The Reformer

by Stephen F. Williams

  As of the evening of December 15 Maklakov still had not heard from the organizers of the Moscow meeting whether it could be postponed. But at the Duma meeting that night Purishkevich approached him and said that Yusupov no longer insisted on his being available, and explained that Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich had objected to the previous plan. He didn’t want a Kadet to appear to be involved: let the assassination be done only by true and dedicated monarchists. Maklakov never checked as to whether the grand duke actually said this, but it seemed sound. “As I said goodbye to Purishkevich I asked him to send me a telegram when it was all done. . . . That is the end of what I know about the killing as a participant.”

  In closing the account, Maklakov observes that Yusupov’s hopes of a serious change proved unjustified. The assassination left the empress even more embittered against Rasputin’s enemies and all who had condemned him, and the tsar absorbed her views. There was a sharp political tilt to the right.

  Maklakov’s account includes a report by a “worldly” St. Petersburg lady who was visiting a hospital at the time, evidently as a volunteer. Feeling joyful about Rasputin’s death, she told the soldiers of it. They responded with a gloomy silence. Thinking they didn’t understand, she repeated the news. They continued to be silent until finally one of them spoke up, “Yes, one of us [peasants], just one, gets close to the tsar, and the lords kill him.” The others agreed. Maurice Paléologue, the French ambassador, picked up similar stories in the wake of the assassination—that Rasputin’s murder by aristocrats was turning him into a martyr among the peasants.6

  Maklakov’s evaluation of the political impact is succinct. “The killing, carried out by circles surrounding the throne, the impunity of the killers despite their being perfectly well known, the unconcealed grief of the emperor and empress, together with the obvious delight of Russian society, revealed with unusual clarity the deep, age-old split at the heart of the Russian state. The highest authority was clearly and hopelessly divided from Russian society. It appeared that no force could reconcile them. All now awaited some event, some with terror, others with hope.” His words capture the problem exactly—except that he fails to note the chasm between society and the masses, so well illustrated by the hospital story.

  In the end I find no sure explanation for Maklakov’s conduct. Although Maklakov himself believed the project hopeless in terms of saving Russia, the civic zeal that moved the most honorable of Caesar’s assassins may have played a role. He allowed himself to become entangled in the criminal enterprise, and perhaps the momentum, and a misplaced sense of honor, overcame his judgment. And perhaps he had not fully internalized the advice that Kapnist gave him after the Chernyshevskii episode: “You need to think first, and then act. Learn to rule yourself before you may have to rule others.”

  CHAPTER 17

  February 1917

  JOHN REED called the Bolsheviks’ October 1917 revolution “Ten Days That Shook the World.” But the “February Revolution”—starting on February 23 and culminating on March 3 with the tsar’s abdication, his brother Mikhail’s rejection of the crown, and the Romanovs’ replacement by a “Provisional Government” and the Petrograd Soviet of workers, peasants, and soldiers—was itself pretty earth-shaking. It brought down a three-hundred-year-old dynasty, replaced it with an awkward system of dual power, and paved the way for October. Not bad for nine days.

  The revolution appears to have been largely spontaneous and its success more a result of regime confusion, hesitancy, and disorganization than of the rebels’ inherent power. It—or at least the preliminary convulsions—began February 23 with the celebration of International Women’s Day. Despite a wartime lapse of celebrations in western Europe, Russian socialists had kept the day alive, if barely so. In February 1917, despite revolutionary leaders’ coolness (ranging from exhortation against action to provision of some inflammatory leaflets), strike meetings of women factory workers snowballed into mass action. Whatever their political grievances, their immediate cry was for bread. Many had had to stand in line for hours to get a single loaf. The first strikers moved into factories not yet on strike, called on workers to join them, and, in many cases, swept through factories and herded workers into the streets. Strikers vandalized and robbed stores and robbed a bank of 35,000 rubles. Ominously for the regime and heartening for the strikers, Cossack officers responded sluggishly to orders even for nonlethal crowd-control measures. Their commander defended this reluctance. Among other arguments, he asked how they could control demonstrators if they had not been supplied with nagaikas—sticks with a leather thong ending in a knot that enclosed lead, reputed to enable a skilled Cossack to “brush a fly from one’s face without touching the skin, or . . . maim one for life.”1

