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Duma
Russia's elected national assembly, created after the October Manifesto. Four Dumas sat between 1906 and 1917, but the Fundamental Laws let the tsar dissolve them, veto legislation, and rule by decree when they were not in session.
Okhrana
The tsarist secret police, created in 1881 after the assassination of Alexander II. It infiltrated revolutionary groups with informers, monitored the press and universities, and could arrest and exile suspects without trial.
Stolypin's wager on the strong
Pyotr Stolypin's phrase describing his agrarian strategy of backing hardworking, enterprising peasants to leave the commune and farm their own consolidated land, in the hope that a stable class of small property owners would secure long-term loyalty to the tsarist state.