The DUMA, which, as I have already said, unquestionably enjoyed the confidence of the country, refused, after lengthy and heated discussions, to head the Revolutionary power. Temporarily dissolved by the Imperial ukaze of February 27th, it remained loyal, and "did not attempt to hold an official sitting," as it "considered itself a legislative institution of the old régime, co-ordinated by fundamental law with the obviously doomed remnants of autocracy." (Miliukov, _History of the Second Russian Revolution_.) The subsequent decrees emanated from the "private conference of the members of the Duma." This body elected the "temporary Committee of the Duma," which exercised supreme power in the first days of the Revolution.
When power was transferred to the PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT, the Duma and the Committee retired to the background, but did not cease to exist, and endeavoured to give moral support and a _raison d'être_ to the first three Cabinets of the Government. On May 2nd, during the first Government crisis, the Committee still struggled for the right to _appoint_ members of the Government; subsequently it reduced its demands to that of the right to _participate_ in the formation of the Government. Thus, on July 7th, the Committee of the Duma protested against its exclusion from the formation of a new Provisional Government by Kerensky, as it considered such a course as "legally inadmissible and politically disastrous." The Duma, of course, was fully entitled to participate in the direction of the life of the country, as, even in the camp of its enemies, the signal service was recognised which the Duma had rendered to the Revolution "In converting to it the entire front and all the officers" (Stankevitch: _Reminiscences_). There can be no doubt that, had the Soviet taken the lead in the Revolution, there would have been a fierce struggle against it, and the Revolution would have been squashed. It might, perhaps, have then given the victory to the Liberal Democracy, and would have led the country to a normal evolutionary development. Who knows?
The members of the Duma themselves felt the strain of inactivity which was at first voluntary and later compulsory. There were many absentees, and the President of the Duma had to combat this attitude. Nevertheless, the Duma and the Committee were quite alive to the importance of the trend events were taking. They issued resolutions condemning, warning, and appealing to the common sense, the heart, and the patriotism of the people, of the Army, and of the Government. The Duma, however, had already been swept aside by the Revolutionary elements. Its statesmanlike appeals, full of the clear consciousness of impending perils, had ceased to impress the country, and were ignored by the Government. Even a Duma so peaceable that it did not even fight for power aroused the apprehensions of the Revolutionary Democracy, and the Soviets led a violent campaign for the abolition of the Council of the State and of the Duma. In August the Duma relaxed its efforts in issuing proclamations, and when Kerensky dissolved the Duma at the bidding of the Soviets, nineteen days before the expiration of its five years' term, on October 6th, this news did not produce any appreciable effect in the country. Rodzianko kept alive for a long time the idea of the Fourth Duma or of the Assembly of all Dumas as the foundation of the power of the State. He stuck to this idea throughout the Kuban campaigns and the Ekaterinodar Volunteer period of the anti-Bolshevik struggle. But the Duma was dead....