by Riazanovsky
offered his troops for that purpose, but the suggestion was speedily rejected by Castlereagh and Metternich. He also proposed, and again unsuccessfully, disarmament.
The Second Half of Alexander's Reign
While "the emperor of Europe" attended international meetings and occupied himself with the affairs of foreign countries, events in Russia took a turn for the worse. The second half of Alexander's reign, that is, the period after 1812, saw virtually no progressive legislation and few plans in that direction; Novosiltsev's constitutional project formed a notable exception. In Poland the constitutional regime, impressive on paper, did not function well, largely because Alexander I proved to be a poor constitutional monarch because he quickly became irritated by criticism or opposition and repeatedly disregarded the law. Serfs were emancipated in the Baltic provinces, but, because they were freed without land, the change turned out to be a doubtful blessing for them. Serfdom remained undiminished and unchallenged in Russia proper, although apparently to the last the sovereign considered emancipating the serfs.
While Speransky was Alexander I's outstanding assistant in the first half of the reign, General Alexis Arakcheev came to occupy that position in the second half - and the difference between the two men tells us much about the course of Russian history in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Arakcheev, once a faithful servant of Emperor Paul and a distinguished specialist in artillery and military matters in general, was brutal, rude, and a martinet of the worst sort. He became Alexander's minister of war and eventually prime minister, without the title, reporting to the sovereign on almost everything of importance in the internal affairs of Russia and entrusted with every kind of responsibility. Yet the rather common image of the evil genius Arakcheev imposing his will on the emperor badly distorts the relationship. In fact, it was precisely the general's unquestioning and prompt execution of Alexander's orders that made him indispensable to the monarch, who was increasingly peremptory and at the same time had lost interest in the complexities of home affairs.
Although Arakcheev left his imprint on many aspects of Russian life during the second half of the reign, his name came to be connected especially with the so-called "military settlements." That project apparently originated with Alexander, but it was executed by Arakcheev. The basic idea of military settlements was suggested perhaps by Turkish practices, a book by a French general, or the wonderful precision and order which reigned on Arakcheev's estates - where, among other regulations, every married woman was commanded to bear a child every year - and it had the appeal of simplicity. The idea was to combine military service with farming and thus reduce drastically the cost of the army and enable its
men to lead a normal family life. Indeed, in one of their aspects the military settlements could be considered among the emperor's humanitarian endeavors. The reform began in 1810, was interrupted by war, and attained its greatest impetus and scope between 1816 and 1821, with about one-third of the peacetime Russian army established in military settlements. Troubles and uprisings in the settlements, however, checked their growth. After the rebellion of 1831 Nicholas I turned definitely against the reform, but the last settlements were abolished only much later. Alexander I's and Arakcheev's scheme failed principally because of the extreme regimentation and minute despotism that it entailed, which became unbearable and resulted in revolts and most cruel punishments. In addition - as Pipes has forcefully pointed out - Russian soldiers proved to be very poor material for this venture in state direction and paternalism, resenting even useful sanitary regulations. Arakcheev himself, it may be noted, lost his position with the accession of a new ruler.
Until 1824 two important areas of Russian life, religion and education, remained outside Arakcheev's reach because they formed the domain of another favorite of Alexander's later years, Prince Alexander Golitsyn. Very different from the brutal general, that aristocrat, philanthropist, and president of the important Bible Society in Russia nevertheless had disastrous effects on his country. Like the emperor, Golitsyn was affected by certain mystical and pietistic currents then widespread in Europe - the favorite's eventual fall resulted from allegations of insufficient Orthodoxy. He believed that the Bible contained all essential knowledge and distrusted other kinds of education. It was during Golitsyn's service as minister of education that extreme, aggressive obscurantists, such as Michael Magnitsky and Dmitrii Runich, purged several universities. Magnitsky in particular made of the University of Kazan a peculiar kind of monastic barracks: he purged the faculty and the library of the pernicious influences of the Age of Reason; flooded the university with Bibles; instituted a most severe discipline among the students, with such support as mutual spying and compulsory attendance at religious services; and proclaimed a double system of chronology, the one already in use and a new one dating from the reformation of the university. Magnitsky's fall swiftly followed the change of rulers, for in a secret report he had accused Emperor Nicholas, then a grand duke, of free thinking!
The Decembrist Movement and Rebellion
Disappointment with the course of Alexander I's reign played an important role in the emergence of the first Russian revolutionary group, which came to be known after its unsuccessful uprising in December 1825 as the Decembrists. Most of the Decembrists were army officers, often from
aristocratic families and elite regiments, who had received a good education, learned French and sometimes other foreign languages, and obtained a first-hand knowledge of the West during and immediately after the campaigns against Napoleon. Essentially the Decembrists were liberals in the tradition of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution; they wanted to establish constitutionalism and basic freedoms in Russia, and to abolish serfdom. More specifically, the Decembrist plans ranged from those of Nikita Muraviev, who advocated a rather conservative constitutional monarchy, to those of Colonel Paul Pestel, the author of the Russian Justice, who favored a strongly centralized republic along Jacobin lines as well as a peculiar land reform program that would divide land into a public and a private sector and guarantee every citizen his allotment within the public sector. While the Decembrists - "our lords who wanted to become shoemakers," to quote Rostopchin's ironical remark - included some of the most gifted and prominent Russian youth, and while they enjoyed the sympathy of many educated Russians, including such literary luminaries as Pushkin and Griboedov, they had little social backing for their rebellion. That the standard of liberalism had to be carried in the Russia of Alexander I by aristocratic officers of the guard demonstrates well the weakness of the movement and above all the feebleness and backwardness of the Russian middle class. Russian liberalism in the early nineteenth century resembled Spanish liberalism, not English or French.
At first the liberals who later became Decembrists were eager to cooperate with the government on the road of progress, and their early societies, the Union of Salvation founded in 1816 and the Union of Welfare which replaced it, were concerned with such issues as the development of philanthropy, education, and the civic spirit in Russia rather than with military rebellion. Only gradually, as reaction grew and hopes for a liberal transformation from above faded away, did the more stubborn liberals begin to think seriously of change by force and to talk of revolution and regicide. The movement acquired two centers, St. Petersburg in the north and Tulchin, the headquarters of the Second Army in southern Russia. The northern group lacked leadership and accomplished little. In the south, by contrast, Pestel acted with intelligence and determination. The Southern Society grew in numbers, developed its organization, discovered and incorporated the Society of the United Slavs, and established contacts with a Polish revolutionary group. The United Slavs, who pursued aims vaguely similar to those of the Decembrists and had the additional goal of a democratic federation of all Slavic peoples, and who accepted the Decembrist leadership, consisted in particular of poor army officers, more democratic and closer to the soldiers than were the aristocrats from the guard. Yet, when the hour of rebellion s
uddenly arrived, the
Southern Society, handicapped by Pestel's arrest, proved to be little better prepared than the Northern.
Alexander I's unexpected death in southern Russia in December 1825 led to a dynastic crisis, which the Decembrists utilized to make their bid for power. The deceased emperor had no sons or grandsons; therefore Grand Duke Constantine, his oldest brother, was his logical successor. But the heir presumptive had married a Polish aristocrat not of royal blood in 1820, and, in connection with the marriage, had renounced his rights to the throne. Nicholas, the third brother, was thus to become the next ruler of Russia, the entire matter having been stated clearly in 1822 in a special manifesto confirmed by Alexander I's signature. The manifesto, however, had remained unpublished, and only a few people had received exact information about it; even the two grand dukes were ignorant of its content. Following Alexander I's death, Constantine and the Polish kingdom where he was commander-in-chief swore allegiance to Nicholas, but Nicholas, the Russian capital, and the Russian army swore allegiance to Constantine. Constantine acted with perfect consistency. Nicholas, however, even after reading Alexander I's manifesto, also felt impelled to behave as he did: Alexander I's decision could be challenged as contrary to Paul's law of succession and also for remaining unpublished during the emperor's own reign, and Nicholas was under pressure to step aside in favor of his elder brother, who was generally expected to follow Alexander I on the throne. Only after Constantine's uncompromising reaffirmation of his position, and a resulting lapse of time, did Nicholas decide to publish Alexander's manifesto and become emperor of Russia. The entire labyrinthine entanglement of succession has been examined yet again very recently by Academician A. N. Sakharov with some surprising results, such as the involvement of Empress Mother Mary, who wanted power herself.
