Everyone knows that as a result of the October Revolution and the ensuing Civil War, the Bolshevik Party came to power in Russia, which, with various fluctuations in its general line, remained in leadership almost until the collapse of the USSR (1991). 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 masses, while all other political organizations, in one way or another, sought to revive capitalism. This is not entirely true. For example, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party stood on an uncompromising platform, in comparison with which the position of the Bolsheviks sometimes 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 this?
One against all
Of course, after many artistic images created by the masters of "socialist realistic art", the party looked ominously in the eyes of the Soviet peoplesocialist revolutionaries. The Socialist-Revolutionaries were remembered when the story was about the assassination attempt on Lenin in 1918, the murder of Uritsky, the Kronstadt uprising (mutiny) and other facts unpleasant for the communists. It seemed to everyone that they were "pouring water on the mill" of the counter-revolution, they were striving to stifle 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 unimaginable number of terrorist acts during the period of two Russian revolutions, and during the Civil War caused a lot of trouble to the White movement. Such ambiguity led to the fact that the Socialist-Revolutionary Party turned out to be hostile to almost all the warring parties, entering into temporary alliances with them and terminating them in the name of achieving their own independent goal. What was it? It is impossible to understand this without familiarizing yourself with the party program.
Origins and Creation
It is believed that the creation of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party took place in 1902. This is true in a sense, but not entirely. In 1894, the Saratov Narodnaya Volya Society (underground, of course) developed its own program, which was somewhat more radical than before. It took a couple of years to develop a program, send it abroad, publish it, print leaflets, deliver them to Russia and other manipulations related to the appearance of a new force in the political firmament. At the same time, a small circle at first was headed by a certain Argunov, who renamed it, calling it the "Union of Socialist Revolutionaries." The first measure of the new party was the creation of branches andestablishing 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 appearance of a printed organ. The 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 according to the program. This document, adopted by the majority of the founding congress, declares the goals and methods, allies and opponents, the main driving forces and the obstacles to be overcome. In addition, the principles of governance, governing bodies and terms of membership are specified. The Social Revolutionaries formulated the tasks of the party as follows:
1. Establishment in Russia of a free and democratic state with a federal structure.
2. Giving all citizens equal voting rights.
3. Declaration and observance of the rights and freedoms of conscience, press, speech, unions, associations, etc.
4. Right to free education.
5. The 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, just as eager to seize power as the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Programparty 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 (during the inter-congress period) made strategic decisions that were carried out by the Central Committee, which was considered the executive body.
SRs and the agrarian question
At the end of the 19th century, Russia was a predominantly agrarian country in which the peasantry made up the majority of the population. The Bolsheviks in particular, and the Social Democrats in general, considered this class to be politically backward, prone to private property instincts, and assigned the poorest part of it only the role of the closest ally of the proletariat, the locomotive 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, its transfer to state ownership, but also not its distribution to the working people. In general, according to the Socialist-Revolutionaries, true democracy should have come not from the city to the countryside, but vice versa. Therefore, private ownership of agricultural resources should be abolished, their sale and purchase banned and transferred to local governments, which will distribute all the "good" according to consumer standards. Collectively, this was called the "socialization" of the land.
Peasants
It is interesting that, declaring the village a source of socialism, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party treated its inhabitants themselves quite cautiously. Peasants have never really been special.political literacy. What to wait for them, the leaders and ordinary members of the organization did not know, the life of the villagers was alien to them. The Socialist-Revolutionaries were “heartbroken” for the oppressed people and, as often happens, believed that they knew how to make them happy, better than themselves. Their participation in the soviets that arose during the First Russian Revolution increased their influence both among the peasants and among the workers. As for the proletariat, there was a critical attitude towards it. In general, the working mass was considered amorphous, and much effort had to be made to rally it.
Terror
The Socialist-Revolutionary Party in Russia became famous already in the year of its creation. Minister of the Interior Sipyagin was shot dead by Stepan Balmashev, and G. Girshuni, who led the military wing of the organization, organized this murder. Then there were many terrorist attacks (the most famous of them are the successful assassination attempts on S. A. Romanov, the uncle of Nicholas II, and Minister Plehve). After the revolution, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party continued the murderous list, many Bolshevik leaders, with whom there were significant disagreements, became its victims. In the ability to organize individual terrorist attacks and reprisals against individual opponents, no political party could compete with the AKP. The Socialist-Revolutionaries really eliminated the head of the Petrograd Cheka, Uritsky. As for the assassination attempt committed at the Michelson plant, this story is vague, but their involvement cannot be completely ruled out. However, in terms of the scale of mass terror, they were far from the Bolsheviks. However, perhaps if they came toauthorities…
Azef
Legendary personality. Yevno Azef led the military organization and, as was irrefutably proven, collaborated with the detective department of the Russian Empire. And most importantly, in both of these structures, which are so different in goals and tasks, they were very pleased with him. Azef 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 Okhrana. Only in 1908 did the Socialist-Revolutionaries expose him. What party would tolerate such a traitor in its ranks? The Central Committee pronounced the verdict - death. Azef was already almost in the hands of his former comrades, but he was able to deceive them and run away. How he succeeded is not entirely clear, but the fact remains: until 1918 he lived and died not from poison, a noose or a bullet, but from a kidney disease that 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 Boris Savinkov, who began his political career as a liberal and then joined the terrorists. He joined the Social Revolutionary Party a year after its creation, was Azef's first deputy, took part in the preparation of many terrorist attacks, including the most resonant ones, was sentenced to death, 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 suicideafter his arrest by the Cheka in 1924.
Gershuni
Grigory Andreevich Gershuni was one of the most active members of the militant wing of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. He directly supervised the execution of terrorist acts against Minister Sipyagin, the attempted assassination of the governor of Kharkov Obolensky and many other actions designed to achieve public well-being. He acted everywhere - from Ufa and Samara to Geneva - organizing and coordinating the activities of local underground circles. In 1900, he was arrested, but Gershuni managed to avoid harsh pen alties, as he, in violation of party ethics, stubbornly denied his involvement in a conspiratorial structure. Nevertheless, there was a failure in Kyiv, and in 1904 a sentence followed: exile. The escape led Grigory Andreevich to the Parisian emigration, where he soon died. This was a true artist of terror. The main disappointment of his life was the betrayal of Azef.
Party in the Civil War
The Bolshevikization of the Soviets, implanted, according to the Socialist-Revolutionaries, artificially, and carried out by dishonest methods, led to the exit of the party representatives from them. Further activity was sporadic. The Social Revolutionaries entered into temporary alliances with either the Whites or the Reds, and both sides understood that this cooperation was dictated only by momentary political interests. Having received a majority in the Constituent Assembly, the party was unable to consolidate its success. In 1919, the Bolsheviks, considering the value of the terrorist experience of the organization, decided to legalize it.activities in the territories controlled by them, but this step did not affect the intensity of anti-Soviet speeches. However, the Social Revolutionaries at times declared a moratorium on speeches, supporting one of the fighting parties. In 1922, the members of the AKP were finally "exposed" as enemies of the revolution, and their complete eradication began throughout the territory of Soviet Russia.
In exile
The foreign delegation of the AKP arose long before the actual defeat of the party, in 1918. This structure was not approved by the central committee, but, nevertheless, existed in Stockholm. After the actual ban on activities in Russia, almost all the surviving and remaining at large members of the party ended up in emigration. They concentrated mainly in Prague, Berlin and Paris. Viktor Chernov, who fled abroad in 1920, headed the work of foreign cells. In addition to Revolutionary Russia, other periodicals were published in exile (For the People!, Sovremennye Zapiski), 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.
The end of the SR Party
The struggle of the KGB against the surviving Social Revolutionaries has become the subject of many fiction novels and films. In general, the picture of these works corresponded to reality, although it was presented distortedly. In fact, by the mid-1920s, the Socialist-Revolutionary movement was a political corpse, completely harmless to the Bolsheviks. Inside Soviet Russia, the Social Revolutionaries (former) were mercilessly caught, and sometimes social revolutionary views were even attributed to people who had never shared them. Successfully carried out operations to lure especially odious party members to the USSR were intended rather to justify the upcoming repressions, presented as another exposure of underground anti-Soviet organizations. Trotskyists, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, Martovites and other former Bolsheviks, who suddenly became objectionable, soon replaced the Socialist-Revolutionaries in the dock. But that's another story…
