LAST YEARS - CONCLUSION 363period. Speransky was convinced (as were the reformers of the 1860's
and 1870's) that with the people's economic, spiritual, and moral pro-
gress, the number of "mediators" - representing the people and capable
of helping the government in its task - would increase vasdy. Such a
development would supply the nucleus, not exacdy of a representative
constitutional system, but of an efficient, benevolent, and paternalistic
regime acting in full accord with the needs and desires of its peoples.
Speransky's stress was on spiritual and moral progress. He was not
overly concerned with institutional safeguards, for his romantic notion
of organic unity precluded an appreciation of the value that resides inexpressing and reconciling separate interests by compromise. It tended
to bring out the fundamentally conservative political implications of
his proposals, which was very welcome indeed both to his imperial
masters and his colleagues in the administration. The "liberal" im-
plications of his proposals were remote and Speransky left them quite
vague on purpose. For the time being, his aim was to help bring about
(within the limits of Russian autocracy) a Rechtsstaat, so as to limit to
a minimum the abuses by the bureaucracy. Such a goal was directly
in the tradition of enlightened absolutism and of German idealistic
philosophy (especially of Fichte), and might even have met with the
tacit approval of Edmund Burke.
In his suggestions for implementing his projects, however, Speransky
tended to be much more rigid and bound by his own experience and
environment than later reformers. He was strictly the bureaucrat; he
firmly believed that his reform plans would be best implemented byan enlightened bureaucratic absolutism, operating under law. That
such a course might defeat his final goals, did not seem to have occurred
to him. 1 As a man of practical political action, Speransky was rooted
in the tradition of the 18th century, while as a man of thought, he was
a romantic idealist. This same dualism is reflected in his attitude towards
history. On the one hand, he was respectful of historical precedent and
of conditions created by the past. But unlike .l~e romantic conservatives
(though more like Burke), he did not accept the present as necessary
or "rational" in the sense of final. He used the past only as a limiting
factor on his ability to transform and change the direction of the
country's development. He felt that something stable and good could
come only from a slow organic evolution. Paradoxically though, like
the 18th century enlightened despots, he believed that moral, spiritual
1 The Sl~vophiles, however, realized it, and shied away from bureaucratic govern-
ment as much as possible. Speransky's reliance on a bureaucracy in part explains
why he was rather acidly criticized by the liberals in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries.