Table on the history of the rsdl psr liberals. The Socialist Revolutionary Party in Russia. The form of government of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. CP Party Program
The Socialist Revolutionary Party occupied one of the leading places in the system of Russian political parties. It was the largest and most influential non-Marxist socialist party.
The first organizations of socialist revolutionaries began to appear in the mid-1890s. In August 1897, a congress of the southern groups of Socialist-Revolutionaries was held in Voronezh, at which the creation of the "Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries" was proclaimed. In the same year, the previously created "Union of Socialist-Revolutionaries", which coordinated the activities of the northern groups, began to operate actively in Moscow. In addition to these main associations, numerous circles and groups functioned, the successful work of which required the creation of a single center. In the emigration, there were also various associations, of which the Agrarian-Socialist League, created in 1900, stood out.
There was constant talk of amalgamation between the northern and southern groups. Around December 1901, in Berlin, E.F. Azef and M.F. Selyuk, possessing all the necessary powers from the northern groups, and G.A. Gershuni, who had the same powers from the southern groups, completed formal association AKP.
At the same time, Gershuni and Azef were negotiating with the Agrarian-Socialist League to merge it with the party, and soon a temporary union of the AKP and the League was formed on a federal basis. Subsequently, the "League" merged with the party.
In 1905-1906, the founding congress of the AKP was held, which approved the program and charter of the party.
Around the same time as the unification of groups of socialist-revolutionaries, BO began to take shape. In view of some disagreements within the party and in views on combat activitiesInitially, this organization did not arise as a party institution or under the Central Committee. This was a private initiative of some socialist revolutionaries. The first BO was formed around Gershuni. As a result of negotiations with the Central Committee, it was clear that the AKP should receive its name on the BO on special conditions - from the moment when it commits the first major terrorist act. The possibility of the emergence of other initiative groups was assumed, and it was precisely from the performance of a terrorist act that this group would be recognized as dominant, and it should already act as a militant organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, monopolizing the conduct of centralized political terror in its ranks. The official history of the BO begins with the murder of D.S. Sipyagin.
For the development of the theory of the Social Revolutionaries undertook V.M. Chernov. He wrote an article published in the main periodical organ of the party (the newspaper "Revolutionary Russia") and reflecting the views of the overwhelming majority of the SRs on terror - "The terrorist element in our program."
According to this article, the terrorist activities of the BO AKP are of propaganda significance. Act of terrorism "They attract everyone's attention, excite everyone, wake up the most sleepy, most indifferent inhabitants, stir up general rumors and conversations, make people think about many things that have never occurred to them before - in a word, they make them think politically." The result theoretical activity a disorganizing meaning was declared that could manifest itself in conditions of general resistance to the authorities, and which would lead to confusion in the ruling circles, "shake the throne" and "raise the question of the constitution." Chernov emphasized that terrorist means are not a self-sufficient system of struggle, but only part of a multifaceted struggle against the enemy. Terror must be intertwined with all other means of both partisan and mass pressure on the government. Terror is only a technical means of struggle, which in interaction with other methods can give the desired result. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party, according to the article, does not see any all-permissive means in the terrorist struggle, but, nevertheless, it is “one of the most extreme and energetic means of fighting the autocratic bureaucracy, curbing government arbitrariness, disorganizing the government mechanism, agitation and stirring up society. awakening enthusiasm and fighting spirit in the most revolutionary environment ”. But, if “tactically, it is necessary to coordinate the fight against terrorist means with all other forms of revolutionary activity and struggle, then technically it is no less necessary to separate it from other functions of the party. "
As for the Socialist-Revolutionary program, it can be divided into four parts. The first is devoted to the analysis of the then capitalism; the second - to the opposing international socialist movement; the third part contains a description of the characteristics of the socialist movement in Russia; the fourth part was the rationale for a specific RPS program.
The program boiled down to the following goals:
- 1) in the political and legal area: the establishment of a democratic republic, with a wide autonomy of regions and communities, civil liberties, the inviolability of the person and home, the complete separation of the church from the state and the declaration of religion as a private matter for everyone, the establishment of a compulsory equal for all general secular education at the state expense , equality of languages, the destruction of the standing army and its replacement by the people's militia; convocation of the Zemsky Sobor (Constituent Assembly).
- 2) in the national economic sphere: meeting the basic requirements of workers (to put it very briefly), socialization of all private land, strengthening the peasant community, some changes in tax policy (for example, the abolition of indirect taxes), the development of public services (free medical care, communalization of water supply , lighting, ways and means of communication, etc.).
The Social Revolutionaries were supporters of democratic socialism, i.e. economic and political democracy, which should be expressed through the representation of organized representatives (trade unions), organized consumers (cooperative unions) and organized citizens (a democratic state represented by parliament and self-government bodies). The originality of the Socialist-Revolutionary socialism lay in the theory of the socialization of agriculture. The original idea of \u200b\u200bthis theory was that socialism in Russia should begin to grow first in the countryside. The socialization of the countryside was supposed to become its soil (the abolition of private ownership of land, at the same time not its transformation into state property, not its nationalization, but its transformation into the public property without purchase and sale; the transfer of all land to the management of central and local bodies of people's self-government, "Equalizing labor" use of land). The Socialist-Revolutionaries considered political freedom and democracy to be the most important precondition for socialism and its organic form. Political democracy and socialization of the land were the main requirements of the SR minimum program. They were supposed to ensure a measured, evolutionary transition of Russia to socialism.
In the field of tactics, the party program of the Socialist-Revolutionaries was limited to the provision that the struggle would be waged "in forms corresponding to the specific conditions of Russian reality." The AKP's arsenal of methods and means of struggle included propaganda and agitation, peaceful parliamentary work and all forms of extra-parliamentary, violent struggle (strikes, boycotts, armed uprisings and demonstrations, etc.), individual terror as a means of political struggle.
