Behind the veil at the Russian court

by Princess Catherine Radziwill

The situation was serious, and needed an energetic and clever man to face it. In the year 1889 the official world of St. Petersburg was surprised to read that the Director of the Technological Institute of that capital, M. Wischnegradsky, had been appointed Minister of Finances.

If ever an “outsider” gained a foremost position, it was M. Wischnegradsky. He was unknown to the fashionable world, and hitherto Ministers had been looked for in that charmed circle. No one knew him, no one had heard anything definite about him, except that he had been Chairman of the South-Western Railway, and succeeded in re-establishing order and prosperity to that enterprise, which had far from a good reputation when he was called upon to save it from bankruptcy. He was also credited with great tact, great learning, and an excellent knowledge of financial matters and problems. He was no longer young, but full of energy and determination. Beyond these superficial facts, no one could tell anything concerning him, or even make speculations as to whether or not he was fitted for the important post to which his Sovereign had called him.

There were people in St. Petersburg who said that it was M. Pobedonostseff who was responsible for the appointment. This assertion was absolutely untrue. It was the personal act of the Emperor, who had been greatly struck by a pamphlet written by M. Wischnegradsky on the Public Debt of Russia, which had quite accidentally fallen into his hands. He sent for the author of the pamphlet, and had two long conversations with him, after which the world was stunned by the news that Ivan Alexieievitch Wischnegradsky had been appointed to the task of repairing the shattered finances of the Russian Empire.

Difficult though that task was, it was crowned with success. At least, M. Wischnegradsky put matters so far right that his successors only had to reap the benefit of his almost superhuman work. In his ideas as to the best way of restoring the credit of the country he showed himself a great statesman as well as a great financier. He overcame difficulties almost insurmountable at first sight; he induced the Rothschilds once more to smile upon a land in which their “co-religionists” were persecuted and trodden upon. He persuaded them, as well as other financial powers in Europe, that Russia had unknown resources within its limits, which only needed developing for the good of the whole of the industrial world. He above all things obeyed his Imperial master’s orders, which consisted in trying to convince public opinion that so long as he reigned peace would never be endangered, and that Russia would follow a policy of industrial progress and peaceful development of her resources towards one goal, that of becoming a rich nation rather than a conquering one.

For years M. Wischnegradsky worked at this task, and he lost his health and ultimately his life in bringing it to an issue. His first care was to consolidate the value of the paper money by gathering enough gold to guarantee the redemption of any issue that the Government thought it necessary to make. When he took in hand the direction of the Treasury, the amount of gold in the cellars of the Imperial Bank was scarcely sufficient to serve as security for the foreign loans with which the country was saddled, and all payments were made in paper. When he was compelled to retire from the public service, gold was beginning to be the common currency, and now one finds more of it in Russia even than in France, and the scarcity is in paper money.

Wischnegradsky well knew that it was only a future generation that would reap the benefit of his policy, but this did not deter him from carrying out the programme which he had in his mind, in spite of his numerous enemies who howled at him because they did not perceive any immediate amelioration in the conditions which he had undertaken to transform from bad to good.

Ivan Alexieievitch was a charming man from the social point of view, full of fun and amusing anecdotes, which he freely distributed in the course of conversation. In spite of the enormous burden of work which he had taken upon his shoulders, he found the necessary time to keep himself cognisant of everything that was going on in the world, and I do not think that any remarkable work of science or of literature was published without his finding time to glance at it, so as to be conversant with its most important points. He realised that it is essential for a statesman to keep himself posted as to the state of public opinion, not only at home but abroad, so as to be able to see to the needs of his own country through the criticisms addressed to it by the foreign press. Light was the thing he most valued, and of light he never found enough around him nor around the Emperor; the latter, he used to say, ought to be spared petty criticisms and details, but should be kept informed as to the essential points of weakness in his dominions, no matter even if they became a source of painful disillusionment or of sorrow.

He loved Alexander III. sincerely, and with a devotion such as is rarely met with in a Minister. He appreciated his honesty and the straightforwardness of his intentions, and above all he respected the love for Russia which animated his Sovereign; he would have induced the Tsar to make the greatest sacrifices if only they were conducive to the prosperity of the Russian people.

When the famine of 1892 brought the population of twelve of the most fertile Governments in the Empire to the verge of starvation, it was Wischnegradsky who spoke to Alexander III. of the misery that this famine was causing and would cause to Russia. This in spite of the recommendations of the then Minister of the Interior, M. Dournovo, who had succeeded Count Tolstoy in that responsible post, and who, being above everything a flatterer, did not like to tell the Emperor the true state of things. Wischnegradsky even went so far as to have sent to the Tsar a piece of the terrible bread, made of grass and straw, that the peasants in certain localities were eating, in order to convince His Majesty of the distress; and he, who was supposed to be so very economical, insisted upon enormous credits being opened in order to relieve the stricken provinces. The burden of this arduous responsibility, and the strain of this gigantic work, told at last on the constitution of Ivan Alexieievitch, and one day in spring, whilst at Gatschina, where he had gone to submit his weekly report to the Emperor, he was stricken with an attack of what at first sight appeared to be apoplexy, and was with difficulty taken home.

It was at that particular moment there appeared upon the political scene a person who ever since has occupied a considerable position in the history of Russia, Sergius Ioulievitch Witte, now Count Witte, whose signature stands at the foot of the Portsmouth Treaty of Peace with Japan.