Peter the Great (137 page)
Nor was Peter himself always pleased with the Senate's behavior. He wrote regularly to the senators, scolding them as if they were thoughtless children, telling them that they had made themselves a laughingstock, which he said was doubly infamous "for the Senate represents the person of His Majesty." He ordered them not to waste time in meetings talking about matters unrelated to business, and not to chatter and joke, because "loss of time is like death, as hard to return as a life that has ended." He ordered them to transact no business at home or in private, and commanded that every discussion must be written down. Yet, the Senate still moved too slowly for Peter. On one occasion, he summoned it to tell him "what has been done and what has not been done and the reason for it." Repeatedly, he threatened the senators with punishment. "You have nothing else to do except to govern," he declared, "and if you do not do this conscientiously, you wijl answer to God and also will not escape justice here below." "You have acted in a contemptible way, accepting bribes according to ancient and stupid customs," he thundered on another occasion. "When you come before me, you will be called to account in a different way."
In November 1715, attempting to discipline the Senate and make it more effective, Peter created the supervisory post of Inspector General of Decrees to sit "in the same place as the Senate, to take note of the Senate's decrees, to see that they are enforced, and to denounce and fine negligent senators." Vasily Zotov, the foreign-educated son of his old tutor, was the first Inspector General, but he had little success, and soon it was he who was complaining to Peter that the Senate paid no attention to his wishes, failed to hold the required sessions three days a week, and had left one and a half million roubles of state revenue uncollected.
In 1720, detailed new rules of Senate procedure were promulgated. Meetings were to be conducted "without shouting and other manifestations. . . . The business is to be stated and is to be thought about and discussed for half an hour, If, however, it be complicated and more time is asked for, then it is to be postponed until the following day. If the business is urgent, extra time up to three hours will be granted for further deliberations, but as soon as the hourglass shows that time has run out, paper and ink are to be handed out and every senator is to note down his opinion and sign it. If a senator fails to do this, business is to be stopped while somebody runs to tell the Tsar, wherever he may be."
Eventually, when it became clear that even the Inspector General could not keep order in the Senate, officers of the Guards were assigned for a month at a time to police the senators. If a senator misbehaved, he was to be arrested and confined in the Peter and Paul Fortress until the fact could be reported to the Tsar.
As it was, the Senate functioned as well as it did only because of Prince Jacob Dolgoruky, the First Senator, who had served in many capacities over many decades. He 'was the first Russian ambassador to the court of Louis XIV, and it was on this mission in 1687 that he purchased an astrolabe to bring back to the fifteen-year-old Peter. At the age of sixty-two, he was present at the Battle of Narva, was captured and spent eleven years in a Swedish prison. In 1712, at seventy-three, he escaped and made his way back to Russia, where he was appointed First Senator. A portrait of Dolgoruky shows a powerful man with a double chin and a shaggy mustache, a man who looks unkempt, shrewd and fierce. He was also brave, obstinate, strong-willed and liked to have his way; when he could not impose his wishes by force of logic or force of character, he simply shouted at his opponent at the top of his lungs. Only Menshikov, permanently armored in the Tsar's favor, could stand up to him.
Dolgoruky always dared to tell Peter the truth. Once, late in the reign, Dolgoruky actually tore up a decree because he believed that the Emperor had not reflected on it. The decree had commanded all landowners in the governments of St. Petersburg and Novgorod to send serfs to dig the Ladoga Canal. Dolgoruky had been absent on the day the decree was signed, and the following moming, when he read it, he protested loudly. The other senators looked uncomfortable, but warned that it was too late to object, as the Emperor had already signed it. Whereupon, in a spasm of disgust, Dolgoruky ripped the edict in half. Stunned, the other senators stood up, demanding to know if he realized what he had done. "Yes," said Dolgoruky passionately, "and I will answer for it before God, the Emperor and my country."
