Per Sabotaggio e co. : il vero socialismo nazionale in Russia

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Narodnik

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Narodniks (Russian: Народничество) was the name for Russian revolutionaries of the 1860s and 1870s. Their movement was known as Narodnichestvo or Narodism. The term itself derives from the Russian expression "Хождение в народ" ("Going to the people").
Contents

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• <LI class=toclevel-1>1 History <LI class=toclevel-1>2 Influence outside Russia <LI class=toclevel-1>3 Narodism according to Lenin <LI class=toclevel-1>4 See also <LI class=toclevel-1>5 Notes
• 6 External links

[edit] History

Narodism arose in Russia after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 (under Emperor Alexander II), which signaled the coming end of the feudalist age in Russia. Arguing that freed serfs were being sold into wage slavery, in which the bourgeoisie had replaced landowners, Narodism aimed to become the political force to counter the phenomenon. Narodniks viewed certain aspects of the past with a dose of nostalgia: resenting the former land ownership system, they objected against the uprooting of peasants from the traditional obshchina (the Russian commune).
Narodniks rallied in response to the growing conflicts between the peasantry and the so-called kulaks (the more prosperous farmers). Groups created did not establish a concrete organization, but shared the common general aims of overthrowing the Russian monarchy and the kulaks, and distributing land among the peasantry. The Narodniks generally believed that capitalism was not a necessary result of industrial development, and that it was possible to skip capitalism altogether, and enter straight into a kind of socialism.
The Narodniks believed the peasantry was the revolutionary class that would overthrow the monarchy, regarding the village commune as the embryo of socialism. However, they believed that the peasantry would not achieve revolution on their own, but instead that history could only be made by heroes, outstanding personalities, who would lead an otherwise passive peasantry to revolution (see Great man theory). Also, great writers among the Narodniks, such as Vasilij Voroncov, called for the Russian intelligentsia to “bestir itself from the mental lethargy into which, in contrast to the sensitive and lively years of the seventies, it had fallen and formulate a scientific theory of Russian economic development”.[1] The upper-class Narodnik intelligentsia needed to provide a concrete system of economic ideals and goals that would uphold the paramount importance of the village commune. These writers called for immediate movement towards revolution that went beyond philosophical and political discussion.
In the spring of 1874, the conflict between the richer and poorer peasants brought turbulence to Russia's urban centers, and the Narodnik intelligentsia left the cities for the villages, going "among the people", attempting to teach the peasantry their moral imperative to revolt. They found almost no support.
Given the Narodniks social background, generally middle and upper middle class, they had noted difficulties in addressing Russian peasants and their culture. They spent much time learning peasant custom, dress and dance. In some cases, they even had to learn Russian, as wealthy Russians from the West generally spoke French or German. On arriving into some villages dressed appropriately and singing and dancing what they had studied, Narodniks were viewed with suspicion by many of those Russian peasants who were completely removed from the more modernized culture of the urban sphere, and believed to be witches; many Narodniks were hounded by vigilante groups, and often maimed with farm utensils or put through frenzied trials and burned at the stake. The Imperial secret police responded to the Narodniks' attempt with extreme repression: revolutionaries and their peasant sympathizers were beaten, imprisoned and exiled. In 1877, the Narodniks revolted with the support of thousands of revolutionaries and peasants. However, the movement was again swiftly and brutally crushed.
In response to this repression of open, spontaneous organization, Russia's first organized revolutionary party formed: Narodnaya Volya ("People's Will"), which favoured secret society-led terrorism, justified “as a means of exerting pressure on the government for reform, as the spark that would ignite a vast peasant uprising, and as the inevitable response to the regime's use of violence against the revolutionaries” [2].
After the struggle to unite the peasantry to overthrow the Emperor, unsuccessful due to the peasantry's idolisation of the latter as someone "on their side", Narodism developed the practice of terrorism: the peasantry, they believed, must be shown that the Emperor was not supernatural, and that he could be killed. This theory, called "direct struggle", was meant to show an "uninterrupted demonstration of the possibility of struggling against the government, in this manner lifting the revolutionary spirit of the people and its faith in the success of the cause, and organising those capable of fighting".[3] On March 1, 1881, they did succeed in assassinating Tsar Alexander II. However, this success led to short-term failure, as the peasantry as a whole was horrified with what had happened and the government had many of the Narodnaya Volya leaders hanged, thus leaving the group unorganized and ineffective.[4].
However, these events did not mark the end of the movement, and the later Socialist-Revolutionaries, Popular Socialists, and Trudoviks all shared similar tactics, with ideas and practices originally set down by the Narodniks.[5] Thus, the actions and philosophy of the Narodniks helped sow the seeds of the coming Russian Revolution of 1905.

