Abstract
It is generally accepted that the main stimulus to the revival of populism, which had fallen into abeyance following the assassination of Alexander II, came in the shocking form of the famine of 1891 and the subsequent cholera epidemic.1 Even before this calamitous event, however, a new generation of raznochintsy intellectuals were turning their attention once again to the plight of the Russian peasant. This revival of interest assumed legal and illegal forms. On the one hand there was a second, but more practical, ‘going to the people’, with young students joining the ranks of the rural zemstva and serving as doctors, teachers, lawyers and agronomists;2 on the other there was a growing proliferation of populist circles in the towns. The movement was strengthened in the mid-1890s with the return from exile of veteran narodniks of an earlier generation, including the celebrated ‘grandmother of the Russian revolution’, E. E. Breshko-Breshkovskaya,3 P. F. Nikolaev and V. A. Balmashev. These respected figures returned to active service in the movement and were invaluable in stirring up enthusiasm and in co-ordinating the activities of an as yet inchoate assortment of isolated groups.
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Notes and References
Sletov, ‘Ocherki’, p. 19. For the intellectual history of populism, see the following: A. Walicki, A History of Russian Thought from the Enlightenment to Marxism (Stanford, CA, 1979), chs 10–13 and 18;
and by the same author, The Controversy over Capitalism: Studies in the Social Philosophy of the Populists (Oxford, 1969);
F. Venturi, Roots of Revolution. A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in Nineteenth Century Russia (New York, 1966);
R. Wortman, The Crisis of Russian Populism (Cambridge, 1967);
P. Pomper, The Russian Revolutionary Intelligentsia (New York, 1970);
also Hildermeier, Die Sozialrevolutionäre Partei, ch. 1; C. J. Rice, ‘The Socialist-Revolutionary Party and the Urban Working Class in Russia, 1902–1914’ pp. 30–37.
For the rural movement in this period see M. P. Perrie, The Agrarian Policy of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.
For biographical sketches of Breshkovskaya and of all other leading actors in the SR movement, see Hildermeier, Die Sozialrevolutionäre Partei, pp. 404–12.
Sletov, ‘Ocherki’, pp. 37–8. For the economist trend in Russian Marxism see J. H. L. Keep. The Rise of Social Democracy in Russia (Oxford, 1963), especially pp. 54 ff.;
A. K. Wildman, The Making of a Workers’ Revolution — Russian Social Democracy, 1891–1903 (Chicago and London, 1967).
The following is based on Sletov, ‘Ocherki’, pp. 30–101; Spiridovitch, Histoire du terrorisme Russe 1886–1917 (Paris, 1930), pp. 35–108.
See also A. Argunov, ‘Iz proshlogo partii sotsialistov-revolyutsionerov’, in Byloe no. 10/22 (1907), pp. 94–112;
Hildermeier, Die Sozialrevolutionäre Partei, pp. 35–57; R. H. Eiter, ‘Organisational Growth and Revolutionary Tactics; Unity and Discord in the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, 1901–7’, PhD thesis, University of Pittsburg, 1978, pp. 14–53.
For later developments in Petersburg see below, ch. 5, pp. 74–80.
Sletov, ‘Ocherki’, p. 46.
Specifically on the Ryazan’-Urals railway, at the Sergeev paper mill and the Kruger machine-building plant.
Sletov, ‘Ocherki’, pp. 55–70; Spiridovitch, Histoire du terrorisme Russe, pp. 61 ff.; Hildermeier, Die Sozialrevolutionäre Partei, pp. 38–41.
Sletov, ‘Ocherki’, pp. 70 ff. ; Spiridovitch, Histoire du terrorisme Russe, pp. 91 ff.; Hildermeier, Die Sozialrevolutionäre Partei, pp. 41–3.
Sletov, ‘Ocherki’, pp. 87–93; Hildermeier, Die Sozialrevolutionäre Partei, pp. 43–5.
For details on the League, see Perrie, The Agrarian Policy of the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party, pp. 24–34.
Sletov, ‘Ocherki’, pp. 95–101; Spiridovitch, Histoire du terrorisme Russe pp. 101–7; Hildermeier, Die Sozialrevolutionäre Partei pp. 46–57; Eiter, ‘Organisational Growth and Revolutionary Tactics’, pp. 40 ff.
