In this article, the author analyzes in detail the process of developing, discussing, and adopting the draft reform of officer attestation procedures within the higher military administration of Russia, as well as the role of the Minister of War, A.F. Rediger, in this process. The reform became one of his first initiatives as the Minister of War of the Russian Empire in 1905, as the new minister considered the quality of the Russian army's command staff unsatisfactory. In this regard, the aim of the research is determined by the necessity to analyze the course of discussions surrounding the reform in those instances of the higher military administration without whose approval its implementation would have been hardly possible. The analysis takes into account the historical context of structural changes in the higher military administration of the Russian Empire that occurred on the eve of A.F. Rediger's appointment as Minister of War, which, in turn, significantly curtailed his power by creating the State Defense Council and separating the General Staff from the ministry. Both published memoirs and archival documents from the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA) were used in the research, preserving various minutes of meetings regarding the officer attestation procedures, as well as official correspondence. The work with this body of sources is based on a comparative-historical method. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the detailed reflection of various aspects of the preparation of the personnel reform in the Russian army, implemented by the military elite of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. The analysis of the development and discussion of a specific military reform illustrates the inertia of the military-bureaucratic machine of the early 20th-century Russian Empire, illuminating that part of the bureaucratic traditions of pre-revolutionary Russia that hindered the progress of comprehensive reforms in the Russian imperial army, initiated by the highest military-political leadership of the Russian Empire after the defeat in the war with Japan in the Far East in 1904-1905. Examining the process of preparing the officer attestation reform reveals the presence of contentiousness, collegiality, and the paradoxical absence of the unitary command that is typically characteristic of the army as an institution within the higher military administration of Russia. In this context, it is also shown how difficult it was for a specific reform initiator to lobby for their proposed transformations.
Nikita Igorevich Datsko (Sun,) studied this question.