The Third Section: Police and Society in Russia under Nicholas I [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674865624, 9780674865617

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RUSSIAN RESEARCH CENTER STUDIES

THE THIRD SECTION Police and Society in Russia under Nicholas I

THE THIRD SECTION Police and Society in Russia under Nicholas I

SIDNEY MONAS

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, Massachusetts 1961

© 1961 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Distributed in Great Britain by Oxford University Press, London The Russian Research Center of Harvard University is supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation. The Center carries out interdisciplinary study of Russian institutions and behavior and related subjects. This volume was prepared under a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. That Corporation is not, however, the author, owner, publisher, or proprietor of this publication and is not to be understood as approving by virtue of its grant any of the statements made or views expressed therein.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-6350 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES O F AMEBICA

To Carol

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A book of this kind necessarily owes more to others than the author can possibly tell. I wish merely to acknowledge the following debts as outstanding. The persons mentioned are in no way responsible, of course, for either my mistakes or my conclusions. The late Professor Michael Karpovich of Harvard University directed my research in its initial phases and put at my disposal his vast erudition and keen intelligence. I owe him more than that, however. Without his genial tolerance and sensitive human awareness, a rather obstreperous young graduate student might easily have succumbed to mere bad temper. For support and encouragement during all phases of the work involved in this book, I owe a similar debt of gratitude to Professor Robert Lee Wolff. Professors Roman Jakobson and Wiktor Weintraub, also of Harvard, were rich in suggestions when my work was still in its preliminary stages, especially with regard to the chapter on Pushkin. Professor Weintraub also read, and helpfully criticized, a preliminary draft of the entire manuscript. Professor Cyril Black of Princeton University, who guided my first steps in the study of Russian history, offered many suggestions and was always ready to help. Professor Massimo Salvadori of Smith College read the manuscript in its final form and gave me the benefit of his excellent critical judgment. For guidance in the almost uncharted history of European police institutions, I owe a good deal to Professor Donald E. Emerson of the University of Washington, who put his enormous and painstaking bibliography on this subject at my disposal and who discussed with me the intricacies of the development of political police in France and Austria.

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Acknowledgments

Indeed, I owe so much to so many. To my very good friends whose intelligent discussion of problems involved in this work was a constant stimulus: George Siegel, Hans Rogger, Lawrence Krader, Leopold Haimson, Gregory Grossman, Edward Stankiewicz, and Joan Afferica Wilde. To Erich Kahler, as a source of inspiration. To my father, David Monas, for the origin of my interest in things Russian. To Rita Abbott Monas, for her sympathy and understanding, and for assistance with the illustrations. Above all, to my wife Carol, who bore many griefs and burdens with unfailing affection and unflagging devotion. I am grateful to Mrs. Joyce Lebowitz of Harvard University Press, whose intelligent editing and warm support in the final days were balm to the author's impatience; and to Mrs. Kathleen Lord, who typed the manuscript. The staffs of Widener Library, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and the Nielson Library of Smith College were most helpful and cooperative. Without the generous financial support of that remarkable institution, the Russian Research Center of Harvard University, and of the Ford Foundation, which allowed me to complete the research, this book could not have been written. The facilities of the Russian Research Center were always at my disposal and I wish to thank my many friends there, not merely for services beyond the call of duty, but for their encouragement, sympathy, and congeniality as well.

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CONTENTS

Introduction: The Dream of a Beautiful Autocracy 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Politicai Police in Russia: A General Background "Friends of the Fourteenth" Manners and Morals in the Third Section Censorship, to 1848 Empire and Cabbage Soup 1848, and After The Third Section in Retrospect

Bibliography Notes Index

1 22 49 84 133 197 229 283 297 315 345

Illustrations following p. 244 Caricatures of Nicholas I. H. Daumier, "Les Cosaques." From Literaturnoe nasledstvo, No. 41-42 (Moscow, 1941). Nicholas I and an adjutant. Caricature by unknown artist, Literary Museum, Moscow. Lit. nasi., No. 45-46. Nicholas I on the Senate Square. From Ν. K. Shilder, Imperator Nikolai I (St. Petersburg, 1903), Vol. I. Caricature of Nicholas' "military form." Inspecting the troops. H. Daumier, "Les Cosaques." From Lit. nasi., No. 41-42. Grech and Bulgarin, the corrupt critics, in 1834. Caricature by unknown artist. Lit. nasi., No. 55 (1948). Senkowsky, Grech, and Bulgarin, the triumvirate. Caricature by N. A. Stepanov. Lit. nasi, No. 56 (1950). Bulgarin and the Gendarme. Caricature by N. A. Stepanov. Lit. nasi., No. 56. December 14, 1825, in St. Petersburg. From Ν. K. Shilder, Imperator Nikolai I, Vol. I. A high-society ball in St. Petersburg. Water color by Baranov, Literary Museum, Moscow. Lit. nasi., No. 45-46. Belinsky in 1838, aged twenty-seven. Water color by Martynov. Lit. nasi, No. 57 (1951). Belinsky in 1848. Sketch by A. Reder. Lit. nasi, No. 55 (1948). Count Alexander Khristoforovich BenckendorfF, Chief of Gendarmes. From Ν. K. Shilder, Imperator Nikolai I, Vol. I. The assassination of Count Miloradovich, December 14, 1825. From Ν. K. Shilder, Imperator Nikolai I, Vol. I.

THE THIRD SECTION Police and Society in Russia under Nicholas I

INTRODUCTION: The Dream of a Beautiful Autocracy

The thirty-year reign of Nicholas I (1825-1855) presents a double aspect: on the one hand, in the realm of culture, we see the spectacular flowering of Russian letters, the beginnings of modern Russian music, historiography, and science, and the development in a small but important segment of Russian society of an intense, passionate social conscience; on the other hand, in the realm of state affairs, we see the mechanical atmosphere of the parade-ground, barracks, uniforms, brass, a stifling bureaucracy, and the seemingly ubiquitous presence of the political police. Alexander Herzen called it a time of outward slavery and inner emancipation.1 M. O. Gershenzon, a social and cultural historian of a later day, added that the slavery was somewhat illusory and the inner emancipation not entirely free from a certain sickly narrowness.2 In Europe, beneath the order and tranquillity — the relative political calm of the Restoration and the Metternich era — the "democratic revolution" was relentlessly at work.3 In the 1820s, in 1830, and again in 1848, the calm was temporarily broken by revolutionary uprisings of increasing scope and complexity. The French Revolution, defeated on the battlefields, continued to

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rumble its way through the political life of Europe. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the change in the techniques of industrial production, the building of railroads, the spread of literacy, combined with the "politicization" of broader and broader masses of people, had effectively shifted the alignment of political and social forces, to a greater or lesser degree, in every country in Europe — except Russia. Russia seemed much the same in 1850 as it had been in 1815. To some conservatively minded Europeans, this Russian stability was a sign of strength.4 They contrasted, as Nicholas himself was fond of doing, the discipline and order of St. Petersburg with the turbulence and tension of Paris and London. From 1815 to 1853, Russia was believed to be the greatest military power in Europe. As late as 1851, an experienced German diplomat could compare the position of the Russian emperor to that of Napoleon before 1814.5 The weight of this prestige, as well as the actual force at the emperor's disposal, was committed to the maintenance of political stability in Europe, and this in turn was linked with the preservation of conservative, monarchical government. In the face of the increasing hostility of England and France to Nicholas' policy, along with the fragility and tenuousness of Austrian and, later, even of Prussian support, the problem of "modernizing" Russia became increasingly acute, if for no other reason than to maintain its military position.® The problem of a "modernization" sufficient to enable Russia to compete with the new industrial powers in effective military force, yet chary of the Russian autocratic tradition and the social relationships that supported it, was precisely the problem that Nicholas set himself. Unlike the monarchies of western Europe, which had evolved on the basis of pre-existing social classes solidly rooted in tradition with a more or less secure hold on independent economic means, the Russian autocracy had itself created the social class on which it pre-eminently relied, the dvorianstvo, or service nobility.7 During the reign of Peter the Great, the last legal distinctions between the old boyar aristocracy and the dvorianstvo disappeared. The two classes merged. By the time of Nicholas,

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relatively few of the family names associated with great political power could be traced back beyond the eighteenth century.8 According to the terms of the Petrine system, the Russian service nobility was endowed with distinctive privileges: exemption from taxation, the hereditary and exclusive right to landed property, and complete power and authority over the peasants who inhabited that property. The obligations of the nobility were analogous: administration over the serf population, service to the state, and an education that fitted them for such service, a Western education. In theory, if not always in practice, a nobleman's failure to perform his obligations canceled his rights. According to the austere logic of the service state, the landowner's relation to the emperor was the same as the serfs relation to the landowner. In spite of the sporadic and ill-fated attempts throughout the eighteenth century of factions of the nobility to impose limitations on the power of the crown, the major political efforts of the nobility after Peter's death were not directed at imposing such limitations, but rather at maintaining and extending their class privileges while at the same time casting off their obligations. The reign of Catherine II was the golden age of the Russian nobility. Through the Charter of 1785 that class's major political aims had been accomplished : exemption from obligatory state service while maintaining a virtual monopoly over it; civil rights, exemption from corporal punishment, right to trial by peers, right to travel abroad freely; and a corporate organization. From this time on, the nobility as a class became conservative and defensive in its political attitudes. When these "rights" were later imperiled by the arbitrary acts of Emperor Paul, a conspiracy of the nobility disposed of him. No attempt was made, in the course of this coup, to limit or curtail the prerogatives of the crown. It was sufficient to strangle the man who wore it. Russia had become, in the glib phrase of foreigners, "a despotism tempered by assassination." 9 The nobility was the only "estate" of the realm. Although the vast majority of the Russian population was listed in the census as Orthodox, the church was deeply divided, not only by the

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increasing numbers of adherents of the Old Believer sects, but by fundamental differences of outlook between the parish and monastic clergy. The church, since Catherine l i s confiscation of monastic property, had no source of income independent of the state. It became incorporated into the structure of the state bureaucracy. It could act as a brake or a goad — and Metropolitan Filaret sometimes dared even to criticize Nicholas — but the church could pursue no independent course. Although Catherine II had granted the merchant class some measure of corporate life, and although the "merchants of the first three guilds," the wealthier members of the merchant class, participated to some extent in town and provincial administration, the class as a whole had little opportunity for independent development. 10 Serfdom confined the possibilities of a domestic market; competition with the manorial economy of the landowners and with the enterprise of crown peasants or serfs acting under protection of their masters kept the Russian merchants in leading-strings to the government. Since the nobility could act on the government, through the senate, the Guards regiments, and its monopoly of state service, infinitely more effectively than the merchant class could, the merchants remained a backward and dependent element of the population until almost the end of the nineteenth century. There remained the peasantry, the vast bulk of the Russian population, Russia's basic "resource," bearing the burden of an overdeveloped state and an underdeveloped economy. 11 Serfdom was the basic link of dependence between the nobility and the crown. Exploitation of serf labor on landed property was the exclusive privilege of the nobility; without the organized force of the state, this privilege could not be maintained. Conversely, apart from the nobility, the crown had no adequate basis of support. Nevertheless, the monarchy was not perpetually committed to maintaining serfdom. On the contrary, from the time of Alexander I on, partly from humanitarian considerations and partly from an increasing awareness of the role serfdom played as a brake on the economy, the crown began seriously to consider

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its abolition. The problem was, of course, to abolish serfdom while maintaining internal order and the prerogatives of the autocracy. In order at least to modify and ameliorate the conditions of serfdom, its irregularities and most prominent abuses, Nicholas planned to make use of the crown lands, on which over forty per cent of the peasant population lived. These domains had been used in the past (and especially by Catherine and Paul) as a kind of human reservoir from which the crown could reward its outstanding servitors by gifts of populated estates. Nicholas created the Fifth Section of His Majesty's Private Imperial Chancery (later the Ministry of Crown Properties) and put at its head the able and dedicated Count Kiselev with the express purpose of reforming the harsh conditions of peasant life. "Liberation" was a word that Nicholas felt premature and even dangerous to use; his intentions, however, found at least a somewhat more practical form than his brother's. Kiselev gathered invaluable data on the circumstances of peasant life. Peasant dues and obligations on the crown lands were regularized, and — it was hoped — might serve in the future as the basis for new legislation regulating peasant-landowner relations on the private estates. In the long run, unsettled conditions in Europe and the fear of disturbances at home impelled Nicholas to restrain Count Kiselev s activities, and before the end of the reign Kiselev arrived at the desperate conclusion that his task was hopeless.12 The economic position of the nobility was far from secure. Westernization was expensive and, by the time of Catherine II, Westernization had become the very mark of nobility. It meant not only an education and style of life modeled on that of the French nobility, but it involved as well a certain amount of competition for pre-eminence in this respect — clothes, tutors, travel, lavish entertainment, a house in Moscow and, if the nobleman were at all ambitious, one in St. Petersburg, too. It was a style of life that became increasingly expensive; not all the nobility could keep up, and some who could took a kind of old-fashioned pride in not trying. ( Officially, however, this was regarded as a kind of incipient lèse-majesté; the sun of St. Petersburg needed its

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satellites. ) The enormous expenses of the Napoleonic campaigns had been met in part by patriotic contributions from the nobility, and in addition a good deal of property had been damaged or destroyed, either directly by the invasion or indirectly by neglect. The nobility, after the war, tried to make good its losses by a more intensive exploitation of its estates, and especially of the serf labor on its estates; many noblemen moved back from the cities, or at least spent a longer part of the year on their country property. In spite of the rise in grain prices and the expanding European market for grain in the 1830s and 1840s, and in spite of the impressive attempt to improve agricultural techniques ( the founding of technical journals and agricultural societies, the attempt to introduce crop rotation and a greater diversity of crops), agricultural productivity in Russia as a whole did not increase at all. The black-soil regions were a partial exception, but there the density of the population also increased considerably. On the whole, the nobles attempted to maintain their style of life by working their serfs harder and giving them less in return. The result was an increasing restiveness among the peasantry. Peasant uprisings occurred with growing frequency during the reign of Nicholas, and the life of a nobleman in the countryside became more and more hazardous.18 Of course, the nobility was not a homogeneous class, either economically or culturally. Although ties of blood and community of interests did create a firmer bond among members of the nobility than existed between the nobility and any other class, there were many great differences among strata within the nobility. The old boyar aristocracy no longer had any distinctive position as such, but there was a new aristocracy consisting of those who held a position at court, maintained a house in St. Petersburg, and owned vast estates, sometimes with a thousand or more serfs. The great age of the court aristocracy, as of the Russian nobility as a whole, had been the reign of Catherine II. Just as countries bear the stylistic imprint of the period of their greatest cultural achievements, so the Russian aristocracy never quite lost the flavor of Catherine's reign. Its style of life was extremely

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lavish; its language was French; its manners aristocratic in the European sense; its thought intellectualistic, rational, imbued with the esprit de systeme; and its social and intellectual intercourse free and bold, having cast off successfully the servility of the former Muscovite "slaves of the Tsar." Members of this group did not equate their individual importance to the state with any official position held, but rather with a personal relationship to the sovereign that was warm, friendly, outspoken, and candid. They read Voltaire and entertained Diderot, as the empress did. Books that were banned in France were lightly read in St. Petersburg. The French Revolution, of course, put a crimp in this style of life. The court became less candid and a little more afraid. The first concerted attack on this group, however, came not from below as had been vaguely feared but from above, with the accession of Emperor Paul in 1796. The solidarity and self-confidence of the aristocracy never quite recovered from the ravages of the mad emperor. Alexander I, especially in the early years of his reign, brought back something of the warmth and enthusiasm of Catherine's time, but the rationalization and depersonalization of administration symbolized by the plans and reforms of Speransky (a commoner) were bitterly resented by the aristocracy, and its older members were appalled at the intrigue and espionage that became an increasingly marked feature of Alexander's reign from 1807 on. Many went into retirement; turnover was high. Anti-French feeling, cliques, and factions broke up the unity of the aristocratic style. Like an ugly bird, the French Revolution perched between the aristocracy and its former freedom. At the opposite pole from the aristocracy were the impoverished small landowners who possessed a mere handful of serfs. This group, probably the largest within the nobility, was very far from the European stereotype of the Russian nobleman. Superficially Europeanized for the most part, they lived obscure lives in the country often not very different from those of the more prosperous peasants. If they were ambitious for themselves or their children — and some of them bore proud names and a tradition of better times — it meant an expensive visit to the

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capital, being supported by more prosperous relatives or connections while importuning the court or a ministry or one of the more choice regiments for some kind of preferment. In the provinces, they tended to live off the bounty of their wealthier neighbors, and often took their opinions from them as well. An important middle group of the nobility, prosperous enough to maintain an establishment in Moscow, but either too poor or too proud to live in St. Petersburg and court favor with the great, began to assume a greater significance in the life of the nobility as a whole with the breakup of the solidarity of the court aristocracy. Having absorbed European culture, this group nevertheless maintained a critical attitude toward it, along with a stubborn pride in Russian ways. With Moscow as the center of its activities, this group still retained something of the old Muscovite opposition to the ways of imperial St. Petersburg. It was joined occasionally by a disgruntled aristocrat who, having fallen from favor or reacting indignantly to some current policy he could not approve of, had left the court at St. Petersburg to set up a kind of court of his own in the freer atmosphere of Moscow. It would be a mistake, of course, to associate too closely the very real differences of culture and outlook that existed within the Russian nobility with economic differences alone. Perhaps even more important were differences of generation. What Gershenzon calls "the Decembrist generation" — born in the last decade of the eighteenth century — was unique in many respects.14 The new culture of the Russian nobility, introduced by the Romanov sovereigns and implemented so violently and spectacularly by Peter the Great, had reached maturity and had achieved a kind of easy balance between the Russian and the European, between reason and feeling, thought and action, ideals and reality. It did not encourage young minds to dwell in metaphysical depths on the problematic, the tragic, and the contradictory. Men like Pushkin and Chaadaev, Michael Orlov and Pestel, whatever great differences there may have been among them, came to maturity early, with an easy and thorough grasp of the culture of their milieu. Still young at the time of the Napoleonic invasion, many noblemen of this generation carved

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out brilliant military or administrative careers for themselves. In the Russian armies at the time of the Congress of Vienna, and mingling freely in the best European society, they were accepted everywhere by Europeans with courtesy and interest. They called on the best minds and most interesting personalities of the time; they were accepted as equals by aristocracy and intellectuals alike. They acquired a firsthand acquaintance with all the important political, social, and intellectual movements of Restoration Europe, and under the best of terms. Returning to Russia, the young nobles felt their first major dissatisfaction with life. They resented the attempt to reimpose parade-ground discipline in the army, after the freedom of the campaign and the early months of the occupation; they resented the narrowing of their horizons imposed by economic dislocation, the near-bankruptcy of the state, the rationalization of administration, the tightened and often absurdly arbitrary censorship, the prevailing fear of officialdom, the lack of institutions within which free and spontaneous social and intellectual intercourse could be carried on. Serfdom disturbed them deeply. They felt that Alexander had "sold out" to Metternich and had betrayed what they deemed to be the promises of the early years of his reign. With their usual boldness (there were degrees among them, of course) they soon went beyond the bounds of Voltairean criticism and the philanthropic freemasonry characteristic of their fathers' generation to form secret societies with the aim of imposing constitutional reform. Soon they began to discuss the possibility of regicide.15 Nicholas I himself belonged to the Decembrist generation. Twenty-two years younger than his brother Alexander I, he had been born in the last year of Catherine's reign and had thereby escaped the morbid family conflict that left such a strong imprint on the lives of Alexander and Constantine. He was intelligent, energetic, robust in health, and his character was a fairly simple one, though it has been much misunderstood. He was not, or at least not merely, "Nicholas the Stick," as Herzen described him in his middle age, a rigid martinet with the fussy bureaucratic mind of a railway clerk, able to stare down with icy

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blue eyes set in the "head of a bald Medusa" all who stood before him. Nor was he an archreactionary despot who fashioned a slogan "orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality," and then tried to impose it as a military command — not the ideologue of stagnation, as some liberal Russian historians have tried to picture him. It would be equally mistaken, of course, to take him at his own evaluation, as two recent émigré historians have done: a knight of the old order, relentlessly dedicated to the preservation of the splendor and responsibility of monarchical power, an Amadis of the ancien regime.19 Many conservative contemporaries in Europe regarded him in just this way, but to us he must more nearly resemble Don Quixote than Amadis. Certainly, the "splendor and responsibility of monarchical power" was his one fixed idea, his only doctrine.17 He was a romantic, in the sense so brilliantly defined by Hermann Broch: "one who raises the secular to the level of an absolute."18 It was not himself he considered sacred, but the idea of monarchy, which he served with a single-minded devotion. Nicholas belonged to the Decembrist generation not in the sense that he shared their aspirations (though to a certain extent and in some rather curious ways — see Chapter 2 — he did), but rather in that he felt, like them, completely at home in Europe. He had easily assimilated the European culture of the court aristocracy and brought it into the kind of easy balance with more Russian traditions that facilitated action and made for a certain straightforwardness and consistency of outlook. "Europe" is not a simple concept, however, and the Europe Nicholas felt at home in, and which indeed inspired a deep devotion in him, was rather different from the Europe that excited the Decembrists. Primarily, he was devoted to the Europe of the past, the France of Louis XIV, aristocratic England, and firmly drilled Prussia. The resonant echoes of the French Revolution disturbed him, and he had no taste for lawyers, journalists, révolté artists, clubs, discussions, parliaments, meetings, campaigns, or any kind of political propaganda. The bourgeoisie repelled him, as did the squalid and unsettled conditions of the early stage of the industrial revolution. In England he went out

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of his way to pay his respects to Robert Owen at New Lanark — for there was order and devotion, of a kind — but Parliament impressed him only negatively. He remarked to one of the courtiers that accompanied him on his grand tour in 1816: "If, to our misfortune, some evil genius should translate to our own country these clubs and meetings that manufacture more noise than deeds, I would pray God to repeat the miracle of the confusion of tongues or, better yet, to deprive all those of the gift of speech, who make such a use of it." 1 9 Nicholas, in fact, never cared for ideas at all, and public discussion of ideas was extremely repugnant to him. A practical project like Owen's, however, benevolent and paternalistic in inspiration, had its appeal. The European country in which Nicholas felt most at home was Prussia, and it was from the royal house of Prussia that he chose his wife. The Prussian court pleased him in its combination of aristocratic manners with military austerity, solid family relationships with a certain formality — and above all in its cultivation of the idea of service. For Nicholas, the military represented a kind of secular priesthood, encased in duty as in a uniform, submerging the personality in a way that shut off noisy doubts and arguments from the outside. If this was militarism, it was of the eighteenth-century Prussian variety, not clamorously aggressive, not warlike, but firmly disciplined and steeped in duty, separated symbolically by the uniform from the "fallen" world of doubt and indecision and arguments that had no end, as the monk was symbolically separated from the world of sin by tonsure and cassock. Nicholas himself expressed very eloquently the meaning that Prussia and the parade-ground held for him as symbols of the good life: Here is order; strict, unconditional legitimacy, no presumed omniscience and no contradictions. Everything flows, one thing from another. No one gives orders without himself having first learned to obey. No one takes precedent over another without legitimate reason. All is subordinate to one fixed aim; everything has its place. That is why it makes me feel so good to

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undesirable for the monarch to override, posed a threat to the nobility and its position as an estate. On the whole, the nobility preferred a monarch with absolute power, whose attention was fixed on the nobility, which could then express its needs and interests freely and spontaneously to the crown as to the father of a family, without the involved mechanics of an impersonal bureaucracy. Alexander, too, in the long run, was frightened at the prospect of a machine he could not completely control. Originally intended as a means of implementing and making more effective the power of the monarch, the ministries, to the extent that they were successful, developed a momentum of their own, independent of the monarch's will. Nicholas, though he never permitted himself to apply the word "constitution" to Russia except in horror, nevertheless pursued the Alexandrine ideal of the Rechtsstaat — with certain glaring inconsistencies, it is true. These were not, however, absent from the more advanced European models of this kind of state. It was under Nicholas that Speransky completed his work on the compilation of Russian laws. Nicholas stopped short of a real codification because he distrusted any statement of general principles that might prove confining to the monarchical power.23 And, although the personnel and the activities of the ministries greatly increased during his reign, Nicholas came more and more to rely (in what he deemed to be really important matters ) on direct and temporary commissions, secret committees, and the five sections of His Majesty's Private Imperial Chancery, which were outside the normal hierarchy. None of this, however, ran counter to the basic tendencies of Alexander's reign. If Nicholas differed from Alexander, it was in character rather than in policy. Nicholas was firmer in his commitments, less besieged by doubts (his doubts never seemed to rise to consciousness), more vigorous in detailed work, and he had a clearer if less imaginative and more rigid conception of the monarch's duty. It has often been noted that, although he disapproved of the Polish constitution, as long as it remained in effect he was a better constitutional monarch in Poland than his brother had been. Nicholas did not, however, hesitate, as his brother might

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have, to abrogate this constitution when the Poles revolted. Similarly, he urged the restored French Bourbons to live up to the letter of the Charter, not because he approved of it, but because it had been granted by the monarchy and ought therefore to be honored by the king. In the face of opposition or revolt, Nicholas was ruthless. Alexander had, on occasion, out of vanity or fear, acted harshly: Speransky's exile is a case in point, and the suppression of the mutiny in the Semenovsky Regiment another. But, on the whole, he tended to be humane. In the case of the secret societies which had been called to his attention as early as 1822, he had delayed acting to suppress them, not so much because he did not take them seriously as because he felt in part "responsible" for their existence, felt that his own speeches and actions (however mistakenly interpreted) had provided an occasion for the formation of such groups.24 Nicholas had no such scruples. It has become almost fashionable to associate the view of government implicit in Nicholas' policies with Karamzin's "Memoir on the Old and New Russia," delivered to Alexander in 1811.25 Nicholas never read the Memoir, but of course he was, in general, familiar with Karamzin's views and greatly esteemed the old historian.26 Karamzin, curiously enough, always maintained that he was "a republican at heart," but this should not be taken too seriously. What he meant was that if people were perfectly virtuous, a republic would be the best form of government. Since they were not, and since Russia presented special problems of a geographic, ethnic, and cultural nature, an autocracy, the traditional form of Russian government, was best suited to Russia. What Karamzin meant by autocracy (samoderzhavie) did not exactly imply unlimited and uncontrolled power, but rather independence of authority, the sovereignty of the monarch; it was, in fact, close to what Montesquieu meant by monarchy. Like Montesquieu, Karamzin distinguished between true monarchy (or autocracy) and despotism. A monarch does not arbitrarily violate the laws he has himself enacted; nor does he, except in very exceptional cases, infringe on the laws of his ancestors or violate the customs of the realm. The rule of a despot is ca-

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pricious, but even a despot is preferable to anarchy, which is the worst condition to which the body politic can sink. Russia, Karamzin insisted, in her entire historical development had suffered only two despots (Ivan IV and Paul), whereas the rule of an aristocracy had always meant in the past, and the rule of a republic would undoubtedly mean in the foreseeable future, chaos and anarchy. The monarchical power must therefore remain undivided — here Karamzin parted company with Montesquieu; he had no use for separation of powers — retaining a complete monopoly of all power in the public realm. If monarchy were not to degenerate into despotism, however, it must scrupulously refrain from interfering in the private lives of its subjects. Civil, but not political, liberty should be maintained by the crown. The monarch should also be open to advice and solicitation from his subjects and especially from the nobility, whose rights he should scrupulously respect, as a good father respects the rights of his children. "No nobility, no monarchy," Karamzin again echoed Montesquieu. In principle, Nicholas would not have taken exception to any of this. Karamzin, however, had some very critical things to say concerning the work of Peter the Great, even though he did not classify him with the despots. Nicholas, on the contrary, took pride in what Pushkin called "the family resemblance." In the 1830s, the historical school of official nationalism (radically different from the slavophiles in this respect) never tired of singing the praises of Peter, and in these eulogies the stern contemporary image of Nicholas was always implicit. This was more than a mere difference in the interpretation of Russia's past.27 In his Memoir to Alexander, Karamzin had written: The Russian dress, food, and beards did not interfere with the founding of schools. . . . These manners may change naturally, but to prescribe statutes for them is an act of violence, which is illegal also for an autocratic monarch. . . . In this realm, the sovereign may equitably act only by example, not by decree.28 To Karamzin, the notion that political institutions could in any way improve the manners and morals of men, except by the per-

16

The Third Section

sonai example of those who ruled them, was foolishly Utopian. Government existed so that sei/-improvement could go on in peace and order. It is true that nothing (except moral force) could prevent a monarch from acting as Peter had and that, moreover, Peter's rash interference in the private lives of his subjects had made autocracy more necessary than ever in Russia, by creating far more extreme differences than had existed before between the style of life of the nobility and those of the other classes. Nevertheless, Karamzin's judgment was clear: "In this realm, the sovereign may equitably act only by example, not by decree." If Nicholas tried to act by example, he certainly did not forego acting by decree. Indeed, Nicholas tried to make his "example" as overwhelming as possible. Although his proclamations and decrees echoed the patriarchal, familial motif so dear to Karamzin, the overwhelmingly dominant tone of his reign was that of the parade-ground. While he expressed solicitude for the nobility, he violated many of the provisions of Catherine's charter: the right to a trial by peers, the exemption from corporal punishment, the right to travel abroad. Had Karamzin lived beyond the first few months of Nicholas' reign, he would undoubtedly have been somewhat dismayed, though it is unlikely even then that he would have gone so far as to classify Nicholas among the despots. The Decembrists (here I refer not to the "generation," but to the actual members of the secret societies) held a view of government markedly different from that of Karamzin and Nicholas. "Views" would perhaps be more correct, since there was a considerable (from the point of view of effective action, too considerable) diversity of opinion among them. They had, however, all been impressed with the anti-Restoration stirrings in France, the activities of the Tugendbund in Germany, the revolts in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Piedmont, and Sicily, and they were ( to different degrees) convinced of the applicability to Russia of constitutionalism, a free press, representative government, and an independent judiciary. Serfdom troubled them, but, as serfowners themselves, they found it difficult to agree on the particular way in which this immense Russian tangle could be resolved.

The Dream of a Beautiful Autocracy

17

They agreed, however, that the unlimited power of the Romanov dynasty, unchecked by law or popular institutions, could not utilize for Russia the energies of nationalism and democracy that had been unleashed in Europe by the French Revolution; such power could only perpetuate the backwardness, inefficiency, corruption, ignorance, and injustice that separated Russia from the more advanced countries of the West. In contrast to Karamzin, they tended to believe that, to a large degree, institutions made men. How many belonged to the secret societies? Membership fluctuated: young men joined and dropped out and were replaced; there were circles within circles. After suppression of the revolt of December 14, over five hundred were arrested and investigated, and of these about a fourth were convicted. Many of these were only peripherally involved, however, and some scarcely at all. But among the real Decembrists were some who bore very old and distinguished Russian names, a number of officers of the rank of colonel and general, and a majority of young Guards officers from the middle nobility or gentry, with friends and family connections that interlaced throughout the entire dvorianstvo. Since 1822, the question of regicide had been freely discussed among them, and they had called into question the entire principle of dynastic rule. At a point when the leaders of the secret societies knew that their names had been betrayed to the government, when the government seemed at its most reactionary, when serious differences split the societies, in short at a point when the situation seemed desperate, a traditional weakness of the autocracy itself came to the aid of the conspirators. Alexander I died unexpectedly at Taganrog, and the succession was left in grave doubt. An edict of Emperor Paul issued in 1797 had (for the first time) fixed the order of succession to the Russian throne. But Alexander had no children, and his next brother, Constantine, was in Warsaw; on the basis of a private family agreement between him and Alexander, to which it is not even certain that Nicholas at the time was privy, he had renounced all claims to the throne in favor of Nicholas, the next in line. When news of Alexander's

18

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death reached St. Petersburg, Nicholas insisted that the Guards regiments swear an oath of allegiance to Constantine. Meanwhile, he sent a message to Constantine imploring him to accept the crown. Constantine refused; Nicholas asked again. Couriers took a long time between Warsaw and St. Petersburg. Meanwhile, this confusion in the capital presented the conspirators with a last desperate chance. Using the slogan "Constantine and Constitution!" (although they knew that Constantine approved as little of their constitutional plans as Nicholas), they managed to muster about three thousand troops in the Senate Square in open revolt. Nicholas acted with great firmness and decision, and, all things considered, the revolt was rather easily suppressed. But it cast a shadow over his entire reign. It called into doubt the state of discipline and loyalty within the officers' corps, and Nicholas could not be very certain to what extent the actions of the Decembrists reflected shared ideas, latent sympathies, and halfformed intentions on the part of friends and kinsmen among the nobility who had not actively participated in the conspiracy. Moreover, the revolt had the appearance of a master plot of international dimensions. Five very similar revolts, conducted by young officers with similar ideas and similarly organized, had occurred across the breadth of Europe in the 1820s. It was difficult to believe that the opposition to Nicholas' reign had been utterly crushed in one day on the Senate Square, and that the mysterious underground European conspiracy would not again attempt to assert itself. At the same time, in exaggerating the dimensions of the revolt, Nicholas overestimated the significance of his victory. It distorted his view of what a monarch could and could not accomplish. He alternated between illusions of grandeur and illusions of complete helplessness. In the wake of this alternation, the political police flourished. A possible "Decembrist" recurrence was too enormous a risk. Especially after 1830, the revolutions in Europe, the Polish revolt, mutiny in the Russian military colonies, and the increasing restiveness of the serf population made the balance by which autocracy survived in Russia seem in grave jeopardy. And it was

The Dream, of a Beautiful Autocracy

19

not autocracy alone that was at stake (it seemed to Nicholas) — it was the future of Russia as a great power, indeed the very order and stability of the realm and that of all Europe as well. In the felt presence of this danger, Nicholas needed an executive instrument by means of which he could keep himself informed of sources of discontent (without the disturbing clatter of a free press or representative institutions) and through which he could act to realize his vision of a beautiful autocracy, in which the population remained tranquil and at rest, obedient to orders passed down the hierarchy of command from a devoted emperor who had the welfare of his people and the stability of the world at heart. In founding the Russian political police, Nicholas attempted to combine a patriarchal benevolence, reminiscent of Karamzm, with that administrative rationalism through which European enlightened absolutism had created the modern standing army and police institutions in general. To avoid creating a separate ministry, which by developing norms and procedures of its own might acquire a certain independence as well as the taint of corruption that plagued the Russian bureaucracy, Nicholas did not make the political police a ministry, but rather the Third Section of His Majesty's Private Imperial Chancery. This placed it closer to the throne. The enormity of the tasks assigned to it, however, swelled its ranks and confused its procedures so that it soon became as mechanical and impersonal, though never quite as corrupt, as other branches of the bureaucracy. Benevolent slogans, artificially high-flown manners combined with military decor and discipline, the clanking of spurs and parade formations, gave it in the public eye a certain stamp of hypocrisy and deceit. Henri Merimée, echoing the sentiments of his Russian friends, called it "the Inquisition in a pink peignoir." Far from being the classic home of the police state, as is commonly assumed, Russia was rather behind the times in this regard. When Nicholas' gendarmes first appeared in their elegant blue uniforms with white straps and white gloves, they were regarded as a "French" or a "German" innovation — in any case, profoundly un-Russian. In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, the police institutions of enlightened absolutism had

20

The Third Section

played an important progressive role in the formation of national consciousness and in the over-all efficiency of the state. In the nineteenth century, their role tended to be more repressive (see Chapter 1). But the situation in Russia under Nicholas was not quite analogous to either. In nineteenth-century France, the existence of a large literate public, highly politicized by mass participation in the events of half a century, as well as the existence of social classes with distinct traditions of political independence, could serve as a brake to the increasingly wellorganized political police of succeeding regimes. Russia had neither a large political public nor independent social classes. Those relatively few men who concerned themselves with the morality of politics from other than an official point of view found themselves powerless to act; their audience was small and their existence precarious (see Chapters 4 and 6 ) . During the reign of Nicholas, thought was forced inward and separated from action. The easy healthy balance of the Decembrist generation was permanently upset. The history of the "intelligentsia," that spiritual brotherhood of alienated, estranged souls, began. The ideas of the Decembrists were lost, though the example of their martyrdom continued to dazzle the minds of the young. Young intellectuals retreated into Schiller's realm of the "beautiful soul," and passed on from there to Schelling and Hegel. When they returned to politics, it was to a visionary kind, far removed from practical reality — first, Utopian socialism; later, revolutionary nihilism — apocalyptic and extreme. Literature flourished, but thought and practical politics were divorced.29 In Russian revolutionary mythology, the Decembrists are regarded as the first wave of a continuous struggle against the autocracy. Actually, there was little connection, either ideologically or organizationally, between the Decembrists and the revolutionaries of the 1860s. A certain romance, a myth of the Decembrists, persisted — a myth that the Third Section did much to foster. For while there was no continuity of revolutionary action or ideas, there was a most persistent continuity of police suspicions; and long after Nicholas, the government kept drawing

The Dream of a Beautiful Autocracy

21

on the Third Section s bag of tricks in order to deal administratively with profound social problems through the police. The Third Section itself, which Nicholas had probably not intended to be a permanent institution (see Chapters 2 and 3) survived the emperor, with modifications, until 1880, when its apparatus was transferred intact to the Ministry of the Interior and reinforced by a closer connection with the everyday police. And there it remained, in spite of minor changes, until February 1917.

Political Police in Russia: A General Background

^ ψ

"Every society has its police," says the villain, Mr. Verloc, in Conrad's novel of intrigue, Secret Agent; not everyone nowadays can put it with such beguiling simplicity. In the Annotated Dictionary of the Russian Language, for example, the police are strictly limited to "capitalist countries" by definition. "It is the state organization for maintaining the existing bourgeois order," and it is "prerevolutionary and foreign." The example of usage provided by the dictionary is laden with emotion: "At the time of the demonstrations in Russia, the police assaulted and arrested the demonstrators."1 The ordinary policeman on his beat has certainly not disappeared (as he was supposed to in the socialist society) but he is now called a "militiaman." The word, however, which had accrued so much significant horror by 1917, was expediently abolished. In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century usage, throughout Europe, "police" was almost an equivalent for civil government itself, for civil administration. It meant, also, government regulation of any kind, as of a trade. It meant "steps taken by the government to enforce cleanliness or sanitation" in city life and, by metaphorical extension, any kind of discipline or order enforced from above. A commercial dictionary of the eighteenth

Politicai Police in Russia

23

century speaks of "the discipline and police necessary for bookkeeping and accountability." The phrase "police state" referred to order imposed from above by the sovereign, independent of local traditions, feudal privileges, or nonstate corporate arrangements.2 Today the term "police state" is used more familiarly with regard to modern totalitarian states. The two usages should not be confused. In both systems there is a tendency to glorify the function of the police, of executive force, at the expense of longrecognized custom. The police of the absolute monarchs was meant to impose restraint on the powerful, who were not necessarily, however, deemed the king's enemies because they needed to be restrained. The police and its opponents still shared the greater part of their world in common. The use of terror as an organized system of power is the distinguishing characteristic of modern totalitarianism, and the concept derives less from the monarchical police than it does from the revolutionary tradition itself. In this sense, the French Revolutionary Terror stands closer to modern totalitarianism than does the old-fashioned police state." Even there, however, the incidence of the terror seemed to bear some direct and immediately perceptible relation to active opposition.3 Perhaps one of the most appalling features of the application of police terror by modern totalitarianism is that it seems to have been used on the greatest scale and with the most thorough ruthlessness just at the point when opposition no longer existed.4 The word politsiia (police) was used for the first time in Russian legislation by Peter the Great when he set up a police * Webster defines terror in this sense as "a state of intense fear caused by the systematic use of violent means by a party or faction to maintain itself in jjower." Police institutions, old and new, and police personnel, were part of this 'systematic use" during the terror of 1793-1794. In the nineteenth century, some revolutionary groups advocated and practiced terror as a means to revolution. Violence inflicted on government officials was intended to discourage maltreatment of revolutionary prisoners, demoralize and frighten the government and its officials, publicize the existence of the revolutionary movement, create an example and establish a precedent for action on the part of broader segments of the population. In attempting to suppress such activities, governments, acting through their police institutions, adaptea revolutionary conspiratorial techniques to their own purposes, and sometimes even the techniques of terror.

24

The Third Section

administration for the city of St. Petersburg in 1718, under the talented adventurer, Anton Divier. This was not a separately organized political police, nor yet quite like the police force of our contemporary American or European cities. It was modeled, ultimately, on the Paris police, founded by Louis XIV in 1667 under the lieutenant generalcy of Nicolas La Reynie. The Paris police introduced such a standard of order, regularity, and cleanliness into city life that visitors from all over Europe sang its praises. In the interests of order and sanitation, the lieutenant general breached the enclos of the nobility and the church. In the interests of the general welfare, he protected those without rights in the feudal order. The Police Acts are full of the most touching stories of members of the Third Estate who came to the lieutenant-général de police for help, even with the most delicate family matters, and found fatherly council there and available assistance.5 The Paris police (and later the police of other French cities) attempted to treat all citizens of the nation as equal. By and large, it was popular with the bourgeoisie and unpopular with the nobility. In the process of bringing order and cleanliness and central control to the capital, the police also promoted a feeling of generality, of national consciousness. In the work of Delamare, the first scholarly treatise on the police in general, one has a sense of imperial scope and a spirit of exaltation: "Its only object is to lead man to the most perfect felicity of which he is capable in this life." Or, again: "That which the Tutor is to his Pupil, the Doctor to his Patient, the Pilot to his Vessel — the Police Magistrate is to the Citizen."6 This was a theme which the enlightened despots of the eighteenth century pounced on eagerly. Peter the Great wrote in his statute to the chief magistrate of St. Petersburg: "The Police begets good order and sound morality. . . . It is the soul of citizenship and of all orderly arrangements, and the basic support of human safety and comfort."7 In England, conservative opinion opposed establishment of a centrally controlled police, and none existed until the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the Paris police, as in the rest of

Political Police in Russia

25

Europe, was widely admired there, especially by intellectuals. Phillip Thicknesse, an eccentric nonconformist, a libertarian and admirer of John Wilkes, writing for the benefit of young gentlemen about to travel in France, tells them with a respect close to awe how closely their movements in Paris will be watched and how carefully their property guarded: The guards are so alert and so numerous, that it is next to an impossibility for a street robber to escape with his booty; and if he does, and you can describe his dress or person, the police will find him next day. The interior police of Paris is very astonishing; nor can I . . . spend one night at any house in Paris, though no questions are asked me at the entrance, but the lieutenant of the police has my name and my abode the next morning in his book, and most likely knows the business on which I went.8 Among forward-looking people, enthusiasm for the police was general. It represented a triumph of administrative rationality over the blind forces of custom and inertia. A decade after Thicknesse, however, the traveling Russian gentleman and playwright, Denis I. Fonvizin, wrote much more critically: The Paris police is famous in Europe. It is said their policemaster is all-powerful, that he is everywhere, like an unseen spirit, that he hears all conversations, sees all actions, and, except only human designs, nothing is hidden from him. I congratulate him on such preternatural penetration; but I might wish that he had in addition a better sense of smell. For the barnyard of one of our good Russian landowners is much cleaner than the palace fronts of the French Kings.9 Fonvizin goes on to point out that although the police is supposed to control prices, the cost of living is very high in Paris; that there are beggars, although the police is not supposed to allow them; that robberies are frequent; that the laws are strict, but not always enforced. The difference is simply that the French dissemble with incomparably greater skill, and in their dissembling know neither restraint nor shame. As concerns the "security" of Paris, I am

26

The Third Section inwardly convinced that the police-master is not always effective, and the advantage to be derived from the use of police spies does not at all correspond to the tremendous sum of money the police administration requires to maintain them.10

Fonvizin was, of course, on the defensive, anxious to prove that Russia had indigenous virtues and conversely that everything admired in Europe was not necessarily worthy of admiration. Actually, he saw at a glance — his prejudices were penetrating — what it took European intellectuals a longer time to see. A reasoned criticism of the police and police activity grew very slowly. As law and order came to be taken more or less for granted in city life, the police were regarded more and more as limiting freedom of movement and repressing the free and legitimate play of civil life. Opposition to a ubiquitous police grew out of notions of the natural rights of individuals, the benefits of free trade, and the idea of representative government. In the meantime, however, the police supervised morals, travel, opinion; collected taxes, counted heads, set prices, taught school, and kept families intact.11 The police was one aspect of the general expansion of the concerns of the centralized state. Another was the application of laws concerning treason and lèse-majesté — crimes against the state. Such crimes were traditionally removed from the normal processes of law, and were treated by partly juridical, partly executive organs close to the crown as, for example, England's Star Chamber in the early seventeenth century). On the continent, such institutions sometimes took the form of a "higher," 9 or political, police.12 In the second half of the eighteenth century, police methods were dubiously enriched by some old sub rosa methods of diplomacy — black chambers to open correspondence and close surveillance often amounting to domestic espionage. In a period in which the opinions of more and more people began to matter, • This was sometimes known as the "secret" police, even though its members wore a uniform and paraded their service publicly. Primarily, it was "secret" in the sense of "private'—the monarch's own, like his secretary, bound to the sole authority of his will. But the higher police also employed secret agents and spies, who helped the entire service acquire a sinister reputation.

Political Police in Russia

27

the state applied to its own citizens the information-gathering techniques that it had previously developed to gather intelligence from foreign powers. Control of movement by the pass and registration system was extended to exclude political undesirables from capital cities and other sensitive areas. A network of secret agents, used to cull information and occasionally for more sinister purposes, gave the political police its special stamp in the public eye.13 It has been often remarked, and it should not be forgotten, that the census was the cornerstone of the police state. The enlightened monarch, interested in change, reform, and the organization of power, needed to know much, and he could not always rely on the representatives of traditional class interests to inform him; they were neither meticulous nor disinterested enough. The church and nobility took unkindly to the land reforms of Joseph II of Austria, and so in 1780 he founded the higher police, which systematically filed lists on the behavior, political and otherwise, of all persons of importance to the state. The higher police also supervised the complicated system of press and theater censorship, and checked the issuance of passports. It had windows to the post. Agents reported to it on "opinion" among all classes of society. The facilities of the ordinary police were always at its disposal, and it obtruded everywhere. It also made enemies, if not everywhere, at least where its activities rubbed against traditional prerogatives; clashes with other administrations were frequent and bitter. Later, Metternich added an armed force of considerable strength, the gendarmerie, modeled after the Napoleonic force, to the administration of the higher police. The Austrian system became in its turn a model for similar administrations throughout Germany and in Russia. Not only did every society have its police, but there was also, throughout Europe, a certain community of police. The development of political police in Russia follows a general European pattern: follows, not leads. One can find peculiarly Russian traits if one looks for them, but they seem to be part of the general problem of Russian administration, explicable in terms of economic and cultural backwardness. The political police in

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France throughout the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth century was far more highly organized and efficient, more formidable in every way; but opposition to it was also more formidable, and in the long run prevailed. The imperialism of the Russian police against older, more traditional institutions is less markedly successful, less consistent, and less sustained than that of the French police. There is a greater confusion and tangle of functions. What, precisely, were "police obligations"? Many such obligations, assigned to police institutions in the early eighteenth century, had formerly been allocated elsewhere, and the assignments were not always withdrawn. Often, they were extended independently of the police. There was no consistent criterion by means of which tasks could be parceled out to different branches of the administration. As for security, the police shared its maintenance with almost every other state institution. Concerning the "general welfare," it was the slogan which gave the police its sense of mission. Matters of finance and justice were commissioned indiscriminately to police institutions; arrangements for billeting troops, tax collection, and the administration of passports. Children of beggars were "confiscated" by the police and taught a trade; the police ran the madhouses; they built and regulated inns and hostels for foreigners; they saw to it that servants wore livery according to the prescribed pattern and that there was no profanity in the streets. Agriculture, public works, sanitation, the rooting out of heresy, control of rabies — all were part of police operations.14 This omnicompetence or confusion of function was not peculiar to Russia, but part of police development everywhere on the continent. In Russia, perhaps, the confusion was more complete and lasted longer. It indicates not the relative success, but the relative failure of police administration to make the desired impact on public life. Although the ubiquitous police of St. Petersburg had juridical and even legislative powers of sorts, although it had political functions and probably used all the techniques and methods later associated with political police, there was no political police in

Political Police in Russia

29

Russia working on a national scale from an organized bureaucratic center until the ninetèenth century. Even in St. Petersburg and Moscow, only very minor instances of political crime were handled entirely by the police, and these were the capital cities, where the police were more important and had more power than elsewhere. There was a complicated and often contradictory tradition of procedure involving cases of slovo i délo — word or deed pertaining to the sovereign or the state, referred to from the time of Peter the Great on as "crimes against the first two points." It was only in the first instance that the regular police had anything to do with such cases, and not often even then. There were older ways of dealing with them, and the older ways prevailed.15 The first Romanov in the early seventeenth century had no special institution to handle such cases. They were usually processed personally and informally by the local voevoda (military administrator); if the case were considered important enough and the voevoda scrupulous enough, he sent his findings to the razriadnyi prikaz (military administration) in Moscow, which passed and relayed back its judgment. Sometimes the prikaz might send for and interrogate accuser and accused. Torture was commonly used. Sometimes the sovereign himself would be present. Sometimes accusations were made directly to the tsar, who might commission any of his administrations, or even a trusted private individual, to investigate.16 Perhaps the beginnings of a juridical institution for judging state crimes, with vague political-police overtones, are discernible in the tainyi prikaz (secret, or private, administration) of Tsar Alexey — an institution modeled on the oprichnina* of Ivan IV.17 Neither the sixteenth-century oprichnina nor the seventeenthcentury tainyi prikaz served entirely as a rationally organized, bureaucratically administered political police; a political police was, in fact, still unknown, even in Europe. Both were institu* The derivation of the word oprichnina is from that portion of a prince's estate set aside at his death for the widow; Ivan IV was displaying his flair for dramatic language in applying this word to his reorganized administration of the crown lands used by him in his struggle against the boyars.

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Section

tions designed to consolidate and maintain the autocracy; to free it from its economic and political dependence on the princes and boyars. The oprichnina carried this process further than it could go and, given the circumstances, still survive. It marked the apogee of the power of the old Muscovite dynasty. The Romanovs had to begin from a less consolidated position, but the example of Ivan the Terrible had never been lost on them. Finally, in the nineteenth century, with the aid of European administrative technology, Nicholas I succeeded in creating the perfect monarchy that Ivan had envisaged. And then it was no longer too early; it was too late. The origin and development of the tainyi prikaz are interesting in themselves. Alexey had always been haunted by the figure of the dread Ivan. He had masses said in the Moscow churches for the soul of his predecessor, and he assiduously preserved a number of historical documents of Ivan's reign, indicating a strong interest both in the autocratic idea and the oprichnina, the mechanism by which Ivan hoped to effect that idea. Nevertheless, he does not seem to have consciously molded the tainyi prikaz in the image of the oprichnina.18 In 1655-1656, Alexey founded the tainyi prikaz as a liaison with Moscow while he was away on military campaign. It handled his correspondence and kept him in touch with what was going on in the Moscow administrations. It was modest in scale, a single chief clerk and five assistant clerks composing its entire staff. They must have done their work well, for with the tsar's return to Moscow in 1657 the competence of the prikaz began noticeably to expand, until in the next few years it became one of the most powerful administrations in Moscow. It was surrounded by an air of secrecy and intrigue, to which Alexey personally contributed by a certain love for hocus-pocus; he himself composed codes and secret alphabets for the use of assistant clerks on special commissions. Many of the affairs of the prikaz were, strictly speaking, "private" rather than "secret"; it was more the tsar's private chancery than an inquisitorial police. Nevertheless, espionage was an important part of its functions. It became customary, for example, for a clerk from the prikaz to accompany

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31

the tsar's embassies abroad, often in disguise, and to report secretly and separately on the transactions.19 The tainyi prikaz administered the tsar's pet projects — and no distinction was made as to the public or private nature of these projects — the recently installed gunpowder factories as well as the tsar's aviaries where thousands of pigeons' nests were maintained to feed his gaming hawks. It paid Alexey's falconers, imported and arranged the salaries of foreign craftsmen, maintained information services, compiled statistics on anything the tsar might happen to be interested in, and collected books on subjects that struck his fancy. Correspondence marked "tainyi" (secret or private) passed through the prikaz. Probably its main task was to administer the crown lands.20 Alexey's efforts in the direction of autocracy inevitably operated to concentrate great power in the tsar's private chancery, the tainyi prikaz, staffed entirely by clerks of his own choice and training. It was his institution of trust in a political order where many institutions still functioned according to traditions which militated against the full consolidation of autocracy. A number of cases of political crime (slovo i délo ) were withdrawn from other administrations where they had been in process and their investigation transferred to the tainyi prikaz, sometimes with the tsar himself presiding. In the case of the Patriarch Nikon and his revision of religious texts, the prikaz assiduously gathered information for the tsar. Political news, both from abroad and from Russia, came to Alexey through the prikaz.21 The growing power of the private chancery met with resistance, and in the latter part of Alexey's reign its staff dwindled and its activities seem to have been curtailed. At the same time, however, Alexey transferred clerks from the tainyi prikaz to the other Moscow administrations, hoping to innoculate these institutions with the standards and methods of his chancery. In the reaction that followed the death of Tsar Alexey, the tainyi prikaz was abolished, and cases involving political crimes reverted to whatever administration happened to have jurisdiction over the persons involved. Nevertheless, a trend, if not a fixed procedure, with regard to political crimes had been established, A case began

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with donos (a denunciatory report) either to an official or to the tsar himself. Anyone who heard the tsar's name abused had to submit such a report, on pain of death. Collective protests were almost invariably treated as political crime. Lèse-majesté came to include not only abuses against the tsar, but against any of the persons endowed by him with office. And more and more secrecy surrounded the procedure in cases of political crime.22 Peter the Great recreated a private chancery in 1704. Its founding, like that of the tainyi prikaz, was informal. Peter simply appointed a talented and energetic clerk, Makarov, to handle his diplomatic correspondence, subordinated (later) a number of assistant clerks to him, and then expanded the sphere of their activities as his secretariat. This new institution, called the Cabinet, assumed the old functions of the tainyi prikaz, including the occasional processing of political crimes 23 Other institutions appeared, however, with a similar cast; and by 1718 the most formidable of these was no longer the Cabinet but the kantseliariia tainykh rozysknykh del, or secret chancery. It arose in much the same way as the Cabinet, willy-nilly, out of a personal commission in a particular case. Peter often commissioned an individual, usually an officer of his newly formed Guards regiments, to investigate and prosecute a political crime. Sometimes he would subordinate to such an officer a staff of from twelve to fifteen assistants. After a case had been decided, and confirmed by the emperor, a similar case would be commissioned to the same staff, which thus became an institution. The secret chancery arose out of the commission to P. A. Tolstoy to investigate the very important case of the Tsarevich Alexey.24 The case not only involved the possible treason of Peter's son and heir presumptive, but that of many important church dignitaries and high nobility. The tsarevich had assumed a symbolic importance for all those who opposed Peter's innovations; he had become an anti-Petrine legend. A foreign power, Austria, was also involved, since Charles VI, who had granted Alexei a temporary asylum, was interested in its outcome. Peter was anxious at the same time to keep the case under his personal surveillance and to give it some public semblance of justice. Under these

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circumstances, the staff of powerful men that he had formed to deal with the case was not dissolved after the passing of sentence, or even after the mysterious death of Alexey. Since it was such a convenient concentration of Peter's lieutenants, and since the possible ramifications of Alexey's "treason" were difficult to determine, similar cases of suspected disloyalty came pouring into the secret chancery in increasing numbers. Hesitant officials sent cases there that they did not dare to resolve themselves for fear of the emperor's wrath. By 1726 ( a year after Peter's death) the secret chancery had handled two hundred eighty separate "secret" cases involving treason, revolt, disloyalty, or disrespect. In addition, it handled many cases involving religious dissenters, to whom Peter attributed a special political importance, for reasons which are not always made clear in the surviving documents. There were also a few important cases involving abuse of funds by officials, notably the case of the Reval admiralty.25 Peter's own participation in the affairs of the secret chancery indicates that he had no set plan for the normalization of procedure, for its institutionalization. He strove to decide every case himself, but as the number of cases grew, this became impossible. He had to delegate authority for decisions to Count Tolstoy; and he in turn often had to delegate further. At first it was "by Decree of His Imperial Majesty," but by 1721, the chancery had begun to act on its own authority; not by separate decrees, but simply in accordance with the law code of 1649 and the military articles. In this manner, the chancery gradually lost its character of a directly commissioned personal agency of the tsar and became a juridical institution specializing in the investigation and adjudication of state crimes.28 Often, unwillingness on the part of officials to assume responsibility sent quite trivial cases to the secret chancery. Count Tolstoy, a powerful and ambitious man, found his hours occupied by matters of quite secondary importance, and he tried to rid himself then of his position. At first, he attempted to transfer minor cases to the Preobrazhensky prikaz in Moscow, an administration mainly concerned with the Guards regiments. In

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1724, Peter, perhaps on the urging of Tolstoy, ordered the chancery liquidated. The senate, however, prevented dissolution by assigning the chancery more cases, and Peter himself still commissioned a few cases to it. It was not until some time after Peter's death that Count Tolstoy managed to unload his burden, then only to find himself in administrative exile, outmaneuvered in the scramble for power.27 Throughout the remainder of the eighteenth century, the institution through which cases of political crime passed changed rapidly. The procedure of slovo i delo itself, however, persisted, maintaining its connection with the autocratic ideal. The procedure developed ominous symptoms: first, the reliance on private denunciation, donos, to get things started and the rewarding of accurate donos by liberal sums of hard money, which had an obvious effect on the volume of cases entering the chancery; secondly, secrecy, which contributed to a sense of indifference with regard to human life. In the secret chancery, the number of deaths by torture was increased by deaths resulting from starvation. Many prisoners literally starved to death, completely forgotten, in the keeping of the secret chancery. Secrecy also encouraged bribery. Minor employees could compensate for meager salaries by breaching the wall of secrecy between the outside world and the more reasonably wealthy of the chancery's prisoners.28 The secrecy that surrounded the chancery's operations also worked to prevent its legalization and normalization. Only personalities were trusted, and only tenuous personality-based relationships could be formed with other government institutions. Donos, the temptations of secrecy, interference with the work of other state institutions, distortion of perspective with regard to the importance of state crimes, a shaky legal basis, and lack of a standard procedure: all these were aspects of the chancery's work later to become notorious and already clearly discernible by the middle of the eighteenth century. Meanwhile, the secret chancery was merged with the Preobrazhensky prikaz in 1726, and abolished altogether in 1729. For two years, until 1731, the Supreme Privy Council handled cases

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of slovo i deh, when the secret chancery was again revived. On February 21, 1762, it was demonstratively abolished by Peter III, and a few months later again abolished by Catherine II. It was an institution unpopular with the gentry as a class and with politically ambitious Guards officers in particular. But Catherine's abolition proved merely a gesture. Immediately after her proclamation, she ordered political cases transferred to a specially created Secret Expedition (or secret office) of the senate.29 Paul I retained the Secret Expedition and supplemented it by the famous yellow box which he kept before the Winter Palace, into which anyone could drop a complaint or denunciation. Although this was more or less in the imperial tradition, Paul's actions on the basis of these denunciations became obviously pathological and made tenure in high office most insecure.30 Before the French Revolution, political-police activity, in Russia as in Europe, was largely directed against small, peculiarly sensitive segments of the population, small élite groups in a position to compete for power with the throne. It was connected also with the welfare activity of the everyday police and the monarchy's concern for incorporating the nonfeudal classes into its order. The French Revolution dramatically demonstrated that political power had become, or was in the process of becoming, nation-wide, as much a threat to the old monarchy as to the remnants of feudalism. The socialization of knowledge — the primary mission of the philosophes — seemed suddenly as great a threat to the old European order as the invading French armies were. The intensity of the struggle between the old order and the new can be seen in the activity of the political police. For the monarchical police, ideas that departed from the conventions of the past became in themselves treasonable and their public expression a crime against the state. For the police of the republic of virtue, the failure to make an active commitment to that republic — mere passivity — constituted, or could constitute, treason. In the absence of long-established tradition, political police in revolutionary France became a weapon not only against the

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enemies of the revolution but also in the struggle between factions. The Committee of Public Safety and the Committee of General Security each had its own police. The influx into Paris of crowds of adventurers, grievance-mongers, and the uprooted ambitious facilitated recruitment and provided a massive personnel for the execution of police intrigues.81 If the revolution pathologically intensified police activity, it also provided a remedy: publicity. The expansion of journalism and the outburst of publicistic writing that accompanied the revolution in the long run served to discredit the police, and democracy found ways of curbing if not eliminating it. The police, wrote Chateaubriand, tries to stifle public opinion or change it, and thus strikes against the essence of representative government. . . . It must be added that the men of the police are unworthy and some of them are capable of anything. . . . The Minister of Police is the more formidable because his powers touch the business of all the other ministers; or rather, he is the sole minister. Is not a man who has the gendarmerie of France at his disposal, raises taxes, and collects a sum of from seven to eight millions, for which he does not account to the legislature, in fact a king? 82

"The men of the police have such a scent," wrote Beugnot, "that long after I had given up these hateful duties, the dogs used to follow me in full cry." 33 After 1815, police activity in France became public, and all the mistakes of la haute police were monumentalized in open trials and public literature. Abroad, the French Revolution impelled a tightening of the police powers of government, even in England which had no separate police organization. Habeas corpus was suspended, press censorship introduced. More Jacobin plots were counted than hatched. In Austria, in 1795, Mozart's Der Zauberfloete came under a censorship ban as revolutionary propaganda. A man was executed for translating the Marseillaise into Magyar. Metternich, among others, considered all revolutionary activity directly or indirectly connected with the secret societies — the fraternities which sprouted undeground when surface restrictions

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37

cramped the urge for association — the Tugendbund, the Schwarze Bund, the illuminati, the freemasons. In Russia, the masonic lodges had been dissolved by Catherine II. At the point where underground social life and the greatest surface creation of the old monarchy, the army, met, there was the greatest fear. Paul I dismissed all but two of his cavalry-guard officers during the course of his reign, suspecting that they had been exposed to the influence of secret societies.34 On April 1,1801, Alexander I issued a manifesto abolishing the Secret Expedition of the senate. Following Rousseau to the effect that "the first rule of public economy is that the administration should conform to the laws," Alexander declared: In a well-ordered state all crimes must be judged and punished on the basis of existing laws, and not merely at thè discretion of persons at the head of the "Secret Expedition." . . . Not only is this institution abolished, but its name also forever and eternally removed, all current business to be turned over to the State Archives, and there committed to oblivion. . . . From now on, the power of law alone shall protect our proper dignity and the integrity of the Empire from ill-intended and unscrupulous assaults.88 Although the Secret Expedition was thus resoundingly banished, it soon turned up again under the auspices of the military governor general of St. Petersburg. In October 1802 the Minister of Internal Affairs, V. P. Kochubey, asked the governor general whether secret police operated in St. Petersburg. The governor general replied with a list of secret agents and an explanation of police activities: The secret police office concerns itself with all objects, actions, and speeches that tend toward the dissolution of the autocratic power and the security of the government, as for example: oral and written incitements, plots, wild or inflammatory speeches, acts of treason . . . newsmongers who spread news either of importance to or detrimental to the government and its administrators, jokes, the writers of pasquilles — in short, all that relates to the Tsar personally, or to his administration.89

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On September 5, 1805, for the period of his absence from the capital, Alexander appointed a special Committee of Higher Police, consisting of the Ministers of War, Justice, and Internal Affairs, whose special task was to keep close watch on the activities of foreigners in Russia. The most constant expense, it seems, was incurred by the committee by granting "pensions" to guards at the foreign embassies — a process that involved not so much diplomatic espionage as political investigation; the coming and going of visiting foreigners could thus be checked. The secret police of the military governor general continued to operate as before, and in 1807 a similar organization was introduced into Moscow, for surveillance "in inns and coffeehouses, saloons, clubs, markets, parks, gamblinghouses."S7 Under the full stress of the shifting and diplomatically complicated war he was waging with Napoleon, on January 13, 1807, Alexander created the Special Committee for the Dispatch of Crimes Threatening the Public Safety. The Special Committee, consisting again of high dignitaries — the Minister of Justice, two Senators (Makarov and Novosiltsev), the Ministers of War and Internal Affairs, and Field Marshal Saltykov — investigated and prosecuted cases involving treason, correspondence with the enemy, the spread of harmful rumors (such as battle reverses, the independence of Poland, or liberation of the serfs), defamation of the imperial family, the formation of secret societies, the counterfeiting of money, and the appearance of pretenders to the throne. The Special Committee also collected and appraised projects, submitted at large, that had to do with winning the war. In the investigation, prosecution, and adjudication of state crimes, the Special Committee was not bound by the normal laws of procedure; the spirit of secret chanceries and secret expeditions, though buried with pomp, was far from dead. The resurrection was justified (by Novosyltsev, in a special instruction in the emperor's name to the Special Committee) in terms of "the perfidious French government, willing to achieve by any and all means its destructive aim, which is universal ruin and dissolution; among other things, as is well known, this government nourishes the remnants of those secret societies, dispersed in

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all lands, known under the names of illuminati, martinists, and others of that ilk."38 In addition to the Special Committee of 1807 (referred to occasionally by the unpleasantly suggestive title of Committee of Public Safety), the Committee of Higher Police that had been formed in 1805 continued to exist, as did the observateur activities of the military governor general of St. Petersburg. Alexander, like Napoleon, did not quite trust his police institutions and fostered a certain amount of competition among them. His fears of assassination (perhaps to some degree connected with his own involvement in the assassination of his father) contributed to the multiplying and counter-checking of police activity. Alexander once remarked to the French ambassador, Savary, "If these rascals want to murder me, let them hurry up about it; but let them not think they can get me to give myself up." 39 Police intrigues made themselves felt in society, even in Moscow, which had borne a lesser burden of police activity than St. Petersburg had. Nevertheless, police activity did not at first carry the stigma of arbitrariness that it acquired later in the eyes of even very conservative people. It is interesting to note that the Moscow nobleman, S. P. Zhikharev, wrote in his diary on January 17, 1807, with approval: A Special Committee for the Dispatch of Crimes Threatening the Public Safety has been formed. Thank God. It's time to bridle the chattering of ill-intended people; being under French influence, they may wrench others awry with their stupidity. Even a fool must be seized when he does mischief; moreover, it must be remembered that there is no fool who may not have his imitators . . . consequently, the foundation of the committee is, as it were, timely.40 By 1810, however, discontent even among the more conservative segments of society with police activities became more marked. F. F. Vigel, in his memoirs, blamed Speransky for "imitating Napoleon." He pointed out that Napoleon was a usurper and that "two thirds of his subjects are always ready, therefore, to plot against him," but that such was not the case with loyal Russia, which had no need for secret police.41 The Special Committee,

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which had begun as a transministerial institution, and had become independent with a chancery of its own in 1809, was abolished in 1810, in the course of the formation of a ministry of police. Alexander's shuffling of police institutions cannot be judged entirely in terms either of intrigue or frightened reactions to public opinion. The formation of the Ministry of Police was part of an over-all program directed at clarifying the lines of government and establishing the kind of efficiency that is inseparable from legality. Alexander believed, in theory, that police tasks should be limited to maintaining internal security (a then "modern" and liberal point of view) and that there were areas of public life, such as trade, where police activity should consequently be kept to a minimum. In general, Alexander's operative prescriptions to the police had a humane tendency. An attempt was made to limit the role of the police to initiation of proceedings. The Ministry of Police was intended, like the other ministries, "to break state tasks down into parts according to their natural connections"; in other words, to overcome the confusion of functions and the confusion of police administration that Alexander himself, at least in part, had fostered.42 Nevertheless, in some ways, the ministry foreshadowed Nicholas' Third Section. Later, when the Ministry of Police became a very unpopular institution, Alexander blamed Speransky for its formation. But his objection to the ministries in general was one which Nicholas himself might well have voiced: "I separated myself, as it were, from the State. It was stupid." ( Speransky, incidentally, stoutly maintained that the initiative of the reforms had been entirely with the emperor.43) The organization of the Ministry of Police was commissioned to A. D. Balashov, then military governor general of St. Petersburg and the son of a French émigré, de St. Glin (Desanglen, in Russian transliteration), who had been educated in Germany and who was familiar with what he called "the best works on the police" published in France and Germany.44 Balashov wrote to the Russian ambassador in Prussia, commissioning him to

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"buy" a copy of the statute founding the Napoleonic Ministry of Police ( under Fouché): on my report, His Imperial Majesty deigned to grant his most high permission for Your Excellency to receive the sum necessary for acquiring this manuscript, even though it should exceed the sum the Austrian government has paid, if only you succeed in making this now quite necessary acquisition, in which His Majesty has deigned to interest himself.45 Like its French model, the Ministry of Police handled all cases in any way relevant to internal security, and became in a very short time a curious and inordinately lopsided institution that dealt with such diverse problems as the supply and maintenance of urban populations, the arbitration of disagreements on the level of the provincial administration, sanitation, censorship, vital statistics, border security, maintenance of ways of communication, guardianship over the estates of minors, issuance of passports, the transfer of corpses from one locality to another, inspection of cemeteries, administration of nomadic Asiatic peoples under Russian rule, the gathering of reports concerning unusual events, the surveillance of peasant-landowner relations, and the administration of the postal service. In addition, in 1811, a paramilitary force, the Corps of Internal Security, was created, subordinate to the Ministry of Police, and was spread out among the provinces as protection against thieves, bandits, or mutineers. The Ministry of Internal Affairs at first tended to become a mere adjunct of the Ministry of Police. Governors, for example, nominally subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, were obliged nevertheless to report to the Ministry of Police concerning unusual events, and they received orders from the Ministry of Police, sometimes through channels, but sometimes directly. Local organs of police were in part subordinate to the Ministry of Police and in part to the local administration, which the Ministry of Internal Affairs commanded. Relations between the two ministries were far from happy, and from 1813 until the abolition of the Ministry of Police in 1819, they fought a paper war, with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the powers of the

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governors, and the provincial administration in general gradually gaining the ascendancy. 46 The military urgency of the times, administrative instability, and Alexander's personal fears and mistrusts all contributed to make the police a feared and intrigue-ridden institution. S. P. Zhikharev noted ominously on April 7, 1807: Since war with the French, a special kind of people has appeared in Moscow. Their entire occupation consists of picking up various kinds of information, to bruit it about the city and to discuss political matters.47 Some of this "special kind" were, of course, only the old kind; but among them were "volunteers" who brought information to the police. From these and from the professionals in the employ of the military governor of St. Petersburg a professional cadre of spies, observers, and provocateurs gradually was formed. In 1819, the Minister of Internal Affairs, V. P. Kochubey, wrote a note to the emperor with regard to the abolition of the Ministry of Police and the resumption by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of police functions, in which he described the situation that had existed: The city boiled over with spies of all kinds, both foreign and Russian spies, spies maintained on a salary and volunteers; police officers were constantly being disguised, and it has even been claimed that the Minister of Police himself practiced disguises. The government agents were not limited to collecting information and giving the government a chance to anticipate crimes; they attempted to provoke crimes and suspicion. They entered into the confidence of people of various segments of society, expressed dissatisfaction with regard to Your Majesty, running down government enterprises; they were quick to invent all sorts of things in order to evoke frankness on the part of these people and to hear their complaints. A direction was given to all this that corresponded to the natures of the people who were in charge. The little man, frightened by such denunciations, felt enjoined to enter into agreements with the secondary agents of the Ministry of Police, like St. Glin, for example, and others. . . ,48

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Far more spectacular than the intrigues involving "the little man" were those on the highest level of the police itself. I. M. Dolgorukov wrote with regard to Balashov: Alexander Dmitrievich, the Minister of Police during the reign of Alexander I, was a dark personality, who possessed a talent for espionage in the finest measure, and accordingly was bound to this low craft. At this time, when cunning was called wisdom, and the ability to deceive a human achievement, he seemed an indispensable man.49 Few people seem to have much good to say of Balashov. Kochubey accused him of having turned the Ministry of Police into a ministry of espionage. The chief of the ministry's special chancery (which maintained contact with secret agents and the seamier side of police activities), de St. Glin, accused him of professional jealousy. On Balashov's orders, de St. Glin gained the personal confidence of the Chevalier de Verneuges and the Swedish Count Armfeldt, both close to Alexander. Armfeldt, perhaps only appearing to trust him, warned de St. Glin to "watch out" for Balashov, who had fallen under the emperor's suspicion. De St. Glin reported to Balashov, who exclaimed: "He lies! . . . He himself is under the emperor's suspicion, and I have been commissioned to keep him under strict surveillancel"60 Such an exchange might perhaps indicate the tension under which the police operated. The main focus of intrigue at this time, however, was Speransky, who had become a most unpopular figure. Balashov, who had been to some extent "sponsored" by Speransky, spied on him to discredit him. De St. Glin was requested by Alexander in turn to spy on Balashov, but de St. Glin claims to have refused. Dr. Ellisen, the court doctor, and a man named Bologovskoy proved to be more obliging, however, and, according to de St. Glin, spied (sometimes as double agents) among various court figures, especially Balashov, Speransky, and Magnitsky. Meanwhile, a young man named von Vock, whom de St. Glin had sponsored as a favor to a friend of his mother's (von Vock was

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a young man destined to play a leading part in the political police of the next regime ) spied on de St. Glin for Balashov, and Balashov himself (or so de St. Glin claims) spread rumors to the effect that the chief of his special chancery had connections with none other than Napoleon's Caulaincourt.61 Speransky went into exile on March 11, 1812, and de St. Glin relates in his memoirs how he and Balashov (each commissioned to observe the other) waited for Speransky to return from a last interview with the emperor. "It occurred to both of us that perhaps he would not after all be exiled; and perhaps we would."52 The entire intrigue had been manipulated behind the scenes by Alexander personally.63 Although he officially retained the title of minister for some time, Balashov was sent into the army shortly after Speransky's fall to create a military police. S. K. Viazmitinov, who replaced Balashov as active head of the ministry, was a dignitary of some importance (he became temporary chairman of the Council of Ministers ) but seems to have lacked the energy of his predecessor. In any case, the ministry's activity declined. After Viazmitinov's death in 1819, the ministry was abolished and its services transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where Count Kuchubey assigned them a more modest role. Under the new arrangement, von Vock came to command the network of secret agents previously controlled by de St. Glin. In addition to the police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, however, there remained the police of the military governor general and the private agents of prominentfigureslike Arakcheev and I. O. Witt. From 1812 until his death, Alexander's political apprehensions focused on the military. A. I. Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky wrote in his diary concerning the domestic espionage practiced by the army: "It was said that our generals knew whatever we did, whether we gambled, and similar petty details."64 As matters turned out, petty details proved to be the limitation of army espionage, and the entire Decembrist plot was almost entirely overlooked. Austrian police arrangements, civil and military, at the Congress of Vienna impressed Alexander, and he arranged that the

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Marquis Pignatelli, on the Russian embassy staff in Vienna, should draw up recommendations for the formation of gendarme regiments in Russia, on the Austrian model. The Dragoon Borisoglebsky Regiment was renamed Gendarme Regiment and dispersed among several army corps. In 1817, the Gendarmes of Internal Security were formed, partly out of the old Corps of Internal Security, with the crack Tsarskoe-Selo Dragoon Police Command placed at the disposal of the general staff of the gendarmes.56 These gendarmes (or mounted city police, as they were sometimes called) operated both within and around the army, subordinate in Moscow and St. Petersburg to the overpolicemaster and in the provincial capitals to the commanders of interior garrison batallions. On October 16, 1820, with Alexander abroad at Troppau, discussing with the Austrians, French, and Prussians the measures to be taken for the suppression of the revolts in Spain and Naples, a mutiny broke out in the Russian army, in the Semenovsky Regiment. General Vasilchikov, commander of the Guards corps, assured Alexander that the revolt (which involved the entire regiment) was simply a protest against the regiment's brutal commander, Colonel Schwartz. But Alexander refused to believe it. He wrote Arakcheev in Petersburg to look for the hand of the secret societies. "They wanted to frighten me, to force me to abandon our business at Troppau and return the sooner to Petersburg." Arakcheev agreed, as did the Grand Duke Constantine. Metternich, however, a man scarcely to be accused of underestimating the wicked potential of secret societies, noted: The Emperor maintains there must be some reason for three thousand Russian soldiers to have decided on an action corresponding so little with the national character. He goes so far as to imagine that the radicals have been responsible for all this; that in order to repress it he must himself return to Petersburg. I do not share his opinion. It would exceed all measure of probability if the radicals in Russia already had influence over entire regiments — but this shows how much the Emperor has changed.68

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Alexander did not, after all, leave Troppau, but, because of his special interest in the case, a politically oriented investigation of the Semenovsky revolt continued long after all the active participants had been shut up in fortresses or exiled to serve in border regiments. It was discovered that a political pamphlet had circulated among some of the officers; although the author was never successfully identified, V. N. Karazin, a former favorite of Alexander's, was suspected, first imprisoned in the Schluesselberg Fortress, then exiled to his estate. The Semenovsky revolt caused great changes and expansions of secret-police activity, especially in the army, but also in St. Petersburg, where the secret agents of the military governor general, Miloradovich (under the active command of a widely disliked man named Vogel, himself the subject of a denunciatory police report), competed with those of Count Arakcheev and, to a lesser extent, the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Spanish ambassador, as representative of a mutinous country, was closely followed by Vogel until it was discovered that his visits in society were limited entirely to certain easy women of the world.67 Plans for a secret political police in the army were entrusted to General Vasilchikov. According to the project he drafted, soldiers and officers unknown to anyone except a person directly subordinate to the corps commander were to report on the political opinions and political morale of the troops. The organization was not to be entirely limited to the military: Even if regimental commanders were to be informed of everything that went on in their regiments . . . it would still not be enough. The officers go visiting in society. They have connections. The restless stirring of minds in all Europe, especially since recent events, may insinuate itself even among us. . . . Foreign powers may even plant secret agents in society. . . . It is natural that the closest attention of such people would turn to the Guards.58 Nevertheless, Vasilchikov insisted that: All information [gathered by secret agents] should relate to the military, and civilian affairs should be touched on only when they might directly influence the armed forces, as, for

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example, rumors spread with regard to the armed forces, discussions concerning the orders of command. . . ,59 The military police were to be "impenetrably secret." They were to be well paid, with forty thousand rubles a year allotted to the organization, with only nine observers per corps for the enlisted ranks (as well as one completely secret individual, unknown to the other nine), three observers per corps for officers, and one clerk. The project was approved, and on January 4, 1821, such an organization was introduced into the Guards corps, with General Gribovsky in command. From 1822 on, a great number of projects for police reform, solicited and unsolicited, civilian and military, appeared for consideration by the emperor. Some were adopted in limited regions or in a limited way. Balashov drafted a project, applied in Riazan province in 1824, subordinating the police completely to the governor, whereas Speransky (in exile) reformed the administration of police in Siberia in such a way that the provincial officials were under the surveillance and in the power of the police.80 During Alexander's reign, conflicting tendencies deepened the confusion already existing in police institutions. On the one hand, there were humanitarian limitations on police power and an attempt to rationalize, legalize, and delimit the functions of all government institutions; on the other, exaggerated trusts and mistrusts of personalities, uncertainty and indecision on Alexander's part with regard to the idea of autocracy, emphasized and intensified by military, political, and ideological events abroad. Rasprava — the application of force, enforcement, the carrying out of sentence — came to have a special and popular meaning, the equivalent of "administrative caprice." The government's attempt to declare its strength and deepen the authority of its power by means of police institutions, its reliance on paid secret observers to count the pulse of public opinion, could hardly be called a success. The secret agents, who earned meager salaries by and large, did their best to earn bonuses, and foreigners remarked on both the arrogance and bribability of these agents. The one real revolutionary plot of the 1820s, the unpractically conceived and romantically and desperately carried out Decern-

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brist uprising (a conspiracy largely of army officers, where police surveillance was strongest), passed the police, military and civilian alike, largely by. It is true that I. O. Witt, the chief of the southern military colonies (an adventurer and former agent of Napoleon in Poland), detected a Decembrist organization, and even tried to enter the Southern Society himself. General Benckendorff in somewhat vaguer terms had warned of the threat of growing secret societies in the Russian army, but connections had not been made and no action taken. Subsequently, the events of December 14 seemed to call for a drastic reorganization of police controls and channels, and Nicholas I being, unlike his brother, a ruler of system and decision, rewarded Benckendorff for the foresight he had shown by entrusting him with the formation of a new and all-embracing high police. The only abiding feature of political-police institutions in Russia until the reign of Nicholas I had been their perpetual reappearance. The dream, which many cherished during Alexander's reign, of casting off an outmoded absolutism, the most unpopular aspect of which had been the existence of a political police engaged in social espionage, vanished with the shock of December 14, 1825, after which a dourly conservative monarch took an extreme position in favor of a status quo which could be maintained only with the aid of political police. There is an apocryphal story to the effect that Benckendorff, somewhat puzzled by his new assignment, called on the new em-: peror to ask for orders. An attendant happened to be handing Nicholas a clean white handkerchief. Nicholas unexpectedly passed it on to Benckendorff: "Here are your orders. Take this, and wipe away the tears of my people." 61 This paternal and solicitous white handkerchief — the flag of the police state (in the old-fashioned and, one might almost say, "pastoral" sense)—became, in the process of things, an apt symbol for autocratic hypocrisy.

"Friends of the Fourteenth"

2

Ψ

For days after the revolt of December 14, 1825, confused and confusing official accounts appeared in the St. Petersburg press, attempting to evoke for the Russian public at one and the same time the terrible enormity of the coup, and its complete insignificance; the idea of a purely local elemental disturbance amidst the soldiery, and a masterminded plot of international dimensions.1 Five hundred and seventy people were arrested that winter and spring. Of these, one hundred and twenty were submitted to a special high criminal court. Before proceedings ended, twentyone prisoners died natural deaths without resolution of their guilt or innocence. Five were hanged — the first public execution in Russia since the time of Catherine. Dozens were exiled to hard labor in Siberia. In St. Petersburg, hundreds of people who had had nothing to do with the revolt — vagabonds, unemployed clerks, unlicensed lawyers, passportless peasants, Jews outside the pale — were forcibly removed from the city.2 The special section of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Petersburg governor general's detectives, having been taken by surprise, tried to make up for lost time with a special outburst of zeal. Przeclawski, a contemporary, noted in his memoirs:

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The Third Section All you had to do . . . for some stranger to come up and start studying your face, was to sip coffee in a café. He would then go out into another room, take a sheet of paper from his pocket and apparently go about checking your features with those described thereon. In the theater, even in church, you met keen eyes following after you. A considerable number of dilettantes had been added to the professional agents, and they were the most troublesome and the clumsiest inquisitors.3

He goes on to describe the case of a certain Mr. I., mistaken by the police for the Decembrist Kuechelbecker (who was still at large). I. protested that, unlike Kuechelbecker, he had black hair; but the informer asserted that he had merely dyed his hair black and that he was certainly Kuechelbecker, whom the informer knew personally. Finally, after some days, according to Przeclawski, I. was released. The chief of detectives, Vogel, whom Przeclawski had known "in his freemason days," admitted to him candidly that "following the beetle, we missed the elephant." Vogel went on: If I had been left to my own devices, I can guarantee that I would have come across some trace of the plot in ample time. But what my command feared most of all was the incursion into the capitals from abroad of carbonarism and the extreme revolutionary tendencies which had been developing in Germany. I was ordered to follow, and without respite, all foreigners and Poles; and to present an account of my observations every day. . . . The results of such observation were negligible; of what the government feared, nothing at all was revealed. Everything was limited to the deportation abroad of a few foreign rascals who had fallen under suspicion for some unknown reason.4 Having concentrated on a few petty foreign adventurers, on the one hand, and the highest level of the court aristocracy, on the other, Alexander's police surveillance had missed the Decembrist conspiracy — although not entirely. General Vasilchikov's secret agent, Gribovsky, had correctly reported the existence of a secret society among Guards officers in 1821 and named some of its leading members, including

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Michael Orlov. In February 1822 Vladimir Raevsky had been arrested for seditious teaching in the military colonies. A list of members found among his papers had been transmitted to General Kiselev of the southern army for action, but the future Minister of State Properties had skillfully managed to "allow" the list to be destroyed.5 In August 1822 Alexander declared all secret societies to be illegal; as a result, the Union of Welfare disbanded into the Northern and Southern Societies, with a more strongly underground flavor. In spite of Gribovsky and Vasilchikov, Raevsky's arrest, and a solemn report from Benckendorff on the evil traces of freemasonry in Russian life, the decree was indifferently enforced. Alexander seems to have been, in this matter, unwilling or unable to take decisive action. Masonic practices had permeated Russian social life, not only because of their mystical and philanthropic appeal, but because they relieved what seems to have been an otherwise general boredom. Przeclawski writes: masonry was almost the only element of movement . . . almost the only center of acquaintance between people even of the same social position. Outside this circle, sociability . . . didn't exist; all were somehow strange to each other.® The "mystical rationalism" of freemasonry had made its mark in Europe as part of the sentimental strain that ran through the latter half of the eighteenth century. It was a symptom of the decay of the social aspect of religion. In Russia, where the social life of religion had always had something drab and impoverished about it, masonry was especially influential. Alexander, particularly sensitive to the masonic blend of mysticism, philanthropy, and rational criticism, had himself been under its spell.7 Apart from its social and religious significance, however, freemasonry had also a political tendency which was egalitarian and antiaristocratic. It was an international movement, with connections everywhere; at the same time, within any given country, it tended to cut across class lines, to foster a sense of common nationality and common enterprise in the name of a supraclass ideal. Everywhere masonic cells served as a model for more

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secularly minded organizations — social groups with a slightly daring or beyond-propriety intent and political organizations too radical to be tolerated on the surface of a "safe," monarchical society. In Russia, during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, there had been a number of belletristic debating and drinking societies, like "Arzamas" and the "Green Lamp," the ritual and procedure of which had been partly influenced by freemasonry, partly by something dimly common to all cults and semisecret or secret societies. There had been as well — and more directly and purposefully influenced by masonic ritual and organization — an orgiastic society of foreign adventurers and stray Russian ladies known as "Les Frères Cochons," and an entirely Russian group who called themselves "Cavaliers of the Cork." 8 There were also numerous private "clubs" — ranging from the aristocratic English clubs in St. Petersburg and Moscow to private associations for gambling and talk. The masonic lodges, however, had been among the few organizations that engaged in public activity. (Even such an open arrangement for informal public meeting and discussion as the French-style café was a rare thing in Russia. In St. Petersburg, before 1825, there had been but one, owned by a Frenchman and closely watched by the police. ) After the final ban on masonic lodges in 1822, A. I. MikhailovskyDanilevsky noted in his memoirs that social life seemed to shift to the gambling and drinking societies, "partly because of a lack of culture noticeable in Russia in general, and partly because political subjects had been banned from conversation."9 By "lack of culture" Mikhailovsky meant, among other things, a lack of institutions with any public focus or serious public concern. The number of newspapers had tripled between 1801 to 1806 but, after 1820, under the impact of censorship, had begun to decline and was in any case quite small, with a mere smattering of readers. Political organizations were forbidden. People seriously concerned with public activity outside the rigid limits of the state apparatus — all those who had some interest in establishing an institutional basis for "public opinion" — were forced underground.10

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Public opinion during the reign of Alexander I meant preeminently the opinion of the gentry class and, above all, those who served in the army. During the Napoleonic invasion, and the subsequent invasion and occupation of France, the army — especially its younger and more talented officers — had felt the quickening effects of power and a heightened sense of self-importance. During the years of the occupation of France and the years of the Holy Alliance, Alexander found himself increasingly alienated and estranged from especially this segment of the gentry class. They favored Alexander's former policy: "trade, industry, and popular education." They were opposed to Alexander's purely fiscal approach to state finances, to his obscurantist censorship of the press, and to his foreign commitments. They resented the reimposition of an outmoded Prussian parade-ground discipline in the army, and more and more they began to speculate on the advantages, both moral and economic, of freeing the serfs. Their exposure to Western Europe made them intensely aware of the expansion of the power of public opinion in England and France, and even in Germany, and intensely interested in liberal movements, utilitarian philosophy, Lancastrian education, and technological industrialism. The European revolts of the 1820s provided them with more or less successful examples of how to realize their ambitions, for themselves and for Russia.11 Alexander, meanwhile, persistently striving in his torn soul to be both autocrat and liberal, did nothing. Sensitive to what people thought of him, and aware of the opposition of the gentry, he made this sad and vaguely distrustful note: There are rumors that the ruinous breath of free thought and liberalism has spread or is spreading with great strength among the armed forces; that there are secret societies or clubs in both [northern and southern] armies as well as in the separate corps, and that these have secret missionaries for spreading their views. Ermolov, N. Raevsky, Kiselev, Michael Orlov, Count Gurlev, Dmitry Stolypin, and many other of the generals, regimental commanders, and moreover a great number of the various staff and senior officers.12

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In 1825, however, he received four separate reports concerning the southern branch of the Decembrists. After a personal report from the enterprising informer, John Sherwood, Alexander decided to act. But before any decisive step could be taken, he died unexpectedly at Taganrog.13 The Decembrists also proved undecided. They were a remarkably homogeneous group: the overwhelming majority were Guards officers in their twenties and thirties, with similar backgrounds and similar experiences of the war and of Europe. A number had had strikingly successful military careers (among those brought to trial, five were generals and approximately thirty were colonels), and all had been affected directly or indirectly by the great expansion of hopes and ambitions released by the Napoleonic wars, when the Russian lieutenant, like the French private, carried a marshal's baton in his knapsack. They had a common interest in belles-lettres, Russian and European, and an openness to intellectual influence. About twenty-five were writers or poets. Symptomatic of a widespread interest in trade and commerce, Ryleev was an official of the Russian-American Company. He was also a popular poet and had founded an annual almanac, "The North Star," which had opened new possibilities for journalism in Russia. The Decembrists were all interested in a freer dissemination of knowledge and opinion and in public institutions bound and controlled by law and open to publicity. They had a common economic background: with a few exceptions (outstandingly, Serge Trubetskoy) they owned fewer than two hundred serfs, were much in debt to the state, and resented a revenue policy aimed more at filling the treasury than increasing the national wealth.* In spite of all these unifying attributes, which should have 0 In an early report to Nicholas, Benckendorfi and von Vock were among the first to attribute an economic motivation to the entire Decembrist conspiracy: "One of the important provocative trains of reasoning that inspired the depraved plans of the people of the fourteenth was the false assertion that, having borrowed money, the gentry is the debtor, not of the state, but of the ruling family. The diabolic conclusion that, having rid themselves of their creditor, they will have rid themselves of their debts, dominated the minds of the main plotters, and this idea has outlived them." A. K. Benckendorfi, "O Rossii ν 1827 g.," Krasnyi arkhiv, XXXVII (1929), 166.

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solidified and strengthened their organization, the Union of Salvation had dropped away into the Union of Welfare, which in turn divided into the Northern and Southern Societies. Within the Northern Society especially there had been incessant wrangling, disagreements, withdrawals, and no consistent program for action. When Alexander died, and Nicholas unexpectedly acceded to the throne, the plotters were divided as to what to do. (They were, after all, gentry, steeped in essentially middle-class ideas, but with the economic interests of an impoverished aristocracy.) Nicholas had proclaimed that he would continue his brother's policies as best he could, and, if anything were to be done to alter them, it seemed it had to be done at once. As an act of desperation, those who happened to be in St. Petersburg hastily agreed on an interim program, appointed Trubetskoy their provisional dictator, and managed to marshal two Guards regiments and part of a third, which they then ineptly stationed in front of the senate building, immobile in parade formation until crushed by the overwhelming superiority of troops under the command of officers loyal to the new emperor.14 What caused such weakness and confusion of purpose? Almost all the members of both societies had acknowledged the economic disadvantages and moral injustice of serfdom. But almost all were landowners, not necessarily "determined" by their class interests in the sense of vulgarized Marxism, but acutely aware of the difficulties involved in liberation, both for their own class and for the peasantry. Concerning how, when, and under what conditions liberation was to take place, they could not agree. Concerning other issues, the liberalism of some was tinged with the idea of a propertied oligarchy; and the question of regicide had been debated, but not resolved.15 After 1823, the radical and Jacobin ideas of Pestel, who dominated the Southern Society, began to exert increasing influence in St. Petersburg. Of all the Decembrists, Pestel alone seemed to have a fierce and direct will to dominate.16 In this regard, one aspect of Pestel's plans for the future government of Russia should be pointed out. In his draft for a constitution ("Russian Justice"), Pestel included an outline for a

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system of "higher police," which Nicholas certainly, and Benckendorff probably, read with great interest. Trial by jury and open hearings were all very well for ordinary cases. Political and state crimes, however, had to be treated differently. To allow "any petty official" to invoke complicated rules of procedure to protect himself in the courts from acts of malfeasance or treason could not be suffered by Pestel. The police had "its own scope of activities," independent of the administration of justice. The police is a check against bureaucratic abuse, even by the judiciary, and a bulwark against treason. The higher police controls the ordinary police. The only control and check on the power of the higher police is the "deep moral quality" of its chief — a personal rather than an institutional control. Its methods must also be radical, Pestel felt: a network of secret agents (known only to the chief) and a paramilitary force, the gendarmerie. Secret investigations, or espionage, are . . . not only permitted and legal, but they are even the most desirable and almost, it might be said, the only means by which the higher police acquires the possibility of achieving the purpose assigned to it.17 And as to the Corps of Gendarmes, Pestel estimated that "fifty thousand men . . . will be enough." Their salary should be "three times that of the field forces, because this service is just as dangerous, far more difficult, and in addition to all that, not »181 ft Nicholas was famous for his unyielding firmness of character. On occasion, people even noticed a certain resemblance to Peter the Great. About one thing, at any rate, he never hesitated — the inviolability of the autocracy. To this, all else was subordinate. On the other hand, Nicholas was well aware of the besetting problems which had driven his elder brother to dreams of retirement and renunciation: serfdom, finances, administrative corruption and confusion, backwardness — and the problem of how to introduce changes without altering the essential nature of the autocracy. To escape anxiety Nicholas drove himself to perform all manner of trivial tasks, to an intense absorption in the minutiae of office. In notes written for his family in 1836 Nicholas

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referred to his accession to the throne as "a degree to which my wishes and inclinations pushed me but little." 19 To rule was a crushing burden, and he had been more in his element as a Guards brigadier, or founder of the Engineer Corps Academy, than as Emperor of All the Russias. On the day of the Decembrist revolt, he burst into tears before the French ambassador, La Ferronays, and complained bitterly of his lot.20 According to legislation enacted by Paul I in 1797, Nicholas' former position as Guards brigadier had been a family post. In this capacity, he had commanded a number of young officers who had strongly disliked him as a militaristic martinet. Deeply attached to the old traditional Europe of the absolute monarchies, he had taken not at all kindly to their devotion to the "other" Europe — the parliaments, press, and political clubs he despised.21 It was these same officers who appeared as participants in the uprising of December 14, and Nicholas felt a personal and vehement rancor, almost a sense of family betrayal. Ten years after the event, Nicholas could write about Serge Volkonsky that he was "an absolute idiot, as I had known for a long time, a liar and rascal in the full sense, and in this affair he showed himself as such."22 Or of Prince Obolensky: Having followed the rascally deeds of this man for a long time, I, as it were, guessed his evil intentions, and I must admit that I declared to him with special pleasure that I was by no means surprised to see him in his present predicament, for I had guessed out his black soul years ago.28 The court historian Shilder noted that for many years, whenever Nicholas confronted any spontaneous expression of political thought, any manifestation he had not himself arranged, he was accustomed to repeat: "Ceux sont mes amis du quatorze."24 During the long investigation and trial of the Decembrists, Nicholas prescribed, with close attention, the course of treatment, the interrogation, and in some instances even the diet of the prisoners. On occasion, he interrogated them personally. He was still uncertain about the depth and extent of the plot. These disaffected people had formed the opposition to Alexander's reign and represented the only powerful and articulate class on which

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Nicholas as autocrat could base his power. He did not know — and throughout his reign he was never quite sure — how many potential Decembrists remained outside the fortress. In a way, he was conducting a public-opinion poll. In addition to the wish to reassure himself that he had, after all, won, Nicholas wanted to familiarize himself with the "smell" of opposition, to find out what made a Decembrist, and to probe for a possible meeting ground of gentry and autocrat, a family reunion. Some of the Decembrists (Pestel among them) felt the family connection and, sensing that Nicholas was truly one of their own, repented and wrote confessions. Nicholas, for his part, collected their plans and explanations, had them bound and indexed, and presented them to his secret committee of December 6, 1826, which was to consider an immense program of administrative and social reform.25 In society at large, reaction to the arrest, trial, and sentence of the Decembrists was intense but confused. Among the peasantry, as at the beginning of every new reign, there were rumors of liberation: "The landowners are being taken to St. Petersburg and freedom is being offered to the peasants." 26 On July 18, 1826, a secret agent, Viskovatov, reported: Among the common people, and especially among a great part of the house servants and among the cantonists, expressions dangerous to the safety of the Empire, concerning the execution and concerning the punishment of the criminals in general, are being heard: they have begun to hang the masters and send them into exile; a pity they don't hang them all. . . . The common people are much incensed against the gentry.27 A student in a church school in Vladimir noted in his diary: "Most of the mutineers were of a masonic sect, and their leader was a certain Prince Viazemsky [!]. . . . Their intention was to create a general revolution." 28 The merchants of Moscow and St. Petersburg were in a panic. Above all, the crucial gentry class seemed split by generations: the older, shocked and horrified at what had occurred; the younger, excited, almost exalted; but both somewhat appalled at the severity of the sentence and the

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appearance of a scaffold in Russia for the first time in fifty years. Feelings of guilt and ambivalence with regard to the revolt were common. Petitions to "bridle" the younger generation poured in, to Nicholas and to the organs of the Ministry of Public Education. Discussions went blank. Intellectual interests were discouraged and concealed. According to A. Perovsky, superintendent of Kharkov University, Russia needed "doctors, chemists, technologists, but it is very doubtful that the appearance in our fatherland of Russian Kants and Fichtes would be of any service to it." 29 V. P. Sheremetev noted in his diary that he had informed the Grand Duke Michael: "If my son is involved in this plot, I do not wish to see him any more, and I am even the first to beg you not to spare him. I will even go to see him punished." 30 Count S. R. Vorontsov wrote his son from London: "To forgive such monsters would mean to hold justice in contempt. . . ." 3 1 And Nicholas, on December 23, 1825, wrote to his brother Constantine: Here everyone has helped me zealously in this terrible work; fathers lead their sons to me; all want to be an example, and the main thing — they want to see their families cleansed of such personalities and even of suspicions of this kind.32 A. I. Delvig wrote in his memoirs: The most melancholy recollection of that time has remained with me. Not only did no one attempt to justify, within the limits of the possible, those who had taken part in the secret societies, but all condemned them, and the punishment decreed by the government certainly did not exceed the punishment that was heaped on them by the opinion of society, at least of that society which was accessible to me at the time.33 Nicholas began his struggle for the favorable opinion of the gentry class with a series of attempts calculated to mitigate the feat and erase whatever impression of cruelty may have been aroused by his treatment of the Decembrists. ("In high society," Viskovatov had reported, "they say there will be a strict reign and Tsar Ivan Groznyi will rise again." 34 The poet Pushkin, who

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had outraged Alexander, was recalled from exile.36 At the coronation in Moscow, rewards and honors were distributed lavishly. In 1826, an "easy war" was declared against Persia, which was settled favorably for Russia at the Peace of Turkmanchai on February 10, 1828, with further rewards and emoluments. Meanwhile, the hated Arakcheev, a reminder of the whip and the military colonies, had been packed off to retirement at his estate. Nicholas had even reprimanded him humiliatingly for having dared to publish without the censor's permission a few letters from Alexander.36 In Petersburg society, expressions of devotion to throne and fatherland were comme il faut even when the authenticity of these sentiments rang somewhat hollow. The spirit of inhibition and conformity was expressed at a meeting of grammarians honoring Nikolai Grech. A poem was presented to him in which his moral pre-eminence over his colleagues was compared with that of a new institution founded by Nicholas — "You," the poem read, "are our gendarme of linguistics." 87 In the project for formation of a higher police which he composed in January 1826, Benckendorff had written apprehensively: "A secret police is unthinkable; honorable people would be afraid of it, and scoundrels adapt themselves to it easily." Only the emergency situation precipitated by the Decembrist uprising could justify the employment of secret agents in Russia. Not only was political espionage unpopular, but it was a great expense, and finances were in a bad way. A network of secret agents could be employed only under pretext of the emergency, and with the greatest economy of means. Benckendorff suggested interception of correspondence as one of the most effective and cheapest methods of maintaining a check on gentry sentiments: "All that is necessary for this purpose is to have postmasters, known for their honesty and zeal, in a few cities."38 Along with a system of strict centralization, Benckendorff emphasized the necessity that the police be "feared and respected." Perhaps under the influence of Pestel, he felt that such respect would have to be inculcated primarily "by the moral qualities of its commander-in-chief."

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He should bear the title of "Minister of Police and Inspector of the Corps of Gendarmes in the Capital and in the Provinces." Only such a title could give him the possibility of making use of the opinions of honorable people who might wish to warn the government of some plot as it were, or to inform it of any kind of interesting news. And plotters, intriguers, and people who have either repented of their mistakes or are simply trying to exculpate themselves by giving information, will at least know where they can turn.89 "Voluntary" agents of this kind would spare the state expense. In addition to secrecy and centralization, Benckendorff recommended militarization — uniforms serving both as a visible sign of the regime's presence and as a badge of honor for its wearer: This might provide opportunity to station in these positions capable and honorable people who often shun the role of secret spy, but, wearing a uniform, as avowed servants of the government, might consider it a duty zealously to fulfill this obligation.40 The "honorable" was to be distinguished from the "dishonorable" (but inevitable) segment of police organization in terms of the rewards to be meted out: for the officer and gentleman, ranks and decorations; for the spy, money. Possible intrigues for power or favor — especially in the highly sensitive chancery where the police paper work was done — could be avoided if the moral position of the chief were solid enough. Time and time again, Benckendorff returned to the importance of a strong moral position. The police should strive as much as possible to gain moral strength, which in any case will serve as the best guarantee of its success. Every respectable man will acknowledge the need for a vigilant police, which keeps the public peace and anticipates crimes and disorders. But every man feels threatened by a police which depends on denunciation and intrigue. . . . And so, the first and most important impression this police makes on the public will depend on the selection of a minister and on the organization of the ministry itself. . . . Once having decided the matter in principle, it will be necessary to organize a project, which because of its importance

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Nicholas did not create a separate ministry of police. In general, he avoided founding institutions as normalized and as "separate" as a ministry. (Although he formed the Ministry of State Properties in 1838, he generally preferred to work by secret committee, or through his chancery, especially when the particular project he had in mind was not intended as a permanent part of Russian state life. The committees — until they accumulated in endless numbers — also seemed less cumbersome, more readily available to the personal will of the sovereign, more in keeping with the tone of autocracy.) Nicholas incorporated the police into His Majesty's Private Imperial Chancery, a step reminiscent of the policy of past autocrats with regard to state crimes. In order to recompense Benckendorff for his failure to acquire the title, "Minister of Police, etc.," and to add dignity to his office, Nicholas made him not only Head of the Third Section of His Majesty's Private Imperial Chancery and Chief of Gendarmes, but Commander of Imperial Headquarters as well, thus emphasizing Benckendorff's personal relationship to the sovereign. In an order to the Director of the Special Chancery of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Nicholas abolished the special chancery and reassigned its staff (at Benckendorff's discretion) to the Third Section. Nicholas enumerated the functions of the Third Section as follows: 1. All orders and announcements in all instances of the higher police. 2. Information concerning the number of various sects and heretical religious groups existing within the state. 3. Information concerning the distribution of counterfeit money, stamps, documents, etc., the investigation and further prosecution of which is to remain under the jurisdiction of the Ministries of Finance and Internal Affairs. 4. Detailed information concerning all persons under police surveillance, as ordered.

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5. The exile and arrest of suspicious or dangerous persons. 6. Economic and supervisory administration of all places of imprisonment in which state prisoners are kept. 7. All orders and instructions with regard to foreigners living in Russia, traveling in the country, or leaving it. 8. Information concerning all events, without exception. 9. Statistical information relating to the police.42 Nicholas instructed all civil and military chiefs of provinces to report regularly concerning all objects mentioned above to the Third Section in the name of the emperor. On April 28, 1827, five districts (okrugi) of gendarme administration were formed, supplemented by two more in July of that year. These served as an extension of the Third Section's entire police apparatus. In the order creating this gendarme staff, Nicholas again recommended that special weight be given to "good morality" in the selection of personnel, as well as to efficiency and zeal.43 The vagueness of the tasks assigned to the Third Section is remarkable indeed. Who could tell what "All orders . . . of the higher police" meant — or "Information concerning all events without exception"? The position of the Corps of Gendarmes in the Section was also confused and complicated, at least for the first ten years of its existence. The corps consisted of the old Gendarme regiment which had served as police in the army, the gendarmes of the Corps of Internal Security, some of which had been under the command of city police-masters and some under garrison commanders, as well as new units created from 1826 on. As Chief of Gendarmes, Benckendorff commanded some gendarme units entirely, but some only in the capacity of "inspector." The gendarmes were paid their salary by the Ministry of War and received orders from different channels, though nominally they were all subordinate to the Third Section and liable to inspection by the Chief of Gendarmes. It was only in 1829 that the office of Chief of Staff of the Corps of Gendarmes was united with that of Director of the Chancery of the Third Section, and only in 1842 were all the gendarme sections decisively united in a chain of command.44

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The same confusion prevailed in the Third Sections chancery. Nominally, the chancery was divided into four offices, or expeditions. The first was primarily concerned with political affairs, the "objects of the higher police," and information with regard to people under police surveillance. The second compiled information on religious affairs and on occasion directed the tracking down of much-wanted criminals, such as counterfeiters, murderers, or particularly notorious bandits; it also supervised places of imprisonment and handled material concerning the peasant question. The third office watched over foreigners, and the fourth dealt with miscellaneous appeals and complaints. In 1828, a bureau of censorship for theatrical works was added and, in 1842, a fifth office. This breakdown, however, was almost entirely tabular. In practice, there was no strict allocation of tasks among the different offices. The chancery had no standard mode of procedure or forms of correspondence. All the secret work went directly to the director of the chancery; and in a short time the director and two or three of his most trusted helpers became the prime movers of the entire police system.45 The Third Section's chancery more than tripled its size during Nicholas' reign. Having begun with a small economical apparat of sixteen persons, it had grown to forty by 1856. In 1836, a relatively quiet year, ten years after the elimination of the Decembrist conspiracy and before the existence of any kind of renewed political opposition to the regime, the Third Section kept 1,631 people under either open or secret police surveillance, 1,080 of them for political reasons. As many as 15,000 appeals and petitions passed through the chancery in the course of a year, involving appeals against court decisions, requests for advice about legal documents, requests for scholarships and tax exemptions, and projects and plans for inventions, as well as political denunciations against private persons and government officials. The Third Section's functions, in short, were exhaustive.48 When Benckendorff assigned A. Lomachevsky as a staff officer to a gendarme district, he told him that a gendarme had to possess both tact and disinterestedness:

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Our Sovereign . . . wishes to see in him just such an Ambassador, just such an honorable and useful representative of the government as he has in London, Vienna, Berlin, and Paris.47 The implication was that the provincial government often belonged to the inertia and obscurity of provincial life; but the Third Section belonged to the autocrat. It was his public-opinion poll and his house of representatives. The director of the Third Section's chancery was M. I. von Vock, a man of some experience in secret-police work, who had previously served as the director of the Ministry of Internal Affairs' "special section." Well acquainted with the literary and journalistic world of St. Petersburg (Bulgarin was a close friend of his and Pushkin had a great respect for him), von Vock was particularly sensitive to the importance of public opinion. During the summer and fall of 1826, he engaged in a correspondence with Benckendorff, then in Moscow for the coronation, in which he discussed both in detail and in principle the proper operation of a secret police, the state of public opinion, what people were saying in St. Petersburg, and the means by which public opinion could be rallied behind the autocracy. From 1827 to 1830, he prepared the annual "Surveys of Public Opinion" (later titled "The Moral and Political Situation in Russia") which, although signed by Benckendorff, are recognizably von Vock's because of the relative terseness of style, efficiency of organization, and number of insights totally absent from surveys submitted after his death (1831). His reports are full of references to "what people say," from casual accounts of gossip overheard to a more or less systematic analysis of what opinions are held by various segments of the population, who exerts influence on them, and to what extent their opinions support or oppose the regime.48 "In many circles," von Vock wrote early in June, "they stubbornly continue to analyze the factors which gave rise to the outbreak of December 14." The grievances of the immediate past were being aired: Arakcheev, the "system of administration characterized by slander and intrigue," and the "inevitability" of the Decembrist outbreak. The Third Section, von Vock wrote, had

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galvanized the ordinary police into greater alertness, and the over-all watch on society was being carried out far more effectively at all levels. The police were assiduous in collecting information about the inhabitants of St. Petersburg: "The more they try to find out everything — without petty clamor, of course — the easier it will be to judge concerning people and circumstances with conviction, and with a knowledge of the matter in hand." 49 Von Vock reported all rumors he deemed significant — that the investigating committee was to be made permanent, for example: It is said that it will become a secret tribunal, the task of which will be to handle cases concerning accusations of political crime. This circumstance produces a very bad impression.50 It is possible that he feared a competitor. In any case, his paraphrases of public opinion as expressed in his correspondence with Benckendorff vary to such an extent from month to month that he well may have been using them to sway Benckendorff to his own administrative ideas. We read on August 23, for example, "The thermometer need only rise one degree to arrive at beaufixe"; but on September 10, "The cast of mind is satisfactory only in the lower classes."51 Later, von Vock and Benckendorff combined to present Nicholas with similar reports on the degree of favor or alarm inherent in "what people say." In 1827, for instance: There are seeds of Jacobinism among the youth. . . . Calculating persons try to unite them into small circles under the banner of moral philosophy or theosophy. We already see the birth of several secret societies of this kind.* In 1828: "Public opinion has not been so lively and at the same time so favorable for quite a while." And in 1829, more obliquely: "In our time it is much easier to govern at critical moments than it is under more normal circumstances." 52 The "Brief Survey of Public Opinion" for 1827 begins: "Public opinion for the government is what a topographical map is for * Nicholas' note: "Where? Who are the individuals?" A. K. Benckendorff, "O Rossii ν 1827 g.," Krasnyi arkhiv, XXXVII (1930), 147.

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an army command in time of war." The survey cautions that one must avoid mistaking the opinion of a "party" or faction for that of a whole class; it then lists the significant components of the population which form public opinion. First is the court: In Catherine's time, people with court positions had great weight in the eyes of society at large and, each being a fixed star at court, stood in the city as a small sun with its own planetary system receiving movements and impulses from that sun. Now the matter stands quite differently. Courtiers form a sect apart. Their relations are limited by their circle, in which their own mutual interests are concentrated. The ambition of gifted people of high birth is no longer content with service at court. They try to move out onto the arena of the military or civil service. . . . The opinion of the court plays no role in society.53 Next there is "high society" — an aristocratic republic at the time of Catherine that ruled public opinion by its brilliance, but no longer. Although in St. Petersburg, Speransky and Count Kochubey were a shining example to men of this class and to those who were themselves content with the government group, "in Moscow, there is not a single dignitary capable of playing a role similar to that of Counts Kochubey and Speransky." Where the influence of the court ends, the survey continues, there the spirit of faction begins. Moscow high society is the center of "the dissatisfied," primarily the "faction of Russian Patriots" headed by N. S. Mordvinov, "dangerous because its watchword is the saving of Russia." Third, there is a middle class: landowners with residence in the cities, nonservice gentry, merchants of the first three guilds, educated people and litterateurs. This is a numerous class — "the soul of the Empire." Here, thus far, the new monarch has made a favorable impression: The prosecution of bribe takers . . . the strong measures taken to remove delay in legal cases and against imprecision in the execution of statutes, the removal of women and priests from any harmful influence on affairs . . . the family virtues of the monarch . . . the favor he has shown to many littera-

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The Third Section teurs . . . the absence of favorites and viziers, the prosecution of persons violating their duty to the service no matter what their position or origin . . . the progress made by Russia in the Persian campaign . . . the removal of the influence of the hated Metternich . . . surveillance over the activity of ministers, military and civil governors whose despotism oppressed the provinces . . . combine to serve as a weapon against the dissatisfied members of this class.54

The dissatisfied are seen to be primarily the youth — young gentry from seventeen to twenty-five years of age, "on the whole, the most gangrenous part of the Empire" — a situation arising from bad education and the baleful influence of the French. "In this corrupted segment of society we find again the ideas of Ryleev." Other groups are noted more briefly. The civil service is "very corrupt morally"; in the army, "there is no doubt that they still spread some of the ideas of Pestel." The serfs are becoming increasingly conscious of their bondage, increasingly dangerous as a class; among them, the heretical religious sects act as "Jacobin clubs" and the village priests stir up trouble. And then the conclusion states: The distinguishing feature of our time is its activity. . . . The majority of Russians . . . are favorable to the regime, but all Russia awaits changes in the system as well as in personnel with impatience. It demands that the machine be wound anew. The keys for winding are justice and industry. People say: "If this sovereign does not reform Russia, no one will be able to delay its collapse." 85 Von Vock did more than merely analyze the component parts of the population which combined to form public opinion; he suggested a program that would bind the public, especially "the middle class" (an expression for which he often substituted "the public"), firmly to the autocracy. The first step in his program was a campaign against corruption in the bureaucracy, "that devouring serpent, which must be killed by fire or iron." 58 From the conservative aristocracy, who railed against the bureaucracy in the manner of Karamzin ( seeing it as at best a necessary evil and

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no substitute for a traditional noblesse ), to the Decembrists, who in their many depositions pointed time and again to administrative abuses as a strong motive for their conspiracy, everyone was dissatisfied with the mechanics of administrative procedure. "No greasing no motion" ran the Russian proverb. Everyone would be suitably impressed by a government that took firm steps against corruption. From 1826 on, von Vock directed an intensive struggle in this direction. In St. Petersburg, there was great display, and in the provinces wide publicity, for the gendarmerie. The Third Section's survey for 1828 implied that the campaign had met with some success: Private and trustworthy letters bear witness that in those provinces where there are no gendarmes, all classes desire their presence as protectors against the different kinds of unpleasantness imposed on them by the authorities and the discords between authorities.57 The gendarmerie represented the visible presence of the autocrat in society, and its elegant blue uniforms and white gloves contrasted with the somewhat squalid green of the civil service, publicly demonstrating the emperor's concern for correctness and order and the ideal sense of duty of which a bright uniform was meant to be the material embodiment. But the campaign had little lasting effect. Given the economic and technological limitations of the bureaucracy and the demands made on it, it could not be honest. The Third Section, on the other hand, was anxious to avoid continual turmoil, and on more than one occasion Genral Benckendorff acted to quash the zeal of an overly scrupulous provincial staff officer, insisting (against requests for action) that the proper function of a gendarme was "merely to observe."88 The conservative F. F. Vigel, on hearing of the Third Section's struggle against malfeasance, expressed doubts as to whether enough "conscientious, unprejudiced, and penetrating people" could be found to staff even the Third Section itself.89 Clerks, in order to serve in a St. Petersburg chancery, ordinarily had first to undergo a three-year apprentice-

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ship in a provincial administration, which usually had a riper tradition of bribery and corruption than the capital. It might have given Vigel cold comfort to know that in 1850, the then chief of the Third Section, A. F. Orlov, would be forced to request the emperor for a special rule in order to train clerical personnel for the Third Section's chancery without having to rely on the infected provinces.80 Another step to reconcile the public was the attempt to expedite justice in the courts. When Nicholas came to the throne, there was a bewildering network of courts, no collection of laws, and a dross of illiterate and semiliterate judges. It was not unknown for litigation in a relatively simple case to go on for generations. In 1826, there were two million cases awaiting decision in the courts.61 The improvement of justice in Russia had been one of the most consistent themes in the plans of the Decembrists, and Borovkov, having studied and selected from among their recommendations, concluded in his report to Nicholas: "It is necessary to enact clear, positive laws and to establish justice by means of the most rapid judicial procedure." 82 Everyone complained about the courts, and the task von Vock and Benckendorff set for the Third Section was to break up the clog of undecided cases: from one side, to bring petitions and appeals directly to the emperor's attention; from the other, to pressure the courts into greater activity. In his instructions to Colonel Bibikov, whom he sent on a special mission to the Ukraine in 1827, along with John Sherwood, Benckendorff rhapsodically concluded: How many affairs, how many illegitimate and endless suits, you will be able to cut short by your intervention, how many ill-intended people thirsting to take over the property of a neighbor you will prevent from carrying out their evil intentions once they become convinced that the innocent victims of their greed will have a direct and most accessible path to the protection of His Imperial Majestyl 83 Sherwood circulated these instructions widely; and in a manner probably not intended by Benckendorff, he did his best to publi-

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cize the work of the Third Section. But assuming under new conditions the old role of la police citoyenne, the Third Section met with as little success in the courts as in the offices of the bureaucracy. In the first place, the number of personal appeals and petitions was soon overwhelming. Secondly, the "shock" methods employed to clear the courts may have made for speed, but they did not make for legality. N. M. Kolmakov, a notable jurist, related in his memoirs how a gendarme officer, despatched to a certain appellate court which had lagged behind in its decisions, forced the judge to decide all pending cases while he stood there. The judge attacked a mountain of paper, deciding alternately: "upheld, reversed; upheld, reversed." The job was soon done, and the gendarme returned satisfied to St. Petersburg.64 One of von Vock's most persistent and energetic efforts was to rally writers, journalists, and the press behind the regime. To do this, he favored a system of subsidies and official rewards and a relaxation of the censorship laws: In all European states, they say, the most prominent writers and artists enjoy — at the initiative of the Sovereign himself — certain privileges and rewards bestowed by the government. Many consider that it might serve his interests if the Sovereign-Emperor from time to time declared his favor to one or another of our most outstanding writers .βε He insisted on the importance of litterateurs: Although the higher ranks of society are strange to the national literature, the entire middle class — youth, the military, even the merchants — hold it very dear. All writers have their numerous adherents.®8 The harsh censorship law created a dangerous situation: those purveyors of opinion are people who enjoy more influence at present than at any time previous. They say the new censorship law closes their mouths. The public seconds them, noting that since the new law gives authors no legal guarantee, their position becomes quite unenviable. Moreover, some

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The Third Section add, since responsibility continues to lie with the writer even after his work has passed through the censor's net, it is quite superfluous to have censors.®7

Von Vock was in close contact with the world of letters and well aware of the potentialities for expansion and the possible influence that gave depth to the apparently meager surface of the Russian press. Both Pushkin and Bulgarin, for different reasons, advocated a program very similar to his. But Nicholas did not encourage it — at least, beyond a certain point. Von Vock commissioned translations to be made of an official account of Nicholas' accession to the throne and distributed these to the European press, creating a formidable but not wholy unfavorable impression of the "brave" emperor. He used Bulgarin as an agent and informant and wrote articles himself for publication in Bulgarin's newspaper, the "Northern Bee," and elsewhere.68 He constantly tried to impress Benckendorff and Nicholas with the exceptional loyalty to the throne displayed by Russian writers. But his program was never very widely applied. Two years after his death, Benckendorffs annual survey recommended an opposite course (the censorship law, however, had been reformed in 1828), a more diligent censorship: This might do away with the unpleasant impressions made on the public every time the government [i.e., the Third Section] forbids a work which has been permitted by the censor and already released for sale, of which there were several instances this year.69 Censorship proved to be a mode of operation more congenial to the regime than propaganda. Examining the official account of the violent events attending his accession to the throne, Nicholas lingered over the last words: "All was ended." He carefully noted in the margin: "Yes, ended a long time ago, with the five who were hanged. But, in fact only, not as romance."70 After the investigation and trial of the Decembrists, the shock and panic among the older generation of Petersburg and (to a

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lesser extent) Moscow society had merged into a feeling of pity and sympathy for men of the same social class, in many cases close or distant relatives. Of the Decembrists as an organized group, not a trace remained. On the army there was a strict watch. In the civil service, officials had been obliged to take the following oath: I, the undersigned, declare that I do not belong to any . . . secret society, either within the Empire or outside it, and I pledge myself to belong to none, and to have no relationship with any from now on.71 After the tremendous activity of the investigation and the severe sentences of the trial, a reaction had begun to set in, based not so much on any ideological affinity as on a personal and to some extent a class sympathy with the convicted. The Decembrists themselves, in their places of labor and confinement, were closely checked by the Third Section. Frequent trips by gendarme inspectors, detailed reports from local authorities, interception of correspondence — all were practiced, as well as the more spectacular methods of espionage and provocation. Nicholas even recalled the Decembrist, A. O. Kornilovich, from Siberia to the Schluesselburg Fortress, in order to gather from him a report on the conditions under which the Decembrists lived in Siberia, as well as certain plans for reform.72 Nicholas greatly feared the growing myth of the Decembrists; but he could not bring himself to believe it entirely myth. He found occasional "evidence" to corroborate his dread that their organization still existed. After the Polish revolt of 1831, he was apprehensive even of the hinterland, of a conjunction in Siberia of Decembrists and exiled Poles.73 As long as the Decembrists had been imprisoned in the fortresses, and even after many of them were sent to serve out their terms of labor, they had not been allowed to communicate with the outside world, although they could receive occasional letters from wives and relatives (which had to pass through the hands of the fortress commandant and often the Third Section as well). Their names were removed from the lists of nobility. It was forbidden to mention them in print or in any public pronouncement,

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Portraits could not be made, nor old pictures displayed. As late as 1845, the Third Section confiscated a daguerreotype of the Decembrist Poggio which he had sent to his daughter. The photographer, a Frenchman named Davignon who had been traveling in Siberia, was held by the Third Section for questioning on his return. Nicholas issued an order forbidding portraits of all state criminals and instructed the police to conficate any such portrait from anyone who displayed one. In spite of such efforts on the part of the Third Section, perhaps even to a certain extent because of them, the names of the Decembrists remained in common circulation, and their portraits acquired under-the-counter value in the book stores.74 And when Herzen's illegal journal, the "North Star" (Poliarnaia zvezda), published in England and named after Ryleev's almanac, began to appear, it bore on its masthead a picture of the five Decembrists who had been hanged.75 Nicholas had instructed the special court trying the Decembrists to separate the accused according to whether they had been dupes or instigators in the matter of the secret societies. Intent, moral condition, and susceptibility to correction were more crucial factors in the passing of sentence than was the degree of actual participation in the events of December 14. The results, therefore, were bound to be to some extent subjective. Even taking this inevitable subjectivity into account, however, there is a striking arbitrariness in some of the sentences meted out. Pestel, who had been arrested a day before the uprising, had been sentenced to death. Michael Orlov, on the other hand, who had been one of the founders of the secret society, was released under police surveillance. Peter Falenberg, slightly involved, spent years in Siberia under more difficult conditions than most. Michael Lunin, who was in Warsaw at the time of the uprising and had been abroad for some time, died in the Akatui mines in 1845.76 Most striking of all was the case of G. S. Batenkov, an outstanding victim of the Third Section's combined attention and neglect. Nicholas, who suspected him of insanity, ordered the Third Section to keep him in the Alekseevsky Ravelin (a part of the Peter

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and Paul Fortress reserved for higher state criminals) for observation. He was kept there for twenty years, a confinement that had nothing to do with his sentence (which had been to twenty years' administrative exile in European Russia). In the course of a belated reappraisal of his case by the Third Section, the commandant of the fortress wrote the chief of the Third Section (at that time, A. F. Orlov) that a man who had spent twenty years in the Ravelin ought not to be kept in European Russia: It would be awkward, not because he might be dangerous, but because of the influence which his stories of twenty years' imprisonment might exert. Similar occurrences are not unknown here and may be declared harmful. But enjoying freedom in Tobolsk or Tomsk, under the watch of the police, he will be, so to speak, in his place.77 One has the impression that the Decembrists, who had been hasty and immature in their attempt to seize power, learned political tact and finesse during their long exile, and carried on a more effective campaign against Nicholas from Siberia than the one they had undertaken on the Senate Square. The struggle this time was for "public opinion" rather than directly for power. In this struggle, the wives of the Decembrists played a key role. The wife of the Decembrist Poggio, mother of five children, had requested Benckendorff in March 1828 to inform her of the whereabouts of her husband. He had replied that it was not known. Nevertheless, she was permitted to write to him in care of the Third Section, and her letters were forwarded, with the money they often contained intact, although she had no means of knowing whether they reached their destination or not. Like all wives of state criminals, she was watched by the police, but her freedom of expression was not in any way interfered with. As long as she did not encourage large-scale meetings in her home, she could talk to friends and relatives, appeal for help and sympathy. In January 1829 Poggio was permitted to answer from the Sveaborg Fortress where he was incarcerated, and some time later he was allowed a regular correspondence with his family. Other wives had similar experiences; eventually, fourteen women

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joined their husbands, brothers, or sons in Siberian exile, but even before that time an aura of sympathy for them had been created in Moscow and Petersburg.78 Receiving petitions from Decembrist wives to join their husbands, Nicholas at first seemed anxious to prevent them and presented them with as many obstacles as he could without denying outright a privilege that belonged even to criminal exiles. If the nobility were truly the bulwark of the throne, and if the family was truly the repository of all morality (two essential points of Nicholas' ideology, public and private), how could he deny to devoted noblewomen their request to be reunited with their husbands? On the other hand, state criminals had to be isolated lest they infect wider areas of the population. One noblewoman, Mme. Volkonskaia, later put it that following one's husband into exile was, in Russia, nothing unusual, and that annually five thousand women followed their convict husbands to Siberia. Nicholas insisted that the Decembrist wives be stripped of their former status and acknowledged only as "wives of convicts-in-exile." Although convicts commonly lost status as nobility, it was unusual to deprive their wives as well. Children born in Siberia were to be counted in the census as state peasants and lost all rights as nobility, as if they themselves had been condemned to Siberia, a provision that did not apply to the children of ordinary criminal exiles. According to a law of 1822, wives of exiles had an unlimited right to return home, but this right was denied to the wives of the Decembrists. Even on the death of their husbands, Decembrist wives did not have the right to return to European Russia, except by special permission of the emperor. They could not dispose of their property freely as long as they were with their husbands, although in practice they managed to raise considerable sums of money. The power and freedom such funds put at their disposal aroused a certain amount of anxiety in government circles; the Minister of Justice, the Senate, and the Committee of Ministers all advised the emperor to deny them access to their property. Nevertheless, in 1833 Nicholas stated that wives of state criminals did not completely forego rights of property and inheritance.79

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Nicholas had been generous to many of the Decembrist families, especially to Mme. Ryleeva, to whom he had granted a large pension. Nevertheless, Ryleeva was closely watched. Von Vock reported to Benckendorff that there seemed to be suspicious gatherings at Ryleeva's house, public gossip, and so on, but further investigation disclosed that the visits concerned the children of poor friends that Ryleeva had adopted, and she was cleared in the Third Section's accounts of any "subversive" activities. Not so with Konovnitsyna and Volkonskaia, however, whose homes were reported as centers of discontent.80 It is not unlikely that their possible effect in St. Petersburg on public opinion influenced Nicholas to grant them permission to join their husbands at the Petrovsk Foundry. After their arrival, conditions at the Petrovsk Foundry and especially at the fortress, where the convicts were housed, improved enormously. Muravieva and Volkonskaia brought servants with them (serfs had been given the option by the Third Section of not attending their mistresses), and Muravieva received over a thousand rubles a year that could be applied in many ways, including bribery, to make things easier. The women were allowed an unlimited correspondence, although their letters had to pass first through the hands of the fortress commandant, who in turn had to account for them to the Third Section. They managed to write, nevertheless, indignant letters to their relatives in St. Petersburg. They complained that there was no light in their quarters and that the walls leaked wind. Nicholas found himself called on to deny that he had intended any such punishment; a rumor spread, perhaps under official initiative, that a prison without windows had been the idea of the local commandant, Leparsky. Leparsky, like so many Siberian officials, had shown considerable good will to the Decembrists. Moreover, the administration proved only too glad to welcome intelligent and competent personnel, men of the world; and many of the Decembrists managed to carve out considerable careers for themselves in the hinterland. They became teachers, librarians, emissaries, explorers, and managers. D. Zavalishin later became a high official

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in the Siberian administration (Nicholas, who felt ambiguous about these activities, had the Third Section compile a 589-page dossier on him, and a number of other Decembrists were the subjects of only somewhat less intense study.)81 When the rumor, current in St. Petersburg, that Leparsky had been responsible for the harsh conditions at Petrovsk, reached the commandant, he was indignant. He called in Zavalishin and Wolf and showed them the original plans for the prison, which had been confirmed by the emperor and which therefore had to be the emperor's will. In 1830, windows were constructed, as an act of imperial mercy. On December 6, 1830, Benckendorff wrote to Shakhovsky: "The Emperor . . . according to the genuine conviction of his own limitless magnanimity ordered that windows be constructed, to provide light in the fortress." With regard to the Decembrist wives, he added: "With their immodest grumbling about incidental, but necessary, discomforts, they show ungratefulness to the merciful monarch, who has already done all that is possible." Nevertheless, further complaints from the Decembrist wives wrought further improvements.82 In Moscow, the severity of the Decembrists' initial confinement in the fortress encouraged the rumor of "persecution by Germans." 83 The idea that the privileges of the nobility had been undermined was also discussed, since the nobility had been exempted by Catherine II from corporal punishment, including confinement in chains, and many of the Decembrists were known to have been kept chained for some time. Of course, state criminals were no longer officially members of the nobility; nevertheless, the fact of the Decembrists in chains displeased many. At the end of 1828, Nicholas ordered Leparsky to remove chains from all those Decembrists imprisoned within his command who deserved it. Leparsky replied that they all did. But the Decembrist Gorbachevsky refused to have his removed, insisting that he should not have been enchained in the first place.84 The war for public opinion was on in earnest. Perhaps the most striking of all the Decembrist propagandists was Michael Lunin. From Siberia he fought for the good name

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of the Decembrists and the "exposure" of Nicholas' regime. His sister was married to Count Uvarov, then a prominent official; later, Minister of Public Education. In letters to her, Lunin criticized government treatment of the Decembrists strongly and openly, in defiance of the Third Section. Two pamphlets by him were transmitted and printed abroad: "A Critique of the Investigating Committee's Report" and "A View of the Secret Society in Russia, 1816-1826." When a copy of the latter pamphlet, printed abroad, turned up in Irkutsk, a gendarme inspector was sent to investigate, and as a result Lunin was transferred under special watch to Akatui, where he died.85 The Decembrist A. N. Muraviev, having served out his term of exile, lived in Irkutsk as the appointed mayor. He lived comfortably but complained that, even though he was no longer considered a state criminal, his letters were being opened. A. N. Golitsyn, head of the Postal Administration, justified himself to Benckendorff: "A mistaken suspicion . . . the opened seals are replaced so skillfully that it would in any case be impossible to notice."86 In October 1829 Muraviev's privacy was invaded by a strange adventurer named Roman Maddox, whom he felt obliged to employ. In June 1832 Muraviev was appointed governor of Tobolsk; Maddox moved along with him, although nominally he was a soldier stationed at Omsk and had no papers. Strangely enough, no one questioned his movements. Roman Maddox had been a prisoner in the Schluesselberg, and later in the Peter and Paul Fortress, ever since at the age of nineteen he had attempted to defraud the state of many thousands of rubles by means of a scheme to enlist Caucasian tribesmen in the war against Napoleon. In the fortress he had made the acquaintance of several Decembrists and volunteered his services to the Third Section. In 1829, Benckendorff sent him off as a private soldier to Siberia, with orders to watch Muraviev. In 1832, Maddox reported that he had discovered a new plot. A secret society called the "Union of the Great Deed" was being formed. By way of Muraviev, money was being sent from Mos-

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cow to various Decembrists. Maddox even transmitted a set of secret symbols he claimed the society used to identify its members. Benckendorff reported to Nicholas: Having examined with great attention . . . the testimony of Roman Maddox concerning the existence of a secret correspondence among the state criminals . . . and the members of a new . . . society . . . which has as its aim the overthrow of the government, we find that although it is impossible to give full credence to the testimony of Maddox, a man by no means honorable, nevertheless, because of the importance of the matter, it cannot be left without attention — the more so, since information prior to Maddox's testimony established that a secret correspondence of state criminals with their relatives really did exist, although the information did not make evident that this correspondence had any criminal intent.87 As a result of Maddox's testimony, several Siberian officials (including Leparsky) were quietly transferred elsewhere. In 1833, Maddox presented a detailed denunciation, which included a "diploma" of membership in the secret society. The document was a curious mixture of fact and fancy, containing many vivid details of the Decembrist life in Siberia and the indulgences shown them by the local administration. Benckendorff sent Maddox several hundred rubles and arranged for him to return to Moscow, where he was to penetrate further into the new "conspiracy." In Moscow, Maddox ran into the opposition of the gendarme general, Lesovsky, and the Third Section's chancery director, A. N. Mordvinov (who had succeeded von Vock). But Lesovsky was a relative of Serge Volkonsky, the Decembrist; and Mordvinov was A. N. Muraviev's cousin. Benckendorff and Nicholas seemed to prefer to believe Maddox. Maddox, meanwhile, forgot himself. He married — and very advantageously — but without consulting the Third Section. Lesovsky quickly submitted a carefully reasoned report. The relatives of the Decembrists, he argued, were merely trying "to arrange what is necessary for them [the Decembrists] to have a better and less impoverished

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life" — and that was "neither a crime nor a plot against the government." Then he inserted casually: "Maddox's profitable marriage appears to me strikingl" Benckendorff and Nicholas were furious. Maddox was ordered to present an explanation within eight days, concerning all his activities, but particularly his venture into matrimony without official permission. Mysteriously, Maddox vanished. Two weeks later, he was captured and returned to the Schluesselberg Fortress, where he remained for twenty-two years. As late as 1850, the Third Section seriously investigated a fantastic plot with "Decembrist" connections. A Dr. Friedrich Mann had reported to the Russian ambassador in London, Brunnov, a society called "Young Russia," which included not only some old Decembrist names but the Russian ambassador to Persia (A. Medem), Charles of Brunswick, seventy-eight thousand soldiers, and a hundred and sixty-eight thousand members organized in five-men cells. Nicholas rejected the denunciation as "transparent nonsense," but only after careful investigation by the Third Section.88 It should be added that, from 1826 on, there were real plots as well, not of the Decembrists in Siberia, nor of any imaginary organization they had left behind, but inspired by them — for the most part among the very young, the students of various Russian universities and secondary schools. Among these, as one writer put it, "the impression produced . . . by the events of December 14 did not weaken for a long time; a Decembrist, no matter to which category he belonged, was looked on as a kind of demi-god."89 Bibikov wrote Benckendorff on March 8, 1826, from Moscow, that the students there were "a very dangerous element." Even conservative young men like Koshelev and his Liubomudry friends were agitated: "we almost wanted to be taken and thereby gain both fame and the martyr's crown." 80 At Kharkov University, students formed a secret society in imitation of the Decembrists. In Moscow, three students still in their teens, the Kritsky brothers, formed a circle which planned to rouse the population of Moscow to revolt in ten years by leaving a proc-

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lamation tacked to the statue of Minin and Pozharsky. A somewhat deranged young man named Hypolite Zavalishin (brother of one of the Decembrists ) traveled without papers to Orenburg where he succeeded in enlisting a handful of officers in a mythical secret society and then denounced them to the Third Section. There were many others.91 The participants in all these cases were dealt with most severely by the Third Section. There were no trials. The Third Section, or a special committee, investigated and reported to Nicholas, who passed sentence. In 1831, one of the Kritsky brothers died in a cell in the Schluesselberg after four years' imprisonment; the two others were held there incommunicado for many years longer. D. Tiurin, a member of the group, served eleven years in the fortress, four more as a soldier in the Caucasus, and twelve in Kolomna under police surveillance, from which he was released in 1856 as part of the general amnesty proclaimed by Alexander II. Zavilishin suffered a similar fate, and over thirty men had been arrested with him. Except for a few men at the Orenburg garrison, all these instances involved teen-aged boys. This was the underside of the gendarmerie's program of education.82 Out of so much feverish and pointless activity, the Decembrist myth soon grew out of all proportion to the actual event, and it increased until it was finally written into gospel by Lenin. He hailed the Decembrists as ancestors of a revolutionary movement with which they actually had almost nothing in common and which they touched only in the thin air of romance. And yet, for all the intensity with which the Third Section pursued traces of Decembrist activity and influence, it is strange to note that in 1828, Vladimir Davydov, a nephew of the famous patriot-poet, and a young man who had associated closely with many of the Decembrists, was given a post at the Russian embassy in London after having completed his education in England almost without scrutiny. There he dined almost every day with Nicholas Turgenev, one of the principal Decembrists, condemned to death in absentia, as well as with Kozlovsky, a man of known

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oppositionist sentiment. The three discussed politics freely, sometimes in the presence of the ambassador.93 In 1827, A. A. Ivanovsky, an official in the Third Section chancery, removed Ryleev's verses on the death of Byron, some excerpts from a poem by Bestuzhev, and some selections from the works of other Decembrists from the police archives, edited them a bit, and attended to their publication in a miscellany designed to raise funds to help the family of the Decembrist, A. O. Kornilovich.94 As the Third Section's survey for 1829 expressed it: "The gendarmerie has become the moral physician of the people. Everyone brings his sorrows and doubts to it." 95

Manners and Morals in the Third Section

Λ

3

Ψ

In the nineteenth century, in all the monarchies of Europe with the exception of England, court life assumed a military aspect, the aspect of the parade-ground. Even in France under the bourgeois king, Louis Philippe, the army, maintained more for "cabbage wars" against incipient revolt than for action against a foreign enemy, contributed a certain parade atmosphere. Russia under Nicholas was an extreme example of a common European phenomenon — the rigor mortis of the old monarchy.1 The army in uniform had been one of the proudest creations of the ancien regime. Chaotic individuals were made into soldiers. A sense of participation in a common cause under common conditions began to arise, albeit imperfectly, from the confusion of feudal survivals. The system of drill and maneuver, harsh and mechanical, that the eighteenth century developed had a pragmatic purpose in creating discipline and order out of recalcitrant materials.2 The army, even more than the police, fostered a sense of nation, and it should not be forgotten that the red flag, that revolutionary symbol, was used originally by the armies of the Sim King as the sign of martial law. Nationalism as much as technology made the eighteenth-century system of mechanical drill superfluous in combat. But it was not superfluous to a king,

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high-minded about the tradition of monarchy he had inherited, who felt the bases for his power crumbling about him. He needed it for reassurance. On the parade-ground his orders were executed with precision and finesse, and it became the model he sought to impose on all branches of the government. Nicholas I bore a resemblance to the enlightened despots of the eighteenth century. He worked hard at state tasks and tried to set an example of probity, self-sacrifice, and disinterestedness. He had a passion for technology and promoted technological improvements in all fields, including education. But he knew that the position of "first servant of the state" was not a secure one, that first citizens were eminently replaceable. He had to be the state, in the sense of Louis XIV, by divine right. To a great extent, of course, the monarchy, by politicising the church, had weakened the main moral support for divine right, or at least made its voice sound hollow. Nicholas never experimented with religion as his brother had done. He supported it as he supported military drill, with a passionate formalism, for the reassurance he found in it, and only insofar as its responses were entirely formal and fully to be expected. Nicholas found the same joy in religious ceremony that he did on the parade-ground. Divine right gave the king a paternal authority over his people, and the paradigm of the family was constantly invoked by Nicholas. The day of the execution of the five Decembrists, he issued a proclamation urging parents to "turn their attention to the moral education of their children." The gentry especially must serve "as an example to all the other classes."3 Nicholas in turn tried to serve as an example to the gentry. His family relations were marked by a special coziness, a simple comfort, and a Victorian sentimentality. In the family circle, no one dreamt of disagreeing with him or questioning his authority, and he could afford to feel comfortable.4 Nevertheless, he lived under great strain, and in the decline of his years (and also the decline of his general policy) in the 1840s even family relations began to break down. He had a mistress. He flirted with actresses. But it was all very formal and correct; the knightly bearing never collapsed.5

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In any case, he could never be sure that the nobility, especially the middle nobility, or gentry, "the soul of the Empire," remained properly filial in its attachment to the crown. The Decembrist connection was there to mock him. The gentry became the closest object of what von Vock called "the surveillance" — the network of spies, reporters, and rumor catchers in the employ of the Third Section.® The survey for 1827 had dwelt on the favorable impression which Nicholas' regime had made on this crucial middle class. And yet probably each of the positive accomplishments the survey listed had, for Nicholas, its underside. The prosecutions for malfeasance in office, in August 1826 (just before Nicholas' coronation in Moscow), had created such a stir that von Vock had expressed fears of the entire bureaucracy's tumbling down.7 The bureaucracy, "very depraved morally," as the survey for 1827 put it, was nevertheless essential to the government; in reforming it, Nicholas was anxious not to create too great a stir. A few officials in, say, the Ministry of Finance, would be arrested for administrative abuses. This would launch a rumor to the effect that there must be a plot against the government — a rumor which the Third Section would then detect and transmit, its own contribution to the bogey of revolt.8 "Litterateurs" might very well have been favorably disposed to the government for the moment. But an expanding press was a difficult force to control. In Austria, in spite of all the efforts of Metternich's Hofkanzlei, the periodical press was surprisingly critical of the existing regime — so much so that Metternich complained of the difficulty of finding a publisher for articles favorable to the government.® The support of journalists directly dependent on the government for financial and moral sustenance, of men like Grech and Bulgarin, might be included to a certain extent, but Nicholas always retained a high contempt for such publicity, a contempt which was shared by many of his officials. Writers like Delvig, Pushkin, and Prince Viazemsky, on the other hand, men of an altogether independent frame of mind, Nicholas distrusted in the extreme.10 "Public opinion, for the government," says the survey for

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1827, "is what a topographical map is for an army command in time of war." 11 Yet public opinion — above all as reflected by the Third Section's crude methods for tapping it, public opinion without publicity — is not so orderly as a topographical map. Von Vock wrote to Benckendorff on September 15, 1826: The lower classes of society, which formerly thought only of their own affairs, at present analyze all government orders. The result of this is that it is now more difficult to keep track of them.12 There is no "strict, unconditional legality" to public opinion; everything is not necessarily "subordinate to one fixed aim." — But it is unmistakably important. Talleyrand said quite truly: "I know someone cleverer than Napoleon, cleverer than Voltaire, than all Ministers present and future; and that someone is public opinion." Public opinion does not obtrude itself; it is necessary to seek it out. . . . Above all, you cannot put public opinion in prison.13 A few days later, von Vock expanded his notion of the significance of public opinion, which seems remarkable indeed, issuing as it does from the pen of a chief of the secret police. The concluding remarks of the second letter, however, seem more in character: "Public opinion is an evil when it commits an error in the choice of ends or means, and becomes in this way a force which opposes the government."14 Here von Vock personifies public opinion, and the implication is that, like a person, it can be put in prison after all. If one abiding concern of Nicholas' regime was, in a limited, wavering, and uncertain sense, public opinion, another was official secrecy. During this reign every normal government institution, including every provincial administration, acquired a public organ in the form of a printed periodical.15 At the same time, much if not most of the real governmental work was transferred from these "normal" institutions to a vast number of secret committees and to His Majesty's Private Imperial Chancery. Nicholas did not quite know what publicity meant. He wanted direct and open contact with all his subjects, but he could not countenance

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such intermediate institutions of spontaneous expression as a representative assembly or a free press. All spontaneous public displays were distasteful to him, and in this respect he made little distinction between opposition and adulation. The secret committee of December 6, 1826, was formed by Nicholas with a view to reforming the entire administrative apparatus, as well as the corporate organization of classes. To give substance to its recommendations the committee had first to sift through all the plans and papers, the multiple projects for reform, that had remained in the cabinet of Alexander I. In addition, it was instructed to examine critically the ideas of the Decembrists as expressed in their seized papers and the depositions made after their arrest. Since the committee was not only engaged in the business of "reform" (a dangerous word), but had been actually instructed to make use where it could of the ideas of state criminals, its very existence was painstakingly masked, even from persons in the higher spheres of the government. On one occasion, the committee found it necessary to hear the opinion of the Minister of Finance, Kankrin, on matters relating to financial reform. It was decided that he should be invited to several sessions informally, "without the existence of the committee [as such] being revealed to him." 16 So the minister sat in on a meeting, in an atmosphere that resembled that of an underground conspiracy, not knowing, or at least pretending not to know, where he was. But the reform activities of the government, although they were a touchy subject, were not entirely barred from publicity. Nicholas was anxious to show his best profile. Personalities in the government associated with an intelligent and conservative reformism were displayed for public approval: "Count Kochubey . . . and Count Speransky, on whom one must look as the bulwark of all intelligent and gifted men of the middle class," were the government's pride (not an extreme pride, to be sure), and the Survey of Public Opinion for 1827 had bewailed the fact that "in Moscow, there is not a single dignitary capable of playing a role similar to that of Counts Kochubey and Speransky in St. Petersburg." 17

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In Moscow, dangerous personalities dominated the opinion of high and middle society: N. S. Mordvinov, Prince Kurakin, and General Ermolov. "Mordvinov's party is dangerous because its watchword is the saving of Russia" — around him the so-called Party of Russian Patriots grouped itself.18 Even the personalities on whom the government most relied were not to be entirely trusted. Count Speransky remained under surveillance. And the Grand Duke Constantine, the senior member of the imperial family, because of his close Polish ties and his great concern for Polish affairs, embarrassed Nicholas after the Polish uprising of 1830-1831. Benckendorff, in reporting Constantine's death in the Third Section's survey for 1831, probably reflects the emperor's relief. The report is carefully oblique but notes that, although the death has saddened many, "in another sense the public has judged that this circumstance will remove much of the opposition to the government's orders relating to affairs with Poland." With regard to the epidemic of cholera that broke out in Moscow in 1830 (it was Russia's first such experience), the survey remarked: The cholera, in spite of its unfortunate consequences, has been reflected beneficially in terms of public opinion; it has deflected minds from political matters, and has given the sovereign an opportunity to show his love for the people and his concern for the general welfare.19 The Third Section, like the cholera, was calculated to give the sovereign an opportunity to show his concern for the general welfare. By way of the Third Section, two to five thousand petitions reached Nicholas annually in the 1840s (four to ten thousand more, similarly processed by the Third Section, reached him in the course of imperial tours ). These concerned family life, trade contracts, personal quarrels, projects for inventions, flights of novices from monasteries, requests for special dispensations to permit travel or education abroad (from 1834 on the laws concerning issuance of passports and residence abroad were very strict), and Nicholas examined them all. He insisted that all peti-

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tions in his name had to reach him in their entirety, and out of each of these the Third Section made a "case."20 In addition to appeals and petitions, the Third Section was obliged to accept and examine carefully all denunciations and exposures of plots against the government or the person of the emperor or the imperial family. Here, Nicholas' fears of a continuing plot of international dimensions involved him closely in the Third Section's work. All signed denunciations had to be accounted for, and sometimes anonymous denunciations as well. Leaders of the Third Section (since such an institution could scarcely hope to remain entirely the apple of the public's eye) were frequently denounced. Benckendorff and his successor, A. F. Orlov, on occasion had to answer directly to the emperor for their conduct or the conduct of their chief subordinates, on the basis of quite irresponsible information presented against them. This was the case in 1831, when A. B. Golitsyn accused almost everyone in the government of participating in a vast conspiracy, and again in 1843.21 Nicholas' system of open appeal and denunciation, although vaguely reminiscent of Paul's yellow box, and indeed of the policy of all absolute monarchs to make themselves directly available to the citizenry without the suspect intermediacy of formal institutions or high aristocracy, created an unprecedented problem. Fifteen thousand appeals, petitions, and denunciations — and the number in the 1840s sometimes exceeded that — could not be processed effectively. In 1842 Nicholas issued a law making false denunciation liable to the same punishment as the crime denounced. But the law still permitted, or, rather, failed to prohibit, denunciations by children against their parents, serfs against their owners, soldiers against their military superiors. And the premium on "true" denunciation remained.22 Nicholas had rewarded with great pomp the betrayer of the Decembrists, Sherwood, by granting him a patent of nobility, a coat of arms, an estate, serfs, and a military commission. Rich and well-known informers he rewarded by official declarations of "monarchical gratitude." Serfs were liberated, soldiers promoted; pensions, money, estates, were common rewards. The

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number of denunciations did not diminish. The provincial gendarme colonel, Lomachevsky, wrote in his memoirs that the crucial test of a gendarme's ability lay in knowing which denunciations to disregard.23 In St. Petersburg, however, in the shadow of Nicholas' tireless presence, the Third Section's chancery could afford no such luxury. A curious action taken by Nicholas himself, by way of the Third Section, indicates a kind of desperation in avoiding reality: the practice of declaring people insane. After 1835 this was not uncommon. The Chaadaev case, which will be dealt with below, is a famous example. Ivan Sviatopulk-Mirsky, Rigaud, and others were inspected by the gendarmerie for their mental health and found unfit.24 Nicholas knew very well, as Polievktov has observed, how to draw into his service able and gifted administrators. Speransky, Kankrin, and Kiselev are outstanding examples. This ability seems all the more striking if one takes into account that Nicholas' personal preferences, his friends and favorites, all ran in the direction of mediocrity. Unfortunately, Nicholas was so caught up in the fear and uncertainty of his time that the men of ability he had the sense to choose had but little latitude; they were constantly cut short, interfered with, or simply ignored by Nicholas, who entrusted the real work of government not to the men nominally assigned by him but to his favorites, by way of special commissions.25 In an autocracy, of course, all institutions are subordinate to the will of the autocrat; but even in an autocracy, institutions have a continuing tradition, a kind of constitution which the autocrat cannot, at least not conveniently, contradict. The Third Section was designed precisely to circumvent the relative independence of such institutions. There is a formlessness in its daily workings far more capricious than one finds in the various ministries, the army or the navy. Until 1831, the Third Section had no fixed location. At that time, however, a house was purchased at the corner of the Moika and Gorokhovaia Street in St. Petersburg, and there gendarme headquarters and the Section's chancery were installed.2® This purchase of a large and elaborate

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establishment may serve to indicate that the Third Section, also, was becoming an institution. In 1838, the Third Section transferred its quarters to what had formerly been the residence of Count Kochubey, near the Chain Bridge. The house had been famous for its splendid balls, for which carriages would line up along the river street sometimes for a mile or more. From a center of luxury, gallantry, and high life, the "house on the Chain Bridge," as it came to be known, became partly a prison with iron bars, secret passages, and carriages arriving and departing furtively at night. From the street one could see, moving within, instead of Count Kochubey's elegant guests, Count Benckendorffs rigid clerks at their tasks.27 Alexander Khristoforovich Benckendorff was a nobleman from the Baltic provinces, whose grandfather had achieved distinction in the Russian service and whose grandmother had been in attendance on Catherine II. Until 1837, he was Nicholas' most trusted adjutant. In 1837, the circumstances of his personal illness as well as a number of embarrasing scandals lowered his prestige at court, although formally his status remained the samé. From 1837, A. F. Orlov began to replace him in the emperor's entourage, and when Benckendorff died in 1844, Orlov became Chief of Gendarmes.28 Reared in a tradition of loyal court service and strict military discipline, Benckendorff was personally a gentle, courtly, humane, and extremely absent-minded man. In the tight and highcollared uniform of his office, he had a firm sense of practical limit: on more than one occasion he pacified Nicholas' fierce outbursts against the Poles and the Jews, during which the emperor threatened to impose extremely harsh penalties (to no apparent purpose) on these minorities. Outside his office, he was subject to an almost fabulous distraction of mind, so that it was said of him on more than one occasion that he could not remember his own name. Where his duty was not clearly prescribed, and his personal kindliness not immediately affronted, he was terribly unsure of himself, tending simply to act for personal gain — for his own profit or sensual satisfaction — although he was not fundamentally, like his agent Fadei Bulgarin, a corrupt man.29

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A passage from Benckendorff's memoirs bears witness to an extreme and naive conservatism: One should not be too hasty with education, since it is hardly desirable that the common people should be lifted, in the range of their understanding, to the same level as their monarch, since this would undoubtedly lead to a weakening of monarchical power.30 Sometimes his devotion to the status quo seems a parody of Nicholas'. In a letter to his friend Prince Vorontsov, he criticizes a project of purely administrative reform circulated by the Minister of the Interior among the governors for suggestions and alteration: It is one more proof of that very dangerous malady of change which is undermining the whole world in this century. I consider it a veritable scourge among us everywhere, where everything ought to be stable like the absolute power itself, which is fundamentally indispensable to our existence. One can, and one should try to improve, perfect; but there ought to be no changes except on the sovereign's own initiative, and quite rarely at that.81 It was partly for this very unwillingness to undertake anything on his own initiative that Nicholas prized him so. A Guards officer from the age of fifteen, Benckendorff had made himself especially useful as a courier, and he served on a number of secret missions for high officers and even for Alexander himself. After the Peace of Tilsit, he was assigned to the staff of the Russian embassy in Paris, where he had an opportunity to observe the impressive French gendarmerie under Savary's administration. His rise was rapid and, after 1812, almost meteoric. His talent for carrying out orders and delivering commissions as presented served him well. Alexander made use of him but treated him with a certain hauteur — a cause of pain to the devoted Benckendorff.82 Some years after his service in France, Benckendorff shared his impressions of the gendarmerie with a number of Guards officers, among them the future Decembrist, Serge Volkonsky. He proposed that they band into a kind of informal vigilance

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committee to protect Russia from the French Revolution, a group of "right-thinkers," which could later staff an elite police, the formation of which he would himself recommend to the emperor. Alexander left Benckendorff's recommendations, along with his "exposure" of secret societies in Russia, in the imperial cabinet where Nicholas, in due time, found it. Volkonsky wrote: With the accession of Nicholas, Alexander Khristoforovich brought his idea to pass; with the full conviction — and of this I am convinced — that the activities [of such a police] would protect people from various oppressions, and protect them in time from what might be their errors.33 Having served faithfully in the army (especially on the crucial day of December 14, when he commanded the forces on Vasilevsky Island), having vigilantly detected the menace of the secret societies, having personally observed the operation of the most efficient police in Europe, and being entirely modest in his will to power, Benckendorff seemed to Nicholas an ideal chief of political police. M. A. Korff, for some years also a member of the State Council, described Benckendorff's state activity in the following manner: Often it turned out that after a session at which he had been present from beginning to end, he asked me how proposals he himself had introduced had been acted on. . . . One should add that he was . . . very courtly in his conversation; but he . . . studied nothing, read nothing. . . . His usefulness was entirely negative: that he occupied a place of such great power, with all the apathy that paralyzed him, and not some one else, not only less kind than himself, but even someone merely striving to act and to excel.34 In a position in which, to function effectively, he would have had to know in detail (as the gendarme colonel, Ε. I. Stogov put it) "everything that was said and done yesterday in all of Russia," he could scarcely remember his day-to-day appointments. Every morning, Stogov wrote in his memoirs, Benckendorff made an appearance in order to say a few words to the petitioners waiting in his anterooms:

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Knowing the Count, we knew very well the complete uselessness of these receptions. He listened to each petitioner politely, without understanding a thing; he had never seen the petitions beforehand. And yet, the public was quite satisfied with his politeness, his patience, and his comforting turns of phrase.36 In addition to his massive inertia, Benckendorff possessed other qualities which tended to vitiate his power as head of the Third Section: his very great social vanity and his sense of the personal honor of a gentleman. Fond of the social whirl and handsome ladies, Benckendorff tried as best he could to maintain the dignity of a knight of the grand salons. He wrote to his friend Prince Vorontsov that it was becoming increasingly difficult for him, because of sheer age, to waltz until 3 A.M. and then rise to inspect troops six hours later.3® Above all, he wanted to be loved by the lavish great world, and he was uncommonly touched when, during his illness of 1837, the powerful and the rich of Russia visited him at his estate in a long procession. The idea that a visit to the ailing Count Benckendorff might perhaps serve to curry favor with Nicholas (or with himself, if he recovered) seems never to have occurred to him.37 Present at all the splendid balls, with his (as Pushkin's sister described it) "bitter-sweet smile, as though he had just bitten into a lemon," he nevertheless remained peripheral to the haute monde he so loved. He was a Baltic German, intellectually undistinguished, and, most telling of all, he was Chief of Gendarmes, a "spy." However much he might be feared (and sometimes the ladies of high society, if not their husbands, showed a striking lack of fear), he could never be fully accepted as "one of ours." For those among Europe's more brilliant hostesses who accepted him, he spared no pains. A Frenchwoman whom Korff claims to have been Benckendorff's mistress succeeded in converting him to Roman Catholicism, as well as wringing from him numerous smaller favors. But the snubs and half-snubs he received in Petersburg society, and even more so in Moscow, made him exceedingly sensitive to questions of honor, problems which were, in spite of compromise and confusion, quite close to him.

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Once in 1830, after seeing a performance of the comedy, "Acquainted Strangers," Benckendorff invited the vaudeville actor Karatygin to visit him. "The Sovereign was very pleased by your vaudeville," he told him: and you, if you are willing, could gain much in the opinion of His Majesty and in your career. Insert into your vaudeville a few couplets, patriotic in content, with reference to current events [i.e., the Polish revolt, the cholera epidemic in Moscow]. If your heart might prompt you in a word of praise for the Sovereign, it certainly would not spoil the effect intended on the public. Think over my proposal, and give me an answer in a day or two.88 Karatygin reflected, not without some anxiety, but finally refused. At his refusal, Benckendorff extended his hand: "Until now I liked you as a man of talent; now I respect you as a man of honor!" 89 That attractive women could think him a spy was a matter that continually rankled. On July 21,1826, von Vock wrote to him: In order to amuse your excellency, I should transmit, that in a small group at Countess Konovnytsin s, it was said that you, your excellency, and I — we were the most dangerous spies.40 And again, with regard to these unreasonable "feminine critics," on September 24, 1826: It is impossible to sneeze at home, they claim, to make a move, or to say a word, without the Sovereign finding out about it [Benckendorffs note, half-petulant, half-"humorous": Quite an accomplishment, if one could believe if]. But, if the government doesn't try to find out everything, how is it to learn what to do, and by what means guide its executive orders? 41 In the survey for 1828, which Benckendorff approved even if he did not actually write it himself, there is even a certain regret implied that "in general, women are beginning again to gain the influence and power, which it seemed they had lost." 42 The power of personal relations should not, indeed, be underestimated. In the old Russian bureaucracy it was almost as power-

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fui a force as corruption. One of the most trusted and respected of Nicholas' governor generals, Prince D. S. Golitsyn of Moscow, for example, was warned by the Third Section in 1838 that a number of satirical songs and political diatribes in circulation among students at Moscow University had been traced to someone in his chancery. It was a serious offense, and Golitsyn was asked to submit a report concerning the identity of the author. The governor general knew from the beginning that the culprit could be none other than Stromilov, a young man he rather liked. Calling Stromilov into his office, he reprimanded him, urged him to mend his ways, no doubt winked meaningfully as he dismissed him, and then submitted a report to the Third Section to the effect that he could not discover any writer of seditious verses in his office and that someone must surely have made a mistake.43 Sometimes relations within the imperial family itself served to mitigate the power and effectiveness of the Third Section, the autocracy blocking its own ears and eyes, so to speak. In Poland, the Grand Duke Constantine was the Russian viceroy. He was Nicholas' older brother, who had renounced his own rights to the throne and who ruled in Poland as a dour but conscientious tyrant. Relations between him and Benckendorff had always been cordial, but Constantine would not tolerate Russian gendarmes in the kingdom of Poland.44 With the Grand Duke Michael, Nicholas' younger brother, Benckendorff's relations were far from cordial. Michael commanded a Guards brigade with the full measure of despotism and none of the capacity for work and self-discipline that distinguished his brother. In March 1827 Benckendorff complained to Nicholas that the Grand Duke was preparing the ground for another mutiny in the Guards corps. Michael received a reprimand, discovered its origin, and from that time on campaigned vigorously, if covertly, against the head of the Third Section. Benckendorff, who had little talent for intrigue, complained in a letter to Dibich that if things got much worse I will request a place from my brother [a general of field forces] at the head of some cavalry unit; there at least when battle is imminent, intrigue remains behind the lines.4®

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During his service, Benckendorff received many honors and rewards. His income from investments alone was estimated by Pelchinsky at something approaching half a million rubles a year. But he was a spendthrift and died in debt, so that his wife had to sell his estate at Fall, near Riga.46 There is no evidence that Benckendorff openly received bribes, although his close friendship with unscrupulous men of great wealth like the millionaire Count Pototsky (imprisoned in the Schluesselburg after Benckendorffs death) and the gambler Politkovsky (subsequently discovered to have embezzled over a million rubles) gave rise to many rumors. But he indulged quite freely in the practice of making his influence and his power as head of the Third Section available both to private parties and to corporations. A. I. Delvig, one of the pioneers of railroad building in Russia, has some bitter pages in his memoirs concerning a lawsuit in which he was involved. Benckendorff had succeeded in hopelessly complicating a simple testamentary case, and for years, because the plaintiff was a person close to him.47 Even more damaging to the Third Section's prestige was the role Benckendorff allowed to himself in a number of commercial enterprises. V. Pelchinsky, a contemporary writer on the Russian economy who published in France, noted: The Chief of Gendarmes serves as director with a whole series of corporations: railroads, the Luebeck steamship, fire and life insurance. From each of these he receives ten thousand rubles a year, not counting the immense quantity of shares, the speculating on which must provide him with at least half a million.48 In his capacity as director Benckendorff did precisely nothing: "He appears once a year, at the time of the approval of the annual accounting, in order to read it through." But in his capacity as head of the Third Section he was an invaluable asset. In the flurry of commercial activity which greatly increased the number of corporations during the reign of Nicholas, civil justice as practiced in the courts loomed as a formidable obstacle to effective business. In the Winter Palace itself legal arguments held small sway, the emperor himself having delivered at least

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one tirade against lawyers for having "ruined France."4® The Third Section, however, had the power to withdraw any case, civil or criminal, from the normal course of its procedure, and could either call it to the immediate attention of the emperor or bury it quietly in its own files. With a certain subdued indignation Pelchinsky continues: This privilege of the Chief of Gendarmes to enter into commercial enterprises is quite prejudicial if one takes his service position into consideration — a position which excludes the possibility of any kind of objection to the various administrative abuses of the enterprises in question. In more advanced countries it can hardly be believed that in Russia industrial enterprises cannot exist without the protection of the Chief of Gendarmes, at just the time when, everywhere else, they are demanding full independence.60 Even the Prussian government, so closely related to the Russian by ties of blood and ideology, found occasion to protest to Nicholas concerning the special privileges granted the Luebeck Steamship Company, on whose board of directors Count Benckendorff served.51 The house on the Chain Bridge was one of the busiest spots in St. Petersburg. If its immediate landlord, Count Benckendorff, moved only by inertia, its presiding spirit was the tense, tightly laced figure of Nicholas himself. Someone had to do the work: the ideal arrangement for an eminence grise. Until his death from cholera in 1831, Michael Iakovlevich von Vock, and from 1838 until 1856, Leonty Vasilevich Dubelt, actually played such a role. What seems remarkable is not so much the presence of clever men in secondary positions as the absence of struggle on their part for greater eminence — an odd contrast to Fouché's Ministry of Police, or Count Haager's. Dubelt voluntarily retired at a point when he might have become head of the Third Section and a count. Von Vock seemed always content to allow Benckendorff to take credit for his observations. A physician's son who had begun his career in the secret police early in life, von Vock in all likelihood could not have ingratiated himself successfully with Nicholas. Pushkin reported the emperor as grieving on hear-

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ing of the chancery director's death: "I have lost Vock. I am sorry I was never able to like him." Pushkin in his journal quickly added: "Who replaces him is a more important problem than that other, of what we will do with Poland." 62 Przeclawski, who had been employed in the chancery of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Petersburg, described a chance meeting with von Vock in a corridor in the inquisitorial days of 1826, shortly after all officials had been obliged to swear that they no longer belonged to any secret society and to report dutifully (listing names) any such society they might have previously joined: He took me aside and faced me in the direction of the light. Then looking me steadfastly in the eye, he began to interrogate. Above his right eye, there was an immense growth of hair; he kept winking it uninterruptedly, and it gave his face a strange, even a somewhat frightening, appearance, which he seemed to count on in the process of interrogation. He said to me: "I read your attestation, and I must admit, it surprised me. You were such a young man, and yet you were admitted into a society the members of which were, for the rest, at least twenty-four years old." I replied that they made an exception for me, acknowledging me sufficiently mature at eighteen. But I soon discovered that it was not masonry he was examining me about. It seemed that he had been skeptical of my testimony denying membership in the student societies, and he asked how it happened that I hadn't joined one. I answered that it was very simple; that I had left the University a year before the first such society had been founded. At this point, von Vock reminded me that according to the words of the statute concerning attestations, any attempt at concealment entails a strict punishment.53 Von Vock's letters to Benckendorff during the summer and fall of 1826, and the surveys he prepared from 1827 to 1830, display the same sense of the dramatic, the same shrewdly indirect approach, and the same fierce energy that Przeclawski implied. He seems entirely concerned with improving the position of the Third Section relative to other state institutions, expanding its

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functions as broadly as possible, and enlisting the "right" people to serve in it. He justifies his efforts by "the emergency": In the present state of things it is impossible to be sufficiently cautious; for experience has shown that anticipatory measures which seemed childish at first glance subsequently served as a guarantee of the social welfare.54 His technique of persuading his superiors was to let public opinion speak for him ("they say"): Some say: "Here is a control for both the city and the rural police. It would do well to extend its operations to the activities, behavior, and morals of all persons to whom the executive part of government has been entrusted. . . . Its means are well conceived and should have some effect, but only if the organs of the higher police — that is to say, the 'aces' — are selected from a very limited circle of honorable people; otherwise, the cure will be worse than the disease, since there will be two bad police instead of just one. This will happen inevitably if the organs of higher surveillance cease to form a separate category; a category which allows them to correct from outside, to assume the role of teachers. . . . A good example is the best means of education."65 Having brought a number of agents into the Third Section with him from his former position in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, von Vock remained especially on the alert for the service of people who were not typical police spies: the respectable and prominent people, the elite group of "teachers" Benckendorff had made it policy to enlist. He notes that a triple value attaches to landowners like Nefedev and Sollogub who have volunteered their services in Moscow (where the Third Section had but few agents ) : they can be trusted, they need not be paid, and in case of discovery the Third Section's respectability need not come into question. But when his efforts at recruitment do not succeed, a disturbingly modern note inserts itself into von Vock's remarks: People who enjoy all the privileges of origin, wealth, and intellect, and do not use these gifts to the advantage of the general welfare, are guiltier than plotters.6®

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He is even capable of accusing private persons of espionage for foreign powers, confusing ties of blood and friendship to citizens of other countries with actual treason.57 In his reports on public opinion, von Vock usually expresses unfavorable aspects with a certain generality: "There is much chattering." Sometimes, he is cryptic: "Secret societies are not formed without foreign influence" (assuming that his superiors will know what he means ). In reporting what "people say" about the emperor, however, he allows himself to linger over flattering details — "the family virtues of the monarch," and so forth — and when public opinion supports the autocracy, it seems to do so in particulars: "They say that the former rights and privileges of the Senate, as well as the laws with regard to this institution, have . . . outlived their age." Or: The State Council is unnecessary, or for that matter, any mediating institution between the head of the state and his people. Constitutional forms of government are not necessary, since authority is and should be indivisible.58 Von Vock's reports deal violently with those ministers and generals, whose systems of espionage compete with his own — Chernyshev, Dibich, and especially Zakrevsky (Minister of the Interior) : He [Zakrevsky] sends all information communicated to him by the gendarmerie to the governors, telling them from whom it came. This mars the usefulness of the gendarmerie and calls down on it the ill will and all the chicanery of the local authorities. No matter how often it is explained to him that these reports are . . . designed exclusively for his own private information . . . he does not desist . . . entirely because of an unseemly hatred for an institution, which in his opinion breaks into the sphere of his competence.69 In a similar vein he criticizes the postal administrator, Golitsyn, for his unwillingness to cooperate with the surveillance. Most vehemently and most consistently, von Vock allowed "opinion" to malign the Minister of Finance, E. F. Kankrin, who waged a consistent campaign for economy in government. "They

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say that Kankrin is not at all a good patriot." "Society not only expresses itself strongly against the person of General Kankrin, who surely cannot muster even five voices in his favor, but against the financial system as well." "People say that the protective tariffs have done much harm and have resulted in a great increase in contraband." ° Kankrin's tight-fisted fiscal policy put the Third Section at a considerable disadvantage compared with its most formidable rival, the Petersburg police which, having been in operation a long time, managed to establish a system of what might be called "informal taxation." "The poorest ward provides its police superintendent with as much as three thousand rubles a year." In contrast, the means at the disposal of the Third Section seemed quite limited to von Vock. The police had established "circles" for observation in the wards; the Third Section, on the other hand, found its operations hindered at every point by the first-comers: "The activity of our surveillance might be very much broader were it not for the obstacles which the police puts in its way." 60 The Petersburg police, in the meantime, were apparently not unmindful of their new rival. Von Vock reports: I must speak to your excellency concerning an incident that is as stupid as it is in many ways unpleasant. The police have issued an order that my activities be followed, as well as the activities of the organs of surveillance. Police officials, disguised in civilian clothes, stroll about the small house I live in and observe my visitors. Let us assume that my activities should not cringe from the light of day, still, no good can come of this: Surveillance itself made the object of surveillance in spite of all sense and correctness [these words, underlined by Benckendorff, with the marginal note: "It will be necessary to determine whether Vogel did this on his own authority, or by order"], inevitably must lose, in this * In the Survey for 1832, prepared almost two years after von Vock's death, there is a complete turnabout with regard to the Minister of Finance, the same General E. F. Kankrin, who could not muster five voices in 1826: "Public opinion is almost entirely agreed that finances in Russia have never been so well administered as now. . . . There have been three cruel wars and not one new tax." A. K. Benckendorff, "Graf Benkendorf o Rossii ν 1830-1832 gg.," Krasnui arkhiv, XLVI (1931), 139.

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regard, the respect which ought to be shown it if its activities are to make any progress.61 He dwells on their ineptness: The detectives used by the police proclaim their business far and wide, and they are not forbidden to do so. . . . To send such chatter-boxes to shadow me . . . gossips at whom the street-urchins point their fingers . . . I shall say no more.62 In order to deal with such "dense" rivals more effectively, von Vock quotes one of his own agents as suggesting: On the one hand, to institute in the name of the surveillance certain musters or draft allotments, out of which it might be possible to set up circles of observers; on the other hand, to put a sum of fifty thousand rubles at the disposal of the surveillance, for its use, under cover of a mortgage on immovable property and valuables, in the way of a loan, and at a moderate interest rate. . . . This would consequently make it possible to remove the obstacles set up by the activities of the police, for then its means and those of the surveillance will be equal, and that means a lot [Benckendorffs note: "A very good idea; prepare this matter for my return"].63 But even after this concession, his complaints that police agents interfere with his own do not cease. Since the main function of the political police is considered to be "educative," it is by no means strange that von Vock considers the Minister of Public Education also to be a rival of his. Both Shishkov and Lieven are criticized for their lack of interest in writers and journalists. (Von Vock, on the other hand, thinks himself at home in the literary world.) This is dangerous, for "those purveyors of opinion are people who enjoy more influence at present than at any other time." Von Vock commends Bulgarin's project for a directed press (see below) and suggests alleviation of the censorship law. He emphasizes all the negative, unnecessarily restrictive aspects of censorship. And in order to soften Nicholas' distrust of the press, he dwells on the exceptional loyalty of writers, their unprecedented enthusiasm for the new monarch:

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The litterateurs are excellently oriented. Several of the main inspirators of public opinion in literary circles are very devoted to the sovereign, and they act on the others [the above lines underlined by Nicholas].84 In order to improve "public relations" von Vock suggests the abolition of the "address offices" ( adresnye kontory) —where all house servants and nonfree members of the population had to register and pay a burdensome tax — in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In short, he concerned himself with everything, although everything did not necessarily yield to his concerns. As distinct from von Vock's secret agents, who served according to no fixed rule, gendarmes were paid a salary according to military rank. The expense allowances for staff officers, however, were about three times those for equivalent military installations.85 The gendarmerie, moreover, being a new service, offered young men easier prospects for advancement. Although such young men, of good gentry family, were less hesitant to serve as gendarmes than as police spies, an odor of tainted honor clung even to the gendarmerie. In 1825, P. M. Golenishchev-Kutuzov-Tolstoy served as BenckendorfPs adjutant. Shortly after December 14, he appeared before the general with a report and was greeted: "Hail, Sir Gendarme Officer!" — which he took as a joke, since he had not yet learned of Benckendorff s assignment as Chief of Gendarmes. He replied awkwardly that he was in the uniform of the cavalry guard. Benckendorff: "I am going to wear the gendarme uniform myself, and I want you to wear it, too." I answered him: "Your service is already known to all Russia, and you can restore this uniform and make it respectable in the eyes of the nation. At my age (I was twenty-five) and in my rank it is really impossible to begin a military career as a gendarme." 88 What decided him in favor of the transfer, according to his own account, was the opportunity the institution provided him for putting his innate idealism into practice:

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Another instance may serve better to illustrate this mixed feeling of guilt and self-assertion that was not uncommon in the gendarmerie. Herzen called Leonty Vasilevich Dubelt the most intelligent man in the Third Section, "indeed, more intelligent than all the sections of His Majesty's Private Imperial Chancery put together." 68 Although he participated in many of the enterprises that gave a man a reputation for intelligence — he had been a liberal and was something of an amateur man of letters, a biblical scholar, and a wit — Dubelt's outstanding characteristic conveyed across the years, through his fragmentarily published aphorisms, a few letters, and numerous anecdotes in memoirs, is a violent but masked inner conflict, for which he received the sobriquet, "le général double." He also partook to the full of what Herzen called "the sense of romance of the police." An air of myth shot through with a faint odor of hypocrisy seems to cling to his behavior and personality. Born in 1793 of a romantic marriage (his father had eloped with an Italian princess), Dubelt was submitted to the rigors of military life at an early age. At fourteen he was a cadet; at nineteen he had been wounded at the Battle of Borodino. Later he married the niece of Admiral N. S. Mordvinov — a man suspected as a liberal and the presumed secret head of a "party of Russian patriots."69 The shadow of the fourteenth passed over Dubelt and he was mentioned among possible suspects, but he recovered, rising to the rank of colonel by 1829. But he had a violent temper, and that same year, after a personal quarrel with the commander of his division, he retired from the service. A bad year followed. On January 8, 1830, he wrote his wife

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from St. Petersburg, where he was seeking suitable employment, that in order to conserve their resources he had made an attempt at giving up tea and the theater, but that he hoped for an assignment soon as a provincial staff officer of the Corps of Gendarmes. She threw him on the defensive by objecting to this kind of employment. He wrote to her: "Don't be a gendarme," you say! But do you understand . . . the essence of the case? If, entering the Corps of Gendarmes, I became an informer, an eavesdropper, then, certainly, my good name would be sullied. But if, on the other hand, not mixing in cases that relate to the internal police, I became a bulwark for the poor, a shield for the unfortunate; if, while I acted openly, I came to insist that justice be done for the oppressed, to see to it that in the courts of law civil cases were instantly processed and justly directed — then for what would you reproach me? . . . Would I not then be worthy of admiration? Would not my position be most proper? 70 He reassures his wife (many, many times) that he has refused to have anything to do with the nastiness of the police. I requested of Lvov that he warn Beneckendorff not to recommend me, if there were any improper obligations incumbent on the office I would assume; that I do not agree to enter the Corps under his command if it entails acting on commissions which might give a good and honorable man pause.71 All he wants is a provincial assignment where "I would be my own master, and would receive an expense allowance." St. Petersburg has everything against it. The cost of living is too high; advancement seems blocked by others with obvious priority; and, curiously, "there is no doubt that the duties here are not entirely clean." 72 Dubelt never left St. Petersburg. Within eight years, he became Chief of Staff of the Corps of Gendarmes and Director of the Third Section's Chancery. It was he who forged administrative unity out of scattered components. It was he who directed the network of secret agents and gave audience to informers in the manner of a haughty high priest dealing with some despicable Judas.73 Through him, his wife's uncle became a count. His

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wealth and influence abounded. When Nicholas wanted to dismiss him in 1840, Benckendorff himself threatened to resign. When General Orlov replaced Benckendorff in 1844, bringing with him a man named Pozen, his own gray eminence, official St. Petersburg seemed certain that Dubelt would go; but Dubelt remained. He survived all the flashes of bitterness against him, and with his dark foxlike face, his impeccable manners, his quotations from Holy Writ, his smoldering, burdened eyes, he became the personification of Nicholas' political police.74 He could tyrannize. On one occasion he raged against the Third Section's agent of special commissions, Faddei Bulgarin, his own employee, who had printed in his newspaper some disparaging remarks about the Petersburg climate: "Look herel You dare to insult the climate of the Tsar's residence!"76 On another occasion, as a member of the Buturlin Censorship Committee, he objected to the mere use of words like "freedom," regardless of context.τβ His was not a tyranny of strength or that of a man whose use of power was easy and confident. With the accession of the new emperor in 1855, and with the retirement of Orlov, Dubelt was offered command of the entire Third Section. He demurred, insisting, against Alexander II's urgent request, that he was not enough of a dignitary to fill such an important post. He died in retirement, in 1862.77 If the leaders of the Third Section were by no means immune to doubts as to their "calling," such doubts occurred more rarely among the provincial staff officers, who, removed from the constricting shadow of the capital, had greater latitude than their commanders in St. Petersburg. "A gendarme is a police master of morals," wrote Ε. I. Stogov in his memoirs. "In Simbirsk [where he served] I was number one, and my word had weight and significance. Dubelt and Count Benckendorff in St. Petersburg served as my shield."78 Originally attracted by the relatively higher pay, Stogov proved himself a man of genuine talent in his work, the model of a provincial gendarme staff officer. Politically acute, he was what we might informally call today an "operator." He had skillfully arranged his transfer from the

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naval administration (which had forbidden all transfers) by using his friendship with Baron Schilling von Canstadt, a relative of Benckendorff's. Once assigned to the Corps of Gendarmes, he ingratiated himself with Dubelt (whom he recognized as "up and coming" ) by lending him money, and with Benckendorff by pretending that his name was really "Stockhoff." In Simbirsk where he was finally assigned, this talent stood him in good stead. Prior to his departure, Benckendorff had instructed him not to gamble and above all else to make himself liked. "If a gendarme is not liked," Benckendorff told him, "he is useless." He found, when he arrived in the province, that his position was by no means an easy one. Simbirsk is more than seven hundred versts from Moscow and more than fifteen hundred from St. Petersburg. In Simbirsk, I was a trustee of the sovereign; but my power depended entirely on my tact. . . . Confidence in the gendarme uniform . . . had been destroyed. My predecessor had been Colonel Maslov, an old-fashioned police type. He had wanted to be an inquisitor, and it had seemed to him glory to root about in dirty trifles, to sniff out the core of family secrets.70 Provincial society was very cold to Stogov and tried to keep him at a distance. The governor vied with him in much the same manner and for the same reasons that the Petersburg police had vied with von Vock. When he heard that petitioners had appealed to Stogov about local abuses, the governor called them in: "Gentlemen, we've had a little disagreement — that's our affair. Why call in the gendarmes?" He accused Stogov of "mixing in others' affairs." Stogov replied: "The gendarmes have been founded for just that purpose, to mix in others' affairs." At the same time, by way of appeasement, he promised to show the governor a copy of all the reports he sent to St. Petersburg.80 Stogov's plan was to diminish as much as possible the governor's unwarranted powers by means of which he had set himself up as an independent satrap, drawing tribute from local merchants and, so to speak, holding his own court. Stogov took great pains not to humiliate him publicly or in any way to prick the

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dignity of his office. Combining tact with coercion in this manner, Stogov managed to create a certain respect for the blue uniform in the province of Simbirsk. To the extent that it provided the provinces with a recourse against local ills, the Third Section was more than a mere instrument of repression and confinement. In the border provinces, especially in the eastern parts of what had once been Poland, the situation was very different from that in Simbirsk. A gendarme staff officer had to contend not only with the governor and the local police but with numerous investigating committees from St. Petersburg, and (after 1831) with General Paskevich, who commanded the troops of occupied Poland. The population seethed with dissatisfactions and even outright revolt. There was a religious problem, involving the Orthodox and Uniate churches and numerous sects of Old Believers. There was an acute economic and social problem. The official rights of the peasantry had been obscured by invasion, counterinvasion, and revolt, all accompanied by widespread removal and destruction of legal documents. (Since, in many instances, the peasants were Orthodox and Russian, whereas the landowners were Catholic and Polish, Nicholas showed a special solicitude for peasant rights. ) The national problem was perhaps the most acute of all, mingling with the others into a full-blown gendarme nightmare.81 A. Lomachevsky, who had entered the gendarmerie for reasons very similar to those of Colonel Stogov, found himself assigned to the Vilna district in 1840, shortly after the execution there of Emilian Konarski, an emissary of the Polish exiles.82 Combining the political acumen of Stogov with what seem to have been genuine humane impulses, he was interested in rehabilitating the reputation of the gendarmerie, in convincing people that he did not operate through secret agents and that he was not concerned with family secrets. He performed many small favors, recommending sons of local nobility for admission to the cadet corps in St. Petersburg, writing letters of introduction to notables for those visiting the capital; but he was also interested in seeing justice done, and in his memoirs he cites several instances in which his timely intervention saved innocent people from months in Schluesselburg.

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In the wake of the Konarski affair, about seventy people had been arrested in Vilna alone and were being investigated. Opportunists were quick to curry favor with the authorities, and a flood of unsolicited reports and denunciations poured into gendarme headquarters. Lomachevsky's main impulse was to keep his tasks to a minimum: I did not consider myself obliged to pursue the ineradicable, generally well known abuses, on which the administration itself looked, so to speak, through its fingers.83 Anonymous denunciations, and those clearly provocative in intent, he ignored. Late in 1840, on returning to Vilna after a short stay in St. Petersburg, he found two investigators grilling a Polish student named Rokicki, who had attempted to escape abroad. Rokicki freely admitted the attempt to escape but denied membership in any kind of secret society, and he informed Lomachevsky that he was being tortured to admit things he knew nothing about. The gendarme officer confronted Anisimov, the senior member of the investigating committee, who did not deny the use of brutality but who claimed that he was dealing with an emergency situation, "not just a stolen cow." When Lomachevsky pointed out contradictions in the testimony, he was told by the members of the committee that if he insisted on consistency from repentant criminals, he would "spoil the whole case" on which they had been working a year. On the one hand, members of the committee cajoled him with a share in the rewards that would be meted out after the case had been completed; on the other, they threatened him with the fact that both the governor and the governor general saw things their way. The existence of a plot of international dimensions was an assumption that even Lomachevsky hesitated to contradict: "In order to convince yourself of the existence of a plot," concluded Mr. Anisimov, "you have only to observe the activities of Thiers and the Egyptian Pasha, to read through the journal of the third of May issued in Paris, and the brochure 'Young Poland,' and then it will be clear to you that a plot has en-

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meshed not only Russia, but all Europe as well, and even Egypt." . . . One must not forget that this was spoken in 1841, when it was hard to tell about politics.84 In addition to the investigating committee, Lomachevsky had to deal with the rector of the local medical-surgical academy, Kuckowski, who had submitted a list of seventeen "disloyal" students after having had all notebooks and papers searched. Kuckowski demanded their arrest on the flimsiest evidence, and Lomachevsky, hard-pressed, appealed to St. Petersburg and to General Paskevich. Paskevich, because the "plot" presumably involved his troops, finally decided to intervene. A new chairman for the investigating committee also arrived (General A. A. Kavelin), and the case was finally resolved, according to Lomachevsky, satisfactorily. Most of the prisoners were released, although a few were sent off to punitive regiments.85 It should be added that the tone of Lomachevsky's memoirs in which these events are recounted is to a certain extent apologetic. They were published in 1872, when the events in Vilna seemed like persecution to a large part of the intelligent public. They were an attempt to "clear his name" and in this sense serve as a further illustration of the defensive mood prevalent among the more talented officers of Nicholas' police. The gendarmerie, with its blue, white-strapped uniforms, was the public face of the Third Section. For display, there were men like the dilettante-musician, Prince Lvov, who, after the unseemliness of using "God Save the King" had been pointed out to Nicholas, composed a new Russian national anthem; and there was M. M. Popov, the former teacher of Belinsky, proud of his former protégé, who twice invited the "violent Vissarion" to the Third Section's offices, ostensibly in order to introduce him to Dubelt (actually, to get a genuine sample of his handwriting for comparison with a threatening letter received by Count Orlov); and there was General Volkov, who went mad dreaming he had been offered the crown of the Jagiellos.86 The Third Section also had a private, more sinister face — its network of secret

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agents. The attempt to enlist volunteer spies of good reputation was never resoundingly successful. When General Esakov, for example, at the end of 1839 was hurriedly appointed commandant in Vilna in the wake of the Konarski affair, he planned to have his wife join him there later, and Benckendorff himself promised to see her comfortably on her way. Before bidding Mme. Esakova goodbye, however, Benckendorff, in his most courtly manner, suggested that she could be of great service to the Third Section by submitting reports to him of what was said in Vilna society. She replied with equal courtesy: "Count, I know you only as a gentleman of the salon, and I feel myself too stupid to be of any use to you in your role as a man of state."87 The Third Section could not entirely dispense with the more mercenary type of spy it had inherited (via von Vock) from the old secret chancery of the Ministry of the Interior. Among these we find many personalities, some intelligent and adventurous, others dense and merely mercenary; but all partook of a certain lack of scruple, with their connections shading dimly over into the depths of the criminal world. Boshniak, the botanist; Viskovatov, the translator and poet; Mme. Sobanskaia, the courtesan and mistress of General I. O. Witt, herself politically compromised in Poland; Platonov, a converted Jew; Khotiaintsova, the wife of a court actor — these are a few of the dark figures about whom, except for a casual reference here and there, little is known, except that they spied for the Third Section, occasionally broke into private papers, picked up gossip and rumors from house servants, and consorted on occasion with the underground criminal world of the capital cities. Normally, the attitude of gendarme staff officers and the upper reaches of the Third Section's bureaucracy to these professional or semiprofessional mouchards was that of "indulgence to the inevitable," modified by contempt. On a number of occasions, however, the Third Section ( taking its cue from the anxiety-ridden emperor himself ) displayed a certain willingness, almost eagerness, to be deceived. This was true with regard to the agent provocateur Roman Mad-

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dox and was a striking fact throughout the Third Section's uneasy relationship with John Sherwood.88 John Sherwood was born in Kent, England, in 1789. When he was two, his father, a skilled mechanic, migrated with his family to Russia. The adventurous from abroad no longer fared so well in the Russian Empire as they had two or three generations previously, and, although men of eminence could still transfer their careers, the chances for an upstart, if not entirely negligible, had been severely diminished. John Sherwood, at any rate, in spite of a relatively good education, the knowledge of several languages, English manners, and mechanical skills he had acquired from his father, had to begin his career at the bottom. On September 1, 1819, he enlisted as an ordinary soldier in one of the Petersburg infantry regiments. He was not without military endowments — later he was to distinguish himself as an officer in the Polish campaign of 1830-1831 — but his career lay in a different direction. Transferred to the Ukraine in 1820, Sherwood became a special agent, first for Major Bark-Petrovsky (later the author of a biography of his talented protégé) and then for General I. O. Witt himself. Witt informally directed the political police of the entire Ukraine, a sensitive area where Polish influence was especially feared and where the military colonies contributed many hundreds of deserters to the general turmoil and insecurity. Familiarizing himself with the military colonies (which were under Witt's administration), Sherwood began to suspect the existence of the Southern Society of the Decembrists. Informing neither Witt nor Bark-Petrovsky, Sherwood attempted to infiltrate Pestel's group and, after acquiring a certain amount of information about it (through F. F. Vadkovsky), by-passed his immediate superiors in an effort to contact the emperor himself. Chernyshev, and especially Arakcheev, thought his report implausible. Sherwood persisted and eventually managed to arrange an interview with Alexander. Before decisive action could be taken, however, Alexander died; the violent death of Arakcheev's mistress at Gruzino further delayed the arrest of the Southern Society. In the long run, Sherwood's report (and later his testimony before the investigating com-

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mittee) made but little difference; his evidence affected seriously only the prosecution of Vadkovsky. But Nicholas had been very much impressed by the spectacle of a "loyal soldier," persisting in his efforts to expose treason despite all the doubts of his superiors. In addition, Sherwood made a fine personal impression— handsome, soldierly, and polite. A certain tendency to bragadoccio went unnoticed. Nicholas, in an imperial manifesto, published in all the government newspapers, awarded Sherwood a patent of nobility — his shield depicting a hand raised in the oath of loyalty — and the title Vernyi (The Faithful) to add to his name. He was issued a commission in a Guards regiment, royally entertained, boarded at the home of Nicholas' chief of staff, General Potapov, and secretly assigned to the Third Section for special work. In 1827, Benckendorff sent him on a mission, along with Colonel Bibikov (later the governor general of the Ukraine), to Kiev and Odessa, to recruit officers and agents for the Third Section and to observe conditions in general. Sherwood had persuaded Benckendorff that a secret society still existed in the Ukraine, and Bibikov was instructed to give the young lieutenant all possible freedom. Sherwood, with an overbearing complacency, preached the virtues of the gendarmerie and urged his former commanders to "sign up now." He received denunciations from subordinates against their superiors; he threatened, cajoled, denounced. General Witt, who lost no love on his former agent, wrote a cold and calculating report on his activities to Benckendorff. Contrary to his orders, Sherwood parted company with Bibikov and returned not to St. Petersburg but to Moscow. From there, he requested leave of Benckendorff to travel in the Caucasus, for his "health." Benckendorff expressed solicitude, granted the request, and asked Sherwood in turn to "keep me informed of your observations, and of all incidents you consider worthy of attention" — adding a little uneasily, "with the appropriate lack of publicity, of course." Returning to St. Petersburg in 1828, the faithful Sherwood set up shop as an influence peddler. Another secret agent of the

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Third Section, Elizabeth Khotiaintsova, accused him in a report of proclaiming that he saw the emperor every day and that Russia was "administered by consultation with Sherwood." The denunciation went unnoticed. In 1829, after another special mission to the Ukraine, he was again denounced, this time by the gendarme staff officer, Colonel Rutkovsky, for attempting to involve innocent persons in a fabricated plot. Benckendorff began to look on him somewhat more coldly. His vanity easily wounded, Sherwood aligned himself with the Grand Duke Michael in the intrigues against Benckendorff, who commented in a note to the emperor: "This Sherwood is a regular pest." In 1830 Sherwood was quietly dismissed from the Third Section, and he volunteered for the Polish campaign, during which he rose to the rank of captain. Planning to revenge himself on the Third Section, he helped A. B. Golitsyn (an embittered former dignitary of Alexander's reign) to prepare an elaborate denunciation, which was submitted to the war minister in 1831.89 In Golitsyn s denunciation, Benckendorff was associated by way of Speransky with a vast conspiracy; and the "subversive" von Vock was accused of commanding "the entire chain" of secret opposition to the government. Khotiaintsova, in prison at the time (for fraud), switched allegiances and echoed Golitsyn's denunciation against those who, as she put it, had been with Speransky in his plot "to establish a constitution and free the serfs." Golitsyn, accused of false denunciation, had to spend long years in the Keksholm Fortress for his pains, but Sherwood remained unscathed. Prevented by Dubelt from swindling a decadent merchant who had come into a property worth several million rubles, Sherwood's bitterness against the Third Section increased. He tightened his alliance with the Grand Duke Michael and to him submitted a. series of "exposures" of the Third Section's ineptitude in dealing with the remains of Polish and Decembrist secret societies.90 Meanwhile, complaint after complaint poured into the Third Section's chancery concerning its former paragon of loyalty. He had absconded with a twelve-thousand-ruble dowry in a marriage he had "engineered," but this was dismissed as strictly an

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affair of the local police; his own wife appealed to the gendarmes to return him to St. Petersburg because she had not enough money to feed the children, but this, too, was dismissed. In 1842 he returned to St. Petersburg and appealed to Dubelt's agent, Oskar Koberwein, to intervene on his behalf to have him assigned to the Caucasus. Koberwein wrote Dubelt: This mercy he asks . . . of being given the opportunity to clear his name in the Caucasus recommends itself both as an act of mercy and (taking into consideration Sherwood's quick and decisive nature, now reduced to desperation) a necessary precaution.91 Benckendorff, in March 1843, recommended to the war minister that Sherwood be sent off to the Caucasus. Unfortunately, he was arrested before his orders could be issued, on the charge of having stolen another man's official papers. Exiled to his estate in Smolensk province, he prepared a long indictment of the Third Section (fifty handwritten pages) and submitted it to the Grand Duke Michael. Forced to defend himself against Sherwood's denunciation, Dubelt wrote icily: well-intended people are better satisfied with the current state of things than they have ever been, and they calmly expect even greater improvements in the future; the only ones who are dissatisfied are those who . . . would be so, no matter how things stood. . . . This report of Sherwood's is based entirely on rumor.92 Sherwood was arrested and confined in Schluesselburg Fortress, on a charge of false denunciation. Nicholas had been extremely reluctant to destroy a symbol of loyalty he had himself created. Even in the fortress certain privileges were shown him. But he was not released until the general amnesty of 1856, and, ten years later, he died. Faddei Venediktovich Bulgarin, called by some "Faddei Dubeltovich" and by Pushkin and Viazemsky in a series of epigrams, "Figliarin" (the juggler or buffoon), was a powerful and un-

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scrupulous journalist, used by the Third Section in several different capacities. Born in Poland on June 24, 1789, Bulgarin had moved to St. Petersburg with his mother after his father had been permanently exiled to Siberia in 1794 for killing a Russian officer. After a checkered career, which included military service with both sides during the Napoleonic wars, he settled down as a journalist in St. Petersburg, and, together with Nikolai Grech, a journalist and grammarian of Czech origin, founded the only daily newspaper in Russia at the time, "The Northern Bee" (Se-

vernaia pchela).93

Bulgarin was the most successful journalist and one of the most popular novelists in Russia during the reign of Nicholas; he was also among the first Russian novelists to be widely read abroad. His talent was scant; his ambition, crude and boundless; and he had much energy and few scruples. By 1827, he was known by the literary world to be in the employ of the Third Section, an employment which he exploited to terrorize journalistic rivals and timid censors. Bulgarin argued with Benckendorff and Dübelt, persistently and logically if unsuccessfully, that he should be exempt from the normal censorship. Under the sponsorship of the Third Section, however, Bulgarin's publishing empire flourished unprecedently. Curiously enough, Bulgarin had made his first contacts with the Third Section from prison, in 1826. He had been a kind of "brawling acquaintance" of many Decembrists and was quite close to some, including Ryleev; the arrest, however, had been occasioned not by the panic of December 14 but by his previous service in Napoleon's army. In prison he wrote very abject letters to the Chief of Staff, General Potapov, repenting his past and offering his services to the government. He included some notes, entitled "On Censorship in Russia and Book Publishing in General," which coincided with von Vock's ideas of "harnessing writers to the needs of the government." In the new censorship law there is one . . . great mistake. It says there that all writers must always, under threat of deprivation of livelihood, attempt to direct minds toward the goal designated by the government. It may have been proper

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to act in this manner, but it was wrong to publicize it — because this might destroy faith, both in the government and in writers, and our youth will believe nothing that is wrtten in Russian, asserting that everything is written not according to conviction, but by order.94 He recommended "a certain amount of open publicity," lamenting the fact that by the terms of the 1826 law writers were actually forbidden to praise the government. Young men, forbidden to talk about the theater, tended to talk about politics instead. A little indulgence, "even a shadow of freedom," some shrewd economic support of the right people, close police surveillance over writers the government suspected, and literature and journalism could become powerful forces in the government's favor. What he in fact advocated was replacing the censorship by police propaganda, keeping writers who could not be "influenced" by the police under close scrutiny: When writers are forbidden to print, they write secretly. There has been a lot of trouble with intrigues behind the scenes, and there will be more, unless the government puts this group under surveillance, and at the disposal of the higher police. [Italics mine.]85 Nicholas himself read and approved Bulgarin's notes. The Pole was released, and soon afterwards von Vock made his acquaintance. The Minister of Public Education was ordered to give him an appointment of the eighth rank in that ministry, where, without any specific task, he was to be considered an "agent of special commissions." Bulgarin began to exploit all his advantages with an obsessive eagerness. In 1844, shortly after BenckendorfFs death, Bulgarin commended himself to his successor: I have written many, very many, papers on the commission of Count Alexander Khristoforovich, from the beginning of the present fame-worthy reign, and very many important problems were presented to me for resolution because of my knowledge of places, subjects, and persons, and I have always had the good fortune to please, and received as reward the conviction that the Sovereign-Emperor was satisfied.96

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He considered primary among his assets his knowledge of Polish affairs, and his value as a "loyal Pole": All the proclamations to the Polish people and armed forces he wrote to Dubelt were written by me. . . . Count Alexander Khristoforovich told me on more than one occasion that, of all the Polish nation, I am just such an exemplary subject as the Sovereign only wished that all Poles were.97 N. Novosiltsev, however, superintendent of the Vilna school district and a power in Polish affairs, suspected him of being the ringleader of a "Polish party" in the capital. Before him, the Grand Duke Constantine had felt the same suspicion. Polish intellectuals, on the other hand, regarded him simply as a renegade. There was a taint of compromise in everything Bulgarin did. In addition to submitting numerous reports to the Third Section on various facets of government, from the censorship and the police to the system of protective tariffs, Bulgarin made his newspaper available for anonymous articles (until 1830 they were generally written by von Vock) designed to influence public opinion with regard to both domestic and foreign affairs; and he obligingly printed anything that might find favor with the imperial family. At the same time, he spared no pains to gain subscribers. On occasion, he even inserted criticism of certain minor institutions, such as the cab drivers who operated between St. Petersburg and Tsarskoe-Selo; on such occasions, the censors, who were his sworn enemies, pounced on him like a duck on a June bug, and he found but little protection in the political police, whose devoted instrument he was. All serious writers, of whatever persuasion, opposed Bulgarin and his partners Grech and Senkowski ("Baron Brambeus"). Pushkin, Viazemsky, Belinsky — all waged an unremitting struggle against their venal journalism, which judged literature on the basis of whether it added to or subtracted from the subscription list of the "Northern Bee." Bulgarin, for his part, would stop at nothing to discredit a potential rival or an unfavorable critic. Aiming at the widest possible freedom for himself and his publication, Bulgarin barraged his censors with threatening let-

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ters constantly implying that his influence with the Third Section would decimate them all. He threatened not only writers and censors, but even the various ministers of education — Shishkov, Lieven, Uvarov, Shirinsky, Norov — with a burning shower of letters and denunciations. He referred to the mild-mannered, tolerant, rather conservative censor, writer, and professor, Α. V. Nikitenko, as "the most dangerous man in Russia!"98 The whole matter of press censorship was often reduced by Bulgarin to a war of nerves. Bulgarin and his partners became a symbol among intellectuals for the corruption and arbitrary repressiveness of Nicholas' reign. Years later, P. V. Annenkov wrote in his memoirs: Nowadays it is difficult even to understand the degree of indignation which the organs of this self-appointed tutelage over literature aroused in people who wanted to preserve for at least this part of social activity a certain shade of freedom and human dignity. In the prevailing absence of social and political interests, it became a matter of honor almost to struggle with the triumvirate. In certain circles . . . the moral qualities of people were judged according to whether they had a good or bad relationship with the triumvirate." Even the Third Section seemed to take delight in bringing Bulgarin to task. In 1830, on Nicholas' orders, Bulgarin and Grech were forced to spend a night in the guardhouse because they had attacked in print a novel that had particularly impressed Nicholas (Zagoskin's Iury Miloslavsky). In 1846, Bulgarin made the mistake of printing a poem by Countess Rostopchina called "The Forced Marriage." The poem was about a baron and his faithless wife, who justified her infidelity by the fact that her marriage had not been of her own choosing. Nicholas interpreted the poem as an allegory, with the baron representing the emperor, and his wife, Poland. "If he's not guilty as a Pole," Nicholas told Orlov, "he is guilty as a fool." Count Orlov summoned Bulgarin and pointed the allegory out to him. "Why, we are schoolboys 1" Bulgarin exclaimed, whereupon Orlov forced him down on his knees in front of the fireplace and kept him there for more than an hour. When he released him, he warned,

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"Remember, schoolboys also get another kind of punishment." 100 As for Nicholas himself, although he had sponsored Bulgarin's release from prison in 1826, approved of his notes, and financially nourished his relationship with the Third Section, ultimately he held him, like all journalists, in profound contempt. "I never knew Bulgarin personally," he once wrote, "and never trusted him." 101 From the point of view of those who were called there to await "gendarme justice," the busy house near the Chain Bridge often assumed an aspect half-sinister and half-ludicrous. Early in the morning petitioners assembled in Count Benckendorff's antechambers, drawn and patient, with anxious faces. Herzen, having observed them, had been touched: how immense, how poignant must the necessity have been that brought them to the head of the secret police; no doubt all legal channels had been exhausted first . . . and this man got rid of them with commonplaces, and probably some clerk drew up some decision to pass the case on to some other department.102 Persons of note who had just arrived in St. Petersburg generally presented themselves to Count Benckendorff, for politeness' sake. (Pushkin's failure to do so on one occasion earned him a harsh reprimand. ) And on leaving they presented themselves again, for a formal farewell. Herzen, in his memoirs, described one such leave taking — a general, confronted in the reception hall by the foxlike Dubelt: "Yesterday I received through Prince Alexander Ivanovich the command of the Most High to join the army at the front in the Caucasus, and esteemed it my duty to present myself to His Excellency before leaving." 103 Dubelt had listened quietly, entered Count Benckendorff's chamber, and when he re-emerged apologized softly: "The count sincerely regrets that he has no time, . . . ." and he kissed the general on his way: The general's attitude, the farewell by proxy, and the sly face of Reinecke Fuchs as he kissed the brainless countenance of

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His Excellency was all so ludicrous that I could scarcely contain myself. I fancied that Dubelt noticed it and began to respect me from that time.104 Political prisoners were generally brought to the house by the Chain Bridge at night, in a carriage that clattered through the empty streets of Petersburg at full speed. It prevented traffic jams and perhaps provided the certain histrionic satisfaction that Herzen noted was inseparable from the profession of gendarme. Herzen's wife had given birth to their child prematurely after an unexpected night visit to their home by the gendarmerie: And what strange passion induces them to raise a hubbub, gallop full speed, make such a fuss, and do everything in tearing haste, as though the town were on fire, the throne were tottering, or the dynasty in danger, and all that without the slightest necessity! It is the sense of romance of the police, the dramatic efforts of the detective, the spectacular setting for a display of loyal zeal. . . . The janissaries, the swashbucklers, the bloodhounds!105 Not that there had been any rudeness: He could not have imagined, he had had no suspicion, no idea that there was a lady and children in the case. It was extremely unfortunate. . . . Gendarmes are the very flower of courtesy; if it were not for their duty, for the sacred obligations of the service, they would never make secret reports, or even beat postboys and drivers at posting stations.10® Dubelt had responded sympathetically when Herzen told him of the fuss: "Oh! good heavens, how unpleasant that is . . . how tactless they all are! You may rest assured that I will not send him again. And so till tomorrow; don't forget, eight o'clock at Count Benckendorffs; we shall meet there." It was exactly as though we were agreeing to go to Smurov's to eat oysters together.107 Often political prisoners were not informed of the specific charges against them until after they had been sent into exile. The charge was usually assumed to be that of having formed,

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or being about to form, a secret political society. The distinction between more or less regular meetings and discussions with friends and something the police might construe as a secret society was not always easy to make. I. V. S elivano ν, arrested in Moscow, was told by the amiable and kindly gendarme General Kutsinsky that he would have to go to St. Petersburg to appear before Benckendorff. Kutsinsky claimed he had no right to say why Selivanov had been arrested and all his papers confiscated, but thät his case was in such honorable hands (M. M. Popov had been assigned to it) that if he were not guilty he had nothing to fear. On the way to the capital, Selivanov was in the charge of a most cheerful gendarme captain, who dined at his expense, swapped forbidden political verses with him, and at night when they stopped at an inn actually asked him to keep "a lookout for brass" while he made love to one of the chambermaids in an adjoining room.108 At headquarters Selivanov was given a warm, comfortable, wellaired room; two gendarmes were stationed at his door and remained there all night. His sleep was frequently interrupted by their carbines thumping against the floor as they nodded off. The next morning Dubelt arrived and asked him: "Are you well? Is it warm? Do you smoke cigars or a pipe?" Three days later Selivanov appeared before him for interrogation. On the desk he noticed the draft of a letter he had begun, to his friend, K. D. Kavelin, but had not sent. The letter, which Selivanov had written in a mood of depression after a harvest failure on his estate and which dealt with the moral responsibility of landowners to their serfs, had been delivered to Dubelt from Selivanov's wastebasket in Penza province. On the margin, he noticed a comment in Dubelt's hand to the effect that Kavelin was suspected of liberalism. The next day Selivanov received a series of written questions, which required written replies and a signed oath to hold nothing back. The questions concerned his views; not one related to an act he might or might not have committed. How do you view the condition of serfdom in general? What is your view of the proper relations of landowners to serfs?

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A day later, Popov came to see him with another list of written questions, and this time waited until he had answered. Question: What kind of government is the best? Answer: The monarchical form of government. If Popov did not like Selivanov's answer, he scrutinized it a moment and threw it into the fireplace, dictating the proper answer himself: "Leonty Vasilevich wül be very angry if you don't write what I tell you!" Shortly thereafter, Selivanov was sentenced to exile in Viatka for ten months. His wife was to accompany him. Before setting out, he decided to pay his respects to the kindly General Kutsinsky. "He, a gendarme general, wept, because a man almost unknown to him was only being sent to Viatka!" Selivanov still did not know why he was being sent, and Kutsinsky would tell him nothing, except that it was terrible. Later he learned that it had been for his friendships, with the Tuchkovs, Satin, and Ogarev, as well as Kavelin, all of whom were (unknown to him at the time) under police surveillance. On his return from exile, Selivanov was elected a representative of nobility from his district and went on to pursue a successful administrative career. Alexander Herzen, whose name and writings were to preoccupy the next generation of police, was twice sent into exile by the Third Section. His name appeared in its files for the first time in 1834, along with a number of his friends and acquaintances, on the assumption that he was "not dangerous, but could be dangerous."109 The Moscow gendarme General Lesovsky, a moderate man, called the youths to his headquarters and warned them to be careful. The general's paternalistic tone, and his implied threat, was all that was needed to impel a group of vigorous, highly imaginative, Western-oriented young students in the direction of open revolt. [It was] like a promotion, a consecration, a winning of our spurs. Lesovsky's advice threw oil on the fire, and as though to make their future task easier for the police, we put on velvet berets à la Karl Sand and tied tricolor scarves around our necks.110

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If Herzen's police record is not typical, it is at least highly instructive as to the ways of the Third Section, and his memoirs are one of the best sources for a study of police manners and morals. He was arrested for the first time in Moscow, a few months after his initial warning, because some students, most of whom he did not know, at a banquet he had not attended, had been provoked by police agents into singing seditious songs. For two weeks, he had no idea of the charges against him. Then, questions were put to him in writing: The naïveté of some of them was amazing: "Do you know of the existence of any secret society? Do you belong to any secret society, literary or otherwise? Who are its members? Where do they meet?" To all these it was extremely easy to answer by the single word: "No!"111 Further questions concerned his reading, aspirations, and friends. Question: In your works there are evident free speculations not corresponding to the form of government that exists in Russia. State in all sincerity why you wrote in this spirit, to whom you communicated such thoughts and from whom you acquired them? Answer: Of the works written by me, I do not at all remember any remarks against the regime in Russia. I showed these articles . . . to practically no one. . . . Question: Why does your friend Ogarev, in his letter, advise you to read Wilhelm Tell as often as possible? Answer: Wilhelm Tell is Schiller's best work.112 Twenty students were arrested before the case, which lasted almost a year, was brought to judgment. The president of the investigating committee, S. M. Golitsyn, wrote to Benckendorff in some irritation that "a great case has been made of a trivial affair," but Benckendorff ordered the investigation to continue. Golitsyn wrote: "So far not even a trace of what might be called a secret society existing among these people has turned up," and that, with regard to Herzen, "no evil intentions, or connections with disloyal persons have thus far been revealed." 113

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However, he added ominously: "He did not take part in the singing of the verses; but he is touched by the depraved spirit of the time. This is evident from his papers and the answers he has written." After he had been questioned, A. F. Golitsyn (a member of the committee and a cousin of the other Golitsyn who presided) approached Herzen, with a gloomy and anxious face. "I have come," he said, "to have a few words with you before your evidence is completed. My late father's long connection with yours makes me take a special interest in you. . . . Your father has taken your arrest deeply to heart. . . . [If you do not cooperate] you will go straight under the white strap, or to the fortress; on the way you will kill your father. . . . You are obstinate, you give evasive answers and from a false sense of honor you spare men of whom we know more than you do and who have not been so discreet as you" [Herzens italics. His note: "I need not say that this was a barefaced lie, a shameful police trap."] 114 Herzen was exiled to Perm, not for anything he had done, but for what the committee feared he might do. From Perm, he was transferred to Viatka and from there allowed to return to Moscow. Within three years of his sentence he was allowed to take up residence in St. Petersburg and to enter the civil service in the Ministry of the Interior. His father and relatives warned Herzen that the capital was not the city he had known in his childhood, that there were spies everywhere and one couldn't be too careful. As far as the higher police was concerned, he was a marked man from the beginning. He had been in exile; he failed to present himself to the Third Section on his arrival in St. Petersburg; he was a favorite of Count Stroganov's, and most important of all he was becoming friendly with literary men in the capital and his articles were being talked about. The possibilities of "party" and "faction" clustered about him. When Herzen wrote to his father about a certain incident which was common gossip (a policeman stationed at the Blue

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Bridge had murdered a civilian), the letter was opened and Dubelt had him sent for in the dead of night, warning him that he would be exiled again. "Our government is paternal," Dubelt reprimanded him, "everything is done as privately as possible."* The Third Section behaved gently. Count Stroganov, the Minister of the Interior, was to decide Herzens place of exile. The minister, in order to revenge this affront to a favorite assistant on the part of his rivals in police matters, decided to send Herzen wherever a vacancy in the service appeared that would involve a promotion for his protégé. Novgorod turned out to be the place. Some time later, Herzen, still at liberty in St. Petersburg, dropped in to see Dubelt, who asked him innocently when he planned to go to Novgorod. "I thought I ought to ask you that." "Oh! not at all! I had no idea of reminding you. I simply asked the question. We have handed you over to Count Stroganov, and we are not trying to hurry you, as you see. Besides, with such a legitimate reason as your wife's illness. . . He really was the politest of men! 115 In Novgorod, it was Herzen's task to supervise all matters relating to passports, circulars, cases of abuse of power by landowners, dissenters, forgers, and people under surveillance: Every three months I signed the report of the police master upon myself as a man under police surveillance. The police master from politeness made no entry under the heading "Behavior," and under that of "Occupation" wrote: "Engaged in the government service."11β Due to his wife's illness, he was allowed to retire to Moscow within two years, although he still remained under surveillance. "I cannot say it was very oppressive, but the unpleasant feeling of • Before being admitted to see Dubelt, he had been met by an elderly gendarme officer named Sakhtynsky, who spoke to him testily: "How is it you've learned nothing from experience? How do you know that among those who talk to you there is not some scoundrel [Herzen's note: "I declare, on my word of honor, that the word 'scoundrel' was used by this old dignitary"] who asked nothing better than to come here a minute later to give information?" Alexander Herzen, Polnoe sobrante sochinenii (Petrograd, 1919), XIH, 45.

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a Damocles' sword wielded by the local police constable was very distasteful."117 Finally, by discreet behavior and adroit manipulation, Herzen managed to extricate himself from police surveillance. A gendarme came to inform him: The appearance of a police officer in Russia is as bad as a tile falling upon one's head, and therefore it was not without a particularly unpleasant feeling that I waited to hear what he had to say to me. . . . Count Orlov informed me that His Imperial Majesty commanded that I should be relieved from police surveillance. With that, I received therightto a foreign passport.118 Herzen left Russia in 1847. Not quite two years later, the Third Section picked up his name again, in connection with his refusal to return to Russia. The Buturlin committee, on which the Third Section was powerfully represented (by Dubelt), spent a year (November 11, 1851, to September 18, 1852) reaching the decision that all back numbers of "Notes of the Fatherland" ( Otechestvennye zapiski) which contained articles by him were to be withdrawn from stores and libraries.118 From 1853 on, the Third Section came to be increasingly occupied with his clandestine journal, printed in England and smuggled into Russia largely by travelers returning from abroad. It sent spies to penetrate his London household and raged against the Russian customs officials for their laxity in permitting pamphlet after pamphlet to slip through. Whenever Herzens name was mentioned in his presence, Dubelt ("the politest of men") would fly into a rage.120 During the spring and summer of 1851 the Third Section handled a case which serves to illustrate the extreme degeneration of police activity after 1848, a reflection of the decay in Nicholas' polity and personal life. The emperor had once approached a handsome woman married to a man named Zhadimirovsky, and she had rejected him. In May 1851 she ran off with S. V. Trubetskoy, a nobleman.

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The entire apparatus of the Third Section and the Corps of Gendarmes was set into motion to hunt them down. The emperor, as well as Count Orlov, interrupted the delicate negotiations they were then engaged in with the Austrian and Prussian governments at Olmuetz to carry on a long correspondence with Dubelt in St. Petersburg regarding the apprehension of the "criminals." 121 Zhadimirovskaia and Trubetskoy were finally caught on June 26, 1851, in Tiflis. From Olmuetz, Nicholas prescribed their punishment in detail. Zhadimirovskaia was returned to her husband, and Trubetskoy, protesting the private nature of the case, was confined in the Alekseevsky Ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress, commonly reserved for political prisoners. Trubetskoy spent eight hard months in the Ravelin, after which he was demoted to the ranks and assigned to a line regiment. He served in the Crimean War until, having fallen ill, he was released on November 20, 1855. Retiring to his estate, where Zhadimirovskaia quietly managed to join him, he lived under police surveillance until, two years after Nicholas' death, his rights to hereditary nobility were restored. Dubelt, eventually commended by Nicholas for the capture, had been the first to point out that if the affair concerned anyone at all, it was purely a matter for the local police, but this had made Nicholas (then at Olmuetz) so indignant that it required all Count Orlov's tact to calm him down. More than any other contemporary Russian institution, the Third Section had been designed to carry out the personal and immediate whims of the emperor. One can, of course, hardly imagine a less whimsical figure than Nicholas I. Nevertheless, the personal weaknesses of the emperor were firmly engraved on this most personal of institutions: more than anything else, a deep underlying insecurity that clothed itself in the rigid uniform of an outworn garrison discipline, a strong distaste for spontaneous growth, and an almost unconscious hypocrisy of manner which alternated between a benevolent patriarchalism and a despotic tyranny. Nicholas' fear ran so deep that there was never any attempt on

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his part to limit the use of the Third Section to merely discovering and rooting out political crime. Under his rule, the very notion of political crime expanded into meaninglessness. To think at all could be construed as such a crime. It is true, of course, that the idea of clearly defined limits to the police institutions of autocratic or absolutist governments, whether "enlightened" or otherwise, runs entirely contrary to the tradition; in a way it is a contradiction in terms. It is also true that police institutions in such governments always had a more "personal" stamp and a more immediate connection with the private impulses of the sovereign than any other state institutions. Nevertheless, during the great period of absolute monarchy, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the police did act as an impersonal force, an objective and rational instrument of the state. An example may serve. In France, during the period from 1685 to 1715, the lieutenant general of police represented the king's justice in its purest form — all citizens who came before the police were equal. The lieutenant general, however, was also a prominentfigureat court. The agents he employed to keep him informed of news and rumors in Paris also kept him informed of scandals at Versailles. Part of his function, in fact, was to recount these scandals (in an elegant and literary style) to the king's mistresses. In this way, the rational, the legal, and the objective were inextricably fused in the lieutenant generalcy with the petty and the whimsical. Combating the personal privilege of the enclos, the police still represented the personal privilege of the king.122 In Russia under Nicholas something of this contradiction still could be observed. The Third Section was not all arbitrariness and caprice. (In the provinces, it often represented the "national" principle of impartial justice to all citizens in the face of local vested interests. ) But the nineteenth century was a late age for absolutism, even in Russia. Nationalism, the state, impersonal justice, were passionate watchwords more outside the circle of autocracy and the court than within, where they were regarded with great fear and distrust. The strange and often contradictory behavior of Third Section personnel had the closest relationship to this fear and

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distrust. The stuffy paternalism ("I knew your father well. . . " ) " with which the Third Section's inquisitors masked their own paralyzing uncertainty before the young intellectuals who stood before them could hardly be called an effective deception, let alone a reign of terror; but by the arbitrary repressiveness which clothed the lack of confidence, Nicholas and the Third Section must take a large measure of responsibility for what Herzen later termed the "sick" generation — the revolutionaries and nihilists of the 1860s. From 1848 on, at any rate, public opinion slowly gathered itself against the old autocracy, which seemed the more cruel for the very weakness at its core. * In addition to Herzens interview with A. F. Golitsyn, cited above, see D. Aksharumov, Zapiski Petrashevtsa (Moscow, 1930), p. 47. The paternal impulses of the Third Section were satirized a generation later by A. K. Tolstoy in his poem, Son Popova (Popov's Dream), in which the elderly official Popov, arrested as a conspirator for having appeared at a reception minus trousers, is addressed as "My son" by the gendarme interrogator (his junior by many years) and is also informed. "I knew your father well," before urged to sign a totally false confession.

Censorship to 1848

4

Ψ

Of all modes of action employed by the regime during the reign of Nicholas I, censorship was the most characteristic. It was employed to such an extent, and by such an elaborate (often clumsy and not always pervasive) mechanism, that it has appeared to scholars somewhat absurd. N. A. Engelgardt begins an acute study of literary censorship under Nicholas by quoting from Turgenev (the novelist) to the effect that, although "letters" existed in Russia at this time, "literature" did not; that is to say, regardless of a number of works, some of them of great merit, and regardless of greatly talented individuals, literature as a profession, with standards at least partially or implicitly recognized by a large public, as well as fervently and explicitly by writers themselves, did not yet exist in Russia, or existed only in the most impoverished form.1 More important perhaps from Turgenev's point of view, and from that of many Russian intellectuals strongly influenced by German philosophy, was the absence of genuine national self-awareness. How could there be a national literature when so few people in Russia had more than a flickering sense of what was truly national? In the Russian press of the 1830s and well on into the 1840s, "national character" was a great obsession. Journalism, poetry, fiction, criticism, and history shared them to an almost

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equal degree and took from them a certain passion and intensity. In the quest for national character, the search for and molding of a coherent and articulate public opinion seemed as vital to aesthetics as it did to politics. In this sense, the press and the Third Section were rivals. The press, however, was but little developed at this time, and the Third Section grossly preponderant. In 1840 the most popular periodical in Russia enjoyed a circulation of scarcely more than three thousand. The readership of the entire periodical press (apart from the official bulletins and the specialized technical journals) did not exceed twenty thousand.2 In 1850 the writer, critic, and censor, Α. V. Nikitenko, complained that there were "more censors than books," and by that time, indeed, every Russian official had become, at least implicitly, a censor of the press.* It is this tremendous apparatus threatening the minuscule Russian press that Engelgardt refers to as "a cannon aimed at a flea."3 If one broadens the perspective, however, both of time and place, Nicholas' censorship becomes, if not more reasonable, more readily comprehensible. In Europe, during the first half of the nineteenth century, the prestige of the written word was at its peak. Had not the Enlightenment brought about the French Revolution? This prestige (both in its affirmative and negative aspects) was no doubt greatly exaggerated, causing a certain confusion of symptoms with causes; and the mere expression of ideas in words was credited with a power to change existing facts and institutions that it no longer seems to us, in the twentieth century, to possess. There is no question, however, that public organs of expression — books, newspapers, pamphlets, journals, the theater, the street crier — played an enormous part in the French Revolution. The revolution haunted the continent still, a specter with which all the monarchies of Europe felt it ominously necessary to contend.4 In France, after a brief lapse under Napoleon, the political power of the press increased enormously under the Restoration. The July Monarchy actually came to power on the issue of β Pliushar had to send each page of his dictionary-encyclopedia to twenty or thirty different censors. N. Engelgardt, "Ocherki nücolaevskoi tsenzury," Istoricheskii vestnik, LXXXVI (1901), 170.

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Polignac's press decrees. There were almost five hundred periodicals in France in 1833, with a circulation of more than seventy thousand. By 1846, Paris newspapers alone had a circulation of two hundred thousand.® There were innumerable cafés, public reading rooms, and clubs where literature and the press were read and discussed with interest and concern by a wide segment of the population. The press fought political battles, and what happened in and to the press was a matter of public concern. Publication was by no means free — a system of fines and jail sentences replaced preliminary censorship — but it was impossible for the government to control the press very rigidly in the face of so great a public interest. To maintain or augment its power, the government was forced to resort to bribes and subsidies or to enter directly into competition with its journalistic rivals. Whether or not he willed it, a litterateur automatically became a figure of political importance. The rise of national sentiment and the growth of the press had a very real connection, which could not be comfortably regarded by a man like Nicholas, committed as he was to absolute monarchy in the old sense. In Russia the press scarcely existed before the time of Catherine. Peter the Great had founded (and in part personally edited) the first Russian newspaper in 1703. Its circulation languished; until the latter half of the eighteenth century there was in general little demand for this sort of thing. Under Catherine, with the satirical journals she herself sponsored and with the serious sectarian publishing ventures of Novikov, circulation increased impressively. In 1776, Catherine permitted private publishing houses to operate under the same conditions as factories and mines, but, as soon as she felt control slipping from her hands, the empress began to apply restrictive measures. In 1783, the first censorship regulations ( vaguely worded and enforced by the ignorant, inert, and corrupt local police) were issued. In 1784, Novikov was arrested; in 1790, Radishchev. The French Revolution tremendously intensified Catherine's distrust for independent organs of opinion. In 1796, the privileges of the private publishing houses were withdrawn almost entirely.® Under Paul, fear of the language of the French Revolution

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reached its peak in the Imperial Decree of 1797, which forbade the use in any context of words like "fatherland" and "society," as well as, of course, "liberty, equality, fraternity." Books which bore the date of the French Republic were declared contraband in Russia, as were, finally, all foreign books, including printed music, in an unenforced and unenforceable decree that aroused much indignation.7 If policy under Paul confined the press and almost extinguished it, Alexander's accession opened a vista that stretched to the green fields of England. Novosiltsev recommended the abolition of preliminary censorship altogether, and, although a censorship statute was issued in 1804, it was based on the liberal Danish laws of King Christian VII and remained the most Uberai press law in Russia at least until 1865.8 Skabichevsky estimates that half of the personnel of the Main Administration of Schools (entrusted with the power of censorship) were themselves either active contributors to or on the staff of die periodical press.9 Moderate discussion of a wide variety of subjects, including constitutional reform and liberation of the serfs, was permitted and even encouraged. With this enlivening breath, the press expanded; circulation increased, and the number of periodicals between 1801 and 1806 tripled (from ten to thirty). For the first time it became possible for a writer, even a poet, to earn his living by writing.10 This initial impulse of the Russian press to expand in circulation, number, and power was checked before the end of Alexander's reign; but it established journalism as a force, however uncertain, which might at any time, given favorable circumstances, become a major political factor. After 1811 the circumstances were never entirely favorable, and after 1817 they became harsh, but throughout Alexander's reign the power of the press remained at least immanent. In 1811, the newly formed Ministry of Police was given certain supervisory powers over censorship. These were reduced by 1817 to inspecting the sale of books and periodicals against the chance of uncensored material's finding its way to the public. Until the reign of Alexander, the local police had been entrusted

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with the direct power of censorship. "Liberalizers" had always regarded this as unfortunate, considering that a professor with a greater knowledge and interest in literature would prove a more lenient censor than an ignorant, inert, and often corrupt policeman. Alexander's censors were, for the large part, professors, and many of them were writers; for a time there was indeed considerable freedom of the press. But in the long run the basic assumption proved unfounded. Professors, who were no less servants of the state than policemen were, but with more to lose and a greater awareness of what was involved for them, proved more easily subject to panic than the police had been. With the Ministry of Police checking the efficacy of censorship, empowered to remove from circulation material that had passed the regular censor, there was a foreshadowing of the role the Third Section was to play with such prominence later. In 1817, however, the police ministry of Prince Viazmitinov was limited once again to checking against the sale of uncensored books and illegal periodicals. A. N. Golitsyn had been appointed Minister of Spiritual Affairs and Education, and control of the censorship apparatus lay almost entirely in his hands. Compared with the rule he inaugurated, the worst days of police interference under Balashov and Viazmitinov seemed mild and permissive. This was the era of Runich and Magnitsky, and of the censors Birukov and Krasovsky, who went down in history for their bans against the "divine mistresses" of poets ("only the Bible is worthy of such an attribute") and against articles about the noxious effects of certain mushrooms ("mushrooms are Lenten food of the Orthodox, and therefore sacred"). By 1820 there were only twenty-six periodicals in Russia, and three quarters of these were located in St. Petersburg. Periodicals dropped away not so much from direct suppression as from the apathy of censor-induced dullness.11 Strict as Golitsyn was with belles-lettres and the periodical press, however, his policy toward religious publications was one of great lenience. All references to serfdom, at home or abroad, were banned after 1820 (some appeared anyway), but books advocating freedom of conscience and confession circulated

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freely.12 Golitsyn's "sectarian" and mystical tendencies created a considerable opposition within the Ministry of Education itself, the leader of which was Admiral Shishkov. This faction opposed Golitsyn on grounds of Orthodoxy and in no sense wanted a return to the permissive policies of the early years of Alexander's reign. Nevertheless, its existence gave writers and censors room to maneuver. The statute of 1804 remained operative (although repeatedly violated by the censors), and hopes for a freer press never died out. Admiral Shishkov replaced Golitsyn as Minister of Education on May 1, 1824. This remarkable, distinguished, opinionated old man succeeded in changing censorship policy with regard to religious matters quite drastically, although for all his efforts he altered censorship of the secular press but little. In spite of the vehemence of his opinions, the admiral tended to be a rather timid and ineffectual minister, resorting to frequent petitions and appeals to the emperor, who simply turned them over to Arakcheev.13 With the accession of Nicholas, Shishkov, aging and in poor health, presented himself to the new emperor with a long report of his constant strivings against the "spirit of the times," his opposition to the early years of Russian Gallomania as well as to the later period of mystical obscurantism, both of which he viewed as fruit of the same evil tree. He had long recommended a new censorship law, "neither too strict nor too lenient," which would replace the (in his eyes) inadequate statute of 1804.14 Nicholas retained Shishkov as minister and entrusted him with drafting a new censorship law. The admiral, too sick to do the work himself, assigned a younger assistant, Shirinsky, to compose the statute, which nevertheless unmistakably bears the admiral's stamp. Nicholas approved it without assigning (as was customary for him) a commission to study it, and in spirit there seems little doubt that his views accorded with Shishkov's.18 A. S. Shishkov had never, intellectually, outlived the age of Catherine II. After a distinguished career in the navy, he had been plunged into the rigidity and terror of Paul's reign. (The mad emperor actually sent him on a mission to spy on his fellow-

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countrymen in Carlsbad, a task Shishkov abhorred but which he performed out of loyalty to the sovereign. ) Delighted at first with the accession of Alexander, the admiral was soon dismayed by the liberalism and "constitutionalizing" of Alexander's "happy beginning." He retired to private life, wrote a treatise on style, and devoted himself to the study of languages. During the war of 1812, commissioned by Alexander to write the imperial proclamations to the armed forces, which were to thrill all of Russia, he reached the apex of his career.16 This patriot of the old school, deeply rooted in his convictions, cranky and stubborn, somewhat ineffectual in his role as minister, produced a law (the "cast-iron statute," contemporaries called it) which departed from the censorship legislation of 1804 in four fundamental respects: publishers remained responsible for what they printed, even after the censor's approval; ambiguous passages were not permitted, or were at least to be interpreted by the censor in their most unfavorable sense; purity of language (Shishkov's great obsession) was to be enforced, grammatically, syntactically, and philologically; and minor changes and deletions in manuscript were permitted the censor without the author's consent.17 Many of the articles of this censorship law (confirmed by Nicholas on June 10, 1826, completely on trust) read like short essays on Shishkov's view of the world. Article 3, for example: It is the duty of the censor in examining these compositions [maps, music, and certain of the fine arts were included, as well as journalism and letters] to hold inviolate the sanctity of the throne and the powers decreed by it, the laws of the fatherland, morality, and national and personal honor; to protect these not only from ill-intended and criminal attempts against them, but from mere thoughtlessness as well.18 Or Article 153: Compositions entitled "Critique" or "Anti-Critique," which are proposed for publication either in periodicals or separately, should be based on judgments entirely unimpassioned; if such is the case, no matter if they contain unpleasant turns of phrase, if these be correct depictions of error and necessary

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for the good of the language [Italics mine] they should be approved for printing without obstacles. It should be observed, however, that in such compositions personal insult is not to be permitted and they are not to be turned into a quarrel which is useless to the readers.19 The concept of "usefulness to the readers" had been applied by Shishkov before, in certain decisions he had handed down as Minister of Education in 1824-25. He had banned an article by Magnitsky criticizing constitutional government on the grounds that there was no need, in Russia, to mention constitutions at all; and he had forbidden a statistical study of murder and suicide in Russia (proving that they occurred less frequently in Russia than in Western Europe) because these were morbid subjects and best not mentioned.20 The 1826 law was full of restrictions, explicit and implicit, of all kinds. According to Article 37, even works issued prior to the law could be removed from circulation by the Supreme Censorship Committee." Article 129 stipulated that the right to start a new periodical could be granted only "to a man of good morals, already well known in the realm of native letters, who has demonstrated a beneficent mode of thought as well as his loyalty in his works, a man capable of guiding public opinion to a useful goal." Permission once granted, publication could not cease, except with the permission of the Supreme Censorship Committee (Article 135), but the committee could even without specific censorship violations close down a periodical if it did not show a "beneficient mode of thought" (Article 136). Nothing official could be printed in private periodicals before it had been printed by the government (Article 139), and the concept "official" included news of all important events at home or abroad. Books or articles touching on state affairs had to have the preliminary approval of the ministry dealing with the affairs in question (Article 141). Secret societies were to be presumed never to have existed, and it was forbidden to mention even the • The Supreme Censorship Committee consisted of the Ministers of Public Education, Interior, and Foreign Affairs. The latter two, however, served only in an advisory capacity with regard to current government policies. The committee met only at the request of the Ministers of Education.

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cults of ancient Greece and Rome (Article 145). All books of magic, astrology, mesmerism, phrenology, and "superstition" in general were banned (Article 146). Political news from Poland and Finland could appear only in the form of reprints from the newspapers of these regions (Article 148). A book that was banned could not be quoted from, even for purposes of rebuttal (Article 150). Not only was the Russian language to be preserved from grammatical error, but foreign-language books printed in Russia were also to be checked for purity of grammar and diction (Article 155). Nothing that tended to weaken the authority of Holy Writ, the Orthodox Church, or Christian morality was to be permitted (Articles 159, 160, 162). (These provisions had a special application to medical texts, which were not allowed to explicate a materialist view of human nature, nor to print "offensive" diagrams.) Article 165 stated: Anything is forbidden that in any way reveals in author, translator, or artist a person who violated the obligations incumbent on a loyal subject to the holy person of the Sovereign Emperor, or who transgresses against the worthy distinction of the most august royal house; and [such a person is liable] to immediate arrest and disposal according to the laws.21 Article 166 added: Not only that which opposes the government and the powers ordained by it is forbidden, but anything which may tend to weaken the respect which is its due. Almost anything could, indeed, be banned in terms of this law: considerations by private individuals concerning reform in any part of the government administration or concerning any realignment of rights and privileges (Article 169); anything that might reflect directly or indirectly on the monarchical power; anything against powers friendly to Russia; anything against the governmental power in itself (Articles 168, 170, 171). Morality, furthermore, had to be maintained, even in the classics, and the censor was instructed "not to be deceived by beauty of expression" (Article 176).

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The universities and the Academy of Sciences and their publications were exempt from the censorship law and permitted to appoint their own boards of censors (Articles 107, 108, 111), and periodicals appearing in the Baltic provinces were subject only to the provincial governors there, an altogether more lenient arrangement. On the other hand, criticism of academy publications in the private press, although not prohibited by law, was rendered impossible by Shishkov's "protective" policy. All in all, the judgment of the conservative censor, S. N. Glinka, that under the castiron statute "even the Lord's Prayer could be interpreted as a Jacobin speech" does not seem much exaggerated.22 Against the formidable fact of this law, one must place the attitude of the Third Section, or rather of von Vock, which regarded public opinion and the press as inherently friendly to the regime, requiring only a twist and an organizing impulse to break into full enthusiasm. Shishkov himself was not entirely unaware of the importance of public opinion and the possible role of a friendly press in directing it. In his first report to Nicholas, he had pointed out that the rules by which the censors were to be guided ought to be stated in great detail, so that "not only would the freedom to write and appraise not be removed from writers, but they would be encouraged . . . to write." 23 He criticized the 1804 law because it contained no provision for rewarding the "good," as well as for its insufficiency and vagueness in characterizing the "bad." But in the 1826 law, the whole problem of the positive role censorship was to play in the process of forming public opinion was very weakly and vaguely stated in the first article alone: The aim of establishing the censorship is that the publication, engraving, or lithography of works of letters, the sciences, and the arts, should be given a direction which is important, or at least harmless, for the well-being of the fatherland.24 Compared with the vigor, the enthusiasm, the detailed analysis of the components of public opinion that Faddei Bulgarin presented to General Potapov a few months after the publication of the cast-iron statute, Shishkov's law and the notes in which he

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defended it seems little more than the stuffy grumblings of an outmoded conservatism. Bulgarin already knew von Vock at the time he submitted his critique of the censorship, and he was soon to become indispensable to Benckendorff. The views he expressed coincided with von Vock's, but were elaborated at somewhat greater length. He was, at the time, trying desperately to salvage himself from a shady past and to ingratiate himself with the new regime. Craftily inserted between the lines of all his recommendations was the idea of the role that he himself could and would be willing to play ( with ample reward ) as a town crier of the autocracy.25 Nicholas himself read Bulgarin's recommendations and was impressed. He passed them on to Shishkov for comment — a move which frightened Bulgarin half out of his wits, since he had never intended the minister to know him as the author of a report so critical of that minister's own pet legislation. Shishkov, on the other hand, was puzzled and hurt by the critique which the emperor called to his attention. He replied cautiously to Nicholas that, in criticizing censorship arrangements, the author of the critique apparently "did not have in mind the new statute which removes all abuses." 28 Bulgarin suggested (and this was the heart of his recommendations) that the censorship of both plays and periodicals be transferred from the Ministry of Education to the higher police, because their wide audience made these media much more sensitive to corruption and because in the process of censorship the police could follow public opinion more readily. Shishkov replied: in my opinion, this would not only be quite useless, but even not unharmful. . . . General applicability and coordination of action in censoring everything that is printed in Russia is much more likely if the Ministry of Public Education directs public opinion to a useful goal than would be possible for . . . the police.27

Bulgarin wanted to take his chances with the spirit of the law — a system of press subsidies to counteract, indeed, to overwhelm any opposing spirit that might arise in the press. As a

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safety factor, a threatening knife to unfriendly journalists, and a sensitive gauge on press opinion, he favored the police's manipulating a freely adjustable censorship code (he was friendly with von Vock and afraid of Shishkov) Shishkov, on the other hand, believed firmly in the importance of the letter. In spite of Bulgarin's fears, Shishkov was powerless to do him personal harm. Shortly after receiving Shishkov's refutation of Bulgarin's note, Nicholas (on Benckendorff's recommendation) ordered the minister to appoint the crafty Polish journalist "agent of special commissions" in his own ministry. At about the same time, Nicholas formed a special committee to draft a statute for the censorship of foreign books and periodicals, which had not been included in the 1826 law; this committee took it upon itself to criticize the statute for Russian books as well. Shishkov commented in his memoirs: This criticism was very small-minded, and apparently had its origin as much in freethinking as lack of pertinent information, and possibly in ill-feeling toward me also. It was refuted by me in a special note. . . . I then received an order to be present in this committee, but seeing in it a direct revolt against myself, or rather against my principles which are opposed to the French Revolutionary principle of free publication of books, I refused.28 To Shishkov's surprise, however, Nicholas approved the committee's draft for a new censorship law, on April 22, 1828. Shishkov resigned and retired to private life.29 The 1828 censorship law modified the cast-iron statute in all four of its major aspects. Nicholas confirmed it, partly out of satisfaction with the turn letters seemed to have taken (the cult of Nicholas was at its height at this time), and partly out of a half-impulse to employ the strategy embodied in the recommendations of Bulgarin and von Vock. "Public opinion" seemed about to emerge as a real factor in Russian politics; Nicholas pondered the idea of manipulating it, using it to rally what von Vock called the middle class behind the autocracy by means of displayed zeal and contagious fervor. Therefore, although the

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1828 censorship law was more extensive in its bans than that of 1804, it was far more permissive than the cast-iron statute. Article 12 provided: Criticism of letters, the sciences, and the arts, including the newly published works of government institutions, theatrical performances, the plans of public buildings, publications of the academies, are not to be banned by the censor, if they do not violate the general rules.30 Other articles contained similar instructions as to what the censor was not to ban. Corrections for purely "literary" reasons were not to be permitted (Article 15). Although the censor had to observe that "words and expressions dealing with important and high objects" were "conceived with proper respect and dignity," he could not alter such passages without the author's consent (Article 7 ) . High scholarship was accorded certain privileges: "The censor is obliged to distinguish between well-intended critiques . . . and wild and turbulent speculations . . ." (Article 8). The censor of foreign books, on the other hand, subject for the first time to the same principles as the domestic censor, was nevertheless to apply them with greater strictness, especially with regard to novels and belles-lettres (Article 80). The "spirit" of Bulgarin proved victorious over the "letter" of Shishkov. The law declared: let there be no arbitrary interpretations (Article 6). Most important of all, once a book or an article received the stamp of approval, the law fixed responsibility on the censor (Article 47). In general, the role of the censor was conceived as that of an amiable legal guardian of letters, a foster father of the arts and sciences (see Article 127). The prevailing moral order ("orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality," as Uvarov was later to phrase it) could not be assailed, but in terms of the new law it could be interpreted with a wider degree of latitude. Many writers and many censors felt very strongly about the "protective" aspects of the censorship and approved it. Very few were against censorship on principle. Publishers tried to involve

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censors with a vested interest in their publications; many censors were on the staffs of newspapers and magazines; many were themselves writers or scholars. Even Pushkin did not disapprove of censorship on principle. "What is right for London is early for Moscow. Be strict, but be intelligent," he instructed his hypothetical censor. On the whole, the 1828 law was regarded as a great step forward. In practice, the law lasted exactly three years. That it lasted even as long as that was due to the remarkable efforts of the new Minister of Education, Prince Lieven, who fought for the law with surprising courage and steadfastness. A. Nikitenko, who had had some part in framing the law, remarked somewhat warily on January 30, 1830: "The new statute proposed not to persecute writers; to hold by this excellent rule would do well, not merely in theory, but in practice as well." Before the year was out he wrote in his journal: "There is not a shadow of legality left in Russia. The same people who make the laws violate them." 31 The institution which Nicholas relied on to trace and control public opinion was not the press ( or only incidentally and secondarily the press ) but the political police and the gendarmerie — the Third Section. In the censorship law of 1828, the Third Section was entrusted with the theatrical censorship, where Bulgarin's "spirit" ran wild and which soon became famous for its niggling capriciousness. In addition, the Third Section "placed" articles in newspapers, especially in Bulgarin's "Northern Bee." From 1829 on, the Third Section became a steady contributor to the "St. Petersburg Bulletin" (Vedemosti), the organ of the Academy of Sciences (a daily newspaper since January 1, 1829), and, under the guise of reporting on the internal condition of Russia, half converted it into a propaganda organ for the police.32 Much more ominous, however, was the fact that shortly after the censorship law was decreed, Benckendorff in a private memorandum to Prince Lieven insisted that the names of all persons who suffered numerous excisions or bans at the hand of the censor be turned over to the Third Section. On September 25, 1829, the Minister of the Interior was ordered to supply the Third Section with a copy of all books, periodicals, and other printed sheets

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that appeared in Russia.33 The Third Section thus maintained a check both on the efficacy of the censorship and the drift of opinion, with the latter function secondary since, theoretically, no opinion opposed to the regime could find its way into print. The expansion of letters came to depend not on the repressiveness or liberality of censorship legislation, but on the degree of interference of the political police. Prince A. K. Lieven was a man of unusual firmness and consistency. Born in the same era as Admiral Shishkov, and like him a man of the eighteenth century, he acted entirely differently as an administrator. In the last years of Alexander's reign he had been appointed rector of Dorpat University, at which post he had gained for himself a modest reputation for fairness and liberality. He had good connections and a moderately successful career behind him." Like most true conservatives, however, his view of human nature was darkly pessimistic. "Man from his very birth," he wrote in his first proclamation as minister, "carries a tendency to evil; foolish inclinations grow up in him with the years, encouraged by seductive examples and reinforced by habit."34 He felt, he said, unqualified for his position but humbly submitted himself to the will of God. From the very first, he waged a remarkable struggle against timid censors, his fellow ministers, and the Third Section in favor of the censorship law. It was a losing battle almost from the beginning. Benckendorff, who was rumored to have a not quite impersonal interest in the theater (gossip linked him with a number of actresses), tried to use his position to control reviews of plays, which according to Article 12 the periodicals were allowed to print if they did not violate the general rules. He complained to Prince Lieven of the censor's laxity in permitting unfavorable reviews, especially in the St. Petersburg French-language newspaper, Le Furet. (Lieven replied that the censor had acted correctly.) At the same * His mother had been Nicholas' governess, his brother was Ambassador to England, and his brother's wife, Daria Lieven — famous for her intimacies with Metternich, Guizot, and other outstanding figures, and later for her memoirs — was Benckendorffs sister. M. Popov, "K. A. Liven," Russkii biograficheskii shear (25 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1896-1913), X, 424. See also, The Private Letters of Princess Lieven to Prince Metternich (New York, 1938); and The Unpublished Diary and Political Sketches of Princess Lieven (London, 1925).

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time, he encouraged Bulgarin to print favorable reviews. Even before the actual proclamation of the new censorship law, Benckendorff had written on a set of proofs from the "Northern Bee": "It is permitted to print [reviews of plays] and from now on to write about the theater, but show me first."35 After an angry exchange of notes with regard to Le Furet's drama section, in the course of which Lieven had refused to violate Article 12 of the law without an order from the emperor, Benckendorff wrote him, on December 22, 1830: the insertion of articles concerning the imperial theatres in the journal Le Furet is forbidden to its publishers by the most high command of the Sovereign-Emperor. In my first notice of this matter to your excellency I did not use the most high name of His Majesty, because I was convinced that it was, of course, understood that such bans are decreed not by me but by the sovereign, whose holy name in general ought to be less frequently used among us in our ordinary communications.38 Lieven replied angrily: This lesson to me in your letter is entirely unnecessary and superfluous. A letter in which something contrary to a law confirmed by the holy name of the Sovereign-Emperor is demanded is not an ordinary communication, and cannot be put into effect without a declaration of the most high to this effect. In such a case "understanding" is not permissible, and no one has therightto demand it.37 But he issued the necessary orders, and Le Furet printed no more reviews. Benckendorff was not the only high official who showed dissatisfaction with Lieven's strict application of the law. The Minister of Finance, Count Kankrin, complained that the work of his ministry had been misrepresented in the press. Lieven wrote that the minister had the alternative of answering the misrepresentations, but not of punishing a censor for permitting what the law stated to be permissible. Kankrin was indignant: That our ministries should occupy themselves with printing refutations to such articles in newspapers and defend them-

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selves before the public against the vanity of authors — this has never yet been practiced among us, and scarcely can be practiced.38 Lieven's reply was a simple reference to the law; the dissatisfaction of many high officials remained. On the whole, the period 1828-1830 was an easy one for the press. The complaints of writers received attention in the Ministry of Education, petitions for the founding of new journals were more easily granted than formerly, and in January 1830 Prince Lieven actually authorized censors to grant permission to "well-known" and "trustworthy" people to purchase "moderately" banned books from their booksellers. (The existence of categories of banned books was nowhere specified in the censorship law.) On the grounds that censors were beleaguered with such requests, which tended to be motivated by a rather frivolous gossip interest, the authorization was soon withdrawn, but until the July revolution in France, the censorship continued to be relatively mild. The "July days" in France and the subsequent Polish revolt of 1830-1831 wholly transformed the censorship. Having conducted himself valiantly against pressure from the Third Section and the other ministries, Prince Lieven now had no alternative but to retreat. By order of the emperor all news of events in France had to come from the Preussische Staatszeitung, and even then such reports had to have Lieven's preliminary approval. The minister was ordered to instruct censors not to permit any refutation on foreign affairs appearing in the "Northern Bee," since these had been placed there by Benckendorff for the purpose of calming the public.39 A crucial issue developed in August 1830 over a French quatrain printed anonymously in Baron Delvig's "Literary Gazette" (Literaturnaia gazeta), and its resolution dissolved all the bulwarks Lieven had erected in support of the law. The "Literary Gazette" was not, in terms of circulation, a powerful periodical; it had at best only a few hundred subscribers. Nevertheless, it commanded the most enterprising literary talents of the time, pre-eminently Pushkin's. Viazemsky,

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Pushkin, and Delvig hoped to make of it a critical journal of high caliber, in stark opposition to the mercenary and subservient "Northern Bee"; they strove for an organ around which Russian letters might crystallize into Russian literature. Bulgarin and Benckendorff viewed it with apprehension and distaste, and once before, in 1829, Benckendorff had attempted to suppress it for printing a polemical article (directed against Polevoy primarily, but also to some extent against Bulgarin) affirming the literary status of "nobility." On that occasion, however, Lieven had upheld the editor and the censor who had permitted the article. This time, Delvig printed (almost absent-mindedly, it seems) a verse inscription by Casimir Delavigne for the monument erected in Paris to the heroes of the July uprising. Benckendorff was furious, and, although Lieven again supported the censor's decision, his case was weakened by the fact that Delvig could not recall who had originally submitted the quatrain. In an angry note to Lieven, Benckendorff insisted that editors must know their contributors; excuses like Delvig's simply could not be accepted. Lieven's arguments touched not so much on the propriety or improprity of anonymous articles as on the problem of responsibility; Article 47 of the censorship law held the censor accountable for what the censor passed and specifically exempted the writer. It would be unwise, Lieven wrote, to insist on common responsibility in an open directive (Lieven weakened his argument by suggesting that it might be done secretly), without first amending the law.40 In January 1831 Nicholas terminated the exchange by appointing a committee to consider amendments; like his predecessor, Shishkov, Lieven was circumvented. Vice-Chancellor Count Nesselrode, General-Adjutant Vasilchikov, Minister of Justice Dashkov, and, significantly, General Benckendorff debated the issue. From this time until the appointment of the Buturlin committee in April 1848, the Third Section gained ascendance over the Ministry of Education in censorship matters. With regard to joint responsibility, the committee decided that, although Article 47 had been designed to ease the author's position,

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such a rule scarcely could, and does not, exempt authors or translators from legal prosecution in all cases; not when they, according to the substance of the book or article they present, come under the jurisdiction of the general criminal laws. Permitting a dangerous book to be printed is properly the guilt of the censor: but what was a crime before publication does not cease to be a crime afterwards, and the author of an atheistic or seditious work, having presented it to the censor, and therefore intending to make it public, should be subject to prosecution on the basis of the general laws, permission granted him by the censor notwithstanding.41 Publishers were to be held responsible as well as writers and censors. In addition, the committee reaffirmed the instructions of April 25, 1828, ordering censors to turn over the names of dangerous authors to the Third Section, and recommended the appointment of a representative from the Third Section to sit in on meetings of the Main Administration of the Censorship. Benckendorff promptly named the director of his chancery, A. N. Mordvinov. Nicholas confirmed the committee's recommendations on March 28, 1831. A year later, the Third Section added to its powers that of recommending or rejecting the moral qualifications of the publishers and editors of new periodicals, which could be established only with the approval of the emperor himself. As to the "Literary Gazette," it was not directly closed down, but Delvig was forbidden to participate in its publication. Sensitive and distraught, Delvig closed himself off from literary life entirely and died a few months later. Α. V. Nikitenko noted in his diary that people blamed Benckendorff for Delvig's premature death, and Baron A. I. Delvig, the poet's cousin and a pioneer in the development of Russian railroads, never forgave the Third Section.42 During the year 1830-1831, the Third Section, in addition to applying a heavier hand to the censorship, made some tentative efforts to follow Bulgarin's advice about rewarding "favorable" articles. The Polish revolt had indeed aroused a great deal of indignant nationalist fervor in Russia, and this was the period

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par excellence of what Polevoy called "kvas patriotism." "Rightthinking" articles appeared with more gratifying frequency. Oddly enough, even the most orthodox patriots were sometimes less than enthusiastic about the Third Section's attempts to encourage them. Michael Pogodin, for example, had written an article in the "Telescope," on Russia's historical rights to Lithuania. He promptly received a note from the Third Section: "What does the author wish [as a reward] for the article, which has been read and found pleasing?" Pogodin noted laconically in his journal: "Benckendorff's proposal is not as tactful as it seems."43 From 1831 until 1836, the Third Section had things more or less its own way with the press. A uniform dullness pervaded and around 1836 even the "Northern Bee" began to lose subscribers. The Third Section, however, was at the peak of its activity. The Polish newspaper, Tygodnik Peterburgski, came directly under its control early in 1832, and starting in 1835 Benckendorff, aware of the growing importance of public opinion in France and Germany, began to direct a clumsy kind of Russian propaganda in the foreign press.44 • Censors had been instructed to provide the Third Section with the names of offending authors, so that these might be kept under police surveillance. In practice, however, the course of action often ran the other way. The Third Section kept certain authors under surveillance, and if their actions proved in any way suspicious, or their circle of acquaintances dangerous, their poems, articles, stories, even after they had been passed (often without the slightest suspicion) by the censor, were noted down by the Third Section for their "audacity" (derzost, the favorite label of the political police). It will be recalled that the existence in Moscow of an intellectual center with a tendency to independence from government decrees was an early concern of the Third Section. The university was the best in Russia, and student circles, interested in philosophical and literary matters, were beginning to form outside the immediate supervision of the lecture rooms. There was also the famous "archive youth," young intellectuals of gentry back-

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ground nominally employed in the Moscow archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who devoted themselves with great intensity to the pursuit of history, philosophy, and literature. One of these young men, Ivan Kireevsky, was to play a crucial part in the development of Russian historical thought and implicitly in the kind of self-consciousness without which literature (as Turgenev conceived it) could not exist. He first appeared in the files of the Third Section in 1827, although he apparently had been under surveillance, along with his friends, Koshelev, Titov, and Shevyrev, for some short time previously. His letters were intercepted, agents penetrated his household, and General Volkov, head of the Moscow Gendarme District, followed him with great interest even down to his preparations for marriage. "His secret remains in its previous obscurity," Volkov reported to BenckendorfE in 1828.45 It is apparent that the Third Section suspected a secret society. In the close relationship between literature, as conceived by intellectuals, and public opinion, the Third Section tended to view any spontaneous growth of ideas, especially ideas passionately conceived, as a conspiracy. Nevertheless, in December, 1831, Ivan Kireevsky actually received permission to publish a literary magazine, "The European." At that time permission for new publications was still granted by the Minister of Education, and no doubt Zhukovsky, who was a relative of Kireevsky's and had high hopes for the young man's future, was influential in swaying Prince Lieven. The journal itself was hailed by Pushkin, who promised to contribute, and, although it had little success with subscriptions, it promised to be of the greatest literary significance.46 Unfortunately, "The European" lasted exactly one issue. An article which, using Griboedov's "Woe from Wit" as a point of departure, satirized fashionable attitudes toward "foreigners" and "the foreign" in Russia, breathed a little too boldly in the face of Benckendorffs vanity — Benckendorff who pricked up his ears at any mention of "foreign influence," but who had never managed to learn Russian grammar and spelling. The Chief of Gendarmes studied the file on Kireevsky and ordered further investigation

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into when he went abroad, where he stayed, whom he met. Curiously enough, the case against the writer was to be prepared in terms of foreign influence.47 But Benckendorff needed to present no case at all when, two days later, Nicholas himself read the same issue of "The European," handed him by Zhukovsky out of innocent pride in his protege. The emperor took offense at a bold essay by Kireevsky, "The Nineteenth Century" — one of the first attempts to present the meaning of Russian historical destiny in cultural terms.48 Kireevsky, following Schelling, saw European culture in terms of three vital elements : Christianity, the mores of the barbarians, and the heritage of antiquity. Of the three, Russia manifestly lacked the antique heritage, without which it could not become a cultural entity, could not assume its own historical destiny. To go back directly to the life of ancient Greece and Rome was impossible without repeating the entire European experience. But Europe was in the midst of a transformation of the classical heritage, the romantic movement. By plunging into European culture as it had developed from 1750 on, without regard for earlier epochs, Russia could proceed to fulfill its own cultural promise and become an historical nation within the European community. Kireevsky wrote eloquently of the potential fruitfulness of the romantic movement for the spiritual life of Russia; but to Nicholas "The Nineteenth Century" seemed primarily a political article of the most incendiary kind. On February 7, Benckendorff wrote to Lieven: His Majesty has deigned to find that everything in this article is but a critique of high policy, in spite of the fact that the writer asserts at the beginning that he speaks not of politics but of literature. One has only to apply a certain amount of attention to perceive that the author, discussing literature as it were, has something quite different in mind: that by the word enlightenment he means liberty, that the mind's activity means for him revolution, and the skillfully contrived middle ground nothing if not a constitution. Therefore, His Majesty deigns to find that this article ought not to have been permitted in a literary journal in which it is forbidden to print anything about politics.49

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The censor was to be fined and the journal closed down. In the future there would be no new journals without imperial permission. On February 9, Lieven was instructed to keep his eye on other Moscow periodicals, which, contaminated by the same spirit, might "sow dangerous ideas in the minds of young people, who are always ready in their inexperience to absorb any kind of impression." Police surveillance was established over Kireevsky, and his name was not allowed to appear on the masthead of any other publication.50 Zhukovsky, much upset by the whole affair and suspecting that the invidious Bulgarin had denounced Kireevsky to the Third Section, approached Nicholas and told him he would be willing personally to vouch for Kireevsky. Nicholas turned to him coldly: "And who will vouch for you?"61 But the old courtier refused to be discouraged. Certain of a league between Bulgarin and Benckendorff, he tried to the best of his ability to use his influence with Nicholas against Bulgarin in the direction of tolerance. He wrote an indignant letter to Benckendorff: There is not a line, however simply it may be written, which could not be interpreted in the most ruinous manner, if, instead of words used by the author, you invent others, presuming bad intentions on the author's part. . . . There is no prayer which could not in this way be turned into sacrilege.82 Kireevsky remained under police surveillance — and yet there is little indication that the Third Section really regarded him as a criminal. Benckendorff requested him to submit explanations. Kireevsky's reply came in the form of a letter from Benckendorff's former schoolmate at the Jesuit pension in St. Petersburg, Chaadaev. Kireevsky had explained his views to Chaadaev, who sympathized with them and defended them with the utmost frankness in his letter, which was in no sense an apology. Quoting Kireevsky, Chaadaev (himself to fall far more drastically under imperial displeasure a few years later) explained that what Russia needed above all was a classical education in the eighteenth-century sense and the abolition of serfdom: I want to create a closer tie, not with the Europe of politics,

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Nothing came of it, one way or the other. Kireevsky was watched. That was all. With the retreat of Prince Lieven, under pressure of the 1830 revolutions, from his position of solid support for the censorship law, the old clamor of a timid censorship and a pious officialdom rose again. The official history of the censorship under Nicholas, prepared for Alexander II, sums up the situation very well: Once a new tone was given to the censorship, various officials immediately began to find distasteful and insulting to their dignity a number of things to which they probably had not paid much attention formerly.84 The Third Section was not the sole source of complaints, nor the sole user of the word "audacity," which became a generally favorite expression for the habits of the press. Once again, the publications of the Academy of Sciences were exempted from criticism. An article for the "Northern Mercury," entitled "Obelisk," was banned by the censor — "Who knows what obelisk is meant?" New periodicals were but rarely permitted: "There are many without this one," Nicholas wrote on their applications. Influential persons denounced "insolent" or "audacious" treatment by the press of themselves or their friends or their favorite projects.55 Not many writers perhaps stooped to the unscrupulous use of denunciations that characterized Bulgarin and Grech, but even Pushkin complained to his friends that Polevoy was a "Jacobin" and he could not understand why his paper had not been closed down. In the furor of censorship and countercensorship, no one was safe from sudden wrath. One of the many attempts by Grech to punish a competitor by denouncing him to the censor, and indirectly denouncing the censor for permitting his competitor to publish, evoked this angry response from the emperor: I [read the article] referred to by Grech and found nothing in it except a stupid boring emptiness. It resembles what in our journals stands for wit but ought to stand for stupid non-

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sense. It is in vain that M. Grech deigns to feel insulted by it; to this, the best answer is contempt: mais qui se sent morveux se mouche. Invite him to your committee, wash out his head a bit, and explain that if he dares to write insolently in the future he might well be reminded that it is not unknown for journalists to wind up in the guardhouse, and for similar insolences he may even be put to trial.66 The guardhouse reference is an allusion to punishment received the year previous by Grech's colleague, Bulgarin. It was a common punishment to imprison writers and censors in the local garrison's guardhouse, sometimes for as long as a few weeks, in the way of a warning to be more cautious and less "insolent." The censor was in a difficult position. In response to a note from Prince Lieven in February 1832, urging stricter attention to local periodicals, the superintendent of the Moscow school district shrewdly suggested that the censorship of periodicals be turned over to the Third Section. The censor, he claimed, was in a dilemma: either neglect of duty, in the way of an indulgent examination of works, or improper use of power and the oppression of writers if the works are examined strictly. . . . Therefore, I most earnestly wish that your excellency, in concurrence with General Benckendorff, would deign to indicate those articles in the Moscow journals which are considered ill intended and dangerous in the spirit of liberalism, for the censors' study and guidance in the future. Finally, in anticipation of all possible unpleasant consequences, I consider it my duty most humbly to request your excellency whether it might not be convenient with the aid of your rank to so arrange the publication of journals and periodicals in general that they came to light under the surveillance and attention of the gendarme police.67 From Lieven, Golitsyn received no answer. The dilemma, throughout the reign of Nicholas, remained unresolved. On March 21, 1833, S. S. Uvarov replaced Prince Lieven (who retired "for reasons of health") as Minister of Education. He was an intelligent ani well-educated man, masking a deep uncertainty, an uncontrollable panic of ideas (unlike Prince Lieven, he was

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an intellectual and could not dispense with ideas) with a suppressive rigor, an artificial and insecure discipline. The historian Solovev said of him, perhaps somewhat unfairly: He was a lackey who had learned dignified manners in the house of a dignified master [Alexander I] but in his heart he never ceased to be a lackey.58 As vice-minister in 1832, he had especially brought himself to Nicholas' attention by a report he submitted on the condition of Moscow University. The proper aim of education, he wrote in this report, should be to turn students into "useful and zealous instruments of the government." He was not prepared to say it would be easy to do. Nevertheless, it ought to be the aim of the ministry to foster a "warm faith in the truly Russian conservative principles of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality — which are the last anchor of our salvation and the truest pledge of the strength and greatness of our Fatherland." 59 Solovev remarked that as to Orthodoxy, Uvarov had been a freethinker; as to Autocracy, a liberal; and as to Nationality, had never read a Russian book in his life. The first circular Uvarov issued as Minister of Education to the censors is contradictory enough to satisfy Solovev's obvious malice. It begins with an exhortation to uphold the 1828 law and the subsequent administrative orders concerning the censorship, but: I want periodical publications not only not to contain anything that in its spirit or subject matter fails to correspond to the censorship regulations, but that the general tone and manner of presentation of these publications should correspond as much as possible to the demands of respectability and gentility, so that this branch of our letters may be elevated and improved.60 This was clearly a return to the censorship of "spirit" embodied in the 1828 law. Nevertheless, Uvarov tried to the best of his ability to keep the control of his ministry and of the censorship in his own hands. Since the backbone of his administration was a group of capable

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censors and district superintendents who supported the law, and since the censors in general were terrified at the prospect of the law's complete breakdown, which would leave them legally unprotected and at the mercy of any arbitrary denunciation to the police, Uvarov was virtually forced by his very position to resist the encroachments of the Third Section. It is impossible to say that the Ministry of Education during Uvarov's administration tended to permissiveness, whereas the Third Section stood for repression. These presumed roles were reversed with dizzying frequency, depending on circumstances. The closing down of Nicholas Polevoy's journal, "The Moscow Telegraph" (Moskovskii telegraf), may serve as a case in point. The "Telegraph" was in its time the second most powerful (in terms of circulation and influence) journal in Moscow — a not very distinguished position, perhaps, but extremely significant for the development of literature as a calling. Of Polevoy, Belinsky was later to write: Thefirstthought, which he began to develop with energy and talent, which constantly inspired him, was his idea of the necessity of intellectual movement. . . . Polevoy was the first to demonstrate that literature is not a child's game.®1 A distinguished historian and a critic not without ability and taste, Polevoy was above all a born journalist. Born in a small Siberian town of merchant parents, he began to dream of running a newspaper (to be called "The Asiatic Bulletin") at the age of ten. In 1825, after having moved to Moscow, he received permission to publish the "Telegraph"; and his application reveals yet another talent, that of political finesse. The title of his journal, he said, signified communication between Russian literature and science, on the one hand, and between Russian and European intellectual life, on the other. A European orientation and a title derived from a non-Russian word might give a certain "popular" air to the venture, in addition to truly representing the publisher's view of things, but it could not be expected to please the Minister of Education, Shishkov. Consequently, Polevoy began his application with a prolonged quotation from a session of "The Lovers of Russian Letters," a group

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over which Shishkov himself had presided. Permission was granted, and Polevoy soon became a favorite of Shishkov s, who delighted in the fact that the historian-journalist was of merchant origin and steeped in the mores of old Russia. In 1829, a year before the revolution in France might have involved him in serious trouble — for he was both a proponent of French thought and of the idea that revolutions were not entirely harmful phenomena — Polevoy wrote Benckendorff, requesting a special (in addition to his regular) censor: In order to reap the proper advantage for society from my critical articles on morals, and to act at the same time in accordance with the intentions and will of the government . . . to submit articles of this kind to a special censorship, in turn submitting them to your excellency.

His letter became very humble and ended with an apotheosis of Nicholas: In all this, Your Excellency, be so good as to see a sincere desire on my part to coordinate whatever advantage my labors may offer with the preservation of general order. As a Russian, ardently loving the monarch's glory, seeing in him not only my sovereign, but a genius, the great man of our time, I am convinced that his brilliant mind knows and values everything, even the pettiest forces that act on the people who are in his care.®2

Benckendorff, considerately, showed the letter to Nicholas, and Polevoy was granted his request. General Volkov, the commander of the Moscow Gendarme District, was assigned to read Polevoy's articles before they reached the regular censor. General Volkov was a great favorite of both Nicholas and Benckendorff; because of his popularity among the inhabitants of Moscow, his great knowledge of the local situation, and his abilities as a gendarme officer, he was as close to being unassailable as any official could be during the reign of Nicholas. No censor would dare to ban an article that Volkov had passed. It so happened, furthermore, and by no means accidentally, that Polevoy was on excellent terms with the general; they were the best of friends. (Pushkin, irked by Polevoy's uncouth manners,

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and his attacks on the "irresponsibility" of gentry litterateurs, called him, "a spoiled darling of the police" and a "Jacobin": an odd combination.63) For all his versatility and cleverness, Nicholas Polevoy's luck did not hold out. General Volkov went mad in 1832; before the end of the year, he died. A few months later, in March, 1833, Polevoy's enemy, Uvarov, became Minister of Education. Polevoy declared that Uvarov had borne a grudge against him ever since the "Telegraph" had made sport of certain publications of the Academy of Sciences (of which Uvarov had been president). There was good reason. Polevoy had stated, in his historical writings, that revolution was a universal phenomenon, that any revolution had its roots deep in a country's history, served to crystallize inherent tendencies, and therefore in itself could not be called a bad thing. Uvarov scarcely needed more than that. In 1832, in his famous report to Nicholas (mentioned above), he had singled out the "Telegraph" as a special example of the "audacity" of the Moscow press. Now that he had become minister, Uvarov applied particular scrutiny to the Moscow region. Soon after assuming his new post, Uvarov in fact recommended that the "Telegraph" be closed down. Polevoy, in a review article of Walter Scott's biography of Napoleon, had written of the patience and, almost, the ease with which Russia and the Russians had "absorbed" the conqueror's troops. Uvarov accused the article of "the most insubstantial elaborations, insulting to the honor of our government, full of ill-intended and ironical references." But Nicholas refused to act: I find the article stupid in its contradictions rather than ill intended. The censor is to blame in that he permitted it; the the author also, insofar as he wrote without making any sense, probably not understanding himself what he wrote.64

The censor, Dvigubsky, was dismissed; but Polevoy was merely instructed "not to write nonsense." From this time on, Uvarov began to compile a notebook of excerpts from Polevoy's writings, from his "History of the Russian People" as well as from the "Telegraph."

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A year later, visiting St. Petersburg, Polevoy attended the imperial theater for a performance of Nestor Kukolnik's pompous drama, "The Hand of the Almighty Saved the Fatherland." A short time before he had written a review article on the play, to appear in the next issue of the "Telegraph." Seeing the play on the imperial stage, Polevoy realized than in attacking it he had made a great mistake. Nicholas himself had been to see it several times: he had even decorated Kukolnik for writing it, and all of high society applauded enthusiastically. "The Hand of the Almighty" had in fact been turned into a spectacular demonstration of loyalty to the regime. Polevoy hastily dispatched a message to Moscow to omit the review, but it arrived too late. Ten days later the fateful issue was in the hands of the Third Section. Trying to explain his review to Benckendorif ("M. Kukolnik's new drama saddens us," Polevoy had concluded), the anxious journalist wrote in a letter: I have the honor to report that I judged the tragedy only from reading it, not having seen it on the stage, and I spoke of it purely in the literary sense; that is to say, as a poetic creation.65 Benckendorif was somewhat mollified, and Polevoy was allowed to return to Moscow. In the meantime, however, Uvarov presented his indictment to Nicholas — a whole notebook of "seditious" excerpts, prefaced by a denunciation of the "revolutionary direction" of Polevoy's ideas and his "unheard-of audacity. Let us suppose someone arrived at a public square in a large capital city, and before a crowd of people began to proclaim the necessity of revolutions, the indubitable generality of revolutions . . . and that the inhabitants of the Volga and Don regions are quite foreign to us, that they are colonists or gypsies; that our government annually sends twenty-five thousand men in chains to Siberia; that the French are now all equal and that in France everything is now open to everyone. . . . Such a man might perhaps be called mad . . . but at any rate he would not be allowed to cry out much longer

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from the public square, where his words might give rise to various interpretations .ββ Quotations from Polevoy followed, of which the first two were the most significant, since the others (references to Russia and revolution) were meant to be interpreted in their light: He who maintains that his business is only to collect interesting articles should not even think of publishing a literary journal in our time. A journal should be something whole, something complete; it should have a spirit, which might also be called its direction. Otherwise, your publication will immediately be subject to the indifference of the public. [From the "Telegraph," 1831, no. 1, p. 78.] And: To rouse activity in minds and wake them from this banal vegetable inertness, which is the greatest fault of the majority of Russians — these are the conditions our times bequeath to the Russian journalist; on fulfilling them depends the success of his enterprise. [P. 82.] A courier was sent to Moscow to fetch Polevoy. After a friendly journey (which he had to finance out of his own pocket), the fearful publisher found himself before Count Benckendorff. Ksenofont Polevoy described the meeting: When my brother sat down, the Count asked him what impulse had guided him in his remarks on the patriotic drama of Kukolnik. And how could he express an opinion so contrary to the opinion of everybody?97 Benckendorff then quoted from Uvarov's indictment. Polevoy tried to explain the context, but to no avail. The "Telegraph" was ordered closed down. Released from confinement, Polevoy complained to Dubelt that he was in financial straits and had no money for his return trip to Moscow. Dubelt obligingly offered to lend him the money. Without a steady source of income, Polevoy spent the rest of his life in poverty and need. For the first time in Nicholas' reign a journal had been closed down. How would "public opinion" react? General Lesovsky,

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commander of the Moscow Gendarme District, sent Benckendorff a careful report. The unexpectedly quick return of Polevoy surprised everyone and gave rise to various criticisms and discussions. . . . It is said: "If he is innocent, why is he dealt with so cruelly?" It is said that the measures applied to Polevoy lead involuntarily to the conclusion that no one is safe. On the other hand, it is said: "If criminal intentions have been expressed, then it might follow to punish him accordingly. . . ." Some conclude that the ban on publishing the "Telegraph" is a token of the government's weakness and vexes the public; and that it would be better not to close it down, but to induce authors to write in the spirit of the government. In all this, the author is not blamed, but rather the censorship which trusted him.®8 Benckendorff continued to maintain friendly relations with Polevoy, and the latter remarked to his brother: "The head of the police deals with me like a minister of education; and the minister of education like a chief of police." Two years later, a second Moscow journal, the "Telescope," was closed down for printing a truly extraordinary essay — an article which Herzen described as "a shot in the dark night," P. Chaadaev's first "Philosophical Letter." 69 Chaadaev was a handsome, learned, and intelligent man, with great pride of intellect; he was famous as a conversationalist and letter writer. Pushkin wrote of him that in Rome he might have been a Brutus, in Athens a Pericles; but in Russia he was an officer of hussars. He had retired from the army under unhappy circumstances, without having received the promotion (to colonel) to which he felt himself entitled. He spent his time in Moscow high society, talking to friends. He had always been opposed to "kvas patriotism," and in letters to friends he had remarked ironically on its many and virulent manifestations since the Polish revolt of 1830. "They are trying to manufacture nationalism," he wrote to A. I. Turgenev in 1835, but since the materials for it are lacking, what they get is of course quite an artificial product . . . But tell me, is it not

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sad to see, at the very moment that all peoples are drawing more closely together, when local and geographical differences are fading into the background, we are sinking into ourselves and turn to a narrow patriotism? 70 On December 27, 1832, Benckendorff received an anonymous denunciation of Chaadaev: He leads a strange life and is writing something of which it is impossible to find out. But it is well known that these works are quietly read, and it is said that they are predicated on the reform of Russia and the introduction of the Catholic religion, since it is the true one and should therefore be accepted by everyone.71 Benckendorff ordered General Lesovsky to gather information. It was found that Chaadaev lived "quite cautiously," attended the Orthodox Church frequently, and prayed. Furthermore, he was respected by everyone. On June 1, 1833, Chaadaev wrote again to Benckendorff, this time very humbly, for he was in financial difficulties and wanted to enter the state service. He suggested that he might be useful in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, following the "movement of ideas" in Germany. To his surprise, Benckendorff replied that the sovereign had deigned to appoint him to the Ministry of Finance. Protesting that he knew nothing of economics, Chaadaev appealed to Benckendorff for some other assignment and, apologizing for writing in French ("a sad example of the incompleteness of our education"), presumed to enclose a letter to Nicholas himself, which contained some general remarks on education in Russia. Benckendorff returned the letter: I was apprehensive that His Majesty . . . might receive an impression of you to the effect that you, like the frivolous French, take it upon yourself to judge concerning objects which are unknown to you.72 Alarmed, Chaadaev was nevertheless bold enough to reply: it seems to me that the condition of public education is not a state matter, and that one can judge of the degree of culture

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of one's fatherland without presuming to interfere in state affairs.73 Nicholas never read the letter. Chaadaev wrote Benckendorff again, but received no reply. Meanwhile, their closer acquaintanceship was being prepared on quite different grounds. Ν. I. Nadezhdin, the son of a priest, a seminarist, and later a professor of history at Moscow University, began to publish two Moscow journals in 1831, the "Telescope" and the "Report." Neither had what Polevoy would have called a direction; both lacked subscribers; but both contained several significant contributions. Nadezhdin had taken under his wing a poor student, dismissed from the university for incapacity, whom he partly employed as his secretary. This was Vissarion Belinsky, whose first article, "Literary Musings," appeared in the "Report" in 1834. Although it did not attract much attention at the time, the article introduced what was to become a dominant feature of Russian literary criticism — the use of literature as a vehicle for social and moral criticism. Nadezhdin's relations with the authorities were, like those of most publishers of the time, uncertain. Uvarov singled out his journals for attack in 1832, but became somewhat reconciled in 1834. Bulgarin, who despised Nadezhdin because of a "Telescope" satire on his novel Ivan Vyzhigin, had submitted his customary denunciation to the Third Section. Chaadaev and Nadezhdin met for the first time in 1832. It was an uneasy relationship. Chaadaev tended to be arrogant and condescending; Nadezhdin, perhaps, overly sensitive. When he returned from a stay abroad in 1835, however, Nadezhdin found that he needed contributors badly. Chaadaev, on the other hand, seemed anxious to have his "Philosophical Letters," which had been circulating in manuscript, better known. Later he testified that he had had no intention of printing them and had agreed only after Nadezhdin had actually sent him the proofs for the first letter (dated December 17, 1829, and addressed to Mme. Panova). How the "Telescope" had obtained copies of his letters, Chaadaev asserted he did not know.74

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The famous "letter from Necropolis" appeared in the fifteenth number of the "Telescope," at the end of September 1836, and created a sensation. Nadezhdin had counted on a lively reaction and had in fact himself planned to write a refutation for a subsequent issue, but the "do or die" motive he later attributed to himself ( either to save his magazine by arousing public interest or to get it "honorably buried") seems untenable in the light of the evidence presented by Lemke, and not in keeping with Nadezhdin's rather conservative and conformist character. Nadezhdin had, in fact, sent the article to the censor, Boldyrev, who was an old friend and even a follower of his, at a time when Boldyrev was swamped with other duties (he was rector of the university and a professor) and could give it no more than the most cursory attention — but the story of his engaging Boldyrev in a card game to distract him from the article seems apocryphal. In any case, the intensity of the storm aroused took both Nadezhdin and Chaadaev by surprise.75 The letter was nothing less than a denial of Russian history. The great retarding factor in Russian spiritual development had been the Eastern Church, with its lack of social creativeness, its institutional barrenness, and the resultant isolation of Russia from a history (and "history" for Chaadaev implied a certain richness of social institutions ) which the countries of Western Europe shared. Whereas the Poles had contributed "at least a solar system," and "even the infidel Arabs . . . their algebra," the Russians had created nothing for the world. Russia was an empty space, an orphan among the nations: We have not belonged to any of the great families of mankind, neither to the West nor to the East; we have no predilictions to the one or to the other. We exist as it were outside of time. . . . We have appeared in the world as illegitimate children.76

Chaadaev posed the problem of national destiny and a worldhistorical mission with great eloquence, and it was in their opposition to Chaadaev's view of the Russian past and its implications for the future that the early slavophiles, especially Khomiakov, began to formulate their thinking.77 (Chaadaev himself later

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modified his view of the Russian future.78 ) Under contemporary circumstances, however, it was the denial of Russian history that aroused excitement. As Chaadaev's early biographer, Zhikharev, put it: "There was not a single man who sympathized or agreed with it wholeheartedly." But within a month all Moscow was talking about it.79 The superintendent of the Moscow school district, Count Stroganov, an intelligent man of moderate views, found the excitement engendered by Chaadaev's letter entirely too contagious. Although it had been circulated in manuscript for a long time before its publication and was relatively familiar in university circles, there was something terrifying about such bold ideas in print, and in Russian. Prince Viazemsky once remarked: In higher society, in the limited circle of those who rarely and accidentally read Russian, Russian grammar, little known to them, has a special importance in their eyes. For them it is somehow terrible and wild to see an idea articulated in Russian letters.80 Number fifteen of the "Telescope" circulated far beyond this limited set. The issue was quickly bought up, the letter copied and recopied, discussed, interpreted, and misinterpreted by almost everyone who could read. Count Stroganov recommended to Uvarov that the "Telescope" be closed down as of January 1. General Perfilev, who had replaced Lesovsky as chief of the Moscow Gendarme District, reported to Benckendorff on October 15 that the article had aroused "general indignation," that everyone asked, "how could they permit it to be printed?" Benckendorff replied with a few brief questions concerning "M. Cheodaev," whose name, in spite of many years' acquaintance and considerable correspondence, he consistently misspelled. The censor Boldyrev was suspended from his job; the Moscow Metropolitan Serafim (to whom F. F. Vigel had denounced Chaadaev) complained to the emperor; people awaited something dire. At about this time Michael Orlov in St. Petersburg remarked to Benckendorff that, although Chaadaev had been "stern with Russia's past," he nevertheless "expected much from her future." Benckendorff replied:

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Russia's past has been admirable; her present is more than magnificent; as to her future, it is beyond the power of the boldest imagination to portray — there, my friend, is the point of view from which Russian history should be conceived and writtenl81 On October 22 Benckendorff sent the following imperially confirmed resolution to the governor general of Moscow: In the latest issue (No. 15) of the journal "Telescope" there is an article entitled "Philosophical Letter," the author of which is a M. Cheodaev, presently living in Moscow. This article, certainly already well known to your excellency, aroused a general surprise in the inhabitants of Moscow. In it, Russia, the Russian people, their concepts, faith, and history, are spoken of with such contempt that it is incomprehensible how a Russian can lower himself to such a degree. . . . But the inhabitants of our ancient capital have already excelled in pure and healthy thought and, overflowing with a sense of the dignity of the Russian people, have at once comprehended that such an article could not have been written by a compatriot of theirs fully in possession of his mind, and therefore — since rumors have reached here — not only have they not turned their indignation upon M. Cheodaev, but on the contrary, they sincerely express their sorrow for the distraction of intellect he has suffered — which could alone be the reason for his writing such stupidities. Information has been received here that a feeling of sympathy for M. Cheodaev's unfortunate position is universally shared by the entire Moscow public. Consequently, it pleases the Sovereign-Emperor that Your Excellency should, in accordance with the dignity of your calling, take the measures necessary to provide M. Cheodaev with all possible medical attention and care. His Majesty orders that you commission his cure to a capable doctor, obliging the latter to visit M. Cheodaev constantly every morning, and in order that M. Cheodaev not expose himself to the harmful influence of the damp, cold air hereabouts, in order that all means be applied to restore to him his health, it pleases the SovereignEmperor that Your Excellency report to His Majesty monthly concerning M. Cheodaev's condition.82

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It seems quite clear that neither the Third Section nor the emperor really believed Chaadaev to be mad in any technical sense. All Chaadaev's papers were ordered seized, suddenly and secretly, "so that M. Cheodaev cannot successfully receive any preliminary warning and cannot take measures to hide his papers." They were carefully studied. Even his paintings were removed for examination by the Third Section — hardly the way a madman would have been dealt with. On the other hand, it was not a gesture of leniency either. Chaadaev might have been exiled, but for what? Nicholas would have "public opinion" to contend with. General Perfilev's report to Benckendorff described Chaadaev as standing with "tears in his eyes" when he was informed of the imperial resolution. He whispered, "right, quite right," and insisted that he had only agreed to publish the letters on Nadezhdin's urging, fully convinced that the censor would never pass them. Many of Chaadaev's friends worried that he might go mad in earnest. Perfilev also reported (on November 6 ) that, although almost everyone approved of Chaadev's treatment there were some few who thought the mock tone of the prescription unseemly. On November 20, Perfilev submitted an elaborate list of Chaadaev's visitors, present and past, when they saw him and who they were.83 The publication of the "Philosophical Letter" remained, for the Third Section, a more important fact than its composition. Chaadaev had been humiliated and forced to live an isolated, lonely life, under oath not to write anything more in the future. (But he did write the "Apology of a Madman" a year later, published it abroad, and incurred no punishment.) The censor Boldyrev was dismissed from his position both as a censor and professor (it is a curious comment on this patriarchal society that he was promoted first and not denied pension rights), and the journal was closed down after one more issue appeared. (The translator seems to have been almost entirely overlooked: Benckendorff once noted parenthetically, "Who translated this article?" — but nothing further came of it. ) On October 26, Uvarov singled out for Benckendorff's special attention a letter from a

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M. Tatishchev in Moscow. It went to the heart of the matter: "The article's publication is very important for the government; it demonstrates the existence of a political sect in Moscow."84 On November 28, the investigating committee appointed by Nicholas ( the Minister of Education, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Benckendorff, and the director of the Third Section's chancery, A. N. Mordvinov) submitted its report, distinguishing "two factors" in the case: The first is the substance of this work itself, bearing the imprint of the intellectual corruption that rules in Europe, and by which, unfortunately, a certain number of weak-minded and restless people among us have been seduced. The other factor, incomparably more important, or rather the only important factor in this manifestation, is the publication of such an article at a time when the higher administration is making every effort to animate the national spirit to the elevation of everything that pertains to the Fatherland.85 It was this second factor on which the report concentrated: such a primary, blatant attack against the Greco-Russian Church, the life of which is so closely bound up with the life of the state, gives this work a new line, exceptional among liberal pasquils, a line that is in a sense an echo of, a kind of tie with, the newest brand of Catholicism which recently raised its banner in France under the leadership of Lamennais and his school, and at the very same time O'Connell in England, Potner among the Belgians, and finally several truly radical sects in Germany and Switzerland, all of whom did not, like Lamennais, separate themselves from the power of the Catholic Church; along with him, they seek a point of union of their religious teaching with the revolutionary principles that have seized upon a great part of Europe." * This is, incidentally, an interesting anticipation of Dostoevsky's idea that Western socialism was an outgrowth of the Roman Catholic Church. H. F. R. de Lamennais (1782-1854) and Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847) are, of course, well known. "Potner" was, in all likelihood, Louis de Potter (1786-1859), the leader of the young liberals in Belgium, whose offer of union with the Catholic Party welded the two factions and had much to do with the success of the Belgian Revolution of 1830. See Henri Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique (Brussels, 1932), VI 322-325. What these three men had in common was not so much their Cath-

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Nadezhdin submitted a long and rambling confession to the committee, in which he told the story of his life, denied that he had been at all aware of the implications of Chaadaev's article, that he had been beguiled by the latter's religious thinking and his dislike for contemporary Europe, and that he had believed Chaadaev's letters were actually known to Count Benckendorff and were approved by him. In reply, Uvarov submitted to the investigating committee a collection of excerpts from the "Telescope" to prove that "the spirit of this publication has always been a foolish one, and the editor always suspect." Finally, Nadezhdin admitted: "I had no other motive in printing the article than the desire to engage the interest of the public and thereby advance my magazine." In spite of this confession he remained "the main culprit" in the committee's report, and he was sentenced to live in exile in Ust-Sysolsk. Even in exile, however, he was permitted to write and to publish articles and, on April 8, 1838, received a complete pardon. The following year, General Dubelt of the Third Section provided him with a voucher which enabled him to enter the state service, where, in the Ministry of the Interior, he had a successful career as an authority on religious dissenters. He even received the Order of Vladimir, Third Class, and died a rich and respectable man on January 11, 1856.88 The censor Boldyrev lived comfortably in retirement. The translator was forgotten. The printer received a verbal reprimand but exonerated himself. Only Chaadaev continued to live a bitter and alienated life, although he, too, was removed from "medicopolice surveillance" a year later, on condition that he write nothing. Slowly Chaadaev took up his place in society again. His house again became a central exchange for the most diverse intellects. But there remained an air about him of a person tragically alienated. Herzen wrote of him: "For all his erudition and skill in the exposition and development of his thought, he was terribly outmoded. . . . This was a voice from the grave, a voice from the land of death and destruction." 87 olicism or their political views as their use of the periodical press and public agitation as a means to public power.

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He always lived under the shadow of the police. In 1837, the recipient of his "Philosophical Letter," Catherine Dmitrievna Panova, had been declared insane by the Moscow authorities, on the recommendation of her husband. When interrogated, she had maintained that she was simply a republican and prayed for the Poles because they fought for freedom. When Chaadaev heard of this, fearful lest he be reimplicated in the affair of the letter, he wrote a cringing note to the Moscow police master, insisting that he had nothing to do with Panova's state of mind. Years later, in 1852, he was once again submitted to police surveillance, ironically enough, because he was believed to be a Slavophile. And, in 1853, he wrote an impassioned defense of himself to the Third Section, against Herzens claim (in Du Développement des idées révolutionnaires en Russie, printed abroad) that he was the first revolutionary thinker in Russia. He died in 1856, a few months after Nadezhdin and a year after Nicholas I.88 The nineteenth century had a high regard for the man of extraordinary parts, the hero, in all walks of life; but it probably never occurred to Thomas Carlyle to consider the censor as a kind of culture hero. In Russia, however, where intellectual heroism became a distinguishing feature of the intelligentsia then in process of formation, the difficulties of censorship sometimes called for nothing less than heroism on the part of men of good will somehow saddled with the unhappy burden. Α. V. Nikitenko was the son of a serf on one of the Sheremetev estates. His father had been a choir master, later a steward, and was, in spite of his humble station, a cultured man of great ability and strength of character. Nikitenko himself had been taken under the protection of Prince Eugene Obolensky and under his sponsorship and that of Ryleev had received his freedom and an excellent education. Nikitenko managed to survive the downfall of his patrons and the post-Decembrist panic. In the next ten years he had a distinguished career as a legislator, professor, and man of letters. He was a successful, self-made man — but very far from having the sanguine optimistic temperament that usually accompanies such success. A pall of gloom and doubt

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enveloped all he did. His father had died a serf. His mother and brother were still serfs, and, for all his success in the official world, he could not persuade Count Sheremetev to set them free. On March 11, 1841, he wrote in his diary: Here am I, a full citizen, enjoying even a certain fame and influence; and I cannot even bring about — what? — the independence of my mother and brother! A half-witted giant has the right to refuse me; this is called law. My blood boils, and I understand how it is that people go to extremes.89 His own position, moreover, in spite of his success, was a terribly difficult one. A man of moderate views, a learned man with a great love for letters, he was, at the same time, censor, writer, and later the editor of a leading journal. As censor his great object was a strict application of the law, which was being picked apart from one side by fearful censors and the Minister of Education and from the other by the Third Section and a host of outraged officials, from the Holy Synod to the Ministry of Finance. Long after he had given up all hopes for legality in censorship procedure he remained at his post, partly out of fear that his resignation would invoke official displeasure and deprive him of all his positions and all chance to liberate his family, partly because he felt it better for literature that he and not someone else, more timid or more stupid, occupy the position of censor. As a writer, he was without a camp, without a "circle"; Pushkin and Delvig were aristocrats, and he a plebeian; Grech, Bulgarin, and Senkowsky were corrupt; and Polevoy, after the closing down of the "Telegraph" in 1834, became a toady to necessity. At a court ball early in 1833, Nikitenko heard various court dignitaries talk about the rewards which Nicholas would soon distribute for work on the forthcoming Collection of laws: Hearing all this, I involuntarily turned down the facings of my uniform, to hide the buttons, the symbol of my officialdom. . . . If you want to be free, then you must be at war with society.80 Nikitenko in 1828 was secretary to the superintendent of the St. Petersburg school district, Κ. M. Borozdin; he was asked by his employer to draft some proposals for and comments on the

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censorship law that was then being considered in committee. "It was my first work in the legislative sense" — and he was proud to contribute to "what is closest to me." He was delighted by Nicholas' approval of the law, but he was not without reservations: "This is in theory, of course; and how it will be in practice, we shall yet see." 9 1 Less than two years later, Nikitenko was on the verge of despair for "the miserable condition of writers." Grech, Bulgarin, and Voeikov had been thrown into the guardhouse for two weeks, on Nicholas' orders. Nikitenko had little love for them, but much for the crucial paragraph of the law which exempted writers from responsibility for material that had been passed by the censor: In the city, many rejoice that Voeikov, Grech, and Bulgarin have been tossed in the guardhouse. Their boundless egoism is disliked by all. But no one thinks of the trampling down of one of the better articles of our poor censorship law. . . . We can only be as enlightened as the conditions of our life permit.92 During 1830 and 1831, the years of cholera at home and revolutions abroad, the censorship law seemed to Nikitenko quite undermined. On December 30, 1830, he wrote in his diary: "There has been little of comfort for enlightenment in Russia this past year" — not a shadow of legality: In the educated part of society, the spirit of opposition rises more and more strongly, all the worse, the more hidden: this is the worm that undermines the tree. The Jacobin will rejoice, but the wise man will regret these political mistakes, the end of which is not difficult to foresee.93 The superintendent Borozdin, demoralized, left the work of censorship and school supervision almost entirely to Nikitenko. Early in 1831, Benckendorff "called Delvig a Jacobin practically to his face and gave him to understand the government would take steps with regard to him," and a month later society was indignant toward the Third Section for Delvig's death. On February 15, Nikitenko visited Pletnev: "We talked about our literature; that is, we bewailed its ruin."

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On December 7, 1831, Nikitenko received a professorship at St. Petersburg University. Instead of elation, he felt something close to despair: "I am beginning to come into fashion. What stupidity!" On February 25, 1832, he wrote in his diary: I plunge into chancery tasks. A stack of business has piled up. The spirit will perish amidst this administrative chaos, which in essence produces nothing. But why nothing? Surely, one way or another, we all support the state machine. But anyone who has eyes, hands, and a stomach could do as much.94 He felt his literary efforts were disapproved of by his superiors, and he felt both depressed and indignant: "It is considered a crime for an official to occupy himself with literature. . . . O tempora! O mores!" On April 4, 1833, three weeks after Uvarov's accession as Minister of Education, Nikitenko (not subject to the regular censorship, since he was a professor, writing for a journal published by the Academy of Sciences ) showed an article to the district superintendent for approval. The latter suggested that several passages might be "misinterpreted"; Nikitenko refused to change them, noting angrily in his diary: They are now demanding that literature should blossom forth, but that no one should write anything in prose or verse. They demand that we teach as well as possible, but that teachers do not think. And what are teachers? Officers, who give orders to the truth and set her turning all her sides to the audience. They demand from youth now that it learn much, and withal not mechanically — but that it read no books and not dare to think that it might be more important for the state if its citizens had brilliant minds rather than bright buttons on their uniforms.95 Less than two weeks later, he accepted, in addition to his professorship, a position as censor, noting laconically: "I am taking a dangerous step." To be a censor, Nikitenko wrote, it was necessary: to reconcile three irreconcilable things: to satisfy the demands of the government, the demands of writers, and the demands of one's inner feeling. The censor is considered the natural enemy of writers — and essentially this is not a mistake.98

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Nikitenko admired Pushkin immensely as a poet, but felt that he was both irresponsible and arrogant. Early in 1836, Pushkin published a disguised satire on Uvarov entitled "Lucullus' Recovery," which Nikitenko felt had been designed to get the censor in trouble and for which he felt the poet very much to blame. Nikitenko himself refused to act as Pushkin's censor; he was "too difficult to deal with." On the other hand, he had prided himself on persuading the Main Censorship Committee to permit the publication of Gogol's short stories of 1835 (Mirgorod) and Dead Souls in 1842, albeit with minor changes suggested by himself. Gogol reacted violently to the changes and complained bitterly against Nikitenko. (In his diary, Nikitenko wrote: "Poor litterateur! Poor censor!") Later, as editor of "The Contemporary," Nikitenko felt that the publishers and some of the contributors were using his status as a dignitary on the censorship committee to evade their responsibility for unseemly passages. Under a barrage of complaints from writers, he felt extremely uncomfortable. The government, however, was even more difficult to please. On December 16, 1834, Nikitenko, while lecturing at the university, received a note to appear before the superintendent (Prince Dondukov-Korsakov). A religious zealot had complained to the Moscow Metropolitan of a translation from a poem by Victor Hugo that contained the phrase "by the village saints." Nikitenko had been the poem's censor. The Metropolitan had begged an interview with the emperor and had implored him passionately "to protect the Orthodox from such poetry." The emperor had ordered the censor put in the guardhouse. Dondukov-Korsakov told Nikitenko to go to the Petersburg commandant, who told him quite simply: "The emperor has instructed me to put you in the guardhouse." His aide-de-camp, however, assured Nikitenko very politely that he was to be imprisoned in "the new admiralty guardhouse, the best in the city." The next day, Dondukov-Korsakov sent a message to Nikitenko, telling him that Uvarov had given an excellent report of him, in which he maintained that I had let the unfortunate verses

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The commandant also visited Nikitenko and told him not to worry; he would send a favorable report to the emperor. His wife wrote to him and assured him that his arrest had created a considerable stir in the city. The place of his confinement not being generally known, people gathered at all the guardhouses, wishing to see him. A day later, his colleague Pletnev called to offer his sympathy, and then others: From time to time, friends visit me, but this is discomforting, because it is against the rules to visit prisoners. Several officers of the watch have demonstrated their kindness to the point of offering to accompany me home for a visit with my family. Certainly, I did not consent: they might have to pay for it.98 He was released, after "eight days under the hospitable roof of the Admiralty guardhouse." On his release, Nikitenko reported to the superintendent. He received me with declarations of vivid pleasure. From him, I went to the Minister, who also received me well — not a word of reproach or even counsel for the future. "And the Emperor was not angry with you either. . . . But he had to give some satisfaction to the head of the clergy, something at once public and proclaimed. . . . He instructed the commandant not to unsettle you too much, and expressed pleasure when he learned you were comfortable. The Metropolitan did not win much by his act. The Emperor is disturbed at having been bothered with a trifle. So do not worry — nothing further threatens you." 99 People came to see him in droves, and dinners were held in his honor. After two weeks, Nikitenko declared it was high time to forget about his arrest, but on February 16, 1836, the empress, visiting the university, was reminded by Uvarov (with a certain pride) "that I was that censor who, not long ago, sat in the guardhouse."

