The Political Outlook in Russia

THERE is no prophet in Russia who would at this moment pretend to know whether the second Douma will not, by the time these lines reach the reader, be a reminiscence of the past. One thing is certain, however, — the revolution is not over. “The Douma will be such as I want it to be,” Premier Stolypin was reported to have said, after the dissolution of the first Douma. Whether these precise words were used or not, all the acts of the government gave plain evidence of that intention.

To the American voter the idea of a congressional campaign implies a lively contest of political parties and independent candidates, nominating conventions, great ratification meetings, stump speakers addressing the crowds in every nook of the country, newspaper discussion of the comparative merits of the candidates, a preliminary canvass of the voters by party workers and enterprising newspapers, resolutions of chambers of commerce, bar associations, and trade unions, indorsing their favorite candidates. One would have looked in vain for anything of the sort in the campaign for the second Douma.

All parties of the opposition, which had aggregated three fourths of the representation in the first Douma, were refused incorporation under the statutes, and every unincorporated party was declared a criminal conspiracy. All clubs of the Constitutional Democrats, the leading party in the first Douma, were closed by order of the government. The national convention of the party had to be held in Finland, beyond the reach of the St. Petersburg cabinet. All local committees of the party had to adopt the ways of secret societies. At Odessa a wealthy and publicspirited citizen, Mr. Pankeyev, invited to his house a dozen leading “ Cadets” ¹ to discuss the plan of the coming campaign; but the host and his guests were “caught in the act” by the police, and fined $1500 each by order of the military governor-general, of course without the formality of a trial, but with the option of serving out the penalty in jail. At Mohilev a similar unlawful assemblage was surprised by the police at the house of Dr. Protassevitch (a graduate of the New York College of Dental Surgery and a personal friend of the writer), and the criminal Cadets were all sent to jail for two weeks by order of the military governor.

Meetings of Jewish Zionist committees at St. Petersburg and Wilno shared the same fate. Mr. Zevin, a reputable attorney of Melitopol, in the Crimea, was arrested on suspicion of being slated for nomination by the Cadets. A volume could be filled with such facts as these.

Four weeks before the election, meetings of voters were authorized by cabinet order. But every election meeting was watched by a police captain who had power to stop every speaker whose remarks, in his judgment, threatened the public peace. How this power was interpreted by the police was illustrated at the first election meeting of the St. Petersburg suburban voters. Professor Vladimir Hessen, now a member of the Douma, was the principal speaker. He was frequently interrupted by objections from the police captain, and finally he was not permitted to close his address, on the ground that “no criticism of the government is allowed at election meetings.” Such things being possible in St. Petersburg, at the seat of the “constitutional” cabinet of Mr. Stolypin, one may well surmise what was done in the country, where the voice of the press was stifled by martial law. At Poltava, for example, only one campaign meeting was licensed, and then on the condition that the speakers should not talk politics!

Still Mr. Stolypin had before him the discouraging experience of Count Witte, who had sought by similar measures to influence the elections for the first Douma. The safest way to eliminate the opposition from the second Douma was to disfranchise it. A proposition to that effect was introduced at the caucus of the “Party of the Centre” in the Imperial Council, but it was rejected for the reason that it would require an amendment of the election law, whereas the Czar had, in his Manifesto of October 17 (30), 1905, proclaimed that no law would thenceforth be enacted without the consent of the Douma; no session of the Douma, however, could be called before the next election. This argument was met by a suggestion from Mr. Krasovsky, of the “Union of October 17,” to the effect that, though no new law could be enacted without the consent of the Douma, yet the power to interpret the existing law is inherent in the Senate (the Russian Supreme Court), and the interpretation may be so thorough-going as to destroy the law itself. The suggestion met with the approval of the other “Octobrists” present and was promptly acted upon by the Cabinet. There was no question that the Senate, as a body of veteran bureaucrats, could be fully relied upon “to do the right thing.”

The Russian election law is a clumsy compromise between the principles of property qualification and manhood suffrage. The first was embodied in the act of August 19, 1905, whereby a consultative assembly was created, composed of representatives of property owners. The upheaval of the October days of the same year wrested from the government a few grudging concessions to each of the several classes of citizens who had been disfranchised under the original election law. The railway men, the factory operatives, the commercial clerks, the professional classes, had all been active in the great political strike: therefore the franchise was granted to all railway employees, except those engaged in menial work, all salesmen and clerks paying a license tax, and all tenants occupying separate apartments. Still, a large proportion of the factory operatives are single men and live in lodging-houses; to pacify them, all operatives in large factories and mills employing more than fifty hands were permitted to send delegates to a convention for the choice of electors. Each of the bodies of voters — the landed proprietors, the peasants, the townspeople, and the factory operatives — votes for electors separately; but these electors meet together in the provincial electoral college and choose representatives to the Douma.

Now upon the application of Assistant Minister of the Interior Kryzhanovsky, the Senate proceeded to amend this election law by interpreting away its plain sense. All trainmen, from conductor to locomotive engineer, were held by the Senate to be engaged in “menial service” and therefore not entitled to the franchise. Thus practically all railway men, a few hundred thousands in number, were disfranchised.

Under the law, many classes of voters are entitled to a plural vote, that is, a voter possessed of country real estate in more than one election district may vote in every district where his property is located. The same principle obtained in regard to the factory operatives, who, though entitled to vote for factory delegates, were not precluded from exercising their franchise as tenants. This was by no means an unintentional oversight of the law-makers. The committee which framed the act of December 24, 1905, in fulfillment of the Czar’s pledge to extend the franchise to the common people, recommended this system of double voting as a substitute for universal suffrage. While all employees in the small establishments were denied the franchise, others would be entitled to vote twice; thus labor, as a class, would receive its due share of representation among the several classes of voters. The Senate, in its interpretation of the election law, read into it the principle of “one man, one vote,” quite foreign both to the letter and the spirit of the Russian election law. The factory operative was held to be entitled to but one vote, and that only in the establishment where he was employed; he was denied the option of voting as a householder by waiving the right to vote at the factory. In this manner more than ten thousand voters were struck off the register in St. Petersburg alone, while their ratio of representation through factory delegates is limited to one eleventh of the electoral college of the capital. The effects were similar everywhere.

The flat-dwellers were another dangerous class whose representation had to be curtailed. Under the interpretation of the Senate, a kitchen stove is essential to a “dwelling,” in the contemplation of the election law. The voting qualification of the tenant was accordingly to be determined by the police, who were instructed to ascertain by personal inspection of the dwellings whether the latter conformed to the law, as interpreted by the Senate. The patrolmen had at times to pass upon very fine points of law; for example: may a range be considered a “kitchen stove” in the meaning of the law, or must a dwelling be provided with a Russian oven, in order to entitle the occupant to a vote ? At the city of Vitebsk the question was decided in favor of the oven, and the citizen was disfranchised. Under the same interpretation the occupant of an apartment letting a room to a sub-tenant was held not to come within the definition of a “tenant” entitled to a vote, since he did not occupy a separate apartment for himself and his own family.

The law requires a tenant to have resided one year in the city, in order to be registered as a voter. This provision was found to be the most elastic means to disfranchise undesirable voters. A member of the first Douma was struck off the register on the ground that he had absented himself from his place of residence to attend the session of the Douma.

The peasants woefully disappointed the Bureaucracy, who had relied upon their ignorance and traditional devotion to the Czar as a bulwark against the opposition. This was the work of the farmers’ sons, who had been educated in the colleges and the universities. It was accordingly held by the Senate that only those members of the Mir are entitled to the franchise who are actual residents and householders in their respective townships. The interpretation was absolutely without foundation in law, the Mir being a corporation of joint landowners, wherein all members, resident an well as nonresident, are entitled to a lot and a vote. But the Aladins had to be gotten rid of at any cost.

Those better off among the peasants, who had managed to buy a few acres of land from the neighboring nobles, by giving a mortgage to the Peasant Bank, were entitled under the election law to participate through their delegates in the assembly of landed proprietors for the choice of electors. Last year these peasant delegates outvoted in many places the nobles, and returned Constitutional Democrats. This was to be suffered no longer; the Senate simply declared, without any color of law, that the owners of landed property mortgaged to the Peasant Bank are not landed proprietors in the contemplation of the law.

By these and other means of similar character it was sought to exclude the democratic voters. It was anticipated by the government, however, that even after this sifting process there would still remain enough disaffected voters to carry the election for the opposition. Still, all technical matters relating to the elections are left by the law to be regulated by the Minister of the Interior. Accordingly an ingenious form of ballot was devised by Mr. Kryzhanovsky, intended to confuse the opposition voters in the cities. Blank ballots are prepared by the municipality, and each voter is handed two copies, one of which he must fill out. with the full names, titles, and addresses of the candidates; for example, “Petrusewicz, Kazimir, Adam’s son, counselor-at-law, Kreshtchenskaya street, Wankowicz building.” In great cities there are half a dozen or more electors to be chosen. The administration was sure that this “catch ballot” would practically disfranchise the common people, for the majority of the ballots would be spoiled. “Incorporated political parties,” however, that is, those supporting the government, were given the privilege of procuring from the municipality any desired number of blank ballots for distribution among the voters. Thus all administration parties were enabled to have their ballots printed.

While all opposition parties were under the ban, there still remained men who had made reputations in the first Douma. Their names would tell their platforms. Steps were taken very early to make them harmless. The state’s attorney of St. Petersburg was instructed to file informations against one hundred and eighty members of the first Douma for signing the Viborg Manifesto to the voters. It was notoriously a trumped-up charge, for the courts of the empire have no jurisdiction over offenses committed in the Grand Duchy of Finland. But it served the purpose of the government, by disfranchising the most undesirable candidates. Yet all the brains of Russia are not confined to the members of the first Douma. Therefore the administration went for the scalps of all men of note who were logical candidates for the Douma. Professor Milukov, the head of the Constitutional Democratic party, was interpreted out of the register by the Senate on flimsy technical grounds. Professor Kovalevsky shared the same fate; so also Mr. Aladin and many others of local fame.

In order to make the election entirely a game of blind-man’s-buff, the military governors-general in some of the country districts prohibited the newspapers from announcing in their columns the names of the candidates.

And yet, with all these subterfuges, the government was overwhelmingly defeated. The Bureaucracy is so universally hated by all classes of the people that no sifting of voters could improve the chances of the government. The trick with the ballot was easily frustrated by the enthusiasm of the people; thousands of young men and women, schoolboys and schoolgirls, went from house to house collecting the blank ballots, which were then filled out by bodies of copyists and distributed among the voters. At St. Petersburg and in some other cities these canvassers were hunted by the police; a few were caught and locked up, but others were ready to take up their work. By shadowing some of the less cautious among these canvassers, police detectives traced a few of the “dens of the conspirators;” at St. Petersburg the house of a reputable lawyer was searched and thousands of filled-out ballots were seized as contraband. These losses of war, however, were easily provided against.

On the 25th of January, the governorgeneral of the Caucasus ordered the election to be held, after the fashion of a court-martial, within twenty-four hours. At the appointed time the voters were on hand; two provinces were carried by the Socialists and the rest by a fusion between all parties of the opposition.

In the southwest a renewal of the antiJewish riots of the “days of freedom” was threatened by the “Monarchists” in case opposition candidates should be elected. At Odessa on the eve of the election the “Union of the Russian People” let loose its armed thugs upon the Jews and the students. The reign of terror continued on election day, with the open connivance of General Kaulbars, the chief military commander of the city. “It was worth a man’s life to go to the polls,” I was told by a Jewish voter of Odessa whom I met in the train on my way to St. Petersburg, “and yet our people did their duty.” In spite of intimidation, a Jew and a Constitutional Democrat, Mr. Pergament, president of the Bar Association, was elected by the voters of Odessa to represent them in the Douma.

Once more the people of Russia have demonstrated to the Bureaucracy that they know their will and are determined to tell it, though the country is in the throes of martial law, with Cossacks, mounted guards, and policemen armed with rifles, on every step; any man with brass buttons is literally the master over the life of every citizen.

On the other hand the boisterous “Union of the Russian People,” which pretended to voice the sentiments of the whole nation, only managed to smuggle in its candidates by gross election frauds. Thus the notorious Krushevan, of Kishinev Jew-baiting fame, owes his election to the fact that the register was padded with hundreds of names of dead men, whose certificates were duly voted on by live patriots.

In the western section, with a mixed population, sectarian prejudices were played upon by the clergy. At Grodno last year a Constitutional Democratic ticket was elected by a fusion between the peasants and the Jews. The fusion arrangement was renewed at the election for the second Douma. Then the bishop invited the peasant electors to a special mass, and preached a sermon, in which he exhorted them not to disgrace the good name of the Russian people by a union with the infidels and enemies of Christ. In conclusion he said, —

“If you betray the Jews, there is no sin in it, for he who has fallen may rise, and you will be forgiven because of the good deed, that is, your union with the Christians. I give you my blessing for it and I beseech you, in the name of God and the Autocratic Czar, to stand by the orthodox faith, not to cast away the cross, and I humbly bow to you.”

