Libmonster ID: BY-3033
Author(s) of the publication: Yu. I. SHESTAK

The organization of Socialist-revolutionary Maximalists was one of those parties and groups that represented the tendencies of petty-bourgeois "leftism"in Russia. The study of its activities and relations with the Bolshevik Party provides additional material for elucidating the question of the political and organizational collapse of the petty-bourgeois parties in Russia and the closely related problem of Bolshevik tactics in relation to the petty-bourgeois parties.

The history of the Maximalist organization and its relations with the Bolshevik Party is still insufficiently described in Soviet historical literature. In the works published in the 1920s on petty-bourgeois parties, there are only general references to the maximalists, 1 as well as some data on their programmatic and tactical attitudes .2 Brief information on the activities of the maximalists on the eve of October and during the Soviet period can be found in the works devoted to the formation of Soviet statehood, 3 as well as the history of the bankruptcy of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties in Russia .4 In recent years, several articles about maximalists have appeared, focusing on criticism of their ideological views .5 However, the practical activity of the maximalists, the process of their evolution, and their relationship with the Bolshevik Party are still poorly revealed. In this article, on the basis of new documentary material, an attempt is made to consider a holistic approach to-

1 A. V. Lunacharsky. Former people. Essay on the History of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, Moscow, 1922. In ar din (I. V. Mgeladze). Political Parties and the Russian Revolution, Moscow, 1922; N. N. Popov. Petty-bourgeois anti-Soviet Parties, Moscow, 1924; S. P. Chernomordik. Social Revolutionaries. Kharkiv, 1930.

2 V. N. Meshcheryakov. The Party of Socialist Revolutionaries. Ch. 1, 2. Moscow, 1922; E. A. Morokhovets. Agrarian programs of Russian political parties in 1917. L. 1929.

3 E. N. Gorodetsky. Rozhdenie Sovetskogo gosudarstva [The Birth of the Soviet State], Moscow, 1965; E. G. Gimpelson. Soviets in the Years of Intervention and Civil War, Moscow, 1968; A. M. Malashko. On the design of the one-party system in the USSR. Minsk. 1969.

4 V. V. Komin. Bankruptcy of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties in Russia during the preparation and victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Moscow, 1965; L. M. Spirin. Classes and Parties in the Civil War in Russia (1917-1920). Moscow, 1968; T. A. Sivokhina. The Collapse of the petty-bourgeois opposition, Moscow, 1973; K. V. Gusev. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party: from Petty-bourgeois Revolutionism to Counter-Revolution (Historical Essay), Moscow, 1975; Yu. I. Shestak. Bankruptcy of the Left SR Party. Vestnik MSU, istoriya Publ., 1973, No. 2.

5 A. F. Zhukov. V. I. Lenin's exposure of the theory and tactics of maximalism of the Socialist revolutionaries. "Lenin's ideas live and win." L. 1970; his own. The Bolsheviks ' exposure of the petty-bourgeois views of the maximalist Social Revolutionaries on the character, goals, and driving forces of the socialist revolution. "Vestnik" LSU, 1970, N 14, issue 3; his. The struggle of the Bolsheviks against the petty-bourgeois views of the Maximalist Social Revolutionaries on questions of industrial management. "From the History of the Communist Party's Struggle for the Victory of the Socialist Revolution and the Construction of Socialism in the USSR", Issue 3, Pskov, 1974.

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these questions, as well as revealing the regularities of the political and organizational bankruptcy of a petty-bourgeois maximalist organization.

The Maximalists began their existence in 1904 as the left-wing, most radical wing of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which demanded that the principle of socialization be extended to all instruments and means of production and that the struggle begin immediately for the implementation of the maximum program (hence the name). At the First Congress of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party in January 1906, the left current sharply criticized the party program submitted for approval by the Congress, declared it too moderate, and demanded the inclusion of a clause on the immediate socialization not only of the land, but also of factories and factories. After the Congress rejected the amendments of the maximalist opposition, it convened its own conference in March 1906, which passed a resolution on the creation of an independent organization. In October 1906, at the founding conference in the Finnish city of Abo (Turku), the "Union of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists" was formed, According to the "Notice" published after the conference. The Central Executive Bureau of the Union stated that the goal of its activities was an immediate social revolution, during which "the socialization of production takes place in the city, and the socialization of land in agriculture." To achieve this goal, it was intended to "conduct the most vigorous terrorist and partisan struggle both in the countryside and in the city", with a view to ending it with a "general armed uprising" .6
V. I. Lenin characterized the maximalists as supporters of the "revolutionary tendencies of narodism" 7, but pointed out the anarchic nature of their revolutionary character and theoretical helplessness. Putting forward the slogan "Down with the theory of commodity production" and adopting the point of view of rejecting the democratic stage of the revolution, the maximalists, in essence, only followed the principles of the old Russian populism, for which, as V. I. Lenin noted, " the distinction between the maximum program and the minimum program is unnecessary and incomprehensible, because the applicability of the laws and categories of commodity production the theory of narodism denies any interest in the Russian peasant economy. " 8 Ignoring the operation of objective laws of social development, the maximalists believed that socialism does not follow directly from the capitalist formation and can be built on any, even primitive, level of productive forces. Moreover, they declared that "with the development of capitalism, the chances of a labor system decrease, not increase" 9, from which they concluded that it was necessary to immediately implement a socialist revolution, bypassing the bourgeois-democratic stage of the revolution. V. I. Lenin pointed out that the confusion of the maximum program and the minimum program "inevitably leads to all kinds of petty-bourgeois and opportunist or anarchist perversions of proletarian socialism, and inevitably obscures the task of social revolution carried out by means of the conquest of political power by the proletariat."10 The socialist phraseology that the maximalists were so fond of flaunting had nothing in common with scientific socialism, being a petty-bourgeois, anarchic perversion of it.

Misunderstanding of the laws of social development and the desire to jump over a whole stage of the revolution gave rise to maximalists

6 "The essence of Maximalism", St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 7.

7 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 13, p. 398.

8 Ibid.

9th floor. Tagin. Minimum program-minimum and revolutionary phraseology. "The Will of Labor "(Collection), Moscow, 1907, p. 104.

10 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 13, p. 397.

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adventurism also applies to tactics: the rejection of legal forms of struggle, calls for immediate armed insurrection and guerrilla warfare, and the emphasis on individual terror and expropriation. The failure of ideological views, unwillingness and inability to work among the masses led to the fact that the organization of maximalists could not become a mass organization and existed in the form of an "intelligent terrorist group" 11. During the revolution of 1905 - 1907, the maximalists committed bold terrorist acts (for example, the attempt on Stolypin (unsuccessful) and expropriations (in the Moscow Mutual Credit Society, in Lantern Lane in Petrograd, etc.). They took part (together with the Bolsheviks) and in barricade battles. However, the absolutization of armed methods of struggle and the lack of a mass base meant that the maximalists could not adapt to work in the conditions of the decline of the revolution and resist the onslaught of reaction. By the end of 1907, their organizations had suffered heavy losses in their active forces, were demoralized by the temporary defeat of the revolution, and began to disintegrate. In 1908, the "Union of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists" virtually ceased to exist, although in a number of cities - Yekaterinodar, Bialystok, Minsk, Novorossiysk, Tobolsk, Voronezh, Tambov - small groups of maximalists remained. For some time, a group of maximalists abroad published the newspaper Trudovaya Respublika .12
Maximalism reappears in the arena of political struggle after the February Revolution. The ultra-revolutionary slogans of the maximalists attracted to them the petty-bourgeois strata of the city, driven to despair by war and devastation, and the radical students. The maximalists were also joined by some of those workers, soldiers, and sailors who had become disillusioned with the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik policy, but who, because of their weak political consciousness and insufficient revolutionary experience, had not yet come to support the Proletarian party. In mid - March 1917, an organizational meeting of the maximalists of Petrograd, and a little later-of Kronstadt, was held. On June 11, the joint conference of these organizations adopted the "Charter of the Union of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists". The formation of local organizations has also begun. This was most often done by isolating radical elements from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. This was the case in Izhevsk, Kursk, Samara 13 and other cities.

The maximalists quickly gave up their illusions about the Provisional Government, adopted a negative attitude towards it, and sharply criticized the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries for "disorganizing the revolutionary army"to please the bourgeoisie .14 The conference of maximalists of Petrograd, Shlisselburg, and Sestroretsk, held on September 20-22, 1917, supported the Bolshevik slogan of transferring power to the Soviets and called for the use of all means "from revolutionary propaganda in words to armed actions and partisan seizures"for the purpose of combating exploiters .15 The maximalists advocated a radical solution of the land question in the interests of the peasantry,

11 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 17, p. 139.

12 "The Voice of the Maximalist" (Blagoveshchensk), 1920, N 4, p. 14.

13 "The struggle for the establishment and consolidation of Soviet power in the Kursk province". Collection of documents. Kursk. 1957, p. 77; M. I. Stishov, D. S. Chiseled. Disintegration of the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik party organizations in the Volga region. Voprosy Istorii, 1973, No. 8, p. 19; I. Kaptsugovich. The history of the political demise of the Social Revolutionaries in the Urals. Perm. 1975, p. 109.

14 "Trudovaya Respublika" (Petrograd), 1917, No. 7, p. 1.

15 Volya Truda (edition of the Petrograd and Shlisselburg Maximalist Organizations), 1917, No. 3, p. 1.

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without waiting for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, declaring that the guarantee of such a decision can be "only the revolutionary consolidation of labor rights to land" 16 . They denounced the counter-revolutionary scheme of the Moscow State Conference, and during the Kornilov revolt they supported the Bolsheviks in their struggle against the counter-revolutionary conspirators .17
Taking into account the position of the maximalists, the Bolsheviks blocked with them in matters of power, war and peace, and in the fight against compromise. The Seventh (April) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (b) recognized that it was impossible to unite with the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary parties that had taken up positions of defencism and support for the Provisional Government, and at the same time called for "rapprochement and unification with groups and trends that actually stand on the basis of internationalism" and have broken "with the policy of petty-bourgeois betrayal of socialism" 18 . This line was confirmed by the Sixth Party Congress, which recognized as permissible blocs and agreements "only with parties that stand on the basis of internationalism and have broken with the Defencists not in words, but in deeds." 19 The organization of maximalists was also one of them at that time.

On October 15-21, 1917, the second All-Russian Conference of the "Union of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists" was held. Organizations of 16 cities with more than 3 thousand members were represented at the conference .20 The Conference rejected political terror and expropriation "as a means of struggle for the present moment" and defined as its main task activities aimed at helping the working people to unite around the Soviets and factory committees. 21 Describing the Provisional Government as bourgeois and anti-people, the conference called for the replacement of the existing system by a" Labor Republic " and an immediate exit from the war. The maximalists proposed that political power in the "Labor Republic" should be concentrated in "Labor Councils", elected on a "general democratic basis", and that the management of economic life should be transferred to "Labor Syndicate Councils", consisting of elected representatives from each branch of industry .22 All these political and economic bodies, both in the center and in the localities, had to be non-partisan, since, according to the maximalists, "the power of parties, even if they are socialist, is not the power of the people." 23 It was a typical petty-bourgeois, anarcho-syndicalist program, built on the denial of the proletarian character of the revolution, the leading role of the working class and its party, and the necessity of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat. At the same time, it was one of the most radical petty-bourgeois political programs, and it had a clear anti-communist and anti-bourgeois orientation, which determined the behavior of maximalists in the days of the Great October Socialist Revolution: they supported the Bolshevik slogan of armed insurrection. This support, it is true, stemmed from their tactics of "direct action", but the participation of the maximalists in the October armed uprising, although to a small extent, due to the small size of their organization, still contributed to the victory of the proletariat.

16 "To the workers, peasants and soldiers". Ptgr. 1917, p. 11.

17 "October in the Tver province". Tver. 1927, p. 40; Krasnaya Letopis, 1927, No. 2 (23), p. 60.

18 "The CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee". Ed. 8-E. T. 1, p. 450.

19 Ibid., p. 492.

20 "Trudovaya Respublika" (Petrograd), 1917, No. 13, p. 2.

21 "Resolution of the II All-Russian Conference of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists". Ptgr. 1917, p. 3, 29.

22 Ibid., p. 9.

23 "Trudovaya Respublika" (Petrograd), 1917, No. 13, p. 2.

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The Maximalists joined the Red Guard detachments in Petrograd and the Military Revolutionary Committee in Ivanovo, voted for the transfer of power to the Soviets in Samara, and disarmed the counter-revolutionary officers in Buzuluk .24 Together with the Bolsheviks, they spoke at the Congress of Soviets of the Turkestan Region that opened after the overthrow of the Provisional Government .25 The Maximalists also took an active part in repelling the first attempts of the armed overthrow of the Soviet government, in the struggle against counter-revolutionary conspirators and saboteurs.

