Peter the Great

by Robert K. Massie

  When his turn came, Peter was kindly and, extending his hand to be kissed, said, "You see, brother, that I am tsar, yet there are callous places on my hands, because I wished to give you an example." As Neplyuev knelt, Peter said, "Stand up, brother, and answer the questions. Do not be afraid. If you know, say so. If you do not know, say so, too." Neplyuev survived the examination and was given command of a galley.

  Almost immediately, however, he was transferred and placed in charge of ship construction in St. Petersburg. Upon taking the assignment, Neplyuev had been advised, "Always speak the truth and never lie. Even though things may be bad for you, the Tsar will be much angrier if you lie." It was not long before the young

  *After his death, Hannibal gained immortality when he became the maternal grandfather of Alexander Pushkin and the central figure in Pushkin's novel (only a forty-page fragment of which was completed) The Negro of Peter the Great.

  shipbuilder had occasion to test this advice. Arriving late at work one morning, he found Peter already there. He considered running home and sending word that he was sick, but then he remembered the advice and walked directly up to Peter. "You see, my friend, that I am here before you," said Peter, looking up. "I am to blame, Sire," replied Neplyuev. "Last night, I was with people and 1 stayed up very late and I was late getting up." Peter seized him by the shoulder and squeezed it hard. Neplyuev was convinced that he was doomed. "Thanks, my boy, for telling the truth," said the Tsar. "God will forgive you. All of us are human."

  But Neplyuev was not long in this assignment either. Because of his language skills, he was frequently used as a translator, and in January 1721, still only twenty-eight, he was sent as Russian ambassador to Constantinople, returning home in 1734 to enjoy the estates which Peter had granted him in his absence. Eventually he became a senator. In 1774, during the reign of Catherine the Great, he died at the age of eighty.

  Near the end of his reign, in 1722, Peter embodied his passionate belief in meritocracy in a permanent institutional framework, the famous Table of Ranks of the Russian Empire, which set before all young men entering service three parallel ladders of official ranks in the three branches of state service— military, civil and court. Each ladder had fourteen ranks, and each rank had a corresponding rank in the other two. Everyone was to begin his service on the bottom rung, and promotion was to depend not on birth or social status, but strictly on merit and length of service. Thereafter, at least in theory, nobility was of no importance in Russia, and honors and office were open to everyone. The noble titles of Old Russia were not abolished, but they carried no special privileges or distinctions. Commoners and foreigners were encouraged to apply for higher service, and soldiers, sailors, secretaries and clerks who merited notice were given appropriate positions on the Table of Ranks, where, once included, they competed, supposedly on equal terms, with Russian noblemen. Commoners who reached the lowest rank— i.e., the fourteenth on the military table, or the eighth on the civil or court ladder—were granted the status of "hereditary nobleman," with the right to own serfs and to pass along to their sons the right to enter state service at the bottom rank.

  Thus, Peter, who had always given more weight to ability than to birth and who himself had worked his way up through the ranks in the army and the navy, passed his belief along to succeeding generations. This reform endured, and, despite subsequent alterations and inevitable corrosion by special favors and promotions won by bribes, it remained the basis of class structure in the Russian empire. Position on the Table of Ranks largely displaced birth as the measure of a man's worth, new blood was constantly brought into the army and the bureaucracy, and a man whose father had been a poor landowner or even a serf-soldier from the faraway Volga might find himself rubbing elbows with men who bore the oldest names in Russian history.*

  On paper, as written in the decrees which flowed from Peter's pen, the reforms in administration might conceivably have made the Russian government function like the wheels of a watch. That it did not function this way was due not only to slowness to grasp or unwillingness to change, but also to many layers of corruption in government. Corruption affected not only the finances of the state but its basic efficiency. It made the imported administrative systems, already awkward to understand, almost impossible to operate.

