It is known that in the period that followed 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 held a number of prominent posts in the government of the country, and the program was supported by the majority of citizens, the Social Revolutionaries did not manage to retain power in their hands. The revolutionary year 1917 was the period of their triumph and the beginning of the tragedy.

The birth of a new party

In January 1902, the underground newspaper Revolutionary Russia, published abroad, informed its readers of the appearance on the political horizon of a new party, whose members call themselves social revolutionaries. It is unlikely that this event received at that moment a significant resonance in society, since at that period similar structures often appeared and disappeared. Nevertheless, the creation of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party became a significant milestone in Russian history.

Despite the publication of 1902, its creation took place much earlier than it was announced in the newspaper. Eight years earlier, an illegal revolutionary circle had formed in Saratov, which had close ties with the local branch of the Narodnaya Volya Party, which by that time was living its last days. When it was finally liquidated by the secret police, the members of the circle began to act independently and two years later worked out 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. In the form of a brochure, this document saw the light only in 1900, published in the printing house of one of the foreign branches of the party that had appeared by that time.

Merging together the 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 specification 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 a single, essentially, organization merged, as a result of which the well-known Socialist-Revolutionary Party was formed. It was headed by the permanent leader Viktor Chernov (his photo is presented in the article).

The tasks that the SRs set themselves

The program of the party of social revolutionaries had a number of points that distinguished it from most of the political organizations that existed at that time. Among them were:

  1. Formation of the Russian state on a federal basis, in which it will consist of independent territories (subjects of the federation) that have the right to self-determination.
  2. Universal suffrage, which applies to citizens who have reached the age of 20, regardless of gender, nationality and religious affiliation;
  3. Guarantee of respect for fundamental civil liberties such as freedom of conscience, speech, press, association, union, etc.
  4. Free public education.
  5. Reducing the working day to 8 hours.
  6. The reform of the armed forces, in which they cease to be a permanent state structure.
  7. Distinguishing between church and state.

In addition, the program included several more points that, in their essence, repeated the demands of other political organizations striving for power, as well as the Socialist-Revolutionaries. The supreme organ of the party power of the social revolutionaries was the Congresses, and between them all current issues were decided by the Soviets. The main slogan of the party was the call "Land and Freedom!"

Features of the agrarian policy of the SRs

Of all the political parties that existed at that time, the Social Revolutionaries stood out for their attitude to the solution of the agrarian question and to the peasantry as a whole. This most numerous class in pre-revolutionary Russia was, in the opinion of all Social Democrats, including the Bolsheviks, so backward and devoid of political activity that it could only be considered as an ally and support to the proletariat, which was assigned the role of the "locomotive of the revolution."

The social revolutionaries took a different point of view. In their opinion, the revolutionary process in Russia should begin just in the countryside and only then spread to cities and industrialized regions. Therefore, in the transformation of society, the peasants were assigned an almost leading role.

As for the land policy, here the Socialist-Revolutionaries proposed their own path, which was different from the others. According to their party program, all agricultural land was not subject to nationalization, as the Bolsheviks called for, and not to be handed over to individual owners, as the Mensheviks suggested, but socialized and transferred to the disposal of local self-government bodies. They called this way the socialization of the land.

At the same time, her private ownership, as well as buying and selling, was prohibited by law. The final product was subject to distribution in accordance with the established consumer standards, which were in direct proportion to 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. In the opinion of its leaders, it was not bourgeois, since this class was not capable of leading the newly created society. The reasons for this lie in the reforms of Alexander II, who opened a wide path for the development of capitalism. They did not consider it socialist either, but invented 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, reformatory way without any social upheavals. Nevertheless, a significant number of Social 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.

Combat organization of the SRs

A curious paradox lies in the fact 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 formations of the early 20th century, this organization was the most effective. The victims of the committed acts were not only high-ranking officials of the tsarist government and representatives of law enforcement agencies, but also political opponents from among other parties.

The bloody path of the militant organization of the SRs began in April 1902 with the assassination of the Minister of Internal Affairs D. Sipyagin and an attempt on the life of 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 assassination of the tsarist minister V. Pleve, 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 activity of the Social Revolutionaries falls on the years 1905-1907. According to reports, the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party V. Chernov and the leadership of the militant group are responsible for the commission of 223 terrorist attacks only during this period, as a result of which 7 generals, 33 governors, 2 ministers and the Moscow governor-general were killed. This bloody statistic was continued in subsequent years.

