The party turned into the largest political force, reached the millionth mark in its numbers, acquired a dominant position in local governments and most public organizations, and won the elections to the Constituent Assembly. Its representatives held a number of key positions in the government. Her ideas of democratic socialism and a peaceful transition to it were attractive. However, despite all this, the Social Revolutionaries were unable to resist the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks and organize a successful fight against their dictatorial regime.

Party program

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

The draft party program was published in May in issue No. 46 of Revolutionary Russia. The project, with minor changes, was approved as the party program at its first congress in early January. This program remained the main document of the party throughout its existence. The main author of the program was the main theoretician of the party V. M. Chernov.

The Social Revolutionaries were the direct heirs of the old populism, the essence of which was the idea of the possibility of Russia's transition to socialism through a non-capitalist route. But the Socialist Revolutionaries were supporters of democratic socialism, that is, economic and political democracy, which was to be expressed through the representation of organized producers (trade unions), organized consumers (cooperative unions) and organized citizens (democratic state represented by parliament and self-government bodies).

The originality of Socialist Revolutionary socialism lay in the theory of socialization of agriculture. This theory was a national feature of Socialist Revolutionary democratic socialism and was a contribution to the treasury of world socialist thought. The original idea of this theory was that socialism in Russia should begin to grow first of all in the countryside. The ground for it, its preliminary stage, was to be the socialization of the earth.

Socialization of land meant, firstly, the abolition of private ownership of land, but at the same time not turning it into state property, not its nationalization, but turning it into public property without the right to buy and sell. Secondly, the transfer of all land to the management of central and local bodies of people's self-government, starting from democratically organized rural and urban communities and ending with regional and central institutions. Thirdly, the use of land had to be equalizing labor, that is, to ensure the consumption norm based on the application of one’s own labor, individually or in partnership.

The Socialist Revolutionaries considered political freedom and democracy to be the most important prerequisite for socialism and its organic form. Political democracy and socialization of the land were the main demands of the Socialist Revolutionary minimum program. They were supposed to ensure a peaceful, evolutionary transition of Russia to socialism without any special socialist revolution. The program, in particular, talked about the establishment of a democratic republic with inalienable rights of man and citizen: freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly, unions, strikes, inviolability of person and home, universal and equal suffrage for every citizen from 20 years of age, without distinction gender, religion and nationality, subject to a direct election system and closed voting. Broad autonomy was also required for regions and communities, both urban and rural, and the possible wider use of federal relations between individual national regions while recognizing their unconditional right to self-determination. The Socialist Revolutionaries, earlier than the Social Democrats, put forward a demand for a federal structure of the Russian state. They were also bolder and more democratic in setting such demands as proportional representation in elected bodies and direct popular legislation (referendum and initiative).

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

Party history

Pre-revolutionary period

In the second half of the 1890s, small populist-socialist groups and circles existed in St. Petersburg, Penza, Poltava, Voronezh, Kharkov, and Odessa. Some of them united in 1900 into the Southern Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, others in 1901 - into the “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries”. At the end of 1901, the “Southern Socialist Revolutionary Party” and the “Union of Socialist Revolutionaries” merged, and in January 1902 the newspaper “Revolutionary Russia” announced the creation of the party. The Geneva Agrarian-Socialist League joined it.

In April 1902, the Combat Organization (BO) of the Socialist Revolutionaries declared itself in a terrorist act against the Minister of Internal Affairs D.S. Sipyagin. The BO was the most secretive part of the party. Over the entire history of the BO (1901-1908), over 80 people worked there. The organization was in an autonomous position within the party; the Central Committee only gave it the task of committing the next terrorist act and indicated the desired date for its execution. The BO had its own cash register, appearances, addresses, apartments; the Central Committee had no right to interfere in its internal affairs. The leaders of the BO Gershuni (1901-1903) and Azef (1903-1908) were the organizers of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the most influential members of its Central Committee.

In 1905-1906, its right wing left the party, forming the Party of People's Socialists, and the left wing, the Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries-Maximalists, dissociated itself.

During the revolution of 1905-1907 there was a peak in the terrorist activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries. During this period, 233 terrorist attacks were carried out, from 1902 to 1911 - 216 assassination attempts.

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

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

Party in 1917

The Socialist Revolutionary Party actively participated in the political life of the Russian Republic in 1917, bloced with the Menshevik defencists and was the largest party of this period. By the summer of 1917, the party had about 1 million people, united in 436 organizations in 62 provinces, in the fleets and on the fronts of the active army.

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

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

Party in the Council of Deputies

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

By the beginning of 1921, the Central Committee of the AKP had virtually ceased its activities. Back in June 1920, the Social Revolutionaries formed the Central Organizational Bureau, which, along with members of the Central Committee, included some prominent party members. In August 1921, due to numerous arrests, the leadership of the party finally passed to the Central Bureau. By that time, some of the members of the Central Committee, elected at the IV Congress, had died (I. I. Teterkin, M. L. Kogan-Bernstein), voluntarily resigned from the Central Committee (K. S. Burevoy, N. I. Rakitnikov, M. I. . Sumgin), went abroad (V. M. Chernov, V. M. Zenzinov, N. S. Rusanov, V. V. Sukhomlin). The members of the AKP Central Committee who remained in Russia were almost entirely in prison. In 1922, the “counter-revolutionary activities” of the Social Revolutionaries were “finally publicly exposed” at the Moscow trial of members of the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. parties (Gots, Timofeev, etc.), despite their protection by the leaders of the Second International. As a result of this process, the party leaders (12 people) were conditionally sentenced to death.
Of all the leaders of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, only the People's Commissar of Justice in the first post-October government, Steinberg, managed to escape. The rest were arrested many times, were in exile for many years, and were shot during the years of the Great Terror.

Emigration

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

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

Literature

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

External links

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

Links and notes

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

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Socialist Revolutionary Party- Leader: Viktor Chernov Date of foundation: 1902 Date of dissolution: 1921 Ideology: Populism International ... Wikipedia

Social Revolutionaries (Socialist-Revolutionary Party) is a revolutionary political party of the Russian Empire, later the Russian Republic and the RSFSR. 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 most numerous and the most influential.

The historical and philosophical worldview of the party was substantiated by the works of Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Pyotr Lavrov, Nikolai Mikhailovsky. The draft party program was published in May 1904, and 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 originality of Socialist Revolutionary socialism lay in the theory of socialization of agriculture. Socialization of land meant, firstly, the abolition of private ownership of land, but at the same time not turning it into state property. Secondly, the transfer of all land to the management of central and local bodies of people's self-government. Thirdly, the use of land should have been equal to labor.

The Socialist Revolutionaries considered political freedom and democracy to be the most important prerequisite for socialism. Political democracy and socialization of the land were the main demands of the Socialist Revolutionary minimum program. They were supposed to ensure a peaceful, evolutionary transition of Russia to socialism without any special socialist revolution. The program, in particular, talked about the establishment of a democratic republic with inalienable rights of man and citizen: freedom of conscience, speech, press, 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. The Socialist Revolutionaries, earlier than the Social Democrats, put forward a demand for a federal structure of the Russian state.

The leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party were: V. M. Chernov, N. D. Avksentyev, G. A. Gershuni, A. R. Gots, E. K. Breshko-Breshkovskaya, B. V. Savinkov and others. Number of members: the Social Revolutionary movement was about 60 thousand people are involved.

The period of the first Russian revolution 1905-1907

The Social Revolutionaries did not recognize the first Russian revolution as bourgeois. The bourgeoisie could not stand at the head of the revolution and even be one of its driving forces. The Social Revolutionaries did not consider the revolution to be socialist either, calling it “social”, transitional between bourgeois and socialist. The main impetus of the revolution was the agrarian question. Thus, the driving force of the revolution is the peasantry, the proletariat and the working intelligentsia. The Socialist-Revolutionaries actively participated in the preparation and conduct of revolutionary uprisings in the city and countryside, in the army and navy, in the organization of professional political unions, they successfully worked in the All-Russian Peasant Union, the All-Russian Railway Union, the Postal and Telegraph Union, the Union of Teachers, peasants were formed in the villages brotherhoods and unions.

