Social Democratic Party of Russia (1990)
러시아 사회민주당(1990)
A Russian social democratic party founded in Moscow in May 1990 by social democratic groups of the late perestroika period. Registered by the Ministry of Justice of the RSFSR on 14 March 1991, it was the first new party in Russia not only to be created but also to be registered. It declined amid internal conflict from about 1994 and was finally dissolved by a court decision in 2011.
In depth
The party was preceded by the Social Democratic Confederation, formed in February 1989 from informal clubs and groups in several cities, and by the all-union Social Democratic Association, founded in January 1990. An organising committee formed inside the association held the founding congress in Moscow on 4 May 1990. The first co-chairmen were Pavel Kudyukin, Oleg Rumyantsev and Alexander Obolensky, and the party had about 5,600 members at its founding. In the autumn of 1990 it joined the Democratic Russia movement as a collective member.
In 1992 the co-chairmanship was replaced by a single chairman, but conflict in the leadership continued, and after the 1993 congress Rumyantsev and his supporters left the party. That year the party entered the Yavlinsky–Boldyrev–Lukin electoral bloc and gained deputies in the State Duma. In 1994 the party split in two, with one congress electing Obolensky chairman; a unification congress in 1995 elected Sergei Belozertsev chairman.
In 2002 the party, not having re-registered under the new law on parties, was liquidated by the Ministry of Justice. Obolensky returned to the leadership in 2005 and left the party in 2008, after which it stopped filing reports. On 1 April 2011 the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow declared that the party had ceased its activity, and it was finally dissolved.