When the Third Duma met on December 14, 1907, the reactionaries were as
strong as the Socialist and Labor groups had been in the previous Duma,
and of the reactionaries the group of members of the Black Hundreds was a
majority.
In the mean time there had been the familiar rule of brutal reaction. Most
of the Social Democratic members of the Second Duma were arrested and
condemned for high treason, being sent to prison and to Siberia. New laws
and regulations restricting the press were proclaimed and enforced with
increasing severity. By comparison with the next two years, the period from
1905 to 1907 was a period of freedom. After the election of the Third Duma
the bureaucracy grew ever bolder. Books and leaflets which had been
circulated openly and with perfect freedom during 1905 and 1906 were
forbidden, and, moreover, their authors were arrested and sentenced to long
terms of imprisonment. While the law still granted freedom of assemblage
and the right to organize meetings, these rights did not exist as
realities. Everywhere the Black Hundreds held sway, patronized by the Czar,
who wore their emblem and refused to permit the punishment of any of their
members, even though they might be found guilty by the courts.
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