Russia’s rapidly growing population was becoming increasingly frustrated with the incompetence of Tsarism. This resulted in the creation of Russia’s early opposition parties, most importantly the Liberals, the Social Revolutionaries and the Social Democrats. When looking at the question, to deliberate whether the Liberals were the most ‘important’, we must consider that before the revolution of 1905, opposition parties to the tsar’s autocratic rule were illegal. Neither ‘important’ events, nor meetings could be legally held. We must, therefore, look at ‘importance’ as the parties’ early ‘support’ from the Russian people.
The Liberals originated from the zemstva, which were Russia’s earliest elected political organisations based all across Russia. They were never a single party, but more an ideology supported particularly by Russia’s growing middle class. They supported the idea of a constitutional democracy, keeping the tsar but also having in place an elected government. The economic boom had created a small but ambitious class of lawyers, industrialists and financiers, who wanted to continue to modernise Russia. This support was very limited but was from a relatively powerful area of the population. Another branch of support came from national minorities such as Poles, who wanted independence. They believed by supporting the strong Liberal idea of Russian nationalism, they would be granted to leave Russia and return to their original settlements. The liberals had little development as a party before 1905, although did publish a newspaper named ‘Liberation’ to spread their political views. The fact they were able to do this showed they had financial backing, and enough readers to make it worth printing. Overall, the Liberals had limited, but substantial support in the new middle and upper classes and national minorities, and limited development.
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