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The Defeat of Popular Representation, December 1904: Prince Mirskii, Witte, and the Imperial Family

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Daniel Turnbull
Daniel Turnbull*
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
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Extract

Although Prince Peter Sviatopolk-Mirskii served as minister of the interior of Russia for only five months beginning on 25 August 1904, he nearly managed a volte-face in the government's relationship to society. The dimensions of his plans for reform during this crucial period have not been thoroughly explored. While his conciliatory attitude toward the zemstva is well known, less familiar is his intention to broaden civil liberties and anchor them firmly in the law, an intention expressed in a memorandum he submitted to Nicholas II on 23 November 1904. In that memorandum Mirskii recommended a whole range of measures designed to restore harmony between government and society— from the extension of basic civil liberties and the broadening of local zemstvo and municipal council authority to the curbing of the Okhrana regime and the restoration of proper legislative and administrative procedures within the government.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , Spring 1989 , pp. 54 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1989

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References

1. “On Changes in the Governmental Structure of the Empire,” TsGAOR, f. 543, op. 1, d. 513. Asummary of this memorandum can be found in Chermenskii, E. D., “Zemsko-liberal'noe dvizhenie nakanunerevoliutsii 1905–1907 gg.,” Istoriia SSSR 5 (1965): 57.Google Scholar

2. “O prednachertaniiakh k usovershenstvovaniiu gosudarstvennogo poriadka,” Polnoe SobranieZakonov, 25, 495. An English version is in Harcave, Sidney, First Blood: The Russian Revolution of 1905 (London: Bodley Head, 1965, 282–285 Google Scholar.

3. Hans Heilbronner provides a brief sketch in “Sviatopolk-Mirskii, Danilovich, Peter,” Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, ed. Wieczynski, Joseph L. 43 vols. (Gulf Breeze, Fla.: AcademicInternational, 1964–1986)38 (1984): 110–114 Google Scholar.

4. The most detailed treatment is Solov'ev, Iu. B., Samoderzhavie i dvorianstvo 1902–1907 gg. (Leningrad: Nauka, 1981, 131–136 Google Scholar. Shatsillo, K. F., “Taktika i organizatsiia zemskogo liberalizma nakanunepervoi russkoi revoliutsii,” Istoricheskie zapiski 101 (1978): 260–262 Google Scholar is also useful. See also Harcave, First Blood, 60–62; Chermenskii, “Zemsko-liberal'noe dvizhenie” 5: 57–58; Galai, Shmuel, The LiberationMovement in Russia, 1900–1905 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973, 237–238 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Heilbronner, “Sviatopolk-Mirskii” 38: 112–113; Weissman, Neil B., Reform in Tsarist Russia: The State Bureau-cracy and Local Government, 1900–1914 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1981), 97–99 Google Scholar;and Manning, Roberta Thompson, The Crisis of the Old Order in Russia: Gentry and Government (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982) 75, 81Google Scholar.

5. Witte explicitly stated this. Witte, S. Lu., Vospominaniia 3 vols. (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo sotsial'noekonomicheskoiliteratury, 1960) 2: 332Google Scholar. In contrast, the Committee of Ministers and its special subcommittees, all of which met subsequently to implement the decree of 12 December, generated a substantial body ofmaterials. These deliberations, which were not relevant to the discussions in the December conference, are contained in Zhurnaly Komiteta Ministrovpo ispolneniiu ukaza 12 dekabria 1904 g. (St. Petersburg, 1905).

6. Kryzhanovskii, S. E., Vospominaniia (Berlin: Petropolis, n.d.), 25 Google Scholar; The final decree is in TsGIA, f.727 (Nol'de), op. 1, d. 1; Mirskaia's, Princess diary is in “Dnevnik Kn. Ekateriny Alekseevnoi SviatopolkMirskoi za 1904–1905 gg.,” Istoricheskie zapiski 77 (1965): 240–293 Google Scholar. For a similar conference, see Heilbronner, Hans, “Alexander III and the Reform Plan of Loris-Melikov,” Journal of Modern History 33 (1961): 384–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. D. N. Liubimov (director of the MVD Chancellery) plausibly suggested that Nicholas eliminatedthe controversial point in a fit of anger over an obstreperous address from the Chernigov provincial zemstvoassembly. See D. N. Liubimov, “Russkaia smuta nachala deviatisotykh godov, 1902–1906,” ColumbiaUniversity, Russian Archives, 157. Yet Nicholas had received the offending address on 6 December, and on7 December he had sent Mirskii his imperial rebuke for publication (“Dnevnik Mirskoi,” 77: 262 [7 December]).The matter therefore could have been discussed thoroughly at the final session of the conference.

