Between Two Revolutions: Stolypin and the Politics of Renewal in Russia

Examines the program of reform that Russian prime minister Stolypin attempted to implement in the period 1906 to 1911, and seeks to explain the reasons for his failure. The author argues that the failure of Stolypin's attempt to drastically change the nature of agriculture and reform the most egregious examples of Tsarist despotism while maintaining the state intact was due to the following reasons: his position as an outsider to the apparatus of central government led him to attempt to recruit liberal figures to his government while underestimating the power of the traditional conservative elites; the changes in social structures caused by the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and the process of industrialization had failed to be reflected in the political structure of Imperial Russia; and finally, the leaders failed to learn the lessons of the monarchical regimes in Europe, and truly believed that they could rule over an unreformed Russia. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.