Chapter 5
The Professoriate at the Crossroads

The revolution of 1904–1907 set off a complicated struggle for control of the Russian universities. Intense conflict among the student movement, the senior faculty, the junior faculty, and the government meant that between January 1905 and September 1906 Russia's institutions of higher education stayed open for a grand total of one month. This turmoil marked one of the most important periods in the history of Russian higher education, as the autocracy seemed to signal the end of the 1884 Statute. Many key restrictions on university admissions lapsed. University enrollments doubled between 1904 and 1907. The professoriate won a large degree of autonomy in the management of university affairs. These new opportunities presented the professoriate—especially its moderate liberal majority—with unforeseen problems. Just when the professoriate had begun to celebrate its newly gained primacy in university affairs, it had to defend its authority against challenges from all sides—government, the emergent junior faculty, and the students.

Even before 1899, the senior faculty had attacked student unrest as an irresponsible tactic which, in pursuit of a few praiseworthy goals, played into the hands of reactionaries and endangered Russian higher education, and thus hampered rather than enhanced the chances for political and intellectual progress. But the political turmoil that engulfed the country in 1904 forced the professoriate to consider the very questions the student movement had been raising for a number of years. Could academic freedom remain separate from the wider issue of far-

reaching political reforms? If not, then what besides direct action and confrontation would force the autocracy to grant those reforms?

Many professors, even those who endorsed the aims of the liberation movement, feared making compromises involving the professoriate or the universities as such in the revolution. Yet would a society in the middle of a revolution grant the professors the luxury of upholding the universities' claim to be "above politics"? And could the professoriate support political democracy outside the university while insisting on German-style rule over students and junior faculty within? Although the senior faculty would have no trouble reconciling political liberalism with academic authoritarianism, other groups within the academic community—students and junior faculty—would refuse to surrender their demand for "institutional democracy."

By 1904 a few leading academics openly admitted that the academic profession had to reexamine its attitudes and priorities. Some even questioned whether the student movement had not been right all along in insisting that university autonomy had to be gained through struggle, not compromise. For example, Kharkov juridical professor N. A. Gredeskul admitted in the prestigious Pravo:

The liberation movement in the universities began long ago, certainly much earlier than last year. But in all honesty, for a very long time its only adherents [in the universities] were the students. The student disorders of 1899 were imbued with the same liberating ideal that the whole of Russian society has now embraced. Its essence is that a real cultural life worthy of human dignity is incompatible with [the autocracy]. . . . This system [the autocracy] now blocks any forward movement. The students were saying this in 1899 and after . . . but we professors did not listen. . . . Even those of us who did not want to be only bureaucrats [chinovniki ] . . . [told the students then] that first it was impossible to change the system [at least in the near future] and, second, that the system was flexible enough to allow real cultural progress, such as university autonomy [even without more general reforms].^[1]

In raising the issue of whether the professor was a government bureaucrat or whether his first obligation was not to his employer—the state—but to Russian society at large, Gredeskul touched on one of the key questions the Russian professoriate was forced to confront in 1905. Many professors would argue that if the academic profession sat out the political confrontation between state and society, it would emerge the

[1] N. A. Gredeskul, "Rol' universiteta v sovremennom dvizhenii," Pravo, no. 40 (1905).

loser. In times of national crisis, professors had to take a stand or risk forfeiting the public respect they considered to be a basic precondition for strong, flourishing universities. But too much political commitment risked a total rupture with the government, increasing polarization within the professoriate, and the establishment of a very dangerous precedent that could endanger all future appeals for a university "above politics."

Prodded by public pressure as well as their own consciences, Russia's professors tried to overcome their deep reluctance to making a professional commitment to the political battle against the autocracy. They formed an Academic Union, passed anti-government resolutions, and even tried to show more sympathy toward the student movement. This sympathy stopped short of outright endorsement of the student strike that closed the universities from February until September of 1905. But the development of the revolution quelled the professors' initial doubts and convinced them that in the end only they, of all the nation's professions and social groups, really cared about the survival of the universities. Russia's slide into confrontation politics left the professoriate back where it started—deeply uncertain about the limits of the universities' political obligations and very much hoping for a change in government policy that would enable reform from above to forestall revolution from below.

The Beginning of Confrontation: The Disciplinary Courts

Between 1899 and 1904 the government repeatedly raised the professors' hopes that they would regain the authority over university governance and student discipline denied them by the introduction of the 1884 Statute. Each time, however, the government backtracked, fearful of losing control over the universities. Vannovskiis 1901 questionnaire gave the faculty councils a chance to articulate their criticisms of the statute. After two decades of depriving the professoriate of jurisdiction over student life, the government, stung by the student disorders of 1899, now started talking about "closer relations between students and faculty" as a panacea for the student problem. But if the faculty was to cooperate in persuading the students to remain quiet it wanted a quid pro quo—a repeal of the 1884 Statute and more power within the university. Hopes for the repeal of the statute rose even higher when, in

1902, Vannovskii's replacement, G. E. Sanger, appointed a commission to study the matter and make recommendations. As we have seen, the commission report, which ran to five thick volumes of proceedings, finally came to rest in the archives.

Still, the pressure of the student movement forced the government into a continual retreat from the 1884 Statute. In August 1902 the establishment of the professors' disciplinary courts seemed to meet a longstanding faculty demand that enforcing student discipline was the job of the professoriate, not the government.

In December 1903, the Odessa University Disciplinary Court met to consider the cases of students involved in skhodki organized that fall to protest anti-Semitic incidents in the university. The court justified its lenient sentences by pointing out that the disturbances were local in scope and showed no evidence of being part of a planned pattern of student unrest. This led to a complaint from the Odessa district curator to the ministry in Saint Petersburg that the professors were neglecting their duties. The arch-conservative rector of the university, A. N. Derevitskii, secured a directive to take over the functions of the court himself or dissolve it and hold elections for a new one.^[2]

The same mistrust of the professoriate surfaced in Warsaw University, when the court's leniency angered curator A. N. Schwartz. After the disciplinary court meted out light sentences to the students involved in disorders in November 1903, Schwartz warned the ministry that "as it is now constituted, the court is not a suitable means of quelling mass disorders."^[3]

When disorders broke out in Kharkov University following the advent of the Russo-Japanese War in February 1904, M. M. Alekseenko, the curator in Kharkov, asked Lukianov, the acting minister of education, if he could bypass the court altogether in punishing the students involved. "The court," he complained, "acts too slowly." Upon getting Lukianov's permission, Kuplevskii, the university's rector, expelled twenty students and suspended thirty-two. As a result the entire court—Professors L. L. Girshman, D. N. Ovsianko-Kulikovskii, V. A. Steklov, N. A. Gredeskul, and M. P. Chubinskii—resigned. Along with the Moscow University Faculty Council's December 1903 declaration, this was one of the most important examples of academic protest since

[2] TsGIA, f. 733, op. 151, d. 299, l. 26.

[3] TsGIA, f. 733, op. 151, d. 299, l. 38.

Vinogradov's departure for England three years earlier. It signaled that the patience of the professoriate was finally beginning to wear thin.^[4]

Clearly V. K. Plehve, the minister of the interior, was now setting the tone of the government's get-tough policy toward both the professoriate and the students. By the beginning of the war, the tsar had not yet named a replacement for Sanger, whom Plehve had fired in 1903 after deciding that he lacked the firmness required to deal with the student problem.^[5] For Plehve, however, the attack on the disciplinary courts was just a first step in pacifying the VUZy . At the beginning of 1904 he launched a frontal attack on the specialized technical institutes, whose students had traditionally enjoyed much more autonomy than their counterparts in the universities. In March and April 1904, Plehve's new policy led to the temporary closing of the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute and the Kharkov Technological Institute. The minister of the interior was determined to force a unified government policy toward the VUZy, abolishing the wide disparities of treatment that had up to now characterized the status of VUZy subordinated to other ministries.^[6]

Both the students and the faculty of the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute had been intensely proud of the traditions of their school.^[7] Over the years the students and faculty had established a close rapport. The students had set up a library, dining hall, and other mutual aid organizations, which had been tolerated by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, to which the institute was formally subordinated. In the past the students had been comparatively moderate in their protests, except when it appeared that the government intended to encroach on their privileges. In 1901 the students had voted not to participate in the Kazan Square demonstration because they did not want to violate the long-standing tradition against carrying student protest outside the walls of the insti-

[4] In December 1903 the Moscow University Faculty Council questioned the government's commitment to the new disciplinary courts, in view of its constant displeasure with the court's decisions. A copy of the protest declaration can be found in GPB im. V. I. Lenina, f. 131, V. O. Kliuchevskovo, folder 29, no. 20. On the incident with the Kharkov Disciplinary Court, see TsGIA, f. 733, op. 151, d. 638, l. 254; the Kharkov Disciplinary Court's letter of resignation appears in Osvobozhdenie, no. 56 (1904).

[5] Plehve praised Sanger's replacement, acting minister of education Lukianov, for firmness in dealing with the Kharkov and Odessa incidents. See TsGIA, f. 922, op. 1, l. 9. This is the summary of the first interview between Tsar Nicholas II and General V. G. Glazov after Glazov's appointment as minister of education in 1904. The tsar emphasized that he relied heavily on Plehve's advice in formulating his policy toward students and professors.

[6] TsGIA, f. 922, op. 1 (Glazov's notes on conversation with Plehve, April 1904).

