The Systematization of Russian Government: Social Evolution in the Domestic Administrationof Imperial Russia, 1711-1905 by George L. YaneyReview by: Hugh Seton WatsonThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 53, No. 133 (Oct., 1975), pp. 610-611Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4207172 .

Accessed: 17/06/2014 03:43

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School of Slavonic and EastEuropean Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Slavonic andEast European Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.69 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 03:43:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

6io THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

Yaney, George L. The Systematization of Russian Government: Social Evolution in the Domestic Administration of Imperial Russia, 17II-I905. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, I973. xvi+430 pp. Index. Bibliography. $I3-50.

THIS book has an uninviting title and a sub-title but, for all that, it is an important and original work, of absorbing interest. It is based on wide reading. The author has visited the Soviet Union but does not appear to have been able to delve deeply in Soviet archives. He has however made systematic use of a large number of unpublished Ph.D. dissertations by American students who have had access to Soviet archives. These are included in his excellent bibliography, which will be of great use to other scholars. Incidentally, one of these, the work of S. F. Starr, has appeared in book form, under the title Decentralization and Self-Government in Russia, I830o-870 (Princeton, I972) since Mr Yaney sent his own book to the press, and it is itself a valuable contribution to the history of Russian government. Apart from this, Mr Yaney is familiar not only with the massive, if incomplete and unbalanced, igth- and early 20th-century literature, but also with Soviet studies and analyses, right up to the end of the I96os.

Mr Yaney, living beyond the reach of Soviet censorship, is not obliged to make ideological ritual incantations, and has on the whole resisted the more insidious pressures from within his own society to conceal his subject in the language of modern model-buildiuig methodological mysticism: he gets away with a bare minimum in his introductory chapter.

Mr Yaney's aim has been to show the operation of Russian government, approximately from the mid- i8th century until I905, wie es eigentlich gewesen. He has been remarkably successful. As the subject is extremely complex, and the old generalizations will really not do any longer, the result of his success is that the reviewer, being unable in short space to summarise the complications, can do little more than urge persons in- terested in Russian history to read the book. It is clearly written and well argued. It requires concentration and intellectual effort from the reader, but this is the fault not of the author but of the subject: the inescapable truth is that even a glimmering of understanding of modern Russian government cannot be achieved without concentration and effort.

It must suffice merely to mention some of the themes which Mr Yaney examines. One is the contrast between the strengthening of the central government apparatus and its continued inability to make its will felt at the lowest level. Neither 'omnipotent emissaries', sent out from the capital to inspect and to reform, nor regular officials working at local tasks, made much headway. Mr Yaney emphasizes the contrast between capital-city zeal for modernisation, efficiency and uniformity and the resistant inertia of peasant reality. Seen in this perspective, 'reactionary' and 'progressive' ministers (let us say, Dimitry Tolstoy and Nicholas Milyutin) had more in common with each other than either had with the subjects whom they were trying to enlighten and to govern. Mr Yaney discusses at some length the main institutions and laws, without 'liberal' or 'obscurantist' prejudice.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.69 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 03:43:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

REVIEWS 6ii The Senate and Catherine II's Charter to the Nobility, the relationship of the gubernator to the tsar and to ministers, the operations of the zemskiy nachal'nik, and the rivalry between them and the Ministry of Finance are examined with care, and the patient reader will be much enlightened. London HUGH SETON WATSON

Starr, S. Frederick. Decentralization and Self-Government in Russia, 5830-i870. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1972. xiii + 386 pp. Index. Bibliography. $15.00.

WHEN Nicholas I died in I855 every discerning Russian (the governors included) realized that the tsar's provinces suffered under mismanage- ment, lack of government administration, and the insufficient development of political institutions. Nicholas I had increased the small number of clerks, but they were still ill-trained, ill-paid, and paralysed by the excessive paperwork of bureaucratic routine. (Characteristically the administrative reform, which had got under way in I852, started with a committee on the reduction of correspondence!) The initiative for reform, if it existed among the governors, was crippled by the narrow-minded supervision of the eternally distrustful Ministry of Internal Affairs and by the collegiate system which had survived in provincial administration. After the defeat of the old regime at Sebastopol there could be no doubt that a change was imminent.

It is well worth the effort to trace both the zigzag course of the debate on reform and the shift in power among the high level bureaucrats whom Alexander II appointed to plan the changes. Should administrative reform precede the emancipation of the serfs? Some able provincial administra- tors, such as Prince Vasil'chikov in Kiev, were allowed to experiment, but in general the reform was introduced only after the emancipation in I86 I. Should the centre secure its traditional predominance by means of a superficial rearrangement of functions instead of a true reform? Mikhail Murav'yov and the other 'Centralists' claimed to strengthen the position of the governor-generals and the district (uyezd) governors while they con- sciously neglected the level of provincial (guberniya) stewards, who could potentially develop into headstrong satraps. Or was Tocqueville, an author eagerly read in post-Crimean Russia, correct when he argued that the English tradition of decentralized administration was better than French centralism? The governors and the provincial gentry were by nature partial to 'decentralization'. Their position was unexpectedly strengthened however by a group of clear-sighted reformers in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who even succeeded in I858 in pressuring the tsar- though he remained unconvinced-to give in to their demands (p. I 58). If 'decentralization' was chosen, who was to exercise the increased power? Should governmental power be held by the governor alone or should he be forced to share it with the zemstvo, a body which would be elected by the local citizens? If a zemstvo was established, what class structure should it have and what responsibilities should it encompass ? (The version

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.69 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 03:43:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions