Renaud Camus, surrounded by his disciples It’s 1898 and Sergei Witte is trying to destroy the old Russia. As finance minister to Tsar Nicholas II, Witte modernized the state, got the railways in shape, pushed the empire onto the gold standard, signed advantageous trade deals with Russia’s neighbors, started the engine of industrialization — and he was just getting started. The dithering and indecisive tsar had to be led by the nose to do anything, and Witte was doing exactly that.