Agitation and outrages.
representation, from the zemstvos , from the nobles and from the professional classes, and their moral was enforced by general agitation, by partial strikes, and by outrages which culminated at Moscow in the murder of the Grand-duke Sergius (February 4th, 1905). In the imperial counsels the resisting forces still seemed to have the upper hand. Prince Mirski resigned, his resignation being immediately followed by a reactionary imperial manifesto reaffirming the principle of autocracy (February 18th). Bulygin, Mirski's successor, had no knowledge of this until after its publication; he hastened to the tsar and obtained the issue on the same day of a rescript which, while reserving the “fundamental laws of the empire” inviolate, stated the emperor's intention of summoning the representatives of the people to aid in “the preparation and examination of legislative proposals.” A commission of inquiry, under the emperor's presidency, was now established to elaborate the means for carrying this promise into effect. On the 6th of June, in reply to a deputation of the second congress of zemstvos headed by Prince Trubetzkoi, the emperor promised the speedy convocation of a National Assembly. When, however, on the 6th of August, the new law was promulgated, it was found that the “Imperial Duma” [60] was to be no more than a consultative body, charged with the examination of legislative proposals before these came before the Imperial Council, the duty and right of passing them into law being still reserved for the autocrat alone. The members of the Duma, moreover, were placed at the mercy of the government by a clause empowering the Directing Senate to suspend or deprive them. The promulgation of this truncated constitution was greeted by a furious agitation, culminating in September in a general strike, rightly described as the most remarkable political phenomenon of modern times. For days the whole mechanism of civilized existence in Russia was at a standstill, all intercourse with the outside world cut off; until at last the government
Constitutional mandate of October 17/30, 1905.
was forced to yield, and on the 17/30th of October 1905 the tsar issued the famous manifesto manifesto promising to Russia a constitution based on the main principles of modern Liberalism: national representation, freedom of conscience and opinion, guarantees for individual liberty.
The enormous programme of constitutional reform foreshadowed in the manifesto had to be elaborated in haste by Count Witte, the minister of the interior, under circumstances by no means promising. The organs of government seemed paralysed by the repudiation of the principle on which their authority was based, and the empire to be in danger of falling into complete anarchy. The revolutionary terrorists took advantage of the situation to multiply outrages; popular agitation was fomented by a multitude of new journals preaching every kind of extravagant doctrine, now that the censor no
The “Union of the Russian People.”
longer dared to act; in December the trouble culminated in a formidable rising in Moscow. The revolutionary terrorists were countered by the terrorists of the reaction who, under the name of “the Union of the Russian People,” began an organized extermination of the elements supposed to be hostile to the traditional regime. The “black band” ( chernaya sotnia ), or “black hundreds,” as they were branded by public opinion, directed their attacks especially against the Jews, and pogroms , [61] i.e. organized wholesale robbery and murder of Jews, occurred in many places, it was believed with the connivance of the police and veiled approval in exalted quarters.
Meanwhile the political parties which were to divide the new Duma had taken shape. Apart from the extremists on
Development of political parties.
one side or the other, frank reactionaries on the Right and Socialists on the Left, two main divisions of opinion revealed themselves in the congresses of the zemstvos that met at Moscow in September and November. In the former there had been a fusion between the Radicals, supporters of the autonomy of Poland and a federal constitution for the empire, and the Independence party ( Osvobozhdenya ) formed by political exiles at Paris in 1903, the fusion taking the name of Constitutional Democrats, known (from a word-play on the initials K.D.) as “Cadets.” The more moderate elements found a rallying cry in the manifesto of October, took the name of “the Party of 17 October,” and became known as “Octobrists” In the zemstvo congress of November the “Cadets” protested against the “grant” of a constitution already elaborated, and demanded the convocation of a Constituent Assembly. The Octobrists, on the other hand, supported Count Witte's moderate programme, the most important provisions of which were the extension (11 December 1905) of the suffrage under the stillborn constitution of August, and (20 February 1906) the reorganization of the Duma as the Lower House, and of the Imperial Council (half of which was to be elective) as the Upper House [62] in the new parliament.
The elections were held in March 1906, and on the 27th of April the emperor Nicholas II. solemnly opened the first Duma
The first Duma.
of the Empire. The “Cadets” commanded an overwhelming majority in the Lower House, and their intractable temper and ignorance of affairs became at once apparent. The address in reply to the speech from the throne, voted after a debate in which abstract theories had triumphed over common sense, demanded universal suffrage, the establishment of pure parliamentary government, the abolition of capital punishment, the expropriation of the landlords, a political amnesty, and the suppression of the Imperial Council. When the minister of the interior, M. Goremykin, who had succeeded Witte at the head of the government, met these preposterous demands with a flat refusal, the House voted, on the motion of M. Kuzmin-Karaviev, for an appeal to the people (July 4). [63] Four days later the government dissolved the Duma, M. Goremykin at the same time being replaced by M. Stolypin. The “Cadets” refused to accept this action and, in imitation of the famous meeting in the tennis-court at Versailles,
The Vyborg manifesto.
adjourned to Vyborg in Finland, where, under the ex-president of the Duma, M. Muromtsov, they drew up and issued a manifesto calling on the Russian people to refuse taxes and military service. Its sole result, apart from the punishment which afterwards fell on its authors, [64] was to show how little the majority of the dissolved Duma had represented the Russian people. Isolated mutinies in the army followed, and terrorist outrages here and there—notably, in August, the dastardly bomb outrage in the Isle of Apothecaries at St Petersburg, which seriously injured one of M. Stolypin's little daughters; but the mass of the nation and of the army remained wholly unmoved, while the repetition of troubles was made more difficult by the establishment of field courts martial with summary powers.