  The strikers’ number and activity expanded rapidly. Their behavior must have reminded many educated Russians of a famous line from Pushkin: “God forbid we should see a Russian revolt, senseless and savage.” Looting was rife, and looters threw parties with the loot. Soldiers often resisted their officers’ commands and defected in increasing numbers to the side of revolution, ultimately turning their weapons on their officers. Workers seized weapons and munitions from arsenals and arms factories. Soldiers assailed prisons, disarming the guards and releasing thousands of prisoners (and not only “politicals”). Official resistance was plagued by backtracking and uncertainty. By the end of February 27, unrest had become revolution; “insurrection had triumphed in Petrograd.”2

  During the first four days (Thursday the 23rd through Sunday the 26th), Maklakov devoted himself to two salient challenges: the crisis in grain supply and the need for broad political compromise. In the Duma meeting of February 23, the grain supply issue exposed the liberals’ lack of preparedness—perhaps even of good sense. Shingarev, soon to become minister of agriculture in the Provisional Government, scoffed at the idea that the grain shortage could be due to the low ceiling on prices paid to the peasants; rather, it was the government’s lack of a “plan.” Later in the debate he argued for “governmental intelligence” as a corrective to the spontaneous outbreaks. As historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa observes, in the midst of this turmoil the liberals “had no answer except to plead to the government to have more intelligence.”3

  Maklakov, quite apart from having a better grasp of economics than most of his liberal colleagues, thought to consult with the peasant deputies who had joined him in the spring of 1916 to prepare, and get through the Duma, his bill codifying the peasant equalization decree of 1906 (chapter 12). They assured him that the low ceiling prices were indeed the key. They also told him of various local officials’ foolish activities, stories he thought should be brought to the attention of Alexander Rittikh, the minister of agriculture. Maklakov arranged for a meeting between them and Rittikh. The Duma chairman, Rodzianko, got word of the scheduled gathering. Seeing it as an intrigue of the minister to seek agreements with parties behind his back, he reached representatives of the peasant group and told them to cancel the meeting. They reported this development to Maklakov, who called Rodzianko and pacified him. The meeting went ahead, and the peasant deputies later told Maklakov that they had found it useful.4

  Maklakov next visited Rittikh to get his opinion of the meeting. Rittikh also expressed satisfaction but then, reports Maklakov, burst out crying like a child. He had reported to the Duma the government’s decision to turn local control of grain distribution over to the Petrograd city duma—a policy change that liberals had demanded. (He did not mention grain prices; evidently the cabinet viewed the price ceiling as a defensible form of thrift.) But the Duma liberals reacted with horror, considering the action a ploy, even though it was exactly what they had been demanding. Rittikh told Maklakov, “Yesterday we got approval from the cabinet, with difficulty, for all that the Duma wanted, and it curses us for it. It’s impossible to govern this way.” Maklakov calmed him down, arguing that the Duma didn’t distrust him but that it would never trust the government while it still contained Protopopov.5 In fact, t
he cabinet met late on the 25th and voted overwhelmingly to seek negotiations with the Duma; it assigned the negotiations to Rittikh and the foreign minister, Nikolai Pokrovskii.6

  The next morning (Sunday, February 26), Maklakov unexpectedly received a call from Pokrovskii asking him to meet and to name the hour. Maklakov proposed noon. Before seeing Pokrovskii, he talked with Struve and Shulgin about what to say. Shulgin’s memoirs discuss the meeting, including a brief encounter with Kerensky. The latter, according to Shulgin, said that no new government should include any “bureaucrats.” Maklakov asked, “Why not?,” pointing out that sensible, honest bureaucrats existed and that “we” (the politicians) had no experience running a state. Another deputy, Mikhail Tereshchenko, an ally of the Progressives, turned up and went with him to Pokrovskii’s office.7

  En route, evidently in Pokrovskii’s anteroom, they met the French ambassador, Maurice Paléologue, who asked, “Why are you here?” Maklakov answered, “I don’t know. I was summoned by the minister.” Paléologue responded, “Ah, it’s high time”8—to engage the Duma and especially Duma moderates.

