The Last Draft of Civil Service Reform in the Russian Empire and Its Fate

The study focuses on the reform of the Civil Service Statute and its new draft, developed by the special Commission in the period between 1895 and 1901. The article analyzes interdepartmental and intradepartmental documents of higher and central government agencies in order to identify the departments’ reaction to the proposed changes in the statute. This document proposed significant transformations of the Russian system of rank promotion, including the equalization of rights for all strata when entering civil service, the reduction of four civilian ranks, the division of service into class service, non-class service, and service by employment, etc. However, due to disagreements between the departments, the draft was not adopted by the State Council. An analysis of archival materials, including previously unpublished ones, helps to identify the factors that led individual departments to reject the new project, which, in turn, facilitates better understanding of the reasons for the slow evolution of the civil rank promotion system in the Russian Empire in the 19th and early 20th century and its importance as one of the foundations of statehood.

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