271. “Counter-reformation”
“... The Emperor can arbitrarily change the laws, but before changing or repealing them must obey them himself.”
D. N. Bludov
“The most important thing is to arrange on a solid basis and put into the right attitude towards the highest central government zemstvo and local government, because through them the supreme power can enter into closer ties with the people.”
Senator N.P.Semenov
“The absurdity of urban self-government of Russian cities has long been recognized by the government.”
Alexander III
[credits: A lot of text and quotations are shamelessly borrowed from Е.П. Толмачев «Александр III и его время». Lousy Google translations are being fixed to the best of my abilities but I really could not find the good equivalents for some of the administrative entities: they were in archaic Russian with no obvious modern equivalent. Of course, the dates and circumstances are changed appropriately including dealing with the counter-reformers; on this subject special thanks to
@dunHozzie for helping to generate the idea. 🤗]
Russia late 1860s - early 1870s
Domestic affairs.
Predictably, reforms of the previous reign produced a strong negative reaction from those members of the nobility who (justifiably) considered them as a serious infringement on their class interests. To a certain (and quite noticeable) degree these feelings were coinciding with the personal feelings of AIII himself by a number of reasons:
- As the 1st noble of the Russian Empire he considered himself a protector of the nobility’s interests.
- In his opinion the reforms of his father went too far along the road of decentralizing the government thus weakening the central authority and creating the de facto independent entities which often were going in a completely wrong (in his opinion) direction .
- So far, these newly created institutions had a very questionable balance of the successes and failures.
In addition, the “counter-reform” movement had very eloquent supporters like Pobedonostsev and Katkov, influential publisher of the conservative “Moskovskiye Vedomosti”, who had on his employment a number of the very active journalists skilled in bringing up and blowing out of proportion any noticeable screwup of the “liberal institutions”. This was rather easy both in the cases of Zemstvos, which were as often as not inefficient in performing their assigned duties, and in the new judicial system which was producing numerous showcases of the violent criminals being acquitted based upon the jury “feelings” and the judges and/or prosecutors not performing their duties properly. While being a capable ideologist, as Minister of Justice Pobedonostsev, not being even a mediocre administrator, proved to be completely unsuitable for the position and so far was retaining his post exclusively due to the personal respect AIII felt to his former tutor.
One of the initiators of “counter-reform” trend was the nobility leader of the Alatyr district of Simbirsk province A. D. Pazukhin. "
He was a man of a big mind, but a mind that is too straightforward and therefore prone to illusions. He was sincerely convinced that the order of government of Russia was almost ideal under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, and that we should return to the habits and mores of that time.” His program Pazukhin formulated in the article “The current state of Russia and the class issue”: “
The great evil of reforms of the past reign was expressed in the fact that they cut the class privileges of the nobility. Hence, the task of the present should be to restore the destroyed: it is necessary to reform zemstvo and city institutions and return from the classless pronciple to the class-based one ; then Russia will on the historical road” from which it deviated during the previous reign.
He was given a high profile position the Ministry of Interior and started writing proposals regarding reforming Zemstvo. In March 1878, the project was ready.
It provided for the creation of the institution of
zemstvo chiefs and the reform of the zemstvo. The zemstvo chief appointed by the government had to unite both judicial and administrative power in his person. A new system of elections to zemstvo institutions was proposed, instead of the existing
council - an executive body, a
committee of zemstvo affairs, composed of a local administration with the participation of two members from the zemstvo.
The program proposed by the Minister of Interior, D.A.Tolstoy [1] boiled down to the following:
1) it was envisaged to create administrative bodies of management of peasant affairs;
2) the role of public self-government in zemstvo and city institutions was minimized;
3) the power of the Minister of Internal Affairs "to supervise zemstvo, city and peasant institutions" was strengthened;
4) the elective principle "when filling positions in local government" was limited and replaced by the administrative appointments;
5) role of the nobility in the local governing bodies increased;
6) “insignificant” cases were transferred from the courts to the local administrators.
AIII generally liked the proposal because it was fitting into his set of ideas regarding centralization but it faced a serious opposition in the State Council. Chairman of the Department of Laws Baron A. P. von Nicolay remarked: “
It will not be very difficult to convince the peasant that the new institution is nothing more than an indirect restoration of the serfdom-time police, that the peasant population is again given to the full power of the landlords who seek to restore serfdom.”
Minister of the Imperial Court argued that the project will just further increase complexity of a government by creating instead of one collegial peasant governing entity several independent zemstvo chiefs, with extensive power and not obeying anyone except the governor.
