The origins of the Socialist Revolutionary Party go back to populism.
In the early 90s of the 19th century, emigrant populists formed the “Union of Russian Socialist Revolutionaries” with headquarters in Bern (Switzerland), and then, under their influence, local regional organizations, local committees and groups of Socialist Revolutionaries began to be created in Russia.
In 1902, based on the unification of neo-populist circles and groups, the Socialist Revolutionary Party was formed. The illegal newspaper “ Revolutionary Russia».
The Socialist Revolutionaries considered peasants to be their social support, but the composition of the party was predominantly intellectuals.
By the beginning of the first Russian revolution, the size of the Socialist Revolutionary Party reached 2.5 thousand people. Of this number, about 70% were intellectuals, approximately 25% were workers, and peasants made up just over 1.5%. The party was quite massive; its organizations operated in 500 cities and towns.
The leader and ideologist of the Socialist Revolutionaries was Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov, a native of peasants who had been involved in underground activities since his high school years. Chernov was a member of the editorial board of all central printed organs of the party, and was elected to the Central Committee of the AKP.
No less prominent figures in the Socialist Revolutionary movement were N.D. Avksentyev, E.F. Azef, G.A. Gershuni, A.R. Gots, M.A. Spiridonova, V.V. Savinkov and others.
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.
In their program, adopted in 1905 at the First Congress of the AKP, the Socialist Revolutionaries retained the thesis of the peasant community as the embryo of socialism. The interests of the peasantry, in their opinion, are identical to the interests of the workers and working intelligentsia.
The coming revolution was presented to the Socialist Revolutionaries as socialist, the main role in it was given to the peasantry. The Social Revolutionaries were also supporters of a “temporary revolutionary dictatorship.”
The program provided for the expropriation of capitalist property and the reorganization of society on a collective, socialist basis, the proclamation of a people's democratic republic in Russia, the implementation of basic political rights and freedoms of citizens, the introduction of labor legislation and an 8-hour working day.
The Socialist Revolutionaries saw the solution to the agrarian question in the “socialization of the land,” that is, the destruction of private ownership of land, but turning it into non-state property (nationalization), but into public property without the right to buy and sell. All land was transferred to the management of central and local bodies of people's self-government (from rural and urban communities to regional institutions). The use of land was supposed to be equalizing labor (that is, to ensure the consumer standard based on the application of one’s own labor, individually or in partnership and without the use of hired labor).
IN national issue The Socialist Revolutionaries advocated recognition of the right of all nations and peoples to self-determination before the Social Democrats put forward a demand for a federal structure Russian state.
The Socialist Revolutionaries considered individual terror inherited from the Narodniks to be the main tactical means of fighting against the autocracy and used it widely.
The militant organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, led by Grigory Gershuni, carried out a number of assassination attempts on ministers and governors; through terror, the Socialist Revolutionaries tried to spark a revolution and eliminate the government.
On the eve and during the first Russian revolution, a split occurred in the AKP. In 1904, the “maximalists” (close to anarchists) emerged from it, and in the fall of 1906 the most right wing, the “popular socialists” (“Enes”), formed two independent political parties.
Before the February Revolution of 1917, the Socialist Revolutionary Party was in an illegal position.
Thus, at the beginning of the 20th century, a multi-party system developed in Russia. This was a significant step towards the advancement of our country towards a truly democratic society; most political parties played a prominent role in subsequent Russian history.
Also - the Socialist Revolutionaries, the Socialist Revolutionary Party (from the abbreviation of the first letters - S.-R.), the Socialist Revolutionaries.
Revolutionary, socialist political party of Russia in the first third of the 20th century. The name “socialist-revolutionaries”, as a rule, denoted those representatives of Russian socialism who associated themselves with the political traditions and ideas of “Narodnaya Volya”. At the same time, this term made it possible to distance oneself from both reformist populism with its theory of “small deeds” and from Marxism with its idea of the obligatory evolution of socio-economic relations through capitalism to socialism.
Currently, the term socialist revolutionaries is not used. The term “Socialist Revolutionaries”, solely due to the coincidence of the first letters in the name of the party, is applied by journalists, political analysts, leaders of individual political parties and movements to the “A Just Russia” party. However, this organization does not have any ideological and historical continuity from the genuine Socialist Revolutionaries.
Detailed characteristics
The Socialist Revolutionary Party arose at the beginning of the 20th century. based on the unification of a number of revolutionary organizations that considered themselves as continuers of the political traditions of Narodnaya Volya. Having gained fame for terrorist activities and participation in the revolutionary events of 1905 - 1907, it became one of the most influential revolutionary parties, a rival of Russian Social Democracy for influencing the minds of the workers, peasants, and intelligentsia. In 1917, the Socialist Revolutionary Party was the most massive political force in Russia. Its representatives had great influence in the Soviets and other bodies local government, were part of the Provisional Government. The success of the Social Revolutionaries in the elections to the Constituent Assembly was also impressive. However, the party experienced an internal crisis, caused largely by ideological differences. Its result was the split of the AKP into three independent movements. During the Second Russian Revolution and the Civil War, the Socialist Revolutionaries were defeated in the fight against the Bolsheviks. In the 1920s - early 1930s. As a result of repressions by the Bolshevik dictatorship, the AKP was defeated and finally left the political arena in the USSR. At the same time, part of the party continued its activities in emigration until the end of the 1960s.
Historical context
The first Socialist Revolutionary organizations appeared in the mid-1890s. These included the Union of Russian Socialist Revolutionaries (1893, Bern) and the Union of Socialist Revolutionaries (SSR) (1895 - 1896), organized in Saratov and then operating in Moscow. The first, unsuccessful, attempts to unite them into a single party were made at congresses in Voronezh, Poltava (1897) and Kyiv (1898).
Erupted in the 1890s. The economic crisis cast doubt on the optimistic forecast of Marxists regarding the progressive role of capitalism, demonstrating that the policy of industrialization can only be successful with the modernization of the political system and Agriculture. These circumstances contributed to the growth of the influence of the Socialist Revolutionaries among the radical intelligentsia, making their ideas about Russia’s special path to socialism, about great importance peasantry in the revolution. The revision of Marxism carried out by E. Bernstein and his followers in the 1890s also influenced the theoretical work of the Socialist Revolutionaries. Thus, V.M. Chernov, who became the most prominent theoretician of the Socialist Revolutionary movement, in his works refuted ideas about the petty-bourgeois nature of the working peasantry, emphasizing the commonality of its socio-economic interests with industrial workers.
