We are standing on the eve of two anniversaries: 2012 marks 150 years since the birth of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin and 100 years since his assasination. Unlike with the recent anniversaries of the symbols of Russia’s 19th liberal tradition, namely, Alexander Herzen and Mikhail Speransky, we can rest assured that Russian authorities will commemorate Stolypin with great pomp. By September 11th, 2012 (the anniversary of his death), the government will make sure to have his monument erected on the Krasnokholmskaya Embankment. Its cornerstone was laid this spring in a meaningful gesture by none other than the current (and former) President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. Stolypin is his personal role model. The Russian media is sure to make much of this celebration.

Before the pageantry begins, I would like to add a few brushstrokes to the portrait of Putin’s favorite historical figure by mentioning the aspects of his policies that will not be emphasized in the course of the official celebration.

This celebration was conceived partly as a response to the recent protest rallies staged by the so-called New Decembrists (labeled “bandar-logs” by Vladimir Putin, in attempts to smear them). Meanwhile, Stolypin himself never went after his liberal-minded fellow Russians, although he admonished them. However, he always did so in a dignified manner, saying, “You are seeking a great upheaval, when what we need is a great Russia.” And in spite of the glaring differences in the tenor of their pronouncements, I believe that Putin would throw this kind of gauntlet to the protesters if his manners came from the school of aristocracy rather than the streets of Soviet-era Leningrad.

It is worth noting that the Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary (used as a reference at the KGB school where Putin continued his education) characterized Stolypin somewhat critically. It did not mention his words on the great Russia, but said the following about our hero: “[Stolypin] determined government policy during the Age of Reaction (1907-1911). He was the organizer of the counter-revolutionary coup of June 3, 1907.”

Soviet verbiage aside (“counter-revolutionary” etc.), one cannot deny the basic fact: Stolypin was the mastermind behind the anti-constitutional coup of 1907. “Stolypin neckties” (as nooses were called by a liberal lawmaker of the time, in reference to Stolypin’s decree mandating capital punishment by hanging alleged terrorists) became part and parcel of Russian political folklore. This is precisely the point where the image of Putin’s hero loses its integrity and begins to resemble a kind of  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as blood stains emerge on the white gloves of this irreproacheable defender of the Great Russia. This other side of Stolypin’s political persona became more prominent with the famous story written by Leonid Andreyev about seven people charged for plotting the assasination of a government official and hanged by the decision of a ‘troika’—three military field officers—in accordance with Stolypin’s decree, mentioned above. Of course, the total number of such executions under Stolypin was not seven, but six thousand. Strangely enough, the decree was never submitted to the Duma for approval.

After Soviet mass executions of the officers of the former Imperial Army by Lenin’s CheKa (the forerunner of the KGB) in the course of Russia’s Civil War (1918-1920), Stolypin’s executions may seem negligible. However, let us keep in mind that Stolypin’s neckties were before, not after, the CheKa massacres. And it was under Stolypin that Russian society accepted mass executions without due process as a fact of life. Or at least this was how these executions were interpreted by Leo Tolstoy. In his anti-Stolypin pamphlet I Cannot Remain Silent! Tolstoy writes, “In addition to the direct harm to victims and their families, all of these acts of violence and murder cause even greater harm by spreading the moral decay across all strata of Russian society and spreading it fast—like fire on dry straw. This decay spreads with particular speed among the simple working people because all of these crimes–dwarfing the thieves’, the gangsters’, and all of the revolutionaries’ taken together—are being committed under the pretext of some necessity and common good.”

Although Tolstoy couldn’t have known how true his words would be, Stolypin’s “moral decay of all the strata of Russian society,” his executions without due process, staged “under the pretext of some necessity and common good,” turned out to have been training of sorts, preparing the Russian psyche for the Bolshevik terror. Within ten years of Tolstoy’s writing, this terror would strike the country that truly had succumbed to moral decay.

Digression Into Current Events

I can only imagine the outrage of Russia’s newly-appointed Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky if he reads this unvarnished, demystified portrayal of Stolypin, with “warts and all,” to use an American expression. Medinsky was appointed in light of  his record of fighting against the “myths” in Russian history, all of these blood-stained “warts” (i.e. against anything that does not fit the interpretation of history that can be used by the authorities to justify their actions). By his own admission, Medinsky already made millions while struggling toward this hard-won end. Then suddenly—what a scandal!—Putin’s historical hero turns out to be covered in bloody warts!  And this, shortly before the monument is to be unveiled. Who is going to be held responsible, if not the minister whose duty it is to defend our nation against “myths”?

Furthermore, in this case, Medinsky’s trademark dismissal of the issue (“all of this is another myth”) won’t suffice. There is too much evidence, namely, hundreds of newspaper articles.  Stolypin had tried his best to defuse the scandal in his time. Indeed, he had 206 newspapers shut down and brought charges against their editors in chief. But there was no way he could silence Tolstoy, and the writer’s cry of horror was heard around the world.

Medinsky has another trick up his sleeve. Yes, he could admit, in 1906, when Stolypin came to power, the revolution was dying of natural causes, but there were still some terrorist "leftovers" that had to be liquidated (“terror” in this context refers to individual assasinations of government officials practiced by some factions in the revolutionary movement). So, Medinsky would say, these people had to be sent to the gallows – what else could have been done?  The executions were a necessity, they were done for the right cause – isn’t that an argument?

Yes, except that Tolstoy had already answered that question. There were not six thousand “terrorists” in Russia. Capital punishment was served to everyone suspected of terrorism. The executions took place on the basis of unverified reports, without due process. Even if there were a few terrorists among those hanged, who can say how many innocent people just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? And whose hands were soaked in the blood of these innocents?

 

From left to right: Pyotr Stolypin in his office in the Winter palace, 1908; the gallows—"Stolypin's neckties".

 

Evidently, Medinsky has just one last argument at his disposal, one that is familiar to Russians as  the same argument used to justify the CheKa terror, “You have to break a few eggs to make an omlet.” In the end, Stolypin achieved his goal: he did away with revolutionary “leftovers,” and winners are always in the right. The ends justify the means. The erection of a monument in the center of Moscow, with the first stone laid by the successor of the CheKists, is a gesture acknowleding that the current government approves of terror and subscribes to its same principle—the principle of politics without morality.

The Tsar’s Master Election-Rigger: Stolypin as Churov

The story of Stolypin’s “warts”  doesn't end here. In fact, this is just the beginning. When it comes to rigging Duma elections, Stolypin has no rivals in Russian history. Compared to him, Russia’s current Chairman of the Election Committee Vladimir Churov, with his home-brewed election-rigging tricks, is merely an amateur. Just think of the level of mastery required to achieve the following: while in the First Duma the number of ethnic Russians was equal to that of an ethnic minority representation, which approximately reflected their numbers among the population of the empire, in the Third Duma, elected just a year later, ethnic Russians numbered 377, while all other ethnic minorities, including Ukrainians, Poles, Belarusians, Finns, Tatars, and people from the Caucasus, were represented by a mere 36 deputies! Meanwhile, the people of Central Asia were deprived of voting rights altogether, on the basis of their “backwardness.”

 

Models for the Stolypin monument.

 

This manner of “election to the parliament” is a striking fulfillment of the dream of today’s radical nationalists (Russia’s Movement Against Illegal Immigration(DPNI)), with their slogan “Russia for ethnic Russians,” which Vladimir Putin had once characterized as “idiotic.”  In their place, I would certainly vote to elect Stolypin as their honorary president.  To be clear, just like every other decent gentleman in the government (except for Emperor Nicholas II), Stolypin could not stand the “Black Hundreds,” the extremist faction of ethnic Russian nationalists of his day.  However, he was fiercely committed to the policies of Russification and was upset by the fact that the Finns were still speaking their own language.  Did Stolypin’s version of “Russia for ethnic Russians” do any good for the empire he tried to rescue?  Obviously not. Yet this is only a small fraction of Stolypin’s “accomplishments” in the role analogous to Vladimir Churov’s today.

The basic law of the Empire, granted by the Tsar to his people on May 6, 1906, could not be characterized as the constitution of a free country. German sociologist Max Weber was closer to the mark when he called it a “quasi-constitution.” The Tsar retained full control over foreign policy and the armed forces, kept the imperial court and state property, and even continued to hold the title of Autocrat. The government was accountable to him and not the Duma. Moreover, in between Duma sessions, the Tsar had the power to issue decrees that carried the authority of the law (and, on multiple occasions, Stolypin employed this power of the Tsar’s for his own purposes). On the other hand, almost the entire male population of the Empire was given the right to vote.

Let us give Stolypin his due. He ended up paying the price for Alexander II's fateful error. If the Tsar-Liberator had agreed with the liberals of his time and had, at the outset of his reign, had signed a document similar to the one he signed on the day of his assasination (March 1, 1881), the history of Russia could have taken a different turn. If this had happened, the assassination of the Tsar and the Revolution of 1905 would not have taken place. And, most importantly, the First Duma Stolypin had to face would not have been so hostile to the government.

In 1906, Russia voted against autocracy.  Out of the 497 deputies elected, only 45 of the hardline right wingers supported the autocracy. One hundred and eighty-four members of the Duma belonged to the centrist KaDet (Constitutional Democratic) Party, while 124 were from the moderate left. Stolypin also had the remarkable opportunity, provided for by the decision of the irreconcilable left—both Social Revolutionaries and Social Democrats—to boycott the elections altogether.  It was certainly difficult for the government to work with this First Duma. Although it was easier than, say, Yeltsin’s position with regards to his parliament after 1993. The liberal majority of Stolypin’s time was amenable to compromises, and at least it was easy to predict that once the “irreconcilables” would realize their mistake and run in elections, the following Duma would definitely not want to negotiate with this regime. Alas, Putin’s role model turned out to be a poor strategist: instead of working with the liberal Duma, he rather unceremoniously disbanded it.

Stolypin ended up with what he deserved: an “irreconcilable” Duma. In other words, he painted himself into a corner. One has to admit that when he found himself in a similar situation, Boris Yeltsin behaved with more dignity. Yeltsin did not disband his own first or second Duma, even though dealing with post-Soviet communists and nationalists in rebellion against what they called the “anti-national regime” was, as we know, not much easier for him  than Stolypin’s working with the “irreconcilables.” Most importantly, Yeltsin did not engineer a coup with an abrupt change of the election law so as to deprive the absolute majority of the country’s population of their voting rights.

This was precisely what Stolypin did. He made it so the vote of a single landowner counted as four business owner votes, 65 ‘liberal professional’ votes, 260 peasant votes, and 540 industrial workers’ votes. As a result, 200,000 landowners were represented in the Third Duma with the same number of votes as millions of other Empire citizens, i.e. at 50%! This change in the election law fully qualifies as a coup.

The Tsar justified the coup with his usual lazy arrogance, saying, I am the autocrat, and I can take away whatever I gave you. Moreover, as a sovereign anointed by God, I am only accountable to the Divine power. In the 20^th century, it is unlikely that any other  government in the world addressed its own people in such archaic language—nowhere but Russia. Even though Stolypin’s justification of the coup was framed in more rational terms, in essensce, it was just as preposterous. In his own words, “There are fateful moments in the existence of a state when its needs come before law, and when one has to make the choice between the integrity of theories and the integrity of a state.” However, no one in Russia at the time threatened the integrity of the state, unless we identify the state with autocracy. As we can see, Stolypin, being a zealous supporter of autocracy, did exactly that.

Thus, in the short-term, the new election law allowed the government obvious advantages. In the Third Duma, the government obtained the support of 310 out of 442 deputies, including 160 nationalists and 150 members of the right-wing Octobrist Party representing big business interests.  The only issue Stolypin had not taken into consideration was the extent of the (il)legitimacy of such a Duma in the eyes of the people that were virtually deprived of representation. Suffice it to think of the great popularity and authority Soviets enjoyed in February of 1917 to realize how much Stolypin’s anti-constitutional coup contributed to the illegitimacy of the Provisional Government that came to power in the wake of the February Revolution. In 1917, most voters saw their representatives in the democratically-elected Soviets, not in the Provisional Government that was the offspring of the illegitimate Duma.

