The coup d'état of June 3 (16), 1907, opened an era of counter-revolution in Russia591. It is well known what juridical and administrative arbitrariness, what persecutions and tortures of those sentenced to hard labor crowned this triumph of tsarism.

The upper strata of the bourgeoisie, frightened by the revolution, supported the counter-revolutionary nobility. Tsarism believed it would find aid and support from the counter-revolutionary elements of the bourgeoisie and the landowners.

The electoral law of June 3 (16), 1907, is an example of shameless falsification. Here are some data characterizing this law: The population is divided into "curiae": landowners, urban inhabitants of the first and second category, peasants, Cossacks, workers. The electors, elected separately by curia (sometimes not directly, but through deputies), are grouped by the government into provincial electoral assemblies, and these latter elect the deputies to the Duma!

The law distributes the number of electors in such a way that in 28 gubernias (out of 50) the landowners alone obtain a majority in the electoral assemblies in advance, while in others the electors of the first urban curia (big capitalists) do.

The overall picture is as follows: 200,000 nobles send 2,594 electors to the electoral assemblies of 53 gubernias, that is, 49.4% of the total number of electors; about half a million capitalists of the first urban curia command 788 electors (15%); about 8 million townspeople of the second urban curia send 590 electors (11.2%); about 70 million peasants and Cossacks command 1,168 electors (22.2%); and about 12 million workers — 112 electors (2.1%).

It is no wonder that such an electoral law produces a "Black," counter-revolutionary Duma — a veritable "Chambre introuvable"592. But what is surprising is that not only the bourgeois liberals, but even the Social-Democrats, nevertheless managed to get their representatives into this Duma.

In the workers' curia all the electors are Social-Democrats. The ultra-reactionary nobles, who hold the majority in the provincial electoral assemblies, are forced to admit Social-Democrats (in six gubernias the law compels the election of one deputy from among the workers; in other gubernias the Social-Democrats obtain mandates by agreement with the liberals).

In the Third Duma the Octobrist party — the party of reactionary nobles and big capitalists subservient to tsarism — was dominant. But even these "slaves" could not satisfy the camarilla of Nicholas II — that black gang which organizes pogroms and attempts on the lives of opposition deputies.

The government that falsified the elections to get the Octobrists into the Third Duma is now falsifying the elections in order to send more "loyal" parties — the "Nationalists" and the "Extreme Right" — into the Fourth Duma.

Pressure exceeded all bounds. The priests received orders to take mass participation in the elections and to vote for the Right; arrests of opposition candidates, fines on the press, closure of newspapers, striking of suspects from the electoral lists — all this was applied with such cynicism that even the Right and even the nobles protested.

As a result we have an even "Blacker," even more Right Duma, but the defeated ones today turn out to be the Octobrists. The liberal opposition and the revolutionary democracy (Social-Democratic workers and peasant bourgeois democrats) have almost preserved the status quo.

Last data on 438 (out of 442 elected) deputies of the Fourth Duma allow us to make the following comparison:

Democrats:
  Social-Democrats: III Duma — 13, IV Duma — 14
  Trudoviks: III Duma — 14, IV Duma — 11 (Democratic group total, IV Duma: 25)
Liberals:
  Cadets: III Duma — 52, IV Duma — 61
  Progressists: III Duma — 36, IV Duma — 33
  Poles: III Duma — 18, IV Duma — 14
  Muslims: III Duma — 9, IV Duma — 5 (Liberal group total, IV Duma: 113)
Right:
  Octobrists: III Duma — 131, IV Duma — 79
  Nationalists: III Duma — 91, IV Duma — 74
  Extreme Right: III Duma — 46, IV Duma — 140 (Right group total, IV Duma: 293)
Non-party: III Duma — 2, IV Duma — 7

Total: III Duma — 437, IV Duma — 438

Let us add a few more words to better explain the names and grouping of parties:

Social-Democrats: Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. Trudoviks: peasant democracy, that is, revolutionary bourgeois democracy, whose programme includes the expropriation of the nobles. Cadets: Constitutional-Democratic party, in fact a counter-revolutionary liberal bourgeois party. Progressists: the same liberals, only somewhat more moderate. Poles and Muslims: the same, but national groups. In general the opposition consists of 25 democrats and 113 liberals, or 138 deputies (142 in the Third Duma).

Government parties: the Octobrists rarely and furtively speak of a constitution; the Nationalists never speak of a constitution. The Right openly stand for a return to autocracy and against the constitution. Falsification is driving into opposition not only the Octobrists but even a part of the Nationalists.

As for the Social-Democrats, the following have been elected to date:

Six deputies from the workers' curia are Social-Democrats: Badaev from St. Petersburg; Malinovsky from Moscow; Samoilov from Vladimir; Shagov from Kostroma; Muranov from Kharkov; Petrovsky from Yekaterinoslav. All six are workers. Then Social-Democrats got through in three gubernias thanks to an agreement of the democrats (Socialists and Trudoviks) with the liberals against the Right. The following got through: Khaustov from Ufa; Burianov from Taurida Gubernia; Tuliakov from the Don Region. Then three more Social-Democrats got through from the Caucasus: Chkheidze, Chhenkeli and Skobelev, the last elected by the Russian population of the Caucasus.

Two Social-Democrats got through from Siberia: Rusanov and, from Amur Region, Ryslev.

We may add that in Irkutsk Gubernia (Siberia) the election of one Social-Democrat was almost assured (out of 20 electors, 11 were Social-Democrats). But the governor declared the election of six Social-Democrats in the city of Irkutsk invalid. The elections have not yet taken place.

It should also be added that in Warsaw, as a result of a bloc between the Bund and the PPS, Jagiełło, a member of the Polish Socialist Party, was elected deputy.

All these data are preliminary. The full composition of all groups of the Fourth Duma, including the Social-Democratic group, will be determined after the opening of the Duma, which will take place on November 15 (28).

Krakow, November 11, 1912.

Newspaper «Le Peuple» No. 325, November 20, 1912.