the government collected its forces, and towards the end of December 1905 tsarism initiated a deliberate counter-revolution. Above all, the government endeavoured to save absolutism by obscure and ambiguous utterances. This relates more especially to the concept of autocracy (samoderžavie), which may be interpreted in the sense either of European monarchy or in that of Byzantine despotism. The government seized every opportunity of stressing the latter aspect, whereas the constitutionalists naturally interpreted the term as signifying nothing more than constitutional monarchy.[1]
It is for this reason that certain journalists and statesmen have asked whether Russia possesses a constitution at all. Certainly Russia has a constitution—but it is one based upon the Prussian model.
The police and the administration endeavoured to save their customary absolutism by the most ludicrous expedients, nor was it long before the government proceeded to a formal restriction of fundamental rights. For example the right of public meeting was left intact, but preventive censorship over advertisements was retained and it thus remained possible to restrict the effectiveness of electoral meetings.
Laws and ordinances concerning freedom of the press, freedom of conscience (the right to change one's religion), freedom of combination, freedom of study and teaching, were unceasing topics of parliamentary and journalistic discussion. In the beginning of November 1909, Stolypin withdrew the proposals for toleration which had been laid before the duma in the previous summer. Many similar instances might be given.
Freedom of speech and writing was repressed after the ancient manner. The list of books and newspapers confiscated between October 30, 1905, and January 1/13, 1909, fills 160 large octavo pages. Books and pamphlets which could be published in 1905 and 1906 were again prohibited (works of Tolstoi, Kropotkin, etc.).
- ↑ The fundamental law of May 6, 1906 runs as follows (§ 4): "To the tsar of all the Russias appertains supreme autocratic authority. God himself commends us to obey the tsar's authority, not from fear alone, but also as a duty imposed by conscience." (For the text of 1832 vide supra, pp. 109–110.) We see that in 1906 the term "absolute" has been dropped, but that there is express insistence upon "autocracy." Members of the duma discontinued the oath of fealty to "his tsarist majesty and autocrat of all the Russias." In drafting the constitutional charter, the government did everything it could to avoid the use of European constitutionalist or parliamentary terminology; the expressions, constitution, parliament, and chamber (palata), are not employed.
