Vyborg Manifesto

The Vyborg Manifesto (Russian: Выборгское воззвание, translit. Vyborgskoye Vozzvaniye; also called the Vyborg Appeal) was a proclamation signed by several Russian politicians, primarily Kadets and Trudoviks) of the dissolved First Duma July 22nd 1906 (July 9th O.S.).

In the wake of the 1905 Revolution, Russia's first modern parliament, the State Duma, was convoked. It rapidly became a voice of radicalism and liberalism, and was subsequently dissolved by the Tsarist government 72 days after convocation. Outraged, several of the members of the first Duma travelled to Vyborg in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, where they signed a 'manifesto' calling for public resistance and tax and draft evasion.

The manifesto was met with 'universal indifference', which allowed the Tsarist authorities to silence the manifesto's contributors, and they were all banned from participating in future Dumas. The result was that the Kadet party turned towards conservatism and no longer consciously identifying themselves as a party for 'the people'.

The Constitutional Democratic Party was formed in Moscow on 12–18 October 1905 at the height of the Russian Revolution of 1905 when Tsar Nicholas II was forced to sign the October Manifesto granting basic civil liberties. The Kadets were to the immediate Left of the Octobrists, another liberal party organized at the same time. Unlike the Octobrists, who were committed to constitutional monarchy from the start, the Kadets were at first ambiguous on the subject, demanding universal suffrage (even for women) and a Constituent Assembly that would determine the country's form of government. The Kadets were one of the parties invited by the reform-minded prime minister Sergei Witte to join his cabinet in October and November 1905, but the negotiations broke down over the Kadets' radical demands and Witte's refusal to drop notorious reactionaries like Petr Nikolayevich Durnovo from the cabinet.

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