The century is short

Today we pretend that Russian parliamentarism has been happily growing and developing since 1906. Apparently, it is assumed that the evolutionary path and skills of public discussions have led us from the speaker-professor Muromtsev to the speaker-general Gryzlov, from the hero of the Anglo-Boer campaign Guchkov to the "conqueror" of India Zhirinovsky, from the leader of the Kadet majority Milyukov to Volodin, from the devout nationalist Purishkevich to the planned Rogozin, from the brilliant Rodzianko to the brilliant Sliska.

After the publication of the Manifesto by the sovereign on October 17, only six months passed before the opening of the First State Duma on April 27, 1906 - it would seem, nothing. And in the country, a multi-party system managed to appear, and the Duma was endowed with legislative rights. The first elections were ignored by the left - the Bolsheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries, but the right - the Cadets, who promised "to settle accounts with the government in the Duma", to carry out radical reforms - received a third of the seats. The Black Hundreds did not get into the first Duma at all, the Octobrists - the then party in power - had only 13 mandates, but the peasant labor group took 107 seats. This was voted by a fully mature civil society, and the people's representatives were the salt of the Russian land. All deputies did not have a salary, they were not provided with apartments and rations - they lived and served "for their friends." Life on the altar of the Fatherland - for the first deputies, these words were not empty bells.

Read the full version of the material in the Russian Newsweek magazine (April 24 - May 7, 2006) No. 16-17 (94/95)