Bureaucracy in the conservative political and legal doctrine of L.A. Tikhomirov

The target of this research is the phenomenon of bureaucracy and its understanding in the Russian political and legal thought of the late XIX- the early XX centuries. This phenomenon is reviewed in terms of the concept of state and law of the Russian conservative thinker Lev Alexandrovich Tikhomirov. Constructive criticism of Russian bureaucrats at the turn of the century in the doctrine of L. A. Tikhomirov is due to the desire to connect the program of bourgeois reforms with traditions and traditional values of the monarchical state. Without denying state forming role of bureaucracy in any complex state, L. A. Tikhomirov saw its dangerous sides to the autocracy and the state: the usurpation of power, excessive centralization, tyranny, abuse, intervention in all spheres of life of the nation. L. A. Tikhomirov found the origins of the bureaucratization in the reforms of Peter I, which interrupted harmonious development of the Russian statehood, introduced alien bureaucracy elements, greed, technocracy, etc., generating destructive processes in the Russian society. Among the most important elements to prevent bureaucracy transformations, the conservative thinker mentioned the system of monarch and public control over government activities, publicity and transparency, a wide development of self-government.