Boris Davidovich Kamkov (real name Katz ; June 3, 1885 , Kobylnya , Soroksky Uyezd , Bessarabia , Russian Empire - August 29, 1938 , Moscow Region , RSFSR , USSR ) - Russian socialist , leader of Russian revolutionary socialists , one of the founders of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party .
| Boris Davidovich Kamkov | |
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 Before the October Revolution | |
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| Place of Birth | |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
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| Education | |
| The consignment | |
Content
Early years
Born in the family of the Zemstvo doctor David Aronovich Katz and Faina Rudolfovna Katz, the owner of a sewing workshop in Soroki . He studied at a private gymnasium in Soroki . Participated in the revolutionary movement in Chisinau , Odessa , Nikolaev . In 1904 he was arrested as a member of the Socialist Revolutionary organization. In 1905, he was deported to Turukhansky Krai , in 1907 he fled abroad. Established ties with MA Natanson , V. M. Chernov ; collaborated in the expat press. In 1911 he graduated from the law faculty of the University of Heidelberg , lawyer .
During the First World War - "internationalist . " He was a member of the editorial office of the anti-war newspaper Zhizn, and the Paris Group for the Promotion of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries ; participant in the Zimmerwald Conference (1915). In 1915, he was one of the founders of the "Committee for Assistance to Russian Prisoners of War", which, in addition to providing material assistance, carried out revolutionary propaganda.
February Revolution
After the February Revolution of 1917, he returned to Russia through Germany . The right-wing press accused Kamkov of “ espionage ”. In April 1917 he was elected to the Petrograd Soviet of the Russian Socialist Movement ; He did a lot to unite the radical deputies of the Council.
At the 2nd Petrograd Conference, the party of socialists-revolutionaries (April 3-5) was a co-rapporteur on the issue of war. He described (April 4) the defensive position of the Central Committee rapporteur A. Gotz as "social-patriotic with internationalist surroundings" and demanded that the Central Committee take steps "towards the elimination of the war." Kamkov’s resolution was not accepted, but he was elected a member of the AKP PK [1]
On May 3, 1917, at a joint meeting of the Northern Regional, Petrograd City and District Committees with a faction of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries of the Petrosoviet, Kamkov opposed the Socialist-Revolutionaries joining the Provisional "bourgeois" government [2] . The “Kamkovites” brought their differences with the Central Committee to the Northern Regional Conference of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries [3] , but the conference did not support them. Kamkov and his associates P.P. Proshyan and A.M. Ustinov were elected to the Northern Regional Committee of the AKP, although at the 1st All-Russian Congress of KD Soviets [4] in the elections to the Executive Committee of the All-Russian KD Council on May 19, Kamkov received only 10 votes.
At the Third Congress of the AKP [5], the left put forward co-rapporteurs on the main agenda items. Kamkov spoke of war and peace, rejected the thesis of the speaker Gotz that after February the war ceased to be imperialist, demanded that the allies answer: “Do they agree to end the war,“ if the central monarchies accept the peace conditions dictated by the RSD Council ” [6] . Kamkov was not successful [7] , he was not even included in the list for the election of the Central Committee (one MA Natanson-Bobrov passed from the left).
Creation of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party
Convinced of the impossibility of changing the policies of the AKP, Kamkov, MA Natanson (Bobrov) and M. A. Spiridonova initiated the creation of the Organizing Bureau of the Left Social Revolutionaries . Their fractions took shape in the Executive Committee of the All-Russian Council of the CD and in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
At the 1st All-Russian Congress of RSD Soviets (June 3-24, 1917 ), Kamkov was elected to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and worked in his Agrarian Department.
In July days, at a joint meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Executive Committee of the All-Russian Council of the KD on July 9, he supported the demands of the workers' delegation on the resignation of the "capitalist ministers" and the transfer of power to the Soviets , was against the adoption of a resolution declaring the Provisional Government "a government to save the revolution ... with unlimited powers," fear that the struggle of the Provisional Government with counter-revolution will be directed against "political movements in opposition to the majority of Soviets" [8] .
