Mikhail Mikhaylovich Speransky

Russian administrator

• Born: January 12, 1772
• Birthplace: Cherkutino, Russia
• Died: February 23, 1839
• Place of death: St. Petersburg, Russia

A career bureaucrat, Speransky sought to liberalize and modernize the Russian government by limiting the power of the autocracy, reforming local government, and codifying Russian law.

Early Life

Of peasant origins, Mikhail Mikhaylovich Speransky (spyeh-RAHN-skee) was born in a small provincial Russian village northeast of Moscow. His family was impoverished and poorly educated and lacked even a family surname. In fact, Speransky did not acquire his name until he began his formal education at the age of twelve, when he entered the ecclesiastical academy at the provincial capital of Vladimir. He was already a promising student, and his intellectual skills and academic accomplishments brought him immediate recognition.

In 1790, Speransky was accepted for advanced study at the prestigious Alexander-Nevsky Seminary in St. Petersburg, once more distinguishing himself in his academic pursuits. In addition to the traditional seminary curriculum, Speransky acquired a thorough foundation in the rationalist and materialist thought of the Enlightenment and philosophe writers, which would influence him for the rest of his life.

Following his graduation in 1792, Speransky was offered a part-time teaching post at the academy, and in 1795 he was appointed instructor of philosophy and prefect (dean). After rejecting the proffered appointment, Speransky entered the service of Prince A. B. Kuratin, an influential member of the imperial court. For the next year, Speransky continued his study of French Enlightenment thought and encountered the philosophy of Immanuel Kant as well. In 1796, Kuratin was appointed by Emperor Paul I as procurator-general of the senate, which was similar to being prime minister of the government. Kuratin then used his influence to secure for Speransky a position in the government bureaucracy at the beginning of 1797.

By the end of 1798, Speransky had ascended into the upper levels of the bureaucratic Table of Ranks. In the process, he acquired increased responsibilities and hereditary noble status, both of which reflected his growing importance and influence within the bureaucracy and St. Petersburg society. He became acquainted with the concepts of English political philosophy and its emphasis on conservative social corporateness and institutional reform, which now attracted the previously Francophile nobility following the excesses of the French Revolution. It was at one of these encounters that Speransky met his future wife, Elizabeth Stephens. They were married in 1798 and in 1799 produced a daughter, also Elizabeth. His wife died shortly after their daughter’s birth. Speransky, already aloof and introverted by nature, became even more withdrawn as he used his career as a means to overcome his personal grief.

Life’s Work

In 1801, a new czar, Alexander I, ascended the Russian throne. With him came the hope on the part of many younger Russians that his vague sympathies toward liberalism and reform could be translated into reality. For Speransky, it brought the notice of the new czar and his appointment to the newly formed Ministry of Interior. Attaching himself to the fringes of the “unofficial committee,” Speransky spent the years between 1802 and 1808 creating the intellectual foundations required for the restructuring of the Russian political and social order. In his deliberations, he drew upon the philosophical ideals of the Enlightenment, the political concepts of the English system, and his own understanding of Russian historical development.

From the outset, Speransky recognized that the key to any broad reform within Russia was the reform of the autocracy itself. As constituted by the reforms of Peter I and consolidated by Catherine II in the previous century, the autocracy was the only legitimate source of authority within the Russian political system and could not be prevented from exercising that authority in a capricious and arbitrary manner.

To Speransky, this situation represented the epitome of political lawlessness, which could not be tolerated in a rational and enlightened society. Not only was such lawlessness destructive to the stability, cohesion, and order of the society in general, but also in Russia’s case it was the primary cause of its political, economic, and social backwardness. Moreover, it prevented Russia from throwing off the burdens of that backwardness by obstructing modernization through meaningful reforms. The only enlightened means to overcome this lawlessness on the part of the ruler, Speransky argued, was the establishment of the rule of law to which all within the society were subject. In this way, rules could be established to govern the relationship between the ruler and the ruled, while also formulating the context in which authority would be exercised by the ruler.

Although Speransky formulated the essential elements of his rule of law concept in 1801-1802 and 1803 for “Mémoire sur la legislation fondamentale en général,” summarized by V. I. Semevskii as “Pervi politicheskii traktat Speranskogo” (1907; on the fundamental laws of the state) and “Zapiska ob ustroistve sudebnykhi i pravitel’ stvennykh uchrezhdenii v Rossii” (1905; report on the establishment of judiciary and government institutions in Russia), the opportunity to present his formulations to Alexander did not occur until 1809. By the time it did, Alexander’s earlier sympathies had dissipated.

