As the nineteenth century progressed however, the rising demand throughout Europe for more representative government and rights for the people threatened to infect Russia too. But while elsewhere these demands made some progress, in Russia they met deep regime resistance born of the autocratic principle. Russia had Europe's toughest regimes of censorship (through which, interestingly, all the great works of Russian literature had to pass) and political control. There was an extensive repressive apparatus that dealt out copious Siberian exile and occasional execution. The result was the extreme radicalisa- tion of the opposition, for which the country was to pay dearly in 1917. A deeply disaffected intelligentsia became hostile to the regime and all it stood for, and a small proportion of them turned to terrorism. It was in fact the terrorist movement 'Narodnaya Volya', which assassinated Alexander II in 1881, that began the call for an 'All People's Constituent Assembly', a freely elected body of representatives of all the people which would create a democratic constitution for Russia. The model, as with so much else through the Russian Revolution, was explicitly drawn from the French revolutionary assemblies of 1789-91.3
The idea of such an assembly became common currency among the opposition in the last years of the nineteenth century, even ifwith some nuances. The liberal right were more willing to see gradual evolution towards parliamentary government in cooperation with the monarchy, while the extreme left (notably the early Marxist leader Georgy Plekh- anov) made it clear that such an assembly was only justified as long as it supported the cause of the socialist revolution (thus providing a text from which Lenin subsequently preached).
It was on 'Bloody Sunday' that the demand for a Constituent Assembly became talismanic for those seeking change. Russia had seen a growing political crisis over the past year. Military defeat by Japan, hunger in the countryside, and appalling working conditions for the growing industrial labour force came together to give real force to demands for reform, including for some representational element in the way Russia was governed. In December 1904, Nicholas turned this demand down saying to one of his ministers 'I shall never, under any circumstances, agree to a representative form of government because I consider it harmful to the people whom God has entrusted to my care.'4 A few days later, on Sunday 9 January 1905, a huge demonstration by unarmed workers and their families, many of them dressed in their Sunday best, gathered in St Petersburg. They carried banners asserting that they were 'suffocating in despotism' and demanding a Constituent Assembly. Government troops, unprepared for the size and determination of the crowd, opened fire and killed hundreds.
At that moment the image of Nicholas as the 'father of his people' took a blow from which it never recovered. In the eyes of many he became no more than a cruel tyrant. At the scene, the leader of the demonstration (a priest) declared 'There is no longer a God. There is no Tsar.'5 Hundreds of thousands went on strike. The universities had to be closed down. There were uprisings in Poland, peasant violence in much of the countryside and, more ominously for the security of the regime, mutinies in the armed forces. Nicholas was forced into major concessions. The censorship was abolished. Personal and political rights were guaranteed. And, as a surrogate for the Constituent Assembly, Russia was given its first-ever national representative assembly, the State Duma.
THE DUMA
Russia's first experiment with giving the people a voice in government faced huge difficulties from the start. The gap between the reformers and the regime was almost impossibly wide. Nicholas was determined to concede none of his prerogatives. The 'Fundamental Law' establishing the Duma described him as 'Supreme Autocrat', and carefully avoided the explosive word 'constitution'. In his view the very existence of the Duma depended on his autocratic whim. While the Duma did notionally have some serious powers, notably over government finance, the tsar retained control over the appointment of ministers, the power of veto, the power to dissolve the Duma, and the power to pass emergency laws while it was not sitting. Moreover, the electoral arrangements were rigged to produce a supportive assembly with one gentry vote worth that of forty-five workers or fifteen (supposedly more loyal) peasants. Nevertheless shrewd commentators attached real hopes to it. Sergei Witte, Nicholas's most able minister (who indeed had pushed the tsar into agreeing to the Duma on the grounds that otherwise there would be revolution), confidently expected to see it evolve over time into a genuine Russian legislature.6
The elections took place in April 1906. They were boycotted by the left-wing parties, which did much to encourage regime expectations of an acceptable result. The outcome was a huge shock. More than half the members of the new body were 'semi-educated' peasants, rough, rude and showing none of the class deference which the smooth Petersburg bureaucracy had confidently predicted. One horrified aristocratic observer described them as 'A gathering of savages. It seemed as if the Russian land had sent to St Petersburg everything that was barbarian in it, everything filled with envy and malice.'7 And the Duma, instead of focusing on government business as intended, devoted its time to demands for radical reform including wholesale expropriation of non-peasant land, control of the government, and universal male suffrage. These demands fed into a countrywide atmosphere of crisis, including an upsurge in rural violence and terrorism. In late June even the nation's elite regiment - the Preobrazhensky Guards - mutinied. Many concluded at this time that the regime was doomed. On 8 July Nicholas sent in the troops to close the Duma down. It had sat for seventy-two days. At the same time he appointed the 'authoritarian moderniser', Stolypin, as prime minister.
After reimposing civil order by extensive use of 'Stolypin's neckties', the gallows, Stolypin set about the fundamental reform of Russian agriculture, which he saw as the key to modernising Russia. For this he felt he needed wider political support to keep the unreliable and easily swayed tsar on board. He also needed the international financial confidence in Russia that had been shaken by the dissolution of the first Duma. He accordingly arranged for the election of a second Duma in February 1907, and worked hard to influence the result. He failed. This time the radical parties did not boycott the poll. They were elected in large numbers on the explicit programme of making the Duma unworkable so as to clear the way towards a proper Constituent Assembly. In what became known as 'Stolypin's coup' this second Duma was dissolved in June 1907 after sitting for just three months. In a clear breach of Nicholas's own Fundamental Law a new franchise was introduced two days later, still further tilting the electoral process in Nicholas's, and Stolypin's, favour.8
The third Duma, elected in 1907 on this much more restrictive franchise, was entirely dominated by gentry and landowners (and was thus dubbed the 'Duma of Lords and lackeys'). It nevertheless briefly played a more significant role in formulating policy than either of its two intransigent predecessors. Stolypin, not least through bribery and press manipulation, set out to generate support in the Duma to offset the influence of reactionaries in the regime. In the early days this tactic proved successful, and helped him carry through a range of reform measures. But later attempts at reform bogged down among rival regime factions. And Stolypin's appeal to a body that many around Nicholas believed should never have been created at all, and certainly should be conceded no real power, played a large role in his loss of influence with Nicholas before his assassination in 1911.9