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Pyotr Stolypin
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| Political Biography: Pyotr Arkadievich Stolypin |
(b. Dresden, 14 Apr. 1862; d. Kiev, 18 Sept. 1911) Russian; Minister of the Interior and Prime Minister 1906 – 11 A member of the provincial landowning nobility, Stolypin served as Governor of Grodno (1902) and Saratov (1903), where he attracted the Tsar's attention by his combination of understanding and firmness in dealing with peasant revolts. Made Interior Minister in May 1906, he became in addition Prime Minister in July at the early age of 44. An energetic, impressive man and a good orator, he appealed to the Tsar and to moderate conservatives. His moral prestige was enhanced by an attack on his home in August 1906, after which he instituted a series of summary trials of terrorists.
Failing to secure the co-operation of the deputies for his reforms he dissolved the Second Duma in June 1907 on the excuse of an alleged plot by Social Democrat deputies. He proceeded to drastically restrict the franchise, quite unconstitutionally, but the resultant Third Duma, though dominated by the centre-right, was not much more amenable. His arrogance and indifference to constitutionality were revealed again in March 1911. The Council of State (Upper Chamber) rejected a proposal to extend the Zemstva (local councils) to the Polish-Russian borderlands. Stolypin forced the Tsar, by threatening to resign, to prorogue both houses of the Duma for three days in order to pass his measure by emergency decree, while at the same time removing from the capital the measure's main opponents. This high-handed action brought Stolypin the hostility of the Duma and caused deep offence to the Tsar. Stolypin would probably soon have been dismissed, but was mortally wounded by a Socialist-Revolutionary terrorist at a theatre in Kiev in September 1911.
Although somewhat idealized by some contemporary Russians as the man who might have saved Russia from Bolshevism by his combination of reform and strong leadership, Stolypin was a highly contradictory character. His greatest achievements were in agricultural reform. He aimed at a "wager on the strong", i.e. the creation of an independent peasantry which would become a bulwark for the reformed autocracy. He made it possible for ex-serfs to buy themselves out of the peasant commune and for small strips to be consolidated into capitalist farms, aided by loans from the Peasant Land Bank. About two million households (about one-eighth of the total) took advantage of these arrangements before 1916, many moving into the less populated Siberia and Central Asia. But the policy was not a panacea.
Other areas of his policy were more controversial. He made deliberate use of Russian nationalism to strengthen his support with the élite, especially in Poland and Finland, where Russification was stepped up. But his more "liberal" reforms (extending religious freedoms to Jews and other groups; welfare legislation; changes in local government) alienated key groups in the nobility. He suffered from being neither a true conservative nor a true reformer and from having weak political skills, and his insensitivity to constitutionalism and democratic pressures frustrated the implementation of his reform programme.
| Biography: Piotr Arkadevich Stolypin |
The Russian statesman and reformer Piotr Arkadevich Stolypin (1862-1911) is known for his victory over anarchist forces, for his attempt to transform the Russian autocratic monarchy into a constitutional one, and for his land reform.
Piotr Stolypin was born in Baden. A country squire and landlord in Kovno, he was named marshal of the nobility of that province from 1887 to 1902. In 1903 he was appointed governor of the adjoining province of Grodno and a year later was transferred in the same capacity to Saratov on the Volga. There he ruthlessly put down the peasants, and his determination and personal courage led to his appointment as minister of the interior in 1906. Later that year he became prime minister.
Stolypin was the most competent and clear-sighted official to serve Czar Nicholas II. His policy was twofold - to bring law and order to society and to institute reform. An enemy of revolution and a conservative, Stolypin tried to break up the revolutionary groups and also to undermine their popular support through social and political reforms. As a monarchist and a constitutionalist, he wished to work harmoniously with the elected Duma in the passage of reform legislation.
An intelligent and well-educated man, Stolypin pondered for some time the poor condition of the Russian villages and concluded that the low level of rural economy was due to the fact that the land did not belong to the peasants. He realized also that Russia could not become a strong power until the majority of the Russian population - the peasants - became interested in the preservation of individual property. The Revolution of 1905 with its agrarian excesses only strengthened Stolypin's conviction on this point. He came to believe finally that the primary need of Russia was the creation of a class of well-to-do landowners.