[edit] Influence outside Russia

Narodism had a direct influence on politics and culture in Romania, through the comments of Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea and advocacy from the Bessarabian-born Constantin Stere (who was a member of Narodnaya Volya in his youth). The various groups the latter helped found included one formed around the literary magazine Viaţa Românească (led by Stere, Garabet Ibrăileanu, and Paul Bujor).
A self-defined Poporanist (from popor, Romanian for "people", mirroring the origins of the term Narodnik), Stere eventually rejected revolution altogether. Nevertheless, he shared the Narodnik view that capitalism was not a necessary stage in the development of an agrarian country (and the implicit rejection of Marxist tenets), a perspective which was to leave a mark on Ion Mihalache's Peasants' Party (and its successor, the National Peasants' Party), as well as on the philosophy of Virgil Madgearu.

[edit] Narodism according to Lenin

Vladimir Lenin defined Narodism as:

"By Narodism we mean a system of views, which comprises the following three features:

1) Belief that capitalism in Russia represents a deterioration, a retrogression. Hence the urge and desire to 'retard', 'halt', 'stop the break-up' of the age-old foundations by capitalism, and similar reactionary cries.

2) Belief in the exceptional character of the Russian economic system in general, and of the peasantry, with its village commune, artel, etc. in particular. It is not considered necessary to apply to Russian economic relationships the concepts elaborated by modern science concerning the different social classes and their conflicts. The village-commune peasantry is regarded as something higher and better than capitalism; there is a disposition to idealize the 'foundations'. The existence among the peasantry of contradictions characteristic of every commodity and capitalist economy is denied or slurred over; it is denied that any connection exists between these contradictions and their more developed form in capitalist industry and capitalist agriculture.

3) Disregard of the connection between the 'intelligentsia' and the country's legal and political institutions, on the one hand, and the material interests of definite social classes, on the other. Denial of this connection, lack of a materialist explanation of these social factors, induces the belief that they represent a force capable of 'dragging history along another line', of 'diversion from the path', and so on.[6]

link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodnik

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Socialist-Revolutionary Party

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Socialist-Revolutionary election poster, 1917. The caption in red reads "партия соц-рев" (in Russian), short for Party of the Socialist Revolutionaries.


The Socialist-Revolutionary Party (the PSR, the SRs, or Esers; Russian: Партия социалистов-революционеров (ПСР), эсеры) was a Russian political party active in the early 20th century.
Contents

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• <LI class=toclevel-1>1 History
  • <LI class=toclevel-2>1.1 Prior to the 1917 Revolution <LI class=toclevel-2>1.2 1917 Revolution
  • 1.3 After the 1917 Revolution
  <LI class=toclevel-1>2 See also <LI class=toclevel-1>3 Notes <LI class=toclevel-1>4 References
• 5 External links

[edit] History


[edit] Prior to the 1917 Revolution

The Socialist-Revolutionary Party was established in 1901 out of the Northern Union of Socialist Revolutionaries (founded in 1896), bringing together numerous local socialist-revolutionary groups which had been established in the 1890s, most notably Workers' Party of Political Liberation of Russia created by Catherine Breshkovsky and Grigory Gershuni in 1899. Victor Chernov, the editor of the first party organ, Revolutsionnaya Rossiya (Revolutionary Russia), emerged as the primary party theorist. Later party periodicals included Znamia Truda (Labor's Banner), Delo Naroda (People's Cause), and Volia Naroda (People's Will). Gershuni, Breshkovsky, AA Argunov, ND Avksentiev, MR Gots, Mark Natanson, NI Rakitnikov (Maksimov), Vadim Rudnev, NS Rusanov, IA Rubanovich, and Boris Savinkov were among the party's leaders.
The program of the PSR was in the democratic socialist mold and garnered much support amongst Russia's rural peasantry who in particular supported their program of land-socialization as opposed to the Bolshevik programme of land-nationalisation. Their policy platform differed from that of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Parties — both Bolshevik and Menshevik — in that it was not Marxist; the SRs believed that the peasantry, not the industrial proletariat, would be the revolutionary class in Russia.

Kamf un kemfer - a Yiddish pamphlet published by the PSR exile branch in London 1904.


