The Socialist Revolutionary party, which had been the largest and most popular party in Russia in 1917, did not after the October Revolution just disappear into the "dustbin of history," as Trotsky hoped, but led by its leadership in exile in the 1920s and 1930s continued to observe and comment on developments in Russia.

In emigration, the Socialist Revolutionary (SR) party often put forward policy proposals on a wide range of topics: policies which, based on a shrewd understanding of the real situation in Russia, offered realistic alternatives to the policies being pursued by the...