THE IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION AND THE OFFICIALS
The Officials in Norgorod Assist Me in My Studies--The Modern Imperial
Administration Created by Peter the Great, and Developed by his
Successors--A Slavophil's View of the Administration--The Administration
Briefly Described--The Tchinovniks, or Officials--Official Titles, and
Their Real Significance--What the Administration Has Done for Russia in
the Past--Its Character Determined by the Peculiar Relation between
the Government and the People--Its Radical Vices--Bureaucratic
Remedies--Complicated Formal Procedure--The Gendarmerie: My Personal
Relations with this Branch of the Administration; Arrest and Release--A
Strong, Healthy Public Opinion the Only Effectual Remedy for Bad
Administration.
My administrative studies were begun in Novgorod. One of my reasons for
spending a winter in that provincial capital was that I might study the
provincial administration, and as soon as I had made the acquaintance of
the leading officials I explained to them the object I had in view. With
the kindly bonhomie which distinguishes the Russian educated classes,
they all volunteered to give me every assistance in their power, but
some of them, on mature reflection, evidently saw reason to check their
first generous impulse. Among these was the Vice-Governor, a gentleman
of German origin, and therefore more inclined to be pedantic than a
genuine Russian. When I called on him one evening and reminded him of
his friendly offer, I found to my surprise that he had in the meantime
changed his mind. Instead of answering my first simple inquiry, he
stared at me fixedly, as if for the purpose of detecting some covert,
malicious design, and then, putting on an air of official dignity,
informed me that as I had not been authorised by the Minister to make
these investigations, he could not assist me, and would certainly not
allow me to examine the archives.
This was not encouraging, but it did not prevent me from applying to the
Governor, and I found him a man of a very different stamp. Delighted to
meet a foreigner who seemed anxious to study seriously in an unbiassed
frame of mind the institutions of his much-maligned native country, he
willingly explained to me the mechanism of the administration which he
directed and controlled, and kindly placed at my disposal the books and
documents in which I could find the historical and practical information
which I required.
This friendly attitude of his Excellency towards me soon became
generally known in the town, and from that moment my difficulties were
at an end. The minor officials no longer hesitated to initiate me into
the mysteries of their respective departments, and at last even the
Vice-Governor threw off his reserve and followed the example of his
colleagues. The elementary information thus acquired I had afterwards
abundant opportunities of completing by observation and study in other
parts of the Empire, and I now propose to communicate to the reader a
few of the more general results.
The gigantic administrative machine which holds together all the various
parts of the vast Empire has been gradually created by successive
generations, but we may say roughly that it was first designed and
constructed by Peter the Great. Before his time the country was governed
in a rude, primitive fashion. The Grand Princes of Moscow, in subduing
their rivals and annexing the surrounding principalities, merely cleared
the ground for a great homogeneous State. Wily, practical politicians,
rather than statesmen of the doctrinaire type, they never dreamed of
introducing uniformity and symmetry into the administration as a whole.
They developed the ancient institutions so far as these were useful and
consistent with the exercise of autocratic power, and made only such
alterations as practical necessity demanded. And these necessary
alterations were more frequently local than general. Special decisions,
instruction to particular officials, and charters for particular
communes of proprietors were much more common than general legislative
measures.
In short, the old Muscovite Tsars practised a hand-to-mouth policy,
destroying whatever caused temporary inconvenience, and giving little
heed to what did not force itself upon their attention. Hence,
under their rule the administration presented not only territorial
peculiarities, but also an ill-assorted combination of different systems
in the same district--a conglomeration of institutions belonging to
different epochs, like a fleet composed of triremes, three-deckers, and
iron-clads.
This irregular system, or rather want of system, seemed highly
unsatisfactory to the logical mind of Peter the Great, and he conceived
the grand design of sweeping it away, and putting in its place a
symmetrical bureaucratic machine. It is scarcely necessary to say
that this magnificent project, so foreign to the traditional ideas and
customs of the people, was not easily realised. Imagine a man, without
technical knowledge, without skilled workmen, without good tools, and
with no better material than soft, crumbling sandstone, endeavouring
to build a palace on a marsh! The undertaking would seem to reasonable
minds utterly absurd, and yet it must be admitted that Peter's project
was scarcely more feasible. He had neither technical knowledge, nor the
requisite materials, nor a firm foundation to build on. With his usual
Titanic energy he demolished the old structure, but his attempts to
construct were little more than a series of failures. In his numerous
ukazes he has left us a graphic description of his efforts, and it is
at once instructive and pathetic to watch the great worker toiling
indefatigably at his self-imposed task. His instruments are constantly
breaking in his hands. The foundations of the building are continually
giving way, and the lower tiers crumbling under the superincumbent
weight. Now and then a whole section is found to be unsuitable, and is
ruthlessly pulled down, or falls of its own accord. And yet the builder
toils on, with a perseverance and an energy of purpose that compel
admiration, frankly confessing his mistakes and failures, and
patiently seeking the means of remedying them, never allowing a word of
despondency to escape him, and never despairing of ultimate success. And
at length death comes, and the mighty builder is snatched away suddenly
in the midst of his unfinished labours, bequeathing to his successors
the task of carrying on the great work.
None of these successors possessed Peter's genius and energy--with the
exception perhaps of Catherine II.--but they were all compelled by
the force of circumstances to adopt his plans. A return to the old
rough-and-ready rule of the local Voyevods was impossible. As the
Autocratic Power became more and more imbued with Western ideas, it
felt more and more the need of new means for carrying them out, and
accordingly it strove to systematise and centralise the administration.
In this change we may perceive a certain analogy with the history of the
French administration from the reign of Philippe le Bel to that of
Louis XIV. In both countries we see the central power bringing the local
administrative organs more and more under its control, till at last it
succeeds in creating a thoroughly centralised bureaucratic organisation.
But under this superficial resemblance lie profound differences. The
French kings had to struggle with provincial sovereignties and feudal
rights, and when they had annihilated this opposition they easily found
materials with which to build up the bureaucratic structure. The Russian
sovereigns, on the contrary, met with no such opposition, but they
had great difficulty in finding bureaucratic material amongst their
uneducated, undisciplined subjects, notwithstanding the numerous schools
and colleges which were founded and maintained simply for the purpose of
preparing men for the public service.
The administration was thus brought much nearer to the West-European
ideal, but some people have grave doubts as to whether it became thereby
better adapted to the practical wants of the people for whom it was
created. On this point a well-known Slavophil once made to me some
remarks which are worthy of being recorded. "You have observed," he
said, "that till very recently there was in Russia an enormous amount
of official peculation, extortion, and misgovernment of every kind, that
the courts of law were dens of iniquity, that the people often committed
perjury, and much more of the same sort, and it must be admitted that
all this has not yet entirely disappeared. But what does it prove? That
the Russian people are morally inferior to the German? Not at all. It
simply proves that the German system of administration, which was forced
upon them without their consent, was utterly unsuited to their nature.
If a young growing boy be compelled to wear very tight boots, he will
probably burst them, and the ugly rents will doubtless produce an
unfavourable impression on the passers-by; but surely it is better that
the boots should burst than that the feet should be deformed. Now, the
Russian people was compelled to put on not only tight boots, but also
a tight jacket, and, being young and vigorous, it burst them.
Narrow-minded, pedantic Germans can neither understand nor provide for
the wants of the broad Slavonic nature."
In its present form the Russian administration seems at first sight a
very imposing edifice. At the top of the pyramid stands the Emperor,
"the autocratic monarch," as Peter the Great described him, "who has
to give an account of his acts to no one on earth, but has power
and authority to rule his States and lands as a Christian sovereign
according to his own will and judgment." Immediately below the Emperor
we see the Council of State, the Committee of Ministers, and the Senate,
which represent respectively the legislative, the administrative, and
the judicial power. An Englishman glancing over the first volume of the
great Code of Laws might imagine that the Council of State is a kind of
Parliament, and the Committee of Ministers a cabinet in our sense of the
term, but in reality both institutions are simply incarnations of the
Autocratic Power. Though the Council is entrusted by law with many
important functions--such as discussing Bills, criticising the annual
budget, declaring war and concluding peace--it has merely a consultative
character, and the Emperor is not in any way bound by its decisions.
The Committee is not at all a cabinet as we understand the word. The
Ministers are directly and individually responsible to the Emperor, and
therefore the Committee has no common responsibility or other cohesive
force. As to the Senate, it has descended from its high estate. It
was originally entrusted with the supreme power during the absence or
minority of the monarch, and was intended to exercise a controlling
influence in all sections of the administration, but now its activity
is restricted to judicial matters, and it is little more than a supreme
court of appeal.
Immediately below these three institutions stand the Ministries, ten in
number. They are the central points in which converge the various kinds
of territorial administration, and from which radiates the Imperial will
all over the Empire.
For the purpose of territorial administration Russia proper--that is to
say, European Russia, exclusive of Poland, the Baltic Provinces, Finland
and the Caucasus--is divided into forty-nine provinces or "Governments"
(gubernii), and each Government is subdivided into Districts (uyezdi).
The average area of a province is about the size of Portugal, but some
are as small as Belgium, whilst one at least is twenty-five times as
big. The population, however, does not correspond to the amount of
territory. In the largest province, that of Archangel, there are only
about 350,000 inhabitants, whilst in two of the smaller ones there are
over three millions. The districts likewise vary greatly in size. Some
are smaller than Oxfordshire or Buckingham, and others are bigger than
the whole of the United Kingdom.
Over each province is placed a Governor, who is assisted in his duties
by a Vice-Governor and a small council. According to the legislation
of Catherine II., which still appears in the Code and has only
been partially repealed, the Governor is termed "the steward of the
province," and is entrusted with so many and such delicate duties, that
in order to obtain qualified men for the post it would be necessary to
realise the great Empress's design of creating, by education, "a new
race of people." Down to the time of the Crimean War the Governors
understood the term "stewards" in a very literal sense, and ruled in
a most arbitrary, high-handed style, often exercising an important
influence on the civil and criminal tribunals. These extensive and
vaguely defined powers have now been very much curtailed, partly by
positive legislation, and partly by increased publicity and improved
means of communication. All judicial matters have been placed
theoretically beyond the Governor's control, and many of his former
functions are now fulfilled by the Zemstvo--the new organ of local
self-government. Besides this, all ordinary current affairs are
regulated by an already big and ever-growing body of instructions, in
the form of Imperial orders and ministerial circulars, and as soon as
anything not provided for by the instructions happens to occur, the
minister is consulted through the post-office or by telegraph.
