The Russian Duma: priest deputies and officers. From White Nights and Other Russian Impressions by Arthur Ruhl. Ruhl reported from Russia in 1917 after the February Revolution.
Priest deputies to the Duma strolling beside the lake adjoining Taurida Palace.A group of 'Pristavs,' who acted as ushers, vote collectors, etc. in the national Duma.
"This morning P——— brought me somewhat alarming reports of revolutionary propaganda in factories and barracks.. . .At the club this evening I casually overheard the remark: 'If the Duma is not suppressed we are lost!' followed by a long rigmarole proving the necessity of an immediate return of tsarism to the pure traditions of Muscovite orthodoxy.. . . I think it will not be forty years, or even forty months, before the Russian State collapses."
Excerpts from the entry for May 26, 1916,from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Imperial Russia. Tsar Nicholas and the royal family were increasingly isolated from Russia's elites, the Duma, Russia's legislative assembly, large segments of workers and the military. An autocrat, the Tsar accommodated representative government and the Duma only under duress. He remain in power little more than 40 weeks from the date on which Paléologue wrote.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 265, publisher: George H. Doran Company
1916-05-26, 1916, May,
