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Birth of Vyacheslav K. Plehve, Russian statesman, Minister of Interior
8 (20) April 1846, in Meshchovsk, the Kaluga Province, in a noble family of Orthodox Russified Germans was born Vyacheslav Konstantinovich Plehve, Secretary of State of His Imperial Majesty, senator, privy councilor, Secretary of State (1894-1902), Minister of Internal Affairs (1902 - 1904).
The father of Vyacheslav, State Councilor Konstantin G. von Plehve, worked as a teacher of history and geography in Meshchovsk district school until 1851. His mother, Elizabeth M. Shamaeva, came from the Kaluga gentry.
From 1851, Vyacheslav Plehve and his family lived in Warsaw. He studied at the Warsaw classical school and then graduated from the course of the Nicholas classical school of Kaluga with a gold medal, and in 1867, after graduating from the Moscow University, Law Department, was given a degree in law.
Plehve started to serve at the Ministry of Justice, where he had worked for nearly fifteen years, starting as a deputy provincial court prosecutor he finally became the prosecutor of the St Petersburg Court of Justice. Holding the position of the prosecutor in the capital, Plehve knew personally Alexander II. By imperial order, he reported to the emperor all the details on the progress of the investigation of cases of crimes against the state. It was Alexander II who drew the attention of the Minister of Internal Affairs, M. T. Loris-Melikov to Plehve who had an exceptional memory and efficiency. Participation in the investigation of the attempted murder of Alexander II committed by Stepan Khalturin in 1880, allowed Plehve to meet the heir, tsarevich, who noted the professionalism and phenomenal memory of the young prosecutor.
In the spring of 1880, having been awarded the rank of state councilor, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich was approved in his position of the Prosecutor of the St. Petersburg Court of Justice. From March to 7 (19) April 1881 Plehve was acting prosecutor in the special office of the Governing Senate "to judge cases of crimes against the state and the proceedings of the crime of March 1” (the murder of the Emperor Alexander II). In April 1881 Plehve was appointed director of the Department of State Police of the Ministry of the Interior, and in May 1881 - a member of the Commission for drafting regulations on state protection. From the first days of heading the Department of State Police, Plehve was actively involved in the fight against the terrorist organization "People's Union". He considered it necessary to oppose the revolutionary movement with "a similar spiritual power - the power of religious and moral re-education of our intelligentsia."
To achieve this, he proposed the introduction of a "strict social discipline in all areas of people’s life, which are available for the control of the State." Together with Colonel G. P. Sudeikin he developed a system of secret intelligence work within the revolutionary organizations. In May 1881 Plehve attended the commission drafting the Regulations on State protection. In 1884, he became a senator, and a year later - the Deputy Minister of the Interior. Vyacheslav Konstantinovich chaired committees to revise the Statute on the factory and the manufacturing industry, to draft the Regulations on the management of the steppe regions, to address the issue of non-Russians, and others; he supported the introduction of rural chiefs, led the development of the law on resettlement (1889). In 1892, Plehve was a member of the Special Committee for Famine Relief.
In 1894, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich became Secretary of State and Chief Commander of codification department under the State Council, attended the Special meeting for the nobility.
In August 1899 Plehve was appointed Secretary of State for the Grand Duchy of Finland. In this position, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich was an avid supporter of Russification and unification of the Grand Duchy with the empire. He contributed a lot to elaboration of a new statute on military service in Finland, to publishing of a manifesto on the introduction of the Russian language in the proceedings of the Senate and administrative institutions of the region, to increase of the influence of the governor-general on the decisions of cases considered by the Senate.
In April 1902, after the assassination of D. S. Sipyagin, Plehve was appointed Minister of the Interior and the chief of the gendarmerie. In this position he had consistently pursued a strict policy regarding the opposition and revolutionary movements. After Plehve took the office, the role of the MIA in determining the general policy started to increase to the prejudice of the influence of the Minister of Finance S. Yu. Witte. Plehve sharply criticized the Emancipation reform prepared by Witte. He had developed his own plan, which focused on the hamlet tenure. The project involved the non-economic protection of landed estates, including the legislative prohibition on the operations of the Peasant Bank to buy up the landed estates in almost the entire territory of the European Russia.
Plehve was a proponent of strengthening the government in the provinces, he initiated disperse of some of the most pro-opposition Zemstvos. In the central agency, he united all the divisions of the Interior Ministry that were in charge of the rural and urban affairs into the General Administration of the local economy. During his office were developed the drafts of the following reforms: provincial, peasant legislation, local government and others. Regarding the Jewish question, Plehve advocated relaxation of restrictions but at the same time strongly objected to their complete abolition. He also supported the strengthening of Russia's expansionist policy in the Far East and Manchuria, believing that the military conflict would defuse domestic political tensions in the country.
15 (28) July 1904 in St. Petersburg, on the Izmailovo prospectus, Plehve was killed by a bomb thrown at his carriage by a SR Yegor Sozonov.
Lit.: Колпакиди А. И, Серяков М. Л. Щит и меч. Руководители органов государственной безопасности Московской Руси, Российской империи, Советского Союза и Российской Федерации. Энциклопедический справочник. СПб.; М., 2002; Любимов Д. Н. Памяти Вячеслава Константиновича Плеве. СПб., 1904; Овченко Ю. Ф. Полицейская реформа В. К. Плеве // Вопросы истории. 1993. № 8; Российские консерваторы. М., 1997; Чукарев А. Г. Тонкий и беспринципный деятель: (Подробности из личной и политической жизни В. К. Плеве) // Российский исторический журнал. 2003. № 2; Шикман А. П. Деятели отечественной истории. Биографический справочник. Москва, 1997; Шилов Д. Н. Государственные деятели Российской империи 1802-1917. СПб, 2001; Янжул И. И. Воспоминания о пережитом и виденном в 1864-1909 гг. СПб, 1911.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials: