Vyacheslav von Plehve

Vyacheslav von Plehve

Vyacheslav Konstantinovich von Plehve (Вячесла́в Константи́нович фон Пле́ве), also Pléhve, or Pleve (OldStyleDate|20 April|1846|8 April in Meshchovsk, Kaluga Guberniya – OldStyleDate|28 July|1904|15 July in St Petersburg) was the director of the tsarist Russian Police and later Minister of the Interior.

He came from a German noble family and was raised in Warsaw. After studying law at Moscow University, he became a prosecutor's assistant in 1867 and served in various positions in the Ministry of Justice. In 1881, he investigated the murder of Alexander II and then joined the MVD as a Director of the Department of Police, also in charge of Okhrana. He became a member of the Governing Senate in 1884 and Deputy of the Minister in 1885. Made an Actual Privy Counsellor in 1899, he was Finnish Minister Secretary of State from that year until 1904.

Intelligent, unrelentingly harsh, anti-Semitic and deeply conservative, he worked energetically in political counterintelligence. He is credited with the destruction of numerous revolutionary and liberal groups. It appears Pléhve did not see a difference in degrees of opposition, and his actions forced the unification of ideological enemies in the "Osvoboditel'noe dvizhenie" - a significant force in the 1905 disturbances.

In April 1902, following the assassination of Dmitry Sipyagin, he was appointed Minister of the Interior and Chief of Gendarmes. After a brief attempt at conciliation with the "zemstvo" conservatives failed, he relapsed - disbanding the police-supported labour unions ("zubatovshchina").

In the same year Plehve met with Theodor Herzl in Saint Petersburg.

Plehve was an obvious target for revolutionaries. He survived one attack in 1903 and two in 1904 before the Socialist-Revolutionary Combat Group succeeded. On July 15, 1904 a bomb was thrown into Plehve's carriage by Yegor Sozonov, in Saint Petersburg, utterly destroying him.

Plehve was traditionally believed to be the architect of the Russo Japanese War.Plehve was reputed to have said: "We need a small, victorious war to avert a revolution." However, recent research has shown that this verdict rests upon misinformation deliberately spread by Sergei Witte, Plehve's enemy.


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