Constitutional Democratic Party

The decision to create the Constitutional Democratic Party was made at the 5th Congress of the Liberal Organization of Zemstvo Figures the Union of Zemstvo-Constitutionalists (July 9-10, 1905 ), on the basis of the task set by the members of the Union to "unite the Zemstvo forces with the whole people" in the process of preparing for the elections to State Duma.

On August 23, 1905, the 4th Congress of the Liberal Intelligentsia Organization of the Liberation Union was held in Moscow, which decided to join the Union of Zemstvo-Constitutionalists and create, together with Zemstvo leaders, a single party. The commissions elected by both Unions formed the Interim Committee, which prepared the unification congress.

Despite the transportation problems caused by the All-Russian political strike , the First (constituent) party congress was held in Moscow from October 12 to 18, 1905. In his opening speech, Pavel Nikolayevich Milyukov described the constitutional-democratic movement as an ideological, extra-class, social-reformist movement, defined the main task of the party being created as “joining the Duma with the exclusive goal of the struggle for political freedom and for proper representation,” and drew the boundaries of the party in the political spectrum Russia follows: from a right-wing parties cadets distinguished denial and bureaucratic centralization, and of Manchester (the direction of the economic policy of the XIX century in England Requiring absolute non-interference of the state in economic life), from the more left - commitment to a constitutional monarchy and a denial of the full requirements of the socialization of the means of production ^[2] . At a meeting on October 14, 1905, the congress adopted a resolution in which it welcomed the "peaceful, and at the same time formidable" labor strike movement and expressed support for its demands ^[3] . The next day, October 15, a message was announced at the congress on the signing by Emperor Nicholas II of the Highest Manifesto on the granting of rights and freedoms to the people. The delegates greeted this news with loud applause and shouts of "Hurray." In a sensual speech, Mikhail Lvovich Mandelstam briefly described the history of the liberation movement, which resulted in the October manifesto, and welcomed the union of intelligentsia, students and workers. Those who gathered stood up honoring the memory of the fighters who died for people's freedom, and vowed not to give this freedom back ^[4] .

At the same time, at a meeting on October 18, the congress gave a skeptical assessment of the Manifesto, noting the vagueness, allegory, and vagueness of expressions, and expressed uncertainty about the possibility of putting its provisions into practice under the prevailing political conditions. The party demanded the abolition of exclusive laws, the convening of a Constituent Assembly to develop a constitution and release political prisoners ^[5] . At the banquet after the congress, P. N. Milyukov ended his speech with the words: “Nothing has changed, the war continues” ^[6] .

The congress adopted the charter and program of the party, elected an interim Central Committee ^[7] .

Cooperation relations between the cadets and the new government of Count Sergei Yulievich Witte did not work out. Witte invited the cadets to join the Cabinet of Ministers, but did not accept their proposal for a general election to the Constituent Assembly in order to develop a constitution, and his negotiations with a delegation of cadet leaders of the Zemstvo Union ( N. N. Lvov , F. A. Golovin , F. F. Kokoshkin ) ended in failure. S. Yu. Witte did not accept the delegation of the Zemstvo-city congress, at which the cadets had a majority, reproaching the liberal public for “reluctance to assist the authorities in carrying out the manifesto and protecting the order” ^[8] .

At the Second Congress (January 5–11, 1906), the subtitle “People’s Freedom Party” was added to the name of the party (the combination “Constitutional-Democratic” was not very clear to the masses of the illiterate population). The congress approved a new program in which it definitely spoke out for a constitutional parliamentary monarchy and the extension of voting rights to women. On the question of participation in the State Duma elections, the congress overwhelmingly decided to take part in the elections despite opposition from the administration and the electoral qualification that cut off workers and part of the peasants from the elections. In case of victory in the elections, the congress declared the main goal of work in the Duma the introduction of universal suffrage, political and civil liberties, and the adoption of urgent measures to calm the country. The congress elected a permanent Central Committee, chaired by Prince. Pavel Dolgorukov , which, in particular, included M. M. Vinaver , I. V. Gessen , N. N. Glebov , Prince. P. D. Dolgorukov , A. A. Kizevetter , F. F. Kokoshkin , A. A. Kornilov , V. A. Maklakov , M. L. Mandelstam , P. N. Milyukov , S. A. Muromtsev , V. D. Nabokov , L.I. Petrazhitsky , I.I. Petrunkevich , F.I. Rodichev , P. B. Struve , N.V. Teslenko , pr. D. I. Shakhovskoy and G. F. Shershenevich ^[9] .

In preparation for the Duma elections, the number of parties grew steadily, reaching 70 thousand by April 1906. This was facilitated by the high level of political activity before the elections, and the opportunity to join the party on the basis of only one oral statement.

The party enjoyed great success in wide circles of both the intelligentsia, the merchants and philistines, and the liberal nobility, and among the working people. She received broad public support from her program of deep political and social transformations, and, on the other hand, the desire to implement these reforms exclusively in a peaceful, parliamentary way, without revolutions, violence and blood.

As a result, constitutional democrats in the I State Duma received 179 out of 499 seats (35.87%), forming the largest faction. Professor Sergey Andreevich Muromtsev , member of the Cadet Central Committee, became the chairman of the Duma, all his deputies (in particular, Nikolai Andreevich Gredeskul ) and the chairmen of 22 Duma commissions were also cadets.

After the dissolution of the First Duma after 2.5 months of its work, the cadets first participated in the meeting of deputies in Vyborg and in the development of the Vyborg Appeal , but soon abandoned the demands of the Vyborg Appeal and went to the elections to the Second Duma under very moderate slogans.

All the signatories of the Vyborg Appeal were deprived of the right to be elected to the Second Duma (during the election they were under investigation) and to the Third Duma (those sentenced to punishment by the court lost their right to vote for 3 years after the end of the sentence). Many popular party leaders were unable to take part in subsequent elections. The success of the cadets in the elections to the First Duma could no longer be repeated.

In the II Duma, they received 98 deputy mandates (a member of the Central Committee, F. A. Golovin , was again elected chairman). In the III Duma, the cadets held only 54 deputies, and in the next (and last) - 59.

After the dissolution of the Second Duma , the cadet party, unlike the socialist parties, continued to act openly, held all-Russian congresses, published and distributed party literature. Numerous clubs and committees functioned on the ground, rallies were held, and funds were raised to support the party. At the same time, the Ministry of the Interior has consistently denied official registration to the Constitutional Democratic Party.

They played a decisive role in the last Duma, in the organizations of the Zemsky and city unions , in the military-industrial committees . They supported the government’s policy in the 1st World War . Initiators of the creation of the oppositional Progressive Bloc ( 1915 ). They performed under patriotic, but radically anti-government slogans. The famous Duma speech of Milyukov with accusations against the government and the court is known (“Is this stupidity or treason?”).

The most influential periodical in the position of the constitutional democratic party was the newspaper Rech .

Initially, the party was organized by representatives of the intelligentsia and the Zemstvo liberal nobility. The party included liberal-minded landowners, the middle urban bourgeoisie (industrialists, merchants, bankers), teachers, doctors, and employees. During the revolutionary upsurge of 1905-1907, many workers, artisans and peasants were members of the party organizations or actively supported the party. The desire of the Cadets to play the role of a constructive opposition and oppose the tsarist government exclusively by parliamentary methods, after the defeat of the 1905 revolution , led to disappointment in the tactics of the Cadets and the outflow from the party of representatives of social groups engaged in physical labor and having low incomes. The reduction in the number of working people in the party continued until the 1917 revolution. During all this time, the cadet party was supported mainly by the middle city class.

After the February Revolution of 1917 , which the Cadets welcomed and which gave them a leading role in the Provisional Government , the size of the Constitutional Democratic Party began to increase sharply due to the mass entry into it of workers and peasants hoping for democratic changes, and due to former progressives , Octobrists and even right-wing monarchists , who saw in it the only hope for the peaceful conclusion of the revolution and the restoration of law and order. However, as the devastation caused by the war intensified and the masses became more radical, the support of the Cadets, who tried to save the monarchy and stood for the war to a victorious end, steadily decreased among the urban lower classes and especially the rural and provincial population, which was reflected in the results of the local elections, which were unfavorable for the Cadets. The failure of General L. G. Kornilov ’s speech , behind which they saw the “hand of the Cadets,” also damaged the party’s reputation. Nevertheless, in the elections to the Constituent Assembly in 1917, the cadets still received the votes of the urban middle class.

“In the February Revolution of 1917, the Cadet tried their best to save the monarchy ” ^[10] . “In the revolution of 1917, they spoke out at their congress for the republic” ^[11] . March 3, 1917 in the Catherine’s Hall of the Tauride Palace, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Constitutional Democratic Party P. N. Milyukov made a speech in which, in particular, he said:

"The old despot, who brought Russia to complete ruin, will voluntarily abandon the throne or be deposed. Power will pass to the regent, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich. Alexey will be the heir ... We cannot leave without an answer the question of the form of the political system without permission. We represent him It’s like a parliamentary and constitutional monarchy. Perhaps others have a different view, but if we argue about it now, instead of immediately resolving the issue, Russia will find itself in a state of civil war and will be reborn only what a ruined regime is about, we don’t have the right to do this ... But as soon as the danger passes and lasting peace is established, we will begin to prepare the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal, direct, equal and secret ballot. the general opinion of Russia: we or our opponents " ^[12] .

