The Praetorian Option 259
a ruse de guerre, designed to throw enemies off the scent and to assuage the
misgivings of neophytes. Once associated with th,. ~oriety, initiates could
gradually be familiarized with its ulterior purposes and, if they accepted them,
be given positions of responsibility. The new statute, modelled on that of the
German Tugendbund, provided for a directing nucleus, or core organization,
called the Korennyy sovet. The significant point about the elaborate hierarchical
structure of the society is that it was designed to ensure that power remained in
the founders' hands. It held little promise of democratic control.^44 Such prin-
ciples, or the lack thereof, would prove attractive to later generations of Rus-
sian revolutionaries as well.
In the more proximate future it set the pattern for both the regional societies
to which the Union of (Public) Welfare gave way in 1821, after another bogus
dissolution. By this time some 200 individuals, mainly guards officers, are
thought to have been associated with the organization. The radical leaders
decided that the time had come to purge it of those who showed vacillating
tendencies.^45 The latter predominated in St. Petersburg, whereas the radicals
held sway among the 'southerners', whose most active cell was at Tur chin
(Podolia province), headquarters of the Second Army.
Before examining the consequences of this split, we may pause to consider
certain factors that vitally affected the operations of all clandestine groups
during this period. The first is the key role played by highly-placed 'patrons'.
The publication of Voyennyy zhurnal was made possible by General N. M.
Sipyagin, the chief of staff, who gave the enterprise his blessing. A profes-
sional soldier to his finger-tips, Sipyagin was promoted with unusual speed,
rising from captain to major-general within a mere two years, when he was in
his late twenties. Thi!i._rapid ascent may help to account for his quasi-liberal
views, for which he was posted away from the general staff in 1819. (He was
succeeded by two noted 'hard-liners': A. Kh. Benkendorf, later head of
Nicholas I's gendarmes, and then P. F. Zheltukhin.) Sipyagin had a genuine
interest in military education-after his dismissal from the staff he set up an
officers' school at his own expense-and evidently sympathized with what his
subordinates were doing, although he did not identify himself with them and it
is not clear how much he even knew, or wanted to know, about their clan-
destine activities.^46 Another patron was Ya. A. Potemkin (1778-1831), a dis-
tant relative of the field-marshal, who was both an adjutant to the tsar and
commanding officer of the Semenovsky guards regiment until 1819, when his
political reliability came under suspicion and, like Sipyagin, he was sent off to
the provinces, where he was given command of a division.^47 His officers were
(^44) 'Donescniyc', p. 284; 'Zakonopolozheniye', in 'Scmevsky et al., Obshchestvenniya
dvi;.heniya, i. 547-76, esp. Ill,§§ 1, 9 (p. 557); for an English translation of this document, sec
Raeff, Decembrist Movement, pp. 69-99.
4l Druzhinin, Muravyev, p. 104; Ncchkina, Dvizheniye, i. 304-42. Mazour (First Russ. Revol.,
p. 83) attributes this step to the moderate elements alone.
46 Sipyagin is a little-known figure: see M. Kochergin's brief biography in RBS xviii. 508-10.
-^7 RBS xiv. 686-8; Ncchkina, 'Svyashch. artel'', p. 166.