Events of 1917

After the February Revolution, as a political party, the Social Revolutionaries became the most influential public organization in Russia. Their representatives occupied key positions in many newly formed government structures, and the total number reached one million people. However, despite the rapid rise and the popularity of the main provisions of its program among the population of Russia, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party soon lost its 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 an appeal to 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 coordinating committee was created to organize the fight against the usurpers of power. It was headed by the prominent Socialist-Revolutionary Abram Gotz.

However, not all party members were unambiguous about what was happening, and representatives of its left wing expressed support for the Bolsheviks. Since that time, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party has tried to implement its policy on many issues. This caused a split and a general weakening of the organization.

Between two fires

During the Civil War, the Social 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 action with the White Guards and interventionists.

Of course, none of the representatives of the main opposing sides took the alliance with the SRs 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.

Defeat of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party

In 1919, wishing to make the most of the potential that the Socialist-Revolutionary Party had in itself, the Lenin 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 that the party headed by them resorted to. Even the danger posed by their common enemy could not reconcile the Bolsheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

As a result, the temporary truce was soon replaced by a new band 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 were killed by that time (M.L. Kogan-Bernstein, I.I.Teterkin, etc.), many emigrated to Europe (V.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 Social Revolutionaries is inextricably linked with the Russian emigration, whose ranks were intensively replenished in the first post-revolutionary years. Having got abroad after the defeat of the party, which began back in 1918, the Social Revolutionaries were met there by their fellow party members who settled in Europe, and who created a foreign department there long before the revolution.

After the party was banned in Russia, all its members who survived and remained at large 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 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, it was possible to smuggle them across the border illegally, and therefore the material published in them was aimed at the Russian reader. But as a result of the efforts made by the Soviet special services, delivery channels were soon closed, and all newspaper circulation began to circulate among the emigrants.

Many researchers note that in the articles published in the 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 on the same positions, exaggerating the same topic of creating a classless society in Russia, then at the end of the 30s, they openly declared the need to return to capitalism.

Afterword

On this, the SRs (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 the new historical realities. Unable to withstand the struggle with a stronger political enemy in the person of the RSDLP (b), headed by Lenin, they were forced to leave the historical scene forever.

However, in the Soviet Union, for many years, people who had nothing to do with it were accused of belonging to the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and promoting its ideology. In an atmosphere of total terror that gripped the country, the very word "Social Revolutionary" was used as a designation for the enemy and as a label was hung on explicit, and more often imaginary, oppositionists for their illegal condemnation.

Oddly enough, there have always been political parties in Russia. Of course, not in the modern interpretation, which defines a political party as a "special public organization", the guiding goal of which is the seizure of political power in the country.

Nevertheless, it is known for certain that, for example, in the same ancient Novgorod, various "Konchak" parties of Ivankovich, Mikulchich, Miroshkinichi, Mikhalkovichi, Tverdislavichi and other rich boyar clans existed for a long time and constantly fought for the key post of Novgorod mayor. A similar situation was observed in medieval Tver, where during the years of acute confrontation with Moscow there was a constant struggle between the two branches of the Tver princely house - the "Prolitovskaya" party of the Mikulin princes led by Mikhail Alexandrovich and the "pro-Moscow" party of the Kashiri princes led by Vasily Mikhailovich, and etc.

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

Only after the infamous Tsarist Manifesto of October 17, 1905, which for the first time granted political freedoms to the subjects of the Russian crown, began a stormy process of the formation of legal political parties, the number of which by the time of the collapse of the Russian Empire exceeded one hundred and fifty. True, the overwhelming majority of these political structures bore the character of "couch parties" formed exclusively to satisfy the ambitious and career interests of various political clowns who absolutely did not play any role in the country's political process. Despite this, almost immediately after the general process of the emergence of these parties, the first attempt was made to classify them.

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

1) landlord-monarchist (Black Hundreds),

2) bourgeois (Octobrists, Cadets),

3) petty-bourgeois (Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks)

and 4) proletarian (Bolsheviks).

In defiance of the Leninist classification of parties, the famous leader of the Cadets Pavel Milyukov in his brochure "Political Parties in the Country and the Duma" (1909), on the contrary, stated that political parties are created not on the basis of class interests, but solely on the basis of common ideas. Based on this basic thesis, he proposed his own classification of Russian political parties:

2) bourgeois-conservative (Octobrists),

and 4) socialist (Socialist-Revolutionaries, Socialist-Revolutionaries).

Later, another active participant in the political battles of that time, the leader of the Menshevik party Julius Zederbaum(Martov) in his famous work "Political Parties in Russia" (1917) stated that it is necessary to classify Russian political parties in relation to their relation to the existing government, therefore he made the following classification:

1) reactionary conservative (Black Hundreds),

2) moderately conservative (Octobrists),

3) liberal democratic (cadets)

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

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

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

2) liberal opposition (Octobrists, Cadets, progressives)

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

And their opponents ( Valentin Shelokhaev) - on the:

1) monarchical (Black Hundreds),

2) liberal (cadets),

3) conservative (Octobrists),

4) the left (Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries)

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

The dear reader has probably already drawn attention to the fact that among all the political parties that existed in the Russian Empire, all politicians, historians and political scientists focused their attention only on a few large party structures, which concentratedly expressed the entire spectrum of political, social and class interests of the subjects of the Russian crown ... Therefore, it is these political parties that will be at the center of our short story. Moreover, we will begin our story with the most "left" revolutionary parties - the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Abram Gotz

Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (AKP), or SRs,- the largest peasant party of the populist wing - emerged in 1901. But even at the end of the 1890s, the rebirth of the revolutionary populist organizations began, defeated by the tsarist government in the early 1880s.

The main provisions of the populist doctrine remained practically unchanged. However, its new theorists, above all Victor Chernov, Nikolay Avksentiev and Abram Gotz while not recognizing the very progressive nature of capitalism, they nevertheless recognized its victory in the country. Although, being absolutely convinced that Russian capitalism is a completely artificial phenomenon, forcibly implanted by the Russian police state, they still fervently believed in the theory of "peasant socialism" and considered the land-based peasant community a ready-made cell of socialist society.

Alexey Peshekhonov

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

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

From the populists, the Socialist-Revolutionaries adopted not only the basic ideological principles and attitudes, but also the tactics of fighting the existing autocratic regime - terror. In the fall of 1901, Grigory Gershuni, Evno Azef and Boris Savinkov created within the party a strictly conspiratorial and independent from the Central Committee "Combat organization of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party" (BO AKP), which, according to the specified data of historians ( Roman Gorodnitsky), during its heyday in 1901-1906, when it included more than 70 militants, committed more than 2,000 terrorist attacks that shook the entire country.

In particular, it was then that the Minister of Public Education Nikolai Bogolepov (1901), the Ministers of the Interior Dmitry Sipyagin (1902) and Vyacheslav Pleve (1904), the Ufa Governor-General Nikolai Bogdanovich (1903), the Moscow Governor-General Grand Duke died at the hands of the Socialist-Revolutionary militants. Sergei Alexandrovich (1905), Minister of War Viktor Sakharov (1905), Moscow Mayor Pavel Shuvalov (1905), Member of the State Council Alexei Ignatiev (1906), Tver Governor Pavel Sleptsov (1906), Penza Governor Sergei Khvostov (1906), Simbirsk Governor Konstantin Starynkevich (1906), Samara Governor Ivan Blok (1906), Akmola Governor Nikolai Litvinov (1906), Commander of the Black Sea Fleet Vice Admiral Grigory Chukhnin (1906), Chief Military Prosecutor Lieutenant General Vladimir Pavlov (1906) and many other high dignitaries of the empire , generals, chiefs of police and officers. And in August 1906, the Socialist-Revolutionary militants made an attempt on the life of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers Pyotr Stolypin, who survived only thanks to the instant reaction of his adjutant, Major General Alexander Zamyatin, who, in fact, covered the prime minister with his chest, preventing the terrorists from entering his office.

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

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

Nikolay Annensky

Most likely, at different periods of its existence, the members of the Central Committee were the main ideologist of the party Victor Chernov, "The grandmother of the Russian revolution" Ekaterina Breshko-Breshkovskaya, the leaders of the militants Grigory Gershuni, Yevno Azef and Boris Savinkov, and Nikolay Avksentiev, G.M. Gotz, Osip Minor, Nikolai Rakitnikov, Mark Natanson and a number of other persons.

The total number of the party, according to various estimates, ranged from 60 to 120 thousand members. The central press organs of the party were the newspaper "Revolutionary Russia" and the magazine "Bulletin of the Russian Revolution". The main program settings of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party were as follows:

1) the liquidation of the monarchy and the establishment of a republican form of government through the convocation of the Constituent Assembly;

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

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

4) the solution of the agrarian question through the gratuitous confiscation of all landowners, appanage and monastic lands and transfer them into full ownership of the peasant and urban communities without the right to purchase and sale and the distribution of land according to the equalizing labor principle (the land socialization program).

