The Last Tsar - Chapter Five Duma

Chapter Five
Duma

By mid-October 1905, all Russia was paralysed by a general strike. From Warsaw to the Urals, trains stopped running, factories closed down, ships lay idle alongside piers. In St. Petersburg food was not longer delivered, hospitals and schools closed, newspapers stopped being printed, even the electric lights flickered out. By day crowds marched through the street shouting slogans loudly, and red flags flew from every window. At night streets were empty and dark. In the countryside peasants raided the manor houses of landlords, crippled and stole cattle and finally set fire to the estates, the flames of burning manor houses glowed through the night.

Sentries paced up and down the street guarding all public buildings and Cossacks clattered up and down the boulevards. The revolution was at hand; it needed only a spark.

The Tsar wrote to his mother - 'The troops were waiting for the signal but the other side would not begin. One had the same feeling as before a thunder storm in summer.'

Through all those horrible days I constantly met Witte. He comes to my study every morning and stays until night. We discussed the situation thoroughly and gravely. Witte suggested that there were two paths to pacify the people: to find an energetic man to put down the anarchy by force. The other one would be to give to the people their civil rights, freedom of speech and press and also to have all laws confirmed by state Duma. After much and serious thoughts I chose the latter one, which resulted in the creation of state Duma.'

That was the beginning of the end of Tsarism.

Sergius Witte, who gave Russia its first constitution and its first parliament, did not believe either in constitution or in Parliament

The Imperial Manifesto of 30th October 1905, transformed Russia from an absolute autocracy into a semi-constitutional monarchy.

'Nothing has changed, the struggle goes on', said Paul Milhukov, the leading Russian historian and liberal leader, later becoming the first foreign secretary of the Provisional Government in 1917, after the Revolution.