Sergei Witte - WikiHQ

Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte (, ; ), also known as Sergius Witte, was a Russian statesman who served as the first prime minister of the Russian Empire, replacing the emperor as head of government. Neither liberal nor conservative, he attracted foreign capital to boost Russia's industrialization. Witte's strategy was to avoid the danger of wars.

Count Witte served under the final two emperors of Russia, Alexander III () and Nicholas II (). During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, he had risen to a position in which he controlled all the traffic passing to the front along the lines of the Odessa Railways. As finance minister from 1892–1903, Witte presided over extensive industrialisation and achieved government monopoly control over an expanded system of railway lines.

Following months of civil unrest and outbreaks of violence in what became known as the 1905 Russian Revolution, Witte framed the October Manifesto and the accompanying government communication to establish constitutional government. However, he was not convinced it would solve Russia's problems with the Tsarist autocracy. On 20 October 1905 Witte was appointed as the first chairman of the Council of Ministers (effectively prime minister). Assisted by his Council, he designed Russia's first constitution. But within a few months Witte fell into disgrace as a reformer because of continuing court opposition to these changes. He resigned  before the First Duma assembled on . Witte was fully confident that he had resolved the main problem: providing political stability to the regime, but according to him, the "peasant problem" would further determine the character of the Duma's activity.

He is widely considered to have been one of the key figures in Russian politics at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Orlando Figes has described Witte as the 'great reforming finance minister of the 1890s', 'one of Nicholas's most enlightened ministers', and as the architect of Russia's new parliamentary order in 1905.

Family and early life

Witte's father, Julius Christoph Heinrich Georg Witte, was from a Lutheran Baltic German family. He converted to Russian Orthodoxy upon his marriage with Yekaterina Fadeyeva. His father was made a member of the knighthood in Pskov but moved as a civil servant to Saratov and Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi, Georgia). Sergei was raised on the estate of his mother's parents. His grandfather was Andrei Mikhailovich Fadeyev, a Governor of Saratov and Privy Councillor of the Caucasus, and his grandmother was Princess Helene Dolgoruki. Sergei had two brothers (Alexander and Boris) and two sisters (Olga and Sophia). Helena Blavatsky, noted as a mystic, was their first cousin. Witte studied at a Tiflis gymnasium, but he took more interest in music, fencing and riding than in academics. He finished Gymnasium I in Kishinev and began studying Physico-Mathematical Sciences at the Novorossiysk University in Odessa in 1866 and graduated at the top of his class in 1870. After completing his studies he devoted some time to journalism in close relations with the Slavophiles and Mikhail Katkov.

Witte had initially planned to pursue a career in academia with the intention of becoming a professor in theoretical mathematics. His relatives took a dim view of that career path, as it was considered unsuitable for a noble or aristocrat at the time. He was instead persuaded by Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Machabelov, Minister of Ways and Communication, to pursue a career in the Russian railroads. At the direction of the count, Witte undertook six months of training in a variety of positions on the Odessa Railways to gain a practical understanding of Russian railways operations. At the end of that period, he was appointed as chief of the traffic office.

After a wreck on the Odessa Railways in late 1875 cost many lives, Witte was arrested and sentenced to four months in prison. However, while he was still contesting the case in court, Witte directed the Odessa Railways and achieved extraordinary efforts towards the transport of troops and war materials in the Russo-Turkish War and attracted the attention of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, who commuted his prison sentence to two weeks. Witte had devised a novel system of double-shift operations in his efforts to overcome delays on the railways.

In 1879, Witte accepted a post in St. Petersburg, where he would meet his future wife. He moved to Kiev the following year. In 1883, he published a paper on "Principles of Railway Tariffs for Cargo Transportation" in which he also discussed social issues and the role of the monarchy. Witte gained popularity in the government. In 1886, he was appointed manager of the privately held Southwestern Railways, based in Kiev, and was noted for increasing its efficiency and profitability. Around then, he met Tsar Alexander III, but he conflicted with the tsar's aides by warning of the danger in their practice of using two powerful freight locomotives to achieve high speeds for the royal train. His warnings were proven in the October 1888 Borki train disaster, Witte was then appointed Director of State Railways.

