“Upon leaving the barracks battalions should march through the entire width of the streets so as to protect the rear and keep it free for reinforcements should such be required.
“Troops should move with all possible rapidity, sending ahead an advance guard for determining positions.
“In the event of shots being fired from windows into a marching battalion, fire from several rifles should immediately be opened upon such windows.
“Troops should not approach a mob nearer than one hundred paces, so as to conveniently open fire while avoiding injury likely to come from hand bombs being thrown from the crowd. Avoid action with bayonets and try to remain at a distance, because a bullet at a short distance works with greater effect than a bayonet. One bullet may kill two or three men in a crowd.
“In the event of a collision with armed rebels, soldiers must conduct themselves as upon a field of battle, remembering that the end will be attained only when the enemy is crushed or annihilated. Therefore, before leaving barracks, substitutes should be chosen, to take the places of commanding officers killed.”
There was no need for this order, however, and the Duma continued on to its peaceful end two months after its convocation.
It wrestled with the amnesty question, and sent a bill up to the Council of Empire abolishing capital punishment. When the Bielostok massacre occurred it appointed a commission of investigation, and attempted to inaugurate the interpellation of ministers. Prince Urusoff made his world-famous speech revealing the complicity of the government in massacres, and the government wires carried the report of this speech to every part of the empire. The Duma became the greatest propaganda and educating influence Russia ever saw, simply because every word spoken within its walls was repeated throughout the land.
The government continued its policy of obstruction, contempt, scorn, and insult. No other legislative body in the world would have tolerated what the first Duma bore in silence. Finally, the Duma attacked that most serious of all serious problems in Russia—the agrarian question—and sought to solve it through the establishment of the principle of expropriation.
One Sunday morning in early July the people of St. Petersburg read an official announcement, bearing the signature of the Czar, that the Duma had ceased to exist. There was no disturbance, no demonstration, although the announcement came at an unexpected moment.