Название: Count Sergei Witte and the Twilight of Imperial Russia: A Biography
Автор: Sidney Samuel Harcave
Издательство: Routledge
Год: 2004
Формат: pdf
Страниц: 334
Размер: 12.7 Мб
Язык: English
Sergei Witte, almost forgotten today, was the one man who might have saved Russia from revolution and the consequent horrors of seven decades of communism. As Minister of Finance in the 1890s, he presided over the beginnings of Russian industrialization. He went on to negotiate a favorable peace, ending the war against Japan in 1905(a war which he had strenuosly opposed)and drafted Russia's first constitution, creating a parliament (Duma), and at least the framework of a modern constitutional monarchy.
Witte towered figuratively as well as literally(he was 6 foot 7!)over his colleagues in the Tsarist government. A man of penetrating intelligence, his advice was almost always sound, and Tsar Nicholas II probably would have had a happier ending if he had heeded Witte instead of the mindless toadies he usually surrounded himself with. Nicholas actually comes across as quite petty, resenting Witte's rather overbearing and arrogant personality, and completely overlooking the fact that he was the most intelligent member of his government. As it was Nicholas was forced to turn to Witte for help to end the disastrous war with Japan and deal with the Revolution of 1905. After Witte had restored some semblence of stability, Nicholas dismissed him as Prime Minister in early 1906, and never sought his advice again, preferring to rely on a procession of mediocrities and incompetents who led him, and Russia, down the road to ruin.
This book is a must for who anyone who wants a serious understanding of Russia's road to revolution. The inside story of the political intrigues at the court of the last Tsar is fascinating, and goes beyond the syrupy sentementalism of accounts about the doomed Romanovs, or lurid tales of the Mad Monk.