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    In the Rech Year Book for 1912 -- that miniature political encyclopaedia of liberalism -- we find an article by Mr. Milyukov: "Political Parties in the State Duma in the Past Five Years". Written by the acknowledged leader of the liberals, and an outstanding historian at that, this article deserves our special attention, all the more so since it deals with what may be termed the most important pre-election subject. The political results of the activity of the parties, the question of their role, scientific generalisations regarding the alignment of social forces, the slogans of the forth coming election campaign simply ask to be written about, and Mr. Milyukov had to touch on all these points, once he had tackled the subject, no matter how much he tried to confine himself to a plain relation of the facts concerning the "external history" of the Duma.

    The result is an interesting picture, illustrating the old, but ever new, subject: how is Russian political life reflected in the mind of a liberal?

    "The party of people's freedom," writes Mr. Milyukov, "which in the First Duma predominated numerically and in the Second Duma morally, was represented in the Third Duma by only 56-53 deputies. After holding the position of a leading majority it became an opposition party, retaining, however, its dominant position in the ranks of the opposition, both numerically and qualitatively and by the strict group discipline which characterised the speeches and voting of its representatives."

 
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    The leader of a party, writing about political parties declares that his party "retained . . . its domination . . . qualitatively". Not bad -- only this self-advertisement might -- have been somewhat more subtle. . . . And, then, is it true that the Cadets dominated in respect of strict group discipline? This is not true, for we all remember the numerous speeches of Mr. Maklakov, for example, who isolated himself from the Cadet group and took up a position to the right of it. Mr. Milyukov made an incautious statement for, while it is safe to advertise the "qualities" of one's party, because such an appraisal is entirely subjective, the facts at once refute the advertisement of party discipline. It is characteristic that the Right wing of the Cadets -- both in the Duma, in the person of Maklakov, and in the press, in the person of Messrs. Struve and Co. in Russkaya Mysl -- took their own line and, far from adhering to strict discipline, they destroyed all discipline in the Cadet Party.

    "To its left," continues Mr. Milyukov, "the people's freedom group had only 14 Trudoviks and 15 Social-Democrats. The Trudovik group retained but a shadow of the importance it had formerly had in the First and the Second Dumas. The somewhat better organised Social-Democratic group came out from time to time with sharp invectives regarding 'class contradictions', but, in essence, it could not pursue any tactics other than those also pursued by the 'bourgeois' opposition."

    This is all, literally all, that the distinguished historian has to say about the parties to the left of the Cadets in the twenty pages of his article. But the article is supposed to be devoted to an examination of the political parties in the State Duma -- it goes into the minutest details of every shift in the ranks of the landowners, dealing at length with the sundry "moderate-Right" or "Right-Octobrist groups" and with every step taken by those groups. Why, then, are the Trudoviks and the Social-Democrats practically ignored? For to describe them as Mr. Milyukov does is tantamount to ignoring them.

    The only possible answer is: because Mr. Milyukov has a particular dislike for these parties, and even a plain statement of generally known facts regarding these parties would run counter to the interests of the liberals. In fact,

 
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Mr. Milyukov is perfectly well aware of the reshuffling effected in the composition of the electors which reduced the Trudoviks to "a shadow of the former importance they had had" in the Dumas. This reshuffling, which was effected by Mr. Kryzhanovsky and other heroes of June 3, 1907, undermined the Cadet majority. But can this justify the ignoring and, even worse, the distortion of data relating to the importance of parties having very small representation in the landowners' Duma? The Trudoviks are very poorly represented in the Third Duma, but they have played a very great role during these five years, for they represent millions of peasants. The interests of the landowners especially demanded the reduction of peasant representation. But, we should like to ask, what interests prompt the liberals to brush aside the Trudoviks?

    Or take Mr. Milyukov's ill-tempered sally against the Social-Democrats. Is it possible for him not to know that the "tactics" of the latter are distinguished from that of the Cadets not only because there is a difference between a proletarian and a bourgeois opposition, but also because democracy differs from liberalism? Of course, Mr. Milyukov knows this perfectly well, and he could quote examples from the modern history of all European countries to illustrate the difference between democrats and liberals. The point is that when it concerns Russia the Russian liberal refuses to see the distinction between himself and the Russian democrats. It is to the advantage of the Russian liberal to pose before the Russian readers as a representative of the whole "democratic opposition" in general. But this advantage has nothing in common with the truth.

    Actually, it is common knowledge that the Social-Democrats in the Third Duma pursued tactics absolutely different from those of the bourgeois opposition in general and of the Cadet (liberal) opposition in particular. It may be safely asserted that, had Mr. Milyukov tried to deal with any one specific political issue, he would not have found a single one on which the Social-Democrats did not pursue fundamentally different tactics. Having chosen as his subject a survey of the political parties in the Third Duma, Mr. Milyukov distorted the principal and cardinal point: that there were three main groups of political parties, which

 
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pursued three different kinds of tactics -- namely, the government parties (from Purishkevich to Guchkov), the liberal parties (Cadets, Nationalists and Progressists), and the democratic parties (the Trudoviks representing bourgeois democracy, and working-class democrats). The first two generalisations are clear to Mr. Milyukov, he sees perfectly well the essence of the affinity between Purishkevich and Guchkov on the one hand, and all the liberals on the other. But he does not see the distinction between the latter and the democrats, because he will not see it.

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NOTES



  ^[187] Characters from the works by M. Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin.
    Tverdoonto -- a retired administrator travelling abroad, from the series of essays Abroad.
    Ugryum-Burcheyev -- a satirical portrait of a mayor, drawn by Saltykov-Shchedrin in his History of a Town, who came to be recognised as a typical example of reactionary, stupid and narrow-minded officials.    [p. 502]