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The Dumas and Stolypin


The attitude of Nicholas to the first four dumas.

  • He refused to work with the Dumas because the people wanted change and this was deemed 'too radical'
  • He kept changing who was in the Duma until they were moderate enough or shared enough of his views that it would be 'bearable'.
  • He still had all the power, so he could dissolve the Duma whenever he wished
  • The Duma had little or no power in proper affairs. They could not pass laws, appoint ministers or control important areas of finance such as military spending.
  • The Duma elections clearly favoured the nobles, as they had 1 rep per 2000 people but the workers had 1 rep per 20,000 people.

First duma: 1906
Second duma: 1907
Third duma: ?
Fourth duma: 1912

  • The fourth Duma was by far the most successful. The Tsar even began to tentatively work with it, but the Dumas overall, had achieved little. The actions of the fourth Duma quickly came to a halt with the arrival of World War 1.

Stolypin’s policy of repression and land reform

  • Peter Stolypin tried to calm down the revolts by crushing them with force
  • The number of executions increased so significantly that the hangman's noose became known as 'Stolypin's Necktie'.
  • Revolutionaries were forced into exiles and the number of strikes did in fact calm down, but this did not solve the root problem - Russian peasants clung to old, labor-intensive farming methods which were becoming inefficient and caused frequent food shortages
  • Food shortages = angry people
  • Stolypin tried to address this by encouraging people to buy scattered bits of land and turn them into a bigger farm.****

Lena Goldfield Strike

Causes
  • Unhappy workers
  • Working conditions were poor, wages were low, and they were barely fed
  • Workers were fined when they did not meet targets
  • Poor housing

Events
  • There workers demanded an 8-hour workday, 30% raise in wages, the elimination of fines and improvement of food delivery
    • None of these were agreed to by the administration
  • The strikes spread accross the region and by April, there were 6000 men on strike, protesting for the same rights.
  • The Tsar sent troops from Kirensk on the 17th of April, which led to a bloody massacre in which the strikes were put down.
  • Strike committee members were arrested
  • The next day, 2,500 workers decided to march towards the Nadezhdinsky goldfield to complain and deliver a demand for the immediate release of the strike committee.
  • These workers were met by soldiers, who, on the order of Captain Treshchenkov, started firing on the crowd, which resulted in hundreds of dead and wounded.

Results
  • Showed the repressive means by which the Tsar dealt with opposition
    • Without the army, he could not enforce his will.
  • Increased resnetment among people
  • Local newspaper, Zvezda, reported 270 dead and 250 wounded. These figures would be later used in Soviet propaganda.



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