The Cadet Party

POLITICAL parties first appeared in Russia when the Tsar, on October 17, 1905, issued the Manifesto granting civil liberties and popular representation. Prior to this, the government had jealously suppressed every attempt to form parties, convinced that they would ultimately destroy autocracy. Actually one of the causes of the downfall of the Tsarist regime was the fact that during the brief lifespan of Russian parliamentarism the forces supporting the new constitutional system had had no time to organize effectively or to establish a working relationship with the government. The socialist secret organizations, which had arisen at the end of the nineteenth century and were active underground, were neither willing nor able to achieve this. Their conspiratorial nature deprived them of the chief characteristic of political parties-they were not responsible to public opinion. Liberal public opinion found a partial outlet in the organs of rural and municipal selfgovernment. Periodically these organs would summon conventions to discuss their immediate economic and financial problems; but local self-government was so closely bound up with the general political situation that broader political issues could not be avoided. Many participants of the Zemstvo conventions joined the secret Liberation League formed in 1903 with the purpose of fighting for political freedom and popular representation. The Liberation League could by no means be termed a political party. It was rather a kind of war coalition of diverse groups, monarchists and republicans, liberals and socialists, temporarily united to carry on a guerilla fight against the common enemy-autocracy. Of the League's open activities the most important was the publication abroad, first at Stuttgart and then in Paris, of the weekly Osvobozhdenie (Liberation). Next to outspoken criticism of the government it contained a positive program and detailed projects for the most urgently needed reforms. The white paper-covered issues of Osvobozhdenie were smuggled into Russia where they were widely circulated and eagerly read, preparing the minds for the inevitable and long overdue constitutional reform. Inside Russia, the League worked underground, secretly recruiting members and sympathizers; it also arranged meetings of learned societies, ban

Cadet · Political science · Law · Psychology · Soviet and Russian History

• The Impossibility of Conservatism? Insights from Russian History

  Open Access•Vanessa Rampton•The Monist•2016

  Add to list

• A National Liberation Movement and the Shift in Russian Liberalism, 1901-1903

  Open Access•Gregory L Freeze•Slavic Review•1969

  Add to list