Pavel Nikolayevich Milyukov

Pavel Nikolayevich Milyukov (born January 27 [January 15, Old Style], 1859, Moscow, Russian Empire—died March 3, 1943, Aix-les-Bains, France) was a Russian statesman and historian who played an important role in the events leading to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and served as foreign minister (March–May 1917) in Prince Lvov’s provisional government. He remains one of the greatest of Russia’s liberal historians.

Early career

Milyukov entered Moscow University in 1877 and soon attained academic distinction as a specialist in Russian history. His three-volume Ocherk po istorii russkoy kultury (1896–1903; Outlines of Russian Culture) brought him nationwide renown. He was, however, to become even better known as a spokesman for imperial Russia’s nascent liberal movement.

Milyukov’s concern with contemporary political issues led in 1895 to the loss of his teaching post, whereupon he went abroad, traveling widely and developing a deep admiration for the political values of more advanced democratic countries. On two occasions, in 1903 and 1904–05, he visited the United States, where he gave public lectures on Russian history and politics. As a convinced “Westernizer,” Milyukov saw tsarist absolutism as the main obstacle to Russia’s progress. He strove to make Russian liberalism a more broadly based movement committed to a radical (but not socialist) transformation of the empire’s political and social structure. In particular, he stood for the rule of law, parliamentary government, universal suffrage, a broad range of civil freedoms, the expansion of popular education, and land reform. He was perhaps a better judge of abstract ideas than of human nature and was too inflexible to succeed in practical politics.

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Political journalism

As a contributor to a clandestinely circulated journal, Osvobozhdeniye (“Liberation”), founded in 1902, Milyukov did much to swing the moderate members of the zemstvos (local government bodies) to the left. During the revolutionary year 1905, he was active in forming the Union of Unions, a broad alliance of professional associations, and subsequently the Constitutional Democratic, or Kadet, Party. As editor of the Kadet daily newspaper, Rech (“Speech”), and a member of the party’s Central Committee, he directed its tactics in Russia’s first nationwide election, which brought the Kadets success at the polls. The gulf between the newly created Duma, or national assembly, and the government could not be bridged, however, and in July 1906 the assembly was prematurely dissolved. Milyukov helped to draft the Vyborg Manifesto, appealing for a campaign of passive resistance to the government; this, technically speaking, was an illegal act. Many moderates thought that his tactics, which involved a measure of cooperation with the revolutionary Socialists, were too radical.

Subsequently Milyukov moved to the right. In the third and fourth Dumas (1907–17), he led the Kadets’ depleted parliamentary faction in condemning bureaucratic abuses and championing progressive causes. After the outbreak of World War I, Milyukov adopted a patriotic “defensist” policy, which in 1915 led him to criticize the imperial regime for its inefficiency in organizing Russia’s resources for the war effort. He helped to form a Progressive Bloc of moderate Duma leaders, who sought by gentle pressure from public opinion to secure a ministry enjoying the nation’s confidence. When these overcautious tactics proved unavailing, Milyukov swung sharply to the left and, on November 14, 1916, delivered a powerful speech in the chamber implying that the government was guilty of treason. His charges had no real substance, but they greatly stimulated revolutionary sentiment, which soon exceeded the bounds that Milyukov had expected or desired.

Foreign minister

When Tsar Nicholas II abdicated under this pressure on March 15, 1917, Milyukov wanted to preserve the monarchy as a stabilizing force but found little support. The revolutionary tide was now running strongly against him. In the liberal provisional government under Prince Georgy Lvov, which Milyukov helped to constitute, he towered intellectually over his colleagues but was soon outmaneuvered by the Socialist leader Aleksandr Kerensky, who favoured a policy of concessions to popular demands, notably on the question of taking immediate steps toward a negotiated peace. As foreign minister, Milyukov clung to Russia’s wartime alliances. He resisted heavy pressure from inside and outside the government to send a note to the Allies redefining his country’s war aims, and when he yielded on May 1 the note was phrased ambiguously. Disturbances broke out in the streets of Petrograd (St. Petersburg), and Milyukov was obliged to resign (May 15).

Last years

Thereafter Milyukov endeavoured to counter the new coalition government’s leftward swing by rallying the moderates, but with little success. The Bolshevik seizure of power in November 1917 forced him to leave Petrograd for southern Russia, where he became political counselor to the leaders of the White Volunteer Army. Subsequently he emigrated to Paris. Milyukov held fast to his liberal principles and remained active in politics and scholarship until his death.

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