The revolutionary movement in Russia was held back for quite a long time, despite their activity in the West. Only at the end of the 19th century did revolutionary sentiments begin to actively manifest themselves in the empire and new political parties began to emerge everywhere. Among them was one of the largest left parties - the Social Revolutionaries or Social Revolutionaries (from the abbreviation SR). Who are the social revolutionaries and what role did they play in the revolution and the formation of Soviet Russia?

History of the Socialist Revolutionary Movement

Who are the Social Revolutionaries (speaking of the Socialist Revolutionaries, or SRs) and how did they influence the revolution? The formation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party occurred in the 1890s on the basis of small popular circles that were ubiquitous. In 1900, some of them united and created the Southern Party, and the second half in 1901 transformed into the “Union” party. Afterwards, they completely united with the Geneva “Agrarian-Socialist League” into one - the Socialist Revolutionaries.

The entire history of the movement is divided into 5 large stages, which, together with the main dates, are presented in the table:

Imperial period	First revolution	October Revolution	USSR	Emigration
The emergence of the Saratov circle in 1894; 1896 - creation and printing of the main theses of the policy; 1890s - movement spread throughout the empire; 1902 - murder of a minister	1905-1906 - division into right and left; 1905-1907 – 223 terrorist attacks and 216 assassinations were carried out; 1914-1917 - separation of the radical left faction	Heyday - about 1 million people; Representatives in the Provisional Government; Winter 1917 - 4th Congress; Winter 1919 and 1920 – holding conferences;	Split into left (for the Bolsheviks) and right (against them); June 1918 – exclusion of the right from the board; June 1920 – formation of the Central Bureau; Beginning of 1921 – cessation of existence; August 1921 – the Central Bureau becomes the head of the association. 1922 - exposure of counter-revolutionary activities and the sentence of its leaders to death	1918 - departure of senior officials to Stockholm, organization of the Foreign Delegation of the AKP; 1923 – European cities became centers of activity, First Congress; 1928 - II Congress; 1920 – active publication of newspapers; 20-40s - the press actively produces literature and periodicals for sending to Russia and distribution among emigrants

With the publication of periodicals, all emigrant activity of the remaining representatives of the movements ended, and at the end of the 40s of the last century, the Socialist Revolutionary Party ceased to exist.

The main representatives of the movement were:

• Victor Chernov is the founder and chief theoretician of the social revolutionaries. He died in exile in 1952 after a long career as a journalist and political activist.
• Yevno Azef is the leader of the military Social Revolutionaries, who for a long time was a secret spy for the police of the Russian Empire and worked on two fronts.
• Boris Savinkov is Azef’s deputy and leader of the fighting Socialist Revolutionaries. He fought for supreme power in Russia and took part in many terrorist attacks.

Many of the participants in the movement were shot in the 1920s, the rest fled abroad and lived there in exile. Of the Left Social Revolutionaries, only People's Commissar of Justice Steinberg survived.

Useful video: who were the Social Revolutionaries

Program

The goal of almost every political association in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was to overthrow the autocracy. The form of government in the new state of Russia was supposed to be democratic with collective governance.

It is important to know! Social revolutionaries considered terror a necessity for establishing their power and actively committed various assassination attempts on prominent persons of the state and terrorist acts to achieve their goals.

In general, the political arena was divided between:

• Conservative, or right-wing, who advocated the Orthodox faith and autocracy. They sought to maintain the political structure at the same level and advocated for the king.
• Liberal. Their supporters believed that Russia should move from constitutional to constitutional through a series of liberal reforms. There was no need to overthrow the tsar, but they could not fully outline the proportions of the division of power in the event of a transition.
• Radical, or left. They advocated the complete renunciation of the monarchy, the overthrow of the tsar and the transition to collective governance of the country through revolution.

Social revolutionaries belonged to the latter and advocated revolution, while they had three governing bodies:

• the highest is the Party Congress;
• executive - the Central Committee and the Party Council to resolve urgent issues.

The Socialist Revolutionary Party based its program on the work of prominent scholars Chernyshevsky and Lavrov, and the final draft of their policy was adopted in 1906 at the first meeting of the association and remained the most important document throughout its activity. The author of the program is Viktor Chernov, one of the main founders of the Socialist Revolutionary movement and its theoretical core. It was he who outlined the idea of ​​​​accepting socialism, rejecting the positions of capitalism.

Party Congress

At the same time, members of the association called their program democratic socialism and proposed to assert power through the activities of several organizations:

• trade union - it was an organization of producers and workers;
• cooperative union;
• self-government bodies - they should have included ordinary citizens.

The political ideas of the association’s supporters consisted of the establishment of a socialist republic that preserved the freedom of speech of citizens, as well as:

• freedom of periodicals;
• the opportunity to participate in various unions;
• maintaining personal integrity;
• the right of all to vote;
• the right to independently determine and manage areas;
• opportunity to participate in management.

Thus, the social revolutionaries envisioned granting rights and freedoms to citizens of all categories and their participation in the management of local authorities and the country as a whole in proportion to the number of categories. In this they later shared the views of the Social Democrats.

Moreover, much earlier than the Social Democrats, they put forward the idea of ​​a federal division of the empire into national regions.

Social Revolutionary Program

Goals

The main goals of the representatives of the social revolutionaries can be deduced from their program.

Tasks included:

1. The transition of the Russian Empire to a democratic political regime.
2. Granting every citizen over 20 years of age the right to vote.
3. Declaration and observance of rights and freedoms.
4. Free education for every willing citizen.
5. Abolition of the armed forces as an active government body.
6. Reducing the working day to 8 hours.
7. Separation of church and state.

In many ways, the social revolutionaries repeated the positions of the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, who also sought to seize power in the country. In addition to the goals, the prescribed hierarchical ladder of management and governing bodies were similar.

Peasant question

This was a key issue in the policy of the social revolutionaries, as was the socialization of agriculture. They assumed (and were original in this) that socialism should begin in the villages. This implied the abolition of private land ownership. But at the same time, it did not go to the state, but became common peasant property, i.e. it could not be sold or bought, but only collective bodies of people's self-government could dispose of the land. Such a situation would make the peasants equal to each other and would give them the opportunity to cultivate the land for their food (both individual peasants and a peasant cooperative).

Peasant question

Those. The peasant question was resolved in three positions:

• transfer of land into public ownership;
• its disposal by bodies of people's self-government;
• ensuring consumer standards on the basis of individual or partnership labor.

This idea was set out in detail in the Decree on Land. The Social Revolutionaries were the direct heirs of the ideas about the possibility of the empire's transition to socialism, but at the same time they advocated democracy in politics and economics. This was expressed in the representation of several organizations, which included all categories of citizens.

It is important to know! The organization had its own periodicals, which were known not only in Russia, but also abroad. At the same time, social revolutionaries assigned a large role to newspapers in disseminating their ideas.

The end and legacy

By the mid-20s, the social revolutionary movement had faded away and did not pose any threat to the Bolsheviks. At the same time, supporters of the Socialist Revolutionary movement in Russia were tracked and destroyed, sometimes attributing the views of the destroyed organization to unwanted people in order to eliminate them.

Some members of the organization who went to Europe were lured to eliminate them, but not because of fear of their activities, but rather to justify future repressions, which were presented as another exposure of dangerous underground organizations. After the followers of the social revolutionaries, supporters of Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin and other former Bolsheviks were also heartlessly destroyed.

Despite the inglorious end of the movement, some of the ideas of the Social Revolutionaries became successful. For example, the idea of ​​collective management of land resources, which was adopted not only by the Bolsheviks, but also by other states. The protection of human rights and freedoms, which the Social Revolutionaries defended, is today mandatory for any rule of law state. And their idea of ​​proportional representation of various segments of the population in self-government bodies is also used today.

Useful video: about the rebel Social Revolutionaries of 1918

Conclusion

Having existed for less than 20 years, in general, despite the unattained goal of governing Russia, the Social Revolutionaries expressed many ideas that were effectively used in the USSR and other countries. The ideas of this movement and its followers continued to spread underground in exile for another 20 years.

In contact with

The party turned into the largest political force, reached the millionth mark in its numbers, acquired a dominant position in local governments and most public organizations, and won the 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. However, despite all this, the Social Revolutionaries were unable to resist the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks and organize a successful fight against their dictatorial regime.

Party program

The historical and philosophical worldview of the party was substantiated by the works of N. G. Chernyshevsky, P. L. Lavrov, N. K. Mikhailovsky.

The draft party program was published in May in issue No. 46 of Revolutionary Russia. The project, with minor changes, was approved as the party program at its first congress in early January. 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 V. M. 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 bodies).

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 treasury 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 turning it into state property, not its nationalization, but turning it into public property without the right to buy and sell. 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 transition of Russia to socialism without any special socialist revolution. 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 bolder and more democratic in setting such demands as proportional representation in elected bodies and direct popular legislation (referendum and initiative).

Publications (as of 1913): “Revolutionary Russia” (illegally in 1902-1905), “People's Messenger”, “Thought”, “Conscious Russia”.

Party history

Pre-revolutionary period

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, others 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 declared itself in a terrorist act against the Minister of Internal Affairs D.S. Sipyagin. The BO was the most secretive part of the party. 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) were the organizers of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the most influential members of its Central Committee.

In 1905-1906, its right wing left the party, forming the Party of People's Socialists, and the left wing, the Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries-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, from 1902 to 1911 - 216 assassination attempts.

The party officially boycotted the elections to the State Duma of the 1st convocation, participated in the elections to the Duma of the 2nd convocation, to which 37 Socialist Revolutionary deputies were elected, and after its dissolution again boycotted the Duma of the 3rd and 4th convocations.

During the World War, centrist and internationalist currents coexisted in the party; the latter resulted in the radical faction of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries (leader - M.A. Spiridonova), who later joined the Bolsheviks.

Party in 1917

The Socialist Revolutionary Party actively participated in the political life of the Russian Republic in 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.

After the October Revolution of 1917, the Socialist Revolutionary Party managed to hold only one congress in Russia (IV, November - December 1917), three Party Councils (VIII - May 1918, IX - June 1919, X - August 1921 g.) and two conferences (in February 1919 and September 1920).

