defeated, too, and there was nothing left but to sue for peace. Realizing the gravity of the internal situation, the Russian government tried to ease the pressure by conciliatory counter-measures to succeed the ruthless Plehve, the good-natured Duke Swiatopolk

Mirsky was named Minister of the Interior, and most important of all, the Russian Duma, the parliamentary body of Russia, was established. But of course this was not enough to satisfy Russia's restless masses, which had become aware of the glaring abuses and had come to realize the government's weakness. Revolutionary waves swept over Russia, and in October a general strike began. Factories were shut down, the railroads stopped running, the telegraph and telephone networks were out of operation, power was cut off - and huge mobs moved about everywhere, unrest prevailed, and there seemed to be in the air a premonition of some disastrous explosion such as Russia had never before experienced. Under the circumstances the Czar agreed to a proclamation containing not only guarantees of individual security but also freedom of conscience, assembly and speech, and promising that no laws would be enacted in the future without the approval of the Duma.

It is obvious that the Russian defeat pleased the Finns and that far-reaching governmental changes were fervently hoped for also in Finland. To speed the materialization of something better in place of the old and the bad the Finns availed themselves of a general strike, too. The first step was taken in Viipuri, where the workers in two large factories decided to stay away from their jobs for two days. Then similar action followed in Helsinki, where a mass meeting decided to continue the strike until there were reassurances of the country's future. Governor-General Obolensky promptly summoned representatives of the Constitutional and Old Finn parties to discuss the situation, and the result of this was the draft of a proclamation prepared chiefly by Leo Mechelin, approved by Obolensky and submitted to St. Petersburg, from where it was returned, approved by the Czar. On Sunday, 5 November 1905, the proclamation was read aloud in all the churches of Finland for the whole nation to hear: the implementation of the illegal edicts under the February 1899 proclamation was declared suspended. The Czar further requested the Senate to prepare, inter alia, a proposal for a new parliamentary system, with members to the new body to be elected on the basis of a free and equal franchise. Thus ended the first phase of russification, with the Czarist government suffering a definite defeat.

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