At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, revolutionary sentiments were gaining strength in the Russian Empire. Like mushrooms after rain, political parties are growing that see the future development and prosperity of Russia in the overthrow of the monarchy and the transition to a democratic form of collective governance. One of the largest and most organized parties of the left wing were the Social Revolutionaries, or Socialist Revolutionaries for short (in accordance with their abbreviation SR).

In contact with

Classmates

This party had enormous influence both before and after 1917, but was unable to retain power in its hands.

A little history

Since the mid-nineteenth century, all political circles could be divided into:

Conservative, right-wing. Their motto was “Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality.” They did not see the need for any changes.
Liberal. For the most part, they did not seek to overthrow the monarchy, but they also did not consider autocracy the best form of state power. In their understanding, Russia was supposed to achieve a constitutional monarchy through liberal reforms. Disagreements arose only in the proportions of the division of power between the monarch and the elected body of government.
Radical, left. They did not see a future in autocratic Russia and believed that the transition from a monarchy to the rule of an elected council could only be accomplished through revolution.

At the end of the nineteenth century The Russian Empire is experiencing a colossal economic boom thanks to Witte's reforms. The downside of these reforms was the nationalization of production and an increase in excise taxes. Most of the tax burden falls on the poorest segments of the population. Hard life and sacrifices in the name of economic development are causing more and more discontent, including among the educated segments of the population. This leads to a serious strengthening of leftist sentiments in political circles.

At the same time, the liberal-minded intelligentsia is gradually leaving the political arena. The so-called theory of “small deeds” is gaining more and more momentum among liberals. Instead of fighting to promote the desired reforms that will improve the lives of the poor, liberals decide to do something on their own for the benefit of the common people. Most of them go to work as doctors or teachers to help peasants and workers receive education and medical care now, without waiting for reforms. This leads to a clash between the remaining circles of the extreme left and right. In the nineties, a party of social revolutionaries was formed - future ideologists of the left movement.

Formation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party

In 1894 A circle of socialist revolutionaries was formed in Saratov. They maintained contact with some groups of the terrorist organization "People's Will". When the Narodnaya Volya members were dispersed, the Saratov social revolutionary circle began to act independently, developing its own program. Their press organ published this program in 1896. A year later, this circle ended up in Moscow.

At the same time, in other cities of the Russian Empire there were people's will, socialist circles, which gradually united with each other. At the beginning of the 1900s, a single Social Revolutionary Party was formed.

Pre-revolutionary activities of the Social Revolutionaries

The Socialist Revolutionary Party also had a military organization that carried out terrorist attacks against high-ranking officials. In 1902, they made an attempt on the life of the Minister of the Interior. However, four years later the organization was dissolved and was replaced by flying squads - small terrorist groups that did not have centralized control.

At the same time, preparations were made for the revolution. The Social Revolutionaries saw the peasants, as well as the proletariat, as the driving force of the revolution. The social revolutionaries considered the peasant question to be the main bone of contention between the state and the people. It was with the peasants that the Socialist Revolutionaries carried out propaganda work and formed political associations. They managed to incite peasants to revolt in several provinces, but there was no mass uprising throughout Russia.

Party numbers at the beginning of the twentieth century increased and its composition changed. During the first revolutions of 1905-1907, its extreme right and extreme left wings separated from the party. They formed the People's Socialists Party and the Union of Revolutionary Maximalist Socialists.

By the beginning of the First World War, the Socialist Revolutionary Party was again divided into centrists and internationalists. The internationalists soon received the name “Left Social Revolutionaries.” The radical left Socialist Revolutionaries were close to the Bolshevik Party, which the Internationalist Socialist Revolutionaries would soon join. But so far at the beginning of 1917, the Social Revolutionary Party was the largest and most influential revolutionary party.

