Lyubichankovskiy Sergey,«Formation and Development of Informal

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Kimitaka Matsuzato
Lyubichankovskiy Sergey, «Formation and Development of Informal
Associations of the Ural’s Provincial Officials at the End of the
19th Century and the Beginning of the 20th Century». New York,
The Edwin Mellen Press, 2014. ISBN 978-0-7734-4282-5
Russian officialdom has attracted historians’ attention since effective
functioning of bureaucracy has vital importance for any political regime.
We may enjoy excellent monographs which analyzed the Russian officialdom, in particular, its sociological background [2; 3]. However, the
previous studies paid attention to the Russian officialdom only as an instrument of tsarist rule. The analyzed brochure [1] is quite unique since it
explores the Russian officialdom, perhaps for the first time in historiography, as an independent actor.
The author, Sergei Lyubichankovskiy, demonstrates that the salaries
which the officers were granted in the late tsarist regime did not cover
the rising cost of their living, which induced them to look for illegal and
legal ways of solution of the predicaments they faced. On the one hand,
corruption of officers hypertrophied; Lyubichankovskiy mobilizes many
cases in which the provincial boards (gubernskie pravleniia) intervened
in law suites against corrupted officers to defend them (the illegal solution). On the other hand, the officers tried to organize themselves in
trade unions (the legal solution), but this way was incompatible with
autocratic rule. Based on reports submitted by senators of their inspections, the author argues that the difficulties that the officialdom in the
Ural region faced were the universal phenomenon for the whole
Russian Empire.
The author emphasizes the anti-bureaucracy mood of the population
as an important factor of the First Russian Revolution in 1905. This factor
might explain various popular protests during the World War I and the
February and even October Revolutions. Historians in the past underscored too much the class component of the revolution (land and labor).
Presently, ethnic factors seem to have replaced the class factors to explain the revolutions in 1905 and 1917. Yet anti-bureaucrat campaign
was and continues to be a most convenient instrument for political struggle even in developed democratic countries.
Based on abundant references to central and local archival sources,
this brochure proposes to revisit the history of the late imperial Russia.
© Matsuzato Kimitaka, 2014
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Bibliography
1. Lyubichankovskiy S. Formation and Development of Informal Associations of
the Ural’s Provincial Officials at the End of the 19th Century and the Beginning of the
20th Century. – New York:, 2014.
2. Robbins R.G., jr. The Tsar’s Viceroys. Russian Provincial Governors in the
Last Years of the Empire. – Ithaca and London, 1987.
3. Zaionchikovskii P.A. Pravitel'stvennyj apparat samoderzhavnoj Rossii v
XIX veke. – M., 1978.
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