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 big influence in the Soviets and other local government bodies, 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 and the great importance of the peasantry in the revolution again popular. 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 by its special situation. 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 Russian cities, poses a serious danger to the 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 to be based on consumer and labor standards. 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 were created in State Duma. 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 Stolypin’s agrarian reform, seeing it as a threat to the idea of socialization of the land. 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 Socialist Revolutionaries were based on the fact that the June 3rd coup d'etat returned the pre-revolutionary political situation to 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 in 1914 appeared at large enterprises in 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 worsens, the political crisis, 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 the new central organ of the AKP, the newspaper Delo Naroda, began. 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 adjust its 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. My political task The Socialist Revolutionaries saw it as winning a majority in the elections to these bodies of self-government, 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 government regulation 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 the forces of a 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 in the territory 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 the South of Russia and Ukraine, controlled by Denikin, 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 there are numerous research papers and documentary publications devoted to 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).
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 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.
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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 a national feature of Socialist Revolutionary democratic socialism and was a contribution to the development of world socialist thought. The original idea of this theory was that socialism in Russia should begin to grow first of all in the countryside. The ground for it, its preliminary stage, was to be the socialization of the earth.
Socialization of land meant, firstly, the abolition of private ownership of land, but at the same time not 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 there was no complete trust in the peasants: they were absent from the Central Committee, agrarian terror was condemned, and the solution to the agrarian question was “from above.”
During the revolution, the composition of the party changed significantly. The overwhelming majority of its members were now workers and peasants. But the party's policy was determined by the intelligentsia leadership. The number of Social Revolutionaries during the years of the revolution exceeded 60 thousand people. Party organizations existed in 48 provinces and 254 districts. There were about 2,000 rural organizations and groups.
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 on the territory of 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.
The largest and most influential of the non-proletarian parties was the party of socialist revolutionaries (Socialist Revolutionaries), created in 1902. The history of the emergence of the Socialist Revolutionary Party is connected with the populist movement. In 1881, after the defeat of Narodnaya Volya, some former Narodnaya Volya members became part of several underground groups. From 1891 to 1900 the majority of underground left-populist circles and groups take the name “socialist-revolutionaries.” The first organization to adopt this name was the Swiss emigrant group of Russian populists led by Kh. Zhitlovsky.
The main role in the creation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the development of its program was played by the Northern Union of Socialist Revolutionaries, the Southern Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, the Workers' Party for the Political Liberation of Russia and the Agrarian Socialist League.
The programs of these groups show the evolution of the views of future Socialist Revolutionaries. Initially, one can trace the reliance on the intelligentsia, the idea of realizing the leading role of the working class. Even those groups that relied on the peasantry then saw its stratification. And with regard to the peasantry, only one measure was expressed - an additional addition of land to peasant plots.
Many Socialist Revolutionary groups in the 90s of the 19th century. had a negative attitude towards practical application individual terror. And the revision of these views largely occurred under the influence of Marxism.
But the departure from the populist worldview among the Socialist Revolutionaries did not last long. Already in 1901, they decided to focus their main attention on disseminating socialist ideas among the peasants. The reason was the first major peasant unrest. The Social Revolutionaries came to the conclusion that they were early disillusioned with the peasantry as the most revolutionary class.
One of the first Socialist Revolutionaries, who began working among the peasants already in the 90s, was Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov, one of the future leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. His father, a native of a peasant family, in the recent past a serf, through the efforts of his parents received an education, became a district treasurer, rose to the rank of collegiate councilor and the Order of St. Vladimir, which gave him the right to personal nobility. The father had a certain influence on his son’s views, repeatedly expressing the idea that all the land, sooner or later, should go from the landowners to the peasants.
Under the influence of his older brother, Victor, even in his high school years, became interested in the political struggle and followed the typical path for an intellectual to the revolution through populist circles. In 1892 he entered the law faculty of Moscow University. It was at this time that Chernov developed an interest in Marxism, which he considered necessary to know better than its supporters. In 1893, he joined the secret organization “Party of People's Law”; in 1894 he was arrested and deported to live in the city of Tambov. During his arrest, sitting in the Peter and Paul Fortress, he began studying philosophy, political economy, sociology and history. Tambov group V.M. Chernova was one of the first to resume the Narodniks’ orientation toward the peasantry, launching extensive agitation work.
In the fall of 1901, the largest populist organizations in Russia decided to unite into a party. In December 1901, it was finally formed and received the name “Party of Socialist Revolutionaries.” Its official bodies became “Revolutionary Russia” (from number 3) and “Bulletin of the Russian Revolution” (from number 2).
The Socialist Revolutionary Party considered itself a spokesman for the interests of all working and exploited strata of the people. However, in the foreground, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, like the old Narodnaya Volya members, still had the interests and aspirations of tens of millions of peasants during the revolution. Gradually, the main functional role of the Socialist-Revolutionaries in the system of political parties in Russia emerged more and more clearly - the expression of the interests of the entire working peasantry as a whole, primarily the poor and middle peasants. In addition, the Socialist Revolutionaries carried out work among soldiers and sailors, students and democratic intelligentsia. All these layers, together with the peasantry and proletariat, were united by the Socialist Revolutionaries under the concept of “working people.”
The social base of the Social Revolutionaries was quite wide. Workers made up 43%, peasants (together with soldiers) - 45%, intellectuals (including students) - 12%. During the first revolution, the Socialist Revolutionaries numbered over 60-65 thousand people in their ranks, not counting the large layer of party sympathizers.
Local organizations operated in more than 500 cities and populated areas 76 provinces and regions of the country. The overwhelming majority of organizations and party members were from European Russia. There were large Socialist Revolutionary organizations in the Volga region, middle and southern black soil provinces. During the years of the first revolution, more than one and a half thousand peasant Socialist Revolutionary brotherhoods, many student organizations, student groups and unions arose. The Socialist Revolutionary Party also included 7 national organizations: Estonian, Yakut, Buryat, Chuvash, Greek, Ossetian, Mohammedan Volga group. In addition, in the national regions of the country there were several parties and organizations of the Socialist-Revolutionary type: the Polish Socialist Party, the Armenian revolutionary union "Dashnaktsutyun", the Belarusian Socialist Community, the Party of Socialist Federalists of Georgia, the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, the Socialist Jewish workers' party, etc.
Leading figures of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1905-1907. were its main theorist V.M. Chernov, head of the Combat Organization E.F. Azef (later exposed as a provocateur), his assistant B.V. Savinkov, participants in the populist movement of the last century M.A. Nathanson, E.K. Breshko-Breshkovskaya, I.A. Rubanovich, future outstanding chemist A.N. Bach. And also younger G.A. Gershuni, N.D. Avksentyev, V.M. Zenzinov, A.A. Argunov, S.N. Sletov, sons of a millionaire merchant, brothers A.R. and M.R. Gots, I.I. Funda-minsky (Bunakov), etc.
The Social Revolutionaries were not a single movement. Their left wing, which in 1906 formed the independent “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries-Maximalists,” spoke out for the “socialization” of not only the land, but also all plants and factories. The right wing, the tone of which was set by the former liberal populists grouped around the magazine “Russian Wealth” (A.V. Peshekhonov, V.A. Myakotin, N.F. Annensky, etc.), was limited to the demand for the alienation of landowners’ lands for “moderate remuneration” and replacing autocracy with a constitutional monarchy. In 1906, the right Socialist Revolutionaries created the legal “Labor People's Socialist Party” (Enes), which immediately became a spokesman for the interests of the more prosperous peasantry. However, at the beginning of 1907 there were only about 1.5 - 2 thousand members.
The Socialist Revolutionary program was developed on the basis of various and very different projects by the beginning of 1905 and was adopted after heavy debate at the party congress in January 1906. The Socialist Revolutionary doctrine combined elements of old populist views and fashionable bourgeois liberal theories , anarchic and Marxist. During the preparation of the program, an attempt was made at a conscious compromise. Chernov said that “every step of a real movement is more important than a dozen programs, and party unity on the basis of an imperfect, mosaic program is better than a split in the name of great programmatic symmetry.”
From the adopted program of the Socialist Revolutionaries it is clear that the Socialist Revolutionary Party saw its main goal in the overthrow of the autocracy and the transition from democracy to socialism. In the program, the Socialist Revolutionaries assess the preconditions of socialism. They believed that capitalism in its development creates conditions for building socialism through the socialization of small-scale production into large-scale production “from above”, as well as “from below” - through the development of non-capitalist forms of economy: cooperation, community, labor peasant farming.
In the introductory part of the program, the Socialist Revolutionaries talk about the various combinations of positive and negative aspects of capitalism. They included among the “destructive aspects” the “anarchy of production”, which reaches extreme manifestations in crises, disasters and insecurity for the working masses. They saw the positive aspects in the fact that capitalism prepares “certain material elements” for the future socialist system and promotes the unification of industrial armies of hired workers into a cohesive social force.
The program states that “the entire burden of the struggle against tsarism falls on the proletariat, the working peasantry and the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia.” Together, according to the Social Revolutionaries, they constitute the “laboring working class”, which, organized into a social revolutionary party, should, if necessary, establish its own temporary revolutionary dictatorship.
But in contrast to Marxism, the Socialist Revolutionaries made the division of society into classes dependent not on the attitude to the tools and means of production, but on the attitude to labor and the distribution of income. Therefore, they considered the differences between workers and peasants to be unprincipled, and their similarities to be enormous, since the basis of their existence lies in labor and ruthless exploitation, to which they are equally subjected. Chernov, for example, refused to recognize the peasantry as a petty-bourgeois class, because its characteristic features are not the appropriation of other people's labor, but its own labor.
He called the peasantry the “working class of the village.” But he divided two categories of peasants: the working peasantry, living by the exploitation of their own labor power, here he also included the agricultural proletariat - farm laborers, as well as the rural bourgeoisie, living by the exploitation of someone else's labor power. Chernov argued that “the independent working farmer, as such, is very susceptible to socialist propaganda; no less susceptible than the agricultural farm laborer, the proletarian.”
But although the workers and the working peasantry constitute a single working class and are equally inclined towards socialism, they must arrive at it in different ways. Chernov believed that the city was moving towards socialism through the development of capitalism, while the countryside was moving towards socialism through non-capitalist evolution.
According to the Social Revolutionaries, small peasant labor farming is capable of defeating large ones because it moves toward the development of collectivism through community and cooperation. But this possibility can develop only after the liquidation of landownership, the transfer of land into the public domain, the destruction of private ownership of land and its equalization and redistribution.
Behind the revolutionary calls of the Social Revolutionaries were deep peasant democracy, the ineradicable desire of the peasant for land “levelling”, the elimination of landownership and “freedom” in its broadest sense, including the active participation of the peasantry in government. At the same time, the Socialist Revolutionaries, like the populists in their time, continued to believe in the innate collectivism of the peasants, linking their socialist aspirations with it.
In the agrarian part of the program of the Socialist Revolutionary Party it is written that “in matters of reorganization of land relations P.S.R. is based on communal and labor views, traditions and forms of life of the Russian peasantry, on the conviction that the land is no one’s and the right to use it is given only by labor.” Chernov generally believed that for a socialist “There is nothing more dangerous than the imposition of private property, teaching the peasant, who still believes that the land is “nobody’s”, “free” (or “God’s”), to the idea of the right to trade, to make money in land . It is here that the danger lies in the inculcation and strengthening of that “proprietary fanaticism,” which is then capable of causing a lot of trouble for socialists.”
The Social Revolutionaries declared that they would stand for the socialization of the land. With the help of socialization of the land, they hoped to protect the peasant from becoming infected with the private property psychology, which would become a brake on the path to socialism in the future.
Socialization of land presupposes the right to use the land, to cultivate it with one’s own labor without the help of hired workers. The amount of land should be no less than what is needed for a comfortable existence and no more than what the family can cultivate without resorting to hired labor. Land was redistributed by taking away from those who had a surplus in favor of those who had a shortage of land, to an equalizing labor standard.
There is no private ownership of land. All lands come under the management of central and local bodies of people's self-government (and not into state ownership). The bowels of the earth remain with the state.
Mainly with their revolutionary agrarian program, the Socialist Revolutionaries attracted peasants to themselves. The Socialist Revolutionaries did not identify the “socialization” (socialization) of the land with socialism as such. But they were convinced that on its basis, with the help of the most various types and forms of cooperation in the future, a new, collective agriculture will be created in a purely evolutionary way. Speaking at the First Congress of the Social Revolutionaries (December 1905 - January 1906), V.M. Chernov stated that the socialization of the land is only the foundation for organic work in the spirit of the socialization of peasant labor.
The attractive force of the Socialist Revolutionary program for the peasants was that it adequately reflected their organic rejection of landownership, on the one hand, and the desire to preserve the community and equal distribution of land, on the other.
So, egalitarian land use established two basic norms: the provision norm (consumer) and the marginal norm (labor). The consumer-minimum norm meant the provision for the use of one family of such an amount of land, as a result of cultivation of which in ways usual for the given area, the most urgent needs of this family could be covered.
But the question arises, what needs should be taken as a basis? After all, based on them, it is necessary to determine the site. And the needs were different not only within the entire Russian state, but also within individual provinces and districts and depended on a number of specific circumstances.
The Social Revolutionaries considered the maximum labor standard to be the amount of land that a peasant family could cultivate without hiring labor. But this labor standard did not combine well with equal land use. The point here is the difference in the labor force of peasant farms. If we assume that for a family consisting of two adult workers, the labor norm will be “A” hectares of land, then if there are four adult workers, the norm of peasant land will not be “A + A”, as required by the idea of equalization, but “A +A+a" hectares, where "a" is some additional plot of land necessary to employ the newly emerged labor force formed by a cooperation of 4 people. Thus, simple circuit The Socialist Revolutionaries still contradicted reality.
The general democratic demands and the path to socialism in the city in the Socialist Revolutionary program were practically no different from the path predetermined by the European social democratic parties. The Socialist Revolutionary program included the typical demands for a revolutionary democracy for a republic, political freedoms, national equality, and universal suffrage.
Considerable space was devoted to the national question. It was covered more volume and wider than other parties did. Such provisions were recorded as complete freedom of conscience, speech, press, meetings and unions; freedom of movement, choice of occupation and freedom to strike; universal and equal suffrage for every citizen at least 20 years of age, without distinction of gender, religion or nationality, subject to a direct election system and closed voting. In addition, it was assumed that a democratic republic would be established on these principles with broad autonomy for regions and communities, both urban and rural; recognition of nations' unconditional right to self-determination; introduction of the native language into all local, public and government agencies. Establishment of compulsory, equal general secular education for all at state expense; complete separation of church and state and the declaration of religion as a private matter for everyone.
These demands were practically identical to the demands of the Social Democrats known at that time. But there were two significant additions to the Socialist Revolutionary program. They advocated the greatest possible use of federal relations between individual nationalities, and in “regions with a mixed population, the right of each nationality to a share in the budget proportional to its size, intended for cultural and educational purposes, and the disposal of these funds on the basis of self-government.”
In addition to the political field, the Socialist Revolutionary program defines measures in the field of legal, national economic, and in matters of communal, municipal and zemstvo economy. Here we are talking about election, replacement at any time and jurisdiction of all officials, including deputies and judges, and free legal proceedings. On the introduction of a progressive tax on income and inheritance, exemption from tax on small incomes. On the protection of the spiritual and physical forces of the working class in the city and countryside.
On the reduction of working hours, state insurance, the prohibition of overtime work, the work of minors under 16 years of age, the restriction of the work of minors, the prohibition of child and female labor in certain branches of production and during certain periods, continuous weekly rest. The Socialist Revolutionary Party advocated the development of all kinds of public services and enterprises (free medical care, wide credit for the development of the labor economy, communization of water supply, lighting, roads and means of communication), etc. It was written in the program that the Socialist Revolutionary Party would defend, support or tear through these measures with its revolutionary struggle.
A specific feature of the tactics of the Social Revolutionaries, inherited from the People's Volya, was individual terror directed against representatives of the highest tsarist administration (the murder of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the attempt on the life of the Moscow Governor General F.V. Dubasov, P.A. Stolypin and etc.) Total in 1905-1907. The Social Revolutionaries carried out 220 terrorist attacks. The victims of their terror during the revolution were 242 people (of which 162 people were killed). During the revolution, with such acts the Socialist Revolutionaries tried to wrest the constitution and civil liberties from the tsarist government. Terror for the Socialist Revolutionaries was the main means of fighting against the autocracy.
In general, revolutionary terror had no effect in 1905-1907. great influence on the course of events, although one should not deny its significance as a factor in the disorganization of power and the activation of the masses.
However, the Social Revolutionaries were not thugs, hung with bombs and revolvers. Mostly they were people who painfully comprehended the criteria of good and evil, their right to dispose of other people's lives. Of course, the Socialist-Revolutionaries have many victims on their conscience. But this apparent determination was not simply given to them. Savinkov, a writer, Socialist Revolutionary theorist, terrorist, political figure, writes in his “Memoirs” that Kalyaev, who killed Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich in February 1905, “loved the revolution so deeply and tenderly, as only those who love it gives his life for it, seeing in terror “not only the best form of political struggle, but also a moral, perhaps religious sacrifice.”
Among the Social Revolutionaries there were also “knights without fear or reproach”, who did not experience any particular doubts. Terrorist Karpovich told Savinkov: “They are hanging us - we must hang. With clean hands and gloves, you can’t do terror. Let thousands and tens of thousands die - it is necessary to achieve victory. The peasants are burning their estates - let them burn... Now is not the time to be sentimental - in war, as in war.” And here Savinkov writes: “But he himself did not expropriate or burn the estates. And I don’t know how many people I’ve met in my life who, behind their outward harshness, would keep such a tender and loving heart as Karpovich.”
These painful, almost always insoluble contradictions of actions, characters, destinies, and ideas permeate the history of the Socialist Revolutionary movement. The Social Revolutionaries firmly believed that by eliminating those governors, grand dukes, and gendarmerie officers who would be recognized as the most criminal and dangerous enemies of freedom, they would be able to establish the reign of justice in the country. But, subjectively fighting for a certain bright future and fearlessly sacrificing themselves, the Socialist Revolutionaries actually cleared the way for immoral adventurers, devoid of any doubts or hesitations.
Not all terrorist attacks ended successfully; many militants were arrested and executed. The Socialist Revolutionary terror led to unnecessary casualties among revolutionaries and diverted their strength and material resources from working among the masses. In addition, the revolutionaries actually committed lynching, although they justified their actions by the interests of the people and the revolution. One violence inevitably gave rise to another, and the spilled blood was usually washed away with new blood, creating some kind of vicious circle.
Most of the minor attempts remained unknown, but one murder by 20-year-old girl Maria Spiridonova of the Tambov “pacifier” of the peasants Luzhenovsky, thanks to the newspaper “Rus”, thundered throughout the world. The murder of Luzhenovsky showed the world all the horror of Russian reality: the cruelty of the authorities (Spiridonova was not only beaten so that the doctor could not examine for a week whether her eye was intact, but they were also raped) and brought to the point of readiness sacrificing their lives alienating young people from the government.
Thanks to the protests of the world community, Spiridonova was not executed. The execution was replaced by hard labor. The regime at the Akatui penal servitude in 1906 was soft, and there Spiridonova, Proshyan, Bitsenko - the future Left Socialist Revolutionary leaders - walked through the taiga and indulged in their wildest dreams of socialism. The Aka-Tui convicts were idealists of the highest standard, loyal comrades, unmercenaries, as alien to the everyday side of life as is possible only in Russia. For example, when in December 1917, Proshyan, appointed People's Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs, came to take drugs - in a blouse and tattered felt boots - the doorman did not let him go further than the front hall.
But the fact is that the entire parliamentary and Duma experience of the country’s development passed them by. By 1917 they came with 10 years of experience of hard labor or exile, perhaps greater maximalists than they were in their youth.
The Social Revolutionaries also resorted to such a very dubious means of revolutionary struggle as expropriation. This was an extreme means of replenishing the party coffers, but the “exes” concealed the threat of the revolutionaries’ activities degenerating into political banditry, especially since they were often accompanied by the murders of innocent people.
During the First Revolution, Socialist Revolutionary organizations began to grow rapidly. With the manifesto of October 17, 1905, an amnesty was declared, and revolutionary emigrants began to return. The year 1905 became the apogee of neo-populist revolutionary democracy. During this period, the party openly calls on the peasants to seize the land of the landlords, but not by individual peasants, but by entire villages or societies.
The Social Revolutionaries had different views on the role of the party in that period. The right-wing neo-populists believed that it was necessary to liquidate the illegal party, that it could move to a legal position, since political freedoms had already been won.
V. Chernov believed that this was premature. That the most pressing problem facing the party is the party's reach to the masses. He believed that a pariah who had just emerged from underground would not be isolated from the people if he used the emerging mass organizations. Therefore, the Social Revolutionaries focused on working in trade unions, councils, the All-Russian Peasant Union, the All-Russian Railway Union and the Union of Postal and Telegraph Employees.
During the years of the revolution, the Socialist Revolutionaries launched extensive propaganda and agitation activities. At various times during this period, more than 100 Socialist Revolutionary newspapers were published, proclamations, flyers, brochures, etc. were printed and distributed in millions of copies.
When the election campaign to the First State Duma began, the first party congress decided to boycott the elections. However, some Socialist Revolutionaries took part in the elections, although many of the Socialist Revolutionary organizations issued leaflets calling for a boycott of the Duma and preparations for an armed uprising. But the Central Committee of the Party in its “Bulletin” (March 1906) proposed not to force events, but to use the situation of won political freedoms to expand agitation and organized work among the masses. The Party Council (the highest body between party congresses, which included members of the Central Committee and the Central Organ and one representative each from regional organizations) adopted a special resolution on the Duma. Considering that the Duma was unable to meet the aspirations of the people, the Council at the same time noted the opposition of its majority and the presence of workers and peasants in it. From this the conclusion was drawn about the inevitability of the Duma’s struggle with the government and the need to use this struggle to develop the revolutionary consciousness and mood of the masses. The Social Revolutionaries actively influenced the peasant faction in the First Duma.
The defeat of the armed uprisings in 1905-1906, the spread of hopes for the Duma among the people and the development of constitutional illusions in connection with this, the decrease in the revolutionary pressure of the masses - all this steadily led to a change in sentiment among the Socialist Revolutionaries. In particular, this was manifested in the exaggeration of the importance of the Duma for the development of the revolutionary process and unity. The Social Revolutionaries began to view the Duma as a weapon in the struggle for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. There were hesitations in tactics in relation to the Cadet Party. From complete rejection of the Cadets and exposing them as traitors to the revolution, the Socialist-Revolutionaries came to the recognition that the Cadets were not enemies of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, and agreements with them were possible. This was especially evident during the election campaign in the Second Duma and in the Duma itself. Then the Socialist Revolutionaries, meeting the people's socialists and Trudoviks halfway in the name of creating a populist bloc, adopted many of the tactical guidelines of the Cadets.
It is impossible to unambiguously assess the activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries during the retreat of the revolution. The Socialist Revolutionary Party did not stop working, propagating its program demands and slogans, which were of a revolutionary-democratic nature. The defeat of the revolution dramatically changed the situation in which the Socialist Revolutionary Party operated. But the Socialist Revolutionaries did not consider the onset of reaction to be the end of the revolution. Chernov wrote about the inevitability of a new revolutionary explosion, and all the events of 1905-1907. viewed only as a prologue to the revolution.
The III Party Council (July 1907) identified the immediate goals: gathering strength both in the party and among the masses, and as the next task - strengthening political terror. At the same time, the participation of the Social Revolutionaries in the Third Duma was rejected. V. Chernov called on the Socialist Revolutionaries to join trade unions, cooperatives, clubs, educational societies and fight “the disdainful attitude towards all this “culturalism.” Preparations for an armed uprising were not removed from the agenda either.
But the party had no strength, it was disintegrating. The intelligentsia left the party, organizations in Russia perished under police attacks. Printing houses, warehouses with weapons and books were liquidated.
The strongest blow to the party was dealt by Stolypin's agrarian reform, aimed at destroying the community - the ideological basis of the Socialist Revolutionary "socialization".
The crisis that erupted in connection with the exposure of Yevno Azef, who for many years was an agent of the secret police and at the same time the head of the Combat Organization, a member of the Central Committee of the party, completed the process of collapse of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.
In May 1909, the V Party Council accepted the resignation of the Central Committee. A new Central Committee was elected. But soon he too ceased to exist. The party began to be led by a group of figures called the “Foreign Delegation”, and the “Banner of Labor” gradually began to lose its position as the central body.
I World War caused another split in the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The overwhelming majority of Socialist Revolutionaries abroad zealously defended the positions of social chauvinism. The other part, led by V.M. Chernov and M.A. Nathanson took internationalist positions.
In the brochure “War and the Third Force,” Chernov wrote that the duty of the left movement in socialism is to oppose “any idealization of war and any liquidation - in view of war - of the basic internal work of socialism.” The international labor movement must be the “third force” that is called upon to intervene in the struggle of the imperialist forces. All the efforts of left-wing socialists should be directed towards its creation and the development of a general socialist peace program.
V.M. Chernov called on the socialist parties to move “to a revolutionary attack on the foundations of bourgeois domination and bourgeois property.” He defined the tactics of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in these conditions as “transforming the military crisis experienced by the civilized world into a revolutionary crisis.” Chernov wrote that it is possible that Russia will be the country that will give impetus to the reorganization of the world on socialist principles.
The February Revolution of 1917 was a major turning point in the history of Russia. The autocracy fell. By the summer of 1917, the Socialist Revolutionaries became the largest political party, numbering over 400 thousand people in their ranks. Having a majority in the Petrograd Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks on February 28, 1917 rejected the opportunity to form a Provisional Government from the Council, and on March 1 decided to entrust the formation of the government to the Provisional Committee of the State Duma.
In April 1917, Chernov, together with a group of Socialist Revolutionaries, arrived in Petrograd. At the III Congress of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (May-June 1917), he was again elected to the Central Committee. After the April crisis of the Provisional Government, on May 4, 1917, the Petrograd Soviet adopted a resolution on the formation of a coalition Provisional Government, which now included 6 socialist ministers, including V.M. Chernov as Minister of Agriculture. He also became a member of the Main Land Committee, which was entrusted with the task of preparing land reform.
Now the Socialist Revolutionary Party had the opportunity to directly implement its program. But she chose the top version of agrarian reform. The resolution of the Third Congress of the Socialist Revolutionary Party proposed to carry out only preparatory measures for the future socialization of the land until the Constituent Assembly. Before the Constituent Assembly, all lands had to be transferred to the jurisdiction of local land committees, which were given the right to decide all issues related to the lease. A law was passed banning land transactions before the Constituent Assembly.
This law caused a storm of indignation among landowners, who were deprived of the right to sell their lands on the eve of land reform. An instruction was issued by the Land Committee, which established supervision over the exploitation of arable and hay lands and the accounting of uncultivated land. Chernov believed that some changes in land relations were necessary before the Constituent Assembly. But not a single law or instruction that seriously addressed the peasantry was issued.
After the July political crisis, the agrarian policy of the Ministry of Agriculture shifted to the right. But the leadership of the Socialist Revolutionary Party feared that the peasant movement would completely get out of control, and they tried to put pressure on the Cadets to adopt temporary agrarian legislation. To implement this legislation, it was necessary to break with the policy of conciliation. However, the same Chernov, who was the first to realize that it was impossible to work in the same government with the Cadets, did not dare to break with them.
He chose maneuvering tactics, trying to convince the bourgeoisie and landowners to make concessions. At the same time, he called on the peasants not to seize landowners’ lands and not to stray from the position of “legality.” In August, Chernov resigned; it coincided with the attempted mutiny of General L.G. Kornilov. In connection with the Kornilov rebellion, the leadership of the Socialist Revolutionaries initially sided with the formation of a “uniform socialist government,” i.e. government, consisting of representatives of socialist parties, but soon again began to look for a compromise with the bourgeoisie.
The new government, in which the majority of portfolios belonged to socialist ministers, turned to repression against workers, soldiers, and began to participate in punitive measures against the countryside, which led to peasant uprisings.
So, being in power after the fall of the autocracy, the Social Revolutionaries were unable to implement their main program demands
It must be said that already in the spring - summer of 1917, the left wing, numbering 42 people, declared itself in the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which in November 1917 was constituted into the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party. The left wing of the Socialist Revolutionary Party revealed fundamental differences on programmatic issues with the rest of the party.
For example, on the issue of land, they insisted on transferring the land to us peasants without ransom. They were against the coalition with the Cadets, opposed the war, and took internationalist positions towards it.
After the July crisis, the Left Socialist Revolutionary faction issued a declaration in which it sharply dissociated itself from the policies of its Central Committee. The left became more active in Riga, Reveli, Novgorod, Taganrog, Saratov, Minsk, Pskov, Odessa, Moscow, Tver and Kostroma provinces. Since the spring, they have occupied strong positions in Voronezh, Kharkov, Kazan, and Kronstadt.
The Socialist Revolutionaries also reacted differently to the October Revolution. Representatives of all major socialist parties in Russia were present at the Second Congress of Soviets. The left wing of the Socialist Revolutionary Party supported the Bolsheviks. The right-wing Social Revolutionaries believed that an armed coup had occurred, which was not based on the will of the majority of the people. And this will only lead to civil war. At the Second Congress of Soviets, they insisted on the formation of a government based on all layers of democracy, including the Provisional Government. But the idea of negotiations with the Provisional Government was rejected by the majority of delegates. And the Right Socialist Revolutionaries abandon the congress. Together with the right-wing Mensheviks, they set a goal to gather social forces in order to provide stubborn resistance to the Bolsheviks’ attempts to seize power. They do not give up hope of convening a Constituent Assembly.
On the evening of October 25, 1917, during the Second Congress of Soviets, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries organized a faction. They remained at the congress and insisted on the formation of a government based, if not on all, then at least on the majority of revolutionary democracy. The Bolsheviks invited them to join the first Soviet government, but the left rejected this offer, because this would have completely severed their ties with the party members who left the congress. And this would exclude the possibility of their mediation between the Bolsheviks and the departed part of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. In addition, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries believed that 2-3 ministerial portfolios were too few to reveal their own identity, not to get lost, and not to end up as “petitioners in the Bolshevik front.”
Undoubtedly, the refusal to enter the Council of People's Commissars was not final. The Bolsheviks, realizing this, clearly outlined the platform for a possible agreement. With each passing hour, the understanding among the leadership of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries grew that isolation from the Bolsheviks was disastrous. M. Spiridonova showed particular activity in this direction, and her voice was listened to with extraordinary attention: she was the recognized leader, the soul, the conscience of the left wing of the party.
For cooperation with the Bolsheviks, the IV Congress of the Socialist Revolutionary Party confirmed the previously adopted resolutions of the Central Committee on the exclusion of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries from its ranks. In November 1917, the left formed their own party - the party of left socialists-revolutionaries.
In December 1917, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries shared power in the government with the Bolsheviks. Steinberg became People's Commissar of Justice, Proshyan - People's Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs, Trutovsky - People's Commissar for Local Government, Karelin - People's Commissar of Property Russian Republic, Kolegayev - People's Commissar of Agriculture, Brilliantov and Algasov - People's Commissars without portfolios.
The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries were also represented in the government of Soviet Ukraine and occupied responsible positions in the Red Army, in the navy, in the Cheka, and in local Soviets. On a parity basis, the Bolsheviks shared the leadership of the departments of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.
What did the program requirements of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party include? In the political field: the dictatorship of the working people, the Soviet Republic, the free federation of Soviet republics, the fullness of local executive power, direct, equal, secret voting, the right to recall deputies, election by labor organizations, the duty of reporting to voters. Ensuring freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly and association. The right to existence, to work, to land, to upbringing and education.
In questions work program: workers' control over production, which is understood not as the giving of factories and factories to the workers, railways- railway workers, etc., but as organized centralized control over production on a national scale, as a transitional step to the nationalization and socialization of enterprises.
For the peasantry: the demand for the socialization of the land. The Socialist Revolutionary Party set itself the task of winning the peasants to its side. It was the concession of the Bolsheviks to the peasants in the Decree on Land (the Decree on Land is a Socialist Revolutionary project) that largely contributed to the establishment of cooperation between the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolsheviks. The Left Socialist Revolutionaries explained that the socialization of land is a transitional form of land use. Socialization did not involve first driving landowners from their homes, and then proceeding to a general equalization of allotment, starting with farm laborers and proletarians. On the contrary, the objectives of socialization were to take away from those who have a surplus in favor of those who have a shortage of land to equalize the labor standard, and to give everyone the opportunity to work on the land.
According to the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, peasant communities, legitimately fearing the fragmentation of land into small plots, should strengthen forms of joint cultivation and establish quite consistent, from the point of view of socialism, norms for the distribution of labor products among consumers, regardless of the working capacity of one or another member of the working community.
In their opinion, since the basis of socialization is the principle of creation, hence the desire to conduct collective forms of economy as more productive compared to individual ones. By increasing productivity, establishing new social relations in the countryside, and implementing the principle of collective rights, the socialization of the land leads directly to socialist forms of economy.
At the same time, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries believed that the unification of peasants and workers is the key to further successful struggle for a better future for the oppressed classes, for socialism.
So, the right Socialist Revolutionaries characterized the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks as a crime against the Motherland and the revolution. Chernov considered a socialist revolution in Russia impossible, since the country was economically upset and economically undeveloped. He called what happened on October 25 an anarcho-Bolshevik uprising. All hope was placed on the transfer of power to the Constituent Assembly, although the importance of the activities of the Soviets was emphasized.
In principle, the Social Revolutionaries did not object to the slogans “Power to the Soviets!”, “Land to the peasants!”, “Peace to the peoples!” They only stipulated their legal implementation by the decision of the popularly elected Constituent Assembly. Having failed to regain lost power peacefully through the idea of creating a homogeneous socialist government, they made a second attempt - through the Constituent Assembly.
As a result of the first free elections 715 deputies were elected to the Constituent Assembly, of which 370 were Socialist Revolutionaries, i.e. 51.8%. January 5, 1918 Constituent Assembly chaired by V.M. Chernov adopted a law on land, an appeal to the Allied powers for peace, and proclaimed the Russian Democratic Federative Republic. But all this was secondary and had no significance. The Bolsheviks were the first to implement these decrees.
The Bolsheviks dispersed the Constituent Assembly. And the Socialist Revolutionaries determined that the elimination of Bolshevik power was the next and urgent task of all democracy. The Socialist Revolutionary Party could not come to terms with the policies pursued by the Bolsheviks. At the beginning of 1918, Chernov wrote that the policy of the RCP (b) “is trying to jump, by means of decrees, over the natural organic processes of the growth of the proletariat in political, cultural and social relations, representing some kind of original, original, truly Russian “decree socialism” or "socialist maternity leave".
According to the Central Committee of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, “in this situation, socialism turns into a caricature, being reduced to a system of equalizing everyone to a lower and even decreasing level ... of all culture and the smuggled revival of the most primitive forms of economic life,” therefore, “Bolshevik communism is nothing about “has nothing in common with socialism and therefore can only compromise itself.”
They criticized economic policy the Bolsheviks, the measures they proposed to overcome the industrial crisis and their agrarian program. The Social Revolutionaries believed that the gains of the February Revolution were partly stolen, partly mutilated by the Bolshevik government, that “this coup” caused a fierce civil war throughout the country, “without Brest and the October Revolution, Russia would have already tasted the benefits of peace,” and so Russia is still engulfed in an unbreakable fiery ring of fratricidal war; The Bolsheviks’ stake on world revolution only means that they “believed in their own strength” and were waiting for “salvation only from the outside.”
The intransigence of the Socialist-Revolutionaries towards the Bolsheviks was also determined by the fact that “the Bolsheviks, having rejected the basic principles of socialism - freedom and democracy - and replacing them with dictatorship and the tyranny of an insignificant minority over the majority, thereby erased themselves from the ranks of socialism.”
In June 1918, the right Socialist Revolutionaries led the overthrow of Soviet power in Samara, then in Simbirsk and Kazan. They acted with the help of Czechoslovak legionnaires and people's army, created within the Samara Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch).
As Chernov later recalled, they explained their armed uprising in the Volga region by the illegal dispersal of the Constituent Assembly. They saw at the beginning of the civil war a struggle between two democracies - the Soviet one and the one that recognized the power of the Constituent Assembly. They justified their speech by the fact that the food policy of the Soviet government aroused the indignation of the peasants, and they, as a peasant party, should have led the fight for their rights.
However, there was no unity among the leaders of the right Socialist Revolutionaries. The most right-wing of them insisted on abandoning the Brest Peace Treaty, on resuming Russia's participation in the world war, and only after that transferring power to the Constituent Assembly. Others, with more left-wing views, called for the resumption of the work of the Constituent Assembly, were against the civil war and advocated cooperation with the Bolsheviks, because “Bolshevism turned out to be not a fleeting storm, but a long-term phenomenon, and the influx of masses towards it at the expense of central democracy undoubtedly continues in the outlying regions of Russia.”
After the defeat of the Samara Komuch by the Red Army, the right Socialist Revolutionaries in September 1918 took an active part in the Ufa State Conference, which elected the Directory, which pledged to transfer power to the Constituent Assembly on January 1, 1919, if it met.
However, on November 18, the Kolchak coup took place. Members of the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party living in Ufa, having learned about Kolchak’s coming to power, accepted an appeal to fight the dictator. But soon many of them were arrested by the Kolchakites. Then the remaining members of the Samara Committee of the Constituent Assembly, headed by its chairman V.K. Volsky declared their intention to stop the armed struggle with Soviet power and enter into negotiations with it. But their condition for cooperation was the creation of an all-Russian government consisting of representatives of all socialist parties and the convening of a new Constituent Assembly.
At Lenin’s suggestion, the Ufa Revolutionary Committee entered into negotiations with them without any conditions. An agreement was reached, and this part of the Social Revolutionaries created their own group “People”.
In response, the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party stated that the actions taken by Volsky and others were their own business. The Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionaries still believes that “the creation of a united revolutionary front against any dictatorship is considered possible by the Socialist Revolutionary organizations only on the basis of fulfilling the basic demands of democracy: the convening of the Constituent Assembly and the restoration of all freedoms (speech, press, assembly, agitation, etc. ), won by the February Revolution, and subject to the end of the civil war within democracy."
Over the following years, the Socialist Revolutionaries did not play any active role in the political and state life of the country. At the IX Council of their party (June 1919), they decided to “stop the armed struggle against the Bolshevik government and replace it with an ordinary political struggle.”
But 2 years later, in July - August 1921, the X Council of the Socialist Revolutionary Party conspiratorially met in Samara, at which it was stated that “the question of the revolutionary overthrow of the dictatorship of the Communist Party with all the force of iron necessity is put on the agenda , becomes a question of the existence of Russian labor democracy.”
By that time, the Socialist Revolutionaries had 2 leadership centers: “Foreign delegation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party” and “Central Bureau of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in Russia.” The first ones faced a long emigration, publishing magazines, writing memoirs. Secondly, the political trial in July - August 1922.
At the end of February 1922, the upcoming trial of the right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries on charges of actions committed during the civil war was announced in Moscow. The accusation against the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was based on the testimony of two former members of the Combat Organization - Lydia Konopleva and her husband G. Semenov (Vasiliev). By that time, they were not members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and according to rumors they belonged to the RCP (b). They presented their testimony in a brochure published in February 1922 in Berlin, which, in the opinion of the Socialist Revolutionary leaders, was cynical, falsifying and provocative. This brochure alleged the involvement of leading party functionaries in attempts to assassinate V.I. Lenina, L.D. Trotsky, G.E. Zinoviev and other Bolshevik leaders at the beginning of the revolution.
Figures of the revolutionary movement with an impeccable past, who spent many years in pre-revolutionary prisons and hard labor, were involved in the 1922 trial. Announcement about trial was preceded by a long stay (since 1920) of the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in prison without the presentation of the corresponding specific charges. The notice of the trial was perceived by everyone (without distinction of political affiliation) as a warning about the imminent execution of old revolutionaries and as a harbinger of a new stage in the liquidation of the socialist movement in Russia. (In the spring of 1922 there were widespread arrests among the Mensheviks of Russia).
At the head of the public struggle against the upcoming reprisal against the Socialist Revolutionaries were the leaders of the Menshevik Party, who were in exile in Berlin. Under pressure from public opinion in socialist Europe, N. Bukharin and K. Radek gave written assurances that the death sentence would not be imposed at the upcoming trial and would not even be requested by the prosecutors.
However, Lenin found this agreement to infringe on the sovereignty of Soviet Russia, and People's Commissar of Justice D.I. Kursky publicly stated that this agreement does not bind the Moscow court in any way. The trial, which opened in early June, lasted 50 days. Prominent representatives of the Western socialist movement, who came by agreement to Moscow to defend the defendants, were subjected to organized persecution and were forced to leave the trial on June 22. Following them, the Russian lawyers left the courtroom. The accused were left without formal legal protection. It became clear that the death sentence for the leaders of the socialist revolutionaries was inevitable.
“The trial of the socialist revolutionaries took on the cynical character of a public preparation for the murder of people who sincerely served the cause of the liberation of the Russian people,” wrote M. Gorky to A. France.
The verdict in the Socialist Revolutionary case, passed on August 7, provided for the death penalty in relation to 12 members of the party's Central Committee. However, by the decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of August 9, the execution of the death sentence was suspended for an indefinite period and made dependent on the resumption or non-resumption of the hostile activities of the Socialist Revolutionary Party against the Soviet regime.
However, the decision to suspend death sentences was not immediately communicated to the convicts, and for a long time they did not know when the sentence passed on them would be carried out.
Later, on January 14, 1924, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee again considered the issue of the death penalty and replaced execution with a five-year prison sentence and exile.
In March 1923, the Socialist Revolutionaries decided to dissolve their party in Soviet Russia. In November 1923, a congress of Socialist Revolutionaries who were in exile took place. A foreign organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was organized. But the Socialist Revolutionary emigration also split into groups. Chernov’s group was in the position of a kind of “party center,” claiming special powers to speak on behalf of the party abroad, allegedly received by it from the Central Committee.
But his group soon broke up, because... none of its members recognized a single leadership and did not want to obey Chernov. In 1927, Chernov was forced to sign a protocol according to which he did not have emergency powers giving him the right to speak on behalf of the party. As the leader of an influential political party V.M. Chernov ceased to exist from the moment of emigration and due to the complete collapse of the Socialist Revolutionary Party both in Russia and abroad.
During the period 1920-1931. V.M. Chernov settled in Prague, where he published the magazine “Revolutionary Russia”. All his journalism and published works were of a clearly anti-Soviet nature.
As for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, it must be said that, realizing the need to cooperate with the Bolsheviks, they did not accept their tactics and did not give up hope of gaining the support of the majority not only in the Socialist Revolutionary Party, but also in the governing bodies of the country.
At the First Congress of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party on November 21, 1917, M. Spiridonova said about the Bolsheviks: “No matter how alien their rough steps are to us, we are in close contact with them, because the masses follow them, brought out of a state of stagnation.”
She believed that the influence of the Bolsheviks on the masses was temporary, since the Bolsheviks “have no inspiration, no religious enthusiasm, everything breathes hatred and bitterness. These feelings are good during fierce struggles and barricades. But in the second stage of the struggle, when organic work is needed, when it is necessary to create a new life based on love and altruism, then the Bolsheviks will go bankrupt. We, keeping the behests of our fighters, must always remember the second stage of the struggle.”
The alliance of the Bolsheviks with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries was short-lived. The fact is that one of them critical issues facing the revolution was a way out of the imperialist war. It must be said that at the beginning, the majority of the PLSR Central Committee supported the conclusion of an agreement with Germany. But when in February 1918 the German delegation set new, much more difficult peace conditions, the Social Revolutionaries spoke out against concluding a treaty. And after its ratification by the IV All-Russian Congress of Soviets, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries withdrew from the Council of People's Commissars.
However, M. Spiridonova continued to support the position of Lenin and his supporters. “The peace was signed not by us and not by the Bolsheviks,” she said in a polemic with Komkov at the Second Congress of the PLSR, “it was signed by need, hunger, the reluctance of the entire people - exhausted, tired - to fight. And which of us will say that the party of left socialists-revolutionaries, if it represented only power, would have acted differently than the Bolshevik party acted? Spiridonova sharply rejected the calls of some congress delegates to provoke the rupture of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and unleash a “revolutionary war” against German imperialism.
But already in June 1918, she sharply changed her position, including in relation to the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty, since she closely linked it with the subsequent policy of the Bolshevik Party towards the peasants. At this time, a decree on food dictatorship was adopted, according to which all food policy was centralized and a fight was declared against all “bread holders” in the countryside. The Social Revolutionaries did not object to the fight against the kulaks, but they were afraid that the blow would fall on the small and middle peasantry. The decree obliged every owner of grain to hand over it, declared everyone who had a surplus and did not take it to dumping points as enemies of the people.
The opposition of the rural poor to the “toiling peasantry” seemed senseless and even blasphemous to the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. They called the committees of the poor nothing more than “committees of idlers.” Spiridonova accused the Bolsheviks of curtailing the socialization of the land, replacing it with nationalization, of a food dictatorship, of organizing food detachments that forcibly requisitioned bread from the peasants, and of establishing committees of the poor.
At the V Congress of Soviets (July 4-10, 1918), Spiridonova warned: “We will fight on the ground, and the committees of the rural poor will not have a place for themselves... if the Bolsheviks do not stop imposing committees of the poor, then the left socialist revolutionaries will take the same revolvers, the same bombs that they used in the fight against tsarist officials.”
Kamkov echoed her: “We will throw out not only your detachments, but also your committees.” According to Kamkov, workers joined these detachments to plunder the village.
This was confirmed by the letters of the peasants, which they sent to the Central Committee of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party and personally to Spiridonova: “When the Bolshevik detachment approached, they put all their shirts and even women’s sweaters on themselves in order to prevent pain on the body, but the Red Army soldiers became so skilled that they had two shirts down at once -fell into the body of a man - a worker. They then soaked them in a bathhouse or simply in a pond; some did not lie down on their backs for several weeks. They took everything clean from us, all the women’s clothes and canvases, the men’s jackets, watches and shoes, and there’s nothing to say about bread...
Our mother, tell me who to go to now, everyone in our village is poor and hungry, we didn’t sow well - there weren’t enough seeds - we had three fists, we robbed them long ago, we don’t have a “bourgeoisie”, we have allotted ¾ - ½ per head, there was no purchased land, but an indemnity and a fine were imposed on us, we beat our Bolshevik commissar, he hurt us painfully. We were spanked a lot, we can’t tell you. Those who had a party card from the communists were not flogged.”
The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries believed that such a situation in the countryside had developed because the Bolsheviks followed Germany’s lead, gave it all the country’s breadbaskets, and doomed the rest of Russia to famine.
On June 24, 1918, the Central Committee of the PLSR decided to break the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by organizing terrorist attacks against the most prominent representatives of German imperialism. On July 6, 1918, the German Ambassador to Russia, Count Mirbach, was killed by the Left Social Revolutionaries. For a long time there was a point of view that this was an anti-Soviet, anti-Bolshevik rebellion. But the documents indicate otherwise. The Central Committee of the PLSR explained that the murder was carried out in order to stop the conquest of working Russia by German capital. This, by the way, was confirmed by Ya.M. Sverdlov, speaking at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on July 15, 1918.
After the events of July 6-7, the Socialist Revolutionary Party went underground, according to the decision of its Central Committee. But since a limited circle of people knew about the rebellion and its preparation, many Socialist Revolutionary organizations condemned the rebellion.
In August - September 1918, two independent parties were formed from among the left Socialist Revolutionaries who condemned the rebellion: revolutionary communists and populists - communists. Many printed organs of the Socialist Revolutionaries were closed, cases of leaving the party became more frequent, and contradictions between the “tops” and “bottoms” of the left Socialist Revolutionaries grew. The ultra-left created the terrorist organization “All-Russian Headquarters of Revolutionary Partisans.” However, the civil war again and again raised the question of the unacceptability of struggle - especially armed, terrorist - against the Bolsheviks. It is characteristic that it was in the summer of 1919, at the most dramatic moment, when Soviet power was hanging by a thread, that the Central Committee of the PLSR decided by a majority vote to support the ruling party.
In October 1919, a circular letter was distributed among Left Socialist Revolutionary organizations calling on various trends in the party to unite on the basis of renouncing confrontation with the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). And in April - May 1920, in connection with the Polish offensive, it was recognized as necessary to actively participate in the life of the Soviets. A specially adopted resolution contained a call to fight counter-revolution, support the Red Army, participate in social construction and overcome devastation.
But this was not the generally accepted view. Disagreements led to the fact that in the spring of 1920 the Central Committee actually ceased to exist as a single body. The party slowly faded away. Government repression played a significant role in this. Some of the leaders of the PLSR were in prison or exile, some emigrated, some moved away from political activity. Many at different times joined the RCP (b). By the end of 1922, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party virtually ceased to exist.
As for M. Spiridonova, she was arrested several times after she retired from political activity: in 1923 for attempting to flee abroad, in 1930 during the persecution of former socialists. The last time was in 1937, when the “final blow” was dealt to the former socialists. She was charged with preparing an assassination attempt on members of the government of Bashkiria and K.E. Voroshilov, who was planning to come to Ufa.
By that time, she was serving her previous sentence, working as an economist in the credit planning department of the Bashkir office of the State Bank. She no longer posed any political threat. A sick, almost blind woman. The only dangerous thing was her name, thoroughly forgotten in the country, but often mentioned in socialist circles abroad.
