The Manifesto of October 17, 1905, and the Constitution of April 23, 1906

The most detailed and accurate account of the history of the Manifesto of October 17, 1905, which proclaimed the change to a constitutional system of government, is provided in his memoirs by Witte, the man who masterminded it. Witte returned to Russia from America on September 16, 1905, after reaching a peace agreement with Japan. He was especially concerned that revolutionary unrest was turning into full-scale revolution, and he recognized that the situation was deteriorating not just by the day, but literally by the hour. This raised the question of how to react. Witte recalls: “From the first days in