October Manifesto

How it was issued

The strike that began in Moscow in early October 1905 spread into a nationwide October political general strike. In mid-October more than two million workers went on strike across industry, and the railway workers' strike in particular paralysed communications, transport and public services, leaving Nicholas II no option but to concede before he lost power altogether. Finance minister Sergei Witte proposed the introduction of a constitutional monarchy and an elected legislature in a report on the new state order. Nicholas II first turned to military dictatorship, but his chosen candidate, Grand Duke Nicholas, refused the office and threatened to shoot himself if Witte's programme was rejected; the Tsar then signed the Manifesto on the Improvement of the State Order on 17 October (O.S.; 30 October N.S.). The text itself was drafted by State Council member Alexei Obolensky and edited by him and by Nikolai Vuich, acting head of the Committee of Ministers' chancellery, under Witte's direction, while Witte himself, recalling the events, denied having forced the Tsar's signature. Nicholas, who had strenuously resisted the reform, had the manifesto proclaimed in all the churches.

Provisions and their legislative limits

The Manifesto pledged "the essential foundations of civil freedoms based on the principles of genuine inviolability of the person, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and association". It provided for the admission to the Duma of those classes previously deprived of voting rights, established as an unbreakable rule that no law should take effect without confirmation by the State Duma, and guaranteed the elected representatives of the people a part in supervising the legality of the actions of appointed officials. The Tsar, however, kept the power to veto legislation and to dissolve the Duma.

The promises were realised only through later legislation. The inviolability of the person was given concrete form half a year later in the Fundamental Laws of 23 April 1906, which set out the security of home and property and, with qualifications, freedom of movement. In the press, several revisions of the 1865 Provisional Rules on Censorship and the Press legalised public discussion of political questions. Freedoms of assembly and association were regulated by two decrees of 4 March 1906, which permitted meetings and political organisations while fencing them in with tight restrictions. Voting rights, limited by the property qualification of the Bulygin electoral law of 6 August 1905, which excluded women, workers, the urban middle strata and largely the peasantry, were broadened by a decree of 11 December 1905 that enfranchised small landowners, poorer townspeople, the rural intelligentsia and industrial workers. The Fundamental Laws promulgated on 23 April 1906, issued by the emperor rather than adopted by the people or their representatives, gave the Duma a range of legislative powers without establishing a fully parliamentary system.

A divided response

The Manifesto divided the opponents of the autocracy. Liberals accepted the promise of a representative government and freedom of speech, and the Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets) and the Union of October 17 (Octobrists) emerged from those who read the document as a victory. Socialists and many workers saw it as a scrap of paper intended to disarm the revolution and insisted on continuing the struggle, while conservatives feared further concessions; Witte himself judged that the manifesto had prevented an immediate catastrophe without healing the crisis. Small numbers of exiles also returned to Russia after its publication.

Immediate effects, pogroms and repression

Strikes and much of the violence ended almost at once, and public enthusiasm ran high, but the success was short-lived. In late October 1905 a wave of pogroms swept the country, with hundreds of attacks leaving at least 1,600 people dead and 3,500 maimed; the targets were not only Jewish communities, among them the anti-Jewish pogrom in Kishinev of 19-20 October, but also anyone labelled a "democrat", including students and members of the intelligentsia. Because the Manifesto had been prepared in secrecy and no instructions were sent to the provinces, governors and police chiefs did not know how to act under the new conditions, and the authorities' paralysis left the violence largely unchecked. The government did not abide by the concessions: in December 1905 the workers of Moscow, where a ten-day armed uprising turned the Presnya district into a battlefield, were suppressed with about a thousand dead and thousands arrested. Within months executions of armed revolutionaries were numbering more than a thousand, and by 1906-07 much of Russia was under martial law. Political parties were suppressed, and the dissolution of the First Duma in July 1906 and the dissolution of the Second Duma together with the electoral law of 3 June 1907 allowed the autocracy to restore much of its power. This June 1907 coup is traditionally regarded as the end of the Revolution of 1905.

Historical significance

The Manifesto legislated personal rights and freedoms in the Russian Empire for the first time and divided the emperor's formerly sole right of legislative initiative between the monarch and a new representative body, the State Duma, without whose approval no law could come into force, marking the turn from unlimited autocracy towards constitutional government. Yet this concession was forced out of the autocracy by the general strike and the armed uprisings; the Tsar retained his veto and the power to dissolve the Duma, used those powers repeatedly, and only part of the promised reforms was carried out. Legal political parties, trade unions, public organisations and an opposition press appeared, above all the Kadets and the Octobrists, but the revolution continued until the coup of 3 June 1907.