Anna I
The next leading candidate to the throne, as chosen by the Privy Council, was Anna Ivanovna, who was the daughter of Peter's late brother Ivan V. The primary reason for their choice was her political weakness as a woman and widow, something that the Council moved aggressively to take advantage of; they declared that they would approve her crowning only if she gave up the power to make and amend taxes, declare war, control the army, grant and revoke estates, and appoint people to high positions in the government. In short, the Privy Council was aiming to gut the power of the tsar and make the Russian Empire a de facto oligarchy. However, the plan did not come to fruition; the Russian nobility was terrified by the prospects of such a shift in power, as were the palace guard regiments, and with their collective force Anna was able to tear up the restrictions placed on her and dissolve the Council for good.
Anna had few friends in the Russian government due to her time in Courland, and intense distrust towards the Russian nobility that had tried to slight her once already. Therefore, she staffed her rule mostly with foreigners, especially Baltic Germans, led by her deeply unpopular favorite Ernst Johann von Biron. She often elected favorites to important positions, regardless of their actual experience, and thus corruption ran rampart as many tried to accumulate personal wealth and influence. Nonetheless, the foreign office, under Andrey Osterman, and the army, under Burkhard Christoph von Münnich, benefited greatly from foreign influence; it serves to note that both men had previously served under Peter the Great. The palace guards had helped her ascend to the throne, but all the same, Anna created a third Izmaylovsky regiment to balance out their power.
Read more about this topic: Military History Of The Russian Empire