Political career

thumb|Witte in the 1880s

thumb|Mathilda Witte, picture by [[Karl Bulla]]

Railways

Witte worked in railroad management for 20 years after he had begun as a ticket clerk.

Tsar Alexander III appointed Witte in 1892 as acting Minister of Ways and Communications. Profits were high: over 100 million gold rubles a year to the government (exact amount unknown because of accounting defects).

In 1892 Witte became acquainted with Matilda Ivanovna (Isaakovna) Lisanevich in a theater. Witte began to seek her favour, urging her to divorce her gambling husband and marry him. The marriage was a scandal not only because Matilda was a divorcée but also because she was a converted Jew. That cost Witte many of his connections with the upper nobility, but the tsar protected him.

Minister of Finance

In August 1892, Witte was appointed to the post of Minister of Finance, which he held for the next eleven years, and he nearly doubled the revenues of the empire. In 1899 the Petrograd Polytechnical Institute was founded on his initiative.

In summer 1898, he addressed a memorandum to the Tsar calling for an agricultural conference on the reform of the peasant community. This resulted in three years of talks about laws to abolish collective responsibility and facilitate the resettlement of farmers onto lands on the outskirts of the empire. Many of his ideas were later adopted by Pyotr Stolypin. In 1902 Witte's supporter, Dmitry Sipyagin, the Minister of Home Affairs, was assassinated. In an attempt to keep up the modernization of the Russian economy, Witte called and oversaw the Special Conference on the Needs of the Rural Industry. The conference was to provide recommendations for future reforms and compile the data to justify those reforms. By 1900 the growth in the manufacturing industry had been four times faster than in the preceding five-year period and six times faster than in the decade before that. External trade in industrial goods was equal to that of Belgium. In 1904, the Union of Liberation was formed, which demanded economic and political reform.

Worsening relations with Japan in 1890s

Witte controlled East Asian policy in the 1890s. His goal was peaceful expansion of trade with Japan and China. Japan, with its greatly expanded and modernized military, easily defeated the antiquated Chinese forces in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95). Russia had to confront collaborating with Japan with which relations had been fairly good for some years or acting as protector of China against Japan. Witte chose the second policy, and in 1894, Russia, Germany and France forced Japan to soften the peace terms that it had imposed on China. Japan was forced to cede the Liaodong Peninsula and Port Arthur back to China (both territories were located in south-western Manchuria, a Chinese province).

The new Russian role angered Tokyo, which decided Russia was the main enemy in its quest to control Manchuria, Korea and China. Witte underestimated Japan's growing economic and military power and exaggerated Russia's military prowess. Russia concluded an alliance with China (in 1896 by the Li–Lobanov Treaty), which led in 1898 to Russian occupation and administration (by its own personnel and police) of the entire Liaodong Peninsula. Russia also fortified the ice-free Port Arthur and completed the Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railway, which was to cross northern Manchuria from west to east and link Siberia with Vladivostok. In 1899, the Boxer Rebellion broke out, and the Chinese attacked all foreigners. A large coalition of the major Western powers and Japan sent armed forces to relieve their diplomatic missions in Peking. The Russian government used that as an opportunity to bring a substantial army into Manchuria. As a consequence, by 1900, Manchuria was a fully incorporated outpost of the Russian Empire, and Japan prepared to fight Russia.

Loss of power

Witte, in a memorandum, tried to turn the reports of the zemstvo presidents into a condemnation of the Home Office. In a political conflict on land reform, Vyacheslav von Plehve accused him of being part of a Jewish-Masonic conspiracy. According to Vasily Gurko, Witte had dominated the irresolute tsar, and his opponents decided that was the moment to get rid of him.

Witte was appointed on 16 August 1903 (O.S.) as chairman of the Committee of Ministers, a position he held until October 1905.

Diplomatic career

thumb|upright=1.3|Negotiating the [[Treaty of Portsmouth (1905) – from left to right: the Russians at far side of table are Korostovetz, Nabokov, Witte, Rosen, Plancon; and the Japanese at near side of table are Adachi, Ochiai, Komura, Takahira, Satō. The large conference table is today preserved at the Museum Meiji Mura in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.]]

