Truth. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1901-1908, 1906-08-04
THE RUSSIAN PEASANT THE OBJ
STRUCTiONIST OF THE
DOUMA.

the practical usefulness of the Dou
ma was largely baked by the I'M
intelligent, or rather Understandable,
spirit of obstruction manifested by
the two hundred members of the rad
ical peasant party. The leaders among
them include Anikin, a half-educated
village pedogog, and Finikin, a vii
lage clerk, the crudest of literal So
cialists. The peasant radical party
were actually pushing aside the consti-
tutional Democrats. Moderate men
like Heyden and Stakhovitch, who de-
sire to condemn mountaineering and
assassination, were being checkmated
by such men as Aladdin and his as
sociates mentioned above. Under
such leadership all communication
with the imperial council which forms
the genuine ministry of the country
was rendered absolutely impossible.
They howled out of the chamber even
sensible men as Stolypin, minister of
the interior The peasants are pic
tured as mere fanatical Cromwellians,
who quote the Mosaic scriptures as po-
litical maxims, and yet reject the idea
of woman suffrage, and think of moth
ing but the expatriation and partition
of the land. At the same time this
section of the Douma is looked upon
as formidable. In it are included the
men who correspond with Danton,
Marat and Robespierre in the history
of France. When the Douma first met
and organized, there was much specu-
lation as to the attitude of this solid
ororn Tho huraauorooy hod attap1nt-
ed to take care of them" by provid-
ing lodgings and guides for them, but
they preferred to attend to their own
affairs. The seats they selected were
high up in the center of the chamber,
and on that account they were at once
dubbed "the Mountain" What has
been their behavior since, and wha,
political leanings have they dis
played? Editor Hessen. of the Riech
(St. Petersburg), declares in sub
stance:
The Douma would have been dis
persed in June on some pretext had not
the bureaucratic reactionaries feared
the peasant deputies. These would
have spread in the villages the news
that the officials were the real
enemies of the people. that the minis
wv Hfu OpNoSfu tht anu uC-
ceived the White Car, and that re-
hellion alone could give the masses
the right the Douma and the Car
wished them to enjoy.
The peasant deputies have been con-
sistently radical. They voted no con-
fidence in the ministry; they voted for
radical agrarian resolution involv
ing approximation of private estates.
They voted against capital punishment
in political cases. They voted to send
a commission to Bialvstok to investi-
gate the massacre. They voted for a
number of administered declarations.
The two extremists of the Douma.
Aladdin and Anikin, are peasants by
birth and represent peasant electors.
On all questions except one, so far,
the peasants have acted with the Rad
icals and the Lefiists. The one ex-
ception Is the bill for full equality of
civil and political rights. This bill
now before the Douma, abolishes all
restrictions based on race religion
or caste, applies the same laws to peas
ants that have been applicable only to
the mobiles and educated classes. gives
the Jews equality of all rights, and
so on 1t does more-it confers full
civic and political equality on the wo-
men. To this last feature the peas
ant deputies, or many of them. are