ABSTRACT
Historians of the SR Party have speculated what their attitude to collectivisation might have been. The Prague SR sources on collectivisation are not particularly rich. As noted, by the late 1920s they had little contact with the Soviet Union and largely relied on official Soviet sources. Postnikov advised the Volrosstsy to use correspondence from Russia published in other émigré publications to help write their articles on collectivisation.1 The bitter disputes between Chernov and the Volrosstsy were at their height and much of their energy was being expanded on mutual recriminations. The Volrosstsy were now divided between Prague, Paris and Belgrade. Chernov was in America at this crucial juncture in Soviet history partly to promote his colonisation project, causing Postnikov to comment that ‘unfortunately our theoretician on the agrarian question is currently occupied with resolving the agrarian problem in Mexico’.2 Chernov was also occupied with his project of the Socialist League of the New East. The Prague SRs were also finding it difficult to fund their own publications. The Czechoslovak government stopped funding Revolyutsionnaya Rossiya in 1929, and only a few issues came out after that. The last edition of Volya Rossii came out in 1932, as the Russian Action was wound down. Only five editions of SotsialistRevolyutsioner came out between 1927 and 1932, mainly paid for by SRs in America. The SR articles are largely reactive and without much analysis. This is partly
because of the chaotic nature of collectivisation. Their response was also confused and hesitant as they were unsure of what was happening in Russia-was for example, collectivisation voluntary on any level and were ex-SRs participating in the establishment of collective farms? If collectivisation was voluntary, could this be seen as justification of narodnik beliefs? The adoption of a position on collectivisation was complicated by the fact that the collective working of the land had been part of the SR maximum programme, as embodied in the slogan ‘From the socialisation of land to the socialisation of agriculture’.3 Nonetheless, it was vital to the SRs that they responded to the collectivisation drive in the Soviet Union. Postnikov wrote to the other Volrosstsy in May 1930:
At the centre of attention of all Russia and indeed the whole world is forced collectivisation, this experiment with the Russian peasantry. This should be of
particular concern to us as we always considered ourselves as representatives of the peasantry and also pushed for voluntary collectivisation.4
