Politicians in a Constitutional Russian Empire

I'm working on a TL where the UK and Russia pretty much switch roles, with Russia democratizing in the 1890s and Britain falling to Communism in 1918-1919. There's a lot of backstory, but I have one specific thing in mind today.
I'm going to do some infoboxes for turn-of-the-century Russian parliamentary elections where there are three parties: Socialists, Liberal Democrats, and Conservatives.
I'll just use OTL Communist leaders for the Socialist leadership, but who could lead the Conservatives and Liberals at first, keeping in mind that the first elections are in 1895?
 
You might be able to find some people by digging around in the political parties that existed in Russia during the 1905 revolution: the Kadets and Octoberists spring to mind.

Sergei Witte could be a possible leader, he was Minister of Finance in 1892 for eleven years, so he'd be in the government already.

There's also Pyotr Durnovo, who was reviled as a reactionary and a member of the Senate c. 1893.

Stolypin comes to mind too, although he's only in his 30s in the 1890s.
 
You might be able to find some people by digging around in the political parties that existed in Russia during the 1905 revolution: the Kadets and Octoberists spring to mind.

Sergei Witte could be a possible leader, he was Minister of Finance in 1892 for eleven years, so he'd be in the government already.

There's also Pyotr Durnovo, who was reviled as a reactionary and a member of the Senate c. 1893.

Stolypin comes to mind too, although he's only in his 30s in the 1890s.

Witte and Durnovo could work. But would they be liberal or conservative, respectively?
Witte, with his agenda of industrialization, might make a good liberal leader.
 
Stolypin could be conservative leader after Witte retires, since OTL Witte died circa 1915. Russia was more conservative culturally, not just politically, so hypothetical conservative party in parliamentary Russia would be further on the right than Tories, while still being in power roughly half of time.
 
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Stolypin could be conservative leader after Witte retires, since OTL Witte died circa 1915. Russia was more conservative culturally, not just politically, so hypothetical conservative party in parliamentary Russia would be further on the right than Tories, while still being in power roughly half of time.

I imagine so. I see the conservatives taking power at first, with the initial opposition being Western-style liberals. But the liberals prove to be a weak opposition, and are replaced by the socialists, like how Labour replaced the Liberals.
 
Could Durnovo be the liberal leader, at first?

And since Lenin is only 25 at the time of the first elections (1895), I need another to lead the Socialist Party.
 
I think some of the younger Narodnaya Volya leaders could be Liberal Democrats, assuming the LDs are constitutionalists who want greater liberalism based on Western European models at the time of the elections. As for the Socialists, one of the more hardcore ones that could be a possible option is Georgi Plekhanov, who was in OTL one of the first Russians to declare himself a Marxist. Another option could be Pavel Axelrod, a leading Menshevik.
 
I think some of the younger Narodnaya Volya leaders could be Liberal Democrats, assuming the LDs are constitutionalists who want greater liberalism based on Western European models at the time of the elections. As for the Socialists, one of the more hardcore ones that could be a possible option is Georgi Plekhanov, who was in OTL one of the first Russians to declare himself a Marxist. Another option could be Pavel Axelrod, a leading Menshevik.

1. Yes LDs want to Westernize Russia and make it a constitutional monarchy able to compete with the rest of Europe.

2. I think that the socialists aren't allowed to register in the 1895 election, as they're considered too radical. Lenin is elected as an independent in 1895, though, and becomes leader of the Socialists in 1899, a year before they enter the second election.
 
2. I think that the socialists aren't allowed to register in the 1895 election, as they're considered too radical. Lenin is elected as an independent in 1895, though, and becomes leader of the Socialists in 1899, a year before they enter the second election.

OK, so what happens later, I'm assuming, is that the Russian Socialists moderate themselves after being shunned by the establishment for a couple of decades, they take the Duma after the alt-Great War, and gradually replace the LDs?
 
OTL, Constitutional Democrats (nicknamed Cadets) were the closest you get to Liberal Democrats (in the early 20th century meaning of this word), and Octobrists were Conservatives (but not far-right). Here is a list of prominent Cadets, while prominent Octobrists included, among others, Alexander Guchkov, Mikhail Rodzianko, Baron Pavel Korf, Nikolay Khomyakov, Pavel Ryabushinsky and Emanuel Nobel (a nephew of Alfred Nobel who established the Nobel Prize). Most Octobrist leaders were industrialists and great landowners, most Cadet leaders were attorneys, university professors and middle-to-great landowners.
Could Durnovo be the liberal leader, at first?
And since Lenin is only 25 at the time of the first elections (1895), I need another to lead the Socialist Party.
Durnovo was far-right (a supporter of absolute monarchy and repressive policies, and an anti-Semite to boot). Georgi Plekhanov was the senior-most Social Democrat leader before 1900 or so.
I think some of the younger Narodnaya Volya leaders could be Liberal Democrats, assuming the LDs are constitutionalists who want greater liberalism based on Western European models at the time of the elections. As for the Socialists, one of the more hardcore ones that could be a possible option is Georgi Plekhanov, who was in OTL one of the first Russians to declare himself a Marxist. Another option could be Pavel Axelrod, a leading Menshevik.
Agreed on the second point. Regarding the Narodnaya Volya members, they were Radical Socialist terrorists before the organization was destroyed by the police, and I doubt that many of them would moderate enough to become Liberal Democrats (some would (a few even did so OTL), but not most of them).
 
All fine and good, can you possibly prevent anyone so pro abosolute monarchy as Alexandra from being Nicholas's wife? That in itself could make democratic transition stick.
 
All fine and good, can you possibly prevent anyone so pro abosolute monarchy as Alexandra from being Nicholas's wife? That in itself could make democratic transition stick.

POD should be anyway before Alexander III rising to power if we want constitutional Russia on 1890's so Nicky and Alexandra's marriage should butterfly away.

Probably best POD for constitutional Russian Empire on 1890's is that Alexander II's oldest son Nicholas lives. And probably this too butterfly Alexander II's assassination.
 
OK, so what happens later, I'm assuming, is that the Russian Socialists moderate themselves after being shunned by the establishment for a couple of decades, they take the Duma after the alt-Great War, and gradually replace the LDs?

No. In the second election, the Socialists are let in. The Socialist Labour Party starts a big tent left-wing party with a moderate presence in the Imperial Duma. After alt-WWI, Leon Trotsky is elected as the first socialist Prime Minister, and orchestrates his party's rise to prominence in Russian politics. But Trotsky's radicalism leads two parties to branch out from the the Socialists in the early 20s: the Social Democrats (equivalent to OTL Mensheviks) and the Communists (who refuse to recognize the monarchy and revile Trotsky's working within the constitutional monarchic system).

Until the 1920s, the urban middle classes mostly voted Liberal Democrat, while the Conservative drew their support from well-off monarchists and socially conservative rural areas.
But in the 1920s, the Socialists became popular with both the industrial and rural working voters, leading the Conservatives to invite a bit of classical liberalism into their party and try appealing to bourgeois city-dwellers.
 
All fine and good, can you possibly prevent anyone so pro abosolute monarchy as Alexandra from being Nicholas's wife? That in itself could make democratic transition stick.

Actually, the POD is Tsesarovich Nicholas Alexandrovich not dying of illness in 1864. Instead of going to Italy, he takes an invitation to stay in London on the hospitality of Queen Victoria, and he becomes friendly with several major politicians.
He becomes Tsar in 1880, and, having come to admire parliamentarian ways, institutes a Westminster-style system in Russia in the early 1890s.
 
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