In the State Council (which was not, yet, expanded) majority voted against the project but AIII sided with the minority ordering to create this institution and to transfer to the newly created chiefs the minor cases from the local courts, which was in a violation of the existing law regarding separation of the judicial and executive powers.
It did not take long for this institution to demonstrate itself as a
really lousy idea. To start with, the initial rules regarding selection of the candidates for these positions proved to be impractically high: a 200 hectares of land or other real estate for 7,500 rubles, have higher education, three years of service as a zemstvo mediator, justice of the peace, or a member of the provincial peasant affairs committee. They had been lowered and then lowered even further so the whole system ended up with a majority of the zemstvo chiefs being people absolutely unqualified for any serious administrative position behaving in dictatorial manner toward the peasants, ignoring decisions of the village assemblies, extorting bribes, beating people, etc. The complaints and bad publicity had been piling up but AIII was reluctant to reconsider his decision and the institution remained in existence for quite a few years [2].
The next attack was on the Zemstvo as institution. Not because it was provably inefficient but because it was considered “classless” and elective - a grave sin in Pobedonostsev’s view. He wrote:
“It is necessary to change the current nature of zemstvo institutions, irresponsible, separated from the central administration and given to all random choices.” The initial Pazukhin’s project passed through the number of changes and, in theory, zemstvo remained classless and elective but application of these principles was curtailed and a new elective system was heavily favoring the nobility while the administrative control increased. Alexander signed this document.
In uezd zemstvo councils, the proportion of nobles increased from 55% to 72% compared to the 60s, and in gubernia councils - from 90% to 94%.
Deputies with a right of vote from peasants were now: in uezd zemstvo assemblies - 31% (instead of the previous 37%), in gubernia assemblies - 2% (instead of the previous 7%). The number of voting members from the bourgeoisie decreased from 17% to 14% in uezd zemstvo assemblies and from 11% to 8% in gubernia assemblies. The content of the activities of the Zemstvo councils has not changed. However, all Zemstvo activities related to the rural population had to be coordinated with the zemstvo chiefs.
Zemstvos now being under state control, their status changed to one of the governmental institutions and their chairmen had been getting the official ranks. The competence of the zemstvo continued to be limited to the management of local economic affairs. However, the new provision gave the zemstvos the right to issue binding regulations on the local population on a wider range of issues. This includes precautions against fires, sanitary living conditions of the population, arrangement and maintenance of piers, crossings, transportation, some food supply issues, etc.
The next target were the city councils. It was considered that they have too many representatives of the merchant-manufacturer class and are too independent. After much argument the restrictive property census for the voters had been established and the governors got a right to interfere into their decisions. This was one more stupidity. In capital cities, no more than 0.7% of the population could enjoy the right to participate in elections. In other cities, the number of voters decreased by 5-10 times. Of the 336 urban settlements in 154, the number of voters did not reach 100 people. A broad interpretation of governor's rights created great opportunities for arbitrariness. Especially since the entire leadership - the mayor, his deputy, city secretary, members of the councils - was approved by the governors, and candidates for the posts of mayors of Moscow and St. Petersburg were approved by the emperor.
Now there was a time to deal with the legal system. The counter-reformers demanded its total dismantling and return to the pre-reform system.
The Judicial Statutes had been intensively criticized by the editor of "Moskovskiye Vedomosti" M. H. Katkov and the closest adviser to the tsar, publisher of "Citizen" Prince V. P. Meshchersky. Both of them had been acting as the spokespersons for Pobedonostsev (who actually took an active part in creation of the new judicial system during the reign of AII). The main targets of attacks were the immunity of judges, the principle of their independence and irremovability, the transparency of legal proceedings and the jury. Meshchersky wrote in his diary (which he was reading to AIII):
“
All of Russia has learned with bitter … experience that the jury trial is an outrage and abomination, that the publicity of the court is poison, that the irremovability of judges is absurdity, etc. Meanwhile, what a lack of courage in altering the statutes, what a seemingly wise caution, and in fact what a fear of doing firmly and simply what is needed to fulfill the desire of the whole of Russia and to strengthen the autocracy in the eyes of the judicial department.”
Katkov in his publication widely used expressions "judicial republic", "street court", "anti-government Senate", with which he tried to brand the jury court and the criminal cassation department of the government Senate. And, of course, all these detestable institutions must be dismantled.