  In Pokrovskii’s office Maklakov found Rittikh. Other Duma representatives besides himself and Tereshchenko apparently were there, but Maklakov doesn’t mention them.9 Pokrovskii promptly expressed the government’s great concern over the situation as well as its belief that the Duma and government could accomplish nothing unless they worked together. Maklakov reformulated the statement: “You want to know under what conditions the Duma will help,” and went on to acknowledge that he spoke only for himself and a few close friends. He also said that what he was going to advise might be good only for that day—the next might be too late. “Tomorrow the Duma itself may lay down other conditions. You’ve got to anticipate them. Seize the initiative. Give the Duma as an accomplished fact something that it can accept.”10

  He then presented his idea. The entire cabinet, not simply a few ministers, should resign; a new premier should be appointed, with the freedom to pick a cabinet. Pokrovskii and Rittikh asked for thoughts about the new premier. Maklakov rejected the option of a Duma member or bureaucrat or ordinary public figure. “Choose a person who will be a symbol of a new ministry. It should be a ministry of war, war to the end. Pick as premier a popular general. You have one—Alekseev [Mikhail Alekseev, then chief of the general staff and in effect commander of all Russia’s armies]. The Duma and the country will trust him.” He urged that the new premier include in the cabinet bureaucrats with whom good relationships were possible, and recall to office ministers who had been recently thrown out under Rasputin’s influence, naming among others Kokovtsov and Sergei Sazonov (Pokrovskii’s predecessor as foreign minister, if we disregard the four-month interregnum of Rasputin’s puppet, Stürmer). Maklakov urged that the new ministry go before the Duma with a brief but well-defined program, “entirely for the war, but including everything necessary for the war, without exception. Let it announce that it will rely on the Duma, let it announce a stringent program, calling for sacrifices, but only for the war. The Duma couldn’t refuse such a ministry and such a program. But lose no time; it’s the last chance.” He especially urged them to act, not to ask the Duma. It would answer by demanding too much.11

  Pokrovskii and Rittikh talked with each other. After a while Pokrovskii told Maklakov the program was acceptable to them, and they hoped to get the tsar’s agreement. Again Maklakov stressed the need for speed; they should act before the Duma resumed. He agreed to do what he could to delay that resumption.12 Whether any efforts at delay were necessary is not clear, as the tsar prorogued the Duma on the 26th; at least as an institution, it shrank from defying the order to dissolve.13 (As we’ll see, it created a Provisional Government indirectly, through the decisions of members acting unofficially and through a “Council of Elders”).

  Whatever the prospects for Maklakov’s plan, a seeming ebb in the insurrection doomed it at the cabinet meeting late in the night of Sunday the 26th. That day had proved to be the one day that regime forces successfully controlled the crowds; special detachments of guards regiments—units to train selected soldiers to become noncommissioned officers—obeyed orders to fire on crowds that refused to disperse. Some appearance of order was restored. One unit, the Fourth Company of the Pavlovskii Regiment, mutinied, but the government didn’t read the mutiny as a strong signal. The cabinet listened “with boredom” to the report of Pokrovskii and Rittikh on their negotiations; it dismissed the possibility of further talks.14 As if this rejection were not enough, the cabinet decided to prorogue the Duma, over the objections of both men.

