The State Duma

The October Manifesto had split the opposition. The professional strata, now reorganizing themselves in liberal parties, basically accepted it and set about trying to make the new legislature, the State Duma, work in the interest of reform. The two principal socialist parties (Socialist Revolutionary Party), the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Social Democrats, saw the manifesto as just a first step and the Duma (which at first they boycotted) as merely a tribune to be exploited to project their revolutionary ideas.

The empire's Fundamental Laws were amended in 1906 to take account of the Duma. Russia was still described as an “autocracy, ” though the adjective “unlimited” was no longer attached to the term, and an article confirming that no law could take effect without the consent of the Duma effectively annulled its meaning. Alongside the Duma there was to be an upper chamber, the State Council, half of its members appointed by the emperor and half elected by established institutions such as the zemstvos and municipalities, business organizations, the Academy of Sciences, and so on. Both chambers had budgetary rights, the right to veto any law, and the ability to initiate legislation. On the other hand, the government was to be appointed, as before, by the emperor, who in practice seldom chose members of the Duma or State Council to be ministers. In addition, the emperor had the right to dissolve the legislative chambers at any time and, under Article 87, to pass emergency decrees when they were not in session.

The Duma electoral law, though complicated, did give the franchise to most adult males. The first elections, held in spring 1906, produced a relative majority for the Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets (Kadet)), a radical liberal group drawn largely from the professional strata that wished to go beyond the October Manifesto to a full constitutional monarchy on the British model and to grant autonomy to the non-Russian nationalities. The next largest caucus, the Labour Group (Trudoviki), included a large number of peasants and some socialists who had ignored their comrades' boycott. The two parties demanded amnesty for political prisoners, equal rights for Jews, autonomy for Poland, and—most important of all—expropriation of landed estates for the peasants. These demands were totally unacceptable to the government, which used its powers to dissolve the Duma. The new premier, Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin (Stolypin, Pyotr Arkadyevich), then used Article 87 to pass his own agrarian reform (Stolypin land reform) (see below ), known as the Stolypin land reform, and to institute special summary courts-martial against terrorists; under the jurisdiction of these courts, some 600–1, 000 suspects were executed.

In early 1907 new elections were held; to the government's disappointment, the Social Democrats (Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party), having abandoned their boycott, did very well, coming in as the third largest party, behind the Kadets and the Trudoviki. The monarchists also performed better than before, so that the house was sharply polarized, but with a preponderance on the left. Unable to pass his agrarian law through it or to cooperate with its majority in any other way, Stolypin advised the tsar to dissolve the Second Duma on June 3 (June 16, New Style), 1907.

Nicholas did not, however, abolish the Duma altogether, as some of his advisers wished. Instead, he and Stolypin altered the electoral law in favour of landowners, wealthier townsfolk, and Russians to the detriment of peasants, workers, and non-Russians. The Third Duma, elected in autumn 1907, and the Fourth, elected in autumn 1912, were therefore more congenial to the government. The leading caucus in both Dumas was the Union of October 17 (known as the Octobrists (Octobrist)), whose strength was among the landowners of the Russian heartland. The Octobrists acknowledged the October Manifesto as a sufficient basis for cooperation with the government and accepted Stolypin's agrarian program as well as his desire to strengthen the position of the Russian nation throughout the empire.

In practice, however, their cooperation did not bear much legislative fruit beyond the agrarian reform. Many nobles were worried by Stolypin's proposed reform of local government and justice, which would have weakened their dominant position in the localities. They were also alarmed that more and more land was passing from their control to other social classes. Their opposition was articulated by a pressure group known as the United Nobility, which had numerous members in the State Council and close personal links with the imperial court. Stolypin increasingly found that his reform measures, passed by the Duma, were being blocked in the State Council.

Frustrated but not wanting to lose all momentum, Stolypin fell back on nationalist measures, for which he could rely on support from his right-wing opponents both in the Duma and the State Council. Such was the bill restricting Finland's special liberties, passed in 1910. He proposed introducing zemstvos into the western provinces; since most landowners there were Polish, he added a special provision to bolster the vote of Russian peasants. The right wing of the State Council objected to this weakening of the landowners, and, receiving the tacit support of the emperor, they defeated the vital clause in the bill in March 1911. Stolypin, dismayed and angry, suspended both houses for three days and introduced the western zemstvos under Article 87. This egregious violation of the spirit of the Fundamental Laws lost him the support of the Octobrists, who went into opposition. Stolypin was, then, already fatally weakened politically when he was assassinated in September 1911. His murderer was both a Socialist Revolutionary and a police agent whose motives have remained obscure.

Although the legislative achievements of the Duma were meagre, it should not be written off as an ineffective body. It voted credits for a planned expansion of education that was on target to introduce compulsory primary schooling by 1922. Although it could not create or bring down governments, it could exert real pressure on ministers, especially during the budget debates in which even foreign and military affairs (constitutionally the preserve of the emperor alone) came under the deputies' scrutiny. These debates were extensively reported in the newspapers, where they could not be censored, and enormously intensified public awareness of political issues. Partly as a result, the period 1905–14 saw a huge growth in the publication of newspapers, periodicals, and books, both in the capital cities and in the provinces.

Not all the results of this heightened political awareness were happy for the government, of course. In 1910–11, following the death of Leo Tolstoy, who had been excommunicated by the Orthodox church and was refused an ecclesiastical burial, there was serious student unrest, and several Moscow State University professors resigned in protest at government arbitrariness. Furthermore, in 1912, after a disorder at the Lena gold mines, where some 200 workers were killed by troops, the workers' movement revived. Strikes and demonstrations broke out in many of the largest cities, culminating in the erection of barricades in St. Petersburg in July 1914. This time, however, the workers were on their own: there was no sign that peasants, students, or professional people were prepared to join their struggle.

One area where the failure to reform had very serious effects was in the church. Most prelates and clergymen wanted to see the Orthodox church (Russian Orthodox church) given greater independence in relation to the state, perhaps by restoring the patriarchate and assigning authority within the church to a synod elected by clergy and laity. Many also favoured internal reform by strengthening the parish, ending the split between white (parish) and black (monastic) clergy, and bringing liturgy and scriptures closer to the people. An elected church council was to have taken place in 1906 to debate these reforms, but in the end Stolypin and Nicholas decided not to convene it, as they feared its deliberations would intensify political discontent in the country. Thus, the church remained under secular domination until 1917 and fell increasingly under the influence of Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin (Rasputin, Grigory Yefimovich), a starets (holy man) of dubious reputation who became a favourite of the imperial couple because he was able to stanch the bleeding of their son Alexis, who suffered from hemophilia.