Michael Speransky. Statesman of Imperial Russia, 1772–1839 - Marc Raeff

110 REFORM OF RUSSIA'S FINANCES AND CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION

that Peter the Great had had an inkling of such a role for the state,

but he understood very little the humanitarian and enlightened

administrative concerns this attitude implied. Catherine II had come

closer in realizing Speransky's ideal. But her idea of security had been

mainly external: the preservation of law and order. And to the extent

that she thought of the government as an enlightened guide in

developing the nation's potentialities, she limited its role to the upper

classes, the nobility and big merchants. Speransky, on the other hand,

extended this "pedagogical" concern of the government to all classes

of society. In so doing, he acted in the spirit of enlightened absolutism,

although he brought to it the humanitarian, religious, and moral

preoccupations of late 18th century social theory. His contribution to

Russian administrative practice consisted in that he was the first to

give an institutional form to the pedagogical and "leadership" func-

tions of modern government in respect to the nation's prosperity and

progress. Whether under the conditions prevailing in Russia in his

days the implementation of this conception could have been anything

other than paternalistic and bureaucratic may well be doubted. The

deplorably low level of the nobility·s - let alone that of other classes

• political and social consciousness certainly justifies such a doubt. The
  sad part of it, perhaps to be expected, was that the central administra-
  tion and its local agents emphasized the protective, paternalistic,
  bureaucratic features ~ather than the pedagogical, enlightened,
  humanitarian ones. Speransky failed to provide adequate safeguards
  against such perversion of his aim, and thereby made possible an
  extension of the area in which the bureaucracy could exercise its
  vicious and corrupt practices. This failure, coming from a man who
  knew the low calibre of the bureaucracy 'all too well, must forever

qualify a positive evaluation of his work. It might be added, that the

conservative and traditionalist opponents o~ Speransky were aware of
this danger, 'and condemned him for strengthening and extending the
role of the bureaucracy.
In 1811, Speransky put the final touch to the reorganization of the
central executive agencies of the Empire. On June 25, 1811, the Statute
for the internal organization of the ministries, drawn up by Speransky,
was made public (PSZ 24,686). This statute provided the basic
form of organization for Russia's ministries until 1905. The general
Statute was to be followed by separate special. regulations for each
individual ministry, but Speransky himself only drafted two of these
(for the Ministries of Finance, PSZ 24,688, and Police, PSZ 24,687,
both dated June 25, 1811) before his dismissal in 1812. The general