Sergei Witte

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(b. Tiflis, 17 June 1849, d. St Petersburg 13 Mar. 1915) Russian; Russian Minister of Transport and of Finance 1892 – 1903, Prime Minister 1903 – 6 Witte was brought up in Tiflis, his father being of Dutch origin, his mother Russian, the daughter of a governor. He studied mathematics at university in Odessa and entered government service, becoming an expert on transport economics. Later he became a successful railway manager. In 1889 he was invited to set up a railway department within the Ministry of Finance to develop the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. In 1892 he was made Minister of Transport and then Minister of Finance, superintending the industrialization boom of the 1890s which made Russia a world industrial power. The "Witte System" was a neo-mercantilist policy based on attracting foreign investment and loans by high protectionist tariffs, budgetary stability, putting the rouble on the gold standard (in 1897) and high taxation (he created the state spirits monopoly in 1894). He introduced labour legislation and urged (but never achieved) the abolition of the commune system in agriculture. In 1903 he became Prime Minister. He opposed the emperor's far-eastern policy which led to the war with Japan, but in 1905 negotiated the Treaty of Portsmouth which ended it. During the revolution of 1905 he combined suppression of popular unrest with advocacy of concessions to the middle classes. He compiled the "October Manifesto" which prepared the way for Russia's first elected parliament, the Duma. He became Russia's first constitutional premier, but, increasingly criticized by the Tsar and his conservative allies and also by dissatisfied liberals, he was suddenly dismissed in 1906, and replaced by Stolypin. He remained politically active as an independent member of the State Council until his death in Petrograd in 1915. His remarkable talents were undermined by the mistrust of the Tsar and by the left-right polarization which made his moderate conservative position difficult to sustain.

The Russian statesman Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte (1849-1915) is noted for his policy of Russian industrialization, for his role in negotiating the Peace of Portsmouth between Russia and Japan, and for his formulation of the Manifesto of October 1905.

Sergei Witte was born in Tiflis. His parents gave him little attention, and he was exposed to the harmful influences of his foster-mother and to her drunkard husband and to tutors of questionable character. He was a poor student in the local classical gymnasium. At the age of 17 Witte received the certificate of maturity which entitled him to enter a university, and he matriculated in the faculty of physico-mathematical sciences at the University of Odessa.

Upon finishing his studies Witte entered the service of the Odessa government railroad. In 1877, when war broke out between Russia and Turkey, he was named head of the Odessa railroad. It was of strategic importance, for the railroad transported soldiers to the front. After the war Witte was appointed director of the exploitation department of the newly formed railroad system. His office was in St. Petersburg, and there he married Madame Spiridonov, a beautiful woman and the daughter of the marshal of the nobility of the Chernigov Province. Since the northwestern railroads were running at a deficit, Witte was named director of southwestern railroads in order to reorganize the entire management of the roads through centralization. In 1892 he was appointed minister of ways of communication. His administration in this capacity lasted some 6 months. He was then appointed minister of finance by Alexander III and served in that powerful post until Nicholas II dismissed him in 1903.

Industrialization of Russia

Like Peter the Great, Witte believed that Russia must industrialize. He held that Russia must avoid war and that domestic policy must be coordinated with foreign policy. He was realistic in opposing Asian wars and the Japanese-Russian war. He erred, however, in the notion that he could control the general bureaucracy of the army.

Witte advocated autocracy and a strong state. His program included not only economic but also political reforms. He was a friend of the middle class engaged in industry and thus made many enemies among the nobility. He believed that, if sacrifices had to be made so that Russia would be industrially strong, the peasants could be exploited because in the future their standard of living would rise.

Witte, through the construction of railroads, provided necessary links and stimulants to industry and lowered the prices. The state took over the railroads in order to achieve greater efficiency. Witte believed in foreign investments and was not afraid of increasing government debt. He wanted a favorable balance of trade and a stable currency, convertible and based on gold. In 1897 he put Russia on the gold standard to attract investments. He also put a high tariff on imports in order to protect Russian production and to overcome industrial backwardness. He believed that grain would serve as the currency to pay for Russian imports. Russia, however, had to compete with America, Australia, and Argentina, which produced grain more cheaply. Witte tried to solve this problem by exploiting the peasants ruthlessly.

