The All-Russian political party represented the left wing of Russian liberalism. The founding congress was held in October 1905 in Moscow. The Kadets advocated a constitutional and parliamentary monarchy, universal direct parliamentary elections, democratic freedoms, and the preservation of a unitary state with cultural and national self-determination of peoples. The party considered the parliamentary method to be the main method of struggle. Thus, it had large factions in the 1st–4th State Dumas. The main party publications are the newspaper Rech [The Speech] and the magazine Vestnik Partii Narodnoy Svobody [Bulletin of the Party of People’s Freedom].

During the February Revolution of 1917, the Kadets had a leading role in the creation of the Provisional Government, whose first composition included 4 party members out of 11 ministers: Pavel Milyukov (Foreign Affairs), Nikolay Nekrasov (Railways), Aleksander Manuilov (Education), Andrey Shingarev (Agriculture). The Kadet Ministers also worked in all subsequent compositions of the Provisional Government. At the 7th Party Congress in March 1917, it was decided to seek the establishment of a democratic parliamentary republic in Russia. Amidst the deepening revolutionary crisis, the party’s policy since the summer of 1917 focused on the restoration of strong power in the country. For this purpose, the party supported General Lavr Kornilov’s affair at the end of August.