary communists” (existed until 1920, when they decided to merge with the RCP (b)). Separate groups of left Socialist Revolutionaries did not join either one or the other newly formed parties and continued to fight the Bolsheviks, demanding the abolition of emergency commissions, revolutionary committees, committees of the poor, food detachments, and surplus appropriation.
At this time, the right Socialist Revolutionaries, having proposed in May 1918 to begin an armed struggle against Soviet power with the goal of “planting the banner of the Constituent Assembly” in the Volga region and the Urals, managed to create (with the help of rebel Czechoslovak prisoners of war) by June 1918 in Samara a Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) headed by V.K. Volsky. These actions were regarded by the Bolsheviks as counter-revolutionary, and on June 14, 1918 they expelled the Right Socialist Revolutionaries from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
From that time on, the right Socialist Revolutionaries embarked on the path of creating numerous conspiracies and terrorist acts, participated in military revolts in Yaroslavl, Murom, Rybinsk, in the assassination attempts: June 20 on a member of the presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee V.M. Volodarsky, on August 30 on the chairman of the Petrograd Extraordinary Commission ( Cheka) M.S. Uritsky in Petrograd and on the same day on V.I. Lenin in Moscow.
The Socialist Revolutionary Siberian Regional Duma in Tomsk declared Siberia an autonomous region, creating a Provisional Siberian Government with a center in Vladivostok and a branch (West Siberian Commissariat) in Omsk. The latter, with the approval of the Siberian Regional Duma, transferred government functions in June 1918 to the coalition Siberian government headed by former cadet P.A. Vologodsky.
In September 1918 in Ufa, at a meeting of anti-Bolshevik regional governments and groups, the Right Socialist Revolutionaries formed a coalition (with the Cadets) Ufa Directory Provisional All-Russian Government. Of its 179 members, 100 were Social Revolutionaries; many well-known figures of past years (N.D. Avksentyev, V.M. Zenzinov) joined the leadership of the directory. In October 1918, Komuch ceded power to the Directory, under which the Congress of Members of the Constituent Assembly, which did not have any real administrative resources, was created. In those same years, the Government of Autonomous Siberia operated in the Far East, and the Supreme Administration of the Northern Region operated in Arkhangelsk. All of them, which included right-wing Social Revolutionaries, actively repealed Soviet decrees, especially those relating to land, liquidated Soviet institutions and considered themselves a “third force” in relation to the Bolsheviks and the White Movement.
The monarchist forces, led by Admiral A.V. Kolchak, were suspicious of their activities. On November 18, 1918, they overthrew the Directory and formed the Siberian government. The top of the Socialist Revolutionary groups, which were part of the Directory N.D. Avksentyev, V.M. Zenzinov, A.A. Argunov were arrested and expelled by A.V. Kolchak from Russia. They all reached Paris, marking the beginning of the last wave of Socialist Revolutionary emigration there.
The scattered Socialist Revolutionary groups that remained out of action tried to compromise with the Bolsheviks, admitting their mistakes. The Soviet government temporarily used them (not to the right of the center) for its own tactical purposes. In February 1919, it even legalized the Socialist Revolutionary Party with its center in Moscow, but a month later the persecution of the Socialist Revolutionaries was resumed and arrests began. Meanwhile, the Socialist Revolutionary Plenum of the Central Committee tried in April 1919 to restore the party. He recognized the participation of the Social Revolutionaries in the Ufa Directory and in regional governments as a mistake, and expressed a negative attitude towards foreign intervention in Russia. However, the majority of those present believed that the Bolsheviks “rejected the basic principles of socialism - freedom and democracy, replaced them with the dictatorship of the minority over the majority, and thus excluded themselves from the ranks of socialism.”
Not everyone agreed with these conclusions. The deepening split in the party was along the lines of recognizing the power of the Soviets or fighting against it. Thus, the Ufa organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, in an appeal published in August 1919, called for recognizing the Bolshevik government and uniting with it. The “People” group, led by the former chairman of the Samara Komuch V.K. Volsky, called on the “working masses” to support the Red Army in the fight against Denikin. Supporters of V.K. Volsky in October 1919 announced their disagreement with the line of the Central Committee of their party and the creation of the group “Minority of the Socialist Revolutionary Party”.
