Socialist revolutionary parties - Socialist Revolutionary Parties (Socialist-Revolutionaries), RSDLP (Bolsheviks), RSDLP (Mensheviks)

Ways to solve the main issues of the revolution		Bolsheviks	Mensheviks
1. Political system	Democratic Republic	The power of the workers and peasants, passing into the dictatorship of the proletariat	Democratic Republic
	Maximum democratic rights and freedoms	Democracy is only for the working classes	Unconditional nature of all democratic rights and freedoms
3. The peasant question	Elimination of landownership, its transfer to the ownership of communities and the division between peasants according to a labor or equalization norm	Nationalization of all land and its division among the peasants according to the labor or equalization norm	Municipalization of land, that is, its transfer to local authorities with subsequent lease by peasants
4. Work question	Manufacturing communes throughout the country with broad popular self-government	The working class is the hegemon of the revolution and the creator of the new socialist society, the protection of its interests is the highest goal of the party	Protecting the interests of the working class from the arbitrariness of the capitalists, providing it with all political rights and social guarantees
5. National question	Federation of Free Republics	The right of nations to self-determination, the federal principle of state structure	Right to cultural and national autonomy

Liberal Democratic Parties - Union of October 17 (Octobrists) and Party of Constitutional Democrats (Kadets)

A way to solve the main problems of Russia	Octobrists
1. Political system	Constitutional monarchy modeled on Germany	Parliamentary monarchy modeled on England
2. Political rights and freedoms	Maximum political rights and freedoms while maintaining a strong public order and unity of the country	Maximum democratic rights and freedoms up to the proclamation of a republic
3. Agrarian question	The solution of the peasant question in line with the Stolypin agrarian reform	Demand for the alienation of part of the landed estates for a ransom acceptable to the peasants
4. Work question	Non-intervention of the state in the relationship between entrepreneurs and wage workers, the right of the latter to strike, with the exception of strategically important enterprises	Creation of conciliation chambers with the participation of the state to settle conflicts between workers and entrepreneurs, the right of workers to strike and strike
5. National question	Preservation of a unitary Russian state with little autonomy for Poland and Finland	The program of cultural and national autonomy, which provides complete freedom of cultural development for all peoples while maintaining the territorial integrity of the country

The difficult situation in the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century led to the emergence of many political parties of various kinds. The party was a meeting of like-minded people who decide questions about the future fate of the Russian state. Each party had its own political program and representatives in different parts of Russia.

All political parties and movements were banned, and their representatives were forced to go underground. However, the first Russian revolution changed the policy of the authorities. Emperor Nicholas II was forced to give the people a Manifesto, in which he allowed important democratic freedoms. One of them was the ability to freely create political parties.

The first political circle was created in 1894 in Saratov. They were representatives of the socialist-revolutionaries. The organization was banned at the time and operated underground. Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov was elected leader of the party. At first they kept in touch with representatives of the former revolutionary organization Narodnaya Volya. Later, the Narodnaya Volya were dispersed, and the Saratov organization began to spread its influence.

The Saratov circle included representatives of the radical intelligentsia. After the dispersal of the Narodnaya Volya, the Social Revolutionaries developed their own program of action and began to work independently. The Socialist Revolutionaries created their own organ, which saw the light of day in 1896. A year later, the party began to operate in Moscow.

Socialist-Revolutionary Party Program

The official date of formation of the party is 1902. It consisted of several groups. One of the cells of the party was engaged in carrying out terrorist attacks against high-ranking officials. So in 1902, terrorists attempted to assassinate the Minister of the Interior. As a result, the party was dissolved. Instead of a single political organization, small detachments remained that could not wage a constant struggle.

The fate of the party changed during the first Russian revolution. Emperor Nicholas II allowed the creation of political organizations. So the party again found itself on the political arena. V. M. Chernov, the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, saw the need to involve the peasants in the struggle for power. He relied on a peasant revolt.

At the same time, the party created its own program of action. The main directions of the party's work were the overthrow of the autocracy, the establishment of a democratic republic, and universal suffrage. It was supposed to be a revolution driving force which the peasantry was to become.

Methods of struggle for power

The most common method of struggle for power for the Socialist-Revolutionary Party is to become individual terror, and in the future to carry out a revolution. Socialist-revolutionaries tried to achieve their goals through political bodies. Representatives of the party during the Great October Revolution joined the Provisional Government, which was subsequently dispersed.

The Socialist-Revolutionaries called for pogroms of landowners' estates, to carry out terrorist acts. Over the entire existence of the party, more than 200 murders of high-ranking officials were committed.

During the period of the Provisional Government, a split occurred in the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. The scattered movement of socialist revolutionaries did not bring good results. The left and right wings of the party fought with their own methods, but they failed to achieve their goals. The party was unable to extend its influence to all sections of the population and began to lose control over the peasantry as well.

End of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party

In the mid-20s of the 20th century, Chernov fled abroad to get away from the police. There he became the leader of a foreign group that published articles and newspapers with party slogans. In Russia, the parties have already lost all influence. Former Social Revolutionaries were arrested, tried, sent into exile. There is no such party today. However, its ideology and demand for democratic freedoms survived.

The Social Revolutionaries gave the world many ideas about establishing democracy, fair government and the distribution of resources.

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 to seize political power in the country.

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

Although, of course, in the modern sense, political parties in Russia arose 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 (PSR), created only at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. For obvious reasons, these political parties could only be illegal and operated under the strictest secrecy, under constant pressure from tsarist secret police, which in those years was headed by such aces of the imperial political investigation as gendarmerie colonels Vladimir Piramidov, Yakov Sazonov And Leonid Kremenetsky.

Only after the infamous Tsarist Manifesto of October 17, 1905, which for the first time granted political freedoms to subjects of the Russian crown, did the rapid process of the formation of legal political parties begin, the number of which by the time the Russian Empire collapsed exceeded one hundred and fifty. True, the vast majority of these political structures were in the nature of "sofa parties" formed solely 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 wholesale process of the emergence of these parties, the first attempt was made to classify them.

Thus, the leader of the Russian Bolsheviks Vladimir Ulyanov(Lenin) in a number of his works, such as "An attempt to classify 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 Lenin's classification of parties, the well-known leader of the Cadets Pavel Milyukov in his pamphlet Political Parties in the Country and the Duma (1909), on the contrary, he stated that political parties are by no means created on the basis of class interests, but exclusively on the basis of general ideas. Based on this basic thesis, he proposed his own classification of Russian political parties:

2) bourgeois-conservative (Octobrists),

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

Later, another active participant in the political battles of that time, the leader of the Menshevik Party Julius Zederbaum(Martov) in his famous work “Political Parties in Russia” (1917) stated that it is necessary to classify Russian political parties according to their relation to the existing government, therefore he made such a 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 issue. 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) left (Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries)

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

Dear reader, you have probably already noticed that among all the political parties that existed in the Russian Empire, all politicians, historians and political scientists focused their attention on only a few large party structures that concentratedly expressed the entire 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 Social Democrats and the Socialist Revolutionaries.

Abram Gots

Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (AKP), or Socialist-Revolutionaries,- the largest peasant party of the populist persuasion - arose in 1901. But as early as the late 1890s, the rebirth of revolutionary populist organizations began, which were crushed by the tsarist government in the early 1880s.

The main provisions of the populist doctrine remained virtually unchanged. However, its new theorists, above all Viktor Chernov, Nikolai Avksentiev And Abram Gots, not recognizing the very progressiveness of capitalism, 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 devoutly believed in the theory of "peasant socialism" and considered the landed peasant community to be a ready-made cell of socialist society.

Alexey Peshekhonov

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

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

From the populists, the Socialist-Revolutionaries adopted not only the basic ideological principles and attitudes, but also the tactics of combating the existing autocratic regime - terror. In the autumn 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 updated data from 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 whole country.

