Party of Socialist Revolutionaries
Партия социалистов-революционеров |
|
---|---|
General Secretary | Viktor Chernov |
Founded | 1902 |
Dissolved | 1940 |
Newspaper | Revolutionary Russia |
Paramilitary wing | SR Combat Organization |
Ideology |
Agrarian socialism Narodnichestvo |
Political position | Left-wing |
International affiliation |
Second International (1889–1916), Labour and Socialist International (1923–1940) |
Colours | Red |
Slogan | "Through struggle you will attain your rights!" |
Anthem | Worker's Marseillaise |
Party flag | |
The Socialist Revolutionary Party, or Party of Socialists Revolutionaries (the SRs; Russian: Партия социалистов-революционеров (ПСР), эсеры, esery) was a major political party in early 20th century Russia and a key player in the Russian Revolution. Its general ideology was revolutionary socialism of democratic socialist and agrarian socialist forms. After the February Revolution of 1917, it shared power with other liberal and democratic socialist forces within the Russian Provisional Government. In November 1917, it won a plurality of the national vote in Russia's first-ever democratic elections (to the Russian Constituent Assembly), but the October Revolution had changed the political landscape and the Bolsheviks disbanded the Constituent Assembly in January 1918. The SRs soon split into pro-Bolshevik and anti-Bolshevik factions. The anti-Bolshevik faction of this party, known as the Right SRs, which remained loyal to the Provisional Government leader Alexander Kerensky was defeated and destroyed by the Bolsheviks in the course of the Russian Civil War and subsequent persecution.
The party's ideology was built upon the philosophical foundation of Russia's narodnik–Populist movement of the 1860s-70s and its worldview developed primarily by Alexander Herzen and Pyotr Lavrov. After a period of decline and marginalization in the 1880s, the Populist/narodnik school of thought about social change in Russia was revived and substantially modified by a group of writers and activists known as "neonarodniki" (neo-Populists), particularly Viktor Chernov. Their main innovation was a renewed dialogue with Marxism and integration of some of the key Marxist concepts into their thinking and practice. In this way, with the economic spurt and industrialization in Russia in the 1890s, they attempted to broaden their appeal in order to attract the rapidly growing urban workforce to their traditionally peasant-oriented programme. The intention was to widen the concept of the 'people' so that it encompassed all elements in society that opposed the Tsarist regime.