Europe in the Belle Époque, 1871–1914517frage. When unrest continued and a general strike was
called, Nicholas II granted further concessions in the
October Manifesto: a Russian constitution, a Duma
with significant legislative powers, and virtually univer-
sal suffrage. The Russian Constitution of 1906 did not
mark the complete surrender of autocracy. It opened
with a section entitled “On the Nature of the Supreme
Autocratic Power.” Article Four of that section stated:
“Supreme autocratic power belongs to the Emperor of
All the Russias. To obey his power, not only through
fear but also by conscience, is commanded by God
Himself.” Subsequent articles gave the czar the sole
right to introduce legislation, an absolute veto over any
work of the Duma, and the power to name or dismiss
the government. Nicholas II nonetheless detested the
constitution and soon fired Witte for leading him to it.
Four turbulent Dumas met under this constitution.
The first two lasted for a few months in 1906 and 1907
before the czar prorogued them. Nicholas II decreed a
new electoral law in 1907, giving greater representation
to the wealthy, so the Third Duma (1907–12) obtained
a conservative majority. Even middle-class liberals, or-
ganized as the Constitutional Democratic Party
(known by a Russian abbreviation, the Kadets) under
the leadership of Professor Paul Milyukov, opposed this
government, angry that meaningful reform moved at a
maddeningly slow pace. Nicholas II had promised in
1904 a program of accident and illness insurance for
workers. That idea, the first piece of Russian welfare
legislation, led to a draft policy in 1905, a proposal to
the Duma in 1908, study by a special committee in
1910–11, and debate by the Duma in 1912.
The dominant political figure of the Duma was the
new prime minister (1906–11), Peter Stolypin, a con-
servative noble who had won favor for his role in sup-
pressing the revolution in the provinces. Stolypin was
not a simple antiparliamentary reactionary. He ac-
cepted the Duma and the principle of liberal modern-
ization, but within the context of strictly enforced law
and order. He met radical extremism with state extrem-
ism, and Russia saw both in large quantities. Historians
have estimated that seventeen thousand terrorist assas-
sinations (in twenty-three thousand attempts) took
place between 1905 and 1914. Any official was a target.
In a single day, attempts were made on every policeman
walking the streets of Warsaw and Lodz; on another,
one-fourth of the police force of Riga was killed. Ter-
rorists still favored bombs and even used small children
to deliver them; the youngest arrested was an eleven-
year-old girl who had been paid fifty kopecks (approxi-
mately twenty-five cents) for the job.
Stolypin responded with both state violence and
noteworthy reforms. He allowed instant trials in the
field and the execution of sentences on the spot. Sus-
pected terrorists were hanged in such numbers that the
noose became known as a “Stolypin necktie.” At the
same time, however, he liberalized censorship, ex-
panded education, and defended freedom of religion.
Perhaps the most important idea of Stolypin’s govern-
ment was support for peasant landownership. This pro-
gram created a class of nine million landowning
peasants in Russia by 1914. No legislation could save
Stolypin, however. He was the most hated man in Rus-
sia, and he was shot to death (by an assassin who could
have killed the czar instead) at the Kiev Opera House
in 1911. This level of hatred and violence did not augur
well for the solution of Russia’s manifold problems, and
time was running out. Stolypin’s successors were in-
creasingly consumed by foreign problems in the
Balkans, problems that would soon lead to another war,
another disastrous defeat, and another violent
revolution.Belle Époque Democracy
around Europe
The great powers of Europe were significantly more
democratic in 1914 than they had been in 1870. The
French had abolished monarchy and created the first
enduring republic among the great powers, with a par-
liamentary democracy based upon universal manhood
suffrage and ministerial responsibility. The British had
undertaken two periods of democratization when Glad-
stone more than doubled the electorate in 1884 and
Lloyd George had broken the power of the House of
Lords in 1911. The newly unified Germany was signifi-
cantly less democratic than Britain and France—lacking
such features as ministerial responsibility—but it had
constitutional government that included a Parliament
elected by universal manhood suffrage. Even the most
autocratic state, Russia advanced toward the democratic
model in the constitution of 1906 and the creation of
the Duma elected by universal suffrage. Europe was
clearly moving toward an age of mass participation in
politics.
Many of the other states of Europe shared in this
trend. Newly unified Italy shared the Piedmontese
constitution and parliamentary government on the
west European model. Post-Risorgimento Italy began
with a limited franchise on the British model and
democratized further in the 1880s. A similar pattern of