Duma Experiment

The Duma Experiment

Nicholas II and the Fundamental Laws

To outsiders the October Manifesto might suggest that Russia was moving towards liberalism and democracy:

Democratic institutions established
Political parties legalised
Trade unions legalised

Liberal historians have written about:

‘the experiment in democracy’
‘the constitutional experiment’

This might have saved the monarchy if Nicholas and the Dumas had worked together
But the Tsar and his circle had no intention of co-operating with the Duma
He was mainly concerned with how many concessions he could withdraw without causing another revolution
April 1906 the Fundamental Laws were announced during the elections for the first Duma
In them Nicholas declared that ‘supreme autocratic power is vested in the Tsar of all the Russias. It is God’s command that his authority should be obeyed’
The word ‘constitution’ was carefully not mentioned
The Duma (state assembly) was to have 2 houses:

The State Council - This was the upper house, with half its members appointed by the Tsar and the rest elected by privileged groups eg landowners, clergy, gentry, industrialists responsible only to the Tsar. They could veto the lower house
The State Duma - An elected body with very limited powers. Tsar’s approval needed to pass laws. 40% of total budget exempt from Duma’s scrutiny eg state loans and debts. Also – spending on army, navy, and imperial courts

Voting wasn’t the democratic model desired by liberals and socialists ie everyone having a direct vote of equal weight
Used indirect votes by estates to reduce number of radical members elected
The voter voted for members of an electoral college who then selected Duma members
There were 4 electoral colleges:

Gentry
Burghers (town property owners)
Peasants
Workers

The franchise was fixed so that one gentry vote was worth 3 burghers', 15 peasants' and 45 workers’ votes
Tsar could: appoint ministers, declare war, make peace, dissolve the Duma
Article 87 – the Tsar could issue any emergency laws he wished when Duma not sitting
Duma had 2 important rights: in certain circumstances it could question ministers and free speech

Richard Pipes’s View (US historian)

The Russian Revolution 1899-1919 p.159
‘This provided a forum for unrestrained and often intemperate criticism of the regime’
He believes this contributed more to undermining the prestige of the government in the eyes of the general public than all the revolutionary outrages, because it struggled very hard to maintain, that it was in complete control of the situation

Nicholas and the Dumas

4 Dumas
First ran from April-June 1906 and second from February-June 1907
Both had centre-left majorities and were soon dismissed by Nicholas
Franchise changed after 2^nd Duma which reduced lower class representation and made the Dumas less troublesome
3^rd 1907-1912 lasted full term (5 years)
4^th dissolved after 4 years

Kadets (Constitutional Democrats)

Moderate or radical liberals
Disappointed by October Manifesto
Wanted genuine universal suffrage
Also a strict limit on the Tsar’s power
Success in 1906 because Socialist Revoultionaries and Social Democrats (Mensheviks and Bolsheviks) largely boycotted the elections
Eg Kadets won all St. Petersburg and Moscow seats due to worker votes which would have gone to Social Democrats if they’d fielded candidates

Trudoviki (Labour Group)

Left wing group
Mainly peasants and some middle class (lawyers and teachers)
Many would have stood as Socialist Revolutionaries if the party had fought the election

Octobrists

Conservative or right-of-centre liberals who had welcomed the October Manifesto

Non-Russians

Mainly Poles and some Lithuanians, Latvians and Ukrainians

Progressists

Elite group of businessmen
Favoured moderate reform

Rightists

Not an organised party
Represented a wide range of conservative views

The First Duma April-June 1906

The election was a triumph for the Kadets and other left-wing groups which had a clear majority
Tsar disappointed
So was Witte – he’d told Tsar the radicals and revolutionaries had no mass support
He said peasants would vote for conservative candidates
He was now viewed by the Court as a dangerous radical
Replaced as chief minister by Ivan Goremykin a reactionary conservative
The deputies were militant and made far-reaching demands:

Amnesty for political prisoners
Abolition of the death penalty
Abolition of upper house
Resignation of Nicholas’s ministers
Fully democratic electoral system
Fairer tax system
Right to strike
Land reform – the redistribution of surplus gentry land among the peasants

Goremykin rejected all the demands
After 10 weeks of bitter dispute the Tsar decided to dissolve the Duma
The Tauride Palace where it met was surrounded by troops and deputies were forced to disperse
In protest 200 Kadets and left-wing deputies crossed the border into Finland to meet at Vyborg
They issued the Vyborg Manifesto to condemn government action
Called on the people to refuse to pay taxes and do military service
Little response from ordinary people
Many Kadets arrested
They were barred from Duma membership
Feeling let down by the masses they became less radical
Peter Stolypin became chief minister
He introduced a policy of repression to restore order

The Second Duma February-June 1907

Main change – Kadets lost half their seats
This was probably because the Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries took part in the election
Also Kadets seen as ineffectual
Not radical enough for workers and peasants
Too radical for liberals
Membership of Duma more polarised than before
Revolutionary Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries had 84 seats
National minorities always voted with the opposition so the left wing groups still had a small majority
Proceedings acrimonious and disorderly
Stolypin tried to work with the Duma
But the majority opposed his agrarian reforms
Secret police claimed to have evidence of Social Democrats plot to assassinate Tsar
So Stolypin had 2^nd Duma dissolved
Next day new electoral system announced
It reduced representation of workers, peasants and national minorities
This breached Tsar’s own Fundamental Laws
Meant only 1/10 of men had vote – peasants and workers more or less excluded
Trade unions banned again
Anyone trying to form a workers’ organisation or call a strike was arrested

The 3^rd Duma 1907-12

The electoral changes produced a Duma with a large right-wing majority
Smooth relations at first between Duma and government
1909 things going wrong for Stolypin:

Opposition to his plan to build 4 battleships
1911 proposed extending Zemstva to western parts of the Empire but bill was defeated in Upper House – the state council

Main reason – his right wing opponents jealous of his success
His repressive policies restored order
His agrarian reforms seemed to be going well
In the eyes of reactionaries he’d outlived his usefulness
It was the perfect opportunity to get rid of him before he introduced any more drastic reforms
Stolypin threatened to resign unless Nicholas suspended the Duma temporarily and passed the bill as an emergency measure under Article 87 of the Fundamental Laws
Tsar agreed but it did Stolypin no good
Reason - Tsar felt humiliated at having to act against his right-wing supporters in the State Council
The Octobrists were outraged by this abuse of Article 87 as they saw it
1^st September 1911, during a performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Legend of Tsar Sultan” in Kiev, in the presence of the Tsar and his 4 daughters, Stolypin was shot by a revolutionary who was also acting as a police informer
He died days later in hospital
Rumours that the secret police and even the Tsar had connived at his murder – nothing was proved
Some historians argue that his death removed the monarchy’s last chance of survival – but it’s clear that Stolypin’s days of political influence were numbered
The very people he was trying to save had already fatally undermined him

The 4^th Duma

After Stolypin’s death the government seemed to abandon all ideas of reform
Fell back on repression and reliance on reactionary support
4^th Duma had centre-right majority
But it became increasingly critical of the government
The government ignored the Duma
By 1914 its influence was in decline
Alexander Guchkov the Octobrist leader told the 1913 party conference: “The attempt made by the Russian public, as represented by our party, to effect a peaceful, painless transition from the old condemned system to a new order has failed. Let those in power make no mistake about the temper of the people; never were the Russian people so profoundly revolutionized by the actions of the government, for day by day faith in the government is steadily waning, and with it is waning faith in the possibility of a peaceful issue of the crisis”

Why the Duma Experiment Failed

A little compromise on both sides could have made possible a workable liberal-conservative partnership
This would have saved the monarchy
But Tsar wanted to keep the monarchy intact in the autocratic sense
He lacked the vision or imagination to see the advantages of sharing at least some of his power with parliament
Thus some of the criticism and hostility against him would have fell on the Duma
He said: ‘I have no intention of renouncing what was bequeathed to me by my forefathers and which I must hand down unimpaired to my son.’
He and most of his ministers refused to admit that there was a mass movement against them
In January 1906 Foreign Minister Count Lamsdorf argued in a secret memo that the events of 1905 had been promoted ‘by the Jews of all countries; the revolutionary movement is being actively supported and partly directed by the forces of universal Jewry.’
Nicholas added the comment: ’I share entirely the sentiments herein expressed’
He’d no intention of co-operating with the Duma
Always looking for an excuse to get rid of it
Of 2^nd Duma he said: ‘We must let them do something manifestly stupid or mean, and then –slap- and they are gone!’
He believed the Duma would be less able to cope with complex problems facing Russia than he and his advisers
Duma members were just as reluctant to compromise
Went on the attack from first day
Played into the Tsar’s hands by demanding too much at once
Paul Milyukov, Kadet leader, demanded that the Tsar accept entire programme and call a constituent assembly
So Duma became a battleground between autocracy and liberals

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