In 1900, a number of Socialist Revolutionary organizations in the south of Russia united into the southern Socialist Revolutionary Party. At the same time, in Paris, on the initiative of V.M. Chernov created the Agrarian Socialist League (ASL). At the beginning of December 1901, at a secret meeting in Berlin, E. Azef and M. Selyuk (representing the USSR), and G.A. Gershuni (representative of the southern AKP), without consultation with members of their organizations, decided to unite them into the All-Russian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries.
The message about the formation of the AKP was published in January 1902 on the pages of the newspaper “Revolutionary Russia”. By 1905, it included more than 40 committees and groups, uniting about 2 - 2.5 thousand people. The social composition of the AKP was characterized by the predominance of the intelligentsia, pupils and students. Only about 28% of its members were workers and peasants. In 1902 - 1904 A number of organizations were created locally, focused on working with various segments of the population (Peasant Union of the AKP, Union of People's Teachers, workers' unions).
Management and bodies
The governing body of the party was initially the Commission for Relations with Foreign Countries (composed of E.K. Breshkovskaya, P.P. Kraft and G.A. Gershuni), and then the Central Committee, which consisted of two branches (St. Petersburg and Moscow). By 1905 it included about 20 people. There was also a Party Council convened to resolve emergency tactical and organizational issues, consisting of members of the Central Committee, delegates from the regional, as well as the Moscow and St. Petersburg committees. There were more than 10 regional committees that coordinated the activities of local organizations. The central printed organ of the AKP was initially the newspaper “Revolutionary Russia”, and since 1908 - “Znamya Truda”. Its leaders were M.R., who had the right to co-opt the Central Committee. Gots and E.F. Azef, by that time was already actively collaborating with the secret police, giving out information about the activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries and at the same time playing a double game in his own interests. The leading theorist of the PSR was V.M. Chernov. Even before the formation of a unified AKP G.A. Gershuni began the formation of its Combat Organization, intended to conduct central terror against statesmen, in the opinion of the party leadership, those who have most discredited themselves in the eyes of the public. She was completely autonomous in the party. The Central Committee did not have the right to interfere in the internal affairs of the BO, only by choosing the object of the action. The post of head of the organization was occupied by Gershuni (1901 - May 1903) and Azef (1903 - 1908). In April 1902, the BO carried out the first terrorist act (the murder of the Minister of Internal Affairs D.S. Sipyagin by S.V. Balmashov). During the existence of the organization, its membership included 10 - 30, and in total - more than 80 people.
Views
The Social Revolutionaries recognized pluralism in the field of theory. The party included both adherents of the ideas of subjective sociology N.K. Mikhailovsky, as well as adherents of the teachings of Machism, neo-Kantianism and empirio-criticism. The basis of the ideology of the AKP was the populist concept of Russia’s special path to socialism. Leading party theorist, V.M. Chernov, explained the need for such a path special status. the fact that in its development it is located between industrial and agrarian-colonial countries. Unlike developed industrial countries, Russian capitalism, in his opinion, was dominated by destructive tendencies, which was especially evident in relation to agriculture.
The class differentiation of society, according to Socialist Revolutionary theorists, was determined by the attitude towards work and sources of income. Therefore, they included workers, peasants and intellectuals in the labor, revolutionary camp. In other words, people who live by their own labor, without exploiting others. The peasantry was considered its main strength. At the same time, the duality of the social nature of this layer of the population was recognized, since the peasant is both a worker and an owner. The Social Revolutionaries also noted that the working class, due to its high concentration in large cities of Russia, poses a serious danger to ruling regime. The connection between workers and the village was considered as one basis of worker-peasant unity. The Russian intelligentsia, assessed as anti-bourgeois in its worldview, was supposed to bring the ideas of socialism to the peasantry and proletariat. The future revolution was considered by the Social Revolutionaries as “social”, a transitional option between bourgeois and socialist. One of its main goals was the socialization of the land.
Party program
The program and temporary organizational charter of the AKP were approved at the Founding Congress of the party in Finland on December 29, 1905 - January 4, 1906.
It was assumed that the Constituent Assembly would be convened on a democratic basis, the party would come to power by winning a majority in democratic local elections, and then in the Constituent Assembly. The transition to socialism was then supposed to be carried out in a reformist way. The most important demands of the program were: the elimination of autocracy and the establishment of a democratic republic, political and civil liberties. The Social Revolutionaries advocated the introduction of federal relations between nationalities, recognition of their right to self-determination and autonomy of self-government bodies. The central point of the economic part of the AKP program was the requirement for the socialization of land. It was supposed to abolish private ownership of land, and then turn it into public property with a ban on purchase and sale. It was to be managed by the bodies of people's self-government. Provision was made for equal-labor use of the land (subject to its cultivation by one’s own labor, personal or collective). Its distribution was assumed according to consumer and labor standard. Socialization was supposed to solve the “work issue”, the AKP program proclaimed limiting the working day to 8 hours, introducing a minimum wages, insurance of workers at the expense of the state and owners of enterprises, legislative labor protection under the control of elected factory inspection, freedom of trade unions, the right of workers' organizations to participate in the organization of labor at the enterprise. It was planned to introduce free medical care.
A variety of methods and means of struggle were recognized. Among them are propaganda and agitation, parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggle, including strikes, demonstrations, and uprisings. Individual terror was used for agitation, arousing the revolutionary forces of society, and also as a measure to combat the arbitrariness of the government. The terrorist acts of the BO created wide popularity for the party. The most famous among them is the murder of the Minister of Internal Affairs D.S. Sipyagin (04/2/1902) and V.K. Plehve (07/15/1904). For the brutal suppression of peasant unrest in the spring of 1902, the Kharkov governor I.M. was killed. Obolensky (June 26, 1902), and for the shooting of a workers’ demonstration in the city of Zlatoust - Ufa governor N.M. Bogdanovich (05/06/1903). The Socialist Revolutionaries carried out active agitation and propaganda work among the workers, forming circles and participating in mass demonstrations and strikes. The publication of literature for peasants was established, distributed in the Volga region and a number of southern and central provinces of Russia.
In 1903, a left-radical opposition appeared in the AKP, represented by a group of “agrarian terrorists” who proposed shifting the party’s main focus from political struggle to defending the social interests of the peasantry. It was supposed to call upon the peasants to resolve the agrarian question by seizing land and to use “agrarian terror.” In the context of the deteriorating position of the autocracy in the face of defeats Russo-Japanese War and the rise of the liberal movement, the leadership of the AKP relied on the creation of a broad association of political opposition. In the fall of 1904 V.M. Chernov and E.F. Azef took part in the conference of Russian opposition parties in Paris.
During the First Russian Revolution, the AKP set the main goal of its activities to overthrow the autocracy. In February 1905, the last significant act of the BO took place - the murder of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, uncle of Nicholas II, former governor-general of Moscow. In the fall of 1906, the BO was temporarily disbanded and replaced by flying combat detachments. The AKP's terror has become decentralized and directed primarily against middle and lower-level officials. At this time, the Socialist Revolutionaries participated in the preparation of a number of important revolutionary actions (strikes, demonstrations, rallies, uprisings). the most famous among them are the December armed uprising in Moscow, as well as the military uprisings in Kronstadt and Sveaborg in the summer of 1906. Many trade unions were created with the participation of the Socialist Revolutionaries. In some of them (the All-Russian Railway Union, the Postal and Telegraph Union, the Teachers' Union and a number of others), supporters of the AKP prevailed. The party gained predominant influence among the workers of a number of the largest St. Petersburg and Moscow factories, especially at the Prokhorovskaya manufactory. Numerous representatives of the Socialist Revolutionaries participated in the St. Petersburg, Moscow and a number of other Soviets of Workers' Deputies. The Social Revolutionaries carried out active work among the peasantry. Thus, in a number of Volga provinces and in the Central Black Earth region, peasant brotherhoods were created. With the support of the AKP, the All-Russian Peasant Union and the Labor Group in the State Duma were created. As a result, the number of the AKP increased significantly, reaching 60 thousand people.
Having supported the boycott of the Bulygin Duma and taken part in the All-Russian October Strike, the Socialist Revolutionaries greeted the Manifesto of October 17, 1905 with ambiguity. Most party leaders, especially E. Azef, proposed moving to constitutional methods of struggle, abandoning terror. Considering that the line of armed uprising and boycott of the elections to the First State Duma did not receive the support of broad sections of the peasantry, the Social Revolutionaries took part in a new election campaign. A faction of Socialist Revolutionaries consisting of 37 deputies was formed within the Duma. Under the agrarian project of the Socialist Revolutionaries, 104 deputy signatures were collected in the Second Duma. In 1906, the Socialist Revolutionaries called on the peasantry to boycott the Stolypin agrarian reform, seeing in it a threat to the idea of socialization of the earth. Subsequently, calls were made for the peasants to boycott the owners of the farms and cuts.
Split
In 1905 - 1906 The AKP experienced a split, as a result of which moderate populist circles close to it formed the People's Socialist Party. At the same time, the radical left wing, represented by supporters of the immediate implementation of the socialist revolution in Russia, which also spoke from the position of radicalization of revolutionary terror, formed the Union of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists.
After the defeat of the revolution of 1905 - 1907. The AKP found itself in a state of crisis. The new tactical guidelines of the Social Revolutionaries were based on the fact that the June 3rd coup d'etat returned the pre-revolutionary political situation in Russia. Because of this, confidence remained in the inevitability of a new revolution. The AKP officially launched a boycott of the State Duma. It was also decided to intensify military preparations for future uprisings and to resume terror. The party crisis was aggravated by the exposure of V.L. Burtsev provocative activities of E.F. Azef. At the beginning of January 1909, the Central Committee of the AKP officially recognized the fact of his cooperation with the secret police. Attempt B.V. Savinkov's attempt to recreate the BO was unsuccessful. Due to mass arrests, disappointment and departure of a number of activists, and increased emigration, the number of the AKP sharply decreased. At the Fifth Party Council, held in May 1909, the old Central Committee resigned. Since 1912, the functions of the Central Committee were transferred to the Foreign Delegation.
Discussions and ideological divisions in the party are intensifying. A number of theorists have turned their attention to the role of cooperation in the formation of socialist relations. So, I.I. Fondaminsky assumed that the gradual development of cooperative farms would lead to the socialization of the land. A left faction of the “initiative minority” (1908 - 1909) and a right wing, grouped around the magazine “Pochin” (1912) and uniting supporters of the transition to legal activity, emerged. The “initiative minority” group was formed in Paris from members of the local Socialist Revolutionary group, who had long been in opposition to the party line. In June 1909, supporters of the “initiative minority” left the party, joining the Union of Left Social Revolutionaries.
The growth of the labor movement and opposition sentiments in Russia contributed to the growth of the ranks of the AKP, whose organizations appeared in 1914 large enterprises St. Petersburg, Moscow and many other cities. The party's agitation and propaganda work among the peasantry was resumed. Socialist Revolutionary legal newspapers began to be published in St. Petersburg (Trudovoy Golos, Mysl). The process of consolidation of the AKP was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War.
The Socialist Revolutionary Party was never able to develop a common party platform on the issue of attitude towards the war. As a result, among the Socialist Revolutionaries there were supporters of both defencist and internationalist positions. Defenders (Avksentyev, Argunov, Lazarev, Fondaminsky) proposed coordinating tactics and forms of combating the tasks of Russian defense. The victory of the Entente over German militarism was considered by the Socialist-Revolutionaries-defencists as a progressive phenomenon that could influence the political evolution of the Russian monarchy. The position of the internationalists was represented by Kamkov, Natanson, Rakitnikov and Chernov. They proceeded from the fact that the tsarist government was waging a war of conquest. Socialists were supposed to become a “third force” that would achieve a just world without annexations and indemnities.