[7] An excellent collection of memoirs of student life in the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute is Na puti k pobede (Leningrad, 1925).

tute. (They did join the 1899 strike, however.) In February 1902 the students decided to fight Vannovskii's rules on student organizations, since they were meant to apply to all VUZy and thus to equalize the status of students regardless of the ministry to which the particular school reported. They called a strike that led to the expulsion of 332 students. (All won readmission the following fall.)^[8]

As part of his drive to impose uniformity on higher-education policy, Plehve appointed Professor D. P. Konovalov from Saint Petersburg University to assume the directorship of the mining institute at the beginning of 1904. At the same time he appointed a new director of the Kharkov Technological Institute, Professor N. N. Shiller. (Unlike the mining institute, the Kharkov Technological Institute answered to the Ministry of Education.) Konovalov had the reputation of being an arch-conservative. Upon his appointment he told the professors of Plehve's determination to subject the students to stricter discipline. Trouble began on 3 March 1904, when Konovalov entered the student dining hall and ripped a picture of German Socialist leader August Bebel from the wall. He later tore up the protest resolution delivered to him by two student representatives. An escalating series of charges and countercharges concerning his behavior led to a large student skhodka on 15 March, which voted to strike. The following day the institute closed. On 19 March, six leading professors resigned from the faculty. Konovalov managed to complete the academic year with the support of a small group of anti-strike students and conservative faculty, but the episode polarized the mining institute and became a cause célèbre throughout the country.^[9]

Repression at the Kharkov Technological Institute also began in March. The Ministry of Education had dismissed a privat-dozent from Kharkov University because of an allegedly unpatriotic speech he had made at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. The students of the technological institute called a skhodka to express their solidarity with the university students who were protesting the dismissal of the dozent . The skhodka drew only a small crowd but gave an excuse for Shiller, the new director, to begin fulfilling his new mandate. He closed the institute on 5 March and expelled 207 students without consulting the

[8] G. Rokov, "Iz noveishei istorii studencheskikh volnenii," Vestnik Vospitaniia, no. 3 (1906). The best single source on the 1904 dispute in the mining institute is the voluminous Konovalovskii konflikt (Saint Petersburg, 1905). This is the stenograph of the informal court of honor that met at the beginning of 1905 to adjudicate the various charges being traded between the pro-strike and anti-strike factions of the previous year.

[9] Rokov, "Iz noveishei istorii," gives a concise summary of the affair.

disciplinary court. He then reprimanded six faculty members who protested this action. After consulting with Plehve, Shiller escalated matters by asking the six professors to resign. When the rest of the faculty joined the protest, Shiller deprived several professors of their fellowships for foreign study. On 14 May the tsar affirmed Shiller's dismissal of the six professors from the institute.^[10]

These two incidents have certain similarities. The government appointed reactionary directors who antagonized the faculty by arrogating to themselves disciplinary functions that had previously been under faculty control. Furthermore, Konovalov and Shiller used relatively minor student protests to provoke a confrontation with the faculty. In doing so, they clearly invoked Plehve's direct support. The attacks on these institutes certainly contributed to the growing alienation of the educated public from the government. At the same time, the mounting evidence of the increasing politicization of the government's higher-education policy, exemplified by the constant attacks on the disciplinary courts, began to push the professoriate toward a reappraisal of its relationship with the government.

A New Minister of Education

Had the professors known what was on the tsar's mind, they would have had even less reason to feel encouraged. On 10 April 1904 the tsar appointed an ex-general, Vladimir Gavrilovich Glazov, to head the Ministry of Education. Brushing aside Glazov's protests that he was unqualified for the job, the tsar made it clear that now the top priority in the nation's educational policy was not reform but housecleaning and pacification.^[11] During his interview with the minister, the tsar told Glazov that the root of the problem lay with the professoriate. "There [were] decent people in the professoriate," the tsar said, "but very few."^[12]

Glazov made a conscientious effort to learn his new job and even recommended policies that could have established a good working relationship with the majority of the professoriate. After touring the universities, Glazov sent a memorandum to the tsar recommending sharply

[10] "Razgrom Khar'kovskovo Tekhnologicheskovo instituta," Osvobozhdenie, no. 56 (1904).

[11] TsGIA, f. 922, op. 1, l. 9; cf. "Dva razgovora: Iz dnevnikov V. G. Glazova," Dela i Dni, no. 1 (1920).

[12] In turn Glazov ventured the remark that perhaps one reason for the poor quality of the professoriate was low pay.

increased funding levels and emphasizing the political advantages of a strong university system, especially in the non-Russian areas.^[13] In addition, he supported more state funding for scholarships. It would not serve the national interest, he pointed out in a letter to the tsar, to turn the universities into closed schools for the very wealthy. (Besides, there were not enough wealthy students to fill them.) But Glazov's relationship with the faculty councils was bound to suffer from the fact that he relied heavily on the advice of assistant minister Lukianov and former Moscow University rector A. A. Tikhomirov for recommendations on university policy. Neither had a good relationship with the liberal or moderate elements of the professoriate. Shortly after his appointment, Glazov received a memorandum from Tikhomirov blaming his former colleagues, the senior faculty, for the terrible state of Russia's universities and concluding that because the main problem was the "de-Christianization" of Russia's educated classes, the malaise of Russian higher education was so deep-rooted that anything the ministry did in the way of decrees or legislation would have little effect.^[14]

Of course Glazov knew that what the government (in other words, Plehve) expected of his ministry was placid universities, not innovative policy. But Plehve's crackdown on the professoriate in 1903–1904 could not be justified by any objective threat the universities posed to the security of the state. The student movement was in the throes of an identity crisis and lacked direction and central leadership. Student unrest in 1903 and even after the beginning of the war did not match the intensity of the 1899–1902 period. Why, then, did the government pursue a counterproductive course bound to lead to a confrontation with a professoriate that at heart much preferred order to revolution?

One answer was that the autocracy was the prisoner of its own "ideology of order," a fixation that robbed it of any flexibility in dealing with public expressions of discontent. Any expression of public protest, no matter how unimportant, was seen as a serious challenge. Bureaucrats who argued otherwise risked jeopardizing their careers. As a result there was an inherent tendency, despite occasional spates of tolerance, to overreact to disturbances in the universities, especially because they were conspicuously located in the nation's urban centers. One key option for the autocracy was to "depoliticize" institutions such as the uni-

[13] TsGIA, f. 922, op. 1, d. 143.

[14] TsGIA, f. 733, op. 226, d. 90. Nonetheless, Tikhomirov's pessimism did not prevent him from recommending a major increase in financial aid allocations for needy students.

versities so that their problems could be dealt with without involving the prestige of the government.

The problem of depoliticization was a major challenge posed by the Revolution of 1905 to the government in general and to the Ministry of Education in particular. With regard to the universities, major steps toward depoliticization could have included transferring disciplinary powers to the professors and granting them wider rights in choosing rectors and determining curriculum—in short, repeal of the 1884 Statute. In August 1905, the government would indeed follow this course, at least for a time. But in 1904, it was moving in the opposite direction.

Glazov, a military man, had no patience with the professors' disciplinary courts. On 25 September 1904 he asked the tsar to sanction further limitations on the professors' disciplinary powers. In cases of "mass disorders or political agitation" Glazov advocated telling the rector to consult with the curator and then to bypass the disciplinary court and judge the cases himself. He would also be able to expel or suspend students without having to consult the court. The tsar approved Glazov's recommendations, which were issued as Ministry Circular No. 38, on 3 October 1904.^[15]

The 3 October circular guaranteed further deterioration in faculty-government relations. During the fall semester of the 1904–1905 academic year the faculty councils watched large-scale suspensions from Kiev, Odessa, Kazan, Iur'ev, and Moscow universities effected without consultation with the disciplinary courts.^[16] As the country grew more restless, the senior faculty was beginning to lose patience with the government and started taking a new look at its conviction that the academic profession as such "had to stay out of politics."

The growing student unrest in the fall of 1904, especially the violence following the November and December street demonstrations in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, put even more pressure on the professors. In the case of Moscow University, the aftermath of the 5 December demonstration, as we have seen, led the faculty council to issue a report that verged on open defiance of the government. Another new factor was the emergence of the junior faculty as an assertive force.^[17]

Even before Bloody Sunday, therefore, relations between the senior faculty and the government had reached the crisis stage. The massive

[15] TsGIA, f. 922, op. 1, d. 162.

[16] TsGIA, f. 1276, op. 1, d. 51.

[17] A. Georgievskii, "Bezporiadki v vysshikh uchebnykh zavedeniiakh v 1904–05gg.," in TsGIA, f. 733, op. 152, d. 196.

student strike and the general public outcry following the Bloody Sunday massacre put more pressure on the professors to define their attitudes and responsibilities during an escalating revolutionary situation. For the professoriate the situation created by the student strike offered both dangers and opportunities. Professional tradition and pride made it hard to openly support the principle of a student strike, yet common sense argued that a resumption of classes might lead to bloody violence in the universities, especially if excitable students picked fights with the police.

Furthermore, the strike offered the professoriate a chance to win long-sought professional goals: repeal of the 1884 Statute, elected rectors, more academic freedom, and a restoration of the authority of the disciplinary courts.

Canvassing the Professoriate

In early February the government unwittingly gave the professoriate a legal opportunity to discuss professional demands and grievances when it decided to poll the faculty councils of all the nation's institutions of higher education on the question of resuming classes.^[18] There was sentiment within the government for letting the strike run on—who needed thousands of angry students milling around the cities?—but closed universities raised questions of prestige and undercut claims that normal life was returning. Acting on the recommendations of a January inter-ministerial conference, the government asked the professors for help in restoring normal academic life.^[19]

The faculty responses showed a striking degree of agreement. Not one university agreed to resume teaching. All the faculty councils, university and nonuniversity, asserted that wider political reforms were an essential precondition for peace in the VUZy .^[20] The professors were uncharacteristically defiant, especially because they all saw plainly the irony of the government's seeking their help after having told them in 1903 and 1904 that it had lost confidence in their ability to handle student discipline. The similarity of faculty council responses permits the assumption of a basic professional consensus in 1905. All VUZy, how-

[18] TsGIA, f. 1276, op. 1, d. 51.

[19] Ibid. In its report to the tsar the conference recommended immediate reconsideration of the 1884 Statute.

[20] The replies of the various faculty councils are contained in TsGIA, f. 733, op. 152, d. 196.

ever, also had sizable conservative minorities that issued dissenting opinions and called for an immediate return to classes.^[21] Later on, this conservative opposition would become more important, especially in the provincial universities.

A typical response was that submitted by the Moscow University Faculty Council.^[22] While the council opposed the idea of a student strike, it could not agree to reopen the university under the present circumstances. The university had to stay closed "in order to protect the students from themselves." What about the long run? That, the council implied, depended on radical changes in the government's political and academic policies.

The Moscow professors placed the blame for the parlous state of Russia's universities squarely on the government's shortsightedness, especially with regard to the 1884 Statute, a document that undercut faculty morale and prestige and made it impossible for the professors to gain the students' respect. The government, of course, had heard exactly the same thing in the professors' responses to the 1901 Vannovskii questionnaire; in the ensuing four years little had happened except further deterioration of the state of the universities. Because the universities had no autonomy, and the professors no authority, the students cared about neither. They saw the universities as diploma mills, the professors as hapless state employees. It was hardly surprising, therefore, to see the students taking out all their frustrations—political and academic—on the most readily available target, especially since they had no notion of how vital the universities were to the nation's future.

Any meaningful reform of higher education, the Moscow University Faculty Council argued, had to begin with a fundamental redefinition of the purposes of the universities. The government had to accept the professors' contention that the main task of the universities was the propagation of scientific thinking, not the training of middle-level civil servants. "The basic purpose of university teaching," the faculty council pointed out, "is not merely the imparting or communication of knowledge to students. Even more important is the need to arouse interest in scientific work and the need to acquaint students with the methods of scientific inquiry."^[23] If this were done, the nation would find itself with

[21] In Odessa University, for example, the faculty council voted 32 to 25 against a return to classes.

[22] TsGIA, f. 733, op. 152, d. 173, ll. 379–383 (Postanovleniia Soveta Imperatorskovo Moskovskovo Universiteta, priniatyia v zasedaniiakh 6ovo, 12ovo i 15ovo Marta, 1905ovo goda, po voprosu o merakh, sposobnykh obezpechit' pravil'noe techenie universitetskikh zaniatii).

[23] Ibid.

better civil servants and professionals in the bargain. The professors called for the formal abolition of the already emasculated state examination system and a transition to an elective curriculum that would emphasize specialized and independent inquiry rather than rote learning. Making science rather than teaching the main function of the university provided the ideological underpinning for the faculty council's demand for major changes in academic governance that would give the senior faculty control over the election of rectors, the filling of vacant chairs, and supervision of student life. By clearly establishing the professoriate as scholars and as masters in their own house, such reforms would show students two important reasons for respecting and obeying the senior faculty. As a result the students would be more likely to heed the professors' pleas to put the integrity of the universities above the passing frustrations of the moment.

At this point, the faculty council statement ran into certain problems, a reflection of the delicate position of the professoriate as a whole. Along with their colleagues elsewhere, the Moscow professors considered general unspecified political reforms a sine qua non for the resumption of normal academic life. But too strong an insistence on political reforms seemed uncomfortably close to involving the professoriate in a political strike—which made the senior faculty uncomfortable. The Moscow University Faculty Council had indeed endorsed the 18 February Bulygin rescript, with its vague promise of a consultative Duma, as a measure that "opened the way for Russia to reorganize her life on a new foundation." But only the most naive professors believed that a consultative Duma would satisfy the students or even the Union of Liberation. Yes, the senior faculty was making political demands—but very moderate ones.

The Moscow professors called for immediate control over internal university administration. But a return to the classroom before the resolution of underlying political tensions risked, as the professors themselves admitted in the same statement, confrontation with the students, obstruction of classes, and police interference. The faculty council explicitly recognized the dilemma: "University autonomy will not bring peace to the university unless it is accompanied by general political reform. Although it realizes this, the faculty council sees no way out of the present difficult circumstances other than the immediate realization of full academic autonomy."^[24] The council explained that the professors could not assume the role of passive bystanders awaiting the advent of a

[24] Ibid.

more favorable political situation, and it warned that "Russia faced a stormy period that might last several years . . . during which there was every likelihood that some form of student disorders would continue."^[25] In such a situation it was absurd to keep the universities closed until the end of the student movement. But given the likelihood that disorders would continue, the professors argued that they themselves were best qualified to deal with such problems—provided they first received university autonomy.

Quite clearly the Moscow University Faculty Council, like its counterparts elsewhere, did not want a major confrontation with the government. The professors were cautiously trying to reconcile the increasingly contradictory roles of scholars, civil servants, teachers, guardians of the universities, and, last but not least, proud members of Russia's educated elite who wanted to guard their status in the eyes of the public.

Government Policy: Confrontation or Compromise?

The government did not make the professors' position any easier. When he sifted through the various faculty council responses, Glazov saw only their impertinence and ignored their pleas for a new era of cooperation between the state and the academy. One clear example of the ministry's shortsightedness was the fate of a potentially important initiative undertaken by P. A. Nekrasov, the curator of the Moscow Educational District.

Nekrasov sensed that many professors were uncomfortable with the growing involvement of the senior faculty in the liberation movement and decided to organize a conference to explore possible solutions to the academic crisis. Without seeking Glazov's permission, he asked the faculty councils of all the VUZy in Moscow province, regardless of ministerial affiliation, to elect delegates. He knew, of course, that technically his action was illegal; the 1884 Statute made no provision for any such

[25] Ibid. It should be noted that eighteen members of the faculty council signed a statement opposing the majority declaration. These conservative professors declared that they could not agree with the assumption that "the authority of the professoriate in the eyes of the students and the Russian public depends on the enjoyment of its 'corporate rights.' . . . For those students who understand their obligations, as well as for those citizens who have achieved a certain level of culture, the measure of the authority of the professor has been and will be solely that of talent, knowledge, and devotion to teaching" (TsGIA, f. 733, op. 152, d. 173, l. 288).

conferences, much less those that united professors across ministerial boundaries.^[26]

The Nekrasov conference held several meetings in March and April. While ruling out the prospect of an early return to classes, the professors encouraged Nekrasov by reaffirming their loyalty to the principle of an organic link between the state and higher education, which in turn would determine the context of any definition of academic freedom. At the same time, they reminded Nekrasov that the collapse of the universities began before Bloody Sunday and that there was a separate university crisis, in addition to the general political crisis. However, by endorsing the concept of state-controlled higher education and the goal of academic freedom within the framework of that control, the professors strengthened Nekrasov's belief that the academic community could be detached from the widening anti-government coalition.^[27]

Glazov reacted with shocked surprise when he learned of the conference and refused to meet with a delegation elected by the conference to talk to him about university reform. The old general then summoned Nekrasov to Saint Petersburg to explain why he had allowed the meeting.^[28]

In mid-April, replying to the summons, Nekrasov told Glazov that the government had an opportunity to win the professoriate to its side and would be foolish to let baseless suspicions interfere. He urged Glazov to approve one of the main recommendations of the Moscow conference: a national conference, composed of elected representatives of the professoriate, to meet and draw up a replacement for the 1884 Statute. The Moscow professors, Nekrasov concluded, far from being a threat, were actually meeting under the "banner of true autocracy."^[29]

Glazov, unimpressed, ordered Nekrasov to stop the conference, threatening him with immediate disciplinary action if he failed to comply. The tireless curator fired back another letter, pleading with the minister of education to stop viewing the professors as inevitable opponents of the regime. The ministry's insistence on holding professors' discussion to the narrow range of subjects allowed by the statute only served to prevent moderate elements from organizing to counter growing anti-government agitation. (Glazov was obviously unconvinced, since his

[26] The protocols of the conference can be found in TsGIA, f. 1276, op. 1, d. 51, ll. 439–497.

[27] TsGIA, f. 733, op. 152, d. 173, l. 318.

[28] TsGIA, f. 733, op. 152, d. 173, l. 326.

[29] TsGIA, f. 733, op. 152, d. 173, l. 318.

comments in the margin of Nekrasov's letter equated Nekrasov's suggestions with the disastrous decision to encourage Father Gapon in Saint Petersburg.) The curator emphasized again that the government should allow a nationwide professors' conference to draft a new statute. "The conference," Nekrasov predicted, "will demand academic autonomy. We have to expect that. But we must demand that this academic autonomy be consistent with loyalty to the tsar, that it be organically linked to the government." The curator reiterated his belief that the majority of the senior faculty shared this view.^[30]

The government decided to give the professoriate a symbolic slap in the face. In a development that sharpened the tension between the state and the academic profession, the Pravitel'stvennyi Vestnik on 23 April published a warning that if the universities did not reopen in the fall, the entire teaching staff, as well as the student body, would be suspended. Professors from all over the country reacted with indignation and fury. A common response was that the warning made it more difficult than ever for the professoriate to pursue a moderate course, since the public would now suspect it of acting only out of self-interest.^[31]

One sign of the growing anger and assertiveness of the professoriate was the defiant tone of the Moscow professors' conference, which continued to meet despite Glazov's orders. After the 23 April threat, the conference responded with its own warning, telling Glazov that the professoriate would not accept any new statute drawn up by bureaucrats. Only university reform charted by the elected delegates of the professoriate would have any legitimacy.^[32]

While Glazov persisted in his hard line toward the professoriate, he also realized that the government needed more of a university policy than just the threat to expel students and fire professors if the VUZy stayed closed in the fall. At the beginning of June, Glazov sent a memorandum to the tsar that showed that although the general was a disciplinarian, he was far from being an arch-reactionary. Glazov admitted that the only sure way of solving the student problem was to change existing admissions policies and turn the universities and technical institutes into closed schools on the model of the Alexandrovskii Lycee. The minister warned that such a course was not only "impossible but also undesirable."^[33]

[30] TsGIA, f. 733, op. 152, d. 173, l. 335.