However, the old narodnik ideas and old "democratic" illusions did not allow them to firmly take up revolutionary positions, and caused them to waver in politics. Thus, the maximalists did not show proper consistency in their struggle against the counter-revolution. Together with the left SRS and social-democrat internationalists, they protested against the arrest of cadet leaders who were preparing counter-revolutionary action, and the closure of bourgeois newspapers that called for resistance to the workers 'and peasants' power. The maximalists pinned certain hopes on the Constituent Assembly as an organ of "people's power", demanding that the Soviet government show it "sensitivity and attention" .26 They made their position in relation to the Constituent Assembly dependent on its attitude to the anarcho - maximalist slogan of "seizing" the means of production .27 Only when they became convinced that the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik majority of the assembly was by no means inclined to sanction the expropriation of private property, did the maximalists label the assembly the "All-Russian chatterbox" and approve its dissolution .28
The Bolsheviks fought relentlessly against the inconsistencies and vacillations of the Maximalists, and at the same time treated them as allies, trying to help them take the right position. While pursuing a flexible and at the same time principled policy, the Bolsheviks sought to further strengthen cooperation with the maximalists and other leftist currents of petty-bourgeois democracy in the interests of the socialist revolution and the consolidation of the alliance of the proletariat with the petty-bourgeois working masses. Although the Maximalists showed hesitation in important but particular matters, they generally followed the Bolsheviks at that time. However, since the spring of 1918, when the "expropriation of expropriators" was replaced by constructive work on the construction of a socialist economy and statehood, disagreements about the ways and methods of this construction, which had only theoretical significance before the victory of the revolution, have passed into the realm of practice and led to the fact that maximalists began to oppose the policy of the Bolshevik party. First of all, it concerned the key issue of the revolution - about power.

Having supported the Bolshevik slogan of transferring power to the Soviets, the maximalists put their own petty-bourgeois content into it and rejected the dictatorship of the proletariat. Artificially contrasting the working class with the other strata of the working people, the maximalists declared that the construction of a new society "is beyond the capacity of any part of the people", and advocated the establishment of "people's power" in the form of a "Labor republic" as an organ of "the entire labor organization organized around the Soviets".

24 E. I. Medvedev. The October Revolution in the Middle Volga Region. Kuibyshev, 1964, p. 68; E. F. Erykalov. The October Armed Uprising in Petrograd. L. 1966, p. 221; G. Trukan. October in Central Russia, Moscow, 1967, p. 318; F. G. Popov. Chronicle of revolutionary events in the Samara province (1902-1917). Kuibyshev, 1969, p. 551.

25 TsGAOR USSR, f. 393, ot. 4, d. 13, l. 26.

26 N. I. Rivkin. Where is the salvation? Bryansk. 1919, p. 79.

27 E. A. Morokhovets. Op. ed., p. 126.

28 A. Zverin. Labor procedure. Samara. 1918, p. 4; Pravda, 11. I. 1918.

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The maximalists were particularly strongly opposed to the leading role of the proletarian party in the revolution. Dismissing revolutionary theory, denying the need for political leadership of the masses, they declared that "instinct" and "instinct" would tell the masses the "right path" and that the Marxists ' theories not only did not help, but even hindered, "the spontaneous beginning of socialist construction." The maximalists believed that political parties should not claim at all "to lead the struggle and socialist creative work", since "this is the work of the rebellious working people or of the active minority, which is grouped in Soviets and committees and which is subject not to the directives of the scribes from above, but to the directives of the entire environment surrounding it, the working masses"30 .

Based on such premises, the maximalists loudly protested against "factions" and "partisanship" and advocated organizing "the forces of the entire working people around non-party Soviets", which would be formed on the basis of universal suffrage "without distinction between parties and opinions"31 and act "independently, not obeying any party directives"32 . Accusing the Bolsheviks of usurping power, and the Soviet government of being "undemocratic" and isolated from the people, the maximalists made adventurous and absurd proposals for reorganizing power in the center and in the regions. So, first they proposed to abolish the Council of People's Commissars and commissariats, and transfer their functions to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, then they proposed to abolish the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and make the Congress of Soviets a permanent body that would "not only approve laws, but also constantly monitor the implementation of laws", for which it was supposed to divide the congress into commissions, in turn, on the board 33 . Maximalists tried to push through similar projects on the ground. Thus, in Samara, they proposed to liquidate the provincial executive committee and leave the entire provincial Congress of Soviets (400 people) to manage the city and the province .34 These projects, which practically lead to the complete disorganization of the central and local apparatus of Soviet power, were presented by maximalists as "a laboratory and factory of new forms of statehood and economic life." 35
Recognizing the need for an armed struggle against counter-revolution, the maximalists, based on their leftist, anarchist views, opposed the creation of a regular Red Army, advocated the election of commanders and the formation of military units on the territorial principle in the countryside and professional-territorial - in the city, considering such methods as "the only socialist"36 . In Samara, they were even going to push through a resolution on the dissolution of the regular units of the Red Army, and under the Gubernia executive committee, they created the so-called provincial board of the revolutionary army, which was tasked with reorganizing "all the combat revolutionary forces of the Samara province on the basis of collective management."37
29 "Trudovaya Respublika" (Samara), 9. IV. 1918; "Golos maksimalista" (Omsk), 25. IV. 1918.

30 "Trudovaya respublika" (Samara), 9. IV. 1918.

31 Ibid; "Soviet power". Collection of articles, Moscow, 1918, p. 13.

32 "Trudovaya respublika" (Samara), 6. IV. 1918.

33 "Soviet power", pp. 21-22.

34 Party Archive of the Kuibyshev Regional Committee of the CPSU (PACO), f. 1. op. 1, 84, l. 3.

35 "Soviet Power", p. 22.

36 City Of Nestroyev. Maximalism and Bolshevism, Moscow, 1919, p. 139.

37 "Trudovaya respublika" (Samara), 19. V. 1918. The abundance of examples of maximalist activity in Samara is explained by the fact that in March 1918 their Central Committee settled there and for some time they had a majority in the Samara Gubernia executive Committee, using which they tried to put some of their ideas into practice.

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Leftist adventurism was also characteristic of the position of maximalists in matters of economic construction. They demanded the introduction of socialism immediately, regardless of objective conditions and possibilities, rejected the principles of democratic centralism and advocated boundless collegiality. The maximalists declared workers 'control a " harmful utopia", an example of "compromise with the enemies of the people" and called for going straight to the goal of "maximum socialized labor economy" .38 However, they saw such "maximum socialization" not in nationalization, which alone could ensure centralized and planned management of the country's economy, but in socialization - the transfer of enterprises to the ownership of workers ' collectives, which would significantly complicate socialist construction.

