Nicholas and Alexandra (37 page)

Once in power, Stolypin became a whirlwind of energy. He meant to attack root problems such as the peasants' long-suppressed thirst for land of their own, but nothing could be done about these matters until the terrorist attacks on local officials and police had been suppressed. To restore law and order, Stolypin established special field courts-martial. Within three days of their arrest, assassins swung from the gallows. Before the end of the summer, six hundred men had been strung up and Russians had named the hangman's noose "Stolypin's necktie." Yet, the number of men hanged by the government was smaller than the sixteen hundred governors, generals, soldiers and village policemen killed by terrorists' bombs and bullets.

Inevitably, Stolypin himself became the assassins' target. On a Saturday afternoon, scarcely a month after taking office, he was writing at his desk in his country villa outside St. Petersburg when a bomb exploded. A wall of the house collapsed and thirty-two people, including visitors and servants, were killed. Stolypin's young son, playing on an upstairs balcony, was hurt, and his daughter, Natalia, was badly maimed. But Stolypin himself was merely splattered with ink. "A day and a half after the explosion, the Ministers' Council resumed its work as if nothing unusual had happened," Kokovtsov wrote. "Stolypin's calm and self-control won the admiration of everyone."

The government's repression, to which the bomb plot was a reaction, was only a harsh preliminary to reform. While terrorists still dangled at the end of government ropes, the new Prime Minister attacked the basic problem of land. In 1906, three quarters of the people of Russia coaxed a living from the soil. Since 1861, when Alexander II freed the serfs, most of Russia's peasants lived in village communes, made communal plans for the land and worked it in partnership. The system was ridiculously inefficient; within each commune, a single peasant might farm as many as fifty small strips, each containing a few thin rows of corn or wheat. Often, the peasant spent more time walking between his scattered furrows than he did plowing the earth or scything the grain. Stolypin overturned this communal system and introduced the concept of private property. By government decree, he declared that any peasant who wished to do so could withdraw from the commune and claim from it a share of ground to farm for himself. Further, the new plot was to be a single piece, not in scattered strips, and the peasant was expected to pass it along to his sons.

Nicholas strongly approved Stolypin's program and, in order to make more land available, proposed that four million acres of the crown lands be sold to the government, which in turn would sell

them on easy terms to the peasants. Although the Tsar needed the consent of the Imperial family to take this step, and both Grand Duke Vladimir and the Dowager Empress opposed him, eventually he had his way. The land was sold and Nicholas waited hopefully for members of the nobility to follow his example. But none did so.

The impact of Stolypin's law was political as well as economic. At a stroke, it created a new class of millions of small peasant landowners whose future was tied to an atmosphere of stability which could be provided only by the Imperial government. As it happened, the most vociferous peasant troublemakers were often the first to claim land, and thus became supporters of law and order. By 1914, nine million Russian peasant families owned their own farms.

At bottom, political success or failure in Russia depended on the crop. For five fruitful years, nature smiled on Peter Stolypin. From 1906 to 1911, Russia was blessed with warm summers, mild winters and steady, gentle rain. Acre for acre, the crops were the best in Russia's history. As food became plentiful, government tax revenues rose; the budget was balanced and even showed a surplus. With the help of large French loans, the railroad network expanded rapidly. Coal and iron mines broke records for production. American firms such as International Harvester and Singer Sewing Machine Company established offices in Russia. In the Duma, the government introduced and passed bills raising the salaries of primary-school teachers and establishing the principle of free primary-school education. Censorship of the press was lifted, and the government became more liberal in the sphere of religious tolerance. "It is all wrong," said Stolypin, explaining these changes to Sir Bernard Pares, "that every proposal of reform should come from the opposition."