At the IV Congress of the AKP, 20 members and 5 candidates were elected to the Central Committee: N. I. Rakitnikov, D. F. Rakov, V. M. Chernov, V. M. Zenzinov, N. S. Rusanov, V. V. Lunkevich, M. A. Likhach, M. A. Vedenyapin, I. A. Prilezhaev, M. I. Sumgin, A. R. Gots, M. Ya. Gendelman, F. F. Fedorovich, V. N. Richter, K. S. Burevoy, E. M. Timofeev, L. Ya. Gershtein, D. D. Donskoy, V. A. Chaikin, E. M. Ratner, candidates - A. B. Elyashevich, I. I. Teterkin, N. N. Ivanov, V. V. Sukhomlin, M. L. Kogan-Bernstein.

Party in the Council of Deputies

The “Right Social Revolutionaries” were expelled from the Soviets at all levels on June 14, 1918 by a decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The “Left Socialist-Revolutionaries” remained legal until the events of July 6-7, 1918. On many political issues, the “Left Socialist-Revolutionaries” disagreed with the Bolshevik-Leninists. These issues were: the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty and agrarian policy, primarily surplus appropriation and the Brest Committees. On July 6, 1918, the leaders of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, who were present at the V Congress of Soviets in Moscow, were arrested, and the party was banned (See Left Socialist Revolutionary uprisings (1918)).

By the beginning of 1921, the Central Committee of the AKP had virtually ceased its activities. Back in June 1920, the Social Revolutionaries formed the Central Organizational Bureau, which, along with members of the Central Committee, included some prominent party members. In August 1921, due to numerous arrests, the leadership of the party finally passed to the Central Bureau. 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. In 1922, the “counter-revolutionary activities” of the Social Revolutionaries were “finally publicly exposed” at the Moscow trial of members of the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. parties (Gots, Timofeev, etc.), despite their protection by the leaders of the Second International. As a result of this process, the party leaders (12 people) were conditionally sentenced to death.
Of all the leaders of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, only the People's Commissar of Justice in the first post-October government, Steinberg, managed to escape. The rest were arrested many times, were in exile for many years, and were shot during the years of the Great Terror.

Emigration

The beginning of the Socialist Revolutionary emigration was marked by the departure of N. S. Rusanov and V. V. Sukhomlin in March-April 1918 to Stockholm, where they and D. O. Gavronsky formed the Foreign Delegation of the AKP. Despite the fact that the leadership of the AKP had an extremely negative attitude towards the presence of significant Socialist Revolutionary emigration, quite a lot of prominent figures of the AKP ended up abroad, including V. M. Chernov, N. D. Avksentyev, E. K. Breshko-Breshkovskaya , M. V. Vishnyak, V. M. Zenzinov, E. E. Lazarev, O. S. Minor and others.

The centers of Socialist Revolutionary emigration were Paris, Berlin and Prague. in 1923 the first congress of foreign organizations of the AKP took place, in 1928 the second. Since 1920, the party's periodicals began to be published abroad. A huge role in establishing this business was played by V. M. Chernov, who left Russia in September 1920. First in Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia), and then in Berlin, Chernov organized the publication of the magazine “Revolutionary Russia” (the name repeated the title of the central body of the party in 1901-1905). The first issue of “Revolutionary Russia” was published in December 1920. The magazine was published in Yuryev (now Tartu), Berlin, and Prague. In addition to “Revolutionary Russia,” the Socialist Revolutionaries published several other publications in exile. In 1921, three issues of the magazine “For the People!” were published in Revel. (officially it was not considered a party one and was called the “worker-peasant-Red Army magazine”), political and cultural magazines “The Will of Russia” (Prague, 1922-1932), “Modern Notes” (Paris, 1920-1940) and others, including including in foreign languages. In the first half of the 1920s, most of these publications were focused on Russia, where most of the circulation was illegally delivered. From the mid-1920s, the ties of the Foreign Delegation of the AKP with Russia weakened, and the Socialist Revolutionary press began to spread mainly among the emigrants.

Literature

• Pavlenkov F. Encyclopedic Dictionary. St. Petersburg, 1913 (5th ed.).
• Eltsin B. M.(ed.) Political Dictionary. M.; L.: Krasnaya Nov, 1924 (2nd ed.).
• Supplement to the Encyclopedic Dictionary // In a reprint of the 5th edition of the “Encyclopedic Dictionary” by F. Pavlenkov, New York, 1956.
• Radkey O.H. The Sickle under the Hammer: The Russian Socialist Revolu-tionaries in the Early Months of Soviet Rule. N.Y.; L.: Columbia University Press, 1963. 525 p.
• Gusev K.V. Socialist Revolutionary Party: from petty-bourgeois revolutionism to counter-revolution: Historical essay / K. V. Gusev. M.: Mysl, 1975. - 383 p.
• Gusev K.V. Knights of Terror. M.: Luch, 1992.
• Party of Socialist Revolutionaries after the October Revolution of 1917: Documents from the archives of P.S.-R. / Collected and provided with notes and an outline of the history of the party in the post-revolutionary period by Marc Jansen. Amsterdam: Stichting beheer IISG, 1989. 772 pp.
• Leonov M. I. Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1905-1907. / M. I. Leonov. M.: ROSSPEN, 1997. - 512 p.
• Morozov K. N. Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1907-1914. / K. N. Morozov. M.: ROSSPEN, 1998. - 624 p.
• Morozov K. N. The trial of the socialist revolutionaries and the prison confrontation (1922-1926): ethics and tactics of confrontation / K. N. Morozov. M.: ROSSPEN, 2005. 736 p.
• Suslov A. Yu. Socialist revolutionaries in Soviet Russia: sources and historiography / A. Yu. Suslov. Kazan: Kazan Publishing House. state technol. University, 2007.

