The reverse side of this political uniformity of the class of the governed is the equally absolute atomization and instability of the class of the governors—that is, a completely chaotic process of vertical mobility. The selection of top administrative personnel is carried out without regard to corporate membership, to privileges of estate, to wealth, or to ability. Despotism does not know what might be called the category of "political death." Members of the governing class, regardless of rank, pay for mistakes, as a rule, not only with the loss of the privileges connected with rank and the wealth they have accumulated, but with their heads as well. A mistake is equivalent to death. Thus the atomized, unstable elite of despotism, wandering their whole lives in the minefield of the despot's caprices, can never be transformed into an aristocracy—that is, into an elite which is hereditary and therefore independent of the regime, able to compel the system to take into consideration its goals and even to subject the system to these goals. In the absence of stable privileges, the possibility of even the primary form of social limitations on power disappears.[22] In other words, the independence of the despot, not only from the class of the governed but also from that of the governors, is absolute. This confirms Aristotle's view of despotism as a permanent tyranny, under which the system is subordinated to "the interests of the ruler alone."
It was Montesquieu who pointed to the role of a different category of latent limitations on power—the ideological ones. He directly connected the degree of stability—or, as he put it, the "susceptibility to corruption"—of political systems, with their observance of the dominating "principle" of each. Whereas he considered the principle of monarchy to be the "feeling of honor," he assumed that the principle of despotism was exclusively that of fear. "Moderate government," Montesquieu wrote, generalizing from the political experience of his time, "can relax the reins as much as it likes, and without danger to itself. . . . But if, under a despotic government, the sovereign drops his hands even for a moment, so that he cannot immediately destroy
ate of the Catholic college in Rome, Krizhanich had dreamed of Moscow all through his youth. Finally getting there in the 1660s, he lived in Moscow for only sixteen months and paid for his liberty of thought with sixteen years of Siberian exile. In the second half of the 1670s, during the brief "thaw" following the death of Aleksei Mikhailovich, he in desperation obtained permission to go abroad, where he immediately died in Vienna. To this day his works await complete translation into Russian (they were written in Old Slavonic). We know that, in the period of the "thaw" just mentioned, his book Politika was extremely popular in the "upper reaches" of the Muscovite government of that time.
Like Montesquieu, Krizhanich was concerned primarily with the problem of guaranties against despotism. Whereas Persia under the rule of the shahanshah served as the starting-point for Montesquieu's reflections, for Krizhanich this starting point was Turkey under the sultan. "The Turks," he reasoned,
pay no attention to pedigree (since there is no boyardom among them), but say that they look for skill, intelligence, and valor. However, this is not really so, and frequently their prominent men are people of no merit, though skillful at flattery. Thus with one wave of the hand, the lowest become the highest, and the highest the lowest. This deprives people of any courage and begets a sense of worthlessness and despair. For no one can be sure of his position, wealth, or the safety of his life, and no one has reason to work hard for the sake of high honor or glory (Politika, p. 348).
"The European kings act better, in that along with other good qualities they also look for noble birth," he notes in contrast.
After all, men of noble birth, who from ancient times have possessed a glorious name and broad estates, take more care to preserve the kingdom and their estate in an honourable condition, and more care of the ancient name of their clan. . . . Furthermore, the boyars in their youth have more time to learn the sciences than do plain people (ibid.).
But along with Turkey, Krizhanich had in mind another sad example: Poland, where it was precisely the privilege of the aristocracy which had led to chaos and anar- the people occupying the highest places in the state, then all is lost."[23]And fear as the principle of a system requires, according to Montesquieu, the extreme limitation of the number of political ideas in circulation at any given moment. "Everything must turn on two or three ideas, and no new ones at all are needed. When training an animal, one must be very careful of changing the trainer or the method of instruction: one must hit its brain with two or three movements, no more.'"1
Thus, according to Montesquieu, the negation of ideological limitations on power through the minimization and standardization of ideas is an attribute of despotism, which deprives the administration of feedback from the system, excludes any mechanism for correcting mistakes, and consequently makes the personal power of the despot extremely unstable. Of course, Montesquieu describes this in other terms. He says that the despotic principle does not permit either judgment, objections, or independent opinions on the part of executives, and is therefore more subject than other systems to "corruption." Furthermore, it is "corrupted constantly, since it is corrupt by its nature."
What Montesquieu did not articulate with sufficient clarity is the connection between the negation of economic and ideological limitations. But, after all, despotism needs the minimization of ideas precisely for this, so that the thought of the possibility of challenging the constant plundering of the economy cannot even arise. This is why it is compelled to take under its control not only the material, but also the intellectual product of the country. Administering not only people but ideas as well, it must rob the heads of its subjects with as much care as it robs their coffers. Thus, intellectual robbery turns out to be only the reverse side of material robbery. A regime which denies economic limitations cannot help denying ideological ones.
This also explains the monstrous stability of despotic systems, since it excludes the possibility of the emergence of a political opposition (or reformist potential) which sets itself the goal not simply of replacing the current occupant of the throne, but of bringing about a qualitative change in the system based on an alternative model of political organization. Victorious mass uprisings in medieval China, for example, which immediately and slavishly copied the despotic structure just destroyed, but with new personnel, confirm Wittfogel's conclusion as to the absence in despotic structures of a political opposition.12 This inability of despotism to transcend itself even in thought indicates not only its incapacity for institutional modernization, which is already known to us, but also—what is even more important—its tragic incapacity for self-demolition. It can be destroyed only from without.
The absence of these latent limitations—social, economic, and ideological—leads to the inability of despotic systems to resist being subjected to the private goals of the despot. This naturally may lead to mistakes, for the correction of which, as we already know, no mechanism other than murder is envisaged in despotic systems. As paradoxical as this may seem, the death of the despot proves to be the sole means of correcting mistakes of administration. It is precisely the immense degree of divergence of goals, deriving in the last analysis from the complete autonomy of the administration from the system, which makes the unlimited personal power of the despot just as absolutely unstable as despotism itself, considered as a political structure, is absolutely stable.