From the standpoint of petty-bourgeois adventurism and disbelief in the possibility of the victory of the revolution in one country, the maximalists opposed the Brest Peace Treaty, declaring that its signing "creates the psychology of the defeated people, which is fatal for any construction"39 . Together with other petty-bourgeois parties, they launched a noisy campaign for a "revolutionary war" and against the "shameful capitulation" to German imperialism. 40 The representative of the Socialist-Revolutionaries-maximalists in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, with the dogmatism characteristic of petty-bourgeois leftist elements, argued that in general "there can be no agreement between the representatives of revolutionary socialism and the representatives of imperialism"41 . During the discussion of the Brest Peace at the Fourth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, the Maximalists called for "breaking this enslaving treaty," accused the "existing government" of being unable to resist the German offensive, and called for its reorganization in such a way as "to paralyze the destructive influence of the party centers."42
The maximalists also actively resisted the policy of deepening the socialist revolution in the countryside, which the Bolshevik Party began to carry out in the spring of 1918. By emasculating the social and class content of the food question, they reduced everything to a conflict between the city, the consumer of grain, and the countryside, the producer of it; they portrayed the sending of workers ' detachments to the countryside as a war between town and country, workers and peasants, using this phraseology to cover up the actual protection of the village proprietors and demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of the laws of class struggle. The maximalists tried to counter the Bolshevik Party's policy of curbing the rural bourgeoisie, "saving socialism and distributing grain in Russia correctly" 43 with measures that would strengthen the kulaks ' position, weaken the alliance of the working class with the peasantry, and undermine the dictatorship of the proletariat. The draft decree on the food issue, which they submitted to the Samara Regional Executive Committee for consideration, is an example of such leftist projecting characteristic of maximalists. The project provided for the immediate socialization of all production, confiscation of industrial goods and organization of their exchange for bread in specially created bulk points for this purpose .44 Even with the best intentions of the maximalists, the implementation of such a project was in the hands of the village

38 "On working control", Moscow, 1918, p. 3.

39 " Maximalist "(Moscow), 11. IV. 1918.

40 "Maximalist", 28. II. 1918.

41 "Izvestiya VTsIK", 15. II. 1918.

42 "Stenographic report of the IV Extraordinary Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers 'and Peasants 'Deputies", Moscow, 1920, pp. 39, 62-63.

43 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 36, p. 507.

44 F. G. Popov. 1918 in the Samara province. Chronicle of events. Kuibyshev. 1972. p. 47.

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the bourgeoisie (it had enough bread for such an exchange) and would have led to even greater ruin and anarchy, to the literal robbery of the working class.

The Third All-Russian Conference of Maximalists, held in the second half of April 1918, set a course for further aggravation of relations with the Bolshevik Party. Speakers from the Moscow, Petrograd, Saratov, and other organizations said that the local struggle against the Bolsheviks was "intensifying." The resolution on the report on the current situation described the foreign policy of the Bolshevik Party as "capitulation of power to German imperialism", and economic policy as "the path of half - measures" and "semi-socialist experiments". The resolution called for "crossing the fatal line" created by the Brest Peace and strengthening the struggle for the implementation of "full socialization" of the land, factories and plants. 45 A significant place at the conference was occupied by the question of the attitude towards the left Social Revolutionaries. By intensifying the struggle against the Leninist Party, the maximalists sought to strengthen ties with the petty-bourgeois adventurers who were close to them in spirit. The resolution adopted by the conference stated that joint speeches "on the Brest Peace and other issues" "brought the Maximalists closer together with the left SRS" and opened up the possibility of their unification on the basis of a federation, which should in the future result "in the form of even closer rapprochement, even to the point of merger".46
A delegation of maximalists headed by Fyodor Svetlov was sent to the Second Congress of the Left Social Revolutionaries, which was held simultaneously, and in his speech he proposed to discuss the issue of unification of both parties. He considered it advisable to start with the unification of party factions in the Soviets, and then gradually move on to the creation of unified organizations in the field. The proposal was met with approval by the left Social Revolutionaries. One of their leaders, B. D. Kamkov, addressing the maximalists, said that "never before have there been so many points of convergence and so little that separated us and separated us", and that he "cannot find a difference" between the maximalists and the left SRS .47 The Congress recognized that it was "extremely necessary" to promote the rapprochement of the two parties and set as its immediate task the implementation of their complete merger .48 Somewhat later, the bureaus of the Maximalists and the Central Committee of the Left Social Revolutionaries issued a joint declaration that required local workers of both parties to "closely coordinate on common tactical principles" and even "merge in their work" .49 Such "coordination", of course, on an anti-Bolshevik basis, was carried out by many local organizations of both parties. In Kronstadt, the left Social Revolutionaries and Maximalists worked out a general order to their delegates to the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets demanding decentralisation of the country's governance; in Tula, they united their fighting squads. A delegate from the Left SR organization of the Ural region reported at the Third Congress of Left SRS in July 1918 that in Votkinsk and Vyatka the Maximalists and left SRS were "almost united", while in Petrograd, according to the Maximalists, the committees of Left SRS and Maximalists worked "virtually under the same banner".50
With a united front, the maximalists and left Social Revolutionaries opposed the food policy of the Soviet government. When discussing vo

45 "Maximalist", 21, 26. IV. 1918.

46 "Maximalist", 27. IV. 1918.

47 TSPA IML under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f., 564, op. 1, d. 2. l. 201.

48 Ibid., l. 223.

49 Ibid., 4, l. 34.

50 A. F. Zhukov. The struggle of the Bolsheviks against the petty-bourgeois views of the Maximalist Social Revolutionaries on questions of industrial management, p. 86; "Maximalist", 20. IV. 1918; CPA IML under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 564, op. 1, d. 4, l. 114; " Struggle "(Moscow), 30. VII. 1918.

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On June 11, 1918, the Central Executive Committee issued a decree on the organization of committees of the rural poor, which they declared to be" sharply negative", and after the decree was adopted by the overwhelming majority of the Central Executive Committee, they issued a joint declaration that they would fight its implementation "with the most decisive measures both in the center and in the localities". They declared themselves a "special ""opposition to the social revolution", whose goal is to change the domestic and foreign policy of the Soviet government .51 The maximalists, as well as the left SRS, had particularly high hopes for a split in the RCP (b) and an alliance with the"left Communists". The "left Communists" - that is, in the words of V. I. Lenin, the "left-communist" current in our Party"imitating the left SRS" 52-did not unite with the left SRS and maximalists only on the question of the Brest Peace. Together they opposed the curbing of the petty-bourgeois element, discipline, unity of command, accounting and control, that is, on what was "the most essential and fundamental question of our time" 53-the ways and methods of building socialism. The central organ of the Maximalists noted with satisfaction that the "left Communists" fully agreed with the Maximalists "in their views on the immediate tasks of our foreign and domestic policy" and spoke "maximalist language in their slogans." 54 The Maximalists set themselves the task of "contributing in every possible way" to the schismatic activities of the "left Communists" within the RCP (b), in order to "give preponderance to this... the current" and push it further "on the way to a more complete and comprehensive construction of the labor program" 55 . The maximalists accompanied the struggle against the policy of the Soviet government with statements that they understood it only as an "ideological struggle", but in practice it increasingly began to develop into open anti-Soviet actions, the largest of which were the riots in Izhevsk and Samara. The Maximalists did not support the Left Socialist revolt mainly because of its rapid defeat. They publicly denounced the mutiny, calling it a "harmful act of political frivolity"in the statement of their faction at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, 56 but in reality they defended and defended the rebels in every possible way. At the meetings of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, representatives of the maximalists tried to prove that there were no "attempts to seize power or overthrow the Soviet government" on the part of the left SRS during the mutiny, and the Bolsheviks 'measures to suppress the Left SR counterrevolution were qualified as "harassment of the Left SR party"57 . The Maximalists insisted on ending the exclusion of the left SRS from the Soviets, releasing "Spiridonova and all left socialist-revolutionaries" and even went so far as to claim that the Left SR movement was "inspired by the Bolsheviks." 58
The Soviet of the " Union of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists "(second half of July 1918) called for "a firm organizational basis" in the struggle against the "commissar-autocracy", but for fear that open anti-Bolshevik actions would finally undermine the already insignificant influence of the organization,recommended "extreme caution in the application of methods and methods of this struggle", since " the Bolsheviks are closely connected with the life and activities of the Soviet Union."-

51 "Znamya truda" (Moscow), 12, 15. VI. 1918; T. A. Sivokhina. Op. ed., pp. 185-186.

52 V. I. Lenii. PSS. Vol. 36, p. 280.

53 Ibid., p. 247.

54 "Maximalist", 4. VI. 1918.

55 "Maximalist", 26. IV. 1918.

56 Maximalist (published in Moscow as a non-periodical magazine from July 1918), 1918, No. 1, p.14.

57 "The fifth convocation of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee". Verbatim report, Moscow, 1919, p. 118

58 "Struggle", 30. VII. 1918.

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tov " 59 . During the summer and autumn of 1918, the Maximalists organized a series of provocative local anti-Soviet demonstrations disguised as "non-partisan" slogans, agitated against the policy of the Soviet government in the countryside, and called for a struggle for "real Soviet power" against the "party dictatorship" of the Bolsheviks .60 At the All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions in January 1919, the maximalists, together with the left Social Revolutionaries and anarchists, called for the transfer of control of all production and distribution in the country to the trade unions and cooperatives, and supported the slogan of "independence" of the trade unions. 61 V. I. Lenin, in his report to the Congress, regarded the promotion of this slogan as a manifestation of petty-bourgeois prejudices and pointed out that when the struggle "focuses with unprecedented rapidity on the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat or the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie," 62 this slogan plays into the hands of the class enemy and serves as a means of deceiving the working people. Such a policy, in the context of the growing turn of the petty-bourgeois masses towards Soviet power, inevitably led to a further decline in the already insignificant influence of the maximalists, and ideological and organizational confusion in their ranks.

The successes of the Red Army on the Eastern Front in the autumn of 1918, the revolutionary events in Germany and Austria, the annulment of the Brest Treaty, and the consolidation of the position of the Soviet State as a result of all this significantly affected the mood of the wavering petty-bourgeois masses. Having experienced all the charms of the old regime being restored by the White Guards, as well as the "founding democracy", the petty-bourgeois masses were convinced by their own experience that the Bolshevik policy was right, that only the Soviet government could ensure the inviolability of the gains of the revolution and save the country from enslavement by foreign capital. A typical example of the masses ' departure from the maximalists is the resolution adopted on October 6, 1918, at a rally in the village of Petrovsky, Kursk Province. The resolution said: "We, the citizens of S. Having listened to the reports of the maximalists calling for the overthrow of the party dictatorship, the breaking of the Brest Peace and the liquidation of the poor people's committees, and then having listened to the reports of the Communist comrades describing the criminality of the slogans put forward by the maximalists, they decided: support the Soviet government with all available forces and means, and welcome the Communist leaders."63 In Saratov, by the beginning of 1919, the organization of maximalists remained, according to the Bolsheviks, only "a handful of groundless intellectuals" 64 . The ranks of maximalists in Izhevsk, Ufa, Kursk, Shlisselburg and other cities have significantly decreased. The number of maximalists joining the Bolshevik Party grew. In Simbirsk, a large group of members of the maximalist organization headed by its chairman joined the RCP (b). In February 1919, the leader of the Samara Maximalists, A. Y. Dorogoichenko, announced a break with maximalism and the decision to join the RCP (b). One of the prominent maximalists, V. O. Lichtenstadt - Mazin, also became a Bolshevik .65
One of the manifestations of the crisis of the maximalist organization was the intensification of the process of internal disengagement in its ranks, which led to

59 Maximalist, 1918, No. 1, pp. 9-10.

60 TsGAOR USSR, f. 393, op. 1, d. 106, l. 29; " Socialist-revolutionary Maximalist "(Simbirsk), 7. XI. 1918.

61 " The Second All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions. January 16-25, 1919". Stenographic report, Part I. M. 1921, p. 93.

62 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 37, p. 436.

63 " The Voice of the Working Peasantry "(Moscow), 15. X. 1918.

64 TsGAOR USSR, f. 393, op. 13, d. 389, l. 12.

65 Izvestiya Simbirskogo Sovetskogo, 5. XI. 1918; PAKO, F. 1, op. 1, 75, l. 63; Kommunisticheskiy Internatsionalny, 1919, N 7-8, p. 1134.

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eventually to its split. Oppositional elements have been active in the maximalist organization before. Thus, at the IV All-Russian Congress of Soviets, a part of the Maximalist faction did not take part in the vote on the Brest Peace, that is, it did not support the position of its leadership .66 At the third All-Russian Conference of Maximalists, the opinion was expressed that it was necessary to abandon opposition to the Communists and come out in a united front with them .67 In contrast to the official course of the "Union of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists", the left-wing elements, although with reservations, supported the food policy of the Soviet government. By the autumn of 1918, the left opposition was intensifying its activities and raising the question of changing the organization's tactics. At the Fourth Maximalist Conference, held in December 1918, two well-formed points of view clashed on the question of organization tactics. The left, led by N. V. Arkhangelsky, A. I. Berdnikov, and F. Y. Svetlov, called for close contact with the Communists, while the right (A. Zverin, G. Nestroev) called for close contact with the left SRS .68 The Central Committee, composed of representatives of both groups, proved to be inoperable.

In April 1919, at the Fifth All-Russian Conference, a final split occurred. The right-wing majority of the conference adopted an openly anti-Soviet and anti-Bolshevik position. The resolution adopted by him "On tactics in connection with the current moment" demanded "the immediate restoration of Soviet Labor people's power" and called on local maximalist organizations "to establish the true power of the Soviets by all means... if it is necessary by an explicit order", without stopping at the same time "before responding with violence to violence" 69 . The left group sharply criticized the tactical line developed by the conference, regarding it as outright "activism", which had already led to the complete collapse of the Left SR party .70 Unwilling to support this"harmful to the revolution" policy, 71 it announced its withdrawal from the Union of Socialist - Revolutionary Maximalists and the creation of a new organization, the Union of Maximalists .72 In the appeal "To all Maximalists", the executive bureau of the new "Union" supported the mobilization to the front against Kolchak and called on the maximalists to join the active struggle against the counter-revolution .73 Poltava, Sormovskaya, Shlisselburg and a number of other local organizations joined the Union of Maximalists.

