ABSTRACT
The first socialists to be repressed were the Social Revolutionaries (SRs) — understandably, in view of the great popularity they enjoyed among the masses, particularly among peasants. The Right SRs had received the largest number of votes of any party in the elections to the Constituent Assembly and presented a serious problem for the government. Both the Right and the Left SRs were heirs to the individualist tradition of the Narodniki, from whom they also inherited the propensity to use terrorism when other, more democratic, policies failed. The Bolshevik press and the Cheka persistently described all socialists and Anarchists as counter-revolutionaries. The Cheka needed no particular excuse for arresting socialists, but from time to time a government decree provided a convenient cover for its work. Felix Dzerzhinsky denounced the SRs and the Mensheviks as causing industrial unrest and he urged the Cheka to suppress that unrest.
