PETER AND RUSSIAN HISTORY


Peter the Great and his reign has become a focal point for most historians of Russia. For over two hundred years Russians have written a great deal, and talked even more, about Peter's activities. Whenever a discussion of isolated facts in Russian history has turned to consideration of their general significance it has been found necessary to refer to Peter's activities; and anyone discussing Russia's past philosophically has found it necessary to establish his academic respectability by commenting on Peter's activities.

Very often, indeed, Russian philosophies of history have been in the form of judgments of the Petrine reforms; and, by a remarkable feat of condensation, the meaning of all Russian history was looked for in the significance of those reforms, and in the relationship between the old and the new Russia. The Petrine reforms became the focus of all Russian history: they were taken as a starting point for the study of the past, and used by historians in an attempt to elucidate the future. Thus Russian history was divided into two periods, pre- Petrine and post-Petrine.

If we ask ourselves a series of three important questions we might come to a better understanding of Peter's long-range significance in Russian history. The three parts of the problem we must look into are, then, how much Peter inherited from unreformed Russia, how much he borrowed from Western Europe, and what he left Russia, or more accurately, what happened to his work after his death.

Peter inherited from medieval Russia sovereign power of a peculiar sort, and an even stranger organization of society. At the time of the accession of the new dynasty, the sovereign power was recognized as hereditary because of its proprietorial character. As soon as it lost this proprietorial character, it was left with neither definite juridical definition nor defined scope, and began to expand or contract according to the situation and character of the monarch. Peter inherited almost complete authority, and managed to extend it even further. He created the senate, and by so doing rid himself of the pretensions which were associated with the Boyar Duma; by abolishing the Patriarchate he also eliminated both the risk of further Nikonian scandals and of the cramping effect of the exaggerated and unctuous respect which was accorded to the Patriarch of All the Russias.

At the same time, however, it is important to remember that Peter was the first monarch to give his unlimited power a moral and political definition. Before his reign the notion of the state was identified with the person of the Tsar, in the same way as in law the owner of a house is identified with the house. Peter made a distinction between the two ideas by insisting on two oaths, one to the State, and one to the Monarch. In his ukases he repeatedly insisted that the interests of the state were supreme, and, by so doing, made the Monarch subordinate to the state. Thus the Emperor became the chief representative of the law and the guardian of general prosperity. Peter considered him self a servant of state and country, and wrote as an official would about his victory over the Swedes at Doberau: ''From the time I began to serve, I have never seen such firing and such discipline among our soldiers''. Indeed the expressions interest of the state, public good, and useful to the whole nation, appear in Russian legislation for the first time in Peter's time.

None the less Peter was influenced unconsciously by historical traditions in the same way that he had been unconsciously influenced by instincts. Because he thought that his reforms were in the interest of state, and for the public good, he sacrificed his son to this supreme law. The tragic death of the Tsarevitch led to the Statute of February 5th, 1722, on the law of succession. This was the first law in the history of Russian legislation to have a constitutional character. It stated: ''We issue this Statute in order to empower the ruling sovereign to specify the person to whom he wished the heritage to pass, and to charge that person according to his judgment.'' The statute, by way of justification recalls the example of the Grand Prince Ivan III who arbitrarily disposed of the succession, appointing first his grandson and then his son to succeed him. Before Peter there had been no law of succession, and its order had been decided by custom and circumstance alone.

Under the old dynasty which looked on the state as its patrimony it was customary for the father to pass on the throne to his son ''by testament.'' A new system of succession, election by the Sobor, was introduced in 1598. By the seventeenth century the new dynasty did not look on the state as its patrimony, but, while the hereditary system fell into disuse, the elective system was not yet established; the new dynasty was recognized as hereditary for one generation only, and in 1613 the oath was taken to Michael Romanov and his children, but no farther. In the absence of an established system, the throne was occupied sometimes after an election by the Sobor, and sometimes by presenting the heir to the people in the square at Moscow, as was done by Tsar Alexis with the Tsarevitch Theodore, or as happened when the rebellious Streltsy and an irregular Sobor established the monarchy of Tsars Peter and lvan.

Peter replaced the hereditary and elective systems of succession with a system of personal nomination coupled with the right to revoke; that is to say he re-established succession by testament, legalized a situation for which no law existed, and retarded constitutional law by returning to the patrimony system of succession. Not only did Peter irresponsible, reproduce the past in his innovations, but he also let it influence his social legislation.

Peter did nothing to change the organization of society which had been set up by the past law codes, nor did he alter a division of classes which was based on obligations to the state, nor did he attack serfdom. On the contrary, the old system of class obligation was complicated by the imposition of further burdens. Peter made education compulsory for the nobility; he divided the civil service from the military; he organized the urban taxpayers into a compact group first under the administration of the zemskie isby, and then under the town councils; and he made the merchants of the guilds, the upper urban class not only pay their ordinary taxes but form companies to lease and run factories and workshops belonging to the state. In Petrine Russia factories and workshops were not privately owned, but were state enterprises administered by a merchant of the guild who was compelled to do so.

Nevertheless, there were compensations, for the merchants, manufacturers, and workshop superintendents were granted one of the privileges of the nobility, that of buying villages with serfs to work in the factory or workshop. Peter did not alter the nature of serfdom but did modify its structure; the many types of serfdom, each with a different legal and economic position, were combined, and one class of taxable serfs was the result. Some of the ''free idlers'' were registered as inferior urban citizens, so that idlers shall take themselves to trade in order that nobody shall be without an occupation'.; others were conscripted, or forced into bondage.

Thus Peter, by abolishing the intermediate classes, continued the work of simplification started by the preceding law codes. His legislation forced the members of the intermediate classes into one or other of the main classes. It was in Peter's time that Russian society was organized in the fashion planned in seventeenth-century legislation; after Peter's reforms Russian society was divided into clearly defined classes, and every class was burdened with complicated and weighty duties. Peter's attitude to the political and social regime of old Russia is thus clearly established. He neither disturbed old foundations, nor built new ones, but altered existing arrangements by separating classes previously combined, or combining classes hitherto divided. Both society and the institutions of government were made more vigorous by these changes, and the state benefited from their greater activity.
#What was Peter's attitude to Western Europe? He had inherited the precept ''Do everything after the example of foreign countries," that is to say Western European countries. This precept combines large doses of despondency, a lack of confidence in Russia's strength, and self-denial. How did Peter interpret this precept? What did he think of Russian relations with Western Europe? Did he see in Western Europe a model to imitate or a master who could be dismissed at the end of the lesson?

Peter thought that the biggest loss suffered by Muscovy in the seventeenth century had been the Baltic littoral, by which Russia was deprived of contact with the civilized nations of the West. Yet why did he want this contact? Peter has often been accused of being a blind and inveterate Westerner who admired everything foreign, not because it was unlike anything Russian, and it was believed that he wanted rather to assimilate Russia to Western Europe than to make Russia resemble Western Europe. It is difficult to believe that as sensible a man as Peter was troubled by such fantasies.

We know that in 1697 he had traveled incognito with the Great Embassy, with the intention of acquiring general technical knowledge and recruiting West European naval technicians. Indeed it was for technical reasons that the West was necessary to Peter. He was not a blind admirer of the West; on the contrary, he mistrusted it, and was not deluded into thinking that he could establish cordial relations with the West, for he knew that the West mistrusted his country, and was hostile to it.

On the anniversary in 1724 of the Peace of Nystadt, Peter wrote that all counties had tried hard to exclude the Russians from knowledge in many subjects, particularly military affairs, but somehow the countries had let information on military affairs escape them, as if their sight had been obscured, as if everything was veiled in front of their eyes.'' Peter found this a miracle from God, and ordered the miracle to be forcefully expressed in the forthcoming celebrations ''and boldly set out, for there is a lot of meaning here, by which he meant that the subject was very suggestive of ideas. Indeed we would gladly believe the legend which has come down to us, that Peter once said, as Osterman records, ''We need Europe for a few decades; later on we must turn our back on it.'' Thus for Peter association with Europe was only a means to an end, and not an end in itself.

What did Peter hope to gain from a rapprochement? Before answering this question, we must remember why Peter sent scores of young Russians to study abroad, and ask what type of foreigner he attracted to Russia. The young Russian was sent to study mathematics, the natural sciences, naval architecture, and navigation; the foreigners who came to Russia were officers, naval architects, sailors, artisans, mining engineers, and later on jurists and specialists in administration and finance' With their help Peter introduced into Russia useful technical knowledge and skills lacked by the Russians. Russia had no regular army; he created one. It had no fleet; he built one. It had no convenient maritime commercial outlet; with his army and navy he took the eastern littoral of the Baltic. Mining was barely developed, and manufacturing hardly existed, yet by Peter's death there were more than two hundred factories and workshops in the country.

The establishment of industry depended on technical knowledge, so Peter founded a naval academy, and many schools of navigation, medicine, artillery and engineering, including some where Latin and mathematics were taught, as well as nearly fifty elementary schools in provincial and sub-provincial main towns. He even provided nearly fifty garrison schools for soldiers children. There was insufficient revenue, so Peter more than trebled it. There was no rationally organized administration capable of managing this new and complicated business, so foreign experts were called on to help to create a new central administration.

The preceding is, of course, an incomplete account of Peter's achievements, but it does show what he hoped to do with the help of Western Europe. Peter called on Western Europe to work and train Russians in financial and administrative affairs, and in the technical sciences' He did not want to borrow the results of Western technique, but wanted to appropriate the skill and knowledge, and build industries on the Western European model. Thus Peter took from the old Russia the absolute power, the law, and the class structure; from the West he borrowed the technical knowledge required to organize the army, the navy, the economy, and the government. Where then was the revolution which .changed or transformed the Russian way of life, which introduced not any new institutions, but new principles.

Peter's contemporaries, however, thought that the reforms were revolutionary, and they communicated their opinion to their descendants. But the reforms did not stop the Russians from doing things in their own way, and it was not the innovations that agitated them so much as the methods Peter used. Some of the results of the reforms were only felt in the future, and their significance was certainly not understood by everyone, and contemporaries anyhow any knew the effect the reforms had on them. Some reactions, however, were immediate, and these Peter had to account for.

The reforms were influenced not only by Peter's personality, but by wars and internecine struggles. Although the war had caused Peter to introduce reforms, it had an adverse influence on their development and success, because they were effected in an atmosphere of confusion usually consequent on war. The difficulties and demands of war forced Peter to do everything hastily. The requirements of war imposed a nervous and feverish tempo on the reforms, and an unhealthy fast pace. Peter's military preoccupations did not leave him time for critical analysis of a situation or careful consideration of his orders and the conditions in which they would be carried out. He could not wait patiently for natural improvement; he required rapid action and immediate results. At every delay or difficulty he would goad the officials with the threats which he used so often that they lost their power.

Thus without exaggerating or belittling the work of Peter the Great, we can summarize it as follows' the reforms were brought on by the essential requirements of state and people; the need for reform was understood by an authoritative, intelligent, energetic, and talented individual, one of those who, for no apparent reason, appear from time to time. Further, he was animated by a sense of duty, was resolved not to spare his life in the service of his country. When Peter came to the throne, Russia was not in an advantageous position compared with other European countries. Towards the end of the sixteenth century the Russians had created a great state, which was one of the largest in Europe. In the seventeenth century, however, it began to fail in moral and material strength.

Peter's reforms did not aim directly at changing the political, social, or moral order, nor did they aim at forcing Russian life into an alien Western European pattern. The reforms only aimed at providing the Russian State and people with Western European intellectual and material resources, so that Russia might take its just position in Europe, and its people increase their productive capacity.

But Peter had to do all this in a hurry, in the middle of dangerous and bitter war, by using constraint at home; he had to struggle with the rapacity of his rascally officials, a gross landed nobility, and the prejudices and fears instilled by an ignorant clergy. The first reforms had been modest and limited, aimed only at reconstructing the army and developing the financial resources of the state. Later, however, the reforms were the occasion for an obstinate battle which disturbed the existing pattern of living, and upset society' started and carried through by the sovereign, the people's usual leader, the reforms were undertaken in conditions of upheaval, almost of revolution, not because of their objects but because of their methods, and by the impressions they made on the nerves and imaginations of the people. Perhaps it was more of a shock than a revolution, but the shock was the unforeseen and unintended consequence of the reforms.

The contradiction in his work, his errors, his hesitations, his obstinacy, his lack of judgment in civil affairs, his uncontrollable cruelty, and, on the other hand, his wholehearted love of his country, his stubborn devotion to his work, the broad, enlightened outlook he brought to bear on it, his daring plans conceived with creative genius and concluded with incomparable energy, and finally the success he achieved by the incredible sacrifices of his people and himself - all these different characteristics make it difficult to paint one painting.

Moreover they explain the diverse impression he made on people; he sometimes provoked unqualified admiration, sometimes unqualified hostility. Generally the criticism prevailed because even his good actions were accompanied by disgusting methods. Peter's reforms were the occasion for a struggle between the despot and the people's inertia. The Tsar hoped to arouse the energies and initiative of a society subdued by serfdom with the menace of his power, and strove, with the help of the noblemen, the oppressors of serfs, to introduce into Russia the European sciences and education which were essential to social progress. He also wanted the serf, while remaining a serf, to act responsibly and freely. The conjunction of despotism and liberty, of civilization and serfdom, was a paradox which was not resolved in the two centuries after Peter.

It is true that Russians of the eighteenth century tried to reconcile the Petrine reforms with humanitarian instincts, and Prince Shcherbatov, who was opposed to autocracy, devoted a treatise to explaining and even justifying Peter's vices and arbitrary conduct. Shcherbatov recognized that the enlightenment introduced into Russia by Peter benefited the country, and attacked Peter's critics on the grounds that they themselves had been the recipients of a culture, bestowed on them by the autocracy, which permitted then to distinguish the evils inherent in the autocratic system. Peter's faith in the miraculous power of education, and his respect for scientific knowledge, inspired the servile with little understanding of the meaning of civilization; this understanding grew slowly, and was eventually transformed into a desire for truth and liberty.

Kluchevsky, the great Russian historian gives this final assessment of Peter:

"Autocracy as a political principle is in itself odious. Yet we can reconcile ourselves to the individual who exercises this unnatural power when he adds self-sacrifice to it, and, although an autocrat, devotes himself unsparingly to the public good, risking destruction even on difficulties caused by his own work. We reconcile ourselves in the same way to the impetuous showers of spring, which strip branches from the trees, but none the less refresh the air, and by their downpour bring on the growth of the new seed."


Source: V. O. Kluchevsky, The Course of Russian History.

Send comments and questions to Professor Gerhard Rempel, Western New England College.