3. State apparatus

During the period of absolutism, a lot of attention was paid to strengthening the state apparatus. First, Peter I, Catherine II then, had carried a series of reforms, in the result of which was formed branched, highly centralized, bureaucratic state apparatus.

Peter the Great secured more power for himself, and changed his title from “tsar” to “emperor.” He also eliminated the duma body, made up of boyars, and replaced it with a Western-style senate. To put Russia on a path of progress, Peter the Great initialized the development of institutions, like technical colleges and academies, of which the government had oversight. Peter decided to completely improve Russia. He ordered to send the Great Embassy – about hundred of nobles with ambassadors status, who were wandering round Europe to find out how it was life going over there. Peter pretended to be a worker, serving this embassy - just to feel the real life. When he was back in Russia, he decided to make it like Europe, like Holland and Amsterdam, which he loved the most. He began with the capital. He knew he couldn't improve Moscow which was definitely Russian, so he decided to build a new city. Peter chose nice strategic place at the bank of Baltic Sea, but it was a swamp all over there. Without any complain, Peter ordered to get there thousands of peasants to cover the swamp with ground. Thousands of people died because of the hard work. The seat of the Russian government also changed – with the founding of St. Petersburg, the capital city was moved from Moscow to Peter's “Window to the West.”

The Government Senate was created in 1711. Boyar Duma had ceased to exist. The Senate was the highest executive, administrative, judicial body, according toStatute of the Senate 1722. It was consisted from 9 people, which were appointed by Tsar. The Senate had had functions of the supreme state power in the case of absence of the monarch. The office of general prosecutor was established in the Senat as. He was an inspector the activities of the Senate, he could suspend the execution of the decisions of the Senate. The chief role of the Senate was to look over and guide the governments of eight provinces, which were divided for the efficiency of tax collection and levy of troops. However such relationship wasn't always smooth, so Peter wholly restructured the central government.

Peter I created colleges, government departments, to distribute the various tasks of the government. Each college was constituted of a board of men who checked on each other. With the establishment of colleges, the Senate assumed additional roles. It coordinated and checked the works of the colleges, acted as the Supreme Court, and drafted legislation. The office of Procurator of the Senate was also created to check the senators by presiding over their meetings and signing every decree.

  During the reign of the Empress Catherine I, Senate lost power, and Supreme Privy Council, a body of six favorites led by Catherine, became influential. The Supreme Privy Council was at first retained for a while because it was part of the condition Empress Anna had to accept in order to have the throne. Though it seems like such council was a step toward a constitutional government, it actually was just a scheme to keep the influence of the council and the noble families dominating it. Most of the gentry wanted autocracy rather than the “self-perpetuating oligarchy”. With the pressure from the officials pushing Anna to reject the conditions, she tore them up, thereby disbanding the Supreme Privy Council. To replace the council, a cabinet was set up chiefly to keep the tax going to the federal treasury.

When Elizabeth acceded, she restored the Senate. She dissolved the Cabinet that Anna established and instead, installed “Her Majesty's Chancery” to deal with the court functions. Also, Empress Elizabeth formed A Special Conference at the Imperial Court, which was created to coordinate the Russian attack on Prussia, but it was later abolished and replaced with a personal council by Peter III. It is easy to see how Russia impulsively destroyed and created administrative groups based on the situation and necessity of the moment. Stability and continuity were needed, and Catherine the Great is the Empress took the first steps necessary to achieve that.

Catherine II gathered a national commission of elected delegates to think and debate about the new law code. Also she wrote a Nakaz, a set of instructions that dealt with principles which the enlightened state should abide by in various aspects of administration. Though she was pragmatic in making policies, such endeavors show that she based, or at least attempted to base, her administration on principles and common values. Catherine II didn't make fundamental changes in the central government. She abolished most of the colleges and transferred the duties to the Senate and to the procurator. They were only minor alterations.

Central government: To begin with, Peter was advised by a council and his orders were carried out by 40 departments in the Prikazy. Some had specific functions while others had vague responsibilities which could overspill into other departments making for inefficiency [10].

In 1711, Peter appointed a 9 man senate which evolved into a chief executive and the highest court of appeal. It was supervised by army officers on Peter's behalf until 1715 when an Inspector-General was appointed who in turn was replaced in 1722 with a Procurator-General who was the most powerful man in Russia after Peter.

The Prikazy was abolished in 1718 and replaced with a scheme borrowed from Sweden whereby 9 colleges were established with a specific function to cover the whole of Russia. Each college was run by 10 to 12 men and all their decisions were collective.

As early as 1711, an Oberfiscal was appointed aided by a staff of fiscals who had to be secret appointments as they had the task of checking the honesty and integrity of government officials.

All careers were open to the talented and educated - though, invariably, this favoured the side of the nobility. There were 14 steps in the military's promotional ladder whereas the civil service had just 8. Those who reached the top step in both ladders were automatically granted hereditary noble status. However, the system did not operate as it should have as those at the top or nearing the top of the promotion ladder did nothing to encourage those mid way up the ladder in terms of developing their career as they were seen as a threat to those at the top.

