21 in a broader perspective than did any that had been attempted in earlier Russian historical scholarship. Soviet Marxist historical research has attempted to place the Petrine reforms in a holistic perspective of society, which means that the transformation of the political structure, that is, the emergence of the absolute monarchy and the reorganization of the state administrative system, must be explained in its dialectical connection with the social and economic changes in Russian society. A major task has been to explain the class nature of Russian absolutism.®^ The administrative reforms, however, have yet to be the subject of a comprehensive study. Only individual administrative units or legislative acts have been dealt with in the literature. It is safe to say, therefore, that our knowledge of how the administrative system was organized in the initial stages of the reform, which foreign legal sources were used as models, how the initial collegial personnel was recruited, and many other things, has increased very little since Miliukov’s book on the fiscal administration. D. Baburin’s dissertation on the history of the mantifaktHr-kollegiia appeared in 1939.®^ Baburin argued that the administrative reforms were part of the class struggle. The tsar’s position of power was based on the progressive circles within the nobility that “had become conscious of the need for the Petrine reforms in the sphere of governmental reconstruction as a means by which Russia would be able to increase her level of productive strength and become a state of European rank, interest of that class to strengthen Peter’s absolutist regime in order to secure its own political influence. The struggle of the landowning gentry was directed above all against the aristocracy and the church, two institutions more or less openly opposed to the reforms.®^ In this connection, according to Baburin, the administration organized on the collegial principle fulfilled an important function. With its help it was possible to achieve control of segments of the population opposed to the policies being pursued by the government.®® The collegial system, with its systematic and well-regulated organization, was, in this respect, vastly superior to the previous prikaz administration, whose activities were quite chaotic.®® ** There was a lively debate among Soviet historians during the late 1960s and early ’70s concerning the causes of Russian absolutism, the results of which have been summarized by M. A. Rakhmatullin, “K diskussii ob absoliutizme v Rossii,” Istoriia SSSR, no. 4 (1972), 65—88. D. Baburin, Ocherki po istorii Manufaktur-kollegii (Moscow, 1939). Ibid., 45. Ibid., 46. Ibid., loc.cit. Ibid., 49. It was in the ” 83
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