Conclusion

Abstract

In his memoirs published in 1937, during his Paris exile, Vasilij A. Maklakov bears witness to a clear break in the history of the liberal movement in Russia during the reign of Nicholas II:

‘The liberation movement in the broad sense, i.e. the struggle for the principles of liberalism, for individual freedom, the rule of law and self-government, had long been in existence and had at no point disappeared. In the 1860s it even inspired the autocratic state. But under Nicholas II the nature of this struggle altered. It concentrated exclusively and completely on the fall of the autocracy; it became an open war against [the autocracy]. And precisely this war soon took hold of the whole of society’.