Russia under the Old regime

THE PARTIAL DISMANTLING OF THE PATRIMONIAL STATE

This awareness dawned upon Russia's leadership in the second half of the seventeenth century, two hundred years before a similar shock was to jolt Japan, another uncolonized non-western power. After overcoming initial perplexity, Russia launched a process of internal reform which, ebbing and flowing, has continued ever since. First to be reformed was the army. But it soon became evident that the mere copying of western military techniques was not enough, because the more fundamental sources of the west's strength lay in the social, economic and educational base; this too then had to be emulated. Increased contact with the west made the rulers of Russia realize that their might was more apparent than real; the system under which the crown owned or controlled everything set strict limits on what they could accomplish because it deprived them of support from a freely acting society. In response, the crown began cautiously to alter the system. Initially it hoped merely-to graft individual western borrowings on the patrimonial system and thus enjoy the best of both worlds. 'We need Europe for a few decades, and then we must turn our back on it', Peter the Great once confided to his collaborators.' But once set in motion the process could not be stopped at will because as the social 61ite gained strength and independence from the government's reforming moves it began to pressure the monarchy on its own behalf, wresting from it rights which it had not intended to give them. The end result was the dismantling - partly vuluntarily, partly under duress - of three out of four mainstays of the patrimonial regime. During the ninety-nine years which elapsed between 18 February 1762, when dvoriane were formally exempt from obligatory state service, and 19 February 1861, when the serfs received their freedom, the hierarchy of social estates bound to the crown was dissolved. The 'ranks' (chiny) were set free and, transformed into estates (sosloviia), allowed to pursue their own interests. Concurrently, the crown gave up its proprietary claim to the country's economic resources. In the second half of the eighteenth century, it surrendered its monopoly on land by giving dvoriane full and unconditional title to their estates, and abolished nearly all the monopolies on trade and industry. Finally, the country was thrown open to the virtually unimpeded flow of foreign ideas.

These developments seemed to presage Russia's ultimate political westernization as well, that is, to lead to an arrangement under which state and society would coexist in some kind of an equilibrium. The patrimonial system from which the social, economic and cultural supports had been withdrawn appeared doomed. Or so it seemed to the majority of observers of imperial Russia, native and foreign alike. It is, however, a matter of historical record that this denouement did not occur. The reforms carried out by the imperial government fell short of