{"id":18730,"date":"2017-07-14T09:12:42","date_gmt":"2017-07-14T13:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=18730"},"modified":"2017-07-14T09:12:42","modified_gmt":"2017-07-14T13:12:42","slug":"is-this-stupidity-or-is-it-treason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=18730","title":{"rendered":"“Is this stupidity, or is it treason?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Russian State Duma<\/a>, Nov. 14, 1916.<\/p>\n

Pavel Miliukov [moderate constitutionalist politician]:\u00a0<\/em>It is said that a member of the Council of Ministers, \u2013 and this was correctly heard by Duma Member Chkheidze \u2013 on being told that the State Duma would on this occasion speak of treason, exclaimed excitedly: “I may, perhaps, be a fool, but I am not a traitor.” (Laughter) Gentlemen, the predecessor of that Minister was undoubtedly a clever Minister, just as the predecessor of our Minister of Foreign Affairs was an honest Minister. But they are no longer in Cabinet. And, does it matter, gentlemen, as a practical question, whether we are, in the present case, dealing with stupidity or treason? When the Duma keeps everlastingly insisting that the rear must be organized for a successful struggle, the Government persists in claiming that organizing the country means organizing a revolution, and deliberately prefers chaos and disorganization. What is it, stupidity or treason? (A voice from the left: “Treason!” Adjemov: “Stupidity!” Laughter)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to Wikipedia<\/a>, Miliukov “highlighted numerous governmental failures, … After each accusation \u2013 many times without basis \u2013 he asked “Is this stupidity or is it treason?” and the listeners answered “stupidity!”, “treason!”, etc. (Milyukov stated that it did not matter: “Choose any … as the consequences are the same.”) [Prime Minister] St\u00fcrmer walked out, followed by all his ministers.”<\/sup><\/p>\n

Of course, this all ended very well …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Russian State Duma, Nov. 14, 1916. Pavel Miliukov [moderate constitutionalist politician]:\u00a0It is said that a member of the Council of Ministers, \u2013 and this was correctly heard by Duma Member Chkheidze \u2013 on being told that the State Duma would on this occasion speak of treason, exclaimed excitedly: “I may, perhaps, be a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18730"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18734,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18730\/revisions\/18734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}