Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed
page 14 of 527 (02%)
page 14 of 527 (02%)
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Intellectuals, with almost the same programme as the _Mensheviki
Internationalists,_ except that the _Novaya Zhizn_ group refused to be tied to either of the two great factions. Opposed the Bolshevik tactics, but remained in the Soviet Government. Other representatives in this book: Avilov, Kramarov. e. _Yedinstvo._ A very small and dwindling group, composed almost entirely of the personal following of Plekhanov, one of the pioneers of the Russian Social Democratic movement in the 80's, and its greatest theoretician. Now an old man, Plekhanov was extremely patriotic, too conservative even for the Mensheviki. After the Bolshevik _coup d'etat, Yedinstvo_ disappeared. 5. _Socialist Revolutionary party._ Called _Essaires_ from the initials of their name. Originally the revolutionary party of the peasants, the party of the Fighting Organisations-the Terrorists. After the March Revolution, it was joined by many who had never been Socialists. At that time it stood for the abolition of private property in land only, the owners to be compensated in some fashion. Finally the increasing revolutionary feeling of peasants forced the _Essaires_ to abandon the "compensation" clause, and led to the younger and more fiery intellectuals breaking off from the main party in the fall of 1917 and forming a new party, the _Left Socialist Revolutionary party._ The _Essaires,_ who were afterward always called by the radical groups _"Right Socialist Revolutionaries,"_ adopted the political attitude of the Mensheviki, and worked together with them. They finally came to represent the wealthier peasants, the intellectuals, and the politically uneducated populations of remote rural districts. Among them there was, however, a wider difference of shades of political and economic opinion than among the Mensheviki. |
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