The PSR grew directly out of the narodnik or Russian populist movement. With the economic spurt in Russia of the 1890s, they attempted to broaden their appeal in order to attract the rapidly growing urban workforce to their traditionally peasant orientated programme. The intention was to widen the concept of the 'people' so that it encompassed all elements in the society that were opposed to the Tsarist regime.
The PSR played an active role in the Russian Revolution of 1905, and in the Moscow and St. Petersburg Soviets. Although the party officially boycotted the first State Duma in 1906, 34 SRs were elected, while 37 were elected to the second Duma in 1907; the party boycotted both the third and fourth Dumas in 1907–1917.
Terrorism, both political and agrarian, was central to the PSR's strategy for revolution. The "SR Combat Organization", responsible for assassinating government officials, was led by Gershuni and operated separately from the party so as not to jeopardize its political actions. SRCO agents assassinated two Ministers of the Interior, Dmitry Sipyagin and V. K. von Plehve, Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich, the Governor of Ufa N. M. Bogdanovich, and many other high ranking officials.
In 1903, Gershuni was betrayed by his deputy, Yevno Azef, an agent of the Okhrana secret police, arrested and tried for terrorism. Azef became the new leader of the SRCO, and continued working for both the SRCO and the Okhrana, simultaneously orchestrating terrorist acts and betraying his comrades. Boris Savinkov ran many of the actual operations, notably the assassination of Admiral Dubasov.
In late 1908, a Russian narodnik and amateur spy hunter Vladimir Burtsev suggested that Azef may be a police spy. The party's Central Committee was outraged and set up a tribunal to try Burtsev for slander. When Azef was confronted with the evidence at the trial and was caught lying, he fled and left the party in disarray. The party's Central Committee, most of whose members had close ties to Azef, felt obliged to resign. Many regional organizations, already weakened in the wake of the revolution's defeat in 1907, collapsed or became inactive. Savinkov's attempt to rebuild the SRCO proved unsuccessful and it was suspended in 1911.

[edit] 1917 Revolution

Main article: Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution of February 1917, allowed the SRs to play a greater political role, with one of their members Alexander Kerensky joining the liberal Provisional Government in March 1917, and eventually becoming the head of a coalition socialist-liberal government in July 1917.
In mid-late 1917 the SRs split between those who supported the Provisional Government and those who supported the Bolsheviks and favoured a communist revolution. Those who supported the Bolsheviks became known as Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (Left SRs) and in effect split from the main party, which retained the name "SR" [1]. The primary issues motivating the split were the war and the redistribution of land. The Left SRs, led by Maria Spiridonova, believed that Russia should withdraw immediately from World War I, and they were frustrated that the Provisional Government wanted to postpone addressing the land question until after the convocation of the Russian Constituent Assembly instead of immediately confiscating the land from the landowners and redistributing it to the peasants.
At the Second Congress of Soviets on October 25, 1917, when the Bolsheviks proclaimed the deposition of the Provisional government, the split within the SR party became final. The Left SR stayed at the Congress and were elected to the permanent VTsIK executive (although at first they refused to join the Bolshevik government) while the mainstream SR and their Menshevik allies walked out of the Congress. In late November, the Left SR joined the Bolshevik government.

[edit] After the 1917 Revolution

The SRs faded after the Bolsheviks' October Revolution. However, in the election to the Russian Constituent Assembly they proved to be the most popular party across the country, gaining 57% of the popular vote as opposed to the Bolsheviks' 25%. However, the Bolsheviks disbanded the Assembly and thereafter the SRs became of less political significance. The Left SR party became the coalition partner of the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Government, although they resigned their positions after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed. A few Left-SRs like Yakov Grigorevich Blumkin joined the Communist Party.
Dissatisfied with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, some left-SRs assassinated the German ambassador to the Soviet Union, Count Wilhelm Mirbach. In 1918 they attempted a Third Russian Revolution, which failed, leading to the arrest, imprisonment, exile, and execution of party leaders and members. In response, some SRs turned once again to violence. A former SR, Fanya Kaplan, tried to assassinate Lenin on August 30, 1918. Many SRs fought for the Whites and Greens in the Russian Civil War alongside some Mensheviks and other banned moderate socialist elements. The largest rebellion against the Bolsheviks was led by an SR, Alexander Antonov. Some left-SRs however, became full members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

[edit] See also

• Russian Civil War
• Menshevik

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Left SRs and Bolsheviks referred to the mainstream SR party as the "Right SR party" whereas mainstream SRs referred to the party as just "SR" and reserved the term "Right SR" for the rightwing faction of the party which was led by Breshkovsky and Avksentev. Following this pattern, Soviet authorities called the trial of the SR Central Committee in 1922 the "Trial of the Right SRs". Russian emigres and most Western historians used the term "SR" to describe the mainstream party while Soviet historians used the term "Right SR" until the fall of Communism in the USSR.

