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Back to Subjects - European History

Nicholas I

Nicholas I Nicholas I has been portrayed, and perhaps rightfully so, as a strict and reactionary tsar. Indeed, his internal policies were often repressive -- he sought to nip any liberalism in the bud, often brutally. His approach to solving problems in the Empire and keeping control was to create the "Nicholas system", a bureaucratic system defined by and completely based on absolute monarchy. Nicholas revamped govermental structure by strengthening and centralizing bureaucratic structures to an unprecedented degree. He did this as an attempt to deal with all of Russia's problems himself. At most importantly the structure known as "His Majesty's own Chancery," which was the nerve-center of the empire's administrative mechanisms. With his new governmental structure, he hoped to create a machine that would, in theory, more quickly and efficiently carry out his will. The reality, however, was a little bit different than what he planned. However strict or repressive Nicholas may have been, his policies are somewhat understandble considering what domestic and foreign events marked his reign. His accession in 1825 was threatened by an uprising of a group of noblemen who came to be known as the Decembrists. He dealt with the uprising quickly and firmly. He and his administration sentenced the five most important rebel leaders to death by hanging and sentenced many others to hard labor in Siberia. Later in 1830 Europe went through some revolutionary crises. The youth of Poland had been restless since July 1830. The fever rose greatly when they heard that the Polish army was to march with the Russians to crush the revolution and prevent the Belgians from acquiring their independence. On the night of November 29, a conspiracy of young cadets seized the residence of the Grand Duke Konstantin, the brother of the Tsar. The rebels demanded a constitution and independence from Russia. There demands would have been politically disadvantageous to Nicholas - Poland was the one European country in his Empire. If he lost Poland, he would lose his foothold in Europe and Russia would easily be classified as simply an Asiatic empire. At first, Nicholas' attempts to squelch the rebellion were disastrous-- his general was not effective at all in battle strategy and many of his men were being killed by cholera. In fact, his brother Konstantin was killed by the same disease. Finally, after switching generals, Nicholas was able to regain Poland. However, his Polish policies made him unpopular with France and England. Public opinion was decidedly on the side of the Polish insurgents. Furthermore, Russia experienced a cholera epidemic in 1830-1, a potential cause for disorder. Nicholas retreated to his summer residence in Peterhof to avoid the plague. The populace was left in the care of an inefficient administration and started to grow restless. Rumors started going around that there was no real cholera problem, but rather people had been hired to go around poisoning food and drink. Mobs were formed and on July 3, there was serious rioting in the capital of St. Petersburg. The mobs invaded hospitals, broke the windows, threw medical supplies into the street, and attacked the doctors. After all this rioting, Nicholas returned to the capital to confront his people. In a typical flourish of drama, he rode into the Haymarket, rose from his seat, threw off his cloak, pointed to the Church of the Savior, and in a booming voice yelled, "Hats off, and down on your knees!" The thousands of people did so. Then he raked them over the coals: "What did you do yesterday?... You have shamed me before the whole world! How could you believe that cholera is not here, when my brother has just died of it? You have killed some of the doctors, is that worthy of a Russian? Are you Frenchmen or Poles? You have sinned before God, how can I be responsible for you? My oath makes me responsible for your actions. Ask pardon of the Most High!" In a great finale, he began crying and outstretched his arms, saying "Come- if you wish to kill me with grief!" In the same year, revolts broke out in the military colonies in the Novgorod Province. The disgruntled soldiers, and unhappy peasants, used cholera as a pretext to rise against oppression. They ended up killing three generals, 160 officers, and a bunch of doctors and employees. Nicholas sent in regular, non-colony troops to subdue the mob. 2000 men were punished and 129 died. Nicholas, however, did get a clue and eliminated the military colony program. On top of all these reasons to be strict, Nicholas was also very militarily-oriented. He was raised in a military fashion, he loved military parades and uniforms, and above all military precision and discipline. Nicholas' military bent expressed itself strongly in his new organization of the government. As the central part of Nicholas' reform, Nicholas divested the existing govermental entites, the State Council, the Committee of Ministers and the Senate, of their more significant functions and greatly expanded the power of his personal office. He also created ad hoc committees as necessary. His predecessor, Alexander I had seen the state council as the focul point of all affairs of the central administration. Nick saw it as an institution existing only for the purpose on giving its point of view on questions that Nick asks it about and nothing more. He expanded the already-existed office known as "His Majesty's Own Chancery" to be the central power of his government. He had a habit of appointing generals aide-de-camp to deal with critical state problems. It eventually came to have six departments: The first received frequent reports from almost all central government agences, and eventally reviewed the records of civil servants. The second, dedicated to Law Reform -- created to codify the laws of the Empire. The third was the Police Agency, the forth, Charitable and educational Institutions, the fifth, dedicated to State Peasants and the sixth to Caucausion Affairs. Russia's bureaucracy flourished under Nicholas, who continued a bureaucracy based on the table of ranks which was developed by Peter the great. He did, however, make it more easy for a non-noble man to climb the table of ranks and achieve the status of hereditary nobility. Nicholas' laws about who could enter the civil service placed emphasis on receiving degrees from institutions of higher learning, many of which were open to all sections of the community. Without a good amount of public education, a nobleman could no longer scale the civil service ladder, and with education, even a non-nobleman could do so. This promotability was important because the incentive of hereditary noble status would in theory increase the supply of public-spirited civil servants would change the character of the Russian nobility. Nicholas was uncomfortable with the noble estate, understandable after the Decembrist revolt. He would have liked to have dissipated its power by creating a middle class or at least weakening its power. He seemse to have made steps towards that goal: between 1836 and 1843, 7200 men reached rank eight, and 4700 of them were from non-noble estates However, Nicholas also feared the nobility, and gave them some accessions to their demands: in 1845, Nik changed the rules so that a guy would have to reach level 9 to achieve personal nobility and level 5 to receive hereditary nobility. Yet, promotion simply accelereated, thereby maintaining the flow of new people into the nobility. Nicholas was a terrible micro-manager. He insisted that the power, and therefore the authority to make decisions, should remain in his hands. This setup has problems because decisions in any bureaucracy must be made at the locus of power. The more extreme the centralization, the higher the point in the bureaucratic structure where the decisions must be made. This means that the more centralized a bureaucratic system is, the less possible it will be for the individual with the decision-making authority to obtain first-hand knowledge of the problems they are required to deal with. On the other hand, those on the lower levels who may actually know what is going on and my have a better idea of how to solve a problem, do not have the authority to take any decisive action. Inded, the main problem in this centralized bureaucracy is the rapid transference of accurate information to the Emperor. Indeed, Nicholas insisted that he have as much information as possible on all aspects of Russian life in order to command effectively. However, the Russian empire was vast, the communications system was crummy, and many of the Russian officials were incompetent, so much of the info that Nicholas got was either inaccurate or of little value. Local officials were particularly problematic because Non-routine requests for information from St. Petersburg's chanceries often threw them into panic, and they responded with silence because they feared that the central administration sought the data to do them harm. Nicholas' ministers and advisers sought to overcome the communications problems by sending specially appointed officials on fact-finding missions to the provinces. But this information was trivial, inaccurate and worthless to the statesmen who commissioned it because even these officials were poorly educated and badly trained. Further, anotherer main problem, besides the unwieldliness of the system was the problem of attracting qualified people. Local officials were poorly educated and badly trained, often having learned their narrow routines through a crude apprenticeship system. The head of the Third Department reported in early 1830s that educated and established people were reluctant to become provincial governors because they knew the degree of responsibility which they would have, and how few resources would be available to them. Overall, Nicholas I's reign did little to further Russia's progress, and in many ways made the country fall further behind Western Europe. Through his opressiveness, strictness, and love for bureaucracy, he put obstacles in the way of the "racing troika," as Nikolai Gogol once called Russia, and effectively tripped the horses. Bibliography:

Word Count: 1650

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