Reports of administrative officials on change of the political situation in Western Siberia in 1900-1914

The territory of Western Siberia (The Tobolsk and Tomsk provinces) in the XIX century in the political relation was underdeveloped part of the country. Any public actions could be observed only in the provincial centers (Tomsk and Tobolsk) and the certain district cities. In this article we research reports of administrative officials (police officers and gendarmes) about change of political moods and valuable reference points of the Siberian population. Office reports as mass sources of directory and reporting and analytical character differed in multidimensional subject, brevity, thoroughness and descriptiveness. Substantially they contained the official interpretation of the current situation in the cities and villages given by officials of local administrative facilities. In the analysis of reports it is important to consider the professional level of speakers, their literacy in an assessment of the occurring events, and also personal interest in submission of these or those data. The analysis of reports allowed to allocate 3 main stages according to a political situation. In the first stage (1900-1904), according to reports, any changes against former years were not noticed. Good productivity and intensification of trade promoted the normal course of life. Political life in the region receives a tendency to change in the course of Russian-Japanese war. The mood of the population under the influence of military failures of Russia deviated in a negative side. Everywhere the lack of working hands that was strongly reflected in economic life of the population was felt. The second stage (1905-1907) of development of a political situation in Western Siberia was followed by series of demonstrations, strikes, marauding and rabble-rousing actions that induced the authorities to impose the martial law. Public readings for the people gradually extended, and this phenomenon yielded favorable results in the context of increase of cultural level of local population and formation of its moral guidelines. The local press, despite subordination to censorship, became a loud-hailer of public opinion. After the publication of the Imperial manifesto on October 17, 1905 the Tyumen City Council accepted the liberal direction expressed in open sympathy to strikers and in a parcel about it telegrams to the chairman of the board of ministers G. Witte. The same liberal direction was accepted also by the Tobolsk City Council. The third stage (1908-1914) began with cancellation in 1908 of the martial law in provinces of Western Siberia. During this period there were no wrong actions from public or government agencies. Many officials serving in various establishments, certainly, of the liberal direction, but didn't take active part in policy, being limited only to discussion of various social problems. Thus, according to officials, economic factors became the main reason for increase of political intensity in the region: high cost, inflation, lack of these or those goods, low compensation, severe conditions of work, duration of the working day, etc. It is obvious that local gendarmes and police officers hadn't the power also special desire to penetrate into an essence of the happening changes in political life of the region to what their reports testify. In many cases they simplified a problem, reducing it to poor harvests, influence of the exiled of an element or professor's "idler" on the population, and a number of the facts hushed up. Respectively and methods of a resolution of conflicts from the administrative power didn't differ in depth and consistency. The police didn't seek to understand the obvious reasons of problems and to agree, and tried to suppress them at the expense of a ban and elimination of unreliable persons.

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