[31] A 2 May protest letter signed by thirty-four professors can be found in TsGIA, f. 733, op. 152, d. 173, l. 363.

[32] TsGIA, f. 733, op. 152, d. 173, l. 367.

[33] TsGIA, f. 922, op. 1, d. 163, l. 1.

Like most responsible officials in the government, Glazov clearly did not want to turn higher education into the preserve of the wealthy nobility. Besides, could this group by itself staff the professions and the higher civil service? As the government learned when it tried to implement the 1884 Statute, there were simply not enough trained personnel or potentially trustworthy recruits to staff the various institutions of Russian society and government if the autocracy was indeed determined to follow a course of coherent counterreform.

There was the alternative, which Glazov now began to advocate, of depoliticization. One key proposal of Glazov's memorandum was that the government expand the disciplinary powers of the professoriate. Such a policy, Glazov wrote, "would shift to the shoulders of the faculty councils a burden which now seems so tempting and so desirable to the majority of professors." The government would benefit, for the onus of future student disorders would fall on the professors, not the state. At least that was his hope. "One has to believe," he concluded, "that it will turn out this way; if this new policy does not work one would have to conclude regretfully that the university as a form of higher education does not suit Russian circumstances and is inconsistent with the level of the civic development of Russian society."^[34] Glazov thought that the government would still exercise a significant degree of control over higher education as long as the curators continued to act as watchdogs over the VUZy .

Ignoring the warnings of the professoriate, Glazov convened a conference on 10 June to draft a new university statute. In addition to himself and his two chief aides, Tikhomirov and Lukianov, the conference included three arch-conservative professors invited by Glazov.^[35] In his opening remarks Glazov told the group that aside from wanting to abolish the privileges associated with a degree, the tsar had no specific guidelines for a new statute.

Two years earlier the government might have been able to impose a new statute without much opposition from the professoriate. But the situation had obviously changed, and the deliberations of the June conference proceeded in an atmosphere of unreality. Having rejected Nekrasov's advice that he put the relationship between the government and the professoriate on a new footing, Glazov continued to believe that a new university statute could be worked out in the secret chambers of the Ministry of Education and be implemented without consulting the

[34] TsGIA, f. 922, op. 1, d. 163, l. 3.

[35] Ibid.

professoriate as a whole. While clearly in keeping with the political traditions of the autocracy, such an attitude was totally out of date by the summer of 1905. The Russian professoriate was losing its patience with government tutelage.

The Professoriate Begins to Organize

The deliberations of the various faculty councils between December and March were only one aspect of the searching reevaluation by the professoriate of its political and professional obligations and identity. As political tensions mounted, the academic community realized that it had to answer not only to the government but also to the liberation movement, whose influence was rapidly growing. Many professors, of course, were ready to enter the political fray as individuals. The major issue was whether the Russian professoriate as a professional group was ready to collaborate with the liberation movement.

Some leading academics—Professors V. I. Vernadskii, P. I. Novgorodtsev, S. A. Kotliarevskii, and I. M. Grevs—had participated in the July 1903 Schaffhausen conference convened by Peter Struve to establish the Union of Liberation.^[36] The conference, Struve hoped, would unify the two divergent strands of Russian liberalism, the zemstvo moderates and the radical constitutionalists. The professors who made this early political commitment soon discovered that they were closest to the moderate wing of the Union of Liberation.

Two issues that exposed potential rifts between the liberal professoriate and the more radical elements of the liberation movement were the nature of political liberalism in Russia and attitudes toward the Russo-Japanese War. The first problem centered on priorities. Should liberals link demands for political reforms and libertarian guarantees with demands for social and economic justice? Should these goals be given equal priority? Replying to an essay by Struve arguing that Russian liberals had to link social with political demands, Professor S. N. Bulgakov of Kiev University spoke for many of his colleagues in warning that Russian liberalism "too easily sacrifices the interests of political liberalism and political freedom on the altar of the interests of a democratic social policy."^[37] As will be seen below, another powerful argument in this vein

[36] Shmuel Galai, The Liberation Movement in Russia, 1900–1905 (Cambridge, England, 1973), p. 177.

[37] Ibid., p. 181.

was to be developed by Professor Paul Vinogradov in his "Political Letters."

Nor did the professors share the widely held view that military defeat was preferable to victory. When hostilities broke out with Japan at the beginning of 1904, each faculty council sent a declaration of loyalty to the tsar.^[38] A basic component of academic liberalism in Russia was its disdain for the lack of patriotism long held to be an integral part of the traditions of the intelligentsia. The academic community believed that the universities could play a major role in helping Russia compete with other European countries, that science and knowledge were powerful weapons which could be mobilized to serve the national interest. Indeed, a major reason why academic attitudes toward the government began to harden was the angry conviction that bureaucratic obstruction of higher education was playing a major role in Russia's defeat.

Shortly after the start of the war, the eminent geologist V. I. Vernadskii, soon to be a prominent figure in the organization of the Academic Union, wrote a gloomy letter to a Moscow colleague, the philosopher Sergei Trubetskoi.^[39] Vernadskii bitterly assailed the defeatists who "misunderstood the role of Sevastopol" in Russian history. Vernadskii, like many of his colleagues, distinguished between the existing autocratic system (samoderzhavie ) and the Russian state (gosudarstvo ). The interests of the latter required a fundamental modification of the former. The lesson of Sevastopol was that no state could long survive unless it could put knowledge at the service of national power. Liberal professors supported the idea of a powerful state, but one that would employ their talents. Their opposition to the autocracy stemmed not only from their liberal instincts but also from their basic aversion to a system whose bureaucratic incompetence was subverting the national interest and Russia's ability to compete internationally. On hearing the news of the fall of Port Arthur, Trubetskoi wrote that he was filled with "sadness, pain, anguish, and a shame that cried for vengeance, a shame that was unforgiving."^[40]

When the renowned jurist Boris Nikolaevich Chicherin died just after the war began, Trubetskoi wrote a eulogy whose major theme would echo in the writings of many of his colleagues. He declared:

[38] A typical declaration, that of the Saint Petersburg University Faculty Council, can be found in Imperatorskii Sankt-Peterburgskii Universitet, Zhurnaly zasedanii soveta za 1904g . (Saint Petersburg, 1905), p. 13.

[39] Ol'ga Trubetskaia, Kniaz' S. N. Trubetskoi: Vospominaniia sestry (New York, 1953), p. 74.

[40] Ibid., p. 100.

We are not breaking our ties with Russia's past. We do not renounce the foundations of its national greatness; we want to strengthen them and make them indestructible. . . . That same patriotism, that powerful state instinct which gathered Russia around the throne of the rulers of Moscow and made her the greatest and largest power in the world should now receive its historical justification . . . the tsar should now realize his real historical mission—to give freedom to the Russian nation and thereby achieve a closer harmony between tsar and people.^[41]

The assassination of Plehve in July 1904 and the string of Russian defeats in the Far East increased the fears of the moderate liberals that unless the government made concessions quickly, the country would slip into revolutionary anarchy.

One important advocate of this position was Prince Evgenii Trubetskoi, a professor of philosophy at Kiev University, who would also play an important role in the organization of the Academic Union. On 26 September, Pravo published his article entitled "The War and the Bureaucracy," which one historian has described as "a turning point in the annals of the Russian press." Trubetskoi called on the autocracy to forestall revolution by initiating reforms from above. He blamed the "bureaucracy" (a euphemism for the autocracy) for strengthening the revolutionary parties. If the government would only change its policy, "then we will not need to fear either the internal or the external enemy."^[42] The article prompted Struve in turn to publish an "Open Letter to Prince E. N. Trubetskoi," which appeared in Osvobozhdenie on 14 October 1904. Struve warned that "as long as the stronghold of autocracy has not been destroyed, anyone who is fighting against it represents not a 'grave danger' but a great blessing. . . . In Russia there is no internal enemy apart from the autocracy. . . . Solidarity between all our oppositional forces constitutes the first commandment of a sensible political struggle." The contrast between these two viewpoints—"no enemies on the left" versus "better reform from above than revolution from below "—underscored the choice facing the professoriate. After halfhearted flirtations with the oppositional movement, the bitter experience of the revolution would rekindle their faith in the government at the first sign that "reform from above" was actually possible.

But Evgenii Trubetskoi's moderate political views did not keep him from urging his academic colleagues to reevaluate their stance of corpo-

[41] Ibid., p. 77.

[42] Galai, Liberation Movement, p. 219.

rate political noninvolvement. Up to now, Trubetskoi wrote, the professoriate had "loudly proclaimed that the university should serve science and then would sit back and hope for the best. But such a claim rings hollow when we ourselves cannot teach what we want."^[43] He and his colleagues, Trubetskoi admitted, had been wrong to assume, as they had told the students in the past, that academic freedom was compatible with political autocracy. Even if the autocracy satisfied all the professors' demands and repealed the 1884 Statute, the student movement alone would suffice to wreck normal academic life. Logic dictated that the professoriate had a direct stake in the political showdown between state and society.

Shortly after the publication of Trubetskoi's article, Vernadskii made a public appeal to the professoriate to break with its past traditions and organize.^[44] "Internal emigration," Vernadskii argued, was no longer an alternative for Russia's academics. Besides, the government demanded more of its employees than mere neutrality, and the professors had to face up to the fact that they were independent scholars and teachers, not hacks on the state payroll. They should no longer let themselves be treated as if they were "teaching on some godforsaken Philippine Island." They had to organize, join the fight for political reforms, and stand ready to fill the vacuum created in the universities by the slow collapse of the 1884 Statute.

