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weakly organized even locally in the Soviets, whichsprang up for the nonce in part as strike committees, inpart as political bodies (cf. p. 63). But it was seriousenough in itself, even if it had not been encouraged andsupplemented by what has been called "the revolt ofthe cultural societies," by mutinies in the navy and thearmy, and by peasant uprisings (cf. p. 132). Theselast were even more elemental than the workers' struggleand they were not combined with it.The professional classes and intelligentsia were stirredby ' Bloody Sunday' and the series of defeats in the waragainst Japan to organize opposition to the authoritieson a growing and a more and more defiant scale. In thisthey were at one with the more progressive among theprovincial and district councils (zemstva) and themunicipal councils. To extract their political demandsthey were prepared to use the weapon of the politicalstrike. The combination, though it was not coalescence,of middle class, working class and peasantry in the generalstrike of October extorted from Nicholas II the OctoberManifesto, granting in principle a constitution and aparliament.This proved the first turning-point of the 1905 Revolution.The liberals and middle class were now contentto confine their energies to trying to secure the realizationof the promises of the manifesto; above all through theDuma, which the Constitutional Democrats, under theleadership of Milyukov (1870-1943), aimed at developingmore or less on Western, parliamentary lines.The industrial workers, though they responded invery large numbers to a second general strike in December,were exhausted, leaderless and without strike funds.The government disbanded the St Petersburg Sovietwithout resistance, but in Moscow it took a week'sstreet fighting to suppress armed insurrection. Thiswas the second and final turning-point of the 1905Revolution. The peasantry surged again into widespreadupheavals in the summer of 1906, but they were scatteredand unsupported, and repression was unsparing. Duringthe Revolution some of the army had been unreliable,but enough had remained loyal; various concessions in2A—R.H. 369