[edit] References

• Anna Geifman. Entangled in Terror: The Azef Affair and the Russian Revolution, Wilmington, Scholarly Resources Inc., 2000, 247 pp. ISBN 0-8420-2651-7 ISBN 0-8420-2650-9
• Manfred Hildermeier. The Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party Before the First World War, 1978, 2000.
• Hannu Immonen. The Agrarian Program of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party, 1900–1911, 1988
• Michael Melancon. The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Russian Anti-War Movement, 1914–1917, 1990 (also various articles by the same author)
• Maureen Perrie. The Agrarian Policy of the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party from its Origins through the Revolution of 1905–07, 1976.
• Oliver Radkey. The Agrarian Foes of Bolshevism: Promise and Default of the Russian Socialist Revolutionaries, February to October 1917, 1958.
• Oliver Radkey. The Sickle Under the Hammer: The Russian Socialist Revolutionaries in the Early Months of Soviet Rule, 1963.
• Christopher Rice. Russian Workers and the Socialist Revolutionary Party Through the Revolution of 1905–07, 1988
• Nurit Schleifman. Undercover Agents in the Russian Revolutionary Movement, SR Party 1902–1914, 1988
• MI Leonov and KN Morozov (works in Russian)
• link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist-Revolutionaries

[EternoOccidente]

Tambov Rebellion

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This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2007)
Tambov RebellionPart of Russian Civil WarDate1919-1921LocationTambov Governorate, Soviet RussiaResultDecisive Red Army victoryBelligerentspeasant rebelsRed armyStrength50,000100,000Casualties and lossesN/AN/A
The Tambov Rebellion of 1919–1921 was one of the largest and well organized peasant rebellions against the Bolshevik regime during the Russian Civil War[1][2]. The uprising took place in the territories of the modern Tambov Oblast and a part of Voronezh Oblast, less than 300 miles southeast of Moscow. One of rebellion leaders was a former official of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, Alexander Antonov, and therefore in Soviet history it was named the Antonovschina (Анто́новщина).
Contents

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• <LI class=toclevel-1>1 Background <LI class=toclevel-1>2 Timeline <LI class=toclevel-1>3 Notes <LI class=toclevel-1>4 External links
• 5 See also

[edit] Background

The rebellion was caused by the forceful confiscation of grain by the Bolshevik authorities (policy known as prodrazvyorstka). In 1920 the requisitions were increased from 18 million to 27 million poods in the region, whereas peasants reduced the grain production knowing that anything they did not consume themselves will be immediately confiscated. To fill the state quotas meant a death by starvation [2]. The revolt began on 19 August 1920 in a small town of Khitrovo. The peasant army was also known as the Antonovtsi or "Blue Army" (not to be confused with Polish Blue Army), as opposed to "White Army" (anti-communist army), "Red Army" (communist army), "Green Army" (Ukrainian nationalists) and "Black Army" (anarchists of Ukraine and Russia) - all taking part in the Civil War.
As a distinctive feature of this rebellion among the many of these times, it was led by a political organization, the Union of Working Peasants (Soyuz Trudovogo Krestyanstva). A congress of Tambov rebels abolished Soviet power and decided to create a Constituent Assembly under equal voting, and to return all land to the peasants.[1]
Tambov uprising was one of main reasons Bolsheviks abandoned the prodrazverstka (forced expropriation of grain) policy, changing it to prodnalog (essentially, a grain/food tax). On February 2, 1921, Bolshevik Party decided to tailor a special message targeting peasants of Tambov region, announcing the retirement of the old grain policy. This was done ahead of the X Party Congress, where the measure was officially adopted. The announcement started circulating in Tambov area on February 9, 1921.

