25 sources, Troitskii placed the Table of Ranks in a broader perspective when he discussed not only the social, economic, and political preconditions for the drawing up of the Table of Ranks, but also its effect on the social composition of the bureaucracy and the nobility during the eighteenth century. Without a doubt, the Table of Ranks was one of the period’s most important legislative acts, and, as Troitskii pointed out, “all of the absolute monarchy’s subsequent legislation concerning the civil service class during the eighteenth century and even later was based on the principle established by the Table of Ranks. According to Troitskii, “together with the standing army and cash taxes,” the administrative apparatus was the primary attribute of the absolutist monarchy, “which gained in it a mighty instrument for the struggle with the particularism of the high-born aristocracy over the further centralization of the state administration.” The absolute monarch ruling on the pretext of the “common good” based his position on the gentry, whose interests contrasted with those of the aristocracy.^”^ The central!- zation of the state apparatus meant that the gentry could break the polldeal influence of the aristocracy in an effective manner, while strengthening its rights to land and to serfs. At the same time, the tsar’s position as an absolute monarch was consolidated, which made him relatively independent in his exercise of power. Troitskii argued that Peter and his colleagues learned from the “experiences” {opyt) of the absolutist states in Western Europe. According to him, this took place because of the political developments of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, when it is possible to observe a clear tendency toward an absolutist regime in Russia similar to those existing in Western Europe.^”' But the Russians remained critical of the foreign models, since Peter was less interested in form than in substance. The main thing was that the reforms were adapted to Russia’s own social, economic, and political conditions.^”® The collegial administrative reforms interested Peter for two reasons in particular; they provided the opportunity to introduce strict control of the administration, which would reduce its arbitrary way of doing business, and they guaranteed more qualified administrative management. ” 103 106 10!) Ibid., 47. Ibid., 3. ">5 Ibid., 27. 'f* Ibid., 6, 114. Ibid., 24. Ibid., 25. Ibid., 30—31.
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