Methods of interaction of Russian conservatives with society and government. The question of the status of the Grand Duchy of Finland at the beginning of the XX century

Shcherbakov Mikhail Urievich ORCID: 0009-0004-3344-4609 Postgraduate student, Department of Russian History, State University of Education 24 Vera Voloshina str., Mytishchi, Moscow region, 141014, Russia burundym@yandex.ru

Introduction

The assassination attempt on Alexander II ("execution of the emperor" on March 1, 1881) seriously changed the nature of the conservative wing of Russian socio-political thought and led to an increased influence of this trend on government officials and its organizational design. In historical science, this will be called "right-wing conservatism", the radicalization of the methods of activity of which will manifest itself, for example, in the work of the right-monarchical organization "Sacred Squad", which imposed death sentences on some public figures in Russia.

In 1901, the first legal monarchical organizations in Russia were formed: In St. Petersburg, it was a Russian assembly and in Moscow — a "Circle of Moscow nobles loyal to the oath", who saw the purpose of their activities as opposition to liberals and revolutionaries, including in politics towards the national outskirts ^{[1, p. 30]}. During the First Russian Revolution, the far-right will unite around the parties "Union of the Russian People" and "Union of Mikhail the Archangel", and the leaders of this trend will be K. P. Pobedonostsev, N. E. Markov, V. M. Purishkevich, V. V. Shulgin and others.

K. P. Pobedonostsev wrote: "One of the most false political principles is the beginning of democracy, the idea, unfortunately, that has been established since the French Revolution, that all power comes from the people and has its foundation in the will of the people. Hence the theory of parliamentarism, which ... unfortunately penetrated into the Russian mad heads" ^{[2, p. 67]}.

The main part

The intensification of the revolutionary and national liberation movements in Russia has caused a tendency to strengthen pro-monarchist groups seeking to counter destructive anti-state tendencies, including in the national issue, the idea of preserving the state and traditional values, including in the form of conservative orthodox ideology, which was perceived by both contemporaries and historians as a form of "right-wing radicalism" ^{[3, p. 15; 4]}.

For Russian conservatives, the main enemies of the existing system were revolutionaries and actively asserting themselves national groups representing the interests of the outskirts of the empire. Supporters of orthodox conservatism, in an effort to preserve the existing state of affairs, at all costs sharply rejected the basic ideas about the possibility of parliamentarism and the constitution in Russia ^[5]. Representatives of the right-wing forces saw their task as protecting the state system, i.e. preventing the diminution of the rights of the autocrat. The confrontation with left-wing, liberal and moderately conservative forces led to the fact that right-wing conservative forces began to use radical methods of struggle, for example, terror: according to contemporaries and researchers, they could be behind the attempts on a number of famous political figures (S. Y. Witte, M. Ya. Herzenstein, G. B. Iollos and some others) ^{[6, pp. 205-221]}.

Disagreements over the status of the Grand Duchy of Finland became part of the ideological and practical confrontation between different social groups in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. Already in the 2nd half of the 19th century, Russian liberals defended the special status and rights of Finland, taking into account the historical and legal features of its entry into the empire. Moreover, the liberal discourse saw in the special conditions of existence of a number of suburbs of the Russian Empire a desirable option for the development of the country in economic and political terms. Russian liberal publications (for example, Vestnik Evropy and Golos) They pointed out the positive aspects of the development of the Grand Duchy of Finland, which were the result of its special status and autonomous rights.

The main critic of the special status in the post-reform period was the publicist N. M. Katkov, who pointed out the main contradictions in this issue and laid the foundations of anti-Finnish sentiments in Russian conservative circles. At the same time, the tsarist government did not support such discussions and even tried to stop them until a certain time. But in the 1890s, the vector of Russian policy regarding the autonomous rights of Finland changed. This problem is once again becoming part of the information agenda, mainly in conservative publications ^{[7, pp. 91-104]}.

L. A. Tikhomirov was the successor of M. N. Katkov's case as the editor of Moskovsky Vedomosti. Tikhomirov's main work "Monarchical Statehood" (1905) was a continuation of his work "Sole power as a principle of the state structure" (M., 1897). It focused on identifying the essence of the monarchical principle and the content of monarchical policy. Tikhomirov called the nation, the supreme power, the state (the totality of the supreme power and the nation), the government (the management system created by the supreme power) elements of the state structure. Tikhomirov saw the difference between the supreme power and the governmental (governing) one in that the former is united, concentrated and indivisible, the latter generates a division of powers (into legislative, judicial and executive). The development of society can lead to the realization of the principle of government representation and self-government. In the first case, there is a "bureaucratic government, where officials, like parliamentary politicians, represent the will of the supreme power. This, of course, is the same fiction as under parliamentary rule, with the difference that in one case the subject of falsification is the will of the monarch, and in the other the will of the people. Bureaucracy and parliamentarism, therefore, always go hand in hand, and parliamentarism, in theory, is even the natural end of bureaucracy" ^{[8, p. 59]}.

In fact, the main idea of the author, in addition to a deep historical digression, was to prove that the monarchical form of government is the highest and most effective. At the same time, he noted that "the difficulty of the emergence and maintenance of the monarchy consists only in the fact that it requires the presence of a living and universally shared moral ideal in the nation" ^{[8, p. 668]}. L. A. Tikhomirov's book was written during the First Russian Revolution, the author himself understood the dangers of social chaos, revolutions and national movements to society. Tikhomirov will actively develop these ideas in his journalism after the end of the First Russian Revolution, pointing out that Russia is weakening morally and materially, losing its unifying idea and moving towards disaster.

The Moskovskie Vedomosti, headed by Tikhomirov, periodically returned to the "Finnish question". As B. I. Yesin established, for example, in 1909. The Moscow Gazette repeatedly addressed the issue of Finnish separatism: "So, on July 26, 1909, the article "Preparations for an uprising in Finland" was published. It reported that the Finnish revolutionary community "Voima" is not only flourishing, but is preparing a general strike and a revolutionary uprising with the aim of separating from Russia" ^{[9, p. 55]}. And in 1910, the newspaper, led by Tikhomirov, would enter into a polemic with the Russian Vedomosti, which it would accuse of sympathizing with the Finnish separatists.

As already mentioned, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the organizational formation of right-wing organizations took place. One of them (the Russian Assembly) will take an active part in the discussion of the Finnish question. A. P. Petukhova identified two main directions in the activities of this organization: discussion of the problems of national suburbs and the development of a certain ideology in this direction, as well as practical activities for the implementation of national policy ^{[7, pp. 169, 171]}. A feature of the work of this organization was its active influence on practical decision-making, providing its own conclusions on various issues ^{[10, p. 140]}.

Russian Russian Assembly, as one of its founders, included General M. M. Borodkin, who was among the Russian publicists who dealt with the Finnish issue. Russian Russians later became one of the organizers of the newspaper "The Outskirts of Russia", the purpose of which was a thorough study of the suburbs "to help strengthen Russian principles and Russian statehood in them" ^[11].

A. P. Petukhova highlights the special role of M. M. Borodkin in the consideration of Finnish issues in the Russian Assembly: "Based on the publications and information provided by him, the main resolutions on this issue were developed. Borodkin sat on the council of the assembly, made reports, opened local departments (in particular, in Kharkov), was published in periodicals" ^{[7, p. 170]}.

Several influential officials of the tsarist administration who could influence the government unite around the Russian Assembly, for example, a member of the State Council, professor of law N. D. Sergeeevsky (he will also be one of the organizers of the newspaper "Outskirts of Russia"), S. V. Sturmer, E. V. Bogdanovich, A. N. Lobanov-Rostovsky, N. A. Myasoedov, A. A. Shirinsky-Shikhmatov and others.

Such a social structure played a significant role in changing attitudes towards Russification and incorporation of the Finnish outskirts. As part of the discussions, proposals were made to amend and unify Finnish legislation, revise personnel policy, and change the management system.

The intensification of the activities of the right-wing conservative wing of the Russian social movement would not have been possible if it had not coincided with the strict government policy of reducing marginal liberties. This is the fundamental difference between the "Finnish policy" of the Russian autocracy of the early twentieth century from previous historical periods, when attempts at incorporation were carried out in a rather cautious mode or were not brought to their goals due to the passive resistance of the Finnish bureaucracy ^[12].

After the appointment of N. I. Bobrikov as Governor-General of Finland, a number of steps were taken to incorporate the Grand Duchy, which caused serious resistance in Finnish society ^[13]. On February 3, 1899, a Manifesto was issued, which asserted the supremacy of the Emperor in matters of issuing Finnish laws affecting all-Russian interests without the approval of the Seimas. Since the law enforcement practice of this Manifesto could encroach on the autonomous rights of the principality and the resolution of issues of local importance, this caused mass protests. Later, this manifesto allowed Emperor Nicholas II to sign a new Military Charter on June 29, 1901, without the approval of the Sejm, which abolished national military formations and extended to Finland the principles of conscription, which assumed the service of Finns in the Russian army.

The next step was the policy of Russification of Finland (a special manifesto was signed on June 7, 1900), which was supposed to translate the education system and office management in the administrative and political sphere into Russian. Researchers, as a rule, are skeptical about the results of this reform, which caused passive resistance among the Finnish population.

Conclusion

The steps taken by the government of Nicholas II to incorporate and Russify the Finnish outskirts were an expression of the long-term aspirations of individual representatives of the Russian conservative intelligentsia, who throughout the post-reform period tried to impose on the imperial authorities the idea of limiting the autonomous rights of the principality and unifying its legislation with the laws of the Russian Empire. The events of the First Russian Revolution will actually cancel out these efforts, making Finland one of the problematic parts of the empire. Nevertheless, attempts by Russian right-wing conservative organizations to limit the autonomy of the Grand Duchy of Finland will continue until the February Revolution of 1917.