Diplomatic Activities

On July 29, 1905, Witte was appointed chief plenipotentiary for the purpose of conducting a peace treaty with Japan at Portsmouth, N.H. He negotiated a peace with Japan on Sept. 5, 1905. Russia recognized Japanese hegemony in Korea, the annexation of southern Sakhalin, and the lease of the Liotung Peninsula and the southern Manchurian railway. Although these concessions were large, the cost of peace did not seem excessive in light of the domestic problems which the government was facing at home. For his services he was given the title of count.

When Witte had returned from making peace at Portsmouth, he found the country torn by strikes, demonstrations, and mutiny in the armed forces. When the general strike of October took place, he advised Nicholas II to decide between a constitutional regime and a military dictatorship, but informed the Czar that he would take part only in the former. On Oct. 30, 1905, Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto, which was drafted by Witte, and simultaneously named Witte Russia's first prime minister. The October Manifesto recognized the civil liberties of the Russian people; it called for the election of a state Duma; it established as a rule that no law should be passed without its confirmation by the Duma.

Witte served as prime minister during a very difficult period and was forced to resign in May 1906; he was replaced by a more conservative premier. Witte died in St. Petersburg on March 12, 1915.

Further Reading

The Memoirs of Count Witte (trans. 1921) provides a good picture of the man and his times. Theodore H. Von Laue, Sergei Witte and the Industrialization of Russia (1963), gives an account of the impact of the reforms enacted by Witte. For a good discussion of the general historical period and Witte's career see Lionel Kochan, Russia in Revolution, 1890-1918 (1966).

(1849 - 1915), minister of communication (1892); minister of finance (1892 - 1903); chairman of the

Committee of Ministers (1903 - 1905); prime minister (1905 - 1906); responsible for program of industrialization and political reforms.

Sergei Witte descended from russified Lutheran Germans on his father's side and from Russian nobility on his mother's side. He was born in Tbilisi. In 1865 he finished a Tbilisi gymnasium and in 1870 graduated from the Department of Physics and Mathematics at Novorossysk University (Odessa). He dreamt of an academic career, but on his relatives' insistence he entered the state service on the Odessa Railway. In 1877 Witte moved to the privately owned Society of Southwestern Railways and there made a brilliant career, soon becoming its manager. In 1883 he published a book The Principles of Railway Tariffs for the Transportation of Goods, which earned him renown as a railway expert.

In the 1870s Witte fell under the sway of Slavophile ideas. He took a great interest in the theological writings of Alexei Khomyakov and participated in activities of the Odessa Slavic Philanthropic Society. Here he became a friend to Mikhail Katkov, an influential right-wing journalist. Witte also published feuilletons under a pen name. In 1881 and 1882 he participated in the pro-monarchist secret aristocratic society Svyataya Druzhina (The Holy Retinue) organized on Witte's advice by his uncle General Rostislav Fadeyev, a well-known military historian and publicist of Slavophile views. In 1882 the society was liquidated.

In 1887 Witte was appointed director of the Railway Department of the Ministry of Finance. In 1892 he advanced to the post of minister for railways and then to minister of finance. Witte soon became the most influential minister in the government, and his ministry the center of the entire state government. Witte proved to be an outstanding politician, capable of getting his bearings in the most complicated situations, designing longterm programs, and then carrying them out effectively. Soon Witte gave up his Slavophile views and turned into a modernizer of the European type. He sought to accelerate the industrial development of Russia with the aid of state support and foreign capital. He contended that Russia would catch up with advanced Western countries industrially within a decade and would secure a strong position for Russian manufactured goods in the markets of the Near, Middle, and Far East.

