The provincial gentry, however, interpreted this inclusive gesture as a threat to their own privileged position in the rural social and political order. Stolypin was proposing to establish a new tier of zemstvo representation at the volost level, in which the franchise would be based on property rather than birth. He was also planning to increase the powers of the zemstvos and abolish the land captains, who had previously ruled the roost in the countryside. The effect of all this, as the outraged squires pointed out, would be to end their ancient domination of the system of rural government. The local zemstvos would be transformed from gentry into peasant organs, since for every squire at the volost level there would be several hundred newly-enfranchised peasant smallholders. The squires accused Stolypin of trying to undermine ‘provincial society’ (i.e. themselves) through bureaucratic centralization, and on this basis rallied their forces against him in the Duma, the State Council, the United Nobility and among their allies at court. Too vain to suffer certain defeat, Stolypin gave up the battle. The system of rural administration, by far the weakest link in the tsarist state, stayed in the hands of 20,000 nobles, a tiny and outdated social group which, thanks to its supporters in high places, was able to fend off all reform in defence of its own narrow interests. Had Stolypin succeeded in broadening the social base of local government in the countryside, then perhaps in 1917 it would not have collapsed so disastrously and Soviet power might never have filled the subsequent political vacuum as successfully as it did.
Much the same clash of interests lay behind the famous western zemstvo crisis of 1911, which marked Stolypin’s final demise. With the decline of the Octobrists, as a result of the naval staff crisis and the rightward shift of the landowning squires, Stolypin was obliged to tailor his policies to the other main government party in the Duma, the Nationalists, which had been established in 1909 with strong support among the Russian landowners of the nine Polish provinces. The party, in the words of its historian Robert Edelman, was ‘not so much a party of nationalism as a party of the dominant Russian nationality in a multinational Empire’.18 The zemstvos had never been established in these western provinces, since most of the landowners were Poles and the Polish Rebellion of 1863 was still fresh in the memory of Alexander II. But the Nationalist Party campaigned for a western zemstvo bill, arguing that Russia’s imperial interests in these crucial borderlands could be guaranteed by a complex voting procedure based on nationality as well as property. Stolypin knew this western region from his days in Kovno. The peasant smallholders, who were mainly Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian, were among the most advanced in the Empire and he expected them to develop rapidly into yeoman farmers under his agrarian reforms. If they were given the largest share of the vote in the zemstvos, as planned by the lower property franchise of his Western Zemstvo Bill, they might become the model yeoman-citizens of the Russian imperial state. An area formerly dominated by Polish landowners would be ruled by Russians,fn2 albeit of peasant origin.
The bill was passed by the Duma but defeated in the State Council, where the gentry’s fundamentalists were unwilling to see the privileges of the noble estate (even its Polish element) sacrificed to ensure the domination of Russian interests; the fact that the Poles were aristocrats should in their view take precedence over the fact that the peasants were Russian. Their opposition was encouraged by Trepov and Durnovo, favourites at court, who sought to use this opportunity to bring down their rival. They ensured the bill’s defeat by persuading the Tsar to go behind Stolypin’s back and issue a statement encouraging the deputies to vote as their ‘conscience’ dictated (i.e. implying they should vote against the government). It was a clear vote of no confidence in Stolypin engineered by the court and its camp followers on the Right. But there was still one glimmer of hope. Nicholas had second thoughts about his role in the plot and promised Stolypin that if the bill was reintroduced, he would support its passage through the upper chamber. Stolypin, however, was not a man to compromise. He was unaccustomed to opposition and was poorly versed in the skills of the modern politician, skills which might have enabled him to negotiate a way through. Rather than wait for a second reading of the bill he chose to make a firm stand on the first, realizing in any case that his career was probably finished. He threatened to resign unless the Tsar prorogued the Duma and the State Council and passed the bill by emergency decree under Article 87 of the Fundamental Laws. He also demanded that Durnovo and Trepov should be expelled from the capital. After four days of consideration Nicholas finally agreed to Stolypin’s demands. On 14 March, with the two chambers closed, he promulgated the Western Zemstvo Bill and ordered Durnovo and Trepov to leave St Petersburg until the end of the year. It had taken several hours of persuasion by his mother, the eminently sensible Dowager Empress, to get the Tsar to go against the advice of his wife (who was at the centre of the plot against Stolypin). When he received Stolypin at the Gatchina Palace his face was ‘red from weeping’.19
Stolypin had prevailed by sheer force of character. But his high-handed tactics in the western zemstvo crisis alienated almost everyone and his political fortunes now declined rapidly. The Tsar had been deeply humiliated by his own Prime Minister and, spurred on by his royalist cronies, now sought revenge. The liberals were outraged by Stolypin’s contemptuous treatment of the Duma. Guchkov resigned from its presidency and the Octobrists moved into opposition; the Nationalists were the only Duma faction to support Stolypin in a motion of censure. Isolated and spurned, Stolypin himself lost all his former confidence, lost sleep and became moody.20 He sensed that his days were numbered.
At the end of August 1911 Stolypin arrived in Kiev for celebrations to mark the unveiling of a monument to Alexander II. He had long been prepared for a violent death and before he left St Petersburg had entrusted one of his senior aides with a box of secret papers which he ordered to be destroyed should he fail to return. He ignored police warnings of a plot to kill him and travelled to Kiev without bodyguards. He refused even to wear his bullet-proof vest. On 1 September the Kiev Opera put on a performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Legend of Tsar Sultan. Nicholas and his four daughters occupied the royal box near the orchestra, while Stolypin sat in the front row of the stalls. During the second interval, while he stood talking with Count Fredericks in front of the orchestra pit, a young man in evening dress approached and, drawing a revolver from under his programme, fired twice at Stolypin. One bullet struck him in the right arm, the other in his chest, where a medal deflected it into his liver. Slowly, as if unaware of what had happened, Stolypin took off his gloves, carefully placed them on the barrier and unbuttoned his jacket, whereupon he saw his waistcoat covered in blood and sank into a chair. In a voice audible to all those around him, he said, ‘I am happy to die for the Tsar,’ and, on seeing him in the royal box above, lifted his hands and motioned him to withdraw to safety. Nicholas remained standing there and Stolypin, in a last theatrical gesture, blessed him with a sign of the cross. For four days the Prime Minister’s condition remained stable. The Tsar continued with the programme of celebrations in Kiev and visited him in hospital. But on 5 September, Stolypin began to slip away. He died that evening. The Tsar came the next morning and said prayers by his bedside. Over and over he repeated the words, ‘Forgive me.’21