Even within the sphere of their lawful authority the Governors have now
a certain respect for public opinion and occasionally a very wholesome
dread of casual newspaper correspondents. Thus the men who were formerly
described by the satirists as "little satraps" have sunk to the level
of subordinate officials. I can confidently say that many (I believe the
majority) of them are honest, upright men, who are perhaps not endowed
with any unusual administrative capacities, but who perform their duties
faithfully according to their lights. If any representatives of the old
"satraps" still exist, they must be sought for in the outlying Asiatic
provinces.
Independent of the Governor, who is the local representative of the
Ministry of the Interior, are a number of resident officials, who
represent the other ministries, and each of them has a bureau, with the
requisite number of assistants, secretaries, and scribes.
To keep this vast and complex bureaucratic machine in motion it is
necessary to have a large and well-drilled army of officials. These are
drawn chiefly from the ranks of the Noblesse and the clergy, and form
a peculiar social class called Tchinovniks, or men with Tchins. As the
Tchin plays an important part in Russia, not only in the official world,
but also to some extent in social life, it may be well to explain its
significance.
All offices, civil and military, are, according to a scheme invented
by Peter the Great, arranged in fourteen classes or ranks, and to each
class or rank a particular name is attached. As promotion is supposed
to be given according to personal merit, a man who enters the public
service for the first time must, whatever be his social position, begin
in the lower ranks, and work his way upwards. Educational certificates
may exempt him from the necessity of passing through the lowest classes,
and the Imperial will may disregard the restrictions laid down by
law; but as general rule a man must begin at or near the bottom of the
official ladder, and he must remain on each step a certain specified
time. The step on which he is for the moment standing, or, in other
words, the official rank or tchin which he possesses determines what
offices he is competent to hold. Thus rank or tchin is a necessary
condition for receiving an appointment, but it does not designate any
actual office, and the names of the different ranks are extremely apt to
mislead a foreigner.
We must always bear this in mind when we meet with those imposing titles
which Russian tourists sometimes put on their visiting cards, such as
"Conseiller de Cour," "Conseiller d'Etat," "Conseiller prive de S. M.
l'Empereur de toutes les Russies." It would be uncharitable to suppose
that these titles are used with the intention of misleading, but that
they do sometimes mislead there cannot be the least doubt. I shall never
forget the look of intense disgust which I once saw on the face of
an American who had invited to dinner a "Conseiller de Cour," on the
assumption that he would have a Court dignitary as his guest, and
who casually discovered that the personage in question was simply an
insignificant official in one of the public offices. No doubt other
people have had similar experiences. The unwary foreigner who has heard
that there is in Russia a very important institution called the "Conseil
d'Etat," naturally supposes that a "Conseiller d'Etat" is a member
of that venerable body; and if he meets "Son Excellence le Conseiller
prive," he is pretty sure to assume--especially if the word "actuel"
has been affixed--that he sees before him a real living member of the
Russian Privy Council. When to the title is added, "de S. M. l'Empereur
de toutes les Russies," a boundless field is opened up to the
non-Russian imagination. In reality these titles are not nearly so
important as they seem. The soi-disant "Conseiller de Cour" has probably
nothing to do with the Court. The Conseiller d'Etat is so far from being
a member of the Conseil d'Etat that he cannot possibly become a member
till he receives a higher tchin.* As to the Privy Councillor, it is
sufficient to say that the Privy Council, which had a very odious
reputation in its lifetime, died more than a century ago, and has not
since been resuscitated. The explanation of these anomalies is to be
found in the fact that the Russian tchins, like the German honorary
titles--Hofrath, Staatsrath, Geheimrath--of which they are a literal
translation, indicate not actual office, but simply official rank.
Formerly the appointment to an office generally depended on the tchin;
now there is a tendency to reverse the old order of things and make the
tchin depend upon the office actually held.
* In Russian the two words are quite different; the Council
is called Gosudarstvenny sovet, and the title Statski
sovetnik.
The reader of practical mind who is in the habit of considering
results rather than forms and formalities desires probably no further
description of the Russian bureaucracy, but wishes to know simply how it
works in practice. What has it done for Russia in the past, and what is
it doing in the present?
At the present day, when faith in despotic civilisers and paternal
government has been rudely shaken, and the advantages of a free,
spontaneous national development are fully recognised, centralised
bureaucracies have everywhere fallen into bad odour. In Russia the
dislike to them is particularly strong, because it has there something
more than a purely theoretical basis. The recollection of the reign
of Nicholas I., with its stern military regime, and minute, pedantic
formalism, makes many Russians condemn in no measured terms the
administration under which they live, and most Englishmen will feel
inclined to endorse this condemnation. Before passing sentence,
however, we ought to know that the system has at least an historical
justification, and we must not allow our love of constitutional liberty
and local self-government to blind us to the distinction between
theoretical and historical possibility. What seems to political
philosophers abstractly the best possible government may be utterly
inapplicable in certain concrete cases. We need not attempt to decide
whether it is better for humanity that Russia should exist as a
nation, but we may boldly assert that without a strongly centralised
administration Russia would never have become one of the great European
Powers. Until comparatively recent times the part of the world which
is known as the Russian Empire was a conglomeration of independent or
semi-independent political units, animated with centrifugal as well as
centripetal forces; and even at the present day it is far from being
a compact homogeneous State. It was the autocratic power, with the
centralised administration as its necessary complement, that first
created Russia, then saved her from dismemberment and political
annihilation, and ultimately secured for her a place among European
nations by introducing Western civilisation.
