As concerned the Duma, it was for him exclusively a factor complicating legislative procedures. This complication seemed to him, at bottom, unnecessary: but once it had been regrettably made, then it had to be reduced to a minimum. This was not difficult. The government’s plan for the Duma was simple. To begin with, it would be sufficient for the deputies to have the honor of being received in audience by the Emperor: then their mandates would be verified and the rules worked out. This would be followed by a recess, brought about as quickly as possible: in this manner, the session would be prorogued until autumn. Next would come the discussion of the budget. The practical exigencies of life would assert themselves, turmoil calmed, order restored, and everything would be as before.10
Not all Crown ministers thought in these terms: Stolypin, in particular, would try to bring the Duma into a genuine partnership. But Goremykin reflected more accurately the attitudes prevalent at the Court and among its conservative supporters—attitudes which precluded effective parliamentary government at a time when autocratic government had ceased to be feasible. As if to demonstrate his feelings toward the Duma, Nicholas refused to cross its threshold, preferring to receive the deputies in the Winter Palace.*
Later, after the Revolution, some officials of the tsarist regime justified the monarchy’s unwillingness to share power with the Duma with the argument that Russian “society,” as represented by the intelligentsia, would have been incapable of administering the country: introducing parliamentary government in 1906 would merely have served to unleash the anarchy of 1917 that much sooner.11 But these arguments, voiced in emigration, had the benefit of hindsight: a conservative-liberal parliamentary coalition cooperating with the monarchy and its officialdom would certainly have proven more effective than the same coalition turned out to be in March 1917, after the monarchy had abdicated, when it had no alternative but to seek support from the revolutionary intelligentsia.
20. Ivan Goremykin.
Had the Russian intelligentsia been politically more mature—more patient, that is, and more understanding of the mentality of the monarchic establishment—Russia might perhaps have succeeded in making an orderly transition from a semi-constitutional to a genuinely constitutional regime. But these qualities the educated classes sorely lacked. From the day the constitution went into force, they exploited every opportunity to wage war against the monarchy. The radical intellectuals rejected the very principles of constitutional monarchy and parliamentary government. Initially they boycotted the Duma elections; later, after concluding that the boycott was a mistake, they ran in the elections but only to disrupt parliamentary proceedings and incite the population to rebellion. The Constitutional-Democratic Party was in this respect only marginally more constructive. While the liberals accepted the principle of constitutional monarchy, they regarded the Fundamental Laws of 1906 as a travesty and did all in their power to deprive the monarchy of effective authority.*
As a result, the traditional conflict between the authorities and the intelligentsia grew more intense rather than less, since it now had a formal arena where to play itself out. Struve, who observed this struggle with a sense of alarm because he believed it was bound to end in catastrophe, wrote that “the Russian Revolution and the Russian reaction somehow hopelessly claw at each other, and from every fresh wound, every drop of blood which they draw, grows the vengeful hatred and untruth of Russian life.”12
The experts whom the government charged with drafting the new Fundamental Laws were told to produce a document that would fulfill the promises of the October Manifesto and still preserve most of the traditional prerogatives of the Russian monarchy.13 Between December 1905 and April 1906, when the work was completed, they came up with several drafts, which were discussed and revised at cabinet meetings, sometimes chaired by the Tsar. The final product was a conservative constitution—conservative in terms of both the franchise and the powers reserved for the Crown.