In particular, it was then that the Minister of Public Education Nikolai Bogolepov (1901), the Ministers of Internal Affairs Dmitry Sipyagin (1902) and Vyacheslav Pleve (1904), the Ufa Governor-General Nikolai Bogdanovich (1903), the Moscow Governor-General Grand Duke 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), Governor of Samara Ivan Blok (1906), Governor of Akmola 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 top dignitaries of the empire , generals, police chiefs 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 immediate reaction of his adjutant, Major General Alexander Zamyatin, who, in fact, covered the prime minister with his chest, not letting the terrorists into his office.

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

The legal registration of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party took place only in the winter of 1905-1906, when its founding congress took place, at which its charter, program were adopted and the governing bodies were elected - the Central Committee and the Council of the Party. 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.

Nikolai Annensky

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

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

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

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

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

4) the solution of the agrarian issue by confiscation of all landlords, appanages and monasteries without compensation and their transfer to the full ownership of peasant and urban communities without the right to buy and sell and the distribution of land according to the equalizing labor principle (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) Labor People's Socialist Party (People's Socialists, or Popular Socialists), led by Alexei Peshekhonov, Nikolai Annensky, Venedikt Myakotin and Vasily Semevsky, and 2) Union of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists, led 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 to extend the principles of socialization not only to peasant communities, but also to industrial enterprises.

Viktor Chernov

In February 1907, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party took part in the elections to the Second State Duma and managed to get 37 seats. 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, there was a serious scandal that thoroughly tarnished the reputation of the Socialist-Revolutionaries: it became known that the head of its “Combat Organization”, Yevno Azef, had been a paid agent of the tsarist secret police since 1892. His successor as head of the organization, Boris Savinkov, tried to revive its former power, but nothing good came of this idea, and in 1911 the party ceased to exist.

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

With the outbreak of the First World War, the party again split into SR-centrists, headed by Viktor Chernov and Socialist-Revolutionaries-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."

Evgeniy SPITSYN

The Party of Social Revolutionaries (AKP) is a political force that unites all the previously disparate forces of the opposition, who sought to overthrow the government. Today there is a myth that the AKP are terrorists, radicals who have chosen blood and murder as a method of struggle. This delusion was formed because many representatives of populism entered into a new force, and they actually chose radical methods of political struggle. However, the AKP did not consist entirely of ardent nationalists and terrorists; its structure also included moderate-minded members. Many of them even held prominent political posts, were well-known and respected people. However, there was still a "Combat Organization" in the party. It was she who was engaged in terror and murder. Its goal is to sow fear and panic in society. They partially succeeded: there were cases when politicians refused the posts of governors, because they were afraid of being killed. But not all Social Revolutionary leaders held such views. Many of them wanted to fight for the rule of law constitutionally. It is the leaders of the Social Revolutionaries who will become the main characters of our article. But first, let's talk about when the party officially appeared and who was a member of it.

The emergence of the AKP in the political arena

The name "social revolutionaries" was adopted by representatives of revolutionary populism. In this game, they saw the continuation of their struggle. They formed the backbone of the party's first combat organization.

Already in the mid-90s. In the 19th century, Social Revolutionary organizations began to form: in 1894, the first Saratov Union of Russian Social Revolutionaries appeared. By the end of the 19th century, similar organizations had sprung up in almost all major cities. These are Odessa, Minsk, Petersburg, Tambov, Kharkov, Poltava, Moscow. The first leader of the party was A. Argunov.

"Combat Organization"

The "combat organization" of the Social Revolutionaries was a terrorist organization. It is by it that the entire party is judged as "bloody". In fact, such a formation existed, but it was autonomous from the Central Committee, often not subordinate to it. For the sake of fairness, let's say that many party leaders also did not share such methods of waging a struggle: there were so-called Left and Right Socialist-Revolutionaries.

The idea of ​​terror was not new in Russian history: the 19th century was accompanied by mass murders of prominent political figures. Then the “populists” were engaged in this, which by the beginning of the 20th century had joined the AKP. In 1902, the "Combat Organization" for the first time showed itself as an independent organization - the Minister of the Interior, D.S. Sipyagin, was killed. A series of assassinations of other prominent political figures, governors, and others soon followed. The Social Revolutionary leaders could not influence their bloody offspring, which put forward the slogan: "Terror as the path to a brighter future." It is noteworthy, but one of the main leaders of the "Combat Organization" was the double agent Azef. At the same time, he organized terrorist acts, chose the next victims, and on the other hand, he was a secret agent of the Okhrana, “leaked” prominent performers to the special services, weaved intrigues in the party, and did not allow the death of the emperor himself.

Leaders of the Fighting Organization

The leaders of the "Combat Organization" (BO) were Azef - a double agent, as well as Boris Savinkov, who left memoirs about this organization. It was from his notes that historians studied all the subtleties of BO. It did not have a rigid party hierarchy, as, for example, in the Central Committee of the AKP. According to B. Savinkov, there was an atmosphere of a team, a family. Harmony reigned in it, respect for each other. Azef himself was well aware that authoritarian methods alone could not keep the BOs in subjection, he allowed the activists to determine their own inner life. Its other active figures - Boris Savinkov, I. Schweitzer, E. Sozonov - did everything to make the organization a single family. In 1904, another finance minister, V.K. Plehve, was assassinated. After that, the Charter of the BO was adopted, but it was never implemented. According to the memoirs of B. Savinkov, it was just a piece of paper that had no legal force, no one paid any attention to it. In January 1906, the "Combat Organization" was finally liquidated at the party congress due to the refusal of its leaders to continue terror, and Azef himself became a supporter of political legal struggle. In the future, of course, there were attempts to revive her with the aim of killing the emperor himself, but Azef all the time leveled them up to his exposure and flight.

Driving political force of the AKP

The Socialist-Revolutionaries in the impending revolution focused on the peasantry. This is understandable: it was the agrarians who made up the majority of the inhabitants of Russia, it was they who endured centuries of oppression. Viktor Chernov thought so too. By the way, before the first Russian revolution of 1905, serfdom was actually preserved in Russia in a modified format. Only the reforms of P. A. Stolypin freed the most industrious forces from the hated community, thereby creating a powerful impetus for socio-economic development.

The SRs of 1905 were skeptical about the revolution. They did not consider the First Revolution of 1905 to be either socialist or bourgeois. The transition to socialism was supposed to be peaceful, gradual in our country, and the bourgeois revolution, in their opinion, was not needed at all, because in Russia the majority of the inhabitants of the empire were peasants, not workers.

The Social Revolutionaries proclaimed the phrase "Land and Freedom" as their political slogan.

Official appearance

The process of forming an official political party was a long one. The reason was that the Social Revolutionary leaders had different views both on the ultimate goal of the party and on the use of methods to achieve their goals. In addition, two independent forces actually existed in the country: the Southern Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Union of Socialist-Revolutionaries. They merged into a single structure. The new leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party at the beginning of the 20th century managed to gather all the prominent figures together. The founding congress was held from December 29, 1905 to January 4, 1906 in Finland. Then it was not an independent country, but an autonomy within the Russian Empire. Unlike the future Bolsheviks, who created their RSDLP party abroad, the Social Revolutionaries were formed inside Russia. Viktor Chernov became the leader of the united party.

In Finland, the AKP approved its program, its provisional charter, and summed up the results of its movement. The Manifesto of October 17, 1905 contributed to the formalization of the party. He officially proclaimed the State Duma, which was formed through elections. The Socialist-Revolutionary leaders did not want to stand aside - they also began the official legal struggle. Extensive propaganda work is being carried out, official printed publications are being issued, and new members are actively recruited. By 1907, the Combat Organization was disbanded. After that, the leaders of the Social Revolutionaries do not control their former militants and terrorists, their activities become decentralized, their numbers grow. But with the dissolution of the military wing, on the contrary, an increase in terrorist acts occurs - there are a total of 223 of them. The loudest of them is the explosion of the carriage of the Moscow mayor Kalyaev.

