Protopopov, Aleksandr Dmitriyevich

▪ Russian statesman

born December 30 [December 18, Old Style], 1866, Moscow, Russia

died January 1, 1918 [December 19, 1917], Moscow

      Russian statesman who was imperial Russia's last minister of the interior (1916–17).

      A landowner and industrialist, Protopopov was elected a delegate from Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk) province to the third Duma (Russian legislature) in 1907 and joined the left wing of the conservative Octobrist Party. Elected again to the fourth Duma (1912), he became one of its deputy speakers, and, after the onset of World War I, he lent his support to the Progressive Bloc, a coalition of political groups formed in 1915 to promote the war effort and national unity. The following year he led a “good-will” parliamentary delegation to Great Britain, France, and Italy. On the homeward journey he held talks in Stockholm with a German agent on the prospects of concluding a separate Russo-German peace. Despite public disapproval of this action, he was well received upon his return by Tsar Nicholas II as well as by Tsarina Alexandra and her close adviser Rasputin; soon afterward, he was appointed minister of the interior in the Cabinet of Boris Vladimirovich Sturmer (Oct. 1, 1916).

      Although his colleagues in the Duma had considered Protopopov a moderate liberal deserving their respect, they condemned him as a renegade when he joined the government. Lacking in administrative experience, he minimized the threat of revolution in Russia. He also failed to relieve the serious food shortages in Petrograd and other cities. When he ordered the police to take severe measures to prevent the outbreak of riots, he succeeded only in contributing further to the mounting discontent that erupted in March (February, Old Style) 1917, in a series of strikes and riots that overthrew the imperial regime, including Protopopov. Imprisoned in the Peter-Paul Fortress after the February Revolution, he was later shot by order of the communist Cheka (political police).

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