Foreign organization and the Foreign Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party at the beginning of the 20th century. (On the path of party institutionalization)

Abstract

The article examines the organization and activities of the Foreign Organization and the Foreign Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party at the beginning of the XX century. It is the institutional history of political parties, in the authors opinion, that is of interest, since the structural analysis and the comparative historical method provide no less for an idea of ​​their nature than the analysis of party programs. In the first period of its existence, the structure of the conspiratorial party of the Social Revolutionaries was surprisingly simple: a few Central Committee members traveled around Russian organizations and corresponded with them. After the arrests of the late 1902 - early 1903. the first, the Gershunev Central Committee, ceased to exist. In August 1903, through the efforts of E.K. Breshko-Breshkovskaya, the Foreign Organization and the Foreign Party Committee were created. Until late autumn 1905, they played the role of central party institutions: the Foreign Organisation was the main reservoir of cadres of party functionaries, its congresses, in essence, played the role of general party forums. The Foreign Organization concentrated many functions of the Central Committee: publishing and distribution of literature, communication with Russian organizations, business trips to Russia of party functionaries, etc. Thanks to the Foreign Organization and especially the Foreign Party Committee, a relatively ramified network of party leadership was formed. The Foreign Organisation was an amorphous union, squabbles and squabbles tore it apart. The Foreign Party Committee, along with the orthodox Socialist-Revolutionaries, included dissidents. In November 1905, the Foreign Party Committee ceased its activities, and the Foreign Organisation was disbanded. At the end of 1906, the Foreign Organisation and Foreign Party Committee were reanimated. The new Foreign Organisation did not want to be considered party, and the Socialist-Revolutionary leadership dissociated itself from it. The sphere of activity of the Foreign Party Committee was limited to the limits of emigration. Beginning in 1909, the process of demoralization embraced both the Socialist-Revolutionary Party as a whole and the emigration. In the spring of 1909, the delegates of the most numerous Parisian group for the promotion of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party left the III Conference of the Foreign Federation. After the Fifth Party Council (May 1909), the Paris assistance group withdrew from the ranks of the party. In 19101914. the decline of the Overseas Organization progressed. Disputes intensified, the Regional Foreign Committee was in conflict with the Central Committee. Thus, by the beginning of the First World War, the Socialist-Revolutionary emigration was a collection of scattered and warring factions. During the war years, the Central Committee finally broke up into opposing groups and as a whole ceased to exist.