Stolypin, Pyotr

Stolypin, Pyotr (1862-1911), conservative politician, initiator of Russian agrarian reforms, and prime minister of Russia from 1906 to 1911, born in Dresden, Saxony. As governor of two Imperial Russian provinces, Grodno (1902) and Saratov (1905), he quickly established himself both as a radical reformer and harsh subduer of peasant insurrection. In May 1906, Tsar Nicholas II, reeling from the fiasco of Bloody Sunday (1905), appointed him Minister of the Interior and in the same year he became President of the Council of Ministers in the first Duma, effectively Russian prime minister. He then presented his agrarian reforms, designed to enhance the economic and political stability of Russia through the creation of small landowners loyal to the Tsar. When these were rejected by the Duma, Stolypin dismissed the government and passed his legislation by executive decree. The so-called reforms were notorious, 3,000 peasant rebels being executed by noose, known as “Stolypin's necktie”. In 1907 Stolypin dismissed the second Duma in order to pass more legislation, this time restricting the electoral franchise of peasants, workers, and national minorities. His autocratic style alienated centre and left politicians, but in 1910 and 1911 he effected further agrarian reforms with the support of the moderate Octobrists, who dominated the third Duma. In September 1911 Stolypin was shot dead by a revolutionary, Dmitry Bogrov, during an opera performance in Kiev.