see also

External links

• Priceman L. G. Terrorists and revolutionaries, security guards and provocateurs - M.: ROSSPEN, 2001. - 432 p.
• Morozov K. N. Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1907-1914. - M.: ROSSPEN, 1998. - 624 p.
• Insarov Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists in the struggle for a new world

Links and notes

Development of opposition ideas in Tsarist Russia XIX - early XX centuries
1810s-1826	“Constitution” by N. M. Muravyov | “Russian Truth” by P. I. Pestel
1826-1850s	"Contemporary" | "What to do?"
1880s-1905	Socialist Revolutionary Party | Russian Social Democratic Labor Party
1905-1917	Bolsheviks | Mensheviks | Constitutional Democratic Party
Polish uprising of 1830-1831 | Polish uprising of 1863 Revolution of 1905 | February Revolution | October Revolution

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Leader: Viktor Chernov Date of foundation: 1902 Date of dissolution: 1921 Ideology: Populism International ... Wikipedia

Socialist Revolutionary Party (AKP, Socialist Revolutionaries, Socialist Revolutionaries)- the largest petty-bourgeois party in Russia in 1901-22. In the course of the development of the Russian revolutionary movement, the Socialist Revolutionary Party underwent a complex evolution from petty-bourgeois revolutionaryism to cooperation with the bourgeoisie after and an actual alliance with the bourgeois-landowner counter-revolution after.

Emergence. Leaders

It took shape at the end of 1901 - beginning of 1902 as a result of the unification of a number of populist circles and groups: “Southern Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries”, “Northern Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries”, “Agrarian-Socialist League”, “Foreign Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries” and others . At the time of its inception, the party was headed by M.A. Natanson, E.K. Breshko-Breshkovskaya, N.S. Rusanov, V.M. Chernov, M.R. Gots, G.A. Gershuni.

Ideology

In the early years, the Socialist Revolutionaries did not have a generally accepted program. Their views and demands were reflected in articles in the newspaper “Revolutionary Russia”, the magazine “Bulletin of the Russian Revolution”, and the collection “On Issues of Program and Tactics”. In theoretical terms, the views of the Social Revolutionaries are an eclectic mixture of the ideas of populism and revisionism (Bernsteinism). wrote that the Socialist-Revolutionaries ““are trying to correct the holes of populism... with patches of fashionable opportunist “criticism” of Marxism...”

The Social Revolutionaries considered the main social force to be the “working people”: the peasantry, the proletariat, and the democratic intelligentsia. Their thesis about the “unity of the people” objectively meant the denial of class differences between the proletariat and the peasantry and the contradictions within the peasantry. The interests of the “working” peasantry were declared identical to the interests of the proletariat. The Socialist Revolutionaries considered the main sign of the division of society into classes to be sources of income, placing first the relations of distribution, and not the relationship to the means of production, as Marxism teaches. Socialist revolutionaries put forward the idea of ​​the socialist nature of the “working” peasantry (rural poor and middle peasants). Denying the leading role of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution, they recognized the driving forces of the revolution as the democratic intelligentsia, the peasantry and the proletariat, assigning the main role in the revolution to the peasantry. Not understanding the bourgeois nature of the approaching revolution, the Socialist Revolutionaries viewed the peasant movement against the remnants of serfdom as socialist. The Party Program, written by V.M. Chernov and adopted at the 1st Congress in December 1905 - January 1906, contained demands for the establishment of a democratic republic, regional autonomy, political freedoms, universal suffrage, the convening of a Constituent Assembly, the introduction of labor legislation, progressive income tax, establishing an 8-hour working day. The basis of the agrarian program of the socialist-revolutionaries was the demand for the socialization of the land, which in the conditions of the bourgeois-democratic revolution had a progressive character, since it provided for the liquidation of landownership by revolutionary means and the transfer of land to the peasants. The agrarian program of the Socialist Revolutionaries provided them with influence and support among the peasants in the Revolution of 1905-07.

Activities of the Socialist Revolutionary Party

Pre-revolutionary period

In the field of tactics, the socialist-revolutionaries borrowed from the social democrats methods of mass agitation among the proletariat, peasantry and intelligentsia (mainly among students). However, one of the main methods of struggle of the Socialist Revolutionaries was individual terror, which was carried out by a secretive and virtually independent of the Central Committee Combat Organization). Its founder and leader from the end of 1901 was G.A. Gershuni, from 1903 - E.F. Azef (who turned out to be a provocateur), from 1908 - B.V. Savinkov.

In 1902-06, members of the Combat Organization of the Social Revolutionaries carried out a number of major terrorist acts: S.V. Balmashev killed the Minister of Internal Affairs D.S. Sipyagin, E.S. Sazonov - the Minister of Internal Affairs V.K. Pleve, I.P. Kalyaev - Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. During the Revolution of 1905-07, peasant squads of the Socialist Revolutionaries launched a campaign of “agrarian terror” in the villages: burning of estates, seizure of landowners’ property, and cutting down forests. The fighting squads of the Socialist Revolutionaries, together with squads of other parties, participated in the armed uprisings of 1905-06 and the “partisan war” of 1906. The “military organization” of the Social Revolutionaries carried out work in the army and navy. At the same time, socialist revolutionaries were inclined to vacillate towards liberalism. In 1904, they entered into an agreement with the Liberation Union and participated in the Paris “Conference of Opposition and Revolutionary Organizations,” which was attended by representatives only of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois groups.

