Old Russia? Interrupted Russia? One Of Those.

From The Memoirs of Count Witte:

I was criticized by some blockheads for building up industry too rapidly. Also, I was criticized for using “artificial means” in promoting industry. What does this stupid phrase mean? By what means other than artificial can industry develop? Everything that man does is, to a certain degree, artificial. Only barbarians manage to live without artificial means. Industry has always been developed by artificial means; and the artificial measures I employed were far weaker than those employed for the same ends by other states. This, of course, our salon ignoramuses do not know.

Sergei Witte (1849-1915) was Finance Minister to a couple of czars, and how could a guy not be prickly in such circumstances?

Here’s another quote, which may not have been echoed by everyone in Russia but – I’ll bet – would have made perfect sense to certain Russian social strata: “He [Feldman, one of the few other members of the Southwestern Railroad Board who, according to Witte, knew anything about railroads] was old, very kind, well educated. Undoubtedly he was of Jewish origin, but he had long ago become so Germanized that he was accepted as Russian.”

This book is over 800 pages long and I am certainly not going to read it all. But somebody should! Either because it is surprising, or because it is not. Witte’s story is a monument to all sorts of actions and beliefs just barely remembered or forgotten for good reasons. It may not be a guide to modern Russia, but neither is it utterly disconnected from the place.

I came across cholera riots. I had only ever heard of the 1892 Tashkent ones, but in that same year, there were some in Saratov, too. I found these by noticing in the index, under “Students,” extensive lists of references, but just one for “medical.” There should have been more, but I think indexing hadn’t yet been automated by 1990 when this volume came out. Anyway, why were these kids mentioned at all? Witte had visited the afflicted areas and found that medical students, unlike many doctors, had shown up, and rendered such aid as they could. Which was not very much. A physician, and probably not just in Russia, might have been outranked by a nutritionist or a yoga coach, if either of those existed back then. Witte himself had been counseled by a professor to avoid fruits, drink weak tea, and bathe a lot — with calomel! Anyway, he overcame somewhat his earlier unfavorable impressions, deciding that Russian student youth, despite its “shortcomings and its lack of balance, sometimes approaching barbarism, is very sincere and senses who loves it and who hates it.” The Czar was pretty much in the latter camp, as he was still sore at the punks who had assassinated his dad.

I must confess again that I haven’t read this whole book, but I do think that where I haven't gone, there remains plenty of negativity. Somehow – I sure wasn’t looking for it – I came across Witte on naval affairs. Since ships and harbors don't get built for free, even in Russia, he would have a lot to say about such expenditures. At one point, some admirals — but not all admirals, and not Witte either — thought a place called Libau would be perfect for a naval base. The naysayers then, or at least Witte in this memoir finished in 1912 and published only after his death, said it “would be a complete waste of money – as turned out to be the case.” And was it? It depends on the timescale, but Latvian scavengers aren't complaining. I am still uncertain if this Baltic coastal area is ice-free, or if such ice as it gets is no worse than Murmansk ever sees, but Witte traveled to the latter and thought it superior. Oh, well!

Back to railways: there are many references to those. This is what really interested me, because I had the idea that Russian dreams and fantasies of a railway network amounted to a kind of geopolitics. All that land out there had to be important, or next to something which was important, or next to something which was next to something which was something; on and on and on. Witte’s judgment in this book was that “strategic” concerns, much boosted by military men, were never as compelling as economic ones. Russia did spend three decades building railroads mostly in the West but “in the end we had to fight in the Far East.” Note Witte was much involved in the Russo-Japanese War – he even went to America for negotiations leading to the Treaty of Portsmouth – but he did not live long enough to see much of WWI.

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A couple more observations. Peasants get a lot of treatment in this book. Witte – and I’m sure everyone in the aforementioned Russian social strata – spoke explicitly of a peasant problem. I think it is generally considered pretty odd that Communism should have caught on first in such a non-urban, non-industrial country – theory predicted quite the opposite – but now I’d say any economic idea that attributed so much to one's class as opposed to oneself was going to find Russia highly congenial. Or at least fertile, as mushrooms find dung. Classes? Classes that are not only wildly disproportionate in size and power but doing everything all wrong? We’ve got ‘em! Now, any economic theory will postulate that everyone is doing it all wrong. But Marxism may have been a perfect fit for this place. Demographically and sociologically, or at least for amateur demographers and sociologists seeking professional employment in or near a brand-new dictatorship, Russia may have hit the sweet spot.

Another observation, not in this book at all, but online: after my initial reaction to that business about the Jew who got German enough to pass for Russian - “Huh?” - I recalled having seen guides to Russian text-message shortcuts. I thought these existed for both Cyrillic and Latin keypads. And maybe they do. The one I just found does not say if "Xyx?" or "Xax?" means "Huh?" But I bet it would be understood! Google Translate, by the way, suggests "Xm?"