  Bribery and embezzlement were traditional in Russian public life, and public service was routinely looked upon as a means of gaining private profit. This practice was so accepted that Russian officials were paid little or no salary; it was taken for granted that they would make their living by accepting bribes. In Peter's time, only a handful of men in government were said to be honest and imbued with the idea of conscientious service to the state— Sheremetev, Repnin, Rumyantsov, Makarov, Osterman and Yaguzhinsky. The others were loyal to Peter personally, but regarded the state as a cow to be milked.

  As a result, the majority of administrators were motivated less by a sense of service to the state than by desire for private gain, mingled with the effort to escape detection and punishment. Thus, two powerful negative motives, greed and fear, became the predominant features of Peter's bureaucrats. There were chances

  *Ironically, under the Table of Ranks, Lenin, born Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov, was an hereditary Russian nobleman. This title was inherited from his father, Ilya, the son of a serf, who had gone to Kazan University and become an educator. Taking over responsibility for primary education in Simbirsk province on the Volga in 1874, he raised the number of primary schools in the province from 20 to 434 in fourteen years. For this achievement, he was promoted to the rank of Actual State Councillor in the civil service, the fourth rank from the top and the equivalent of a major general in the army. When Lenin's elder brother Alexander Ulyanov was executed in 1887 for attempting to assassinate Tsar Alexander HI, the title passed automatically to the future founder of the Soviet state. In 1892, when Lenin, at twenty-one, applied to St. Petersburg for permission to take examinations in law, he signed himself "Nobleman Vladimir Ulyanov."

  for immense riches—the vast wealth of Menshikov was an example; there was also a very good chance of torture, the scaffold or the wheel. Yet, whatever Peter did—urge, persuade, cajole, threaten, punish-—seemed to make little difference. He realized that force was not enough. "I can turn dice not too badly with my chisel," he said sadly, "but I cannot turn mules with my cudgel."

  Disappointment followed disappointment, not only at the highest levels. Once, Peter elevated an honest lawyer to a judgeship. In this new position, where his decision could become an object of bribery, the new judge became corrupt. When Peter found out, he not only absolved the judge, but doubled his salary to prevent further temptation. At the same time, however, the Tsar promised that if the judge ever again betrayed his trust, he would surely hang. The judge fervently promised that Peter's faith was justified—and soon afterward accepted another bribe. Peter hanged him.

  The Tsar accepted that he could not enforce complete honesty at every level of government, but he was determined to suppress all forms of corruption which drained the national Treasury. In 1713, a decree called on all citizens to report to the Tsar himself any case of government corruption. The reward of the informer was to be the property of the accused, providing the informer's charge turned out to be accurate. This seemed too dangerous for most people, and what resulted was a torrent of anonymous letters, many of them maliciously inspired by a wish to pay off personal scores. Peter promulgated another decree, condemning anonymous letters by those who "beneath a show of virtue put out their venom." He promised his protection to accurate informers, saying, "Any subject who is a true Christian and an honorable servant of his sovereign and his fatherland may without any misgiving report orally or by letter to the Tsar himself." Eventually, an anonymous letter arrived which accused some of the highest officials of government of corruption on a grand scale. The writer was persuaded to stand up, and a dramatic trial ensued.

  Over the years, the system by which villages were required to raise
provisions for the army and deliver them to St. Petersburg and other towns through the newly conquered territories created a heavy burden because of transportation difficulties. To deal with these problems, middlemen stepped forward who agreed to make the required deliveries in return for the right to charge a higher price. This practice became a source of innumerable frauds. A number of key figures in the government were involved, conspiring with the deliverers and sometimes taking delivery of the provisions themselves under borrowed names. Although the scandal was widely known, nobody dared to challenge the noblemen and high officials involved by breaking the matter to Peter. Finally, so great was the misery of the people who were being taxed twice to pay for the stolen provisions that one man decided he must inform the Tsar. At the same time, he attempted to save his own neck by remaining anonymous and leaving unsigned letters of accusation in places where Peter went. Peter read one and offered the author not only his protection but a large reward if he would make himself known and could prove what he had charged. The informer appeared and provided the Tsar with unimpeachable evidence that his chief lieutenants were engaged in fraud.

