Based on detailed analysis of the evolution of the formal and actual status of the deputies of the State Duma of the beginning of the 20th century, as well as of the model of their recruitment, the author demonstrates that the activity of the protoparliament manifested itself in the appearance in Russia of a new type of politician differing from the traditional bureaucrat and from the revolutionary with his underground activity. It became a public politician who formulated a socially significant program and was oriented in its accomplishment on social support. At the same time the author reveals certain duality of the situation in which the first Russian parliamentarians found themselves: being representatives of the people in the system of state power, they, at that, were endowed with certain attributes of officialdom. According to the author's conclusion, such duality, as, also, the conservation of elements of the guildship model of recruiting political elite, was preconditioned by the dualistic character of the Russian Empire, which was making only its first steps along the way of democratic transit.