The Short Life of Russian Liberalism

I IBERALISM in Russia developed under much less favorable conditions than in Western Europe. For this there were several reasons. By definition liberals can function fully and freely only under such liberal institutions as a freely elected parliament and freedom of speech, press and assembly. Not one of these conditions was fulfilled in Imperial Russia, where no national legislature was permitted until the promulgation of the Constitution of 1905. Liberalism flourishes where there is a fairly strong and articulate middle class in town and country. This condition also was not realized in pre-war Russia, with its predominance in the population of illiterate and semi-literate peasants. Finally, although it is dangerous to generalize in this field, there seems to be something in the Russian intellectual temperament that rejects such liberal traits as willingness to compromise, to make haste slowly, to see both sides of a question. The educated Russian who rejected traditional autocracy was likely to embrace some revolutionary absolutist creed rather than to become a moderate liberal. Of the outstanding names in Russian nineteenth-century political thought-Chernyshevsky, Bakunin, Mikhailovsky, Plekhanov, Herzen-only the last and with some qualification, could be designated as a liberal. In Western Europe the organization of political parties with broadly liberal programs considerably antedated the rise of Marxist socialism. In Russia the first congress of the Social Democratic Party was held in 1898, illegally, to be sure. The organization of the leading liberal party, the Constitutional Democrats, or Cadets, took place only during the stormy upsurge of the 1905 revolution.