There is such a children's game, it is called leapfrog. Those participating in it jump in turn through their partners, standing in a bent position. This is what the Cabinet of Ministers of the tsarist government looked like in recent pre-revolutionary years. The newly appointed minister did not have time to occupy the highest position in the hierarchy of officials, as he instantly found himself downstairs, giving way to his successor.
The emergence of a new catch phrase
The author of the expression “ministerial leapfrog”, which became winged and firmly entrenched in a certain period in the history of tsarism, is Vladimir Mitrofanovich Purishkevich, a prominent political figure in the early 20th century, monarchist and Black Hundred. That is how he described in his speech delivered at a meeting of the State Duma the frequent change of ministers and their continuous rearrangement from one department to another.
“Ministerial leapfrog? What is this? ”, Only our contemporary, not experienced in historical matters, may ask in bewilderment, but the witnesses of that era immediately understood what was going on, because Vladimir Mitrofanovich had every reason for such a harsh expression. During the two-year period from 1915 to 1916, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers changed four times, the Minister of War three times and the head of the Ministry of the Interior six times. Ministerial leapfrog paralyzed the work of the entire bureaucratic apparatus. His positions, weakened by the war and outbreaks of social discontent, both in the center and in the localities, were completely undermined.
Ministerial leapfrog - causes and manifestations
In those years, the supreme power, which did not want to look for ways to cooperate with the opposition and at the same time did not dare to suppress its actions, rapidly lost its authority. This situation was the result of a deep political and social crisis that emerged in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and reached its highest point during the First World War.
One of the manifestations of the crisis was a phenomenon that went down in history under the name “rasputinism”. Ministerial leapfrog has the most direct relation to him. It got its name from the name of the "holy elder" and "soothsayer" Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, who appeared in 1907 in St. Petersburg. Despite the fact that the “old man” was barely forty-two years old at that time, he was able to enter the palace in that capacity in a short time and become one of the closest people to the royal family.
"Gray Cardinal" from Gorokhovaya Street
Empress Alexandra Fedorovna, prone to religious mysticism, and Nicholas II himself quickly fell under the influence of Rasputin, who managed to convince them that with his prayers he was able not only to restore health to the terminally ill heir to the throne, but also to ask for God's blessing throughout the current reign. This allowed him to actively influence the sovereign's adoption of the most important decisions, including those related to personnel policy, and become a kind of "gray cardinal."
The metropolitan environment of Rasputin
Such a circumstance was not slow to take advantage of swindlers of various stripes and levels. They flocked from all over the country to a house on Gorokhovaya Street, where Rasputin rented an apartment in the last years of his life, and from where the whole “ministerial leapfrog” was initiated. Among those whose names were specified by secret police agents in the list of people who were frequent guests of the “elder,” there were representatives of exchange and banking circles, the most prominent Black Hundreds and simply high-ranking adventurers, who were the most famous in those years.
The acts of the "elder" and his entourage
In pursuit of their selfish goals, all these people used Rasputin as an intermediary between them and the royal family, thus achieving the necessary appointments and making other decisions favorable to them. Through it went the replacement of some ministers with others, and also resolved personnel issues at all levels of the state apparatus. The “ministerial leapfrog”, the period of which is limited to 1915-1916, was only the tip of the iceberg, a phenomenon open to millions of eyes.
The true scale of all the behind-the-scenes deeds committed by the "holy elder" and his entourage was much wider. Blaming them for the unrest that arose in many departments and caused the intensification of the economic crisis in the country, many researchers believe that it was Rasputin who persuaded the sovereign in 1915 to assume the post of commander in chief, which adversely affected the course of hostilities.
Conspiracy to save the monarchy
The “ministerial leapfrog” ended in February 1917 when, in the wake of the bourgeois revolution, the sovereign was forced to abdicate. But even earlier, throughout 1916, a conspiracy against Rasputin matured in the monarchist circles of the capital. His goal was to save Nicholas II from the harmful influence of the “elder” and prevent the collapse of the autocracy in Russia.
The conspirators were headed by prominent monarchists such as Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, Prince Yusupov and State Duma deputy F.M. Purishkevich - the very one who introduced the phrase “ministerial leapfrog” into circulation. They managed to realize their plan on the night of December 17, 1916. By tricking them, they lured Rasputin into the basement of the Yusupov Palace, converted into a small but elegant salon on this occasion, and they committed murder.
Posthumous fire and water
To hide the traces of the crime, the corpse of the "elder" was drowned by them in Malaya Nevka near the Elagin bridge. However, what they did was soon publicized. Rasputin's body was removed from the water and buried in Tsarskoye Selo in the presence of the entire royal family. But two months later, by order of the Provisional Government, which came to power, the remains were exhumed and burnt in the boiler room of the Polytechnic Institute. They did this to stop the possibility of pilgrimage to his grave of former admirers.
The agony of a great empire
Looking back at the past, we can clearly conclude that the “ministerial leapfrog” characterizes the period that has become the agony of a dying state. It was not only the monarchical system that had outlived its own and was incompatible with the 20th century that collapsed - the system collapsed before our eyes, corroded from within by corruption, which led to the power of people who not only devastated the treasury, but were also incapable of any kind of rational government.
The Bolsheviks, rushing to power, were not slow to take advantage of the spiritual blindness of a people deprived of moral guidelines. In Russia of that period, they found fertile ground for their anti-Christian, and, in fact, anti-human and anti-human propaganda. Historical evidence indisputably suggests that the "secret" of their political success lies precisely in the fact that the Bolsheviks did not have to fight with the state system, which had the ability to resist them. At that time, the world's largest country was hopelessly ill and became the easy prey of a handful of political adventurers.
One of the external manifestations of her ailment was the notorious "rasputinism." This shameful phenomenon completely compromised both secular authority and the clergy. Unfortunately, this phenomenon too late received a proper appraisal of representatives of the progressive thought of Russian society. As a result, dark destructive forces lurking in the depths of the masses found a way out and, released, overthrew the state, the church, and the intelligentsia itself.