Alexander I- the Tsar Who Defeated Napoleon

by Marie-Pierre Rey

  While the ministers did appear before the emperor each day to report on current affairs, there was no cooperation between one ministry and another. In principle, the Council of Ministers was supposed to have responsibility for the whole and “to act as a general staff for the commander-in-chief, the autocrat.”14 This was the wish of Czartoryski, who, in the working session of the close circle in February 1802, had stressed the idea of cohesion and collective ministerial responsibility:

  In choosing ministers, it should be decided to put in only people whose way of thinking would be uniform, so that they formed a perfect unity, so that the foolishness of one would be attributable to the others, and so they would all be responsible for the same mistake. Such an administration, set in motion by this single force and directed by a good system, would bring Russia in short order to a high degree of prosperity. At present His Majesty agrees that the disunity of ministers is singularly harmful to the Empire, since one of them pulls in one direction and someone else in another, and in the middle it is the state that suffers.15

  Alexander did institute a committee of ministers that was supposed to gather ministers into teams around a precise agenda, but he did not make this committee a systematic instrument of government and was often content to summon one minister or another, reserving the right to decide alone on interministerial conflicts. However, the role of the committee of ministers was not negligible: while the Permanent Council quickly faded away, the committee of ministers would continue to meet (if not regularly, then at least frequently) to deal with political questions. Alexander presided over a number of meetings, 20 of 23 that were held in the autumn of 1802; the following year the tsar attended all 42 meetings and then in 1804, 26 of 31 meetings.16 Lastly, when in 1805 he was forced to leave his capital to join his army on campaign, it was the committee of ministers that managed political affairs in his absence, proceeding to a majority vote of those present for any urgent decision. This situation was exceptional: the committee of ministers had never functioned in a systematic way, and each minister’s direct contact with the sovereign remained the norm. But this bilateral way of functioning was criticized by the inner circle, who saw it as a source of inefficiency. Stroganov complained:

  The Emperor has adopted the working method of concerning himself every day successively with all the ministers; they each enter at set hours and report on their respective affairs; the Emperor gives his decisions, and that is how the work gets done. This method has several disadvantages. […] In never gathering together all the ministers to summarize all the work being done, by not making them a single group and thereby coordinating all parties, the whole is lost from sight and ministers forget the ensemble that ought to be formed by all the parties. Each in his own way only works on his own part and subordinates to it all the others.17

  By contrast, in a letter to Laharpe from November 1802, Alexander spoke of his great satisfaction, stressing his personal responsibility in the new organization:

  The measure we often spoke of together [the creation of ministries] is in full activity. The ministries are organized and have been going rather well for more than a month. Business has acquired much greater clarity and method, and I know who to get after if something goes wrong.18

  In fact, the ministers chosen by Alexander did not form a solid team—far from it. There were young reformers, close to or emanating from the inner circle, as well as conservative dignitaries who were little inclined to reforms or change. Czartoryski, Novosiltsev, and Stroganov obtained respectively the posts of vice-ministers of foreign affairs, justice, and internal affairs, while Viktor Kochubey became minister of the interior, a post he kept continuously until 1812. Mikhail Muravyov, vice-minister of education, shared the reforming views of the younger men; as for the navy, Admiral Mordvinov was reputed to be a liberal and an Anglophile. But at the same time Alexander gave the justice post to the poet Derzhavin; reputedly very conservative, the latter never stopped complaining about the “French and Polish constitutional spirit” with which Alexander’s entourage was “stuffed.” Similarly, most of the heads of ministerial departments, often former dignitaries from Catherine’s reign, were characterized by conservative positions and averse to any change. Therefore, barely four months after the creation of the ministries, there was disillusionment within the secret committee. “There is no group; the ministers detest each other and bicker, and the agreement so necessary to an administration has never existed for an instant,” complained Kochubey to Vorontsov19 in a letter of January 1803—a few months after the ministries were created. The same day Novosiltsev echoed him:

