Electoral Blocs in the Moscow Elections to the Fourth State Duma

The article is devoted to the analysis of creating electoral alliances between the Union of 17 October and the government, between the rightists, the progressives and the Constitutional Democratic Party during the electoral campaign for the Fourth State Duma in Moscow. The research methodology corresponds to the mainstream of new political history and includes pragmatic sociology as interpreted by N. Crossley. The novelty of the article consists in the analysis of political practices used by the parties and the government during the local election campaign in Moscow in 1912. The study is based on archival documents from different structures of the Police Department, from the Special Office for the elections to the State Duma, and from the State Council. Published perlustrated letters of politicians, items from the Octobrist newspaper Golos Moskvy are also referred to. The author concludes that the majoritarian electoral system that existed in the capital forced the political players to form alliances. Due to the dominance of the Cadets in the second curia, specific electoral campaigns were implemented by the first curia, and the political players needed to conclude electoral blocs. Aleksandr I. Guchkov and Karl E. Lindeman devised two opposing coalition compositions: the anti-Cadet bloc with the Moscow rightists (as it was in the previous Duma elections in 1907) and the alliance with the progressists and some of the Constitutional Democrats represented by Mikhail V. Chelnokov and Vasilii A. Maklakov. Despite the potential agreement between the Central Committee of the People’s Freedom Party and the Octobrists, the Moscow activists refused contacts with the right-wing liberals. The Conservatives proved to be unorganized and susceptible to the influence of the government during that election campaign. The Deputy Minister of the Internal Affairs refused to support the Octobrists because of their publications about Rasputin and their protest against a loan to build a navy. In August, the Ministry of Internal Affairs stopped supporting the Union of 17 October, and in mid-September the right-wing Cadets withdrew from negotiations with A. Guchkov. As a result, he failed at the election three weeks before polling day.

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