The Governing Senate was established - the highest body of state power and legislation, subordinate to the emperor.

Peter's constant absences I from the country prevented him from doing the current affairs of government. During his absence, he entrusted the conduct of business to several trusted persons. 22 February (5 March) 1711 d. these powers were entrusted to a new institution called the Governing Senate.

The Senate exercised full power in the country in the absence of the sovereign and coordinated the work of other state institutions.

The new institution included nine people: Count Ivan Alekseevich Musin-Pushkin, boyar Tikhon Nikitich Streshnev, Prince Pyotr Alekseevich Golitsyn, Prince Mikhail Vladimirovich Dolgoruky, Prince Grigory Andreevich Plemyannikov, Prince Grigory Ivanovich Volkonsky, Krigsalmeister General Mikhail Mikhailovich Samarin, Quartermaster General Vasily Andreevich Apukhtin and Nazariy Petrovich Melnitsky. Anisim Shchukin was appointed chief secretary.

In 1718-1722 gg. The Senate included all the presidents of the colleges. The position of Prosecutor General was introduced, which controlled all the work of the Senate, its apparatus, the office, the adoption and execution of all its sentences, their protest or suspension. The Prosecutor General and Chief Prosecutor of the Senate were subordinate only to the sovereign. The main function of the prosecutor's control was to ensure the observance of law and order. Pavel Ivanovich Yaguzhinsky was appointed the first prosecutor general.

After Peter's death I the position of the Senate, its role and functions in the public administration system gradually changed. The Senate instead of the Governing One became known as the High. In 1741 d. empress Elizaveta Petrovna issued a Decree “On the Restoration of the Power of the Senate in the Board of Internal State Affairs”, but the real significance of the Senate in matters of internal administration was small.

The Senate was established in Russia under Peter the Great in 1711, following the model of a similar institution that existed in Sweden. Studying government institutions in Sweden, Peter the Great settled on the Senate; this institution, with some changes adapted to the life of Russian life, should, in his opinion, find a convenient basis in our system of government. By means of such an institution, based on a purely collegiate principle, he thought to achieve: 1) unity in all management and 2) put an end to all abuse of officials.

Leaving abroad in 1711, Peter the Great entrusted all management not to the “boyar duma”, as was done before, but to the newly established institution - the senate. He was entrusted with: supreme supervision in matters of court, finance and administration; his main duty was to oversee the exact and uniform execution of the law. Subsequently, through practice itself, the scope of the Senate's departments expanded to extraordinary proportions. It can be said that there was no branch in public administration, wherever the power and activity of the senate extended. All institutions and persons in the state obeyed him: spiritual and secular, military and civil, higher and lower. He had administrative, judicial, and partly even legislative power; in a word, Peter V., especially due to the fact that he often had to leave the state, and on the other hand, wishing that as a result of this there would be no stops in state administration, he provided the senate with such power as no institution had before. , nor after it. In relation to the legislative function, the senate was truly something peculiar and exceptional. He not only had the right to draw up projects and submit them for the approval of the sovereign, but even himself, by his own power, could issue laws during the absence of the sovereign; of course, this right was temporary and was conditioned by the then exceptional circumstances; at the same time, the senate in its legislative activity was responsible to the monarch. As for the participation of the senate in the legislative activity of the bearer of supreme power, manifested in the drafting and discussion of laws, such participation belonged to the senate constantly during the life of Peter, it was a completely normal phenomenon and was not caused by any exceptional circumstances.

If the competence of the Senate extended to the entire public administration in general, then its judicial significance was already determined under Peter V. to the greatest extent. The Senate was both the first instance in the most important cases and the highest appellate instance in ordinary cases. However, at least at first, the decisions of the senate were not final, since complaints were also allowed to the emperor himself, but already from 1718 complaints about the decision of the senate were prohibited under pain of death on the grounds that “that supreme senate from his The royal majesty is highly trusted and consists of honest and noble persons, who are not only petitioners, but also the government of the state is entrusted. This prohibition, however, did not extend to all kinds of complaints; thus, complaints about the slowness of proceedings or the denial of justice were not prohibited.

Finally, the administrative activities of the Senate were extremely varied; thus, in relation to military affairs, the senate had the duty to gather men for war, to replenish the army with officers, to replace the loss that had occurred in the troops, to supply the army with all the necessary supplies, and even to make orders of a purely military nature. With the establishment of collegiums, the circle of the Senate's department in military affairs narrowed somewhat. In financial terms, the senate was entrusted with managing the revenues and expenditures of the state; he had not only controlling importance in this area, but he could independently manage the state treasury. In addition to finding sources of state revenue and disposing of the latter, the Senate was also obliged to apply its concerns to the promotion of trade and industry, and finally, it was also responsible for the minting of coins. With the establishment of collegiums in this sphere as well, the whole mass of petty cases passed from the senate to these institutions. In addition to military and financial affairs, the Senate had to take care of the welfare and security of the state, which included concerns about communication routes, the improvement of cities, public food, public education, the creation of conditions for the security of life and property of everyone and everyone, and much more.