  You are perhaps curious to know how our ministries are going? Not as well as could be desired: little unity, little harmony; some have too much activity, others not enough; some isolate themselves and think only of their own party, others meddle in everything and obliquely control everything.20

  Consequently, while the creation of the ministries made the state administration more efficient, they remained very compartmentalized and the role of the Committee of Ministers remained modest. Moreover, political reform did not go beyond administrative and functional improvements. Thus, in the period from 1801 to 1805, there was no evolution toward the constitution of a really homogeneous government. Power remained autocratic and centralized—despite Alexander’s marked interest in the idea of federalism and the corresponding concessions he made in regional administration.

  Upon his arrival in power, thanks to the trips he had once taken with his father, the young sovereign was well aware of the territorial immensity and national, cultural, and religious diversity of his empire, as he was au fait with the realities of a regional administration beset by corruption and indifference.21 He often mentioned these issues to Laharpe; in a letter of July 1803, he said he wanted to approach Thomas Jefferson22 to ask the American president how federalism in the young United States of America worked. And he did write a letter to President Jefferson in August 1805, expressing his admiration for the United States and the “free and wise constitution that ensures the happiness of each and all,”23 and affirming his interest in this model because it combined federalism and constitutionalism. A year later, in April 1806, Jefferson wrote to Lovett Harris, U.S. consul in St. Petersburg: “The Emperor manifested a wish to know our constitution. Consequently I have chosen the two best studies we possess on the subject and beg you to find a place for them in his library.”24

  But here again, Alexander acted prudently, even overcautiously, by beginning with a modest reform of regional administration. Now the governor at the head of a province would refer directly to the sovereign for all questions relating to his authority, while the provincial council composed of local functionaries (for tax revenue, commerce, justice, police, etc.) would send its reports to various ministries. This organization tended to give regional governments increased powers and better-qualified staff. As Marc Raeff stresses:

  This same governor now had the means to direct and supervise the affairs of his province with the help of experienced men, under the supervision of specialized and competent ministries. A certain amount of administrative decentralization became possible, greater latitude might be left to local initiative and local autonomy, which was indispensable to oil the gears and thereby make management more flexible.25

  Without giving up the rule of administrative unity among provinces, Alexander also soon introduced some flexibility into the management of non-Russian territories of the empire. The Nystadt Peace of 1721 had granted the Baltic provinces the privilege of autonomous administration, and the tsar did not challenge this privilege or seek to interfere in Baltic affairs. The annexation of the kingdom of Kartl-Kakhetia—which, as we saw, took place after much hesitation—was accompanied by the abolition of the Georgian monarchy, but the status of the Georgian Orthodox Church was respected,26 and Georgian nobles could integrate into the Table of Ranks in order to obtain titles of Russian nobility and to participate in the management of local affairs.

  Finally, o
ut of a concern to promote religious toleration in his reign—when at the time he was personally rather indifferent to the Orthodox religion, which he perceived as producing obscurantism—Alexander wanted to improve the conditions of Jews in the empire.27 In November 1802 he created a special commission, the Committee for the Organization of Jewish Life, on which sat Czartoryski, Potocki, Valerian Zubov, and Derzhavin. Representatives from the Jewish community were invited to make their demands heard before this commission, and in 1804 it published regulations that, without questioning the discriminatory measures under which Jews suffered (since Catherine’s reign, they had been confined to living in the western regions, could not purchase land, and were subject to heavy taxes), did try to ameliorate their situation somewhat. Admittedly, they could still not acquire land28 and the wine trade was forbidden to them, but the “Territory of Residence” was enlarged to the regions of Astrakhan and the Caucasus, and the taxes they paid were lightened. Moreover, in order to foster the assimilation of Jews—many spoke German, which accentuated their isolation—the regulations authorized Jewish children to freely enter schools, colleges, and universities belonging to the state, while also authorizing the foundation of Jewish schools. These various measures provided a much more comprehensive and liberal situation for Jewish subjects than in the past.

