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In what year was the convening of the laid down commission. The laid down commission and the Order of Catherine II

Time of Catherine II (1762–1796)

Legislative activity of Catherine II

(continuation)

Activities of the Statutory Commission

Thus the first part of the plan conceived by the empress was fulfilled: " general rules"of the new legislation. In the implementation of this first part, as we have already seen, Catherine suffered some failure. She could not fully and openly express her principles, because she encountered opposition all around her. Failure befell her in the second part of the plan - in developing the details of the new legislation These details have never been worked out.

To draw up a new code, a manifesto on December 14, 1766 convened representatives of the estates and public places in Moscow. Their meeting was called the “Commission for drafting a new code.” The nobility of each district had to send one deputy to this Commission; each city, regardless of its size, also has one deputy; the lowest of various services, service people (Landmilitsky people), black-sown (state) peasants - from each province, from each nation there is one deputy. The Senate, Synod, Collegium, and other public places also had to send a deputy. Thus, the bases for representation were different: some parts of the population sent representatives from the district, others from the province, others from a separate tribe, and others from the government office; some were elected by estate (nobles, peasants), others by place of residence (city dwellers-homeowners, foreigners). Privately owned peasants were completely deprived of the right of representation. There were no direct representatives of the clergy. Thus, although people from a variety of states and tribes were gathered in Moscow, the representation established by Catherine was far from complete. (The organization and composition of the commission of 1767 is very well discussed in the essay by A. V. Florovsky “Composition of the Legislative Commission of 1767–1774.” 1915.)

The deputy was provided with a government salary for the entire duration of his stay in the Commission and had to bring to Moscow instructions from his constituents depicting their needs and desires. These instructions were called deputy orders, and Catherine’s Order, in contrast to them, began to be called the “great Order”. Catherine tried to make the title of deputy very honorable in the eyes of society: deputies were forever exempt from execution, corporal punishment and confiscation of property; For insulting a deputy, the perpetrator suffered double punishment.

On July 30, 1767, the meetings of the Commission were opened with triumph in the Faceted Chamber in Moscow. All the representatives who appeared before the Commission were 565. One third of them were nobles, the other third were townspeople; the number of people in the tax-paying rural classes did not even reach 100; There were 28 deputies from public places. It is clear that such a heterogeneous assembly could comfortably discuss the principles of legislation, but could not conveniently edit laws in its entirety. It could only listen to them, discuss them and accept them in a finished version. Therefore, the general meeting of the Commission had to set up special commissions that would do all the auxiliary and preparatory work for the general meeting. These commissions were singled out: some of them were engaged in processing individual parts of the future code after their discussion by the general meeting of the Commission; others prepared preliminary material for classes at the general meeting. One of these commissions, the directorate, supervised the work of both the private commissions and the general meeting, and was the mainspring of the whole matter. Therefore, its members were the Prosecutor General and the Chairman (Marshal) of the Commission (A.I. Bibikov). The mass of private commissions introduced great complexity into office work: each private issue passed through several commissions and several times through the same one. This caused inevitable slowness of legislative work. And since the relationship between the private commissions and the general meeting was not precisely defined, disorder and confusion in their activities were inevitable. So imperfect external organization business, its complexity and uncertainty created the first obstacle to successful business management.

Meeting of the Legislative Commission 1767-1768. Artist M. Zaitsev

During the Commission's studies we will find other obstacles. The General Assembly first of all read the Empress’s Order and learned from it those abstract principles of activity that Catherine set for it. At the same time, the members of the assembly brought with them more than 1000 deputy orders, had to familiarize themselves with them and understand for themselves the needs and desires of Russian society that they contained. The deputies had to reconcile these needs and desires with the theoretical desires of the mandate and merge them into a harmoniously harmonious legislative code. For this purpose, it was necessary to disassemble deputy orders and bring all their content into a system. This painstaking work could only be carried out by a special commission, because it was inconvenient for a meeting of 500 people and was, in essence, rough preparatory work. Further, the desires of the classes were often opposite and irreconcilable: for a proper attitude towards them, it was not enough to know abstract principles, but it was necessary to study the historical position of this or that issue, i.e., in other words, to understand the old legislation, which consisted of a mass (more 10,000) separate legal provisions, very disorderly. Therefore, along with the systematization of deputy orders, there was another preparatory work that was not available to the general meeting - systematization, or a simple collection of old laws.

