Socialist Revolutionary Party Research Articles

Убийство В.В. Воровского и процесс Конради–Полунина 1923 года в восприятии российской социалистической эмиграции

The article dwells on the assassination of V.V. Vorovsky, head of the Soviet delegation at the international conference in Lausanne, on May 10, 1923 and on the trial of M. Conradi and A.P. Polunin as viewed by Russian socialist émigrés, i.e. members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and social democrats (Mensheviks). This paper aimed to study the attitude of the socialist community of Russian émigrés towards individual political terror during the 1920s. The methodology is based on the principles of intellectual history, which allow us to shed some light on the perception of the 1923 Lausanne trial by analysing the confrontation and ideological struggle of certain political figures and civic groups for attention. The paper provides a brief description of the main works of Russian and foreign historians who studied the assassination of Vorovsky and the trial of his murderers. The context of the trial, the reaction of different émigré camps and the organization of Conradi and Polunin’s defence are analysed. The official response of the Foreign Delegation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, reflected in the Revolutionary Russia journal, is noted. Particular attention is given to the unpublished article “Both Are Worse” (1923) by leader of the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party V.M. Chernov on the results of the trial in Lausanne. Chernov’s argumentation and his views on the fundamental differences between the pre-revolutionary Socialist Revolutionary terror and the assassination of Vorovsky are analysed. Chernov points out that Socialist Revolutionary and Narodnaya Volya’s terror stayed within a strict moral and ethical framework that forbade political assassinations on the territory of free democratic countries. Socialist Revolutionary terrorists had never followed the path of least resistance, proclaiming the idea of selfsacrifice. Chernov emphasizes that only those not involved in the White Terror can hold others accountable for the Red Terror. The paper considers the response of Russian social democrats abroad, in particular, leader of the émigré Mensheviks F.I. Dan’s article dedicated to the Lausanne trial. His thesis about the exclusive right of socialist parties to fight the Bolshevik dictatorship, without involving the White movement, is emphasized. A conclusion is drawn that Russian socialists abroad held a fundamentally unified position on resisting political terror.

Organization and composition of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party 
 at the beginning of the XX century

The idea of the organizational state and composition of one of the most significant parties in pre-revolutionary Russia – the party of Socialists Revolutionaries – gives a lot to understand its essence. The agreement on the creation of the party was made in the spirit of traditions of illegal conspiratorial organizations. The party appeared as an extremely amorphous formation. Until the turn of 1905–1906, its organizational principles were not formulated and were not approved by the general party forum. The competencies of the structural divisions, the criteria for membership were not clear to everyone. The party structure evolved spontaneously, in the spirit of the traditions of the revolutionary organizations in Russia in the 1970-ies and 1990-ies of the XIX century. Simultaneously existing «non-party» and «party» committees and groups characterized two dimensions: a socio-political movement and a political party. Consolidation in general terms was completed by the end of 1905. At the beginning of the XX century. the main part of the Socialist-Revolutionary organizations was located in the provinces of European Russia. Basically, the Socialist-Revolutionary organizations operated in the intellectual and industrial centers of the country, areas of concentration of the intelligentsia. A significant part of the party leadership was made up of representatives of the generation of the 40–60-ies of the XIX century of birth. The committees were dominated by young people of the 70–80-ies of the XIX century of birth. The party included representatives of various social groups, first of all the intelligentsia, then workers and peasants. Intra-party ties were weak and intermittent; the main unifying center was «Revolutionary Russia». Theoretical, tactical and organizational problems were discussed behind the scenes. In the structure of the party, the features of an illegal circle organization were clearly manifested.

