The growth of the Russian bureaucracy from the Imperial to Soviet era is overwhelming. According to Alekinskii, in 1897, 435,000 civilians worked for the public bureaucratic sector. This means for every 292 members of the populous there would be one public servant plied for representation (Alekinskii, 178). By 1897, the bureaucracy in Russia was no older than sixty years. Prior to the 1830s state bureaucrats did not truly exist; shortly thereafter, seniority dictated which workers would progress upwards in the public institutions in which he or she worked (John Le Dunne). This could be interpreted as the first sign of the development of bureaucracy in Imperial Russia. Russian bureaucracy, at least in the Soviet and Imperial sense, does not …show more content…
Nicholas refused to follow in the ways of his more liberal predecessors’ Great Reforms in the 1860s. Instead, the Tsar turned back to full control once more making the people of Russia subservient to a God-given Emperor. Owning serfs in Imperial Russia distinguished the nobility from the lower classes and under the new Soviet system, class warfare ensued. The reformed Zemstvo, a weak attempt at self-local government, would shut down indefinitely in the majority of Russia (Wade, 2). The new political group, called the Communist Party or Red Party, emerged in Russia and attempted to form a new government in the wake of the White Imperialist regime. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republic or U.S.S.R was born on December 28, 1922 with the signing of the Treaty of Creation of the U.S.S.R. With a new Red government, new bureaucracies would also emerge; however, the White ideologies tended to prevail in regards to a functioning civil service. Vladimir Lenin, one of the main proponents for the shift into communism, addressed the permeation of Tsarist government ideals into the new movement stating in 1923 that, “the past…although it has been overthrown, has not been overcome.” (Ryavec, 50). Regardless of Tsarist influence on the Soviet regime, the U.S.S.R would become the largest bureaucratic state in the world due to a combination of …show more content…
By 1921, there were over 1,229,000 civil servants working in Russia. By 1925, the number of bureaucrats increased to 2.5 million (Ryavec, 28). Under the Communist Party, the massive increase in bureaucratic officials is largely due to the importance placed on the idea of the State. The strong beliefs of the Communist Party in the USSR heavily influence the idea of the State. The Soviet Union lacked heterogeneity leading to attempts to diversify major Russian institutions such as the political, administrative, economic and even cultural sectors. The attempt to pluralize and create independent institutions did not always work as the bureaucratic power increased within the Soviet Union (Hollander, 305). The Soviet State would control every aspect of national life, from economics to personal belief structures. In order to create a new equality system and the idea of the new man, all institutions needed to be broken down before being rebuilt. Attempting to breakdown the bureaucracy to reform to fit Soviet ideal structures would pose a large problem. The civil servants that chose to remain in the bureaucratic sector carried over many Imperialist ideas as the predecessor government, though socially flawed, kept Russia afloat for centuries. Keeping certain aspects of the Imperial system, though under a new façade, would allow the State to mediate for and
Historically, Russia has always been a country of perplexing dualities. The reality of Dual Russia, the separation of the official culture from that of the common people, persisted after the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War. The Czarist Russia was at once modernized and backward: St. Petersburg and Moscow stood as the highly developed industrial centers of the country and two of the capitals of Europe, yet the overwhelming majority of the population were subsistent farms who lived on mir; French was the official language and the elites were highly literate, yet 82% of the populati...
In the early eighteenth-century, a letter from Peter the Great’s court was sent to Russian publishers declaring that all material must be printed with the intention to maintain “The glory of the great sovereign and his tsardom and for the general usefulness and profit of the nation” (The Cambridge History of Russia). The effects of this proclamation reverberated throughout Russia for centuries and laid the foundation on which future rulers such as Catherine the Great and later Alexander III fortified the position of the censor. The strengthening of the Russian censor, consequently, manipulated and stifled the country’s most influential wordsmiths. No Russian writer was safe from the censor, not even a master like Leo Tolstoy. Specifically,
Moss, W., 2014. A History of Russia Volume 2: Since 1855. 1st ed. London, England: Anthem Press London, pp.112-113.
New York, Oxford University Press. Moorehead, Alan, Ed 1958. The Russian Revolution. New York, Carroll & Graf Publishers Inc. Pipes, Richard, Ed 1995.
