Nicholas I. Lost Modernization
Pushkin A.S. Imaginary conversation with Alexander I
“The revolution is on the threshold of Russia, but I swear it will not penetrate it,” said Nicholas I after taking the throne and defeating the Decembrist uprising. He is not the first monarch in Russia to fight the “revolution”, but the most iconic one.
The natural development of Russia in the framework of the feudal formation was confronted with external causes that brought new serious challenges. In such a difficult situation in Russia, the crisis of the feudal-serf system began, the management system ceased to correspond to external and internal challenges.
As we wrote in the article "Russia. Objective reasons for the lag ", the country embarked on a path of historical development when feudalism was already forming in Western Europe, in territories with ancient Roman infrastructure, roads and laws.
She started her historical a path in much more difficult climatic and geographical conditions, having a constant destabilizing factor in the form of a threat from the Great Steppe.
For these reasons, Russia lagged behind neighboring European countries, which posed a military threat to the country.
Under such conditions, the country's first modernization was carried out, which, in addition to military power, also provided for the development of the country's productive forces, its economy and the development of new lands important for the country, both in faraway America and in New Russia (Manstein HG). .
Without the modernization of Peter the Great, such a Russia would not have been possible to dream of. Against this background, an attempt in near-historical circles is surprising, using, among other things, scientific works (P.N. Milyukov), to refute these obvious conclusions, supported even by foreign scientific literature.
Irrationality and inconsistency in Peter's actions, controversial reforms and the growth of new social ulcers, riots and hunger, partial counter-reforms after the death of the ship-tsar do not cancel the achievements of Peter's modernization (Nefedov S.A.).
Critics do not take into account the consequences of her absence (modernization) in an aggressive external environment, which, of course, was felt and understood, if you like, “irrationally” by the ingenious Russian Tsar.
The acceleration, which N. Ya. Eidelman wrote about, caused by the modernization of Peter, weakened by the beginning of the 19th century, at the same time the Great Bourgeois Revolution in France and the Industrial Revolution in England, which created an industrial society based on machine production.
Social revolutions in European countries have significantly accelerated the industrial revolution, ensuring the transition to an industrial society in countries of potential competitors to Russia, while in Russia:
(Druzhinin N.M.)
And just at this period, when the question arose about new modernization, the need for social changes and the introduction of new technologies was ignored.
You can compare Peter I and his descendant Nicholas I in only one thing: both had Menshikov, one talented “chick” of the turbulent era, the other, a courtier who was evading the case, not hiding his ignorance.
Both tsars were extremely active, as contemporaries noted, but one spent his time in government on modernizing Russia, and the other wasted it on bureaucratic mirages and battles with windmills.
For both kings, the “regularity” of the army, for Peter also fleet, was the most important component and model for civil administration, the only difference was that for the beginning of the eighteenth century. it was a revolutionary method of management, but for the first half of the nineteenth century - an anachronism. Father-commander of Emperor Nicholas, Field Marshal I.F. Paskevich wrote:
If we compare the situation after the accomplished and failed modernization in military terms, then in the first case, victory after victory, and in the second, defeats and losses that ended in the defeat of Russia in World War I.
The revolution is on the verge of ...
The first half of the nineteenth century. - This is the time of the rise of national consciousness among many European peoples. These trends also reached Russia, having been formalized in a triune formula: autocracy, Orthodoxy and nationality.
Everything would be fine, but on Russian soil the problem was that the country was not just socially divided. The main class, which paid taxes and blood taxes, remained in a slave state (how many shades of slavery are not the subject of the current article) and could not personify the nation in the full sense of the word. As Prince Drutskoy-Sokolinsky wrote in a note addressed to the emperor about serfdom: about slavery in Russia they came up with “European orbits because of envy of the power and welfare of Russia.”
It was some form of mockery of common sense and humanism: to talk about nationality and define the vast majority of the country's peasant population (private and state peasants) as “property”.
Another Swiss teacher of the elder brother of Nicholas I, Lagarpe, wrote:
Which, however, was not a revelation. Nicholas I, who was attentive to the story with Pugachev, found it useful to publish the History of A. Pushkin, which he personally reviewed, with the aim of “scaring” the overtaking nobles.
The crisis of the feudal system on the eve of the fall of serfdom was precisely caused by the increasing non-economic exploitation of the peasants by the nobility.
The need for bread as an export raw material required an increase in production, which under serfdom led exclusively to an increase in pressure on the farmer, as V.O. Klyuchevsky wrote:
The most important sign of the crisis was the complete inability of the nobility to manage their "private property": sell the fatherland - send money to Paris!
The reform of 1861 was facilitated for the state by the fact that a huge number of estates were "returned" to the state through pledges and even re-pledges.
Retreat
In St. Petersburg, opposite the Mariinsky Palace, there is a magnificent monument to the emperor - a masterpiece by O. Montferand and sculptor P. Klodt. It depicts moments from the life of the king. In one bas-relief, Nikolai Pavlovich alone calms the crowd on Sennaya Square during a cholera riot. Yes, personally a brave, born speaker, personal censor and admirer of Pushkin, like all the kings, a caring family man, a comedian and a good singer, ruler, thanks to whom we have just such a city St. Petersburg that we admire - many masterpieces were built during it. This is on the one hand.
