by Olga BAZANQVA, journalist

Early in 2005 Russia's State Museum of History invited its visitors to an exhibition "The First Revolution. The First Parliament" which marked the centenary of these momentous events in the history of our country.

Russia's past abounds in events of dazzling glory and indescribable tragedy which are often inseparable from one another. And it is only natural that many uprisings, battles, revolts and fateful legal acts and the persons associated with them have been causing heated debates and aroused some directly opposite assessments. As for us, we should never forget the words of our great national poet Alexander Pushkin who said he would never agree to changing his motherland or its history - the history of our forefathers, such as was given us by God. One of these debatable pages of this history belongs to the First Russian Revolution.

The spontaneous protests of workers of the Putilovsky Plant which flamed up in St. Petersburg on January 3,1905 were supported by workers of several others, including the Nevsky Shipbuilding, and Patronny factories. In a matter of four days the Northern Russian capital was gripped by a general strike. Its participants (no less than 106 thous. or more) put forward mainly economic demands. One of the prominent public figures of that time was priest Father Gapon, founder of an organization called "Assembly of Russian Factory Workers of St. Petersburg". He suggested writing a petition to Emperor Nikolai II informing him of aspirations of the common folk and then march to the Winter Palace to present the petition to the Emperor at a special public cere-

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mony. His initiative was supported and a special document was prepared describing the plight of the common people, asking for the establishment of an 8-hour working day, for granting citizens political freedoms and for calling a Constituent Assembly from representatives of all social groups.

Early in the morning on January 9 of that year crowds of festively dressed workers accompanied by wives and children marched to the Palace Square carrying banners, icons and portraits of the monarch. The authorities, who had been warned of the coming unrest, had put on the alert army units and police who opened fire at the peaceful protesters. Those of the marchers who managed to get to the city center were attacked by mounted police and cavalry. This gory tragedy, inscribed in Russia's history as "Bloody Sunday", marked the start of the First Russian Revolution. Priest Gapon, stripped of his rank, escaped abroad and returned to St. Petersburg after amnesty of October 17, 1905. Shortly after he was exposed as a police agent, and by a decision of the Central Committee of the SRs Party (Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries) he was hanged at a country house near St. Petersburg.

The tragic events of that time were recorded by foreign painters who witnessed them. These documentary drawings reached all corners of Russia in the form of postcards. And it should be noted that the "mass media" of that kind produced by organizations and private individuals, were a typical phenomenon of the 1905 - 1907 Russian Revolution. Many of them are now on display at the State History Museum. One of these postcards presents an exact and expressive image: a red cock attacks a black double-headed eagle and deprives it of the Sceptre and the Orb - emblems of monarchy.

In the meantime, strikes were spreading to other industrial centers of Russia. By March 1905 they paralyzed

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30 out of the 33 of the country's railways. Some 810 thous. people were on strike - two times more than in the 10 years before the revolution. Peasant protests spread to 20 percent of Russia's provinces. Moscow was gripped by unprecedented unrests and by September of that year the federal and economic activities in the city came to a halt. Shortly after the entire transport network of the country was on strike under the leadership of the All-Russia Railways Union. In October 1905 the country was gripped by a national political strike in which 2 mn factory and office workers took part.

The sovereign had to yield to the pressure of popular indignation and on October 17 he issued a Manifesto, promising civil liberties, recognizing the legislative powers of the State Duma and broadening the numbers of voters. The proclaimed, but immediately restricted, freedom of speech, added fire to political satire. At the current display at the History Museum one can see some unique editions of the magazines "ZALP", "ZNAMYA" and "ZERKALO" - their first editions, which turned out to be their last ones. One bibliographic rarity is an issue of the "PULEMET" magazine with a picture of a bloodstained handprint upon the text of the Tsar's Manifesto.

Peasant protests sharply intensified from the late October 1905, reaching an unprecedented scale since the start of the Revolution. The culmination was the December armed uprising in Moscow which was soon joined by the industrial workers of other major cities. But these outbreaks were only on a local scale, did not occur at one and the same time, and their organizers did not act resolutely enough. As a result, these popular protests turned out a failure followed by punitive expeditions raging all over the country and the revolutionary tide finally subsiding.

As for the liberal opposition, it placed its stakes on parliamentary activities. The basic laws of the Russian Empire, partially revised in 1906,

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paved the way to the formation of an elected legislative body of the country - the Duma. The State Council was transformed into the Upper Chamber whose members were appointed by the Emperor. The Lower Chamber included deputies from four categories of the population: landowners, town dwellers, peasants and Cossacks, and factory workers. They selected their representatives (32, 42, 22 and 3 percent respectively, from the aforesaid curias) who elected in their turn members of the Duma. This laid the foundation for political debates and open party struggle. The atmosphere of that time is illustrated at the exhibition by a ballot-box, pamphlets and satirical cartoons on political opponents.

The life of the first Russian Parliament began on April 27, 1906 with a ceremonial reception in the Winter Palace at which Nikolai II addressed the people's elect. They met in the Tavrichesky Palace which was turned into the political center of the country. The elections to the new national legislative organ of the country were won by the Party of the Cadets (the leftists-Bolsheviks, SRs, the All-Russia Union of peasants-called for a boycott of the voting). Newspapers of that time wrote that they were "charged by history to introduce in Russia parliamentary ideas, rules and morals".

But in the very first days of the work of "The Duma of People's Wrath" the government turned down its proposals for a political amnesty, broader election rights and other democratic freedoms. The same happened with a Cadet bill on the most vital agrarian problem which provided the peasants with land at the expense of fiscal, monastery, church and other possessions and by means of purchasing land from the landlords "at a fair price". Also voiced in the Duma were the views of other factions on this vital problem but the government, under the pretext of preventing undue tension, dissolved the first Parliament which existed for 72 days only, and did not even discuss the land policy.

The Second State Duma opened its sessions on February 20, 1907 and lived a little longer - for 103 days. At the Moscow exhibition today one can see a set of personal possessions of one of the Moscow deputies - Vasily Maklakov. He was a brilliant lawyer and orator, a moderate and sober-minded politician among the Cadets who was in favor of limiting debates among the left-wing and right-wing deputies. He called his own party an instrument of "a peaceful transformation of Russia, equally removed from the advocates of the old and the preachers of the unknown new future". He regarded as the main evil for Russia uncontrolled arbitrariness and people being defenseless before the powers-that-be.

Passions aroused in Parliament by the agrarian problem continued to grow with the SRs suggesting a project of socialization, part of the Social-Democrats - a project of what they called municipalization and the Bolsheviks insisting on land nationalization. In reply to these claims there appeared in the press an ukase on the dissolution of the Second Duma accused of delaying debates on new legislation. Some deputies were also accused of participating in an anti-government plot. As for Maklakov who was not only its deputy, but also its historiographer, he regarded this decision fatally premature. And the main thing was that it changed electoral laws without Parliament's consent. That was violation of the recently adopted basic state legislation. Such were the first steps of the young Russian democracy accompanied by losses and sacrifices.

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