Witte was brought back into the governmental decision-making process to help deal with growing civil unrest. Confronted with increasing opposition and, after consulting with Witte and Prince Sviatopolk-Mirsky, the tsar issued a reform ukase on December 25, 1904 with vague promises. After the Bloody Sunday riots of 1905, Witte supplied 500 rubles, the equivalent of 250 dollars, to Father Gapon in order for the leader of the demonstration to leave the country. Witte recommended that the government issue a manifesto related to the people's demands. Schemes of reform would be elaborated by Ivan Goremykin and a committee consisting of elected representatives of the zemstva and municipal councils under the presidency of Witte. On 3 March the tsar condemned the revolutionaries. The government issued a strongly worded prohibition of any further agitation in favor of a constitution. By spring a new political system was beginning to form in Russia. A petition campaign was conducted seeking a wide variety of proposed changes, such as ending the war with Japan, which lasted from February to July 1905. In June mutiny broke out on the Russian battleship Potemkin.

The tsar called upon Witte to negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese War. The peace talks were held in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Witte is credited with negotiating brilliantly on Russia's behalf during the Treaty of Portsmouth discussions. Russia lost little in the final settlement.

After that diplomatic success, Witte wrote to the tsar stressing the urgent need for political reforms at home. He was dissatisfied with proposals by Alexander Bulygin, the successor of Sviatopolk-Mirsky. Even figures like Mikhail Osipovich Menshikov and Vladimir Meshchersky agreed. A 6 August (O.S.) manifesto created a Duma as a consultative body only. Elections of its representatives would not be direct but be held in four stages, and qualifications for class and property would exclude much of the intelligentsia and all of the working classes from suffrage. The proposal was greeted by numerous protests and strikes across the country, which became known as the Russian Revolution of 1905.

1905 Revolution and Chairman of the Council of Ministers

thumb|Prince Alexey D. Obolensky

Witte described the regime's usual "incompetence and obstinacy" in response to the crisis of 1904–1905 as a "mixture of cowardice, blindness and stupidity".

On 8 January 1905, Witte and Sviatopolk-Mirsky had been approached by a delegation of intellectuals led by Maxim Gorky, who begged them to negotiate with demonstrators. After the government's postings of warnings of 'resolute measures' against street gatherings led by Father Gapon, they worried about violent confrontation, which did take place. They were unsuccessful as the government had believed they could control Fr. Gapon. Leaving his visiting cards with Witte and Mirsky, Gorky was arrested, along with the other members of the deputations.

In later 1905 Witte was approached by the tsar's advisers, in an effort to save the country from complete collapse, and on 9 October 1905, he went to the Winter Palace for a meeting. Here he told the tsar 'with brutal frankness' that the country was on the verge of a catastrophic revolution, which he said 'would sweep away a thousand years of history'. He presented the tsar with two choices: either appoint a military dictator, or agree to broad and major reforms. In a memorandum arguing for a manifesto, Witte outlined the reforms needed to appease the masses.

thumb|Witte by [[Ilya Repin in 1903]]

He argued for the following reforms: creation of a legislative parliament (Imperial Duma) elected via a democratic franchise; granting of civil liberties; establishing a cabinet government and a 'constitutional order'. Those demands, which basically comprised the political programme of the Liberation Movement, were an attempt to isolate the political Left by pacifying the liberals.

In October Witte was charged with the task of assembling the nation's first cabinet government, and he offered the liberals several portfolios: Ministry of Agriculture to Ivan Shipov; Ministry of Trade and Industry to Alexander Guchkov; Ministry of Justice to Anatoly Koni and the Ministry of Education to Evgenii Troubetzkoy. Pavel Milyukov and Prince Georgy Lvov were also offered ministerial posts. None of those liberals agreed to join the government, though. Witte had to form his cabinet from 'tsarist bureaucrats and appointees lacking public confidence'. The Kadets doubted that Witte could deliver on the promises made by the tsar in October, knowing the tsar's staunch opposition to reform.

Witte argued that the Tsarist regime could be saved from a revolution only by the transformation of Russia to a 'modern industrial society', in which 'personal and public initiatives' were encouraged by a rechtsstaat who guaranteed civil liberties. Witte believed that anti-Semitism was 'considered fashionable' among the elite. In the aftermath of the Kishinev pogrom in 1903, Witte had said that if Jews 'comprise about fifty percent of the membership in the revolutionary parties', it was 'the fault of our government. The Jews are too oppressed'.

Milyukov once confronted Witte to ask why he would not commit himself to a constitution. Witte replied that he could not 'because the Tsar does not wish it'. Witte was worried that the court was only using him, as had emerged in talks with members of the Kadet Party. He was replaced by Prince Alexey D. Obolensky. Trepov and Alexander Bulygin were dismissed and, after many discussions, Pyotr Nikolayevich Durnovo was appointed as Minister of Interior on 1 January 1906; his appointment is considered one of the greatest errors Witte made during his administration.

According to Harold Williams: "That government was almost paralyzed from the beginning. Witte acted immediately by urging the release of political prisoners and the lifting of censorship laws." Alexander Guchkov and Dmitry Shipov refused to work with the reactionary Durnovo and to support the government. On 26 October (O.S.), the tsar appointed Trepov as Master of the Palace without consulting Witte, and had daily contact with the emperor; his influence at court was paramount.  "In addition mass violence broke out in the days following the issuance of the October Manifesto. The major source of the unrest was unrelated to the October Manifesto. It took the form of attacks by gangs in the cities on the Jews. In general, the authorities ignored the attacks. On 10 November, Russian Poland was placed under martial law.

Witte's position was not well established. The Liberals remained obdurate and refused to be cajoled. The All-Russian Peasant Union asked the Russian people to refuse to make redemption payments to the government and withdraw their deposits from banks that might be subject to government action. He promised an eight-hour working day and tried to secure vital loans from France to keep the government from bankruptcy.</blockquote>On 24 November by Imperial decree provisional regulations on the censorship of magazines and newspaper was released.

thumb|Witte's mansion on [[Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt in St Petersburg between 1903-1915]]

On 16 December Trotsky and the rest of the executive committee of the St. Petersburg Soviet were arrested.

In 1906, Father Gapon returned to Russia from exile and supported Witte's government. On 30 April 1905 Witte proposed the Law of Religious Toleration, followed by the edict of 30 October 1906 giving legal status to schismatics and sectarians of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), the established state church. Witte argued that ending discrimination against religious rivals of the Orthodox Church 'would not harm the church, provided it embraced the reforms that would revive its religious life'. Although the Church's 'senior hierarchs' may for some time have played with the thought of self-government, Witte's demand that it would come at the cost of religious toleration 'guaranteed to drive them back into the arms of reaction'. Witte had made that demand (self-government in exchange for religious toleration) in the hope of 'wooing' the important commercial groups of the ethnic minorities of Jewish and Old Believer communities. During the winter season, Witte lived in Biarritz and started writing his Memoirs, but he returned to St Petersburg in 1908.

During the July Crisis in 1914, Grigori Rasputin, and Witte desperately urged the Tsar to avoid the conflict and warned that Europe faced calamity if Russia became involved. The advice went unheeded. French Ambassador Maurice Paléologue complained to Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Sazonov.

Death

thumb|Witte's grave in Lazarev Cemetery, St. Petersburg

Witte died in February 1915 at his home in St. Petersburg; his quick death was attributed to meningitis or a brain tumor. His third-class funeral was held at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. On the black granite slab, in addition to the usual dates of birth and death, another date was carved: 17 October 1905, the date he presented the Manifesto. Witte had no children, but he had adopted his wife's by her first marriage. According to Edvard Radzinsky, Witte asked in vain for the title of Count to be given to his grandson, L. K. Naryshkin (1905–1963).

