Vyborg Appeal

(“To the People From the People’s Representatives”), an appeal of a group of deputies of the First State Duma, composed of Constitutional Democrats (Cadets), Trudoviks (members of the Labor faction), and Social Democrats (about 120 Cadets and about 80 representatives of the other parties), drawn up in Vyborg on July 10, 1906, in response to the dissolution of the Duma. The Vyborg Appeal urged the citizens of all Russia not to give “a single kopeck to the treasury, nor one soldier to the army,” and it declared that all loans concluded without the Duma’s consent would be invalid. The appeal to passive resistance was intended to prevent a possible revolutionary outburst due to the dissolution of the Duma and to direct mass indignation into a “constitutional” channel. The Cadets applied “the principle of passive resistance” to the Vyborg Appeal itself, which did not have any practical consequences. The fourth session of the Cadet Party (Sept. 24-28 [Oct. 7-11], 1906) adopted a resolution rejecting implementation of the Vyborg Appeal. Criminal prosecution was initiated against the signatories of the Vyborg Appeal, and the Special Office of the St. Petersburg appellate court sentenced 167 of 169 defendants to three months imprisonment after a trial took place on Dec. 12-18 (25-31), 1907. The sentence meant that the defendants were disfranchised during elections to the Duma and could not be elected to public offices.