Editing Constitutional Democratic Party (section)

{{Short description|1905–1917 Russian centrist political party}}
{{Redirect|Kadet|other uses|Kadet (disambiguation)}}
{{About|the Russian political party|other parties with the same name|Constitutional Democratic Party (disambiguation)|and|People's Freedom Party (disambiguation){{!}}People's Freedom Party|the Russian party dissolved in 2023|People's Freedom Party (Russia)}}
{{more citations needed|date=April 2014}}
{{Infobox political party
| colorcode        = {{party color|Constitutional Democratic Party}}
| name             = Constitutional Democratic Party / Party of Peoples Freedom
| native_name      = Конституционно-демократическая партия / Па́ртия Наро́дной Свобо́ды
| logo             = Svoboda, Kadet symbol.svg
| abbreviation     = K-D; Kadets
| president        = [[Pavel Miliukov]]
| founders         = {{Plain list|
* Pavel Miliukov
* [[Andrei Ivanovich Shingarev|Andrei Shingarev]]
* [[Pavel Dolgorukov]]
* [[Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov|Vladimir Nabokov Sr.]]
* and others
}}
| foundation       = {{start date|df=yes|1905|10|12}}
| banned           = {{end date|df=yes|1917|12|11}}<ref>https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/nov/28.htm <!-- this document uses old-style dates --> Decree On The Arrest Of The Leaders Of The Civil War Against The Revolution</ref>
| headquarters     = [[Saint Petersburg]]
| slogan           = Skill and work for the good of the Motherland <br />({{langx|ru|Умение и труд на благо Родине}})
| newspaper        = ''[[Rech (newspaper)|Rech]]''
| merger           = {{Plain list|
* {{ill|Union of Liberation|ru|Союз земцев-конституционалистов}}
* [[Union of Zemstvo Constitutionalists]]
}}
| ideology         = {{Plain list|
* [[Liberalism]] ([[Liberalism in Russia|Russian]])<br>[[Social liberalism]]<ref>{{cite book |first=Peter |last=Struve |title=The Social Liberalism |pages=412–423 |publisher=Internationales Handwtsrterbuch des Gewerkschaftswesens. |date=1932}}</ref>
* '''1905–1906'''<br>[[Classical radicalism|Radicalism]]<br>[[Republicanism]]
* '''After 1906'''<br>{{nowrap|[[Constitutional monarchism]]}}<br>[[Parliamentarism]]<br>[[Pluralism (political theory)|Pluralism]]<br />[[Russian nationalism]]<ref name="n1">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a1mYDwAAQBAJ | isbn=978-0-691-65677-9 | title=Liberals in the Russian Revolution | date=12 March 2019 | publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref><ref name="n2">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nuk9DwAAQBAJ | isbn=978-0-691-11509-2 | title=The Nation-state in Question | date=5 October 2003 | publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref><ref name="n3">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J6bC1zaRBO0C | isbn=978-3-89244-479-4 | title=Nationalismen in Europa: West- und Osteuropa im Vergleich | date=2001 | publisher=Wallstein Verlag }}</ref><ref name="n4">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gA49AAAAIAAJ | isbn=978-0-521-20041-7 | title=The Russian Constitutional Experiment: Government and Duma, 1907-1914 | date=10 May 1973 | publisher=CUP Archive }}</ref><ref name="n">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jyi4EAAAQBAJ | isbn=978-1-5017-7215-3 | title=Russian Liberalism | date=15 September 2023 | publisher=Cornell University Press }}</ref>}}
| position         = {{Plain list|
* '''1905–1906'''<br>[[Centre-left]] to [[left-wing]]
* '''After 1906'''<br>[[Centrism|Centre]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Maksimov |first1=Konstantin Nikolaevich |title=Kalmykia in Russia's Past and Present National Policies and Administrative System |url=https://archive.org/details/kalmykiarussiasp00maks |url-access=limited |date=2008 |publisher=Central European University Press |pages=[https://archive.org/details/kalmykiarussiasp00maks/page/n186 172]–173 |isbn=9789639776173 }}</ref> to [[centre-right]]<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LHoA4psTCp4C | isbn=978-0-521-51648-8 | title=World War One: The Global Revolution | date=31 March 2011 | publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26697623 | jstor=26697623 | title=Revolutionary Democracy in 1917 and the Bolsheviks | last1=Chattopadhyay | first1=Kunal | journal=Economic and Political Weekly | date=2017 | volume=52 | issue=44 | pages=62–72 }}</ref>
}}
| international    = 
| colours          = {{color box|{{party color|Constitutional Democratic Party}}|border=darkgray}} [[Azure (color)|Azure]] {{color box|#FFFFFF|border=darkgray}} [[White]]
| seats1_title     = [[State Duma (Russian Empire)|State Duma]] ([[1906 Russian legislative election|1906]])
| seats1           = {{Composition bar|178|497|{{party color|Constitutional Democratic Party}}}}
| seats2_title     = [[State Duma (Russian Empire)|State Duma]] ([[January 1907 Russian legislative election|Jan 1907]])
| seats2           = {{Composition bar|124|518|{{party color|Constitutional Democratic Party}}}}
| seats3_title     = [[State Duma (Russian Empire)|State Duma]] ([[October 1907 Russian legislative election|Oct 1907]])
| seats3           = {{Composition bar|54|441|{{party color|Constitutional Democratic Party}}}}
| seats4_title     = [[State Duma (Russian Empire)|State Duma]] ([[1912 Russian legislative election|1912]])
| seats4           = {{Composition bar|59|432|{{party color|Constitutional Democratic Party}}}}
| seats5_title     = [[Russian Constituent Assembly|Constituent Assembly]]
| seats5           = {{Composition bar|24|766|{{party color|Constitutional Democratic Party}}}}
| country          = Russia
}}

