The Story of the Great War, Volume 6: History of the European War from Official Sources
History
The Story of the Great War, Volume 6: History of the European War from Official Sources
World War, 1914-1918
The Duma, though the restrictive election laws had minimized the
revolutionary elements within it, clamored for the promised reforms
until it was finally dissolved by the Government. A number of deputies
went to Finland and there issued a manifesto with the object of
rousing a general demonstration, but without success. The second Duma
proved quite as progressive as the first and was also dissolved
arbitrarily. Then the electoral laws were made still more restrictive,
so that the landed nobility and the clergy should be more represented.
The third Duma, as a result, proved quite innocuous, and for five
years it sat, never attempting to initiate any changes, attracting
very little attention.
During this period reaction regained all its former ascendency, within
the Social Revolutionary organization it was discovered that the chief
of the fighting organization, Eugene Azev, was nothing more than the
paid agent of the secret police and that he had been delivering the
members of the organization into the hands of his masters as they
proved themselves most dangerous. The agent through whom the exposure
had been made, by an ex-police chief, was an obscure Russian
journalist, Vladimir Bourtsev, who at once rose to international
prominence as the "Sherlock Holmes of the Russian Revolution." To
maintain his reputation he began with much publicity further
investigations and discovered a great number of smaller-fry spies in
the organization, with the result that all mutual confidence of the
members was broken and the organization went completely to pieces.
After this, 1907, little more was heard in foreign countries of
Russian revolution. Within Russia itself the university students who
had formed the best material for the working committees turned their
energies in other directions, degenerating into the notorious
"candle-light clubs" and other somewhat depraved practices with free
love as a basis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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