Thereupon he dramatically dropped on his knees and bowed to the ground before the humble peasant electors. One may well imagine the effect. The peasants dared not disobey; they broke their arrangement with the Jews and elected administration candidates.

So Mr. Stolypin can boast of having won the support of one hundred and two representatives in the second Douma, as against a baker’s dozen in the first. But the number of Socialists, who are avowed Republicans, has grown from twenty-one to wellnigh one third of the Douma, at the expense of the Constitutional Democrats, who are in favor of a constitutional monarchy, albeit for reasons of expediency only. The most significant result of the election is the fact that two thirds of those members of the Douma who represent the peasantry as a class² are affiliated with one or another of the revolutionary parties, whose declared purpose is the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a republican form of government. Not more than five years ago it was not safe for a socialist agitator to show his face in a rural community, for the peasants would deliver him to the authorities; such cases were reported in the “underground” revolutionary press of that time. Even in the capital the factory workers, but two years ago, marched, under the leadership of a priest, with banners bearing the picture of the Czar, humbly to beg him for protection against bureaucratic oppression. Now the factory workers all over the country have, with few exceptions, elected Socialists as their delegates to the electoral colleges. Within two years the revolution has conquered the minds of the masses.

The thirty-four Revolutionary Socialists in the second Douma are in the literal sense a memento mori to the Bureaucracy. The Revolutionary Socialist party openly proclaims assassination of officers of the government as a legitimate method of warfare against despotism. To appreciate the full import of the election of the candidates of this party it must be understood that it is not merely thirty-four election districts out of four hundred and sixtyeight that they represent, as they would in America, for under the Russian election law they could not have been elected without the votes of electors affiliated with other parties. Nor are the representatives of this party shunned in the Douma by any of the other four opposition parties, including the Constitutional Democrats. On the contrary, they are invited to the joint caucuses of the opposition, and one of their number, Dr. Oospensky, has been elected assistant secretary of the Douma. Dr. Oospensky’s father was convicted of murder committed for political reasons and ended his days in a Siberian prison; his mother has also had a taste of prison life; his maternal aunt, Vera Zassulitch, was the girl who in 1878 attempted the life of the St. Petersburg chief of police, General Trepoff, and was acquitted by the jury; and his first cousin Nikephorov was last year executed for the assassination of the chief of political detectives at NizhniNovgorod.

There are many among the Socialists and Labor representatives who have spent years in prison and in exile. By choosing these veterans of the revolutionary movement to represent them in the Douma, the voters plainly showed that they wanted fighters. This is the real explanation of the fact that of all European countries Russia now has, next to Finland, the largest Socialist representation in its legislature. It would be misleading to infer from this fact that the Socialist ideal has captured the minds of a large portion of the people. Socialism was not the issue of the campaign. Most of the Socialists were elected on fusion tickets made up of men of all opposition parties. But even in those few cases where Socialists were elected on their party tickets, it is safe to say that it, was not by reason of their Socialistic views. The province of Tiflis in the Caucasus is purely agricultural; the population are small farmers; there are very few hired farm laborers; and yet its three representatives are all affiliated with the Social Democratic party which lays no claim to represent any but the wage-earning class. The great industrial city of Nizhni-Novgorod is represented by Dr. Dolgopoloff, who has enrolled with the Revolutionary Socialist party, which is preëminently the party of the small farmer. Were the voters of Nizhni-Novgorod really so interested to have the land of the nobles allotted to the peasants ? Far from it. Dr. Dolgopoloff had lived in Nizhni-Novgorod about twenty years prior to 1905, and was a very popular physician. During the few weeks of freedom which followed the proclamation of the Czar’s Manifesto of October 30, 1905, he spoke at many street meetings. After the collapse of the insurrection at Moscow and elsewhere, the government proceeded to clean up the cities of all “suspicious characters,” and Dr. Dolgopoloff was banished by executive order from Nizhni-Novgorod to Astrakhan. He was in his absence elected at Nizhni-Novgorod elector for the second Douma. The electoral college was evenly divided between Socialists of all schools, on the one hand, and Constitutional Democrats on the other. Neither side could elect its own candidate unless he was indorsed by the other side. So ultimately both sides agreed upon Dr. Dolgopoloff, as a protest against his deportation by executive order.

