Meeting of representatives of various classes under Catherine 2. Convening of the “Laid Commission”

Time of Catherine II (1762–1796)

Legislative activity of Catherine II

(continuation)

Activities of the Statutory Commission

Thus, the first part of the plan conceived by the empress was fulfilled: the “general rules” of the new legislation were found. In the execution of this first part, as we have already seen, Catherine suffered some misfortune. She could not fully and openly express her principles, because she encountered opposition around her. She also failed in the second part of the plan - in developing the details of the new legislation. These details were never worked out.

To draw up a new code, a manifesto on December 14, 1766 convened representatives of the estates and public places in Moscow. Their meeting was called the “Commission for drafting a new code.” The nobility of each district had to send one deputy to this Commission; each city, regardless of its size, also has one deputy; the lowest of various services, service people (Landmilitsky people), black-sown (state) peasants - from each province, from each nation there is one deputy. The Senate, Synod, Collegium, and other public places also had to send a deputy. Thus, the bases for representation were different: some parts of the population sent representatives from the district, others from the province, others from a separate tribe, and others from the government office; some were elected by estate (nobles, peasants), others by place of residence (city dwellers-homeowners, foreigners). Privately owned peasants were completely deprived of the right of representation. There were no direct representatives of the clergy. Thus, although people from a variety of states and tribes were gathered in Moscow, the representation established by Catherine was far from complete. (The organization and composition of the commission of 1767 is very well discussed in the essay by A. V. Florovsky “Composition of the Legislative Commission of 1767–1774.” 1915.)

The deputy was provided with a government salary for the entire duration of his stay on the Commission and had to bring to Moscow instructions from his constituents depicting their needs and desires. These instructions were called deputy orders, and Catherine’s Order, in contrast to them, began to be called the “great Order.” Catherine tried to make the title of deputy very honorable in the eyes of society: deputies were forever exempt from execution, corporal punishment and confiscation of property; For insulting a deputy, the perpetrator suffered double punishment.

On July 30, 1767, the meetings of the Commission were opened with triumph in the Faceted Chamber in Moscow. All the representatives who appeared before the Commission were 565. One third of them were nobles, the other third were townspeople; the number of people in the tax-paying rural classes did not even reach 100; There were 28 deputies from public places. It is clear that such a heterogeneous assembly could comfortably discuss the principles of legislation, but could not conveniently edit laws in its entirety. It could only listen to them, discuss them and accept them in a finished version. Therefore, the general meeting of the Commission had to set up special commissions that would do all the auxiliary and preparatory work for the general meeting. These commissions were singled out: some of them were engaged in processing individual parts of the future code after their discussion by the general meeting of the Commission; others prepared preliminary material for classes at the general meeting. One of these commissions, the directorate, supervised the work of both private commissions and the general meeting, and was the mainspring of the whole matter. Therefore, its members were the Prosecutor General and the Chairman (Marshal) of the Commission (A.I. Bibikov). The mass of private commissions introduced great complexity into office work: each private issue passed through several commissions and several times through the same one. This caused inevitable slowness of legislative work. And since the relationship between the private commissions and the general meeting was not precisely defined, disorder and confusion in their activities were inevitable. Thus, the imperfection of the external organization of the business, its complexity and uncertainty created the first obstacle to the successful conduct of the business.

Meeting of the Legislative Commission 1767-1768. Artist M. Zaitsev

During the Commission's studies we will find other obstacles. The General Assembly first of all read the Empress’s Order and learned from it those abstract principles of activity that Catherine set for it. At the same time, the members of the assembly brought with them more than 1000 deputy orders, had to familiarize themselves with them and understand for themselves the needs and desires of Russian society that they contained. The deputies had to reconcile these needs and desires with the theoretical desires of the mandate and merge them into a harmoniously harmonious legislative code. For this purpose, it was necessary to disassemble deputy orders and bring all their content into a system. This painstaking work could only be carried out by a special commission, because it was inconvenient for a meeting of 500 people and was, in essence, rough preparatory work. Further, the desires of the classes were often opposite and irreconcilable: for a proper attitude towards them, it was not enough to know abstract principles, but it was necessary to study the historical position of this or that issue, i.e., in other words, to understand the old legislation, which consisted of a mass (more 10,000) separate legal provisions, very disorderly. Therefore, along with the systematization of deputy orders, there was another preparatory work that was not available to the general meeting - systematization, or a simple collection of old laws.

Until both of these works were completed, the general meeting had nothing to do; it had to wait for their completion and then discuss the prepared materials and reconcile them with theoretical principles. But these works were not thought to be carried out in advance and were expected from the general meeting. In the instructions given by Catherine to the Commission and which determined the order of its actions, we see that Catherine assigns to the general meeting the responsibility of “reading the laws, the amendment of which is more necessary,” and “reading the orders, sorting them out by matter and making an extract.” This conceals the lack of a clear understanding that the preparatory legislative work is beyond the reach of a large assembly lacking sufficient skill in it. Thus, along with the imperfections of the external organization and the inept formulation of the tasks themselves, the confusion of preparatory work with the direct responsibility of the Commission served as the second obstacle to the success of the matter.