Whilst thus recognising clearly that autocracy and a strongly
centralised administration were necessary first for the creation and
afterwards for the preservation of national independence, we must
not shut our eyes to the evil consequences which resulted from
this unfortunate necessity. It was in the nature of things that the
Government, aiming at the realisation of designs which its subjects
neither sympathised with nor clearly understood, should have become
separated from the nation; and the reckless haste and violence with
which it attempted to carry out its schemes aroused a spirit of positive
opposition among the masses. A considerable section of the people long
looked on the reforming Tsars as incarnations of the spirit of evil, and
the Tsars in their turn looked upon the people as raw material for the
realisation of their political designs. This peculiar relation between
the nation and the Government has given the key-note to the whole system
of administration. The Government has always treated the people as
minors, incapable of understanding its political aims, and only very
partially competent to look after their own local affairs. The officials
have naturally acted in the same spirit. Looking for direction and
approbation merely to their superiors, they have systematically treated
those over whom they were placed as a conquered or inferior race. The
State has thus come to be regarded as an abstract entity, with interests
entirely different from those of the human beings composing it; and in
all matters in which State interests are supposed to be involved, the
rights of individuals are ruthlessly sacrificed.
If we remember that the difficulties of centralised administration must
be in direct proportion to the extent and territorial variety of
the country to be governed, we may readily understand how slowly and
imperfectly the administrative machine necessarily works in Russia. The
whole of the vast region stretching from the Polar Ocean to the Caspian,
and from the shores of the Baltic to the confines of the Celestial
Empire, is administered from St. Petersburg. The genuine bureaucrat has
a wholesome dread of formal responsibility, and generally tries to
avoid it by taking all matters out of the hands of his subordinates,
and passing them on to the higher authorities. As soon, therefore,
as affairs are caught up by the administrative machine they begin to
ascend, and probably arrive some day at the cabinet of the minister.
Thus the ministries are flooded with papers--many of the most trivial
import--from all parts of the Empire; and the higher officials, even
if they had the eyes of an Argus and the hands of a Briareus, could not
possibly fulfil conscientiously the duties imposed on them. In reality
the Russian administrators of the higher ranks recall neither Argus
nor Briareus. They commonly show neither an extensive nor a profound
knowledge of the country which they are supposed to govern, and seem
always to have a fair amount of leisure time at their disposal.
Besides the unavoidable evils of excessive centralisation, Russia has
had to suffer much from the jobbery, venality, and extortion of the
officials. When Peter the Great one day proposed to hang every man who
should steal as much as would buy a rope, his Procurator-General frankly
replied that if his Majesty put his project into execution there would
be no officials left. "We all steal," added the worthy official; "the
only difference is that some of us steal larger amounts and more openly
than others." Since these words were spoken nearly two centuries
have passed, and during all that time Russia has been steadily making
progress, but until the accession of Alexander II. in 1855 little change
took place in the moral character of the administration. Some people
still living can remember the time when they could have repeated,
without much exaggeration, the confession of Peter's Procurator-General.
To appreciate aright this ugly phenomenon we must distinguish two kinds
of venality. On the one hand there was the habit of exacting what are
vulgarly termed "tips" for services performed, and on the other there
were the various kinds of positive dishonesty. Though it might not
be always easy to draw a clear line between the two categories, the
distinction was fully recognised in the moral consciousness of the
time, and many an official who regularly received "sinless revenues"
(bezgreshniye dokhodi), as the tips were sometimes called, would have
been very indignant had he been stigmatised as a dishonest man. The
practice was, in fact, universal, and could be, to a certain extent,
justified by the smallness of the official salaries. In some departments
there was a recognised tariff. The "brandy farmers," for example, who
worked the State Monopoly for the manufacture and sale of alcoholic
liquors, paid regularly a fixed sum to every official, from the Governor
to the policeman, according to his rank. I knew of one case where an
official, on receiving a larger sum than was customary, conscientiously
handed back the change! The other and more heinous offences were by no
means so common, but were still fearfully frequent. Many high officials
and important dignitaries were known to receive large revenues, to
which the term "sinless" could not by any means be applied, and yet they
retained their position, and were received in society with respectful
deference.
The Sovereigns were well aware of the abuses, and strove more or less
to root them out, but the success which attended their efforts does not
give us a very exalted idea of the practical omnipotence of autocracy.
In a centralised bureaucratic administration, in which each official is
to a certain extent responsible for the sins of his subordinates, it is
always extremely difficult to bring an official culprit to justice, for
he is sure to be protected by his superiors; and when the superiors are
themselves habitually guilty of malpractices, the culprit is quite safe
from exposure and punishment. The Tsar, indeed, might do much towards
exposing and punishing offenders if he could venture to call in public
opinion to his assistance, but in reality he is very apt to become a
party to the system of hushing up official delinquencies. He is himself
the first official in the realm, and he knows that the abuse of power by
a subordinate has a tendency to produce hostility towards the fountain
of all official power. Frequent punishment of officials might, it is
thought, diminish public respect for the Government, and undermine that
social discipline which is necessary for the public tranquillity. It
is therefore considered expedient to give to official delinquencies as
little publicity as possible.
Besides this, strange as it may seem, a Government which rests on the
arbitrary will of a single individual is, notwithstanding occasional
outbursts of severity, much less systematically severe than authority
founded on free public opinion. When delinquencies occur in very high
places the Tsar is almost sure to display a leniency approaching to
tenderness. If it be necessary to make a sacrifice to justice, the
sacrificial operation is made as painless as may be, and illustrious
scapegoats are not allowed to die of starvation in the wilderness--the
wilderness being generally Paris or the Riviera. This fact may seem
strange to those who are in the habit of associating autocracy with
Neapolitan dungeons and the mines of Siberia, but it is not difficult
to explain. No individual, even though he be the Autocrat of all the
Russias, can so case himself in the armour of official dignity as to be
completely proof against personal influences. The severity of autocrats
is reserved for political offenders, against whom they naturally harbour
a feeling of personal resentment. It is so much easier for us to be
lenient and charitable towards a man who sins against public morality
than towards one who sins against ourselves!
In justice to the bureaucratic reformers in Russia, it must be said that
they have preferred prevention to cure. Refraining from all Draconian
legislation, they have put their faith in a system of ingenious checks
and a complicated formal procedure. When we examine the complicated
formalities and labyrinthine procedure by which the administration is
controlled, our first impression is that administrative abuses must be
almost impossible. Every possible act of every official seems to have
been foreseen, and every possible outlet from the narrow path of honesty
seems to have been carefully walled up. As the English reader has
probably no conception of formal procedure in a highly centralised
bureaucracy, let me give, by way of illustration, an instance which
accidentally came to my knowledge.
In the residence of a Governor-General one of the stoves is in need
of repairs. An ordinary mortal may assume that a man with the rank
of Governor-General may be trusted to expend a few shillings
conscientiously, and that consequently his Excellency will at once order
the repairs to be made and the payment to be put down among the petty
expenses. To the bureaucratic mind the case appears in a very different
light. All possible contingencies must be carefully provided for. As
a Governor-General may possibly be possessed with a mania for making
useless alterations, the necessity for the repairs ought to be verified;
and as wisdom and honesty are more likely to reside in an assembly than
in an individual, it is well to entrust the verification to a council. A
council of three or four members accordingly certifies that the repairs
are necessary. This is pretty strong authority, but it is not enough.
Councils are composed of mere human beings, liable to error and subject
to be intimidated by a Governor-General. It is prudent, therefore, to
demand that the decision of the council be confirmed by the Procureur,
who is directly subordinated to the Minister of Justice. When this
double confirmation has been obtained, an architect examines the stove,
and makes an estimate. But it would be dangerous to give carte blanche
to an architect, and therefore the estimate has to be confirmed, first
by the aforesaid council and afterwards by the Procureur. When all these
formalities--which require sixteen days and ten sheets of paper--have
been duly observed, his Excellency is informed that the contemplated
repairs will cost two roubles and forty kopecks, or about five shillings
of our money. Even here the formalities do not stop, for the Government
must have the assurance that the architect who made the estimate and
superintended the repairs has not been guilty of negligence. A second
architect is therefore sent to examine the work, and his report, like
the estimate, requires to be confirmed by the council and the Procureur.
The whole correspondence lasts thirty days, and requires no less than
thirty sheets of paper! Had the person who desired the repairs been not
a Governor-General, but an ordinary mortal, it is impossible to say how
long the procedure might have lasted.*
* In fairness I feel constrained to add that incidents of
this kind occasionally occur--or at least occurred as late
as 1886--in our Indian Administration. I remember an
instance of a pane of glass being broken in the Viceroy's
bedroom in the Viceregal Lodge at Simla, and it would have
required nearly a week, if the official procedure had been
scrupulously observed, to have it replaced by the Public
Works Department.
It might naturally be supposed that this circuitous and complicated
method, with its registers, ledgers, and minutes of proceedings, must
at least prevent pilfering; but this a priori conclusion has been
emphatically belied by experience. Every new ingenious device had merely
the effect of producing a still more ingenious means of avoiding it.
The system did not restrain those who wished to pilfer, and it had a
deleterious effect on honest officials by making them feel that the
Government reposed no confidence in them. Besides this, it produced
among all officials, honest and dishonest alike, the habit of systematic
falsification. As it was impossible for even the most pedantic of
men--and pedantry, be it remarked, is a rare quality among Russians--to
fulfil conscientiously all the prescribed formalities, it became
customary to observe the forms merely on paper. Officials certified
facts which they never dreamed of examining, and secretaries gravely
wrote the minutes of meetings that had never been held! Thus, in the
case above cited, the repairs were in reality begun and ended long
before the architect was officially authorised to begin the work. The
comedy was nevertheless gravely played out to the end, so that any one
afterwards revising the documents would have found that everything had
been done in perfect order.
