Memoirs
“Our whole revolution broke out because the authorities did not understand and still cannot understand the truth that the society and the nation are in motion. The government is obliged to regulate that motion and keep it under control, and if it fails to do so, or if it brutally obstructs the path, a revolutionary deluge will follow. This kind of disaster is possible in the Russian Empire since more than 35% of the population are non-Russians, those are people conquered by Russians. After all, anyone who knows history will know how difficult it is to bring a multinational population to unity, especially given the strong rise of national aspirations and feelings in the 20th century.”
These words about the 1905 Revolution were written by Sergei Witte, Minister of Finance of the Russian Empire (1892–1903) and then its Prime Minister (1905–1906). In his memoirs, he sketched a panorama of the empire shaken by convulsions that would lead to the collapse of the tsarist rule in 1917. Witte was one of the few politicians who understood that the Russian system did not correspond to the realities of the 20th century and tried to reform it. Despite rejecting the revolutionary path, he was called a revolutionary by his opponents who wanted to preserve the status quo.