The Russian Revolution

The turmoil, verging on civil war, confounded and paralyzed Nicholas. He could not for the life of him understand why people would not be content with the lot which destiny had assigned them, as he was: after all, he carried on even though he derived no enjoyment from his difficult and often tedious responsibilities. (“I maintain autocracy not for my own pleasure,” he told Sviatopolk-Mirskii, “I act in its spirit only because I am convinced that it is necessary for Russia. If it were for myself, I would gladly be rid of it.”⁶⁶) In the first decade of his reign he had faithfully followed in the footsteps of his father: but Alexander had not had to contend with a country in rebellion. Nicholas’s inclination was to quell the unrest by force. The police, however, were pitifully inadequate to the task, while the bulk of the army, over one million men, was thousands of miles away fighting the Japanese. According to Witte, the country was virtually depleted of military forces.

⁶⁷ There was no alternative, therefore, to political concessions: but just how little one could get away with was unclear. Nicholas and his confidential advisers were torn between the realization that things could not go on as they were and the fear that any change would be for the worse.

Some officials now urged the Tsar to expand on the promises made in the December 12 edict. They were joined by industrialists who worried about a breakdown of production. Among the events that softened Nicholas’s opposition to further concessions was the murder on February 4, 1905, at the hands of a terrorist, of his uncle, the Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich, a friend and confidant.

On January 17, Nicholas met with A. S. Ermolov, the Minister of Agriculture and State Properties, an experienced and wise official. The advice which Ermolov proffered, first in person and then in a memorandum, made a strong impression on him and seems to have been the main inspiration behind the important legislative acts of February 18.⁶⁸ Ermolov depicted Russia as a country on the verge of revolution. To prevent collapse, two measures had to be taken without delay. A cabinet of ministers had to be formed to give the government the necessary unity and the ability to coordinate policy in face of the opposition, neither of which was possible under the existing system.* Concurrently, a Land Assembly (consultative in nature) had to be convened of representatives of all the Tsar’s subjects without distinction of social rank, religion, or nationality. Only such a body would enable the Tsar to establish direct contact with the nation: after the November Zemstvo Congress, in which the gentry dominated, one could no longer hope to rely on that class, the monarchy’s traditional support. Ermolov assured Nicholas that he could trust his people. “I know,” he wrote,

that Your Majesty also hears from his closest advisers different voices. I know the opinion exists that it is dangerous to convene the nation’s representatives, especially at the present troubled time, when passions have been stirred. There is the fear that at a gathering of such representatives voices may resound calling for a fundamental change in the ancient foundations of our state system, for limiting tsarist authority, for a constitution; the fear that the Land Assembly may turn into a Constituent Assembly, the peasantry raise the question of a Black Repartition.† that the very unity of the Russian land may be challenged. That such voices may indeed be heard in such an Assembly cannot be denied. But, on the other hand, one cannot help but feel confident that in an Assembly where all the classes of the population will be represented, where the views and spirit of the people will find true reflection, these individual voices will be drowned out by the vast majority which remains faithful to national traditions, to the native foundations of the Russian state system. After all, such voices resound now, too, and now they are the more dangerous because the silence of the masses offers them no refutation. No, Your Majesty, there is nothing to fear from such phenomena, and they represent no real danger.⁶⁹

In effect, Ermolov was proposing to isolate the intelligentsia by bringing into the political process the silent majority. The alternative, in his opinion, was a massive peasant uprising such as Russia had not seen since Pugachev’s rebellion in the reign of Catherine the Great.

Impressed by these arguments, Nicholas told Bulygin the next day that he was prepared to consider a representative body to discuss drafts of legislative bills.