histic association, hostile to the
manifesto, which called itself the "Union of True Russians."[27]
According to the conservative estimate of Mr. Milyukov, these "true
Russians," with the sympathy and cooeperation of the police, killed or
wounded no less than thirteen thousand other Russians, whom they
regarded as not "true," in the very first week after the freedom
manifesto was promulgated. One not familiar with Russian conditions
might have supposed that the Czar would use all the force at his
command to stop these murderous "pogroms" and to punish the police and
the "true Russians" who were responsible for them; but he seems to
have regarded them as convincing proof that all true Russians would
rather have autocracy than freedom, and, instead of insisting upon
obedience to his manifesto and punishing those who resorted to
wholesale murder as a means of protesting against it, he not only
allowed the slaughter to go on, but, a few months later, showed his
sympathy with the "true Russians" by telegraphing to their president
as follows:

"Let the Union of the Russian People serve as a trustworthy support. I
am sure that all true Russians who love their country will unite still
more closely, and, while steadily increasing their number, will help
me to bring about the peaceful regeneration of our great and holy
Russia."[28]

Disappointed at the Czar's failure to stand by his own manifesto, and
exasperated by the murderous attacks of the Black Hundreds upon
defenseless people in the streets, the Social Democrats, the Social
Revolutionists, and the extreme opponents of the government generally
resorted to a series of armed revolts, which finally culminated in the
bloody barricade-fighting in the streets of Moscow in December, 1905.
Taking alarm at these revolutionary outbreaks, and yielding to the
reactionary pressure that was brought to bear upon him by the
ultra-conservative wing of the court party, the Czar abandoned the
reforms which he had declared to be the expression of his "inflexible
will,"[29] and permitted his governors and governors-general to "put
down sedition" in the old arbitrary way, with imprisonment, exile, the
Cossack's whip and the hangman's noose.

Long before the meeting of the first Duma the freedom manifesto had
become a dead letter; and in July, 1906, when Mr. Makarof, the
Associate Minister of the Interior, was called before the Duma to
explain the inconsistency between the "inflexible will" o