#russian duma

[ohsoromanov]

Tsar Nicholas II's opening speech before the two chambers of the State Duma in the Winter Palace. 10 May (27 April ), 1906. You can watch a rare video of the event [part 1, part 2].

The speech was as follows:

"By the Almighty providence, the care given to Me for the good of the Fatherland prompted Me to call for assistance in the legislative work of the elected representatives of the people. With fervent faith in the bright future of Russia, I greet in your person those best people whom I have commanded My beloved subjects to choose from themselves. A difficult and difficult job is ahead of you. I believe that love for the Motherland and a fervent desire to serve it will inspire and unite you. I will guard with unshakable the institutions I have granted, with firm confidence that you will devote all your strength to selfless service to the Fatherland to clarify the needs of the peasantry so close to My heart, to educate the people and develop their welfare, bearing in mind that for the spiritual greatness and prosperity of the state, not only freedom is necessary, order based on law is necessary. May My ardent desires be fulfilled to see My people happy and to pass on to My son as a legacy a strong, well-ordered and enlightened state. May the Lord bless the labors that are coming to Me in unity with the State Council and the State Duma, and may this day be marked from now on as the day of renewal of the moral image of the Russian Land, the day of the revival of its best forces. Proceed with reverence to the work to which I have called you, and justify the trust of the Tsar and the people with dignity. God help Me and you.

If you're interested in reading a collection of Tsar Nicholas II's speeches between 1894-1906, you can do so here.

The first representative body of legislative power was created in the Russian Empire in 1905 as result of the revolution. On 6 August 1905, Emperor Nicholas II issued a Manifesto on Establishment and Organisational Rules of one of the parliament chambers – the State Duma. The State Council of the Russian Empire became the second chamber. The Duma should have exercised only quasi-legislative function. However, on 17 October 1905, the Emperor signed a new Manifesto establishing that no law could enter into force without an approval of the State Duma.

The opening of the first session took place on at 5 o'clock in the afternoon on Thursday, April 27, 1906.

The First State Duma was restricted in its powers and authority. In accordance with the Code of Main State Laws, approved by Nicholas II on 23 April 1906, the Emperor took decisions regarding ministers’ appointment, Russian foreign policy, and declaration of a state of emergency. The Code also provided that the Emperor was entitled to issue new laws on his own behalf.

Thus the State Duma was transformed from an advisory body to a legislative organ. Overall four Dumas gathered till 1917. The Duma consisted of landowners, representatives of the industrial middle class, merchants, city intellectuals, and peasants. A total number of elected delegates of the Duma varied from 478 to 525 in different years. [Read more about the history of the Duma].

Tsar Nicholas II dissolved the first and second Dumas in 1906 and 1907, respectively. It happened after his government conflicted with the left-wing Duma over constitutional and social reforms.

After the dissolution of the Dumas, the famous historian V.O. Klyuchevsky made a prophetic conclusion: "The dynasty will cease: Alexei (the son of Nicholas II) will not reign."

The leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party, P.N. Milyukov, in his memoirs, citing these words of Klyuchevsky, writes: "It was difficult then to believe the accuracy of the historian's providence. And so it happened, just 11-12 years after the events described" (Pavel Nikolaevich Milyukov. Memoirs (1859-1917).

In fact, the very foundation of a Duma might have been doomed from the start. Here's some background (in Russian).

Nicholas' speech in Russian:

27 апреля 1906 года        Всевышним промыслом врученное Мне попечение о благе Отечества побудило Меня призвать к содействию в законодательной работе выборных от народа.         С пламенной верой в светлое будущее России, Я приветствую в лице вашем тех лучших людей, которых Я повелел возлюбленным Моим подданным выбрать от себя.         Трудная и сложная работа предстоит вам. Верю, что любовь к Родине, горячее желание послужить ей воодушевят и сплотят вас.         Я же буду охранять непоколебимыми установления, Мною дарованные, с твердою уверенностью, что вы отдадите все свои силы на самоотверженное служение Отечеству для выяснения нужд столь близкого Моему сердцу крестьянства, просвещения народа и развития его благосостояния, памятуя, что для духовного величия и благоденствия государства необходима не одна свобода, необходим порядок на основе права.         Да исполнятся горячие Мои желания видеть народ Мой счастливым и передать сыну Моему в наследие государство крепкое, благоустроенное и просвещенное.         Господь да благословит труды, предстоящие Мне в единении с Государственным Советом и Государственной Думою, и да знаменуется день сей отныне днем обновления нравственного облика Земли Русской, днем возрождения ее лучших сил.         Приступите с благоговением к работе, на которую Я вас призвал, и оправдайте достойно доверие Царя и народа. Бог в помощь Мне и вам.

[oldblogger]

Putin’s return “a national catastrophe for Russia”

Putin’s return “a national catastrophe for Russia”: http://wp.me/prazu-15m

[I originally posted this in November 2011. It seems timely to post it again with today’s date] — Those are the words Yevgeniya Albats wrote in her political journal, the Russian New Times Magazine, of which she is chief editor. Yevgeniya Albats My article today will recount the facts, opinions and assertions that Albats offered during a seminar at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs…

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[youthchronical]

Russian Duma to vote next week on scrapping ratification of nuclear test ban treaty - Times of India

Russia’s parliament will vote next week on withdrawing Moscow’s ratification of the global treaty that bans nuclear tests, lawmakers said on Thursday. At a time of acute tension with the West over Russia’s war in Ukraine, the move could provide Moscow with legal cover to conduct a test involving a nuclear explosion for the first time since 1990, even though it says it has no such intention.…

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[euromaidanpress]

Newly-elected Russian Duma likely to be the last one way or another, Yakovenko says

Newly-elected Russian Duma likely to be the last one way or another, Yakovenko says

There are two reasons for thinking that the new State Duma (Russian parliament) will be the last, Igor Yakovenko says. On the one hand, it or more precisely elections to it mean that what has become “a fifth wheel” in the Putin system nonetheless can stress the system, something the Kremlin would like to avoid in the future. And on the other hand, the Yezhednevny zhurnal commentator continues,…

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[newstfionline]

I didn’t get banned from the Russian State Duma, so I went there. Here’s what I found.

By David Filipov, Washington Post, December 9, 2017

They were turning away Russian reporters Thursday at the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament. But when I showed up, I flashed my accreditation card and a big American smile and walked right in.

That’s because of something that rarely gets mentioned about Russia: A correspondent accredited with U.S. media here can enjoy privileges that his Russian media counterparts can only dream about.

The home of the Duma can be a surprisingly welcome, even friendly place for visitors--that is, if you’re not from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty or Voice of America, both of which were barred this week. It was Moscow’s retaliation to similar actions taken in Washington against Russia’s RT network and news site, and another sign of the hard times the U.S.-Russian relationship has fallen upon.

Seen from only the outside, the Duma is a homogeneous collective of nationalist Russian angst, the podium from which Russian politicians rail against the forces that they believe to be at the root of this new deep chill: a Russophobic American establishment, intent on isolating Moscow and blaming it for Hillary Clinton’s loss in the 2016 elections.

These days, the Duma has plenty to rail at. On Wednesday, deputies, as members of parliament are called, were decrying what some see as an international conspiracy that led the International Olympic Committee to ban Russia from the Winter Olympics in South Korea. All week, they’ve railed against the treatment of RT in the United States as a violation of international norms on freedom of the press.

As the deputies barreled toward a 413-to-1 vote to bar Radio Free Europe and Voice of America, they extolled the democratic virtues of the Duma as opposed to the anti-Russian U.S. Congress, the elite and the media.

Until this week, it was still up in the air whether the Moscow bureau of The Washington Post would be tarred with the same brush. We had shown up in at least one report on a “blacklist,” and the Russian Foreign Ministry kept its cards close, promising only a “surprise.” For now, Russia decided to name only U.S. media that receive their funding from Congress, and not privately owned outlets such as The Post.