Until both of these works were completed, the general meeting had nothing to do; it had to wait for their completion and then discuss the prepared materials and reconcile them with theoretical principles. But these works were not thought to be carried out in advance and were expected from the general meeting. In the instructions given by Catherine to the Commission and which determined the order of its actions, we see that Catherine imposes on the general meeting the responsibility of “reading the laws that are most in need of amendment,” and “reading the orders, sorting them out by matter and making an extract.” This conceals the lack of a clear understanding that the preparatory legislative work is beyond the reach of a large assembly lacking sufficient skill in it. Thus, along with the imperfections of the external organization and the inept formulation of the tasks themselves, the confusion of preparatory work with the direct responsibility of the Commission served as the second obstacle to the success of the matter.

The commission first correctly understood what it needed to do in its setting. Having read Catherine's Order, she began reading the parliamentary orders and listened to several peasant orders. Without finishing this matter, at the suggestion of Marshal Bibikov, she moved on to reading the laws on the nobility, then on the merchants. Having spent about 60 meetings on this, the Commission took up the issue of the rights of the Baltic nobles and did not finish this matter, just as it did not finish the previous ones. At the end of 1767, the Commission was transferred to St. Petersburg, where it also moved from subject to subject and achieved nothing. At the end of 1768, the members of the general meeting were dissolved due to the war with Turkey. Private commissions performed little better. The reason for such disorder in classes, according to researchers, was the inability of Bibikov and other guiding persons. Catherine herself felt the failure of the matter, tried to help him, sent instructions to Bibikov, but achieved nothing. Thus, along with other obstacles, the inability of the immediate leaders of the business hindered its success. A more experienced chairman and a more experienced management committee would be more likely to understand what needs to be done. It seems that only Catherine herself understood this. Having dissolved the general meeting, she left some private commissions, which worked, it seems, until 1774. The general meeting at the same time was not considered destroyed, but was dissolved for a while. Thus, preparatory work has not stopped, but their discussion in general meeting was delayed. This could perhaps be seen as the right step in the course of legislative work; but from 1775 Catherine began to forget about her Commission and decided to conduct her legislative activities without her participation. The commission was not convened a second time. Brilliant and broad plans did not come true, the idea of ​​​​new legislation failed.

Let us briefly recall the entire course of the matter: Catherine became convinced of the need to correct the shortcomings of Russian social life by creating new legislation. In this essentially impossible enterprise, what frightened her was not the general principles of the laws, but their details. She thought that the general principles were already firmly established in the works of French liberal philosophers, and she herself undertook to interpret them in her Mandate. But she failed to do this with the desired completeness and integrity of direction. The details that were supposed to build up on general principles The orders, according to Catherine, were determined by the needs and desires of Russian society. It was called upon to express what it thought in parliamentary orders and was obliged to send its deputies for legislative work. All the difficulty, all stages of this work were entrusted to the deputies. The most necessary preparatory work was not done for them - collecting and systematizing both old and new legislative material, old and new laws. At the same time, the deputies were depressed by the complexity that was introduced into the organization of their meeting, and the uncertainty with which their tasks and their position in the general meeting and private commissions were defined. The practical inexperience of the marshal and the administrative directorial commission finally tied the hands of the deputies. Due to all these reasons, i.e. 1) the lack of preparatory work, 2) the impracticality and uncertainty of the external organization of the matter and 3) the practical inability of the leaders, the Commission not only did not complete all its work, not only did not process any part of the code, but even in a year and a half, in 200 of its meetings, I did not read all the parliamentary orders.

There is no reason to blame the deputies themselves for this; they could not do more and did what was asked of them. They were asked for their opinions on various issues- they gave them; They were asked to work on private commissions - they worked. It was not they, but the imperfections in the organization of the Commission that deprived it of any direct result. If, however, things had been arranged better with outside, it was still possible to predict that nothing would come of the Commission’s work. The grandiose project of the new legislation was an unattainable utopia, primarily in terms of the amount of labor required for it. In addition, it was impossible to reconcile the liberal principles of French philosophy with the contradictory desires of the Russian classes. The deputies stood in this regard among many mutually exclusive opposites, and one can guarantee that they would never have emerged from them, just as Catherine herself could not emerge from them.

However, despite the complete failure of the Commission, despite Catherine's clear rejection of general legislative reform, Catherine's Commission had important consequences for the subsequent activities of the Empress. This influence of the Commission on Catherine’s government activities lies historical meaning the famous meeting of deputies of 1767–1768. The deputies did not do anything tangible, but they brought with them a lot of orders and left them in the hands of Catherine. They spoke a lot - both on behalf of their constituents and on their own behalf - about a wide variety of subjects of state life, and their speeches remained in the papers of the Commission. Thus, the opinions of both the estates and individuals elected by them on subjects that interested Catherine were expressed, and Catherine could find them out from the archives of the Commission. Having retained her principles, she now mastered the opinions and desires of Russian society and could study them in detail. She studied them. By its own admission, the Commission provided “light and information about the entire empire, with whom we are dealing and about whom we should care.” It is clear that with such a view of the significance of the Commission, Catherine had to pay attention to great attention on class statements. She herself took upon herself the task of reconciling the disparate and contradictory desires of the deputies, for the common benefit of the estates, and to reconcile the practical aspirations of the estates with the theoretical views of her philosophy. On the basis of abstract philosophy and clearly expressed zemstvo desires, she had the opportunity to build legislative reforms that could be a response to zemstvo desires. With the failure of the Commission its cause did not die. If the deputies failed, then the empress herself could have succeeded.

Thus, with the dissolution of the Commission, not only did Catherine’s idea of ​​remaking the forms by redoing the legislation public life for the better, but this thought seemed to be getting closer to fruition. When convening the Commission, Catherine had only principles; The commission showed exactly what needs to be corrected, what these principles need to be applied to, and what “must be taken care of” first of all. This result did not allow Catherine to be completely disappointed in the Commission and in her plan. She began to carry out her plan piecemeal, giving a number of separate laws, of which the provincial institutions of 1775 and the charter to the estates of 1785 are remarkable. We will see when analyzing them how the principles of Catherine and the aspirations of the estates were combined in them.

The established commission is usually understood as a government body, which included people of all classes, except for serfs. These are townspeople (28 people), nobles (161 people), Cossacks (54 people), peasants (79 people), and also non-religious people (34 people). They were called deputies, and they were elected throughout Russia, in every province.

The idea of ​​​​creating such a commission arose from Catherine the Second under the influence of the works of French educators and scientists who spoke about the era of enlightened absolutism. The Empress wanted to reform many areas of the country's life, and for this new legislation was needed.

Objectives of the Statutory Commission

First of all, the commission had to develop a new set of laws, since the “Conciliar Code”, created in 1649, no longer met the peculiarities of that time. The Empress hoped that the members of the new body would study the needs of the country's population, its traditions and customs, which would then be reflected in the new legislation.

Catherine the Second also wanted to increase the loyalty of the nobles by giving them new privileges and rights. The work of deputies was regulated by a special order, which the Empress wrote herself. It was a document of theoretical content, which contained extracts from the works and works of the best philosophers and jurists/jurists of France and England in the 18th century.

Tasks

The main activities and tasks of the commission were as follows:

  • Discussion of the rights of the nobility and the urban population. It was planned to significantly expand the privileges of nobles and merchants and improve their position in society;
  • The solution to the central peasant question, since most of The population of the empire was unhappy that the privileged sections of society were again winning. This issue was not included on the agenda at all, but deputies considered it anyway, since landowners complained about the flight of peasants. There was also some hesitant criticism of the existing serfdom system, which placed the population in villages in unequal conditions and did not allow agriculture to develop normally;
  • The nobles wanted the right to own peasants under exceptional conditions. The same requirement applied to lands and resources;
  • The elite of society wanted to monopolize industrial activity;
  • Nobles and landowners demanded to create their own political organization, which was to be managed by representatives of the local administration;
  • Leave the old merchant rights to the nobles from the cities, expand them in order to develop industry and trade, eliminate competition from the peasants and other noble merchants;
  • The deputies sent by state peasants demanded that taxes and duties be removed from them and that the arbitrariness of the landowners be curtailed.

Results

  • The first meeting took place on July 13, 1767. The deputies had to present the demands and petitions of their population from the provinces. But the work was poorly organized, and the classes could not find agreement among themselves. After 7 regular meetings, the commission began to meet less frequently and was dissolved on December 18, 1768. The Empress made this decision because there was not a single decision to be made on any issue;
  • The activity did not bring any changes; it was an attempt by the empress to demonstrate concern for the population of the country;
  • Existence of this body nevertheless, it made certain adjustments to the social system. The authorities slightly limited the arbitrariness of industrialists, landowners, merchants, and nobles.

One of the most striking manifestations of “enlightened absolutism” during the reign of Catherine II was the convening of the Commission to draw up a new code. The government explained this measure by the need to codify laws, since the current “Conciliar Code” of 1649 was completely outdated by that time.

Elections of deputies to the Commission were class-based. The nobles (landowners) elected a deputy from each district, the townspeople elected one deputy from each city, in addition, the Commission included one deputy from the Synod, the Senate, and from each collegium. The instructions also provided for the election of deputies from the Cossacks and from non-Russian nationalities (one deputy from each province). There were also deputies from state peasants, for whom an increased age limit and three-stage elections were established.

Landowners and possession peasants did not receive the right to elect deputies to the Commission. Each deputy brought with him one or more orders. In its activities, the Commission had to be guided by a special order written by Catherine. This order was replete with fashionable liberal phrases borrowed from the writings of Western European enlighteners.

In the summer of 1767, the work of the Commission began in Moscow under the chairmanship of A.I. Bibikov, the future suppressor of the Pugachev uprising.

After reading the orders, the Commission began to discuss the rights of the “nobles,” that is, the nobility, then the rights of the urban population. The expansion of both noble and merchant privileges meant infringement of the interests of the largest class of direct producers - the peasantry. That's why peasant question, although it was not included in the agenda of the Commission, was central. The landowners complained about the exodus and “disobedience” of the peasants and demanded that appropriate measures be taken. But some of the noble deputies, for example, the deputy from the Kozlovsky district G.S. Korobin, criticized the cruelties of the serfdom system. He stated that the reason for the flight of peasants “for the most part is the landowners, who burden only a lot of them with their rule.” Korobin considered it necessary to accurately determine the amount of peasant duties in favor of the landowner and provide peasants with the right to own real estate.

But even these moderate proposals, which only softened and did not destroy serfdom, met the most decisive rebuff from the overwhelming majority of noble deputies. The nobility demanded the exclusive right of ownership of peasants, lands and mineral resources, a monopoly of industrial activity, and sought the creation of its own class political organization with the transfer of local administration into its hands. The most prominent representative of the reactionary noble ideology was the deputy of the Yaroslavl nobility, Prince M. M. Shcherbatov.

The growing importance of the merchant class in the economic and political life The country was reflected in the persistent demands of deputies from the cities not only to consolidate the old rights of the merchants, but also to expand them, create conditions for the growth of industry and trade, and protect merchants from the competition of trading nobles and peasants. Moreover, the merchants sought the right to own serfs.

Deputies from state peasants asked to ease taxes and duties, to put an end to the arbitrariness of the authorities, etc. As the activities of the Commission unfolded, the purpose of its convening became increasingly clear - to find out the mood of various social groups. By keeping serfdom unshakable, the autocratic empress only pretended to care about the “people.”

Subsequently, A. S. Pushkin called the work of the Commission “an obscene farce.” In 1768, Catherine used the outbreak of war with Turkey as an excuse to dissolve the Commission. Nevertheless, the autocracy was forced to limit the arbitrariness of individual factory owners and landowners; an order was issued to apply torture to convicts “with extreme caution and consideration.”

“Enlightened absolutism” tried to strengthen the existing order with a more flexible use of repression and liberal phraseology.

Reasons for convening the Statutory Commission

Definition 1

Throughout the $18th century. temporary collegial bodies were repeatedly convened to develop and systematize Russian legislation. They were called Lay Commissions, and they convened a total of $7.$

The best known to history is the commission convened by Catherine II in $1767. Empress Catherine II was very keen on the ideas of the European Enlightenment, in addition, the convening of the commission gave the nobility, who participated most actively in this, an additional sense of self-importance. Thus, by convening the Legislative Commission, Catherine II, as they say, killed two birds with one stone:

  • showed her liberality and education,
  • and at the same time, it increased the confidence of the nobility, its main support.

There is an opinion according to which the Statutory Commission of Catherine II is a farce from beginning to end, simply a desire for self-aggrandizement in the eyes of descendants, especially considering that it was Catherine who formed this idea under the impression of French enlighteners.

The next important motivating point in convening the Statutory Commission was the desire to put Russia on the same level as the leading European countries, because the very idea that Empress Catherine II read is contained in the work Montesquieu "On the Spirit of Laws".

Activities of the commission

The laid commission convened in $1767, the official opening took place on July 31. Its composition was quite varied and dominated by the elite. Total deputies equaled $564$ people. There were $28$ people on the commission from the government. The nobility was represented by $161$ participants. The cities represented $208$ people of different classes (free). In addition, the Statutory Commission also included free rural residents - $79 $ people, as a rule, wealthy ones. $54$ Cossacks and $34$ non-Christians also took part – i.e. representatives of the indigenous peoples of the Volga region and the Urals.

The commission's work was structured in the following way: elected deputies brought the so-called from their voters. orders, documents in which the assessment was given existing problems. The number of orders far exceeded the number of deputies; in total, more than $1.5 thousand documents were submitted.

At the opening of the Commission they began to read Great Order Catherine II, written in the manner of fashionable European authors of the Enlightenment, without specifics advising how and what issues should be considered. The subsequent $10$ meetings were again devoted to the Great Mandate and the acceptance by Catherine II of the title of Great.

The Commission had an observer and a chairman, the Prosecutor General. He was appointed marshal (also leader) Bibikov A.I. In addition to the general commission, another $15$ commission was created for individual issues; $5$ people participated in them. However, the work of individual commissions was poorly coordinated with each other and with the general commission.

As a result, the work of the commission began to stall. All meetings took place during the reading of a huge number of orders brought by deputies. The matter did not go beyond discussions of orders, no proposals were put forward.

A year after its opening, the Commission began to meet, first for $4 once a week instead of $5, and then less and less often. Catherine II was disappointed in this project, or simply lost interest in it. With the beginning Russian-Turkish War $1768-1774$ The general commission was dissolved due to the need for many of its participants to serve in the war; individual commissions continued to work for some time. Because of the war, meetings of the Legislative Commission were constantly postponed, and in last time she is mentioned in documents in $1773$.

