Workers' Party for the Political Liberation of Russia

The Workers' Party for the Political Liberation of Russia (Russian: Рабочая партия политического освобождения России, Rabochaya partiya politicheskogo osvobozhdeniyat rossii, abbreviated 'РППОР', RPPOR) was a political party in Russia, founded in 1899.[1] The membership of the party included Grigory Gershuni and Catherine Breshkovsky (who would become two of the key architects of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party) and its membership was predominantly Jewish.[2][3] The party had its roots in a Minsk workers' study circle founded in 1895. In 1899 the group had around sixty members.[3] The party directed most of its agitation towards Jewish workers, a fact that differed the party from other narodnik groups.[3] The main base of the party was found in Bielorussia (which had a large Jewish population).[3] The party, which functioned as a federation of autonomous local groups, had branches in Minsk, Białystok, Dvisnk, Ekaterinoslav, Zhitomir, Berdichev, and Saint Petersburg.[3][4]

The party published a programmatic manifesto (edited by Gershuni and L. Rodionova-Kliacho) in 1900, titled "About Freedom". The manifesto identified autocracy as the main enemy of the people (rather than capitalism or the industrialists). The document proposed political terrorism as a means of struggle against Russian despotic rule.[3]

The Workers' Party for the Political Liberation of Russia party was one of the groups that affiliated itself with the Socialist-Revolutionary Party in 1902.[2][4]

References
  1. Hildermeier, Manfred. The Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party Before the First World War. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. p. 373
  2. Perrie, Maureen. The Agrarian Policy of the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party from Its Origins Through the Revolution of 1905–1907. Soviet and East European studies. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1976. p. 34.
  3. Hildermeier, Manfred. The Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party Before the First World War. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. pp. 35–36.
  4. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/sep/22.htm
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