A few days later the new and influential liberal newspaper Nashi Dni hurled a direct public challenge to the professoriate in a blunt editorial entitled "The Professor: Is He a Civil Servant or Not?"^[45] The paper declared that "the universities must now choose on whose side they stand." Were they chinovniki, or would they join the political mobilization of Russian society? In a not very subtle hint, the newspaper warned that the independence of a scholar was incompatible with the status of a hired civil servant.

By the end of 1904, therefore, a full-scale press campaign was under way to pressure the academic profession to join the political lineup against the autocracy. The campaign gathered momentum when Ivan Grevs, a Saint Petersburg University historian, wrote a hard-hitting article in Nashi Dni questioning the basis of the professoriate's "professional ideology." Most professors believed that

[43] "Universitetskii vopros," Pravo, no. 50 (1904).

[44] "O professorskom s"ezde," Nashi Dni, 20 December 1904.

[45] "Chto takoi professor: Chinovnik ili net?" Nashi Dni, 24 December 1904.

a teacher of science acting in good conscience should help his students become adults by fostering a serious atmosphere of dedication to knowledge. In order to realize this educational purpose he should dissuade them from premature political diversions. Therefore he refrains in his teaching from discussing politics. Instead he expounds a very wide and progressive theoretical idealism.^[46]

By adopting such an approach, the Russian professor hoped to "preserve his influence on the students . . . and gradually develop in them a conscious and critical attitude toward the contemporary world." This was well and good in "normal countries" and in "normal situations," but Grevs argued that under Russian circumstances, such a lofty view of the academic calling was a "pipe dream." Students formed their views not in the classroom but in the student movement, through the "thick journals" and under the influence of the mystique of the intelligentsia. All too often, Grevs complained, the professor was caught between the student movement and the autocracy and was "forced into complicity with the disciplinary actions of the administration." Grevs argued that the professoriate had allowed the government to place it in a position incompatible with its professional honor. Because they had allowed themselves to become compromised, the professors enjoyed low status in the eyes of the Russian public. It was time to change this image—by courageous action and organization.

Many other academics took advantage of Moscow University's 150th anniversary, which took place in January 1905, to issue statements supporting Vernadskii and Grevs and calling for a nationwide professors' conference.^[47] A common theme of these statements was that unless the professors won the respect of the general public and the students there would be little hope for the restoration of normal academic life.

Thus, by the end of 1904, the professors were under growing external and internal pressure to make a corporate commitment to the liberation movement. But here they faced a serious problem, one with grave implications for the future. The Union of Liberation had adopted a policy of "no enemies on the left." But the professors were naturally wary of any collaboration with the revolutionary parties or political up-

[46] "Zabytaia nauka i unizhünnoe zvame," Nashi Dni, 28 December 1904.

[47] See, for example, S. Bulgakov's "Bez plana," Voprosy Zhizni, no. 1 (1905). Bulgakov reminded his colleagues that as of January 1905 only the students had taken any collective stand concerning Russia's social and political crisis. Although some individual professors had written articles, the universities as such had "been silent and remain silent."

heavals, which might threaten the vulnerable universities. Yet the academic community could no longer shield itself from the deepening political crisis. Individual faculty councils were already raising their voices in favor of political as well as academic reform. The government showed no signs of encouraging lone individuals within the educational bureaucracy who urged building trust and understanding between the senior faculty and the state. The professoriate now began to undertake a step that was clearly illegal: the organization of an Academic Union.

The "Declaration of the 342"

The second congress of the Union of Liberation met in Saint Petersburg on 20 October 1904. During this meeting the union endorsed the decisions taken at the Paris conference with the revolutionary parties the month before, thereby ratifying the adopted policy of collaboration with the left. The union also adopted a four-point plan of action, and it called on members to participate in the upcoming zemstvo congress and to raise constitutional demands at zemstvo assemblies. Finally, it decided to organize a nationwide banquet campaign for 20 November and to begin a propaganda drive to form a Union of Unions consisting of newly organized unions representing the free professions. The plan envisioned the organization of the professoriate, as well as doctors, lawyers, engineers, and others.^[48]

In December 1904 the Union of Liberation entrusted Professor L. I. Lutugin with the job of organizing an academic union.^[49] Lutugin contacted Professor A. A. Brandt of the Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical Institute and asked him to gather signatures for a political statement that would form the basis for the new union. Brandt reluctantly accepted the charge. He would later write that not only he but

many other professors felt that it was already too late for a constitution in Russia. It should have been bestowed, if not during the reign of Empress Ann, then immediately after the emancipation of the serfs. At that time Russian industry had not yet developed and there was no Russian proletariat. . . . The first Russian Dumas would have consisted almost exclusively of nobles. . . .

[48] Galai, Liberation Movement, p. 223.

[49] A. A. Brandt, List'ia pozheltelye: Peredumannoe i perezhitoe (Belgrade, 1930), p. 26. The other professional unions, such as the Union of Lawyers, began with demonstrative banquets. But Brandt noted that the idea of a collective political banquet made the professors somewhat uncomfortable.

But in 1904 a constitution would lead to serious consequences; it would produce not political but social revolution.^[50]

Caught between their anger at the government and their fear of social revolution, professors now began a delicate and risky journey down the road of political organization.

During the first week of January 1905, Brandt's group drafted a statement of political and academic principles that could bring the majority of the academic community into a union. The group planned to publish the statement on 12 January 1905, the sesquicentennial of Moscow University. It was signed by 16 members of the Academy of Sciences, 125 professors and adjunct professors, and 201 junior faculty members.^[51] This statement, the "Declaration of the 342," would attract more than 1,650 signatories by August, more than half of the professoriate and the junior faculty.^[52]

The "Declaration of the 342" was a turning point in the history of Russian higher education. For the first time, the Russian academic profession was making a collective statement affirming the incompatibility of decent education with the political status quo.

A stream of government decisions and regulations has reduced professors and other instructors at the institutions of higher education to the level of bureaucrats, blindly executing the orders of higher government authorities. The scientific and moral standards of the teaching profession have been lowered. The prestige of educators has dwindled so much that the very existence of the institutions of higher education is threatened. Our school administration is a social and governmental disgrace. It undermines the authority of science, hinders the growth of scientific thought and prevents our people from fully realizing their intellectual potentialities. . . . The tragic state of our educational system does not allow us to remain on the sidelines. It compels us to express our profound conviction that academic freedom is incompatible with the existing system of government in Russia. The present situation cannot be remedied by partial reforms but only by a fundamental transformation of the existing system. . . . Only a full guarantee of personal and social liberties will assure academic freedom—the essential condition for true education.^[53]

[50] Ibid.

[51] A list of the signatories can be found in Vsemirnyi Vestnik, no. 4 (1905).

[52] By August the Academic Union had 550 members in Saint Petersburg, 111 in Kiev, 112 'in Kharkov, 72 in Odessa, 400 in Moscow, 57 in Kazan, 49 in Dorpat, 41 in Warsaw, 100 in Tomsk, 16 in Ekaterinoslav, 22 in Novo-Alexandria, 11 in Iaroslavl', and 3 in Nezhin (S. D. Kirpichnikov, Soiuz soiuzov [Saint Petersburg, 1906], p. 20).

[53] This is Alexander Vucinich's translation as it appears in his Science in Russian Culture (Stanford, 1970), vol. 2, p. 483.

Since the "Declaration of the 342" coincided with the beginning of the nationwide student strike, the Academic Union feared the Russian public might assume that the professors endorsed the students' action. Therefore an early priority of the union was to make it clear that the idea of the organization had arisen before Bloody Sunday and that the professors were acting completely independently of the student movement. The Academic Union had to walk a delicate line. On the one hand, the union signified an explicit commitment by the academic profession to the political campaign against the autocracy. But, on the other hand, as events would later underscore, a major purpose of the Academic Union was to safeguard the integrity of the universities during a period of political and social ferment. This ruled out endorsement of an academic strike as a tactic of political struggle—although the "Declaration of the 342" implicitly endorsed what amounted to the same thing. In short, the professors, not quite sure of themselves in their new role, wanted both to keep their distance from the student movement and to retain the option of dissociating themselves, if the need arose, from the political decisions of the Union of Liberation.

In March 1905, two leading members of the Academic Union, Ivan Grevs and S. E. Savich, expressed the union's attitude toward the student movement. It was complicated by a grudging recognition that the students had not been totally wrong. Grevs, while expressing "disappointment" at the students' decision to strike, called on his colleagues to be realistic.^[54] Opening the universities would lead to violence. Furthermore, an honest observer had to conclude that perhaps the students had no choice but to strike. All in all, Grevs wrote, the professors found themselves in a "tragic" situation, torn between the struggle for political reform and their loyalty to the principles of higher education.

Savich argued that the key to restoring the universities to good health was for the professors to prove to everyone, especially the students, that they had the courage of their convictions. Matters would not return to normal until the public and the students saw the professors "not as supine scholars who meekly bowed to all government demands . . . but as firm-willed public figures [obshchestvennye deiateli ]."^[55] Their past diffidence had been a major cause of the student movement. But what about the short run? How should the Academic Union treat the student

[54] Ivan Grevs, "Vozroditsia u nas podorvannoe nauchnoe prosveshchenie?" Pravo, no. 9 (1905).

[55] S. E. Savich, "Zabastovka v vysshikh uchebnykh zavedeniiakh," Pravo, no. 11 (1905).

strike? Savich regretted the strike: closed universities weakened Russian liberalism in its two-front struggle against the government and the extreme left. After all, Bloody Sunday did not keep doctors and lawyers from working, and Russia needed universities more than ever. Of course, Savich admitted, there was now a clear incompatibility between "detached devotion to knowledge" and "civic duty." What the Russian professoriate had to do was save the universities by making a corporate commitment to the liberation movement.

