Union of Liberation, political organization

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UNION OF LIBERATION was an illegal political organization of liberal democratic orientation. It was founded in 1903. The constituent congress was held in St. Petersburg on 3-5 January 1904 in the flats of lawyer I.A. Korsakov (52 Fontanka River Embankment), Professor A.I. Kaminka (87 Ligovskaya Street) and L.I. Lutugin (2 Twenty-First Line of Vasilievsky Island). The programme adopted in the congress included the demands to introduce constitutional monarchy, create representative institutions on basis of general, equal, direct and secret vote, assert the right of nations for self-determination, and approve compulsory alienation of a part of privately owned lands. According to the charter, The Union of Liberation was a voluntary federation of self-governing organizations and groups of local, professional and mixed character.” The organization was headed by the annually elected Council comprised of local council representatives Prince Peter D. Dolgorukov, N.N. Kovalevsky, N.N. Lvov, Prince D.I. Shakhovskoy, I.I. Petrunkevich (elected in absentia), as well as publicists N.F. Annensky, V.Y. Bogucharsky, S.N. Bulgakov, S.N. Prokopovich, and A.V. Peshekhonov. On 20-22 October 1904, the Second Congress of the Union of Liberation was held in St. Petersburg which adopted the decision to hold a banquet related to the 40th anniversary of the reform of courts of 1864 and organization of professional and political unions.” In April 1905, an illegal publishing house of the Union of Liberation was created in St. Petersburg where the Sheet, the Union of Liberation and other materials were published. St. Petersburg delegates represented 8 groups of the total of 210 people in the Third Congress of the Union of Liberation held on 25-27 March, 1905 in Moscow. The new programme of the Union of Liberation was adopted which later turned into the programme of Constitutional Democratic Party. In the summer of 1905, the Charter of the Union of Workers and the Project of the Russian Constitution were developed. In the autumn of 1905, the Constitutional Democratic Party was created on the basis of the Union of Liberation and of the left wing of the Union of Members of Country Councils of Constitutionalists, the St. Petersburg organization of the Union of Liberation made up a nucleus of the organization in the capital.

References: Шацилло К. Ф. Русский либерализм накануне революции 1905-1907 гг. М., 1985; Либеральное движение в России, 1902-1905 гг. М., 2001.

V. Y. Kanishchev. Annensky Nikolay Fedorovich
Bogucharsky Vasily Yakovlevich
Bulgakov Sergey Nikolaevich
Dolgorukov Pavel Dmitrievich
Kaminka Avgust Isaakovich
Korsakov I.А.
Kovalevsky Nikolay Nikolaevich
Lutugin Leonid Ivanovich
Lvov Nikolay Nikolaevich
Peshekhonov Alexey Vasilievich
Petrunkevich Ivan Ilyich
Prokopovich Sergey Nikolaevich
Shakhovskoy Dmitry Ivanovich, Duke
21st Line of Vasilievsky Island/Saint Petersburg, city, house 2
Fontanka River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 52
Ligovsky Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 87
Шацилло К. Ф. Русский либерализм накануне революции 1905-1907 гг. М., 1985
Либеральное движение в России, 1902-1905 гг. М., 2001 1904