136 PLANS OF REFORM
Speransky recommends four principal steps for the implementation
of these proposals: 1. publication of the statutes for the two senates,
- elaboration of a statute for the police functions of administration,
- preparation of a statute for the economic functions of the state,
- issuance of new regulations for local administration. 1 These
measures can be prepared in a short time, and they will not change
the prerogatives of absolute power in any way. But, warns Speransky,
these measures should be worked out in secret. (Was this not in
conflict with his own principle of publicity for government action?).
If they are prepared in secret, the new measures can be put in effect
all at once, so that criticism will have no opportunity to fasten on
trivial details, but will have to consider the system in its entirety.^2
In advising this course, Speransky was following the rule of secrecy
which had been decided upon by the Unofficial Committee, at the
suggestion of Count Stroganov. He also was presaging his own advice
of 1809 to publish all reforms at once, instead of piecemeal. 3
In all fairness it should be said that Speransky had no illusions as
to the difficulties inherent in a real transformation of Russia into
a "true monarchy," "One needs only to compare the ways of monar-
chical government with the government existing in Russia," he com-
mented, "to become convinced that no human power can transform
the latter into the former without the aid of time and the progressive
evolution of all things towards perfection" 4 This sentence illustrates
his fundamental belief that a thorough and durable political change
can come about only as the result of a gradual, organic transformation
of the spirit of the people, It is an interesting expression of his belief
in moral progress and of the role of the historic process. The people's
spiritual evolution is of special import in a country where half of the
population is still in slavery. Again Speransky is led to face the problem
of serfdom, the most burning issue of his time, and he does it reluc-
tantly and with hesitation. His hesitation was quite 'understandable,
for he wished to see his program accepted by a government that still
relied entirely on the services of a serfowning class. Speransky suggests,
that the right of the landowners to police and administer the rural
districts, as well as their own domains, should not be curtailed.
"Without any doubt," he writes, "the landowners must retain wide
powers within their domains; but there is nothing to prevent the
basing of the exercise of their power on permanent rules and proper
1 Zapiska 1803, pp. 217-218.
2 ibid., p. 219.
3 Le Cornte Paul Stroganov, vol. II, p. 8 (as quoted above in note 3 p. 45).
4 Zapiska 1803, p. 187.