There are three Socialist parties in the Douma. The oldest and the most numerous of them is the Russian Social-Democratic-Labor party, which numbers sixtyfive representatives. It is weakened, however, by a factional feud between the extremists and the moderates. The former, numbering but a dozen representatives, believe that nothing short of an armed uprising of the people will secure to the country a free democratic form of government. They take little stock in the legislative work of the Douma and regard it merely as a public platform from which they can appeal to the people of the whole country to stand up for their rights. The moderates are distrustful of the outcome of an armed struggle between the people and the military forces of the government. They therefore advocate a parliamentary policy along the lines of the Social Democracy of Germany.

The Revolutionary Socialists share with the extreme faction of the Social Democrats the belief in an armed uprising of the people. Their main point of difference,disregarding philosophical distinctions which arc little understood by the masses, is in their plans of land reform. Both parties are committed to land nationalization ³ and confiscation of private landed property. But the Revolutionary Socialists would have it periodically redistributed among the actual farmers cultivating it with the assistance of none but members of their own households, and would prohibit subletting and hired labor; whereas the Social Democrats regard such prohibitive regulations as impracticable and Utopian.

The Populistic-Socialist-Labor party was born after the dissolution of the first Douma, from a difference within the Revolutionary Socialist party upon questions of policy. The moderate faction, believing that the policy of the party had to be adjusted to the new constitutional order, split off from the Revolutionary Socialists. While fully in accord with the ultimate aims of the latter, they too, like the moderate Social Democrats, consider revolutionary methods inopportune and favor parliamentary ways. On the land question they hold, with the Constitutional Democrats, compensation of the landlords preferable to civil war. Their representation in the Douma numbers but eighteen members; outside the Douma their influence is confined to the professional class.

An intermediate position between the Socialists and the Constitutional Democrats is held by the “Labor Group.” It is made up of peasants, some affiliated with the Peasant Alliance, where it has survived the dragonnades of Mr. Stolypin, — with an admixture of Independent Socialists, who for various reasons could not affiliate with any of the Socialist parties. In point of numbers it is the second largest party in the Douma.

Although the Socialists, together with the Laborites, muster about forty per cent of the total membership of the Douma, yet the balance of power is held by the Constitutional Democrats. The failure of the peasantry to respond to the Viborg Manifesto has dispelled whatever revolutionary illusions the Cadets may have cherished in the past, and has strengthened the conservative faction of the party led by Professor Milukov and the National Committee.

The division within the opposition engendered during the campaign a great deal of factional bitterness and cost them the loss of a few great cities, which were carried by extreme reactionists, such as Bishop Plato of Kiev, or by conservatives like Professor Kapustin of Kasan. The lesson was not lost. All parties of the opposition have realized the necessity of showing a united front to the government. An “Information Committee,” composed of representatives of all opposition parties, has been created for the purpose. Friction must be expected should the Douma be allowed to legislate; yet some compromise land bill could ultimately be agreed upon which would satisfy the peasantry, and the passage of effective laws for the protection of labor would be assured. There would be considerable difference of opinion, if it came to framing laws to insure freedom of speech, freedom of press, and the like: the Laborites and the Socialists would follow the American example, whereas the Constitutional Democrats take their model in Continental Europe, and would leave the police clothed with a great deal of discretionary power over newspapers, public meetings, libraries, schools, etc. By virtue of their position the Constitutional Democrats could force these restrictions into the law.

The first Douma was “a meeting of talkers;” it had to make room for ”a businesslike Douma,” — such was the claim of the government. It must be clear to every unbiased observer that the second Douma has been from the first both willing and able to do business. The truth is, however, that a businesslike Douma means to the Bureaucracy one that would do its bidding. In this Mr. Stolypin’s hopes were woefully disappointed. Since neither side would yield, one must go. But the opposition firmly decided to give the government no excuse for dissolving the Douma, so that when the inevitable comes, the responsibility should be placed by the public where it belongs. From the first days of the session the government began an aggressive campaign against the Douma.