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

1) The Labor People's Socialist Party (People's Socialists, or Popular Socialists), whose leaders were Alexey Peshekhonov, Nikolai Annensky, Venedikt Myakotin and Vasily Semevsky, and 2) The Union of Socialist Revolutionary Maximalists, headed by Mikhail Sokolov.

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

Victor Chernov

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

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

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

With the outbreak of the First World War, a split again occurred in the party into the Socialist-Revolutionaries-centrists, led by Viktor Chernov and Socialist-Revolutionary Internationalists (Left Socialist-Revolutionaries), led by Maria Spiridonova who supported the well-known Leninist slogan "the defeat of the Russian government in the war and the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war."

Evgeny SPITSYN

Everyone knows that as a result of the October Revolution and the Civil War that followed, the Bolshevik Party came to power in Russia, which, with various fluctuations in its general line, remained with the leadership almost until the collapse of the USSR (1991). The official historiography of the Soviet years inspired the population with the idea that it was this force that enjoyed the greatest support of the popular masses, while all other political organizations, to one degree or another, sought to revive capitalism. This is not entirely true. For example, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party stood on an irreconcilable platform, in comparison with which the position of the Bolsheviks at times looked relatively peaceful. At the same time, the social revolutionaries criticized the "fighting detachment of the proletariat" led by Lenin for usurping power and oppressing democracy. So what kind of party was it?

One against all

Of course, after many artistic images created by the masters of "socialist realistic art", the party of socialist revolutionaries looked ominous in the eyes of the Soviet people. The Social Revolutionaries were recalled when the story was about the murder of Uritsky in 1918, the Kronstadt uprising (mutiny) and other facts unpleasant for the communists. It seemed to everyone that they "poured water on the mill" of the counter-revolution, sought to strangle Soviet power and physically eliminate the Bolshevik leaders. At the same time, it was somehow forgotten that this organization waged a powerful underground struggle against the "tsarist satraps", carried out an unthinkable number of terrorist acts during the two Russian revolutions, and during the Civil War caused a lot of harm to the White movement. This ambiguity led to the fact that the Socialist Revolutionary Party turned out to be hostile to almost all the opposing sides, entering into temporary alliances with them and dissolving them in the name of achieving their own independent goal. What was it? It is impossible to understand this without reading the party program.

Origins and creation

It is believed that the creation of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party took place in 1902. This is true in a way, but not entirely. In 1894, the Saratov Narodnaya Volya Society (underground, of course) developed its own program, which was somewhat more radical than before. It took a couple of years to develop a program, send it abroad, publish, print leaflets, deliver them to Russia and other manipulations associated with the emergence of a new power in the political firmament. At the same time, a small at first circle was headed by a certain Argunov, who renamed it, calling it the "Union of Socialist-Revolutionaries". The first measure of the new party was the creation of branches and establishing a stable relationship with them, which seems quite logical. Branches were created in the largest cities of the empire - Kharkov, Odessa, Voronezh, Poltava, Penza and, of course, in the capital, St. Petersburg. The process of party building was crowned by the appearing organ. A program was published on the pages of the Revolutionary Russia newspaper. This leaflet announced that the creation of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party had become a fait accompli. It was in 1902.

Goals

Any political force acts in accordance with the program. This document, adopted by the majority of the constituent congress, declares goals and methods, allies and opponents, and the main obstacles to be overcome. In addition, the principles of governance, governing bodies and conditions of membership are indicated. The Social Revolutionaries formulated the party's tasks as follows:

1. Establishment in Russia of a free and democratic state with a federal structure.

2. Granting equal suffrage to all citizens.

4. The right to free education.

5. Abolition of the armed forces as a permanent state structure.

6. Eight hour working day.

7. Separation of state and church.

There were a few more points, but on the whole they largely repeated the slogans of the Mensheviks, Bolsheviks and other organizations, who were just as eager to seize power as the Socialist-Revolutionaries. The party program declared the same values ​​and aspirations.

The commonality of the structure was also manifested in the hierarchical ladder described by the charter. The form of government of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party included two levels. Congresses and Soviets (in the inter-congress period) made strategic decisions, which were carried out by the Central Committee, which was considered an executive body.

SRs and the agrarian question

At the end of the 19th century, Russia was a predominantly agrarian country in which the peasantry constituted the majority of the population. The class in particular, and the Social Democrats in general, were considered politically backward, subject to private ownership instincts, and assigned the poorest part of it only the role of the closest ally of the proletariat, the engine of the revolution. The Socialist-Revolutionaries looked at this question somewhat differently. The party program provided for the socialization of the land. At the same time, it was not about its nationalization, that is, the transition to state ownership, but also not about its distribution to the working people. In general, according to the socialist revolutionaries, true democracy should have come not from town to village, but vice versa. Therefore, private ownership of agricultural resources should be abolished, their purchase and sale should be prohibited and transferred to local self-government bodies, which would distribute all the "good" in accordance with consumer standards. Together, this was called the "socialization" of the land.

Peasants

It is interesting that, while declaring the village to be the source of socialism, she was rather cautious about its inhabitants. The peasants have never really been distinguished by special political literacy. The leaders and rank-and-file members of the organization did not know what to expect, the life of the villagers was alien to them. The Socialist-Revolutionaries "ached at heart" for the oppressed people and, as often happens, believed that they knew how to make them happy, better than themselves. Their participation in the councils that arose during the First Russian Revolution increased their influence in both the peasant and the working environment. As for the proletariat, the attitude towards it was critical. In general, the working mass was considered amorphous, and much effort had to be made to bring it together.

Terror

The Socialist-Revolutionary Party in Russia became famous in the year of its creation. The Minister of Internal Affairs Sipyagin was shot by Stepan Balmashev, and G. Girshuni, who was in charge of the fighting wing of the organization, organized this murder. Then there were many terrorist attacks (the most famous of them are the successful attempts on the life of S. A. Romanov, the uncle of Nicholas II, and Minister Plehve). After the revolution, the party of the Left Social Revolutionaries continued the murderous list, many Bolshevik leaders with whom there were significant disagreements became its victims. In the ability to organize individual acts of terrorism and reprisals against individual opponents, no political party could compete with the AKP. The Social Revolutionaries really eliminated the head of the Petrograd Cheka, Uritsky. As for the assassination attempt at the Michelson plant, this story is vague, but their involvement cannot be completely ruled out. However, in terms of the scale of the mass terror, they were far from the Bolsheviks. However, perhaps, if they came to power ...

Azef

The personality is legendary. Yevno Azef led a military organization and, as was irrefutably proven, collaborated with the detective department of the Russian Empire. And most importantly, in both of these, so different in goals and objectives, structures they were very pleased with. Azev organized a number of terrorist attacks against representatives of the tsarist administration, but at the same time handed over a huge number of militants to the secret police. Only in 1908 was it exposed by the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Which party will tolerate such a traitor in its ranks? The Central Committee passed a sentence - death. Azef was already almost in the hands of his former comrades, but he was able to deceive them and escape. How he succeeded is not entirely clear, but the fact remains: he lived until 1918 and died not from poison, noose or bullet, but from kidney disease, which he "earned" in a Berlin prison.

Savinkov

The Socialist-Revolutionary Party attracted many adventurers in spirit who were looking for a point of application for their criminal talents. One of them was a liberal who started his political career and then joined terrorists. He joined the party of social revolutionaries a year after its creation, was Azef's first deputy, took part in the preparation of many terrorist attacks, including the most resonant, was sentenced to death, and fled. After the October Revolution, he fought against Bolshevism. He claimed supreme power in Russia, collaborated with Denikin, was familiar with Churchill and Pilsudski. Savinkov committed suicide after his arrest by the Cheka in 1924.

Gershuni

Grigory Andreevich Gershuni was one of the most active members of the fighting wing of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. He directly supervised the execution of terrorist acts against Minister Sipyagin, the attempt to assassinate the governor of Kharkov Obolensky and many other actions designed to achieve the people's well-being. He acted everywhere - from Ufa and Samara to Geneva - doing organizational work and coordinating the activities of local underground circles. He was arrested, but Gershuni managed to avoid harsh punishment, since, in violation of party ethics, he stubbornly denied his involvement in the conspiratorial structure. In Kiev, nevertheless, there was a failure, and in 1904 the verdict followed: exile. The escape led Grigory Andreevich to the Paris emigration, where he soon died. He was a true artist of terror. The main disappointment of his life was Azef's betrayal.