In 1920-1921 during the war with Poland and the offensive of Gen. P.N. Wrangel, the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party called on, without stopping the fight against the Bolsheviks, to devote all efforts to the defense of the homeland. He rejected participation in the party mobilization announced by the Revolutionary Military Council, but condemned the sabotage of volunteer detachments that carried out raids on Soviet territory during the war with Poland, in which staunch right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries and, above all, B.V. Savinkov participated.
After the end of the Civil War, the Socialist Revolutionary Party found itself in an illegal position; its numbers sharply decreased, most organizations collapsed, many members of the Central Committee were in prison. In June 1920, the Central Organizational Bureau of the Central Committee was created, uniting the members of the Central Committee who survived the arrests and other influential party members. In August 1921, the last in the history of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, the 10th Party Council, was held in Samara, which identified the “organization of the forces of labor democracy” as the immediate task. By this time, most of the prominent figures of the party, including one of its founders, V.M. Chernov, had long been in exile. Those who remained in Russia tried to organize a non-party Union of the Working Peasantry and declared their support for the rebellious Kronstadt (where the slogan “For Soviets without Communists” was raised).
In the conditions of the post-war development of the country, the Socialist Revolutionary alternative to this development, which provided for the democratization of not only the economic but also the political life of the country, could become attractive to the broad masses. Therefore, the Bolsheviks hastened to discredit the policies and ideas of the Socialist Revolutionaries. With great haste, “cases” began to be fabricated against former allies and like-minded people who did not have time to leave abroad. On the basis of completely fictitious facts, the Socialist Revolutionaries were accused of preparing a “general uprising” in the country, sabotage, destruction of grain reserves and other criminal actions; they were called (following V.I. Lenin) “avant-garde of reaction.” In August 1922, in Moscow, the Supreme Tribunal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee tried 34 representatives of the Socialist Revolutionary Party: 12 of them (including old party leaders A.R. Gots and others) were sentenced to death, the rest received prison sentences from 2 to 10 years . With the arrest in 1925 of the last members of the Central Bank of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, it practically ceased to exist in Russia.
In Revel, Paris, Berlin, and Prague, the Socialist Revolutionary emigration, led by the Foreign Delegation of the Party, continued to operate. In 1926 it split, as a result of which groups emerged: V.M. Chernov (who created the “League of the New East” in 1927), A.F. Kerensky, V.M. Zenzinov and others. The activities of these groups had almost come to a standstill by the early 1930s. Some excitement was brought only by discussions about events in their homeland: some of those who left completely rejected collective farms, others saw in them similarities with communal self-government.
During the Second World War, some emigrant Socialist Revolutionaries advocated unconditional support for the Soviet Union. Some leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party participated in the French resistance movement and died in fascist concentration camps. Others, for example, S.N. Nikolaev, S.P. Postnikov, after the liberation of Prague, agreed to return to their homeland, but, having received “sentences,” were forced to serve their sentences until 1956.
During the war years, the Paris and Prague groups of the Socialist Revolutionary Party ceased to exist. A number of leaders moved from France to New York (N.D. Avksentyev, V.M. Zenzinov, V.M. Chernov, etc.). A new center of Socialist Revolutionary emigration was formed there. In March 1952, an appeal appeared from 14 Russian socialists: three Socialist Revolutionary Party members (Chernov, Zenzinov, M.V. Vishnyak), eight Mensheviks and three non-party socialists. It said that history had removed from the order of the day all controversial issues that divided the socialists and expressed the hope that in the future “post-Bolshevik Russia” there should be one “broad, tolerant, humanitarian and freedom-loving socialist party.”
Alekseeva G.D. Populism in Russia in the twentieth century. Ideological evolution. M., 1990
Jansen M. Court without trial. 1922 Socialist Revolutionary Show Trial. M., 1993
Find " SR's" on
Socialist Revolutionary Party at Wikimedia CommonsSocialist Revolutionary Party(abbreviation S R- pronounced es er, socialist revolutionaries, AKP, party s.-r.; after 1917 - Right Socialist Revolutionaries) - a revolutionary political party of the Russian Empire, later the Russian Republic, RSFSR. Member of the Second International.