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A few months later, Chaadaev's letter appeared in print. Uvarov was convinced it was the work of "a secret party." Nikitenko tried to dissuade him. It was, he insisted, simply "the involuntary outburst of new ideas. . . . This has already happened more than once, in spite of the unequalled strictness of censors, and in spite of persecutions of every sort." On October 28, Nikitenko was present when all editors of periodical publications were called before the Main Censorship Committee: "They appeared with terror on their faces, like schoolboys." The next year a supplement to the censorship law was issued. Two censors had to go over periodical material or, rather, three, since a representative from the Third Section was to act as a "control." Nikitenko's cocensor turned out to be a man named Gaevsky, "the most timid of them all," as he put it. Nikitenko despaired of being able "to stand firm at my post as sentinel of Russian thought and the Russian word." A month later, on April 13, 1837, Nikitenko offered his resignation. "The censor is set up as a sad figure, without any significance, but under immense responsibility, and under the uninterrupted spying of the higher censor." But Dondukov-Korsakov persuaded him not to resign suddenly, "in order not to bring upon myself the terrible reproach of revolt." Nikitenko wrote: "He is an honorable man . . . but too subservient to Minister Uvarov." Yet he did not resign. Complaining bitterly of "pettiness and social chaos," Nikitenko plodded on with his work. In July 1841 the emperor ordered the Main Censorship Committee to compose a law specifying what could and what could not be considered a periodical publication. (A number of miscellanies had begun to appear almost regularly. ) The committee passed the matter on to Nikitenko. It is no easy matter. It seems desirable to incline the government to look on the matter more leniently, to save the new publications, and to remove obstacles from the path of future publications. I must threaten struggle against Krylov and Gaevsky. The day before yesterday, I wrote all night long.100 Through it all, the same despair, the same indignation:

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Polevoy told Dübelt: "I have written an even more loyal play [than "The Boat of Peter I"]. . . . I hope you will be satisfied with it also." This is shameful!101 And: I must teach Russian letters, but where are they? . . . All this means something where public opinion and an aesthetic exist, but here it is simply a swirling of words in the air. Words, words, words! To live in words, and for words, with the soul thirsting for reality, with the mind striving for true and substantial results — this is the real, the profound, evil.102 On December 12, 1842, a gendarme broke in upon Nikitenko, who was at work in his study. He was told to present himself to Dubelt at Third Section headquarters immediately. There, he found another censor, Kutorga, in the same predicament. "Ah, my dear fellows," Dubelt said, taking our hands, "how sad it is for me to meet you concerning such an unpleasant case. I shall wager that you will not be able to guess why the Emperor is displeased with you. . . . Count Kleinmichel complained to the Sovereign that his officers are insulted by this." 103 He pointed out two sections in the eighth number of "Son of the Fatherland," Grech's journal: I had been disturbed as long as I did not know what it was we were being accused of. . . . In the complexity and difficulty of censorship, we could easily have overlooked something. But I saw at once that the present case was like snow falling from a roof to the sidewalk as you happen to be strolling underneath. Against such penalties, there are no recourses . . . because they occur outside the sphere of human logic. Dubelt escorted them to Benckendorff, who assured them: "I did all I could for you, but the Sovereign said to put you in the guardhouse overnight, for insults to couriers and officers in these articles." [Nikitenko:] "Your Excellency, speak to the Sovereign for

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us. Tell His Majesty how difficult it is to be a censor. We really do not know what is demanded of us. . . . we are never safe, and can never fulfil our obligations." Benckendorfi: took our hands and swore that he would report all this to the Sovereign. . . . They deal with censors as with little boys . . . and at the same time entrust them with the duty of safeguarding minds and morals . . . the spirit of the law . . . and finally, the very government. At his lecture the next day, Nikitenko again found himself a hero. The students gave him a rousing reception. He worried that perhaps more trouble might come of it. The emperor did indeed request a list of the students who attended, but Benckendorfi tried to calm him down. Nicholas, examining the list, muttered: "How few are well known!" — and let it go at that. Using a particularly violent denunciation from Bulgarin as a lever, Uvarov tried, in December 1843, to move Nicholas to increase the power of the censors. Nicholas replied that the law provided power enough: "'They have pencils: these are their scepters.' " In his diary, Nikitenko still wrote of retiring. Uvarov's position was becoming more and more untenable. To one of his assistants he expressed the wish that "Russian literature should be abolished. . . . Then I will at least sleep undisturbed." Under these circumstances, Nikitenko let friends persuade him that his retirement from the censorship would be a severe blow to literature. Early in 1845, Nikitenko was commissioned to draft changes in the censorship law. His diary entries which deal with the censorship assume an increasingly hectic tone. "Censors hang by a hair," he wrote. Uvarov issued orders, in February 1845, that articles concerning the construction of roads could not be printed without the permission of the Minister of Ways and Communications. "Every section chief among us flees publicity and tries to surround all his activities with an impregnable darkness." A secret prescription to the censors made even excessive patriotism (provincial or national) suspect. Dubelt and Orlov, Nikitenko noted, accused one intellectual (Chizhov) simply of being too

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passionate, and on this ground he was refused the publication of a journal in Moscow and was forced to submit his works directly to the Third Section for censorship. Emerging from the Superintendent's Council, the censors held a special session of the committee, which hastened without much deliberation, to ban a witty and quite innocent article by Senkowski against the slavophiles, an article quite in the spirit of those ideas which we had just been listening to for half an hour in the Council. And just three days ago, for precisely the same kind of article printed in "Notes of the Fatherland," Kraevsky was thanked by the Third Section in the name of the Sovereign. My God, what chaos 1 what a mish-mash of concepts!104 In January 1849, after the European revolutions, the founding of the Menshikov and Buturlin committees (which replaced both the Third Section and the Ministry of Education as the controlling force in matters of censorship), the outbreak of cholera (more severe this time than it had been in 1830-1831), and the closing down of St. Petersburg University, Nikitenko finally resigned his position as censor. In the next reign, he was to reemerge as a key figure in censorship matters, but at the time Nikitenko could only look back with gloomy satisfaction to his diary entry for April 15, 1834: Demoralization and cynicism are general. The reason is in the political order of things. . . . The authorities have declared themselves the enemies of any kind of intellectual development. . . . Destroying neither science nor learning, they have nevertheless so hounded us with censorship, with personal persecutions, with an absolutist direction imposed on a life chary of moral self-knowledge, that we have come to see ourselves in a depression of spirit, hemmed about as it were on all sides, cut oflE from soil in which spiritual forces might develop and fulfil themselves. . . . When . . . they told us that in our society educated people are considered pariahs, that . . . soldierly discipline is the only principle on which it is permitted to act — then the younger generation was plunged into moral poverty. . . . Perhaps it will be said that in this period new universities were opened, and young people

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were sent abroad to complete their education in the sciences. This has meant only an increase in the number of unfortunates who did not know where to turn with their developed intellects, their demands for a higher intellectual life. . . . Suicide is not surprising. . . . Certainly, this epoch will pass as everything on earth passes; but it can last a long time yet.105 It lasted a little over twenty years. During that time, the passive resentment of men like our censor hero was being transformed into the more active hatred of a Chernyshevsky. The closing down of the "Telescope" marked a turning point in the government's relationship to certain aspects of public opinion. It was the third and last Russian journal to be banned during Nicholas' reign. The Moscow gendarme chief had suggested in his report that the government's action might well have been a mistake, and in any case a great deal of unwanted interest and excitement had been aroused. None of the journals previously closed down had been able to boast of more than a few hundred subscribers; but the last issue of the "Telescope" had become an object of curiosity for thousands. From 1836 on, Third Section policy concentrated more than ever on frightening the regular censors into a stricter surveillance over the press, hoping by this means to avoid the drastic action of a ban. From the point of view of effective repression, it was not entirely successful. For a long time it had been the custom for poets to circulate manuscript copies of their poems among friends, and for these friends in tum to make copies. Even high society tended to be far more tolerant, not only to poetry, but to letters and essays circulated in this manner. Chaadaev's letter, written in French, and read in surroundings that encouraged an intimate and personal rather than an official reaction, had enjoyed such a private audience for seven years before it exploded into print. From time to time, the Third Section dealt roughly with those who circulated such manuscripts; Herzens friend, the poet Polezhaev, is an extreme case.108 Pushkin got into trouble several times for the spread of his poems (with certain changes) by other people, and once for reading aloud his play Boris Godunov.107 On the whole,

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however, the Third Section did not concern itself much, before the appearance of Chaadaev's letter, with this aspect of public opinion. Griboedov's masterpiece, "Woe from Wit," for example, had a large manuscript circulation for five years before either its performance or publication — and continued to afterwards, since the censored public versions, as Nikitenko put it, had "nothing left but woe." The Third Section knew of its circulation, as did everyone else, but took no steps. The combined impact of Chaadaev's letter and Pushkin's death created so much public tension that for a time the market for "manuscript copies" expanded, indeed, even boomed. Lermontov had written his famous scathing lines against "society's" participation in the death of Pushkin, and in a short time the poem, without publication, gained for itself literally thousands of readers. It was not merely circulated; it was memorized. The Third Section in this instance reacted quite differently; Benckendorff sent an imperially confirmed order to War Minister Chernyshev, transferring Lermontov (a Guards officer) to the Caucasus, and he imprisoned Lermontov's friend, S. A. Raevsky (for trying to warn him), before sending him off to serve in Olonets province. In the words of a contemporary: "At no time in Russia's past had verses produced such an immense and universal impression." 108 A counterpart to the handwritten manuscript was the "circle" of friends, which met to discuss common interests. Such groups also had a long tradition in Russia, being to some extent the fragments of banned freemasonry. Under the impact of the Decembrist revolt, friendly groups of this kind, like the "Wisdom Lovers," dissolved, even though they had little political significance or interest; the fear of being associated with the Decembrist societies discouraged the formation of circles among everyone except those who took a romantic view of martyrdom. In the 1830s, German philosophy and, in the 1840s, French social thought became ardent subjects for discussion in student circles, especially in Moscow. Formal philosophy had been banned from the universities in 1826, but Moscow University had a number of talented and lively professors who encouraged philosophical interests in their students. Discussions which were not permitted in

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the formal atmosphere of the classroom took place in students' rooms, in an atmosphere of great freedom, yet with all the underlying excitement of something half-forbidden, something conspiratorial. Even groups that had no philosophical, let alone political, interests might on occasion listen to a reading of some satirical poem or sing a scabrous song about the government. Among the young it was an assertion of freedom and independence. Even in official St. Petersburg, Lermontov, Prince Gagarin, and some other very prominent young men in the Guards or the university or the government service formed what they called "The Circle of Sixteen," at meetings of which they talked "as though the Third Section had never existed."109 The press, after a year in the doldrums, during which the circulation of even the "Northern Bee" dropped by about a thousand subscribers, became remarkably animated and free in its discussions of literary, social, and economic problems. The government itself sponsored a great number of technical journals and provincial bulletins from 1838 on. The new interest in agriculture, warmed by the glow of a foreign market (the rise of grain prices in England and France and the gradual removal of import restrictions culminating in the abolition of the English Corn Laws in 1846) gave rise to interests other than purely technical ones, which could not in any case be separated from social and political problems. The development of industry in the 1840s and the growth of professional classes also whetted reading appetites for literature that was beyond the purely technical description of inventions. It is interesting to note that the first mention of Charles Fourier in the Russian press occurred (in 1837) in the semiofficial "Literary Supplement" to the "Russian Veteran." Its author not only mentioned Fourier but referred to him as "the Columbus of the social world." 110 A month before the ban on the "Telescope," on October 1, 1836, Uvarov had issued an order that no new periodicals were to be permitted for the time being. (Kraevsky, at that time the editor of the above-mentioned "Literary Supplement," had applied for permission to publish a new journal and had received the common reply from Nicholas: "There are many without this

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one.") With the din of Chaadaev's article fresh in the emperor's ears, the Third Section became Nicholas' sole adviser with regard to granting such permission — which made it very difficult to come by. To eager would-be publishers, however, two alternatives presented themselves. They could issue a "miscellany" ( sbornik), which might appear at more or less regular intervals, or they could purchase the rights to a periodical which had once existed but had gone out of business.111 In 1838 a miscellany appeared which created a minor sensation. It was called simply "A Hundred Russian Writers," but it contained three pieces by A. A. Bestuzhev, the Decembrist poetnovelist, whose recent death in the Caucasus had intensified public interest in him, and a portrait, not over the pseudonym "Marlinsky" (with which his popular romantic novels of the Caucasus had been allowed to appear), but clearly labeled, A. Bestuzhev. The miscellany had been submitted directly to the Third Section for censorship, and the person responsible for the portrait had been none other than A. N. Mordvinov, the director of the chancery. Mordvinov was promptly dismissed and later designated governor of Viatka, not perhaps a severe punishment but certainly a demotion. Dubelt, the new director, issued a number of orders with regard to a closer surveillance over similar miscellanies. The fall of Mordvinov had indicated that even the Third Section was not immune to the tension set up between an expanding public opinion and Nicholas' distrust of spontaneous expression.112 That same year Kraevsky purchased from the bookseller Svinin his journal "Notes of the Fatherland," which had lapsed from lack of public interest. In the meantime, publication of Pushkin's "The Contemporary" had passed, on the poet's death, to Nikitenko and some time later to Nekrasov and Panaev. In the 1840s, these two journals became effective rivals of the "Northern Bee," not only surpassing it in public influence, but approaching it in number of subscribers. Kraevsky was a shrewd opportunist, who, like Polevoy before him, cultivated both radical sentiment and the good will of the Third Section — but far more successfully. In spite of numerous denunciations by Bulgarin and others to the

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effect that these "insolent" publications were spreading ideas of socialism and revolution, the Third Section never took seriously into consideration the possibility of closing them down until 1848, and even then its final decision was in the negative. Bulgarin, Grech, and Senkowsky, with the capital funds of the wealthy bookseller, A. F. Smirdin, at their disposal, commanded a journalistic empire that included more than half of the total number of subscribers to the private Russian press. They had minor fallings out among themselves, but on the whole they maintained a united front against other competitors. In their journals, criticism of literature was motivated crudely and simply by the profit motive and lust for empire. Writers were judged according to their relations to this triumvirate; those who sued for favor were granted it; those who insisted on a critical attitude or who took the side of a competitor were attacked both in print and in denunciations to the Third Section. The government ban on new publications, though it was not, as demonstrated above, entirely effective, nevertheless played into the hands of the triumvirate. In the words of P. V. Annenkov: "Pull" became a basic critical motif, which determined the worth of persons and works. "Pull" disposed of places in literature as it did in administration.113 The triumvirate had a special government concession, almost like the railroads, and the position of the press was not unlike that of the sectarians, who were allowed to practice their faith (with the aid of secrecy and a few bribes) as long as they made no attempt to extend it. Pushkin had opposed the triumvirate and had failed. His death left the opposition — and all serious literary interest was in the opposition — bitter and deprived. The influence of German romanticism (especially Schelling and Hegel) had very much enhanced the idea for which Pushkin had struggled — the idea of the poet as the uncreated conscience of his race. The man who emerged in Pushkin's place as leader of the opposition against the triumvirate was a critic and journalist, Vissarion Belinsky, whose subject was generally literature but who was not so much a literary critic as a moralist. His abiding concern

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(except for a brief period of euphoria under the influence of Bakunin's Hegelianism) was the emptiness, the harshness, and the cruelty of Russian social and political life. Out of desperation with the censorship, Belinsky wrote to a friend in 1843: "About art one may chatter as one pleases, but about the real thing — that is, about morals and morality — there is no use wasting time and energy." 114 For him, literature meant an education in humanity, a lesson in morals. The censors were instructed to watch him — he was, after all, a violent and disturbing writer — but on the whole the Third Section regarded him, in the words of Annenkov, as "a man producing for the most part poorly conceived foggy nonsense, who could be tolerated for the very reason of his wild originality; the more forceful and detailed his exposition, the more harmless it seemed." 115 In 1834, in Nadezhdin s "Telescope," Belinsky printed a series of articles called "Literary Musings." These, as the title suggests, were reveries on literature in general and Russian literature in particular. Literature expressed the spirit of a people, portrayed their inner life. Russia had no "literary development," only sudden flashes, the last one having occurred in 1830. Until then there had been but a blind imitation of the foreign; after that, a desperate attempt to be "national" — with altogether too much "trying." The artist had to be part of the life of his people and to give spontaneous expression to that life. "What is our literature? An expression of society or of the national spirit?" Since Russia had no coherent national culture, it could have no real literature. But the future promised much: We have no literature — I repeat it with enthusiasm, with pleasure, for in that truth I see the guarantee of our future success. . . . Noble poverty is better than visionary riches.116 With a somewhat more optimistic emphasis on the future, Belinsky was really making the same point as Chaadaev; what could not be said about history and social institutions directly without dire consequences could be said indirectly about literature, almost without the notice of either the censorship or the Third Section.

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With Kraevsky's purchase of "Notes of the Fatherland," writers rallied to him as to a cause. Belinsky left Moscow for St. Petersburg to join the journal's staff. Rich and poor undertook to work on Kraevsky's journal almost without recompense, or for the most paltry recompense, if only to provide the publisher with the means to struggle against the "capitalists" who ran literature.117 Bulgarin, somewhat disquieted, at first offered to join forces with Kraevsky but, when his offer was rejected, adopted his usual means of dealing with opponents. Belinsky being the outstanding figure of "Notes of the Fatherland," Bulgarin singled him out for an attack in the "Northern Bee" which had almost the nature, at the time, of a criminal accusation. According to Bulgarin, Belinsky believed that "treason is not a bad thing, and even praiseworthy," attacked such time-honored and respectable Russian literary figures as Derzhavin, Karamzin, and Zhukovsky ("the author of our national anthem"), and partook of those feelings toward Russia which "spiteful foreigners, renegades, beardless youths, and so on" nourished. The censorship, however, reprimanded Bulgarin as often for these personal attacks as it did Kraevsky and Belinsky for their "audacity." In the 1840s, "Notes of the Fatherland" became the foremost journal, and Belinsky the most famous critic, in Russia. His great personal integrity, his flair for polemics, the intensity of his enthusiasm and abhorrences, the very desperation and misery of his life, made him a kind of ideal embodiment of the intelligentsia. He had a powerful aesthetic sensibility (half-buried under the fierce inconsistency of his journalistic prose and his imposed, and unstable, world views), but he was primarily a moralist and under different circumstances might perhaps have found a mode of expression more suitable to his talents. In his essay, "Thoughts and Notes on Russian Literature" (1846), he wrote: only in its sphere do we cease to be Ivans and Peters and become simply persons associating with other persons and having relations with them. . . . Our literature has created

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the morals of our society, has already educated several quite distinct generations, has laid the foundation for an internal meeting of social classes, has formed a kind of public opinion.118 He had by that time discarded his former idea that Russia had no literature. The change had come about under the impact of his reading of Gogol, and had been in process at least since 1835, but it found definite expression in his essay on Dead Souls in 1842. That novel not only depicted the surface texture of Russian social life but expressed its essence: "We find nothing funny or farcical in it." In another essay of that same year, Belinsky wrote: It is no exaggeration to say that only in art and literature, and consequently in aesthetic and literary criticism, does the intellectual consciousness of our society find expression.119 At about the same time that he discovered the existence of Russian literature, Belinsky underwent a conversion to socialism. He wrote to a friend late in 1841: I am now in a new extremity. This is the idea of socialism, which has become for me the idea of ideas, the way of ways, the problem of problems, the alpha and omega of faith and knowledge . . . sociality! sociality or death! that is my motto!120 He could not assume direct advocacy of socialism in print; the censorship would not permit that. But indirectly, in his plaudits for George Sand, his proclamations for "the natural school" of Gogol, and his discussions of the function of literature as humane education, he could hint at it, point to the "right" books, prepare attitudes. It is curious that the Third Section, which had broadly equated the phrase "the mind's activity" with "revolution" in Kireevsky's article in 1832, was extremely reluctant to apply anything but a literal interpretation to Belinsky's essays of the 1840s, in spite of repeated denunciations by Bulgarin and his friends. One may perhaps conclude, first, that "public opinion" had in the meantime changed rather drastically and, secondly, that literature was safer ground than history from which to criticize the status quo. On February 23, 1848, after revolution had actually broken

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out in France, and shortly after the Third Section had received an anonymous denunciation of "Notes of the Fatherland" and "The Contemporary" (to which Belinsky had transferred his activity in 1846), Count Orlov reported to Nicholas: The over-all implication of these two journals is that they attempt to portray nature and people as they are, without any ornamentation or exaggerations, therefore calling themselves writers of the natural school; and they express themselves with contempt concerning all former and contemporary writers who have described or who now describe subjects more ideal than those existing in nature.121 Orlov wished to make it quite clear that he disapproved of "the natural school," which had evoked denunciations from other journalists and caused a great deal of disturbance. Nevertheless, he emphasized that the denunciations were exaggerated, that the real issue was certainly not the existence of a "conspiracy," but a mere lapse of taste. He singled out Belinsky: Belinsky has always distinguished himself from other critics by the coarse tone and audacity of his judgments. He acknowledges no values in Lomonosov, Derzhavin, Karamzin, Zhukovsky, or any other litterateur, and is enthused by the works of Gogol alone, whom the writers of the natural school consider their head, approving of those writers only who imitate Gogol. Belinsky has so loudly and steadily proclaimed his opinion that now almost all our young writers value the entire ancient dignity of our literature but as nought. . . . Although judgments of writers properly [italics mine] depend on taste and the public, on the other hand, insolent outbursts concerning old reputations offend the sensibility of those who have been inclined to honor Derzhavin, Karamzin, and the others as the glory of our fatherland; furthermore, a disrespect for literary reputations can lead young people to a disesteem of everything to which the nation owes respect.122 Even lack of taste could, therefore, be dangerous. Orlov refers to the case of a lieutenant in the corps of engineers, Bannikov: he explained that having acquired a disrespect for our litterateurs from "Notes of the Fatherland" he went on from there

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to a disrespect for everything read by others, and for the authorities, and the present state of affairs, and even for the person of Your Imperial Majesty. Furthermore, the natural school tended to describe the seamy side of life, to introduce foreign words into the Russian language, and to write ambiguously with regard to "current problems of the West." There is evident, in the passage that follows, a kind of nervousness on Orlov's part, a quick shift from the consideration of the state of public opinion (among "our young people") to the real merits of the two periodicals in question: In a superficial view that fails to take into account the overall sense of the composition, the reader may very well think that something political or something communistic is being discussed here, that our young people follow along the path of the West's progress in revolutionary ideas, in the corruption of morality; but anyone who actually grasps the sense of our writers will be convinced that they are only commenting on the successes of science and letters. There is no doubt, that Belinsky, Kraevsky, and their followers write thus only in order to gain a greater interest for their essays and do not in any way have either politics or communism in mind; nevertheless, it is possible for them to spread ideas, concerning the West's political problems and concerning communism, among members of the young generation. . . . I feel obliged to add that "The Contemporary" and "Notes of the Fatherland" really are our best journals; they follow all the advances of science and letters. . . . In all fairness, they are well esteemed by the public. Therefore, one may well be aggrieved that these journals fall into extremity and give themselves a dubious appearance.128 Orlov's recommended solution was increased vigilance on the part of the censorship. For some time the Third Section had sensed with growing unease a certain lack of congruence between its presumed capacity to report and power to control public opinion and the real state of mind of the Russian public (the "middle class" reported by von Vock and Bulgarin). Belinsky, just before his death, received an invitation from M. M. Popov

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to visit the Third Section for a friendly chat; and gendarmes attended his funeral, as they had Pushkin's.124 In 1843, John Sherwood had denounced the Third Section for laxity in its supervision of the censorship, especially with regard to the censorship of foreign books. The denunciation seems to have posed a certain threat to the Third Section, partly because Sherwood had been its pet, partly because similar comments had been heard from more disinterested persons of the extremely conservative part of society, Senator Divov and F. F. Vigel, for example. In any case, Dubelt felt it incumbent to write a refutation: The rules of our censorship are so strict that undesirable foreign works rarely find their way into Russia, and it is even more rarely that such works can be printed in Russia; if such instances occur, they are discovered in a short time, and the government immediately takes measures to confiscate and destroy these books, subjecting those guilty to punishment. Moreover, such instances occur so rarely that it would be quite incorrect to deduce from them general conclusions and to attach to such a circumstance any special importance. If forbidden books may indeed be found among our higher dignitaries, this is unavoidable, and certainly implies no evil intent.125 That same year the Third Section reported in its annual survey that in Russia all was quiet, the public being "apathetic to politics" and the country in a "somnolent" state, satisfied and at peace.128 If one turns to the memoir literature, however, one gets a totally different impression. P. V. Annenkov, returning to Russia in 1843 after a two-year stay abroad, during which time he had been very much interested in current European radical thought, found to his surprise that writers like Fourier, St. Simon, Robert Owen, Louis Blanc, and even Cabet, who was little known anywhere else, were read and discussed in circles of the young intelligentsia to an extent and with an intensity unknown even in France. Panaev, Akhsharumov, and Zotov bear similar witness.127

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In spite of the presumption that all evil came from abroad, the foreign censorship had always been more lenient than the domestic, and even after the law of 1828, which in theory brought domestic and foreign censorship under the same regulations, books printed abroad were dealt with in a more permissive spirit. (In a number of instances books permitted by the foreign censorship were banned in Russian translation.) The demand for foreign books was greater than for domestic, and the number of volumes imported increased steadily from two hundred thousand in 1832 to almost a million in 1847. The Third Section was always somewhat reluctant to interfere too drastically in the operation of a profitable enterprise. During the 1830s and 1840s, the number of banned titles remained almost stationary — about one hundred fifty, including obviously "revolutionary" Polish books printed abroad — and only after 1848 did it expand to six hundred. Fourier and St. Simon were forbidden, but books about them were not. Books on "the social problem" and the novels of George Sand and Eugene Sue were bought with great eagerness. In addition, one must of course take into account the flourishing trade in banned books.128 The procedure for enforcing bans on foreign books, as detailed in the law of 1828, was incredibly clumsy. The censorship of books was entrusted to the Main Administration of the Censorship in the Ministry of Education, but foreign periodicals went to a special censorship in the postal administration (Article 8 1 ) ; in this way, books that were banned as books found their way into Russia "serialized" in periodicals, and vice versa. Furthermore, booksellers were not informed of bans. They had simply to submit a list of stock to the censorship, which checked to see that forbidden books were not included.128 The local police were supplied with a list of banned books and presumably checked the booksellers' establishments periodically to ensure against contraband (Articles 81, 88, 96). Since almost all the Russian book trade passed through the booksellers of Petersburg and Moscow, these regulations might not have been so difficult to enforce as first appears, if the good will of the bookseller and the energy of the police could have been relied on. But this was not the case.

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In 1834, several Moscow booksellers requested lists of forbidden books for guidance. These were refused because such lists "might serve to direct special attention to forbidden books." 130 Far from enforcing the ban on books, the distribution of such a list might well have encouraged profitable specialties in forbidden literature. Moreover, foreign diplomatic personnel, academic institutions, and individual professors had the right to import anything they wished in the way of reading matter. Travelers found it relatively easy to bring books back with them, and as far as "socialist" literature was concerned: The books of these authors, which were in everyone's hands at this time, were submitted to a many-faceted study and criticism, and produced, as Schelling and Hegel had before, their orators, commentators, and exegetes; and somewhat later, unlike the former theories, their martyrs, too.131 After discovery of the Petrashevsky "conspiracy," booksellers' stocks in various cities were inspected by the police. In one Petersburg store alone, 2581 forbidden books were discovered. Three thousand more turned up in Dorpat and Riga. The governor general of Moscow reported that there were no such books in Moscow stores, but Dubelt penciled in the margin: "I do not believe it." The Third Section interrogated several professors: [Kostomarov] answered in reply to the question of why he kept a certain forbidden book that professors had the right to do this by law. Another [Pletnev] . . . expressed surprise that young people were being submitted to a penality for reading forbidden books, and said, "We all have forbidden books, and whoever wishes may read them."132 In dealing with the Petrashevtsy themselves, the Third Section at first went through the motions of examining their books as well as their papers; but as the case dragged on and a new group of people appeared to be implicated in the "conspiracy," the Third Section no longer even bothered to make lists of the forbidden books they found because of the extent to which these had become common property.133

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Section

Under such circumstances, from February 1848 on, Count Orlov began to recommend a more stringent censorship, but at the same time one that was not the direct responsibility of the Third Section. Partly on his recommendation, Nicholas founded the Menshikov and Buturlin committees in March and April 1848. Dubelt represented the Third Section on these committees, but the main burden of responsibility belonged to their chairmen. Until the discovery of the Petrashevtsy, Dubelt tended to recommend leniency, to deny the existence of plots or conspiracies. After the Petrashevsky case (which had been disclosed by an agent of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and had caught the Third Section unawares), he applied great caution in determining the propriety even of a posthumous edition of Zhukovsky's works.134 Nikitenko captured the spirit of censorship as practiced by the Third Section and imposed by Nicholas I when he noted in his diary: "They are now demanding that literature should blossom forth, but that no one should write anything in prose or verse." In spite of trivial persecution and a superficial rigidity, the equivalent in intellectual life of Nicholas' fascination for parades, shiny buttons, and immaculate uniforms, literature did blossom forth. The reign of Nicholas marked the golden age of Russian poetry, the beginning of the great age of prose, the maturing of Russian historical thought, and an ominous foreshadowing of the "realist" literary criticism of the nihilists. In spite of the Third Section's assumption that the written word could in itself be treasonable, the entire reign of Nicholas produced not a single case of literary treason per se, and the political police seemed, in fact, extremely reluctant to apply its assumption in practice. Reprimands, rebukes, fines, bans, surveillance, temporary exile, even short-term imprisonment in the guardhouse, implied something short of the criminal act, implied that the victim was at least basically loyal to the regime and could and would mend his ways if punished in a properly paternal fashion. The case of greatest doubt, certainly, was that of Chaadaev, and it was characteristically resolved by having him declared insane.

Empire and Cabbage Soup

In the latter part of August 1826, Nicholas was in Moscow for the coronation ceremonies. It was a month after the five Decembrists had been hanged. Society, shocked and frightened, fawned on the young emperor. He stood out impressively amidst the social whirl, tall, handsome, unbending. Customarily, it was a time of mercy and reprieve. Prison sentences were commuted, awards and decorations bestowed. But it was hard to forget the hundred-odd imprisoned Decembrists, and the five men recently hanged haunted the salons. For some time Nicholas had been contemplating a small act of mercy which might nevertheless have the force of a symbolic reprieve. Alexander Pushkin, the most famous of Russia's younger poets, had been languishing in exile on his paternal estate in Pskov province. Zhukovsky, among others, had requested pardon for him; but it was not a matter to be decided easily.1 To Nicholas, Pushkin's record must have seemed fraught with suspicion. The investigating committee had not succeeded in uncovering any even remote participation by him in the affair of December 14. He remained isolated at Mikhailovskoe and clearly had not known what was in the offing. Nevertheless, a large number of the Decembrists, and among them not the least prominent, had been his friends. Of course, this was also true

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of Bulgarin and Dubelt, and meant little in itself. But Pushkin showed no sign of wavering loyalty to his old friends. Far worse, certain of his poems in manuscript copy invariably turned up among the papers of the Decembrists: "Freedom," "The Village," "The Dagger," and a number of salty epigrams about people in high places. He was clearly no respecter of official authority. He had offended Alexander I himself and, having suffered a mild exile in the south for his misdeeds (really more a vacation than a punishment), had mortally offended General Vorontsov ("half Milord, and half a scoundrel," Pushkin called him, adding that "he might become a whole one yet"). Consequently he had been dispatched to Mikhailovskoe and ordered to remain under paternal surveillance. Such scapegrace flaunting in the face of officialdom was certainly not to be encouraged. Nicholas had passionately denounced this "licentiousness of ideas," this intellectual arrogance, which he ascribed to "the destructive luxury of half-knowledge" in the proclamation to the gentry issued the day of the Decembrists' execution. Pushkin breathed what Bulgarin in a report composed for the Third Section called "the Lyceum spirit," referring to the Tsarskoe-Selo Lyceum which Alexander I had founded and Pushkin had attended. This remarkable school had been intended to train talented young men from prominent families for the state service; its regimen was broad, based on Lancastrian principles, and student life had been free, stimulating, and a bit wild. Its location at one of the imperial summer parks invested it with a kind of eloquence — eighteenth-century sculpture and architecture, stately gardens, and a sense of the imperial presence itself. It was one of Pushkin's most passionate and nostalgic memories. At Mikhailovskoe he wrote one of a number of poems in memory of his days there, calling the school "a fatherland for us," meaning that his own sense of Russia's past, of Petrine empire, Catherinian grandeur, and the great events of 1812, had been awakened there. It was there also that he had taken up the torch of Russian poetry. As late as 1835 he wrote a touching account of his first and only meeting with Derzhavin, the great poet of Catherine's time, who appeared at a public Lyceum examination in 1815:

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We were all terribly excited. Delvig went out on the staircase to wait for him and to embrace personally the author of "The Waterfall." Derzhavin arrived. He entered the foyer, and Delvig overheard him ask the attendant: "where is the toilet here, brother?" This prosaic question disenchanted Delvig, who changed his mind and went back into the hall. . . . Derzhavin was very old. He was in uniform and plush boots. Our examination quite wearied him. He sat holding his head in his hand. His face was blank, his eyes clouded, his mouth slightly open. . . . He slumbered until the examination in Russian letters began. Then he livened up, his eyes flashed, he became utterly transformed. Needless to say, his verses were read, his verses were analyzed, his verses were celebrated at every moment. He listened with extraordinary animation. Finally I was called. I read my "Memories in Tsarskoe-Selo," standing but two steps away from Derzhavin. I simply cannot describe my state of mind: when I came to the line where I mention the name of Derzhavin, my voice broke, but my heart brimmed with ecstatic pride. . . . I do not remember how I finished my reading. I do not remember where I ran to. Derzhavin was beside himself; he asked for me, wanted to embrace me. . . . They looked for me, but I was not to be found.2 For Nicholas, however, the school was altogether too liberal, too offhand, too encouraging to immodest aspirations — a breeding ground for future Decembrists. He was very soon to put it in the charge of one of his parade-ground generals.3 Whether by his own intent or not, Pushkin was considered by many as the poet of the Decembrists. Locatelli, one of von Vock's agents in St. Petersburg, reported that people were "greatly astonished that the celebrated Pushkin, who has always been known for his way of thinking, has not been involved in the affair of the conspirators."4 The poet's Lyceum friend, I. I. Pushchin, an exiled Decembrist, was later to recall his influence on the generation of the 1820s: In those days his poems . . . circulated everywhere, were copied and recopied, committed to memory, and read by heart. There was not a living person who did not know his verses.6

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Even Zhukovsky, who was pleading for him in St. Petersburg, wrote to Pushkin in April 1826: You know how I like your muse and how I prize your rightly acquainted fame; for I am able to esteem poetry and I know that you were born to become a great poet and perhaps the honor and the prize of Russia. But I hate everything you have written that rebels against order and morality. Our young men . . . have acquainted themselves with your stormy thoughts which are clothed in the charm of poetry; you have already done irreparable harm to many.® Pushkin himself complained that all "liberal" poems that circulated anonymously were automatically ascribed to him. He had felt it necessary to deny authorship of "The Gabrieliad," a lascivious satire he had written on the immaculate conception. And his elegy for André Chénier had circulated in Moscow in the early months of 1826 under the compromising title "December 14" — a title which, against Pushkin's intent, turned Robespierre into Nicholas and the martyred French poet into Ryleev. General Skobelev, an old enemy of Pushkin's who had once recommended that he be rewarded for one of his previous works "by the removal of several chunks of hide," emphasized his authorship of this "subversive" poem. Benckendorff, for all his good nature and absent-minded distraction, had heard from General Vorontsov (his close friend) something of Pushkin's "scandalous" behavior in Odessa and was disposed to be vaguely unfriendly.7 Moreover, a number of unfavorable reports on Pushkin's behavior at Mikhailovskoe found their way to the Third Section's chancery. Viskovatov, a police agent and literary flâneur, reported after a visit to Pskov province: He openly preaches atheism and disobedience to the powers that be, and on receiving what was the saddest news for Russia, the demise of Tsar Alexander Pavlovich — he, Pushkin, exclaimed the following poisonous words: "At last the tyrant is no more, nor will the rest of his tribe be much longer among the livingl"8

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Pushkin's neighbor, a retired major general, had denounced the poet for his suspicious activities among the peasants. He dressed in a peasant blouse, red sash, and straw hat, visited fairs, and called frequently at the Sviatogorsk Monastery, eager to hear stories and observe customs. On one occasion, he had dismounted from his horse near a peasant village and, letting the beast run free, had exclaimed: "Even a horse needs freedom." A secret agent, Boshniak, was sent to Pskov province to "make a secret and circumstantial investigation of the behavior of the wellknown poet, Pushkin, suspected of inciting the peasants to revolt." A gendarme accompanied Boshniak as far as the city of Pskov, for Pushkin's "arrest and despatch, if he should appear really to be guilty."9 Boshniak arrived in the province disguised as a cultured traveler, an amateur botanist, and, visiting the local gentry, the district judge, various officials, tried to pick up what rumors and gossip about Pushkin he could. Even the abbot of the Sviatogorsk Monastery recommended the poet's modesty; Boshniak submitted a favorable report, hinting that the poet was, moreover, at work on a historical play extrolling the principle of legitimacy. Pushkin's formal request for pardon (submitted through channels, by way of the Pskov governor, Paulucci, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Nesselrode) reached Nicholas in Moscow, along with Boshniak's favorable report. Benckendorff, meanwhile, seemed to have some difficulty remembering who Pushkin was. To Nicholas, it seemed a suitable opportunity for an act of mercy which might gain for the regime the support of a powerful pen.10 On August 28,1826, Dibich transcribed Nicholas' resolution to bring Pushkin directly to the emperor in Moscow, by means of a courier (usually it was a gendarme). Thus, Pushkin was to travel literally in what was to become an apt metaphor for the condition of his life under Nicholas' tutelage, "freely . . . under the surveillance of a courier."11 Pushkin had been reading, writing, deepening his interest in Russian folkways and history. But he was twenty-seven years old, at the height of his power, and the countryside began to bore him. "When I imagine London," he wrote tp a friend,

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the railroads, steamships, English newspapers, or French theaters . . . then my submerged Mikhailovskoe brings a melancholy upon me, and a madness. In the fourth canto of Onegin just completed I portrayed my life. If you should ever read it and ask with a smile: "where is my poet? he had talent" — then, my friend, you will be answered: "he has slipped off to Paris and will never return to cursed Rus."12 He did not seem to grasp his position. In November 1825, before news of Alexander's death reached him, he wrote down the following imaginary conversation in his notebook: If I were tsar, I'd call for Alexander Pushkin and say to him: "Alexander Sergeevich, you write excellent verses." Alexander Pushkin would bow to me with a certain modest confusion, and I would continue: "I read your ode, 'Freedom.' It is a bit confused, not well thought out, but there are three very fine stanzas. While the treatment is quite imprudent, still you did not try to blacken me in the eyes of the people by spreading stupid slander. You may have unfounded opinions, but I see that you have respected justice and personal honor even in the tsar." — "Ah, your majesty, why touch on this childish ode? It would be better if you read three or six cantos of 'Ruslan and Liudmilla,' if not the whole poem, or the first part of 'The Caucasian Prisoner,' or The Bakhchiserai Fountain.' 'Onegin is being printed: I will have the honor of sending two copies to your majesty's library . . . and if your majesty finds the time. . . ."13 Even after news of the events of December 14 and its aftermath began to trickle through to him, Pushkin seems not to have grasped their bearing on his position. In his correspondence with Zhukovsky and Viazemsky, Pushkin sometimes wrote as though he and the imperial government were dealing on equal terms: I am ready to enter into conditions with the government, if conditions are necessary. But I tell you definitely not to answer for me and not to provide guarantees. My future behavior will depènd on circumstances, on how the government deals with me.14

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Zhukovsky and Viazemsky, unable to write entirely freely, tried indirectly to urge on him the seriousness of the situation, advising modesty, restraint, and a tone of humility in his official requests for pardon. Pushkin had suffered the volatile temperament of Alexander I. He had certainly been provocative, and he was now willing to cease provocation. But he had no preparation for the rigid austerities of Nicholas, or the somewhat different but not more predictable weaknesses that the new emperor tried to cloak in a high-collared uniform with bright epaulettes. It was difficult for Pushkin to think of himself as a political criminal. True, he had written a few inflammatory poems, but not many in the total corpus of his work, and these were actually more vehement in tone than in meaning. Even "The Dagger," the most violent of his poems, written to celebrate the murder of Kotzebue by Karl Sand, sang praises of a weapon which disposed of the tyrant of the mob as well as the tyrant of the throne. His hero was Chénier, not Robespierre. His political views, strongly colored by pride in his "six hundred years of nobility," were conservative: he believed in an independent and responsible gentry and freedom of expression based on natural rights and the dignity of art. These views became deeper and more comprehensive as Pushkin suffered and matured, but they did not fundamentally change. In lines which he pretended to translate from the Italian poet Pindemonte in 1835 he stated (more directly) the same position that he expressed in "The Dagger" and "André Chénier": Neither for power nor for pay To bend conscience or ideas or one's neck. In any case, when the announcement of his reprieve reached him, he paid no attention to the surveillance of the gendarme who accompanied him. He arrived before Nicholas on September 8, 1826. Pushkin was hot and dusty from his journey. Short and broad, with heavy sensual features — he referred repeatedly to his Negro ancestry, and his friends at school had called him "the tiger-monkey" — he was all eagerness and animation. He had lived for two years in a remote province, and there he was, sud-

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denly, in the imperial chamber. Nicholas, as usual, was in uniform — tall, cold, rigid, aloof, and immaculate. There were few people in the world who could face down a stare from those icy blue eyes. But he was in good spirits; things had gone well. Society was at his feet, and he had full confidence in his power to charm and persuade. The two were very direct with each other. "What would you have done if you had been in St. Petersburg on December 14?" the emperor asked Pushkin. "I would have been," Pushkin replied, "in the ranks of the rebels." Nicholas said he expected to see many verses from Pushkin's pen. "The censorship is very strict," the poet said. At this point Nicholas himself offered to be Pushkin's censor. The poet was deeply moved. The interview ended.15 On September 20, Pushkin received an elegant and courtly letter from Count Benckendorff, the beginning of a long and extravagantly polite correspondence. The letter contained confirmation of Nicholas' offer: "The Sovereign himself will be the first critic of your works, and your censor." Benckendorff also granted Pushkin permission to travel to St. Petersburg (if the Third Section were informed beforehand) and invited Pushkin to submit to the emperor his views on education and a plan for educational reform. Police agents followed Pushkin. They reported that he was working on a historical play, Bouris Godunov, in which, "so it is pretended, there is nothing 'liberal.' " The Third Section also noted the favorable impact of the pardon granted by Nicholas on public opinion: There is sincere rejoicing in the generous indulgence of the Emperor, which, without doubt, will have the happiest results for Russian literature. It is known that Pushkin's heart is in the right place; he only needs to be guided. Then Russia will be glorified and can expect the most beautiful works from his genius. [Italic mine.] 16

After Pushkin's move to St. Petersburg in 1827, "favorable" reports on him continued to flow into the Third Section. Von Vock reported:

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Pushkin behaves very well concerning political matters. . . . He said, "They ought to call me Nikolaev or Nikolaevich, for without him I would not be alive. He gave me life, and what is much more — freedom. Vivati" [Benckendorff noted in •pencil: "Order him to appear before me tomorrow at three o'clock."]17 Pushkin was present at Grech's birthday celebration, at which the grammarian had been hailed as "our gendarme of linguistics." Von Vock noted: Never before have so many clever people gathered in one place, aflame with wine, without speaking at least ambiguously about the government and criticizing its measures.18 Not only Pushkin, but all his relatives were watched. At the same time that the Third Section was noting the praiseworthy effects on public opinion of Pushkin's return from exile, it opened his and his father's mail. Pushkin's father complained that his son was persecuting him in Byronic fashion — a strong offense to the patriarchal point of view. Moreover, Benckendorff did not take kindly to Pushkin's liberty in reading Boris Godunov aloud to friends. On November 22, 1826, in the aloof and courtly tone that marked all his correspondence with the poet, he informed him that the emperor was displeased to hear that Pushkin had chosen to read the play aloud, and, furthermore, what did he mean by not deigning to answer Benckendorff s letter of September 30, 1826, in which it was stated that Pushkin's works were to be presented "either to me as intermediary, or directly to His Imperial Majesty" before their release to the public? Pushkin replied, in some confusion: Being quite strange to the ways of dealing with official papers, I did not know whether I was expected to answer the letter . . . by which, I assure you, I was touched to the depths. . . . I did not read my tragedy to be disobedient. . . . I simply did not dare to present it to the Sovereign without first removing some expressions I felt to be inadequate. . . . I hesitated to disturb a state dignitary like Benckendorff among his many immense tasks with my trivial literary occupations.19

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Begging Benckendorff to return it, he enclosed his only copy of the play without changes. He was very proud of it — his venture into the august realm of Shakespearean drama — and hoped it would speak well for him. He calculated that his theme — the true nature of "legitimacy" — would be sympathetic to Nicholas. At the end of his letter, Pushkin added nervously that he had, "sent several of my petty compositions to various journals . . . if I did not present them for censorship, I beg your excellency's forgiveness for this unintended offense." "I ask you to inform me," Benckendorff replied, "of all, including the minor, works of your brilliant pen." Meanwhile, Nicholas instructed Benckendorff to have Boris Godunov sent to "a competent critic" for comment. Benckendorff sent it to Bulgarin, who thought it "monarchical . . . the dreams of freedom that appear in other works by this author are nowhere introduced," but who criticized it severely on grounds of style. The famous remark, supposedly by Nicholas, transmitted to Pushkin by Benckendorff — I considered that M. Pushkin's aims would be fulfilled if, with the necessary emendations, he rewrote his comedy [sic] as an historical tale or novel in the manner of Walter Scott. appears in the files of the Third Section in Benckendorff's own hand and derives entirely from Bulgarin.20 Stung by the rejection of Boris Godunov, Pushkin sent his verse "Message" to his old friends, the Decembrists, by way of Mme. Muraveva, off to join her husband in Siberia: In the depths of Siberian mines, Keep your patience proud. To Benckendorff, he replied coldly and with dignity: Agreed that it lends itself more to an historical novel than to a play . . . but to my regret I am incapable of rewriting anything I have once written.21 A few days later, Benckendorff returned Pushkin's article on education (which he had not, after all, wanted to write) with

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adverse criticism from Nicholas. Pushkin had recommended the substitution of educational for military values, permitting young people "to mature in the quiet of academies and not in the noisy idleness of the barracks." He had taken pains, however, to express himself in a manner sympathetic to Nicholas, emphasizing the necessity of restraints and "surveillance" by the government. Nicholas instructed Benckendorff: Answer him, thanking him for his paper, but point out to him that the principle he advances to the effect that education and genius are everything is a dangerous one for all governments; one which has actually led him himself to the edge of the abyss, and which, here, has hurled so many people into it, that morality, service, and zeal cannot but be regarded more highly than education.22 Pushkin's difficulties with the government began in earnest. His poem "André Chénier" continued to circulate under the title "December 14." On three separate occasions within a two-year period, before three separate state institutions (not counting the emperor himself), Pushkin had to answer for it. "The Gabrieliad" also circulated without his consent, and he had to appear before Benckendorff for a rebuke. A typographical device which prefaced the publication of his long poem, "The Gypsies," earned him another reprimand. During this time, however, he was by no means in disfavor. Benckendorff wrote Nicholas on the occasion of Pushkin's arrival in St. Petersburg: "No doubt he is a regular scapegrace; but if we succeed in directing his pen and speech, it will be profitable." 23 It was Pushkin's friend, E. V. Putiata, who noted the effect on the poet of the government's favor: Amidst all his worldly amusements at the time, he was gloomy. A kind of melancholy unrest could be discerned in him. . . . I was convinced by many indications that the tutelage and guardianship of the Emperor Nicholas burdened and stifled him.24 Pushkin's relations with his public were not much happier than his relations with the government. When he returned to Moscow from Mikhailovskoe, he had not been seen in either capital for

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over six years. His reputation was enormous — when he appeared in a theater, all eyes turned away from the stage and toward him — but it was based on the misconception that he was a rebel.28 The opposition-minded students of Moscow University (whom the Third Section later marked down as "the most gangrenous part of the Empire") at first flocked to Pushkin; but they were soon disappointed. He was being watched by the police and had to be careful. He was also genuinely grateful to Nicholas for having released him from exile and did not at all share the students' sentiments. More than anything, their sheer rawness provoked him into exaggerating his feelings of gratitude to, and his ardent support of, Nicholas. When someone proposed Pushkin's name for the chairmanship of the secret society formed by the extremely young and solemnly naive Kritsky brothers, it was rejected: "Pushkin has been devoting himself to high society, and thinks more of the fashions and of witty verses than he does of the good of the fatherland."28 The poet Voeikov put into circulation a poisonous epigram, accusing a "former freethinker" (obviously Pushkin) of fawning on the court and flattering the emperor. Pushkin replied: He freed my thought. How should I not Sincerely sing his praise? But Nicholas, accepting neither praise nor blame, refused publication: "Let it be circulated, but not printed."27 Pushkin's position of "favor" made it impossible for him to edit a journal himself. Since Benckendorff insisted that everything he wrote be read either by Nicholas or the Third Section, and since reading took them a long time, his journalistic efficiency was greatly reduced from the start. He was, on the other hand, extremely dissatisfied with the Moscow periodicals. He regarded Polevoy's "Telegraph" as a radical, even a Jacobin, journal. Pogodin's "Messenger," to which he contributed, was a dull and scholastic enterprise, preoccupied largely with Schellingian and Hegelian philosophy, which Pushkin abhorred. "God knows how I hate and despise it [German metaphysics]," he

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wrote to Delvig on March 2, 1827, "but what am I to do? The warm ingenuous youngsters have gathered together. The priest has his and the devil his. . . . The "Moscow Messenger" sits in the ditch and asks: what is truth?"28 Pushkin moved to St. Petersburg in 1827. What Belinsky later called "the Smirdin period" of Russian literature (after the merchant A. F. Smirdin, who provided the capital for the far-flung journalistic empire of Bulgarin, Grech, and Senkowsky) had not yet begun, but Bulgarin was already well established as the most popular journalist, editing the most widely circulated newspaper of the time. Bulgarin was at first not unfriendly to Pushkin, but when it became clear that Pushkin would collaborate with Baron Delvig on the "Literary Gazette," and not with Bulgarin, his attitude changed. He accused Pushkin of "hurling rhymes at all that is holy . . . boasting of his free thought before the rabble, and quietly crawling before the feet of the powerful." He attacked his work: the seventh canto of Evgeny Onegin was "a complete failure, chute complète!" Anonymous letters in Bulgarin's handwriting, denouncing Pushkin and Delvig, began to appear in the Third Section's files.29 The Third Section's agents followed Pushkin, searched the papers of his friends, opened his mail. It was noted that he gambled a good deal, that he visited the eccentric Princess Golitsyna, and (a fabrication) that he and Prince Viazemsky planned to found a secret newspaper, "The Morning Leaf." 30 Pushkin became more and more restless. He traveled frequently between St. Petersburg and Moscow. In April 1828 he tried, along with his friend, Prince Viazemsky, to enlist for the RussoTurkish War. Early in May, Benckendorff received a letter from the Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich in Warsaw: Do you really think Pushkin and Viazemsky were guided by a sincere desire to serve His Majesty . . . ? They have already shown themselves so depraved morally, they could not possibly nourish any honorable feeling. Believe me . . . they have some other purpose, such as finding a new field for the dissemination of their own immoral principles, which would be quickly taken

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up by their adherents among the young officers. [Italics mine.] 3 1 Benckendorff informed Pushkin that the sovereign "took well" his wish to enlist, but that the army was out of the question at that time. The idea that the poet had, somewhere or other, a potentially revolutionary following that might easily crystallize into an opposition party recurred in the Third Section time and again, reaching its climax in the bitter comedy of Pushkin's funeral. On March 9, 1829, Pushkin left St. Petersburg for Moscow, and from Moscow departed for Tiflis and the Caucasus. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, the governor general of St. Petersburg, expressed some anxiety, but Benckendorff assured him that Pushkin was "no danger to the state, except as an untrimmed pen." 3 2 In the Caucasus, Prince Paskevich himself assumed responsibility for Pushkin's traveling freely, but when the poet arrived in Erzerum a message from Benckendorff awaited him: why had he undertaken the journey without permission? On his way back to Moscow, he received another message: I . . . must humbly beg you to inform me why you would not keep your word to me and went off to the Caucasus without giving me any indication of your intention to make this trip.33 Apprehensively, Pushkin apologized: "I realize to what extent my position has been false and my conduct thoughtless, but at least there was nothing in it worse than thoughtlessness." When he returned to St. Petersburg, Pushkin faced the same niggling harassment. In long, polite, formal phrases, Benckendorff rebuked him for having appeared at a baU in mufti and not in the uniform of the nobility. Pushkin, meanwhile, having attempted once more vainly to get permission to go abroad, had embarked on his "bourgeois" courtship of Natalia Goncharova. The courtship did not go well, and he had other troubles. Boris Godunov had been once more rejected, and Bulgarin was attacking him violently in print. On March 17, 1830, Benckendorff rebuked him for taking another trip to Moscow without permission. Pushkin lost his temper:

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I received permission to live in Moscow in 1826, from His Majesty, and the following year I received permission from Your Excellency to travel to Petersburg. Since that time, I have spent every winter in Moscow . . . never having bothered to ask permission first, and never having heard anything said on this score. . . . You even remarked to me once: "Vous êtes toujours sur les grands chemins." M. Bulgarin, who is said to have influence with you, has become one of my bitterest enemies because of some criticism which he attributed to me. After the infamous article which he published about me, I may think him capable of anything.34 Coldly, Benckendorff replied: "Bulgarin never mentioned you to me. . . . Everything depends on your own proper conduct." 36 The literary war with Bulgarin flared up in earnest. Two journals with which Pushkin had been closely associated were closed down by the Third Section — Delvig's "Literary Gazette" in 1831 and Kireevsky's "The European" in 1832. Zhukovsky bewailed the fact that Bulgarin and his friends had "surrounded our literature with a thick wall" and that they would inevitably succeed in their various enterprises because "they use means of which an honorable man would not avail himself." 36 Pushkin did his best to breach that wall, but he was not successful. On April 6, 1830, Pushkin published a review of the memoirs of the notorious French police informer, Vidocq. He pierced Vidocq's moral pretensions, and his amour propre as an author and stylist ("the style of M. Vidocq"), but the review was really a thinly disguised attack against Bulgarin. Vidocq and Bulgarin were so successfully equated that a Petersburg bookseller offered a portrait of Bulgarin for sale over the title "M. Vidocq." Before the police could interfere, his entire stock was sold out.37 Sometimes even Nicholas seemed to be on Pushkin's side. When the emperor read Bulgarin's review of the seventh canto of One gin, he wrote Benckendorff: I forgot to tell you, my dear friend, that in today's "Bee" there is again a most unjust and vulgar article directed against Pushkin. No doubt this article will have a sequel. Therefore,

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I order you to call Bulgarin and order him to print no more literary criticism whatever from now on. And, if possible, close down his paper.88 "If possible" provided a loophole, and Benckendorff managed to save Bulgarin. During the period 1830-1832, when Nicholas felt such burning indignation against Poles in general, Benckendorff found Bulgarin particularly useful because of his intimate knowledge of Poland and his reports on the Polish situation. Nicholas literally did not know to what extent his information on Poland came from Bulgarin. At a court ball, he asked Pushkin to recite his unpublished, unpublishable epigram on Bulgarin ("The trouble's not that you're a Pole. . . . The trouble is that you're Figliarin") and found it clever. But Bulgarin's position remained unshaken. Pushkin began to feel restless again. He worked hard, but his debts accumulated. In the kind of social life he led, there was something desperate. He began to conceive of a "way out," first in terms of going abroad, then in terms of a "bourgeois" marriage — a quiet and respectable private life. In 1831, he married Natalia Goncharova. Back in his Lyceum days, Pushkin's friends had noticed in him an awkward attraction to high society, a need to rub shoulders with courtiers and high dignitaries. Pushkin himself, later, came to hate court functions and everything they stood for. In "My Genealogy" he compared the ancestry of contemporary "bigwigs" with his own, pointing out how cheaply theirs had come into favor, whereas his, exposed to royal whims and the "leveling" policy of the Romanovs, had fallen into poverty, making him, their heir, a "Russian bourgeois." Nevertheless, the stir and glitter of high society remained attractive to him, almost in spite of himself. He felt bitter that at court neither his talent nor his ancestry received due respect. Just as this fatal attraction seemed to be wearing off, just as he began to yearn for a simple and completely private existence, a quiet family life, his wife (a true feminine counterpart of the contemporary masculine show of parades) plunged him into a finally inextricable involvement with the arrogant world of high fashion.

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Natalia Goncharova was very young, poor, coldly simple, and exceedingly beautiful. She was socially ambitious and loved to flirt. Nicholas himself, having seen her at a ball, admired her immensely. Later, she flirted with the emperor and surrounded Pushkin with the snickers and stares of the empty aristocrats he despised. He loved her profoundly, and it was an exceedingly complex relationship. His letters to her are loving, protective, teasing — as though he were writing to a child. They are full also of a suppressed agony. Pushkin, who had fallen in love with almost every beautiful woman he met, had decided to marry Goncharova not merely because he loved her (actually, the full burst of his passion came after marriage; and he moved to the altar with a certain sense of fatality, determined and at the same time dragging his feet) but because he wanted a foothold in the slippery world, a social position of some dignity, a place of honor. Natalia's giddy behavior drove him to frenzy. For her part, Natalia had been indifferent ("My God, Pushkin!" she was supposed to have exclaimed on their honeymoon, "how your verses bore me!")39 Before Pushkin could marry her, he had to assure his prospective mother-in-law that he was not, after all, a man at odds with the police. Pushkin wrote a very personal letter to Count Benckendorff, which he, after carefully filing it among the Third Section's other "cases," answered as follows: His Majesty the Emperor, full of paternal solicitude for you, has deigned to entrust me, General Benckendorff, not as head of the police, but as a man in whom he is pleased to place his confidence, with observing you and guiding you with advice. The police has never been ordered to keep you under surveillance.40 Nicholas' solicitude for Pushkin's married state seemed paternal indeed. He was at last permitted to submit Boris Godunov to the regular censor and have it published. Nicholas commissioned him to write a history of Peter the Great and gave him access to the Petersburg archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, along with a sinecure of five thousand rubles a year. Unfortunately, the publication of Boris Godunov was marred,

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for Pushkin, by Bulgarin s charge that he had plagiarized it from Bulgarin's novel, "The False Dmitry," which had appeared a year before and which seems to have benefited considerably from Bulgarin's reading of Boris in manuscript. The annuity, also, was marred by the fact that Pushkin received it from the Third Section, very irregularly and rarely to the full amount. The history of Peter he never completed, but his use of the archives (with which his annuity was connected) offered a convenient excuse to Nicholas and Benckendorff to keep him in St. Petersburg where Benckendorff could have him watched, and where Nicholas could have the pleasure of his wife's presence at balls. In December 1833, Nicholas made Pushkin a Page of the Chamber, in order to guarantee Natalia's presence at court functions. Pushkin's income had dwindled; he had wearied of the court's social arrogance; he was in debt and anxious to retire to a quiet place and work. Moreover, pages were generally in their late teens, and Pushkin was forced to appear at ceremonies with boys fifteen years his junior. Since, in any case, the world of the court regarded him as an immature scapegrace, he felt the appointment a special insult. Between 1832 and 1834, Pushkin kept a diary in which he noted down very briefly facts, events, and opinions that interested him; he intended them as mnemonic devices by means of which he could later write a chronicle of his times. There, he mentions his pageship almost a dozen times: being scolded for inappropriate conduct, forced to file by in pairs for a reprimand, "like schoolboys"; there was humiliation after humiliation. In June 1834, Pushkin petitioned Benckendorff for retirement, but he blenched when the indignant Nicholas threatened to withdraw his archive privileges: "God grant one not to have a falling out with tsars; with the butt end of an ax you will never whang it together." Zhukovsky asked Pushkin to apologize to Nicholas. Pushkin replied: I do not know what it is that I have done. To go into retirement when the fate of my family depends on it, and my own peace of mind . . . why should this be an unpleasantness . . . ? Ask forgiveness? But for what? 41

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His debts had increased; constantly harassed by social functions, he found little time for writing. He noted gloomily in his diary: "I will not get by." Not only Natalia's charm, but Pushkin's jealousy, had been discovered in those very circles whose habitués he had attacked in "My Genealogy." As his talent had matured from the Byronic into something Shakespearian, so, inadvertently, his social role had shifted from Don Juan to Othello: or so it appeared in the mocking and frivolous world of Petersburg high life. His temper was short and he was quick to issue challenges to duels. Pushkinbaiting seems to have become something of a sport in the gilded circles, and young d'Anthès-Heeckeren, the adopted son of the Dutch ambassador, and a minor favorite with Nicholas, was urged on in his flirtation with Natalia — by his father, by a group of young men who sent Pushkin provocative notes signed with the seal of the "Royal Order of Cuckolds," and, ominously, even by Benckendorff. Natalia, on the other hand, was anything but discreet. On April 22, 1834, a mournful letter from Pushkin to his wife was opened by the Third Section and turned over to Nicholas: I sent your letter to auntie; I did not take it to her personally because I am reporting as ill and am afraid to meet the sovereign. I sit out all these holidays at home. I do not intend to appear before the heir [reference is to the wedding of the heir-presumptive, later Alexander II] with congratulations and politenesses. His reign is ahead, and I probably shall not see it. I have seen three tsars. The first [Paul I] ordered my baby bonnet removed and scolded nurse on my behalf; the second did not like me; the third, though he made me Page of the Chamber in my old age, still I would not wish to change him for a fourth — let well enough alone.48 On May 10, having been duly reprimanded, Pushkin noted furiously in his diary: I can be devoted, I can even be a slave; but I will not be a lackey or a buffoon even for the King of Heaven! In any case, what profound immorality in the ways of our government! The police opens letters written by a husband to his wife and

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brings them to the sovereign to read (an honorable, wellbrought-up man)—and the sovereign is not ashamed to acknowledge it — and to give reign to an intrigue worthy of a Vidocq or a Bulgarini Say what you will, it is hard to be an autocrat.43 To a reproach from his wife that, while she attended her parents in the country, he disported himself in the capital, he replied: Don't you think that swinish Petersburg is foul to me? Do you think it is gay for me, living there amidst pasquils on the one hand and denunciations on the other?44 He pleaded to no avail: neither Natalia nor Nicholas would let him be. In his diary, Pushkin expressed his contempt of the court aristocracy, became embattled in his position as a "Russian bourgeois" (that is, a member of the impoverished traditional gentry) and increasingly critical of autocratic and police interference in private affairs. The following excerpts speak eloquently of his feelings: Nesselrode and Kochubey have received two hundred thousand rubles each, to feed their hungry peasants. It will remain in their pockets. . . . There will be balls at Nesselrode's and Kochubey's — for that is the way to flatter the court. An edict has been issued concerning Russian subjects in foreign lands [on April 17, 1834, Nicholas issued an edict limiting the right of the nobility to travel abroad]. It is a direct violation of the right granted the nobility by Peter III; but, since they permit exceptions, it will be but one of the innumerable empty measures taken daily to the grief of men of good will and to the harm of the government. As far as the tiers état is concerned — what then does our ancient nobility signify, well educated, its estates destroyed by endless depredations, hating the great aristocracy, yet retaining all its pretensions to power and wealth? There is no such terrible element of revolt in Europe. Who was out on the square on December 14? Nobles only. How many of them will be involved in the first new uprising? I do not know, but I think many.

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The Sovereign is angry. Bezobrazov [whose wife was jealous of him and applied for a divorce] is under arrest. Prince M. Galits. has assumed the job of a police detective, has disguised himself as a Jew, etc. What an age is this we live ini 46 In notes for his history of Peter the Great, Pushkin began to jot down an agonized critique even of his hero: A decree — the poor are forbidden to beg; cruel, tyrannical as usual. 1721. A difference worthy of note between the state institutions of Peter the Great and his provisional decrees: the first are the fruits of a vast intellect full of wisdom and good will; the others are often cruel, capricious, and seem written with the knout. The first were designed for eternity, or at least for the future — the second exploded from the impatience of a despotic proprietor. 1722 . . . a decree surpassing all previous ones in savagery.48 In an unpublished article written in 1836 Pushkin expressed awe and wonder at, and even a certain identification with, Alexander Radishchev, the unhappy victim of Catherine's change of heart: when we realize what harsh people surrounded the throne of Catherine, the crime of Radishchev appears to us the act of a madman. A petty official, a man without any power, without any backing, dares to rise up against the general order, against the autocracy, against Catherine! 4T During the last years of his life, the period from 1833 to 1836, Pushkin wrote some of his greatest lyrics, his remarkable history of the Pugachev uprising, and one of his two masterpieces, "The Bronze Horseman." Waclaw Lednicki has noted in these works, on the one hand, the recurrent motifs of storm, flood, madness (and connected with these, revolt — "A real Russian revolt," Pushkin wrote of the Pugachev uprising, "wild and senseless") and, on the other, the repeated use of the adjective "humble" ( smirennyi ) .48 The following is one of Pushkin's most brilliant lyrics, written in 1833, at about the same time as "The Bronze Horseman":

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Lednicki suggests that the poem is intimately connected with a letter Pushkin received from Zhukovsky concerning his request to retire from court. " I do not understand what has happened to you," Zhukovsky wrote, It is as though you had gone crazy. It will be necessary either to put you in an asylum or to have you duly lashed in order to stir up your blood.49

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Pushkin wrote the poem while at his estate, Boldino, having just returned from the Urals where he had been gathering information for his work on Pugachev. He was very much disturbed about gossip linking his wife with the emperor, about his debts, about the difficulties of getting work done in the social whirl of court life, and about the emptiness and cruelty of fashionable St. Petersburg. It was at this time also that he wrote "The Bronze Horseman." Falconet, when Catherine commissioned him to do an equestrian statue of Peter the Great, posed the emperor with uplifted arm in what Catherine intended as a gesture of blessing and command. But of the finished statue Joseph de Maistre wrote: "One looks at it and one does not know whether this bronze hand protects or whether it menaces."50 To the Polish poet, Adam Mickiewicz, exiled in Russia, the galloping horse seemed "a cascade of tyranny," its hooves aimed at human heads. In a long poem about Russia (published abroad in 1832), Mickiewicz described the city of St. Petersburg as a cruel, somehow "inorganic" and inhuman place, built against nature at great cost in lives. The last portion of his poem describes God's wrath at the arrogance of St. Petersburg, the great flood of 1824. Pushkin had been thinking about (and translating) Mickiewicz, whom he had met in 1828 and who had impressed him enormously. Against Mickiewicz's condemnation of the inhuman power and the blankness of the imperial city, Pushkin asserted his love for St. Petersburg and his confidence in its destiny. And yet it is at the same time an assertion that Mickiewicz was, after all, right. In "The Bronze Horseman" two figures are set against each other: the statue of Peter, referred to impressively as "He" or "the idol";* and a poor clerk, Evgeny, whose dreams of a warm, simple private life, A bed, two chairs, a pot of cabbage soup, And I my own master51 are shattered in madness by the bronze horseman. β It was the word kumir, idol, with its implication of false worship that the censor objected to. Pushkin apparently attached such importance to the word that he preferred to see the poem go unpublished rather than change it.

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The poem begins with an exalted hymn to Peter and the city which he founded as an act of will over what had been a swamp: Here Nature has ordained That we shall break a window through to Europe. It was the greatness of Peter that conceived Russia's imperial destiny. Within a century, the old capital, Moscow, paled before the granite, new, European creation of Peter, As before the new tsaritsa, The widow of the purple. Pushkin unequivocally declares his attachment, I love thee, Peter's creature, I love thy stern, harmonious face. He urges the city to stand "splendid . . . and unshakeable, like Russia itself." The narrative proper begins with the poor clerk, Evgeny — a name that has intimate associations for Pushkin: . . . it Rings nicely; my pen Is friendly to it from of old. In preliminary versions of the poem, he traced Evgeny's genealogy back to an old and highly respected noble family, now impoverished. He later made a separate poem of this family tree, called first "The Genealogy of My Hero," later, "My Genealogy," in which he responded to the attacks of Rulgarin and Polevoy on his "aristocratism" by tracing his noble ancestry, but nevertheless asserting in the refrain: I am my own master; I am not a courtier, I am a grammarian, and a bourgeois. In the final draft of "The Bronze Horseman," however, he reduces Evgeny to the bare elements of his private existence: His surname we do not need. Although in former times It may have glistened Beneath the pen of Karamzin

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And echoed in our country's annals. Now the world and gossip Have forgot it. Our hero Lives in Kolomna; works somewhere, Shuns famous men, and grieves not, Neither for departed relatives, Nor old days now forgotten. Evgeny daydreams about marriage to his sweetheart, Parasha. He is vaguely disturbed at the sound of the elements: . . . and he wished That the wind would not sound so dreary Nor the rain as it beat against the window So angry. There follows a turbulent description of the River Neva, backed by the gulf winds, flooding the city. St. Petersburg the city of human will opposing the will of the elements, is temporarily inundated. Pathetically, the tsar (Alexander I) appears on the balcony and speaks passively, sadly, resigned: . . . "God's elements It is not given to tsars to rule." He sat And deep in thought, with mournful brooding eyes, He watched the dreadful work. Contrasted with Peter's powerful, ringing mastery in the prologue, there is a note of contempt in this description of Alexander; but, looking forward to Evgeny's terrible fate, the contempt is not unmixed with compassion. The burden of empire crushes not only the little man in civil-service uniform but even Peter's heirs, the emperors. To gain a view of the flood's destruction, Evgeny mounts one of the marble lions in the Senate Square. The flood has destroyed his sweetheart's house. Evgeny stands, feeling the imagined warmth of his life turn to mockery: And back turned toward him, On its unshakeable height Above the rebellious Neva, There, with outstretched arm,

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The final portion of the poem begins with a superb simile: the receding waters are compared with the retreat of a bandit horde, who, having crashed in on the established order and wreaked havoc, make a weary and sated retreat: And, burdened with their plunder, Fearing pursuit and tired, The bandits hurry home, Dropping their loot along the way. It is the only "epic simile" in the poem and stands out with great vividness and force. Pushkin had been immersed in accounts of the Pugachev uprising, which he viewed as "senseless" from the point of view of what it could achieved, but which he nevertheless considered inevitable because of the harsh stupidity of officials. Perhaps it should also be pointed out that the Senate Square, the scene of "The Bronze Horseman," had also been the setting of the Decembrist revolt — hardly an affair of unruly bandits, to be sure, but equally senseless and equally inevitable from Pushkin's point of view — which, but for a hair's breadth, might also have turned into a popular uprising, and it did leave St. Petersburg with a clutter not unlike that left by the flood. In any case, the simile emphasizes the futility as well as the violence of the flood, a violence that Peter doomed his descendants repeatedly to face by his willful creation of the imperial city. With the flood's dwindling, the city resumes its interrupted work: Already along the cleared streets With their cold indifference The crowd was flowing . . . . . . hardy trade, Not beaten, was opening the cellar Plundered by the Neva, Preparing to pass his losses On to the next man

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The city of Peter re-emerges, but Parasha has been drowned and Evgeny goes mad. He wanders aimlessly, the waves dinning in his ears: . . . The cruel children Stoned him as he passed. Often the coachman's whips Slashed at him, for all Was open road to him; he never chose. The normal bounds, normal precautions and limitations, no longer have meaning. In his madness, a staggering insight comes to Evgeny. He confronts the statue of the emperor who willed the city. "Good, miraculous builder!" He hissed, quivering with rage — "To you, 111. . . ." And suddenly, in his sick brain, as though in response to his inarticulate threat, the statue comes alive (. . . the terrible tsar, Instantly hot with wrath, Silently turned his face . . .) and moves to run him down. The sound of the waves, the noises of the flood which have been echoing in his ears, are transformed into the hoofbeats of the bronze horseman, which drive him into the river where he drowns. The destructive elemental force of nature, and the creative will of empire, amount for Evgeny and his dream of privacy ("a poet's dream," Pushkin calls it) to the same thing. During the last year of his life, Pushkin finally managed to found a magazine, "The Contemporary" (Sovremennik), and entered into a last battle to gain for himself a larger public and a sufficient income. Five years earlier, he had applied for permission, writing to Benckendorff of the advantages of "directing public opinion" and of attracting people of talent. "I shall try

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with accuracy and zeal," he had promised, "to carry out His Majesty's will, for I am ready to serve him to the best of my ability." 62 But Benckendorff had refused. Bulgarin could be dealt with; Pushkin, perhaps, could not. In any case, Pushkin had high personal hopes for "The Contemporary" when it finally appeared in 1836. They did not materialize. He had, to begin with, made an enemy of Uvarov, the Minister of Education. Uvarov had insisted that Pushkin's works pass through the regular censorship in addition to that of the Third Section, and he had won his point with Nicholas in 1834. As a journalist, Pushkin was therefore hampered by interminable delays in two inefficiently run bureaucracies — delays enhanced by fear of his cleverness and reputation, on the one hand, and by the emperor's official "protection," on the other; the censor scarcely dared to make a mistake one way or the other. By the time an article of Pushkin's appeared in "The Contemporary" it was no longer "contemporary." As an editor, moreover, Pushkin was responsible for reporting the names of all his contributors to the censorship and, if necessary, to the police. On the appearance of the first issue, April 11, 1836, he received a curt letter from Benckendorff concerning an article the emperor had not relished. In despair, Pushkin wrote to his wife: My spirit drops to my heels when I recall that I am a journalist. When I was an honorable man, I myself received rebukes from the police . . . what will become of me now? Mordvinov will look on me as he looks on Faddei Bulgarin and Nikolai Polevy — as a spy. Only the devil could have thought of having me born in Russia with a mind and talent.53 "To purge Russian literature," he wrote later, "is to clean out public toilets; both depend on the police." 54 In addition to these more or less public difficulties, Pushkin was at this time suffering the private agony of his wife's flirtation with d'Anthès-Heeckeren. The fashionable world he had come to despise conspired to mock him with it, and, proud as he was and touchy of his dignity, they drove him to a frenzy. Ominously enough, Benckendorff knew and liked young d'Anthès and,

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whether through friendly intent or general gallantry or sheer absent-mindedness or inepitude, did nothing to prevent the duel that was to result in Pushkin's death. Among Pushkin's last poems was one written to the Horatian epigraph, "Exegi monumentum." Here he contrasted the recently unveiled memorial to Alexander I — a winged figure standing on an enormous pillar, the highest monument in Russia, dominating the square behind the Winter Palace — to his own works. His work would outlast the official pomp of Nicholas and create an empire of its own: I rear a monument not built by hands. He would be known for this: That in my cruel age I sang the praise of freedom, And evoked mercy for the fallen. The prophecy stands, perhaps better today than ever. Pushkin's death created a great sensation. Dark rumors spread of police complicity, of a plot by "Germans" and foreigners to murder the Russian national poet. Dog-eared manuscripts of Pushkin's half-forgotten juvenilia began to go the rounds again. Suddenly, he had an enormous audience.6® The Third Section was genuinely frightened. Uvarov severely rebuked Kraevsky for printing in the "Russian Veteran" 's literary supplement (January 31, 1837) an impassioned tribute to Pushkin, edged in black: Why the black border around news of the death of a man who was not an official and who occupied no position in the government service . . . ? "Pushkin died in the middle of a great career!" What was this career of his? 56 Uvarov instructed professors to forbid their students to miss classes on the day of Pushkin's funeral. Entry to the church was restricted to those who were in uniform or who held an official ticket. Benckendorff ordered the police to prevent any kind of demonstration. Pushkin's friend, Viazemsky, wrote: It may be said, and without exaggeration, that more police than friends collected about the bier. I do not speak of the

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soldiers in uniform picketing the streets. But against whom was this military force arrayed in the home of the deceased during those moments when a dozen of his friends . . . gathered there in order to render him a last homage? What were these disguised men — well known to all as spies — intended for? To keep us in sight, to eavesdrop on our grief . . . to be witnesses of our tears and our silence.57 When Viazemsky and Zhukovsky threw their gloves into Pushkin's open coffin, the police took uneasy note. They thought it might be signal for an uprising. The coffin itself was removed from Petersburg for its trip to Mikhailovskoe secretly at night, and Nikitenko, who chanced to cross the path of the gendarmeescorted sled, noted in his diary that Pushkin had been transported to the grave, "on straw, like a dog." Baron van Heeckeren, the foster-father of d'Anthès, wrote to a friend in Holland that "the men of letters, the artists, the minor civil employees, and those in high financial spheres" were very much upset.58 There was strong nationalist resentment. Benckendorff tried, at some length, to justify the steps he had taken: Pushkin joined within himself two distinct qualities. He was a great poet and a great liberal — a hater of all authority. Although loaded with the Sovereign's mercies, he had not, even at the end of his life, changed his principles, but only became more cautious in declaring them. According to these two qualities of Pushkin's, a circle of his adherents formed: it consisted of litterateurs and of all the liberals of our society. And both the one and the other took the most flaming part in the death of Pushkin. The gathering of visitors about the corpse was extraordinary. The singing was intended to be triumphal. Many intended to follow the coffin to its very place of burial in Pskov province. Finally, there were rumors that in Pskov itself they intended to unharness the horses and carry the coffin; a group had been prepared in Pskov for just that. It was difficult to decide whether all this was done more to honor Pushkin the liberal or Pushkin the poet. In this uncertainty, and having in mind the declarations of many loyal people to the effect that such a mass expression of loss with regard to the death of Pushkin might present in a certain sense

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an improper picture of the triumph of liberals, the higher surveillance acknowledged it as its duty to prevent all these observances by unpublicized measures; and this was done. [Italic mine.] 59 General Paskevich wrote Nicholas a sententious letter, in which he praised Pushkin's talent, but concluded that he must have been a wicked man. Nicholas agreed entirely: "One might say that we weep over his future and not his past." eo The nagging rumor of a plot, the suspicion of a "liberal party," would not let go of the emperor. After generously offering Zhukovsky access to all Pushkin's papers for purposes of selection and editing, he later insisted that Dubelt was to accompany him, and everything in Pushkin's possession was to be catalogued and listed by the Third Section. "I was in an atrocious position," Zhukovsky later wrote Nicholas. In a sense, handing their letters to Pushkin over to gendarmes, he had been forced to spy on his own friends. To Benckendorff Zhukovsky wrote a cold letter of protest: In your eyes he, Pushkin, was always some kind of noisy scapegrace, not to be trusted with liberty — to be kept, in fact, under the most severe, most painful surveillance. . . . In the thirty-six-year-old Pushkin people still seemed determined to to see only the twenty-year youth. . . . His work was his pen . . . work like that requires liberty and privacy. What peace and quiet could he have . . . in a milieu where everything harassed him. . . . You now call him a demagogue. . . . Which of his works are you acquainted with, except those which the police and a few slandering enemies have called to your attention? He is really a great national poet. . . . Did you ever take the trouble to talk to him about politics? Allow me to tell you in all sincerity what I think. The Emperor, by granting special protection, wanted . . . to give Pushkin's genius an opportunity to develop freely. You, however, transformed this protection into surveillance; and even the most honest and discreet surveillance is a torture.61 Ironically enough, within a generation of his death, Pushkin's daughter by Natalia married the son of L. V. Dubelt, the etni-

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nence grise of the Third Section. And Pushkin's journal, "The Contemporary," became a flourishing and powerful enterprise in the hands of the opposition-minded intelligentsia, the young radicals that Pushkin feared and distrusted.

1848, and After

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6

Ψ

Otto de Bray, the Bavarian ambassador in St. Petersburg, thus described Nicholas on the Russian emperor's return from celebrating his Hungarian victory in 1849: The Emperor Nicholas, until that time full of youthful force, returned from the Warsaw celebrations which followed the pacification of Hungary, if not an old man, in any case, very much aged. Joy for the victory he had achieved was in many ways darkened for him. The performance of the Russian army sent to pacify the Hungarian revolt had not been as successful as might have been expected. The campaign undertaken to save the Austrian monarchy had not met with approval, even in those circles on whose sympathies the Emperor especially counted; among other things, in Moscow, the declaration of war evoked straight disapproval. To this monarch, moreover, accustomed as he was to silent and unconditional obedience, it was given to witness the fact that many of his officers scarcely concealed their antipathy to the German "whitecollars" with whom they had to act in common, and their sympathies for the Hungarian mutineers, for the suppression of whom they had been sent. . . . The Sovereign returned to Petersburg in late autumn, 1849, gray-haired. And his happy disposition, it seemed, had dropped away forever. . . . He made himself more stern and inaccessible than formerly, and

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The Third Section with all this was firmly convinced that it was necessary to strengthen repressive measures in order to preserve the existing order.1

The Third Section's official historian, attempting to justify to Alexander II that institution's continued existence on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary in 1876, noted with pride that, in 1848, when revolutions had swept across Europe, Russia (the interior provinces at least) had "remained calm; almost somnolent." No organized, manifest "revolution of the intellectuals" had marked the great watershed year of the nineteenth century in Russia as it had in Europe in some fifty different places.2 Nevertheless, as the quotation from the Bavarian ambassador's notes indicates, a profound change had taken place. Nicholas, lonely and isolated on the Russian throne, had suffered a defeat different only in circumstances and degree from that of Metternich in exile. Evidence of this defeat, which the emperor himself acknowledged only after the obvious failure of Russian arms in the Crimean War ( and later, of course, indirectly, by the strange circumstances of his death), may be traced in the various activities of the Third Section.3 At its inception, the Third Section as an institution had been marked by an air of impermanence and improvization. Although the concept of political crime and Star Chamber juridical procedures were not a new thing in Russian state life, and Alexander I had foreshadowed Nicholas' gendarmerie in his hesitantly organized and soon abolished Ministry of Police, a systematic and omnipresent political police still had about it, in the early years of Nicholas' reign, an aspect of foreign innovation, something "un-Russian," as Vigel put it. By 1848, however, the Third Section had become very much a part of Russian state life. Compared with the Ministries of Education and Internal Affairs (on whose activities the Third Section touched most closely), the tenure of top-level personnel showed a striking continuity. Count Orlov succeeded Count Benckendorff on the latter's death in 1844 and remained in office until the first year of the next reign. Both had been in Nicholas' closest entourage and had daily access to the emperor. Orlov, more at home in affairs of state than

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his predecessor (he had served as Nicholas' special envoy abroad on many important occasions, of which the most important was the Unkiar-Skilessi treaty with Turkey in 1833), was fundamentally the same type of person, stolid and unquestioning in matters of administration, with no pretension to ideas on policy; in spite of periods of temporary displeasure, both enjoyed Nicholas' favor to an extent unique in higher Russian administrative circles.4 On the secondary level, Dubelt had replaced von Vock and, like Orlov, retained his position until 1856. Among the district commands, signs of strain as evidenced by rapid turnover of personnel were evident only in the western provinces (formerly part of Poland) and in Moscow. But even in Moscow, a center of opposition sentiment, General Perfilev, who came to his command in 1843, remained for the duration of the reign and received abundant rewards for his service.® By 1840, the number of commands and the official form of procedure and paper work within the Third Section had been regularized. With stabilization, however, the political police lost much of its force, and the dynamism the Third Section had displayed in its role of "educator and guide," its encroachments on the functions of the ministries as well as its innovation of functions, petered out into a more or less normalized routine and numerous attempts to maintain prestige without the assumption of responsibility. A defensive attitude before the demanding and irate Nicholas, so characteristic of the Ministry of Education, for example, became the mark of the Third Section as well. One of the earliest tasks the Third Section had set itself was the formation of a favorable public opinion, both in Russia and abroad. Domestically, the control and formation of public opinion remained one of its major tasks; abroad, its program never assumed quite so much importance, but Benckendorff's initial attempt at propaganda — the official version of the Decembrist revolt, composed on Benckendorff's initiative, and distributed in English, French, and German translations — had proved successful. It was widely believed abroad that Nicholas had behaved with great courage and resolution on December 14, 1825, and that his would be a bold and firm policy.®

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After 1830, public opinion with regard to Russia changed radically, especially in France and England. The July revolution in France invoked Nicholas' extreme hostility, which, if it was not entirely reciprocated by the government of Louis Philippe, at any rate kept a constant strain on official relations. Then the failure of the Polish revolt of 1830-1831 brought thousands of Polish émigrés into France. The idea that the Polish revolt had "saved France from a war with Russia," and that the Poles, who could appeal to both Catholic and liberal sympathies in France, had suffered cruelly under Russian despotism, appeared frequently in the French press.7 In 1832, the Third Section hired and sent agents abroad, to "organize a system of correct observation at the most crucial points," to report on the state of European public opinion with regard to Russia, and to infiltrate the ranks of the émigrés.8 Benckendorff noted with some complacency in his memoirs that Metternich had admired his choice of an agent-reporter. Metternich had suggested, Benckendorff wrote, that this agent work mutually for Austria and Russia, not only in following the course of opinion, but in commissioning and placing in the press refutations of "slanders" against the two powers. Although Metternich seemed to share his enthusiasm for a propaganda campaign, some of Nicholas' ministers did not. Count Nesselrode believed it was "unsuitable to the dignity of a great state to enter into a struggle with the press." 9 Uvarov was also against it. When, in 1844, a certain Delacroix, who served in the chancery of the Kurland governor, suggested editing a magazine in Germany, which would include excerpts from the Russian press and refutations of articles unfavorable to Russia in the German press, Uvarov wrote Count Orlov: Taking into account the present disposition of minds with regard to Russia abroad, it seems doubtful that M. Delacroix would succeed in overcoming all the difficulties with which his enterprise will inevitably be confronted, all the existing unpleasantness and blindness against Russia. It would be better not to undertake such a venture at all than unsuccessfully, and "M. Delacroix has not indicated a single

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name which would have authority, and whose participation might warrant some success in the literary world."10 The Third Section thus faced arguments with a sense of defeat. In 1839, when the Marquis Astolphe de Custine requested permission to visit Russia, he was welcomed with alacrity, and the highest court circles were made accessible to him. He was the author of two very successful travel books; and in politics he was known to be a conservative, an ultramontane. Nicholas and the Third Section had reason to hope that the Marquis would depict the Russian autocracy favorably in a forthcoming book and that French public opinion toward Russia might conceivably under his influence take a more favorable turn. Four years later, Custine's book, La Russie en 1839 (four volumes) appeared in Paris and was an immense success, running through five French editions in sixteen years, as well as numerous translations.11 "I went to Russia seeking arguments against representative government," the Marquis wrote in his foreword, "and I came back a partisan of constitutions." And he described RenckendorfFs expectations of him: "This unfortunate European opinion is a phantom which pursues [Russian officials] in their innermost thoughts. It reduces civilization for them to a sleightof-hand trick, more or less skillfully executed." This book, which gave a strong Roman Catholic emphasis to the importance of a "sound" church for social values, and which devoted an entire section to the activities of the political police, became a model for later such travel literature on Russia. Before Custine, antiRussian books had sympathized with the suffering Poles or Uniates; afterwards, the idea became fixed that the Russians suffered as well, and that responsible for this suffering was an ignorant church and a despotic police.12 The Third Section permitted no mention of Custine to appear in the Russian press. Nevertheless, everyone read his book. The most unlikely people found that the Marquis' work (a hollow piece, after all, lacking both in concrete detail and systematic study, but brightened occasionally by a rather sharp wit) had "some truth in it." Balzac, living in Kiev at the time, found the book essentially empty, "nothing . . . but epigrams about the

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weather." 13 But in Europe, Custine had found his mark, and Balzac was forced to defend himself against the charge that Nicholas had offered him an estate with serfs if he would undertake to refute the Marquis.14 The Third Section tried to utilize the few scattered resources it had abroad in order to damage Custine and placate European public opinion. It found two ready instruments in the persons of Iakov Tolstoy and Nikolai Grech. Iakov Tolstoy, nominally an agent of special commissions for the Ministry of Education, attached to the Paris embassy, had been an agent of the Third Section since 1836. Previously compromised by his association with the Decembrists, Tolstoy had been living in Paris since 1825 and had plunged more and more deeply into debt. The Third Section munificently paid his creditors and arranged a job for him with a handsome salary. He was to refute attacks on Russia that appeared in the French press and to report to the Third Section on the course of French politics. At times his commissions verged on espionage. For the most part, he was a secret observer and a hired journalist.15 Not without literary talent, Tolstoy wrote two books refuting Custine, one under his own name and one under the pseudonymn, Iakovlev. The books enjoyed but little success in the France of Louis Philippe. Custine remained the popular authority on Russia.16 Nikolai Grech, who was in Germany at the time of the appearance of La Russie en 1839, wrote Dubelt that although the book had made "almost no impression in France," in Germany "they chew and masticate this work." He was most eager to refute Custine.17 Dubelt urged him to proceed. Grech sketched a plan for a network of paid journalists all over Europe, who would defend Russia in the press. He would commission Donizetti to write a Russian opera and Oger to lampoon Custine in vaudeville. Dubelt replied, much more coolly, that refutations and propaganda were all very well, but it was imperative that the Russian government not be associated with such matters. "How I long," Grech wrote, "to be your agent, and the mover of public opinion in our favor in Germany and France!" Dubelt replied

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that this "would not correspond to the dignity and enduring nobility of our government." 18 Grech's book appeared simultaneously in French and German translations. It was mostly a matter of simple assertion: I can assure the Marquis and all his readers that our Emperor, who follows the divine commandments and the voice of his conscience, is loved and idolized by his people, and that he fears nothing in the world.19 Grech admitted the censorship, but it was "founded, not for the Emperor's advantage." How else could innocent people be protected from "the poison which has . . . destroyed so many states in Europe"? As for the Third Section: One must know that the people to whom the higher administration of the police is entrusted in Russia belong to the best part of the nation and enjoy the confidence of the Emperor, and the confidence of the whole empire as well.20 The Third Section, although it refused to finance Grech's critical activities, was not at all displeased with his work, which it inspected and approved before publication. But when Grech failed to keep the source of his inspiration silent, he was rejected. On November 18, 1844, Dubelt wrote him: Count Alexander Khristoforovich has read with surprise in No. 321 of the "Frankfurt Journal" — a clipping from which is here enclosed — that your excellency has been commissioned to compose a refutation of the work of Marquis de Custine and that you have already begun this work; that you receive materials for it from an official source, that this refutation will be handed on to M. Kotzebue for translation into German, and that subsequently it will be published in France as well. His Grace cannot ascribe such details to anything other than an incautious indiscretion on the part of your excellency, and therefore judges how little he can have confidence in you and how far the vanity and presumption of persons, who because of the position they occupy ought to surround themselves with caution, will lead. This is the gist of what the Count told me, but with his

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In Paris, Iakov Tolstoy also outlived his usefulness to the Third Section. He had been sending reports on political affairs in France. Just before the February revolution, he was exposed by Ivan Golovin, but warmly defended by Bakunin. During February 1848 he sent his dispatches, in which he described mob activity, with a certain relish: [The mob broke into] an immense building near the botanic gardens, where more than one hundred thousand kegs of wine were kept. They broke the seal of the building and wanted to take possession of the wine kept there, but the National Guard arrived in time to prevent the theft. Then someone emerged from the ranks of the armed mob and cried out: "Citizens, in a republic all should be free — let us go and free the beasts in the zoo!" 22 He continued to describe the events in Paris for the Third Section's benefit, but gradually his status became known, and in November 1848 he wrote pathetically to his brother: I hope for a stable position, and one has been promised me (that of consul general in Paris), but meanwhile I am in a position in which I am mistrusted by my compatriots and even taken by some Frenchmen as a secret agent. This false position is one of the torments of my life.23 Men like Tolstoy and Grech could do little against Russia's growing unpopularity in France and elsewhere, intensified by Custine and his followers and the thousands of émigré Poles in Paris, joined by fifteen hundred more in 1848, who agitated against the autocracy. If the Crimean War was unpopular in the French countryside, in Paris among people who read the press and followed European affairs it proved the most popular single measure undertaken by Louis Napoleon.24 In its attempt to influence and control domestic opinion, the Third Section enjoyed equally meager success. Count Orlov, perturbed at the extent to which Russian periodicals had proved open to European thought and to a general interest in social

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problems, recommended closer surveillance over the press in 1848. Baron Korff submitted a similar recommendation to Nicholas. A special committee was formed, presided over by no less a figure than General A. S. Menshikov (one of Nicholas' favorites, and later his envoy to Turkey and chief of staff during the Crimean War) and attended by Dubelt. Nicholas instructed the committee to inspect the entire periodical press, to determine whether the censorship had been acting correctly, and to recommend changes.26 The members (Menshikov, Korff, Buturlin, Stroganov, Degai, and Dubelt) agreed that the press had been taking a "harmful" direction. Stroganov presented a report highly unfavorable to "The Contemporary," and Degai accused "Notes of the Fatherland" of subversion. Dubelt, by adroit maneuvering, managed to give the "Northern Bee" a clean slate. (He had persuaded the committee to assign Bulgarin's paper to him and had then turned it over to M. Popov. When Popov implied, in an acute analysis of Bulgarin's motives, that the "Bee" would print anything for gain, if it could, Dubelt merely eliminated this section of the report and left only the positive appraisal of Bulgarin's monarchical politics. ) The committee then called in all editors of periodicals published in St. Petersburg and warned them that, henceforth, they would be held accountable not only for specific articles but for the entire tone and tendency of their publications. In spite of threats to the editors, in spite of bluster within the committee itself, the members could not bring themselves to close down a single journal. "The Contemporary," Dubelt pointed out, had four thousand subscribers; banning it would churn up rumors in the provinces — and readers might even switch to foreign novels!26 Warning the editors of "The Contemporary" and "Notes of the Fatherland," the Third Section (on instructions from the Menshikov committee) accused them of ideas criminal in the highest degree, capable of sowing the seeds of communism in our fatherland, of spreading disrespect for our age-old and sacred institutions, disrespect for the services of people whose works have been read by all, disrespect for

The Third Section family obligations, and even for religion; [ideas] endangering public morality and in general paving the way among us for those ruinous events by which the western states have been shaken.27

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If the editors did not follow the government line more closely in the future, they would be "dealt with as state criminals." The Menshikov committee's report led to the establishment of a secret standing committee on April 2, 1848, with Buturlin as chairman. Following all of Russian literature, with special attention to spirit and tendency, the committee was to report directly to Nicholas concerning "subversion." The censorship regulations were to preserve their current validity. Count Orlov did not request representation on the committee and received none. Prime responsibility for the condition of the press passed in this manner out of the Third Section's hands.28 On March 12, 1848, a little more than two weeks after news of events in Paris had reached St. Petersburg, Nicholas ordered the war ministry to mobilize. Unrest had spread to Austria and Germany; Kossuth was demanding independence for Hungary, Metternich prepared to resign, and the "March days" in Berlin were about to begin. On March 14, Nicholas delivered the famous proclamation in which he declared that, before the "threat to legitimate authority and the social order," he stood "ready to defend the honor of the name of Russia and the inviolability of our borders." This proclamation was widely publicized, both in the press and in clerical sermons across the breadth of Russia. Rumors of intervention abroad, rumors of liberation of the peasantry, rumors connected with army service, spread with great rapidity. From Moscow, the Third Section reported that the proclamation had been widely discussed among all segments of the population, too widely, perhaps — too much "chatter among the people, by no means dangerous, but more or less stupid."29 For a month, events in Paris and in Germany were reported in considerable detail and with surprising accuracy in the Russian press. The provisional government's legislation, the national

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workshops, the liberation of slaves in the French colonies, were all known to the Russian reader. 30 In the middle of March, a Gendarme colonel, Vasilev, submitted a "Note on the Direction of Russian and Foreign Newspapers" to the Third Section. In it he recommended that articles in the Russian press concerned with events in France should print detailed information in order to scotch rumors, but should call forth sympathy for the misfortune of the good citizens of France and contempt for the madness of the rebels; should express the benign condition of the Russian people in comparison with naked, hungry, and madly depraved people of Paris. Translations should not be literal, but should be composed with a dignity worthy of translators residing in a monarchical state. . . . [Italics mine; by "translations" Vasilev meant, of course, translations from the French and German press concerning events in France.] 31 On March 26, his recommendations were modified in a conservative direction, and Russian periodicals were forbidden to print any news of events in countries where revolution had broken out, or "could" break out, other than approved translations from German state newspapers. Nicholas ordered all Russian subjects residing in Europe to return home, at the same time placing severe restrictions on foreigners entering Russia; but this "quarantine" proved highly ineffective. Eighty thousand Russians returned from abroad, dispersing news of what they had seen. In the border provinces, where many estates sprawled across the border, with fields on both sides belonging to the same owner, the order forbidding Russians to leave the country could not be applied. Governor General Bibikov of Kiev and the western provinces reported to Nicholas: The Galician peasants have been freed from corvée, and when they pass over to work their fields on this side of the border, they tell the local peasants about it, who in turn say, "If only God would give us to expect such freedom."32 The Third Section observed the general movement of these peasants, but did nothing.

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Section

In spite of the ban, ten thousand foreigners received official permission to enter Russia. In 1848 alone, four hundred thousand letters, mostly from the countries torn by revolt, entered Russia; one hundred fifty thousand letters were received from abroad in St. Petersburg alone. The Third Section, through the postal administration, intercepted suspicious mail (with a special alert for letters from Polish émigrés and from the few Russians who, like Herzen and Bakunin, remained abroad) but could not control communication on such a scale. It was obvious to Nicholas, and indeed to everyone, that the border regions were more susceptible to revolutionary contagion than was the heart of the empire. It is possible that a note of panic crept into the considerations of high-ranking personnel with regard to these regions. The governor of Lithuania, P. Valuev, recalled to St. Petersburg for consultation, noted on March 16, 1848: At the top level, everyone is in a terrible fit. Our pseudostatesmen do not know what they are doing. . . . In the city, innumerable stupidities are being spread concerning the distant regions of the Empire. Yesterday it was asserted that Warsaw and Tiflis had erupted, and that in Riga, in some club, barricades had been built out of furniture.33 Not merely revolt was feared, but the old bogey of a rampantly revolutionary France. On March 13, 1848, Nicholas ordered Prince Paskevich to prepare the fortress of Ivangorod (in Poland, near the Prussian and Austrian borders) for possible siege, anticipating an offensive alliance between republican France and Austria and Prussia, which were at that time in a state of turmoil. Four hundred thousand Russian troops occupied Poland, the Baltic and western provinces. On March 20, 1848, martial law was declared in these areas, and search and seizure of weapons among the local population was carefully organized by the Third Section in cooperation with the military command.34 In the Baltic province, the nobility and merchants stifled antiRussian sentiments in the face of growing fear of an uprising. On March 3, 1848, a staff officer of the Corps of Gendarmes reported to the Third Section that mutinous proclamations had been dis-

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tributed among the merchants of Riga. He noted the unreliability of local authorities: The police here is in general quite weak, and to accommodate the local inhabitants would sooner conceal than reveal events such as the above-mentioned mutinous notes.35 Interest in French politics was general and intense; but, the gendarme added judiciously, for all that, it should be said that the democratic nature of the popular agitations in Europe, and therefore the threat of anarchy, is not to their tastes and arouses more fear than sympathy among them, as well as among the Livonian gentry.36 On March 31, the Third Section received a similar report from Dorpat: The local nobility has been seized by a panic terror, fearing the mutiny of their peasants, knowing that not only are these not well disposed to them, but even nourish an age-old hostility, and, therefore, at the least revolt, they, the masterlandowners, would be the first victims.37 Russian troops moved in, much to the relief of the Baltic landowners, who had thus become a solid bulwark of the autocracy. In return for their support of Russian military policy, Nicholas, in April 1848, replaced the Russifying Governor General Golovin with the more flexible Prince Suvorov.38 In Poland and the western provinces, interest in revolutionary Europe was more animated and less tempered by class fears. Numerous proclamations appeared, some indigenous, some smuggled in from Prussia, Austria, and Turkey. There were local disorders. In the face of martial law, fifteen hundred Poles emigrated. From Grodno province, on March 15, the Third Section received the following: Newspaper reports concerning the latest changes in France have produced a marked influence on the gentry of Grodno province, of whom the greater part, especially young people, cannot conceal their joy, stamped on their faces, on the occasion of this revolution. Cautious in public or in the presence

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of Russians, they, as they say, give out hope among themselves that the changes of administration in France will lead to similar changes in Germany and Italy, and will have influence on Poland as well. One young Pole, serving in the local Administration of State Properties, in spite of the presence of a Russian official, was heard to comment with passion to the effect that all Europe rejoices in these events, and only the Russians fear them.39 At the end of March 1848, Nikolai Grech, the Third Section's rejected foreign agent, presented a curious document to his friend, Bulgarin, who passed it on to the Third Section — a constitution for the Kingdom of Poland, "to prevent agitations." Grech suggested naming Nicholas' son-in-law, the Duke of Lichtenberg, King of Poland and granting an amnesty to all Poles in exile. This would, Grech thought, in large measure relieve revolutionary pressure in the eastern as well as the western parts of the Russian Empire: "Siberia would be liberated from Polish tutors, who do great harm there by spreading their principles." In reply, Dubelt wrote to Bulgarin: Count Orlov has instructed me to inform you, my dear Faddei Venediktovich, that he has deigned to leave the letter of Nikolai Ivanovich Grech in the Third Section's archives, but he will make no use of it. He asks you to convey to Nikolai Ivanovich, who, probably having forgotten Russia's power, wrote to you under the influence of fear, that he should henceforth restrain himself from commenting on affairs which do not concern him.40 Nicholas was himself apparently not quite so confident in "Russia's power." On March 30, with regard to peasant disturbances around Kiev, he noted: "In general, it is impossible to foresee anything: God alone can save us from the general ruin." 4 1 In the hysterical atmosphere of 1848, and subsequently until the end of Nicholas' reign, the Third Section was caught up in a fever of activity as it never had been before. In St. Petersburg, gendarmes put on plain clothes and wandered through the streets to keep track of what was stirring in the poorer quarters. Foreigners, including diplomatic personnel, were closely watched,

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not only in the capital, but as far away as Odessa. Detailed information concerning Russians who had chosen exile abroad — a brochure of 464 pages, according to Nifontov — was compiled; and Dubelt's busy fingers signed orders with regard to their sequestered property. Reports on recruitment, the behavior and morale of mobilized personnel, peasant reactions, and reports on chains of rumor concerning mobilization filled 170 pages for 1848 alone. Surveillance over litterateurs, for the most part on orders from the Buturlin committee, and later (mostly in 1850 and 1851 ) a barrage of propaganda articles in the Russian press, also contributed to the full employment of the Third Section's resources. And yet, for all its activity, the Third Section in 1848 seems negative and apathetic compared with the concept of a cohort of "right-thinkers" by means of which, in 1826, Benckendorff had planned to educate Russia. Gendarme Colonel Vasilev's report, cited above, in which he recommended that translations from the foreign press be made not literally but with a "dignity worthy of translators residing in a monarchical state," contained another brilliant and much more curiously modern suggestion: that war might actually serve to "arouse the nation against the French, and consequently against their teaching." Many observers in Europe felt that Russian intervention in the states torn by revolution was inevitable. In Russia rumors unleashed by Nicholas' proclamation of March 14, and his previous mobilization decree, also foresaw Russian intervention in Europe. The Third Section, however, in spite of Vasilev's suggestion, took a dim view of such a prospect. On March 2, 1848, Lamartine had announced that the new French government had no aggressive intent. When he heard of this proclamation, Dubelt noted in his journal that it would be folly for Russia to intervene : Russian finances were in a bad way, the people would suffer, and all of Europe would unite against Russia. After the June days in France and the triumph of Cavaignac, Nicholas, relieved of the specter of war with the fatherland of revolutions, turned more earnest attention to the course of events in Prussia and Austria. As the Hungarian movement, under the leadership of Kossuth, became more and more

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radical, and finally, in April 1849, proclaimed a Hungarian republic, Nicholas decided to intervene. He had already ordered the occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia to "protect" them for the Turkish sultan.42 Russia had remained calm; Russian troops in the border areas, although low in morale, were logistically prepared to move; and at the last moment the youthful new Austrian emperor had even requested Nicholas' help. The balance of power in Germany between Austria and Prussia stood in jeopardy. Not only Nicholas' policy, but his sense of duty — the defense of legitimist principles — was at stake. Dubelt, however, disapproved intensely of intervention in Hungary: Is this mess worth the flow of Russian blood? It is even to be feared that this intervention may spread the fire among us, partly because the Sovereign's absence may be harmful for Russia, and partly because this campaign produces certain agitations and discussions among the people — always dangerous at a time of political changes. And then our soldiers will see mutiny in its nest — how is one to know they will not become entangled in mutinous thoughts themselves! When they return home they will communicate their observations right and left; they will begin to discuss matters in their own way — and our sacred, pure, virginal Rus may well become corrupted by the poisonous air of the western people.43 Orlov made special note of an anonymous letter from Moscow, which he attributed to Ermolov: Soon after invasion by our forces, the powerless German rulers will be decisively overthrown and republics proclaimed everywhere. Napoleon struggled unsuccessfully in Germany for more than ten years against the rise of popular feeling. . . . Our entry into the confines of Austria will decisively reconcile otherwise hostile tribes, or if it will not reconcile them, then it will at least unite them in a spirit of malice and revenge against our forces.44 The Third Section no longer advocated an aggressive foreign policy for the greater glory of the sovereign. On the home front, the Third Section even relaxed its campaign against its old and formerly its most vulnerable rival, the

Nicholas I by Daumier

Nicholas I by Daumier

Nicholas I and adjutant

Nicholas I on the Senate Square

Grech and Bulgarin

IS****11

Senkowsky,

Grech, and Bulgarin

Bulgarin and

gendarme

December 14,1825, in St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg high life

Belinsky, aged twenty-seven,

Belinsky in 1848

1838

Count Benckendorff,

Chief of

Gendarmes

Assassination of Count Miloradovich, December 14, 1825

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Ministry of Education. On February 11, 1848, the Third Section had received an anonymous denunciation of the Minister of Education, probably by Fedorov, a part-time employee of Bulgarin. Uvarov had published an article entitled "A General Survey of a Philosophy of Letters," which Fedorov insisted contained "many foreign words" and was "very unclearly written": It is unfortunate that our young writers who compose such senseless works have this article for an example, and have, as it were, a buttress in the Ministry of Education itself.45 The note was not made use of. Some time later, when Bulgarin submitted letters by Grech from Paris for publication in the "Northern Bee," Dubelt decided it was entirely up to the censorship to decide. After the founding of the Menshikov and Buturlin committees, Uvarov's position was sufficiently unstable. The Third Section relinquished its role as warder of the censorship to the committees, which in their turn demanded explanation after explanation from the harassed minister.48 Toward the end of 1848, rumors began to spread concerning the closing down of the universities. With mobilization of the armed forces in full swing and intervention abroad increasingly likely, the universities were regarded by Nicholas as a center of potential opposition and even revolt at home. Uvarov, fearing the complete dissolution of his position as minister, in what for him must have been an exceedingly daring move, persuaded I. I. Davydov to write an unsigned article, "On the Significance of the Russian Universities and their Participation in Social Education," which, with Uvarov's backing, passed the censorship and appeared in the March 1849 issue of "The Contemporary." In this article, the rumors about a possible ban on the universities were explicitly referred to, and, in subsequent correspondence concerning it, Uvarov suggested to Nicholas that with secret committees in operation the responsibility for censorship ought to be removed entirely from the Ministry of Education. Nicholas replied: I see no worthy reason for changing the existing order of things. I find the article printed in "The Contemporary" de-

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cidedly unsuitable. For neither to praise nor to blame our government institutions in response to empty rumors corresponds to the dignity of the government, or with the order of things fortunately prevailing among us. One should obey and keep one's judgments to oneself. Tell the censors not to permit anything like this in the future, and in cases of doubt to ask permission. To you, I am always accessible.47 Soon afterwards, Uvarov resigned. He was replaced by ShirinskyShakhmatov, the same Shirinsky who had, a generation before, drafted Shishkov's "cast-iron" censorship law. The rumors about closing the universities persisted. Late in April 1849 they were intensified by the arrest of the Petrashevsky group, and it seems not implausible that Nicholas actually considered closing them down. In Moscow, the Institute of the Nobility was thus closed, and limitations on enrollment were imposed on the universities. All this went on, however, without the participation of the Third Section. At the end of May 1849, Dubelt wrote to the superintendent of the Petersburg school district, Musin-Pushkin, inquiring exactly what the limitations were. Musin replied that further admissions were temporarily barred and that the number of "selfmaintaining" students at all universities was until further notice to be limited to three hundred. * On May 30, 1849, General Perfilev reported to Orlov from Moscow with regard to the dissolution of the Institute of the Nobility: "this order will increase the number of the dissatisfied, which in present circumstances should be avoided." And Bulgarin, aroused lest the university town of Dorpat, in which he had some economic interest, be reduced to the status of a mere village, wrote an almost indignant letter to the Third Section, defending Russian universities and absolving them from radical ties — a letter which Dubelt received not unfavorably. Nevertheless, during the spring and summer of 1849, the Third β In 1847, Petersburg University had an enrollment of 733; Moscow, 1198; Kharkov, 523; Kiev, 575; Kazan, 368; Dorpat, 608. These were the only universities in Russia at the time. A. S. Nifontov, 1848 god υ Rossii (Moscow, 1 9 3 1 ) , p. 202.

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Section was obliged to participate in a flurry of activity — affecting not only the universities, but all intellectual life: Memory of the 1825 catastrophe was still fresh, and opinions which prevailed in certain literary circles seemed organically connected with the teaching of French theoreticians. Therefore . . . energetic and decisive measures against the overflow of these corrosive theories into Russian . . . [were taken].48 Even the reappearance of the threat of "secret societies," however, was in this instance anticipated and uncovered, not by the Third Section, but by its old rival in police matters, the Ministry of the Interior. L. A. Perovsky, an illegitimate son of the great landowner and former grandee, Count Razumovsky, became Minister of Internal Affairs in 1841. He was a man of great energy, and the fact that three ministers had preceded him in his position without satisfaction to the sovereign fazed him not in the least. He had been a keen observer of the Third Section's police techniques in political cases, and he had not been in office long before he began to introduce such methods among the formerly inert and indifferent civil police of St. Petersburg.49 From the beginning of the 1840s, about twenty thousand thieves, vagrants, and criminals were arrested annually, spending a night or two in police custody, for the most part, and then released. In February 1843, Perovsky, with Nicholas' approval, began a campaign to eradicate crime in St. Petersburg. Under the executive command of the chief of detectives, Sinitsyn (himself a man with a criminal past), Perovsky unleashed a series of night raids on suspected establishments, sent out spies and agents provocateurs, and rounded up subjects for examination. Partly because petitions and appeals of false arrest, perjured testimony, even rape, poured into the Third Section from Sinitsyn's victims, partly because hundreds of thieves were lodged in the Peter and Paul Fortress, ordinarily reserved for political prisoners — a kind of profanation in Benckendorffs eyes, a devaluation of its worth as a political prison — the gendarmerie was soon aroused. Benckendorff wrote Nicholas:

The Third Section 248 The prolonged arrest of many innocent people in the fortress, as well as the general grumbling, forces me to bring all the circumstances of this case once more to the attention of Your Majesty.60 In spite of many dubious actions on Sinitsyns part, however, Nicholas paid no attention to the Third Section's appeals, and Perovsky seemed firmly installed in his favor. In January 1848, Sinitsyn s detectives picked up a lithographed sheet which had been distributed among various members at a session of the St. Petersburg Assembly of Nobility. The sheet was entitled "On the Means for Increasing the Value of Populated or Gentry Estates" and recommended that merchants be allowed to purchase serf lands in order to raise their value. Although the paper touched briefly on the forbidden subject of serfdom, and even recommended imitating the West (Prussia and France) in credit matters, it must have seemed relatively innocent, by no means material enough for a major indictment. Nevertheless, Perovsky turned the case over to a talented agent of special commissions, Liprandi, for further investigation, and toward the end of February 1848, with revolution in Paris, the relatively innocent note opened broad and elaborate prospects to the ambitious minister and his agent.51 Ivan Petrovich Liprandi (1790-1880) was a gentleman and a scholar. Descended from Spanish nobility, he was a student of the Near East and the author of a number of monographs on the Eastern question. During the Napoleonic invasion he became a colonel on the general staff, and, after the occupation of Paris, he had been designated chief of Russian political and military police in France. When Perovsky assumed the post of Minister of the Interior many years later, Liprandi became his expert on matters relating to sectarians and schismatics. Along with the chief of detectives, Sinitsyn, he was suspected by a few senators of having taken bribes from skoptsy (a self-castigating sect regarded by Nicholas as especially pernicious). With the lithographed note in his hands, he soon discovered its author to be a young man named M. V. Butashevich-Petrashevsky, a graduate of the Lyceum, employed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in St. Peters-

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burg. Count Orlov had been informed of the note by Perovsky but was pledged to silence. Dubelt heard of the matter only a year later, when he was ordered to make the arrests planned by Liprandi. Perovsky's agent later described the stunned surprise of "le général double": On the evening of April 20, 1849, Count Orlov invited myself and L. V. Dubelt to his place, and passed on to us the Imperial Order with regard to cessation by me of further conduct of the case and transfer to the Third Section for examination and further disposal and to L. V. Dubelt for immediate execution, etc. The latter was struck as though by lightening — in the first place, that a subject belonging clearly to the Third Section's jurisdiction had been kept secret from him for more than a year . . . and in the second place, that I, on the basis of a thirty-seven years' mutual friendship, had not informed him of my commission.52 Between the beginning of March 1848 and the end of April 1849, the case was handled entirely by Liprandi, responsible to the Minister of the Interior, "as in substance to the Minister of Police of the state, in whose administration I served." The center of Liprandi's attention, Butashevich-Petrashevsky, was a young man of deeply antiauthoritarian spirit, who, during his education at the Tsarskoe-Selo Lyceum, had become a convinced Fourierist.* Closely enmeshed in "the old school ties," Petrashevsky aspired to become an instructor at the Lyceum, but he was rejected. Nevertheless, he maintained close contact with a few students and, with his strong inner drive to teach and preach and a natural flair for argument, kept them closely attached to himself. The school's director discovered his "circle" and denounced him to the Third Section as a "chatterer." In 1844, Petrashevsky thus came under secret surveillance. It was discovered, however, that he was well liked by his associates and that his behavior was "quiet and proper." After two months, surveillance was removed. • The Lyceum was not quite the free and easy place it had been in Pushkin's day. Nevertheless: "There was not a single forbidden foreign book which might not conceivably appear within its walls in the possession of boys of fourteen or fifteen." A. M. Unkovsky, "Zapiski," Russkaia mysl, no. 6 (190Θ), 186.

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Herzen, who admired Petrashevsky, saw in him a born propagandist, agitator, and "street gamin" of the kind who occupied the barricades in Paris, with no personal gain in view, no interest in place or preferment, no vested interest at all, except a resentment against the authorities and a powerful urge to liberty.53 Petrashevsky had a certain reputation with his immediate superiors as a congenital trouble maker. His post in St. Petersburg in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs made him an intermediary bettween foreign citizens residing there and the Russian authorities. It was his job to investigate all cases in which foreigners got into trouble with the police, and almost invariably he took sides against the police, deluging the senate with appeals against unjust and illegal treatment. On one occasion he is reported to have set a mob in motion against the police. Against the government regulation prohibiting beards, he protested by wearing his hair in a frizzly and wild manner.* He always regretted the sparsity of people bold enough to hold the government to its word in the observation of legality; one should "show up" the government, he later told a friend, make it "absurd in the eyes of society." Later, in prison, he told his jailers that, not wishing to remain idle, he intended to write a critique of the Russian criminal code and, since for this a certain "freshness of mind" was necessary, he requested them to provide him with "some volume from the works of Voltaire."54 Petrashevsky, with his great passion for propaganda, his intense Fourierist convictions, his amiability and social sense, naturally collected about himself a fairly large number — a few dozen — of friends and discussants, who visited him frequently to plunge into arguments on all the problems of the day. He was "at home" Fridays. From 1844, his friends met with him more or less regularly, and from 1847 a measure of formality was introduced * The history of beards in Russia, after their symbolic removal by Peter the Great from the chins of his more backward courtiers, and after the underground opposition to the autocracy by Old Believers ("bearded Russia"), took an interesting turn during Nicholas' reign, when beards became associated with a sympathy for European revolutionary movements; thus, Tuchkov (the poet Ogarev's fatherin-law), a marshal of nobility in his province, fell under the Third Section's suspicion for growing a beard. K. Staehlin, "Aus den Berichten der III Abteilung s. m. hoechsteigener Kanzlei an Kaiser Nikolaus I," Zeitschrift fuer osteuropaeische Geschichte, VII (1933), 253.

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to the meetings by Petrashevsky's assigning definite persons to speak on definite subjects. His more radical acquaintance, Speshnev, a Jacobin who believed in terror as a political weapon, said of him later, with contempt: "He was possessed by an ineluctable passion for quarreling; therefore, it seems it pleased him to gather quarrelers about himself."55 In order to penetrate the more or less informal group that met at Petrashevsky's, Liprandi was faced with the difficulty of finding an agent "equal in knowledge to those into whose circle he was obliged to enter." Such an agent was not to be had for money; among intellectuals the opprobrium of being an informer was too strong. He found his man in the person of P. D. Antonella the son of an academician, a "patriot," and, like Liprandi himself, a student of the Near East. Antonelli was given a position in Petrashevsky's office in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the two young men struck up an acquaintance, and Petrashevsky, completely without guile and, intrigued by the prospect of helping his comrade to a "world view," took him into his circle. Who were the people that met at Petrashevsky's — the Petrashevtsy — what were their ideas, and what ties bound them together? In his report to the investigating committee, August 1849, Liprandi wrote: Usually plots are conceived by the same kind of people, more or less close to each other in social position. For example, gentry, exclusively, participated in the plot of 1825, and they were primarily of the military as well. Here, on the other hand, along with Guards officers and officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there are nonmatriculated students, petty artisans, merchants, dealers, even tobacco sellers.56 Petrashevsky invited everyone he thought might be interested. But, above all, there were writers, students, instructors. What did he have in mind? Petrashevsky himself was firmly convinced of two things: the immorality of private property and the inviolable dignity of the individual. With regard to the first, as a Fourierist, he believed in the social organization of labor in phalansteries. He had attempted to found a phalanstery on one of his own smaller estates,

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with disastrous results, but considered that on a broader scale and over a longer period of time it was the best, if not the only, solution to the labor problem. He even tried to persuade the investigating committee after his arrest, that the Russian government, as a forward-looking move, ought to provide money in order to organize a phalanstery near Paris: This is a measure which, it seems to me, will serve better than any other to quiet down the agitations in Europe. . . . Then they would not dare, in a single journal in Western Europe, to say a bad word about the Russian Emperor." In an attempt to convert his investigators, he urged them all to read Fourier. Petrashevsky's regard for the individual expressed itself in many ways. In his post at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he waged constant warfare against the police master of St. Petersburg, and his sympathy was always for the underdog. Interested in the law, he was an ardent critic of the Collection issued by Nicholas' Second Section. Intrigued by the possibilities, however meager, of public office, he campaigned for the position of secretary of the Petersburg Assembly of Nobility. He favored liberation of the serfs, with land held communally and without any payment to landowners, but he thought juridical reforms should come first. He feared that without equality before the law a class struggle would ensue which would result in a military dictatorship and, "against any kind of dictatorship, I would be the first to raise my hand." 58 Judiciary reform would rouse far less opposition and would allow time to prepare and organize the peasantry for liberation. He particularly despised the rigidity and repressiveness of Nicholas' policy, and on more than one occasion referred to the emperor's "madness" and his increasing resemblance to Emperor Paul. The Third Section aroused his severe indignation: such a government institution exists only in Russia, and it is as similar to the Jesuit Order as one drop of water is to another, arming as it does brother against brother, father against son, son against father. This institution and others like it are formed in order to suppress all intellectual development and

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thereby preserve the monarchical power. Such institutions are not only base, but even a sacrilege, because they corrupt man's moral sense.59 One of Petrashevsky's acquaintances, Toi, informed Antonelli that Petrashevsky's aim in organizing his "at homes" was to prepare capable people in case any kind of revolution broke out, so that in the selection of a new kind of government, there would be no disagreements or differences of opinion, so that the majority would already be agreed in matters of principle; and, of course, to prepare the masses for undertaking changes.60 There seems little doubt that Petrashevsky did dream of a revolutionary overturn in Russia; on the other hand, it never occurred to him to organize an immediate revolutionary coup. He himself said that it was unthinkable to start a revolt without being convinced of its success and that at the present time it seemed impossible. His immediate aims were to spread propaganda and to educate. Petrashevsky's most important published work as a propagandist was a series of unsigned articles which appeared in N. S. Kirilov's "Pocket Dictionary of Foreign Words" ( 1844-1845 ). Petrashevsky, who had considerable influence over Kirilov, managed to use the articles assigned to him on certain words and phrases, such as "Oratory," "Nationality," "Organization of Industry," as pretexts for rather obvious, antigovemment propaganda. Under "Nationality," for example, he wrote: We should thank Peter and his wise heirs that they have brought us close to the ideal of state, social, and human life . . . that in our administration there is already no place . . . for the rule of custom, routine, and unconsciously accepted prejudices — and that science, knowledge, and dignity guide it! I [Italics and exclamations as in the original.] 61 The first volume appeared in the bookstores. The second, although passed by the censor, was withdrawn from sale by the Main Censorship Committee, on which, of course, Dubelt served. Although the committee noted the propagandists nature of almost

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all of Petrashevsky's articles, no attempt was made to identify the author. Liprandi, later, in a note to the investigating committee waxed indignant over the fact that the editor-publisher had "not ever been questioned concerning the persons who composed the articles, which were marked by such audacities as has scarcely ever been the case among us, not only in print, but even in circulating manuscripts." At the time of the Main Censorship Committee's ban, Petrashevsky, to console the nervous Kirilov, told him he could well be grateful for the censorship statute which removed responsibility from authors. Indeed, the entire ban was so mildly arranged that Petrashevsky without any apparent difficulty procured a copy of the forbidden book for Zotov as late as 1847.β2 As a propagandist Petrashevsky was indefatigable. Not only did his range of interests include all subjects; he tried to extend his influence to every condition of society. To Antonelli he confided excitedly the importance he attached to contacts among the Old Believers and the national minorities. He encouraged discussions with regard to forming a secret society for the dissemination of propaganda, which should begin with a small number of people who could really be trusted — an idea which Speshnov was to take up much more seriously. Petrashevsky suggested that each of the persons attending meetings at his home start a circle of his own; and even Antonelli, to maintain the authentic veneer of a Petrashevets, inaugurated such a circle. (In his report to Liprandi on a meeting he himself sponsored, Antonelli, apparently reluctant to betray his guests, noted that "there was only empty talk, and many drank, laughed, and finally even danced.") When Petrashevsky noticed Antonelli in conversation with Cherkess tribesmen in the streets of St. Petersburg, he became instantly excited at the prospect of propagandizing them. Apart from these peripheral enthusiasms, however, the main object of his propaganda was a hypothetical middle class: "It is necessary to act on the middle class of people," he told Antonelli, "as having on the one hand greater means, and on the other more reasons to be dissatisfied." Above all, he aimed to persuade litterateurs and those who taught the young. A preponderant number of those who

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attended his "evenings" were writers (Dostoevsky, Danilevsky, and Grigorev were among them) and instructors.®3 Petrashevsky's wide reading, his sociability and generosity, his strong impulse to propaganda, and his zest for baiting authority, all combined in the project of a joint library which he proposed to some of his friends in 1845. Through contact with the Petersburg bookseller, Lourie, Petrashevsky managed to subscribe to a formidable list of foreign books forbidden in Russia. On March 28, 1849, a month before his arrest, Petrashevsky actually entrusted a list of books to be ordered from Lourie to Antonelli. The bookseller assured the secret agent the books would arrive, in spite of the troubled times, "on the first or second boat." 64 In spite of the fact that a number of officers attended his Fridays, no contrivance to organize or even propagandize the army occured to Petrashevsky. The military was antipathetic to him, and he showed no interest in it. If further evidence is needed that Petrashevsky was not the leader of a conspiracy planning a coup, one might cite the carelessness with which he left his compositions and private documents scattered about. Nothing in his house was locked. The naive trust with which he accepted Antonelli, a self-invited guest, might also serve. D. D. Akhsharumov, in his memoirs, describes the meetings at Petrashevsky's as follows: We did not have an organized club, no general plans of activity, but once a week there were meetings at Petrashevsky's, at which the same people did not always attend; some came frequently, others rarely, and it was always possible to meet new people there. It was an interesting kaleidoscope of the most varied opinions concerning contemporary events, government decrees, and the latest literature in various branches of knowledge. The city's news was brought there, and one spoke loudly about everything, without any inhibition. Sometimes, one of the specialists delivered a communication in the form of a lecture. . . . At these gatherings, no specific projects or plots were worked out, but judgments of the existing order were expressed, jokes, laments of the present state of things. . . . Our small circle which concentrated around Petrashevsky

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at the end of the forties carried within itself the germ of all the reforms of the sixties.®5 During the investigation, Akhsharumov testified that the aim of the meetings was "the introduction of social life into Russia." In his memoirs, Akhsharumov admitted that he was aware that there were desperate people at Petrashevsky's, but he for one did not know them and did not want to know them.®8 By "desperate people" he no doubt meant Speshnev and Chernosvitov, who were certainly of a more radical tum of mind. These two looked with favor on the prospect of a peasant revolt in the Pugachev manner and a tightly knit Jacobin organization to instigate and direct such a revolt. Petrashevsky had declared himself to be an enemy of the secret-society idea, however; and Speshnev was rapidly losing patience with him. On the whole it would seem that Petrashevsky's open Fridays served as well to dampen the ardor of incipient parlefaitistes as to encourage dissent against the existing order of things.87 On August 17, 1849, Liprandi presented to the investigating committee (of which Dubelt was a member) a view of the Petrashevtsy directly opposed to the one outlined in the above paragraph. Not only were these people not a mere discussion group, but their organization had ramifications which spread across Russia. Liprandi saw an organized society for propaganda, preparing "minds everywhere for a general insurrection," with missionaries in Tambov, Moscow, Kiev, Rostov, Siberia, and Reval. Not all the members of the society were necessarily completely ruthless, but all were concerned with how to arouse indignation against the government in all classes of the population, how to arm peasants against landowners, officials against their authorized superiors; how to make use of the fanaticism of the schismatics — but among other groups, how to undermine and dissolve all religious feelings. . . . From all this I drew the conclusion that here was not so much a petty and isolated plot as the all-embracing plan of an over-all movement for change and destruction. [Italics in original.] 88

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With regard to religion, Liprandi, for the committee's benefit, appended an interesting note: Thus, the French encyclopedists of the eighteenth century, having weakened religious feelings in the people, prepared the revolution of 1789. If the preparation for that fearful overthrow took a long time, it was only because enlightenment, or more accurately, literacy, was not yet sufficiently widespread in France. In Germany, for example, so long an interval of time between thefirstappearance of similar preachers and the madness into which it plunged in the past year, 1848, was by no means necessary.89 And he was struck by the "very important circumstance . . . that instructors and tutors played an important part in this society. . . . By such facts are explained the many and various disorders which have arisen in the last ten years in various secondary schools among students of all conditions and all social classes." Liprandi was reluctant to leave anything to coincidence. There were 12 cases of murder of landowners by their peasants in 1846, but 18 in 1848. Cases of mass disobedience of peasants — 27 in 1846, 45 in 1848. . . . Finally, there were 92 fires in the cities in 1846, and 6,496 in villages; but in 1848, 199 in the cities, and 10,312 in villages. . . . I thought all this could not have taken place without a mover having achieved — if by various ways, nevertheless to one end, one result — disorder, anarchy.70 The only specific organized connections of the Petrashevtsy that Liprandi could pinpoint were with the Cyril-Methodius Society in Kiev and with a group of students at the law academy; both connections were denied by Petrashevsky.71 Nevertheless, Liprandi brought his report to a rousing conclusion, somewhat reminiscent of the Third Section in the days of Bulgarin's collaboration with von Vock: Twenty or even ten years ago, discovering the root of such an evil, it might have been enough to pull it out and all this would have been destroyed. Now, as is evident, this root has

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spread out everywhere and pushes up into the air of public life. . . . The root of the evil consists of ideas, and I propose that one can fight ideas only with ideas, opposing fantasies with a true and healthy notion of things, purging false with real enlightenment, turning academic instruction and literature itself into weapons, beating down and crumbling to dust the ruinous fantasies of contemporary free thought, or one should rather say, contemporary madness.72 Writing such a report, Ivan Petrovich Liprandi was not unaware of a strong source of opposition to his theory of the Petrashevtsy. Dubelt, after all, had dealt with Petrashevsky twice before. Once, in 1844, he had directed surveillance over him for two months, had found nothing suspicious in the Friday meetings at his house, and had deemed his behavior generally "quiet and proper." In 1846, as a member of the Main Censorship Committee, Dubelt had unwittingly failed to investigate "subversive" articles by Petrashevsky in the "Pocket Dictionary of Foreign Words." There is an oddly defensive tone to one of Liprandi's notes: Perhaps because I am a novice in such matters, the substance of this case may have seemed more important to me than to those who have more frequent opportunities to study such matters. But such is the pattern of my thoughts and such my inner conviction; I could not permit myself to regard the circumstances more lightly or more indulgently than I did. Conscience and the duty of service would not permit me that; and, moreover, I am myself the father of three sons.73 The investigating committee, on the other hand, was cautiously polite in stating that it disagreed with Liprandi: Granting . . . the important service rendered by M. Liprandi in the prolonged observation of Petrashevsky and other persons up to the time of the case's transfer to the committee, the committee, after the most attentive examination of the judgments made by him, cannot agree with him.74 The official announcement, which appeared in the Russian press (December 22, 1849) after a military tribunal had passed sentence on the Petrashevtsy, read as follows:

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The acts of the plotters might have taken a dangerous turn only if the government's watchfulness had not revealed the evil at its very inception.76 In the official history of the Third Section prepared for Alexander II in 1876, it is categorically stated that in the Petrashevsky case there was "no plot, no secret society . . . only corrupt youths who dreamed of spreading socialism to Russia." 76 One is surprised to find, however, that in the simple case of a few "corrupt youths" an index of two hundred and fifty-two persons was compiled, of whom seventy-two received punishment of some sort, twenty-three were turned over to a special court martial, and twenty-one, having been found guilty "of the intent to subvert the existing laws of the fatherland and the state order," were sentenced to death.* During the reign of Nicholas there had not been a political case of comparable magnitude since the Decembrists. The European revolutions of 1848 and the intense competition of the Ministry of the Interior for the power and prestige associated with the Third Section combined to create this magnitude. Nicholas' bitter weariness after the Hungarian campaign contributed to the arbitrary nature of the sentences. Unlike the Decembrists (as Liprandi had pointed out), the Petrashevtsy were not, socially, an homogeneous group; the consequence for them was that no organized public opinion could act on imperial policy to mitigate their fate in Siberia, as had been the case with Decembrists. They were treated as convicts, and for the most part — Petrashevsky himself was one of the few exceptions — their lot was very hard indeed. Among university students, there was widespread dismay. Chernyshevsky, who had known Khanykov and a few other members of Petrashevsky's circle, and had been instructed by them in the meaning and significance of Fourier, noted in his diary on April 25,1849, three days after the arrest: * The story of how those condemned were led out to be shot, only to have their sentence commuted at the last moment, as prearranged by Nicholas, is well enough known from Dostoevsky's anguished account in a letter to his brother. F . Dostoevsky, Pisma ( 3 vols., Moscow-Leningrad, 1928), I, 128.

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the secret police have taken Khanykov, Petrashevsky, Desbout, Pleshcheev, Dostoevsky, and others — this is a fearfully base and stupid story: these animals, these swine, like Buturlin, Orlov, and Dubelt! — they should be hanged. How easy it is to go down in history — I myself, for example, never doubted that I would join their society, and eventually I would certainly have joined.77 The arrest of the Petrashevtsy, rumors of the closing down of the universities, restrictions on reading, and closer general surveillance, all acted further to alienate the younger generation of intellectuals from the state. The Third Section found itself forced to investigate the plot imputed by Liprandi. With some satisfaction, it reported that no further traces of a conspiracy (in Liprandi's terms) could be uncovered. But spurred on by the European events of 1848, to demonstrate that they were not lacking in zeal, Dubelt and Orlov began to establish plot connections almost as fantastically as Liprandi.78 Perovsky's agent of special commissions had attempted to connect the Petrashevtsy with a Ukrainian group known as the Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius, which had been investigated by the Third Section in the spring of 1847. Dubelt, some years later, attempted to extend the link to the slavophiles as well. Petrashevtsy, Ukrainians, and slavophiles — such a network would have included a very wide range of opinions indeed. The Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius had a brief existence between the winter of 1846 and the early spring of 1847. In mood and organization it resembled the Petrashevsky circle, though its "ideology" differed. The Cyril-Methodius Society sprang from the tradition of the Society of United Slavs, which had had Decembrist connections, and the United Slavs' masonic lodge founded in Kiev in 1818 (of which Dubelt had once been a member), and it was also affected by the reawakening of interest in folk culture and the cultural importance of religion (inspired by German philosophy). As early as 1843, Ν. I. Kostomarov, a professor at the University of St. Vladimir in Kiev, influenced by the somewhat more radical

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Ukrainian poet, Shevchenko, began to think in terms of "spreading ideas of Slavic cultural community, and . . . a federation of the Slavic peoples on the basis of full freedom and the autonomy of nationalities." 79 Shevchenko, Kostomarov, V. M. Belozersky, Gulak, and Kulish began to discuss among themselves the feasibility of forming a society to spread their ideas. Several drafts of a constitution were made: the influence of the United States was apparent in Kulish's plan for a Slavic federation, with Kiev as a kind of Washington, D. C., where the different Slavic people would send their freely elected representatives to a bicameral legislature; serfdom would be abolished; there would be freedom of religion (for Christians only) and autonomy of peoples. All this was in the dim future; the immediate task of members of the society would be to foster mutual understanding among the Slavic peoples and to beat down the religious and national enmities existing among them. Propaganda and education, as among the Petrashevtsy, were considered the most important immediate tasks. Kostomarov, influenced by Mickiewicz and Lamennais, wrote a pamphlet in Ukrainian called "Divine Law," in which he idealized the Ukraine. When the society was actually formed, Shevchenko, the seminal mind of the group, did not become a member. About a hundred students attended meetings at one time or another, but there were only a handful of "founding fathers." On March 3, 1847, a student, Petrov, denounced the group to the Third Section. Within a month, Kostomarov, Shevchenko, Gulak, and Belozersky were under arrest. Embarrassing rumors of a "Slavic conspiracy" appeared in the Austrian press, and in St. Petersburg Petrashevsky's friend, Mombelli, speculated in his diary on the possibilities of a revolt in Little Russia: But no one knows the plans of these Little Russians, or what their purpose was . . . some say they wanted to rouse Little Russia to revolt . . . others that they had composed a project for the reconstitution of the hetmanate, but that they . . . were willing to put their plan into effect only if the Emperor agreed. . . . Still others that there was . . . no plot at all and the whole affair is a fabrication of the Kiev governor general, Bikikov.80

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Kostomarov was questioned gruffly by Orlov with regard to his propaganda pamphlet: "What kind of jokes are these? . . . But I am convinced you did not write this garbage — be frank, and make it possible for me to save you." 81 Shevchenko and Gulak were questioned in the same vein; results were negative — it seemed that Shevchenko had never been a member of the society at all. On May 28, 1847, Orlov submitted his report to Nicholas: "As always happens, denunciation and early evidence exaggerated the case's importance, and in perspective it has seemed less dangerous." To Orlov it seemed that the society wanted the unification of the Slavic peoples, but only under the scepter of the Russian Empire. (The members were themselves undecided.) Furthermore, "the Ukrainian-Slavic Society existed only a few months and . . . consisted only of three persons: Gulak, Belozersky, and Kostomarov." 82 Nevertheless, sentences were severe. Kostomarov spent a year in the fortress, and Shevchenko — who had been acknowledged not to have been a member of the society, but whose radical temper had been detected in interrogation — had many years of hard labor in Siberia, during the early part of which he was forbidden to write or paint. Since the case occurred before 1848, it is difficult to explain the severity applied, except in terms of the particular sensitivity of the Ukraine and of relations with Austria at the time. Many years later, Kostomarov, in a letter to Herzen, described the results for intellectuals in the Ukraine: learned articles on the Ukraine, even those written in Russian, were not permitted; even the words, Ukraine, Little Russia, hetmanate, were considered prejudicial, and, "after the Kiev affair, censorship and espionage began to rage terribly against Little Russia." 83 On January 18, 1854, Dubelt, writing to A. S. Norov, the new Minister of Education, about slavophilism in general, pointed out that in 1847 the society might have taken "a direction dangerous for calm within the state," proving therefore as a lesson for the future that "slavophilism could take a downright criminal direction": their [Gulak's and Kostomarov's] slavophilism soon turned into Ukrainophilism and they moved on to proposals for the

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restoration of Little Russia in the form in which it had existed before its unification with Russia.84

In the short history of slavophilism written for Norov's benefit, Dubelt pointed out that slavophiles like Constantine Aksakov had come to the Third Section's attention as early as 1846: imitating the scholars of Western Europe, they concern themselves with preservation of the monuments of antiquity, the restoration of true nationality, language and literature, and with driving everything foreign out of our customs. Although this trend has its admirable aspect, exceeding its limits, it sometimes begets events inappropriate to the present order of things. . . . Some of them wore the Russian dress of the common people and permitted themselves to grow a beard . . . others, in exaggerated tones have made judgments concerning the world-wide problem of the Slavs. . . . Expressing themselves pompously and ambiguously, they have often led one to consider whether perhaps under their patriotic outcries purposes against our government might be concealed. Constantine Aksakov, in 1846, on the occasion of the sevenhundredth anniversary of Moscow, printed an article in the "Moscow Bulletin," in which he called that city the people's capital, spoke of the national assembly gathered by Ivan IV from all the Russian land, of the saving of the Russian land by the people in 1812, and so on.85 Dubelt emphasized the importance of watching them closely, "the more so since many of them are occupied with the education of youth." Iury Samarin, on his return from a government commission to Riga in the autumn of 1848, read aloud to his Moscow friends a number of "letters" he had written there on the subject of the preponderance of medieval German institutions in the city of Riga, oppression by the German landowners of the Baltic peasantry, and the "Russian mission" in the Baltic region. Boldly, he even sent a copy of one of these letters to the Minister of the Interior, Perovsky. Prince Suvorov, the governor general of the Baltic provinces, protested to Nicholas, who ordered the Third Section, on March 5, 1849, to arrest Samarin. After twelve days in the Peter and Paul Fortress, the young

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Slavophile was brought to Nicholas for an interview. "Some of your friends seem to have been unworthy of your trust," Nicholas told him: Of what a man thinks and writes for himself, God alone is judge. But you have gone further. . . . You wish to root out whole groups which have served the Empire truly; starting from Palen, I could count a hundred and fifty generals. You want to make Russians out of Germans by force; but we really should not do it that way, since we are Christians. . . . You have aroused public opinion against the government: this was tantamount to preparing a repetition of December 14.8β Samarin, rather impressed, was then released. On the day of his release, March 17, 1849, his friend Ivan Aksakov was arrested by the Third Section, which had intercepted a number of his letters to his father and brothers, one of which referred to Samarins imprisonment. On February 24, 1849, Aksakov had written to his father: Austria has not abandoned her intentions to Germanize the Slavic peoples, but in order not to frighten them, acts, as usual, in an ambiguous way, lies and deceives as before.87 With regard to Nicholas, he had written: "when he is in the Kremlin, his sympathy to the people, to Rus, awakens, but not always sufficiently clearly." Concerning such opinions, he was asked to answer a number of questions in writing; when he had finished, Nicholas made marginal notes and returned the list to him. Aksakov, in the course of his answers, attempted to explain the outbreak of the 1848 revolutions in the West by the "corrupting effects" of Roman Catholicism. Orthodoxy had saved Russia. Nicholas noted in the margin: "Praise Godi" (A year before, Ivan's brother Constantine had written to A. N. Popov: "Now the time had finally come when everyone should understand that we Russians must separate ourselves from Western Europe, that the true warrant of peace and calm is our nationality.") 88 Aksakov noted also that there were Russians among whom "non-Russian theories" were popular. Nicholas wrote:

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There are such, but for this they bear the contempt of all right-thinking people, of whom, praise God, there are still enough, and in fact more day by day.89 One question read: "Why did you mention the arrest of Samarin in your letter?" Aksakov answered: "I do not understand why I could not in my letter refer to the imprisonment of Kammerjunker Samarin in the fortress, when it was known to the whole city, and everyone spoke of it." From these questions, Aksakov s answers, and Nicholas' occasional notes, one receives the impression that Aksakov's bewildered remark — "I do not know why I am arrested and of what I am accused" — might well have been echoed, with change of pronoun, by the Third Section and by the emperor himself. Nevertheless, the essence of the case — ambiguous though it was — could be found in this questionanswer-remark series: Question: Your brother Gregory . . . expressed the hope that Austria will be changed from a German into a Slavic monarchy. Do not you and your relatives nourish Slavophile concepts, and what do these consist of? Answer: . . . neither I nor my relatives are slavophiles in the sense in which this question is posed. We do not believe in panslavism. . . . [He goes on to emphasize the necessity of religious unity prior to any dream even of political unity.] Nicholas: It is reasonable, because anything else would be fantasy. God alone can determine what the future will bring; but if a combination of circumstances should happen to bring about such unity, it would be to Russia's ruin. [Italics mine.] β 90 * Michael Bakunin, who was a panslavist but not a Slavophile, was extradited to Russia from Austria in 1851. Before his capture in Saxony in 1849 he had been a propagandist much feared by the Third Section. In the late summer of 1851, Count Orlov, visiting him in the Peter and Paul Fortress, persuaded him to write a confession to Nicholas. Bakunin, among other things, urged Nicholas to assume leadership of a free and democratic Slavic federation against the Germans. Nicholas thought the confession "very firmly and boldly written, and told the future Alexander II with regard to its author: "He is a good and clever youngster, but a dangerous man; he must be kept confined." It is possible that the "danger" Nicholas saw in ideas like Bakunin's, or those in the drafts for a constitution of the Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius, or those of the slavophiles, lay not so much in the direction of a diplomatic estrangement with Austria (the Third Seo-

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The further history of the relationship between the slavophiles and the Third Section intensified rather than diminished the hostility between them. On April 21, 1852, the first volume of the Slavophile "Moscow Miscellany" appeared; disturbed by its success, and by the likely disapproval of the Buturlin committee, Shirinsky wrote Dubelt for information about the editors. Dubelt replied: although secret observation . . . has so far revealed nothing positively dangerous, such a society under the leadership of ill-intended people could, nevertheless, easily assume a dangerous political tendency; and since its members are for the most part litterateurs, Count Zakrevsky [governor general of Moscow] has agreed that it is quite necessary — in addition to the personal surveillance over them — to turn the special attention of the censorship to their works.91

When the second volume of the miscellany appeared, the censor refused to pass it. Having examined the volume, Dubelt wrote to Shirinsky on January 23, 1853: I find that the Moscow slavophiles confuse their devotion to the Russian past with principles which can not exist in a monarchical state. . . . Even after the warnings given them, they generally present for publication, in a wild manner, articles which express their open opposition to the government.92

Dubelt proposed banning all subsequent volumes of the miscellany, depriving Ivan Aksakov of the priviledge to serve in any editorial capacity, and, for the group, "to forbid them even to present their works for publication." Orlov considerably softened Dubelt's recommendations, so that the slavophiles were merely obliged to present all their works to the Main Censorship Committee. Nevertheless, they continued to be regarded suspiciously tìon claimed to have detected Austria's duplicity as far back as the 1830s) as in the threat to autocracy of a Slavic union that included Poles, Serbs, Czechs, Croats, and so forth, as well as Russians. (Also, the collapse of Austria as a great power would have meant the domination of Germany by Prussia, an eventuality which came to pass in any case. ) Iury Steklov, M. A. Bakunin, ego zhizn i deiatel nost (3 vols.; Moscow, 1920), I, 233, 294, 322; Bogucharsky, "Trete otdelenie e. i. s. kantseliarii o sebe samom," Vestnik Evropy, no. 3 (1917), 93.

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and when, in 1853, Aksakov applied for permission to make a scientific expedition to Kamchatka on the frigate Diana, Count Orlov penciled briefly on his application: "Do not permit" — and Nicholas: "Quite agreed." On May 4, 1854, Orlov considered arresting Aksakov again, because of his opposition to the Crimean War. Nothing came of it. Aksakov, meanwhile, referred to the Third Section as "the progenitor of all disorder," an "immoral manifestation," "the greatest moral disorder." On January 3, 1855, a letter from Aksakov to A. O. Smirnova was intercepted by the Third Section. Aksakov wrote with relief of the current possibilities of a peace that would respect the integrity of the Russian Empire: So be it! the order of things dissolves. The fearful despotic strength that dreamt of altering the life force by itself, with such bold independence, appears in all its emptiness. Let it go bankrupt! One pities only the poor Russian soldiers! . . . Petersburg patriotism will not renew Russia's life; it is a purely external affair of state, a Western achievement. . . . The only thing for Petersburg is to repent, but it does not at all repent, and its hatred for the West is like a slave's hatred, or a parvenu's.

To these words Nicholas appended the note: "A fine fellow!" — his last words to Aksakov.93 In the backwash of the Petrashevsky case, when gendarme officers were sending in reports even as to whether people applauded patriotic hymns at band concerts, the Third Section turned its attention also to the importation of foreign books. Bookstores in Riga, Dorpat, Moscow, and Petersburg were searched, and devastating quantities of banned books were discovered. Orlov recommended limiting the rights of institutions of learning; Shirinsky, the Minister of Education, objected and received from Orlov the retort: "Our purpose is more political." The State Council, to which the matter was presented for resolution, decided in Orlov's favor. On May 8, 1850, the unlimited rights of scholars and universities to receive literature from abroad were revoked.94 "Realism" in literature had become such a bugbear that in

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1852 Ivan Turgenev was obligated to spend a month in prison, and several at his estate, because of an obituary he wrote on Gogol. The Petersburg censor had rejected it: It seemed unsuitable to write in such pompous phrases concerning the death of Gogol, which would scarcely even have been proper with regard to the death of Derzhavin or Karamzin; and it is likewise inexcusable to present the death of Gogol as an irreplaceable loss, and those who do not share this opinion as frivolous or short-sighted.95 Foiled in Petersburg, Turgenev wrote to his friends Botkin and Feoktistov in Moscow, and managed to arrange for its publication there. The Third Section intercepted his letter to Botkin and attempted to prevent the Moscow printing, but it was too late. On March 13, 1852, it appeared in the "Moscow Bulletin." On April 13, Dubelt reported to Orlov: At the present time litterateurs are active in all turmoils unfortunate for the state, and it is necessary to focus strict attention on them. . . . This Turgenev must be a fiery and enterprising man [italics mine]. I would propose . . . to warn them [Turgenev, Botkin, and Feoktistov] that the government is watching them with special attention, and to institute police surveillance over them.®® If the Third Section had lost a good deal of its power and prestige to the Buturlin committee and the Ministry of the Interior since 1848, it still maintained its pre-eminence over the Ministry of Education. Orlov and Dubelt were still attempting to form public opinion by way of the press. In the role of censor, however, with regard to even the most conservative works not directly "inspired" by the Section itself, Dubelt's position had become at least as cautious as Shishkov's. His attitude is perhaps best summed up in his recommendations to the Main Censorship Committee cencerning a posthumous collected edition of Zhukovsky's works in 1850: Althoügh, on the one hand, the author's name alone is a warrant for the good will of his works, on the other, the result of all his judgments in manuscript . . . tends to . . . present

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the decay of the pattern of affairs and concepts now taking place in the West; . . . the spiritual questions of his work are too animated and profound, the political questions too much developed — at the same time, too fresh for us — for them to be presented to a young public without danger and harm. The frequent repetition of words — freedom, equality, reform — the frequent examination of concepts such as "the forward movement of the age," "eternal principles," "the unity of peoples," "property is theft," and others like these, will focus the attention of the reader and arouse the critical faculties. Meditations will evoke meditations: sounds, echoes — sometimes inaccurate. It would be better not to touch this string, the vibrations of which have brought about such destructive changes in the Western world; vibrations which still shake the air. The truest means to secure against evil is to remove the very concept of evil. [Last italics mine.]97 In the long run, the notion of autocracy fighting ideas with ideas had been reduced to this. If the Third Section was most active among what is termed the middle class or "the Russian public," where ideas and intellectual influences were an important concern, it also participated in state activities touching on broader and less articulate segments of the population. From 1848 until Nicholas' death, the Third Section's mood in all these activities (insofar as one can get at it from fragmentary notes and implications) indicated resignation and defeat. Throughout Nicholas' reign, the crucial state problem remained the liberation of the serfs. In the 1830s and 1840s, all French diplomats in Russia consistently reported Nicholas' intention to proceed with such liberation. Oddly enough, Louis Philippe's ambassadors were extremely apprehensive of the consequences for internal stability of such a radical measure. Perier maintained that it would create a hostile relationship between crown and nobility and would force Nicholas to rely for support on the lower classes. He believed that to alienate the only articulate, in any sense organized, class in Russia for the sake of "la grande transition" was an extremely dangerous thing to do.98 His successor, d'André, thought much the same. Perier reported, with regard to

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the 1842 law on "bound peasants," which he felt had been radical in intent but forcedly modified in the State Council: "I would make so bold as to say that this statute is a serious mistake. More should have been done, or nothing." D'André thought it indubitable that relations between Nicholas and the gentry were strained and was struck by the "freedom of language" with which landowners discussed their emperor." Long before 1836, when Nicholas put Kiselev in charge of the Fifth Section of the Imperial Chancery (subsequently the Ministry of State Properties), the Third Section had reported on the impulse to freedom among the serfs and the sources of peasant discontent: Many more reasoning heads are met with among the serfs than might be anticipated at first glance. Coming in contact with treasury peasants, and living in the cities by agreement with their masters, the serfs involuntarily learn to value these advantages which free classes enjoy. One must note that any serf who has managed to accumulate a few thousand rubles uses his money first of all to purchase his freedom. They well know that in all Russia only the peasantry of the dominant Russian nationality is to be found in a condition of slavery; all other peasants — Finns, Tatars, Esths, Letts, Chuvash, and so forth — are free. There are travelers among the peasantry who tell them their position. Village priests will explain it to them. The teachings of many sectarians make them feel their position, and the asylums of these very sectarians [the schismatic hermitages] can be viewed in this regard as Jacobin clubs. Moreover, petty officials, carousing around pot-houses, especially those who have been dismissed from their jobs for foolish conduct, spread dangerous ideas among the serfs, whose other leaders and instigators are to be found among the house servants. A number of prophecies and predictions circulate among the peasants: they await their liberator as the Jews their Messiah, and they have given him the name of Metelkin. They say among themselves, "Pugachev frightened the masters, but Metelkin will sweep them out" [a play on words: pugat, to frighten; metla, broom]. . . . Because we enroll our soldiers from this class, it deserves, as it were, special attention on the part of the government.100

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This report, an excerpt from the Third Section's "Brief Survey of Public Opinion for 1827," set the pattern for subsequent reports: peasant discontent, the necessity of liberation (in later reports, this was almost always modified by the necessity for moving slowly), and an analysis of the elements making for peasant disaffection; the danger created by the village priest, who tended to identify himself with the villagers who provided him his meager living, a nodal point around which the rebellious impulses of the peasants could organize; and the danger of religious dissenters and sectarians — "bearded Russia." Custine had written: "It is through religious dissent that a social revolution will one day occur in Russia." 101 The official historian of the Third Section boasted that instigation of the peasantry on the part of religious dissenters had been clearly foreseen by the political police as a result of the law of 1826, which forbade dissenters to open new churches or renovate old ones and which turned their scattered groups into centers of opposition to the government. In 1836, Benckendorff had been designated a member of the secret committee on the dissenters. With no more than his usual vacuity, Benckendorff came to the conclusion that the law of 1826 "undermined the dissenter faith." He considered it dangerous for the state to maintain such disaffecting laws as those forbidding the ordination of dissenter priests and declaring Old Believer weddings illegal. The Third Section's official historian observes: His report, while not expressing itself in favor of full freedom for dissenters in their illegal actions, and maintaining that it was necessary to watch strictly that they lead no one astray into heresy, that they not be allowed to multiply hermitages, conceal fugitives, and in general evade their obligations to the government and the local authorities, nevertheless acknowledged as harmful and contrary to the spirit of our government the attempt to prevent them from carrying on their ritual and to deprive them of churches and priests — in a word, not to extend to them those rules by which our government is guided with regard to all other faiths, not only Christian, but Mahometan as well, and even Hebraic.102

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In 1838, special committees on dissenters, Old Believers, and recusants were formed in the provinces. In addition to the local governor, the bishop, and the chairman of the office of state properties, a gendarme staff officer attended. The reports submitted by these gendarme officers to the Third Section filled seven hundred pages and, as far as government policy is concerned, were not entirely encouraging. In spite of the lifting of some restrictions, dissenters were still discriminated against. Forbidden to march in procession in the presence of the Orthodox, or to perform the sacraments while similar sacraments were being taken by the Orthodox, forbidden to prosyletize, forbidden to evade their "state responsibilities" (many sectarians were conscientious objectors and, supporting their own institutions, felt strongly about paying taxes), large segments of the dissenting population retained their sense of fierce and stubborn opposition to the regime. Sects which Nicholas regarded as particularly pernicious continued to multiply — the khlysty, skoptsy, and molokani. Khlysty, anxious for martyrdom, would send letters denouncing the church directly to the Holy Synod, creating much work for the Third Section. In the forests of Novgorod and Vologda provinces, about a hundred khlysty were captured by gendarmes and the local police between 1837 and 1840; but for the most part, they lived untouched. The peasants, settled on the edge of the forests where the sectarians had their "cells," refused to cooperate with the authorities. The authorities themselves, moreover, with the possible exception of the gendarmes, proved singularly susceptible to bribes from the dissenters.108 The Third Section estimated that there were one hundred twenty-seven Old Believers in Perm province in 1840. At Ekaterinburg attempts at conversion by Orthodox priests were stubbornly resisted throughout Nicholas' reign. Religious dissent even gained a certain foothold in high society again. From 1837 to 1850, the Third Section kept a close surveillance over Mme. Tatarinova and the Princess Engalychev, who were suspected of forming an heretical group, and in 1835 Prince Ivan Sviatopulk-Mirsky, who

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claimed direct descent from Rurik, bought a huge tract of land from the French government in Algeria, where he wanted to set up a kingdom of his own, populated by Old Believers. His aim was to transport thousands of dissenters and Old Believers there and permit Russia to "rise anew out of the old faith." The Third Section, which sent him off to Reval for mental observation in 1853, on the request of one of his sons — and on its recommendation, he was declared insane — reported some interesting remarks of this "Rurikovich": "Only the beard can save Russia from revolution. . . . Give Russia the freedom it enjoyed under my ancestors. . . . People are concerned over the liberation of the Negroes, but the white slaves of Russia, Poland, and Austria suffer the bitterest lack of freedom." Dissenters continued to play a part in peasant disturbances, and in 1848 one of the most serious uprisings occurred in Perm province, in the Alapaevsky mines, in an area populated largely by Old Believers.104 All the secret-committee sessions on the peasant problem and the meetings of the State Council during which Kiselev struggled for what he presumed to be Nicholas' goal of peasant liberation against the conservative upholders of the gentry's right to serfs — Vasilchikov, Chernyshev, and Menshikov — were attended by Benckendorff and, after his death, by Orlov. The Third Section was well aware of Nicholas' avowed intent to abolish serfdom and well aware of his unwillingness to do so in the face of gentry hostility and the possibility of violence and radical change in the countryside. Kiselev's administration of state properties, the effects of the special juridical and police statutes on the state peasants, public reaction to the peasant laws of 1842, 1844, and 1847, were carefully watched by the Third Section. Its official historian even boasted that from 1832 to 1848, "investigations with regard to the serf population occupied first place among the Third Section's studies." 105 The passage on the peasantry in the Third Section s report for 1839 is notable for its tone of heightened urgency. Rumors were rife concerning liberation on the occasion of the marriage of Nicholas' daughter, Maria Nikolaevna. In central Russia, a great

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number of fires had broken out. T h e rumor spread that landowners started the fires to prevent their serfs from being given over to Maria Nikolaevna: The provincial administration and witnesses of the daily devastations did not doubt that the fires proceeded from deliberate incendiaries. Such rumors and incitements really drove the peasants wild. . . . Convinced that they were being set afire, they swooped down on the first one who expressed any doubt, beat and arrested the country clerks and officials. They assaulted a certain mayor and tied him to a horse's tail. They threw the sheriff of Korsunsk district into a fire. . . . One landowner was cruelly beaten, another thrown into the flames along with his overseer.106 The usual protagonists of disaffection were present, and the rumors spread rapidly: The rumors are always the same: the Tsar wants, but the boyars oppose. The matter is dangerous, and to conceal this danger would be criminal. The common people is not what it was twenty-five years ago. Clerks, thousands of petty officials, the merchantry and mutinous cantonists, having a common interest with the people, have been introducing many new ideas, and have blown a spark into the people's heart that can burst into flame at any time.107 Beside these words, Nicholas drew a large cross. "Serfdom," the report continued, "is a powder-cellar under the state." What should be done? The opinion of healthy-minded people is as follows: while not declaring freedom for the peasants — a move which might create disturbances by its suddenness — one should begin to act in this spirit. Serfs are now not even considered citizens of the state, and do not even give the oath of allegiance to the sovereign. They stand outside the law, for the landowner can send them to Siberia without trial. A good beginning would be to confirm by law what already exists de facto on the better managed estates. . . . It is necessary to begin somewhere, and better to begin gradually, cautiously, than to wait till the people begin, from below.108

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The Third Section's special report of June 13, 1842, on the reception of the law concerning "bound peasants," was much more reserved." The report listed obstacles to liberation: the poverty of the peasantry, who could not afford to pay for the land allotted them; their perverse conception of freedom, generally viewed as removal of the landowner's rights and acquisition of his property, with that grim symbol of peasant revolt, the ax, reserved in case of frustration; the problem of the house servants; and others. In Ekaterinoslav and Chernigov provinces there were peasant disturbances due to the pervasive misinterpretation that serfs had actually been given their freedom. More important than misinterpretation by the peasants, however, was opposition by the landowners. "Most landowners are convinced that the law is at least a first step in depriving them of their property." The Third Section, by listing nine objections to the 1842 law presented to it by the "enlightened minority" of landowners, strongly implied that liberation would have to wait until the spirit of reform permeated more thoroughly into the gentry class.109 From 1842 to 1848, the number of peasants uprisings increased more or less steadily. The Third Section counted seventy for 1848 (considerably more than Liprandi in the passage cited on p. 257 above), of which thirty-five occurred in the western provinces, primarily Kiev. Forty instigators had been found; of these, nineteen turned out to be priests or deacons; four, petty officials; one, a nobleman; and the rest, men of what were termed "the lower classes." More than a thousand men were punished for participation in these disorders. A gendarme colonel reported from Smolensk province: Since the events in Western Europe, reports of the liberation of the peasantry from the condition of serfdom have spread β This law, issued on April 2, 1842, had originally been suggested by Kiselev as a means of forcing landowners to liberate their serfs, with land. In its final form, however, the law merely permitted landowners to liberate their serfs, obliging them to provide the latter with land according to a specific schedule of purchase payments if they did so. It was in connection with this law and the law of 1844 dealing with house serfs that the French ambassadors, Perier and d'André, noted a struggle between Nicholas and the nobility. N. Polievktov, Nikolai I (Moscow, 1918), pp. 311-313; E. Tarle, Zapad i Rossiia (Petrograd, 1918), pp. 18, 24.