At this moment, Peter walked into the room. Surprised to see the entire Senate standing, he asked what had happened. In a trembling voice, one member told him. His expression grim, Peter turned to the eighty-three-year-old Dolgoruky and demanded an explanation. "It is my zeal for your honor and the good of your subjects," Dolgoruky replie
d. "Do not be angry, Peter Alex
eevich, that I have too much confidence in your wisdom to think you wish, like Charles XII, to desolate your country. You have not reflected on the situation of the two governments your decree regards. Do you not know that they have suffered more in the war than all the provinces of your empire together, that many of their inhabitants have perished, and are you unacquainted with the present miserable state of the people? What is there to hinder you from taking a small number of men from each province to dig this canal, which is certainly necessary? The other provinces are more populous than the two in question and can easily furnish you with laborers. Besides, have you not Swedish prisoners enough to employ without oppressing your subjects with works like these?"
Peter listened to Dolgoruky's appeal and then turned calmly to the other senators. "Let the decree be suspended," he said. "I will consider this matter further and let you know my intentions." Soon after, several thousand Swedish prisoners were transferred to work on the Ladoga Canal.
Nevertheless, despite the presence of Dolgoruky, Zotov and the Guards officers, the Senate failed to perform as Peter wished. In time, he came to realize that force or the threat of force exercised from above was insufficient and often counterproductive. The Senate could not be disciplined roughly and peremptorily, as the Tsar was accustomed to doing, and still maintain its dignity and authority in the eyes of the public. In addition, it was overloaded with work. Inefficiency, quarrels among its members and unwillingness to take responsibility caused a huge and growing backlog of work which at one point reached 16,000 unresolved cases and decisions.
Thus, in 1722, Peter resolved to create a new managerial office, that of the Procurator General, who was to be the Emperor's personal representative in the Senate. "Here is my eye through whom I will see everything," Peter declared when he presented his Procurator General to the senators. "He knows my intentions and wishes. What he considers to be for the general good, you are to do. Although it may seem to you that what he does is contrary to the advantage of me and of the state, you should nevertheless carry it out and, having notified me, await my orders." The Procurator General's duty was to direct the Senate and superintend it work. Although he was not a member of the body and could not vote, he was in fact President of the Senate, responsible for maintaining order during sessions, for initiating legislation and bringing it to a vote (using an hourglass to limit discussion), and for seeing that, once passed, new legislation was sent to the Emperor for approval. When administrative offices were unable to understand the language or meaning of a Senate decree or discovered difficulty in administering one, they were to notify the Procurator General, who would ask the Senate to rewrite the decree to clearer language.
Peter's choice for his important role was Pavel Yaguzhinsky, one of his low-bom "fledglings." Yaguzhinsky was eleven years younger than the Emperor, bom of Lithuanian parents in Moscow, where his father was the organist in a Lutheran church. Peter liked him from the first, enrolled him in the Guards, and, charmed by the good humor and intelligence of the stalwart young man, made him a field orderly to his own people. Yaguzhinsky was promoted rapidly. Peter used him on diplomatic missions and took him along to Paris, where the French described him as Peter's "favorite." Yaguzhinsky was excitable, he enjoyed drinking, and he made and forgot new enemies every week. But he was unquestioningly loyal, he was almost completely honest and he was decisive, qualities which Peter found lacking in many senators.
Even before the appointment of Yaguzhinsky, Peter had altered the Senate's role. From 1711 to 1718, the Senate had been responsible for administration as well as for legislation, but Peter realized that the state needed a new executive machinery, separate from the Senate, which would permit the Senate to concentrate on legislative matters. It was this realization which led him to begin his experiment with a new government institution imported from Europe, the system of colleges or ministries.
From his own travels and from reports of foreign ambassadors and his agents, the Tsar had learned that colleges were the basic working institutions of governments in Denmark, Prussia, Austria and Sweden. Even in England, the semi-autonomous, college-like Board of the Admiralty was charged with administering all the affairs of the Royal Navy. Leibniz, whom Peter had consulted, reported: "There cannot be good administration except with colleges. Their mechanism is like that of watches whose wheels mutually keep each other in movement." The college system in Sweden had the highest reputation in Europe; it functioned so well that the Swedish government continued to administer the country smoothly despite the absence of its sovereign for fifteen years, the loss of armies, the conquest of its empire and a devastating plague. Peter, admiring both Charles and Swedish efficiency and, having no qualms about borrowing from his enemy, decided to use the Swedish colleges as models for his own.
By 1718, his new system was ready. The old-fashioned prikazi, or government offices, now thirty-five in number, were superseded by nine new colleges: Foreign Affairs, Revenue Collection, Justice, Expenditure, Financial Control, War, Admiralty, Commerce, and Mining and Manufacturing. The presidents of these colleges were to be Russians (in fact, they were all Peter's close friends and chief lieutenants) and the vice presidents foreigners. Two exceptions were the College of Mining and Manufacturing, of which General Bruce, a Scot, was appointed president, and the College of Foreign Affairs, whose president, Golovkin, and vice president, Shafirov, were both Russians. All nine college presidents simultaneously became members of the Senate, which had the effect of transforming that body into a council of ministers.
To help make these foreign institutions work, Peter imported foreign experts. Russian agents circulated through Europe inviting foreigners to come to the new Russian colleges. Even Swedish prisoners of war who had learned Russian were invited to the colleges. (Weber thought that some would not accept, "considering that they are apprehensive of a troublesome inquiry at home into their behavior.") In the end, enough foreigners were found, and Weber was to describe the humming activity at the College of Foreign Affairs in glowing terms: "Hardly any foreign office in the world issues dispatches in so many languages. They have sixteen interpreters and secretaries: Russian, Latin, Polish, High Dutch, Low Dutch, English, Danish, Fren
ch, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Tur
kish, Chinese, Tatar, Kalmuck and Mongolian."
Yet, even with foreigners working at several levels in the new machinery, the college system began jerkily. The foreign lawyers, administrators and other experts had difficulty explaining the new system to their Russian colleagues, and the translators brought in to help were tongue-tied by their own ignorance of Swedish terminology and administrative affairs. Explanation of the new system and procedures to local officials in the provinces was even more difficult, and uncomprehending provincial clerks sent reports to the capital which could not be categorized, understood or even read in the new offices in St. Petersburg.
In addition, several of the college presidents treated their new assignments lackadaisically, and Peter once again was forced to lecture them like children. They must appear at their colleges every Tuesday and Thursday, he commanded, and while there and in the Senate must act with decorum. "There should be no unnecessary talking or chatter, but only talk of the matter in hand. Moreover, it someone begins to speak, another shall not interrupt, but shall allow him to finish, behaving like orderly people and not like market women."
Peter had hoped that including the new college presidents as members of
the Senate would en
hance the efficency of that body, but there were such antagonisms and jealousies among these potentates that putting them all in the same room without the Tsar to enforce order led to violent quarrels and even brawls. The aristocratic senators Dolgoruky and Golitsyn disdained the low-bom Menshikov, Shafirov and Yaguzhinsky. Golovkin, president of the College of Foreign Affairs, and Shafirov, its vice president, hated each other. The quarrels became more strident, senators openly accused one another of being thieves, and while Peter was away on the Caspian Sea, a resolution was passed reporting Shafirov to the Emperor for outrageous, illegal behavior in the Senate. On Peter's return, a special high court composed of senators and generals was summoned to Preobrazhenskoe and, on hearing the evidence, sentenced Shafirov to death. On February 16, 1723, Shafirov was brought into the Kremlin in a common sledge. The sentence was read to him, his wig and tattered sheepskin coat were taken away and he mounted the scaffold. Crossing himself repeatedly, he knelt and placed his head on the block. The executioner lifted the axe—and at this moment Peter's Cabinet Secretary, Makarov, stepped forward and announced that, in consideration of Shafirov's long record of service, the Emperor had granted him life and sentenced him instead to exile in Siberia. Shafirov got to his feet and climbed down from the scaffold, his eyes filled with tears. He was taken to the Senate, where his former colleagues, shaken by the experience, congratulated him on his reprieve. To calm his nerves, the doctors bled him, and Shafirov, contemplating his dismal future, said to them, "You had better open my largest vein and thus relieve me of my torments." His exile to Siberia was further commuted to confinement with his family in Novgorod. Two years later, on Peter's death, Catherine pardoned Shafirov, and under Empress Anne he returned to the Senate.