February Revolution

World War I further shook the people's faith in the Russian autocracy. Here and there, riots of peasants and workers broke out, skillfully fueled by the agitation activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries. The general February strike in Petrograd turned into an armed uprising when the striking workers were supported by soldiers. The result of this uprising was the overthrow of the monarchy and the formation of a provisional government as the main authority in post-revolutionary Russia.

Social Revolutionaries in the provisional government

Since the main inspiring force of the February Revolution was the SR party, many positions in the provisional government went to them, although the cadet Lvov became the chairman of the government. Here are the most famous Social Revolutionary ministers of that time:

Kerensky,
Chernov,
Avksentiev,
Maslov.

The provisional government could not cope with the hunger and devastation that engulfed the state. The Bolsheviks took advantage of this in an attempt to gain power. The failure of the provisional government forced Lvov to resign. In August, the post of chairman of the provisional government went to the Socialist Revolutionary Kerensky. At the same time, a counter-revolutionary uprising occurred, to suppress which Kerensky took on the role of commander in chief. The uprising was successfully suppressed.

However, dissatisfaction with the provisional government grew as socio-economic reforms were delayed and the peasant issue was never resolved. And in October of the same year, as a result of an armed riot, the entire provisional government, with the exception of Kerensky, was arrested. The chairman managed to escape.

October Revolution and the fall of the Social Revolutionary Party

It was with the arrest of the provisional government that the October Revolution began. Peasants and workers became disillusioned with the provisional government and went over to the banner of the Bolsheviks. After the revolution, the Executive Committee, an executive body, and the Council of People's Commissars, a legislative body, were created. The first two decrees of the Council of People's Commissars were two decrees: the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land. The first called for an end to the world war. The second decree defended the interests of the peasants and was completely taken from the program of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, since the Bolsheviks were a workers' party and did not deal with the peasant issue.

Meanwhile, the Socialist Revolutionaries continued to remain an influential party and were members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly. But when the left Socialist Revolutionaries joined the Bolsheviks, the right saw their goal as the overthrow of the Bolshevik dictatorship and a return to true democracy. However, the Right Socialist Revolutionary Party was still legalized, since the Bolsheviks planned to use it in the fight against the white movement. However, social revolutionaries in their printed publications continued to criticize the policies of the Bolsheviks, which led to mass arrests.

By 1919 the leadership of the SR party was already in exile. It considered foreign intervention to overthrow the Bolsheviks justified. However, the right-wing Social Revolutionaries who remained in the country saw in the intervention only the selfish interests of the imperialists. They abandoned the armed struggle against the Bolsheviks, since the country was already exhausted by the war. At the same time, they continued to conduct anti-Bolshevik campaigning in their printed publications.

The Social Revolutionaries, indeed, contributed to the fight against the whites. It was at the Zemsky Congress organized by the Socialist Revolutionaries that it was decided to overthrow the rule of Kolchak. However, in the early twenties, the Social Revolutionaries were accused of counter-revolutionary activities and the party was dissolved.

SR party program

The program of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was based on the works Chernyshevsky, Mikhailovsky and Lavrov. This program was generously published in the printed publications of social revolutionaries: the newspapers “Revolutionary Russia”, “Conscious Russia”, “Narodny Vestnik”, “Mysl”.

General provisions

The general idea of the Socialist Revolutionary program was Russia's transition to socialism, bypassing capitalism. They called their non-capitalist path democratic socialism, which was to be expressed through the rule of the following organized parties:

The trade union is a party of producers,
The Cooperative Union is a party of consumers,
Parliamentary bodies of self-government consisting of organized citizens.

The central place in the Socialist Revolutionary program was occupied by the peasant question and the socialization of agriculture.

