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Captives of Revolution: The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolshevik Dictatorship, 1918-1923
The Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) were the largest political party in Russia in the crucial revolutionary year of 1917. Heirs to the legacy of the People’s Will movement, the SRs were unabashed proponents of peasant rebellion and revolutionary terror, emphasizing the socialist transformation of the countryside and a democratic system of government as their political goals. They offered a compelling, but still socialist, alternative to the Bolsheviks, yet by the early 1920s their party was shattered and its members were branded as enemies of the revolution. In 1922, the SR leaders became the first fellow socialists to be condemned by the Bolsheviks as “counter-revolutionaries” in the prototypical Soviet show trial.
In Captives of the Revolution, Scott B. Smith presents both a convincing account of the defeat of the SRs and a deeper analysis of the significance of the political dynamics of the Civil War for subsequent Soviet history. Once the SRs decided to openly fight the Bolsheviks in 1918, they faced a series of nearly impossible political dilemmas. At the same time, the Bolsheviks fatally undermined the revolutionary credentials of the SRs by successfully appropriating the rhetoric of class struggle, painting a simplistic picture of Reds versus Whites in the Civil War, a rhetorical dominance that they converted into victory over the SRs and any left-wing alternative to Bolshevik dictatorship. In this narrative, the SRs became a bona fide threat to national security and enemies of the people—a characterization that proved so successful that it became an archetype to be used repeatedly by the Soviet leadership against any political opponents, even those from within the Bolshevik party itself.
In this groundbreaking study, Smith reveals a more complex and nuanced picture of the postrevolutionary struggle for power in Russia than we have ever seen before and demonstrates that the Civil War—and in particular the struggle with the SRs—was the formative experience of the Bolshevik party and the Soviet state.
In Captives of the Revolution, Scott B. Smith presents both a convincing account of the defeat of the SRs and a deeper analysis of the significance of the political dynamics of the Civil War for subsequent Soviet history. Once the SRs decided to openly fight the Bolsheviks in 1918, they faced a series of nearly impossible political dilemmas. At the same time, the Bolsheviks fatally undermined the revolutionary credentials of the SRs by successfully appropriating the rhetoric of class struggle, painting a simplistic picture of Reds versus Whites in the Civil War, a rhetorical dominance that they converted into victory over the SRs and any left-wing alternative to Bolshevik dictatorship. In this narrative, the SRs became a bona fide threat to national security and enemies of the people—a characterization that proved so successful that it became an archetype to be used repeatedly by the Soviet leadership against any political opponents, even those from within the Bolshevik party itself.
In this groundbreaking study, Smith reveals a more complex and nuanced picture of the postrevolutionary struggle for power in Russia than we have ever seen before and demonstrates that the Civil War—and in particular the struggle with the SRs—was the formative experience of the Bolshevik party and the Soviet state.
- GenresHistoryRussiaNonfiction
432 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 15, 2018
One of the recurrent themes of Western historiography on the Russian Revolution has been how it could have turned out better for the West. Likely it could not have; nor could it really have done so for Russians. In the period under Professor Smith's review, Russian society was already too polarized for the center-left solution of parliamentary democracy; hence the ease with which the Constituent Assembly was swept aside after Russia's first free elections. If the Bolsheviks had not done so, the "White" army officers surely would have, as witness the fate of the PSR-led Constituent Assembly in Exile of Siberia, overthrown by Admiral Kolchak with British blessings. The Eastern Front policy of the "Komuch" was only a rehash of the Provisional Government's duplicitous pro-war program, already decisively repudiated by the country's majority.
The dilemma of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries echoed that of the peasants to whom it most appealed. The poor ones split to the left, aligning with the Bolsheviks against land capitalism; the wealthier aligned with the right in favor of property; while the mass played the middle in benevolent neutrality. In this was captured - to use Smith's excellent term - the fate not only of the PSR but of the peasants, the Revolution, and Russia itself. Its fate was not unlike that of the Ukrainian nationalists of the 1940s, caught in a two-front war. Victory would go to those forces who knew who they were, what they wanted, could maintain themselves in the field the longest - and lucked out on the chessboard of global politics.
But it's hard to see how Smith can call the Bolshevik linkage of the PSR to "capitalist imperialism" a "trope," when the PSR leadership actively sought such linkage and was disappointed at its limited offering - even when betrayed by these Allies in favor of the White armies and their commissioned officers. As Smith says, no civil war is a neat either-or split. One can point to America's own, with anti-Lincoln draft rioters in New York or Unionist guerrillas in East Tennessee. But while these backcurrents complicate facts on the ground, they never overcome the central protagonists or replace the main dividing lines of conflict. Neither could the Russian PSR.
The Constituent Assembly-in-Exile failed for the same reason as the Provisional Government: obsession with legality over the nuts and bolts of power. The Bolsheviks were not mere democratic phrasemongers and coup-plotters like the adventurist PSRs; but embedded themselves in the social authority of the soviets, through which they gained access to the state, its treasury, and its transportation/communication systems. In the end the Red Army prevailed in 1920 for the same reasons it did in 1944: an atrocious enemy and the lack of a viable alternative. This ambiguity would haunt Soviet Power throughout its existence.
The fate of the PSR did symbolize the lost hope of any plurality in the Soviet state. When faced with suggestions in 1921 of legalizing the PSR as a Soviet party, allowing it freely-elected participation - or, as the Cheka's Feliks Dzherzhinsky advocated, "We must condemn the SR idea to languish in darkness" - Lenin unhesitatingly chose the latter. Dzherzhinsky's warnings prophesied the self-fulfilling pitfalls of glasnost: ideological regeneration of opponents was not in the Bolshevik interest, for doing so would only "unify and regenerate" the opposition within a "year and a half or so," changing the regime's single-party nature and creating the conditions for "counter-revolutionary restoration." Lenin's solution - the New Economic Policy - was to address the social grievances fueling SR support while outlawing the party and tightening his own. A lean-and-mean Communist Party would have to travel a long road before reaching the senile corpulence that, finally, allowed power to be stripped from its feebled grip.
The dilemma of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries echoed that of the peasants to whom it most appealed. The poor ones split to the left, aligning with the Bolsheviks against land capitalism; the wealthier aligned with the right in favor of property; while the mass played the middle in benevolent neutrality. In this was captured - to use Smith's excellent term - the fate not only of the PSR but of the peasants, the Revolution, and Russia itself. Its fate was not unlike that of the Ukrainian nationalists of the 1940s, caught in a two-front war. Victory would go to those forces who knew who they were, what they wanted, could maintain themselves in the field the longest - and lucked out on the chessboard of global politics.
But it's hard to see how Smith can call the Bolshevik linkage of the PSR to "capitalist imperialism" a "trope," when the PSR leadership actively sought such linkage and was disappointed at its limited offering - even when betrayed by these Allies in favor of the White armies and their commissioned officers. As Smith says, no civil war is a neat either-or split. One can point to America's own, with anti-Lincoln draft rioters in New York or Unionist guerrillas in East Tennessee. But while these backcurrents complicate facts on the ground, they never overcome the central protagonists or replace the main dividing lines of conflict. Neither could the Russian PSR.
The Constituent Assembly-in-Exile failed for the same reason as the Provisional Government: obsession with legality over the nuts and bolts of power. The Bolsheviks were not mere democratic phrasemongers and coup-plotters like the adventurist PSRs; but embedded themselves in the social authority of the soviets, through which they gained access to the state, its treasury, and its transportation/communication systems. In the end the Red Army prevailed in 1920 for the same reasons it did in 1944: an atrocious enemy and the lack of a viable alternative. This ambiguity would haunt Soviet Power throughout its existence.
The fate of the PSR did symbolize the lost hope of any plurality in the Soviet state. When faced with suggestions in 1921 of legalizing the PSR as a Soviet party, allowing it freely-elected participation - or, as the Cheka's Feliks Dzherzhinsky advocated, "We must condemn the SR idea to languish in darkness" - Lenin unhesitatingly chose the latter. Dzherzhinsky's warnings prophesied the self-fulfilling pitfalls of glasnost: ideological regeneration of opponents was not in the Bolshevik interest, for doing so would only "unify and regenerate" the opposition within a "year and a half or so," changing the regime's single-party nature and creating the conditions for "counter-revolutionary restoration." Lenin's solution - the New Economic Policy - was to address the social grievances fueling SR support while outlawing the party and tightening his own. A lean-and-mean Communist Party would have to travel a long road before reaching the senile corpulence that, finally, allowed power to be stripped from its feebled grip.
June 19, 2014
Excellent book on the Socialist-Revolutionary party's failed attempt to provide a revolutionary and democratic alternative to the Bolsheviks and the Whites during the Civil War. The Socialists-Revolutionaries attempted to reject the discourse of either/or typical to the Civil War period, a discourse of these for and against the Russian statehood promoted by the Whites and a discourse of for and against the working-class promoted by the Bolsheviks. But in war conditions their attempt to provide a third way, more tolerant towards the various views expressed at that time, and stop the Civil War by negotiations had no chance. The Bolshevik discourse, while not reflecting the realities of Russia at the time, was considerably more effective in uniting workers and peasants in its support.
In general, the book provides an important overview of difficulties democratic forces face during the civil war, while either/or options seem much more convincing.
In general, the book provides an important overview of difficulties democratic forces face during the civil war, while either/or options seem much more convincing.
May 22, 2026
Good in terms of organizational and political details, various factions and leaders of the non-Left SRs and their twists-and-turns maneuvering between the Bolsheviks and Whites. Poor in terms of analysis of Bolshevik positions as well as wider clarity in the SR ideological tradition and divisions between the left and rights of the non-Left SRs.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews