Interpretation of the Historical Component of the Polish Question by Constitutional Democrats at the Beginning of the First World War

Abstract

The outbreak of the First World War actualized the Polish issue, difficult for the Russian Empire, the discussion of which involved the government, the public, and political parties. The need to adapt the party program to the political situation, which was regularly updated under the extremely unstable conditions of wartime, forced the representatives of the Constitutional Democratic Party to turn to the joint historical past of Poland and Russia to substantiate the political present. During the first six months of the war, the Central Committee of the Constitutional Democratic Party carried out intensive work to prepare materials for correcting its program on the national question. There was a gradual integration of the Polish question into the general concept of the state and foreign policies of the Cadets. The Central Committee of the Cadet Party continued to think within imperial categories in relation to space. In the course of lengthy discussions during the meetings of the Central Committee, different points of view within the party were revealed; however, the Central Committee was forced to come to a relatively common opinion, preparing for public presentation a project for the organization of Poland not only to members of the party and the Russian public, but also to the Poles themselves. The analysis of the material accumulated in 1914 shows the clarity of the historical component of the positions of the Cadets and the abstract nature of their political and legal positions.