The struggle for this alternative did not end when the founding father of the Russian absolutist tradition, Ivan III, ended his days on earth in 1505. On the contrary, its decisive battles were still ahead. At the beginning of the 1550s, when the so-called "Government of Compromise"[116] took the helm, it may even have seemed that the scales were inclined in favor of the continuers of Ivan Ill's cause—in favor of the reformers, the Non-Acquirers, and what may, in general, be called the coalition of hope.
2. The Great Reform
In order for the reader more easily to imagine the scope and tendency of the reforms of the Government of Compromise, it is necessary to remember how the Russian land had been administered previous to it. It was divided into regions called uezdy. Within each uezd there were two kinds of holdings, administered in completely different ways. The holdings of great landlords—the church and the boyars—were administered as everywhere in medieval Europe: by the holders themselves (they held immunities, called tarkhany). The central regime was essentially powerless to control them, for by tradition its agents "took no part in anything"—that is, did not have the right to interfere either in the courts or in the administration of the landlords. What ruled here was not so much the written law as customary law, the "old ways." On the other category of lands—those belonging to peasants and to service gentry—judicial and administrative functions were carried out by the agents of the central power, the namestniki (vicegerents). Sent out from Moscow, usually for a year or two, they kept order and collected taxes with the help of the servants whom they took with them from uezd to uezd. They were called kormlenshchiki ("people whom it is necessary to feed") because they also had to collect their food (korm)—that is, maintenance—themselves; the government paid them nothing. It is not surprising that the most eminent families competed fiercely with each other for these assignments; in a year or two, if they landed in a rich uezd, they could
Bakhrushin revised this list in 1954, identifying the "Chosen Rada" with the "Close Duma" of the tsar ("Izbrannaia Rada Ivana Groznogo"). I. I. Smirnov threw doubt on the existence of the "Chosen Rada" as an institution and identified this term with the "political friends" of Kurbskii—that is, with those whom he considered the boyar party (Ocherhi politicheskoi istorii russkogo gosudarstva 30—50kh gg. XVI veka). Finally, in 1969, the American historian A. Grobovsky, in a brilliant and detailed critical analysis, showed the unfounded nature of all these hypotheses (The "Chosen Council" of Ivan IV: A Reinterpretation). Most Soviet historians continue to employ this debatable term. Nevertheless, the following facts seem indisputable: (1) throughout the 1550s, the country was ruled by a government at the head of which stood Adashev and Sil'vestr; (2) Kurbskii was in sympathy with this government and reflected its viewpoint; (3) in addition to Kurbskii's testimony, the existence of this government is confirmed by its acts, which are considered in this chapter. Following S. V. Bakhrushin and S. O. Shmidt, I use the term "Government of Compromise." make a fortune—not so much from "maintenance," which was limited from above, as from malfeasance in judicial and administrative functions. Civil cases in the uezd were usually won by those who could offer the largest bribe. The most unscrupulous of the vicegerents behaved even worse—for example, throwing a corpse into the courtyard of a rich peasant and then later ruining him with court costs. A few fabricated cases yielded them more income than their official maintenance allowance. The victims of such extortion, of course, were those who had something which could be taken away, the "best people" of the Russian countryside, its maturing proto-bourgeoisie, particularly since the legal competence of these vicegerents included surveillance of local trade and tariff rules. Naturally, the peasants did not keep silent. Hardly had the vicegerents "left with the maintenance" (that is, returned to home base with what they had collected) than they were followed to Moscow by swarms of complainants. The Moscow courts were crammed with suits against the collectors. Since the time of Ivan III, the government had tried to ensure redress by requiring the participation in court proceedings of elected "jurors," but this was apparently not much help. In any case, as the chronicle tells us: "Many cities and volosts were laid waste by the vicegerents . . . who had for many years despised the fear of God and the enactments of the sovereign and performed many evil deeds there; they were not pastors and teachers . . . but persecutors and sowers of ruin."7
With the formation of a centralized state in Russia and the emergence of the country into the arena of European politics, expenditures increased: the metropolitan establishment expanded, the formation of a regular army began, and artillery became an inseparable part of it. The country was experiencing swift economic growth, and could pay more taxes, but the government was practically deprived of the opportunity to take advantage of this. One half of the land was " tarkhanized," and consequently paid no taxes, while the other was "laid waste" by the vicegerents. Everyone was agreed that the administration required a radical overhaul.
The Government of Compromise, which had just come to power, had two options. The first, on the same level as the conception of the Muscovite "service state," was to replace the amateur and temporary administration of the vicegerents with professional administration by permanent governors (or voevody, as they were called in seventeenth- century Russia), who would get their "maintenance" from the state treasury. Such a police-bureaucratic reform could have served as an
7. Cited in N. E. Nosov, Soslmmo-predstavitel'nye . . ., p. 377.
excellent fuse for exploding the "institutional time bomb" (if such a thing existed).
The second possibility was the diametrical opposite of the first. It consisted in not only continuing but logically developing the absolutist tradition of Ivan III, transforming elected jurors from simple "sworn officers" in the courts of the vicegerents into judges themselves, and, furthermore, into the local "landed" (that is to say, elected) officers of government, and entrusting to them the entire administration in the uezdy, including the collection of taxes for the state. Had it gone along these lines, the administrative reform would, I think, have fully deserved the title of Great Reform. In any case (under the conditions of the sixteenth century, when the peasantry was still free), it would have deserved it no less than the reform of the 1860s, which the historians actually do call great. For the essence of the reform of the 1860s consisted, in addition to the emancipation of the peasants and the abolition of preliminary censorship, precisely in the introduction of local self-government and trial by jury. Like its famous analog in the nineteenth, the administrative reform of the sixteenth century was undoubtedly a step in the direction of the defeudalization of the Russian state—a step toward its transformation into a bourgeois monarchy. For the chief social stratum which stood to gain from such reforms would have been the same "best people" of the Russian countryside and cities who chiefly suffered the vicegerents' administration. The reform would have given them the opportunity to rationalize the administration in the interests of capital accumulation and increase their social and political weight.