Partia Konstytucyjno-Demokratyczna wobec problematyki polskiej w Rosji w latach 1905-1907

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Partia Konstytucyjno-Demokratyczna wobec problematyki polskiej w Rosji w latach 1905-1907

Journal Title: Przegląd Wschodni - Year 2014, Vol 13, Issue 49

Abstract

The Constitutional Democratic Party, formed in October 1905, was the first organized liberal-democratic party on Russian soil, whose creation was the achievement of a many-year process of forming a liberal opposition in Russia. The political conditions for the creation of the Party of People’s Freedom (which the Constitutional Democratic Party was also known as) were on the one hand advantageous for opposition activity (events of the 1905-1907 Revolution) and on the other, forced the acknowledgement of the growing strength of labor opposition. Although the leader of the Kadets, Pavel Miliukov, underlined that the Constitutional Democratic Party, similarly to the Russian Social-Democrats, stood on one side of the opposition movement in Russia, in fact, reality and concrete resolutions of basic political and social problems cause that these streams were never really brought together. The Constitutional Democratic Party opted for Western democratic solutions, keeping in mind the possibility of bringing into being a political system based on a constitutional monarchy, naturally with the guarantee of civic rights gained within the framework of the resolutions of the October Manifesto (17 October 1905). On the basis of a wide-ranging program of social, political and economic changes, the leaders of the Kadet party perceived an opportunity to gain social support for their program. In the first years of their existence they did in fact note real, meaningful successes, proof of which was their crushing victory in the First National Duma elections. The program, proposed at the first plenary meeting of party founders (October 1905), brought into consideration conceptions of political change, which on the road of evolutionary changes, as a consequence, would bring about a model – in the opinion of the Kadets – political system: a constitutional monarchy. The years of the 1905-1907 Revolution brought to light, with great force, conflicts – not just social and political, but ethnic – in answer to which each significant political force had to occupy a definite standpoint. As a multi-ethnic state, Russia had been governed in a strictly centralized manner for ages. In the face of growing social opposition, especially during the 1905-1907 Revolution, demands for autonomy became a real eventuality. The Kadet Party, as that political force which held hopes of political leadership, proposed program of autonomy considering just such a variant of solutions to the ethnic questions pertaining not only to the Kingdom of Poland, but also the Grand Duchy of Finland, whose aspirations of autonomy were whole-heartedly supported by the Kadets. Despite the formal and declarative declaration of the Kadets in support of autonomy for the frontier lands (kresy) this did not, in fact, signify their real and practical support in discussions on the subject in the National Duma. The declaration of the Polish Circle during the Second Duma, raised by Polish deputies, was received practically no support from the Kadets. The fiery speeches of the Kadet politicians Sergey Muromstev and Fyodor Kokoshkin (recognized as a fervent polonophile by Miliukov) gave practically nothing besides a feeling of moral support, felt by Polish activists, including Aleksander Lednicki (a close colleague of Miliukov) as important proof of Polish-Russian cooperation. In this specific instance, Miliukov, analyzing the Polish proposition for solutions concerning the subject of autonomy, decided that they were too far-reaching and thus impossible for the Kadets to accept. In subsequent elections to the Third Duma, the Kadets did not achieve a meaningful victory. In fact, things went the opposite way as radical nationalistic parties came to the fore, which not only did not take into consideration any solutions of autonomy in Russia, but felt that the concessions directed at Poles and Finns to date were too far-reaching, and by that same token, returning to earlier anti-Polish and anti-Finnish activity.

Authors and Affiliations

Barbara Szordykowska

Keywords

Problematyka wschodnia w aktach dotyczących Józefa Piłsudskiego z lat 1916-1918 w Austriackim Archiwum Państwowym w Wiedniu

The 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, and the rebirth of the Polish state associated with it, reminds us of the figure of Józef Piłsudski, the creator of the Polish armed action and the greatest bannerman for...

EP ID EP333170
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