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Liberal Politics in Wartime Russia: An Analysis of the Progressive Bloc

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Michael F. Hamm
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Extract

My objective in this article is to examine the purpose and the performance of the Progressive Bloc, the wartime majority coalition of Russia’s Fourth State Duma. My analysis, in turn, should promote a more sophisticated understanding of the political behavior of Russia’s moderates, and in particular of Russia’s liberals, during the final years of crisis for the tsarist regime.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , September 1974 , pp. 453 - 468
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1974

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References

1. The Bloc, consisted of six Duma caucuses and comprised about 241 of the 407 deputies in the Duma in August 1915. The Kadets, Progressists, and Left Octobrists formed the “liberal” segment of the Bloc, at least on most issues, while the Centrists, Zemstvo Octobrists, and Progressive Nationalists comprised the more conservative wing. The Nationalist members divided over participation in the Bloc; the group that joined called itself “Progressive Nationalists.“

2. During the first year of the war the Duma had met only on July 26, 1914, when its deputies pledged nearly full support for the war, and during January 27-29, 1915, when its activity consisted mainly of passing the budget. All dates are Old Style.

3. Laverychev, V. la., Po tu storonu barrikad (Moscow, 1967), pp. 101–2 Google Scholar.

4. See the police report in Grave, B. B., ed., Burzhuaziia nakanune fevral'skoi revoliutsii (Moscow. 1927), p. 26 Google Scholar. hereafter BNFR.

5. See Izvestiia Tsentral'nago voenno-promyshlennago komiteta (Petrograd). Aug. 24, 29, Sept. 2, 1915. Laverychev believes that certain Progressists sought unsuccessfully to use the public organizations and provisioning apparatus to wrest political and economic control from the bureaucracy (Po to storonn barrikad, see esp. p. 143). In the case of Progressist textile magnate P. P. Riabushinsky there is considerable evidence to support this. For example, see BNFR, pp. 20-21. For a favorable provincial reaction to the Bloc see the editorial “On the Road to Victory” in the Izvestiia Kostromskago guberuskago zemstva. no. 9, September 1915. which stated that the Duma was capable of bringing order to the country “based on the organization of the people.“

6. BNFR, p. 30.

7. N., Lapin, ed., “Progressivnyi blok v 1915-1917 gg.,” Krasnyi arkhiv, 50-51 (1932) : 122–26Google Scholar, hereafter “Blok.” Gurko, a nonaligned member of the State Council, was active in the Bloc. although the Council's most active supporter of the coalition was Left Group leader D. D. Grimm. Support in the Council varied from issue to issue, but the Bloc could count on fifty to sixty “sure” votes. Council membership remained at roughly 190 to 196, but absenteeism was rampant, especially among the rightist groups.

8. Shidlovsky, S. I., Vospominaniia, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1923). 2 : 44–45.Google Scholar

9. Kornilov, A. A., Parlamentskii blok (Moscow, 1915), p. 12.Google Scholar

10. The complete program is published in Frank, Golder, ed., Documents of Russian History, 1914-1917 (Gloucester. Mass., 1964), pp. 134–36.Google Scholar

11. Kornilov, Parlamentskii blok, pp. 19-20. Kornilov was no doubt sensitive to criticism of the Bloc from several Left Kadets who wanted the party to concentrate on building alliances with the masses and their socialist representatives. Kornilov implied that what occurred in the Duma did not necessarily obstruct this strategy.

12. Cited in Rech', Aug. 31, 1915.

13. Chetvertaia gasudarstvennaia duma : Fraktsiia narodnoi svobody. “Voennyia“ sessii 26 iiulia 1914 goda-3 sentiabria 1915 goda (Petrograd, 1916). p. 32.

14. Rech', Aug. 7, 1915.

15. See Cherniavsky, Michael. ed.. Prologue to Revolution : Notes of A. N. Iakhontov on the Secret Meetings of the Council of Ministers, 1915 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1967), pp. 184, 242Google Scholar. The number of strikes in Moscow and Petrograd did increase significantly in response to the prorogation of the Duma.

16. Miliukov, P. N., Istoriia vtoroi russkoi revoliutsii, 3 vols. (Sofia, 1921-24), vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 27 Google Scholar, and Utro Rossii (Moscow), Sept. 6, 1915.

17. A more thorough examination of this incident and its repercussions may be found in Michael F., Hamm, “Liberalism and the Jewish Question : The Progressive Bloc,” Russian Review, 31, no. 2 (April 1972) : 163–72.Google Scholar

18. Gosudarstvennaia Duma : Stenograficheskie otchety, 1906-17 (Petrograd, 1906-17), session IV, meeting 34, columns 3142-46, hereafter GDSO.

