132. Big reforms
“In fact, we have only two options for economic reforms. The first is realistic: aliens arrive and do everything they need for us. The second one is fantastic: we do everything ourselves.”
“The middle class assured the government that it would not arrange a real revolution. In response, the government assured the middle class that it had heard its message and would not arrange real reforms.”
“Since it turned out that reforms in the army were unsuccessful, we need to re-reform the reform, including the uniforms that were deformed during the reform.”
“The great reformer comes not to destroy, but to create by destroying...”
In 1763 Peter II inherited from his grandfather the empire which was in a seemingly good condition politically, economically and militarily which does not mean that there were no
known problems: Emperor Alexey dedicated too much time and resources expanding the Russian Empire, absorbing the new territories and expanding the trade to start major domestic reforms even if such plans had been in work.
Now, with Europe at peace and newly-established trade relations in Asia being seemingly stable and expanding, Peter could start implementing his father’s (and his own) plans for the domestic reforms. They had to start from the top.
The Council of State. The first task of this newly-created entity was to help the emperor "in systematic work on the reform of the formless building of government of the empire."
Members of the State Council were appointed and dismissed by the emperor, they could be any person, regardless of class affiliation, rank, age and education. By position, the members included the ministers. The Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Council of State were appointed annually by the emperor. The powers of the Council of State provided for the consideration of:
- New laws or legislative proposals, as well as changes in laws already adopted;
- Internal management issues that require abolition, restriction, addition or clarification of previous laws;
- Domestic and foreign policy issues in emergency situations;
- Annual estimate of general state receipts and expenses (since 1862 renamed into “state list of income and expenses”);
- Reports of the State Audit Office for the execution of the list of income and expenses ;
- Emergency financial measures, etc.
The Council of State consisted of a general meeting, the State Chancellery, departments and standing committees plus various temporary commissions. All cases were received by the State Council only through the State Chancellery addressed to the Secretary of State who headed it. After determining whether the case was under the jurisdiction of the State Council, the Secretary of State distributed it to the relevant office, which prepared it for hearing in the relevant department of the State Council. Urgent cases by order of the emperor could be immediately transferred to the general meeting of the State Council, but usually the case first passed the relevant department, and then fell into the general meeting. According to the manifesto of January 1, 1764, all adopted laws were to pass through the Council of State, but in fact this rule was not always observed. The decision in the departments and the general meeting was taken by a majority vote, but the decisive word remained with the emperor, who could also approve the opinion of the minority of the State Council, if it was more consistent with his views. The State Council subordinated ministries during the emperor's absence, and in case of a prolonged absence of the emperor in the capital, the decisions of the majority of the general meeting of the State Council would take the force of law.
State Council had the following departments:
- Department of the laws (proposals regarding the administrative and legal reforms)
- Department of the civic and religious affairs (judicial practices, various legal cases, etc.)
- Department of state economy (finances, trade, industry and education)
- Military department (Issues of military legislation; recruitment and armament of the army; creation of central and local institutions of the military department; means to meet its economic needs, etc.)
The Emperor was a chairman of the State Council but he could appoint one of the Council members to this position. The Council of State did not publish laws, but served as an advisory body in their development. Its task is to centralize the legislature, ensure the uniformity of legal norms, and avoid contradictions in laws.
Senate and Synod.
- The Senate was declared the supreme body in the empire, concentrating the highest administrative, judicial and control authorities. He was given the right to make representations about the decrees issued if they contradicted other laws. In practice its functions had been more or less limited to the judicial oversight. It did not include the top ranking imperial officials and had no direct official link to the Emperor.
- The Holy Synod was also changed; its members were the highest spiritual hierarchs - metropolitans and bishops, but the Synod was headed by a civil official with the rank of Prosecutor-General. Representatives of the highest clergy no longer met on their own initiative but were summoned to meetings of the Synod at the choice of the Prosecutor-General whose rights were significantly expanded.
The Ministries.
This was complicated because, while the previous emperor already renamed the original Peter’s Collegiums into the Ministries, they retained most of their initial (dis-)organization. Decisions by a collective vote were not officially abolished and it was up to each specific minister to chose decision-making model which he preferred.
Even worse was financial aspect. In an absence of a
general budget practically every ministry had, besides funds allocated from the Treasury, its own sources of income which it usually did not report so it was close to impossible to figure out the exact spendings of each ministry, their place in the general finances of the empire and a real tax burden upon the population. In addition, each ministry did not consider the state budget mandatory at all and often requested additional funding, while not spending all the money or even moving them from one expense article to another.
The budget was secret and not published anywhere and, not surprisingly, the assumptions were that the financial situation is worse than in a reality.
As a result, one of the most important parts of the ministerial reform was concentration of
all state incomes and expenses in a single ministry responsible for all aspects of the state budget.
Reform created the following ministries [1]:
- Foreign Affairs
- Army
- Navy
- Internal Affairs
- Finances - “Management of state units, which deliver to the government the income necessary for the maintenance of it, and general distribution of all income to different parts of public expenditure”. By the end of each year the minister had to present a general budget for the coming year. The budget had to be published.
- Justice
- Commerce - international and domestic trade, communications and the customs.
- Education - “Is in charge of all scientific societies, academies, universities, all general educational institutions, except for theological, military and those schools that are especially established for the education of young people to a separate part of management.”
- Ministry of the state properties - in charge of state lands and other state property in the Russian Empire.
- Ministry of the Imperial Court - united all parts of the court administration outside the control of the Senate or any other supreme establishment. It was headed by the Minister of the Court, who was under the direct supervision of the sovereign. Having a separate ministry with a clearly defined budget ended the practice of “unrestricted” court expenses.
