The Social Ideal of Early Twentieth-Century Russian Liberal-Centrists

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the origins and essence of the social ideal of the early-twentieth-century Russian liberal-centrists. We note the leading role played by a number of their most prominent representatives who determined the direction of the oldest liberal publications in Russia (the journal Vestnik Evropy and the newspaper Russkie Vedomosti) in shaping the unique quality of Russian liberalism, in forming the “core” of general liberal ideas about the future (beginning in the 1860s). The author establishes that the patriarchs of liberal centrism in the post-reform decades laid the foundations of the “new liberalism” in Russia and argues that it was the liberal-centrists who played the role of “custodians of the foundations” of Russian liberalism in the early twentieth century. The article describes the differences in the sociopolitical position defended by the liberal “center” ideologists and by the party-organizational and strategic-tactical views of the Cadets and the Octobrists. It emphasizes the significance of the psychological and moral–ethical standpoints of the liberal-centrists in the process of their political self-determination. The author shows the innovative character of ideas put forward by the representatives of the “centrist” wing of early-twentieth-century Russian liberalism. Those innovations are especially obvious in the field of party-building, and in the essential contribution to the development of education and to the development of church and religious issues as one of the key concerns in the process of reform. The author draws conclusions about the demand for the liberal-centrist social ideal both in the early twentieth century and in the present day.