PLANS OF REFORM 153to overcome the force of inertia inherent in a centralized, absolutist,
bureaucratic state, in a nobility which, in its majority, was devoid of
civic and political traditions, and in the general backwardness of
Russia's social, economic, and cultural conditions. Furthermore, and
perhaps most significant, he did little to pave the way for a radical
change of the social structure on which the new administrative system
was to depend. He could but leave intact all existing class divisions
and special privileges; he did not extend these privileges to any
appreciably numerous new category of people. Naturally, little success
could be predicted for his project as long as serfdom remained intact in
its most abusive manifestations, and as long as the serfowning, narrow-
minded, callous nobleman continued to dominate Russia's public life. 1
Despite Speransky's persistent pleas, Alexander I decided to im-
plement the Plan's proposals piecemeal, and as a result, the reform
program was never realized in full. Only the Council of State and the
Ministries were established and reorganized. Contemporaries, therefore,
judged the Plan on the basis of this inadequate and partial accom-
plishment and, as Speransky had predicted, it became easy for its
detractors to undermine the incompleted structure. In the hope of
salvaging something, Speransky tried to implement some of his basic
concepts on a more limited scale. In 1811 he suggested the reorganiza-
tion of the Senate into two, a Governing and a Judiciary one; these
Senates were to take the temporary place of the State Duma and the
judicial Senate conceived by the Plan. His proposals in this connection
need not detain us, for they were merely re-statements - in a "watered
down" form - of the principles, ideas, and arguments he had set forth
in the Plan of 1809 2
The reader, no doubt, has noted that Speransky's plans of reform
showed the influence of variegated sources. 3 Speransky was a vora-
cious and careful reader, but the list of his library and the notes he
was wont to take while reading, have not been preserved. The original
1 We are not forgetting the circumstances in which Speransky had to work and
that it was necessary for him to abandon some of his proposals in order to get a
few of his basic ideas accepted. However, it is important to point out - against
his over-enthusiastic admirers - that he left much to be desired in respect to the
practical implementation of even the limited proposals of his Plan of 1809.
Speransky cannot be absolved for his failure to realize that hopes are meaningless
in practical politics unless they are provided with a concrete institutional founda-
tion for their development.
2 On this, see the general biographies of Speransky and Istoriia Pravitel'stvuiush-
chego Senata za 200 let ego sushchestvovaniia and the texts of the projects relative
to the Governing and Judiciary Senates in Shil'der, op. cit., vol. III.
3 For the details, see S. Swatikow, Die Entwurfe der A:nderung der russischen
Staatsverfassung, (Heidelberg 1904) passim and Georges Vernadsky, La Charte
constitutionnelle de l'Empire russe de l'an 1820 (Paris 1933), pp. 217-218.