The victims of the Socialist-Revolutionary terror in the period preceding the revolution of 1905-1907 were: the interior ministers D.S. Sipyagin (April 2, 1902 - from that moment the BO AKP was officially registered) and V.K. Plehve (July 15, 1904), Kharkiv Governor Prince I.M. Obolensky, who cruelly dealt with peasant demonstrations in the Poltava and Kharkov provinces in the spring of 1902 (wounded on July 29, 1902), the Ufa governor N.M. Bogdanovich, who organized the "massacre" of the Zlatoust workers (killed on May 6, 1903), the Moscow governor-general, the uncle of the tsar, grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich (February 4, 1905).
These are general information about the emergence and formation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and its militant organization. We now turn to the main part of this work, devoted to the activities of the BO in 1903-1906.
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 terroras 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
Also - Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (from the abbreviation in the first letters - SR), Socialist-Revolutionaries.
The revolutionary, socialist political party of Russia in the first third of the XX century. The name “Socialist-Revolutionaries”, as a rule, denoted those representatives of Russian socialism who associated themselves with the political traditions and ideas of “Narodnaya Volya”. At the same time, this term made it possible to distance both from the reformist populism with its theory of "small deeds", and from Marxism with its idea of \u200b\u200bthe obligatory evolution of socio-economic relations through capitalism to socialism.
Currently, the term socialist-revolutionaries is not used. The term "Social Revolutionaries", solely because of the coincidence of the first letters in the name of the party, is used by journalists, political analysts, leaders of certain political parties and movements to the "Fair Russia" party. However, this organization has no ideological and historical continuity from the true Socialist-Revolutionaries.
Expanded characteristic
The Socialist Revolutionary Party emerged at the beginning of the 20th century. on the basis of the unification of a number of revolutionary organizations that saw themselves as the successors of the political traditions of the "Narodnaya Volya" Having gained notoriety for terrorist activities, participation in the revolutionary events of 1905-1907, it became one of the most influential revolutionary parties, a rival of Russian social democracy for influencing the minds of workers, peasants, and intelligentsia. In 1917, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party was the most massive political force in Russia. Its representatives had big influence in the Soviets, other local government bodies, were part of the Provisional Government. The success of the Social Revolutionaries in the elections to the Constituent Assembly was also impressive. Nevertheless, the party experienced an internal crisis, largely caused by ideological differences. Its result was the split of the AKP into three independent streams. During the Second Russian Revolution and civil war the SRs were defeated in the fight against the Bolsheviks. In the 1920s - early 1930s. as a result of repressions by the Bolshevik dictatorship, the AKP was defeated and finally left the political arena in the USSR. At the same time, part of the party continued its activities under conditions of emigration until the end of the 1960s.
Historical context
The first SR organizations appeared in the mid-1890s. These included the Union of Russian Socialist Revolutionaries (1893, Bern) and the Union of Socialist Revolutionaries (SSR) (1895 - 1896), which was organized in Saratov and then operated in Moscow. The first, unsuccessful, attempts to unite them into a single party were made at the congresses in Voronezh, Poltava (1897) and Kiev (1898).
Erupted in the 1890s. the economic crisis called into question the optimistic forecast of the Marxists regarding the progressive role of capitalism, demonstrating that the policy of industrialization can be successful only with the modernization of the political system and agriculture. These circumstances contributed to the growth of the influence of the Socialist-Revolutionaries among the radical intelligentsia, making their ideas about special way Russia to socialism, about the great importance of the peasantry in the revolution. The revision of Marxism carried out by E. Bernstein and his followers in the 1890s also influenced the theoretical work of the Social Revolutionaries. Thus, V.M. Chernov, who became the most prominent theoretician of the Socialist-Revolutionary movement, in his works refuted the idea of \u200b\u200bthe petty-bourgeois nature of the working peasantry, emphasizing the commonality of its socio-economic interests with industrial workers.
In 1900, a number of Socialist-Revolutionary organizations in southern Russia united into the southern Party of Socialist Revolutionaries. At the same time, in Paris, on the initiative of V.M. Chernov, the Agrarian Socialist League (ASL) was created. In early December 1901, at a secret meeting in Berlin, E. Azef and M. Selyuk (representing the SSR), and G.A. Gershuni (a representative of the southern AKP), without agreement with the members of their organizations, decided to unite them into the All-Russian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries.
The announcement of the formation of the AKP was published in January 1902 on the pages of the newspaper "Revolutionary Russia". By 1905, it included more than 40 committees and groups, uniting about 2 - 2.5 thousand people. The social composition of the AKP was characterized by the predominance of the intelligentsia, pupils and students. Only about 28% of its members were workers and peasants. In 1902 - 1904. at the local level, a number of organizations were created to work with various strata of the population (the Peasant Union of the AKP, the Union of People's Teachers, workers' unions).
Leadership and bodies
The governing body of the party was initially the Commission for Relations with Abroad (consisting of E.K.Breshkovskaya, P.P. Kraft and G.A.Gershuni), and then the Central Committee, which consisted of two branches (St. Petersburg and Moscow). By 1905, it included about 20 people. There was also a Party Council convened to resolve urgent tactical and organizational issues, consisting of members of the Central Committee, delegates from the regional, as well as the Moscow and St. Petersburg committees. There were more than 10 regional committees that coordinated the activities of local organizations. The central printed organ of the AKP was originally the newspaper "Revolutionary Russia", since 1908 - "Znamya Truda". Its leaders were M.R. Gotz and E.F. Azef, by that time already actively cooperating with the secret police, giving out information about the activities of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and at the same time playing a double game in his own interests. The leading theorist of the AKP was V.M. Chernov. Even before the formation of a single AKP G.A. Gershuni began the formation of her Combat Organization, designed to conduct central terror against statesmen, in the opinion of the party leadership, the most discredited in the eyes of the public. She was completely autonomous in the party. The Central Committee had no right to interfere in the internal affairs of the BO, only by choosing the object of the action. The post of the head of the organization was held by Gershuni (1901 - May 1903) and Azef (1903 - 1908). In April 1902, the BO carried out the first terrorist act (the murder by S.V. Balmashov of the Minister of Internal Affairs D.S.Sipyagin). During the existence of the organization, it consisted of 10 - 30 at the same time, and in total - more than 80 people.