On terror and the PSR see: Hildermeier, Die Sozialrevolutionäre Partei, pp. 58–68, 358–94; also Hildermeier, ‘The Terrorist Strategies of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party in Russia, 1900–1914’, in W. J. Mommsen and G. Hirschfeld, Social Protest, Violence and Terror in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Europe (London, 1982), pp. 80–7;
Spiridovitch, Histoire du terrorisme Russe, ch. 7 and passim; M. P. Perrie (ed.), Protokoly pervogo (Introduction); also Perrie, ‘Political and Economic Terror in the Tactics of the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party before 1914’, in Mommsen and Hirschfeld, Social Protest, Violence and Terror; B. Savinkov, Memoirs of a Terrorist (New York, 1931). For Azef, see Hildermeier, Die Sozialrevolutionäre Partei, pp. 380–7 and passim.
Savinkov, Memoirs of a Terrorist, p. 198.
Trud no. 6, Dec 1906, p. 14.
V. M. Zenzinov, Perezhitoe (New York, 1953), p. 108.
Details in ‘Statistika terroristicheskikh aktov’, in Pamyatnaya knizhka sotsialista-revolyutsionera, issue 2 (Paris, 1914). (Oblenskii was wounded).
See the propaganda brochure, consisting of two letters by Kachur and a party gloss, in Archive 431.
Savinkov, Memoirs of a Terrorist, p. 170.
Acts of local terror continued without obvious interruption.
For Zil’berberg see Hildermeier, Die Sozialrevolutionäre Partei, pp. 374ff.
The following summary is based on articles in Revolyutsionnaya Rossiya: ‘Terroristicheskii element v nashei programme’, no. 7 (Jun 1902), pp. 2–6; ‘Kak otvechat’ na pravitel’stvennyya zverstva’, no. 12 (October 1902), pp. 1–3; ‘Yuzhnyi rabochii’ o sotsialistakh-revolyutsionerakh’,
no. 22 (April 1903), pp. 2–5; ‘Terror i massovoe dvizhenie’, no. 24 (May 1903), pp. 1–3; To povodu godovshchiny vystrela i kazni G. Lekerta’, no. 25 (June 1903), pp. 4–6; ‘Nashi zadachi i ikh formuilirovka (zamechaniya na proekt programmy PS-R)’, no. 67, supplement (May 1905), pp. 2–3.
On the background and history of the first congress see Perrie (ed.), Protokoly pervogo (especially Introduction). For the text of the party programme: Perrie, pp. 355–66. The draft can be found in Revolyutsionnaya Rossiya (RR) no. 46, (May 1904), pp. 1–3.
‘The minimum programme is the sum of the partial revolutionary gains [which are] practically advantageous and useful even before the complete removal of the bourgeoisie from the helm of the state’ — Victor Chernov, ‘Novyya sobytiya i starye voprosy’, in RR, no. 74 (September 1905), pp. 1–6, here p. 5. There was considerable disagreement over this separation of tasks. See Perrie (ed.), Protokoly pervogo (Introduction).
Protokoly 1906, p. 136 (quoted in O. H. Radkey, The Agrarian Foes of Bolshevism: Promise and Default of the Russian Socialist-Revolutionaries, February to October 1917 (New York, 1958), p. 45).
For a Soviet critique of the SR programme see A. N. Stepanov, ‘Kritika V. I. Leninym programmy i taktiki eserov v period novogo revolyutsionnogo pod”ema (1910–1914gg)’, in Bolsheviki v bor’be protiv melkoburzhuaznykh partii v Rossii (Moscow, 1969), pp. 5ff.
Also K. V. Gusev, Partly a eserov: ot melkoburzhuaznogo revolyutsionarizma k kontrrevolyutsii, ch. 1 (Moscow: Istoricheskii ocherk, 1975).
See n. 1 above.
Chernov, ‘K voprosu o teoreticheskom obosnovanii sotsializma’, RR, no. 36 (November 1903), pp. 1–5.
Ibid., p. 3.
On the role of the radical intelligentsia see ‘Rabochee dvizhenie i revolyutsionnaya intelligentsiya’, in Vestnik Russkoi Revolyutsii, no. 2 (February 1902), pp. 211–31. Also Hildermeier, Die Sozialrevolutionäre Partei, p. 69.
Protokoly 1906, p. 136.
