laws governing elections to the Duma; autonomy for Finland and Poland; the expropriation of state and private lands in the interest of the peasants; a comprehensive body of social legislation designed to protect the industrial workers.  In a word, the program of the Duma was a broad and comprehensive program of political and social democracy, which, if enacted, would have placed Russia among the foremost democracies of the world.

The boldness of the Duma program was a direct challenge to the government and was so interpreted by the Czar and his Ministers.  By the reactionary press it was denounced as a conspiracy to hand the nation over to the Socialists.  That it should have passed the Duma almost unanimously was an indication of the extent to which the liberal bourgeoisie represented by the Constitutional Democrats was prepared to go in order to destroy autocracy.  No wonder that some of the most trusted Marxian Socialists in Russia were urging that it was the duty of the Socialists to co-operate with the Duma!  Yet there was a section of the Marxists engaged in a constant agitation against the Duma, preaching the doctrine of the class struggle, but blind to the actual fact that the dominant issue was in the conflict between the democracy of the Duma and the autocracy of Czarism.

The class consciousness of the old regime was much clearer and more intelligent.  The Czar refused to receive the committee of the Duma, appointed to make formal presentation of the address.  Then, on May 12th, Goremykin, the Prime Minister, addressed the Duma, making answer to its demands.  On behalf of the government he rebuked the Duma for its unpatriotic conduct in a speech full of studied insult and contemptuous defiance.  He made it quite clear that the government was not going to grant any reforms worthy of mention.  More than that, he made it plain to the entire nation that Nicholas II and his bureaucracy would never recognize the Duma as an independent parliamentary body.  Thus the old regime answered the challenge of the Duma.

For seventy-two days the Duma worked and fought, seventy-two days of parliamentary history for which there is no parallel in the annals of parliamentary government.  For the sake of the larger aims before it, the Duma carried out the demands of the government that it approve certain petty measures placed before it for the formality of its approval.  On the other hand, it formulated and passed numerous measures upon its own initiative and demanded that they be recognized as laws of the land.  Among the measures thus adopted were laws guaranteeing freedom of assemblage; equality of all citizens before the law; the right of labor organizations to exist and to conduct strikes; reform of judicial procedure in the courts; state aid for peasants suffering from crop failure and other agrarian reforms; the abolition of capital punishment.  In addition to pursuing its legislative program, the Duma members voiced the country’s protest against the shortcomings of the government, subjecting the various Ministers to searching interpellation, day after day.