Reforms of Peter I
The transformations that have taken place in Russia have covered almost all aspects of the country's life: economy, politics, science, everyday life, foreign policy, the state system.
They affected the situation of the working masses, church affairs, etc.
In many ways, these transformations are connected with the activities of Peter I (1689-1725).
His merit was that he correctly understood and realized the complexity of the tasks that the country faced, and purposefully began to implement them
We will not focus on the characteristics of the life of Peter I, but will focus on the reforms carried out by him, which played a big role in the history of Russia.
The famous historian Professor E. V. Anisimov in his article "Peter I: The Birth of the Empire", published in the book "History of the Fatherland: People, Ideas, solutions" (Moscow, 1991. pp. 186-220), thoroughly analyzes Peter's reforms.
We agree with the main assessments of Peter's reforms by Professor E. V. Anisimov and therefore we will cite some pages from his publication concerning the reforms of Emperor Peter the Great.
Of all the transformations of Peter, the central place was occupied by the reform of public administration, the reorganization of all its links.
This is understandable, since the old command apparatus inherited by Peter was not able to cope with the complicated management tasks.
can do almost anything.
That is why the legislation of the Petrine era was characterized by pronounced tendencies towards comprehensive regulation, unceremonious interference in the sphere of private and personal life.
Peter associated the poor work of his subjects with disregard for the law, the exact execution of which, as he believed, was the only panacea for the difficulties of life.
The idea of Peter as a reformer of Russia was aimed, first, at creating such a perfect and comprehensive legislation, which would, if possible, cover and regulate the entire life of subjects.
Secondly, Peter dreamed of creating a perfect and clock like state structure through which legislation could be implemented.
The formation of the idea of the reform of the state apparatus and its implementation date back to the end of 1710-1720.
During this period, Peter I in many areas of domestic policy began to move away from the principles of direct violence to the regulation of social phenomena with the help of a bureaucratic machine.
Peter chose the state structure of Sweden as a model for the state reform he conceived.
Peter made great efforts to establish the effective work of the institutions created by him and paid special attention to the development of numerous regulatory documents that were supposed to ensure the efficiency of the apparatus.
Summarizing the experience of the Swedes, taking into account some specific aspects of Russian reality, he created the so called General Regulations of 1719-1724, which had no analogues in Europe at that time, which contained the most general principles of the apparatus.
He also created a sample of the regulations of the central institution — the Admiralty Board.
Thus, the new system of central institutions was created together with the system of higher authorities and local government.
Especially important was the reform of the Senate, which occupied a key position in the state system of Peter.
The Senate was entrusted with judicial, administrative and legislative functions.
He was also in charge of the colleges and provinces, the appointment and approval of officials.
The unofficial head of the Senate, consisting of the first dignitaries, was the prosecutor General, endowed with special powers and subordinate only to the monarch.
The creation of the post of Prosecutor General laid the foundation for an entire institution of the prosecutor's office, the model for which was the administrative experience of France.
Describing Peter I and the reforms carried out by him, it is important to note the following.
Peter's worldview was characterized by an attitude to a state institution as a military unit, to the regulations as a charter, and to any employee as a soldier or officer.
And it's not about the special belligerence of Peter, who fought for 28 years out of 36 years of his reign (1689-1725).
Peter was convinced that the army was the most perfect social structure, that it was a worthy model of the whole society.
Military laws built on principles proven by the experience of battles, according to Peter, convincingly showed the advantages of the military model.
Military discipline is the lever with which, according to Peter, it was possible to cultivate order, diligence, conscientiousness, and Christian morality in people.
The introduction of military principles into the civilian sphere was also manifested in the extension of military legislation to the system of state institutions, as well as in giving the laws defining the work of institutions the meaning and strength of military charters.
In 1716, the main military law — the Military Charter was adopted by direct decree of Peter I as a fundamental legislative act, mandatory in institutions at all levels.
Since not all the norms of military legislation were applicable in the civilian sphere, specially compiled samples from military laws were used.
The extension of military law to the civilian sphere led to the application of the same penalties against civil servants that were subject to war crimes against the oath.
Neither before nor after Peter in the history of Russia was such a huge number of decrees issued that promised the death penalty for crimes in office.
The regular army, fostered by Peter I, in all the diversity of its institutions and the monotony of its principles, took a large place in the life of Russian society, becoming its most important element.
According to the figurative expression of V. V. Lyapin, a specialist in the history of the Russian army in Russia of the XVIII XIX centuries, it was not the army that was under the state, but on the contrary, the state was under the army.
It is no accident that the XVIII century became the "century of palace coups" largely because of the hypertrophied importance of the military element, primarily the guard, in the public life of the empire.
The brute military strength of the guard, its corporate spirit, was often used by political adventurers to seize power.
Peter's state reform, as well as the transformation of the army, undoubtedly led to a fairly clear separation of military and civil services.
But at the same time, Peter's reforms were marked by a wide spread of the practice of professional military personnel participating in public administration.
This was expressed, in particular, in the regular use of the military, especially the guards, as emissaries of the tsar, endowed with extraordinary powers to perform the task.
And another event related to the use of the military in general civil affairs was carried out by Peter I.
During the per capita census, a new procedure for the maintenance and deployment of troops was established.
The regiments were settled on the lands of those peasants whose "per capita number" was charged for the needs of this regiment.
The laws on the settlement of regiments issued in 1724 were supposed to regulate the relationship of the population with the troops.
However, they led to the fact that the power of the regiment commander became more complete than the power of the local civil administration.
The military command not only monitored the collection of poll taxes in the area where the regiment was stationed, but also performed the functions of the" zemstvo police": it stopped the escape of peasants, suppressed resistance, and also carried out, according to the passport system introduced at the same time, general political supervision over the movement of the population.
The Petrine era is notable for the final formalization of the autocracy.
At the same time, the structure and design of the autocratic rule regime were predetermined primarily by the personality of Peter himself.
He realized both the ideas potentially embedded in this institute, and brought new, original or borrowed from other countries.
In the era of Peter, there was a collapse of the once unified class of "serving people".
The top of the service class — the servants "for the fatherland", i.e. by origin, became nobles, and the lower class of the servants "for the fatherland" — the so called "odnodvorets".
The formation of a class of nobles who enjoyed exclusive rights was the result not only of the ongoing process of differentiation of the service class, the deepening of differences between its upper and lower classes, but also the result of the conscious activity of the authorities.
The essence of the changes in the position of the top of the service class was the introduction of a new criterion for evaluating their service.
Instead of the principle according to which noble servicemen occupied a high position in society, the army and in the service as a result of their origin, the principle of personal service was introduced, the conditions of which were determined by law.
The new principle, reflected in the Table of Ranks of 1722, strengthened the nobility due to the influx of immigrants from other estates.
But this was not the ultimate goal of this transformation.
With the help of the principle of personal service, strictly stipulated conditions for promotion up the ladder of ranks, Peter turned a lot of service personnel into a military bureaucratic corps, completely subordinate to him and dependent only on him.
At the same time, Peter sought to link the very concept of "nobleman" as closely as possible with the mandatory permanent service, which requires knowledge and practical skills.
Only the nobleman is worthy of reverence, who serves, Peter inspired his subjects.
Peter supported his suggestions with actions: all the nobles were assigned to various institutions and regiments, their children were sent to schools, sent abroad to study, the tsar forbade those who did not want to study to marry, and took away estates from those who hid from the service.
The property of the nobles, as well as the service, was regulated by law: in 1714, in order to force the nobles to think of the service as the main source of well — being, a entail was introduced it was forbidden to sell and mortgage land holdings, including ancestral ones.
The noble possessions could be confiscated at any time in case of violation of the laws, which was often carried out in practice.
The reform was also significant in relation to the residents of cities.
Peter decided to unify the social structure of the city by introducing Western European institutions into it: magistrates, workshops and guilds.
These institutions, which had deep roots in the history of the development of the Western European medieval city, were introduced into Russian reality by force, by administrative means.
The Posadsky population was divided into two guilds: the first guild was made up of "first class", which included the top of the posad, rich merchants, artisans, citizens of intelligent professions, and the second guild included small shopkeepers and artisans, who, in addition, were united in workshops on a professional basis.
All other citizens who did not join the guilds were subject to inspection in order to identify fugitive peasants among them and return them to their former places of residence.
Peter left unchanged the previous system of distributing taxes by "belly", when the wealthiest citizens were forced to pay for tens and hundreds of their poor fellow citizens.
Thus, medieval social structures and institutions were consolidated, which, in turn, sharply slowed down the process of maturing and developing capitalist relations in cities.
The system of city administration became equally formal, at the head of which Peter put the Chief Magistrate, who led the magistrates of other cities subordinate to him.
But these magistrates, whose main rights were only judicial proceedings, tax collection and supervision of order in the city, neither in essence nor in a number of formal features had anything in common with the magistrates of Western European cities — effective self government bodies.
As a result of the city reform, a bureaucratic management mechanism was created, and the representatives of the posad, who were part of the magistrates, were considered as officials of the centralized city management system, and their positions were even included in the Table of Ranks.
The social transformations carried out by Peter I also affected the serfs: there was a merger of serfs and serfs into a single estate.
As you know, serfdom is an institution close in its features to domestic slavery, which had a thousand year history and developed law.
The general trend in the development of serfdom was in the direction of extending many norms of serf law to serfs, which was a common platform for their subsequent merger.
The legislation introduced by Peter I was characterized by a clearer regulation of the rights and obligations of each estate and, accordingly, a more stringent system of prohibitions.
The tax reform was of great importance in this process.
The introduction of the poll tax, which was preceded by the census of male souls, meant the establishment of a procedure for firmly attaching each payer to the tax in the place of residence where he was registered for the payment of the poll tax.
Large scale police actions of a long term nature are characteristic of the Peter's time.
The most serious of them should be recognized as the placement in 1724-1725 of army regiments in permanent apartments in places, counties, provinces, where a poll tax was collected for them, and the associated police functions of army commanders.
Another police action carried out under Peter was the introduction of a passport system.
Without a passport established by law, no peasant or citizen had the right to leave his place of residence.
Violation of the passport regime automatically meant turning a person into a criminal who was subject to arrest and sent to his former place of residence.
Significant transformations also affected the church.
Thus, Peter I implemented a reform, which was expressed in the creation of a collegial (synodal) administration of the Russian Church.
The destruction of the patriarchate reflected the desire of Peter I to eliminate the "princely" system of church power, unthinkable under the then autocracy.
By declaring himself the de facto head of the church, Peter destroyed its autonomy.
Moreover, he made extensive use of the institutions of the church to carry out his policies.
Those submitted, under pain of heavy fines, were obliged to attend church and repent of their sins to the priest, who, according to the law, was obliged to report everything illegal that became known in confession to the authorities.
The reforms implemented by Peter I were of great importance for the historical fate of Russia.
The institutions of power created by him have existed for hundreds of years.
For example, the Senate operated from 1711 to December 1917, i.e. 206 years, the synodal structure of the Orthodox Church remained unchanged from 1721 to 1918, i.e. a little less than 200 years; the system of poll tax was abolished only in 1887, i.e. 163 years after its introduction in 1724.
An equally long fate was prepared for many other reforms of Peter the Great.
In the history of Russia, there are few such or other institutions of state power created ever before or after Peter I, which would have existed for so long and would have had such a strong impact on all aspects of public life.
It is necessary to say a few words about the serfdom policy of Peter I. Serfdom was established in Russia long before the birth of Peter.
It permeated all the foundations of the country's life, the consciousness of people.
We must not forget that serfdom in Russia, unlike in Western Europe, played a special, comprehensive role.
The destruction of the legal structures of serfdom would undermine the basis of autocratic power.
Peter I understood all this well, and therefore strengthened this system with all the means available to him.
The transformations of Peter I, aimed at eliminating the technical, economic and cultural backwardness of the country, at accelerating its development, had great progressive significance.
Their implementation was largely due to the personality of Peter I himself, who was a major statesman, acted with exceptional purposefulness, boldly breaking routine orders and institutions, successfully overcoming countless difficulties.
An outstanding politician with broad knowledge, a military figure and a diplomat, Peter I was able to quickly assess the situation in those difficult conditions, highlight the main thing, draw the right conclusions from mistakes and failures.
At the same time, changes and reforms were carried out on a serf basis, accompanied by the spread of serfdom relations to new territories and new categories of the population, to new spheres of economic life.
As Professor E. V. Anisimov notes, the Peter's Epoch turned out to be a real hard time for the Russian merchants.
A sharp increase in direct taxes from merchants as the wealthiest part of the townspeople, the forcible formation of trading companies (a form of trade organization that seemed to Peter the most suitable in Russian conditions) are only part of the means and methods of coercion that he applied to the merchants on a significant scale, setting the main goal to get as much money as possible for the treasury.
In line with such measures, we should also consider the forced relocation of merchants (and from among the wealthiest) to St. Petersburg — an unsettled, for a long time, in fact, a front line city, as well as administrative regulation of cargo flows, when merchants were clearly indicated in which ports and what goods they could trade.
By the 20s of the XVIII century, when the military storm finally moved to the West and there could be no doubt about the successful end of the war for Russia, Peter significantly changed his trade and industrial policy.
In the autumn of 1719, virtually all monopolies on the export of goods abroad were eliminated.
Industrial policy has also undergone changes: the promotion of private entrepreneurship has increased.
According to the privilege introduced in 1719, it was allowed to search for minerals and build factories for all residents of the country and foreigners without exception, even if this was associated with a violation of the feudal right to land rich in ores.
Under Peter, the practice of transferring state owned enterprises (especially those recognized as unprofitable for the treasury) to private owners or companies specially created for this purpose became widespread.
The new owners received numerous benefits from the state: interest free loans, the right to duty free sale of goods, etc.
The customs tariff approved in 1724 also provided significant assistance to entrepreneurs, which facilitated the export of products from domestic manufactories and at the same time made it difficult to import goods produced at Russian manufactories from abroad.
At the same time, there is no reason to think that by changing economic policy, Peter intended to weaken the influence of the state on the national economy or, let's say, unconsciously contributed to the development of capitalist forms and methods of production, which were widespread in Western Europe at that time.
The essence was not to change the principles themselves, but only the accents of industrial and trade policy.
Manufactories were transferred to companies or private entrepreneurs on lease terms, which were clearly defined and, if necessary, changed by the state, which had the right to confiscate enterprises in case of their non fulfillment.
The main responsibility of the owners was the timely execution of state orders; only the surplus produced in excess of what would correspond to the current concept of "state order", the entrepreneur could sell on the market.
The established trade and industry management bodies corresponded to the essence of the changes that had taken place.
These bureaucratic institutions were the institutions of state regulation of the economy, the organs of the trade and industrial policy of the autocracy on the basis of mercantilism.
In Sweden, whose state institutions served as a model for Peter's reforms, such colleges carried out the policy of the royal power on the whole on the same theoretical foundations.
The conditions of Russia differed from those of Sweden not only in the scale of the country, but also in the fundamental features of political orders and culture.
By giving" relief " to manufacturers and merchants, the state was not going to eliminate itself from the economy or at least weaken its influence on it.
After 1718-1719, a new policy came into effect.
Previously, the state affected the economy through a system of prohibitions, monopolies, duties and taxes, i.e. through open forms of coercion.
Now that the emergency military situation has passed, all efforts were transferred to the creation and operation of an administrative control bureaucratic machine, which, with the help of charters, regulations, privileges, reports, checks, sought to direct the economic (and not only) life of the country through a system of peculiar gateways and channels in the right direction for the state.
The administrative impact was combined with economic measures.
Private entrepreneurship was rigidly tied to the state chariot by a system of government orders, mainly of defense significance.
On the one hand, this ensured the stability of the incomes of manufacturers, who could be sure that the sale of products to the treasury was guaranteed, but on the other hand, it closed the prospects for technical improvement, sharply belittled the importance of competition as the eternal engine of entrepreneurship.
By the beginning of the 20s, important social measures were carried out: the fight against the escape of peasants, who were returned to their former owners, was strengthened.
The decree of May 28, 1723 regulates the procedure for hiring people who did not belong to the owner or were not "assigned" to this plant.
All of them had to either get permission from their landowner to work temporarily ("otkhodnik" with a passport), or get into the number of fugitives," passport free", subject to arrest and immediate return to the landowner.
Serious changes took place under Peter in the field of foreign relations as well.
The Poltava victory allowed Peter to seize the initiative, which he developed by strengthening his position in Ingria, Karelia, occupying Livonia and Estland, and then entering Germany, where, with the assistance of Denmark, Saxony, partly Prussia and Hanover, an offensive was launched against the Swedish possessions in Pomerania.
Within less than six years, the Allies drove the Swedes out of all their overseas possessions.
In 1716, their empire was finished forever.
But during the division of the Swedish possessions, Russia's claims, which had changed under the influence of brilliant victories on land and at sea, were clearly manifested.
First, Peter renounced the previous obligations given to the allies, to limit himself to the old Russian territories that the Swedes had torn away after the "troubles" of the beginning of the XVII century Ingria and Karelia.
Estonia and Livonia, occupied by the power of Russian weapons, were already incorporated into Russia in 1710.
The sharply strengthened army and navy became a guarantee of these conquests.
Secondly, since 1712, Peter began to interfere in the affairs of Germany.
At first, this was due to the struggle against the Swedes in Pomerania, Holstein and Mecklenburg, and then, after their expulsion from Germany, Peter began to support (including with an armed hand) the Mecklenburg Duke Karl Leopold, who claimed absolutist power, entered into negotiations with Holstein, a neighboring and hostile state to Denmark.
The Peace of Nishtadt in 1721 legally formalized not only the victory of Russia in the Northern War, the acquisition of Russia in the Baltic States, but also the birth of a new empire: the connection between the celebration of the Peace of Nishtadt and the adoption of the imperial title by Peter is obvious.
The tsarist government used the increased military power to strengthen its influence in the Baltic.
Peter was driven not only by political motives, the desire to gain influence in the Baltic region, but also by economic interests.
The mercantilist concepts that he shared demanded the activation of the trade balance.
We can talk about the dominance of trade tasks in the general system of Russia's foreign policy after the Nishtadt peace.
A peculiar combination of military political and commercial interests of the Russian Empire predetermined the Russian Persian war of 1722-1723, supplemented by attempts to penetrate into Central Asia.
Knowledge of the conjuncture of international trade prompted Peter to seize the transit routes of trade in rarities of India and China.
The conquest of the southern coast of the Caspian Sea was not thought of as a temporary measure, but as a long term annexation of the original territory of Persia to Russia in 1723 (it was not by chance that fortresses were built there).
In general, during the reign of Peter the Great, a serious metamorphosis of Russia's foreign policy took place: from solving the urgent tasks of national policy, it moved to the formulation and solution of typically imperial problems.
Peter's reforms led to the formation of a military bureaucratic state with a strong centralized autocratic power, based on a serf economy, a strong army.
Speaking about the significance of the reforms of Peter I, in conclusion, it should be noted first of all that they meant the beginning of the process of modernization and Europeanization on a global scale.
While maintaining a certain continuity, the new system of institutions created in Russia in the first quarter of the XVIII century meant at the same time a radical break with the previous management practice.
Peter's administrative reforms embodied development, modernization and Europeanization, were the first in a series of such transformations of modern times, revealing a number of stable signs that are then traced in the reforms of Russia and other countries up to the present time.
Among them are the unification, centralization and differentiation of the functions of the state administration apparatus.
