Sergei Witte was late Imperial Russia’s most outstanding politician. It would strain the word to call him a statesman, because he was rather short of political vision. But he did have the talent—rare in Russia where government and opposition were equally prone to lock themselves into doctrinaire positions—of practicing politics as the art of the possible, content, when making or recommending policies, to settle on the lesser of evils. Like many successful politicians, he was an opportunist skilled at pursuing his private interests in the guise of public service. No one was better suited to steer Russia through the revolutionary storms: he had a remarkably acute political instinct and energy to spare. Unfortunately for Witte, and possibly Russia, Nicholas disliked and mistrusted him. The diminutive, exquisitely mannered Tsar could not abide the rough, overbearing minister who had married a divorcée of dubious reputation, chewed gum, and was rumored (wrongly) to be a Freemason.
Witte descended from a Russified Swedish family. He began his career in the Railroad Department of the Ministry of Commerce. His early politics were nationalist and pro-autocratic: after the assassination of Alexander II he joined the right-wing “Holy Brotherhood,” which planned to turn the weapon of terrorism against the terrorists. In his view, Russia had to have a strong and unlimited monarchy because over one-third of her population consisted of “aliens.”77 But he was willing to come to terms with the opposition and always preferred compromise to repression. He had uncommon managerial talents and advanced rapidly: in 1889 he was placed in charge of State Railways and in 1892 was appointed Minister of Finance. He formulated and implemented ambitious plans for the industrial development of Russia, and was instrumental in securing loans from abroad, a good part of which went into constructing railways and buying out private railroad companies. His policies of forced industrial growth aroused the enmity of diverse groups: the landed gentry and the officials of the Ministry of the Interior in particular, who thought that he was subverting the country’s agrarian foundations.
Dismissed in 1903 and given the purely honorific post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Witte was now recalled and sent to the United States. His instructions were vague. He was under no circumstances to agree to an indemnity or to surrender one foot of “ancient Russian soil.”78 Otherwise he was on his own. Witte, who had a fine sense of the “correlation of forces,” realized that Russia was not without strong cards, for the war had severely strained Japan’s economy and made her no less eager to come to terms. While in the United States, he exploited American anti-Japanese feelings, and made himself popular with the public by such democratic gestures as shaking hands with railway engineers and posing for ladies with Kodak cameras, which he admitted came hard to him, unaccustomed as he was to acting.
In Russia, the news of Tsushima raised the political tension still higher. On May 23, the St. Petersburg Municipal Council voted for political reforms; the Municipal Council of Moscow followed suit the next day. These were significant developments because up to that time the institutions of urban self-government had been more restrained than the zemstva and stayed clear of the Liberation Movement. On May 24–25, the zemtsy held in Moscow a gathering of their own people along with representatives of the nobility and Municipal Councils.79 Its resolution called for the convocation of a national representative body elected on a secret, equal, universal, and direct ballot: among the signatories were the chairmen of twenty Municipal Councils.80 The meeting chose a deputation to see the Tsar, which he received on June 6. Speaking for the group, Prince Sergei Trubetskoi, the rector of Moscow University, urged Nicholas to allow public representatives to enter into a direct dialogue with him. He spoke of the military defeats raising among the people the specter of “treason” in high places. Without specifying whether the proposed body should be advisory or legislative, Trubetskoi asked that it be elected, not by estates, but on a democratic franchise. “You are Tsar of all Russia,” he reminded him. In his response, Nicholas assured the deputation he was determined to convene representatives of the nation.81 The encounter set a historic precedent in that it was the first time a Russian ruler had met with representatives of the liberal opposition to hear pleas for constitutional change.
9. Sergei Witte at Portsmouth, N.H.: Summer 1905.
How widespread the demand for such change had become after Tsushima can be gathered from the fact that a Conference of the Marshals of the Nobility (June 12–15) concluded that Russia stood at the threshold of anarchy because she had only a “shadow” government. To restore state authority, the Tsar had to stop relying exclusively on the officialdom and avail himself of the assistance of “elected representatives of the entire land.”82
The entire opposition movement at this point was driven by liberals and liberal-conservatives who saw in constitution and parliament a way of strengthening the state and averting revolution.83 The revolutionaries continued to play a marginal role and followed the liberals. This would remain the case until October.
On June 23, a newspaper carried the first reports on the discussions underway in government concerning the Duma, as the new representative body was to be called. In July more information on this subject leaked from a secret meeting at Peterhof. (The leaks originated with the professor of Russian history at Moscow University, Vasilii Kliuchevskii, who participated in the drafting commission as a consultant.84) The provisions of what came to be popularly known as the Bulygin Constitution were officially released on August 6.85 Because of the leaks, the public, even if disappointed, was not surprised. It was the usual story of too little, too late. A proposal that would have been welcomed six months earlier now satisfied no one: while the opposition was demanding a legislative parliament and even a Constituent Assembly, the government was offering a powerless consultative body. The new State Duma was to be limited to deliberating legislative proposals submitted for its consideration by the government and then forwarding them to the State Council for final editing. The government was not even obligated to consult the Duma: the document explicitly reaffirmed the “inviolability of autocratic power.” As a concession to liberal demands, the franchise was based, not on estate, but on property qualifications, which were set high. Many of the non-Russian regions were deprived of the vote; industrial workers, too, were disenfranchised. In St. Petersburg and Moscow, only 5 to 10 percent of the residents qualified; in the provincial cities, 1 percent or even fewer.86 The franchise was deliberately skewed in favor of Great Russian peasants. According to Witte, during the deliberations of the Bulygin Commission it was assumed
that the only [group] on which one could rely in the present turbulent and revolutionary condition of Russia was the peasantry, that the peasants were the conservative bulwark of the state, for which reason the electoral law ought to rely primarily on the peasantry, i.e., that the Duma be primarily peasant and express peasant views.
87
The assumption had never been put to a test and turned out to be entirely wrong: but it fitted with the Court’s deeply held conviction that the pressures for political change emanated exclusively from the cities and the non-Russian ethnic groups.
Even though the so-called Bulygin Duma offered little, it represented a major concession, inadequately appreciated by contemporaries: “The autocrat and his government, who had always claimed to be the best and only judges of the people’s true interests, now at least were willing to consult with the people on a permanent and comprehensive basis.…”88 In so doing, the Tsar accepted the principle of representation, which a mere eight months earlier he had declared he would “never” do. Witte, who also knew the proposal fell far short of what was needed, nevertheless felt certain that the Duma would in no time develop from an advisory into a full-blooded legislative institution: only “bureaucratic eunuchs” could have deluded themselves that Russia would be content with a “consultative parliament.”89
The liberals now faced the choice of accepting the Bulygin Duma as given, petitioning the Tsar to change it, or appealing to the nation to pressure
the government. A joint Zemstvo and Municipal Councils Congress held in early July, by which time the substance of the government’s proposal was already known, discussed these options. The more conservative participants feared that a direct appeal to the population would inflame the peasants, who were beginning to stir, but there was near-unanimity that it was pointless to petition the Tsar. The majority decided to call on the population to help achieve “peaceful progress”—a veiled way of exhorting it to civil disobedience.90
Notwithstanding these developments, in August and September 1905, the country seemed to be settling down: the announcement of August 6, promising a Duma, and the prospect of peace with Japan had a calming effect. Nicholas, convinced that the worst was over, resumed the routine of Court life. He ignored warnings of informed officials, including Trepov, that the calm was deceptive.
Witte returned to Russia in triumph, having managed to obtain far better terms than anyone had dared to hope. In the Treaty of Portsmouth, concluded on September 5 (NS), Russia surrendered the southern half of Sakhalin and consented to Japan’s acquiring the Liaotung Peninsula with Port Arthur, as well as establishing hegemony over Korea, neither of which were Russian property. There was to be no indemnity. The price was small, considering Russia’s responsibility for the war and her military humiliation.*
Witte was not deceived by appearances. Not only was the government unable to reassert authority, but Russian society was in the grip of a psychosis that had it convinced “things cannot go on like this.” He thought all of Russia was on strike.91
And, indeed, a nationwide strike was in the making.
The idea of resorting to a general strike to force the government to its knees had been placed on the agenda of the Union of Unions shortly after the Tsushima debacle. At that time, the Union’s Central Bureau took under advisement the resolutions of two of its more radical affiliates—the Union of Railroad Employees and Workers and the Union of Engineers—to organize a general political strike. A committee was formed to look into the matter,92 but little was done until early October, when the center of political resistance once again shifted to the universities.
As the opening of the new academic year drew near, the government made unexpectedly generous concessions to the universities. On the advice of Trepov, rules were issued on August 27 allowing faculties to elect rectors and students to hold assemblies. To avoid confrontations with the students, Trepov ordered the police to keep out of university precincts: responsibility for maintaining discipline was given to faculty councils.93 These liberalizing measures went far in meeting objections to the unpopular 1884 University Statutes. But they had the opposite of the anticipated effect: instead of mollifying the students, they provided the radical student minority with the opportunity to transform universities into arenas of worker agitation.
In August and early September 1905, the students were debating whether to resume studies. They overwhelmingly wanted the schools to reopen: a vote taken at St. Petersburg University showed that those favoring this course enjoyed a seven-to-one plurality.94 But being young and therefore sensitive to charges of selfishness, they struck a compromise. A nationwide student conference in September representing twenty-three institutions of higher learning rejected motions calling for a boycott of classes. It did agree, however, as a concession to the radicals and proof of political awareness, to make university facilities available to non-students for political rallies.95
This tactic had been formulated the preceding summer by the Menshevik Theodore Dan in the pages of the Social-Democratic organ Iskra. Dan urged the students to return to school, not to study, but to make revolution:
The systematic and overt violation of all the rules of the police-university “regulations” [
rasporiadok
], the expulsion of all kinds of disciplinarians, inspectors, supervisors, and spies, opening the doors of the lecture halls to all citizens who wish to enter,
the transformation of universities and institutions of higher learning into places of popular gatherings and political meetings
—such should be the students’ objective when they return to the lecture halls which they have abandoned.
The transformation of universities and academies into the property of the revolutionary people:
this is how one can succinctly formulate the task of the student body … Such a transformation, of course, will make the universities into one of the centers for the concentration and organization of the national masses.
96
Trepov’s rules inadvertently made such revolutionary tactics possible.
The militant minority immediately took advantage of this opportunity to invite workers and other non-students to political gatherings on university grounds. Academic work became impossible as institutions of higher learning turned into “political clubs”: non-conforming professors and students were subjected to intimidation and harassment.97 The workers were slow to respond to the invitation of student militants but curiosity got the better of them. As word got around that the students treated them with respect, increasing numbers of workers turned up. They listened to speeches and soon began to speak up themselves.98 Similar scenes took place in other university towns, including Moscow. It was an unprecedented spectacle to have radical students incite workers to strike and rebel without police interference. Trepov’s hope that his relaxed rules would allow students to “blow off steam” had completely misfired. In Witte’s view, the university regulations of August 27 were a disaster: “it was the first breach through which the Revolution, which had ripened underground, emerged into the open.”99
At the end of September a new wave of strikes broke out in central Russia. Although economic in origin, they became rapidly politicized thanks to the efforts of the Union of Unions and the radical students who followed its lead.
The strikes which were to culminate in the general strike of mid-October began with a walkout of Moscow printers on September 17. The dispute, which began peacefully, was over wages, but university students soon gave it a political coloration. The strikers clashed with the police and Cossacks. Other workers joined in the protests. On October 3, St. Petersburg printers struck in sympathy.100 Until the formation of the St. Petersburg Soviet on October 13, the universities served as coordinating centers for the strike movement because they were then the only institutions in Russia where it was possible to hold political meetings without police interference.101 Their lecture halls and other facilities were taken over for political rallies, attended by thousands. Trubetskoi, the rector of Moscow University, was determined not to allow his institution to be turned into a political battleground and ordered it closed on September 22. (It was his last act, for he died suddenly a week later: his funeral in Moscow was an occasion for a grandiose political demonstration.) But St. Petersburg University and the St. Petersburg Technological Institute stayed open and this allowed them to play a critical role in the events that led to the general strike.
Industrial unrest in Moscow and St. Petersburg assumed a national dimension when the railroad workers joined in. It was noted previously that the All-Russian Union of Railroad Employees and Workers, an affiliate of the Union of Unions, had been discussing since the summer of 1905 the possibility of a general political strike. The railroad action began with a minor incident. In late September the authorities convened a conference to discuss with railroad representatives questions connected with their pension rights. On October 4–5 false rumors spread that the workers attending this conference had been arrested. The Railroad Employees and Workers Union used this opportunity to execute its plan. On October 6, the Moscow railroads struck, isolating the city. The strike spread to other cities, soon joined by communication and factory workers and white-collar employees. In all instances, the Union of Unions and its affiliates made certain that the strikers posed political demands, calling for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly elected on a “four-tail” franchise (universal, direct, secret, and equal ballot). Partly spon
taneous, partly directed, the movement headed toward a complete work stoppage. On October 8, the Union of Unions instructed its members to join in support of the railroad workers and set up strike committees throughout the country. The stage was set for a general strike.*
On October 6, as the movement was gathering momentum, Witte requested an audience with the Tsar, which was granted three days later. Witte, who in the past was inclined to tell the Tsar what he wanted to hear, was now brutally frank. He told Nicholas that he had two choices: appoint a military dictator or make major political concessions. The rationale for the latter was outlined in a memorandum which he brought along.* Nicholas almost certainly told his wife what had transpired, for Witte was requested to return to Peterhof the following day, October 10, to repeat his arguments in her presence. Throughout the encounter, Alexandra never uttered a word.
Close reading of Witte’s memorandum indicates that he was familiar with the program of the Union of Liberation and, in particular, the writings of Struve, its chief theorist. Without saying it in so many words, he proposed the adoption of the platform which Struve had been urging in the pages of the Union’s organ, Liberation: “The slogan of ‘freedom’ must become the slogan of government activity. There is no other way of saving the state.”† The situation was critical. The country had become dangerously radicalized, and the masses, having lost confidence in the government, were poised to destroy the country’s very foundations:
The advance of human progress is unstoppable. The idea of human freedom will triumph, if not by way of reform then by way of revolution. But in the latter event it will come to life on the ashes of a thousand years of destroyed history. The Russian
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