In September and October the main opposition parties, meeting at first separately and then jointly, as the Progressive Bloc, held secret conferences to devise a strategy for the forthcoming Duma session. Their mood was unyielding: the government had to surrender power. This time there would be no temporizing and no compromises.
The driving force behind this revolutionary challenge was the Constitutional-Democratic Party. At the meeting of its Central Committee on September 30-October 1, complaints were heard that the party had lost contact with the country because it no longer behaved like an opposition. The Left Kadets wanted to launch a “merciless war” against the government, even at the risk of provoking the Duma’s dissolution.62 The Kadet Party formally adopted the strategy of confrontation at a conference on October 22–24. Thanks to the information supplied by police agents,63 we are well informed of the proceedings of this meeting, perhaps the most consequential in the party’s history. Miliukov came under attack for being too cautious and too eager to maintain the legitimacy of the party in the eyes of the authorities. The country was lurching to the left and unless the Kadets followed suit they would lose influence. Some of the provincial delegates, who were more radical than the party’s Duma deputies, thought it a mistake even to waste time on parliamentary debates: they preferred that the party appeal directly to the “masses”—that is, engage in revolutionary agitation as the Union of Liberation and the Union of Unions had done in 1904–5. Prince P. D. Dolgorukov thought that the moderate Miliukov retained his position as the party’s leader only because there was still hope that the government would dismiss Stürmer: should it refuse to do so and send the Duma packing, Miliukov would be finished. It was the last chance to confront the government in parliament.64 Colonel A. P. Martynov, the outstanding chief of the Moscow Okhrana, passed to his superiors the information gathered by agents at the Kadet conference, along with personal comments. In his opinion, the thrust of the Kadets’ strategy lay in the resolution which spoke of the necessity of “maintaining contact with the broad masses of the population and organizing the country’s democratic elements for the purpose of neutralizing the common danger.” He added that the Kadets were terrified of a revolution breaking out either now or after the war, when the country would face problems beyond the government’s ability to solve.65
To force the government to capitulate, the Kadets adopted the riskiest course imaginable: it was so out of character for a party which prided itself on respect for law and due process that it can only be explained by a mood of panic. The party resolved publicly to charge the Prime Minister with high treason. There was not a shred of evidence to support this accusation, and the Kadets well knew this to be the case. Stürmer was a reactionary bureaucrat, ill qualified to head the Russian government, but he had committed nothing remotely resembling treason. Rumors of treason, however, were so rife in the rear and at the front that they decided to exploit them for their own ends, playing on the Prime Minister’s German surname.*
The Kadets coordinated their plan with the other parties in the Progressive Bloc. On October 25, the bloc agreed on a common platform: to demand the dismissal of Stürmer, to call for the repeal of laws issued under Article 87, and “to emphasize rumors that the right was striving for a separate peace.”66
The opposition leaders thus set out on a collision course from which there was no retreat: they would confront the Crown with a revolutionary challenge.
Stürmer, whom the police kept informed of these developments, was understandably outraged. He informed Nicholas that when the Duma reconvened the opposition would launch an all-out attack charging the ministers with high treason.67 Such behavior in time of war was nothing short of criminal, inconceivable in any other belligerent country. He recommended, as a first step, withholding the deputies’ pay and threatening those of military age with conscription. He further requested the authority, if the situation required it, to dissolve both chambers of parliament and order new elections. Nicholas equivocated. He wanted to avoid, if at all possible, a confrontation. Stürmer could dissolve the Duma, he said, only in an “extreme case.”68 He was letting power slip from his hands. He was tired from lack of sleep and thoroughly discouraged. He could not even bear the sight of the daily press: the only newspaper he read was Russkii invalid, a patriotic daily put out by the Ministry of War.69
Although he had failed to obtain a carte blanche, Stürmer felt he had the authority privately to inform the Duma leaders that if they dared to accuse the government of treason, the Duma would be at once prorogued and possibly dissolved.70
These warnings threw confusion into the ranks of the Progressive Bloc, dividing its radical wing, represented by the Left Kadets and Progressives, from the more conciliatory wing of mainstream Kadets, Octobrists, and individual conservatives. The Kadets, bound by resolutions of the party conference, warned their conservatives that if they did not support them, the Kadets would introduce a still more sharply worded resolution.71 V. V. Shulgin and other nationalists expressed unhappiness over the Kadet proposal, arguing that public accusations of treason could have disastrous consequences. Eager to retain conservative support, the Kadets agreed to a bloc resolution from which the word “treason” was removed.72 The Progressive Party, unhappy over this compromise, withdrew from the bloc. The Left Kadets also threatened to defect, but Miliukov managed to dissuade them with the promise to deliver a “sharp” address in the Duma.73
The Duma opened at 2:30 p.m. on November 1 in an atmosphere laden with unprecedented tension.
Rodzianko, the chairman, began the proceedings with a brief patriotic address. As soon as he had finished, all the ministers, led by Stürmer and Protopopov, rose to their feet and left the chamber, followed by the foreign ambassadors.* The socialist deputies responded with hoots and catcalls.
S. I. Shidlovskii, the leader of the Octobrists and spokesman for the Progressive Bloc, delivered the first major address. He criticized the government for having prorogued the Duma in order to rule by Article 87, neglecting the food supply, and using military censorship to safeguard its “nonexistent prestige.” He warned that Russia faced serious dangers. The country had to have a government of public confidence: the Progressive Bloc would strive for this objective “employing all the means permitted by law.”74
Kerensky made a hysterical speech that in vituperation exceeded anything previously heard in the halls of the Duma.75 He accused Europe’s “ruling classes” of having pushed “democracy” into an intolerable war. He charged the Russian Government with conducting a “White Terror” and filling its prisons with working people. Behind all these acts stood “Grisha Rasputin.” Excited by the sound of his own words, he demanded rhetorically:
Gentlemen! Will everything that we are living through not move us to declare with one voice: the main and worst enemy of our country is not at the front, but here, in our midst. There is no salvation for our country until, with a unanimous and concerted effort, we force the removal of those who ruin, humiliate, and insult it.