1. The radicalism of the first two Dumas Flashcards
First meeting of the Duma
- St George’s Hall in the Tsar’s Winter Palace in St Petersburg
- Duma members met with royal family, courtiers and govt officials
- Nicholas II - brief speech - expressing the view that Russia not only needed freedom but order based on obedience to the law
Timeline from the Oct Manifesto to the Second Duma, 1905-07
Oct 1905 - Oct Manifesto issued
Dec 1905 - Duma electoral law published
Feb-April 1906 - Duma elections held
23 April 1906 - Fundamental Laws published
27 April 1906 - First Duma met
May 1906 - Witte dismissed as Tsar’s chief minister
July 1906 - First Duma dissolved: ‘Vyborg Manifesto’ published
Feb 1907 - Second Duma met
June 1907 - Second Duma dissolved; Stolypin’s revised electoral law introduced
Relations between the govt and Duma after the opening ceremony?
- Swiftly deteriorated - Duma was first on to the attack - passed a resolution
What did the resolution passed by the Duma after the opening ceremony call for?
Response of govt?
- Full democratisation of Russia
- Radical land reform involving the transfer of the nobility’s estates to the peasantry
- An amnesty for all political detainees
Dismissed by govt
Why was the First Duma dissolved?
Aggression of Duma after govt dismissed their demands:
- Duma responded by passing vote of censure on govt calling upon it to resign
- Then began to debate a land reform measure that it knew was unacceptable to the Tsar and his ministers
Govt lost patience and dissolved the Duma
Reaction of the Duma to its dissolution
- Not unexpected by the Kadets and Trudoviks - had made contingency plans for it
- July 1906 - around 200 Duma members left St Petersburg for Finland (where they thought they would be safe from arrest) and issued an appeal to the nation
Vyborg Manifesto
July 1906 - Appeal to the nation
- Called upon fellow-citizens to refuse to pay taxes until the Duma was restored - were hoping for a tidal wave of protest against the regime that would sweep them into power
It fell flat - drained by struggles of 1905 - masses didn’t take to the streets
Signatories of the manifesto arrested for inciting disorder - given short prison terms and banned from taking part in further political activity
The aggressive and unyielding tactics of the Kadets…
ultimately backfired.
Elections to second Duma - how did they differ from the 1906 Duma elections?
Late 1906 and early 1907 - different in two ways:
- In 1907 - revolutionary socialist parties (SRs, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks) participated rather than boycotting
- In 1906 election campaign - govt had been passive - made little effort to influence outcome - 1907 it was interventionist and disrupted electioneering by opposition parties
- Secretly financed extreme right-wing candidates’ campaigns
2nd Duma elections - results
Kadets lost half their seats - flanked on the left some 200 Socialists:
- 104 Trudoviks
- 37 SRs
- 36 Mensheviks
- 18 Bolsheviks
On the right:
- 54 moderate liberal Octobrists
- And a number of right-wing extremists
More polarised between left and right - but was no more amenable from the govt point of view
- Left wing members highly critical of methods used by govt to quell peasant disorder - refused to support land reform proposals of Stolypin
Second Duma - mid-1907
- Stolypin frustrated with Duma - dissolved it on pretext that some Bolshevik members were involved in treasonable activity
Electoral law scrapped by Tsar
- Replaced w/ new 1 - designed to reduce representation in Duma of peasants, workers and national minorities
Result of the revised arrangements after the first 2 Dumas?
- Nobility (under 1% of pop.) - elected more than 1/2 of the Duma
- Peasantry (over 80% of pop.) elected only 1.5 of it
- Guaranteed solid conservative majority in future Dumas
Was in violation of 1906 Fundamental Laws
What, essentially, did Stolypin carry out in 1907?
A coup d’état (a sudden, illegal seizure of power)