  A great investigation commenced early in 1715. Those involved included Prince Menshikov; General-Admiral Apraxin; Prince Matthew Gagarin; Master of the Artillery General Bruce; Vice Governor of St. Petersburg Korsakov; First Lord of the Admiralty Kikin; First Commissioner of the Artillery Sinavin; Senators Opukhtin and Volkonsky, and a large number of civil servants of lesser ranks. The investigation was thorough and turned up much evidence. Apraxin and Bruce, brought before a commission, defended themselves by saying that they had rarely been in St. Petersburg, being mostly at sea or with the army in the field; accordingly, they had been unaware of actions taken behind their backs by their servants. Menshikov, who also had been away for many months commanding the army in Pomerania, was accused of financial dishonesty in his administration of that assignment, of making unlawful profits on government contracts and of wasting over one million roubles of government money and property.

  Because Menshikov was so generally hated and because the commission of inquiry was headed by his bitter enemy, Prince Jacob Dolgoruky, the accusations were brought in an exaggerated, vengeful form which made them easier for Menshikov to moderate and partially disprove. Under scrutiny, what turned up was not sheer avarice; a considerable portion of bad management and confusion was blended in and there were many instances of irregularity in which there had been no intention of cheating. Menshikov's lawful income from his various estates was very large. Frequently, his own revenues had been applied to government uses and, also frequently, he had used public money for his own needs. Much of the irregularity consisted of diverting funds from one purpose to another without keeping proper accounts. Menshikov, for example, had been Governor of St. Petersburg since its founding, a period of more than ten years. During this time, he had received no salary and had repeatedly used his own money for government affairs. Because Peter disliked large palaces and huge receptions, Menshikov. had built his grand palace and acted as host at innumerable public and diplomatic functions costing huge sums. Often he was not reimbursed for these expenses, yet Peter expected him to continue in this role. In addition, he had sometimes taken money from his own pocket to deal with state emergencies. In July 1714, Admiral Apraxin had written urgently from Finland that his troops were starving. As Peter was away, Menshikov demanded action by the Senate, but the senators refused to accept any responsibility, whereupon Menshikov boldly requisitioned 200,000 roubles' worth of supplies on his own account, loaded them aboard ship and sent them to succor Apraxin's forces.

  Nevertheless, there were irregularities which could not be explained away. He was found to owe 144,788 roubles on one account and 202,283 roubles on another. These sums were assessed against him as fines. Menshikov paid the fines in part, but, on petitioning the Tsar, part was forgiven.

  Apraxin and Bruce also escaped with heavy fines in recognition of their past services to the nation. But for the others involved, the punishments were grim. The two convicted senators, Volkonsky and Opukhtin, who had incriminated not only themselves but tarnished the reputation of the newly formed Senate, were publicly knouted and had their tongues seared with hot iron for breaking their oaths. Korsakov, the Vice Governor of St. Petersburg, was publicly knouted. Three others had their noses slit after a knouting and men went to the gallows, while eight others, conviced of lesser offenses, were stretched on the ground to be beaten with batogs by soldiers. When Peter ordered them to stop, the soldiers shouted, "Father, let us beat them a little more, for the thieves have stolen our bread!" Some were exiled to Siberia. Kikin, who had been a special favorite of Peter's, was condemned to exile and his property was confiscated, but Catherine interceded for him, and both his office and his porperty was restored to him. Four years later, Kikin was tried again, this time for his role in the affair of the Tsarevich Alexis, and this time he lost his head.

