Background
Viktor Chernov was born in Novouzensk, a town southeast of Saratov in Samara guberniya. He was the son of a former serf peasant who had risen to become a low-level functionary in the local civil service.
Viktor Chernov was born in Novouzensk, a town southeast of Saratov in Samara guberniya. He was the son of a former serf peasant who had risen to become a low-level functionary in the local civil service.
He studied at Moscow University (now Moscow State University).
He was the primary party theoretician or the "brain" of the party, and was more analyst than political leader. Early years
His radical proclivities attracted the attention of the local police and Chernov transferred to school in Iurev for his final year of study. He was arrested for his political activities in the spring of 1894 and spent 9 months in Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint St. Petersburg.
Following his incarceration, Chernov was sentenced to a period of administrative exile in central Russia. By the end of the 1880s he was involved in revolutionary activity. After spending some time organizing the peasants around Tambov, he went abroad to Zurich in 1899.
In 1907 he published Philosophical and Sociological Studies in which he espoused the viewpoint of Richard Avenarius. Under Alexander Kerensky"s provisional government in 1917, Chernov was the Minister for Agriculture. He was also the only Chairman of the Russian Constituent Assembly until its disbandment on January 6, 1918.
He joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party upon its founding in 1901 and became the editor of its newspaper Revolutionary Russia.