PLANS OF REFORM 12~will put in its own stead at the limits of government power." 1
Concretely, what role did Speransky assign to these mediators who,
at first glance, seem to imply very strong "constitutional" limits on
the absolute government of the Tsar? In the first place - on the basis
of the excerpts available to us - we must note that Speransky nowhere
indicates how or by what means the class of "intermediaries" will
exercise its implied function of checking the arbitrary actions of the
government. The "optimates" or mediators advise and inform the
sovereign of the people's needs, but they cannot in any way restrain
the government. Speransky, it is true, did assume the existence of a
general will. 2 But belief in a general will can be used to bolster the
power of a God-appointed leader or monarch as well as to justify the
vesting of power in the people as a whole. 3 Speransky's failure to
specify any institutional forms for the manifestation of this general
will leaves - under Russian conditions of the time - only the Tsar as
the carrier and expression of this will. The young official appears to
have distrusted formal institutional and written safeguards much more
than he feared the possibility of the autocratic Emperor's betrayal of
the "general will." This is the meaning which is suggested by the
somewhat enigmatic and yet perhaps fearful question: "If, scorning
the outcries of the people and any sentiment of fear, the government
will dare to resort to all extremities ... what means does this institution
[of mediators] present against such horrors? To this the answer is easy:
what could human forces oppose to Tamerlanes and similar monsters
and what laws could maintain themselves when empires crumbled?"
Under such extraordinary circumstances a revolt would be like a. storm
that clears the atmosphere. 4It is particularly important to know how the class of mediators is
to be recruited. Its members, Speransky argued, cannot be elected by
the people. Unfortunately, our fragmentary soura! does not give his
reason for this opinion. But neither can they be nominated by the
government, for that would deprive them of their independence. The
traditional recourse of calling in the old-type nobility is not satisfactory1 ibid., p. 69 and also p. 71 for a restatement of the last quoted idea. It may be
of interest to note the similarity Speransky's reasoning bears to the ideas and
arguments of the slavophile publicist A. I. Koshelev (cf. my article, "Russia after
the Emancipation - views of a gentleman-farmer," Slavonic &-East European Review,
XXIX, No. 73 (June 1951], pp. 470-485).
2 "Pervyi politicheskii traktat," p. 67.
3 J. L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (London 1952), pp. 43-49
passim.
4 "Pervyi politicheskii traktat," pp. 73-74. One seems to hear an echo of
medieval theories on rightful kingship and of Joseph de Maistre's evaluation of
the French Revolution.