In May 1906, he graduated and entered civil service immediately, and that same year was active on the Trans-Caspian Railway. He maintained his political connections and was elected, at the age of 28, to the second Duma in 1907, representing his home region. Tynyshpaev’s life became a routine of railway work and contributing articles and news stories for 'Qazaq'. Some sources suggest that he was arrested in 1916, though no sentence was passed. He wrote on the colonial nature of Tsarist steppe policies in that same year, which may have been the motive for his arrest. In February 1917, following the initial Russian Revolution, he published his open letter to the Governor-General of Turkestan. The Provision Government, according to Martha Olcott, "chose several Kazakhs who had worked with the Kadet party to be commissars; these included… Mukhammad Tynyshpaev." Tynyshpaev was considerably less radical than the members of the Bolshevik movement, and advocated for working with the Tsarist government in cooperation with local populations.