The name of Stolypin is associated with a number of transformations that have changed the life of our country. These are the agrarian reform, the strengthening of the Russian army and navy, the development of Siberia and the settlement of the vast eastern part. Russian Empire. Stolypin considered his most important tasks to be the fight against separatism and the revolutionary movement that was corroding Russia. The methods used to accomplish these tasks were often cruel and uncompromising in nature (“Stolypin's tie”, “Stolypin's wagon”).

Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin was born in 1862 into a hereditary noble family. His father Arkady Dmitrievich was a military man, so the family had to move many times: 1869 - Moscow, 1874 - Vilna, and in 1879 - Orel. In 1881, after graduating from the gymnasium, Pyotr Stolypin entered the natural department of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of St. Petersburg University. Stolypin the student was distinguished by zeal and diligence, and his knowledge was so deep that even with the great Russian chemist D.I. Mendeleev during the exam, he managed to start a theoretical dispute that went far beyond the curriculum. Stolypin was interested in the economic development of Russia and in 1884 he prepared a dissertation on tobacco crops in southern Russia.

From 1889 to 1902, Stolypin was the district marshal of the nobility in Kovno, where he was actively involved in enlightenment and education of the peasants, as well as organizing the improvement of their economic life. During this time, Stolypin received the necessary knowledge and experience in the management of agriculture. The energetic actions of the marshal of the district nobility are noticed by the Minister of Internal Affairs V.K. Plehve. Stolypin becomes governor in Grodno.

In his new position, Pyotr Arkadyevich contributes to the development of farming and raising the educational level of the peasantry. Many contemporaries did not understand the aspirations of the governor and even condemned him. The elite was especially irritated by Stolypin's tolerant attitude towards the Jewish diaspora.

In 1903, Stolypin was transferred to the Saratov province. Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905 he took it extremely negatively, emphasizing the unwillingness of the Russian soldier to fight in a foreign land for interests alien to him. The riots that began in 1905, which grew into the revolution of 1905-1907, Stolypin meets openly and boldly. He speaks to the protesters without fear of falling victim to the crowd, harshly suppresses speeches and illegal actions on the part of any political force. The vigorous activity of the Saratov governor attracted the attention of Emperor Nicholas II, who in 1906 appointed Stolypin the Minister of the Interior of the Empire, and after the dissolution of the First State Duma, the Prime Minister.

The appointment of Stolypin was directly related to the decrease in the number of terrorist acts and criminal activity. Harsh measures were taken. Instead of little effective military courts, which tried cases of crimes against the state order, on March 17, 1907, courts-martial were introduced. They considered cases within 48 hours, and the sentence was carried out in less than a day after its announcement. As a result, the wave of the revolutionary movement subsided, and stability was restored in the country.

Stolypin spoke as unambiguously as he acted. His expressions have become classic. “They need great upheavals, we need a great Russia!” "For persons in power, there is no greater sin than the cowardly evasion of responsibility." “Peoples sometimes forget about their national tasks; but such peoples perish, they turn into land, into fertilizer, on which other, stronger peoples grow and grow stronger. "Give the State twenty years of peace, internal and external, and you will not recognize today's Russia."

However, Stolypin's views on certain issues, especially in the field of national politics, provoked criticism, both from the “right” and from the “left”. From 1905 to 1911, 11 attempts were made on Stolypin. In 1911, the anarchist terrorist Dmitry Bogrov shot Stolypin twice in the Kiev theater, the wounds were fatal. The murder of Stolypin caused a wide reaction, national contradictions escalated, the country lost a man who sincerely and devotedly served not his personal interests, but the whole society and the whole state.

Pyotr Stolypin became the youngest prime minister of the Russian Empire. The last major transformations in the country are associated with his name. Among them - agrarian reform, the development of Siberia and the settlement of the eastern part of the country. All the years in the public service, Stolypin fought against separatism and the revolutionary movement.

The brilliant career of official Stolypin

Pyotr Stolypin was born into a noble family in Germany. His father was in the military, so the family had to move frequently. The boy spent his early childhood in the estate of Serednikovo in the Moscow province, then the family moved to a small estate in Lithuania. Pyotr Stolypin received his primary education at home, at the age of 12 he entered the second grade of the Vilna gymnasium. Here he studied for five years, until in 1879 his father was transferred to Orel. The young man entered the seventh grade of the Oryol male gymnasium.

After graduating from high school in 1881, Pyotr Stolypin, contrary to noble tradition, chose not to military service, and entered the Physics and Mathematics Department of St. Petersburg University. The young man studied diligently, therefore, at the end of his studies, the Council of St. Petersburg University approved him as a "candidate of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics." In addition, Stolypin received the rank of collegiate secretary, which corresponded to class X in the Table of Ranks, although usually graduates graduated from the university with the rank of XIV and very rarely XII class.

While still a student, Pyotr Stolypin entered the service of the Ministry of the Interior. But the young official was more interested in agriculture and land management of the Russian Empire, so in 1886, at the request of Stolypin, he was transferred to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Industry of the Ministry of State Property. Two years later, he received the title of chamber junker of the Court of His Imperial Majesty, which corresponded to the V class according to the Table of Ranks. Thus, in just three years, Stolypin rose five ranks up the Table - an unprecedented achievement in such a short period.

Pyotr Stolypin. Photo: khazin.ru

Pyotr Stolypin. Photo: m1r.su

In 1889, Stolypin returned to serve in the Ministry of the Interior. First, he was appointed the Kovno district marshal of the nobility and the Chairman of the Kovno congress of peace mediators, and in 1899 - the Kovno provincial marshal of the nobility. In total, Stolypin served in the Lithuanian Kovno for 13 years - from 1889 to 1902. He paid special attention agriculture: studied advanced technologies, purchased new varieties of grain crops, bred breeding trotters. The productivity of peasant farms increased, and they themselves became better off.

The work of Stolypin was marked by the state with new ranks and awards. He received more and more titles, titles and orders, and in 1901 he became a state councilor. A year later, Minister of the Interior Vyacheslav von Plehve appointed Stolypin governor of Grodno. First of all, Pyotr Stolypin liquidated the rebel societies in the province. Then he began to develop farming: he bought modern agricultural implements and artificial fertilizers. The governor paid attention to the education of the peasants: he opened vocational schools and special women's gymnasiums. Many landowning nobles denounced his reforms and believed that “education should be available to the wealthy classes, but not to the masses…”. To which Stolypin replied: "The education of the people, rightly and wisely set up, will never lead to anarchy".

Soon Stolypin was appointed governor of the Saratov province. When he took office, the first revolution swept the country. Saratov province turned out to be one of the most radical ones: one of the centers of the revolutionary underground was located here. Workers' strikes began in the cities, and peasant riots began in the villages. The governor personally reassured the protesters and spoke to crowds of rioters. The revolutionaries began to pursue him.

(April 2 (14), 1862, Dresden - September 5 (September 18), 1911, Kyiv) - a great Russian reformer, a selfless patriot, according to A. I. Solzhenitsyn, - the most prominent figure in Russian history of the 20th century. P. A. Stolypin came to the forefront of Russian politics during the years of the revolution of 1905-1907. and managed to keep the country on the very edge of the abyss, averting the Troubles of 1917 for ten years. freed the Russian peasantry from communal shackles and marked the end of the great liberation of 1861. During Stolypin's premiership, Russia experienced an unprecedented material upsurge. Thanks to his encouraging measures, the broadest one unfolded: as many people moved there as in the previous 300 years from Yermak. In his last years, the ingenious politician outlined with the aim of not social, but administrative transformation, but died in Kyiv from the bullet of the Jewish terrorist Bogrov.

From childhood, in Serednikov, near Moscow, Pyotr Stolypin's main thing in life began: how best to arrange a Russian peasant on Russian soil. Although by origin he seemed to be far from the people: the son of the adjutant general, the great-grandson of the senator, and related to Lermontov. All his life Stolypin clearly understood: there is no Russia outside the earth.

Russian community

But in a sudden counter-blow to the First Duma, the unknown Stolypin came forward, indecently young for a Russian minister, portly, prominent, thick-voiced, in eloquence not inferior to the best orators of the opposition. Deputy roar: "resign!" – he withstood with defiant calmness. Stolypin urged the members of the Duma to work patiently for the motherland, but they only gathered to shout - to revolt! The revolt was already weakening in the towns, but the Duma now hoped to stir it up in the countryside: to awaken the peasantry by calling for the seizure of the landowners' lands. Stolypin countered the parliamentary agitation with his own plan for the reform of the community. Whether or not this transformation succeeded now depended on the fate of the revolution.

Stolypin insisted before the First Duma that Russia would not get rich from any redistribution, but only the best farms would be destroyed. He expounded statistics previously unknown to the peasants, not explained to them by any of the liberals, statistics: state-owned land in the country is 140 million acres, but this is mostly tundra and desert. Peasant land - 160 million acres, and noble - 53, three times less, and even under the forests most of it, so that, and stripped to the shreds, - the peasants cannot be enriched. Land should not be missed from each other, but one should plow one's own differently: learn to take from the tithe not 35 poods, but 80 and 100, as in the best farms. Stolypin said:

It is necessary to give an opportunity to a capable hardworking peasant, the salt of the Russian land, to free himself from the current vice, to save him from the bondage of an obsolete communal system, to give him power over the earth ...

... The absence of the peasants of their own land undermines their respect for any other people's property.

And the socialists and with them Cadets from their own species defended the community. At the end of June 1906 the government addressed the population, explaining its line. At the beginning of July, the First Duma decided in response: to appeal directly to the population, past the government, that the Duma members would never deviate from the principle of forcible expropriation of private lands! It was a direct call: men, take away the land, kill the owners, start a black redistribution!

Confusion reigned in the close circle of the Sovereign. The dissolution of the Duma was terribly feared there. The “representatives of the people” are demanding that the land be taken away from the landlords – but maybe this should be done? Negotiations were held with the leaders of the Duma Cadets - and they willingly agreed to take power, but on the condition that their program be fully implemented. Head of the government, Goremykin, due to old age, wanted to transfer his post to another - and indicated Stolypin as the best candidate. Stolypin's program of drastic measures clashed with the good-hearted program of another candidate for premier Dmitry Shipov. An honored zemstvo, a purest moral person, he was sure that the people are good, but we do not know how to let their fate flourish. Shipov objected to the dissolution of the Duma. Not liking the Cadets, he nevertheless believed that, given their majority in the House, they should be given power. Let the Duma make mistakes! The sooner the population realizes them and corrects the composition of the Duma at the next elections. Stolypin objected: even before such a realization, the whole country would fall apart. Shipov blamed him for his lack of a moral outlook. At the very beginning of July 1906, consultations were held with the Sovereign in Peterhof on these issues. Stolypin's arguments prevailed, and he was appointed the new prime minister, just two months after he became minister.

October 17 Manifesto and its impact on Russian statehood

Prior to this, in the fall of 1905, Stolypin was amazed at the suddenness of the October 17 Manifesto, published in a hurry, to the complete confusion of the authorities and to the delight of the intelligentsia public. With one oblique blow, he turned the entire historical course of the thousand-year-old ship. The manifesto did not contain a single ready-made law, but only a heap of promises, first of all - freedom of speech, assembly, unions, expansion of the suffrage and the introduction of legislative representation instead of the previously planned legislative ("Bulygin") representation ("Establish unshakably so that no law could accept force without the approval of the State Duma”). The rules for elections in this representation came only two months later than the Manifesto - and again poorly thought out, confusing: not universal suffrage, and not class, and not qualification, but they even fawned over the workers, giving them guaranteed seats in the Duma. As if a brightly independent Russia could not discover anything more suitable for itself than several cramped European countries with a completely different history have developed!

In the villages, the elections were almost universal, but for the sake of apparent simplicity there were no provision for county electoral meetings, from where the electors, having got to know each other, would send persons well-known locally to the province. Instead, the electors from the uyezd curias went straight to the provincial assembly, drowned there in an unfamiliar crowd, and the educated, eloquent, educated Cadets easily escorted their proteges instead of the peasants. Thus, Russia was not represented in the parliament by its true representatives. In the Duma, there were not 82% of peasants, as in the country itself. However, the authorities were also afraid of the predominance of the peasants in parliament: they considered them a dark mass.

The Manifesto of October 17, which was then incorporated into the frame of the constitution of April 23, 1906 (called the "Basic Laws" so as not to tease the Sovereign's ear), only threw open the gates of the revolution more strongly. But it was risky to cancel it, and Stolypin now had to learn to rule Russia without deviating from constitutional principles. Enemies rallied against him on two wings at once: the extreme right, who wanted to tear up the Manifesto and return to uncontrolled government, and, in Russian, immoderate liberals. Both those and others wanted not to move the ship, but to fill it up on its side and crush the opponents. Instead of the former "land and freedom", the slogan of the revolution has now become: " all earth and all will”, insisting that from the will the Manifesto threw only shreds, and the earth will be decisively taken away all leaving no shred to anyone.

Stolypin and the revolution

The unbridled press openly published revolutionary appeals and materials from illegal conferences. The intellectuals sheltered the Soviet of Workers' Deputies in private apartments and printed its destructive appeals. Weapons, anti-government printing houses, bureaus of revolutionary organizations were buried in educational institutions, and attempts to search them were branded not only by students, but also by professors as a brazen encroachment on freedom. The courts acquitted severe criminal-revolutionary murderers or delivered strangely mild sentences to them. The local authorities were frightened by terror, some of their representatives joined the revolution. The police were also seized with horror - after all, it was the easiest way to encroach on policemen. Agitators roused the peasants to plunder neighboring factories and estates. With the immensity of Russia, it was almost impossible to deal with the many unrest that took place at the same time. Many civilian commanders, having received troops at their disposal, first of all took care to single out personal protection from them for themselves - even with artillery!

The revolutionary ferment spread to the military units. Agitators came directly to the barracks and handed out newspapers, which openly wrote that Russia was ruled by a gang of robbers. The army command showed impotence no less than the civilian one, they were afraid to interfere with soldiers' gatherings, where, under the influence of alien propagandists, they declared: "this is not an improvement in allowance if half a pound of meat was added a day!".

The front legs of the horses of the Russian chariot were already floating over the abyss. In the very days of the Peterhof consultations, terrorists killed one admiral in Sevastopol and one general in Peterhof itself (confused with Dmitry Trepov).

And under the influence of Stolypin, on July 8, 1906, the tsar issued a manifesto on the dissolution of the First Duma. Even Trepov was afraid of him, but Stolypin showed composure. The text of the manifesto said:

May peace be restored in the Russian land, and may the Almighty help us to realize chief from Our royal labors - raising the welfare of the peasantry... The Russian plowman, without prejudice to someone else's property, will receive, where there is land tightness, a legal and honest way to expand his land ownership.

In the St. Petersburg province, Stolypin introduced the position of emergency protection. But instead of the expected call for revolution, it was as if the air from a punctured balloon was emitted - a powerless Vyborg Appeal. Although, besides him, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Social Democrats published in St. Petersburg on July 12 a Manifesto to the Army and Navy, where they falsely assured that the government entered into negotiations with the Austrian and German emperors in order to suppress the revolution with their help. The socialists accused the authorities of treason and called on soldiers and sailors "to fight for land and freedom."

Socialist messengers rushed between Sevastopol, Kronstadt and Sveaborg (the main sea fortress on the islands near Helsingfors itself). Their plan was: after the harvest, to ignite rural uprisings, the troops will rush there, and the advanced fortresses will rise here. They thought to make Finland the center of the military rebellion, where Russian laws were almost no longer in force. Staff Captain Zion called on the deputies of the dissolved Duma to assemble "under the protection of the cannons of Sveaborg." There were incessant rallies in Helsingfors, armed revolutionary detachments openly marched through the streets. The legal Social-Democratic "Bulletin of the Barracks" called for an uprising against the "all-Russian executioner."

It is not known why Alexander I annexed Finland to Russia. The tsars recognized its constitution 100 years earlier than the Russian one; gave her a parliament 60 years earlier than ours; released from military service; gave the Finns generous privileges on the territory of the Empire; the monetary system was arranged in such a way that the Finns lived at the expense of Russia. Two weakened borders - Finnish-Swedish and Finnish-Russian - opened an easy passage from Europe to the revolutionaries. Finland became a more reliable refuge for Russian revolutionaries than neighboring European states: from there, under agreements with Russia, they could be extradited, while the Finnish police did not follow them, and the Russian could not have agents in Finland. Finland became a revolutionary hive 25 versts from the capital of Russia, where terror was being prepared for St. Petersburg. With the beginning of the revolution, under the guise of a peaceful class organization, the Finnish "Red Guard" was allowed. She openly conducted military exercises throughout Finland, attacked the gendarmes.

July 17, 1906 broke out wild Sveaborg mutiny. All three days it flowed in a battle between the rebel artillerymen and the non-rebellious infantry. The revolutionaries were forced to join the rebellion under the threat of death, the officers were arrested or killed. In mutual cannonade and in the explosion of powder magazines, which were not managed without officers, several hundred Russian soldiers died. On the last night, the leader of the uprising, Zion, fled, leaving those deceived by him to be punished. And in all of Finland, the Russian authorities did not find troops to suppress, this was done only - with a new shelling - by the incoming fleet. On the third day, Kronstadt also rebelled, but after 6 hours it was pacified. The Finnish Red Guard, which blew up the bridges between Helsingfors and St. Petersburg, brought down telegraph poles and was taken with weapons on the territory rebellious fortress, according to local laws it was impossible to bring to court! And only Russians were judged.

It was against this violence that Stolypin intended to give a courageous fight. The revolutionaries seized the printing presses, printed calls for a general uprising and massacres, and proclaimed the local regional republics. Pyotr Arkadyevich was going to act against them severely, but within the framework of strict legality.

However, the king hesitated. The adoption of decisive measures accelerated only the attempt on Stolypin - the famous explosion on August 12, 1906 on Aptekarsky Island where the state dacha of the head of government was located. The victims of this explosion were 32 seriously injured and 27 killed! (Most of them were strangers; a petitioner with a baby was also killed. The corpses lay in crooked positions, without heads, arms, legs.) Half the house was blown apart. The three-year-old only son of Stolypin and one of the daughters were thrown from the balcony through the fence far to the embankment. The boy's leg was broken, the girl was run over by horses. The revolutionaries themselves were also torn to shreds. But Stolypin's office turned out to be the only room not affected at all. In it, only a large inkwell flew into the air, flooding the prime minister with ink. The Stolypin family was transported by boat to the Winter Palace. The boat sailed under the bridges, where the revolutionaries were walking with red flags. Stolypin's eight-year-old daughter began to hide from them under a bench, while her father told her and others: "When they shoot at us, children, you can't hide."

The prime minister's dacha after the explosion on Aptekarsky Island

Following this, the law on military field courts, which was then in force for 8 months, was adopted. They were used only in cases especially grave robberies, murders and attacks on the police, authorities and citizens and should have brought the case and the verdict closer to the moment and place of the crime. The glorification of terror and anti-government propaganda in the army was criminalized.

Although the death penalty, by law, applied only to bombers, and could not be applied even to convicted bomb makers, "society" raised a whole storm against courts-martial. Leo Tolstoy also protested against them. The leader was poisoned Octobrists Alexandra Guchkova who dared to support those courts. And terror after their introduction immediately weakened.

During these months, Premier Stolypin had to live under strict guard in the Winter Palace, with only the palace roof left for walking. And the emperor, just as secretly, was hiding for the second year in a small estate in Peterhof, not daring to show himself anywhere in public. It looked like Russia was in the hands of the revolutionaries.

In Russia, until now, for some reason, reforms meant the weakening and even death of power, and harsh measures of order meant the rejection of reforms. But Stolypin clearly saw the combination of both! He was well aware now that the Duma talkers, almost legendary when viewed from the provinces, were in fact neither strength nor reason, they could well be resisted. The only tragic thing was the absence of a firm will from the Sovereign. Bismarck's path - to unrestrainedly force the will of the monarch in the interests of the monarchy - Stolypin did not accept. But Nicholas II needed a force that would do everything for him, and this could be used. Stolypin never departed from outwardly respectful treatment of the Sovereign and so often inspired him with useful thoughts, which the Tsar then began to take for his own.

Stolypin loved lonely walks and suffocated without them in the palace. The guards began to plan with strict secrecy: through which door to take him out, along which route and which outskirts to follow, so that the prime minister could walk a little. Stolypin also went to reports to the tsar. But the revolutionaries did not stop trying to assassinate him. First, through acquaintances of the eldest daughter, the students were framed into the family by the teacher of the terrorist's younger daughters, but he was exposed. Then they brought the terrorist into the guards of the Winter Palace. Once he was on guard just at the entrance through which Stolypin came out, but out of surprise he slowed down to fire, and was later opened. There were other assassination attempts as well. During the year, attempts were suppressed: the Dobrzhinsky group, the “flying detachment” of Rosa Rabinovich and Leya Lapina, the “flying detachment” of Trauberg, the Strogalshchikov group, the Feiga Elkina group and the Leiba Lieberman group. Every day, leaving the house, Pyotr Arkadyevich mentally said goodbye to his family.

Stolypin's land reform

No healthy development of Russia could be decided otherwise than through the countryside. Stolypin's main idea was: it is impossible to create a state of law without first having an independent citizen, and such a citizen in Russia is a peasant. “First a citizen - then citizenship,” said Pyotr Arkadyevich. The abstract right to freedom without the true freedom of the peasantry is "a blush on a corpse." (AND Witte believed that any constitution should be preceded by the emancipation of the peasants, but Witte himself, with a nervous twitch, introduced the constitution before the time - and now Stolypin got to free the peasants after it).

On the day of the explosion on Aptekarsky Island, in spite of the friendly family resistance of the grand dukes, the tsar signed a decree proposed by Stolypin on the gratuitous assignment to the peasants of part of the state, appanage, cabinet lands (9 million acres immediately). The sale of reserved and major lands was facilitated. Improved conditions for peasant credit. But the main of Stolypin's agrarian reforms was the law on freedom of exit from the community. “It is unbearable for an owner with the initiative to apply his best inclinations to temporary land. Constant redistributions give rise to carelessness and indifference in the farmer. Equalized fields are devastated fields. With egalitarian land use, the level of the whole country is lowered, ”said Pyotr Arkadyevich.

The right half of the Duma protested noisily. Rodichev was almost thrown off the podium, he barely managed to retreat into the Catherine's Hall. Stolypin left the ministerial box in anger. Rodichev in Ekaterininsky received a challenge from the prime minister to a duel. Stolypin said that he did not want to stay with his children with the nickname hangman. The prime minister, a 45-year-old father of six, did not hesitate to put his life on the line. The 53-year-old Tver deputy was not ready for such a turn. The rumpled Rodichev had to trudge to the ministerial Duma pavilion during the same break to ask Stolypin for an apology. Stolypin contemptuously measured Rodichev: "I forgive you," and did not shake hands. The Duma gave the prime minister, who returned to the hall, an ovation, and Rodichev had to take back his words from the rostrum, ask Stolypin for an apology - and be expelled for fifteen meetings. (Nevertheless, the expression "Stolypin's tie" came into use for a long time.)

That winter the Stolypin family again spent in the Winter Palace. The terrorists were preparing more and more assassination attempts. There was even an attempt to kill the prime minister right in the Duma: the Socialist-Revolutionary was supposed to shoot from the journalistic box with the passport of an Italian correspondent. Feeling danger from all sides, Stolypin bequeathed to bury him where he would be killed.

A calmer Third Duma gave hope for reconciliation between the authorities and the moderate public. Stolypin was supported in it by Guchkov and his Octobrist party, who prevailed here over the Cadets and the Rights. But this support was not unconditional, and the Octobrists often criticized the government. Invariably, only Russian nationalists were on the side of Stolypin. At the beginning of 1908, the issue of building four ironclads was raised in the chamber. After Tsushima Russia did not have a fleet, but scattered ships. It was necessary to begin the restoration of naval forces. But Guchkov and his supporters demanded first to reform the naval department responsible for the defeat of the Japanese campaign. After the war of 1904-1905, the necessary investigation was not carried out in this department. The mediocre Admiral Alekseev received an honorary appointment as a member of the State Council. The Octobrist majority of the Third Duma refused credits before the clearing of the naval command.

To look deeply, the Duma members were right. But it would take a lot of time to fight the court circles that interfered with the reforms of the fleet, and Russia's external enemies did not wait. And Stolypin opposed the Octobrists on this issue. He made speeches at three meetings - the Duma Commission, the Duma, the State Council - each time against the hostile approval of the loans of the majority. He urged that “if a high school student fails in an exam, he cannot be punished by taking away his textbooks” - but in vain. And soon the Duma refused him appropriations for the construction of the Amur railway, considering such a waste unbearable for a weakened country.

In other cases, Stolypin was able to convince the Third Duma, but not in these. But he used the Duma breaks and carried out his own according to Article 87, and then the Duma did not dare to stop the construction of battleships and the Amur road that had begun. According to the same article, Pyotr Arkadyevich passed laws on Old Believer communities and on the transition from one religion to another. The Duma was necessary for Stolypin himself: without it, he would not have overcome court circles. But his relationship with the Chamber was far from cloudless. Stolypin had to defend for a long time before the Third Duma restrictive measures against the press, this "mother of the revolution", and exceptional measures against terror (Guchkov and the Octobrists at first supported them, but then demanded an end).

Stolypin showed brilliant ability to parliamentary speeches. He accurately answered the remarks given from the audience, firmly substantiating his opinions with examples from the state law of Europe, which he was able to perfectly study with his knowledge of three foreign languages. His witty comparisons were like a fountain. This unprecedented tsarist minister exhausted the opposition with his speeches, clear as his handwriting. He was not silent even where it was convenient to silently evade.

Stolypin's speech on the Azef case

So it was in February 1909, when the opposition made a request for Azef. Having experienced a failure with Azef, the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries invented the fantasy of his demonic doubleness: the government allegedly creates provocateurs itself and kills even its own high-ranking officials, just to decompose the revolution. Russian public without verification, she willingly picked up this advantageous accusation. Stolypin was not obliged to answer the Duma inquiry on this matter in person: he could answer in absentia, in writing, in a month. But he - rushed to the meeting. The opposition did not cite a single fact in favor of the biting hypothesis of duality. Stolypin, in his speech, vividly proved that the left leaders are presenting a fable in order to save their banners.

It is interesting that the former head of the police Lopukhin, who gave the information to the revolutionaries Azef and helped Burtsev compose Azev's myth, was a friend of Stolypin at the gymnasium. He tried to save his career: major murders - Plehve and grand duke Sergei Alexandrovich- took place without hindrance under Lopukhin, who did not heed Azef's warnings, and now tried to shift the blame on him and did not hesitate to meet the killer Savinkov together to slander Azef and the government. Lopukhin sent a protest to Stolypin against the attempt to stop his trip to London to the terrorists, and sent a copy of this letter to foreign Social Revolutionaries for publication in the Western press.

However, Stolypin gave the Duma certain dates and facts. Azef since 1892 and until recently has been voluntary police officer, double he never played a role. Until 1906 (before the arrest of Savinkov), Azef did not participate in the terrorist activities of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, but all private information about her, obtained through acquaintances in the party, was reported to the police. He gave information about Gershuni as the central figure of terror, prevented an attempt on Pobedonostsev, one attempt on Plehve, reported data on preparations against Trepov, Durnovo, and again on Plehve, who was killed in July 1904, and even pointed specifically to Egor Sazonov. Azef did not participate in the murder of Plehve and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich: in both cases he was abroad, while in the practice of the Socialist-Revolutionaries the directors were always present on the spot to cheer up the performer and he would see his eyes. And since 1906, when Azef got access to the actions of the central Socialist-Revolutionary Fighting Organization, decisively all of its acts were skillfully upset and not committed. Terror attacks were successful only for amateur revolutionary groups acting on their own initiative.

Stolypin explained: the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries invented the legend of Azef's "provocateurship" in order to cover up their own monstrous failure (they did not recognize the police agent in their top leadership) - and save in the eyes of ideological supporters the authority tarnished by this failure. Declaring that "criminal provocation - the government does not tolerate and will never tolerate," Stolypin left the podium to the applause of the entire hall. In the same speech about Azef, a true prophecy broke through:

We build scaffolding for construction, opponents point it out as an ugly building, and furiously cut down its base. And these forests will inevitably collapse and perhaps crush us under their ruins—but let, let it happen when the edifice of a renewed free Russia already emerges in its main outlines!...

However, it was not Stolypin's truth that dried up for a century, but a false detective about the "double" Azef, composed by Burtsev and Chernov.

The fate of Stolypin's peasant reform in the Duma

Even the Third Duma was in no hurry to adopt the main Stolypin - peasant - law, issued during the break between the First and Second on the 87th article. The Cadets, in contradiction to their own "liberalism", stood like a wall in defense of the collectivist community. The right defended the same community for fear of a sharp break with an already entrenched tradition. The debate on the Stolypin land law lasted two and a half years. Unable to reject the law completely, they tried to change it. Lawyers and professors came up with an amendment to it: the head of a peasant family, even if he was released from the community, could not be admitted to sole the disposal of his plot, but for each property step he must obtain consent family members- their grandmothers and children. Any of these wealthy townspeople and landowners would feel such an outrage in their own family. But declared by them holy worker they considered the peasant to be such an irrevocable drunkard that they believed: if he gets a plot into his own confluence, he will immediately drink it away, letting his family go around the world. If the power of the landowner fell over him, the power of the community fell away, then at least the power of the family should have remained over the holy worker.

On this occasion, Stolypin uttered his famous phrase: “When we write a law for the whole country, we must keep in mind the reasonable and strong, and not the drunken and weak. Most of such strong people in Russia". The “public”, placing a new stigma on Stolypin, immediately dropped the final sentence about “majority” from this phrase and began to quote only the first everywhere, accusing the premier of wanting to rely on the strong to the detriment of the weak.

And part of the clergy opposed the reform, believing that resettlement on farms would weaken the Orthodox faith among the people.

During these two and a half years, a million peasant applications for leaving the farms have already flocked, land management commissions were already working everywhere, and the Duma barely passed the law by a majority of several votes. And a year later, with friction and hesitation, the law passed through the State Council. Then the law waited for months for the last signature of the Sovereign, whom the rightists strongly inspired: the collapse of the community would give the peasants to the power of Jewish buyers, although the law clearly stipulated that allotment land could not be alienated to a person of a different class, could not be sold for personal money and could not be pledged otherwise than in the Peasants' Bank.

The intrigues of the court spheres against Stolypin

The court spheres surrounding Nicholas II hated Stolypin. For them, he was a dangerous upstart who, by one of his swift advances, threatened to undermine the special privileges of the dignitary circle. For all of them, Stolypin seemed to be a useful, necessary person, while he was saving them from the revolution, from arson and pogroms. Until the autumn of 1908, although the spheres showed hostility towards Pyotr Arkadyevich, they did not openly oppose him, but allowed him to fight the revolution. When this struggle of his ended with a striking success, the court decided to push Stolypin into the shadows. Most of all, the dignitaries did not like his desire to preserve the Manifesto of October 17 and the legal order, and not get rid of them immediately after the pacification of the revolutionary unrest.

Court camarilla, retired bureaucrats, unsuccessful rulers rallied in the right wing of the State Council, bison part of the nobility and Union of the Russian People Stolypin stood like a bone in his throat. He promoted reforms that would inevitably tear apart an immobile, pleasurable existence. spheres. They have already begun to feel the stormy streak of senatorial revisions over them.

Stolypin did not look for friends or allies among the courtiers. He was not their brother-bureaucrat, and they did not smell his native wax coating on him. Pyotr Arkadyevich thought about police reform, but from the beginning of 1909 spheres contrived to put him (through the royal favor and the personal will of the queen) as the first deputy in the Ministry of the Interior - a greedy ferret Kurlova. Perhaps this was already preparations for Stolypin's resignation. Their own police department began to eavesdrop on the phone of their minister. The empress began to show constant hostility to Stolypin, and the sovereign at every step showed sudden changes in mood and, approving the reformist orders of the premier, often immediately issued orders of the opposite meaning from himself. He took Stolypin only after 10 pm, as he got up late. There were no receptions on weekends: the king spent these days with his family. Always ready for sudden changes in the highest will, Stolypin, going to the king, carried in his briefcase a written request for resignation, signed today's date - and sometimes filed it.

Spring 1909 spheres they began to put pressure on Stolypin, and his resignation was close. When Stolypin passed through the Duma the confirmation of the states of the naval general staff, Witte hastened to point out to the State Council that a precedent was being created here for limiting the imperial prerogative in military matters. Just at that moment, Stolypin fell ill with pneumonia. The sovereign suggested that he take a vacation and rest in Livadia. Such vacations were often interpreted as preparation for retirement. All Petersburg has already said that Stolypin will soon be replaced by the Minister of Finance Kokovtsov, and at the Ministry of the Interior - Kurlov. But at the end of April, another rescript followed, openly affirming Stolypin to the public. (However, he had to leave the complete management of military issues to the Sovereign - and so he began to lose the support of the Octobrists and Guchkov.)

Stolypin and the Tsar

In spite of everything, having closely recognized the tsar, Stolypin was convinced that he was Christianly kind, was truly a Christian on the throne, and loved his people with all his heart (although he did not forget insults for a long time). Nicholas II shied away only from strong tension - due to weakness of character. And the duty of the monarchist was: to be able to work with this Sovereign. The king was sincerely sure that he always strives for the good of the motherland, but listened to palace gossip. He refused to host the Third Duma in its entirety, and much in this Duma could have gone differently if the reception had taken place. Nikolay valued Stolypin as an excellent minister who leads the people to prosperity - if only he did not taunt his Sovereign too much and did not force him to do something unpleasant to some beautiful person from the courtiers. Stolypin fell in love with this kind, honest man, although with state-important shortcomings. “I love Little,” said Pyotr Arkadyevich to his wife. Stolypin did not miss an opportunity to put the Sovereign at the center of popular celebrations, to ascribe to him the merit of his own reforms. Even alone with Guchkov, who was unfriendly to the royal couple, Pyotr Arkadyevich never allowed himself to express himself disapprovingly about the Sovereign. Stolypin saw perfectly well how much he, a strong minister, was needed by this weak tsar, who sincerely did not understand into what abyss Russia had almost fallen in the 905th and 6th, and believed that there would be no unrest at all if all local administrators were like on the stern Yalta mayor Dumbadze.

In the summer of 1908, on a yacht trip through the Finnish skerries, Stolypin visited Germany incognito, where for the first time in several years he freely walked the streets, not hiding from the killers. I learned about his arrival Emperor Wilhelm and wanted to meet. Stolypin evaded, slipped away. Wilhelm chased him with several ships, but did not overtake him. Their conversation took place a year later at the meeting of the emperors. Wilhelm indecently neglected the tsar and his wife, all going into a conversation with Stolypin, from whom he came into admiration, and after another 20 years he repeated that he was more far-sighted and higher than Bismarck.

Stolypin's foreign policy

Stolypin avoided foreign policy as much as he could, sparing no effort on it: in comparison with domestic policy, it seemed to him extremely easy to solve. He was sure that a ruler with the most mediocre mind could stop an external war at any time. The Russian government at that time was far from being completely united. cabinet. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was not obliged to make reports to the Prime Minister and was appointed in addition to him. And so the young ambitious Izvolsky ended up in the Stolypin government for foreign affairs. In search of a spectacular diplomatic move and free hands in relation to Turkey, Izvolsky fell into the trap of his Austro-Hungarian colleague and allowed him to accompany capture of Bosnia and Herzegovina announcing that it was committed with the consent of Russia. It was a brazen use of our post-Japanese weakness. The Germans demanded from Russia not even silence, not neutrality, but humiliating public consent to the occupation: to renounce all Slavic-Balkan politics. Society and the Duma began to boil. But, knowing well the state of our army, Stolypin was convinced that we could not fight yet. The temporary damage to self-esteem was nothing compared to the enormity of the internal building program. Stolypin never burned with the Pan-Slavic mission. He dissuaded the Sovereign, who had already decided to mobilize against Austria: this would also lead to a war with Germany. And he said to his relatives that day: “Today I saved Russia!” In October 1910 in Potsdam, at a meeting with Wilhelm Stolypin and the tsar, they pledged not to participate in any British intrigues against Germany, for which Germany also pledged not to support the Austro-Hungarian aggression in the Balkans. The Cadets were very eager to go to war (not only with their own bodies) and for a long time they were noisily angry after the Potsdam meeting of the emperors in 1910: why did Russia abandon the offensive position? Stolypin, on the other hand, believed that France and England were bad allies, they would turn their backs on Russia if misfortune befell her. When Sazonov was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs after Izvolsky, Stolypin asked him: to avoid international complications - that's the whole policy. Russia needs 10-20 years of external and internal peace, and after the reforms, the country will not be recognized, and no external enemies will be afraid of us.

Stolypin's resettlement policy

In the three or four years of Stolypin's premiership, the country changed. The revolution is finally gone. Alien to trifles and personal self-interest, Stolypin confidently stood above all parties. In justification of his surname, he was really pillar states. He became the center of national life, like none of the kings - and unlike many of them, he persistently led Russian well. Stolypin was an ardent adherent of Orthodoxy, but not a blind admirer of the existing clergy. “I deeply feel our synodal and ecclesiastical devastation,” he said to the tsar, and tried to pick up a chief prosecutor of strong spirit and will.

Already two million farmers have applied to leave the farm. Anticipating an abundance of grain, Stolypin created a wide network of elevators throughout Russia and launched extensive measures to support the resettlement of peasants beyond the Urals - to Siberia and Semirechye.

The Russian people have long been striving for such a resettlement to free rich lands. But ever since the great reform of 1861, the government interfered with this under the mercenary insistence of the landlords, who feared that the prices of laborers on their estates would increase. From European Russia, where there were 31 inhabitants per square verst, to Siberia, where there lived less than one person per verst, the peasants were not allowed in until the famine 1891, then relaxed, even started to build Siberian railway- and yet they waited for the heat of 1905.

Stolypin took up the resettlement policy as widely as he could. Settlers under him received the broadest benefits: state transportation of viewings, preliminary arrangement of plots, loans, assistance in moving families, with household belongings and live cattle (special wagons were even built for this). Under the resettlement were given and cabinet (own royal) lands of Altai - fivefold Belgium. Already in 1906, 130 thousand people moved, and then a year by half a million or more. By the war of 1914, there were already more than 4 million settlers, the same number as in 300 years from Yermak. They got the land for nothing- and in property, and not in use, 50 acres per family, and 60 pounds were taken from each. They irrigated the Hungry Steppe, dug public canals. In August and September 1910, Stolypin and his closest assistant for peasant affairs, the minister Krivoshein traveled around Siberia and marveled at the successes that were achieved here in just three or four years. If in the first 4 years the annual grain harvest in Russia has already been raised to 4 billion poods, what can be done in 20 years?

The migrants, boldly marching into the wilderness and far away, irrepressibly mobile, vigorous growth of the Russian people, were full of their work, free, far from revolutionary dregs, declared loyalty to the tsar and Orthodoxy without coercion, demanded churches and schools. Former revolutionary peasants, having settled on their own farm in Siberia, became passionate adherents of order.

Enemies of Stolypin

The revolutionary parties during these years were flooded with unbelief, fatigue and apostasy. triumphant " Stolypin reaction" was reaction healthy part of the people to the unhealthy: do not interfere with work and live! Terrorists have ceased to meet enthusiasm and gratitude even in many intellectual houses. And the assassination attempt on Stolypin almost stopped. In the winter of 1909-1910, he already lived in a house on the Fontanka, did not hide in any way, and in the summer he could go to his beloved Kovno estate.

Once, when Stolypin was inspecting the aircraft, he was introduced to the pilot Matsievich, warning that he was a Social Revolutionary. Flashing a glance of challenge, Matsiyevich with a smile suggested to Stolypin that they fly together. Although holding the entire Russian fate in his hands, Stolypin did not shy away from the challenge. And they made two circles at a considerable height. At any moment, the pilot could smash both or try to smash one passenger.

Stolypin was too nationalist for the Octobrists, and too Octobrist for the nationalists; a reactionary for all the Left, and almost a Cadet for the extreme Right. He had few true friends, but after undeniable achievements, the number of enemies also decreased. Hostility towards him did not weaken only in the highest court stratum, where they watched with envy every new successful step of this unprecedented lucky man, a stranger, not a Petersburger, with whom you could not establish a mutual account of services. For this layer, Stolypin took off early, beyond his years. He impudently considered himself owed to no one and decided all matters not by acquaintance and patronage, but by state necessity. This layer blamed Peter Arkadyevich for each of his successful reforms. He was to blame for freeing the peasants for cuts; he was to blame for his association with the zemstvos, to whom he had already begun to transfer part of the state administration; he was to blame for increasing the zemstvo dues from the pocket of the landowners in favor of the peasants; he was to blame for preparing workers' insurance at the expense of the factory owners and state taxes; was to blame for the protection of the Old Believers and sectarians.

All and sundry informed the royal family: Stolypin is growing his popularity due to the popularity of the Sovereign. The whole court environment trembled with suspicion, condemnation, indignation: it is indecent for one person to occupy such a high place for so long.

The bureaucracy did not dare to openly resist the government - and hostile resistance to Stolypin suddenly broke through the church, and - in the Saratov diocese, where he was governor not so long ago. Right Bishop Hermogenes, and with him Hieromonk Iliodor, a fanatical monk with crazy eyes, began to preach against the authorities as heretics and traitors to the Sovereign. At times they both found themselves in friendship and alliance with Rasputin, who entered into influence at the Court (later, however, they quarreled with him). The sovereign ordered to stop the persecution begun by the authorities against Iliodor, returned him to worship in Tsaritsyn, preferred to dismiss the chief prosecutor of the Synod, a member of the Stolypin government. Some, like Guchkov, urged Stolypin to openly fight the dark forces, but he considered this to be untimely.

Trying not to multiply his enemies, Stolypin avoided a sharp clash with Rasputin for a long time. It was not possible to send him to the village in 1908. (The Sovereign once explained: “Better one Rasputin than ten tantrums of the Empress.”) But from Rasputin, sticky threads stretched everywhere, determined the appointments of metropolitans, senators, governors, generals, members of the State Council. And in his own Ministry of Internal Affairs, Stolypin found himself entangled by his own first deputy Kurlov - a stranger, unpleasant, chosen not by him, but by the august will - and suddenly found himself at the head of both the Police Department and the Gendarme Corps. Kurlov turned out to be a good friend of both Iliodor and Rasputin. At the beginning of 1911, Stolypin nevertheless decided to send the "old man Grigory" to his homeland, but he soon managed to return and fly even higher. (Krivoshein warned: "You can do a lot, but do not fight Rasputin and his friends, you will break on this." And indeed - for this reason Stolypin lost the last favor of the Empress.)

Stolypin and the question of the Western Zemstvo

The properties of intense conflicts are to break out suddenly and even on third-rate reasons, you don’t know where you will stumble. This is exactly what happened to Stolypin on the issue of the Western Zemstvo.

In 9 western provinces, from Kovno to Kyiv, Alexander II at one time did not dare to extend elective, as inside Russia, Zemstvo - and there it remained appointed. Stolypin decided to make the Zemstvo elective in the Western Territory as well. However, the rules of the zemstvo elections gave an advantage to the wealthy landowning class, and in these nine provinces it was predominantly Polish, although the Poles made up only 4% of the total population there. In the State Council, all 9 deputies of the Western Territory were Poles. And the elected zemstvos threatened to fall under Polish influence, which would crush the rest of the mass of the people.

There was only one way out: to establish in the western provinces a different order of zemstvo elections from the all-Russian one. Stolypin proposed to produce them there separately according to the national curiae, to allow the clergy (all non-Polish) to participate in the elections, and to lower the property qualification so that non-Poles of low power would elect more vowels than wealthy Poles (however, even those remained 16%, four times compared to with numbers). It was especially required that they be Russians (or Ukrainians, or Belarusians - in those years it almost did not differ) - the chairmen of the Zemstvo council and the school council.