  Thus, in a few years Alexander had tried to improve the way that central and regional administrations functioned, while demonstrating some flexibility in his approach to the territorial and cultural specificities of the empire. Therefore, these political reforms, even if they were not able to concretely manifest Alexander’s constitutional and federalist ideas, were nevertheless significant. But on the economic and social levels, progress was more limited.

  Draft Reforms

  In 1796–1797 Alexander had expressed his deep distaste for serfdom; from his arrival in power, he frequently raised this issue with members of the secret committee and with Laharpe. But the concrete changes he put into effect from 1801 to 1805 were very limited.

  Early on, as his private correspondence and his diary show, Alexander was convinced of the need to improve the condition of the peasantry; the persistence of serfdom was for him both a moral and an economic anomaly.29 But how to envisage ending serfdom without compromising the status of the nobility and thereby unleashing its hostility or without challenging the social order and the very foundations of the political regime in Russia? Of course, as we have already noted, the tsar had no particular esteem or sympathy for the Russian nobility; when the secret committee met in July 1801 he confessed to his close friends that he had agreed only reluctantly to reestablish the Charter of the Nobility, so much did aristocratic privileges seem to him both unmerited and unjustified. The inner circle echoed Alexander’s aversion to the nobility; however, the monarch had to deal with what he despised.

  In the summer of 1801, Platon Zubov, who had not yet been removed from the inner circle, prepared at Alexander’s request a plan for reforming serfdom. Without going so far as to advocate a complete overhaul, he made many daring proposals. For example, he suggested authorizing nobles to free (in return for financial compensation from the state) those of their serfs who, living near them in town, might become artisans and thus figure in the registers of the soslovija (i.e., the states) as citizens. Given that about 8 percent of the town population (or almost 190,000 people)30 was composed of serfs, this proposal was significant. Zubov also proposed banning any sale of serfs without lands and setting up precise rules for serfs (who were financially able) to buy back their freedom. Debated before the secret committee in the month of August, Zubov’s plan to liberate town serfs was rejected as too costly for imperial finances.

  At the end of 1801, a new memorandum, this one written by Admiral Mordvinov, proposed extending to merchants, artisans, and peasants who were attached to the crown the right to acquire lands, secured or not with serfs. For the admiral this would begin to challenge the exclusive privileges of the nobility and to foster the takeoff of a new type of farming that used free and salaried peasants. Eventually this type would prove more profitable than estates functioning with serfs, which would gradually lead landowners to accept the liberation of their peasants. In November 1801 both this plan and Zubov’s were discussed by the inner circle. There were differences of opinion: Novosiltsev was favorable to enlarging the right to acquire land to social categories other than the nobility but hostile to the idea of banning nobles from selling their serfs without land, out of fear of violent opposition. His viewpoint was shared by Laharpe, who for his part advised Alexander to advance on the question of serfdom “slowly and above all without the least attack on property rights.”31 Kochubey and Czartoryski were favorable to both measures but stressed that they would affect only a tiny proportion of serfs, and so the overall problem of serfdom would remain. Stroganov, the most radical of the group, reasserted that there was no reason to worry about the nobility, which was cowardly, without character, and not at all dangerous. There was much more to fear from the anger of serfs mistreated by their owners:

  In our country at all times it is the peasant class that has taken part in all the troubles that have occurred; it is never the nobility that has rebelled, and if the government has something to fear and some party to watch, it is really the class of serfs and not any others.32

  But he did not convince the tsar, who preferred to partially adopt Mordvinov’s plan. On December 24, 1801 (the emperor’s birthday), a ukase authorized all social categories to buy land without serfs, which meant that the functional monopoly of the nobility was lifted, although it kept the privilege of owning serfs. But none of the measures advocated by Zubov was accepted by Alexander. A year later, in November 1802, a new plan was presented by Count Sergey Rumyantsev, son of Field Marshall Rumyantsev, who had once studied law at Leyden University and was known for his liberal and philanthropic ideas. He suggested authorizing owners to liberate their serfs, individually or by whole villages, giving them each a plot of land. In both cases liberation would be compensated by a sum of money fixed by the owners themselves. Seduced by the idea—in this scheme, the nobles would not be damaged and the state would not have to bear the cost of freeing the serfs33—Alexander adopted in February 1803 a “law on free farmers” that transformed serfs into free farmers as soon as they managed to buy themselves back—and were authorized by their owners to do so.

