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October Manifesto

A 6 August (O.S.) manifesto created a Duma as a consultative body only. The proposal was greeted by numerous protests and strikes across the country, which became known as the Russian Revolution of 1905. The Tsar asked his cousin Grand Duke Nicholas to assume the role of dictator, but the Grand Duke threatened to shoot himself if the Tsar refused to endorse Witte's memorandum. Nicholas II had no choice but to take a number of steps in the constitutional liberal direction. Sergei Witte advocated the creation of an elected parliament, the formation of a constitutional monarchy, and the establishment of a Bill of Rights. (Maklakov promoted bicameralism; his former teacher Milyukov unicameralism. The State Duma was to be the lower house of a parliament, and the State Council of Imperial Russia the upper house.) In October 1905 Maklakov played an active part in the organization of the Constitutional Democratic Party, serving on its central committee. On 20 October 1905 Witte was appointed as the first Chairman of the Russian Council of Ministers (effectively Prime Minister) but the Kadets refused to join Sergei Witte's Cabinet, which designed Russia's first constitution. The Kadets doubted that Witte could deliver on the promises made by the Tsar in the October Manifesto, knowing the Tsar's staunch opposition to reform. On 24 November by Imperial decree provisional regulations on the censorship of magazines and newspaper was released. Pyotr Nikolayevich Durnovo was appointed as Minister of Interior on 1 January 1906. In July the Tsar dissolved the First Duma. The ministers remained responsible solely to Nicholas II, not to the Duma.

As deputy in the State Duma

Portrait of Vasily Maklakov, by Leonid Pasternak

Maklakov was elected by the Muscovites to the Second State Duma in 1907, and served as deputy in the more conservative Third and Fourth Duma. He attracted attention with a brilliant speech about military field courts, advocated the abolition of the death penalty, and insisted on the inviolability of the individual. He was strongly opposed the signing of the Vyborg Manifesto written by Pavel Milyukov. In such memorable addresses as that delivered on the Yevno Azef affair, he tended toward conservatism, opposing alliances with revolutionaries. But he grew hostile to the government as the years passed and actively supported the Progressive Bloc, a coalition of liberal parties in the Fourth Duma that called for sweeping reforms. The most conservative of the Kadet leaders, Maklakov was anxious to preserve the party's unity, which appeared fragile in the face of his many ideological clashes with Milyukov, reputed for his intransigent liberal individualism. Early 1909 he inherited Plevako's law practice. In May 1909 he delivered a lecture about Legal history of Russia in the 19th century and Russia of the second half of the 90s of the XIX century.

A high point of his legal career was the defence of Menahem Mendel Beilis, a Russian Jew accused of ritual murder of a 13-year-old Ukrainian child. Beilis was tried twice; the evidence against him was very weak. Alexander Tager wrote that "the whole country was against the process, except for the extreme right and that the ritual murder of which he was accused was a fiction of the Black Hundreds. Later it turned out that five of the jurors, including the foreman, were members of the Union of the Russian People. In October 1913 Beilis was acquitted and immediately released. Maklakov, who had published articles claiming that the jury's verdict had saved the court's good name. His acquittal "a clear defeat for the authorities and a victory for liberal and radical public opinion" greatly calmed public opinion, for no innocent man was convicted.

In September 1915 Maklakov published a sensational article, "A Tragic Situation" describing Russia as a vehicle with no brakes, driven along a narrow mountain path by a "mad chauffeur, who can't drive", a reference to the Tsar. On 3 November 1916 Maklakov held a powerful speech, attacking the "Dark Forces" and the government. He was visited soon by Yusupov. Maklakov rejected the original idea of taking Rasputin's body out on Purishkevich's ambulance train and leaving it in the war zone, where no one would bother identifying the dead man. He suggested him it was best to arrange some sort of car incident. Yusupov obviously disagreed. One of the participants in the assassination, Vladimir Purishkevich, claimed that it was Maklakov who supplied Prince Felix Yusupov with a dumbbell and poison to murder Rasputin [1][2]. In 1923 Maklakov wrote that he supplied Yusupov with harmless aspirin; also Lazovert stated later he did not use poison, but a harmless powder. The extent of his involvement in the murder of the "mad monk" is a matter of keen debate.

His younger brother Nikolay Maklakov, a staunch monarchist, served as Russia's Interior Minister from 16 December 1912 – 5 June 1915 till he was forced to resign being pro-peace with Germany. Alexey was like his father an ophthalmologist. On February 28, 1917 Nikolay was arrested. Following the February Revolution, Vasily Maklakov aspired to take the office of Minister of Justice in the Provisional Government. After the post went to another professional lawyer, Alexander Kerensky, Maklakov was put in charge of the government's "legal commission". He was elected in the Moscow City Duma, involved in the preparation of the elections of the Constituent Assembly, of which he was elected a member in August.