Views
The Social Revolutionaries recognized pluralism in the field of theory. In the party, as adherents of the ideas of subjective sociology, N.K. Mikhailovsky, and adherents of the teachings of Machism, neo-Kantianism and empirio-criticism. The AKP ideology was based on the populist concept of Russia's special path to socialism. Leading theorist of the party, V.M. Chernov, explained the need for such a path by its special position. the fact that in its development it is located between industrial and agrarian-colonial countries. In contrast to the developed industrial countries, Russian capitalism, in his opinion, was dominated by destructive tendencies, which was especially evident in relation to agriculture.
The class differentiation of society, according to the Social Revolutionary theorists, was determined by the attitude to work and sources of income. Therefore, in the labor, revolutionary camp, they included workers, peasants and the intelligentsia. In other words, people who live by their own labor, without exploiting others. The peasantry was considered his main force. At the same time, the duality of the social nature of this stratum of the population was recognized, since the peasant is both a worker and an owner. The Social Revolutionaries also noted that the working class, due to its high concentration in large cities Russia poses a serious threat to the ruling regime. The connection between the workers and the countryside was seen as one basis of workers 'and peasants' unity. The Russian intelligentsia, assessed as anti-bourgeois in their outlook, had to carry the ideas of socialism to the peasantry and the proletariat. The future revolution was viewed by the Socialist-Revolutionaries as a "social", transitional version between the bourgeois and socialist. One of her main goals was the socialization of the land.
Party program
The program and the temporary organizational charter of the AKP were approved at the Constituent Congress of the party in Finland on 29.12.1905 - 04.01.1906.
It was supposed to convene the Constituent Assembly on a democratic basis, the coming of the party to power by winning a majority in democratic elections at the local level, and then in the Constituent Assembly. The transition to socialism was then supposed to be carried out in a reformist way. The most important requirements of the program were: the elimination of the autocracy and the establishment of a democratic republic, political and civil liberties. The Social Revolutionaries advocated the introduction of federal relations between nationalities, the recognition of their right to self-determination and autonomy of self-government bodies. The central point of the economic part of the AKP program was the demand for the socialization of the land. It was supposed to abolish private ownership of land, and then - its transformation into public property with a ban on buying and selling. The organs of people's self-government were to be in charge of it. Provided for the equalization of labor use of the land (subject to its processing by their own labor, personal or collective). Its distribution was assumed according to the consumption and labor rates. Socialization should have To solve the "labor question" aKP program proclaimed the limitation of the duration of the working day to 8 hours, the introduction of a minimum wage, insurance of workers at the expense of the state and owners of enterprises, legislative labor protection under the control of an elected factory inspection, freedom of trade unions, the right of workers' organizations to participate in organizing labor at the enterprise. It was supposed to introduce free medical care.
A variety of methods and means of struggle were recognized. Among them, as propaganda and agitation, parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggle, including strikes, demonstrations, uprisings. For agitation, stirring up the revolutionary forces of society, and also as a measure of combating the arbitrariness of the government, individual terror was used. The terrorist acts of the BO have made the party widely known. The most famous among them is the murder of the interior ministers D.S. Sipyagin (2.04.1902) and V.K. Plehve (15.07.1904). For the cruel suppression of peasant unrest in the spring of 1902, the Kharkov governor I.M. Obolensky (June 26, 1902), and for the shooting of a workers' demonstration in the city of Zlatoust - the Ufa governor N.M. Bogdanovich (May 6, 1903). The Social Revolutionaries carried out active propaganda work among the workers, forming circles and participating in mass demonstrations and strikes. The publication of literature for peasants was organized, which was distributed in the Volga region, a number of southern and central provinces of Russia.
In 1903, a left-wing radical opposition appeared in the AKP, represented by a group of "agrarian terrorists" who suggested that the main focus of the party's attention should be shifted from the political struggle to defending the social interests of the peasantry. It was supposed to call on the peasants to resolve the agrarian question by seizing land, to use "agrarian terror". In the context of the deteriorating position of the autocracy in the context of the defeats of the Russo-Japanese war and the rise of the liberal movement, the AKP leadership made a bet on creating a broad association of political opposition. In the fall of 1904 V.M. Chernov and E.F. Azef took part in the conference opposition parties Russia in Paris.
During the years of the First Russian Revolution, the AKP set the overthrow of the autocracy as the main goal of its activities. In February 1905, the last significant act of the BO took place - the assassination of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, uncle of Nicholas II, the former governor-general of Moscow. In the fall of 1906, the BO was temporarily disbanded and replaced by flying combat detachments. Terror of the AKP has become decentralized and directed primarily against middle and lower-level officials. At this time, the Socialist-Revolutionaries participated in the preparation of a number of important revolutionary actions (strikes, demonstrations, meetings, uprisings). the most famous among them are the December armed uprising in Moscow, as well as the military uprisings in Kronstadt and Sveaborg in the summer of 1906. Many trade unions were created with the participation of the SRs. In some of them (the All-Russian Railway Union, the Postal and Telegraph Union, the Union of Teachers, and a number of others), supporters of the AKP prevailed. The party won overwhelming influence among the workers of a number of the largest Petersburg and Moscow factories, especially at the Prokhorovskaya manufactory. Numerous representatives of the Social Revolutionaries took part in the Petersburg, Moscow, and a number of other Soviets of Workers' Deputies. The Social Revolutionaries were actively working among the peasantry. So, in a number of the Volga provinces and in the Central Black Earth region, peasant brotherhoods were created. With the support of the AKP, the All-Russian Peasant Union and the Labor Group in the State Duma were created. As a result, the number of AKP increased significantly, reaching 60 thousand people.
