VII

★

1881

THE LAST YEARS of the reign of Alexander II were marked by discontent and muted troubles. The enthusiasm which the reforms had stimulated had long since evaporated. Both the reformers themselves and those who had resisted or were reluctant concerning the great changes were disillusioned. Moreover, the Russo-Turkish War and the unsatisfactory arrangements which Russia had had to accept at the Congress of Berlin in the summer of 1878 inflamed many, including some nationalists who saw in this defeat proof that the earlier changes had been errors. More important than this general dissatisfaction were the dismay of the disgruntled landed gentry, who could now measure visibly the economic and social impact which emancipation of the serfs had had, and the rising revolutionary movement, which frightened all government leaders.

In this crisis, Alexander II turned to General Count Loris-Melikov, an Armenian who had had a good record in the Caucasus against the Turks and who had been outstanding afterward as Governor General of Kharkov. The tsar brought Loris-Melikov to St. Petersburg early in February, 1880, and named him chairman of a special committee ordered to inquire into the causes of political disaffection and to propose solutions. Later that year, in August, Loris-Melikov was appointed Minister of the Interior. Through the period from February, 1880, until March 1, 1881, he was the man closest to Alexander II, who considered him his first minister and the leader of the government.

Pobedonostsev did not meet Loris-Melikov until the general came to St. Petersburg in February, 1880. During the Russo-Turkish war, he had been favorably impressed by what he had read and heard about the general’s efficiency and military successes and by the skill and resolution he had shown in preventing intrigue and scandal on the Caucasus front. He had applauded his appointment to Kharkov in April, 1879, declaring then that Loris-Melikov was not “one of the sweet liberal generals.” He was delighted to learn in February, 1880, that he was considered “able, adept, intelligent, and crafty.” The new appointment particularly pleased him because Loris-Melikov had the inestimable advantage of being a “new broom” and providing some hope that Russia would emerge from its troubles. Pobedonostsev was eager to support any forceful Russian leader because he believed that the “court gang” would try to prevent a clear and active policy and because he believed any new leader would have to clean out the Council of Ministers before he could hope to make substantial progress. Pobedonostsev even wrote enthusiastically about Loris-Melikov’s appointment as Minister of the Interior, even though he replaced Lev S. Makov, whom Pobedonostsev had long known and whom he thought an excellent official.

Loris-Melikov initially not only benefited from Pobedonostsev’s favorable attitude but even strengthened it. Pobedonostsev was pleased by the important assignments Loris-Melikov gave to his protégé, Captain Baranov. He was flattered with the solicitude with which he discussed the political situation with Pobedonostsev himself. As early as March 1, 1880, Loris-Melikov inquired concerning his willingness to accept a major appointment in the new effort to return Russia to some kind of stability. Pobedonostsev was obviously and naturally flattered because he had no important responsibilities at that time. Moreover, his relations then with the Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich were not notably warm. Pobedonostsev referred to the heir as “the boss of Anichkov Palace” and noted that a certain coolness or “strengthening of indifference” had developed between them.¹

Loris-Melikov’s proposal that Pobedonostsev be made Director General of the Most Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, the position which gave him the base from which he influenced Russian policy for the next quarter-century, clearly represented an effort to rally conservative support to him and his proposals. In 1880, Loris-Melikov was engaged in a desperate effort to restrain the revolutionary movement and at the same time to win greater support for the government from among the educated classes by introducing a system of advisory councils to the government. Opposition to the so-called Loris-Melikov constitution was powerful and well organized, and the Armenian general sought support and assistance wherever he could find it. Indeed, he remarked to an associate that he had very little support in the higher levels of government, that Alexander II alone was behind him, and that “a child playing with a revolver” could destroy all of his plans.

Inexperienced in St. Petersburg politics, Loris-Melikov almost certainly assumed that the appointment of Pobedonostsev as Director General of the Synod would dampen conservative religious opposition to his policies and bring behind him a large part of the nationalistic, conservative group deeply worried by the apparent drift of affairs. He no doubt also believed that the Director General of the Synod was not important politically, or at least lacked the power to do anything but strengthen the government. He probably knew, or learned during this period, that Pobedonostsev was engaged in a kind of feud with Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaevich and other liberals, but no doubt assumed that he could cleverly bring both of these groups behind him. Moreover, Pobedonostsev was not a minister at the time and had also indicated freely that Russia needed a strong man at the helm, preferably a new man who had not been contaminated by life in St. Petersburg. He was known to have a powerful influence upon the empress, the heir to the throne, and his wife, and this influence could naturally be used to buttress the support the tsar provided. Loris-Melikov no doubt also believed that he was handicapped in being an Armenian and assumed that the support of such a respected conservative nationalist would reduce opposition based on that ground.

Finally, one of the principal opponents of Loris-Melikov in the Council of Ministers was Count Dmitrii A. Tolstoy, who had been Director General of the Synod since 1865 and Minister of Education as well since April, 1866. In these positions, Tolstoy had led the campaign within the government to restrict and undo the great reforms decreed in the first half of the 1860’s. He had been especially open in his resistance to the establishment of primary schools by the zemstvos, the local government organizations allowed and given limited responsibilities in 1864, and his attitude toward the education of women and the curricula and control of universities was a strongly repressive one. Even Pobedonostsev had resisted some of his educational proposals in the Council of State.

Loris-Melikov apparently thought that his policies would have brighter prospects if Tolstoy were removed from his two powerful positions and replaced. He no doubt was aware that many Orthodox leaders, including Pobedonostsev, were deeply dissatisfied with Tolstoy’s performance at the Synod. Some members of the hierarchy noted that Tolstoy attended church services only on official occasions, and rumors abounded that he was not even a Christian. Many were dismayed by Tolstoy’s lack of vigor and noted that the number of clergy had declined while he was Director General and that some churches had had to be closed for that reason.

