Russian Revolution(s) from Peter to Putin (HIST 316 Spr 17 Sec 1)

I could not help but notice a serious divide among the men’s and women’s etiquette laid out in The Honorable Mirror for Youth. Men were encouraged to abstain from hooliganism, nose-picking, fish soup splattering etc. and partake in a “vigorous” life of foreign languages, modest food and drink, and calculated European (Erasmian) conversation. Women were encouraged to take up only the word of God as recorded in the scriptures and many of their “etiquettal” maxims numbered among God’s ten commandments. This disparity in instructional etiquette suggests that the draft Peter let into Russia upon opening the window to the West was not intended for women as much as it was for men. Hughes seems to agree with such an assessment when she argues that “…what on superficial acquaintance might be identified as ’emancipation’ in fact represented a female version of service to the State…” (201). True, elite women were now encouraged by Peter to join their husbands in the ballroom and at other Petrine dysfunctional functions, but the Mirror encourages women to be “meek” and “god-fearing” in these appearances.

A question I have about the Mirror regards the documents relationship or tension with Peter’s mock court and assemblies which seem to parallel official life. Are not the farcical celebrations undertaken by Peter also mockeries of all this supposedly European etiquette? In some ways, then, perhaps Peter’s mock assemblies were more than just a criticism of the orthodoxy or of Catholicism. Perhaps Peter simply wanted to create a Dionysian universe that paralleled the official, rationalized, and centralized formation of the Russian state at the time.

In his secret speech Khrushchev speaks about the dangers of the cult of the individual in regards to Stalin, a deeply flawed leader who was built up as “a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god” (Khrushchev). He then proceeds to talk about Stalin’s many wrong doings and emphasizing a return to the tenants of Leninism while praising Lenin. It seems to me that in this speech, while Khrushchev is talking about the evils of the cult of the individual he seems to be lionizing Lenin, commenting on “the great modesty of the genius of the revolution” and Lenin being the “living personification of the greatest modesty” (Khrushchev). Is this simply a cult of the individual around a different individual? or was Lenin so great that he deserves this glorification?

Hi, all.

I wanted to follow up our discussion in class today by talking a bit more about the “Secret Speech”, specifically, the distinctions Khrushchev draws between Lenin and Stalin’s respective modes of operation. As we discussed in class, Khrushchev lionizes Lenin throughout the speech, but one of the more interesting ways in which he accomplishes this is by stressing Lenin’s capacity for forgiveness. Khrushchev cites a memorandum drafted by Lenin for the central committee in October of 1920 stating:

“As a special duty of the control commission there is recommended a deep, individualized relationship with, and sometimes even a type of therapy for, the representatives of the so-called opposition – those who have experienced a psychological crisis because of failure in their Soviet or party career” (5).

Khrushchev claims that this document is indicative of Lenin’s more tolerant, patient tendencies, arguing that:

“Lenin…in his practice of directing the party demanded the most intimate party contact with people who had shown indecision or temporary non-conformity with the party line, but whom it was possible to return to the party path. Lenin advised that such people should be patiently educated without the application of extreme methods” (6).

Khrushchev proceeds to argue that Stalin utterly abandoned this way of influencing or convincing people in favor of “administrative violence” (6).

In his discussion of the party’s ideological struggles with dissident factions (Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Burkharinites, etc.) in the 1920’s, a conflict in which he himself admits that Stalin played an important role, he nevertheless asserts that the party did not resort to the sort of brutally repressive tactics that would later be employed by Stalin. Khrushchev seemingly  maintains that those targeted by Stalin were not only not legitimate class enemies, but who posed no real threat to the state. Indeed, as the story of Lenin forgiving Kamenev and Zinoviev suggests, said individuals could possibly have been returned to the fold.

Consequently, it seems to me that Khrushchev is condemning (or at the very least, criticizing) Stalin’s methods and not simply his motivations.  Of course, this conclusion begs the question of whether Khrushchev is simply exaggerating Lenin’s virtues, and given the suppression of public discourse regarding Stalin that occurs following the 22^nd Party Congress in 1961, one is compelled to wonder as to what extent Khrushchev’s distaste is performative.

