While Russia obtained a measure of success with each of these objectives, the bureaucracy remained inefficient. Corruption was commonplace. Payment for empty, upperlevel jobs that demanded little work was expected. Many departments and offices were redundant, while some appeared to have no use at all. Yet despite its inefficiencies and continued attempts at reform, the system remained largely intact until the Russian Revolution.
The difficulty in reforming the Russian bureaucracy was related to its design in the previous century, when Peter the Great (1682-1725) revised the government to imitate administrative bodies in Western Europe. Following the Swedish model of government, he instituted “colleges,” or ministries, for branches such as finance, justice, commerce, and foreign affairs. Rather than having a single chief minister, each ministry was governed by a board of 12 individuals. The colleges were responsible to the Senate, which did not have independent deliberative power but served as a council to do the bidding of the czar, who was the undisputed center of political control. Over this whole apparatus Peter the Great devised the office of the procurator-general—a particularly Russian position, which was given wide powers of surveillance to make sure that the Senate and other ministries were enacting the czar’s will.
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