sacrifices ... I think, gentlemen ... we cannot refrain just now from
expressing our deepest feelings, the cry of our heart--that free Russia
demands the liberation of all prisoners." At the end of the eloquent appeal
there was an answering cry of: "Amnesty!" "Amnesty!" The chorus of the
streets was echoed in the Duma itself.

There was no lack of courage in the Duma. One of its first acts was the
adoption of an address in response to the speech delivered by the Czar to
the members at the reception at the Winter Palace. The address was in
reality a statement of the objects and needs of the Russian people, their
program. It was a radical document, but moderately couched. It demanded
full political freedom; amnesty for all who had been imprisoned for
political reasons or for violations of laws in restriction of religious
liberty; the abolition of martial law and other extraordinary measures;
abolition of capital punishment; the abolition of the Imperial Council and
democratization of the laws governing elections to the Duma; autonomy for
Finland and Poland; the expropriation of state and private lands in the
interest of the peasants; a comprehensive body of social legislation
designed to protect the industrial workers. In a word, the program of the
Duma was a broad and comprehensive program of political and social
democracy, which, if enacted, would have placed Russia among the foremost
democracies of the world.

The boldness of the Duma program was a direct challenge to the government
and was so interpreted by the Czar and his Ministers. By the reactionary
press it was denounced as a conspiracy to hand the nation over to the
Socialists. That it should have passed the Duma almost unanimously was an
indication of the extent to which the liberal bourgeoisie represented by
the Constitutional Democrats was prepared to go in order to destroy
autocracy. No wonder that some of the most trusted Marxian Socialists in