Viktor Chernov

Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov (Russian: Ви́ктор Миха́йлович Черно́в; 19 November 1873 – 15 April 1952) was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and theorist who was a principal founder and leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR). As the party's chief ideologist, he developed the theory of "constructive socialism", which combined elements of Russian populism and Marxism, advocating for a two-stage revolution leading to an agrarian socialist society.

In this name that follows East Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Mikhailovich and the family name is Chernov.

Viktor Chernov
Виктор Чернов
Chernov in 1917
Chairman of the Russian Constituent Assembly
In office 18–19 January 1918 – 20 January 1918
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Position abolished
Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Provisional Government
In office 5 May 1917 – 26 August 1917
Prime Minister	Georgy Lvov Alexander Kerensky
Preceded by	Andrei Shingaryov
Succeeded by	Semyon Maslov
Member of the Russian Constituent Assembly
In office 25 November 1917 – 20 January 1918[a]
Preceded by	Constituency established
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Constituency	Tambov
Personal details
Born	Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov (1873-12-07)December 7, 1873 Novouzensk, Russian Empire
Died	April 15, 1952(1952-04-15) (aged 78) New York City, New York, U.S.
Political party	People's Rights Party (1893–1894) Socialist Revolutionary Party (1902–1940)
Spouse	Anastasia Sletova
Children	Boris, Maria, Olga, Natalia, Ariadna
Alma mater	Imperial Moscow University
Occupation	Revolutionary Politician Philosopher

Born in Kamyshin to a minor noble and former serf, Chernov became involved in revolutionary circles in his youth. He was instrumental in uniting disparate populist groups to form the PSR in the early 1900s. Chernov's political thought emphasized an alliance between the urban proletariat and the peasantry, with the former as a vanguard, and critiqued orthodox Marxist interpretations of class by including all "toilers" as part of the revolutionary force. He championed land socialization—the transfer of land to communal control for egalitarian use—as a core tenet of the PSR's program.

After the February Revolution of 1917, Chernov returned to Russia from exile and served as Minister of Agriculture in the Russian Provisional Government from May to September 1917. His inability to enact significant land reforms during his tenure contributed to rising peasant unrest and weakened his political standing. Following the Bolshevik seizure of power, Chernov advocated for a "third force" democratic alternative against both the Bolsheviks and the White counter-revolutionaries. In January 1918, he was elected President of the Russian Constituent Assembly, which was forcibly dispersed by the Bolsheviks after a single day. Harassed by the Cheka, he went into hiding and eventually left Russia in 1920.

He spent the remainder of his life in exile, primarily in Europe and later in New York City, where he continued to write, engage in émigré politics, and critique the Soviet regime. Despite his significant theoretical contributions and early leadership, Chernov's political career was ultimately marked by the failure of the PSR to achieve its revolutionary goals and his own perceived indecisiveness in crucial moments. He died in New York in 1952.

Early life and revolutionary beginnings

Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov was born on 19 November 1873, in Kamyshin, Saratov Governorate, on the Volga River. His father, Mikhail Chernov, was born into a peasant serf family but became a rural school teacher and later a district treasurer in the tsarist service, eventually attaining personal nobility and the title of Councillor of State. Chernov's grandfather had been a serf who gained his freedom.^[1] Chernov's mother died when he was an infant. He described his relationship with his stepmother as oppressive, leading him to find solace in the company of street children and fostering an empathy for the "humiliated and insulted".^[2] From his father, he claimed to have inherited a "plebeian outlook on life".^[3]

In his adolescence, Chernov was deeply influenced by Russian literature, particularly the poet Nikolay Nekrasov, whose work he felt "breathed life into the 'people'".^[3] He immersed himself in the writings of authors like Herzen, Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, and Dostoevsky.^[3] His political awakening occurred in the latter half of the 1880s, spurred by his elder brother, Vladimir, who introduced him to a political circle organized by a Tolstoian army officer.^[4]

In 1890, Chernov was briefly taken into custody and questioned due to his political activities.^[5] Towards the end of his schooling in Saratov, he met the veteran Populist Mark Natanson, whom he described as a remarkable "organiser".^[5] To avoid further police attention, Chernov moved to Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia) in autumn 1891 to continue his studies, where he formed an organizational circle and befriended Karl Parts, a member of the Estonian Constitutional Democratic Party.^[5]

