The Russian Revolution полностью

The liberal opposition faced a problem with which it did not quite know how to cope. The Kadets knew as well as the police of the popular discontent; they feared that unless they acted promptly and decisively to take charge, things would get out of control. They also were aware of the fact, reported on by the police, that the masses were losing faith in the Duma because it was not acting energetically enough.⁴⁶ From this assessment they concluded that unless they challenged the government, they would dissipate their prestige and lose out to the radicals. Some Kadets worried that even if Russia somehow muddled through the war without a revolution, she would certainly have one when it was over because peace would bring with it massive unemployment and peasant land seizures.⁴⁷ So it appeared essential to act in a bold, even revolutionary manner. And yet, pressing the government too hard would disorganize still further what was left of the administrative apparatus and fuel the very anarchy the liberals wished to prevent. One had to push the authorities hard enough to win over the masses and compel the government to yield power, but not so hard as to bring the state structure crashing down—a most delicate undertaking.

Unexpectedly, the monarchy seemed to make this task easier with the appointment in mid-September of Alexander Protopopov as Minister of the Interior.* This move aroused the most exaggerated hopes. The extraordinary aspect of Protopopov’s appointment was that he was entrusted with the second most important post in the Imperial administration although he had neither bureaucratic experience nor rank. He was not the first private citizen to be given a ministerial post—he had been preceded in July 1916 by the Minister of Agriculture, Bobrinskii—but it was entirely without precedent for an individual without chin to be put in charge of the country’s administrative machinery. This was the Crown’s supreme effort at compromise, a step to meet the demand of the Duma for control of the cabinet, for Protopopov, a well-to-do landlord and textile manufacturer, an Octobrist and member of the Progressive Bloc, was not only a member of the Duma but also its deputy chairman. Rodzianko and Guchkov had a good opinion of him, as did other parliamentarians.⁴⁸ Given this background, Protopopov’s appointment could have been reasonably interpreted as a surrender to the Progressive Bloc—the first of a succession of ministerial appointments which would result in a cabinet enjoying the Duma’s confidence. This is how A. I. Konovalov, a leading Kadet and member of the Progressive Bloc, viewed the Tsar’s move. At a private gathering of Kadets and associates early in October, he characterized Protopopov’s appointment as a complete “capitulation” of the regime:

By capitulating to society, the authorities have taken a giant, unexpected leap. The best that one might have expected was the appointment of some liberal-minded bureaucrat. And all of a sudden it is the Octobrist Protopopov, a man essentially alien to the bureaucratic world. For the authorities, this capitulation is almost tantamount to the act of October 17. After an Octobrist minister, a Kadet minister will no longer be such a fright. Perhaps in a few months we will have a ministry of Miliukov and Shingarev.* It all depends on us. It is all in our hands.⁴⁹

28. Alexander Protopopov.

This assessment was shared by much of the press. The unofficial Petrograd stock exchange rose sharply when Protopopov took office.