THE CAREER OF M. STOLYPIN
Peter Arkadievitch Stolypin was the son of an aide-de-camp general of
Alexander II. His father had been at one time very popular in St.
Petersburg society, and through his numerous family connections had made
a brilliant career. He was a pleasant man, a perfect gentleman in
manners, but by no means clever or bright. His most salient quality was
the perfection with which he could indulge for hours in small talk, and
it was this capacity that had made him such a welcome guest at a dinner
table or at a party.
His son, the future Prime Minister of Nicholas II., was not very well
known among the select circle of Court Society in the capital. He had
entered the public service when quite young, and had been at once sent
to the interior of the Empire, to work out his advancement step by step.
After having done so to the best of his capacity, he was appointed
Governor of the province of Samara, and whilst there had attracted the
notice of the public and of his superiors by the energetic manner in
which he had suppressed local riots. Count Witte was the first man to
whom it occurred to appoint him to a more important post. M. Stolypin,
who had only waited for a favourable opportunity to approach his
Sovereign, was delighted to be called to St. Petersburg, and when he
arrived there it was with the firm intention to do everything to win for
himself Imperial protection and Imperial favour; to show himself an
able courtier and a faithful executor of the wishes and intentions of
the master upon whom his future career depended.
He was a man of strong character, but of immense ambitions, very
personal in all his actions, and secretive in his designs.
In his provincial life he had had no hopes of ever making anything else
than an administrative career, such as Government officials generally
do, and the thought that he might be called upon to occupy an important
post in the capital had never entered his mind. When he was summoned to
St. Petersburg he was at first stunned by this unexpected piece of luck,
but very quickly recovered himself, and, being a keen observer of human
nature, no sooner had he been presented to Nicholas II. than he had
taken an estimate of that monarch’s character, and the right way to
influence it, so as to obtain for himself a leading part in his
counsels. The two men had much in common, though little real sympathy
existed between them. Stolypin was certainly more cultivated than the
Tsar; also he had more determination, and more firmness in character,
but there was lurking in the corners of his nature the same hardness,
the same tyrannical tendencies, the same want of heart. Both were
egotistical, with the difference that one thought it was his right to be
so, whilst the other only imagined that he could win this right for
himself.
Stolypin was brave, but of fatalistic temperament. He firmly believed
that he would not die before the day appointed for him to do so by fate,
and that conviction made him often appear to be reckless, whilst in
reality he was only indifferent as to a fate which he thought was
already settled by a power higher than his own. He had been told one day
in his youth by a fortune-teller that he would reach a high position,
which he would keep until his death, and, sceptical though he was on
other points, he had faith in that prediction, which was to come true in
so singular a fashion. Authoritative, selfish, merciless whenever he
feared his personal interests were threatened, he succeeded during the
years he was in power in making himself hated alike by the anarchists he
was supposed to fight and the Conservatives he was believed to protect.
The ability with which he managed to get all his opinions and all his
plans approved by the Sovereign would have been sure to win him many
enemies, even if he had not made himself so offensive everywhere.
Disdainful by nature, he had not the least regard for the feelings of
anyone, and did not respect either those of his friends or of his foes.
His high position, and the unlimited power conferred upon him by the
force of circumstances more than by anything else, had imbued him with
the conviction that he was indispensable, and that everything would be
allowed to him because there was no one to take his place.
Another man before him had enjoyed as much, and even more of the
confidence of the Tsar. It was General Trepoff, and death soon removed
that rival, who was not even a dangerous one, because he had neither the
intelligence nor the cunning that could have made him an opponent worthy
of notice by Stolypin.
Since I am mentioning General Trepoff, perhaps a few words concerning
that personage will not be out of place. Trepoff was one of the many
children of the famous General Trepoff, who had for such a long time
held the important post of Prefect of the town of St. Petersburg, under
the reign of Alexander II., and whose attempted assassination by Vera
Zassoulitch had been the first open act of warfare of the Nihilist
party. His son began his career in the first regiment of Horse Guards,
and at one time was considered one of the crack officers in the Society
of the capital. He was invited everywhere, and at last succeeded in
ingratiating himself into the good graces of the Grand Duke Paul, who
was in command of the regiment. It was the latter who had him appointed
head of the police in Moscow under his brother, the Grand Duke Sergius.
Once in Moscow young Trepoff made himself pleasant to the Grand Duchess
Elizabeth Feodorovna, and at one time public gossip was very busy with
their names. What amount of truth there lay at the bottom of all these
rumours it is impossible to say, but the fact is that it was on the
recommendation of the Grand Duchess that Colonel Trepoff, as he was at
the time, was called to the head of the Okhrana, or personal guard of
the Sovereign.
For some time his influence was very powerful, but it did not last long.
Trepoff was of an imperious disposition, but perfectly loyal to his
master. He might have been an excellent watch-dog, and, indeed,
performed the duties of one to perfection; but he was a man with limited
education, who held no opinions except those he was ordered to have. His
reign was very brief, and he did not deserve all the hatred expended
upon him, because his influence would never have been lasting. He did
not possess the qualities of an administrator, and, short-sighted as
Nicholas II. was, he still had noticed this, and would certainly have
sacrificed Trepoff to Stolypin had he been called upon to choose between
the two. Fate intervened and saved him the necessity. Trepoff died, worn
out with too much work, and perhaps also with the anxiety of his
responsible post, for which he felt himself to be unequal; and Stolypin
remained the only personage capable of leading the Government of Russia
under the weak and tottering rule of the Emperor Nicholas.
He very soon assumed the attitude of a dictator, and in doing so bluffed
a good many people into really believing that he possessed the necessary
qualities of a leader. This was not the case. Stolypin pretended to have
more determination than he really possessed.
After the dissolution of the first Duma, a measure he was the only one
to approve, and the only one gifted with sufficient courage to execute,
he became the object of the execration of all the Liberal parties in
Russia. An era of revolution began in the whole country. Even in St.
Petersburg rebellion raged, assassinations were frequent, and no one
felt himself to be in safety. The Nihilists, who once more came to the
front in the struggle which waged between Stolypin and the whole nation,
at last proceeded to extremes, and the first attempt to assassinate the
too powerful Minister took place when his summer villa on the Islands of
the Apothecaries, near St. Petersburg, was nearly destroyed, his
children wounded, and about forty-five persons killed, whilst he alone
remained untouched.
It was on that awful day that M. Stolypin showed the fatalism which was
one of the dominant traits of his character. Another man would have lost
his head, or at least given way to discouragement under the blow that
had struck his daughter and his son. Peter Arkadievitch remained
perfectly calm, outwardly at least, and he never for a single minute
thought of resigning the responsible position which he occupied. On the
contrary, he seemed to find a compensation for his private sorrows in
the authority which the dastardly attempt against his person and his
family had added to those which he already possessed. He could now
represent to the Emperor, with more force than ever, how indispensable
it was to show no mercy to all those who tried to shatter his Throne
and his power, and could obtain the assent of the Sovereign to all the
measures which he thought imperative for assuring the latter, and for
the welfare of the country.
That country was about the last subject to which Stolypin turned his
attention. Russia meant nothing to him, except in the sense that through
her he could gain honours and dignities, and advance his own welfare. He
had, it is true, Nationalist tendencies, and worked towards the
development of Nationalism in the country, which perhaps was another of
his many mistakes, and brought about the conflict that shortly before
his death arose between him and the Council of State. In this dispute
the Council refused to agree to Stolypin’s bill for the introduction of
zemstvos, or local councils, in the Polish provinces, where they had not
yet been installed. When that conflict took an acute shape, and he had
been defeated in the Upper House, Peter Arkadievitch offered his
resignation to the Emperor. This was merely a move, for he had some
secret influence with certain personages near the Throne, amongst them
the Dowager Empress, so it was said, who advised Nicholas II. to ask him
to keep office, to which he at last assented, but not without securing
conditions which strengthened his authority and made him more powerful
than ever.
The country did not approve, and even in St. Petersburg, where
individuals were rather chary of expressing their opinions, people began
openly to attack him. The fact was, that everybody was getting wearied
of this kind of Major-domo of the Palace, which Stolypin had succeeded
in becoming, and which reminded one of the old Merovingian kings and of
the dictators who had ruled under them. The personality of the Emperor
was becoming submerged in comparison with the importance that the
influence of his Prime Minister was assuming. Conservatives disliked
this effacement of the Sovereign; Liberals thought that if one had to be
ruled by an autocrat, it would be better to have a Romanoff than one of
his subjects.
Nicholas II. himself became, not perhaps jealous, but certainly
impatient, at the independence that Stolypin displayed, now that he felt
his position more secure. Once or twice he had found some orders that he
had given counteracted by dispositions made by Stolypin without
consulting his Emperor. Nicholas was not a man capable of forgiving
encroachments made upon his authority, and certainly not one to forget
them. Vindictive as he was by nature, the Emperor found the yoke that
his Prime Minister had forced him to assume heavy to bear, and though he
felt that the time had not come when he could get rid of him, yet one
can well suppose that he would have seized with pleasure an opportunity
to cover Stolypin with honours and at the same time retire him into
private life, had he only asked a second time the permission to do so.
The Minister was too observant not to notice that, though his influence
had not begun to get weakened, his person was no longer sympathetic to
the Emperor. He was, however, determined to keep his post, and to have
more distinctions showered upon him. He then tried to invent some
conspiracies against the life of the monarch, in order to prove that he
was indispensable, and that his vigilance was the best safeguard that
Nicholas II. could find against the many dangers which threatened him.
Provocative agents began once more to be sent all over the country, and
the police received energetic orders to find conspirators, no matter at
what cost. He thought that fear was the best means left at his disposal
to make his position unassailable on the part of those who tried to
shatter it. St. Petersburg Society did not take to Peter Arkadievitch.
It considered him a little in the light of an intruder, a parvenu, who
had imposed himself upon it, and forced an entrance into its rooms.