8. See Chernukha, V. G., Vnutrenniaiapolitika tsarizma s serediny 50-kh do nachala 80-kh gg. XIX v. (Leningrad: Nauka, 1978, 15–135 Google Scholar; and Zaionchkovsky, Peter A., The Russian Autocracy in Crisis, 1878–1881, trans. Hamburg, Gary (Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International, 1979), 75–91 Google Scholar. The better-knownprojects are those by P. A. Valuev in 1863 and M. T. Loris-Melikov in 1881.

9. “Dnevnik Mirskoi,” 77: 242 (25 August).

10. Ibid., 77: 245 (3 October). Several precedents for this existed. See note 27 below and the correspondingtext.

11. Solov'ev, Samoderzhavie, 121–130, provides the best available general account of the interaction between Mirskii and these circles.

12. Shipov, D. N., Vospominaniia i dumy o perezhitom (Moscow: Sabashnikov, 1918, 150–152 Google Scholar.

13. These consultations are found in Solov'ev, Zamoderzhavie, 121–122; 121–130 of this work providethe best account so far of Kireev's influence. See also Shipov, Vospominaniia, 246–249, 278–281; and “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 249, 253 and 254 (25 October, 9 November, and 14 November). Shipov, the chairmanof the executive board of the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo until V. K. Pleve blocked his reelection in1904, was still widely recognized as the leader of the zemstvo movement. Rodzianko was a zemstvo representativefrom Ekaterinoslav province and Golovin was a zemstvo representative from Moscow province.Mirskii also peripherally met leaders of a more firmly constitutionalist persuasion, notably Prince SergeiDolgorukoi, marshal of the nobility for Moscow province; see Trubetskaia, Olga, Kniaz’ S. N. Trubetskoi.Vospominaniia seslry (New York: Izdatel'stvo im. Chekhova, 1963), 89–90Google Scholar; and Shipov, Vospominaniia, 281.

14. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 251 and 259 (1 November and 22 November). See also TsGAOR, f. 1, 001, op. 1, d. 1, 147, 1. 4, cited in Chermenskii, “Zemsko-liberal'noe dvizhenie” 5: 57.

15. TsGAOR, f. 1, 001, op. 1, d. 1, 147, 1. 2, cited in Chermenskii, “Zemsko-liberal'noe dvizhenie “5: 57.

16. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 242 and 251 (25 August, 1 November).

17. Ibid., 77: 253–255, 261 (9, 14, 16 December and 4 December), for the first phrase; 77: 250 (25 October) for the second; and 77: 251, 258 (1, 22 November). Shipov also rendered this variant as “participationof elected representatives in the review of laws” (uchastie vybornykh v rassmotrenii zakonov). “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 254 (14 November).

18. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 253–254, 261–262 (14 November and 5, 6 December). Rodzianko's renderingwas “representatives in the State Council “; “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 253 (9 November). For Mirskii'sendorsement, see the account of his conversation with Kireev in the latter half of November in Solov'ev, Samoderzhavie, 130.

19. See Mirskii's remarks to Prince B. A. Vasil'chikov in “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 253 (14 November).

20. See in particular the account of his heated altercation with Nicholas on 22 November in “DnevnikMirskoi” 77: 258–259.

21. Mirskii explicitly said this in an official statement cited in Solov'ev, Samoderzhavie, 130.

22. For a description of the State Council's role in tsarist government see Yaney, George L., The Systematizationof Russian Government (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973, 250–258 Google Scholar. Yaney alsodraws attention to the importance of legislative work conducted in related organs outside the State Councilitself.

23. See Manning, Crisis of the Old Order, 43, 51–57.

24. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 259 (22 November).

25. Ibid., 77: 245, 247 and 260 (3, 9 October and 3 December).

26. Ibid., 77: 259 and 260 (22 November and 3 December).

27. See Simonova, M. S., “Zemsko-liberal'naia fronda (1902–1903 gg.),” Isloricheskie zapiski 91 (1973): 153 Google Scholar. Similar proposals and experiments by V. K. Pleve are described in Judge, Edward H., Plehve: Repression and Reform in Imperial Russia 1902–1904 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1983), 75–76 and 177–178Google Scholar. See also V. N. Kokovtsov's so-called Commission on the Center in 1903 in Judge, Pleve, pp. 204–205.

28. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 254 (14 November).

29. Ibid., 77: 241–242 (25 August).

30. Ibid., 77: 251–252 and 259 (1 November and 22 November).

31. Ibid., 77: 261 (4 December); Lopukhin, A. A., Olryvki iz vospominanii (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe, 1924, pp. 47–48 Google Scholar; Kryzhanovskii, Vospominaniia, pp. 25–26.

32. “Dnevnik Mirskoi,” 77: 260 (4 December), 262 (5 and 6 December), 262–263 (8 December);Dnevnik Nikolaia 11 (Berlin: Slovo, 1923), p. 185 (8 December); “Iz Dnevnika Konstantina Romanova, “Krasnyi arkhiv 43, 6 (1930): 102 (16 December).

33. Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 328.

34. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 261–262 (5 December).

35. Trubetskaia, Kniaz’ Trubetskoi, 94.

36. Kryzhanovskii, Vospominaniia, 25. The conference included the entire Committee of Ministers, leading members of the State Council, and personal favorites of the tsar. The participants consisted ofMirskii, Count D. M. Solskii (chairman of the State Council), E. V. Frish (vice-chairman), S. Iu. Witte (chairman of the Committee of Ministers), K. F. Avelin (navy), A. S. Ermolov (state domains), Prince M. I.Khil'kov (communications), V. N. Kokovtsov (finance), Count A. P. Lamzdorf (foreign affairs), P. L. Lobko (state comptroller), N. V. Murav'ev (justice), K. P. Pobedonostsev (procurator of the Synod), V. V. Sakharov (war), I. Iu. Nol'de (secretary of the Committee of Ministers), A. A. Budberg (head of the Petitions Chancery), P. P. Gesse (commander of the palace), O. B. Rikhter (commander of the royal residence), A. S. Taneev (head of the tsar's Private Chancery), and Count 1.1. Vorontsov-Dashkov (member of the State Council).Grand Duke Mikhail Aleksandrovich also may have been present; the aged V. B. Fredericks (court) andV. G. Glazov (education) possibly were not included. Nol'de was present in a secretarial capacity only.Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 328; “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 261 (5 December); “Iz dnevnika Konstantina” 43: 100 (4 December); Kryzhanovskii, Vospominaniia, p. 25; Lopukhin, Otryvki, p. 48; Trubetskaia, Knia2'Trubetskoi, p. 93; Bogdanovich, A. V., Triposlednikh samoderzhtsa (Moscow, 1924), pp. 315–317 Google Scholar (5, 8, 9December).

37. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 261 -262 (5 December); DnevnikNikolaia II pp. 184–185 (2 December).Bogdanovich, Tri samoderzhtsa, pp. 315–316 (7 December).

38. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 262 (6 December). The diary of Nicholas II has no entry for 6 Decemberbut records the other two sessions (Dnevnik Nikolaia II, 185). According to Mirskii, Witte seized the initiativewithout clear sanction from Nicholas. To overcome the impasse, Witte proposed at the first sessionthat Mirskii's suggested decree be redrafted to embody the reforms and he also suggested that the drafting beentrusted to Nol'de, the secretary for the Committee of Ministers. Nicholas neither approved nor rejected thesuggestion, and Witte chose to interpret this lack of action as an invitation to draft the decree himself. Witteapparently did not submit his draft to Nicholas upon completion but brought it to Mirskii on 5 December andpresented it to the conference at its second session on the following day ( “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 261–262[5, 6, December]). See also Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 332; and “Iz dnevnika Konstantina” 43: 102 (16 December).Afterwards Witte reported to Nicholas on the session's progress.

39. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 262–263 (8 December); Dnevnik Nikolaia II, 185 (8 December); “Izdnevnika Konstantina Romanova,” Krasnyiarkhiv43, 6 (1930): 102 (16 December). The uncles were AlexanderMikhailovich and Aleksei, Vladimir, and Sergei—all Aleksandrovich. Their official posts were directorof the merchant marine, chief of the navy, commander of the guard of the St. Petersburg Military District, and governor-general of Moscow. “Dnevnik A. A. Bobrinskogo,” Krasnyi arkhiv 26, 1 (1928): 130 (8 December);Dnevnik Nikolaia II, 185 (8 December); Lopukhin, Otryvki, 50–51.

40. Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 331, 332; “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 260 (3 December), 261–262 (5 December); “Dnevnik Bobrinskogo” 26: 130 (8 December).

41. TsGAOR, f. 543, op. 1, d. 513.

42. “Zapiski A. S. Ermolova,” KrasnyiarkhivS, 1 (1925): 49–69. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 260–261 (3, 5 December); Bogdanovich, Tri samoderzhtsa, 322 (26 December); Shipov, Vospominaniia, 289.

43. Miliukov, Paul, Russia and Its Crisis (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1962), 387 Google Scholar; Lopukhin, Otryvki.50; Bogdanovich, Tri samoderzhtsa, 320, 322 (19, 26 December).

44. Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 331; “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 261 (4 December); Lopukhin, Otryvki, 47.

45. Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 331; Lopukhin, Otryvki, 49; “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 260, 262–263 (3, 8, 9 December). Instances of Kokovtsov's opposition to election can be observed in his October 1903 chairmanshipof the Commission to Investigate the Decline of the Welfare of the Central Agricultural Provinces (the Commission on the Center). See Judge, Plehve, 204–205.

46. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 263 (8 December); Shipov, Vospominaniia, 288; Charques, Richard, TheTwilight of Imperial Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 175 Google Scholar.

47. “Dnevnik Mirskoi,” 77: 263, 264 (9, 11 December); Bogdanovich, Tri samoderzhtsa, p. 322 (26 December); Yaney, Systematization of Russian Government, 305–318; Kokovtsov, V. N., Iz moego proshlogo.Vospominaniia 1903–1919 gg. 2 vols. (Paris: Rossiia, 1933) 1: 47–49 Google Scholar.

48. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 260–261 (3, 4 December); Shipov, Vospominaniia, 288; Kryzhanovskii, Vospominaniia, 26.

49. Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 323 and 324; “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 255 (15 and 17 November); Bogdanovich, Tri samoderzhtsa, 305 (7 November); Lopukhin, Otryvki, 46. Kokovtsov appears to be wrong insuggesting that Witte played a role in Mirskii's appointment (Iz moegoproshlogo 1: 47).

50. Kokovtsov, Iz moego proshlogo 1: 48–49, Lopukhin, Otryvki, 46; Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 324, 328; Lopukhin, Otryvki, 46; “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 261 (3 December).

51. Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 331. Von Laue, Theodore H., Sergei Witte and the Industrialization of Russia (New York: Atheneum, 1974), 159–162, 225–230 Google Scholar; Laue, Von, “Count Witte and the Russian Revolutionof 1905,” American Slavonic and East European Review 17 (1958): 27 Google Scholar. Compare Witte's stand while chairman of the Conference on the Needs of Agricultural Economy from 1902 to 1903, in Shipov, Vospomi156–170. See also Fallows, Thomas, “The Zemstvo and the Bureaucracy” in The Zemstvo in Russia: An Experiment in Local Self-Government, ed. Emmons, Terence and Vucinich, Wayne S. (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1982, 221–222 Google Scholar. Mirskii's ignorance of Witte's position can be seen in “Dnevnik Mirskoi,” 77: 260–261 (3, 4 December). Princess Mirskaia, who generally was suspicious of Witte's motives, surmised that Witte had consulted the reactionary Prince V. P. Meshcherskii, editor of Grazhdanin, toascertain how the plan was viewed at court ( “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 260–261 [4 December]). Although thisconjecture probably was wrong, if not unfair, some plausibility for it lay in the fact that Meshcherskii, whothen was benefiting from a brief revival of favor at court, had been conducting a campaign against Mirskii'sreformist course, both in private letters to Nicholas and in his newspaper, and had been promoting Witte toreplace Mirskii at his post. See Mosse, W. E., “Imperial Favorite: V. P. Meshcherskii and the Grazhdanin , “Slavonic and East European Review 59 (1981): 543 Google Scholar; “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 250–257 (especially 25 Octoberand 1 November); and Bogdanovich, Tri samoderzhtsa, 301 (29 October 1904).

52. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 247, 250–251, 253 (9, 29, and 31 October and 14 November).

53. Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 331–332.

54. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 262, 263 (8 and 9 December).

55. The official version was not published in Russia until 1914. Petr Struve had published an unauthorizedversion in Stuttgart in 1899.