The commission first correctly understood what it needed to do in its setting. Having read Catherine's Order, she began reading the parliamentary orders and listened to several peasant orders. Without finishing this matter, at the suggestion of Marshal Bibikov, she moved on to reading the laws on the nobility, then on the merchants. Having spent about 60 meetings on this, the Commission took up the issue of the rights of the Baltic nobles and did not finish this matter, just as it did not finish the previous ones. At the end of 1767, the Commission was transferred to St. Petersburg, where it also moved from subject to subject and achieved nothing. At the end of 1768, the members of the general meeting were dissolved due to the war with Turkey. Private commissions performed little better. The reason for such disorder in classes, according to researchers, was the inability of Bibikov and other guiding persons. Catherine herself felt the failure of the matter, tried to help him, sent instructions to Bibikov, but achieved nothing. Thus, along with other obstacles, the inability of the immediate leaders of the business hindered its success. A more experienced chairman and a more experienced management committee would be more likely to understand what needs to be done. It seems that only Catherine herself understood this. Having dissolved the general meeting, she left some private commissions, which worked, it seems, until 1774. The general meeting at the same time was not considered destroyed, but was dissolved for a while. Thus, the preparatory work did not stop, but their discussion in the general meeting was postponed. This could perhaps be seen as the right step in the course of legislative work; but from 1775 Catherine began to forget about her Commission and decided to conduct her legislative activities without her participation. The commission was not convened a second time. Brilliant and broad plans did not come true, the idea of new legislation failed.

Let us briefly recall the entire course of the matter: Catherine became convinced of the need to correct the shortcomings of Russian social life by creating new legislation. In this essentially impossible enterprise, what frightened her was not the general principles of the laws, but their details. She thought that the general principles were already firmly established in the works of French liberal philosophers, and she herself undertook to interpret them in her Mandate. But she failed to do this with the desired completeness and integrity of direction. The details that were to grow on the general principles of the Order, according to Catherine, were determined by the needs and desires of Russian society. It was called upon to express what it thought in parliamentary orders and was obliged to send its deputies for legislative work. All the difficulty, all stages of this work were entrusted to the deputies. The most necessary preparatory work was not done for them - collecting and systematizing both old and new legislative material, old and new laws. At the same time, the deputies were depressed by the complexity that was introduced into the organization of their meeting, and the uncertainty with which their tasks and their position in the general meeting and private commissions were defined. The practical inexperience of the marshal and the administrative directorial commission finally tied the hands of the deputies. Due to all these reasons, i.e. 1) the lack of preparatory work, 2) the impracticality and uncertainty of the external organization of the matter and 3) the practical inability of the leaders, the Commission not only did not complete all its work, not only did not process any part of the code, but even in a year and a half, in 200 of its meetings, I did not read all the parliamentary orders.

There is no reason to blame the deputies themselves for this; they could not do more and did what was asked of them. They were asked for their opinions on various issues - they gave them; They were asked to work on private commissions - they worked. It was not they, but the imperfections in the organization of the Commission that deprived it of any direct result. If, however, things had been arranged better from the outside, it could still have been predicted that nothing would come of the Commission’s work. The grandiose project of the new legislation was an unattainable utopia, primarily in terms of the amount of labor required for it. In addition, it was impossible to reconcile the liberal principles of French philosophy with the contradictory desires of the Russian classes. The deputies stood in this regard among many mutually exclusive opposites, and one can guarantee that they would never have emerged from them, just as Catherine herself could not emerge from them.

However, despite the complete failure of the Commission, despite Catherine's clear rejection of general legislative reform, Catherine's Commission had important consequences for the subsequent activities of the Empress. This influence of the Commission on Catherine’s government activities lies in the historical significance of the famous meeting of deputies of 1767–1768. The deputies did not do anything tangible, but they brought with them a lot of orders and left them in the hands of Catherine. They spoke a lot - both on behalf of their constituents and on their own behalf - about a wide variety of subjects of state life, and their speeches remained in the papers of the Commission. Thus, the opinions of both the estates and individuals elected by them on subjects that interested Catherine were expressed, and Catherine could find them out from the archives of the Commission. Having retained her principles, she now mastered the opinions and desires of Russian society and could study them in detail. She studied them. By its own admission, the Commission provided “light and information about the entire empire, with whom we are dealing and about whom we should care.” It is clear that with such a view of the significance of the Commission, Catherine had to pay great attention to class statements in her future activities. She herself took upon herself the task of reconciling the disparate and contradictory desires of the deputies, for the common benefit of the estates, and to reconcile the practical aspirations of the estates with the theoretical views of her philosophy. On the basis of abstract philosophy and clearly expressed zemstvo desires, she had the opportunity to build legislative reforms that could be a response to zemstvo desires. With the failure of the Commission its cause did not die. If the deputies failed, then the empress herself could have succeeded.

Thus, with the dissolution of the Commission, not only did Catherine’s idea of remaking the forms of social life for the better by remaking legislation not fall away, but this idea seemed to become closer to implementation. When convening the Commission, Catherine had only principles; The commission showed exactly what needs to be corrected, what these principles need to be applied to, and what “must be taken care of” first of all. This result did not allow Catherine to be completely disappointed in the Commission and in her plan. She began to carry out her plan piecemeal, giving a number of separate laws, of which the provincial institutions of 1775 and the charter to the estates of 1785 are remarkable. We will see when analyzing them how the principles of Catherine and the aspirations of the estates were combined in them.

§ 126. Internal affairs. Beginning of reign and commission 1767–1768

Empress Catherine devoted the first years of her reign to the study of her state and the order of government. She traveled to various regions of Russia (she was in Moscow, the Volga region, and the Ostsee region). Little by little she selected her employees and strived to gather all the threads of control in her own hands. The Senate, accustomed to great power under Elizabeth, lost it under Catherine. To speed things up, it was divided into six departments, each of which had a specific, special range of activities. Within their department, the departments were under the jurisdiction of special chief prosecutors, and in general the Senate was still subject to the supervision of the prosecutor general, to whom Catherine gave instructions to keep the senate within the limits of its legal powers. So Catherine freed herself from the possible influence of the Senate. At the same time, Catherine was freed from the influence of individuals in her court, who attempted to manage affairs in their own way under the young and, as they thought, inexperienced empress. For all of Catherine's intelligence and dexterity, it took her several years to completely gain a foothold in power.

From 1765, Catherine began to definitely work to achieve her main goal, which she set for herself upon ascending the throne: “So that every state place has its own limits and laws to maintain good order in everything.” According to Catherine, it was possible to achieve order and legality in the state by giving society new, perfect laws. The question of new laws was then, one might say, a sore point for the Russian government. Starting from the time of Peter the Great, all sovereigns pointed out the need to create a “new code” instead of the outdated Code of 1649 and took measures to this end. Under Peter the Great, special commissions were established more than once to compose a new code, either by collecting Moscow laws published in the Code and after the Code, or by borrowing foreign legislative norms (Swedish). The matter was not easy, and under Peter they did not have time to finish it. It continued throughout all subsequent reigns, and under Empresses Anna and Elizabeth, elected representatives from the nobility and merchants were called to the legislative commissions. By the end of Elizabeth's reign, the commission finally drew up a draft Code, but continued to revise and redo it for a long time. Empress Catherine, having ascended the throne, found the work of this commission still in progress, and although she did not stop it, she was apparently dissatisfied with it.

According to the views of Empress Catherine, the matter of legislation should have been posed differently. Like all rationalist philosophers of that time, Catherine thought that state power could recreate the state and social system as it pleased, at the behest of “reason.” There was no need, she thought, to bring into the system the old bad laws dictated by ignorance or inspired by the Tatar yoke. It is necessary to construct new, perfect legislation in an abstract way. It should be based on the great principles of new philosophy and science. And in order to know how to apply them, it is necessary to study the true needs and desires of the people for whom laws are to be created. Understanding the task ahead of her, Catherine took upon herself the trouble of determining those abstract principles on which, in her opinion, the law should be built; and she thought of finding out the people's needs and desires with the help of a representative assembly, which would include representatives of all classes of the country.

To achieve the first goal - defining the beginnings of a new law - Catherine compiled her famous “Order”, intended for the leadership of the “commission for drafting a new code” that she decided to assemble. In the Nakaz, the Empress set out her general views on all the most important issues of legislation. It determined the characteristics of Russia as a very vast state and therefore especially in need of a single strong autocratic power. She discussed the position of the classes, the tasks of legislation, the issue of crimes and punishments, the rights and responsibilities of a person as a citizen, education, religious tolerance and much more. In total, the Nakaz had 20 chapters, and in them there were more than 500 small articles (in the form of numbered paragraphs). When composing the Mandate, Catherine most often used the famous work of Montesquieu “L" esprit des lois. The Mandate was therefore very liberal and humane. Establishing autocracy for Russia as a natural necessity, it assumed the equality of citizens before the law and their “freedom” within the limits of legality. In management, the Nakaz initiated the separation of powers. In the criminal field, the Nakaz denied torture. “The use of torture,” he said, “is contrary to sound natural reasoning.” should be cancelled." Catherine compiled her Mandate for about two years, showing it piecemeal to her associates. The liberalism of the young empress frightened the courtiers, and they tried to limit it. Under their influence, Catherine reduced her work and did not publish everything that she had written. was published in 1767 in four languages (Russian, French, German, Latin) and distributed not only in Russia, but also abroad, where censorship did not always allow it into circulation as an overly liberal book.

Catherine II with the Order of the Statutory Commission in her hands. Painting by an unknown artist from the 18th century

At the end of 1766, Catherine issued a manifesto calling for elected deputies to form a commission to draft a new code. The nobles had to elect a deputy from each district, the townspeople - a deputy from each city, and free rural inhabitants - a deputy from each province. Landowner peasants did not participate in the election of deputies. Clergymen took part in elections only in cities together with the townspeople; The bishop elected by the synod was considered a deputy from the clergy. A total of 565 deputies were elected. They were obliged to receive from their electors special instructions outlining their needs and wishes, which the new code was supposed to satisfy. (Up to one and a half thousand such deputy orders have survived; in contrast to them, the Empress’ Order began to be called the “great order.”) The elected deputies were provided with a government salary for the entire period of work in the commission; they were forever freed from corporal punishment, torture and execution; For insulting a deputy, the perpetrator suffered double punishment. This is how the commission was formed, which, according to Empress Catherine, was supposed to find out the people's needs and wishes, reconcile them with the lofty principles of the Order and draw up a draft of a new, perfect law for Russia.

Meeting of the Legislative Commission 1767-1768. Artist M. Zaitsev

In the summer of 1767, the meetings of the commission were solemnly opened in Moscow (in the Faceted Chamber). Six months later, the commission was transferred to St. Petersburg, where it worked for another year. The commission’s activities were supervised by the chairman (“marshal”) A.I. Bibikov and a special directorial commission. Gradually, numerous special commissions were separated from the large commission, working on various individual issues. At the end of 1768, the meetings of the large commission were interrupted and the deputies were sent home; and special commissions continued to work for many years. Although the matter was not over, and the break in classes was considered temporary, the empress never convened a large commission again. After a year and a half of legislative work, she became convinced that things were on the wrong path. It was impossible to draw up a code or set of laws by reasoning in a large and unprepared representative assembly. Such a case requires the organized work of experienced lawyers, which can only receive a general assessment and approval from the people's representatives. It was precisely this kind of organized work that the Catherine Commission lacked. The large commission itself only read parliamentary orders and discussed various random topics, but did not go further than such reasoning. The special commissions worked slowly and sluggishly, because nothing had been prepared for their work earlier.

However, having dismissed the deputies, Catherine did not completely despair of her hopes. No new legislation was created, but class views and desires were expressed in orders and in the speeches of deputies, “light and information about the entire empire (as Catherine put it) was given, with whom we are dealing and about whom we should care.” Knowing the moods and needs of the classes, Catherine herself could make an attempt to satisfy the wishes of her subjects in the spirit of those philosophical ideas in which she herself believed and which she expressed in her Mandate.

But before the empress had time to make this attempt, the state had to go through a difficult period of internal trials and unrest.

The convening of the Statutory Commission is one of the most famous actions of Catherine the Great in the field of international politics. Of course, convened on her initiative, the commission became an important milestone in the development of legislative activity, despite the failure of this enterprise itself.

Before understanding the activities of the Statutory Commission, it is necessary to talk about the reasons for its convening, of which there were several.

Compliance with the European system of organizing legislative activity.
Desire to make real changes to legislation.
The opportunity to further encourage the nobility, which during the reign of CatherineII so it received various advantages over other classes.
The desire to elevate one’s own wisdom and foresight in the eyes of posterity.

Many historians now believe that the convening of the Statutory Commission was only a way for Catherine the Great to show her own greatness to her contemporaries and future generations. It is not without reason that the Lay Commission itself was entirely the empress’s idea, and she was really very proud of her project.

And yet, it is fair to note that the basis for the creation of the project itself was the desire to show the equality of the Russian Empire with European states. The empress took the idea of creating a commission from Montesquieu’s work “On the Spirit of Laws.”

Activities of the Legislative Commission

So, the commission itself was convened in 1767. Its composition was also unique, where the nobles received the leading role, but the clergy was left without representatives in the Statutory Commission. What was the composition of the commission itself of 564 deputies?

161 representatives from the nobility.
208 representatives from citizens.
28 government assessors.
79 from peasants.
54 from the Cossacks
34 from the Gentiles.

Each deputy had to collect instructions from the population of his province, in which people expressed their aspirations and problems. The situation in the country was so deplorable that some deputies brought several orders. In addition, faith in the Statutory Commission grew stronger; people with great hope went to the representatives to leave their aspirations in the order.

After the Legislative Commission officially opened on June 31, 1767, the assessors began discussing the orders. But the first 10 meetings were devoted to assigning the title to Catherine II. It was at the meetings of the Legislative Commission that it was decided that the empress would be given the title of Great, but that was where the activities of the representatives ended.

The following meetings were devoted exclusively to the reading of the orders and their full discussion. Despite the fact that orders from peasants and ordinary townspeople were read out, representatives of the districts in the Statutory Commission did not take any action.

The empress herself was quite disappointed with the passivity and inactivity of her commission. During the year of existence of this service, not a single serious decision was made, and deputies did not propose a single change in the existing legislation.

From June 10, 1768, the commission began to meet much less frequently than before, 4 times a week, and later the number of meetings was reduced to twice a week.

Seeing the complete inaction of the commission, the empress makes the difficult decision to dissolve it on December 18, 1768.