Witte's reputation was burnished in the West after his secret memoirs were published in translation in 1921. They had been completed in 1912 and kept in a bank in Bayonne, France. He had left orders that they could not be published during the lifetimes of him and his contemporaries. The ambassador in France, Vasily Maklakov, received them from his widow. The original manuscript of his memoirs are now held in Columbia University Library's Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European History and Culture.

Knight of St. Stanislaus, 1st Class, 1890
Knight of St. Anna, 1st Class, 1894
Commemorative Medal of the Reign of Emperor Alexander III, 1896
Emperor Nicholas II Coronation Medal, 1896
Medal "For Works on the First General Population Census", 1897
Knight of the White Eagle, 1904
Knight of St. Alexander Nevsky, in Diamonds, 1906
Red Cross Medal "In Commemoration of the Russo-Japanese War", 1906
Commemorative Medal of the Romanov Tricentenary, 1913
Knight of St. Vladimir, 1st Class, 1913

;Foreign orders and decorations

:
Grand Cross of the Red Eagle, 1894; with Collar, 1905
Knight of the Prussian Crown, 1st Class, 1896
Knight of the Black Eagle, July 1897
: Grand Cross of the Imperial Order of Leopold, 1894; in Diamonds, 1897
:
Grand Cross of the Cross of Takovo, 1894
Grand Cross of the White Eagle, 1901
: Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold, 1894
: Grand Cross of the Dannebrog, 6 April 1895
: Order of the Double Dragon, Class I Grade III, 1896
: Grand Cross of the Star of Ethiopia, 1896
Kingdom of Greece: Officer of the Redeemer, 1896; Grand Cross, 1898
Sweden-Norway: Commander Grand Cross of the Order of Vasa, 1897
: Grand Cross of St. Alexander, 1898
: Grand Cross of the Star of Romania, 1898
Persian Empire:
Order of the Lion and the Sun, 1st Class in Diamonds, 1900
Order of the August Portrait, in Diamonds, 1900
: Grand Cross of the Military Order of Christ, 1900
: Order of Osmanieh, 1st Class in Diamonds, 1901

Popular culture depictions

Witte was portrayed in the 1908 film The Big Man (lost) based on the satirical play with the same name. The play enjoyed a considerable success.
1908 play: «Вожди» by Alexander Yuzhin
He was portrayed by Laurence Olivier in the film Nicholas and Alexandra (1971).
He was portrayed by Freddie Jones in the British BBC series Fall of Eagles (1974).

Footnotes

References

Bibliography

Ananich, B. V. and S. A. Lebedev, "Sergei Witte and the Russo-Japanese War." International Journal of Korean History 7.1 (2005): 109-131. Online
Boublikoff, A. A. "A suggestion for railroad reform". In: Buehler, E.C. (editor) "Government ownership of railroads", Annual Debater's Help Book (vol. VI), New York, Noble and Noble, 1939; pp. 309–318. Original in journal North American Review, vol. 237, pp. 346+. (This issue is 90% about Russian railways.)
Davis, Richard Harding, and Alfred Thayer Mahan. (1905). The Russo-Japanese war; a photographic and descriptive review of the great conflict in the Far East, gathered from the reports, records, cable despatches, photographs, etc., etc., of Collier's war correspondents New York: P. F. Collier & Son. OCLC: 21581015
Harcave, Sidney. (2004). Count Sergei Witte and the Twilight of Imperial Russia: A Biography. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe.
Kochan, Lionel. "Sergei Witte: The Last Statesman of Imperial Russia" History Today (Feb 1968), Vol. 18 Issue 2, pp 102–108, online.
Kokovtsov, Vladimir (1935). Out of My Past (translator, Laura Matveev). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Korostovetz, J. J. (1920). Pre-War Diplomacy The Russo-Japanese Problem. London: British Periodicals Limited.
Theodore H. von Laue (1963) Sergei Witte and the Industrialization of Russia
Witte, Sergei. (1921). The Memoirs of Count Witte (translator, Abraham Yarmolinsky). New York: Doubleday. online free

External links

Portsmouth Peace Treaty, 1905-2005
Memoirs of Count Witte, 1921 English translation, available in full online at Internet Archive
The Museum Meiji Mura—peace treaty table on display