The Senate initially consisted of nine senior dignitaries and the presidents of the established colleges. The participation of the latter in the affairs of the Senate, although it seemed extremely inconvenient to Peter, in view of the fact that the presidents of the collegiums often became judges in their own affairs, transferred from the collegiums to the senate, but due to the lack of suitable persons to form the composition of the senate, Peter had to reconcile for a while with this evil; but already by decree of April 27, 1722, the presidents of the colleges were deprived of the title of senators, with the exception of the presidents of two military colleges - naval and land, as well as foreign and berg colleges. The number of senators was increased by persons chosen from former ambassadors to foreign courts. As regards the rights of senators, it was only in relation to the court that they enjoyed the privilege of being judged by their equals, i.e. in the Senate, or in an emergency court, the so-called "higher"; in all other respects they were equated with ordinary officials. In addition to the actual senators in the Senate, there was still a fairly significant number of persons vested with special duties. These were: commissars, chief fiscal, racket master, king of arms, and finally, the prosecutor general, chief prosecutor and prosecutors. Each province had two commissars attached to the Senate; the purpose of establishing this position was to establish the easiest relationship with the provinces, so the commissioners had to have all the necessary information about their province. They were also sometimes entrusted with monitoring the execution of decrees sent to the provinces. With the establishment of colleges, commissars lose their significance, although they still continue to exist.

The duties of the Chief Fiscal, and since 1723 the General Fiscal, were to monitor the correct administration of all official duties by officials, and mainly to monitor state interests and protect them. The chief fiscal was subordinate to the provincial fiscals, who in turn had their own fiscals. In general, it must be said that there was not a single department, not a single instance, not a single office where there was no fiscal. Such a sad phenomenon can only be explained by the circumstances of that time, by the mass of abuses in the bureaucratic world that Peter had to fight. Initially, the fiscals were even freed from all responsibility, which, of course, should have led to another extreme: the fiscals themselves, taken from the same environment, were not slow to take advantage of their irresponsibility and stained their already unseemly activities with unheard-of abuses. This led to the transformation of the institution of fiscals and to the establishment of their responsibility. With the establishment of the post of Prosecutor General and prosecutors, the fiscals are pushed into the background, until finally, due to their uselessness, they were finally abolished.

At the Senate consisted, further, as it is said, the general-reketmeister and the king of arms. The duties of the first were entrusted with the initial consideration of cases transferred to the Senate from the collegiums, as well as cases on complaints against the collegiums of their office; he was instructed to intercede in cases of foreigners, and subsequently other duties were assigned to him. In the event of a complaint against any higher judicial place, the general-reketmeister himself personally undertook an audit and brought the perpetrators to the court of the senate. As for the king of arms, he kept a genealogical book of the nobles, had to take care of the institution for the noble children of educational institutions; it was his duty to have a sufficient number of reserve nobles ready in case of demand from the senate.

Finally, one of the most important positions in the Senate is that of the Prosecutor General. Peter's desire to form a strong body of control over the proceedings in the Senate led to the establishment of this position. The institution of the prosecutor's office developed, however, gradually. Supervision of the proceedings in the Senate passed from one official to another: thus, initially, for this purpose, the post of Auditor General was formed; from him the duties of supervision passed to the chief secretary of the Senate chancellery, then to the staff officers of the guard, and in the end, the then firmly established institution of the prosecutor's office appeared. The position of Prosecutor General was formed on a more rational basis than on which the former control bodies rested. The Attorney General received much more rights than his predecessors, and also incomparably more means to be a true organ of control, and not only in relation to the Senate, but also to all the present gestures of the empire. In the Senate, he was the head of the office, thanks to which he got the opportunity to get acquainted with the entire course of the proceedings, which the previous control bodies did not have. The Prosecutor General was also an active member of the Senate; his activity was not limited to only one observation, he was not only one “eye of the sovereign”, but at the same time he was also a “solicitor on sovereign affairs”, due to which he often took an active part in solving cases, he had to direct every case in such a way so that it cannot cause any harm to the state. The power of the procurator-general extended, as has been said, to all the lower institutions of the empire; for its implementation, under his direct department were the prosecutors established at the collegiums and courts of courts, who had the same rights with respect to the institutions under which they consisted, which the prosecutor general had in relation to the senate. In addition to the prosecutors, under the command of the prosecutor general was the chief prosecutor as his assistant.