Party in the Civil War

The de-Bolshevikization of the Soviets, implanted, in the opinion of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, artificially, and carried out by dishonest methods, led to the withdrawal of party representatives from them. Further activities were sporadic. The Social Revolutionaries entered into temporary alliances with the Whites, then with the Reds, and both sides understood that it was dictated only by momentary political interests. Having received a majority in the party, it was unable to consolidate its success. In 1919, the Bolsheviks, taking into account the value of the terrorist experience of the organization, decided to legalize its activities in the territories they controlled, but this step did not in any way affect the intensity of anti-Soviet protests. However, the SRs from time to time declared a moratorium on speeches, supporting one of the fighting sides. In 1922, the AKP members were finally "exposed" as enemies of the revolution, and their complete eradication began throughout the territory of Soviet Russia.

In emigration

The overseas delegation of the AKP emerged long before the actual defeat of the party, in 1918. This structure was not approved by the central committee, but, nevertheless, existed in Stockholm. After the de facto ban on activity in Russia, practically all the surviving and remaining members of the party ended up in emigration. They concentrated mainly in Prague, Berlin and Paris. The head of the work of foreign cells was Viktor Chernov, who fled abroad in 1920. In addition to Revolutionary Russia, other periodicals were published in the emigration (For the People!, Modern Notes), which reflected the main idea that gripped the former underground workers who had recently fought the exploiters. By the end of the 1930s, they realized the need to restore capitalism.

End of the Socialist Revolutionary Party

The struggle of the Chekists with the surviving Socialist-Revolutionaries became the theme of many fiction novels and films. In general, the picture of these works corresponded to reality, although it was presented in a distorted manner. In fact, by the mid-1920s, the Socialist-Revolutionary movement was already a political corpse, completely harmless to the Bolsheviks. Inside Soviet Russia, the Socialist-Revolutionaries (former) were mercilessly trapped, and sometimes social-revolutionary views were even attributed to people who had never shared them. The successfully carried out operations to lure especially odious party members in the USSR were aimed rather at justifying the impending repressions, presented as another exposure of underground anti-Soviet organizations. The Socialist-Revolutionaries were soon replaced by Trotskyists, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, Martovites and other former Bolsheviks who suddenly became objectionable. But that's another story ...

The Socialist-Revolutionary Party was finally formed in 1903 on the basis of various groups that historically and traditionally considered themselves followers of populism. Its program, adopted at the 1st Congress in 1906, proclaimed the "socialization of land": the confiscation of all private property in land and its transfer through volost and county local peasant congresses to all working peasants according to the established local norm, based on the number of eaters in the family. The basis for the land program of the Socialist-Revolutionaries remained the peasant community with its allotments to be redistributed. The program of the Social Revolutionaries, leaving aside their municipal projects, transferred virtually all private land to the community, providing, just as it was practiced in it, for a regular redistribution of allotments.

Socialist Revolutionary Party poster

In the conditions of the rapidly developing industry throughout the XX century, in the conditions of the prospect of inevitable growth of not only the rural, but especially the urban population, in the program of the SRs one cannot but see both utopianism and demagogic calculation for a spontaneous explosion in the countryside, one cannot fail to see the desire to close one's eyes on the food problem in Russia over the next 20-30 years.

This program deprived the peasantry of the opportunity to develop a culturally intensive economy on a small allotment, which was constantly being redistributed, capable of providing the city with the necessary food. The SR program, in the long run, deprived Russia of the opportunity to continue industrialization and could not but aggravate the country's general backwardness.

It is interesting to note that the time of the adoption of this program, which looked back, almost coincided with the truly progressive Stolypin reform, which destroyed the community and relied on separate, private peasant farms. But it was in the spirit of the Socialist-Revolutionary program of "socialization" that Lenin's "Decree on Land" was later drawn up.

In other matters, the Socialist-Revolutionary program differed little from the programs of other left-wing parties. The Socialist-Revolutionaries recognized the right of the peoples of Russia to secession from the state after the revolution, but at the same time transferred this and other questions to the decision of the future Constituent Assembly.

The most controversial issue at the 1906 Socialist Revolutionary Congress was the issue of recognizing the need for a "revolutionary dictatorship" after the revolution. By an insignificant majority, the congress recognized the "revolutionary dictatorship" as necessary at the time the foundations of the program were carried out, after which the transition to a normal legal regime was to take place.

