Municipal Statute of 1862

a law providing for reforms in the municipal self-government in Moscow by replacing the six-member duma with a municipal duma representing all the estates.

In contrast to the Municipal Statute of 1846, adopted for St. Petersburg, the statute of 1862 provided for the election of 175 members to the general duma, 35 from each of the five estates that had been established by the statute of 1846. (The administrative duma consisted of ten members, two from each estate.) Many aristocrats, public figures, and rich merchants were members of the general duma, thereby creating favorable conditions for the rapprochement of the nobility with the bourgeois strata. However, during the 1860’s leadership in the duma belonged to the nobility. The majority of the inhabitants of Moscow, such as workers, tenants, and the intelligentsia of various estates, did not possess electoral qualifications and therefore did not have the right to vote. The jurisdiction of the general duma was restricted to purely local economic matters, and the duma’s striving for independence and its attempt to participate in political affairs were suppressed by the government.