How was the Socialist Revolutionary Party divided over the strategy of organisation?
Answers
The SRs were agrarian socialists who obtained a mass following in the years preceding the Russian Revolution by endorsing the overthrow of the Tsar and the redistribution of land to the peasantry. In the elections following the 1905 Revolution, the SRs obtained the majority of the few seats alloted to the peasantry. Following the 1907 coup, the SRs would boycott all subsequent Dumas until the fall of the Tsar in the February Revolution. Controversially, the party leadership would endorse the Russian Provisional Government and participated in multiple coalitions with liberal and moderate socialist parties, while an increasingly vocal minority rejected the Provisional Government's authority and began to align with the Bolsheviks. The pro-government and pro-Soviet factions could not be reconciled and split over the course of the summer of 1917 into the Right and Left SRs respectively.
The Left SRs supported the October Revolution and formed a coalition government with the Bolsheviks from November 1917 to July 1918, while the Right SRs denounced what they saw as an illegal coup and boycotted the Congress of Soviets. The SRs obtained a plurality in elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly, with most of the defunct party's seats going to the Right. Citing outdated voter rolls which did not acknowledge the party split and the Assembly's conflicts with the Congress of Soviets, the Bolshevik-Left SR government would dissolve the Constituent Assembly in January 1918.[2]
Explanation:
The SRs were agrarian socialists who obtained a mass following in the years preceding the Russian Revolution by endorsing the overthrow of the Tsar and the redistribution of land to the peasantry. In the elections following the 1905 Revolution, the SRs obtained the majority of the few seats alloted to the peasantry. Following the 1907 coup, the SRs would boycott all subsequent Dumas until the fall of the Tsar in the February Revolution. Controversially, the party leadership would endorse the Russian Provisional Government and participated in multiple coalitions with liberal and moderate socialist parties, while an increasingly vocal minority rejected the Provisional Government's authority and began to align with the Bolsheviks. The pro-government and pro-Soviet factions could not be reconciled and split over the course of the summer of 1917 into the Right and Left SRs respectively.
The Left SRs supported the October Revolution and formed a coalition government with the Bolsheviks from November 1917 to July 1918, while the Right SRs denounced what they saw as an illegal coup and boycotted the Congress of Soviets. The SRs obtained a plurality in elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly, with most of the defunct party's seats going to the Right. Citing outdated voter rolls which did not acknowledge the party split and the Assembly's conflicts with the Congress of Soviets, the Bolshevik-Left SR government would dissolve the Constituent Assembly in January 1918.[2]
The Left SRs would eventually leave the coalition in July 1918 in protest to the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. An abortive uprising by the leadership of the Left SRs resulted in the immediate arrest of most of the party's members. The majority of Left SRs, who opposed the uprising were gradually freed and allowed to keep their government positions, but were unable to organize a new central organ and gradually splintered into multiple pro-Bolshevik parties, all of which would eventually join the Communists by 1921. The Right SRs supported the Whites during the Russian Civil War but were increasingly marginalized by the movement's anti-socialist leadership and ultimately purged. A small Right SR remnant continued to operate in exile from 1923 to 1940 as a member of the Labour and Socialist International.