A look at the peasant question

The Social Revolutionaries' view of the peasant question was very original for that time. Socialism, according to the Socialist Revolutionaries, was supposed to begin in the countryside and from there expand throughout the country. And it had to begin precisely with the socialization of the land. What did this mean?

This meant, first of all, the abolition of private ownership of land. But at the same time, land could not be state property either. It was supposed to become public peasant property without the right to sell or buy it. This land was to be managed by elected bodies of collective people's self-government.

The provision of land for the use of peasants, according to the Social Revolutionaries, should have been equalization-labor. Namely, an individual peasant or a partnership of peasants could receive for use such an allotment of land that they could independently cultivate and which would be enough for them to feed themselves.

It was these ideas that subsequently migrated to the “Decree on Land” of the Council of People’s Commissars.

Democratic ideas

The political ideas of the social revolutionaries gravitated towards democracy. During the transition to socialism, the Socialist Revolutionaries saw a democratic republic as the only acceptable form of power. With this form of power The following rights and freedoms of citizens had to be respected:

The last point implied that all categories of the population should be represented in government bodies in proportion to the number of these categories. Later, the same idea was put forward by the Social Democrats.

Legacy of the Social Revolutionary Party

What mark did the social revolutionaries leave in history? with their political and social program? First, there is the idea of collective stewardship of the land. The Bolsheviks already introduced it into life, and in general the idea turned out to be so successful that other communist and socialist states adopted it.

Secondly, most of the rights and freedoms of citizens that the Social Revolutionaries defended just a hundred years ago now seem so obvious and inalienable that it is hard to believe that not so long ago they had to be fought for. Thirdly, the idea of proportional representation of different categories of the population in government is also partially used in some countries in our time. In the modern world, this idea has taken the form of quotas in the government and beyond.

Social revolutionaries gave the modern world a lot of ideas about fair power and fair distribution of resources.

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 in late 1908 - early 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 the October events, regarding them as “a crime against the homeland and the revolution.” From the ruling party, after the Bolsheviks seized power, they again became the opposition. While the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries (about 62 thousand people) transformed into the “Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries (Internationalists)” and delegated several of its representatives to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the right wing did not lose hope of overthrowing the power of the Bolsheviks. In the late autumn of 1917, they organized a revolt of cadets in Petrograd, tried to recall their deputies from the Soviets, and opposed the conclusion of peace between Russia and Germany.

The last congress of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in history worked from November 26 to December 5, 1917. Its leadership refused to recognize “the Bolshevik socialist revolution and the Soviet government as not recognized by the country.”

During the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Socialist Revolutionaries received 58% of the votes, at the expense of voters from the agricultural provinces. On the eve of its convening, the right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries planned the “seizure of the entire Bolshevik head” (meaning the murder of V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky), but they were afraid that such actions could lead to a “reverse wave of terror against the intelligentsia.” On January 5, 1918, the Constituent Assembly began its work. The head of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, V.M. Chernov, was elected its chairman (244 votes against 151). The Bolshevik Ya.M. Sverdlov, who came to the meeting, proposed to approve the document drawn up by V.I. Lenin Declaration of the Rights of Workers and Exploited People, but only 146 deputies voted for this proposal. As a sign of protest, the Bolsheviks left the meeting, and on the morning of January 6 - when V.M. Chernov read Draft Basic Law on Land– forced to stop reading and leave the room.

After the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the Socialist Revolutionaries decided to abandon conspiratorial tactics and wage an open struggle against Bolshevism, consistently winning back the masses, taking part in the activities of any legal organizations - Soviets, All-Russian Congresses of Land Committees, Congresses of Women Workers, etc. After the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty in March 1918, one of the first places in the propaganda of the Social Revolutionaries was occupied by the idea of restoring the integrity and independence of Russia. True, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries continued in the spring of 1918 to look for compromise ways in relations with the Bolsheviks, until the creation of the Committees of Poor People and the confiscation of grain from the peasants the Bolsheviks overflowed their cup of patience. This resulted in 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 headed by former cadet P.A. Vologodsky.

