HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Russia: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 136

communal, land ownership. By the 1990s only
about 5,000 Dukhobors remained in Canada.

rect (save in the five largest cities) through elec-
toral colleges based on social status. Though
Duma members could question ministers, the
latter were not responsible to the Duma. Legisla-
tion could be introduced by the Duma, and laws
had to be passed by it and the State Council and
signed by the emperor.
Nicholas II used his power to dissolve the
Duma on three occasions: in July 1906, June
1907, and in February 1917, on the eve of his
abdication. The First Duma lasted only 73 days,
from May to July 1906, when the czar dissolved
it for excessive criticism of government policy.
The Second Duma (March-June 1907) had, like
the First, a radical, antigovernment majority that
the czar found unmanageable. In June 1907,
Prime Minister Petr STOLYPIN crafted a new elec-
toral law that gave greater representation to the
upper classes, and the elections to the Third
Duma returned a conservative majority that
ensured that this was the only duma to serve its
full five-year term. The composition of the
Fourth Duma (1912-17) was even more conser-
vative than the third, but in the course of World
War I, the Duma clashed frequently with the
government over the conduct of the war, leading
the czar to dissolve it on the eve of what proved
to be the February Revolution.
Following the czar's abdication, the Duma set
up a provisional committee that in turn set up a
Provisional Government that was to rule Russia
until a popularly elected Constituent Assembly
convened to decide future political arrange-
ments. This Provisional Government ruled until
October 1917, when it was overthrown by the
BOLSHEVIKS acting in the name of the soviets, a
rival institution representing workers, soldiers
and peasants that had spread throughout Russia
in the last half of 1917. Previously planned elec-
tions to the Constituent Assembly were held,
and in January 1918 it met for one day but was
closed by the Bolshevik government. The insti-
tution of the Duma disappeared from Russian
history until the final days of the Soviet period,
when the parliament of the Russian Federation
was reestablished and given the name Duma.

Duma
A term derived from the Russian root for
“thought” or “thinking” that is generally associ-
ated with deliberative political bodies through-
out Russian history, and more specifically with
the parliament that existed from 1906 to 1917
and was revived after the dissolution of the
Soviet Union in 1991. In addition to the State
Duma created in 1905, Russian history wit-
nessed a “boyar duma” and municipal or town
dumas. In 1700 PETER I the Great abolished the
rank of boyar and the boyar duma as well. The
State Duma of the late imperial period was the
product of concessions made by the government
of NICHOLAS II to popular demands for a more
representative government during the course of
the 1905 Revolution. For the remainder of the
imperial period the State Duma served as the
lower chamber of the legislature, while the
Council of State, established in the early 19th
century, served as the upper chamber.
Four dumas were convened between 1906
and 1917. Historians have long debated the
extent to which these served as a parliamentary
institution that could have paved the way for the
transformation of Russia into a Western-style
constitutional monarchy. The franchise was lim-
ited to male taxpayers and property owners
grouped into four electoral classes (landowners,
townspeople, industrial workers, and peasants)
that, with the exception of the five largest cities,
elected delegates who, in turn, chose the mem-
bers of the Duma. Moreover, the powers of the
duma were limited. Finally, the czar had the
power to veto the assembly's acts and to dissolve
it. And yet this was the first instance of repre-
sentative government, albeit limited, in Russian
history.
In theory, the Duma's consent was required
for all legislation, but this rule was often disre-
garded in practice. All taxpayers and property
owners were enfranchised; elections were indi-