The program of industrialization, "the Witte system," as he called it, included (1) intensive railway building; (2) protectionism and state subsidies for private entrepreneurs; and (3) a great influx of foreign capital to industry, banks, and state loans. Never before in Russia had state economic intervention been used so widely and effectively. The state acted by purely economic means through the state bank and institutions of the Ministry of Finance, which monitored the activities of joint-stock commercial banks. In order to penetrate the markets of China, Mongolia, Korea, and Persia, the Ministry of Finance founded the Russo-Chinese, Russo-Korean, and Loan and Discount Banks. Witte's program achieved the desired results. In the period from 1892 to 1902, state finances were strengthened, foreign investment capital poured in (over 3 billion rubles or 1.544 billion dollars), and a stable monetary system was formed. The highest rates of economic development in Europe were attained (from 1883 to 1904 the volume of industrial output increased 2.7 times, or 6% per year). The annual growth rate of the national income averaged nearly 3.5 percent. The intensive economic development of Russia was accompanied by the improvement of the living standards of the broad masses of the population, as data on the increase in the height of recruits testify.

After setting industry on its feet and ensuring its self-development, Witte planned to carry through an agrarian reform. His attempts, however, met fierce resistance of conservatives. He was able only to simplify passport rules and abolish the rules on shared responsibility for taxes and other obligations laid on the peasants. The other aspects of the agrarian program designed by Witte were later introduced by his successor, Petr Stolypin.

Although Witte was transferred to the less influential post of Chairman of the Committee of Ministers in August 1903, the deteriorating political situation in the country, caused by Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, and the insistence of public opinion brought him back to active service in the summer of 1904. Witte led the Russian delegation that concluded peace with Japan in the Treaty of Portsmouth. He then participated in preparing the October Manifesto of 1905, in which the emperor granted civil freedom. Witte took the post of prime minister in the new government and ran political affairs in a European style. He paid attention to public opinion, regarded the Russian and foreign presses as representative of public opinion, and exerted influence upon the public through the press. His government introduced the political rights granted by the October Manifesto, worked to appease the population and win it over to the government's side, curbed punitive excesses and pogroms, and conducted the elections to the Duma. Witte's activities, however, received criticism from all sides. The emperor viewed him as a rival in influence and popularity. The wealthy were disappointed in the Duma elections, whose results proved unfavorable for them. Revolutionaries cursed Witte for his repressive measures. Liberals censured him for his defense of the monarchical prerogatives in the Basic Laws and his other concessions to rightists. Conservatives were dissatisfied with Witte's participation in the demolition of the old political system and transition to a new one. After Witte had concluded the Portsmouth Peace Treaty with Japan, brought troops from the Far East back to European Russia, restored public order in the country, prepared the Basic Laws, organized elections to the Duma, and secured a big loan in Europe (843.75 million rubles or 434.16 million dollars) that brought stability to government finances, he was forced to resign.

Until his final days Witte hoped to return to power. In order not to be forgotten, he used all means available to him: the rostrum of the State Council, the press, intrigues, and connections in the West. Witte died in 1915 at the age of 66, his health undermined by hard work and forebodings. He opposed Russia's participation in World War I and predicted grave consequences similar to the upheavals that occurred after the Russo-Japanese War.

Bibliography

Gindin, I. F. (1972). "Russia's Industrialization under Capitalism as Seen by Theodore von Laue." Soviet Studies in History 11 (1):3-55.

Gurko, Vladimir Iosifovich. (1939). Features and Figures of the Past: Government and Opinion in the Reign of Nicholas II. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Judge, Edward. (1983). Plehve: Repression and Reform in Imperial Russia, 1902 - 1904. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

Kokovtsov, Vladimir Nikolaevich. (1935). Out of My Past: The Memoirs of Count Kokovtsov, Russian Minister of Finance, 1904 - 1914, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, 1911 - 1914, ed. H. H. Fisher; tr. Laura Matveev. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Laue, Theodore von. (1963). Sergei Witte and the Industrialization of Russia. New York: Columbia University Press.