A single general organizational structure of the central government was established. The ministry was headed by the minister and his comrade (deputy). The minister had an office and a council of minister. The apparatus of the Ministry consisted of several departments divided into sub-departments, which in turn were divided into tables. The strict principle of unity of command was established. The minister obeyed the emperor, being appointed and removed by his choice. The directors of departments reported directly to the minister. Heads of sub-departments reported to the directors of departments. The heads of tables were subordinate to the heads of sub-departments.
More about finances (just because of their critical importance). During the reign of Alexey the tax burden had been gradually shifting from the Petrian poll tax toward the indirect taxes because it was simply impossible to keep increasing the poll tax. As of 1762, indirect taxes already give 61.6% of income, and direct taxes - 38.4% (under Peter, the ratio was inverse - 24.9% and 55.5%). 73% of all expenses are military, 10% - expenses for the court, and 16% - for the rest of public administration.
In order to eradicate corruption, the government decided to replace previously used “otkup” (tax farming) with excise stamps for alcohol and tobacco. The wine otkup, the proceeds from which traditionally formed the lion's share of the budget, was canceled. From now on, excise stamps could be obtained in special excise departments.
Strict accounting of the state budget put the economy on a new path of development, corruption decreased, the treasury was spent on important items and activities, officials became more responsible for the disposal of money.
Education. In 1765, a new regulation on the structure of educational institutions was issued, which introduced new principles to the education system: the classlessness of educational institutions, free education at its lower levels, continuity of educational programs.
Levels of the education system: in the largest cities - a university, in each provincial city - a gymnasium, in counties - schools, in church parishes - one-class schools. The entire education system was managed by the General Directorate of Schools.
The universities had been open in Moscow
St. Petersburg
Kharkov
Kazan
Kiev
Tomsk
and Saratov
Peasant reform.
This part was the trickiest one because there were too many contradicting interests involved and no clear answers so the new government had to thread its way cautiously. As the first step, Peter II formalized already existing practice but officially forbidding grants of the state-owned lands
with the peasants.
- The decree of December 12, 1764 granted the right to buy land by merchants, burghers, state and specific peasants outside the cities (landlord peasants will receive this right only in 1768 and only in the name of the landlord).
- The "Decree on Free Farmers" of February 20, 1765 provided the theoretical possibility of liberating peasants with land for ransom (with the consent of the landlord). This decree proved to be quite inefficient because the action fully depended upon landlord’s good will.
- There was a stubborn opposition to a decree forbidding selling the serfs without land and the struggle ended by a compromise: only so-called “kholops” (domestic servants who did not work on land) could be sold without a land but not separately from their families.
- The decree of 1766 abolished the right of landlords to exile their peasants to Siberia for unimportant offenses. If a peasant once received his freedom, he could not be again turned into a serf. A person returning from a captivity or from abroad, as well as a recruited soldier were released from a serfdom. The landlord was ordered to feed the peasants in the hungry years. With the permission of the landlord, peasants could trade, take bills of exchange, and engage in business contracts.
- Without unnecessary fanfare a long term program of gradual purchase of the “peasants’ land” (with the serfs) from the estate owners had been adopted. It was based upon the already existing reality of the landlords pawning his estates in the state-owned bank and expected to take at least 60 years.
Elsewhere:
- With all these activities going on, plus (one more) massive military reform, there was simply no time to push the “Polish Issue” to its logical conclusion and situation in the PLC was permitted to keep going down the tubes on its own. For a while.
- Russian-Japanese trade was developing unexpectedly well, to a noticeable degree thanks to the rigid VOC policies. The main Dutch import item to Japan, Chinese silk, had to be brought from Canton all the way to Batavia on Java, unloaded, stored until there was a time for one of two ships allowed to sail to Nagasaki annually, loaded and sailed to Japan. Russian ships had not annual limitations and could carry silk either directly from Canton to Nagasaki or Shimoda (much closer to Edo than Nagasaki) or to transport the Chinese silk from Kjakhta to Nikolaevsk-on-Amur (or directly from it) and from it to Hakodate. Other than that, the nomenclature was much wider than in the Dutch trade. Russia was selling furs, leather, iron, timber, seaweed, fish and buying porcelain, rice, salt, vegetables and other consumption items which still were expensive on the Russian Pacific coast. Annually, Hakodate was visited by up to 70 Russian ships [3].
- Land and naval trade with China had been going well and there were even tentative discussions regarding opening one more border trade point at Nikolaevsk-on-Amur or somewhere nearby. In a meantime the trade already was going on unofficially.
- There was still an issue of the Turkmen piracy on the Caspian Sea, which was noticeably hurting Russian-Persian trade. To deal with this evil a serious (re-)establishing of the Caspian flotilla had been initiated (the old one, established by Peter, went to rot long ago) and the planning of expedition against Geok Tepe (the main remaining refuge of the land-based looters) started. Preparation to this land operation would take a lot of time due to the extremely difficult logistics.
- Population of the Russian Far East was steadily growing and so was the size of the Siberian Flotilla.
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[1] The list includes the ministries created in OTL by AI and NI plus some structural reforms which had been done by AII (like published budget).
[2] This is a straightforward translation of the Russian term “стол”. Perhaps “desk” or some other term would be better. Anyway, this was a lowest administrative entity routinely headed by a middle-rank official (надворный советник).
[3] Of course, this is a pure fantasy: in 1858 Hakodate was visited by 70 British ships and 7 Russian. 😢