19. Grigorii, Landau, Novyi put’ (Moscow), Apr. 24, 1916.Google Scholar

20. Evreiskaia zhizn’ (Moscow), Apr. 3, 1916, p. 49.

21. See Evreiskaia nedelia (Moscow), during May 1916.

22. GDSO, IV/52/4883-89.

23. Rech', Mar. 11 and Apr. 10, 1916.

24. GDSO, IV/33/3012-14, 3024.

25. For a good bibliography on Russian municipal government and the prospects for reform see “Ukazatel' literatury po voprosu ob organizatsii gorodskago samoupravleniia, “ in Izvestiia Moskovskoi gorodskoi dumy, no. 5, May 1916. See also Shingarev, A. I., “Zemskaia i gorodskaia Rossiia,” in Chego zhdet' Rossiia ot voiny (Petrograd, 1915).Google Scholar

26. D. Protopopov in Rech', May 19, 1916.

27. The 1870 Municipal Statute had based the franchise on payment of taxes. The 1892 act eliminated the small property owner, the entire third curia established by the 1870 law. In some provinces in the Pale of Settlement the 1892 act disenfranchised 90 percent of the existing urban electorate. For an analysis of its impact see Shreider, G. I., “Gorodskaia kontr'-reforma 11 iiunia 1892 g.,” in Istoriia Rossii v XIX veke (Moscow, n.d.), vol. 5.Google Scholar

28. “Soveshchanie gubernatorov v 1916 godu.” Krasnyi arkhiv, 33 (1929) : 163.

29. Izvestiia Vserossiiskago soiuza gorodov (Moscow, October 1916), no. 37, pp. 13-14.

30. Rech', May 19, 1916.

31. GDSO, V/1S/1039.

32. Article 87 enabled the government to pass “emergency” laws when the Duma was not in session. The government often abused this right, and during the war implemented most laws in this fashion. During the fall of 1916 many Bloc members, including the conservatives, wanted to reject all laws enacted by Article 87 which did not pertain to national defense. Time prohibited this, but the issue remained symbolic of the rift between the Duma and the government.

33. GDSO, IV/l 5/1152-53.

34. Thomas, Riha, “Miliukov and the Progressive Bloc in 1915 : A Study in Last Chance Politics,” Journal of Modern History, 32, no. 1 (March 1960) : 24 Google Scholar. Riha is referring to the period of the Bloc's formation, August 1915.

35. Ibid., p. 17.

36. See Trudy vtorogo s˝ezda predstavitelei voenno-promyshlennykh komitetov 26-29 fev. 1916 (Petrograd, 1916), pp. 625-26, and Rech', Mar. 7, 1916.

37. BNFR, pp. 88-89, and Izvestiia Vserossiiskago soiuza gorodov, no. 33, pp. 86-87.

38. My computations are based on statistics compiled by I. P. Leiberov, “O revoliutsionnykh vystupleniakh petrogradskogo proletariata v gody pervoi mirovoi voiny i fevral'skoi revoliutsii,” Voprosy istorii, 1964, no. 2, p. 65. For an analysis of the strike movement in Moscow see G. G. Kasarov, “Stachechnoe dvizhenie v Moskve v gody pervoi mirovoi voiny (19 iiuliia 1914-25 fevralia 1917 g.),” Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta, 1970, no. 6, pp. 28-41.

39. Diakin, V. S., Russkaia burzhuaziia i tsarizm v gody pervoi mirovoi voiny, 1914- 1917 (Leningrad, 1967), p. 199 Google Scholar. Laverychev calls the labor group “social traitors” who were “colonels without an army” (Po tu storonu barrikad, p. 138).

40. BNFR, pp. 62-63.

41. GDSO, V/l/11.

42. Ibid., V/19/1315-16.

43. Ibid., V/14/997.

44. BNFR, pp. 62-63. It should be noted that the Progressists were less fearful of forcing events and less willing to compromise with the government than the other Bloc groups. For this reason the Progressists were never comfortable with their role as a participating group in the coalition.

45. GDSO, IV/31/2797-2814.

46. BNFR, pp. 62-63.

47. See Diakin, Russkaia burzhuaziia, esp. pp. 179, 249, 292-97. See also Russkiia vedomosti, Jan. 11, 1917, and B. B. Grave, K istorii klassovoi bor'by v Rossii v gody imperialisticheskoi voiny (Moscow and Leningrad, 1926), pp. 357-59.

48. Diakin, Russkaia burzhuaziia, p. 178.

49. As I have already pointed out, Konovalov and a few others feared the possibility of a revolutionary situation during the summer of 1915. But there is little evidence among the police reports and Bloc documents to indicate that this fear was pervasive in 1915 or that the Bloc was created as an antirevolutionary front. Laverychev acknowledges that such evidence is lacking but believes that recollections included in various émigré memoirs sufficiently support his view. See Laverychev, Po tu storonu barrikad, esp. p. 121.

50. GDSO, V/21/1520, V/20/1337, and BNFR, p. 147.

51. Soiuz potrebitelei (Moscow), no. 37, Nov. 10, 1916, p. 1371. For a discussion of the unprecedented defection from a progovernment position by rightist members of the Council see Birzhevyia vcdomosti (Petrograd), Nov. 27 and 28, 1916.

52. Gorodskoe delo (Petrograd), no. 21, Nov. 1, 1915, p. 1105.

53. BNFR, p. 173.

54. “Blok,” Krasnyi arkhiv, 56 (1933) : 114.

55. Ibid., p. 122, and BNFR, pp. 139-42.