  Maklakov was wakened early the next morning (Monday the 27th) by a call from the deputy chairman of the Duma, Nekrasov, who told him of the proroguing and also of a mutiny by the Volynskii Regiment, which had killed its officers and gone out into the streets. Once arrived at the Duma, Maklakov phoned Pokrovskii, who confirmed the proroguing of the Duma: “One of your wishes has been fulfilled. Duma deliberations are suspended.” He evidently regarded the regime’s insulting dismissal of the Duma as equivalent to a voluntary pause to give the government time to present an overture. Then he said, “As to the rest [Maklakov’s proposal], we’ll discuss it Wednesday.” Maklakov then asked him, “You know what’s happening?” “What?” “The military have rebelled.” “I’ve heard nothing of that.” Maklakov replied, “Then I’ve nothing more to discuss with you,” and hung up.15

  Reflecting on these efforts later, Maklakov thought the plan might have satisfied the Duma, though he had doubts—after all, the liberals in 1905 had rejected a ministry headed by Shipov. But, he thought, such a ministry would have provided far more hope for success in the struggle against the Bolsheviks and the Germans than did the “idealistic” cabinet of the Provisional Government—“idealistic” doubtless referring to the ministers’ complete lack of experience in guiding a state, much less guiding one through revolutionary chaos. He concluded that the exchange at least showed where responsibility lay:

  Characteristically, in this last hour of the old regime, a plan to escape from revolution was thwarted not by the extreme left, not by Kadet society, but by the authorities themselves. It was as if it wanted to preserve all responsibility for the Revolution to itself.16

  How realistic was Maklakov’s proposal? The idea of a focus on the war, led by a widely respected figure, had a kind of merit: individuals and peoples can perform amazing tasks when put to a deadly challenge. And it would have brought the regime and the Duma together. But by this stage, how many ordinary Russians cared in the slightest about achieving Russia’s war aims, such as securing the Turkish straits and, with them, access to the Mediterranean? We return again and again to the gap between the masses and the elite. As we’ll see, Maklakov came to doubt the wisdom of a full-throttled pursuit of the war earlier than his Kadet colleagues—but late in the game and certainly not by February.

  With the failure of any effort at reconciliation, the Duma confronted its official suspension. What to do? One possibility was obviously to proceed in defiance of the proroguing order. The historical model (probably familiar to most deputies) was the Third Estate’s defiance of Louis XVI’s lockout in June 1789, its swearing of the Tennis Court Oath, and its self-transformation into a national assembly. Rodzianko was firmly against such an extreme measure. But under pressure he agreed to a meeting of Duma members as private citizens, and to a summoning of the Duma’s “Council of Elders,”17 an institution created under Article 12 of the Duma’s legal constitution18 for addressing issues arising in the work of the Duma; all parties were represented in the council (large ones with two representatives, small ones with one), and it acted by consensus. The council and some other members in their unofficial capacities (about a third of the full Duma membership) met, apparently off and on, over the afternoon of Monday, February 27. Between them, they established a committee, usually called the Duma Committee,19 though formally labeled the “Provisional Committee of Members of the State Duma for the Restoration o
f Order in the Capital and Establishment of Relations with Public Organizations and Institutions”—“a name itself redolent of indecision,” as Melissa Stockdale writes.20 Soon thereafter the committee in turn gave birth to the Provisional Government.

  Scholars have criticized the Duma’s failure to assert legal authority directly. Leonard Schapiro, for instance: “The Duma itself, by its pusillanimous and indecisive lack of action, lost the opportunity, which would never recur, of taking over power with a semblance of legitimacy.”21 We’ll return to this issue when we have the other elements of regime collapse in place.

  With two exceptions, the Duma Committee was composed of members of the Progressive Bloc; the exceptions were Kerensky, a Trudovik, and Nikolai Chkheidze, a Menshevik. The committee asserted authority promptly and aggressively. On the morning of February 28 it took over management of the state railways from the tsarist ministry; the railways’ new director sent a telegram to all railway stations announcing that the old regime had fallen and that the Duma had formed a new government. This was of course an exaggeration, but it created its own reality. By the morn ing of February 28 the Duma Committee had appointed twenty-four “commissars” to assume authority in the existing ministries. For the ministry of justice the commissars were Maklakov and V. P. Basakov, a centrist deputy. Formal appointment of Maklakov’s friend Moses Adzhemov, also a Kadet deputy, followed on March 1.22 The Duma Committee also reached out to the military, enlisting influential Duma members to rally important units; Maklakov addressed the Volynskii guards.23