Party of Revolutionary Communism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Party of Revolutionary Communism
Партия революционного коммунизма
FoundedSeptember 25, 1918 (1918-09-25)
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. It was formed by a Narodnik group which broke away from the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries after the latter's mutiny in July 1918.[1]

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. The Saratov Party Organization of PLSR(i) supported united front with the Bolsheviks. 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. 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 held the First Congress of the Party of Revolutionary Communism was held in Moscow September 25-30, 1918.[1][3][4][2] Kolegaev, Aleksei Ustinov [fi] and Anastasia Bitsenko and others formed the party congress presidium.[3] Sixty delegates with a decisive vote from 15 governorates participated in this congress.[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 party organizations and 40 representatives from uyezd-level party organizations.[3] The newly founded-party favoured co-operation with the Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks), and pledged support for Soviet power.[1] 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.[2][4]

Second Party Congress[edit]

The party held a Second Party Congress was held in early December 1918.[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.[3] The delegates came from 15 governorates.[3]

Third Party Congress[edit]

A Third Party Congress was held in April 1919. At the time the party was estimated to some 3,300 members and sympathizers.[3]

Fifth Party Congress[edit]

A Fifth Party Congress was held in April-May 1920.[3] Around this time the party had organizations in 16 governorates, with 126 party cells and 1,151 members.[5]

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.[3] It upheld the theoretical legacy of Nikolay Mikhaylovsky and Pyotr Lavrov.[3] 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 'working people' (трудящихся) that would encompass both urban industrial and rural agricultural workers.[6]

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.[3] But they differed with the Bolsheviks on agrarian issues, and opposed the Committees of Poor Peasants.[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]

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.[7]

Disintegration[edit]

During its two-year existence the Party of Revolutionary Communism found itself in a perpetual state of internal crisis, as the party sought to assert an independent pole in the midst of war communism.[7][6] Repeatedly certain of its groups broke away from the party. Some of them joined the Russian Communist Party (B) (such as Central Committee members Kolegayev, Bitsenko and Dobrokhotov who joined the R.C.P.(B) in mid-November 1918) whereas others rejoined the Left Social-Revolutionaries.[1][3] Those that remained in the Party of Revolutionary Communism often suffered repression linked to their opposition towards the Bolshevik food policy.[3]

At the Sixth Party Congress of the Party of Revolutionary Communism held 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 R.C.P (B).[1][3][8] At the time of its dissolution the party had some 1,625 members and sympathizers.[3] In October of the same year, the R.C.P (B) Central Committee permitted Party organisations to enroll members of the former Party of Revolutionary Communism into the R.C.P.(B).[1]

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lenin. No Compromises?. 1920
  2. ^ a b c d 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 V. M. Lavrov. Партия Спиридоновой: (Мария Спиридонова на левоэсеровских съездах). Российская Акад. Наук, Инст. Российской Истории, 2001. pp. 94-95
  4. ^ a b Vladimir Il'ich Lenin. Избранные произведения в трех томах, Vol. 3. Изд-во полит. лит-ры, 1974. p. 749
  5. ^ Алексей Ананченко. Проблемы формирования советской политической системы: историко-аналитическое исследование. Litres, 2024. p. 210
  6. ^ a b Партия и массы. Akademii︠a︡ obshchestvennykh nauk. Мысль, 1966. p. 48
  7. ^ a b Lazarʹ Fleĭshman. Boris Pasternak: The Poet and His Politics. Harvard University Press, 1990. p. 100
  8. ^ Борьба Коммунистической партии Советского Союза против оппортунизма и национализма. Изд-во ЛГУ, 1978. p. 78
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Party_of_Revolutionary_Communism&oldid=1223331537"