Russia and Emergency Legislation During the First World War

ABSTRACT

Emergency legislation had played an important part in the governance of the Russian Empire since the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, but the outbreak of war in 1914 provided the opportunity for the Tsarist state to intensify its emergency provisions. The military authorities gained significant additional power, but this generated sustained conflict with the civil government and upset the uneasy equilibrium that had enabled the Tsarist state to maintain its hold on power. Russia’s military proved incapable of carrying out the functions of civil administration that it had been granted under emergency legislation, providing the opportunity for local government to extend its own authority and weaken the position of central government. The emergency powers that the Romanov regime introduced in summer 1914 were intended to strengthen the position of the state and continue the process by which the St Petersburg government was reinforcing its position after the upheavals of 1905. The reality of the introduction of additional emergency powers was, however, very different: emergency legislation served to weaken the authority of the Tsarist state and to hasten its eventual demise in 1917.

KEYWORDS:

• Russia
• emergency
• 1914
• revolution
• wartime

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Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Ascher, The Revolution of 1905, 58–71.

2. Sanborn, “The Mobilization of 1914.”

3. Daly, “On the Significance of Emergency Legislation”; and Waldron, “States of Emergency.”

4. Zaionchkovsky, The Russian Autocracy, 205.

5. Itenberg and Tvardovskaia, Graf M.T. Loris-Melikov, 573–6.

6. Zaionchkovsky, The Russian Autocracy, 237.

7. Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii (henceforth PSZ), sob 3-e, 1 vol., No. 350.

8. Gessen, Iskliuchitel’noe polozhenie; and Lenin, “Tri zaprosa.”

9. PSZ, sob 3-e, 24 vols., No. 25495.

10. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv, St. Petersburg (RGIA), f. 1239, d. 1, 1. 16b; Pravo, No. 10, 12 March 1906; and Zaprosy zhizni, 1912, No. 1, p. 22.

11. “Vsepoddanneishii doklad S. Iu. Witte o sluchaiakh nepravomernogo vvedniia iskliuchitel’nogo polozheniia v guberniakh Tsentral’noi Rossii mestnymi vlastami,” 10 February 1906, in Sovet Ministrov Rossiiskoi Imperii, 238.

12. Polozhenie o polevom upravlenii, st. 14. The area under military control expanded as the Russian army retreated eastwards during 1915.

13. The Grand Duke, a cousin of Nicholas II, was appointed commander-in-chief two days after the declaration of war – see Robinson, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, 133–5.

14. Polozhenie, st. 20.

15. Polozhenie, st. 17.

16. Polozhenie, st. 18.

17. Polozhenie, st. 11.

18. Polozhenie, st. 28.

19. Airapetov, Uchastie Rossiiskoi imperii, 115–7.

20. Graf, “Military Rule behind the Russian Front.”

21. Vremennoe polozhenie o voennoi tsenzure, St Petersburg, 1914.

22. See Rudd, Fighting Words; and Ferenczi, “Freedom of the Press.”

23. ‘Perechen’ svedenii i izobrazhenii, kasaiushchukhsia bezopasnosti Rossii i ee voenno-morskoi i sukhoputnoi oborony, oglashenie i rasprostranenie koikh v pechati ili v rechakh i dokladakh…vospreshchaetsia’, Sobranie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii Pravitel’stva. Petrograd: Gosudarstvennaia tipografiia, 1915, Otd. 1, no. 203, 1914.

24. Stockdale, Mobilizing the Russian Nation, 39–40.

25. ‘Ob obiavlenii nekotorykh mestnostei Imperii na voennom polozhenii’, O. I Averbakh, Zakonodatel’nye akty vyzvannye voinoiu 1914 goda, 15–16. Vil’na, 1915.

26. “Pravila o mestnostiakh,” 1 vol., Pt.1, Art. 23.

27. Ibid., Art.19.

28. Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire, 13–14.

29. Ibid., 10.

30. Ibid., 31–6.

31. Ibid., 56.

32. Lohr, Russian Citizenship, 123; and Hickey, “Smolensk’s Jews,” 180–1.

33. Moscow, Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii, f. 102, OO, op. 246. d. 343 z.s., t. 2, l. 62.

34. Petrovsky-Shtern, Jews in the Russian Army, 167–203; and Levene, “Frontiers of Genocide,” 92–6.

35. Aksenov, “‘Sukhoi zakon’ 1914 goda”; and Christian, “Prohibition in Russia 1914–1925,” 91–3.

36. Beliaev, P. L. Bark i finansovaia politika Rossii, 153–68.

37. Airapetov, Uchastie Rossiiskoi imperii, 239–54.

38. Waldron, “‘A Sad and Heart-Rending Landscape,’” 647–8.

39. Gronsky and Astrov, The War and the Russian Government, 225.

40. Tumanova, Obshchestvennye organisatsii Rossii, 112–16.

41. Vserossiiskii zemskii soiuz pomoshchi bol’nym i ranenym voinam. Izvestiia glavnogo komiteta, No. 8, 1 February 1915, 61.

42. Manning, “The Zemstvo and Politics,” 140–7.

43. Polner, Obshchezemskaia organizatsiia, 1 vol., 5–15.

44. Galai, The Liberation Movement in Russia, 39–44.

45. Ascher, The Revolution of 1905, 351–5.

46. Article 87 of the Fundamental Laws allowed for the government to legislate when the Duma was in recess – see Szeftel, The Russian Constitution of April 23, 1906, 152.

47. Anan’ich, et al., eds., Pervaia mirovaia voina, 183–9.

48. Polner, Russian Local Government, 239–45.

49. Löwe, The Tsars and the Jews, 262–4.

50. See Chokobaeva et al., eds., The Central Asian Revolt of 1916.

51. Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking, 145–50.

52. Nachtigal, “Germans in Russia,” 335.

53. Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire, 121–65.

54. “Dokumenty o presledovanii evreev,” 250.

55. Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking, 20–21.

56. Cherniavsky, Prologue to Revolution, 46.

57. Fuller, The Foe Within, 136–40.

58. Ibid., 162–3.

59. Kolonitskii, ‘Tragicheskaia erotika,’ 289–313.

60. Holquist, “Information Is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work,” 415–50.

61. “Dokumenty o presledovanii evreev,” 253, 259, 263–5.

62. Holquist, “Information Is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work,” 430.

63. Pokrovskii, “Politicheskoe polozhenie Rossii nakanune fevral’skoi revoliutsii v zhandarskom osveshchenii,” 3–35.

64. Wildman, The End of the Russian Imperial Army, 332–51.

65. Rendle, Defenders of the Motherland, 116–55.