In September 1918 in Ufa, at a meeting of anti-Bolshevik regional governments and groups, the Right Socialist Revolutionaries formed a coalition (with the Cadets) Ufa Directory - 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

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.

Controls

Supreme body - Congress of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, Council of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party
Executive body - Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party

Party program

The historical and philosophical worldview of the party was substantiated by the works of Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Pyotr Lavrov, Nikolai Mikhailovsky.

The draft party program was published in May 1904 in No. 46 of 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 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.

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 Socialist 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 Gots. Over the entire history of the BO (1901-1908), over 80 people worked there. The organization was in an autonomous position within the party; the Central Committee only gave it the task of committing the next terrorist act and indicated the desired date for its execution. The BO had its own cash register, appearances, addresses, apartments; the Central Committee had no right to interfere in its internal affairs. The leaders of the BO Gershuni (1901-1903) and Azef (1903-1908) (who was a secret police agent) were the organizers of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the most influential members of its Central Committee.

The period of the first Russian revolution 1905-1907

During the revolution of 1905-1907 there was a peak in the terrorist activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries. During this period, 233 terrorist attacks were carried out (among others, 2 ministers, 33 governors, in particular, the Tsar’s uncle, and 7 generals were killed), from 1902 to 1911 - 216 assassination attempts.

After the February Revolution

The Socialist Revolutionary Party actively participated in the political life of the country after the February Revolution of 1917, bloced with the Menshevik-defencists and was the largest party of this period. By the summer of 1917, the party had about 1 million people, united in 436 organizations in 62 provinces, in the fleets and on the fronts of the active army.

The Left Socialist Revolutionaries remained legal until the events of July 6-7, 1918. On many political issues, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries disagreed with the Bolsheviks. These issues were: the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty and agrarian policy, primarily the surplus appropriation system and the Brest Committees. On July 6, 1918, the leaders of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries who were present at the V Congress of Soviets in Moscow were arrested. (See Left Socialist Revolutionary uprisings (1918)).

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”.

At the beginning of January 1923, the bureau of the Petrograd Provincial Committee of the RCP (b) allowed the “initiative group” of Socialist Revolutionaries, under the secret control of the GPU, to hold a city meeting. As a result, a result was achieved - the decision to dissolve the city organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.

In March 1923, with the participation of the “Petrograd initiative”, the All-Russian Congress of former ordinary members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was held in Moscow, which deprived the former leadership of the party of their powers and decided to dissolve the party. The party, and soon its regional organizations, were forced to cease to exist on the territory of the RSFSR. In 1925, the last members of the Party's Central Bureau were arrested. Only the Socialist Revolutionary emigration continued its activities, which existed until the 1960s, first in Paris, Berlin, Prague, and then in New York

Maria Spiridonova

Of all the leaders of the Left Social Revolutionaries, only the People's Commissar of Justice in the first post-October government, Steinberg, managed to escape. The rest were arrested many times, were in exile for many years, and were shot during the years of the Great Terror. A member of the Central Committee of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, Maria Spiridonova was shot according to the verdict passed on September 8, 1941, on the basis of a resolution of the State Defense Committee, without initiating a criminal case or conducting preliminary or trial proceedings, by the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Ulrich V.V. (members of the collegium Kandybin D. Ya. and Bukanov V. V.).

Emigration

The centers of Socialist Revolutionary emigration were Paris, Berlin and Prague. The first congress of foreign organizations of the AKP took place in 1923, and the second in 1928. Since 1920, the party's periodicals began to be published abroad. A huge role in establishing this business was played by Viktor Chernov, who left Russia in September 1920. First in Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia), and then in Berlin, Chernov organized the publication of the magazine “Revolutionary Russia” (the name repeated the title of the central body of the party in 1901-1905 years). The first issue of Revolutionary Russia was published in December 1920. The magazine was published in Yuryev (now Tartu), Berlin, and Prague.