Mehlinger, Howard, and Thompson, John. (1972). Count Witte and the Tsarist Government in the 1905 Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Weissman, Neil B. (1981). Reform in Tsarist Russia: The State Bureaucracy and Local Government, 1900 - 1914. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Weissman, Neil B. (1987). "Witte, Sergei Iul'evich." The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History 44:9 - 14. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press.

Witte, Sergei. (1921). The Memoirs of Count Witte, tr. Abraham Yarmolinsky. London: Heinemann.

—BORIS N. MIRONOV

Sergei Witte
Sergei in 1905
1st Prime Minister of Imperial Russia
In office 6 November 1905 – 5 May 1906
Monarch	Nicholas II
Preceded by	New Post (Himself as Chairman of the Committee of Ministers)
Succeeded by	Ivan Goremykin
Chairman of the Committee of Ministers
In office 1903 – 1905
Monarch	Nicholas II
Preceded by	Ivan Nikolayevich Durnovo
Succeeded by	Post Abolished (Himself as Prime Minister)
13th Finance Minister of Imperial Russia
In office 30 August 1892 – 16 August 1903
Preceded by	Ivan Vyshnegradsky
Succeeded by	Eduard Pleske
14th Transport Minister of Imperial Russia
In office February 1892 – August 1892
Preceded by	Adolf Gibbenet
Succeeded by	Apollon Krivoshein
Born	29 June 1849(1849-06-29) Tiflis
Died	13 March 1915 (aged 65) St Petersburg
Nationality	Russian
Alma mater	Novorossiysk University

Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte (Russian: Сергей Юльевич Витте, Sergey Yul'evich Vitte) (29 June 1849 - 13 March 1915), also known as Sergius Witte, was a highly influential policy-maker who presided over extensive industrialization within the Russian Empire. He served under the last two emperors of Russia.^[1] He was also the author of the October Manifesto of 1905, a precursor to Russia's first constitution, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) of the Russian Empire.

Contents 1 Family and early life 2 Political career 2.1 Impact on Russian economics 2.2 Impact on Russian politics 3 References 3.1 Sources 4 External links 5 Portraits

Family and early life

Witte's father Julius Witte came from a Lutheran Baltic German family and had been member of the knightage of the City of Pskov. He converted to Orthodoxy upon marriage with Witte's mother Catherine Fadeyev. Sergei Witte's maternal grandfather was Andrei Mikhailovich Fadeyev, a Governor of Saratov and Privy Councillor of the Caucasus, his grandmother was Princess Helene Dolgoruki, and the mystic Madame Blavatsky was his first cousin. He was born in Tiflis, Georgia and raised in the house of his mother's parents.

He finished Gymnasium I in Chisinau^[2] and graduated from Novorossiysk University in Odessa with a degree in mathematics.^[3]

After graduating he then spent the greater part of the 1870s and 1880s involved in private enterprises, particularly the administration and management of various railroad lines in Russia.

Political career

Impact on Russian economics

Witte served as Russian Director of Railway Affairs within the Finance Ministry from 1889 - 1891; and during this period, he oversaw an ambitious program of railway construction which included the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The Tsar appointed him acting Minister of Ways and Communications in 1892.^[3]

Alexander III appointed him Russian Finance Minister in 1893, a position he held until 1903.^[3] During his tenure as Finance Minister the nation saw unprecedented economic growth. Witte strongly encouraged foreign capital to invest in Russia, and to do so he put Russia on the gold standard in 1897. Witte encouraged the growth of Russian industry, as a result the industrial sector of the economy expanded rapidly, especially the metals, petroleum, and transportation sectors. To improve the economy and to attract foreign investors Witte also advocated curbing the powers of the Russian autocracy.

Nicholas II transferred Witte to the position of chairman of the Committee of Ministers in 1905, a position he held until 1906.^[3] In an attempt to keep up the modernization of the Russian economy Witte called and oversaw the Special Conference on the Needs of the Rural Industry. This conference was to provide recommendations for future reforms and the data to justify those reforms.