Disagreements

Since 1905, disagreements began between political groups and forces in the AKP. The so-called Left SRs and Centrists appear. The term "Right Socialist-Revolutionaries" was not found in the party itself. This label was later invented by the Bolsheviks. In the party itself, there was a division not into "left" and "right", but into maximalists and minimalists, by analogy with the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. The Left SRs are the Maximalists. In 1906 they broke away from the main forces. Maximalists insisted on the continuation of agrarian terror, that is, the overthrow of power by revolutionary methods. The Minimalists insisted on fighting in legal, democratic ways. Interestingly, the RSDLP party divided into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks in almost the same way. Maria Spiridonova became the leader of the Left SRs. It is noteworthy that they subsequently merged with the Bolsheviks, while the Minimalists united with other forces, and the leader V. Chernov himself was a member of the Provisional Government.

female leader

The Social Revolutionaries inherited the traditions of the populists, whose prominent figures for some time were women. At one time, after the arrest of the main leaders of the Narodnaya Volya, only one member of the executive committee remained at large - Vera Figner, who led the organization for almost two years. The murder of Alexander II is also associated with the name of another woman from the People's Will - Sophia Perovskaya. Therefore, no one was against it when Maria Spiridonova became the head of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. Next - a little about the activities of Mary.

The popularity of Spiridonova

Maria Spiridonova is a symbol of the First Russian Revolution; many prominent figures, poets, and writers worked on her sacred image. Maria did nothing supernatural compared to the activities of other terrorists who carried out the so-called agrarian terror. In January 1906, she made an attempt on the life of Gavriil Luzhenovsky, an adviser to the governor. He "offended" before the Russian revolutionaries during 1905. Luzhenovsky brutally suppressed any revolutionary actions in his province, was the leader of the Tambov Black Hundreds, a nationalist party that defended traditional monarchist values. The assassination attempt for Maria Spiridonova ended unsuccessfully: she was brutally beaten by Cossacks and policemen. Perhaps she was even raped, but this information is unofficial. Particularly zealous offenders of Maria - the policeman Zhdanov and the Cossack officer Avramov - were overtaken by reprisals in the future. Spiridonova herself became a "great martyr" who suffered for the ideals of the Russian revolution. Public outcry in her case has spread all over the pages foreign press, which already in those years liked to talk about human rights in countries not controlled by them.

Journalist Vladimir Popov made a name for himself on this story. He conducted an investigation for the liberal newspaper Rus. Maria's case was a real PR action: her every gesture, every word spoken in court was described in the newspapers, letters to relatives and friends from prison were published. One of the most prominent lawyers of that time stood up for her defense: a member of the Central Committee of the Cadets, Nikolai Teslenko, who headed the Union of Lawyers of Russia. Spiridonova's photograph was distributed throughout the empire - this was one of the most popular photographs of that time. There is evidence that Tambov peasants prayed for her in a special chapel built in the name of Mary of Egypt. All articles about Maria were republished, each student considered it an honor to have her card in his pocket, along with a student ID. The system of power could not withstand the public outcry: Mary was abolished the death penalty, changing the punishment to life imprisonment. In 1917, Spiridonova will join the Bolsheviks.

Other Left SR leaders

Speaking about the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, it is necessary to mention several other prominent figures of this party. The first is Boris Kamkov (real name Katz).

One of the founders of the AKP party. Born in 1885 in Bessarabia. The son of a Zemstvo Jewish doctor, participated in the revolutionary movement in Chisinau, Odessa, for which he was arrested as a member of the BO. In 1907 he fled abroad, where he carried out all his active work. During the First World War, he adhered to defeatist views, that is, he actively desired the defeat of the Russian troops in the imperialist war. He was a member of the editorial office of the anti-war newspaper Life, as well as a committee for helping prisoners of war. He returned to Russia only after the February Revolution, in 1917. Kamkov actively opposed the Provisional "bourgeois" government and against the continuation of the war. Convinced that he would not be able to oppose the policy of the AKP, Kamkov, together with Maria Spiridonova and Mark Natanson, initiated the creation of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary faction. In the Pre-Parliament (September 22 - October 25, 1917), Kamkov defended his positions on peace and the Decree on Land. However, they were rejected, which led him to rapprochement with Lenin and Trotsky. The Bolsheviks decided to leave the Pre-Parliament, calling on the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries to follow along with them. Kamkov decided to stay, but declared solidarity with the Bolsheviks in the event of a revolutionary uprising. Thus, Kamkov already then either knew or guessed about the possible seizure of power by Lenin and Trotsky. In the autumn of 1917, he became one of the leaders of the largest Petrograd cell of the AKP. After October 1917, he tried to establish relations with the Bolsheviks, declaring that all parties should be included in the new Council of People's Commissars. He actively opposed the Brest peace, although in the summer he declared the inadmissibility of continuing the war. In July 1918, the Left SR movements against the Bolsheviks began, in which Kamkov took part. Since January 1920, a series of arrests and exiles began, but he never abandoned his loyalty to the AKP, despite the fact that he once actively supported the Bolsheviks. Only with the beginning of the Trotskyist purges, on August 29, 1938, Stalin was shot. Rehabilitated by the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation in 1992.

Another prominent theorist of the Left SRs is Steinberg Isaak Zakharovich. At first, just like others, he was a supporter of rapprochement between the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs. He was even People's Commissar of Justice in the Council of People's Commissars. However, just like Kamkov, he was an ardent opponent of the conclusion of the Brest Peace. During the Social Revolutionary uprising, Isaak Zakharovich was abroad. After returning to the RSFSR, he led an underground struggle against the Bolsheviks, as a result of which he was arrested by the Cheka in 1919. After the final defeat of the Left Social Revolutionaries, he emigrated abroad, where he conducted anti-Soviet activities. Author of the book "From February to October 1917", which was published in Berlin.

Another prominent figure who maintained contact with the Bolsheviks was Natanson Mark Andreevich. After the October Revolution in November 1917, he initiated the creation of a new party - the Party of the Left SRs. These were the new "leftists" who did not want to join the Bolsheviks, but did not join the centrists from the Constituent Assembly either. In 1918, the party openly opposed the Bolsheviks, but Natanson remained loyal to the alliance with them, breaking away from the Left SRs. A new trend was organized - the Party of Revolutionary Communism, of which Natanson was a member of the Central Executive Committee. In 1919, he realized that the Bolsheviks would not tolerate any other political force. Fearing arrest, he left for Switzerland, where he died of illness.

SRs: 1917

After the high-profile terrorist attacks of 1906-1909. Socialist-Revolutionaries are considered the main threat to the empire. Real raids by the police begin against them. The February Revolution revived the party, and the idea of ​​"peasant socialism" resonated in the hearts of the people, since many wanted to redistribute the landowners' lands. By the end of the summer of 1917, the membership of the party reaches one million people. 436 party organizations are being formed in 62 provinces. Despite the large numbers and support, the political struggle was rather sluggish: for example, in the entire history of the party, only four congresses were held, and by 1917 a permanent Charter had not been adopted.

The rapid growth of the party, the lack of a clear structure, membership fees, and accounting for its members lead to a strong discord in political views. Some of its illiterate members did not see the difference between the AKP and the RSDLP at all, they considered the Social Revolutionaries and the Bolsheviks to be one party. There were frequent cases of transition from one political force to another. Also, whole villages, factories, plants joined the party. The leaders of the AKP noted that many of the so-called March SRs enter the party solely for the purpose of career growth. This was confirmed by their mass departure after the Bolsheviks came to power on October 25, 1917. The "March SRs" almost all went over to the Bolsheviks by the beginning of 1918.