The law insures fo the representatives of the people immunity from arrest and imprisonment during the sessions of the Douma. This privilege was grossly violated by the government in the case of Father Gregory Petrov, member of the Douma from St. Petersburg. Father Gregory is a noted speaker and writer, and though a priest of the established church, has allied himself with the cause of freedom. For this offense he was sentenced by the Holy Synod to do penance at a monastery in the backwoods of the province of Novgorod. A few days later he was elected to the Douma on the Constitutional Democratic ticket. Thereupon his colleagues from St. Petersburg applied to the government for suspension of his sentence, under the law. The Procurator of the Holy Synod, however, refused to release him. Worse things were yet to come.

One victory Premier Stolypin may, without fear of contradiction, claim for himself as campaign manager: by striking every head that was rising above the average level, he created “a headless Douma.” The Constitutional Democrats still succeeded in electing a few of their leaders; for instance, the two Hessens, Mr. Peter Struve, and others. The Labor and Socialist parties sent a great many peasants and factory workers and a few stump speakers; but hardly any of them were fit for committee work. This scarcity of parliamentary talent had to be made up for by the coöperation of each party delegation in the Douma with its national committee, which sought the advice of experts whenever needed.

But the government would not have it. Rigid regulations were issued for the isolation of the representatives from the public. No one was admitted to the Douma without a ticket, which was granted by the police after a searching investigation, by detectives, of the applicant’s political “character.” That is not enough, however, for the galleries for the public are cut off from all communication with the lobby and restaurant. Even newspaper men are put to considerable difficulty in procuring seats in the Russian press gallery. Moreover, the chief of the Guard of the Douma, Baron Osten-Saken, acting under orders from the cabinet, barred Russian newspaper correspondents from interviewing members of the Douma. The reason for this order is apparently to be found in the fact that most of the Russian correspondents are in sympathy with one or another of the Socialist parties; some of them might even be National Committeemen.

Still there was danger that the representatives might confer with their party leaders in the privacy of their own homes. Therefore orders were given to the police to prevent all meetings at the houses of members of the Douma; in obedience to their instructions the police invaded the house of Representative Maharadze and for two hours detained all his guests under arrest, awaiting the arrival of a magistrate. Mr. Maharadze complained personally to the President of the Cabinet, but received no satisfaction. This incident was followed by a raid upon the house of Representative Ozol, whose guests were taken to police headquarters and locked up there.

Next the public prosecutor preferred charges against several of the Social Democratic members of the Douma for affiliation with “a criminal confederacy known as the Social Democratic party; ” whereupon the Minister of Justice applied to the Douma for a resolution suspending them from office. Inasmuch as all parties of the opposition are treated by the government as unlawful combinations, this application endangered the very existence of the Douma: what is there to prevent the Department of Justice, through its prosecuting attorneys, from preferring similar charges against every member of the opposition, thus leaving the Douma without a quorum ? The matter was referred by the Douma to a committee, where it is resting for the present.

It is common belief among men of all parties that, in spite of all its moderation, the days of the Douma are numbered. The government is confident of its ability to crush resistance by force of arms. That it will succeed for a time, I do not question. Yet it is worthy of note that the Cossack Group, which includes all representatives of the Cossack territories in the Douma, has just one supporter of the government, all others being affiliated with the opposition; they have chosen for their chairman Mr. Stcherbina, a noted economist and statistician, who has spent many years as a political exile in Northern Russia, and is affiliated with the Populistic Socialist party. The meaning of this fact was made plain by a member of this Group, Mr. Petrovsky, in his address on the abolition of drumhead courtsmartial, from which the following is quoted: —

“I am a Don Cossack. I bear with pride this glorious and grievous name. Glorious with the glory of the Cossacks’ history; grievous, because of the part the Cossacks have lately been forced to play by the government. After deluding and demoralizing them with the semblance of special privileges, the government took advantage of the iron press of military discipline to mobilize the Cossack regiments against the cause of liberty. But that can only continue for a time. I tell you, gentlemen of this High Chamber, the time is fast coming, and it will come, when not a single Cossack will raise his whip.”

1. The nickname “ Cadets ” was coined from the Russian initials of the Constitutional Democratic party name : K (a). d (e).↩
2. Under the Russian election law, the electors chosen by the peasantry of a province first meet separately and vote for one member of the Douma to represent specially their class; after which they choose, jointly with the other electors, those members who are to represent the province generally.↩
3. There are very fine-spun distinctions drawn by the party theorists between “nationalization,” “ municipalization,” and “socialization,” This is, however, not the place for such subtle disquisitions.↩