The '''Constitutional Democratic Party''' ({{langx|ru|Конституцио́нно-демократи́ческая па́ртия|translit=Konstitutsionno-demokraticheskaya partiya}}, '''K-D'''), also called '''Constitutional Democrats''' and formally the '''Party of People's Freedom''' ({{langx|ru|links=no|Па́ртия Наро́дной Свобо́ды}}), was a [[political party]] in the [[Russian Empire]] that promoted Western [[constitutional monarchy]]—among other policies—and attracted a base ranging from [[moderate conservative]]s to mild [[socialism|socialist]]s.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Pipes|first=Richard|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pfNEY931UzYC&dq=russian+%22constitutional+democratic+party%22+%22centrist%22&pg=PA28|title=Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime|date=2011-05-04|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-307-78861-0|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Pearson |first1=Raymond |title=The Russian Moderates and the Crisis of Tsarism 1914–1917 |date=1977 |publisher=Springer |pages=2–3}}</ref> Party members were called '''Kadets''' (or Cadets) from the abbreviation K-D of the party name.<ref>This name should not be confused with the term ''[[Cadet Corps (Russia)|cadets]]'', which referred to students at military schools in the Imperial Russia.</ref> [[Konstantin Kavelin]]'s and [[Boris Chicherin]]'s writings formed the theoretical basis of the party's platform. Historian [[Pavel Miliukov]] was the party's leader throughout its existence.

The Kadets' base of support were primarily [[Intelligentsia|intellectuals]] and [[professional]]s; university professors and lawyers were particularly prominent within the party.<ref>Hans Rogger, ''Jewish Policies and Right-wing Politics in Imperial Russia'', p. 20.</ref> Many Kadet party members were veterans of the [[zemstvo]], local councils.<ref>''The Zemstvo in Russia: An Experiment in Local Self-government'' (eds. Terence Emmons & Wayne S. Vucinich), p. 441.</ref> The Constitutional Democratic Party formed from the merger of several liberal groupings, namely the [[Union of Liberation]], the [[Union of Zemstvo Constitutionalists]] and the [[Union of Unions]] as well as the organization of [[bourgeois]] professionals and intellectuals, including teachers, lawyers, writers, physicians and engineers.<ref>Melissa Kirschke Stockdale, ''Paul Miliukov and the Quest for a Liberal Russia'', 1880–1918, p. 142.</ref><ref>James W. Long, ''From Privileged to Dispossessed: The Volga Germans'', 1860–1917, p. 207.</ref>

The Kadets' liberal economic program favored the workers' right to an [[eight-hour day]]<ref>Peter Gatrell, ''Government, Industry and Rearmament in Russia, 1900–1914: The Last Argument of Tsarism'', p. 81.</ref> and the right to take strike action. The Kadets "were unwaveringly committed to full citizenship for all of Russia's minorities" and supported [[Jewish emancipation]].<ref>Rogger, p. 20.</ref> The party drew significant support from [[History of the Jews in Russia|Jews]]<ref>Rogger, p. 20.</ref> until 1916,<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hn0aEQAAQBAJ | isbn=978-0-19-762935-2 | title=A Nation of Refugees: Russia's Jews in World War I | date=2024 | publisher=Oxford University Press }}</ref> and [[Volga Germans]] and a significant number of each group were active party members.<ref>Rogger, p. 20.</ref><ref>Long, pp. 207–208.</ref> On the other hand, the Kadets adhered to [[Russian nationalism]] as they largely based their identity on "Russian nation" or the "Russian people" as something opposed to the state bureaucracy; since 1905, they drifted towards statism, and their views on foreign politics were based on  the view of international politics as a "national struggle", and they generally advocated for [[Russian imperialism]], describing Russians as ''Staatsvolk'', and the Russian Empire as their nation-state. However, they differed from the hardline ethnocentric Russian nationalists, as they understood Russians rather as a political identity and defended the rights of ethnic minorities and nations of Russia to have cultural authonomies and to enter the Russian nation. Such views and [[Pan-Slavism]], which they shared with the other moderate right-wing parties, drove them into very hostile attitude towards Germany and Austria-Hungary during the World War I,<ref name="n"/><ref name="n1"/><ref name="n2"/><ref name="n3"/><ref name="n4"/> and by 1917, they were strongly nationalist and defensist;<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r4LTDQAAQBAJ | isbn=978-1-107-13032-6 | title=The Russian Revolution, 1917 | date=2 February 2017 | publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref> during the [[Russian Civil War]], they became proponents of [[military dictatorship]] and territorial integrity of the Russian Empire, and were the strongest supporters of the [[White movement|Whites]] next to the nationalist parties.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d6Pzj_dzxAwC | isbn=978-0-7618-4200-2 | title=The Lost Opportunity: Attempts at Unification of the Anti-Bolsheviks:1917-1919: Moscow, Kiev, Jassy, Odessa | date=15 September 2008 | publisher=University Press of America }}</ref>