Dumas

Question 1

“A constitution is given, but the autocracy

Answer 1

remains. Everything is given, and nothing is given.’ Leon Trotsky

Question 2

How did Alan Wood describe Russia’s political system between 1906 and 1917?

Answer 2

“A period of uneasy and ambiguous experimentation with quasi-constitutional politics.”

Question 3

What was abolished on 24 November 1905?

Answer 3

Censorship

Question 4

When did all men over the age of 25 become eligible for voting indirectly?

Answer 4

11 December 1905

Question 5

How much of the urban working population was ineligible to vote?

Answer 5

Over 60%

Question 6

When did Sergei Witte resign from his post and who replaced him?

Answer 6

22 April 1906, Ivan Goremykin

Question 7

When were the Fundamental Laws of 1906 passed?

Answer 7

23 April 1906, to reiterate the Tsar’s power

Question 8

What was contained in article 87 of the Fundamental Laws?

Answer 8

When the duma was not in session or under ‘exceptional circumstances’ the tsar held the power to legislate on his own providing the decision received approval from the duma within two months.

Question 9

How did the Tsar transform the legislative body of Russia?

Answer 9

Upgraded the State Council of Imperial Russian to work in conjunction with Duma, created a 198 member upper chamber (one half appointed by the tsar) a largely conservative body.

Question 10

“I created the Duma,

Answer 10

not to be directed by it, but to be advised.” Tsar Nicholas II

Question 11

When did the first elections for the Duma begin?

Answer 11

February 1906

Question 12

How did the law change on 4 March 1906?

Answer 12

Unions and political parties are made legal

Question 13

When did the First Duma open and when did it end?

Answer 13

27 April 1906 - July 1906

Question 14

Who was the largest political party in the First Duma?

Answer 14

Kadets (37% of seats)

Question 15

Who did the Kadets in the first Duma make a coalition with and what were their aims?

Answer 15

Peasants. Freedom to strike, abolition of capital punishment, ministerial responsibility handed to the duma, universal and direct voting, free universal education, land redistribution for peasants and reorganisation of the tax system.

Question 16

How did the Kadets towards the end of the Duma provoke violence? How did the government respond?

Answer 16

200 deputies staged an appeal to encourage people from paying taxes, and refusing orders to enlist. Violence broke out, the government appointed Pyotr Stolypin as prime minister.

Question 17

When was the Second Duma?

Answer 17

February - June 1907

Question 18

How was the Second Duma politically different from the first and what consequences did this have?

Answer 18

More radical as SRs and SDs participated in the elections. More ideologically divided with monarchists and SRs.

Question 19

Why did the Tsar want to dissolve the Second Duma and how did he achieve this?

Answer 19

Duma criticised the administration of the military, would not support Stolypin’s land reforms. A Social Democratic was arrested on the charge of wanting to overthrow the regime, which led to the dissolution of the duma in 3 June 1907.

Question 20

When was the Third Duma?

Answer 20

November 1907 - June 1912

Question 21

What did Stolypin do on 3 June 1907?

Answer 21

Changed the electoral system so that voting was suspended in poorer districts; violated the constitution.

Question 22

How many people were eligible to vote in the elections after Stolypin’s reform?

Answer 22

1 in 6 males

Question 23

How was the Third Duma politically different to the others?

Answer 23

More conservative and the first to serve a full five year term.

Question 24

When was the Fourth Duma?

Answer 24

November 1912 - August 1914

Question 25

How was the Fourth Duma characterised politically?

Answer 25

Most conservative duma, responded to radical protests with repression.

Question 26

What occurred in the Lena Goldfields in Siberia in 1912?

Answer 26

Miners demanded better pay + condition and were killed by government workers (symbolic of the tsars increasingly reactionary methods). 500 miners were killed.

Question 27

What was the result of the Lena Goldfields massacre?

Answer 27

Three million workers staged 9000 strikes in the year following the massacre.

Question 28

Why did the Fourth Duma end?

Answer 28

Outbreak of WWII

Question 29

How do Soviet and Western historians disagree on the Dumas?

Answer 29

History of the CPSU: Dumas are nothing more than ‘an impotent appendage of stardom.’
Western historians: Dumas provoked debate, reform, awakening political consciousness.

Question 30

What was Pyotr Stolypin’s guiding principle?

Answer 30

Suppression first and then, and only then, reform

Question 31

What were the reforms Stolypin issued in November 1906 when the Duma was out of session?

Answer 31

Land reforms to transform peasants into a class of independent conservative land owners. Replaced village communes with private ownership.

Question 32

When were land taxes halted by Stolypin?

Answer 32

1 January 1907

Question 33

What was a negative effect of Stolypins land reforms? What was a positive impact?

Answer 33

Increased the amount of peasants moving to the city for work. For those who the reforms benefitted, they were pacified and their living standards were raised.

Question 34

What were military tribunals and when were they introduced by Stolypin?

Answer 34

Processed cases without investigation or delay; introduced in 1906.

Question 35

How many people were executed by military tribunals and ordinary courts between August 1906 and April 1907?

Answer 35

1144 people by military tribunals.

2000 by ordinary courts

Question 36

How did Stolypin enrage liberals and radials alike?

Answer 36

Censorship of the press, conducting searches + arrests surveillance of universities and liberal activists. Dismissed the Second Duma and revised th electoral system.

Question 37

Which moderate groups supported Stolypin?

Answer 37

Octobrists and Union of Russian people

Question 38

When was Stolypin assassinated?

Answer 38

1 September 1911

Question 39

What does Figes say of the view that Stolypin’s reforms could have stopped revolution breaking out?

Answer 39

“This optimistic view rests on two assumptions: that Stolypin’s reforms were succeeding in their aims; and that they are capable of stabilising Russia’s social system after the crisis of 1905. Both assumptions are patently false.”

Question 40

What did Trotsky say of Stolypin’s reforms?

Answer 40

“Intensified the campaign of bloody reprisals against the workers and peasants. Thousands of revolutionary workers were shot by punitive expeditions, or hanged…revolutionaries were tortured mentally and physically. Particularly savage was the persecution of the working-class organisations, especially the Bolsheviks. “