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SKRIFTER UTGIVNA AV INSTITUTET FÖR RÄTTSHISTORISK FORSKNING GRUNDAT AV GUSTAV OCH CARIN OLIN SERIEN I RÄTTSHISTORISK! BIBLIOTEK TJUGONIONDE BANDET A.-B. NORDISKA BOKHANDELN, STOCKHOLM I DISTRIBUTION
SKRIFTER UTGIVNA AV INSTITUTET FÖR RÄTTSHISTORISK FORSKNING GRUNDAT AV GUSTAV OCH CARIN OLIN
SKRIFTER UTGIVNA AV INSTITUTET FÖR RÄTTSHISTORISK FORSKNING GRUNDAT AV GUSTAV OCH CARIN OLIN SERIEN I RÄTTSHISTORISKT BIBLIOTEK TJUGONIONDE BANDET A.-B. NORDISKA BOKHANDELN, STOCKHOLM I DISTRIBUTION
i.
Peter the Great’s Administrative and Judicial Reforms: Stvedish Antecedents and the Process of Reception Claes Peterson A.-B. Nordiska Bokhandeln, Stockholm in Distribution
Akademisk avhandling för juris doktorsexamen vid Stockholms universitet 1979 Juridiska fakulteten 106 91 Stockholm ADissertation for the Doctor’s Degree in Law University of Stockholm Faculty of Law S-106 91 Stockholm Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate the preconditions for the administrative and judicial reforms carried out in Russia between 1715 and 1722 with special regard for the influence of Swedish administrative institutions and Swedish law upon them. An attempt has been made to include all of the central and local administrative organs affected by these reforms, but the source materials available for this study have led to a much more thorough treatment of the fiscal administration and the administration of justice than of the other areas of governmental activity. It is clear that Peter the Great considered the Swedish administrative system to be the most suitable model for the intended reforms. Knowledge of the Swedish administration was provided by a German named Heinrich Pick who, at the tsar’s behest, studied the Swedish colleges at first hand. The principal finding of this study is that these reforms were more dependent upon Swedish prototypes than has hitherto been appreciated. Not only the external structure, but also the internal organization and the activities of the several administrative organs were borrowed from Swedish prototypes. ISBN 91-85190-11-X ©Claes Peterson Print: Bloms Boktryckeri AB, Lund 1979 Matter: 10'/12' Garamond Paper: 105 g antikrandat, gultonat, Klippanbruket
Acknowledgements This dissertation has been written under the auspices of the Faculty of Law of the University of Stockholm. The subject for this study was proposed to me by Professor Erik Anners, without whose support and enthusiasm this book would not have been completed. I owe him a great debt of gratitude. The Institutet för rättshistorisk forskning founded by Gustav and Carin Olin has given me generous economic support over the past four years and has been kind enough to accept this study in its publication series Rättshistoriskt bibliotek. A stipend from the Swedish Institute within the framework of the bilateral cultural agreement between Sweden and the Soviet Union allowed me to study the Russian archival sources at the Tsentral’nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Drevnikh Aktov in Moscow for a period of six months during the academic year of 1974—1975. I have also benefited from travel funds provided by the University of Stockholm. To all of these institutions I would like to extend my grateful appreciation. Finally, I would like to thank Professor Michael F. Metcalf of the University of Minnesota, who not only translated this dissertation from the Swedish original, but who also offered many valuable comments on the text.
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Contents Abstract Acknowledgements Abbreviations Used in Notes Introduction I. The Reform of the Central Administration, 1715—1722 . 1. The Russian Administrative Structure at the Accession of Peter I 2. Plans for a Collegial Reform 3. Collecting Information on the Swedish Administrative System 4. The Establishment of the Colleges at St, Petersburg . 5. The Personnel and Salary Budgets of the Colleges . 6. Recruiting the Collegial Staffs 7. The Instructions for the Colleges 8. Foreigners in the Service of the Russian Colleges . . , 123 . . 140 VI VII XI 1 33 33 52 67 '84 94 106 113 II. The Central Fiscal Administration The kamer-kollegiia 1.1. 1.2. 1. Introduction 140 The kamer-kollegiia and the kammarkollegium — A Comparison 1.2.1. Organization and Personnel 1.2.2. Responsibilities The shtats-kontor-kollegiia Introduction The shtats-kontor-kollegiia and the statskontoret — A Comparison 2.2.1. Organization and Personnel 2.2.2. Responsibilities The Budget 191 The Issuance of Assignations 204 Supervision of the Bursaries 207 The revizion-kollegiia 152 159 2. 2.1. 179 2.2. 186 190 209 3.
