Revisiting Siberian Organizations of RSDLP (b) - RCP (b) Number in 1917-1918

This article is devoted to the complex quantitative characteristics of Siberian Bolshevik organizations (quantitative analysis, «geog-raphy» (regional placement) of these organizations and analysis of their memebership) on the eve and in the period of the establishment of the Soviet government in Siberia. Investigating the history of a social movement or a party, it is necessary to describe them on all sides. Also, it is important to try to give these movements and parties as complete quantitative characteristics (quantity and «geography» of the local organizations, membership of each organization and all of them on the whole) as possible. Relating to the century-old events, the latter is the most time-consuming task, as the existing quantitative data in the sources are generally incomplete, isolated and contradictory. However, historians progress in performing these tasks, collecting information painstakingly and using mathematical methods when necessary. As far as the events of the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War are concerned, RSDLP (b) - RCP (b) was the most well-researched in Soviet historiography (both Russian- wide and regional). However, there were some shortcomings in this research. One of them is some overestimation of the number of organizations of this party and of its membership regarding both each organization and the party on the whole (at the same time the membership of other parties, for example, of the left-wing Social Revolutionary, was underestimated). Siberian organizations of RSDLP (b) - RCP (b) of the Revolution of 1917 and the beginning of the Civil War are not an exception. With regard to this period, there are significant discrepancies in the determination of the quantity of Siberian Bolshevik organizations and of their membership in historians' works. In this article the author aims at clarifying the quantitative characteristics of the Siberian part of RSDLP (b) - RCP (b) of the period of 1917 -the beginning of 1918 and offers his own solution to this problem.

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