Pyotr Stolypin
Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin was a Russian statesman who served as the third prime minister and the interior minister of the Russian Empire from 1906 until his assassination in 1911. Known as the greatest reformer of Russian society and economy, he initiated reforms that caused unprecedented growth of the Russian state, which was halted by his assassination.
Born in Dresden, in the Kingdom of Saxony, to a prominent Russian aristocratic family, Stolypin became involved in government from his early 20s. His successes in public service led to rapid promotions, culminating in his appointment as interior minister under prime minister Ivan Goremykin in April 1906. In July, Goremykin resigned and was succeeded as prime minister by Stolypin.
As prime minister, Stolypin initiated major agrarian reforms, known as the Stolypin reform, that granted the right of private land ownership to the peasantry. His tenure was also marked by increased revolutionary unrest, to which he responded with a new system of martial law that allowed for the arrest, speedy trial, and execution of accused offenders. After numerous assassination attempts, Stolypin was fatally shot in September 1911 by revolutionary Dmitrii Bogrov in Kyiv.
Stolypin was a monarchist and hoped to strengthen the throne by modernizing the rural Russian economy. Modernity and efficiency, rather than democracy, were his goals. He argued that the land question could be resolved and revolution averted only when the peasant commune was abolished and a stable landowning class of peasants, the kulaks, had a stake in the status quo. His successes and failures have been the subject of controversy among scholars, who agree that he was one of the last major statesmen of Imperial Russia with cogent and forceful public reform policies.
Early life and career
Stolypin was born at Dresden in the Kingdom of Saxony, on 14 April 1862, and was baptized on 24 May in the Russian Orthodox Church in that city. His father, Arkady Dmitrievich Stolypin, was a Russian envoy at the time.Stolypin's family was prominent in the Russian aristocracy, his forebears having served the tsars since the 16th century, and as a reward for their service had accumulated huge estates in several provinces. His father was a general in the Russian artillery, the governor of Eastern Rumelia and commandant of the Kremlin Palace guard. He was married twice. His second wife, Natalia Mikhailovna Stolypina, was the daughter of Prince Mikhail Dmitrievich Gorchakov, the Commanding general of the Russian infantry during the Crimean War and later the viceroy of Congress Poland.
Pyotr grew up on the family estate Serednikovo in Solnechnogorsky District, once inhabited by Mikhail Lermontov, near Moscow Governorate. In 1879 the family moved to Oryol. Stolypin and his brother Aleksandr studied at the Oryol Boys College where he was described by his teacher, B. Fedorova, as 'standing out among his peers for his rationalism and character.'
In 1881 Stolypin studied agriculture at St. Petersburg University where one of his teachers was Dmitri Mendeleev. He entered government service upon graduating in 1885, writing his thesis on tobacco growing in the south of Russia. It is unclear if he joined the Ministry of State Property or Internal Affairs.
In 1884, Stolypin married Olga Borisovna von Neidhart whose family was of a similar standing to Stolypin's. They married whilst Stolypin was still a student, an uncommon occurrence at the time. The marriage began in tragic circumstances: Olga had been engaged to Stolypin's brother, Mikhail, who died in a duel. The marriage was a happy one, devoid of scandal. The couple had five daughters and one son.
Lithuania
Stolypin spent much of his life and career in Lithuania, then administratively known as Northwestern Krai of the Russian Empire.From 1869, Stolypin spent his childhood years in Kalnaberžė manor, built by his father, a place that remained his favorite residence for the rest of life. In 1876, the Stolypin family moved to Vilna, where he attended grammar school.
Stolypin served as marshal of the Kovno Governorate between 1889 and 1902. This public service gave him an inside view of local needs and allowed him to develop administrative skills. His thinking was influenced by the single-family farmstead system of the Northwestern Krai, and he later sought to introduce the land reform based on private ownership throughout the Russian Empire.
Stolypin's service in Kovno was deemed a success by the Russian government. He was promoted seven times, culminating in his promotion to the rank of state councilor in 1901. Four of his daughters were also born during this period; his daughter Maria recalled: "this was the most calm period his life".
In May 1902 Stolypin was appointed governor in Grodno Governorate, where he was the youngest person ever appointed to this position.
Governor of Saratov
In February 1903, he became governor of Saratov. Stolypin is known for suppressing strikers and peasant unrest in January 1905. According to Orlando Figes, its peasants were among the poorest and most rebellious in the whole of the country. It seems he cooperated with the zemstvos, the local government. He gained a reputation as the only governor able to keep a firm hold on his province during the Revolution of 1905, a period of widespread revolt. The roots of unrest lay partly in the Emancipation Reform of 1861, which had given land to the Obshchina, instead of individually to the newly freed serfs. Stolypin was the first governor to use effective police methods. Some sources suggest that he had a police record on every adult male in his province.Interior minister and prime minister
Stolypin's successes as provincial governor led to his appointment as interior minister under Ivan Goremykin in April 1906. He advocated for a new track of the Trans-Siberian Railway along the Russian side of the Amur river.The absent-minded Goremykin had been described by his predecessor Sergei Witte as a bureaucratic nonentity. After two months, Dmitri Feodorovich Trepov suggested Goremykin step down and conducted secret negotiations with Pavel Milyukov, who proposed a cabinet of only Kadets, which Trepov believed would fall afoul of Tsar Nicholas II. Trepov opposed Stolypin, who promoted a coalition cabinet. Georgy Lvov and Alexander Guchkov tried to convince the Tsar to accept liberals in the new government.
When Goremykin resigned on, Nicholas II appointed Stolypin as Prime Minister, while remaining as Minister of the Interior. He dissolved the Duma, despite the reluctance of some of its more radical members, to clear the field for cooperation with the new government. In response, 120 Kadet and 80 Trudovik and Social Democrat deputies went to Vyborg and responded with the Vyborg Manifesto, written by Pavel Milyukov. Stolypin allowed the signers to return to the capital unmolested.
On 25 August 1906, three assassins from the Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries Maximalists, wearing military uniforms, bombed a public reception Stolypin was holding at his dacha on Aptekarsky Island. Stolypin was only slightly injured by flying splinters, but 28 others were killed. Stolypin's 15-year-old daughter lost both legs and later succumbed to her injuries at the hospital, and his 3-year-old son Arkady broke a leg, as the two stood on a balcony. Stolypin moved into the Winter Palace. In October 1906, at the request of the tsar, Grigori Rasputin paid a visit to the wounded child. On 9 November an imperial decree made far-reaching changes in land tenure law, disrupting in one sweep the communal and the household property systems.
Stolypin changed the rules of the First Duma to attempt to make it more amenable to government proposals. On 8 June 1907, Stolypin dissolved the Second Duma, and 15 Kadets who had associated with terrorists were arrested; he also changed the weight of votes in favor of the nobility and wealthy, reducing the value of lower-class votes. The leading Kadets were ineligible. This affected the elections to the Third Duma, which returned much more conservative members eager to cooperate with the government. This changed Georgy Lvov from a moderate liberal into a radical.
As governor in Saratov, Stolypin had become convinced that the open field system had to be abolished; communal land tenure had to go. The chief obstacle appeared to be the Mir, so its dissolution and the individualization of peasant land ownership became the leading objectives of his agrarian policy. He introduced Denmark-style land reforms to allay peasant grievances and soothe dissent. Stolypin proposed his own landlord-sided reform in opposition to the previous democratic proposals which led to the dissolution of the first two Russian parliaments. Stolypin's reforms aimed to stem peasant unrest by creating a class of market-oriented smallholders who would support the social order. He was assisted by Alexander Krivoshein, who in 1908 became Minister of Agriculture. In June 1908 Stolypin lived in a wing of the Yelagin Palace where the Council of Ministers convened.
Supported by the Peasants' Land Bank, credit cooperatives proliferated from 1908, and Russian industry was booming. Stolypin tried to improve the lives of urban laborers and worked towards increasing the power of local governments, but the zemstvos adopted an attitude hostile to the government.
Leo Tolstoy was particularly indignant, writing to Stolypin: "Stop your horrible activity! Enough of looking up to Europe, it is high time Russia knew its own mind!" Tolstoy had argued similarly to Dostoyevsky, who was in favor of private ownership of land and wrote: "If you want to transform humanity for the better, to turn almost beasts into humans, give them land and you will reach your goal."
In his handling of the “Jewish Question”, Stolypin set a fine example for his fellow statesmen, petitioning the Tsar to dissolve the Pale of Settlement, visiting synagogues and inviting Jewish musicians to his home to play for his family.
In 1910, Stolypin's brother-in-law Sergey Sazonov became Minister of Foreign Affairs, replacing Count Alexander Izvolsky. Around 1910 the press started a campaign against Rasputin, accusing him of improper sexual relations. Stolypin wanted to ban Rasputin from the capital and threatened to prosecute him as a sectarian. Rasputin decamped to Jerusalem, returning to St. Petersburg only after Stolypin's death.
On 14 June 1910, Stolypin's land reforms came before the Duma as a formal law, including a proposal to spread the zemstvo system to the southwestern provinces of Asian Russia. Though the law seemed likely to pass, Stolypin's political opponents narrowly defeated it. In March 1911 Stolypin resigned from the fractious and chaotic Duma after the failure of his land-reform bill. Tsar Nicholas II decided to look for a successor to Stolypin and considered Sergei Witte, Vladimir Kokovtsov and Alexei Khvostov. The Moscow Times has summarized his career: