Commercial and Industrial Party

Commercial and Industrial Party 

a counterrevolutionary party of the big Russian commercial-industrial and financial bourgeoisie. The Commercial and Industrial Party was founded in Moscow in November 1905. The party’s program, issued on Nov. 12, 1905, and signed by the Moscow capitalists G. A. Krestovnikov, A. I. Konovalov, V. P. Riabushinskii, and M. P. Riabushinskii, called for the “formation of a powerful party to aid the government in calming the country and implementing the recently proclaimed principles.” The principles here referred to were those set forth in the Manifesto of Oct. 17,1905.

The first congress of the Commercial and Industrial Party was held Feb. 5–6, 1906; Krestovnikov was elected chairman. The party opposed the convocation of a constituent assembly, the introduction of an eight-hour workday, and the freedom to strike. With regard to the agrarian question, it favored the preservation of large landholdings; peasants were either to acquire otruba (consolidated holdings owned individually by the peasants) or be resettled in the eastern regions of the country. V. I. Lenin relegated the Commercial and Industrial Party to the right wing of the liberal-monarchist parties, against which the party of the proletariat must wage the “most ruthless struggle.” In the elections to the First State Duma, the Commercial and Industrial Party formed a bloc with the Octobrists; toward the end of 1906 the party broke up, most of its members joining the Octobrist party.

REFERENCES

Lenin, V. I. Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 12, p. 232.
Sb. programm politicheskikh partii v Rossii, fase. 4. St. Petersburg, 1906.
Chermenskii, E. D. Burzhuaziia i tsarizm v pervoi russkoi revoliutsii, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1970.

N. F. SLAVIN