Although this blog is officially on hiatus, I can’t help but
sneak back to writing about Russia from time to time. Lately, I’ve been delving a little deeper
into Russia’s past to provide some kind of historical framework for the
violence and authoritarianism of Russia’s twentieth century. I’ve looked in particular at Peter the
Great’s reign, and thought about the extent to which a single sovereign was
able to shape the course of events for his nation. It seems hard to imagine a monarch in another
European country who made such a profound impact on his people as Peter the
Great had on his. Of course, this begs
the question of whether Peter the Great was in fact really ruling a European
power, something many Russians, both then and now, dispute. In any event, Peter the Great moved his
capital, built a navy, defeated Sweden in a prolonged struggle, open some
administrative careers to talent, and spread many Western ideas far and wide in
his immense nation.
Peter the Great remains a deeply controversial figure in
Russian history, and rightly so. It’s
difficult to know for sure whether the energetic man is a reflection of
Russia’s ancient autocratic traditions, or the inventor of new, modern forms of
despotisms. Peter introduced Western
military ideas and cultural fashions, but also demonstrated once and for all
that aristocrats, churchmen, or other societal forces could not challenge the
Russian state. Paradoxically, Peter
wanted reform, but this reform was meant to preclude the possibility of any
other source of non-state-driven change.
Such at least is the lesson I drew from reading Robert Massie’s
magnificent biography of Peter.
If we look at the birth of Russian radicalism in the middle
of the nineteenth century, Peter’s shadow seems all the darker. Abbott Gleason’s much more succinct—but
equally fascinating--version of Franco Venturi’s seminal work on the same
subject, The Roots of Revolution,
helps us to understand the long-term impact of Peter’s autocratic traditions. In the first half of the nineteenth century,
Russia largely lacked a politics. Part
of the problem was that Russia’s aristocracy was dependent on the autocracy to
an unusual degree. Peter had ensured
that nobles retained their status in return for their service to the
state. This changed a little over time,
but the servility of Russian nobles vis-à-vis their European counterparts was
notable. Russia’s small aristocracy
depended on the tsar for status and employment.
This tradition of service isolated its members from other classes, small
as they were in a Russia’s relatively backward farming economy. But more than this, Russia’s aristocracy was
isolated from the peasantry by its European culture, French language habits,
etc. The truth is that Peter helped to
cement the sharp distinctions between the Russian aristocracy and all other
Russian classes, with the peasant class remaining by far the largest segment of
Russian society right up until 1917, and beyond.
At first, a critique of the Russian autocracy emerged
indirectly, through a literary tradition that acknowledged, or even glorified,
aristocratic indolence. See Pushkin and
Lermontov and Gonchorov. Over time, the
critique became more pronounced, more radical.
Interestingly, Abbott sees a unified political culture in nineteenth
century Russia, broad enough to encompass both Slavophiles and
Westernizers. In a culture without open
politics, the difference between Right and Left policies meant little. But ideologically, both Slavophiles and
Westernizers believed somehow that Russian peasants would somehow liberate
Russia from despotism, and perhaps the world as well. What allows us to group Slavophiles with
Westernizers, is their mutual ignorance of the real economic conditions or
culture life of the vast majority of the Russian people. In a sense, perhaps this ignorance is also
the legacy of Peter the Great, a tsar whose legacy was always hotly debated in
the nineteenth century.
Abbott’s ultimate argument seems to be that even Lenin was a
product of this overwhelming ignorance of the Russian people. Russian radicals retained Peter the Great’s
commitment to transform Russia without consulting, or even attempting to
understand, its common people. This
crash course in modernization seems even today to affect Russia. Its current ruler seems content to rule
without reference to a real politics.
One interesting analogy between the nineteenth century and the
twenty-first century is that in both cases the country’s master was supposedly
popular with ordinary people. Over and
over again, Russian radicals tried to account for the mystery of the Russian
people’s ostensible love of the autocrat.
The common people hated the Russian state’s representatives, including
clergymen and local officials, but they always seemed to preserve their love
for the tsar. If only he knew the horrid
abuses that went on in his blessed name, they reasoned, he would surely put a
stop to everything and bring about a new and better era. Whether this love for
the tsar was ultimately a myth is difficult to say, and needless to say, still
bears examination.
