Administrative resource at the elections to the Fourth State duma of the Russian empire: Perm version

Abstract

“They make elections” – this was how many contemporaries defined the role of central and local government in the 1912 election campaign to the State Duma. The widespread use of administrative resource was the basis for the Cadets’ request to the Duma. The paper analyzes the Perm experience of administrative control of the elections and mostly the role of the governor Ivan Koshko. That experience was highly regarded in St. Petersburg and was supposed to be replicated in the next election campaign. Without breaking the electoral legislation formally, Koshko created a comfortable electoral situation for moderate right-wing political forces. The main forms of the use of administrative resource at the 1912 Duma elections in Perm province were cleaning the voters’ lists; disfranchisement; organization and cancellation of voters’ meetings; division of pre-election congresses; cancellation of the election of workers and peasants’ representatives; actions against opposition candidates; creating benefits for the clergy. The creation of “The Perm National Society” that succeeded in sending four candidates to the State Duma was an effective electoral project of the Governor. In general, for the first time in parliamentary history of late imperial Russia, an absolute majority of deputies from Perm province represented conservative positions; for the first time there were no socialist candidates among the representatives of the province.