The split paralyzed the activities of the Foreign Delegation. At the end of 1914, opponents of the war among the Socialist Revolutionaries began publishing the newspaper Thought in Paris. Chernov and Nathanson participated in the Zimmerwald (1915) and Kienthal (1916) international conferences of internationalists. M.A. Nathanson signed the Zimmerwald Manifesto. Chernov refused to sign it because his amendments were rejected. Defensive Socialist Revolutionaries, together with their like-minded Social Democrats, published the weekly newspaper “Call” in Paris (October 1915 - March 1917). As the external and internal situation in Russia worsened and the political crisis grew, the ideas of the Socialist Revolutionary Internationalists found more and more supporters. During the First World War, many Socialist Revolutionaries worked in legal organizations, gradually expanding the influence of the party.
Social Revolutionaries in 1917
The revolutionary events of February 1917 were attended by the Socialist Revolutionaries, led by P.A. Alexandrovich. Zenzinov and Aleksandrovich were among the initiators of the creation of the Petrograd Soviet. Representatives of the AKP were included in the first composition of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. In many other cities, the Socialist Revolutionaries were also members of the Soviets and headed revolutionary self-government bodies. The return of party leaders and activists from exile and emigration contributed to its revival. On March 2, 1917, the First Petrograd Conference of Socialist Revolutionaries took place, which elected a city committee that temporarily assumed the functions of the Central Committee. In mid-March the publication of a new central authority AKP - newspapers "The Cause of the People". New local organizations were created. At the beginning of August, during the period of greatest popularity of the party, it included 436 organizations in 62 provinces (312 committees and 124 groups). The size of the party increased. Its maximum number in 1917 was about a million people. Since June 1917, the organ of the Central Committee of the AKP “Delo Naroda” has been one of the largest Russian newspapers. Its circulation reached 300 thousand copies.
The III Party Congress (25.05 - 4.06.1917) completed its organizational formation. In the spring of 1917, the right wing (leaders A.A. Argunov, E.K. Breshkovskaya, A.F. Kerensky) and the left wing (M.A. Nathanson, B.D. Kamkov and M.A. Spiridonova) took shape in the AKP ). The newspaper “The Will of the People” was the organ of the right Socialist Revolutionaries. The left wing of the party expressed its position on the pages of the newspaper Znamya Truda. The official course of the AKP was determined by the centrist group headed by V.M. Zenzinov, V.M. Chernov, A.R. Gots and N.D. Avksentiev. The disagreements were based on different assessments of the prospects for the development of the revolution in Russia and equally different views on the role of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in this process. The Right Socialist Revolutionaries believed that in Russia, as in most countries of the world, the prerequisites for the socialist reorganization of society had not yet been prepared. Under these conditions, the main task of the revolution is the democratization of the political system. They saw its implementation as possible only in a coalition with the liberal circles of the bourgeoisie and intelligentsia, represented by the Cadet Party. Only a united front of democratic forces, according to the ideologists of the right Socialist Revolutionaries, was a means of overcoming economic devastation and achieving victory over Germany. The Left Socialist Revolutionaries, on the contrary, considered it possible for Russia to transition to socialism with an imminent world revolution. Denying any blockade with the liberals, they put forward the idea of a homogeneous socialist government and demanded radical social reforms. Among them was the transfer of landowners' land to the disposal of land committees. As before, the left wing of the party remained at an anti-war, internationalist point of view. The centrist Socialist Revolutionaries put forward the theory of a special, “people’s labor” revolution, preserving the capitalist system, but at the same time creating the preconditions for a socialist system. It was assumed that a temporary coalition would be maintained with all forces interested in the establishment and development of a democratic system. A temporary bloc with liberal parties was not ruled out. As an alternative to dictatorship, it was assumed that power would be transferred to a coalition of socialist parties by winning a majority through democratic means.
Although the left circles of the AKP opposed support for the Provisional Government, participating in anti-government protests on the streets of Petrograd. At the same time, many right-wingers and centrists approved of A.F.’s entry into the Provisional Government. Kerensky. After the April crisis, the leadership of the AKP recognized the need for socialists to join the cabinet in order to correct it political course. Members of the AKP were part of three coalition governments. In the first, the posts of Minister of Justice, and then - Minister of War and Navy were held by A.F. Kerensky, the post of Minister of Agriculture was V.M. Chernov. In the second government, Kerensky served as minister-chairman, as well as military and naval minister, V.M. Chernov - Minister of Agriculture, N.D. Avksentyev - Minister of Internal Affairs. The third coalition government included Kerensky, who retained the same posts, and S.L. Maslov, who became Minister of Agriculture.
The AKP also officially declared its support for the Soviets, perceiving them not as authorities, but as a class organization of the working masses, defending their interests and controlling the Provisional Government. The Social Revolutionaries enjoyed predominant influence in the Soviets of Peasant Deputies. Local power was supposed to be transferred to city, district dumas and zemstvos elected democratically. The Socialist Revolutionaries saw their political task in winning a majority in the elections to these self-government bodies, and then in the Constituent Assembly. In August 1917, the AKP won the elections to the city council. At the same time, the idea of a direct seizure of power by the AKP, put forward at the VII Party Council by M.A., was rejected. Spiridonova.
The resolution of the Third Party Congress, reflecting the position of the centrists, was devoted to the issue of war, and included a demand for democratic peace. But right up to the end of the war, the need to maintain unity of action with the Entente allies and to help strengthen the combat potential of the army was recognized. Calls for refusal to participate in hostilities and disobedience to orders were considered unacceptable. The Left Social Revolutionaries criticized this position for preserving elements of defencism. The right wing of the party, on the contrary, demanded a complete break with the ideas of Zimmerwald.
According to the decision of the Third Congress of the AKP, the agrarian question was to be resolved by the Constituent Assembly. Up until this point, it was recognized as necessary to transfer the land to the disposal of land committees, which were supposed to prepare its fair redistribution. at that time, the AKP limited itself to achieving the repeal of Stolypin’s land laws and the adoption of a law banning land transactions. Projects for transferring lands to the jurisdiction of land committees were never approved by the Provisional Government. The III Congress of the AKP also recognized the need for state regulation of production, control over trade and finance.
In the fall of 1917, the crisis of the Socialist Revolutionary Party reached its apogee. Increasing ideological differences led to its split. On September 16, the Right Socialist Revolutionaries issued an appeal, accusing the Central Committee of a defeatist position. They called on their supporters to prepare for a separate congress. N.D. Avksentyev and A.R. Gotz, defending the position of the right Socialist Revolutionaries, advocated for the continuation of the coalition with the Cadets. V.M. Chernov, on the contrary, argued that this policy was fraught with loss of popularity of the party. However, the majority of Central Committee members at the end of September supported the coalition's tactics. The process of organizing their supporters was started by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, dissatisfied with this decision.