January 7, 1938 M.A. Spiridonova was sentenced to 25 years in prison. She served her sentence in Oryol prison. But shortly before German tanks burst into Oryol, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR changed its verdict, imposing capital punishment on her. On September 11, 1941, the sentence was carried out. Kh.G. was shot together with Spiridonova. Rakovsky, D.D. Pletnev, F.I. Goloshchekin and other Soviet and party workers, whom the administration of the Oryol prison and the NKVD did not find it possible, unlike criminals, to evacuate deep into the country.
Thus, both the right and left Socialist Revolutionaries lived out their lives in prisons and exile. Almost everyone who did not die earlier died during Stalin's terror.
It is known that in the period following the overthrow of the monarchy, the most influential political force in Russia was the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR), which numbered about a million of its followers. However, despite the fact that its representatives occupied a number of prominent positions in the government of the country, and the program was supported by the majority of citizens, the Socialist Revolutionaries failed to retain power in their hands. The revolutionary year of 1917 became a period of their triumph and the beginning of a tragedy.
The birth of a new party
In January 1902, the underground newspaper Revolutionary Russia, published abroad, notified its readers of the appearance on the political horizon of a new party, whose members called themselves social revolutionaries. It is unlikely that this event received a significant resonance in society at that moment, since at that time structures similar to it often appeared and disappeared. Nevertheless, the creation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was a significant milestone in Russian history.
Despite its publication in 1902, its creation occurred much earlier than was announced in the newspaper. Eight years earlier, an illegal revolutionary circle had formed in Saratov, which had close ties with the local branch of the Narodnaya Volya party, which by that time was reaching its end. last days. When it was finally liquidated by the secret police, members of the circle began to act independently and two years later they developed their own program.
Initially, it was distributed in the form of leaflets printed on a hectograph - a very primitive printing device, which nevertheless made it possible to make the required number of prints. This document was published in the form of a brochure only in 1900, published in the printing house of one of the foreign branches of the party that had appeared by that time.
Merger of two branches of the party
In 1897, members of the Saratov circle, led by Andrei Argunov, moved to Moscow and in a new place began to call their organization the Northern Union of Socialist Revolutionaries. They had to introduce this geographical clarification into the name, since similar organizations, whose members also called themselves socialist-revolutionaries, had appeared by that time in Odessa, Kharkov, Poltava and a number of other cities. They in turn became known as the Southern Union. In 1904, these two branches of an essentially single organization merged, as a result of which the well-known Socialist Revolutionary Party was formed. It was headed by permanent leader Viktor Chernov (his photo is presented in the article).
The tasks that the Social Revolutionaries set for themselves
The program of the Social Revolutionary Party had a number of points that distinguished it from most of the political organizations that existed at that time. Among them were:
- The formation of the Russian state on a federal basis, in which it will consist of independent territories (federal subjects) with the right to self-determination.
- Universal suffrage, extending to citizens over 20 years of age, regardless of gender, nationality or religion;
- Guarantee of respect for basic civil liberties, such as freedom of conscience, speech, press, associations, unions, etc.
- Free public education.
- Reducing the working day to 8 hours.
- Reform of the armed forces, in which they cease to be a permanent state structure.
- The distinction between church and state.
In addition, the program included several more points that, in essence, repeated the demands of other political organizations that aspired to power, just like the Socialist Revolutionaries. The highest body of party power for the social revolutionaries was the Congresses, and between them all current issues were resolved by the Soviets. The main slogan of the party was the call “Land and freedom!”
Features of the agrarian policy of the Socialist Revolutionaries
Of all the political parties that existed at that time, the Socialist Revolutionaries stood out for their attitude towards solving the agrarian question and towards the peasantry as a whole. This class, the most numerous in pre-revolutionary Russia, was, in the opinion of all Social Democrats, including the Bolsheviks, so backward and deprived political activity, which could only be considered as an ally and help to the proletariat, which was assigned the role of “locomotive of the revolution.”
Social revolutionaries took a different point of view. In their opinion, the revolutionary process in Russia should begin precisely in the countryside and only then spread to cities and industrialized areas. Therefore, in the transformation of society, peasants were given almost the leading role.
As for land policy, here the Socialist Revolutionaries proposed their own path, different from others. According to their party program, all agricultural land was not subject to nationalization, as the Bolsheviks called for, and not to distribution into ownership of individual owners, as the Mensheviks proposed, but was socialized and placed at the disposal of local self-government bodies. They called this path the socialization of the land.
At the same time, the law prohibited its private ownership, as well as purchase and sale. The final product was subject to distribution in accordance with established consumer standards, which were directly dependent on the amount of labor invested.
Social Revolutionaries during the First Russian Revolution
It is known that the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRs) was very skeptical about the First Russian Revolution. According to its leaders, it was not bourgeois, since this class was not capable of leading the new society being created. The reasons for this lie in the reforms of Alexander II, who opened a broad path for the development of capitalism. They did not consider it socialist either, but came up with a new term - “social revolution”.
In general, the theorists of the Social Revolutionary Party believed that the transition to socialism should be carried out in a peaceful, reformist way without any social upheaval. However, a significant number of Socialist Revolutionaries took an active part in the battles of the First Russian Revolution. For example, their role in the uprising on the battleship Potemkin is well known.
Military organization of the Socialist Revolutionaries
A curious paradox is that for all its calls for a peaceful and non-violent path of transformation, the Socialist Revolutionary Party was remembered primarily for its terrorist activities, which began immediately after its creation.
Already in 1902, its military organization was created, then numbering 78 people. Its first leader was Grigory Gershuni, then at different stages this post was occupied by Yevno Azef and Boris Savinkov. It is recognized that of all the known terrorist groups of the early 20th century, this organization was the most effective. The victims of the acts committed were not only high-ranking officials of the tsarist government and representatives of law enforcement agencies, but also political opponents from other parties.
The bloody path of the SR military organization began in April 1902 with the murder of the Minister of Internal Affairs D. Sipyagin and the assassination attempt on the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod K. Pobedonostsev. This was followed by a series of new terrorist attacks, the most famous of which is the murder of the Tsar's minister V. Plehve, carried out in 1904 by Yegor Sazonov, and the uncle of Nicholas II - Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, committed in 1905 by Ivan Kalyaev.
The peak of the terrorist activities of the Social Revolutionaries occurred in 1905-1907. According to available data, the leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party V. Chernov and the leadership of the combat group were responsible for committing 223 terrorist attacks during this period alone, as a result of which 7 generals, 33 governors, 2 ministers and the Moscow governor-general were killed. These bloody statistics continued in subsequent years.
Events of 1917
After the February Revolution, as a political party, the Socialist Revolutionaries became the most influential public organization in Russia. Their representatives occupied key positions in many newly formed government structures, and their total membership reached a million people. However, despite the rapid rise and popularity of the main provisions of its program among the Russian population, the Socialist Revolutionary Party soon lost political leadership, and the Bolsheviks seized power in the country.
Immediately after the October coup, the leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party V. Chernov, together with members of the Central Committee, addressed all political organizations in Russia, in which he described the actions of Lenin’s supporters as madness and a crime. At the same time, at an internal party meeting, a coordination committee was created to organize the fight against the usurpers of power. It was headed by the prominent Socialist Revolutionary Abram Gots.
However, not all party members had an unambiguous attitude to what was happening, and representatives of its left wing expressed support for the Bolsheviks. From that time on, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party tried to implement its policies on many issues. This caused a split and a general weakening of the organization.
Between two fires
During the Civil War, the Socialist Revolutionaries tried to fight both the Reds and the Whites, alternately entering into an alliance with one or the other. The leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, who at the beginning of the war declared that the Bolsheviks were the lesser of two evils, very soon began to point out the need for joint actions with the White Guards and interventionists.
Of course, none of the representatives of the main warring parties took the alliance with the Social Revolutionaries seriously, realizing that as soon as circumstances changed, yesterday’s allies could defect to the enemy camp. And there were many such examples during the war.
The defeat of the Socialist Revolutionary Party
In 1919, wanting to make fullest use of the potential that the Socialist Revolutionary Party had, Lenin’s government decided to legalize it in the territories under its control. However, this did not bring the expected result. The Social Revolutionaries did not stop their attacks on the Bolshevik leadership and the methods of struggle resorted to by the party they led. Even the danger posed by their common enemy could not reconcile the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries.
As a result, the temporary truce soon gave way to a new series of arrests, as a result of which, by the beginning of 1921, the Central Committee of the Social Revolutionary Party practically ceased to exist. Some of its members had been killed by that time (M. L. Kogan-Bernstein, I. I. Teterkin, etc.), many emigrated to Europe (V. V. Samokhin, N. S. Rusanov, as well as party leader V. M. Chernov), and the bulk were in prisons. From that time on, the Socialist Revolutionaries, as a party, ceased to represent a real political force.
Years of emigration
The further history of the Socialist Revolutionaries is inextricably linked with the Russian emigration, the ranks of which were intensively replenished in the first post-revolutionary years. Having found themselves abroad after the defeat of the party, which began back in 1918, the Socialist Revolutionaries were met there by their fellow party members who settled in Europe and created a foreign department there long before the revolution.
After the party was banned in Russia, all its surviving and free members were forced to emigrate. They settled mainly in Paris, Berlin, Stockholm and Prague. The general management of the activities of foreign cells was carried out by the former head of the party, Viktor Chernov, who left Russia in 1920.
Newspapers published by the Social Revolutionaries
Which party, having found itself in exile, did not have its own press organ? Social revolutionaries were no exception. They published a number of periodicals, such as the newspapers “Revolutionary Russia”, “Modern Notes”, “For the People!” and some others. In the 1920s, they were able to be smuggled across the border illegally, and therefore the material published in them was aimed at the Russian reader. But as a result of the efforts undertaken by the Soviet intelligence services, the delivery channels were soon blocked, and all newspaper circulations began to be distributed among emigrants.
Many researchers note that in articles published in Socialist Revolutionary newspapers, not only the rhetoric, but also the general ideological orientation changed from year to year. If at first the party leaders stood mainly in their previous positions, exaggerating the same theme of creating a classless society in Russia, then at the end of the 30s, they openly declared the need to return to capitalism.
Afterword
This is where the Social Revolutionaries (party) practically completed their activities. The year 1917 went down in history as the most successful period of their activity, which soon gave way to unsuccessful attempts to find their place in new historical realities. Unable to withstand the struggle with a stronger political opponent in the person of the RSDLP (b), led by Lenin, they were forced to leave the historical scene forever.
However, for many years in the Soviet Union, people who had nothing to do with it were accused of belonging to the Socialist Revolutionary Party and promoting its ideology. In the atmosphere of total terror that gripped the country, the very word “Socialist Revolutionary” was used as a designation of the enemy and was applied as a label to obvious, and more often imaginary, oppositionists for their illegal condemnation.
SRs-members of the Russian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (written: “s=r-ov”, read: “Socialist Revolutionaries”). The party was formed by uniting populist groups as the left wing of democracy in late 1901–early 1902.
In the second half of the 1890s, small populist groups and circles, predominantly intellectual in composition, existed in St. Petersburg, Penza, Poltava, Voronezh, Kharkov, and Odessa. Some of them united in 1900 into the Southern Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, others in 1901 into the “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries.” The organizers were former populists (M.R. Gots, O.S. Minor, etc.) and extremist-minded students (N.D. Avksentyev, V.M. Zenzinov, B.V. Savinkov, I.P. Kalyaev, E. S. Sozonov and others). At the end of 1901, the “Southern Socialist Revolutionary Party” and the “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries” merged, and in January 1902 the newspaper “Revolutionary Russia” announced the creation of the party. The founding congress of the party, which approved its program and charter, took place, however, only three years later and was held from December 29, 1905 to January 4, 1906 in Imatra (Finland).
Simultaneously with the establishment of the party itself, its Combat Organization (BO) was created. Its leaders - G.A. Gershuni, E.F. Azef - put forward individual terror against senior government officials as the main goal of their activities. Its victims in 1902–1905 were the ministers of internal affairs (D.S. Sipyagin, V.K. Pleve), governors (I.M. Obolensky, N.M. Kachura), as well as the leader. book Sergei Alexandrovich, killed by the famous Socialist Revolutionary I. Kalyaev. During two and a half years of the first Russian revolution, the Socialist Revolutionaries committed about 200 terrorist acts ().
In general, party members were supporters of democratic socialism, which they saw as a society of economic and political democracy. Their main demands were reflected in the Party Program drawn up by V.M. Chernov and adopted at the First Founding Congress of the Party at the end of December 1905 - beginning of January 1906.
As defenders of the interests of the peasantry and followers of the Narodniks, the Socialist Revolutionaries demanded the “socialization of the land” (transferring it into the ownership of communities and establishing egalitarian labor land use), denied social stratification, and did not share the idea of establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat, which was actively promoted by many Marxists at that time. The program of “socialization of the earth” was supposed to provide a peaceful, evolutionary path of transition to socialism.
The Social Revolutionary Party Program contained demands for the introduction of democratic rights and freedoms in Russia - the convening of a Constituent Assembly, the establishment of a republic with autonomy for regions and communities on a federal basis, the introduction of universal suffrage and democratic freedoms (speech, press, conscience, meetings, unions, separation of the church from state, universal free education, the destruction of the standing army, the introduction of an 8-hour working day, social insurance at the expense of the state and the owners of enterprises, the organization of trade unions.
Considering political freedom and democracy to be the main prerequisites for socialism in Russia, they recognized the importance of mass movements in achieving them. But in matters of tactics, the Socialist Revolutionaries stipulated that the struggle for the implementation of the program would be carried out “in forms corresponding to the specific conditions of Russian reality,” which implied the use of the entire arsenal of means of struggle, including individual terror.
The leadership of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was entrusted to the Central Committee (Central Committee). There were special commissions under the Central Committee: peasant and workers. military, literary, etc. Special rights in the structure of the organization were vested in the Council of members of the Central Committee, representatives of the Moscow and St. Petersburg committees and regions (the first meeting of the Council was held in May 1906, the last, the tenth in August 1921). The structural parts of the party also included the Peasant Union (since 1902), the Union of People's Teachers (since 1903), and individual workers' unions (since 1903). Members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party took part in the Paris Conference of Opposition and Revolutionary Parties (autumn 1904) and the Geneva Conference of Revolutionary Parties (April 1905).
By the beginning of the revolution of 1905–1907, over 40 Socialist Revolutionary committees and groups were operating in Russia, uniting about 2.5 thousand people, mostly intellectuals; more than a quarter of the composition were workers and peasants. Members of the BO party were engaged in the delivery of weapons to Russia, created dynamite workshops, and organized fighting squads. The party leadership was inclined to consider the publication of the Manifesto on October 17, 1905 as the beginning of the constitutional order, so it was decided to dissolve the BO of the party as not corresponding to the constitutional regime. Together with other left-wing parties, the Social Revolutionaries co-organized the Labor Group consisting of deputies of the First State Duma (1906), which actively participated in the development of projects related to land use. In the Second State Duma, the Socialist Revolutionaries were represented by 37 deputies, who were especially active in debates on the agrarian issue. At that time, the left wing separated from the party (creating the “Union of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists”) and the right wing (“People’s Socialists” or “Enesy”). At the same time, the size of the party increased in 1907 to 50–60 thousand people; and the number of workers and peasants in it reached 90%.
However, the lack of ideological unity became one of the main factors explaining the organizational weakness of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in the climate of political reaction of 1907–1910. A number of prominent figures, and above all B.V. Savinkov, tried to overcome the tactical and organizational crisis that arose in the party after the exposure of the provocative activities of E.F. Azef at the end of 1908 - beginning of 1909. The crisis of the party was aggravated by the Stolypin agrarian reform, which strengthened the sense of ownership among the peasants and undermined the foundations of Socialist Revolutionary agrarian socialism. In a climate of crisis in the country and in the party, many of its leaders, disillusioned with the idea of preparing terrorist attacks, focused almost entirely on literary activities. Its fruits were published by legal Socialist Revolutionary newspapers - “Son of the Fatherland”, “Narodny Vestnik”, “Working People”.
After the victory of the February Revolution of 1917, the Socialist Revolutionary Party became completely legal, influential, mass, and one of the ruling parties in the country. In terms of growth rates, the Socialist Revolutionaries were ahead of other political parties: by the summer of 1917 there were about 1 million people, united in 436 organizations in 62 provinces, in the fleets and on the fronts of the active army. Entire villages, regiments and factories joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party that year. These were peasants, soldiers, workers, intellectuals, petty officials and officers, students who had little idea about the theoretical guidelines of the party, its goals and objectives. The range of views was enormous - from Bolshevik-anarchist to Menshevik-ENES. Some hoped to gain personal benefit from membership in the most influential party and joined for selfish reasons (they were later called the “March Socialist Revolutionaries”, since they announced their membership after the Tsar’s abdication in March 1917).
The internal history of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1917 is characterized by the formation of three currents in it - right, center and left.
The right Socialist Revolutionaries (E. Breshko-Breshkovskaya, A. Kerensky, B. Savinkov) believed that the issue of socialist reconstruction was not on the agenda and therefore believed it was necessary to focus on issues of democratization of the political system and forms of ownership. The right were supporters of coalition governments and “defencism” in foreign policy. The Right Socialist Revolutionaries and Popular Socialist Party (since 1917 – the Labor People's Socialist Party) were even represented in the Provisional Government, in particular A.F. Kerensky was first the Minister of Justice (March-April 1917), then the Minister of War and Navy (in the 1st and 2nd coalition governments), and from September 1917 - the head of the 3rd coalition government. Other right-wing Social Revolutionaries also participated in the coalition composition of the Provisional Government: N.D. Avksentyev (Minister of Internal Affairs in the 2nd composition), B.V. Savinkov (administrator of the Military and Naval Ministry in the 1st and 2nd composition) .
The Left Socialist Revolutionaries who disagreed with them (M. Spiridonova, B. Kamkov and others, who published their articles in the newspapers “Delo Naroda”, “Land and Freedom”, “Banner of Labor”) believed the current situation was possible for a “breakthrough to socialism”, and therefore they advocated the immediate transfer of all land to the peasants. They considered the world revolution capable of ending the war, and therefore some of them called (like the Bolsheviks) not to trust the Provisional Government, to go to the end, until democracy was established.
However, the general course of the party was determined by the centrists (V. Chernov and S.L. Maslov).
From February to July-August 1917, the Socialist Revolutionaries actively worked in the Councils of Workers', Soldiers' and Sailors' Deputies, considering them "necessary to continue the revolution and consolidate fundamental freedoms and democratic principles" in order to "push" the Provisional Government along the path of reforms, and at the Constituent Assembly - to ensure the implementation of its decisions. If the right Socialist Revolutionaries refused to support the Bolshevik slogan “All power to the Soviets!” and considered a coalition government a necessary condition and means for overcoming the devastation and chaos in the economy, winning the war and bringing the country to the Constituent Assembly, then the left saw the salvation of Russia in a breakthrough to socialism through the creation of a “homogeneous socialist government” based on a bloc of labor and socialist parties . During the summer of 1917 they actively participated in the work of land committees and local councils in various provinces of Russia.
The October Revolution of 1917 was carried out with the active assistance of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. Decree on land, adopted by the Bolsheviks at the Second Congress of Soviets on October 26, 1917, legitimized what was done by the Soviets and land committees: the seizure of land from landowners, the royal house and wealthy peasants. His text included Order on land, formulated by the Left Social Revolutionaries on the basis of 242 local orders (“Private ownership of land is abolished forever. All lands are transferred to the disposal of local councils”). Thanks to the coalition with the left Socialist Revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks were able to quickly establish new power in the countryside: the peasants believed that the Bolsheviks were the very “maximalists” who approved of their “black redistribution” of the land.
The Right Socialist Revolutionaries, on the contrary, did not accept October events, regarding them as “a crime against the homeland and the revolution.” From the ruling party, after the Bolsheviks seized power, they again became the opposition. While the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries (about 62 thousand people) transformed into the “Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries (Internationalists)” and delegated several of its representatives to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the right wing did not lose hope of overthrowing the power of the Bolsheviks. In the late autumn of 1917, they organized a revolt of cadets in Petrograd, tried to recall their deputies from the Soviets, and opposed the conclusion of peace between Russia and Germany.
The last congress of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in history worked from November 26 to December 5, 1917. Its leadership refused to recognize “the Bolshevik socialist revolution and the Soviet government as not recognized by the country.”
During the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Socialist Revolutionaries received 58% of the votes, at the expense of voters from the agricultural provinces. On the eve of its convening, the right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries planned the “seizure of the entire Bolshevik head” (meaning the murder of V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky), but they were afraid that such actions could lead to a “reverse wave of terror against the intelligentsia.” On January 5, 1918, the Constituent Assembly began its work. The head of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, V.M. Chernov, was elected its chairman (244 votes against 151). The Bolshevik Ya.M. Sverdlov, who came to the meeting, proposed to approve the document drawn up by V.I. Lenin Declaration of the Rights of Workers and Exploited People, but only 146 deputies voted for this proposal. As a sign of protest, the Bolsheviks left the meeting, and on the morning of January 6 - when V.M. Chernov read Draft Basic Law on Land– forced to stop reading and leave the room.
After the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the Socialist Revolutionaries decided to abandon conspiratorial tactics and wage an open struggle against Bolshevism, consistently winning back the masses, taking part in the activities of any legal organizations - Soviets, All-Russian Congresses of Land Committees, Congresses of Women Workers, etc. After the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty in March 1918, one of the first places in the propaganda of the Social Revolutionaries was occupied by the idea of restoring the integrity and independence of Russia. True, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries continued in the spring of 1918 to look for compromise ways in relations with the Bolsheviks, until the creation of the Committees of Poor People and the confiscation of grain from the peasants the Bolsheviks overflowed their cup of patience. This resulted in the rebellion on July 6, 1918 - an attempt to provoke a military conflict with Germany in order to break the shameful Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and at the same time stop the development of the “socialist revolution in the countryside,” as the Bolsheviks called it (the introduction of surplus appropriation and the forcible confiscation of grain “surplus” from the peasants). The rebellion was suppressed, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party split into “populist communists” (existed until November 1918) and “revolutionary communists” (existed until 1920, when they decided to merge with the RCP (b)). Separate groups of left Socialist Revolutionaries did not join either one or the other newly formed parties and continued to fight the Bolsheviks, demanding the abolition of emergency commissions, revolutionary committees, committees of the poor, food detachments, and surplus appropriation.
At this time, the right Socialist Revolutionaries, having proposed in May 1918 to begin an armed struggle against Soviet power with the goal of “planting the banner of the Constituent Assembly” in the Volga region and the Urals, managed to create (with the help of rebel Czechoslovak prisoners of war) by June 1918 in Samara a Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) headed by V.K. Volsky. These actions were regarded by the Bolsheviks as counter-revolutionary, and on June 14, 1918 they expelled the Right Socialist Revolutionaries from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
From that time on, the right Socialist Revolutionaries embarked on the path of creating numerous conspiracies and terrorist acts, participated in military revolts in Yaroslavl, Murom, Rybinsk, in the assassination attempts: June 20 - on the member of the presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee V.M. Volodarsky, on August 30 on the chairman of the Petrograd Extraordinary Commission ( Cheka) M.S. Uritsky in Petrograd and on the same day - on V.I. Lenin in Moscow.
The Socialist Revolutionary Siberian Regional Duma in Tomsk declared Siberia an autonomous region, creating a Provisional Siberian Government with a center in Vladivostok and a branch (West Siberian Commissariat) in Omsk. The latter, with the approval of the Siberian Regional Duma, transferred government functions in June 1918 to the coalition Siberian government led by former cadet P.A. Vologodsky.
In September 1918 in Ufa, at a meeting of anti-Bolshevik regional governments and groups, the Right Socialist Revolutionaries formed a coalition (with the Cadets) Ufa Directory - the Provisional All-Russian Government. Of its 179 members, 100 were Social Revolutionaries; many well-known figures of past years (N.D. Avksentyev, V.M. Zenzinov) joined the leadership of the directory. In October 1918, Komuch ceded power to the Directory, under which the Congress of Members of the Constituent Assembly, which did not have any real administrative resources, was created. In those same years, the Government of Autonomous Siberia operated in the Far East, and the Supreme Administration of the Northern Region operated in Arkhangelsk. All of them, which included right-wing Social Revolutionaries, actively abolished Soviet decrees, especially those relating to land, liquidated Soviet institutions and considered themselves a “third force” in relation to the Bolsheviks and the “White Movement”.
The monarchist forces, led by Admiral A.V. Kolchak, were suspicious of their activities. On November 18, 1918, they overthrew the Directory and formed the Siberian government. The top of the Socialist Revolutionary groups that were part of the Directory - N.D. Avksentyev, V.M. Zenzinov, A.A. Argunov - were arrested and expelled by A.V. Kolchak from Russia. They all reached Paris, marking the beginning of the last wave of Socialist Revolutionary emigration there.
The scattered Socialist Revolutionary groups that remained out of action tried to compromise with the Bolsheviks, admitting their mistakes. The Soviet government temporarily used them (not to the right of the center) for its own tactical purposes. In February 1919, it even legalized the Socialist Revolutionary Party with its center in Moscow, but a month later the persecution of the Socialist Revolutionaries was resumed and arrests began. Meanwhile, the Socialist Revolutionary Plenum of the Central Committee tried in April 1919 to restore the party. He recognized the participation of the Social Revolutionaries in the Ufa Directory and in regional governments as a mistake, and expressed a negative attitude towards foreign intervention in Russia. However, the majority of those present believed that the Bolsheviks “rejected the basic principles of socialism - freedom and democracy, replaced them with the dictatorship of the minority over the majority, and thereby excluded themselves from the ranks of socialism.”
Not everyone agreed with these conclusions. The deepening split in the party was along the lines of recognizing the power of the Soviets or fighting against it. Thus, the Ufa organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, in an appeal published in August 1919, called for recognizing the Bolshevik government and uniting with it. The “People” group, led by the former chairman of the Samara Komuch V.K. Volsky, called on the “working masses” to support the Red Army in the fight against Denikin. Supporters of V.K. Volsky in October 1919 announced their disagreement with the line of the Central Committee of their party and the creation of the group “Minority of the Socialist Revolutionary Party”.
In 1920–1921 during the war with Poland and the offensive of General. P.N. Wrangel, the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party called on, without stopping the fight against the Bolsheviks, to devote all efforts to the defense of the homeland. He rejected participation in the party mobilization announced by the Revolutionary Military Council, but condemned the sabotage of volunteer detachments that carried out raids on Soviet territory during the war with Poland, in which staunch right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries and, above all, B.V. Savinkov participated.
After the end of the Civil War, the Socialist Revolutionary Party found itself in an illegal position; its numbers sharply decreased, most organizations collapsed, many members of the Central Committee were in prison. In June 1920, the Central Organizational Bureau of the Central Committee was created, uniting the members of the Central Committee who survived the arrests and other influential party members. In August 1921, the last in the history of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, the 10th Party Council, was held in Samara, which identified the “organization of the forces of labor democracy” as the immediate task. By this time, most of the prominent figures of the party, including one of its founders V.M. Chernov, had long been in exile. Those who remained in Russia tried to organize a non-party Union of the Working Peasantry and declared their support for the rebellious Kronstadt (where the slogan “For Soviets without Communists” was raised).
In the conditions of the post-war development of the country, the Socialist Revolutionary alternative to this development, which provided for the democratization of not only the economic but also the political life of the country, could become attractive to the broad masses. Therefore, the Bolsheviks hastened to discredit the policies and ideas of the Socialist Revolutionaries. With great haste, “cases” began to be fabricated against former allies and like-minded people who did not have time to leave abroad. On the basis of completely fictitious facts, the Socialist Revolutionaries were accused of preparing a “general uprising” in the country, sabotage, destruction of grain reserves and other criminal actions; they were called (following V.I. Lenin) “avant-garde of reaction.” In August 1922, in Moscow, the Supreme Tribunal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee tried 34 representatives of the Socialist Revolutionary Party: 12 of them (including old party leaders - A.R. Gots and others) were sentenced to death, the rest received prison sentences from 2 to 10 years . With the arrest in 1925 of the last members of the Central Bank of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, it practically ceased to exist in Russia.
In Revel, Paris, Berlin, and Prague, the Socialist Revolutionary emigration, led by the Foreign Delegation of the Party, continued to operate. In 1926 it split, as a result of which groups emerged: V.M. Chernov (who created the “League of the New East” in 1927), A.F. Kerensky, V.M. Zenzinov and others. The activities of these groups had almost come to a standstill by the early 1930s. Some excitement was brought only by discussions about events in their homeland: some of those who left completely rejected collective farms, others saw in them similarities with communal self-government.
During the Second World War, some emigrant Socialist Revolutionaries advocated unconditional support for the Soviet Union. Some leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party participated in the French resistance movement and died in fascist concentration camps. Others - for example, S.N. Nikolaev, S.P. Postnikov - after the liberation of Prague agreed to return to their homeland, but, having received “sentences”, were forced to serve their sentences until 1956.
During the war years, the Paris and Prague groups of the Socialist Revolutionary Party ceased to exist. A number of leaders moved from France to New York (N.D. Avksentyev, V.M. Zenzinov, V.M. Chernov, etc.). A new center of Socialist Revolutionary emigration was formed there. In March 1952, an appeal appeared from 14 Russian socialists: three Socialist Revolutionary Party members (Chernov, Zenzinov, M.V. Vishnyak), eight Mensheviks and three non-party socialists. It said that history had removed from the order of the day all controversial issues that divided the socialists and expressed the hope that in the future “post-Bolshevik Russia” there should be one “broad, tolerant, humanitarian and freedom-loving socialist party.”
Irina Pushkareva