Authors

Discussion

In 1993, a biography of Pavel N. Miliukov (1859–1943) was published in Moscow, covering the first stage of the life and career of this Russian historian and politician. Its author, the Russian historian N. Dumova, noted, however, that producing a comprehensive analysis of the life and activities of the leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party would require the efforts of more than one biographer. Dumova’s observation proved accurate. While Miliukov’s scholarly and political career up to 1918 has been the subject of a considerable number of studies, including monographs (e.g. T. Riha, Stockdale, N. Dumova, T. Bohn, A. Makushin, and P. Tribunsky), the period of the Civil War and his subsequent emigration has, with a few exceptions (e.g. J. P. Nielsen, O. Mitaeva. M. Sadłowski), attracted far less scholarly attention.

The aim of this paper is therefore to examine Miliukov’s attitude towards the Bolsheviks and the Soviet state in the years 1918–1943. This analysis allows us to draw several key conclusions:

1918–1920: Miliukov uncompromisingly opposed Bolshevism and Soviet Russia. He regarded Bolshevism as both an ideology and a political phenomenon rooted partly in Western traditions (especially French anarcho-syndicalism) and partly in Russian conditions. Its ultimate objective, however, was a world revolution; hence the West, in his view, bore a moral and political responsibility to support the White movement;

From late 1920 onwards: Miliukov announced a new political programme, the “New Tactics”. On this basis he abandoned the concept of armed struggle and foreign intervention against Soviet Russia. Instead, he began to interpret Bolshevism as an episode in Russia’s historical development—an outcome rendered unavoidable by the failures of tsarist policy. Nevertheless, he argued that it must be resisted by fostering the social, economic, and cultural emancipation of the Russian population in the direction of democratization, a process that he considered natural and inevitable. As a scholar and a constitutional-democratic politician shaped at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Miliukov believed that, just as under tsarism, Russian society—despite Soviet repression and even Stalin’s dictatorship—would continue to function and develop independently of Bolshevik authorities. Within this process, a new intelligentsia would emerge, develop a sense of agency, and assume responsibility for the fate of the state. At the same time, Miliukov supported the territorial integrity and international interests of the USSR as a Russian state. In this way, he combined a patriotic, imperial, and partly nationalist stance with democratic anti-Bolshevism.