By the autumn of 1917, the Social Revolutionaries split into three parties: the right (Breshko-Breshkovskaya E.K., Kerensky A.F., Savinkov B.V.), centrists (Chernov V.M., Maslov S.L.), left ( Spiridonova M.A., Kamkov B.D.).

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

Party program The historical and philosophical outlook of the party was substantiated by the works of N. G. Chernyshevsky, P. L. Lavrov, N. K. Mikhailovsky. The draft program of the party was published in May in No. 46 of Revolutionary Russia. The project, with minor changes, was approved as the program of the party 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 chief 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 in a non-capitalist way. But the Social 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 the socialization of agriculture. This theory constituted a national feature of Socialist-Revolutionary democratic socialism and was a contribution to the treasury of world socialist thought. The initial idea of ​​this theory was that socialism in Russia should begin to grow first of all in the countryside. The soil for it, its preliminary stage, was to be the socialization of the land. The socialization of land meant, firstly, the abolition of private ownership of land, at the same time not its transformation into state property, not its nationalization, but its transformation into a public property without the right to buy and sell. Secondly, the transfer of all land to the control of central and local organs of people's self-government, beginning with democratically organized rural and urban communities and ending with regional and central institutions. Thirdly, the use of land was supposed to be equalizing labor, that is, to provide a consumer norm on the basis of the application of one's own labor, either 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 the socialization of the land were the main demands of the Socialist-Revolutionary minimum program. They were supposed to ensure a peaceful, evolutionary, without a special, socialist, revolution, Russia's transition to socialism. The program, in particular, spoke about the establishment of a democratic republic with the inalienable rights of man and citizen: freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly, unions, strikes, inviolability of the person and home, universal and equal suffrage for every citizen from 20 years old, without distinction gender, religion and nationality, subject to a direct system of elections and closed voting. Broad autonomy was also required for regions and communities, both urban and rural, and perhaps a 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 the 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 people's legislation (referendum and initiative). Editions (for 1913): "Revolutionary Russia" (in 1902-1905 illegally), "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 in the Southern Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, the other in 1901 - in the Union of Socialist-Revolutionaries. At the end of 1901, the Southern Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Union of Socialist-Revolutionaries merged, and in January 1902 the Revolutionary Russia newspaper announced the creation of the party. The Geneva "Agrarian-Socialist League" joined it. In April 1902, the Fighting Organization (BO) of the Socialist-Revolutionaries announced itself with a terrorist act against the Minister of the Interior D.S. Sipyagin. The BO was the most conspiratorial part of the party. Over the entire history of the existence of the BO (1901-1908), over 80 people worked in it. The organization was in the party in an autonomous position, 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 desk, turnouts, 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 dissociated itself - the Union of Socialist-Revolutionaries-Maximalists. During the years of the revolution of 1905-1907, the peak of the terrorist activities of the Social Revolutionaries fell. During this period, 233 terrorist attacks were carried out, from 1902 to 1911 - 216 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, in which 37 Social 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 a radical faction of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (headed by 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, blocked with the Menshevik defencists and was the largest party of that period. By the summer of 1917 there were about 1 million people in the party, 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 d.) and two conferences (in February 1919 and in September 1920). 