Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/43

 and after 1907. These two sets of figures explain everything. You see that in the first two Dumas the relative majority of 43 per cent, was composed of peasants, but that 51 per cent.—that is to say an absolute majority—consisted of the landed gentry in the second two Dumas. That, as I say, explains everything. Before 1907, it was the peasants who were favoured by the electoral, reform. They were supposed to represent the Conservative and traditional basis of the national life; the gentry were regarded at that time as exponents of modern Liberal tendencies, owing to their foreign education. But when the first and second Dumas proved that the peasants were strongly inclined to agrarian revolution, the Government transferred their confidence to the small but influential group of reactionary landlords who succeeded in organising themselves under the name of the "United Nobility." I have used an English word, "gentry," but I must point out the difference which exists between the Russian gentry and the English. Our gentry are much more dependent upon the Government, having been liable in ancient times to military service, and having received their lands as recompense. After the reforms of Peter the Great, the same class entered the Civil Service; and here too they depended on the Government for promotion from grade to grade, from chin to chin as we say in Russia; and hence they are called chinovniks, "men of the grades."

Now, if you consider the social position of the different political parties in the third Duma, you will see at once which of the parties was thought to be