The Russian Revolution of 1905 in the Eyes of Russia's Financiers

Abstract

This article examines the views and assessment of Russia’s foreign bankers and investors on the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the steps taken to subdue the disorder through the dissolution of the Second Duma in 1907. Late Imperial Russia was the foremost debtor country in Europe. The opinions of Russia’s foreign creditors and investors of Russian revolutionary activity and recovery offer insights into the state of the revolution itself and perceptions of the viability of the Russian state and economy.

Notes on Contributor

Jennifer Siegel is Professor of History at The Ohio State University. She is the author of Endgame: Britain, Russia, and the Final Struggle for Central Asia (I.B. Tauris, 2002) and For Peace and Money: French and British Finance in the Service of Tsars and Commissars (Oxford University Press, 2014). Department of History, The Ohio State University, 371 Dulles Hall, 230 Annie & John Glenn Avenue, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA. [email: [email protected]]

Notes

1 The most important works include Ascher's two-volume work on the revolution, The Revolution of 1905, Russia in Disarray and The Revolution of 1905, Authority Restored; Verner, The Crisis of Russian Autocracy; and Bovykin et al., Pervyi Shturm Tsarizma 1905–1907 gg. More recently, a number of studies have sought to re-evaluate aspects of the revolution in commemoration of the centenary of the revolution and in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of the archives. See, for example, Tiutiukin et al., Pervaia revoliutsiia v Rossii, or Smele and Heywood, eds., The Russian Revolution of 1905.

2 For an effective organizational overview of the literature on the revolution to 2005, see Ascher, ‘Introduction,’ in Smele and Heywood, 1–12.

3 See, for example, Krivoguz and Mnukhina, Mezhdunarodnoe znachenie Revoliutsii 1905–1907 godov; or David Saunders, ‘The 1905 Revolution on Tyneside,’ in Smele and Heywood, 260–78. See also the bibliographic work in Dunaevskii, Mezhdunarodnoe znachenie russkoi revoliutsii 1905–1907 godov.

4 See, for example, Eeckaute, ‘1905 Dans la Presse Française et Anglaise,’ and Saunders, ‘The 1905 Revolution on Tyneside.’

5 See, for example, Berelowitch, ‘La Révolution de 1905 dans l’opinion Républicaine Française,’ 379–92; Girault, ‘La révolution russe de 1905 d’après quelques témoignages français,’ 97–120.

6 Gregory, Before Command, 59. Gregory offers a careful critique of Alexander Gerschenkron's assessment of state interference in and manipulation of foreign capital investment. While Gregory agrees that the state played a crucial role in attracting foreign investment through its emphasis on political and financial stability, Gregory ultimately agrees with the assertion made by John P. McKay in Pioneers for Profit that foreign capital ultimately was attracted by the high rates of return on offer from investment in the Russian empire, not by the attempts by tsarist officialdom to manipulate foreign investors. See Gregory, 59–61.

7 Feis, Europe: The World's Banker, 1870–1914, 210.

8 Miller, The Economic Development of Russia, 1905–1914, 119, 121. There is some disagreement over these numbers.

9 Feis, 210; for a broad examination of Russian pre-war borrowing, see Siegel, For Peace and Money.

10 See McKay, 26–28.

11 Hubert Bonin, ‘The Case of the French Banks,’ in Cameron and Bovykin, eds., International Banking, 1870–1914, 80. By far the most detailed and informative discussion of French investment in the Russian state and economy can be found in Girault's monumental study, Emprunts russes et investissements français en Russie, 1887–1914.

12 B.V. Anan'ich and V.I. Bovykin, ‘Foreign Banks and Foreign Investment in Russia,’ in International banking, 1870–1914, 257.

13 For the relationship between the Anglo-Russian political rapprochement, formalized in the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention, and the Anglo-Russian financial rapprochement, realized during the course of the 1905–06 international loan negotiations, see, Siegel, For Peace and Money, chapters ii and iii.

