I want to thank some of the many people whose kindness, scholarly prowess, and general helpfulness made this book possible, recognizing that I’ll likely forget to name some key contributors. First, I’m deeply indebted to Lars Lih, Daniel Orlovsky, and Melissa Stockdale, who provided in-depth criticism and suggestions in their peer reviews and who engaged with me long thereafter. Many other scholars of Russian history also extended a welcome to this visitor from the world of law, ready to answer questions, point me to resources, chat about related (or unrelated) issues of Russian history, and offer useful suggestions. Among the many providing expert help (including partial readings) were Abe Ascher, Ira Lindsay, Jonathan Daly, Robert Weinberg, Albina and the late Igor Birman, Alex Potapov, Ilya Beylin, and Olga Zverovich, and Peter Roudik and Ken Nyirady of the Library of Congress. I am in debt to Abe for far more than his reactions to particular segments—his astute observations, encouragement, friendship, and laughter date back to nearly twenty years ago, when I first thought of doing real work in Russian history.
I’m also indebted to Peter Reuter, Peter Szanton, and Matt Christiansen for readings of the whole book, and Peter Conti-Brown and David Tatel for partial readings, all from the perspective of intelligent, well-informed citizens. David Dorsen, Mike O’Malley, Amanda Mecke, Max Singer, Emmanuel Villeroy, and Jonathan Zittrain have provided all kinds of clues and ideas, as well as valued hand-holding and consultation.
Many thanks to Zhanna Buzova for hours spent untying the linguistic knots in Maklakovian sentences that first eluded me. I am grateful to the good people at Wilsted and Taylor Publishing Services for close copy editing and massaging the book to readiness for publication, and to Katherine Wong at Encounter Books for attentive support over the past year. Finally, thanks to all members of my family, especially to my wife, Faith, for readings, comments, and a well-calibrated mix of nudges and cheerleading.
“The only way to avert a revolution is to make one.”
ANTOINE PIERRE BERRYER
IN OCTOBER 1905 Tsar Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto, opening the door for the first time in Russia’s history to real-world political advocacy—advocacy that could affect the election of legislators, who in turn could pass laws controlling government action. This book is an account of the efforts of Vasily Maklakov, a lawyer, legislator, and public intellectual who used this opportunity to advance the rule of law in Russia. Though his efforts were clearly not enough to prevent the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917,* they illuminate the kind of challenge that reformers face today in authoritarian regimes around the globe.
In the October Manifesto the tsar promised to allow freedom of conscience, speech, and assembly and to establish an elected legislature. He also took a pledge to the rule of law. Under the manifesto, a law could take effect only with the consent of the legislature, rather than merely by decree of the autocrat, as before. And compliance with law would be an essential condition for valid executive action. If fully implemented, the manifesto would have created a government of laws.
As a trial lawyer, Maklakov regularly observed the practical qualities and defects of the rule of law in early twentieth-century Russia. He was renowned for being able to sway juries and judges with calm conversational logic. As a legislator he used his analytic and forensic skills to press for reform of Russia and reduce the risk of revolution, advocating, for example, a practical integration of peasants into Russian society and an end to religious and ethnic discrimination. He wrote for newspapers and intellectual journals on vital issues of the day. He appeared to move with ease between technical legal issues and the more philosophical questions of how law might enable the creation of a free society. His arguments delineate a Russia that might have been—a Russia struggling with corners of backwardness, to be sure, but liberal, open, welcoming previously unheard voices, and developing institutions that could channel conflict into lawful paths.
As participant and observer, actor and critic, Maklakov is an inviting lens through which to view the last years of tsarism. Born in May 1869, he received a degree in history before getting one in law. He was on the political stage from shortly before the October Manifesto until the Bolsheviks took power in 1917. Named ambassador to France by the Russian Provisional Government, he set off for Paris on October 12, but was unable to present his credentials before the provisional government fell. Although active thereafter as the effective dean of the Russian émigré community in France, he was also able to write the story of the revolution and its background in several books of lucid and engaging prose. Like any historian-participant, he occasionally spun events to fit his views at the time of writing, but through his contemporaneous speeches and writings we can detect cases where he adjusted history—usually only slightly—to reflect a new outlook. And his charm and capacity for friendship with people radically different from himself—Leo Tolstoy and the maverick Social Democrat Alexandra Kollontai come quickly to mind—created a trail of relationships far beyond the ken of most lawyer-politicians, however distinguished.
In the Russia of 1905–17, Vasily Maklakov may have represented the very center of the political center. As Leon Trotsky wrote of him in 1913, he “rose above all parties.”1 Trotsky’s words were, in fact, an ironic sneer at Maklakov, but regardless of the intended irony, the words capture a truth. The moderate opposition—those who were neither self-proclaimed revolutionaries nor fans of unlimited autocratic power—was divided into two main parties. On one side were the Constitutional Democrats, or Kadets (the informal name derived from KD, the initials of their name in Russian). On the more conservative side were the Octobrists, who took their name from the October Manifesto and sought to advance the political system that it sanctioned. One might call the Kadets the center left and the Octobrists the center right. Though a Kadet leader, Maklakov combined elements of both the Kadets and the Octobrists. His insistence of thinking issues through for himself led to criticism from more partisan contemporaries. Paul Miliukov, the leader of the Kadet party and often an adversary of Maklakov, criticized him after the Bolshevik revolution (when both were emigrants) for having believed unduly in compromise2 and described him with some disdain as having a lawyer’s professional habit of “seeing a share of truth on the opposite side, and a share of error on his own.”3
Maklakov deviated from Kadet and Octobrist orthodoxy on several key issues. The Kadets were firmly committed to a drastic agrarian policy: the state should take the land of non-peasant landowners, giving some compensation but not market value, and should transfer it to the peasants. But the peasant recipients themselves would not get full title—only a temporary right to use the land, subject evidently to endless further bureaucratic redistribution (a point the Kadets soft-pedaled in their quest for peasant votes).4 Someone who favored serious protection for private property, though recognizing limits on that protection, could not be fully at home among the Kadets. But the Octobrists generally opposed equal treatment for Jews, Poles, and Finns and staunchly resisted anything like autonomy for Poles and Finns. This isn’t to say that the Kadets were utterly indifferent to property rights or that the Octobrists were anti-Semites and extreme nationalists to a man. But anyone who favored the rule of law and private property rights and an end to state discrimination against Jews and Russia’s “national minorities” was bound to be a bit uncomfortable in either party. Maklakov cast his lot with the Kadets, but the relationship was always a somewhat awkward marriage of convenience.
Maklakov