  Anonymous letters and public denunciations were a haphazard means of rooting out corruption, and in March 1711 Peter created a bureau of official informers called fiscals. They were to be headed by a chief, the Ober-Fiscal, whose assignment was to track down and report to the Senate all offenders, no matter what their rank. This kind of systematic, official informing was new to Russia. Previously, Russian law had permitted arrest and trial on the basis of a private accusation, but accusation was a double-edged weapon. The accuser had to present himself and prove his charges, and if the charges turned out to be false, the accuser rather than the accused was tortured and punished. Now, however, the accusers were permanent officers of the law, safe from revenge. Naturally, accusations multiplied, and soon the 500 fiscals were the most hated men in Russia. Even the members of the Senate, their nominal employers, feared these diligent spies. In April 1712, three senior fiscals complained to Peter that Senators deliberately ignored their submitted reports, that Senators Jacob Dolgoruky and Gregory Plemyannikov had described them as "Antichrists and rogues" and that they dared not even physically approach most senators. Later in 1712, the Metropolitan, Stephen Yavorsky, denounced the fiscals in a sermon, declaring that they held everyone at their mercy while they themselves were above the law. Yet, Peter did not intercede, and the fiscals continued their hated work.

  The most dedicated of the fisclas was Alexis Nesterov, who eventually became the Ober-Fiscal. This zealot labored with a fury, poking into every aspect of government, denouncing his victims with fanatical malice and at one point even bringing his own son to judgment. Nesterov's most prominent prey was Prince Matthew Gagarin, who since 1708 had been the Governor of Siberia. Because of the great distance of his province from the capital, Gagarin ruled almost as a monarch beyond the Urals. Among his responsibilities was supervision of the China trade which passed through Nerchinsk and which was now a government monopoly. Nesterov, through his network of spies, discovered that Gagarin was cheating the government of revenue by allowing private merchants to trade illegally and by trading illegally himself. By this means, he had amassed an enormous fortune; his table was set every day for dozens of guests, and near his bed hung an icon of the Virgin decorated with diamonds worth 130,000 roubles. The record was not all black; on the contrary, Gagarin had made a substantial contribution to the development of Siberia by promoting industry and trade and opening up the mineral resources of the vast region. In addition, Gargarin was highly popular throughout the province for the mildness of his rule. When he was arrested, 7,000 Swedish prisoners working in Siberia petitioned the Tsar to pardon him.

  Nesterov's first report on Gagarin's dishonesty was submitted to Peter in 1714, but the Tsar refused to pursue the matter. In 1717, Nesterov presented a more incriminating dossier, and Peter appointed a commission of Guards officers to investigate. Gagarin was arrested and confessed to irregularities and even illegalities, begging pardon and permission to end his days doing penance in a monastery. Everybody believed that Peter would pardon the Governor in recognition of his influence and services.
But the Tsar, furious that his repeated decrees about honesty had been flouted, determined to make an example. Gagarin was condemned and publicly hanged in St. Petersburg in September 1718.

  Nesterov wielded his power for almost ten years. Then the Ober-Fiscal himself was caught receiving presents which, although almost inconsequential in size, attracted the eye of his many ill-wishers. Quickly, the accumulated weight of enmity crushed him. He was tried, convicted and condemned to be broken alive on the wheel. The sentence was carried out in the square opposite Trezzini's new building for the colleges on Vasilevsky Island. By then, Nesterov was an old man with white hair. As he lay on the wheel, still alive, Peter, who happened to be visiting the colleges, went to the window and looked out. Seeing Nesterov and pitying him, the Tsar ordered the Ober-Fiscal's head to be cut off immediately so that he would not suffer longer.

  The worst offender, whom even Nesterov had never dared to accuse, was Menshikov. Again and again, the Prince presumed on the indulgence of his long-suffering master. He knew that Peter needed him; for any man who occupies the lonely pinnacle of power, such a friend is essential. He was Peter's confidant, the interpreter of his thoughts and executor of his decisions, his closest companion for drinking, the governor of Peter's son, his cavalry commander, his right arm. In public, he was careful to treat the Tsar with exaggerated respect; in private, he knew exactly how near the line he could go. If he passed it unwittingly, he received a blow from Peter's fist or cudgel. He accepted these with good humor and never sulked, which further endeared him. Yet, behind Peter's back, Menshikov showed a different face. To inferiors, he was domineering; to rivals, insolent. He had boundless ambition, his manners were coarse, he was an implacable enemy and he was bitterly hated as well as widely feared.