[edit] Timeline

Alexander Antonov, a radical member of the Left Socialist Revolutionary party, had sided with the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution in 1917, but he became disenchanted with them after the Bolshevik's new farming policies were implemented in 1918. Antonov started to make attacks against the Soviet authorities and became a popular hero to the people of the Tambov region of central Russia where he started his campaigns.
In October 1920 the peasant army numbered over 50,000 fighters, and was joined by numerous deserters from Red Army. The rebel militia was highly effective and infiltrated even the Tambov Cheka [2]. In January 1921 peasant revolts spread to Samara, Saratov, Tsaritsyn, Astrakhan, and Siberia.
The seriousness of the uprising called for the creation of the "Plenipotentiary Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Bolshevik party for liquidation of banditry in the Tambov Gubernia". The rebellion was crushed by Red Army units headed by Mikhail Tukhachevsky. The political guidance of the anti-revolt operations was effected by Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko. The famous Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov received his first Soviet decoration while fighting rebels here[citation needed].
The uprising was so great that nearly 30,000 soldiers were sent in, including special Cheka detachments. The army used heavy artillery and armored trains to fight peasant rebels.
Tukhachevsky and Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko signed an order, dated June 12 1921, that stipulated: "The forests where the bandits are hiding are to be cleared by the use of poison gas. This must be carefully calculated, so that the layer of gas penetrates the forests and kills everyone hiding there." [2] Chemical weapons were used "from end of June 1921 until apparently the fall of 1921", by direct order from leadership of Red Army and Communist party [3] Publications in local Communist newspapers openly glorified liquidations of "bandits" with the poison gas [3].
Seven Concentration camps were set up. At least 50,000 people were interned, mostly women, children, and elderly, some of them were sent there as hostages. The mortality rate in the camps was 15-20 percent a month.[2]
In January 1921, Antonov resorted to conscription in order to increase his army. He managed to form 2 field armies. These field armies consisted of 21 'regiments', with a total strength of around 20,000-50,000 men. The army was well structured and well organised, with their own form of insignia and uniforms. The Soviets however, referred to these Antonovtsi as disorganised Kulak groups or bandits.
The uprising was gradually quelled in 1921. Antonov was killed in 1922 during an attempt to arrest him. Total losses among the population of Tambov region in 1920-1922 resulting from the war, executions, and imprisonment in concentration camps were estimated as at least 240,000 [3].

[edit] Notes

1. <LI id=cite_note-Conquest-0>^ a b Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine Oxford University Press New York (1986) ISBN 0-195-04054-6 <LI id=cite_note-black_book-1>^ a b c d e Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Harvard University Press, 1999, hardcover, 858 pages, ISBN 0-674-07608-7
2. ^ a b c B.V.Sennikov. Tambov rebellion and liquidation of peasants in Russia, Publisher: Posev, 2004, ISBN 5-85824-152-2 Full text in Russian

[edit] External links

• Tukhachvsky role in the Tambov revolt, including the text of commands given to the red army concerning the use of war gases, taking and executing hostages, deporting of peasant families to Concentration camps.
• Programme of Union of Toiling Peasants
• (in Russian) Antonovshchina: a wealth of historical documents, including the documents from the rebel side
• An illustrated article about Tambov revolt from Gulag website (Russian)

link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambov_Rebellion

[DucaConte]

lo si potrebbe tradurre in italico?

[EternoOccidente]

lo si potrebbe tradurre in italico?

Riassumendo possiamo dire che tra gli anni '60 dell'Ottocento e la guerra civile fù attivo in Russia un movimento popolare sostenitore di un socialismo nazionale dai toni mistici che vedeva nei contadini i custodi dell'anima russa e che guardava all'istituzione russa dell'obschina, le terre comuni, proponendo la socializzazione della terra. Nemici implacabili dello zarismo, i narodniki teorizzarono l'apostolato politico nelle campagne, furono fautori del terrorismo politico ed arrivarono ad assassinare lo zar Alessandro II nel 1881. Spazzati via dalla repressione, la loro eredità fu raccolta dal partito socialista rivoluzionario, che partecipò alle insurrezioni del 1905 e del 1917 e che vinse con larga maggioranza le elezioni politiche immediatamente successive alla rivoluzione d'Ottobre. Dopo che i bolscevichi invalidarono le elezioni presero le armi contro il bolscevismo, ed il leader socialrivoluzionario Alexander Antonov capeggiò la rivolta contadina di Tambov contro le politiche di esproprio portate avanti dall'Armata Rossa, che represse la rivolta con incredibile violenza facendo uso anche di gas tossici. Le similitudini tra il socialismo rivoluzionario russo ed il mazzinianesimo sono notevoli.

[DucaConte]

mi piace

[Sabotaggio]

testi in italiano?

[EternoOccidente]

testi in italiano?

In Italia sul socialismo rivoluzionario russo c'è un vergognoso buco storiografico, non mi risulta che ci siano opere specifiche dedicate al fenomeno, qualche informazione la si può reperire sui libri sulla storia della Russia e dell'URSS.

Aggiunta: cercando meglio su internet sono venuto a conoscenza di alcuni lavori pubblicati decenni fa sull'argomento, ma poichè di ottica marxista dnon saprei dire quanto siano attendibili, essendo i marxisti estremamente avversi all'idea che ha costituito un serio rivale per loro in Russia.

[DharmaRaja (POL)]

I Narodniki altri non sono che i famosi Populisti, termine originariamente associato a questo movimento e poi riutilizzato dal pensiero liberale per definire qualsiasi corrente e forza politica che non rispondesse appieno ad esso, in altre parole quelli che Popper avrebbe definito "nemici della società aperta". Un po' la stessa cosa accaduta col termine "fascismo".

[EternoOccidente]

Purtroppo sempre in inglese, il programma dei Socialisti rivoluzionari russi. Da leggere e meditare, altro che il bolscevismo:

Programme of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, 1905

In its cultural and social relations, contemporary Russia increasingly enters into closer and closer ties with the advanced countries of the civilised world, while at the same time it preserves a number of peculiarities that have been formulated by the course of its past history, its local conditions, and its international situation.
All the advanced countries of the civilised world, parallel to the growth of the population and its basic needs, experience the growth of man's power over nature, the improved means of utilising its natural forces, and the increase of creative power of human work in all the spheres of activity. This growth is an indispensable condition for social progress and for the struggle toward a balanced and harmonious development of human individuality.
But this growth of human control over nature takes place in contemporary society under a condition of bourgeois competition of uncoordinated economic units, of private control of the means of production, of transformation of the latter into capital, and of advance exploitation of the direct producers or their indirect subordination to capital. Parallel to the development of the foundations of contemporary society, society itself increasingly transforms itself into two classes: a class of exploited toilers who receive increasingly lower rewards for the wealth their work creates, and a class of exploiters who have a monopoly on the control of natural forces and the social means of production.
As long as in those narrow frames of bourgeois capitalist relations there develop-albeit one sided and incomplete-forms of collective labour and mass production, so long will the contemporary economic development reveal positive, creative aspects, because it prepares certain material elements for a higher socialist system of life and unites in a compact social force the industrial armies of hired workers.
However, since bourgeois capitalist forms tend to narrow, limit, and impede the development of collective forms of labour and socially productive forces, the contemporary economic development strengthens its negative, destructive aspects: the anarchy of commodity production and competition; sterile waste of its economic forces; crises which shatter the national economy to its foundation; the growth of exploitation; dependence and insecurity of the toiling masses; the corrupting power of money on all moral standards; the selfish struggle of all against all for existence and privileged position.
Mutual relations between the positive and negative aspects of contemporary economic development vary from one branch of industry to another and from one country to another. They are relatively good in more advanced branches of industry and in countries of classical capitalism; they become less and less good in other branches of industry, especially in agriculture, and in countries situated less advantageously in the international economic struggle.
But, regardless of those distinctions, the incompatibility and contradiction between the positive and the negative aspects of contemporary economic development represents a general and growing fact fraught with serious historical consequences.
With the growth of social division between the exploiters and the exploited, with the growth of contradictions between the productivity of labour and the inconsequential reward of workers for their products, and with the increase of the norms of their exploitation, there also grows dissatisfaction among the exploited with their conditions in contemporary society.
The exploiting classes are trying to perpetuate the basis of their existence exploitation through rent, profit on capital in all of its forms, and increased taxes of the toiling masses. By means of syndicates, cartels, and trusts they are trying to control, for their egoistic gains, the means of production as well as consumption. They are trying to appropriate for their class interest all the institutions of the contemporary state and to transform it completely into a weapon of their rule and impoverishment of the exploited. Finally, they are striving to subjugate spiritual and material literature, art, science, and public opinion in order to keep the toiling masses not only in economic but in intellectual dependence as well.
Not possessing any other resources, or having lost them already in the struggle, they are joining hands with the reactionary forces of the dead past, are resurrecting racial and religious animosity, are poisoning national consciousness with chauvinism or nationalism, and are entering into alliances with the remnants of monarchical and Church-clerical institutions.
The bourgeois system has gradually abandoned its former progressive content, has brought intellectual sterility to its ruling classes, has caused the alienation of the intellectual and moral flower of the nation, and has left it to suffer in the hostile camp of the oppressed and the exploited.
The exploited classes naturally are trying to protect themselves from the pressing burden, and in proportion to the growth of their consciousness they are uniting themselves in this struggle and are directing it against the very foundations of bourgeois exploitation. International by its nature, this movement is becoming increasingly a movement of the great majority in the interest of the great majority, a factor that represents the key to its victory.
International revolutionary socialism represents a conscious expression, scientific illumination, and formulation of this movement. Its aim is intellectual, political, and economic emancipation of the working class. It advances above all as an initiating revolutionary minority, as the fighting vanguard of the toiling masses, trying constantly at the same time to merge with the masses and incorporate them into its ranks. Its basic practical aim is to make all layers of the toiling and exploited people awake that they are one working class, that that class is the only hope of their freedom by means of a planned, organised struggle to create a socio-revolutionary upheaval that consists of:

1. Freeing of all public institutions from control of the exploiting classes.
2. Eliminating, alongside private property in natural forces and in public means of production, the very division of the society into classes.
3. Eliminating the contemporary, stratified, compulsory, repressive nature of public institutions while at the same time preserving and developing their normal cultural functions; that is, planned organisation of public work for public good.

The realisation of this programme will make possible an uninterrupted, free, and unhampered development of all spiritual and material forces of mankind. It will also turn the growth of public wealth from a source of dependence and oppression of the working class into a source of prosperity and balanced harmonious development of human dignity. It will also halt the degeneration of mankind from uselessness and superfluity on the one hand, and, on the other, the presence of excessive work and semi-starvation. Finally, only through the introduction of a free socialist society will mankind be able to develop fully its physical, mental, and moral capabilities and introduce realism, truth, and solidarity ever fully into public life. Consequently, the essence of contemporary socialism is the freeing of all mankind. It seeks elimination of all forms of civil strife among peoples, of all forms of violence and exploitation of man by man; instead, it seeks to introduce freedom, equality and brotherhood of all regardless of sex, race, religion or nationality.
The Socialist Revolutionary Party of Russia views its task as an organic, component part of a universal struggle of labour against the exploitation of human dignity, against all barriers that prevent its development into social forms, and conducts it in the spirit of general interests of that struggle in ways that are determined by concrete conditions of Russian reality.
The mutual co-operation between the patriarchal nobility-bureaucratic autocracy and new bourgeois exploitation intensifies the social problem in Russia. The development of capitalism reveals here, more than anywhere else, its dark aspects and, less than anywhere else, it balances the organised creative influence of the growth of public productive forces. The abnormally growing bureaucratic apparatus of the state, as a result of the emancipation of serfs and the development of the kulak system in all of its aspects and forms, increasingly paralyses the productive forces of the village. The tolling peasantry is forced to a large degree to seek help either in subsidiary enterprises or hired labour, and receives from all of its labour an earning that corresponds to the lowest wage earning of an industrial worker. This factor also limits and undermines the domestic market of industry, which in addition suffers from shortages of foreign markets. Surplus population and the capitalist surplus labour force progressively increase, which, because of the competition, lowers the living standards of the city proletariat. The labour movement is forced to develop in conditions of an autocratic regime based on the all-embracing police protection and suppression of individual and public initiative. The class of great industrialists and merchants, more reactionary than everywhere else, depends increasingly on the support of autocracy against the proletariat, and against the toiling masses of the village. In the interest of self-preservation the autocracy has intensified the oppression of the subjugated nationalities of Imperial Russia, has paralysed their spiritual renaissance, has imposed national, racial, and religious antagonism in order to cloud the understanding of socio-political interests of the toiling masses. The existence of autocracy represents an irreconcilable and progressively intensifying contradiction with all of the economic, socio-political and cultural growth of the country. As a reliable ally and pillar of the most exploiting and parasitic classes in Russia, beyond its frontiers Russian autocracy is also one of the main bulwarks of reaction and a great danger to the cause of the freedom struggle of the working parties of other countries. Its overthrow should be the immediate and immediate objective of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, not only as the first indispensable condition for the solution of the social problem in Russia, but also as a major factor of international progress.
The burden of the struggle with autocracy, irrespective of the liberal-democratic opposition, which primarily includes middle class elements of the educated society," falls on the proletariat, the toiling peasantry, and the revolutionary-socialist intellig' entsia. The immediate task of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which assumes the leading role in this struggle, is to broaden and deepen the social and property changes to pave the way thereby for the overthrow of autocracy.
To realise fully its programme, namely the expropriation of capitalist property and the reorganisation of production and of the entire social system on socialist foundations, it is essential that there be a complete victory of the working class, organised by the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and, in case of need, that there be established a temporary revolutionary dictatorship.
So long as the organised working class, as the revolutionary minority, can exert only partial influence on the change of the social system and legislation, the Socialist Revolutionary Party must see to it that the working class is not blinded by its partial gains and does not lose sight of its ultimate goal; that by its revolutionary struggle the proletariat would seek in this period such changes that would develop and strengthen its solidarity and ability to fight for freedom, would help to elevate its intellectual and cultural needs, and would strengthen its fighting position and eliminate barriers that hinder its organisation.
Since the process of the transformation of Russia is led by non-socialist forces, the Socialist Revolutionary Party, on the basis of the above principles will advocate, defend, and seek by its revolutionary struggle the following reforms:

• In the Realm of Politics and Legislation The establishment of a democratic republic with broad autonomy for oblasts and communes, both urban and rural; increased acceptance of federal principles in relations between various nationalities; granting them unconditional right to self-determination; direct, secret, equal, and universal right to vote for every citizen above twenty years of age regardless of sex, religion, or national origin; proportional representation; direct popular legislation (referenda and initiatives); election, removability at all times, and accountability of all officials; complete freedom of conscience, speech, press, meetings, strikes, and unions; complete and general civil equality; inviolability of the individual and home; complete separation of the church from the state and declaration that religion is a private affair for every individual; introduction of a compulsory, general public education at government expense; equality of languages; free justice; abolition of permanent armies and their replacement by a people's militia.
• In the Realm of National Economy
  1. In the matter of labour legislation the Socialist Revolutionary Party sets as its aim the safeguarding of spiritual and material forces of the working class and increasing its capability of further struggle to whose goals should be subordinated all expedient, direct, local, and professional interests of the diverse working strata. In this sphere the Party will advocate: a reduction of the working time in order to relieve surplus labour; establishment of a legal maximum of working time based on norms determined by health conditions (an eight-hour working norm for most branches of industry as soon as possible, and lower norms for work which is dangerous or harmful to health ); establishment of a minimum wage in agreement between administration and labour unions; complete government insurance (for accident, unemployment, sickness, old age, and so on), administered by the insured at the expense of the state and employers; legislative protection of labour in all branches of industry and trade, in accordance with the health conditions supervised by factory inspection commissions elected by workers (normal working conditions, hygienic conditions of buildings; prohibition of work for youngsters below sixteen years of age, limitation of work for youngsters, prohibition of female and child labour in some branches of industry and during specified periods, adequate and uninterrupted Sunday rest, and so forth); professional organisation of workers and their increased participation in determining internal rules in industrial enterprises.
  2. In matters of agricultural policy and land relations, the Socialist Revolutionary Party sets its task to be, in the interests of socialism and the struggle against the bourgeois property system, the utilisation of the communal as well as the labour views, the traditions and way of life of Russian peasants and especially their views on land as the public property of all the toilers. Consequently, the Party will support socialisation of all privately owned lands; that is, their transfer from private property of individual owners to public domain and administration by democratically organised communes and territorial associations of communes on the basis of equalised utilisation. Should this basic demand of the agrarian minimum programme not be realised at once as a revolutionary measure, the Socialist Revolutionary Party in its future agrarian policy will be guided by consideration of a possible realisation of this demand in its entirety, advocating such related measures as: broadening of the rights of communes and their territorial associations in expropriating privately owned lands; confiscation of lands belonging to monasteries, princes, ministers, and so forth, and their transfer, together with state properties, to communes, in order that they would have an adequate amount, and also for the needs of resettlement and redistribution; limiting of payments for the use of land to the amount of clear profit from the farm (less gross revenue of the cost of production and normal remuneration for labour); reimbursement for improvements on land when it is transferred from one user to another; conversion of rent through a special tax into a source of revenue for the communes and self-governing institutions.
  3. In matters of financial policy the Party will agitate for the introduction of a progressive tax on income and inheritance, and for complete freedom from taxation of small incomes below an established norm; it will agitate for the elimination of indirect taxes (except luxury taxes), protective duties, all other taxes that burden labour.
  4. In matters of municipal and land economy, the Party will support the development of all kinds of public services, land agronomy organisation, communalisation of water supply, education, ways and means of communication, and so forth; will support the granting of broad powers to urban and rural communes to tax immovable property as well as the right to confiscate it if this be necessary to improve the living standards of the toiling population; will support communal and zemstvo as well as governmental policy aimed at helping the development of co-operatives on solid democratic foundation.
  5. With respect to various measures aimed at nationalisation of one or another sectors of the national economy within the framework of a bourgeois state, the Socialist Revolutionary Party will support these measures, provided they are accompanied by a democratisation of the political system, by a change in social forces, and that the very nature of these measures themselves would provide sufficient guarantee against increased dependence of the working class on ruling bureaucracy. In general the Socialist Revolutionary Party warns the working class against "state socialism," which is partly a system of half measures for the strengthening of the working class . . . and partly a peculiar type of state capitalism that concentrates various branches of production and trade in the hands of the ruling bureaucracy for their financial and political aims.<

The Socialist Revolutionary Party, in commencing its direct revolutionary struggle with autocracy, agitates for the calling of the Zemskii Sobor {National Assembly} freely elected by the people regardless of sex, social status, nationality, or religion, to liquidate the autocratic regime and to reform all present systems. The Party will support its programme of reform in the National Assembly and it will also try to realise it directly during the revolutionary period.

Source: V.V. Vodovozov (ed.), Sbornik programm partii v Rossii, 1st edition . St Petersburg, 1905 pp. 20-1.

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