Perhaps the most ingenious means for preventing administrative abuses
was devised by the Emperor Nicholas I. Fully aware that he was regularly
and systematically deceived by the ordinary officials, he formed a body
of well-paid officers, called the gendarmerie, who were scattered over
the country, and ordered to report directly to his Majesty whatever
seemed to them worthy of attention. Bureaucratic minds considered this
an admirable expedient; and the Tsar confidently expected that he would,
by means of these official observers who had no interest in concealing
the truth, be able to know everything, and to correct all official
abuses. In reality the institution produced few good results, and in
some respects had a very pernicious influence. Though picked men and
provided with good salaries, these officers were all more or less
permeated with the prevailing spirit. They could not but feel that they
were regarded as spies and informers--a humiliating conviction, little
calculated to develop that feeling of self-respect which is the main
foundation of uprightness--and that all their efforts could do but
little good. They were, in fact, in pretty much the same position
as Peter's Procurator-General, and, with true Russian bonhomie, they
disliked ruining individuals who were no worse than the majority of
their fellows. Besides this, according to the received code of official
morality insubordination was a more heinous sin than dishonesty, and
political offences were regarded as the blackest of all. The gendarmerie
officers shut their eyes, therefore, to the prevailing abuses, which
were believed to be incurable, and directed their attention to real or
imaginary political delinquencies. Oppression and extortion remained
unnoticed, whilst an incautious word or a foolish joke at the expense of
the Government was too often magnified into an act of high treason.
This force still exists under a slightly modified form. Towards the
close of the reign of Alexander II. (1880), when Count Loris Melikof,
with the sanction and approval of his august master, was preparing to
introduce a system of liberal political reforms, it was intended
to abolish the gendarmerie as an organ of political espionage, and
accordingly the direction of it was transferred from the so-called
Third Section of his Imperial Majesty's Chancery to the Ministry of the
Interior; but when the benevolent monarch was a few months afterwards
assassinated by revolutionists, the project was naturally abandoned, and
the Corps of Gendarmes, while remaining nominally under the Minister of
the Interior, was practically reinstated in its former position. Now, as
then, it serves as a kind of supplement to the ordinary police, and
is generally employed for matters in which secrecy is required.
Unfortunately it is not bound by those legal restrictions which protect
the public against the arbitrary will of the ordinary authorities.
In addition to its regular duties it has a vaguely defined roving
commission to watch and arrest all persons who seem to it in any way
dangerous or suspectes, and it may keep such in confinement for an
indefinite time, or remove them to some distant and inhospitable part
of the Empire, without making them undergo a regular trial. It is,
in short, the ordinary instrument for punishing political dreamers,
suppressing secret societies, counteracting political agitations, and in
general executing the extra-legal orders of the Government.
My relations with this anomalous branch of the administration were
somewhat peculiar. After my experience with the Vice-Governor of
Novgorod I determined to place myself above suspicion, and accordingly
applied to the "Chef des Gendarmes" for some kind of official document
which would prove to all officials with whom I might come in contact
that I had no illicit designs. My request was granted, and I was
furnished with the necessary documents; but I soon found that in
seeking to avoid Scylla I had fallen into Charybdis. In calming official
suspicions, I inadvertently aroused suspicions of another kind. The
documents proving that I enjoyed the protection of the Government made
many people suspect that I was an emissary of the gendarmerie, and
greatly impeded me in my efforts to collect information from private
sources. As the private were for me more important than the official
sources of information, I refrained from asking for a renewal of the
protection, and wandered about the country as an ordinary unprotected
traveller. For some time I had no cause to regret this decision. I knew
that I was pretty closely watched, and that my letters were occasionally
opened in the post-office, but I was subjected to no further
inconvenience. At last, when I had nearly forgotten all about Scylla
and Charybdis, I one night unexpectedly ran upon the former, and, to my
astonishment, found myself formally arrested! The incident happened in
this wise.
I had been visiting Austria and Servia, and after a short absence
returned to Russia through Moldavia. On arriving at the Pruth, which
there forms the frontier, I found an officer of gendarmerie, whose duty
it was to examine the passports of all passers-by. Though my passport
was completely en regle, having been duly vise by the British and
Russian Consuls at Galatz, this gentleman subjected me to a searching
examination regarding my past life, actual occupation, and intentions
for the future. On learning that I had been for more than two years
travelling in Russia at my own expense, for the simple purpose of
collecting miscellaneous information, he looked incredulous, and seemed
to have some doubts as to my being a genuine British subject; but when
my statements were confirmed by my travelling companion, a Russian
friend who carried awe-inspiring credentials, he countersigned my
passport, and allowed us to depart. The inspection of our luggage by
the custom-house officers was soon got over; and as we drove off to the
neighbouring village where we were to spend the night we congratulated
ourselves on having escaped for some time from all contact with the
official world. In this we were "reckoning without the host." As the
clock struck twelve that night I was roused by a loud knocking at my
door, and after a good deal of parley, during which some one proposed to
effect an entrance by force, I drew the bolt. The officer who had
signed my passport entered, and said, in a stiff, official tone, "I must
request you to remain here for twenty-four hours."
