Duma Member: Right or Left?

The first twenty years of the nineteenth century for Russia was such a time in which change and inconsistency were consistent. At the turn of the century, Nicholas II was struggling to keep power as aristocracy was losing it control over Russia. As serfdom was dying due to the emancipation, the lower class was rising for more representation. And while these two conflicting movements are happening, a world war was on the brink. In V.V. Shulgin’s The Years: Memoirs of a Member of the Russian Duma, 1906-1917, Shulgin gives his readers an in-depth look at Russia before the war, during the war, and after the war. As there are many accounts of this time in Russia’s history, there are few in which the author supports the Tsar and his struggle to regain control of the country. In this case, Shulgin fits that criterion very well. Therefore, while reading his memoirs, an analysis can take place, as the reader will uncover a more in-depth look at how it was like to be a rightist politician during the first twenty years of the century.

Before World War I, Shulgin describes the process of electing deputies into the Duma, as well as the duties of its members. During the war, his leadership comes out as he becomes a soldier. With his actions after the war and on the eve of revolution, we see his true nature as a Russian, which might also be the result of Tsarist Russia’s downfall. Through his accounts, V.V. Shulgin has given us a look in Russia from 1906 to 1917. Although he was more right than left politically, through his memoirs, we can see that he had mixed views about the events that were going around him.

As Shulgin begins his memoirs with his plans for raising electors, he focuses on the clergymen, the large landowners and more impor...

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...cal power was the downfall of the Tsar, Russian autocracy, and the non-leftist political figures. Just as the Tsar left Russia, Shulgin also left the country for the increasing threat of the Bolsheviks. Through his memoirs, the Duma deputy showed his readers not only the increasing spark of revolution, but also why he didn’t agree with all of his parties’ rightist views. It was for the better of all of Russia, not just the workers and peasants, or the nobility. Perhaps that is why he cared for the soldiers in the Great Retreat, or fought for the Bolsheviks in the Duma: the same radicals that would (in due time) eliminate the parliament.

Bibliography

Mawdsley, Evan. The Russian Civil War. New York: Pegasus Books LLC, 2005.

Shulgin, V. V. 1984. The Years: Memoirs of a Member of the Russian Duma, 1906-1917. Trans. Tanya Davis. New York: Hippocrene Books, Inc.