Abstract

The fate of liberalism in Russia almost automatically brings to mind the image of something tragic, of something that perished in its very prime. The fate of the theoreticians and political leaders of liberalism, from B.N. Chicherin to P.A. Stolypin and P.N. Miliukov, reflects the fate of the movement itself—disgrace, exile, violent death. The Bolshevik October Revolution can be dated as the final ruin of the liberal movement in Russia. The lifespan of Russian liberalism thus dates from the middle of the nineteenth century to 1917.