Marc Raeff: Comprendre l'ancien regime russe. Etat et société en Russie imperiale. Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1982. 247 s. 130 kr.

The aim of this essay, presented as the first in a series of lectures at the »Centre russe de l'Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales« in Paris in 1980, is to explain the social development of Russia from the 17th century to 1917. The main theses of the essay are as follows: In the second part of the 17th c. the Muscovite old order was in a state of collapse. Thanks to the »Ukrainian channel« and Polish cultural influences new ideas began to reach Moscow. They prepared the background for Peter I's reforms in all fields of Russian government and society. This confirms V.L. Tapié's thesis. »C'est n'est pas Pierre le Grand, qui a crée la Russie«. These changes created a Russian policy state and cameralisme. The Muscovite state became a European one after an East-European (Prussian) or Swedish model. However, these changes concerned only a small minority of the population, the majority were living as if they were under the old culture. A sense of insecurity was to prevail and created difficulties into the 18th c. for Russia. Raeff explains this insecurity in terms of popular revolts especially Pugachev's uprising. It was a revolt against centralization, institutionalism and imitation of

foreign life-styles, rather than against serfdom as was claimed in the old Russian and Soviet historiographies. The book examines some of the major reforms introduced by Catherine the Great, traces the emergence of the Russian bureaucracy and analyses the relationship between bureaucracy and public opinion. According to RaefF the autocratic policies of Catherine ll's did not create the Empire of nobility, as was told by many historians. The author appreciates the role of the public opinion during the reign of Alexander I. He points out that only as a consequence of the Decembrist uprising Nicholas I changed his attitude towards the Russian public opinion. In the future the Tzar no longer heeded public opinion but only discussed affairs of state with the Russian bureaucracy. The latter became exceedingly professional and its role was strengthened.

In his analysis of social groups in Russia at the beginning the 20th century the author concludes that the feeble social structure was not prepared for the shocks that followed. Neither the nobility, nor the radical intelligentsia were able to adapt to the new situation. The relationship between the social groups and the dynamic social forces presented a sort of »chassés-croisés«. The increasing ineptitude of both the autocracy and the intelligentsia were the cause for the petrification of the tzarist system. It created a sort of vacuum. The situation before the October Revolution corresponds to the formula »crise sans alternative« used by Christian Meier in explaining the collapse of the Roman Empire.