Law and Government of the Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was ruled by an emperor who claimed absolute power by divine right, and who was, on paper, subject to no earthly authority. The Fundamental Laws of 1906 declared that the emperor possessed “the supreme autocratic power” and that obedience to his authority was “ordained by God himself.” The autocrat ruled in fact as well as in law, and the system he ruled was among the most centralised in modern Europe. Yet beneath the surface of autocracy, the empire developed a complex system of bureaucracy, law, and local administration that shaped the daily lives of its subjects and the politics of the imperial era.
The system of government that emerged over the imperial period was a hybrid of autocratic, bureaucratic, and consultative elements. The tsar stood at the top, ruling through a network of ministries and a sprawling bureaucracy. The empire was divided into large administrative units, and various forms of local government — the zemstvos and the city dumas — were established in the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The legal system combined elements of Byzantine canon law, Western European legal traditions, and Russian imperial legislation.
The system was fundamentally autocratic, and the autocratic principle was repeatedly reaffirmed by the Romanov rulers. The tsar was the source of all law, the supreme judge, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and the head of the dominant Orthodox Church. The system was also, however, complex, and it changed significantly over time, especially in the late imperial period when the introduction of the State Duma and the constitution of 1905 created a semi-constitutional order.
The autocratic principle
The foundation of the Russian imperial system was the autocratic principle. The tsar was understood to be the sole and unlimited ruler of the Russian Empire, with absolute power over the lives and property of his subjects. The official doctrine, articulated most famously by Sergei Uvarov in the phrase “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality” (1833), held that the Russian state was based on three pillars: the Orthodox faith, the autocratic form of government, and the unique national character of the Russian people.
The autocratic principle was repeatedly affirmed in official documents. The decree establishing the Holy Synod in 1721 explicitly declared that the tsar was the “supreme judge” of the realm. The Fundamental Laws of the Russian Empire, issued in 1906, declared that the emperor possessed “the supreme autocratic power” and that obedience to his authority was “ordained by God himself.” The tsar was also the head of the imperial family, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and the supreme patron of the Orthodox Church.
In practice, the autocratic principle was exercised through a complex network of institutions and advisers. The tsar was the source of all major decisions, but he relied on a bureaucracy to implement those decisions and on various consultative bodies to provide advice. The most important of these bodies included the Senate, which served as a high court and a kind of supervisory body, the Holy Synod, which governed the Orthodox Church, and the State Council, which debated legislation. After 1905, the State Duma added a legislative element to the system, but the tsar retained the right to veto its decisions.
The bureaucracy and the ministries
The Russian imperial bureaucracy was one of the largest in the world, and it was a central feature of the imperial system. The bureaucracy was organized into ministries, each headed by a minister who was appointed by and responsible to the tsar. Peter the Great established the first central government departments, the colleges (collegia), in 1717-1718, and Alexander I replaced them with ministries in 1802; the ministerial system was then gradually expanded throughout the nineteenth century.
The most important ministries included the Ministry of War, the Ministry of the Navy, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Education. Each ministry had its own hierarchy of officials, its own budget, and its own responsibilities. The ministries were supervised by the tsar through the Committee of Ministers, which met regularly under a chairman appointed by the tsar.
The Russian bureaucracy was notorious for its corruption, inefficiency, and slowness. The great Russian writer Nikolai Gogol satirized it in his play The Government Inspector, and the bureaucracy was a frequent target of criticism by Russian intellectuals. The bureaucracy was, however, also a major employer of the educated class, and it provided a means of social advancement for talented men from non-noble backgrounds. The Table of Ranks of 1722, which organized both civil and military service into fourteen grades, was a key element in this system, providing a path from common origins to the nobility through service to the state.
The bureaucracy was particularly extensive in the late imperial period, with hundreds of thousands of officials serving in the central ministries and the local administrations. The bureaucratic apparatus was, however, increasingly unable to cope with the challenges of modern governance, especially in the conditions of war and revolution in 1914-1917.
The Senate and the Holy Synod
Two institutions played a particularly important role in the Russian imperial system. The Senate was established by Peter the Great in 1711 as a kind of governing council, and it gradually evolved into a high court and a supervisory body. The Senate was the court of last resort for most legal cases, and it also had the power to supervise the administration of the empire, including the local governors and the bureaucracy. Its place in the system shifted over time: stripped of much of its administrative role by the ministerial reform of 1802, the Senate served thereafter chiefly as the empire’s supreme court of appeal and as the body that audited the legality of provincial administration.
