reserved the right to dissolve the elected Duma at any time and rule by emergency decree, as well as the right to veto any law passed by the Duma. The Okhrana, meanwhile, retained their oppressive presence. Nonetheless, elections took place and the first Duma went ahead, meeting on 10 May 1906. Dominated by ministers sympathetic to the peasantry, its demands were too radical for the Tsar and, on 21 July, he responded by dissolving it. On the same day, he appointed Pyotr Stolypin his prime minister.
