Abstract
In the absence of a full-scale history of the Kadet party, historical literature offers very little information on the size, and social composition of the party, the extent of the support it enjoyed among the population at large, and even its policies. The record is more complete for the initial and final stages of the party’s existence than for the period in between, thanks to two studies published in the past two decades, one covering the 1905–7 period and the other 1917–21. However, these two accounts are far from being fair to the Kadets.1 They suffer from the flaw which characterises most modern studies (both Soviet and Western) of late imperial Russian history, which cover the Kadet party as well.2 Namely, they are largely influenced by the polemical attitude towards the Kadets of their contemporary rivals and critics.
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Notes
V. V. Shelokhaev, Kadety — glavnaya partiya liberal′noi burzhuazii v bor′be s revolyutsiei, 1905–1907 gg. (Moscow, Nauka, 1983)
William G. Rosenberg, Liberals in the Russian Revolution, The Constitutional-Democratic Party, 1917–1921 (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1974).
Terence Emmons, The Formation of Political Parties and the First National Elections in Russia (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1983).
Howard D. Mehlinger and John M. Thompson, Count Witte and the Tsarist Government in the 1905 Revolution (Bloomington, Ind., Indiana University Press, 1972)
V. I. Startsev, Russkaya burzhuaziya i samoderzhavie v 1905–1917gg (Leningrad, Nauka, 1977).
Shelokhaev, Kadety, op. cit., and V. A. Kuvshinov, Razoblachenie partiei bol′shevikov ideologii i taktiki kadetov (fevral’-oktyabr’ 1917) (Moscow, Izd. Moskovskogo Universiteta, 1982).
M. Cherniavsky (ed.), The Structure of Russian History (New York, Random House, 1970) p. 342
S. Galai, ‘A Liberal’s Vision of Russia’s Future, 1905–1914; The Case of Ivan Petrunkevich’, in R. C. Elwood (ed.), Russian and Eastern European History (Berkeley, Calif., Berkeley Slavic Specialities, 1984) pp. 96–120.
Maklakov developed his ideas in a series of articles and books which he published as an émigré. See, inter alia, V. A. Maklakov, Vlast’ i obshchestvennost’ na zakate staroi Rossii (Vospominaniya sovremennika) 3 vols (Paris, 1936) and his Pervaya gosudarstvennaya duma (Paris, 1939). The latter was translated into English as The First State Duma (Bloomington, Ind., Indiana University Press, 1964). For a summary of Maklakov’s main charges against his former colleagues, see M. Karpovich, ‘Two Types of Russian Liberalism: Maklakov and Milyukov’, in E. J. Simmons (ed.), Continuity and Change in Russian and Soviet Thought (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1955) pp. 129–43.
On figures for victims of revolutionary terror in October–December 1905, see V. P. Obninskii, Polgoda russkoi revoliutsii (Moscow, 1906) pp. 154–60. On figures for 1906–7, see M. I. Florinsky, Russia, A History and an Interpretation, vol. 2 (New York, Macmillan, 1970) p. 1195.
For information on the number of victims of the violence unleashed by the authorities and the ‘Black Hundreds’, consult: A. Ascher, The Revolution of 1905, Russia in Disarray (Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1988) pp. 253–73
J. Bushneil, Mutiny Amid Repression, Russian Soldiers in the Revolution of 1905–1906 (Bloomington, Ind., Indiana University Press, 1985) pp. 69–70
L. Engelstein, Moscow, 1905, Working-Class Organisation and Political Conflict (Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1982) pp. 220–1
J. Frankel, Prophesy and Politics. Socialism, Nationalism and the Russian Jews, 1862–1917 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981) p. 135
S. Harcave, First Blood, The Russian Revolution of 1905 (London, The Bodley Head, 1964) pp. 203–5
Roberta T. Manning, The Crisis of the Old Order in Russia, Gentry and Government (Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1982) pp. 168–74
D. C. Rawson, The Union of th Russian People, 1905–1907. A Study of the Radical Right, (Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University, 1980) pp. 49–51
H. Rogger, Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia (London, Macmillan, 1986) pp. 198–206.
S. Galai, ‘The Tragic Dilemma of Russian Liberalism as Reflected in Ivan Ilic’ Petrunkevic’s Letters to his Son’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, Neue Folge, Band 29 (1981) pp. 1–29.
The Times (11 August 1906 new style), p. 5, cols 2–3 (‘Russia revisited’) (italics added). For identification of the author, see W. Harrison, ‘The British Press and the Russian Revolution of 1905’, Oxford Slavonic Papers, new series, vol. 8 (1974) pp. 75–95.
The main published sources on the congress are: (1) Byulleteni s″ezda 12–18 Oktyabrya 1905g. (special supplement to Svobodnyi narod, no. 1 (1 December 1905)), hereafter referred to as Bulletins of First Congress; (2) Konstitutsionno-demokraticheskya partiya. S″ezd 12–18 Oktyabrya 1905g (nd), hereafter referred to as First Congress. (The main difference between the two lies in the fact that the former contains the party statutes as approved by the constitutent congress); (3) Russkie vedomosti, nos. 5 (273-5) (18–20 October 1905); (4) Otchyet tsentral′nogo komiteta konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii (Partii Narodnoi Svobody) za dva goda (s. 18 Oktyabrya 1905g. po Oktyabr’ 1907g.) (St Petersburg, 1907) pp. 16–20, hereafter referred to as Otchet ts. k; (5) Vestnik partii narodnoi svobody, no. 1 (22 February 1906) cols 6, 12–14. For modern accounts of the congress, see Emmons, The Formation of Political Parties, pp. 41–5; Shelokhaev, Kadety, pp. 57–9 and Nathan Smith, The Constitutional—Democratic Movement in Russia, 1902–1906 (Ph.D. thesis, University of Illinois, 1958) pp. 462–8.
Pearson’s dislike of the Kadets in general and Milyukov in particular colours not only the above-quoted study, but also his other works which touch on this subject: R. Pearson, ‘Milyukov and the Sixth Kadet Congress’, The Slavonic and East European Review, vol. LIII, no. 131 (April 1975) pp. 210–229
idem., The Russian Moderates and the Crisis of Tsarism, 1914–1917 (London, Macmillan, 1977).
V. M. Petrovo-Solovovo (1850–1908) was a moderate constitutionalist, who, after the publication of the October Manifesto, joined the Octobrist Union. In 1906, he published a critique of the agrarian program of the Party of Peaceful Renewal: V. Petrovo-Solovovo, Lichnaya zemelnaya sobstvennost’ po agrarnoi programme partii ‘Mirnogo Obnovleniya’ (Tambov, 1906). In 1907 he was elected to the Third Duma on the Octobrist ticket; he died before the end of its first session. See, inter alia, Emmons, The Formation of Political Parties, pp. 206, 212–3; Galai, The Liberation Movement, pp. 55, 199–200, 211–2; K. Frohlich, The Emergence of Russian Constitutionalism, 1900–1904 (The Hague, M. Nijhoff, 1981), p. 279
Ben-Cion Pinchuk, The Octobrists in the Third Duma, 1907–1912 (Washington, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1974) pp. 118–19
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© 1992 International Committee for Soviet and East European Studies, and Robert B. McKean
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Galai, S. (1992). The Kadet Quest for the Masses. In: McKean, R.B. (eds) New Perspectives in Modern Russian History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22210-0_6
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