Having supported the boycott of the Bulygin Duma and taking part in the All-Russian October strike, the Social Revolutionaries met the Manifesto of October 17, 1905 ambiguously. Most of the party leaders, especially E. Azef, proposed switching to constitutional methods of struggle, abandoning terror. Considering that the line on an armed uprising and boycott of the elections to the First State Duma did not receive the support of broad strata of the peasantry, the Social Revolutionaries took part in a new election campaign. A faction of socialist-revolutionaries of 37 deputies was formed in the Duma. 104 deputy signatures were collected under the agrarian project of the Socialist-Revolutionaries in the II Duma. In 1906, the Social Revolutionaries called on the peasantry to boycott the Stolypin agrarian reform, seeing in it a threat to the idea of \u200b\u200bsocializing the land. Subsequently, calls were made to the peasants to boycott the owners of farms and cuts.
Split
In 1905 - 1906 The AKP experienced a split, as a result of which the moderate populist circles close to it formed the Party of People's Socialists. At the same time, the left-wing radical wing, represented by supporters of immediate implementation socialist revolution in Russia, which also spoke from the position of radicalization of revolutionary terror, formed the Union of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists.
After the defeat of the revolution of 1905-1907. The AKP found itself in a state of crisis. The new tactical attitudes of the Socialist-Revolutionaries were based on the fact that the third June coup d'état returned the pre-revolutionary political situation to Russia. Because of this, confidence remained in the inevitability of a new revolution. AKP officially started boycott State Duma... It was also decided to intensify combat training for future uprisings and to resume terror. The party crisis was aggravated by the exposure of V.L. Burtsev's provocative activities E.F. Azefa. In early January 1909, the AKP Central Committee officially recognized the fact of its cooperation with the secret police. An attempt by B.V. Savinkov was unsuccessful to recreate the BO. As a result of mass arrests, disappointment and the departure of a number of activists, the growth of emigration, the number of the AKP has sharply decreased. At the V Council of the Party, which was held in May 1909, the old composition of the Central Committee resigned. In 1912, the functions of the Central Committee were transferred to the Foreign Delegation.
Discussions and ideological delimitation in the party are intensifying. A number of theorists turned their attention to the role of cooperation in the formation of socialist relations. So, I.I. Fondaminsky assumed that the gradual development of cooperative farms would lead to the socialization of the land. The left faction of the "initiative minority" (1908 - 1909) and the right wing, grouped around the magazine Pochin (1912), and uniting supporters of the transition to legal activity, arose. A group of "initiative minority" was formed in Paris from members of the local group of Socialist-Revolutionaries, who had long stood in opposition to the party line. In June 1909, supporters of the "initiative minority" left the party, joining the Union of Left SRs.
The growth of the labor movement and oppositional sentiments in Russia contributed to the growth of the ranks of the AKP, whose organizations in 1914 appeared at large enterprises in St. Petersburg, Moscow and many other cities. The agitation and propaganda work of the party among the peasantry was resumed. Socialist-Revolutionary legal newspapers (Trudovoy Golos, Mysl) began to appear in St. Petersburg. The consolidation process of the AKP was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War.
The Socialist-Revolutionary Party was never able to work out a common party platform on the issue of attitude to the war. As a result, among the Social Revolutionaries there were supporters of both defensist and internationalist positions. The defenders (Avksentiev, Argunov, Lazarev, Fondaminsky) proposed coordinating the tactics and forms of combating the tasks of the defense of Russia. The victory of the Entente over German militarism was viewed by the defencist Socialist Revolutionaries as a progressive phenomenon capable of influencing the political evolution of the Russian monarchy. The position of the internationalists was represented by Kamkov, Natanson, Rakitnikov and Chernov. They proceeded from the assumption that the tsarist government was waging a war of conquest. The socialists were to become the "third force" that would achieve a just peace without annexations and indemnities.
The split paralyzed the activities of the Foreign Delegation. At the end of 1914, opponents of the war among the Social Revolutionaries began publishing the newspaper "Mysl" in Paris. Chernov and Nathanson participated in the Zimmerwald (1915) and Kintalskaya (1916) international conferences of internationalists. M.A. Nathanson signed the Zimmerwald Manifesto. Chernov refused to sign it because his amendments were rejected. The defenders of the Social Revolutionaries, together with their like-minded Social Democrats, published the weekly newspaper Prizyv in Paris (October 1915 - March 1917). As the external and internal situation of Russia deteriorated, the political crisis grew, the ideas of the Socialist-Revolutionaries-internationalists found more and more supporters. Many Social Revolutionaries during the First World War worked in legal organizations, gradually expanding the influence of the party.
Social Revolutionaries in 1917
In the revolutionary events of February 1917, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, led by P.A. Alexandrovich. Zenzinov and Aleksandrovich were among the initiators of the creation of the Petrograd Soviet. Representatives of the AKP were included in the first composition of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. In many other cities, the Social Revolutionaries were also part of the Soviets, headed the revolutionary bodies of self-government. The return from exile and emigration of the leaders and activists of the party contributed to its revival. On March 2, 1917, the First Petrograd Conference of the Social Revolutionaries was held, which elected a city committee, which temporarily assumed the functions of the Central Committee. In mid-March, the publication of the new central organ of the AKP, the newspaper Delo Naroda, began. New local organizations were created. In early August, when the party was most popular, it included 436 organizations in 62 provinces (312 committees and 124 groups). The size of the party grew. Its maximum population in 1917 was about a million people. The organ of the Central Committee of the AKP "Delo Naroda" from June 1917 was one of the largest Russian newspapers. Its circulation reached 300 thousand copies.
