After the Bolsheviks came to power, the Kadets became their irreconcilable opponents. They became part of the anti-Bolshevik Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution and the Right Center, actively helped the emerging Volunteer Army. In the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the party received 4.7 % of votes, taking first and second places in many large cities. By the decree of the Council of People’s Commissars of November 28, 1917, the Constitutional Democratic Party was declared a party of “enemies of the people”. However, for several more months, the Kadets continued their open activities in Soviet Russia.

 

In the spring of 1918, the Kadets became part of the anti-Bolshevik Russian Revival Union. In May 1918, representatives of the Ukrainian Kadet organization entered the government of Pavel Skoropadsky, who relied on German support. At a conference in Moscow at the end of May 1918, the party declared its loyalty to Russia’s allies, expecting support from Great Britain and France in the fight against the Bolsheviks. The current party tasks were as follows: the revival of united Russia, the establishment of sole power in the country, the creation of an alliance with other parties and groups to fight against the Bolsheviks, the support for the Volunteer Army. After that, mass arrests of the Constitutional Democratic Party members took place in Moscow. Many Kadets left the capital. The Central Committee began to act illegally, the unified leadership of the party had ceased. In June 1918 in Moscow, the remaining Kadets organized a supra-party association called the National Center.

 

In the second half of 1918, the Kadets actively participated in the formation of anti-Soviet governments. They took key positions in the Supreme Administration of the Northern Region, the Provisional Regional Government of the Urals, and the Crimean Regional Government. The experience of state administration during the Civil War and cooperation with officers’ organizations contributed to the swing to the right. In November, the Siberian Kadet Conference held in Omsk refused to support the Ufa Directorate and welcomed the coup in favor of Aleksander Kolchak. The Kadets took three of the five seats in the Supreme Ruler’s Council, and the Eastern Department of the Central Committee of the Party became one of the advisory bodies under Kolchak. In the North-West, the Kadets assisted General Nikolay Yudenich. In 1919, they entered the Political Council created under him, and then, the North-Western Government. In February 1919, representatives of the party were included in the Special Council of the commander of the Armed Forces of South Russia Anton Denikin, and also managed the work of the Information Agency. In 1920, a significant part of the Kadets left Russia.

 

In the first half of the 1920s, Kadet groups operated in many centers of the Russian émigré community. But due to different views on the ways to continue the struggle, the united party was never recreated and by the early 1930s, their political activity had ceased.