DUMA, an old Russian word meaning thought ; in connection with the adjective Gosudarstvennaya (of Empire) was the name of the first Russian House of Representatives, granted by Nicholas II. (Oct. 3o, 1905), and after the amendment of the electoral law (Dec. 24, 1905), formally sanctioned on March 5, 1906. Elec tors were distributed in six "curias" : large landed proprietors, small landed proprietors, peasants , capitalists, middle class, work ing men. Direct voting was admitted only in six large cities. The remaining population elected electors who in their turn elected the electors to upper local units, from which the electors were finally sent to provincial assemblies to elect members of the Duma. Thus peasants elected in four stages (village, township, district, province) ; small landowners in three (preparatory, district, prov ince) as well as working men (factory, district, province) ; big land-owners, rich citizens and middle class citizens in two (district, province). The number of electors given to various constituencies varied in opposite proportion to the number of population, thus giving enormous preponderance to the upper classes. Landed gen try (about 200,000) had the right to choose 2,594 electors; wealthy citizens (500,00o) 788, middle class (8,000,000) 59o, working men (12,000,000) 112, peasants (70,000,00o) 1,168. The Duma had the power to legislate, to vote the Budget and to control the administration. But its rights were extremely curtailed by the tsar's prerogative, through indiscriminate use of Orders in Council, to thwart regular legislation, by withdrawing from its competence a great part of Budget expenses, by the lack of re sponsibility of ministers and, last, not least, by an extremely con servative Upper House (the Council of Empire) composed half of old dignitaries nominated by the tsar and half of elected members from gentry, church, commerce, and learned bodies.
The first two Dumas were dissolved after 73 and 103 days of existence. The third Duma, elected after a change of electoral law, lasted for the full five years of its mandate (1907-12), and the fourth (1912-17) was nearing its end when the March revolution began.
See also RUSSIA; History and P. N. Milyoukov's article on "The Representative System in Russia" in "Russian Realities and Problems," ed. J. D. Duff (1917) . (P. M.)