PLANS OF REFORM 167work for, was suggested by his moral sense, his belief in the harmony
of national life, his understanding of the organic evolution of a
people's spiritual make~up, his respect for what was conditioned by
history. But in recommending a course of action to remedy the situation,
he brought to bear an 18th century predilection for abstract systema-
tization, cold reason, and bureaucratic formalism. In so doing he
expressed a truly bureaucratic attitude. In Mannheim's apt characteriza-
tion: "The fundamental tendency of bureaucratic thought is to turn
all problems of politics into problems of administration. Bureaucratic
thought does not deny the possibility of a science of politics but regards
it as identical with the science of administration." 1 The milieu, the
training and experience of Speransky took the upper hand over his
feelings, insight, theoretical grasp of political reality, and his vision of
higher spiritual social values.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VSperansky's "dressing up" of his proposals to secure a favorable .re-
ception has given rise to the question: to what extent was his an in-
dependent mind and the proposals his own? Was he not, perhaps,
only the (stylistic) editor of the ideas and desires of his superiors, in
particular, Alexander I? As evidence for this view, some writers have
cited a passage from the letter Speransky wrote to Alexander from his
exile in Perm': "In the very beginning of your reign, after the many
hesitations of our government, Your Imperial Majesty set Yourself as
goal the establishment of a firm administration based on law. From
this single principle gradually developed all Your major reforms
(uchrezhdeniia). All these studies, perhaps hundred talks and discussions
with Your Majesty had finally to be made into an unitary whole. In
essence, it [the Plan of 1809] did not contain anything new, but it gave
a systematic exposition to the ideas which had occupied Your attention
since 1801." ("Permskoe pis'mo," Jan. 1813, in Shil'der, 1mperator
Aleksandr 1, vol. III, pp. 516-18.) The fact that these words were
written at a time when Speransky experienced the greatest hardships of
his banishment and were to serve as an apologia pro vita sua, should
warn us against taking them too literally as a correct description of theorigin of the Plan of 1809. But even if we do not reject them out of
hand as evidence, we must take into consideration another aspect of
the question. In an earlier chapter we have attempted to describe the
essential characteristics of Alexander's "constitutionalism." In summa-
und Befugnissen an den Staat gebunden sind." Freiherr vom Stein. "Denkschrift tiber
die zweckmassige Bildung der obersten Behorden ... ," lac. cit., II, pp. 220. 225
(quoted per Altmann, Ausgewiihlte Urkunden, II. pp. 19. 21.). It is in respect to
method that Speransky differs fundamentally from the Prussian reformer. with
whom he otherwise often agrees in diagnosing the evil and in setting the ideal
goal of the reforms.
1 Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, p. 105.