52 ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIVITIES 1802-1812
immediate benefit and value the government could derive from an
officially sponsored newspaper in the service of the new transformations
and reforms. Consequently, he did much to establish the Sankt Peter-
burgskii Zhurnal (St. Petersburg Journal), the first reF;ular newspaper
to b~ issued by the government. Besides reprinting official decrees and
summaries of the rnost important public events, it also published
articles - originals or translations - dealing with political.:tnd economic
theory.l It was the first step in implementing the notion held by the
enlightened despots and shared by Alexander I and his advisers, that
the state should sponsor and guide the political and economic education
of Russian "society" (obshchestvo).
Speransky also initiated the custom of presenting to the Emperor a
yearly report of the activities and achievements of each ministry. His
own Ministry of the Interior was the first to do so and, quite naturally,
the repon wa~ written by Speransky himself, although under the
supervision of Count Kochubei over whose signature it was submitted
to Alexander I. The report, besides informing the monarch, served as
a means for spreading new ideas among the members of the government.
It can be viewed both as a summary of conditions and a blueprint
for future action. Following a summary of the manifold activities of
the Ministry, especially those which dealt with the preservation of
law and order, the report presented some interesting considerations on
Russia's economic progress and the role to be played in it by the
government. Referring directly to the ideas of Adam Smith, Speransky
wrote:"There was a time when it was thought that the national
economy could not prosper except under the direct supervision
of the government, that the government must manage it, in one
word maintain it in permanent tutelage. Most precise observation
of the results of human labor and of the various methods for
dividing and improving it has shown the error of this opinion
and led to the establishment of another basis for the administration
of the national economy. The rule is now accepted that need and
private interests can direct human activity in industry and the
economy better than all government measures. Therefore, the
government should be only a spectator of private efforts in this
field; it should have accurate information on these efforts and,
without restricting them by any kind of direct control, remove1 Some important economic, statistical, and legal works appeared there. B. S.
Osherovich, Ocherki po istorii russkoi ugolovno-pravovoi mysli (Moscow 1946), p.
15; V. M. Shtein, Ocherki razvitiia russkoi obshchestvenno-ekonomicheskoi mysli
XIX-XX vekov (Leningrad 1948), p. 22; Storch, op. cit., vol. II, No.4, pp. 178-- See also Orlov, Russkie prosvetiteli 1790-1800kh godov, pp. 448-449 (note 41).