The Russian Revolution

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.