In 1892, Chernov enrolled in the Faculty of Law at Moscow University. It was here that he first encountered the writings of Karl Marx, studying them critically rather than as a convert.^[6] He became involved in a populist student organization called the "Union of Soviets", which irregularly published a journal.^[6] Through Natanson, Chernov became associated with the Narodnoe Pravo (People's Right Party), founded in 1893, which aimed to unite revolutionary and liberal elements to overthrow despotism. The party's program included demands for representative government, universal suffrage, and freedoms of religion, press, and assembly.^[7]

In April 1894, at the age of twenty, Chernov was arrested along with other members of the People's Right Party, including his brother Vladimir and sister Nadejda. The police accused him of playing a prominent role in the party and possessing illegal publications.^[8] While in custody, he wrote an autobiographical account for his interrogators. Initially held in Petropavlovsk Fortress in St. Petersburg, he was later transferred to a less stringent detention center, where he had access to reading material and wrote an article titled "Philosophical flaws in the doctrine of economic materialism".^[9] He read works by Kant, Marx, and Russian Marxists like Georgy Plekhanov and Peter Struve.^[10] Chernov believed that the Russian peasant commune and cooperative habits were "priceless moral survivors of primitive socialism" and argued that capitalism in Russia would play a destructive, rather than creative, role.^[11]

In January 1895, after nine months of imprisonment, Chernov was released and exiled to his native province of Saratov, first to Kamyshin and then to Tambov.^[12] In Tambov, a region rife with agrarian unrest, Chernov, along with Anastasia Sletova (his future first wife) and others, initiated a revolutionary peasants' organization in 1896–1897, forming "brotherhoods" that spread through the province. This neo-populist "going to the people" movement aimed to build an alliance between the urban proletariat and the "labouring peasants".^[13]

After his period of "administrative exile" (1895–1899), Chernov obtained a passport to go abroad in 1899. Before leaving, he met Nikolay Mikhaylovsky in St. Petersburg, a leading populist thinker whom Chernov would later refer to as his "friend, collaborator, teacher, my second father".^[14] Mikhailovsky, who advocated for a "subjective method" in sociology and believed in Russia's potential for a non-capitalist path to socialism based on the peasant commune, gave Chernov his blessing to study European socialism at its source.^[15] In 1899, Chernov left Russia for Switzerland.^[16]

Formation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party

Émigré activities and Agrarian Socialist League

Arriving in Zurich in 1899, Chernov found the Russian émigré community dominated by young social-democrats associated with Georgy Plekhanov's Emancipation of Labour Group.^[17] His populist sentiments found little support, but he was drawn to the Union of Russian Social Revolutionaries Abroad, led by Chaim Zhitlovsky.^[17] On Zhitlovsky's advice, Chernov moved to Berne to study and pursue philosophical research.^[18]

In January 1900, Chernov traveled to Paris to meet with the group around the veteran populist P. L. Lavrov. Lavrov's group envisioned an autonomous émigré organization to support the peasant agrarian movement from abroad.^[19] Lavrov's death shortly after Chernov's arrival, in February 1900, paradoxically spurred the formation of the Agrarian Socialist League. Chernov co-founded the League with Semen An-skii, Leonid Shishko, Feliks Volkhovskoi, and Egor Lazarev.^[20] The League became a major source of radical literature smuggled into Russia, publishing 25,000 copies of material under the title Socialist Revolutionary Party Abroad by early 1902.^[20]

Neo-populist ideology

While with the Agrarian Socialist League, Chernov articulated the core tenets of what would become known as neo-populism or "constructive socialism". In his 1900 essay Ocherednoi vopros revoliutsionnogo dela (The Immediate Task of the Revolutionary Cause), he argued that Russia's future lay in a party that could unite the interests of both the industrial working class and the toiling peasantry.^[21] This marked a significant departure from earlier populism by acknowledging the emergence of capitalism and an industrial proletariat in Russia. Chernov advocated for an alliance between peasants and workers, with the proletariat acting as the vanguard and the peasantry as the mass strike-force.^[22]

He challenged the classical Marxist view of the peasantry as a uniformly reactionary or petty-bourgeois class.^[23] Chernov distinguished between the "toiling peasantry" (trudovoe krest'ianstvo), who lived by their own labor, and the bourgeois capitalist. He argued that small producers were not petty capitalists because their primary goal was subsistence, not the extraction of surplus value through the exploitation of others.^[24] Their economic position, he maintained, was closer to that of the proletariat, as both were exploited classes.^[25] This redefinition of class, focusing on the relations of distribution and exploitation rather than solely on the ownership of the means of production, was a cornerstone of Chernov's ideology and a key point of difference with Russian Social Democrats.^[26] He drew on Marx's earlier writings and classical economists like Adam Smith, as well as Russian thinkers like Chernyshevsky, to support his arguments.^[27]

Chernov's neo-populism recognized the inevitability of industrialization but rejected the idea that the peasant commune (obshchina) was the sole basis for socialism in Russia. While protective of the commune, he did not idealize it, seeing it as a potential facilitator for the transition to a collectivist economy, particularly in land socialization, rather than the direct foundation of a socialist order.^[28] The overthrow of autocracy, he argued, should be achieved not primarily through terror, but through a mass movement involving the peaceful withdrawal of labor and resources by the peasantry, guided by the intelligentsia and the proletariat.^[29]

Unification and establishment of the PSR

The impetus for a unified national populist party came largely from groups within Russia, particularly the Southern Union (founded in Voronezh in 1897) and the Northern Union (centered in Saratov and Moscow).^[30] In 1901–1902, these groups, along with smaller circles and the émigré Agrarian Socialist League, merged to form the Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR).^[31] M. R. Gots and Chernov were key figures in uniting the émigré factions.^[32]

The party's newspaper, Revoliutsionnaia Rossiia (Revolutionary Russia), previously an organ of the Northern Union, was transferred to Switzerland under the editorship of Chernov and Gots, becoming the official voice of the united PSR.^[31] A Central Committee was established, including figures like Natanson, Ekaterina Breshko-Breshkovskaia, N.S. Rusanov, Chernov, Gots, and Grigory Gershuni.^[31] The party adopted the slogan "V bor'be obretesh ty pravo svoe" (In Struggle thou Shalt Win thy Rights!).^[33]

Despite the unification, divergent views persisted within the PSR, particularly regarding the revolutionary role of the peasantry versus the urban proletariat. The Northern Union tended to prioritize the proletariat and intelligentsia, viewing the peasantry as a secondary support base.^[34] The Southern Union, while also emphasizing urban work, recognized the necessity of peasant support.^[35] Chernov and the Agrarian Socialist League, though often seen as pro-peasant, advocated for a balance, with the proletariat as vanguard leading peasant masses.^[36] The peasant uprisings of 1902 in Kharkov and Poltava, however, significantly shifted party attention towards agrarian issues.^[37]

Chernov played a crucial role in clarifying the party's program, strategy, and tactics, which were articulated in party newspapers and the 1903 collection On Questions of Program and Tactics.^[34] His concept of the "toiling class", uniting workers, peasants, and the radical intelligentsia, became a fundamental, though often debated, tenet of PSR theory.^[38] The party also joined the Socialist International, reflecting its proletarian component.^[39]

The PSR's attitude towards political terror was complex. While Chernov considered terror a "subordinate weapon", an "artillery preparation" for mass action, and a means of disorganizing the government and inspiring society, it was not to be the sole focus.^[40] The party's Combat Organization (Boevaia Organizatsiia) operated with considerable autonomy, which sometimes conflicted with the party leadership's desire for control and integration of terror with mass movements.^[41]

1905 Revolution and First SR Congress

Viktor Chernov

The 1905 Russian Revolution reinforced Chernov's belief in a peasant-proletariat alliance and the necessity of party guidance for the spontaneous peasant movement.^[42] The SRs advocated for land socialization through direct action, urging peasants to seize and communally manage gentry, state, and appanage lands, aiming for an egalitarian distribution based on the right to toil.^[43] This contrasted with the Social Democrats, who, including Vladimir Lenin at this stage, viewed the peasantry primarily as petty bourgeois and focused on supporting the rural proletariat against the peasant bourgeoisie.^[44]

During 1905, SRs participated in the formation of workers' Soviets and the All-Russian Peasant Union. Chernov welcomed the extension of the "Union of Unions" to include worker and peasant trade unions alongside professional groups, seeing it as embodying his "triple alliance" concept.^[45] The party initially decided to boycott the consultative Duma proposed in August 1905, planning to turn the boycott into a general attack on autocracy.^[46]

Chernov and the PSR envisioned the revolution as a process that could move beyond a purely bourgeois framework. While political freedom was the immediate goal, the party aimed for significant socio-economic reforms, particularly land socialization, as part of a minimum program.^[47] Chernov argued that the revolution, driven by workers and peasants under the leadership of the intelligentsia, could achieve a "permanent revolution", establishing a democratic republic and then transitioning to social revolution without a lengthy pause.^[48]

Following the October Manifesto, which granted civil liberties and a legislative Duma, Chernov returned to Russia from Geneva in late October 1905.^[49] He established the legal party newspaper Syn Otechestva (Son of the Fatherland) in St. Petersburg.^[50]

The First SR Party Congress convened in Imatra, Finland, from 29 December 1905 to 4 January 1906.^[51] Chernov was the chief spokesman on the party program, which he had largely compiled.^[52] The program was divided into maximum and minimum sections. The minimum program focused on achievable goals after overthrowing tsarism, primarily land socialization. The maximum program outlined the future socialist society, including collectivization of agriculture and industry, to be implemented once the masses attained sufficient consciousness and organization.^[53] This two-stage approach was criticized by some party factions. The SR Maximalists, led by M.I. Sokolov, argued for the immediate socialization of both land and industry in the minimum program, viewing Chernov's distinction as reformist.^[54] Chernov countered that socializing industry was a more complex task requiring higher organizational maturity than land socialization and thus belonged to the maximum program.^[55] The Legal Populists (who later formed the Popular Socialist Party) also criticized the program, preferring "nationalization" to "socialization" of land and rejecting revolutionary land seizures.^[56] Despite these debates, Chernov's program was largely adopted, though the Maximalists seceded after the Congress.^[57] The Congress also resolved to boycott the First Duma.^[58]

Inter-revolutionary period (1906–1914)

The years following the 1905 Revolution were marked by government repression and internal crises for the PSR. At the party's London conference in 1908, Chernov acknowledged that while ideological influence had grown, organizational strength had significantly declined.^[59] Many members who had joined during the revolutionary upsurge became disillusioned.^[60]

A devastating blow to the party was the exposure of Evno Azef in late 1908 as a long-term agent provocateur for the Okhrana, who had simultaneously headed the PSR's Combat Organization from 1903 to 1908.^[61] Chernov had previously defended Azef against accusations of treachery.^[62] The Azef affair led to deep demoralization and intensified debates about the role of terror. At the Fifth Party Conference in May 1909, Chernov, while personally favoring cessation, abstained from voting on the continuation of terror due to his Central Committee position; the conference voted to continue it.^[63] Chernov argued that terror was justified when it reflected the "popular conscience" and was a means of self-defense and disorganization of the regime, but he grappled with its moral and ethical implications, often reducing it to individual responsibility.^[64] The practice of terrorism largely died out after the Azef exposure.^[65]

The Stolypin reforms, aimed at breaking up the peasant commune and fostering private land ownership, directly challenged the PSR's agrarian program.^[66] Chernov, while demystifying romantic notions of the commune, stressed the primacy of the peasantry's class position as "toilers" for land socialization. He argued that egalitarian traditions, rather than collectivism per se, were the key aspect of the commune that aligned with socialist ideals.^[67] At the First Party Conference in London (August 1908), resolutions were passed to campaign for the collectivist aspects of peasant psychology against individualism.^[68]

World War I and internationalism

The outbreak of World War I in July 1914 deeply divided the Socialist Revolutionaries. Chernov, along with Mark Natanson, became a leading figure of the internationalist wing, opposing the war and advocating for revolution.^[69] At a conference of SR émigrés in Beaugy-sur-Clarens, Switzerland, in August 1914, Chernov argued that the war was not defensive for Russia, which had dynastic rather than national goals, and that Russia's defeat could lead to a "people's government".^[69] This marked an early articulation of a revolutionary defeatist stance.^[70]

Chernov advocated for the formation of a "Third Force" of the working masses of Europe to intervene and force a just peace, without annexations or indemnities, and to seize power where possible, leading to a wider European revolution.^[71] He believed Russia, with its unpopular regime, could be the first to present revolutionary opportunities.^[72] He co-edited the internationalist newspaper Mysl (Idea) in Paris from November 1914, which, despite French censorship, promoted an anti-war, revolutionary line.^[73] Mysl was succeeded by Zhizn (Life) in March 1915, later moved to Geneva, and then by Na chuzhbine (On Foreign Soil) and Otkliki zhizni (Echoes of Life) in early 1916.^[74]

Chernov was an enthusiastic participant in the Zimmerwald Conference in September 1915, which brought together anti-war socialists.^[75] He reported that SR organizations in Russia were largely internationalist.^[76] Although he voted for the Zimmerwald Manifesto, he refused to sign it, criticizing its failure to sufficiently emphasize Russian dynastic interests in starting the war and the suffering of the peasantry.^[77] By early 1916, the SR Foreign Delegation of the Central Committee had a majority against the war.^[78] Chernov's precise activities and whereabouts for much of 1916 are unclear, but he appears to have largely withdrawn from prominent internationalist activities during this year.^[79]

Russian Revolution of 1917

Viktor Chernov

Chernov was in Switzerland when the February Revolution occurred. He returned to Russia via France and Britain, arriving in Petrograd on 8 April 1917, five days after Lenin.^[80] He was elected to the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet.^[81] The SR party initially supported the Provisional Government without participating in it.^[82]

Following the April Crisis, Chernov became Minister of Agriculture in the first coalition government formed in May 1917.^[83] His tenure was marked by significant challenges in implementing the SR agrarian program of land socialization. His "troika" concept for the interim period involved abolishing Stolypin legislation, ceasing all land sales, and establishing land committees to manage land use until the Constituent Assembly.^[84] However, substantive measures like full socialisation were deferred. He managed to abolish the Stolypin land laws in June 1917 but faced constant opposition from within the government, particularly from Kadet ministers and Prince Georgy Lvov, over attempts to regulate land transactions and prevent peasant land seizures.^[85]

During the July Days, Chernov was briefly seized by angry Kronstadt sailors demanding the Soviet take power and was rescued by Leon Trotsky.^[86] He resigned from the Provisional Government on 27 August 1917, during the Kornilov affair, after his policies and his internationalist stance on the war had made him a target for right-wing attacks and had strained his relationship with Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky.^[87]

The Third SR Party Congress in May–June 1917 ratified Kerensky's participation in the government but revealed deep party divisions, particularly on the war, where a centrist resolution drafted by Abram Gots, advocating continued war efforts while seeking peace, was passed over Chernov's more Zimmerwaldian position.^[88] Chernov's influence, though still significant, was waning, as evidenced by his running 20 votes behind Gots in elections to the Central Committee.^[89] The Congress failed to adequately address the land question or formulate a concrete peace proposal, deferring major decisions to the Constituent Assembly.^[90]

Civil War and final exile

After the Bolshevik seizure of power on 25 October 1917, Chernov initially opposed armed resistance.^[91] He was briefly involved in a plan at Mogilev to form an alternative socialist government, but this failed due to lack of broad support and internal party opposition.^[92] He participated in the Second All-Russian Peasants' Congress in November 1917, where he was elected honorary chairman but failed to secure the actual chairmanship against the Left SR Maria Spiridonova.^[93]

At the Fourth (and last) SR Party Congress (November–December 1917), Chernov was elected presiding officer, and his left-centrist faction gained a majority on the new Central Committee.^[94] The Congress urged patience regarding the Bolshevik regime, hoping for its inherent negative aspects to emerge, before considering armed resistance.^[95]