Thus, the position of the Prosecutor General was an element connecting the Senate - on the one hand with the sovereign, on the other with lower institutions. In addition, it is impossible not to admit that in the person of the Prosecutor General, Peter partly returned to the former personal principle in administration, against which he was precisely fighting, but which was too tenacious and too rooted in Russian life to disappear so soon and suddenly. However, according to Peter, the prosecutor general should have been a necessary element of the senate, outside of which all its significance was lost. As a result of this, the Senate, as the highest state institution, which was the most complete expression of the collegiate principle, and the Prosecutor General, who represented a personal principle, were not opposite to each other, but, on the contrary, seemed to complement each other. Control over the entire administration is the business of the collegiate senate; observation, that nothing be omitted, that harmful factors be eliminated, and that all the activities of institutions and officials be directed towards one goal - the work of the Prosecutor General, as a representative of a personal principle. Therefore, one cannot but agree with Petrovsky that “with the Prosecutor General, the Senate has become more perfect, its power is more powerful, more real. The Prosecutor General with the prosecutors gave him a whole mass of information, hitherto missing, unknown, aroused his activity more strongly, he became more energetic, his forces seemed to be concentrated. The Prosecutor General and the Senate merged into one whole and history bound them together by one fate: the time of the high position of the Prosecutor General is at the same time the time of prosperity, the greatest energy and activity of the Senate itself, the time of the decline of the Prosecutor General under the closest successors of Peter - the time of the humiliation of the Senate, and Finally, when the Attorney General became the Minister of Justice, the Senate became almost only a judicial seat.

Senate office work under Peter was organized on the following grounds: all cases that came to the senate went primarily to the chief secretary, from whom they were either transferred directly to the senate meeting for decision, this is precisely in the case when the case was not difficult and not required preliminary inquiries, or came to the table to the assistants for inquiries. In the meeting, cases were reported by the chief secretary, and the prosecutor general supervised the submission of opinions and debate that followed. Decisions were made by majority vote; if a unanimous decision was also practiced, then it was not very long, namely from the time the Senate was founded until 1714, therefore no more than three years. The decree of 1714 then commands to keep minutes of meetings in all cases, so that it can be seen what and how happens in the meetings, and in order to thereby force the senators to treat cases prudently and conscientiously. Further, it was required that all senators should certainly participate in the decision of affairs; those who did not appear at the meeting without explanation of the reasons, or, although due to illness, but without notice, had to pay a fine of 50 rubles a day.

The Senate chancellery, headed by the chief secretary, was divided into four tables: secret, command, provincial and discharge. The affairs of the highest state administration, especially those subject to secrecy, were concentrated in a secret table, although some other matters were also dealt with here, partly financial, partly external relations. In the clerk's desk, the affairs of the current state administration were conducted, requiring special consideration and permission from the senate. The provincial desk was in charge of the affairs of the provinces, with the exception of Moscow, which was in charge of the clerk's desk. The discharge table, like the former "discharge", considered cases related to the service class. There was also the so-called fiscal table, in charge of which cases were concentrated on denunciations of the fiscals and on the fiscals. This distribution of cases among the tables, however, did not remain anything permanent, but was subject to more or less frequent modifications and transfers of cases from one table to another.

Recalling everything that has been said about the Senate under Peter the Great, we come to the conclusion that it was the highest state institution, operating both in the sphere of supreme and subordinate government. If the former "boyar" and "tsar's duma" were much more personal advice in the person of the monarch than real state bodies, then the senate, on the contrary, received the character of a state institution in the true sense of the word. The composition of the “Duma” was more aristocratic than the composition of the Senate, since the former was precisely such an institution in which the state significance of the aristocracy was embodied, and the position of which characterized the relationship between the representative of the supreme power and the upper class; the senate was a completely monarchical institution, not connected with the aristocracy by any threads; if it included representatives of the upper class, ancient boyar families, then not on the basis of time-honored custom, but only solely at the personal discretion of the monarch, and not as representatives of the clan, but as equal members of the collegiate institution; along with them in the senate there were also persons not distinguished by the antiquity of their kind. The Senate was for the first time an institution with a certain permanent composition and with detailed tasks in the field of legislation, administration and the judiciary. Before the establishment of the Senate, there was no supreme body of control over all institutions and officials in the state, which at the same time would be the guardian of law and justice; there was no body set to act with the help of persons and institutions subordinate to it in all parts of the administration. With the establishment of the Senate, the foundation for the unity of state administration is laid, and the responsibility of the administration becomes a firmer basis. But the higher administration under Peter was not yet sufficiently differentiated, so the same body operates both in the sphere of supreme and in the sphere of subordinate administration. The Senate under Peter V. concentrated in itself everything that was much later distributed among various bodies - the State Council, the Committee of Ministers and the Senate. The very distinction between the supreme and subordinate government under Peter was far from being presented in the form as it was later determined, in view of the fact that Peter himself was not only a monarch and head of state, but at the same time one of the most active administrators who created for himself represented by the Senate Assistant for all matters of public administration. The extent to which the newly formed institution corresponded to the real needs of public life is shown by the fact that it exists to this day with the same main tasks - to be the body of control over the entire administration, the guardian of laws and the guardian of justice. The strength and stability, as well as the expediency of this institution, are also fully confirmed by the fact that the Senate had to go through difficult times, when the old principles of Moscow administration came to the surface of state life, when the Senate had to wage an unequal struggle, from which it eventually emerged. winner. This struggle began immediately after the death of Peter the Great.