Между террором и святостью: жизнь и судьба Ильи Бунакова-Фондаминского (1880–1942)

The article examines the life path of the Russian intellectual and politician Ilya Isidorovich Fondaminsky (1880–1942; literary and political pseudonym “Bunakov”). Coming from a Jewish merchant family, Fondaminsky was unable, due to the “Jewish quota”, to get a decent education in Russia and, after graduating from a private gymnasium, went to study philosophy and history at the Universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, where his professors were Kuno Fischer, Wilhelm Windelband, Heinrich Thode. After returning to Russia in 1904, he became one of the leaders of the Moscow committee of the Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries, participated in the work of the Combat group, preparing terrorist acts, and during the December (1905) armed uprising in Moscow, purchased weapons at the personal expense. He was repeatedly arrested, and in 1907 went to the first emigration (1907–1917). After the February Revolution – he was one of the leaders of the Executive Committee of the Council of Peasant Deputies, the General Commissar of the Provisional Government in the Black Sea Fleet, from which he was elected a deputy of the Constituent Assembly. After the Bolshevik coup and the dispersal of the constituent assembly – a member of the “white” underground, and since 1919 again an emigrant. I.I. Fondaminsky became one of the central figures of the Russian post-revolutionary emigration in France: he published the journals “Modern Notes” and “Novy Grad”, conducted extensive cultural and educational activities, becoming increasingly interested in religious issues. During the German occupation of France, Fondaminsky received Orthodox baptism, but in 1942 he ended his earthly days together with his fellow Jews in the gas chamber of Hitler's Auschwitz-Oswenzim. In 2004. he, along with three other Russian ascetics-emigrants, was beatified by the Patriarchate of Constantinople of the Orthodox Church.

Revolutionary, Terrorist, and Muse: Mariia Alekseevna Prokof’eva, 1883–1913

This article uses a variety of published and archival sources to reconstruct the life of Mariia Alekseevna Prokof’eva (1883-1913), a member of the Combat Organization (i.e. terrorist wing) of the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Largely overshadowed by her relationships with more famous male revolutionaries, including the terrorist-litterateur Boris Savinkov and, in particular, Egor Sozonov (the celebrated assassin of Viacheslav von Pleve in 1904), Prokof'eva’s revolutionary career has, to date, been overlooked almost entirely by historians. As this article shows, however, her biography serves as an exemplary microhistory of the origins, ascendancy and (after 1905) degeneration of Russian revolutionary terrorism, while shedding light on several interrelated (and still underexplored) issues: the role played by women in the Russian revolutionary movement generally and the terrorist subculture in particular, the moral and psychological profile of revolutionary terrorists, and the curious attraction such figures held for leading representatives of Russia’s literary and philosophical avantgarde.

Main Political and Ideological Views of the SRs: Formation and Character

The article examines the key components of the political doctrine of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which represented the populist trend in Russian socialism in the late 19th - first quarter of the 20th centuries. The diversity of ideological and philosophical directions in the ranks of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party is shown, which ensured internal democracy, but hampered the process of consolidation and centralization of the party. The stage of formation of party programmatic, long and sharply debatable, is characterized. The features of the nature of the programmatic views of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party on the main socially significant points, including state-legal and agrarian ones, are revealed. The classical populist attitude of the Socialist-Revolutionaries to the issue of the social structure and stratification of Russia is noted — with the recognition as a progressive class of the entire “working people”, including workers, the working peasantry and the working (socialist-minded) intelligentsia. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party was assessed as an organization that adhered to the principles of democracy and pluralism in its political practice.

Marxists in a Declining Empire

Marxists in a Declining Empire Francis King Eric Blanc, Revolutionary Social Democracy: Working-Class Politics across the Russian Empire (1882–1917). 470 pp. Brill: Leiden, 2021. ISBN-13 978-9004449923. €190.00 (cloth). Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2022. ISBN-13 978-1642597646. $36.00 (paper). Histories of the "Russian" Revolution have often either largely ignored developments in the periphery of the empire altogether or appended them to the main narrative as interesting case studies of secondary importance. The major all-Russia parties (the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party [RSDRP], the factions of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, the Constitutional Democrats, etc.) have been comprehensively studied in the literature, and the relations among them have been exhaustively analyzed. However, the smaller parties of the non-Russian national minorities, their relationships with one another and with the major all-Russia parties have received considerably less attention. Before the collapse of the USSR in 1991, in Soviet historiography the revolution in the non-Russian periphery was presented almost exclusively as the story of how the local Bolsheviks won power. In this narrative, the Bolsheviks' rivals, whether all-Russia or regional/national parties, were generally depicted as amorphously "petty-bourgeois" or "counterrevolutionary," and the details of their ideas were almost never explored. In English-language works of that time, only the revolutionary process in Ukraine could have been said to have a "historiography," produced mainly by diaspora scholars.1 Since 1991, the newly independent former union republics have had [End Page 437] to develop their own national historical narratives, and some of those with a distinctive revolutionary history, such as Georgia, have seen significant interest both at home and abroad in recovering that history. Ukraine, however has remained the most thoroughly studied area on the ex-Soviet periphery and the nation that has done the most to develop its own narrative of 1917 and after. In 2017, the Ukrainian state provided schools with lesson plans and materials to provide a national interpretation of the events of 1917.2 To emphasize the distinctiveness of their national experience, some Ukrainian and diaspora scholars have also been using decolonizing and postcolonial concepts in their presentations of this history of the revolution in Ukraine.3 The problem with these national(ist) historiographies has been their authors' need to separate these stories out from the all-Russia narrative—which, while understandable, downplays the interconnectedness of the revolutionary process across the Russian Empire. Eric Blanc's book, by eschewing both exclusively Russocentric and narrowly nationalist approaches, is therefore a welcome contribution to the historiography of the revolution. His focus is on the various social democratic (that is, avowedly Marxist) parties that operated in the periphery of the Russian Empire, and he seeks to integrate their histories into the wider history of the revolution. Few historians could undertake this sort of study, as it requires facility in several of the languages of the Russian Empire. The bibliography suggests that he has used an impressive range of primary and secondary sources. As one might expect from a book in the Historical Materialism series of monographs, it is not merely a work of historiography but also of politically engaged scholarship. Throughout the work, Blanc seeks to draw political lessons for today from the material he is presenting and to criticize or refute certain (mis)conceptions commonly found both in the scholarly community and among radical socialist activists, past and present. His researches have led him away from "traditional Leninist interpretations of revolutionary Russia" (17) and toward "retrieving the lost tradition of revolutionary social democracy" (407), which he associates particularly with the pre–World War I writings of Karl Kautsky. Blanc's ideological engagement [End Page 438] is both a strength of the work—it lends the book a vitality and intellectual coherence sometimes lacking in purely academic monographs—and, as will be discussed below, a source of some of its limitations. Besides an introduction and an epilogue, the book contains ten thematic chapters, mostly concerned with particular aspects of socialist politics, subdivided into sections dealing more with specific case studies. In his introduction, Blanc sets out his stall. His first key argument is that "the Russian revolution was far...

Новая книга об истории индивидуального политического террора в годы Гражданской войны в России

This article analyses the modern historiography of individual political terror in Russia during the Civil War in 1918. The role and significance of the terrorist acts of the summer of 1918 for the formation of Soviet penal policy are emphasized. There is a long historiographical tradition concerning these topics, which is based, on the one hand, on the traditional Soviet version, originating in the famous 1922 trial of the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and, on the other hand, on alternative interpretations that were, at some point, presented in émigré and foreign historical literature. The focus of attention is the work of the famous Russian historian, Honoured Professor of Kazan University A.L. Litvin, who studies the assassination attempts on Vladimir Lenin in 1918. In addition, the paper touches upon various aspects related to the assassinations of V. Volodarsky and M.S. Uritsky. The authors examine the works of historian K.N. Morozov devoted to various aspects of the 1918 assassination attempts and the role of B.V. Savinkov and F. Kaplan in them. The publications of I.S. Ratkovsky and A.V. Shubin are noted. It is concluded that modern historical literature contains various assessments of those events: the assassins had personal but no direct political motives (A.L. Litvin); B.V. Savinkov’s organization was linked to the terrorist acts against V.I. Lenin and M. Uritsky in 1918 (K.N. Morozov). In addition, the article studies sources that have recently been introduced into scholarly discourse; it is noted that the current level of knowledge is insufficient for scholars to make final conclusions and thus calls for further research.

«Носович и Ковалевский – люди политически ненадежные»: воспоминания С.С. Иоффе о работе высшей военной инспекции на Юге России в 1918 году

The material presents the first publication of the memoir of Bolshevik S.S. Ioffe (1895–1938) about the work of the Supreme Military Inspectorate during the Civil War in South Russia in 1918. Ioffe served as deputy chairman of the inspectorate’s political section and was well aware of the situation in Tsaritsyn, which at that time was being defended from the Whites. The memoirist pays special attention to the activities of a White underground organization headed by former General A.L. Nosovich at the headquarters of the North Caucasus Military District. Ioffe wrote his memoir in May 1922 due to the fact that the Special Department of the State Political Administration, in the course of the preparation of the trial of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, was at that time investigating the case of conspiracies in Tsaritsyn in the summer of 1918. Almost four years passed between the events of the Civil War described and the writing of the memoir. According to him, Ioffe did not have any documents at hand and wrote from memory. Because of this, some facts and their sequence were stated inaccurately. Nevertheless, the memoir seems to be an important and interesting historical source containing new data on the events in and around Tsaritsyn during the first defence of the city in 1918. Moreover, the reliability of Ioffe’s testimony in a number of cases is confirmed by the recently published memoir of General A.L. Nosovich, a White Guard agent in the Red Army. The document is kept in the Archives of the Federal Security Service of Russia in the Volgograd Region and was declassified in 2022.

Революционные идеи 1917-1918 гг. как катализатор изменения языка публицистики

The aim of the study is to determine the trends in the publicistic style of the Russian language during the October Revolution of 1917-1918. The article presents the results of the linguistic and historical understanding of the changes in the language parameters of the publicistic style in the context of the manifestation of the strongest extralinguistic factor that affected all sectors of the country’s society - a revolution aimed at changing the state system. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that by a certain sample of examples from publicistics, which were derived from such sources as the newspapers “Zemlya i Volya”, “Russkiye Vedomosti”, “Krasnaya Gazeta”, trends in the publicistic style of the Russian language are determined and described, including the verbal expression of the ideological attitudes of communicative messages senders - journalists and politicians. As a result, it has been proved that the beginning of using manipulative techniques aimed at forming in the minds of recipients those images that are beneficial to the sender of a communicative message was precisely in the era of revolutionary publicistics. Journalists writing texts for the newspapers “Zemlya i Volya” (peasant newspaper of the Socialist Revolutionary Party), “Krasnaya Gazeta” (Bolshevik newspaper), “Russkiye Vedomosti” (Kadet newspaper) used the rhetorical language means in order to ensure the most effective broadcast of ideological attitudes of the parties they represented.

«A Man Passionately Devoted to the Ukrainian Idea»: on the Question Regarding Biography of the Head of the Black Sea Ukrainian Community in Sevastopol, Viacheslav Laschenko (1875—1953)