Alexander found himself in an ambiguous position. On one hand, as an autocrat he was inclined to agree with at least some of the arguments of the counter-reform clique but, OTOH, just because he was a convinced autocrat, he was not going to tolerate being lectured by his subjects on how the autocracy should look like: he was one and only judge on this. Pobedonostsev was politely removed from his ministerial position to
Ober-Procurator of the Most Holy Synod. Meshchersky was asked to stop preaching and, because this was perhaps the first time when Alexander was openly unhappy with him, he desisted because he had a lot to lose [3].
Katkov was discretely invited to a certain newly-created department of the Ministry of Interior where he was explained that the Imperial Ukaz was granting “
freedom of press but not unbridledness” and that the open disrespect to the most important state institutions, like the Senate, may fell into a category outlined by the law written by the recently retired Minister of Justice and, as such, will end up involving a close familiarity with the judicial branch functioning based on the principles he is so vocally advocating: removable judges, no jury, no transparency and no right to the appeal. As an alternative, he may continue to express his opinions but in a more restrained way and without presuming to instruct the Emperor about his duties. Just as two other persons mentioned above, Katkov was not a fool: even if the outlined perspective looked as something of a low probability, an amount of various unpleasant things of a
high probability that could be done by the government was big enough so he promised to behave and to tame his journalists.
The judicial system survived with one change: Ministry of Justice established a special commission to handle cases of the judicial misconduct and recommend punishments all the way to judge’s dismissal.
At least for a while the counter-reform movement was over. The damage done by it was, fortunately, mostly social with a limited economic impact but it was not negligible and sooner or letter the counter-reforms would have to be undone.
Foreign Affairs.
In the early summer of 1871, Chancellor/Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Gorchakov came with the intention of asking for dismissal from his post. Count Ignatiev (at that time a prominent figure in the Russian diplomacy) convinced him not to do so on the pretext that the charm of the name of the prince would support Russia's authority in the diplomatic world. Naturally, Gorchakov, conceited and not wishing to lose his 40,000 salary, willingly succumbed to these beliefs. According to contemporaries, in the intimate circle of his admirers, he called himself Talleyrand and Metternich, and even sometimes most sincerely imagined himself equal in strength to Bismarck, a gladiator in the arena of diplomats. When Gorchakov told Alexander III that he intends to bear, as long as the forces allow, the burden of managing the ministry, N. P. Ignatiev began to tell the prince almost every day that the situation is terrible, that every day you can expect a new attempt on the life of the sovereign, the beating of all educated people and the destruction of the best parts of Moscow and St. Petersburg Frightened by all this, the Chancellor went abroad again.
Ignatiev’s idea was to keep Girchakov in place until he (Ignatiev) manages to position himself as his successor bypassing Gorchakov’s deputy, N. Girs. Girs knew about this and was desperate. His funds were very scarce, and meanwhile he had to take out his daughters and host the diplomatic corps. For lack of money, of course, it was done extremely modestly. Therefore, the ambassadors, especially the German one - Schweinitz, looked down on him.
After long hesitation, having gone through all the candidates for the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexander III finally entrusted the management of the Foreign Ministry to N. K Girs. The appointment of Girs, a quiet and inexpressive old man in his appearance, as opposed to the brilliant prince-chancellor, surprised the entire titled nobility. To address this issue the official newspaper of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs published an article explaining that from now on the main concentration of the efforts will be on the domestic issues and non-interference into the foreign affairs unless honor of the Russian Empire is involved.
As the head of foreign policy, Geers was an obedient performer of the will of Alexander III, but had his own system of views on the strategy of tsarist diplomacy. He was committed to contacts with European countries and is particularly concerned about cooperation with Germany. According to contemporaries, Geers was distinguished by modesty, kindness, softness, accessibility, polite and affectionate treatment, extraordinary charming courtesy.
Taking into an account that AIII defined his role as “
I am my own Foreign Minister”, Girs’ function was mostly one of a competent secretary which suited him just fine.
There was a rumor that every time he was traveling to Gatchina for the meeting with the emperor, his deputy was going to the Kazan Cathedral to light a candle and pray that the meeting would go well.
____________
[1] As I already commented, there were plenty of members of that family all over the place. And during that time the ministers, especially of the Interior, had been changing in a fast rate. A.K. Tolstoy in his “History of the Russian State…” compared them with the children going on the sledges down the hill. D.A. Tolstoy, who was before this appointment Minister of Education, had very few qualifications except for being a conservative and managed to screw up in both positions.
[2] In OTL it was abolished only after the February Revolution but ITTL its life is going to be shorter. Please remind me to get rid of it within the reign of AIII. 😉
[3] His newspaper was getting every year a generous subsidy from the Ministry of Court and AIII was usually approving his numerous requests for various favors.
