302 PROJECTS FOR REFORMING THE PROVINCIAL ADMINISTRATION
joyed a more advantageous legal status and had more real freedom.
By giving the private serfs the same status as the state peasant, serf
relations would revert to their original basis; they would again be based
on obligations to society (i.e. the state) and not to particular individuals.
Speransky believed that such a program met with the approval of the
peasants themselves, for he had noted that the desire of every privately
owned serf was to become a state peasant. 1 Acceptance of this approach
would be an important step forward in the final solution of the vexing
problem. Indeed, it implied that, on the one hand, the government
was willing to take the place of the individual serf owner in the rela-
tions of mutual obligation; and, on the other, it proclaimed the state's
decision to consider the emancipation as its own responsibility. No
longer would the government put faith in the personal sentiments of
individual owners as a sufficient stimulus to emancipation. The Soviet
historian, Druzhinin, correctly noted that from the acceptance of
Speransky's approach dates the government's "progressive" attitude
towards the solution of the peasant question.^2
What were the concrete measures the government should take to
this effect? Speransky suggested two sets of actions. In the first place,
steps must be taken immediately to return to the original serf status,
i.e. fixation to the land. Secondly, after the completion of the first
task, long range policies could be initiated which, in due course of
time would lead to the full emancipation of the Russian peasantry.^3
For the first part of the program, Speransky proposed six measures of
which only three pertained to the serfs themselves: 1. prohibition to
sell serfs or to offer serfs as security without land (but preserving the
validity of deeds disposing of land and peasants); 2. permission to
resettle peasants within the domain, but prohibition to sell them for
resettlement elsewhere; 3. prohibition of all sales which tend to decrease
the land holdings of the peasants.^4 As for the long range measures,
their first purpose would be to introduce definite contractual relations
between peasants and landowners, so that the obligations and duties
of each party are stated clearly and specifically (though this still would
not make of serfdom a matter of private contract in the narrow technical
1 Ibid., p. Sll.
2 Druzhinin, Gosudarstvennye krest'iane i retorma P. D. Kiseleva, I. p. 172.
3 Before these steps are taken, Speransky lectured to the heir presumptive, Grand
Duke Alexander, one should first clarify and state explicitly the various obligations
a serf has to his lord. Much of the abuse is due to the absence of such clear rules,
and if they are introduced, they will not only protect the peasant but also help
develop a more responsible and "civilized" attitude towards the peasant on thepart of the nobility and the officials. "Istoricheskoe obozrenie izmenenii ... :' lac.
dt., p. 466.
4 "Zapiska 0 krepostnom prave ... " lac. dt., pp. 162-163.