Party of Revolutionary Communism

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Party of Revolutionary Communism
Партия революционного коммунизма
FoundedSeptember 25, 1918 (1918-09-25)
DissolvedSeptember 22, 1920 (1920-09-22)
Split fromLeft Socialist-Revolutionaries
Merged intoRussian Communist Party (Bolshevik)
NewspaperVolya Truda
Membership (1918)2,800
IdeologyPopulism

Party of Revolutionary Communism (in Russian: Партия революционного коммунизма) was a political party in Russia 1918-1920. It was formed by a Narodnik group which broke away from the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries after the latter's mutiny in July 1918.[1] The party favoured co-operation with the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), and pledged support for soviet power.[1]

History[edit]

Split after the July 6-7, 1918 uprising[edit]

Along with another Left Socialist-Revolutionary splinter-group, the Party of Narodnik Communists, the group that would form the Party of Revolutionary Communism opposed the actions and decisions taken by the Central Committee of the Party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (internationalists) in carrying out the failed July 6-7 uprising. The split originated with the decision of the Saratov Party Organization of PLSR(i) on July 9, 1918 to denounce the July 6-7 uprising and called for convening of an All-Russia Conference of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries to held in Saratov on July 20, 1918.[2] The Saratov Party Organization of PLSR(i) supported united front with the Bolsheviks.[2] In its call for an All-Russian Congress of Party Organization Representatives, the Saratov group listed three caveats that participants - the rejection of disruption of the Brest-Litovsk peace, the rejection of terrorism and the rejection of trying to seize power from the Bolsheviks through violence.[3] The dissidence in Saratov had an echo among some leading figures in the party such as Andrei Kolegayev, Mark Natanson and Novitsky. On September 14, 1918 a publication named Volya Truda began publishing as a joint organ of the Saratov-based group and the group around Kolegaev, Natanson and Novitsky.[2] Volya Truda denounced the attempt of the PLSR(i) Central Committee to try to seize power and disrupt the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk through the murder of Count Wilhelm von Mirbach on July 6, 1918.[2] The first issue of Volya Truda called for the holding of congress of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries.[2]

First Party Congress[edit]

The Volya Truda tendency organized a party congress in Moscow September 25-30, 1918.[1][4][5][2] The congress was held at the premises of the former Moscow Theological Seminary [ru].[3]

Kolegaev, Aleksei Ustinov [fi], Anastasia Bitsenko and Simanovsky formed the party congress presidium.[4][3] Yegoshin, Lukov and Korev formed the Credentials Commission. Sixty delegates with a decisive vote from 15 governorates participated in this congress.[4][3] Out of the sixty voting delegates there were 15 erstwhile members of the PLSR(i) faction in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, 5 representatives of governorate-level PLSR(i) party organizations and 40 representatives from uyezd-level PLSR(i) party organizations.[4] In addition to the delegates with decisive vote there were also 8 members of the Union of Socialists Revolutionaries Maximalists and 3 members of the Party of Narodnik-Communists present.[3]

By the congress majority voted to declare their separation from the PLSR(i) and the formation of the Party of Revolutionary Communism as an independent party.[3] The congress affirmed that whilst they were breaking organizationally with the PLSR(i) over tactics, they remained committed to the Left Socialist-Revolutionary programme.[3] The party congress listened to reports from the different governorate-level and uyezd-level party organizations present.[3] Political, social and economic issues were debated.[3] The congress adopted the slogan 'All to the Soviets and through the Soviets' (Все в Советах и Советы).[3] Dobrokhotov presented the economic programme of the party, which included calls for abolishing of money relations, nationalization of trade, naturalization of wages and universal labour conscription.[3]

The congress declared the Party of Revolutionary Communism as the party for the 'broad revolutionary masses of town and country'.[3] The congress voted to give significant autonomy for local party organizations, but with party congress decisions being binding for all party organizations.[3] The congress instructed party organizations to form factions in soviets.[3]

The Central Committee of the Party of Revolutionary Communism consisted of Kolegaev, Bitsenko, Ustinov, A. N. Alexandrov, M. A. Dobrokhotov, G. N. Maksimov and V. N. Cherny as members and Evgenia Semenovskaya as candidate member.[2][5][6]

Between the First and Second Party Congresses[edit]

By mid-November 1918 the first split in the new party had occurred as Central Committee members Kolegayev, Bitsenko, Alexandrov, Dobrokhotov and Cherny who joined the RCP(B) in mid-November 1918.[7][3] They argued that the RCP(B) and the Party of Revolutionary Communism shared common goals and that thus the existence of two separate parties was not justified.[7]

In the wake of the split the Volga-Urals Conference of Revolutionary Communists was held on November 15, 1918 was held in Saratov.[7] The conference announced support for the socialization of land.[7] It reaffirmed the opposition to Bolshevik food policy and the Committees of Poor Peasants.[7] As of December 1918 the party committees in Volga-Urals were located in Saratov, Simbirsk, Samara, Kazan, Penza, Kerensk and Pugachyov.[7]

Second Party Congress[edit]

The party held a Second Party Congress, beginning on December 2, 1918.[4][3] At the party congress there were 28 delegates with decisive vote and 3 delegates with advisory vote representing some 2,800 party members and 1,500 sympathizers.[4][7] The delegates represented from 15 governorate-level and 50 uyezd-level party organizations.[4][7] The congress discussed economic issues and the relationship with the Bolsheviks. At the Second Party Congress Semenovskaya, as the main theoretician of the party, presented the political line of the party - calling for rapproachment with the Bolsheviks not on Orthodox Marxist platform but based on 'integral socialism'.[3] Arguing for 'integral socialism' Semenovskaya denounced the 'one-sided dictatorship of the proletariat' and called instead for the 'dictatorship of the entire toiling class' (диктатурой всего класса трудящихся).[3]

Vladimir Zitta was elected to the Central Committee at the party congress, and was made the Secretary of the Central Committee.[8]

Third Party Congress[edit]

A Third Party Congress was held in April 1919. At the time the party was estimated to have some 3,300 members and sympathizers.[4] There were 30 delegates with decisive vote and 7 delegates with advisory vote, representing six governorates and ten uyezds.[7][3] But there were clear discrepancies on the size of the party organizations represented, the Petrograd delegate at the party congress represented only five party members whilst the Moscow delegate represented a hundred party members.[7] The Third Party Congress called for support to soviet power and the Red Army.[3]

Key leaders of the party at this point included Ustinov and Pavel Sapozhnikov [ru].[9]

On April 26, 1919 the Saratov Governorate Committee of the RCP(B) decided to include members of the Party of Revolutionary Communism in the Executive Committees of the governorate and city soviets.[3]

1919 split[edit]

A minority within the party leadership sought unity with other populist sectors. In August 1919 a conference took place in Moscow with the minority of the Party of Revolutionary Communism, the Borbists and the Maximalists. This conference adopted a resolution calling for unity of socialis-revolutionary forces and formed a Unification Organizing Committee with Zitta as one of its members.[10] Subsequently the Central Committee majority decided to expel Zitta, Maksimov, E. Semenovskaya and V. Bezel from the party for 'violation of party discipline' and for seeking unity with populist sectors (including groups such as the PLSR(i) or the Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries).[6]

Fourth Party Congress[edit]

The Fourth Party Congress, meeting in October 1919, recognized that the party had 'difficulties in working with the masses', gaps in communication between the Central Committee and Party Organizations and a decline in party membership.[3] By October 1919 the party had 2,297 members and sympathizers.[3]

As the political situation became increasingly harsh in the midst of the Russian Civil War, the Party of Revolutionary Communism moved increasingly closer to the RCP(B).[11] After the Fourth Party Congress the party moved closer to Bolshevism. In January 1920 the Central Committee issued a directive to party members to join the war at the Western Front, that 5% of party funds would be assigned to the Red Army and that party organizations cooperate with RCP(B) locally for building agricultural cooperatives.[3]

Fifth Party Congress[edit]

A Fifth Party Congress was held in from April 28 to May 2, 1920.[4] Around this time the party had organizations in 16 governorates, with 126 party cells and 1,151 members.[12][3] The Fifth Party Congress re-affirmed support to soviet power as 'labourers, not workers, democracy' (трудовой, а не рабочей Демократии), that the 'political and economic dictatorship must be based the entire toiling masses'.[3] The Fifth Party Congress affirmed support for economic measures of soviet power, such as the militarization of labour and the formation of labour armies, as necessary to deal with the current extraordinary conditions.[11] The Fifth Party Congress declared that it was an obligation of all party members to support soviet power.[3]

Second Congress of the Communist International[edit]

Two representatives of the Party of Revolutionary Communism were allowed to attend the 1920 Second Congress of the Comintern in a deliberative capacity, but with no decisive votes.[1]

Disintegration[edit]

During its two-year existence the Party of Revolutionary Communism the struggled with divisions, as the party sought to assert an independent pole in the midst of war communism.[13][14] Those that remained in the Party of Revolutionary Communism after the different splits often suffered repression linked to their opposition towards the Bolshevik food policy.[4]

At the Sixth Party Congress of the Party of Revolutionary Communism held in Moscow on September 21-22, 1920 decided, in line with the 2nd Comintern Congress decision that there must only exist one single Communist Party in each country, to self-dissolve and appealed to its followers to join the RCP(B).[1][4][15][3] There were 39 delegates with decisive votes and 12 delegates with advisory vote taking part in the congress.[3] At the time of its dissolution the party had 1,625 members and sympathizers.[4] In October of the same year, the RCP(B) Central Committee permitted Party organizations to enroll members of the former Party of Revolutionary Communism into the RCP(B).[1]

Ideological line and political positions[edit]

The Party of Revolutionary Communism retained the Left Socialist-Revolutionary programme, but differed with the PLSR(i) on tactics.[4] It upheld the theoretical legacy of Nikolay Mikhaylovsky and Pyotr Lavrov.[4] Vladimir Lenin perceived the programme of the Party of Revolutionary Communism as remaining on the platform of Narodnik utopianism and muddled and eclectic.[1] While recognising that Soviet rule created preconditions for the establishment of a socialist system, the party denied the necessity of the proletarian dictatorship during the transitional period from capitalism to socialism.[1] The party spoke of a single class of 'toiling people' (трудящихся) that would encompass both urban industrial and rural agricultural workers.[14]

The Party of Revolutionary Communism aligned with the Bolsheviks calling for the victory of world revolution and supported universal labour conscription, red terror and abolishing of commodity-money relations.[4] But they differed with the Bolsheviks on agrarian issues, and opposed the Committees of Poor Peasants.[4] Whilst the party supported the campaign against kulaks, it opposed perceived excesses committed in the name of fighting kulaks.[3] The party called for socialization of land, as a voluntary and gradual process.[3]

Social base[edit]

Whilst the Party of Revolutionary Communism defined itself as a party for toiling masses the party membership became largely limited to intellectuals, sectors that retained ambitions for a 'third way'.[9] For example, the delegate from Kazan at the Third Party Congress stated that among 40 members there were 36 intellectuals, 3 workers and a single peasants.[9]

Party organ[edit]

The central party organ was Volya Truda (Воля Труда, 'Will of Labour'), which was published as a daily newspaper from September 14 to December 4, 1918. From December 29, 1918, the daily newspaper was replaced by a periodical with the same title.[1] Initially the editorial contents of Volya Truda was meagre, but after the First Party Congress the editorial board initiated a cultural and literary section, which published texts from writers like Sergei Yesenin, Andrei Bely, Velimir Khlebnikov, Osip Mandelstam, Vadim Shershenevich and Boris Pasternak.[13]

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lenin. No Compromises?. 1920
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Непролетарские партии России: урок истории. Myslʹ, 1984. pp. 389-390
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae Политические партии России: конец XIX - первая треть XX века : энциклопедия. РОССПЭН, 1996. pp. 430-431
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p V. M. L avrov. Партия Спиридоновой: (Мария Спиридонова на левоэсеровских съездах). Российская Акад. Наук, Инст. Российской Истории, 2001. pp. 94-95
  5. ^ a b Vladimir Il'ich Lenin. Избранные произведения в трех томах, Vol. 3. Изд-во полит. лит-ры, 1974. p. 749
  6. ^ a b Память, Issue 3. Khronika Press, 1980. p. 384
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Alter L. Litvin. Крестьянство Среднего Поволжья в годы гражданской войны: учебное пособие к спецкурсу. Материалы. Kazanskiĭ gosudarstvennyĭ pedagogicheskiĭ institut, 1972. p. 163
  8. ^ Я. В Леонтьев. "Скифы" русской революции: партия левых эсеров и её литературные попутчики. АИРО-XXI, 2007. p. 125
  9. ^ a b c Гражданская война в Поволжье, 1918-1920. Татарское кн. изд-во, 1974. p. 291
  10. ^ Валентин Валентинович Шелохаев. Партия левых социалистов-революционеров: Июль 1917 г.-май 1918 г. РОССПЭН, 2000. p. 824
  11. ^ a b Sot͡sialʹnye i gumanitarnye nauki: otechestvennai͡a literatura. Istorii͡a, Issues 1-4. RAN INION, 1993. p. 59
  12. ^ Алексей Ананченко. Проблемы формирования советской политической системы: историко-аналитическое исследование. Litres, 2024. p. 210
  13. ^ a b Lazarʹ Fleĭshman. Boris Pasternak: The Poet and His Politics. Harvard University Press, 1990. p. 100
  14. ^ a b Партия и массы. Akademii︠a︡ obshchestvennykh nauk. Мысль, 1966. p. 48
  15. ^ Борьба Коммунистической партии Советского Союза против оппортунизма и национализма. Изд-во ЛГУ, 1978. p. 78
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