On December 26, 1825 - December 14, Old Style - when the guard regiments in St. Petersburg were to swear allegiance for the second time within a short while, this time to Nicholas, the Northern Society of the Decembrists staged its rebellion. Realizing that they had a unique chance to act, the conspiring officers used their influence with the soldiers to start a mutiny in several units by entreating them to defend the rightful interests of Constantine against his usurping brother. Altogether about three thousand misled rebels came in military formation to Senate Square in the heart of the capital. Although the government was caught unprepared, the mutineers were soon faced by troops several times their number and strength. The two forces stood opposite each other for several hours. The Decembrists failed to act because of their general confusion and lack of leadership; the new emperor hesitated to start his reign with a massacre of his subjects, hoping that they could be talked into submission.
But, as verbal inducements failed and dusk began to gather on the afternoon of that northern winter day, artillery was brought into action. Several canister shots dispersed the rebels, killing sixty or seventy of them. Large-scale arrests followed. In the south too an uprising was easily suppressed. Eventually five Decembrist leaders, including Pestel and the firebrand of the Northern Society, the poet Conrad Ryleev, were executed, while almost three hundred other participants suffered lesser punishment. Nicholas I was firmly in the saddle.
XXVI
THE REIGN OF NICHOLAS I, 1825-55
Here [in the army] there is order, there is a strict unconditional legality, no impertinent claims to know all the answers, no contradiction, all things flow logically one from the other; no one commands before he has himself learned to obey; no one steps in front of anyone else without lawful reason; everything is subordinated to one definite goal, everything has its purpose. That is why I feel so well among these people, and why I shall always hold in honor the calling of a soldier. I consider the entire human life to be merely service, because everybody serves.
NICHOLAS I
The most consistent of autocrats.
SCHIEMANN
As man and ruler Nicholas I had little in common with his brother Alexander I. By contrast with his predecessor's psychological paradoxes, ambivalence, and vacillation, the new sovereign displayed determination, singleness of purpose, and an iron will. He also possessed an overwhelming sense of duty and a great capacity for work. In character, and even in his striking and powerful appearance, Nicholas I seemed to be the perfect despot. Appropriately, he always remained an army man, a junior officer at heart, devoted to his troops, to military exercises, to the parade ground, down to the last button on a soldier's uniform - in fact, as emperor he ordered alterations of the uniforms, even changing the number of buttons. And in the same spirit, the autocrat insisted on arranging and ordering minutely and precisely everything around him. Engineering, especially the construction of defenses, was Nicholas's other enduring passion. Even as a child "whenever he built a summer house, for his nurse or his governess, out of chairs, earth, or toys, he never forgot to fortify it with guns - for protection." Later, specializing in fortresses, he became head of the army corps of engineers and thus the chief military engineer of his country, perhaps his most important assignment during the reign of his brother; still later, as emperor, he staked all on making the entire land an impregnable fortress.