In response to the October coup, the Central Committee of the AKP already on October 25, 1917 issued an appeal “To all revolutionary democracy in Russia.” The actions of the Bolsheviks were condemned as a criminal act and usurpation of power. The Socialist Revolutionary faction left the Second Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. On the initiative of the Central Committee, to unite the actions of democratic forces, the “Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution”, headed by A. Gots, was created. The Social Revolutionaries also played a decisive role in the Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly, headed by AKP member V.N. Filippovsky. Representatives of the left wing, on the contrary, supported the actions of the Bolsheviks and became members of the Council of People's Commissars. In response, by a resolution of the Central Committee, and then by a decision held in Petrograd on November 26. - On December 5, 1917, at the IV Congress of the AKP, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries were expelled from the party. At the same time, the congress rejected the policy of the coalition of anti-Bolshevik forces and confirmed the decision of the Central Committee to expel the far-right group of Socialist-Revolutionaries-defencists from the party.
Social Revolutionaries and Soviet power
The Social Revolutionaries won the elections to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, receiving 370 seats out of 715. The leader of the AKP, Chernov, was elected chairman of the VUS, which was opened on January 5, 1918 and worked for one day. After the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks, the main slogan of the party became the fight for its restoration. VIII Council of the AKP, held in Moscow from 7 to 16.05. the same year, oriented the party towards the overthrow of the Bolshevik dictatorship by forces of mass popular movement. Some of the responsible employees of the AKP went abroad. In March - April 1918 N.S. Rusanov and V.V. Sukhomlin went to Stockholm, where, together with D.O. Gavronsky formed the Foreign Delegation of the AKP. At the beginning of June 1918, relying on the support of the rebellious Czechoslovak Corps, the Socialist Revolutionaries formed the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly in Samara, the chairman of which was V.K. Volsky. The formation of the People's Army of KOMUCH began. The majority of members of the Siberian Regional Duma in Tomsk also belonged to the AKP. The Provisional Siberian Government, formed on her initiative, was also headed by the Socialist-Revolutionary P.Ya. Derber. In response to the open participation of the Socialist Revolutionaries in the anti-Bolshevik armed struggle, by decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of June 14, 1918, they were expelled from the Soviets at all levels.
The Social Revolutionaries also had a majority at the State Conference held in Ufa in September 1918. The All-Russian Provisional Government (Directory) formed as a result of it included N.D. Avksentyev and V.M. Zenzinov. The Central Committee of the AKP criticized the policies of the Directory. After the coup that took place on November 18, 1918 in Omsk, Avksentyev and Zenzinov were arrested and deported abroad. The government of A.V. that came to power. Kolchak launched repressions against the Socialist Revolutionaries.
The consequences of the Kolchak coup were decisions made at the beginning of 1919 by the Moscow Bureau of the AKP and the conference of party leaders. Denying both the possibility of an agreement with the RCP(b) and with the White Guard forces, the Socialist Revolutionary leaders identified the danger on the right as the greatest. As a result, they decided to abandon the armed struggle against Soviet power. A group of Socialist Revolutionaries led by V.K. Volsky entered into negotiations with the Bolsheviks on close cooperation and was condemned. At the same time, the Ufa delegation called for recognizing Soviet power and uniting under its leadership to fight counter-revolution. However, the party leadership condemned her position. At the end of October 1919, Volsky’s group left the AKP, adopting the name “Minority of the Socialist Revolutionary Party” (MPSR).
By decision of February 26, 1919, the Socialist Revolutionary Party was legalized on the territory of Soviet Russia. But soon the persecution of the Socialist Revolutionaries resumed, as a reaction to their criticism of Soviet power. The publication of Delo Naroda was stopped, and a number of members of the AKP Central Committee were arrested. Despite this, the plenum of the Central Committee (April 1919) and the IX Party Council (June 1919) confirmed the decision to abandon armed confrontation with Soviet power. At the same time, it was announced that the political struggle against it would continue until the elimination of the Bolshevik dictatorship by the forces of mass popular movements.
Back in April 1917, the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionary Party separated from the AKP. Some of the Socialist Revolutionaries in the territories of Southern Russia and Ukraine controlled by Denikin’s followers legally worked in public organizations. Some of them were subjected to repression. So, for example, G.I. Schrader, who published the Rodnaya Zemlya newspaper in Yekaterinodar, was arrested. His publication was closed. The Socialist Revolutionaries also occupied leading positions in the “Committee for the Liberation of the Black Sea Province,” which led the peasant movement directed against Denikin under left-wing and democratic slogans. In 1920, the Central Committee of the AKP called on party members to continue the political struggle against the Bolsheviks. At the same time, Poland and supporters of P.N. were declared the main opponents. Wrangel. At the same time, the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party condemned the Riga Peace Treaty as a betrayal of Russia's national interests.
In Siberia, the Socialist Revolutionaries played a prominent role in the struggle against the dictatorship of Admiral A.V. Kolchak. Member of the Central Committee of the AKP F.F. Fedorovich headed the “Political Center”, which prepared an armed uprising in Irkutsk against the Kolchak regime, carried out in late December 1919 - early January 1920. The political center took power in the city into its own hands for some time. Also, the Social Revolutionaries were part of the coalition authorities operating in the Far East in 1920 - 1921. - Primorsky regional zemstvo government, and then to the government of the Far Eastern Republic.
By the beginning of 1921, the Central Committee of the AKP ceased its activities. The leading role in the party in August of the same year, in connection with the arrests of the Central Committee members, passed to the Central Organizational Bureau, formed back in June 1920. Some members of the Central Committee, including V.M. Chernov, by this time were in exile. The 10th Party Council, held in Samara (August 1921), recognized the accumulation of forces as the most pressing task of the Socialist Revolutionaries and called for keeping the worker-peasant masses from spontaneous uprisings that scatter their forces and provoke repression. However, in March 1921 V.M. Chernov, called on the working people of Russia for a general strike and armed struggle in support of the rebels of Kronstadt.
