The revolt of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries is an event that occurred in July 1918. This historical term refers to the armed uprising of socialists-internationalists against the Bolsheviks. The rebellion is directly related to the murder of Mirbach, a German diplomat who worked in the Moscow embassy for only four months.
Starting in March 1918, the contradictions between the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and their opponents, the Bolsheviks, grew. It all started with the conclusion of the Brest Peace Treaty. The agreement included conditions that for many in those years seemed shameful for Russia. In protest, part of the revolutionaries left the Council of People's Commissars. Before telling in more detail about the rebellion of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, it is worth understanding who they were. How did they differ from the Bolsheviks?
Social Revolutionaries
This term arose from the abbreviation SR (socialist revolutionaries). The party arose at the beginning of the 20th century on the basis of various populist organizations. In the politics of the revolutionary years, she occupied one of the leading places. It was the largest and most influential non-Marxist party.
The Socialist-Revolutionaries became followers of the ideology of populism, became famous as active participants in revolutionary terror. The year 1917 became tragic for them. In a short time, the party was transformed into a major political force, gained immense prestige and won the election to the Constituent Assembly. Nevertheless, the Socialist-Revolutionaries failed to maintain power.
Left Socialist Revolutionaries
After the revolution, the so-called Left Opposition formed among the Social Revolutionaries, whose representatives came out with anti-war slogans. Among their requirements were:
- Termination of cooperation with the Provisional Government.
- Condemnation of the war as imperialist and immediate exit from it.
- The solution of the land issue and the transfer of land to peasants.
Disagreements led to a split, the creation of a new party. In October, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries took part in an uprising that changed the course of history. Then they supported the Bolsheviks, did not leave the congress with the Right Social Revolutionaries, and became members of the Central Committee. Unlike their opponents, they supported the new government. However, they were in no hurry to join the Council of People's Commissars and demanded that a government be created that would include representatives of various socialist parties, of which there were many at that time.
Many Left Socialist Revolutionaries held important posts in the Cheka. Nevertheless, on a number of issues they disagreed with the Bolsheviks from the very beginning. Disagreements escalated in February 1918 - after the signing of the Brest Peace Treaty. What is this agreement? What items were contained in it? And why did the conclusion of a separate peace treaty lead to a revolt of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries?
Brest Treaty
The agreement was signed in March 1918 in the city of Brest-Litovsk. An agreement was concluded between Soviet Russia and Germany and its allied countries. What is the essence of the Brest peace? The signing of this treaty meant the defeat of Soviet Russia in the war.
On November 7, 1917, an uprising took place, as a result of which the Provisional Government ceased to exist. The very next day, the new government prepared the first decree. This was a document that spoke of the need to begin peace negotiations between the warring states. Few supported him. Nevertheless, a treaty was soon concluded, after which Germany became an ally of the new Soviet state until 1941.
Negotiations began in Brest-Litovsk on December 3, 1917. The Soviet delegation stated the following conditions:
- suspend hostilities;
- conclude a truce for six months;
- withdraw German troops from Riga.
Then only an interim agreement was reached, according to which the truce was to continue until December 17.
Peace talks took place in three stages. Finished in March 1918. The agreement consisted of 14 articles, several annexes and protocols. Russia had to make many territorial concessions, to demobilize the fleet and army.
The Soviet state had to agree to conditions that tsarist Russia would never have accepted. After signing the contract, a territory of more than 700 thousand square meters was seized from the state. In the appendix to the agreement, it was also said about the special economic status of Germany in Russia. German citizens could engage in private entrepreneurship in a country in which the generalization of the economy took place.
Events prior to the uprising
In 1918, contradictions arose between the Bolsheviks and the Left Social Revolutionaries. The reason, as already mentioned, was the signing of the Brest Peace. Despite the fact that initially the Left Social Revolutionaries opposed the war, they considered the terms of the treaty unacceptable.
The country could no longer fight. The army as such did not exist. But these arguments made by the Bolsheviks were ignored by the Social Revolutionaries. Mstislavsky - a famous revolutionary and writer - put forward the slogan: "Not war, so rebellion!". It was a kind of call for rebellion against the German-Austrian forces and the accusation of the Bolsheviks in retreating from the position of revolutionary socialism.
Left Socialist-Revolutionaries withdrew from the People’s Committee, but still had privileges, because they held positions in the Cheka. And this played a crucial role in the rebellion. Left Socialist-Revolutionaries were still part of the military department, various commissions, committees, councils. Together with the Bolsheviks, they fought actively with the so-called bourgeois parties. In April 1918, they took part in the defeat of the anarchists, in which the leading role was played by the revolutionary populist Grigory Sachs.
One of the reasons for the rebellion of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries is the excessive activity of the Bolsheviks in the villages. The socialist revolutionaries were initially considered a peasant party. Left Socialist Revolutionaries negatively perceived food surplus system. In the villages, wealthy peasants voted mainly for them. Poor villagers sympathized with the Bolsheviks. The latter, in order to eliminate political rivals, organized comedians. The newly created committees of the poor were called upon to become the main center of power of the Bolshevik movement.
Some historians believe that the Left Social Revolutionaries, before the rebellion and the Brest Peace, supported many of the Bolshevik initiatives. Including the grain monopoly, and the movement of the rural poor against the prosperous peasants. There was a gap between these parties after the comedians began to supplant the followers of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. Speech against the Bolsheviks was inevitable.
V Congress of Soviets
For the first time, the Social Revolutionaries opposed Bolshevik politics on July 5, 1918. This happened at the V Congress of Soviets. The main argument against opponents for the socialist revolutionaries was the shortcomings of the Brest Peace. They also spoke out against komedov and food surplus. One of the party members promised to rid the village of Bolshevik innovations. Maria Spiridonova called the Bolsheviks traitors to revolutionary ideals and continuers of Kerensky’s policy.
However, the socialist revolutionaries did not succeed in persuading the members of the Bolshevik party to accept their demands. The situation was extremely tense. Left Socialist Revolutionaries accused the Bolsheviks of treason against revolutionary ideas. Those, in turn, attacked their competitors with reproaches in the desire to provoke a war with Germany. The day after the Fifth Congress, an event occurred from which the uprising of the Left Social Revolutionaries began. A few words should be said about the German diplomat who was killed in Moscow on July 6, 1918.
Wilhelm von Mirbach
This man was born in 1871. He was a count, the German ambassador. He performed the diplomatic mission in Moscow from April 1918. Wilhelm von Mirbach entered the domestic history, firstly, as a participant in the peace talks in Brest-Litovsk. Secondly, as a victim of an armed rebellion of the Left Social Revolutionaries.
The death of the German ambassador
The murder of Mirbach was committed by members of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party, Yakov Blumkin and Nikolai Andreev. Of course, they had the mandates of the Cheka, which allowed them to freely enter the German embassy. At about half past two in the afternoon Mirbach took them. During the conversation, the German ambassador and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries attended an interpreter and an adviser to the embassy. Blumkin later claimed that he received the order from Spiridonova on July 4.
The date of the revolt of the Left SRs in Moscow is July 6, 1918. It was then that the German ambassador was killed. It was no coincidence that the Left Socialist Revolutionaries chose this day. On June 6 there was a Latvian national holiday. This was supposed to neutralize the Latvian units most loyal to the Bolsheviks.
Shot at Mirbakh Andreev. Then the terrorists ran out of the embassy, got into the car, which was located near the entrance to the institution. Andreev and Blyumkin made many mistakes. In the ambassador’s office they forgot a briefcase with documents and left witnesses alive.
Maria Spiridonova
What kind of woman is her name mentioned in our article more than once? Maria Spiridonova is a revolutionary, one of the leaders of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party. She was the daughter of a
college secretary. In 1902 she graduated from a female gymnasium. Then she joined the noble assembly, and at about the same time she joined the Socialist Revolutionaries. Already in 1905, Spiridonova was arrested for participating in revolutionary activities. But then she was quickly released.
In 1906, Spiridonova was arrested and sentenced to death for the murder of a senior official. At the last moment, the sentence was commuted to hard labor. She was released in 1917. And then she joined the revolutionary movement, became one of the leaders. After the murder of Mirbakh, Spiridonov was sent to a guardhouse in the Kremlin. Since 1918, her life has been a series of arrests and exiles. Maria Spiridonova was shot in 1941 near Orel, together with more than 150 political prisoners.
Jacob Blyumkin
Russian revolutionary, terrorist, security officer, born in 1900. Blumkin was the son of an Odessa clerk. In 1914 he graduated from the Jewish Theological College. Then he worked as an electrician in a theater, a tram depot, in a cannery. In 1917, a future member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party joined the squad of sailors.
Blumkin took part in the expropriation of the values of the State Bank. Moreover, there is a version that he appropriated part of these values to himself. He came to Moscow in 1918. Since July, he headed the counterintelligence department. After the murder of the German ambassador, Blyumkin was hiding under a false name in Moscow, Rybinsk and other cities. Blumkin was arrested in 1929 and shot on charges of Trotsky.
Nikolay Andreev
The future member of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party was born in 1890 in Odessa. In the Cheka, he got under the patronage of Blumkin. After the murder of Mirbach, he was sentenced to imprisonment. However, Andreev managed to escape. He went to Ukraine, where he planned to eliminate Skoropadsky. True, for unknown reasons he changed his mind. This Russian revolutionary, unlike most of his associates, did not die from a bullet, but from typhus, common in those days.
Insurrection
The rebellion of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in July 1918 began after Dzerzhinsky arrived at the headquarters and demanded that Mirbach's murderers be extradited to him. He was accompanied by three KGB officers who searched the premises and broke several doors. Dzerzhinsky threatened to shoot almost the entire composition of the party of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. Declared Commissars Arrested. However, he himself was arrested and taken hostage by the rebels.
The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries relied on the Cheka detachment, which was under the command of Popov. The composition of this detachment included sailors, Finns - only about eight hundred people. However, Popov did not take active action. His detachment did not budge until the defeat, and the defense was limited to staying in buildings in Trekhsvyatitelsky Lane. In 1929, Popov claimed that he did not take any part in preparing the rebellion. And the armed clash that occurred in Trekhsvyatitelsky Lane was nothing more than an act of self-defense.
During the rebellion, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries took more than twenty Bolshevik functionaries hostage. They seized several cars, killed the delegate of the congress Nikolai Abelman. Left Socialist Revolutionaries also captured the Main Post Office, where they began to send out anti-Bolshevik appeals.
According to some historians, the actions of the Social Revolutionaries were not an uprising in the full sense of the word. They did not attempt to arrest the Bolshevik government, did not try to seize power. They limited themselves to organizing unrest and declaring the Bolsheviks agents of German imperialism. The regiment under the command of Popov acted rather strangely. Instead of triumphing with a threefold advantage, he rebelled mainly in the barracks.
Suppression of the Left Socialist Revolution
About who put an end to the rebellion, there are several versions. Some historians believe that the organizers of the fight against the rebels were Lenin, Trotsky, Svetlov. Others argue that Vacetis, a Latvian military leader, played an important role here.
In the suppression of the uprising of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in Moscow, Latvian arrows took part. The outbreak of the conflict was accompanied by a tough backstage fight. There is an assumption that the British intelligence services tried to get in touch with the Latvians. One of the German diplomats claimed that the German embassy bribed Latvians to oppose the rebels.
On the night of July 7, additional armed patrols were put up. All suspicious citizens were detained. The Latvian units launched an offensive against the rebels early in the morning. In the suppression of the uprising used machine guns, armored cars, guns. The rebellion was liquidated within a few hours.
After all these events, Trotsky handed the money to the Latvian military leader. Lenin did not feel much gratitude to Wacetis. At the end of August 1918, he even offered Trotsky to shoot a Latvian. A year later, he was still arrested. Of course, on suspicion of treason. Wacetis spent several months in prison.
Dzerzhinsky was suspected for some time. The murderers of the German ambassador carried mandates with his signature. Dzerzhinsky was temporarily removed from office.
The consequences of the rebellion of the Left SRs in July 1918
After the uprising, the socialist revolutionaries were removed from the Cheka. The college, which included the Socialist Revolutionaries, was abolished. Formed a new one. Its chairman was Jacob Peters. The Cheka now exclusively consisted of Communists. After the Moscow events of July 6, a decree on the disarmament of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries was given to the Cheka authorities in Petrograd, Vladimir, Vitebsk, Orsha and other cities. The murder of Mirbach has led to numerous arrests. The Left Social Revolutionary deputies were not allowed to attend the congress meeting.
Maria Spiridonova, being on a guardhouse in the Kremlin, wrote an open letter to the Bolsheviks. It contained charges of “cheating workers” and repression. The trial of the leaders of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries took place in 1918. Spiridonova, Popov, Andreev, Blumkin and other organizers of the uprising were accused of counter-revolutionary rebellion.