The reforms undertaken in 1763 seemed unsuccessful to Catherine II. She decided, like some of her predecessors on the throne, to appeal to society, convene a commission of deputies elected by the people in all provinces, and entrust this commission with developing the laws necessary for the country. At the same time, Catherine II felt the need for some kind of generalizing theoretical document that would comprehend all the necessary changes and was intended for this Commission. And she got to work. The Commission's order for the creation of a new Code, written by the Empress herself in 1764-1766, was a talented compilation of the works of French and English jurists and philosophers. The work was based on the ideas of C. Montesquieu, C. Beccaria, E. Luzac and other French educators.

"Her order Imperial Majesty Catherine the Second All-Russian Autocrat gave the Commission on the drafting of a new code"

Almost immediately, the Nakaz states that for Russia, with its spaces and characteristics of the people, there can be no other form other than autocracy. At the same time, it was proclaimed that the sovereign must rule in accordance with the laws, that the laws must be based on the principles of reason, common sense that they must be good and socially beneficial and that all citizens must be equal before the law. The first definition of freedom in Russia was also expressed there: “the right to do everything that the laws allow.” For the first time in Russia, the right of a criminal to defense was proclaimed, it was said about the presumption of innocence, the inadmissibility of torture and the death penalty only in special cases. The Order states that property rights must be protected by law, that subjects must be educated in the spirit of laws and Christian love.

The Nakaz proclaimed ideas that were new in Russia at that time, although now they seem simple, well-known, but, alas, sometimes not implemented to this day: “The equality of all citizens is that everyone should be subject to the same laws.” ; “Liberty is the right to do everything that the laws allow”; “The verdicts of judges must be known to the people, as well as the evidence of crimes, so that every citizen can say that he lives under the protection of the law”; “A person cannot be considered guilty before a judge’s verdict, and the laws cannot deprive him of their protection before it is proven that he has violated them”; “Make people afraid of the laws and not afraid of anyone but them.” And although the Nakaz did not talk about the need to abolish serfdom, the idea of ​​people’s natural right to freedom from birth was conveyed quite clearly in the Nakaz. In general, some of the ideas of the Order, a work written by the autocrat, were unusually bold and aroused the delight of many progressive people.

The system of state institutions being reformed according to the ideas of Catherine II are only mechanisms for implementing the supreme will of an enlightened autocrat. There is not a trace of institutions that could oppose anything supreme power. The sovereign himself must “keep” the laws and monitor their observance. Thus, the principle of autocracy, that is, unlimited power, was the first and basic principle of state building of Catherine II, and unshakably underlay the political regime she reformed.

The order did not official document, law, but its influence on legislation was significant, since it was a program that Catherine II would like to implement.

In Europe, the Nakaz brought Catherine II the glory of a liberal ruler, and in France, the Nakaz was even banned. The order, as already said, was intended for a Commission convened from all over the country to draw up a Code. It was in her activities that the ideas of the Order were originally intended to be implemented. It cannot be said that the very idea of ​​the Commission was particularly new. Such commissions existed almost continuously during the 18th century. They reviewed legislative projects, attracted representatives from the localities, and discussed their opinions. But different reasons prevented these commissions from remaking a set of laws to replace Cathedral Code 1649 - a code that was used in judicial practice even during the time of Catherine II.

Let's look at the source

When the Empress wrote the Nakaz, the main direction of her reformist thought was to substantiate the concept of an inherently unshakable autocracy with new ideological and legal arguments, in addition to those that had long been used by Russian law and journalism of the 18th century (theological justification - the power of the king from God), the concept of charismatic leader - “Father (or Mother) of the Fatherland.” Under Catherine II, a popular “geographical argument” appeared in the West, justifying autocracy as the only acceptable form of government for a country of the size of Russia. The Order says:

“The sovereign is autocratic, for no other power than the one united in his person can act in a manner similar to the space of a great state... A spacious state presupposes autocratic power in the person who rules it. It is necessary that speed in resolving matters sent from distant countries should reward the slowness caused by the remoteness of places... Any other rule would not only be harmful to Russia, but also ultimately ruinous... Another reason is that it is better to obey the laws under one master than to please many... What is the excuse for autocratic rule? Not one to take away people’s natural freedom, but to direct their actions to obtain the greatest good from everyone.”

Largely thanks to Catherine’s Order, which opened new page in the history of Russian law, and numerous laws arising from the principles of the Mandate, the legal regulation of autocracy was implemented in Russia. In the next, XIX century, it was cast in the formula of Article 47 of the “Basic Laws Russian Empire", according to which Russia was governed "on the solid basis of positive laws, institutions and charters emanating from autocratic power."

It was precisely the development of a set of legal norms that substantiated and developed the first “fundamental” law - the monarch is “the source of all state power"(Article 19 of the Order), and began main task Catherine. The Enlightenment concept of autocracy included recognition of the basis of the life of society as legality, laws established by an enlightened monarch. “The Bible of Enlightenment” - the book “The Spirit of Laws” Montesquieu argued: if the monarch intends to enlighten his subjects, then this cannot be accomplished without “strong, established laws.” This is what Catherine did. According to her ideas, the law is not written for the monarch. The only limitation on his power can be his own high moral qualities, education. An enlightened monarch, possessing a high culture, thinking about his subjects, cannot act like an uncouth tyrant or a capricious despot. Legally, this is expressed, according to Article 512 of the Order, by the words that the power of an enlightened sovereign is limited to “the limits set by itself.”

The established commission met in 1767 in Moscow. 564 deputies took part in its work, more than a third of them were nobles. There were no delegates from serfs on the Commission. However, speeches were made against the omnipotence of the landowners and the exorbitant burden of serf duties. These were speeches by G. Korobyov, Y. Kozelsky, A. Maslov. The last speaker even proposed transferring the management of serfs to a special government agency, from which landowners would receive their income. However, the majority of deputies were in favor of maintaining serfdom. Catherine II, despite her understanding of the depravity of serfdom, did not oppose the existing social order. She understood that for the autocratic government an attempt to eliminate or even soften serfdom will be fatal. The meetings of the Commission, as well as its subcommittees, quickly revealed huge contradictions between the classes. The non-nobles insisted on their right to buy serfs, and the nobles considered this right their monopoly. Merchants and entrepreneurs, for their part, were sharply opposed to the nobles who set up factories, conducted trade and, thereby, “invaded” the class occupations of the merchants. And there was no unity among the nobles. Aristocrats and well-born nobles opposed the “upstarts” - those who had risen from the bottom according to the Table of Ranks, and demanded the abolition of this act of Peter the Great. The nobles of the Great Russian provinces argued about rights with the Baltic Germans, who seemed great to them. The Siberian nobles, in turn, wanted the same rights that the Great Russian nobles had. Discussions often resulted in quarrels. The speakers, caring about their class, often did not think about the common cause. In a word, the deputies were unable to overcome differences and seek agreement in order to develop general principles, on which laws would be based. After working for a year and a half, the Commission did not approve a single law. At the end of 1768, taking advantage of the outbreak of war with Turkey, Catherine II dissolved the Commission. However, her materials are the empress legislator long years widely used in my work. The Commission never adopted the new Code. Perhaps the reason for the failure lay in the organization of the work of the Commission, or more precisely, in the lack of a working atmosphere, which was difficult to create in such a grandiose and motley meeting of representatives of different social, regional and national groups delegates torn apart by contradictions. And the legislators gathered in the Kremlin were not prepared for difficult work. It is possible that time has passed for such universal codes of laws in general. What was needed was a different, holistic system of legal codes, which would be united by one general idea. Catherine II followed this path. The preparation for the work of the Statutory Commission and its work itself, which did not end in anything, provided Catherine II with a great service: they gave food for legislative work to the empress herself, who has since been professionally engaged in legislation. Assessing what she has done over many years, it can be said without much exaggeration that Catherine II, working on legislation for decades, in a sense replaced the entire Statutory Commission.