The czar rejected Speransky’s constitutional plan (known also as the Plan of 1809) as an unacceptable limitation of authority of the autocracy. Speransky’s influence at the imperial court began to wane. By 1812, a variety of factors conspired to drive him from power. The cruelest blow, however, came from Alexander himself, who sent his former administrative secretary and assistant into exile, first at Nizhni Novgorod on the upper Volga River and then to Perm in western Siberia near the Ural Mountains. He remained there in disgrace until 1816.

In 1816, the exiled Speransky was permitted to return to government service as a provincial official in the remote province of Penza, near Perm. There he began the difficult task of reforming the chaotic Siberian local government. Pleased with his success, Alexander then appointed Speransky governor-general of Penza in 1819 so that he could implement his Penza reforms throughout Siberia. In 1821, Alexander recalled Speransky to St. Petersburg and appointed him to the State Council for the purpose of reorganizing the system of local government in Russia along the Siberian model. By 1825, Speransky succeeded in establishing a system that would serve Russia for the remainder of the nineteenth century.

Speransky now turned his attention to judicial and legal reform. All agreed that the Russian judicial system, like that of local government previously, was in shambles. The obvious solution was a new codification of Russian laws to replace the Sobornoye Ulozheniye 1649 (code of 1649), which had never been effectively updated. By 1832, Speransky published the Plonoye sobraniye zakanov Rossiyskoy imperii or PSZ (1830; complete collection of the laws of the Russian Empire), which represented the codification of all laws enacted between 1649 and 1832. Speransky also compiled and published the Svod Zakanov (1832-1839; digest of laws), incorporating all legislation still in force in 1832. Together they served as the ultimate source of legal authority in Russia until 1917. When Speransky died in 1839, he was a much honored and respected statesman.

Significance

Ironically, the impact of Mikhail Mikhaylovich Speransky’s career as a reformer is twofold. His early reforms demonstrated that there were individuals in Russia who were concerned about the direction of Russian development during the first half of the nineteenth century. Many of them, like Speransky, concluded that Russia’s only hope for future salvation was through the dissolution of the autocracy and the establishment of some form of constitutional government.

The fact that Speransky’s own constitutional proposals foundered on the rock of autocracy and were thus stillborn did not alter that outlook. Others soon emerged to assume the mantle of leadership in the struggle against the autocracy. One such group, the Decembrists, incorporated many of the ideas from Speransky’s Plan of 1809 into their political programs for reform in 1825. Although they also failed in the attainment of their goals, it became clear that the struggle against the autocracy would continue until it accepted the end of its absolutism. Had the autocracy been willing to implement the constitutional reforms put forth by Speransky in 1809, limited as they were, it might have survived the challenges against it after 1870. The fact that it did not do so only postponed the fate that it suffered in 1917.

This leads to the second aspect of Speransky’s reforms that must be considered. For the most part, it involves the nature of his work after 1816, which significantly enhanced the efficiency and effectiveness of government administration in Russia. The great irony is that while Speransky’s earlier reforms contributed to efforts to reform the autocracy, his later reforms made it possible for the autocracy to resist those efforts and to survive during the remainder of the nineteenth century.

Bibliography

Christian, David. “The Political Ideals of Michael Speransky.” The Slavonic and East European Review 54 (1976): 192-213. A scholarly and historiographical examination of Speransky’s political ideals. Belongs to the school of interpretation that argues that Speransky was a radical liberal reformer and thus rejects Marc Raeff’s Rechtstadt interpretation (see below). Excellent footnotes incorporating considerable bibliographical material.

Gooding, John. “The Liberalism of Michael Speransky.” The Slavonic and East European Review 64 (1986): 401-424. Thorough criticism of Speransky’s writings, with Gooding supporting the conclusions of Christian’s article (see above). Includes extensive footnotes that encompass a wide range of bibliographical materials.

Jenkins, Michael. “Mikhail Speransky.” History Today 20 (1970): 404-409. A short and popularized account of Speransky’s career designed primarily for high school students.

Raeff, Marc. Michael Speransky: Statesman of Imperial Russia, 1772-1839. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1957. The most comprehensive, analytic, and scholarly biographical treatment of Speransky in the English language. Contains exhaustive notes, a bibliography, and indexes that guide the student to every facet of Speransky’s life and activities as well as that of general Russian history between 1772 and 1839.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Siberia and the Reformers of 1822. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1956. A comprehensive and scholarly treatment of Speransky’s Siberian reforms of 1816-1821 and their impact on the shaping of his reform of local government in Russia after 1822. Extensive notes, a bibliography, and indexes.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗, ed. Plans for Political Reform in Imperial Russia, 1730-1905. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966. This collection of original sources includes documents on government reform (1802) and the codification of state law by Speransky (1809).

Whisenhunt, William Benton. In Search of Legality: Mikhail M. Speranskii and the Codification of Russian Law. Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs: New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press, 2001. A thorough examination of Speransky’s attempts to codify Russian law during the 1820’s and 1830’s.