1E - Disputed successions and the role of the Supreme State Council and the Preobrazhensky Regiment
Between 1725 and 1762, dynastic claims repeatedly needed support from court factions and guards to become effective power. This lesson follows the disputed successions and explains the different roles of the Supreme State Council and the Preobrazhensky Regiment. The Council is commonly called the Supreme Privy Council in historical accounts; both names refer here to the institution created in 1726.
The succession vacuum and Catherine I
Peter's 1722 succession decree gave the sovereign the right to nominate a successor. Its purpose was to prevent an unsuitable heir from automatically inheriting the throne. But Peter died in 1725 without an effective designation, leaving competing claims and no institution accepted by everyone as the final judge.
His widow Catherine I could claim continuity with his reign and had been crowned empress in 1724. His grandson, the future Peter II, was the son of Tsarevich Alexis and represented a male dynastic claim. Supporting one claimant rather than another could protect a courtier's office, wealth and future access to the ruler.
Alexander Menshikov, Peter's prominent associate, supported Catherine. Backing from guards and leading officials helped her secure the throne. The Presidential Library's Romanov exhibition identifies this combination. Catherine's accession was not simply determined by the strongest genealogical claim: organised support made a claim politically effective.
The Preobrazhensky Regiment, together with other guards such as the Semenovsky, occupied a distinctive position. These elite troops were close to the capital and court, enjoyed prestige connected with Peter, and could provide immediate armed backing during a crisis. Noble officers connected them with elite politics; soldiers also had their own loyalties and grievances. Treating the guards as an entirely passive instrument of one minister would miss their political importance.
Guard support did not make the succession a popular election. It represented the intervention of strategically placed military groups, not the consent of the whole population. Most peasants had no direct role in deciding which court claimant ruled them.
The Supreme Council and Peter II
The Supreme State Council created under Catherine I in 1726 concentrated important business in a small group around the sovereign. Its responsibilities included major appointments, foreign policy and finance. The Senate and colleges remained, but lost relative influence as leading decisions moved to the Council. The Presidential Library's institutional account records its establishment and changing role.
The Council contained powerful figures from Peter's reign as well as aristocratic interests. It was not an elected legislature representing social groups throughout Russia. Its authority came from proximity to the ruler and control of government business. Under a monarch who relied heavily on advisers, that proximity could give members substantial practical power.
When Catherine died in 1727, Peter II succeeded while still a boy. Menshikov initially dominated his court and sought to strengthen his position through the young emperor's proposed marriage to his daughter. His rivals, including the Dolgoruky family and Andrei Osterman, helped undermine his control. Menshikov fell in 1727 and was exiled. The Presidential Library's account of his removal documents the reversal.
This was a transfer of influence around the same monarch, not a new succession. It shows why the whole period cannot be explained only through changes of ruler. Access to a young emperor, personal favour and alliances within governing institutions could determine whose policies and interests prevailed.
Peter II's death in 1730 ended this arrangement. He left no direct heir, and the Council again had an opportunity to shape the choice of monarch. The very power accumulated by the Council encouraged some members to try to turn practical influence into a formal limitation on the next ruler.
Anna, the Conditions and restored autocracy
The succession of 1730 raised a constitutional question as well as a dynastic one. The Council invited Anna Ivanovna, daughter of Ivan V and widowed duchess of Courland, to become empress. Under the influence of Dmitry Golitsyn, it required her to accept the Conditions, which restricted how she could exercise power.
The Conditions prevented independent decisions on war and peace, taxation, senior appointments and other central matters. Control over the guards and army would also pass to the Council. The Russian archives' presentation of the Conditions preserves the document and its place in the succession crisis.
If enforced, these provisions would have limited autocracy. But a limited monarch does not automatically imply broad political liberty. A small circle of magnates stood to gain decisive authority, while other nobles feared exclusion and dependence on the Council's families. The proposed distribution of power mattered as much as the removal of powers from Anna.
Anna accepted the terms before arriving, then found support among nobles outside the Council's dominant circle and among the guards. Rival proposals and distrust divided those seeking a changed political order. She publicly rejected the Conditions and restored autocratic authority; the Council was abolished in 1730.
This episode distinguishes the two named institutions. The Council offered a means of organising elite government and constraining a sovereign. The guards could supply the immediate force and reassurance needed to defeat that project. Neither acted as a permanent representative of a single united nobility.
An original practice claim that the nobles opposed autocracy in 1730 is too general. Some wanted formal limits, while others preferred an autocrat to a narrow oligarchy. Their divisions enabled Anna's restoration of power. The episode illustrates the importance of elite interests, rather than proving a shared noble commitment to constitutional monarchy.
Regencies and Elizabeth's coup
Designating an heir did not guarantee a secure transfer if the heir could not rule independently. When Anna died in 1740, the infant Ivan VI, descended from Ivan V's family, succeeded. Anna's favourite Ernst Johann Biron initially acted as regent. Field Marshal Münnich removed him within weeks, and the infant's mother, Anna Leopoldovna, became regent. The National Library of Russia's biographical exhibition records this change.
The distinction matters: removing a regent in 1740 changed who governed for the emperor, whereas Elizabeth's coup in 1741 removed the emperor himself. Court access and military action could alter both the holder of the crown and the person exercising authority in the crown's name.
Elizabeth, Peter I's daughter, claimed a more direct connection to his legacy. In November 1741 Old Style, December New Style, she used support from a company of the Preobrazhensky Regiment to seize the palace and remove Ivan VI and Anna Leopoldovna. The St Petersburg Institute of History's presentation of her accession manifesto connects the dynastic claim with the coup.
Guard grievances helped create the opportunity, including dissatisfaction with the existing regime and concern over deployment during the war with Sweden. Elizabeth's appeal as Peter's daughter gave intervention a legitimising story. Dynastic identity explained why supporters could present the coup as a restoration, while armed support explained how it succeeded.
The guards did not simply demand a general revolution against the state. Elizabeth retained monarchy and rewarded her supporters. The Company that helped her became the privileged Leib Company. A change at the top could therefore strengthen the rewards and influence of a particular military group while leaving the wider imperial framework intact.
Peter III and the coup of 1762
Elizabeth arranged the succession more clearly by choosing her nephew, Peter III, grandson of Peter I through her sister Anna. He succeeded after Elizabeth's death at the turn of 1761–1762. Many accounts give her death as 25 December 1761 Old Style or 5 January 1762 New Style; this is one event, not two different accessions.
Peter's dynastic claim did not protect him from alienating influential groups. His favourable policy towards Prussia after years of Russian war against Frederick II, his Holstein interests and his treatment of the guards weakened support. These concerns combined with his wife Catherine's ambitions and the organisation of supporters, including the Orlov brothers.
In the summer of 1762, Catherine obtained the backing of guard regiments and became Catherine II. The Presidential Library's account of her accession records the intervention and guard discontent. Peter lost the throne despite possessing a clear hereditary relationship to Elizabeth and despite having granted nobles freedom from compulsory service earlier that year.
This is an important qualification to a simple patronage explanation. A concession to noble interests could improve one relationship without overcoming military, dynastic and personal hostility elsewhere. Support had to be sufficiently broad and organised at the moment of crisis.
Across the period, the Preobrazhensky Regiment formed part of a wider guard world. It had a particularly direct role in Elizabeth's coup, but the successions cannot all be reduced to one regiment following one fixed political programme. Other guards, court officials and family networks also mattered.
Dynastic claims gave possible rulers legitimacy; organised elite and guard support made those claims effective. The Supreme Council briefly tried to limit monarchy, while palace coups generally changed the monarch within an enduring autocratic state.
Explaining instability with continuity
The causes of succession instability should be connected rather than treated as competing slogans. An uncertain succession created opportunity; elite rivalry supplied interested supporters; guards supplied force; a dynastic claim supplied justification.
| Crisis | Claim or vacancy | Organised intervention | Consequence |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1725 | No effective designation by Peter I | Menshikov and guards supported Catherine | Catherine I secured the crown |
| 1730 | Peter II died without a direct heir | Council offered Anna the crown with Conditions; rival nobles and guards backed her rejection | Autocracy restored; Council abolished |
| 1740–1741 | Infant emperor required a regency; Elizabeth offered a rival claim | Münnich removed Biron; later Elizabeth used Preobrazhensky support | Regent changed, then dynasty branch on the throne changed |
| 1762 | Peter III had succeeded but lost key support | Catherine's supporters mobilised guards | Catherine II took the crown |
A worked judgement is that guards were usually a decisive means of intervention, but not a complete explanation of why intervention occurred. A regiment's proximity and weapons do not explain why it backed Elizabeth rather than Anna Leopoldovna; that requires grievances, patronage and Peter's dynastic legacy. Equally, genealogy alone cannot explain why Peter III failed to survive.
The Council and guards reveal limits on a ruler's practical independence. Yet the failure of the Conditions and the survival of the imperial institutions show why repeated coups did not amount to the permanent end of autocracy. The authority of the office remained large while the person occupying it could be vulnerable.