The national question in the program orientations of revolutionary populists (late 1880s - early 1900s)

The defeat of the "Narodnaya Volya" completed the first stage of the socialist movement in Russia. In the second half of the 1880s as a result of repression and internal crisis, revolutionary populism in Russia existed in the form of small numbers of organizations, loosely connected. Populists did not appeal to the post-revolutionary society organization, stating the mandatory nationwide convening of a representative body, which was to determine the procedure for solving all the major problems. Among the main political demands was "a broad local government to meet local needs" which can be regarded as a variant of autonomy, but not a federation. In the early 1890s, the social-revolutionary movement in Russia was experiencing an obvious rise. Populists' return from prisons contributed to the organizational consolidation of the revolutionary movement. Many of them became the nucleus of new organizations. On the other hand, it contributed to the preservation of the populist doctrine, which is noticeable when considering the program documents of the Narodnaya Volya party (People's Will) with their attention focused on the equal status of all the peoples of Russia in relation to the royal power. This postulate was traditional for Russian socialists and served as the basis for a possible joint struggle against the existing government. By the mid-1890s the development of the populist movement was reflected in the increased number of its supporters, in the obvious process of organizational consolidation manifested in the formation of several fairly stable and large groups. The brochure Nashi zadachi (Our Tasks) (1896) defined the program and organizational bases of activities of the Russian Union of Socialist Revolutionaries, proposed to create the Independent Peoples Federation. The document lacked the thesis on the right of nations to self-determination, which raised the question of the peoples' voluntary entry into the federation. The Manifesto of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (1900) contained a "recognition of the right of individual peoples to political self-determination". The state system of the post-revolutionary Russia was based not on a federal basis, but on the "broad regional and local self-government", which implied the preservation of Unitarianism. The brochure Freedom (1900) with the program of the Labour Party of the Political Emancipation of Russia only stated the position of the need to achieve "freedom of the working person without any discrimination by nationality". There were quite substantial differences in the options to solve the national problems of Russia that populist programs offered. Demands of the right of nations to self-determination and the federal structure of socialist Russia did not become unconditional for the Socialists-Revolutionaries. At the same time, the common feature they had was the obvious periphery of the national question.

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