302 In summary, then, the argument set out above has shown that it was not, as Miliukov and Bogoslovskii claimed, the costs to the state treasury required by the Swedish administrative techniques that constituted the decisive obstacle to their successful adoption in Russia. Instead, the minimal amount of success experienced by the administrative system based on Swedish models must be explained by the absence in Russia of both the cameral system and the social structure which constituted the prerequisites for the Swedish system. Instead of creating a rational and efficient administration, then, the reform led to even greater disorder in the Russian administration. The positions in the colleges and in the local administrative organs were filled by men who not only lacked, for subjective reasons, the ability and, in particular, adequate education, to perform the tasks assigned them, but who were above all prevented from establishing the administrative routines expected of them because of the objective conditions outlined above. The Petrine administrative system’s proven ineffectiveness constituted the primary argument for its being dismantled by the Supreme Privy Council. According to the opinions which won the day in that body, the administration’s inefficiency was caused partly because of the fact that the staff was much too large (there were too many officials who did not fulfill any useful function), and partly because the officials were paid too little, which led those who were qualified for administrative tasks to choose instead the military career, which provided higher pay and higher social status. Duke Karl Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp stated in the Supreme Privy Council that: the military budget cannot exist without the civil (one), and for the latter are needed educated, clever, and honest people; one can make a good non-commissioned officer in a short time, but a clerk, and even less a secretary, cannot be created so quickly. They must invest a great deal of money in their training, and people will never begin to devote themselves to civil service as long as they are given such a poor livelihood. From this follows something else; namely that all civil positions will in future be left in the hands of dull individuals and thieves. .320 Ill connection with this, attention was also paid to the costs of the administration, which appeared to be much too high in relation to its level of efficiency. The solution to the problem, therefore, was found in a reduction of the size of the administrative staff and and elimination of specialized positions which were included in the Swedish administrative structure, but which had lost their functions in the context of Russian conditions. SI RIO, LV, 189.
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