Results of the activities of the Statutory Commission

The commission itself was dissolved under the pretext that a new military campaign against Turkey had begun, and the country needed the maximum number of fighters, including those from the commission’s assessors. Modern historians rightly believe that the commission was dissolved not because of the need of the nobles to go to war, but rather because of the complete uselessness of this government body.

Although the commission never made a single decision, it is important to consider the consequences of its existence and inaction.

The people were once again disappointed with the government's activities. Since everyone had high hopes for the commission, its dissolution was a serious blow to ordinary citizens.
The failure of the Legislative Commission is often cited as one of the reasons for the imminent peasant uprising led by Pugachev. Seeing that the empress was unable to change the existing system of society, the people decided to take up the matter themselves.
Catherine the Great herself was once again convinced that the state and legislative systems of Europe do not operate in the Russian Empire.
The failure with the Statutory Commission became a kind of black spot on the empress’s reputation.

And even though the Commission was a fiasco, the ruler did not give up hopes of approaching the level of development of European countries. Now historians of all stripes note that the foreign policy of Catherine II was much more successful than her internal actions. The failure of the Statutory Commission was only the first alarm bell, indicating the impotence of the Empress in the field of changes in the internal order that had developed in the state.

The order of Catherine II was drawn up by the Empress personally as a guide for the Statutory Commission, specially convened for the purpose of codifying and drawing up a new set of laws of the Russian Empire, whose activity dates back to 1767-1768. However, this document cannot be considered only practical instructions. The text of the Order included Catherine’s reflections on the essence of laws and monarchical power. The document demonstrates the high education of the empress and characterizes her as one of the brightest representatives of Enlightened absolutism.

Personality of the Empress

Born Sophia-Frederica-Amalia-Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst (in Orthodoxy, she was born in 1729 in Pomeranian Stettin into the noble but relatively poor family of Prince Christian Augustus. From an early age, she showed interest in books and thought a lot.

Since the time of Peter I, strong family ties have been established between the German princes and the Russian Romanov dynasty. For this reason, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna (1741-1761) chose a wife from among the German princesses for the heir to the throne. The future Catherine II was her husband's second cousin.

Relations between the spouses did not work out; the heir openly cheated on his wife. The empress also quickly lost interest in Catherine. It did not help their relationship that Elizabeth immediately took in Peter and Catherine’s newborn son, Paul, and actually removed his mother from raising him.

Coming to power

Having barely inherited the throne, Peter immediately demonstrated his inability to govern the state. The shameful exit from the successful Seven Years' War and incessant revelry provoked a conspiracy in the guard, which was led by Catherine herself. Peter was removed from power during a palace coup, and after some time he died under mysterious circumstances in captivity. Catherine became the new Russian empress.

The state of law in the Russian Empire

The official legal code of the state was the very outdated Council Code, adopted back in 1649. Since that time, both the nature of state power has changed (from the Muscovite kingdom it turned into the Russian Empire) and the state of society. Almost all Russian monarchs felt the need to bring the legislative framework in line with new realities. It was practically impossible to apply the Council Code in practice, since new decrees and laws directly contradicted it. In general, there was complete confusion in the legal sphere.

Catherine did not immediately decide to correct the situation. It took her some time to feel firmly on the throne and to deal with other possible contenders (for example, Ivan Antonovich, who was deposed in 1741, had formal rights to the throne). When this was over, the empress got down to business.

Composition of the Statutory Commission

In 1766, the Empress's Manifesto was released, which later formed the basis of the "Order" of Catherine II of the commission on the drafting of a new Code. Unlike previous bodies created for this purpose, the new commission had a wider representation of townspeople and peasants. A total of 564 deputies were elected, of which 5% were officials, 30% were nobles, 39% were townspeople, 14% were state peasants and 12% were Cossacks and foreigners. Each elected deputy had to bring instructions from his province, which would contain the wishes of the local population. It immediately became clear that the range of problems was so wide that many delegates brought with them several such documents at once. In many ways, this is what paralyzed the work, since the work of the Statutory Commission was supposed to begin with the study of just such messages. The “mandate” of Catherine II, in turn, was also one of the recommendations presented.

Activities of the Legislative Commission

In addition to drawing up a new code of laws, the Legislative Commission was supposed to find out the mood of society. Due to the laboriousness of the first task and the unbearable nature of the second, the activities of this meeting ended in failure. The first ten meetings were spent assigning various titles to the empress (Mother of the Fatherland, Great and Wise). The “mandate” of Catherine II and the work of the Statutory Commission are inextricably linked with each other. Its first meetings were devoted specifically to reading and discussing the Empress’s message to the deputies.

A total of 203 meetings were held, after which no concrete steps were taken to improve the situation in the country. Economic transformations were especially often discussed at these meetings. The established commission, according to the “Order” of Catherine II, was supposed to test the waters for the liberation of the peasants, but on this issue deep contradictions emerged between the deputies. Disappointed with the activities of the commission, Catherine first suspended its activities, citing the war with Turkey, and then completely disbanded it.