The first conference of the" Union of Maximalists " in October 1919 declared that all the forces of the organization were placed at the disposal of the Soviet government and that close contact with the RCP (b) was necessary. The resolution adopted described any attempts to disorganize the country's defense and discredit the Bolshevik Party as criminal, requiring a decisive rebuff .74 At the Seventh All-Russian Congress of Soviets, the representative of the Union of Maximalists, F. Y. Svetlov, sharply opposed the position of the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries and stated that the Soviet government's success was primarily due to those revolutionary methods

66 T. A. Sivokhina. Op. ed., p. 130.

67 "Maximalist", 26. IV. 1918 (speech by R. P. Eidemann, who soon joined the Bolsheviks).

68 Maximalist, 1919, N 8-9, pp. 21-22.

69 N. I. Rivkin. Justification of the program, tactics and organization of the forces of social and labor revolution. Resolutions adopted by the 5th Conference of the Union of Social-Revolutionary Maximalists on tactics. Kyiv. 1919, p. 11.

70 A. Berdnikov, F. Svetlov. Regular tasks of maximalism, Moscow, 1919, p. 55.

71 Ibid., p. 7.

72 "Izvestiya VTsIK", 6. V. 1919.

73 "Izvestiya VTsIK", 10. V. 1919.

74 "Izvestiya VTsIK", 5. X. 1919.

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the struggles used by Communists 75 . In January 1920, the Central Executive Bureau of the Union of Maximalists sent a letter "To all maximalist organizations in Ukraine", calling on them not to succumb to the demagoguery of anti-Soviet elements and to go along with the Communist Party, which is leading the struggle for the socialist revolution. 76 The formation of a new maximalist organization contributed to the rapprochement of a certain part of the maximalists with the Soviet government and the Bolshevik Party.

Applying to the petty-bourgeois parties, when they took anti-Soviet positions, "the measures of the proletarian dictatorship,"77 the Bolsheviks entered into an agreement with them when they turned" from hostility to Bolshevism first to neutrality, then to support it. " 78 Representatives of the maximalists participated in the work of the II-VII All-Russian Congresses of Soviets, were members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee . The Maximalists themselves admitted that relations with the Communists in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee were the most comradely, and that their faction "has always received and is still receiving a good reception from the Communists."80 By engaging the maximalists in cooperation, the Bolsheviks did not stop fighting against their petty-bourgeois ideology, attempts to obscure the difference between the proletarian and the small proprietor, attacks on the dictatorship of the proletariat and the leading role of the Communist Party in the revolution; they exposed the failure and harmfulness of their adventurist projects in the field of state, economic and military construction. When maximalist organizations became instruments of counterrevolution, the Bolsheviks had to react sharply, even to the point of taking repressive measures. But even in such cases, the Bolsheviks did not identify the rank-and-file members of maximalist organizations with their leaders; they tried to convince the former and separate them from the leaders who had adopted anti-Soviet positions.

Typical in this respect is the reaction of the Bolsheviks to the provocation launched by the Maximalists in Moscow in December 1919. In the club of bakers, among whom the maximalists enjoyed a certain influence, the leaders of their Moscow organization called a rally of sympathetic workers to protest against the allegedly illegal arrests of" honored revolutionaries " from among the maximalists. Having inflamed the audience with provocative anti-Bolshevik speeches, the rally organizers succeeded in electing a special delegation headed by the prominent maximalist E. N. Zabitsky to negotiate with the Moscow Emergency Commission. V. N. Mantsev, the Deputy Chairman of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, who received the delegates, listened to Zabitsky's loud statement, and then explained to the ordinary members of the delegation that some maximalists were arrested not for their beliefs, but for counterrevolutionary activities and the question of their trial or release could be resolved only after the investigation. The delegates who returned to the meeting reported on the actual state of affairs, introduced a resolution approving the policy of the Soviet government, and it was adopted. The assembly rejected the resolution proposed by Zabitsky and other "activists" demanding the immediate release of all the arrested maximalists .81 In Samara, after the defeat of the maximalist revolt, many, even active employees of the local organization of maximalists,

75 "VII All-Russian Congress of Soviets". Stenographic report, Moscow, 1920, p. 67.

76 "Izvestiya VTsIK", 18. I. 1920.

77 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 38, p. 137.

78 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 37, p. 193.

79 A. F. Zhukov. V. I. Lenin's exposure of the theory and tactics of maximalism of the Socialist Revolutionaries, p. 266.

80 Maximalist, 1919, N 8-9, p. 13.

81 "Historical Archive", 1958, N 1, pp. 192-194.

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those who realized the criminality of its policy and wished to continue cooperating with the Bolsheviks were attracted to work in the Soviet and military apparatus. Having discussed this issue at a meeting on February 17, 1919, the Samara Gubernia Committee of the RCP (b) recognized "it is impractical to prosecute participants in the anarcho-maximalist action" 82 .

The central organs of Soviet power resolutely suppressed cases of incorrect attitude on the ground towards maximalists standing in Soviet positions. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee has always carefully considered complaints and applications received in this regard. Thus, in June 1918, following a statement by the Maximalist faction of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee about the arrests of members of maximalist organizations in the field, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Presidium established a commission of three people - a Bolshevik, a left Socialist-Revolutionary and a Maximalist, which was instructed to investigate the facts and report to the Presidium on the results of the investigation . On July 18, 1918, a complaint was received from the Central Executive Bureau of the Maximalists concerning the disarmament of their organization in Vyatka together with the Left SRS, although they did not support the Left SR revolt. On the same day, Y. M. Sverdlov telegraphed instructions to return the weapons to the maximalists 84 . In November 1918, members of the maximalist organization in Astrakhan were arrested, and its representatives were expelled from the Gubernia executive committee. On the instructions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, those arrested were released, and the representation of maximalists in the Gubernia executive committee was restored .85 On July 30, 1919, the Mogilev Criminal Committee of the RCP (b) appealed to the Gomel provincial party Committee with a request about the attitude towards the Socialist-Revolutionaries-maximalists in connection with their publication of a provocative proclamation. The gubkom's reply stated that "the Maximalist party is considered a legalized party that takes part in Soviet work", but at the same time stated that, since it issued a provocative proclamation, "repressive measures should be taken against it in this regard"86 . This particular case characterizes the tactics of the Bolsheviks: their willingness to cooperate with representatives of the petty-bourgeois parties that recognized Soviet power, and their willingness to stop any counterrevolutionary attempts on their part.