In the summer of 1922, a Moscow trial took place over members of the Central Committee of the AKP, accused of organizing terrorist acts against the leaders of the RCP (b) in 1918. In August, 12 people, including 8 Central Committee members, were sentenced to death by the Supreme Tribunal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. It was announced that the sentence would be carried out if the AKP used armed methods of struggle against Soviet power. On January 14, 1924, this sentence was replaced by a 5-year prison sentence followed by a 3-year exile. At the beginning of January 1923, under the control of the GPU, the “initiative group” of the Socialist Revolutionaries held a meeting that decided to dissolve the Petrograd organization of the AKP. In the same way, in March of the same year, the All-Russian Congress of former members of the AKP was held in Moscow, which decided to dissolve the party. In the fall of 1923, the OGPU defeated B.V.’s group. Chernov in Leningrad. At the end of 1924 E.E. Kolosov recreated the new Central Bank of the party, which had connections with the Socialist Revolutionary organizations at the Obukhov plant, at the Pedagogical Institute. N.K. Krupskaya, as well as in Kolpino, Krasnodar, Tsaritsyn and Cherepovets. At the beginning of May 1925, the last members of the Central Bank of the AKP were arrested. However, even after this, the activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries on the territory of the USSR did not end. As M.V. writes Sokolov, “many of those in exile and those arrested again firmly called themselves members of the AKP or reported that they shared its platform.” Whenever possible, they maintained contact with each other, discussing the political situation in Russia. In the spring and summer of 1930, members of the AKP who were in exile in Central Asia led the development and discussion of a new party platform designed to reflect the socio-economic and political realities of the USSR. In August - September 1930, the OGPU carried out arrests among exiled Socialist Revolutionaries in Central Asia, as well as former and current members of the AKP in Moscow, Leningrad and Kazan. After this, the activities of the AKP continued only in exile.
Socialist Revolutionary emigrant organizations and publishing houses continued to exist until the 1960s. in Paris, Berlin, Prague and New York. Many AKP figures ended up abroad. Among them is N.D. Avksentyev, E.K. Breshko-Breshkovskaya, M.V. Vishnyak, V.M. Zenzinov, O.S. Minor, V.M. Chernov and others. Since 1920, periodicals of the AKP began to be published abroad. In December of this year, V. Chernov began publishing the magazine “Revolutionary Russia” in Yuryev, and then in Revel, Berlin, and Prague. In 1921, the Social Revolutionaries published the magazine “For the People!” in Revel. Later, the magazines “The Will of Russia” (Prague, 1922 - 1932), “Modern Notes” (Paris, 1920 - 1940), etc. were also published. Most of the circulations of Socialist Revolutionary publications were illegally delivered to Russia. The publications were also distributed among the emigrants. In 1923, the first, and in 1928, the second congress of foreign organizations of the AKP took place. The literary activity of the Socialist Revolutionaries in exile continued until the end of the 1960s.
Social Revolutionaries in scientific literature
Currently, numerous research works and documentary publications are being published on the history of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, the life and work of its leaders. The “terrorist” reputation has a serious influence on the modern positioning of the Social Revolutionaries, due to which the assessment of its role in the history of Russia by many modern historians, but especially by publicists, writers, and film directors, is colored in negative tones.
The struggle of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was reflected in fiction Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. First of all, the theme of terror of the Socialist-Revolutionary BO is covered in the novel by B.V. Savinkov “The Pale Horse” (1909). The storyline of another novel, “That Which Wasn’t” (1912 - 1913), is connected with the activities of the AKP during the First Russian Revolution. This novel reflects the activities of the fighting squads of the Socialist Revolutionaries, terrorist activities, and provocations. A number of stories from the history of the AKP were reflected in the novels of M.A. Osorgin “Witness to History” (1932) and “The Book of Ends” (1935).
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 huge 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. Downside These reforms included 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 already 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, the 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.
Everyone knows that as a result of the October Revolution and the subsequent Civil War, the Bolshevik Party came to power in Russia, which, with various fluctuations in its general line, remained in leadership almost until the collapse of the USSR (1991). Official historiography Soviet years instilled in the population the idea that it was this force that enjoyed the greatest support of the popular masses, while all other political organizations were, to one degree or another, striving for the revival of capitalism. This is not entirely true. For example, the Socialist Revolutionary Party stood on an irreconcilable platform, in comparison with which the position of the Bolsheviks sometimes looked relatively peaceful. At the same time, social revolutionaries criticized the “combat detachment of the proletariat” led by Lenin for usurping power and oppressing democracy. So what kind of party was this?
One against all
Of course, after many artistic images, created by the masters of “socialist realistic art,” the Socialist Revolutionary Party looked ominous in the eyes of the Soviet people. The Social Revolutionaries were remembered when the story was about the 1918 murder of Uritsky, the Kronstadt uprising (rebellion) and other facts unpleasant for the communists. It seemed to everyone that they were “grist to the mill” of the counter-revolution, seeking to strangle Soviet power and physically eliminate the Bolshevik leaders. At the same time, it was somehow forgotten that this organization waged a powerful underground struggle against the “royal satraps”, carried out an unimaginable number of terrorist attacks during the period of two Russian revolutions, and caused a lot of trouble during the Civil War White movement. Such ambiguity led to the fact that the Socialist Revolutionary Party turned out to be hostile to almost all warring parties, entering into temporary alliances with them and dissolving them in the name of achieving its own independent goal. What did it consist of? It is impossible to understand this without familiarizing yourself with the party program.
Origins and creation
It is believed that the creation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party occurred in 1902. This is true in a sense, but not entirely. In 1894, the Saratov Narodnaya Volya Society (underground, of course) developed its own program, which was somewhat more radical in nature than before. It took a couple of years to develop the program, send it abroad, publish it, print leaflets, deliver them to Russia and other manipulations associated with the emergence of a new force in the political firmament. At the same time, a small circle at first was headed by a certain Argunov, who renamed it, calling it the “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries.” The first measure of the new party was the creation of branches and the establishment of stable connections with them, which seems quite logical. Branches were created in largest cities empire - Kharkov, Odessa, Voronezh, Poltava, Penza and, of course, in the capital, St. Petersburg. The process of party building was crowned by the appearance of a printed organ. The program was published on the pages of the newspaper “Revolutionary Russia”. This leaflet announced that the creation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party had become a fait accompli. This was in 1902.
