Abstract
The chapter takes the case of the formation of the Constitutional Democratic party (the Kadets) in the context of emerging mass politics, 1905 revolution, and political reforms. Going against the genealogical approach, the author stresses the contingency and novelty of party liberalism in the early twentieth century. In particular, the chapter explores heterogeneity within the Kadet ranks, the concept of rupture and pluralism in self-representation of the nascent liberal party, and techniques of compromise and negotiation in the pluralist political setting that allowed the party and its platform to cohere. The author also argues that the pluralism of the political and ideological context of Kadet party formation was also matched by pluralism of mobilized space of imperial diversity, which included national, regionalist, and autonomist voices. The context of mobilized imperial diversity is shown to be not only inhibiting but aiding the liberal politics in the Russian Empire.
The research for this chapter was made possible by the research grant Era.Net RUS plus “Post-Imperial Diversities: Majority–Minority Relations in the Transition from Empires to Nations-States” and was funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (research project 18-59-76001).
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Notes
- 1.
See Geoff Eley and David Blackbourn, The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984); Juergen Kocka, “German History before Hitler: The Debate about the German Sonderweg”, Journal of Contemporary History 23, no. 1, 1988, pp. 3–16.
- 2.
Peter Holquist, Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia’s Continuum of Crisis, 1914–1921 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002).
- 3.
Ronald Grigor Suny, “Socialism, Post-Socialism, and Appropriately Modern: Thinking About the History of the USSR” in Red Flag Unfurled: History, Historians, and the Russian Revolution (London and New York: Verso, 2017) and Marina Mogilner, Homo Imperii: A History of Physical Anthropology in Russia (Lincoln, NE and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2013).
- 4.
The general context of the 1905 revolution can be found in Abraham Ascher, The Revolution of 1905, vol. 1: Russia in Disarray (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988); Abraham Ascher, The Revolution of 1905, vol. 2: Authority Restored (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994; Rafail Ganelin, Rossiiskoe samoderzhavie v 1905 godu: Reformy i revoliutsiia (Sankt Peterburg: Nauka, 1991). See also an analysis of political parties as the phenomenon of Russian history in: Leopold Haimson, “The Parties and the State: The Evolution of Political Attitudes”, in Michael Cherniavsky (ed.), The Structure of Russian History: Interpretive Essays (New York: Random House, 1970), pp. 309–340. A new narrative of the 1905 revolution that integrates the dimension of imperial diversity and traces the impact of ethnic, religious and regionalist identities on the politics of revolution and reform of 1905–1907 can be found in Ilya Gerasimov, Marina Mogilner, Sergey Glebov and Alexander Semyonov (eds.), Novaia imperskaia istoriia severnoi Evrazii, vol. 2 (Kazan: Ab Imperio, 2017).
- 5.
See, for example, Jonathan Frankel, Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism and the Russian Jews, 1862–1917 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Stephen F. Jones, Socialism in Georgian Colors: The European Road to Social Democracy, 1883–1917 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).
- 6.
William Rosenberg, Liberals in the Russian Revolution: The Constitutional Democratic Party, 1917–1921 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974); Shmuel Galai, The Liberation Movement in Russia, 1900–1905 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1973); Korneliy F. Shatsillo, Russkiy liberalizm nakanune revolutsii: 1905–1907 (Moskva: Nauka, 1985); Terrence Emmons, The Formation of Political Parties and the First National Elections in Russia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983); Valentin V. Shelokhaev, Kadety – glavnaya partiya liberal’noy burzhuazii v bor’be s revolyutsiyey 1905–1907 gg. (Moskva: Nauka, 1983); Valentin V. Shelokhaev, Ideologiya i politicheskaya organizatsiya rossiyskoy liberal’noy burzhuazii: 1907–1914 (Moskva: Nauka, 1991); Igor’ V. Narskiy, Kadety na urale (Sverdlovsk: Izdatel’stvo Ural’skogo universiteta, 1991); Modest A. Kolerov, Ne mir, no mech’. Russkaya religiozno-filosofskaya pechat’ ot “Problem idealizma” do “Vekh” 1902–1909 (Sankt Peterburg: Ateiya, 1996); Susan Heuman Kistiakovsky, The Struggle for National and Constitutional Rights in the Last Years of Tsarism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998).
- 7.
Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, vol. 2 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 392–438.
- 8.
