A moderate socialist party of the narodnik [Russian populism] type. It was established in 1906. Founders of the party (Aleksey Peshekhonov, Venedikt Myakotin, Nikolay Annensky) were previously close to the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) but they were more moderate, in particular, speaking out against the tactics of terror. The party’s program included the nationalization of landlords’ lands through state purchase and distribution among peasants, the Constituent Assembly convocation, the adoption of the constitution, and the provision of democratic rights and freedoms. The party was not a mass party, it conducted its activities mainly in the State Duma and worked closely with members of the Labor Group (deputies from peasants and intellectuals of the Narodnik trend).

With the beginning of the February Revolution of 1917, the Party got more active and by the summer, it had about 5 thousand members. In June 1917, at the First All-Russian Congress, it merged with the Labor Group and created the United Central Committee of the Labor Popular Socialist Party. The party advocated the establishment of a democratic federal republic in Russia with a broad decentralization of governance. It developed a detailed agrarian program of a socialist nature (with land nationalization). It supported the concentration of power in the hands of the coalition Provisional Government until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. In May–August 1917, Aleksey Peshekhonov held the post of Minister of Food in it. The Popular Socialists had representation in state institutions and public organizations of various levels. They advocated the continuation of the war until the complete liberation of the Russian territories.

The Popular Socialists reacted negatively to the October revolution of 1917. They stood for the unification of the left Constitutional Democrats (Kadets) and moderate and right-wing Socialists (SRs, Mensheviks, non-Internationalists, the Unity Group) to fight the Bolsheviks. Representatives of the Party entered the Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution that was created immediately after the coup; then they joined the Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly (Party leader Nikolay Tchaikovsky was one of the leaders of these organizations).

In the spring of 1918, the Party leaders were among the initiators and heads of the Russian Revival Union, which advocated the fight against the Bolsheviks and Germany. Until the summer of 1918, the Party combined legal and illegal activities. It openly conducted agitation and propaganda work, held rallies and meetings. In June, measures against the party were tightened, and in August, some members of the Central Committee were arrested. On August 30, 1918, Leonid Kannegisser, a Labour Popular Socialist party member, killed the chairman of the Petrograd Extraordinary Commission Moisey Uritsky.

During the Civil War, the Party was a number of independently operating regional organizations. Representatives of the party were members of many anti-Bolshevik governments and organizations: the Provisional All-Russian Government (Ufa Directorate), the Ukrainian People’s Republic Directorate, the Supreme Administration of the Northern Region, the Provisional Regional Government of the Urals, the Russian Government of Aleksander Kolchak, the South Russian Government of General Anton Denikin, etc. In the early 1920s, many Party figures found themselves in exile. In May 1920, the Party’s Foreign Committee was formed in Paris (chaired by Nikolay Tchaikovsky).