Although many Russians thought that the Constitutional Democrats, or Kadets, would be the party that would lead them through the Russian Revolution into the ranks of the Western European democracies, the Kadets were easily crushed by the Bolsheviks in the struggle for power. How the Kadets responded to the events of the revolution and failed at the time of the party's greatest crisis is the subject of William G. Rosenberg's study.
As political history, the book examines the values, programs, organization, and tactices of Russia's most priminent liberal party from 1917 to 1921. As a study of the Russian Revolution and Civil War, it probes the strengths and weaknesses of the one political group whose politices did more to influence the outcome of events that any other political organization except the Bolsheviks.
Based largely on party journals and emigre archives, the book focuses not only on the role of the Kadets in the revolution, but also on the broader issue of the relationship of Russiasn liberal politics to revolutionary social forces.
William G. Rosenberg is Associate Professor of History at the University of Michigan.
Originally published in 1974.
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