Under Stolypin's agrarian reform law peasants made remarkable progress in obtaining private land ownership. Stolypin spared no money in order to consolidate and to increase the peasantry. He encouraged the practice of granting the peasants small credits; he maintained an army of land experts, land surveyors, and agronomists; and he spent large sums of money on public education.
Stolypin's creative efforts in the work of the state were not always within the limits of the constitutional order at which he aimed. The introduction of local assemblies in the western province aroused the entire Russian people against him. The left wing and the center were indignant at such a flagrant violation of the constitution, and the right wing was indignant at his treatment of its leaders in the State Council. Stolypin was killed in Kiev on Sept. 18, 1911. His assassin was a double agent whose motives remain cloudy to this day.
Further Reading
The only full-length study of Stolypin in English is by his daughter Maria Bock, Reminiscences of My Father, Peter A. Stolypin (trans. 1970). Vladimir I. Kokovtsov, Out of My Past (trans. 1935), and Vladimir I. Gurko, Features and Figures of the Past: Government and Opinion in the Reign of Nicholas II (trans. 1939), are memoirs by czarist officials and contain useful material on Stolypin. A biographical sketch of Stolypin is in Arthur E. Adams, ed., Imperial Russia after 1861 (1965).
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Piotr Arkadevich Stolypin |
Stolypin, Piotr Arkadevich (pyô'tər ərkä'dyĭvĭch stəlĭ'pĭn), 1862-1911, Russian premier and minister of the interior (1906-11) for Czar Nicholas II. He sought to fight the revolutionary movement with both severe repression and social reform. He instituted a regime of courts-martial to suppress revolutionary terrorism and peasant disorders, and hundreds were executed in 1906 and 1907. To stem peasant unrest Stolypin attempted to create a class of peasant landowners that would be conservative and loyal to the czar. The roots of unrest lay partly in the Edict of Emancipation of 1861 (see Emancipation, Edict of), which had given land to the village communes, instead of individually to the newly freed serfs. The commune usually distributed scattered strips to provide families with generally equal allotments. Stolypin's land reforms of 1906 gave the peasant communes the right to dissolve themselves, entitled each peasant to own and consolidate the strips given him by the commune, and provided financial aid to peasants who wished to buy more land. The land reform was designed to transform the peasants gradually into landowners without hurting the interests of the large landowners. At the same time it enabled peasants to seek industrial employment in the cities if they wished to leave the land. It was opposed by the leftist majority in the first duma, which favored extensive expropriation of the land. The first and second Dumas were dissolved, and Stolypin made sure of a conservative majority in the third Duma by altering (1907) the election laws. Some of Stolypin's measures were opposed by the Socialists and liberals, others by the extreme reactionaries. His agrarian reform came too late to conciliate the peasantry as a body. When the Russian Revolution of 1917 broke out, the number of small holdings had increased but not sufficiently to create a conservative peasant class. His attempt to extend the government's policy of Russification to Finland, where he restricted (1910) the authority of the diet, met with wide opposition. While his secret police continued their repressive activities, the government took no action against the anti-Jewish pogroms organized by extreme reactionary societies. Stolypin was assassinated by a revolutionary terrorist who was also a police agent.
