Fourth All-Russian Congress of the Party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (internationalists)

The Fourth All-Russian Congress of the Party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (internationalists) (4-й Всероссийский съезд партии левых социалистов-революционеров (интернационалистов)) was held in Moscow, Soviet Russia from October 2 to 7, 1918. It would be the last party congress of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries before their party disintegrated. At the time of the 4th party congress, the PLSR(i) was badly weakened by the backlash following their failed July 6, 1918, armed plot. The main leader of the party Maria Spiridonova was in jail at the time but addressed the gathering by a written letter.

Background
In the wake of the March 3, 1918, Treaty of Brest-Litvosk, the PLSR(i) had been expanding their organization (the party membership grew from about 60,000 to about 100,000 between April and June 1918). The party was seeking to gain a majority of delegates at the July 1918 Fifth All–Russian Congress of Soviets, and through a Soviet Congress majority they would break the Brest-Litovsk treaty and launch a campaign of revolutionary warfare against Germany. But a last-minute decision from the Bolshevik side to allow representation of the Committees of Poor Peasants (Kombed) at the Soviet Congress, with the holding of a Kombed congress in Petrograd on July 3, 1918, which resolved that peasants from localities that had not been purged of kulaks would be represented by the Kombed delegates rather than local Soviet delegates, ensured a Bolshevik majority at the Soviet Congress. With no chance of gaining power in Soviet Russia through the ballots, the PLSR(i) resorted to terrorism. On July 6, 1918, the PLSR(i) staged an armed revolt, notably assassinating the German ambassador Count Wilhelm von Mirbach (hoping to provoke a resumption of the war with Germany).

The revolt had taken much of the party organization by surprise. Some 40% of the PLSR(i) delegates at the Fifth All–Russian Congress of Soviets (which had opened on July 4, 1918) rejected the uprising. The Governorate-level Party Organizations of Saratov, Astrakhan, Penza and Tver as well as 14 Uyezd-Level Party Organizations rejected the July 6, 1918, revolt. The Saratov City Party Organization along with some PLSR(i) Central Committee members sought cooperation with the Bolsheviks, which held to a split in the PLSR(i) and the emergence of the break-away pro-Bolshevik Party of Revolutionary Communism. The Western Regional Committee of the PLSR(i) rejected the July 6, 1918, actions as an anti-Soviet move by 'adventurers' with counter-revolutionary intentions. But the majority of the party organizations and members that remained in PSLR(i) stood by the party Central Committee – a First Party Council of the PSLR(i) held in early August 1918 endorsed the killing of Count Mirbach.

By October 1918 the PLSR(i) was badly weakened after the failed July 6 revolt. At the 4th party congress, it was estimated that the party had lost two-thirds of its membership since July 1918.

Delegations
The 4th party congress was a numerically smaller gathering than the 3rd party congress – at the 3rd party congress there were 215 delegates with decisive vote. Per the report of the 4th party congress credentials commission, as of October 4, 1918 there 90 delegates with decisive vote present as well as 58 delegates with advisory vote. The 90 delegates with decisive voting rights consisted of 5 representatives of the Regional Committees ('obkom' – Moscow, Western, North-Western and South-Western), 46 delegates from 26 Governorate-level organizations, 38 delegates from Uyezd- or City-level organizations and 1 representative of the Ukrainian Party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries.

The governorate-level delegations included delegates from Cherepovets Governorate, Chernigov Governorate, Kazan Governorate, Kaluga Governorate, Kostroma Governorate, Kharkov Governorate, Kursk Governorate, Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, Novgorod Governorate, Olonets Governorate, Penza Governorate, Pskov Governorate, Ryazan Governorate, Smolensk Governorate, Tambov Governorate, Tula Governorate, Vitebsk Governorate, Vologda Governorate and Yaroslavl Governorate

The other party delegations present included representatives from Vladimirsky Uyezd, Likhvinsky Uyezd, Nevelsky Uyezd, Petergofsky Uyezd, Voronezhsky Uyezd, Dmitriyevsky Uyezd, Mglinsky Uyezd, Moskovsky Uyezd, Yepifansky Uyezd, Vyshnevolotsky Uyezd, Dorogobuzhsky Uyezd, Ostashkovsky Uyezd, Valuysky Uyezd, Belyovsky Uyezd, Novotorzhsky Uyezd, Yekaterinodarsky Otdel, Taganrog Organization, Occupied Gomel Area, Lithuania, Livny, Bogoroditsk, Vyazniki, Kaliazin, Stary Oskol, Vitebsk, Kronstadt, Pyatigorsk, Vologda, Aleksin, Yaroslavl and the Party Organization at the Northern Railway and the Central Bureau of All Railway Organizations.