The Duma frowned at the nationalist spirit of this Stolypin bill (the leftists voted against it), but adopted it, approving the lowering of the qualification, even twice as much as the prime minister had proposed. However, the rightists were alarmed: lest this decline be transferred to Russia itself. The law now had to be approved in the second chamber - the State Council. Of the one and a half hundred people, about half were elected members, about half were appointed by the Sovereign. There were also elders, already so decrepit, even deaf, that they did not have time to grasp the meaning of what was being discussed at the meetings. There was a cesspool of all dismissed and dismissed figures - conceited losers. The snake of the State Council at that time was Witte, Stolypin's personal hater. He was tormented by dreary envy - how Stolypin managed to calm down and pull Russia out where, under Witte, she fell into hysteria and sank. (And then the Odessa government decided to rename Witte Street in their city, but Stolypin did not intervene.) Witte became the leader of resistance to the law on the Western Zemstvo in the State Council.

But even in the commission of the Council, most of the points of the law were adopted. However, before the plenary discussion, sensing the growing hostile wall, Stolypin took from the Emperor a letter to the Chairman of the Council, leading the law to be adopted. Then one of his decisive opponents, V. Trepov, at an audience with the Sovereign asked: should the letter be understood as an order or you can vote according to your conscience? The sovereign urged to vote according to conscience and - hid this episode from Stolypin. In the same first months of 1911, the main crises occurred with Iliodor and Rasputin, where Stolypin acted against the royal heart and was defeated.

On March 4, 1911, the State Council voted down the bill, and on the 5th, Stolypin submitted his resignation. He stumbled as if on a secondary question. Caution often falls from a long series of victories, being replaced by ardent impatience.

Russian laws did not require the resignation of the government with a vote of no confidence in one of the chambers: the ministry was responsible only to the monarch. But Stolypin considered that the tsar could have prevented such a result of voting in the State Council, and since he did not do this, it means that he himself is leading the matter to resignation.

For four days there was no answer to Stolypin from the tsar. Petersburg has already called Kokovtsov prime minister. Then Pyotr Arkadievich was summoned by the sovereign's mother, from whom he had unwavering support. Maria Fedorovna persuaded Stolypin to remain in office: "I conveyed to my son my deep conviction that you alone have the power to save Russia." At two o'clock in the morning, the courier brought Stolypin a letter from the Sovereign, where he asked to take his resignation back.

Here Stolypin showed coolness unusual for him (clearing the way for reforms?): he insisted on dismissing the leaders of the opposition, V. Trepov and P. Durnovo, from the State Council. And the Council itself together with Duma, otherwise the law did not allow) to dissolve for three days - and in these three days defiantly issue a law on the Western Zemstvo under Article 87. This was done on March 11th. Constitutionally, this was an unjustified step: Article 87 allowed the issuance of laws by the Sovereign in absence legislative institutions and subject to the emergency of the situation, and not artificially dissolve them in order to do so.

Stolypin got overheated - but it was so sickening for him to spheres. The case was not worth resigning, breaking up the Council, or applying Article 87. The famous Duma member Vasily Maklakov years later pointed out that Stolypin only had to endure until the summer break of classes, to carry out in the summer under the same Article 87, already not insulting - and the Duma would have no reason to repeal the law approved by it itself - and he would did not get into the State Council for the second time. With a daring three-day dissolution of the legislative chambers, Stolypin turned against himself the whole of St. Petersburg society: the left and the center by, as it were, neglecting the constitution, the right by dismissing their leaders.

Guchkov, an uneven ally of Stolypin, in a rage (or reveling in a socially beneficial pose) resigned the Duma chairmanship and left for Mongolia, although the Octobrist party sympathized with the law on the Western Zemstvo. Stolypin was very surprised at Guchkov's resignation.

Half a month later, the State Council again discussed this Stolypin law. Against the prime minister there were reproaches of vengeful malice, maneuvers to preserve personal position, autocracy, inculcation of bureaucratic servility - and even that he "released the Vyborg Appeal inside out." Stolypin responded cheerfully, quoting profusely from Western experts in state law, pointing out examples of such a dissolution, even of the British Parliament by the famous liberal Gladstone. We, he said, do not yet have a political culture. With young people's representation in legislative institutions, a dead knot can be tied up, which sometimes has to be cut artificially.

Debate in the Duma on the Western Zemstvo

By the end of April, when the last weeks of the bill were approaching and it was doomed to be canceled anyway, even more devastating speeches were heard against Stolypin in the Duma. And he himself mistakenly expected that if she was dissatisfied, then only outwardly, but in her soul she would rejoice, because the prime minister fought against the State Council for the law approved by the Duma.

Speaking to the Duma members, Stolypin said that by his dissolution he defended the decision of the Duma:

Does the government also have the right to pursue a flamboyant policy and join the struggle for its political ideals? Is it worthy of him to continue to turn the government wheel correctly and mechanically?.. Here, as in every question, there were two outcomes: evasion or acceptance of all responsibility, all blows, if only to save the object of our faith... For those in power, no a greater sin than a cowardly evasion of responsibility. Responsibility is the greatest happiness of my life.

But already the first deputy's answer promised little good. A speaker from the Octobrist faction vehemently rebuked Stolypin for "disrespect for the idea of ​​law." The next to speak was the always brilliantly eloquent cadet Vasily Maklakov. A lawyer by education, he began with a confession: Stolypin had not formally violated state laws. But he argued: Stolypin did not have a conscientious and loyal use of them. Maklakov insisted that the prime minister was suffering from megalomania, his morality was Hottentot in comparison with European Christian morality (the cadet suddenly remembered Christianity). Maklakov said that Russia had become Stolypin estate, and for the State Duma to be or not to be a Zemstvo in the provinces of the West is a trifle, compared with the question of whether Russia should be a constitutional state. The orator stated that the four years of Stolypin's reign were shameful and even that "instead of genuine appeasement, he stirred up to make himself indispensable." In the end, this prominent Cadet-constitutionalist, with an unexpected twist, suddenly declared himself "a monarchist no less than the chairman of the Council of Ministers," who allegedly "interfered with the name of the Sovereign in his conflict with the State Council." (These words were clearly calculated for the tsar to hear them and move even further away from Stolypin.) this type, - Maklakov completed his speech, - the Russian language knows the characteristic word - temporary worker. He had time - and that time has passed. He may still be in power, but, gentlemen, this is agony.”

For the first time in the Duma debate, Stolypin found himself in a weak position. Five years ago, at the height of the revolution, if the Duma members had been left with their talking shop, they would all have perished. But having led them out of death with a firm hand, Pyotr Arkadyevich was now forced to experience a stupefaction. As if he did not walk through the bombs, but a careerist who deftly reached the post. You will not answer: only your children were not touched, but mine were mutilated.

Following Maklakov, the hysterical right-winger climbed onto the podium. Purishkevich. He said that Stolypin cowardly covered himself with the sacred name of the Sovereign, undermined the authority of the Russian autocrat, "flirted with the revolution" and "experiences a lack of intelligence and will." Stolypin, supposedly, is not a Russian nationalist, his nationalism is the most harmful trend that has ever been in Russia: he revives the hopes for self-determination in the hearts of small nationalities. The Western Territory did not ask for an elected Zemstvo, this was invented by the Duma.

Not everyone gets such a day of slow public execution even once in their life. The attack was equally fierce from two opposite sides. The thirsty orators kept changing, there were not ten or fifteen of them, the Third Duma stole to recoup the losses of all three. The socialist who spoke said that Stolypin drowned the Russian people in his own blood, that even the worst enemy could not bring so much harm to the Russian autocracy, and the law on the Western Zemstvo was the top of the "pyramid of massacres." Then the cadet pointed out that the prime minister did not have major merits like the victories at Sadovaya and Sedan. The speaker on the right advised Stolypin to go and repent before the tsar, whom he had let down. The Duma members were just waiting for an opportunity to take revenge for having overpowered them for so many years.

We spoke and per but few. The meaning suggested by the speeches was that the entire Stolypin five-year period was one continuous failure. Only at night did two peasants from the Western Territory break through to the podium, whom the chairman Rodzianko all day he refused to speak, although the argument should have begun with them. They said: “You covered our mouths. We are very glad that our Zemstvo is also being implemented. Whether there is Article 87 or whatever, but if from you wait, your reforms, we will never wait.”

The result of the vote was: 200 - with condemnation, 80 - in defense. The law on the Western Zemstvos sank - and only after the death of Stolypin was it easily adopted. And the Western Zemstvo helped a lot in the coming years First World War.

Stolypin's big state program

Spheres were beside themselves with joy that the Sovereign had grown cold and even hostile to Stolypin. It seems that only a decent form was sought for his resignation to an uninfluential post - for example, to the newly invented East Siberian governorship. And it was possible for Stolypin to succumb, to humbly leave - and this, most likely, to save his life, but that was not his character. The time after the April defeats in the State Council and the Duma, Pyotr Arkadyevich used to draw up and dictate an extensive program for the second stage of state reforms. Treatment of the peasantry - done well, now it's time treat bureaucracy.

Last year, Stolypin already had a "Council for Local Economy" where bills were prepared jointly by officials of ministries, governors, marshals of the nobility, mayors and zemstvo people. This council, rumored to be called "Fore-thought", had the goal that the laws were not the creation of officials, but were tested by the people of life.

According to Stolypin's new program, local government affairs were separated into a separate ministry, which took over all local state institutions from the Ministry of the Interior (freeing the police from functions unusual for it). The rights of zemstvos were expanded, using the experience of staff management in the United States. For lending to zemstvos and cities, for other local needs, a special government bank was created. Higher educational institutions entered the provincial zemstvos, secondary - in the county, primary schools- in volosts (which the Duma has not yet allowed to be created). The Zemstvo electoral qualification was lowered 10 times so that the owners of farms and workers with small real estate could be elected.

Stolypin's program suggested creating: a new ministry of labor with the task of drafting laws that would improve the position of the working class - to turn the baseless proletariat into a participant in state building. Ministry of Social Welfare. Ministry of Nationalities (on the principle of their equality). Ministry of Confessions. The synod was turning into a council under the ministry, and the restoration of the patriarchate was to be worked out. A significant expansion of the network of spiritual educational institutions. The seminary in it was to become an intermediate stage, and all the priests had to graduate from the academy. The Ministry of Health, the Ministry for the Use and Survey of Subsoil was created.

Stolypin was aware that the activities of all these bodies needed a strong budget. The budget of insanely rich Russia was wrongly constructed: the poorer Western states gave us loans! with such an abundance of raw materials, such a lag in the metallurgical and machine-building industries. In Russia, property was taxed below its real value and profitability, and foreign entrepreneurs easily took capital away from us. By correcting this, increasing the excise tax on vodka and wine, introducing a progressive income tax (while keeping the indirect ones low), the budget more than tripled.

The network of highways and railways in the European part of Russia, according to the Stolypin program, it was supposed to expand so that by 1927-1932 it would not be inferior to the network of the Central Powers. For the first time, it was supposed to use foreign and private loans for this, but gradually block all operations by the State Bank.

Stolypin's program also provided for an increase in the salaries of all officials, police, teachers, priests, railway and postal employees. (This made it possible to attract educated people everywhere.) Free primary education had already begun widely in 1908 and was to become universal by 1922. The number of secondary educational institutions was brought up to 5000, higher - up to 1500. Tuition fees were supposed to be lowered, and the number of scholarship holders at universities - increase by 20 times. A two-three-year Academy was created to prepare for the highest government positions with specialized faculties. After the implementation of Stolypin's program, the state apparatus of Russia was to shine with connoisseurs and specialists. It would be impossible for an incapable person to get to the highest positions, by patronage. The Ministry of Nationalities was to be headed by a public figure with authority in non-Russian circles.

The legality of the Social Democrats was also being prepared; terrorists.

In foreign policy, Stolypin's program proceeded from the fact that Russia does not need to expand its territory, but: to master what it has. Therefore, Russia is interested in a lasting international peace. Developing Nikolay's initiativeII on the Hague Peace Tribunal, Stolypin built a plan to create a prototype of the UN - the International Parliament from all countries, with a stay in one of the small European states. Under him, Pyotr Arkadievich proposed the creation of an international statistical bureau, which would annually publish information on all states. According to these data, the Parliament could come to the aid of countries in a difficult situation, monitor outbreaks of overproduction or shortage, overpopulation. The International Bank from the deposits of the states would lend in difficult cases.

The International Parliament could set a limit on the armament of each state and forbid such means from which the masses of the non-military population would suffer. Powerful powers could not agree to this system, but this would damage their authority, and even without their participation the International Parliament could do something. Stolypin singled out relations with the United States in particular. At that time they did not encounter Russia anywhere. Only by intensified Jewish propaganda there was created a disgust for the Russian state, the idea that everyone in Russia is oppressed and there is no freedom for anyone.

The resignation could have prevented the implementation of Stolypin's program - but he hoped for the support of the tsar's mother Maria Feodorovna, and even if he was dismissed, he would later be called up again. The Duma and the State Council would also oppose Stolypin's program, as they lacked the height of state consciousness.

This extensive program of modernizing the reorganization of Russia by 1927-1932, perhaps, surpassed the reforms of Alexander II in significance.

After the assassination of Stolypin, this program was seized from his Kovno estate by a government commission. Since then the project disappeared, was not announced anywhere, discussed - only the testimony of the assistant compiler has been preserved. Perhaps it was found and partly used by the communists, whose first five-year plan, ironically, exactly fell on the last Stolypin five-year period.

The death of P. A. Stolypin

In that summer of 1911, Stolypin was tormented by grave forebodings of his death and the catastrophe of Russia. Complaining to Minister Timashev about his impotence in the fight against the court, he said: “Here they will live on my supplies for a few more years, like camels live on accumulated fat, and after that everything will collapse ...” In August, he went to St. Petersburg for the last time, chaired the council ministers in the Yelagin Palace, last met with Guchkov.

The tsar invited Stolypin on his trip to Kyiv in late August - early September 1911, although the prime minister had more serious matters. Pyotr Arkadyevich told his relatives that the departure had never been so unpleasant for him. But, on the other hand, Kyiv was the main city of the Western Territory, where it was necessary to reinforce the zemstvos of the western provinces. And it was in Kyiv that the light of the Russian national consciousness flared up in those years.

The train, having started from the station, for some reason stopped and could not move for half an hour. Stolypin did not take with him an officer of the gendarme guard, but only a staff officer for special assignments Yesaulov to help his secretary.

The security of the Kyiv celebrations that served as the scene of Stolypin's death was organized in an unusual way: it was not in charge of the local authorities, but a general who had specially stuck to it Kurlov. This so outraged the Kyiv Governor-General Fyodor Trepov that he even asked for his resignation, and Stolypin convinced him to take his resignation back. From the hands of a local man who knows everyone and everything on the spot, the guard passed into the hands of a visitor. Kurlov obeyed only the palace commandant Dedulin, contacting him through the assigned colonel Spiridovich.

Kurlov was like a subordinate, Stolypin's deputy - but now he already owned the entire police and gendarmes of the Empire independently of him. But it was even better for Pyotr Arkadyevich: his head was not occupied with police concerns. Although Kurlov was unpleasant to Stolypin, because in every decision he was looking for the most: what would it give him personally? Kurlov looked like a sharp-faced evil boar - he just rested his legs and feathered, and beat with acceleration. He had connections everywhere, with all of Stolypin's enemies. And this was not a type of silent wax bureaucrat - but to live greedily, with restaurant revels. That is why, in addition to the service, Kurlov conducted murky commercial speculations, drowned in bills. But he was not smart: he fell for the bait of the Socialist-Revolutionary Resurrection, freed him from prison for doubleness and - almost exploded with him on Astrakhan street. But Stolypin did not yet have time to get rid of Kurlov, he was postponing it for later.

The palace commandant Dedulin, the manager of the celebrations, was one of the main links spheres, hater of Stolypin. Now he was in a hurry with his own eyes, rudely to show everyone how much the tsar had cooled off towards the prime minister. Stolypin was in Kyiv humiliatingly, defiantly pushed aside from court programs, and did not receive personal protection - not only worthy, but - an ordinary one. He was given rooms on the accessible ground floor of the governor-general's house, with windows overlooking the poorly guarded garden. Kurlov refused Esaulov to set up a gendarme post in the garden: an unnecessary measure. A lot of people came to Stolypin's reception, and the entrance to the hallway was free for everyone, not a single policeman on duty, especially an officer. They did not guard him on trips either.

August 26 (Old Style) Stolypin's murderer, Jew Bogrov, reported false information to the Security Department that an attempt was being made on the prime minister and a special group of terrorists allegedly arrived in the city for this. With the help of a false promise of help in capturing this group, Bogrov hoped to get a ticket to the central places of the Kyiv celebrations - and there he would kill the prime minister himself. At first, no one informed Stolypin about Bogrov or about his version. Neither Kurlov, nor Spiridovich, nor the head of the secret agents of the Kyiv security department Kulyabko(Kurlov's son-in-law) did not check whether Stolypin was guarded at all.

Dmitry Grigorievich (Mordko Gershevich) Bogrov, murderer of P. A. Stolypin

And in Kyiv it has already become widely known that it is not guarded. The Patriots began to offer voluntary guards and submitted lists of those wishing, 2,000 people. The lists were delayed for approval, then returned with deletions - it's too late. With difficulty, Esaulov achieved a gendarme post in Stolypin's hallway.

On August 29, without knowing anything, Pyotr Arkadyevich went to the station to participate in the meeting of the highest persons. He was not given a palace carriage, and the police department did not have money for a car (but they were for Kurlov's sprees). Stolypin was forced to take a cab, he rode in an open carriage without any guards, with Esaulov. The stroller was repeatedly detained by police officials, not recognizing the prime minister and not letting him near the palace cortege. The mayor Dyakov, having learned about the situation of Stolypin, sent him his own twin crew for the following days.

Professor Rein begged Stolypin to wear Chemerzin's armor under his uniform. Stolypin refused: a bomb would not help. For some reason, he always imagined his death in the form of a bomb, not a revolver.

Meanwhile, Bogrov deftly tricked the police around his finger and received from Kulyabka a ticket to those festive places where the dignitaries and the tsar were. Stolypin, on the other hand, did not know anything about Bogrov, or about the flagrant blunder of the police, who agreed to allow a suspicious person with an obviously ridiculous version of imaginary "revolutionaries" into the vicinity of the first persons of the state and the monarch himself. Already on August 30 and 31, Bogrov could have shot at Stolypin many times, but he simply did not meet him by chance.

Only on September 1, on the very day of the assassination attempt, in the morning did Stolypin receive a cautionary note from Trepov. Kurlov arrived next - in fact, not on this case, but to sign numerous awards. He only casually reported on the appearance of Bogrov and his version of the preparation of the assassination, but did not indicate that the police, contrary to the existing categorical ban, were going to allow this informant "for security purposes" to tonight's theatrical performance of "The Tales of Tsar Saltan", where they were supposed to both Stolypin and the tsar are present.

And the people who accompanied Stolypin did not have tickets to the theater until the last moment. Esaulov was not given a place next to the prime minister. Stolypin could have moved to Trepov's box, but he refused, considering unnecessary precautions to be cowardice. Having met Kurlov in the theater, Pyotr Arkadyevich asked him about the news with the intruders. He replied that he did not know anything new, he would clarify during the intermission. But in the first intermission, Kurlov did not or did not recognize anything.

In the second intermission, Stolypin, dressed in a light white frock coat, stood at the barrier of the orchestra. There were few people left in the hall, and some narrow, long man moved along the free passage to the premiere.

Stolypin stood talking to Chamberlain Frederiks. They both guessed the killer at the same time on his last steps! He was a long-faced and young Jew with a sharp and mocking expression.

The chamberlain rushed to the side, saving himself. Stolypin rushed forward to intercept the terrorist himself, as he intercepted others before! But Bogrov was already holding a black Browning in his hands and fired twice. Stolypin was sewn with bullets to the barrier.

The assassination of Stolypin. Artist Diana Nesypova

The terrorist ran. And Pyotr Arkadyevich immediately understood: death! Professor Rain rushed over to him. On the right side of the premier's white coat there was a large bloodstain.

Stolypin raised his eyes to the right and higher, to the royal box. Nicholas II stood at her barrier and looked here with surprise.

What will happen to Russia now?

Pyotr Arkadyevich wanted to cross the Sovereign, but his right hand refused to rise. Then Stolypin raised his left hand - and crossed the king with it, earnestly, without haste. Already - it was not worth it.

The king - not at that moment, not later - did not go down to the wounded.

And with these bullets, a dynasty has already been killed. These were the first bullets Yekaterinburg.

Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin is a Russian statesman. Active, assertive, purposeful, he managed to hold the positions of minister, governor, and also issue many reforms and radically improve the life of the people.

In 1862, a man was born in Germany who made a significant contribution to the development and formation of the state, and also left a big mark on history - Pyotr Stolypin. He belonged to a wealthy noble family. After graduating from the gymnasium, he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, and after graduation he served in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Since 1899, he served as governor in various cities and villages.

Many disliked Stolypin for his ambitiousness and firmness. So, in 1906, the first of numerous assassination attempts was made on him. And the next year, the government was able to move on to the introduction of reforms developed by Stolypin, the main of which was agrarian. It consisted in solving the land problem by increasing the productivity of peasant labor. However, the government failed to fully implement the reform.

Despite his fearlessness and stubbornness, in foreign policy Stolypin adhered to the principle of non-intervention and believed that due to poor preparations for military operations, Russia should not enter into conflicts.

He was repeatedly presented for awards, had medals, orders, honorary titles.

In 1911, as a result of an assassination attempt at the opera house and inflicted mortal wounds, the life of a reformer and a great politician ended.

The reformer has a great memory in the hearts of the people - in addition to the numerous monuments erected both in our country and abroad, several plays have been filmed on the reforms, fate and life of Stolypin, many books and films have been released. There is also a commemorative coin of an outstanding personality of Russia, issued in 2012.

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Stolypin Pyotr Arkadyevich (1862-1911) - Russian statesman. P.A. Stolypin was the son of the hero of the Sevastopol defense A.D. Stolypin and Princess Gorchakova, representatives of a famous family at that time.

Stolypin was married to O.B. Neugardt - the former bride of his brother, who was killed in a duel. According to contemporaries, despite the complex nature of Olga Borisovna, Pyotr Arkadyevich was happily married, had five daughters and one son.

P.A. Stolypin graduated from St. Petersburg University and began his career as a lawyer in the Ministry of the Interior. Having shown outstanding service diligence, in 1899 he was appointed marshal of the local nobility in Kovno, and in 1903 he was transferred to the post of Saratov governor-general.

Stolypin's activities in the initial period of the revolution were distinguished by decisiveness and uncompromising attitude towards any instigators of unrest, no matter which camp the initiative came from. At the same time, he demonstrated examples of personal courage, considering it his duty to be present in places where unrest began to prevent their expansion, however, without refusing military assistance. This drew attention to his personality both from the side of the authorities, and after the resignation of S.Yu. Witte and his government P.A. Stolypin received the post of Minister of the Interior. He saw the main task of the moment in restoring order in the country with the manifestation of the will and the ability to implement it on the part of the state. It was a cruel, skillful, and intelligent opponent of the revolutionaries.

Acting by the force of state coercion, Stolypin did not rule out a compromise with the opposition forces and was ready to agree to the formation of a coalition government from among the representatives of the liberal parties. Unfortunately, most of the opposition put their party interests above the interests of the Fatherland, which brought to naught the attempts of P.A. Stolypin.

After the appointment of Stolypin to the post of prime minister, he was not only attacked by colleagues, but also assassinated by terrorists.

A month after the appointment of Stolypin to the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers, a monstrous attempt was made on Aptekarsky Island, where the family of the head of government lived and where he received visitors. As a result of a powerful explosion, 27 people were killed and 32 were injured. Shocked by the sight of his crippled 14-year-old daughter and the wounding of his only son, on August 19, Stolypin signed an emergency decree (under Article 87 of the Fundamental Laws) on military courts, according to which the trial of the revolutionaries was to be completed within 48 hours, and the sentence was to be executed within 48 hours. 24 hours. Stolypin considered these measures justified in order to preserve public safety, believing that violence must be met with force. In response to the Duma's repeated demands to abolish military courts, Stolypin categorically stated: "Know how to distinguish the blood on the hands of a doctor from the blood on the hands of an executioner." It was after this phrase that A. Tyrkova, a member of the Central Committee of the Cadet Party, stated: "This time the government has nominated a strong and gifted man. He will have to be reckoned with."

In fact, mass lawlessness was committed, a state of emergency was introduced in most of the country's territory, and executions of innocent people were not uncommon. Judges who delivered too “soft” sentences were fired from their jobs. If until the autumn of 1906, on average, 9 people were executed a year, then from August 1906 to April 1907, 1,102 death sentences were passed by military courts. Such statistics fully confirm Stolypin's reputation as a tough and even cruel politician.

However, P.A. Stolypin entered the history of our Fatherland not only as a reactionary figure. He was an excellent orator and was not afraid of controversy. Stolypin boldly took the podium of the Duma and with his speeches could not only suppress his opponents, but also convince the deputies of the correctness of the course of political, social and economic transformations he had chosen. Sometimes the speaker's speech sounded quite harsh. For example, speaking in the Duma on the question of measures to combat revolutionary terrorism, Stolypin said: “The government will welcome any open exposure of any disorder ... but the government should treat attacks differently, leading to the creation of a mood in which atmosphere open speech. These attacks are calculated to cause paralysis in the government, in power, and will, and thoughts, they all boil down to two words addressed to power: "Hands up." To these two words, gentlemen, the government, with complete calm, with the consciousness of its rightness, can only answer with two words: "You will not intimidate."

For all his commitment to the idea of ​​autocracy, Stolypin was still a reformer. His speeches excited and made you think - this is what he was terrible for, both to the left and right forces. He needed to be silenced, and terrorist organizations staged a real hunt for him - 10 assassination attempts, the last of which turned out to be for P.A. Stolypin fatal. September 5, 1911 P.A. Stolypin fell at the hands of the anarchist-revolutionary D. Bogrov, who was also an agent of the security department. It was symptomatic, because. the prime minister stood in the way of both extremist-minded revolutionary forces and old, orthodox elements who were trying to preserve the order of life that had already gone into the past and the revival of which was no longer possible.

The former Minister of Finance V.N., who replaced Stolypin, Kokovtsev began to pursue a policy that practically curtailed the reforms of his predecessor. The phrase thrown by Stolypin: "You need great upheavals, we need great Russia!" - received the opposite meaning: everything that was done after him led to a social explosion and unpredictability of the country's development.