The structure and history of writing the "Nakaz" of Catherine II

The only obvious evidence of the existence of the Statutory Commission was a document drawn up by the empress. This is a valuable source not only on the history of Enlightened absolutism and intellectual ties between Russia and Europe, but also evidence of the state of affairs in the country. Catherine II's "Mandate" consisted of 526 articles, divided into twenty chapters. Its content covered the following aspects:

issues of government (in general and Russia in particular);
principles of lawmaking and implementation of laws (the branch of criminal law has been especially developed);
problems of social stratification of society;
financial policy issues.

Catherine II began work on the “Instruction” in January 1765, and on July 30, 1767, its text was first published and read at meetings of the Legislative Commission. Soon the empress supplemented the original document with two new chapters. After the failure of the commission, Catherine did not abandon her brainchild. With the active participation of the Empress, in 1770 the text was published in a separate edition in five languages: English (two versions), French, Latin, German and Russian. There are significant differences between the five versions of the text, clearly at the discretion of their author. In fact, we can talk about five different versions of the “Mandate” of Empress Catherine II.

Document sources

Thanks to her deep education and connections with European enlighteners (Catherine corresponded with Voltaire and Diderot), the empress actively used the philosophical and legal works of foreign thinkers, interpreting and clarifying them in her own way. Montesquieu's essay "On the Spirit of Laws" had a particularly strong influence on the text of the "Nakaz". 294 articles of Catherine’s text (75%) are in one way or another connected with this treatise, and the Empress did not consider it necessary to hide this. In her document there are both extensive quotations from Montesquieu’s work and those given briefly. Catherine II's order to the Legislative Commission also demonstrates the empress's familiarity with the works of Koehne, Beccaria, Bielfeld and von Justi.

Borrowings from Montesquieu were not always direct. In her work, Catherine used the text of the treatise of the French enlightener with comments by Elie Luzac. The latter sometimes took a rather critical position in relation to the commented text, but Catherine did not pay attention to this.

Issues of government

Catherine based her political and legal doctrine on the tenets of Orthodox doctrine. According to the views of the empress, faith should permeate all elements of government. No legislator can compose regulations arbitrarily; he must bring them into conformity with religion, as well as with the expression of the people's will.

Catherine believed that, in accordance with both the Orthodox faith and popular aspirations, the monarchy was the most optimal form of government for Russia. Speaking about this more broadly, the Empress noted that the monarchy was significantly more effective than the republican system. For Russia, the emperor must also be an autocrat, since this directly follows from the peculiarities of its history. The monarch not only makes all the laws, but he alone has the right to interpret them. Current management affairs should be decided by bodies specially created for this purpose, which are responsible to the sovereign. Their task should also include informing the monarch about the inconsistency of the law with the current state of affairs. At the same time, government agencies must guarantee society protection from despotism: if the monarch adopts a certain resolution that contradicts the legislative framework, he must be informed about this.

The ultimate goal of government is to protect the safety of every citizen. In Catherine's eyes, the monarch is a figure who leads the people to the highest good. It is he who must contribute to the continuous improvement of society, and this is again accomplished by the adoption of good laws. Thus, from Catherine’s point of view, legislative activity is both a cause and a consequence of monarchical power.

The “Order” of Catherine II of the Legislative Commission also justified and recorded the existing division of society into classes. The empress considered the separation of privileged and unprivileged layers to be natural, directly related to historical development. In her opinion, equalizing the rights of classes is fraught with social upheavals. The only possible equality lies in their equal subjection to the laws.

It should be noted that Catherine did not say a word about the position of the clergy. This is consistent with the ideological program of Enlightened absolutism, according to which the separation of clergy into a special stratum is unproductive.

Lawmaking

The “Order” pays virtually no attention to specific methods for passing laws and their implementation. Catherine limited herself to only a general ideological scheme directly related to issues of government. Perhaps the only aspect of interest to Catherine in this set of problems is the limitation and possible abolition of serfdom. This consideration directly followed from the idea of equality of all before the law. The peasants belonging to the landowners could not take advantage of this right. There was also an economic interest in this: Catherine believed that rent relations between peasants and landowners led to the decline of agriculture.

In her work, the Empress introduced the principle of hierarchy of normative acts, previously unknown in Russia. It was especially stipulated that some regulations, such as imperial decrees, have a limited validity period and are adopted due to special circumstances. When the situation stabilizes or changes, execution of the decree becomes optional, according to the “Order” of Catherine II. Its significance for the development of law also lies in the fact that the document required that legal norms be presented in terms that are clear to every subject, and the normative acts themselves should be few in number so as not to create contradictions.

Economic issues in the structure of the "Order"

Catherine’s special attention to farming was due to her idea that this particular occupation was most suitable for rural residents. In addition to purely economic considerations, there were also ideological ones, for example, the preservation of patriarchal purity of morals in society.

For the most effective land use, according to Ekaterina, it is necessary to transfer the means of production to private ownership. The Empress soberly assessed the state of affairs and understood that on someone else's land and for someone else's benefit, peasants work much worse than for themselves.

It is known that in the early versions of the "Nakaz" Catherine II devoted a lot of space to the peasant issue. But these sections were subsequently significantly reduced after discussion among the nobles. As a result, the solution to this problem looks amorphous and restrained, rather in a recommendatory spirit, rather than as a list of specific steps.

The “mandate” written by Catherine II provided for changes in financial policy and trade. The Empress resolutely opposed the guild organization, allowing its existence only in craft workshops. The welfare and economic power of the state are based only on free trade. In addition, economic crimes were to be tried in special institutions. Criminal law should not be applied in these cases.

The result of the activities of the Statutory Commission and the historical significance of the “Order”

Despite the fact that the goals stated when convening the Statutory Commission were not achieved, three positive results of its activities can be identified:

the empress and the upper strata of society received a clearer idea of the true state of affairs thanks to the orders brought by the deputies;
educated society became more familiar with the then advanced ideas of the French enlighteners (largely thanks to Catherine’s “Order”);
Catherine's right to occupy the Russian throne was finally confirmed (before the decision of the Legislative Commission to assign the title of Mother of the Fatherland to the empress, she was perceived as a usurper).

Catherine II valued her “Order” very highly. She ordered that a copy of the text be in any public place. But at the same time, only the upper strata of society had access to it. The Senate insisted on this in order to avoid misunderstandings among its subjects.

The “Order” of Catherine II was written as a guide to the work of the Statutory Commission, which predetermined the predominance in it of general philosophical reasoning over specific proposals. When the commission was dissolved, and the adoption of new laws did not take place, the empress began to say in her decrees that a number of articles of the “Order” were mandatory for execution. This was especially true of the ban on torture during a judicial investigation.

However, it should still be noted that the main significance of Catherine II’s “Order” still relates to the ideological sphere: Russian society became acquainted with the greatest achievements of European philosophical thought. There was also a practical consequence. In 1785, Catherine issued two Charters (to the nobility and cities), which recorded the rights of the townspeople and privileged sections of society. Basically, the provisions of these documents were based on the corresponding paragraphs of the “Order”. The work of Catherine II, thus, can be considered the program of her reign.

2.3 Composition of the Statutory Commission

The manifesto on the creation of a draft of a new Code and on the convening of a special Commission for this purpose appeared on December 14, 1766. The main motive: the country cannot continue to live according to the medieval code of laws - the Council Code of 1649. 571 deputies were elected to the Commission from nobles, townspeople, odnodvortsev, Cossacks, state peasants, non-Russian peoples of the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia. One deputy was allocated to the central institutions - the Senate, the Synod, and the chancellery. Only serfs, who made up the majority of the country's inhabitants, were deprived of the right to choose their deputies. There are no deputies from the clergy either, because the undertaking was of a purely secular nature.

The social composition of the Commission looked like this: the nobility was represented by 205 deputies, the merchants - 167. Together they made up 65% of all elected representatives, although less than 4% of the country's population stood behind them! Representatives of other classes obviously did not make any “weather” in the Commission: there were 44 of them from the Cossacks, 42 from the same-lords, 29 from state peasants, 7 from industrialists, 19 from clerical officials and others, 54 from “foreigners” (almost none of the latter did not speak Russian, and their participation in the work of the Commission was limited only to a spectacular presence at meetings thanks to exotic clothes). All deputies were guaranteed benefits and privileges. They were forever freed from the death penalty, torture, corporal punishment, and confiscation of property. They were also entitled to a salary in excess of what they received for their service: nobles - 400 rubles, townspeople - 122, all others - 37. The estates of deputies were not subject to confiscation, except in cases when it was necessary to pay off debts; the court's decision regarding the deputies was not carried out without the blessing of the empress; for insulting a deputy, a double fine was imposed; deputies were given a special badge with the motto: “The Bliss of Each and All.”

As a result, about 450 deputies were elected to the Legislative Commission, of which 33% were elected from the nobility, 36% were elected from the townspeople, about 20% were elected from the rural population, 5% were government officials. If we take into account that officials were nobles, and some cities and state peasants elected nobles as deputies, then the share of the nobility in the Statutory Commission, which amounted to 0.6% of the country's population, will increase significantly.

2.4 Functioning of the Commission

The commission opened on July 30, 1767 with a solemn service in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin. Its initial place of work was the Chamber of Facets (subsequent general meetings of the Commission took place in St. Petersburg). At the very first meeting, Catherine’s “Instructions”, which they had been expecting, were read out to the deputies with curiosity. And then it became clear that the orders from the localities, which were to guide the deputies, did not go beyond the interests of a particular class, city, or district, with their down-to-earthness they sharply contrast with Catherine’s “Order”, filled with judgments that were strange for those gathered about “what is freedom,” “equality of all citizens”, and God knows what else!

