Sergei Yulievich Witte played one of the decisive roles in the fate of Russia. It is to him that the state owes the economic recovery of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was he, with his pragmatic mind and practical experience, who stabilized Russian finances and ensured a powerful influx of foreign capital. His finest hour came when, in the midst of a revolutionary cataclysm, he managed to save the monarchy, breaking the resistance of the emperor and insisting on signing the Manifesto on October 17, which granted the citizens of Russia basic freedoms, including the right to elect parliament - the State Duma. He was opposed to the war with Japan, he failed to prevent it, but managed to conclude peace on acceptable terms. History decreed that Witte was overshadowed by the brilliant and tragic figure of his successor, Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin. Meanwhile, both politically and economically, Stolypin continued the work of Witte and relied on his developments. The story of Witte is the dramatic story of a man, a stranger to the court elite, who made a rapid career solely thanks to his talents, rendered enormous services to his Fatherland, rejected by the emperor and his surrounded and thrown into political oblivion. Having warned from this oblivion against entering into a world war, he died two years before the catastrophe of February 1917, which he foresaw. Numerous testimonies from Witte’s comrades and opponents, included in this book, present us with not only a strong and controversial personality, but also an equally contradictory the era of the last two Russian emperors, when the fate of the country was decided.