July Days 1917
On July 9, the newspaper Zemlya i Volya published a declaration by the Organizing Bureau and factions of the Left Social Revolutionaries of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Executive Committee of the All-Russian Council of the CD, as well as a letter to the newspaper V. A. Algasov , A. L. Kolegaev , Kamkov. Leftists say they intend
| distinguish themselves from the policies adopted by the leadership majority, and reserve ... complete freedom of speech. |
On July 12, the authors of the letter were expelled from the AKP “for belonging to a new organization”, which is not subordinate to the Central Committee. The left agreed in exchange for the cancellation of the Central Committee’s sanction to dissolve the Organizing Bureau. Subsequently, Kamkov wrote that
| the struggle between revolutionary socialism and bourgeois reformism grew out of the confrontation that was inevitable during a period of great social upheaval ... for all socialist parties. [9] |
It was important for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to enlist support from the field. Kamkov traveled to cities with lectures or to attend congresses and conferences. His speech at the 1st Congress of Soldiers' Councils of the Kazan Military District and public lectures (July 30 - August 2) received a public outcry. On August 3, the "Peasant Newspaper" of the Kazan Provincial Zemstvo wrote that
| The report was enthusiastically received by the audience, which roared and whistled did not allow the speaker to make objections. |
On August 6-10, Kamkov participated in the 7th Council of the AKP .
On September 10, the 7th Petrograd Conference of the AKP approved a resolution (rejected by the Party Council) requiring a ceasefire, transfer of power to the Soviets, and land to land committees; condemning the coalition with the bourgeoisie and insisting on the formation of a "homogeneous socialist government." Kamkov was again elected as a member of the AKP PK.
Constituent Assembly
In the Democratic Conference (September 14-22, 1917), in the Pre-Parliament (September 22 - October 25, 1917) Kamkov defended his position. The rejection by most of Kamkov's proposals led him to rapprochement with the Bolsheviks .
On October 6, negotiations of L. B. Kamenev and L. D. Trotsky with Kamkov, MA Natanson, and A. A. Schreider took place. The Bolsheviks informed of their intention to leave the Pre-Parliament and invited the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to join them. The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries replied that they would remain in the Pre-Parliament, but promised "full support to the Bolsheviks in the event of revolutionary action outside of it" [10] .
In the fall of 1917 , Kamkov took a dominant position in the country's largest Petrograd organization, the AKP [11] . The Socialist-Revolutionaries of Petrograd nominated him as a candidate for the Constituent Assembly , the 8th city conference of the RPS on October 15, was re-elected a member of the PC.
Congresses of Soviets
Kamkov directed his efforts at preparing the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, involving the Soviets of Peasant Deputies in his work, organizing workers and soldiers to support the Congress in case "if the Provisional Government had not voluntarily resigned" [12] . At the same time, he sought to prevent the Bolsheviks from seizing power before the congress, which, in his opinion, would spread the Soviet parties on opposite sides of the barricades and plunge the country into a civil war [13] .
Kamkov supported the participation of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. On October 25, at a meeting of the PSR faction of the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets , he advocated participation in its work, and after the refusal of the right, he participated in the formation of the Left Social Revolutionary faction and agreed to represent it in the Presidium of the Congress; included in the "Commission on contacts with the Bolsheviks." In November, Kamkov explained his actions:
| We, as political figures, at the moment when an event of enormous historical significance takes place ... least of all we could deal with moral characterization. It was clear to us that our place was to be with the revolution. [14] |
At the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Kamkov did not agree with the statement of the declaration read out by L. Trotsky that the withdrawal of the Right Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks from the Congress "does not weaken the Soviets, but strengthens them, as it cleans the workers and peasants from counter-revolutionary impurities." He insisted on the formation of a government from all Soviet parties. [15]
| The left should not, said Kamkov, "isolate themselves from moderate democratic forces, it is necessary to seek an agreement with them." Kamkov argued: the danger of restoration has not been eliminated, the Bolsheviks do not have much influence in the village, and the peasantry is the infantry of the revolution, without which the revolution must perish [16] . |
After the October Socialist Revolution
Trying to get the Bolsheviks to agree to a broad government coalition, with the inclusion of all socialist parties in the SNK , Kamkov (and with him V.A. Karelin and V. B. Spiro, then A.L. Kolegaev ) refused to participate in the SNK. Kamkov told:
| “... we understood that we would not help the cause if we pour one or two left Social Revolutionaries into this purely Bolshevik power ... that we are indirectly responsible for the civil war that was inevitable and which now really takes place”; the Left Socialist Revolutionaries wanted the new government “to be recognized, if not by all revolutionary democracy, then at least by its majority ... Our task ... is to link the broken chain that united the two fronts of Russian democracy” [17] . |
The All-Russian Congress of Soviets recognized that the All-Russian Central Executive Committee could be replenished with "representatives of the peasant Soviets and those groups that left the congress." On October 27 at the 1st plenum of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Bolsheviks declared: “implementing the principle of the coalition in practice, the people's commissars cannot and do not close the doors to those who, on the basis of the principles outlined by the congress, want to work with them” [18] .
Kamkov participated in the negotiations under Vikzhel about the creation of a “homogeneous socialist government” . By the decisions of October 29, November 1 and 8, the AKP Central Committee excluded from the party “all who took part in the Bolshevik adventure and did not leave the Congress of Soviets” [19] . In this situation, Kamkov participated in the design of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party, as he believed that “the rightists who did not want an agreement with the Bolsheviks” were guilty of provoking a civil war [20] . On November 6, he entered the Provisional Central Bureau, whose main task was to prepare the constituent congress of the PLSR .
At the II All-Russian Congress of RSD Soviets, Kamkov was elected to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, became a member of its Presidium and the Bureau of the Left Social Revolutionary faction; Since November 6, he headed the International Department with G.E. Zinoviev . Kamkov spoke on the problems of the left bloc, the design of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, peace or war, and the restoration of civil liberties violated by the Bolsheviks. At the Extraordinary All-Russian Congress of Councils of Peasant Deputies [21] Kamkov - fellow chairman of the Presidium; On November 14, he participated in negotiations with the Bolsheviks on the merger of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the second convocation with the Executive Committee formed by this congress, and on the participation of the Left Social Revolutionaries in the government.
At the First Congress of the PLSR [22] in his report “On the Activities of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Faction at the Congress of Soviets of the RSD” Kamkov noted the contradictions between the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, which are based on the attempt of the Bolsheviks to approve the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, and our demand is “the dictatorship of democracy”. However, Kamkov spoke in favor of a close bloc of both parties, for its expansion by that part of revolutionary democracy, which should understand the fallacy of its position. And we “together will create such a power, in relation to which no one could say that this is the power of a separate party, ... but the power of revolutionary democracy” [23] . The congress formed the Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries (Internationalists) . In the elections to the Central Committee, 68 people voted for Kamkov and Spiridonov, only Natanson received more votes - 69.
Acceleration of the Constituent Assembly
Kamkov participated in the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly [24] , in the unification on January 13 of the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets of the RSD and the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets of the CD in the creation of the Peasant Section of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, in the development of a law on the socialization of the land. Kamkov concentrated his efforts on work in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and in the Central Committee of the PLSR . He insisted on rapprochement with the Bolsheviks mainly because they fought against the war, and approved the participation of the Left Social Revolutionaries in the Brest peace delegation.
1918
At the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets of the RSKD (January 10-18), Kamkov told supporters of the continuation of the war:
| For you, one thing is necessary: fight at all costs, fight to the last soldier, even if this led to the death of the revolution. [25] |
However, at the IV All-Russian Congress of Soviets [26] , dedicated to the ratification of the Brest Treaty, Kamkov suddenly declared:
| ... the treaty leads to the complete strangulation of the Russian revolution, the Central Committee of the PLSR recalls its representatives from the SNK and will do everything in its power to provide armed resistance on all fronts [27] . |
In the second half of March 1918 , Kamkov, Karelin and Steinberg went south to campaign for the breakdown of the Brest Peace and to help the local Left Social Revolutionaries in organizing combat units.
They returned to Moscow before the opening of the II Congress of the PLSR [28] . The main thing was the report of Kamkov on the break of the government bloc. On April 25 at an organizational meeting of the Central Committee, Kamkov was elected chairman of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the PLSR . Led by Kamkov, the Central Committee of the PLSR in the first half of May forms the Central Division of fighting squads and partisan detachments, convenes a meeting of left Social Revolutionaries - military experts [29] Kamkov creates a group to carry out terrorist acts against the leaders of the German army; special attention is paid to the participation of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in the Ukrainian government - “Rebel Nine”, the alliance with the Socialist-Revolutionaries-Maximalists , the Ukrainian Left Socialist Revolutionaries; makes decisions aimed at restricting the punitive policies of the Bolsheviks, against the exclusion from the Soviets of the Mensheviks and right-wing Social Revolutionaries; protests against the agrarian policy of the Council of People's Commissars , decrees on food dictatorship (May), on committees of the poor (June); is preparing the Peasant Congress to protect the grain growers from the arbitrariness of the Bolsheviks [30] .
