Guryev entered big politics during the peak of liberal constitutional experiments and the search for power in the first decade of the reign of Alexander I. His leadership of the financial department fell on the hardest time of the Patriotic War of 1812, and then during the elimination of its socio-economic consequences and the second renaissance of state liberalism, which found expression primarily in attempts to resolve the peasant question. The breakdown and decline of Guryev's ministerial career, outwardly associated with his disagreements, and then a break with the all–powerful Alexey Arakcheev, in fact, clearly demonstrated the strengthening of protective tendencies in the government's policy and an increasingly distrustful attitude towards the problem of reforms.