Progressive Bloc was an alliance of political forces in the Russian Empire and occupied 236 of the 442 seats in the Imperial Duma. It was formed when the State Duma of the Russian Empire was recalled to session during World War I, the response of Nicholas II of Russia to mounting social tensions. On instigation of Pavel Milyukov the Progressist Party combined with the Kadet Party, Left Octobrists, and progressive Nationalists and individual politicians as Vasily Shulgin to form a political front in the Duma that called for a "government of confidence". According to the Bolsheviks it supported a social-chauvinist stance towards the continuation of World War I.