Russia S Constitutional Revolution

Medushevsky examines constitutionalism in Russia from Tsarist times to the present. He traces the different attitudes to constitutionalism in political thought, and in practice, at different periods, showing how the balance between authoritarianism and liberalism has shifted. In addition, he discusses the importance of constitutional developments for societies in transition, and concludes that post-communist constitutional development in Russia is still far from complete. As an empirical resource, Russian Constitutionalism takes a longer historical view than other books on this topic, and it also goes further than this in its interpretive approach, providing a greater understanding of Russian constitutionalism.

Although many Russians thought that the Constitutional Democrats, or Kadets, would be the party that would lead them through the Russian Revolution into the ranks of the Western European democracies, the Kadets were easily crushed by the Bolsheviks in the struggle for power. How the Kadets responded to the events of the revolution and failed at the time of the party's greatest crisis is the subject of William G. Rosenberg's study. As political history, the book examines the values, programs, organization, and tactices of Russia's most priminent liberal party from 1917 to 1921. As a study of the Russian Revolution and Civil War, it probes the strengths and weaknesses of the one political group whose politices did more to influence the outcome of events that any other political organization except the Bolsheviks. Based largely on party journals and emigre archives, the book focuses not only on the role of the Kadets in the revolution, but also on the broader issue of the relationship of Russiasn liberal politics to revolutionary social forces. William G. Rosenberg is Associate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. Originally published in 1974. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In August 1907 while Iran was in the throes of its Constitutional Revolution, Britain and Russia concluded a secret agreement to divide the country between themselves into zones of influence. In 1910 with the tacit support of the British, Tsarist Russia occupied northwest Iran and violently suppressed the constitutional movement in Tabriz, the northwestern city which was at the centre of the constitutional movement. The ferocity of the Russian occupation took leaders of the constitutionalists by surprise, and in desperation they cried out for help to democratic nations. Edward G Browne was a scholar and professor at Cambridge University who wrote "The Persian Revolution" and the four-volume "Literary History of Persia". He supported the constitutionalists in word and deed. Appalled by the British government's acquiescence of the Russian atrocities in Tabriz, he tried through letters to the editor, political lobbying, and the writing of pamphlets to mobilise public opinion to force the British government to intervene with Russia. "Letters from Tabriz" is the publication, prepared by Browne, of the letters sent to him by Iranian constitutionalist leaders describing, in rousing eyewitness accounts, the Russian atrocities in Tabriz. Its full publication was stifled because of the Anglo-Russian partnership prior to World War I, and it has never been published in English until now.