The Beseda Circle, 1899-1905
Constitutions in almost all states have been introduced at various times, in bits and pieces and for the most part amidst violent political upheavals. The Russian Constitution will owe its inception not to the inflaming of passions and extremity of circumstance, but to the virtuous inspiration of the Supreme Authority, which, in ordering the political life of its people, is fully capable of endowing it with proper forms.M. M.SperanskyEvery attempt to introduce West European parliamentary forms of government into Russia is doomed to failure. If the tsarist regime is overthrown, its place will be taken by pure undisguised communism, the communism of Mr. Karl Marx who has just died in London and whose theories I have studied with attention and interest.D. A.TolstoyThe constitutional-reform movement in Russia passed through three stages of institutional development before its ultimate demise in revolution and civil war. In the first, occupying about a decade between the mid-1850s and the mid-1860s, the reform movement was concentrated in the corporate institutions of the landed gentry.