344 CODIFYING RUSSIAN LAWa doctrinaire approach. He himself put it rightly when, quoting
Montesquieu, he said that he had history illuminate the present and
the present illuminate history.^1 He was willing to recognize the role
of history in creating the present, but rather as a negative factor, i.e.,
as a limit on his ability to change and transform the present radically.
But history, he felt, had not said its last word, nor was it absolute and
infallible. A properly enlightened state, with the help of an able
bureaucracy, could do a great deal to channel the further evolution
of the people in the proper direction by codification. Laws are the
norms and basic concepts which help to shape the spiritual moral and
economic development of a people. A proper set of laws, therefore, can
influence the future, provided it is not in direct opposition to the past
evolution of the nation. It is in this last qualification that Speransky
differed from the enlightened absolutist and doctrinaire radical of the
18th century. This attitude of his was no doubt his justification for
introducing new legal norms and concepts into areas where they were
lacking and where he thought they would do most good.
Another feature of the codification we have already had occasion to
point out. It was the desire to bring greater uniformity and system into
legal relations. In simplifying the process of government, legal uniform-
ity made it possible for the bureaucracy to operate more effectively.
Why preserve all the complexities of the peasants' status if one
category was adequate for proper administration? Speransky was not
aware, or did not care, that perhaps some important rights or
psychological attitudes might be destroyed in the process. But perhaps
this simplification helped to set the stage for the more radical trans-
formation in 1861 and after.
In a sense then, the codification is a culmination and the highest
expression of Speransky's basic political tenets: systematic clarification
of the laws provides the administration with clear-cut and stable rules.
The government must be able to act on the basis of law, and the
subjects must feel that these laws are permanent. At the same time,
these rules and laws permit the government to influence positively the
evolution of the people, direct its path toward higher levels of spiritual
and economic existence.
1 Speranskii, "0 sushchestve svoda," loco cit., p. 588.