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Updated: April 30, 2025
When secret negotiations were opened up with Germany, the Duma blasted them by public exposure on the popular side. The Duma's demand for sympathetic and really national government was enforced, first by the Council of the Empire, normally the stronghold of high officialdom, and then by the Congress of Nobles, which represents the landed aristocracy.
The War Minister mounted the tribune, and paid a tribute to the people's efforts in the cause of national defence, requesting the Duma's and the country's future co-operation in the work of equipping the army. The Minister of Marine reiterated General Shuvaiev's demand for co-operation between the Government and the Duma.
The government could not close these channels of communication, nor prevent the Duma's strong plea for lawful rights and against lawlessness by government officials from reaching the peasants. Only one method of defense remained to the Czar and his Ministers: On July 9th, like a thunderbolt from the sky, came a new Manifesto from the Czar, dissolving the Duma.
He dismissed one Duma after another, he created an upper house to act as a brake, he juggled with the electoral laws so that whereas according to the law of December 24, 1905 the working classes and the peasants were entitled to 68 per cent of the Duma's representation, by the law of June 14, 1907 they were allowed only 36 per cent, Poland's delegation was cut down from 37 to 12 per cent, Caucasus' from 29 to 9, Siberia's from 21 to 14, and Central Asia's from 23 to 1.
The unique opportunity which the first Duma afforded was frittered away in futile bickerings and wordy attacks upon the Government. Meanwhile, though a temporary truce was observed during the Duma's sessions, its dissolution on July 21, 1906, two and a half months after opening, was the signal for a fresh outburst of outrages on both sides.
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