Russian Liberal-Conservative Organizations in Pre-Revolutionary Ukraine: the Poltava Party of Legal Order

Abstract

The article is devoted to the emergence of Russian liberal-conservative political organizations in the Little Russian provinces under the conditions of the revolution of 1905–1907. The focus is on the history of the Poltava organization of the Party of Legal Order, which was a significant political structure of the center-right. The source base for this study was documents stored in the funds of the State Archives of the Russian Federation (Moscow, Russian Federation) and the Russian State Historical Archives (St. Petersburg, Russian Federation). In addition, materials from the periodical press – “Poltavskaya zemskaya gazeta”, as well as the central press were used. The methodological basis of the study is the theoretical developments of specialists in the field of studying the phenomenon of political parties. Using these conceptual constructions, the author comes to the conclusion that the organizers of the Party of Legal Order in Poltava were moderately reformist figures of local zemstvo and city governments. They believed that a progressive movement of Russia was necessary on the basis of the principles proclaimed in the Manifesto of October 17, 1905. Russian nationalism and the negative attitude of law enforcement officers to the idea of equal rights for Jews in Russia were also consolidating factors for many local PPP organizations. The leaders of the Poltava organization of the PPP sought to use administrative resources to carry out a political mobilization of the population based on the principles of the party program. However, the author comes to the conclusion that the project of the Poltava PPP organization cannot be called completely successful. In the context of the political crisis in the country, associated with the defeat in the Russo-Japanese war and unrest in society, the public was not inclined to compromise with the authorities, which was advocated by the law enforcement officers. As a result, the organizers of this party in the Poltava province themselves eventually decided to reorient themselves to other political projects, in particular, to the Union of October 17th. Copyright © 2023 by Cherkas Global University.