Russia under the Old regime

286

as a public service was entirely alien to the Russian bureaucracy; it was something imported from the west, mainly Germany. It was Baltic Germans who first demonstrated to the Russians that an official could use his power to serve society. The imperial government greatly valued these men and they acquired a disproportionate share of the topmost ranks; we have already noted the high proportion of foreigners, especially Lutherans, among the elite officials of the imperial bureaucracy (above, p. 182). Many of the best civil servants were graduates of two special schools, the Lyceum at Tsarskoe Selo and the Imperial School of Jurisprudence.

An almost unbridgeable gap separated bureaucrats employed in the central administrative offices in St Petersburg and Moscow from those serving in the provincial administration. The latter had little opportunity of ever advancing to posts in the capital cities, and, conversely, officials who by virtue of family background, education, or wealth began their career ascent up the ladder of the central administration, rarely ventured into the provinces unless to assume the position of Governor or Deputy Governor. This gap perpetuated the ancient cleavage between elite dvoriane inscribed in the service books of the city of Moscow and the ordinary provincial dvorianstvo. Secondly, and again in line with Muscovite traditions, the imperial bureaucracy displayed a distinct tendency to form a closed, hereditary caste. Alarge proportion of the chinovniki were sons of chinovniki; and those clergymen, merchants and other commoners who entered the civil service from the outside generally tended to push their children into bureaucratic careers as well. Dvoriane of any standing rarely joined the civil service, partly because of its low prestige, partly because the rigid ranking system forced them to compete with chinovniki far below them in education and social status. This situation began to change only towards the very end of the imperial regime when it became fashionable in upper circles to enter the civil service.

Because, by and large, the metropolitan and provincial bureaucracies did not mix, the public spirit which began to make its appearance among the former did not communicate itself to the country at large. For the overwhelming majority of officials, self-seeking and bribery were a way of life to which they could conceive of no alternative. The conservative historian Nicholas Karamzin had them in mind when he used to say that if one were to answer with one word the question:' "what goes on in Russia?", one would have to reply "thieving".'7 Public corruption, ubiquitous in Russia of the Muscovite and imperial periods was a symptom of a deeper malaise, lawlessness, of which it is always a faithful companion.