The Supreme Privy Council: the year of creation and the participants

The Supreme Privy Council was created after the death of Peter the Great. The accession of Catherine to the throne caused the need for his organization with a view to explaining the state of affairs: the empress was not capable of directing the activities of the Russian government.

Prerequisites

The establishment of the Supreme Privy Council, as many believed, was supposed to "reassure the offended feelings" of the old nobility, eliminated from the management of non-noble leaders. At the same time, it was not the form that was to change, but the nature and essence of the supreme authority, after all, having retained its titles, it turned into a state institution.

Many historians express the opinion that the main flaw in the system of power bodies created by the great Peter was the impossibility of combining the character of the executive power with the collegial principle, and therefore the Supreme Privy Council was founded.

It turned out that the emergence of this higher deliberative body was not so much the result of opposing political interests, but rather a necessity connected with filling the gap in the incomplete Petrine system at the level of higher management. The results of the short-term activities of the Council were not very significant, since he had to act immediately after a tense and active era, when one reform replaced the other, and in all spheres of public life there was a strong excitement.

Reason for creation

The creation of the Supreme Privy Council was intended to understand the complex tasks of Peter's reforms, which remained unresolved. His activity clearly showed that it was from the inherited Catherine who stood the test of time, and what should be reorganized. More consistently, the Supreme Council followed the line chosen by Peter in industrial policy, although in general the general trend of his activity can be characterized as the reconciliation of the interests of the people with the interests of the army, the abandonment of extensive military campaigns and the failure to take any reforms with regard to the Russian army. Simultaneously, this institution was responsible in its activities for those needs and cases that required an immediate solution.

Members of the Supreme Privy Council

The date of establishment of this higher consultative state institution was February, 1726. Its members were appointed the Most Serene Prince, General Field Marshal Menshikov, State Chancellor Golovkin, General Apraksin, Count Tolstoy, Baron Osterman and Prince Golitsyn. A month later, the Duke of Holstein, the son-in-law of Catherine, the most trusted person of the Empress, was included in its structure. From the very beginning, members of this supreme body were exclusively followers of Peter, but soon Menshikov, who was in exile under Peter II, ousted Tolstoy. After a while Apraksin died, and Duke Holstinsky stopped attending meetings altogether. Of the originally appointed members of the Supreme Privy Council, only three representatives remained in its ranks: Osterman, Golitsyn and Golovkin. The composition of this advisory supreme body has changed a lot. Gradually, power passed into the hands of powerful princely families - the Golitsyns and Dolgoruky.

Activities

The Secret Council, under the orders of the Empress, was also subordinated to the Senate, which at first was reduced to the point that they decided to send him decrees from the Synod, which had previously been equal with him. Under Menshikov, the newly created organ attempted to consolidate the power of the government. Ministers, as its members were called, swore with the senators of the Empress. It was strictly forbidden to execute decrees, not signed by the empress and her offspring, which was the Supreme Privy Council.

According to the testament of Catherine the First, this authority was given to the authority, at the time of the early childhood of Peter II, equivalent to the authority of the sovereign. However, the Privy Council did not have the right to implement changes only in the order of succession to the throne.

Change in the form of government

Since the very first moment of establishment of this organization, many abroad have predicted the possibility of attempts to change the form of government in Russia. And they were right. When Peter II died , and it happened on the night of January 19, 1730, in spite of Catherine's will, her descendants were removed from the throne. The pretext was the youth and frivolity of Elisaveta, the youngest heiress of Peter, and the early childhood of their grandson, Anna Petrovna's son. The question of electing a Russian monarch was resolved by the influential voice of Prince Golitsyn, who stated that it was necessary to pay attention to the senior line of the Petrine clan, and therefore proposed the candidacy of Anna Ioannovna. The daughter of John Alekseevich, who has lived in Courland for nineteen years, suited everyone, since she had no favorites in Russia. She seemed manageable and obedient, with no inclination toward despotism. In addition, this decision was due to Golitsyn's dislike of Peter's reforms. To this narrowly individual tendency was joined the long-established plan of the "supreme" to change the form of government, which, naturally, was easier to do under the rule of the childless Anna.

"CONDITIONS"

Taking advantage of the situation, the "supreme", deciding to limit several autocratic powers, demanded that Anna sign certain conditions, the so-called "Conditutions." According to them, the Supreme Privy Council should have been the real power, and the role of the sovereign was reduced only to representative functions. This form of government for Russia was new.

At the end of January 1730 the newly-empress Empress signed the "Condiments" presented to her. From now on, without the approval of the Supreme Council, it could not tie wars, conclude peace treaties, impose new taxes or impose taxes. Not in its competence was the treasury's expenditure at its own discretion, the work in rank higher than the rank of colonel, the payment of patrimony, the deprivation of the nobility life or property without trial, and most importantly - the appointment of the heir to the throne.

The struggle for the revision of the "Conditio"

Anna Ioannovna, having entered the Holy See, went to the Assumption Cathedral, where the highest state officials and troops swore allegiance to the empress. A new form in the form of an oath was deprived of some of the former expressions that signified autocracy, it did not mention the rights that the Supreme Privy Authority gave to it. Meanwhile, the struggle between the two parties, the "supremacists" and supporters of the autocracy, has intensified. In the ranks of the last active role played P. Yaguzhinsky, A. Cantemir, Theophanes Prokopovich and A. Osterman. They were supported by wide layers of the nobility, who wished to revise the "Conditio". Discontent was primarily due to the strengthening of a narrow circle of members of the Privy Council. In addition, in the conditions most of the representatives of the nobility, as at that time was called the nobility, saw the intention to establish in Russia an oligarchy and the desire to assign two names - Dolgoruky and Golitsyn - the right to elect a monarch and change the form of government.

Canceling the "Consistency"

In February 1730, a large group of representatives of the nobility, which, according to some reports, amounted to eight hundred people, came to the palace to give Anna Ivanovna a petition. Among them there were quite a few guards officers. In the petitioned empress, an urgent request was expressed, together with the nobility, to revise the form of government once again to make it acceptable to the whole Russian people. Anna, by virtue of her character, hesitated, but her older sister, Ekaterina Ioannovna , forced her to sign the petition after all. In it the nobles asked to take full autocracy and destroy the points of the "Consistency".

Anna on new conditions secured the approval of the confused "supremacists": there was nothing left for them, just nodding their heads. According to the contemporary, they had no other choice, since at the slightest confrontation or disapproval, the guardsmen would attack them. Anna with pleasure publicly tore apart not only the "Conditia", but her own letter about the acceptance of their items.

The inglorious end of Council members

On March 1, 1730, on the conditions of full autocracy, the people once again swore an oath to the Empress. And after only three days the Manifesto of March 4 was the abolition of the Supreme Privy Council.

The fate of its former members has developed in different ways. Prince Golitsyn was sent into retirement, and after a while he died. His brother, as well as three of the four Dolgorukovs, were executed during the reign of Anna. Only one of them, Vasily Vladimirovich, who had been acquitted under Elizaveta Petrovna, was returned from exile and, moreover, was appointed head of the military collegium.

Osterman during the reign of Empress Anna Ioannovna was at the most important state post. Moreover, in 1740-1741 he briefly became the de facto ruler of the country, but as a result of another palace coup he was defeated and was exiled to Beryozov.