I am wondering about Jone’s conclusions about the difference between Soviet people’s reaction to de-Stalinization in 1956 and 1961. She tells us that the evidence in 1961 suggests far less resistance than in 1956. Her first hypothesis is that the 1961 approach was not the “shock therapy” of the Secret Speech. Second, she asserts that the 1961 speeches “provided a coherent narrative of Stalinism, which dispensed with the moral ambiguity of the Secret Speech and couched key facts about Stalin within clear interpretive guidelines for its listeners” (57). Her final reasoning is that these moderate, factual accounts of 1961 silenced those who may still have qualms – it made them seem too harsh.

I think she should consider the counter-reaction of the party in her evaluation of reactions to de-Stalinization because that reveals fluidity of the power between the people and the State. With both de-Stalinizations we witness transferable balances of power.

Sensing a loss of control with the intense, iconoclastic, independent thought after the 1956 de-Stalinization, the party had to reign in that chaos with a strong hand of authority:

“This protest was quelled using a number of methods, including forceful propaganda, such as meetings where protesters were forced to listen to gruesome tales of the Terror, and the curtailment of ‘votes’ on renaming if protest looked likely to derail the vote, as happened at the city’s Pedagogical Institute” (58).

Stalin’s despotism had injected a spectre of authoritarianism that seemingly was unremovable from the Soviet project.

Leading up to the October Revolution, the moderates lost control to the Bolsheviks in the Provisional Government partly due to Kornilov’s failed coup (which enhanced the Bolshevik’s credibility to the working class despite their lack of involvement in resisting said coup). Lenin at the time was leading the bolsheviks from afar, and urging for an insurrection, rather than a more or less peaceful transfer of power from the Provisional Government via the Soviets. Fitzpatrick writes that this “contradictory behavior” led his “old Bolshevik comrades, Grigorii Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev” to publicly and in a non-Bolshevik newspaper, publish their disapproval of the planned coup (Fitzpatrick 1994:63). Fitzpartick asserts that this public announcement angered Lenin “[b]ut in fact the advance publicity probably helped Lenin’s cause rather than hindered it”(ibid). Could it not be the case that Lenin’s good old friends leaked the information of the planned coup on purpose, to speed along the revolution?

I cannot help but notice a contradiction in Lenin’s outlining of his ideal revolutionary party–namely that Lenin simultaneously depends upon and shuns nationalism. On pages 293-95, for example, Lenin outlines the need for an “All-Russian” newspaper which will serve as a “…collective propagandist and a collective agitator, [and]…also a collective organizer.” Yet, while he views this paper as necessary to the success of a Social-Democratic movement, he also contends that “…the Social-Democratic movement is in its very essence an international movement” that combats “national chauvinism” (297). Despite this supposedly deplorable national chauvinism, Lenin also seems to enjoy the idea that the Russian proletariat would be the model for an international revolutionary proletariat and situates his narrative on the awakening of the “Russian consciousness” in the history of strikes and rebellion of 19th century Russia (298). In this way, does not Lenin’s proposed party view itself in a nationalist light? Could the party ever have said to be truly “internationally” geared? Also, what implications does this idea of “All-Russianness” have for other nationalities in the transition from the Russian empire–Ukranian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Cossack etc.?

Alexander’s 1861 Manifesto (Cracraft 1994, 341) bestows on the serfs “the full rights of free rural inhabitants.” What are these rights? They do not seem to be fully specified in the Manifesto. Alexander outlines some principles and a general direction to be followed by the ensuing reforms, namely, the right to perpetual use of one’s homestead, plow land and other goods, as well as the (eventual) right to purchase and own land. Even considering the qualifications of the transitional obligations for both lord and serf, much detail regarding the exact status of the serfs is left to be defined later. Alexander conveys as much explicitly in the following.

“In accordance with these general principles of the said statutes, the future status of peasants and domestic folk is to be defined; a system for administering peasant affairs is to be established; and the rights granted to the peasants and domestic folk, as well as their obligations to the Government and the lords, are to be specified in detail.” (Cracraft 1994, 341; my emphasis)

Alexander’s use of the future perfect tense suggests to me that much work still needed to be done regarding the definition and classification of the social strata he had just brought into existence.To what extent did the emancipation create a novel social class? Was this class of so called “free rural inhabitants” something entirely new to the Russian countryside?

So far, we have read texts providing for a governmental “revolution” written by emperors themselves. The texts we have read for Monday’s class are thus unique in that they were written by members of a “military intelligentsia” who lacked the power to reform the government without some sort of coup. As such, should we consider the revolution of such characters as Pestel’, Trubetskoy, Murav’ev, and the members of the Union of Welfare as fundamentally different from those of Peter and Catherine the Great? In many ways, the documents produced by this “military intelligentsia” resemble Catherine’s Nakaz in the enlightenment influenced reforms they propose. Nonetheless, unlike Catherine’s, these documents directly attack the empire in both its current and past form. Whereas Catherine praised Peter the Great as a Europeanizer, Murav’ev attacks Peter the Great and his table of ranks for apparently the same reason in outlining his chapter on citizenship in his proposed constitution:

The division of men into fourteen classes is terminated. Civil ranks that were borrowed from the Germans, and which differ very little among themselves, are abolished in conformity with the ancient customs of the Russian people. Such titles and classes as freeholders, merchants, nobles, and eminent citizens are replaced by citizen or Russian.

This document, in a vein similar to those of the maxims outlined in the project for United Slavs, suggests a “revolutionary” turn away from Europe towards a Russia with a distinct national identity despite its markedly European enlightened government. Perhaps, then, the Decembrists could be called revolutionary in that they focused on a Russian, rather than a European national identity?

The question of violence must also be considered. Despite the fact that many of these Decembrists were part of an enlightened “military intelligentsia” they seemed unwilling to participate in a violent overthrow of the empire. Pestel’ himself says that chaos, disorder, and civil war were the Decembrists “implacable enemies.” Nonetheless, the Decembrist uprising seemed to fail precisely because of this lack of violence. Saunders seems to suggest as much when he notes “If the rebels had seized the initiative, the government forces may have changed sides.” Without this violent initiative can the Decembrist uprising be called truly revolutionary?

The new perspective on the political thinkers of the Enlightenment that is gained when looking from Catherine the Great and a Russian direction is exciting. These philosophes’ writing had, if any, an elusive effect on the European monarchies under which they wrote. In the least, we do not see monarchies purposefully model their reign after their ideas. At least by Mardariaga’s view, Catherine was intending to do just that and model her empire on a model underlined with “fundamental laws.” I immediately want to ask, what is the consequence of injecting a “kingdom” with a set of fundamentals that arose in the conditions of another society? If I recall Montesquieu, Rousseau, Hobbes, etc…spoke of an nascent ideal politic; an abstraction, as opposed to Catherine’s reality of preset class strata, local and macro economies, precedented foreign relationships, etc…)

I am thinking back to the conversation we had on the first day of class about the conditions that might necessitate or at least provoke a revolution. What are the points of tension that evolve out of her reforms and how do they set up a future revolution? My initial thought an introduction of advocacy into the political structure. By advocacy I mean that an individual has space within their binding political structure to insert their own interests. Self-advocacy is a form of asserting power and strips the absolute from the Monarch. Madariaga points here on page 29, but I want to keep this tension in mind as conditions for future revolution.

I am interested in how Catherine articulates her relationship to Peter the Great in her legislative document. As a ruler, and especially as a “reformer,” historical narrative is vital to pushing through political reforms.

At first, she casts Peter as the first to recognize Russia as a distinctly European state in point 7 of Chapter I of her Nakaz:

“The Alternations which Peter the Great undertook in Russia succeeded with the greater Ease, because the Manners, which prevailed at that Time, and had been introduced amongst us by a Mixture of different Nations, and the Conquest of foreign Territories, were quite unsuitable to the Climate. Peter the First, by introducing the Manners and Customs of Europe among the European People in his Dominions, found at that Time such Means as even he himself was not sanguine enough to expect.

Catherine diagnoses Peter the Great’s Russia as lacking the “manners” for a proper European political state, but having the “climate” for such a state. What does Catherine have in mind when she uses the word “Climate”? Perhaps she means that Russia did not have the “manners” for a European political state, but had the means by which to achieve it. Does she simply mean that Peter saw the opportunity for reforming the state and establishing an Absolute Monarchy? Does she view herself as having taken this torch of reform from Peter’s hand? If so, how can she reconcile this view with the point she makes in chapter XVI 511:

A Monarchy is destroyed when the Sovereign imagines that he displays his Power more by changing the Order of Things, than by adhering to it, and when he is more found of his own Imaginations than of his Will, from which the Laws proceed, and have proceeded….

Perhaps this conservative view of the Monarch’s role is suggestive of what Madriaga views as her  political shift from reformer to reactionary.