We shall deal with the Social-Democratic Party at length elsewhere. Here it will be sufficient to point out certain features of that party that were to have political consequences in the early years of the century. Unlike the SRs, who divided society into “exploiters” and “exploited,” the SDs defined classes in relation to the means of production, and regarded the industrial working class (“proletariat”) as the only truly revolutionary class. The peasants, with the possible exception of those without access to communal land, they considered “petty bourgeois” and, as such, reactionary. On the other hand, to the SDs the “bourgeoisie” was a temporary ally in the common struggle against the autocracy, and capitalism was both inevitable and progressive. The SDs disparaged terror on the grounds that it diverted attention from the main immediate task of the socialists, that of organizing workers, although they benefited considerably from it.
The social background of the leaders as well as the rank and file of the two socialist parties showed no significant differences.49 Their leadership was drawn from the gentry and the middle class—that is, from the same social milieu as that of the liberal party. The SRs had in their top ranks a surprising number of sons of millionaires, among them V. M. Zenzinov, Abraham Gots, and I. I. Fundaminskii.50 For all their dedication to the peasantry, the SRs admitted no peasants into their directing organs, and the SDs, the self-proclaimed party of the working class, allowed very few manual workers into their top ranks.51 In times of unrest (1905–6 and 1917), both parties relied heavily on rural immigrants to the cities, uprooted peasants who had acquired only the most superficial qualities of city dwellers. Psychologically and economically insecure, some of these peasants flocked to the socialists, while others joined the “Black Hundred” gangs that terrorized students and Jews. According to the Social-Democrat P. P. Maslov:
Essentially the activity of local SR groups differed little from that of the SDs. The organizations of both parties usually consisted of small groups of intelligenty, formed into committees, who had little connection with the masses and viewed them mainly as material for political agitation.52
Russian liberals belonged only partly to the ranks of the intelligentsia. They did not share the basic philosophical premise of the radicals—that is, the belief in the perfectibility of man and society. Their stated objectives were not different from those of Western liberals. In their strategy and tactics, however, the Russian liberals drew very close to the radicals: as Paul Miliukov, their leader, liked to boast, their political program “was the most leftist of all those advanced by analogous groups in Western Europe.”53 Ivan Petrunkevich, another leading Kadet, thought that Russian “liberals, radicals, and revolutionaries” were distinguished not by political objectives but by temperament.54
This left-wing tendency was dictated by two considerations. The liberals, appealing to the mass electorate, had to compete with radical parties, which also stood to the left of their Western European counterparts, making the most extreme and Utopian promises to the electorate. It was a challenge they had to meet. To steal the thunder from the socialists, the liberals adopted a radical social program, which included a demand for the expropriation of large landed estates (with compensation at “fair” rather than market prices), as well as Church and state properties, for distribution to the peasants.* Their platform also called for a comprehensive program of social welfare. They would turn a deaf ear to counsels of moderation, afraid of “compromising” themselves in the eyes of the masses and losing out to the socialists.
Even more compelling were tactical reasons. To wrest from the autocracy first a constitution and a legislative parliament and then parliamentary democracy, the liberals required leverage. This they found in the threat of revolution. In 1905–7 and then again in 1915–17, they urged the monarchy to make political concessions to them as a way of avoiding a much worse fate. The party maintained discreet silence in regard to SR terror, which its liberal principles should have caused it to condemn outright.
The political practice of the Kadets thus displayed a troublesome ambivalence—dread of revolution and exploitation of the revolution—and proved a gross miscalculation: playing with the revolutionary threat contributed not a little to promoting the very thing the liberals most wished to avoid. But this they would realize only after the event, when it was too late.
Although more moderate than the socialists, the liberals gave the Imperial regime greater trouble, because they had in their ranks socially prominent individuals who could engage in politics under the disguise of legitimate professional activity. Socialist students were fair game for the police. But who would dare to lay hands on a Prince Shakhovskoi or a Prince Dolgorukov, even as they were busy organizing a subversive liberal party? And how could one interfere with gatherings of physicians or jurists, although it was common knowledge that the participants discussed forbidden subjects? This difference in social status explains why the directing organizations of the liberals could function inside Russia, virtually free of police interference, while the SRs and SDs had to operate from abroad. It also explains why in both 1905 and 1917 the liberals were the first on the scene and in charge, weeks before their socialist rivals made an appearance.
The Russian liberal movement had two main bases of support: the zemstva, and the intelligentsia.
The zemstva were elected on a franchise that ensured solid representation of the landed gentry, then considered by the monarchy to be a staunch supporter. They functioned on the district and provincial level, but the government did not allow them to form a national organization, fearing that it would arrogate to itself quasi-parliamentary functions. The elected deputies tended to be either liberal-constitutionalists or Slavophile conservatives, both hostile to the autocracy and bureaucratic rule, but opposed to revolution. The salaried personnel hired by the zemstva (agronomists, physicians, teachers, etc.), known as the Third Element, was more radical but also non-revolutionary.
Properly treated, the zemstva might have helped stabilize the monarchy. But for the conservatives in the bureaucracy, and especially those in the Ministry of the Interior, the zemtsy were an intolerable irritant: busybodies who meddled in affairs that were none of their business and hindered the efficient administration of the provinces. Under their influence, Alexander III in 1890 restricted the authority of the zemstva, giving the governors wide latitude to interfere with their personnel and activities.
Harassed by the authorities, zemstvo leaders in the 1890s held informal national consultations, often disguised as professional and scientific meetings. In 1899, they went further, organizing in Moscow a discussion group called Beseda (Symposium). Its membership was sufficiently prominent socially and professionally for the police to look at its meetings through their fingers: these took place in the Moscow mansion of Princes Peter and Paul Dolgorukov.55
In June 1900, the government once again restricted the competence of the zemstva, this time in the realm of taxation. It further ordered the dismissal of zemstvo deputies who were especially active in promoting constitutional causes. In response, Symposium, which until then had confined its deliberations to zemstvo affairs, turned attention to political questions. To many zemtsy, the government’s persecution raised the fundamental question whether it made sense to pursue “constructive,” apolitical work under a regime dominated by bureaucracy and police bent on stifling every manifestation of public initiative. These doubts were heightened by the publication in 1901 in Germany of a confidential memorandum by Witte which urged the total abolition of zemstva as institutions incompatible with autocracy.