Book Review

To many of his contemporaries and to Soviet historians, Peter A. Stolypin, the prime minister of Russia from July 1906 until his assassination in September 1911, was a much reviled figure. Almost immediately upon becoming the head of government, in order to quell popular unrest, Stolypin instituted summary court martials for civilians for a period of eight months. Overall, between 1907 and 1909, 26,000 Russians were executed, exiled, or imprisoned for political offenses. By the Law of June 3, 1907, Stolypin pulled off a coup d'état by rewriting the electoral law for the newly established legislature (Duma), so as to obtain a more conservative and compliant body. He made frequent use of Article 87 of the Fundamental Laws to enact emergency legislation and to circumvent existing parliamentary and administrative rules, procedures, and prerogatives. During his administration, censorship was increased, and large numbers of newspapers and journals were closed. Vigorous policies of Russification were conducted in Finland and Poland. In contrast, to others, including a number of Western and post-Soviet Russian scholars, Stolypin is seen as one of the most effective and important ministers in imperial Russia. Although best known for land reform legislation that he did not author and that was largely implemented after his death, in this view, Stolypin demonstrated a sincere commitment not just to pacify and repress the population, but to reform the society. His failure is ascribed to holding a moderate position in a highly polarized political environment. This is essentially Peter Waldron's argument as well.	1
In the past two decades, well over a dozen books and numerous articles have focused on Stolypin. In fact, Waldron's monograph is but one of three to appear in 1998 alone. In 1990-91, Stolypin's speeches before the State Duma and State Council were published. Within the last ten years, his correspondence with a variety of political leaders and reminiscences by friends and family have also appeared in print, most for the first time. Behind this renewed interest, as Waldron suggests, is the problem of reform in Russian society, and frequent comparisons have been made between Stolypin and Mikhail Gorbachev.	2
Waldron presents a straightforward, concise narrative account of the political constraints that plagued Stolypin's attempts at reform and blocked his legislative agenda regardless of the methods he used to achieve his policy goals. Shocked by the radicalism of the peasantry and believing the obshchina (the peasant commune) was the root of both rural poverty and agrarian unrest, Stolypin, as is well known, sought to create a class of conservative, small peasant landowners, one better integrated into Russian society. But land reform was the only major legislative initiative Stolypin was able to enact, and even this required recourse to Article 87. His efforts to reform local government, the legal system, civil rights, workers' insurance, and education and to establish religious freedoms all failed.	3
There were numerous reasons for these failures, and Waldron makes a major contribution to our understanding of this crucial period in Russian history with his fine description of the political reality confronting Stolypin. In spite of the new legislative order, with which Stolypin was willing to work, the tsar and his ministers often continued to act as an autocracy. Although prime minister, Stolypin did not head a cabinet responsible to him. At best, legislative initiatives among ministries were poorly coordinated; at worst, other ministers outrightly opposed his reform efforts. The Duma proved to be an inefficient body and took years to report on proposed legislation. Often no middle ground could be found among Russia's three legislative authorities—the State Duma, the State Council, and the tsar. Stolypin clearly underestimated the power of the traditional social elite and the church, which felt threatened by his proposed reforms. Both used formal and informal political channels to retain authority. Of great import, "the problem that Stolypin faced in trying to mobilize backing for his government and its policies was there was no natural source of support in Russia for the reforms he was proposing" (175).	4
Waldron places his analysis of late imperial Russia in a very traditional framework. "A rapidly developing economy and society was still controlled by a political structure that was out of touch with the population and which did not respond to the wishes of the people under its control" (21). He operates within a paradigm that holds that capitalism as evidenced by industrialization, urbanization, and social dislocation must be accompanied by democratic reform and any failure will cause intense pressure on society. Moreover, he pays no attention to recent views that suggest rural Russia was not subject to the demographic and economic pressures many have alleged. He fails to explain why the government was unable "to persuade the traditional political elites of the empire that the long-term interests of the state required them to forego their power and privileges" (185), although the state was able to engineer this assent during the Great Reforms of the 1860s when the landed nobility lost even more.	5
Waldron at times is overly sympathetic to Stolypin. He glosses over many of Stolypin's acts, which mortified his contemporaries and which, if undertaken today, might well make him subject to prosecution for crimes against humanity. In addition, he describes the coup of 1907 as nothing more than "technically illegal" (68). In fact, to many, it signaled the end of the government's commitment to the October manifesto and the promise of political reform that had been wrested from the tsar during the 1905 revolution.	6
These reservations aside, Waldron's narrative account of Russian politics between 1905 and 1911 is the best to date. Both specialists in the field and those of more limited background will derive considerable benefit from his work.	7
Steven L. Hoch University of Iowa

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