Social-Democratic Underground of the Far East in the early XX Century: Public Records of the Center for Social and Political History

Abstract

The research features public records concerning the Social-Democratic organizations of the Far East (Russia), stored in the collection of illegal publications at the Center for Social and Political History, the rare book section. The collection contains archival documents originating from the two largest Social-Democratic groups of the Far East located in Blagoveshchensk and Vladivostok. The records include: various reports, corporate charters, resolutions of party meetings, mandates to elected officials, and small newspapers. Publications issued by the Far Eastern social democratic organizations were mostly leaflets printed on a typewriter or published on a hectograph or mimeograph. Some leaflets were printed in actual print shops of private publishing houses or in handicraft illegal print shops. Most of the documents were previously unstudied. However, they belong to the category of particularly valuable and unique historical documents of cultural, historical and scientific value for the study of the Socio-Political movement of the Russian East. The author believes that the public records stored at the Center for Social and Political History, in combination with other archival data, may cast light on the state of the history of Social-Democratic underground in the Far East, its formation and development.