There was only one ray of hope left—the second Duma which was to be convoked in February, 1907. The election campaign was carried on under Government pressure and was hampered by the threat of reprisals and pogroms on the part of the "Black." The elections resulted in a Duma with an anomalous complexion. The two extreme wings, the Socialists and Black Hundred, had gained in strength, whereas the Constitutional Democratic center had been weakened. The Jews had managed to elect only three deputies, apart from one Jewish Social-Democrat who ran on the ticket of his party. They were men of little renown, whereas of the deputies of the first Duma who were prosecuted for signing the Vyborg Manifesto not one was elected.
The entire energy of the new Parliament spent itself in the struggle between its left and right wing. The Jewish question was entirely relegated to the "Committee on the Freedom of Conscience." The Government had brought in a bill repealing all denominational restrictions, "except those affecting the Jews," but the Committee decided to eliminate this discriminating clause and in this manner carry through the emancipation of the Jews under the guise of the "Freedom of Conscience."
But this time, too, the hope for Jewish emancipation proved an illusion. The Duma was soon dissolved, under the pretext that a revolutionary conspiracy of the Socialistic deputies had been uncovered. On June 3, 1907, another coup d'état took place. The former electoral law which made it possible for the Russian democracy and the oppressed nationalities to send their representatives to the Duma was arbitrarily changed by the Tzar in order to insure a conservative pro-Government majority in the Russian parliament. There followed an era of dismal reaction.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] In Russian, Mitropolit, the highest ecclesiastical dignitary in the Greek-Orthodox Church. There are three Mitropolits in Russia, residing in Petrograd, Moscow, and Kiev.