Not a little astonished by this announcement, I ventured to inquire the
reason for this strange request.
"That is my business," was the laconic reply.
"Perhaps it is; still you must, on mature consideration, admit that
I too have some interest in the matter. To my extreme regret I cannot
comply with your request, and must leave at sunrise."
"You shall not leave. Give me your passport."
"Unless detained by force, I shall start at four o'clock; and as I wish
to get some sleep before that time, I must request you instantly to
retire. You had the right to stop me at the frontier, but you have no
right to come and disturb me in this fashion, and I shall certainly
report you. My passport I shall give to none but a regular officer of
police."
Here followed a long discussion on the rights, privileges, and general
character of the gendarmerie, during which my opponent gradually laid
aside his dictatorial tone, and endeavoured to convince me that the
honourable body to which he belonged was merely an ordinary branch of
the administration. Though evidently irritated, he never, I must say,
overstepped the bounds of politeness, and seemed only half convinced
that he was justified in interfering with my movements. When he found
that he could not induce me to give up my passport, he withdrew, and I
again lay down to rest; but in about half an hour I was again disturbed.
This time an officer of regular police entered, and demanded my
"papers." To my inquiries as to the reason of all this disturbance, he
replied, in a very polite, apologetic way, that he knew nothing about
the reason, but he had received orders to arrest me, and must obey.
To him I delivered my passport, on condition that I should receive
a written receipt, and should be allowed to telegraph to the British
ambassador in St. Petersburg.
Early next morning I telegraphed to the ambassador, and waited
impatiently all day for a reply. I was allowed to walk about the village
and the immediate vicinity, but of this permission I did not make much
use. The village population was entirely Jewish, and Jews in that part
of the world have a wonderful capacity for spreading intelligence. By
the early morning there was probably not a man, woman, or child in
the place who had not heard of my arrest, and many of them felt a not
unnatural curiosity to see the malefactor who had been caught by the
police. To be stared at as a malefactor is not very agreeable, so I
preferred to remain in my room, where, in the company of my friend, who
kindly remained with me and made small jokes about the boasted liberty
of British subjects, I spent the time pleasantly enough. The most
disagreeable part of the affair was the uncertainty as to how many
days, weeks, or months I might be detained, and on this point the
police-officer would not even hazard a conjecture.
The detention came to an end sooner than I expected. On the following
day--that is to say, about thirty-six hours after the nocturnal
visit--the police-officer brought me my passport, and at the same time
a telegram from the British Embassy informed me that the central
authorities had ordered my release. On my afterwards pertinaciously
requesting an explanation of the unceremonious treatment to which I
had been subjected, the Minister for Foreign Affairs declared that the
authorities expected a person of my name to cross the frontier about
that time with a quantity of false bank-notes, and that I had been
arrested by mistake. I must confess that this explanation, though
official, seemed to me more ingenious than satisfactory, but I was
obliged to accept it for what it was worth. At a later period I had
again the misfortune to attract the attention of the secret police, but
I reserve the incident till I come to speak of my relations with the
revolutionists.
From all I have seen and heard of the gendarmerie I am disposed to
believe that the officers are for the most part polite, well-educated
men, who seek to fulfil their disagreeable duties in as inoffensive a
way as possible. It must, however, be admitted that they are generally
regarded with suspicion and dislike, even by those people who fear the
attempts at revolutionary propaganda which it is the special duty of the
gendarmerie to discover and suppress. Nor need this surprise us. Though
very many people believe in the necessity of capital punishment, there
are few who do not feel a decided aversion to the public executioner.
The only effectual remedy for administrative abuses lies in placing the
administration under public control. This has been abundantly proved in
Russia. All the efforts of the Tsars during many generations to check
the evil by means of ingenious bureaucratic devices proved utterly
fruitless. Even the iron will and gigantic energy of Nicholas I. were
insufficient for the task. But when, after the Crimean War, there was a
great moral awakening, and the Tsar called the people to his assistance,
the stubborn, deep-rooted evils immediately disappeared. For a time
venality and extortion were unknown, and since that period they have
never been able to regain their old force.
At the present moment it cannot be said that the administration is
immaculate, but it is incomparably purer than it was in old times.
Though public opinion is no longer so powerful as it was in the early
sixties, it is still strong enough to repress many malpractices which
in the time of Nicholas I. and his predecessors were too frequent to
attract attention. On this subject I shall have more to say hereafter.
If administrative abuses are rife in the Empire of the Tsars, it is not
from any want of carefully prepared laws. In no country in the world,
perhaps, is the legislation more voluminous, and in theory, not only
the officials, but even the Tsar himself, must obey the laws he has
sanctioned, like the meanest of his subjects. This is one of those
cases, not infrequent in Russia, in which theory differs somewhat from
practice. In real life the Emperor may at any moment override the law
by means of what is called a Supreme Command (vysotchaishiye povelenie),
and a minister may "interpret" a law in any way he pleases by means of
a circular. This is a frequent cause of complaint even among those who
wish to uphold the Autocratic Power. In their opinion law-respecting
autocracy wielded by a strong Tsar is an excellent institution for
Russia; it is arbitrary autocracy wielded by irresponsible ministers
that they object to.