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again quickly . . . and they are especially strong in those regions lying to the west.110 The peasants, "in a kind of disorderly agitated state, await liberation by way of the arrival of the French, who are advancing, in their words, along with some kind of white Negroes [belye arapy\, in order to grant freedom." From Kovno province, the report was: "The state peasants cease to pay taxes because of rumors that the French armies will soon arrive in Lithuania." And again from Smolensk, the rumor: Constantine Pavlovich is still alive; disguised under a foreign name he has lived in various places. He has been seen not long ago in Odessa and in Kiev, from where the Tsarevich wrote to his brother, the Sovereign Emperor, that he will be His Majesty's guest, for which occasion he requests that the road be strewn not with silks and carpets, but with the heads of the gentry.111 The gentry as a class, and especially in the Baltic and western provinces, were frightened. Nicholas, having mobilized the armed forces, and faced with imminent possibility of a European campaign, was unwilling and unable to take the risk of a gentry conspiracy, on the one hand, or the disorders sure to attend almost any important peasant reform, on the other. He drew closer to the gentry and abandoned any immediate idea of liberation he may have had.112 On March 21, 1848, Nicholas delivered a speech to the Petersburg Assembly of Nobility. He urged them to pay special attention to the well-being of their peasants. Then he said: In this regard, several persons have attributed to me the most stupid and thoughtless intentions and ideas. I refute them with indignation. When I issued the statute on bound peasants, I declared that all the land without exception belongs to the gentry landowner. This is a sacred thing, and no one can take it away.113 The speech marked the end of any serious attempt to solve the peasant problem during the reign of Nicholas, and Kiselev's work

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in this regard was over.* The Third Section, which in its official history prided itself for having come "to the conclusion that serfdom had to be abolished" dropped the theme of liberation entirely from its reports and spoke instead of "depraved judgments concerning the intention of the government to free the peasantry from the condition of serfdom." 114 In 1839, peasant revolt had elicited from the Third Section the observation: "The whole spirit of the people is directed to one goal — liberation." In 1848: To investigate events of this sort . . . staff and senior officers of the Corps of Gendarmes were dispatched. Their appearance among mutineers almost always produced the desired result. The peasants, who showed them special confidence, bowed before their exhortations and performed all their demands . . . and they promptly returned the peasants to order and dutiful submission to constituted authority.115 The Third Section was not so much recommending policy changes on the basis of public opinion as it was reporting those aspects of public opinion which might induce a broader sense of acceptance for policy already made. During Nicholas' reign, the problem of factory labor assumed social dimensions for the first time. Russian industry had begun to expand, even with serf labor, in the late thirties, and in the forties the use of hired labor, especially in Moscow and St. Petersburg, reflected a certain limited dynamism set off by the new money which the recently expanded European grain market had brought in. For its part, the Third Section had been extremely wary of the part presumedly played by the proletariat in the revolts and revolutions of Western Europe. "The plague of the proletariat is foreign to Russia" was a frequent cliché of selfcongratulation. In late 1836, at a factory owned by the Lazarev brothers in the Solikamsk district of Perm province, a secret society of workers " In 1849, the Smolensk Assembly of Nobility expressed gratitude to Nicholas for having given up all idea of peasant reform (Staehlin, p. 384).

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was discovered. It consisted of nine members and seemed more bent on propaganda and the spread of ideas than on economic or political organization. Its members were educated serfs, who had been taught at the factory school until the age of seventeen. They met to read the poems of Ryleev, discussed the burdens of serfdom, and planned to write a petition to the government to liberate the serfs. Because it did not understand how the idea of a secret society could have penetrated to such a "deaf comer," and because it was so extremely sensitive to the political danger of an organized proletariat, the Third Section investigated the case very carefully, but discovered little. Soon afterwards, Benckendorff sat on a special committee to consider the enrollment in secondary and primary schools and their curricula; it is possible that the case of the Lazarev factory had some influence in limiting the access of the "unfree classes" to education.116 It was not until 1841 that the Third Section began to take any fully consistent interest in the Russian "proletariat." That year a special committee was formed under the chairmanship of Colonel Buchshevden of the Corps of Gendarmes for investigating the working conditions of laborers and craftsmen in St. Petersburg. Information was collected and presented to the appropriate ministers. A few minimal safety and health measures were actually enacted. Thus, in 1845, on the Third Section's recommendation, night work was forbidden for children under twelve. The Third Section took the initiative in building a hospital for laborers in St. Petersburg, which served as a model for a similar institution in Moscow. At the same time, all labor organizations were strictly forbidden; strikes and stoppages, when they occurred, were carefully investigated by the Third Section and their ringleaders severely punished.117 At the end of February 1848, Count Orlov contacted all his suppliers of information in Moscow and requested them to report on "discussions among the people and among the factory workers." An agent reported from Moscow that, except for concern at being sent off to their village for the slack season, the workers remained singularly calm:

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The workers . . . thought there would be a war, but were afraid neither of the French nor of the war itself, but of a large recruitment draft. . . . In general, they behave themselves so well and go about so quietly that one couldn't expect better. . . . I may add, moreover, that even among the foreigners, bookkeepers, and craftsmen there is noticeable not only regret, but even disgust for the revolutions abroad.118 The governor general of Moscow, Count Zakrevsky, had sent Nicholas a gloomier report, however. On June 28, 1849, the State Council issued a law limiting the number of workers that could be employed in Moscow. This was officially motivated by the "danger of fire," but it is not difficult to see behind the excuse of safety the Third Section's concern, considerably sensitized by the revolutions of 1848, over the "plague of a proletariat." "When war was declared," the Third Section's official historian wrote, "even denunciation came to an end." But patriotic feeling with regard to the war did not always exist, even where it might have been expected. (The slavophiles, as related above, would be a case in point. ) The serf population was acknowledged to be a great danger. In Tambov province, in connection with a law permitting serfs to volunteer for the armed forces, the rumor spread that the families of those who volunteered would be freed. Many serfs appeared in the town of Tambov who had no permission to be there; ordered back to their estates, they set out for Moscow instead, spreading the "news" as they went. In Moscow, fifteen hundred peasants were rounded up by the gendarmes and sent back to Tambov, Riazan, Nizhegorod, and Vladimir provinces. In Kiev province, an ex-student read a proclamation to the peasantry "as though it were from the English and French." In one village, twenty peasants were killed by troops and forty wounded. The serfs demanded that when they formed themselves into detachments of militia they be considered Cossacks (that is, free) and would not otherwise allow themselves to be regimented. Troops had to be deflected from the front; roads had to be cleared; and in one instance Nicholas felt compelled to persuade the Austrian government — relations at the time were very tense — to

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extradite a student named Rosenthal, who had attempted to incite the Kiev peasantry to revolt. The Third Section's last report to Nicholas contained a transcript of a prayer for Queen Victoria offered in the Anglican Church of Moscow's English community: "That it may please Thee to be her defender and keeper, and to give Her Highness the victory over all her enemies." Shortly afterwards, on March 2, 1855, having inspected the Guards on parade in spite of a severe chill he had previously contracted, Nicholas, his entire system crumbling away, acknowledged his defeat, and died unexpectedly and quietly.119 With his successor, the Third Section assumed a completely defeatist tone, advising Alexander II not to visit the front because of the danger to himself there and because of revolt at home. He went anyway. The Third Section reported that his visit had given a tremendous boost to the morale of the troops: Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny that the war is extremely difficult for Russia; the recruiting drafts, the militia, the stagnation of trade, increases its needs and its poverty, and although Russians are ready to bear even further hardships — if the government, maintaining its dignity, could achieve peace on honorable terms, there would be general rejoicing in the Empire.120 In its official history the Third Section maintained that it had been among the first to point out the advantages of peace.121 The Third Section continued to exist throughout the next reign. It no longer interfered much in censorship matters. The growing number of "illegal" Russian periodicals printed abroad, the intensification of student agitation, and above all the increase in peasant unrest occupied it during the first years of Alexander II's rule. At the time of the great liberation in 1861, "the Third Section took measures necessary for keeping the peace." After the juridical reforms of 1864, the Third Section acknowledged that one of its most important functions had become outmoded — "except in those areas where the new reforms had not yet been introduced." And in "family cases," the Third Section continued to substitute for the courts. ("Russian laws foresaw only happy marriages," as the official historian quaintly put it. 122 ) In this sense, even the

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modern, reformed monarchy of Alexander II retained a touch of the patriarchal hand with which Nicholas' Third Section had covered Russia. Nevertheless, as an institution with any positive sense of direction, with any dynamism, however illusory, the Third Section came to an end in 1848. It has been eloquently argued that the failure of the Western revolutions of 1848, at a time when the army and the Third Section prevented any similar outbreak in Russia, disillusioned the Russian radical intelligentsia with regard to European politics and made them look more closely to Russian life in order to find hope for the future.123 Herzen wrote to his Moscow friends in September 1848: "Amen, amen, I pray to you, if with time there will be no action in Russia — here, there is little to expect, and our life is ended." 124 But at least equally striking is the effect, strangely neglected in the literature, that government activity exerted during the "reign of censorship terror" — the meaningless bustle of the committees, the ministries, and above all the Third Section — on the more moderate, mildly conservative "ministriables" of Nicholas' reign. N. S. Golitsyn, director of the Legal Academy which Nicholas founded in 1834, and which the Third Section with its distrust for students and lawyers watched especially closely, had almost found himself a victim of Dubelt's display of zeal after the Petrashevsky case. He emerged from the experience somewhat more distrustful than previously of political police.126 P. A. Valuev, Governor of Lithuania under Nicholas and Minister of the Interior (18621866) under Alexander II, summed up more eloquently the total effect of the Third Section's activities: two words might serve which cannot be translated into Russian: restriction mentale. . . . Everywhere there was overcaution and a distaste for ideas that move without being ordered to; everywhere, a guardianship as though over minors; everywhere, the opposition of government to people, officialdom to privacy.126

There were others. In addition to Baron Korff, Nikitenko, Prince Viazemsky, Tiutchev, the Aksakovs, and Samarin, who played such an important part in the later reforms, even Bulgarin, Grech, and

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Dubelt expressed a certain disillusionment. Clearly, the Third Section had not succeeded in gathering public opinion to the government. Benckendorffs handkerchief, considerably soiled, had long outlived its usefulness as a symbol for the monarch's paternal care.

The Third Section In Retrospect

£ 7 Ψ

In 1876, when Alexander II was considering the abolition of the Third Section, he had one of its high officials prepare a history of that institution. In this official history, the repressive aspects of the political police are barely referred to, and then half apologetically. It dwells instead on information-gathering and welfare functions: the relief of the poor from cumbersome litigation in the jammed courts, plans for railroads, foreign intelligence information, inspection of factory conditions, recommendations for the abolition of serfdom and for greater religious tolerance — all calculated to impress upon the emperor the indispensability of the Third Section to "reform from above." The gendarmerie still presents itself as the "moral physician" of the people and the necessary tool of a beautiful autocracy, but in a language less grandiloquently sure of itself than in the past.1 The official historian actually claims no more than that the Third Section contributed to the modest reforms undertaken by Nicholas; that it suggested the need for reform and did not act as a reactionary or repressive force. The claims made are far from grandiose; police interference in litigation is not defended except in terms of the inadequacy of the courts. The limited scale of railroad construction must be "blamed" on the Ministry of Fi-

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nance, not on the Third Section. If Russia's allies betrayed her, the government was at least warned by alert agents. If Nicholas' plans for emancipation had all come to grief when confronted with the specter of peasant revolt, the Third Section had at least indicated the necessity of emancipation. The only major triumph the Third Section claims for itself is, however, a negative one. In 1848-1849, when Europe was torn by revolutionary upheavals, when thrones everywhere tottered and shook, Russia remained "somnolent and at rest." The fever that burned beneath this sleep is discounted or ignored. It was the reign of Nicholas finally that gave birth to the revolutionary intelligentsia. In all of Russian society, only a thin layer of educated men with a moral conscience existed. These felt an almost desperate need for public activity — a need intensified by a sense of alienation from the rigid, militarized state apparatus, on the one hand, and by a growing awareness of the shocking facts of serfdom, on the other. This small group was hemmed about and restricted, muffled by censorship, surrounded by gendarmes and spies, its access to further education and to publicity severely limited. Behind the seemingly unequal struggle of gendarmes and intelligentsia loomed an inchoate, elemental, directionless struggle in the countryside, vaster than gendarmes and intelligentsia together, threatening to engulf them both. In the following reign, the revolutionary intelligentsia was to take the plunge into the countryside and attempt either to lead or to merge with the elemental struggle there. This was precisely what the Third Section had feared and attempted to prevent and what, instead, it did so much to provoke. The Petrashevsky affair had involved, the Third Section insisted, not a revolutionary conspiracy, but merely a "handful of depraved youths" talking about socialism; and yet it had been dealt with as a serious threat to the government.2 The Petrashevtsy on the whole were treated with greater severity than the Decembrists had been. The contrast between the Petrashevsky circle and the Decembrists is instructive. The unity, the natural sequence of thought and action so characteristic of the Decembrists, had been lost. Butashevich-Petrashevsky bent all his energies toward creating

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a possible basis for action in the unforeseeable future. His harangues, his arguments, his propaganda, sought merely to fill out the thin ranks of those morally concerned for the future of Russia. Even his pathetic attempt to build a phalanstery on his own estate — a phalanstery that the peasants themselves razed to the ground — was propagandistic in intent, an attempt to provide an example, an alternative to the military order imposed by the autocracy. Consisting largely of impoverished noblemen and bureaucrats of the lower and middle ranks, the group's horizons were fearfully narrow and restricted. Their interest in Europe and European affairs, intense and active as it was, remained bookish, without direct contact and experience, limited to ideas and Utopian in every sense of the word. The violence with which they were treated by a formidably organized government served to impress the minuscule intelligentsia not with the futility of Utopian aspirations but with the imperviousness of the government to the need for a more broadly based political order.8 In 1826, at its inception, confident of success in its mission, the Third Section had urged greater liberty of public expression (characteristically, however, in terms that implied ill for legality) and had proclaimed that with a little initiative, with a proper display of the government's good intentions, the autocracy could (with the help of white-strapped blue uniforms) create a broader and firmer base of public support for itself. This was not entirely mistaken. In spite of the long, dull, hollow books of the historians of officiai nationalism, in spite of the evident bankruptcy of Uvarov's slogan, "Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality," there was an element of vitality in the doctrine of autocracy. Even Pogodin and Shevyrev come alive in the pages in which they apotheosize Peter the Great, symbol of the dynamic, reforming mission in Russia of the autocrat and the state apparatus under his control.4 An identification between Nicholas and his great ancestor was implicit in all the scurry and bustle, the courtliness and sheer visibility of the gendarmes. Not only a liberal like Granovsky, or a conservative like Pushkin, but men as far removed from officiai nationalism as Bakunin and Chemyshevsky could share at least temporarily the faith that the autocracy might well command the

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only institutional apparatus capable of creating a modern society from a backward Russia. Even in these fleeting moments of hope ( Chernyshevsky's views changed profoundly under the impact of the events of 1848-1849), they did not, however, envision the hypostatization of autocracy, but merely its utility in creating a broader basis for political life against the vested interests of the serf-owning nobility — its utility as an instrument of transition. With the accession of Alexander II, in the years of open discussion and argument on the peasant problem between 1856 and 1861, both Herzen and Chernyshevsky lingered on this hope once again, in spite of the years of rigid censorship experienced between 1848 and 1856.5 This persistent hope that the autocracy might move in the direction of abolishing itself existed in spite, not because, of the political police. From its very inception, the Third Section was regarded by many (including many who firmly believed in autocracy and had no wish for its transformation) as a break with rather than a fulfillment of the national tradition. The more prominent the Third Section made itself, the more it displayed its solicitude and courtliness, the more intensely was the discrepancy felt between manners and morals, propaganda and accomplishment, profession and action. The white flag of the Moscow gendarme regiment had displayed on it the motto, Le bien-être générale en Russie; a Moscow wit promptly translated this as "It is good to be a general in Russia." 6 The political police had been entrusted with two irreconcilable tasks: on the one hand, to create a broader basis for the regime in public opinion; on the other, to maintain all initiative in political action in the hands of the autocrat. Only a totalitarian regime could resolve and reconcile these terms successfully, and the conditions for totalitarianism not only did not exist but were very remote from nineteenth-century Russia. More and more, police activity shifted from the first task to the second, impelled by the priority the monarch clearly assigned to it and by the exigencies of an institution with vested interests and mouths to feed. The growing conservatism of the Third Section may be exemplified by its recommendations on two crucial and closely

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connected problems: emancipation of the serfs and the free expression of opinion. From 1826 to 1848, the Third Section had constantly inserted short reminders in its reports to the emperor of the necessity of reforming the conditions under which the serf population lived. Starting in 1835, it included along with the statement that emancipation was necessary the modification that it was premature and that the activities of Count Kiselev aroused dangerous hopes in the peasantry. From 1848 ( as far as I have been able to determine ) on, no mention was made of emancipation. P. A. Dolgorukov, who, as head of the Third Section, sat on Alexander l i s liberation committee, opposed the reform. He insisted that he would not be able to answer for the public peace if the measure went through.7 In 1826, the Third Section urged relaxation of censorship restrictions. From 1830 to 1832 every public or semipublic expression of approval was cited by the Third Section in its reports to the emperor as an indication of the benignity of public opinion, and every occasion, even the cholera epidemic, was hailed as an opportunity for the emperor to consolidate this approval. Until 1848, the Third Section took it upon itself to defend "The Contemporary" and Belinsky. This campaign for freedom of expression on the part of the political police was, of course, never whole hearted or entirely consistent. Writers cursed censors, and censors feared the police. But even the occasional inferences in police reports that the regime could afford more latitude in censorship matters ceased in 1848. Dubelt objected to the use of the word "liberty" in print. In the period of relatively open public debate between 1856 and 1861, the Third Section stood by with some apprehension. After the issuance of the emancipation decree, Alexander II began to cast about for some convenient excuse to bring the public debate to an end. The radical intellectuals grouped around Chernyshevsky and "The Contemporary," on the other hand, disappointed in the terms of the decree, concentrated all their hopes on a continuation of the debate. Justifying the arrest of Chernyshevsky and the suspension of "The Contemporary" in the spring of 1862, Dolgorukov in a report to the

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emperor emphasized the necessity of limiting freedom of the press if the autocracy were to retain its initiative in political affairs. Alexander II annotated the report with the remark: "This corresponds entirely to my wishes." 8 The virtual abandonment by the political police of the first task mentioned above seriously compromised its capacity to perform the second. It should not, of course, be inferred that had the Third Section maintained its zeal the results would have been markedly different. Compared with other branches of the Russian bureaucracy, the Third Section was relatively efficient, honest, loyal, and devoted. It was also better paid. Its personnel were vested with a heavier responsibility toward the central authority, the autocrat, and even more completely cut off from open and spontaneous contact with the public — except of course by means of espionage, which could hardly serve to encourage an attitude of trust and respect on the part of the public. Far from escaping the limitations of bureaucratic procedure, the Third Section by its very superiority to other branches of the bureaucracy, indeed by the assumption that it had to be superior, indicates the narrowness of these limitations. If the Third Section failed in its modest attempts to create a broader base of positive public support for the autocracy, how successful was it in suppressing opinion subversive, or potentially subversive, to the autocracy? That is a more difficult question to answer. The Third Section's criteria for what constituted subversion were entirely inconsistent and even unpredictable. From the suppression of the Decembrists to the formation of the first Land and Liberty group no organized revolutionary movement existed — nothing that the Third Section was even willing to label as a serious "conspiracy." And yet a considerable number of men whose basic loyalty to the regime was never questioned were repeatedly harassed by minor punishments, rebukes, reprimands, and the annoyance of police surveillance. Undoubtedly, Russia remained "somnolent and at rest" — but in dreams begin responsibilities, and resentments. If the censorship and police surveillance rendered ineffective the very small segment of radical

In Retrospect

289

youth, it undermined as well the press that supported the government. Those who could still be relied on to support the government were more numerous, certainly, than those who might be expected to oppose it; the fact remains, however, that both groups were pitifully small against the background of Russia as a whole. The autocracy could ill afford to antagonize its potential allies. In spite of the small size of the reading public, in spite of the complex and arbitrary censorship apparatus, dominated by fear of the Third Section, Russian literature grew during the reign of Nicholas into its golden age. To the modern reader, imbued with liberal prejudices, this seems an anomaly. Of course, neither Elizabethan England nor the Florence of the Medici was unhampered by censorship restrictions, nor for that matter was Periclean Athens. We are too apt to confuse the petty encumbrances of traditional societies with the withering blight of the modern totalitarian state. Nevertheless, even Russian readers of the time felt something of an anomaly here, a negative relationship of some importance. Russian literature had developed under the aegis of the court and had come to a kind of maturity by the end of the eighteenth century. There was a literary language and a literary culture of some originality, if not yet of world stature. The ponderous verses of Derzhavin expressed a view of the world that seemed to the educated upper reaches of the nobility adequately to reconcile their Russian past with their European future. The witty plays of Fonvizin satirized the too superficial absorption of European manners by some members of this group, to the amusement and moral instruction of others. This was the literature with which the Decembrist generation had grown up. It was civic, moralistic, generalizing, and either overtly or implicitly affirmative of the civilizing mission of the Russian state and autocracy. Primarily didactic, even in the sentimental strain introduced later by Karamzin and Zhukovsky, it was a class literature, written by and for the nobility. Karamzin and Zhukovsky, however, had already succeeded in extending its appeal by emphasizing the personal and the sentimental, by their (if I may

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be forgiven the awkward phrase) deserialization of emotion. At the time of Nicholas' accession, the court was no longer the center of Russian literary life; there was a small but eager reading public, the class character of which was wearing away; and it was possible (if difficult) for a writer to earn his living by writing. The censorship and the lack of room for spontaneous personal initiative within the framework of the bureaucracy and the army, along with the institutional poverty of Russian life (the absence of independent professional life, the "militarization" of the official church), did not, certainly, create the peculiar inwardness of Russian literature. But it did attach to it a special value and significance. It was impossible to discuss publicly political, social, religious, or philosophical problems in a free and open manner. Of course, the terms of the censorship could be and were evaded by the employment of an Aesopian language; nevertheless, the Ministry of Education, the Church, and the Third Section were formidably inhibiting. There was a yawning gap between the grandiose and hollow formulations on these subjects officially sponsored or officially permitted and the felt needs of a small but important segment of the population with a developed culture. This group, torn between the glittering military formations of the state and the poverty and backwardness of rural Russia, unable to identify themselves with the one or the other, turned to literature with an almost religious hunger, as a means of selfdiscovery. The frequency with which the word zapiski appears in the titles of works published during the reign of Nicholas and thereafter is instructive. It means "notes," "sketches," "jottings," and implies an ideal of spontaneity and naturalness, something taken down on the spot precisely as observed. Regardless of the art with which such works were composed, their aim was to appear informal, true-to-life, artless.9 They dealt with the ordinary, the private, the familiar, and the familial. Everyday family or private existence provided the normal setting for fiction, and the moral values emphasized by writers were those derived from family life rather than from the life of the state. They were noninstru-

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291

mental and nonfunctional: tenderness, the capacity to love, compassion — not intelligence, propriety, success, or ambition. Grandiloquence was discounted, spontaneity and freshness emphasized. The family, especially the family of the middle gentry, living close to the soil and to the peasantry, was found to be the true repository of national tradition. There were no "political" novels as such, but the influence of the state through the demands it made and the conditions it imposed was felt in its operation on the private and family life of individuals. Just as the bourgeois became a figure of mockery in the French literature of the Second Empire, the government official in Russian literature assumed the form of either the pathetic, dehumanized petty clerk or the arid, equally dehumanized despot. It was Belinsky who first seized on literary criticism as a means of expressing social protest, and Chemyshevsky who made a tradition of it. First, by emphasizing the everyday conditions of Russian life as these appeared in the pages of Russian literature ("What a sad place is our Russia!"), they could criticize the state and the autocracy without having to deal overtly with specific political issues and policies, the discussion of which was forbidden by the censorship. Secondly, they attempted to impose upon writers (because, as Chemyshevsky put it, literature in Russia had absorbed the tasks commonly performed by politics, philosophy, and religion elsewhere) a sense of literature oblige.10 Writers resisted Chernyshevsky's rather narrow strictures in this sense (Turgenev and Tolstoy particularly); nevertheless, these had considerable influence, especially in the 1860s, and a longterm influence that leads us far away into the realm of "socialist realism."11 Nicholas' attitude to the Russian literature of his time was ambiguous. He did not, of course, much care for it. His favorite novelists were Sir Walter Scott and Paul de Kock. Nestor Kukolnik pleased him; Pushkin and Gogol, on the whole, did not. His tastes were for the grandiose, the rhetorical, provided of course that the rhetoric served to celebrate the state and selfless devotion to the state. Self-sacrifice appealed to him; self-fulfillment seemed but a petty ideal. At best, literature was a poor substitute

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for the parade-ground and literary activity a kind of secondary state service. Nevertheless, Nicholas felt it as part of the mission of enlightened absolutism, which he had taken upon himself, to encourage the flourishing of letters. To dictate to writers, to impose a style or even (beyond certain negative criteria) a subject matter, he considered "beneath the dignity of the monarchical power." Basically, he "suffered" literature, regretted its separation from the state, but encouraged that very separation through the activities of the Third Section and the censorship. Zhukovsky, who remained a prominent figure at court, and who also loved the new Russian literature, could still exert a certain amount of influence on him. The Third Section could defend "The Contemporary" and "Notes of the Fatherland" on the grounds that these were "our best literary journals." When the Minister of Education, Uvarov, shocked Nikitenko by telling him that his only hope was to bring the development of Russian literature to an end for fifty years, he was not expressing either his own will or that of the emperor, but merely the tired and irritable commentary of an ambitious careerist caught between conflicting demands.12 The ambiguous attitude of the emperor, on the one hand, and the intense interest in literature within an important segment of the public, on the other, created great strains and tensions within the censorship apparatus, as I have indicated in Chapters 4 and 6. These were also apparent, if not to the same degree, in the Third Section, which took steps to divest itself of the burden of responsibility in censorship matters. The Buturlin and Menshikov committees, in which the Third Section was still represented but no longer decisive, marked the most rigid application of negative censorship in imperial Russia. When Alexander II, however, opened the public debate on serfdom, these committees lost their function, and the press expanded to a point where it could no longer be controlled by negative censorship alone. On April 6, 1865, preliminary censorship was abolished entirely, and a system of warnings and fines administered by the Ministry of the Interior and modeled on that of Napoleon III in France was introduced. For literature, the improvement can not

In Retrospect

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be overestimated. The greatest works of Russian prose appeared free of the censor's blot. Nevertheless, the Third Section and the period of "censorship terror" under the Buturlin and Menshikov committees had a certain formative influence on the press committee of the ministry. Government officials approached the problem of a free press with a nervousness that the Third Section had tutored and shaped. They maintained a tendency to look at the press, as Nikitenko put it, "with police eyes," and with the excuse of any emergency, real or imagined, to behave in the manner of "a high court dealing with ideas as with thieves and murderers." During the first two years of "freedom of the press" four periodicals were suspended — one more than during the entire reign of Nicholas.18 The Russia of Alexander II, through the emancipation of the serfs, the creation of independent professions, and the continued development of the intelligentsia, was a society far more complex than that Nicholas I had attempted to rule through the bureaucracy, the Private Imperial Chancery, and the secret committees. The Third Section could no longer play the same dominant role. By a number of interrelated reforms, Alexander II limited the application of police action.14 At the same time, with the first indications of a revolutionary movement, he returned to the police many of its old powers, more exclusively concentrated on the revolutionary youth. When Alexander did abolish the Third Section, it was only to unite its apparatus more effectively with that of the everyday police in the hands of Loris-Melikov and his commission. A deadly dialectic of police and revolutionaries ensued.15 The police became more specialized, lost its good manners and its sense of calling, and grew into a dogged conservatism, partly because of its sense of technological inadequacy — that it could not really perform the tasks assigned to it under the circumstances— partly because its own prerogatives depended more than those of other institutions on the maintenance of autocracy. Far from connecting the sovereign with the public, as Nicholas I had envisaged, the political police guaranteed his isolation and ineffectiveness.

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Conrad's Mr. Verloc was right, alas: every government has its police. And the political police as an institution has endeared itself to government by its sheer instrumentality — the extent to which it can be relied on to carry out orders with (relative to other institutions ) a minimal distraction or loss of executive purpose from social, functional, personal, or humane considerations. In modern totalitarian societies, the political police has become almost government itself, or at least a model for government. It was not so under Nicholas, and on the whole — in spite of the exemplary role he assigned to the gendarmes, in spite of a number of anticipatory impulses — he would not have had it so. There is no historical parallel between the Third Section and the MVD; only an instructive, indeed a tragic, historical connection.

á¡

BIBLIOGRAPHY

NOTES

INDEX

BIBLIOGRAPHY Since I have had no access to archives in the Soviet Union, this study is based entirely on published sources. Though fragmentary, these are nevertheless voluminous. As far as I know, all documents from the Third Section archives bearing on the reign of Nicholas I that have appeared in print are listed below. A handful of scholars have had access to the Third Sections files and have incorporated materials not available elsewhere into their works: notably, Lemke, Staehlin, Nifontov, I. M. Trotsky, and S. Shtraikh. The memoir literature is very rich and abundant for this period. I have used "windlasses and assays of bias" to the best of my ability. There are many monographs and special studies of police institutions in Europe, but an over-all, comparative work is badly needed. The books by Kohn-Bramstedt and Reith are far from adequate. For Russia, the series of articles by I. Tarasov in Iuridicheskii vestnik (listed below) proved invaluable. The best political biography of Nicholas I is still that of Polievktov. The unfinished official biography by Shilder contains much valuable information and materials. A definitive biography, more detailed than Polievktov's, less personal and romantic than De Grunwald's, still remains to be written. For social and cultural history, there is an embarrassment of riches. I have attempted to indicate superior contributions in the reference notes. Certainly outstanding for their insight into the life of this period are the works of Gershenzon and Lemke. BIBLIOGRAPHIES

Doronin, I. P., and others, Istorila SSSR: ukazatel sovetskoi literatury za 1917-1952 gg. (2 vols.; Moscow, 1956).

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Kan, F., Β. P. Kozmin, A. A. Shilov, and others, Deiateli revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia ν Rossii: Bio-bibliograficheskii slovar ( 2 vols, in 6; Moscow, 1927-1933), I. Mintslov, S., Obzor zapisok, dnevnikov, vospominanii, pisem, i puteshestvii otnosiashchikhsia k istorii Rossii i namechatannykh na russkom iazyke (2 vols.; Novgorod, 1911-1912). Vosstanie Dekabristov: bibliografiia (Moscow-Leningrad, 1929). Izdatelstvo Akademiia Nauk SSSR. PRIMARY SOURCES, MEMOIRS, REMINISCENCES, LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD

Akhsharumov, D. D., Iz moikh vospominanii (Moscow-Leningrad, 1930). Ancelot, J., Six mois en Russie; lettres écrites à H. X-B. Saintines en 1826 (Paris, 1826). Annenkov, P. V., Literaturnye vospominaniia, ed. Β. M. Eikhenbaum (Leningrad, 1928). Materialy dita biografia A. S. Pushkina (St. Petersburg, 1873). "Arest Petrashevtsev," Byloe, no. 2 (1906). Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1870-1895). Balzac, H., Lettre sur Kiew (Paris, 1927). Barante, Baron du, Souvenirs (8 vols.; Paris, 1897). Belinsky, V. G., Pisma, ed. E. A. Liatsky (3 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1914). Polnoe sobrante sochinenii, ed. S. Vengerov (11 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1898-1900). Polnoe sobrante sochinenii (12 vols.; Moscow, 1953-1956). Izdatelstvo Akademiia Nauk SSSR. Benckendorff, A. K., "Graf A. K. Benkendorf o Rossii ν 1827-1830 gg.," Krasnyi arkhiv, XXXVII (1929), XXXVIII (1930). "Graf A. K. Benkendorf o Rossa ν 1831-1832 gg.," Krasnyi arkhiv, XL VI (1931). "Instruktsiia grafa Benkendorfa chinovniku tretego otdeleniia," Russkii arkhiv, no. 2 (1889). "Iz zapisok," Russkii arkhiv, no. 2 ( 1865 ). "Iz zapisok grafa Α. K. Benkendorfa," Istoricheskii vestnik XCI (1903). "Nestor Kukolnik, pisma k nemu grafa Benkendorfa," Russkaia starína, III (1871). "O nabliudenii, chtoby poliaki ne rasprostraniali vozvanii vo vnutrennikh guberniiakh Rosii," Russkaia sfarina, C (1899). "Vypiski iz pisem grafa Α. K. Benkendorfa k Imperatoru

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NOTES INTRODUCTION: THE DREAM OF A BEAUTIFUL AUTOCRACY

1. Almost all of Part IV of Byloe i dumy, that most remarkable of autobiographies, is an elaboration of this theme. See A. I. Herzen, My Past and Thoughts, tr. Constance Garnett (6 vols.; London, 1924), II. 2. M. O. Gershenzon, Epokha Nikolaia I (Moscow, 1911), p. 3. 3. I am indebted for the phrase and its implications to R. R. Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution (Princeton, 1959). 4. Following in the wake of Joseph de Maistre, Les Soirées de SaintPétersbourg (Paris, 1929). 5. Constantin de Grunwald, Tsar Nicholas I (New York, 1955), p. 256. 6. The best and most thorough study of Nicholas' foreign policy is still Theodor Schiemann, Geschichte Russlands unter Kaiser Nikolaus I (4 vols.; Berlin, 1904-1919); see also, E. V. Tarle, Krymskaia voina (2 vols.; 2nd ed., Moscow-Leningrad, 1950), I, 3-145; Albert Sorel, La Question d'orient au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1878). 7. Paul Miliukov, Ocherki po istorii russkoi kultury (3 vols, in 4; rev. ed., Paris, 1930-1937), III, IV; A. Romanovich-Slavatinsky, Dvorianstvo ν Rossii ot nachala XVIII veka do otmeny krepostnogo prava (2nd ed., Kiev, 1912); V. O. Kliuchevsky, Sochineniia (8 vols.; Moscow, 19561960), VI, 454-466; see also the account by Richard Pipes in Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), pp. 6-21, 237-238; and Marc Raeff, Michael Speransky, Statesman of Imperial Russia (The Hague, 1957), passim. 8. P. Dolgorukov, Rossiiskaia rodoslovnaia kniga (4 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1854-1857); for an interesting, if incidental, account of the author of this uncompleted genealogical work, see E. H. Carr, The Romantic Exiles (Penguin Edition, London, 1949), pp. 317-334. 9. Raeff, Speransky, pp. vi, 29-32. 10. See the section on Russia in Reinhard Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry (New York, 1956). Although Bendix's discussion of Russia is based almost entirely on secondary sources, he nevertheless has some interesting things to say about the relationship of the merchant class to the autocracy, to the nobility, and to the institution of serfdom. 11. The basic work on the Russian peasantry is still V. I. Semevsky, Krestianskii vopros ν Rossii υ XVIII i pervoi poíovine XIX veke (2 vols.;

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St. Petersburg, 1888); Professor T. Blum of Princeton University has been working on a book dealing with landowner-peasant relationships in Russia, and it should appear shortly. 12. M. Polievktov, Nikolai I (Moscow, 1918), pp. 298-320; N. M. Druzhinin, Gosudarstvennye krestiane i reforma P. D. Kisileva (MoscowLeningrad, 1946), I, 628-632. 13. Druzhinin, I, 102-109, 207-244; Peter Lyashchenko, History of the National Economy of Russia to 1917 (New York, 1949), pp. 319-325, 358-374. 14. M. O. Gershenzon, Dekabrist Krivtsov (Berlin, 1923), pp. 189-191; see also the study of Michael Orlov by the same author, Istoriia molodoi Rossii (Moscow, 1908), pp. 1-75. 15. The recent work by Mikhail Zetlin, The Decembrists (New York, 1958), captures some of the dramatic excitement and human interest of the movement. 16. Leonid Strakhovsky, L'Empereur Nicolas I et Fesprit national russe (Louvain, 1928) and C. de Grunwald, Tsar Nicholas I (New York, 1955). 17. Polievktov, preface; Gershenzon, Epokha, pp. 3—7. 18. Hermann Broch, The Sleepwalkers (Boston, 1932), p. 26. 19. Polievktov, p. 23. 20. Ibid., p. 35. 21. De Grunwald, p. 203. 22. Raeff, pp. 29-46. 23. Ibid., pp. 337-342. 24. See N. Shilder, Nikolai Pervy (2 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1903), I, 162.

25. This is based largely on the excellent introduction by Richard Pipes to his translation of the Memoir, and his chapter, "Karamzin's Conception of Monarchy," in Russian Thought and Politics, ed. H. McLean and others (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), pp. 35-58. 26. Nicholas, no doubt, knew Karamzin's introduction to his history of the Russian state, where similar views are expressed. N. M. Karamzin, Istoriia gosudarstva Rossiiskogo (12 vols, in 3; St. Petersburg, 1842-1843), I, ix-xiv. 27. Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, "Pogodin and Shevyrev in Russian Intellectual History," in Russian Thought and Politics, pp. 149-167, especially the interesting quotation from Pogodin on p. 162; Riasanovsky's book on official nationalism under Nicholas I is scheduled for publication. 28. Pipes, Karamzin's Memoir, p. 122. 29. Martin Malia, "Schiller and the Early Russian Left," in Russian Thought and Politics, pp. 169-200. CHAPTER 1. POLITICAL POLICE IN RUSSIA: A GENERAL BACKGROUND

1. D. N. Ushakov and others, Tolkovyi slovar rmskogo iazyka (4 vols.; Moscow, 1939), III, 526. 2. Philemon Savary, Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce,

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ed. and tr. Malachy Postlethwayte (3rd ed., London, 1766); see the great range of meanings and illustrations in W. Little, C. T. Onions, and others, Oxford English Dictionary (12 vols.; Oxford, 1933) VII, 1069-1070. 3. Donald Greer, The Incidence of the Terror During the French Revolution: A Statistical Interpretation (Cambridge, Mass., 1935); of course, the statistical coincidence of executions by the Terror with emergency areas and periods in no way indicates that those executed were really guilty; for a less exclusively numerical account of the Terror, see R. R. Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled: The Committee of Public Safety During the Terror (Princeton, 1941). 4. The classic work on the subject is Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, 1952); see also, Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Permanent Purge (Cambridge, Mass., 1956). In the light of developments in the Soviet Union since 1955, however, the typological schemes of both Arendt and, more especially, Brzezinski seem to me too rigid. 5. Marc Chassaigne, La Lieuténance générale de police de Paris (Paris, 1906), pp. lOlff, 144, 191. 6. Nicolas de la Mare, Traitée de la police, ou l'on trouvera Îhistoire de son établissement, les fonctions et les prerogatives de ses magistrats toute les loix et tous les règlements qui la concernant (Paris, 1729), preface, second page (pages of preface are unnumbered); 255. 7. Poínoe sobrante zakonov rossiiskoi imperii ( 1st series, St. Petersburg, 1830) VI, no. 3750 (hereafter cited as P.s.z.) 8. Phillip Thicknesse, Useful Hints to Those Who Make the Tour of France, in a Series of Letters Written from That Kingdom. (2nd ed., London, 1770), p. 160. 9. D. I. Fonvizin, letter to P. I. Panin, September 18, 1778, Sochineniia Fonvizina (Moscow-St. Petersburg, 1888), p. 908. 10. Ibid., p. 909. 11. The best studies of police in France are P. Clement, La Police sous Louis XIV (Paris, 1866), and E. Dolléans, La Police des moeurs (Paris, 1903); C. Reith, The Blind Eye of History (London, 1952) attempts a large-scale discussion of police institutions in general and contains some useful information, but is neither very thorough in its treatment nor entirely reliable; the most carefully reasoned and scholarly treatment of the legal basis for police institutions is by Kurt Wolzendorff, Die Entwicklung des Polizeibegriffs im 19 Jahrhundert (Marburg, 1906). 12. Wolzendorff, "Aufklaerung und Polizeistaat," Zeitschrift fuer die gesamte Staatswissenschaft, LXXII (1916), passim. 13. For the development of black chambers, espionage services, and such, see J. W. Thompson and S. K. Padover, A History of Secret Diplomacy (London, 1937). Of course, espionage and diplomacy have been closely associated since the very beginnings of modern diplomacy; see Garrett Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy (Boston, 1955), pp. 114, 226, 243-245, 259-261. See also, August Fournier, Die Geheimpolizei auf dem Wiener Kongresz (Vienna-Leipzig, 1913). 14. I. Tarasov, "Istorila russkoi politsii i otnosheniia ee k iustitsii," Iuridicheskii vestnik, no. 1 (1884), 178ff; see also my article, "Anton Divier

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and the Police of St. Petersburg," Essays for Roman Jakobson (The Hague, 1957). 15. P.S.Z., VI, no. 3622; Tarasov, pp. 181, 195. 16. M. I. Semevsky, Slovo i deh (St. Petersburg, 1885), introduction. 17. A. I. Zaozersky, Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich υ svoem khoziaistve (Petrograd, 1917), pp. 270, 347. 18. Zaozersky, p. 276, claims the contrary, but his argument, though imaginative and almost persuasive, is not based on any solid evidence. 19. V. Veretennikov, Istorila tainoi kantseliarii (Kharkov, 1910), p. 20; see also the gloomy chronicler of Alexei's reign, G. V. Kotoshikhin, O Rossii o tsarstvovanii Aleksii Mikhailovicha (4th ed., St. Petersburg, 1906), especially chap. 7. 20. This is the conclusion of N. Gurliand, Prikaz velikogo gosudaria tainykh del (Yaroslavl, 1902). 21. Zaozersky, p. 282; see also, Délo o patriarkhe Nikone, izdanie Arkheograficheskoi Kommissii (St. Petersburg, 1897). 22. Zaozersky, p. 331. 23. 200-letie kabineta Ego Imperiatorskogo Velichestva, 1704-1904 (St. Petersburg, 1911), pp. 29, 36ff. 24. M. M. Bogoslovsky, Petr Velikii i ego reforma (Moscow, 1920), pp. 102, 115ff. 25. Ibid., p. 162; Veretennikov, p. 170. 26. Veretennikov, pp. 119-129. 27. Ibid., p. 235. 28. Ibid., pp. 196-199, 231; see also P.s.z., XV, no. 11291; for the very unequal and "class" character of punishments meted out, see M. N. Gernet, Istorila tsarskoi tiurmy (4 vols.; 2nd ed., Moscow, 1951) I, 39-44. 29. Gernet, I, 183-187. 30. Ibid., pp. 155-158; K. Waliszewski, Paul the First of Russia (London, 1913), p. 111. 31. Crane Brinton, A Decade of Revolution, 1789-1799 (New York, 1934), p. 127; Louis Madelin, Fouché (Paris, 1900), I, 453. 32. Vicomte de Chateaubriand, De la, monarchie selon la charte (Paris, 1816), p. 28. 33. J. Galtier-Boissière, Mysteries of the French Secret Police (London, 1938), p. 150. Although based on wide reading in police memoirs, as well as on personal investigations, this rather lurid book by a prominent French journalist tends to take police memoirs much too literally. It is possible, certainly, to write a history of France based on such materials; but it will be a rather fantastic history. 34. The most authoritative books on the reign of Paul are, M. V. Klochkov, Ocherki pravitelstvennoi deiatelnosti vremeni Pavia I (Petrograd, 1916), and N. K. Shilder, Imperator Pavel I (St. Petersburg, 1901). Waliszewski's "popular" biography is still of some interest, though a new study is long overdue. 35. P.S.Z., XXVI, no. 19813. 36. I. M. Trotsky, Trete otdelenie pri Nikolae I (Moscow, 1930), p. 8. 37. Ibid., p. 10.

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38. Ν. K. Shilder, Imperator Aleksandr Pervyi (4 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1904) II, 365, 162-164. 39. Ibid., II, 210. 40. S. P. Zhikharev, "Zapiski," Russkii arkhiv, no. 2 (1891), 273. 41. F. F. Vigel, Zapiski, ed. S. Shtraikh (Moscow, 1928). 42. P.S.Z., XXXI, no. 24686; XXVII, no. 20406. 43. Shilder, Aleksandr, III, 367, 518. 44. De St. Glin [Desanglen in Russian transliteration; first name not given], "Zapiski," Russkaia sfarina, no. 3 (1883), 17. 45. Trotsky, Trete otdelenie, p. 14. 46. Tarasov, "Istorila politsii, ' pp. 558-568. 47. Zhikarev, "Zapiski," Russkii arkhiv, no. 4 (1891), 381. 48. Trotsky, Trete otdelenie, pp. 20-21. 49. I. M. Dolgorukov, "Kapishche moego serdtsa," Russkii arkhiv, no. 1, supplement (1890), 22-23. 50. De St. Glin, "Zapiski," pp. 18-19. 51. Ibid., p. 377. 52. Ibid., p. 384. 53. See Marc Raeff, Michael Speransky, Statesman of Imperial Russia, 1772-1839 (The Hague, 1957), pp. 170-202, for a fuller account of Speransky's arrest and exile. 54. Trotsky, Trete otdelenie, p. 22. 55. De St. Glin, "Zapiski," p. 570; Tarasov, "Istorila politsii," p. 564. 56. Shilder, Aleksandr, IV, 469. 57. Trotsky, Trete otdelenie, p. 9. 58. "Proekt ob ustroistve voennoi politsii ν gvardeiskom korpuse," Russkaia starino, XXXIII (1882), 217. 59. Ibid., p. 219. 60. Tarasov, "Istorila politsii," pp. 571-572. 61. Shilder, Nikolai Pervyi (2 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1903), I, 467. There are numerous other references to this affair of the white handkerchief. CHAPTER 2 . "FRIENDS OF THE FOURTEENTH"

1. V. Bazilevsky [pseud, for V. Iakovlev], Gosudarstvennye prestupleniia ν Rossii ν XIX veke (2 vols.; Stuttgart, 1908), I, 2-20. This work is a compilation from official Russian newspapers only of published accounts of political trials in Russia in the nineteenth century. Its compiler was a revolutionary, but his object was to be able to distribute the book through regular, open channels. The compilation, read through as a whole, actually gives the effect that the regime is condemning itself. 2. Μ. N. Gernet, Istorila tsarskoi tiurmy (3 vols.; Moscow, 1946), II, 124; K. Staehlin, "Aus den Berichten der III Abteilung s.m. hoechsteigener Kanzlei an Kaiser Nikolaus I," Zeitschrift fuer Osteuropaeische Geschichte, VI, Neue Folge 2 (1932), 493; I. M. Trotsky, Trete otdelenie pri Nikolae I (Moscow, 1930), p. 32. It is not my object in this chapter to write a detailed account of the Decembrist movement, or even of the events of

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December 14, 1825, and their aftermath — but rather to indicate the complex connections between the Decembrists and the political police. Although two books of some merit already exist in English on the Decembrist movement as a whole — Anatole Mazour, The First Russian Revolution, 1825 (Berkeley, 1937); Mikhail Zetlin, The Decembrists (New York, 1958) — there is certainly room for fresh work on the subject. The material available in Russian is immense, and no attempt has been made to cover it all here. The materials of the investigation and trial have been collected in Vosstanie Dekabristov: materialy (10 vols.; Moscow-Leningrad, 19251954). Nicholas' reactions to the Decembrists, his notes, memoranda, and correspondence, are to be found in the volume edited by B. Syroechkovsky, Mezhdutsarstvie 1825 goda i vosstanie dekabristov (Moscow-Leningrad, 1926). The best monograph on the events of December 14 and their immediate background is still that of A. E. Presniakov, 14 Dekabria 1825 goda (Moscow-Leningrad, 1926). The best study of the Decembrists' programs for reform is that of V. I. Semevsky, Politicheskie i obshchestvennye idei dekabristov (St. Petersburg, 1909). The best studies of the cultural milieu from which the Decembrists originated are those of M. O. Gershenzon; his little book, Dekabrist Krivtsov (Berlin, 1923), is a model of this kind of historical writing. His fine sensibility and deep knowledge of the period are also evident in Griboedovskaia Moskva (Moscow-Berlin, 1922) and in his major work, Istorila molodoi Rossii (Moscow, 1908). A great number of Decembrist memoirs have been published. The most useful bibliographical guides are Vosstanie Dekabristov: bibliografiia (MoscowLeningrad, 1929) and, especially for more recent material published in the Soviet Union, the work edited by I. P. Doronin for the Akademiia Nauk SSSR, Istorila SSSR: ukazatel sovetskoi literatury za 1917-1952 gg. (2 vols.; Moscow, 1956). 3. O. A. Przhetslavsky [Przeclawski], "Vospominaniia," Russkaia starino, XI (1874), 676. 4. Ibid., pp. 677-678. 5. A. I. Vasilchikov, ed., "Bumagi I. V. Vasilchikova," Russkii arkhiv, no. 12 (1875), 418; P. Shchegolev, Dekabristy (Moscow-Leningrad, 1926), p. 31. 6. Przhetslavsky, p. 468. 7. For Alexander's involvement in the mystical currents of his time and his dabbling on the edges of masonry, see A. N. Pypin, Religioznye dvizheniia pri Aleksandre I (Petrograd, 1916), the best study of religious currents of the period. The classic account of freemasonry in eighteenthcentury France is G. Martin, La Franc-maçonnerie française et la préparation de la Revolution (2nd ed., Paris, 1926); for the enormous influence of freemasonry on Russian intellectual life, see A. N. Pypin, Russkoe masonstvo 18-go i pervoi chetverti XIX-go veka (Petrograd, 1916); and for a more special study of specific groups, see Iurii Vernadsky, Russkoe masonstvo ν tsarstvovanii Ekateriny II (Petrograd, 1917). There is an excellent introductory article on freemasonry in general by F. H. Hankins, "Masonry," in The Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York, 1933), X, 177-184. 8. Ε. I. Stogov, "Ocherki, razskazy, vospominaniia," Russkaia starino,

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XXIV (1879), 55; I. M. Trotsky, Zhizn Shervud-Vernago (Moscow, 1931), pp. 19-42. The latter work is not only an excellent biography of its subject (see ch. 3) but contains much interesting information on the social atmosphere and mores of the period. 9. A. I. Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, "Zapiski o vstuplenii na prestol Imperatore Nikolaia I," Russkaia sfarina, LXVIII (1890), 513; see also Trotsky, Shervud, p. 20; and J. B. May, St. Petersbourg et la Russie en 1829 (Paris, 1829), pp. 325-326. 10. Gershenzon, Dekabrist Krivtsov, p. 191; Pypin, Obshchestvennoe dvizhenie ν Rossii pri Aleksandre I (2 vols., Petrograd, 1917), II, pp. 111186; and the brief but extremely intelligent essay by A. E. Presniakov, Aleksandr Pervyi (Petrograd, 1924). 11. Presniakov, pp. 3-24; Bazdlevsky, I, 41; A. D. Borovkov, "Avtobiograficheskie zapiski," Russkaia statina, XCVI (1898), 339. It was to Borovkov that Nicholas commissioned the task of compiling and indexing the testimony of the Decembrists; his memoirs, which are not without a certain degree of sympathy for the "criminals" he had been entrusted to investigate, are therefore exceedingly interesting. 12. N. Shilder, Nikolai Pervyi (2 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1903), I, 162. 13. Shilder, Aleksandr Pervyi (4 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1904), IV, 416. 14. Presniakov gives a precise and exciting account. 15. Semevsky, pp. 601-630; for an interesting discussion of the Decembrists' views on the peasantry, see Franco Venturi, Il Populismo russo (2 vols.; Turin, 1952), I, 5-17. 16. Not only Pestel's qualities as a social and political thinker, but his (unrealized) possibilities as a man of power, are most eloquently expressed in his own Russkaia Pravda. This was not published until long after his death. P. I. Pestel, Russkaia Pravda, Nakaz Vremennomu Pravleniiu, ed. P. Shchegolev (St. Petersburg, 1906). See also, I. Stone, Paul Pestel and the Decembrist Revolution of 1825 (unpublished dissertation, Harvard University, 1935), pp. 310-314; V. Syromiatnikov, "Politicheskaia doktrina 'Nakaza' Pestelia," Sbornik statei posviashchennykh V. O. Kliuchevskomu (Moscow, 1909), pp. 679-718. 17. Pestel, Russkaia Pravda, p. 110. 18. Ibid., p. 111. 19. Mezhdutsarstvie, p. 11. 20. N. P. Wakar, ed., "Les Rapports de l'ambassade de France à St. Petersbourg sur la conjuration de Decabristes," Le Monde slave, IV (1925, no. 12), pp. 450-451. 21. Presniakov, Nikolai I apogei satnoderzhaviia (Leningrad, 1925), p. 6; M. Polievktov, Nikolai I (Moscow, 1918), pp. 27-38. 22. Mezhdutsarstvie, p. 34. 23. Ibid., p. 32. 24. Shilder, Nikolai I, I, 270. 25. Borovkov, passim; Vosstanie Dekabristov: Materialy, I, introduction. 26. Wittgenstein's report, quoted by N. Piksanov, "Dvorianskaia reaktsiia na Dekabrizm," Zveniia, XI (1933), 134. This fascinating and in many

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respects brilliant article contains a number of quotations from otherwise unavailable documents; Piksanov's basic attempt, however, is to discredit the Decembrist milieu and thereby to disparage the importance of the uprising, and he deliberately excludes from his discussion any account of long-term influence once the initial panic had subsided. 27. B. Modzalevsky, "Dóneseme tainogo agenta o nastroenii umov ν Peterburge posle kazni Dekabristov," Dekabristy, ed. Β. Modzalevsky and Iurii Oksman (Moscow, 1925), p. 41. 28. M. Shkapskaia, ed., "Seminarist o sobytiiakh 14 Dekabria," Byloe, no. 5 (1925), 76. 29. "O narodnom prosveshchenii ν Rossii," Russkaia starino, CVI (1901), 364. 30. From the diary of V. P. Sheremetev, quoted by Piksanov, p. 154. 31. Letter to M. S. Vorontsov, February 7, 1826, Arkhiv kniazia vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1870-1895), XVII, 573. 32. Mezhdutsarstvie, p. 168. 33. A. I. Delvig, Polveka russkoi zhizni: vospominaniia A. I. Delviga (2 vols.; Moscow-Leningrad, 1930), I, 47-48. 34. Modzalevsky, "Donesenie tainogo agenta," p.39. 35. See Chapter 5. 36. Shilder, Nikolai I, I, 328, 350-356; II, 39-58. 37. Piksanov, p. 181. 38. Shilder, Nikolai I, I, 780. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid., pp. 780-781. 42. Polnoe sobrante zakonov rossiiskogo imperii (2nd series, St. Petersburg, 1832-1916), I, no. 449, p. 666 (hereafter cited as II P.s.z.). 4 3 . II P.s.Z.,

II, no. 1 0 6 2 , p. 3 9 7 .

44. Trotsky, Trefe otdelenie, p. 48. 45. Bogucharsky [like "Bazilevsky," another pseud, for V. Iakovlev], ed., "Trete otdelenie s.e.v. Kantseliarii o sebe sanom," Vestnik Evropy (March 1917), p. 99. This is an official history of the Third Section, compiled by one of its high-ranking officers for Alexander II, attempting to justify its existence and to minimize its repressive aspects. Nevertheless, it contains much valuable information on the Third Section under Nicholas I; it is strikingly barren concerning the years under Alexander II, but perhaps the author simply assumed that the emperor was already well acquainted with this part of police history. 46. Bogucharsky, "Trete otdelenie," p. 100. 47. A. Lomachevsky, "Zapiski zhandarma," Vestnik Evropy (March 1872), p. 245. Lomachevsky's memoirs are quite remarkable for their candor and verisimilitude. In general, the tradition of Russian police memoirs up to the last ten or fifteen years of the imperial regime is strikingly different from tbe French: more honest, more personal, and less publicistic in intent. 48. M. I. Von Vock, "Pisma k A. K. Benkendorfu," Russkaia sfarina, XXXII (1881), 161-194, 303-336, 519-560; A. K. Benckendorff, "Graf

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Fourteenth"

323

Benkendorf o Rossii ν 1827-1832 gg.," Krasnyi arkhiv, XXXVII (1929), 128-174; XXXVIII (1930), 109-147; XLVI (1931), 133-159. Von Vock^s correspondence with Benckendorff in the first year of the Third Section's existence and Benckendorff's annual report (probably written by von Vock; at least, up to 1830) to the emperor are not only basic sources for our knowledge of the Third Section, but invaluable for any study of the reign of Nicholas. 49. Von Vock, "Pisma," pp. 172-175. 50. Ibid., p. 535. 51. Ibid., pp. 321, 529. 52. Benckendorff, "O Rossii," Krasnyi arkhio, XXXVIII, 115. 53. Ibid., XXXVII, 143. 54. Ibid., pp. 145-146. 55. Ibid., p. 153. 56. Von Vock, "Pisma," p. 548. 57. Benckendorff, "O Rossii," XXXVII, 162. 58. Staehlin, "Aus den Berichten," VI, 498. Staehlin was the descendant of an eighteenth-century German historian of Russia; in 1930, he was one of the few foreigners given access to the Russian state archives, and he used long quotations from Third Section reports in his series of articles in the periodical listed above in note 2. 59. F. F. Vigel, "Zapiski," Russkii arkhiv, no. 2 (prilozhenie, 1893), 109. 60. Staehlin, "Aus den Berichten," VII (1932), 384. 61. Samuel Kucherov, Courts, Lawyers and Trials Under the Last Three Tsars (New York, 1953), p. 3. 62. Shilder, Nikolai I, II, 31. 63. Ibid., I, 468-469. 64. Ν. M. Kolmakov, "Staryi sud," Russkaia sfarina, LII (1886), 533534. 65. Benckendorff, "O Rossii," XXXVIII, 127. 66. Ibid., p. 123. 67. Von Vock, "Pisma," p. 538. 68. Ibid., p. 181. See also Evgenii Tarle, Zapad i Rossiia (Petrograd, 1918), pp. 28-29. 69. Benckendorff, "O Rossii," XLVI, 152. 70. Mezhdutsarstvie, p. 48. 71. II P.S.Z., I, no. 277, pp. 390-391. 72. "Nikolai Pervyi — ν zabotakh o Dekabristakh," Byloe, no. 12 (1906), 54-55. 73. Staehlin, "Aus den Berichten," pp. 482-485. 74. A. Sergeev, "Ikonografiia Dekabristov," Krasnyi arkhiv, VI (1924), 260. 75. Franco Venturi, in II Populismo russo (2 vols.; Turin, 1952), I, 3-22, makes the best case that can be made for a continuing revolutionary tradition from the Decembrists on, by way of Herzen; even according to his argument, however, the influence of the Decembrists on Herzen consists of, first of all, their exemplary self-sacrifice. Pestel's writing on the

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peasant and land problems was not known to Herzen. An English translation of Venturi's Book, which promises to become a classic, has just appeared, Roots of Revolution (New York, 1960). 76. "Iz zapisok P. I. Falenberga," Russkii arkhiv, no. 9 (1877), 92105; Dekabrist M. S. Lunin: sochineniia i pisma, ed. S. Shtraikh (Petrograd, 1923), pp. 114-115. 77. Gernet, II, 48. 78. Ibid., p. 144. 79. Ibid., pp. 188-190. 80. Von Vock, "Pisma," pp. 190-191. 81. Gernet, II, 176. For an interesting monograph on the Decembrists in Siberia, see A. I. Dmitriev-Mamonov, Dekabristy ν zapadnoi Sibiri (St. Petersburg, 1905). See also, V. Timiriazev, "Pionery prosveshcheniia ν zapadnoi Sibiri," Istoricheskii vestnik (1896), pp. 629-647, 961-984; and Joseph L. Sullivan, "Decembrists in Exile," in Russian Thought and Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), pp. 93-106. 82. Gernet, II, 166. 83. Trotsky, Trete otdelenie, p. 33. 84. Gernet, II, 161. 85. Dekabrist Lunin, ed. Shtraikh; see also the moving account by ZetIin, The Decembrists, pp. 230-237. 86. S. Shtraikh, Roman Medoks: pokhozhdenie russkogo avantiurista (Moscow, 1930), p. 45. What follows is based largely on this very interesting social biography, which makes use of and quotes passages from otherwise unavailable archival materials. 87. Ibid., p. 84. 88. Staehlin, "Aus den Berichten," VII, 359-360. 89. A. S. Gangeblov, "Kak ia popal ν dekabristy i chto za tem posledovalo," Russkii arkhiv, no. 2 (1886), 182. 90. Piksanov, "Dvorianskaia reaktsiia," p. 146; see also p. 140. 91. M. Tsiavlovsky, "Epigony Dekabristov," Golos minuvshego, no. 7-8 (1917), 76-104; Mikhail Lemke, "Tainoe obshchestvo bratev Kritskikh," Byloe, no. 2 (1906), 41-57; "Ippolit Zavalishin ν Sibiri," Russkaia starino, XXXVI (1905), 658-661; Bogucharsky [V. Iakovlev], "Iz minuvshego: provokator 20-kh godov XIX veka," Kievskaia mysl, no. 38 (February 7, 1914), 2-3; M. O. Gershenzon, "Otgoloski 14-go Dekabria ν Moskovskom Universitete," Russkaia starina (1910), pp. 333-349; M. Kazokhanin, "Samozvanets Kalugin," Istoricheskii vestnik, no. 4 (1914), 167173; "Revoliutsionnoe vozzvanie 1831 goda," Byloe, no. 2 (1917), 183-186. Due, I suppose, to some eagerness to establish a continuity of revolutionary tradition, "pseudo-Decembrism" is one of the best-documented aspects of the reign of Nicholas, and even such a minor phenomenon as the circle of the Kritsky brothers has gathered quite a literature around it. 92. Gernet, II, 365-368. 93. Gleb Struve, Russkii Evropeets (San Francisco, 1950), p. 18. This is a biography of Kozlovsky, a friend of Chaadaev's, a man of strong Roman Catholic sympathies, who greatly influenced the Marquis de Custine's view of Russia during the latter's trip in 1839.

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94. V. Iakushkin, "K literaturnoi i obshchestvennoi istorii 1820-1830 godov," Russkaia starino, LX (1888), 149-168. 95. Benckendorff, "O Rossü," XXXVIII, 132. CHAPTER 3 . MANNERS AND MORALS IN THE THIRD SECTION

1. A. E. Presniakov's Apogei samoderzhaviia, Nikolai I (Leningrad, 1925) is a brilliant essay on this subject. The reader may also think of the three major novels of Stendhal, in which the parade-ground atmosphere is not only brilliantly described but felt in terms of its effects on all the characters. See also, Georges Weill, L'EveU des nationalités et le mouvement libéral, 1815-1848 (Paris, 1930). 2. Hans Speier, Social Order and the Risks of War (New York, 1952), pp. 223-252. 3. Bazilevsky [V. Iakovlev], Gosudarstvennye prestupleniia ν Rossii ν XIX veke (2 vols.; Stuttgart, 1908), I, 86-87. 4. A. Benois and N. Lanceray, "Dvortsovoe stroitelstvo Imperatora Nikolaia I," Starye gody (1913, July-Sept.), pp. 173-197; see also the reminiscences of Louis Philippe's ambassador, Baron du Barante, Souvenirs (9 vols.; Paris, 1897), III, 308-315; VI, 65, 363; VIII, 147-148. The French ambassador believed, however, that Nicholas' major fault lay in an overresponsiveness to "the common people." 5. Comte de Ficquelmont, Pensées morales et politiques (Paris, 1859), p. 366. Reflections of the Austrian ambassador. 6. M. I. Von Vock, "Pisma k A.K.Benkendorfu," Russkaia starino, XXXII (1881), 316. 7. A. K. Benckendorff, "Graf Benkendorf o Rossii ν 1827-1832 gg.," Krasnyi arkhiv, XXXVII (1929), 150. 8. Von Vock, "Pisma," p. 310. 9. Alfred Schweder, Politische Polizei (Berlin, 1937), p. 50. This curious little book, written by a Nazi, extols the "positive," dynamic quality of the Gestapo, compared with the backward, inefficient, "merely" repressive functioning of political police in Germany in the nineteenth century. From the point of view of a Nazi, the analysis is undoubtedly correct. 10. See Chaters 4 and 5. 11. Benckendorff, "O Rossü," XXXVII, 141. 12. Von Vock, "Pisma," p. 538. 13. Ibid., p. 550. 14. Ibid., p. 558 15. For the growth of the Russian periodical press, see Ν. M. Lisovsky, Periodicheskaia pechat ν Rossii, 1703-1903 (St. Petersburg, 1903). 16. "Zhurnaly komiteta uchrezhdennogo vyshochaishim reskriptom 6 Dekabria 1826 goda," Sbornik russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva, LXXIV (1891), 229, 231. 17. "O Rossü," XXXVII, 143. 18. Ibid., p. 145. 19. Ibid., p. 139; see also XLVI, 137. 20. Bogucharsky [V. Iakovlev], "Trete otdelenie o sebe samom," Vestnik

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Evropy, no. 3 (1917), 85; I. M. Trotsky, Trete otdelenie pri Nikolae 1 (Moscow, 1930), pp. 112-113, 123. 21. N. K. Shilder, "Dva donosa ν 1831 godu," Russkaia sfarina, XCVI (1898), 67-88, XCVII (1899), 289-314, 607-631; I. M. Trotsky, Zhizn Shervud-Vernago (Moscow, 1931), pp. 190ff. 22. M. Gernet, Istorila tsarskoi tiurmy (1st ed., Moscow, 1946), II, 323-324. 23. A. Lomachevsky, "Zapiski zhandarma," Vestnik Evropy, no. 3 (1872), 279. 24. M. K. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy t literatura (St. Petersburg, 1908), pp. 47-48, 540-541. This remains the classic work on the relationship of the political police to literature. Although Lemke had access to archival materials, he did not unfortunately have time to make full use of them, and his book is still based largely on published sources. Far more detailed than I. M. Trotsky's excellent, but rather slight and more general, monograph, Lemke's book still leaves a great deal to be explored. His comments on the Chaadaev case are often referred to, and he cites other instances of "state psychiatry." For the case history of Ivan Sviatopulk-Mirsky (an ancestor of the well-known literary critic, D. S. Mirsky, also a victim of political police), see K. Staehlin, "Aus den Berichten der III Abteilung s.m. höchsteigener Kanzlei an Kaiser Nikolaus I" Zeitschrift fuer osteuropaeische Geschichte, VII (1933). 25. Ν. Polievktov, Nikolai I (Petrograd, 1918), pp. 67-75. 26. Trotsky, Trete otdelenie, pp. 46-48; A. Iatsevich, Pushkinskti Peterburg (Leningrad, 1935), p. 367. The latter is the kind of evocative description of buildings, neighborhoods, and byt (way of life) that Russian literary historians, following Gershenzon's Griboedovskaia Moskva, have learned to do very well, though rarely equaling their model. 27. Iatsevich, pp. 30, 368. 28. Russkii biograficheskii slovar (25 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1896-1913), II, 695, 699; M. A. Korff, "Iz zapisok Baron Korfa," Russkaia starino, C (1899), 488-490. 29. Staehlin, p. 494; N. G., "Leontii Vasilevich Dubelt," Russkaia starino, XXIX (1880), 125. 30. Shilder, Nikolai I, II, 287. 31. Letter, Benckendorff to Prince Vorontsov, January 16, 1843, Arkhiv kniazia vorontsova (40 vols.; Moscow, 1870-1895), XXXV, 395. 32. S. G. Volkonsky, Zapiski (St. Petersburg, 1902), p. 135; Shilder, Aleksandr I, IV, 136. 33. Volkonsky, p. 135. 34. M. A. Korff, "Iz zapisok," Russkaia starine, XCIX (1899), 486. 35. E. I. Stogov, "Zapiski," Russkaia starino, CXIV (1903), 312. 36. Letter, Benckendorff to Vorontsov, September 19, 1826, Arkhiv vorontsova, XXXV, 268. 37. A. K. Benckendorff, "Iz zapisok grafa Benkendorfa," Istoricheskii vestnik, XCI (1903), 448-449. These fragments from BenckendorfFs memoirs reveal a mind almost appalling in its vacuity; in all fairness, however, Benckendorff had no talent for introspection, and his letters and papers,

Manners and Morals

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though far from brilliant, at least reveal that he was not entirely a cretin. 38. P. Karatygin, "Benkendorf i Dübelt," Istoricheskii vestnïk, XXX (1887), 166; see also, Korff, "Iz zapisok," C, 489. 39. Karatygin, p. 166. 40. Von Vock, "Pisma," p. 175. 41. Ibid., p. 556. 42. "O Rossii," XXXVII, 556. 43. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, p. 118. 44. "Perepiska velikogo kniazia Konstantina Pavlovicha s Grafom Benkendorfom, 1826-1828," Russkii arkhiv, no. 6 (1885), 274. 45. Shilder, Nikolai I, II, 37-38. 46. Korff, "Iz zapisok," C, 488-489. 47. A. I. Delvig, Polveka russkoi zhizni: vospominaniia A. I. Delviga, 1820-1870 (2 vols.; Moscow-Leningrad, 1930), I, 356-373. A relative of the poet Delvig (Pushkin's friend; see Chapter 5), A. I. Delvig was closely connected with railroad building in Russia; his memoirs, however, are of far more general interest and are full of acute observations on both the atmosphere and various state personalities of his time. See also, V. I. Durasov, "Graf Mechislav Pototskii ν Saratove," Russkaia starine, XCVIII (1899), 205-207, for the relationship between Benckendorff and the rather notorious Count Pototsky [Potocki]. 48. V. Pelchinsky, La Russie en 1844, par un homme d'état Russe (Paris-Leipzig, 1845), p. 129. A disgruntled, though by no means radical, Russian official, familiar with the highest circles of state under Nicholas, Pelchinsky provides much useful information, especially on the economic life of the country. 49. Ν. M. Kolmakov, "Staryi sud," Russkaia statina, LU (1886) 533, 535-536. 50. Pelchinsky, p. 135. 51. Baron du Barante, V, 354. 52. A. S. Pushkin, Polnoe sobrante sochinenii (16 vols.; Moscow-Leningrad, 1937-1950), XII, 201. 53. O. A. Przhetslavsky [Przeciawski], "Vospominaniia," Russkaia starino, XI (1874), 680. 54. Von Vock, "Pisma," p. 304. 55. Ibid., p. 183. 56. Ibid., pp. 185-186. 57. "O Rossii," XXXVII, 163. 58. Von Vock, "Pisma," p. 190. 59. "Benkendorf o Rossii," XXXVII, 119-120. 60. Von Vock, "Pisma," p. 306. 61. Ibid., pp. 192-193. 62. Ibid., p. 193. 63. Ibid., p. 307. 64. "O Rossii," XXXVII, 149-150. 65. Polnoe sobrante zakonov rossiiskoi imperii (240 vols.; 2nd series, St. Petersburg, 1833-1916), 1827, no. 1062, p. 396; appendix, pp. 130132.

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Notes to Chapter 3

66. P. M. Golenishchev-Kutuzov-Tolstoy, "Iz pamiatnykh zametok," Russkii arkhiv, no. 1 (1883), 221. 67. Ibid., p. 222; see also, Kolmakov, pp. 532-534. 68. Alexander Herzen, Polnoe sobrante sochinenii (24 vols.; Petrograd, 1919-1925) XIII, 48 (hereafter cited as Herzen, P.s.s.). An English translation by Constance Gamett of Herzen's memoirs, certainly one of the great autobiographies of the nineteenth century, exists but unfortunately is long out of print, My Past and Thoughts (6 vols.; London, 1924-1927). Four volumes of a new eighteen-volume edition of Herzen's complete works in Russian, published by the Academy of Sciences, have so far appeared: Sobrante sochinenii (Moscow, 1954-1959). 69. E. L. Dübelt, "Leonty Vasilevich Dubelt," Russkaia starino, LX (1888), 491. These brief reminiscences by Dubelt's son, along with his father's letters to his mother, are of course of great interest. 70. Ibid., p. 501. 71. Ibid., p. 502. 72. Ibid., p. 505. 73. Karatygin, p. 172. 74. Otto de Bray, "Imperator Nikolai I i ego spodvizhniki," Russkaia starino, CIX (1902), 128. These notes and character studies by the Bavarian ambassador to St. Petersburg of Nicholas and his most prominent officials are an indispensible source for any study of the reign of Nicholas. See also, A. Kharitonov, "Iz vospominanii," Russkaia starino, LXXXI (1894), 108. 75. Karatygin, p. 168. 76. L. V. Dubelt, "O sochineniiakh N. V. Gogolia," Russkaia starino, XXIX (1880), 999-1006; see also, L. V. Dubelt, "Zametki," Gobs minuvshego, no. 3 (1913), 127-171. These few scattered notes of Dubelt's unfortunately lack the candor of his letters to his wife. 77. E. L. Dubelt, p. 495. 78. Stogov, p. 314. 79. Ibid., p. 314. 80. Ibid., p. 317. 81. Ibid., pp. 323-330. 82. For a recent account of the Konarski brothers, Emilian and Szymon, and their connections with Young Poland, the émigré group headed by Lelewel, see Istoriia Polshi, ed. V. D. Koroliuk and others (3 vols.; Moscow, 1956), I, 590-596. 83. Lomachevsky, p. 279. 84. Ibid., p. 733. 85. Ibid., pp. 737, 323-324. 86. Herzen, P.s.s., XIII, 123n. 87. A. Esakov, "Graf A. K. Benkendorf i episkop Tsyvynsky," Russkaia starino, XXXI (1881), 497. See also, "Zapiski M. M. Popova V. G. Belinskomu ot 27 Marta 1848 g.," Russkaia starino, XXXVI (1882), 434. 88. The most complete account of Sherwood, on which my discussion is largely based, and a very interesting venture in social biography, is I. M. Trotsky, Zhizn Shervud-Vernogo (Moscow, 1931); older and less complete

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collections of material for a life of Sherwood are to be found in "B. P.," Shervud (Berlin, 1868); and Ν. K. Shilder, "Ispoved Shervuda," Istoricheskii vestnik, no. 1 (1896), 66-85, and "K biografii Shervud-Vernogo," Istoricheskii vestnik, no. 5 (1896), pp. 509-520. For the background of the military colonies, see P. P. Evstafev, Vosstanie novogorodskykh voennykh poselian (Moscow, 1934); and the interesting article by Richard Pipes, which sees the original motive for founding these colonies in a kind of benevolent (but misguided) state socialism, "The Russian Military Colonies, 1810-1831," Journal of Modern History, XXII (1950), 205-219. See also, S. Gessen, Kholernye bunty, 1830-1832 (Moscow, 1932). 89. Ν. N. Muraviev-Karsky, "Iz zapisok," Russkii arkhiv (1894), 415; Shilder, "Dva donosa ν 1831 godu," Russkaia starine, XCVl (1898), 6788, and XCVII (1899), 289-314, 607-631. 90. Trotsky, Zhizn Shervuda, pp. 139-150. 91. Ibid., pp. 161-162. 92. Ibid., pp. 190-191. 93. N. I. Grech, "F. V. Bulgarin," Russkaia sfarina, IV (1871), 483523; N. D., "Κ istorii russkoi literatury," Russkaia sfarina, CIII (1900), 559-592 (Bulgarin's criticism of Shishkov's censorship law and Shishkov's replies). 94. N. D., "K istorii," p. 562; B. L. Modzalevsky, Pushkin pod tainym nadzorom (Petrograd, 1922), p. 48; see also "Iz arkhiva F. V. Bulgarina," Russkaia Starina, CV (1901), 383-408. 95. Modzalevsky, p. 54; N. D., "K istorii," pp. 579-591. 96. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, pp. 289-290. 97. Ibid., p. 290. 98. Ibid., p. 339. 99. P. V. Annenkov, Vospominaniia i kriticheskie ocherki (St. Petersburg, 1881), part 3, p. 8. 100. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, p. 333. 101. Shilder, "Dva donosa," p. 521n. 102. Herzen, P.s.s„ XIII, 54. 103. Ibid., p. 52. 104. Ibid., p. 52. 105. Ibid., p. 47. 106. Ibid., p. 48. 107. Ibid., p. 50. 108. This passage is based on the reminiscences of I. V. Selivanov, "Zapiski dvorianina-pomeshchika," Russkaia sfarina, XXXVIII (1880), 303317, 725-753. 109. L. Ilinsky, "Gertsen i tret'e otdelenie," Golos minuvshego, no. 7 - 9 (1918), 80. 110. Herzen, P.s.s., XII, 137. 111. Ibid., p. 212. 112. Ilinsky, p. 84. 113. Ibid., p. 80. 114. Herzen, P.s.s., XII, 229-230. 115. Ibid., XIII, 65.

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116. Ibid., pp. 68-69. 117. Ibid., p. 99. 118. Ibid., p. 202. 119. Ilinsky, pp. 93-94. 120. Selivanov, p. 309; see also, D. Zaslavsky, "Tsarism ν borbe s A. I. Gertsenom," Krasnyi arkhiv, LXXXI (1937), 207-227. 121. P. Shchegelov, "Liubov ν raveline," Byloe, XV (1919), 137-151; see also, A. I. Sokolova, "Imperator Nikolai Pervyi i vasilkovye durachestva," Istoricheskii vestnik, no. 1 (1910), 104-107. 122. Marc Chassaigne, La Lieutenance generale de police, (Paris, 1906), pp. lOlff; K. Wolzendorff, "Aufldaerung und Polizeistaat," Zeitschrift fuer Staatswissenschaft, LXXII (1916-1917), 497. CHAPTER 4 . CENSORSHIP TO 1 8 4 8

1. Ν. A. Engelgardt, "Ocherki nikolaevskoi tsenzury," Istoricheskii vestník, LXXXV (1901), 851. 2. A. S. Nifontov, 1848 god ν Rossii (Moscow-Leningrad, 1931), p. 68. This brilliant little monograph by a Marxist historian quotes many interesting sets of figures which demonstrate the numerical "thinness" of the Russian educated public in the generation before 1848. See also, Engelgardt, p. 987. 3. Engelgardt, Istoricheskii vestnik LXXXVI (1901), 603. 4. Henri Avenel, Histoire de la presse française depuis 1789 jusqu'à nos Jours (Paris, 1900), pp. 30-32, 35-39, 68-118 — still the best overall study of the French press and its relationship to the state and to public opinion. 5. Sherman Kent, Electoral Procedure under Louis Philippe (New Haven, 1937), pp. 119-120; Phillip Spencer, "Censorship of Literature under the Second Empire," Cambridge Journal, III (1949), 48. 6. A. Skabichevsky, Ocherki istorii russkoi tsenzury, 1700-1863 gg. (St. Petersburg, 1892), pp. 1-65. Although still the most complete longterm survey of the Russian censorship, this book leaves much to be desired. See also "Tsenzura ν tsarstvovanie Nikolaia I," Russkaia sfarina, CVII (1901), 151-153 (hereafter cited as "Tsenzura"). This is the introductory portion of a quite remarkable official history of the censorship under Nicholas I, compiled for Alexander II in the early 1860s by V. Stasov, under the supervision of Baron Korff; it is a dispassionate document which, far from defending the censorship, tends rather to undermine it, though it expresses no overt polemic. Its compilation was part of the preparation for the censorship reforms of 1865. 7. Skabichevsky, pp. 65-98. 8. Mikhail Lemke, "Propushchennyi iubilei," Russkaia mysl, XI (1904), 44-62. 9. Skabichevsky, pp. 96-98, 116. 10. M. Sukhomlinov, Izsledovaniia i stati (2 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1899), I, 406-421. 11. N. Dubrovin, "K istorii russkoi tsenzury, 1814-1820 gg." Russkaia

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331

sfarina, CIV (1900), 643-664; "Tsenzura," p. 164; Engelgardt, LXXXV, 872-873; Skabichevsky, p. 182. 12. Skabichevsky, p. 104; "Tsenzura," CVII, 161, 163-164. 13. N. Shilder, Aleksandr Pervyi (4 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1905), IV, 321. 14. A. S. Shishkov, Zapiski, mneniia i perepiska Admírala Shishkova, ed. Ν. Kiselev and I. Samarin (2 vols.; Berlin, 1870), II, 275-276. 15. "Tsenzura," CVII, 396, 397, 402. 16. Shishkov, I, 51-52, 81, 87. A number of the proclamations written by Shishkov are also included in this volume. 17. Polnoe sobrante zakonov rossiiskoi imperii (2nd series, St. Petersburg, 1832-1916) (1826), no. 403, pp. 550-571 (hereafter cited as II P.s.z.) 18. Ibid., pp. 550-551. 19. Ibid., p. 563. 20. Shilder, Aleksandr Pervyi, IV, 304-306; Skabichevsky, p. 212. 21. II P.S.Z. (1826), no. 403, p. 564. 22. K. Sivkov, "S. N. Glinka,' Russkii biograficheskii slovar, (25 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1896-1913), V, 294; Shilder, Nikolai Pervyi, II, 33. 23. Shishkov, II, 276-280; "Tsenzura," CVII, 396. 24.

II

P.S.Z.,

p.

550.

30.

II

P.S.Z.,

1828, no. 1 9 7 9 , p.

25. N. D. [Dubrovin], "K istorii russkoi literatury," Russkaia starino, CHI (1900), 579-591. 26. "Mnenie A. S. Shishkova o tsenzure i knigopechatanii ν Rossii 1826 goda," Russkaia starino, CXIX (1904), 202. For a somewhat more detailed account of Shishkov's opinions and his "refutation" of Bulgarin, see my article, "Shishkov, Bulgarin and the Russian Censorship, ' in Russian Thought and Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1957). 27. "Mnenie Shishkova," p. 211. 28. "Tsenzura," CVII, 402. 29. Shilder, Nikolai Pervyi, II, 79. 461.

31. Α. V. Nikitenko, Dnevnik (3 vols.; Leningrad, 1955), I, 89, 95. This is the latest edition of a remarkable journal, kept between 1826 and 1877, to which we shall return later in this chapter. It is one of the best sources not only for the operation of the censorship laws and the mood and spirit of those who belonged to the censorship apparatus, but of the Ministry of Education, the universities, and Russian intellectual life in general during this period. 32. II P.s.Z. (1829, part 2), no. 3192, p. 133. 33. II P.S.Z. (1829), no. 2516, p. 1142; V. R. Zotov, "Peterburg ν 40-kh godakh," Istoricheskii vestnik, XXXIX (1890), 40-53, 566-567; Ν. V. Drizen, "Ocherki tsenzury dvukh epokh," Istoricheskii vestnik, LXXXI (1900), 564-585. 34. "Tsenzura," p. 644. 35. Mikhail Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy i literatura, 1826-1855, (St. Petersburg, 1908), p. 46. 36. "Tsenzura," CVII, 658. 37. Ibid., p. 659.

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38. Ibid., p. 653. 39. Ibid., p. 662. 40. Ibid., p. 666. 41. Ibid., p. 666-667. 42. Nikitenko, I, 99; A. I. Delvig, Vospominaniia A. I. Delviga, 18201870 (2 vols.; Moscow-Leningrad, 1930), I, 153-160. 43. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, p. 69; A. Caats, Kireevskii (Paris, 1937), pp. 74ff; Pogodin's entry in his journal is quoted in N. Barsukov, Zhizn i trudy M. P. Pogodina (22 vols., St. Petersburg, 1888-1910), III, 273. This study adds a new level of meaning to the word "definitive"; although I find it difficult to believe that anyone could have enough interest in Pogodin to suffer through twenty-two volumes of his life and works, Barsukov's labors have amassed an immense amount of interesting information and materials on the reign of Nicholas. 44. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, p. 67. 45. Ibid., pp. 69-70. 46. Letter, Pushkin to I. Kireevsky, February 4, 1832, A. S. Pushkin, Polnoe sobrante sochinenii (16 vols.; Moscow-Leningrad, 1937-1950), XV, 9. 47. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, pp. 72-73. 48. Paul Miliukov, Glavnye techeniia russkoi istoricheskoi mysli (3rd ed. St. Petersburg, 1913), pp. 319-322. 49. "Tsenzura," CXIII (1903), 307. 50. Ibid., CXIV, 590. 51. Barsukov, IV, 10-11. 52. "Iz bumag V. A. Zhukovskogo," Russkii arkhiv, no. 1 (1896), 114115. 53. "Zapiska podannaia Grafu Benkendorfu," Russkii arkhiv, no. 8 (1896), 578-579. 54. "Tsenzura," CXIII, 307. 55. Ibid., p. 589; CXIV (1903), 171. 56. Ibid., CXIII, 324. 57. Ibid., p. 313. 58. S. M. Solovev, "Moi zapiski dlia detei moikh," Vestnik Evropy, no. 4 (1907), 453-454. 59. Barsukov, IV, 2. 60. "Tsenzura," CXIII, 573. 61. Quoted by Sukhomlinov, II, 368. 62. "Tsenzura," CXIII, 264-266. 63. Dnevnik A. S. Pushkina, ed. V. F. Savodnik and others (Moscow, 1924), pp. 308-314, 355-358. 64. Sukhomlinov, II, 403. 65. Ibid., p. 410. 66. Ibid., pp. 412-413. 67. Nikolai Polevoi: materialy po istorii russkoi literatury i zhurnalistiki SO-kh godov, V. Orlov, ed. (Leningrad, 1934), p. 322. 68. Sukhomlinov, II, 429. 69. Herzen, P.s.s. XIII, 125. For the significance of the first Philosophi-

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cal Letter and Chaadaev's thought in general in the discussion among intellectuals of the problem of Russian nationalism and national destiny, see Alexandre Koyré, La Philosophie et le problème national en Russie au debut du XIXe siècle (Paris, 1929). The best and most complete collection of Chaadaev's writings is that edited and annotated by M. O. Gershenzon, Sochineniia i pisma (Moscow, 1913). See also, M. O. Gershenzon, P. I. Chaadaev: zhizn i myshlenie (St. Petersburg, 1908); Charles Quénet, Τchaadaev et les lettres philosophiques (Paris, 1931); Eugene Moskofi, The Russian Philosopher Chaadayev, His Ideas and His Epoch (New York, 1937). 70. Chaadaev, p. 181. 71. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, p. 377. 72. Ibid., p. 380. 73. Chaadaev, pp. 177-178. 74. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, pp. 397-398; see also, M. Zhikharev, "Petr Iakovlevich Chaadaev," Vestnik Evropy no. 5 (1871), pp. 29~30n. 75. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, pp. 426-428, 443. 76. Chaadaev, pp. 78-79. 77. Quénet, pp. 357-361, 408-412; Miliukov, Glavnye techeniia, pp. 325-341; Koyré, La Philosophie, pp. 174-210; Koyré, "Russia's Place in the World: P. Chaadaef and the Slavophils," Slavonic and East European Review, no. 3 (1927), 594-608. 78. The anticipation of a magnificent future premised on a dismal present is already expressed in the philosophical Letters, again in the letter to Turgenev cited in note 70 above, and most strongly and explicitly in the "Apology of a Madman" (Chaadaev, pp. 219-234). This vision of an apocalyptic future was a common experience among intellectuals during the reign of Nicholas, shared, for example, by Belinsky, Herzen, Bakunin, and Chemyshevsky. 79. Zhikharev, p. 31. 80. Quoted in Sukhomlinov, II, 363. 81. Zhikharev, pp. 37-38. 82. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, pp. 412—413. 83. Ibid., p. 422. 84. Ibid., p. 415. 85. Ibid., p. 446. 86. Ibid., p. 464. 87. Ibid., p. 454. 88. Quénet, pp. 371-393. 89. Nikitenko, I, 230. 90. Ibid., p. 126. 91. Ibid., p. 86. 92. Ibid., p. 89. 93. Ibid., p. 95. 94. Ibid., p. 114. 95. Ibid., p. 129. 96. Ibid., p. 130.

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97. Ibid., p. 163. 98. Ibid., p. 164. 99. Ibid., p. 165. 100. Ibid., pp. 233-234. 101. Ibid., pp. 204-205. 102. Ibid., p. 240. 103. Ibid., pp. 252-255. 104. Ibid., pp. 306-307. 105. Ibid., pp. 143-144. 106. Herzen, P.s.s., XII, 154-157. 107. See Chapter 5. 108. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, pp. 110-111; P. Shchegolev, Kniga 0 Lermontove (Leningrad, 1929), pp. 249-327; I. Borichevsky, "Pushkin 1 Lermontov ν borbe s pridvornoi aristokratiei," Literaturnoe nasledstvo, XLV-XLVI (1948), 323-362; "Lermontov na smert A. S. Pushkina," Vestnik Evropy, no. 1 (1887), 340-341; V. V. Stasov, "Uchilishche pravovedeniia sorok let tomu nazad," Russkaia statina, XXX (1881), 410-411. 109. Ν. Viktorov, "Kruzhok shestnadtsati," Istoricheskii vestnik, no. 10 (1895), 174-182. 110. Iury Oksman, "Mery nikolaevskoi tsenzury protiv furerizma," Gofos minuvshego, no. 5-6 (1917), 69-70; Rabochee dvizhenie ν Rossii ν XIX veke, ed. A. Pankratova (Moscow-Leningrad, 1951), pp. 594-710. 111. "Tsenzura," CXIII, 583ff. 112. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, p. 119. 113. P. V. Annenkov, Literaturnye vospominaniia (Leningrad, 1928), p. 174. 114. Letter, Belinsky to V. Botkin, February 6, 1843, in V. Belinsky, Pisma, ed. Ε. A. Liatsky, (3 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1914), II, 331. 115. Annenkov, p. 172. 116. V. Belinsky, Polnoe sobrante sochinenii, ed. S. Vengerov (11 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1900), I, 394; Herbert Bowman, Vissarion Beltnski, 18111848: A Study in the Origins of Social Criticism in Russia (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), pp. 63-66. For a sympathetic, appreciative, and thoroughly sophisticated estimate of Belinsky, see Isaiah Berlin, "A Marvelous Decade (III), Belinsky: Moralist and Prophet," Encounter, V (December 1955), 22-43. For the negative aspects of Belinsky's impact on the Russian literary tradition, see Rufus W. Mathewson, Jr., The Positive Hero in Russian Literature (New York, 1958). 117. Annenkov, p. 180. 118. As quoted in Bowman, p. 66. 119. Belinsky, P.s.s., X, 412. 120. Letter, Belinsky to Botkin, September 8, 1841, Pisma, II, 262, 266. 121. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, p. 175. 122. Ibid., p. 176. 123. Ibid., pp. 176-177. 124. "Zapiska Μ. M. Popova V. G. Belinskomu ot 27 Marta 1848 g.," Russkaia starina, XXXVI (1882), 434. 125. I. M. Trotsky, Zhizn Shervud-Vernogo (Moscow, 1931), p. 274.

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126. Bogucharsky, "Trete otdelenie e.i.v. kantseliarii o sebe samom," Vestnik Evropy, no. 3 (1917), 101. 127. Annenkov, pp. 301ÉF; I. Panaev, Literatumye vospominaniia (Leningrad, 1928), pp. 325ff; D. Aksharumov, Zapiski Petrashevtsa (Moscow-Leningrad, 1930), pp. 25-26; V. R. Zotov, "Peterburg ν sorokovykh godakh," Istoricheskii vestnik, XXXIX (1890), 29-32, 53, and XL, 200-219. 128. "Tsenzura," CXIV, 671; Nifontov, pp. 75-76; A. Yarmolinsky, "A Note on the Censorship of Foreign Books in Russia under Nicholas I," New York Public Library Bulletin, XXXVIII (1934), 908; Ε. I. Lamansky, "Iz vospominanii," Russkaia starino, CLXI (1915), 79. 129. "Tsenzura," CXIV, 671. 130. Ibid., p. 669. 131. Annenkov, p. 302. 132. Nifontov, p. 77. 133. V. I. Semevsky, M. Butashevich-Petrashevsky i Petrashevtsy (Moscow, 1922), 170. 134. Lemke, Ocherki po istorii russkoi tsenzury i zhurnalistiki XIX stoletiia (St. Petersburg, 1904), pp. 92-97; see also Chapter 6. CHAPTER 5 . EMPIRE AND CABBAGE SOOT

1. This chapter deals with the complex relationship between Pushkin, Russia's greatest poet, and Nicholas' police. As Pushkiniana, it makes no claim to original research or to any unique discovery. I hope merely, through the use of a "case study" (a unique case, to be sure), to dramatize certain aspects of the police and police activity which might otherwise remain obscure, or at least dry and impersonal. In revealing something about the police, I would hope that I have also managed to reveal something about Pushkin as well, and through Pushkin about Russian literature; but this has not been my primary purpose. The literature on Pushkin in Russian is of course enormous; I have simply used what seemed to me most reliable and most useful for my purposes. Curiously enough, a definitive biography of Pushkin still remains to be written. Relatively more research has been done on his early years than on the later. I have relied heavily on two very good biographies: Ernest Simmons, Pushkin (Cambridge, Mass., 1937), and Henri Troyat, Pouchkine (2 vols.; Paris, 1946). There is a one-volume abridged English translation of the latter, Pushkin (New York, 1947), which, although it omits references and the author's critical appraisals of Pushkin's work (rather the weaker part of the book), nevertheless gains something in dramatic power. The books by Paul Shchegolev, Iz zhizni t tvorchestva Pushkina (Moscow-Leningrad, 1931) and Duel' i smert Pushkina (Moscow, 1936), make fascinating reading and contain much interesting material, but are basically tendentious and too obviously involved in the process of discrediting Nicholas I to be fully authoritative. Of the many interpretative works dealing with Pushkin's significance as a writer, I have drawn on the following: Paul Miliukov, Zhivoi Pushkin (Paris, 1937), a brilliant essay; the two profound, humane, and learned essays by G. P. Fedotov, "Pevets imperii i svobody" and "O

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gumanizme Pushkina," to be found in the collection of his articles, Novyi grad (New York, 1952); Edmund Wilson, "In Honor of Pushkin," in The Triple Thinkers (London, 1952); and W. Lednicki, Pushkin's Bronze Horseman: The Story of a Masterpiece (Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1955). For the most part, I have relied on Pushkin's writings themselves. All quotations from his poems are from the definitive edition of his works published by the Akademiia Nauk, Polnoe sobrante sochinenii (16 vols.; Moscow-Leningrad, 1937-1950), except where otherwise indicated (hereafter cited as Pushkin, P.S.S.). Translations are my own, though I have leaned a bit on Edmund Wilson's translation of "The Bronze Horseman," which is included in his essay cited above. 2. Pushkin, P.S.S., XII, 158. 3. D. F. Kobeko, lmperatorskii tsarskoselskii litsei: nastavniki i pitomtsy, 1811-1843 (St. Petersburg, 1911). 4. B. L. Modzalevsky, Pushkin pod tainym nadzorom (Petrograd, 1922), p. 19. 5. I. I. Pushchin, Zapiski o Pushkine (Moscow, 1937), p. 67. 6. Letter, Zhukovsky to Pushkin, April 12, 1826, Pushkin, P.S.S., XIII, 271. 7. A. N. Petrov, "Skobelev i Pushkin," Russkaia starina, IV (1871), 673; Shchegolev, Iz zhizni, p. 78. 8. Modzalevsky, p. 15. 9. Ibid., pp. 19-20. 10. S. S. Sukhonin, "Delà III otdeleniia sobstvennoi e.i.v. Kantseliarii ob A. S. Pushkine," Vsemirnyi vestnik (prilozheniia 1905), p. 2. 11. Shchegolev, Iz zhizni, p. 90. 12. Letter, Pushkin to Viazemsky, May 27, 1826, P.s.s., XIII, 280. 13. Pushkin, Polnoe sobrante sochinenii (10 vols; Moscow-Leningrad, 1957-1958) VIII, 69. A later edition. 14. Letter, Pushkin to Zhukovsky, January 20, 1826, P.s.s., XIII, 257. 15. M. A. Korff, "Iz zapisok Barona Korfa," Russkaia starina, CI (1900), 574; A. G. Khomutova, "Iz zapisok," Russkii arkhiv (1867), 1066. 16. Modzalevsky, p. 56. 17. Ibid., p. 73. 18. Ibid., p. 74. 19. Letter, Pushkin to Benckendorff, November 29, 1826, P.s.s., XIII, 308. 20. Sukhonin, pp. 23, 27; G. Vinokur, "Kto byl tsenzorom 'Borisa Godunova?" Vremennik Pushinskoi Kommissit, I (1936), 203ÉE. 21. Letter, Pushkin to Benckendorff, January 3, 1827, P.s.s., XIII, 317. 22. Sukhonin, p. 34. 23. N. Barsukov, "Vypiski iz pisem grafa A. K. Benkendorfa k Imperatoru Nikolaiu I o Pushkine," Starina i novizna, VI (1903), 6. 24. Ε. V. Putiata, "Zapisnaia knizhka Ε. V. Putiaty," Russkii arkhiv, no. 6 (1899), 350-351. 25. Ibid., p. 349. 26. Lemke, "Tainoe obshchestvo bratev Kritskikh," Byloe, no. 6 (1905),

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27. Sukhonin, p. 66. 28. Letter, Pushkin to Delvig, March 2, 1827, P.S.S., XIII, 320; see also, Miliukov, Zhivoi Pushkin, p. 66. 29. Lemke, Ocherki po istorii russkoi zhurnalistiki ν XIX veke (St. Petersburg, 1904), p. 388. 30. Modzalevsky, pp. 78, 90-95. 31. "Perepiska velikogo kniazia Konstantina Pavlovicha s grafom Benkendorfom, 1826-1828," Russkii arkhiv, no. 6 (1884), 321. 32. Sukhonin, p. 84. 33. Ibid., p. 95. 34. Letters, Pushkin to Benckendorff, March 21 and March 24, 1830, P.S.S., XIV, 71-73. 35. Letters, Benckendorff to Pushkin, April 3, 1830, Pushkin, P.s.s., XIV, 75. 36. "Iz bumag V. A. Zhukovskogo," Russkii arkhiv, no. 1 (1896), 115-116. 37. Lemke, Ocherki, p. 392. 38. Barsukov, "Vypiski iz pisem," pp. 7-10. 39. A. O. Smirnova, quoted by Troyat, Pouchkine, II, 205. Unfortunately, Smirnova's "memoirs" from which the quotation is taken, in spite of their great interest and feeling of authenticity, were shown to be a forgery, the work of Smirnova's granddaughter. They might, nevertheless, contain genuine fragments, based on verbal reminiscences. A. O. Smirnova-Rosset, Avrobiograftia, ed. L. V. Krestov, introd. D. D. Blagoi (Moscow, 1931). 40. Letter, Benckendorff to Pushkin, April 28, 1830, Pushkin, P.S.S., XIV, 81. 41. Letter, Pushkin to Zhukovsky, July 6, 1834, P.s.s., XV, 176. 42. Letter, Pushkin to N. Pushkina, April 22, 1834, P.S.S., XV, 129-130. 43. Pushkin, Dnevnik, pp. 56-57. 44. Letter, Pushkin to N. Pushkina, P.S.S., XV, 154. 45. Pushkin, Dnevnik, pp. 40, 55, 65-66, 41, 63. 46. Pushkin, P.s.s., X, 256, 257. 47. Ibid., XII, 32. 48. Lednicki, p. 69. 49. Quoted, ibid., p. 82. 50. Quoted, ibid., p. 36. 51. See variant version of text, Pushkin, P.s.s., V, 448. 52. Letter, Pushkin to Benckendorff, July 21, 1831, P.s.s., XIV, 256. 53. Letter, Pushkin to N. Pushkina, May, 1836, P.s.s., XVI, 117-118. 54. Letter, Pushkin to N. Pushkina, May 5, 1836, P.s.s., XVI, 113. 55. I Borichevsky, "Pushkin i Lermontov ν borbe s pridvomoi aristokratiei," Literaturnoe nasledstvo, XLV-XLVI (1948), 323-341. 56. "Pominki A. S. Pushkina," Russkaia starino, XXVIII (1880), 536537 57. Quoted, Shchegolev, Duel i smert Pushkina, pp. 266-267. 58. Quoted, ibid., p. 299. 59. Quoted, Shchegolev, Iz zhizni, pp. 148-149.

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60. Prince Shcherbatov, Kniaz Paskevich (7 vols.; St. Petersburg, 18911899), V, appendix, 320, 322. 61. Quoted, Shchegolev, Duel i smert Pushkina, p. 226. CHAPTER 6 . 1 8 4 8 , AND AFTER

1. Otto de Bray, "Imperator Nikolai I i ego spodvizhniki," Russkaia statina, CIX (1902), 121. 2. L. Namier, 1848: The Revolution of the Intellectuals (London, 1944); P. Robertson, The Revolutions of 1848: A Social History (Princeton, 1952). This latter work, though useful as the only book in recent years which utilizes the vast number of monographs and special studies available in order to present something like a panoramic view of the revolutions of 1848, nevertheless still leaves much to be desired. 3. A. Zaionchkovsky, Vostochnaia voina, 1853-1856 (2 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1908), I, 175-210; Evgeny Tarle, Krymskaia voina (2 vols.; 2nd ed., Moscow-Leningrad, 1950), II, 330-353. The main virtue of the work first cited is a long and detailed analysis of the over-all social, political, and economic situation in Russia on the eve of the war. The second work (the passage cited here contains a circumstantial account of Nicholas' death) is one of some brilliance; one would trust it more if the author's interpretation of events did not shift from edition to edition with corresponding shifts in Soviet foreign policy. 4. Tarle, Krymskaia voina, I, 442; II, 546-549, 554-558, 560-574, 576-596. 5. Russkii biograficheskii slovar, XIII, 579. 6. Tarle, Zapad i Rossiia (Petrograd, 1918), p. 28. 7. Ibid., p. 34. 8. Bogucharsky [V. Iakovlev], "Trete otdelenie sobstvennoi e.i.v. kantseliarii o sebe samom," Vestnik Evropy, no. 3 (1917), 93. 9. Α. Κ. Benckendorff, "Ιζ zapisok," Istoricheskii vestnik, XCI (1903), 53; M. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy i literatura (St. Petersburg, 1908), p. 97; Ν. Shilder, Imperator Nikolai I (2 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1903), II, 713-714. 10. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, p. 160. 11. Tarle, Zapad i Rossiia, p. 43; Bruce Hopper, "Custine and Russia — A Century after," American Historical Review, LVII (1952), 388. 12. Alphonse de Custine, La Russie en 1839 (4 vols.; Brussels, 1845), I, 16, and III, 71; Tarle, Zapad i Rossiia, p. 43. 13. Honoré de Balzac, Lettre sur Kiew (Paris, 1927), pp. 10, 12; see also, Leonid Grossman, "Balzak ν Rossii," Literaturnoe nasledstvo, XXXIXXXII (1937), 149-369. 14. Gleb Struve, Russkii Evropeets (San Francisco, 1950), p. 139. 15. B. L. Modzalevsky, "Iakov Nikolaevich Tolstoy," Russkaia starino, C (1899), 189; Tarle, "Doneseniia Iakova Tolstogo iz Parizha ν III otdelenie," Literaturnoe nasledstvo, XXXI-XXXH (1937), 563-566. 16. Tarle, Zapad i Rossiia, pp. 55ff. 17. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, p. 144.

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18. Ibid., p. 149. 19. Quoted, Tarle, Zapad i Rossiia, p. 53. 20. Ibid., p. 53. 21. Quoted, Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, pp. 150-151. 22. Iakov N. Tolstoy, Revoliutsiia 1848 g. v. Frantsii, ed. G. Zaidal (Moscow, 1925), p. 17. 23. Modzalevsky, "Iakov Tolstoy," p. 192. 24. Tarle, Zapad i Rossiia, p. 31; L. V. Case, French Opinion on War and Diplomacy during the Second Empire (Philadelphia, 1954), pp. 15-50. 25. A. S. Nifontov, 1848 god ν Rossii (Moscow, 1931), p. 184; M. Lemke, Ocherki po istorii russkoi tsenzury i zhurnalistiki XIX stoletiia (St. Petersburg, 1904), pp. 185-197; V. Evgenev-Maksimov, Sovremennik ν 40-50 gg. (Leningrad, 1934), pp. 236-237. 26. Nifontov, 1848 god, p. 187. 27. Lemke, Ocherki, p. 199. 28. M. A. Korff, "Iz zapisok barona Korfa," Russkaia sfarina, CI (1900), 573. 29. "Doneseniia agentov o dukhe ν Moskve ν 1848 godu," Minuvshie gody, no. 5-6 (1908), 344; "Revoliutsiia 1848 goda i Moskva," Byloe, no. 11 (1906), 73-77. 30. Nifontov, 1848 god, pp. 114-116. 31. Ibid., p. 116. 32. Nifontov, "1848 god ν Rossii," Revoliutsii 1848-1849 (2 vols.; Moscow, 1952), II, 244-245. This publication of the Akademiia Nauk, the work of many hands, is by far the most complete general study of the revolutions of 1848 in Europe. It contains a number of good essays and a voluminous bibliography. Unfortunately, it is quite tendentious; the long article by Nifontov, for example, which is extremely interesting and contains many new materials not cited in his previous monograph on 1848, imposes a forced interpretation on the events it so aptly describes, coinciding with the then-current party line. In his previous monograph, Nifontov brilliantly if not wholly convincingly advanced the thesis that Russia, far from being out of the swing of events in 1848, had been profoundly influenced by the revolutions in Europe. In this essay, Nifontov leaves his materials far behind to propose that, although events in Europe were closely followed in Russia, Russian events remained entirely independent of them; he goes so far as to imply that there was something almost like an independent revolution in Russia itself. 33. P. A. Valuev, "Dnevnik," Russkaia sfarina, LXX (1891), 172. The journal of the future Minister of the Interior under Alexander II is, of course, of great interest. 34. Nifontov, "1848 god," Revoliutsii 1848-1849, II, 271. 35. Nifontov, 1848 god, p. 131. 36. Ibid., p. 131. 37. Ibid., p. 144. 38. Korff, p. 562. 39. Nifontov, 1848 god, p. 157. 40. Ibid., p. 158.

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41. Prince Shcherbatov, Kniaz Paskevich (7 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1891-1899), VI, 214. 42. "Vsepodanneishii otchet ministra inostrannykh del grafa Nesselrode 25 let tsarstvovaniia Imperatora Nikolaia I," Sbornik russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva, XCVIII (1896), 295. 43. L. V. Dubelt, "Zametki," Golos minuvshego, no. 3 (1913), 162. 44. Nifontov, 1848 god, pp. 172-173. 45. Ibid., p. 181. 46. S. V. Rozhdestvensky, Istoricheskii obzor deiatelnosti ministerstva narodnogo prosvershcheniia (St. Petersburg, 1902), pp. 334-338. This is an official history, published by the Ministry of Education. 47. Nifontov, 1848 god, p. 200. 48. S. Adrianov, Ministerstvo vnutrennykh del (St. Petersburg, 1902), p. 101. This is an official history of the Ministry of the Interior, published, like the work cited in note 46, on the occasion of the one-hundredth anniversary of its founding. 49. De Bray, CIX, 132, 136. 50. M. Gernet, Istorila russkoi tiurmy (3 vols.; 1st ed., Moscow-Leningrad, 1946), II, 283. 51. V. I. Semevsky, M. V. Butashevich-Petrashevsky i Petrashevtsy (Moscow, 1922), pp. 109-110. This is still the best monograph on the Petrashevsky conspiracy and its background. 52. I. P. Liprandi, "Zapiski," Russkaia starino, VI (1872), 71. These reminiscences of Liprandi are surely among the most curious and interesting of all police memoirs. They are written, not without style, by a gentleman and a scholar, who was only a part-time secret agent, before police work became the arduous and specialized task that left little time for the acquisition of stylistic embellishments. Moreover, Liprandi worked as much out of conviction as for pay. 53. "A. I. Gertsen o Petroshevtsakh," Petrashevtsy ν vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, ed. by P. Shchegolev (Moscow- Leningrad, 1926), pp. 3-6. 54. Délo Petrashevtsev, Akademiia Nauk, (3 vols.; Moscow-Leningrad, 1937), I, 146. This is the published transcript of the investigation and trial of the Petrashevtsy. 55. Semevsky, Petrashevsky, p. 194; Filosofskie i obshchestvennopoliticheskie proizvedeniia Petrashevtsev (Moscow, 1953), pp. 503-504; V. R. Leikina, Petrashevets N. A. Speshnev," Byloe, no. 25 (1924), 12-31. 56. Liprandi, p. 79. 57. Delo Petrashevtsev, I, 45; see also, Semevsky, Petrashevsky, p. 171. 58. Semevsky, Petrashevsky, p. 183. 59. Ibid., p. 144. 60. Ibid., p. 183. 61. Filosofskie . . . Petrashevtsev, pp. 194-195. 62. V. R. Zotov, "Peterburg ν sorokovykh godakh," Istoricheskii vestnik, XL (1890), 540. 63. Semevsky, Petrashevsky, pp. 134-135, 140, 164-165. 64. Liprandi, p. 84; Semevsky, Petrashevsky, p. 168; for list of books, reproduced in full, see Delo Petrashevtsev, I, 559-577.

1848, and After

341

65. D. D. Akhsharumov, Ζapiski Petrashevtsa (Moscow-Leningrad, 1930), pp. 27-28. 66. Ibid., p. 62. 67. Semevsky, Petrashevsky, pp. 201-202; Delo Petrashevtsev, I, 470. Chernosvitov was one of the few among the Petrashevtsy who had seen peasant revolts (in Siberia, where he had been a mining engineer) at first hand, and who excited Speshnev by the prospect of a peasant jacquerie that might propel a Jacobin dictatorship into power. 68. Liprandi, p. 77. 69. Ibid., p. 77. 70. Ibid., p. 78-79. 71. Delo Petrashevtsev, I, 161-162. 72. Liprandi, p. 86. 73. Ibid., p. 112. 74. Gernet, II, 204. 75. Bazilevsky [V. Iakovlev], Gosudarstvennye prestuplenii ν Rossii υ XIX veke (2 vols.; Stuttgart, 1903), I, 196. 76. Bogucharsky, "Trete otdelenie," p. 102. 77. N. G. Chernyshevsky, Polnoe sobrante sochinenii (Moscow, 1939), I, 274. 78. N. S. Golitsyn, "Dva sobytiia iz moei zhizni," Russkaia starina, LXVIII (1890), 376-379. 79. V. I. Semevsky, "Kirillo-Mefodievskie obshchestvo," Golos minuvshego, no. 11-12 (1918), 102. 80. Ibid., pp. 148-149. 81. Ν. M. Kostomarov, Avtobiografiia (Moscow, 1922), pp. 198-199. 82. Semevsky, "Kirillo," p. 155. 83. Ibid., p. 157. 84. "Tsenzura ν tsarstvovanie Imperatora Nikolaia I," Russkaia starina, CXV (1903), 664-665. 85. Ibid., p. 664. 86. Β. E. Nolde, lury Satnarin i ego vremia (Paris, 1926), pp. 47-48. A good general study of the slavophiles is badly needed. Nicholas Riasanovsky, Russia and the West in the Teaching of the Slavophiles (Cambridge, Mass., 1952), covers one aspect of the subject in a thorough and competent manner, but it is quite lacking in that spirit of excitement and discovery the slavophiles themselves felt and which they were sometimes capable of conveying. 87. Μ. I. Sukhomlinov, Izsledovanie i stati (2 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1889), II, 494. 88. Quoted, Nifontov, "1848 god," Revoliutsii 1848-1849, II, 253. 89. Sukhomlinov, II, 506. 90. Ibid., p. 510. 91. "Tsenzura," p. 663. 92. Ibid., p. 662. 93. Sukhomlinov, II, 515-516; Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, pp. 219, 227. 94. Nifontov, 1848 god, pp. 153, 198.

342

Notes to Chapter 6

95. Lemke, Nikolaevskie zhandarmy, p. 206. 96. Ibid., p. 208. 97. P. Víazemsky, Polnoe sobrante sochinenii (12 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1882-1886), IX, 48. 98. Baron du Barante, Souvenirs (8 vols.; Paris, 1897), VI, 65; see also, Tarle, Zapad i Rossiia, pp. 8, 10. 99. Tarle, Zapad i Rossiia, pp. 18, 23. 100. "Graf A. K. Benkendorf o Rossii ν 1827-1830 gg.," Krasnyi arkhiv, XXXVII (1929), 151-152. 101. Custine, IV, 155. 102. Bogucharsky, p. 96. 103. Staehlin, pp. 362-363. 104. Krestianskoe dvizhenie, 1827-1869, ed. E. A. Morokhovets, (Moscow, 1931), pp. 84-85. 105. Bogucharsky, p. 94. 106. Krestianskoe dvizhenie, p. 33. 107. Ibid., p. 31. 108. Ibid., pp. 31-32. 109. Staehlin, pp. 378-379. 110. Krestianskoe dvizhenie, p. 84. 111. Ibid., p. 87. 112. Korff, p. 562. 113. "Imperator Nikolai Pavlovich ν ego rechi k deputatam S. Peterburgskogo dvorianstva," Russkaia sfarina, XXXIX (1883), 594-596. 114. Bogucharsky, p. 94; Krestianskoe dvizhenie, p. 82. 115. Krestianskoe dvizhenie, p. 84. 116. "K istorii rabochego klassa ν Rossii," ed. A. Sergeev, Krasnyi arkhiv, II (1922), 178-179. 117. Ibid., pp. 176-183; Rabochee dvizhenie, pp. 685-781; Nifontov, "1848 god," Revoliutsii 1848-1849, II, 223; Bogucharsky, p. 96. 118. "Revoliutsiia 1848 goda i Moskva," Bybe, no. 11 (1906), 73. 119. Krestianskoe dvizhenie, p. 104; Staehlin, p. 386; N. S. Shtakelberg, "Zagadka smerti Nikolaia I," Russkoe proshloe, no. 1 (1923), 58-73; Constantine de Grunwald, Tsar Nicholas I (New York, 1955), pp. 277-289. 120. "Trete otdelenie i Krymskaia voina," ed. A. Sergeev, Krasnyi arkhiv, no. 3 (1923), 294. 121. Bogucharsky, p. 105. 122. Ibid., p. 116. 123. Isaiah Berlin, "1848 in Russia," Slavonic and East European Review (1949). 124. Letter, Herzen to T. N. Granovsky and E. F. and E. M. Korsh, September 6, 1848, P.S.S., V, 236. 125. Golitsyn, pp. 378-379. 126. P. A. Valuev, "Duma russkogo, 1855 g.," Russkaia starino, LXX (1891), 354.

In Retrospect

343

CHAPTER 7 . T H E THIRD SECTION IN RETROSPECT

1. Bogucharsky [V. Iakovlev], "Trete otdelenie e.i.v. kantseliarii o sebe samom," Vestnik Evropy, no. 3 (1917), 94-110. 2. Ibid., p. 93. 3. In addition to the works on the Petrashevtsy cited in the notes to Chapter 6, see Franco Venturi, Il Populismo russo (2 vols.; Turin, 1952), I, 110-153. 4. See the passages cited by Nicholas Riasanovsky, "Pogodin and Shevyrev in Russian Intellectual History," Russian Thought and Politics, pp. 159-164. 5. N. G. Chernyshevsky, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (15 vols.; Moscow, 1939-1951), I, 122; see also, Venturi, I, 181, 182, 235. 6. I. M. Trotsky, Trete otdelenie pri Nikolae I (Moscow, 1930), p. 1. 7. N. Dzhanshiev, Epokha velikikh reform (St. Petersburg, 1899), p. 18. 8. Protsess N. G. Chernyshevskogo. Arkhivnye dokumenty. Red. i primechaniia N. A. Alekseeva (Saratov, 1939), p. 18; cited by Venturi, I, 295. 9. The significance of the word zapiski, in a somewhat different context, is examined in Renato Poggioli, The Phoenix and the Spider: A Book of Essays about some Russian Writers and their View of the Self (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), p. 7. 10. I owe this phrase to Venturi, I, 243. 11. See Rufus W. Mathewson, Jr., The Positive Hero in Russian Literature (New York, 1958), especially pp. 57-107, for the role of Dobroliubov and Chernyshevsky in forming the tradition that eventually led to "socialist realism." 12. A. V. Nikitenko, Dnevnik (3 vols.; Leningrad, 1955), I, 141. 13. Dzhanshiev, p. 359. 14. See Samuel Kucherov, Courts, Lawyers and Trials under the Last Three Tsars (New York, 1953). 15. S. S. Tatishchev, Imperator Alexsandr II i ego tsarstvovanie (2 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1903), II, 536-537, 539, 588.

INDEX Academy of Sciences, 142, 146, 156, 176, 195, 267 Adresnye kontory (address offices), 105 Akhsharumov, D. D., 193, 255-256 Aksakov, Constantine, 263, 281 Aksakov, Ivan, 264-265, 281 Alekseevsky Ravelin, 74, 75, 130, 247 Alexander I, 4, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17; policies with regard to political police, 37-48; 53, 54, 55, 57, 60, 88, 94, 114, 116; censorship under, 136-138, 139, 158, 198, 200, 202, 203, 221, 225, 230 Alexander II, 108, 215, 230; police activities at the time of the great reforms of, 280-281; official history of Third Section ordered by, 283-284, 286, 287, 292-293 Alexey, Tsar, 29, 30-32 Alexey, Tsarevich, 32-33 Annenkov, P. V., 121,187,188,193 Antonelli, P. D., 251, 253, 254 Arakcheev, Α. Α., 44, 45, 46, 60, 65, 114 Aristocracy, Russian, boyars, 6; court aristocracy, 6-7, 15, 50, 67, 68, 90, 215 Army, role of, in the creation of national consciousness, 84-85; military power of, 2, 270, 279-281 Arzamas, 52 "Audacity," label used by political police, 152,156,161, 189, 191 Austria, army of, 229-230, 244; police of, 27, 36, 41, 44-45, 86, 232 Autocracy, as inherited by Nicholas I, 2-20, 31, 47, 53, 58, 62, 65, 90, 91, 102, 131-132, 266n, 269; hopes vested in, 285-286, 287; and Russian literature, 289-293, 294

Bakunin, Michael, 188, 236, 240, 265266n, 285 Balance of power, European, 244, 266n, 279 Balashov, A. D„ 40, 42, 43, 44, 47 Balzac, Honoré de, 233-234 Bark-Petrovsky, Major, 114 Batenkov, G. S., 74 Beards, 15, 250n, 271, 273 Belinsky, V. G., 112, 120, 166; role as a critic, 187-193; 287 Benckendorff, A. K., 48, 54n, 56; his project for the formation of political police, 60-62; function as Chief of Gendarmes, 63; early activity and interest as head of political police, 6481, 87, 90; personality and views, 92-99; recruitment of gendarme officers by, 105, 106; recruitment of secret agents, 113, 115, 116, 118; recruitment of "propaganda agents," 119, 120; atmosphere created by, 122, 123, 124, 126, 143, 147, 148, 149; censorship pressure exerted by, 150, 151, 152, 153-155, 160-171, 180, 181, 84; relations with Pushkin, 200201, 205-207, 208, 209-215, 223225, 226-227, 230, 231, 235, 247, 271, 273 Bestuzhev, A. A. ("Marlinsky"), 83, 186 Bibikov, General, 70, 81, 115, 239, 261 Birukov (censor), 137 Black chambers, 26, 60, 73 Blanc, Louis, 193 Boldyrev (censor), 167, 168, 172 Boris Godunov, 204-206, 210, 213-214 Borovkov, Α. V., 70 Borozdin, Κ. M., 174-175 Boshniak (police agent), 113, 201

346

Index

Broch, Hermann, 10 "Bronze Horseman, The," 217, 219-223 Bulgarin, F. V., Θ5, 72, 86, 92, 104, 108; personality, career, services to the political police, 117-122; critique of censorship, 142-144, 146, 148, 150, 151, 155, 156, 166, 174, 175, 186, 187, 189, 190, 192; grudge against Pushkin, 206-207, 209, 211212, 216, 220, 223, 224, 242, 245, 246,281 Bureaucracy, problems of, 12-13, 67, 68, 69, 70, 86, 96-97, 288 Butashevich-Petrashevsky, M. V., 248260 Buturlin Committee, 108, 129, 150, 182, 196, 238, 243, 245, 266, 268 Byron, Lord, 83, 205, 215

Chernyshevsky, N. G., 183, 259-260, 285, 286, 287 Cholera, epidemics of, in Russia, 89, 96, 175, 287 Christian VII of Denmark, 136 "Circle of Sixteen, The," 185 Classes, social, structure of, 2-21, 67-69, 88; privileges and obligations, 3-6, 9; see also Dvorianstoo, Merchant class, Peasantry, Serfdom Committee of December 6, 1826, 58, 88 Committee of Higher Police, 38 Confessions, extraction of, 58, 132n, 265n Congress of Vienna, 9, 44 Conrad, Joseph, 22, 294 Constantine Pavlovich, Grand Duke, 9, 18, 45, 59, 89, 97, 120, 209-210, 276 Constitutional reform, 9, 12, 13, 1618, 54, 55-56, 88,102 "Contemporary, The," 177, 186, 192, 223-224, 228, 237, 245-246, 287 Corn Laws, English, 185 Corps of Gendarmes, institution of, 56, 61, 63, 107 Corps of Internal Security, 41, 45, 63 Council of Ministers, 44, 76 Court, significance of, 67 "Crimes against the first two points," 29; see also Political crimes Criticism, literary, as politics, 187-193 Crown lands, 5 Custine. See de Custine, Astolphe Cyril-Methodius Society, 257, 260-263

Cabet, 193 Cabinet, the, 32 Carlyle, Thomas, 173 Catherine II, 3-7, 9, 16, 35, 37, 49, 67, 78, 92, 135, 138, 198, 219 Catholicism, Roman, 110, 165, 171, 171-172n, 232, 233 Censors, life and activities of, 145-146, 173-183 Censorship, assignment of responsibility for, 150-151, 267; practice of, 9, 16, 52, 71-72, 104, 118-119, 120, 133196, 237, 238, 266-269, 287, 292293; of foreign books, 144, 193, 194, 266-267; Main Administration of, 151, 177, 179, 194, 253; law of 1826, 139-143; law of 1828, 144-196, 238 "Dagger, The," 203 Census, and police, 27 Danilevsky, N. I., 255 Chaadaev, P. I., 8, 91, 155-156; case of the "First Philosophical Letter," d'Anthès-Heeckeren, G. C., 215, 224225 164-173; 179, 183, 184, 188, 196 Dashkov, D. V., 150 Chain Bridge, location of Third Section's headquarters, 92, 99, 122, 123 de Bray, Otto, 229-230 Chancery, of Third Section, 63, 64, 91, Decembrist conspiracy, the, 16-20, 48, 49-83, 94, 184, 197, 199-200, 204, 107 206, 216, 234, 260 Chancery, Secret. See Kantseliariia "Decembrist generation, the," 8-10, 16, tainyhh rozysknykh del 20 Charles VI of Austria, 32 Decembrists, myth of the, 20, 72-83 Charter, French, of 1815, 14 Charter of 1785, to the Russian nobility, Decembrists, wives of the, 75-79 de Custine, Astolphe, 233-234, 271 3, 16, 78 de Kock, Paul, 291 Chénier, André, 200, 203, 207 Delacroix, M., 232-233 Chemosvitov, 256 Delamare, 24 Chernyshev, A. I., 102, 114, 184, 273

Index Delvig, Α. Α., 8Θ, 149, 150, 151, 174, 175, 199, 209, 211 Delvig, Α. I., 59, 98, 151 de Maistre, Joseph, 219 Denunciation. See Donos Derzhavin, G. R., 189, 191, 198-199, 268, 289 de St. Glin (police agent), 40, 42, 43, 44 Despotism, Karamzin's distinction between, and autocracy, 14-15 Dibich, I. I., 97, 201 Discussion groups, 184-185 Divier, Anton, 24 Divov, Senator, 193 Dolgorukov, P. Α., 287-288 Dondukov-Korsakov, Μ. Α., 177-178, 180

Donizetti, Gaetano, 234 Donos, 32, 34, 35, 42, 90-91, 116-117, 156, 187, 191 Dostoevsky, F., 171η, 255, 259η, 260 Dübelt, L. V., 99; background, personality, letters to his wife, 106-108, 112, 116-118, 122-124, 125, 128, 129, 130, 163, 172, 180, 181, 186, 193, 195, 196, 227-228, 231; control of propaganda, 234-236, 237, 242243, 244, 246, 249, 260; remarks on slavophiles, 262-263, 266-267, 268, 282 Dvorianstvo, 2-20, 55, 58, 67-68, 86, 216-217, 274-277, 289 Egypt, events in, 111-112 Enclos, feudal, 24, 131 Engelgardt, Ν. Α., 133,134 Engineer Corps Academy, 57 England, police in, 24-25, 26, 36 English Club, 52 Enlightened despots, use of police, 24, 28, 85 Ermolov, A. P., 53, 89, 244 Esakova, 113 "European, The," 153-154, 211 Evgeny Onegin, 202, 209, 211-212 "Exegi monumentimi," 225 Exile, administrative, 127-128; and hard labor, in Siberia, 49, 73, 76-82, 259 "Faction," 67,127 Falconet, E.-M., 219

347

Family, the, political ideology based on concepts of, 85 Fichte, Johann, 59 Fiscal policy, 54 Fonvizin, D. I., 25-26, 289 Foreign trade, 6, 54, 98, 99, 103, 185, 195 Fouché, Joseph, 41, 99 Fourier, Charles, 185, 193, 194, 249, 251-252,259 France, police in, 24-28, 35-36, 40-41, 94 French Revolution, 7, 17, 23n, 35-36, 94,134,135-136 Furet, Le, 147,148 "Gabrieliad, The," 200, 207 Gagarin, Prince, 185 Gendarme Regiment, 45 Gendarmerie, French, 27, 93, 94 Gendarmes, Russian, 19, 45, 60, 69, 73, 97,105,107 "Genealogy, My," 215, 220 Gentry class. See Dvorianstvo German problem, the, 264-265 Gershenzon, M. O., 1, 8 Glinka, S. N„ 143 "God grant I go not mad," 218 Gogol, N., 177,190,191, 268, 291 Golenishchev-Kutuzov-Tolstoy, P. M., 105-106, 210 Golitsyn, A. B., 90,116 Golitsyn, A. F., 127 Golitsyn, A. N., 137-138 Golitsyn, D. S., 97 Golitsyn, N. S., 281 Golitsyn, S. M., 126,127,157 Golovin, Ivan, 236 Goncharova, N. (Pushkina), 210, 212225 227 Grech' N. I., 60, 86, 118, 120, 121; denunciation of competitors, 156-157, 174, 175, 180, 187, 205, 209; attempt to undertake propaganda for Russia abroad, 234-236, 242, 245, 281 Green Lamp, the, 52 Griboedov, A. S., 153, 184 Gribovsky, General, 47, 50, 51 Grigorev, Α., 255 Guards Regiments, 17, 33, 35, 45, 47, 55,57 Haager, Count, 99 Hegel, G. F., 20,187,188,195, 208

348

Index

Herzen, Alexander, 1, 9, 74, 106; experience and impressions of Russian political police, 122-124, 125-129, 164, 172, 173, 183, 240, 250, 262, 281, 286 Holy Alliance, the, 53 Hugo, Victor, 177 Hungary, Russian campaign in, 1849, 229-230, 238, 243-244, 259

Kozlovsky, Prince, 82-83 Kraevsky, Α. Α., 182, 185, 186, 189, 192, 225 Krasovsky (censor), 137 Kritsky brothers, 81-82, 208 Kuechelbecker, W., 50 Kukolnik, Nestor, 162,163, 291 Kurakin, Prince, 89 Kutsinsky, General, 124, 125

Illuminati, 37, 39 Imperial Chancery, His Majesty's Private, 13, 19, 62, 87, 106, 293; Fifth Section of, 5, 270; see also Ministry of State Properties Insanity, police declarations of, 91, 169-170,196 Intelligentsia, 20, 284 Ivan IV, 15, 29-30, 59, 263 Ivanovsky, Α. Α., 83

La Ferronays (French Ambassador), 57 Lamennais, 171n, 261 Land and Liberty, 288 La Reynie, Nicolas, 24 Law code of 1649, 33 Law code of 1832,174, 252 Lazarev brothers, 277-278 Lednicki, Waclaw, 217, 218 Leparsky, General, 77-78, 80 Lermontov, I. M., 184-185 Lèse majesté, 5, 26, 31, 33; see also Political crimes, Treason and disloyalty Lesovsky, General, 80, 125, 163-164, 165,168 Lieutenant-général de police, 24,131 Lieven, A. K., 104, 121; work as Minister of Public Education, 146-151, 153,157 Lieven, Daria, 147n Liprandi, I. P., 248-260 "Literary Gazette, The," 149-150, 151, 209 Literature, Russian, and nationalism, 121, 133-134, 153, 187-193, 225227, 253, 289-292 Liubomudry, 81,153,184 Locatelli (police agent), 199 Lomachevsky, Α., 64-65, 91, 110-112 Lomonosov, M. V., 191 Loris-Melikov, M. T., 293 Louis XIV of France, 10, 24, 84, 85 Louis-Philippe of France, 84,134-135 Lourie (St. Petersburg bookseller), 255 "Lovers of Russian Letters, The," 159160 Lunin, Michael, 74, 78-79 Lvov, Prince, 106, 112 "Lyceum Spirit, the, " 198 Lyceum, Tsarskoe-selo, 198-199, 248, 249, 249n

Jacobins, Russian, 55, 66, 161, 175, 251 Jagiello dynasty of Poland, 112 Jews, Russian, 12, 49, 92 Joseph II of Austria, 27 Kankrin, E. F., 88, 91, 102-103, 148149 Kant, I., 59 Kantseliariia tainykh rozysknykh del, 32-33 Karamzin, Ν. M., theory of Russian autocracy, 14-17, 19, 68, 189, 191, 220; 268, 289 Karatygin (actor), 96 Karazin, V. N., 46 Kavelin, Α. Α., 112 Kavelin, K. D., 124, 125 Khomiakov, A. S., 167 Khotìaintsova, E., 113, 116 Kireevsky, Ivan, 153-156,190, 211 Kirilov, N. S., 253, 254 Kiselev, P. D„ 5, 51, 53, 91, 270, 273274, 276-277, 287 Kleinmichel, Count, 180 Koberwein, O., 117 Kochubey, V. P., 37, 42, 43, 67, 88, 92 216 Kolm'akov, Ν. M., 71 Konarski, Emilian, 110, 111 Korff, Μ. Α., 94, 237 Kornilovich, A. O., 73, 83 Kostomarov, Ν. I., 195, 260-261, 262

Madox, Roman, 79-81,113 Magnitsky, 43, 137, 140

Index Manuscripts, forbidden, circulation of, 183-184 Martial law, 84 Masonry, 37, 51-52 Menshikov, A. S., 237, 273 Menshikov Committee, 182, 196, 237, 238,245 Merchant class, 4, 58 Merimée, Henri, 19 Metelkin, 270 Metternich, 1, 9, 27, 36, 45, 68, 86, 147n, 232, 238 Michael Pavlovich, Grand Duke, 59, 97, 116,117 Mickiewicz, Adam, 219, 261 Mikhailovskoe, Pushkin's exile at, 197203 Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, A. I., 44, 52 Military colonies, 18, 60 Ministries, creation of, by Alexander I, 12,13 Ministry of Finance, 62, 86, 88, 102, 148,165, 283-284 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 153, 165, 213, 232, 248 Ministry of Internal Affairs (Interior), 37, 38, 41-42, 44, 46, 49, 62, 65, 102, 113, 127, 146, 196, 230; intensification of rivalry with Third Section, 247-260, 268, 292-293 Ministry of Justice, 38, 76, 150 Ministry of Police, under Alexander I, 40-14, 61, 62, 136-137, 230 Ministry of Public Education, 59, 104, 119, 121, 136-137, 138, 143, 1 4 6 193, 230, 231, 244-245 Ministry of Spiritual Affairs and Education, under Alexander I, 137 Ministry of State Properties, 5, 62, 242, 270, 273-274 Ministry of War, 38, 63, 102 Ministry of Ways and Communications, 181 Mombelli (member of Petrashevsky circle), 261 Monarchy, European, 2, 14, 19-20, 37, 57, 84-85, 90, 131-132, 134-135, 229-230 Montesquieu, 14 Mordvinov, A. N., 8 0 , 1 5 1 , 1 7 1 , 186 Mordvinov, N. S., 67, 89, 106, 224 Moscow, police of, 29, 39, 80; rivalry with St. Petersburg, 8, 152 "Moscow Messenger, The," 208-209

"Moscow Telegraph, The," 174, 208 Muraviev, A. N., 79, 80 Musin-Pushkin, A. I., 246

349 159-164,

Nadezhdin, N. I., 166-167, 170, 172, 173,188 Napoleon I, 27, 38, 39, 41, 44, 48, 53, 87, 118, 134, 161, 244 Napoleon III, 236, 292 Nekrasov, Ν. Α., 186 Nesselrode, Count, 150, 201, 216, 232 Nicholas I, situation and inheritance, tradition and personality, 1, 4, 5, 6, 9-21, 30, 40, 48; and Decembrists, 55, 56-83; tone set by, 85-92, 99, 121, 122; interference in private affairs, 129-132; 139, 142, 143, 144, 150, 151, 154, 155; and censorship, 156-157, 160, 162, 165, 173, 174, 175,177-178,180,181,185-186,191, 196; as Pushkin's censor, 197-228; impact of Hungarian campaign on, 229-231; concern for public opinion abroad, 232; foundation of Menshikov Committee, 236-237; concern for Russia after outbreak of revolutions in Europe, 1848, 242, 244-245, 252; reaction to Petrashevtsy, 259, 259n; and slavophiles, 264-265; and serfdom, 269-270, 273; and Russian literature, 291-292, 293 Nikitenko, Α. V., 134, 146, 151; activity and impressions as censor, 173-183, 184, 186, 226, 292, 293 Nikon, Patriarch, 31 Norov, A. S., 121, 262-263 "North Star, The," 54, 74 Northern and Southern Societies, of the Decembrists, 55, 114 "Northern Bee, The," 72, 118, 120, 146, 148, 149, 152, 185, 186, 189, 237 245 "Notes of the Fatherland," 129, 186, 189, 191, 192, 237, 292 Novikov, Ν. I., 135 Novosiltsov, N., 120, 136 Obolensky, E., 57, 173 Ogarev, N. P., 125,126 Oger (French comedian), 234 Old Believers. See Sects Olmuetz, Conference of, 130 Oprichnina, 29n, 29-30

350

Index

Orlov, A. F., 75, 90, 92, 108, 119, 121, 129, 130, 181; reluctance to ban periodicals, 191-192, 196; background and personality, 230-232; disturbed by penetration of revolutionary ideas into Russian press, 236237, 244, 249, 260, 267, 268, 273 Orlov, M. F., 8, 51, 53, 74,168 Orthodox Church, 3-4, 32, 68, 85, 110, 138, 141, 165, 167, 171, 257, 270, 272 "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality," 10,145,158, 285 Owen, Robert, 10, 193 Panaev, I., 186,193 Panova, C. D., 166, 173 Parades, 11, 16, 53, 55, 84, 85, 196, 213 Paris, police of, 24-26 Paskevich, I. F., 110, 112, 210, 227, 240 Paul I, 1, 7, 15, 17, 35, 57, 90, 135136, 138-139, 215, 252 Paulucci, General, 201 Peasant uprisings, 6, 18, 217, 257, 270, 274-275, 277 Peasantry, Russian, 4, 55, 58, 110, 238, 239, 270-271, 273-277, 285; see also Serfdom Pelchinsky, V., 98, 99 Perfilev, General, 168, 170, 231, 246 Perovsky, Α., 59 Perovsky, L. Α., 247-248, 260, 263 Pestel, Paul, 8, 55-56, 58, 60, 74, 114 Peter I (the Great), 3, 8, 15, 16, 23, 29, 32-34, 56, 135, 198, 213, 217, 219-223, 253, 285 Peter III, 35, 216 Petrashevsky. See Butashevich-Petrashevsky, M. V. Petrashevsky Conspiracy. See Petrashevtsy Petrashevtsy, 195, 196, 246, 251-260, 285 Petrine system, the, 3 Petrovsk Foundry, 77 Philosophes, 35, 134, 257 Philosophy, German, 184, 187-188, 208-209, 260 Pignatelli, Marquis, 45 Pindemonte (Italian poet), 203 Pletnev, P. Α., 175, 178, 195

Poggio (Decembrist), 75 Pogodin, Michael, 152, 208, 285 Poland, problem of, 13, 14, 89, 92, 97, 110-112, 119-120, 121, 141, 212, 231, 233, 236, 239-240, 241-242; revolution in, 1830-1831, 73, 96, 110, 116, 149, 164 Polevoy, Ksenefont, 163 Polevoy, Nicholas, 150, 152, 159-164, 166, 174, 180, 186, 208, 220, 224 Police, censorship functions, 41, 64, 142, 143-144, 146-267, 268-269, 280; control of movement, 25, 27, 28, 89; definition of functions and obligations, 22-24, 28-29, 40-41, 47, 56, 62-63, 64, 89-90, 280-281; fiscal problems and salaries of, 56, 60, 61, 63, 102-104, 105; history of, in Russia, 19-21, 28-48, 56; information-gathering functions, 26-27, 42, 60, 62-63, 66, 232; juridical powers of, 28, 64, 70-71, 98-99, 106, 107, 283; legislative powers of, 28, 37, 64, 146; military, 46-47, 63, 248; moral qualities of, 56, 60, 61, 63, 84-132; opposition to, in Europe, 26, 36, 86; political, relation to "ordinary" police, 27, 29, 56, 65-66, 101, 103104, 247-248, 293; political, relation to other government institutions, 28, 33-34, 41-42, 56, 62-63, 102, 104, 109-110, 146-233, 244-246, 247-248, 267, 287-288; regulation of family life, 24, 89, 129-130, 215217, 280; role of, in the formation of national consciousness, 24, 28, 35, 84, 109; "secret" or "higher," foundation of, 26n, 36, 37, 38, 56; security functions of, 25, 28, 37, 40-41, 56; use of espionage, 26, 27, 30, 38, 42, 43-44, 56, 60, 61, 73, 102, 103-104, 113-117, 236; welfare functions of, 24-26, 28, 35, 89-90, 278-279, 286 Police Acts, French, 24 Police administration, rationality of, 2425, 47, 63, 64 Police state, the, 19, 23, 48, 294 Political crimes, procedure in, 26, 2935, 56; see also Lèse-majesté, Slovo i deh, Treason and disloyalty Political prisoners, treatment of, 123128, 132n, 196, 268, 293-294 "Politicization," 2, 9, 20, 28, 35, 85 Popov, A. N., 264

Index Popov, M. M., 112, 124, 125, 192-193, 237 Potapov, General, 115,118,142 Preobrazhensky prikaz, 33, 34 Press, in Europe, 57, 71, 86, 134-135, 232, 234-236 Press, in Russia, expansion during early years of Alexander I, 52; interest of Decembrists in, 54; von Vock's campaign to rally, 71-72; Nicholas I's touchiness with regard to, 86, 104105, 118, 120, 121-122, 133-134, 146-196, 223-225, 236-237, 292293 Proletariat, problem of, in Russia, 277279 Propaganda, official, 72, 119, 146, 151, 152, 231-236, 239, 252 Provocateurs, 42, 73, 79-81, 114, 247 Prussia, Nicholas I's respect for, 11, 12 Przeclawski, Ο. Α., 49-50, 51, 100 Public, the, or "middle class," 67-69, 86, 144-145, 192-193, 226-227, 269 Public opinion, in Europe, Russian concern for, 231-236, 239, 244 Public opinion, in Russia, 27, 52-53, 58-59, 65-83, 86-89, 100-105, 142, 144, 146-196, 204-205, 223-228, 239-240, 244, 268-269, 277, 279, 280, 281-282, 284, 286, 288-289, 292-293 Pugachev, E., 217, 222, 270 Pushchin, 1.1., 199 Pushkin, A. S„ 8, 15, 59, 65, 72, 86, 99100, 117, 120, 146, 149, 150, 153, 156, 160-161, 164, 174, 177, 183, 184,186,187,193,197-228, 285, 291 Putiata, Ε. V., 207 Radishchev, Alexander, 135, 217 Raeff, Marc, 12 Raevsky, N., 53 Raevsky, S. Α., 184 Raevsky, Vladimir, 51 Rasprava, meaning of, 47 Razriadnyi prikaz, 29 Rechtsstaat, 12,13 Recruitment, military, 243, 279-280 Regicide, 17, 55 Restoration, European, 9 , 1 4 , 1 6 Revolution, "democratic," 1 Revolution, European of the 1820's, 1, 16,18, 45

351

Revolution, European of 1830, 1, 18, 149,160, 232 Revolution, European of 1848, 1, 5, 190-191, 229-231, 236-282, 284 Revolution, industrial, 10 Rostopchina, Countess, 121 Rumor, 86, 117, 127, 238, 260, 261, 274, 279-280 Runich, 137 Russian-American Company, 54 "Russian Justice," Pestel's, 55-56 "Russian Veteran, The," 185, 225 Ryleev, K., 54, 68, 74, 118, 173, 200, 278 St. Petersburg, police of, 23-24, 28-29, 37, 39, 91,103-104, 247 "St. Petersburg Bulletin," 146 St. Simon, 193, 194 Samarin, Iuiy, 263-264, 281 Sand, George, 190,194 Sand, Karl, 125, 203 Schelling, F. W. von, 20, 154,187,195 Schiller, J. C. von, 20,126 Scott, Sir Walter, 161, 206, 291 Secrecy, 34, 87-88 Secret societies, in Europe, 36-37; in Russia, 16, 17, 18, 37, 45, 51-52, 55, 73, 79, 94, 100, 102, 123-124, 126, 140-141, 153, 247 Sects, religious, 4, 68, 110, 187, 248, 254, 270, 271-273 Selivanov, I. V., 124-125 Semenovsky Regiment, mutiny in, 14, 45,46 Senate, Russian, 76,102; Secret Expedition of, 35, 37 Senkowski, Ο. I. ("Baron Brambeus"), 120, 174, 187, 209 Separation of powers, 12, 15, 16 Serf labor, in factories, 277-279 Serfdom, in Russia, 4, 9, 16, 18, 55, 124, 137, 261, 273-277, 287, 292293 Service nobility. See Dvorianstco Sheremetev, V. P., 59, 173 Shevchenko, T. G., 261 Shilder, Ν. K., 57 Shirinsky-Shikhmatov, 121, 138, 246, 266, 267 Shishkov, A. S., 104,138-145,147,150, 160, 246 Siberia, police in, 47 Sinitsyn (chief of detectives), 247-248

352

Index

Skabichevsky, Α. M., 136 Skobelev, General, 200 Slavophiles, 167,262-267 Stono i délo, 28-35 Smirdin, A. F., 187, 209 Socialism, in Russia, 185,190, 193-195 Solovev, S. M., 158 Special Committee, of Alexander I, 3840 Speransky, Michael, 7, 12, 14, 39, 40, 43-44, 47, 67, 88, 89, 91,116 Speshnev, 251, 256 Star Chamber, 26, 230 State Council, 94,102, 267, 273 Stogov, E. I., 94-95,108-110 Stroganov, G. Α., 127, 128 Succession to the throne, Russian, 17 Sue, Eugene, 194 Supreme Censorship Committee, 140n Supreme Privy Council, 34-35 Surveillance, police, 38, 86, 89, 102, 103-104, 152, 155, 172, 183, 227, 243 Sviatopulk-Mirsky, Ivan, 91, 272-273 Tainyi prikaz, 29, 30-32 Talleyrand, 87 Technological reform, 85, 87,185 "Telescope, The," 152, 164, 166-168, 185,188 Terror, 23, 23n Thicknesse, Phillip, 25 Third Estate, 24 Tiutchev, Fedor, 281 Tolstoy, Iakov, 234, 236 Tolstoy, P. Α., 32, 33, 34 Totalitarianism, 23, 294 Treason and disloyalty, 33, 37, 56 Troppau, Conference of, 45, 46 Trubetskoy, S. V., 129-130 Trubetskoy, Serge, 54, 55, 57 Tugendbund, 16, 37 Turgenev, A. I., 164-165 Turgenev, Ivan, 133, 268, 291 Turgenev, Nicholas, 82-83 Turkmanchai, Peace of, 60 Tygodnik Peterburgski, 152 Ukraine, problem of, 259-262 Uniates, 110, 233 Uniforms, 12,16,19, 69 Union of Salvation, 55 Union of Welfare, 55 Universities, 147, 152, 176, 182-185,

195, 208-209; limitations on enrollment, 245-246, 267 Unkiar-Skilessi, treaty of, 231 Uvarov, S. S., 121, 145, 157-159, 168, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 185, 224, 225, 232, 245-246, 285, 292 Vadkovsky, F. F., 114, 115 Valuev, P. Α., 240-241, 281 Van Heeckeren, Baron, 215, 226 Vasilchikov, General, 46-47, 50, 51, 150, 273 Viazemsky, P. Α., 58, 86, 117, 120, 149, 168, 202-203, 209, 225-226, 281 Viazmitinov, S. K., 44,137 Vidocq, 211, 216 Vigel, F. F., 39, 69, 70, 168, 193, 230 Viskovatov (police agent), 58, 59, 113, 200 Voeikov, A. F., 175, 208 Voevoda, role in treatment of political crimes, 29 Vogel (chief of detectives), 46, 50, 103 VoBconsky, Serge, 80, 93-94 Volkov, General, 112,153,160-161 Voltaire, 87, 250 Von Vock, M. I., 43—44, 54n; analysis of, and concern with public opinion, 65-72, 86, 87, 96; background, personality, and rivalry with "ordinary" police, 99-105, 113, 119, 120, 142, 143, 144, 192, 199, 204-205, 231, 257 Vorontsov, S. R., 59, 93, 95,198, 200 War, Crimean, 230, 236, 279-281 War, Persian, 60, 68 Westernization, 5, 8-12,15-17 Wilkes, John, 25 Witt, I. O., 44, 48, 113,114,115 Youth, 68, 125, 152-153, 184^185, 208, 259-260

182-183,

Zagoskin, M. N., 121 Zakrevsky, Α., 102, 279 Zavalishin, D., 77-78 Zavalishin, I., 82 Zhadimirovskaia, 129-130 Zhikharev, S. P., 39, 42,168 Zhukovsky, V. Α., 153, 154, 155, 189, 191, 196, 197, 200, 202-203, 214, 218, 226, 227, 268, 289, 292 Zotov, V. R., 193 53

RUSSIAN RESEARCH CENTER STUDIES 1. Public Opinion in Soviet Russia: A Study in Mass Persuasion, by Alex Inkeles 2. Soviet Politics — The Dilemma of Power: The Role of Ideas in Social Change, by Barrington Moore, Jr. 3. Justice in Russia: An Interpretation of Soviet Law, by Harold J. Berman 4. Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao, by Benjamin I. Schwartz 5. Titoism and the Cominform, by Adam B. Ulam 6. A Documentary History of Chinese Communism, by Conrad Brandt, Benjamin Schwartz, and John K. Fairbank 7. The New Man in Soviet Psychology, by Raymond A. Bauer 8. Soviet Opposition to Stalin: A Case Study in World War II, by George Fischer 9. Minerals: A Key to Soviet Power, by Demitri Β. Shimkin 10. Soviet Law in Action: The Recollected Cases of a Soviet Lawyer, by Harold J. Berman and Boris A. Konstantinovsky 11. How Russia is Ruled, by Merle Fainsod 12. Terror and Progress USSR: Some Sources of Change and Stability in the Soviet Dictatorship, by Barrington Moore, Jr. 13. The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 19171923, by Richard Pipes 14. Marxism: The Unity of Theory and Practice, by Alfred G. Meyer 15. Soviet Industrial Productions, 1928-1951, by Donald H. Hodgman 16. Soviet Taxation: The Fiscal and Monetary Problems of a Planned Economy, by Franklyn D. Holzman 17. Soviet Military Law and Administration, by Harold J. Berman and Miroslav Kemer 18. Documents on Soviet Military Law and Administration, edited and translated by Harold J. Berman and Miroslav Kerner 19. The Russian Marxists and the Origin of Bolshevism, by Leopold H. Haimson 20. The Permanent Purge: Politics in Soviet Totalitarianism, by Zbigniew K. Brzezinski 21. Belorussia: The Making of a Nation, by Nicholas P. Vakar 22. A Bibliographical Guide to Belorussia, by Nicholas P. Vakar 23. The Balkans in Our Time, by Robert Lee Wolff 24. How the Soviet System Works: Cultural, Psychological, and Social Themes, by Raymond A. Bauer, Alex Inkeles, and Clyde Kluckhohn" 25. The Economics of Soviet Steel, by M. Gardner Clark 26. Leninism, by Alfred G. Meyer 27. Factory and Manager in the USSR, by Joseph S. Berliner*

354 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

Russian Research Center Studies

Soviet Transportation Policy, by Holland Hunter Doctor and Patient in Soviet Russia, by Mark G. Field" Russian Liberalism, by George Fischer Stalin's Failure in China, 1924-1927, by Conrad Brandt The Communist Party of Poland, by M. K. Dziewanowski Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia, A Translation and Analysis, by Richard Pipes A Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia, by Ν. M. Karamzin, the Russian text edited by Richard Pipes The Soviet Citizen: Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society, by Alex Inkeles and Raymond A. Bauer" Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia, by Serge A. Zenkovsky The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict, by Zbigniew K. Brzezinsldf National Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century Russia, by Hans Rogger Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism, 1812—1855, by Martin Malia The Conscience of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia, by Robert V. Daniels The Soviet Industrialization Debate, 1924-1928, by Alexander Erlich The Third Section: Police and Society in Russia under Nicholas I, by Sidney Monas

Publications of the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System. t Published jointly with the Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. 9