Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/209

Rh ance of the Agrarian Bank, the government was able to appease the peasantry before the assembly of the second duma. A contributory cause of the pacification was doubtless the influence of the cavalry patrols dispatched to various districts. But it is unquestionable that the government's agrarian legislation diverted the attention of the peasant towards the notable changes which the law of November 9th and the associated reforms in the judiciary, the educational system, etc., effected in his life.

In the towns and industrial districts, excitement among operatives was comparatively intense, an accessory cause of disturbance being the industrial crisis which began in the autumn of 1906.

By concessions to the old believers and the sectaries the government endeavoured to assume a liberal aspect, but despite this the general mood remained antagonistic. Although by the new suffrage system introduced by Witte on December 11, 1906, and by certain decrees issued by the senate, the passive suffrage (eligibility for election) was falsified in order to secure the defeat of undesired candidates, an opposition majority was returned to the second duma. The government was indeed able to ensure that what had been lacking to the first duma, a properly organised right, should now come into existence. On the other hand, many more social democrats and social revolutionaries were elected to the second duma. The right consisted of twelve members of the League of the Russian People, forty-three moderates (among whom was the Party of October Seventeenth), and fifty independents.

To the centre belonged ninety-six constitutionalist democrats, the president (this time Golovin) being again chosen from among this group, forty-six Poles, and one member of the Party of Democratic Reform.

The Cossack group, numbering seventeen members, occupied an intermediate position between the centre and the left.

The left comprised sixty-nine social democrats, thirty-seven social revolutionaries, a hundred and three members of the Labour Party, and fifteen young narodniki.