NCJ Number
138879
Journal
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism Volume: 15 Issue: 3 Dated: (July- September 1992) Pages: 185-199
Date Published
1992
Length
15 pages
Annotation
In the 5 years before his assassination in 1911, Peter Stolypin, Russia's most competent statesman of this century, created a remarkably sophisticated approach to countering the ideological insurgencies then threatening the Russian Empire.
Abstract
Stolypin combined three key elements: a well- publicized, harsh, but predictable campaign of law and order, the promise of broad overall national reform, and a far-reaching radical agrarian program designed to create a countryside of private landowners. The pacification effort was effective. The Socialist Revolutionary (SR) terrorist campaign collapsed by late 1907. The Social Democrats, who at that time were of less concern to authorities than the more militantly terrorist SR's, also dispersed, including the Bolsheviks. Incomplete as it was, Stolypin's program stands out as the most dramatic and, until it was halted, most successful land reform program of modern times. Stolypin's strategy had striking similarities to the successful postwar anti-Communist campaigns in Malaya and the Philippines. It also met the goals and rhetoric of the American effort in Vietnam. Despite his achievements, Stolypin would not, as some assert, have changed the course of history and averted the Bolshevik Revolution had he not been assassinated. The Bolshevik Revolution was mounted without regard for whether it was popular with or supported by the peasants. The draconian regime of War Communism from 1918 to 1921 was an example of the use of force to impose hostile authority and an alien economic system on the countryside. 39 notes