The III Party Congress (25.05 - 4.06.1917) completed its organizational design. In the spring of 1917, the AKP formed a right wing (leaders - A.A. Argunov, E.K.Breshkovskaya, A.F. Kerensky) and a left wing (M.A.Natanson, B.D. Kamkov and M.A. ). The organ of the Right Social Revolutionaries was the newspaper "Will of the People". the left wing of the party expressed its position on the pages of the newspaper Znamya Truda. The official course of the AKP was determined by the centrist group headed by V.M. Zenzinov, V.M. Chernov, A.R. Gotz and N.D. Avksentiev. The disagreements were based on different assessments of the prospects for the development of the revolution in Russia and equally different views on the role of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party in this process. The Right SRs believed that in Russia, as in most countries of the world, the prerequisites for the socialist reorganization of society had not yet been prepared. Under these conditions, the main task of the revolution is the democratization of the political system. They saw its implementation as possible only in a coalition with the liberal circles of the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia, represented by the Cadet Party. Only a united front of democratic forces, according to the ideologists of the Right Socialist Revolutionaries, was a means of overcoming economic devastation and achieving victory over Germany. The Left Socialist Revolutionaries, on the contrary, considered it possible for Russia to transition to socialism with an imminent world revolution. Denying any blocking with the liberals, they put forward the idea of \u200b\u200ba homogeneous socialist government and demanded radical social reforms. Among them was the transfer of landlord's land to the disposal of land committees. As before, the left wing of the party remained on the anti-war, internationalist point of view. Socialist-Revolutionaries-centrists put forward the theory of a special, "people's labor" revolution, preserving the capitalist system, but at the same time creating the prerequisites for a socialist system. It was supposed to preserve a temporary coalition with all forces interested in the establishment and development of a democratic system. a temporary bloc with liberal parties was not ruled out either. As an alternative to dictatorship, the transfer of power to a coalition of socialist parties by winning the majority democratically was envisaged.
Although the left circles of the AKP opposed the support of the Provisional Government, participating in anti-government protests on the streets of Petrograd. At the same time, many right-wing and centrists approved the entry into the Provisional Government of A.F. Kerensky. After the April crisis, the AKP leadership recognized it necessary for the socialists to join the cabinet in order to correct its political course. AKP members were part of three coalition governments. In the first, the posts of Minister of Justice, and then - Minister of War and Naval Minister were held by A.F. Kerensky, the Minister of Agriculture was V.M. Chernov. In the second composition of the government, Kerensky served as minister-chairman, as well as minister of war and naval, V.M. Chernov - Minister of Agriculture, N.D. Avksentiev - Minister of Internal Affairs. The third coalition government included Kerensky, who retained the same posts, and S.L. Maslov, who became the Minister of Agriculture.
The AKP also officially declared its support for the Soviets, perceiving them not as organs of power, but as a class organization of the working masses, defending their interests and controlling the Provisional Government. The Social Revolutionaries enjoyed the predominant influence in the Soviets of Peasant Deputies. Local power was supposed to be transferred to city and district councils and democratically elected zemstvos. The Social Revolutionaries saw their political task in winning the majority in elections to these self-government bodies, and then in the Constituent Assembly. In August 1917, the AKP won the city council elections. At the same time, the idea of \u200b\u200ba direct seizure of power by the AKP, put forward at the VII Council of the party by M.A. Spiridonova.
The resolution of the Third Party Congress, reflecting the position of the centrists, was devoted to the question of war, which included the demand for a democratic peace. But until the end of the war, the need to maintain unity of action with the Allies in the Entente and to help strengthen the army's combat potential was recognized. Calls to refuse to participate in hostilities and to disobey orders were deemed unacceptable. The Left SRs criticized this position for maintaining elements of defensism. The right wing of the party, on the other hand, demanded a complete break with the ideas of Zimmerwald.
By the decision of the III Congress of the AKP, the agrarian question was to be decided by the Constituent Assembly. Up to this point, it was considered necessary to transfer the land to the disposal of land committees, which were supposed to prepare its fair redistribution. at that time, the AKP limited itself to achieving the abolition of the Stolypin land laws and the adoption of a law banning land transactions. Projects for the transfer of land to the jurisdiction of land committees were never approved by the Provisional Government. The III Congress of the AKP also recognized the need for state regulation of production, control over trade and finance.
In the fall of 1917, the crisis of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party reached its climax. Increased ideological differences led to its split. On September 16, the Right SRs issued an appeal, accusing the Central Committee of a defeatist position. They called on their supporters to prepare for a separate convention. N. D. Avksentiev and A.R. Gotz, defending the position of the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, advocated the continuation of the coalition with the Cadets. V.M. Chernov, on the contrary, argued that this policy was fraught with the loss of the party's popularity. Nevertheless, the majority of the members of the Central Committee at the end of September supported the tactics of the coalition. The process of organizing their supporters was started by the Left Social Revolutionaries, dissatisfied with this decision.
In response to the October coup, the Central Committee of the AKP already on 10/25/1917 issued an appeal "To the entire revolutionary democracy of Russia." the actions of the Bolsheviks were condemned as a criminal act and usurpation of power. The Socialist-Revolutionary faction left the Second Congress of Soviets of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies. On the initiative of the Central Committee, the Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution, headed by A. Gotz, was created to unite the actions of the democratic forces. The Social Revolutionaries also played a decisive role in the Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly, headed by a member of the AKP V.N. Filippovsky. Representatives of the left wing, on the contrary, supported the actions of the Bolsheviks and became members of the Council of People's Commissars. In response, a decision of the Central Committee, and then a decision that took place in Petrograd on 26.11. - 5.12.1917 of the IV Congress of the AKP, the Left Social Revolutionaries were expelled from the party. At the same time, the congress rejected the policy of the coalition of anti-Bolshevik forces and reaffirmed the decision of the Central Committee to expel the extreme right-wing group of Socialist-Revolutionaries-defencists from the party.
Socialist-Revolutionaries and Soviet power
The SRs won the elections to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, having received 370 seats out of 715. The leader of the AKP, Chernov, was elected chairman of the VUS, which was opened on 01/05/1918 and worked for one day. After the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks, the main slogan of the party was to fight for its restoration. VIII Council of the AKP, held in Moscow from 7 - 16.05. of the same year, oriented the party towards the overthrow of the Bolshevik dictatorship by the forces of a mass popular movement. Part of the responsible employees of the AKP went abroad. In March - April 1918 N. S. Rusanov and V.V. Sukhomlin went to Stockholm, where, together with D.O. Gavronsky formed the Foreign Delegation of the AKP. At the beginning of June 1918, relying on the support of the insurgent Czechoslovak Corps, the Social Revolutionaries formed in Samara a Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, the chairman of which was V.K. Volsky. The formation of the KOMUCH People's Army began. Most of the members of the Siberian Regional Duma in Tomsk also belonged to the AKP. The Provisional Siberian Government formed on her initiative was also headed by the Socialist-Revolutionary P.Ya. Derber. In response to the open participation of the SRs in the anti-Bolshevik armed struggle, by the decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of June 14, 1918, they were expelled from the Soviets at all levels.
The Social Revolutionaries also had a majority at the State Conference held in Ufa in September 1918. The All-Russian Provisional Government (Directory) formed as a result of it included N.D. Avksentiev and V.M. Zenzinov. The AKP Central Committee criticized the Directory's policies. After the coup that took place on November 18, 1918 in Omsk, Avksentyev and Zenzinov were arrested and deported abroad. The government that came to power A.V. Kolchak launched repression against the Socialist-Revolutionaries.
The consequences of the Kolchak coup were decisions taken in early 1919 by the Moscow Bureau of the AKP and a conference of party leaders. Denying both the possibility of an agreement with the RCP (b) and with the White Guard forces, the Socialist-Revolutionary leaders identified the danger on the right as the greatest. As a result, they decided to abandon the armed struggle against the Soviet regime. A group of Socialist-Revolutionaries led by V.K. Volsky entered into negotiations with the Bolsheviks on close cooperation, was condemned. At the same time, the Ufa delegation called for the recognition of Soviet power and uniting under its leadership to fight counter-revolution. However, the party leadership condemned her position. At the end of October 1919, the Volsky group, it left the AKP, adopting the name "Minority of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries" (MPSR).
By a decision on February 26, 1919, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party was legalized on the territory of Soviet Russia. But soon the persecution of the Socialist-Revolutionaries resumed as a reaction to criticism of the Soviet regime on their part. The publication of Delo Naroda was discontinued, and a number of members of the AKP Central Committee were arrested. Despite this, the plenum of the Central Committee (April 1919) and the IX Party Council (June 1919) confirmed the decision to abandon the armed confrontation with the Soviet regime. At the same time, it was announced that the political struggle against it would continue until the elimination of the Bolshevik dictatorship by the forces of mass popular movements.
Back in April 1917, the Ukrainian Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries separated from the AKP. Some of the Social Revolutionaries in the territories of the South of Russia and Ukraine, controlled by Denikinites, legally worked in public organizations... Some of them were repressed. For example, G.I. Schrader, who published the Rodnaya Zemlya newspaper in Yekaterinodar, was arrested. His publication was closed. Also, the Social Revolutionaries occupied leading positions in the "Committee for the Liberation of the Black Sea Province", which led the peasant movement directed against Denikin under the left and democratic slogans. In 1920, the AKP Central Committee called on party members to continue their political struggle against the Bolsheviks. At the same time, Poland and P.N.'s supporters were declared the main opponents. Wrangel. At the same time, the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party condemned the Riga Peace Treaty as a betrayal of Russia's national interests.
In Siberia, the Social Revolutionaries played a prominent role in the struggle against the dictatorship of Admiral A.V. Kolchak. Member of the Central Committee of the AKP F.F. Fedorovich headed the "Political Center", which prepared an armed uprising in Irkutsk against the Kolchak regime, carried out in late December 1919 - early January 1920. The political center for some time took power in the city into its own hands. Also, the Social Revolutionaries were part of the coalition authorities that acted on Far East in 1920 - 1921 - Primorsky regional zemstvo council, and then to the government of the Far Eastern republic.
By the beginning of 1921, the Central Committee of the AKP ceased its activities. The leading role in the party in August of the same year, in connection with the arrests of the Central Committee members, was transferred to the Central Organizational Bureau formed in June 1920. Some of the members of the Central Committee, including V.M. Chernov, by this time they were in exile. The 10th Party Council held in Samara (August 1921) recognized the accumulation of forces as the most urgent task of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and called for keeping the masses of workers and peasants from spontaneous uprisings that would dissipate their forces and provoke repressions. Nevertheless, in March 1921 V.M. Chernov, called on the working people of Russia to a general strike and armed struggle in support of the insurgent Kronstadters.
In the summer of 1922, a Moscow trial took place over members of the AKP Central Committee, accused of organizing terrorist acts against the leaders of the RCP (b) in 1918. In August, 12 people, including 8 Central Committee members, were conditionally sentenced to death by the Supreme Tribunal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. It was announced that the sentence would be carried out if the AKP used armed methods of struggle against Soviet power. On January 14, 1924, this sentence was commuted to a 5-year imprisonment, followed by a 3-year exile. In early January 1923, under the control of the GPU, the "initiative group" of the SRs held a meeting that decided to dissolve the Petrograd organization of the AKP. In the same way, in March of the same year, the All-Russian Congress of former AKP members was held in Moscow, which decided to dissolve the party. In the fall of 1923, the OGPU defeated the group of B.V. Chernov in Leningrad. At the end of 1924 E.E. Kolosov recreated the new Central Bank of the party, which had ties with the organizations of the Social Revolutionaries at the Obukhov plant, at the Pedagogical Institute named after V.I. N.K. Krupskaya, as well as in Kolpino, Krasnodar, Tsaritsyn and Cherepovets. At the beginning of May 1925, the last composition of the Central Bank of the AKP was arrested. However, even after that, the activities of the Social Revolutionaries on the territory of the USSR did not end. According to M.V. Sokolov, "many who were in exile and newly arrested firmly called themselves members of the AKP or reported that they shared its platform." As far as possible, they kept in touch with each other, discussing the political situation in Russia. In the spring - summer of 1930, who were in exile in Central Asia AKP members were developing and discussing a new platform for the party, designed to reflect the socio-economic and political realities of the USSR. In August - September 1930, the OGPU carried out arrests among the exiled SRs in Central Asia, as well as former and current members of the AKP in Moscow, Leningrad and Kazan. After that, the activities of the AKP continued only in exile.
