The Liberation Movement in Russia 1900–1905

Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies

by Shmuel Galai

Historians of the Russian Revolution naturally tend to concentrate their attention upon the Bolshevik 'victors' and on the Mensheyiks - ideologically the closest of their rivals, - and to neglect other political movements. For the Russian Liberals at least, Dr Galai redresses this imbalance. This book traces the nineteenth-century origins of the Liberation Movement (also known as the Liberal Movement), the social and historical conditions which led to its formation in the first years of the twentieth century, its policies, influence, initial success and ultimate failure. Against the background of the political and social crisis culminating in the 1905 Revolution, Dr Galai traces the stages by which the Liberation Movement became supreme among the forces of opposition but ultimately was defeated and disintegrated. It failed to fulfil its aim of replacing Tsarist autocracy by a constitutional-democratic regime and to demonstrate effectively that there was an alternative to the extremes of Tsarism and Bolshevism.

Genres: Russia

335 pages, Hardcover

First published June 27, 2002

Reviews

[John]

This volume is part of the Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies series, a series I have come to admire. It includes Gerstein's volume, "Kronstadt, 1917-1921," a wonderfully exciting book for those who know that fact is stranger than fiction, as in "You can't make this stuff up!" It also includes Galai's book, a masterful account of the liberation movement that helped bring about the 1905 uprising, and as far as I can tell, just about the only book in English on the subject.
It is rather stern stuff, however. Clear and convincing but hardly graceful. It grew out of his dissertation, and it shows. Then again not every scholar needs to be a great teller of tales.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

argument is mainly that the factors that led to the primacy of the liberals on the eve of revolution were the same thing that kept them from remaining in control of the liberation movement after the revolution started.