October Manifesto and the Duma government (3)
- Created by: MonsurAli
- Created on: 03-06-17 13:59
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- October Manifesto and the Duma government
- October Manifesto
- After the General Strike at the beginning of Oct 1905, ministers agreed some moderate reform was needed.
- 17th Oct 1905: Tsar issued October Manifesto promising:
- Freedom of speech, religion and free press
- Elected duma which had actual authority; laws issued by Tsar need duma approval (But the Tsar could still veto it as it was a consultive duma)
- In Nov, a second manifesto published promising improvements in the peasant land bank and to abolish redemption payments within a year.
- One of his uncles threatened to shoot himself unless the reforms were instituted.
- General strike was called off but Lenin and Trotsky were not fooled by the manifesto.
- Drawbacks of it: Only consultive, not elected by direct universal suffrage with secret ballot (no equal representation), and no promise of a Constituent Assembly.
- New constitution: consisted of indirect voting for the lower chamber (less representatives for peasants etc), and the Government was all appointed by the Tsar.
- Fundamental laws
- Introduced 5 days before the first duma met. Made it seem like it was ordained by God.
- Gave him the power of veto and he could rule in emergencies or when the duma was not in session.
- He could appoint and dismiss ministers, and also dissolve dumas.
- He also had control over the army, Church, laws, and times of war.
- There was still initial optimism.
- Counter revolution
- Trepov ordered to 'fire no blanks and spare no bullet'. He forced workers back to factories, sent Jews to pogroms and used gangs to flog peasants to restore order.
- Leaders of revolutionary groups were arrested and exiled thus weakening opposition.
- However protests lasted for another month causing peasant union leaders and Trotsky etc to be arrested.
- They still used ruthless methods to suppress rural unrest. Popularity of the SR's consequently increased.
- The govenrnmet closed down all uni's till end of 1905. Feb 1906, the Tsar issued Imperial Manifesto where people could send him advice (but this was just used to buy time).
- October Manifesto
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