Guchkov, Aleksandr Ivanovich
Guchkov, Aleksandr Ivanovich
(əlyĭksän`dər ēvä`nəvĭch go͝och`kôf), 1862–1936, Russian political leader. A prominent businessman, during the 1905 revolution he helped found the Octobrist party, which was based on acceptance of Czar Nicholas II's October Manifesto; the manifesto in effect made Russia a constitutional monarchy. Guchkov led the Octobrists in the third dumaduma, Russian name for a representative body, particularly applied to the Imperial Duma established as a result of the Russian Revolution of 1905. The parliamentary organization of 1906, largely the work of Count Witte, provided for a state council (an upper house, with some
..... Click the link for more information. (1907–12) but resigned in 1911 in protest against the Czar's usurpation of the Duma's authority. During World War I he served as chairman of the central war industries committee. Prior to the overthrow of the autocracy in Mar., 1917, he urged Nicholas's abdication in favor of his son. In the provisional government set up after the Russian Revolution he served briefly as minister of defense. Following the Bolshevik seizure of power, Guchkov emigrated to France.
Guchkov, Aleksandr Ivanovich
Born Oct. 14 (26), 1862, in Moscow Province; died 1936, in Paris. Major Russian capitalist. Founder and leader of the Octobrist party. Born into a family of Moscow merchants.
On Nov. 10, 1905, with other leaders of the minority of the zemstvo and city congresses (Count P. A. Geiden and D. N. Shipov), Guchkov published a proclamation about the organization of the Union of October 17 (the Octobrists). Guchkov hailed the suppression of the armed uprisings of December 1905 and approved the introduction of military field courts. In December 1906 he founded the newspaper Golos Moskvy. He was elected a representative from trade and industry to the State Council in May 1907. In November of that year he was elected to the Third State Duma; he was its president from March 1910 to March 1911. During World War I, from 1915 to 1917, he was chairman of the Central War Industries Committee and a member of the Special Council for Defense. He also took part in the Progressive Bloc. After the February Revolution of 1917, Guchkov was minister of war and navy in the first composition of the Provisional Government (Mar. 2 [15], 1917). In August 1917 he was one of the organizers of Kornilovism. After the victory of the October Revolution of 1917, he struggled against Soviet power. Guchkov emigrated to Berlin in 1918.
REFERENCES
Lenin, V. I. Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed. (See Reference Volume, part 2, p. 431.)Padenie tsarskogo rezhima, vol. 6. Moscow-Leningrad, 1926.