The emigre organizations and publishing houses of the Social Revolutionaries continued to exist until the 1960s. in Paris, Berlin, Prague and New York. Many AKP leaders ended up abroad. Among them are N.D. Avksentiev, E.K. Breshko-Breshkovskaya, M.V. Vishnyak, V.M. Zenzinov, O.S. Minor, V.M. Chernov and others. Since 1920, the periodicals of the AKP began to appear abroad. In December this year, V. Chernov began publishing the journal Revolutionary Russia in Yuryev, and then in Reval, Berlin, Prague. In 1921, the Social Revolutionaries published the magazine "For the People!" In Revel. Later, the magazines Volia Rossii (Prague, 1922-1932), Sovremennye Zapiski (Paris, 1920-1940) and others were also published. Most of the copies of the Socialist-Revolutionary publications were illegally delivered to Russia. The publications were also distributed among the emigre community. In 1923, the first, and in 1928 - the II congress of foreign organizations of the AKP took place. The literary activity of the Social Revolutionaries in emigration continued until the end of the 1960s.
Social Revolutionaries in scientific literature
Currently, numerous research works and documentary publications are published on the history of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, the life and activities of its leaders. The "terrorist" reputation has a serious impact on the modern positioning of the Social Revolutionaries, due to which the assessment of its role in the history of Russia by many modern historians, but especially - publicists, writers, filmmakers, is painted in negative tones.
The struggle of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party was reflected in fiction Russia at the beginning of the XX century. First of all, the theme of the terror of the Socialist-Revolutionary BO is covered in the novel by B.V. Savinkov's "Pale Horse" (1909). The storyline of another novel, “That Which Was Not” (1912 - 1913), is associated with the activities of the AKP during the First Russian Revolution. This novel reflects the activities of the fighting squads of the Social Revolutionaries, terrorist activities, provocations. A number of plots from the history of the AKP were reflected in the novels of M.A. Osorgin's "Witness to History" (1932) and "The Book of Ends" (1935).
Today we are forced to look back at the politics of a century ago, since in today's Russia the sprouts of politics that had barely appeared in the early 1990s were already trampled down in the 2000s. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Social Revolutionaries were the most popular party; their program with local self-government, management of trade unions of enterprises, and broad national autonomy is not outdated even today.
In the elections to the Constituent Assembly (perhaps the freest elections in the entire history of Russia) in 1917, the Social Revolutionaries received 58%. This figure reflected the real support of the people for their program of transforming Russia. It is generally accepted that the Socialist Revolutionary Party enjoyed support mainly among the peasantry (which by 1917 accounted for about 75% of the population of Russia). However, the results of the elections to the Constituent Assembly show that the Social Revolutionaries won in almost all provincial capitals and county towns. The Bolsheviks, Cadets and Mensheviks showed good results only in Moscow and Petrograd, as well as at the fronts.
Thus, the SRs represented the overwhelming part of the so-called. "Lower Russia". Hence their political originality - socialism without Marxism, the country's special leftist path. Whereas their opponents - the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Cadets - derived their programs from European ideologies.
Below we present the program of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, adopted at the First Congress of the Party in December 1905. By 1917, the Socialist-Revolutionaries were divided into three factions - the right, the left and the centrists, they were distinguished by differences in tactics (for example, the right-wing Socialist-Revolutionaries advocated the fight to the end on the fronts of the First World War, and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries were against it), but in strategy they are all adhered to unity. That is, this program, adopted in 1905, was a guide to action for all three of their factions.
History does not know the subjunctive direction, and it is difficult to predict with precision what would become of Russia if the Socialist Revolutionaries had retained power at the end of 1917. But based on their program, it can be assumed that in the country, along with democracy and an orientation towards socialism in politics and economics, a strong solidarity and syndicalist trend would arise. In some ways, it would be similar to early Italian fascism and the republican rule of the left in Spain in the 1930s (and from modern currents - to Latin American Bolivarianism).
However, this is all guesswork. Today we can only study the political heritage of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and think about how, by transforming it, to adapt to the realities early XXI century. After all, Russia, even a century later, still remained a leftist and at the same time a politically backward country.
A. In the political and legal field:
Recognition of the following human and civil rights as inalienable:
Complete freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly and association; freedom of movement, choice of occupation and collective refusal to work (freedom to strike); inviolability of the person and home; universal and equal suffrage for every citizen not younger than 20 years old, without distinction of sex, religion and nationality, subject to a direct system of elections and closed voting - a democratic republic established on this basis with broad autonomy of regions and communities, both urban and rural ; the greatest possible use of federal relations between individual nationalities, the recognition of their unconditional right to self-determination;
Proportional representation; direct popular legislation (referendum and initiative); electivity, changeability at any time and jurisdiction of all officials, including deputies and judges; free legal proceedings; introduction of the native language into all local, public and state institutions; the establishment of compulsory, equal for all general secular education at the state expense; in areas with a mixed population, the right of each nationality to a proportional share in the budget intended for cultural and educational purposes and to dispose of these funds on the basis of self-government; complete separation of the church from the state and the declaration of religion as a private matter for everyone; the destruction of the standing army and its replacement by the people's militia.
B. In the national economic area:
1) In matters of state economy and financial policy, the party will campaign for the introduction of a progressive tax on income and inheritance, with complete exemption from tax on small incomes, below the known norm; for the abolition of indirect taxes (excluding the taxation of luxury goods), protective duties and all taxes in general falling on labor.
2) In matters of labor legislation P.S.R. sets as its goal the protection of spiritual and physical strength the working class in town and country and an increase in its ability to continue the struggle for socialism, the general interests of which must be subordinated to all narrow practical, immediate and professional interests of individual working strata.
