(People had already noticed that the prince was in training for the premiership himself.)
Ryabushinsky: No work can be done under the present government. At present they’re holding their hands out to England for another loan. As soon as they get it, they’ll dissolve the Duma.
Efremov: If they dissolve the Duma, it must refuse to break up! It must appeal to the people!!
Milyukov: They haven’t a hope of dismissing the Duma.
Deputies just back from visits to the armed forces cried out, “Never! If they so much as touch the Duma, the whole army will hear alarm bells!”
While the rightists, who always went against the people, clamored in the Duma, “You’ve sat here long enough! There’s work to be done on the land! And at the front!” With that they walked out of the session and dispersed without waiting for permission.
The government was already wondering what to do with the Duma. For all their differences the ministers were inclined to think that the most convenient thing would be to dismiss it, let it take a vacation.
Krivoshein: For all practical purposes the Duma has exhausted its agenda, and the atmosphere there is becoming worrying. Speeches and resolutions may take on an openly revolutionary character. People get carried away by their own verbosity, and there is no end to it. Sessions with no legislative business turn the Duma into a mass meeting on current questions.
Goremykim: In the West at present parliaments do not meet as a whole, only parliamentary commissions—but we have commissions at work too.
It would have been hopeless to try putting laws and measures made necessary by the war through the Duma, and while it was in session, under Article 87 they could not be introduced behind its back.
Shcherbatov: No, not all the bills have yet been dealt with. We need the Duma’s sanction for a Special Conference on Refugees. The presence of elected representatives in it is essential, so as to relieve the government of sole responsibility for the horrors of the refugee problem, and let the State Duma share it.
Krivoshein: I think they’ll let it through without delay. The need is only too obvious.
Kharitonov: The Duma has taught us not to be optimistic. It is governed by party considerations, not by what is in the general interest. If they find that dissolution is postponed only because of the refugees they will drag out discussion of the bill.
Goremykin: Whatever happens they’ll shift all the responsibility onto the government. The Special Conference on Defense contains elected members, but we and we alone get blamed for supply failures.
Krivoshein: There must be a recess until 14 September. In the present situation we must bid our farewells to the Duma with due decorum—it must be done in agreement with the Presidium, not come like a bolt from the blue.
Kharitonov: Rodzyanko will be up on his hind legs claiming that Russia’s salvation lies only in the Duma.
Goremykin: Once we talk to Rodzyanko that bigmouth will be shouting it out for all the world to hear.
Ignatiev: We can’t discount the possibility that the Duma will refuse to obey and will remain in session.
Shcherbatov: Hardly. The great majority of them are cowards who tremble for their hides.
Squall followed squall in that horrible summer of 1915. Before they had recovered from their fears of an explosion of popular indignation at the change of command, they had to worry about an explosive reaction to the dissolution of the Duma. Goremykin had in hand decrees signed in advance by the Emperor (because he was leaving for GHQ) suspending the work of the legislative institutions, and it had been left to him to write in the date. But what date? And should he?
Khvostov: Mr. Milyukov, so I am told, openly boasts that he has all the strings in his hands, and that on the day when the Supreme Command is changed he has only to press a button to start disturbances throughout Russia.
Goremykin: I have too much faith in the Russian people to entertain the thought that it will respond to its Tsar with disturbances, especially in wartime. It is only in minds already unbalanced that the speeches of left-wing deputies and abuse of the printed word sow discord.
Shcherbatov: An intensive propaganda campaign is being carried out in garrisons and military hospitals in the rear.
Sazonov: The dissolution of the Duma will certainly entail disturbances among the workers. We cannot simply ignore the politically active elements of the public.
Grigorovich: Disturbances are unavoidable, the mood of the workers is very ugly. The Germans are carrying out an intensive propaganda campaign, and showering money on organizations hostile to the government. The situation at the Putilov plant is particularly critical: the workers are standing at their benches doing nothing and demanding a twenty percent raise in pay. I am very much afraid that interrupting the sessions of the Duma will have a damaging effect on the internal situation in Russia.
Polivanov: Preparations for defense depend entirely on the educated public and the workers. If both groups are reduced to despair …
Goremykin: It is a mistake to look for a connection between the dissolution of the Duma and the workers’ movement. That will go on as before. I don’t deny that dissolution will be exploited by agitators. But even if the Duma stays on, we have no surety. Whether we act with the Bloc or without it makes no difference to the workers’ movement.
Krivoshein: If we are afraid of everything all will be lost. I repeat: we cannot continue down the middle of the road any longer.
In Krivoshein a predilection for strong government, for decisive action, struggled to prevail. He was prepared to take strong action. But perhaps … not quite prepared. So now, when Goremykin’s days were numbered, when no candidate could reasonably be preferred to Krivoshein, when talks with the Duma on the Bloc’s program were imminent, he felt impelled to leave the stage, not to tie his hands with negotiations or with the program, but to avoid the more important discussions and make contact with the core of the Moscow opposition. At that critical time he went to visit his merchant relatives and friends in Moscow.