Madame Stolypin, too, was little liked, and thought lacking in
refinement. She came from a worthy family of German origin, who had
served without distinction, but with much zeal, its Sovereign, and which
belonged essentially to the middle class. Neither her manners nor her
tact made her a fit wife for a Prime Minister, and a certain spirit of
intrigue and of gossip, caused her to be disliked, rather than anything
else. She never made herself at home, or popular, among the smart
circles of the capital, where she was received, but seldom welcomed.
Nevertheless, though the Emperor began to get just a little tired of the
state of dependence in which M. Stolypin kept him, nothing of this
impatience appeared in public. He was still a favourite, and the man to
whom everybody turned whenever one was in want of a favour or of a
protection of some kind. When the Imperial Family left for the Crimea in
the autumn of the year 1911, with the intention to stop on its way in
Kieff and in order to allow the Emperor to be present at some manœuvres
in the south of Russia, M. Stolypin accompanied them, and was the
principal personage in their numerous suite. That journey was to see the
end of his ambitions and of his career, for it was during its course
that he was killed.
The murder took place at Kieff during a performance at the theatre. The
Prime Minister fell under the bullet of one of his own agents, a Jew
called Bagrov, who had been employed by the political police as a spy
for a number of years. It was with a ticket signed by Stolypin himself
that he had obtained an entrance into the theatre, and he fired at his
chief with a revolver which belonged to the Government, and which had
been given to him by one of the heads of the Okhrana or private guard of
the Emperor. Stolypin fell, or rather dropped in his chair, with just
one exclamation, “I am done for!” Nicholas II. was sitting with his
daughters in the State box, but he never made the slightest movement to
show that he was impressed by the tragical event. The crowd that filled
the theatre began to cheer him with unusual enthusiasm, which he
accepted with a slight bow in the direction of the audience, but he did
not seem to evince particular interest as to the fate of his wounded
Minister. He returned to the Palace without visiting the wounded man, or
making personal inquiry as to his condition.
At first there was some hope of saving Stolypin, though a renowned
physician, who held the post of professor at the University of Kieff, at
once told his friends that the situation was desperate, because the
liver had been perforated by the bullet. The wounded man himself had no
illusions as to his fate, and he bore the terrible sufferings which he
had to endure with great courage and fortitude, asking only from his
doctors to keep him alive until his wife and family had arrived. A great
surgeon was summoned from St. Petersburg, and everything possible was
done to ease his last days, but it was felt from the very first that a
recovery was impossible, and those who had expressed some hope had only
done so in order to spare the feelings of the dying man and of those
near to him.
The whole of Russia was aghast at the assassination of Stolypin; even
his enemies were dumb with the horror of it. Assurances and expressions
of sympathy came from every side; the person who appeared the most
unmoved was the Emperor. It was only on the third day after the attack
that he visited the dying statesman. He expressed no sympathy to the
dying man beyond some conventional inquiries and official words of
regret. It may be assumed that at heart he was neither sorry nor
perplexed as to the consequences which the event could have, and that,
if anything, he felt relieved at the solution of the problem which the
dismissal of M. Stolypin would have proved. It was certain that such an
eventuality would have arisen very soon, because the Tsar could not have
borne much longer with a man in whom he saw a rival in authority rather
than a helpmate or a faithful servant.
Stolypin lingered but a few short days after the one upon which he had
been struck. The Emperor came to his bedside just before the end, and
was received by Madame Stolypin, who used this opportunity to address a
few tactless words to the Sovereign, which he resented afterwards.
Nicholas II. only remained a few minutes with the dying man, and after
some formal expressions of grief he retired.
Stolypin died two days after this visit. His funeral was made the
occasion of great manifestations of sorrow on the part of the
Conservative, or Old Russian party, who transformed him into a martyr,
fallen for the defence of his country and of his Sovereign.
Nicholas did not consider it to be his duty to attend the funeral of his
murdered servant. He was to leave Kieff for the Crimea on the very day
upon which it took place, and it would have been easy enough to put off
this departure for a few hours. But there was no one to suggest it to
Nicholas II., who himself never thought of the opportunity which he
would have had to make himself popular had he walked behind the coffin
of his murdered Minister, and thus showed publicly that he knew how to
value the services rendered to him and how to recognise them.
This indifference contributed considerably to lessen the already very
small popularity which the Tsar enjoyed. M. Stolypin had not been liked;
many people rather rejoiced at his death, and for others it came as a
great relief; but even his many enemies felt that it ought to have
produced a terrible impression on the Emperor, before whose eyes he had
been struck. All wondered at the impassiveness the monarch displayed in
those tragical circumstances, and some asked themselves whether he had
realised their importance. It seemed strange that, after having worked
for years with the murdered man, after having made him a powerful
Minister and a personal friend, after having shared with him political
anxieties and apprehensions of all kinds, after having confided to him
the welfare of the whole vast Russian Empire, after having trusted him
above all other people and listened to him rather than to anyone else,
the greatest proof of sorrow that his assassination provoked in Nicholas
II. took the form of a considerable pension accorded to Madame Stolypin.
He gave her money, but did not think it worth while to offer her the one
supreme sign of sympathy he could have accorded--that of praying beside
the coffin of her husband. The whole of Russia was represented at the
funeral service held over the remains of Peter Arkadievitch Stolypin;
the Emperor alone was missing.