SRs

• Unlike other socialist groups, the SRs focused on the peasantry and wanted to improve their lives.

  • They believed in redistribution agricultural land to the peasants taken from the Tsar, the Church and the nobility.
  • They also motivated the peasants to rise up against the Tsar in union with the urban workers.
• The SRs were the largest and potentially the most dangerous left-wing group in Russia.
• The SRs followed the ideas and path started by the earlier Populists such as the People's Will

  • Their "going to the people" cause was revived due to the suffering of peasants in the Great Famine of 1891-92.
• The Socialist Revolutionary Party was officially formed in 1901.

  • They were committed to terrorism and assassination to achieve their aims.
• Notable successes of the SRs included:

  • Assassinating successive Ministers of the Interior in 1902 and 1904.
  • Assassinating the Minister of Education in 1901.
  • Involvement in 2,000 political murders.
• The attention grabbing terrorist acts by the SRs raised their profile.

  • The murder of Stolypin in 1911 was possibly their most notable achievement.
• They were the most popular radical opposition group with a particularly strong following among the youth of Russia.

  • Radical students supported them.
  • There was a decline in membership after 1905.
• The failure of the 1905 Revolution to achieve significant change in Russia weakened the support of the SRs.

  • Supporters were further put off active opposition by the repression of Stolypin in 1906.
  • 4,579 SRs were sentenced to death between 1905 and 1909 and 2,365 of them were executed.
• They also failed to establish a consistent policy towards the new Duma.

  • The SRs boycotted the elections for the First Duma but contested the elections for the Second Duma in 1907.
  • They boycotted the Third Duma elections after Stolypin changed the voting rules.