Having dodged the bullet so far, I resolved to spend some quality time in a body that, it must be said, is not heavily covered by foreign reporters. I had spent only two days here in the past year, to report a story in June about a plan to relocate hundreds of thousands of Moscow residents. And even that was not exactly necessary. The Duma broadcasts its sessions live on its website, and reporters, not allowed entry into the main hall, see the same thing on closed-circuit TV. I was one of only two people in the media room this week who covered the first post-Soviet Duma at its inaugural session in December 1993. Back then, the Duma was politically diverse, chaotic and hard to predict. Now, the Duma is caught up in the spirit of these bad times.

“Both the U.S. and Russia to some extent are in the thrall of the so-called myths about each other created during the last 20 years,” Pyotr Tolstoy, a deputy speaker of the Duma, told me.

But although the animus toward the United States is the public face of the Duma, when an American reporter showed up in person, the house proved a rather accommodating place.

It starts at the door to the imposing structure, the former home of the Soviet state economic planning authority. The accreditation card that international media receive from Russia’s Foreign Ministry allows correspondents unfettered entry to both houses of parliament, as well as other government agencies, whereas Russian beat reporters have to get accredited to each body separately.

On Thursday, Russian reporters with one-time passes were turned away, or allowed entry only if they were being met by a legislator. The reason appears to have been the unusual popularity of the day’s main event, a hearing on “legal and social aspects of sustainable development of agricultural territories.” (Sample quote, from Vladimir Kashin, a lawmaker from Russia’s Communist Party: “I want to clarify that grain is not something abstract. It is bread.”)

When I wandered into the media room, the handful of Russian reporters got a kick out of the fact that the “foreign agent”--even though I’m not one, they all jokingly call me that--made it in.

But the cordiality did not end with my Russian colleagues. All week, the press service made sure I made it into the events I needed, talked to the people I wanted to interview, had a good Internet connection, and felt no fear that I was going to be booted out at any moment.

Over at the Duma souvenir shop, where I perused the $85 boxes of handmade glass double-headed-eagle holiday tree ornaments, a helpful worker offered suggestions on how to pack them for the long trip home. A server at the special Duma food store laughed politely and agreed when I pointed out that the blue cheese being sold there looked suspiciously like it was from Germany, and therefore subject to sanctions against European Union food imports. Deputies are supposed to have preference in the line at the cafeteria, which serves hearty food at heavily subsidized low prices, but the cluster standing behind me let me go first.

The only request, voiced not only here but by every Russian official I’ve spoken to in the past 400 days, is that I “write objectively.”

I asked Tolstoy how. He offered no hope.

“One should hardly expect adequacy or objectivity nowadays because there is mutual mistrust and an attempt to put responsibility for the bad things on the other side,” he said.

[newstfionline]

For the Kremlin, winning a supermajority in the Russian parliament was the easy part

By Andrew Roth, Washington Post, September 20, 2016

MOSCOW--United Russia, the party founded by Russian President Vladimir Putin, won a landslide constitutional majority in parliamentary elections, according to a final tally of the votes Monday, providing the Kremlin with unprecedented control over the legislature during a period of economic downturn.

Never in post-Soviet Russian history has a ruling party so dominated the State Duma. With 343 seats in the 450-member parliament, United Russia will be able to change the constitution by way of a strict party vote--and there will be no openly critical voices to contend with.

“Putin has received a new resource to maintain stability. Everyone understood that if the Duma was more opposition-leaning, it would be bad for a period of transition until the presidential elections” scheduled for 2018, said Alexey Chesnakov, a political strategist and former top official in United Russia who now heads the Moscow-based Center for Current Politics.

A main concern in that transitional period will be money, or a shortage of it. Russia is spending billions of dollars to cover a budget shortfall of around 3 percent of gross domestic product because of low crude prices and international sanctions, and it is expected to exhaust one of its two sovereign funds next year. There are contesting visions of how to fill the gap, but cutbacks on social entitlements would be one likely solution.

