The Russian Revolution

by Richard Pipes

  *Letter to Aleksei Suvorin, in Anton Chekhov, Pis’ma, V (Moscow, 1915), 352. Bernard De Voto in The Literary Fallacy (Boston, 1944) voices similar complaints about American writers of the interwar period, which indicates to what extent the problem that afflicted Imperial Russia had become international.

  *This theory has recently received fresh support from a German scholar who argues that because of the poverty of her rural population, pre-revolutionary Russia lacked the conditions for the development of a market-based industrial economy: Jürgen Nötzold, Wirtschaftspolitische Alternativen der Entwicklung Russlands in der Ära Witte und Stolypin (Berlin, 1966), 193, 204.

  * K. Marks, F. Engels’ i revoliutsionnaia Rossiia (Moscow, 1967), 443–44. According to N. Valentinov, The Early Years of Lenin (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1969), 183, this letter was kept secret for many years, presumably because it ran contrary to the views of the Russian Social-Democratic establishment.

  *In English, the adherents of this group are usually called either Social-Revolutionaries or Socialist-Revolutionaries. Both renditions are inaccurate. They called themselves Sotsialisty-Revoliutsionery—that is, Socialists-Revolutionaries.

  *Jacques Ellul, Autopsie de la Révolution (Paris, 1969), 69. Ellul concedes that Lenin represented a new type of revolutionary activist.

  *Ingeborg Fleischhauer (Cahiers du Monde Russe et Soviétique, XX, No. 2, 1979, 173–201) draws attention to the close similarities between the agrarian programs of the Kadets and the German Social-Democrats.

  5

  The Constitutional Experiment

  The October Manifesto provided a framework within which the Russian state and Russian society should have found it possible to reduce the tension dividing them. This it failed to accomplish. A constitutional regime can function properly only if government and opposition accept the rules of the game: in Russia, neither the monarchy nor the intelligentsia was prepared to do so. Each regarded the new order as an obstacle, a deviation from the country’s true system, which for the monarchy was autocracy and for the intelligentsia, a democratic republic. As a result, the constitutional interlude, while not without achievements, was largely wasted—a missed opportunity that would not recur.

  In affixing his signature to the manifesto, Nicholas vaguely realized that it meant “constitution,” but neither he nor his advisers were intellectually or psychologically ready to acknowledge that a constitution spelled an end to the autocracy. Although the manifesto pledged that henceforth no law would go into effect without the approval of a popularly elected legislature, the Court seemed unaware that this pledge entailed a constitutional charter. According to Witte, it was only two months later that Trepov broached the need for such a document.1 And when a constitutional charter was issued in April 1906, its drafters studiously avoided the word “constitution,” designating it as “Fundamental Laws” (Osnovnye zakony), the name traditionally used for the first volume of the Code of Laws.

  Nicholas did not regard either the October Manifesto or the new Fundamental Laws as affecting his autocratic prerogatives. In his mind, the Duma was a consultative, not a legislative body (“I created the Duma, not to be directed by it, but to be advised,” he told the Minister of War).2 He further felt that in having “granted” the Duma and the Fundamental Laws of his own free will he was not bound by them: and since he had not sworn an oath to uphold the new order, he could also revoke it at will.3 The obvious contradiction between the reality of a constitutional regime and the Court’s insistence that nothing had changed had bewildering consequences. Thus, even Peter Stolypin, the closest Russia had to a genuine parliamentary Prime Minister, in private conversation insisted that Russia had no constitution because such a document had to be the product of agreement between rulers and subjects whereas the Fundamental Laws of 1906 had been granted by the Tsar. In his view Russia’s government was not “constitutional” but “representative” and the only limitations on imperial authority were such as the Tsar saw fit to impose on himself.4 And what is one to make of Vladimir Kokovtsov, Stolypin’s successor, who while addressing the parliament exclaimed, “Thank God, we have as yet no parliament!”5 Maurice Baring, an English student of Russia, concluded from personal observation in 1905–6 that ideally Russia’s bureaucracy wanted “parliamentary institutions and autocratic government.” Russians similarly joked that “the Tsar was ready to give a constitution as long as autocracy remained intact.”6 To the extent that such contradictory attitudes lend themselves to rational explanation, this is best sought in the tradition of Muscovite consultative bodies called Land Assemblies (Zemskie sobory), convened from time to time to give tsars non-binding advice. But, of course, by the terms of the October Manifesto and the Fundamental Laws of 1906 the Duma was a legislative, not a consultative body, so that the analogy with the past had no relevance except perhaps on the psychological level.

  The behavior of the Crown under the constitutional regime cannot be understood without reference to the various monarchist groups which treated the October Manifesto as a trick played on the Tsar by the wily Witte and his alleged Jewish backers. In their view, too, neither the manifesto nor the Fundamental Laws were inviolate: what the Tsar had given, he could take back. These groups, composed largely of landowners (many from the western provinces), right-wing publicists, and Orthodox clergy, backed by lower-middle-class groups, espoused a very simple ideology: autocracy and Russia for the Russians. Increasingly, their outlook reduced itself to a rabid anti-Semitism, which saw in Jews the source of all of Russia’s woes—enemies of Christianity and a race bent on attaining world domination. The most influential of these bodies was the Union of the Russian People, which organized patriotic demonstrations, published virulently anti-Semitic literature, and from time to time arranged for Jewish pogroms, using gangs of urban thugs called “Black Hundreds” (Chërnye sotni). These extreme right-wing groupings, which in many ways anticipated the German National Socialists of the 1920s, in democratic elections would have been unlikely to gain a single seat in the Duma. They owed their disproportionate influence to the identity of their views and interests with those of the Crown and its more reactionary officialdom. It was they who encouraged Nicholas and his wife in the belief that the country remained staunchly loyal to the Romanov dynasty and the ideals of autocracy.7

  The more liberal bureaucrats were not averse to conceding limited power to a representative body: according to a high official, the idea of a representative institution with which to divide responsibility (if not authority) for governing Russia “grew like grass” in governmental circles.8 The rationale behind such sympathies was spelled out by Kaiser Wilhelm II in a letter to the Tsar in August 1905 in connection with the announcement of the so-called Bulygin Duma:

  Your manifest directing the formation of the “Duma” made an excellent impression in Europe … you get an excellent insight into the mind of your People and make them carry a part of the responsibility for the future, which it would have probably liked to saddle solely upon you, thereby making a wholesale “critique” and dissatisfaction with deeds done by

  you alone

  impossible.

  9

  But in the eyes of the bureaucracy these benefits could accrue only if parliament confined itself to largely ceremonial functions. Vasilii Maklakov thus describes the attitude on the eve of the First Duma of Ivan Goremykin, the Tsar’s favorite minister:

  As concerned the Duma, it was for him exclusively a factor complicating legislative procedures. This complication seemed to him, at bottom, unnecessary: but once it had been regrettably made, then it had to be reduced to a minimum. This was not difficult. The government’s plan for the Duma was simple. To begin with, it would be sufficient for the deputies to have the honor of being received in audience by the Emperor: then their mandates would be verified and the rules worked out. This would be followed by a recess, brought about as quickly as possible: in this manner, the session would be prorogued until autumn. Next would come the discussion of the budget. T
he practical exigencies of life would assert themselves, turmoil calmed, order restored, and everything would be as before.

  10

  Not all Crown ministers thought in these terms: Stolypin, in particular, would try to bring the Duma into a genuine partnership. But Goremykin reflected more accurately the attitudes prevalent at the Court and among its conservative supporters—attitudes which precluded effective parliamentary government at a time when autocratic government had ceased to be feasible. As if to demonstrate his feelings toward the Duma, Nicholas refused to cross its threshold, preferring to receive the deputies in the Winter Palace.*

  Later, after the Revolution, some officials of the tsarist regime justified the monarchy’s unwillingness to share power with the Duma with the argument that Russian “society,” as represented by the intelligentsia, would have been incapable of administering the country: introducing parliamentary government in 1906 would merely have served to unleash the anarchy of 1917 that much sooner.11 But these arguments, voiced in emigration, had the benefit of hindsight: a conservative-liberal parliamentary coalition cooperating with the monarchy and its officialdom would certainly have proven more effective than the same coalition turned out to be in March 1917, after the monarchy had abdicated, when it had no alternative but to seek support from the revolutionary intelligentsia.

  20. Ivan Goremykin.

  Had the Russian intelligentsia been politically more mature—more patient, that is, and more understanding of the mentality of the monarchic establishment—Russia might perhaps have succeeded in making an orderly transition from a semi-constitutional to a genuinely constitutional regime. But these qualities the educated classes sorely lacked. From the day the constitution went into force, they exploited every opportunity to wage war against the monarchy. The radical intellectuals rejected the very principles of constitutional monarchy and parliamentary government. Initially they boycotted the Duma elections; later, after concluding that the boycott was a mistake, they ran in the elections but only to disrupt parliamentary proceedings and incite the population to rebellion. The Constitutional-Democratic Party was in this respect only marginally more constructive. While the liberals accepted the principle of constitutional monarchy, they regarded the Fundamental Laws of 1906 as a travesty and did all in their power to deprive the monarchy of effective authority.*

  As a result, the traditional conflict between the authorities and the intelligentsia grew more intense rather than less, since it now had a formal arena where to play itself out. Struve, who observed this struggle with a sense of alarm because he believed it was bound to end in catastrophe, wrote that “the Russian Revolution and the Russian reaction somehow hopelessly claw at each other, and from every fresh wound, every drop of blood which they draw, grows the vengeful hatred and untruth of Russian life.”12

  The experts whom the government charged with drafting the new Fundamental Laws were told to produce a document that would fulfill the promises of the October Manifesto and still preserve most of the traditional prerogatives of the Russian monarchy.13 Between December 1905 and April 1906, when the work was completed, they came up with several drafts, which were discussed and revised at cabinet meetings, sometimes chaired by the Tsar. The final product was a conservative constitution—conservative in terms of both the franchise and the powers reserved for the Crown.

  The electoral law was worked out at meetings of officials and public representatives. The principal question was whether to provide for an equal and direct vote or a vote organized by estates and cast indirectly, through electoral chambers.14 Following the recommendation of the bureaucracy, it was decided to adopt a system of indirect voting by estates in order to reduce the weight of constituencies regarded as more likely to elect radical deputies. There were to be four electoral curiae: for the gentry (dvoriane), for burghers (meshchane), for peasants, and for workers, the last-named group now given the vote which the Bulygin project had denied it. The franchise was so contrived that one gentry vote carried the weight of three burgher, fifteen peasant, and forty-five worker votes.15 Except in the large cities, the voters cast their ballots for electors who, in turn, selected either other electors or the deputies themselves. These electoral provisions rejected the democratic franchise advocated by Russian liberal and socialist parties which called for the “four-tail” vote—universal, direct, equal, and secret. It was the government’s hope that by reducing the urban vote it would ensure a tractable Duma.

  While the experts worked on the constitution, the government published laws implementing the pledges of civil rights in the October Manifesto.16 On November 24, 1905, preliminary censorship of periodical publications was abolished: henceforth newspapers and journals which published what the authorities considered seditious or libelous material could be prosecuted only in court. Although during World War I some preliminary censorship was restored, after 1905 Russia enjoyed full press freedom, which made it possible to criticize the authorities without restrictions. Laws issued on March 4, 1906, guaranteed the rights of assembly and association. Citizens were allowed to hold lawful assemblies, provided they notified the local chief of police seventy-two hours in advance and observed certain provisions when meeting in the open. Forming associations also required prior notification to the authorities: if no objections were raised within two weeks, the organizers were free to proceed. This law made possible the formation of trade unions as well as political parties, although, in practice, in both cases governmental permission would frequently be withheld under one pretext or another.*

  These rights and freedoms had no precedent in Russian history. Nevertheless, the bureaucracy found ways of circumventing them by recourse to the provisions of the law of August 14, 1881, authorizing governors to place provinces under “Safeguard,” which remained on the statute books until 1917. Throughout the constitutional period, vast expanses of the Russian Empire would be declared subject to this status, which resulted in the suspension for their inhabitants of civil rights, including those of assembly and association.17

  The new Fundamental Laws, made public on April 26, while the elections to the Duma were in progress, was a curious document. It had been composed in such a way as to depart minimally from the traditional Fundamental Laws, with the main emphasis placed, as before 1905, on the powers and prerogatives of the Crown. The powers and prerogatives of the legislative branch were inserted almost like an embarrassing afterthought. To compound the confusion between the new and old orders, the monarch was still defined as an “autocrat,” using a formula that dated to the reign of Peter the Great:

  Article 4: To the Emperor of All the Russias belongs the Supreme Autocratic power. God Himself commands that he be obeyed, not only from fear of God’s wrath, but also for the sake of one’s conscience.

  18

  Traditionally, the corresponding article had described the Tsar’s powers as both “unlimited” and “autocratic.” The former term was now omitted, but the omission was of little consequence because in modern Russian usage “autocratic,” which in Peter’s time had meant “sovereign”—that is, independent of other powers—had also acquired the sense of authority subject to no limitations.

  Russia was given a two-chamber parliament. The lower, the State Duma (Gosudarstvennaia Duma), was composed entirely of popularly elected representatives, chosen according to the franchise outlined above. The upper chamber, the State Council (Gosudarstvennyi Sovet), was the institution by the same name which had been functioning since 1802 to translate imperial commands into laws. It consisted of appointed officials augmented with representatives of public bodies (the Church, zemstva, Noble Assemblies, and universities). Its purpose was to serve as a brake on the Duma. Because it had not been mentioned in the October Manifesto, liberals saw in its creation a breach of promise.

  All bills, in addition to requiring the approval of the Crown, needed the consent of both chambers: the State Council, along with the Tsar, could veto legislative proposals emanating from the lower chamber. In addit
ion, the two chambers had to pass annually on the state budget—a powerful prerogative which in the Western democracies served to control the executive branch. However, in Russia’s case the budgetary powers of the parliament were diluted by a provision which exempted from its scrutiny payments on state debts, expenses of the Imperial household, and “extraordinary credits.”

  The parliament enjoyed the right of “interpellation” or formal questioning of ministers. If deputies raised questions about the legality of government actions—and only then—the appropriate minister or ministers had to appear in the Duma to answer questions. Although the legislature had no authority to interrogate ministers on the general conduct of policy, since such a right would have allowed it to pass a no-confidence vote, interpellation served as an important device to keep the Crown and its officials in line.

  In some respects, perhaps the single most important prerogative of the new parliament was its members’ right to free speech and parliamentary immunity. From April 1906 until February 1917, the Duma provided a forum for unrestrained and often intemperate criticism of the regime. This probably contributed more to undermining the prestige of the Russian Government in the eyes of the population than all the revolutionary outrages, because it stripped the establishment of the aura of omniscience and omnipotence which it strove so hard to maintain.