8 - The problem of cadres

Summary

The initial appeal of the SR Peasant Union ‘To all those working for revolutionary socialism in Russia’ had raised the question of the creation of conscious party cadres among the peasantry; and from 1902 onwards this was the most important practical problem which faced the SRs in the countryside.

The urban intellectuals

The original announcement in No. 8 of Revolyutsionnaya Rossiya concerning the formation of the SR Peasant Union had given very little information about the structure of the Union, other than that it was to unite all party members working in the countryside. No. 13, however, provided greater detail concerning the organisation of the Union and the background to its formation. The creation of the SR Peasant Union as an ancillary organ of the party represented an institutional recognition of a situation which already existed, in reality, since:

As long ago as the autumn of last year, several local groups had already allocated several of their members especially for the conduct of peasant affairs. They in their turn had drawn other people into the cause, people who did not belong to the local group, and thus they created a new group which had no name but was particularly engaged in supplying the countryside with propaganda.