On June 24, the Central Committee decided to put an end to the peaceful respite through a series of terrorist acts and the uprising of workers and peasants against the invaders.
| We consider our actions as a struggle against the present policy of the Council of People's Commissars. |
The Central Committee instructed Kamkov to theoretically substantiate (in newspapers, leaflets) the necessity and goals of the upcoming action. The resolution did not orient the party towards an armed uprising against the Bolsheviks [31] .
At the Third Congress of the PLSR [32], field reports showed that good relations between the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries dominated in the province, that the majority of the population supported the Brest Peace and did not want to fight. Kamkov said that "Brest is the grave digger of the world revolution, that all the troubles in the country are connected with it." N. A. Roslavets , an opponent of Kamkov, noted: “... if Comrade Kamkov, and not Lenin, were at the head of the government, we would not be sitting here, but in the Turukhansk Territory” [33] .
In a closing remark, Kamkov said:
| ... the revolutionary uprising of the peasantry and workers must again be raised to restore the violated achievements of the revolution. In this struggle, we, the Left Social Revolutionaries, will play the main and decisive role. The world revolution will come through our rebellion against German imperialism. [34] |
He was supported by Spiridonov, Karelin, Proshyan. The congress elected the Central Committee from supporters of a tough line towards the Bolsheviks.
At the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets [35], the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries had only 30.3% of the seats — it was impossible to implement the Central Committee’s plans through the Congress.
Kamkov spoke on July 5 as a co-rapporteur and opponent of Lenin. He stated that
| SNK policy is destructive and deadly for the international revolution, and Comrade Lenin, with all the other Bolsheviks, will be swept away if he continues along this path. |
Kamkov argued that only local Councils, and not food detachments, could give bread. They
| they are only ruining the food business ... they are raising the laboring peasantry against the Soviets and kombedas - village lazy committees ... the best way to fundamentally undermine Soviet power ... We frankly declare that we will throw out not only your troops, but your Committees of the poor. |
On behalf of the faction, Kamkov introduced a resolution expressing distrust of the SNK policy [36] .
Leo Eser Rebellion
On July 6, 1918 , the Left Eser revolts against the Bolsheviks began. German Ambassador V. Mirbach was killed by members of the PLSR Blumkin and Andreev. Then everything went wrong as the Central Committee of the PLSR planned. The war did not start, the left communists did not seek an alliance, the province, with few exceptions, did not support it. Kamkov, with a group of members of the Central Committee, was at the headquarters of the detachment of D.I. Popov , the main armed force of the Left Social Revolutionaries. Like other members of the Central Committee (except Proshyan), he insisted on defensive actions. According to the assurances of the Socialist Revolutionary B. A. Babina, Kamkov in 1922 (in Butyrki ) stated: “... we had no intention at all to overthrow them ... on our side was a large part of the people and the army. This is the last thing we wanted to demonstrate to them and to the German imperialists ” [37] .
July 6-7, the speech of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries was suppressed. Kamkov and a number of members of the Central Committee went underground. The units that formed the Party of the Narodnik Communists and the Party of Revolutionary Communism split off from the PLSR . They dissociated themselves from the Moscow events and spoke out for cooperation with the Bolsheviks. At the VI Congress of the PLSR [38], the answer for July 6 was held by Kamkov, Karelin and Proshyan, who did not reconsider their beliefs. Kamkov said that when the world revolution comes, “not the Bolsheviks, but the Left Social Revolutionaries will have chances of success and victory” [39] . D. A. Cherepanov, an opponent of Kamkov, doubted that, in the place of the RCP (b) PLSR, "for a long time, it would endure the existence of another party," which puts obstacles in its path [40] . G. L. Lesnovsky said:
| The revolutionary before the explosion ... thinks over everything, prepares, calculates every little thing before blowing it up. The child, in terrible impatience to do as soon as possible, gets angry and stomps her leg [41] |
. Nevertheless, the congress adopted Kamkov’s resolution and elected him to the Central Committee.
On November 27, the Revolutionary Tribunal at the All-Russian Central Executive Committee examined the case of a conspiracy of the Central Committee of the PLSR "against Soviet power and revolution." Of the 14 people who went through the process, only Spiridonova and Yu. V. Sablin were present. The rest, including Kamkov, were on the run. The court sentenced 10 people, including Kamkov, to imprisonment “in prison with the use of forced labor for three (3) years” [42] .
Repression and death
In December 1918, Kamkov in Lithuania recreated party organizations, then became one of the leaders of the Ukrainian PLSR .
In January 1920 , in Moscow, Kamkov was arrested, but released in May.
