The secret committee

Entering the throne, soon after his father's death, Alexander the First with his closest friends and associates creates the so-called Secret Committee. Members of this secret organization, besides the emperor, are Count Stroganov, who participates in the French Revolution and is a member of the Jacobin club, as well as members of various Masonic organizations, Count V. Kochubei, Pole Czartoryski and Nikolai Novosiltsev.

The unspoken committee drafted a program aimed at reforming. At its meetings, the introduction of a constitution in Russia, which spoke about the rights of Russian citizens and events in the spirit of the French revolution, was repeatedly discussed. The draft constitution was written by Count Stroganov, who called it "a legitimate recognition of the rights of the people, as well as the forms by which he has the right to exercise them."

The Tacit Committee also included the recently returned teacher of Alexander I, a member of the Masonic lodge Laharp.

Historians, however, believe that it was Lagarp who persuaded Alexander, aspiring to a constitutional monarchy, to wait a little with the adoption of the constitution, believing that such a large state as Russia simply needs an unshakable and firm authority.

Masons such as Zavadovsky, Count AR Varentsov, and also Troshchinsky, who later became ministers, also joined the Tacit Committee, this community of those people who were worried about the fate of Russia.

Already in the summer of 1801 the discussion of the Charter began for the Russian people, in the creation of which the "father" for the Russian intelligentsia A. Radishchev, considered an inveterate enemy of the monarchy, his patron Count Vorontsov, and the Speransky freemason took part.

Emperor Alexander Pavlovich, who is the soul of this organization, has most vehemently and most emphatically denounced the Russian order, introducing all new reform projects for Russia. On the deep conviction of the autocrat, as Stroganov says in his memoirs, at the center of all reforms there was to be freedom of the individual and freedom of property, protection of a person with the help of laws "not giving chances to change existing arbitrariness by any arbitrariness".

Considered radical, this Committee for the improvement of life in Russia also studied problems related to serfdom, understanding the economic need for its elimination.

A decree was also drafted, banning the sale of simply peasants without land. However, the highest dignitaries, upon learning of this, began to express a sharp discontent, believing that the foundations of serfdom would thereby be undermined. The Emperor did not dare to insist on his own.

The members of the Secret Committee perfectly understood the great distance that lay between their plans and the current reality. They had no doubt that any attempt on their part by the real system of values and, above all, on the peasant question, would raise a wave of discontent among the landlords, which could lead both the government and the Emperor personally to clash with the interests of the upper class in the country. And then a civil war, dangerous for all , can begin.

And so the Emperor Alexander I acted cautiously and very carefully. Although even such shy steps have responded to the public with discontent.

In aristocratic and court circles, the Secret Committee was nicknamed the "Jacobin gang".

All its founders, led by the Emperor Alexander himself, were young, full of vitality and well-intentioned, however, they were also very inexperienced, which was the reason for the disagreements.

The unspoken Committee developed its activities, engaged in discussions of various reforms, throughout the year 1801, until the month of May 1802.

However, later, for some reason, he was not going to the year and a half. And although in 1803 members of the "Jacobin gang" met several times, the Secret Committee gradually disintegrated and ceased to exist. It must be said that essentially at the time the need for it somehow fell away.