PLANS· OF REFORM 131been something of an afterthought, for Speransky does not elaborate
on this point - as he was to do many years later - and relegates the
matter to a footnote. 1
The raison d' etre of social life is the security of individuals and of
their property, while the primary role of government is the creation
and preservation of this security. TherefClre, the major functions of
government are four in number: police, justice, army, diplomacy. In
order to carry out the tasks set by these functions, the government
needs money, and hence a fifth major division of political organization
is state economy.2 Most interesting is Speransky's analysis of the role
of the police and economy in the political life of the country. He
leaves out the army and diplomacy as not within his competence. As
for the judiciary, we shall come back to it later.
"Law," quotes Speransky from Bentham, "is nothing but the limita-
tion of the natural freedoms of man by certain rules."3 If, however,
this limitation is not to be weakened at any time, if the rules of law
are to be enforced permanently, then exclusive reliance on judiciary
procedure is impossible; indeed, he reasons not without some sophistry,
if recourse to courts were the only way of enforcing these rules, there
would be as many law-suits as there are individuals, or even more.
Besides, the judiciary acts only intermittently, when cases are brought
to its attention. The police, therefore, "are nothing more than the
means chosen by the government to preserve the action of law un-
interruptedly, a means for keeping the actions of men within the
bounds of order and to put an end to any forcible action (nasilie)." 4
The police act on quite a different principle than a court of justice,
for they do not examine the rights that have been violated, but merely
attempt to restore things to their original state, as they were before
the act of violence has been committed. Consequently, there are several
categories of police which Speransky names both in Russian and in
French: executive, repressive or coercitive, preservative or admin-
istrative (police de surete). 5 This is, of course, not a revolutionary or
novel conception of police power, its main value lies in the theoretical
limits it sets to the police function of the government and in a clear
separation of the police from the judiciary. It is, however, mainly a
theoretical distinction, for in practice Speransky still leaves an extremely
wide range of effective action to the police. In spite of this fundamental1 ibid., p. 172.
2 ibid., p. 125.
3 ibid., p. 127.
4 ibid., p. 130.
5 ibid., pp. 131-132.