A more passionate tone characterized the discussions of the Duma during the days of June 23-26, in connection with the report of the parliamentary commission which had been appointed to investigate the Bialystok massacre. The Duma was scandalized by the lying official communication, in which the Jews were put forward as the authors of the pogrom, and by the shameful military order of the day, in which the troops of the Bialystok garrison were thanked "for their splendid services during the time of the pogrom." The speeches delivered by the Jewish deputies, by Jacobson, who had visited Bialystok as one of the members of the parliamentary commission, and by Vinaver and Levin, gave vent to their burning national wrath. The Russian Mirabeau, Rodichev, pilloried the highly placed instigators of the Bialystok butchery. On July 7, the Duma concluded the debate by adopting a resolution denouncing in violent terms the policy of the Government, a policy of oppression, frightfulness and extermination, which had created "a situation unprecedented in the history of civilized countries," and demanding, moreover, the immediate resignation of the reactionary Ministry.
5. THE SPREAD OF ANARCHY AND THE SECOND DUMA
Two days later, when the deputies appeared before the Duma, they found the building closed, and on the doors was displayed an imperial manifesto dissolving the Duma which "has encroached upon a domain outside its jurisdiction, and has engaged in investigating the acts of the authorities appointed by us." The sudden dissolution of the Duma was answered by the "Vyborg Manifesto" which was signed by the entire parliamentary Opposition, calling upon the people to refuse to pay taxes to furnish soldiers to a Government which had driven asunder their representatives. The manifesto was also signed by all the Jewish deputies who subsequently had to pay for it with imprisonment and the loss of their electoral rights.
The revolutionary terrorism which had subsided during the sessions of the Duma broke out with redoubled violence after its dissolution. Attempts upon the lives of high officials--the most terrible being the explosion of a bomb in the summer residence of Stolypin, who had been appointed Prime Minister at the dissolution of the Duma--"expropriations," _i. e._, the plunder of state funds and private moneys for revolutionary purposes, anarchistic labor strikes, were the order of the day. The Government retorted with monstrous measures of oppression. A political court-martial was instituted which, in the course of five months (September, 1906-January, 1907) sentenced over one thousand people to death, among them many who were innocent or under age. Needless to say, a considerable portion of these victims were Jews.