PLANS OF REFORM 163of an administrative organ or body, composed of several equal members,
similar to the contemporary idea of "board." 1
One more point should be made in connection with the belief com-
monly held that the purpose of the Plan of 1809 was to inaugurate
constitutional government in Russia. The doctrine of the separation of
powers, i.e., checks and balances, is usually considered as a major
prerequisite of constitutional representative government. It had been a
most important element in 18th-century political theory and prop-
aganda, ever since Locke, and more particularly Montesquieu, had
urged that the assurance of freedom resided in a separation of powers.
On the surface it would appear that Speransky subscribed to this
doctrine and the Plan of 1809 proposed to implement it. But our
earlier description must have shown that separation of powers did not
- in Speransky's view - imply anything like, let us say, the checks
and balances in the American constitution. Nor did it even have the
political significance given to it by Montesquieu. Speransky always
insisted that in the final analysis, the legislative, executive, judicial
powers rested united in the autocratic Emperor. Organically bound
together, the three powers were, in his view, distinct but inseparable
manifestations of the moral function of government. Therefore, separa-
tion of powers meant nothing more than a logical distribution of func-
tions, a division of labor, as it were, for the sake of greater efficiency
and justice. To this end, the three powers of government should be
exercised in such a way as to preclude overlapping and interference,
but within the single unitary framework provided by the autocratic
sovereign.
In a very suggestive essay, Baron Boris Nolde has tried to make
out a case for the proposition that Speransky's concept of separation
of powers was in advance of the views held by most of his contempora-
ries, even in France. 2 It was Speransky's conception, Nolde maintained,
which provided the basis not only for Russian administrative practice,
where it received its final application after 1861, but also for the con-
ception of administrative power held in Europe's "conservative mon-
archies" - Austria, Prussia, German Empire - throughout the 19th
1 Korkunov. of!. cit., II. pp. 75-83. Other officials, contemporaries of Speransky,
who cannot be suspected of "constitutional" leanings, used the term in this same
sense of 'board'. For example, State Secretary Olenin referred to the Council of
State as this consultative soslovie; see M. M. Vinaver, "K voprosu ob istochnikakh
X. toma Svoda Zakonov," Zhurnal Ministerstva lustitsii, vol. I, No. 10 (October
1895), p. 8. The opposite view - not quite convincing in our opinion - has been
best stated by Shcheglov, Gosudarstvennyi sovet v Rossii, II, p. 475.
2 B. Nolde, "L'autocratie russe et la doctrine de la separation des pouvoirs dans
la premiere moitie du XIXe siecie," Revue du Droit Public et de la Science Politique
en France et Ii I'l'tuwger. 41 (Paris 1924), pp. 5-41.