The Holy Synod was established in 1721 to replace the patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, which had been abolished by Peter the Great. The Synod was a collective body, headed by a lay official called the Chief Procurator, who was appointed by the tsar. The members of the Synod were bishops and other clergymen, but the Chief Procurator had the final say in most matters. The arrangement effectively made the Church an arm of the state, and it was an important innovation in the relationship between Church and state. The arrangement remained in place until 1917, when the patriarchate was restored.
The local administration: governorates, provinces, and districts
The Russian Empire was divided into large administrative units called governorates (guberniyas). The system was established by Peter the Great and gradually expanded as the empire grew. By 1917, there were about 50 governorates in the European part of Russia, and roughly 100 governorates, oblasts, and krais in the empire as a whole, including the various regions of Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, which were administered separately. Each governorate was headed by a governor, appointed by and responsible to the tsar.
The governor was the chief civil and military authority in his region, with extensive powers over the local administration, the police, and the courts. The governorate was divided into smaller units called uezds, headed by an uezd captain (ispravnik), and the uezds were in turn divided into volosts, the smallest unit of rural administration. The volosts were governed by peasant assemblies, which had limited authority and were closely supervised by the central government.
In addition to the regular administrative system, the empire used various forms of special administration for particular regions or groups. The Baltic provinces, for example, retained their German-speaking nobility and their own legal codes until the 1880s. The Kingdom of Poland had its own constitution and administration until 1831, when the November Uprising led to its integration into the Russian system. The Grand Duchy of Finland, incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1809, retained its own constitution and laws until 1899, when the policies of Russification began to be applied. The Caucasus had its own viceroyalty until 1882, when the viceroyalty was abolished and the region was divided into regular governorates; the viceroyalty was restored in 1905, amid the revolutionary unrest in the region, and lasted until 1917.
The zemstvos and local government
The zemstvos, established by the reform of 1864, were an important innovation in Russian local government. The zemstvos were elected local assemblies, with representation from the landowners, the urban classes, and the peasantry, responsible for local matters such as education, public health, road maintenance, and the relief of the poor. The zemstvos were a step toward representative government, and they played an important role in the development of Russian civil society.
The zemstvos were, however, limited in several important ways. They were confined to the rural districts and had no authority over the major cities, which were governed by separate city dumas under the 1870 city reform. They were supervised by the governor and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which had the power to veto their decisions. They had no authority over the peasant commune, which remained under the supervision of the local administration. And they had no political power at the national level.
The zemstvos were a site of political activity in the late imperial period. The zemstvo leaders, who were often members of the professional class, were a key element in the liberal opposition to the autocracy, and the All-Russian Congress of Zemstvos, an unofficial gathering of zemstvo leaders, was an important platform for the political demands of the constitutional movement. The zemstvo leaders also played an important role in the development of the Russian public health system, the cooperative movement, and the educational system.
The legal system
The Russian legal system was complex and developed over the centuries. The earliest Russian law code, the Russkaya Pravda of the eleventh century, was a customary law code that combined Slavic traditions with elements borrowed from Byzantine law. The Sobornoye Ulozheniye of 1649, the law code of Tsar Alexis, was the most important legal code of the pre-Petrine period. It codified the existing law, including the rules of serfdom, and it remained the basis of Russian law until the reforms of the nineteenth century.
The greatest legal reform of the imperial period was the Judicial Reform of 1864, which was part of the larger reform program of Alexander II. The reform established a new system of courts, with independent judges, trial by jury, equal justice for all classes, and adversarial proceedings. The reform was modeled on European legal systems and was widely regarded as one of the most successful of the Great Reforms. The new courts were an important advance on the previous system, and they played an important role in the development of Russian legal culture.
The reform did not, however, extend to all areas of the law. Political cases, including those involving revolutionary activity, were tried by special courts or by administrative bodies, and the regime retained the right to impose administrative exile and other punishments without trial. The reform also did not extend to the peasantry, which was governed by special courts that followed customary law. The Land Captain Statute of 1889, a counter-reform of Alexander III, placed peasant self-government and the peasant courts under the supervision of land captains drawn from the local nobility, and the peasantry remained subject to a separate and inferior legal system.
The Duma and the constitutional experiment
The most significant change in the Russian imperial system was the introduction of the State Duma and the constitution of 1905-1906. The 1905 Revolution had forced Nicholas II to issue the October Manifesto, which promised a constitution and a parliament, and the resulting system was established by the Fundamental Laws of 1906.
The new system included a State Duma, elected by the population, and a State Council, partly elected and partly appointed. The Duma had the power to vote on laws and the budget, and the tsar was required to obtain the consent of both the Duma and the State Council for legislation. The tsar retained, however, extensive powers, including the right to dissolve the Duma, the right to govern by emergency decree between sessions of the Duma, and the right to appoint and dismiss ministers. The Fundamental Laws also retained the autocratic principle, declaring that the emperor possessed “the supreme autocratic power.”
The Duma was elected on a complex franchise that favored the propertied classes. The election was indirect, with voters choosing electors who in turn chose deputies, and the peasantry, the urban workers, and the non-Russian nationalities were underrepresented. The first two Dumas, elected in 1906 and 1907, were dominated by opposition parties, including the Constitutional Democrats, the Social Revolutionaries, and the Social Democrats, and both were dissolved by the tsar. The electoral law of June 1907, sometimes called the “Stolypin coup,” reduced the franchise and increased the representation of the propertied classes, and the third and fourth Dumas, elected in 1907 and 1912, were more conservative.
The constitutional experiment was a genuine attempt to create a semi-constitutional monarchy, but it was a deeply limited one. The tsar remained the dominant figure, and the system was marked by repeated conflicts between the Duma and the government. The constitutional system was, however, an important development in Russian political history, and the experience of the Duma played an important role in shaping the politics of the late imperial period.
The security services and repression
The Russian imperial government developed an extensive system of security services and repression. The most important of these was the Okhrana, or Department for the Protection of Public Security and Order, established in 1881 to combat revolutionary activity. The Okhrana was responsible for surveillance, infiltration, and arrest of suspected revolutionaries, and it worked closely with the regular police and the army.
The Okhrana was known for its use of agents provocateurs and informers, and it was successful in penetrating many of the revolutionary organizations. The most famous case was the Okhrana agent Roman Malinovsky, who rose to become a member of the Bolshevik Central Committee and a member of the Duma before being unmasked. The Okhrana also engaged in censorship, including the censorship of literature and the press, and it had the power to exile political dissidents to Siberia without trial.
The security services were supplemented by a system of administrative justice, under which individuals suspected of political crimes could be exiled or imprisoned without trial. The system was used extensively against the revolutionary movement, and tens of thousands of people were subjected to administrative exile or punishment. The most famous example was the exile of Lenin to Shushenskoye in Siberia, where he spent the years 1897-1900.
Themes in the law and government of the empire
Four patterns recur across the imperial period.
Autocracy and the pressure for reform. The Russian imperial system was based on the principle of unlimited autocratic power, but the social, economic, and political changes of the imperial period created a constant pressure for reform. The pattern of crisis-reform-reaction was repeated throughout the imperial period, and the failure to resolve this tension was an important cause of the empire’s collapse.
Centre and periphery. The Russian Empire was a vast, multi-ethnic state, and the central government’s ability to project its authority into the periphery was always limited. The various regions had their own administrative traditions, legal systems, and political cultures, and the central government had to balance the need for uniform administration with the practical need for accommodation. The history of the empire is full of examples of the tension between centralisation and local autonomy.
Bureaucracy as strength and weakness. The Russian imperial system relied on a large and complex bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy was both an important source of strength and an important source of weakness. It provided the administrative capacity to govern a vast and diverse state, but it was also notoriously inefficient, corrupt, and slow. The bureaucracy was a site of political conflict, and the various reforms of the imperial period were in part attempts to make it more effective.
The development of civil society. Despite the autocratic system, the imperial period saw the development of a complex civil society, including professional associations, voluntary organisations, the cooperative movement, the zemstvos, and the various social movements. This emerging civil society played an important role in the political struggles of the late imperial period, but its growth was constrained by the autocratic state, and the tension between the two was never resolved.