The Socialist Revolutionary Party was created on the basis of previously existing populist organizations and occupied one of the leading places in the system of Russian political parties. It was the largest and most influential non-Marxist socialist party. Its fate was more dramatic than the fate of other parties. As a follower of the ideology of populism, the party became famous as one of the most active participants in the revolutionary terror carried out by the famous Combat Organization of the Social Revolutionaries (BO). The year 1917 was a triumph and a tragedy for the Socialist Revolutionaries. In a short time after the February Revolution, the party became the largest political force, reached the millionth mark in its numbers, acquired a dominant position in local governments and most public organizations, and won elections to the Constituent Assembly. Its representatives held a number of key positions in the government. Her ideas of democratic socialism and a peaceful transition to it were attractive to the population. However, despite all this, the Social Revolutionaries were unable to retain power and by 1925 the party virtually ceased to exist. The Social Revolutionaries existed in exile only until 1940.
Controls[ | ]
- The highest body is the Congress of the Socialist Revolutionary Party,
- The executive body is the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and the Council of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (to resolve urgent tactical or organizational issues, instead of the Central Committee).
Party program[ | ]
The historical and philosophical worldview of the party was substantiated by the works of Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Pyotr Lavrov, Nikolai Mikhailovsky.
The draft party program was published in May 1904 in the newspaper Revolutionary Russia. The project, with minor changes, was approved as the party program at its first congress in early January 1906. This program remained the main document of the party throughout its existence. The main author of the program was the main theoretician of the party, Viktor Chernov.
The Social Revolutionaries were the direct heirs of the old populism, the essence of which was the idea of the possibility of Russia's transition to socialism through a non-capitalist route. But the Socialist Revolutionaries were supporters of democratic socialism, that is, economic and political democracy, which was to be expressed through the representation of organized producers (trade unions), organized consumers (cooperative unions) and organized citizens (democratic state represented by parliament and self-government).
The originality of Socialist Revolutionary socialism lay in the theory of socialization of agriculture. This theory was a national feature of Socialist Revolutionary democratic socialism and was a contribution to the development of world socialist thought. The original idea of this theory was that socialism in Russia should begin to grow first of all in the countryside. The ground for it, its preliminary stage, was to be the socialization of the earth.
Socialization of land meant, firstly, the abolition of private ownership of land, but at the same time not its transformation into state property, not its nationalization, but its transformation into public property without the right of purchase and sale [ ] . Secondly, the transfer of all land to the management of central and local bodies of people's self-government, starting from democratically organized rural and urban communities and ending with regional and central institutions. [ ] Thirdly, the use of land had to be equalizing labor, that is, to ensure the consumption norm based on the application of one’s own labor, individually or in partnership.
The Socialist Revolutionaries considered political freedom and democracy to be the most important prerequisite for socialism and its organic form. Political democracy and socialization of the land were the main demands of the Socialist Revolutionary minimum program. They were supposed to ensure a peaceful, evolutionary, without any special socialist revolution, transition of Russia to socialism. The program, in particular, talked about the establishment of a democratic republic with inalienable rights of man and citizen: freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly, unions, strikes, inviolability of person and home, universal and equal suffrage for every citizen from 20 years of age, without distinction gender, religion and nationality, subject to a direct election system and closed voting. Broad autonomy was also required for regions and communities, both urban and rural, and the possible wider use of federal relations between individual national regions while recognizing their unconditional right to self-determination. The Socialist Revolutionaries, earlier than the Social Democrats, put forward a demand for a federal structure of the Russian state. They were also bolder and more democratic in setting such demands as proportional representation in elected bodies and direct popular legislation.
Publications (as of 1913): “Revolutionary Russia” (illegally in 1902-1905), “People's Messenger”, “Thought”, “Conscious Russia”, “Testaments”.
Party history [ | ]
Pre-revolutionary period[ | ]
The Socialist Revolutionary Party began with the Saratov circle, which arose in 1894 and was in connection with the group of Narodnaya Volya members of the “Flying Leaf”. When the Narodnaya Volya group was dispersed, the Saratov circle became isolated and began to act independently. In 1896 he developed a program. It was printed on a hectograph under the title “Our tasks. The main provisions of the program of the socialist revolutionaries." In 1900, this brochure was published by the foreign Union of Russian Socialist Revolutionaries along with Grigorovich’s article “Socialist Revolutionaries and Social Democrats.” In 1897, the Saratov circle moved to Moscow and was involved in issuing proclamations and distributing foreign literature. The circle acquired a new name - the Northern Union of Socialist Revolutionaries. It was led by Andrei Argunov.
In the second half of the 1890s, small populist-socialist groups and circles existed in St. Petersburg, Penza, Poltava, Voronezh, Kharkov, and Odessa. Some of them united in 1900 into the Southern Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, the other in 1901 - into the “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries”. At the end of 1901, the “Southern Socialist Revolutionary Party” and the “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries” merged, and in January 1902, the newspaper “Revolutionary Russia” announced the creation of the party. The Geneva Agrarian-Socialist League joined it.
In April 1902, the Combat Organization (BO) of the Socialist Revolutionaries announced itself with a terrorist act against the Minister of Internal Affairs Dmitry Sipyagin. The BO was the most secretive part of the party; its charter was written by Mikhail Gots. Over the entire history of the BO (1901-1908), over 80 people worked there. The organization was in an autonomous position within the party; the Central Committee only gave it the task of committing the next terrorist act and indicated the desired date for its execution. The BO had its own cash register, appearances, addresses, apartments; the Central Committee had no right to interfere in its internal affairs. The leaders of the BO Gershuni (1901-1903) and Azef (1903-1908) (who was a secret police agent) were the organizers of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the most influential members of its Central Committee.
The period of the first Russian revolution 1905-1907[ | ]
The peasantry received special attention from the Social Revolutionaries. Peasant brotherhoods and unions were formed in villages (Volga region, Central Chernozem region). They managed to organize a number of local peasant uprisings, but their attempts to organize all-Russian uprisings of peasants in the summer of 1905 and after the dissolution of the First State Duma failed. It was not possible to establish hegemony in the All-Russian Peasant Union and over the representatives of the peasantry in the State Duma. But there was no complete trust in the peasants: they were absent from the Central Committee, agrarian terror was condemned, and the solution to the agrarian question was “from above.”
During the revolution, the composition of the party changed significantly. The overwhelming majority of its members were now workers and peasants. But the party's policy was determined by the intelligentsia leadership. The number of Social Revolutionaries during the years of the revolution exceeded 60 thousand people. Party organizations existed in 48 provinces and 254 districts. There were about 2,000 rural organizations and groups.
Throughout its history, the Socialist Revolutionary Party stood out from other Russian parties by the breadth of views of its members, the diversity of different factions and groups in its composition. After the revolution, in 1925, the Bolshevik press noted:
in contrast to the “intolerant”, “stolen” Bolsheviks,<у эсеров>there was extreme “freedom of opinion”, “freedom of groups”, “freedom of movements”. Not so long ago, at the trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries, the defendant Socialist Revolutionaries boasted of this “tolerance” of theirs: they had a wing that directly supported the whites, they had an “Administrative Center”, they had leftists, they had centrists, etc., - in a word, there were two of every creature
So, already in 1905-1906, its right wing left the party, forming the Party of People's Socialists, and the left wing, the Union of Socialist-Revolutionary-Maximalists, dissociated itself.
During the revolution of 1905-1907 there was a peak in the terrorist activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries. During this period, 233 terrorist attacks were carried out (among others, 2 ministers, 33 governors, in particular, the Tsar’s uncle, and 7 generals were killed), from 1902 to 1911 - 216 assassination attempts.
Socialist Revolutionary election poster, 1917
After the February Revolution[ | ]
The Socialist Revolutionary Party actively participated in the political life of the country after the February Revolution of 1917, bloced with the Menshevik-defencists and was the largest party of this period. By the summer of 1917, the party had about 1 million people, united in 436 organizations in 62 provinces, in the fleets and on the fronts of the active army.
The IV Congress of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which took place in Petrograd from November 26 to December 5, 1917, confirmed the decisions of the Central Committee on the expulsion from the party of the left Socialist Revolutionary Internationalists, as well as those party members who joined the Soviet government. At the same time, the congress approved the decision of the Central Committee to expel the far-right Socialist Revolutionary Defenseists from the party, condemning the policy of the coalition of all anti-Bolshevik forces.