Collegia had been created since 1717 in place of the former prikazes as central offices of the state authority with clearly defined competences, and collective (collegial) system of making decisions and responsibility for their execution. At the head of each collegium stood its president, and to the making of their boards went vice-presidents, councillors and assessors; vice-presidents often were foreigners. At first there were created nine Collegia: three “capital” or “royal” – of Foreign Affairs, War and Admiralty, – here economical - of Mines, Manufactures and Trade, – and three financial –of Revenue, Expenditure and Control. Most of the collegia had foreign names, chiefly originating from the German language. So, for example, the Collegium of Mines was called Berg-collegia, of Manufactures - Manufaktur-сollegia, of Control - Revision-collegia etc. Later organization of the collegia used to change; some collegia were abolished (for example the Revision-collegia, which was amalgamated with the Senate), some were created as necessary, like for example the Justitz-collegia (for administration of the judicial system) or the Collegium of Russia Minor, and some others were transformed into completely different offices, as it happened to the Spiritual Collegium. In 1708 in Russia was introduced a new administrative division into eight big provinces: Moscow, Ingermanland (later Petersburg), Smolensk, Kazan, Azov, Siberia, Kiev and Archangel. Later the administrative division changed, the number of the provinces increased, and their borders were uneven. At the head of the provinces stood governors - the highest representatives of the local administration, enjoying broad, but never clearly defined, competences. The provinces in their turn were divided into the lands, and the lands into the counties. And this division used to go through many transformations; also changed the structure of the local administrative bodies attached to the governors - as a rule their members were elected by the local nobility [9].

In the sphere of the legal and judicial system there were more experiments and temporary legislations than substantial and permanent changes. Among others in the epoch of Peter the Great there were created district courts in ten biggest Russian cities. Peter did not codify the laws - legally the Legal Code (Sobornoye Ulozheniye) of 1649 was still valid. State crimes of all kinds were under the jurisdiction of so-called Preobrazhenski Prikaz, whose head was one of Peter's closest and most trusted associates, prince Fyodor Romodanovskiy. Of course, neither the highest office of the czar's secret police nor its head enjoyed much sympathy of the people, chiefly due to their investigation methods. As the prikazes were abolished, also this one was transformed into the Secret Office. Reforms enabled centralization of the state apparatus and consolidated czar's autocracy, having unequivocally subordinated all the organs of the state authority and state institutions to the czar's will. Implementation of such tendency did not leave even the Orthodox Church aside, the more so that the clergy, and especially the new patriarch Hadrian (1690-1700), openly sabotaged the reforms. Peter tried to neutralize their influence through appointing to bishops clergymen from Russia Minor, especially those, who studied in Kiev and were more predisposed towards some Western habits. And after Hadrian's death Peter did not allow for election of a new patriarch. For several years the metropolitan of Ryazan, Stephen Yavorskiy, remained the locum tenets of the patriarchal throne. In 1721 the office of the patriarch was abolished and replaced by the Governing Synod transformed from the Spiritual Collegium, and in 1726 it was again transformed into the Holy Synod, whose board included, apart from secular officials (president and vice-presidents), also clerical ones. To the making of the Synod also went a secular official, ober-procurator, who represented the monarch and was empowered to control the works of the Synod. The Synod exercised its authority in the questions of interpreting dogmas, issuing liturgical decrees, administration of the churches and monasteries, management of the Church property, prosecution of heretics and old-ritualists, Orthodox propaganda among non-Orthodox and non-Slavic peoples, and Church censorship. Yavorskiy became the first president of the Synod, and among the first vice-presidents was Theophan Prokopovich [8].

Local government: In January 1699, towns were allowed to elect their own officials, collect revenue and stimulate trade. The gift of greater powers of local government was deliberately done in an effort to reduce the power of provincial governments. The work of local government was co-coordinated by the Ratusha based in Moscow. In 1702, towns were governed by an elective board which replaced the old system of elected sheriffs. By 1724, this was again changed so that towns could govern themselves through elected guilds of better off citizens. On paper these reforms were fine. But in reality the power of the local landlord and the provincial governor was immense and difficult to break.

In 1708 Peter the Great passed a provincial reform, as a result of which Russia was divided into 8 provinces (gubernii). Each was lead by a Gubernator who had full power within his guberniia. Each guberniia was further divided into districts called uezdi. By November 1718, the number of guberniia had increased to 12 and each one was divided into 40 provintsiia which were then further divided into districts. A gubernator was directly answerable to Peter the Great.

In 1775 by Catherine II was created the Statute of Provincial Administration, which changed the local control system. The country was divided into 23 provinces, and about 183 districts befor the reform. Catherine II took the population size as the base for country dividing. By this reform in each provinces should live from 300 to 400 thousand male persons and in each districts from 20 to 30 thousand. Initial number of provinces was 40 but later this number had grown to 51.

Catherine II established a bureaucratic apparatus. The governor was the head of guberniia and he had quite wide powers.

Under Peter I in Russia was established the police: general and political.

In the years 1720-21 was held municipal reform - created by a magistrate and in 1785 - the new local administration based on the class principle - general council, elected for 3 years.

Peter I made an attempt to separate the court from the administration for limiting judicial tyranny.

In 1719 in 9 cities were established collegiate courts, and in other cities – a personal. After Peter I's death cases were settled by governors and voevods. The Statute of Provincial Administration had reformed the judicial system. In the 1775 judicial reform was carried out on the class principle: for the nobles were created by the district (uezdnii) court and the court of zemstvo, for the townsmen - city magistrate and provincial magistrate; for the state peasants - the lower and upper raspravi.

Serfs judged landlords by themselves or their clerks (except for murder, robbery and political crimes).

In the provinces were created Chambers of criminal and civil court as a court of appeal and revision instance for the courts the province.

The investigation in 1782 was removed from the functions of the judiciary and transferred to the police – upravam blagochinia.

Thus, at the turn of the XVI-XVII centuries in Russia was created an absolute monarchy. It received legalization in the relevant legal documents. With the emergence of an absolute monarchy has worsened the legal status of the general population, especially the peasantry.