The Origins of Autocracy

But what if we envision an "equilibrium" between the service nobility and the peasantry? Then we might succeed in preserving both "equilibrium" and the class struggle, the more so since, according to Lenin, "Class struggle—the struggle of the exploited part of the people against the exploiting part—lies at the basis of political transformations, and in the final analysis decides the fate of these transformations."[47] B. F. Porshnev bases his conception of absolutism on this, asserting that precisely "the threat of peasant uprisings made necessary the centralization of the state, and this threat, by increasing, compelled centralization constantly to be intensified, and finally to reach the stage of absolutism."¹⁹

This thesis was defended in the debate we are considering by Andrei Sakharov—a double namesake of the famous dissident, and perhaps for this reason especially fierce in his demonstrations of loyalty—who, it is true, does not cite Porshnev, and thereby gives out this author's views as his own: "The struggle between the peasantry and the class of feudal lords during the period of origin of bourgeois relationships in the country was the basic factor in the formation of Russian absolutism from the second half of the seventeenth century."²⁰

In the first place, however, can we seriously speak of an equilibrium between the enserfed and downtrodden peasantry, which precisely in the seventeenth century became "legally dead" and politically nonexistent, and the mighty "new new class," which was really able to influence the regime? Equilibrium by definition presupposes equality of power between the contending classes. In the second place, why would this struggle between the governed and the governors (or, what is the same thing, between the exploited and the exploiters) necessarily have led to absolutism, and not to despotism? By reducing the structure of Russian society to two polar classes, Sakharov makes the identification of absolutism with despotism irresistible. The logic of his thought (or more accurately, of Porshnev's thought, which he "borrowed") erases any difference between these two political structures. And the task of the debate consists precisely in establishing this difference.

We can now understand why, for example, A. Chistozvonov is compelled to note that "a careful analysis of the statements of the founders of Marxism-Leninism about absolutism in various countries and of the concrete historical material shows that these complex phenomena cannot be fitted into the models which are currently in circulation among us."²¹ This also explains why Avrekh, in initiating the discussion, hastily crosses out both artificial alternative replacements of the "equilibrium," and embarks on a venture extremely rare even for the era of pseudoabsolutism—that of suggesting his own definition of absolutism.

Of course, Avrekh masks his impudence with a battery of "vyska- zyvaniia" from Lenin. Of course, after quoting Lenin, he humbly

B. F. Porshnev, Feodatism, i narodnye massy, p. 354.

A. N. Sakharov, "Istoricheskie faktory obrazovaniia russkogo absoliutizma," p. 123.

A. N. Chistozvonov, "Nekotorye aspekty problemy genezisa absoliutizma," p. 49.

asks: "What does all this lead to?" Innocently attempting to give out his own definition as a logical extension of these "vyskazyvaniia," he makes a deep bow to classical authority: "It seems to us that precisely this thought is contained in the words of V. I. Lenin which we have cited, only it is expressed in an indirect form." However, he still does not succeed in fooling such experienced witch-hunters as A. Sakharov or S. Pokrovskii, and they will in time demonstrate this to him convincingly. But now, in a moment of desperate boldness, Avrekh offers a definition: "Absolutism is a kind of feudal monarchy which by virtue of its internal nature is capable of evolving and being transformed into a bourgeois monarchy."[48] He continues:

What basic features separate the absolutist state from, let us say, the feudal state of the Muscovite tsars? The major difference consists in the fact that it ceases to be despotism—or more accurately, to be only despotism. By the latter we understand a form of unlimited autocratic power, under which the despot's will is the only law—a regime of arbitrary personal rule which does not take account of legal process or of laws, customary or written. Absolutism consciously acts against this order of things.²⁹

The weakness of this definition is obvious. Even by defining despotism as a regime of arbitrary personal rule (which corresponds to the Aristotelian definition of tyranny) we come out with a paradox: preautomatic Russia, with its hereditary aristocracy, Boyar Duma, and Assemblies of the Land, Russia with its free peasantry, proto-bour- geoisie in process of formation, and growing cities, experiencing an economic boom, is declared a despotism ("incapable of evolving"); and autocratic Russia, which has eliminated the proto-bourgeoisie and the limitations of power, the Boyar Duma, and the Assemblies of the Land, which has enserfed the peasantry and halted the urbanization of the country, and is therefore politically stagnating, is declared an absolutism ("capable of evolving"). Nevertheless, Avrekh's suggestion implies the following conclusions as to the nature of Russian absolutism:

It excluded (for unspecified reasons) a regime of arbitrary personal power and tended toward some form of due process;

It determined (apparently for the same unspecified reasons) the

capacity of the Russian political structure for evolution toward bourgeois monarchy;

It was the embodiment of the negation of the despotism of the Muscovite tsardom;

Contrary to all that is known to us, the tyranny of Peter I, Paul I, and Nicholas I was compatible with due process and embodied political progress;

The existence of the category of political progress is confirmed, albeit indirectly.[49]

In other words, for the first time in Russian historiography, an attempt has been made to reconcile the two poles of the traditional bipolar model, at least in a chronological sense: the Russian political process is declared both despotic (in the period of the Muscovite tsardom) and absolutist (in the period of the St. Petersburg empire).

For all the poverty and contradictoriness of Avrekh's definition, for all its involvement in the war of quotations about "the relationship between feudal and bourgeois elements," his attempt differs sharply from the vulgar logical clowning to which, as we have seen, genuine science usually resorts in difficult situations. On the contrary, he essentially rebelled against serflike dependence on the sacred "vyskazyvaniia," and attempted to think independently about the history and the fate of his country. The discussion could have developed further in either of two directions: it could continue to move toward freedom, or the attempt at rebellion could be suppressed. In 1968, before the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, it seemed that the discussion might take the first direction; in 1969 it swiftly began to be reminiscent of a punitive expedition.

3. Under the Ice of "Genuine Science"

In a publication which followed directly upon Avrekh's, M. Pavlova- Sil'vanskaia recognizes that "his viewpoint . . . that until the beginning of the eighteenth century, the autocracy was only despotism, shows promise." Moreover, Pavlova-Sil'vanskaia improves upon Avrekh's position, noting that, "according to Avrekh, despotism constitutes a regime of naked power, about the socioeconomic base of which we know nothing whatever," while "G. V. Plekhanov . . . who equated tsarism with Oriental despotism . . . relying partly on Marx and Engels, supported his viewpoint by arguing for the peculiarities of the agrarian structure of Russia."" Consequently, she concludes that: