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But were these strikes of great political significance? Historians have debated this point, opinions ranging from those who see them as spontaneous and purely economic, to those who read them as early successes of a young Russian Marxism. Although the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDWP) was not officially founded until 1898, Marxist circles were already in full flower in the capital by mid-decade. While the influence of early Russian Marxism should not be exaggerated, Allan Wildman has clearly demonstrated that the spontaneous labour movement was aided, abetted, and to some degree even inspired by Marxist agitators, some of whom had been closely connected with the young Marxist Vladimir Ilyich Ulianov.

But of still greater historical importance was the strikes’ indirect political significance: Russians of all persuasions saw them as a major historical moment, pregnant with either promise or peril, depending on the observer’s politics. Not that these perceptions were always consistent or predictable. In government circles, for example, some interpreted the strikes as a ‘wake-up call’, warning of the dire consequences of continuing Witte’s policies, while others saw them as evidence of the need for enlightened labour legislation to meet the needs of a modern industrializing society. A few officials, at times including Witte himself, went so far as to contemplate the legalization of labour unions, while the Minister of Interior proposed to shorten the working day (a logical extension of labour legislation on women and minors promulgated in the 1880s). A limit on the working day was introduced in 1897; (partial) legalization of unions did not come until 1906, however, and then in a very different context.

In the wake of the Petersburg strikes of 1896–7, even conservative officials who loathed Witte’s industrialization schemes recognized the need to contain working-class unrest. As often happened, such awareness was motivated by a mixture of direct Russian and vicarious European experience. Just as the Paris Commune of 1871 had precociously alerted Russians to potential dangers in their own urban centres, the spread of social democracy and labour militancy among ‘disloyal’ German workers, when added to such events as the Petersburg strikes, convinced conservatives in the Ministry of Interior, most notably the notorious Sergei Zubatov, that police-supervised associations were needed to stem the tide of unrest. To men like Witte, however, the very idea of placing the fate of industrial labour in the hands of the police (later described by critics as ‘police socialism’) was a foolish provocation. Moreover, such approaches seemed like yet another expression of gentry hostility to Witte’s policies, so rampant in the Ministry of Interior. Lacking a clear alternative, the Witte faction vacillated between advocacy of simple repression and of such daring moves as the legalization of unions. The tension between Witte and Zubatov over labour policy was emblematic of a larger tension between the Ministry of Interior and the Finance Ministry, with the basic direction of social and economic policy at issue.

The Role of Foreign Policy

Given the social and political strains produced by Witte’s policies, historians have asked whether they were necessary. Might an alternative path have been followed? Even if one forgoes foreign-policy determinism (Primat der Auβenpolitik), one must still concede that Russia’s relations with the outside world, and especially with the European powers, configured the context for the policies of the Finance Minister, sometimes in the foreground, sometimes at a further remove. Russia’s frail finances severely restricted the risks that the government could assume in foreign policy, especially with respect to the critical areas of the Balkans and the Black Sea, but also with respect to expansion in the Far East. At the same time, Russia’s presumptive but precarious position as a ‘great power’ provided an underlying motivation for the pursuit of economic development, industrial strength, and financial independence.