The Octobrist Party as the right-liberal flank of Russia's political Olympus

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:54

The beginning of the 20th century was marked for the Russian Empire by a stormy socio-political movement among the masses, among the intelligentsia, even the big magnates were dissatisfied with the current political and economic situation, which was revealed during the revolution of 1905-1907. One of its most important achievements can safely be called political pluralism. And one of its manifestations was the Octobrist Party.

Prerequisites for the formation of the Octobrist Party

Even in the period after the liberal reforms of the nineteenth century, movements and political circles of a liberal nature began to appear in Russia, all of them were very diverse and were not systemic. The active development of capitalist relations after 1861 led to a powerful industrial revolution. A new class of owner-manufacturers is becoming more and more important. In the course of bourgeois revolutions and reforms, the bourgeoisie came to power in almost all European countries. There have been significant changes in political systems; general suffrage, an independent judiciary, different ways of political action, which cannot be said about Russia. In fact, the bourgeoisie was deprived of the opportunity in any way to influenceon political decisions, which, of course, did not suit Russian industrialists at all.

Formation of the Octobrist Party

Among Russian liberals, as noted above, there was no unity, and gradually a disengagement began between them, which aggravated and ended already as a result of the revolutionary events of the beginning of the last century. On October 17, 1905, the emperor signs a manifesto on changing the political foundations of the Russian Empire. This is how the Octobrist Party was born. It mainly consisted of large entrepreneurs, merchants, landowners, immediately supported the tsar's manifesto and believed that the revolution had achieved its goals. The Octobrist Party went over to the side of the government camp and no longer supported the revolutionary slogans. The leader of the Octobrist party A. I. Guchkov came from a family of peasants, at the end of the 19th century he took up financial activities and soon his successes allowed him to take the post of chairman of the board of the merchant bank of Moscow. His position in the reform of Russian political reality was very moderate and amounted to an evolutionary change in the social system.

Soyuz party program on October 17

The Octobrist Party put forward its own program for the reorganization of Russia. Its main provisions were:

• Preserving the unity and indivisibility of Russia in the form of a constitutional monarchy.
• Equal suffrage.
• Civil rights guarantees.
• Creationstate land fund to help small farms.
• An independent and fair court.
• Development of the national education system, transport system.

The Russian middle bourgeoisie and the Octobrist Party did not get along at all, this is evidenced by the emergence of a commercial and industrial party, which concentrated the bulk of the middle strata of Russian society in itself. Over the years, an incorrect tactical struggle with opponents, and later sliding in her views towards radical monarchists, did not allow her to take any important positions. This political party (Octobrists) disappears from the political arena in 1917.