The Socialist Revolutionary Party: Russia's Forgotten Revolutionaries

The Russian Revolution is often told as a story of Bolsheviks versus Mensheviks, but the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRs) were the largest political force in Russia in 1917. This episode explores the SRs' rise, their agrarian socialist platform, their role in the Provisional Government, and their tragic fragmentation after the Bolshevik coup. We follow key figures like Viktor Chernov, the party's intellectual leader, and Maria Spiridonova, the fiery Left SR who broke with the Bolsheviks over the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The episode covers the SRs' surprising electoral victory in the Constituent Assembly, which Lenin dissolved, and their subsequent turn to terrorism and assassination attempts, including the shooting of Lenin in 1918 by Fanny Kaplan. We also discuss the Green Army movement, where former SRs led peasant revolts against both Reds and Whites. Finally, we trace the party's decline under Stalin, when the last SRs were purged in the Great Terror. This story reveals that the revolution was far from a Bolshevik monopoly—the SRs offered a different vision for Russia's future, one rooted in the peasantry, and their defeat was a pivotal moment in the country's slide into one-party rule.

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