Part II

From that moment, the government of the country was actually focused in the hands of the omnipotent favorite, by his name the regime was called arakcheevshina (1815-1825).

A.A.Arakcheev was not the inspirer of reactionary rate at all, and only the zealous executor of monarch’s will. In 1808, he received the post of military minister, and Alexander confided him the task to improve recruitment and the training of front structure of the army, to increase discipline, to reorganize artillery, to adjust the fighting capacity of the Russian army. After the war, Alexander’s trust to Arakcheev so increased that he confided him the execution of the highest commands not only in military, but also on civil questions. Since 1815 Arakcheev was almost supervising the State council, Committee of ministers and his imperial majesty own office. The name Arakcheev was inextricably linked to the history of settlements that he organized by the order of the imperator. Since 1822 Arakcheev became the unique reporter of the emperor concerning state affairs.

The introduction of punitive-guarding principles in all spheres of life of the society was the manifestation of the Arakcheevshina. In 1822 was accepted a law allowing landowners to banish serfs “for bad acts” to Siberia on exile. This decree crossed out the former interdictions (1809 and 1811) and became the apogee of the peasants legislation.

The military settlements, being the new form of recruitment and maintenance of the army, were the symbol of the coming reaction in the country. Peasants, transferred to the position of ‘military villagers’, were supposed to join the military service in the area of agriculture. The government intended to reduce the cost of the maintenance of the army. The first settlements were founded in 1810, but the war of 1812 retained their further organization. Military settlements began to exist again since 1816. They were organized in Novgorod, Petersburg, Mogilev, Slobod-Ukrainian and Kherson provinces. The state peasants were transferred as immigrants with the whole districts. Together with them, were lodged the soldiers. The peasants log huts were removable; instead of them were put big houses for many families. The life of military immigrants was strictly regulated: in the first half of the day, they did the front service, and then began to cultivate. For the slightest fault, the immigrants were exposed to corporal punishments. Despite of the agitations of the peasants due to the introduction of military settlements, in 1825 to the settlements were transferred 375 thousand persons (1/3 of the army), composing the Separate Corps of the military settlements, under the command of Arakcheev.

The last years of Alexander's I reign were gloomy for the country and burdensome for the emperor. The wreck of his reformatory hopes, the news about the discontent conservatives on the one hand, and about the occurrence of secret nobility societies of the future Decembrists for the side, and personal losses, turned him all over again to religion, and then to mysticism. In November 1825, the emperor unexpectedly died in Taganrog, leaving opened the question about his succession at the throne.

According to the law of 1797, the successor of Alexander I was the eldest son of Paul I Konstantin. But in 1822, Konstantin, never having claims on the empire “they will suffocate me as they suffocated my father,” he said, gave to Alexander an official refusal of the rights to the throne. In 1823 the emperor made a special manifest about the designation of his third brother Nikolay as the successor, but he did not promulgate it, having kept it secret even from Nikolay. The manifest was kept in the Uspensky’s cathedral of the Kremlin and only a limited circle of people knew about it; that’s the reason of the inter-imperial situation, which rose up in December 1825.