The History of Liberalism in Russia

Chapter7

89 The reign of Nicholas I represents a transitional epoch in the true sense of the term. This has often been overlooked because Nicholas I—and more precisely the figure of the tsar, rather than his personality—overshadowed everything . The autocrat dominated every sphere of life. Everything was represented in him and by him. Everything became the business of an inflexible bureaucratic hierarchy, to then be filed away in official archives. Hence, an impression was created of uniformity, order, stability, and firmness. In reality, however, this was an era when one system imperceptibly began to take the place of another and when civil society began to supersede the old regime of serfdom. Sometimes the government seemed to adhere to the principles of the one, then of the other, without grasping the contradiction between the two, without noticing that they were incompatible . Certainly very little of this incessant, one could almost say enormous, effort ever went further than the work of secret committees and the preparation of countless drafts, precisely because the government was unable to declare its unambiguous support for either of these systems, for either of these conflicting principles. Nicholas accepted the principle of private property.1 He certainly had no thought of fundamentally restricting the sphere of civil law. He definitely had no conscious intention of replacing relationships based on civil law with those under administrative law through the continuous extension of regulation and control, chapter 7 nicholas i (continued) The reign of nicholas i as a transitional epoch— The law on state serfs—The deepening gulf between the peasants and other classes—cultural life under nicholas i 90 • nicholas i (continued) that is, of transforming them into relationships under public law. On the contrary , many of those close to him in government had what one must describe as liberal views in respect to freedom of trade and economic policy in general.2 Nicholas I, however, felt that it was his duty to look after the moral and material well-being of his subjects. This sense of duty had its roots in the principles of the police state and in the traditions of the Orthodox empire. Because of this tradition, he could not imagine that there were any barriers to prevent him from exercising his will benevolently or that there were rights or legal regulations that could not be changed or violated even when implementing measures he was convinced would promote the well-being of his subjects. Yet Nicholas I was quite sensitive to issues of legality. Kizevetter, as we have seen, pointed out that Nicholas felt bound by the provisions of positive law and regarded it as his duty to obey the law to the letter, apart from anything to set a good example to his subjects. There was no obvious solution for the tsar, however, if a conflict arose between his duty to respect the law and his duty to care for the welfare of his subjects, a duty that in an absolutist police state or an Orthodox empire symbolizes la superlégalité constitutionelle .3 There were no norms, and neither could there be any, of course, for such an eventuality. Ultimately, it had to come down to the emperor’s judgment. Sometimes, as when regulating the relationship between the serfs and their masters , he could not bring himself to violate the acknowledged rights of the landowners in the interests of the peasants. At other times, in contrast, he was not so concerned about the well-established rights of his subjects. The supreme order of November 29, 1848, represents an extreme example of this. The Ministry of the Interior issued the following circular for the information of provincial governors on December 16, 1848, containing the following: The Emperor, whose attention had been drawn to the extraordinary increase in the use of matches, has noted that for fires occurring in 1848 arsonists used matches to commit their crimes, which in towns alone destroyed property to the value of over 12 million silver roubles. The Emperor, therefore, on November 29 deigned to issue this supreme order: 1. That match factories will only be permitted in the capital cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg) 2. That the street sale of matches is to be completely banned 3. That all match factories in the provinces are to be closed within a month of the owner receiving notice.4 The well-established rights of the match-factory owners were not respected; after all, the emperor had to take steps to protect his...