Impact on Russian politics

Negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth (1905) -- from left to right: the Russians at far side of table are Korostovetz, Navohoff, Witte, Rosen, Plancoff; and the Japanese at near side of table are Adachi, Ochiai, Komura, Takahira, Sato. The large conference table is today preserved at the Museum Meiji Mura in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.

Witte returned to the forefront in 1905, however, when he was called upon by the Tsar to negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese War.^[3] He was sent as the Russian Emperor's plenipotentiary and titled "his Secretary of State and President of the Committee of Ministers of the Emperor of Russia" along with Baron Roman Rosen, Master of the Imperial Court of Russia^[4] to the United States, where the peace talks were being held.

Witte is credited with negotiating brilliantly on Russia's behalf. Despite losing dramatically on the battlefield, Russia lost very little in the final settlement.^[3]

After this diplomatic success, Witte was brought back into the governmental decision-making process to help deal with the civil unrest following the war and Bloody Sunday. He was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers, the equivalent of Prime Minister, in 1905. During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Witte advocated for the creation of an elected parliament, the formation of a constitutional monarchy, and the establishment of a Bill of Rights through the October Manifesto. Many of his reforms were put into place, but they failed to end the unrest. This, and overwhelming victories by left-wing political parties in Russia's first elected parliament, the State Duma, forced Witte to resign as Chairman of the Council of Ministers.

Witte continued in Russian politics as a member of the State Council but never again obtained an administrative role in the government. Just prior to the outbreak of World War I he urged that Russia stay out of the conflict. His warning that Europe faced calamity if Russia became involved went unheeded, and he died shortly thereafter.

Witte's reputation was burnished in the west when his memoirs were published in 1921. The original text of these memoirs are held in Columbia University Library's Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European History and Culture.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Harcave, Sidney. (2004). Count Sergei Witte and the Twilight of Imperial Russia: A Biography, p. xiii.
2. ^ (Russian) http://www.kto-is-kto.ru [1]
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Harcave, p. xiv.
4. ^ "Text of Treaty; Signed by the Emperor of Japan and Czar of Russia," New York Times. October 17, 1905.

Sources

• Davis, Richard Harding, and Alfred Thayer Mahan. (1905). The Russo-Japanese war; a photographic and descriptive review of the great conflict in the Far East, gathered from the reports, records, cable despatches, photographs, etc., etc., of Collier's war correspondents New York: P. F. Collier & Son. OCLC: 21581015
• Harcave, Sidney. (2004). Count Sergei Witte and the Twilight of Imperial Russia: A Biography. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe. 10-ISBN 0-765-61422-7; 13-ISBN 978-0-765-61422-3 (cloth)
• Kokovtsov, Vladamir. (1935). Out of My Past (translator, Laura Matveev). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• Korostovetz, J.J. (1920). Pre-War Diplomacy The Russo-Japanese Problem. London: British Periodicals Limited.
• Witte, Sergei. (1921). The Memoirs of Count Witte (translator, Abraham Yarmolinsky). New York: Doubleday.

External links

• Portsmouth Peace Treaty, 1905-2005
• The Museum Meiji Mura -- peace treaty table on display

Portraits

Study in uniform for group portrait of State Council by Repin. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Study in white for group portrait of State Council by Repin. State Russian Museum, St Petersburg.

"Formal Session of the State Council on 7 May 1901, in honour of the 100th Anniversary of Its Founding" by Repin. Russian Museum. St. Petersburg.

Count Sergei Witte. Photograph, taken by Matt Lyne in 1903.

Political offices
Preceded by New Post (Himself as Chairman of the Committee of Ministers)	Prime Minister of Russia 6 November 1905 — 5 May 1906	Succeeded by Ivan Goremykin
Preceded by Ivan Durnovo	Chairman of the Committee of Ministers 1903 — 1905	Succeeded by Post Abolished (Himself as Prime Minister)
Preceded by Ivan Vyshnegradskiy	Finance Minister 30 August 1892 — 16 August 1903	Succeeded by Eduard Pleske
Preceded by Adolf Gibbenet	Transport Minister February, 1892 — August, 1892	Succeeded by Apollon Krivoshein

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