“This Duma will have to make unpopular decisions, ones they didn’t talk about during the election campaign,” said Alexei Makarkin of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies, noting a possible rise in the pension age. “And if a political decision is made then they are going to have to vote for it, whether they like it or not.”

It is a sidekick role that Russia’s legislature, and its ruling party, have played for years: shouldering broad social entitlements and then taking the heat if those promises come up short.

“We just don’t have the money right now,” Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told an angry retiree in Crimea this May, explaining why her pension had not increased. “When we find the money, we’ll index the pensions.”

And then, in a moment of poor judgment destined to go viral, he added: “You hang in there! Cheers, take care.”

Polling before the elections suggested that United Russia’s popularity had suffered from the ailing economy, falling as low as 45 percent, and the party built its reelection campaign around images of Putin, releasing posters and television ads with the slogan “the party of the president.”

“I voted for United Russia because they always say they are with the president, and I trust our president,” Irina Avdeeva, 46, an engineer who works for a government agency in Moscow, said as she paused outside a polling station in northwest Moscow on Sunday. “I think he is trying hard and works really hard for our country. I respect him. So my vote was more for him than for United Russia.”

Ultimately, United Russia mustered 54 percent of the vote, but its landslide victory was ensured by a new system of head-to-head contests in voting districts. Turnout for the elections marked a historic low at 48 percent, a decrease of 12 percentage points from the 2011 vote.

“This is a system that rests on a ruling party that isn’t all that popular,” said Samuel Greene, a political sociologist and director of the Russia Institute at King’s College London. “Over the past five years there has been an effort to create an active, mobilized, pro-regime constituency. And while they’ve certainly created a constituency that is not going to vote for the opposition, they don’t seem to have generated a great degree of enthusiasm for United Russia.”

Russia’s Communist Party won 42 seats (9.3 percent), the nationalist LDPR party took 39 seats (8.7 percent), and the leftist A Just Russia party received 23 seats (5.1 percent). All are considered “systemic” opposition parties, none oppose Putin, and all regularly vote with United Russia on legislation considered desirable by the authorities.

Liberal opposition members accused the government of using administrative resources and controlled media to dominate the campaign. Videos of ballot stuffing at some polling stations were also widely shared.

But there was also soul searching over the low turnout, which was lowest in the large cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg where support for opposition parties is strongest.

“One can’t be elected to the Duma, if people don’t believe in the elections,” wrote Dmitry Gudkov, a candidate who ran with the liberal party Yabloko in the Moscow district of Tushino. He described the “enemy” as “the turnout, or lack thereof. Distrust. Apathy.”

Gleb Pavlovsky, a former Kremlin spin doctor and now independent political strategist, said that opposition campaigns were hassled by the government, but he added that they also “did not make many of their potential, democratically oriented voters an attractive political offer.” One misstep may have been an “anti-Putin agenda in which some of their voters are not interested.”

[newsrevealer]

News Revealer

http://www.newsrevealer.com/world/russian-duma-wants-to-accelerate-accession-of-crimea-553

[mysticpolitics]

The Russian Orthodox Church: Public Protest and Elite Politics

'The Russian Duma elections of December, 2011 contained many surprises, starting of course with the nature of the public reaction. On the eve of the election, almost no one anticipated that blatant falsification of electoral results would spark not just widespread indignation but also the largest mass protests the Russian Federation has seen since the early 1990s. Still less did anyone predict that prominent members of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) would add their voices to the social upheaval. For the larger part of the last decade, the ROC had garnered the reputation of an institution closely linked to the upper echelons of power. This image was cemented by frequent joint appearances by high-ranking bishops and politicians, most strikingly exemplified by the role played by the Patriarch in the presidential inauguration ceremonies.'

Read more: The Russian Orthodox Church: Public Protest and Elite Politics