was
practically identical with the policy set forth in the Manifesto of the
Executive Committee of the St. Petersburg Council of Workmen's Deputies at
the beginning of the previous December, before the elections to the Duma.
Now, however, the Socialists in the Duma--both the Social Democrats and the
Socialist-Revolutionists--together with the semi-Socialist Labor Group,
decided that it was not enough to appeal for passive resistance; that only
an armed uprising could accomplish anything. They therefore appealed to
the city proletariat, the peasants, the army, and the navy to rise in armed
strength against the tyrannical regime.

Neither appeal produced any noteworthy result. The response to the Viborg
appeal was far less than that which followed the similar appeal of the St.
Petersburg workmen in December. The signers of the appeal were arrested,
sentenced to three months' imprisonment, and deprived of their electoral
rights. To the appeal of the Duma Socialists there was likewise very little
response, either from city workers, peasants, soldiers, or marines. Russia
was struggle-weary. The appeals fell upon the ears of a cowed and beaten
populace. The two documents served only to emphasize one fact, namely, that
capacity and daring to attempt active and violent resistance was still
largely confined to the working-class representatives. In appealing to the
workers to meet the attacks of the government with armed resistance, the
leaders of the peasants and the city proletariat were ready to take their
places in the vanguard of the fight. On the other hand, the signers of the
Viborg appeal for passive resistance manifested no such determination or
desire, though they must have known that passive resistance could only be a
temporary phase, that any concerted action by the people to resist the
collection of taxes and recruiting for the army would have led to attack
and counter-attack-to a violent revolution.

Feeling perfectly secure, the government, while promising the election of
another Duma, carried on a policy of vigorous repression of all radical and
revolutionary agitation and organization. Executions without trial were
almost daily commonplaces. Prisoners were mercilessly tortured, and, in
many cases, flogged to death. Hundreds of persons, of both sexes, many of
them simple bourgeois-liberals and not revolutionists in any sense of the
word, were exiled to Siberia. The revolutionary organizations of the
workers were