Serge Witte () (June 29th 1849 - March 13rd 1915), Minister for Finance under the reigns of the tsars Alexandre III and Nicolas II, was one of the project superintendents of the industrialization of Russia and the author of the Manifeste of October of 1905, prelude to the first Russian Constitution.

Years of training

Born with Tiflis, Serge Witte is the son of Julius Witte and Catherine Fadeyev, and cousin of Mrs Blavatsky. Of Dutch origin, its family was already installed in Russia, in the area of the Baltique, at the time of Pierre Large the. His/her grandfather, maternal, Andre Fadeyey, were governor of Saratov and private adviser of the the Caucasus. His/her maternal grandmother, Helene Dolgoroucki, belonged to a family of aristocrats very close to the imperial family.

Raised in the house of the parents of its mother, Witte makes her higher learning at the university of Odessa with the hope work in pure mathematics. After obtaining its diploma, in 1870, it however finds an employment with the Company of the Railroads of South-west. He works in the administration and the management of the various railway lines of which occupies itself the company and becomes a true specialist there on the matter.

In 1889, it is engaged by the ministry for Finances and becomes director of the railway businesses. It then becomes acquainted with the tsar Alexandre III who quickly recognizes in him an intelligent man able to advance the economy of the country. In February 1892, it appoints it Minister for the Transportation Routes. Six months, disappointed later by the performances of Vichnegradski, its Minister for Finance, Alexandre III revoke it and replaces it by Witte.

The Minister for Finance

Like its tsar, Witte has in heart the economic development of Russia. It is given like first tasks to finish the construction of the Transsibérien by carrying out the way until Vladivostok, and to nationalize the trade of the Vodka, on which it hopes to insert of the money in the trunks of the Treasury.

January 3rd, 1897, Sergueï Witte, then Minister for Finance, continues the financial reforms started under Alexandre III: rouble-but is founded including the imperial one (15 roubles) and theimperial one (7 roubles and 50 kopecks). This reform will give a dash without precedent in Russia, with the economy and the developments of the industrie.
By meticulous economies, it carries out the stabilization of the currency. In spite of the external influences (especially French) which required the bimetalism, it introduces the Gold Standard in Russia, which will make it possible several Russian industrialists to grow rich quickly.

Witte also has like priority the development of the trade abroad. After a negotiation tightened with Berlin, the German government agrees to apply to Russia a very favorable customs tariff.

To develop industry, Witte has recourse to the loan abroad. Of 1895 with 1899, they will reach 275 million roubles, coming especially from France and Belgium. Thanks to them, industrial development climbs at tops ever reached. The production indeed increases by 8% in the Années 1890.

Witte encourages the foreign private companies to come to invest in Russia. In 1900, nearly 300 companies, mainly French and Belgian, are installed there.

In 1894, Nicolas II goes up on the throne and leaves, for the moment, all its ministers in place. The economic policy of Witte is not affected by the change of reign and the new tsar entirely trusts him.

The grogne growing in the campaigns proves however that the peasants hardly benefit from the economic boom. They are too heavily imposed and do not have enough grounds. Conscious of the problem, Witte tries to convince Nicolas II to convene a country conference in order to regulate these problems. The tsar tergiversates because it has a faith inébranlable in the fidelity of the mujik . It is only in 1902 that conference series begin where one does not intend oneself however on the resolutions to take.

In 1903, Serge Witte is obliged to resign because he is opposed to the war which Russia is train preparing against the Japan. According to him, the economy of the country is not yet enough solid to launch out in this adventure. Nicolas II appoints then it president of the Council of Ministers, an quasi-honorary title.

The adviser and negotiator

The Guerre Russo-Japanese woman is catastrophic for Russia. At the summer 1905, the US president, Theodore Roosevelt, proposes as a mediator and Nicolas II decides to send Witte to the United States to negotiate an advantageous peace there. The conference takes place with Portsmouth, New-Hampshire and, in spite of the circumstances, the former minister manages to draw his pin from the play. Admittedly, the peninsula of Liao-Tong, Port-Arthur and Dairen return to Japan, but the island of Sakhaline is divided between the two ex-belligerents. Moreover, Russia will not have to pay the war indemnities claimed by Japan, which seems essential with the Russian public opinion.

In reward of its rendered services, Nicolas II the fact count but it would all the same have liked to obtain more.

Russia is then in full revolutionary upheaval. The riots burst everywhere, the workmen are in strike in a good part of the factories of the country. A Soviet of the workmen was even formed with Saint-Pétersbourg. The tsar asks Witte to write a memorandum recommending the solutions to him to regulate the problems which are dependant there. Written in October 1905, this memorandum states that it is necessary to choose between a military dictatorship and the granting of a constitution. For its part, Witte strongly recommends the introduction of a constitution. The tsar then orders to him to work out the terms of them.

According to the imperial Proclamation of October 30th, the empire becomes a semi-constitutional monarchy, allowing the freedom of conscience, word, meeting and association, and announcing the institution of an elected Parliament, the Douma. The tsar keeps his prerogatives on Defense, the Foreign affairs, and the nomination or the revocation of the ministers.

Witte becomes the first Prime Minister of the new Constitution and Nicolas II charges it with forming the next government.

The Prime Minister

Witte has misery to form its government. Liberals of the party constitutional-democrat, like Dimitri Chipov and Alexandre Goutchkov, fear to enter there of fear there of losing their beautiful reputation of protestors and of being thus repudiated by the opponents with the mode. Finally, the Witte government will be made up only of civils servant and not of politicians.

The most urgent objective is the introduction of a land reform, in order to alleviate the country jacqueries. The bill proposes the nationalization of the fields of more than 1000 hectares, the redistribution of the grounds to the peasants and the compensation for the expropriés owners. Witte approves it but not Nicolas II who decides to return the Minister for Agriculture.

In spite of the disorders which continue of more beautiful and which end up exasperating the tsar, disappointed more and more by Witte, this one manages all the same to negotiate with France a new loan of 2,5 franc million (844 million roubles), the largest Russian loan to date.

In April 1906, the radicals gain the first Russian elections of the history, to the great displeasure of Nicolas II who returns its Prime Minister that it replaces by the very preserving Ivan Gorémykine.

Reprocess

Land-mark, Witte wants to find its authority but Nicolas II wants nothing any more to know of him. More by spite that by principle, he is opposed to the land reform of the new Prime Minister, Piotr Stolypine, and is combined even to the reactionaries to sap his authority at the Duma.

In 1914, it is opposed to the entry in war of Russia and writing to the tsar in this direction. At the time of a conversation with the French ambassador, Maurice Paleologist, it entrusts its point of view to him: This war is a madness. It was imposed on the wisdom of the Emperor by politicians as awkward as improvident. It can be only disastrous in Russia. Only France and England are founded to hope for some profit of the victory. Still our victory appears to me it extremely doubtful. Let us suppose the complete victory of our coalition, the Hohenzollern and the Habsbourg reduced to beg peace. But then it is not only the ruin of Germanic prepotency, it is also the proclamation of the Republic in all the Central Europe. And, at the same time, it is the end of tsarism .

Witte dies of an heart attack the March 13rd 1915, in Petrograd. It left Mémoires published after its death, in 1921.

Sources

• Michel Heller, History of Russia and its empire , Plon, 1997.

• Helene Carrère d' Encausse, Nicolas II , Beech, 1996.