CHAPTER VPLANS OF REFORMIn reaction to the stifling regime of Paul I, the first years of the
reign of Alexander saw a spirit of reform seize almost all those who
were close to the government and administration. As a member of the
bureaucracy and with many friends among the influential new officials
of the government, Speransky was naturally caught up in this spirit.
Everybody talked and wrote about what was wrong with Russia and
what could be done to improve the situation, and so also did Speransky.
The first paper in which he set forth some of his general ideas on
Russia's government was written in the year 1801-1802 and bears the
imprint of the influence of his friend and colleague, the well known
enlightened publicist, Alexander Radishchev. Unfortunately, the text
of this paper, which was found in the archives of Nicholas Turgenev
under the French title, "Memoire sur la legislation fondamentale en
general (une espece d'introduction aux projets suivarnts)/' has never
been published in full. It was, however, summarized at some length by
V. Semevskii. Unfortunately, his epitome is not fully satisfactory for an
understanding of all the implications of Speransky's words, the more so
as Semevskii's dogmatic classification of Speransky as a "liberal con-
stitutionalist" distorts the summary and makes a correct evaluation of
the excerpts more difficult.
Speransky was mainly concerned in exploring the ways and means by
which Russia could be given stable and fundamental laws so as to put
an end to a disorderly and arbitrary system of administration. There
was great need in Russia for a class of laws which no administrative
agency could infringe or by-pass. In his opinion this was a novel
requirement, for originally, when the relations between rulers and
ruled were based on moral principles and patriarchal relations, there
had been no need for such fundamental laws. But,
when rulers ceased to be the fathers of their peoples, when the
peoples realized that their rulers separated their own interests from
those of the welfare of their peoples... and often turned the