Introduction

Abstract

For a long time, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (PSR) appeared destined for the oblivion to which Soviet historiography had consigned it, following the humiliations and defeats of 1917 and the subsequent failure of attempts to reverse the tide of history and remove the Bolsheviks from power. More recently, however, interest in the party has revived, particularly, though not exclusively, among Western scholars. Two major works, Maureen Perrie’s investigation into the social composition of the party and its activities among the peasantry¹ and Manfred Hildermeier’s definitive history of the pre-war movement,² while by no means neglecting the actors at the centre of the stage, have tended to shift the focus back to the party’s relationship with the working masses. In the course of their research, both authors independently made the significant discovery that the PSR, the ‘party of the peasant interest’, drew proportionately more of its active support from workers than from any other segment of the population. This paradox formed the starting point for my own study of the PSR which, drawing extensively on previously unpublished archival material as well as newspapers, journals and biographical data, traces the history of the party’s urban wing through the revolution of 1905–7 and beyond.³ In the process, the validity of a number of assumptions and generalisations about the party are challenged, while support for the PSR is revealed as having been more widespread, occupationally diversified and politically significant than many had previously thought. The evidence also serves to highlight the extent to which the Russian working class continued to retain socio-cultural and often economic links with the countryside in the decade before 1914.