However, the attempt of the Cadet leader to save the monarchy in this way failed. On March 2, 1917, Nicholas II changed the decision to abdicate in favor of his young son Alexei and abdicated in favor of his brother Mikhail Alexandrovich , who, in turn, declared that he would accept the supreme power only if the decision of the Constituent Assembly was such . In the circumstances, when members of the Romanov dynasty renounced power, it was difficult to defend the monarchy further. Already at the Seventh Congress of the Constitutional Democratic Party, held in Petrograd on March 25–28, 1917, the party’s program was revised: instead of demanding a constitutional monarchy, it was proclaimed that “Russia should be a democratic and parliamentary republic.”

The cadets dominated the first composition of the Provisional Government , P. N. Milyukov , one of the leaders of the party, became Minister of Foreign Affairs. The cadets were close to the highest command of the army ( M.V. Alekseev and others). In the summer of 1917, in view of the obvious crisis of revolutionary methods of governing the country, they relied on a military dictatorship, and after the failure of the sympathetic Kornilovsky speech , they were removed from the Provisional Government.

During the October Revolution on the night of November 25 (November 7) to October 26, 1917, the cadet ministers ( N. M. Kishkin , A. I. Konovalov , A. V. Kartashev , S. A. Smirnov ), who were in Zimny the palace, along with other members of the Provisional Government, were arrested by the Bolsheviks who captured the palace. On the same night, October 26 (November 8), 1917, members of the Central Committee of the Constitutional Democratic Party V. D. Nabokov, Prince V. A. Obolensky , S. V. Panina joined the anti-Bolshevik Committee for the Salvation of the Homeland and the Revolution , formed by the City Council of Petrograd. 10/27/1917 The Central Committee of the Cadet Party appealed to the population to disobey the Council of People's Commissars . The Central Committee also declared inadmissibility for party members, with the exception of teachers, being in the service of the Bolsheviks.

In November 1917, the cadets took part in the elections to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly . Since the Cadets represented the right wing of the political spectrum , they managed to collect the votes of those forces that rejected Bolshevism and did not accept socialism. However, the number of such voters was small. Basically, the middle layers of large cities voted for the Cadets: the bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia. In Petrograd, Moscow and many cities, the cadets came in second place (after the Bolsheviks), and in 13 cities - in first place, but in the whole country the cadets gained only 4.7% of the vote and received 15 seats in the Constituent Assembly . However, the Cadet deputies could not take part in the work of the Constituent Assembly: on November 28 (December 12), 1917, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR issued a decree declaring the Cadet party to be the "party of the enemies of the people " and stipulating the arrest of its leaders ^[13] .

By a decree of the Council of People's Commissars, 2 deputies of the Constituent Assembly from the Constitutional Democratic Party (Prince Pavel Dolgorukov and F.F. Kokoshkin) and 2 former Ministers of the Provisional Government ( V.A. Stepanov and A.I. Shingaryov ) were arrested. On January 7, 1918, two of them, F. F. Kokoshkin and A. I. Shingaryov, were killed by the Red Guards ^[15] at the Mariinsky Prison Hospital.

The historian Handorin writes ^[16] :

The cadets participated in various underground anti-Bolshevik organizations ( Right Center , National Center , Renaissance Union ) and actively supported the White Movement . The cadet motto was proclaimed "the national restoration of Russia with the help of the new, essentially the spirit of the all-Russian, non-partisan, extra-class power of the Supreme ruler. Held in Omsk in May 1919, the Eastern Conference of the Cadet Party proclaimed A. Kolchak the national leader ^[17] .

In the early 1920s, the Cadet party played a large role in emigration, where a number of programmatic and tactical issues somewhat diverged from each other the various trends in the party. Right Cadets (P. Struve, V. Nabokov), the majority, in their speeches became close to the monarchists . Left Cadets (Republicans), headed by P.N. Milyukov, sought support in the peasantry, which led them to rapprochement with the Socialist Revolutionaries . From the Cadet a part of the so-called “shift workers” came out in exile, who proposed a “ Change of Milestones ” and recognition of the Soviet government.

• equality of all Russian citizens without distinction of gender, religion and nationality;
• freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly, unions;
• inviolability of the person and dwellings;
• freedom of cultural self-determination of nationalities;
• the constitution with the responsible people representatives, the ministry (parliamentary system);
• universal suffrage according to the seven-term formula (1. general, 2. direct, 3. equal 4. secret suffrage without distinction 5. gender, 6. nationality and 7. religion);
• local government on the basis of universal suffrage, covering the entire area of ​​local government;
• independent court;
• tax reform to alleviate the poorest classes of the population;
• free transfer to the peasants of the lands of state, unit, cabinet and monastery;
• compulsory redemption in their favor of part of the privately owned land “at fair value”;
• right of strikes;
• legislative labor protection;
• 8-hour working day, "where its introduction is possible";
• universal free and compulsory primary education.
• cultural self-determination of all nations and nationalities ( religion , language , traditions )
• constitutional autonomy of Finland and Poland
• the unitary structure of Russia, the prevention of its federalization (with the exception of Poland and Finland) ^[19] , the proclamation of the principle of " united and indivisible Russia " ^[20]

• Social liberalism

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