This position, together with the recognition terror, as a "temporary" means to achieve goals, caused significant differences in the Socialist-Revolutionary Party itself, which were fully revealed in 1917.

If the Right SRs Avksentiev, Gotz, Savinkov, Zenzinov more and more inclined towards legal statehood, as the starting point for carrying out their program on the basis of a democratically elected parliamentary majority, then the Left Social Revolutionaries - Nathanson, Spiridonova, Kamkov, Karelin and others, strove for a "revolutionary dictatorship." On this issue, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries approached the Bolsheviks. The roots of this rapprochement lie in the nature of both Leninism and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who grew up on the traditions of that extreme populist wing, which was most vividly represented by

The largest leftist party in pre-revolutionary Russia was founded in 1902. Soon, its members began to be called the abbreviated Socialist-Revolutionaries. It is under this name that they are known to most Russians today. The most powerful revolutionary force was swept away from the historical arena by the revolution itself. Let's take a closer look at its history.

Prehistory of creation

Social revolutionary circles appeared in Russia at the end of the 19th century. One of them was founded in Saratov in 1894 on the basis of the Narodnaya Volya Society. Two years later, the circle developed a program, which was sent abroad and printed in the form of a leaflet. In 1896, Andrei Argunov became the leader of the circle, who renamed the union the Union of Socialist-Revolutionaries and moved its center to Moscow. The Central Union established contacts with illegal revolutionary circles in St. Petersburg, Odessa, Kharkov, Poltava, Voronezh and Penza.

In 1900, the union acquired a printed organ - the illegal newspaper “Revolutionary Russia”. It was she who, in January 1902, announced the creation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party on the basis of the union.

The tasks and methods of the SRs

The AKP program was drawn up in 1904 by a prominent party leader Viktor Chernov. The main goal of the socialist revolutionaries was the establishment of a republican form of government in Russia and the extension of the main political rights to all segments of the population. The Socialist-Revolutionaries decided to achieve their goals by radical means: underground struggle, terrorist attacks and active agitation among the population.

Already in 1902, the population of the vast empire learned about the militant organization of the new party. In the spring of 1902, the militant Stepan Balmashev point-blank shot the Minister of Internal Affairs of Russia Dmitry Sipyagin. The organizer of the murder was Grigory Girshuni. In the following years, the Social Revolutionaries organized and carried out a number of successful and unsuccessful assassination attempts. The most notorious of them were the murders of the new Minister of the Interior Ministry and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, uncle of Nicholas II.

Socialist-Revolutionaries and Azef

The name of the legendary provocateur and double agent is associated with the Socialist Revolutionary Party. For several years he headed the militant organization of the party and at the same time was an employee of the Okhranka (detective department of the Russian Empire). As the head of the BO, Azef organized a number of powerful terrorist attacks, and as an agent of the tsarist special service, he assisted in the arrest and destruction of many of his fellow party members. In 1908, Azev was exposed. The Central Committee of the AKP sentenced him to death, but a skilled provocateur fled to Berlin, where he lived for another ten years.

AKP and the Revolution of 1905

At the very beginning of the first Russian revolution, the Socialist-Revolutionaries put forward a number of theses with which the party did not part until its dissolution. The socialists revived the old slogan "Land and Freedom", which now meant a just distribution of land among the peasants. They also proposed to convene a Constituent Assembly - a representative body that would decide the issues of federalization and the state system of post-revolutionary Russia.

During the revolutionary years, the Socialist-Revolutionaries carried out revolutionary agitation among the soldiers and sailors. took an active part in the creation of the first councils of workers' deputies. These first councils coordinated the actions of the revolutionary-minded masses and did not pretend to be representative bodies. Socialist-Revolutionaries in 1917 When the February Revolution forced Nicholas II to abdicate, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks formed bodies alternative to the Provisional Government, local councils and zemstvos - councils. The Petrograd Soviet actually became in opposition to the Provisional Government.

In the spring of 1917, the left-wing parties held the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which formed the All-Russian Executive Committee, which duplicated functions. At first, the Soviets were dominated by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, but their Bolshevization began in June. When the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd, they held the Second Congress of Soviets. Most of the Socialist-Revolutionaries left the congress, stating that they considered the Bolshevik coup a crime, but some party members were included in the first composition of the Council of People's Commissars. Although the AKP declared the overthrow of the Bolshevik dictatorship as its primary goal, it remained legal until 1921. A year later, members of the Central Committee of the AKP, who did not have time to emigrate, were repressed.