Battle Organization

   The Boevaya organizatsiya, or Battle Organization, was the central terrorist organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR). It was responsible for scores of assassinations between 1902 and 1908, including two ministers of internal affairs and members of the royal family. The organization was repeatedly penetrated by agents of the Okhrana but remained a formidable force until 1908, when a radical journalist revealed that its chief, Yevno Azev, was an informer for the Okhrana. The SR continued to see terror as a weapon in the struggle against autocracy.

   Unlike the Bolshevik Party, however, the SR never developed a central apparatus to use terror effectively. After the Revolution of November 1917, a group of “left” SR members joined the Bolsheviks in a coalition government. Their lack of discipline and rejection of Bolshevik strategy and tactics led to a break and the exile or arrest of the leadership.