Constitutional Democratic Party
입헌민주당
A liberal party of the Russian Empire founded in Moscow in October 1905. From 1906 it used the subtitle ‘Party of People’s Freedom’, and its members were called Kadets after the abbreviation K-D. Led by Pavel Milyukov, it drew chiefly on intellectuals and professionals such as university professors and lawyers. It was the largest faction in the First Duma and formed the core of the Provisional Government in 1917, but after the October Revolution it was outlawed by the Soviet government, backed the Whites in the Civil War, and most of its leaders emigrated.
In depth
The party was formed by the merger of the Union of Zemstvo Constitutionalists and the Union of Liberation, and its founding congress met in Moscow on 12–18 October 1905. News of the October Manifesto arrived during the congress, which nonetheless judged its wording vague, viewed it sceptically and demanded a Constituent Assembly and the release of political prisoners. The programme called for equality before the law regardless of sex, religion or nationality and for freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and association. According to the English-language source, the party supported the eight-hour day and the right to strike, full citizenship for minorities and Jewish emancipation. Negotiations to join Witte’s cabinet broke down. The Second Congress in January 1906 added the subtitle ‘Party of People’s Freedom’ and wrote a constitutional parliamentary monarchy and women’s suffrage into the programme.
In the 1906 elections to the First Duma the party became the largest faction; the Russian-language source gives 179 of 499 seats, the English-language source over 30% of the seats. The Duma’s chairman, Sergei Muromtsev, was a member of the party’s Central Committee. When the Duma was dissolved in July, Kadet, Trudovik and Social Democratic deputies met in Vyborg and issued the Vyborg Appeal, written by Milyukov, calling for non-payment of taxes and draft evasion; its signatories were then barred from standing for the Duma. According to the Russian-language source the party won 98 seats in the Second Duma, 54 in the Third and 59 in the Fourth. In 1909 Milyukov called the party ‘the opposition of His Majesty’, and in August 1915 it helped form the Progressive Bloc, which demanded a government of ‘popular confidence’.
After the February Revolution the Kadets formed the core of the Provisional Government, with Milyukov as foreign minister. The English-language source says the party held five portfolios in the first cabinet; the Russian-language source says four of eleven. A 1917 party congress replaced constitutional monarchy with a democratic republic in the programme. Milyukov resigned after his April note promising the Allies to continue the war became public, and in July the Kadet ministers resigned in protest at concessions to Ukrainian autonomy. Many Kadets supported Kornilov during the Kornilov affair.
After the October Revolution the party won 4.7% of the vote and 15 seats in the Constituent Assembly election (Russian-language source). On 28 November 1917 (Old Style) the Council of People’s Commissars declared the Kadets a ‘party of enemies of the people’ and ordered the arrest of its leaders; two of those arrested, Kokoshkin and Shingaryov, were murdered on 7 January 1918. During the Civil War the Kadets supported underground anti-Bolshevik organisations and the White movement, held senior posts in the governments of Denikin, Yudenich and Wrangel, and a party conference in Omsk in May 1919 proclaimed Kolchak national leader. When the Whites lost, most of the leadership left Russia, and in emigration the party divided into a right wing and Milyukov’s republicans.