Leader of the Kadets: 'Stupidity or Treason?'
At the Duma tribune in November 1916, he listed the government's failures one by one and after each asked the same refrain — and the chamber roared back: "Treason!"
Historian and leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets). His 1916 'Stupidity or Treason?' speech shook the Tsarist regime, and as Foreign Minister he triggered the April Crisis of 1917. In exile he edited a newspaper in Paris; during the Nazi-Soviet war he backed the USSR.
Career Timeline
- 1905Founded the Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets)
- 1906Drafted the Vyborg Manifesto — called for passive resistance to Duma dissolution
- 1907–1917Deputy in the Third and Fourth Duma, leader of the Kadet faction
- 1915Led formation of the Progressive Bloc
- 1916.11'Stupidity or treason?' speech — devastating attack on the Stürmer government
- 1917.3–5Foreign Minister of Provisional Government — April Crisis forced resignation over Milyukov Note
- 1917.8Kornilov affair — further chaos amid Kerensky-Kornilov conflict
- 1920–1940Edited émigré newspaper Poslednie novosti in Paris
- 1941–1943Supported USSR against Nazi Germany — rejoiced at the victory at Stalingrad
Related historical events
- 1905–1907The Revolution of 1905founded Kadet Party
- 1917.02–07The February RevolutionMember of the Duma Provisional Committee and Kadet leader in the Provisional GovernmentElected to the State Duma's Provisional Committee on 27 February, he pressed for the Committee to seize power after the Council of Ministers ceased to function. He served as Foreign Minister in the first Provisional Government and, alone among the liberal leaders, continued to argue for constitutional monarchy after the abdication.
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionForeign Minister whose April Note triggered the Provisional Government's first crisisAs Kadet leader and Foreign Minister of the Provisional Government, his April Note reaffirming Russia's war aims triggered mass demonstrations. It caused the government's first crisis and became a turning point on the path to revolution.
'Stupidity or Treason?' — The Duma Speech of November 1916
By autumn 1916, Russia was in its third year of war and deep in crisis. Munitions shortages, food riots, and railway paralysis combined with pervasive rumors that the German-born Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Grigori Rasputin were meddling in state affairs. Within the Progressive Bloc, Milyukov pressed for a public attack on Prime Minister Boris Stürmer, widely seen as a Rasputin protégé. The Bloc's left wing demanded the entire government be denounced as treasonous; the right warned such language would provoke the Duma's dissolution. Milyukov struck a middle path, focusing on Stürmer personally.
On November 1 (O.S.), at the Fourth Duma's first sitting since February, Alexander Kerensky took the tribune first, called the ministers "hired assassins," and was ordered to leave. Then Milyukov rose for a speech more than three times as long. He spoke of "dark forces" and "fighting in favor of Germany," cataloguing one failure after another: the botched munitions supply, the corruption scandal of former War Minister Sukhomlinov, and the arrest of Stürmer's secretary Ivan Manuilov-Manasevich for accepting German bribes. After each charge he asked the same refrain: "Is this stupidity or is it treason?" (Глупость или измена?). Deputies roared back "Stupidity!" or "Treason!" And Milyukov replied: "Choose any, as the consequences are the same."
The speech's decisive moment came in German. Quoting the Austrian newspaper Neue Freie Presse, Milyukov read a passage describing the activity of the Empress's entourage as "the victory of the court party that groups itself around the young Empress." The Duma chairman, who knew no German, could not stop him. But every deputy understood the target. The speech was banned by the censor, yet circulated nationwide in handwritten copies, often embellished with direct accusations of the Empress's espionage that the original never contained.
The fallout was immediate. British Ambassador George Buchanan took Milyukov into the embassy for safety. Stürmer and Interior Minister Protopopov demanded the Duma's dissolution in vain. The Tsarina wrote Nicholas II urging him to exile Milyukov, Alexander Guchkov, Prince Lvov, and Alexei Polivanov to Siberia. Stürmer resigned within days. The speech became a milestone on the road to Rasputin's murder a month later and the February Revolution of 1917. Milyukov later admitted in his memoirs that his listeners resolutely answered 'Treason!' even on points where he himself lacked full certainty. A forged 'Milyukov letter' (circulated by monarchist émigrés and still cited in Russian conspiracy literature) claimed he had deliberately lied to provoke revolution. Milyukov spent his final years insisting he had been no 'organizer of revolution,' only the exposer of a regime's incompetence and rot.