FAILED PERFORMATIVES

Sergius Witte

Nicholas II

The October Manifesto was issued on 30 October 1905, during the '1905 Revolution'. Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte, also known as Sergius Witte, a highly influential policy-maker, was the author of the October Manifesto of 1905. He was Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) of the Russian Empire and served under the last two emperors of Russia.

The October Manifesto divided opposition to Tsar Nicholas II. The Kadets (The Constitutional Democratic Party, informally Kadets - Конституционная Демократическая партия) were appeased by the idea of having freedom of speech and a truly representative government, and the Union of October 17 or more informally Octobrist Party took their name from this manifesto; however; the Marxists maintained that Nicholas had really only made a small concession. The Duma was only a shell of democracy as it could not pass laws without the approval of the Tsar and freedom of speech was heavily regulated.

The first Duma had a majority of Kadets. The Kadets were mainly supported by professionals, - university professors and lawyers were particularly prominent within the party - members of the zemstvo (a form of local government), and some industrialists.

As it turned out at the time, the Marxists proved to be correct. The manifesto may have been a precursor of the first ever Russian Constitution of 1906; but, the manifesto and the constitution resulted in insignificant democratization as the Tsar continued to exercise veto power over the Duma. Nicholas II demonstrated his hold on power by dismissing the first and second Duma; indeed, he dissolved and reformed the Duma several times.

30^th October Manifesto (Gregorian calendar – the 17^th in the Russian calendar)

ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF ORDER IN THE STATE

The disturbances and unrest in St Petersburg, Moscow and in many other parts of our Empire have filled Our heart with great and profound sorrow. The welfare of the Russian Sovereign and His people is inseparable and national sorrow is His too. The present disturbances could give rise to national instability and present a threat to the unity of Our State. The oath which We took as Tsar compels Us to use all Our strength, intelligence and power to put a speedy end to this unrest which is so dangerous for the State. The relevant authorities have been ordered to take measures to deal with direct outbreaks of disorder and violence and to protect people who only want to go about their daily business in peace. However, in view of the need to speedily implement earlier measures to pacify the country, we have decided that the work of the government must be unified. We have therefore ordered the government to take the following measures in fulfilment of our unbending will:

1. Fundamental civil freedoms will be granted to the population, including real personal inviolability, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and association.

2. Participation in the Duma will be granted to those classes of the population which are at present deprived of voting powers, insofar as is possible in the short period before the convocation of the Duma, and this will lead to the development of a universal franchise. There will be no delay to the Duma elect already been organized.

3. It is established as an unshakeable rule that no law can come into force without its approval by the State Duma and representatives of the people will be given the opportunity to take real part in the supervision of the legality of government bodies.

We call on all true sons of Russia to remember the homeland, to help put a stop to this unprecedented unrest and, together with this, to devote all their strength to the restoration of peace to their native land.

Nicholas II, clearly never had any intention of fulfilling any of the promises contained in the manifesto. If one takes a performance writing approach to the text, it contains a number of performative utterances, all of which turned out to be false; hence, all unhappy performatives. If one accepts that the uttering of words is the leading incident in the performance of an act, the performance of which is also the object of the utterance, than poor Sergius Witte’s writing is an abject failure. Although the contents of the manifesto were certainly appropriate to the situation, they missed their timing, and their intention was delayed by 12 years until the 17^th October 1917. Perhaps that was their intention after all. Sing along if you can.