The Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR) played an important role in the history of the Russian revolutionary movement. The author seeks to explain why this party--which continued the tradition of the 1870s--did not ultimately prevail in an agrarian country like the Tsarist empire. Using a wealth of printed sources and, for the first time, drawing upon materials from the archive of the Central Committee of the PSR, this study provides a detailed analysis of the theoretical foundations the party as well as its organizational structure and political practice during the first Russian Revolution.

The Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) were the largest political party in Russia in the crucial revolutionary year of 1917. Heirs to the legacy of the People's Will movement, the SRs were unabashed proponents of peasant rebellion and revolutionary terror, emphasizing the socialist transformation of the countryside and a democratic system of government as their political goals. They offered a compelling, but still socialist, alternative to the Bolsheviks, yet by the early 1920s their party was shattered and its members were branded as enemies of the revolution. In 1922, the SR leaders became the first fellow socialists to be condemned by the Bolsheviks as "counter-revolutionaries" in the prototypical Soviet show trial. In Captives of the Revolution, Scott B. Smith presents both a convincing account of the defeat of the SRs and a deeper analysis of the significance of the political dynamics of the Civil War for subsequent Soviet history. Once the SRs decided to openly fight the Bolsheviks in 1918, they faced a series of nearly impossible political dilemmas. At the same time, the Bolsheviks fatally undermined the revolutionary credentials of the SRs by successfully appropriating the rhetoric of class struggle, painting a simplistic picture of Reds versus Whites in the Civil War, a rhetorical dominance that they converted into victory over the SRs and any left-wing alternative to Bolshevik dictatorship. In this narrative, the SRs became a bona fide threat to national security and enemies of the people—a characterization that proved so successful that it became an archetype to be used repeatedly by the Soviet leadership against any political opponents, even those from within the Bolshevik party itself. In this groundbreaking study, Smith reveals a more complex and nuanced picture of the postrevolutionary struggle for power in Russia than we have ever seen before and demonstrates that the Civil War—and in particular the struggle with the SRs—was the formative experience of the Bolshevik party and the Soviet state.

" The Socialist Revolutionary Party played an important role in the history of the Russian revolutionary movement. The author seeks to explain why this party--which continued the tradition of the 1870s--did not ultimately prevail in an agrarian country like the Tsarist empire. Using a wealth of printed sources and, for the first time, drawing upon materials from the archive of the Central Committee of the PSR, this study provides a detailed analysis of the theoretical foundations of the party as well as its organisational structure and political practice during the first Russian Revolution. Manfred Hildermeier ist Professor am Seminar für Mittlere und Neuere Geschichte der Universität Göttingen. "

An impassioned firsthand account of the Russian Revolution An American journalist and revolutionary writer, John Reed became a close friend of Lenin and was an eyewitness to the 1917 revolution in Russia. Ten Days That Shook the World is Reeds extraordinary record of that event. 'It flashed upon me suddenly: they were going to shoot me!' This electrifying eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution, written by an American journalist in St Petersburg as the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, is an unsurpassed record of history in the making. John Reed (1887-1920) American journalist and poet-adventurer whose colorful life as a revolutionary writer ended in Russia but made him the hero of a generation of radical intellectuals. Reed became a close friend of V.I. Lenin and was an eyewitness to the 1917 October revolution. He recorded this historical event in his best-known book TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD (1920). Reed is buried with other Bolshevik heroes beside the Kremlin wall.

The Socialist Revolutionary party, which had been the largest and most popular party in Russia in 1917, did not after the October Revolution just disappear into the "dustbin of history", as Trotsky hoped, but – led by its leadership in exile in the 1920s and 1930s – continued to observe and comment on developments in Russia. In emigration, the Socialist Revolutionary (SR) party often put forward policy proposals on a wide range of topics: policies which, based on a shrewd understanding of the real situation in Russia, offered realistic alternatives to the policies being pursued by the Marxist Bolshevik regime. This book fills a gap in examining one of the most significant Russian political parties, and is based on extensive original analysis of SR party materials, shows how it operated; how it formulated and disseminated its ideas; what these ideas were, and how the party's ideas developed in response to changing circumstances in Russia and Europe more widely. Far from being the agrarian Slavophile romantics as they are often portrayed, this book shows the SRs were energetic European modernisers who contributed vigorously to the leading debates of their day; it also shows how the SR vision of a populist, socialist regime failed to materialise as state control, dictatorship and the collectivisation of agriculture took hold.

An eyewitness account of the world-changing uprising—from the author of Memoirs of a Revolutionary. “A truly remarkable individual . . . an heroic work” (Richard Allday of Counterfire). Brimming with the honesty and passionate conviction for which he has become famous, Victor Serge’s account of the first year of the Russian Revolution—through all of its achievements and challenges—captures both the heroism of the mass upsurge that gave birth to Soviet democracy and the crippling circumstances that began to chip away at its historic gains. Year One of the Russian Revolution is Serge’s attempt to defend the early days of the revolution against those, like Stalin, who would claim its legacy as justification for the repression of dissent within Russia. Praise for Victor Serge “Serge is one of the most compelling of twentieth-century ethical and literary heroes.” —Susan Sontag, MacArthur Fellow and winner of the National Book Award “His political recollections are very important, because they reflect so well the mood of this lost generation . . . His articles and books speak for themselves, and we would be poorer without them.” —Partisan Review “I know of no other writer with whom Serge can be very usefully compared. The essence of the man and his books is to be found in his attitude to the truth.” —John Berger, Booker Prize–winning author “The novels, poems, memoirs and other writings of Victor Serge are among the finest works of literature inspired by the October Revolution that brought the working class to power in Russia in 1917.” —Scott McLemee, writer of the weekly “Intellectual Affairs” column for Inside Higher Ed

In 1916, in an exchange of human flesh for war material, the Russian government sent to France two brigades to fight on the side of their French allies. By the end of World War I, these two brigades had experienced their own form of the Russian Revolution, had been isolated at a southern training post in a discipline move by the French government, had battled against each other in what was one of the first confrontations of the Russian Civil War, and had emerged from the conflict as a single force, the Russian Legion of Honor, which would remain loyal to France until the end of the war. The remarkable story of these Russian soldiers has been overlooked by historians until now. Jamie Cockfield here explores the journey and transformation of these men, and in so doing, he examines the impact of the revolution on the Russians who were caught in the middle of wartime alliances and nationalist ardor.