Michael Speransky. Statesman of Imperial Russia, 1772–1839 - Marc Raeff

CHAPTER X

AN UNPLEASANT INTERLUDE

SPERANSKY AND THE DECEMBRISTS

Speransky's exclusive preoccupation with his work on the admin-
istrative reform of the provinces did not prevent his being affected
by the dramatic events which took place in December 1825 on the
occasion of the death of Alexander I and the ensuing interregnum.
Much against his will, he was at first himself implicated in the Decem-
brist movement, and later given an important part in the trial of the
conspirators of December 14. This involvement affected his relations
to the new sovereign, Nicholas I and his position in the new reign.

It deserves therefore some consideration in a political biography.

The unexpected death of Emperor Alexander I in far-away Taganrog,

and the ensuing confusion over the succession, brought into the open

the secret societies that had been organized in the course of the

preceding decade. While Grand Dukes Constantine and Nicholas were

debating as to who should occupy the throne, the members of the

secret societies (Northern and Southern branches) staged their ill-fated

and unsuccessful uprising on December 14, in the Senate Square in

St. Petersburg (and in some mutinies in Southern Russia a month later).

The details of the revolt are known well enough and need no repetition

here. In itself the affair was not greatly significant; it never developed

into a serious threat to the imperial regime. But its social and historic

consequences were far-reaching. It split the educated class in two

irreconcilable camps: those who broke the revolt, tried, and punished
the Decembrists, (in a word, the government and its bureaucracy) and
the friends, followers, and future disciples of the Decembrists, the
progressive intelligentsia. The Decembrists' multiple and close connec-
tions with the court, the army, the government, and "society" meant
that their uprising affected all and every member of the social and
cultural elite directly or indirectly. Speransky was no exception to this.
After dispersing the mutinous regiments by artillery fire on the