Stolypin as a Reformer

Undoubtedly, whatever Stolypin was doing, no matter how repulsive or foolish it looks in retrospect, it was done for “good causes.” He tried to rescue the Empire, fully confident of the ultimate success of his hopeless task. Whether his effort delayed or, on the contrary, hastened the unavoidable denouement, is a different question: did it help or hinder Lenin in bringing down the Provisional Government, along with political liberties, in Russia?

Stolypin’s most significant structural reform, securing his special place in history (in spite of Sergei Witte’s claiming credit for it) was his attempt to dismantle the peasant commune, thus completing the work that Alexander II, the Tsar-Liberator of the peasantry, did not dare complete. At first glance, the effort was to a certain extent successful. Contemporary historians, Western as well as Soviet (including N.P. Oganovsky, Gerold Robinson, M.T. Florinsky, M. Karpovich, and P. Lyashchenko) concur that by 1916, 24% of peasant households had separated from the commune. But they also agree that the famous Stolypin reform represented, among other things, a desperate—and hopeless—attempt to rescue gentry landownership, by imposing a redistribution of the land that they already owned on the peasants, without any reform. For Stolypin, Russia without landed gentry was unfathomable. What does this tell us about the extent to which his vision of a Great Russia was realistic?

There is no way of knowing for sure, but if Stolypin had devoted as much attention and resources to the colonization of Siberia as he did to dismantling the peasant community, his reform might have been more successful. However, this was hardly possible. As mentioned above, Stolypin was a lousy strategist. He did not at all foresee the extent of the division his reform created in the countryside, that those 76% of the peasantry that were going to stay in the commune were going to hate the “kulaks” who had separated from it just as much as they hated landed gentry; that this hatred had the makings of the  Pugachev Rebellion, were it to find a suitable leader.

As we know, that leader was found. Lenin’s entire strategy was built on the alliance of the proletariat with the poorest among the peasantry, with those 76% who did not follow Stolypin’s reform by breaking off from the commune. The situation was certainly made worse by the Tsar’s decision to put ten million peasants in military uniform and send them into the trenches of a war that Russia didn’t need. By giving them weapons, the Tsar signed his own death warrant. Stolypin had once even hinted at the possibility of such an armed version of the Pugachev Rebellion that, in the case of war, would be capable of undermining all of his achievements. “Give me twenty years of peace, both at home and abroad,” said Stolypin, “and you will not recognize Russia.”

He hinted, but didn’t do anything to disarm the so-called “party of war” at the Tsar’s court, in the Army’s General Staff, and in the Duma, or to distance Russia from the allies that were dragging it into that fateful war. What could he do, even if he wanted to, when the autocrat himself was at the helm of the war party? Stolypin was not capable of looking beyond his short-term goals and he never fully understood the perils of his beloved autocracy, which he was seeking to rescue at all costs.

To summarize, Putin’s hero Stolypin accustomed Russians to mass executions without due process, and thus, to use Tolstoy’s words, he was responsible for Russia’s “moral decay.”  Unable to come to working terms with the liberal First Duma, Stolypin put himself into a corner that led to a coup making a mockery of the constitution, which very soon proved to have dealt Russia a fatal blow. Unrelenting in the Russification of the Empire, his policies turned all of its ethnic minorities—one half of the country’s population—into the enemies of the regime. He did not foresee that his reform was going to produce acute divisions and strife in the countryside, coupled with hatred of the regime, and that this was going to lead to the destruction of the Tsarist Empire. In this regard, he contributed to the revolutionary cause more than all of the revolutionaries put together. He was unable to envision a Great Russia without its archaic autocracy and landed gentry.

In the end, did this man delay or hasten the catastrophe of 1917?  It seems that while trying to save what Alexander Herzen called Russia’s “rotten Empire,” Stolypin was paving the way for this catastrophe, even if it was against his will and unbeknownst to himself. In anticipation of all the pageantry and pomp that we should expect this fall on the occasion of the unveiling of a monument to Putin’s hero, it would not hurt to ponder Stolypin’s actual role in Russia’s tragedy.