40-degree vodka, metal glass-holders and other projects that will be remembered in Russia by the maximalist minister Witte

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Sergei Yulievich Witte is one of the most successful finance ministers in Russia. Thanks to his reforms at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Russia came out on top in terms of industrial growth. Modernization of railways throughout the country, the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway, the stabilization of the ruble, the state monopoly on vodka - all this was carried out on his initiative. In addition, on the initiative of Witte, the October 1905 manifesto was drawn up and promulgated, which stopped the development of the first Russian revolution of 1905. Thanks to his efforts, successful Russian-Japanese negotiations were held in America, which allowed Russia to look dignified in the eyes of the world community and not pay indemnity as the losing side.

Where was he born, what kind of education he received and how he built a career in the Office of the Odessa Railway Sergey Yulievich Witte

Witte was born in Tiflis, where his father served as the head of the department of state property of the Caucasian governorship. Sergei spent his childhood in this city, in his gymnasium certificate there is a unit for behavior - a playful, energetic boy did not differ in a meek disposition. Seryozha got a C in the French exam, and after the exam he waited for his examiners and threw mud at them. The father sent his eldest sons, Alexander and Sergei, for further study at the Chisinau boarding school, after which Alexander entered the cadet corps, and Sergei became a student of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Novorossiysk University in Odessa.

Sergei turned out to have remarkable abilities in mathematics, he became a successful student, and after graduating from the university he was even offered to stay at the department as a teacher, to become a scientist. But Witte was essentially a practitioner. In addition, his father unsuccessfully invested all the family's money in the enterprise, which went bankrupt, after the death of his father, only debts remained, and young Witte urgently needed to look for a highly profitable place to help the family.

Thanks to family ties and the patronage of the Minister of Railways, Count Bobrinsky, who knew his father, Sergei Witte got a job at the Office of the Odessa Railway. He purposefully masters working professions related to ensuring the functioning of railways, quickly delves into all the intricacies of the railway service and draws conclusions about the shortcomings in this area. The Odessa Railway enjoyed a bad reputation among the public: trains often went off the rails, carriages were swayed, machinists often cheered themselves up with alcohol during working hours, and Witte burned with enthusiasm to radically change the situation. During the internship, he rose to the position of the head of the station, and after that he was appointed manager of the traffic office of the Odessa Railway. He quickly gained respect among colleagues - there was always order and discipline on his site.

During the Russian-Turkish war, Witte manages to establish the uninterrupted operation of trains in the Balkan direction - he introduced the brigade method of the drivers' work, and was noticed. He was sent to serve in the capital on the board of the South-Western Railways Joint Stock Company. In addition, Witte, as an experienced practitioner, was included in a special commission for the preparation of a unified charter of railways. In St. Petersburg, Witte was uncomfortable; he was disliked for his straightforwardness, harshness, and harshness. He was considered a provincial and an upstart. Many were annoyed by his democratic manner of communicating with subordinates. Therefore, Witte soon moved to Kiev and took the position of manager of the Society of South-Western Railways. Witte approached his work creatively - he, for example, came up with the idea of using metal iron cup holders in trains. It was he who developed the railway tariffs that contributed to the modernization and development of railways. Witte introduced the practice of issuing loans for grain cargo. Thanks to these innovations, railways have become incredibly profitable.

How Witte earned the trust of Emperor Alexander III himself and received the post of Minister of Railways

In the fall of 1888, the family of Alexander III returned from a summer vacation in the Crimea. The royal train was long in length, and the emperor himself preferred to travel at high speeds. There was a serious accident, the train flew off the track. The railway in those days was built, as a rule, not by professionals, but by soldiers and prisoners - the cheapest labor force. Therefore, the rails and embankments were poorly fortified. Considering these factors, Witte had expressed concern about the safety of the Tsar's train two months before this incident, about which he wrote a report to the Ministry of Railways.

Now Alexander III remembered this and insisted that Witte be included in the commission of inquiry, and then completely offered him the position of director of the department of railway affairs under the Ministry of Finance. A quick mind and practical acumen provided Witte with a rapid career growth. A year later, he was appointed Minister of Railways, and a year later he took the place of Minister of Finance. He had a lot of real power in his hands, because finance is the lifeblood of the economy. It now depended on him where they would go.

State monopoly on vodka - did Witte get the people drunk?