The rebuttal by Nicholas II concerned the appeal of the Tver zemstvo for expansion of the system of self-government and the introduction of elements of constitutional order. The incident happened in a climate in which Nicholas II was perceived as a liberal-leaning ruler who could reverse the counter-reformist policies of Alexander III. See, Petr Struve, Otkrytoye pis’mo k Nikolayu II, in Za sto let (1800–1896). Part 1. Sbornik po istorii politicheskikh i obshchestvennykh dvizheniy v Rossii (London: 1897), pp. 264–267; Fyodor Rodichev, Vospominania i ocherki o russkom liberalizme (Newtonville, MA, 1983); Petr Struve, “My Contacts with Rodichev”, The Slavonic and East European Review 1 (1933–34), pp. 352–354.
- 9.
Dmitry D. Protopopov, Chto sdelala pervaya Gosudarstvennaia Duma? (Moskva: Narodnoe Pravo, 1906); A. A. Mukhanov and V. D. Nabokov (eds.), Pervaya Gosudarstvennaia Duma Vyp. 1, Politicheskoe znachenie pervoi Dumy (Sankt Peterburg: Obshchestvennaya Pol’za 1907); A.I. Kaminka and V.D. Nabokov (eds.), Vtoraya Gosudarstvennaya Duma (Sankt Peterburg: Obshchestvennaya Pol’za, 1907); N. A. Borodin, L. M. Bramson et al. (eds.), K 10 letiyu 1-oy Gosudarstvennoy Dumy. Sbornik statei pervodumtsev (Petrograd: Ogin, 1916).
- 10.
Thomas Riha, A Russian-European, Paul Milukov in Russian Politics (Notre Dame, LA: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969); Melissa K. Stockdale, Paul Milyukov and the Quest for a Liberal Russia 1880–1918 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996); Alexander V. Makushin and Pavel. A. Tribunskii, Pavel Nikolaevich Milyukov: trudy i dni (1859–1904) (Riazan’: Izdatel’ P. A. Tribunskii, 2001).
- 11.
Paul Milyukov, Russia and Its Crisis (London and New York: Collier Books, 1962). For the original publication see Paul Milyukov, Russia and Its Crisis (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press and T. Fischer Unwin, 1905).
- 12.
See, Paul Milyukov, “K ocherednym voprosam”, Osvobozhdenie 17, 1903, pp. 289–291. This article appeared as a rebuttal of Struve’s conciliatory attitude toward conservative liberals, who opposed the constitutional reform. This article called for spelling out the program of Russian liberalism and exclusion of those who did not adopt a clause of constitutionalism.
- 13.
Milyukov , “Russia and Its Crisis”, p. 398.
- 14.
Lev D. Trotsky, Chto zhe dal’she? Itogi i perspektivy (Peterburg: Rossiyskaya Sotsial-Demokraticheskaya Rabochaya Partiya, 1917). See also Laura Engelstein, “Combined Underdevelopment. Discipline and the Law in Imperial and Soviet Russia”, American Historical Review 98, no. 2, 1993, pp. 338–353.
- 15.
Milyukov , “Russia and Its Crisis”, p. 243.
- 16.
Milyukov added a revised account of the growth of alternatives in Russian history to the uncertainty of the political juncture: “[T]he development of Russia from its primitive state has been very slow. The contrary assertion would be nearer the truth. Far from being stagnant, Russian development has proceeded very rapidly, and thus Russia, having started far behind the other countries, is now overtaking the lands of more ancient culture”. Ibid., pp. 25, 31.
- 17.
Valentin Shelokhaev et al. (ed.), Protokoly Tsentral’nogo Komiteta Konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoy partii. 1912–1914, tom 2 (Moskva: ROSSPEN, 1997), pp. 97–98, 103–104. Here, the discussion in the Central Committee focused on the possibilities of using the foreign policy and the Balkan wars of 1912 in order to revitalize the domestic political mobilization.
- 18.
Valentin Shelokhaev, et al. (ed.), S’ezdy i konferentsii Konstitutsionno-Demokraticheskoy partii: 1905–1907 gg., tom 1 (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1997), p. 150.
- 19.
Petr Struve, “Narod i Duma”, Gazeta Duma 1, 27 April 1906, p. 1.
- 20.
Andreas Kappeler, Rußland Als Vielvölkerreich. Entstehung—Geschichte–Zerfall (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1992).
- 21.
Shelokhaev, “S’ezdy i konferentsii”, pp. 34–41, 189–196.
- 22.
Jane Burbank, “An Imperial Rights Regime: Law and Citizenship in the Russian Empire”, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 7, no. 3, Summer 2006, pp. 397–431 and Sergey Glebov, “Between Foreigners and Subjects: Imperial Subjecthood, Governance, and the Chinese in the Russian Far East, 1860s–1880s”, Ab Imperio, no.1, 2017, pp. 86–130.
- 23.
Shelokhaev, “S’ezdy i konferentsii”, pp. 140–41. See also Diliara Usmanova, Musul’manskiye Predstaviteli v Rossiyskom Parlamente, 1906–1916 (Kazan: Akademiya Nauk Respubliki Tatarstan, 2005).