Meanwhile, on 7 September the Progressive Bloc published its program and submitted it to the government. The situation was becoming more complicated all the time.
Sazonov: Would it pay us to dissolve the Duma without discussing the acceptability of this program with the majority? I’m sure we could reach an agreement, and then dissolve it. They would go off home in the knowledge that the government was ready to meet their justified requests. The Bloc is essentially moderate, and we should support it. If it collapses, another much further to the left will appear. It would be dangerous to provoke nonparlia-mentary forms of struggle. These are people who feel for their motherland—how can anybody call them a lawless rabble? The government cannot remain suspended in the void with nothing but the police to support it.
Was there ever such a terrible summer? Every question they touched doubled, trebled, multiplied endlessly, and truth was elusive.
Goremykin: In my view the government cannot think of talking to the Bloc. We can only deal with the legislative institutions as such, and not with a random association of their representatives. The Bloc has been formed to seize power. Its barely concealed aim is the limitation of the monarchy. It will in any case collapse, and its participants will soon be at sixes and sevens.
Shakhovskoy: The dissolution of the Duma and its prolongation are equally dangerous. My vote is for dissolution, but it must be done in a friendly way, we must discuss their program with representatives of the Bloc. In that way we shall offer a way out to the deputies themselves, who long for dissolution, because they realize the hopelessness of their position.
Shcherbatov: The whole country is exasperated by our differences with the Duma. But we must find a way of dissolving it that will not provoke an outcry. There is no denying it, the program of the Bloc is patently drafted as a basis for bargaining. The collapse of the Bloc would be of no advantage to the government, but would leave it face to face with leftist trends. We cannot allow the more reasonable part of
the Duma to disperse feeling snubbed. Rodzyanko is more peeved than any of them, because the government doesn’t take him seriously.
Sazonov: The majority in the Duma think dissolution is necessary and will not try to prevent suspension.
They arrived at the conclusion that some of the ministers should engage in talks, unofficial for the time being, with some of the leaders of the Bloc. Just to demonstrate that the government did not refuse even to recognize the forces of society.
Analysis of the Bloc’s program led to a surprising conclusion: apart from demagogic spluttering about a “government enjoying the people’s confidence” it was quite timid. Some of its demands were already being carried out, some were not of cardinal importance, and on others the Bloc did not particularly insist but was ready to compromise. They demanded a political amnesty, but it was easy to read between the lines—what they really wanted was a pardon for those who had joined in the Vyborg appeal, so that they could stand for election. The government had no objection to that.
Khvostov: Many political cases have been settled by a royal pardon, and quite a few such gentlemen are now at large.
But, privately, leading parliamentarians chided the government because it was forever releasing one political prisoner or another but was incapable of advertising the fact widely and making political capital of it—which would also be of advantage to Duma deputies.
Shcherbatov: We must arrange publicity whenever we do it. Pick a dozen or two of the best-loved liberators, turn them all loose on the world, and see that it is reported in all the papers.
It was the same with the cleanup of local government and the reform of administrative procedures—the government lacked advertising skills.
The Bloc’s renewed insistence on the need for religious tolerance was largely decorative—tolerance was already becoming the rule.
Goremykin: But what would you have us do when people use religious immunity as a cloak for the attainment of political aims?
On the Polish question a great deal had already been done, and the Bloc had no very clearly defined additional measures to recommend. It cost nothing to grant certain privileges to the Ukrainian press (though not, of course, to the separatist papers nurtured by the Austrians). On the Jewish question the Bloc’s program was itself full of tortuous evasions. It spoke of “moving toward repeal of legal disabilities”—but the Pale of Settlement had just been breached, and all the cities were open to Jews, who were not even asking to be allowed into rural areas, while restrictions on entry into higher educational institutions and the professions were being lifted all the time. Develop the Jewish press? Certainly. Let them spend money on organs of their own, and not on perverting the Russian papers. “Goodwill in policy toward Finland” caused no argument. How could the government possibly show more goodwill? Finland did not contribute to the financing of the war; speculation had driven the Finnish markka to dizzy heights against the ruble and at the expense of Russia proper. The Finnish population was exempt from the call-up and from compulsory services to the state. Persecution of workers’ mutual aid societies? It didn’t happen unless they served as a cover for underground activity.
Sazonov: If we make it all look respectable and give them a loophole the Kadets will be the first to want an agreement. Milyukov is an out-and-out bourgeois and fears nothing so much as social revolution. In fact, most of the Kadets tremble for their capital.
Samarin: The word “agreement” cannot properly be used with reference to such a motley crew, most of whom are moved by dastardly ambitions to seize power at all costs.
So then on 9 September four ministers met the leaders of the Bloc in Kharitonov’s apartment for an exchange of information.
What the meeting showed was something that the ministers had foreseen: it was not the detailed points in the program that separated them from the Bloc (in any case, the Bloc was prepared to compromise on them), but the diffuse preamble:
… a government relying on the confidence of the people … creation of a government of persons enjoying the confidence of the country …
(The whole country—just like that.)
Who were those people? Where were they?
The leaders of the Bloc meant, of course, themselves: that was the whole purpose of the program—to hint at who would constitute the next government. The existing situation seemed to them a very convenient one for such an initiative. They had anticipated a chance to bargain with the government, but not apparently the dissolution of the Duma.
Goremykin: There is no point in the government tagging along behind the Bloc. The present situation, external and internal, calls for action, otherwise everything will collapse. Whether the Duma disperses quietly or rowdily is a matter of indifference. But I am sure that it will pass without trouble, and that the fears expressed are exaggerated.
Sazonov: There could be serious conflicts with grave consequences for the country.
Goremykin: It doesn’t matter, it’s all nonsense. Nobody except the newspapers cares about the Duma, and everybody is sick of its babbling.
Sazonov: I insist emphatically that my question does matter, and is not nonsense. As long as I remain in the Council of Ministers I shall go on repeating that the attitude of the deputies does influence the psychology of the public.
Polivanov and Ignatiev: What finally matters is the manner in which, and the conditions under which, the Duma is dissolved—whether it goes off smoothly or in a hostile atmosphere.
Shcherbatov: Of late the Duma’s stock in the country at large has fallen greatly. But the population now also has a fixed belief that the government is standing aside and is unwilling to act.
Goremykin conducted this cabinet meeting on 10 September believing, as before, that they were discussing only whether to dismiss the Duma, and if so the date and the formalities, yet he could still get no clear agreement from the ministers. At this juncture, Krivoshein, back from Moscow, and until then inscrutably silent, joined in. It was remembered that four days earlier, before his departure, he had been in favor of dissolving the Duma before 14 September, and asked only for a shared and uncompromising resolve on the part of the government. But since then he had taken his trip to oppositionist Moscow, where he had picked up different ideas and undergone some sort of change, although he tried to make it look as though he was saying what he had said before. His intervention now gave a new twist to the whole discussion.
Krivoshein: Another question occurs to me. What sort of announcement can the government possibly make on the dissolution of the Duma? Whatever we say, whatever promises we make, however much we flirt with the Progressive Bloc—nobody will believe us for a minute. The requirements of the Duma and of the whole country come down to the same thing: not a particular program of action, but people to whom power can be entrusted.
They should, he went on, not choose a date for dissolution, but ask His Imperial Majesty what in principle was his attitude toward
the government as at present constituted and toward the country’s demand for an executive invested with the confidence of the public.
He was planting a bomb under that stale and ineffectual government. He spoke in the phraseology of the Bloc, like a representative of “society,” not of the cabinet—so greatly had his Moscow trip boosted his self-assurance.
Let the monarch decide what course he wishes internal policy to follow in the future—that of ignoring such requests
(they had been called demands a while before)
or that of conciliation, in which case he should choose someone who enjoys the goodwill of the public and lay on him the responsibility of forming a government.
In other words, he was calling for the dismissal of Goremykin and had finally decided to make a bid for the premiership himself!
The imperturbable Goremykin understood all this, but went on as though nothing had happened, trying to steer the government to a decision on the date of dissolution. Krivoshein, however, was unwilling to talk about dates at all, and a successio
n of ministers showed that they were either in league with him or of one mind with him. In short, the “ministerial strike” was not called off.
Sazonov: I entirely concur. This crystallizes what we’ve been hemming and hawing about for several days. We must bring it to His Majesty’s attention.
Ignatiev: I support that.
Kharitonov: I agree completely.
Goremykin (reluctant to yield): So the question of dissolution is to be postponed until ministerial portfolios are redistributed? And until the monarch’s prerogative to choose his own ministers is curtailed?
Krivoshein (following up his advantage): I’m prepared to let the dissolution and the changes of government take place simultaneously.
Yes, but seven days had now gone by since they had decided on collective resignation—and the Emperor was still silent. It was very doubtful whether the Emperor was leaving the ministers in place to show his favor. Now a unique opportunity had presented itself—to take control of the government, assisted by the dismissal of the Duma.
Shcherbatov: It is indeed time for us to stop sitting on the fence. Discontent in the country is growing with menacing rapidity. New people must be brought in. It is our duty to ask the Emperor to end the uncertainty. The whole country desires a change of government, and I side with it.
But the intransigent monarchist stuck to his guns.
Goremykin: So instead of making up our own minds we leave it to the Emperor?
Yes! said Shcherbatov and Shakhovskoy, while Krivoshein enlarged on the subject as follows:
We long-term servants of the Tsar take upon ourselves the unpleasant duty of dissolving the Duma, and at the same time declare to the Sovereign Emperor that the position in which the country finds itself demands a change of cabinet and policy.
Goremykin: But who are these new people? Representatives of groups in the Duma or government officials? Do you contemplate submitting names to the Emperor at the same time?
Krivoshein: I personally do not intend to make suggestions. Let the Tsar invite some particular person and leave it to him to select his collaborators.
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