The Social Revolutionaries won a majority in the elections to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly. They also had a majority at the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Peasant Deputies, where they harshly criticized the Bolsheviks and tried to choose their own Central Executive Committee. After the ban on "private meetings" of delegates to the Constituent Assembly, the Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly was formed, led by Vasily Filippovsky. At a meeting of the Central Committee of the AKP, held on January 3, 1918, it was rejected "as an untimely and unreliable act", an armed uprising on the opening day of the Constituent Assembly, proposed by the party’s military commission. The leader of the Socialist Revolutionaries, Viktor Chernov, was elected Chairman of the Constituent Assembly, which opened on January 5, 1918 and lasted only one day.
In regions where the Social Revolutionaries enjoyed great influence (Siberia, the Volga region, the Black Earth Region), the process of establishing Bolshevik power dragged on until the end of January 1918. Armed clashes took place in 15 large cities, the bloodiest of which were in Irkutsk. Also at the initial stage, coalition authorities became widespread, which, along with the Bolsheviks, included Socialist Revolutionary representatives of the Soviets and local government officials (dumas, zemstvos), as well as trade unions. The exception here was Western Siberia, where the Siberian Regional Duma, which met in Tomsk on January 24, declared Siberia an autonomous region and elected the Provisional Siberian Government, headed by the Socialist Revolutionary Peter Derber, which immediately went underground.
In Moscow, in March-May 1918, representatives of different parties formed the Union of the Revival of Russia to counter the Bolsheviks. The founders from the Social Revolutionaries were Nikolai Avksentyev, Ilya Fondaminsky and Andrei Argunov.
The VIII Council of the AKP, which took place in Moscow from May 7 to 16, 1918, called the liquidation of the Bolshevik dictatorship "next and urgent" the task of all democracy. However, the Council warned party members against conspiratorial tactics in the fight against Bolshevism, but stated that the party would provide every possible assistance to the mass movement of democracy aimed at replacing “commissar power by actual democracy”.
During the Civil War[ | ]
At the beginning of June 1918, the Socialist Revolutionaries, relying on the support of the rebellious Czechoslovak Corps, formed a Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly in Samara, chaired by Vladimir Volsky. The People's Army of KOMUCH was created, which began active military operations in the Volga region. After this, by the decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of June 14, 1918, the “right Socialist Revolutionaries” were finally excluded from the Soviets at all levels. In July, an uprising of the left Socialist Revolutionaries broke out in Moscow, but was quickly suppressed, however, Maria Spiridonova did not support the struggle of the right Socialist Revolutionaries, continuing to call them "social traitors". On August 30, 1918, in Moscow, the Socialist-Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan, on her own initiative, made an attempt on Lenin’s life (on the same day in Petrograd, Leonid Kannegiser, on the instructions of Boris Savinkov, who was expelled from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party in 1917 (version by V. Zh. Tsvetkov), killed the head of the Petrograd Cheka, Moisei Uritsky ).
In Ukraine, there existed the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, which separated from the AKP in April 1917, and the AKP organizations led by the All-Ukrainian Regional Committee. According to the instructions of the AKP leadership, the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries were supposed to fight the Denikin regime, but these instructions were not always followed. Thus, for calls for support for Denikin, the Kiev mayor Ryabtsev was expelled from the party, and for solidarity with him the local city Socialist Revolutionary party organization was dissolved. In the territory. controlled by the Denikin regime, the Socialist Revolutionaries worked in such coalition organizations as the South-Eastern Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly and the Zemstvo-City Association. The newspaper "Rodnaya Zemlya", published in Yekaterinodar by one of the leaders of the Zemstvo-City Association Grigory Shrader, promoted the tactics "enveloping" Denikin's, until it was closed by the latter, and the publisher himself was not arrested. At the same time, the Socialist Revolutionaries, who predominated in the Black Sea Liberation Committee, headed by Filippovsky, who led the “green” peasant movement, directed their forces primarily to the fight against Denikin’s followers and recognized the need for a united socialist front.
