BOLSHEVIKS AND LEFT SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONARIES: THE STRUGGLE FOR STATE POWER

Abstract

The Bolsheviks entered into a bloc with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries on the eve of the October events. The parties acted in concert in the first post-revolutionary months, seeking at the provincial and district congresses of councils to solve the main state-political task: to ensure an absolute majority of votes in the legislative and executive bodies. By the spring of 1918, the bloc occupied the vast majority of seats in the local councils of workers, peasants, and Red Army deputies and their executive committees. Disagreements appeared over the Brest Peace, the introduction of a food dictatorship and the formation of committees of the poor. On July 6, 1918, during the work of the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, some of the leaders of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries decided on armed action. By order of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, who supported the rebellion, were replaced by the Communists immediately to be removed from leading posts in the Soviets. The presence of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries at congresses of soviets and as part of executive committees became insignificant with the absolute superiority of the factions of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (RCP (b)). In the second half of 1918 a one-party leadership system was formed. Based on archival data, the article analyzes the numerical composition of parties at the congresses of provincial and district councils, trades changes in the state and party apparatuses, reveals the reasons for the disagreements of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries with the Bolsheviks and the conditions that contributed to this. Particular attention is paid to the consequences for the establishment of a one-party system of armed speech by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries on July 6, 1918 during the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets in Moscow, primarily the elimination of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries from the bodies of state power and state administration after the Right Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks.