The All-Russian People’s State Party of V. M. Purishkevich: Program, Structure and Press

Abstract

In this article for the first time in Russian and foreign historiography the authors reconstruct and analyze the creation, the program and the political activity of one of the most outstanding Russian monarchist parties in the White South of Russia — the All-Russian Peoples State Party (1919–1920). Special attention is paid to its leader V. M. Purishkevich (1870–1920), a famous right-wing politician of the early 20th century, the leaders of different units of the party and its periodicals — the newspaper “V Mockvu!” (“To Moscow!”) and the journal “Blagovest” (“Chime”). Using the new sources, the authors discuss in detail the program of the party in its treatment of such vital issues as form of government, civil rights, international relations, agricultural and national policy, national education, etc. The authors prove that in his last political project V. M. Purishkevich made significant adjustments to his pre-revolutionary Black-Hundred programs. This fact draws our attention to ARPSP as an interesting example of the evolution of the views of some Russian right-wing politicians, triggered by the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War following it. The paper also examines and analyzes the attitude of Denikin’s authorities, society and press to ARPSP. The authors reveal such an obscure event as the participation of the party in the election to the Yalta city council. The article is mainly based on archival sources, including V. M. Purishkevich’s personal archive to be used in an academic paper for the first time (which has been kept in the library of the Brussels Free University) (Université Libre de Bruxelles). The authors also made wide use of the white-guard press, both conservative and liberal. All this makes a significant contribution to the historical data concerning the activities of different political parties in the White East.