In February 1921 he was arrested again. According to the recollections of his cellmates, Kamkov was sure that the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks was doomed, that the struggle of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries would remain in the memory of generations.
In 1923 he was exiled to Chelyabinsk , then to Tver , Voronezh . He served 2 years in prison in the case of the “Labor Peasant Party” . Since 1933 in exile in Arkhangelsk .
He was again arrested by the NKVD in February 1937 . In March 1938 , he witnessed the trial of the "Right-Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Bloc . "
On August 29, 1938, the Three NKVD in the Moscow Region was sentenced to death, the sentence was executed on the same day at the Butovo training ground. Rehabilitated on April 27, 1992 by the prosecutor's office of the Russian Federation.
Compositions
- Les Socialistes-Revolutionnaires de gauche, Geneve, 1918.
- Kamkov B.D. Two tactics / B.D. Kamkov. - PG: Revolutionary socialism, 1918. - 29 p.
- Kamkov B. D. Who are the Left Socialists-Revolutionaries / B. D. Kamkov. - PG: Type. All-Russian Central Executive Committee, 1918 .-- 14 p.
Links
Notes
- ↑ The Affair of the People, 1917, April 7).
- ↑ (ibid., May 5)
- ↑ (May 21-24, Petrograd )
- ↑ (May 4-28, Petrograd)
- ↑ (May 25 - June 4, Moscow )
- ↑ (“3rd Congress of the AKP”, P., 1917, p. 113-14)
- ↑ (leftists had 42 mandates out of 306)
- ↑ ( Gusev K.V. Party of the Social Revolutionaries: from petty-bourgeois revolutionaryism to counter-revolution, M., 1975, p. 150-51)
- ↑ Kamkov B. , Two Tactics, M., 1918, p. eight.
- ↑ (Shteyberg I., From February to October 1917, Berlin - Milan, former city, p. 115)
- ↑ (44.5 thousand people)
- ↑ (“Protocols of the First Congress of the PLSR”, M., 1918, p. 38)
- ↑ (The Banner of Labor, 1917, October 15)
- ↑ (“Protocols of the First Congress of the PLSR”, p. 41-42.)
- ↑ ("2nd Congress of the Soviets of the RSD", M.-L., 1928, p. 43-44.)
- ↑ (The Affair of the People, 1917, October 27)
- ↑ (“Protocols of the First Congress of the PLSR”, p. 43)
- ↑ ("2nd Congress of the Soviets of the RSD", p. 92; Minutes of meetings of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the II convocation, M., 1918, p. 3)
- ↑ “The Work of the People”, N 191, November 10 (October 28), 1917 Cit. by: V.I. Lenin. Compositions. Third stereotyped edition. T. XXII. M., 1929.S. 577
- ↑ (“Protocols of the First Congress of the PLSR”, p. 45)
- ↑ (November 11 - 25, Petrograd)
- ↑ (November 19-28, Petrograd)
- ↑ (“Protocols of the First Congress of the PLSR”, pp. 39-46, 73)
- ↑ (January 6, 1918)
- ↑ ("3rd Congress of Soviets of the RSKD", P., 1918, p. 65)
- ↑ (March 14 - 16, 1918, Moscow)
- ↑ ("4th Extraordinary Congress of Soviets of Workers, Soldiers, Peasants and Cossack Deputies" M., 1920, pp. 23, 40, 51)
- ↑ (April 17-25)
- ↑ (CPA IML, f. 564, op. 1, d. 11, pp. 6, 7 vol., 14).
- ↑ (ibid., Pp. 5-6 vol., 7 vol., 9, 11, 12 vol., 21)
- ↑ (see: “The Red Book of the Cheka”, 2 ed., Vol. 1, M., 1989, pp. 185-86)
- ↑ (June 28 - July 1, 1918, Moscow)
- ↑ (CPA IML, f. 564, op. 1, d. 4, l. 270)
- ↑ (ibid., D. 5, f. 22, 22 vol.)
- ↑ (July 4-10, 1918, Moscow)
- ↑ (“5th Congress of Soviets.” Verbatim Report, Moscow, 1918, pp. 74-75, 98-100)
- ↑ (“The Past.” Historical Almanac, vol. 2, M., 1990, p. 34)
- ↑ (October 2-7, 1918, Moscow)
- ↑ (CPA IML, cf. 564, op. 1, d. 5, p. 91)
- ↑ (ibid., Pp. 171–72)
- ↑ (ibid., D. 5, p. 156)
- ↑ (ibid., Pp. 294–95)