Victor
Chernov was born in Novouzensk, Russia,
in 1873. He studied law at Moscow University where he quickly became
leader of the illegal students union.
A follower
of Paul Lavrov, Chernov was arrested and
imprisoned in the Peter-Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg. Exiled to
Tambov, Chernov began establishing independent socialist peasant brotherhoods
in the area.
In 1899
Chernov went to live in Switzerland where he studied philosophy at
Berne University. He returned in 1901 and joined with Catherine
Breshkovskaya, Nikolai Avksentiev,
Gregory Gershuni, Alexander
Kerensky and Evno Azef to establish
the Socialist
Revolutionary Party.
Chernov
edited the SR journal, Revolutionary Russia,
where he argued against Marxists who claimed
that the peasants were a totally reactionary social class.
After living
in exile Chernov returned to Russia during the 1905
Revolution. Although seen as the leader of the party, Chernov
was not directly involved in the rising in support of the Potemkin
Mutiny and the St Petersburg Soviet.
In the
Provisional Government of 1917 Chernov
was appointed as Minister of Agriculture. However, he resigned in
September and was replaced by another member of the SR, S. L. Maslov.
Chernov
strongly opposed the Bolsheviks during
the October Revolution. In the elections
held for the Constituent Assembly in November, 1917, the Socialist
Revolutionary Party won 20,900,000 votes (58 per cent), whereas
the Bolsheviks won only 9,023,963 votes (25 per cent). As leader of
the largest party, Chernov was elected Chairman.
In
1918 the Soviet government closed down the Constituent Assembly and
banned the Socialist Revolutionary Party
and other anti-Bolshevik parties. Chernov left Russia and lived in
Czechoslovakia before moving to the USA. Victor
Chernov died in New York in 1952.
(1)
David Shub
was a member of the Social Democratic Labour
Party who emigrated to the United States. Later he wrote about
the leadership of the Socialist Revolutionaries.
While conflict raged in Social Democratic ranks, the
Revolutionary movement was not marking time in Russia. A new party
had come on the scene and had stirred fresh currents in the Russian
people. This was the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The leaders of
the party were Catherine Breshkovsky, who had served six prison terms
and spent more than twenty years in Siberia; Mikhail Gotz, son of
a Moscow millionaire and a famous Siberian exile; Gregory Gershuni,
whose Terrorist Brigade carried out the assassination of leading reactionary
Ministers and Governors; Victor Chernov; and a number of old revolutionaries
of the People's Will.
(2)
George Buchanan, My Mission to Russia
and Other Diplomatic Memories (1922).
Chernov
was a man of strong character and considerable ability. He belonged
to the advanced wing of the SR party, and advocated the immediate
nationalization of the land and the division among the peasants awaiting
the decision of the Consistent Assembly. He was generally regarded
as dangerous and untrustworthy.
(3)
Mark Vishniak, a member of the Socialist
Revolutionaries, later wrote about his impressions
of Victor Chernov at the first meeting of the Constituent
Assembly.
His speech
was couched in the language of internationalist and socialist ideas,
with occasional undertones of demagogy. It was as though the speaker
was deliberately seeking a common language with the Bolsheviks, and
trying to persuade them of something instead of dissociating himself
from them and standing up against them as representatives of Russian
democracy.
(4)
Nikolai Sukhanov, was a leading member
of the Petrograd Soviet. In his book The
Russian Revolution 1917, he recalled his impression of Victor
Chernov.
In the
creation of the SR Party Chernov had played an absolutely exceptional
role. Chernov was the only substantial theoretician of any kind it
had - and a universal one at that. If Chernov's writings were removed
from the SR party literature almost nothing would be left.
Without
Chernov the SR Party would not have existed, any more than the Bolshevik
Party without Lenin - inasmuch as no serious political organization
can take shape round an intellectual vacuum.
But Chernov
- unlike Lenin - only performed half the work in the SR Party. During
the period of pre-Revolutionary conspiracy he was not the party organizing
centre, and in the broad area of the revolution, in spite of his vast
authority amongst the SRs, Chernov proved bankrupt as a political
leader.
Chernov
never showed the slightest stability, striking power, or fighting
ability - qualities vital for a political leader in a revolutionary
situation. He proved inwardly feeble and outwardly unattractive, disagreeable
and ridiculous.
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