The RCP (b) closely followed the processes taking place within the organization of maximalists, supporting those among them who advocated close cooperation with the Communists. The Petrograd provincial Committee of the RCP (b), considering the question of maximalists in December 1919, pointed out the positive significance of the emergence of" new-style maximalists", that is, the left wing, and forbade the use of any repressive measures against them .87 On December 12, 1919, at a meeting of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Fifth convocation, representatives of the "Union of Maximalists" F. Y. Svetlov and A. I. Berdnikov were approved: the first-a member, and the second-a candidate member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee 88 .

The "Union of Maximalists" quickly completed its evolution towards Bolshevism. The bankruptcy of petty-bourgeois ideology and politics among the masses, and the success of Soviet power achieved under the leadership of the RCP (b) convinced its members of the need to reconsider their ideological positions and recognize the correctness of the Marxist concept of revolution and socialism. All-Russian Conference of the "Union of Maximalists" on April 18-24, 1920, stating the "disappearance in the course of the revolution"

82 PACO, f. 1, op. 1, d. 38, l. 25; d. 58, l. 90.

83 A. F. Zhukov. Exposing by the Bolsheviks the petty-bourgeois views of the Maximalist Social Revolutionaries on the character, aims and driving forces of the Socialist Revolution, p. 25.

84 TsGAOR USSR, f. 1235, op. 93, d. 235, l. 62.

85 "Maximalist", 1919, N 8-9, pp. 25-26.

86 TSPA IML under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 17, op. 6, d. 68, l. 89.

87 Leningrad Party Archive, f. 16, op. 1, 12, l. 96.

88 TsGAOR USSR, f. 1235, op. 37, d. 1, l. 1.

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disagreements with the Bolsheviks "in ideology, program and tactics" and solidarity with the decisions of the IX Congress of the RCP (b) "on the main issues of current policy", decided to disband the organization and join the Bolshevik party. 89 The Central Committee of the RCP (b) welcomed this decision and instructed local party organizations to accept maximalists as members. When sending former maximalists to party and Soviet work, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) proposed to be guided only by their business qualities, without infringing on their rights on the grounds that they had previously belonged to a maximalist organization .90
The right - wing group-the Socialist-Revolutionaries-Maximalists-after the split sharply intensified anti-Soviet activities. In September 1919, the Sixth Conference of the Socialist-Revolutionaries-maximalists decided to wage a struggle "by all means and under any flag" against the policy of the Soviet government and authorized the creation of "militant groups" to carry out expropriation and issue leaflets. 91 In Izhevsk, the maximalist Social revolutionaries waged a provocative campaign under the banner of fighting against the" party dictatorship " of the Bolsheviks, for "non-party Soviets"; in Samara, they prepared an open speech; in Moscow, together with anarchists, they agitated among bakers for "consumer communism" and "fair sharing", inciting them to plunder and steal bread. 92 Investigative bodies of the Cheka established the involvement of the Socialist-Revolutionaries-maximalists in the robbery of Soviet institutions in Moscow, Tula and a number of other cities. Secret warehouses of weapons and military equipment, typefaces used to produce anti-Soviet leaflets, and forged and stolen documents were discovered .93
The Amur Union of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists, which operated as an autonomous organization in the Far East, also fell into anti-Soviet positions. During the civil war in the Amur and Primorye regions, many representatives of local maximalist organizations, together with the Bolsheviks, fought against the interventionists and White Guards .94 Under pressure from ordinary members, the Amur Union issued a declaration in March 1920 in which it promised to "actively support the Soviet government" and"fight the enemies of the working people with all its might." 95 At the Congress of workers of the Amur Region held in the spring of 1920, the Maximalists supported the Bolsheviks .96 However, the leftist political adventurism of the maximalist leaders and their unwillingness to submit to proletarian discipline led them further and further away from cooperation with the Bolsheviks and turned them from unreliable allies into direct enemies of the Soviet government. The Maximalist Social Revolutionaries opposed the creation of a buffer state in the Far East, and the Bolsheviks ' flexible and far-sighted policy on this issue was portrayed as capitulation "to the aggressive aspirations of the imperialists." Contrary to the policy of the central Soviet government, they declared that they would not recognize "any buffers" and would not make "any concessions"on this issue .97 There were frequent cases when maximalist partisan unit commanders did not follow the orders of the command and orders of the Soviet authorities, and therefore repressive measures had to be applied to them. Thus, when, in the spring of 1920, a partisan detachment under the influence of the anarcho-maximalists, operating in

89 "Izvestiya VTsIK", 1. V. 1920.

90 " News of the Central Committee of the RCP (b)", 17. VII. 1920.

91 "Izvestiya VTSIK", 18. XII. 1919.

92 TSPA IML under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 17, op. 65, d. 32, l. 174; PACO, f. 1. op. 1, d. 36, l. 56; " Kommunisticheskiy trud "(Moscow), 4. IV. 1920.

93 "Izvestiya VTSIK", 18. XII. 1919.

94 "Red Calvary". Blagoveshchensk. 1920.

95 "The Voice of the maximalist", 1920, N 1, p. 6.

96 "The Voice of the Maximalist", 1920, N 3, p. 14.

97 "The Voice of the maximalist", 1920, N 4, p. 19; N 5, p. 7.

page 43

Primorye, left the subordination of the Soviet government and began to create arbitrariness and lawlessness, its leaders Ya. Tryapitsyn and N. Lebedeva were put on a revolutionary trial. In February 1922, Maximalist Mikhailov, the commander of the Rebel partisan detachment, was brought before a military field court for connivance to desertion, disbanding soldiers with weapons and bandit actions of detachment 98 .

Nor did the maximalists ' attempts to push their economic ideas through lead to anything but disorganization. At the 2nd regional Congress of miners held in Chita in February 1922, they managed to disorient insufficiently politically mature delegates with anarcho-syndicalist slogans and pass a resolution on the "reorganization" of the gold mining business, according to which the mines that were under the jurisdiction of the state were to be leased to mining artels. It took the intervention of the Far Eastern Soviet, which suspended the "reorganization" that the maximalist regional committee of the trade union had already begun, annulled the decisions of the congress, and then dissolved the regional committee .

The natural result of the maximalist Social Revolutionaries ' slide to the right was a further reduction in their already insignificant influence. Those Socialist-Revolutionaries-maximalists who sincerely believed in the revolution, convinced of the anti-Soviet orientation of the "Union" policy, began to withdraw from it. Maximalist organizations were losing their remaining members. The bankruptcy of the anti-Soviet political course, as well as the decisive measures taken by the Soviet authorities to stop the counter-revolutionary attacks of the maximalists, forced them to abandon the "activist" policy and act within the framework of legality.

Like other petty-bourgeois parties, the Socialist-Revolutionaries-maximalists sought to use the economic difficulties experienced by the country to "infiltrate the masses" and undermine the influence of the Bolshevik Party. The new economic policy was met with hostility and criticized from leftist positions. They portrayed NEP only as a retreat that "places Soviet Russia in the ranks of bourgeois-capitalist states"; they declared that the Soviet government was increasingly "captured by financial, industrial and commercial capital" and that the "real revolutionaries" were not the Bolsheviks, but the maximalists and their petty-bourgeois supporters. Held in February 1922. The All-Russian Conference of the Socialist-Revolutionaries-maximalists put forward as one of the central tasks the unification "in opposition to the RCP "of "all left-wing popular movements".100
Together with the Socialist-Revolutionary group Narod and the organization of left Social Revolutionaries legalized in 1920, the Maximalist Social Revolutionaries formed the so-called "Bloc of Left Revolutionary Narodism" directed against the Bolsheviks, and in September 1922 went to an organizational association with the left Social Revolutionaries. The new organization, called the Union of the Party of Left Social-Revolutionaries and the Union of Social-Revolutionaries Maximalists, declared that it was opposed to the" dictatorship of the party over the working masses "and would strive to" gather the few forces that remained in the hands of the revolutionary narodniks "to fight for the implementation of the"program of a working-class republic." 101 Finally formulated in the resolutions of the first (and last)conference held in December 1922 At the All-Russian Conference of Socialist-Maximalists, the program provided for the following areas:-

98 A. N. Shurygin. The struggle of the RCP (b) against the petty-bourgeois parties during the Civil War in the Far East. "50 years of the defeat of the intervention and the end of the civil war in the USSR", Moscow, 1972, p. 281; " Free Tribune "(Blagoveshchensk), 26. II. 1922.

99 "Free tribune", 26. III. 1922.

100 TSPA IML under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f, 564, op. 1, d. 10, ll. 32, 33, 37.

101 Ibid., 14, ll. 3, 16, 17.

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socialization in the city and countryside, and the emphasis was placed not on industry, but on agriculture, and in the political sphere - "equality of workers and peasants" in the system of "freely elected" and "purely class" Soviets, that is, the actual rejection of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Conference was forced to recognize the almost complete absence of a mass base for the new organization and called for a transition "from agitation to propaganda" and "from mass work to the painstaking gathering of courageous groups and individuals." 102
In their desire to "infiltrate the masses", the Socialist-Revolutionary maximalists focused on the philistines and the backward part of the workers, adjusting to whom they demanded an increase in wages, an end to layoffs, and the creation of strike funds in trade union organizations. In bulletins published on behalf of the Central Bureau of the Association, as well as in public speeches, they conducted demagogic and defeatist agitation, claiming that the Russian working class was "tired" and the international proletariat was "tired", that the Soviet government was "building its edifice on sand", and that the Communist Party with the introduction of NEP stood "on the ground". the compromise path " 103 . The instructions for party "activists" drawn up by one of the leaders of the "Association", G. Nestroyev, pointed out the importance of infiltrating trade unions and factory committees in order to "merge with the working masses", and recommended "working as non-party members" and not "revealing" for the time being their belonging to the Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalist Party. organizations 104 . However, all these subterfuges did not yield results: the" legal consolidation " that the left SRS and maximalists hoped for during the unification did not work out.

The XII All-Russian Conference of the RCP (b) (August 4-7, 1922), noting a certain intensification of the activities of anti-Soviet political groups under the NEP, proposed in its resolution "On anti-Soviet parties and Trends" to strengthen educational work among working people, especially in such mass organizations as trade unions and cooperatives, in order to "deprive anti-Soviet political groups of their rights". groups of all kinds of influence and thus fundamentally destroy the possible support of their existence. " 105 The result of this work was a further reduction of the already meager mass base of petty-bourgeois parties and groups, including the Socialist-Revolutionary maximalists. The failure of the attempt made by the Socialist-Revolutionary maximalists at the end of 1922 to conduct agitation in some Moscow factories under the slogans of "free Soviets", "civil liberties for all socialists" and "independence" of trade unions and co-operatives was indicative in this respect. At Goujon, AMO, Sokolniki car repair shops, and a number of other enterprises where the Socialist-Revolutionary maximalists performed, the workers did not support the cm 106 . The already small organizations of the Socialist-Revolutionary maximalists continued to rapidly melt away. The fact of mass withdrawal from them was recognized by the "Information Bulletin" of the "Association", giving a long list of retired 107 .

The leaders ' calls for "merciless criticism of the existing system" 108 found fewer listeners. The number of Socialist-Revolutionary maximalists who joined the Communist Party grew. The management of the "Association" tried to suspend the process of collapse. Letters and appeals were sent to the places that branded those who joined the RCP (b) as "renegades" and "defectors" who wanted to " join the state

102 Yu. I. Shestak. Op. ed., p. 49.

103 "Rabochaya Moskva", 6. XII. 1922.

104 TSPA IML under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 564, op. 1, d. 15, l. 85.

105 "The CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee". Ed. 8-E. T. 2, p. 393.

106 "Rabochaya Moskva", 15. XII. 1922.

107 TSPA IML under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 564, op. 1, 14, ll. 81-82.

108 Ibid., l. 210.

page 45

pie"109 . However, the collapse of the Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalist organizations continued. In Voronezh, for example, the chairman of the local Socialist-Revolutionary maximalist organization himself became an agitator for the transition to the RCP (b). By the decision of the Central Bureau of the "Association", he was excluded from it, and the organization, in which virtually no one remained, was retroactively dissolved .110 The situation was no better in other places.

The final collapse of the Socialist-Maximalist organization was obvious, and in the mid-20s it left the political arena. The so-called foreign delegation of the party, which published the magazine "Banner of Struggle"in Berlin, lasted a little longer. Its members, in particular I. Steinberg and G. Nestroyev, traveled to European countries and gave lectures on "Russian problems", in which they presented the life of the Soviet Country in a distorted light. The "delegation" waged an active struggle against the Third International, and in the 2 1/2 International it joined the most right-wing part of it, which rejected all contact with the Communists. In the late 20s, it also ceased to exist.

The inglorious end of the maximalist organization was a natural result of its betrayal of the cause of the revolution, a confirmation of the correctness of the Marxist-Leninist position that petty-bourgeois parties are not an independent political force, just as the petty-bourgeois middle strata are not such a force, and can only contribute to the emancipation of the working people if they take the side of the working class and its party. Being a wavering and unreliable ally of the RCP (b) in the first months after October, the organization of the Socialist-Revolutionaries-maximalists failed to maintain its position of support for the revolution, took the path of resistance to socialist transformations, which led to its collapse. The history of its bankruptcy is a clear demonstration of the utter futility of anarchist petty-bourgeois pseudo-revolutionism.

109 Ibid., ll. 86, 101-103.

110 Ibid., 10, l. 39; 14, l. 122.

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2006-2025, BIBLIOTEKA.BY is a part of Libmonster, international library network (open map)
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