In the period between Peter's death in 1725 and the enthronement of Catherine II in 1762 the supreme organs existed in a state of great flux, reflecting a lack of institutionalisation and dependence on the attitudes of individual monarchs and high servitors. Under Catherine I (r. 1725-7) and Peter II (r. 1727-30) the Senate's role as a supreme organ diminished with the establishment of the Supreme Privy Council, the intended co-ordinating point of the subordinate organs. Anna Ivanovna (r. 1730-40), suspicious of the Supreme Privy Council given its members' attempt to limit her autocratic power at the beginning of her reign, in 1731 abolished it. The new focal point ofthe administration became Her Majesty's Cabinet. Elizabeth (r. 1741-62) abolished this body and restored many powers to the Senate, though real power of co-ordination remained in the hands of those close to the empress herself. Nonetheless, the Senate reviewed and approved most of the legislation of her reign. These changes in the supreme organs reflected a three-way battle for real power. One between the aristocracy and the bureaucratic bodies, one between the aristocracy and the autocracy, and another between the autocrat and the growing bureaucracy.
Catherine II was keen to reorganise the central organs which to her mind sorely lacked co-ordination and efficiency. Her adviser, Nikita Panin, stressed the need to found some form of imperial council capable of co-ordination and to establish an effective relationship between the monarch, the Senate and other governmental institutions. Taking into consideration Panin's views, the empress subordinated the Senate to the procurator-general once again, believing like Peter the Great before her, that a supervisor of the supervisory body would create the conditions for a more smooth and unified central government. Nevertheless by the end of her reign the continuous need for an effective mechanism capable of co-ordinating government was clear, especially given the growing tendency to see change in society as the responsibility of the government.
Co-ordination of the subordinate organs, the relationship between the supreme organs themselves and more specifically between them and the sovereign, were at the base of Alexander I's major administrative reforms. His decrees of 1801 and 1802 fundamentally changed the Senate's role. The body received the right of judicial review and supervision of the highest government organs, including the newly established ministries. Given his fleeting interest in constitutional change, Alexander gave senators the right to make remonstrances to the emperor and stipulated that no bill could become law without its approval. When the Senate exercised this right soon after, Alexander rescinded it. Clearly the supreme organs were to occupy themselves with co-ordination of the subordinate organs, not with infringement on the autocratic power. The founding of ministerial government and of the State Council (1810) led to the sidelining of the Senate in practice. For the remainder of the nineteenth century it was a High Court of Review and along with other institutions exercised a degree of administrative supervision.
Yet the problem of effective supreme organs remained. Count Mikhail M. Speranskii, Alexander's close adviser and regarded by many as the father of the modern imperial bureaucracy, argued that 'in the present system of government there is no institution for the general deliberation of governmental affairs from the point of view of their legislative aspect. The absence of such an institution leads to major disorders and confusion in all aspects of the administration.'[5] Recognising this, Alexander founded the State Council. On the day of its inauguration he drew attention to the reasons for taking this step:
The order and uniformity of state affairs require that there be a single focal point for their general consideration. In the present structure of our administration, we do not have such an institution. In such a vast state as this, how can various parts of the administration function with harmony and success when each moves in its own direction and when these directions nowhere lead to a central focus? Given the great variety of state affairs, the personal activity of the supreme power alone cannot maintain this unity. Beyond this, individuals die and only institutions can survive and, in the course of centuries, preserve the basis of a state ... The State Council will form the focal point of all affairs of the central administration.[6]
The intention was that the establishment of the State Council, which should be considered a major development in the history of the central government of the empire, was to end the search for a supreme co-ordinating organ begun some one hundred years previously under Peter I.
The emperor appointed the State Council's membership which consisted of sitting ministers and other high dignitaries. The body had no right to initiate legislation, which remained the prerogative ofthe autocrat and ministers, but it could make recommendations on legislation sent to it, which the emperor could accept or reject. In theory no legislative project could be presented to the emperor without the State Council's approval. Practice proved otherwise. At times the emperor and ministers chose or established alternative ways to push through legislation if the path through the State Council was considered too difficult. Nevertheless, the State Council did provide a forum for the debate, reformulation and preparation of legislation before its delivery to the emperor.
Russia's elite hoped the founding of the State Council would place the governmental and legislative process on some form of legal basis. With the State Council, Russia was to be an orderly autocratic state fixed on a foundation of law and legal process. But the continued existence of the autocracy undermined in practice this supreme organ. Alexander III (r. 1881-94), by a decree dated 5 November 1885, legalised what had been long going on in practice. According to the decree, all commands of the emperor carried the full force of legality. The State Council's role in the legislative process was fatally weakened. The upshot was the strengthening of the tendency on the part of ministers to avoid seeking support amongst members of the supreme organs or fellow ministers and to rely on the emperor's support alone to obtain passage of legislation.
Alexander I, with two decrees dated 1802 and 1812, founded the Committee of Ministers. Its most important short-term responsibility was to govern the empire while he was at the front fighting Napoleon. The committee was charged with overall co-ordination of administrative issues as they emerged amongst the various subordinate organs and therefore could not become a supreme co-ordinating organ. A chairman headed the committee, a position which by the middle of the nineteenth century carried no great authority. When Sergei Witte was removed from his post as minister of finance in 1903 and made chairman he considered it a demotion. The emperor in theory could attend the committee, but almost never did so until its dissolution in 1906, thereby further weakening the committee's authority. Ministerial disunity and the committee's weak institutional authority limited its ability to have any real effect. In any case the available evidence does not show that Alexander even wanted the committee to play a cabinet-style role. On the one hand, he wished that ministers co-ordinate policies and consult each other before presenting bills for his consideration. But his continued practice of meeting in private with individual ministers undermined any moves in that direction. The committee did have the right to draw the monarch's attention to the need for a particular law or policy.