A history of Russia

with sufficient clarity. Countries of the West served as the emperor's model. We shall see, however, when we turn to specific legislation, that Peter did not merely copy from the West, but tried to adapt Western institutions to Russian needs and possibilities. The very number and variety of European states and societies offered the Russian ruler a rich initial choice. It should be added that with time Peter the Great became more interested in general issues and broader patterns. Also, while the reformer was no theoretician, he had the makings of a visionary. With characteristic grandeur and optimism he saw ahead the image of a modern, powerful, prosperous, and educated country, and it was to the realization of that image that he dedicated his life. Both the needs of the moment and longer-range aims must therefore be considered in evaluating Peter the Great's reforms. Other fundamental questions to be asked about them include their relationship to the Russian past, their borrowing from the West - and, concurrently, their modification of Western models - their impact on Russia, and their durability.

The Army and the Navy

Military reforms stemmed most directly from the war. In that field Peter the Great's measures must be regarded as radical, successful, and lasting, as well as imitative of the West; and he has rightly been considered the founder of the modern Russian army. The emperor's predecessors had large armies, but these were poorly organized, technically deficient, and generally of low quality. They assembled for campaigns and disbanded when the campaign ended. Only gradually did 'regular' regiments, with Western officers and technicians, begin to appear. Even the streltsy, founded by Ivan the Terrible and expanded to contain twenty-two regiments of about a thousand men each, represented a doubtful asset. Stationed mainly in Moscow, they engaged in various trades and crafts and constituted at best a semi-professional force. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, the streltsy became a factor in Muscovite politics, staged uprisings, and were severely punished and then disbanded by Peter the Great. The reformer instituted general conscription and reorganized and modernized the army. The gentry, of course, had been subject to personal military service ever since the formation of the Muscovite state. Under Peter the Great this obligation came to be much more effectively and, above all, continuously enforced. Except for the unfit and those given civil assignments, the members of the gentry were to remain with their regiments for life. Other classes, with the exception of the clergy and members of the merchant guilds, who were needed elsewhere, fell under the draft. Large numbers were conscripted, especially in the early years of the Great Northern War. In 1715 the Senate established the norm of one draftee

from every seventy-five serf households. Probably the same norm operated in the case of the state peasants, while additional recruits were obtained from the townspeople. All were to be separated from their families and occupations and to serve for life, a term which was reduced to twenty-five years only in the last decade of the eighteenth century.

Having obtained a large body of men, Peter I went on to transform them into a modern army. He personally introduced a new and up-to-date military manual, became proficient with every weapon, and learned to command units from the smallest to the largest. He insisted that each draftee, aristocrat and serf alike, similarly work his way from the bottom up, advancing exactly as fast and as far as his merit would warrant. Important changes in the military establishment included the creation of the elite regiments of the guards, and of numerous other regular regiments, the adoption of the flintlock and the bayonet, and an enormous improvement in artillery. By the time of Poltava, Russia was producing most of its own flintlocks. The Russian army was the first to use the bayonet in attack - a weapon originally designed for defense against the charging enemy. As to artillery, Peter the Great developed both the heavy siege artillery, which proved very effective in 1704 in the Russian capture of Narva, and, by about 1707, light artillery, which participated in battles alongside the infantry and the cavalry. The Russian victory over Sweden demonstrated the brilliant success of the tsar's military reforms. At the time of Peter the Great's death the Russian army numbered 210,000 regular troops and 100,000 cossacks who retained their own organization.

The select regiments of guards, however, were not only the elite of Peter's army; they had, so to speak, grown up with the emperor, and contained many of his most devoted and enthusiastic supporters. Especially in the second half of his reign, Peter the Great frequently used officers and non-commissioned officers of the guards for special assignments, bypassing the usual administrative channels. Often endowed with summary powers, which might include the right to bring a transgressing governor or other high official back in chains, they were sent to speed up the collection of taxes or the gathering of recruits, to improve the functioning of the judiciary or to investigate alleged administrative corruption and abuses. Operating outside the regular bureaucratic structure, these emissaries could be considered as extensions of the ruler's own person. Later emperors, such as Alexander I and Nicholas I, continued Peter the Great's novel practice on a large scale, relying on special, and usually military, agents to obtain immediate results in various matters and in general to supervise the workings of the government apparatus.

To an even greater extent than the army, the modern Russian navy was the creation of Peter the Great. One can fairly say it was one of his passions. He began from scratch - with one vessel of an obsolete type,

to be exact - and left to his successor 48 major warships and 787 minor and auxiliary craft, serviced by 28,000 men. He also bequeathed to those who followed him the first Russian shipbuilding industry and, of course, the Baltic ports and coastline. Moreover, the navy, built on the British model, had already won high regard by defeating the Swedish fleet. The British considered the Russian vessels comparable to the best British ships in the same class, and the British government became so worried by the sudden rise of the Russian navy that in 1719 it recalled its men from the Russian service. Incidentally, in connection with shipbuilding the emperor introduced forestry regulations in Russia; however, they proved virtually unenforceable.

Administrative Reforms: Central Government, Local Government, the Church

Although mainly occupied with military matters, Peter reformed the central and local government in Russia as well as Church administration and finance, and he also effected important changes in Russian society, economy, and culture. Peter I ascended the throne as Muscovite tsar and autocrat - although, to be sure, until Ivan V's death in 1696 the country had two tsars and autocrats - and he proved to be one of the most powerful and impressive absolute rulers of his age, or any age. Yet comparisons with Ivan the Terrible or other Muscovite predecessors can be misleading. Whatever the views of earlier tsars concerning the nature and extent of their authority - and that is a complicated matter - Peter the Great believed in enlightened despotism as preached and to an extent practiced in Europe during the so-called Age of Reason. He borrowed his definition of autocracy and of the relationship between the ruler and his subjects from Sweden, not from the Muscovite tradition. The very title of emperor carried different connotations and associations than that of tsar. In contrast to Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great had the highest regard for law, and he considered himself the first servant of the state. Yet, again in accord with his general outlook, he had no use for the boyar duma, or the zemskii sobor, and treated the Church in a much more high-handed manner than his predecessors had. Thus the reformer largely escaped the vague, but nevertheless real, traditional hindrances to absolute power in Muscovy. It was the discarding of the old and the creation of the new governing institutions that made the change in the nature of the Russian state explicit and obvious.

In 1711, before leaving on his campaign against Turkey, Peter the Great published two orders which created the Governing Senate. The Senate was founded as the highest state institution to supervise all judicial, financial, and administrative affairs. Originally established only

for the time of the monarch's absence, it became a permanent body after his return. The number of senators was first set at nine and in 1712 increased to ten. A special high official, the Ober-Procurator, served as the link between the sovereign and the Senate and acted, in the emperor's own words, as 'the sovereign's eye.' Without his signature no Senate decision could go into effect; any disagreements between the Ober-Procurator and the Senate were to be settled by the monarch. Certain other officials and a chancellery were also attached to the Senate. While it underwent many subsequent changes, the Senate became one of the most important institutions of imperial Russia, especially in administration and law.

In 1717 and the years immediately following, Peter the Great established collegia, or colleges, in place of the old, numerous, overlapping, and unwieldy prikazy. The new agencies, comparable to the later ministries, were originally nine in number: the colleges of foreign affairs, war, navy, state expenses, state income, justice, financial inspection and control, commerce, and manufacturing. Later three