As these articles revealed, the professoriate had to balance two commitments: the first to the notion of some sort of corporate involvement in the liberation movement, the second to the idea that the basic position of the universities was "above politics." In addition, the professors had to keep their distance from the student movement without agreeing to resume classes before the government made concessions. While many professors questioned this attitude from the right, only a very few were prepared to criticize this emerging professional consensus from the other political direction. One exception was the biologist K. A. Timiriazev, who publicly objected to his colleagues' attempts to put some distance between themselves and the student movement.^[56] The European ideal of the apolitical university did not fit Russian circumstances, nor did Russian reality justify the professoriate's patronizing attitude toward the students. Russian students were much more mature and sensitive than their European counterparts, Timiriazev argued. If the state forced them to fight, the students had a right to ask what they were fighting for. Timiriazev compared the academic strike to a hunger strike in a prison. Both were acts of moral desperation; both were the only vehicles of protest available to essentially powerless groups.

As events would show, few professors shared Timiriazev's views. Their immediate problem was to make sure that the Russian universities took advantage of the opportunities offered by the revolution while avoiding the many pitfalls.

The Academic Union

After several preparatory meetings in Saint Petersburg, the first congress of the All-Russian Academic Union met in the capital on

[56] K. A. Timiriazev, "Akademicheskaia svoboda," Russkie Vedomosti, 27 November 1905.

25 March.^[57] The congress passed a political resolution calling for "general and equal" suffrage and rejecting a consultative parliament. The resolution condemned "national, religious caste, and class privileges" and declared that the nation was "on the brink of an abyss"; speedy reforms were absolutely necessary.^[58] Here the consensus ended, as the Academic Union was to prove itself among the most moderate of the professional unions. The doctors' and the lawyers' unions called for a constituent assembly, but the professors did not, a decision that stood in sharp contrast to the resolution passed by the third congress of the Union of Liberation, which was meeting at the same time.^[59] The Academic Union could not agree on such matters as the general basis of the new electoral law, suffrage for women, and the principles of agrarian reform. The Union of Liberation, however, supported these goals. Nor could the professors even agree whether the Academic Union was mainly a professional union or also a political organization. One way around these difficulties was to allow local organizations wide autonomy in passing their own resolutions.^[60]

The delegates had less trouble reaching consensus on an academic platform. They declared: "We regard teaching, lecturing, holding seminars, and examinations as being morally impermissible while repression and force pervade the universities. We have firmly decided not to teach."^[61] The congress also demanded that any reforms of higher educa-

[57] A complete listing of the seventy-one participants of the Saint Petersburg preparatory meetings is given in TsGAOR, f. DO, ed. kh. 999, 4/1905, l. 12. Fifteen of the participants (eight professors and seven privat-dozenty ) came from Saint Petersburg University, twelve from the Saint Petersburg Polytechnic, eight from the women's medical courses, five each from the institute of communications and the technological institute, and the remainder from other VUZy in the city. Professors Brandt and Salazkin secured Governor-General Trepov's permission to hold these meetings, after assuring him that their sole purpose was to formulate a new university statute. Clearly Trepov was becoming increasingly critical of Ministry of Education policy; later he became the moving force behind the adoption of the 27 August 1905 Temporary Rules. As comments on the listed professors make clear, the Okhrana was far from happy with the widespread practice of letting a professor fired from one VUZ transfer to a VUZ of another ministry.

[58] For the text of the resolutions passed by the first congress, see Russkie Vedomosti, 30 March 1905.

[59] Galai, Liberation Movement, pp. 244–245.

[60] On this, see the unpublished memoirs of N. I. Kareev, GPB im. V. I. Lenina, f. 119, ed. kh. 49, l. 317. According to Kareev, most of the delegates to the first congress saw the Academic Union as a professional organization whose main goal was to rally the Russian academic profession around the banner of academic freedom. For more on the differences between the Academic Union and the other professional unions being formed at this time, see N. Cherevanin (pseud. of F. A. Lipkin), "Dvizhenie intelligentsii," in L. Martov, ed., Obshchestvennoe dvizhenie v Rossii (Saint Petersburg, 1910), vol. 2, part 2.

[61] Russkie Vedomosti, 30 March 1905.

tion be worked out by a representative assembly rather than by the government.

Commenting on this resolution, Professor N. A. Gredeskul of Kharkov University declared that the professoriate had "crossed the Rubicon."^[62] The Academic Union, had, after all, endorsed a strike in deed if not in name. But there was one important ambiguity. Part of the resolution called on the government to grant "temporary powers" to the faculty councils. Thus the professors left open the possibility that they might return to the classroom even before they got all they wanted.

A short time later Vernadskii, addressing the Moscow professors' conference organized by curator Nekrasov, discussed the tasks of the Academic Union and its first congress.^[63] Many of those present had attacked the "temporary powers" clause as constituting a possible escape hatch from the professors' new political and moral commitment not to teach until political freedom had been attained. Vernadskii's reply was significant, especially in light of the post-1905 relationship between the professoriate and the government. He distinguished between "temporary powers"—which he defined—and "academic freedom"—which he did not. The former bore a striking resemblance to what the government would actually grant in August—permission for faculty councils to elect rectors and assume responsibility for student discipline and internal affairs in the universities. This was different, Vernadskii pointed out, from "academic freedom," which was "incompatible with the present conditions of the Russian state and could not be realized until the country receives the popular representation promised by the imperial rescript of 18 February."

At that point there were more objections from the audience. Would the professoriate not be falling into a trap if it shouldered the responsibility for student discipline before it was certain that Russia had finally achieved political freedom and academic autonomy? Again Vernadskii's response reflected the sense of what made the professors unique and separated them from other professionals. "We professors are in a special position. When we discuss events we cannot do so solely in our role as Russian citizens. We must also act as the guardian of science and education. . . . Our first duty is not to let the VUZy suffer during this period of social upheaval."

This notion of a "special position" set the Russian professoriate apart

[62] Gredeskul, "Rol' universiteta."

[63] The text of Vernadskii's speech can be found in TsGIA, f. 733, op. 152, d. 173, l. 359.

during the Revolution of 1905. Articles published by leading professors in this period conveyed the distinct impression of a profession "fighting on all fronts." The political commentaries of Vinogradov, Kovalevskii, Trubetskoi, Vernadskii, and others developed themes that emerged as the major contours of professorial liberalism. One important theme was the assertion that the autocracy not only bore the blame for Russia's defeat but also misunderstood its role in the nation's history. Rather than being something "specifically Russian, tsarism was introduced to Russia from abroad . . . in stages, under the pressure of external necessity."^[64] Pskov and Novgorod, Kovalevskii argued, showed that there was as much precedent for popular initiative in Russia's history as there was for stultifying bureaucracy.

Fear of mass revolution, however, led to the hope that the government would see reason and collaborate with the educated classes to forestall revolution from below. Vinogradov, for example, expressed a clear preference for "1848" over "1789."^[65] But these academics did not ignore the shortcomings of liberalism in Western Europe. Vinogradov, arguing that Russian society was "basically democratic," opposed an electoral law based on property qualifications, or an upper house.^[66] While liberalism in Europe had tied itself too closely to selfish class interests, Russian liberalism would speak for the nation as a whole. Evgenii Trubetskoi, for example, opposed the electoral law to the Bulygin Duma on the grounds that it was inconsistent "with the major task before the Russian government: the achievement of social harmony and the reconciliation of antagonistic groups."^[67] Like Vinogradov, Trubetskoi called for reforms based on "democratic" principles.

Another theme was the clear line the professors drew between themselves and the intelligentsia. The enemy was as much on the left as on the right. Vinogradov wrote that he shuddered at the thought of a "disruption of all existing relations in society, a break with the national past, a risky gamble with unknown political forces."^[68] Russia needed

[64] M. M. Kovalevskii, La Crise Russe (Paris, 1906), p. 19.

[65] P. G. Vinogradov, "Politicheskie pis'ma," Russkie Vedomosti, 5 August 1905.

[66] Commenting on Vinogradov's letters, V. I. Lenin wrote that they underscored the fact that the "bourgeoisie does not want, and indeed because of its class character cannot want, a revolution. It only seeks a deal with the autocracy at the expense of the . . . people." At the same time Lenin discussed the special role the professoriate played within the bourgeoisie by virtue of its relative freedom from the profit motive or narrow class interests ("Chevo khotiat i chevo boiatsia nashi liberal'nye burzhuia," in his Sochineniia, 3d ed. [Moscow, 1936], vol. 8, pp. 189–193).

[67] "Blizhaishaia zadacha gosudarstvennoi dumy," Syn Otechestva, 23 August 1905

[68] "Politicheskie pis'ma."

"thinking people" who were disciplined, competent, patriotic, and efficient, people who knew their job and did it well. The members of the intelligentsia were too lazy and intolerant to see the vital necessity of helping the nation by undertaking steady and often unglamorous work at one's chosen profession. They were also too narrow-minded, too given to simple answers.

These professors also made a clear distinction between the autocracy and the nation and, in so doing, defined a major task for the universities—to strengthen the nation by creating a professional class with a strong sense of Russian patriotism. They had no patience with the defeatism that marked the attitude of many educated Russians toward the Russo-Japanese War.^[69] The universities would also train citizens who would understand the importance of a civic culture and shoulder the burden of overcoming caste and class differences. An essential choice was between taking a risky and reckless leap into the unknown or starting a steady march forward based on collaboration between an able administration and the nation's educated elite.^[70] In short, the universities were essential to the rise of a Russia that was strong, unified and "democratic." Because they were so important, could they be jeopardized by direct involvement in politics?

The very logic of this definition of the place of the universities in the nation's life set the stage for what many unsympathetic observers called the beginning of a full-scale retreat of the senior faculty from the political idealism and courage that underlay the "Declaration of the 342." At any rate, as the spring wore on, the deepening of the nation's political crisis increased the pressure on the Academic Union to define the nature of its relationship to other political organizations such as the Union of Unions, an umbrella body of professional unions organized by the Union of Liberation. By its first congress, on 8 May, the Union of Unions included fourteen professional unions; the Academic Union found itself together with such radical groups as the engineers' and the railway workers' unions, whose leaders were already charting the strategy for a general strike to overthrow the autocracy and call a constituent assembly.^[71] Professor P. I. Novgorodtsev told the delegates that the Academic Union empowered him to attend the congress as an observer

[69] "We always speak of the Russian people and the Russian government as if they were opposites. We never refer to the Russian state [gosudarstvo ], which includes both" (ibid.).

[70] V. I. Vernadskii, "Tri zabastovki," Russkie Vedomosti, 5 July 1905.

[71] Galai, Liberation Movement, p. 248.

rather than as an active participant, a clear sign that it was deeply divided about its identity as a political organization.^[72] Although the congress elected a relative moderate, the historian Paul Miliukov, as the chairman of the Union of Unions, its center of gravity was beginning to shift rapidly to the left.^[73]

A few days later a stunned nation learned of the crushing defeat at Tsushima, where Admiral Togo sent the hapless Russian fleet to the bottom of the Pacific. Quickly taking advantage of this blow to the government's prestige, the Union of Unions called an emergency congress on 24 May which issued a dramatic appeal to the nation to overthrow the government: "All means may now be legitimately used to fight the danger represented by the continued existence of the present government. . . . Bring about the immediate elimination of the bandit gang that has usurped power and replace it with a constituent assembly . . . so that it will as quickly as possible end the war and the present regime."^[74] Both the Academic Union and the Union of Zemstvo Activists, which also included several faculty members, boycotted the emergency congress; the Union of Unions had become too radical. The liberation movement was showing clear signs of estrangement between radicals and moderates. While the emergency congress of the Union of Unions was taking place, the moderates were holding a coalition congress that attracted more than three hundred delegates. Its own response to the Tsushima disaster was to send a delegation to the tsar to urge immediate reforms in order to forestall revolution.^[75] The delegation, headed by Moscow professor Prince Sergei Trubetskoi, met the tsar on 6 June. Trubetskoi made an eloquent personal appeal to the tsar to listen to the moderates:

Your subjects must feel themselves to be Russian citizens, equal and without differences. . . . It is necessary that all your subjects, even though they be of a different faith or race from you, see in Russia their fatherland and in you their sovereign. Just as the Russian tsar is not the tsar of the nobility or of the peasantry or of the merchants or of classes, but the tsar of all the Russias, so the persons elected by the entire population should serve the interests of the entire polity and not of classes.^[76]

The tsar listened politely, but Trubetskoi's appeal had no effect on government policy, especially on the important deliberations being con-

[72] D. F. Sverchkov, "Soiuz soiuzov," Krasnaia Letopis', no. 3 (1925).

[73] Galai, Liberation Movement, p. 253.

[74] Ibid.

[75] Sidney Harcave, The Russian Revolution of 1905 (London, 1964), p. 159.

[76] Ibid.

ducted under the chairmanship of Bulygin. By early summer the public had learned the main outlines of the proposed reforms—and they fell short of what even moderate liberals had expected. The government was planning to offer a consultative assembly elected by a complicated ballot that would favor the nobility and the peasantry.

On 6 August the tsar announced the law establishing the so-called Bulygin Duma. Most non-Russians were excluded from the vote. Property qualifications were set so high that most wage earners and urban small-property holders were excluded as well. Nor was the proposed Duma to have much power. The law specified that the Duma was to "provide preliminary consideration and discussion of legislative proposals, to be transmitted through the State Council up to the supreme autocratic sovereign."^[77]

Temporary Rules of 27 August 1905

In the summer of 1905 the Academic Union faced two major decisions. Would it join most of the other professional unions in the Union of Unions in boycotting the Bulygin Duma? Second, would it recommend a return to the classroom in the fall?

The Academic Union had to act against the backdrop of growing popular violence. Heavy fighting broke out in Poland, widespread May Day demonstrations pointed to growing restiveness among the working class, and in June the mutiny aboard the Potemkin led to violence that claimed two thousand lives. On 1 July the third congress of the Union of Unions met in Terioki and voted to boycott the elections to the proposed Duma.^[78] This decision led to a split. Three unions, including the Academic Union, opposed the boycott. Paul Miliukov sided with the minority position and lost his chairmanship. He then proceeded to organize the moderate minority of the Union of Unions. Through professors Brandt, Trubetskoi, and Vernadskii, the Academic Union kept in close touch with Miliukov. On 7 August, the Okhrana raided Miliukov's summer home; among those arrested was Professor Brandt.^[79] This arrest ended Miliukov's association with the Union of Unions, which now turned its attention to the organization of a general strike. Meanwhile

[77] Ibid., p. 162.

[78] Kirpichnikov, Soiuz Soiuzov, p. 14.

[79] TsGAOR, f. 102, op. 5, ed. kh. 00, 3ch. 25/1905.

the fourth congress of the Union of Liberation, which met in Moscow on 23 and 24 August, voted to accept the Bulygin Duma and to participate in the elections, with the aim of "transforming the Duma into a legislative assembly" and changing the electoral laws in accordance with the formula of direct, equal, secret, and universal suffrage. At this point the Union of Liberation decided to dissolve and form the Constitutional Democratic party, which would participate in the coming elections.^[80]

As the Academic Union prepared for its important second congress, at the end of August, many of the organization's leaders wanted to put more distance between the professors and the Union of Unions. In July 1905 Professor Vernadskii flatly declared in a widely publicized newspaper article that "the professors' 'strike' was not an act of political protest. . . . It took place against the will of the professoriate. . . . No possible political gain can outweigh the academic losses already incurred."^[81] The professors, Vernadskii pointed out, had been forced to choose between "the police and revolutionary terror." But they would return to teaching in the fall if the government would agree to the short-term compromise of decreeing changes in the administrative structure of the universities, which would at least allow the senior faculty to elect its own rectors.

Although Vernadskii did not know it when he wrote the article, the government was about to give the professoriate exactly the temporary powers it had been asking for. On 7 August, the day after the proclamation of the Bulygin Duma, Tsar Nicholas ordered a ministerial conference to decide whether the universities and other institutions of higher education should reopen on 1 September.^[82]

The conference opened with a bitter argument between Glazov and D. F. Trepov, the governor-general of Saint Petersburg. Glazov had asked Trepov to ensure police cooperation in maintaining order in the universities if and when they reopened in the fall. But Trepov, in a surprise move, declared that the police would no longer enter the premises of the institutions of higher education. He told the conference that the basic problem was the bankruptcy of the Ministry of Education: it had no policy. The police could no longer be expected to rescue the Ministry of Education from the results of its mistakes. Past experience, Trepov

[80] Galai, Liberation Movement, p. 260.

[81] "Tri zabastovki."

[82] This report of the conference is taken from TsGIA, f. 922, op. 1, d. 219.

argued, had shown that repression only aggravated student unrest. The Ministry of Education had had nine months to develop a creative policy toward higher education. It had failed to do so.

Trepov made two proposals to the conference. First, he urged it to void the threat of 16 April to dismiss the professors en masse if they failed to return to teaching in the fall. Since there were not enough professors anyway, Trepov pointed out, making good on the threat meant destroying higher education in the country. (This was all somewhat disingenuous, since the original threat had been Trepov's idea.) His second suggestion was that the government issue temporary rules for the governance of the institutions of higher education until a new university statute could be presented to the Duma. The government, he argued, had nothing to lose. Things could not get any worse in the universities. Perhaps if the professors were given more responsibilities, they might succeed where the government had failed and keep order in the VUZy .

V. N. Kokovtsev, the minister of finance, agreed with Trepov. He reminded the conference that the government would suffer a serious loss of prestige if the universities did not reopen on 1 September. It was important, at the same time, to shift basic responsibility for university discipline to the professoriate. If the universities were forced to close again, the government should ensure that the onus for student unrest fell on the faculty, not the state.

After some debate the conference recommended that the VUZy —that is, all institutions of higher education, regardless of ministerial affiliation—reopen under new temporary rules. These regulations received the tsar's approval and were published on 27 August 1905. The 27 August Temporary Rules remained in force, along with the 1884 University Statute, until 1917. This marked a major turning point in the government's higher-education policy.

The Temporary Rules granted the senior faculty many of its most important demands.^[83] Henceforth, faculty councils could elect rectors and assistant rectors. Individual departments could elect their own deacons. All electees, however, had to be confirmed by their respective ministries. The new rules gave the faculty councils the responsibility for maintaining order in the VUZy . They could, in extreme circumstances, ask the minister to suspend classes. Jurisdiction over student discipline was vested in the faculty disciplinary courts, whose functions continued to be defined by the rules of 24 August 1902.

[83] The text of the new rules appeared in Russkie Vedomosti, 27 August 1905.

The Temporary Rules would begin a new era in the history of Russian higher education. Yet in the end they would fail either to "normalize" the universities or to put faculty-government relations on a harmonious footing. By issuing the rules, the government seemed to be admitting the failure of its previous policies. In making the internal governance of the universities the responsibility of the faculty councils, the government continued a basic trend of university policy begun in 1887: the piecemeal abrogation of the 1884 Statute. The failure of the state examination commissions, the professors' disciplinary courts, the 1901 and 1902 rules allowing student organizations, and now the 27 August Temporary Rules meant that few of the basic features of the statute remained in force.

Yet a crucial problem lurked just beneath the surface: the legal relationship of the 27 August Rules to the 1884 Statute. The 27 August Rules were not as clear-cut as they at first seemed. Did they actually supersede the 1884 Statute or confer autonomy on the universities? It was unclear whether the faculty councils had gained authority over the curriculum or whether the new rules were merely an administrative device for relieving the government of the embarrassing responsibility for student discipline. Another point left vague was whether only the faculty council could send police into the universities. These uncertainties were to poison relations between the government and the professors until 1914.

The Temporary Rules were supposed to remain in effect only until the new Duma could legislate a replacement for the 1884 Statute. But this was never to be. The government, unlike the professors, saw the 27 August Rules not as an organic reform of higher education but, rather, as a political concession to help restore a sense of normalcy to the country. The context in which the rules were issued is significant. They followed the signing of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War and the 6 August rescript proclaiming the granting of a consultative Duma. As the record of the 11 August conference shows, the Temporary Rules were another tactical move in the government's overall strategy of regaining control over events.

Indeed it seemed, by the end of August, that the Revolution of 1905 might be over before it had really begun. The labor movement was showing signs of abating. The Bulygin rescript had split the liberal camp. The revolutionary parties, at least in central Russia, had not yet shown that they enjoyed significant mass support. In this context Kokovtsev was correct when he warned that a continuation of the aca-

demic strike could only harm the government's prestige and enhance the impression that a revolution was still going on.

As events would show, the 27 August Temporary Rules proved to be a major miscalculation. Far from ending the revolution, they gave it new impetus.

The Second Congress of the Academic Union

On the eve of its second congress, which was scheduled for 25 August, the Academic Union had to decide two very important and interrelated questions: whether to return to classes, and whether to accept the Bulygin Duma. If the professors did both, albeit with reservations, they would be saying in effect that the revolution was over. But if the students—or other groups—did not agree, then there would be trouble in September. Yet another problem was the continued rationale for the union. Now that the Kadet party had given liberal professors the chance to make individual political choices, what need was there for a political Academic Union? But if the Academic Union was to become a purely professional union, how could a balance be struck between its two basic constituencies, senior and junior faculty members? The latter had been organizing ever since the end of 1904 and saw the union as a forum from which to press their own demands for a wider role in university governance and guarantees that "autonomy" would not merely substitute subordination to professors for subordination to government curators.

Just before the congress met, Osvobozhdenie published an article written by an anonymous member of of the Academic Union.^[84] The author warned his colleagues not to beat too hasty a retreat from their political commitments of the previous spring. The revolution was not yet over, and the professors could guarantee future stability in the universities only by creating a "democratic" atmosphere, which would ensure good relations with students and junior faculty. The article admitted that the professors had been "unwilling politicians" from the start; their main concern had been the defense of the universities from both the government and the revolutionary left. But that job was not yet over: the Academic Union had to continue fighting. The article called for an unwritten pact between the professoriate and the liberation

[84] "K predstoiashchemu akademicheskomu s"ezdu," Osvobozhdenie, no. 76 (1905).

movement. The latter would respect the special situation of the universities while the academic community would remain committed to the anti-government coalition.

The Academic Union's second congress, which opened on 25 August, attracted 129 delegates from thirty-nine institutions of higher education.^[85] The first item on the agenda was what to do in September. Professor Vernadskii made a speech urging his colleagues to return to the classroom. He admitted that some of the basic conditions for a normal academic life had not been met. But by returning to the universities, the professors would gain an important base from which to pressure the government for further political reforms. If the government granted freedom of speech and of the press, then it was likely that the student movement would lose its former importance. Reforms, Vernadskii argued, could create a new climate wherein political tensions could move outside the universities.^[86]

The speech touched off a lively debate. Several delegates argued that returning to class would violate the pledge made by the "Declaration of the 342." Since the government had made no concessions—if one did not count the Bulygin Duma—then Vernadskii's proposal was tantamount to capitulation. But the congress voted overwhelmingly to approve Vernadskii's motion. The final resolution declared that by returning to the classroom the professors would be implementing the basic principles of academic freedom as well as "freedom of speech, association, public meetings, and the inalienable rights of the citizen."^[87] The resolution went on, however, to warn that if the police engaged in repression of students or faculty, the professors would immediately stop lecturing. The academic community would no longer defer to government threats.

On this issue as well as others, signs of a rift between senior and junior professors in the Academic Union began to emerge. The latter were proving to be more radical than their senior comrades.^[88] For example, on the eve of the second congress, a straw vote of Moscow University junior faculty approved the decision to return to class by a margin of only one vote. The meeting, which elected P. N. Sakulin and M. M.

[85] TsGAOR, f. DO, ed. kh. 999, 4ch. 1905.

[86] GPB im. V. I. Lenina, f. 264 (P. N. Sakulin), folder 41, ed. kh. 21 ("zapis' o vtorom s"ezde akademicheskovo soiuza").

[87] Ibid.

[88] Professor Brandt, for example, worried that the growing rift between the junior and the senior faculty was becoming a major threat to the Academic Union (List'ia pozheltelye, p. 28).

Garnet as representatives to the second congress, called for a change in the rules of the Academic Union, to allow student participation.^[89]

Garnet and Sakulin, true to their instructions, raised the issue of student participation at the second congress. Sakulin warned his colleagues that unless the Academic Union reached out to the students—themselves about to decide what to do about resuming normal studies—its decisions would remain a dead letter. The revolutionary parties, Sakulin pointed out, were going to compete with the professors for the loyalty of the studenchestvo . The VUZy could work again only if the Academic Union took the initiative and made some conciliatory gestures to overcome the suspicions of the past. But Vernadskii and Grevs, representing the central bureau of the Academic Union, rejected the suggestion of student participation in the union's deliberations. What was at stake, of course, was not just the nature of the Academic Union but the underlying principles of future university governance. The senior faculty was beginning to see that a prolonged revolutionary situation could lead to calls for "democratizing" the universities as well as the nation's political institutions.

The issue of the Bulygin Duma caused more controversy at the congress. Brandt and Moscow University's A. A. Manuilov moved for a resolution accepting the Duma, but several delegates argued against a debate on the grounds that the Academic Union was supposed to "enlighten the nation," not pass "political" resolutions.^[90] This debate on a debate ended with a declaration that the "interests of science were too closely linked to the political life of the nation" for the Academic Union not to take a stand. The final resolution expressed some dissatisfaction with the Bulygin Duma but urged participation in the forthcoming elections on the grounds that the Duma was a first step toward the "liberation of the people from the yoke of the police regime." Without committing the Academic Union to support any particular political party, the congress called on its members to work for the election of "enlightened" delegates to the Duma.

The collective obligation of the academic profession toward colleagues who were suffering from police repression was the major topic of the 26 August session. Several specific cases were before the congress, which now discussed the general issue of professional solidarity. Privat-dozent N. N. Parfent'ev of Kazan University had been discharged by

[89] There is a summary of this meeting in GPB im. V. I. Lenina, f. 264, folder 45, ed. kh. 5.

[90] TsGAOR, f. DO, ed. kh. 999, 4ch. 1905, l. 41.

the curator of his educational district for having attended a student skhodka. Privat-dozenty R. M. Orzhentski and L. A. Tarasevich had been fired from Odessa University. Professor L. V. Khodskii of Saint Petersburg University, who served as the editor of the progressive daily Nasha Zhizn', had been forced to take early retirement. Trepov had recently forbidden the eminent sociologist M. M. Kovalevskii, just returning from many years of exile, to accept an invitation to teach at the Saint Petersburg Polytechnic Institute.^[91]

The congress agreed that the ministers of education and the curators should no longer have the right to discharge faculty and called on all members to refuse to replace any colleagues discharged by the administration. The congress also discussed the very basis of Russian higher education—the state-controlled university. Professor E. Trubetskoi called on the academic community to establish "free universities" which would supplement, and, if need be, replace, the state-controlled institutions of higher education. Trubetskoi explained that no matter what changes the government made in its policy, the professoriate had to admit that

the state universities did not satisfy the need of the Russian people for higher education. . . . A free university would be a valuable supplement to the state institutions. . . . They would be more flexible since they would not be bound by the government teaching plans and the fixed distribution of faculty chairs. . . . Free universities would advance higher education by introducing new subjects and new methods of teaching.^[92]

He also pointed out that "free universities" would eliminate the religious, national, and sexual barriers that plagued Russian higher education. And they would stand ready to replace the state universities if the latter were "temporarily forced out of existence during the present period of struggle for renewal of the national order."

The congress approved Trubetskoi's proposal and called on the Saint Petersburg and Moscow chapters to prepare a detailed project for a free university in time for the next congress of the Academic Union. The local chapters of the Academic Union were encouraged to seek zemstvo and municipal-council support for the project.

The second congress ended just as the news arrived that the government had issued the 27 August Temporary Rules. As the delegates dispersed to return to the classroom, many were doubtless asking themselves whether the long cycle of disruption and repression that had

[91] Russkie Vedomosti, 29 August 1905.

[92] Ibid.

plagued Russian higher education was now about to end. The resignations from the disciplinary courts, the formation of the Academic Union, the "Declaration of the 342," and the faculty councils' refusal to resume teaching after Bloody Sunday all reflected the professoriate's reluctant move toward confrontation with the government. Yet by the end of the summer, the fragile consensus represented by the Academic Union was about to crack. There were many areas of potential conflict—the political versus the professional character of the Academic Union; acceptance of the Bulygin Duma and the 27 August Rules as justifying a return to classes; relations between junior and senior faculty—but they all pointed to some fundamental differences between the situation of the professoriate and that of other professions during the Revolution of 1905. Professors depended on and felt responsible for a vulnerable and complex institution—the university—but had no easy means to convince other involved parties to recognize their claims to authority. Government, outsiders, junior faculty, and students had their own views on how the universities should function during a political crisis. For the professoriate, the short-lived professional assertiveness marked by the "Declaration of the 342" would soon be tested by the bitter realities of the revolution.