Sergei Witte

Lore & Background

Count Witte served under the final two emperors of Russia, Alexander III and Nicholas II. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, he had risen to a position in which he controlled all the traffic passing to the front along the lines of the Odessa Railways. As finance minister from 1892–1903, Witte presided over extensive industrialisation and achieved government monopoly control over an expanded system of railway lines. Following months of civil unrest and outbreaks of violence in what became known as the 1905 Russian Revolution, Witte framed the October Manifesto and the accompanying government communication to establish constitutional government. However, he was not convinced it would solve Russia's problems with the Tsarist autocracy. On 20 October 1905 Witte was appointed as the first chairman of the Council of Ministers (effectively prime minister). Assisted by his Council, he designed Russia's first constitution. But within a few months Witte fell into disgrace as a reformer because of continuing court opposition to these changes. He resigned before the First Duma assembled. Witte was fully confident that he had resolved the main problem: providing political stability to the regime, but according to him, the 'peasant problem' would further determine the character of the Duma's activity. He is widely considered to have been one of the key figures in Russian politics at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Orlando Figes has described Witte as the 'great reforming finance minister of the 1890s', 'one of Nicholas's most enlightened ministers', and as the architect of Russia's new parliamentary order in 1905.

Reader's Guide

Witte's father, Julius Christoph Heinrich Georg Witte, was from a Lutheran Baltic German family. He converted to Russian Orthodoxy upon his marriage with Yekaterina Fadeyeva. His father was made a member of the knighthood in Pskov but moved as a civil servant to Saratov and Tiflis. Sergei was raised on the estate of his mother's parents. His grandfather was Andrei Mikhailovich Fadeyev, a Governor of Saratov and Privy Councillor of the Caucasus, and his grandmother was Princess Helene Dolgoruki. Sergei had two brothers (Alexander and Boris) and two sisters (Olga and Sophia). Helena Blavatsky, noted as a mystic, was their first cousin. Witte studied at a Tiflis gymnasium, but he took more interest in music, fencing and riding than in academics. He finished Gymnasium I in Kishinev and began studying Physico-Mathematical Sciences at the Novorossiysk University in Odessa in 1866 and graduated at the top of his class in 1870. After completing his studies he devoted some time to journalism in close relations with the Slavophiles and Mikhail Katkov. Witte had initially planned to pursue a career in academia with the intention of becoming a professor in theoretical mathematics. His relatives took a dim view of that career path, as it was considered unsuitable for a noble or aristocrat at the time. He was instead persuaded by Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Machabelov, Minister of Ways and Communication, to pursue a career in the Russian railroads. At the direction of the count, Witte undertook six months of training in a variety of positions on the Odessa Railways to gain a practical understanding of Russian railways operations. At the end of that period, he was appointed as chief of the traffic office. After a wreck on the Odessa Railways in late 1875 cost many lives, Witte was arrested and sentenced to four months in prison. However, while he was still contesting the case in court, Witte directed the Odessa Railways and achieved extraordinary efforts towards the transport of troops and war materials in the Russo-Turkish War and attracted the attention of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, who commuted his prison sentence to two weeks. Witte had devised a novel system of double-shift operations in his efforts to overcome delays on the railways. In 1879, Witte accepted a post in St. Petersburg, where he would meet his future wife. He moved to Kiev the following year. In 1883

Did You Know?

• Witte was arrested after a railway wreck in 1875 but had his sentence commuted to two weeks after his extraordinary service during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878.
• Witte's marriage to a divorced converted Jew cost him many connections with the upper nobility, but Tsar Alexander III protected him.
• Witte established a state monopoly on alcohol in 1895, which became a major source of revenue for the Russian government.