In these forms the party will defend: the greatest possible reduction of working time within the limits of surplus labor; the establishment of a legislative maximum working time in accordance with the norms indicated by scientific hygiene (in the near future - an 8-hour norm for most industries and, accordingly, less in more dangerous and harmful to health); the establishment of minimum wages by agreement between self-government bodies and trade unions of workers; state insurance in all its types (against accidents, against unemployment, in case of old age and illness, etc.) at the expense of the state and owners and on the basis of self-government of the insured; legislative labor protection in all branches of production and trade, in accordance with the requirements of scientific hygiene, under the supervision of a factory inspection elected by workers (normal working conditions, hygienic arrangement of premises, prohibition of overtime work, work of minors under 16 years of age, restriction of work of minors, prohibition of female and child labor in certain industries and at certain periods, sufficient continuous weekly rest, etc.); professional organizations of workers and their progressively expanding participation in the establishment within it of the organization of labor in industrial establishments.
3) In matters of reorganization of land relations P.S.R. seeks to rely, in the interests of socialism and the struggle against bourgeois-proprietary principles, on the communal and labor views, traditions and forms of life of the Russian peasantry, in particular on the conviction widespread among them that the land is no one and that only labor gives the right to use it. In accordance with its general views on the tasks of the revolution in the countryside, the Party will stand for the socialization of the land, that is, for withdrawing it from commodity circulation and turning from the private property of individuals or groups into the public domain on the following basis: all lands go to the management of central and local bodies of people's self-government, starting from democratically organized non-estate rural and urban communities and ending with regional and central institutions ( resettlement and resettlement, management of the reserve land fund, etc.); the use of land must be equalizing labor, that is, to ensure the consumption rate on the basis of the application of one's own labor, individual or in a partnership; rent, by way of special taxation, should be used for public needs; the use of lands and holdings of non-local significance (vast forests, fishing, etc.) is regulated by correspondingly broader self-governing bodies; the bowels of the earth remain with the state; land becomes public property without redemption; those who have suffered from this property coup are only recognized the right to public support for the time necessary to adapt to the new conditions of personal existence.
4) In matters of communal, municipal and zemstvo economy, the party will stand for the development of all kinds of public services and enterprises (free medical care, zemstvo-agronomic and food organizations; organization of zemstvo and regional self-government bodies, with the help of national funds, broad credit for the development of labor farms, mainly on a cooperative basis; communalization of water supply, lighting, ways and means of communication, etc.), for granting urban and rural communities the widest rights to tax immovable property and their compulsory alienation, especially in the interests of meeting the housing needs of the working population ; for communal, zemstvo, as well as state policies that favor the development of cooperatives on strictly democratic labor principles.
5) In general, to all measures aimed at socializing even within the limits of the bourgeois state of certain branches of the national economy, P.S.R. will assimilate a positive attitude insofar as the democratization of the political system and the balance of social forces, as well as the very nature of the corresponding measures, will provide sufficient guarantees against the increase in this way of the dependence of the working class on the ruling bureaucracy. Thus, P.S.R. warns the working class against the "state socialism", which is partly a system of half measures to lull the working class, partly a kind of state capitalism, concentrating various branches of production and trade in the hands of the ruling bureaucracy for its fiscal and political goals.
The Socialist Revolutionary Party, waging a direct revolutionary struggle against the existing regime, is campaigning for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on the above-mentioned democratic principles to eliminate the autocratic regime and reorganize all modern orders in the spirit of establishing free popular rule, the necessary personal freedoms and the protection of labor interests. It will both defend its program for this reorganization in the Constituent Assembly and strive to directly implement it in the revolutionary period.
Also in the Interpreter's Blog about the political struggle in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century:
In 1903, the secret police defeated combat organization SRs. But it was immediately replaced by new groups of terrorists, among which the most dangerous was the Klitchoglu brigade. She was preparing an attempt on the life of the Minister of the Interior Plehve. In 1904, secret police agent Azef handed over the group. Plehve was killed anyway, and Klitchoglu died a natural death in 1926.
The Socialist Revolutionaries (Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries) are a revolutionary political party of the Russian Empire, later the Russian Republic and the RSFSR. The Socialist Revolutionary Party was created on the basis of previously existing populist organizations and occupied one of the leading places in the system of Russian political parties. She was the most numerous and the most influential.
The historical and philosophical outlook of the party was based on the works of Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Pyotr Lavrov, Nikolai Mikhailovsky. The draft party program was published in May 1904, and was approved as a party program at its first congress in early January 1906. This program remained the main document of the party throughout its existence. The main author of the program was the chief theoretician of the party, Viktor Chernov.
The originality of the Socialist-Revolutionary socialism lay in the theory of the socialization of agriculture. The socialization of land meant, firstly, the abolition of private ownership of land, at the same time not turning it into state property. Secondly, the transfer of the entire land to the head of central and local bodies of people's self-government. Thirdly, the use of land had to be equalizing labor.
The Socialist Revolutionaries considered political freedom and democracy to be the most important precondition for socialism. Political democracy and socialization of the land were the main requirements of the SR minimum program. They were supposed to ensure a peaceful, evolutionary, without a special, socialist revolution, the transition of Russia to socialism. The program, in particular, spoke about the establishment of a democratic republic with inalienable human and civil rights: freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly, unions, strikes, inviolability of the person and home, universal and equal suffrage for every citizen from the age of 20, without distinction gender, religion and nationality, subject to a direct electoral system and a closed vote. The Social Revolutionaries, earlier than the Social Democrats, put forward the demand for a federal structure of the Russian state.
The leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party were: V. M. Chernov, N. D. Avksentyev, G. A. Gershuni, A. R. Gots, E. K. Breshko-Breshkovskaya, B. V. Savinkov and others. involved about 60 thousand people.
The period of the first Russian revolution 1905-1907
The Social Revolutionaries did not recognize the first Russian revolution as bourgeois. The bourgeoisie could not stand at the head of the revolution and even be one of its driving forces. The Socialist-Revolutionaries did not consider the revolution to be socialist either, calling it "social", transitional between bourgeois and socialist. The main impulse of the revolution is the agrarian question. Thus, the driving force of the revolution is the peasantry, the proletariat and the working intelligentsia. The Social Revolutionaries took an active part in the preparation and conduct of revolutionary actions in the city and countryside, in the army and in the navy, in the organization of trade union political unions, and successfully worked in the All-Russian Peasant Union, the All-Russian Railway Union, the Postal brotherhoods and unions.