Goals
Any political force acts guided by a program. This document, adopted by the majority of the founding congress, declares the goals and methods, allies and opponents, the main and those obstacles to be overcome. In addition, principles of governance, governing bodies and conditions of membership are specified. The Social Revolutionaries formulated the party's tasks as follows:
1. The establishment in Russia of a free and democratic state with a federal structure.
2. Granting equal voting rights to all citizens.
4. The right to free education.
5. Abolition of the armed forces as a permanent state structure.
6. Eight-hour working day.
7. Separation of state and church.
There were a few more points, but in general they largely repeated the slogans of the Mensheviks, Bolsheviks and other organizations that were just as eager to seize power as the Socialist Revolutionaries. The party program declared the same values and aspirations.
The commonality of the structure was also evident in the hierarchical ladder described by the charter. The form of government of the Socialist Revolutionary Party included two levels. Congresses and Councils (during the inter-congress period) made strategic decisions that were carried out by the Central Committee, which was considered the executive body.
Social Revolutionaries and the agrarian question
At the end of the 19th century, Russia was predominantly an agrarian country in which the peasantry made up most population. The class in particular and the Social Democrats in general were considered politically backward, subject to private property instincts, and assigned to its poorest part only the role of the closest ally of the proletariat, the locomotive of the revolution. The Socialist Revolutionaries looked at this issue somewhat differently. The party program provided for the socialization of the land. At the same time, the talk was not about its nationalization, that is, its transition into state ownership, but also not about distributing it to the working people. In general, according to the socialist-revolutionaries, true democracy should not have come from the city to the village, but vice versa. Therefore, private ownership of agricultural resources should have been abolished, their purchase and sale should have been prohibited and transferred to local governments, which would distribute all the “goods” according to consumer standards. All together this was called the “socialization” of the land.
Peasants
It is interesting that, while declaring the village the source of socialism, the Socialist Revolutionary Party treated its inhabitants themselves quite cautiously. The peasants have never really been particularly politically literate. The leaders and ordinary members of the organization did not know what to expect; the life of the villagers was alien to them. The Social Revolutionaries “sickened at heart” for the oppressed people and, as often happens, believed that they knew how to make them happy better than they themselves. Their participation in the councils that arose during the First Russian Revolution increased their influence both among peasants and workers. As for the proletariat, there was a critical attitude towards it too. In general, the working masses were considered amorphous, and much effort had to be made to unite them.
Terror
The Socialist Revolutionary Party in Russia gained fame already in the year of its creation. Minister of Internal Affairs Sipyagin was shot by Stepan Balmashev, and this murder was organized by G. Girshuni, who led the military wing of the organization. Then there were many terrorist attacks (the most famous of them are the successful assassination attempts on S. A. Romanov, uncle of Nicholas II, and Minister Plehve). After the revolution, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party continued its murderous list; many Bolshevik figures became its victims, with whom there were significant disagreements. No political party could compete with the AKP in its ability to organize individual terrorist attacks and reprisals against individual opponents. The Social Revolutionaries actually eliminated the head of the Petrograd Cheka, Uritsky. As for the assassination attempt committed at the Mikhelson plant, this story is vague, but their involvement cannot be completely ruled out. However, in terms of the scale of mass terror, they were far from the Bolsheviks. However, perhaps if they came to power...
Azef
Legendary personality. Yevno Azef led the military organization and, as was irrefutably proven, collaborated with the detective department of the Russian Empire. And most importantly, in both of these structures, so different in goals and objectives, they were very pleased with him. Azef organized a series of terrorist attacks against representatives of the tsarist administration, but at the same time surrendered a huge number of militants to the secret police. Only in 1908 did the Socialist Revolutionaries expose him. What party would tolerate such a traitor in its ranks? The Central Committee pronounced the verdict - death. Azef was almost in the hands of his former comrades, but was able to deceive them and escape. How he managed this is not entirely clear, but the fact remains: he lived until 1918 and died not from poison, a noose or a bullet, but from kidney disease, which he “earned” in a Berlin prison.
Savinkov
The Socialist Revolutionary Party attracted many adventurers in spirit who were looking for an outlet for their criminal talents. One of them was someone who started his political career as a liberal and then joined terrorists. He joined the Social Revolutionary Party a year after its creation, was Azef’s first deputy, took part in the preparation of many terrorist attacks, including the most resonant ones, was sentenced to death, and fled. After the October Revolution he fought against Bolshevism. He laid claim to supreme power in Russia, collaborated with Denikin, and was acquainted with Churchill and Pilsudski. Savinkov committed suicide after his arrest by the Cheka in 1924.
Gershuni
Grigory Andreevich Gershuni was one of the most active members the military wing of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. He directly supervised the execution of terrorist acts against Minister Sipyagin, the attempted assassination of the governor of Kharkov Obolensky and many other actions designed to achieve people's well-being. He acted everywhere - from Ufa and Samara to Geneva - doing organizational work and coordinating the activities of local underground circles. In 1900, he was arrested, but Gershuni managed to avoid severe punishment, since he, in violation of party ethics, stubbornly denied his involvement in the conspiratorial structure. In Kyiv, a failure nevertheless occurred, and in 1904 the verdict followed: exile. The escape led Grigory Andreevich to Parisian emigration, where he soon died. He was a true artist of terror. The main disappointment of his life was Azef's betrayal.
Party in the Civil War
The Bolshevikization of the Soviets, implanted, according to the Socialist Revolutionaries, artificially, and carried out by dishonest methods, led to the withdrawal of party representatives from them. Further activities were sporadic. The Social Revolutionaries entered into temporary alliances, either with the whites or with the reds, and both sides understood that this was dictated only by momentary political interests. Having received a majority, the party was unable to consolidate its success. In 1919, the Bolsheviks, taking into account the value of the organization’s terrorist experience, decided to legalize its activities in the territories they controlled, but this step did not in any way affect the intensity of anti-Soviet protests. However, the Socialist Revolutionaries at times declared a moratorium on speeches, supporting one of the fighting parties. In 1922, members of the AKP were finally “exposed” as enemies of the revolution, and their complete eradication began throughout Soviet Russia.
