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He believed that even the existence of the Duma
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would compromise the virtues of autocracy.
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As you know,
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the Duma loses most of what authority it had been given.
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The Duma seemed to be a rational organization
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and this didn't fit terribly well in a worldview
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that believes in faith feeling as opposed to reason,
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and has a particular, and sometimes peculiar,
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idea of morality shaped by the traditions of Mother Russia.
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He and his wife look back to this sort of imaginary time
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before Peter the Great,
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when the true Russia did not look westward at all,