As Englishmen may have some difficulty in imagining how laws can come
into being without a Parliament or Legislative Chamber of some sort,
I shall explain briefly how they are manufactured by the Russian
bureaucratic machine without the assistance of representative
institutions.
When a minister considers that some institution in his branch of the
service requires to be reformed, he begins by submitting to the Emperor
a formal report on the matter. If the Emperor agrees with his minister
as to the necessity for reform, he orders a Commission to be appointed
for the purpose of considering the subject and preparing a definite
legislative project. The Commission meets and sets to work in what seems
a very thorough way. It first studies the history of the institution in
Russia from the earliest times downwards--or rather, it listens to
an essay on the subject, especially prepared for the occasion by some
official who has a taste for historical studies, and can write in a
pleasant style. The next step--to use a phrase which often occurs in the
minutes of such commissions--consists in "shedding the light of science
on the question" (prolit' na dyelo svet nauki). This important operation
is performed by preparing a memorial containing the history of similar
institutions in foreign countries, and an elaborate exposition of
numerous theories held by French and German philosophical jurists.
In these memorials it is often considered necessary to include every
European country except Turkey, and sometimes the small German States
and principal Swiss cantons are treated separately.
To illustrate the character of these wonderful productions, let me give
an example. From a pile of such papers lying before me I take one almost
at random. It is a memorial relating to a proposed reform of benevolent
institutions. First I find a philosophical disquisition on benevolence
in general; next, some remarks on the Talmud and the Koran; then a
reference to the treatment of paupers in Athens after the Peloponnesian
War, and in Rome under the emperors: then some vague observations on the
Middle Ages, with a quotation that was evidently intended to be Latin;
lastly, comes an account of the poor-laws of modern times, in which I
meet with "the Anglo-Saxon domination," King Egbert, King Ethelred, "a
remarkable book of Icelandic laws, called Hragas"; Sweden and Norway,
France, Holland, Belgium, Prussia, and nearly all the minor German
States. The most wonderful thing is that all this mass of historical
information, extending from the Talmud to the most recent legislation
of Hesse-Darmstadt, is compressed into twenty-one octavo pages! The
doctrinal part of the memorandum is not less rich. Many respected names
from the literature of Germany, France, and England are forcibly dragged
in; and the general conclusion drawn from this mass of raw, undigested
materials is believed to be "the latest results of science."
Does the reader suspect that I have here chosen an extremely exceptional
case? If so, let us take the next paper in the file. It refers to a
project of law regarding imprisonment for debt. On the first page I find
references to "the Salic laws of the fifth century," and the "Assises de
Jerusalem, A.D 1099." That, I think, will suffice. Let us pass, then, to
the next step.
When the quintessence of human wisdom and experience has thus been
extracted, the commission considers how the valuable product may
be applied to Russia, so as to harmonise with the existing general
conditions and local peculiarities. For a man of practical mind this
is, of course, the most interesting and most important part of the
operation, but from Russian legislators it receives comparatively little
attention. Very often have I turned to this section of official papers
in order to obtain information regarding the actual state of the
country, and in every case I have been grievously disappointed.
Vague general phrases, founded on a priori reasoning rather than on
observation, together with a few statistical tables--which the cautious
investigator should avoid as he would an ambuscade--are too often all
that is to be found. Through the thin veil of pseudo-erudition the real
facts are clear enough. These philosophical legislators, who have spent
their lives in the official atmosphere of St. Petersburg, know as much
about Russia as the genuine cockney knows about Great Britain, and
in this part of their work they derive no assistance from the learned
German treatises which supply an unlimited amount of historical facts
and philosophical speculation.
From the commission the project passes to the Council of State, where
it is certainly examined and criticised, and perhaps modified, but it is
not likely to be improved from the practical point of view, because
the members of the Council are merely ci-devant members of similar
commissions, hardened by a few additional years of official routine. The
Council is, in fact, an assembly of tchinovniks who know little of
the practical, everyday wants of the unofficial classes. No merchant,
manufacturer, or farmer ever enters its sacred precincts, so that its
bureaucratic serenity is rarely disturbed by practical objections. It
is not surprising, therefore, that it has been known to pass laws which
were found at once to be absolutely unworkable.
From the Council of State the Bill is taken to the Emperor, and he
generally begins by examining the signatures. The "Ayes" are in one
column and the "Noes" in another. If his Majesty is not specially
acquainted with the matter--and he cannot possibly be acquainted with
all the matters submitted to him--he usually signs with the majority,
or on the side where he sees the names of officials in whose judgment he
has special confidence; but if he has strong views of his own, he places
his signature in whichever column he thinks fit, and it outweighs the
signatures of any number of Councillors. Whatever side he supports, that
side "has it," and in this way a small minority may be transformed into
a majority. When the important question, for example, as to how far
classics should be taught in the ordinary schools was considered by the
Council, it is said that only two members signed in favour of classical
education, which was excessively unpopular at the moment, but the
Emperor Alexander III., disregarding public opinion and the advice of
his Councillors, threw his signature into the lighter scale, and the
classicists were victorious.