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 A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, founded in 1899.Hildermeier, Manfred.
The Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party Before the First World War
'. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. p. 373 The membership of the party included

Grigory Gershuni Grigory Andreyevich Gershuni (russian: Григорий Андреевич Гершуни; – ) was a Russian revolutionary and one of the founders of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Early life Gershuni was born in Kaunas, in the Kovno Go ...

and Catherine Breshkovsky (who would become two of the key architects of the

Socialist-Revolutionary Party The Socialist Revolutionary Party, or the Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries (the SRs, , or Esers, russian: эсеры, translit=esery, label=none; russian: Партия социалистов-революционеров, ), was a major politi ...

) and its membership was predominantly Jewish. The party had its roots in a

Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...

workers' study circle founded in 1895. In 1899 the group had around sixty members.Hildermeier, Manfred.
The Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party Before the First World War
'. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. pp. 35–36. The party directed most of its agitation towards Jewish workers, a fact that differed the party from other

narodnik The Narodniks (russian: народники, ) were a politically conscious movement of the Russian intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against tsarism. Their ideology, known as Narodism, ...

groups. The main base of the party was found in Bielorussia (which had a large Jewish population). The party, which functioned as a federation of autonomous local groups, had branches in

Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Białystok is located in the Białystok Up ...

, Dvisnk, Ekaterinoslav, Zhitomir, Berdichev, and

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. The party published a programmatic manifesto (edited by Gershuni and L. Rodionova-Kliacho) in 1900, titled "About Freedom". The manifesto identified

autocracy Autocracy is a system of government in which absolute power over a state is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject neither to external legal restraints nor to regularized mechanisms of popular control (except perh ...

as the main enemy of the people (rather than

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...

or the industrialists). The document proposed political

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

as a means of struggle against Russian despotic rule. The Workers' Party for the Political Liberation of Russia party was one of the groups that affiliated itself with the

in 1902.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.

References

Defunct socialist parties in Russia Political parties in the Russian Empire Socialist Revolutionary Party {{Defunct Russian political parties