In exile
The foreign delegation of the AKP arose long before the actual defeat of the party, in 1918. This structure was not approved by the central committee, but nevertheless existed in Stockholm. After the actual ban on activities in Russia, almost all the surviving and free members of the party ended up in exile. They concentrated mainly in Prague, Berlin and Paris. The work of foreign cells was headed by Viktor Chernov, who fled abroad in 1920. In addition to “Revolutionary Russia,” other periodicals were published in exile (“For the People!”, “Modern Notes”), which reflected the main idea that gripped the former underground workers who had recently fought against the exploiters. By the end of the 30s they realized the need for the restoration of capitalism.
The end of the Socialist Revolutionary Party
The struggle of the Chekists with the surviving Socialist Revolutionaries became the theme of many fiction novels and films. In general, the picture of these works corresponded to reality, although it was presented distortedly. In fact, by the mid-20s the Socialist Revolutionary movement was a political corpse, completely harmless to the Bolsheviks. Inside Soviet Russia, the (former) Social Revolutionaries were mercilessly caught, and sometimes social revolutionary views were even attributed to people who never shared them. Successfully carried out operations to lure particularly odious party members to the USSR were aimed rather at justifying future repressions, presented as yet another exposure of underground anti-Soviet organizations. The Socialist-Revolutionaries were soon replaced in the dock by Trotskyists, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, Martovites and other former Bolsheviks who suddenly became objectionable. But that's a different story...
Socialist Revolutionary Party ( from the abbreviation S R- pronounced es er, socialist revolutionaries, AKP, party s.-r.; after 1917 - Right Social 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. 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 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 to the population. However, despite all this, the Social Revolutionaries were unable to retain power.
Encyclopedic YouTube
-
1 / 5
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 1906 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 national peculiarity 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 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, without any special socialist revolution, transition of Russia to socialism. The program, in particular, spoke about the establishment of a democratic republic with inalienable rights of man and citizen: freedom of conscience, speech, press, meetings, 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 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. 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." This brochure was published by the Foreign Union of Russian Socialist Revolutionaries along with Grigorovich’s article “Socialist Revolutionaries and Social Democrats.” He moved to Moscow in the Saratov circle, was engaged 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, 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 Social Revolutionaries announced itself with a terrorist act against the Minister of Internal Affairs Dmitry Sipyagin. The BO was the most conspiratorial part of the party; its charter was written by Mikhail Gotz. 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 in to the fullest there was no 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.
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 (among others, 2 ministers, 33 governors, in particular, the king’s uncle, and 7 generals were killed), from 1902 to 1911 - 216 assassination attempts.
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.
At the beginning of 1919, the Moscow Bureau of the AKP, and then a conference of Socialist Revolutionary organizations operating in the territory Soviet Russia, spoke out against any agreements with both the Bolsheviks and "bourgeois reaction". At the same time, it was recognized that the danger on the right was greater, and therefore it was decided to abandon the armed struggle against Soviet power. However, a group of Socialist Revolutionaries led by the former head of Komuch Vladimir Volsky, the so-called “Ufa delegation,” which entered into negotiations with the Bolsheviks on closer cooperation, was condemned.
To use the potential of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in the fight against the White Movement, on February 26, the Soviet government legalized the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Members of the Central Committee began to gather in Moscow, and the publication of the central party newspaper Delo Naroda was resumed there. But the Socialist Revolutionaries did not stop sharply criticizing the Bolshevik regime and the persecution of the party was resumed: the publication of “Delo of the People” was banned, and a number of active party members were arrested. Nevertheless, the plenum of the Central Committee of the AKP, held in April 1919, based on the fact that the party does not have the strength to wage an armed struggle on two fronts at once, called for it not to resume it against the Bolsheviks for now. The Plenum condemned the participation of party representatives in the Ufa State Conference, the Directory, in the regional governments of Siberia, the Urals and Crimea, as well as in the Iasi Conference of Russian anti-Bolshevik forces (November 1918), spoke out against foreign intervention, saying that it would only be an expression "selfish imperialist interests" governments of the intervening countries. At the same time, it was emphasized that there should be no agreements with the Bolsheviks. The IX Party Council, held in Moscow or near Moscow in June 1919, confirmed the decision of the party to abandon the armed struggle against the Soviet regime while continuing the political struggle against it. It was ordered to direct their efforts to mobilize, organize and put on combat readiness the forces of democracy, so that if the Bolsheviks did not voluntarily abandon their policy, they would be eliminated by force in the name of "democracy, freedom and socialism".
At the same time, the leaders of the right wing of the party, who were then already abroad, reacted with hostility to the decisions of the IX Council and continued to believe that only an armed struggle against the Bolsheviks could be successful, that in this struggle a coalition was permissible even with undemocratic forces that could be democratized with the help of tactics "enveloping". They also allowed foreign intervention to help "anti-Bolshevik front".
At the same time, the Ufa delegation called for recognizing Soviet power and uniting under its leadership to fight counter-revolution. This group began to publish its weekly magazine “People”, and is therefore also known as the group “People”. The Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, calling the actions of the “People” group disorganizing, decided to dissolve it, but the “People” group did not obey this decision, at the end of October 1919 it left the party and adopted the name “Minority of the Socialist Revolutionary Party”.
In Ukraine, there existed the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionary Party, 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 Schrader, 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, which 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 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 Riga Peace Treaty, which ended the Soviet-Polish war, was assessed by the Social Revolutionaries as "treasonous betrayal" Russian national interests.
The activities of the Siberian Socialist Revolutionaries intensified under the influence of the victories of the Red Army over the troops of Kolchak. In organizing anti-Kolchak forces, the Socialist Revolutionaries used zemstvos. The Zemsky Congress, held in Irkutsk in October 1919, which was dominated by the Socialist Revolutionaries, decided to overthrow the Kolchak government. In November 1919, in Irkutsk, the All-Siberian Conference of Zemstvos and Cities created a Political Center to prepare an uprising against the Kolchak regime, which was headed by F. F. Fedorovich, a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. As the Red Army approached Irkutsk, the Political Center carried out an armed uprising in late December 1919 - early January 1920 and seized power in the city, however, power in Irkutsk soon passed to the Bolsheviks. The Social Revolutionaries were part of the coalition government created by the Bolsheviks in Vladivostok at the end of January 1920 - the Primorsky Regional Zemstvo Government and the same composition of the government of the united Far Eastern Republic, formed in July 1921.
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.