In Siberia, local Socialist Revolutionaries became more active against the backdrop of the collapse of the front and the retreat of Kolchak’s troops. The idea of a “buffer” East Siberian Republic and its reconciliation with Soviet Russia, supported by the Central Committee of the AKP, was put forward. The Zemsky Congress, held in Irkutsk in October 1919, which was dominated by the Socialist Revolutionaries, decided to overthrow the Kolchak government. To prepare for the uprising in November, at the All-Siberian Conference of Zemstvos and Cities in Irkutsk, a Political Center was created, headed by a member of the Central Committee, Florian Fedorovich. On December 23, 1920, a coup took place in Krasnoyarsk, as a result of which General Zinevich transferred power to the formed Committee of Public Security, which shared the platform of the Political Center. After the speech of Staff Captain Kalashnikov on January 24, the People's Revolutionary Army of the Political Center was formed, blockading the rebel Irkutsk. By January 5, power in the city completely passed to the rebels. However, on January 7, the Red Army occupied Krasnoyarsk, and on January 21, under the pretext that the Political Center did not take measures to counter Kappel’s units, the Irkutsk Bolsheviks demanded that power be transferred to them, which was done. Nevertheless, the very idea of a buffer state (but a purely fictitious one) was accepted by the RCP(b), and on January 24-25, at an inter-party meeting in Irkutsk, the All-Siberian Regional Committee of the Socialist Revolutionaries was invited to take part in its creation. Due to violation “requirements for state independence of the buffer” The regional committee refused; later this decision was supported by the Central Committee in Moscow. At the end of March, before the proclamation of the Far Eastern Republic, the Socialist Revolutionaries recalled all their representatives from the lands.
In Vladivostok, the Social Revolutionaries were part of the coalition government created by the Bolsheviks at the end of January 1920 - the Primorsky Regional Zemstvo Council, and after the coup in Primorye in May 1921, they also entered the government of the same composition of the united Far Eastern Republic, formed in July 1921. The Social Revolutionaries remaining after the coup in Vladivostok took part in the elections to the Amur People's Assembly, receiving 28% of the votes.
In 1920, the Central Committee of the AKP called on the party to continue to wage an ideological and political struggle against the Bolsheviks, but at the same time to direct its main attention to the war with Poland and the fight against Wrangel. Party members and party organizations who found themselves in territories occupied by the troops of Poland and Wrangel had to fight with them "revolutionary struggle by all means and methods" including terrorism. The Treaty of Riga, which ended the Soviet-Polish war, was assessed by the Social Revolutionaries as "treasonous betrayal" Russian national interests.
In August 1920, an uprising began in the Tambov province under the leadership of Alexander Antonov, who called himself an “independent” Socialist Revolutionary. However, neither the Tambov provincial committee nor the AKP conference held in Moscow in September supported the uprising. The political organization of the rebels was the reorganized Socialist Revolutionary Union of the Working Peasantry, which declared a political program close to theirs.
Kino-Pravda, issue 3. At the trial of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Reading of the indictment. Manifestation of Moscow workers at the address of proletarian justice.
By the beginning of 1921, the Central Committee of the AKP had virtually ceased its activities. By that time, some of the members of the Central Committee, elected at the IV Congress, had died (I. I. Teterkin, M. L. Kogan-Bernstein), voluntarily resigned from the Central Committee (K. S. Burevoy, N. I. Rakitnikov, M. I . Sumgin), went abroad (V. M. Chernov, V. M. Zenzinov, N. S. Rusanov, V. V. Sukhomlin). The members of the AKP Central Committee who remained in Russia were almost entirely in prison.
During the Kronstadt rebellion, Chernov, who was in Revel, unsuccessfully called on the Socialist Revolutionary emigration to support the uprising with all their might, and together with Ivan Brushvit developed a plan for a military invasion.
The 10th Party Council, held in Samara in August 1921, identified as the immediate task the accumulation and organization of the forces of labor democracy; party members were called upon to refrain from extremist actions against Soviet power and to restrain the masses from scattered and spontaneous uprisings that scatter the forces of democracy. Due to numerous arrests, the leadership of the party finally passed to the Central Bureau (back in June 1920, the Central Organizational Bureau was formed, which, along with members of the Central Committee, included some prominent party members).
In the summer of 1922, the “counter-revolutionary activities” of the right Socialist Revolutionaries were “finally publicly exposed” at the Moscow process of members of the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party parties en (Gotsa, Timofeeva and others), despite their protection by the leaders of the Second International. The leadership of the right Socialist Revolutionaries was accused of organizing terrorist attacks against Bolshevik leaders in 1918 (murder
Loading...
