The Reformer
Page 28
Maklakov seems to have held to his pro-Serb position sincerely enough to have contemplated going to join the Slav brothers’ fight. Lucy Bresser, soon after the start of the first Balkan war and obviously responding to a letter from him, implores him not to go, speaking with her characteristically breathless punctuation: “Darling—I can’t let you go to the war—it would not be the wisest thing to do—you must remain to direct even though it seems simpler to go to the front & fight.”13 In the end he didn’t go, so the impulse is incomplete evidence of his sincerity.
How could Maklakov have come to a foreign policy perspective so at odds with his position on domestic issues? We can only speculate, but a few stabs at it seem worthwhile. First, he was vastly more familiar with Russia’s domestic problems. He had spent his career working on and in Russia’s system of domestic institutions and law; he was perfectly situated from experience to propose remedies. Second, France had never ceased to be his great love abroad from the time of his initial visit in 1889. Given the Austrian-German alliance dating from 1879 and Franco-German hostility due to Germany’s annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, a love of France lined up neatly with a readiness to confront Austria in the Balkans. Third, Fyodor Tiutchev, one of Russia’s indisputably great poets, combined ardent pan-Slavism with enthusiasm for Alexander II’s great reforms. To Maklakov, steeped in Russian poetry, the Tiutchev precedent may have seemed a worthy lineage for this intellectual combination. Similar elements may have been at work for Maklakov’s fellow Kadets, most acutely the ties to France; after all, many educated Russians spoke French in their families and with their Russian peers. These general points are true of Miliukov as well, to be sure, but he was not only very well traveled but had long been interested in foreign affairs and was well connected abroad.
A final irony provides a fitting close to our consideration of Maklakov’s Balkan imperialism. Although he was able to produce an apt Bismarck quotation for many an occasion, he seems to have completely forgotten one of the most famous: “The whole of the Balkans is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.”
Maklakov and his imperialist advocacy became associated with national liberalism. This “ism” was never a political party but more a movement based on an amorphous set of shared political impulses. The main linking ideas were a lack of any apparent enthusiasm either for immediate universal franchise on the one hand or for the interests of the landowning gentry on the other; nationalism in foreign policy; and a belief in protective tariffs. Maklakov was a suitable adherent in terms of all but the last—a subject on which I’ve encountered no speech or article by him at all. National liberalism can be seen as bringing together politicians of several parties who were, roughly, middle of the road (that is, neither revolutionary nor devoted to autocracy); the movement thus served as a precursor of the Progressive Bloc that formed in 1915; otherwise it was not of great importance. But it did give birth to the newspaper Russkaia Molva, whose brief existence sheds light on the relation between the Kadets and Maklakov (and party members sharing his outlook).
The overall tone of Russkaia Molva on foreign policy is captured in a phrase in the publisher’s statement of the new paper’s outlook, stated in its first issue: “Russian power abroad is not a vain whim of the bureaucracy, it is our strength and joy.”14 Russkaia Molva also followed up Maklakov’s Duma reference to Russia’s “meekness” with a demand that the government confront Austria with an ultimatum. However one might evaluate the proposal’s details, its overall tone was chauvinist, proposing that Russia say it would not permit Austria to advance “one step further” on the Balkan peninsula.15
Russkaia Molva was short-lived, lasting only a little over eight months, from December 9, 1912, to August 20, 1913. It evidently never won much of a place among Russian newspapers (even though it sought to lure readers with occasional pieces by major literary figures such as Alexander Blok and Ivan Bunin). In a letter written in mid-February 1913, about two months after its launch, Dmitri Shipov reported that he had heard the paper had fewer than four hundred subscribers and “negligible” newsstand sales.16 Yet despite the paper’s short lifespan and apparently slight impact, the Kadet hierarchy paid it remarkable attention—an entire central committee meeting on the day before the first issue appeared, and an extensive discussion at a party conference seven months after the paper’s demise.
Miliukov introduced the subject at the December 8, 1912, central committee meeting, characterizing the paper’s imminent launch as “the decision of some central committee members to publish their own newspaper,” and noting that it reflected existing disagreements in the central committee. He thought the central committee should wait for a bit and then discuss the points of disagreement so as to avoid bringing central committee quarrels into the upcoming meeting of the “fraction”—the party conference scheduled for February 2–3, 1913.17 Andrei Shingarev gave a response that seemed mildly sympathetic to the renegade central committee members (who, as everyone presumably knew, were Maklakov, Struve, and Tyrkova-Williams). The plan had been developing over two years, he said, and they had asked him to participate. He thought the paper simply grew out of their “dissatisfaction with the course of Rech and their desire to speak independently.”18
Others cast the development in a more sinister light. Miliukov said that once central committee members “unite with Progressives and a group of industrialists and adopt ‘non-party’ as a slogan, that by itself is a major issue for the party.”19 Many of those present expressly assumed that the paper was funded by Alexander Konovalov, a leading Progressive and scion of a family of textile entrepreneurs. A. M. Koliubakin said, “The Konovalovs don’t give money free,” and predicted that they would want to see support for the ideas of “trade-industrial circles” (with no mention of what those ideas might be and how they might overlap with or offend Kadet principles). A. A. Kornilov thought the paper prefigured a new direction for the central committee, some sort of drawing together with the Progressives (a party dominated by figures from trade and industry), and that the new paper would be “an organ not of the Kadet party but of the Progressives and a few members of the central committee.” These references to trade, industry, and “the Konovalovs” seem imbued with condescension. In his efforts at forging a liberal-commercial coalition, Maklakov saw—or believed he saw—exactly such condescension. He wrote later of how, “In the period of the Duma, a rapprochement of the intelligentsia and capital started in the famous evenings at [Paul] Riabushinskii’s and Konovalov’s. It was a first step, and it’s curious that the intelligentsia looked on capital as from on high, adding it to its political struggle for power, to its political wishes, but as before remaining extremely negative to capital’s economic desires.”20 It may seem “curious,” as Maklakov thought, to find the intelligentsia acting this way, especially as the participants gathered to forge an alliance; whether it is rare is another matter.
Even Shingarev found some fault with Russkaia Molva’s founders. Though he thought there would be no surprise to anyone in a revelation of either Maklakov’s opposition to a universal franchise or Struve’s support of protective tariffs, he said, “We might have hoped that the initiators of this would have discussed the matter with their colleagues in the central committee.”21 Tyrkova-Williams, the only rebel on hand, stepped into action. First, she expressed astonishment at the speakers’ confidence that the paper was funded by Progressives and industrialists, and was to be an enterprise of monied bosses. In fact, its founders were herself and Dmitri Protopopov (a Kadet member of the First Duma, coauthor of the Kadet agrarian redistribution plan, and a signer of the Vyborg Manifesto), and the funds invested were more from Kadets than other sources. She could see how, if the Kadet party had its own journal, the Russkaia Molva founders might be criticized for starting their own paper without advance discussion, but Rech was not a party paper. It was a paper run by central committee members yet not responsible to the party; but no one in the central committee had criticized it on that ac
count. And on what basis, she asked, did people claim that we of Russkaia Molva were Progressives? In fact, Duma and central committee members must know that the present Progressives are “a formless body.” While Russkaia Molva wouldn’t be an organ for the ideas of Struve, “he will find a place in its pages when Rech dogmatically limits free expression of ideas.” “Must the Russian opposition have only one paper?”22
Ivan Petrunkevich, as chair of the meeting, precipitated its end by asking if the committee should address the question about how necessary it was to respond to Russkaia Molva in cases where it expressed negative views of the party or the central committee. Miliukov answered that he thought it was better not to prejudge the issue. Those present agreed to aim at a meeting with Russkaia Molva’s founders in January (it’s not clear if that ever occurred).23
As it turned out, Rech evidently withheld its direct fire on Russkaia Molva for some time, but ultimately anathematized the figures behind the paper as “unKadet,” a word with a rhetorical intention similar to that behind the modern “RINO”—Republican in name only. (Like all such epithets, they resound only among those who attach a lot of value to the label the criticized person is implicitly unfit to bear.) In March 1914, six months after the demise of Russkaia Molva, a party conference was enlivened by a brief exchange over the issue. Nikolai Gredeskul, a central committee member who was beginning to see merit in trying to work out alliances with Progressives and left Octobrists, deplored the angry mood toward Russkaia Molva and specifically attacked the “unKadet” label as demagoguery against mavericks. Miliukov responded that it was only when Russkaia Molva started “open talk against us” that he considered he had the right to attack them and to stigmatize them as “unKadet.” This was somewhat disingenuous on Miliukov’s part. As another central committee member had said in the meeting on the eve of Russkaia Molva’s appearance, an article in Rech had described Maklakov as the “darling” of the Octobrists, obviously intending it as a slur. The remarks of some supporters of the Kadet establishment seem a little unhinged. One speaker mentioned with horror that a Duma speech by Maklakov had received applause from the right; the speaker provided no clue as to the content of the speech, evidently viewing an enthusiastic response from the right, regardless of Maklakov’s content and of who else was applauding, as an ample basis for condemnation.24
A periodic bone of dissension was the issue of steps the party might take in the interest of legislative cooperation with other parties. Maklakov touched on the issue indirectly in an account he gave the central committee of why he had largely ceased to attend its meetings. In general terms, he said, he had become convinced that he offered the Kadet fraction nothing useful, and it offered him nothing useful. He then turned to three specific issues. First, in its attacks on the government’s arbitrariness in the election campaign for the Fourth Duma, the party had ruined the project by using “urgent” questions (questions to the government given priority over other business by majority vote) rather than by calling for a special committee to investigate the matter systematically, as the widespread but complex abuses required. As to the party’s proposal of universal suffrage, the party’s basic position couldn’t attract support. Finally, he thought it was pointless to insist, as a condition of Kadet participation on the Duma’s military affairs committee, that leftists be appointed to the committee—a reference to a dispute over whether the party would honor the wish of Mikhail Chelnokov to serve on that committee. The reader may recall Chelnokov as one of the four Kadets who visited Stolypin on the eve of the June 3, 1907, coup. Chelnokov made complaints parallel to Maklakov’s—that the Kadets kept running after the left, for which it got only a spoke in its own wheels. He favored a tighter relation, be it with the Social Democrats or the Octobrists, in the interest of advancing real reforms.25
The issue of Kadet participation in the Duma committee on defense deserves a little detour. Chelnokov was very interested in defense and sought to serve on the committee. Miliukov had decreed that Kadets could not serve on it until the committee, which like the Duma generally was dominated by Octobrists, ceased to exclude deputies from the left-wing parties (presumably for security reasons). Chelnokov made it clear that the Progressives were ready to welcome him, and that if the Kadets barred him from the committee he would nonetheless accept the offer as a nominee of the Progressives. Despite intervention by the Moscow central committee on Chelnokov’s behalf, Miliukov pulled what was probably a stunt, issuing a threat to resign if his will were not accepted. Chelnokov acquiesced for a time, but left the Kadet party in the fall of 1914.26 Just what Miliukov’s purposes were is unclear. But suppose the Duma leadership’s exclusion of the left from the military affairs committee was based on a reasonable distrust; however admirable socialist internationalism may be in some respects, treatment of Russia’s pursuit of its national interests as a nasty excrescence of capitalism might understandably inspire distrust. Critics may accordingly have traced Miliukov’s action here to simple pacifism and then used that characterization as a basis for condemning his views on Balkan affairs. Although not a strict analogy, there is a parallel in the way that Churchill’s zealous opposition to Indian independence in the 1930s undermined his warnings about Nazism.
On the broad strategy issues posed by Maklakov and Chelnokov, Miliukov’s response is telling. He sneered at Maklakov for using (he said) possible “success” as a criterion for efforts in the Duma. The party couldn’t follow Maklakov in that direction without ceasing to be the Kadet party. The party consciously made efforts “not for the Duma but for the country.” And the Kadets had to court the left because they were competing with it for the support of the peasants.27 (He never made clear just how he thought the Kadets could prevail in that competition—especially if Russia were to adopt a universal franchise—unless they matched the left’s opening bid: redistribution of gentry land with no compensation at all.) In short, Miliukov made clear that he had a good deal of disdain not only for legislative accomplishment itself, but more corrosively for the very process of compromise, which Maklakov saw as fundamental to liberal democracy.
The December 1912 dispute in the central committee was the prelude to a more extended battle in the February 2–3, 1913, party conference. Though the printed conference records contain no speech by Maklakov, others pressed themes similar to his familiar ones. Gredeskul in particular lamented the obsessive focus on Miliukov’s three “locks” (that is, the elements of Russian political life that locked out the pure parliamentary democracy that he treated as essential—the absence of a universal franchise, the State Council’s veto power, and the absence of government responsibility to the Duma), problems that however you viewed them could not be quickly overcome in the absence of revolution. He deplored the absence from Miliukov’s presentation of any sketch of a path forward for the country. He saw the elections to the Fourth Duma as having brought on board a group of Octobrists who were considerably more independent than those of the Third Duma; this would enhance possibilities of partnership. The argument that the three “locks” utterly doomed practical reform and thus must be overcome in advance was incomprehensible to him, a completely roundabout tactic, an abandonment of the direct path, a hiding of one’s head in the sand. He wanted instead fulfillment of the October Manifesto, which, he pointed out, the Octobrist Mikhail Rodzianko had pressed in his opening speech as chairman of the Fourth Duma. Although he didn’t go into detail on what fulfillment of the manifesto involved, he did specify remedying the regime’s arbitrariness, which succinctly captured both the core of the manifesto and Maklakov’s overall agenda. Chelnokov backed Gredeskul, opposing any limits on practical agreement with moderate elements.28
Miliukov made no apologies for the priority he attached to the three locks. He credited the Kadets’ tactical success to his persistence on the subject, and seemed to have a genuine fear that without constant reiteration they would be forgotten—he felt obliged to deny that “every schoolboy” knew of them. And without even discuss
ing the (concededly modest) accomplishments of the Third Duma, he insisted that no step forward was possible without overcoming the three locks. His strategy, he said, still left the party open to cooperation with others on specific issues.29
In the end, the conference approved a resolution that slightly modified the one proposed by the central committee in the direction of cooperation. Here is the original resolution, with the language that the conference forced on Miliukov in italics:
Achievement of these conditions [elimination of the three locks] must be the basic task of the Kadets, and scheduled legislative activity with other groups of more moderate elements of the opposition and center must be employed but must not get in the way of these basic tasks.30
Thus even the amended version preserved Miliukov’s priority.
Curiously, Miliukov never explained just how actual legislative accomplishment could “get in the way of” his famous priorities. It is quite easy to see the opposite—how continual Kadet flogging of the three locks might have thwarted reform. Non-Kadet deputies who were interested in real reform might be cautious about even ad hoc alliances with a party obsessed by a decade-old idée fixe, especially when at least one of the three elements (universal suffrage) was clearly unattainable without revolution.