The third Duma, November 1907 - June 1912

Stolypin changed the electoral laws so that only one in six men had the right the vote, and peasants and industrial workers were virtually forbidden to vote. The result was that the third and fourth Dumas were dominated by right wing supporters of the regime.

The fourth Duma, November 1912 - August 1914

Stolypin was assassinated in 1911 and after him the Tsar appointed a series of Chief Ministers who imposed even more repression than Stolypin had done. The number of strikes rose from 234 in 1911 to 2,401 in 1914. In 1912 at the Lena gold mines in Siberia, for instance, the employers used the police to arrest the strike leaders as criminals. Troops were called in and many strikers were killed or injured. The Okhrana had used spies to whip up the strike so that they could identify the leaders, but this was a clear case of the government refusing to accept the Trade Union rights established under The October Manifesto. Even the normally moderate Octobrists began to protest about the poor handling of the situation and many historians argue that, had it not been for the outbreak of the First World War that brought a great wave of patriotism throughout Russia, the Duma would itself have continued to challenge the tsarist regime.