Section I. General view of the development of regional administration in the 18th century

General view on the development of regional administration in the 18th century. Before us are two systems of regional administration, completely opposite in their principles and structure: the voivode administration of the 17th century, and the gubernatorial administration of the present time. (These systems, as we have said, are completely opposite: the administration of the 17th century is imbued with the military-fiscal principle, while the gubernatorial administration of the present time is imbued with the principle of civil welfare. Different principles also determine a different structure: the voivode administration of the 17th century is bureaucratically decentralized, while the gubernatorial administration of the present time in its more organized structure is imbued with the principles of administrative centralization. More detailed features of the structure of both systems of administration consist in the following: at the head of the regional administration in the 17th century stands the voivode, in whose hands all branches of regional administration and justice are concentrated. With the help of his associates, he governs the region in the syezzhaya izba, which represents an unorganized government office, with an undefined order of clerical work. The izba is divided into povytia, between which cases are distributed in the most indiscriminate manner: the monetary povytie handles judicial cases, while the judicial one handles financial cases. Behind the povytia sit the podyachiye, engaged in clerical work: they do not represent a hierarchy of officials with a defined circle of official rights and duties. In the clerical work of the izba we also do not notice any defined system: there are no written forms for papers and reports, there are no set deadlines for the processing of cases, there is no established order in the communications of administrative instances. The voivode governs the region directly, or through officials subordinate to him — from pismennye golovy to prikashchiks at the salt lakes. Some of these officials are appointed by the voivode himself from the category of local service people, others are sent from Moscow, or are appointed by the central government from those local service people. These are prikaz positions. Separate from them are elective positions: some — for the sovereign's, state affairs; others — for zemstvo, community affairs. The former are sworn positions, for financial administration: customs and tavern heads, with various tselovalniks. The latter are zemstvo positions, for community administration: zemstvo elders with tselovalniks. The middle ground between them is occupied by police positions: guba elders with tselovalniks, in which the appointed principle is mixed with the elective one, who serve both the sovereign's cause and the zemstvo cause. However, the driving principle of the administration is the sovereign's — state affair: the appointed element absorbs the Swedish statute, which he tried to adapt to the situation of the Russian state. Such an inorganic character of Peter's reforms determined their historical fate. Squeezed by a powerful hand into a peculiar administrative environment, foreign forms did not last long in practice; they began to disintegrate little by little, following the death of Peter. In parallel with this, native forms gained the upper hand, and the regional administration approached its former type — the voivode administration of the 17th century. But Peter's reforms did not pass without a trace: regular, universally uniform administrative districts were established — gubernias, provinces, and uyezds; cities were separated; military power was separated from civil power, which until then had been merged in the hands of the voivode; the circle of rights and duties of regional rulers was defined by more precise norms, who thus appeared more subordinate to the control of the central government, more responsible to it. The latter feature is revealed more and more strongly as we approach the establishment of the gubernias, and together with this the military-fiscal character of the regional rulers is replaced by a civil-welfare one, and the scope of regional administration expands. This is marked by the complication of the clerical procedure: the number of outgoing papers increases, new forms for journals and protocols are established, the limits of chancelleries are expanded and staffs are increased. Before the establishment of the gubernias, in 1775, a reaction against the excessive complication of clerical work even appears in the legislation: 221 types of various registers and reports submitted by the provincial chancellery to the central offices are recognized as unnecessary. Thus the driving principle of the former administration — the principle of state profit — gradually gave way to a new principle — the principle of public welfare. Under the influence of this new principle, the former type of regional ruler finally changes: the governor from a guardian of the interests of the treasury is transformed into the master and guardian of the gubernia. The very nature of supervision also changes: the position of fiscal is transformed into the position of prosecutor. The government seeks to implement the principles of public welfare by means of administrative tutelage (tutelle administrative), and concentrates the care for public interests in the hands of the bureaucracy, strictly subordinating it to the control of the center. At the same time, it seeks to organize zemstvo estate unions, granting them participation in the administration of local affairs: such significance is held by the city institutions of Peter the Great, completed by the charter of 1785, the gradual granting to the nobles of the right to participate through elections in the provincial administration, the volost structure of 1797, supplemented by the division of volosts into rural societies in 1838, and the impending emancipation of the serfs. During the 18th century, the new principles of our administration developed — administrative centralization and tutelage, which imparted a peculiar structure to the administration and finally found expression in the Establishment of Gubernias on November 7, 1775, and in the publication of the General Establishment of Ministries on June 25, 1811. Thus, with the Establishment of Gubernias, the transitional moment we are considering in the historical development of the domestic regional administration is closed, and the currently operating system opens, the general generic features of which we have depicted. But does this system satisfy, with its complex ladder of administrative instances, along which matters of local interest move from the bottom up, receiving their final resolution in the central instances and causing a complex clerical procedure; with its predominance of the bureaucratic principle, paralyzing the community; with the incomplete separation of justice from administration; with non-public and written legal proceedings? Does this system of administrative centralization and tutelage satisfy the needs of our modern society, the demands of true administrative theory? To these questions we allow ourselves to answer as follows: from the point of view of our modern society, the system of regional administration introduced by the Establishment of Gubernias represents an anachronism that does not satisfy the living demands of modernity — but, placing oneself amidst the society of the 18th century, delving into the structure of the social life of that time, one cannot but say that this system was not only the only possible system of administration, but also a remarkable step forward. From the point of view of administrative theories that have emerged recently, this system also does not withstand criticism, but it is fully justified by those administrative theories that prevailed in the 18th century in Western Europe, which influenced the administrative practice of continental states, and which could have had an influence here as well. The society of the 18th century presents us with a sad picture. Behind the brilliant external side, behind the jubilations and celebrations of victories, the everyday, mundane side is revealed — to the highest degree bleak. It presents us with a society with a complete lack of public self-awareness, with perfect indifference to questions of common interest — it presents mental stagnation in the mass of society, and extreme moral depravity. In this society we do not find such elements which, having raised society to administrative self-government, could weaken the bureaucratic principle, and together with it the need for centralization. The bureaucratic principle was the only possible principle of administration; broad public initiative could not replace government tutelage. The noble examples of the city of Ostashkov, which undertook at its own civic expense to establish an institution for the upbringing of foundlings, appear as joyful exceptions at a time when, according to Catherine II, everyone lived only for themselves, not thinking about the common good. More in the spirit of such a time are the actions of the Simbirsk town hall, which in 1756 was ordered to 'seek not its own, but the common city benefit', and the terrible discords of the entire Oryol city society under Catherine II, in 1768. The city institutions of Peter the Great failed to develop a municipal spirit: transferred from city to city for state service, the townspeople of the 18th century looked upon public city service as a heavy duty. To what extent, indeed, the inattention of some city societies to the internal welfare of their city extended, can be seen from the report of Prince Hesse-Homburg, who in 1733 reported to the government that in Astrakhan and in other cities, due to the neglect of cleanliness, there is the most harmful and infectious stench, from which harm comes to people. As a consequence of this report, police chiefs were appointed from garrison officers in 23 cities, with corresponding commands and staffs.