Chernov was elected President of the Russian Constituent Assembly, which convened on 18 January (O.S. 5 January) 1918. The SRs held a majority with 380 deputies, against 168 for the Bolsheviks.^[96] In his inaugural address, Chernov outlined a program of land reform based on socialization and a foreign policy directed towards peace.^[97] After a single, tumultuous session lasting about 13 hours, the Assembly was dispersed by the Bolsheviks.^[98]

Following the dispersal, Chernov went into hiding. He supported the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) established in Samara in June 1918, which aimed to restore the Constituent Assembly.^[99] He advocated a "third force" democratic struggle against both the Bolsheviks on the left and the right-wing counter-revolutionaries like Admiral Alexander Kolchak.^[100] After Kolchak's coup in Omsk in November 1918 overthrew the Ufa Directory (in which SRs participated), Chernov continued to argue for this two-front war, even as the SRs were increasingly marginalized.^[101]

Chernov returned to Moscow in March 1919 during a brief period of SR legalisation and published the newspaper Delo Naroda. However, repression soon resumed.^[102] In May 1920, advised by the SR Central Committee to leave the country, Chernov emigrated under a false Estonian passport.^[103] He initially settled in Reval (Tallinn), Estonia, where he resumed publication of Revoliutsionnaia Rossiia.^[103] He later moved to Berlin, where the SR Foreign Delegation produced the paper Golos Rossii (The Voice of Russia) in 1922, primarily to defend SRs during the Moscow Trial of SRs.^[104] Chernov successfully sued a German editor for libel after being accused of receiving German funds.^[105]

From Berlin, Chernov moved to Prague, Czechoslovakia, where he established an "SR centre". He fled the Gestapo in 1938, going to Paris, and then to New York in 1940. In exile, he continued his political agitation and published the journal Za Svobody (For Liberty) until 1950.^[105]

Death and legacy

Viktor Chernov died on 15 April 1952, at the age of 78, in a small apartment in New York City.^[105]

Despite his theoretical contributions, Chernov's political career was marked by an inability to translate his ideas into effective action, particularly during his tenure as Minister of Agriculture in 1917. He was often seen as inconsistent and indecisive in practical politics, prioritizing party unity and compromise over decisive action, which ultimately contributed to the PSR's failure to retain power or effectively counter the Bolsheviks.^[106] He himself admitted to being more of a litterateur and theorist than a practical politician.^[107]

Selected works

• Ocherednoi vopros revoliutsionnogo dela (The Immediate Task of the Revolutionary Cause), London: Agrarian-Socialist League, 1900.^[21]
• Terroristicheskii element v nashei programme (The Terrorist Element in Our Program), 1902.^[108]
• Marksizm i agrarnyi vopros: istoriko-kriticheskii ocherk (Marxism and the Agrarian Question: A Historical-Critical Essay), St. Petersburg, 1906. (A collection of earlier articles).^[109]
• K teorii klassovoi borby (Towards a Theory of Class Struggle), Moscow, 1906.^[110]
• Proletariat i trudovoe krestianstvo (Proletariat and Toiling Peasantry), Moscow, 1906.^[110]
• Mes Tribulations en Russie Sovietique (My Tribulations in Soviet Russia), Paris: J. Povolozky, 1921. (Covers 1918–March 1919).^[111]
• Zapiski Sotsialista-Revoliutsionera (Notes of a Socialist-Revolutionary), Book 1, Berlin-Petersburg-Moscow: Z.I. Grzhebin, 1922. (Memoirs covering up to the late 1890s).^[112]
• Rozhdenie revoliutsionnoi Rossii (Fevralskaia revoliutsiia) (The Birth of Revolutionary Russia: The February Revolution), Paris-Prague-New York: Jubilee Committee for the Publication of the Works of Viktor Chernov, 1934. (An English abridged translation: The Great Russian Revolution, 1936).^[113]
• Pered Burei: Vospominaniia (Before the Storm: Memoirs), New York: Chekhov Publishing House, 1953. (Covers life up to 1918).^[112]

See also

• Socialist League of the New East

Notes

1. The Constituent Assembly was declared dissolved by the Bolshevik-Left SR Soviet government, rendering the end the term served.