One hundred years have passed since the death of the Minister of Internal Affairs, who tried to change Russia

September marks one hundred years since the murder of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, the third chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire and Minister of Internal Affairs, in Kyiv. And next year is the 150th anniversary of his birth. These two dates already distinguish Stolypin from the usual series: he became the head of the government at the age of 44, which was atypical for both the Russian and the world political elite. And he died at the age of 49, when most politicians were just approaching the heights of power.

This is one of the most integral and at the same time contradictory figures in Russian history. He does not fit into the lines popular in the domestic debate: reactionary - reformer, conservative - progressive, Slavophile - liberal, supporter of autocracy - constitutionalist. One thing is certain: Stolypin was an outstanding statesman, who is distinguished from a politician by the fact that he is able to see goals and lead society without playing along with the instincts of the crowd (or the influential majority), without adapting to their prejudices.

Was Stolypin's activity successful? This is a perennial question when evaluating reformers, and as such it never has a clear answer. Each generation of Russians will give its own answer to the question about the activities of people like Pyotr Stolypin or Yegor Gaidar.

In bureaucratic logic, Stolypin was successful, since of all the prime ministers of the Russian Empire he held this post the longest. He stopped the revolution and began deep reforms. At the same time, he fell victim to an assassination attempt, was unable to complete his reforms and did not achieve his main goal: to create a great Russia in 20 peaceful years.

Stolypin's activities provide a number of important lessons for implementing policies in conditions of systemic crises. These lessons are quite simple, but that doesn't make them any less important.

A leader must take responsibility, and above all for unpopular measures - be it in economics or politics. Stolypin had the difficult mission of suppressing revolutionary terror, to which he responded with military courts. And although the number of those sentenced to death was less than the number of victims from terrorist acts, and even more so incomparable with the terrible statistics of future revolutions and Stalinist repressions, the heavy burden of the “hangman” fell on his reputation. He did not make excuses or refuse, but once remarked in the Duma that one must be able to distinguish between the blood on the hands of an executioner and the blood on the hands of a surgeon.

Stolypin represented a rare type of conservative reformer who carries out deep transformation through gradual, albeit decisive steps. For this, he was naturally hated by both the right and the left. Another thing is that Stolypin could afford the path of gradual reforms - the state, despite the revolution, was preserved. Carrying out reforms in the context of state collapse (for example, in the early 1990s) was immeasurably more difficult.

A strong finance minister is essential for a political reformer. And Stolypin had strong support in the person of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance V.N. Kokovtsov. The Ministry of Finance, with the opposition of other departments, provided conditions for macroeconomic stability, strengthened the gold reserves of the chervonets and made the Russian currency one of the most stable and attractive in the pre-war world. By the way, after the Kyiv murder, Kokovtsov became prime minister, retaining the post of finance minister. Such a combination has no precedent in the entire Russian history.

And, finally, a reformer cannot be a hostage to party interests, or be strictly associated with any specific interest groups. He must rise above parties and groups, realizing strategic goals - more or less consistently.

Stolypin's fate is typical of Russian reformers. About ten years ago, one of the domestic politicians expressed a wish for modern reformers to be the same as Speransky, Witte and Stolypin. But the first of them was accused of treason and exiled, the other was dismissed after implementing one of the best political reforms in world practice, and the third was completely killed at the zenith of his reform activities.

The author is the rector of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation, editor-in-chief of the journal “Economic Policy”

Pyotr Stolypin: the fate of a reformer