  Still, although the 1803 law gave hope to serfs, its impact remained very limited. Between 1803 and 1825, 47,153 male serfs34 were affected, mostly in the early years: 20,747 between 1804 and 1808; 10,508 between 1809 and 1813; 4,696 between 1814 and 1818; 10,057 between 1819 and 1823; and 1,145 between 1824 and 1825. Almost a third of the serfs (13,371) were freed by the will of a single owner, Prince Alexander Nikolaievich Golitsyn, for the total sum of 5,424,618 rubles (an average of 406 rubles per peasant).35 In this case—quite singular given the number of serfs involved—the total sum owed by the peasants was advanced by the imperial treasury, and the peasants had to reimburse the state. In the majority of the 47,153 cases, however, the serfs paid a portion of their ransom at the time of their liberation and the other part in installments, by prior agreement.

  Alexander also adopted a decree forbidding the publication in the Moscow and St. Petersburg newspapers of announcements of the sale of serfs without land. Finally, inaugurating an approach he would apply in other circumstances, the sovereign used more advanced measures on the periphery of his empire, making the Baltic provinces (Estonia, Latvia, and Courland) an “experimental laboratory” for the reform of serfdom. Hoping (as he told the secret committee) that the “provinces will furnish an example to the rest of the empire,”36 the emperor pushed the diets of Estonia and Latvia to adopt texts to give peasants a legal status. In July 1802 the Estonian diet gave peasants who respected their feudal obligations “a hereditary and perpetual usufruct” over land they cultivated, and it also set up local tribunals; two years later the Latvian diet adopted these provisions and added other
s: the law now set the nature and scope of taxes and work details owed by peasants.37

  Yet the implemented reforms remained well below the initial expectations. But they were an important stage on the path to abolition: first, because for the first time since the establishment of serfdom, imperial power publicly expressed its desire to challenge an institution it considered no longer acceptable; second, because within the governing elites the idea of a reform (if not abolition) of serfdom, as carried in the projects of Zubov, Mordvinov, and Rumyantsev, was also making headway.

  While the issue of serfdom monopolized Alexander’s attention and that of his advisors, other social and economic topics were also broached. To the sovereign, who was reviving the voluntarist approach of Peter the Great and Catherine II, it was up to the state to foster initiative and entrepreneurship.

  From the start Alexander wanted to promote the colonization of lands to the south. For this purpose between 1803 and 1805 he encouraged by fiscal measures the settling in southern Russia and Ukraine of almost 5,000 colonists—Germans and Czechs in the lead. Founded in 1795 and exempted from customs duties, the city of Odessa (starting in 1803) was administered by the Duke of Richelieu, a French émigré who had gone into the Russian imperial service and was named by the sovereign to this post. In 1805 he became governor general of New Russia. This choice proved judicious: in a few years the duke managed to make Odessa a city enjoying full expansion. By 1805 it had 15,000 inhabitants and took fourth place among cities, after St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Warsaw; its commercial port was very dynamic, responsible for a major portion of cereal exports. At the end of the 1790s, before the foundation of Odessa, ports of the Black Sea had exported only two to three percent of Russian wheat; by 1802 Odessa accounted for 17 percent of the total.

  After 1805–1806 the colonization of the south, still encouraged by the imperial state, called less on foreign colonists than on crown peasants who came from regional governments with relatively high population density and where land was not fertile enough to feed rural communities, as was the case in the northeast.