In 1894, Witte introduced a wine monopoly in Russia, as a result of which he successfully replenished the state treasury. Distillery owners had to sell raw alcohol only to state-owned enterprises. The standard 49-degree strength of "bread wine" was established - this was the name of vodka at that time, a famous Russian chemist, Dmitry Mendeleev, took part in this.

But the minister was attacked in the press, he was accused of getting the people drunk. But these were rather ordered materials: Witte's reform affected the interests of private producers, who had previously successfully soldered the population, but the money went not to the treasury, but to their pocket.

What was the essence of Witte's financial reform?

In his eleven years as finance minister, Witte has done an incredible amount for the Russian economy. The Trans-Siberian Railway was built, connecting Moscow with the Far East, while, according to Witte's agreement with the Chinese leadership, the southern branch of the Chinese railway passed through Manchuria, which greatly reduced the path and strengthened Russia's influence on the eastern borders. The existing ones were modernized and new railway lines were built throughout the country, which contributed to the development of trade and industry. Witte began preparations for an agrarian reform, which provided loans for the purchase of land by peasants, the development of farms, and encouraging migrants to Siberia. These measures would make it possible to overcome the rapid impoverishment of the peasantry. But opponents of such a reform - conservatives and supporters of a "protective" policy in the agrarian question, headed by the Minister of the Interior Plehve, won - the project was not allowed to be implemented (this reform would later be implemented by Stolypin).

But most importantly, Witte, due to the volatile price of silver, canceled the ruble's dual-currency system and introduced the gold standard. The convertibility of the ruble has increased, but even this was not the main thing. It was more important that thanks to this, investments in the Russian economy by foreign investors became a promising business. And the industrial breakthrough required a lot of money. The result of the reform is that the extractive, industrial and commercial sectors of the country's economy began to develop at a rapid pace.

For which Nicholas II awarded Witte the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called and gave him the title of count

Under Alexander III, Witte felt tremendous support and confidently put his ideas into practice. At the beginning of his reign, Nicholas II also listened to him - as his father bequeathed to him, to obey this man in everything. But over time, the assertiveness, energy of the minister and his patronizing tone began to irritate the emperor. He removed Witte from his post as finance minister and appointed him to the high but decorative post of chairman of the cabinet.

But two years later, they remembered him. Russia suffered a humiliating defeat in the war with Japan, it was necessary to send someone to the bilateral negotiations, which were to take place in America. Witte agrees to carry out this assignment. In Portsmouth, Witte realized that his main task was to win public opinion towards Russia. And he did everything possible for this. Witte managed to achieve peace on more favorable terms for Russia than could be expected. I had to concede half of Sakhalin, but there was no need to pay an indemnity. For successful negotiations, he was awarded the Order of Alexander the First-Called and was granted the title of count.

How was the fate of the maximalist minister after the 1905 revolution

In October 1905, a wave of strikes swept across Russia. Witte, whose opinion was now impossible to ignore, proposed to the emperor to carry out liberal reforms. Nicholas II hesitated - he was not ready to part with absolute power. But the situation was heating up, the strikes threatened to develop into a revolutionary movement, so the emperor instructed Witte to develop a new legislative act in Russia. The manifesto was promulgated on October 17, 1905. In it, the sovereign granted his subjects freedom of conscience and speech, the right to meet and form parties. The creation of the State Duma was announced.

After the signing of the manifesto, Witte was appointed chairman of the newly created Council of Ministers. He again had enormous powers in his hands. In this post, he spent exactly six months - it took so much time to pacify the uprising. And then Witte was dismissed. He was hunted down by the monarchists - Black Hundreds from the "Union of the Russian People" - there were rumors that he wanted to be the president of the Russian republic. On January 20, 1907, Witte discovered an explosive device in his fireplace - it miraculously did not work. The retired Witte writes a memoir, which becomes known to the tsar. And of course, he did not expect that in these memories his image would be presented flawlessly. High-ranking dignitaries were afraid of the same. In 1915, Sergei Yulievich Witte caught a bad cold and died as a result of complications. This happened on March 13 in St. Petersburg. All attempts to find and destroy his memoirs were in vain - the papers were kept in a foreign bank. In 1921, his memoirs were published in Germany, and to this day they are a valuable source of information.

But one simple samurai almost took the life of the Russian emperor.