X III. The Russian Local Administrative Reform of 1719 and its Swedish Prototype 1. Introduction .... 2. Organization and Personnel 3. The Russian instruktsua for Voevodas of 1719 and the Swedish instruktion for landshövdingar of 1687 — A Comparison 4. The Results of the Local Administrative Reform of 1719 281 IV. The Administration of Justice and Legislation on Procedural Law 1. Introduction 2. The iustits-kollegiia and the Reform of the Courts . . . 311 3. Procedural Reform 223 . 223 247 268 303 303 332 V. The Administration of Commerce and Mining 1. The kommerts-kollegiia The instruktsiia for the kommerts-kollegiia . . . 356 357 . 362 1.1. 2. The berg-kollegiia 368 The Instructions for the berg-kollegiia . . . 374 2.1. VI. The Administration of Foreign Affairs VII. The Administration of the Armed Forces 1. The krigs-kollegiia 2. The admiralteiskaia kollegiia Organization and Personnel The Instructions for the admiralteiskaia kollegiia 381 394 400 402 2.1. 405 2.2. Conclusion Bibliography Index 410 418 438
Abbreviations Used in Notes Chteniia v impcratorskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiskikh pri Moskovskom universitete subdivision of fond catalogue number daler silvermynt fond (collection of documents) Styffe, Carl Gustaf, ed., Samling af instructioner för högre och lägre tjänstemän vid landt-regeringen i Sverige och Finnland. Stockholm, 1852. Styffe, Carl Gustaf, ed.. Samling af instructioner rörande den civila förvaltningen i Sverige och Finnland. Stockholm, 1856. Kammarkollegiets arkiv, Stockholm. list (pl.) folio Kafengauz, b. b. and Pavlenko, N. I., eds., Ocherki istorii SSSR. Period feodalizma. Rossiia v pervoi chetverti XVIII v. Preobrazovaniia Petra I. Moscow, 1954. Novosel’skii, a. a. and Ustiugov, N. V., eds., Ocherki istorii SSSR. Period feodalizma XVII v. Moscow, 1955. inventory Pis’ma i bumagi imperatora Petra Velikogo lusHKOv, S. V. et al., eds., Pamiatniki russkogo prava Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii s 1649 goda Riksarkivet, Stockholm. Polovtsov, A. A. et al., eds., Russkii biograficheskii slovar’ Sbornik imperatorskogo russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva Statens offentliga utredningar Hildebrand, Emil, ed., Sveriges regeringsformer 1611—1634 Tsentral’nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Drevnikh Aktov, Moscow. Universitetsbiblioteket, Uppsala. VosKRESENSKii, N. A., cd., ZakonodateVnye akty Petra I Herrmann, Ernst, ed., Zeitgenössische Berichte zur Geschichte Russlands, vol. 1. Herrmann, Ernst, ed., Zeitgenössische Berichte zur Geschichte Russlands, vol. 2. ChOIDR chast’ delo dsmt f. Instruktioner I Instruktioner II KKA 1. (11.) Ocherki (1954) Ocherki (1955) opis’ PiB PRP PSZ RA RBS SIRIO SOU SRF TsGADA UUB ZA ZB, I ZB, II
f
Introduction The last decade of Peter the Great’s forty-three-year reign (1682—1725) witnessed a series of attempts to reform the Russian state administration in a profound way. Hampered by its extreme functional fragmentation, the old administrative system was dismantled to make room for a rational and unitary administration characterized by a systematic, institutional division of responsibilities and by an internal division of labor based on standard operating procedures. These administrative reforms, carried out to implement a centralization of power, were expressions of the efforts of an absolutist monarchy to create a total unity of political and military power. The systematic reconstruction of the administrative system coincided chronologically with the final consolidation of permanent regular military forces in the Russian empire. The maintenance of standing military and naval forces involved in lengthy and extremely costly warfarenot only required increased economic resources, mobilized for the most part through more intensive state taxation, but it also required extensive organizational measures to create the conditions necessary for the unitary administration of state funds and for fiscal planning based on regularized accounting and auditing procedures. Thus, administration in general, and fiscal administration in particular, were assigned much greater importance than had previously been the case in Russia. This is illustrated by the following excerpt from a draft document concerning the rank relationships between the staff positions in the newly established governmental organs: ^ Spain had many lands, fleets, and armies, but, because she lacked a regular division and an established administration in her councils, her great machine and power {velikaia makhina i sila) fell into decline and did not come into any order. According to the author of this document, then, Spain’s misfortune resuited from the fact that the Spanish regime did not understand the importance of establishing and developing a regularized state administration.- ‘ TsGADA, f. 370 delo 16 11. 52—52v. - For a discussion of the role played by the administration in Spain’s development during the later part of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, see, John Lynch, Spain under the Habsburgs (2 v., Oxford, 1964—1969), II, 267—273.
2 The Russians were not to make the same mistake; instead, they were to consolidate both the diplomatic positions acquired through the Great Northern War and the prevailing political and socio-economic system at home by building up an efficient administrative system. This military and administrative development in Russia was not unique; most European states had already passed through a similar developmental process. When feudal armies of fiefholders and vasalls were forced from the center of the military stage by mercenary troops in the sixteenth century, and when they were replaced entirely by regular standing armies in the seventeenth century, the revenue requirements of European monarchs had increased drastically. The seventeenth century saw the creation of the largest armies since the days of the Roman empire; by the end of the century most European states had regular armies, and many had regular navies, both of which were maintained in peacetime, as well as during periods of conflict. Thanks to changes in infantry tactics (the introduction of the operative line tactic) and new military technology (the development of firearms and artillery), the feudal armies of knights were replaced by strictly organized units with a permanent corps of officers and men equipped and paid by the government.^ The effectiveness of the feudal military system had rested ultimately on the extent to which fiefholders and vasalls fulfilled the military obligations they had assumed through their feudal oaths to their king or feudal lord. The creation of standing units dependent upon the state for the regular payment of their wages eliminated this uncertainty at the same time that absolute monarchical power, no longer dependent on the agreements reached between the crown and the powerful feudal lords, began to appear in several countries. The political fragmentation that had marked the countries of medieval Europe so clearly could, in this way, be overcome; the state began to assume the character of a political and military power structure to a much greater degree. As the Danish economic historian Niels Stensgaard has pointed out, armies, together with navies, fortifications, and royal palaces, constituted one of the seventeenth century’s most advanced forms of enterprise, one of its greatest organizational undertakings, and one of its greatest investments. Taken together, such enterprises led during the period to the growth of public expenditures to previously unknown levels."* * For a general survey of the military developments of the period, see Michael Roberts, “The Military Revolution, 1560—1660,” in idem. Essays in Swedish History (London & Minneapolis, 1967), 195—225. For developments in tactics, see especially Herbert Schwarz, Gefechtsformen der Infanterie und ihre EntwickUing in Mitteleuropa (Munich, 1962), 47—90. ^ Niels Stensgaard, “Det syttende arhundredcs krise," Historisk tidsskrift.
3 In order to meet rising military expenditures, states were constantly engaged in a search for new sources of income that would produce cash. Since demesne rents did not produce such cash incomes, states attempted to reduce their traditional dependence upon them.'^’ Instead, they attempted to make as much use as possible of the increasingly developed commodity and cash economy for their financial needs. States introduced a series of indirect taxes in the form of customs duties, excise taxes, and other fees, which, as Louise Sommer argues, “infolge ihrer grosserer Einträglichkeit und Entwicklungsfahigkeit vor allem infolge der Unmerklichkeit bei der Auflage einen höheren fiskalischen Erfolg versprach. Administrative techniques developed during the medieval period were unable to meet the demand for a permanent and continuous fiscal administration created by the rapidly expanding public sector.^ One characteristic of medieval administration was that it made no distinction between the private and public functions of the reigning prince, with the two functions flowing together in the administration of his household. Toa large extent, the activities of the medieval administration were characterized by haphazardness.® There were no specialized administrative routines based on a strict division of labor, there was very little regularized bookkeeping and auditing, and there was no systematic registration and keeping of records. No central treasury existed which might provide a continual picture of the fiscal situation, and what fiscal planning did eventually take place was very modest in scope. The only types of budgets preserved from the medieval period are simple salary lists of the personnel included in the court administration; military expenditures, for example, were treated as extraordinary expenses right up until the end of the fifteenth century, when armed retinues similar to standing military units, such as the socalled “compagnies d’ordonnance” in France, were set up. This is understandable in view of the fact that the military system based on the feudal »’ 6 series 12, 4 (1970), 502. Note Stensgaard’s interesting hypothesis concerning the connection between the growth of the public sector and the demographic and agrarian crisis phenomena of the seventeenth century (p. 504). ® Although the situation in Sweden during the reign of Charles XI was different, since the revenues to maintain the state apparatus were to be generated mainly from the rents paid to the crown. ® Louise Sommer, Die österreichischen Kameralisten (2 v., Vienna, 1920—1925), I, 11. ’’ See Hermann Heller, Gesammelte Schrijten (3 v., Leiden, 1971), III, 227—228, who emphasizes the inability of medieval administrations to meet the increasing fiscal needs of the state. ® The fiscal administration of the Catholic church, however, was an exception; it had achieved a high level of administrative systematization and rational organization already during the fourteenth century. See Clemens Bauer, “Die Epochen der Papstfinanz,” Historische Zeitschrift, 138 (1928), 462—463, 470.
4 network of fiefs constituted the dominant form of military organization during this period. Thus it was that medieval administrations knew nothing about the budgeting of future revenues and expenditures. When a new expenditure arose it was considered to be temporary in nature and was covered by whatever funds happened to be available at the moment. This approach was characteristic for the medieval fiscal administrative tradition, for, as Clemens Bauer has pointed out: ® fiir das reguläre Wirtschaften, d.h. fiir die Bedarfsurteilung wle fiir die Mittelbeschaffung ist uberwiegend das Herkommen massgebend. Es fehlt die Erkenntnis des wachsenden Bedarfes, man sieht im Grunde oft oder fast regelmässig wiederkehrende Ausgaben, die in einem Strukturwandel ihren Grund haben, als einmalige an. In conjunction with this, the French characterized the administration of the traditional demesne revenues as “finances ordinaires” right on into the sixteenth century, while the administration of indirect taxes was treated as “finances extraordinaires.” At the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, the French drew up so-called “etats des finances du roi,” which likened real fiscal planning. These états remained unsystematic in form, however, and, as had been the case with medieval fiscal overviews, they only covered certain offices. Then, too, the états did not appear regularly, but were drawn up only when some change was made in the fiscal administration.'^ In summary, then, administration in the European states remained highly Irregular and planless as late as the sixteenth century. Administrative activities were technically unsystematic and lacked the regularity and unity which were necessary preconditions for mobilizing and structuring the increased revenue needs of the state during the course of that century. Just as steps were now taken to avoid shortages in the state treasuries by assembling great reserves of cash for future needs, the need for organizing the regular and uniform administration of resources was also recognized. Parallel with the developments in military and tax policy discussed above, there occurred a comparable reform of the administrative structure, which in itself involved a further expansion of public expenditures. The creation of standing armies led, as Fritz Hartung has pointed out, “zum Ausbau einer neuen einheitlichen, zunächst an den Bediirfnissen des Heeres orientierten Verwaltungsorganisation und zur einheitlichen Zusam- * Clemens B.\uer, “Mittelalterlichc Staatsfinanz und Internationale Hochfinanz,” Historisches Jahrbuch, 50 (1930), 33. Ibid., 31. Max von Heckel, Das Budget (Leipzig, 1898), 3; Baufr (1930), 33.
5 menfassung der finanziellen Mittel und der wirtschaftlichen Kräfte aller Landschaften.” State policies of taxation and administration were given theoretical support through a complex of theories known collectively as mercantilism and cameralism. The basic principle of the mercantilist program was that state incomes should be increased as much as possible. Trade and industry, which were considered the only money-producing pursuits, were to be promoted through a policy of state regulation; trade with foreign countries was to be regulated in accordance with the principle of an active balance of trade, which meant that exports were to be increased, while imports were to be held at the lowest possible level with the help of protective tariffs and statutes against the importation of certain goods. The mercantilists placed great emphasis on foreign trade, which, according to their conception of fiscal policy, was the principle source of state revenues. This viewpoint resulted in the complete subordination of fiscal and economic policies to considerations concerning exports, the continuous increase of which was the dominant goal of state fiscal policy. A special theory and technique of state administration evolved in the form of cameralism, which had its roots in several German states where extensive administrative reforms were introduced during the sixteenth century. The term “cameralism” stemmed from the (originally Greek) Latin “camera,” a covered, vaulted room. “Camera” or “Kammer” was the term used to denote the central fiscal administration, the prince’s “chamber. The theoreticians of cameralism, the so-called cameralists, developed principles for a systematic administrative organization and drew up a detailed administrative technique consisting of permanent office routines. Thus, Albion Small could describe cameralism as “the routine of the bureaus in which the administrative employees of governments, first of all in the fiscal departments, did their work; or in a larger sense it was systematized governmental procedure, the application of which was made in the administrative bureaus.” But it is impossible to define cameralism solely within the framework of administrative techniques. It would be more accurate to characterize cameralism as a fiscal and administrative doctrine based on a constitutional theory. The ideal was “der wohlgeordnete Polizei- ” 13 Fritz Hartung, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte vom 13. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart (5th ed., Stuttgart, 1950), 103—104. See in addition Johannes Kunisch, Der kleine Krieg. Studien zum Heerwesen des Absolutismus (Wiesbaden, 1973), 1. '•'* Kurt Zielenziger, Die alten deutschen Kameralisten. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Nationalökonomie und zum Problemdes Merkantilismus (Jena, 1914), 85. Albion Small, The Cameralists: The Pioneers of German Social Polity (Chicago, 1909), 18.
6 staat,” where a prince armed with absolute power ruled with the common good {salus publico) as his principle objective. As was true of those pursued by the mercantilists, the activities of the cameralists were directed above all toward developing methods to increase state revenues. Through an intensive policy of taxation and regulation, all potential economic resources in the state were to be mobilized in order to meet the growing public expenditures.^^ According to the cameralists, a unified and regularly functioning fiscal administration was of primary importance to effective fiscal policy.^® Thus they developed a doctrine of administrative techniques, whose importance for the development of state administration in the various European countries can hardly be exaggerated. Central administrative organs, which in terms of organizational structure and methods of work reflected the administrative program of the Austrian and German cameralists, began to emerge during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially in the German states and Scandinavia.^^ In contrast to its highly amorphous and losely structured medieval predecessor, this new type of administration was characterized by a systematically designed organizational structure consisting of clearly defined administrative units with permanent jurisdictional frameworks and permanent staffs. The private court economy of the prince was now detached completely from the public administration, which was thereby “objectivized” in the sense that it appeared to work for a separate, objective state purpose. Concerning the doctrine of taxation advocated by the cameralists, see Axel Nielsen, Den tyske Kameralvidenskabs Opstaaen i det 17. Aarhundrede (Copenhagen, 1911), 22— 46, 71—80. Hans Maier, Die ältere deutsche Staats- und Verwaltungslchrc (Polizeiwissenschaft) (Darmstadt, 1966), 188—189. According to an opinion often expressed in the literature on administrative history, for example, Emperor Maximilian I’s reforms were based on the FrancoBurgundian administrative tradition; see Fritz Hartung, Staatsbildendc Kräfte der Neuzeit (Berlin, 1961), 81—82. Concerning the importance of Maximilian’s reforms for administrative developments in the German states, see Theodor Mayer, Die Verwaltungsorganisation Maximilians I. Ihr Ursprung und ihre Bedeutung (Innsbruck, 1920). The Swedish state administration was, without any doubt, originally based on continental models, but we know nothing about the process through which those models were imitated; see Nils Eden, Den svenska centralregeringens utveckling till kollegial organisation i början av sjuttonde århundradet (1602—1634) (Uppsala, 1902), 114. As for Denmark, a not inconsiderable dependence on German administrative traditions has been demonstrated by various historians, but the systematic administrative reform of the central Danish administration carried out during the 1660s was influenced strongly by the Swedish administrative structure; See Carl Christiansen, Bidrag til dansk Statshusholdnings Historic under de to forste Enevoldskonger (2 v., Copenhagen, 1908—1922), I, 39—42.
7 As Hermann Heller has emphasized, this strictly disciplined type of administrative apparatus guaranteed “eine universale, zentral und planmässig regulierte Vereinheitlichung des staatlichen relevanten Handelns. This type of administration provided a potentially effective instrument for supervising and regulating all aspects of social life,^** which in itself was necessary if the tremendous economic resources required for the support of the public sector were to be found. It is significant that, as regards the majority of its tasks, the civilian administration was in constant contact with the military establishment. Tlie administrative tasks did not consist exclusively of financing the standing army and the navy, but also included such things as supervising the construction of fortifications and arsenals, and organizing the equipping and arming of the troops.-** The systematically arranged administrative organization established in the countries mentioned above had a collegial structure. The administration thus consisted of a number of colleges, each of which had special areas of responsibility defined in terms of function, rather than in terms of geographical regions. Colleges of revenue, for example, were given sole responsibility for the collection of taxes and the management of revenues, while colleges of commerce were to administer all matters concerning trade. As a rule, there were no hierarchial distinctions between the colleges; instead, the various colleges were equal in stature, and thus no college was allowed to act within the functional jurisdiction of any other college. Within its particular area, each college had jurisdiction throughout the entire realm, and this gave the administrative system a uniform structure. A college consisted, on the one hand, of a decision-making board of officers and, on the other, of an essentially executive base administration. The board was composed of a limited number of individuals, almost all of whom were of noble birth and many of whom had been trained in the law at some academy or university. The chairman of the board, who also served as the head of the college, was usually given the title of president, while the remaining members of the board were entitled councillors and assessors. The president chaired the board’s deliberations, but other members also had the right to make proposals. All decisions reached by the board were based on the principle of majority voting, with each member enjoying one vote. This system precluded the possibility that any one officer of the college would be able to undertake anything on his own. After they ” 18 Heller, III, 228. Bodo Dennewitz, Die Systeme dcs Verwaltungsrechts. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der modernen Verwizltungswissenschaft (Hamburg, 1948), 16. Gerhard Oestreich, “Zur Heeresverfassung der deutschen Territorien von 1500 bis 1800,” in idem. Geist und Gestalt des friihmodernen Staates. Ausgewählte Aufsätze (Berlin, 1969), 300.
8 were put into final written form by a secretary, college decisions were to be signed by all members of the board participating in their adoption. Contrary to practices in medieval administrations, minutes were to be kept of all meetings of the board. Through the minutes, it became possible to monitor the activities of the collegial boards and their individual members. Activities in the executive-administrative sections of the colleges were organized according to a strict division of labor, the idea of which was to guarantee a more efficient and more rapid processing of the growing administrative work load. In each of the colleges it was possible to find a series of different office holders with titles such as accountant, bookkeeper, recording secretary, registrar, actuary, copyist, archivist, and so on. The subalterns had no part in the decision-making process of the college, their work consisting, instead, of executing the board’s decisions and performingthe regularly recurring administrativetasks of thecollege. The internal workings of the colleges were carefully regulated by acts of administrativelegislation referred to as collegial instructions or regulations. The collegial administration differed from the medieval administration in this manner, too, since the latter’s activities had instead evolved on the basis of developments in common law. In order for the administration to meet the high demands for efficiency placed on it by the expanding state apparatus, however, it was necessary for all of its functionaries to receive detailed instructions concerning the performance of their duties. With the highly developed division of labor that dominated the administrative colleges, each officeholder had to carry out his special tasks on a regular basis if the college were not to subside into disorder and, eventually, into chaos. The legal definition and regulation of the content of the various administrative positions thus established regular operating procedures. In addition, the division of labor meant that the colleges had to maintain a permanent staff, which again was something that had not existed in medieval administrations, where the size of the personnel had shifted according to current needs. In formulating the regulations for standard operating procedures, it was possible to utilize and expand upon the administrative tradition that had emerged in the larger cities during the medieval period.^^ One example of the urban administrative influence was the register, which constituted one of the most central office routines in the college. The registrar was not only to maintain a regular record of the communications received and sent by the college, but he was also to collect all original documents and letters received by the college and copies of all letters and documents issued by the college, and then to catalogue them and keep them at the disposal Heinrich Otto Meisner, Verfassung, Verwalttmg, Regierung in neurer Zeit (Berlin, 1962), 29.
9 of the college in a manner which facilitated its work. It was normal for the registrar and the archivist to be one and the same person." With the help of the registrar’s journals and catalogues it was possible to see whether the college’s business was being conducted in the prescribed manner, just as it was possible to discover with their help documents which one might have reason to consult. Thus, the registrar had a great deal of responsibility for the maintenance of a satisfactory level of operations in the college. The rise of the collegial system above all meant great progress when it came to fiscal administration. Regular bookkeeping and auditing were introduced, and the administration of the treasury was made uniform. The basic concept of accounting introduced into governmental administration at this time was the system of double-entry bookkeeping, which had been evolving in large commercial enterprises ever since the Middle Ages,-'* and which meant that revenues and expenditures were balanced against one another in a continual manner. The adoption of this more advanced bookkeeping technique made possible a more exact and efficient administration of state funds. Another very important aspect of fiscal administration was planning for future state revenues and expenditures. The medieval practice of meeting expenditures only when they arose, and of meeting them with whatever revenues were most readily available, was incompatible with the regularity and predictability now demanded of the fiscal administration. The revenues and expenditures for the coming fiscal year were to be balanced against one another as early as possible. One fundamental principlc in the formulation of the budget was to provide for the needs of the royal court, the military, and the administration from the most reliable state revenues, while providing less reliable funding—or no funding at all—for other expenditures. The principle of double-entry bookkeeping served as the basis for projecting the state budget.-'* In the medieval administration, administrative tasks had largely been performed by clerics as a subsidary function requiringnothing morethan the ability to read and write. This type of work brought rather uncertain compensation, which was often paid out in kind. The new and more complex administrative techniques coming into use during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries meant that work in the chancelleries and offices -- Idem, Urkunden- und Aktefjlehre dcr Neuzeit (Leipzig, 1950), 55—56. -■* It is significant that merchants were consulted so that the accounts of the state administration could be drawn up according to the principles of double bookkeeping. This was also the case in Sweden and Denmark, where the first head bookkeepers were successful merchants; see Eden, 229—230 and Christi.\nsen, I, 46. Fredrik Lagerroth, Statsreglering och finansförvaltning i Sverige till och med frihetstidens ingång (Lund, 1928), 46—47.
10 of the administration became full time work, which was remunerated in cash. A new type of university-trained, professional civil servant emerged, thus laying the ground for what would eventually become permanent civil service careers in the state administration. Special training was even required of the lower officeholders, the subalterns, although such training was conducted within the administration itself.-^ The profound administrative reforms initiated by Peter the Great built upon the tradition of collegial administration. Nine colleges were established in Russia in 1718, and the tasks of the state administration were apportioned among them in a systematic manner. Within its own area, each college was given exclusive jurisdiction, which was national in scope. The nine areas of jurisdiction were tax collection and the administration of revenues {kamer-kollegiia), fiscal planning (shtats-kontor-kollegiia), auditing {revizion-kollegiia), the administration of justice (iustits-kollegiia), the conduct of foreign affairs {kollegiia inostrannykh del), and the supervision of commerce {kommerts-kollegiia), mining and manufactories {bergi manufaktur-kollegiia), the army {krigs-kollegiia), and the navy {admiralteiskaia kollegiia). The expressed aim of these collegial reforms was to follow the example of other European states by creating an efficient administrative system which would facilitate a more intensive exploitation of the economic potential of the Russian empire. With a clear touch of cameralist thinking, the so-called General Regulation, the basic legislative act concerning the Russian administrative reform, pointed out that Tsar Peter, “following the highly commendable example of other Christian countries,” had founded colleges in Russia: for the Improvement of wholesome justice and order, for the proper administration of state affairs, for the correct identification and calculation of revenues, as well as to protect as far as possible his faithful and, because of the long and burdensome war, impoverished subjects, for the maintenance of his military forces both at sea and on the land, for the improvement of trade, handicrafts, and manufactories, as well as for the proper ordering of sea and land customs duties, for the relief and improvement of mines, and for other state needs. As was the case in several other instances in Peter the Great’s Russia, Western European models were sought out for the restructuring of the administration. Contemporary diplomatic reports from St. Petersburg portray Sweden, Russia’s primary military opponent, as the direct model for Peter’s administrative reforms, and it was claimed that Swedish prisoners of war served in the Russian colleges. This impression was given Marc Raeff, “The Well-Ordered Police State and the Development of Modernity in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Europe: An Attempt at a Comparative Approach,” American Historical Review, 80 (1975), 1232, and Zielenziger, 85—86. -« lA(no. 400), 413.
11 broader dissemination by Voltaire, who made it known through his Histoire de Vempirc russc sous Pierre le Grand that: ~~ La plupart des Loix qu’il (i.e., Peter) porta, furent tirees de celles de la Suede, et il ne fit point de difficulte d’admettre dans les Tribunaux (i.e., colleges) les prisonniers Suedois instruits de la Jurisprudence de leur pays, et qui ayant appris la langue de I’Empire, volurent rester en Russie. The fact that the Swedish colleges had been studied in connection with the Russian collegial reform was made public in Russia, too, at the end of the eighteenth century when, between 1788 and 1797, I. I. Golikov published a multi-volume work on Peter the Great and his regime. This series of volumes consisted, for the most part, of a collection of Petrine archival documents containing a great deal of evidence to the effect that the Russian collegial system had been developed on the basis of Swedish models.-^ Golikov’s work, however, was panegyrical; Peter’s reforms were not subjected to any critical appraisal, but were merely catalogued in order to glorify the memory of the dead tsar. Standing for a long time as the only work on the Petrine period based on extensive archival materials, Golikov’s panegyric became the primary source of documents for Russian historians and publicists interested in the history of Russia during the reign of Peter the Great.-** Critical discussion of the foreign influences on Peter’s reforms was Initiated by Nikolai Karamzin, the historiographer of the realm and Russia’s first major historian. Karamzin brought up the question of Swedish legal influence in Russia during the Petrine period and argued that: Peter the Great loved that which was foreign, but he did not dictate that Swedish laws, for example, should be borrowed without reservation and called Russian, for he knew that the laws of a people must grow out of its own conceptions, customs, practices, and local conditions. In other words, Karamzin’s argument was that while there were indeed foreign influences, and in this case Swedish Influences, on Peter’s reforms, the tsar had been conscious of the fact that models borrowed from abroad had to be adapted to Russian conditions. This became the traditional viewpoint among Russian historians after Karamzin. It was in connection with the emergence of the so-called “state school” {gosudarstvennaia shkola), or legal school, in the middle of the nineteenth Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire, Histoire de Vempire russc sous Pierre Ic Grund (2 v., Amsterdam, 1761—1764), II, 189. I. I. Golikov, Deianiia Petra Velikogo, mudrogo prcobrazitclia Rossii, sobrannykh iz dostovernykh Istochnikov i raspolezhennykh po godam (12 v., Moscow, 1788—1789). Idem, Dopolneniia k deianiiam Petra Velikogo (18 v., Moscow, 1790—1797). -® B. I. Syromiatnikov, "Reguliarnoe” gosudarstvo Petra Pervogo i ego ideologiia (Moscow & Leningrad, 1943), 18, 154. N. M. Karamzin, Zapiska o drevnei i novoi Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1914), 106—107. 30
12 century that Russian historians first interested themselves seriously in the historical development of administrative institutions. Ideologically, the state school was part of Westernism (zapadnichestvo), whose champions, in contrast to those of slavophilism {slavianofiVstvo), asserted Russia’s kinship with Western Europe and promoted closer political and cultural ties with the West.^‘ A fundamental assumption among historians of the state school, and especially among legal historians, was that the historical process is encapsuled in the development of the political structure from the patriarchal clan society to the modern bureaucratic state,^^ With this assumption as their point of departure, these historians mainly devoted their research to the development of Russian administrative structures. Drawing upon Hegel for their philosophy of history, the members of the state school were also influenced by the organic theories of the historical school. The members of the state school published a number of works on adminstrative history, including that of A. D. Gradovskii, who laid the foundation for subsequent research on the Russian period of reform.^^ He carried on the state school’s Westernist ideas and held the contemporary Western European bourgeois state structure as his ideal.^^ According to Gradovskii, the collegial reform was Peter’s own work. The tsar’s goal was to achieve uniformity in the administration and to liquidate the arbitrariness which had characterized personal rule in the old Russia.^^ He noted that the reform of the central administration came only: when the theory of state had been completely worked out or shaped in the mind of the ingenious legislator, that is, when the entire mass of government institutions was prepared to submit to one guiding idea. This had to happen at the time when Peter had renounced the national way of life entirely and, under the Concerning the state school, see K. L. Rubinshtein, Russkaia istoriografiia (Moscow, 1941), 290—312, and Joseph L. Black, “The ‘State-School’ Interpretation of Russian History: A Re-Appraisal of Its Genetic Origins,” Jahrbiicher fiir Geschichte Östeuropas, 21 (1973), 509—530. Black, 510. This work was first published in 1866. I have used A. D. Gradovskii, “Vysshaia administratsiia Rossii XVIII v. i general-prokurory,” in idem, Sobranie sochinenii (9 v., St. Petersburg, 1899—1908), I. Other works on administrative history deserving mention are B. Chicherin, Oblastnye uchrezhdeniia Rossii v XVII veke (Moscow, 1856), I. Diti.atin, Ustroistvo i upravlenie gorodov Rossii. Goroda Rossii v XVIII stoletii (St. Petersburg, 1875), P. N. Mrochek-Drozdovskii, Oblastnoe upravlenie Rossii XVIII V. (Moscow, 1876), and S. Petrovskii, O senate v tsarstvovanie Petra Velikogo (Moscow, 1876). Rubinshtein, 363. Gradovskii, 107. Ibid., no.
13 influence of foreign institutions and the teachings of Leibniz, developed his theory of the centralized mechanism. Gradovskii discussed the question of Swedish influence on Peter’s administrative reforms and claimed that the Russian central administration was reorganized on the model of the Swedish collegial system. That the choice fell on Sweden was, according to Gradovskii, due to the fact that, among other things, Sweden obviously had its consummate administration to thank for its great military successes.'^" Thus, Peter’s decision to introduce the Swedish collegial model was based on practical considerations; if Sweden’s strong position was explained by a well-organized administration, it was entirely consistent that, “if Russia possessed such institutions, then she too would stand in the ranks of the European states.” Gradovskii’s Western sympathies are very apparent from statements such as this. One thing that distinguished historians Influenced by the theories of the state school was their pronounced idealization of the various functions of the government. The state and its organs were neutral institutions acting on the basis of legislation that was both systematic and minutely detailed. The fact that historians of this school were especially interested in Peter the Great is explained by the belief that his reign constituted the beginning of a new period in Russian history. This new period was, in their minds, characterized above all by a detailed legal regulation of the direction and administration of the state, which regulation guaranteed a new “legality” {zakonnost’) in the place of the old Muscovite arbltrariness. In terms of methodology, the legal historians restricted themselves to a detailed description of the outwardly visible legal forms. They were particularly interested in the structure and functions of the various administrative organs, as well as in their areas of competence in relation to other state organs. One important task for these researchers, of course, was to consider the historical origins of the administrative system. The primary source materials for these studies was the great collection of Russian legislative acts, the Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii, which was published in 1830.^** The classic nineteenth-century work on the administrative reforms of Peter the Great is Pavel Miliukov’s book on the Russian state economy and Peter’s reforms during the first quarter of the eighteenth century.'*® "■ Ibid., 86. Ibid., 87. Published in 46 volumes and referred to here as PSZ. Pavel Miliukov, Gosudarstvennoe khoziaistvo Rossii v pervoi chetverti 18-go stoletiia i reforma Petra Velikogo (St. Petersburg, 1892). References here are to the second edition (St. Petersburg, 1905).
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