The Agrarian Program of the Left-Wing Parties

As Chicherin pointed out so clearly and forcefully, there was a close affinity between the old forms of peasant collectivism and the ideal of the socialist collective. Chicherin highlighted that, on the one hand, as we have already noted, the rural commune influenced the outlook of the peasants, so that they became especially susceptible to socialist ideas, while on the other hand many socialists viewed the commune with particular enthusiasm, because they perceived it as an embryonic cell from which a socialist society could develop. The Socialist Revolutionary Party, which saw itself above all as the defender of peasant interests