Among the innovations the Revolution of 1905 produced in the political life of tsarist Russia, the appearance of a number of movements and parties of the Right was certainly one of the most novel. The entry of such groups onto the political scene denotes a fundamental change in the relationship between the autocracy and the state on one hand, and the conservative sector of opinion on the other. The emergence of a Russian Right marks an unprecedented politicization of Russian conservatism and the splitting-off from its main body of an extremist right wing more politically-minded than traditional conservatism which had tended to shun political action and to consider it either a prerogative of the state or the illegal activity of liberals and socialists. The post-1905 Right was more militant, more demagogic, more intransigent toward the state and its officials than conservatives had either wished or dared to be. Traditional conservatism, for the most part, had been characterized by intellectual poverty and an unwillingness to descend into the political arena.