citizen. They were still tied to the village commune, which enforced the old patriarchal order, deprived of the right to own the land individually, and remained legally inferior to the nobles and other estates. But the groundwork had at least been laid for the development of peasant agriculture. A second major reform of 1864 saw the establishment of local assemblies of self-government, called the zemstvos, in most Russian provinces. To preserve the domination of the landed nobles, they were set up only at the provincial and district level; below that, at the volost and the village level, the peasant communes were left to rule themselves with only minimal supervision by the gentry. The judicial reforms of the same year set up an
independent legal system with public jury trials for all estates except the peasants (who remained under the jurisdiction of local customary law). There were also new laws relaxing censorship (1865), giving more autonomy to universities (1863), reforming primary schools (1864) and modernizing the military (1863—75). Boris Chicherin (with the benefit of hindsight) summed up their progressive ideals: to remodel completely the enormous state, which had been entrusted to [Alexander's]
care, to abolish an age-old order founded on slavery, to replace it with civic decency and freedom, to establish justice in a country which had never known the meaning of legality, to redesign the entire administration, to introduce freedom of the press in the context of untrammelled authority, to call new forces to life at every turn and set them on firm legal foundations, to put a repressed and humiliated society on its feet and to give it the chance to flex its muscles.7
Had the liberal spirit of the 1860s continued to pervade the work of government, Russia might have become a Western-style society based upon individual property and liberty upheld by the rule of law. The revolution need not have occurred. To be sure, it would still have been a slow and painful progress. The peasantry, in particular, would have remained a revolutionary threat so long as they were excluded from property and civil rights. The old patriarchal system in the countryside, which even after Emancipation preserved the hegemony of the nobles, called out for replacement with a modern system in which the peasants had a greater stake. But there was at least, within the ruling elite, a growing awareness of what was needed — and indeed of what it would cost — for this social transformation to succeed. The problem was, however, that the elite was increasingly divided over the desirability of this transformation. And as a result of these divisions it failed to develop a coherent strategy to deal with the challenges of modernization.
On the one hand were the reformists, the 'Men of 1864' like Polovtsov, who broadly accepted the need for a bourgeois social order (even at the expense of the nobility), the need for the concession of political freedoms (especially in local government), and the need for a Rechtsstaat (which increasingly they understood to mean not just a state based on universal laws but one based on the rule of law itself). By the end of the 1870s this reformist vision had developed into demands for a constitution. Enlightened statesmen openly argued that the tasks of government in the modern age had become too complex for the Tsar and his bureaucrats to tackle alone, and that the loyal and educated public had to be brought into the work of government. In January 1881
Alexander II instructed his Minister of the Interior, Count Loris-Melikov, to draw up plans
for a limited constitution which would give invited figures from the public an advisory role in legislation. 'The throne', argued the Minister of Finance, A. A. Abaza, during the debates on these proposals, 'cannot rest exclusively on a million bayonets and an army of officials.' Such reformist sentiments were commonplace among the officials in the Ministry of Finance. Being
independent legal system with public jury trials for all estates except the peasants (who remained under the jurisdiction of local customary law). There were also new laws relaxing censorship (1865), giving more autonomy to universities (1863), reforming primary schools (1864) and modernizing the military (1863—75). Boris Chicherin (with the benefit of hindsight) summed up their progressive ideals: to remodel completely the enormous state, which had been entrusted to [Alexander's]
care, to abolish an age-old order founded on slavery, to replace it with civic decency and freedom, to establish justice in a country which had never known the meaning of legality, to redesign the entire administration, to introduce freedom of the press in the context of untrammelled authority, to call new forces to life at every turn and set them on firm legal foundations, to put a repressed and humiliated society on its feet and to give it the chance to flex its muscles.7
Had the liberal spirit of the 1860s continued to pervade the work of government, Russia might have become a Western-style society based upon individual property and liberty upheld by the rule of law. The revolution need not have occurred. To be sure, it would still have been a slow and painful progress. The peasantry, in particular, would have remained a revolutionary threat so long as they were excluded from property and civil rights. The old patriarchal system in the countryside, which even after Emancipation preserved the hegemony of the nobles, called out for replacement with a modern system in which the peasants had a greater stake. But there was at least, within the ruling elite, a growing awareness of what was needed — and indeed of what it would cost — for this social transformation to succeed. The problem was, however, that the elite was increasingly divided over the desirability of this transformation. And as a result of these divisions it failed to develop a coherent strategy to deal with the challenges of modernization.
On the one hand were the reformists, the 'Men of 1864' like Polovtsov, who broadly accepted the need for a bourgeois social order (even at the expense of the nobility), the need for the concession of political freedoms (especially in local government), and the need for a Rechtsstaat (which increasingly they understood to mean not just a state based on universal laws but one based on the rule of law itself). By the end of the 1870s this reformist vision had developed into demands for a constitution. Enlightened statesmen openly argued that the tasks of government in the modern age had become too complex for the Tsar and his bureaucrats to tackle alone, and that the loyal and educated public had to be brought into the work of government. In January 1881
Alexander II instructed his Minister of the Interior, Count Loris-Melikov, to draw up plans
for a limited constitution which would give invited figures from the public an advisory role in legislation. 'The throne', argued the Minister of Finance, A. A. Abaza, during the debates on these proposals, 'cannot rest exclusively on a million bayonets and an army of officials.' Such reformist sentiments were commonplace among the officials in the Ministry of Finance. Being
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