According to the Russian Empire’s Constitution of 1906, a characteristic feature of the constitutional dualistic monarchy was that executive power resided with the tsar and his appointed government cabinet, neither of which were subject to the bicameral parliament consisting of the State Duma and the State Council. Hence the possibilities available to the legislative bodies for affecting and controlling the work of the government were rather limited. These possibilities consisted primarily of debating draft legislation proposed by the government, and voting on about 60% of the state budget. State Duma interpellations (запрос) addressed to government ministers concerning the ‘illegal’ (незакономерный) activities of the agencies under their jurisdiction were the more effective means for applying pressure on the government. A petition bearing the signatures of 30 Duma members had to be submitted to the Duma to launch an interpellation, after which a general session of the Duma decided where the interpellation would be sent by a simple majority of votes. Ministers, or functionaries authorised by them (ordinarily deputy ministers), had to provide explanations in the Duma and answer the interpellation within a month.

The first composition of the Duma existed only 72 days in 1906 and approved only two pieces of draft legislation. Yet an enormous number of interpellation petitions were submitted – 391 (including about 250 concerning ‘illegal’ repressions carried out by the government), of which 222 became actual interpellations submitted to the government. Ministers answered 43 of these interpellations. The radical Duma majority in the first Duma declared all the answers provided by members of the government to be unsatisfactory. A total of 10 interpellation petitions on Baltic themes were submitted in May and June of 1906 to the first Duma. They were all sent to the Prime Minister, the Minister of War, the Minister of Internal Affairs, or the Minister of Justice, who answered eight of them. All the interpellations on Baltic themes in the first Duma were about the actions of punishment squads, death sentences handed down by courts martial, the torture of prisoners, and arrests. The interpellators considered all of these actions to be illegal, while the authorities considered them legal.

Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin (1862–1911), who was a central figure in the era of the Duma monarchy, was Minister of Internal Affairs at the time of the first Duma (he was Chairman of the Council of Ministers at the time of the 2nd and 3rd Dumas). The content and meaning of his policy of ‘large-scale reforms’ and repressions for the empire’s destiny continue to be discussed to this day. He is altogether considered a liberal bureaucrat who wanted to stifle the people’s revolution from below with a revolution (reforms) from above. According to Stolypin’s lofty version, a ‘great Russia’ (Великая Россия) of grandiose importance was to come into being instead of ‘great convulsions’. As a confirmed monarchist, he was loyal to the tsar as ‘historical authority’, yet he sought a compromise with legislative institutions under conditions that he himself dictated. He spoke in the Duma on 31 occasions, and in the State Council on 17 occasions. He participated in heated debates and answered interpellations. In the Baltic governorates, the broad extent of the unrest among the people in 1905 in Latvia and Estonia, especially the burning of manors, attracted Stolypin’s attention. He was opposed to expanding the rights of non-Russians and to autonomy for non-Russian regions, and was willing to reform the local governments of the Baltic provinces ‘on a general basis’, keeping in mind ‘taking the special interests of the Russian population into consideration’.

According to the Election Acts of 1905–1906, there were supposed to be 524 deputies in the first composition of Russia’s State Duma, but there were actually only 499. Eleven members were elected from the three Baltic governorates to the first Duma: 5 Latvians, 4 Estonians, 1 Jew, and 1 Russian. Nine of them had higher education, including 8 lawyers. J. Tõnisson, who was educated as a lawyer, was the editor and publisher of the influential newspaper Postimees, and was one of the more important leaders of Estonian liberal nationalists. He was elected to the Duma as a representative of rural municipalities with primarily Estonian and Latvian inhabitants in the Governorate of Livland. In the Duma, he belonged to the Kadets faction and the group of autonomists together with the other deputies from the Baltic provinces, where he tried to organise a group of Baltic autonomists-federalists. He signed draft legislation initiated by the Kadets on the equality of citizens and freedom of conscience, and 11 interpellation petitions. He spoke from the Duma rostrum in defence of the principles of autonomy and private ownership of land, and sharply attacked the bureaucratic regime and the actions of the government, saying that ‘representatives of the authorities are bringing the state to ruin, to public insurrection’.

J. Tõnisson considered it his duty to stand for the interests of the Estonian people in higher spheres in opposition to Russian officials and leading Baltic German figures. He repeatedly spoke in protest against repressions carried out by the government. On 21 June 1906, Duma members Jānis Kreicbergs and Jaan Tõnisson visited Minister of Internal Affairs Pyotr Stolypin to request an end to martial law since they claimed that the situation was calm and that martial law only contributed to the revolution. Stolypin replied that he ‘had to ensure peace and order’. Tõnisson was sentenced to prison for three months for signing the Vyborg Appeal issued by Duma members (on 9 July 1906), and thereby he lost his voting rights. His newspaper Postimees was shut down for the entire period during which martial law was in effect for criticising the authorities, including Prime Minister Stolypin and the coup d’état of 3 June 1907. In September of 1908, Stolypin promised a delegation of Estonian public figures led by Tõnisson that the government would not obstruct the natural development of non-Russian peoples. This was a hollow promise since both before and after that episode, the government planned various Russification measures in Estonia and Latvia. Hence Stolypin wrote on 10 February 1908 to governmental ministers and the heads of main administrations that the positions of state officials in the Baltic provinces should be staffed ‘primarily with individuals of Russian origin’.

On 8 June 1906, 34 Duma members (including 29 Kadets) submitted Interpellation Petition no. 151 to the Duma for presenting the interpellation ‘Actions of Punishment Squads in the Baltic Krai’ to Minister of Internal Affairs Stolypin. The initiators for drawing up and submitting the interpellation were the Estonians Jaan Tõnisson and Oskar Rütli, who had been elected in the Governorate of Livland. Latvians and Lithuanians supported them. The interpellation’s guiding principle was the nullification of martial law in Estland and Northern Livland since according to the interpellators, there had been no unrest in 1906 and entirely innocent people had fallen victim to the punishment squads. Tõnisson gave a lengthy speech at a general session of the Duma on 12 June 1906 to introduce the interpellation, where he said that ‘the Baltic Sea krai is suffering under the horrendous terror [of the government]’. At the same time, the Duma made the decision to declare the interpellation to be urgent and to submit it to Minister of Internal Affairs Stolypin. In his speech, as in his other public speeches and writings as well, Tõnisson drew a clear boundary between those who favoured revolutionary violence, that is primarily socialists, and the liberals that he was leading, who were fighting without exception ‘on the basis of law and justice’. He accused reactionary forces, the upper strata of the Baltic Germans, and the Russian administration of provoking unrest, forcing the people of the Baltic lands onto the path of violence, terror, and killings. In his speeches given in the Duma on 8 and 22 June 1906, Stolypin justified the repressions with the need to safeguard social peace and security in the state. On 3 July 1906, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Aleksandr Makarov explained in the Duma that the punishment squads in the Baltic governorates operated in accordance with laws governing martial law, according to which all power was in the hands of the military authorities.

The government feared interpellations and unrest associated with the Duma, and sometimes it made isolated concessions or adjusted its policy to make it more acceptable to the opposition. Thus, the intensiveness of the implementation of repressive measures was reduced at the time of the sessions of the 1st and 2nd Dumas throughout the state, also including the Baltic governorates. In November of 1906, Aleksandr Möller-Zakomelsky, the provisional governor-general of the Baltic lands, issued an order to the army to stop burning farms and other structures with the aim of punishment and the administration of corporal punishment in Estonia and Latvia. All death sentences issued by the courts martial were not carried out. The governor-general commuted a large proportion of them to forced labour, prison, and deportation to Siberia. In October of 1906, in the case of a uniform ethnic composition of the student body, it was allowed to teach all subjects in the mother tongue of the pupils, with the exception of the state’s official language, in the first two years of study in elementary schools in the Baltic governorates. In response to public opinion and pressure from the State Duma, the operation of courts martial in connection with civilians was officially halted throughout the empire in April of 1907.