Eesti Iseseisev Sotsialistlik Tööliste Party
The Estonian Independent Socialist Workers Party ( Estonian Eesti Iseseisev Sotsialistlik Tööliste Party ) was a political party in Estonia during the interwar period .
Estonian Socialist-Revolutionary Party (ESRP)
The party goes back to the Russian Social Revolutionary Party ( Russian Партия социалистов-революционеров), from which it split off as the Estonian section in the summer of 1917. She acknowledged the right of peoples to self-determination under socialist auspices. After the October Revolution in Russia in 1917, she advocated the separation of Estonia from the Russian Empire .
In February 1918, the Republic of Estonia declared its state sovereignty. In the elections for the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of Estonia ( Asutav Kogu ) in April 1919, the Estonian Socialist -Revolutionary Party ( Eesti Sotsialistide-Revolutionääride Party - ESRP) won seven of the 120 seats. She was the leftmost force in the Constituent Assembly.
Its leader, the chairman of the Central Committee, Hans Kruus , openly advocated pro-communist ideas. The party's main goal was radical land reform in Estonia. The party's supporters were popularly known as eseerid ("ESR'ler").
Estonian Independent Socialist Workers Party (EISTP)
With the moderate land reform of 1919 , which largely satisfied the Estonian peasants, and the victory of the Republic of Estonia over Soviet Russia in the war of freedom , the party completely reorganized.
In March 1920 it became the Estonian Independent Socialist Workers' Party ( Eesti Iseseisev Sotsialistlik Tööliste Party - EISTP ). It was also joined by disappointed supporters of the Estonian Social Democratic Workers' Party ( Eesti Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Tööliste Party ). The party's supporters were popularly known as isesotsid (for example, “self-socis”).
At the head of the party were the chairman of the Central Committee, Hans Kruus, as well as prominent politicians Jaan Piiskar and Oskar Gustavson, among others . The party was also supported by the writers Johannes Semper , Hugo Raudsepp and Jaan Kärner, as well as the journalist Karl Oskar Freiberg .
The EISTP represented the political spectrum between social democracy and the Moscow-controlled communists. She shared numerous left-wing socialist approaches with the communists, such as the dictatorship of the proletariat . However, the EISTP rejected a Soviet Russian hegemony in Estonia, as propagated by the Comintern- financed Estonian Bolsheviks .
In the young Estonian democracy, three left-wing parties emerged: the Estonian Social Democratic Workers' Party ( Eesti Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Tööliste Party ), the Estonian Socialist Independent Socialist Workers Party (EISTP) and the banned, Moscow-backed Communist Party of Estonia ( Eestimaa Kommunistlik Party , EKP ).
In the parliamentary elections in 1920 the Estonian Independent Socialist Workers Party got 10.6% of the vote. It became the fourth strongest political force. The leadership initially tried to establish the party as a legal common arm of the Estonian socialists and communists, which the Communist Party of Estonia opposed. In the summer of 1921, Hans Kruus traveled to the III. World Congress of the Communist International in Moscow . The EISTP applied to become a member of the Comintern , but this failed due to the resistance of the EKP.
Independent Socialist Workers Party (ISTP)
It was not until April 1922 that there was extensive agreement with the communists, when Kruus, who belonged to the right wing of the EISTP, withdrew completely from politics. The party then split into a right wing and a left socialist-communist wing.
The latter founded the Party of the Working People of Estonia ( Eestimaa Töörahva Party ). It was banned in January 1924 for anti-constitutional activities. The right wing of the EISTP in turn founded the Independent Socialist Workers Party ( Iseseisev Sotsialistlik Tööliste Party - ISTP), which saw itself as the successor to the EISTP.
In the 1923 elections , the ISTP gained 4.7% and entered parliament with five members. The communists won under their cover organization “Common Front of the Working People” ( Töörahva Ühine Väerind ) with 9.5% almost twice as many votes and ten seats. This reignited the discussion in the ISTP about uniting the right wing of the left socialists with the Estonian Social Democrats ( EDSTP ).
Association of Social Democrats (ESDTP) and Socialists (ISTP)
The discussions about a party merger were successful. In April 1925, the social democratic ESDTP and the socialist ISTP merged. From then on, the joint party was called the Estonian Socialist Workers' Party ( Eesti Sotsialistlik Tööliste Party - ESTP). On June 9, 1925, the parliamentarians elected the Social Democrat August Rei as President of Parliament.
In the parliamentary elections in 1926 , the union of the two left democratic parties became the strongest political force in parliament with 22.9% . From December 1928 to July 1929 August Rei held the office of Head of State and Government ( Riigivanem ) in a coalition government . In the elections three years later, it was even able to increase its result with 24.0%.
Estonian Workers' Party (ETE)
Out of dissatisfaction with the “right” course of the united party, a radical left wing of the ESTP around Eduard Pesur and Paul Abramson split off from the Estonian Socialist Workers' Party in 1926 .
The group founded the Estonian Workers' Party ( Eesti Tööliste Party - ETP). It tried to establish itself as a left-wing socialist alternative. The ETP received 5.8 % of the vote in the 1926 general election and 6.2% three years later .
The ETP was then completely infiltrated by the communists in 1929.
Election results
| choice | Legislative period | be right | MPs (Asutav Kogu = 120 seats) (Riigikogu = 100 seats) |
Surname | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1919 | Asutav Kogu | 5.7% | 7th | Eesti Sotsialistide-Revolutionary Party | Estonian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries |
| 1920 | 1. Riigikogu | 10.7% | 11 | Eesti Iseseisev Sotsialistlik Tööliste Party | Estonian Independent Socialist Workers Party |
| 1923 | 2. Riigikogu | 4.7% | 5 | Eesti Iseseisev Sotsialistlik Tööliste Party | Estonian Independent Socialist Workers Party |
| 1926 | 3. Riigikogu | 5.8% | 6th | Eesti Tööliste party | Estonian Labor Party |
| 1929 | 4. Riigikogu | 6.2% | 6th | Eesti Tööliste party | Estonian Labor Party |
| 1932 | 5. Riigikogu | 5.2% | 5 | Pahempoolsed töölised ja kehvikud | Left-wing workers and small farmers |
End of the party
On March 12, 1934, the right-wing conservative head of state and government Konstantin Päts and General a. D. Johan Laidoner took power in himself with the help of the Estonian military in a bloodless coup . From then on, Päts ruled authoritarian. The parties were banned from operating.
In the summer of 1940 the Red Army occupied Estonia. Numerous prominent left-wing socialists such as Oskar Gustavson , Hugo Raudsepp , Karl Oskar Freiberg and Jaan Piiskar were also victims of political persecution. Other former leading members of the party in turn supported the new Stalinist system of rule. Examples are Johannes Semper , Nigol Andresen and Hans Kruus .
literature
- Sulev Vahtre (Ed.): Eesti Ajalugu. Volume 6: Vabadussõjast Taasiseseisvumiseni. Ilmamaa, Tartu 2005, ISBN 9985-77-142-7 , p. 67 f.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated August 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ under the name Eesti Tööliste party, linna- ja maatöörahva, popside, asunikkude, rentnikkude ja kõigi kehvikute ühine nimekiri - "Joint list of the Estonian Workers' Party, the working urban and rural people, the small farmers, settlers, tenants and all proletarians"
