Nicholas II (How did he react?)

• Continued with:
  • State-Supported industrial expansion
  • Russification
  • Suppression of political discontent

Russo-Japanese War 1904-05

1905 Revolution (march on the Winter Palace).

• October Manifesto put in place which gave:
  • Freedom of Speech, Press, association and conscience
  • Election of a state Duma
  • No UKASE or Imperial edict would become law without the Duma's consent
  • Duma would have a role in controlling officials.

This split the revolutionaries and swung moderate opinion back to the Tsar.

This policy, similar to the Emancipation of the Serfs, promised more than it could deliver.

• The First Duma was elected in 1906 from 19th May to the 21st July
  • Little agreement in its power so it was dissolved by the Tsar
• The Second Duma was elected in 1907 from 5th March to the 16th June
  • More radical and had even less agreement

Restrictions in the power of the lower classes (electorate reduced for them)

• The Third Duma ran from 1907-1912
  • More conservative
  • Passed modest reforms
  • Ministers not responsible to the Duma, on the Tsar himself
• The Fourth Duma ran from 1912-1916
  • Had little role in wartime administration

Powers of the Duma were very limited.

The war revealed the regimes attitude toward democratic parliamentary governement, and that was that it was irrelevant to Russia.