As finance minister from 1892- 1903, Witte presided over extensive industrialization and achieved government monopoly control over an expanded system of railroad lines.

He said that railways operated by the state would be useless "unless it does its utmost for spreading technical education..."[18] Tsar Alexander III appointed Witte in 1892 as acting Minister of Ways and Communications.

However, following the Triple Intervention, Witte strongly opposed the Russian occupation of Liaodong Peninsula and the construction of the naval base at Port Arthur in the Russia–Qing Convention of 1898.

Japan was forced to cede the Liaodong Peninsula and Port Arthur back to China (both territories were located in south-western Manchuria, a Chinese province).

Russia concluded an alliance with China (in 1896 by the Li–Lobanov Treaty), which led in 1898 to Russian occupation and administration (by its own personnel and police) of the entire Liaodong Peninsula.

Russia also fortified the ice-free Port Arthur and completed the Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railway, which was to cross northern Manchuria from west to east and link Siberia with Vladivostok.

Witte's removal from the influential post of Minister of Finance was engineered under the pressure of the landed gentry and his political enemies within the government and at the court.

But historians Nicholas V. Riasanovsky and Robert K. Massie say that Witte's opposition to Russian designs on Korea resulted in his resigning from the government in 1903.

Confronted with increasing opposition and, after consulting with Witte and Prince Sviatopolk-Mirsky, the tsar issued a reform ukase on December 25, 1904 with vague promises.

[28] After the Bloody Sunday riots of 1905, Witte supplied 500 rubles, the equivalent of 250 dollars, to Father Gapon in order for the leader of the demonstration to leave the country.

[30] Schemes of reform would be elaborated by Ivan Goremykin and a committee consisting of elected representatives of the zemstva and municipal councils under the presidency of Witte.

After the government's postings of warnings of 'resolute measures' against street gatherings led by Father Gapon, they worried about violent confrontation, which did take place.

He argued for the following reforms: creation of a legislative parliament (Imperial Duma) elected via a democratic franchise; granting of civil liberties; establishing a cabinet government and a 'constitutional order'.

[37] Witte emphasised that repression would be only a temporary solution to the problem and a risky one because he believed that the armed forces, whose loyalty was now in question, could collapse if they were to be used against the masses.

[37] Most of the military advisers to the tsar agreed with Witte, as did the Governor of Saint Petersburg, Dmitri Feodorovich Trepov, who wielded considerable influence at court.

[39] Witte argued that the Tsarist regime could be saved from a revolution only by the transformation of Russia to a 'modern industrial society', in which 'personal and public initiatives' were encouraged by a rechtsstaat who guaranteed civil liberties.

Witte ordered an official investigation, where it was revealed that the police in the former city had organised, armed and gave vodka to the anti-Semitic crowds, and even participated in the attacks.

"Immediately upon my nomination as President of the Imperial Council I made it clear that the Procurator of the Most Holy Synod Konstantin Pobedonostsev, could not remain in office, for he definitely represented the past.

[17] Witte sent his envoy to the Rothschild bank; they responded that "they would willingly render full assistance to the loan, but that they would not be in a position to do so until the Russian Government had enacted legal measures tending to improve the conditions of the Jews in Russia.

As I deemed it beneath our dignity to connect the solution of our Jewish question with the loan, I decided to give up my intention of securing the participation of the Rothschilds.

In the next few weeks, changes and additions to the Russian Constitution of 1906 were made, so that the emperor was confirmed as the dictator of foreign policies and the supreme commander of the army and navy.

The "peasant question" or land reforms was a hot issue; the influence of the "Duma of Public Anger" had to be limited, according to Goremykin and Dmitri Trepov.

The position and influence of General Trepov, Grand Duke Nicholas, the Black Hundreds, and overwhelming victories by the Kadets in the 1906 Russian legislative election, forced Witte on 14th to resign, which was announced 22 April 1906 (O.S.).

Witte confessed to Alexander Polovtsov in April 1906 that the success of the repressions in the wake of the Moscow uprising in 1905 had resulted in his losing all influence over the tsar.

Although the Church's 'senior hierarchs' may for some time have played with the thought of self-government, Witte's demand that it would come at the cost of religious toleration 'guaranteed to drive them back into the arms of reaction'.

[53] Witte had made that demand (self-government in exchange for religious toleration) in the hope of 'wooing' the important commercial groups of the ethnic minorities of Jewish and Old Believer communities.

Witte failed to retain the confidence of the emperor but continued in Russian politics as a member of the State Council but he was never again appointed to an administrative role in the government.

During the July Crisis in 1914, Grigori Rasputin, and Witte desperately urged the Tsar to avoid the conflict and warned that Europe faced calamity if Russia became involved.

The original manuscript of his memoirs are now held in Columbia University Library's Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European History and Culture.

[3] The Sergei Witte University of Moscow, with campuses in Ryazan, Krasnodar and Nizhny Novgorod is named in his honour (a private institution accredited by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Russia) in 1997)