Pobedonostsev, on the other hand, was known to be a deeply religious person with very wide contacts throughout the Russian Orthodox Church. He had shown a special interest in church affairs in his work in the Council of State, and his correspondence reveals that he had come to know many members of the hierarchy and many important priests during the 1870’s. He was favorably known also to many churchmen throughout European Russia because of his frequent visits to monasteries and celebrated churches. Most churchmen visited him when they were in St. Petersburg, and his knowledge of church problems and affairs may even then have been greater than that of Tolstoy. In fact, he was regarded as a kind of special assistant to the heir for church affairs, and there were rumors late in 1878 that he was going to replace Tolstoy. Loris-Melikov clearly thought, correctly, that appointing Pobedonostsev as Director General of the Synod would please the hierarchy and most churchmen and in this way would increase the support his program would receive, or at least diminish the opposition.²

Loris-Melikov found Alexander II most reluctant to accept his suggestion concerning Pobedonostsev, whom the tsar had known for twenty years and had appointed tutor of the heir to the throne in 1865. Apparently, Pobedonostsev’s splendid position in the eyes of the tsar had simply melted as Pobedonostsev’s views changed and as the tsar came to know him well. He was named a Senator on February 19, 1868, but in October he wrote to Anna Aksakov that the tsar was now suspicious of him, although nothing was ever said and he had no concrete evidence. He wondered then how his Senate appointment had ever been made, and remarked that his position in the court would have been impossible and he would not have been appointed if the decision had been delayed six months. The tensions probably arose over Pobedonostsev’s proposed regimen for his students, which Alexander II thought too strict and demanding, over Pobedonostsev’s sanctimoniousness, and over his suggestions that the members of the imperial family should participate more actively in religious services and in ceremonies of national importance. Pobedonostsev, for example, was appalled that the Emperor did not go to Moscow in November, 1867, to attend the funeral of the Metropolitan Filaret, the Church leader for whom he had had the very highest admiration. Pobedonostsev urged that the Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich attend to represent the family, but Alexander II then assigned Grand Duke Vladimir and forbade Alexander to go.³

Pobedonostsev’s growing conservatism, the conduct of Russian diplomacy and of the Russian military effort in the Balkan crisis of 1876–78, and Alexander II’s open unfaithfulness, which began in 1867 and was climaxed by his marriage to Princess Catherine Dolgorukii less than two months after the death of the empress, led to Pobedonostsev’s bitter criticism of the tsar, first to Catherine Tiutchev, his closest friend, and then to the heir to the throne himself. Consequently, during the last years of his reign, Alexander II faced a hostile son and a critical faction within his court and bureaucracy. Moreover, Pobedonostsev suggested to his protégé that the flabbiness and immorality of Alexander’s private life were vitally related to the state’s weakness and to the disasters of 1877 and 1878. Russia, he said, needed a spiritual revolution and regeneration as well as a new tsar. Thus, Pobedonostsev’s letters to Alexander Alexandrovich during the dark days of the fall of 1877 were full of criticism of Alexander II for his decisions, for his absence from St. Petersburg, for his inability to identify competent generals and able administrators, and for Russian failures in general. When the war and the peace negotiations were over, Pobedonostsev returned to the charge, condemning the emperor for his irresolution and his poor choices. The future tsar replied that he recognized the weaknesses of his father and “the absence of intelligence, strength, and will.”

The correspondence with Catherine Tiutchev is even more remarkable, revealing the width of the gap which separated Pobedonostsev from the tsar and the way in which this development strengthened Pobedonostsev’s ties with the future tsar. Thus, on September 27, 1877, he wrote that Alexander II feared and drove away able men, selected incompetents deliberately, and then cried on one hand and rewarded those who failed on the other. In December, 1879, after predicting “the abomination of desolation,” he wrote that Alexander II was “a pitiful and unfortunate man for whom there is no way out. God has struck him. He has no strength to direct his own actions, even though he thinks he is alive and active and powerful. His will is clearly exhausted; he does not want to hear, to see, or to act. He wants only the pleasures of the belly.” A few months later, after he had served on a special committee to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Alexander’s service as tsar, he wrote: “Both these twenty-five years and this man have been fateful for Russia. He has been the man of destiny for unfortunate Russia. God be with him. God will judge whether or not he has been guilty of wasting and dishonoring the power in his hands, the power and authority given to him by God.”

Pobedonostsev suffered the final indignity when Alexander II invited him to a small private dinner in January, 1881, to meet his new princess, who completed her destruction in his eyes by remarking at their introduction that she had always thought Pobedonostsev a general. Pobedonostsev thought her unpleasant, unattractive, uneducated, vulgar, “in short a wench.”⁴

Alexander II no doubt did not possess full knowledge of Pobedonostsev’s views concerning his morals, his policies, and the impact his reign was having, but the coolness between the two men was not concealed. It appears that in the decade or fifteen years before 1880, Pobedonostsev never conferred privately with Alexander II, nor was asked by the tsar for advice. The tsar certainly understood Pobedonostsev’s position sufficiently to resist Loris-Melikov’s proposal that he be made Director General of the Synod. He agreed that Pobedonostsev was learned and talented, but he did not want to name “a desperate fanatic” and “a Pharisee” to such a sensitive post. Count Peter A. Valuev, chairman of the Council of Ministers, despised Pobedonostsev as an “impossible man,” one “of the class of those who imagine that the miracle of the Pentecost is repeated constantly for their benefit.” However, Valuev finally not only supported Loris-Melikov’s proposal, but helped persuade Alexander II to remove Tolstoy from his two posts and to replace him with Pobedonostsev as Director General of the Synod and with Andrei A. Saburov as Minister of Education. Apparently, the tsar was particularly impressed by the argument that “no one would be more agreeable to the clergy or would have their interests more at heart.” He therefore yielded on April 19, 1880. The appointment was announced officially in the newspapers on April 25. Pobedonostsev was in raptures over the appointment, which he much preferred to one as Minister of Education. Loris-Melikov and Valuev considered the move a great political triumph because they had removed a political opponent and, presumably, obtained strong support from a conservative quarter at the same time.

The Ober-Prokuror or Director General of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church was an important personage because the Orthodox Church was the state church and because the head of the principal administrative body therefore could have considerable influence on many aspects of government policy, particularly those affecting education, access to information, social legislation, and civil rights. The Director General of the Holy Synod, the ruling body of the church set up by Peter the Great in 1721, sat as the representative of the autocratic tsar and the channel for imperial commands to the church. The other members of the Synod consisted of the three metropolitans, who were ex officio members of the board, and several members of the hierarchy who were appointed by the tsar, ordinarily on the Director General’s nomination, for fixed periods of office. The power and authority of the Director General naturally reflected his own character and strength to some degree, but he was in fact the administrative head of the Church and he could exercise absolute authority over the servant church if he wished.

By June, 1880, Pobedonostsev had moved to his large and handsome official residence, a building at the corner of Nevsky Prospect and Liteiny which had once belonged to the Naryshkins. At first he found the mansion too luxurious, and he disliked its busy location, but he soon came to appreciate its spaciousness. In fact, he wrote Catherine Tiutchev that the rooms were so numerous and large that he could shut off the rest of the world and imagine that he was living in the country. He came to enjoy his magnificent establishment so much that he apparently delayed his retirement so that he could retain his privileges.

Pobedonostsev began his new work with great enthusiasm and vigor. However, he soon discovered that the Director General of the Synod did not participate in the official meetings which were at that time crucial for the work of the Church and for resolving Russia’s political problems, the sessions of the Council of Ministers, a kind of advisory cabinet of the heads of the principal ministries which met with the tsar to discuss the main issues of the day. Pobedonostsev petitioned the tsar and the committee to raise the Director General to ministerial status. Loris-Melikov was apparently surprised by this request, because he had thought Pobedonostsev would restrict his interests to the administration of the Church. However, after a considerable amount of discussion, Loris-Melikov and Valuev agreed and the tsar accepted on October 20, 1880. The ukase naming him to the Council of Ministers was issued on November 2, and he attended his first session the next day.⁵

Pobedonostsev’s appointment as Director General of the Synod and his admission to the Council of Ministers were enormously important moves at that time of crisis. His influence before these changes was considerable but nevertheless limited, because it was applied through the heir to the throne, the empress, and the empress-to-be, none of whom had any direct power. His promotion gave him both authority of his own and direct access to the tsar. More important, nomination to the Council of Ministers made him a member of the most important advisory and administrative group, precisely at the time when Alexander II was reviewing with his ministers a proposal for reducing the tension which afflicted the country.

The last four years of the reign of Alexander II were years of growing fear and indignation for Pobedonostsev, as they were for many Russian leaders. Alexander II and his ministers were deeply aware of the discontent and of the revolutionary agitation, but they were divided concerning the most promising policies. One group advocated firm government action against the press, the university students, and all others who were critical of the government and who sought liberalizing changes. Another group argued that a substantial effort must be made to win the support of the leaders of opinion by relaxing press controls and providing trusted public leaders some opportunity to affect government policy through discussion. Thus, in 1879 and January, 1880, Valuev analyzed the growth of anti-government sentiment among the young intelligentsia and suggested that the police be given considerable flexibility in using their power against the press and against public meetings. At the same time, he renewed a proposal made originally in 1863 that the Council of State be enlarged by adding two members elected by the zemstvos and the marshals of the nobility for each province where the zemstvos existed. This proposal to bring some popular support to the government was not adopted. When Pobedonostsev heard of it, he exploded with rage to the Grand Duke Alexander, calling Valuev a “master of phrases” who received his views from the London Times and who dreamed of calling “preservative elements from society into participation in government activity.” He denounced Valuev and his colleagues as eunuchs who talked constantly and had no sense of purpose, policy, or unity.⁶

Loris-Melikov either was not aware of Pobedonostsev’s views when he urged his appointment as Director General of the Holy Synod or thought that the promotion would silence him or reduce his interest in such questions. He soon discovered that Pobedonostsev was an open and determined adversary of any effort to restore stability by giving elected and appointed representatives the opportunity to participate in the discussion of proposed changes with administrative groups. They quarreled first over Loris-Melikov’s proposals for relaxing controls over the press, which Pobedonostsev believed should be further tightened. Then, shortly after LorisMelikov was named Minister of the Interior in August, Pobedonostsev learned that the tsar’s principal advisor was considering the proposals Valuev had advanced and had considerably expanded them. Consequently, in the meetings of the Council of Ministers which Pobedonostsev attended between early November, 1880, and late January, 1881, he openly attacked the program of Loris-Melikov and Valuev. He found some support in a meeting on December 24 at Miliutin’s home at which relaxation of controls over student meetings was proposed and endorsed, because four others, including A. A. Abaza, Minister of Finance, and A. A. Saburov, Minister of Education, also opposed the change. However, late in January when the group discussed the press and decided to have the courts review any government complaints against the press, he wrote Catherine Tiutchev that he was alone in opposition. Pobedonostsev simply could not understand his colleagues and thought they were insane even to consider surrendering principles and government power to “ugly and selfish groups seeking influence and power under the disguise of broad general principles.”

Loris-Melikov apparently tried in a number of private conversations at his home and elsewhere to explain the rationale of his policy, but Pobedonostsev refused to change his views. Moreover, he launched bitter tirades against Loris-Melikov, who thanked him for his frankness and called him “the original honest man” in Russia. Pobedonostsev reported to Catherine Tiutchev: “From that point of view, I am ‘the original honest man,’ with whom it is impossible to reach agreement. I tell him, ‘remember, I am in the position of a believer who cannot agree with idolators. You are all idolaters, you worship the idols of freedom, and they are all idols, idols. . . .’ But he only smiles.”

Loris-Melikov’s tactics in this situation were quite simple. He made a special effort to maintain friendly personal relations with Pobedonostsev and sought him out after meetings for a brief friendly chat. He made certain that Alexander II did not talk with Pobedonostsev. He also devoted intensive efforts to charming the tsar and those closest to him. In particular, he sought to convert the heir to the throne, explaining his plans in some detail and also seeking to win the grand duke’s favor by improving relations between him and the tsar. Finally, and perhaps most important of all, he arranged that Pobedonostsev not be invited to the three critical meetings the tsar held with some of the ministers, which met to discuss his proposal in February. At the last meeting, which was attended by the heir, Valuev, who was chairman of the Council of Ministers, the Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaevich, Loris-Melikov, Minister of Finance Abaza, and Count D. M. Sol’skii,’ the comptroller, the project was approved and it was agreed that the tsar would meet with the full Council of Ministers on Sunday, March 1, for one last review before it was to be issued a few days later.⁷

Alexander II was assassinated early in the afternoon of March 1, and the Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich immediately succeeded to the throne. The horror of the tsar’s death and the character and views of the new tsar completely revised the political spectrum in St. Petersburg and gave Pobedonostsev another opportunity to destroy the program of Loris-Melikov, which he succeeded in accomplishing within two months.

Pobedonostsev charged that Loris-Melikov wanted to provide Russia in 1881 with a constitution; his charge then and later was that he had helped save the autocracy and had kept an alien and harmful institution from poisoning the wells of Russian life. Actually, Loris-Melikov was a supporter of autocracy and was not interested in installing constitutional government in Russia. He did on one occasion say that he wished to make use of “the constitutional forms of the West,” but this was only a dangerous slip in terminology. Both in his official proposal and in the discussions of it before and after the assassination of Alexander II, Loris-Melikov forcefully declared that he was opposed to introducing Western institutions, that his proposals had “nothing in common with Western constitutional forms,” and that a zemskii sobor (territorial assembly) was equally far from his mind. He was convinced, however, that the government had to obtain the support of able, well-informed, and reliable men to help resolve the problems affecting the bulk of the population and to narrow the gap between the state and the people, especially the recognized leaders, or those whom the French term the notables.

Briefly, Loris-Melikov thought the situation in Russia in 1880 and 1881 something like that following the Crimean War, when dissatisfaction because of the defeat, the long-pent-up attack against serfdom, and the thaw permitted by Alexander II had helped create the climate in which the emancipation of the serfs and the other great reforms were carried out. He first planned to have the autocracy retain full power and authority, and he was clearly determined to crush any effort to weaken or overthrow the government. In 1880, he also reorganized the police to reduce conflict of authority and overlapping, relaxed central controls over the universities and the press, abolished the salt tax, and drafted several proposals to establish some unity of government policy and, above all, “to complete the great reforms” with the advice of informed and reliable elected representatives.

On January 28, 1881, the Minister of the Interior proposed that the tsar establish two temporary committees somewhat like the committee he had named in 1858 to edit the details of emancipation. The chairman of each committee was to be a high state official and was to be named by the tsar. Both committees were to include elected representatives from the zemstvos, the local government institutions, and the dumas or legislatures of the principal cities. The committee established to review administrative and economic issues was to study reform of provincial zemstvo and city government; those peasant obligations to the landlords which still remained; redemption payments; and means of improving cattle-raising and agricultural production in general. The second committee was to analyze the passport system and taxes. Both committees were to draft proposals within two months; these were then to go to a special committee which was to include the chairman and some representatives from each of the two committees, several representatives elected by the zemstvos and by the city dumas, and officials from several St. Petersburg offices or departments. After revision by this committee, the proposals were to be reviewed by the Council of State, which would be joined by ten or fifteen appointed representatives of special experience and skill from zemstvo and city government institutions.⁸

Pobedonostsev believed that this proposal would undermine and destroy autocracy in Russia. He declared that Loris-Melikov had set out to “loosen” the bonds which held the state together, and he was particularly upset that he had not been invited to attend the three February meetings, one at the Winter Palace and the others at the Anichkov Palace, to discuss the proposal. He wrote to Catherine Tiutchev two days after the assassination of Alexander II that the heir had told him that he had not opposed the Loris-Melikov scheme at these meetings, but that he had urged Loris-Melikov to give Pobedonostsev a copy for study. At that time, Pobedonostsev believed that public announcement of “some kind of consultative assembly” would soon be made by the new tsar and that Russia would take a fatally long step toward constitutional government.⁹

Pobedonostsev was shocked and horrified by the assassination of Alexander II, but he showed little grief. Instead, he quickly turned his back upon the past and concentrated intensively upon the new tsar and policies for the new regime. His aims were very simple: to strengthen the will of Alexander III, whom he believed to be a man of irresolution and who had acquired power in a critical time without warning or serious preparation, and to persuade the new tsar to reaffirm autocratic power in ringing terms, to oust Loris-Melikov and his supporters from the highest level of the government, and to destroy root and branch the Loris-Melikov proposals. In his many private conversations with Alexander III, in the fourteen letters he wrote to him during the critical sixty days, and in the meetings of the tsar’s advisors, he reiterated his belief in the need to act quickly and decisively in reestablishing authority and destroying once and for all the plans of those who hoped to modify Russia’s form of government. “Don’t follow the liberal sirens. This will lead to ruin, the ruin of Russia and of you as well . . . There is only one way, and it is the true, straight path. Stand on your own feet and without wasting a minute begin the struggle, the most sacred which Russia has ever faced. All the narod await your immediate decision on this.”¹⁰

Pobedonostsev hammered at Alexander III to make his will clear and to reaffirm his autocratic power. At the same time, he began a successful campaign to surround the new emperor with men whom he trusted and who were hostile to the program of Loris-Melikov. His first move in this program was the appointment of his “man of steel,” Captain Baranov, as governor of St. Petersburg. Baranov had left his position with the Volunteer Fleet sometime in the spring of 1880, about the same time Pobedonostsev was named Director General of the Synod, to become a kind of special assistant to Loris-Melikov. In the spring and summer of 1880, Baranov undertook missions to Geneva and to Paris to investigate the activities of Russian exiles, but in August he was named governor of Kovno, an important post but one which naturally removed him from the capital. Pobedonostsev’s role in these changes is difficult to define, but it seems likely that he recommended Baranov to Loris-Melikov as a man who could crush the revolutionary movement, but that Loris-Melikov quickly discovered he was mercurial and irresponsible. Pobedonostsev considered the transfer to Kovno a plot directed against him and the forces of order by the Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaevich and other “liberals” who had had earlier conflicts with Baranov. He therefore tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Loris-Melikov and Alexander II to make Baranov governor of St. Peters-burg with sufficient authority to crush the revolutionary movement.

On the very day Alexander II was assassinated, Pobedonostsev sent a telegram to Baranov, urging him to come to St. Petersburg, a step Baranov refused to take without an order from the tsar or Loris-Melikov. However, the Minister of the Interior on March 2 ordered Baranov to St. Petersburg, and on March 8 the tsar named him to this critical position. As events unfolded in March and April, 1881, it turned out that Baranov did not play a decisive role in the critical decisions. Indeed, he was a failure. However, Pobedonostsev’s promptness in urging this appointment prevented the nomination of someone who might have been favorable to the LorisMelikov position and who might have exerted some positive influence during those tense days.¹¹

The other appointments at the ministerial level made during these two months were also approved and recommended by Loris-Melikov, but they were designed by Pobedonostsev to weaken the position of his opponent and to lead to his resignation. Thus, on March 6 Pobedonostsev wrote a long letter to Alexander III recommending that he replace Loris-Melikov as Minister of Interior with Count Nicholas Ignatiev, the panslav leader whom de Vogüé called “a Gascon of the North” and who had served as ambassador in Constantinople so brilliantly. Pobedonostsev lauded Ignatiev as a resolute man of action, “who still possesses Russian instincts and a Russian soul, and whose name carries great renown among the healthy part of the Russian population, among the simple people.” Ignatiev was brought into the government by the tsar, with Loris-Melikov’s approval, early in April. Exactly a month later, he succeeded Loris-Melikov as Minister of the Interior, a great triumph for Pobedonostsev.

A second ministerial change which Pobedonostsev arranged led to the resignation of Saburov as Minister of Education and his replacement by Baron A. P. Nikolai, whom Pobedonostsev had come to know when they both served on a Committee on Education in the Senate. Pobedonostsev’s closest confidante, Catherine Tiutchev, had urged that this appointment be given to the panslav journalist, Michael Katkov, who deeply desired the post. Moreover, Nikolai himself resisted the appointment in his talks with Pobedonostsev and in a forceful memorandum to the tsar, in which he pointed out that he was old, a Lutheran, well informed only on the Caucasus, a representative of the bygone age of Nicholas I, and uninformed concerning Russian education and those engaged in its administration. However, Pobedonostsev overrode both the reluctance of Nikolai and the objections of his own friends in persuading Loris-Melikov to appoint a man “educated in the old school and in healthy pedagogical principles.”¹²

The Nikolai appointment turned out to be a mistake, just as did that of Captain Baranov, for Nikolai early in 1882 proposed that an advisory council from the zemstvos and city dumas advise the Ministry. He also opposed an illegal act of the tsar in prolonging the tenure of a Moscow University professor who had reached retirement age and whose appointment was fervently opposed by a large majority of the faculty. However, during the year he served as Minister of Education, Nikolai did carry out Pobedonostsev’s wishes with regard to tightening control over university students, restricting opportunities in higher education for women, and beginning preparations for the reorganization of higher education and for state support for the primary schools operated by the Orthodox Church, called parish schools.

Pobedonostsev’s successes were matched, however, by failures which appeared to be just as significant. Thus, he continually urged the tsar to leave St. Petersburg for Moscow, where he would be surrounded by faithful adherents and old traditions, while a thorough cleansing of the capital could be carried out by the police under Baranov. This advice was rejected for that of Loris-Melikov, and the tsar retired to his palace at Gatchina, where he lived under heavy guard for almost two years. Pobedonostsev’s continued declarations that this form of isolation from the populace at such a time was destructive were regularly disregarded by the tsar. A second minor failure which might have become important was Alexander III’s decision that one of the Cossack guards who had been killed on March 1 be given an Old Believer funeral. This was made at the request of Loris-Melikov against the bitter protests of Pobedonostsev, who thought this elementary decency would strengthen the Old Believers and weaken Orthodoxy.¹³

Pobedonostsev’s great advantages, of course, were his close knowledge of the new tsar, his guaranteed access to him on any occasion, and the remarkable skill with which he played on his former student’s uncertainties and fears. When Alexander III assumed the throne, Pobedonostsev worried because “the juggler Loris-Melikov enmeshes him now, because he has the key in his hands and guards his security.” In this situation, Pobedonostsev visited the new tsar on the evening of his father’s death, but then remained away until the tsar asked for him. In fact, throughout 1881, when Pobedonostsev’s relations with Alexander III were probably closer than ever before, he saw the tsar at most only two or three times a week. Ordinarily, when he wished to discuss something he considered important, he wrote a note to the tsar, who then invited him to come to Gatchina the following day at one. Pobedonostsev arrived in the middle of the morning and chatted with the empress and Baroness Edith Raden while waiting. “I arrive, we sit down together, I tell him everything, he agrees with all, he understands all, and I can hardly bear not to look upon him but with tears of love and compassion.” Quite often, nothing happened after these meetings, because the tsar failed to act on his decisions. At times, however, Pobedonostsev won power to act for the tsar. In the most important instance, the manifesto of April 29 which destroyed Loris-Melikov’s program, Pobedonostsev forwarded a draft paper to the tsar on April 26. When they discussed the proposal the next day, the tsar quickly agreed to promulgate the manifesto without even consulting Loris-Melikov or the other ministers.

In his first two letters, on March 1 and March 3, Pobedonostsev emphasized that Alexander Ill’s elevation was a reflection of God’s will which no one could change, and that it was Alexander’s responsibility to God and to the narod to accept the burden and, above all, to assert his authority, to define clearly his autocratic power, and to shake himself free from all entangling politicians. After recommending the removal of Loris-Melikov and Saburov, Pobedonostsev emphasized that he sought nothing for himself. “God has so placed me that I can speak easily with you, but, believe me, I would be happy if I had never left Moscow and my little house on a pleasant little lane.”

Pobedonostsev cited two voices in support of his position, that of Count Sergei G. Stroganov and that of the narod. For Pobedonostsev Stroganov represented traditional Russia, devoted to the autocracy and to the old ways. He had been close to the new tsar for more than twenty years, and he also represented the link between Alexander III and Pobedonostsev, since he had suggested Pobedonostsev as a tutor for the heir two decades earlier. “Call old S. G. Stroganov to come to talk with you. He is a man of truth, an old servant of your ancestors, and a participant in great historical events. He is on the edge of the grave, but his head is clear and his heart is Russian. There is no other man in Russia from whom it would be more beneficial for you to obtain advice in this terrible time.”

Alexander III was impressed by Pobedonostsev’s appeal, and invited Stroganov to the first meeting of the Council of Ministers over which he presided, on Sunday, March 8. Stroganov, who had opposed the abolition of serfdom in 1861, began the discussion with a bitter attack on Loris-Melikov and his proposals, preparing the way for Pobedonostsev’s assault later in the meeting. The aged count declared that the new proposal would remove power from the hands of the absolute sovereign and give it to various politicians, who thought not of the common welfare but of their personal advantage. Moreover, this action would lead directly to a constitution, which almost no one in Russia wanted.¹⁴

Count Stroganov did not attend any of the later meetings of the ministers, although he did visit Pobedonostsev several times within the next two months and he may have written to the tsar also. Pobedonostsev’s appeals to the narod, however, were constant, and he presented himself to the emperor as the voice from the land. “I am a Russian living among Russians, and I know the Russian heart and what it wants.” It was the narod which understood the will of God and which wanted “a firm hand and a firm will” over Russia. In the first meeting of the Council of Ministers, Miliutin, Minister of War, made the mistake of referring to the narod as “an ignorant mass,” and Pobedonostsev thereafter contrasted for the tsar the vices of St. Petersburg and the virtues of the people:

Petersburg impressions are extremely painful and unpleasant. To live in such a troubled time and to see at every step people with no activity, with no clear thought or firm decision, occupied with the petty interests of their “I,” submerged in intrigues to advance their own petty ambitions, their greed for money, their pleasures and idle chatter—all this simply tears one’s soul.

Good impressions derive only from within Russia, from everywhere in the country, from the isolated places. There the spring is still salubrious and breathes freshness; from there and not from here is our salvation. There live people with Russian souls, doing good work in faith and in hope.¹⁵

Pobedonostsev’s first opportunity to defend his position in a government meeting came in the Winter Palace on March 8, a week after the death of Alexander II. Loris-Melikov, Miliutin, and most other ministers believed that this meeting would endorse publication of the Loris-Melikov program and the launching of studies by committees including elected representatives from the zemstvos and city government institutions. However, elder statesman Stroganov opened with his violent attack. Makov, Loris-Melikov’s predecessor as Minister of the Interior and in 1881 Minister of Communications, supported this position, which was attacked with some vigor by the majority of the ministers. Pobedonostsev then launched his attack in a speech probably as significant as any made in Russia in the nineteenth century. In this harangue, he exalted autocracy, praised the mystical union which existed between the narod and the tsar, and declared it was shameful even to discuss such a proposal at a time of national tragedy. “Constitutions as they exist are weapons of all untruth and the source of all intrigue.” The reforms introduced by Alexander II were attacked. “And then the new judicial institutions were opened with new talkfests, talkfests of lawyers, thanks to whom the most terrible crimes, murders, and other such evil acts went unpunished.” Freedom of the press, the zemstvos, city government—everything but the emancipation of the serfs was denounced. Moreover, instead of acting, Russia now had new proposals based on Western ideas at a time when the ministers needed to recognize that they must all share responsibility for the murder of Alexander II.

Pobedonostsev’s colleagues were aghast. Miliutin declared Pobedonostsev’s talk “a negation of all which is at the foundations of European civilization.” Abaza cried that if everything Pobedonostsev said were true, the tsar should discharge all of his ministers. Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaevich noted that it was clear what Pobedonostsev opposed but that he had made no positive proposals. However, the tsar at the end decided that so many complications had been introduced that no decision could be reached. He asked Stroganov to head another committee of review, but the old man declined because of age. Although a clear majority—nine to four, with three abstaining—favored the Loris-Melikov proposals, the meeting disbanded in some uncertainty, a clear triumph for Pobedonostsev, who had delayed the decision and the announcement of the new program and had confused Loris-Melikov and his supporters. A second triumph on that same day was the appointment of Baranov as governor of St. Petersburg. The tide had turned in Pobedonostsev’s favor, although no one at the time realized it.¹⁶

Loris-Melikov, Miliutin, Abaza, and their supporters committed a number of significant errors in the weeks before and after the death of Alexander II, probably due in large part to Loris-Melikov’s inexperience in political life. His principal mistakes were underestimating the pertinacity of Pobedonostsev’s opposition and his assumption that the policies he adopted toward Pobedonostsev would isolate the latter from power or direct his interests into other areas, particularly the administration of the Church. He allowed Pobedonostsev to bypass him in obtaining the removal of a supporter of Loris-Melikov, Saburov, and in adding two opponents, Ignatiev and Nikolai, to the Council of Ministers. He also was unpardonably tardy in seeking the new tsar’s approval of his proposal and of having it promulgated. Indeed, while he submitted a memorandum on reform to the tsar on April 12, he did not submit a draft manifesto to Alexander III, thus leaving a vacuum which Pobedonostsev skillfully filled. Valuev did not call a meeting of the Committee of Ministers to discuss the Loris-Melikov proposal or related problems from March 8 until April 21. Moreover, Loris-Melikov did not present Pobedonostsev a copy of the proposal at any time, although the heir to the throne had suggested that he do so on February 17, when he himself had approved it, and although the heir and Pobedonostsev had both mentioned this to Loris-Melikov in the following weeks and the Minister of the Interior had assured Pobedonostsev he would present him a copy. Loris-Melikov no doubt assumed that Pobedonostsev’s opposition would increase if he read the paper. However, Loris-Melikov himself read it to the March 8 meeting and Pobedonostsev was sufficiently informed from this and from other sources to prepare his celebrated attack.

Loris-Melikov’s negligence only increased Pobedonostsev’s suspicion and his determination to triumph. While Loris-Melikov waited, Pobedonostsev continued his campaign of educating Alexander III through his letters and through their meetings. He also forwarded to the tsar letters he had received from various parts of the country reflecting his point of view. Through his relations with the empress, Baroness Edith Raden, and other ladies-in-waiting and through his correspondence, he also received information about the tsar’s position and about the efforts of his opponents to effect changes. Moreover, his immensely detailed correspondence with Catherine Tiutchev in Moscow gave him an avenue for providing information to Ivan Aksakov and Michael Katkov, who attacked Loris-Melikov and his proposals in their press.¹⁷

Loris-Melikov finally decided to try to break the deadlock by inviting Pobedonostsev to his home for a talk on the evening of April 14. The two brief reports on this conversation which we have from letters from Pobedonostsev to the tsar and to Catherine Tiutchev and the second-hand account Miliutin provides in his diary are our only sources for this confrontation. Pobedonostsev told Catherine Tiutchev that neither had shifted his position, but that they had agreed that the Minister of the Interior in his meeting with the tsar the next day should request that a meeting of the Council of Ministers be called the following day. Pobedonostsev’s letter to the tsar explained that he was delighted that they had talked and that Loris-Melikov would urge a meeting “to define the principles on which the new government must be directed.” Miliutin’s account declared that Pobedonostsev sought the appointment and that he assured Loris-Melikov that his March 8 diatribe had been misinterpreted.

It seems likely that Loris-Melikov explained that he had no intention of weakening the autocracy, that he was eager to smash the revolutionary movement and its foundations, and that his proposal for creating advisory committees which would include both elected and appointed representatives from the zemstvos and from the city governments was designed only to rally conservative leaders to the government and to help bind society and the government together. Pobedonostsev in return no doubt explained that he was concerned only with the preservation of the autocracy and of order, that he had not had the opportunity to study the Minister of the Interior’s proposal, and that his scathing analysis of the previous twenty-five years of Russian history reflected his emotions only a week after the barbarous assassination of Alexander II.¹⁸

In any case, the April 21 meeting of the Council of Ministers was quite different from that of March 8. Miliutin’s diary and Pobedonostsev’s two detailed accounts of the session, one written two days later to the tsar and the other written to Catherine Tiutchev in the Gatchina railroad station on April 27 after he had drafted the April 29 manifesto, are in agreement concerning the substance of the discussion, and their accounts are supported by the secondhand summary available in the diary of Egor A. Peretts. When the tsar invited each minister to comment on the policy problems they faced, Loris-Melikov, Miliutin, Minister of Finance Abaza, Ignatiev, Nikolai, Minister of Justice Nabokov, and Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich all saw the need for closer unity of society and government and for “further improvement of the state structure” as the most pressing problems. All agreed also in supporting the Loris-Melikov program.

Then, to everyone’s surprise, Pobedonostsev reversed his position and announced that he shared their opinions on the need for improvement in structure and administration. He blamed Russia’s misfortunes on a profound moral decline, reflected in the pursuit of easy profit, corruption in the bureaucracy, the absence of high moral practice at every level of society, the passion for excessive drink among the peasantry, and the general lack of respect for authority. In the discussion which followed, Pobedonostsev considered that Abaza was rude and insulting in his queries, but that the others were polite and friendly. At the conclusion of the meeting, Alexander asked the ministers to meet once more by themselves to reach a consensus. Loris-Melikov and his supporters were jubilant. Abaza and Miliutin had refused to talk with Pobedonostsev from the March 8 meeting until after the April 21 session. On the train from St. Petersburg to Gatchina, Pobedonostsev had sat alone while the others chatted gaily. On the return trip, they all acted “like schoolboys on vacation,” and Pobedonostsev was treated as one of the group. It appeared that he had been conquered and that the meeting of the ministers set for April 28 would mark his surrender.¹⁹

Pobedonostsev may have modified his stand at the April 21 meeting because he believed agreement could be reached with his colleagues. He may also have refrained from another tirade because he was absolutely alone in his opposition, without Count Stroganov to lead the way and without Makov and others to support him. In any case, in his April 23 letter to Alexander III describing the meeting, he concluded by saying that he believed that the disagreement was due not to a misunderstanding but to a deeper difficulty about policy. He went on to remark that confusion could be eliminated only by the “firm appearance” of the tsar and that a strong manifesto on the political structure and issues was necessary. Two days later, he wrote the tsar that Loris-Melikov was wooing the Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich successfully, while “all Russia” waited for leadership. “I feel that they do not want to understand me and will not listen to me, and I do not understand them. Moreover, I cannot yield to them that which I believe the truth. How many times during the life of the late tsar in my long arguments with Loris-Melikov, when he reproached me with being obstinate, did I say to him: ‘I believe in one God, you, in my opinion, bow down to idols, false gods. How can you wish that we agree with each other?’ ”²⁰

Pobedonostsev concluded his letter of April 25 with a note that he had begun work on April 24 on a draft manifesto, which he was discussing with Count Stroganov. On April 26, he mailed the manifesto to Alexander III, saying that he had weighed every word, that Count Stroganov was in full agreement, and that “all Russia waits for such a manifesto.” He asserted that there was no need for the tsar to consult with any advisors about the substance or editing of the document. Early the next morning, he received a wire from the tsar that he was in full agreement and that Pobedonostsev should come to Gatchina that day. Pobedonostsev took a second copy of the paper, which his wife had copied, and spent a half-hour with the tsar, who agreed that he would issue it without further consultation on April 29. He revealed that he and the empress had both read the manifesto several times and agreed it should be issued unchanged. Pobedonostsev’s wife had worked with him in drafting the paper, and Pobedonostsev told Catherine Tiutchev of it as soon as he left the tsar on April 27. Thus, three of the few people who knew of this significant paper before it was published were women.²¹

The meeting on Tuesday evening, April 28, at Loris-Melikov’s was conducted in a friendly spirit. The assembled ministers quickly agreed on the establishment of a special committee of inquiry to make a study of crimes against the state and their punishment and upon a reorganization of the police. The item on “regularizing zemstvo and city institutions” led to a protest by Pobedonostsev against the electoral principle and the danger of building “local strength.” However, all the others present, including Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, supported the proposal. Miliutin wrote, “That ended that.” However, as the meeting ended at one in the morning, the Minister of Justice arrived with the news a manifesto had been issued, reaffirming the autocracy and thereby destroying the very foundations of the Loris-Melikov proposal. Pobedonostsev admitted that he had drafted it, while Abaza screamed that the tsar had broken his agreement with the ministers. Pobedonostsev quickly left his stunned colleagues, confident that “TRUTH is with me” but fearing that “the frenzied Asiatic Loris” might plan something foul. Loris-Melikov submitted his resignation that very day. Ignatiev succeeded him as Minister of the Interior on May 6. Within three weeks after the manifesto, Miliutin, Abaza, Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaevich, and the other supporters of Loris-Melikov had left the government, and autocratic rule had reasserted itself. Peaceful political change in Russia had been deprived the opportunity Loris-Melikov had designed, and the next changes were to come from violence.²²

It is obvious from Pobedonostsev’s letters to Alexander III and to Catherine Tiutchev that the manifesto of April 29 was his idea, that he drafted it on his own initiative, and that he persuaded Alexander III to issue it without informing any of the other ministers. However, both his own account and that of Miliutin agree that he told his stunned colleagues that the tsar had “called him to Gatchina on April 27 and ordered him to write the manifesto” so that it might be published immediately. Of course, no one asked the tsar whether this were true. Moreover, the other ministers apparently believed Pobedonostsev. Rumors did abound among them and in St. Petersburg circles for some time that Ignatiev had been a member of a conspiracy to oust Loris-Melikov and to install Ignatiev in his place, and that Katkov had been involved as well. There is no evidence whatsoever that either of these men knew of the manifesto before it was published. It is evident that Count Stroganov was consulted. However, before he died in 1883, Stroganov told Prince Meshcherskii that he had played no role whatsoever in government after March 8, 1881, and that he pitied the poor tsar, “placed between Pobedonostsev, who always knows very well what one should not do but never knows what one should do, and Ignatiev, who wants everything but can do nothing.”

In 1890, Pobedonostsev told the German ambassador, General Hans von Schweinitz, that he had lost any power he had ever had and that only the strong support of Count Stroganov had helped him to persuade Alexander III not to approve proposals Alexander II had already accepted. However, when Prince Meshcherskii in 1896 ascribed full responsibility for the manifesto to Pobedonostsev alone, Pobedonostsev wrote a letter to Grazhdanin which denied he had overthrown the Loris-Melikov project. In this letter, he asserted that the Council of Ministers had rejected the proposal on March 8, in a meeting at which a number had attacked the project and at which the tsar had supported the critiques. The manifesto of April 29 was a completely separate act from the decision on the proposal. Indeed, Pobedonostsev argued that Alexander III repeatedly asked Loris-Melikov to prepare a manifesto reiterating the autocratic position. Loris-Melikov delayed, and “the tsar was obliged” to entrust the manifesto to Pobedonostsev. In the last months of Pobedonostsev’s life, when A. A. Polovtsev reflected that adoption of an elected advisory council in 1881 might have prevented the revolution of 1905, Pobedonostsev replied that he had never seen the Loris-Melikov proposals.²³

The April 29 manifesto is a mark of the high influence of Pobedonostsev over Alexander III. However, Pobedonostsev’s contemporaries and scholars since have often been persuaded by this critical event that Pobedonostsev thereafter always exercised supreme influence over the tsar and that he guided the Russian ship of state throughout the reign of Alexander III. Pobedonostsev had considerable influence in certain fields of policy, especially those affecting the Church and education, but he sought to exercise influence only on those issues and on occasions which he thought vital. The tsar even then often chose to reject his advice. Even in 1881, when the new tsar was least sure of himself and when Pobedonostsev’s influence was probably at its peak, he often failed to persuade the tsar. Thus, Abaza was allowed to remain in the Council of State several weeks after Pobedonostsev had twice insisted he be removed. A number of high appointments were made without his knowledge and others over his objections. His numerous suggestions that the tsar leave Gatchina, where he was completely isolated from the public in a way which weakened the administration and led to rumors, were all ignored. He wrote Catherine Tiutchev early in June, 1881, that he had not been invited to visit the tsar for more than three weeks. When Alexander III did visit Moscow in July and August, 1881, Pobedonostsev drafted a speech for him and wrote detailed notes concerning individuals he would encounter. However, Pobedonostsev and his friends, and presumably his enemies as well, were surprised that he was not a member of the tsar’s party on this occasion or on the subsequent trip to Yaroslavl and Kostroma. Indeed, late in August Pobedonostsev had to confess that he had no knowledge concerning when the tsar would return to St. Petersburg and was even embarrassed to ask. In the middle of February, 1882, he complained that he had seen the tsar only once in the previous month.²⁴

Perhaps the best illustration of the limitations upon Pobedonostsev’s powers was the sudden dismissal of Captain Baranov as governor of St. Petersburg on August 13, 1881, an action of which Pobedonostsev heard only after it was common knowledge and against which his quick protests were of no avail. Baranov was brought to St. Petersburg from Kovno and named governor at Pobedonostsev’s insistence, but within a month even his protector was alarmed by his wild ambition and his irresponsible actions. Once named governor, Baranov neglected Pobedonostsev and his advice, proposed an elected Grand Council in St. Petersburg to advise him as military dictator of the city, found plots against the tsar even in the highest ranks of the army, and helped frighten the tsar into staying in isolation at Gatchina. Pobedonostsev even feared that Baranov aimed to make the tsar a virtual prisoner while he became the real ruler of Russia. After Count Ignatiev was named Minister of the Interior on May 6, Baranov and Ignatiev immediately engaged in bitter conflict because of Baranov’s great ambitions, his attacks on Ignatiev to the tsar, and his proposal that the Russian police system, which was Ignatiev’s responsibility, be reorganized and placed under him. This conflict drove Baranov back to Pobedonostsev for support, but Ignatiev, while on tour with the tsar, persuaded him to discharge Baranov and to name him governor of Archangel, a post which Baranov accepted most reluctantly. Pobedonostsev’s protest that Baranov was “the best man, indeed the only man” for St. Petersburg was ignored. The defeat became doubly bitter a year later when rumors, almost certainly without any foundation, swept St. Petersburg that Pobedonostsev’s wife was going to leave him for Baranov.²⁵

Ignatiev’s triumph and Pobedonostsev’s defeat were only temporary, for Ignatiev himself was dismissed in May, 1882, at Pobedonostsev’s insistence, when Ignatiev urged the tsar to issue a manifesto calling for the election of a zemskii sobor (territorial assembly). Pobedonostsev had vigorously defended Ignatiev in December, 1881, against an intrigue designed to force his resignation as Minister of the Interior. However, he was annoyed when Ignatiev called representatives of the zemstvos to St. Petersburg in the summer and fall of 1881, to serve as technical advisors to committees studying the redemption payments, the head tax, and other issues of central interest to the peasants. He was incensed when Ignatiev made proposals in some ways similar to those of Loris-Melikov a year earlier. He was especially indignant because Ignatiev followed the same tactic Probedonostsev had used. Ignatiev urged Alexander III to issue, without informing or consulting his other ministers, a dramatic manifesto announcing his decision to call a zemskii sobor of “the most able men” to consult with the government at the time of his coronation. The tsar in this case disregarded his advice and showed the draft manifesto to Pobedonostsev, who organized opposition to it in the Council of Ministers and then quickly persuaded Alexander III to dismiss Ignatiev.

Ignatiev’s failure effectively destroyed the possibility for the creation of any kind of elected advisory council, one which might have bridged the gap between government and society and which might have established a foundation for the creation of constitutional government. Many prominent Russian conservatives favored such a system, which was central to the beliefs and program of the Moscow Slavophils. Indeed, Valuev and later Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaevich in 1879 and 1880 discussed with the tsar and with other members of his circle proposals somewhat like those of Loris-Melikov, particularly in suggesting that the gentry, the zemstvos, and the city dumas be invited to select representatives to provide expert advice to the Council of State concerning economic problems. However, these advocates of the zemskii sobor or of some form of elected advisory council were not organized or united, and Pobedonostsev was able to destroy their “childish fantasies” as he had the proposal of Loris-Melikov.

On March 6, 1881, for example, Pobedonostsev was horrified to receive a letter from Olga Novikov in which she advocated a territorial assembly, as she had in her 1880 volume, Russia and England from 1876–1880, prohibited by the censor in Russia for that reason. Five days later, Pobedonostsev received from Boris Chicherin, who had been a friend for twenty years and who was a well-known liberal jurist and scholar, a long memorandum for the tsar which proposed that the Council of State be enlarged by the addition of elected members with advisory power from the nobility and the zemstvos. In March, 1882, Michael Katkov, the influential editor of Moskovskiia Vedomosti who was a close friend of Pobedonostsev, a vigorous panslav, and a strong supporter of firm repression, wrote so frequently about the need for an elected group of advisors that he was forbidden by the censor to continue to discuss or advocate a territorial assembly. Pobedonostsev’s attack upon Ignatiev and his proposal was therefore especially ruthless because he realized that Ignatiev was only reflecting a view held by many in both St. Petersburg and Moscow and one for which the tsar himself might have some sympathy. He pointed out to Alexander III that establishment even of a “purely consultative assembly” would not calm and unite the country but would have the opposite effect, strengthening the feeling of crisis and persuading the “simple people” that Russia faced threats as serious as those of 1613. The appointment of Count Dmitrii Tolstoy to replace Ignatiev as Minister of Interior reflects the degree of the change which had occurred since the spring of 1880, when Tolstoy had been removed as Director General of the Holy Synod of the Church and as Minister of Education because he was considered too conservative. Pobedonostsev and Tolstoy became close allies in fastening restrictive policies upon the body of Russia.²⁶

The spring of 1881 is properly considered a crucial period in modern Russian history. Most contemporaries and observers believe that adoption of the Loris-Melikov proposals would have eased the tension in Russia, won support for the government and the state from many who were in effect neutral between the government and its revolutionary critics, isolated the revolutionaries and destroyed the atmosphere of understanding and sympathy in which they operated, and created a foundation upon which essential progress could have been made. Above all, they would have led to the creation of liberal and conservative political groups or parties twenty-five years earlier than they did in fact appear, thereby creating a far more substantial foundation for a constitutional monarchy and representative government than Russia was able to build before 1914. Pobedonostsev’s success in shattering this possibility not only destroyed the bright hopes of these years, but saddled Russia for twenty-five years with a repressive and essentially sterile policy which won little support, increased the attractiveness of various proposals for revolution, frustrated individuals and groups eager to participate in a program for strengthening and improving Russia, and delayed the development of institutions on which a democratic Russia might have been built.