Participation in the State Duma

In the 1st State Duma, the Socialist Revolutionaries did not have their own faction and were part of the Trudovik faction. The Socialist Revolutionaries considered the election of 37 of their deputies to the 2nd State Duma a great victory for the revolution. Terrorist activities were suspended during the work of the 1st and 2nd Dumas. In the Duma, the Socialist Revolutionaries wavered between the Social Democrats and the Cadets. Essentially, in 1902-07, the Socialist Revolutionaries represented the left wing of petty-bourgeois democracy. Criticizing the utopian theories of the Socialist Revolutionaries, the adventuristic tactics of individual terror, the vacillations between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the Bolsheviks, due to the fact that the Socialist Revolutionaries participated in the nationwide struggle against tsarism, agreed, under certain conditions, to temporary agreements with them. The Socialist Revolutionaries boycotted the 3rd and 4th Dumas, calling on the peasants to recall their deputies, but did not receive the support of the masses.

First split. Party of People's Socialists and Union of Socialist Revolutionaries-Maximalists

The petty-bourgeois essence determined the lack of internal unity that was characteristic of the Socialist Revolutionary Party from the moment of its inception, which led to a split in 1906. The right wing separated from the Social Revolutionaries, forming the Party of People's Socialists, and the extreme left, uniting into the Union of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists. During the reaction period of 1907-1910, the Socialist Revolutionary Party experienced a severe crisis. The exposure of Azef's provocations in 1908 demoralized the party; it actually disintegrated into separate organizations, the main forces of which were devoted to terror and expropriation. Propaganda and agitation among the masses have almost ceased. During the First World War, the majority of Socialist Revolutionary leaders took social-chauvinist positions.

1907-1910

During the years of reaction, the Socialist Revolutionaries did almost no work among the masses, concentrating their efforts on organizing terrorist acts and expropriation. They stopped promoting the socialization of the land and in their policy towards the peasantry they limited themselves to criticizing Stolypin’s agrarian legislation, recommending a boycott of landowners and holding agricultural strikes; agrarian terror was rejected.

During the period and revolutions

The February Revolution awakened the broad masses of the petty bourgeoisie to political life. Because of this, the influence and number of the Socialist Revolutionary Party increased sharply and reached about 400 thousand members in 1917. Socialist revolutionaries and Mensheviks received a majority in the executive committees of Petrograd and other land committees. Assessing the February Revolution as an ordinary bourgeois revolution, rejecting the slogan “All power to the Soviets,” the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party came out in support of the Provisional Government, which included A.F. Kerensky, N.D. Avksentyev, V.M. Chernov, S.L. Maslov. By postponing the resolution of the agrarian question until the convening of the Constituent Assembly, and by openly going over to the side of the bourgeoisie during the July days of 1917, the Socialist Revolutionaries alienated the broad masses of the working people. They continued to be supported only by the urban petty bourgeoisie and the kulaks.

Second split. Left Socialist Revolutionary Party

The conciliatory policy of the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party led to a new split and the separation of the left wing, which in December 1917 took shape into the independent party of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.

After the October Revolution

After the victory of the October Revolution, the right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries launched anti-Soviet agitation in the press and the Soviets, began creating underground organizations, and joined the “Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution” (A.R. Gots and others). On June 14, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee expelled them from its membership for their activities. During the Civil War, the Right Socialist Revolutionaries waged an armed struggle against Soviet power and participated in organizing conspiracies and rebellions in Yaroslavl, Rybinsk, and Murom. The newly created Combat Organization launched terror against the leaders of the Soviet state: the murders of V. Volodarsky and M.S. Uritsky, the wounding of August 30, 1918. Carrying out a demagogic policy of a “third force” between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the Socialist Revolutionaries in the summer of 1918 participated in the creation of counter-revolutionary “governments”: the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly in Samara, the Provisional Siberian Government, the “Supreme Administration of the Northern Region” in Arkhangelsk, the Trans-Caspian Provisional “Government” and others . Nationalist Socialist Revolutionaries took counter-revolutionary positions: Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries entered the Central Rada, Transcaucasian Socialist Revolutionaries supported the British interventionists and bourgeois nationalists, Siberian regionalists collaborated with A.V. Kolchak. Acting as the main organizers of the petty-bourgeois counter-revolution in the summer and autumn of 1918, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, with their policies, cleared the way to power for the bourgeois-landowner counter-revolution in the person of the Kolchakism, Denikinism and other White Guard regimes, which, having come to power, dispersed the “governments” of the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Third split. Group "People"

In 1919-20, a split occurred again in the Socialist Revolutionary Party, caused by the failure of the “third force” policy. In August 1919, part of the Socialist Revolutionaries - K.S. Burevoy, V.K. Volsky, N.K. Rakitnikov formed the “People” group and negotiated with the Soviet authorities on joint actions against Kolchak. Extreme right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries N.D. Avksentyev, V.M. Zenzinov entered into an open alliance with the White Guards.

Liquidation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party

After the defeat of the White armies, the Socialist Revolutionaries again stood at the head of the internal counter-revolution, acting under the slogan “Soviets without Communists” as the organizers of the Kronstadt anti-Soviet rebellion and the West Siberian rebellion. In 1922, after the liquidation of the rebellions, the Socialist Revolutionary Party, having lost all support among the masses, finally disintegrated. Some of the leaders emigrated, creating a number of anti-Soviet centers abroad, and some were arrested. Ordinary Socialist Revolutionaries withdrew from political activity. The “All-Russian Congress of Former Ordinary Members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party”, held in Moscow in March 1923, decided to dissolve the party and made a wish for its participants to join the RCP (b). In May - June, local conferences of former Socialist Revolutionaries were held throughout the country, confirming the decisions of the congress. The trial of the right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries in Moscow in 1922 revealed the crimes of this party against the workers' and peasants' state and contributed to the final exposure of the counter-revolutionary essence of the Socialist Revolutionaries.

Registered parties:
having the right to participate in all-Russian elections:
Registered public associations, not having the right to participate in all-Russian elections:
Unregistered organizations

PARTY OF SOCIALIST-REVOLUTIONARIES (SRs) is a revolutionary-democratic political party in Russia, formed in 1902 on the basis of the unification of neo-populist circles, the Southern Party of Socialist Revolutionaries and the Union of Socialist Revolutionaries. She considered the peasantry to be her social support, but the main part of the party was the democratic intelligentsia and partly the workers. The party program, which consisted of two parts, was approved by the Second Congress (1906). The minimum program included demands designed to implement a bourgeois-democratic revolution: the overthrow of the autocracy and the establishment of a democratic republic; the introduction of universal, equal, direct and secret voting, complete freedom of conscience, speech, press and assembly; establishing the right of workers to strike and organize trade unions; legislative approval of an 8-hour working day; carrying out the socialization of all privately owned lands and transferring them to the disposal of democratically organized communities for distribution among peasants according to labor standards.

The maximum program was focused on carrying out government reforms for the transition to socialism, expropriation of capitalist private property; reorganization of production and the entire society on socialist principles; establishment of a temporary revolutionary dictatorship of the working class.

Party tactics: various methods of struggle - from legal to armed uprising; a significant place was given to terror through the “Combat Organization” with the aim of inciting a revolution, intimidating the government and forcing it to convene the Zemsky Sobor (Constituent Assembly).

Leaders: V. M. Chernov, M. R. Gots, G. A. Gershuni, N. D. Avksentyev and others.

Print media: illegal - newspapers “Revolutionary Russia (1900-1905) and “Znamya Truda” (1907-1914), magazine “Bulletin of the Russian Revolution” (1901 - 1905); legal - the magazine “Testaments” (1912-1914), the newspaper “Land and Freedom” (1917), etc.

During the Revolution of 1905-1907. The Socialist Revolutionaries took part in armed uprisings in Moscow (December 1905), Kronstadt and Sveaborg (summer 1906), etc., and had their representatives in the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, in the All-Russian Peasant Union, and a group in the Second State Duma (37 deputies). In 1906, the maximalists separated from the party. In 1917, the party was experiencing an ideological and organizational crisis (the Left Social Revolutionaries occupied a special position).

After the February Revolution of 1917, together with the Mensheviks, the Socialist Revolutionaries prevailed in the Soviets, were part of the Provisional Government, and occupied leading positions in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Executive Committee of the Council of Peasant Deputies, and in the Pre-Parliament; in the fall of 1917 they received a majority in the elections to the Constituent Assembly.

After the October Revolution of 1917, the Left Social Revolutionaries initially took a wait-and-see attitude; in December, their representatives joined the Council of People's Commissars (I. Z. Steinberg, P. P. Proshyan, A. L. Kolegaev, V. A. Karelin), but after the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty of 1918, they left in protest government, began to participate in anti-Bolshevik protests and governments (Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, etc.).

In 1922, the GPU arrested 47 party leaders, accusing them of counter-revolutionary activities. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee (June 1922) sentenced 12 people to death (the execution was suspended), the rest to various terms of imprisonment; Subsequently, most of the Social Revolutionaries were subjected to repression and extermination.

Orlov A.S., Georgieva N.G., Georgiev V.A. Historical Dictionary. 2nd ed. M., 2012, p. 383-384.

Oddly enough, there have always been political parties in Russia. Of course, not in the modern interpretation, which defines a political party as a “special public organization” whose guiding goal is to seize political power in the country.

Nevertheless, it is known for certain that, for example, in the same ancient Novgorod, various “Konchak” parties of Ivankovich, Mikulchich, Miroshkinich, Mikhalkovich, Tverdislavich and other rich boyar clans have long existed and constantly fought for the key position of the Novgorod mayor. A similar situation was observed in medieval Tver, where during the years of acute confrontation with Moscow there was a constant struggle between two branches of the Tver princely house - the “pro-Lithuanian” party of the Mikulin princes, led by Mikhail Alexandrovich and the “pro-Moscow” party of the Kashira princes, headed by Vasily Mikhailovich, and etc.