Workers and peasants, that is. The revolutionary intelligentsia were held to occupy a ‘supra class’ position, but one favourably disposed to the working class (Hildermeier, Die Sozialrevolutionäre Partei, p. 69). The broad use of the term ‘working class’ caused some disquiet among delegates at the founding congress. See, for example, the speech by ‘Rozhdestvenskii’ (V. A. Myakotin), Protokoly 1906, p. 87. Also B. V. Levanov, Iz istorii bor’by bol’shevistskoi partii protiv eserov v gody pervoi russkoi revolyutsii (Leningrad, 1974), pp. 53 ff.
‘Sotsial’ demokraty i Sotsialisty-Revolyutsionery’, RR, no. 16 (January 1903), pp. 1–2.
‘The entire burden of the struggle with tsarism, despite the presence of a liberal-democratic opposition… falls on the proletariat, the toiling peasantry and the revolutionary-socialist intelligentsia’, ‘Programma partii’, Protokoly 1906, p. 360.
Ibid., pp. 359–60.
See for example, ‘Nasushchnye voprosy sovremennoi revolyutsionnoi strategic’ in RR, no. 50 (August 1904), p. 8.
The SRs rarely made any distinction between Bolshevik and Menshevik lines of argument when discussing points of disagreement with the Social Democrats.
RR, no. 32 (September 1903), p. 5.
‘Programma Partii’, Protokoly 1906, p. 363. For discussion of the agrarian programme of the PSR, see Perrie, The Agrarian Policy of the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party, passim; Hildermeier, Die Sozialrevolutionäre Partei, pp. 83–99; V. N. Ginev, Agrarnyi vopros i melkoburzhuaznye partii v Rossii v 1917g (Leningrad, 1977), ch. 1.
For the Social Democrat alternatives see M. Loizou, ‘The Development of the Agrarian Programme of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party’, MPhil thesis, University of Birmingham, 1982;
A. Hussain and K. Tribe, Marxism and the Agrarian Question, vol. II, Russian Marxism and the Peasantry, 1861–1930 (London, 1982);
G. T. Robinson, Rural Russia Under the Old Regime (New York, 1949).
Quoted by M. P. Perrie, ‘The Socialist Revolutionaries on Permanent Revolution’, in Soviet Studies, 24 (1972–3), p. 411.
RR, no. 74, (September 1905), p. 5.
‘Programma Partii’, pp. 361–2.
Ibid., pp. 362–3. The Social Democrats did not include a demand for a minimum wage, nor did they mention the possibility of a working day shorter than eight hours. (Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, New Park Publications, 1978, pp. 7–8).
Perrie (ed.), Protokoly pervogo (Introduction).
See below, pp. 64–5.
Protokoly 1906, p. 106.
Ibid., p. 107.
Ibid., p. 114.
Ibid., p. 102.
Ibid., pp. 116–17, 154.
Ibid., pp. 115, 119.
Ibid., p. 121. The general strike in Novorossiisk lasted from 8 to 25 December 1905.
Ibid., pp. 122–3.
The relevant portion of Chernov’s address can be found in ibid., pp. 147–52.
Ibid., p. 150.
For the very real complexities confronted in this field during the revolution see E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution 1917–23, vol. II: The Economic Order (London, 1952).
‘Postanovleniya III s”ezda oblastnoi Ural’skoi organizatsii PSR’ (25 June 1906), in Partiinyya Izvestiya (PI) no. 1 (October 1906), pp. 22–3.
‘Zakavkazskaya oblast’. Iz doklada upolnomochennogo Ts.K. o rabote v zakavkazskoi oblasti’, in PI, no. 9 (May 1907), pp. 12–13; here p. 12 (emphasis in the original).
For Sokolov and his Geneva-based group, see below pp. 64–5.
See the article ‘Anarkhizm v Rossii’ in Sotsialist-Revolyutioner, no. 3 (1911), pp. 75–94.
Also P. Avrich, The Russian Anarchists (Princeton, 1967).
Protokoly 1906, pp. 332–8.
Ibid., pp. 334, 337
For examples, see the chapters on local organisations in this study.
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© 1988 Christopher Rice
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Rice, C. (1988). A New Party and a New Programme. In: Russian Workers and the Socialist-Revolutionary Party through the Revolution of 1905–07. Studies in Soviet History and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19252-6_3
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