Background
Ivan Goremykin was born to a noble family in Novgorod, November 8, 1839.
Ivan Goremykin was born to a noble family in Novgorod, November 8, 1839.
Educated as a lawyer, Goremykin entered government service in 1860 in the era of Alexander II.
He was to serve three tsars in all, during a career that spanned fifty-six years. His reputation as an expert on the Russian peasantry helped his ascent to high positions in the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior. He rose to minister of the interior (1895), with responsibility for a wide range of police and internal security functions. But friction with a powerful rival, Finance Minister Sergei Witte, led to Goremykin's temporary eclipse. He resigned his office in late 1899 and received membership in the State Council, the customary consolation prize for outworn bureaucrats. In the spring of 1906, however, Goremykin had his revenge: Tsar Nicholas II dismissed Witte from the premiership, as he seemed to be overly enthusiastic in welcoming the constitutional shifts brought about by the revolution of 1905. Goremykin, by then recognized as a stalwart of the ancien regime, was called back, only to fall after a scant three months in office. Too reactionary to meet the demands of liberal politicians, and seemingly too weak and decrepit to repress them effectively, Goremykin seemed finished.
In early 1914 the old man found himself again in demand to preside over the tsar's council of ministers. At seventy-four years of age, he struck Nicholas II as the perfect antidote to ambitious (and capable) political leaders who might choose to govern at the expense of the monarch's prerogatives.
Goremykin had no voice in the discussions that brought Russia into World War I. But his wartime career he was Nicholas' premier for the first eighteen months of the conflict made clear the dangers of ruling Russia through old, faithful retainers. Goremykin was an inadequate leader at a time of grave national peril; his weakness led to the rise of ambitious figures like Nikolai Maklakov inside the cabinet and Grigory Rasputin outside. Moreover, an incompetent reactionary as head of the government served as both goad and temptation to Duma leaders anxious for instituting sweeping political reform.
Until the first days of August 1914, the tsar expected to lead his troops personally into battle. Thus, Goremykin began the war with his already considerable powers augmented to let him fill the monarch's shoes. These powers he used to keep Duma sessions short and to administer the government without much regard to growing public discontent. Such a course could prosper, or at least survive, against a background of success; it could not surmount failure. By the summer of 1915, Russia's poorly equipped armies were in headlong retreat from Poland; the civilian population tottered under the stresses of inflation, food and fuel shortages, and the breakdown of the nation's railroads. The tsar revamped the cabinet in the spring of 1915, and, by summer, some of Goremykin's new colleagues taunted the old man for his patent inadequacies as a wartime leader. But the aged premier could still fight back on a narrow front. Almost alone among the ministers, he supported the tsar's decision to take direct command over the armies in the late summer. He encouraged Nicholas to prorogue the Duma in September 1915; and when his cabinet colleagues revolted, Goremykin encouraged the tsar to send the most outspoken of them packing.
Goremykin fell victim, however, to his own success. When the tsar was happily ensconced at Supreme Headquarters in the distant town of Mogilev, sweeping authority was left in the hands of Empress Alexandra. She found the old man ineffective. At the same time, Duma leaders saw in him a sworn enemy, out to crush the fledgling Russian parliamentary body. Worst of all, the tsar was not yet ready to abandon hopes for a show of support from the Duma. Thus, Goremykin had to go. In February 1916, he left his post at the tsar's request, to be succeeded by a like-minded but smoother figure, Boris Sturmer.
Goremykin played no further role in the war. He fled to the Caucasus during the March Revolution that followed his resignation by a year and a month. He died there murdered by a mob according to some accounts on December 24, 1917.
Goremykin's conservatism and inability to function in a semi-parliamentary system made him largely unsuitable for the position of head of government during the last years of Imperial Russia. Goremykin was despised by parliamentarians and revolutionaries and personally desired only to retire, and the ineffectiveness of his last government contributed to the instability and ultimate downfall of the Romanov dynasty.
"The Emperor can't see that the candles have already been lit around my coffin and that the only thing required to complete the ceremony is myself." (Commenting on his advanced age and unsuitability for office.)
"To me, His Majesty is the anointed one, the rightful sovereign. He personifies the whole of Russia. He is forty-seven and it is not just since yesterday that he has been reigning and deciding the fate of the Russian people. When the decision of such a man is made and his course of action is determined, his faithful subjects must accept it whatever may be the consequences. And then let God's will be fulfilled. These views I have held all my life and with them I shall die."