However, extremely touched by the magnificent opening of the work of the Commission, the deputies, who were unable to understand by ear the truly complex “Instruction” for them, began to think “what to do for the empress, who benefits her subjects.” Nothing worthwhile came to their minds, and therefore they decided to give her the title of “Great, Wise Mother of the Fatherland.” But the far-sighted Catherine, in order not to tease the geese, “modestly” accepted only the title “Mother of the Fatherland,” saying that “I honor the subjects given to me by God as a duty of my title, to be loved by them is my desire.” Thus, unexpectedly (and most likely, according to a pre-prepared scenario), the most unpleasant and sensitive issue for Catherine, about the illegality of her accession to the throne, was removed. From now on, after public confirmation by such a representative assembly of the legitimacy of her power, Ekaterina Alekseevna’s position on the throne became much stronger.

The election of 18 private commissions to draft laws passed relatively calmly, and the working days of the deputies began, which finally sobered up Catherine. From behind the curtain, she secretly watched everything that was happening in the hall and from time to time sent notes with instructions to the sometimes lost chairman, General-Chief A.I. Bibikov. Instead of the businesslike exchange of opinions she expected, heated debates began between representatives of different classes, when neither side wanted to concede anything to the other. The nobles with stupid stubbornness defended their monopoly right to own the peasants, and the merchants - to engage in trade and industry. Moreover, almost in the first place the merchants raised the question of returning the recently taken away from them right to buy peasants to factories. But here the empress was firm and unyielding: “Unwilling hands work worse than free ones, and purchases of villages by factory owners are a direct destruction of agriculture,” which, in her opinion, is the main source of human existence. The merchants equally zealously opposed the trading activities of the peasants, guided solely by their narrow-class, selfish interests.

There was no unity among representatives of the ruling class: nobles from the national outskirts wanted to equal rights with the nobility of the central provinces, and deputies from the noble nobility, led by their leader - a born speaker and polemicist Prince M. M. Shcherbatov - arrogantly opposed themselves to the petty nobility and advocated the decisive abolition of those provisions of Peter’s Table of Ranks, according to which representatives of other classes could receive the title of nobility for merit...

But these were all flowers. The greatest anger of the serf-owning nobles, of whom the nobles' elected representatives mainly consisted, was caused by the timid calls of some of their brethren to limit the arbitrariness of the landowners. Words from the deputy from the city Kozlov G.S. Korobin that peasants are the basis of the well-being of the state and with their ruin “everything else in the state is ruined,” and therefore they must be protected, were drowned in the chorus of voices of serf owners, outraged by the “impudent” call for a change in the “God-sanctified” orders. The nobility, taking advantage of its majority, more and more boldly demanded the expansion of the landowner's right to the personality of the peasant and the fruits of his labor. Voices were also heard about the application of the death penalty to the most rebellious of the peasants.

But the number of speeches of an opposite nature also increased, especially after in July 1768 a bill on the rights of nobles, prepared in a private commission, was submitted for general discussion. Almost 60 deputies, including “our own” members of the nobility, sharply criticized the proposed document. This could not help but worry the empress, who did not at all want to continue the debate in such an unconstructive spirit: the deputies could not come one iota closer to a unified solution to the issue of noble rights.

The incompetence of the deputies, their inability to rise to the level of understanding the ideas proclaimed in the “Nakaz” made such a depressing impression on the empress that to “enlighten” the deputies they resorted to an unusual measure: day after day they began to read loudly and clearly all the laws adopted from 1740 to 1766 property rights, as well as the Council Code of 1649 and about 600 other various decrees. Three times in a row, Catherine’s “Order” was read out again and again. The work of the Commission was virtually paralyzed, and at the end of 1768, with the outbreak of the Russian-Turkish War, it was “temporarily” (and as it turned out, forever) dissolved. Although some private commissions continued to operate until 1774.

Having thoroughly studied the work of the Commission, S.M. Solovyov clearly defined its main purpose: it was convened with the goal of “getting acquainted with the mentality of the people, in order to test the soil before sowing, to try what is possible, what will be responded to and what cannot yet be started.” This is a historian’s conclusion based on an objective analysis of a large amount of documentary materials. And here is the opinion of the Empress herself regarding the tasks of the Commission: “The idea of convening the notables was wonderful. If my meeting of deputies was successful, it was because I said: “Listen, here are my principles; tell me what you are unhappy with, where and what hurts you? Let's help with grief; I have no preconceived system; I desire one common good: in it I place my own. If you please, work, draw up projects; try to delve into your needs." And so they began to research, collect materials, talk, fantasize, argue; and your humble servant listened, remaining very indifferent to everything that was not related to public benefit and public good."

The convening of the Commission, therefore, was of primarily practical interest to the Empress. What was the answer? “This friendly and terribly sad cry was heard from the nobility, merchants and clergy: “Slaves!” writes S. M. Solovyov. Such a solution to the question of serfdom, the historian believes, “came from moral, political and economic underdevelopment. To own people, to have slaves, was considered the highest right, was considered a royal position that atone for all other political and social inconveniences.”

In order to thoroughly undermine the “idea of the superiority of the right to own slaves,” as is known, it took almost another century.

The work of the Commission clearly showed that the ground was completely unprepared for the abolition of slavery. Disappointed and discouraged, but retaining her sobriety, Catherine was forced to “leave time to fertilize the soil through the moral and political development of the people.”

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