| Wikipedia: Pyotr Stolypin |
| Pyotr Stolypin | |
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| In office July 21, 1906 – September 18, 1911 |
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| Monarch | Nicholas II |
| Preceded by | Ivan Goremykin |
| Succeeded by | Vladimir Kokovtsov |
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| Born | 1862 Dresden |
| Died | 1911 Kiev |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Spouse(s) | Olga Borisovna Neidhardt |
Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin (Russian: Пётр Аркадевич Столыпин) (April 14 [O.S. April 2] 1862 – September 18 [O.S. September 5] 1911) served as Nicholas II's Chairman of the Council of Ministers—the Prime Minister of Russia—from 1906 to 1911. His tenure was marked by efforts to repress revolutionary groups, as well as for the institution of noteworthy agrarian reforms. Stolypin hoped, through his reforms, to stem peasant unrest by creating a class of market-oriented smallholding landowners.[1] He is often cited as one of the last major statesmen of Imperial Russia with a clearly defined political programme and determination to undertake major reforms.[2]
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Family and background
Stolypin was born in Dresden, Saxony, on 14 April 1862. His family was prominent in the Russian aristocracy, and Stolypin was related on his father's side to the poet Mikhail Lermontov. His father was Arkady Dmitrievich Stolypin (1821-1899), a Russian landowner, descendant of a great noble family, a general in the Russian artillery and later Commandant of the Kremlin Palace. His mother was Natalia Mikhailovna Stolypina (née Gorchakova; 1827-1889), the daughter of a Russian foreign minister Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov. He received a good education at St. Petersburg University and began his service in government upon graduation in 1885, when he joined the Ministry of State Domains. Four years later Stolypin was appointed marshal of Kovno province.[3]
In 1884, Stolypin married Olga Borisovna Neidhardt, the daughter of a prominent Muscovite family, with whom he had five daughters and a son.[4]
Governor and Interior Minister
In 1902 Stolypin was appointed governor in Grodno, where he was the youngest person ever appointed to this position. He next became governor of Saratov, where he became known for the suppression of peasant unrest in 1905, gaining a reputation as the only governor who was able to keep a firm hold on his province in this period of widespread revolt. Stolypin was the first governor to use effective police methods against those who might be suspected of causing trouble, and some sources suggest that he had a police record on every adult male in his province.[5] His successes as provincial governor led to Stolypin being appointed interior minister under Ivan Goremykin.
Prime Minister
A few months later, Nicholas II appointed Stolypin to replace Goremykin as Prime Minister. Russia in 1906 was plagued by revolutionary unrest and wide discontent among the population. Leftist organisations were waging campaigns against the autocracy, and had wide support; throughout Russia, police officials and bureaucrats were being assassinated. To respond to these attacks, Stolypin introduced a new court system that allowed for the arrest and speedy trial of accused offenders. Over 3,000 suspects were convicted and executed by these special courts between 1906-09.[3] The gallows hence acquired the nickname 'Stolypin's necktie'. However, to present Stolypin as just a "police autocrat" is one-sided and grossly misleading, Stolypin understood that Russian development could only succeed through positive reforms and through the build-up on a stable and prosperous middle class. He was undoubtedly one of the most visionary and realistic inclined politicians in Russia within this period of Russian history.
He dissolved the First Duma on July 22 [O.S. July 9] 1906, after the reluctance of some of its more radical members to co-operate with the government and calls for land reform.[2] To help quell dissent, Stolypin also hoped to remove some of the causes of grievance amongst the peasantry. Thus, he introduced important land reforms. Stolypin also tried to improve the lives of urban laborers and worked towards increasing the power of local governments.
In July 1906 he was elected as Prime Minister. He aimed to create a moderately wealthy class of peasants, who would be supporters of societal order. (See article "Stolypin's Reform").[6]
Stolypin changed the nature of the Duma to attempt to make it more willing to pass legislation proposed by the government[citation needed][7]. After dissolving the Second Duma in June 1907 (Coup of June 1907), he changed the weight of votes more in favour of the nobility and wealthy, reducing the value of lower class votes[citation needed][7]. This affected the elections to the Third Duma, which returned much more conservative members, more willing to co-operate with the government.[2]
In the spring of 1911, Stolypin proposed a bill, which was not passed - prompting his resignation. He proposed spreading the system of zemstvo to the southwestern provinces of Russia. It was originally slated to pass with a narrow majority, but Stolypin's partisan foes had it defeated. Afterwards he resigned as Prime Minister of the Third Duma.
Lenin was afraid Stolypin might succeed in helping Russia avoid a violent revolution. Many German political leaders feared that a successful economic transformation of Russia would undermine Germany's dominating position in Europe within a generation. Some historians believe that German leaders in 1914 chose to provoke a war with Tsarist Russia, in order to defeat it before it would grow too strong[citation needed].
On the other hand, the Tsar did not give Stolypin unreserved backing. In fact, it was believed that his position at Court was already seriously undermined by the time he was assassinated in 1911[citation needed]. Stolypin's reforms did not survive the turmoil of World War I, the October Revolution nor the Russian Civil War.
Assassination
In September 1911, Stolypin travelled to Kiev, despite police warnings that an assassination plot was afoot. He travelled without bodyguards and even refused to wear his bullet-proof vest.
On September 14 [O.S. September 1] 1911, while he was attending a performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tale of Tsar Saltan at the Kiev Opera House in the presence of the Tsar and his two eldest daughters, the Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana, Stolypin was shot twice, once in the arm and once in the chest, by Dmitri Bogrov, who was both a leftist radical and an agent of the Okhrana. Stolypin was reported to have coolly risen from his chair, removed his gloves and unbuttoned his jacket, exposing a blood-soaked waistcoat. He sank into his chair and shouted 'I am happy to die for the Tsar' before motioning to the Tsar in his imperial box to withdraw to safety. Tsar Nicholas remained in his position and in one last theatrical gesture Stolypin blessed him with a sign of the cross. The next morning the distressed Tsar knelt at Stolypin's hospital bedside and repeated the words 'Forgive me'. Stolypin died four days after being shot. Bogrov was hanged 10 days after the assassination; the judicial investigation was halted by order of Tsar Nicholas II. This gave rise to suggestions that the assassination was planned not by leftists, but by conservative monarchists who were afraid of Stolypin's reforms and his influence on the Tsar, though this has never been proved. Stolypin was buried in the Pechersk Monastery (Lavra) in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Legacy
Opinions about Stolypin's work were divided. In the unruly atmosphere after the Russian Revolution of 1905 he had to suppress violent revolt and anarchy. His agrarian reform held out much promise, however. Stolypin's phrase that it was a "wager on the strong" has often been maliciously misrepresented. Stolypin and his collaborators (most prominently his Minister of Agriculture Alexander Krivoshein and the Danish-born agronomist Andrei Andreievich Køfød) tried to give as many peasants as possible a chance to raise themselves out of poverty by promoting consolidation of scattered plots, introducing banking facilities for peasants and stimulating emigration from the overcrowded western areas to virgin lands in Kazakhstan and Southern Siberia. According to Anne Applebaum, he "gave his name to the cattle cars (Stolypinki) in which prisoners were transported to Siberia".[8]
Miscellaneous
After Stolypin's elder brother was killed in a duel, Stolypin challenged his brother’s duellist. As a result, Stolypin was wounded in the right arm, which became almost paralysed after the incident.
Stolypin's death was allegedly prophesied by Grigori Rasputin, who is reported to have shouted, "Death is after him! Death is driving behind him!" as he ran after the Imperial couple in the crowd outside the opera house.
In a TV poll to select 'the greatest Russian' in 2008, Stolypin placed second. Alexander Nevsky was first; Stalin came third.[9]
He was a keen taxidermist and had one of the largest collections of animals in the world before he was assassinated in 1911.
References
- ^ Piotr Arkadevich Stolypin — FactMonster.com at www.factmonster.com
- ^ a b c Imperial Russia, 1815-1917 - Position Paper
- ^ a b Peter Stolypin
- ^ Blumberg, Arnold. Great Leaders, Great Tyrants?: Contemporary Views of World Rulers Who Made History, p. 302. Greenwood Press, 1995, ISBN 0313287511.
- ^ ::Peter Stolypin::
- ^ P.A. Stolypin and the Attempts of Reforms
- ^ a b Oxley, Peter (2001). Russia, 1855 - 1991: from tsars to commissars. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-1991-3418-9.
- ^ Telegraph
- ^ Stalin voted third-best Russian
External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Pyotr Stolypin |
- (Russian) The ancestors Pyotr Stolypin
- "The Assassination of Pyotr Stolypin" Research collection on microfilm.
Sources
- P. A. Stolypin: The Search for Stability in Late Imperial Russia by Abraham Ascher, Stanford University Press, 2001.
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by Petr Nikolayevich Durnovo |
Minister of Interior July 1904 – February 1905 |
Succeeded by Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Makarov |
| Preceded by Ivan Goremykin |
Prime Minister of Russia July 21, 1906—September 18, 1911 |
Succeeded by Vladimir Kokovtsov |
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