ABSTRACT
The reactionary policies of Minister of the Interior Plehve, suppressing liberals, co-opting factory workers and instigating pogroms, did not end with his assassination in July 1904. A conference of rural councils calling for freedom of conscience, speech, assembly, press and association, intensified the demand for a Duma or Parliament. The first Duma was convened in 1905, but dissolved the following year. The tug of war between the tsarist government and the proponents of reform perpetuated social instability. Meanwhile, the war in the Far East against the Japanese had gone badly from the beginning.