In addition to “Revolutionary Russia,” the Socialist Revolutionaries published several other publications in exile. In 1921, three issues of the magazine “For the People!” were published in Revel. (officially it was not considered a party one and was called the “worker-peasant-Red Army magazine”), political and cultural magazines “The Will of Russia” (Prague, 1922-1932), “Modern Notes” (Paris, 1920-1940) and others, including including in foreign languages. In the first half of the 1920s, most of these publications were focused on Russia, where most of the circulation was illegally delivered. From the mid-1920s, the ties of the Foreign Delegation of the AKP with Russia weakened, and the Socialist Revolutionary press began to spread mainly among the emigrants. In the second half of the 1930s. The Socialist Revolutionaries, in the most significant of the emigrant literary magazines, Sovremennye Zapiski, called on Soviet Russia “back to capitalism.”

Notes

Literature

Pavlenkov F. F. Encyclopedic Dictionary. St. Petersburg, 1913 (5th ed.).
Eltsin B. M.(ed.) Political Dictionary. M.; L.: Krasnaya Nov, 1924 (2nd ed.).
Supplement to the Encyclopedic Dictionary // In a reprint of the 5th edition of the “Encyclopedic Dictionary” by F. Pavlenkov, New York, 1956.
Radkey O. H. The Sickle under the Hammer: The Russian Socialist Revolutionaries in the Early Months of Soviet Rule. N.Y.; L.: Columbia University Press, 1963. 525 p.
Gusev K.V. Socialist Revolutionary Party: from petty-bourgeois revolutionism to counter-revolution: Historical essay / K. V. Gusev. M.: Mysl, 1975. - 383 p.
Gusev K.V. Knights of Terror. M.: Luch, 1992.
Party of Socialist Revolutionaries after the October Revolution of 1917: Documents from the archives of P.S.-R. / Collected and provided with notes and an outline of the history of the party in the post-revolutionary period by Marc Jansen. Amsterdam: Stichting beheer IISG, 1989. 772 pp.
Leonov M. I. Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1905 - 1907. - M.: ROSSPEN, 1997. - 512 p. - ISBN 5-86004-118-7
Morozov K. N./ K. N. Morozov. M.: ROSSPEN, 1998. - 624 p.
Morozov K. N. The trial of the socialist revolutionaries and the prison confrontation (1922-1926): ethics and tactics of confrontation / K. N. Morozov. M.: ROSSPEN, 2005. 736 p.
Suslov A. Yu. Socialist revolutionaries in Soviet Russia: sources and historiography / A. Yu. Suslov. Kazan: Kazan Publishing House. state technol. University, 2007.
Programs of the main Russian parties: 1. People's Socialists. 2. Social Democratic Labor Party. 3. Socialist revolutionaries. 4. People's Freedom Party. 5. Octobrist Party (Union of October 17, 1905). 6. Peasant Union. 7. National Democratic-Republican Party. 8. Political parties of various nationalities in Russia ("Ukrainians", "Bund", etc.): with the appendix of articles: a) About Russian parties, b) Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. - [M.], . - 64 s.
Chernomordik S. Social Revolutionaries: (Party of Socialist Revolutionaries). - Kh.: Proletary, 1929. - 61 p. - (What parties were there in Russia)
Shulyatikov V. M. A dying party. "Workers' Banner". March 1908, No. I.
Memorial book of a socialist-revolutionary / In 2 issues.. - 1911. - 81+88 pp. Contains the charter and program of the party, resolutions of party congresses, a table of terrorist acts committed by the Social Revolutionaries, as well as instructions on forging passports.

Socialist Revolutionaries, Revolutionaries program. History of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. See what “Socialist Revolutionaries” are in other dictionaries

Party program

Party history

Pre-revolutionary period

Party in 1917

Party in the Council of Deputies

Emigration

Literature

see also

External links

Links and notes

See what the “Socialist Revolutionary Party” is in other dictionaries:

A little history

Formation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party