260 GOVERNING RUSSIA'S PROVINCESThey justified Count Uvarov's saying that the history of Siberia could
be divided into two periods, before and after Speransky.
- REORGANIZING SIBERIA
The reformed administration which was set up in 1822 remained -
without many appreciable changes - the basis of Siberia's political,
social, and economic life down to the end of the Imperial regime in
- The reform was spelled out in ten statutes which Speransky and
his assistants drafted in 1821-1822. The statutes (PSZ Nos. 29,124 -
2'9,134) comprising a total of 3,027 paragraphs, filling pp. 342 to 565
of Volume 38 of the Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian
Empire, concerned themselves with a great variety of topics and many
details of Siberian administration. It would therefore be quite impos-
sible, and not very rewarding, to summarize them fully. As our task is
the political and intellectual biography of their main author, it will be
sufficient to discuss briefly the main features of the new administra-
tion, mention the statutes' chief contributions to the economic devel-
opment of the region, and finally analyze the principal traits of the
administrative status of the natives.
In Speransky's own opinion, his first and most pressing task was to
set up the administration of Siberia in such a way that in the future it
would not fall easy prey to a governor's abusive or capricious exercise
of power. A contemporary characterized the main intent of the reorgani-
zation quite correctly, despite a touch of sentimental rhetoric: "To
eliminate arbitrariness, to establish the rule of law, to improve the
judiciary, insure the safety of everyone, to develop trade and agricul-
ture. In a word, make Siberia completely happy." 1 In the opinion of
Speransky and of his assistants, the role of the administration was to
foster the economic and political conditions which were necessary for
the social and moral maturation of the people. This was a much more
pressing need in remote and backward Siberia than in European Russia.
The administrative reform of 1822 was based on the following gen-
eral principles: 1. to transform the personal power of officials into a
power vested in institutions; 2. to strengthen the task of supervision
of local officials by vesting it into one central organization, and to
compensate for the remoteness of Siberia from St. Petersburg and for
the absence of a mature public opinion; 3. to bring order into the1 1. Kalashnikov, "Zapiski irkutskogo zhitelia," Russkaia Starina, 123 (September
1905), p. 248.