- 24.
Ibid., p. 141.
- 25.
Ibid., pp. 132–149. See also the Minutes of the Agrarian Commission of the First State Duma in RGIA (Russian State Historical Archive), f. 1278, op. 1(I), d. 223. Reflecting on their discussion in the party congresses, the Kadet members of parliament from the start suggested differentiating the Russian peasant agrarian question from the agrarian question in the borderlands and involving the local governments and societies in solving them, leaning toward the devolution of the general question.
- 26.
Shelokhaev, “S’ezdy i konferentsii”, pp. 159–160.
- 27.
For the productive rather than inhibitive effect of imperial diversity in terms of successful electoral blocs, see Vladas Sirutavicius and Darius Staliunas (eds.), A Pragmatic Alliance: Jewish Lithuanian Political Cooperation at the Beginning of the 20th Century (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2011).
- 28.
Bogdan Kistiakovsky, “M.P. Dragomanov. Ego politicheskie vzgliady, literaturnaia deiatel’nost’ i zhizn’”, in I. M. Grevs and B. A. Kistyakovsky (eds.), M.P. Dragomanov, Politicheskie sochineniia, tom 1 (Moskva: Tip. T-va I. D. Sytina, 1908), pp. ix–lxxix; Ivan Rudnytsky, Essays in Modern Ukrainian History (Edmonton: University of Alberta, 1987), pp. 203–53, 255–281; Alexei Miller, Ukrainskiy vopros v politike vlastey i russkom obshchestvennom mnenii (vtoraya polovina 19 veka) (Sankt Peterburg: Aleteyya, 2000), pp. 220–223. On Dragomanov’s place in the tradition of Russian federalist and decentralist political thought, see Dmitrii von Mohrenschildt, Toward a United States of Russia, Plans and Projects of Federal Reconstruction of Russia in the Nineteenth Century (London-Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1981); Mark von Hagen, “Federalisms and Pan-movements: Re-Imagining Empire”, Jane Burbank, Mark Von Hagen, Anatolyi Remnev, Russian Empire: Space, People, Power, 1700–1930 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007), pp. 494–510.
- 29.
Peter Struve, “Ot redaktsii ‘Osvobozhdeniia’”, in Sobranie politicheskikh sochinenii M.P. Dragomanova, 2 vols (Paris: Osvobozhdenie, 1905), pp. v-vi. See also Boris Anan’ich and Rafail Ganelin, “M.P. Dragomanov i P.N. Milyukov o samoupravlenii i federalizme”, in Boris Anan’ich and Jutta Scherrer (eds.), Russkaya emigratsiya do 1917 g. Laboratoriya liberal’noy i revoliutsionnoy mysli (Sankt Peterburg: Institut rossiyskoy istorii RAN, 1997), pp. 70–89.
- 30.
M.P. Drahomanov, Vol’nyy Soyuz-Vil’na Spilka. Opyt Ukrainskoy politiko-sotsial’noy programmy (Geneva: Tipografiya Gromady, 1884).
- 31.
This was the slogan adopted for the electoral campaign to the first Duma in 1906 by one of the most active branches of the Constitutional Democratic party in Odessa. See TsDIAU (Central State Historical archive of Ukraine), f. 838 (Kollektsia dokumentov), op. 2, d. 1091 “Chego khochet K.D. partiya? Odesskiy komitet PNS”.
- 32.
Wolfgang Mommsen, Max Weber and German Politics, 1980–1920 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984); Maciej Janowski, “Wavering Friendship: Liberal and National Ideas in Nineteenth Century East-Central Europe”, Ab Imperio, no. 3–4, 2000, pp. 69–90.
- 33.
The Ukrainian delegation consisted of Mikhailo Hrushevsky and Maksim Slavinsky. The Kiev Kadets included Nikolay Vasilenko, Baron Fyodor Steingel and Dmitry Grigorovich-Barskii. Sergey A. Ivanov, the MP from the city of Kiev, was elected as a result of the electoral alliance with the non-party union of progressive Ukrainian forces. The charge was made by Maksim Slavinsky. See Shelokhaev, “Protokoly”, pp. 297–321.
- 34.
Ibid., pp. 313–316.
- 35.
Ibid., pp. 307, 319.
- 36.
TsDAGO (Central State Archives of Public Organizations of Ukraine), f. 268, op. 1, d. 4, ll 54–55. Minutes of the meetings of the Khar’kov city committee of the Party of People’s Freedom.
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Semyonov, A. (2019). Wither Russian Liberalism?. In: Cucciolla, R.M. (eds) Dimensions and Challenges of Russian Liberalism. Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05784-8_3
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