German historiography of the Socialist Revolutionary Party

The paper is devoted to the modern German historiography of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Its formation began right after the end of the revolution and Civil War in Russia due to the emigration of intelligentsia, including opponents of Bolshevism. In the period of the National Socialist State this topic was not a priority in German historiography. Once again German researchers paid their attention to it due to the "cold war" between the West and the Soviet Union. German historiography of the Socialist Revolutionary Party received its further development in 1970-1990 when the history of the party attracted Western researchers. It is obvious that Socialist Revolutionaries interested M. Hildermeier and other experts on Eastern European history (the most competent scholars, in the author's opinion, such as H. Altrichter, D. Geyer, D. Bayrau, K. D. Grothusen, B. Bonwetsch among them), first of all, as the most significant political opponent of Bolshevism, communism, totalitarianism. Moreover, an obvious falsification of the Socialist Revolutionaries history in the Soviet Union provided German researchers with an indisputable advantage over their Soviet colleagues although the former often brought the elements of apologetics and idealization into their works on Socialist Revolutionaries. The researchers examined the issues related to the party genesis, its attitude to the worker and peasant issues, war and peace, the practice of terror against the leaders of the Bolshevik and autocratic state. Historians tried to understand and explain the reasons for the victory of "proletarian" socialism over the "agrarian" one. In addition, they were interested in the conditions of the Bolshevik-Left Socialist Revolutionary Union, the government coalition, its prospects and collapse. Inadequate perception of the realities of political struggle, an extreme degree of disorderliness, permanent intraparty splits and crises, lack of a broad social basis, Bolshevik and White Guard repressions became the cause of "agrarian" socialism defeat. In the author's opinion, German researchers were able to create their own concept of history both of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and of Left Socialist Revolutionaries. They offered original conclusions and judgements, identified the main areas for further research in the study of history of both Socialist Revolutionaries and neopopulist organizations operating in parallel - Popular Socialists, Socialist Revolutionary maximalists.

Keywords

Authors

References