 

14 The war cost approximately 2350 million rubles, with demobilization and other post-war expenses adding another 700 million rubles to the 1906 budget alone. See Gatrell, Government, Industry and Rearmament in Russia, 1900–1914, 92.

15 BNP Paribas Archive [hereafter BNPP], Comptoir National d’Escompte de Paris [CNEP] 102955/216, Correspondance Gouvernement Russe – Audience accordée le 5/18 octobre 1904, à 1 he. Par S. Exc. Mr. Kokowtzoff Ministre des finance en Russie à Mr.s Dorizon et Ulmann.

16 Crédit Agricole Archive, Crédit Lyonnais Papers [CACL] 138 AH 004 – Mazerat à Béthenod. Paris, le 23 janvier 1905.

17 CACL 138 AH 004 – Mazerat à Béthenod. Paris, le 26 janvier 1905.

18 See Flandreau, ‘Caveat Emptor,’ 17–50.

19 Nougaret, ‘Le Crédit Lyonnais,’ 382. See also Nougaret, Crédit Lyonnais in Russia.

20 See Girault, Emprunts russes, 394.

21 Girault, Emprunts russes, 395.

22 NM Rothschilds Archive [NMRA] XI/101/66 – Edmond de Rothschild à Rothschild Cousins, London Bank. Paris, le 27 janvier 1905.

23 NMRA XI/109/128 – Deuxième Dépeche du 2 Octobre. Rothstein. 2 octobre 1894.

24 See, for example, NMRA XI/101/23 – Baron Alphonse de Rothschild à London Cousins. Paris, le 23 septembre 1892.

25 For the relationship of Rothschild Jewish identity to their position on Russian loans, see Feldman, ‘The Rothschilds and the Russian Loans,’ 231–56.

26 For an overview of the history of the Russian oil industry in the nineteenth century, see McKay, ‘The Development of the Russian Petroleum Industry, 1872–1900,’ 47–91. For a discussion of the impact of the 1905 Revolution on the industry, see Kelly, ‘Crisis Management in the Russian Oil Industry,’ 291–342.

27 Korelin, ‘Narastanie Obshchenatsionalnogo Krizisa Nakanune Revoliutsionnogo Vzryva,’ 108.

28 Centre des Archives du Monde du Travail [CAMT] 132 AQ 265 – M. Bardski et E. H. au Société Commerciale et Industrielle de Naphte Caspienne et de la Mer Noire. Agence Générale. Paris. Batoum, le 13/26 janvier 1905, No. 812.

29 CAMT 132 AQ 265 – M. Bardski et E. H. au Société Commerciale et Industrielle de Naphte Caspienne et de la Mer Noire. Agence Générale. Paris. Batoum, le 18/31 janvier 1905, No. 813.

30 CAMT 132 AQ 250 – A. Feigl au Comité de la Société Commerciale et Industrielle de Naphte Caspienne et de la Mer Noire, Paris. Bakou, le 9/22 novembre, No. 658. For a discussion of Baku in the revolutionary period and beyond, see Suny, ‘A Journeyman for the Revolution,’ 373–94.

31 M. de Verneuil à M. le Comte Witte. Paris, le 28 février 1905, in Raffalovich, ‘ … L’abominable vénalité de la presse … ’, 60–63.

32 Raffalovitch à M. Kokovtsov. Paris, le 1 mars 1905, in Raffalovich, 63–66.

33 Ascher, The Revolution of 1905: A Short History, xi.

34 CACL 138 AH 004 – Mazerat à Béthenod. Paris, le 26 janvier 1905.

35 NMRA XI/101/66 – Edmond de Rothschild à Rothschild Cousins, London Bank. Paris, le 11 février 1905.

36 NMRA XI/101/66 – Edmond de Rothschild à Rothschild Cousins, London Bank. Paris, le 18 février 1905.

37 CAMT 132 AQ 249 – A. Feigl au Comité de la Société Commerciale et Industrielle de Naphte Caspienne et de la Mer Noire, Paris. Bakou, le 21 juin/4 juillet 1905, No. 1091.

38 CAMT 132 AQ 249 – A. Feigl au Comité de la Société Commerciale et Industrielle de Naphte Caspienne et de la Mer Noire, Paris. Bakou, le 9/22 mai 1905, No. 1037; and Feigl au Comité de la Société Commerciale et Industrielle de Naphte Caspienne et de la Mer Noire, Paris. Bakou, le 21 juin/4 juillet 1905, No. 1091.

39 CAMT 132 AQ 262 – A. Feigl Au Comité de la Société Commerciale et Industrielle de Naphte Caspienne et de la Mer Noire, Paris. Bakou, 4/17 septembre 1905, No. 1178.

40 CACL 138 AH 004 – Béthenod à Mazerat. Lyon, le 27 janvier 1905.

41 NMRA XI/101/66 – Edmond de Rothschild à Rothschild Cousins, London Bank. Paris, le 15 février 1905.

42 BNPP, Paris et Pays-Bas, 5\DFOM-221\20, Notes, Pièces et Documents Divers, réunions du Comité – Emprunt Russe 1905. Minutes of Syndicate meting, 10 octobre 1905, Paris, à 3 h ½ de l’après midi; NMRA XI/101/69 – Edmond de Rothschild à Rothschild Cousins, London Bank. Paris, le 3 octobre 1905. For the significance of the composition of the consortium, see Siegel, chapter ii.

43 NMRA XI/101/69 – Edmond de Rothschild à Rothschild Cousins, London Bank. Paris, le 3 octobre 1905.

44 ING Barings Archive, Baring Brothers [BB] House Correspondence, HC 10.67 – Telegram from Revelstoke to Barings, St Petersburg, 25 October 1905.

45 Morgan Library [ML], JP Morgan Jr. Papers/ARC 1216 233 19(file) – J.P. Morgan Jr. to Frances T. Morgan. Grand Hôtel d’Europe, St Petersburg, 25 October 1905.

46 BB House Correspondence, HC 10.67 – Lord Revelstoke to BB&Co. St Petersburg, 25 October 1905.

47 NMRA XI/101/69 – Edmond de Rothschild à Rothschild Cousins, London Bank. Paris, le 26 octobre 1905.

48 CAMT 132 AQ 249 – A. Feigl au Comité de la Société Commerciale et Industrielle de Naphte Caspienne et de la Mer Noire, Paris. Bakou, le 17/30 octobre, 1905, No. 1200.

49 CAMT 132 AQ 249 – A. Feigl au Comité de la Société Commerciale et Industrielle de Naphte Caspienne et de la Mer Noire, Paris. Bakou, le 27 octobre/9 novembre, 1905, No. 1203.

50 NMRA XI/101/69 – Edmond de Rothschild à Rothschild Cousins, London Bank. Paris, le 30 octobre 1905. For an illustrative discussion of Witte's response to the collapse of tsarist authority during the 1905 Revolution and the introduction of a form of united government under Witte's leadership, see Wcislo, Tales of Imperial Russia, 215–30.

51 See Ascher, Russia in Disarray, 224–28; NMRA XI/101/69 – Edmond de Rothschild à Rothschild Cousins, London Bank. Paris, le 31 octobre 1905.

52 Ascher, Russia in Disarray, 229–40.

53 ML, JP Morgan Jr. Papers/ARC 1216 233 19(file) – J. P. Morgan Jr. to Frances Morgan. Grand Hôtel d’Europe, St Petersburg. 31 October 1905.

54 ML, JP Morgan Jr. Papers/ARC 1216 Box 3/Letterpress Book 4, p. 499 – Cable to J. P. Morgan [Sr.] from G. W. Perkins and J. P. Morgan, Jr., 31 October 1905.

55 National Archives of the United Kingdom [TNA] FO65/1704/728 – Spring Rice to the Marquess of Lansdowne. St Petersburg, 6 December 1905, No. 728, Confidential.

56 BB, Partners Files Main Series, 200164 – Fischel to Revelstoke. Berlin, 13 November 1905.

57 CACL DAF 00163-1 – Visite de Mr. Noetzlin, le 8 novembre 1905.

58 ML, J. P. Morgan, Jr. Papers/ARC 1216 233 19(file) – J. P. Morgan Jr. to Frances T. Morgan. Aldenham Abbey, Watford, Herts, 6 November 1905.

59 Sergei Iul'evich Witte, Vospominaniia, III, 250, 335, as quoted in Mehlinger and Thompson, Count Witte and the Tsarist Government in the 1905 Revolution, 237. Mehlinger and Thompson offer an extremely pro-Witte narrative and assessment of the 1905–06 loan negotiations.

60 Wcislo, Tales of Imperial Russia, 251.

61 The bankers, however, were not greatly concerned when Witte was replaced by Stolypin as the bloom had gone off the rose by then, due in no small part to the difficulties Witte had faced in pacifying and managing the Duma.

62 Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères [MAE], Correspondance Politique et Commerciale, Nouvelle Serie, Russie, 57 – Witte to Rouvier. St Pétérsbourg, le 29 décembre 1905; Pisma S. Iu. Vitte k Ruve, ‘Biulovu, i parizhskomu i londonskomu Rotshildam,’ Russkie Finansy i Evropeiskaia Birzha v 1904–1906 gg. Pod red. E. A. Preobrazhenskogo (Moskva: Moskovskii Rabochii, 1926), 230–35.

63 Possibly the local name for the ‘Black Hundreds,’ extreme rightist squads that undertook counterrevolutionary terrorist activity.

64 CAMT 132 AQ 249 – A. Feigl au Comité de la Société Commerciale et Industrielle de Naphte Caspienne et de la Mer Noire, Paris. Bakou, le 28 novèmbre/11 décembre 1905, No. 1934.

65 CAMT 132 AQ 249 – A. Feigl au Comité de la Société Commerciale et Industrielle de Naphte Caspienne et de la Mer Noire, Paris. Bakou, le 7/20 décembre 1905, No. 1937.

66 BB Directors Private Papers, 101938 – Revelstoke to Spring Rice. Private. 23 November 1905.

67 NMRA XI/130A/0 – Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild, London, to the Rothschild Cousins, French Bank. 4 January 1906.

68 NMRA XI/130A/0 – Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild, London, to the Rothschild Cousins, French Bank. 10 January 1906.

69 NMRA XI/130A/0 – Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild, London, to the Rothschild Cousins, French Bank. 6 February 1906.

70 See, for example, Feigl's cynical ‘political and industrial review’ in CAMT 132 AQ 249 – A. Feigl au Comité de la Société Commerciale et Industrielle de Naphte Caspienne et de la Mer Noire, Paris. Bakou, 1/14 février 1906, No. 41.

71 NMRA XI/101/70 – James Armand Rothschild à Rothschild Cousins, London Bank. Paris, le 22 janvier 1906.

72 For a detailed discussion of the loan negotiations, the agreement, and its aftermath, see Siegel, For Peace and Money, chapter ii.

73 BB, Partners Files Main Series, 200165 – Réunion plénière tenue le 12 Avril à la Banque de Paris & des Pays-Bas par les Représentants des Etablissements composant le Groupe International.

74 BB Partners Files Main Series, 200165 – Spring Rice to Revelstoke, St Petersburg, 3 April 1906, Confidential. See also: Telegramma V. N. Kokovtsova S. Iu. Vitte iz Parizha, ot 5/18 aprelia 1906 g., Russkie Finansy, 314–15; CAEF B31/256/1 – No title. Paris, le 19 avril 1906.

75 NMRA, XI/130A/0 – Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild, London to the Rothschild Cousins, French Bank, 5 April 1906.

76 BB Partners Files Main Series 200165 – Spring Rice to Revelstoke. St Petersburg, 8 April 1906.

77 For the limitations on the Duma contained in the Fundamental Laws, see Riasanovsky and Steinberg, A History of Russia, vol. 2, 405–06, and Ascher, Authority Restored, 63–71.

78 See, for example, BB Partners Files Main Series 200166 – Revelstoke to Kokovtzoff. London, 2 July 1906. Confidential; BB Partners Files Main Series 200166 – Noetzlin to Revelstoke. Paris, 4 July 1906, Personal.

79 BB Partners Files Main Series 200166 – Noel Bardac to Revelstoke. Paris, le 23 juillet 1906.

80 BB Partners Files Main Series 200166 – Revelstoke to Kokovtzoff. London, 26 July 1906.

81 BB Partners Files Main Series 200166 – Revelstoke to Kokovtzoff. London, 1 August 1906. Private & Confidential.

82 BNPP, Paris et Pays Bas, 5\DFOM-221\20 – Noetzlin à Witte. Ragaz, le 24 juillet 1906. Confidentielle.

83 BNPP, Paris et Pays Bas, 5\DFOM-221\21 – No signature. St Pétersbourg, le 29 octobre/12 novembre 1906. For the dissolution of the Duma and the Vyborg Manifesto, see Riasanovsky and Steinberg, 407.

84 Ascher dates the demise of the revolution to the dissolution of the Second Duma on 3 June 1907, the day, as he writes, ‘on which the autocracy inflicted the fatal blow on the opposition that reduced it to virtual impotence.’ See Ascher, Authority Restored, 1.

85 See, for example, Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv [RGIA] f. 560, op. 33, del. 285, l. 31-33 ob. – Nelidov à Lamsdorf. Paris, le 17 fév/2 mars 1905. For an overview of the relationship between the Russian government and the French press during this period, see Long, ‘Russian Manipulation of the French Press, 1904–1906,’ 343–54. McKay underscores in Pioneers for Profit that the names of French newspapers and influential journalists could regularly be found amongst the list of underwriters of the same Russian industrial stocks to which they were giving positive evaluations – an obvious conflict of interest. See conflict of interest (224). Girault is less cynical, suggesting that the French press was motivated not only by cold hard cash, but also by a desire to safeguard the reputation of France's ally. See Girault, ‘La révolution russe de 1905,’ 97–98.

86 See, for example, BNPP 5\CABET-1\121 – M. J. H. Thors, Directeur de la Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas, à M. Witte, 3 déc 1894. For the various forms that payments to journalists and financial papers took in pre-First World War France, see Bignon and Flandreau, ‘The Economics of Badmouthing,’ 626. An overview of the extent of the corruption of the system of publicité and its prevalence (although focused on the interwar period, not the pre-war) can also be found in Jeanneney, L’Argent caché, part ii, chapter 6.

87 Girault, ‘La révolution russe de 1905,’ 99–101.

88 Girault, ‘La révolution russe de 1905,’ 104. He surmises that the documentation available is inconclusive as to whether or not the alliance should have been abandoned.

89 See, for example, Centre des archives économiques et financières du Minefe [CAEF] B32 008 – Quelques Observations Relatives au Service des Intérêts des Emprunts Russes en France. 26 Nov 1917; Banque de France [BdeF] 1370199802/7 – No. 4136. Chambre des Députés. Annex au procès-verbal de la 2e séance du 24 décembre 1917. Proposition de Résolution tendant à inviter le Gouvernement à examiner les moyens de sauvegarder les intérêts des porteurs français de fonds russes, présentée par M. Lacave la Plagne, Député.

90 Miller, 40.

91 Crisp, ‘Russia's Public Debt and the French Market, 1889–1914,’ 209.