According to the plan of P. A. Stolypin, the agrarian reform was to be accompanied by a number of other transformations, which he first outlined in the government declaration of August 24, 1906.1 These reforms were and could not be anything other than "bureaucratic regulation of the unfreedom and enslavement of the masses." 2 On this basis, the government wanted, following the example of Austria and Prussia, "to complete the revolution by a direct deal between the old government and the landlords and the largest bourgeoisie." 3 Having received the approval of the Octobrist-cadet majority of the Third Duma, these reforms failed, however, to pass through the State Council, which in 1906 was transformed into an institution on an equal footing with the State Duma, but in fact became the upper house of the Russian "parliament". Thus, Stolypin's attempt to solve the objective problems of the bourgeois revolution from above failed. The question arises: who and why did they stand in the way of implementing the reforms they planned? To answer this question, it is important to find out the composition of the State Council, as well as to study its activities. Until now, researchers have only focused on the period from 1906 to 1907.4 . As for its subsequent history, Soviet historiography has nothing but summary characteristics. The purpose of this article is to find out the causes and nature of changes in the composition of the State Council in 1907-1914. As is well known, the third June bloc was based on counterrevolution, but this did not exclude contradictions and struggles between its constituent elements. The fact is that tsarism, on the one hand, under the influence of socio-economic development, was forced to make concessions to the bourgeoisie, and on the other, it wanted to preserve its omnipotence. In this desire, he relied not only on the support, but also on the pressure of the local nobility, who saw in the preservation and consolidation of the autocracy the only w ... Читать далее