A history of Russia

money on education for the first time in Russian history, Alexander I founded several universities to add to the University of Moscow, forty-two secondary schools, and considerable numbers of other schools. While education in Russia during the first half of the nineteenth century will be discussed in a later chapter, it should be noted here that Alexander I's establishment of institutions of learning and his entire school policy were distinctly liberal for his time. Indeed, they have been called the best fruits of the monarch's usually hesitant and brittle liberalism.

The second period of reform in Alexander I's reign, 1807-12, corresponded to the French alliance and was dominated by the emperor's most remarkable assistant, Michael Speransky. Speransky, who lived from 1772 to 1839, was fully a self-made man. In contrast to the members of the Unofficial Committee as well as to most other associates of the sovereign, he came not from the aristocracy but from poor village clergy. It was Speransky's intelligence, ability to work, and outstanding administrative capacity that made him for a time Alexander I's prime minister in fact, if not in name, for no such formal office then existed. As most specialists on Speransky believe, that unusual statesman sought to establish in Russia

strong monarchy firmly based on law and legal procedure, and thus free from arbitrariness, corruption, and confusion. In other words, Speransky found his inspiration in the vision of a Rechtsstaat, not in advanced liberal or radical schemes. Still, Raeff, the latest major author on the subject, goes too far when he denies that the Russian statesman was at all liberal. In Russian conditions Speransky's views were certainly liberal, as his contemporaries fully realized. Furthermore, they could have been developed more liberally, if the opportunities had presented themselves.

In 1809, at the emperor's request, Speransky submitted to him a thorough proposal for a constitution. In his customary methodical manner, the statesman divided the Russians into three categories: the gentry; people of 'the middle condition,' that is, merchants, artisans, and peasants or other small proprietors who owned property of a certain value; and, finally, working people, including serfs, servants, and apprentices. The plan also postulated three kinds of rights: general civil rights; special civil rights, such as exemption from service; and political rights, which depended on a property qualification. The members of the gentry were to enjoy all the rights. Those belonging to the middle group received general civil rights and political rights when they could meet the property requirement. The working people too obtained general civil rights, but they clearly did not own enough to participate in politics. Russia was to be reorganized on four administrative levels: the volost - a small unit sometimes translated as 'canton' or 'township' - the district, the province, and the country at large. On each level there were to be the following institutions: legislative assemblies - or dumy - culminating in the state duma for all of Russia; a system of courts, with the Senate at the apex; and administrative boards, leading eventually to the ministries and the central executive power. The state duma, the most intriguing part of Speransky's system, showed the statesman's caution, for in addition to the property restriction imposed on its electorate, it depended on a sequence of indirect elections. The assemblies of the volosti elected the district assemblymen, who elected the provincial assemblymen, who elected the members of the state duma, or national assembly. Also the activities of the state duma were apparently to be rather narrowly restricted. But, on the other hand, the state duma did provide for popular participation in the legislative process. That, together with Speransky's insistence on the division of functions, strict legality, and certain other provisions such as the popular election of judges, if successfully applied, would have in time transformed Russia. Indeed, it has been observed that Speransky's fourfold proposal of local self-government and a national legislative assembly represented a farsighted outline of the Russian future. Only that future took extremely long to materialize, offering - in the opinion of many specialists - a classic example of too little and too late. Thus Russia received district and provincial self- government

by the so-called zemstvo reform of 1864, a national legislature, the Duma, in 1905-06, and volost self- government in 1917.

In 1809 and the years following, Alexander I failed to implement Speransky's proposal. The statesman's fall from power in 1812 resulted from the opposition of officialdom and the gentry evoked by his measures and projects in administration and finance, from the emperor's fears, suspicions, and vacillations, and also from the break with Napoleon, Speransky having been branded a Francophile. Although Speransky was later to return to public office and accomplish further useful and important work, he never again had the opportunity to suggest fundamental reform on the scale of his plan of 1809. The second liberal period of Alexander I's reign, then, like the first, produced no basic changes in Russia.

Yet, again like the first, the second liberal period led to some significant legislation of a more limited nature. In 1810, on the advice of Speransky - actually this was the only part of the statesman's plan that the monarch translated into practice - Alexander I created the Council of State modeled after Napoleon's Conseil d'Etat, with Speransky attached to it as the Secretary of State. This body of experts appointed by the sovereign to help him with the legislative work in no way limited the principle of autocracy; moreover, the Council tended to be extremely conservative. Still, it clearly reflected the emphasis on legality, competence, and correct procedure so dear to Speransky. And, as has been noted for the subsequent history of the Russian Empire, whereas 'all the principal reforms were passed by regular procedure through the Council of State, nearly all the most harmful and most mischievous acts of succeeding governments were, where possible, withdrawn from its competence and passed only as executive regulations which were nominally temporary.' Speransky also reorganized the ministries and added two special agencies to the executive, one for the supervision of government finance, the other for the development of transport. A system of annual budgets was instituted, and other financial measures were proposed and in part adopted. Perhaps still more importantly, Speransky did yeoman's service in strengthening Russian bureaucracy by introducing something in the nature of a civil service examination and trying in other ways to emphasize merit and efficient organization.

Speransky's constitutional reform project represented the most outstanding but not the only such plan to come out of government circles in the reign of Alexander I. One other should be noted here, that of Novosiltsev. Novosiltsev's Constitutional Charter of the Russian Empire emphasized very heavily the position and authority of the sovereign and bore strong resemblance to Speransky's scheme in its stress on legality and rights and its narrowly based and weak legislative assembly. Novosiltsev differed, however, from Speransky's rigorous centralism in allowing something to the federal principle: he wanted the Russian Empire, including Finland and

Russian Poland, to be divided into twelve large groups of provinces which were to enjoy a certain autonomy. The date of Novosiltsev's project deserves attention: its second and definitive version was presented to Alexander I in 1820, late in his reign. Furthermore, the monarch not only graciously accepted the plan, but - it has been argued - proceeded to implement it in small part. Namely, by combining several provinces, he created as a model one of the twelve units proposed by Novosiltsev. Only after Alexander I's death in 1825 was Novosiltsev's scheme completely abandoned, and the old system of administration re-established in the experimental provinces. The story of Novosiltsev's Charter, together with certain other developments, introduces qualifications into the usual sharp division of Alexander I's reign into the liberal first half and the reactionary second half, and suggests that a constitution remained a possible alternative for Russia as long as 'the enigmatic tsar' presided over its destinies.

Russian Foreign Policy, 1801-12

While the first part of Alexander's rule witnessed some significant developments in internal affairs, it was the emperor's foreign policy that came to occupy the center of the stage. Diplomacy and war in the early years of Alexander I's reign culminated in the cataclysmic events of 1812.

At the beginning of Alexander's reign, peaceful intentions prevailed. After succeeding Paul, who had both fought France and later joined it against Great Britain, the new emperor proclaimed a policy of neutrality. Yet Russia could not long stay out of conflicts raging in Europe. A variety of factors, ranging from the vast and exposed Western frontier of the empire to the psychological involvement of the Russian government and educated public in European affairs, determined Russian participation in the straggle. Not surprisingly, Alexander I joined the opponents of France. Economic ties with Great Britain, and traditional Russian friendship with Austria and Great Britain, together with the equally traditional hostility to France, contributed to the decision. Furthermore, Alexander I apparently came early to consider Napoleon as a menace to Europe, all the more so because the Russian sovereign had his own vision of a new European order. An outline of the subsequent Holy Alliance and concert of