On the other hand, Nikolai is an emperor with an education and horizons at the junior officer level, completely unprepared for the role that he was forced to play. The enemy of education, even in the military field, and the author of the whipping aphorism: "I need not smart people, but loyal subjects." How can one not recall Peter, who insisted: I study and demand teachers for myself.
Of course, Nicholas was not prepared for the throne, they were preparing
Here, the key difference lies between the organizer and creator Peter the Great, who knew and understood what was needed, what he needed, who knew and determined what was needed for modernization, and the autocrat, who was not at all interested in progress, who received information through verbose reports, the endless work of the commissions, considering innovation like a bored camper, even in a beloved army field.
V.O. Klyuchevsky wrote:
Management
After the act, or rather, the inaction of Alexander I, his brother, by chance, got a country shaken from the point of view of governance. After the victory in the war with Napoleon, the social crisis was gaining momentum, and something had to be done.
Nicholas, who ascended the throne during the crisis, of course, was aware of the problem. But the threat of re-election through noble bayonets stopped him, even when this threat did not exist at all: were his brother “chosen” by killing his father? And how else to look at the uprising on Senate Square 14 December 1825 year?
That is why all eight committees on the "peasant question" (liberation of the peasants) were secret. From whom were they hiding, from peasants? From the nobles.
The tsar instructed A. D. Borovkov to draw up a “Code of Testimonies” by the Decembrists regarding the shortcomings of state administration with a view to correcting them.
And in such circumstances, the tsar, thinking about transferring the peasants to temporarily obligated, gradually abandoned this idea, or perhaps just tired of ineffective work in arranging his inner life, switched to a spectacular and, how long, brilliant, foreign policy. The "era of reform," which someone imagined at the beginning of the reign, probably due to the creation of the Third Division (political police), quickly went into oblivion. And the reforms of Nicholas were absolutely formal.
The noble dictatorship, in the broadest sense of the word, was unable to effectively develop the country, but tenaciously held control of the country and the economy in its hands, and Nicholas I, not ready as a person for the mission to develop the country in new historical conditions, spent all his energy and huge efforts to strengthen the obsolete "feudal" system, its conservation during this period.
This happened in the conditions of the industrial revolution, when external threats to the development of the country required a completely different approach.
For example, a more progressive management system, excluding the Table of Ranks, was rejected due to the possibility of further bourgeoisization of officials. The "Law on Status" was not adopted, allowing trade not only to merchants, but to all classes.
The king chose the way to strengthen the state suppression apparatus. He was the first to build, as was recently said, the "vertical" of officials, which in fact did not work at all.
For example, as in the case of the reform and the creation of the first department, headed by Taneyev, and A. A. Kovankov, the person who was
(M.A. Corf.)
The tsar had to put up with the arbitrariness of the nobility on the ground, everywhere and in large numbers violating the "right laws", as was the case with the Inventory Reform of 1848, which was to limit the arbitrariness of the landlords regarding their serfs.
The entire structure of the provincial administration, forever captured by N.V. Gogol and M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, can be described (with the exception of a few governors) as an absolutely unsystematic machine, often being the personal estate of tyrants-governors (such as V. Ya. Rupert , D. G. Bibikov, I. Pestel, G. M. Bartolomei). A structure that is formally harmonious, and in fact is a system that consisted of governors who did not do any service at all, or who were in their estates. People often incompetent, rigging statistics, so that the "truth" does not offend the emperor. It is worth adding the total embezzlement of embezzlement and bribery. At the same time, the odious governors not only were not punished, but received new places.
The heads of ministries and departments were selected to match the system, many exclusively for drill training or, as in the case of P.A. Kleinmihel, a manager who spent inadequate financial and human resources where they could not have been spent, to achieve dubious goals, while being a embezzler. And this is in a country that has never suffered from excesses.
Few really sensible leaders within the established framework of the system of inadequate waste of public resources, senseless formalism, rampant theft, and could not do anything in the last years of the emperor’s life and endless servility.
It is worth adding to the assessment of the country's governance system that under Nicholas it turned into a personal feeder for the police, officials of all levels, who set up their affairs and are engaged in public service insofar as.
The embezzlement and bribery permeated the entire state system, the words of the Decembrist A. A. Bestuzhev addressed to the accession to the throne, Nicholas I, fully characterize the period of his reign:
Researcher P.A. Zayonchkovsky wrote:
Of course, the complexity of processes in society requires increased control and management, but with the available information about the extremely low efficiency of this control machine, the appropriateness of increasing it remains in question.
Amid reluctance or inability to solve the key issue of Russian life, or, more precisely, to solve this issue without prejudice to the nobility, it was decided to expand control over the population through police and administrative measures. Delaying his decision for later, at the same time intensifying the pressure on external “destructive” forces from the point of view of the emperor, and driving a number of other problems inward, without solving them (as in the case of the “suitcase without a handle” - Poland, or the Caucasian War).