56. “Otryvki iz vospominanii D. N. Liubimova,” Istoricheskii arkhiv 6 (1962): 82. Actually, Wittecould have identified the reforms of Catherine II in the 1770s and 1780s as the fountainhead of the electiveprinciple and, therefore, as the genesis of constitutionalism (see S. Frederick Starr, “Local Initiative in Russiabefore the Zemstvo,” in Zemstvo in Russia, ed. Emmons and Vucinich, 11–13, 25–26). He was correct, however, in the sense that from the 1860s onward the zemstva, as the contemporary manifestation of theprinciple, were a palpable threat to the bureaucratic regime.

57. Von Laue, Sergei Witte and Industrialization, p. 116; Galai, Liberation Movement, 38, 49; Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 325. In 1905, with the prospect of a democratic franchise, the threat shifted to one ofpopulist agrarian interests (Von Laue, “Count Witte,” 29, n. 8).

58. “Dnevnik A. A. Polovtsova,” Krasnyi arkhiv 3 (1923): 139. See also de Enden, M.N., “TheRoots of Witte's Thought,” Russian Review 29 (1970): 6–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59. Hardinge to Landsdowne, 4 January 1905 (NS), British Documents on Foreign Affairs: ConfidentialPrint. Part 1: From the Mid-nineteenth Century to the First World War. Series A: Russia 1859–1914, 6 vols. (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1983) 3: Russia, 1905–1906, doc. 1, p. 1.Witte's comments to the German diplomat can be found in Rogger, Hans, Russia in the Age of Modernisationand Revolution 1881–1917 (London: Longman, 1983), 213 Google Scholar, citing the German Foreign Ministry Political Archive, Abteilung A, Ruβland, no. 61, Heft 1, 811, under 4 March 1905). Pares, Bernard, My Russian Memoirs (London: Jonathan Cape, 1939), 184 Google Scholar. Witte's argument concerning Nicholas's successor is found in “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 255 (16 November).

60. “Dnevnik Mirskoi,” 77: 250, 253, 254, 255–257 (26 October and 1, 14, 16, 19, 20 November);Lopukhin, Otryvki, 51. Murav'ev's wavering can be found in Bogdanovich, Tri samoderzhtsa, 311, 322 (22 November and 26 December); Lopukhin, Otryvki, 51.

61. Lopukhin, Otryvki, 50–51; “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 262 (8 December).

62. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 262 (8 December); Bogdanovich, Tri samoderzhtsa, 320 (19 December);Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 332; “Iz dnevnika Konstantina” 43: 102 (16 December); “Dnevnik Bobrinskogo “26: 130 (8 December).

63. TsGIA, f. 727 (Nol'de), op. 1, d. 1.

64. Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 333; “Dnevnik Mirskoi,” 77: 262 (8 December).

65. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 263–264 (9, 10, 11 December).

66. Ibid., 77: 252, 264 (4 and 11 November).

67. Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 334.

68. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 264 (11 December); Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 333; Dnevnik Nikolaia 11, 186 (11 December). Nol'de may also have been present as secretary ( “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 264 [11December]).

69. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 265 (13 December).

70. Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 334; “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 265 (13 December).

71. Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 333.

72. Trubetskaia, Kniaz’ Trubetskoi, 95; Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 334–335; “Dnevnik Mirskoi “77: 265 (13 December); “Iz dnevnika Konstantina” 43: (16 December); Galai, Liberation Movement, 237.

73. “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 265, 266, 267 (12, 13, 14, 15 December); Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 335.Mirskii told Maria Fedorovna on 11 December that he considered the point about election such an integralpart of his program that, if forced to remain in office and implement his program of reforms without thatpoint, his lack of enthusiasm would surely lead him to perform disastrously ( “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 264 [11December]).

74. Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 333; Pravitel'stvennyi vestnik, 14 December 1904 (no. 283), 1; “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 266–267 (13, 14, 15 December); “Dnevnik Bobrinskogo” 26: 130 (14 December).

75. Witte, Vospominaniia 2: 337; “Dnevnik Mirskoi” 77: 267 (15 December).

76. Manning, Crisis of the Old Order, 80–87.

77. Heilbronner, “Alexander III and the Reform Plan of Loris-Melikov” 33: 385, 386–387; Zaionchkovsky, Russian Autocracy in Crisis, 182–183, 204–212, 232–235; and Chernukha, Vnutrenniaia politikatsarizma, 128–129.