Ironically, the fiercest opposition to Stolypin's programs came from the extreme Right and the extreme Left. Reactionaries disliked all reforms which transformed the old, traditional ways. Revolutionaries hated to see any amelioration of a system which bred discontent. For Lenin and his dwindling band of exiles, the Stolypin era was a time of fading hope. Sadly convinced that a "revolutionary situation" no longer existed in Russia, Lenin wandered from library to library through Zurich, Geneva, Berne, Paris, Munich, Vienna and Cracow. Gloomily, he watched the success of Stolypin's land reforms. "If this should continue," he wrote, "it might force us to renounce any agricultural program at all." For some dedicated Marxists, it seemed that the dream was entirely dead; in 1909, Karl Marx's despairing daughter and son-in-law Laura and Paul Lafargue committed suicide. Lenin took

the news with grim approval. "If one cannot work for the Party any longer," he said, "one must be able to look truth in the face and die the way the Lafargues did."

The appearance in May 1906 of the First Imperial Duma was so new, so alien to everything that had gone before in Russia, that neither the Tsar nor the members of the fledgling representative body knew quite how to behave. Everything had to be begun at the beginning and be constructed overnight: constitution, parliament and political parties. Before October 1905, there were no political parties in Russia other than the Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries, both revolutionary parties which had worked underground. Under the circumstances, it was remarkable that two responsible liberal parties sprang up quickly: the Constitutional Democrats or Cadets, led by the historian Paul Miliukov, and the Octobrists, who took their name from their adherence to the 1905 October Manifesto and were led by Alexander Guchkov.

Nevertheless, the gap in understanding between monarch and parliament remained too wide. The Duma was received by the Tsar in the throne room of the Winter Palace. It was not a promising occasion. Masses of police and soldiers waited outside in the palace square. The newly elected deputies, some in evening clothes, others in peasant blouses, stood on one side of the room, staring at the huge crimson-and-gold throne, at the court officials in gold braid, and at the Empress and her ladies in formal court dress. On the other side stood the court and the ministers, among them Count Fredericks. "The deputies," he said. "They give one the impression of a gang of criminals who are only waiting for the signal to throw themselves upon the ministers and cut their throats. What wicked faces! I will never again set foot among those people." Fredericks was not the only one who felt uncomfortable. The Dowager Empress Marie noticed the "incomprehensible hatred" on the deputies' faces. Kokovtsov found himself staring at one of the deputies particularly, "a man of tall stature, dressed in a worker's blouse and high oiled boots, who examined the throne and those about it with a derisive and insolent air." Stolypin, standing near Kokovtsov, whispered to him, "We both seem engrossed in the same spectacle. I even have the feeling that this man might throw a bomb."

The feelings of the Duma were quickly manifested. Scarcely had the 524 members taken their seats in a hall of the Tauride Palace when they formulated a sweepingly aggressive "Address to the Throne."

To Nicholas's horror, it demanded universal suffrage, radical land reform, the release of all political prisoners and the dismissal of ministers appointed by the Tsar in favor of ministers acceptable to the Duma. At Nicholas's command, old Goremykin tottered down to the Duma and, with trembling hands and in a scarcely audible voice, rejected everything the Duma had asked. When Goremykin sat down, there was a moment of complete silence. Then one member leaped to the rostrum and cried, "Let the executive power bow before the legislative." He was greeted by deafening applause. Other speakers followed, each more stinging in his attack on the government. When those ministers who were present rose and attempted to speak, they were shouted down with cries of "Retire! Retire!"

Appalled by these scenes, Nicholas was eager to dissolve the Duma, but he recognized that Goremykin was not the man to ride out the turmoil which would follow dissolution. It was at this point, in July 1906, that Goremykin resigned and Stolypin was appointed. Two days later, Stolypin locked the doors of the Tauride Palace and posted the Imperial decree dissolving the Duma. That afternoon, a number of members took trains across the nearby border into Finland. Meeting in a forest, they declared, "The sessions of the Duma are hereby resumed," and called on the nation to refuse to pay taxes and to send no recruits to the army until the Duma was restored. But this appeal, the famous Vyborg Manifesto, had no effect. Numbed by revolution, Russians were not willing to fight again to preserve their parliament.

Nicholas, disgusted by this experience, would have been happy to end the experiment in representative government. It was Stolypin who insisted that the Tsar's signature on the October Manifesto constituted a solemn promise to the nation which must not be broken. Grudgingly, Nicholas abandoned his plans for eliminating the Duma altogether and gave permission for the election of a Second Duma.

As the Second Duma met for the first time, in February 1907, the ceiling of the hall caved in over their heads. It was an appropriate beginning for a Duma session which, in every way, was worse than the first. The Leftist parties, including the Social Democrats and the Social Revolutionaries, which had boycotted the First Duma, had won two hundred seats in the Second, more than a third of the membership. Determined to defy the government in every way, they turned the Duma into a madhouse of shouts, insults and brawls. At the other extreme, the reactionaries were determined to discredit and abolish the Duma once and for all. Police plots were arranged to incriminate the Leftist members, accusations were hurled, debates became violent and meaningless. At one point, Stolypin stood up amid a torrent of abuse and

thundered, "All your attacks are intended to cause a paralysis of will and thought in the government and the executive; all these attacks can be expressed in two words which you address to authority: 'Hands up!' Gentlemen, to these words the government, confident in its right, answers calmly with two other words: 'Not afraid!' "

Again, Nicholas waited impatiently to rid himself of the Duma. In two letters to Marie, he let his bitterness flow:

"A grotesque deputation is coming from England [to see liberal members of the Duma]. Uncle Bertie informed us that they were very sorry but were unable to take action to stop their coming. Their famous 'liberty,' of course. How angry they would be if a deputation went from us to the Irish to wish them success in their struggle against their government."

A little later he wrote: "All would be well if everything said in the Duma remained within its walls. Every word spoken, however, comes out in the next day's papers which are avidly read by everyone. In many places the populace is getting restive again. They begin to talk about land once more and are waiting to see what the Duma is going to say on the question. I am getting telegrams from everywhere, petitioning me to order a dissolution, but it is too early for that. One has to let them do something manifestly stupid or mean and then— slap! And they are gone!"

Three months later, the moment came. A deputy named Zurabov rose in the Duma and, in insulting and occasionally profane language, accused the army of training its soldiers exclusively for repressing civilians. Zurabov directly appealed to the troops to revolt and join the people in overthrowing the government. This insult to the Russian army was more than enough for Nicholas. He issued a manifesto accusing the Duma of plotting against the sovereign, troops 'were brought into St. Petersburg and the Duma was dissolved. Thirty Social Democratic members were exiled to Siberia and most other Leftist members were placed under police surveillance.

Stolypin followed this dissolution by publishing a new electoral law which abandoned all pretense of universal suffrage and concentrated elective power largely in the hands of the country gentry. As a result, the Third Duma, elected in the autumn of 1907, was a thoroughly conservative body; its membership even included forty-five Orthodox priests. With this carefully tailored representative body, Stolypin generally got along well. He did not share the innate dislike for any legislature expressed by Nicholas and by most of his fellow ministers. In debate in the Duma, Stolypin's great voice allowed him to argue his policies effectively. Nevertheless, when the Duma remained

hostile, Stolypin had no qualms about invoking Article 87 of the Fundamental Laws, which empowered the Tsar to issue "urgent and extraordinary" emergency decrees "during the recess of the State Duma." Stolypin's most famous legislative act, the change in peasant land tenure, was promulgated under Article 87.

Despite its prevailing conservatism, the Third Duma remained an independent body. This time, however, the. members proceeded cautiously. Instead of hurling themselves at the government, opposing parties within the Duma worked to develop the role of the body as a whole. In the classic manner of the British Parliament, the Duma reached for power by grasping for the national purse strings. The Duma had the right to question ministers behind closed doors as to their proposed expenditures. These sessions, endorsed by Stolypin, were educational for both sides, and, in time, mutual antagonism was replaced by mutual respect. Even in the sensitive area of military expenditures, where the October Manifesto clearly had reserved decisions to the throne, a Duma commission began to operate. Composed of aggressive patriots no less anxious than Nicholas to restore the fallen honor of Russian arms, the Duma commission frequently recommended expenditures even larger than those proposed.