The 1905 Revolution & the Duma Experiment
Russian Political History I: Autocracy, Revolution & Stalin's Soviet State
Chapter 2 · The 1905 Revolution & the Duma Experiment
Chapter 1 closed on a real structural weakness: reform granted purely by decree can be reversed just as easily. This chapter shows that same weakness playing out a second time — this time applied to Russia's own first national parliament.
Bloody Sunday
On 22 January 1905 (9 January by the Old Style calendar), a peaceful crowd of workers and their families marched on the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, led by the priest Father Georgy Gapon. Their petition to Nicholas II asked for real, specific reforms: limits on state officials' own power, better working conditions and hours, and — for the first time as an explicit popular demand — a national parliament. Troops guarding the palace opened fire on the unarmed marchers; roughly 200 people were killed and 800 wounded, with 40 shot dead at the Narva Gate alone, where Gapon himself was leading the march.
The massacre triggered a wave of strikes and protests across the empire that escalated into a genuine revolutionary crisis through the rest of 1905.
The October Manifesto — A Real Concession
Facing a crisis he could not simply outlast, Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto in October 1905. It promised civil liberties, the right to vote, and — the real, headline concession — a national Duma, with the explicit promise that no law would take effect without the Duma's own confirmation.
The 1906 Fundamental Laws — Autocracy Rewritten, Not Removed
The Fundamental Laws, promulgated in April 1906, formally established the Duma the October Manifesto had promised — but built real, substantial limits into it from the outset.
What the Duma genuinely gained
A real national body with a formal role in the legislative process, elected rather than appointed, meeting publicly and able to debate and vote on legislation.
What Nicholas II kept for himself
An absolute veto over all legislation; full control of the bureaucracy, military, foreign policy, and ministerial appointments; the power to dissolve the Duma at will; and sole authority to initiate any revision of the Fundamental Laws themselves.
Four Dumas, Two Real Patterns
| Duma | Dates | What happened to it |
|---|---|---|
| First | May–July 1906 | Dominated by liberals and socialists; dissolved quickly by the Tsar |
| Second | March–June 1907 | Also dominated by liberals and socialists; dissolved by the Coup of June 1907, below |
| Third | November 1907–June 1912 | Completed its full term — only after the electoral rules had been rewritten |
| Fourth | November 1912–March 1917 | Sat until the revolution that ended the monarchy itself |
The Coup of June 1907 — Changing the Rules Mid-Game
On 1 June 1907, Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin accused Social Democrat deputies of preparing an armed uprising and demanded the Duma exclude 55 of them from its sessions, stripping parliamentary immunity from 16. When the Duma refused, Nicholas II dissolved it by imperial decree on 3 June — an act that came to be known as the Coup of June 1907.
Alongside the dissolution, the government issued a new electoral law that dramatically reduced representation for national minorities (Poland, Siberia, the Caucasus, Central Asia) while strengthening the vote of the nobility and large landowners. Both the dissolution and the new electoral law were issued without the Duma's own consent — a direct violation of the 1906 Fundamental Laws, which had explicitly required exactly that consent for any change of this kind.
The Third Duma, elected under the new, rewritten rules, was genuinely more cooperative — it completed its full term and passed Stolypin's own land-reform program for peasant smallholders, though it achieved comparatively little else. The Fourth Duma sat through the early years of the First World War — the crisis this course's next chapter turns to directly, and the one that finally brought the entire Tsarist system down.
Hands-On Exercises
Explain why the October Manifesto's own promise — that no law would take effect without the Duma's confirmation — turned out to be a much narrower concession in practice than it first sounded.
Explain why the Coup of June 1907 is best understood as a direct continuation of the same structural weakness Chapter 1 identified in the Great Reforms, rather than as an unrelated, later crisis.
Explain why the Third Duma's own ability to complete its full term is not, on its own, evidence that the Duma system had become genuinely more secure or powerful by 1907.
Quick Reference
- 22 January 1905: Bloody Sunday — troops fire on a peaceful petitioning crowd outside the Winter Palace, killing roughly 200
- October 1905: the October Manifesto promises a national Duma and no law without its confirmation
- April 1906: the Fundamental Laws establish the Duma but preserve the Tsar's veto, dissolution power, and control of the bureaucracy and military
- First and Second Dumas (1906–1907): both dominated by liberals and socialists, both dissolved quickly
- 1 June 1907: Stolypin demands the exclusion of 55 Social Democrat deputies; the Duma refuses
- 3 June 1907: the Coup of June 1907 — dissolution and a new, more restrictive electoral law, both issued without the Duma's own required consent
- Third Duma (1907–1912): completes its full term under the rewritten rules; Fourth Duma (1912–1917) sits until the monarchy's own collapse