The Ukrainian national movement of the beginning of the 20th century in Crimea is poorly researched, although at that time Ukrainians constituted the third largest ethnic community among the Crimean population. The article reconstructs main milestones in the biography of one of the leading figures of the Ukrainian national movement in Sevastopol and the Black Sea Fleet in 1917–1920, public and political activist, writer and poet Viacheslav Lashchenko (1875–1953). He was born in Yelysavethrad (the modern name of the city is Kropyvnytskyi) in the family of Ukrainian intellectuals. Already during his studies at higher educational institutions, V. Lashchenko took an active part in the Ukrainian national movement, in particular, he organized and headed the Ukrainian Student Community in Warsaw. After receiving a historical and philological education, he taught at schools of the Dnieper Ukraine, where the authorities considered him untrustworthy due to his pro-Ukrainian views and transferred him to new jobs several times. In Sevastopol, during the revolution of 1905–1907, V. Lashchenko combined teaching at the gymnasium with participation in the illegal Ukrainian patriotic circle «Kobzar», which soon he headed. During the revolution of 1917, this organization initiated the creation of the Black Sea Ukrainian Community in the city of Sevastopol, which united several thousand Sevastopol civilians, sailors, officers and soldiers. The community played an important role in the development of the movement for the Ukrainianization of the Black Sea Fleet, most of whose sailors were Ukrainians. V. Lashchenko was elected the first head of the Black Sea Ukrainian Community in Sevastopol. In the summer of 1917, he became a member of the Sevastopol City Council on the list of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, and in the autumn, he probably headed the Ukrainian Council of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Deputies in Sevastopol. During the frequent changes of power in Crimea in 1918–1919, little is known about his activities, and in 1920, during the Wrangel’s regime, V. Lashchenko joined the leadership of the Ukrainian National Democratic Bloc, which proclaimed loyalty to P. Wrangel, the idea of statehood of Ukraine as part of federal Russia and the creation of the Ukrainian army. After Crimea was seizured by the Bolsheviks, he emigrated to Czechoslovakia, where he engaged in public, creative and, probably, teaching activities. During the Second World War, he emigrated to the USA, but, according to the researcher, he returned to Czechoslovakia, where he died.

People's commissars for agriculture of the first Soviet government and the beginning of the revolutionary agrarian transformations in Russia (1917–1920)

Analysis of the activities of the first Soviet people’s commissars of agriculture in the context of the restructuring of the agrarian economy after the Revolution of 1917 is presented. A description of the causes and features of the land crisis in Russia and its impact on political life is given. The nature of the first experiments in the transformation of agriculture against the backdrop of revolutionary events is analyzed. As radical revolutionary forces came to power in Russia, the project of "socialization" of the land, developed by the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party and supported by the Bolsheviks, was attempted. The basis of this project was the specific ideas of socialists to achieve progress in agriculture only through the maximum centralization of agricultural production and the nationalization of land, eliminating any private land ownership. The assessment of the Soviet legislative acts related to the introduction of collective forms of land management and state management of the rural economy stands out in this description. It is noted that during the first three years of the revolution's development, decisive steps were taken to implement this project. However, the practical results clearly revealed their utopian nature. By 1921, the development of agriculture, as well as other sectors on the basis of governmentalization led to a general political crisis in the country and the need to introduce the New Economic Policy. The role of the first organizers of the Soviet agrarian system, the people's commissars of agriculture of the RSFSR, is highlighted. Some biographical information about them is given, and their political views on the ways of solving the land issue in the country are evaluated. The article provides an original interpretation of the first revolutionary transformations of the agrarian economy of Russia, as well as the participation of the people's commissars of agriculture in them.

An important source on the political culture of the Socialist-Revolutionaries

Book review: Party of socialist-revolutionaries in exile 1918 – early 1950s. : documents and materials / comp. A. A. Goloseeva, K. N. Morozov, A. P. Novikov, A. Yu. Suslov ; foreword, comment. A. A. Goloseeva, K. N. Morozova, A. Yu. Suslova. – Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2022. – 1183 p. – (Political parties of Russia. The end of the 19th – the first third of the 20th century. Documentary heritage). – ISBN: 978-5-8243-2483-9.

Party Composition of Regional Authorities in the First Year of the Soviet Era

The article examines the problem of reconstruction of the party composition of the regional authorities of the RSFSR in March — July 1918. The source base of the work is statistical data collected by Soviet researchers, periodical press materials, as well as documents from the State Archive of the Russian Federation. The author studies the party composition of the Soviet authorities at two institutional levels: regional and provincial. The territorial scope of the article is limited to the regions of the European part of Russia (including most of the Urals), where the Soviet power existed in the first half of 1918. This article makes quantitative calculations of delegates of regional congresses of councils and members of executive committees. Based on the analysis of data on the party membership of congresses of Soviets and executive committees, the author comes to the conclusion about the formation of the dual party system in regional and provincial authorities by the time of the convocation of the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets. This process was characterized by a significant reduction in the representation of socialist parties other than the Bolsheviks and their temporary allies from the party of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. The author of the article analyzes the dynamics of the representation of political parties at the provincial institutional levels of the Soviet state in the first half of 1918. Changes in the party composition of regional Soviet authorities consisted in increasing the share of the Left socialist revolutionaries in provincial executive committees and reducing the representation of the Bolshevik party.

ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОЕ РЕГУЛИРОВАНИЕ ЗЕМЕЛЬНЫХ ОТНОШЕНИЙ В СЕВЕРНОЙ ОБЛАСТИ «БЕЛОЙ» РОССИИ В ГОДЫ ГРАЖДАНСКОЙ ВОЙНЫ

The article examines the problem of state regulation of land management and land use issues by the white government of the European North during the Civil War. The author analyzes the state of land relations in this region and states that due to geographical, climatic, social and military-political conditions, similar relations in the provinces of central and southern Russia differed significantly. The article reveals the position that the main contradictions in the use of land were not in the legal regulation of landowner–peasant relations, but in the legal unsettlement of the boundaries of forest clearing and land plots of peasant community members, farmers, tenants, territories of neighboring peasant societies, monasteries and churches. In conditions when the idea of inviolability of communal land use prevailed in the legal consciousness of peasants, the normative legal acts of the Provisional Government of the Northern Territory, which largely reflected the main provisions of the land program of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries on the legislative abolition of private ownership of land and free use of it, were generally positively received by peasants. At the same time, their temporary nature and the requirement of the Omsk Council of Ministers to unify land laws in matters of restoring ownership of land on a national scale aroused wariness and distrust in their own power among residents of northern villages. Because of this, peasants were leaning towards the Soviet government and its Decree on land.

Политический террор Партии активного сопротивления Финляндии и леворадикальных организаций в Великом княжестве Финляндском в 1903-1907 гг.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the terrorist activities of the Active Resistance Party of Finland («activists») and left-wing radical organizations in the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1903–1907. The article used such methods of scientific research as descriptive, historical, retrospective and comparative method. The article examines in detail the terrorist activities of the militants of the Active Resistance Party of Finland against the highest officials of state bodies of the Grand Duchy of Finland, namely, the plot describes the assassination attempt on Governor-Generals N.I. Bobrikov and I.M. Obolensky, on the governor of the Tavastgus province A.A. Papkov, on other high-ranking officials of the principality, and also tells about the murder of the prosecutor of the Finnish Senate E. Soisalon-Soininen (Johnsson) and the reaction to this murder of the Finnish society. In addition to the terrorist activities of the militants of the radical bourgeois Active Resistance Party of Finland, terror, as a method of combating the existing government, in the period considered in the article, was also carried out by left-wing radical organizations, which at the stage of their formation had the closest connection with the Active Resistance Party of Finland. The article analyzes the terrorist acts committed by such radical left organizations as «workers' activists», the Force of the Karelian people, «Bloody Dogs», as well as anarchists, including an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Nicholas II by militants from the «Bloody Dogs» organization, during while the emperor was hunting in Björkö. The article provides information about the close military and revolutionary cooperation of the Active Resistance Party of Finland and radical left organizations with the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party, including in the preparation (making of bombs) and carrying out terrorist acts. The theoretical significance of the work lies in the analysis and definition of the place and role of terror as a political practice and method of struggle of various political forces of the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1903-1907, starting with the bourgeois-separatist Active Resistance Party of Finland and ending with small anarchist groups. The terror of the Finnish radicals, despite their declared politically "noble" goals of the struggle for the independence of Finland and the struggle for the liberation of labor from the yoke of capital, did not find mass support from the Finnish society, moreover, caused rejection in it, which became one of the reasons for the political collapse Active resistance parties in Finland and the collapse of left-wing organizations that relied on terror as a means to achieve their goals.