Autocracy-A government system, where a person or group has total power over a country. The Russian autocrat at the time of the emancipation of the serfs was Alexander the Second who was assassinated.
They were resentful of measures used to censor philosophical thought, a practice that was common in Russia at this time. Belinsky, a prominent Westernizer wrote that “fresh forces are seething and struggling for expression; but weighed down by heavy oppression, and finding no outlet, they induce merely dejection, weariness, and apathy. Only literature, despite the Tartar censorship, shows signs of life and progressive movement.” He makes it clear that he, at least, feels that Russia as it was at that time was a system of oppression that had to be dismantled in order for Russia to take it’s place as a prominent member of European
Misunderstandings happen in our everyday lives, but when is one misunderstanding one too many that can ultimately leave a country in ruins? The Family Romanov written by Candace Fleming is a nonfiction piece set in the time span of 1903 to 1918 filled with the experience of life in the Russian autocracy under the Romanov rule as a peasant, royal and rebel. This story tells us about the downfall of the once greatly praised Russian autocracy, Fleming takes the reader on a journey featuring the rise, but more so the downfall of their rule. After centuries of reign, the Romanov line has a final ruler, Nicholas II, decisions are made and blood is spilled. But, how far would the people of Russia go for a fair government and how oblivious is not
Wood, A. (1986). The Russian Revolution. Seminar Studies in History. (2) Longman, p 1-98. ISBSN 0582355591, 9780582355590
According to Aristotle, oligarchy refers to the concentration of the supreme power in the hands of a few. However, oligarchs usually achieved the leading role by their wealth instead of their eminence. The first written evidence about this autocrat political system appeared around 411 BCE in ancient Greek masterpieces, when a small group of influential and prosperous people abolished democracy in Athens (Herber et al. 24). Throughout the history of mankind the oligarchs were present in the Western as well as Eastern kingdoms in Europe. Since the middle ages, they usually wielded power simultaneously with the legal ruler. Although this phenomenon has been diminished in modern political history, it is still actively present in one country: the Russian Federation. Russia has always been seen as an exceptional country with its bizarre history and unfathomable politics, where the oligarchs are believed to possess most of the wealth of the Russian society. Their case is more than intriguing as they exercise enormous influence both on the economy and politics. How did these privileged people come into power? What is their actual impact on the economy and to what extent was their political influence restricted in the past few years in the Russian Federation?
Platt, Kevin M. F. and David Brandenberger, eds. Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature as Stalinist Propaganda. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2006.
Riasanovsky, Nicholas V., and Mark D. Steinberg. A History of Russia. 7th ed. Oxford: Oxford, 2005. Print.
Nikolai Gogol has been widely recognized as one of the most inspiring and remarkable authors of the Russian Empire and the one who produced an enormous impact on literary work of countless contemporaries and successors, both in the Tsarist Russia and abroad. Particularly, Gogol’s literary legacy is praised for his exceptional ability to deploy humor as a means of expression and the way to convey the message. In this respect, the short story The Overcoat written during the St. Petersburg period of Gogol’s activity is a very important work which balances between tragic and humorous elements and presents a brilliant specimen of satire. In this work, Gogol builds up the powerful criticism of the contemporary Russian society with its social hierarchy,
A. The Epic of Russian Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1950. 309-346. Tolstoy, Leo. "
"From Autocracy to Oligarchy." The Structure of Soviet History: Essays and Documents. Ed. Ronald Grigor. Suny. New York: Oxford UP, 2003. 340-50. Print.
According to Sapru R.K. (2008) p370-371 the traditional ideal of public administration which inclined to be firm and bureaucratic was based on processes instead of outcomes and on setting procedures to follow instead of focusing on results. This paradigm can be regarded as an administration under formal control of the political control, constructed on a firmly ranked model of bureaucracy, run by permanent and neutral public servants, driven only by public concern. In emerging nations the administration was true bureaucracy meaning government by officers. In this perspective Smith (1996) p235-6 perceived that“the bureaucracy controls and manages the means of production through the government. It increases chances for bureaucratic careers by the creation of public figures,demanding public managers, marketing boards.