Best Russian statesman before 1917

I would be interested in who you people find the best statesman or woman in Russian history. Please also describe why.

To mention a few:

Me 
Pjotr Stolypin
Konstantin Pobedonostsev
Loris Melikov
others.......

I would never nominate Pobedonostev.

He was not a brilliant statesman.  He was the person who encouraged radical reactionary behavior in both Alexander III and Nicholas II.

Without his belief in the helplessness of the Russian people and his obvious contempt for constitutional forms of government, perhaps Russia would not have gone into revolution in both 1905 and 1917.

I would never nominate Pobedonostev.

He was not a brilliant statesman.  He was the person who encouraged radical reactionary behavior in both Alexander III and Nicholas II.

Without his belief in the helplessness of the Russian people and his obvious contempt for constitutional forms of government, perhaps Russia would not have gone into revolution in both 1905 and 1917.

I totally agree. So we remove him from the list.

That leaves us with:
Me
Pjotr Stolypin
Loris Melikov

who else?

I think Witte was probably the best statesman. Not for his progressive ideas but for his personality. Stolypin had perhaps more progressive ideas but he was Prime minister in a period of great oppression. That makes him to me less attractive as statesman. Loris Melikov could have grown to a important person historically if the Constitutional reforms of Alexander II would have been carried out and more reforms would have followed for sure if only........

So, who also fits on the list?

I would never nominate Pobedonostev.

He was not a brilliant statesman.  He was the person who encouraged radical reactionary behavior in both Alexander III and Nicholas II.

Without his belief in the helplessness of the Russian people and his obvious contempt for constitutional forms of government, perhaps Russia would not have gone into revolution in both 1905 and 1917.

I totally agree. So we remove him from the list.

That leaves us with:
Me
Pjotr Stolypin
Loris Melikov

who else?

I think Witte was probably the best statesman. Not for his progressive ideas but for his personality. Stolypin had perhaps more progressive ideas but he was Prime minister in a period of great oppression. That makes him to me less attractive as statesman. Loris Melikov could have grown to a important person historically if the Constitutional reforms of Alexander II would have been carried out and more reforms would have followed for sure if only........

So, who also fits on the list?

Great idea for a thread here.  I'm learning here, perhaps you could expand on why "you" were such a great statesman.

T

Count Witte certainly was a very good statesman when he represented Russia at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire treaty negotiations.  Even though Russia was clearly at fault for starting the Russo-Japanese War and thoroughly inept at running it, Witte managed to come out of the treaty negotiations with some of Russia's pride and land still intact.

Interesting how it was T Roosevelt who got the Nobel Peace Prize for the work that the Portsmouth negotiators did.

The one action of the Russo-Japanese War that has always astounded me was the sending of the Baltic Fleet to the Straits of Tsushima.  It was like - OK, here we come guys, get ready for us and just wait to blow us out of the water when we get there.

Count Witte certainly was a very good statesman when he represented Russia at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire treaty negotiations.  Even though Russia was clearly at fault for starting the Russo-Japanese War and thoroughly inept at running it, Witte managed to come out of the treaty negotiations with some of Russia's pride and land still intact.

Interesting how it was T Roosevelt who got the Nobel Peace Prize for the work that the Portsmouth negotiators did.

The one action of the Russo-Japanese War that has always astounded me was the sending of the Baltic Fleet to the Straits of Tsushima.  It was like - OK, here we come guys, get ready for us and just wait to blow us out of the water when we get there.

Apart from Portsmouth he was a great personality who also had enough understanding of what was going on in Russia. He saw that there was great tension between the conservative which he mistrusted and on the other hand, the Revolutionaries who wanted to turn the country upsidedown. He warned the government not to go to war with Japan in the first place. If they listened to him the tensions of 1905 wouldn't have occurred, al least not in this form. In stead he was dismissed following a conspiracy by the Conservatives who accused him from a 'Jewish Conspiracy' against the country. He would have been the man who could possibly meddle through all opposite forces as he was a loyal servant of the Tsar. Alas, it wasn't to be.

After the disaster of the War in 1905 Nicholas II suddenly remembered how he needed Witte and he was called back in service. He was a big proponent of Constitutional reforms when they were needed. But he was also of the opinion that reforms shouldn't be hastened. They should only be gradually be introduced. More as a means to release the pressure from the revolutionares.

Unfortunately he was dismissed in 1906. After him, Stolypin took over. But I think Stolypin did more harm than good because of his oppresive politics.

What of Sergei D. Sazonov, Minister of Foreign Affairs? He held the position from 1910 to late 1916. Was his very high profile dismissal at this critical period of ministrial changes be the catalyst for sense of preparedness by Kadet Milyukov or of Lvov of iminient destablilization. Would Sazonov have had the access to Nicholas to enforce and overrule other ministers to bluntly state the reality of the situation? The gap of communictions between Rodzianko and TS/Stavka may have been overcome with Sazonov.

Joanna

Depends on what the criteria are I suppose.  Witte was probably the ablest & best, but Stolypin was probably better from a purely conservative, Machiavellian perspective -- so presuming we are to use the Emperor's criteria & not our own, I would choose Stolypin over Witte.  He best executed the will of his master.  From a personal & historical perspective, it is no contest for me between the two.

How about Peter the Great, especially the way he went carousing through Europe in 1697 with his "Grand Embassy."  Even though he supposedly crashed a Brittish ship while learning to navigate on the Thames, I think he did a lot to better Russia's image in the late 17th century.

Stolypin and Witte both counseled peace in the face of all the Idiots who thought a war would solve all of Russia's Problems. It did, but certainly not the way these Martinets thought. I don't know who could argue with the screaming Banshees  who thought both the Russo-Japanese and WWI would unite Russians.
Witte and Stolypin were right, Russia's greatness lay in the future, if Nicholas had only been able to navigate the rocky shoals which lay before him.
If it had been me, I would have sent Russian Troops into Serbia and arrested every member of The Black Hand and sent them to the Hague for Trial.
That would have put the onus on the Kaiser and The Austrians.

I am reading The Fall of Dynasties by Edmund Taylor

He is quite taken by Stolypin and believes that Stolypin could have helped to prevent the ultimate fall of the dynasty (obviously just one person could not have stopped the disintegration) if only Nicholas II had listened to him and Alexandra and Rasputin have not disliked him so much.

I will be back with the quotes as soon as I am able.

On one of the Imperial Family  home movies,  found on the fabulous forzentears.org,  it shows  the family  walking towards one,  with a large crowd behind them. The children are quite young.  As I watched the film ,  a man's face popped out at me. He looks directly into the lense.  I thought, "  I know this man...who is it?"  well two days later the answer came:  It's  Piotr Arkadevich Stolypin .

He is walking  behind the Empress and at the end, he is behind Olga Nikolaevna . He's wearing a white peaked cap .

 http://www.frozentears.org/Sasha/Real/Getty3.mov

Quote from The Fall of the Dynasties by Edmond Taylor:

'Peter Stolypin, who was the Prime Minister from November 1906 to his assassination in September 1911, was the chief artisan of the monarchy's recovery after the crisis of 1905. A big, burly, black bearded man with frank and virile features, Stolypin was not exactly an enlightened conservative. but he was an honest and thoughtful one.  His goal was not so much to reform the autocracy as to renovate it."

"It was Stolypin who, in the teeth of criticism both from the left and from the reactionaries, gave Russian peasants the right to withdraw from the village communes and to own their own land - the most fundamental social reform since the emancipation of the serfs."

"If anyone could have saved the Russian monarchy after 1905 it was Stolypin.  His antithesis in Russian history - and in a sense his victorious rival - was not Lenin, or any of the revolutionary leaders, but Rasputin, whose emergence as a public figure almost coincided in time with Stolypin's, though his final triumph came long after the latter's death."

Stolypin stood for the kind of rational political conservatism that seeks to preserve traditional values by modifying existing institutions to meet changed conditions.  Rasputin expressed the inverted radicalism that in its panic flight from contemporary reality tramples down tradition and replaces it with synthetic legend."

Quote from The Fall of the Dynasties by Edmond Taylor:


"It was Stolypin who, in the teeth of criticism both from the left and from the reactionaries, gave Russian peasants the right to withdraw from the village communes and to own their own land - the most fundamental social reform since the emancipation of the serfs."

Yes so one has to wonder who was behind Stolypin's  murder since both sides would have cheered it.

His bravely was amazing. He went on even after his own daughter was killed ( along with twenty-eight  others and thirty-three injured ) by bombs meant for him. It was at his country house on Aptekarsky Island. This says to me , elements within the powers that be were behind that event. I don't see anyone else being able to bring in that much fire power to a  county estate undetected.

The problem  was  both ends of the political  extremes wanted no compromise and  Stolypin' was a huge threat to both .
Stolypin 's very success put a bulls eye on his back . Sad for him, Russia and the world.

I thought that his daughter was horribly injured, but I didn't know that she was killed in that blast at the country house.

Unfortunately all sides were working for their own advancement and enrichment.  It is very hard to work in an atmosphere where everyone has his own agenda.