to anarchists, with whom they shared a fondness for 'propaganda by the deed' and 'direct action', but they themselves rejected this comparison. They were not opposed to the concept of the state as such and envisaged a popular revolutionary dictatorship. They rejected parliamentary democracy as a mere 'lightning rod of popular discontent' (whereas a parliamentary democracy was one of the cardinal demands of the PSR). The Maximalists claimed that what was needed was a population imbued with a general 'toilers' consciousness' and a small, energetic minority, forming a disciplined secret organisation that would seize power and establish a 'Toilers' Republic'. In these respects, the Maximalists were heirs of Blanqui and Tkachev rather than Bakunin or Kropotkin. (They also foreshadowed future currents and methods in Leninism.) The Maximalists boycotted elections to the tsarist State Duma. Prominent Maximalists included E.Iu. Lozinsky (pseudonym 'Ustinov', a former contributor to the PSR's journal Revolutionary Russia, M.I. Sokolov, D.V. Vinogradov, V. Mazurin, M.M. Engelgard (Alexandrovich) and others. Lozinsky was one of the Maximalists' leading theorists and editor of Volniy Disskussioniy Listok (Free Discussion Reader), the group's journal. Sokolov, a charismatic peasant organiser and experienced bank robber and extortionist, was the principal leader of the group and was accepted as a 'born dictator' by his followers. The Maximalists initially received some support from established Socialist-Revolutionary leaders like Ekaterina Breshkovskaya and N.I. Rakitnikov (Maximov), but ultimately, the differences between Maximalism and orthodox Socialist-Revolutionary ideology were too great. In 1906–07, the 'Union of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists' (SSRM) was founded as an independent political party. In theory it was devoted to revolutionary agitation among workers and peasants for an immediate socialist revolution; in practice, much of its energy was directed to fundraising by criminal means and to violence against state officials, capitalists and landowners. In the aftermath of the failed Revolution of 1905–07, the Maximalists were decimated by arrests, but with difficulty they remained in existence as a distinct revolutionary current until 1917, when they participated in the soviets. Always more given to 'action' than to 'theory', the Maximalists soon splintered; some allied with the Left SRs, others joined the Bolsheviks (who had shed their attachment to the Social-Democratic 'two-stage' theory and were in the process of establishing a radical revolutionary dictatorship of sorts). Some Maximalists, however, opposed the Bolsheviks and engaged in anti-Bolshevik actions during the Civil War. Maximalist Klara Klebanova published her memoirs of working in the fighting brigade