20 members and 5 candidates were elected to the Central Committee at the IV Congress of the AKP: 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. Burevoi, 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 Soviet of Deputies The "Right Social Revolutionaries" were expelled from the Soviets of all levels on June 14, 1918 by the decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The "Left SRs" remained legal until the events of July 6-7, 1918. On many political issues, the "Left SRs" disagreed with the Bolshevik-Leninists. Such issues were: the Brest peace and agrarian policy, primarily food requisitioning and committees. On July 6, 1918, the leaders of the Left SRs who were present at the Fifth Congress of Soviets in Moscow were arrested, and the party was banned (See the Left SR Uprisings (1918)). By the beginning of 1921, the Central Committee of the AKP had actually ceased its activities. As early as June 1920, the Social Revolutionaries formed the Central Organizational Bureau, which, along with members of the Central Committee, included some prominent members of the party. In August 1921, in connection with numerous arrests, the leadership in the party finally passed to the Central Bureau. By that time, some of the members of the Central Committee, elected at the IV Congress, died (I. I. Teterkin, M. L. Kogan-Bernshtein), voluntarily left the Central Committee (K. S. Bureva, N. I. Rakitnikov, M. I. . Sumgin), went abroad (V. M. Chernov, V. M. Zenzinov, N. S. Rusanov, V. V. Sukhomlin). The members of the Central Committee of the AKP who remained in Russia were almost without exception in prisons. In 1922, the "counter-revolutionary activity" of the Socialist-Revolutionaries was "finally publicly exposed" at the Moscow trial of members of the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. parties (Gots, Timofeev and others), despite the protection of their leaders of the Second International. As a result of this process, the leaders of the party (12 people) were conditionally sentenced to death. 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 repeatedly arrested, spent many years in exile, and during the years of the "Great Terror" were shot. 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 Delegation Abroad of the AKP. Despite the fact that the leadership of the AKP was extremely negative about the presence of significant SR emigration, in the end there were quite a few prominent figures of the AKP abroad, including V. M. Chernov, N. D. Avksentiev, E. K. Breshko-Breshkovskaya , M. V. Vishnyak, V. M. Zenzinov, E. E. Lazarev, O. S. Minor and others. Paris, Berlin and Prague became the centers of the Socialist-Revolutionary emigration. 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 appear abroad. V. M. Chernov, who left Russia in September 1920, played a huge role in setting up this business. in 1901-1905). The first issue of Revolutionary Russia came out in December 1920. The magazine was published in Yuriev (now Tartu), Berlin, and Prague. In addition to Revolutionary Russia, the Socialist-Revolutionaries published several other printed organs in exile. In 1921, three issues of the magazine "For the People!" (officially it was not considered a party one and was called the "Workers'-Peasants'-Red Army Journal"), political and cultural journals "The Will of Russia" (Prague, 1922-1932), "Modern Notes" (Paris, 1920-1940) and others, including number on foreign languages. In the first half of the 1920s, most of these publications were oriented towards Russia, where most of the circulation was illegally delivered. Since the mid-1920s, the ties between the AKP Foreign Delegation and Russia have been weakening, and the Socialist-Revolutionary press begins to spread mainly among the émigré community. Literature Pavlenkov F. Encyclopedic Dictionary. SPb., 1913 (5th ed.). Eltsin B. M.(ed.) Political Dictionary. M.; L .: Krasnaya nov, 1924 (2nd ed.). Supplement to the Encyclopedic Dictionary // In the 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. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party: From Petty-Bourgeois Revolutionaryism to Counter-Revolution: An Historical Sketch / KV Gusev. M.: Thought, 1975. - 383 p. Gusev K.V. Terror knights. M.: Luch, 1992. Party of Socialist Revolutionaries after the October Revolution of 1917: Documents from the archives of P.S.-R. / Collected and supplied 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 p. Leonov M.I. Party of Socialist Revolutionaries in 1905-1907 / M. I. Leonov. M.: ROSSPEN, 1997. - 512 p. Morozov K. N. Party of Socialist Revolutionaries in 1907-1914 / K. N. Morozov. M.: ROSSPEN, 1998. - 624 p. Morozov K. N. The Trial of Socialist-Revolutionaries and 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. un-ta, 2007. see also External links Priceman L. G. Terrorists and revolutionaries, guards and provocateurs - M.: ROSSPEN, 2001. - 432 p. Morozov K. N. Party of Socialist Revolutionaries in 1907-1914 - M.: ROSSPEN, 1998. - 624 p. Insarov Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists in the Struggle for the New World Links and notes The Development of Opposition Ideas in Tsarist Russia XIX - early XX centuries 1810s-1826 "Constitution" N. M. Muravyov | "Russian Truth" by P. I. Pestel 1826-1850s "Contemporary" | "What to do?" 1880s-1905 Party of Socialist Revolutionaries | Russian Social Democratic Labor Party 1905-1917