Although, of course, in the modern understanding, political parties in Russia arose quite late. As you know, the first of them were two rather radical party structures of a socialist persuasion - the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) and the Socialist Revolutionary Party (AKP), created only at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. For obvious reasons, these political parties could only be illegal and worked in conditions of the strictest secrecy, under constant pressure from the tsarist secret police, which in those years was headed by such aces of the imperial political investigation as gendarme colonels Vladimir Piramidov, Yakov Sazonov and Leonid Kremenetsky.

Only after the notorious Tsarist Manifesto of October 17, 1905, which for the first time granted political freedoms to subjects of the Russian crown, did the rapid process of formation of legal political parties begin, the number of which by the time of the collapse of the Russian Empire exceeded one hundred and fifty. True, the overwhelming majority of these political structures were of the nature of “couch parties”, formed solely to satisfy the ambitious and career interests of various political clowns who played absolutely no role in the country’s political process. Despite this, almost immediately after the widespread emergence of these parties, the first attempt to classify them was made.

Thus, the leader of the Russian Bolsheviks Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) in a number of his works, such as “The Experience of Classifying Russian Political Parties” (1906), “Political Parties in Russia” (1912) and others, based on his own thesis that “The struggle of parties is a concentrated expression of the struggle of classes,” proposed the following classification of Russian political parties of that period:

1) landowner-monarchists (Black Hundreds),

2) bourgeois (Octobrists, Cadets),

3) petty bourgeois (Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks)

and 4) proletarian (Bolsheviks).

In defiance of Lenin’s classification of parties, the famous cadet leader Pavel Milyukov, in his brochure “Political Parties in the Country and the Duma” (1909), on the contrary, stated that political parties are not created on the basis of class interests, but solely on the basis of general ideas. Based on this basic thesis, he proposed his classification of Russian political parties:

2) bourgeois-conservative (Octobrists),

and 4) socialist (Socialist Revolutionaries, Social Democrats).

Later, another active participant in the political battles of that time, the leader of the Menshevik Party Julius Tsederbaum (Martov), ​​in his famous work “Political Parties in Russia” (1917), stated that it is necessary to classify Russian political parties in relation to their relationship to the existing government, so he compiled them as follows classification:

1) reactionary-conservative (Black Hundreds),

2) moderate conservative (Octobrists),

3) liberal democratic (cadets)

and 4) revolutionary (Socialist Revolutionaries, Social Democrats).

In modern political science, there are two main approaches to this issue. Depending on the political goals, means and methods of achieving their goals, some authors (Vladimir Fedorov) divide Russian political parties of that period into:

1) conservative-protective (Black Hundreds, clerics),

2) liberal opposition (Octobrists, Cadets, Progressives)

and 3) revolutionary democratic (Socialist Revolutionaries, Popular Socialists, Social Democrats).

And their opponents (Valentin Shelokhaev) - on:

1) monarchical (Black Hundreds),

2) liberal (cadets),

3) conservative (Octobrists),

4) left (Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries)

and 5) anarchist (anarcho-syndicalists, leaderless).

Dear reader, you have probably already noticed that among all the political parties that existed in the Russian Empire, all politicians, historians and political scientists focused their attention on only a few large party structures that concentratedly expressed the entire range of political, social and class interests of the subjects of the Russian crown . Therefore, it is these political parties that will be at the center of our short story. Moreover, we will begin our story with the most “left-wing” revolutionary parties - the Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries.

Abram Gots

The Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRP), or Socialist Revolutionaries, is the largest peasant party of the populist persuasion, founded in 1901. But back in the late 1890s, the rebirth of revolutionary populist organizations began, which were crushed by the tsarist government in the early 1880s.

The main provisions of the populist doctrine remained virtually unchanged. However, its new theorists, primarily Viktor Chernov, Grigory Gershuni, Nikolai Avksentyev and Abram Gots, without recognizing the very progressiveness of capitalism, still recognized its victory in the country. Although, being absolutely convinced that Russian capitalism is a completely artificial phenomenon, forcibly implanted by the Russian police state, they still fervently believed in the theory of “peasant socialism” and considered the landed peasant community a ready-made cell of a socialist society.

Alexey Peshekhonov

At the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, several large neo-populist organizations arose in Russia and abroad, including the Berne “Union of Russian Socialist Revolutionaries” (1894), the Moscow “Northern Union of Socialist Revolutionaries” (1897), and the “Agrarian Socialist League” (1898). ) and the “Southern Party of Socialist Revolutionaries” (1900), whose representatives in the fall of 1901 agreed to create a single Central Committee, which included Viktor Chernov, Mikhail Gots, Grigory Gershuni and other neo-populists.

In the first years of their existence, before the founding congress, which took place only in the winter of 1905–1906, the Social Revolutionaries did not have a generally accepted program and charter, therefore their views and basic program guidelines were reflected in two printed organs - the newspaper "Revolutionary Russia" and the magazine "Vestnik Russian" revolution."

Grigory Gershuni

From the Narodniks, the Socialist Revolutionaries adopted not just the basic ideological principles and guidelines, but also the tactics of fighting the existing autocratic regime - terror. In the fall of 1901, Grigory Gershuni, Yevno Azef and Boris Savinkov created within the party a strictly conspiratorial and independent from the Central Committee “Combat Organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party” (BO PSR), which, according to updated data from historians (Roman Gorodnitsky), during its heyday in 1901–1906 years, when it included more than 70 militants, committed more than 2,000 terrorist attacks that shocked the entire country.

In particular, it was then that the Minister of Public Education Nikolai Bogolepov (1901), the Ministers of Internal Affairs Dmitry Sipyagin (1902) and Vyacheslav Pleve (1904), the Ufa Governor-General Nikolai Bogdanovich (1903), the Moscow Governor-General Grand Duke died at the hands of Socialist-Revolutionary militants Sergei Alexandrovich (1905), Minister of War Viktor Sakharov (1905), Moscow mayor Pavel Shuvalov (1905), State Council member Alexei Ignatiev (1906), Tver governor Pavel Sleptsov (1906), Penza governor Sergei Khvostov (1906), Simbirsk governor Konstantin Starynkevich (1906), Samara governor Ivan Blok (1906), Akmola governor Nikolai Litvinov (1906), commander of the Black Sea Fleet Vice Admiral Grigory Chukhnin (1906), chief military prosecutor Lieutenant General Vladimir Pavlov (1906) and many other high dignitaries of the empire , generals, police chiefs and officers. And in August 1906, Socialist Revolutionary militants made an attempt on the life of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Pyotr Stolypin, who survived only thanks to the immediate reaction of his adjutant, Major General Alexander Zamyatin, who, in fact, covered the prime minister with his chest, not allowing terrorists into his office.

In total, according to modern American researcher Anna Geifman, author of the first special monograph “Revolutionary Terror in Russia in 1894–1917” (1997), the victims of the “Combat Organization of the AKP” in 1901–1911, that is, before its actual dissolution, were over 17,000 people, including 3 ministers, 33 governors and vice-governors, 16 mayors, police chiefs and prosecutors, 7 generals and admirals, 15 colonels, etc.

The legal formalization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party occurred only in the winter of 1905–1906, when its founding congress took place, at which its charter, program were adopted and governing bodies were elected - the Central Committee and the Party Council. Moreover, a number of modern historians (Nikolai Erofeev) believe that the question of the time of the emergence of the Central Committee and its personal composition is still one of the unresolved mysteries.

Nikolai Annensky

Most likely, at different periods of its existence, members of the Central Committee were the main ideologist of the party, Viktor Chernov, the “grandmother of the Russian revolution” Ekaterina Breshko-Breshkovskaya, militant leaders Grigory Gershuni, Yevno Azef and Boris Savinkov, as well as Nikolai Avksentyev, G.M. Gots, Osip Minor, Nikolai Rakitnikov, Mark Nathanson and a number of other people.

The total number of the party, according to various estimates, ranged from 60 to 120 thousand members. The central printed organs of the party were the newspaper “Revolutionary Russia” and the magazine “Bulletin of the Russian Revolution”. The main program settings of the Socialist Revolutionary Party were as follows:
1) the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republican form of government through the convening of the Constituent Assembly;

2) granting autonomy to all national outskirts of the Russian Empire and legislatively consolidating the right of nations to self-determination;

3) legislative consolidation of fundamental civil and political rights and freedoms and the introduction of universal suffrage;

4) solution of the agrarian issue through the gratuitous confiscation of all landowners', appanage and monastic lands and their transfer into full ownership of peasant and urban communities without the right to buy and sell and the distribution of land according to the egalitarian labor principle (land socialization program).

In 1906, a split occurred in the ranks of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Two quite influential groups emerged from it, which then created their own party structures:

1) the Labor People's Socialist Party (People's Socialists, or Popular Socialists), whose leaders were Alexei Peshekhonov, Nikolai Annensky, Venedikt Myakotin and Vasily Semevsky, and 2) the “Union of Socialist-Revolutionary-Maximalists,” led by Mikhail Sokolov.

The first group of schismatics rejected the tactics of terror and the program of socialization of the land, while the second, on the contrary, advocated the intensification of terror and proposed extending the principles of socialization not just to peasant communities, but also to industrial enterprises.

Victor Chernov

In February 1907, the Socialist Revolutionary Party took part in the elections to the Second State Duma and managed to obtain 37 mandates. However, after its dissolution and changes in the electoral law, the Socialist Revolutionaries began to boycott parliamentary elections, preferring exclusively illegal methods of fighting the autocratic regime.

In 1908, a serious scandal occurred that thoroughly tarnished the reputation of the Socialist Revolutionaries: it became known that the head of its “Combat Organization,” Yevno Azef, had been a paid agent of the Tsarist secret police since 1892. His successor as head of the organization, Boris Savinkov, tried to revive its former power, but nothing good came of this idea, and in 1911 the party ceased to exist.

By the way, it is this year that many modern historians (Oleg Budnitsky, Mikhail Leonov) date the end of the very era of revolutionary terror in Russia, which began at the turn of the 1870s–1880s. Although their opponents (Anna Geifman, Sergei Lantsov) believe that the end date of this tragic “era” was 1918, marked by the murder of the royal family and the attempt on V.I. Lenin.

With the outbreak of the First World War, the party again split into the centrist Socialist-Revolutionaries, led by Viktor Chernov, and the internationalist Socialist-Revolutionaries (left Socialist-Revolutionaries), led by Maria Spiridonova, who supported the famous Leninist slogan of “the defeat of the Russian government in the war and the transformation of the imperialist war into war.” civil."