Black Repartition (BR; ; also known as Black Partition) was a

revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates for, a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective to describe something producing a major and sudden impact on society. Definition The term—bot ...

organization in

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

in the early 1880s. Black Repartition was established in August-September 1879 after the split of Zemlya i volya (Land and Liberty) at the Voronezh Congress the previous June. The name comes from the Russian countryside, where rumors circulated among

peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasan ...

s about the approaching repartition. "Chyornyi" in this context does not literally mean "black", but instead "general" or "universal". Originally, the BR members shared the ideas of ''Zemlya i volya'', renounced the necessity of political struggle and were against terror and

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, ploy, or scheme, is a secret plan or agreement between people (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder, treason, or corruption, especially with a political motivat ...

tactics Tactic(s) or Tactical may refer to: * Tactic (method), a conceptual action implemented as one or more specific tasks ** Military tactics, the disposition and maneuver of units on a particular sea or battlefield ** Chess tactics In chess, a tac ...

Narodnaya Volya Narodnaya Volya () was a late 19th-century revolutionary socialist political organization operating in the Russian Empire, which conducted assassinations of government officials in an attempt to overthrow the autocratic Tsarist system. The org ...

. BR preferred propaganda and agitation ('agitprop') as their tactics. The organizers of BR’s central body in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

were

Georgi Plekhanov Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov ( rus, Георгий Валентинович Плеханов, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj vəlʲɪnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ plʲɪˈxanəf, a=Ru-Georgi Plekhanov-JermyRei.ogg; – 30 May 1918) was a Russian revolutionary, ...

, Pavel Akselrod, Osip Aptekman,

Lev Deich Lev Grigorievich Deutsch (; September 26, 1855 – August 5, 1941), also known as Leo Deutsch, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and one of four founding members of Russia's Marxist Organisation, the precursor of the Russian Social Democratic ...

, 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 A peripheral device, or simply peripheral, is an auxiliary hardware device that a computer uses to transfer information externally. A peripheral is a hardware component that is accessible to and controlled by a computer but is not a core compo ...

organs were active in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

Kharkov Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

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, Perm,

Saratov Saratov ( , ; , ) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and administrative center of Saratov Oblast, Russia, and a major port on the Volga River. Saratov had a population of 901,361, making it the List of cities and tow ...

Samara Samara, formerly known as Kuybyshev (1935–1991), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast in Russia. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara (Volga), Samara rivers, with a population of over 1.14 ...

and other cities. After Plekhanov, Deich, Zasulich and some other BR members had

emigrate Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

d 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

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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 Nikolay Pavlovich Schedrin (''Николай Павлович Щедрин'' in Russian language, Russian) (1858 — 10 January 1919) was a Russian revolutionary and narodnik. Biography Nikolay Schedrin graduated from a military gymnasium (sch ...

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 In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...

had changed in a number of ways. 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 An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...

. By the end of 1881, BR ceased to exist as an organization but separate BR clubs continued to operate up until the mid-1880s. Plekhanov, Deich, Zasulich along with other ex-members of BR embraced

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

and created the first Russian Marxist organization called Emancipation of Labor (''Освобождение труда'', or Osvobozhdeniye truda) in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

in 1883.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Authority control 1879 establishments in the Russian Empire 1881 disestablishments in the Russian Empire Defunct socialist parties in Russia Narodniks Political parties established in 1879 Political parties disestablished in 1881 Political parties in the Russian Empire Secret societies in Russia