Ilya Bakkal (who had been one of the leaders of the PLSR(i) faction at the 3rd and 4th convocations of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee), when presenting the credentials commission report, argued that in spite of the extraordinary conditions the PLSR(i) was undergoing only 3 delegate mandates had been questioned and out of those two mandates were later recognized. Per Spiridonova she had received received a report from the 4th party congress credentials committee dated October 6, 1918 which had recognized 107 delegates with decisive voting rights.

Reports from the party organizations
Bakkal held the opening address at the 4th party congress. A party congress presidium consisting of Bakkal, Ilya Mayorov and Yacov Bogachev was elected. Then the gathering would listen to accounts from delegates about the context of the party in their respective areas. These accounts largely detailed difficulties faced by local party organizations in the aftermath of the July 6, 1918 uprising;

Central Committee election
On October 1, 1918, on the eve before the opening of the party congress, a meeting of the PLSR(i) Central Committee and Central Bureau was held. The meeting adopted a resolution calling on the party congress to elect a Central Committee with 15 full members and 5 candidate members.

The election took place on October 3, 1918. Historians have not been able to fully reconstruct the listing of elected Central Committee members from the congress protocols. Leontiev (2007) notes a February 1921 Cheka report naming 15 members of an 'old Central Committee' of the party, consisting of Spiridonova, Vladimir Karelin, Boris Kamkov, Bakkal, Samokhvalov, Isaac Steinberg, Mayorov, Alexandra Izmailovich, Onisim Chizhikov, Vladimir Trutovsky, Mikhail Krushinsky, Alexander Schrader, Donat Cherepanov, Rybin and Yacob Bogachev. Presumably this 'old Central Committee' would have originated at the 4th party congress but would have undergone some changes afterwards. For example Leontiev argues that probably Dmitry Magervosky and Prosh Proshian would have been elected to the Central Committee in October 1918, but notes that Magerovsky broke away and joined the Ukrainian Party of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (Borbists) soon after the 4th party congress whilst Proshian died before the end of 1918. Cherepanov, who is mentioned in the 1921 Cheka report as a Central Committee member, was expelled from the party in September 1919. Some of the 'old Central Committee' members mentioned in the February 1921 report might have been elected as candidate members at the 4th party congress or would have been inducted by decision of the party leadership.

Before the October 3, 1918 vote Krushinsky, Magerovsky and Cherepanov had declared that they were withdrawing from the contest, but the party congress decided to retain them on the list of candidates and elected them anyway.

Debates and resolutions
With the main leader of the party Spiridonova imprisoned at the Kremlin it fell on Kamkov, Karelin and Proshian to represent the Central Committee in bearing responsibility for the July debacle at the 4th party congress. Karelin presented the Central Committee report to the party congress. Kamkov presented a report of tactics for political struggle. Proshian in a speech that the 'disruption' of the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty was a correct line of action. Spiridonova addressed the gathering through a letter which self-critically reviewed the actions of the Central Committee.

During the party congress proceedings a number of delegates, such as Cherepanov, Magerovsky, Krushinsky, Chizhikov and Grigory Lesnovsky, voiced critiques against the actions of the Central Committee. These delegates argued that the party should abandon armed struggle against the Bolsheviks and seek legalization of the party. These propositions were put forth to vote, and were rejected by the majority of party congress delegates. The party congress reaffirmed the line of armed struggle against the Bolsheviks and called for the abolition of the Council of People's Commissars and the transfer of the role of governance to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

The party congress strongly rejected what it described as the conciliatory approach of the Bolsheviks towards German imperialism as well as what the party congress described as the 'replacement of the dictatorship of the working people with the dictatorship of the Bolshevik party'. The party congress call for a 'return to a genuine Soviet system' of governance in Russia, calling for restoration of free elected Soviets and a decentralization of decision-making. Furthermore the party congress endorsed the uprising in Ukraine. The party congress did not deny responsibility nor condemn the killing of Count Mirbach during the July 1918 uprising.

The congress adopted a special resolution 'on the split from the party of the Bitsenko-Grigory Zaks groups' (i.e. the Party of Revolutionary Communism and the Party of Narodnik Communists respectively). This resolution appealed to all local party units to reject the splinter-groups and approved of the purging of the party ranks of 'careerist-unstable and simply dishonest people'.

Aftermath
The 4th party congress failed to heal the wounds in the PLSR(i), which continued on the path to disintegration. Disagreements and tensions between party leaders continued. During the 4th party congress or in its immediate aftermath some key figures, such as Magerovsky and D.E. Sinyavsky broke with the party, and the exodus from the party would continue in the local party organizations as well.