The Russian Revolution полностью

Appointments to the top four ranks (of which in 1903 there were 3,765 holders)²⁸ could not be attained by regular advancement: since they entitled to hereditary nobility, they were made personally by the Tsar. Ranks 14 through 5 were open to regular career promotions, procedures for which were prescribed in minute detail. In most cases, a prospective functionary of non-noble origin began his career as a Chancery Servitor in some government bureau. This post carried no chin. He remained in it anywhere from one to twelve years, depending on his social status and education, before becoming eligible for promotion to Rank 14: hereditary nobles with completed secondary education served only one year, whereas boys discharged from the Imperial Choir because of a change in voice had to serve twelve. Once installed, a chinovnik worked his way up the career ladder one rung at a time. The Service Regulations determined how long an official remained in each rank (three years in the lower ones, four in the higher), but advancement could be speeded up for outstanding performance. In theory, it required twenty-four years from one’s first appointment until the attainment of the highest career rank (Chin 5). Ranks 14 through 5 bestowed personal (non-hereditary) ennoblement.

One could qualify for direct entry into the civil service by virtue of either appropriate social status or education. Sons of nobles (dvoriane) and personal nobles (lichnye dvoriane) were the only ones eligible for admission to Rank 14 or higher regardless of education. Others qualified by virtue of educational attainments. In theory, civil service careers were open to all subjects without distinction of nationality or religion, but an exception was made for Jews, who were ineligible unless they had a higher education, which in practice meant a medical degree. Catholics were subject to quotas. Lutherans were very much in demand and a high proportion of the officials in St. Petersburg chanceries were Baltic Germans. Excluded, unless they met the educational criteria (university degree or completed secondary schooling with honors), were members of the urban estates, peasants, and all persons who had received their secondary education abroad.

While on duty, holders of rank (which included university professors) were required to wear uniforms, the cut and color of which was prescribed in fifty-two articles of the Service Regulations. They had to be addressed in a specified form appropriate to their rank, the titles being translated from German. Each rank had its perquisites, which included minutely regulated precedence rules.

Remuneration consisted of salary, expense accounts, and living quarters or a suitable housing allowance. Salary differentials were enormous, officials in Rank 1 receiving over thirty times the pay of those in Rank 14. Few officials held landed properties or had other sources of private income: in 1902, even of those in the four topmost ranks, only one in three owned land.²⁹ On leaving the service, like faithful domestics high officials usually were given monetary rewards by the Tsar; thus, Minister of Justice Nicholas Maklakov received on his retirement 20,000 rubles, Minister of the Interior Peter Durnovo, 50,000, and the Court’s favorite, Prime Minister Ivan Goremykin, 100,000.³⁰ For distinguished service there were also other rewards, notably medals of various designations, strictly graded in order of importance and precedence: their description occupies no fewer than 869 paragraphs in the Service Regulations.

The civil service was thus a closed caste, separated from the rest of society, access to which and promotion within which were strictly regulated on the basis of social origin, education, and seniority. This caste—225,000 strong in 1900, including members of the police and the gendarmerie—was a personal staff of the monarch subject neither to the laws of the land nor to any external supervision. It served at the monarch’s pleasure. The institution was a carryover from medieval times, before the emergence of a distinction between the person of the ruler and the institution of the state.

The legacy of patrimonialism was also apparent in the structure and operations of the principal executive agencies, the ministries.