ABSTRACT
Popular representation in Russia was established by a series of government acts, beginning with the Manifesto of August 6, 1905, and ending with the Basic State Laws of April 23, 1906. The Duma was initially intended in August to be “a legislative consultative body.” Electoral assemblies consisting of a set number of electors from each province and from twenty-seven of the largest cities chose the delegates to the State Duma. The electors, in turn, were elected by four separate categories of voters: landowners, peasants, city residents and factory and mine workers. The elections to the First State Duma in the spring of 1906 were, of course, neither direct nor equal, but by the standards of those years, they were close to being universal. In spite of feeble attempts by the government to influence campaigning, elections for the Second Duma strengthened the leftist parties even more.