Foreign policy
Of course, not all actions in the past can be viewed through the prism of modern knowledge, so blame Don Quixote of feudalism to help the enemies of Russia seems incorrect, but the salvation of hostile states, based on idealistic ideas, and not real politics, created problems for the country.
In 1833, when the power in Istanbul due to the uprising of the governor of Egypt, Mohammed-Ali, hung in the balance and the "eastern issue" could be resolved in favor of Russia, the tsar rendered military assistance to Porte, signing the Unkyar-Iskelesi agreement with her.
During the Hungarian revolution 1848-1849 years. Russia supported the Vienna monarchy. And, as Nikolay self-critically said to the adjutant general, Count Rzhevussky:
And brilliant Russian diplomats, at the same time experienced courtiers, given the tsar’s “opinion” that England and France, Napoleon I’s nephew were implacable enemies, made him reports in the same spirit, thereby hiding the real facts of the formation of the union of these two countries against Russia.
As E.V. wrote Tarle:
Army
The emperor devoted all his time to burning state affairs on changing uniforms of the guards and ordinary regiments: epaulettes and braces, buttons and mentics were changed. For the sake of justice, we say that the king, together with the adjutant general artist L.I. Kiel has invented the world famous helmet with a pointed top - “pickelhaube”, the style of which the Germans “stole”.
Nicholas’s reluctance to really understand management issues, to see the problem as a whole, and not its segments, conservatism and the complete lack of real management experience in the war (not the fault of Nicholas, who was not allowed on foreign trips) - all this reflected on the king’s beloved brainchild - the army.
Or rather, not the army, but the "game of soldiers", as D.A. defined his military activity Milyutin.
The personnel policy and unwritten rules of servility, the atmosphere of flattery compelled even very good Russian commanders to conceal problems, not to convey them to the emperor, as in the case of Paskevich’s campaigns in Hungary or during the introduction of troops into the Danube principalities in 1853.
In the “Historical Review of the Military Land Administration from 1825 to 1850,” created at the Ministry of War, it was reported that in the 25 years in the army, “lower ranks” died from diseases of the 1 062 839. During the same time, according to the report, in wars (Russian-Iranian war 1826 — 1828 gg., Russian-Turkish war 1828-1829 gg., Caucasian wars, suppression of the uprising in Poland in 1831 gg., Campaign in Hungary in 1849 gg. ) 30 233 people died. In 1826, in the army there were 729 655 “lower ranks”; from 1826 to 1850, 874 752 recruits were recruited. Total served during this period 2 604 407 soldiers.
Moreover, the old methods of command in the army, concentration of attention, again and again, as in civilian control, on the form and form, and not on the content: on the appearance of the soldiers, on parades and drill, on combatant techniques, all this in conditions increase rate of fire weapons extremely negatively affected the results in a new war.
Outdated tactics ensured victory over the Polish and Hungarian irregular units, over the Turks, Persians and Highlanders, but could not do anything when confronted with the French and English, despite the frequent fatal tactical mistakes of the Allies in Crimea.
Here is what the outstanding military reformer D.A. wrote Milyutin:
Sevastopol, subjected to terrible shelling, was not completely blocked and had full contact with the headquarters in Simferopol. And sluggish attempts to release it from the outside were soon completely abandoned.
The tragedy was that, even taking into account several theater of operations, the Russian army could not oppose anything serious to the expeditionary corps of the European allies, who had complete initiative!
The story of L.N. Tolstoy's "After the Ball" vividly illustrates the formula of "autocracy, Orthodoxy and nationality." No wonder Nikolai got the nickname Palkin:
German bullets
Turkish bullets
French bullets
Russian sticks!
Industrial revolution on the verge
The same situation was observed in general in the governance of the country.
P.A. Valuev wrote:
The bureaucracy, formalism, as they said then, formularism, neglect of the common man reaches the limit during this period: to paraphrase VG Belinsky, the entire humanistic tradition of Great Russian literature came out of the Gogol's "Overcoat" - an overcoat from the time of Nicholas I.
The system of public administration itself did not give a chance for the development of the country, it hindered its productive forces in the conditions of the industrial revolution of a neighboring, unfriendly civilization.
It is the reign of Nicholas, and not some deep-seated historical "birth injuries" that we owe the whole situation in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the "rapid" development of Russia always ended in military defeat: "Saddle the gentlemen," the emperor exclaimed, addressing to the officers at the ball - in Paris a revolution. ”
How not to recall the letter of the Decembrist A. A. Bestuzhev written to the new emperor in 1825:
It so happened that it was the reign of Nicholas I that became the period when the development path of Russia could be changed, the industrial revolution was on the threshold of the country, but it was not allowed to enter Russia!
Modernization could seriously contribute to changes in the country's development, removed many crises and numerous casualties that occurred precisely because it was not carried out on time, in the period of relative peace and external security for Russia.
Remember: "The revolution is on the threshold of Russia, but I swear it will not penetrate it."
To be continued ...
- Vashchenko E.D.
- The death of the Byzantine civilization
Russia as part of the Eastern Empire?
Civilization Russia. Challenges and Answers
Russia. Objective reasons for lag
Information