146 PLANS OF REFORM
termediary and transitional class between the nobility and the people. 1
The third class, the people, is composed of all the working people:
workers and craftsmen in the towns and peasants in the countryside.
They have no political rights whatever. Members of the third class may
gain access to the middle one by acquiring a certain amount of im-
movable property, provided they have fulfilled all the obligations of
their original status, such as personal services, payment of dues in
kind and money, etc. 2
In Speransky's view, this hierarchy of classes guarantees the freedom
of upward vertical movement from one estate into the other, the middle
estate and the status of personal nobility acting as intermediary stages
or links. This scheme is not a very radical departure from the class
structure existing at the time. It only describes the social subdivisions
in more explicit terms and establishes clearly the principle and mech-
anism of social mobility. True enough, in a sense, the Plan's proposals
aim at reversing the trend which, since the middle of the 18th century,
had been freezing Russia's social structure. For this reason, Speransky
lays greater emphasis on property qualifications, while at the same time
he does not try at all to eliminate the most fundamental element of
Russian class division, state service.^3
We have dealt at some length with the social transformations en-
visaged by the Plan of 1809 because they constitute the basis for
participation in the judicial and legislative bodies which Speransky
proposes to set up. These new institutions Were expected to reform
the Russian administration by basing it upon the rule of law, andby making it accountable for its actions. It is this part of the Plan
which has been most frequently described, and also most often mis-
understood because it has been arbitrarily separated from the social
foundation on which it rested. We therefore must give it detailed
considera tion.
Although the Plan of 1809 sets up the local administrative unit as
the first echelon of a pyramid of consultative and judicial institutions,
it does not give in great detail the suggested administrative pattern.1 Plan 1809, p. 65.
2 ibid., pp. 66-67.
3 Compare the interesting parallel idea of vom Stein: "Durch eine Verbindung
des AdeJs mit den anderen Standen wird die Nation zu einem Ganzen verkettet,
und dabei kann das Andenken an edle Handlungen, welche der Ewigkeit wert
sind, in einem hbheren Grade erhalten werden." Freiherr vom Stein, "Rundschreiben
an die Mitglieder des Generaldepartments (sogenannte PoJitische Testament),
Koenigsberg 24 November 1808," in Freiherr vom Stein, Briefwechsel, Denkschriften
und Aufzeichnungen, vol. II, p. 585 (quoted in modernized spelling in W. Altmann,
Ausgewiihlte Urkunden WT Brandenburg-Preussischen Verfassungs- und Verwal-
tungsgeschichte, 2. Aufiage, (Berlin 1915). II. Teil, 1. Halfte, p. 64).