Encyclopedia of Russian History

St. Petersburg with the purpose of issuing a manifesto of insubordination to the act of dissolution and calling for the people to support them. Holding an assembly in St. Petersburg was impossible, because both the Duma building and the Cadet (Constitutional Democrat) Party Club were surrounded by police and military forces. At the proposition of the Cadets, between 220 and 230 Duma deputies, mostly Cadets and Trudoviks, met in Vyborg, Finland, on the eve of July 22. The chairman was the chairman of the Duma, Sergei Muromtsev. During the night, the deputies discussed two possible versions of the manifesto. The first, prepared by the Trudoviks and the Social Democrats, called for the army and navy to support the cause of the revolution and for the people not to follow the orders of the government. The second, prepared by the Cadets and written by Pavel Milyukov (who was not a deputy), called for passive resistance: ignoring military service, not paying taxes, and refusal of state loans unless the Duma approved. The final draft of the Manifesto, processed by the approval committee, was close to the Cadets’ version. Despite the remaining controversies, on July 23 the final revision of the appeal was signed, because an order came from St. Petersburg of the dissolution of the assembly and the danger of “fatal consequences for Finland.” The Vyborg Manifesto was signed by 180 deputies, later to be joined by 52 more. It was printed in the form of a leaflet on July 23, 1906, in Finnish and then Russian in 10,000 copies, and was reprinted abroad. The reprint of the Vyborg Manifesto by Russian newspapers was punished with the confiscation of the press run, and spreading the leaflets was punished with arrests. On July 29, 1906, a court case was started against those who signed the Manifesto, which called for the nation to oppose the law and the lawful orders of the government. The Vyborg Manifesto had no significant impact on the people. In December 1907, the so-called Vyborg trial was held in St. Petersburg. At the trial, 167 of the 169 former deputies of the Duma were sentenced to three months of incarceration, which meant that they were bereft of the right to run for position in the Duma and other civil services. See also: CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY; DUMA; REVOLUTION OF 1905

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ascher, Abraham. (1992). The Revolution of 1905: Authority Restored. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

1654

Maklakov, V.A. (1964). The First State Duma. Blooming-ton: Indiana University Press.

OLEG BUDNITSKII

VYSHINSKY, ANDREI YANUARIEVICH

(1883-1955), prosecutor, scholar, diplomat; best known for conduct of show trials during the Great Terror.

Andrei Yanuarevich Vyshinsky distinguished himself as a prosecutor (prosecutor-general of Russia, 1931-1933; deputy prosecutor general of the USSR, 1933-1935; prosecutor general of the USSR, 1935-1939); as a scholar (author of authoritative legal texts, including The Theory of Evidence in Soviet Law, published in three editions); and as a diplomat (deputy foreign minister, 1940-1949, 1953-1955; foreign minister and Soviet representative to the United Nations, 1949-1953). In all of these roles he displayed unfailing loyalty to his master and sometime confidant, Josef V. Stalin.

Erudite and a brilliant orator, as skilled in sarcasm as in logic, the dapper Vyshinsky was trained as a jurist. He belonged to the Menshevik party before becoming a Bolshevik in 1920. While working in educational administration during the 1920s, Vyshinsky proved his political mettle in performances as judge in early show trials (such as Shakhty). Later, as prosecutor-general, Vyshinsky continued to develop the political show trial, serving as prosecutor at the major show trials of 1936 through 1938, at which leading politicians from the past (e.g., Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Grigory Pyatakov, Nikolai Bukharin, and Alexei Rykov) were humiliated and forced to confess to extraordinary acts of betrayal. Archival sources reveal that Vyshinsky worked closely with Stalin in manufacturing the charges and writing the scripts. Vyshinsky was also a member of the Special Board of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) that during the years 1936 through 1938 processed most of the contrived cases of alleged saboteurs and counterrevolutionaries.

As Stalin’s prosecutor, Vyshinsky also helped to restore the authority of law in the post-collectivization era, eliminate the influence of anti-law Marxists such as Yevgeny Pashukanis, and develop a jurisprudence that supported the use of terror against political enemies. Long after leaving the administration of justice, Vyshinsky remained

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

VYSOTSKY, VLADIMIR SEMYONOVICH