106 REFORM OF RUSSIA'S FINANCES AND CENTRAL ADMINISTRATIoNmaterially improved the situation. As we recall, the creation of the
Ministries had been the outcome of the struggle between the "Senatorial
Party" and the reform-minded Unofficial Committee. Otto Hintze's
"typological" analysis of the origin of ministries (in contrast to the
English-type Cabinet) seems to apply to the present case quite well.
The close personal advisers and favorites of the monarch, his private
council; were given specific executive and administrative· tasks. 1
Unwilling to create a real "cabinet" whose members would hold the
same political views, Alexander let each minister secure approval for
his proposals directly from him and did not encourage ministerial
solidarity. The Ministers, therefore, became the executive tools of
the absolute ruler, they were the "creatures" of the autocrat. They
did not govern or administer in the name of the sovereign on the basis
of a delegation of his authority; they were actually the "physical
extension" of the monarch. Under these circumstances, the need for
strictly defining the duties and areas of competence of individual
ministers had at first not been felt strongly.
Unity of purpose and policy, whatever there was of it in the Russian
government, resided in the person of the monarch. In the absence
of the sovereign - and such absences became quite frequent in the
reign of Alexander I - there was no organ or institution that could
provide the necessary unity of action and esprit de suite in policy.
Informally, the Ministers formed a Committee of Ministers that met
irregularly under the chairmanship of the Emperor' to discuss matters
affecting several departments. But the Committee had no clearly
defined rights or competence, its recommendations could be easily
superseded by the personal appeal of an influential minister to the
Emperor. Not only did the Committee meet very irregularly; there
also was no political solidarity among its members. Personal considera-
tions played the dominant role in the nomination of ministers, so that
1 O. Hintze, "Die Entstehung der modernen Staatsministerien," ~taat und Ver-
fassung, pp. 287-306 passim. Hintze very aptly stresses the close connection between
this approach to monocratic-ministerial government and the bent for philosophical
systematization in the thought of the Enlightenment. A good illustration of this is
found in the Political Testament of Frederick II of Prussia (1752): "11 faut qU'Uft
gouvernment bien conduit ait un systeme aussi lie que peut l'i!tre un systeme de
philosophie. .. or, un systeme ne peut emaner que d'une ti!te; donc il faut qu'il
parte de celle du souverain." Die politischen Testamente Friedrich's des Grossen
(ed. by G. B. Volz), Ergiinzungsband, Politische COTTespondem. Friedrich's des
Grossen (Berlin 1920) p. 38. Frederick's definition of the role of ministers was quite
applicable to the conception held by Alexander I, in Hintze's words: "FUr ihn
[Frederick II] waren Minister nur unselbstandige Werkzeuge des Monarchen; sie
hatten ihn zu informieren, ohne dass er sich dabei. auf sie allein verlassen hatte,
und sie hatten die Ausfiihrung seiner Befehle IU lei ten und kontrollieren." (Hintze,
op. cit., p. 290); cf. Frederick's opinion on the nuisance of Councils, Politische
Testamente, loco cit., p. 189 (the Testament of 1768).