PROJECTS FOR REFORMING THE PROVINCIAL ADMINISTRATION 297serfdom for Count Kochubei's subcommittee in the Committee of
December 6, 1826. In spite of its great historical importance, the paper
has never been published in full. Kalachev printed a shortened and
somewhat inaccurate text in his Arkhiv istoricheskikh i prakticheskikh
svedenii. A more accurate version was given in Bartenev's compilation,
Deviatnadtsatyi vek; but it is only a very good and intelligent summary
made by Nicholas Miliutin, one of the leading figures of the Emancipa-
tion of 1861. Incidentally, Miliutin's summary shows that the leaders of
the reforms in the reign of Alexander II were familiar with Speransky's
ideas and probably made good use of them in their own work. There
are a few more scattered items written by Speransky on serfdom and
on the peasantry, but their value is very limited.^1 We are mentioning
these details not only to describe the state of our records, but also to
warn that the discussion to follow is not as full a description of Spe-
ransky's views and plans as we might wish. But as these fragments show
a striking consonance with his political philosophy, we are entitled to
infer that they are an accurate reflection of his basic views on the
peasant problem.
One of the first Russian statesmen to do so, Speransky approached
the problem of serfdom from a historical and legal point of view, an
approach promising to lead to the formulation of concrete measuresof reform. It was quite a change from his previous dogmatic and
theoretical approach, a change brought about by his own observations
in the provinces and by the philosophic attitude he had elaborated
since 1812. True enough, his information on the origins of Russian
serfdom, especially on the historical evolution of land tenure, was
inadequate, as was natural, for these thorny historical questions have
come closer to solution only thanks to the labors of more recent scholars.
Speransky started with the erroneous belief that the peasant had
originally settled on land which did not belong to him but to his future
owners. This conception might have contained a grain of important
truth if Speransky had been of the opinion that the original landowner
had been the state. But from his remarks, it does not appear that he
had this in mind, for he spoke specifically only of dvorianins and
1 Emperor Nicholas I perhaps ordered the destruction of those items found among
Speransky's papers which might have seemed too radical, dangerous, or undesirable.
It was a regular practice of Nicholas to subject to selective sifting the literary remains
of all his ministers and officials. Cf. Letter of Nicholas I to General Vasil'chikov
on hearing the news of Speransky's death, II February 1839: "A l'instant meme je
viens d'apprendre la fin de notre respectable Speransky ... Je crois necessaire de
Vous engager a envoyer de suite Korff mettre les scelles sur les papiers. A demain
Ie reste ... " "Iz zapisok barona M. A. Korfa," Russkaia Starina, Vol. 99, Guly
1899), p. 7.