CHAPTER XICODIFYING RUSSIAN LAWThe investigation of the Decembrist movement brought home to
Nicholas I with full force the glaring disorders, inadequacies, and
injustice of Russia's administration. One of the most serious deficiencies
was the absence of clear laws and a general lack of knowledge of the
pertinent legislation even by those who had to apply it. The relations
between individuals and the procedures of the courts were regulated in
a haphazard way instead of being the object of firm and clear laws.
Alexander I had turned his attention to the problem early in his reign,
but nothing concrete had been accomplished. Now Nicholas I took it
up again, even before the completion of the trial of the Decembrists.
To this purpose, on 31 January 1826, the Emperor added a special
section to his private chancery, the so-called Second Section of His
Imperial Majesty's Own Chancery (Vtoroe otdelenie sobstvennoi Ego
Imperatorskogo Velichestva Kantseliarii) and set it the task of com-
pleting the codification of Russian law. The official chairman was M.
Balugianskii, but its chief rapporteur was Speransky. In fact, the latter
became the main driving wheel and directing genius of the enterprise.
It was the eleventh commission organized to codify Russian law and
the first - in over a century - to bring its labors to successful con-
clusion.
An exhaustive analysis of the work accomplished by the Second
Section - culminating in the Complete Collection of the Laws of the
Russian Empire (Polnoe Sobranie Zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii, abbre-
viated as PSZ) and the Digest of Laws (Svod Zakonov) - is beyond the
scope of the present biography. It is a task for the jurist or historian
of law, and the present writer cannot claim any competence as either.
Complex technical problems of law are involved in a proper and
exhaustive assessment of the juridical worth of these compilations.
Unfortunately, such a complete analysis has not yet been done; i~
had barely begun when the Revolution interrupted it, and sinc;c then