(Redirected from Black repartition)'Black Repartition' (''Чёрный передел'' in
Russian, or ''Chyornyi peredel''; also known as 'Black Partition'), '
Party of
Socialists-
Federalists', a
revolutionary populist organization in
Russia in the early
1880s.
Black Repartition (BR) was established in August-September of
1879 after the split of
Zemlya i volya (Land and Liberty). The name comes from the Russian countryside, where rumors circulated among
peasants about the approaching repartition (re-allotment would be a more accurate term) of land (hence the name: 'black', for fertility).
Originally, the BR members shared the ideas of ''Zemlya i volya'', renounced the necessity of political struggle and were against
terror and
conspiracy tactics of
Narodnaya Volya. BR preferred
propaganda and agitation as their tactics. The organizers of BR’s central body in
Petersburg were
Georgi Plekhanov,
Pavel Akselrod,
Osip Aptekman,
Lev Deich,
Vera Zasulich and others. This group organized a
print shop and started publishing magazines ''Black repartition'' and ''Core'' (''Зерно'', or Zerno), simultaneously developing ties with students and workers. BR’s
peripheral organs were active in
Moscow,
Kharkov,
Kazan,
Perm,
Saratov,
Samara and other cities.
After Plekhanov, Deich, Zasulich and some other BR members had
emigrated in the beginning of
1880,
Anatoly Bulanov, M.Reshko, K.Zagorsky, M.Sheftel and others replaced them as BR’s leaders. They opened a new printing-house in
Minsk and widened their contacts with workers. BR’s central body moved to Moscow.
In the spring of 1880, BR members
Yelizaveta Kovalskaya and
Nikolai Schedrin organized the
Worker’s Union of Southern Russia (''Южнорусский рабочий союз'', or Yuzhnorusskiy rabochiy soyuz), which comprised several hundreds of workers.
By this time, BR’s vision of
revolution has endured a few changes. The arrests in 1880-
1881 significantly weakened the organization. Seeing the success of ''Narodnaya Volya'', many BR members (
Yakov Stefanovich, Bulanov and others) adopted its
ideology. By the end of 1881, BR ceased to exist as an organization, however, separate BR clubs continued to operate up until the mid-1880s. Plekhanov, Deich, Zasulich and other ex-members of BR took sides with
Marxism and created the first Russian
Marxist organization called
Emancipation of Labor (''Освобождение труда'', or Osvobozhdeniye truda) in
Geneva in
1883.
References
★ Yarmolinsky, Avrahm,
''Road to Revolution: A Century of Russian Radicalism'', 1956. Chapter 12. The People's Will.