Nicholas's views fitted his personality to perfection. Born in 1796 and nineteen years younger than Alexander, the new ruler was brought up, not in the atmosphere of the late Enlightenment like his brother, but in that of wars against Napoleon and of reaction. Moreover, Nicholas married a Prussian princess and established particularly close ties with his wife's
family, including his father-in-law King Frederick William III and his brother-in-law King Frederick William IV who ruled Prussia in succession. The Russian wing of European reaction, represented by Nicholas I and his government, found its ideological expression in the doctrine of so-called "Official Nationality," Formally proclaimed in 1833 by Count Serge Uvarov, the tsar's minister of education, Official Nationality contained three principles: Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality. Autocracy meant the affirmation and maintenance of the absolute power of the sovereign, which was considered the indispensable foundation of the Russian state. Orthodoxy referred to the official Church and its important role in Russia, but also to the ultimate source of ethics and ideals that gave meaning to human life and society. Nationality - narodnost in Russian - referred to the particular nature of the Russian people, which, so the official doctrine asserted, made the people a mighty and dedicated supporter of its dynasty and government. However, with some proponents of Official Nationality, especially professors and writers such as Michael Pogodin and Stephen Shevyrev, nationality acquired far-reaching romantic connotations. In particular, the concept for them embraced a longing for a great future for Russia and Slavdom. In sum, in contrast to Alexander I who never entirely gave up his dreams of change, Nicholas I was determined to defend the existing order in his fatherland, and especially to defend autocracy.
Nicholas's "System"
The Decembrist rebellion at the beginning of Nicholas I's reign only hardened the new emperor's basic views as well as his determination to fight revolution to the end. No doubt it also contributed to the emperor's mistrust of the gentry, and indeed of independence and initiative on the part of any of his subjects. Characteristically, Nicholas I showed minute personal interest in the arrest, investigation, trial, and punishment of the Decembrists, and this preoccupation with the dangers of subversion remained with him throughout his reign. The new regime became preeminently one of militarism and bureaucracy. The emperor surrounded himself with military men to the extent that in the later part of his reign there were almost no civilians among his immediate assistants. Also, he relied heavily on special emissaries, most of them generals of his suite, who were sent all over Russia on particular assignments, to execute immediately the will of the sovereign. Operating outside the regular administrative system, they represented an extension, so to speak, of the monarch's own person. In fact, the entire machinery of government came to be permeated by the military spirit of di
rect orders, absolute obedience, and precision, at least as far as official reports and appearances were concerned. Corrup-
tion and confusion, however, lay immediately behind this facade of discipline and smooth functioning.
In his conduct of state affairs Nicholas I often bypassed regular channels, and he generally resented formal deliberation, consultation, or other procedural delay. The importance of the Committee of Ministers, the State Council, and the Senate decreased in the course of his reign. Instead of making full use of them, the emperor depended more and more on special bureaucratic devices meant to carry out his intentions promptly while remaining under his immediate and complete control. As one favorite method, Nicholas I made extensive use of ad hoc committees standing outside the usual state machinery. The committees were usually composed of a handful of the most trusted assistants of the emperor, and, because these were very few in number, the same men in different combinations formed these committees throughout Nicholas's reign. As a rule, the committees carried on their work in secret, adding further complication and confusion to the already cumbersome administration of the empire.
The first, and in many ways the most significant, of Nicholas's committees was that established on December 6, 1826, and lasting until 1832. Count Kochubey served as its chairman, and the committee contained five other leading statesmen of the period. In contrast to the restricted assignments of later committees, the Committee of the Sixth of December had to examine the state papers and projects left by Alexander, to reconsider virtually all major aspects of government and social organization in Russia, and to propose improvements. The painstaking work of this select group of officials led to negligible results: entirely conservative in outlook, the committee directed its effort toward hair-splitting distinctions and minor, at times merely verbal, modifications; and it drastically qualified virtually every suggested change. Even its innocuous "law concerning the estates" that received imperial approval was shelved after criticism by Grand Duke Constantine. This laborious futility became the characteristic pattern of most of the subsequent committees during the reign of Nicholas I, in spite of the fact that the emperor himself often took an active part in their proceedings. The failure of one committee to perform its task merely led to the formation of another. For example, some nine committees in the reign of Nicholas tried to deal with the issue of serfdom.