The Reformer by Stephen F. Williams

Author:Stephen F. Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781594039546
Publisher: Encounter Books
Published: 2017-09-16T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

Reforms and Reform

An Appraisal

MAKLAKOV WAS IN THE DUMA from 1907 to 1917. Did he and the Duma accomplish much by way of reforms, and, more subtly, did the Duma gradually mature as a legislative body? On the first question, the record of real accomplishment is painfully skimpy.

First, did Maklakov’s and others’ work spotlighting misbehavior by the regime actually change that behavior? With a minor and debatable exception, the answer appears to be no. The exception is the possibility, suggested in chapter 7, that Maklakov’s depiction of the field courts martial as a state-destroying rather than a state-saving institution might have led the government to taper off its use more quickly than in the absense of his speech. But the case for any such link is highly speculative. The trend of its use was already down sharply, and we don’t know either the government’s earlier plans or the severity of the crimes allegedly involved (which might tell us whether Stolypin carried through on his apparent commitment, on the floor of the Duma, to limit its use to the worst offenses). As to reliance on the extraordinary security laws and agents provocateurs, the most that could be said is that regime misconduct may have declined roughly in step with the decline in anti-regime violence; but recall Maklakov’s wonder at how the ministry of internal affairs managed to find 2,000 people worthy of exile per year as of 1910, when the 1905 Revolution’s unrest had largely abated. And there appears to be no trend line in the executive’s practices of muscling the judiciary and appointing tractable people, forms of misbehavior that would be hard to detect or to measure objectively. The use of Article 87—which was in any event relatively unimportant, because its own rules severely limited the life span of Article 87 decrees that the Duma really disliked—was too episodic to create any kind of meaningful pattern. And Maklakov failed in his effort to limit the executive’s ability to remove troublesome deputies through a narrow interpretation of the rules on exclusion of Duma members convicted of crimes.

What of actual reform legislation? The only realm where we can identify real success is the judiciary, where the reform finally enacted in 1912 advanced judicial independence and law-based adjudication: the justices of the peace were restored to the countryside under terms that (thanks in part to Maklakov) were more protective of judicial independence than in the government’s bill, and the role of the ministry of internal affairs in control of the township courts (in both selection of judges and appeal) was extinguished. And the newly restored rural justices of the peace were free of such interference. Both systems were integrated with higher-level courts that were potentially capable of developing legal norms. These aren’t trivial accomplishments, but they occurred so late in the day that they had little chance, before Russia’s entry into the war, to sink roots in the countryside or inspire the Duma to enact follow-on reforms.

As to the rest, there were three

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.