Viktor Chernov in 1917-1920: touches to a political biography

The article examines the hard path of Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov one of the founders of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (SRS) in the revolutionary period of 1917-1918. The article focuses on the connection of V. M. Chernov's practical policy with the political principles and plans for the transformation of Russia formulated by him during his emigration. The inconsistency in the policy of V. M. Chernov in the post-revolutionary period is proved, as this became one of the important factors of the crisis of the Socialist-Revolutionary party. The author believes that V. M. Chernov in his ideas about the political process in Russia remained in thrall to the traditions of the narodniks, which largely distinguished V. M. Chernov from the leader of the Bolsheviks V. I. Lenin. The author shows that the split in the Socialist-Revolutionary party was largely due to the issue of the Russia's continuation of participation in the First World War. V. M. Chernov was until May 1917 in the position of the decisions of the conference in Zimmerwald, but under pressure from the right wing of the Socialist-Revolutionary party he abandoned the principles of Zimmerwald, consolidating on the military issue with A. Kerensky. Chernov fundamentally disagreed with the Bolsheviks on the issue of nationalization of enterprises, which he actively opposed.

From National Revolutionism to Marxism: A Politico-historical Narrative of Origins of Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI)

The national revolutionaries of India while in detention in the first half of the 1930s came in contact with Marxist literature. Imbibed by the Marxist view of social change, they gave up ‘terrorism’ after coming out of jails/camps. However, a sharp debate developed among them on the perception of the Comintern, its colonial policy in general and the policy with respect to the Indian freedom struggle in particular. Instead of joining any of the existing Marxist political parties, these revolutionaries formed their own parties. The Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) are two such parties. The RSP was formed in 1940. However, a group of young revolutionaries who were with the RSP dissociated themselves and formed a ‘Platform of Action’ as Socialist Unity Centre (SUC) in 1946 and then gave birth to yet another political party, SUCI, on the Marxist–Leninist lines in 1948. The process of formation of SUCI has been analysed in this article.

To Break Russia’s Chains: Boris Savinkov and his Wars against the Tsar and the Bolsheviks by Vladimir Alexandrov

Reviewed by: To Break Russia’s Chains: Boris Savinkov and his Wars against the Tsar and the Bolsheviks by Vladimir Alexandrov Ben Phillips To Break Russia’s Chains: Boris Savinkov and his Wars against the Tsar and the Bolsheviks. By Vladimir Alexandrov. New York: Pegasus Books. 2021. xiv+562 pp. $29.95. ISBN 978–1–64313–718–6. Boris Savinkov (1879–1925) is one of the most enigmatic characters in the history of revolutionary Russia. In a remarkable career spanning some three decades, he achieved fame and notoriety first as a leading member of the Socialist-Revolutionary (SR) Party’s terrorist underground, then as a novelist and memoirist, as a minister in the Provisional Government of 1917, and lastly as a staunch opponent of the Bolsheviks during the Civil War and in emigration. He was lionized in his lifetime, vilified after his death (at least in the Soviet Union), and, since 1991, has been the subject of renewed scholarly and popular interest. As the new biography under review here suggests, interest in Savinkov shows no sign of subsiding. Based on extensive and original archival research, Vladimir Alexandrov’s To Break Russia’s Chains is an impressive work of scholarship, not to say a hefty tome. [End Page 732] It is also accessibly and engagingly written, with a novelistic flourish befitting its dashing terrorist-littérateur protagonist. It comprises eleven chapters: the first five discuss Savinkov’s revolutionary beginnings, his terrorist exploits, his role in the Azef affair of 1908–09 and subsequent life as an indigent émigré writer up to the outbreak of the First World War. Chapters 6 and 7 deal with Savinkov’s activities in 1917; the final four chapters detail his opposition to the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution, during the Civil War, and prior to his eventual downfall at the hands of the OGPU (the Joint State Political Directorate) in 1924–25. The book is clearly intended primarily for a popular audience, but academic readers will find much to enjoy here as well, even where Alexandrov (inevitably) retreads relatively familiar ground. The book explores not just Savinkov’s revolutionary (and counter-revolutionary) escapades, but also his literary activities, relations with Russia’s Silver Age artistic avant-garde, and family life. Alexandrov provides vivid character sketches of Savinkov’s accomplices and enemies alike, from Evno Azef and Aleksandr Kerenskii to the British agent Sidney Reilly. Alexandrov’s biography provides a far more balanced account of Savinkov the man than has hitherto been available: in particular, To Break Russia’s Chains is refreshingly free of the bodice-ripping speculation about Savinkov’s sex life, gambling, and substance abuse that disfigures Richard Spence’s Boris Savinkov: Renegade on the Left (Ithaca, NY: Columbia University Press, 1991), previously the major (and otherwise excellent) study of his life in English. Spence’s overwhelmingly negative portrait resembles those by Soviet historians and disillusioned émigrés, who perceived Savinkov as a libertine, egotist, and adventurist in his politics as in his personal life. Alexandrov seeks to rehabilitate Savinkov, but his efforts to portray his subject as an honourable man undone by his own idealism do not always align with the evidence he adduces. On Savinkov’s political views, for instance, Alexandrov concludes that he ‘dedicated his entire life to fighting to make Russia a free, democratic republic’ (p. 502), but it is not clear how this claim can be reconciled with Savinkov’s all too evident shift towards right-wing militarism later in life, a trajectory that preceded the Bolshevik takeover by months, if not years, and which caused him to support fascism openly by the early 1920s (pp. 415–19 and passim). Similarly, not all readers will be convinced by Alexandrov’s repeated insistence that Savinkov ought not to be identified with Zhorzh, the Smerdiakovian terrorist and moral degenerate who features in his debut novel The Pale Horse (Konʹ blednyi, 1909), a resemblance noted by many readers at the time and by various scholars since. Nor is this the only aspect of the book liable to raise eyebrows. Approximately the first third of To Break Russia’s Chains recounts in detail Savinkov’s tenure as second-in-command (and later...

A Story with Characters and Action

A Story with Characters and Action

Socialist Revolutionary party and the Second International

The path of the Socialist Revolutionary party to the Second International was a thorny one. Russian social democrats were zealous in creating obstacles, primarily their representative in the International Socialist Bureau (IBS) G.V. Plekhanov. His efforts to the Socialist Revolutionary groups in the 90-ies of the XIX century denied the right of representation in the international socialist community. European political parties were mentally closer to the RSDLP, and their socialist competitors were wary. The Socialist Revolutionary had to work hard to convince the parties of the International of their adherence to the ideas of socialism and of the presence of connections with the masses. The Socialist Revolutionary Party established close contacts with the SME in 1901, and at the Amsterdam Congress (1904, August) achieved what it wanted, it was accepted into the Second International. The reports of the party to the Amsterdam and Stuttgart congresses of the International served as evidence of the mass character, adherence to the ideas of socialism. The leaders of the Socialist Revolutionaries, their emotional and verbose representative in the SME I.A. Rubanovich, took an active part in all the events of the International; the party became an equal member of the international socialist community. During the Basel Congress of 1912, her representative on the «commission of five» most influential parties was one of the compilers of the anti-war «Manifesto» of the International, supported by the socialists of the world. During the First World War, only a part of the party defended the ideas of internationalism. The III Congress of the Social Revolutionaries in the spring of 1917 called for the continuation of the war to a victorious end and the restoration of the II International.