The October Manifesto

Strife and unrest in the capitals and in many parts of Our empire fill Our heart with a great and heavy sorrow…

We impose upon the government the obligation to fulfill Our inflexible will:

1. To grant the population the unshakable foundations of civil freedom, rooted in the principles of the true inviolability of the individual, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and union.

2. To immediately have those classes of the population that are now completely deprived of elective rights participate in the Duma.

3. To establish as a firm rule that no law shall come into force without the approval of the State Duma.

We call upon all true sons of Russia to remember their duty to the Motherland, to help put an end to this unprecedented strife, and together with Us to devote all Our efforts to the restoration of peace and tranquility to Our native land.

So many things had to happen in Russia before such words could be heard...

Tsars had, from time to time, thought about making changes to the structure of government. In the 18th century, Empress Catherine created electoral bodies for the nobility and for those living in cities, wishing to accustom her subjects to taking part in the running of the country. Yet the tsaritsa could not quite bring herself to give up her own absolute power.  She foresaw too many perils down that path – memories of the Pugachev Rebellion and the savage forces it brought to the surface were still fresh.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Alexander I had dreamed of giving Russia a constitution, renouncing the throne, and settling somewhere in Germany, on the banks of the Rhine, with his wife. But these dreams remained just that.

As might have been expected, revolutionaries were often ready to take things farther than the rulers. In December 1825, young revolutionaries filled Senate Square in St. Petersburg with the doomed hope of a constitution, or perhaps even a republic. Later in that century, members of the People’s Will party embarked on a bloody hunt for Alexander II. In 1881, this tsar – who had freed the serfs and introduced trial by jury and the Zemstvo, a  local elected body – was killed by a terrorist’s bomb.

One hundred years were to separate the fanciful dreams of Alexander I and the moment when his great grand nephew, Nicholas II, signed the October Manifesto and brought Russia an elected legislature – the State Duma. The gulf between society and the authorities had been growing. Students no longer wanted to attend the lectures of professors who held conservative views. In educated circles, it was simply unseemly not to sympathize with the revolutionaries. And the authorities were not shy about the means they used to staunch the growing crisis. After a peaceful demonstration carrying a petition to the Tsar was shot at on January 9, 1905 (Bloody Sunday), there was an uproar: “Freedom, we want freedom!” These words resounded in the hearts of workers, who refused to go to work, in peasants, who burned their masters’ estates, in lawyers, who defended the revolutionaries, and in teachers, who instilled forbidden ideas in the minds of their pupils.

It was as if the smoke of burning manor houses darkened the skies of Russia, clouding and unsettling the mind.

In the fall of 1905, events reached a certain point beyond which people were eager to move. Yet, at the same time, they were also afraid of the abyss that lay beyond. By the end of September, the number of strikers could be measured in hundreds of thousands. In October, life in Moscow and St. Petersburg came to a standstill – the trams were not running, the banks were closed, schools and universities were empty, newspapers were not being published, the theaters were silent and the city water ceased to run. After the railroads ceased operation, the strike instantly spread to other cities. The Minister for Railways came to Moscow in the hope of calming the strikers, and had to drive his own locomotive back to St. Petersburg, which, being a former railway engineer himself, he was able to do.

Stopped in its tracks, the country waited – what would happen next? Rebellion, bloodshed, civil war? Dictatorship, punitive detachments, and more bloodshed?

At this fateful moment, so much depended on the kind, simpleminded, weak-willed Tsar Nicholas II. He, of course, fully understood the weight of his responsibility. He simply did not know what to do. Ten months before, Nicholas had made the terrible mistake of giving his consent – either tacit or explicit – to fire on a peaceful demonstration. Now what was to be done? Make concessions to the revolutionaries? He was dead set against this. Troublemakers, bandits and criminals coming from Lord knows where. That was how Nicholas saw them.

Nicholas was completely convinced that Russia was made for autocracy. “I cannot squander a legacy that is not mine to squander,” he said. How could he take a course of action that his great forebears had not allowed? And yet, how could the revolutionaries be stopped? As one of Nicholas’ intimates put it, “the Sovereign, being a weak man, believed most of all in physical force” – a position not conducive to negotiation and compromise.

The tsar, it would seem, genuinely did not understand that normal people might want to limit his power. He, like many at court, was convinced that only miscreants or their weak-minded followers could oppose the authorities. The notion of dialogue between the authorities and society never took hold.

But, by October a decision had to be made, and Nicholas pondered it in a state of agony. General Trepov, who had a great deal of influence over Nicholas, tried to convince him to introduce a dictatorship and bring troops into the capital. Count Sergei Yuliyevich Witte urged him to make concessions. Nicholas did not like Witte. This man was a great finance minister. He built railroads, introduced monetary reform, attracted foreign investment. But the tireless minister did not stop at that. He tried to increase the rights of peasants, creating entrepreneurial opportunities for them, and supported liberal reform – as a result of which he lost his post. But now Witte’s time had come.

Nicholas did not want to give in to the strikers, but he also did not want bloodshed. He asked his relative, Grand Duke Nicholas, to take over as dictator, to which the latter replied that he could not turn down the tsar, but he also did not want to doom the nation. Therefore, his only option was to shoot himself. Perhaps these words were what tipped the scales. Grand Duke Nicholas, who had run to the Tsar with pistol in hand, soon left with royal orders to convey: Witte should draft a manifesto. Russia was to be given political freedoms, an amnesty, and a legislature.

It worked. The strikes came to an abrupt halt. Even the wave of violence from extreme nationalists, who were unhappy with the changes taking place, could not dampen the outburst of widespread jubilation. The country began to prepare for elections. Witte was appointed Prime Minister, but after only half a year in office, he would be sent into retirement. In another twelve years, the tsar would be overthrown. In thirteen he would be shot.